


Natura Non Contristatur

by lightraze



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men (Original Timeline Movies)
Genre: 24/7 dom/sub relationship, Abuse, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Amnesia, Big Gay Love Story, Bondage and Discipline, Canon Jewish Character, Charles Xavier Always Says the Absolute Worst Thing He Could Possibly Say, Charles Xavier Needs a Hug, Child Soldiers, Crimes Against Humanity, Dismemberment, Dissociation, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dom/sub, Dominance and Submission, Dominant Erik Lehnsherr, Eating Disorders, Erik Lehnsherr is not a Happy Bunny, Erik Logic Is The Best Logic, F/F, F/M, Forced Pregnancy, Forensic Psychiatry, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Hellfire Club, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, International Criminal Court, Israel, Legal Drama, M/M, Mass Murder, Medical Experimentation, Mind Control, Multi, Other, Physical Disability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prison, Prostitution, Protective Erik, Recovery, Rehabilitation, Rescue Missions, Sex Trafficking, Soap Opera, Social Media, Soulmates, Submissive Charles Xavier, Therapy, Time Travel, Torture, Trauma, Universal Express Lane, Violent Non-State Party, War Crimes, enslavement, episodic, selective mutism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:22:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 138
Words: 2,261,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28495296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightraze/pseuds/lightraze
Summary: By you, this World has everything left to lose. / And I, your sentry of ice, shall allways protect / what your Joy so dangerously resumes. /  I'll destroy no World / so long it keeps turning with flurry & gush, / petals & stems bending and lush, / and allways our hushes returning anew.— Mark Z. DanielewskiEveryone is born with an Indication determining their Dominant or submissive score. Those lower on the scale are naturally inclined to defer to those higher. Erik Lehnsherr is one of the 27 global population of D5s, hyperdominants that can use vocal persuasion to make anyone, of any score, do anything. Charles Xavier happens to be his generation's first recorded S1, a hypersubmissive and the only Indication capable of resisting a D5 and retaining their own agency.Some stories start out inevitable. And while there are sparks, there is also one small caveat: Erik Lehnsherr is in a CIA detention facility after blowing up a government building in an act (Langleyfeels is) of terrorism. Charles Xavier has been assigned by Moira MacTaggert as his forensic psychiatrist.
Relationships: Daniel Shomron/Gabrielle Haller, Edith Lehnsherr/Iakov Lehnsherr, Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr/Magda Maximoff, Erik Lehnsherr/Sebastian Shaw, Hank McCoy/Raven | Mystique, Past Gabrielle Haller/Charles Xavier
Comments: 30
Kudos: 52





	1. When I go for a drive I like to pull off to the side

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Restricted Work] by Anonymous. Log in to view. 



> i. " _nature isn't saddened_." — arthur schopenhauer  
> ii. features _stargazer_ as charles and _lightraze_ as erik  
> iii. this thing has a billion pairings, as well as characters, so i'm tagging the ones we see most often  
> iv. this story is presented in arcs: 
> 
> _i like giants_ (1-37)  
>  _primum non nocere_ (37-51)  
>  _detachment, the soul, obedience;_ (51-75)  
>  _Off with Superfly, counting your bees oh me honey like one-two-three_ (75-122)  
>  _Spirit of my silence I can hear you but I'm afraid to be near you_ (122-135)  
>  _See one, do one, teach one_ (135-?)  
>  _I swear by Apollo_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _the wizard of oz_ , l. frank baum  
> ii. _war of the foxes_ , richard siken

Charles Xavier knew from the moment he could formulate conscious thought, from the moment he could identify himself as himself amidst the torrent of snapshot-vague memories from his childhood-that he was different. Not just because their thoughts were like a sieve he could pluck from mid-air, their secret-hopes dreams fervent-wishings dark-desires as transparent to him as the sun in the sky.  
  
It makes things lonely, but it'd be easier to cope with if the differences ended there. They didn't. The doctors thought it was some sort of mistake when his panels came back S1, but all throughout his life the dynamics between people-the way Raven always tried to boss him around as children to no avail, the string of Domfriends and stronger subs (although, this is a misnomer-supposedly hypersubmissives are more of everything, but he's only ever felt bored by it all) who couldn't give him what he need a clear indicator if nothing else.  
  
At the very least, obtaining multiple doctorates in mutation genetics, forensic psychiatry and human development came without the distraction of his peers and their mindless obsession with testing the limits of their newfound freedom, pushing-pulling at one another, skipping lectures to let themselves be put down into the vaunted fable of subspace-something he's long known was a fairy tale he'd never experience for himself.  
  
No one had ever been able to put Charles down, not even Gabrielle Haller, the highest ranked Dom he'd ever met, and at D4.5 that was saying something. She left tingles in his spine and flutters in his chest, but that pull he was supposed to feel, that urge to kneel and the blooming pleasure of service that his fellow submissives espoused would happen when he met the right one-remained elusive. Gabrielle went back to _Tel Aviv_ and Charles went back to his books, and he supposed that was just the way things would be for him.  
  
Besides, there were more pressing things than his depressing lack of a love life to contend with.

* * *

Everyone who didn't live under a rock had seen the damage done by mutant _supremacist-cum-terrorist_ Erik Lehnsherr, his glowering features plastered on any television you happened to pass by, left hand raised and clenched into a fist as he crumpled the Shaw Institute to a pile of twisted metal debris, killing the inhabitants inside. Mainly a group of private scientists supposedly researching applications of induced mutation.  
  
They were still pulling bodies out of the rubble, trying to determine the motivations behind such a crime, and fielding Sebastian Shaw's indignant fury at having billions of dollars of equipment (and the lives lost, of course, he dabs at his eye with a kerchief, emanating an air of dignified sophistication) destroyed.  
  
As the leading forensic psychiatrist in his field-primarily dealing with mutant criminals, it's not a shock when he gets the call from the CIA, asking him if he were willing to interrogate the Israeli citizen they held in custody.  
  
Hell, they're not even sure if Lehnsherr can _speak_ English-he hasn't said a single word since his arrest and subsequent detention (although it'd be strange if he didn't-English is compulsory there and Gabby barely had an accent), but that's another reason Charles is sought out, he supposes. He doesn't need words to communicate, and they still don't know what his DS panel is conclusively- _the Beit Knesset_ isn't all-that accommodating to American entitlement, so they're running their own standard labs.  
  
That'll probably fall to Charles, too-they want to minimize Erik's contacts with the outside world, so having a gamut of professionals running in and out of his cell isn't going to cut it.  
  
Lehnsherr could manipulate electromagnetic forces, which made his imprisonment before trial more complicated. After heading through a metal detector (and being divested of anything and everything metal on his person, up-to and including a change of clothes) and heading down to the low-levels of the facility's basement, he realizes that everything has turned to plastic. The doors, the walls, he doesn't think he can identify a single scrap of alloy anywhere.  
  
"Dr. Xavier," Moira MacTaggert's heels click on the concrete floors as she greets him, a clipboard in hand, her mousy-brown hair tucked behind her ear. She regards him through thick reading glasses. She's a D3.2, and her voice is cool and confident. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you."  
  
"The pleasure is all mine, I assure you." Charles reaches for her hand, a polite quirk to his lips as he studies her. Although he supposes his genetic predispositions are well-known, rare as they may be, it does always seem to shock those on the other end of the spectrum (though never the exact opposite, fortunately or unfortunately for him) when he takes initiative.  
  
There's something worked into their coding that makes it near impossible to comprehend a lack of meekness or otherwise timidness in submissives -- and why shouldn't there be? By every genetic and societal standard, those preconceived notions prove to be tried and true. A Dominant will lead, and a submissive will follow. It's evident in every facet of life, from the politics of the bedroom to the way people navigate sidewalks, submissives with dipped heads and wide berths for their Dominant counterparts. He's watched peers scramble to give up seats on buses, watched otherwise competent peers stutter around those higher up on a scale.  
  
And yet, like so much else, it's something Charles has never been privy to. Devastatingly aware in some ways, entirely blind in others. It seems a cruel burden, but he's born it for too long for it to be strange.  
  
As he does with everyone, there's a cursory glance with more than his eyes. Among the buzzing he always experiences, the mindless, background chatter, he finds her. She's as cool and collected inwardly as she is outwardly, as professional as she seems, and Charles has no reason to dig much further. Like most, her mind isn't well shielded or particularly difficult to crack. Within moments he could have her deepest secrets, her most treasured memories, but he takes none. He's learned that such things are better earned, that the human mind, dangerous and powerful as it is, is much more fascinating to explore in ways that require a bit more effort. What he does focus on is secondhand, glimpses at the man who is now in his care.  
  
For a moment, Charles feels breathless. He's not entirely sure why. The memory not far beneath the surface of her conscious thoughts is mild, to say the least, perfectly to normal within the context and something he's experienced before, barring all the plastic and glass. The man sits perfectly still, back straight with pride or stubbornness or both, and he does not speak. He's stoic, if not irritated, blank and unreadable, and of course Charles cannot reach his mind from within another's, but even beyond his gift he's proven to be an exceptional reader. This? This impenetrable, thick wall, this barrier he puts up-- this is something Charles knows is undoubtedly something he has never experienced. Something Moira never has, either.  
  
Fascinating. Utterly fascinating.  
  
There's a reason he took up forensic psychiatry, why he deviated from his original field of study. Humans are all too willing to categorize others, to put them into boxes and file them neatly. Words like 'monster' and 'psychopath' were all too often thrown around, and though they surely fit some, Charles has come to find that a vast majority of those written off were done so far before they could earn the titles or pseudo-diagnoses. They were so blind to the fascinating, brilliant nuances of the human experience that they simply couldn't fathom those who lived outside boundaries. That some, whether genetically disposition for it or simply through circumstance, were truly misunderstood. That there was good to be found in nearly every mind, unique and multi-faceted, and that motives were often more complex than anyone assumed, even the guilty party themselves.  
  
Charles has lived outside boundaries his entire life. He's certainly no stranger to being vastly misunderstood. In a society ruled by hierarchy, where does one with no place in it belong? The least he can do is seek to understand those who also exist on the fringe, those with extraordinary circumstances. Some were unsalvageable, unreachable, abhorrently sadistic and cruel. Those Charles wishes no part in. But for others, there was more. Always more than others could fathom, some underlying motivation or cause.  
  
And who in a better place to discover it than him? It isn't the worst lot in life, and he's nothing if not morbidly curious.  
  
The handshake lasts for mere seconds, and already he's processed more information than a simple greeting should ever allow him. Such is the nature of these things. "What can you tell me, then? I'd like to get to work immediately. I understand there's a certain urgency to the situation, yes?"  
  
"You would be correct," Moira nods. "I trust you've been debriefed on Lehnsherr's electromagnetic capabilities, but beyond that we don't have a whole lot to go on. He hasn't spoken a word since arrival, and our interpreter is a way's out, yet. So what we'd like to do and get out of the way immediately, is have his panels run so we know what we're dealing with, here."  
  
They walk down the corridor as she speaks. "High-Doms often pose a struggle when working with law-enforcement, especially if their Wills are good enough to put most ordinary subs and low-Doms down, so that's our first priority. We'd like you to administer his panels as quickly as possible."  
  
Charles is capable of running the basic blood tests himself, and is given a plastic-modified set of micro-syringes able to do the job. "As well as to get a sense of him. Who he is, his personality-if you could get him to talk, that would be just the icing on the cake. His cell is down this way. I'll warn you, he can be a little unnerving. I'm a high-Dom, but he seemed entirely unfazed by the requests I gave him to cooperate."  
  
She pauses them at the door to Erik's plastic cell, where Charles can see Lehnsherr surrounded by walls of transparent. He's seated with his legs crossed lotus-style, entirely serene.  
  
"Do you have any questions or concerns before entering?"  
  
"Hm." He takes the information with a nod, though it's nothing he hasn't already discerned for himself, easily matching her pace. High-Doms often find it disconcerting, his ability to keep up, his extraordinary intelligence (as if that's decided by such things!), but he pays it no mind. Second nature. She means not to be condescending, merely to inform him of things she couldn't know he's already aware of. It's an amusing, delicate game he plays, and he doesn't often tip his cards. Why would he, especially with the kind of minds he often deals with?  
  
"No, I think I have everything I need. Thank you." Any further information can be acquired without a verbal question, anyway -- he does another cursory glance, of both her and the guards who stand watch, and finds nothing of pressing importance. Unease, confusion, mild disgust, all of which he's dealt with before. Observations. She believes the man is a high-Dom, likely a D4. She worries about the consequences of that, particularly as it applies to him.  
  
She shouldn't, but now isn't the time to divulge the minutia of his private life. He has no doubt there will be absolutely no effect at all, and she'll soon seen that herself.

* * *

When he enters the cell, the presence is... strange. Charles swallows, taken aback for a moment. Perhaps it's the mere novelty of it. He rarely handles anyone so high on the scale, and he knows from experience that, while slight, the difference is there. It's nothing to get his feathers ruffled over. Aware that there are watchful eyes on him, and also that he can put a stop to anything perfectly well on his own, he lowers himself to his client's level, ignoring any heed.  
  
"Hello," he greets, as he would anyone, and blinks once, twice. Hm. The thoughts are definitely not English, but -- there it is. He grins. "I'm Dr. Charles Xavier. I've heard quite a lot about you, and I also know that you can understand every word I'm saying. I just thought I would get that out of the way. We might have misunderstandings otherwise."  
  
The watchful eyes recede after the guards cuff Erik's hands together in plastic-restraints, and issue Charles a plastic stun baton capable of taking Erik down if necessary. Doctor-patient confidentiality was still a constitutional right, go figure, even if Lehnsherr weren't an American, being processed on American soil meant that he was entitled to treatment under their laws.  
  
The outward door closes, leaving them alone for the first time.  
  
And it's only then that Lehnsherr looks over to acknowledge him, after he sits himself across.  
  
The man's head tilts to the side, bright, sea-green eyes watching Charles with that quiescent, equanimous gaze he typically employed on the others who have attempted to speak with him. His hair's long enough to curl up near his neck, and he's got a smattering of freckles over his nose, skin darkened up from many years under _Negev_ -sun. At Charles's words, though, he gives a very brief flicker of a smile. Genuine, not something a more manipulative person would plaster-on for the sake of being charming-and Charles knows immediately that it's rare, as well, not an expression typically given the man's his severe features. When he speaks, though, there is something distinctly alarming-off-that sends warning signs Charles might not be able to fully realize, yet. "You are a telepath," he murmurs, his voice a low rumble in his chest. Unlike Gabby, he does have an accent, a Hebrew-slant at the edges of his words. But his enunciation is impeccable, if formal. Like someone who's taught English to themselves, without the benefit of mandatory lessons in school. "It will be some time. Get yourself a coffee."  
  
It's not possible. It's not possible, but it's an Order that pierces through Charles's nerves like a live-wire.  
  
Charles is listening before Erik ever opens his mouth, perfectly on guard, but what he hears remains mostly inconsequential. He's perfectly honed his abilities to this, can narrow down his focus in an instant. The guards and those beyond the boundaries of the cell are nothing but a faint buzz, an ever present ringing in his ears. Erik switches between languages, perhaps translates as he speaks, a trait not at all uncommon in those bilingual, he's found. What he's learned is that thoughts carry pattern across language -- he doesn't need the exact words to understand, rarely hears them as such anyway, and yet...  
  
There's something else.  
  
He's not aware his pulse is racing until he can practically feel his heart in his throat. Electricity bursts beneath his skin, unsettles him in the same instant that it utterly elates him on a level far beyond the rational. He moves without thinking, perhaps without even fully processing, the suggestion far more than that. Before the instinct had come with a sense of dullness, like an itch that could easily be ignored -- why scratch it, in fact, when the results were so unsatisfying? But this.  
  
This was something entirely new.  
  
He swallows, coffee in hand and head spinning in a way he's entirely unused to. There's a certain -- what could it be described as, even? Satisfaction, in doing what was asked of him, contrary to everything he's ever experienced. Charles had prided himself on being rather obstinate, had figured it a personality trait, and perhaps it is. But if it could be so easily overrided? He takes a breath, shaking his head once to clear it. No, not easily.  
  
"And you're observant," he points out, unnecessarily. If his fingers shake, he ignores it, gripping carefully to his own pride and his cup. "They'd like me to get your labs done as quickly as possible, but you already know that. You also already know that I'm aware I hardly need the results. You're not just very good at bending metal, are you?" It's a mild question, but they both know the implications. "I would wager you've never had much problem with exerting Will."  
  
Those eyes. Charles has never had a single problem with meeting the gazes of others, with staring down dominants with the best of them. Now, his eyes lower, perhaps entirely subconsciously.  
  
Impossible. And yet.  
  
Erik is watching him.  
  
That reaction, the resulting hum under his own skin. Long-dormant neuro-chemicals flooding his senses, and he kept his fingers still even when they wanted to twitch. Crackling-electricity. This is something he has never felt before. All the submissives he has ever encountered, they're hollow echoes in the dark. He feels the other man's obedience like a supernova.  
  
"Look at me," Lehnsherr says, and even though it's soft, the Command is all-but-impossible to ignore.  
  
And again, there it is. Charles feels the tug from deep in his belly, a twist of his insides that sends the air whooshing right out of him, his heart hammering in his chest. His eyes meet Erik's in an instant, before he can even think to do otherwise, though he can't see why he'd want to. Is this what they talked about? The absolute thrill of it, the completely satisfying high of obedience. For years he'd looked on, amused and admittedly haughty, as his peers spoke and thought and felt it. As they scrambled to please, fell over themselves to submit, business that seemed entirely too boring, perhaps even beneath him...  
  
They'd been all too right. It's completely addictive, and he's known the sensation all of five minutes.  
  
"I am." Perhaps he means it to be defiant, a moment to grasp at his own dignity. It comes out breathless instead, a whisper of mere fact. Now that the Order is sitting between them, Charles is uncertain if he could look away at all, even as that gaze penetrates every inch of him. He just barely resists the urge to squirm.  
  
"You're like me, then," he says, still softer than he'd like. It's not quite the truth, and his lips turn up into a disbelieving grin, though he knows it without a shadow of doubt. "No, that's not right. You're exactly opposite of me." He shakes his head, swallows. "Impossible. The likelihood is..." He does the math, but doesn't speak it. It doesn't matter. The truth remains.  
  
" _Ken_ ," Lehnsherr murmurs a little too throaty to be unaffected. Lehnsherr's gaze is a burn, the way his stomach clenches and suffuses chemical-heat through every muscle in his body, relaxing out to warmth and haze like glittering stars threatening to overtake his vision. "So this is what it's like," is all he says after a momentary silence. Perfectly in control. "Perhaps you have stumbled upon the motivations of my actions, after all." Humor laces his tone, firewood dry.  
  
"If only it were that easy," he returns, but he's entirely too focused on the quality of the other's words, at the deep tenor of them. Liquid heat pools in his stomach, pulls at him like the tide. Even without new orders, his body is pulled taut, leaned in, as if he expects at any moment to receive them. To obey them. It's never even been a consideration for him -- how easily he dodged before, fiercely independent and defiant...  
  
"This isn't why I'm here," he says after a beat, nearly under his breath, as if he's speaking to himself. Perhaps he is. A reminder of time and place. Charles clears his throat and straightens, though it does him no good; even if he were somehow taller, there would be no way to level that sort of advantage here. "Though it certainly answers some questions. Would you answer the rest of them, if I asked?" He tilts his head, the humor not lost on him or in his wry smile. "I could find them regardless, but I suppose there's now a possibility you could stop me. It also makes me stabbing you with this needle more difficult, if you're against the idea on principle," he jokes, though they both know his approach would never have been force.  
  
Lehnsherr's own mind is quite obfuscating, even without the dominance, or perhaps because of it-but it speaks to a lifetime of conditioning himself-his very thoughts-to withstand a great deal of suffering. The things Charles has plucked thus far are surface-level ditties, but plunging further would send him into constructed decoys-upon-decoys upon microfilaments, clones of fragments reflecting one-another as he moved between them effortlessly. "Unnecessary," he says. "I will answer your your questions," he inclines his head politely.  
  
"Thank you," he breathes. Although heat still pumps through his veins, lighting him up with every word the other man speaks, every movement of his body, the words bring some control back. The room comes back to him, his feet suddenly on solid ground again, no longer floating as he gravitates around a new center. "I don't often like to pry that way. If there are corners of your mind you do not wish me to see, they are safe from me. I won't go where you don't wish me to," he promises, and with their eyes still meeting, it would be near impossible to doubt the sincerity of it.  
  
"I'd like to get to know you." He says the words to his clients, but often they're fairly superficial. Charles learns those he works with as if they're a fascinating new project, a crossword in the Sunday paper. There are rarely personal stakes. Now, the situation is wholly different. The electricity between them, wordless and palpable, is proof enough of that. "Your mind is... fascinating, if you don't mind me saying so. It's rare someone is so in control of their own thoughts." He folds his hands on the table, partially to keep them still. "They're calling you a monster, Erik Lehnsherr. Absolutely senseless, entirely uncontrollable. And perhaps there is some of that in your actions. But monsters don't think like you do. You're something else entirely." Charles shakes his head, and when he smiles, it's entirely genuine. He leans forward. "I'd like to know what that something is, if you'd allow me. There's more to you than pain and suffering. I'm not even sure you know it yet."  
  
Erik migrated to the table as well, during the time Charles had taken to get his coffee, and he rests his cuffed-hands against the plastic, fingers knit together as though he were simply sitting casually and not shackled in a CIA detention center built especially to countermeasure his mutation. His legs are crossed, and he sits back in his chair, posture relaxed and at ease. His hair has an auburn sheen to it, made more stark by the harsh plastic lighting of the room, and up-close, Charles can see that he's underweight for a man his age, with his prison uniform hanging off him, exposing thin arms and a variety of scars where the sleeves cut off at his elbows. He has a tattoo on his inner left forearm, that reads TCS34 within a semi-circular barcode.  
  
"Was there a question there?" the other man wonders, cocking an eyebrow up at him dryly. Then, "My name is Erik," he says, and the next words once more hold the mild snap of an Order. It's intoxicating and heady to give orders as it is to receive them. Much like his counterpart, he's never encountered a submissive who wasn't afraid of him, who didn't turn into an mindless automaton at his slightest utterance, to where his very presence wouldn't make him a rapist-by-default. "Please use it."  
  
"Erik," he repeats, as if entirely compelled, and his throat is suddenly dry again. The coffee he's made himself is certainly not going to do anything to help that, but he takes a slow, even breath. Eventually, with enough time and exposure, he thinks it might stop feeling like his insides are squirming about every time he receives something vaguely resembling an Order. For now, his pulse races, his cheeks flush. He ignores it to the best of his ability, though he imagines it's fairly obvious, the effect it's having. The way he moves closer at the sound of his voice, the way his heartbeat is practically audible...  
  
"Do you need specific questions, Erik?" he returns in response, his own tone matching as he tilts his head again. Orders are fairly temporary things, perhaps, because he's finding it a bit difficult to look Erik in the eyes again, that gaze entirely too piercing. For someone who spends a good deal of time rooting around in other's heads, he's woefully unprepared for the same. "You could simply tell me about yourself, and we can have a conversation. Or, if you'd prefer, we can play twenty one questions. I don't have a preference, as long as you're talking. I'll even respond to other languages. Built in translator, you see," he says, the wry tone back as he taps his temple.  
  
"Tell me what you would like to know about me," Erik says, and there's no Order there, but it is commanding all the same. It's as though he's incapable of speaking any other way-as though every action on his part is intentionally deliberated to exude dominance. He does continue to watch Charles. From the flush of his cheeks, the too-bright azure of his eyes and duckling-soft hair, his _Brioni_ suit-the cost of which Erik suspects is more than he's ever made in his lifetime-all the way down to how Charles struggles to breathe too-even and portray himself unaffected. But the way he instinctively draws closer as Erik speaks, body tugged by an invisible string, belies his confident play-acting. He is, Erik can't help but think, a beautiful man. His response to Erik's Will is equally alluring.  
  
Charles opens his mouth to reply, tugged closer by instinctive need to obey, but he's no closer when he's suddenly distracted. Even when he isn't paying it much mind, thoughts often get registered as easily as if someone spoke them. As a child, he often found it impossible to distinguish the two. Erik is watching him, which is painfully obvious, but his observations are what tug at Charles' interest. He sees himself through Erik's eyes, images of his own likeness regurgitated back in a feedback loop he's all too familiar with, until...  
  
Beautiful. His cheeks suddenly flame, and he finds himself -- what is it, then? Delight? As if being pleasing to Erik is a reward in itself.  
  
Charles clears his throat. "Please, Erik," is all he says, a simple reminder that he's aware of the other's thoughts, but it sounds all too at once like begging. He breathes through his nose, closes his eyes for a moment. Perhaps if he isn't looking directly into those piercing, haunting eyes, the effect won't be nearly as poignant. Perhaps he won't feel as (deliciously, tantalizingly) out of control. "I want to know everything you're comfortable telling me at the moment. Starting at the beginning is usually a good bet." If he wasn't so breathless, clinging to the table with one hand, it might even be convincing.  
  
A low jolt of electricity buzzed in his chest, making his fingers flex at those words, uttered in that tone, finding himself seized with the sudden and frankly powerful urge to wrench it from him it again under very different circumstances. He could not recall a time in his life where this was an issue. The submissives he's known throughout his life, simpering and scared of him, did not ever inspire this. If Erik's surprised by the strength of his sudden desire, he doesn't let on. A monster, they call him. A terrorist. Surely Charles Xavier is lamenting his ill fortune, that the D5 he's met at long last is responsible for murdering ten people. "The beginning," Erik repeats, quiet and calm. "I was born in _Arad_."  
  
Charles hears it regardless. He's calmed down some, taking a sip of coffee for no reason other than to ground himself when he nearly chokes on it. There's nothing specific in Erik's mind, perhaps a deliberate effort on his part, but the suggestion is there -- and the suggestion is all he needs. He grits his teeth to hold back what he's sure would be an unbecoming noise, gripping tighter at the table between them.  
  
He can sympathize.  
  
"Go on," he urges, and though he's been pleased enough all his life to throw back orders at dominants, all too amused at their balking, now is different. Though he refuses to be the meek, doe-eyed creatures he's sure Erik has found himself met with, there is certainly an urge to be... something. "Please," he adds, as if compelled, sucking in another breath. "I told you before, Erik, it's fairly clear you aren't a monster. I'd like to understand." And that, outside of his own palpable, obvious desire, is utterly sincere.  
  
"Do you know-" Erik starts softly at last, and it's a reprieve for them both when he finishes with something serious-not the push-pull between them, but now it's the slow-burning ember of rage deep in the space behind his heart, where his lungs might be. "-what that facility was researching?"  
  
"No." He answers honestly, because he doesn't. Vaguely, perhaps, and in passing, but in no particular detail. Not enough to inspire the devastating rage currently bubbling between them, stretching just as their shared desire did moments ago. The change is jarring, but he leans forward again, unflinching, this time for an entirely different reason. "Would you tell me?" They both know he could simply pluck it from Erik's mind in excruciating detail. He doesn't. He waits and listens.  
  
"Genetic adaptation," he answers benignly. "Sebastian Shaw fancies himself a scientist." Erik's eyes snap up, pinning Charles the second he looks away from the table.   
  
Genetic adaptation. Charles reaches out, perhaps against his own better judgment. What he sees is... horrifying, is a mild word for it. All on the surface of Erik's mind, all free for the picking, and all equally disturbing. Their screams become his, their twisted limbs and flayed skin his. Case file after case file, like a scrapbook. Dead. Paralyzed. Permanently disfigured. Their lives taken, ruined, such extraordinary creatures destroyed for the benefit and sadistic entertainment of others. He thinks of his own sister, of her unique, fascinating mutation. Of how they would tear and prod and torture her. Weaponize her for their own use. He feels sick. Charles' eyes close again, and this time he can't swallow around the lump that's formed in his throat for a completely different reason.

"Ah," is what he says, finally. "And so you considered them the monsters."  
  
"Yes," he nods. "You must know Shaw has satellite facilities worldwide." He lifts his arm, then, displaying the tattoo. "It's AIDC. You can scan it, if you'd like."  
  
Charles doesn't need to scan it, though. All the information contained within the distorted lines is available on the outskirts of Erik's mind-where one might expect a ruinous pit of trauma and fear, there is only ticking-watches beating-hearts ( _Ah! Hearts can only be made practical if they can be made unbreakable. / I know. But I still want one._ )  
  
He is Testing and Control Subject 34, 6'6" 119 lbs, auburn hair and green eyes and freckles on his shoulder (how quaint they record this). He is D5, strict-propofol protocols-he has an allergy to penicillin and right-sided Volkmann's contracture and common peroneal nerve injury fork tines shredding neurons ( _"Patient has common peroneal nerve injury,"_ says the scan, _"not so much forks and neurons."_ ) and spiral, compound, lacerations, bruises, surgeries.  
  
Hand isn't in a brace, he's had some corrective procedure because his fingers are straight-but-limp. There is metal inside him and he's not above ripping it out of his own skin-  
  
He is Testing and Control Subject 34, ( _Let me tell you a story about war. A man says to another man, Can I tell you something? The other man says, No._ ) He can manipulate metal alloys (an exhaustive list; copper, aluminum, nickel, iron, silver, gold...) and the metal goes inside of him and their skin warm on its outside, their fingerprints pressed against the metal are pressed against him.  
  
Rip the building down like wire circuitry, snap of cables connecting to voltage. They're too far gone. They can't be saved. The barcode does not reveal his grief. ( _You can't get in the way of anyone's path to G-d. Some say G-d is where we put our sorrow. G-d says Which one of you fuckers can get to me first?_ )  
  
He knew before Erik opened his mouth, before he could even begin to reach out his arm. The new information knocks him winded with little recovery, and Charles finds himself drowning in it. Though Erik's thoughts are tinted with boiling rage and pain so unimaginable it leaves him reeling in the aftermath, the facts are displayed and presented to him, however non-verbally, as plain as observations on the weather. Charles sucks in a breath, then two, then three, but he finds he still can't breathe properly.  
  
"I see," he says, though it isn't enough. It will never be enough. "I am... so sorry, Erik. I cannot imagine your suffering." He is sure the break in his voice is little comfort.  
  
Erik's head tilts, and his severe features ripple before a smiles settles at last. This is the second time, fleeting and amused all at once. "You needn't apologize for it, Dr. Xavier. I hardly believe you are responsible." The man responsible-it flickers at the edge of his mind like dull backroom lights-and Erik held no intention of letting Shaw escape his grasp. "Make no mistake, I am here as a courtesy," he murmurs, lifting his hands in the plastic handcuffs like they're a mere inconvenience.  
  
For a moment, Charles considers correcting him. Dr. Xavier is his father, and the name, despite frequent usage, has never quite sat well with him. Perhaps the degree of separation is necessary in this case, however. "A curtesy," he repeats, one eyebrow raised, his tone dry. "Ah, I see. So you aren't trapped in a heavily guarded plastic prison? I appreciate your confidence, Erik, but perhaps you should be realistic." He leans forward, a wry smile on his lips. "When these labs are run, you'll be deemed even more dangerous, you understand. They've never seen anything like you." He considers something, then, frowning. "I may even be removed from the case. I would say it's likely, even."  
  
Charles knows the statement gives Erik pause where nothing else would have-a reaction that might've been satisfying from another client-but Erik manages to keep himself schooled and composed. "Is that what you want?" he just asks, one eyebrow lifting like he can see through to the core of Charles, like he's the telepath in the room instead of the other way around. The words don't hold much Will, but the expectation of an answer is nonetheless present.  
  
"No," he replies simply, though he would have if there was nothing otherwise compelling him. Leaned forward as he is, hands folded neatly, there's nothing hidden in his own expression. Though he's perfectly capable of not showing his own hand, of keeping his thoughts to himself, he's always been a bit of a bleeding heart. There's little to be helped there. "I believe I can help you, Erik. I also believe I may be the only one who can." He tilts his head as if questioning the assumption, though the twitch to his lips makes it clear he isn't truly wondering. "If I were to be replaced with anyone else, would you speak a word?"  
  
" _Lo_ ," Erik smirks. " _Aval atah yode'a et ze_." He's not telepathic, not the way Charles is, but he is incapable of not knowing. It is magnetic, the pull, feels the way those cables did in his hands. Divine, as if he could reach out and weave Charles through his fingertips the way he does with his favorite commemorative coin. The lack of English is deliberate-oh, maybe he'd talk, but by the time they bring in a Hebrew interpreter he'll already be practicing his obscure German poetry. Arabic, Farsi, Pashto, Polish, Yiddish, they all stain his thoughts like switch-flips, enough to keep any non-telepaths unbalanced, and surely enough to keep even the weaker ones on their toes. But Charles isn't weak, not by any definition of the word. He's already learned that. "This is not the first cage I've been in, Dr. Xavier."  
  
"I don't doubt that, Erik," he says, and the words are grave, the teasing moment gone. He knows without a shadow of doubt that Erik's entire life has been spent caged, whether physically or within the confines of his own mind. Not once has he been free, not once has he known peace. The reality of it settles uncomfortably in his stomach, and he shakes his head. "You are not stupid, either. Not by a long shot. You must be perfectly aware that you have every ability to manipulate this situation," he gestures between them, the small stretch of space and plastic that separates them, "and yet you have not. So I have a new question for you, Erik. Why not?"  
  
His smirk doesn't dissipate-if anything it grows wider. "Would you like me to?"  
  
"I don't believe that was my question," he returns, eyebrow raised again. There's humor again, though, teasing in a place where perhaps there should not be. Playful defiance, a dangerous game to play. It can't be helped. Finding someone capable of keeping up with him -- someone perhaps genetically predisposed to do so? It remains a heady new sensation, entirely foreign to him. His skin tingles with it again, that pit in his belly returning. "I asked why not. Is this another courtesy?"  
  
"Mm," Erik murmurs, the sound appreciative and not-entirely conscious. His chin lifts, nostrils flaring as he inhales, like he's pulling the other man's scent from the air. "What would be the purpose, Charles?" The name on his lips is soft, but no-less Intentional, something like how he imagines Erik's fingers stroking over that low ache in his belly would feel. "I could make you slash your wrists open, do a hand-stand." Other things, his mind isn't very discerning. Things that would pull Please, Erik from his lips once more. "Or lie," he nods. "Register me as D4.7 instead." It's a good idea, one that would give Erik the upper edge, but he just waves it away, dismissive. "Why did you speak with me?" he says at last, turning the question back on Charles. "You could have ripped the information from my mind like a child shredding tissue paper."  
  
"I could have," he confirms, because it's undeniably the truth. With a moment or two of concentration, he could have nearly everything he wants from Erik. He could use his Will to his own advantage, but he doesn't need it. Tug him along like a puppet on strings, though perhaps Erik doesn't know that quite yet. He's often underestimated. Charles knows, however; they are the perfect match for each other. "I choose not to because I am not a monster, Erik. Just as you are not."  
  
Erik nods, then. "Then you see," the expression on his face softens to that faint-smile again. "You know the answer, after all." It's nearly gentle. After a long silence passes, he speaks again. "What will happen now? Black hood over my head, noise-blocking earmuffs and blackout goggles. Plastic shackles and solitary isolation. Surely you understand my not being a monster extends only to specific individuals." Namely, Charles. Because Erik has absolutely no compunctions about using his Will against the weaker dominants and submissives who would keep him confined.  
  
Charles sighs, his gaze wandering to the lab kit he was provided with. Blood or not, the moment Erik's genetics are revealed to them, preventative measures will be taken. Almost inevitably, he will be removed from the case, his professional care deemed unnecessary. Erik's bleak view of the future is the most realistic one. His stomach drops; Erik, blinded and deaf, utterly alone. Such a terrible waste. "There is nothing I can say," he murmurs, frowning, "that will change that, as you're already aware. If you are sane, you are a terrorist and a monster. If you are not of sound mind, the outcome isn't wholly different. None of this will matter to them." But it matters to Charles, is the unspoken. He stares, expression grim. "Tell me, Erik. Do you intend to submit to this quietly?"  
  
Those sea-green eyes, bright-and at some-point, at some-point in the long litany of blood and flesh and bone that plagues his mind must've been joy-filled-and impenetrably stoic, look back at him. Erik is entirely calm, and dreadfully honest when he answers back a single word, laden with every scream he's ever heard, every body he'd painstakingly dragged out of that lab who could've made it, hidden and disappeared before the military descended upon him-"No."  
  
"I figured as much, yes." It was a matter of time, truly. Someone would eventually slip. Something would fly under the radar of even the most sensitive metal detector. Erik would speak, exerting Will Charles had not yet seen but knew was there, and the rest would fall into place like so many dominos caught in his rage-filled devastation. Until then, he would only stew. Grow more resentful, more angry, lose any sense of the humanity Charles knew was there. Humanity that had been ripped from him so many times before. How many more ways would they take it from him here, however humane they wished to be? He folds his hands on the table again, neatly and calmly. "Then what do you propose we do, Erik?" he asks, equally soft.  
  
"Lie," Erik says quietly. It's not an Order.  
  
"Lie," he repeats, tilting his head. "To what end, Erik? What would you like me to convince them of?" His gaze flickers outside the cell, to the guards standing beyond it. "Certainly you must know I'm an exceptionally good liar," he says mildly, his meaning clear.  
  
"Tell them I am a D4.6. Four points below the threshold for D5, enough to rank me a high-Dom." DS-panels for Dominants went up in increments, becoming more nuanced the closer you got to 5. With the exception of D5, even high-Doms couldn't force people to do what they wanted the way a hyperdom could. The way Erik could.  
  
"Yes, Erik," he allows, a soft, amused grin on his lips as he shakes his head. "That went without saying. What I meant," he says, leaning forward again, his eyes searching even as he reaches forward to probe surface thoughts, his gentle exploration transparent, "is what your end game here is. So I lie. They are less careful, and you are not gagged and blinded. I remain assigned to you. What do you intend to do then? How long do you intend to keep up the courtesy, as you so aptly described it?"  
  
Charles's hands are on the table, just-within reach, and Erik moves suddenly-to take them within his own. The heat of his skin is like a brand, like all that sunlight in his memories, the Good, Good Sunlight and glittering sands and warming him up from the inside. He lets go after a moment. A reassurance that Charles was there-that he could be there again. That they could speak again. "I intend to cooperate," Erik said. "There will be a trial, correct?"  
  
Charles' lips part, taken aback. The spark of pleasure that radiates through his entire body is entirely new to him, something he's never once experienced -- a spark, they always said. An absolute thrill. It takes him a long moment before he can breathe again, fingers trembling in the aftermath. They twitch, as if seeking. "Of course," he answers, soft. "You must know that I won't let you hurt anyone, Erik. But I also will not allow you to be treated with less than you deserve. You are as human as I am." He takes another breath, and finds himself wholly incapable of looking into Erik's eyes again, pulse still racing.  
  
"A D4.6," he says, under his breath, as if to see himself. He grins down at the table. "No, I think not. That certainly would have made this case... simpler, for me." But his intentions are, he's sure, as clear as if Erik were reading his mind rather than the other way round. He will lie.  
  
"I will not hurt anyone who does not hurt me first," Erik promises. Charles can see he doesn't mean the frivolous inconvenience of humiliation or mockery, nor even the basic tenets of physical cruelty. Erik's definition of hurt is a little, shall we say, warped. He presents the list as though he's bargaining. He'll allow punches and kicks, batons if they feel especially creative, but he will not let himself be raped, whipped, electrocuted, burned, cut, starved or waterboarded. "Is that fair?"  
  
Charles sighs. He doesn't like it, truly, being in a position to make the call. Hurting other human beings, however cruel and sadistic they may be, has never and will never sit well with him. But the images he's given -- who is he to suggest Erik submit to the inhumane tortures he's previously been subjected to? There is a breaking point, and a time for force. He can admit to that. "That's fair," he concedes. "Thank you. I will take your word for it. He looks up. There are those absolutely captivating eyes again, and another hitch of breath. Charles thought they would be less jarring, but it seems the allure doesn't wear off so easily. "I will suggest you need extensive care," he says. "They will not allow you much other contact, and I won't have you entirely isolated. I can advocate for other rights as well, and trust that I will. I want to help you, Erik. I mean that."  
  
"I would like a _siddur_ for my cell," he says at last, "and request that my meals are kosher." These aren't orders, despite the fact that they're of clear shining importance in his mind, but he's looking at Charles when he says it-wondering if this is the part where they laugh in his face, those perfect red lips telling him _the CIA isn't a five-star resort_ , Erik. _Here, have this black hood_.  
  
"Of course." Charles smiles instead, gentle and kind, with just a hint of dimple he's never grown out of. It isn't an order, but he feels entirely compelled to respond as such anyway, for an entirely different reason than the deep, commanding voice from before. There's a different kind of pleasure in this, one he's felt all his life, regardless of how dulled it had been. "If the request is at all reasonable, I'll make sure I see it granted. I'd like you to be as comfortable as possible." One hand, still aimless on the table, creeps closer. He quickly pulls it back, cheeks faintly pink.  
  
"Then it would appear our conversation was productive." Erik taps his fingers against the table, then gently rests them against Charles's before he can pull away. "Undoubtedly MacTaggert is getting antsy. Perhaps you should go assuage her." He retracts his touch after that, sitting a picture of poise.  
  
Charles laughs quietly, shaking his head. Productive. Surely he must be out of his mind -- convinced to lie for a murderer within hours of speaking? And all the electricity, the simple way even light suggestions urge him to listen, to please...  
  
But he also knows he's in the right. To allow this man to be harmed any further than he already has would be a mistake he would never forgive himself for. He pockets the labs he knows he will later falsify, stands to his feet. For a long, dragging moment, he stands and simply stares, pulled as if by magnet. He does not want to walk out of the room. Sighing, Charles shakes himself.  
  
"Until next time then, Erik," he says, and forces himself to turn.


	2. Of the road, turn out the lights, get out, and look up at the sky

Moira MacTaggert accosts him as soon as he leaves the room, and they head down the hall, up to the elevators. When they exit through the doors, they walk past windows overlooking the vast plains below-a place Charles doesn't recognize-the name unfamiliar even in the minds of those around him. A blacksite on American soil set a dangerous precedent, but with the added threat of pretersensory abilities in the mix, these facilities were the only ones capable of handling trained mutant terrorists. They let him put his labs in his briefcase after assurances that he'll analyze them as quickly as possible. Then they're headed to MacTaggert's primary office. "So," she says once the door closes behind her. There's a line of trees in the distance, where fog looms at the tops of them, rolling over in early-morning grey. "Let's have it, then." She motions for Charles to sit across from her at her desk.  
  
  
"I'm not entirely sure what you're expecting from me." His voice is level, calm, and he crosses his legs as he sits. "He's a high-Dom, as you already suspected, but nothing that I haven't dealt with previously." A cool lie, and one only a cursory glance into her mind tells him she believes. A D5 is so rare it may as well be a myth, after all. "Perhaps a D4.5, but obviously I couldn't say without the lab results. He spoke to me with little to no fuss. He does speak English, as I'm sure you've assumed. Perfectly fluent. Mr. Lehnsherr is incredibly troubled, and I believe he needs extensive counseling and assessment, but from what I can tell, he is not an immediate danger to himself or others at this time. He fully intends to cooperate. What you are dealing with is not an unrepentant monster, and I suggest you not treat him as such."  
  
"He murdered ten people in cold blood," Moira said, eyebrows curving above her glasses. The way they slid down her nose only served to make her skepticism more apparent. "Injured who-knows how many else, destroyed millions of dollars of valuable government equipment, and he's not a national. Who's to say this isn't just the start? _Langley_ looks down upon _terrorism_ , Dr. Xavier. We both know the Separatists are growing in number and attacking bolder, and now we're facing the very real possibility that they've globalized and are targeting American citizens."  
  
"Yes, thank you. Did I at any point suggest he was free of guilt?" Charles raises an eyebrow, refusing to bow to what is obviously practiced rhetoric. A lesser submissive would have broken, dropped their gaze and conceded. He refuses to, though he understands the threat, sympathizes with the concern. "He is certainly guilty, and I would never condone those actions. I have no doubt he will be punished to the full extent of the law, as he should be. But he is not the terrorist madman-scapegoat you seem determined to find in him, and I implore you to consider that.  
  
Charles uncrosses his legs, leaning forward toward the desk as he holds the woman's gaze, not flinching for a single moment. "If you are looking for organized foreign mutant terror against the government, you won't find it here. What you will find is a terribly disturbed man who needs psychiatric help, and retains the right to be treated as a human being. He has agreed to cooperate. If you fear there is some scheme here, some larger picture, I will uncover it. That you needn't worry about." He taps once at his temple, the implication clear. "You asked me if you were dealing with a monster, and I am simply telling you no. Do not make him into one."

He can tell that Moira is uneasy at his ability to rebuff, to go toe-to-toe, when most submissives would be already leaned back in their seats and contrite. She is nothing, however, if not a good actress and she doesn't allow her surprise to manifested in any visible manner. "Then tell me, Dr. Xavier-you say he isn't a monster. How would you classify his actions? What other reason than the deranged could he have?"

"Ah, you're asking the right question now." His face is calm but severe as he leans back, and the slight clench to his jaw is the only outward sign that he's at all bothered. "Let me ask you a question in return: if he were a terrorist targeting the United States government, why that specific research facility? Why with such accuracy and single-mindedness?" The word leaves an unpleasant taste in his mouth, like a tinge of metal, and he finds it all too apt. "I've worked with many deranged minds, and, indeed, some terrorists. There is too much rationality here for it to be mere madness, and far too little strategic advantage for a targeted attack. This was all too personal."

"Personal," Moira rolls the word over, tapping the edge of her pen against her lips. "You're saying Erik Lehnsherr has a _personal_ connection to Sebastian Shaw?" No, her eyes narrow. "He told you more than that, didn't he. Tell me what he said."

"Yes, that is what I'm saying, but I remind you that my patient has rights and I personally do not intend to trample them." He crosses his hands in his lap, lifts his chin. "I simply implore you to look at the facts, and consider that this was not organized in the way you first considered. There is more to this story, and to Erik Lehnsherr."

"Can you tell me, with _one hundred percent certainty_ , that our staff members will be safe if we give him a private cell and basic amenities?" They both know that she has the authority to black-box him.

"I can tell you that, yes." Charles nods once, and his lips pull up the slightest amount. "You can take my word for it, and if something should happen within this detention center, I will take full responsibility in the aftermath. If you treat my patient with basic decency and respect, he will do the same. I will vouch for that."

"All right," Moira says after a very long moment. " _Langley_ values your judgment, and so do I. For the duration of the trial, provided he does not perpetrate any additional offenses, he'll be remanded to the administrative segregation unit. He'll be allowed one hour of exercise per twenty-three hour rotation. Meals will be served three times a day. If he refuses to eat, we will restrain him and give him TPN."

"I highly doubt he will refuse," he begins, keeping his gaze even, "provided the meals are within the limits of what he can consume. _Kosher_. Erik Lehnsherr is Jewish; by law, he's allowed the right to exercise those religious beliefs, provided they are sincerely held. I can assure you they are. He should also have the right to religious text. Beyond that, I can assure you that he'll cooperate. If I see a change in his disposition, I will alert you immediately. The safety of you and your staff will always be the priority." He tilts his head, a calm, charming smile on his lips, one carefully practiced. "I believe that's all I have to offer you at this moment, unless there's something else you'd like to ask me?"

Her eyebrows rose again-it always did take them off guard, no matter who they were, when Charles espoused the very simple and very real legal necessities his clients were entitled to. Most of these directors, prison wardens, and what have you, were accustomed to running a ship where no one questioned the status quo. It was always from outside sources like Charles that challenges came-and Moira dealt with those plenty of times-but her high DS score typically kept people in their place.

Notwithstanding that at _Langley_ , there was even less room for compassion, but she wasn't a cruel sort, and didn't relish any _Guantanamo_ -style torture rooms. This case was as high-profile as it gets, everyone had a reputation maintain and that meant keeping their noses clean, so there was efficiency in that-but also, a disdain in general for what Moira saw as needless suffering. It was unbecoming and unproductive, a wholly distasteful practice. She had seen many a people deprived over her tenure with the CIA, certainly with inmates being denied basic rights such as the ones Charles outlined, up to outright being mocked by the soldiers who were supposed to manage them. "We'll accommodate that as best we can," she says, banishing peripheral thoughts to the shadows where they disappeared from sight. Her laptop beeped and she held up a hand, looking down at the screen and pursing her lips. "Huh. His legal counsel has been assigned. Carmen Pryde-he's notoriously good as his job, expensive as hell-says he's doing this pro-bono. Maybe Mr. Lehnsherr has some friends in America after all. I'll forward you Pryde's contact information, he'll probably want to meet with you, given you've decided to become Mr. Lehnsherr's advocate."

"Yes, I believe I have." There's truly no backing out now, though Charles also felt no desire to do so in the first place. "Thank you for your consideration and assistance. I look forward to our continued cooperation." Standing, Charles gathers his briefcase, and reaches his hand out for another shake. It always caught high-Doms off guard that he would even consider such a gesture and that, in turn, only ever amused Charles. "I'll be in touch."

"I'm sure you will," Moira said, and she shook his hand with a firm grip, once-more not belying how bizarre she found her interactions with this man.

The drive back from the site was dull-blindfolded and suppressed on the way in and out left him stuck in his own head, a cage of neurons he smashed his hands against struggling to pierce the veil, to hear and feel the world moving madly along on the outside. But they wouldn't let him in otherwise, and it only lasted an hour.

The driver is all secret-service suave, wearing a suit and dark sunglasses like in the movies, but his business card says Fred Duncan and bears a CIA sigil. "Call us if anything comes up," he says after he gently disconnects the bracelets from Charles's wrists and slips off the tied knot at the back of his head.

The world filtered in again-color and sound as though the heavy fabric draped his mind as well, birds chirping and people humming hoping wishing singing, letting that echoing void of silence inside him fill up. Fred Duncan was a calm, pleasant man who loved his wife very much. Every night he read Little Women to her, because it was her favorite story. It was his favorite story.

Charles was bidden to go home and decompress.


	3. And I do this to remind me that I'm really really tiny

Two days later, the phone in his study-office rang, the caller ID reading PRYDE ESQ.  
  
Charles would be lying if he said that his mind was clear and unburdened those two days. It seemed, no matter how hard he tried - and he certainly did try - it always wandered back. Back to the plastic-draped cell, the bare table between them, the persistent, calm, absolutely captivating ocean gaze. The smooth, throaty words, both commanding and smooth, both gentle and suggestive. The battle of wits, the humored, dry smiles, freckles like constellations, long hair, twisting in the pit of his stomach that pooled and electrified him, running up and down his spine all the way to his toes. Push and pull like ocean tides. He's in another trance-like replay of the entire interaction --

How long could it have truly been, and yet it feels like the most significant of Charles' life? When the phone rings, he startles, which is a bit difficult to do, all things considering. He reaches for it immediately.  
  
"Dr. Charles Xavier speaking," he answers, straightening in his seat, paperwork already forgotten shoved to the side.  
  
"Good morning, Dr. Xavier," a gruff voice greets him on the other line. Off-the-bat Charles gets the impression Pryde's going to be an asset. Everything about him is righteous anger and thinly-veiled indignation, bolstered only by experienced determination. He sounds like an American through-and-through when he gets going; been here thirty-years or more, long way from _Eilat_ when he meets Teri on her 10-day and he's bussing it to _Natbag_ , running as fast as he can so he can tell her _wait!_ , so he can tell her _I love you_.

Long enough to get himself settled in a damn good career, raise a little girl (she walks through walls and he adores her with every fiber of his being), to sink his teeth into cases like this, where obvious mutant prejudice makes objectivity impossible. "I'm sure by now you've heard I'm representing Erik Lehnsherr in the Shaw Institute trial. Agent MacTaggert forwarded me your contact information. I'd love to meet and pick your brain-from what she's told me, I have a feeling we're sitting on similar sides of the fence."  
  
"Ah, yes. You wouldn't be the first to want to pick my brain," he laughs, shaking his head. Similar sides of the fence. It's the truth, though it remains to be seen exactly what lies there. He supposes he's now committed to finding out. "I'd be more than happy to meet with you and talk. It seems we might have a lot to discuss."  
  
"My office is on 17th, I can have a driver pick you up whenever you're ready. Just give me a date and time." His pencil's poised against a pad of paper-nothing to be said for a lack of efficiency.  
  
A cursory glance at his schedule and a brief conversation later, and everything is set. The car will pick him up in a day's time. Charles head reels. How had he possibly become so entangled in this? His eyes wander to the "results" of the labs he did not actually administer. D4.6. They will already be in possession of the detention center now, and he has no doubts at all they passed as legitimate.  
  
He finds himself breathlessly awaiting the moment he walks back into that cell. How, exactly, had he gotten here? Shaking his head, he picks up the phone again. He has other patients to care for, other responsibilities. Perhaps that will keep his mind off the beautiful man with the enchanting eyes.  
  
There are psionic suppressors around the building, the black-site where you cannot see to come and go, the blindfold in your mind and your senses are empty except the bumpy road under your feet and the cushions behind your back and the seatbelt over your shoulder clicked-in.  
  
Erik is in his cell. The cell is in the hidden-place.  
  
He does push-ups and reads his siddur and endures the staring when he sings _shacharit_ to himself ( _shema yisrael adonai eloheinu adonai echad-_ unshy croaky voice crawling up the curious eyes- _baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech ha'olam she'asani yehudi ve she'asani mutziah genetik, ve she'asani kirtzono_ -thank you G-d, for making me a Jew, for making me a Mutant, for making me as I am-) mincha in the afternoon, ma'ariv when the sun dips below the sky.  
  
They let him run around in a circle in a square-room with plastic plexiglass windows and little airholes from which he can hear birds circling overhead. They daren't let him possess candles, so he scratches little flames onto the walls (count the minutes in your mind, sundowns sunrises in the windows and the days pass by. One two three-) and blows on them, brushing his hands toward himself three times.  
  
You can't look upon the flame before you usher in the bride, of freedom and rest, and when you usher it in you can benefit from its warmth. Small, small pleasures he's learned to take, in between sitting perfectly still on his cot, legs crossed (-bit awkwardly-peroneal nerve injury, right-leg, pain and poor movement-) and he is serene, surrounded by his pretend-fire and imagining his desert-home from whence he came, sand hot under his feet.  
  
Charles's feet walk the sand with him as he sleeps because the hidden building can't hide his dreams. The hidden building can't hide how he blankets himself with the precious memories, obtained like little raindrops in his hands from sprouted flowers in miracle-soil, wet and soft with dew and life-giving. Greenery cultivated but it's not green, not like him, he knows he is green and Charles is blue, the brightest he's ever seen, little pieces of sky plucked by G-dly hands and pinned right into his eyes, flourishing when he blinks to each corner of his iris like a painting, the way his skin stains red when the flush flourishes across bone.  
  
Yes, life-giving.  
  
You take small-pleasures and never were there guards and keepers to inspire his internal world, to whom he would imagine his thumb brushing across a gorgeous expanse of red bloom and red lips. To order them down and inhale their perfect submission to his will, without leaving them hollow husks. His internal world sleeps when they give him Propofol-dreams but now he is awake, mind whirring-ticking-pleasant. It is good to be awake.

( _Modah ani, l’fanekha melekh chai v’kayam, you are my sunshine, my only sunshine!_ )  
  
He eats the food on the tray with his hands, lightly and carefully, a constricting, fierce appreciation and wonder in his chest when he spots the hechsher. Unnecessary. Charles didn't need to do this for him. He would've eaten it anyway. Give him a dead pig and throw some cheese on it while you're at it. _Pikuach nefesh_ would permit it, but-you take small pleasures. it's a pleasure. A small pleasure, to eat the potatoes and peas and bread and take nourishment without mockery.  
  
His internal world is a secret prison and he is in his cell in the hidden building.  
  
"Charles Xavier, I presume?" the driver says from the window as he gets into the car. The driver is wearing a neat suit and black sunglasses and he is not secret service, but he is private security and he has a gun strapped under his blazer. "I'm Christopher Summers, I'm Carmen's security adviser and driver. We're headed over to the office, would you care to stop for coffee or anything along the way? I know it's early."  
  
Christopher Summers was a Major in the Air Force, and now he is not. The hearing loss renders him unsuitable for duty, so he learns ASL and lipreading and how to feel the vibrations in the floor under his feet and sense the danger particles in the air. He looks at Charles when Charles speaks, eyes scanning his lips meticulously (-not like erik, no intensity-no pull-no want-)  
  
"You'll have to forgive me, but the conversation's going to be cut short while we're underway." He doesn't elaborate-figures Charles already knows. He already knows about Charles.  
  
Charles is being driven absolutely mad, and truly that's saying something, because for the first years of his life, he believed himself certifiably insane.  
  
( _"It took me so very long to realize the voices weren't me, just everyone else," he told Raven, what seems like lifetimes ago in the kitchen they grew up in. She laughed with him then, but he fears she would not laugh now --_ )  
  
The night before he gets into a stranger's car to discuss advocating for a murderer of ten (how is it that his brain continues to circumnavigate that, as if it is another insignificant detail, an errant thought he picks up on his way to the grocery store?), he is with Raven. They speak in a language that is entirely theirs, laughing at shared experiences, sitting cross-legged beneath the couch instead of on it as they watch movies neither of them care to pay attention to. She pesters him about working too hard. Then the teasing begins.  
  
 _("It's too bad no one can get you to kneel, Charles," she says, and he doesn't remember the context. It's irrelevant. Raven is a D3. Perfectly average, by that scale.)_  
  
And Charles realizes he cannot tell her. He cannot tell her that his thoughts and dreams have been occupied, that he spends stray moments counting down until he can see the man who sent shivers down his spine, who titillated him in ways she could not possibly imagine. The man who, in just hours of meeting, shook him to the core in the way no one else ever had. Erik will never be a man he brings home to his sister, and the thought that he considered -- considered what? He swallows, shaking his head to clear it. Erik is a patient, and nothing more. Erik must remain a patient, and nothing more. Erik must not dominate him, not even his thoughts. He will not allow that. For years he was perfectly invincible to any dynamic, to any Order, any Will. Why now?

Why him, with those devastating eyes, that deep timber of a voice?  
  
The office, as far as offices go, is nondescript. Charles allows himself to be led to the man who will defend Erik, who he is now advocating before (murderer, his brain supplies, but there is no heat, no disgust, and it utterly terrifies him). He reaches his hand out, aware as always that the man he introduces himself to is above him on a hierarchy. Charles has never cared, nor will he.  
  
Never, he tries to tell himself. Not even Erik can make him kneel. Why should he? How could he?  
  
"Charles Xavier," he greets.  
  
"Carmen Pryde," the man says with a sanguine smile. He has lengthy dark hair and bright blue eyes and lines on his face, suggesting years and wisdom. He's a D3.3, exudes it in the confident dominant-styled suit in clean angles and sharp, dark colors. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Xavier. Let's sit down," he says, and although it's not an Order, it's evident he is used to being obeyed. He moves to the spot across the desk next to an open notepad.  
  
"I understand you operate under Doctor-Patient confidentiality, and I must preface this meeting by saying that my services work with similar strictures. I believe we can be of help to one another, if we might agree to a mutual exchange of information under the auspices of our respective confidentiality oaths. Please, tell me what you think."  
  
As he speaks, the pen taps against the paper. His thoughts are elegantly translated from blunt-rough Hebrew in his mind- _like erik, you can't think_ -when did you start comparing everyone to him?-an unconscious transference after being stateside so long. His mind is all military confidence and air-sucking desert heat, but the presence he exudes -nothing compared to the man in the cell- is cultivated charm and demanding-results-oriented.  
  
"I'll be blunt," he finishes, tapping his temple, "since I'm certain beating around the bush will be rather ineffective for a telepath. The Shaw Institute has been experimenting upon mutants for as long as it's been incepted. Erik Lehnsherr is the first individual I've heard of to actively act against them. Ten people killed. It's a tragedy, but we both know what those people were guilty of."  
  
Charles sits, folding his hands neatly in his lap. The man’s confidence and apparent dominance does not faze him, not as it might most submissives, and he remains perfectly calm and collected, a polite smile on his lips as he listens. Truly, the majority of submissives fall somewhere lower on the scale – 4s and 5s are rarer than 2s and 3s, though not entirely uncommon, and even they might be a bit shaken by the confidence and efficiency the room is absolutely drenched in. He respects it, but does not bow to it, does not find it at all off-putting. There’s no sparks of electricity, no tingle up the spine, no heat pooling in his belly or desire lingering beneath the surface of his skin. It’s better way, he reminds himself.  
  
He was perfectly fine not getting his feathers ruffled for years. Perfectly fine condemning himself to a life of dull, idle dissatisfaction when it came to this aspect of his life. (Who does he think he’s convincing, truly? Himself? Erik? It isn’t like the man can hear him, however many miles away in his plastic-decorated cell.)  
  
He sobers the moment the Shaw Institute is mentioned, his features noticeably darkened. He does not share Erik’s rage, his explosive passion, but he is not at all unaffected. The images come back to him in the same scrapbook, one case file after another. He hears their screams the way Erik has heard them, deafening even when they are silenced. “Yes,” he says, when he’s found his voice, lips pulled down as he shakes it from his mind, dodging mentions of it in Pryde’s thoughts. He will not think straight if he is privy to their agony.  
  
“Erik made me very aware, and you are correct. I do operate on a basis in which I respect my patients’ privacy. However, I would also like what is in his best interest. What will secure him a fair trial.” Charles watches carefully, studies the other’s mind – he knows that Pryde is aware, but he does little to hide his surface thoughts, not that most are trained in shielding themselves from such things. “Am I to believe that’s you?”  
  
"This case is of special interest to me," Pryde says, intractably honest-for a lawyer that's certainly breaking the stereotypical mold. "Lehnsherr is an Israeli national, a mutant, and a suspected Separatist. There's not a soul around who doesn't know this man's name-who doesn't condemn him as a violent extremist. What this case requires is a critical, objective analysis."  
  
Pryde slides a file over to Charles for perusal. He already knows its contents. Decades and decades of sordid intelligence on Shaw's various operating bases, in many parts of the world-including one buried deep in the _Negev_ , near _Arad_. When Pryde speaks again, it's in an easy enough tone, but he's settled into lecture-mode, expecting no interruptions, full-well Charles is a telepath but there's a benefit to solidified verbal confirmation.  
  
"Sebastian Shaw has been using the cover of government-sanctioned genetic adaptation research for _years_. He has had infinite funding, infinite resources, because deep-down you and I both know the government-hell, the _United Nations_ -wants to know the _practical application_ of offensive mutations. You'll notice the focus of all this research is dedicated to mutants with active-kinetic manifestations. Erik Lehnsherr was billed as the most powerful mutant at the facility in Arad. We're still working on obtaining the documents-discovery hasn't been helpful because they're burning the fucking things left and right. Shaw knows he's caught with his pants down-if we want to win this, we need to _move_."  
  
We. There is a we now, but Charles doesn't deny it. Instead he flips through the documents, as calm as he can be under the current circumstances. What he's involving himself in could completely alter the way mutants are viewed, treated, and perceived in the public eye, as well as the way they are utilized by governments around the world. It will change the course of history, completely changing mutant-kind forever, and he's certainly not blind to it. The applications are far greater than Erik Lehnsherr, but they have their roots there, and Charles won't deny that he would like to see that thread followed through. He looks up, finally, nods once. "You're right," he says simply. "I will help you in every way I can. Erik trusts me, and he will talk to me. What I can give you, I will."  
  
"Then tell me," Pryde murmurs. "What was his DS score? I've seen his intake videos, Charles. They could barely get through the script and all he did was glare at them a little. What was your impression of him? You said he trusts you, that he'll talk to you. A little circumspect, don't you agree? You're a psychiatrist. It's well-known most patients in custody aren't particularly keen on cooperating with mental health officials."  
  
Charles treads carefully. He's silent for a few long, dragging moments, reading the situation. Every surface thought, every intention. If word gets out that he falsified labs, he could easily lose his license. But Pryde doesn't mean harm -- he wants information that he can use, and without that, there's little chance. Worst case scenario (and Charles is guilty for even considering it), he'll wipe his memory of this conversation. "D5," he answers, after what feels like a very long time but only takes up seconds. "But he didn't manipulate the situation in his favor, despite multiple opportunities to do so. He agreed not to harm anyone in the facility, and to cooperate without manipulation through Orders." He takes another long pause, this one palpable in the air between them. He keeps his expression calm, his voice level. "I reported him as D4.6."  
  
Pryde sits back in his chair, the only sign that he's shocked by the information-but it resonates in his mind like transparent glass, he is ordinary after all that such a thing should faze him. It should faze anyone. "Remarkable," is what he says at last, recovering himself after an embarrassingly lengthy pause-working overtime to fully comprehend the implications of Charles's pronouncement.  
  
"Can you be certain he hasn't used his Will to influence others? The information on D5s we have is... not promising. They're dangerous, unpredictable elements. Most of them go into law enforcement or the military-get snatched up as little kids and taken to special schools, that sort of thing. Learn to take orders and rely on their units. My G-d, this is the first I've heard of an unregistered D5."  
  
He's writing haphazardly as he speaks, and Charles doesn't get the impression he has any intention of using this newfound knowledge to hurt them. But there is a distinct warning blaring in his subconscious, that Lehnsherr's being a D5-the moment he enters a room it's obvious. "Having him registered as D5-it would completely alter the outcome of this case, you realize," he says gently. "You made the right call."  
  
"I can only tell you that he had every opportunity to influence me and those around him - the guards, or any one of his captors, for any number of reasons, and he did not. And I can attest that he is indeed D5, without a shadow of doubt." He doesn't elaborate on how, but it doesn't need saying. Charles keeps focused on Pryde's thoughts, but there truly is nothing malicious there. Shocked, and rightly so, taken aback, concerned, but not malicious. "He asked if I would help him," he adds, and his voice is softer as he recalls it. "I say that to emphasize ask. A man like Erik Lehnsherr need not ask anything, least of all from one like me. He is not a monster. That I can promise."  
  
"Asked for your help," Pryde repeats thoughtfully. "He intends to go through with the trial, then. There was some concern amongst my staff that we'd be dealing with a rogue agent," he huffs a barking laugh, brusque.  
  
"I watched those videos. Thin as a fucking rake, with that G-dforsaken tattoo on his arm. You'd think people would be hard-pressed to immediately label him a violent psychopath. I can't say he's a victim, not with what he's done, but only a fool would consider his motivations insignificant. He's one of the lucky ones. The files we managed to snatch before they were destroyed-some of those people-"  
  
 _-the little boy with wings, ripped one by one into pieces, such a bright smile, they called him Angel-_  
  
"These people were never going to stop. Erik Lehnsherr has just pulled back the curtain on one of the ugliest parts of our society. I'll be damned if I can't admire that just a little bit. You mentioned he practiced in your notes," Carmen grinned. "Well, let's go with the good old _Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof_."  
  
 _-justice, justice you shall seek, DT 16:18 and if they respond peacefully, let them in DT 20:11-_  
  
The verses pop up in his head and he sees Charles seeing him.  
  
"Gotta love Sunday school," he winked.  
  
Charles smiles, and leans forward to set the files down on the desk in front of him. There's a note of finality to it; one way or another, he is fully entwined in the life of Erik Lehnsherr, and history will be made. There were plenty of verses in Erik's head, though he admits to not understanding the significance of most of them. He will never know them like this man does, never speak them with such reverence. Not like Erik does. Water in the desert, in a plastic-padded cell. "I've never been a religious man," he admits, because it's the truth. "I suppose knowing the intimate details of others' worship makes it a bit difficult for me to have my own stance. Still, I understand the sentiment. As I said, whatever you need from me, if it is within my power and for the good, I will do. I told Erik as much - I do not condone his actions. Violence with violence only breeds the same, hatred bears no fruit. I don't believe killing and hating will ever free us. But I won't sit and watch as a man is stripped of everything because it was first stripped of him. There is good in Erik. Pain, and suffering, and agony, but also good. If you mean to put a stop to this, then you were right. We are very much on the same side of the fence."  
  
Carmen nodded attentively, then once more in assurance. Bone-deep confidence that saturates the place, fills it up with spirit and blazing intention. "I'll be up-front, Charles Xavier. I do not lose. Ever. It's unlikely that Erik will avoid prison time-even if we can prove the people he murdered were abusing him, arguing self-defense is tough when your response is bringing the building down. But we can at the very least push for him to be integrated into medium-security gen-pop. Provided no one discovers his DS score and goes apeshit on us. There's another thing-there were, supposedly, people inside that building who were-patients. Do you know anything about that?"  
  
Patients. Charles considers that, blinking. Quickly, perhaps panicked, he runs through every thought he received from Erik's fairly open communication with him -- he saw them, many of them, but not in relation to the attack. Erik was far too fixated on being extremely thorough (Charles tucks that thought away, compartmentalizes it for some other time), and he doesn't recall what happened in the aftermath. There was no verbal mention of it. He follows the trail, but he can only know what Erik was thinking on the surface. He swore not to dig any deeper than that. Pursing his lips, he shakes his head. "No, I'm afraid I don't," he admits. "Though I know Erik would not mean them harm. His attack was targeted. He went for scientists, not for those... in their care. That's all I can say."  
  
"Then that's an avenue we need to pursue," Pryde says immediately. "MacTaggert sent me the memo," he taps the screen of his closed laptop. "You're scheduled to meet with him again on Monday. I recommend we make an itinerary of topics to broach, starting with that. We also have in our possession some of the redacted Arad documents. I want you to determine exactly where he was held, and what happened in that duration. If we can prove that he was systematically tortured and experimented upon by the Institute, it'll lend us credibility in our defense. Namely-that he was acting from the perception that he and his compatriots were threatened. How he got to America-why he targeted that specific place. We need these details, Xavier."  
  
Patients. Charles considers that, blinking. Quickly, perhaps panicked, he runs through every thought he received from Erik's fairly open communication with him -- he saw them, many of them, but not in relation to the attack. Erik was far too fixated on being extremely thorough (Charles tucks that thought away, compartmentalizes it for some other time), and he doesn't recall what happened in the aftermath. There was no verbal mention of it. He follows the trail, but he can only know what Erik was thinking on the surface. He swore not to dig any deeper than that. Pursing his lips, he shakes his head. "No, I'm afraid I don't," he admits. "Though I know Erik would not mean them harm. His attack was targeted. He went for scientists, not for those... in their care. That's all I can say."  
  
"I can get them for you." It's an assurance he's not entirely sure he can make, but one he's also fairly confident in. Erik is not someone he can get to do much of anything he does not want to do, and Charles will not go back on his word; he will not take what is not given to him. Considering the circumstances, though, he doesn't see why he won't be able to. Erik agreed to talk. Charles will do everything in his power to help, and it occurs to him that, despite being a D5 -- the only one with any power to get Charles to obey, to kneel -- all Erik had to do was ask. His head swims with it, but he files that away, too, focused on the problem at hand. "He will talk to me, as I said. He's agreed to answer my questions. I don't expect I'll get them all at once, but I've made it clear he needs my care. By the time of the trial, you should have everything you need. I leave the rest in your hands."  
  
"Excellent," Carmen says. "I suspect we'll be meeting again very soon. At some point in the distant future I'd also like to discuss the possibility of open sessions, between yourself and I, and Erik. This will give him the opportunity to view us as a team-the people who are working to secure him some semblance of freedom. Is that doable?"  
  
"I'm sure it is, at some point." Charles' lips pull up at the corners, and he shakes his head. "He was stubborn enough to remain completely silent for the first week he was in custody, though, so perhaps keep that in mind. He trusts me so far, and I'd like to keep that trust unbroken. He is my patient first." Patient, he reminds himself. Erik is a patient, the same as any other. And the more he repeats it, the less he begins to believe it.  
  
"Good to hear. We'll work up to it. For now, just let him know I'm here." Carmen stands, then, and societal structures in place, Charles is expected to follow his lead. Impeccably, of course. He holds his hand out, grip firm but not crushing-some high-Doms have a tendency to over-exert themselves, press their Will on the room to make a point-but it's always been true that real leaders, real Doms, don't need to rely on parlor tricks. "It's been a pleasure speaking with you, Doctor."


	4. In the grand scheme of things and sometimes this terrifies me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i. _der goylem_ , h. leivick  
> ii. _4.48 psychosis_ , sarah kane

Monday feels like centuries away.  
  
Centuries of half-caught dreams slipped out of cotton-batted brick-and-mortar walls, mortar shells and screaming-and the screaming-and the desert and the healing-and hands on his skin and low-whispered words in his ear-Erik dreams of him, his mind shrinks to a singular point, walking the room from corner to corner, inventing equations and presenting _divrei_ Torah to himself like he's preparing for a Ted Talk to keep occupied, keep yourself occupied, keep your mind running.  
  
You've done this before, and the hands and the sound and the joy of him, the electricity-"Dinnertime," someone calls hypnagogia it's time to go, you're imagining those fingertips on your spine, _darling_ -"Get the fuck up, Lehnsherr. You stink. We're taking you to the showers."  
  
Dream-shatters. Centuries of silence.  
  
Moira's voice on the phone is exasperated. "He's getting a little stir-crazy. Yesterday he Ordered the nurse down, we had to put him in iso for twelve hours. He wasn't violent, so we're not considering changing the parameters of our agreement, but you'll be visiting with him in adseg. Is that sufficient?"  
  
Monday is ages away.

* * *

Charles keeps busy. He has other patients, other responsibilities. He spends time with Raven in the evenings when he isn't pouring over case files, lounges with her in his apartment. Reads to her at night. His thoughts wander, though. His mind follows. It's difficult for Charles to reach a certain mind over distance, but with familiarity, it becomes easier. Like breathing. He can follow Raven across state lines, though he's vowed not to read her thoughts -- her presence, though, her mental signature? Ingrained.  
  
He finds himself searching for Erik's before remembering, belatedly, that he will not find it. He feels a fool in the aftermath.

* * *

Erik looks worse for wear when he steps into the tiny pen they're holding him in. Charles had sighed over the phone, but agreed nonetheless; he needs to pick his battles here, and coax Erik to do the same.  
  
"Hello, Erik," he greets, once they're alone. He pointedly avoids the man's gaze, not prepared for what he knows will happen when he looks. For the heat that he will feel, for the racing of his pulse. He is still not prepared. "It's good to see you again, though I wish it were under better circumstances." There's dark circles under his eyes, and his face is sallower, but he holds himself with that same quiet dignity Charles remembers from their first meeting. The black prisoner uniform has been fitted now, sleeves long and neck covered, and his lithe form wields imposition all the more for it.  
  
Silence stretches between them, but he moves away from the wall and sits on the provided chair-there's no table between them this time, just two chairs in a room barely-fitted for them. There's no windows here, just opaque bars obscuring the outside world. His posture's straight, and he rests his right leg on his left knee in a casual, but nevertheless commanding posture. "Good morning, Dr. Xavier," is all he murmurs at last. His eyes have not left Charles from the second he stepped into the adseg cell, and he can feel Erik tracking every twitch-every crease and frown and expression as though exquisitely tuned to him. His next remark is dry, kindling-wood fires. "Shall we discuss my mother?"  
  
That smile plays at the corner of his lips, just-there-nearly-imagined.  
  
Charles' lips pull up as well, despite the grim circumstances. He avoids Erik's eyes, but it doesn't help the clenching in his stomach at the sound of that voice, deep and filling places he did not know were empty. Erik looks thinner. He looks sickly, if he's honest, but it's been quite a while since he's seen sunlight. Charles aches for him.  
  
He aches for him. How strange.  
  
"We can discuss whatever you'd like," he replies, as calmly as he can, sitting in the chair offered to him. "Though perhaps we should try questions this time. We were fairly aimless in our first session, though nonetheless productive," he teases.  
  
Erik's grin is quick, shedding years off of his weary features with sudden alacrity. "Dr. MacTaggert mentioned your visit with my lawyer," he says, his voice slow as molasses, every word drawn out, all deliberate intensity and un-exerted Will, potentials soaking the atmosphere, bending it the way he bends air waves.  
  
His mind is alive and singing- _kumi'ori ki va orech!_ -wake up, rise and shine for your Light has come!- _hineh hachoshech y'chaseh eretz va'arafel umim_ -darkness covers the earth and fog covers the people-and he is the people and the earth and fog chills his bones, a shrinking-mind watered with Charles's presence.  
  
There really isn't anything to do but follow that instinctive pull, draw this out, squeeze every last drop of water to quench the dust. "Very well. You may ask your questions," he decides to end with, the barest strain of Order at the edge of those words. He's leaned forward slightly, both hands resting on his calf, attentive to every pulse of Charles's blood through his veins like he can feel iron.  
  
His voice sounds hoarse even now; unused save for these singular moments with this man-a man he is half-convinced he has dreamed up in an addled fugue-state, and maybe that's a good thing-a warm pleasure to take amidst the hazy loam of endless self-annihilation. "I wouldn't say aimless."  
  
His mind is addled. The thoughts are strained, so tenuously wrapped together, the edges not always connecting. It's such a beautiful, complex mind, and yet it's being squandered. Wasted. What is he doing with it, sitting in this sunless cell? How could anyone possibly stay sane, let alone a man so restless and tortured? Charles frowns, sighs. That Order, however short, however slight, has a shiver running up his spine. He swallows, breathes, and finally lifts his gaze.  
  
The ocean is so impossibly gorgeous, and so unpredictable. All of that beauty and danger and darkness mixed with wonder and joy and light. "Please," he says, before he can even properly register the plea, his own voice thick with something he refuses to register, "Tell me more about what happened, Erik. I'd like to understand. To help you." His lips pull up, and like last time, he leans closer. This time, their knees touch.  
  
"Please," he repeats, but it's not for the same reason. Charles swallows, shakes his head. A patient, he reminds himself. He is Erik's doctor.  
  
The touch snaps Erik's head up, and they're closer now-and Charles's eyes are darting around the room, avoiding him-and he can't bear that. His lips are parted-frozen-stunned-curious-expression wide and affected for but a moment before he marshals himself into impassivity. He stares like Charles is the only human he's seen, the only person-and in a lot of ways this is true. The others are like ghosts, strangers he must keep separate from himself, lest they be drawn into his orbit, pale-structures human-puppets dragged along by the calcium in their bones.  
  
Being here is like being alive. His skin is buzzing. They've forgone the plastic handcuffs, the restraints, leaving him free to move and experiment with limbs-in-space proprioception. So he takes advantage of it, and lightly trails his fingers across the edge of Charles's knee. Revels in the jolt of flared heat beneath the cloth. "Look at me," he says instead, every syllable thick. He could make it an Order. Tortuously aches to do so, to see what this man would be like-no-those are dreaming thoughts. Not for today. He tucks them back. "I promise I will not turn to a Xenomorph and eat your face."  
  
It takes a second to sink in-a joke, albeit gallows-style.  
  
"Is that an Order, Erik?" It's meant to be just as much of a joke, but it comes off as breathless as he feels. He looks. Erik is a starving man in more ways than one, but the dark circles beneath his eyes do not detract from the heat. All of a sudden, Charles is drowning again, fully submerged. There is no treading water. There is no dignity, no carefully held pride.  
  
There is no denying the thrill of it.  
  
"I have not taken an Order I did not wish to in all my life," he whispers, though he is the one meant to be receiving answers. He heard, though. He heard the thoughts, the desires. Erik aches just as he does. "Not a single one, and when I did, it was not to be obedient. I have not once kneeled. Not once submitted. My entire life, no one has ever proved themselves capable of inspiring it, and so I didn't. Why would I?" He chuckles, but his eyes are fierce, every turmoil he's mulled over pulled to the surface. "What makes you different, Erik Lehnsherr?" He knows it's a question he will not get an answer for. He wonders who he's truly asking.  
  
"I don't know," he answered, but it was-warm-enthusiasm-joy-breathlessness, his lips upturned in welcome. His eyes were bright, so bright as Charles wanted to rage against him, and he wanted that rage and he wanted to take it into himself and put it down. He doesn't know if it's an answer to Charles's first question, or his second. Maybe both. Maybe Erik Lehnsherr knows nothing, he is a sieve for Charles-only, a vessel welcoming this-whatever-it-is. Resistance-revolution, this man who stands up in the face of all who would seek to shove him into neat little boxes.  
  
Erik knows. All his life he was in a box and they told him, this is how it's going to be. And it was that way, because he couldn't break the barrier. Until he did, and now he wants to grip every last bit of it he sees in Charles-in his hands and yank it out screaming, this fierce pain and desire mingled together-this lifetime of refusal-fear-nothing-listless. To soothe it down. Evaporate like water droplets on burning coals, fading wisps of smoke dissipating in the breeze.  
  
His fingers tighten slightly over Charles's knee, the fabric of his tragically expensive _Dormeuil_ giving way as he relaxed, rubbing his thumb along the inner edges of Charles's calf- _kurwa_ -he's forcing himself not to come out ragged, to simply inhale calmly. Of course he succeeds, and swallows, tilting his head. "Is that what you want, Charles?"  
  
His eyes fall to where they touch, every breath punched out of him at once. Charles has never known desire. He's known responsibility, and predictability, and boredom. He's known dissatisfaction. He's known everything before it comes, two, three, four steps ahead, and always either under or above expectations. He has never had this. Never breathlessness, never want, never head-spinning. He cannot think straight. Charles has always been able to think straight. "I don't know," he returns, and it's barely above a whisper. Erik did not Order him to look, and so he doesn't, his gaze on his hand instead. He shivers. "What do you want, Erik? Do you know?"  
  
Erik's hand lifts from Charles's knee, hovering by his face. He can't help himself, entranced-such a distinct sensation gripping his gut and filling up his synapse-impulses and he just smiles and traces two fingers along the edge of Charles's jaw. Ghost-touches-it's his left hand because the right one's braced-up now-ineffective and hanging by his knee like a dead tree branch. "I want to talk with you," is what he answered, the words less perfect, less enunciated than earlier.  
  
Charles closes his eyes. Erik is his patient. Erik is his patient, and Erik is a murderer. Erik has taken lives, however cruel, however guilty themselves. He's endangered others. Erik's mind is so many scattered, broken, terrified and angry pieces, and Charles is fascinated, is enchanted, but does he truly believe he can save him? Charles swallows. He attempts to breathe. If he moves, he will do something he regrets. If he opens his eyes, he will lose his sense of control again. And how dare he? How dare Erik break down something he's spent years cultivating, years priding himself on. Charles had convinced himself there was no one to match him. He had made his peace.  
  
"Then talk," he says, but the words are clipped. "I'm listening, Erik."  
  
He doesn't flinch at the change in tone-perhaps he's incapable, just stares impassively back, cataloging every microexpression, every unconscious automatism. If his muscles tense up in anticipation, well, blame the adrenal medulla-needs a new one of those. "You are aware of what happened," he said, referring to Charles's very first request. "Do you not understand?" Erik looks up, plaintive. Of course Charles could never-his clipboards and fancy suits and private jets and limousines-Erik sorrowed for Charles in many ways, for the emptiness and isolation he reflected back, but-this is not a man who can understand him.  
  
And he is selfish, because he sorrows for that most.  
  
"Ah. There it is." He's not sure why he says it. Charles' smile is strained, and he feels - he's not entirely sure. Where he would normally react with calmness, he finds himself unusually irritated. Not at Erik, and his tone should make that clear enough. Perhaps with the situation. With the circumstances. With himself. He does not look up. "You're correct. I do not have the same upbringing as you, Erik. I never worried for the same things you did. I don't know pain the way you do." It's the truth, and denying that does neither of them good. He could explain his own isolation, his loneliness, his confusion, but where would it take them? What would be the point, when nothing could possibly measure up in the wake of Erik's suffering? "I'd still like to understand," he says, and the words are soft again, because he is not wired for anything less. Because he cannot fathom not being what he is. "I'd still like to help. Just because I have not experienced your pain does not mean I can't feel it all the same. You're more than your own suffering, Erik. Allow yourself to be."  
  
Simply a patient. Charles attempts to detach himself, to create barriers where they should exist. He does not look up. He does not move. He does not breathe too deeply, as if sharing breath with this man will forever alter him.  
  
Charles is always several steps ahead. The inevitable is a concept he knows well.  
  
They're still so close. Erik's leaned forward, separated by mere centimeters, his Will extending out of himself and wisping through the room balanced on air-particles charged-up electrons rotating, but he does not catch onto it, he does not grip it in his hands and wrench. He does not act, for all that he could. "I don't want you to experience my pain," he said, with a sharp little laugh. "Is that what you think?"  
  
"No. If you did, I would already have experienced it." He is perfectly aware that Erik is capable of it. There is evidence, more than enough of it, to prove exactly that. It's the reason they're in the room they are Charles shakes his head. "I don't believe you want me to, Erik, but I believe you need someone to. You can't keep all that suffering inside of you. There simply isn't room for all of it. Let me understand."  
  
"You can't understand why," he waved his good hand. "You think-" a half-smile. "Because you have never been there. I am grateful for that." The smile blooms fully and he looks at his feet. His damaged leg turned-in a little, this body a tapestry of pieced-together sticks-and-bones. "Experience is what you are asking for. I can't give you that. I won't."  
  
He makes a stressy noise, his composure cracking slightly as he struggles to find the words, looking up at the ceiling. Words for the screaming and the blood and the flayed skin. Words for the cages and the people inside them. No words for Erik-it no longer touched him-but the little blonde girl and the boy with bloodied broken wings and the blue boy and the dozens and dozens of-words for the metal he can feel in the wind and the wires and the coin that doesn't move-  
  
 _("If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first. Neither will you stand against the blood of your neighbor.")_  
  
Charles listens. He listens with more than his ears, as he always does. As he's always had to. He listens, and processes, and tries not to dig any deeper than the first layer. The layer that he often cannot shield from himself, the layer that is as audible to him as words spoken. He clenches his jaw, though he isn't angry. This is not his pain, Erik is right. But he feels it. He knows it is there. He files the information away, though he would rather it did not exist at all. It will help, he tells himself. Their screams will help. He moves. Charles reaches down, searching for Erik's hand. The other day, there was only the echo of a touch. Now he grazes, still timid. Still searching. "I understand, Erik," he says, and his lips pull up at the corners. "You won't have those experiences again either. I promise you that."  
  
Boldly, because he is bold if nothing else-he curls his hand into Charles's palm, eclipsing his fingers and squeezing gently. The moment their hands connect a livewire shoots up echoing-reverberation and he sucks in the beginning of a startled breath before leaning back out of it. The perfect impression of cool impassivity is marred slightly by the red flush creeping up his neck. "You should not make promises you cannot keep, Dr. Xavier." It's amused-as though he finds such naivete charming. This man who is a telepath and who knows the deepest-and-darkest still so convinced he can block out the endless Night ( _keep me in your abyss one moment more,/one moment more of what I’ve been till now,/a pile of lifeless, desiccated clay)_  
  
-and yet, for the briefest stutter of a second, Erik wonders if it could be true. If Charles could direct the World, blot out the suffering, smooth blankets over the living-monsters and tuck them into little boxes of peace and-goodnight moon, goodnight stars-he looks up, once-more trying to catch Charles's eyes. "They are safe now," he just says, glittering sunlight against orange-yellow sands stretched for miles and mountains in the distance. Out of the cold and into the radioactive ozone, sunlight like a hug. Erik misses the sun and he misses the sun less when Charles is in the room, because he brings the sun with him. They are in orbit, with threads of Erik's Will floating all around them, and he gathers them carefully and it feels as though he's twined one around Charles's wrist, imploring calm-relax-easy-shivery adrenaline-rush, but he doesn't push any further.  
  
"I intend to keep it." There's more he means to say. He has questions, endless questions, and a list of them he intended to get through by the end of the session. He wants to ask Erik so much, to know so much, to understand the fragmented bits of his mind that make up the extraordinary whole. But it seems with Erik, he's easily distracted. He stares at their linked fingers, squeezing softly as if testing the grip. Erik's Will seems to be surrounding them, suffocating but not unpleasantly so. Drowning again. Charles gasps, cheeks pinked and body shivering, his entire world shaken again. Everything becomes zeroed down to one sensation, and his limbs become jelly. Without question, without thought, he obeys. He relaxes. "Please, Erik," he says again, imploring, but it's almost too quiet to hear, and he doesn't know what he's asking for.  
  
That gasp rockets through him, forcing all of his conscious thought to scatter away like birds and heat to pull out from every starving nerve-ending and punch its way into his chest. Erik's hand moves on Charles's to slide up against his wrist, thumb tracing the sensitive vein on the inside. His eyes darken impossibly, half-lidded as he regards Charles with all the pent-up power of a circling panther, capturing its prey, but Erik is impossibly still, only the slow, steady movements of his thumb against Charles's skin the telltale sign that he's a person, not a statue seated before him. He leans forward-Charles can surely feel his breath against his cheek, but then he's speaking into Charles's ear, low and steady and capable, and he doesn't recognize his own voice when it comes out, and all that Will gets poured down into it, Order clear as a ringing bell shuddering through Charles's body and shuddering through him on distorted-repeat decibel-screech.  
  
"Tell me what you want, Charles."  
  
Charles is trembling. It takes him a moment to realize it, because he's quite sure he's never reacted to anything so strongly. The heat in his belly is molten hot now, and he can't swallow around the lump in his throat. He's never been so aware of his body. Charles has spent most of his life in his own mind and the mind of others. His body was a necessary tool and nothing more. Until now. The sound that escapes him is like nothing he's heard before. He can only describe it as a whine. There's something coiling in him, something snapping. He's pulled taut and relaxed all at once.  
  
He has to obey, wants to more than anything, but he doesn't know the answer. Charles flounders, breathless and aching, leaning close, close, closer, because he needs to be. "I don't know," he gasps, and he has never been so helpless, so wildly out of his own control. "Please -- tell me --" He doesn't understand, at first, what he's begging for. And then, all at once, he does. Tell me what to do, he says, not out loud, but he's certain in that moment Erik can hear it regardless. Order me. Charles had assured himself he no longer craved this, this sensation he had resigned himself to never experiencing. He had been so very, very wrong.  
  
Erik's head tipped back, that reaction melting rich, luxurious pleasure through him, from the back of his neck to the tips of his toes-never felt this before and it shocks like cold water over his head. " _Ken, neshama_ ,"-doesn't even realize he's saying it-has to move, to twist his hand in the soft strands of Charles's hair, tug him backwards to really meet his eyes, the Order unspoken but very much present-don't look away-they're practically pressed up against one another-when he speaks his lips brush the outer shell of Charles's ear and he lets them, briefly succumbing to the urge to press a kiss near the point of his throat. "Shall I Order you to kneel, hm?" It's a question isn't it but the force of it, Will dragged from depths Charles couldn't fathom-  
  
Charles had always imagined it to be mindless. Pure instinct, debased and primal, barbaric, even. When he wasn't lamenting the fact that it was just another way he was abnormal, he found himself grateful. He certainly never wanted to lose himself completely to another. But the thing was - he hadn't. Charles was aware. The guard outside the door had not checked, would not check for a while. Charles urged him not to, a nudge of influence that barely required a shred of concentration. He was aware of things he had been minutes ago, as well. Erik was his patient, a criminal, a murderer, and this was far from the realm of acceptable. He simply didn't care. Charles gasps again, eyes nearly rolling back with the force of it, but they do not. He looks because he has to, but also because he wants to. Because Erik wants him to, and there's nothing more satisfying than that to him in this moment. Subs had spoken to this countless times before, told him, no, it wasn't coercive - he would want it, crave it, need it. Orders would become air, he would suck them in and still feel like he could hardly breathe until he'd earned another, until he'd earned praise...  
  
He understands now. His body is singing. Everywhere Erik touches lights up, every sensory point on fire as he fights not to squirm in his hold. Somewhere far away, Charles feels a spike of fear. How many times had he gotten the Order? How many times had it made him feel absolutely nothing? "Please, Erik," he whispers, and the words tumbling out, and he's aware he says them twice, then three times, then four - not aloud, but telepathically, a link he hadn't known he'd created until he'd opened it. Please, please, please, he says, a thousand times and yet only once, and realizes they were right. Erik is his air, and he cannot breathe like this. He needs more earnestly than he can ever remember needing anything.  
  
He needs Erik.  
  
For all his life, Erik has been careful. Never speak too quickly. Never say more than necessary. Always be aware of the bending forces in air particles, always hold them so delicately in his fingertips-nourish them and nurture them and all the people who walk the Earth beside him like little ants with tiny-legs and precious laughter-joy-wonder- and he is destined, by something-certainly not narcissistic to consider himself Divine-but the weight of responsibility-counting red-seeds slipping through his fingers into the soil and running and falling over and looking at the sky through thatched-rooftops and he was born on Yom Kippur- _Happy Yom Kippur!_ -except-really. For all his life he has been bound to obligations- _six hundred thirteen_ love the stranger, do not kill, do not steal, stand upright-how many he has broken, how many lives he has crushed under the overwhelming compulsion of his Voice- _six hundred and forty-seven_ for each brand of ink on his arm-  
  
 _six hundred and forty-eight_ for every person who has raised hand to him, to accept into himself the strike, not to grip the knife and shove it through their ribs and out their back and listen to their pitch-gurgle screams-to come back with kindness, _chesed, tzedek_. Justice, justice you shall seek. He is good until the day he isn't.

and he is good. He does good. For so long he is good, caring for them like Ruthie-pretty girl with dark ringlets cascading down her shoulders and matching freckles and deep, almost red eyes and contagious grins-taught him, not to form the world to his Will because it is an empty-world, populated with mannequins desperately clawing at their conscience, trapped behind the glass of Erik's indomitable Command. He is good until Shaw learns what he is and re-creates him- _move the coin_ -Order suffusing his blood, scenting the air-Threat. Challenge. Destroy.-but he is bound and strapped and Propofol-protocols keep him hazy-nauseous and he moves the coin, and they die anyway.  
  
And Charles is clutching to him, body-trembling with want and desperation and please, Erik and his head swerves dangerously and they both feel it when it explodes out of him in response like a tidal wave, drenching every breath of air Charles sucks into his lungs and spreading through his chest and arrowing to his groin without purposeful direction.  
  
Erik's vibrating, barely-perceptible but Charles perceives All and he feels it when Erik's immaculate, meticulously constructed walls-and-rituals bleed away into the atmosphere. " _Ken, tov, neshama_ ," he keeps repeating, smoothing his hand over Charles's hair-taking-care of him, yes, I'll give you what you need. Be easy. Don't worry. "Look at you," he murmurs softly, an observation unintended for speech. His hand's moving and his thumb lingers on Charles's jaw, over his lips, careful-careful, pressing their foreheads together. " _Habet li_ ," he laughs a little, his whole face changed from the grim-dark horrors, he's simply a young man standing across from him-not a care in the world. "Show me," he repeats with a voice like gravel. "Show me, Charles," it's closer to his ear now. Erik's palm rests on his belly, a light-touch that pulls everything down. Above him-Erik's taller by a good head, expectant and confident and full of-  
  
When the Order comes it's like the world whites out. "Kneel for me."  
  
In that instant, everything shatters.  
  
Charles is unlike the others, they say. Not a true submissive. He feels no pull, has no place. He walks like a Dom, head held high, hand outstretched, that easy smile on his lips as he takes, takes, takes. He speaks firmly in a room full of bowed heads, strides confidently to a Dom's walk. Not once does he falter, not once does he stutter. He is in control, and they know it.  
  
 _("Charles is not a submissive," Raven says once, fond and exasperated. "He's his own brand.")_  
  
It's a cloying thing inside of him. He will never be like them. He will never experience the world like they do, trapped on the outside where he can hear feel listen but not experience. Voyeuristic and pathetic, he watches, trapped inside his own mind, trapped inside his own abnormality. What is it that makes him so strange? So unlike them? He studies for years, read books and computer screens, comes to no conclusion. Happenstance. He is simply not enough, or perhaps altogether too much. Until now.  
  
In the second it takes him to kneel, the entire world is reframed. Suddenly, he is not alone. Every narrows, refits, bursts with spark and heat and yet - and yet it doesn't. The heat in his belly burns, the fire inside of him rages, the sparks dance at his fingertips, explode down to his knees and the floor beneath him. But it calms, too. It soothes. Charles does not realize there are tears in his eyes until they are. After years of drowning, of course the first gulp of air would be a relief unimaginable. Erik's face has changed. He is beautiful like this, and all Charles can see. The world around them is irrelevant, so much so that it may not even exist.

The buzzing in his head stops. Just for a moment, because he knows it will return. Their voices, their desires, their fears, their everything - it will come back to him, and it will fall on his shoulders. He will carry them everywhere he goes. But now, in this instance, there is only Erik. Charles sobs.  
  
It the first time he has ever made someone kneel in this way. Erik feels it in his chest like his ribs are cracking and exposing the fragile pulsating skin of his heart-beat-beat arrhythmic-rhythm. Charles's tears inspire him to move, to scratch his fingers through his hair, hushing him with lullabies-long-forgotten- _ofyn pirpetchik brent a fayerl ir vet, elter vern vet ir aleyn farshteyn vifl in di oysyes lign trern_ -on the hearth a fire burns, when you grow older you will understand how many tears lie in these letters-no need for tears, not anymore,  
  
Erik moves like he's compelled as though the Order comes without, imperative and he tilts Charles's face up with fingers under his jaw, lightly tracing down the line of his throat, everything in him clenched-up and gasping-he catches the salt-tracks on his nail, swipes them away with infinite tenderness. "Like this, just like this," his mind is singing, perfect. You're perfect. _Nehedar_. His eyes are dark, heady with power thrumming-through him. The praise is automatic, as automatic as fingers-curling to palm, You're doing so well. So good for me.  
  
He doesn't move-doesn't act, just stands-chin tipped up to the ceiling, like Charles's submission will suffuse him and sustain him-and it does. It can do no less. He's still Charles. He's still here. Erik's filled with wonder at it, that he's exuded the barest extension of his Will and it hasn't bowled Charles over-hasn't subsumed him and killed him the way he knows it would anyone else, the way he's always had to exercise-care-careful-careful-don't hurt them-  
  
" _Royk, royk_ ," he breathes, grinning. "It's good, hm?" His voice is spoken out of the Will, out of the deep-dark and raspy with heat-yes-good-desire. Yes, it is good.  
  
Charles leans into every touch like it will sustain him. Like it is the only thing keeping him within gravity's pull, the only reason he exists. When Erik moves, however minutely, he follows. The tears well up in his eyes, but no longer fall. Erik is here, and the overwhelmed heat that coils inside of him is cooled by his touch, by his words, by his thoughts, by his presence. He rubs his cheek against Erik's palm. Coarse and smooth all the same. So soft and so powerful, so much care in someone with the potential to be so destructive.  
  
Yes, it's good. Charles doesn't speak, but he smiles. Not the mindless, helpless expression of a man with his will stolen with no sense of it, but one finally experiencing what it means to have his matched. He still has his faculties. The moment Erik pushes too hard, he could ruin him. Get inside his head in ways no other would ever be capable of. Rip control back with a simple thought. But he doesn't. He kneels, and he sighs, and he breathes. Old thoughts race back to the surface - not meant for this, different, strange, not good enough... But Erik said he was good. Erik put him on his knees, and he went willingly, Order or not.  
  
Charles lets himself go. He floats, somewhere strange and new and altogether intoxicating. "Erik," he breathes, like it's the only word he knows. The only one that matters.  
  
He's put people into subspace before-his presence without intention, people around him gasping and forcing themselves to continue-on as normal. It's an unavoidable aspect of his existence-but never like this. With intention. " _Ani po_ ," he returns softly. I'm here. Banish those thoughts, he seems to say, threading his fingers through the soft strands of Charles's hair that's fallen into his face, tucking it aside. No one else can have you. No one else can tell you that you aren't enough. Erik lowers just a bit, enough to press a kiss to Charles's forehead with chapped lips, enough to tug him even-further down into the deep-deep-world of fog-catching dust-motes of light floating away, away, bone-solid calm-relax-yes. Lean into it, lean into it. Erik's half-snapped-off, strictures of control and Order clenching his fists to stay in the Real, so he doesn't-because he could-eyes-closed balance, this overwhelming power, this annihilating Will. "Yes," he says in English. "Be easy." It's got the tinge of Order, like maybe-all his words do.  
  
You deserve this. You deserve this, it seems to say, not-harsh punishment-cruelty. You deserve this joy. Erik wants to give to him, but he is a patient and a murderer and they are in a cell, in the hidden building in the hidden plains. So he just rubs Charles's back, tells him to be-easy and doesn't-no, save it for the dreams-when they throw him into the darkness and close the slats on the universe.  
  
Charles has never felt particularly calm. The buzzing has never stopped. Incessant, ringing in his ears, shaking in his bones, he hears their voices. Voices from miles away, voices from within the same room, voices, always voices. He can focus it now. He can narrow it down, find individuals like beacons of light and follow them like following a map of the stars. But the buzzing never stops. Not until now. Erik is the brightest star he has ever encountered. His mind is more than light. It's white hot, all consuming, and it burns out everything else. It doesn't leave him ruined, though. Calm. Easy, peace, content. Charles floats. He listens, and he hears, his own mind a mix of languages though truly he should not be fluent in one of them, has never practiced and will never have to. Erik knows it like breathing, and so he does, too. Erik has touched him now, changed him irreversibly. There is no going back from this, but no room for panic. No space for it in this small cell.  
  
Charles opens himself. It's a two way link now, and he couldn't close it if he wanted to. He whispers, but does not speak: show me, Erik said, and so he does. He shows him the house he grew up in, far too big for him, far too empty. Loneliness, aching and eating away at him, chipping, chipping, chipping. Fear. He is young and afraid, he does not know why the voices won't leave. He is alone and he is scared. His mother does not come for him. He is older, but he is lonely, even with Raven. He is lonely and he is confused - why is he alone? Why is he different? Why does he not feel as they do? Why must he watch, listen, watch, never touching? One way glass. He knows them before they could even begin.  
  
He opens, and - reaching, reaching. Someone to match him. Someone to feel the way that he does, with the intensity that he does. Someone on the same frequency. His mind is deadly, and he resents it so often. Please, let me be normal. Please, let me feel, too. He feels like he is broken. He recalls the first time they met. Charles is fascinated, intrigued, thrumming with... something. Energy he's never felt. Desire he's never been able to touch. That first Order devastates him. He cannot remove it from his mind. He cannot remove Erik from himself anymore.  
  
Erik takes the memories in-every empty room, every disbelieving scoff from Doms who couldn't comprehend why Charles was standing with his head held high despite their Orders. He puts his hands on those memories, fingers smoothing them over like carding through hair, holding Charles beside him in the Real, slightly bent. Every turn-away by the woman with the half-full whiskey tumbler, Oh, Charles, you really should know better-every condescending grimace, echoes of their minds pressing in and diving away from your own self-made prison and it shouldn't be suffocating-lonely-terrified because they should buffet him and wrap him up and let him exist in new-worlds away from the empty-rooms but they just press and press and press-judgment.  
  
Erik sees. He sees and he Knows.  
  
Being in prison has been a relief. It's the first thing Charles ever learned about Erik. As disdainful as this place is, with its cold suppressive walls-they have suppressors, but there's nothing to do about avoiding circuitry, so they can't force Erik down. No one in this city, perhaps in this country, could force him down, let alone lock up his powers. So they're relegated to this, a plastic prison, but he sees the sun for an hour a day and he eats real food and he reads his books and plays chess with himself on the wall and watches dots-of-people mill about the grass.  
  
The people here are kind to him-in Erik's mind, they are-to Charles they're churlish and cold-and the nurse who made the mistake of filling a water jug next to him as he's laid prone in sickbay for a medical examination, guards with their plastic guns on standby-ah, that's what it is-impulse-memory the sound of water sloshing, and he Orders her to get out-and now he's here in this prison-inside-a-prison. But other than unintentional flashbacks, or the at-times cursing or handling with careless fingers, to Erik who has not known anything but bone edges and blows, it's relief sinking-deep into him, warming his chest and relaxing his muscles.  
  
The thing about it is, in Charles's professional experience, many victims of trauma become wary and distrusting-they detest authority, they lash and rage. Erik isn't that way, his features are open, curious, he allows himself to be led along by his superiors despite the fact that he could Order them to kill themselves in a heartbeat. At some point the mind fractures like a kaleidoscope and the nuances, the fears, they melt away until you become nothing but baser instincts, an animal moving toward light, accepting what comes toward you without hesitation. And Erik accepts.  
  
And then there's Charles. The man who wants to help him, who wants to save him. Who firmly planted himself on the side of Erik when he began working with Carmen Pryde, a notorious defense lawyer with zero compunctions about political correctness. And then there's Charles, the man who just seconds-ago lowered gracefully to his knees, to the floor of this prison-inside-a-prison, who looks at Erik with desperation and wild, wide eyes and tears-falling and who takes comfort from him-( _Inscrutable doctors, sensible doctors/who took the piss when I shaved my head/who lied and said it was nice to see me./Who lied./And said it was nice to see me_.)  
  
Not normal, Erik agrees gently. Never normal. Please, never be normal. He doesn't want polite-Charles, nice-Charles, Charles who asks how do you feel about that? Charles who walks with his head bowed next to Moira, who takes his rightful place two-paces behind a dom. Charles's rightful place is here. Next to Erik. On his knees, looking-up-two deadly minds in orbit, lost-planets unnamed and obscured by space-dust.  
  
"Shh, shh," he murmurs. " _Royk, royk. Ze beseder. Atah beseder. Ani atapel bekha_." I'll take care of you. He told Charles not to make promises he could not keep, and there's no way Erik can keep such a promise-where he is, their positions-and that flashes through Charles's head-but Erik's so confident, his Will is so assured of this, that it's impossible to disbelieve. You're good. You are good. You are good. Erik's knees bend-right-leg awkward, and this itself is not what Doms should do-it's not acceptable, socially deviant, but he kneels down next to Charles and the mirroring submissive pose should be jarring but Erik is surrounded in Will and it thunders in the room, his whole body changed, healthy and robust, grinning as he takes Charles's face in his hands. _I'll take care of you_ , he promises, pulling Charles closer to him.  
  
Now that the overwhelming magnetism ( _ha!_ ) of Erik's Will has settled, Charles finds it not nearly as all consuming as he'd thought it be. For all that he longed and ached for this, he'd certainly done his fair share of scoffing. Why on Earth would he want to lose himself, the way he'd seen other subs do? Why would he want to sacrifice his own thoughts and passions and wonders for the sake of someone else, someone who, based on how these things tended to go, he'd barely even met? Sit down, Charles, be quiet, Charles, hush now, Charles. What if those Orders had actually worked? Head down, Charles, no, Charles, that's ridiculous, Charles --  
  
He would not be here. He can't quite decide where he would be, but he imagines dull and subdued, and that disgusts him.  
  
Erik reminds him of something. His mind races, suddenly, awareness flooding back -- and he's still capable, even with the room more filled with Will than air, even with Erik's body pressed against him and his hands on his cheeks. He breathes, breathes, breathes, and - yes, he can think. He can wonder. He can feel beyond what Erik wishes him to, though there's still calm, relax, calm, calm. And why shouldn't he be? He's perfectly safe. Perfectly safe.  
  
He doesn't want either of them to move. There are things to attend to, though, and Charles frowns - pouts, perhaps, as Raven would surely call it if she were here. Then again, Erik seems more than capable of following his mental words as well as he is his verbal ones, or even better. There's no language or code switching to thoughts, not truly, not the way people would believe there are. He hears the words, but the feelings and meanings are far more important, and that is absolutely universal.  
  
So, he recalls something new. Something far more recent. No reason to hide anything from Erik, not when he's the one most involved, not when it's his freedom on the line. He replays important parts of his week, just as Erik did, skipping over certain particulars - no need to replay desperate thoughts here, thoughts of Erik, thoughts of doubt. He does show Raven, for the moment or two she appears in the recall, merely because he knows Erik would adore her. Special, extraordinary, that's what she is. She took his form to mock him, briefly. He lingers there for just a moment, radiating fondness, and then elaborates in case it wasn't abundantly clear - _sister, she's my sister_.  
  
Medium security gen-pop. Charles has seen it before, has worked with patients there. To Erik, in comparison to now, it would be relative freedom - open spaces, entertainment, certain rights Charles could never fight for here. Chess without the shadows on the wall. Charles smiles, then shows another image, like an offhand comment - he's never lost a game of chess, even with his telepathy turned all the way down.  
  
"I'm going to help you," he promises. And finds it odd and exhilarating that even now, deep in a subspace he thought perfectly mythical, he feels resolute. Determined.  
  
Erik's smile is radiant. She's extraordinary, breathes in tandem, when Raven's form shimmers and blue-yellow-red blend together and shimmer, settling into deep, impossible azure-azure like Charles's eyes, and Charles's eyes are on him-watching him, and nothing could compare to that azure, not even the wondrous perfection of Raven's mutation. He presses further, though, concern? Safe? Someone like Raven-he shudders in Charles's hold. What Shaw would do to someone like Raven-it echoes the same tortured imagination Charles went through upon sifting up Erik's memories.   
  
His eyes blink-closed and then open, pupils dilated so that the bright sea-green of his irises is barely a glimpse. Ragged-breaths through his chest, as he maintains impassive, impossible stillness opposing Charles, still-will crawling up his toes and through his fingertips on Charles's face, soft-skin and pinked-flush and he thinks, _this is the most beautiful thing I have ever encountered, and I assure you that if we played chess, I would win_. He's laughing.  
  
Charles laughs. Laughs full and hearty, because - how incredible. He just showed Erik freedom, something larger than anything he's ever seen, and somehow he's focused on Charles. Worried about his sister (so is he, but the grim thought only lasts a moment), about the minute details most would not even notice. He's beautiful like this, so full of power and Will and so focused on being gentle, sweet, kind. "No, you certainly would not," he says aloud, and grins. Erik may be in a position to have him kneel, but he's fiercely competitive with these things, has relied on his intellect for far too long for that to be taken from him. He always thought it would be taken from him. "You're not a monster, Erik," he breathes, and rests his head close. "I'm very sorry they convinced you otherwise."  
  
"Don't be sorry," Erik says, slow and heavy when speaking aloud. _Never be sorry to me._ He thinks that Charles is the kindest person he's ever met, the only person who has ever spoken to him softly, gently, asked about his well-being-and he sees it through the glimpses Charles has shown him-the way his voice had taken on that hard edge when defending him to Moira and Carmen, like Erik was worth something. It made up for every horror he could fathom. "Play with me." Of course he's latched onto that, fiercely curious and enthusiastic.  
  
"Play with you?" Charles repeats, laughing again. It's a delighted, though disbelieving laugh. Here they are discussing Erik's future, his ability to exist outside plastic walls, and he's concerned with games. Charles can't fault him. How often can he even consider something like this? He can give him this. He wants to know Erik beyond the horrors as well. "I don't believe we have the right tools for that. Unless --"  
  
He hums. Closes his eyes for just a moment, because he rarely uses this ability of his. And there it is. A chessboard (the pieces ornate, intricate, very ostensibly metal), though a mental one. He projects it to both of them. "Of course, I can cheat this way," he points out, grinning. "But I won't. I'd rather beat you by sheer force of will," he teases. Erik may dominate him, but he is not short of his own intelligence and wit.  
  
For the first time-so many first-times with this man, so very enchanting-Erik feels the pull of metal after so long, it's not the first time but it's been so long-oh, Charles chose galvanized steel, bathed in molten zinc and it's deliriously pleasurable-washes over his body-and gravitates toward it, in the mind-world sitting across from Charles, hand hovering over the knight, letting it snap up into his palm. _You won't cheat_ , he returns, certain and joyous. I know you won't. The teasing lilt of Charles's voice is a siren-call, drawing yet another laugh out of him, something he didn't know he could still do until he met this man. Oh, he has no doubt Charles's Will is sufficient, is omniscient and ever-present and it is fascinating and Erik wants to see more, wants to-no, back away from that-  
  
"I will win," he says aloud, eyes bright as he makes his first move.  
  
"I'm sure you believe that," he chuckles, and - it's a bit more difficult to settle himself into the illusion, because he's very attached to Erik's hands on him in the real world (get a grip on reality, Charles, he scolds himself, which is funny, considering he's attempting to do the opposite), but he reaches forward and makes his move as well, watching Erik the whole time. He becomes fascinated, watching the pull of the metal, the way it snaps so easily to Erik's will, hums for him... And this isn't true metal. It's fabricated, a recreation, a mind-approximation based entirely on Erik's recollection of it. "Incredible," he breathes, though he knows the destruction it can cause. He doesn't fear that. Erik could do so much more with it.  
  
Erik can feel that attachment and his hand moves unbidden in the Real to settle the flat of his palm over Charles's chest, a steadying motion that causes him to close his eyes inside the illusion, inhale slowly, his own chest expanding-calming, calming air. It's always been a little secret for him-alone, that his mutation is heavily rooted in his body, electromagnetic resonance under his skin and in his neurons and it's like jolts from Charles's body against his hands and-he feels like he's alive again, and he felt alive as soon as Charles walked in the room and now he's more-alive and so this must be-perhaps it's beyond living, perhaps he's died and G-d took mercy on him and gave him these gifts-eyes open again, he's still smiling.  
  
"Yes," he murmurs.  
  
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. _Toda, adank, dziękuję, danke sehr, gracias._  
  
He leans forward inside the illusion, scrutinizing the board, plenty of plays running through his mind, he filters them now-flexes the muscles of his own consciousness the way he's been denied for years-upon-years-upon-years. Charles is-he's educated-Erik's self-taught autodidact not-brilliant in that way, sneaking books and singing prayers under his breath-in some ways like a child, lacking,-but Erik's smart, always watching, always learning, mapping, memorizing, cataloguing, microfilaments reflecting themselves fragments-created to withstand-pieces of his personality segmented-the professional, the executioner, the pious, the wondrous (buried-so-deep, something for only-Charles), the terrified (dead-zone unoccupied untraversed)-  
  
He knows how to use his mind, how to bring up play-upon-play so Charles is locked in a whirlwind and he can't discern reality from fiction, what Erik will do, what he will Choose, his force of Will obfuscating tactics. They play and play until the board is scattered with pieces, both of them having collected a fair addition. Only this time when Erik moves next it's a genuine surprise, forcing Charles into the defensive.  
  
Erik's still smiling.  
  
And in the end, somehow, Erik was right.  
  
Charles blinks. The entire game feels like it took ages, ages of precision and thought and careful tactics, ages of two extraordinary forces butting against each other, neither willing to back down. Not in this way, at least. It must only take minutes. Outside, when Charles forces himself to check - rude, he thinks, anyone forcing him from this, from this gorgeous little pocket of reality they've created together - no one is particularly anxious. Moira, perhaps, but only in the way she is usually when it comes to a mutant-criminal with Erik's potential. The guards are unbothered. They still have time, in fact.  
  
But he's lost.  
  
Checkmate.  
  
For what feels like another century but only takes up the span of seconds, Charles stares, totally baffled, until he isn't.  
  
He laughs. Shakes with it in the real world, still held up by Erik's body, utterly consumed by it. He laughs until there are tears in his eyes, and then he smiles, smiles so wide his dimples appear and his face hurts, smiles so wide there seems to be more sunlight in the room than possible. "You won," he whispers, breathless. And he knows - is convinced, by more than just arrogance - that Erik is the only one who ever could. "Incredible," he repeats.  
  
Erik is his match.  
  
"I won," Erik repeats in the room, and he's so pleased, it pings off the walls and bounces around the room and shoots into them both-reverberating. Erik presses the pad of his thumb into those dimples and he has won, he's won, but it isn't the game. He's won because Charles is here. He can't help himself, won't be quite so bold but he can't stop-his lips touch Charles's forehead, chaste but it doesn't matter, the force of sensation is enough to knock them both over with a feather.  
  
A knock at the door disrupts them, though, the sound piercing the veil of illusion they've settled into. Returns them to their roles. Doctor. Counselor. Psychiatrist-medicine-authority. Patient. Terrorist. Murderer.  
  
There is no rushing urgency, no panic, no frustration. Erik's Will subsumes those emotions, crushing them under deafening calm. He just smiles gently and helps Charles to his feet when he rises, settling himself back into his chair as though entirely unruffled, unaffected. Charles feels no panic, but there is confusion. Who was he not watching for? He'd reached out - shouldn't he have heard? And then again, no, he wouldn't have. Erik had narrowed everything down, had turned off the buzzing. The buzzing was irritating, frustrating, terrifying, once, but no longer - but it was also safety. Always knowing. Always one step ahead. He takes a breath, but it doesn't come back. Not with Erik in the room. He moves to the door instead, straightening his clothes. The connection isn't broken. It's strange, because maintaining it takes no focus at all. Erik's Will lingers, as do his thoughts, and Charles - effortlessly, thoughtlessly - projects back. His feet are unsteady. His knees knock together a bit.  
  
He feels as if he should still be kneeling. There's no room for panic in his chest, but he feels - empty? Without Erik's hands on him. He focuses - no, calm. Easy. But there's a clash here he hadn't realized. He breathes. He wants to look back at Erik for - direction? For calm, for safety. He wants to be where so many others tried to put him, the space where he never went. He will need to figure this out, then. How do other submissives possibly do it?  
  
Erik rubs his fingers together, knits and unknits them, a stressy automatism he's unaware of, the bare crease of pain when he twists his right hand, fingers twitching electric agony up his arm, rooting him. He gives Charles a nod-it's OK. Be easy. You have got this. I know you do. He's so certain, so proud, eyes locked on him from across the room. But he stands when the door opens, hands behind his back and head ducked as though he's the submissive.  
  
"Time's up, Lehnsherr," he says, pronounces it _lenn-shir_ and Charles feels a little zing at that but it's buried beneath every other inconvenience Erik endures here. "Dr. Xavier, you get what you need?" The guard's a young guy, all swagger and confidence, head buzzed and muscular and looking every bit like a background-thug in an action movie.  
  
Did he get what he needs? The question seems ridiculous in the aftermath of what happened here. Technically, no. They didn't discuss nearly enough of what they should have, but Charles has enough anyway. He can work with what he has. That's a rational thought, a professional thought - but it's accompanied with _help Erik, save Erik, please Erik_. Calm, though. Calm. Erik's Will doesn't coat the walls of the tiny room anymore. It can't now.  
  
His knees threaten to knock together again. He ignores it. Breathe.  
  
"Yes, of course." He looks over his shoulder and smiles, attempts to make it polite. "Until next time, then." He considers tacking on Erik's name - too informal? He can't use his surname (though he would pronounce it correctly, he notes, amused), because Erik told him to call him Erik. He doesn't want to disobey, he can't - No. No, no. No thoughts of that. Outside of the room, with the door shut, Charles is unsteady. He's heard of this. A drop, perhaps. Outside of Will, outside of Orders, a submissive attempting to find their footing. To come down from the high of it all. But he doesn't have Erik's gentle fingers to bring him back, doesn't have his deep, soothing voice.  
  
Steady. Be easy. Yes, this will take some work. Charles ignores the emptiness in the pit of his stomach.  
  
His match is a criminal. This is the price he pays for abnormal-normalcy, it seems.  
  
They shackle Erik up just meters behind Charles as he begins to move down the hall, hands and feet bound in plastic, and his eyes never leave him, pliant under the ministrations of the guard as he's tugged backwards until he has to turn and take step behind him. _Royk_ , whispers gently in Charles's mind like fingertips grazing his temples. Soothing as best he can in these liminal moments of separation. He wishes he could stay. He wishes he could take Charles in his lap and brush his hair and sing him down, and-  
  
And he's gone, the plastic door closing with a loud bang.


	5. But it's only really scary 'cause it makes me feel serene

Of course Moira's at his side in an instant, falling into step with him-notes that he's lagging just a speck, and regards him with a curious raise of her eyebrow. Her tone is cool and collected, utterly confident in itself, in what she believes, firm and brokering no argument when they step into her office. "He'll be returned to Protection-" the unit he'd been on before, the only difference, really, was a slightly bigger cell "-later on this evening. Ordering the nurse down like that-she's a D4.3-she should've been able to resist it. Any insight you can provide here will be beneficial. I understand confidentiality clauses, but there's a reason you've been employed here and that requires an exchange of information."  
  
The further away they get, the steadier he is. He's spent his whole life outside of that space, why should it feel strange to him? He's sweating, a bit - or perhaps he's cold. He can hide that, though. He can hide all of this.  
  
"Of course," he returns, and his voice is steady. He aches, of course he aches, he feels so terribly empty, he feels like he's missing something, he feels - but he puts that aside. Tugs and compartmentalizes. Later, when he's alone. "It's truly not that odd, is it? He's very high on the scale. The highest I've met before him was a D4.5, and she was almost capable of... well, persuading me, shall we say. Not quite, though, and same with him," what a lie, and he knows it's convincing, "but he has quite a lot of Will, and he was afraid. Strong emotions make any Will stronger, that's just the nature of it. Likely a fluke, a moment where their Wills did not clash - I imagine she did not have any stakes in staying, and he had plenty in her being gone in that moment." He shrugs, sitting as he had the last time. "He's very powerful," he says, because anyone would need to be blind and senseless not to notice that. "But not all-powerful, nor unwilling to cooperate. He's reasonable and intelligent, in fact. He meant no harm. My patient has a very difficult, troubled past," he says, and his words momentarily harden. "Trauma plays into how these things develop and manifest."  
  
Moira latches onto that-she's not an unintelligent woman by any means, with a mind as much like a steel trap as Charles had ever sensed. "So you're telling me that we have an unpredictable D4.6 in our custody who, because of his traumatic past-which, for the record, we still don't know anything about-is potentially capable of overriding high-Doms in our facility? That's not inspiring news, Dr. Xavier. Quite the opposite, in fact."  
  
"You're very good at that," he sighs, but doesn't clarify, leaning forward in his chair. The air has whooshed back into his lungs. The world has reformed itself around him. His leg shakes, perhaps, but it can hardly be a sign of weakness when he meets this woman's gaze and raises his chin. "Every high-Dom has that potential, as I'm sure you're well aware. It doesn't mean it's likely, or frequent, or unpredictable. Could he Will you to do something you didn't already consider? No, of course not. That's not how these things work. If he could, are you honestly telling me he wouldn't have already done it? He's had about a million or so opportunities to harm, escape, or both. He has not. Firstly because he's cooperating, and secondly because he simply isn't capable."  
  
"You've already indicated that he's-" Moira's lips turn down, then she redirects, her eyes on Charles, tracking his bouncing leg, his lifted chin in juxtaposition. She doesn't comment on it, but continues, gesturing vaguely. "You say he's rational, intelligent, and I'm not looking to disparage a prisoner under my control, here-" her eyebrows bounce. "That's not what I'm doing. What I'm doing is telling you my observations have indicated the opposite of rational. Intelligent, I can't speak to, but he's-not all there. That makes him unpredictable. We simply can't decide that he's docile, Dr. Xavier. You say he's incapable-what makes you so certain that's the case? He's already Ordered someone down. We're just lucky the situation was contained quickly."  
  
"I implore you to find a patient who is all there after experiencing what mine has. You will not find one." He keeps it vague, as he should, but there's a hardness there. He forces his leg still. He doesn't have the same Will, not the way she's used to, but he is firm in every way, not backing an inch. She will take a mile if he does. He knows her type of Dom - she likely does not even do it consciously. "He Ordered down a nurse after having a trauma response, and he did not Order her into harm - he defensively removed himself from the situation in the only way he was allowed. Give me a single traumatized high-Dom who hasn't been capable of such things - I have a folder full of case files documenting how exceptionally possible it is, and very few of them are dangerous. You're right. He can be a bit... unpredictable. I don't suggest you keep your guard down. I simply suggest you look at the facts. He has cooperated, and I am telling you he will continue to do so. I am also telling you that if he were capable of exerting the kind of Will necessary to make the kind of Orders you fear, I would know. Not only because I am telepathic," he reminds her, calmly, "which makes it rather impossible to lie to me, but because I am an S1. If he were capable of doing so, it would work on me. It does not."  
  
Moira takes in what he says with a carefully shielded expression, although her mind is nowhere-near so, she is rapidly digesting every word and comparing it to what she's learned in the past, what she's experienced, her perception of Erik standing with leashed power and energy on the opposite end of the room, dressed in all black, gaze calculating and strict-severe-features, a veritable wall of palpable-something surrounding them, stubborn refusal to cooperate, to speak, as though selectively-mute. At first she thought it was disrespect, rebellion, the way he is silent to everyone here. The guards, the medical staff, the custodians. Not a single word, with the exception, she thinks, of Charles Xavier. But the man is a telepath, of course he could get into Erik's head, communicate that way. They can't record the sessions so she's honestly not even sure if Erik speaks to Charles-but now she's not so sure. That calculating gaze was a bit too-wide, too-trapped-in-place.  
  
"All right," she murmurs, holding her hands up plaintively. "I see your point, Doctor. I see it, I do. I'm not advocating a change in his routine, I'm simply stating what I've observed. Unfortunately I lack the benefit of telepathic input," she tries a brief smile. It's measured, like everything else about her. "And that's a little-bit the point, is it not? So far Mr. Lehnsherr hasn't spoken a word to us. Do you honestly think he's fit to stand trial?"  
  
She pronounces his name correctly.  
  
"Yes." He says it without a moment's hesitation. In any other circumstance, perhaps he would suggest an insanity plea. Not here. He matches her smile with one of his own, exuding his own confidence and assurance. "He's perfectly capable of speaking, and of testifying. He has quite a lot to testify to, and he deserves a fair trial as anyone else would. I understand your concern. I won't say he isn't... unstable, at the moment, because he is. But he is also very intelligent, and very capable of being rational. These conditions aren't exactly... ideal, you realize, especially for someone so traumatized. He needs proper treatment. I am doing my best." He holds back an amused smile, but his lips twitch anyway. "This will be quite a trial. I don't imagine there's a set of eyes in the nation not watching."  
  
"Agreed," Moira says wryly, giving him a blink that's nearly a flicker of a fond eyeroll. She's very clearly displeased about the sensationalism that's surrounded _Langley_ over the past week. "There's not much to be done about the conditions," she says. "I only have so much control over that-as far as Langley's concerned, Erik Lehnsherr is a suspected high-Dom terrorist with an omega-level mutation. He's powerful enough that our suppressors don't work on him. That's got my people running scared, Doctor. Surely that's not surprising to you?" Her eyebrows raise again, this time expectant. "We're still in the process of determining how he got to America," she finally gets around to the real reason behind this debriefing. "My superiors are extremely anxious to formulate a timeline from his departure to his arrival. Anyone who may have helped him, forged documents, et cetera. Has he been open to you at all in this regard?"  
  
"Not yet." He sighs, momentarily frustrated. He was supposed to ask, but he didn't. Charles hides that well, crossing his legs. "He will. Keep in mind we've only had two sessions, and he's very guarded - you must see that for yourself. I know quite a lot, and when I know more, especially anything concerning the safety of American citizens, I'll let you know. As I said, I don't believe it was an organized terrorist attack on the government of the United States. There's no link to suggest any immediate danger. He's certainly not orchestrating anything within holding, nor is he part of any known terrorist group. That I can assure you." He leans back, finally. "He's been incredibly forthcoming, so I doubt he won't tell me this. Remember that I am a psychiatrist, not an interrogator. I'll do everything within my power."  
  
She nods. "I understand-but you also must understand that if he refuses to talk to us, you may very well end up in that position purely by circumstance. The fact of the matter is that he has information that we require, and my superiors _will_ do whatever is necessary to obtain it. I'm advocating a compassionate approach-I believe you when you say he's been traumatized-but _Langley_ has a very different definition of that word."  
  
"Oh, I'm sure." He sighs, running a hand through his hair. A compassionate approach. He's certainly the most compassionate interrogator Erik is ever going to get. "I'll have the information you need, rest assured. I'm perhaps your best bet." He taps his temple once, though she does not need the reminder. "I understand the situation. I'm merely here to do my job - and my job is to advocate for the wellbeing of my patients. Thank you for allowing me that." He pauses, then realizes he doesn't know something. "How long do you intend to hold him here? When will the trial begin?"  
  
"It will definitively be months," Moira says. "And at this point we aren't looking to blackbox him, so he should be relatively comfortable. He hasn't had any issues eating or bathing. Trials like this take a long time to get right. Both sides are scrambling at this point, rooting through discoveries and putting all their hens in a row. And then there's the trial itself, which is highly unlikely to be short."  
  
"No, it won't be," he assures her. A timeline, then - he can work with that knowledge. There's time to put everything in order, to learn the ins and outs. Erik will not be wholly uncomfortable, and he will see him as often as he's allowed. He will listen, and learn. "Nor will it be low profile. You believe you have eyes on you now - I promise there will be even more soon," he warns her. "This trial will change this nation irreversibly, and the world with it, though perhaps not the way you think."  
  
"I know," Moira says almost gently. "Until now, baselines-us-" she waved a hand at her own chest "-we've always viewed mutants as a sort of problem-child. Something you tuck away and ignore, deny its existence or appease it with small favors so it doesn't grow too anxious and disrupt the party. Erik Lehnsherr effectively called CPS on the lot of us." She finally smirks, apparently capable of humor after all. "What we discover during the course of this trial is going to irrevocably alter the structure of the CIA as an institution, and likely of the federal auspices that govern us. No one likes having their dirty laundry aired."  
  
Charles laughs with her, though there is certainly less humor in the reality of it. He stands and reaches his hand out, waiting for her to take it. A gesture of goodwill. "I like you," he says, perfectly honest. "Though we appear to be on opposite sides here, I'd go as far as to suggest we aren't. I want safety and security as well. Just not at the expense of squashing all that is extraordinary. I have obvious stakes in the game," he points out, unnecessarily. "I'll do what I can to get you the information you need. I don't wish any harm on you or your staff, but I assure you that neither does Erik. I'd like to believe we all want the same things, actually." He pauses, then grins. "Well, depending on how broad we is, anyway. There's a lot of dirty laundry about to be aired."  
  
"I'd like to believe there aren't sides as much as interests," Moira replies as she stands as well and takes his hand in hers, grip firm just as before. "Safety and security are my number one priority, so it would seem that we share similar goals. Working together, rather than against one another, will be of benefit to us both in my opinion. Truth be told, I rather think you're the most qualified candidate for this job, and you appear to be extremely competent, which endears me to you." Her lips quirked up again, Moira's version of I like you, too. "Regrettably, we is very broad. Don't be shocked if Langley tries to contact you directly. They will try and strong-arm you into revealing confidential information if they feel like they're being stonewalled. That's partially the reason I prefer to debrief you myself. I'm told I have somewhat more of a diplomatic touch." If Moira were the diplomatic one, it said quite a lot about her colleagues.  
  
"I can handle myself, you'll find," he says, an amused, confident quirk to his lips again. He always has, and he doesn't believe she doubts that, which is far more respect than he's gotten from some. "Thank you for your diplomacy. I'll work with you the best I can. Until next time, agent."  
  
His legs don't shake as he walks now. He's calm, perfectly calm, and he forces himself not to reach out - if he does, he'll undoubtedly find Erik, and he can't risk that just now. He's shaky enough as it, ripped from subspace rather than eased out. It's a bit like being punched in the gut, he's finding.  
  
They would never trust him if they knew. A mutant and a submissive. This will surely raise awareness, at the very least.


	6. In a way I never thought I'd be because I've never been

Warren Worthington II was the scion of _Worthington Industries_ , a private company exclusively devoted to manufacturing aviation equipment and military interfaces for choppers and fighters. His clothes costed about as much as a small movie production, his smile was practiced and polished, every answer perfectly tailored to present himself and his family in the best of light.  
  
At first glance, he would be someone that Charles distanced himself from-a rich socialite who cared only about their appearance, leaned against the counter of his immaculate kitchen with its marbled-graceful island and sleek-chrome (- _metal, he notices it now, the way it felt in his body, a delicious warmth denied for so long_ -) greenery perfectly hung to create a space that looked like it belonged in a magazine, long fingers wrapped around a whiskey tumbler as he dryly pronounced,  
  
"The fucking CIA doesn't know what the hell its doing, Charlie," his Midwestern accent roughened by liquor and coarseness.  
  
At first glance, Warren Worthington II was just another pretty boy, but then he opened his mouth and transformed-all his thoughts at the surface like bubbles in a lake, and what he thought is what he said-such a rarity that it's refreshing when they're children. And of course War is _rude_ -can't help it-he can get away with anything, and he uses that to his advantage. As kids he was constantly getting into trouble, dragging Charles along after them and using their parents as scapegoats and shields.  
  
As adults, they both matured and grew into their fields. War took over the company as expected, and transformed it into an enterprise that drew the attention of the government, funneling even more money into his offshore accounts, which he used to promote charity work around the world, so at least he was _trying_ according to his definition, and then he had Angel, called him that because the boy was born with a full-set of wondrous, feathery wings that looked unreal but felt just as a bird's, and at-first War was horrified, terrified that this _thing_ -this _person_ that was his child would grow up taunted and warped, that Warren himself would be the one to cause such damage.  
  
And then Angel was taken and Warren had his answer-he loved his boy beyond every reasonable measure and had devoted every ounce and inch of his resources to finding him. They did, dissected and torn apart, left behind in an abandoned warehouse with dozens of other experiments-and Warren Worthington II grew into the man he is now. An uncompromising leftist mutant activist with agenda the size of Texas.  
  
You either hate him or you love him.  
  
Charles laughs, though it's not particularly funny. There's not much humor to it, either. He doesn't drink. He's seen too much of it in his mother, and brief encounters with it leave him feeling out of control and dulled. He doesn't like it any more than he likes painkillers, which is to say not much at all. He sits, though, sprawled, a bit exhausted. There are dark circles under his eyes now. He hasn't been sleeping much. He hasn't been eating much, either, which is a bit worrisome. Raven is starting to notice. This is, besides Raven, someone he trusts implicitly. Someone he can turn to, decompress with, confide in. Except he hasn't done a whole lot of that, besides the obvious rundown. He was the right person to come to with that, as keen on it as Carmen Pryde. It's not the trial that has his mind so foggy. He massages at his temple, a useless gesture because the headache he carries around never truly fades - well, no, that's not true, is it? It did. Charles huffs in frustration. "I'm very close to asking for some whiskey," he mumbles, which for Charles says wonders.  
  
"You're better off with the steak and lobster," War says with little preamble-as-usual. He pushes off the counter with two plates balanced precariously on his arms. "A drink's not going to fix your head, you know that, but you'll at least take care of yourself." It's absolutely an Order, War's a D4 and it shows in his every action. He knows full-well Charles won't obey, never has and never will unless by some funky coincidence he happened to agree with it, or would have done it regardless. War's just doing it to be a shit head, which he's aware of, and grinning because of it. Regardless of his earlier bitching, he takes pity on Charles and when he sits on the couch beside him, it's with an additional whiskey glass in hand which he extends outward. "Lehnsherr got to you, didn't he?" Right to the point, knife-to-throat War goes, because he can do nothing else. They both knew what was at stake here. Warren had been keeping tabs on this case since its inception, since it came out that the Shaw Institute was involved. "Manipulated the dynamics of the situation. That's why you're so twisted up about him."  
  
"That doesn't work on me anymore than it does when Raven does it, but I appreciate the show." It's beating around the bush, and he knows it. He's not going to drink, but he's not sure if he can stomach steak and lobster either - what is Erik eating, he wonders? He groans, running a hand down his face. Of course he'd wonder. "He didn't manipulate anything," he corrects, because it's true. He could have, and he didn't. Charles knows he won't, too, the same way he knows the sun will rise in the morning. There's a long, dreadful pause, one where he considers the situation, and then sighs. It's not like he's done a good job of hiding it. "He's a D5," he says, surrendering the truth.  
  
"Jesus _Christ_ ," Warren spits, staring wildly at his friend from across the couch. "I'm assuming the CIA doesn't know."  
  
"Of course not." Jesus Christ, indeed. Charles rubs at his temples again, as if he can somehow rub out the ache that's developed there. It doesn't work. "I faked his labs. He's a D4.6, as far as they know. You and his lawyer are the only one who know the truth - besides me, obviously. I'd like to keep it that way."  
  
"You know I've got your back, Charlie." War sets a hand on his shoulder, platonic, but sincere. "Be real with me. You're an S1. That's a dangerous situation you've gotten yourself in, not even considering the fake labs."  
  
"I know," he admits, because he's considered it. And considered it, and considered it. He shakes his head. "But he hasn't used that against me, not once. Not a single time. He won't. He could have made me do any of it, any of this - he hasn't. He asked, with not a hint of an Order. He's the only one who could do it, and he hasn't. Not until..." Not until he'd begged. He shouldn't have gone there. He groans again, running a hand through his hair. "That doesn't make it an ideal situation, however."  
  
" _Tell_ me you didn't," Warren's looking right at him, that hard edge in his words, only eclipsed by the genuine concern blaring in his mind. The preparation to deal with just how very fucked-up this is going to get, and loyalty-despite-it. War's all-too familiar with fucked. Comes with the territory, but that doesn't mean he won't grill it out of Charles, who has always been the good one. "You're sure as _shit_ it's not an ideal situation, Charles. Jesus _Christ_."  
  
He deserves that. He deserves worse than that, truly. Charles lowers his head into his hands, his next sigh shaking his entire body. "I did," he admits, quietly, nothing like the self-assured confidence he usually puts out into the world. "He was - he is... I can't explain myself. I know how many boundaries it crosses, I understand that, but he's -" Oh, for the love of. He sounds like a lovestruck teenager. Like the submissives who chittered through lessons in school. "I have no excuse."  
  
"Listen to me. This man is an unregistered D5, is that correct?" Warren's expression indicates that he's not waiting up for Charles to answer, because he keeps going immediately. "You remember Azazel Rasputin. Ordered his girl to jump off the roof, poor thing did it screaming. How can you be sure that he's not manipulating you somehow? You've always been over-confident about your telepathy. You're not immune to everything this world has to throw at you. Yes or no. Did he Order you into subspace?"  
  
"No," he answers, with absolute confidence. The rest he's a bit shaky on, but this he knows as well as he knows anything. "He didn't Order anything before I - before I made it very clear I was okay with it first. And he didn't... there are a thousand things he could have done to me, then, and he did none of them. We played chess." He doesn't explain how or why, exasperated and flustered now. "Yes, I... went into subspace. But I did it willingly. It was the first time that's ever happened to me. I've never been more vulnerable in my life. Don't you think he would have taken advantage of it? But he didn't."  
  
"You realize he's a patient, Charlie." War's fazed, but he's not judgmental, even when the comment on its face sounds condemnatory. "As his psychiatrist, you've got a hell of a stake in this game. If Lehnsherr's smart-" _lenn-shir_ "-he'd play it long. Get you to trust him. You're already attached. Maybe he didn't do any of those things to you he could've, but that doesn't mean he isn't manipulating this."  
  
"He's not." But he knows how it sounds. Charles sprawls out further, eyes closed against the tension. _Be easy. I'll_ \- No, not now, damn it. He forces it back, shakes his head. "I'm not easily fooled, and I've seen too much. He's not... bad. I know he isn't. He's hurting, and very mixed up, but there's so much good in him. He's not manipulating this." Charles bites his lip. "At least not in the way you're suggesting. He's very smart, but not like that. He's not manipulative. I know he isn't."  
  
"How far did you go?" War asks, eyebrows arched. Charles knows what he means. He's not-quite as blunt as he could be, an indicator that he's at the very least sympathetic. And the question he asks is more apt-inquiring on a base level-not just the physical. Charles going into subspace-War knows just how big a deal that is, how his friend struggled with it for years.  
  
Charles groans. It's a reasonable question, though, and they both know it. "Not far," he says, which is the truth, really. "I kneeled." Charles' face is hot, flaming, actually, and he knows he's red up to his ears, but how else can he say it? Never once in his life has he kneeled for a Dominant, and they both know it. "And not much more than that. I told you, we played chess. Just... while I was in subspace," he mumbles the last part.  
  
"I'm assuming _chess_ isn't a euphemism," War jokes, settling back into the cushions. "Alright, so that's what we're dealing with. You're lying for this man, you're putting your career on the line for him. Your life. Is that worth it?"  
  
"Ha, _ha_ ," he mutters, and rolls his eyes. At least it's out there. This had been eating at him since it happened, since he dropped from subspace. Rather violently, too, once he was home and able to actually deal with it. He gave Raven quite the scare (still is giving her one, really). Charles sighs, another slow exhalation, and then nods. "He's worth it, yes," he admits. "Am I a complete and utter fool for thinking so? Don't spare my feelings."  
  
"Then _yes_ ," Warren says, predictably, swirling his glass before taking a large draw, grimacing at the flavor. The burn's good as it settles in his chest and spreads down to his gut. "You can't've known him longer than a week, Charles. How much do you really know about him? I know you aren't keen on skull-diving."  
  
"I know he has an extraordinary mind. I know he's fundamentally good. I know he's kind, and gentle, and patient. I know he has an anger in him that rivals any I've ever seen, but also that it's often justified and comes from a sense of justice so few have. I know he's the only who could ever beat me in a game of chess." Charles laughs, and opens his eyes. The whiskey is looking better and better, but he'd never reach for it. "I've seen people tie themselves together for far less. Haven't you?"  
  
"I guess throw telepathy in the mix and you've got a bit of a different equation," Warren grants him magnanimously. "But you can't tie yourself to Lehnsherr, can you?" And there's the rub. Damn Warren and his insufferable bluntness, but Charlie did ask for it straight. "He's the man who blew up the _Shaw Institute_. He's wanted in two countries. You're never going to have a normal relationship with him. Hell, you are _lucky_ you're able to be in the same room as him right now."  
  
"You're saying his name wrong," he points out, idly, and his hands are back at his temples. There is certainly that to consider, not that he hadn't. Not that he didn't, every moment he had spare brain space for it. "I didn't say I wanted -" He also never said he didn't. And what else could he possibly be doing? Charles knows he's right. Even if Erik gets less time in a moderate security facility, where does that leave them? Nowhere normal. "I had to bring myself down from subspace," he says, instead of anything else, and stares at a spot on the table. Purses his lips. "It was my first time. I put it off, but by the time I got home, I couldn't breathe. It wasn't pleasant."  
  
Warren barks a laugh. "What-that's what the news says! Oh, he must be _pissed_ ," he chuckles. When Charles continues, though, he sobers up and sits straight, looking at him head-on. He wraps an arm around him, brotherly. He doesn't say _I told you so_. Doesn't even think it, and that's one of the reasons they're friends-through the rubble and detritus of elite life. Instead he's thinking that Lehnsherr ( _how am I supposed to say it anyway, eh, fuck it_ ) must be inexperienced-just as inexperienced as Charles, and that's going to make this worse-in the end. "That's fucking difficult, Charlie. I'm sorry." He really is. "He didn't know how to bring you down, or you were interrupted?"  
  
"It was the end of the session. I think he would have done something, he tried to do what he could, but -" He shakes his head. It goes without saying. Erik ended up cuffed, and he ended up walking out alone. "I had to play pretend, so I did. I thought it wouldn't be that bad. I thought everyone was exaggerating when they said things like sub drop." His voice gets quieter. More vulnerable. "They weren't. And yes, I'm aware that's something I'm facing here unless I cut it off cold. There'll never be..." He sucks in a breath. "But it was incredible," he murmurs. "While it lasted. Like breathing for the first time. I truly didn't know what I was missing. It just figures, I suppose. I was never meant for this," that part is bitter.  
  
Warren's sympathetic, and it bleeds onto his face. "I don't know if you are or not," he says, perfectly honest. "You know Doms have a counterpart to sub drop-we don't like to talk about it," he laughs. "When you're that close to someone-putting them down-if that gets broken abruptly-it's rough. I don't know if you can only be put down by D5s. There's, what, twenty of them total? It's bleak, but you can't talk as if you know the future. Even you can't predict what you're meant for. Do what you can do."  
  
Charles pales at that. Instantly he's concerned - a _counterpart_? He must have known that. He does know that, now that he thinks on it. Immediately he sits up straight, panic twisting in his stomach. He reaches out instinctively, searching, searching, but he knows he won't find him. He's unreachable from here, even if Charles did know his mind well enough to find it over that much distance. "Damn it," he hisses. Moira would have called him, wouldn't she? She would have explained the situation. Erik must be okay. Still, he's much more equipped to deal with something like that than Erik is currently - was he okay? Did he suffer? Was he alone when it happened? Charles feels sick, suddenly. "He must be okay," he says, to himself. "He's alright." But his head is still swimming, panic coursing through him and _I need to see my Dom_ \- "Jesus Christ," he whispers. This is not going to end well.  
  
"Get ahold of yourself, Charlie," War tells him, squeezing his knee and searching for his eyes. He's only a D4, but it's better than nothing, a familiar stroke of Order that doesn't even remotely approach the level necessary to affect Charles, but that nevertheless is more comfortable than empty nothingness. "You've got a phone. You can call, right?" Because Erik Lehnsherr has thoroughly fucked Charles, even if it isn't literal, and now he's a sub in half-drop without an available Dom, and fuck propriety. It's not like Warren Worthington II ever asked for permission in his life. "You're the therapist. Phone sessions are a thing, right?"  
  
"I -" Charles attempts to wrap his head around that. He leans into the hand on his knee, because it's certainly something, but it isn't enough. He can call? What would he say? The panic hits again, and he suddenly can't breathe properly. Was there a such thing as submissive separation anxiety? Something like it, he thinks. He must have read it somewhere. Heard it somewhere? Charles sucks in a breath. On the road outside, a car passes by. He hears every thought, focuses on it. _Be easy. Yes, Erik._ "I don't know how I would justify that," he points out, laughing, though it's a bit hysteric. "What could I possibly say to make them hand a phone over to him?"  
  
"Use your authority," War shrugs. "Tell them you had a rough session and you're obligated to check in on him. Make sure he's OK. It's especially effective if he's actually dealing with the _cut_." It's kind of a mirrored vulnerability-not that War's ever been anything but brusque, even during Angel's extrication, he was white-knuckled and dry-eyed, teeth ground into ashes. He speaks about it from experience, the way you'd speak about eating a nasty sandwich. Cool, detached, collected. It's easy to sink into that, take it into yourself, let it bolster you. "That's-sort of what we call it. You won't hear it in public, everybody else says drop. But we know it's being cut. Call him. They'll give him the phone. You're good at that."

* * *

Charles doesn't wait, after that. He excuses himself, and he doesn't think he's ever dialed a number faster. His fingers are shaking, but he forces his voice not to. Authority. His Dom voice, Raven had called it once. Charles isn't a real sub, you know - Except for when he is. It's surprisingly easy to be granted his _phone session,_ and that worries him. Something must be wrong, terribly wrong. Something is wrong with Erik. With his dom. There's static on the line, for a little while. Then there isn't. "Erik?" he asks, and he can't keep the desperation out of his voice. _Please, please, please_ \- He can't stand. He collapses onto the nearest piece of furniture, his whole body tense and strung up, his heart pounding in his chest, in his ears. He might be sick. But no, he can't be. He will keep himself together. He has to.  
  
The voice that answers him is Erik's, without the benefit of his mind which is locked away behind hidden walls and plastic-barred rooms. But Charles has listened to this voice before, knows it intensely. He's calm, so-calm, just like always, and it comes across the phone in his usual deep rumble, "Dr. Xavier." It sounds like _relief-exhale-gratitude-joy_.  
  
"Oh, thank goodness." Charles exhales, too, then breathes in again, exhales. He can breathe again. He holds onto that voice like a lifeline, because for the moment, it is. It hurts a bit, his chest. Not a panic attack, but - well, perhaps the beginning of a panic attack. How do other submissives possibly handle this? This terrible, awful, sinking feeling? He knows the answer. He grasps the phone tighter. Charles must take what he can get. "Are you alright?" he asks, panicked again. "I didn't even _consider_ \- how are you?" He can't hear his thoughts, which is incredibly frustrating, but again. Beggars certainly can't be choosers.  
  
They don't have plastic phones. Erik makes certain their conversation truly is _privileged_ and when he speaks again, it's in the voice Charles remembers-the voice that is for _him_. "I am all right, Charles. It-" he's unused to _speaking_ and now it's all he has, he can't feel the beautiful mind beyond the phone. He's imagining it, conjuring all of the imagery, soothing himself with it. He is good at soothing himself. "It is nice to hear you."  
  
He's alright. Charles clings to that, clings as well as he can. He brings his knees up to his chest, like a child hiding, and breathes easy for a few moments. The panic is still there. He shoves it down. "I - I'm sorry," he stutters, and his voice finally breaks. He feels tears welling up, and he curses under his breath, wiping at them with his free hand. "I - Erik, I shouldn't have -" He didn't do anything wrong. There was nothing to be done. Still, that's a rational thought. All of this business is far from rational. He wasn't good enough. Never good enough, is he? Not meant for this, not meant for this -  
  
"- _lo, neshama. lo._ No," Erik hushes him. "No. You did nothing," he whispers. "Nothing other than-" he breaks off, hears the crack in Charles's voice, and it cracks through him the way an old oak tree bends and twists in the wind, fractures rising through weathered bark. "You're perfect. Perfect, _neshama_." There's a smile in his tone, gentle. He wishes he could be there, could brush his fingers through the hairs at the nape of Charles's neck. Take him in his arms, murmur half-silly things in his ear. Ease away the cold-dead in his gut. Chase off the fear and fright. There is too much fear and fright in him, and he knows just what to do. Just how to scare it back into its oily shadows. But he is trapped in the plastic box, and Charles is trapped inside the metal of this phone, and for all he could do with it, he cannot pull Charles through.  
  
Nothing wrong. Charles listens, listens and breathes, and grasps as tightly as he can. He curls in on himself, the only embrace possible at the moment, and calms himself with that voice. The only voice that could talk him down now, because it was the only voice that could talk him into. He nods, though Erik can't see it. "Okay," he breathes, agrees. He laughs, though it stutters, wet with tears he doesn't want to fall. "You'll have to speak English, unfortunately. I don't actually know as many languages as you. I just have a built in translator," he teases. Another breath. "This is - are you sure you're alright? Not for nothing, Erik, but this is awful." No sense beating around the bush. "It hurts." His voice is small again.  
  
"I know, I know," he soothes softly. Erik thinks. "Close your eyes for me. Can you?"  
  
"Yes," he says, and he does. The world doesn't fade, not the way it did in that tiny cell. The buzzing doesn't stop. He forces it out, the way he's practiced, but he doesn't have Erik's mind to latch onto. Background noise, like a TV left on in the other room. He ignores it. "They're closed, Erik," he says, perhaps unnecessarily, and ducks his head into his knees. Better.  
  
" _Tov_." Then, amends, "Good-very good. Do you remember when I Ordered you down?" His voice is a low fuzz over the phone, rougher from the static. "You remember, don't you?"  
  
"Yes, of course." How could he possibly forget? He recalls it, replays it, the way he would if Erik were here. There's no link now, but he can at least imagine it.  
  
"Tell me about it. What you remember. You think about it-when I am not here. What do you think about?" He's settling-in to his cot, watching the guard outside the room through the see-through plexiglass. Who can't hear him, but he can see, and in the Real, Erik is calm and unruffled. In his mind he is leaned-in, latched onto Charles's every breath and utterance.  
  
What he remembers. He reaches out, and - no, that won't work. He can't project now. Frowning, Charles attempts to find words. He's usually very good at words, but this is proving to be an exception. "I remember - it was the first time I had felt like that. It was strange. Like I was feeling gravity for the first time, and was being drawn down after years of aimless floating. I felt... safe. Not as if I was falling, but like I was being led. You were very careful. Everything was warm, and I couldn't imagine being anywhere else." His voice shakes slightly, but he's smiling. "It felt right. I felt right, for the first time."  
  
Erik's eyes close, controlling his breathing. The flutters in his chest, the rapid heartbeat and clammy skin and shaking-trembling muscles are just background-noise within a litany of sensation, unable to touch him with its panicked fingers even though the guards guide his shoulder and maneuver him out of the shower where he is staring noiselessly at the wall and he's not moving, passive-resistance until they realize he's episodic. Now he is dressed and warm and wrapped in his blanket, and Charles's voice is on the other end, and-  
  
"I remember, too," he says. "You were beautiful. _Nehedar_. I never did it before," he confides, it's a s _ecret-agent meeting in clandestine-places-secret_ , because he is supposed to be-high-Dom and he's never-"I remember your face in my hands. How you felt in my arms. I would do it now, if I were there."  
  
Charles feels the tears fall. They will never get that. They will never get calm, and peace, and total privacy. They will never get each other without the outside world's watchful eyes, guards and agents and society. But for the moment, it needs to be enough. He keeps his eyes closed, just as he was told, and follows Erik's words like they are the star that will guide him home. "I felt so calm," he whispers, and tries not to sound like he is crying, though he is. "For the first time, I felt calm. I always hear them, Erik - the voices. Always. But they stopped, just for a little while. It was incredible. You were incredible."  
  
"It will again," he promises. "It will. We'll see each other again. It will be OK. You be easy, now. It's all right." The words tumble out of him, soft and careful, like he's trying to make them the hug he can't give. Erik recalls what he was shown, how Charles existed in a world alone and yet the sum total of everyone's existence was drawn into his mind with rough strokes, a universal sharpie pen that didn't wash off. "We'll make them go away. I promise."  
  
Charles knows they shouldn't. He almost says it. They shouldn't, they can't. But he doesn't. There's no way he could. He sighs instead, pleased, and he listens. He lets himself breathe. The tears get wiped on his knees, though he imagines it's Erik instead. "It's alright," he repeats, and he's calm again. The panic coiled inside of him has eased. Erik will take care of him, has already. "Thank you," he murmurs, feeling a bit childish. All of this is so startlingly new, and they can't do it normally.  
  
On the other end, Erik smiles, feeling a spark of light inside his chest when he senses that Charles has begun to relax. " _Tov_ , yes. It's all right," he says, eyes opening to pin the ceiling, the patterns of roughened plaster. "You will have to get a dictionary. For the phone." It's a small tease-Erik's a bit awkward when the room isn't soaked in his Will, social-skills somewhat underdeveloped, but he's eager to communicate, to experience Charles as much as possible.  
  
Charles is confused for just a moment. Then he laughs, less stuttered than before, if a bit breathless. He switches the phone to his other ear, keeps his eyes closed and soaks himself in Erik. "I'm a fast learner," he assures, though they both already know it. "I'll pick up on the important things. Don't throw me too many curveballs, and stick to one foreign language at a time. We should be okay." He pauses, hums thoughtfully. "What's your favorite color, Erik?" he asks, as if out of the blue.  
  
Erik barely hesitates, doesn't even have to think. "Azure."  
  
He can't help but smile at that. He's certainly not blind to Erik's thoughts, or he wasn't when he could hear them. His cheeks flush. "I feel as if that's a recent development, and it's also very specific," he says. He knows the feeling. Charles hesitates, then asks a new question. "Do you have other favorites? A favorite book? A favorite food? A favorite song?" It helps, he thinks. Simply talking. Like they're... something, able to do this. To chat on the phone simply because they want to.  
  
"Too many books," Erik laughed, and then inhaled a little breath-surprised as ever that the noise leaves him. "Maybe a specific category?"  
  
Charles laughs with him, shaking his head where it rests against his knees. He feels warm again. Safer. He's coming down the way he should have, Erik's voice guiding him like a hand at his back. "Any category you'd like to give me, then. All of my favorite books are dreadfully boring, I'm afraid. Raven thinks they're excellent sleep aids. I find them fascinating, but I read scholarly articles for fun."  
  
It's an ache in his heart when Charles speaks, that is almost painful, yet he would not give it up for anything. Fierce protectiveness and pride welled up. "Raven is simply jealous," he says, terribly curious of her-she is important to Charles, so she is important to Erik. "I like poetry," he finally tacks on after a long moment. Going to the library was a treat, a privilege, and he hoarded many poets over the years, sank into their tomes. "And plays. Tell me about your articles. What subjects?"  
  
"Poetry," he sighs. Yes, there was lots of that in Erik's thoughts, and the way he speaks and thinks is proof enough. Charles smiles. "I read whatever I can get my hands on. I studied genetics before I studied psychiatry, and I'm still awfully fond of anything regarding adaption and mutation. I like to keep up with the theories." For obvious reasons. "But now I read things more aligned with my field, too. Psychological studies, especially mutant psychology, of which there is shockingly little. Whatever else catches my interest. I enjoy learning." He hums, goes through some of the most recent articles in his head. All fascinating. "It's all I watch, too. Documentaries. Raven makes me watch at least some action movies, keep up with pop culture. She thinks I'm an old man before my time. She's right."  
  
"That does not sound boring," Erik said. "A bit over my head. You will have to read and teach me it. Impressive. Not dull. Besides, once you see one action movie, that's all of them. Like Bruce Willis climbing down a fire escape. Guns and explosions and Santa Claus." He's grinning to himself, warmth filling him with the sound of Charles's voice.  
  
"Hm, we'll see how you feel when I start talking about chromosomes and genotypes," he teases, but he grins, too. His eyes are still closed, but not because they need to be. Everything is warm again, safe again, all the way to his toes. "Don't let Raven hear you say that. I'm not anti-action, honestly. They can be entertaining. Not so much the explosions, but the drama of it all. It's good for numbing the mind for a few hours. Unfortunately, I always get movies ruined for me in theaters. Inevitably someone will have seen it already, unless it's opening night, or they read about it online, or they have a cousin who worked on the film, and they have the nerve to think about it. Truly unfair for us telepaths. You should see all the things people think when they believe no one will ever hear them." He's just talking now, perhaps just to talk, but it feels... amazing, if he's honest. Normal.  
  
"I have never been to a theater. It sounds wonderful," Erik's cozying himself up in his bed, telephone tucked under his ear like he's a teenager gossiping with his beau, and the guard is glaring at him judgmentally and he is content-beyond-words.  
  
"Personally, I prefer to watch at home. Everyone's mind always buzzes during films, and it can be distracting. Less of that in private. Usually there's only Raven, and I've learned to tune her out. Besides, the seats are always sticky," he teases, still grinning. "We should... get off the phone soon, I imagine." He doesn't want to. But he's calm now, and so is Erik. Their next session isn't too far away. And he has a friend in the next room, who he definitely knows is hovering.  
  
Erik doesn't want to leave. He's been spoiled, listening to Charles's chattering, but he can see the man on the other side of the glass is becoming antsy, mouth drawn in a pinched, thin line. He disapproves of Erik in general, dislikes all the prisoners under his watch, and it shows. "Yes," he agrees, without any indication or movement towards ending the call.  
  
Charles waits, too, just for a few more moments of steady breathing, and then he raises his head. Opens his eyes, and nods once to himself. "I'll see you soon, Erik. Thank you for speaking with me. Be well." He knows if he waits for a response, he won't hang up. He needs to. Pressing the 'End Call' button feels exceptionally difficult, but somehow he manages.  
  
All the air leaves him at once. He's left reeling (though very calm and relaxed, now), and realizes Warren was correct. He's very much... how did he put it? _Fucked_.  
  
War doesn't interrupt him, doesn't barge in and immediately demand to wring answers from him. He's still lounging on the couch, feet up on the table, bottle of expensive whiskey more than half-emptied. He's glassy-eyed and loose, mind a whirl of little-senseless things, but he's not piss-drunk yet. It takes more than a bottle to get him there. "You seem better," he observed sardonically when Charles returned.

* * *

Charles says nothing. He slides onto the couch wordlessly, and very unceremoniously lowers his head to the table. Not to hit it, precisely, but it's a dramatic gesture nonetheless. "I'm no longer panicking or dropping," he concedes. "I am, however, in exceptionally deep with a man who murdered ten people and is wanted in two countries. Don't you dare tell Raven when she picks me up after I drink some of this whiskey, which I am about to do. I'm non-violent in nature but I will find other ways to harm you."  
  
Warren just laughs and laughs, chest rising and falling with it as he gestures to the bottle lazily. "Knock yourself out, wise guy. So what are you going to do? Cut it off? I'm sure you know that's the best option. There're plenty of qualified psychiatrists out there. Some of 'em even specialize in mutants."  
  
"No, that's what I should do," he says, and glares at the whiskey as if it's personally offended him. He knows it tastes awful. He knows he's probably predisposed for alcoholism, what with the way it runs in his family. He reaches for it anyway, and makes a face when he swallows it. "That's revolting. Are you mad?" Glass houses, Charles.  
  
"You're going to keep ducking and covering," Warren translates dryly. "And shut the fuck up about my whiskey. Like you're one to talk."  
  
"Ducking and covering? From what? Myself?" He sighs, frustrated, and takes another drink anyway. It won't take much to get him drunk. Alcohol seems to effect him even more than others. "He's - let's put it this way. Imagine you were denied something your entire life. Denied it, and told you were deviant and wrong as a result. Then you're given it. It's absolutely incredible, and it happens to be attached to... something you've also been denied, and it's also very good -" He groans. No, words are not his forte today. "And I want to help him. I'm the only one who can. What am I meant to do, leave him to rot?"  
  
Warren sits up on the couch. "If you were just talking about submission this'd be a lot easier," he points out with a sweep of his hand. "But you're talking about Lehnsherr, too. You've mixed them both up." He scrubbed his thumb in-between his nose. "I doubt you'll find anyone more sympathetic to him than me, but even if you don't get caught out, you're still dealing with a prison romance. I doubt the CIA allows conjugals."  
  
Charles groans. "Could you please not say the words romance and conjugal right now?" Although it's exactly what he's looking at, going the way it is. "Lehnsherr, for one," he corrects, mostly as a distraction as he takes another sip of whiskey. "And secondly - no, the CIA doesn't, but gen-pop prisons, which is what his lawyer expects, do. Not that I'm suggesting that. I'm not." It sounds like an awful way to live, really. "Maybe next time I'll break him out," he jokes, and snorts, too loud. "We can go on the run. Move to... where do on the run criminals generally move to? Mexico, maybe. He speaks every other language, I'm sure he knows some Spanish."  
  
"You really think he's going to end up in gen-pop?" War's eyebrows shoot up, skeptical. "And don't even kid yourself-you wouldn't fare one second in _Mexico_ ," he returned the sarcastic comment tit-for-tat. "Much too hot, your pretty pale skin would fry."  
  
"If you met his lawyer, you would, too." He would be surprised if he didn't, honestly. Charles glares at the comment, lifts the whiskey glass for another sip and sulks. "Fine, not Mexico, then. Canada. We can hide in the snow. He wouldn't like it, but I suppose that's the price you pay." And how mad is he, that for a moment that actually seemed like a viable option? Just a moment, though, of course.  
  
Warren grins, all lazy ease. "I like his lawyer already." He takes a sip of his own tumbler, draining the last dregs. "OK, so you and Lehnsherr," he starts, _lanes-hair_ , then, "end up in Canada, you're at the top of the most-wanted list, and you both stick out like sore fucking thumbs. I'm sure that'll end real well for you," he drawls.  
  
"I'm very good at not being noticed, actually." He's getting drunk now. It's never a good feeling, and he's not particularly sure why he thought it would be. Raven is going to scold him, and then she's going to kill him. At least this will be a moot point. "This is utterly ridiculous," he mutters, and his head is right back on the table. "All these years, not a single partner - I'm truly cursed."  
  
Warren's someone who enjoys pushing the boundaries, so he's certainly not going to stop Charles if he wants to get pissed. "Do you really think only a D5 can put you down? You haven't met everyone in the world, you know." He shrugs. "Yes, Charlie, it is ridiculous. You're a psychiatrist who's at the top of his field, and you're getting involved with a patient who is confirmed to have murdered at least ten people. Do you know if he's done it before? Do you really know anything about him?" His eyebrow quirks again.  
  
"He hasn't," he grunts, and he knows it's true. Erik would have shown him that, it would have slipped during their first discussion. Ten people isn't exactly a clean record, but it's certainly better than more than that, and they weren't exactly blameless." Brilliant, Charles. Let's just kill everyone who harms us, shall we? He scowls, refusing to lift his head. "And trust me, I know. I haven't met anyone, but I've met enough. If he were just another run of the mill superdom, though, I might be able to pack this all away. He's not." He purses his lips. "He loves poetry. How completely unfair."  
  
"Well it's fucking better than those dreadful genetics articles you're always spouting off," Warren snorts. "Look, you're not going to get any dissent from me. You're a grown man, you've made your bed and now you're going to lie in it. Whether that's with Lehnsherr or not, isn't for me to say. Besides-" they got what was coming to them but he doesn't say it, lets it hang in his head where he knows Charles has seen it-Warren isn't exactly sympathetic to the narrative that's been spun on TV "-it could be worse. They could've been innocent." He grimaces. "He brought the building down and only ten assholes died-that's pretty specific. I wonder what happened to everyone else." It's an off-hand kind of comment, but it rings back to the conversations he had with Pryde nonetheless.  
  
Even drunk, Charles picks up on it. Erik -- he said something, earlier, but Charles was too... preoccupied to fully appreciate it. They're safe now. He sucks in a breath and finally lifts his head. "They're safe now," he repeats, eyebrow creasing as he sorts through what he remembers of Erik's thoughts, but his head is fuzzy and he doesn't have the man in front of him. "There wasn't a trace of them. So many more injured, they said, but no specifics? No coverage? No, they're alive, and likely not a scratch on them, at least..." He grimaces, too. "At least not from Erik. He wanted to help them."  
  
"Jesus," Warren repeats. "You're not serious. You think this was a rescue operation? And if they're alive, where the fuck are they?"  
  
"Until I brought his guard down," he breathes, in complete awe. He laughs, though not out of humor - it's shock and amazement, perhaps some delight. It can't be helped, especially not like this. "I tipped my cards early - he knew I was a telepath, and that I wasn't going to dive too deep. So what do you do, then? Control your surface thoughts. With things like language switches and poetry." It's brilliant, really. It worked. "He was going to - to what? Protecting them... oh, but they aren't safe. He's alive."  
  
He thinks. Erik's anger. No, his rage. He plays it back, reaching for Warren, projecting it almost subconsciously. He can't fully control himself like this, it's another reason he never drinks. Erik is screaming, completely gone. Why? Everyone in the building he's destroying is dead. To put on a show? But it's real. Why? Because Shaw is alive.  
  
"If you were part of the US government," he breathes, shaking a bit as he recalls that anger, but pushing it aside, "And you just lost... experiments. Experiments no one should know about. What would you do, War?" he asks. Rhetorical.  
  
Warren rubs his hand rhythmically against his upper thigh. Charles knows that the question isn't a hypothetical for him. He's turned over similar structures in his mind a thousand, a million times. Twisted white wings matted with blood and pale skin bruised open from injections and lifeless Atlantic-ocean eyes. "I'd destroy every last shred of evidence before anyone could get their hands on it. I'd devote myself to hunting down those survivors, Charles."  
  
Charles sucks in a breath, carding a hand through his hair. Was there a plan? They seemed to disappear. Perhaps one of them has an ability meant for hiding - it's unlikely, but not impossible, there are plenty of practical (he grits his teeth) applications for that sort of mutation...  
  
"It's been weeks since the attack," he whispers, numb. "And there's nowhere safe for them in this country, and no possible way they're getting out." After a terrorist attack? Unless one of them can teleport. But how many - Charles grunts, frustrated, and rubs at his temples. A headache over a headache. "Damn it."  
  
"It sounds like you boys have a lot to talk about," Warren smirks at him. "Aside from subspace. Charlie-you need an aspirin? What'll help? Take a dive, maybe?" he taps his temple. They did this as children, Charles nestling himself into some dark corner of Warren's mind to escape the blinding, effervescent Lights of so many others. His mind was familiar as a leather shoe, and he's controlled enough not to spill out angst-suffering-horror all over his friend.  
  
"Aspirin never helps," he laughs, but only because he's tried it. His brain is too busy firing outwards - searching, searching... it won't find any of those survivors, nor will it find Erik. That's the problem with being drunk, though. One time he froze Raven in place for a good five minutes when he was smashed. It's dangerous, and he knew that. He's losing it, isn't he? He sighs. "I'd like to be able to sleep, but until I know that each and every one of them is safe, you know I won't." He closes his eyes anyway, head back on the table. "Raven is going to kill me," he repeats from before.  
  
"Raven's always two seconds away from first-degree murder when it concerns you and you know it," War huffs. "She's worried, and rightfully so. This case-you've never been like this with a case. You've never had to deal with something like this and you're snapped-off in the wind, and it's showing. Hell, you haven't eaten a proper meal in days. What're you, solidarity hunger-striking? Should I opt for the kosher meal plan? What's going on, here?"  
  
Charles isn't cracking. He can't be, he never has. But suddenly it feels like the entire damn world is pushing in on him, and the buzzing is louder than it's been in years. It's not subdrop that makes it suddenly hard to breathe. "I'm - it's a lot of pressure, alright? Everyone is watching me, everyone. The world is. There are lives at stake here. The future of mutants is at stake, here." His voice is raising, and it never does. He's cool, usually, even when irritated. He doesn't feel that way now.  
  
"This is more high profile than I've ever dealt with, more important. And I needed to be strong for this, I needed to be indominable, and I'm not. I'm not. He's in my head, always. I needed to be asking questions, to be gathering information and I was too busy on my knees like some - like some mindless _whore_..." He would never say that about anyone else. About himself? Yes, perhaps. If he deserves it. "There's no time for that, what's gotten into me? What's gotten into me, I need to be... I can't be everything they knew I would become." Eventually, Charles. Eventually you'll find your Dom and you'll fall.  
  
 _Right to your knees where you bel_ ong.  
  
"Oh, come off it," Warren chides him. "Don't start with that rape-culture bullshit. I know for a fact you weren't mindless-anything, you wouldn't be so G-dforsakenly bent out of shape for him if you were. Charlie, you've found something you've been looking for since we were kids. Don't berate yourself because you're leaning into it. You're right, this-it's big. It's astronomical, and you need to be careful, but don't disparage your natural inclinations and drag the rest of the world down with you. You and I both know you don't consider other submissives like that."  
  
"That's not -" He groans. It is. "Of course I don't think I'm better than them, I never have, but there was quite a lot of... I took pride in being the way I was, because otherwise I'd end up being miserable. I only got as far as I did because I was different, unaffected. Do you know how many times I've heard how I'm not truly submissive? Everyone sees it, all the time, everywhere I go. I don't walk behind, I don't lower my eyes, I speak out of turn. And now I'm struggling to keep that up." He's disparaging himself, not them. "I feel wholly out of control. It's never been like this before. I've always been outside."  
  
"You've taken up with a wanted terrorist," War points out. "I'd say that's still _very much outside_. G-d, Charlie, you're running yourself in a circle, here." War leans forward, elbows on his knees, picturesque-casual in his fine button-up shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbow. He's got a tattoo on his arm, big black-block stencils that reads _**VII XI MMXII**_ and the date is seared into Charles's head like it is in Warren's, six years ago-the day they came across the wreckage and pulled Angel's body out of the dirt. "You're still nowhere near a normal submissive, and besides, all this Dom-sub societal expectation-that's all it is. It's our culture-it's not your personality and you know it. Don't obfuscate stupidity just to feel sorry for yourself."  
  
But Charles cares. He's always cared about society, about how people see him, about public image. It doesn't mean anything, and he knows that, but he clings to it anyway. For years he's scoffed, desperately wanted in the same breath. Now he's on both sides of the fence. "Yes, yes, I know," he sighs, because he does. He bangs his head lightly on the table, as if that's going to clear it. "I feel as if I'm losing grip, that's all. I also hate that you're more rational than me piss drunk, and that you still use words like obfuscate."  
  
"I've got a hell of a leg-up on you," War grins easily. "And I'm damn-sure going to keep it that way. I might not tell Raven, but you're sure as shit not going to make this a habit." He flicks a finger at Charles. "So tell me, then," he murmurs. "What're you honestly going to do?" He asks the question now, Warren-of-all-people, honest-Warren, careless-Warren, because Charles is piss-drunk and he's liable to get a real answer.  
  
"Exactly what I'm doing," he admits, because for all the self-flagellating, he knows exactly where he's going to end up the moment he steps into Erik's cell. "Except now I have more to do - I need to find them, they need to be protected somehow..." He mumbles under his breath, following threads until they trail off, then finding another one. Listening to thoughts from the street outside, because he can't block them out. "With Erik? Exactly what I'm doing. Don't tell me how stupid I am, I know."  
  
"You know I can help," Warren murmurs softly. And maybe he's more pissed than he's letting on, because he doesn't talk about this, but this case is blowing-open more than one person, here. Just like Charles said it would. It's already changing the landscape between them, let alone the greater American public.  
  
"You don't need to get involved," he sighs, because he knows what that would look like. Reopening old wounds, putting personal stakes into a story that may not have a happy ending. Charles is idealistic enough to think he can change things, and realistic enough to know it may not work. "I'm putting everything on the line here. You don't have to."  
  
"Fuck that," Warren says roughly. "You're my friend, Charlie, and we're both naïve if we think we can avoid Shaw. I'm equally invested in taking this motherfucker down."  
  
"Yes, well, I'm putting a target on my unnaturally large forehead," he jokes, though it isn't quite a joke. Shaw is alive. Shaw needs to cover his tracks. His name isn't out there yet, but give it to the beginning of the trial. It will be. "You could avoid that much, at least. No need to drag everyone down on my... whatever this is." He raises his head, massaging at his temples again. The room is spinning. He thinks of something - something Erik said, or thought. Concern, worry, fear... ah. "Raven," he whispers, suddenly terrified. It goes unspoken: she needs to stay very far away from this.  
  
"I know," War says, expression nearly tipped over into pained. He'd been-when Angel was born, so typically baseline that it nearly fractured their friendship-having a child with a visible mutation had wrenched out every negative attribute Warren had, mostly his terror-he wasn't disgusted or repulsed, in fact he had always thought Angel beautiful, but it had caused strife until he'd worked it through. And now he considered Ravens natural form a thing of beauty, furious that she needed to hide it in order to simply survive. "I know," he repeats softly. "We'll keep her safe, Charles. And shut the fuck up about my sitting pretty. It's not going to happen. I've got a press conference Thursday. Worthington Industries is expanding into the Philippines." It's almost off-hand.  
  
"What does that -" Charles groans, both in pain and because he knows. No, there will be no sitting pretty. Not for either of them. Right, then. Priorities. Keeping Raven safe is very much at the top of the list, and he knows he's about to be a bit protective. She'll have to live with it. "I need to find them, but I don't know if I could help even if I did..." He sighs, momentarily deflated. "There has to be a way to - technically, there's no upper level, if I could simply amplify it -" Charles is talking to himself again.  
  
"So talk to him. Have a G-dforsaken conversation with the man. You said he trusts you. You're on the outside. I've got plenty of contacts still active. It's not impossible." No, with Warren very few things were.  
  
"That was the first plan, yes," he points out, exasperated. His mind is still going, as it usually is, but now it's sloppy. Jumbled. Plans run into each other, thoughts stop short. He's listening to a song from someone's car radio. There's a little girl somewhere out there, excited about ice cream. Someone is afraid. Another is angry. He grasps at his head, tugging at his hair in frustration. "One thing at a time, Charles," he reminds himself, and then attempts to stand.  
  
He doesn't do a very good job of it.  
  
"I need to make sure Raven is safe," he says, stumbling to his feet. "I can't lose her, she's - she needs to be safe." Top priority.  
  
Warren gets up and lays a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Easy," he says, and in Charles's addled state it nearly almost resembles Erik-Erik in the room and he's knelt beside him and be easy. "Sit down, come on. We'll call her, OK?"  
  
Charles freezes, every muscle tense and then relaxed, as if he's finally obeyed an Order for once - and then he sighs. "Yes, yes, right." He lets himself be pulled up onto the couch, slouching as he cradles his own head. "You have to call her, she'll know the second I talk." She'll know anyway, but best to delay the inevitable here.  
  
"All right, Charlie. Hold your horses. I've got it. I got her. I'm not going to let anything happen to either of you." He's drunk enough that it comes out achingly sincere, but War's already moving for the cordless, all languid confidence as he settled back into the couch. The phone rings.

* * *

Charles knows exactly when she picks up, her voice a vocal-eyeroll as she identifies the number. "Warren? What're you doing calling at this hour?"  
  
"Hey, Raven," he smiles. "Just checking up on you." Do you want her to come over here? "How's Hank?"  
  
"Uh, Hank is fine and you're being weird," she declares pointedly.  
  
"Oh, for the love of -" He rolls his own eyes, reaching for the phone and taking it. He thinks of several excuses, all of which might work over the phone. But it's Raven, and he's always been bad at lying to her. "Raven, I'm piss drunk at the moment. Where are you? Are you safe?" He can't keep the fear out of his own voice, which is not going to do him any favors. It can't be helped.  
  
Ugh, Warren groans to himself. For the love of, indeed.  
  
He can feel her cycling through a variety of responses, some of them as pissed as Charles is-but she settles on none of them, her response measured instead. "OK, Charles-where are you right now? Do you need me to come get you? And of course I'm safe. I'm at home with Hank."  
  
"Tell Hank hello." There's a long pause, and he realizes she's waiting for something. He'd normally be able to hear her - hear her mind - even over the phone, even the little bit that he allows himself to see. He never reads her mind too deeply, as promised. Now he's not sure if he's listening to her or someone else. Oh, right. There were more questions there. He considers them. "I'm - where am I? Oh, yes, I'm at Warren's. Raven, are you sure you're safe? You haven't told anyone about... your secret lately, have you?" He's not sure why he's saying it like that. No one else is listening. "I don't like whiskey," he announces.  
  
"My -secret-" Raven blanches at the word. They haven't called it that since they were children, since Charles had been so petrified for her he'd insisted she present as baseline-years and years of self-consciousness and worry batting at her mind and of course now, in her own home, with her very-much equally blue husband, she's as natural as can be. Has shed the fear and walks proudly with her head up. Just like Charles. "What's going on with you?" she asks instead of answering that ridiculous question. "Spit it out, Charles."  
  
Right. This is not the way to have this conversation. "Nothing, nothing - don't worry, Raven. I'm just a bit tired, and a lot drunk." Both true, to be fair. He doesn't want to ask her to hide. He's never wanted that for her. But how else can he protect her? How else can he possibly keep her safe?  
  
"The stress must be getting to me," he sighs. It's an understatement. "I just needed to know you were safe."  
  
"I can have a car sent out," Warren contributes from his spot on the couch.  
  
"Charles, of course I'm safe-G-d, you're drunk-I'm coming over there," she decides flatly.  
  
"You are not!" But there's no stopping her now. When Raven sets her mind on something, there's simply no helping it. She's as stubborn as he is, which is one of the reasons he loves her so much. It's also why he's going prematurely grey. "I'm perfectly fine - can't a brother be concerned for his darling sister's safety? Besides, you and Hank were probably... doing whatever you and Hank do, oh, dear, I didn't need that image -"  
  
Raven's eyeroll is practically audible. "Charles, shut up. Warren-" she calls for him and he lifts the phone out of Charles's grasp gently.  
  
"I'm here, Raves. You want me to send a car?"  
  
"Yes. Hank'll mind the fort." She smiles. "And make sure he doesn't get into any more of that disgusting whiskey of yours, for the love of G-d."  
  
"I got it, don't worry. Car's on its way, sit tight, OK?"  
  
"OK. Love you both, and look after him." It's firm, and then she hangs up.  
  
"I'm not a child, I don't need to be looked after," he protests, but he's also currently falling off the couch a bit. Charles groans, accepting himself to his fate, and lies himself down as best he can. "This is mortifying. Two different doctorate degrees, and this is where I end up? I need to rethink my life immediately."  
  
"You're certainly acting like one," War smirks. "Lie down. Rave's coming, we're covering it. I told you we would. I think you should tell her, Charles," he says abruptly, ignoring the rest of his pity-party as Warren was liable to do. It's perhaps the singular reason Charles is even here in the first place. Warren has never let him get sucked into the death-spiral of self-loathing for very long.  
  
"I can't tell her," he says, though it's becoming a necessity. The more he shows signs of distress, the more she's going to want to be involved, and at least if he tells her he can contain it. Hopefully. Containing Raven is a bit like attempting to contain a hurricane by bottling it, sometimes. "I can't put her in danger. I just can't. She's the only family I have, and I -" He loves her more than life itself. Truly, he does.  
  
Warren nods along, understanding. "I get it, OK? I get it. But you know she's in danger regardless-her mutation makes that very clear. With how close you are to this thing-they're going to know she's your sister, that's public knowledge. Don't you think she deserves to have her eyes open?"  
  
Charles is silent for a long while. His eyes are closed, mostly to fight off the tremendous headache, but also because he knows when War is right, and he doesn't always like it. "You're right," he concedes, finally. "She's not a little girl anymore. She never really was." Now he needs to actually tell her, though, which is another thing entirely.  
  
"I'll be here the whole time," War assures him, if that even counts as assurance. "And you have to admit, she could be pretty damn useful. Rave's not one for sitting on the sidelines-you can't do that to her. She'll never forgive you."  
  
Charles knows he's right about that, too. "Please stop being rational, it's giving me a worse headache," he grunts, but he might as well be saying thank you. They don't have long before Raven gets here, so the odds of him being more sober are slim. Perhaps he can at least figure out what he's going to say. Does he tell her about all of it? She's his sister, it's not like he can hide it forever. He's not very confident about his filter, either. Charles keeps his eyes closed and attempts not to be sick, checking passing cars to look for Raven.  
  
Warren's grin is sharp and his head tilts up when he hears the familiar Lexus pull up onto the curb from outside the ground-low window. "I think that's her. And Charles, don't even think about fudging this. I told you I'm going to be there," he reminds him as he props Charles up properly on the couch so he doesn't slide off, then heads to the door to open it.  
  
It's cold out, and Raven's in her blue form, naked as a bluejay-literally, grinning and red-haired. She walks like a predator, on the toes of her feet, practically gliding through the threshold, her gait inhumanly lithe and gymnastic, before coming to stop in front of Charles on the couch once she deposits her fur-lined coat on the hanger. Warren's gone to the kitchen to put some coffee on, and ostensibly give them a little privacy. "You've looked better," she remarks dryly, perching herself on the windowsill and crossing her legs to look at him with wide-yellow eyes, pupils in slits the way a cat tips its head up and squints." Can you sit up?" It sounds almost motherly-she's tending to him now, forgetting her anger the way he doesn't expect-but Raven never quite acts as expected.  
  
When Charles sits up and opens his eyes, he's unsteady. His head is absolutely pounding, and he feels very close to being sick. That's what he gets for drinking after years of sobriety. He does see her, though there's originally two of her, and while he's gotten perfectly used to this - to her, in every form, in every way, while he loves her feeling confident in being herself... It makes his stomach churn now. "Oh, Raven," he moans, and rubs at his temples. It doesn't get rid of the headache, and it certainly doesn't get rid of the fear. "Please, you can't - you can't go out like that, not now. I don't care what you do in private, I don't care when we're alone, of course I don't, but please..." Can he really ask her to hide herself? What other choice does he have? He needs to keep her safe. "I can't lose you," he says, and his voice breaks.  
  
There's a hard snap of anger that rips out of her with his words, calling back to ancient-times, but she quashes it, watching him struggle to speak, almost-in tears. Ugh, she refrains from tutting. He's drunk and scared I'll be burned at the stake, and I'm pissed at the assumption but it's cruel to yell at him about it when he can barely sit up. "Charles," she decides. It's firm, Raven doesn't know how, and never will, to be soft. "We've had this discussion repeatedly. You are not my parent, nor are you my keeper. Tell me what this is about? What do you mean-not now?"  
  
Words are very difficult now. He's slurring through them, and everything is sloshing around disjointed and messy. How is he supposed to think like this? To choose his words carefully like this? Raven told him, repeatedly, not to get into her head. And he's not, to be fair. Anything he hears is extremely on the surface - he'd have to be an idiot not to get anger and exasperation. This is a desperate time, and he's fairly sure she won't fault him for a desperate measure. So he reaches out and gives her the details he's been dodging for days. The case. How high profile it is. The CIA involvement. The Shaw Institute. Erik, as much as he knows, and then - there's a flash of Charles on his knees, but he takes that from her quickly, mortified and red up to his neck and ears. Maybe she won't notice. Moves on quickly, onto the missing "patients," about the danger here. Fear, so much fear. He's not her parent, no, not her keeper, but he loves her and he's so fiercely protective because she's so extraordinary, and more than that, so very important to him - don't you see that, Raven? In total, the entire process takes only a minute or two, and he's sure she's left reeling. He might have gone overboard. "Sorry, probably too fast," he apologizes, sheepish.  
  
At first she's vicious, half-stood, but as the images and sensations continues she settles, analytical-realizing just what might be at stake here. And then she gets a glimpse- _subspace_ -from Charles-and her mouth drops open, chasing that thought until it evaporates in her fingertips. And then he's onto the next, the Institute, the unknown patients, and Raven's nothing if not pragmatic. "Hah," she scoffs, attempting to come off cool. "OK," she says after a long moment, leaning back against the glass frame of the window. "This is serious. Let's prioritize."  
  
"Prioritize," he repeats, dryly. "Yes, let's. I'm not sure if you can tell, but I'm having a bit of trouble with that." Charles is exhausted after all of it, and normally that takes no effort at all. He collapses back on the couch, sighing as the next wave of pain comes. The problem with having a very powerful brain is that it overwhelms him the moment he's not fully equipped to handle it. So many voices, and suddenly he's a nine year old boy again, convinced he's going utterly mad with no one to confide in. But Raven is here, and she knows now. Nothing to hide. "Go on, then. Tell me I'm an idiot."  
  
She hopped off the windowsill and migrated to the couch beside Charles to sit down and take his head in her lap, running her hands through his hair idly. "I mean, let's prioritize how we're going to deal with this, jackass. Of course you're an idiot-when are you ever not an idiot?" She smiles down at him briefly, exasperated but tolerant.  
  
Charles hums, a bit like a pleased cat as he leans into her touch. It's not as calming as it would be if - well, if it were Erik, but that's a thought for another time, so he sets it aside, files it with the other racing-racing-racing thoughts about Erik, closes the metaphorical door. Time for that later, when he's alone in bed and aching. "Alright, then," he says, allowing the insults. It's Raven, she's known him since they were both children. She's allowed to mock him, especially after seeing him in his college days. "What do you suggest, sister dearest?"  
  
"So you've really stepped in the shit," she snorts. "Obviously you need to step down from this case, first. There is no way that it will end in anything other than you losing your license if you don't. You have to know that." Raven's not Warren-she has much less tolerance for the fucked up.  
  
"Not happening," he says, immediately. There's no heat to it, but also no room for discussion; it's said as the matter of fact that it is. He's not stepping down from the case, and it's best that it's out in the air as soon as possible. "I'm not stepping down, and if I lose my license as a result, I suppose that's just the way of things. I've always wanted to try out... I don't know, farming. Perhaps in Canada." He's still very drunk.  
  
"Now is the time when I call you an idiot," Raven rolls her eyes, mulish, but she doesn't push it. Charles can tell she's storing it though, for a time when he's not half-ready to be sick. Her fingers sift through his hair calmingly, like she used to do when they were kids and the headaches got especially bad. "I never thought I'd see the day when you got put down," she hums instead, conversational. "As fucked up as this is-" she granted, "-that must have been nice. Subs always talk about it like it's the bees knees." And Raven more than anyone else knew how Charles struggled with his shall we say differences. "Also, Canada's cold. Go to like, Mexico or something."  
  
"That's what I said! Mexico!" he bursts out, knowing War is probably listening in from the next room over anyway. Give them space, sure, but considering the situation, he highly doubted he wasn't there to do damage control if things got a bit heated. Or Charles attempted to worm his way out of things, which surprisingly wasn't happening. The good thing about being drunk and telepathic, maybe. He doesn't comment on subspace, but only because he's silently agreed with it. It really is the bee's knees. He does say, "I don't think Erik would like Canada, anyway. It is too cold, isn't it? Nothing like the desert. He thinks about the desert a lot. I've never been anywhere that hot - I probably wouldn't last. Maybe a middle ground, then." As if he's some schoolboy planning a future with his crush. Dreamy, idealistic. Forgetting said crush is a murderer, a criminal, wanted in two countries and likely to end up in prison for the foreseeable future.  
  
"Ugh," she snorts. "Well Erik isn't going anywhere, unless you stage a prison break. Which you are decidedly not doing. I love you, dude, but I won't let you be that stupid." She's seen the news reels, familiar with Erik's face the way the American public is, furious and twisted, a howl of grief and screaming as he crushed the Shaw Institute like it was in the palm of his hand. EMS at the scene, dragging twisted bodies out of the beams of metal and glass. It's a less than enthusiastic image.  
  
Whoever this person is, they've wrapped Charles around their fingers and she was positive Erik would crush him, too, the allure of submission a siren's call until everything in his life was wreckage. Raven's opinion of him was not high. Charles is an _Omega-level telempath_ , but she's almost convinced that maybe a D5 would be about on-par with someone who could manipulate him, throw him off, play on his secret-desire to be normal.  
  
"So you and Warren think the Institute destruction was a rescue operation. You need to extract that information from him. They're bound to be in danger, and if they're found, that will influence the trial a great deal. I'm not so sure how sympathetic that makes him, but-" but Raven's blue, and even she's not oblivious to the fact that someone like Shaw, with his cold, dead eyes, would be extremely pleased to dissect her for parts. "I'm not saying that justifies murder, Charles. Even you must agree with that."  
  
Another noise of agreement, though it's the last bit that gets him. His stomach twists again, and he feels sick for reasons entirely unrelated to his drunken state. Murder. Sometimes, it's almost too easy to get it confused in his head, as if none of it happened at all. As if he didn't watch through Erik's eyes as he dragged a scientist by his legs and impaled him with various bits of metal. That man had a hand in something awful, of that there was no doubt, but he was also a man. A man who could have had a family, his own motivations (though none of them could justify what he did, truly, and didn't that just come full circle?). "He's a murderer," he says, hollowly, as if he's remembering it. "He's - he's good, I know he is, but what he's done..." And he'll live with it for the rest of his life. There's no future for him, and therefore no future with him and Charles. How does he keep forgetting that?  
  
"From everything you've shown me about him, he doesn't seem particularly remorseful about it, either. How's that going to look at the trial? Carmen Pryde's going to try to present him as a victim, but how's it going to look when he's asked if he's sorry about it? I can't see him simpering to apologize." Raven quirks a brow down at him.  
  
"He's not sorry." Charles says it slowly, as if realizing for the first time. It's difficult to sift through his own thoughts now, let alone what he remembers of Erik, but he feels he can say that fairly confidently. "He's sorry it happened the way it did, I think. He's sorry that it needed to happen. But he's not sorry he did it, and I think he'd do it again if he felt he had to." He's cold all over, suddenly. How could he have - why did he forget that? Why was that a fact he ignored, something he set aside this whole time? As if it didn't matter. As if Erik being an unrepentant murderer was a quirky personality trait, something to overlook, rather than a glaring, horrifying flaw. "But he's - he was never given a chance to be anything else. He could change. I could -" I could change him. Unspoken, but just on the tip of his tongue. Charles closes his mouth. No, they're both right. He's in far too deep. Far, far over his head here.  
  
"What do you mean, given a chance, Charles? People are abused and tortured all the time. They don't turn into killers. You can not get locked into his orbit. I know it's alluring, and he's the only one who can put you down, but that's not worth letting him kill you, either." It's dramatic, but Charles has always been about his work, about his influence, and it may as well be a form of death to have it taken away from him. Being tarnished in the academic community, a topic of ridicule-no, she can't let that happen, and she knows if she can present the facts in the right way, Charles will see reason. He has to. "You can't change who people are, Charles. Even if you edit him in every possible way, he will always be the person who turns to killing when he suffers too much."  
  
"That's not - it doesn't work like that. Psychologically speaking, it doesn't, Raven. People change. They grow, and learn. Do you know how many people with histories of abuse inflict abuse later in life? Become the perpetrator? Of course it isn't justified, none of these things are, nor will they ever be, but speaking from that standpoint..." He understands what made Erik believe he should do what he did. That he had to, even. He attempts to sit up, but the rush is too much. Charles grunts, not nearly as content to be strewn over Raven's lap like this. "He would never take an innocent life. I know he wouldn't. I've seen that. Those scientists didn't need to die. I agree, as any morally upright person would, but he's not... he can change. I believe that. I do." He sucks in a breath. "He's not cruel, or sadistic, or sick. He's..." What? Misguided? Perhaps if he'd lashed out in self defense, yes. If he'd killed in the heat of the moment. But the premeditated, near systematic slaughter of ten people? That's a bit much. Too much for Charles to swallow, which is probably why he hasn't yet.  
  
"What, then? What are you _possibly_ justifying this as?" Raven helped him slowly come to an abrupt position, rubbing his back idly. "Are you really so willing to forget what he's done so you can continue to experiment with submission? Is the price of entry really worth it? Because from where I'm sitting, it's not. You've worked so hard, you can't throw it away like this."  
  
"It's not - it's not about submission," he protests, because truly, it isn't. If it was, if Erik was a hollow, cold killer, he never would have even considered it. Raven has to know that. "I could have gone my entire life without that, and I might have missed it, but I wouldn't have known. But he's..." A killer. _He's a killer, Charles. A murderer. Murderer-murderer-murderer - not a monster_ , but did that justify it? Could anything justify that? A scientist screams, begging for mercy. Erik gives him none. Screaming, screaming, the shrieking of metal, a horrible gurgling sound. Charles flinches as if he'd heard it in real time. "I'm going to be sick," he announces, and then he leans over, as far away from Raven's lap as he can get (but very much on Warren's floor), and he is.  
  
"OK, OK," she pats him, as Warren comes out of the kitchen and grimaces at the destruction of his newly remodeled hardwood floors. Awesome. He had two coffees in hand and he set them down on the table, making a disgusted little twitch at the sight of vomit, but he immediately heads back to grab some cleaning supplies. And a bucket. For future reference. "You can't forget about this when you're in there with him," she whispers gently, once Charles has recovered enough to lean back and breathe a little easier. "You can't. Write it on your hand if you have to."  
  
"Write what, Raven?" His voice is hoarse now, probably because he's just vomited all over the floor, but also because he feels vulnerable again. He thinks back to earlier. Huddled on Warren's couch, holding himself tightly, listening to Erik's voice. It's not the right image to settle on at the moment, because it just makes him feel sick again. "Erik is a murderer'? It's not like I didn't already know. He doesn't manipulate me. He doesn't Order me to do anything. He's -" How did he explain that if Erik thought differently about this, this one fundamental issue, they would be a perfect match? Everything Charles had ever wanted in a partner, everything he had ever longed for? The other side of the coin. It sounded mad. It was.  
  
"I'm not saying he's manipulating you, for the record," Raven huffs. "I'm saying you are letting your feelings for him cloud your judgment. The difference is subtle, but distinct. I believe you when you say he's not-intentionally conning you," she gives a little-they both know Charles wouldn't survive two seconds taking a mile- "but that doesn't mean you aren't affected adversely by how you feel."  
  
"Maybe not," he agrees, easily. He's realistic enough to know that, at least. "But I can save him. Something tells me I can, and I have to try." There it is again. He must truly be losing it. "No one else can."  
  
"Why, Charles?" Raven's imploring. "Why do you have to save him? He made these choices. He has to live with that."  
  
"He's only ever known pain and fear. That's all." Erik's memories are bleak, cold, terrifying, and he knows he only got a glimpse of them. Erik was deliberately trying to steer him away, not to mislead him, but because he wanted to spare him. "So he turned to it, and he made an awful, terrible mistake, one he'll never escape from. But there's more to him. He deserves to have someone believe that."  
  
"You and I both know that this wasn't a mistake. He planned this. He came here to do this."  
  
"No, the decision was a mistake. I would never suggest he accidentally killed all ten scientists in that building, I'm not that much of an idiot." He would roll his eyes, but they're currently rolled up into his head. Everything is so fuzzy now. "But he also saved however many more were in that building. It doesn't justify it, but it's... it matters."  
  
" _Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhr_ ," Raven groaned miserably. "You're too much of a bleeding heart for your own good, sometimes."  
  
"It's one of my best qualities, I think," he points out, but he knows it's also his biggest weakness. He's also close to being sick again, so he clings hard to her, grimacing against the pain. "The next time I decide to get drunk, please just hit me in the head with something hard a few times instead. Same effect."  
  
"Use the bucket!" Warren called out to them, and he emerged from the kitchen several moments later to fix the rest of Charles's mistake.  
  
"So I guess we need to find these mutants," Raven says once he kneels to the ground, a position most Doms don't like taking even for trivial tasks such as cleaning, but Warren manages to make it look intentional, deliberate and self-assured all at once.  
  
"Does his lawyer know about this?" War asks, scrubbing away. "Please, never come here again," he shoots a dark look at Charles.  
  
"Not yet, but I think he could help." Charles smiles sheepishly from his rather pathetic position, curled up in his sister's lap. He's sweating and shivering at the same time, and a bit surprised he's still capable of thought with what's going on in his head. A spike of pain hits, and Charles grabs at his head, and then - oh. Oh, yes, of course. Erik was dramatic. "He showed me who I was looking for - he went through the files." His lips move, reading along. Flipping through pages. _**Angel Salvadore. Mortimer Toynbee. Telford Porter. Irene Adler. Anna-Marie D'Ancanto. Martha Johansson. Roberto d Costa. Samuel Guthrie. Danielle Moonstar. Rahne Sinclair. Xi'an Coy Manh. Tabitha Smith.**_ The files went on and on, there must have been over two dozen collective patients there. Some were marked deceased, but others just trailed off, expecting additional entries that never came, instead becoming shredded paper floating aimlessly amidst destruction.  
  
"Hey-just breathe," Raven soothes him, rubbing his back and petting his hair in alternating motions. "You're OK. And yes, you're not getting drunk again."  
  
"So he showed you who they are-that's useful. Maybe we can track down their last-known whereabouts, I don't know-" Warren grimaces. "I think you should absolutely tell Pryde, and it goes without saying that Lehnsherr needs to give them up. Maybe you can both tag team him. Lower his defenses."  
  
"No, that won't work. But it's something." He rolls over and curls up into what's effectively a ball. There's no way he's moving, unless someone intends to carry him. "I'm going to sleep, feel free to talk about me," he tells them, because he knows they will, and he might as well be out the moment he closes his eyes. He can handle this in the morning, when his head isn't a deadly weapon mostly used against him.

* * *

Oh, yeah, they absolutely do.  
  
Even with the suppressors, he still manages to find Erik in twin-dreamspaces, and Charles is sitting beside Erik, on a dusty road where a gleaming building rises in the distance, and desert stretches for miles unseen. The sun blazes hot in the sky, and Erik's content, sitting lotus-style with his face tipped toward it.  
  
It feels real.  
  
Charles is dripping sweat, curling up the fine hairs at the nape of his neck, shirt stuck to his skin. Rivulets pour down his temples, down his throat and soak his collar. The ground is hard beneath him. ( _The road outside the house lies flat on the ground. The ground surrenders./Its roots in the ground and its branches in the air, a tree is pulled in two directions./The boy is a bird, bad bird. He falls out of trees_.) There's life, too. The desert is not a dead-place. Little animals crawl on their bellies, bugs chirp, trees form and greenery sprouts amidst the cracks.  
  
"I tried to find you here," Erik says. It's just a dream.  
  
Charles knows dreams. He doesn't know his own dreams very well, can never remember them or perhaps never has them to begin with, but he knows dreams. Everything is absolutely real within the scope of them, except that in reality, he's curled up on a couch - perhaps in a bed, either of them could move him - because he got drunk and passed out.  
  
Charles always knows it's a dream. He wishes, just this once, he didn't. That he could have just a night, one night, where the facts weren't as they were. But even dreams aren't that kind.  
  
"No, you wouldn't like Canada much," is all he says, though there's so much more to say. He's silent as he looks out at the desert.  
  
"I would like it, with you," is what Erik says. Everything with him is so simple-binary. Yes or no. It's not childlike per se, but there's an imminent sense that Erik's priorities are altered from the norm, focused upon basic amenities like survival. Shelter, food, entertainment (which counts; otherwise you go berserk), lack of pain-Erik looks over at him, eyebrows raised, expression serene as can be. "Is that where you want to go?"  
  
"It wouldn't be my first choice, no." He shrugs, leaning back onto his hands. It's warm to the touch, but it will never burn him. It may be Erik's dream, but they're in Charles' domain. "But in the scenario - running away, to pick you up to speed - I doubt we'd make it as far as overseas. Perhaps. Canada seemed fitting, though. All that wilderness, the vast expanse of it. Plenty of corners to hide in. I doubt anyone would look after a while." Charles grins, shakes his head. "Too bad I'd go mad, and then we'd have a bigger problem."  
  
"I won't let you go mad." It's certain. "Respectively, our combined influence would surely assist us in some manner." He's not speaking English, but they're in Charles's domain and the words come out that way, with the warped-edge that suggests their origin is otherwise. It's always this way in the mind-space. "I hear that Tangier is nice in this time of year. I would read you Choukri and Bowles and we'd smoke hashish and forget the world." His lips twitch. Playful.  
  
He laughs at that, lying back all the way until he's on his back. Looking up at the sky, which is more blue than he's ever seen it. "I don't want to forget the world, Erik," he says, slowly, but it pains him to admit how true it is. "I like the world. People, society. My work. Do you know how old I am? Don't answer that. The answer is not nearly as old as I should be." Charles grins, looking up. Erik looks healthier here. More radiant, more calm, more at peace. If only. "I earned my first bachelor's at sixteen. I went to Oxford, and I earned two PhDs and and an MD by twenty-five. I can't recall a time in my life I stood still. I don't think I ever have."  
  
"We will get you a fake name. Dr. Xarles Chavier. You can get another PhD. I hear McGill is popular." Erik is seated beside him, looking down and he brushes his hand over Charles's hair, lingering near his cheek. "I didn't go to school," he admits after a long moment. Even in the dream, somehow Charles knows this is true. He's learned something, which shouldn't be possible-this is just a dream.  
  
He's not surprised, honestly. Erik is a string of impossibilities, of contradictions, all strung up together in one beautiful whole that Charles wishes he could hate. It would make all of this much simpler. "It's never too late," he says, though he knows it likely is. "I'd tutor you. I imagine you'd be an excellent student," he teases. "You'd catch up. Perhaps you'll end up with more PhDs than me. I'm running out of applicable sciences."  
  
Erik's rubbing his thumb rhythmically across Charles's temples now, an idle movement he's unaware of. Aware of his persistent headache, the dull buzzing that pervades his every sense every waking moment of the day. It pangs in his chest, hollow, viciously furious that his friend should suffer. "You will teach me about genetics," he insists. "About our people." He taps his chest. Mutants, he means.  
  
"Our people," he repeats. He doesn't like the line drawn in the sand, and he never has. _Mutant, baseline. Them, us._ There's a way to coexist, though he knows no one has found it yet. "They - well, I suppose I contributed quite a lot to this," he begins, grinning again, "The X-gene. We all possess it. You can isolate it, study it. The problem is it's widely unpredictable. Most mutants exhibit signs of their powers at puberty - I was nine. Some younger, some older. Some seem to be born with it. Some evolve even over time. A second mutation. Truly unpredictable." He stares up at the sky again, darkly amused as he hums. "It defies explanation, in some ways. It's no wonder they fear us."  
  
"They fear us because it is in their nature," Erik says, completely assured of his own opinion. Something about frogs and scorpions, and Erik has no intention of being the frog-but truly, how much can he accomplish behind his plastic prison? Maybe he'll write his manifesto, Convicted Terrorist Said Mutant Rights. "I always felt the metal," he confides, reaching out with his hand to gently curve a small bit of abandoned scrap, fallen-off from a self-imagined car motoring away at high-speed. It floats up and twirls, catching sunlight. "The lines in the air. I couldn't move it until it was too late."  
  
Charles watches, perfectly in awe for a few moments. He's never seen Erik's abilities, not outside of the mind. He imagines it would be breathtaking when it isn't terrifying. "Do you understand your own potential, Erik?" he asks, though he knows the answer. No, he doesn't. "You don't control metal. That's what they think, you know. That you move metal." He chuckles at the notion of it, the short-sightedness, watching the scrap dance in the sun. "You have an immense amount of influence over a fundamental force, and you haven't hit your limit yet. You could do incredible things." Or horrific ones.  
  
Erik shakes his head, just as Charles predicted. "I know that-I know I feel the sky." It was a poor descriptor, a slight indicator of the disparity between them. In Erik's mind he had silly names for the things he knew were true, a scrapped-together scientific education from outdated textbooks intended for middle-schoolers. "Electricity, and the way-radios are. Wavelengths," he remembers the word after a second. "The wavelengths. Yes," he grins a little shyly. "I let them think that. They wrote a big list of them."  
  
"I saw," he laughs, recalling it. A comprehensive list of metals, as if they would find one he couldn't manipulate. "Magnetic fields. Now, I don't have a PhD in this particular science," he teases, still surprised at how easy that is, how light it feels, "But magnetism is one of the most important forces on this Earth. The Earth itself is built on it, actually, is ruled by its laws. They classified you as Omega-level with no comprehension of your actual ability. That's extraordinary." He shakes his head, then reaches for Erik's hand. Links it in his. It's almost heartbreaking, seeing them together like this. "They don't understand me, either. They know I'm a telepath, yes. But I can do more than read minds. I haven't quite figured it all out yet, and I fear doing so," he admits.  
  
Erik squeezes his hand instantly, smiling. "Don't worry," he murmurs. "When you do figure it out, I will help you. You won't be alone. You'll never be alone again. Can you imagine-two Omega-level mutants, a D5 and an S1. We have so many potential choices ahead. So many roads."  
  
"Except we don't," he says, grimly, and sits up. No, not even in dreams. He doesn't look at Erik's face. He knows what he'll find there. "Because you made a choice, Erik. And now you're facing the consequences. We're not all powerful. We're not untouchable. We don't choose who lives or dies. But you decided, and now you live with it. There's only one road for us."  
  
For the first time, that rage inside of him shows on his face, a grimacing downtown of his lips that's quickly wiped away into smooth implacability. It's fortunate that Charles doesn't see it, because it utterly transforms him-unrecognizable. "It was necessary," he says, so quiet it's almost inaudible, but that doesn't detract from the fierceness of his conviction.  
  
"No, Erik!" It's the first time he raises his voice. He doesn't do it often, doesn't need to, but he does here. He feels anger all his own, though it isn't like Erik's. It's a slow, creeping burn, nothing like the other man's inescapable flames. Raven whispers to him from somewhere far away. You'll get get caught up in his ashes, Charles. "You believed it was, perhaps. But it wasn't. There were other ways. Other paths. But you chose this one, and you -"  
  
Scared and alone. So many empty rooms. So many voices. Older, confused, still alone. No one at all.  
  
"You took everything from us," he whispers, as if they ever had a chance. "One road. One path. That's all that's left."  
  
" _There was no other way_!" Erik shouts back, brutal. "If I had known-if you had come-it would-be different." He swallows back a more emotional reaction, fighting to keep his voice steady. Dreams stripped them from rational comportment.  
  
"We never would have met." It's not an assumption, it's a fact. A fact in a place where facts don't usually matter, but of course it does here. He's quiet again, too quiet, staring into nothing. Into the edges of both their consciousness, because this place isn't real. "If you hadn't done what you did, we never would have met, Erik. Never would have crossed paths." His lips pull up again. "The world is sometimes cruel like that, I suppose."  
  
"Then-" Erik pleads, "-you would say I took from us?"  
  
"You took even the possibility. You didn't have to -" Charles stops short. He's silent, utterly still, and then he laughs. Laughs so hard it hurts, and he bows over. Laughs so hard he shakes with it, though it's not humor he feels. Far from it. He glares now, but not at Erik. It's not directed at him. "No, you did, didn't you? Because if you didn't, it would have been a useless gesture. They knew what no one else did. But you missed one." Shaw. He glosses over it, not willing to see Erik's rage again. To feel it. "I could have handled that. No one would have needed to die," he points out, though it doesn't matter. The deed is done.  
  
Erik digs his fingernails into his palms hard enough to draw blood, and it trickles down his wrist. He feels the iron dripping and Charles feels it with him, tracing a path down his skin, over the filaments in the barcode, through the fine hairs that grow there. "I could not allow that place to remain standing. It is unconscionable."  
  
"I know," he whispers. He knows how Erik thinks. He knows it's different than how he does, but so similar in so many ways. They aren't each other's opposition. They're each other's perfect match. "I know how you feel, Erik, how you see things. But killing is not the answer. It won't ever be." He turns, finally, and sighs. Reaches for those hands again, and takes them both in his.  
  
"I would have wanted it," he murmurs, so quiet it's barely words. But Erik would hear it. "A life with you."  
  
It must be a dream, because when he does look at Erik's face again, it is stoic as ever-but for the tears that drip down his cheeks in streaks, just as blood trails down his arm. He doesn't wipe them away, doesn't even move. " _Gam ani._ " There is no translation. For once an unknown, in the place where Charles considered his ultimate playing field.  
  
"How -" But he knows. Erik manipulates him in ways he's never been before. Not maliciously, never. He's merely a match in every way, even here. Even in the mind. Charles deliberates, for a moment. Feels the entire world change around them, then reform. Dreams only last so long.  
  
If only in a dream.  
  
He drops Erik's hands to cup both his cheeks, and then he kisses him.  
  
He feels Erik's smile against his lips as he moves forward, pressing their bodies closer as his hand raises to lay fingers against Charles's jaw-a pure spark of liquid-molten desire suffusing even-this-world, all the way into the Real-inhaling deeply into his lungs as he surges into Charles's mouth, everything-chaste melted away and he can have this here, yes, "Ken," he gasps deeply, eyes fluttering closed. Mine. The sun returns, warming them the way electricity snaps in their chests. There is Will, now, where there had not been before. When they pull away for a second, he is air, bright and joyful.  
  
"Oh, Erik," he whispers, voice shaking now. Trembling with the rest of him. He wants, of course he does, and he wants so desperately. Wants so desperately it sends sparks down his spine, fire burning in his belly, his head spinning in way it usually doesn't. "I shouldn't - " But he does. "We can't -" But they will anyway. "Please," he says, and there it is.  
  
He can't help it, he's grinning. " _Yes_ ," he breathes softly. "Yes, we can-we can." They can. They have to, when he hears his name in that tone. He lays the flat of his palm against Charles's chest, drawing it down to rest on his stomach. He moves, kissing him again, an addict now that he has tasted it for the first time. "Is this what you want?" It's a mirror of the question he keeps asking in the Real. Erik opens his eyes, staring at Charles like he's drugged, but he yanks himself back off that ledge. "Tell me." It's an Order. Through time and space, punching its way into Charles's gut.  
  
There are tears in Charles' eyes. There's no real sense to dreams, but this isn't wholly a dream. Somehow, they're connected already. He can feel it in Erik's touch, in his kiss. He trembles for him, not out of fear, but not entirely in anticipation, either. "Yes," he answers, completely honest, and the tears fall until he can taste them. Taste them on his lips just as he can taste Erik, as if all of this is happening in the world where it shouldn't be possible. "It's everything I've ever wanted, Erik," he says, and his voice is quiet again, the weight of it settling in his chest, in his stomach. It hurts more badly than he thinks anything ever has.  
  
Erik settles back slightly on his haunches, lightly drawing his fingers back down Charles's face, a kind of tenderness impossible to expect out of him-for anyone who didn't know him as intimately as Charles did, of course. Even if he didn't know everything-everything, the way he did with all the others.  
  
Turned-away by the secret-wishings and dark-places he sees in all the minds crowding in. Drawn-in by it all the same. No one is ever one thing. It's what he writes about in every paper he's ever submitted for academic approval. No one is ever truly lost. But how can he believe that about Erik, when he knows how much Erik deprived them of?  
  
" _Gam an_ i," he just repeats, kissing him again, but it's softer, less about overwhelming-heat. Just to feel him. To try and do his part to ease the agony of sharp edges and metallic knife-point, and if anyone would be equipped-but Erik doesn't know how to be kind ( _I was never poetic/and never kind-_ )  
  
Charles kisses back. He lets his mind swim, lets it wander. He leans into Erik's touch, gasps against his lips when the heat settles in again, something he's never felt. Attraction, yes. Want, maybe. But not this. Not this, all consuming and delicious, sneaking under his skin and into the corners of his mind he thought no one would ever touch.  
  
Beating in his heart. Even in a dream.  
  
"We would have been extraordinary, Erik," he whispers against the other's lips, and cries for what they lost.


	7. So grounded and so humbled and so one with everything

Charles wakes.  
  
Raven's dozing, leaned over the arm of the couch with his head still cradled in her lap maternally. The headache returns full force, slamming into him like a thousand screaming needles only this-time it's carried on by congeners bound to his blood-vessels, acetaldehyde glutathione-deficiency a pounding beat-beat-beat in time with his heart.  
  
Telepathy? A bitch in its own right. Add hangover to the mix? Good luck.  
  
It certainly doesn't help that he's been crying even in reality. No one made him drink water before he passed out, and now he's letting it pour out of his eyes. Charles groans, low and pained, eyes shut tight. Everyone in the world seems to be screaming at the moment, calling out for his attention at once. It's mid-morning. He can see Raven's dreams (she'd be mortified if she knew, so best keep that to himself). War is still awake in the other room somewhere. He's thinking about -  
  
Pain, and loss. Agony. Fear.  
  
Charles whimpers. It's too much. It hurts too much. He curls up, feeling smaller than he ever has, and he lets himself cry.  
  
It wasn't perfect. Nothing ever is. But why did it have to be a dream? He has to get up today. He has to work today. He has to be strong today, composed, professional. He has to talk to Erik's lawyer.  
  
He has to go to another session. See Erik again, and know what they can never have. What he wants so badly.  
  
Charles doesn't often allow himself moments of weakness. Perhaps now is his yearly exception. Still, he forces himself to his feet, dries his eyes, and searches for his phone. He has to speak to Carmen Pryde immediately.  
  
Pryde picks up on the first ring, paused between typing a report and funneling cold coffee directly into his mouth via straw (it's cold because it's the fastest way to get it into his system, thank-you-very-much, all judgment can be directed to the door) and his voice is still-gruff, still-taciturn. He doesn't recognize the number, so he barks out a simple, " _Paragon LLP_ , how can I help you?"  
  
"It's Charles Xavier," he says, equally terse, but mostly because his head feels like it's exploding still. He cradles his head in his free hand, rubbing idle circles just like - yes, just like Erik had. "I have new information. Very important, very sensitive information that will alter the entire case." He might have cracked a smile, if everything wasn't clouded in pain at the moment. "Fortunately, in our favor, and in the favor of innocent people. But I need your help."  
  
"How soon can you be at the office?" Pryde sits up in his chair, jolting into action.  
  
Charles is at the office in just a few hours. He does have to stop to change (he hardly thinks showing up in a rumpled dress shirt he vomited on would have been acceptable), and he's not allowed to drive - Raven did wake up, and she would kill him if he tried - but he gets there as soon as possible.  
  
The headache hasn't passed. Even as he sits across from Pryde, he's rubbing at his temples. He knows he must be pale, that his eyes must be red-rimmed and accentuated by dark circles. He looks as presentable as he can, given the circumstances, and he's worn one of his best suits as if it will offset the mess he's made of himself.  
  
He's aware it doesn't work.  
  
"They're alive," he says, once the pleasantries are done with. "The other... patients. Erik was saving them. They were never going to be targets, and they were out of that building long before it came down."  
  
Pryde sits quietly, thumbing his mug as he digests that. "You're sure about this? Do we have any idea where they are? That-if we can get them to testify-it'll be over for the prosecution, you realize that."  
  
"Absolutely certain, though I imagine they aren't safe," he sighs, and it goes without saying why. "If anyone knows, it's Erik, but I don't know the extent of it yet. I just know they're out there." He reaches for one of Pryde's pads and a pen after a quick gesture, writing down the names he knows. At least his memory is unaffected by his migraine. "I'm sure they aren't in the open, but I know their names. Their abilities. I have pictures of them, too." He taps his temple, making it clear it's only in his head - a memory. "One of them is only ten years old," he says, as calmly as he can, given the circumstances. "It's been weeks. I'm sure you understand the urgency here."  
  
"Are you all right?" Pryde asks after a moment of observing him. He looks like he's about to keel over, white-faced and knuckles-clenched, suit rumpled despite its prestigious fabric. He's seen the aftermath of one too many soul-wrenching benders to be oblivious.  
  
"That depends on your definition of alright." Charles gives a sheepish grin, rubbing at his temples again. Truly, he's only thankful he hasn't been sick again this morning. Sheer force of will, perhaps. "I'm just a bit stressed. It's an important case," he says, calmly. "I'll be fine."  
  
"You have to get back to the CIA," Pryde tells him after reading the names, their ages, their abilities. Charles feels the cold clench of his gut, roiling as though he were the one about to be sick. "You have to find out where these people are. I don't need to tell you what'll happen if they're found by less than reputable sources first." He doesn't say Shaw because it's impolitic, but Charles is the telepath.  
  
"The CIA," he repeats. He thinks of Moira, but the anxiety still settles into his gut. Erik doesn't trust them, and - since when does he distrust like that? He grits his teeth, shaking his head to clear it. "I'm concerned for them. I'm positive Erik knows where they are, or at least has a good idea, but I'm sure you're also aware of how... vulnerable they are." He taps the pad, eyes hollowed out with the pain of what he knows. "Ten. That boy is ten. I can't put him in danger, not for a trial."  
  
Pryde gives him a reproving look. "Do you really think that's why I'm asking? Give me some credit, Xavier. You and I both know if we don't control how they're found, they're liable to end up dead or worse. So, yes, the CIA, where Erik Lehnsherr is being held, because it is imminently obvious that he knows the answer to this question."  
  
"No, I don't." He wipes a hand across his face, expression and tone apologetic. "I think I'm very tired, and have a terrible headache, which for a telepath is a bit like having an ice pick jammed into your brain. Repeatedly." He's sheepish, again, embarrassed, grinning even though there's no humor in him. "You're right. They need to be found, and I'll make sure they are. I'm seeing Erik today." He grimaces, something he'd normally hide. "This situation is about to become more complicated than it already is."  
  
"No," Pryde shakes his head. "It's about to become complicated in a very good way. If those kids are still living, if they're unharmed-G-d willing, it means that something good has come of this. There are lives saved, regardless of how, and that is a win-and I don't mean for the case, or the trial."  
  
That, Charles agrees with.  
  
He takes it with him to Erik's cell. Tucks it into his heart, where the guilt has begun to build and fester, breaking down every defense he has. How could he forgive Erik, after what he'd done? How could he forgive himself for feeling so drawn to him? But no one is ever one thing. No one is ever lost permanently. Erik is not a monster, nor was he ever.  
  
They wanted to make a monster out of him. They did not succeed.  
  


* * *

  
"Are they safe, Erik?" It's the first thing he says when the guards leave, when he's certain they're alone. His suit is still rumpled, his eyes are still a bit red, his head is still pounding. He's thinner than he was when they met. The circles under his eyes are dark. He leans forward, meeting Erik's eyes like he had so much trouble with that first day. "Those people you saved. Do you believe they're safe now?"  
  
"Yes," he says, soft. Sitting across from Charles, head tilted to take him in critically. He lifts a hand, concern bleeding through him. Charles can see there's a bandage on his left hand, white and patched-up carefully. He's still in his Protection cell, so he must not've caused pandemonium in the sickbay to get it. "You're unwell." Like it's the only thing he can process, right now.  
  
"I'm not unwell, I'm incredibly masochistic," he says, lips quirking, but he shakes his head (and regrets it a moment later when the pain bursts again, blossoming all the way down to his toes). Erik is far too good at distracting him, and he's not going to let it happen this time. "Erik, listen to me. You need to tell me where they are. There are people looking for them, and they will find them. But they can be safe." He goes to reach for Erik's hand, and then stops himself. His hand hovers halfway there instead. "Something good can come from this. Something very, very good."  
  
"No," Erik shakes his head. "No. It is OK." It's an Order. Erik's never made an Order like this before, but he does it now. Fear and distrust ping around in his mind.  
  
"You -" An Order, and a clear one: leave it be. Charles is breathless, stunned silent in the aftermath. It's more than the headache that pains him now. He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. His lips tremble, his stomach roils and he leans forward like he's about to retch.  
  
 _No, Charles. Down, Charles. Hush, Charles._  
  
Except this time it works. He doesn't say a word. He stares down at the table, trembling but still. His head is bowed. He holds his tongue.  
  
"Yes, Erik," he says, and his words have never been cold, hollow. They are now.  
  
Erik regrets it the moment it's out of his mouth, his knuckles coming to rest on his bottom lip-it hadn't been intentional. "It's OK," he repeats. "Disregard that." It's an Order, too. He can't bear looking at Charles that way, the knowledge that he could Order him down, could manipulate the situation, Charles's tolerance of him only predicated on the idea that he was infallible, that he would never-and nothing-else-but he can't-he won't-he won't give them up. He won't. His mind locks down in preparation, ready to throw Charles out at a moment's notice. Terror, he's terrified.  
  
Charles raises his head and looks. Through the haze of hurt and dizziness and nausea, through the migraine, he listens, too. There's so much fear in him. Erik has never been more terrified, and it's enough that Charles needs to lean over for a moment or two to compose himself. This is not the time or place for vomiting.  
  
"They don't know," he tells him, softly. "I'm not here to interrogate you, Erik. I want them to be safe as much as you do. Don't you know that? And I'm not looking." Charles taps his temple in a familiar gesture, rubs at it distractedly a moment later. "I'm not going to get into your head. I promised I wouldn't, just as you promised not to Order me outside of my consent," his voice is harder, for the last bit, but not unforgiving. He understands the severity of the situation as much as Erik does.  
  
"I'm sorry," he whispers hoarsely. "You're hurting." He stands, then, and crosses the room to where Charles is seated, moving behind him to dislodge Charles's hands from his head, replace them with his own instead. He closes his eyes, projecting something calming. Soothing. Safe. A cotton batting away from the hurt, a construction he's relied on a thousand-million times in the past, familiar like a good pair of boots. Pain is a thing of the mind. It's just sensation. It's just neurons. Sensation is sensation is-his thumbs moved in gentle circles.  
  
"That won't work," he sighs, but he leans into it anyway, because it certainly feels nice. Erik's fingers are a bit cold despite the temperature of the room, and he revels in it. Charles is never sure how to explain this type of headache to someone else.  
  
"I'm going to show you something for just a second. It will be overwhelming, but try not to be too alarmed." Erik likes to be connected to him mentally, he's learned. He takes to it better than anyone Charles has ever met.  
  
He opens up his brain to Erik, projects it as if plugging him in directly. Immediately he knows Erik's head is flooded - _buzzing, buzzing, buzzing_. Incredible, aching pain, though he keeps that to himself, dials it back. Flashes of images, far too fast for an ordinary person to cling onto. His mind never sticks to something for more than the briefest moment - it bounces, listens, absorbs. He's listening to the guards, to agents, to the driver downstairs, how he doesn't like whiskey, Erik's face, his dissertation on genetics, an article he read about biophysics, worry about those people - so young, so vulnerable, he's terrified, too, Erik's hands, an entire conversation happening down the hall, Raven, he has to keep her safe, I can't lose her, please, she's all the family I have, please, please, what he imagines Erik looks like without a shirt, above him -  
  
And just like that, the connection is snapped, and Charles' cheeks are very red. He coughs. Perhaps the last part didn't register. He could have been fast enough.  
  
"That's my brain at the moment," he says, as way of explanation. "It's always like this after I... dull it. With anything. Alcohol, painkillers. Like snapping back a rubberband, it creates force. The voices get worse, my own thoughts get scattered, and it hurts."  
  
At first it's a jarring, jagged sensation of screaming-neurons and knives slicing over his consciousness and his fingers tighten minutely, but he bears it and then he sinks into it, just like he always does, floating along the rifts of Charles's meandering thoughts. At the last bit-he definitely caught it, Erik smiles despite himself, the first one of the day, and keeps his hands where they are because it anchors him, too. He wants to know how often Charles imagines that, what else he imagines, but he just keeps rhythmically digging the pads of his thumb into his temples, futile or not. "You dulled it," he tuts, disapproving, but he doesn't lecture. Doesn't tell him not to. "I am sorry," he says. "What can I do to help? Let me help. Please."  
  
"I always think it will help." He sighs, still leaning back into the touch. Charles lets his eyes close. This isn't what he came for. This isn't what they need to be talking about. Still, he feels like he's going to be sick again, and a few moment's reprieve couldn't hurt. "It does get a bit better, at first. Duller. Quieter. And then it's louder, and the hangover is worse. I'll be fine, Erik, I just need to let it run its course, that's all. It's a bit like... imagine turning the volume on something down, and then cranking it all the way up. It will level, it always does." He takes a long, slow breath. "A friend of mine once told me it would be possible to dull it permanently. Turn the volume way down, or even off entirely. I considered it," he admits.  
  
"No," Erik shakes his head, vehement. "No. You can't do that. Your mutation-it is wonderful. It is part of who you are. We just-we just must learn to make it less-less hurtful to you. You could come inside my mind. You can stay here. I can help you. I will help you." There's no Will attached to it, but there is Dominance in a way that anyone else simply couldn't replicate, a type of confidence alien to those lower on the scale.  
  
"I won't take it," he promises. "It's a serum. It wouldn't get rid of my mutation, but it would keep it in check. Keep it contained. I already decided not to use it." Erik seems panicked by the idea of it, and he understands why. Erik loves the extraordinary; there isn't much he wouldn't do to protect it, and Charles can't help but admire that. Their only disagreement is on the methods. "I'm not sure if you can help me with this, Erik. It's just something I live with." He's not bitter anymore, merely resigned.  
  
"No," Erik says again, disagreeing and it's commonplace with them now, these disagreements in method. "No, I can help you. I have to try. Let me try. I-" he doesn't know how to express it, how to explain it.  
  
How to show Charles the way he'd lived while sparing him it. So he tries to show him-what he thinks of as his mind. A fractured collection of pieces, each built for their purpose, each containing their own pains and joys and thoughts and feelings, able to effortlessly cycle between themselves, conscious-directed movement. At-first childlike, dragfoot-monster man and sleepy mannequin sharp-knives but gradually they became more well-formed.  
  
Beyond the pieces there were places, not just-desert but deep-deep worlds with forests populated by little animated creatures, plink-plonks scurrying through stop-motion mountains and infinite possibilities, infinite places, so much room to hide and spread and grow. So many ways to ease pain and suffering. He was sure he could find something for Charles in there, something that could-that could minimize it in some way, even a small way. Even a minuscule, tiny amount.  
  
Charles sees it. For a moment or two, among the headache and the chatter and the loudness of the buzzing, so much louder than usual, he's not entirely sure what he's looking at. He doesn't comprehend it. When he understands, he gasps, a surprised, soft little noise, following the threads of Erik's mind like he's never seen them before. He doesn't delve, he doesn't push, he doesn't go where Erik does not lead him, but he revels. His eyes close again, this time for an entirely different reason. He knows why those places would be necessary, and he wishes they weren't, but even still - "Extraordinary," he breathes, and it's not the first time he's called Erik that. It's always true. "You have an incredible mind, Erik. A beautiful one. But I don't think it would work for me. Perhaps I could try, but..." He sighs, leans back until he's staring at the ceiling. "But I think the pain is part of it, I'm afraid. A necessary part." He laughs softly, grimacing when his head protests to the sound of it. "I did say I was masochistic, didn't I?"  
  
Erik tries to smooth it away with his fingertips, even knowing it won't work. The praise, extraordinary, lights a warmth in him as it always does. No one has ever treated him this way. No one has ever referred to him like that, taken the time to listen when they're shown, and Erik's head bows slightly. When he speaks again, it's still-soft. " _Why_?" he needs to know. "Why pain?"  
  
"Because it reminds me," he says, softly, and turns until he can face Erik fully, until he can look him in the eyes. He smiles, gentle even through the very pain they're discussing. "I feel so much pain, Erik. Everyone carries it with them, which means I do, too. And I didn't understand why for a very long time. Why I had to carry it, why I had to bear it. It felt like a curse." He shakes his head, recalling some of Erik's hurt. Erik's hurt, which is his now, even if he only experienced a fraction of it. Even if he never truly understood. "But I do now. It reminds me to be kind. To be patient. To help, instead of hurt. To listen, when others do not. I'd take a million headaches over losing that."  
  
"I didn't come here to destroy that building," Erik tells him, every muscle in his body tensed up like he's readying for an attack.  
  
Charles raises an eyebrow, watching Erik's new posture. He wants to reach out, to read him, but he's not sure if he's welcome. He won't push. He promised. Instead he reaches for Erik's hand, watches him carefully. "What did you come for then, Erik? Please, tell me. I promise you can trust me." And truly, he means it.  
  
"I-" he cuts himself off, thinks of redirecting, but he squeezes the hand in his. Erik's eyes close. "I arrived here seven months ago."  
  
"Seven months?" Charles does the math, but it's hardly necessary. It's long before the attack, long before any of this, and a long stretch of time that's entirely unaccounted for. He smooths the surprise out of his features, out of his tone, and settles back into calm, standing up (despite a bit of wobbling) to cup Erik's cheek. Gentle, grounding. "Alright. Why, Erik? Why did you come here?"  
  
"I don't know," he answers, a grim smile on his face. "You will have to ask my keeper."  
  
"Your keeper?" His eyebrow raises again, though Erik can't see it like this. He strokes his cheek, thumb pressing circles like Erik had been for him. Instinctively he reaches out with his mind, seeking answers, but he pulls back. Erik wouldn't know if he did, but he won't. He occupies that space in his brain with a conversation between two guards, the idle buzzing irritating but distracting enough. "What do you mean? Erik, please. Talk to me."  
  
Erik's thumb in its new position rubbed new circles over the spot between Charles's index finger and his own thumb. "I was held there-" stops and starts, maybe he wouldn't know how to talk to Charles in any incarnation, "-with the-other patients. It's OK," he smiles again, gentle. His mind is a hazy loam of fog and clouds, roiling over tree-tops. Screams pierce the distance.  
  
Oh, of course. He curses under his breath, the pieces finally snapping together. Charles lets it course through him. The pain, the agony, the absolute terror. There was a reason he knew all of those names, a reason Erik's mind wrapped around them like more than words on case files. It all makes so much sense now, it's a wonder he didn't see it before. How could he not have? His anger, his refusal to see another option, the vagueness of his whereabouts, the connection to this particular facility. It all comes in at once, swirling, buzzing, breaking, pounding, and Charles can't see for a moment. Everything goes black, explodes with white-hot light. All around him, the world screams, screams, screams, and he has no choice but to listen. He grabs around Erik's middle, because he's not certain he can keep himself up otherwise. "Oh, Erik," he sighs.  
  
" _Ara_ - _Arad_ , was-my home," he stumbles, inhaling sharply through his nose. "For so long. Then it was not. You know," he tried to laugh. "It's OK. It's OK. It's OK," he wraps his arm around Charles, resting his hand against the other man's hair, trying to comfort, to chase away the echoes. "Look away," he murmurs. It's a repeat-echo-scream- _look away, look away, Dear-Heart, close your eyes_ \- and the girl with the matching-freckles and sunlit smile freeze-frame in place- "No, don't look, it's OK." Wants to be an Order but he ruthlessly forces it otherwise.  
  
"No, Erik. I won't," he whispers, because there's no way he could. He feels sick again. The pain is back tenfold, though it never left, the pounding, the buzzing, the echoing, but he needs to listen. So he does. He lets Erik hold him, keeps his hand on his cheek, and he listens. Nothing is numbed, or dulled, or held back from him, and he doesn't need to dive deeply to see it. It's given to him, though Erik wants it to be otherwise. "Let me help. Let me bear it, too. Please." And though he's being held, Charles holds, too, steadies, grounds, listens. "I'm here, Erik," he murmurs, softly, gently, like he used to do when Raven would have nightmares. "I'm here, and I can bear it. Let me help you. I will help you."  
  
A shudder runs through him, and the way of thoughts, even in a person as marshaled and regimented as Erik, they're unconscious little things. A woman laughing and holding the _shamash_ over four candles, _Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha'olam asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu _l'hadlik ner shel hanukkah__ she sings to him, and he's maybe-four, reaching for the fire only to be batted away with her free hand, the other holding baby Ruthie.  
  
And then she's on the ground in the gravel-dust, head twisted at an awkward angle, eyes lifeless, and Ruthie's screaming, and then she's silent, her body a dull thud and he's left standing in the wreckage of his home, metal that he can feel groaning and twisting under the force of his grief. He's trapped down into the ground ( _the ground surrenders_ but does it?), foot on his back and he can't move. Can't go to them.  
  
 _Wonderful! It seems anger unlocks your gift. Anger and pain. You and I, we're going to have so much fun._  
  
With a gasp, he breaks away from Charles's hold and shoots to the other side of the room, settling his back against the wall, chin tipped up to the ceiling as he finds a piece that doesn't feel, clicks it into place and uses it to shove it all back behind an impenetrable wall, something even Charles would struggle to break-through. Erik's eyes meet his at last, cold. He's silent, watchful, the same man on the video-feeds from weeks prior.  
  
Charles crumbles. It's not submission that puts him on his knees this time, but pain. It's excruciating, the recoil of the gun after it's been fired, leaving him winded, floundering, and he can't block it out. Over, it's over, but it's not. A million times it echoes, like ripples on a river, and he's helpless to follow it. Every broken, fractured, splintered bit of pain, and it's not just Erik's - But Charles is strong. He meets Erik's eyes, wipes his tears (are they his or Erik's, truly?), and takes a breath. "Erik," he whispers. "Please."  
  
He moves, something behind his eyes shifting just a little. Becoming less severe. It is that way with dominants and their submissives-when a pair is truly matched, they say, one cannot bear to see the other in pain. Erik gets down on one knee, brushing the back of his hand over Charles's face. "OK, all right," he tugs Charles close to him, murmuring little things under his breath in Yiddish. It's not a particularly gentle-sounding language, but it's the one he always turns to for comfort. I have you, I'm here. I won't let anything happen to you.  
  
And how silly and absolutely telling it is that Erik is comforting him when he's the one in need of it himself. When the pain was his to begin with, and Charles is only experiencing it secondhand. Still, he goes easily into Erik's arms, checking first - no, no one is watching, and no one will. It's safe here, only them. He tucks himself under Erik's chin, a soft, pleased noise escaping him. He's ached for this, more than he'd ever like to admit. Ached for Erik's arms around him, for security and safety and everything he's taught himself not to want, not to crave, not to need. "Erik," he sighs in return, because that's all he needs to say. He won't subject Erik to the discomfort he's feeling, but he opens enough of a link that it gets across - safe, gentle, kind, I'll help you, too, I swear it. Perhaps it's his imagination, or just a change of perspective, but when he closes his eyes, the pain nearly fades.  
  
Show me, Erik returns. Don't hide it from me. Let me feel. He taps Charles's temple almost playfully, rubbing his hand over his back in even strokes, up to his neck and into his hair and then down again. It's safe here, he agrees. " _Es iz zikher do_ ," repeats out loud. He won't let anything happen to Charles, not even himself.  
  
Charles shakes his head, though the effect is a bit lost when he's curled into Erik's chest, nuzzled there where the harsh lighting of Erik's cell can't touch him and the thoughts of every other person within a certain radius at least seem a bit quieter. "Unless that's an Order," he says, tone dry, and then lifts his head to grin, cheeky, but perhaps a bit shy, too. Teasing, nothing like the coldness from before. It's already long forgiven. No, if anything, it's goading now, mischievous. He settles back in, but he knows perfectly well that Erik can hear the silent I dare you.  
  
Erik's returning expression is gentle, different than usual somehow but no less himself. "Your wish is my Command," he says, a teasing of his own, nodding down at Charles, his mind a pleasant roll of rich sensations buoyed by having him here this way. "Show me," and it's glittering-shards and sunbeams suspended on dust and impossible to ignore, the promise of joy and freedom from restraint on the horizon.  
  
Charles chuckles, a quiet, subdued thing, as if he doesn't want to make too much noise. He doesn't. It's quieter, now, in Erik's arms. He's as helpless as always to Erik's Orders, but he obeys as easy as breathing, slipping into submission as if there's nothing in the world more natural. Erik isn't taking anything he wasn't already willing to give. He opens the link carefully, slowly, so as not to overwhelm, though the flood is softer in general this time, less frantic and pained. There's discomfort, plenty of it, sensations of too-bright-too-loud-too-much, his lingering headache, more pronounced than usual. He hasn't eaten in the last twenty-four hours, and perhaps even before that, and he's not been sleeping. He reigns in the voices, because Erik certainly isn't equipped to deal with them like he is, but gives the general idea: he's hearing everyone all at once, from the guards to the agents to the driver still, full conversations here, idle thoughts there. Chatter, background noise, but today it's much more distracting and loud, irritating, grating, like nails on a chalkboard but worse. There's worry, concern, fear, lots of fear: he's very scared for Raven, even though she found the whole thing ridiculous. He remembers sleeping on her lap the night before, how he wished idly that it could have been Erik, and then quickly attempts to redirect. He's slipping into subspace, seeking the comfort of it, which is something he never thought possible for himself. Awe, disbelief, relief, pleasure. Pleased. Is Erik pleased? A million thoughts at once, but Erik pops up more often than not. Is he pleased? Is Charles good enough? Erik again, looming over him, shirtless and - Charles groans against Erik's chest, grateful that he can hide his face when it flushes this time.  
  
Erik inhales sharply as he settles into listening, with his mind instead of his ears, and it's a curious sensation until it's slammed into him like a freight train, but he leans into it-into the chaotic distortion of people-motion and loud, amplifier-feedback screeching like a cheesegrater to the brain. Slicing off bits. His arms tighten, the only sign that he's outwardly affected, but Charles knows it's a sympathetic motion, a body-felt grimace bittersweet-twist, he hates that Charles feels this-hates that it's-or that he believes it is-necessary. Raven, in all her blue glory, pauses Erik just as it always does, and he can't help but smile. She's perfect, and he won't allow anything to happen to her. Charles is right, he _missed one_ , and he won't make the same mistake twice. Notes his lack of eating, of sleep, and in this there is disapproval, but not for Charles himself- _worry, you must eat. You must sleep. It's important_. They're not Orders, although in this state they very well could be. His idle wishings float through Erik like feathers in the aftermath, and his grasp tightens once more, for a different reason. Frissons of heat worming their way into his ribcage. He dislodged Charles from him only to look him in the face, tracing that blush with his fingertips. Don't hide away, he implores, soft-edged and bright eyed.  
  
This time, he doesn't break the connection. He can't, not like this, can't because Erik is telling him not to hide, urging him to show him, and he won't disobey an Order, even if it's not technically one. Not here, not in Erik's arms with those beautiful eyes on him, not with the gentle, careful slip into that place he'd never been able to reach, the place he'd fallen into rather suddenly the first time Erik had Ordered him to his knees. In comparison, this is slow, soft, almost dreamy; he floats rather than falls, eyelids heavy but still very much coherent, very much conscious, very much himself. He doesn't go terse and stiff, mindless, the way he imagined, not fighting it like he had before. His cheeks are hot, though, just like the rest of him is warm now, and he squirms slightly, embarrassed by the scrutiny. Erik looks at him as if he is something beautiful and precious, and Charles know he is not - not truly, not the way Erik thinks. He opens, opens, opens, and lets Erik in, filtering thoughts: Erik, he's thought so much of Erik, so much of his touch, so much of his voice. He's imagined so much, envisioned so much. Erik, whispering soft but firm Orders, bending him to his Will. He wants it, he aches for it, he needs it. "Erik," he whispers, the heat spreading. He closes his eyes, embarrassed, flustered, shy in a way he never is. This is new for him. So startlingly, terrifyingly, incredibly new.  
  
Small, barely-perceptible tremors run through Erik's body as he sees, the way Charles saw himself-reflected that first time, mirrored with himself and overlaid and he can't believe it-they're similar in this respect; this is new. Erik's got it in his hands like a fragile thing and he knows he can shred it at a moment's notice, can irrevocably lay waste and ruin and it makes him shudder again for an entirely different reason-he wants to be so careful, but there's something ancient and irrespective of rational agonizing about this connection they share-with Charles floating down lower, Erik feels it in his veins, making him slow and hot. "Don't be," he whispers back, so close that his breath puffs against Charles's lips. _Don't be embarrassed. You are magnificent._  
  
Charles gasps, because like this, connected by mind and whatever bond they've established - he'd heard about it, plenty of times, seen it from the outside, but it never could have prepared him - everything is amplified, even more so than usual. Erik's voice has him trembling, just the barest amount, not out of pain, not out of fear, but this time out of pure, unburdened anticipation. It's not an Order, perhaps, but it might as well be - everything is now, he's finding, everything Erik says, and though he knows he could break away if he wanted, he could fight it, he doesn't want to, won't, wants to please Erik, wants to listen, wants to go where he leads, at least in this - and Charles feels the shame melt out of him, replaced by heat, smoldering, unbelievable heat. So this is what it feels like. "Please," he begs, because he wants, wants, wants, but won't take, not until he's given. Not until he's told. _"Please, Erik."_  
  
And that rockets through him, rending a low moan out of him before he can have the wherewithal to be embarrassed by his lack of composure. He finds himself acting without his own Will, pulling Charles against him so he can kiss him, settle his hand low against that place in Charles's gut where heat ripples under his skin. Properly this time, pouring a lifetime's worth of want into it. It's yours. It's always been yours. Take your fill. Erik wants more of him, always more. As much as Charles has imagined it's equal in Erik, how gorgeous he would be beneath him, letting him string out these strands of desire and heat and pull him taut. He's never had this. Never wanted this. His body has always been a cold instrument, and its biological auspices dealt with mechanically, efficiently, leaving him hollow and stale. Not this. Yes, this is new. The way Charles trembles for him, begs for him, begs to _please him_. " _Ah_ -" escapes his chest, ragged.  
  
Charles melts into that kiss, his whole body thrumming with it. His fill? Erik must not understand the scope of how desperately he wants, of how much he would beg for if he could. For now he is breathless, panting, a soft, needy moan he no longer has the ability to be ashamed for slipping from parted lips as he clings. Erik is everywhere now, surrounding him, shielding him, consuming him. "Yours?" he whispers, an echo of Erik's thoughts, but a question. A plea. Claim me, he projects, and then, cheeky, teasing, grinning, I dare you. Do you think you can? You, when no one else could?  
  
Erik all but glowers at him, tapping his thumb against the pulse-point of Charles's throat, and he closes his eyes to concentrate and when they're open he's projecting-back, an image pulled out of the darkness, pinning Charles to the wall and kissing him until he can't breathe from saying his name-hands gripped in Erik's behind his back, a knee between his thighs. Erik tastes that sound, becomes him less careful, opens him up with lips and tongue. _Be good for me. Just like this_. He pulls away to bow their foreheads together, taking several slow, deep breaths. His eyes are all-but black in the dim room, staring into Charles with fiery intensity. _Don't worry, neshama. You're mine. **Mine**._ It's a dark and possessive hum in his heart, rich and luxuriating in itself, simultaneously satisfied and hungry.  
  
Charles has never belonged. Here, in Erik's arms, possessed and claimed and so fiercely wanted - finally, he believes he might. The knowledge breaks him in ways he couldn't have imagined, and Erik puts him back together, Erik holds all his pieces, Erik is everything. In that moment, he doesn't need anything else. Someone had told him once, someone he can't remember, and isn't that strange, Charles never forgets - Erik, Erik, Erik - that if he ever submitted, it would be more wholly than anyone could imagine. He understands now. "I'll be good for you," he promises, and feels it echo in him - I'll be good, so good, so very good - "I'll be good, Erik, I'm yours, I'm yours, oh," he gasps, moans, clinging as tightly as he dares. _I'll be good, let me be good, tell me what you want from me, tell me what to do, Order me, Command me, have me -_  
  
An electric arc pierces his nerves, a circuit-completing, and Erik feels every piece of him slot together like magnets forming a whole. And then he's looming over him, pushing him onto his back and fitting their bodies together to match. "You want me to touch you? Hm?" he rasps against Charles's ear, relishes him, dragging his nails against the sensitive skin along his collarbones, drifting down and under his shirt to feel skin. Yes, he shivers, feeling it at the base of his spine. Sympathetic-reflex. _You do. I know you do. You're going to tell me_. He wanted everything. Everything Charles dreamt of, what he'd never allowed himself to think about, what he did think about unbidden, half-against his Will. Not now. Now it's Erik's Will. Everything begins to narrow, the room shimmers with it and heat like the curling, wild things of a humid jungle. _Take this from me_ , and that's an Order, he places Charles's fingers at the hem of his shirt. Remembering the brief sliver he had seen. Erik wants what Charles wants. His mind is singing with it.  
  
Charles gasps, and feels it mend. All those years something was broken, or perhaps just lost, and he couldn't reach it. Couldn't find it. He does now. Erik pieces it back together like he lines up their bodies, and Charles is helpless to it, is lost to it, making desperate, whimpered noises that sound something like Erik's name. "Yes, yes, Erik," he moans, arching into every touch, like he's the metal Erik is so fond of, fit and molded perfectly to his Will, his touch, his hands. Yes, he echoes, over and over, a constant repeat. _Yes, I want you to touch me, yes_.  
  
The heat covers everything, touches everything, but he feels his cheeks heat at the Order. This is not a dream. It doesn't stop him from moving, eager and obedient, so pleased to listen, but somewhere in the back of his mind - _I've never, what if I'm not very good, what if I'm not good at all, am I even attractive_? - but Erik's shirt is simple, meant to be slipped on and off, and he trembles at all the skin he can see. There are scars, so many scars, some white and faded, some recent, and Charles wants all of it. The pain, and the desire, and everything between that. His fingers hover, but don't touch, not without an Order. Still, his opinion is clear, was always clear, screams louder now: you're so beautiful, you're extraordinary -  
  
" _Royk, royk_ ," Erik murmurs, close to his ear- _be easy_ ,-his head dips to lay kisses along Charles's throat, pausing to rein in the increasingly-powerful pulses of need-want-yes roiling through him, Charles's hands hovering over him, and he nods. _Yes, go on, touch. Take._ His face is face screwed up in an inscrutable expression, like he doesn't quite-know what to do with himself, with the tantalizing twist of desire mingled with mind-shattering Will in the atmosphere.  
  
Most of his visible skin is littered with scars in some form or another, some particularly jagged, a few indicative of stabs and mangled anger taken-out on flesh, and now it's his turn to be shy, laughing faintly even as he moves Charles's hand to his chest. Distracted by the idea of returning the favor, feels the metal in the buttons on Charles's dress shirt and they undo themselves easily, fabric falling open so he can see-are you even attractive-he snorts, grinning. He lets Charles see that, how he sees him, flushed and needy and aching beneath him, a living dream. The impossible azure of his hooded gaze, the delicious way he unconsciously bites down on reddened lips. _You ridiculous man. Look at you._  
  
Erik brushes his thumb over a nipple, drags his nails down Charles's side, with no particular goal in mind other than the sensation, there is so much he wants to do, but not-here, in this dead-dark place, in this prison. On the floor of a Protection cell. Charles deserves infinitely more. He lowers and mouths at the hollow of Charles's ribs, hand now on his thigh, tracing the fabric of his pants, a little too-inward to be innocent. Spots a few scars of Charles's own, wants to smooth them out-curiosity pinging.  
  
Charles wants to touch every one of those scars. Run his fingers over them, kiss them better, as if he can heal deep, old ache. He wants to make a mental map of them in the same way he wants to memorize the placement of his freckles - Erik is beautiful, a masterpiece built of pain and fear, but so much more. His fingers ghost over skin, gentle, so gentle, slowly as if afraid to startle. Charles wants to show him how beautiful he is. He wants to heal all of that awful, accumulated hurt, file it down to the marks on his skin and kiss until it's lighter. But he's distracted. He's never been touched before, even just like this, and his head spins with it, mind racing, racing, racing, but all the thoughts lead back to Erik. To the ache inside of him, to the dull pain-pleasure-spark of nails on his skin. He arches up into every touch, squirms on the hard floor beneath him, bites his lip to stifle the desperate, wanting noises he makes. He tries to laugh at Erik's observation of his own scars - no, Erik, it's alright - and conjures up memories far more innocent than Erik's, _he and Raven run in the garden, she gets ahead and he trips and falls, his mother throws a glass, she doesn't mean to hit him, just a scratch -_  
  
But he becomes aware of something shortly thereafter, and he's flushed and panting again, cheeks so hot they burn. Charles thinks he's been aroused before, if only alone in his bedroom, with the door shut tight and vague fantasies on the brain - a Dom who could put him down, gentle-firm-careful, whisper in his ears, make him feel for himself for once - but it's far more real like this, with Erik's fingers so impossibly close. It's natural, he knows that, the blood all needs to rush somewhere, but white-hot shame, nervousness, fear spikes through him. He won't be good enough. He's not good enough for this, not made for this. The panic has him freezing, swallowing around the lump in his throat. He's not a submissive, not truly, has been told that his entire life, and isn't that what Erik needs?  
  
Erik spends a few more languid moments peppering his sternum with open-mouthed kisses before making his way back up to his throat, to the curve of his ear, brushing the back of his broken-hand over Charles's hair, framing his face. "Shhh," he soothes, not moving any-closer, rubbing rhythmically against Charles's inner thigh. "Hush now," he smiles and it's breathless. You were made for me. It's soul-deep real, Erik has never seen another person like him, would never touch another person like him, would never speak to another the same way. "I need you," he says aloud, tenderly. "I want you. I want you-" his voice cracks, heavy with arousal, but he's holding himself at bay, waiting it out, letting himself float on the coursing white-rapids of Charles's fear-anxiety. "No shame," he says-it's not an Order, he can't Order that out of someone, but he says it anyway. "No shame, here. I have never-not ever," he admits. _We both-we will learn, together._  
  
Charles smiles back, relieved and equally breathless, because there is no way not to feel it. Through the connection, there's no room for placating, for half-truths, for no, Charles, you're not broken, you're fine - Erik means it from the depth of his soul. He looks at Charles like he is the sun, like he could not see before he laid eyes on him, like he would burn the world just for him. Charles shivers. He may be the submissive, but he knows the truth of it too well: Erik is wrapped around his little finger, perfectly content to be there.  
  
He blinks, though. Something has caught his eye, and - of course he'd noticed, but _broken_? Concern floods through him. Charles tilts his head, pressing his lips to that bandaged hand, reaching up to inspect it. There's nothing he can do, really. He doesn't have the power to heal. He kisses it anyway, closes his eyes and sighs. No hurt. He does not want any hurt here. This dark place, this hidden room, this prison - Charles focuses. A sharp, nauseating spike of pain, and he's dizzy, dizzy, disoriented, hurting, but he knows when he opens his eyes they are both somewhere else. Not physically, perhaps, but in every other way. There is a bed beneath them, soft and plush. The details around them are fuzzy, as if someone applied a blurred filter, but it's the best he can do at the moment. "It's not as vivid as a dream," he laughs, eyes bright, because he knows that Erik remembers. Yes, it was real. As real as this. "But it will do." For now.  
  
Erik lifts his hand to show him-not broken in the literal sense-the type of injury it is, he can't move-and it aches-piercing-nerves the way his leg does, his body a map of damaged designs by cruel people. There's pitted, gnarled scarring over the visible skin of it, like tree bark. Not pretty. Not nice. He knows that. It's forever a dead-limb, useless except to brush against Charles like this, and honestly that is not so-bad. If that is the purpose of this hand, he loves it now. Even if it is ugly with memory-boots rammed into cracking joints and fractured bones over and over-no, extinguish the thought.  
  
And as Charles does not wish for his pain, he cannot wish for Charles's, he finds he can barely breathe for knowing Charles feels this way, wants to do anything in his power to alleviate it. Wants to replace it with oppressive heat and blinding gasps and the arch of his body underneath-all sounds and noise and wishing suspended on titanium-wires. The closest he's come to desire is the heady feel of metal and Charles is the warmest, most-divine he's ever felt, all the metal in his body sings and the soft-places in-between cry out for touch, and Erik wants to touch every part of him.  
  
When he looks up, they're on a bed-and he's laughing, too. Better than a dream, he taps Charles on the nose. The next words are an Order, even as Erik resettles himself against him, kissing his jaw. "Tell me. Do you want this? Here?" He knows what he wants and the image strikes up at them like a lit match thrown into gasoline, Charles in his lap, back pressed to his chest-Erik smothers it out, voice uneven, "In this place? With-" _me. With me. With all that I am, with all that you detest._ He can't bring himself to say it out loud.  
  
Charles can't feel ashamed at the near-giggle he gives at that tap, giddy and warm again, the pain momentarily forgotten. Somewhere else his mind races, focused on everything, honed in and listening - they won't be disturbed - but the part that matters is here. Present, fully, arched into that touch again, his throat bared in submission.  
  
"Yes," he answers immediately, because he does. Because he does not know what the future holds, but he knows that he wants. Because he has looked into Erik's mind and he understands, perhaps as well as anyone ever will. "You're wrong, Erik. I detest violence. I detest - cruelty." And certainly, Erik has been cruel. Charles has seen enough to know he's more than capable of it. "But you are more than that. You are so much more, and I would say..." He trails off, but Erik still hears. Charles holds his gaze, even as he flushes for a new reason entirely. _I would say what I feel is quite the opposite of detesting, Erik._  
  
"What do you feel?" he has to ask, he has to know. He's staring at Charles wide-eyed, rapt in attention; but Charles has Commanded that of him since the moment he walked into the holding cell that first time, as though he is the submissive and not the other way around. He doesn't have any compunctions about that-he knows-he knows Charles could ask anything of him and he would rip the moon out of the sky if it was within his power, might very well be within his power.  
  
"I don't -" Charles shakes his head, suddenly twisted up. He doesn't know. It's an honest answer, and the best he can give verbally, but he offers more. Through the haze, he recalls everything: every thought of Erik, every observation, every thought, lingering or errant, attempting to piece them together for Erik like he's attempting to piece them together himself. Conflicted, he's been so conflicted. Twisting, clenching stomach, he wakes up in a cold sweat to the thought of Erik's eyes watching him. Erik is his match in every way. Erik is his equal opposite. Erik makes him feel like no one else ever has, Erik makes him want, Erik makes him go absolutely mad, he hasn't been eating, can't go minutes without his mind wandering to him - Charles wants so much more than this. He wants Erik in every way a man can want, and it terrifies him.  
  
"Come here," Erik sits up and balances himself against the constructed headboard, looking at Charles with something he's not-yet seen, real dominance, not merely an Order for his thoughts or feelings. Not half-terrified mistakes. He had promised he was going to give Charles what he needed, and he intended to make very good on that promise. "Take these off," he murmurs, rubbing the fabric of the rest of his clothes between his fingers. A rumpled blazer half curled up by his arms, the shirt that's still hanging on his shoulders, his pants where his belt quite suddenly, of its own accord, snaps open and slides through the loops in a swift snap, neatly landing on the bed to be forgotten. It's an Order, too, only now it's darker, heavier, with Erik's eyes pinned to him amidst a blaze of need.  
  
" _Oh_." It's punched out of him, more of an exhalation than a word, his lips still formed to it long after it's spoken. He's hot all over again, squirming and desperate, and he acts as soon as he's Ordered. Fumbling and trembling, he rids himself of his clothes, certain it's too warm for them anyway, that he'll simply burn up if he doesn't remove them. Somewhere far away, he reminds himself it's not a real bed, he needs to stay within the perimeters, keep aware, but that's all background haze. He's deep, deep, sinking, farther than he's ever gone or thought he could go, eyes half-lidded and body pulled taut as he shivers at the look in Erik's eyes. Faintly, he feels nervous - is he good enough? He's naked, bare, there's no hiding...  
  
He hovers over Erik's lap, waiting, poised, blissfully obedient, and in that moment, Erik is the entire world.  
  
He can't decide if he wants to look at Charles's face, at the bare, open expression there or to caress his body with the same eager stare, to take in the bare openness of skin exposed, and he flicks back and forth like he's starving for it. He swears lowly, almost a growl. "Come here." He pins Charles to him in a sudden motion, rising up over to settle him into his lap. "Be still," he mutters thickly, radio-static tuned-in channels, and this one's new-this one is for Charles, the voice that is only ever for Charles. Erik's hands roam aimlessly-they aren't facing one another but Charles can feel the way he's being watched, every track-spreading over his chest and then spanning his stomach, watching the muscles there twitch in delightful anticipation. Spreads his legs a little, traps them with his own. He doesn't do much more than this-not yet. Not until he gets what he wants. This is an elusive thing-surely he could get right to it, but he's lingering, taking his time, drawing it out. "Beautiful. You are beautiful. How could you ever think otherwise-ridiculous," he says to himself gruffly. "Tell me, Charles. Have you imagined this, while you were alone? Imagined me touching you? Keeping you? Ordering you? I think you have." His chuckle is almost filthy, so supremely satisfied he can barely contain himself-this part of Erik that's never known itself, never been allowed to flourish, making up for lost-time.  
  
 _Be still._ The Order isn't enough to still the trembling, the tensing, but he does his best, gasping at every murmur, every touch, every ghost of a breath. He wants to be good. Charles has wanted to be many things, and good is certainly one of them, but not like this. Not in this desperate, needy way, not with every fiber of his being, not to this end. Charles has never been obedient. Snarky, quick-tongued, fiercely independent. But he wants to be, now. For Erik. Only for Erik. "Yes," he gasps, and nearly moves, nearly turns, but he locks himself in place. He wants to be good for Erik, he wants to obey. His thighs shake; he wants to open them further, and he also wants to close them, overwhelmed, flushed pink all over and Erik has barely touched him. He opens up in the way he can, lets Erik see: Charles, late at night, a week prior, frustrated and sweating under his sheets, his hand noticeably underneath. He's imagining Erik, aching for Erik, and he whispers - Erik, please, squirms all over the bed, imagines Erik's voice telling him to touch himself, how to do it. He can't finish, ends the night with a cold shower. Not enough, not enough, not enough, he needs Erik's voice, Erik's hands, Erik's lips, Erik's -  
  
G-d, he must be a narcissist. Bites back a smile at the thought, self-deprecatingly. The way he's surrounded by himself-by what Charles thinks of him-it steals the oxygen out of the room and replaces it with combustion-molecules that ping tremorful-explosions inside his veins. No one has ever, ever looked at him the way Charles does, like he's-everything-like he's good and attractive and worthy. No one. It's addictive. All his life the sole pleasure he's taken is from literature, maybe that's what makes him so fucking talkative now of all times, a steady-litany of lowly-hummed words-maybe it's because he's a D5 and his Will is attached to his words, he can only hope he's not-saying the wrong things-but the way Charles shudders for him-"Good," Erik's fingers dip below his navel, card through the damp curls just-above, then settle in the crease of his legs, a slow tease. He keeps Charles on edge like this infinitely, kaleidoscope-mind breaking apart into light and colors. Charles can feel him, now, full and pressed against the zipper of his uniform, but he makes no effort to alleviate himself at all, every ounce of his devotion on the wondrous being in his arms. He ghosts his right hand across Charles's throat, a light pressure, possessive and keeping him in his place even though he knows Charles is bound by the Order.  
  
"I'm going to touch you now," he says, and it's so matter-of-fact it might be funny except he's never said anything with as-much intensity. "And you're going to be good, aren't you? You're going to be so still. You're going to take what I give you. Aren't you?" he punctuates it by drawing the barest edge of his nail down the length of Charles's shaft.  
  
The room is shifting around them, but he doesn't think Erik notices. Charles does, because it's his to notice. It gets hazier, blurrier, the textures inconsistent because it's so difficult to hold onto when every part of him is trembling, even the deepest recesses of his mind where he never thought anyone would touch. He has to be good, though, has to be still, and that includes this - He gasps at the hand on his throat, eyes rolling back. It's possessive, it's claiming, even with his broken hand Erik could squeeze and Charles thinks he might beg for it. He would take anything Erik gave him now, and he's certain he would love it. Be greedy for it. "Yes, Erik," he whispers, awed by his own voice. Not blank, not mindless, but the picture of obedience, of desire, of need. Yes, Erik. Please, Erik. Charles moans, every muscle in his stomach tensing as he fights not to move, not to arch, not to squirm. "I'm going to be so good, I promise."  
  
Oh, no. Erik doesn't notice. How could he, when there's Charles right here-no, most assuredly not.  
  
"Mmhm," he rumbles, a deeply contented sound, and uses the crook of his hand to press down against Charles's neck as he finally wraps long, sure fingers around his cock. "Perfect, aren't you? Oh, this is for me-hm?" He's grinning when he sets a slow, even pace, rolling his palm and twisting just-so. The weight of Charles, the heat and softness of his skin, the way he's leaked onto the bed already-sends a deep jolt through him, he has this. He has this, this is his- " _Sheli. Sheli_ -" mine. It falls from his lips without conscious thought, and punctuated by a light squeeze at his throat-oh, you can't hide yourself in here, can you? Erik instead switches it up, bars his arm against him instead, keeping him fully restrained and helpless and able to do nothing but feel and feel and feel-sending him deeper-down into that place he's never been, where his limbs are loosened and his mind is splayed open the way his body is-and he knows Erik like he knows himself, feels how much pure unadulterated delight runs through him at having Charles like this-the simplest, most pure parts of his personality shimmering around them, dust-motes he could pluck up.  
  
Charles gasps, his eyes rolled all the way back. Every touch sends a new spark, a new pulse of desire and pleasure he's never felt before. He's drowning. Drowning, sliding so far, floating and falling and aching, his mind blissfully, incredibly filled. He knows some part of him must be coherent - he's shielded them, protected them from the outside, he's still projecting this world for them - but he can't reach it, doesn't want to. He never could have imagined this. He isn't trapped, he isn't captive. Or perhaps he is, but he wants to be. He wants Erik's arms holding him tight, holding him down, wants the overwhelming oh-oh-it's too much of his clever fingers on his cock - But Charles has always pushed boundaries. He whines, high and needy, knowing only Erik will hear him, that only Erik can have him like this. But they only have so much time, and he wants, he wants, he wants. A good submissive would wait, would take what they're given, and oh, he will. But this is his domain, still. He wants to play. It's almost impossible, focusing enough to do it. The thoughts he's projecting are simple yes, Erik, yes, Erik, but through the haze of unimaginable pleasure, the beautiful fog of submission, he conjures up images. Charles on his knees, lips red and swollen, and there's little wonder what he's been doing. Charles bent over Erik's lap, Erik's hands pulling his hair... It's just a suggestion. And if Erik isn't open to it, if he finds Charles cheeky for even suggesting it, perhaps he'll do something about that, too.  
  
 _I dare you_ , he manages to think, knowing he's poking at a beast. He's betting on it, actually.  
  
Erik's gasp is sharp on an inhale and he tightens his grip, his arm around Charles's throat, pausing only so he can find his bearings, the way back. His head buries itself in the crook of Charles's shoulder, teeth scraping across the skin there. " _Ma atah ose li,_ " he groaned, giving Charles a sharp tug before bodily pulling him face-to-face- "Come here," drawing his fingertips down his jaw, settling him in his lap-" _bevakasha_ -" for once it's him, a drawn-out plea he can't stifle like he's saying please, please. please don't bury me under the ocean, please don't suffocate my structures, please don't leave me for dead. There's a hang-up of some kind flitting at his shields, huge metallic architecture he's constructed to keep away darkness, and he banishes it to smoke even as he's nodding, eyes blown wide, cheeks flushed, chest rising and falling in stuttered stop-starts. "That's what you think about, huh?" he grins, all-teeth. With little-more than a blink the zipper of his pants slid down and they divested themselves, gracefully adjusting his position so they bunch at his feet and he can kick them off. Between his legs his cock is heavy and hard, already laying wet against his stomach and he gently maneuvers Charles's head to rest on his thigh. His fingers twist in Charles's hair, gripping more forcefully than he intends, and he smooths the action out, drags butterfly-touches over his nape and down his shoulders, grounding himself.  
  
Charles is sluggish. He whines again when Erik pulls away, needy and soft, but soon Erik is gathering him up again and he can't even mourn the loss of touch. It feels as if everything is in slow motion, and too fast at the same time, Erik's thoughts and feelings whipping by fast before he can reach them. It must be because his brain is very much compartmentalized at the moment, and the part that's present, not busied with outside tasks (keep the illusion, monitor the guards, watch for Moira and convince her it's been less time than it is, hardly fifteen minutes, the beginning of a session) - well, it's very preoccupied. His heart stops when Erik is fully bare, then stutters up again, desire twisting his stomach into butterflies and heat as he nuzzles Erik's thigh. He's never seen - well, how could he? In other's thoughts, but never like this, and Erik is beautiful, he's extraordinary, he's everything he could have imagined, and Charles feels the nerves coming back from underneath the deep press of submission and lust. It's always seemed like a fairly straightforward act, from what he's seen of it, but now...  
  
He licks his lips, moaning at the tug in his hair (he truly is a masochist, he's finding, though who would be shocked). There's no headache here, no hurt unless it's tied to pleasure, though he craves the gentleness just as much. It soothes him as he forces himself to breathe, to be easy as he leans forward. Erik's cock is thick, and he's certain he'll gag if he tries to take too much all at once - though perhaps Erik would like that, he thinks, and finds it warms him too (he's truly learning about himself here). He tests the waters instead, because Erik hasn't guided him otherwise - please, please, Order me - giving teasing kitten licks as he inhales.  
  
Erik seems to be rather obsessed with his eyes. Charles makes sure to flick them upwards, a cheeky little smile on his lips before he stretches them around the head of Erik's cock.

Erik is wrecked before Charles even begins, a broken moan escaping him when that tongue finally touches him in the place he's never been. Not really, not as-himself, not-desire and saturated lust rising-steam, sweat-scent in the air warming him instead of repulsing him. He brushes the back of his right hand over Charles's cheek, levers it against the back of his head, his other wrapped around his dick to trail it over his bottom lip.  
  
"Take me in," the Order is immediate, pure force ricocheting right into Charles once he sinks into the plush hot-soft-wetness of his mouth, and he can't-"That's-," he curses, his own language laughs, bright-eyed, and his features change-carefree, confident, curious. "Come on," he ushers Charles even closer, encouraging. "Come on, that's it. Give you what you need-I'll make you-" he's babbling and he knows it, half-twisted off in three different languages.   
  
G-d the sensation of giving orders is ruining him, spiraling him off higher-and-higher, making him wild-uncaging the things that themselves-beg to be free, have-done since he can remember, kept away from all those who would crumble beneath it. He pulls himself out with a wet pop and grips Charles by the throat, sudden and immense. "You want it? Tell me, then. Beg me for it." Sees Charles reaching for himself, despite-everything and shakes his head. "No. Lock your hands behind your back. Now. Look at me and beg me for what you want."  
  
Charles whimpers, but obeys immediately, hands flying behind his back before Erik can even consider him defiant. He doesn't want to be, not now - not when he's wrecked, panting, red-lipped, flushed cheeks, mouth swollen and jaw aching. He wants to lean forward again, take that beautiful cock back into his mouth. He wants to please Erik, to prove how good he can be, how obedient, how sweet, what a good submissive he could be, Erik's submissive - The hand on his throat is distracting him, but only because he wants more. He's addicted to it, addicted to Erik's power, to his Command, to his Orders, to the way he has Charles sunk so deeply into his place. His place. As Erik's equal, but also as his submissive, so content on his knees. Because he chose to put himself there.  
  
Charles looks at him, and there are tears in his eyes as he squirms, but not because he's distressed. He's overwhelmed in the best way imaginable, sunk so deep into subspace he can't imagine coming out. Why would he? It's safe here, warm here. Erik will take care of him. "Please, Erik," he whimpers, and realizes belatedly the word was not spoken in English. He doesn't know what language, exactly, but one of Erik's, something he must have picked up through the connection. They are so close now Charles can hardly discern where Erik ends and he begins. "Please, please, please. I need you. I need you so badly. I want to please you, I want to be good for you - anything you say, anything you want." Such dangerous words, but he says them earnestly, nothing but desire and trust in his eyes as he looks. "I want to be good for you, I need to be good. Please show me how. Let me please you, Erik."  
  
Maybe it's that- _bevakasha_ -in his own language, that gets him in a quirky way that arrows through him, makes him pulse against Charles where his cock is nestled alluringly against those lips.  
  
When he dips himself back in again, spurred on by his own Command, by the way Charles so willingly, pliantly obeys him-words spilling out of him-words made by his Will and he's-he's never-never been like this-beautiful to someone, the object of pure, unadulterated need the way Charles desperately considers him, the way he rocks against the floor unconsciously seeking-and it's breaking something in him when his hips jerk roughly, sending himself further into the channel of Charles's throat-and he jerks, apologetic, patting his cheek where it's hollowed-out.  
  
"Yes- _yes_ ," Erik growls lowly. "Do you know how gorgeous-like this-" his hand reaches out and the belt snaps into his palm and he loops it over the thin skin bobbing at Charles's neck, loose at first but he tests it, tugging gently to pull him further on his cock. "That's it. Please me-" he's supposed to last longer than this, ruthlessly marshals himself not to come despite every neuron in his body screaming for it, taking Command of himself so he can knock all of that heat pooled in his belly back through their connection. "Show me. Touch yourself. Touch yourself-you're thinking about this-when you are alone-you will think about this-think about me-" the words have no translation, just images, the way Charles looks on his knees begging for it, balanced on a knife's-edge, the taste of Erik in his veins and on his tongue and so very, very desperate to come, pleading for release, and how it will be when they're apart, how he'll think of Erik late at night-always think of this-  
  
Charles moans, but with Erik's cock down his throat it all comes out a bit muffled and desperate and messy. He hasn't even touched himself, but some part of him wonders if he would even need to. If Erik Ordered him not to, would he come anyway? Come simply because he's bringing Erik pleasure, moan and whimper and beg for it even if it meant he got nothing? He forces himself to breathe through his nose, to take more, to please, swallowing even as he gags, tears pricking in his eyes. He wants to be good. Erik is talking, growling those filthy, beautiful things, and he wants nothing more than to be perfect for him. It's burning him up from the inside, the desperation of it. He would do nearly anything.  
  
His own belt around his throat, choking, restricting, but Charles feels no panic, no fear, nothing but _want-need-want-please_. He lets himself be guided instead, moaning at every tug, relaxing as much as he can, staying open, open, open. Yours, Erik, he whispers, though not with his occupied mouth. _Yours, yours, yours_. Leather around his neck - if Erik wanted, would he wear something like the collar he's seen other submissives wear? A mark of him, a show of submission? Yes.  
  
Charles is his. There's no question in his mind. The hand on his own cock is an afterthought, though he whimpers and bucks into it, following the pace of Erik's hips. He's too close for it to last long, and so it doesn't. He comes in a flash of molten heat, shaking like a leaf, gasping, panting, his eyes rolled back even as he tries them open for Erik. He doesn't think it ends. There are tears down his cheeks now, new tears in his eyes, and he's so hot, so overwhelmed, so deep, deep, deep in his place - his place as Erik's sub - but he doesn't move, keeps his throat open and relaxed, because he needs to please Erik. _Please_ , he begs, over and over, in every language they collectively know, _Please, Erik, please, I want to be good, let me please you. Make me good for you._  
  
There is no way. No possible way he's going to last, the grip he has on his own Control is tenuous at best and at the images in Charles's mind, the secret-desires he's always had but never allowed himself to express-never able to express, and he thinks he's a broken submissive and how silly that is-look at him now. Erik has him. Erik will draw out every last drop he has to give into himself-there is nothing, he thinks, that Charles could do that would be too-much. No, Erik wonders if he's too much himself, discovering-they're both learning, just as he predicted, and he's learning he can't fucking shut up and he wants to open Charles in every way he can like his old metal puzzle-boxes-take and take and take until there is only mindless haziness left-over. He's the most magnificent thing Erik has ever seen, and he's overcome, throwing his hand over his mouth to stifle something that very nearly sounds like a choked-off sob when he spills over, stripes across Charles's jaw and dripping down his shoulder, and Erik veers hard into nearly pinning him down and really taking him, but it's only a second before it's blown away, just a swaying green-thing in the wake of an atom bomb burned into ashes.  
  
Charles is floating. Erik is right. His entire life he's considered himself broken, and the sentiment was echoed in nearly everyone else - poor, poor Charles, the submissive who did not submit, for whom subspace was a strange myth he heard passed between peers like campfire stories. Fascinating, tempting, but ultimately fake. He convinced himself it didn't matter. But it always ached, ached in some hollow, empty part of him that still longed for it. Would always long for it. Until now. Charles doesn't think he's known peace before this moment. Tears in his eyes, trembling in the aftermath, Erik's come warm on his face and neck and shoulder, and there isn't a place in the world he would rather be. Charles has felt happy in his life, and he's certainly felt fulfilled. He's never been so satisfied, so blissful, that his bones sing with it. That he sags, weightless and free, against his dominant's legs, seeking but full, an elated little smile on his lips that betrays everything he feels - and what he feels, first and foremost, is joy. And belonging. He looks at Erik like he is the only thing tethering him, and that's because he is. Gravity for Charles no longer exists, not in this moment. He exists for Erik and Erik alone, follows his pull more strongly than he's ever been held by an Earthly force. He hides nothing, because there's nothing to hide. Nuzzles against him, whines when he can't get nearly close enough. _Was I good?_ he asks, hopeful, needy, longing. _Was I good, Erik?_ And in that instant, nothing else truly matters. Charles lets go for the first time in his life, and suddenly he can breathe.  
  
Erik's laughing, full and throaty and he settles himself back against the-wall, not headboard-and takes Charles in his arms, using the edge of his knuckle to swipe away flecks of himself from his jaw, feels a twinge at that which he resolutely doesn't follow, closes his eyes and kisses the top of Charles's head. Not-just good. Everything. You are everything.

* * *

In this liminal space between impossible-heat and hazy loam and deep-deep-dark, he tells Charles a story, in a language they both know, now. It's about a great big bird, a _Ziz_ , whose wingspan can block out the sun, and he is seen as a monster by everyone in the land. One day he flies down to the earth and discovers a beautiful man-he has to have him.  
  
So he takes him up to his palace in the sky, full of trinkets and treasures obtained over the course of his long, long life. And the man grows to learn about the _Ziz_ , even as he is trapped inside his gilded cage. He wants for nothing-anything he asks for, the _Ziz_ will give. Anything except his freedom. It takes the _Ziz_ a long, long time to realize that he's harmed his _neshama_ , but finally he resolves to let him go, understands that he can't keep the man against his will.He cries and laments, but does the hard deed, flying them back through the clouds and the sky. The villagers rejoice, the man they thought gone-and-dead returned, but the man knows now; the _Ziz_ isn't a monster at all. He's just twisted up, and before the _Ziz_ can leave, the man runs after him.  
  
Charles drifts. Not into sleep, but somewhere far away and deep, somewhere protected, somewhere only Erik can reach him. He's aware of the outside world again, lazily takes care of it - nudges minds, gentle, careful, but with little shame. He rewinds the clock, at least in their minds. More time. Just a bit more. Certainly he's allowed to be a bit selfish. He's boneless, loose-limbed and content, listening somewhere hazy and warm. When Erik shifts, even slightly, to readjust or stretch, he follows, every movement perfectly mirrored. His eyes close and he hums, smiling when the story is done. Erik's voice has settled inside of him, warm and grounding. "Let's run away, Erik," he breathes, teasing and light despite the raspy hoarseness of his voice (what a felicitous ache), but in that moment - no, he means it. For right now, curled safely into Erik's chest, he means it. It can't, they can't, but oh, he wishes. He wants.  
  
"I will go anywhere with you," Erik replies, his own voice hoarse from disuse, but he's smiling. "Even Canada." He taps Charles on the nose, leans forward to kiss his temple. The desire is so strong, to leave everything behind, to exist in this moment and this moment alone-but he knows beyond certainty that it isn't what Charles really wants. Charles believes in justice, believes in fairness-and as much as he sorrows for Erik's suffering, Erik knows that Charles, deep-down, believes he needs to pay for what he's done. It's perhaps that and that alone which keeps him anchored here, that prevents him from using the belt an absolutely idiotic security guard had let slip past the sensors to craft his escape.  
  
Charles laughs, throaty and soft, because even like this he catches it. He's certain Erik can do a million things with that buckle, and some of them were already very inspired. He whimpers at the memory, at the flood of desire that clouds his consciousness at even a mention of it. Charles burrows in closer to Erik's chest, flushed and pleased, satisfied all over again. He idly traces a scar he finds there.  
  
"Can you bend it?" He knows Erik can. It's an unnecessary question. In this space, he likes the ache of his throat. Erik put it there, after all. "I want to see." He has no doubt Erik will be able to put it back to its original state if he does, and he thinks of somewhere far off, a place he realizes is a dream - scrap metal glimmering in the sun. Charles wants Erik to experience it while he can. He'll certainly be double checked after Moira finds out.  
  
Erik ducks his head, lifting his hand from Charles's back (reluctantly, he's turned into a veritable octopus right about now, all unfathomably long-limbs tucking Charles as close as he can get him) and the buckle separates from leather, curves in the darkness of this sheltered-place just-for-them, and folds itself into a delicately-sculpted flower, and he curls Charles's fingers back so he can settle it in his palm. "For you," he grins, youthful, and they both feel the hum of metal as it winds through his body, the way he felt it against Charles's throat, and he's still-sated or that would inspire another round.  
  
"Beautiful," he whispers, awed, because it is. It's delicate, intricate, and the gesture is so sweet it makes Charles ache in an entirely new way. Erik is so gentle with him now, so soft, and the contrast from before isn't a contradiction - the fierceness is gentle, too. Charles never feared for a single moment, nor could he ever. Erik takes care of him.  
  
"I didn't know I could do everything at once," he murmurs, and every time he hears his own voice he imagines it wrapped around Erik's cock. Not in a heated, filthy suggestion, but in a way that has his limbs turned into further jelly, his body humming with satisfaction. He pleased his Dom. "That's the longest I think I've kept up an illusion like that, and I watched outside as well -" Charles grins, sheepish as he ducks into Erik's chest. As if he's shy. "I don't like tampering with memories or influencing thoughts, but it seemed necessary." Telling Erik he can do so should be dangerous. He does it with the full trust he'll never use it against him.  
  
" _Nehedar_ ," Erik breathes. "You are a wonder." He's definitively-pleased that Charles could design such a construct for them, wanted to give Charles something that didn't exist inside the four-walls of his Protection cell, the illusion that they could share a bed, could float on carefree whimsy, and soon the imagery will fracture and the Real looms precariously-over them, but for now, they have this. It's not-enough never-enough and it's enough. Erik is thirsty, taking in any droplet of Charles's affection like water wrung from cactus roots, and there's the desert again. "What else can you do?"  
  
Charles laughs, delighted at the praise. If he's currently water, Erik is his oxygen. He needs it - needs him - or he'll surely asphyxiate, choking on the heaviness of this overwhelming, beautiful haze. It's much easier to project the image now that he's not otherwise distracted, and he firms it out, straightens out the creases. The colors are consistent, now. The textures, the fabrics.  
  
"I told you, I'm not entirely sure," he admits, humming as he finds a scar on Erik's chest. It's old and faded, and he traces it over and over. Healing old hurt, soft and reverent, as if Erik is meant to be worshiped. "Some things aren't nearly as... showy. I can look at something once, and never forget. Books, signs, places, memories. All stored. I know languages, though I thought perhaps that was limited - I've very recently learned it isn't." He repeats the last few words in languages Erik speaks, a perfect replication of accent and sound, grinning and giddy. "I can tell when someone is like us, without hearing their thoughts first. Just a hunch. I've... frozen people, before." He doesn't demonstrate, but shows Erik what he means. Raven, perfectly still after an argument, Charles panicked and regretful. An accident, but she's unharmed, merely turned off. "I can... take over, too. I've never wanted to see how far that goes. I don't like it." But he shows Erik how he learned: Charles, crying and frightened, a rare fight in the kitchen. His mother is drunk and angry, his father is dead. She screams until she doesn't, stands rimrod straight and walks up the stairs as if pulled along by strings. She does not come back down, and Charles cleans up the broken, empty bottles. They never speak of it.  
  
"You can speak-" Erik laughs and laughs. " _Atah ledaber Ivrit_ ," he says, and Charles knows instantly. "Without me here?" he wonders, at that memory, at how far it extends. Charles is more-than a wonder, his abilities delight Erik-  
  
as someone who has little compunction about privacy, doesn't even understand the concept, he has no desire to shield his mind from the other man only than to protect him from the pain that lurks within, the shame and horror and devastation, the disgust, the things people call taboo and shocking. The inhuman-things. Things that make him a mindless automaton, buried so far under the core of the earth that not even he can get at them.  
  
At the images of his mother, Erik's eyes crease with sorrow, and he touches Charles's face, lips turned down in an unforgiving frown. Empathy bleeds over. He knows this. What's closer to the surface, what he's deemed acceptable-collateral, that he's experienced the unpredictable fury of adults, lodged inside the tiny plink-plonk shadow-creatures in the green-mountain-world, holographic-universes developed to hide-inside. That Charles should feel it inside himself-Erik doesn't realize mirrored tears drip down his face, otherwise set in perfect stone. She is still living? he asks, the voice in his mind hard and angry. How dare anyone cause Charles harm-even from his spot in his cell, he will raze them down.  
  
"Erik," he sighs, but it's gentle, if not exasperated. He understands. Erik has no real scope of these things. His mind works in blacks and whites, and Charles knows that was the only way he could have survived. But no one is ever one thing. Charles wipes those tears, then leans in to kiss Erik's cheek. "She's alive, yes, and I wouldn't wish her ill." Charles shows him how she lived: crying herself to sleep, drunk by early morning. She wobbles while she walks, stares mindlessly at the television. She was very in love with his father. He became her life, and she married him early. Then he is gone, and she is left with a child she did not truly want, a strange, odd child she has no idea how to care for. Charles, don't be ridiculous, she sighs, because she doesn't understand him. You're perfectly alright. Now go to your room, please, Mother is busy. Another glass, then another bottle. Repeat. Charles tucks her into bed that night instead of the other way around. "She hurts just as anyone else. I don't blame her."  
  
Maybe this is why Charles is the only person who has ever shown him kindness. Because, he realizes, Charles is kind in a way he can't fathom. If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles, winds through his head. If you know your enemy, can you not help but love them? Erik thinks he knows his enemies, thinks he knows Shaw, as intimately-retching-gasping-terror-the fingertips on the metal and the metal inside him and the fingerprints inside him-as one can know another, but Erik cannot love. It's been burned out of him, and when he looks at Charles, it's with the sort of admiration one has for non-Euclidean geometry, a vast entity one sees but cannot comprehend. "She hurt you," Erik rasps out, shaking his head one-two-three times.  
  
"Not intentionally. Not maliciously." And to Charles, that makes every difference. She was hurting as much as he was, she was lost and alone and grieving. How could he blame her? How could he possibly hate her when he knows her suffering, when he understands very clearly why she acted the way she did?  
  
Besides, he wasn't always alone. He plays one of his favorite memories, the fondness wrapped around it warm and soft and matching his smile: Raven in his kitchen, blue and magnificent, her hand outstretched to shake his. Charles Xavier. You're safe now, I promise. The two of them start out across the hall, and end up sharing a bed, giggling under the covers and chasing away nightmares together. They fill the empty too-big manor with laughter, running down its halls, playing hide and seek.  
  
 _"Let me win for once, Charles!" Raven demands, and it's an Order, as clear as day. Her Will swirls around even in the memory, concentrated and strong._  
  
 _"No, that's not fair," Charles tells her, unaffected, hands on his hips. Defiant, chin raised. "I don't want to."_  
  
Charles grins, curled back into Erik's chest. There's so much joy, even in the darkest of places, the emptiest of them. He believes that, content in their hidden place.  
  
The memories of Raven help soothe him, and he relaxes back against the wall, Charles in his arms. "I wish-" no, that was dangerous. Hope is a dangerous thing and it blares inside him like battle-station klaxons. "Perhaps one day I shall meet her," he says instead. "So I can tell her thank-you." Because he's seen how stubborn and defiant and cold Raven can be, but he's also seen her treat Charles with respect and love, and that made him respect and love her despite the fact they were strangers to one another.  
  
"I told her about you last night." He doesn't know why he admits it. Perhaps because he can't hide anything here, doesn't quite remember how to. Charles could snap the connection closed at any moment, but he doesn't want to. Even as he surfaces, gently and slowly, nothing like the drop of last time, he feels soft and open, malleable to Erik's Will. He doesn't replay that conversation, but he does recall some of it: Charles, nauseated and overwhelmed, vomiting on her lap as she rubs at his back and hushes him. Her opinion on Erik is clear, even as Charles attempts to shield him from it.  
  
 _She's worried for me_ , he softens it, because it's true. He replays other instances from the past few weeks: Raven, unimpressed by his lack of sleep, his lack of eating. She sits him down and all but forces him to swallow some of the food Hank cooked, said Hank looking on fond and apologetic. He is her husband, but also her submissive, after all, and Charles knows far too much about the dynamics between them (much to Hank's embarrassment).  
  
 _Drop the case, Charles,_ she'd said again that morning.  
  
He won't, though. They both know that. He reassures Erik of that. He and Raven are just a bit too protective of each other, perhaps - You're not my keeper, Charles, Raven reminds him, and he sighs. No, but he would do anything to protect her, and surely that counts for something.  
  
If Erik is offended, it doesn't show in his mind or his face. Maybe he's never considered it before, that there's something wrong with their connection. He has been a patient his entire adolescent and adult life, the times where he was free feel so far removed the Erik in those pictures may as well be a single-celled organism crawling onto the dirt. He doesn't understand-and Charles sees this-how these dynamics are unhealthy and has never heard of the alternative until now, watching Raven scold him, watching Warren's affronted _tell me you didn't_! He is your patient, Charles. You'll lose your license. Erik's head tilts and he touches Charles's cheek. "Is it wrong?"  
  
"Yes," he answers, because Charles is many things, but morally blind is not one of them. They don't have the same dynamic, and have not since Charles first walked into the room, but to an outsider, to anyone on a board - yes, it's wrong, and also illegal. If anyone were to find out, Charles would lose his license in an instant. There would be no questions asked. "I have authority over you, Erik," he reminds the other man, which is funny, now, but there's a graveness to his tone.  
  
He knows Erik feels it, because he does, and he doesn't attempt to hide it: guilt. Is he taking advantage of the situation? Is he harming Erik more than he helps? Is he failing to do what he needs to do because -  
  
 _You're being manipulated by your feelings, Charles, Raven scolds him._  
  
Erik blanches at that-it is clear as a ringing bell that he hadn't even considered, hadn't known-and now Charles has the potential to lose everything-his work, that Erik knows is one of the most important things in his life, if not the most important-the degrees he holds, the pride he feels in that, the way he'd lost himself in academia when he realized he was never going to have a normal subdom relationship, and-he still doesn't, because Erik is anything but normal but beyond that-he could be-put in prison-it's _illegal_ -Erik's mind seems to bluescreen, whatever rising panic melting into foggy nothingness.  
  
"Erik," he says, and then moves. Charles rests both hands on Erik's cheeks, waiting patiently for him to come back. To come back to him. There's resolve in his gaze, steady, underneath his own panic, his guilt. "Look at me, please. I made a decision the moment I decided to forge your labs. You're right. We can't have a normal... relationship. There are certain things we will never have. But I made a decision, just as you did, and I'll have you know that once I make up my mind it's rather impossible to change it."  
  
Erik's expression remains pained even as the light slowly begins to return behind his eyes, and he rests his good hand over Charles's, unwilling to let that touch go just-yet. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I didn't know." If he had, this would have been-if he had known-it would have been different. But would it have been better? Charles wandering through the world untethered, unmoored, believing himself inferior-even if he'd never admit it-at the very-least a thing of societal disregard, existing on the outliers. Not-Erik's. The thought makes him twitch bodily, muscles-tensed with adrenaline. "What-does it mean, authority? I-" he presses his lips together, unsure. "I can Order you. Does that not mean-I have authority?"  
  
"Well, for one, no one knows about that, but that part's mostly irrelevant," he sighs, and suddenly feels ill. "I am in charge of your case, Erik. I could change everything for you." Erik, unsure and confused, looking at him for answers. Did he do this? Is he hurting him? He's the only one who listened, but should he have - Erik didn't take before he begged for it...  
  
 _Like some mindless whore_ , his own voice echoes, and he has to swallow to hold back the urge to vomit again. Is Charles harming him just as everyone else has? Erik is vulnerable, he is good but he is hurting, and Charles -Charles goes still and silent, panic settling within him. Perhaps he's the monster here.  
  
"No," Erik says, vicious and vehement, features twisted up in almost-fury-not directed at Charles, precisely, but whatever-it-is that ever made him consider those thoughts, whatever-it-is that formed them in the back of his mind, whether it be by his own perception or outside confluence he's endured from dominants who perceived their partners as lesser-and he shakes his head again. "I don't want to hear that from you again." It's not an Order, learned his lesson, remembers the drop in his stomach at Charles's lifeless obedience for just-a-moment, can't bear to see it again-but right now, in the post-haze loam, it's just-as close. "You-you must realize I-elected to stay here, for you. You-" he's speaking un-confidently, hesitant, and hates himself for it. He should be assured, he is the dominant, here. Ah, yes, there it is. Societal-placement. He rejects it wholly, then, rising up in his seated position to regard Charles seriously. "You have changed everything for me. And I accept it, gladly. I made a choice, too. You see." His smile is gentle, can't believe he even can right now, but there it is.  
  
"I -" Charles sucks in a breath, and forces it back out. In the aftermath, he's struggling. There's conscious, rational thought, and there's the tug of subspace, pulling him down, down, down, soaking him in it. Panic, briefly - Erik is angry, how could have let that happen? Was I not good - He swallows around the lump in his throat. "I can't stay away from you, Erik," he admits, quiet and small. "I thought of breaking this off so many times, but I just can't. And I don't know where that leaves us."  
  
His features soften and he shakes his head again, brushing his thumb over Charles's bottom lip. "Please, don't go," he finds himself saying, and it's not-good, he is not-good, but they both know that, don't they? He is the murderer, the terrorist, the psychotic-evil lurking in the dark ready to cut you up and shove you in a trunk and leave your family broken and scared in the background-leaving Raven, in all of her blue-wonder, ripped-open-Erik is the one who they expect to be selfish, he is the _Ziz_ -who-never-learned, but there is no palace in the sky, no endless-treasures, just cold-empty-dead-cells. Selfish because instead it's Charles who holds the treasures, of kindness and peace and light and he's going to extinguish it all, they know-  
  
"Stop." The intensity of it surprises even him. It's not gentle, not soft: it's firm, stubborn, and if he were a Dom, it would be an Order. It still is, though not in the same way. For a moment, he panics again - don't be defiant, be good, Charles - But Erik needs to hear this. This is Charles being good, so he lifts his chin and speaks. "I won't justify what you did, Erik. But you're not evil, and you're certainly not a monster. We've both seen what that looks like." His voice is cold, and he remembers - but, no, not now. "You are good, you can be good. I believe that. Don't you make a monster of yourself. I don't want to hear that from you again," he echoes, and this time he grins.  
  
Erik looks at him, and a small smile forms. "Then we must promise. If I am not evil, you cannot be- _mindless whore_. You are mine. My-Charles. Do you-like being mine?" he thinks to ask after a second, second-guessing that particular track.  
  
"Yes," he answers, and there is no room for dishonesty. He's uncertain now himself, the terrain so new and strange, but not of this - he likes being Erik's, like it more than he believes he's ever liked anything, and it's frightening but also exhilarating. He recalls something, almost idly, the way one's consciousness often does: a high society party, and Charles is the only submissive engaged in the same way the Dominants are, no claim or ownership on him. He speaks without being spoken to, does not bow or kneel. A boy laughs, thinks: _when he finds the right Dominant, he'll be a mindless whore like the rest of them_. His mind becomes filthy fantasies, ones Charles felt disgusted by, but he cuts those off quick. But here, with Erik, he knows he is not. Not mindless, not a whore. Merely Erik's. He smiles, bites his lip. "You would have hated those parties, but I imagine, if - if things were different," he sighs, glossing over the obvious, "You would eventually end up at one. I try to avoid them at all costs now, and I still end up dragged there. They'd find us so odd." He chuckles. "But -" And here his cheeks flush, something sparking, just a hint of flame. "I wouldn't mind it, with you. The kneeling, the public displays of submission." I think I'd like it, actually, he adds, not able to say it out loud.  
  
"Good," Erik says aloud. Good that they find us odd. He rages against proper society, polite society, society that would condemn and relegate Charles to little-more than an object to be gawked at and dissected, and if he's lucky, curiously-amused about. When Charles continues talking about what occurs at said parties, though, Erik begins to lag behind, realizing he doesn't-he doesn't know what's expected in proper society, only what he's read about in literature and what he's guessed-at. Are submissives expected to kneel in public? To display their status? Erik thinks about it, looking at Charles, imagining him collared and lowered by his side. "Mmhm," he murmurs, stroking Charles's temple. "They would be jealous," he decides. "Of me. That I have you, no-one else." Possessiveness laced his tone.  
  
Charles laughs, and shakes his head, in response to Erik's thoughts more than his words - but that, too. He shows him: yes, some submissives kneel at those parties, but not in society, per se. Two steps behind for a submissive is the norm, and most wear some kind of collar. It's usually not a collar outside of those specific circumstances, not anymore (though it can be, he's certainly seen it). Most wear some kind of jewelry, a cuff or a necklace or any other number of things. Those parties exist somewhere outside of the norm - it's all a show, all a display. And high society doms love to show off their submissives. "But I doubt anyone would be jealous, Erik," he scoffs, a self-deprecating grin on his lips. "I'm hardly the ideal. In fact, I thnk they'd pity you."  
  
"You are ideal to me," Erik said, cupping Charles's jaw. "Everything about you, all the ways you are. You do not need to pretend, to be the perfect submissive. You are perfect to me. I-" he grimaced, then, eyes flitting down, something dark and sharp-edged crawling through the dark thickets of his mind. "I am not the ideal dominant, Charles. I don't know-anything. You are risking yourself, for a person who-who is condemned. They may execute me. Do you understand? I-I am broken, I can never be fixed. I won't be the only D5. You will live so long, so, so long. There will-be others, there is another for you-I-would not wish, to give you up, for anything, but-" he laughed, wetly. "I am the _Ziz_. I can't keep you just because I want you."  
  
And then Charles, for all of his patience, all his kindness, all his understanding - he rolls his eyes. He sighs, cupping Erik's cheek again, and shakes his head. "You are not broken, Erik. You are extraordinary. I've seen broken. I've seen monster. What did we just talk about?" He grins, a teasing lilt to his voice despite the subject. "You don't need to be fixed any more than I do. You won't be executed, and I don't want another D5. Heaven help me here, Erik, but I want you." He chuckles, and then he leans forward and kisses Erik.  
  
Kisses him and seals it with his choice.  
  


* * *

  
"You can keep me because I want to be kept," he whispers, against Erik's lips. "And where is the man who promised me he'd give me exactly what I needed not too long ago? That I was his, and we'd learn together? I'd like him back, thank you."  
  
Erik ducks his head at that, cowed, and then dips back up to meet Charles's eyes. "I don't have anything to lose-I never did. Now-" his voice cracks. "I am here. I will always be here. I wish, I wish you could see yourself. As you are. I cannot believe you do not see-" he laughs, gentle, and leans over to kiss Charles properly. "No more, no more of this hideous-talking about _being a whore_. You are mine. Think of that instead."  
  
"Then no more talk of being a monster," he counters, holding Erik's gaze. He rubs his thumb over Erik's cheek, smiles softly. "Didn't you say we needed to promise? Then promise, and I will too. You aren't a monster. If you think so highly of me, do you really think I would want this with a monster? That I would choose this, if you were? I will be yours, Erik. You can have me. But you must realize you aren't holding me against my will. Surely you'll give me more credit."  
  
"OK," he murmurs. "OK." Presses his brow against Charles's, laces their fingers together and squeezes. There is a frightful whirl of emotions happening somewhere in the distance, an overwhelming tsunami of _gratitude-wonder-oh-my-G-d-joy-relief_ that he can't let himself feel-hope-an end-to-suffering, at last, found something-found someone-"I promise."  
  
"Then I promise, too," he murmurs, and it feels like more. Charles smiles, gentle and pleased, and climbs back into Erik's lap as if he belongs there (he does, some part of him whispers, you do), trying not to be too aware that they're still stark naked. He's much more concerned with being closer, as close as he can possibly be. "And Erik - I've spoken to your lawyer. I'm working with him. You won't be executed. I won't let it happen," and that's a promise, too, something fierce in his eyes as he vows it.  
  
Erik sits back so he can look at Charles with as much seriousness as he can put into his expression. "Look at me, please." He's smiling, that grief-half-smile he has, like he knows his own fate, guillotine hanging over his head and he's made peace.  
  
"No," he says, but he looks, anyway. Charles shakes his head, his own eyes hard and his smile gone. "If that's what they decide - that they want to kill you? Or lock you in a room with no windows, plastic walls, no sound? No sun? No room to breathe? Then I won't allow it." He raises his chin, every bit of defiance and determination in him now. "If that's what they decide, then I'll take you away. You can serve a proper sentence with me," he teases, despite the steel in his tone.  
  
He realizes after a moment that he means it.  
  
"Charles-you can't. You cannot promise that." Erik's stare bores into him, all-fierceness. "If-" he swallows. "If such a thing comes to pass-you cannot carry it. I will not let you carry that."  
  
"That's not yours to decide, is it, Erik?" he asks, and raises a brow. Erik could Order him not to, but he won't. You won't if you want to keep me, you will never Order something like that. He gives back fierceness of his own, even though it's a bit different with Erik. He wants to be good, but not in this. "I won't let them. I won't, Erik. I refuse."  
  
"No-" Erik's lips part. "I will not Order you," he promised. That he could promise. Reshaping his thinking-referring to himself as else than a monster? Will prove a little more difficult; all the same he ensures that he will try. "I am sorry, Charles," he says at last, and this time Erik's the one who can't meet his eyes.  
  
"Please look at me," he whispers, echoing Erik from before, and strokes his cheek again. "I am sorry, too, Erik. I am sorry this is how things are. I am sorry you were hurt so badly, so badly that it seemed your only option. But I am not sorry to have met you. I am not sorry to be yours. I will not be sorry for that. Do you understand?"  
  
"Can you forgive me?" Erik knows he's torturing himself by asking, but he can't-he won't allow it to be between them, like one of those things from Charles's past that you shove into the closet and paste on a Stepford-smile to ignore and fester, skeletons-upon-skeletons.  
  
"Oh, Erik," he sighs. Skeletons upon skeletons, shoved into the closet. No, they can't have that. He kisses Erik's cheek again, presses their foreheads together. When he speaks, though, his voice is firm, his expression serious. "Tell me you won't ever make that decision again, Erik. That you won't kill. Promise me no more destruction. Look at me and swear."  
  
"Charles-"  
  
"No, Erik," he says, unyielding, and shakes his head. "Swear it. Because otherwise -" He sucks in a breath, swallows it, and follows through. He has to, or they won't make it through this, no matter where it leads.  
  
Charles lets go and sits back, just out of reach. "I've made my choice, so make yours. Swear to me you will never kill again, and mean it, or I will walk out of this room and I will not come back. Do you understand that?"  
  
"He cannot be allowed to live," Erik whispers. Tears are tracking down his cheek, into his lips, dripping off his jaw. " _Bevakasha-proszę bardzo_ -" in every language, in every way he can other than to exert his indomitable, unbreakable Will.  
  
He looks away, concealing the tears that fall in this place, in the Real he is quiet, calm, impenetrable. Dry-eyed. But with Charles, naked and against him, skin-to-skin, exposed-bare physically, he is emotionally breaking open. " _Bitte_ -" he says it in German, the language spoken to him by his Master. Charles senses the word. Clear like clouds dissipating for the sun, except the sun is a burning-ball of radioactive-Kelvin-hot searing-skin-off destruction. Charles had never heard Erik refer to him that way. An appellation given to dominants that had an extreme dynamic that bordered on the sadistic. Some Master/sub connections were truthful-wonderful-healing. Some were not. And for Erik to do so-for a D5 to do so- "Please do not make me-you do not know." Shaw. _He missed one_.  
  
Charles takes a slow, shaky breath. He feels sick again, but for an entirely new reason. He has no doubt that Erik intended to kill him most of all, perhaps planned the entire thing with him in mind. He doesn't know the details, but he knows enough to know that Shaw being alive is far from intentional, and Erik would do anything to see him dead. Erik doesn't want freedom to kill and maim and destroy. He is not a monster. He wants to kill the monster. "Erik," he murmurs, and crawls forward again, taking both of the man's hands. "Look at me. I will not let Shaw get away with this. I won't. But I won't - you can't, Erik. You don't need his blood on your hands."  
  
" _He_ " barely speaking throat clenched sobs refusing existence " _Can't_ " stutters stumbles half words " _Live_ "  
  
"Erik. Erik, shh," he rushes, and touches Erik's cheeks again, attempting to reach him, to ground him, to anchor him. To bring him back. "Erik, look at me. I'm here, darling," he murmurs, an idle petname, an attempt at soothing, a hand in Erik's hair. "Come back to me. Breathe for me."  
  
" _There - is no - justice f - or - him but - death! -!_ "  
  
It's not a shout, it's turning-in on himself howl of grief, and he curls up, legs-drawn to his chest, Charles half-tugged to him, fetal-position nascent against the wall. He can't b r e a t h e, struggles to look up at Charles from where he was now cradled in his arms, tremors wracking his body, mind seeking that-  
  
 _darling, come back, come back, shh, shh,-_  
  
 _like Ima told him_  
  
 _look away_  
  
Charles holds him. Holds him, hushes him, whispers through their connection. Anything to reach him, anything to quell his panic. He aches, aches where they're connected, feeling every bit of fear and panic and rage and - No, he can't. He has to bear it for Erik. He cradles him, rocks him. He doesn't know any songs that Erik would, and he's truly an awful singer, but he hums nursery rhymes anyway, songs he learned to sing to Raven late at night when they were still children and she had nightmares. "Erik," he whispers, stroking his hair. "Erik, come back to me. Please come back."  
  
He says down in the dark-oily place for so long, like it's going to grip him in alien-slick tendrils and drag him into it by the ankles. But Charles is here. Charles won't allow it. Charles is bearing it with him. Charles. Charles. that wavering-quiet-calm voice, and slowly he starts to hear it... _and when at last I find you/your song will fill the air/i love you forever and ever..._ "Charles," he barely-whispers back, "Yes, Erik, I'm right here." He brushes Erik's hair out of his face, kisses the top of his head, holds him steady and safe. "I told you I'd stay, and I will. I'm right here. Shh, I've got you. You're safe here, Erik. Come back to me, now." He whispers it all gently, softly, grounding and warm. Covers them both in it, projects calm, safe, here.  
  
"Charles," he gasps-"I'm so sorry-" shudders in his hold, but finally, finally, finally, finally his eyes flick up, settling warily on Charles's face-accepting-that's all he can do-an animal moving towards the light-"I'm so-" he reaches up and touches Charles's face, a smile breaking out over his own "Here" slowing-down taking-breaths, oxygen into his lungs, nourishing nourishing air "I'm here I'm sorry"  
  
"Shh, I know," he hushes, and does not mind it. He covers Erik's hand with his own, smiles gentle and patient and encouraging. "No sorries, Erik. I've forgiven you. I've already forgiven you. Do you understand? You're forgiven, and you're safe, and I am yours. Shh, now. We're alright."  
  
"Charles-" he finds he is able to marshal himself again, access his pieces again. "What happened? Never happened to me..."  
  
"Just a bit of panic, that's all," he murmurs, and kisses at Erik's head again, holds him close. "It's perfectly normal, and it passes. I have you." This is something he's actually equipped to deal with. He strokes Erik's hair, humming. "You've been through so much, Erik. Felt so much pain. But I will help you heal, I promise. I will bear it with you."  
  


* * *

  
He rocks slightly in Charles's hold. He opens his mouth, but only silence comes out. Closes it. Lips part again, deep-breath power-through the threatening-underworld. "The young man. Blue and splendid." Erik grins brightly at that, softens a bit, steels himself up, the words fractured-English less perfect. "The German Catholic. Teleport. He take them. _Bnai Brak_. David and Elisheva."  
  
"He took them?" Charles repeats it patiently, his fingers still carding through Erik's hair. He could press forward, find his answers in Erik's thoughts, fragmented as they are, but he doesn't. He will always ask, always wait for Erik to give. "Tell me, Erik, it's okay. Or show me."  
  
"He took them to David and Elisheva lives in _Bnai Brak_. They are safe there." Erik looks at him, begs him to understand. "Please no CIA. _Bitte_. They will-they will take them back and they will die and it's my fault. Suppose to keep safe."  
  
Oh. Charles takes a breath, lets it out. Of course. How else would they leave so quickly, when everything was in chaos? When so many were watching? Teleportation. An agreed upon location. Somewhere safe, and very far away. Erik is begging him, and Charles knows that it isn't something that should come easy.  
  
He meets Erik's eyes, calm and serious. "Are you certain that they're safe, Erik? You must know they'll be hunted. They will look for them, and not just Shaw. You have to know that."  
  
He nods his head several times. "Shaw takes all his people to America when we go," he explained. " _Arad_ is compromised. He wants to get away fast. He doesn't like it there. He says just necessary." Erik grimaces, tugs himself closer to Charles. Wishes he had his _siddur_ , suddenly, feels empty without it, wants to wrap himself up in head-held-high-prayers. "Only cuz it's far away. He won't go in _Bnai Brak_ , it is a Hareidi place. They're safe. He's in America. Never go back. David and Elisheva are nice. They will help heal. Like you help me."  
  
Charles takes another breath, and knows something without a single doubt: if he involves the CIA in this, if he tells anyone where those people are, Erik won't forgive him. Not simply, not easily, perhaps not at all. "Okay," he agrees, and cups Erik's cheek, kisses it. "Okay. No CIA. I promise, Erik. This trial is going to change everything, there's good we can do. But not at their expense. They deserve peace."  
  
"They go to school now," Erik shook like a leaf, but somehow the pronouncement was wondrous-joy. "They laugh now. He told me. They're safe." He opens his eyes, meets Charles's and straightens upright, leads Charles up with him to a less vulnerable position, tries to calm his body and his spirit through the wailing walls in his mind. "You are an exceptional person, Charles Xavier." He took both hands and framed Charles's face as best he could. " _Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech ha'olam shekahcha lo baolamo_. A blessing," he grins shyly, hoping it won't be rebuffed. "Of gratitude, for such beautiful things in this universe." He kisses the top of Charles's head.  
  
Charles grins back, and allows the shift. Erik was so vulnerable not moments ago, and now he seems to be coming back. Shaking, still, a bit unsteady, but Charles will do what he can to anchor him. He's the one to tap Erik's nose this time, chuckling, his eyes bright again. "School," he repeats, because it's a common thread, and because Erik seems comforted by his voice. They can leave the heavy talk alone, just for now. "There should be a school for mutants. Adolescence is difficult enough without tails and telekinesis. Mutants are so often outcasts, if they make it through school at all. I would ask why no one's thought of this, but I know the answer." Why would anyone dedicate the time and energy if they were non-mutant? Why would a mutant want to put that sort of target on themselves?  
  
"You thought of it," Erik says, and it's quite-obvious, but also-not. Because Charles is such a force, with so much potential, so much capability, so much-able to give love and support and resources. Erik lets that hang in his mind for a moment, for Charles to really absorb it. "You thought of it, Charles."  
  
"I think of a lot of things, Erik," he sighs, fond but exasperated again even as he smiles. Erik sees the sun in his eyes, the answers to the universe, but Charles is a bit more realistic. "Thoughts don't always translate to action. I do want to help, but one thing at a time." He thinks of the trial, looming closer even though it's months away. Yes, first things first.  
  
He reaches for Erik's hand again. "Erik? I can only reset the clock fifteen minutes in their minds so many times," he laughs, but oh, he wants to. Wants to so badly. His eyes wander to the metal flower Erik crafted him, and he frowns. Not a pout, he tells himself. "I'm really fond of this, but if I take it with me and it sets off the detector, I think there might be some questions." He grins. "Could you make it a buckle again, please?"  
  
Erik starts laughing, then, full and hearty and he covers his mouth with the back of his hand. "You've been-resetting-fifteen minutes-" he gasps between giggles. Then he leans over and kisses Charles passionately, not with heat and lust but with utter adoration. He sniffs and sits up a little more, gathers his clothes in the mind-world and slowly shrugs them on, knowing he is doing the same in the Real. When offered the metal-flower, he set it in the center of his palm and with a blink, it unraveled and then shaped itself into the buckle, the exact design of prior as though Erik had memorized every molecular placement. It sends a warm curl of pleasure through his toes, having that sensation, knowing this metal, knowing this metal and the absorptions of Charles it carries with it, and Erik now carries it as well. He grabs the leather and integrates it again, holding up the repaired belt. "For you."  
  
Charles dresses as well, though there's a bit more to it. They hadn't exactly cleaned him off in the aftermath, and he finds himself sticky. Fortunately he does have a cloth tucked into his pocket that he uses for - well, not for this, but for messes. It does the job.  
  
The result is rumpled, creased, and disheveled. They're in Erik's cell again, and he's suddenly aware that he smells a bit like sex, something he'll need to alter. And his poor suit. "Erik, I look like -" Like we just had sex on the floor of your cell. His face is red-hot.  
  
"Be easy," Erik said. "Stand up." He takes the cloth from Charles and waits for him to obey, "Here is what we do." He wet the cloth by tipping over the plastic water bottle they'd allowed Charles to take in onto it, and then began slowly drawing it down his face and neck, then tugged his shirt aside to get at his shoulder. He used a bit more water to relieve the sticky feeling and then folded the cloth in half so the dry area was facing outward, patting him dry in quick swipes that eliminated the remaining traces. "Okay, and next," he tackled Charles's hair, using his fingers in even combing motions and then lightly sprucing it up. It looked a little shaggy, but just like he'd run his hands through it himself. "And now the suit. Stand still." He placed his bad hand on the outsider of the blazer and drew his good hand down it sharply, evening out the creases. He did Charles's arms and back as well. "There. Now you simply look like you made yourself comfortable." Fixing Erik up was much less of a task, and he repeated a similar routine on himself. " _Ta da_." His brows bounced playfully.  
  
It's Charles' turn to laugh, and he does so freely. Beneath all that agony, fear, and rage, there is someone truly magnificent, someone Charles is finding himself impossibly attached to. It is a convincing job with such little resources - no one will suspect it, because why should they?  
  
"But now the real problem," he says, and steps forward, looking up at Erik. He doesn't think he's ever stood in front of him like this with such a clear mind, now that he thinks of it. One of them was always sitting, or they were halfway to the floor. Erik is a good head taller, and he tries to hide the shiver that sends up his spine - another way in which Erik is a dominating force. "I don't want to walk out of this room, Erik," he sighs, and knows what he will the moment he does - anxiety-empty-ache. He's heard it's natural, a bit of separation anxiety between newly established Dom and sub pairs. Considering the circumstances, it's even worse.  
  
He sets his hands in Charles's shoulders. "I feel it, too," he murmurs. "I do not wish you to go. But I do not think you will be truly gone." He taps his temple, wry. "I feel you, you know. In my dreams. We have connection. That cannot be broken by simple distance. And-" he steps forward, draws him into a one-armed hug bends (and he's noticed that, too, and it makes him keenly aware of their respective status) to kiss his forehead. "-You will walk back into this room again. You will think of me," he murmurs lowly, into Charles's ear. Charles knows exactly what he means. "So I will not be so far after all." He takes a step away, hands folded behind his back just as the door swings open and _Buzzcut_ pokes his head into the room.

* * *

They enter Moira's office just as they always do, and she closes the door behind them once Charles is inside. "Have we made any progress?" she asks point-blank, standing next to her desk with arms crossed over her chest. It's not a hostile posture, with the way she's slightly bent and leaned on the edge, but more a Moira-gesture.  
  
"Direct as always, agent," he says, just a hint of teasing, and he leans forward to meet her. "You wanted to know how he got into the country, yes? Let me answer a question with a question." She won't have much patience for it, so he holds up a hand, a smile on his lips as he implores her to listen. "Have you considered that your assumptions on how this whole thing went down are incorrect? First of all, you assume he came into the country with the intention of making an attack - and rightly so, if he's a terrorist, but I'm telling you he's not. You're also assuming he used a means you could track. Airplane, boat, tunnel through the ocean." The last one is a joke, however flimsy, and he offers a snarky grin. "There are other means of transportation, however. We mutants are very resourceful. And now you're asking, if he's not a terrorist, why come into the country at all? What was his purpose? I don't think there was one, simply put. I don't think it was his choice." Charles crosses his legs, raises his eyebrows. "And I think that changes everything."  
  
Moira's eyes widen a fraction, the only outward indication of the abject shock Charles had just thrown into her chest like two years ago, thrown from the Jeep convoy as an IED tore off their left side and sent the vehicle careening. Moira along with it, trapped beneath and the smell of gasoline and smoke. That kind of shock, where upside down is rightside-up, but just like back then, she rallies and immediately gets to work on gaining control of the situation. "You're saying he was forced to come here by someone with a mutation capable of bypassing our customs and border agents," she restates it bluntly. She does not, however, return the grin, her own expression grim if anything. "Start talking, Xavier," she grants, gesturing to the chair across from her desk as she migrates to sit down, tapping on her monitor. "why was he brought here-against his will? And what way do we have of verifying this information?" As Charles moved closer, he noted a small cardboard box with a cover on her desk labeled **_E. LEHNSHERR 24005._**  
  
Charles sits, but he doesn't immediately answer her question. Not the way she expects him to, anyway. He leans forward instead, elbows on her desk. "What do you actually know about Sebastian Shaw?" he asks, his own tone grim now, his lips pursed in thinly veiled disgust. "Because I can assure you, those assumptions are almost definitely false. Do you know, for instance, that he has... business, overseas? Germany. Russia. Would you like to guess a third, agent?"  
  
"We're aware he has businesses overseas, of course, we're aware," Moira snaps. "Sebastian Shaw is a multi-billionaire and one of the most powerful economic influencers in play today. What are you trying to tell me that isn't on his dossier? That he was operating out of Israel? That's absurd."  
  
"Practically applicable," he repeats, the words dry and tinged with his own distaste, though he stays visibly calm. "You do realize bullets have metal in them, correct? And that no one could have predicted Erik's capabilities? You're very lucky he isn't a terrorist, actually." But that's beside the point, and not exactly in Erik's favor. The last thing he needs is more fear surrounding him. They have their plastic guns and bullets in this place, so he imagines they can't be entirely blind to the concept. "I never said he had a stake in it, and I'm certainly not suggesting he ordered it. I'm suggesting that he bit off more than he could chew. I'm also suggesting that there's more dirty laundry here than you could have imagined, and that I fully intend to air it out." He may as well give a warning. "I suggest you not align yourself too strongly with Shaw. The world is going to be watching, agent, and perhaps you'd like to be on the right side."  
  
At that, Moira laughed, but it was cold. "Do you think I harbor any degree of support for that man? I am telling you exactly what _Langley_ is going to tell me when I report this information. This is-beyond, Charles." She used his first name, a distinction she didn't give lightly. "I'm the one who was originally conscripted to compile Sebastian Shaw's dossier." She dug through her desk and pulled out a file, handing it over. "It's frightfully thin, because he keeps his nose squeaky clean, at least on paper. There is no evidence to suggest he funded, nevertheless maintained that facility in Arad. What we found there was-" Moira grimaced, unable to contain her repulsion. "What they'd done to those patients was inhumane. They were brutalized, tortured, starved, raped, beaten. Tore open and left for entrails, visibly mutated children with their skin separated from their muscles. You're telling me Shaw _authorized_ this, and we don't have any sort of proof other than the word of the suspect in custody who is responsible for killing ten of Sebastian Shaw's employees and destroying his laboratory. To _Langley_ , that sounds like a grudge, at best it's hearsay." Her lips turned down. "If we can find actionable evidence-" sits up in her chair "-that would give us a leg to stand on."  
  
Charles sighs, and now everything makes sense. He's not batting very well in the telepath department today, but it could just be the fact that without Erik, his headache seems even worse than before. Perhaps he has no upper limit, but he's certainly overexerted himself, pushed farther than he has in a long while, and at the tail end of a hangover. It doesn't feel nice. He slumps in his chair. Witnesses. If they had witnesses, reliable, unbiased witnesses, it would change everything. For a moment, just a moment - No. He won't. "There's evidence," he mutters, because there is. But he ducks his head, lips pursed again as he stares at the floor. "But I'm not sure that it's enough."  
  
"All right, then, Charles. Tell me. What's the evidence." She sounds a bit softer now, resting her elbows on the desk and placing her chin on her fingertips.  
  
"He's very good at covering his tracks, but not infallible. Something always slips through the cracks. There are documents." But he speaks it hollowly, distantly, his mind somewhere else entirely. Carmen Pryde is an incredibly competent man, and Charles has no doubt he'll get what he believes is a favorable verdict. But will it really change anything? Will it have the same effect as those victims speaking their truth, the whole truth? Who is he to hide them? And yet, how could he even consider parading them around in a place they're unsafe, betraying Erik, what's wrong with him - "Damn it," he mumbles, and stands, running a hand through his own hair like Erik suggested.  
  
"That's not an answer. The fact that something could potentially exist is not evidence."  
  
"I'm saying it does exist, and that I've seen it. You will, too. In court." It's not a threat, simply a statement. He glowers at the wall, his mind racing - now he remembers the urge to shut it off, if only for a moment or two, the excruciating pounding of it getting to him. "But there has to be - something, anything..."  
  
Moira looked at him. "If you're right, and Sebastian Shaw is performing _Mengele-esque_ experiments on human beings, you need to be honest with me. I can't do my job if you're not honest with me. I can't protect Mr. Lehnsherr or act in any reasonable way unless you show me that there's tangible, physical proof that he's telling the truth. Otherwise I have to tell my superiors that we've learned nothing of value, other than that Erik Lehnsherr claims Sebastian Shaw was in Israel with him. If he has a mutant that can cross borders like you say, there won't be any travel records to corroborate-and are you OK? This is the third time I've seen you with a headache. Have you been to a physician?"  
  
"Do you really think a physician would know what to do about my headaches?" It's a bit terse, but only because of the pain. The situation. He offers another grin to offset it, even as he paces her office. It's increasingly difficult to sit still, and at least this keeps him in motion. "I'm alright. The documents aren't in my possession, obviously, but they exist. What they don't prove is that Erik arrived in this country against his will, or that -"  
  
Charles stops pacing. He closes his eyes. It's not a breach, not when it should be so painstakingly obvious. "There were other patients in that building. Don't you wonder where they've gone?" he asks, and finally meets Moira's gaze. They won't find them, and he won't let them, but with this he trusts her. "From the wrong perspective, Moira. The entire case."  
  
Moira's lips part. "Other patients," she repeats. "You think they're still out there. No, you know they're still out there. If they were to make statements-the kind of information they'd know about how this operation works-has Lehnsherr spoken to you about that at all? Who else was with him, what they did to him, what the purpose of his switching continents might have been? Who was in charge of him directly? We can start to formulate a chronology, here-" her mind whirs like a computer fan as she runs through all the possibilities. And with Lehnsherr in custody, witness statements might veer toward more reliable-they couldn't all lie about the same thing if they were separated. "Do you have any names? Ages? People who've been reported missing in Israel or the United States?"  
  
"Yes," he answers, because he does. He has them memorized, and even written down. He's positive they'll correlate to some kind of official record, that something will click together. Charles stares at the floor again. "But you won't find them, and so it's a moot point. There will be enough evidence to suggest that the Institute conducted experiments on mutants and that Erik Lehnsherr, a mutant himself, attacked said Institute, subsequently murdering ten people. There will also be enough to suggest he was previously a victim of these experiments, making him much more sympathetic. But that's only part of the story." Charles rubs at his temples. "And that's all that will get told. A vengeance story. I don't imagine you get time off for a very impressive motive in our legal system, do you?" But maybe it's something. Maybe the trial will surprise him. Maybe the meaning of self-defense will get stretched, he certainly doesn't put it past Pryde. Charles is already moving toward the door. "I'm sorry I couldn't answer more for you, but I'm afraid that's all I have to report," he says, and the meaning is clear.  
  
"Charles-" she stops him before he can leave.  
  
He turns, though he still avoids her eyes. "Yes? Is there something else?" His tone is cool, but underneath there's everything he can't hide at the moment: frustration, fear, pain.  
  
"Lehnsherr has years upon years worth of medical history that suggest he was a patient in _Arad_ for just as long-and I doubt they gave him much in the way of contact with the outside world. Do you hear what I'm saying? I believe you. My job and my opinions are sometimes at odds with one another. However, come here for a second-please." She offers him a small smile-it's not an Order.  
  
"I understand that," he says, and raises an eyebrow at the request. The Order wouldn't have mattered, of course, but he steps forward simply because he's curious - because he likes her, as he's already made clear - and tilts his head in question, a matching smile on his own lips. He would reach out for some kind of clue, but navigating his brain is a bit like navigating a mindfield at the moment, and he doesn't feel like delving too deep.  
  
"I managed to convince _Langley_ it might help establish a rapport between you two. The more he opens up, the better equipped we are to respond appropriately. Between you and me, though," her eyes darted to the side wryly, "You've told me he trusts you and we're still not looking at actionable intelligence." She gave him a wink and then held out the box that was on her desk. "They'll let you back in if you want to deliver this to him."  
  
Charles blinks, reaching for the box. It's not very often that he doesn't know what's inside something - it makes birthdays and holidays very frustrating for those close to him - but in this moment, he has little clue. "Deliver what, exactly?"  
  
Moira just grins. "Maybe he'll tell you."  
  
"So you want me to go down the hall and deliver this mysterious box to him to... establish rapport?" Charles grins, holding said box carefully. "I suppose I can do that." He moves back to the door, but this time turns around of his own accord, a softer smile on his lips. "Thank you, Moira. It's a pleasure working with you, despite the circumstances," he says, and he truly means it.  
  
"Likewise, Charles. Oh, and _chag sameach_ ," she chuckles and waves a hand airily, laughing to herself as he walks out the door. Maybe the headache was good for something after all. Sometimes it was good to be queen.

* * *

They do indeed let him back into Erik's cell. He'd taken to grimacing, rubbing at his temples incessantly, but the moment he steps into the room, Erik no longer separated from him, it dulls. Only slightly, perhaps, but it's enough. Charles sighs, and smiles wide despite himself. "I'm back," he greets, teasing and soft despite the pain, and holds the box out in front of him. "And I come bearing gifts, apparently."  
  
Erik was still in the room, with his back pressed against the wall, gripping the back of the chair he'd previously sat on in his hands almost hard enough to splinter the cheap wood at the top. Other than his white-knuckles and blood-drained face, he looked calm; peaceful even. Only Charles knew he was not. They switched up their routine-kept him here, and-his eyes snapped to the door only to discover-"It's you-" he lets go of the chair immediately and steps out from behind it, shoulders dropping from his ears. "You came back."  
  
"It's me," he echoes, and glances at the door. He's not convinced he can get through another round of manipulating thoughts and perceptions without his brain melting, and it feels like it's already halfway there. Fortunately, the guards are disinterested, and not lingering. They have a bit of time. "Don't be frightened," he breathes, and reaches up to ghost his fingers over Erik's cheek, one hand still holding the box. "Nothing bad is happening, Erik. I really did come to give you this." He lifts the box in question, hiding any sign of pain or discomfort. They aren't connected at the moment, though Erik is shockingly good at reading him without that.  
  
He is, and he knows Charles besides, has scrutinized every inch of that face-coupled with his exceptional ability for reading microexpressions, and-he raises a hand to mirror the other's, smoothing over the hair near his temple. "Perhaps they put in a telepathic analgesic," he says ruefully before accepting the box, moving to sit and rest it on his lap. "Will you stay?"  
  
Charles shakes his head, though that certainly doesn't help alleviate any pain. "Technically I'm a doctor, and I prescribe myself a bit of sleep. I'll be fine in no time," he assures, and watches with rapt attention, still, as Erik takes he box. "Until you open it, yes. I admit I'm invested, and I love gift giving." Perhaps a bit too obviously, because while Erik is the one opening the gift, through the pain he watches like a giddy schoolboy on Christmas. Though he supposes Christmas wouldn't be appropriate here - would they celebrate both, he wonders?  
  
Erik gently dislodges the cover and sets it aside, careful as though the box-cheap cardboard-was precious. Only the fact that Charles was here, giving him this gift, warded away his suspicion at it-and made him realize that this was the first time he'd been gifted something in this manner that didn't come with unpleasant expectations. The contents made his smile freeze slightly before it grew into something of a delighted grin. He's laughing as he withdraws two funky-looking hats, masquerade masks with sticks attached to them, a miniature laminated packet and- his eyebrows shoot up and he retrieves the last item, a travel-sized bottle of vodka. " _Ma_ -" his shoulders shake. "You-how?"  
  
Charles laughs, too, despite the horrible ache that inspires, because - yes, that made much more sense now. "I can't take full credit for this," he says, because he can't, and Erik deserves to know there are others who care. That the world is not against him. "Oh, Erik." Charles is grinning, despite himself, unable to look away from Erik's face. It's twisted in joy instead of pain, glee instead of agony or rage or turmoil, and he's never seen anything more beautiful. "You're so beautiful," he says aloud, just as awed as he is in his own head.  
  
Wrinkling his nose in amusement, he jams one of the hats over his mess of hair and strikes a ridiculous little pose before he rises from the chair and sets the box down, picking out the other one and crossing over to affix it onto Charles's head with a mischievous tug so it lies crooked, tassel bobbing next to his shoulder. "You were beautiful, now you are exquisite," he proclaims, laughing, and he swallows against the force of gratitude bubbling up in his chest-when he's around Charles it's always this way-he is the most himself, the most rooted and present, emotions felt so much stronger than he knows what to do with, swinging wildly back and forth like a pendulum. He feels like he's about to cry so he presses his lips together hard and waves the bottle. "More for me," he wags a finger at Charles.  
  
Charles laughs, entirely taken by the display. He doesn't think he's ever seen Erik like this, not truly. He's light, and bright-eyed, and grinning and playful, silly, even, and Charles needs to swallow around the lump in his throat. How could anyone take this from him? How could anyone hurt this incredible, extraordinary, gorgeous man? Make him feel as if pain and fear is all he knows? He feels the tears before they fall, but he grins through them, unwilling to acknowledge them with Erik so happy. "Are you suggesting I not get drunk? Because I think that's exactly what I need right now," he teases. "Whiskey last night, vodka today, I can round it out tomorrow with some tequila."  
  
Erik holds up the masquerade mask to his eyes and then darts forward to kiss just under Charles's, swiping away the salty tracks that drip down his face. He knows without knowing that it's not himself that Charles cries for. He remembers this. With his family, watching celebrations in the streets so long ago he didn't know he still had that. It pierces him, and he has to lay the flat of his palm against his chest to catch his breath. "I-I don't think you can get drunk with this," he laughs, cheeks hurting from how wide he's smiling, even as his own eyes are wet. "How did you get them to agree to it?" Erik wonders.  
  
"You underestimate my ability to get drunk. It's my secondary mutation," he jokes, but Erik is kissing him, and Erik is laughing, and Erik is smiling, and his chest hurts it's so full. The tears are replaced with new ones just as easily as when they were wiped, and he forces himself not to shake his head again. "I didn't do this, Erik," he admits, as much as he would love to take credit for making Erik so blissfully, stunningly pleased. "Perhaps it's a side effect of things I said, but I didn't put this box together. Five minutes ago, I had no idea what was inside it." He concentrates, attempts to show Erik what he means, who was really in charge, but - no. His head bursts into spikes of white-hot pain, and this time he gasps, stunned for a moment or two. "Sorry," he says as soon as he recovers, through gritted teeth, but grins a moment later. Pushes the pain down, down.   
  
"Beautiful," he repeats from before, as if it's struck him all over again. "Are you aware of how devastating your smile is?" More than any amount of destruction he could inflict.  
  
For some reason that seems to get Erik more than anything else, because Charles is the only one who is kind to him, the only one who looks at him with any kind of joy or pleasure-to think someone else had a hand in this-and then Charles is gasping from pain and he's moving instead of thinking, laying his head against his chest and scritching fingers through his hair. " _Purim_ is a time of joy," he whispers. " _Ima_ used to say, they tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat. I survived too. Then I met you." His laugh is full of many things. Grief and wonder and yes, joy, and it's wet and he kisses Charles's forehead. "There was no joy until then."  
  
He wants to give Erik joy. The desire is so strong it nearly outweighs the pain, so deep it rattles in his bones, reverberates in his skull. But how can he? How can he, when there's nothing he can do? Then again, Pryde said they would win, and perhaps they will. But even still -  
  
Charles breathes, breathes, breathes, and then he moves. He wraps his arms around Erik, and he cries, but he smiles, too. "There will be joy, Erik," he whispers, and it's another promise. "So much joy. You will live a long, long life," he grins, stealing the words from earlier, "And eventually, there will be more good than bad. Everything will be alright. I'm yours." His breath hitches, because he's not used to that, especially so casually, and so he repeats it, awed and glowing - "I'm yours."  
  
"Yes," Erik agrees, a satisfied rumble in his chest. He's not used to that, either. "You are." Already there was so much he didn't know what to do with it, and it was so easy to forget that there was something wrong with their relationship when in its orbit, all Erik could feel was healing and whole. "OK," he laughed, separating a little so he could twist the cap off of the bottle. Leaning over to sniff it and making a face. "I never had this before. It's normal to give a little wine to the children at home but just-" he smushes his thumb and index finger together, eyes crinkling. " _L'chaim_ ," he salutes the bottle and tips the whole thing back a moment later. " _Baaaaaaaaaalh_."  
  
Charles laughs, pleased and bright, amazed as he watches. It's easier than expected to put aside his pain and terror and guilt for Erik, to plop it into a box. The smell of alcohol doesn't do anything to help the churning in his stomach, but he swallows down the nausea, swallows down the worry. Charles swipes at his own tears, wipes them with the back of his hand. But it all comes back - the voices are just a painful static, now, words and thoughts and feelings mashed together that he makes no sense of. Erik is so beautiful, so free like this, but he is also - Charles closes his eyes, and when he opens them, he smiles a Stepford smile.  
  
Erik tucks the bottle back into the box, and moves to collect Charles in his arms once more. "Tell me? Is it very sore?" Humming something under his breath, a far-away song, he massages his fingertips across the nape of his neck. Hoping that he isn't the reason for Charles's pain instead, but he will handle it if that's the case. He will fix it.  
  
"No, no. It doesn't hurt, Erik," he lies, and pulls back so he can smile again, all charming and perfect white teeth. Why does Erik always see past him? Why does he always know? Charles will have to work on that. "I'm perfectly fine. Please, don't worry about me."  
  
"Please, don't do that." He shakes his head. "You're hiding from me."  
  
No, he's shutting down. Erik is silent, cold, impassive, creating a wall between him and the world outside. Charles' wall has always been different - politeness, charm, smiles so wide his cheeks hurt, but it's no less a wall. "It hurts," he admits, but he doesn't say what. He's still in Erik's arms, limp. "Erik, I promise I'm alright."  
  
"I know," Erik looks down at him, tracing his finger across Charles's jaw. "You are very strong. Did I misstep?" he wonders.  
  
"No. No, Erik," he assures, and this time his smile is genuine. Smaller, but genuine. He reaches for Erik's hand, just as he had that first time, squeezing it in his. "You did nothing wrong. In fact, it's the opposite. Seeing you happy is -" He shakes his head. "It's incredible. Don't let me ruin that." Charles, you're ruining a perfectly good evening - He swallows down the nausea again.

Erik laughs, gentle, no-less joyful. "You are here. You are ruining nothing. Without your presence, my life is diminished." He kisses the back of Charles's knuckles. Erik laughs, gentle, no-less joyful. "You are here. You are ruining nothing. Without your presence, my life is diminished." He kisses the back of Charles's knuckles. "Don't hide yourself away, _neshama_. I like seeing you, not a fake-thing."  
  
"Habit," he admits, grinning, and ducks his head, looking at their linked hands. A nasty one, perhaps, but necessary for survival, though not in the same way Erik's are. "I'm not very good at celebrations, actually. You'd think I would be, but I've had too many hollow Christmas mornings. They always feel a bit like loss and hangovers. I don't mind this one, though I'd like to be able to think straight," he laughs, ignoring the throb.  
  
"Well, you have the hangover," Erik brushed strands of his hair out of his face. "Do you know what this one is about?"  
  
"I don't think this qualifies as a hangover anymore," he teases, and closes his eyes again. Erik is holding him upright, so he lets the world go dark for just a few moments, focusing on Erik, Erik's voice, Erik's arms, Erik's presence, and not the screeching in his own brain. "Even if I do, tell me anyway. I like listening."  
  
Erik grinned. "Well, it's a celebration, so we're obligated to be joyous. It is _Adar_. You increase in joy, but-" he tutted. "Well, we are also commemorating a-type of story, in the story, a genocide was about to take place. So we don't forget that. It's the same, most of our celebrations. You are joyful, but there is also sorrow. That's why we break a glass at weddings. Happiness and sadness are both necessary. Don't cut one off to spite the other." He gave Charles's nose a little tap.  
  
Charles laughs, scrunching nose playfully. Erik seems fond of doing that, and he finds it endlessly endearing. He enjoys listening to his voice, even now when he thinks he'd like to listen to nothing (which is impossible for him, unfortunately), and perhaps that's more telling than anything else. "I like that," he says, and opens his eyes, groaning for a moment at the adjustment. But there is Erik, beautiful and grinning, and he admits there is joy again. "I like you," he whispers, and perhaps it's a childish thing to say, but Charles can't help it, his cheeks pink in the aftermath.  
  
"That is fortunate," Erik says with mock-seriousness, "because I am very fond of you, and your silly hat." He ruffles the tassel hanging over Charles's shoulder. He thinks that this is a day he will never forget, for as long as he lives, and even if that's only for a speck in the vast macrocosm of the universe, it would be enough.  
  
Charles goes quiet, partially because speaking makes him feel sick, and partially because he wants to enjoy the moment while it lasts. Erik's arms around him, the joy on his face, the smile on his lips, the happiness buzzing through the fog and haze and screeching-scratching-aching. "The problem with this," he says, wry and grinning again, "is that it's not making me feel very inspired to leave. Saying goodbye twice in one day? Cruel."  
  
He laughs. "Come." He tugs Charles back toward the chair and lifts up a small wrapped triangular pastry, holding it out with bright eyes. "It's tradition to share food. Take this home with you."  
  
He smiles, accepting it, but he knows he likely won't eat it. It's been difficult to keep anything down - Charles has always had a nervous stomach. "I'd rather take you home instead," he sighs, and glances toward the door. Watching thoughts with any accuracy is impossible right now. "I have a real bed, and plenty of books. I ran out of space on my newest bookshelf, so they're stacking up by the wall," he laughs, and he would share an image if the thought of projecting anything didn't make him want to vomit.  
  
Erik knows, but he curls Charles's fingers over the tiny _hamentaschen_ anyway. "It sounds wonderful," he murmurs, able to imagine it for himself, and Charles laying in a chair with a book resting against his chest. In his imagination, though, Charles is actually sleeping >:c A knock came to the door. "OK, I suppose they won't allow a second round. Rest. Bathe. Eat. All good things. Will you promise to get some sleep at least?"  
  
"I promise I'll try, Erik," he allows, because it's the best he can do at the moment, and smiles. Charles memorizes as much as he possibly can, though he knows it's all already there, ready to recall at a moment's notice. He takes a breath to steel himself, sneaks one last squeeze of Erik's hand, and then he turns. The instant he leaves the room, he feels sick. Weak in the knees, cold sweat, stomach gurgling sick, and he reaches a hand up to cover his mouth as he gags. He smiles his charming smile a moment later, pushing it all down, down, down.  
  


* * *

Moving to escort him back out through the plastic-glass doors, Fred Duncan gives him a muddled expression. "You don't look so hot, bud. You need to be sick?"  
  
Ugh. The man's voice echoes in his head, a split second screech - everything he's ever felt, every joy, every sorrow, every fear, pause-replay-repeat, snap-snap-snap, shock and pain and tears, he broke his leg once and he heard the bones crack, Charles holds back a scream, he feels it - Charles covers his mouth again. "I'm perfectly alright," he says.  
  
"Yeah, I'm going to have to call bullshit," Fred huffs, leading him through the security checkpoint. Agent Stevens was conspicuously absent, and the protocols were a little more stringent than before. "Do I need to take you to Medical?"  
  
"Unless they have a telepathic analgesic, I don't think it would do much good," he jokes, and the words rattle around in his brain. "It's just a bit of a headache, that's all. I'll call my physician." Another half-hearted attempt at humor. Something is scraping, scraping, scraping, the sound of twisted metal and screeching tires. Upstairs, someone has a pop song stuck in their head. It's distorted and warbled, the same words repeating again and again and again - "I'm fine," he assures again, smiling again.  
  
"Actually, I'm not so sure," Fred purses his lips. "One of our doctors is a specialist in mutant physiology, you sure you don't want to pop down and see him?"  
  
"I'm sure," he sighs, because the world is closing in on itself, and he's beginning to doubt. He's had hangovers before. For a brief stint in college, he had them consecutively, until Raven put an end to that. He's tested the limits of his own abilities before, and though it may not be recently, he's certain it never felt like this. Is he getting truly ill? Coming down with something? He had the flu the year before, and spent a week utterly miserable, curled up and moaning while Raven tutted at him. "I just need some sleep," he says aloud, and ignores the fact that through the deafening ringing in his ears, he barely hears it.  
  
"Alright, well let me find you his card, anyway." He heads to the reception desk and speaks to the secretary there, producing a thin cardboard piece with the CIA sigil on it. The name reads Daniel Shomron, and were Charles able to focus enough to read the print, he'd recognize it because Shomron made a great deal of waves in the genetics field a few years back with his treatise on psionic Hilbert spaces and neutrino particles. His work was the first to postulate a tangible, scientific explanation for telepathy and other non-physical mutations. "Should I drop you off at home?" Fred asks when they finally get outside into the morning sun.  
  
"Yes, thank you," he says, and watches his body move toward the car. Charles tucks the cardboard in his pocket and considers that, perhaps, he might need it in the future. Is something wrong with him? Why would there be? He's just a bit stressed. Charles is silent on the ride, drifting in and out of consciousness. He's running a fever.


	8. Rock and roll is fun but if you ever hear someone

By the time he makes it up the stairs of his apartment, he's exhausted, sweating, delirious. He passes out on his couch, lost in colors and sounds and screams. He had an appointment scheduled for later that afternoon, promised Raven he would meet her for lunch with Hank when it's done. He doesn't show to either.  
  
 _"Hey, dummy! Get up!"_ pierces his consciousness. He doesn't know what time it is. What day it is. What year it is, probably. Just the sound of a voice out of the cacophony of light and color and ridiculously obnoxious noise, ridiculously obnoxious female-voice, cracks open his eyes blearily and of course it's Raven-still-blue standing over him akimbo.  
  
Charles keeps his telepathy in check around Raven. He promised her, and he doesn't like to break promises. But the moment he blinks open his eyes he's flooded, and not in the way he expects. It's distorted, as if through a tunnel, words repeating, memories skip-skip-rewinding, static and that horrible, awful screeching. Like metal, scraping against itself and whining - Charles holds back the urge to be sick again, swallowing. "Raven," he gasps, and he knows she hears it: Something's wrong.  
  
"Yeah, I fucking _know_!" she grips his arm and hauls him up. "The whole block has a collective headache. What the hell, Charles?"  
  
Sitting up very clearly does not help. Everything spins on its axis, the entire world fading in and out. Charles grips at his head, crying out - it's agonizing, this pain, his but also so many others. Please, make it stop. Make the voices stop. He'd grown used to the voices. This isn't that. _Not this spinning, aching, sick feeling, this white-hot white-knuckled pain. What the hell, Charles, what the hell, Charles, what - Skip, skip, repeat. Static._ "Something's very wrong," he repeats.  
  
"OK, uh-" a very real bolt of fear goes through her. "Uh-Charles, what do I do?" Her eyes are wide and she drops down beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to steady him. "I don't know-it's not like I can call 911-uh-telepath, we need a telepath-another telepath. I don't know any other telepaths, _we don't know any other telepaths!_ "  
  
Somewhere far away, very, very far, Charles recalls a conversation. He reaches in his pocket, vision gone white and then black and then grey, pulls out the card he was given. He doesn't know if it will help, but his brain provides him: _doctor/healing/get help_ and then the saw as it cuts through bone, fully awake -Charles screams, clutching at his head.  
  
Raven cries out as the sensation slams into her, from Without, something she's wholly unused to and she's trembling, scaled form taking on a chartreuse hue that signaled a loss of blood circulation in her face and neck. "OK, OK, easy," she's breathing hard through the sensation and flips over into her human form. "I'm going to call Warren, we're going to take you to the CIA. Just breathe, Charles." She's always been analytical, action-oriented, but this is not something she knows how to deal with-this is something she's never encountered, he's never projected like that before. He hears her in the distance talking on her cellphone. "Come on, can you stand up?" She's certainly strong enough to carry him, he knows that from experience.  
  
Stand up. Can he stand? Charles blinks, dizzy and shaking, sick to his stomach. He should be able to. Crawling on his knees, sliding on his belly, guns in the distance - No, no. Charles sucks in a desperate breath. Never walk again, paralyzed, pain agony pain - He gasps, and his eyes roll back. "No," he gasps. "Please, Raven," he begs, and he knows she's never heard him so afraid.  
  
"I got you," she says, and sweeps him off his feet bridal-style, moving down the stairs and out the door into the street.  
  
Warren's already there with his dark blue Lexus, the doors already opened. "What's going on?" he asks, ruthless and clinical and locked down.  
  
"I don't-I don't know, he just started-everybody felt it down the block and now he's-and he's _projecting-ugh_ -!" she groans, inhaling sharply and doing her best to avoid dropping him as a sharp burst of pain exploded in her back. "It's OK, just keep focusing on me," she said down to her brother. "We need to get to the CIA. They-I don't know, he had some guy's card in his-I don't even know where the CIA is!"  
  
"All right, all right, here, get him in the back. I know where we're going. Keep him calm and comfortable, I don't want us going off the road. Understood?" He's higher on the scale than Raven, able to Order it with ease, and his presence sweeps out, blanketing the situation in needed stability.  
  
"Got it," she nods, seriously. "Come on, Charles, easy. We got you."  
  
Charles drifts again. Drifts far, far away, everything hot and freezing cold at once, his fever spiking as he lies across Raven's lap. Everything becomes colors and lights and sound, fuzzy and indecipherable, pain background noise as he falls further. He can't think, but when he does, he thinks of the Ziz, thinks of palaces and treasure and the desert, then thinks nothing at all, floating outside of everything.

* * *

Warren's used to the New York City traffic and manages to drive them like a maniac until they gun it out into open spaces. When they reach the checkpoint, Charles is vaguely aware of being transported into a different vehicle, a heavy cloth over his eyes. Then he's blinking up at the ceiling, laid prone on a gurney and into an elevator. Raven's chattering nervously as they descend, and then a calm voice is trying to talk to him,  
  
"-Charles, can you hear me?" his eyes peeled back, penlight shining back and forth between them. "-fixed and mid-line, but he's still conscious-"  
  
"-not normal-"  
  
"-not _brain-dead_ , either-"  
  
Charles blinks, and the world floods in, out, in. He moans in pain. The static is back, and he wants it gone. It's too loud, too irritating, _his mother sitting in front of the TV long after the cable went out, staring, staring, staring._  
  
 _Charles -_  
  
 _Scraping metal, screeching, terrible screeching._  
  
"What's happening to me?" he gasps.  
  
"OK," the unfamiliar male-voice murmurs. "We're going to try this." The hiss of a jet-injector against his bared arm, and the suppressor works its way through his veins immediately.  
  
Searing pain. Then nothing.

* * *

Charles fades out. Everything becomes hazy, blurry, and he can't make sense of any of it. He can hear Raven, demanding answers, and then he can't. She's gone, unreachable, somewhere far away that he can't go back. He walks down a long corridor, walks and walks and walks, never seeming to reach the end of it. There are doors, so many doors, but he doesn't open any of them. Behind him, there's chatter, and he thinks they're talking about him. He pays it no mind. Charles walks to the end of the corridor and smiles. "Erik," he greets, delighted. But they aren't in Erik's cell, and they aren't in the desert. This is his house, he realizes. The one he grew up in. Erik shouldn't be here. This is a dream. No, not a dream - neither of them are sleeping. It's something else entirely. "Something's wrong with me, Erik," he whispers, and the walls start to shake, the entire house with it. "Erik, I'm frightened -" _Mother, please, I'm scared -_  
  
Erik's walking alongside him, all long-limbed strides and hands folded neatly behind his back, assessing. "I know," he holds one out to take. "I know you're afraid. I'm afraid, too." Wraps his fingers around Charles's, squeezes, keeps him close. He tries to focus, to reach out and feel the metal of the house, the foundations inside Charles, and still them. "I'm here," he breathes. "I won't leave. You're going to be OK. I won't let anything happen to you."  
  
Outside, there's more chatter. Raven is calling his name, and the terror in her voice pierces him. He gets the feeling that someone is holding onto him, somewhere out there, but he can't walk back. He grips Erik's hand tightly instead. The walls are crumbling. Even with Erik's steady presence, everything shakes and trembles. "This is my mind," he realizes, and the doors open and close and slam, flying off hinges. Erik must be in his cell, and Charles has reached for him. The suppressors aren't working. "What's wrong with it, Erik?" he whispers. "Am I sick?"  
  
"I do not know," Erik murmurs. "Has anything like this ever happened to you before?" he asks, looking up and all around, the only one for miles who wasn't bone-deep-scared. Everything scattered amidst endless landscapes, keeping him calm and composed and without leaking memories-sensations-crushing. He leads Charles deeper into the house, exploratory, branching out to inspect the damage.  
  
"No," he answers, and opens his mouth to say something more, but he hears something. His old bedroom is nothing like he remembers it, everything thrown about, pieces that don't belong. He's more concerned about the whimper he hears, and he tugs Erik along to the closet. It's him. Younger, terrified, confused, nine years old, clutching at his own head as he cries. The little boy rocks back and forth, lips moving as he mumbles to himself. _Make it stop, please, make it stop..._ "I sat in there for days," Charles whispers, remembering. He swallows around the lump in his throat, but his voice still cracks. "I was so scared. I'm more scared now, I think." Outside, Raven screams - _Charles_! - and he trembles. "Am I dying, Erik?"  
  
Erik goes to him immediately, nowhere in him able to sanction the sight of a child in pain, let alone Charles. Grabbing a blanket from the bed and wrapping it around his shoulders, kneeling down to wrap him up. "No. I won't let you." He held out his hand, beckoning older-Charles closer. "This must be happening for a reason. If this has happened before-you were able to gain control of it, then. You are able to gain control of it, now." He squeezes the boy's shoulder.  
  
"Not like this," he argues, but he kneels, too, watching his younger self. It was different then. These were the first few days he'd ever heard a voice in his mind that wasn't his own, and he had been terrified, confused, utterly lost. He'd refused to come out of this closet for days, rocking back and forth, crying, convinced he was going mad. "I didn't understand what was happening to me," he says, but now he's in the same position. He can't look at himself like that, vulnerable and small and scared, so he looks at Erik instead. "Why now? There's -" Downstairs, something creaks. The boy - himself - whimpers, shaking like a leaf and hiding in his knees. "Erik, I don't know what to do," he admits, and fear envelops everything. It whispers in the walls, shakes in the floorboards, the whole house hissing with it.  
  
"Calm your mind." It's an Order. "And breathe. This is happening, and fear will not assist you. Do you understand?" Erik's eyes pin his, infinitely greener within the four walls of his head. "We cannot speculate why this is happening. The answer is here. We need to find it. This is your domain, Charles. Do not let it control you. _Mnukhh, itst, nor mnukhh_ ," he hushes the child, kissing the top of his head.  
  
Charles does as he's told. He breathes, slow and easy, but Erik cannot Order the fear away. Charles fears so much. He fears loss, he fears failure, he fears himself - Do not let it control you. Charles clings to that, reaches out for it, grasping Erik's hand like it is his only lifeline. The walls still, no longer shaking, and the floorboards no longer shriek with the effort to pull themselves up. "This isn't my domain, Erik," he whispers, though he feels steadier, now. "There's something here that's wrong." And so they find it. He takes another breath, and does not let the fear control him. "You won't leave?" he asks, and all around them the room screams alone, alone, alone -  
  
"Never," he says, certain. Never, he screams back. "Believe me, I am far scarier than anything in here." His eyebrows arch and he raises to his feet, offering his hand down to the boy. "We'll take him with us. We'll look after him, and we'll look after you. Whatever is wrong, we will face it together."  
  
"I think you'll find that's not true," he sighs, and he knows it can't be as Erik says. The boy is no longer trembling, impossibly still for a child, and Charles knows it's because he isn't real. He was, once. Alone, and scared, and calling for help.  
  
But no one came.  
  
"It's too late, Erik," Charles whispers, and watches as Erik's hand touches nothing, reaches out to nothing. "That little boy grew up. You can't take him anywhere." The closet door slams shut on them, though they haven't moved. Charles watches it lock itself, and stands. "Skeletons in the closet, that's all. We can help him now, but not like that." He reaches out his hand, forces a watery smile. "Together. I can't be a scared little boy anymore."  
  
Curious. Erik's own mind doesn't work like that-for him, everything exists at the same time-and he looks surprised when the boy vanishes. "Not real," his lips turn down in a peculiar frown. "But he is real. He is in here." He touches Charles's heart with his fingertip. "The experiences... did you put them in him?"  
  
Charles shakes his head. "He's real," he agrees. "As real as anything else here. But I can't go back and save him, Erik. I can't read him stories at night, or tuck him into bed. He'll always be in that closet, crying and alone, and there's nothing I can do - except prove to him that it won't always be that way. I don't need to see him to know that he's here. He's always there. He's me, and I never..."  
  
I've always been alone, the house whispers.  
  
"But you can," Erik says. "You can do those things. I touched him. You can't change the past, but you can comfort the pieces of yourself which need comforting. You must believe me when I say that is within the realm of possibility. But you don't believe that you deserve comfort, do you? You accept pain so easily."  
  
Charles blanches at that, stepping back as if Erik slapped him. There's shaking and creaking again, the sound of doors opening and closing, whimpers from the closet. Down the hall someone wails, but he knows it's only a memory, just a ghost of this place - "That's not true," he argues, and feels himself bristle. "And I don't need you to _psychoanalyze_ me, Erik. I do that perfectly well on my own."  
  
"Stop. Please." Erik steps forward again, and takes his hand, gently. "I am not trying to psychoanalyze you. I hope-your opinion of me is a little higher than that." He smiles, eyes-crinkled, but it's aggrieved. "I only say it because-because I know what it is like. I have had to do it for myself so many times, in so many ways, that I could even stand before you in that cell as a sane man."  
  
"I'm sorry," he exhales, and feels the world around him calm. Charles takes Erik's hand, and lets his defenses drop. There's no place for them here anyway, and Erik told him not to hide. "I know. I know that, Erik," he sighs, because he's seen it. "I shouldn't have snapped at you. I'm still afraid, and I don't know how to fix this. Do you forgive me?" he asks, and offers a soft, uncertain smile.  
  
"I accept. And I forgive you, unequivocally," Erik says softly. Charles feels that this is true. "But if he exists as a fragment-I see," he realizes at last. "Who else was in your family?"  
  
"My family?" Charles repeats, confused. "My father died when I was young, and then it was just my mother and I. Later there was Raven. My mother's remarried now, but -" But he doesn't see how that's relevant, or where the question came from. His eyebrows knit together. "Why, Erik?"  
  
"Remarried, when you were a child or an adult?"  
  
"Somewhere between. I was a teenager." He shakes his head, trying to follow the train of thought. "Erik, why does that matter?"  
  
"Everything exists at the same time," Erik laughed. "Just differently. Incredible. That means we need to find an entry point, we can find an entry point-but we will need to traverse." He sounds energized, amped up by this new mind-puzzle, the gears whirring in overtime as he set himself to the new landscape in front of him. Maybe this wasn't Charles's domain, he realized. Maybe it was his. "All right, here is what we need to do. All of this. It is out-of-order. Out of sequence. Damaged looking. But it is still part of you, it feels familiar. We need to look for things that do not belong. Something that is jarringly, shockingly out-of-place. Where would we start? What kind of memory feels like it doesn't belong?"  
  
At least Erik seems to know what he's doing. Charles can't help but chuckle despite the situation, squeezing Erik's hand in his. Together, then. Find what doesn't fit, like one of those puzzles he scoffed at for being too simple when he was younger. He should have paid them more attention. "I think someone else is here, Erik," he says, and then freezes, as if he didn't expect himself to say it. "Someone besides us, I mean. I know my own mind, and not all of this is me."  
  
"Good," Erik says. "Let the hunt begin. Where in your mind feels the least like your mind?"  
  
Charles isn't certain that's how it works, but he says nothing. They're still in his old bedroom, and he wanders to the window. It's wrong, and he knows it - half-night, half-day, the expanse of the garden bathed in unnatural light. "I don't know," he admits, and walks out to the hall. With the doors no longer slamming and the walls no longer shaking, it looks exactly like his memory of it. "My mother's room is on the other side of the house. These rooms are all empty." He nods to them, sighing. "Such a waste."  
  
"Half-night, half-day," Erik says. "Then that's where we start."  
  
It is the obvious answer, but Charles doesn't know if it's the right one. He leads Erik to the stairs anyway, descending them. "If it's someone else," he says, voice hushed as it they'll hear, "What purpose do they possibly have? What are they doing?"  
  
"It's her," Erik says. _Hands-tightening-tightening metal-energy-aura, electricity-crackling_. "It's Emma Frost," he growls. "Shaw's telepath. Emma-" he screeches and it pierces through the house, through the forests and through the entire world-inside. "Show yourself."  
  
Charles jumps, Erik's words sending a shiver up his spine. Emma Frost. He's never heard the name before, but the word telepath is enough. Someone more experienced than him. Someone who knows how to get around his shields, however flimsy, because he's never had to use them, has always relied on being the only telepath in the room. But Erik is wrong. "No, Erik," he whispers, and shakes his head. He's frozen solid on the stairs. "This is my mind. Don't you see that? She isn't here for you. She's here for me. There's nothing you can do."  
  
"Yes there is. Don't you see, Charles? This is why you brought me here. There is plenty I can do. And I will not give you up without a fight."  
  
"It's not your fight." Charles laughs, though nothing about this is funny. He is not equipped for this, is wildly unprepared, and he knows it. "We're in my mind, Erik, and you are not a telepath. You can stay, and you can help. But at the end of the day, if I - if I'm not strong enough..." He thinks of Raven, bent over his body as he flatlines. Thinks of Erik's howl of despair when he feels it, how he will tear the entire building down with the force of his grief. "How strong is she?" he asks, and he levels Erik with a look. "Be honest."  
  
"I don't know," he looks at Charles. "Suppressors put her down. They didn't work on you. I heard them say it. You're stronger. We are stronger. I do not need to be a telepath to help you combat her. I am here, and I know how to manipulate a mindscape. I know how Emma Frost works. We have an advantage. Do not be so quick to dismiss it."  
  
"Erik, look at me," he demands, and though he can't Order, though it isn't his place, his voice is firm.  
  
Because he can hear again. Outside of this place, outside of his mind.  
  
Charles? Charles!  
  
He needs to wake up.

* * *

"I'm not dismissing anything," he says, and through the fear he feels resolve. "But this is my mind, and I need you to know you don't have to fight my battles for me. Don't you feel it?" He gestures around them. They're outside now, outside where everything is bathed in eerie orange glow, the sun-moon broken above them. "She made a mistake, Erik. She thought this would be easy, because she underestimated me. Do you know how many people have underestimated me? And every single time, I prove them wrong." This is the Charles Xavier society does not know what to do with, the man respected and revered, and for good reason.  
  
He does not bow. "Now," he says, and there is something powerful in him now, something fiercer and more ruthless than Erik has seen in him, "Let's get her out of my head. I don't appreciate unwelcome visitors."  
  
"Neither do I." He's relieved that Charles had found his way back into the strength he knew existed, but he would not let his guard down. Had too many encounters like this to believe any moment was safe. "She likes to play on what you're afraid of," he says to Charles, giving him as best a rundown as he could. "Memories, neurochemistry, illusions. It's fear she craves."  
  
"No." Charles has no doubt she can play games. That she can manipulate everything here, and that she won't hesitate to do so. She's already found her in, wormed her way into Charles' brain and played him like a fool. "You're incredible, Erik," he says, which is true, but he continues. "But you're assuming I'm going to play her game for any longer than necessary. Do you know what could happen if this continues? I'm projecting, out there." He can feel it. Waves of energy rolling off of him, and they don't understand it. There's no way for him to give off this amount of energy, that dose should have -- Always defying expectations. "People I love are involved, and I won't risk them. No, she made a grave mistake, and I'm not in the mood for games." Charles closes his eyes, focusing, and when he opens them the manor is gone. The garden is gone. It's all white space, space that he can manipulate as he pleases. His domain. "Go ahead, Emma Frost," he says, and he knows she can hear him. "Do what you came here to do."  
  
Erik's eyes widen and he steels himself for the attack, pulse hammering into overdrive. He's been here before, he's been here before he's been here before-they both hear the sound of heels clicking as a figure emerges from the shadows. It's a woman with platinum blonde hair and cold eyes, lips upturned in a congenial smile.  
  
"Charles Xavier," she tutted. "I didn't think they allowed S1s to have pets, but I suppose that doesn't count." She flicked her fingers at Erik. "I just came here to talk," she smiles wide, insincere, with a head like diamonds. "To let you know you're getting close to things you shouldn't be. After all, you wouldn't want Raven to go on without her darling brother, hm? Or better yet, a Black Orchid, valiantly continuing on without his dear _Bluebell_. You don't belong in this world, Xavier. Leave and let the adults get back to work."  
  
Erik's hand squeezed his. This is Charles's domain, and he has full confidence in his ability to send Emma Frost straight into a fucking sun where she belongs. Ruthlessly, mindlessly locking himself down so he can send frissons of support and love to his friend, so he can fight her away, burn off her armor. Emma whirls and locks onto him, too, knowing that he's another weak point. Pressing in all those delicious places where Charles's heart has bled.  
  
She knows about Raven. The realization, for one single moment, has fear gripping him tightly again. She's been in his head. She's seen his memories, how dear his sister is to him. If this doesn't work, if he thwarts her, what's to stop her from going after Raven next? No. He'll protect her, just as she's protecting him. "I don't let anyone tell me where I belong, as a general rule," he replies, and raises his chin. Charles squeezes Erik's hand back, and returns her cold smile. "I think you're bluffing, Emma Frost. I think you're in over your head. Perhaps you'd like to run back to where you came from? You won't win this, and I won't back down. I intend to finish what I started."  
  
"So do I." Emma grins widely. "Raven, Warren, even Erik here. We are everywhere, and there is such a lovely tapestry of people in your life to play with, sugar. You might be stronger than me telepathically, but trust me," her voice goes just as cold, flat, hard as Charles feels. Like the hard tap-tap-tap of nails into a board, narrowed in twisted disgust. "We always get our way. Stand against us and you will lose. Come for us, and we will raze you down."  
  
"I don't believe in unnecessary violence." As he says it, he lets go of Erik's hand. Not to spite him, but because he's walking forward now, his own steps measured, careful, precise. He holds her gaze. "I don't like death, or destruction, or killing. I think fire with fire only makes ashes, and an eye for an eye is a truly hollow ideology. But listen to me now, Emma Frost, and tell Sebastian Shaw: if you so much as touch them, if you even think of harming a single hair on their heads..." The world around them trembles, and not just here. In the Real, everything shakes, the force equivalent to a minor earthquake. He can hear their alarmed tittering, can feel and sense shelves being knocked over, papers being scattered, agents rushing to do something, but they can't get near him. He's created a barrier around himself. Here, in his mind, Emma Frost screams, and he grimaces at the sound of it, at the echoed pain that he created but does not feel, and still does not back down. "I will make you regret it. That is a promise. Are we understood?"  
  
"Perfectly," she spits like acid, brushing herself off before slithering back into the shadows, leaving them to lick her wounds. Charles feels it moments later when her presence clears from his mind, returning the sun and dissipating the clouds. Emma's known when to cut her losses, when to escape and regroup, and everything swiftly withdraws to do just that; but her threats stain the sky, and will be remembered long after she goes. A warning bell, then. Not a direct assault.  
  
Charles wakes up. Everything stops. He realizes, all at once, that the force of it was different than how it appeared to him on the inside. Where he saw earthquake, something far more devastating than trembling floors and walls occurred. Psionic energy cannot influence the same way it can within a mindscape, no broken shelves and scattered papers, no shaking manor walls. Charles has no telekinetic abilities, and he never has. But that does not mean it was not destructive. For miles it was felt, the sheer force of it astounding to him. He reaches, reaches, and - no. No one is seriously harmed. Distressed, but unharmed. He realizes after another moment that everyone within a certain radius is frozen. Charles exhales, and suddenly the world is in motion again. He slumps against the bed he's strapped to, more exhausted than he's ever felt in his entire life. And twice as terrified.

* * *

"Charles," Raven crows and runs to his side once she realizes the barrier has been removed. She brushes his hair from his face. "Never do that again-" she whacks him in the shoulder with her purse. "I was so worried-" she can tell he's here, though, can see it in his face that the color has begun to return.  
  
"You gave all of us a bit of a scare," Daniel Shomron looks down at him kindly. "We were hoping you would be able to throw the presence out yourself, because our suppressors weren't having any luck assisting you. How do you feel?" he asks, shining a light into his eyes and squeezing the blood pressure cuff at his arm.  
  
"No," Shomron said. "We did our best to lock it down, but your abilities are remarkable. You passed right through our suppressor shields. Your friend's just over there."  
  
He pointed at Warren, who had his head in a garbage can. "Little warning next time," he coughs hoarsely and wags a finger behind him.  
  
"You kept calling for Erik. Did you mean Inmate Lehnsherr? Is he the one that did this to you? I wasn't aware he had psionic abilities."  
  
"No," he says, grim. The last thing he needs is a misunderstanding here (or a true understanding, for that matter), so he steels himself. "He has no psionic abilities, but he's been under similar attacks by the same telepath. He knew how to help me. Erik saved my life."  
  
An exaggeration, but not a huge one by any stretch of the imagination. If Charles hadn't reached him, where would he be? Running around in circles, afraid and confused, as his brain reached critical mass. It was Charles who pushed Emma out, but Erik who showed him he could.  
  
"It's apparent you can breach our suppressors, do we have a security issue on our hands? Is this person targeting Lehnsherr now? Can they get in here-mess with us?" Fred Duncan asked from the back. His partner glared at him. "What? I like Lehnsherr. Easiest inmate we ever had, by far."  
  
"She was weakened by the suppressors." But not completely thwarted, nor would she be. And it's not just Emma. Charles didn't get into her head, didn't have the leverage to do it, but he would be very surprised if she and Shaw didn't run in powerful company, willing or otherwise. "I can't say for the rest, but everyone is safe for the moment." For the moment. He holds Raven closer, fear spiking cold in the pit of his stomach. "I'm so sorry," he whispers to her, and he knows she'll understand.  
  
Raven's jaw was clenched. "I'm not," she insists, eyes narrowing. "Everybody get out," she snaps. "I need a moment with my brother."  
  
Charles knows he shouldn't be laughing, but he can't help but be amused as the others file out. She's only a D3 and he knows damn well that there are people higher on the scale that she just shooed away like flies, but that's part of Raven's charm. She's an unstoppable force. "Raven," he sighs, grim again. "I've just put you in terrible danger."  
  
"What the hell have you gotten us into?" she demands, eyes yellower in the harsh lighting of the sickbay. "Did you just get _mind fucked_ by one of Shaw's goonies? Is that what happened here?" She forces herself to keep her voice level, and it only wavers slightly.  
  
Trust Raven to be eloquent, and also correct. "Essentially, yes," he sighs, but there's a bit of a grin on his lips. Raven is fierce as always, but he knows there's a part of her that's afraid, too. She was there the whole time, and he watches through her eyes as he writhes and gasps, sweating and feverish and sick, crying out in pain. "And they won't stop, Raven. I'm an enemy now, and she was in my head, which means you are too." He swallows around the words, suddenly sick to his stomach again.  
  
"Let them try." It's funny, the people Charles is drawn to-because it's almost an echo of what Erik's told him. In the face of imminent defeat. Good. There's someone here. There's someone to fight. "Agent Duncan had a point, though, Charles. You and me, we can protect ourselves. You've got your big, beautiful brain and I've got my wits and my feet and my claws. I saw Erik, you know-" she tapped her head. "You showed me him."  
  
Charles' eyebrows knit, his confusion palpable. "Are you suggesting Erik can't defend himself?" he asks, and the notion is so laughable that he nearly does, his tone every bit as incredulous as he feels. He realizes that she hasn't seen, though, not truly. Meek Erik, quiet Erik, head bowed Erik. Only a fraction of what he is. "Trust me, Erik is the last person we need to worry about -" Except that he's behind plastic walls, in his plastic prison. Charles stops cold.  
  
"Yeah." Raven tilts her head, lips pressed together pointed. "He's a sitting duck in here, and nobody knows the truth, do they? You haven't told anyone."  
  
Dead men don't need trials. They don't talk, either. Charles' entire world shifts again, spins on its axis, and he realizes what they must have realized. Erik is a liability. This trial will attract everyone's attention, and if they can't get Charles to sit nice and let Erik play scapegoat, what's next? "No," he whispers, horrified. "No, I won't let it happen." Someone else's words, Erik's words, but his now too.  
  
"So what are we going to do about it?" Raven stares into his eyes, firm and decisive. "Maybe we should go for a direct assault. Find him and fry his brain."  
  
"Raven," he scolds, because of course she would suggest that. She and Erik never needed to worry about getting along. He rubs at his temples, exasperated. "I realize this is a very tense situation, but let's not resort to murder, please. There has to be something." He just hasn't figured it out yet. But he will. There's too much at stake here.  
  
"We should-oh, yes," Raven darts her head to the side. "Make that Duncan guy forget he had to give his wife a kiss or something. Go on."  
  
"Why would I -" Oh. Oh. Charles laughs, a bit delirious, and he realizes he's never given Raven even half of the credit she deserves. He rushes forward to kiss both of her cheeks, one after the other. "Raven, have I told you recently how much I adore you? Brilliant." But he's never tampered with memories like that. Theoretically, he could. But if he messes up, makes even one wrong move - the brain is a delicate thing, for all its wonders.  
  
Raven preens. "I know. I'm amazing. Now chop, chop. Are we doing a prison break or a strategizing session?"  
  
"Raven," he sighs, fond, but he shakes his head. "I understand the urgency, but perhaps we shouldn't be too hasty. I'm not exactly in top form at the moment." Though he's not far either, surprisingly. He feels - stronger, somehow. More powerful than he was before.  
  
But this is a game of chess. Every move he makes now is going to count.  
  
"We need to be careful," he warns her. "No rash decisions, no acting out of desperation. That's what they want from us."  
  
"So, strategy," she says as her whole form flickers and melts down into a perfect facsimile of Fred Duncan. "Howdy there, pardner," she affects his slow southern drawl.  
  
"Truly convincing," he chuckles, though the transformation itself is flawless as ever. Charles removes himself from the table, ignoring the dizziness and nausea that overwhelms him for a moment. It's nothing compared to what it was. "Alright. Time for you to meet Erik." Not the way he thought he'd introduce his sister to his future dom, but Charles has never done anything normally. Why start here?  
  
"She's not still poking around is she?" Fred Duncan's voice asks as he escorts Charles through the checkpoint and assures the secretary that it's imperative that he check on his patient as they've both suffered from a psionic attack. So far everyone is rattled enough not to question why Erik and Charles were targeted together, perhaps relegating it to that strange place they occupy in one another's orbits, that Charles is the only one Erik speaks to, he's a telepath and that must be it. They hand Fred Duncan's body a keycard but it's all-Raven's little wink at the pretty girl behind the desk. "We're cleared," she tells Charles.  
  
"No, she's gone. For now." Charles follows her through the checkpoint, rolling his eyes at Raven's antics. Still, she's incredibly skilled at what she does. She's known Fred Duncan for mere hours and somehow absorbed all of his mannerisms, a perfect copy to anyone but Charles.  
  
Charles forces the guards on this level away, brushing them off like dust on his clothing. He doesn't like to do it, but it happens almost naturally - they need privacy, and so away they go. He'll need to keep a check on this, whatever it is. Charles has never been so in tune with his own abilities.

* * *

"Erik," he calls when they're alone, and gestures to Raven. "Meet Raven." He sighs. "You're either going to love each other or kill each other, but I'm betting on both."  
  
Raven leads them through the very complicated process of being demagnetized and Charles can see her scanning every inch of the place as it turns to plastic. Somehow, this is more threatening to her than anything Sebastian Shaw or Emma Frost could reign down upon them. Fred Duncan's body is shaking its head imperceptibly-rows and rows of plastic walls designed to contain one man. All this built to contain a singular mutation. It was not promising. Gritting her teeth, she puts her palm on the print register and waits for the door to hiss open.  
  
When they arrive in front of Erik's Protection cell, he is truly encased in glass, transparent and visible for all to see. The first impression Raven has of him is that he's surrounded by such big architecture, and he's so small in comparison. There are two guards on either side of the door. He's reading from a book, eyes closed, standing up in the corner. "Impromptu session," she says at the men keeping them separated.  
  
"Understood, sir," they just say, nonplussed, and just like that, they leave.  
  
Erik was deep into his concentration and stuttered when he saw them beyond the plastic plexiglass, snapping to attention and letting the book rest against his chest open flatly. He's agile and light on his feet when he moves closer, folding up the book and setting it on a small end table next to the cot that is his bed, brushing it lovingly.  
  
He approaches the window, looks at Agent Duncan, then back at Charles. All of a sudden the man flashes and then rows of turquoise and mixed-emerald highlights and cyan and deep royal and cornflower blues emerge in fluttering scales, with a satisfying sound like flipping pages in a book. Erik flinches, and then beams, laughing and amazed. "Raven," he said, touching his hand to his own chest. "Erik."  
  
"I noticed," she muttered dryly, rolling her eyes. "Nice digs."  
  
"Digs?" he looks at Charles.  
  
"Give me strength," he mumbles to himself, pinching the bridge of his nose, but he's grinning anyway. Raven and Erik together is something he never anticipated, but of course he'd hoped for it. A semblance of normalcy, the two separate parts snapping together to make a whole.  
  
He wishes it were under better circumstances, but he'll take what he can get here.  
  
"Somehow, this isn't how I imagined it," he sighs, but there's really no time to lament that. "Shall we have a strategy meeting, then? If we hurry, we might be able to fit in a prison break before sunset."  
  
"Can you lift the code from anyone around here?" Raven asks, jerking her chin to the numerical pad on the wall.  
  
"I will assist you as best as I can," Erik steps back from the door while they work, holding his hands behind his back formally. _"Lapis lazuli,_ " he nods to Raven.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"It is a stone. Your color, it is like that. Very pretty."  
  
It's only because she doesn't think Erik is capable of hitting on her that she doesn't react as though he is, and clears her throat, rolling her eyes with a fond smile. "Well, thanks. You, uh, nice uniform. It's very clean." Charles, your new boyfriend is bizarre.  
  
"Raven, I love you very much, but I really don't think you have room to talk here," he mutters in response to her thoughts, his cheeks slightly pink as he punches in a code he rather effortlessly picked up. "And he's hardly - that. I'm not a schoolboy."  
  
But he feels like one, all nerves and pink-cheeked, because he always dreamed of bringing someone home to meet Raven. It's a bit backwards and bizarre, as his sister put it, but some of the sentiment is still there. He's certainly got the butterflies in his stomach.  
  
"He looks better without it," he sighs, and then realizes exactly what he's just implied. His entire face goes red and he sputters. "I meant with other clothes, Raven, don't you dare laugh -"  
  
It's too late, Charles, it's too late. Raven cackles. "You're such a ham!" she smacks his shoulder.  
  
Even Erik smiles a little. The door hisses open and they all venture inside, where Erik has arranged neatly his meager possessions; paper, books, origami animals, which Raven inspects thoughtfully. She sits on his bed, crossing her legs. "We have a situation. Shaw knows about Charles's involvement, and he's angry, and he's coming after anybody that gets in his way."  
  
Erik does not look surprised. "He is unaccustomed to being defied."  
  
Charles opts to stand, and then to pace, because his mind is too active to sit still. They have options, but they're numbered and time-sensitive, and anything they decide has potential risks. Risks he's not normally willing to take, but now he's backed up against the wall.  
  
"What exactly are we dealing with?" The question is directed at Erik, except he hasn't stopped to look at him. Within the confines of Erik's cell, he looks more like the caged animal, running his hands through his hair as he always does when he's anxious, walking back and forth and back. "What's the likelihood - if we could - hm..."  
  
Charles is clearly within his own head, though in an entirely different way than he was not even an hour ago. He projects without thinking, his brain overloaded and unlocked in ways it previously hadn't been, flashing images and half-formed plans and thoughts, whirring like an overworked supercomputer.  
  
Erik gets up and takes Charles's hands in his, touches his face. " _Royk_ ," he tells him. "Slow down. Breathe." It's an Order.  
  
Raven witnesses it from where she's sitting and he watches as Charles obeys, mouth dropped open.  
  
Charles does as he's told. His breathing evens out, and the tension visibly melts from his shoulders. He doesn't continue pacing, content to dip his head and let Erik's calm wash over him, drawing on it for strength. Charles always assumed submission would make him weak, but it's proven the exact opposite.  
  
"Raven," he mumbles, and his cheeks are flushed again. "I can hear you," he reminds her, because her thoughts are loud and clear.  
  
" _Tov. Noshem, neshama_." They were words repeated often and well-worn, and Erik smiled down at him. "Okay. Sebastian Shaw is a Omega-level mutant. That is why he classified me the same. I could match him, when I was not under Propofol-protocols."  
  
"What's that mean?"  
  
"I was sedated to the point of near unconsciousness. That prevented me from using my Will, and allowed Shaw to extort his Will over mine, with the help of the telepath Emma Frost. "  
  
"Jesus Christ. And that puts another spin on it, doesn't it? I mean, we could say that to his lawyer, couldn't we? Couldn't we?" Raven was bursting with excitement.  
  
"I was not forced by Sebastian Shaw to do what I did. In order for him to force me, I needed to have many doses of Propofol over a long period. And I would not be capable of walking, much less standing up straight."  
  
"It doesn't matter, all juries need is reasonable doubt. OK, so he's an Omega-level. What's his mutation?"  
  
"He absorbs energy, and then becomes extraordinarily powerful. He can break every bone in your body with just a tap. He can bring down entire city blocks by absorbing the force of bombs."  
  
Charles absorbs that, his mind racing again, though this time he remembers to breathe. The panic inside of him is well-contained, caged. He doesn't realize he's leaned himself against Erik until he already has, as if he's helpless to his gravity.  
  
"We could easily win the trial," he says, because with everything that's happened and Erik's lawyer being who he is, he doubts any jury would not look upon him favorably, especially a jury with mutants. But -  
  
"But it won't matter," he breathes.  
  
He shakes his head, and cold dread washes over the room. "Erik went quietly, but Shaw will not. He'll get angry, and then he'll get desperate, like any cornered monster. And people will die." Charles' teeth are clenched. "Innocent people."  
  
"What do you mean?" Raven asks. "Would they come for Shaw independently?"  
  
"Oh, yes," Erik says. "I have a great many things I would like to say say to a judge and jury."  
  
"We can't let him take out innocent people-Erik was cornered and he didn't resort to that. I know what you mean, now, Charles. I saw it, back then-I saw the person, you know. The... very strange and wonderful Creature of Erik," she grins at him gently.  
  
"No, he will not harm another soul," Erik says very calmly. "Because we will be there, to ensure that he doesn't."  
  
Despite everything, Charles feels - he's not sure how to word it, really. Fortunate, perhaps. Because somehow, however odd and unfortunate the circumstances are, he's assembled some of the most extraordinary beings in his life.  
  
He won't let anything happen to them.  
  
"Then we go through with the trial, and stay safe until then." Which leads them to the current predicament. "There will be plenty of metal in a courtroom. They'll load you with suppressants, but they won't work." It's a simple fact, and for a moment he's distracted by the surge of pride he feels. He is Erik's, and Erik is very strong. He shakes the thought off, but he knows Erik felt it anyway. "Anything outside of this particular plastic corner of the world and you have a way to defend yourself. What do we do while we're inside of it?"  
  
"Sebastian Shaw is smart," Erik says. "He will not come here himself. He will send Emma, or he will bribe someone in here to try and kill me. Do not worry, Charles. I am very adept at dealing with what any human can throw at me." They both know the CIA doesn't employ mutants. "And I can handle Emma Frost. I will survive."  
  
Charles doesn't have to like it, though. He sighs, and suddenly he's in Erik's orbit again, reaching up to touch his cheek. The world fades out, as it so often tends to do whenever they're in the same room together. "I don't want you hurt. You don't deserve to suffer, Erik," he murmurs, lost in those ocean eyes.  
  
He becomes aware of Raven's thoughts again when she coughs, and his ears turn red. "Raven, please. If I have to know about you and Hank -"  
  
It's not a normal family. But perhaps Charles doesn't need normal after all.  
  
"Super cute," she smirks, winking at them.  
  
"Hush, Raven," Erik says, and it's not an Order but she can still feel his Will thrumming through the room and it's enough to widen her eyes, make her really realize what Erik is, what he can do.  
  
"That is some shit," she breathes.  
  
"Charles," he diverts his attention back. "I will survive. That is the only important thing. We cannot afford to be delicate about what I may endure. I certainly am not. It is for a righteous cause. To see that man pay for what he has done. It is the closest I've ever come, and that is thanks to you. Please, let me do this. I am strong." And for good measure, he taps Charles's nose.  
  
Charles knows the sound that escapes him is very much a giggle, entirely different butterflies fluttering for the moment he allows them to. When he sobers up, hand still on Erik's face, the room is thick with his resignation. "Yes, you are," he agrees. "And soon you won't have to be. I promise, Erik."  
  
Besides, they have their own battles to fight. His attention turns to Raven again, ignoring her rather loud thoughts. "You're the only one not equipped to deal with a telepath, Raven," he reminds her, and fear grips him again, tugging tight. "Don't argue, please. You're very strong, but you've never had to use your mind that way. I've kept out for your sake."  
  
"What are you asking me, Charles? Even if I agreed not to fight, which I'm not, a telepath can find me anywhere."  
  
"Actually, I wasn't suggesting that at all," he laughs, because she's right to assume that. He's always wanted to protect her, to keep her hidden from the outside world. He's always been terrified to lose her, the one source of love in his life.  
  
But that won't keep her alive.  
  
Charles lets go of Erik (gives off _no-loss-miss him_ ,) which is ridiculous when he's only moving across the room) and takes his sister's hand instead. "We do this together, Raven," he tells her. "What I was suggesting, actually, is that I train you, and keep you safe until then." He flicks her forehead, grins at the affronted look on her face. "Which means letting me inside that mind of yours. Trust me, it's not ideal for me either. I can't imagine the horrors that await me," he teases.  
  
Erik came to stand beside Charles, a steadying weight. "As much as I am able, I will try to help as well."  
  
"But you're not a telepath," Raven looks up-way up at him.  
  
"No, but I am a psi-null with a great deal of experience in telepathic resistance. If the fight comes to your mind, you will need those resources, because Charles may not be there to push them out." He looked at Charles for approval.  
  
"Yes. We'll do this together," he repeats, and this time he means all of them. Charles reaches for Erik's hand as well, completing the circle, and for a moment he's overcome.  
  
There's so much at stake, but only because they've given him so very much to lose.  
  
"I knew you'd get along," he adds, smug, and his grin is directed at Raven. "Am I allowed an I told you so? I haven't used one this month yet." A running joke.  
  
Raven smacks him on the shoulder anyway. "I'm sorry I called you a terrorist," she said, even though it hadn't been to Erik's face. "Charles projected a lot of stuff about you at me. I didn't know-most of it. I can't pretend it's all copacetic but-"  
  
"Did you know that word comes from _kol beseder_?" Erik looks at her with pursed lips, amused. "It means everything is in order. It's all right, Raven. _Kol beseder_. We'll agonize over my lack of ethical compunctions at a later time. For now, you both should concentrate on training." And Erik needed to shore himself up, for whatever came his way. He only hoped he could still see Charles in the interim-a bright spot.  
  
"You're right. OK, then, Charles. You can access my mind, but only for training. I can't give you too much of an advantage after all." She pokes her tongue out at him, then leans forward and extends her hand to him. He holds up his right, apologetically, then switches to his left. "What happened?" Raven lets it slip, never one for tact.  
  
"An accident," he eased her concern and shook, his grip gentle. "Thank you," he says, what he's wanted to say for a long time. "For looking after your brother."  
  
"You know it."  
  
While they're occupied, Charles focuses. She needs to be prepared, and that means being prepared for the unexpected. It makes him a bit uneasy, delving into her mind where he promised her he would never go, but the circumstances are different.  
  
He would never cause her pain, but he does nudge. There are no defenses, and he didn't expect there to be. "We have a lot of work to do," he sighs, but he knows they'll manage. "I've been reading you since I woke up, by the way - haven't you noticed?" No, she didn't, clearly. He raises an eyebrow and grins at her. "Two steps behind, baby sister," he teases. "Also, what day is it?" He guarantees she won't remember. Raising his hands in surrender before she can assault him again, he laughs. "I need to practice, too."  
  
His mouth firms into a line at the reminder. "I've never wanted to use my telepathy offensively, nor thought I would ever need to," he whispers, and it aches somewhere deep, a scared little boy who locked himself in the closet. Charles fears himself more than he fears anyone else.  
  
Erik touches the back of his shoulder, keenly attuned to his fear. "I have the utmost faith in you," he says simply.  
  
"I-didn't notice, um, Wed-Saturday? Did you just steal the day of the week out of my head? If I wasn't horrified I'd be impressed."  
  
"I am impressed."  
  
"It's not that impressive," he argues, because next to what Emma Frost attempted to do with his mind, it's nothing. Of course he doesn't want to cause Raven harm, but there's no getting around that Emma is operating on a higher level of technique than him.  
  
Raw power only gets you so far.  
  
But Charles is already practicing. Raven isn't focusing, and there's no resistance. He smiles sadly, leaning forward to take her hand again. "How did we meet, Raven?" he asks, slowly, the one memory he knows they both treasure.  
  
She won't remember. Not gone, not lost, but blocked off. Charles did it without blinking.  
  
" _Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh_. This is legitimately terrifying, just for the record. I remember you used to be scared of tampering with people's heads, you always used to say like, one wrong move."  
  
"A lesser developed telepath is like a butcher," Erik murmurs. "Charles is not lesser-developed. Comparatively, he wields a scalpel where Emma Frost wields a hacksaw."  
  
"It was already back, you just weren't looking for it." Raven really is terrible at this, but considering where he was not hours ago, helpless and writhing in pain, he doesn't think he has any right to judge her.  
  
Charles knows he's given her an intangible presence to fight against because he doesn't want to hurt her. She'll be hurt more by someone else. He grimaces, and then he focuses. Just a light ache, a pulse of pain behind her eyes. A headache she could have gotten anywhere else. He's known he could do this, but he's never done it. Promised himself he never would. "Push me out," he pleads, and his voice cracks, because -  
  
I will never hurt you, Raven, he promises, somewhere far away.  
  
"We will steady your hand," Erik promises softly. Unlike Charles, Erik was eager to learn more about his gift, and didn't share his fears of himself. Charles would call his faith naive, that he didn't really understand the scope of what he could do, but Erik could imagine. He could guess, and it still enthralled rather than terrified him. Because he trusted Charles with any power he could wield. "Try again?" he nods toward Raven.  
  
"Just give me back our first meeting, please and thank-you." She stuck her blue tongue out at them.  
  
"It was already back, you just weren't looking for it." Raven really is terrible at this, but considering where he was not hours ago, helpless and writhing in pain, he doesn't think he has any right to judge her.  
  
Charles knows he's given her an intangible presence to fight against because he doesn't want to hurt her. She'll be hurt more by someone else. He grimaces, and then he focuses. Just a light ache, a pulse of pain behind her eyes. A headache she could have gotten anywhere else. He's known he could do this, but he's never done it. Promised himself he never would. "Push me out," he pleads, and his voice cracks, because - _I will never hurt you, Raven_ , he promises, somewhere far away.  
  
"My turn," Erik steps away from Charles and behind Raven. "You need to view your mind as an entity," he tells her. "When you think of your mind, your sense of self,* what is the first thing you imagine?"  
  
"The courtyard. Where we'd play as kids. The basement where we used to debate in college. Me and Hank's apartment. Warren's loft. Ah-" she winces, touches her temples near her eyes.  
  
"Good, very good. Let's use your apartment. If this is your mind, and I want you to imagine it, a presence has gotten in. How did they get in?"  
  
"Through... the front door-no, through the window. Because if they'd used the front door, it'd be obvious. And this is just a headache."  
  
"There is an interloper, here. What are you going to do?"  
  
"Find them," she sets her jaw, eyes closed. "Grab them by the lapels and _throw them out the front door._ " She imagines it, imagines throwing aside furniture until she's caught Charles knelt and cowering behind some bookends. And then she's dragging him, dragging him, flings him into the streets.  
  
The force is not equivalent. While he barely grazed over her pain receptors, Raven's push literally bowls him over. It doesn't hurt, per se, but it does knock all of the air out of his chest. It's educational, if nothing else - Charles has never felt true resistance before, because he's never gone where he was unwanted.  
  
He'd like it if didn't end with him on his knees, holding back the urge to be sick, but it's educational nonetheless.  
  
"Very good, Raven," he praises her, the world still spinning a bit. "I should have known you wouldn't throw punches. When have you ever? Now that that's over with -"  
  
He doesn't want to do it again, is the unspoken. Ever again.  
  
Raven clapped her hands. "I did it!" She looked to Erik. "Oh my G-d! That was so cool! Where'd you learn to do that?"  
  
"Spare time," Erik's eyes crinkle.  
  
"Just for the record, I advocated frying Shaw's brain."  
  
Erik leans forward conspiratorially. "So did I."  
  
"Please stop talking," he tells both of them, still very much on his knees and still very much dizzy. He rubs at his temples, a familiar gesture, this time mostly because he's exasperated and more fond than he should be considering the circumstances. "Actually, I've decided. You two are not allowed to talk to each other. When this is over, at least a city block apart at all times."  
  
Raven and Erik are wearing matching grins, clearly delighted at Charles's dismay.  
  
"Can I ask what's up with the hat, now?" she's eyeing Erik. "Is this some kind of _court jester_ thing because it's not very amusing-" she's furious, actually, wondering if the CIA have made spectacles of their prisoners, but Erik just holds up a hand.  
  
"A custom. Charles had one too. It was very fetching."  
  
It's getting to him now, the exhaustion of it all. The adrenaline is mostly gone. Charles hasn't had a decent night's sleep in weeks, and he hasn't eaten in - he doesn't remember, actually, which is worrying on its own. Dinner two nights ago, maybe. With Raven. He'd told Warren he'd already ate.  
  
"Don't mind me," he mutters, and lies back, not to sleep, but simply because he's too dizzy to sit up all of a sudden. "I'm alright," he adds, before they can ask. "You can continue plotting to make my life difficult, if you'd like."  
  
Erik helped Charles to his feet and to sit up on the cot, which was hard and not very comfortable, but the blanket was soft and he wrapped Charles up in it. "Let me know when you feel well enough to travel," he says, sitting down by his side and letting him lean his weight. "You need rest, and food. And we can't keep you in here indefinitely," he laughs softly.  
  
"I'm perfectly fine," he argues, stubborn to a fault. Charles' first response to being coddled is to squirm, and he knows it's because he wants to be taken care of. It was never something he had, or thought he could have. His mother left him to his own devices, and later - Well, there's a reason anyone doesn't know assumes he's on the opposite end of the scale. He leans against Erik's weight, against his presence, his mind fuzzy again but more focused when it touches Erik's. "I'll be alright," he mumbles, though he knows he's coming apart at the seams. He's untethered, unmoored, weighed down by fear. When he lets Erik ground him, it's different.  
  
But he hasn't let himself rely on that. Charles still isn't convinced he's not alone, and he's used to sorting through these things independently. He's fought it his entire life, and he doesn't know how to stop. So he sits up, too fast, too suddenly, and ignores the ache-dizzy-sick feeling. "I'm alright," he decides, because he needs to be.  
  
Raven's conspicuously left the cell, now. "You will be," Erik agrees, setting a hand on his shoulder. "Get some sleep when you return home," he murmurs into Charles's ear, low so Raven can't hear through the plexiglass. An Order. "And when you wake up, eat a proper meal. OK?" He laces their fingers together, smiling gently.  
  
Charles shakes his head, though he knows he will. For a moment, he wonders if he should protest that - but what does he have to protest? Erik giving him what he needs and craves? It's like fighting against the tide. "You can't do that," he says anyway, barely a whisper at all. Not because he's upset, not because he's angry. Because it isn't fair. "I don't need you to do that," he corrects. "I can take care of myself, Erik, you don't - I don't need that." Maybe not, but he wants it. There's no time for this discussion, but they haven't had it. There should be a discussion, a healthy exchange of power that they've both agreed to. Boundaries, and rules, and expectations.  
  
But they don't get that. Charles still doesn't believe he will. "Okay," he says, and brushes it off. His hand is limp in Erik's. "I should go. Thank you for helping Raven and I, Erik. We wouldn't have managed without you."  
  
Erik lays his other hand, the broken-one, on top of Charles's, and nods, eyes creased in pain, but he doesn't argue with Charles. "Of course. Be safe. Both of you." He gives a small smile. He doesn't say come back soon, doesn't say it because he knows it's attached to his own anxieties, and he doesn't think he can keep them out of his voice, but he knows Charles hears it. "Have a wonderful day, Charles," he whispers back, and it's achingly sincere.  
  
Charles forces down everything, down, down, as deep as it can go, and smiles back. "You too, Erik," he returns, and is proud when his voice doesn't so much as crack. He can't look him in the eyes when he leaves, so he doesn't. The sick feeling is back, the ache behind his eyes, the buzzing. He ignores it, and ignores the longing he feels. There isn't time. Instead he wraps an arm around Raven. "No one will stop us," he tells her, making her disguise a bit unnecessary. "Let's go home. We have a lot to explain to Warren in the car."  
  
"No shit," Raven laughs, taking under his elbow and leaning against him. They walk right on out of there just as Charles predicted, and they were driven back to the primary gate by the real Fred Duncan where Warren's car was still parked.  
  
Warren gave their escort a two-fingered salute before taking the front seat, backing them out and onto the road and only when they were a safe distance away did he address them. "All right, anyone want to share with the class what the hell just happened in there?"  
  
Charles lets Raven take that one. Her explanation of certain events isn't always the most accurate and she uses words like 'mind-fucked,' but the general idea is there, the danger made apparent, though she's as fierce and unbothered as she was inside. Always rearing for a fight. For his part, Charles stays silent, watching as they find their way back into the city. His mind hums, overworked and still racing, his body slumped against the window.  
  
"Should we drop you off at your place, Charles?" Warren asks. "You look ready to pass out."  
  
"Hm?" Charles blinks, and it's clear that toward the end he wasn't listening. He rewinds the conversation through Warren's thoughts, then nods. "Yes, that would be fine," he says, distracted again.  
  
He stays silent for the rest of the drive. By the time he's up the stairs to his apartment, it's well into late evening. There's something tugging him toward bed, and he knows what it is - Charles swallows, but doesn't fight it, barely taking his shoes off before he falls asleep on top of the covers.


	9. Say you are huge look at the moon, look at the stars, look at the sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i. _i like giants_ , kimya dawson

He sleeps until the next morning, undisturbed, and sunlight streams into the window over his bed to finally wake him up. He's got a lot to do today-meeting with Pryde, seeing patients and watching Warren's press conference held outside of his company-which blared on Charles's television in the kitchen as he got breakfast-publicly condemning the sensationalism behind the Shaw Institute trial and voicing his support in the legal system-not in Shaw, or his cronies, and the distinction is enough to rankle. Going after Warren would be a mistake, he might just be one of the few people on the planet with enough riches and resources of his own to combat him.  
  
Sleep does wonders, and so does food. Charles takes a bit longer than usual in the shower, just for good measure, and by the time he's dressed and out the door he looks more presentable than he has in days. He walks with confidence, chin raised, matching pace with those around him. His appointments, doubled up because he put himself behind the day before, are handled as always, with professionalism, compassion, and grace.  
  
There's nothing on the outside to even suggest anything is wrong. The way it should be.  
  
When he meets with Pryde, he doesn't crack. He fills him in, leaving out unnecessary details, and then he leans forward. "Losing this case is not an option," he says, though Pryde already knows it. He smiles, friendly and polite, but there's a severity, a Dominance, that no one would expect from a submissive. And that's what he needs to bet on. "Where do we go from here?"  
  
"You've just brought me a smoking gun," Pryde says, sitting back in his hair with that same stunned expression he had when Charles first told him Erik was a D5. "I don't want you to get your hopes up, Xavier," he starts, "but we are looking at something very different now than when you first walked into my office. Let me show you something," he stands and moves to his shelf, pulling out a file. He slides it over to Charles. "You see that? It's a plea deal. We're already getting them. That one says if Erik pleads guilty, he'll serve twenty years in a maximum security Federal facility, likely the one he's in now, with the possibility of parole after fifteen. They're trying to rattle us, telling us that going to trial isn't worth it-you know what kind of lawyers offer plea bargains this soon? Scared ones. You know what we're looking at now, don't you?"  
  
Charles looks down at the file, reading it over even though he's just been told what it says. Twenty years. He runs the numbers on that before he can stop himself, then forces it down where it belongs. "It's not just the lawyers who are scared," he says, and there's something about the knowledge of it that thrills a darker side of him. Charles crosses his legs, and holds Pryde's gaze. "What are we looking at?" he asks, and there's nothing but calm in his tone. "Best case scenario, with all the pieces lined up."  
  
"Acquittal. We're looking at acquittal. If we take this to trial and we don't capitulate to these motherfuckers, there is a very real possibility that Erik Lehnsherr will be found Not Guilty."  
  
Charles' eyes widen. Despite himself, despite the careful control he's held onto, his heart beats out of his chest. "Acquittal," he repeats, as if he's misheard. He hasn't. For one moment, his mind races ahead, and he dares to hope. But there's something else on his mind. "And Sebastian Shaw?" he asks, tone level, but inside he's anything but.  
  
"I don't know," Carmen says softly. "If we make it through this trial and Erik Lehnsherr is acquitted, it will be based what we present as the evidence-that Sebastian Shaw systematically tortured and abused him, as well as dozens of others under his protection, for decades. He'll be taken into custody, and given his own trial. He'll have his own defense lawyers and the prosecution won't be me. Erik will be most likely compelled to testify against him, and cross-examined by the defense-it'll be grueling and they'll be facing an uphill battle-it's possible they will lose, or he might lose his composure at some point and that'll tip things in our favor-if he doesn't end up killing anyone."  
  
"He will try," Charles says, and it's with absolute certainty. That trial will be long, and it will be dangerous, but they're not there yet. First things first. When Charles smiles, it's apologetic, though he has the feeling it isn't necessary in Pryde's eyes (he truly does gather a certain kind of person into his orbit, doesn't he?). "Your career is on the line here," he says, because there's no way they'll do this without resistance. "Mine, too, but I've already accepted that. This trial is going to change everything, though we already knew that. And there will be a target on your back, too."  
  
"Cases like this are the reason I went into my career," Pryde shoots back. "I'm the only shot this kid has and we both know it. I won't leave him to lessers, not when there's a good chance we can get him out of there for good. You've been to speak with him. Do you-think he deserves that? I mean, there's no doubt in either of our minds that he did do what we all clearly watched him do. Does he deserve to be free?"  
  
It's amusing, to hear the word 'kid' referring to Erik, but in some ways - did he ever get a chance to grow up? To be anything close to what he could be, what Charles knows he has the potential to be? Gentle, sweet Erik, who worries for him, who calms him, who grounds him, even when Charles fights it? Erik, uncertain, intelligent, playful, strong, with his beautiful mind - his careful dominance - his fierceness, his rage, even that -  
  
"Yes," he says, and there's no hesitation there, not like he expected there to be. "He's not cruel. He's not monstrous. There's good in him, and even pain and fear and loss couldn't destroy it. Erik deserves a chance, and it's the one thing he was never given."  
  
"That's good enough for me," Pryde salutes two fingers wryly. "I'm going to have to meet with him pretty soon. Langley's not that convinced he'll talk to me, and to be perfectly honest with you, I don't know if he will talk to me. He won't know me, he won't trust me. It might go easier with you there, we've known this is an inevitability since the case was started. They're going to be bringing him in for the arraignment, this is where they'll be reading the charges off, and asking for his plea registry. I need to explain to him what he's being charged with, and advise him how to plead-in this case, Not Guilty-because we want this to go to trial."  
  
"I can be there," he says, and Charles realizes it will be the first time someone sees them together that isn't Raven. He'll need his Stepford smile for this. "He'll trust you if I'm there, but he's not uncooperative, nor is he unintelligent. Like I told Langley, he's perfectly fit for trial, and he understands the situation he's in." Charles chuckles, and leans forward conspiratorially. "Between you and me, part of it is an act. He knows the assumptions they make about him. I promise you won't find a man more self-aware than Erik. He'd like to meet you."  
  
"Goodness, that's some act!" Pryde barks. "It's damn smart, is what it is. It's actually the number one rule in counter-interrogation training, do not talk to the police. Everything he says to them in custody, that's stuff the prosecution will use to their advantage. It's one of the reasons why most defendants don't go on the witness stand-but we're using an affirmative defense, that his actions were justified, which means he'll need to take the stand-and if he keeps this act up for the duration of the trial, they won't be able to contradict him when he gets up there."  
  
"If I weren't a telepath, I promise he would not have said a single word to me at first. Not because he's unstable and incapable, but because he's smart and cautious." Charles knows it's true, but those things - telepath, mutant - are so inseparable from who he is that it isn't worth agonizing over. Erik trusted him because he was like him, and now they are here. Something else occurs to him. "Just for the sake of knowing, what is the likelihood that there is at least one mutant on that jury?" Anyone without an X-gene will be sympathetic, he's sure. Charles is optimistic and idealistic enough to believe that, and he does. They will have friends, family, peers who are mutants. But he also knows fear, and fear is powerful.  
  
"Oh, well that's where the fun starts, Xavier. You see, during _voir dire_ , the process by which jurors can be vetoed or accepted by both attorneys in the case, elimination based on race, religion, sexual orientation or gender is unconstitutional. You can bet your ass they're going to try and veto openly mutant jurors on the basis of implicit bias right out of the gate. So I'd say the likelihood is at least, oh, one in twelve. If they don't want me to keep filing Wheeler motions."  
  
Charles laughs, and it's genuine. He likes Pryde. "One in twelve," he repeats, clearly satisfied with that. He's done plenty with much worse odds. "You're right, you know. If you hadn't taken this case, Erik wouldn't stand a chance. He knows it, too. He thinks there's still a chance they'll execute him," he says, and he would be amused if the notion didn't make him sick (push it down, Charles, way down).  
  
"I need to put you at ease," Pryde says, leaning over and squeezing his arm. "Because I understand you might get some of your information on this from Erik, and his knowledge here would be spotty at best. This is a Federal case, because Erik's not a citizen and the charges are murder. Israel is a semi-Continental country," he said, giving a serious raise of his eyebrows. "And Erik is Israeli, Hebrew is his first language. This means he's afforded a great deal of protection by them-one of which is that the prosecution of crimes committed on our soil is relegated to us, but in the event that he is found Guilty, he will be returned to Israel for sentencing. They don't practice capital punishment there. Do you understand?"  
  
The reminder dunks him back into reality, and he realizes something he neglected to consider: Erik Lehnsherr is not a citizen of the United States. Another barrier between them, another factor tearing them apart. Charles forces that thought down where it belongs, ignoring the ache in his heart. "I understand," he says, perfectly calm on the outside as he smiles. "Thank you, that does put me at ease. Is there anything else I should know? Anything I can do? I suggest you see Erik as soon as possible. I imagine he'll be very busy soon."  
  
"All right, again, I'd like to do so with your accompaniment. I'm free as soon as you're available and ready to go," Carmen says. He's not telepathic, and he doesn't know Charles very well, nor does he have any particular adeptness in facial reading, so he's perfectly willing to take Charles's happiness at face-value. He's the kind of man that prefers to let people handle their own business, as long as they're competent. Oh, he likes Xavier plenty, but he's willing and able to let their relationship unfold naturally without a lot of pushing. Unlike, say, Warren or Raven, who were wheedlers.  
  
"Give me a date and time and we'll make it happen," Charles promises, as calm and polite as ever. He reaches his hand out to shake as he does at the end of all these meetings, and this time, much less frantic and hungover, he's the right amount of grateful. "Thank you for seeing this through. It will make all the difference."  
  
Pryde shakes, firm and singular as always. "I'll have my people call your people," he smirks. He stands as Charles does, giving a dip of his head as the other man makes way for the door. The call doesn't come that long after, about a day and a half, giving him time to catch up on his patients and re-regulate his sleep schedule at the very least. "It's me," he says simply, brusque as ever. "I've got most of today blocked out, whenever you're good." It's a little after eleven. Raven's been crashing at his house since the CIA, and they've been intermittently practicing telepathy, but she's passed out in the second bedroom.  
  
It's the first time since the attack that Charles will see Erik. He likes to think he's steeled himself to it, that he's hardened his heart. That ache that's settled deep inside of him doesn't matter, especially not when there are important things to discuss. There's no room for error here, because as much as Pryde is an ally - someone Charles might even call a friend, with time - he's not a man who would so easily swallow the dynamic between them.  
  
Whatever that dynamic is. Mine, Erik had whispered in his ear. Charles nearly bites his lip open at the memory.

* * *

He's not that Charles when he steps into the room their sessions are normally held, this time not alone. This time he gives a smile, professional, friendly, detached, and does not look Erik in the face. "Erik, this is your lawyer. He wanted to meet you, and he has some things he'd like to discuss."  
  
"Morning, Mr. Lehnsherr. Erik, is it? I'm Carmen Pryde," he says as he sweeps in, all tight lines and angles and expensive suits, but the dominance that rolls easily off of him is nothing compared to Erik, and he's doing his best not to let that show. "Nayim me'od," he adds after a second, because it's been a long time since he was able to greet a client in his native tongue. "I'm your defense attorney."  
  
Erik's seated when they enter, and raises, folding his hands behind him and dipping his head formally. "Mr. Pryde," he murmurs, displaying that he can speak after-all. "Nayim me'od. Ma kara?" His smile is very slight. It's a familiarity he's unaccustomed-to in this strange land of plastic walls and stoic military uniforms. Good morning, Charles, he adds silently, but his mind is marshaled, understanding what's at stake, but unwilling to ignore the other man entirely.  
  
"Quite a lot, I daresay," Pryde winks. "We have a lot to get through and not a lot of time to get through it, so I recommend we start from the beginning." He gestures to the table that has now been provided for them, beginning to lay out the files. He goes through the preliminaries, cool and collected. "They're saying you're a terrorist, Erik. That you've been radicalized-to what," he barks, "-G-d only knows-but the Institute's home to amassing DOD research, so you've put a bee in their bonnet."  
  
"Alleged terrorist," Erik's lips twitch.  
  
"Funny. You're real funny. He always this funny?"  
  
Charles can't help but snort, ducking his head to grin as he recrosses his legs. "Erik has many talents," he says dryly. He watches the scene play out in front of him, reads the files he's already seen. Erik doesn't need his help, and he didn't think he would.  
  
Charles doesn't reach out with his mind, a stark contrast to the last few visits. He doesn't look Erik in the eyes, because he doesn't trust himself with that. Here, he is who he should be: Erik's psychiatrist, and his advocate, watchful but professional. He's only here to mediate.  
  
He crosses his legs too many times, perhaps. He can feel the inside of his cheek begin to ache where he bites at it. But Charles has pushed everything so far down, and he knows he has to keep it there.  
  
"-so they'll be holding the arraignment here," Pryde's saying. "They're not sure they can trust you to travel. And we're advising you to plead Not Guilty. We want this thing to go to trial. We have a damn good shot if we do."  
  
"But I am guilty," Erik murmurs.  
  
"Xavier, talk some sense into this man, will you?" Pryde scoffs, rolling his eyes.  
  
"Erik," he says, and his voice is gentler than before, but not outside the realm of professionalism. His job requires compassion, and he's never been good at hiding that side of himself, even when he needs to. "Yes, you did what you did. But you were also -"  
  
Pryde had said justified. That was what an acquittal would mean. The words don't sit well on Charles' tongue, so he purses his lips and tries his own. "You feel it was necessary, yes? You've told me so yourself in our sessions." If they can be called that. "You were protecting others, and yourself. What they are accusing you is not that - a Not Guilty plea makes that statement."  
  
He still hasn't met Erik's eyes. He doesn't intend to.  
  
Erik tries to find Charles's eyes, even still, folding in on himself as he realizes that he's isolated from Charles, that their interactions with one another only occur within secret and this isn't something that's made its way fully known for him the way it has now, because Pryde is supposed to be an ally, but they're still-it's wrong, Charles said. It's wrong.  
  
"A Not Guilty plea doesn't mean that you didn't do the action," Pryde nods. "Unfortunately our legal system is not that cut-and-dried. What they're charging you with is not *what* you did."  
  
"It was necessary," he says hoarsely. It would never have stopped, otherwise. Not ever.  
  
Charles sucks in a breath faster than he means to, because even as he creates a boundary, the connection isn't truly gone. It can't be. He feels Erik, feels his confusion, feels his upset, feels the way his mind tips toward that dark place.  
  
It aches. It aches, and throbs, and for a moment everything is pushed up. All of his longing, all of his sadness, all of the empty, horrible needing, the way he knelt alone in his bedroom the night before and thought of the first time Erik put him on his knees. For one single moment it rises, and he knows Erik feels it, too, because their connection does not require focus like it does with everyone else.  
  
It comes as natural as breathing. Snapping it closed takes more effort, but he does so. He closes the door on it. "You are Not Guilty of the crimes they are accusing you of, Erik," he says, and his voice doesn't waver. "We both want to show them that. And there's a good chance we can."  
  
"Then I will do so," Erik says. Simple. Agreement. He feels it when the connection is shut, eyes fluttering closed for an instant, and then he seems to mirror the action in himself with a slow, deep inhale. Whatever is in Erik that Charles could feel before, recedes like the tides of a vast ocean, pulling away bits of sand at the shore. He could find them if he went digging, but they both know he won't. It's easier that way.

* * *

Charles fades from the conversation, because he's not truly necessary. Pryde wanted Erik to be comfortable, to trust him, but that part is already done - now it's simply a matter of explaining things, things Charles has already heard. Pryde explains Erik's rights, how he should proceed from here, what he should say. It's legal, and necessary, but ultimately nothing groundbreaking, nothing they hadn't discussed already. Erik is attentive, agreeable, quiet, exactly how Charles expected. It's enough to drive him mad. His leg begins to bounce.   
  
"Well, that was productive," he announces when the files are back in Pryde's briefcase, a faux-playful smile on his lips. "Feel free to go ahead. I'm sure no one will grudge me a few moments with my patient, especially after recent events." And with goodbyes out of the way, Hebrew he understands even outside of Erik's mind (it really wasn't a fluke), they're alone. 

* * *

Charles raises his eyes, meets Erik's gaze for the first time since he walked in. And he laughs. He laughs until he's breathless, until he's gripping to the table for support, laughs until there are tears in his eyes and he's hunched over with his giggles, hiccupping them out. Perhaps he's the one losing his mind. They really should switch roles.  
  
Erik doesn't flood back in quite the same way, but he does move to Charles's side, touching his arm, concerned. "Charles," he murmurs, touching under his eyes, swiping away the tears that threaten to spill down his cheeks. It's a hysterical reaction, one he's seen plenty of times. The alternative doesn't make any sense, nothing amusing had occurred. "Take a breath," he Orders.  
  
Charles takes a breath, then two, then three. Is he in hysterics? Is this all it takes to make him crack? But the laughing stops, even though the shaking doesn't, little hiccups of giggles as he forces off everything he's held down tightly for the past few days. "Sorry, I'm sorry," he gasps, and reaches up to wipe at his own tears with the heel of his palm. "I'm - I must be losing it," he berates himself, frustrated and embarrassed. And the worst is that he wants. Charles opens his mouth, then snaps it shut. Shakes his head. "I'm sorry, just give me a moment," he says instead, and tugs it all back inside where it belongs.  
  
"You don't need a moment," Erik tells him, gentle. "Why are you resisting yourself?" He wants to close his hand around Charles's, get rid of this interminable distance that he doesn't understand.  
  
"Because I want -" Charles stops himself, takes another breath, but it isn't enough. He closes his eyes like that very first time, as if it will block Erik and all that he is out, as if it will make the urges and feelings disappear, but it doesn't. "Because I want things I can't have, Erik," he finishes, and lets out a breath, as if resigned to it. As if finally admitting it to himself. "And I want them desperately, more than I have ever wanted anything."  
  
"Oh," Erik just says, stupidly. He struggles in a truly valiant effort to come up with something more meaningful. A better answer, a way to give Charles everything, reassure him that he will-what will he do? What can he do? He can't, can he? Then he smiles, a brief flicker, deciding something different-something he's lived his entire life by until this moment and doesn't see fit to start changing now. "Maybe."  
  
Charles blinks. Erik surprises him in many ways - excites and frustrates him in equal amounts, depending on the way in question - but this one he doesn't immediately follow. "Maybe?" he repeats. "Maybe what, Erik?"  
  
"Maybe it isn't permanent. Does that mean it is less valuable?" Erik shrugs. "I have never had this before. Neither have you. You don't-" he swallows, clearing his throat. "I wish that you would not reconsider."  
  
"Erik -" It's a sigh, but it runs through his entire body. His stomach twists itself into knots, and for decidedly different reasons than the first time. "Do you understand what it would do to me, to give myself something I've wanted my entire life, something I craved, something I need, wrap it up in -" In you, in a match, he adds, mentally but just as clear, because he can't force himself to say it out loud at the moment. "And then have it be gone? A sordid prison fling, something that ends because - because it won't work, Erik. I've gone through everything in my head, I've tried..."  
  
I've tried to find a scenario, any possible outcome, where we end up together. And it just doesn't exist.  
  
"And for one second, Erik," he whispers, and his voice shakes, "I let myself feel like I could have it, and it's - it's devastating me, do you understand? I'd knocked it out of me. Every fantasy, every schoolboy desire, every longing, every lonely night, I've forced that all down, I've learned how to live without it, how to not need it, and you - you brought it right back up. Do you know how - how long it took -"  
  
Do you know how long it took to be okay?  
  
It's Erik's turn to laugh, then, a short, sharp sound. It would be easy to let himself capitulate to anger, but he doesn't allow it. "I didn't realize you considered it like that," he just says, soft.  
  
"Considered it like what?" he asks, and the anger bubbles up in him instead, the frustration, Erik's laugh piercing him. He might as well have slapped him, and the rebound of it echoes through the connection he hasn't been strong enough to cut again. "Like what, Erik? How else should I consider it? How else should I think of it? Give me another option, please, and I'll take it."  
  
Erik exhales through his nose, annoyed, but less at Charles and more at his own inarticulateness. Instead of replying he just stares at his hands, where he's crushed his bad fingers inside his good ones, the sting of pain electrifying his arm but doing little to keep him tethered. "What can I offer you?" he smiles at last, pained.  
  
"What can you -" Charles fights back another laugh, this one incredulous. Erik is hurting, too. He can feel it. It isn't fair to be frustrated with him, to be angry, to be irrational. But Charles, for once, wants to scream. Wants to stamp his feet, and throw a fit, and perhaps to cry. It's ridiculous, and counterproductive, childish and weak.  
  
He breathes instead, exhales loudly through his nose. "Does it not bother you?" he asks. "Does it not -" Does it not devastate you, like it does me? Does it not ache? Charles knows he's being unfair. That he's being silly, but it bubbles to the surface anyway, every fear, every insecurity, every moment of weakness. You said I was yours, did you not mean it? Does it not matter? Why don't you want it the same? Why doesn't it keep you awake at night? Why doesn't it make it impossible to think, to breathe, to eat? Why doesn't it -  
  
Why am I still not good enough?  
  
"We are not the same," Erik says, a snap like frost flinching through him. "I cannot afford to lose sleep, to lose appetite, to lose my faculties, Charles. The only thing that I have is you."  
  
"That's not what I meant," he hisses, and Erik's anger momentarily bolsters his own. Charles runs a hand through his hair, frustrated and desperate, and swallows it down. They don't need sharp words between them, and cutting Erik with his tongue will not make him feel any better. "What does that mean? I don't know what that means," he admits, and now his voice is a whisper, impossibly small.  
  
"I will not touch this with pain and suffering," Erik says, almost inaudibly. "I won't. I have enough grief." He slowly releases his fingers and finally closes the distance between their hands, lifting Charles's knuckles to his lips. "If you don't want me, then-OK. Then-I had it. I had-something good."  
  
Charles' heart sinks into his stomach. His hand is limp in Erik's grip, but he doesn't pull away. Instead, every muscle goes tense. "Were you not - were you not listening, Erik? It's the opposite." He shakes his head, swallowing around the lump in his throat. "There's no way to avoid that. If we continue like this, that's where we'll end up."  
  
"Is that not where we will end up if we do not?" Erik's eyebrows arch.  
  
Charles smiles, but there's no humor, no joy. It more closely resembles a grimace. "A cleaner break now than then," he counters, and it's clear he's thought about it. "There's enough we haven't touched that I could pack it away. Enough we haven't discussed, haven't done, haven't established. It would hurt, Erik, it would ache, but I could -" His voice shakes. "I could still go now, I think. Not easily, but I could, and my heart would be in tact. Fractured, but in tact."  
  
Erik lays a kiss at the center of his palm, then lets his hand drop. "I could not ask you to mangle your heart for me."  
  
Charles swallows, and follows Erik's hand. He stares for a long while, silent, and does not lift his head. "Would yours not break, too?" he asks, and his voice is small again. Searching.  
  
"Don't ask me that," he whispers. "You want a clean break. This is it. Take it. Please take it." He smiles, dry-eyed, but it feels like crying.  
  
"Please answer me, Erik," he begs, and his voice is firmer, but it still shakes. It's still a whisper, and he does not look up, white-knuckled as he feels the pressure behind his eyes. "Tell me it doesn't matter. Tell me you would not hurt at all, that you could do with or without this, that you don't want this like I do, and I'll leave, and when I come back I won't - I'll be your doctor again, as I should be. I will finish this case, I will see you acquitted, and that will be the end. Tell me it doesn't matter, Erik."  
  
He should tell him to go away. Dismiss him now and forever, because it's as he says-his heart will be in-tact, but Erik's is already ruined. Erik doesn't have a heart, everyone knows that monsters are unbreakable. But monsters are selfish, and if he has done much worse for a simple scrap of food, a drink of water, how could anyone expect him to do less for Charles, who is like air? "Why are you asking me this?" he croaks.  
  
"I need to know," he answers simply, and it's the truth. When he looks up, there are tears on his cheeks, but his expression is fierce, determined. "I need to know. Please, Erik," he pleads.  
  
"Of course it-matters. How could you think otherwise?" He reaches over and brushes away the tears with the pad of his thumb. "You can't ask me-to choose between destroying you and saving myself." Charles is the psychiatrist. Surely he knows that survival is the strongest human impulse.  
  
 _Saving myself._ He gasps, and the tears spill freely. And Charles knows this could be the worst decision he ever makes. He knows that it could still cost him everything. It has the potential to utterly devastate him, just as he said, his heart shattering in the aftermath. But it doesn't matter, because it does. Charles kisses him, wet and hard and desperate, and he doesn't stop until he's breathless.  
  
"Did you think it didn't?" Erik asks roughly, eyes wide and dark. The only difference between them is that he doesn't need time to know he will be shattered when Charles goes. It's the same. Now or in the future. The only difference is that he doesn't have anything to lose. Isn't it better to have than to want, even for a moment? His life is built on moments, if he loses them, if he only took the things he knows will last, he would be only a piteous creature of agony.  
  
Charles laughs humorlessly, and he shakes his head. Of course he knew, but - He buries his face in Erik's shoulder, inhaling, as if he can breathe him in. His tears drip onto Erik's skin, but he doesn't think he minds too much. "I won't be the one going," he points out, thoroughly miserable about it, but there's nothing to be done. _Please don't go,_ he thinks, but doesn't say, and it doesn't matter. Erik will hear because Charles doesn't know how to not let him.  
  
"Do you think I will be acquitted?" he asks quietly.  
  
"Yes," he answers, and that he can say without hesitation. "I don't have any doubt you will." His hands have bunched in Erik's shirt, grasping as if he can cling tight enough that he won't have to let go.  
  
"If I am, then-it is not inevitable that I must leave, is it? I can stay illegally. We could get married. We could travel. Apparently the _shekel_ is depreciated." He smirks. Yes, Charles, he noticed the suits. "It is not impossible. People immigrate. Maybe it will work out. You can't know, Charles. Don't put us in the grave yet."  
  
Hope is a powerful, dangerous thing, and Charles knows that hearing it makes him cling harder, tears still wetting Erik's neck. "I know a lot about immigration law now," he mumbles, and the admission is enough to make him laugh again, helpless to it. "The largest Israeli immigrant population in the United States is in New York, actually. It's followed by Los Angeles, in case you were wondering, but I'd really rather end up in Canada."  
  
That makes Erik inhale, and then grin wholeheartedly. "What is the obsession with Canada?" Erik snorts. "It will be too cold. There will be snow. I bet there is snow right now."  
  
He grins back, and Charles knows that Erik feels it. "It's not an obsession, thank you, it's just better than vapid movie stars," he retorts. "There is snow in New York, too, Erik. Plenty of it." He shows him: snow angels in the garden, he and Raven competing to make the best snowman. He always wins.  
  
"Maybe I want to be a movie star." Erik waggles his eyebrows. "Why is there a carrot in the middle of its face?"  
  
"What -" Charles sputters, and this time when he dissolves into giggles it's a different kind of hysterics, lighter, giddier. "That's his nose, Erik! Don't insult him so." His giggles trail off when he finds the pulse point of Erik's neck, kissing it. He becomes distracted then.  
  
" _Mmmhmm_ ," Erik replies, and apparently that's a great way to win an argument with him because he forgets what he was going to say next under a flourish of electricity. In a swift movement, he tugs Charles onto his lap, sliding the plastic legs of the chair backwards to secure their footing. I have missed you, he thinks up at him, bright.  
  
Charles is very busy with kissing along Erik's neck, and his grin makes it obvious he knows exactly what he's doing. I've missed you too, Erik, he sends back, warm. He squirms, wiggling this way and that, and bites on his lip to stifle another giggle. "Getting comfortable," he explains, but the wicked expression he wears says otherwise.  
  
Erik's arm bands around Charles's back, holding him in place as his other hand digs into his hip, then curves over the swell of his ass with a devious expression of his own. "Just getting comfortable," Erik returns smartly, tipping his face up to steal a proper kiss.  
  
Charles smiles into that kiss, but it doesn't hold. Not when Erik's surrounding him, the hand on his back steady and firm, and there are butterflies in his belly again. They've only kissed a handful of times, and Charles is far from used to it, breathless and flushed when they pull back. "Could - will you -" He still doesn't know how to ask for it, or even if he should, so Charles dips his head and decides not to finish.  
  
Erik's head tilts, and he touches Charles's jaw, encouraging. "Tell me," he murmurs with just the barest edge of Will-impossible not to, when they're this close.  
  
There's still shame there. Charles has trained himself not to want, not to crave, not to need, and it's so ingrained by now. He squirms, not to fight against Erik's hold but simply out of embarrassment, cheeks hot as he hides in Erik's shoulder. "Order me," he whispers, and it's so quiet that if Erik couldn't hear it echoed in his thoughts, he wonders if he'd hear it at all. No one would even think to call Charles shy, but in this he is. "Make me - make me submit." _Let me_ , he corrects, because Charles will go so willingly if he's given the chance.  
  
He knows Charles would. Feels it inside of himself like blood, and that is all the prompting he needs-despite his registry on the scale he still seems to need some form of it-but never let it be said Erik had any issues with follow-through. "Order you," he repeats deceptively-soft. His fingertips rest on the knot of Charles's tie, testing it a little. "Is that what you need? *Look at me.*"  
  
It sends a spark right up his spine, and Charles feels it all the way down to his toes. Molten heat pools in his belly, and Charles lifts his head. "Yes, Erik," he breathes, and like this, biting his lip, cheeks red, he already looks wrecked. "Please?" he asks, and his voice trembles, as if he's afraid Erik will say no.  
  
There's something at the back of Erik's brain, something that he forgot last time, and it's half-ready to make its way known now, warring between ethics and the immediate, crushing desire that was swerving dangerously in his head. Crap-damn it-fuck.  
  
That's not what he expects to hear. Charles blinks, the desire momentarily stamped - but not gone, never really gone - as he reaches for Erik's face. "Erik? What is it?" he asks, gentle, coaxing.  
  
He grimaces, lips pressed together in an awkward expression. He banged his head against the back of the chair and laughed slightly. "What we did-before-"  
  
Charles resists the urge to delve just a little bit deeper than Erik's surface thoughts, thoroughly lost now. "Yes?" he prods.  
  
"I should have stopped that. Not that I am presuming-" that they would inevitably end up there, but-"what we did," he makes a vague gesture, then corrects, like this will make it any more fucking apparent, "what we did."  
  
"Erik, are you -" Charles sighs, thoroughly frustrated, and runs a hand through his hair. How is it that Erik is the one having an ethical dilemma, and he's feeling very put out by it? Goodbye, subspace, he laments, throwing it a bit of a mental funeral. "We both should have stopped it, me especially, but the deed is done. And you were right to presume. If we've already done it once, and it seems we're following this path -"  
  
Brilliant ethical reasoning, Dr. Xavier. Truly a beacon of morality.  
  
Erik started laughing. "No-not-like that-I mean, yes, probably like that."  
  
Charles sits back as far as he can on Erik's lap, crossing his arms over his chest. He's embarrassed now, and also looks a bit like he's pouting. "Then like what?" he asks.  
  
"Charles, I've only been here for a month." Erik's looking at him, like he's just been told he needs to execute a puppy. "I-" he curls his fingers into a fist and coughs against his knuckles. Kill him now. "I do not know if I am safe."  
  
Oh. This is not the conversation he expected to be having at all, and Charles softens, immediately leaning forward to kiss his cheek. "Erik, you -" Well. Here goes. "First of all, I don't think - if you weren't, I guarantee I would have read about it. They did basic bloodwork when they took you into custody, I just - well, I faked the more complicated ones. And if it's something... I mean, really, it's too late now," he points out. His cheeks are hot with the implication. "So the sentiment still stands."  
  
He pinches his thumb and index finger over his eyes, like he can block out the world, but after a few seconds just smiles and settles his hand back over Charles's hip. "I know that must have really put you in the mood," he huffs. "It-" he rolls his eyes at himself-leave it until right now to grow some fucking human shame about the matter-and forces himself to mumble, " _ELISA_ -I can't risk your safety just because I happen to find it embarrassing."  
  
Charles purses his lips together. He makes a valiant effort, he truly does, but in the end he can't hold back the giggles, even as he brings his hand up to stifle them. "Erik," he says, slowly. "Darling, _ELISA_ tests haven't taken six months in years, but trust me, I find the concern very sweet."  
  
"Some people would call laughing at me in this moment very impolite," Erik sulks, his cheeks practically fluorescent.  
  
Charles can't help it. He dissolves back into giggles, squirming on Erik's lap as he stifles them in his shoulder. His body shakes, but this time it's glee, giddy and child-like, not dread and hysteria. "You - you were so serious," he gasps, tears in his eyes. "' _I won't risk your safety, Charles,'_ " he says, in a terrible impression. He doesn't have Raven's mutation, but he thinks the deep-low-rasp is pretty convincing.  
  
Erik put his head in his hands. "I will never live this down, will I? And I do not sound like that."  
  
Charles won't pass up the opportunity to tease, so he grins. "'I'm Erik Lehnsherr, metal bends before me -'" He can't keep it up, and the giggles come again. Still, waves of warmth roll off of him, fondness, joy, and he thinks it might be the first time in quite a while he laughed so hard, so freely. "When we're both eighty, I'll remind you of this. So, no, Erik. You won't live it down."  
  
"Keep going, and I will put a carrot up your nose." He's chuckling quietly. "Well, that is one bit of good news, I must say." He grins up at Charles, still red-faced. "You did call me responsible."  
  
"Well, I think the consensus is that you will put something else somewhere that is not my nose." It's a poor joke, but it makes him flush anyway, and he can't help one more round of giggles. "You're - adorable, really," he declares, pleased and bright, and leans forward to kiss Erik's nose.  
  
He dug his fingers into Charles's side, nodding. "So-I'm OK," he breathed. "That-is good," he laughs, then, uninhibited. "Come here-" because what better way to celebrate, really-and he tugs Charles to his feet, moving them backwards until his spine bumps lightly off the wall. "We'll see who lives what down."  
  
"Very scary," he grins, still very much enjoying himself. He lets himself be manhandled, delighted, and Erik's presence begins to tug at him again, his body melting like it's perfectly natural. He does feel the need to interject before things get too far, however. "But we still can't - do that. The part you were worried about." It's his turn to be embarrassed and red-cheeked.  
  
"I wouldn't wish to. Not here," he agrees, understanding. "This is not-a sordid prison affair," he repeats the words quietly, without heat, although Charles can tell they'd wounded him in the moment. The effect is mitigated when he nips Charles's throat and murmurs into his ear, "I have no intention of fucking you against the wall. As delightful as that would be. And mark my words. It would be. very. delightful. for you." He punctuates the statement by shoving his thigh in between Charles's, smirking against his neck.  
  
"The wall wasn't my complaint," he says, but he gasps at the sensations that follow. The moan that falls from his lips is filthy, enough to embarrass him, but it doesn't stop him from rutting against Erik's leg. He wants, he's wanted, and Erik is inescapable. There's nothing to keep him tethered but him, and Charles lets himself begin to slip. "That's not what I think," he breathes, and tilts his head to give Erik better access, a smile on his lips. "We aren't - that. I was making a point. I refuse to be. Now please, could you -" He's still very bad at asking for it, even though he's already done it once today. Once should suffice.  
  
"Has anyone ever told you that you are incredibly _bossy, Charles Xavier?_ One would almost think you did not want it." His fingers hook onto the leather (metal-less, he laments) belt looped around his pants and he slides it free with a single practiced maneuver after flicking the latch, discarding it on the table behind them like it wasn't, oh, worth probably the room itself. "Tell me-" all of his leashed Will at that point radiates outward, curling its way down into Charles's bloodstream like fingers of smoke "-when I Order you to kneel, will you even obey?" he tutted, incredibly concerned. Agonized, really. He lightly pushes Charles back against the wall, stilling the aborted motions his hips wanted to make.  
  
"My entire life," he responds, although he doesn't think Erik was looking for an answer. Too bossy, too independent, too stubborn. Charles Xavier with his head held high, giving orders and making demands as if he thinks himself a Dom. He doesn't need Orders, he doesn't need submission, he doesn't need -  
  
Charles' eyes roll back as he hits the wall, the force of Erik's Will pinning him there. All those years, and recently days, of promising himself he didn't need. That he didn't need what he was naturally inclined for, what he wanted more than anything. He knows he's still fighting it, even now. Taking it in small doses, never allowing this to be more than what it is, manipulating the situation like he always does, because he doesn't know how to not, all those years of being in control -  
  
But he needs. He needs so badly it hurts, an empty ache.  
  
"That depends," he murmurs, and he opens his eyes to meet Erik's, his own burning like the sun. "Are you going to be worth kneeling for, Erik Lehnsherr?" He doesn't mean physically. Orders are one thing, and Charles knows very well that if Erik were to Order him, down to his knees he would go.  
  
But true submission is more than following Orders. Charles doesn't see the point in doing this in halves anymore.  
  
"You will have to let me know," Erik smiles at him, and if Charles is the sun then he is the moon, tidal-locked in orbit and endless gravity and cool waters to slake the endless fire. Charles spent his whole life surrounded by people who found the force of his will intimidating, believed they weren't up-to-snuff, or G-d forbid assumed that they had to respond with an equal degree of force. Submission is an offering, it is a tool, an expression of the self that must be met and matched and cultivated-it was little wonder he twisted himself up in knots about it. Charles can see it in Erik's mind before it manifests, a dark, playful urge. His eyes narrow, and then he takes a single step back, leaving Charles bereft. "Stay where you are. Are you familiar with your Postures? Have you ever tried?"  
  
Charles stays. He knows this is different. Different than the heated, spur of the moment Orders, the things they whispered to each other with their bodies fully sated. This is something else, something altogether terrifying, because Charles knows he won't come back from it. A bit of play, perhaps. But this? This is bordering on something else, and he knows they were already here. So he breathes, forcing them even, and holds Erik's gaze. "Yes, Erik." Not often, and not recently, but he has. When he was younger, full of hope and want. Charles has always wanted to be good. He opens his mouth to ask, and then snaps it shut, something twisting in his belly. Listen first, Charles, he reminds himself. No manipulating.  
  
Something shifts in Erik, too, something he has never allowed to fully reign. He's reorienting himself, adding in the new, plucking different pieces of patchwork to design anew, filtering it down to his toes and when he speaks again, his voice has taken on a different property, dripping intent and Will without thought, impulsion from how he's straightened to how he regards Charles, a cold-fire, not mindless rutting-very deliberate, calculated dominance. It feels like stretching a muscle for the first time, and it makes him smile faintly. "Take a step toward me," he commands, "and remove your jacket, shirt and tie. Calmly. When you are done, fold them and place them on the table."  
  
Charles swallows down the lump in his throat with the last of his resistance. His stomach twists, knotting itself, but he breathes even until he's composed enough. "Yes, Erik," he whispers again, and this time it makes him shiver. He's tried this before. Once. The motions were awkward, his head wasn't in it. It felt - odd, unnatural, and he chafed underneath it, his mind his worst enemy. It isn't so now. He moves with grace, taking each article of clothing one at a time. He keeps his breathing slow, steady, because Erik said to be calm, and because he needs to ease himself into it. That's why he asked, Charles realizes, because he knows otherwise Charles would fumble, would fall over himself, would let his mind race ahead - how did he know? When he folds, he folds neatly, deliberately, nothing like the pile of discarded clothing they made last time. He pats out creases with his hand, and then straightens. Charles shivers again, because he can't help it, though he knows it's not particularly cold in this room. His eyes fall, his head dipping. Erik has never told him not to meet his eyes, would likely prefer he did, but some part of Charles is still afraid. _Why are you fighting yourself, Charles?_ he recalls Erik asking, and he trembles.  
  
"Come here," he murmurs, extending his hand. Waits for Charles to come closer, and picks up his wrist, thumbing his pulse-point and then drawing the back of his palm down Charles's face. "I want you to do your very best to keep your attention on me. Fully. Can you do that?"  
  
That has never been Charles' forte. His mind is too active for that, and tempering it is an almost impossible task. It's why his dissertations were all written out of order. But Erik is asking him, demanding it of him, and more than the fear, Charles knows he wants to try. "Yes," he whispers, and his voice wavers, gets stuck, so he swallows and tries again. "Yes, Erik, I can try." And he meets Erik's gaze, his eyes burning again.  
  
"I'm pleased to hear it," Erik says as draws a strand of Charles's hair away from his face, mentally calculating how long they they realistically have, how much time has already passed, the numbers flicking through his head effortlessly. "I want you to repeat a word back to me. _Afor_." He makes an idle little gesture, indicating for Charles to do so.  
  
Charles wonders if listening to Erik's thoughts is allowed now. They come so naturally to him, as if they're his own, but he doesn't correct Erik's assumptions, or alter his calculations. He hasn't asked Charles to do that, so he doesn't, and against every instinct he has, he forces himself to filter out the outside world, reducing it to the mindless buzzing it is otherwise. Background static. " _Afor_ ," he repeats, obediently, his own voice quieter, softer, because that's how he feels. He wants to ask why, to question, but he doesn't. Listen, Charles. Feel. He's never been very good at it, but he wants to be good now.  
  
His pronunciation is, of course, perfect. "This is how this will go," Erik starts, and the next bit is infused with as much Order as he can give it, practically overwhelming for how very mundane it is. "If you become distressed, physically or mentally, you will say _afor_ , and we will pause. Do you understand?" It's not a safeword, precisely-safewords in their current inception aren't ordinarily used outside of clubs-consent as a topic is usually broached via a combination of intuition and affirmation-but it is a form of overt control that Erik gives to him freely.  
  
For a moment, Charles is speechless. Erik has never done this, and already he is cautious, he is kind, he is gentle, but those are all things that Charles expects. He knows that Charles struggles, that he fights this within himself, and so he gives him more room. Control, just enough, so Charles can choose to surrender it safely. "Yes, Erik," he breathes, and his voice cracks for an entirely different reason. "I understand." Thank you, he thinks, and the overwhelming gratitude lingers, warm and pleased.  
  
Erik smiles for a moment, reflecting that back-he's not cold or distanced, he is still very much himself even now. "I am going to step away, now. I want you to kneel for me when I drop your hand." There is no mistaking the Order, zinging up Charles's spine and settling at the base of his skull like livewire circuitry. "We're going to start very basic, at Rest." The Resting pose was a natural-kneel, with the hands palm-up on one's upper thigh, back-straight.  
  
Charles nods, and when Erik lets go, he reminds himself to breathe. Be easy, he tells himself, and smiles, because they are not his words. He does not rush to his knees, head spinning and pulse racing as he did that first time, because there isn't a need for it. He goes slowly, deliberately, feeling the sparks but not letting them consume him. The position is simple, but he wants it perfect. Perfect for Erik. He straightens himself out, holds his back straight, and keeps his eyes lifted - though he knows most Doms would want them lowered - because Erik wants his attention on him. He wants him present. Charles had always thought submission and his personality incompatible in some way - why else would he be incapable of giving it? But here he is Charles, bright-eyed and intelligent, and he does not feel lesser for it. If anything, he feels he can be more.  
  
Erik gets down on one knee, gently taking Charles's hands in his and turning them down, and tapping his elbow to get him to relax a little more. It's not that Charles's placement had been wrong, but many dominants had specific variations they preferred, and not all Postures were the same in each culture. "Very good. How long has it been?" he asks, ghosting his fingers over the base of Charles's spine where it dimpled, eyes crinkling at the twitch there. He rose back up to his feet, and surveyed him with an approving lift of his chin.  
  
 _How long -?_ Charles blinks, and tries to recall it. Years ago, now. He lets Erik see it, opens his mind, because this is part of his submission too, because it is a part of him: Charles fidgets on his knees in the memory, uncomfortable and frustrated, chasing after subspace he cannot fall into. He is aware of everything. Of the pressure on his knees, of the minds around him, of his own discomfort. When will it be over? he thinks, frustrated, the way one is frustrated with any mundane inconvenience. He does not enjoy it. Charles feels none of that now. He's calm, his mind clear, his attention focused. He lets Erik hear that, too. The buzzing static, turned all the way down, unimportant and ignored. Erik's face, reflected back, and Charles' rapt attention to it. The nervous flipping of his stomach, the desire to please, but the easy way he falls into it. The way he sings at Erik's praise, the pleased thrum of it spreading through his entire body. He lets Erik have all of it, and he stays perfectly still, exactly where Erik put him.  
  
"I'm going to lead you into _Descanso Secundário_ ," Erik murmurs softly. This one's more obscure, and Charles can see it in his mind, variations on a theme, subtle nuances of every Posture he's ever been formally taught, and many, more lascivious ones he hasn't, from various parts of the world. "Arms behind your back. Resting on top of one another. You don't need to strain, leave it comfortable. Drop down from your feet and spread your legs wider." It's very even, but Charles can feel the spike of rich pleasure that settles in his gut, watching the way he moves to his Will, the way his breath hitches, the way his eyes have gone wide.  
  
Charles has no trouble with it. He follows Erik's mind as much as he does his verbal directions, slow and with the same grace from before as he replicates, twists his body to his Will. There's a spark of pleasure up his spine simply because he obeys, and he's never felt that before. The pleasure is from obedience now, Erik's hands nowhere near him, and the thrill of it is new and strange and beautiful. He's eager and soft, his mind open and light, Erik's for the taking. All of him is. Charles is in the unique position, as a telepath, of being able to perceive the other side of things in tandem with himself, and Erik doesn't Order him to stay out of his mind-doesn't feel the need. It's part and parcel. It's very evident that there is a mirrored version of the submissive state within dominants, but it is subtler.  
  
There is no accompanying loss of control, in fact there's a gain, a firmness to one's actions and thoughts, a precision and gets inlaid over time with layers upon layers of deep, intense sensation like a spiraling column. Erik's is surrounding, grows more with each command, and he guides Charles through a few different iterations of Resting until he is sure all the world has fallen away from him. There is nothing here except for heartbeat, breath, pulse, sound.  
  
"Close your eyes," Erik says at last, when Charles is in a complicated rendition of _Bharadvajasana_ -the fifth in a series of progressions toward Indian-style asanas. He'd been talking for a bit, taking Charles through a brief history of the _Purusharthas: Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha_ -with a bit of a lingering interest in Kama-that of desire and passion, but not lacking in ethics, life, or release either.  
  
Erik's education was, evidently, more thorough than Charles anticipated. His standards are exacting and he frequently moves to correct Charles's posture with a flat palm or a tap of his finger, no trace of displeasure or punishment in the touches, and all joy when Charles complies. Eventually Erik leads him back into Resting, knelt opposite him, his hand lingering over Charles's stomach to feel his breathing. His control is iron and they're both long past the point of shuddering arousal, held tightly in his grasp like metal foundation. "Tell me how you feel," he rasps, voice deeper than normal, affected.  
  
Charles watches himself through Erik's eyes, fascinated. For a moment, he doesn't recognize himself. He's a pliable, needy creature, eyes half-lidded, breathing even but hitching with every press of Erik's fingers, every touch, every word, every movement. There is nothing for him but Erik, not a single worry in the world. His mind is a warm haze, but he can still think. None of him has melted away as he thought it might, nothing is lost.  
  
Erik holds all of it in the palm of his hands, and Charles trusts him with it. With himself. There is no anxiety. No fear, no doubt, no guilt, no shame. There's no room for that here. It's all replaced with satisfaction, bone deep, pleasure he's never felt before. Erik is pleased, he can feel it, and he aches to press closer, to seek more, but he doesn't. He's perfectly content to let Erik decide. He's perfectly content to let go. Charles searches for the words. He's radiating, glowing, and he knows Erik can feel it. He decides. "Free," he whispers, and there are tears on his cheeks, but he's not distressed.  
  
"You are-beautiful," Erik tells him, soft, touching his cheek. If he could bottle this moment, the point at which Charles had floated off and forgotten the sorrows and concerns of his rooted body, the point at which he abandoned embarrassment and frustration, if even for an instance, he would. Charles's hands are held behind him and Erik moves, grasping his abandoned tie on the table and touching his fingertips over his wrists. "We're going to try one more thing, OK? You're doing so well. You're being very good."  
  
Charles absolutely beams at that, his chest tight with the pleasure of it. He never quite understood it, before this. The notion that a Dom's pleasure could be his own, that praise would become his oxygen, but he does now. He inhales it greedily, bright and warm with pride. "Yes, Erik," he breathes, and he waits patiently, buzzing as he waits to obey. There's nothing he wants more now than to do what Erik wants of him, nothing he needs more.  
  
"I want you to feel the weight of this against your skin," he murmurs as he ties an intricate knot between Charles's wrist, using his teeth to secure it loosely and wrapping it in layers. It's not as elegant as he'd like, but at this point it's just for show anyway. He trails light touches across Charles's collar bones, his chest, lower. "Can you feel it?" He tugs slightly and pins Charles's hands closer to his back-a very slight edge of pain.  
  
Charles shivers, fighting not to arch into every touch. It's difficult when even a ghost of Erik's fingers makes him gasp, hypersensitive, all the nerves in his body singing at once. "Yes, Erik," he says, at the same time that he shows him - he feels the tug of it, the weight, is achingly aware of what it means, what he looks like. It's followed by please, by neediness, want, but he forces that down, focuses instead on how everything is amplified, every sensation from the tinge of pain when Erik tugs to the ticklish feeling when he strokes featherlight down his side. He's never felt so much, not of things that are wholly his own, and it's almost overwhelming. "Erik," he whispers again, and it's not a plead, not an attempt at controlling the situation or even attracting attention. Charles just wants to say his name, to feel it on his tongue, as if it's the only word he knows.  
  
"Beautiful sounds you make," he laughs gently, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck. "Don't keep them inside. All this want under my fingertips. Do you want?" he almost sounds like a different person, slower, everything slow and heavy and luxuriating in-itself, everything _burned-embers and bright-azure skies_. "I know you can feel it. Everything is heightened like this, isn't it?" he scrapes his nails carefully over a nipple.  
  
"I want, Erik," he whispers, and shivers again, his whole body trembling with it this time. Erik hasn't told him to move, hasn't told him to break Position, and not doing so is the most pleasurable agony. He wants to obey, to be good, but oh, he wants Erik closer. He wants more touch, he wants to be kissed, he wants to see. The touch to his nipple - always sensitive, now almost too much - is enough to make him moan, his eyes fluttering closed as he shudders with it. There's so much heat in his belly, and he wants to squirm, but he doesn't. "It's so much," he gasps, and he doesn't fully understand it. Erik is barely touching him. How could he possibly endure more than this?  
  
They are right at the edge, like a knife, and Erik's head bows forward, eyes squeezing shut like he can taste it on the air. Erik tugs Charles backwards just a bit so he's settled onto his lap, the warmth of skin against skin-a craving he feels echo inside himself. Everything in him is warm and raw and he exhales slowly-it's not a _fight_ for control the way many people view it, control is built-in, but there are so very *many* things he sees, possibilities, splinters, that it takes him a few moments to decide between them. And he feels every bit as much _heat_ and _desire_ only now he is willing to let Charles see. "Steady," he whispers, curving his palm against Charles's inner thigh. "Open for me. I have you. I'm not going to let anything happen to you."  
  
I'm not going to let anything happen to you. Charles whimpers, flush against Erik's chest, and for a moment he trembles with something besides desire. Something bubbles up, fear he's not equipped to handle like this, anxieties that feel very far away. It tugs on him for a second, as if warring for his attention, but he swallows it down. Erik is here. Erik will take care of him. All he has to do right now is what he's told. His thighs shake as he spreads them for Erik, using his chest to keep himself balanced and poised. "I'll be good," he promises, and overwhelmed tears cling to his eyelashes again. "I want to be good, Erik." Please, I want to be good enough.  
  
"I know, I know," Erik soothes him, kissing the top of his head. "Oh, I know. Do me a favor, hm? Can you see my mind? Can you see how I feel about you? Look, Charles. I want you to see." You were always good enough. Erik's feelings are light and sound, sensation and color and life, electric-visions and the movement of subatomic particles within air-space. It's not that Charles submits in spite of his impulses or his personality that draws Erik to him, it's everything-all of it. The way he is, being able to pull him apart this way, it is intoxicating. It is the most divine thing Erik has ever felt. It colors how he submits, shapes it in ways he can't even see, and he feels Erik's frustration that no one in Charles's life has ever allowed him to perceive that he was fine just like that.  
  
Charles has seen similar thoughts from Erik before, but never like this. They were always accompanied by heat, drenched in frantic desire, or otherwise in the afterglow. It wasn't that they didn't matter then, merely that they held less weight. Charles had still been holding back, walls and boundaries up that he hadn't even noticed. There was a barrier between him and Erik then, and while he had been submissive, Charles doesn't think he had fully submitted. Until now. And Erik is - Erik is awed by him. Charles is shaking. He wants to hold Position, he wants to be good, but he's trembling. The tears are hot when they slide down his cheeks, and he can taste them on his tongue when they reach his lips. "I'm sorry," he rasps, and his voice is shaking, too. "I'm sorry, Erik -" But he doesn't use the word he's given, because he doesn't need it. It's not distress he's feeling. No one has ever seen him that way. Charles didn't think anyone could, and he'd stopped daring to hope.  
  
Erik shakes his head, smiling. "Don't apologize," he says softly, letting him dip for a moment under the weight of his feelings, before he's tapping that spot against his shoulder that signifies to straighten, still expectant-still demanding. It was push-pull, tightrope-balance, right at the center of all things. I won't let anything happen to you, he repeats again, bright. Be here with me. Feel with me. I've got you. No room for anything but Charles to be exactly what he was. And that's all Erik wanted. Nothing more and nothing less.  
  
Charles wants to wipe at his eyes, free his hands and rub. He wants to hide his face, blotchy now from tears, even though he's not facing Erik. He wants to cover himself, too exposed and vulnerable in this instance, hide in Erik's shoulder like he had before. There's no Order. Charles knows he could if he wanted to, and nothing would stop him. Erik's Will absolutely coats the room, tugging him down, but he thinks - he knows - that without a direct Order, he could still disobey. He doesn't. He takes a long, slow breath, and he straightens, keeping his knees spread the way Erik had urged him before, still pressed against his chest but no longer sagged and hunched. Relaxed, the way Erik seemed to prefer by his corrections, but disciplined and up to standard. "Yes, Erik," he sighs, and something sparks through him, something fierce and new and strange. Charles thought he knew what submission was, that he had given it, as much as he was able. He was wrong. This is what it means to belong, he thinks, and then, This is what it means to belong to Erik.  
  
"Mine," Erik tells him needlessly, because there is no doubt any longer, but he enjoys saying it all the same. You are mine. He finds in this moment, like this, yanking on the thread of silk between his wrists, that he can mirror the action on all those mounting feelings. There is so much more to you than you know. There are so many ways for you to explore this, Erik's thinking, a mental channel open to him that follows the touch of his fingers, withdrawing Charles's cock from his pants at last, holding the weight of him in hand. It feels-the way everything has felt-hypersensitive and endless. How much you could feel. Experience. You are so much greater than you realize. There is, Charles realizes, a sense of accomplishment that Erik finds in submission, that it can be perfected, that it can be pursued and studied like anything else. Every last drop of want and need whirled up, taken out of nerve-endings and then slowly dissipated. Not a frightful slam of sensation-calculated, designed to shake him apart at the core.  
  
Charles has been so afraid. Longing, needy, falling apart at the seams and cracking at the corners. But he doesn't feel that now. Erik pulls him him taut, and Charles feels everything begin to mend. It will take more than this, and he knows it. There are years of pain here, years of longing and want, cravings and needs unmet and unexplored, shoved so deep inside of him that he doesn't remember how to access them. He does not know this part of himself, does not know it at all. Charles wants to learn. With Erik, he is finally free to. Finally safe to. When he moans, it isn't a desperate, mindless thing, though it is needy, though it is eager, though he trembles where Erik touches him. It's so sensitive that the pleasure nearly manifests as pain, and Charles whines, thighs shaking as he fights to close them. But he won't. On a base level, he wants to move, to thrust into Erik's hand or jerk away, he doesn't know, but he doesn't do either. He is open, he is willing, he is obedient, he is - "I'm yours," he repeats, and the awe in his own voice echoes in his thoughts, covers the two of them in its exhilarated joy. "I am yours, Erik."  
  
"*Yes*, you are," Erik's grinning, keeping himself very firmly and very stoically rooted in this moment, drawing out every bit of Charles's pleasure like hammering a heated copper-wire. This is new. In comparison the first time they had been together reflected almost embarrassingly on him, but he'd been nervous to explore this, nervous to give into it for fear that he'd *lose* control instead of gain it-fear that he'd put Charles down and end up out of his mind-that he'd be cruel and merciless the way others had acted out on him, but the more he let go of his fear, and eased into himself, the *less* cruel he got. The more in-tune he felt, receptive to every twitch, every fiber under his hand. They are both learning, he thinks, and it is a very good lesson indeed. He follows the trail, until Charles is biting his lip from forcing himself to keep still, surrounded in Will like a blanket of interminable sun. "Let go, Charles," he murmurs lowly. "You can let go."  
  
There's something more than the physical here, something more than raw passion and lust and instinct, but it heightens every touch. Charles' lip is bleeding by the time Erik speaks, and he moans in relief, everything tensing before it relaxes again. Erik's fingers are sure and relentless, dragging sensation from him, and the heat is reaching a boil, too much to possibly contain inside. It's not only his cock, but his entire body, humming through him until he's panting, gasping, an instrument that Erik plays effortlessly. Yours, echoes in his mind, yours and thank you, Erik and please and yours again, a constant stream of gratitude and submission, an offering. When he comes, it's with a cry of Erik's name, broken and high, and for a moment, the whole world goes white. He trembles in Erik's hands, against his chest, and utterly surrenders, boneless and soft and willing and I am so happy to be yours, Erik Lehnsherr.  
  
Erik releases his wrists with a simple tug of the tie like he can't move fast enough, get close enough, and wraps him up in a warm hug, laying a kiss on his temple. He didn't think he could recall a time in his life that he felt as much simple joy and pride as at this moment, and his thoughts were awash in a kind of glow, stroking the back of Charles's head tenderly. His chest aches with contentment even as he guides Charles slowly back down to Earth.  
  
Charles soaks up every bit of affection, every feeling of pride and praise, shines with it. He preens, more satisfied than he can ever remember being - he's earned several degrees, received awards for his academics and research, and still, still, this is better in the moment - and it's in Erik's arms. Only then does he realize something, a spike of panic up his spine. It's irrational, but Charles has never been so deep in subspace, and it muddles things. "What about you, Erik?" he asks, and his mind projects a flurry o _f worry-please him-bad_? Charles is meant to please Erik, but it occurs to him he's received all the pleasure, the attention.  
  
Erik smiles back down at him, fond. "Believe me, you have more-than pleased me." He doesn't know quite how to word the fact that he would prefer to structure something specific to that, or include it within a longer context. On its own, though, his pleasure for its own sake-didn't fit. Didn't feel right, would require something that they didn't have enough time to parse.. "Just be easy, it's all right. I promise." There is Will there, but not an Order. "We're going to leave it for now. OK? And that is my decision. Trust me when I say it is no hardship to focus attention on you."  
  
Charles smiles back, reassured like this. "Yes, Erik," he murmurs, and he does not argue. Not because he can't, not because he is mindless, but because like this, floating and pliable, he trusts Erik's judgment. It's a strange thing, a natural thing, a switch he's unaware of but that happens anyway. But he trusts, and that is enough. He realizes, somewhere out of his body, that Erik has tended to him - wiped the drying come from his belly, massaged any ache out of his previously bound wrists, stroked the nape of his neck where he is most sensitive to keep him calm. He hadn't even considered - But he doesn't need to. Charles is warm with the knowledge, perfectly content, and for the moment he lets the rest go. "Erik?" he asks.  
  
" _Mmhmm_?" he acknowledges, lifting his head to peer down at Charles curiously.  
  
He's shy, suddenly, head ducked, but he doesn't want to hide. Still, his cheeks are pink, and he worries at his swollen, bitten lip, squirming against Erik's chest. He doesn't want Erik to think him bossy, or demanding, wonders where the line is. But surely he can ask for - for what he needs. "Will you - please, could you tell me something?" A story, a poem, a reading from an old instruction manual, Charles doesn't think it would matter. He projects, recalls the last time he came down, what anchored him: Erik's voice, deep and calm, soothing and grounding.  
  
Erik thought about it for a moment, but rather than a story or a piece of literature, he sang quietly under his breath, " _turn out the lights get out/and look up at the sky/and I do this to remind me that I'm really really tiny/in the grand scheme of things and sometimes this terrifies me/if you ever hear someone say you are huge look at the moon/look at the stars look at the sun/look at the ocean and the desert and the mountain and the sky/say I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye,_ " he laughed, his singing a bit croaky and off-kilter. The song was croaky and off-kilter. He had settled them back against the wall, letting Charles rest his head against his chest. " _So I talked to Genevieve and almost cried when she said that the giant on the cliff/wish that she was dead/and the lemmings on the cliff wish that they were dead/so the giant told the lemmings why they ought to live instead/when she thought of all the reasons that they ought to live instead/it made her reconsider all the sad thoughts in her head..._ "  
  
Charles listens, perfectly still and perfectly content, as Erik sings to him. There is no wrong in the world, in that moment. No fear, no pain, nothing but the way Erik's chest moves as he breathes, the lilty rasp of his voice. His mind is a steady, focused hum, a flowing, calm river, whispers of Erik and beautiful and safe, warm, protected, his. When he finishes, Charles is smiling, his mind less of a haze but no less pleased. "I am sorry, Erik," he whispers, and it's a thought from before, from earlier. Sordid prison affair, he recalls, the words laughable now. "I am sorry I was not willing to give us a proper chance. I'd like to, if you'll still have me." It's a question, and he lifts his head to search Erik's face, though he knows the answer.  
  
" _Kol niselach_ ," he granted instantly, which was obviously not a shock whatsoever. Erik didn't hold grudges when it came to people he cared for. All is forgiven, and it was. He couldn't fault Charles for having compunctions about it-he was the one who had the most to lose from their relationship, it would not be fair of Erik to demand otherwise. "I must apologize also," he adds. "I spoke harshly."  
  
"I forgive you," he replies easily, earnestly, and wonders if all their fights will be so simple. Charles has no doubt there will be more, that they will butt heads, but it doesn't worry him. They are learning how to navigate this. Charles feels hope, warm and bright and lovely, and he holds onto it tightly, nurtures it, for when he leaves this room. There are things he wants to discuss. Many things, some of great importance, others mundane, but there's no time. The scope around Charles is widening, and with it his awareness. "I don't want to leave," he sighs, and clings tighter for a moment. "I want to stay."

* * *

"I wasn't paying attention to anything Carmen Pryde said," Erik confessed. "What is an arraignment?"  
  
"Erik," he breathes, exasperated and - and adoring, fond, more of the latter than the former. "They'll read you the charges against you, and you'll plead Not Guilty. Then we go to trial." The rest he knows Erik understands, and the details don't particularly matter at the moment. Every muscle in his body protests as he sits up, every particle in his body calling out for Erik, but he forces himself to stand, to dress himself. Then he stands there, frowning and unsure. "I don't want to go," he repeats, quieter this time.  
  
"I have that soon," he recalls. His thought processes weren't always the most linear, even to a telepath-but he was looking toward. The future, to good things. "We'll see each other, there?" After a few moments he leaned over and kissed him. "I don't want you to go. Maybe you should commit a crime." He takes both his hands within one, tugging him back just a little.  
  
"I already have," he laughs, but there's no heat or concern there. Perhaps another day he'll agonize over his moral failing, but he has no room for it now. He kisses Erik again instead, greedy for it. "Yes. I'll see you before, and we'll have a bit more time." All of their time is so precious, so limited. Charles considers reaching out beyond them, manipulating to give them just a little more, but - No, not this time. He steps back, his smile soft and sad. "I'll think of you," he promises. There's a knock on the door, just as he expects, and Charles takes in a breath. He squares his shoulders, and takes the rest of the world onto them again, though the weight feels considerably lighter.


	10. Look at the ocean and the desert and the mountains and the sky

And the world snaps back into motion. leaving its inhabitants a little lighter for it. A commodity as rare as it was precious, not only-time, but time that was put toward healing use. Erik even smiled at Moira once. Charles is relaxing for a change of fucking pace with Warren over the pool table when Raven bursts into the apartment, wielding a jet injector.  
  
"I had an idea," she says, like a hurricane, brandishing it at them.  
  
And Charles had just been about to say something he'd spent the better part of an hour agonizing over (though less agonizing, this time), so Raven, as always, has impeccable timing. "Is it a good idea?" he asks, teasing, an eyebrow raised at her. It's not condescending, not when he's intrigued and attentive. Raven is more clever than anyone gives her credit for, even Charles himself.  
  
" _All_ of my ideas are good ideas," Raven huffs. "Remember what Erik said about Emma being susceptible to suppressors?" she waves the hypo. "What if I injected myself with this? I mean, technically they'd be in my bloodstream, right? Would that affect her?"  
  
Charles shakes his head. "No, it wouldn't work like that." He sighs, leaning against the pool table, lips pursed as he considers it. "And pumping yourself full of suppressors is only going to put you more at risk. You know how poorly you react to them. It isn't worth it." Besides, even if it did have an effect, it would be negligible. "Back to the drawing board, I'm afraid."  
  
Raven shuddered, remembering the few times she'd been dosed-against her will.  
  
Warren raised his pool cue. "What if someone were to take them, and you were to broadcast that sensation into her head? Would that be like she took them?"  
  
"No, sympathetic sensations don't work that way, or I'd be ill every time I walked past someone with the flu." He could feel the sensation, all the way down to the pain of a headache and scratchiness at the back of the throat, but he wasn't experiencing any of the actual symptoms. "I could broadcast the sensation of a broken leg to you, and you'd feel it, but your leg wouldn't actually break. It's a similar concept."  
  
"But-like-I wouldn't be able to walk, would I?" Raven implored.  
  
"That depends," he allows. "If you weren't used to those secondhand sensations, then you might think your leg was broken. You would internalize it as something happening to you, and not someone else. I did, when I was younger, when it was new." He doesn't follow that train of thought too far. "But if you have a trained mind, it would be an easy difference to spot. An experienced telepath would separate the two instantly."  
  
"Damn. Well, it was worth a shot," she laughed and moved to the garbage to throw it out. "Definitely do not want that thing near me if I don't need it."  
  
"What were you going to say, anyway, Charles?" Warren asks as he lines up his next shot.  
  
"Uh," Charles responds, the picture of eloquence. He clears his throat, and attempts a lie, which both people in the room know how to spot. They know him far too well, and sometimes he hates it. "Nothing, nothing. I was just thinking about taking time to practice martial arts again. I was going to bring it up to you before Raven, because after all the headaches I've been giving her, I'm sure she'd love to throw me to the ground a few times." It's not untrue, actually. It just isn't what he'd been working himself up to say.  
  
Warren's eyes snap up from the pool table and he gives a huff under his breath. "Raven, you interrupted a perfectly good spill sesh. I'm furious."  
  
"Uh, hey, spill?" Raven punches him in the shoulder. Hard. "Don't forget we're the only weirdos who have your back."  
  
Charles groans, and drags a hand over his face. "Raven, I love you very, very dearly, and I trust you with my life," he promises her, and the sentiment is entirely sincere, "But you are my sister, and that also makes you my tormentor, and I refuse to be mocked over this."  
  
Raven pursed her lips. "I would never," she held a hand over her chest.  
  
"This is a mocking-free institution," Warren grinned. "Come on, Charlie. Out with it. You've been decidedly less crazy today, so we're only looking up."  
  
"Decidedly less crazy," he mutters, and flicks his gaze between the two of them. He runs the numbers. The likelihood he gets out of this room without spilling are slim to none. "Alright, alright, you complete pains in the arse. I'll spill." It still takes him a bit to warm up, because Raven's presence complicates things. Then again - yes, she does have a perspective Warren doesn't at the moment. "I realized there are gaps in my education, and while I could turn endless Internet databases or any number of books, I'd rather get it from a friendly source." Stalling, Charlie. He sighs. "I don't know how... relationships work, alright? Notably relationships with - with significant differences in scale." Opposite ends, in this case, which was so improbable it might as well be impossible, but that wasn't the part he was worried about. "I neglected to investigate, for obvious reasons, and now -" Now he was a little in the dark, feeling his way along the walls, and he'd never liked that feeling.  
  
"Oh, boy," Warren pinched the bridge of his nose. "Well, I said it before and I'll say it again, you're the only person who can make that call. I mean, I'm assuming you've-made it?" his eyebrows arch.  
  
"Wait, what are you asking for, exactly?" Raven wonders, perching herself on the pool table and balancing her chin on a blue-scaled hand.  
  
"Relationships is a pretty broad topic. You either relate or you don't. Sounds like you two relate just fine."  
  
"I wasn't asking for input on the actual choice of partner. You both know I was going to make that independently and not a single word either of you said would matter if I made my mind up." He's just being honest here. Charles has never, not once, followed one of their Orders, not that they'd tried in this instance. "I meant..." He lets himself slide down the pool table, his hand in his hair again as he sighs. "I know there's - there are customs, and everyone chattered away about them, and I locked myself in a room with very old, or very boring books." He doesn't believe the last part, but he turns his gaze toward Raven pointedly.  
  
"And that assessment of your literary collection is fair," Raven stuck by her guns, poking her tongue out at him. "I mean-there are customs-do you care about whether you abide by them? No offense, but it sounds like his upbringing wasn't super traditional either. Not to mention your relationship itself, which isn't traditional by any stretch of the word. Do you want to do some kind of Courtship or Collaring ritual?" She and Hank had opted for the simplest of those, and even now she donned the cufflinks at her wrist that signified a married Dominant. "I have a lot of material if you want to go through it-but it's pretty American-centric."  
  
She has a point. They're doing alright on their own. Honestly, considering the circumstances, shockingly well. Bickering and agonizing aside, they've both managed to feel things out in a surprisingly sane manner. There's a learning curve, but that's to be expected. "It's not like I can do it now," he says, but his tone of voice makes it clear that yes, he'd be lying if he hadn't thought of it. "It's just - well, I suppose anything we should be doing is culturally locked, and then locked twice more by circumstances, yes. I just wondered if..." He trails off. "I understand we aren't traditional. That doesn't mean there can't be elements of tradition, on either end. That we can't do this properly, if we're going to do it anyway."  
  
Warren laughs. "Do you really think there's a right or wrong way to have a relationship? Outside of compatibility or abuse," he grants, raising his pool cue to line up his trick-shot since no one's playing with poor old Warren anymore. The white cue ball hops in the air and smacks into the yellow stripe, sending it toward the corner pocket. "You're both going to have different definitions of what it means to be traditional. Even two people raised in the same culture have different definitions. Some people like the flowers and the dates and gifts and the regimented-style sessions-" these were specific acts done in succession intended to strengthen the pair bond, usually a combination of sex and trust exercises. "It depends what you're able to do, too."  
  
"I thought this was a no mocking zone, and this is bordering on mocking," he points out, flushed, as he considers that. Charles has a tendency to overthink, and it sometimes ends in him getting in his own way. He's aware of it, but it doesn't make it any less difficult to sidestep. "I've just been more aware of that aspect of life, recently."  
  
Charles watches submissives in public now. Some of it he knows would never work for him, and some of it inspires that longing ache. The walking behind, the deference, the agreed upon power exchange outside of the bedroom, the collars - all things he scoffed at during different times in his life, and he can't anymore. He knows some submissives only speak when spoken to, lower their eyes until asked. They refer to their Doms for nearly everything, down to the clothes they wear and the company they keep, however willingly. That would never work for them. Charles doesn't think he'd want certain aspects of his life at all dictated by another, even Erik, and he'd need to be able to speak his mind. Being smothered has never been appealing, but fortunately for him, Erik seems to have a similar opinion. He needs to remain himself, remain Charles, but - Erik's Charles. He wonders what that entails. Would there be structure? His mind wanders to Erik's hands, gentle but corrective, leaving no room for anything less than his standards. Yes, Erik would want him to be his best, would accept no less, and - Charles pulls himself out of that particular train of thought, his ears red. "This is all new," he says, unnecessarily. "And very strange."  
  
Warren grins. "Oh, that was my least mocking voice!" he insists. Raven jabs him with a pool stick. "Ow. Your sister is mean."  
  
"Well, like, you've always eschewed the norm, Charles. I can't imagine you being openly deferential, is that what you mean? None of those things make you submissive. Have you ever considered talking to someone like Hank about this? I mean, we're kind of the wrong target audience," she laughed. "A room full of high-doms. I'm hoping Erik wouldn't expect you to change your personality-but I know a lot of subs feel like they get something out of it. There's different degree of separation. I'm Hank's Dominant but I'm also his partner, I expect him to be an equal to me in terms of support and care. I know Warren-had a more common variant," she gestured, "with Angel's mom. Which is where your submissive leans on you for more basic things because it lets them feel secure. Also, Warren's higher on the scale than me, so that might actually have something to do with it? Huh."  
  
"That's a good point. Our society is really focused on what submissives experience, because they're outward presenting. I would hypothesize that the higher on the scale the Dominant, the more likely it is they'd prefer ritualized expressions of Dominance in an integrated way. Jenny and I were compatible because we were able to set up a situation that allowed both of us to express what we needed."  
  
"Then there's the really intense stuff," Raven raises a finger. "The more sadistic end of sadomasochism, the Master/slave stuff. And again, sometimes that's a lifestyle thing and sometimes it's just relegated to specific moments. You really, truly need to talk to your Dominant, dude. This is all part of the Negotiations stage. What you expect, what he expects."  
  
People had always considered Charles less of a submissive, but he would argue that it wasn't the case at all. When he let himself, when he accessed the deepest desires he had, locked away for years, he truly craved submission like he knew some subs did not. He was finding it steadied him in ways he hadn't even considered, that he needed it more than he'd even realized. He just needed something that most couldn't give him. He didn't want to sacrifice any of himself by becoming Erik's. That had always been one of his fears. But what if he didn't have to? What if being Erik's made him a stronger, better version of himself? "I'm sure this would all be much simpler if we weren't limited to timed sessions surrounding a trial that will alter the course of both of our lives permanently," he laughs, but actually, rather than an unwelcome distraction, it was proving to strengthen both of them. Charles hadn't anticipated that, but their last session had left him feeling - steadied, more focused, lighter. Is that what this all amounted to?  
  
"Well, you never did things the easy way," Raven pats him on the shoulder. "There's probably an infinite number of ways this could be made easier, but-I mean-it kind of seems like you're both handling it really well. I mean, that makes sense, right? You've went your whole life without submitting, submissives need to submit. You were missing something. It's definitely true in reverse-and it's honestly hard to even be in the same room as Erik for people like us, so-he probably was missing it, too."  
  
Charles laughs, this time perplexed, and shakes his head. "Everyone says that, or thinks it, at the very least. I can feel it when they're anywhere near him. But Erik's Will, it's never -" Overwhelming at times, yes. Certainly impossible to ignore. But not in an uncomfortable, stifling way. "I've never felt that, and I'm supposedly the one it should affect the most. To me, it feels..." He looks for the right word, hums. "Comforting, now."  
  
"Honestly, that makes sense," Warren said. "You've met Hank. You know other submissives. They're still people, they still have their own thoughts and feelings, they're just enhanced by their submission. Of course you would be enhanced by a D5, you're an S1."  
  
"I think he worked really hard not to affect me," Raven nodded. "Assuming he does that with the staff at the prison as well, or else they'd long suspect, but it was still like-drowning. Like at any moment whatever he said I was obligated to listen to it and I had no choice in the matter. I can see why people are scared of D5s."  
  
"Imagine if you were an S2.5 or an S3."  
  
"No question, I really don't think you'd be capable of resisting at all. It's almost like a secondary mutation that you're immune to, Charles, I'm serious."  
  
"Hm," he says, and considers it. He's seen Erik's thoughts on the matter. His frustration with the way submissives wholly flattened under him, turned helpless and mindless. It wasn't any fault of theirs, merely that his Will crushed them beneath it. It isn't unlike his own frustration with Doms incapable of putting him into subspace. "He's very careful. He's not a tyrant."  
  
But even Charles had been cautious. Don't Order me until I tell you to, unless I expressly say. They'd broken that rule, and he knows if there's going to be trust, if there's going to be a healthy exchange, they need to. Charles can't manipulate things to only when it suits him, and surrendering that control - Yes, he craves it. Needs it. "He's the only one I would trust with this," he realizes. "Unfortunate circumstances aside, I'm extraordinarily lucky." Any other D5, less careful, less good, and he doesn't know where he'd be. That kind of power influences people, but it had turned Erik cautious instead of cruel.  
  
"I mean," Raven seems to be thinking along the same thing. "I'm glad you trust him, but-it's unsettling. I can't imagine having that ability, and not slipping up at some point, not making someone do what I want even when it isn't justified at some point. The fact that you can resist it is a really good thing. It means you're making your own decisions."  
  
"I can't," he points out. "His Will, yes. I'm not smothered underneath it, though I'm always aware of it. But I'm as helpless to direct Orders as anyone else, and those come more naturally to him than to other Doms, I think." That's not something unique to Erik, though. High-Doms tend to exhibit the same patterns. He remembers the one time he'd obeyed when he hadn't wanted to, truly hadn't wanted to, his cold acceptance -  
  
"Erik doesn't want my submission if it's not freely given," he says, and it's with absolute certainty. "And he's aware when it isn't. But then again -" He blinks, and realizes something. "I was aware I didn't want to obey, too, when - huh. Fascinating." Not mindless, unquestionable obedience, even when he was forced to. Perhaps Warren is right.  
  
"Wait, what? What do you mean when you didn't want to obey?" Raven demands sharply.  
  
"Raven, be calm." He holds a hand up, rolling his eyes at her protectiveness, though it's fond. "He was frightened, and he Ordered without thinking. Then he took it back and apologized. I don't think he could have helped it. It was an accident." What mattered was what happened in the aftermath.  
  
"That's still... scary as hell," she laughed a little. "What if he accidentally Ordered you to do something-what if he said something off-hand and you ended up hurt?"  
  
"I hardly think him shutting down a discussion out of fear is equivalent to that," he laughs, unbothered. Erik has never frightened him, not once. "Besides, I've seen plenty of Doms do something similar - is it not a risk with any high-Dom? He's usually very deliberate."  
  
"Well," Warren winces. "No matter what we do or say, lacking the context of manipulation and the human element, we can't force people to do what we want just by uttering an Order. Obviously the higher on the scale you are, the more likely you can influence a situation, but that has its limits in literally every other application than this."  
  
The D5 who ordered his submissive off the roof, crying and screaming the whole way down. Charles grimaces, his stomach turning. "I see where the fear is," he admits. "But I'm not afraid. If it was anyone but Erik, I would be, but I - call me a fool, but I trust him not to use it against me."  
  
"I.... trust that he intends well," Raven granted. "But you know what they say about the Good Intentions Paving Company."  
  
"So because he's a D5, he's inherently dangerous?" Charles asks, and his tone is sharper now. "That's not exactly fair, is it? And by the way, I could have the same effect." He taps his temple, pointed, and for a moment his fear of himself rises to the surface again. "It may not be an Order, but I've - I can manipulate in the same way. Does that make me likely to abuse that power, simply because I have it? I don't need an Order, Raven. I could get into your head and make you do something before you even realized you had. I have before, because I was afraid. So please, spare me the lesson in inevitability." It's not often Charles becomes irritated, but he feels it now.  
  
"Right, but you didn't _kill ten people_ , Charles!" Raven rolled her eyes. "Don't act like it's the same thing. He's demonstrated already that he is dangerous. That is not _inherent_ , it is _overt_."  
  
"Our situations are entirely different! He didn't murder ten people for fun, Raven, don't act like he did. It isn't a justification, of course I would never advocate for it, but I'm not blind to the circumstances." Charles stands, his temper rising as his eyes narrow. "It is the same thing. I fear it the same way he does. Treating him like there is no other choice for him besides violence, pain, and fear is the exact reason he ended up where he did."  
  
Raven fish-mouthed, pressing her lips together. "I believe that he means well. I believe he _probably shouldn't even_ be in prison. I like him as a person, but it's naïve to think he's harmless." Her voice is hard. "Don't presume my opinions about you based on my opinions about him. _You_ are a mutant who's been in full control of your telepathy since puberty. _You_ have never murdered anyone. When _you_ make decisions, they are intentional." She jabbed her finger at him. "You said it yourself, he made you do something against your will _by mistake._ That is _frightening_ and I won't apologize for saying so."  
  
Charles opens his mouth, but it falls shut. He can't argue. There's nothing to argue, logically, and he knows it. The irritation is gone as soon as it came. "I want him to be good," he says, and his voice is quiet, now, a whisper. His shoulders slump. "I truly think he is. I want to believe in him, and I do, but you're right. And it scares me, too," he admits. "Not him, precisely, but his potential. It scares me that he can hurt in that way. It scares me that, even knowing that, I -" He swallows, trailing off.  
  
She winces sympathetically. "I think he is good-as good as a person could be given the circumstances, if your perceptions of him are accurate. It's just-he holds all the cards. That's-not a small thing. I mean, everyone followed the Azazel Rasputin case. That put the fear in people, I think. I know it's not fair, but he's demonstrated a willingness to resort to extreme actions in the past-and I worry for you, that's all."  
  
Charles' expression softens immediately. He forgot, for a moment, that Raven worries over him just as much as he worries for her. He pulls her close, kisses her forehead. "I'm a big boy, Raven," he promises, stroking some of her pretty red hair out of her face. She's blue today, at least here. Lapis lazuli, as Erik said. "And I'll be very careful, I promise. But trust me when I say that I have seen how Erik thinks of me, and the last thing he would ever consider is putting me in danger, much less by him. Still, I'll be cautious. I always am." He chuckles as he turns toward the pool table and Warren, one arm around Raven still. "You're going to win," he announces. "Just a hunch. Maybe we should move onto a movie. I'll let one of you decide, even though neither of you have any taste at all."  
  
"Oh, ho," Warren huffs. "I'm going to win, so _now_ we have to watch a movie. I see how it is. You just can't handle the big leagues," he grins, glad that the tension has dissipated. Just for that , they both pick _The Exorcist_ and Raven imitates the girl the entire time.


	11. Say I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye

On the day of the arraignment, in the morning and a few hours before it's set to start, Charles gets a call from the CIA.  
  
Charles has been up for hours, unable to sleep. He's had two cups of coffee, neither of which do anything for him. The blocked number on his phone jolts his nerves, and he takes a breath to steel himself. "Charles Xavier," he answers, polite and friendly as always, cradling the phone on his shoulder as he ties his tie.  
  
"Hello, Dr. Xavier, this is Moira MacTaggert. Is this a good time to speak?"  
  
"Of course," he replies easily, sitting himself down on the bed. Such a shame he can't read minds over the phone, one of the many reasons he hates the damn things. "Is there a problem? I assume this isn't a pleasure call."  
  
"I'm afraid not. There's been an incident. I'm wondering if you can come a little earlier, and see if we can sort some of this out. We normally wouldn't involve an outside source but-and we've anticipated this-you're the only person who seems to be available for the job."  
  
"An incident," he repeats, and his heart immediately plummets into his stomach, nerves sufficiently fried. He knows he won't get any more information over the phone. "I'll be there as soon as possible. Thank you for the call, Agent MacTaggert." He knows he won't find him, not at this range and with conditions as they are, but Charles reaches for Erik anyway, seeking, and sighs when he finds plenty of buzzing but none of that familiar mind. He truly can't get to the CIA building fast enough, impatient through both car rides.

* * *

He's lead down to the medical services once inside, which-he realizes, are not covered by the plastic procedures, because there's metal everywhere, so incidentally there are a lot of scary-looking guards with plastic weapons drawn and aimed at Erik, who's seated on the bed, but moves to stand when he sees Charles, having not expected him. Everyone with a gun moves in tandem, like they're re-acquiring a target. Erik raises his good arm, then points at Charles. His other arm, hand normally held in a brace, is held limply to his chest. "Ah, Dr. Xavier, good morning," Dr. Shomron exits one of the back areas with some bandages. "You two are familiar with one another, hm?"  
  
"Good morning," he greets as calmly as he can, his eyes on Erik as he assesses for damages, his mind a frantic what's wrong-hurt-okay? Outwardly, he smiles. "Yes, Erik and I have been working closely together. Is there a problem?" He can't keep the concern out of his tone, so he doesn't bother trying.  
  
Okay, Erik returns, warm. Betraying nothing outwardly, but he's breathing fast through his nose. Safe. "Well," Daniel approaches him, and Erik tenses up but allows it. "His arm's broken, and we can't figure out how that happened. Guards are with him practically every moment, and would've noticed a slip or a fall or anything like that. Inmate Lehnsherr doesn't have access to other prisoners-this isn't a typical facility, there's no general population. All right, we need to set and splint it. Up, come on." He taps the edge of the bed, because Erik has pressed himself against the wall. "He's not cooperating. Erik, I'm not setting this without giving you meds." He shook his head vehemently.  
  
A broken arm is hardly his definition of okay. His heart is in his stomach again, and he runs a hand through his hair. That could have happened any number of ways, and he doesn't like any of them, but no one is hurt besides Erik - nothing that can be used against him - or he would have heard it already. He doesn't like it, not at all, but it's not the worst case scenario. He steps forward, because how he navigates this is very important. They are not alone, and Charles can't react the way he wants to. "Erik," he says instead, calmly. "Is there a reason you won't let the doctor help you?" He has his own guesses, none of which end in Erik being compliant. But he doesn't like the alternative. He winces, one hand clenched tight where it's buried in his pocket, the only outward sign of distress.  
  
Shomron sighed and stood, taking Charles aside. "We can't just let him walk around like that. If he won't cooperate I'll have to make an executive decision, here. I don't need consent from him to treat him, but I'd like it."  
  
"Have you talked to him?" he asks, mild, no hint of accusation there. People tended not to talk to Erik, though, assuming he wouldn't respond, so it wasn't an absurd question. "Has he told you what he objects to?"  
  
"No, but I can guess. He was fine until I told him I was injecting him with an anesthetic for the pain. I took an oath, there's no way I'm setting that without it."  
  
That was what Charles assumed. His eyes flick over to Erik, and he knows there's not a single chance he'll agree to it. A doctor holding him down and injecting him in a room full of metal and drawn weapons is not going to end well. "What if there's another way to avoid pain?" he asks, lips pursed as he thinks fast. "I know it isn't ideal, but Erik has a history. I'd like to avoid further incident, and I truly don't think holding him down against his will is the way to do it."  
  
"Another way like how?" Shomron looks at him thoughtfully. "I'm definitely interested in avoiding further incident. I'm not too keen on weapons being drawn in my sickbay, either," he raises his voice pointedly. "What's your idea?"  
  
"By becoming a living anesthetic," he chuckles, and taps at his own temple, a gesture he uses frequently. "Pain is all in the brain, and brains happens to be my specialty, doctor. I can do the same thing any anesthetic can, and probably better, if we're honest here."  
  
"If I see any sign of distress, I'm stopping," Shomron cautioned him. "Fair?"  
  
"Completely," he returns, and moves toward Erik, though he's almost positive the man heard anyway. He meets his gaze, and steadies himself. "New plan. No injection." No loss of faculties, no drugs, he adds, because he knows it's at least part of Erik's concern. He steps forward slowly, though he knows Erik will let him. It's mostly for show. "It won't hurt," he promises, but it's for his own sake. He knows Erik isn't worried about the pain. Charles is. He's done it before, but never in a calculated effort - always spur of the moment, reactionary. It shouldn't be particularly difficult, but he's worried regardless. I can't see you in pain that I could have stopped, he thinks, and he knows Erik hears it.  
  
He does not trust Shomron as far as he can throw him, and his adrenaline is bleating through his general trust of Charles enough that it takes a concentrated effort for him to nod stiffly and slowly climb down from the walls and stay seated at the edge of the exam bed. Shomron nods to Charles. "OK, let's get started. I'd like to do a test and make sure it works before diving in." Erik's eyes are on Charles, unwaveringly.  
  
"Go ahead," he says to the doctor, but his eyes are on Erik. It won't hurt, he promises again. I'm going to be here the entire time, and it won't hurt. Charles takes a breath, and he focuses, reaching until he finds the part of Erik's brain that he needs. There isn't room for failure, and Erik is trusting him. Erik is trusting him, depending on him, and that means he won't fail. No pain, he repeats. I'm right here.  
  
The longer everything goes on and the longer he goes without being jabbed with a needle, the more Erik seemed to relax even if Charles didn't do it perfectly, pain doesn't bother him and he has his own defenses against it, but when Charles actually hits that spot in his head he sags into the mattress and closes his eyes, looking the most relaxed Charles has ever seen him. "Mmmnn," he mumbled unconsciously, smiling to himself.  
  
Charles smiles, too, and he can't help the flood of pride. It's an incredibly complex system, the brain, and he's learning more about himself and his telepathy everyday. It's nearly always in regards to Erik. Stronger together, then. He nods to the doctor. "His pain receptors are completely turned off," he says, with complete confidence. "I've isolated it, so holding it shouldn't be a problem. I can guarantee you he won't feel a thing."  
  
" _Hmmmmmm_ ," Erik sighs contentedly.  
  
"Are you sure you didn't drug him," Shomron laughs a little, watching Erik's face.  
  
"Erik carries around quite a lot of pain with him everyday. I just took all of it away." His eyes are sad, but he's not looking at Shomron, still focused on Erik. "I'm sure it's a relief." Something he can give to him, like Erik dulls his migraines. Pain is necessary, but not always. "He won't give you any trouble," he laughs, perhaps too fond, but he doubts it will be counted against him. They're still in the realm of professionalism here, though Charles would like very much to hold some part of Erik. He projects the feeling instead, letting it hum around them. Their own little secret.  
  
Erik sits and happily endures the treatment, which Shomron makes last.... a little longer than typical, and honestly this day was turning out much better than he anticipated. Charles noticed about a half hour later he's playing with a metallic ball between his fingers, floating it in a rhythmic loop. The dudes with guns didn't seem to notice. _I did not know you could do this_ , Erik blinks at Charles slowly like a big cat.  
  
 _That makes two of us_ , he returns, and he's a bit gleeful about it. Knowing that he can cause pain is a lot less interesting to him than knowing he can take it away. That glee only lasts so long. _Erik, what happened? I don't like this._  
  
Erik shook his head.  
  
Charles sighs. He shouldn't have expected anything, but not knowing doesn't sit well with him. It could have been anything, and now he's left to wonder - what does 'safe' mean in this context? He purses his lips, and reluctantly drops it, though he makes it very clear he isn't happy about it.  
  
He waits for Daniel to get up and go into the other room to fetch something before meeting Charles's eyes. _We expected it._  
  
I don't like it, he repeats, and his lips are still pursed, his body turned away from Erik even as he holds his gaze. _I don't like you being hurt, and I especially don't like you being so flippant about being hurt. It's not -_ His mental thoughts trail off. Charles becomes very stiff.  
  
Erik looks at him, resists the urge to reach out. _What is wrong?_  
  
I don't know. He sounds farther away, as if through a tunnel. Distracted, perhaps a bit panicked. Something is - there's something not right, but I don't know what. Charles shakes his head. _No, it must be nothing. Sorry._  
  
Erik's eyes narrow. _Charles. The last time this happened you were assaulted. If something is not right, listen to it._  
  
It's just a feeling, Erik. But he has a point. Charles' expression is one of focus, but he doesn't find what he's looking for. I think I may just be on edge. You worried me half to death this morning.  
  
Shomron returns with the supplies he needs and gently begins to bandage up stabilize the arm, and tests his fingers, examining him in a lot more depth than a broken bone would ordinarily warrant, checking charts. "We don't have X-rays in here, but I'm going to order them anyway. I don't like not having a clear view of what's going on in here. I'll talk to MacTaggert, but we might end up going on a field trip."  
  
"A field trip?" he repeats, eyebrows raised. "For - I understand the concern, truly, but do you think -" Charles trails off mid-sentence again, but this time he was speaking out loud. He turns his head.  
  
 _Charles_. Erik prompts him.  
  
"Excuse me, my head is a little cluttered today," he laughs, and runs a hand through his hair. It's forced, but he doesn't think anyone but Erik will be able to tell. "Is there something strange about the break?" Mentally, Charles shows Erik the best way he knows how. He plays a song on piano, then hits the wrong note. The song continues. It would only be noticeable to a trained ear. Like that. I keep hearing it. An errant note, something off, but he can't place it. Doesn't know where it's coming from.  
  
"Not precisely. I don't feel comfortable reducing this fracture without getting a look at it due to Erik's extensive complicating factors. Additionally, getting an X-ray helps us visualize the injury, which'll be necessary to determine how it was obtained."  
  
 _Is it Emma?_ Erik wonders. _Spying on us?_ It would be the opportune time. It's convenient Charles is experiencing this now, Erik thinks, that they've tried to intimidate him into changing his plea.  
  
Charles nods, but he's still looking at Erik. I don't know, he admits. I can't get a read on it. He tries not to be visibly frustrated. If she's here, the last thing he needs to do is tip her off that he knows she is. "The arraignment is in a few hours," he points out. "Will it be delayed?" Charles is torn, and it makes him a bit sick to think about. He wants Erik to heal properly, to be well, but the thought of the process slowing at all makes him anxious. They don't have the time for it, with Shaw looming.  
  
"Probably," Shomron barks.  
  
Erik looks at Charles. _I can do it_ , he says. _I can, and you could show him._  
  
Charles doesn't like the situation he's been put in. He shouldn't be advocating for anything but proper care, and Erik's arm - now that he forces himself to look, the nauseous feeling returns. It looks limp, and even though he knows Erik still isn't feeling pain, the thought that he left him here to endure it, that he knew it was a possibility and he still allowed it - "Of course," he says, ignoring Erik. That makes him feel sick, too, for an entirely different reason.  
  
"I've been telling them to get a portable unit in here since I got here," Shomron sighs. "This was only ever meant to be a waystation, I'm here on a research grant. There's a liability factor because this place isn't up to standard. In-depth treatment is always intended to go to Phelps. Still, not being able to treat a closed displaced fracture is a little off the mark." He waves over one of the agents to make the call.  
  
Erik tilts his head. _Charles_?  
  
Charles leans by the examination bed, but he lets the conversation happen. He pointedly avoids Erik's gaze. _How would it look if I advised against proper treatment, as a doctor, Erik? The arraignment will happen. We can spare a bit of time._  
  
 _You are not responsible for this_ , Erik's voice murmurs in his head.  
  
 _I let it happen, Erik, and we both know it,_ he sends back, and there's a firmness there.  
  
 _As opposed to doing what? There is no alternative._ Erik is equally firm.  
  
 _The alternative is that it doesn't happen! There's fear there. Fear, because it could happen again. It could happen again and he will be just as helpless. What good am I if I can't do anything to keep you safe? If I leave you to suffer? I'm completely useless, Erik._ He stares at his feet, hating that he caused this to happen, that he is the source of these feelings. You took the pain from me. It's soft. That is not useless. After it had already happened. But he doesn't want to argue. It isn't Erik he is upset with. Charles leans as close as he can without it being strange, and makes up for the distance by wrapping his mental presence around Erik's. It's the closest he can get to an embrace at the moment. _You promise you're alright? I missed you, Erik, and I was so worried._  
  
Erik's smile is more mental than physical. _I promise,_ he nods. _It was Essex_. A blink indicated the man who was standing by the door, holding a plastic gun on them. You should avoid him if you can. Erik doesn't seem afraid of him for his own sake, but he absolutely does not want Charles anywhere near the guards of this place.  
  
Charles does not feel truly angry often. He feels it now, and he knows Erik will feel it too. It isn't anything like Erik's rage, but his quieter, steady anger has done its own damage in the past. I can't wait until we are no longer here, he thinks instead, to distract the both of them, and it's tinged with longing. No more plastic guns and brutish guards.   
  
_I have missed you_ , Erik replies, looking at his feet so no one can see the adoration on his features. Dreaming of Canada, undoubtedly, his lips twitch, amusement threading the undercurrent of thought.  
  
"We're clear," Essex jerks his chin up at the doctor. "Inmate _24005_ , I'll be escorting you to the vehicle." Everything about his bearing suggests professionalism, but Charles can feel his coldness from across the room. His mind is unusually closed off for a human.  
  
Shomron shrugs. "I'll send over the charts, we've documented the area of injury relative to post-operative fasciotomy, so just have them confirm what's damaged and-go from there, depending on the outlook-this could get complicated."  
  
"What shall I advise Agent MacTaggert?"  
  
"Not to wait up. I'd take an additional member with you. Duncan or someone."  
  
Erik's eyes dart between Shomron and Charles, wider than usual. Alone?  
  
Charles' heart stops, panic rising up in his throat. A split second is enough to piece together thousands of potential scenarios, none of them good. Erik will have metal - cars are metal, after all - but what good will it do him in a moving vehicle? A crash, casualties, the entire case altered and more blood on Erik's hands, more blood than Charles will allow, even if it's in self-defense. But it's perfect.  
  
And Emma must know it, too.  
  
"No," he says, before he can think it through. "No, that - he just flattened himself against a wall over anesthetic, and you're going to send him alone to a hospital? Don't you think that's a bit absurd?"  
  
Shomron pressed his lips together. "He seems to do a lot better when you're around-I'd definitely advocate taking Dr. Xavier if it's at all possible."  
  
Essex shrugs. Somehow he does not seem bothered by this. "I'll let MacTaggert know. Get him prepared for transport." It turned out that being prepared just meant having suppressor shots injected, but these are given via jet injector, simple and effective.  
  
"Let's go," Essex indicates they follow him once the procedure is complete.

* * *

Erik unconsciously presses closer to Charles, apparently forgetting that he could kill Essex a hundred times over with the barest particle of metal at his disposal.  
  
Charles is still panicking. Something is wrong here, something is noticeably, blaringly wrong, but he doesn't know what. He follows, because there isn't much else he can do, but his mind is racing, buzzing, the resulting migraine enough to have his knees shaking together before he steadies himself. Erik, he thinks, loud and clear, Be cautious, please. Whatever comes, we do this together. They are not touching, and Erik's closest hand is inaccessible, but he gives the sensation of linking fingers regardless.  
  
That feeling of wrongness only intensifies when they end up in the parking complex, alone with Essex on the way to the vehicle. The sensation of piercing agony ripples across Charles's consciousness once they're inside and the doors shut, Charles in the front seat and Erik in the back behind bars and handcuffed to the door by his good arm. "You want the radio on?" Essex asks him conversationally, and for once he doesn't have his vision obscured when they leave.  
  
Charles swallows, eyes ahead as he grips white-knuckled to the door handle. He readies himself, but without knowing where to focus his attention, what he's up against, he feels as helpless as before. "Hm," he murmurs, noncommittal, but all of his attention is taken up by the screeching in his own brain. Focus, Charles, he tells himself, and he knows Erik will hear, the connection between them unsnapped. Focus focus focus damn it focus - He needs to control this situation. He needs to.  
  
Erik tries to project a sense of calm and peace, but he's struck silent by the intruder in the vehicle with them and only managing to stare intensely. The radio blares some pop song of the hour while they get out onto the highway, Essex making idle small talk, unconcerned. Calm, Erik repeats like a mantra amidst it all. Peace.  
  
Whatever comes, they are together.  
  
Before they get anywhere near a hospital, the car's rolling to a stop at the side of a dirt road, surrounded by trees and nothing. "I was told that this would be a lot more challenging," Essex says, cracking his neck. "I don't think that's true, though." Agony shears across Charles's temple like a butcher knife dragged over his neurons, and Erik feels it, tries to reach out.  
  
"S-" he gasps.  
  
"Cat got your tongue? That's a pity." He withdraws the plastic gun from his belt.  
  
Without warning, the car jolts forward, accelerating on its own.  
  
Charles realized long before it happens. It gives him the advantage, though Essex doesn't know it yet.  
  
The car throws everything off balance, and through seething, agonizing pain, he focuses as he had been this entire time, gathering strength, bolstering it. He fights through it, even though it's more pain than he's ever felt, even though the world is out of focus and he's swimming in suffering, even though his vision has gone white.  
  
 _Focus - focus -_  
  
 _Stop._  
  
Charles feels it, though it isn't physical. The pain hasn't stopped, though Essex has, bent over the dash as the car screeches to a halt. The whiplash is negligible when Charles entire being is focused on holding, on keeping still. It's nothing like fighting Emma, with his own mind as the terrain. Here he's out of his element, and he cries out with the effort, but Essex doesn't move.  
  
They don't have many options here. Charles' nose is bleeding from the strain.  
  
"Erik -" he manages, through grit teeth.  
  
Instantly the seatbelt moves on its own and wraps around Essex's neck and arms, wrenching so the plastic gun falls across Charles's lap. At the same time he does his best to bathe Charles's mind in what can only be described as a balm, an attempt to soothe from the cacophony of ceaseless torment. The belt yanks Essex's head down and it smacks off the wheel, blaring the horn long and loud followed by a thud, and he slumps over. Still alive. For now. Erik's expression is twisted and dark, as though ready to lunge across and dig out Essex's eyeballs with his fingernails, except he is still trapped by the handcuff. The fight drains out of him when he notices Charles is bleeding.  
  
Charles gasps, slumping forward, and the pain slowly fades. He fights the urge to vomit, though he retches, panting and breathless. He's never needed to use his telepathy that way, never as a physical thing, a fight. He's been straining himself, and while Charles believes he hasn't come close to his own limits, he also knows it's a muscle he's never trained. The result is obvious, and he wipes at his face with the back of his hand, aware again of Erik's concern. It does nothing but smear the blood around. "I'm alright," he rasps, though he's dizzy, the pain still fresh. "I'm alright, Erik." We're alright? he asks, this time a question.  
  
Erik nods, trying to suppress the shivering that's taken hold of his body. A bit of metal floats over to him and fashions itself into a blade that slices easily through the handcuff, and then he reaches over to withdraw the handkerchief in Charles's pocket, dabbing at his face gently. Apologetic. "Pain?" he touches Charles's temple.  
  
"Gone," he assures, though some of it lingers, a dull throb. It's nothing compared to what it was. Panic settles back in as he realizes the situation they're in, in a CIA car veered far off the road with a supposed guard knocked out in the driver's seat. "What do we do, Erik?" he asks, mind already whirring.  
  
"Forget?" he gestured to Essex, curious. He rhythmically rubs his hand over his thigh, looking all around to see where they are. Birds sing in the distance and there's the smell of ocean in the air, and sun warms them up above, distracting Erik for a long moment as he watches it with an out-of-place smile. The ocean glitters.  
  
Charles has no idea when they ended up anywhere near the ocean, but he knows it's not in the direction of the nearest hospital. "Okay," he breathes, and lets his eyes close for a moment so he can focus around the worst migraine he's ever had. His nose is bleeding again. "We're going to call this an accident, and so is he," he says, looking pointedly at their passed out assailant. Except Charles has never done anything like that, and he feels exhausted. Which means he needs some time to feel like his brain isn't melting. "But first we're going to get out of the car, because it's the first time you've seen real sunshine in a very long time and I refuse to let you miss out on it."  
  
Erik opens the door and unfolds himself from the seat to stand, tipping his face up and closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. He murmured something under his breath and then animated after a few seconds to attend to Charles. "Lean forward," he guided his head, applying pressure carefully just above his nostrils. "Breathe with your mouth."  
  
Charles does as he's told, and the bleeding stops, not that it was a problem to begin with. He lets Erik tend to him anyway, to fuss a bit, and can't help but lean bodily into him, careful about his injured arm. "Fuck," he sighs, and Charles so rarely curses that it holds extra weight. It's the only word he can think of that will do this justice. He closes his eyes around the pain and buries himself in Erik's chest, not particularly caring that he's smearing blood all over his uniform.  
  
It makes Erik laugh. "You don't curse well," he says fondly, beginning to feel more himself and less an overlarge spider inhabiting a human body. With it his words start to return. "It's OK. We are all right. No one is maimed or dead, and we got to be outside. That's positive."  
  
"I'm glad you're suddenly the optimist," he laughs, despite the way it echoes around in his head, but Erik's calm is infectious as always. He stays cocooned in Erik's chest while he remembers how to breathe normally, and then just because he wants to be. "We could walk down to the beach and have a date," he teases. "It's summer, so there's a chance the water won't be freezing cold, though it's very slim."  
  
"I am always an optimist," Erik grins, a sensation akin to euphoria breaking over him like waves in the choppy sea carving up this peculiar landscape dead-set in the middle of nowhere, with no people for miles and marshland sprouted every which way. "Yes," he agrees, using the back of the cloth to clean Charles up a little more and then taking his hand, leading him down to the shore. There were no people-a site undisturbed by human hands, free from litter and broken glass-and coincidentally a perfect spot to execute them and dump the bodies. "It's beautiful."  
  
He hadn't been serious, but he finds he can't complain as Erik leads him away. It's the first time they've been anywhere together that isn't a cold, plastic holding room, and Charles smiles despite himself. It's warm outside, so he shimmies out of his jacket, dropping it carelessly. "Beautiful," he agrees, and worms his way under Erik's good arm, as if they're a normal couple out on a hike that stopped to take in the view.  
  
"I am not going in there," he says with a huff. "It is probably radioactive." He tucks Charles closer to him and kisses his temple. "Do you have a favorite song?" he wondered, recalling one of their conversations from a while back, goosebumps breaking out over his exposed skin and he pressed his back teeth together to avoid shivering. He literally could not believe Charles had just said the word summer and then dropped his jacket on the ground.  
  
"Are you cold?" he asks, incredulous, because to him it's almost uncomfortably warm. Charles laughs and raises an eyebrow, stepping away from Erik to walk toward the water. He toes off his shoes and socks while he's at it, ignoring the sharpness of the rocks, and then he gets to work on rolling up his pants. "I don't have a favorite song," he admits. "But I like classical music, and anything from more than two decades ago. I play piano, sometimes, though I'm really not any good. Come get me, Erik," he taunts, and walks backwards into the water, hissing a bit as the freezing water catches his ankles.  
  
"Ch-you are not going in there-" Erik stared at him. "Charles!" Heaving an almighty eyeroll, he inches toward the shoreline, hesitant. "You are going to get hypothermia," he fussed, standing with his arms crossed looking incredibly unimpressed.  
  
"First of all, it's eighty degrees out," he stresses, grinning from ear to ear, bloody nose, knocked out prison guard and migraine seemingly forgotten for the moment. Erik had a way of making that happen. "And second, if I do, so are you." He knows he shouldn't, but Charles has always had a mischievous streak. He splashes Erik as soon as he's close enough, delighted giggles escaping not moments after. "Oh, no," he laughs. "How naughty of me. What are you going to do about it, Erik?"  
  
"It is not eighty degrees," Erik stuck his tongue out and yelped when the water braced over him. Closing his eyes, he concentrated and a wave shot up behind Charles and rained down on him in retaliation. He looked incredibly smug about it, too, even while blinking droplets out of his eyes like a wet cat.  
  
He probably should have considered that. Charles sputters, suddenly very wet and very cold, yelping like a wounded animal. Shivering down to his toes, he pouts as he attempts to cuddle back up to Erik. "I splashed you a little," he whines, and shakes his head like a wet dog, pleased that Erik gets a little more wet as a result.  
  
"I believe in swift retaliation, so as to discourage future hooliganism and tomfoolery," Erik replied very seriously, holding out his arm for Charles to return to his side.  
  
"Oh, it won't discourage me," he promises, grinning again, and contents himself with settling back into Erik's arms, the both of them now soaked. He doesn't know exactly how they'll explain this part of the accident, but that's a thought for later. "You'll need to think up better ways to discipline me. I love the occasional hooliganism and tomfoolery, you see. I just can't help myself."  
  
"I've noticed," he says dryly, but it's obvious that he's charmed, struck by the grin on his face and mischief in his eyes. Genuine pleasure and *fun* instead of duty and responsibility and pain, and it's transformed him. "I would not have it otherwise."  
  
"See, that's a lovely answer," he laughs, and he means it, because Erik honestly feels that way. He wants every part of Charles, and doesn't wish to change him. Charles tucks himself firmly into his side, and he's flushed as well as grinning now, shaking his head. "But now I feel awful, because I absolutely did it with the intention of goading you. I think of it as inspiring you."  
  
"To enter this freezing, radioactive death trap with you. I have a theory, Charles," he decides after a split second, regarding him even as he reaches down to trace his fingertip over Charles's cheek.  
  
"It'a not radioactive," he argues, though he's distracted by Erik's touch, leaning into it and shivering for a different reason now. "What's your theory, Erik?"  
  
He says, totally deadpan, "New Yorkers are insane."  
  
Charles laughs at that, genuinely pleased as he shakes with it. It's not just the sun making everything warm. He waits until Erik's finger is close enough to his lips to playfully nip at it, eyes bright and mischievous all over again.  
  
Erik really can't help falling into Charles's orbit, and he dips his head to kiss him, long and lingering. "How are you feeling?" he whispers, still a trace of concern there.  
  
"Like I want to kiss you again," he murmurs, and it's as good an answer as any. He opens his mind for Erik to see, the pain cleared up to leave behind a headache. Nothing he isn't used to. "Please, Erik?"  
  
Erik wants to crease away the cramped edges, sienna-curled pictures of old with companions of pain, obscure faces in every photo album preserved perfectly. He hates it for Charles, rages against the intangible. The emotions get carefully separated and tucked away, useless claws at the door, but this he could do. He brings Charles closer, kissing him again, and then again. Under the sun. He has dreams like this. There's less blood and unconscious CIA agents.  
  
The blood and CIA agents, for just a little while, melt away. Charles has dreams of this, too. Their foreheads are pressed together, the sun shines, his lips are kiss swollen. All things considered, he thinks it's a very promising first date, though everything is out of order. The words bubble up like the tide, inevitable, and wash over both of them. "I love you," he whispers, and the world does not shift, because he knows it was true long before this moment.  
  
Erik shuts his eyes. His throat has gone dry, sandpaper stuck together. Love. Does he love? Is it possible? ( _Courage! What makes a King out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave? What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage!)_ It can't matter. He can't be so concerned about semantics. Charles dropped into his life from the middle of nowhere, and altered the course of everything. He would kill for him. He would lie for him. He would die for him. "I love you back," Erik says without opening his eyes. No hesitation.  
  
Charles laughs, soft and pleased, and reaches up to cup Erik's cheek. He waits for him to open his eyes, to look at him, patient and adoring. "I know," he murmurs. "Do you think I would be here if I didn't?" There was agonizing over this, once, and perhaps there will be again, but for now Charles is nothing but at peace with it. There is no room to be anything else on this private shore, calm tide lapping just beyond their feet, the sun full and warm in the sky. "I'm yours, Erik," he reminds him, and the words out of the usual context - deep in subspace, with Erik's Will covering him - make it more real than it's ever been, his stomach tied into pleasurable knots.  
  
If it wasn't for Charles, Erik wonders where he'd be right now. Dead, possibly. Suicide via two bullets to the head. On the run, hiding in cramped spaces, starving and desperate and furious. Erik remembers their first meeting like a match to gasoline. A burst of color in his mind, having his thoughts plucked out of the ether, feeling the words in his chest before he hears them-out loud. He would be silent and living-dead. He would not understand laughter. "What do you know?" he asks, eyebrows arched. It isn't mocking.  
  
"What do I know?" he asks, and smiles, thumb stroking Erik's cheek. They are running out of time, but for the moment Erik is the only thing that matters. The world stops for them, as if they've created new gravity, new pull, as if they exist wholly outside of constraints like time and place. "I know that you love me. I know that we are far stronger together than we are apart. I know I am yours, and that I do not wish to be otherwise." Until this is sorted, Charles doubts they will find themselves alone for long. He grasps onto what he has. "I thought about it every moment we were apart, Erik. You are -" He takes a breath, lets it out, and submits himself to the pull of Erik's orbit. "You are the missing piece. There has never been another because I am meant for you."  
  
He puts his hand over Charles's, feeling the pulse of his wrist, the particles of iron in his blood swirling and singing around. Stronger together. Erik thinks this is true-but he is still, somewhere, silently, cursing his lack of action in the moments leading up to here. Frozen to the spot, absent. Maybe he had traded competence for love, and it would be worth it, except, "You are in danger," Erik says softly, pained. "Not just your career, your life."  
  
"I know that, too," he promises. Perhaps he should be angry, but he isn't. Perhaps he should be terrified, and he thinks he might be, but not at the moment. Instead he only smiles, and pushes up on his toes, bare and sunk partially into the sand, until he can kiss Erik again. "We will handle it together. There is no other place for me, Erik. Or do you not believe that I am yours?"  
  
"More goading?" Erik smiles against his lips, shoulders coming down from around his ears to relax the longer they're outside. "When my arm is better, I will pick you up and carry you around like a caveman. Then everyone will know you are mine."  
  
"It was an honest question," he retorts, lips pulled into that same sly grin from before. Erik responds well to a bit of pushing, and it always delights him to see how far he can go. "You could just collar me," he suggests, offhand, as if he hasn't thought about it extensively over the past few days. He gives himself away as he continues, his fingers playing with the collar of Erik's shirt as he hums and fakes nonchalance. "Something with metal, perhaps, with no clasp. Then only you could take it off."  
  
Erik ghosts the pads of his fingertips across Charles's throat, suppressing a shiver at the thought. Before now he didn't put much stock in the idea, of overt expressions that screamed compensating-for-something, but the image of Charles wearing his collar is electric. A reminder of him, flesh against metal. Imprinted. He would feel Charles in it as Charles would feel his Will, even across the distance. "You would like that, hm?" he says too-evenly.  
  
"Mmm, perhaps," he murmurs, as coolly as he can manage, but his pulse is racing underneath Erik's fingertips, his head tilted to give the best access. Charles doesn't think he hides very well exactly how much he would like it, his skin flushed and his belly warm with just the suggestion. "But I think you'd like it more, so I'd allow it," he teases, pushing again, grinning. He wants to feel out the boundaries, stretch them just a little, anticipation twisting his stomach at the thought of things Erik might do in retaliation.  
  
"I think-" he gives his pulse-point a light tap, "that you have been thinking about this for some time." He pushed forward into Charles's space, grinning down at him like a trickster catching him in its snare, unspooling him back to devour. "If you will only allow it... I am not sure that is sufficient motivation. I would not wish you to grow resentful, after all."  
  
Charles eyelids flutter, and while he was having plenty fun, a different urge is pressing down on him. It's not Erik's Will, of which he always feels, but an internal motivation, an instinct and a need he's only recently become in tune with. "Yes," he whispers instead of arguing, and shows Erik, still light, still pleased: Charles has considered this, and many other things regarding Erik and their dynamic, and he's considered them at length. "A collar is the least of the things I've thought about," he admits, his grin still wicked, but shyer now.  
  
The weight of dominance isn't similar. The push-pull between dominance and expectation isn't similar for him, either. The things that most dominants would call submissive, don't phase Erik, but he shares it in common: to care, to provide, to structure. It's the beating heart of him. Charles does not understand what he's done, how he's carelessly flitted between Erik's periphery and gripped his soul in hand, it is fitting that the only word he can think to describe him is _neshama_ -a great affectation and the reasoning part, the intelligence behind motivation, the irony of lacking both so close to the fire. "Tell me?" Erik wants to know everything. Give everything. His desires are reciprocal, responsive and ever-adjusting. The more he learns, the sharper he will become, able to slice through every bit of Charles's defensive walls like a blade in the night.  
  
Charles thinks back, rewinding the clock. There won't be panic yet. City traffic is absolutely atrocious, and he sat it in for more than an hour on the way in. There's a road blocked off, and the bridge is congested. They are presumably stuck in that traffic now, and there is no one way to alert anyone otherwise. They have time.  
  
So he takes a breath and leans against Erik, his gaze dropping as he gathers all the scattered thoughts, every fragmented, half-formed desire, every need that's never been met. "I know what I don't want," he says, because that's the easy part. "I do not want to lose myself by submitting to you, Erik, but I know that you would never allow it. It scares me, still, but that's just something we'll need to work through." He wants to work through it. "What I want is -" Charles swallows, and then shakes his head. "What I need is -" The words don't come out. They become clogged in his throat, and he finds he can't swallow around them, but in the absence of voice, his mind opens up. For all the control Charles has over his own life, it's only to compensate for what he lacks. A tether, an anchor. Raven suggested a degree of separation, as if she felt he would chafe under firmness, under steady control, under structure and expectations, but that's because he's had her fooled. Charles aches for it. For set boundaries, for comfortable rules, for standards, so that he doesn't have to fear. Fear himself, fear failure, fear not good enough not good enough -  
  
He needs to know Erik will pull him back in line if he falls out of place. That he will balance him, center him, but also push him well beyond his current limits.  
  
He wants to know that by being good for Erik, he will be good enough. To put aside the constant nagging worry, the persistent fear, the horrible empty thoughts that he will never be what he is meant to be. He wants to surrender it. To let Erik decide, and trust him to make those decisions, whether it be with praise or a firm, corrective hand. He wants to speak his mind, to question, to match wits, but ultimately to surrender willingly, and know that he will be made to if need be. Charles is stubborn, after all, and bossy, and no one has ever known what to do with it. He craves someone who does, who knows when to reign him in. Who won't always let him have his way, as he is so used to.  
  
He exhales, realizing he's been holding his breath, and ducks his head. It's too much, he thinks, an old thought. There is no way for the need to be met. Shame heats his cheeks, and he squirms.  
  
Erik touches his finger under Charles's chin, lifting it to meet his eyes. "There is nothing shameful about any of that," he says, firmly. He rests his cheek against the top of the other man's head, absorbing wordlessly every ounce of thought and perception carving along the line between them. "Sometimes I think I can see it perfectly," he confides in a whisper. "For moments we align I can see everything. I know, with absolute certainty-"  
  
Charles shivers at the touch, and fights every urge to hide. To recede into himself, where he never needs to acknowledge these needs he's buried so deeply. "What do you know?" he asks, an echo of Erik's words before, and there is something seeking there, perhaps desperate.  
  
"How far you can go. How much you can do. You have spent a lifetime beholden to what lesser people expect from you. They don't understand that they are in the presence of something wondrous. They try to bend and shape you with force instead of transmutation. Did you know you are like metal? It is not immovable. It is not cold. It takes the properties of its surroundings. It is infinitely complicated and nuanced. I know that you need someone who is not afraid of how far you can go. I know people think you do not crave obedience." He smiles, like it's funny. "I know people do not see that your strength is part of your submission."  
  
Charles' breath hitches, his cheeks warmed with pleasure. No one has ever seen him the way Erik does. He doesn't believe all of it, but to know that Erik does makes every difference. "I do crave it," he whispers, as if finally admitting it to himself. "So much, Erik. But I always -" He thought it would make him weak, somehow, to want it as he does. They have always assumed his placement on the scale meant less. Charles is achingly aware that it means more, that the absence of it has made him woefully unsteady and desperately longing for years, and for so long it frightened him. "I couldn't give it to someone who - who..." Who didn't inspire it, perhaps, but Charles knows there's a better explanation now. Someone who it didn't belong to. But Charles is still so afraid he can't have it. That there is something wrong with him for needing it. He knows it slips between them, and he bites his lip until it bleeds.  
  
Erik smiled down at him, gentle. He swiped away the blood, unbothered as before. He has bled for Charles in his mind beyond measure, enduring this is pale comparison. His own desires are not for consideration. They can't exist in a vacuum. Everything is new and dark and strange, but-"There is so much I don't know," he whispers again. A contrast. Everything is illuminated.  
  
"What don't you know?" he asks, and grins, because that is a much harder question to answer. It's not the question he really wants to ask. His own hand sneaks up to his neck, imagining weight there, the hum of Erik's control, and he swallows and tries again. "What do you want?"  
  
Erik shook his head-not a rejection, but-"It doesn't work like that," he thinks. "I don't want-" because much like Charles, this was the easier part. "To cause you-pain." Well, that was broad-and he knows it, not only did they not define the words the same way, but Charles could already think of examples where this wasn't necessarily true.  
  
Charles shivers at a few particular examples, imagines a few dozen more, stretching the word to its limits. He imagines Erik looming over him, or perhaps Charles is bent over, a sharp - He cuts that thought off, not wanting to distract himself. "How does it work?" he asks instead, searching, and plays idly with Erik's shirt with his free hand. "What do you want from me?" He wonders if that's a better question. The Negotiations stage, Raven had called it. What you expect, what he expects. There's a thrill to just knowing they're discussing it, that this is real.  
  
Erik catches the end of that thought and smiles to himself. "I would not classify that as pain," he purses his lips. "Suffering without control, without purpose. What kind of things-" he doesn't know. Thinks instead of what he's received-what he values. "Kindness. Learning."  
  
That's a given, but not overly helpful given the circumstances. He purses his lips, and catches Erik's gaze again, searching. "But do you - I can't have what I need," his voice gets quieter here, and he fights down the shame, "without knowing what you expect from me, and - I don't know what that is. I don't know where we stand, Erik, what my place is, and I'd like to. I can't submit if I don't know what that means for you, I can't obey if I don't know what obedience means besides following Orders whenever you decide to give them, I -" He doesn't like it, the uncertainty. He doesn't like not having his footing. Among all the delirious want, it's clear there's been an equal amount of agonizing, of confusion. "I goad because I don't know the limits, and I'm waiting for you to set them."  
  
He knows, and hearing it voiced plainly makes him grimace, but he still nods. It's the truth. "There are things I expect, of course. That you look after yourself. That you are honest with me. There are different degrees of submission and obedience. Obedience is more immediate or presumptive-following my Orders, versus concluding that I would be displeased if you didn't sleep for a week. Submission is a natural extension of the self. For us, there is necessarily a separation-because we are separated a majority of the time. It is my hope to develop a space where you can feel comfortable expressing your desires openly. And because we are both people, there are things I am certain neither of us are interested in pursuing, regardless of the situation."  
  
That helps. Charles takes a long, deep breath, and he listens and processes. This is something structured, something firm, something he can hold onto. It's what he's needed all along, and he makes sure Erik can feel his relief, his gratitude. "I - I've spent my entire life doing exactly as I pleased, partly to circumnavigate the need," he confesses, though Erik already knows. "And that is not the easiest habit to break, even when I crave otherwise." It's a set up to the real question he has, and he bites his lip again, chewing on it as he stares down at his bare feet. "If I don't obey - what happens?" It's not goading this time, not pushing until Erik retaliates. He's asking now, and he knows he should have done it this way all along.  
  
"That is more complicated," Erik smiles. "It will depend upon the situation, and I do not count disobedience as what you tried to accomplish. Nor do I define it as goading, or pushing limits, or testing the boundaries-within a respectable parameter. It is willful, disrespectful, or is something that is causing you immediate harm that requires correction, and I will react appropriately. We will establish a session to deal with it. I will not, under any circumstances, resort to violence. Nor will I ever act out against you in anger. Does that clarify anything?"  
  
"Yes, Erik," he breathes, and the relief is palpable now, the stiffness to his shoulders lessened. He's glowing in the aftermath, because if he'd known it would be so simple, he would have asked for this sooner. There will be consequences, but not unfair ones, not unnecessary ones. Simple expectations, and justifiable, predictable punishment. Charles smiles, and attempts not to show exactly how much weight has lifted off his shoulders. How the world has reoriented itself, and he feels like his feet are finally on the ground. He has more questions, and Erik has given him a space to ask them, and so he does, feeling safe enough to do so. "You said - things neither of us are interested in pursuing. What are those things, for you?"  
  
Erik looks up at the sky, doing his best to put it into words. "You recall I instituted a pause-word for us, the first time. This is not something that I purely expect you to use. There may be situations where I need to pause what is happening to reorient myself, to ensure that what is happening is safe for us both. When one of us is compromised, we are both compromised."  
  
Charles smiles, reaching for Erik's uninjured hand. He grasps it in his, gives it a gentle squeeze. "I trust you, Erik," he promises. "To keep both of us safe. I couldn't do this if I didn't." Something bright and warm is spreading inside of him, something elated. He laughs, leaning against Erik again to steady himself, disbelieving. "I have always needed this," he admits. "Thank you." It's so emphatic that his voice breaks, and he dips his head into Erik's chest to cover it.  
  
He rubs his thumb over the back of Charles's palm, a warm, effusive thread of pleasure humming between them. "May I ask-" he glanced down. "If you have any expectations of me? It is reasonable that you may have some, if I haven't touched on it yet. Your opinion matters."  
  
Charles hums, considering that. "Thank you," he says again, and he's smiling, because he knows there are many who would never think to ask. "I - I know what I said, the first time you put me into subspace. That you shouldn't Order me unless I asked, and I - " It's difficult for him to admit. Charles needs to take a few moments to compose himself. "I don't want it to be like that, Erik. I want to give you that power. But you have to promise me, to swear, that you won't take advantage. You can use your discretion, and I will yield to your decisions, but it cannot be the shortcut to us having a discussion, or the easy way out of an argument. If you use that against me when you know I am wholly unwilling, I will have a hard time forgiving you for it. I need to know that I can trust you won't smother, force me, just because you have the ability to. I need to be able to choose. If I obey you, I want us both to know it's because I chose to. You can make calls, Erik, but if I feel they're wrong, I need to know that I can challenge them." Otherwise it would never work for him, and they both know it.  
  
Erik smiles. "You asked me what I am not interested in pursuing-and I believe you've just answered your own question. Charles-I have no desire to take advantage of you. I cannot-" he looked far away for a moment. "I cannot promise it will never happen-it has happened. I am not perfect, but-that situation was-not ordinary. You are not my puppet. I will always prioritize your consent."  
  
"I know," Charles says, and waits for Erik to look at him again, still smiling softly. "I'm not asking for perfection, Erik. I'm not asking for us to always know how to navigate this. We're not under ordinary circumstances, but your trying means the world to me." He bites his lip again, squeezing tight to Erik's hand. "Do you - we've talked so much of my need, but... will this fulfill yours, too? Will it -" Will it please you? Can I please you?  
  
He raised their joined fingers to his lips and kissed the backs of Charles's knuckles. Without question. Unequivocally.  
  
Unlike Charles, he hadn't spent a lifetime longing for perfect dynamics. There was no time. There were no examples. No hope but the dormice rattled in cages, exposed to pungent odors and strange foods, ripped-apart by their kin. Ah! Adorable creatures until confronted with the unknown. 'Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,' thought Alice; 'only, as it's asleep, I suppose it doesn't mind.'  
  
Everything he had was inverted, records spinning backwards and speech without meaning and lighthouses without lights. Stars without skies and trees without oxygen. How to survive when up is down and down is up? If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrariwise, what it is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be it would. There's only one way to stop a mad-watch. Hammers splintering gears and hands, from color to monochrome and back again.  
  
Instead he found things were-righting. The watch put itself back together. The world's colors dialed back. The skies and the oxygen and the lights and meaning. Forwards and instead of backwards. Very like Charles he didn't think he was typical in his dominance-submerged for so long he had grown comfortable in the opposite, even as it twisted the knife. Less the forks and the neurons.  
  
What he needs, he doesn't know. To be. To be.  
  
 _I am, I am, I am._  
  
Erik's mind is a wonder. Charles has never had trouble following, even as the river flows backwards, even when all of the threads do not immediately connect. It fascinates him in a way that nothing has in so long, thrills him with each new moment of clarity and understanding. Erik is extraordinary, and Charles believes he would be even if his mind were not fractured through necessity. There was pain, and there was the consequence of it, and then there was Erik.  
  
"No more," he promises, and stands up on his toes again, though he doesn't kiss Erik yet. He waits patiently, his desire clear, and smiles brighter than the sun that warms them. "I am yours now, Erik, and things will be as they should be. Be exactly as you are, my love, and you may have everything I am in return." It's a vow, though it takes a moment for him to realize it.  
  
Rituals, he'd been concerned with. It turns out they found their way into their own, as Charles should have known they would.  
  
"That does not sound like a fair trade off," Erik laughed, tugging Charles close to him and rewarding his patience. "For I am receiving the far greater gift," he says against Charles's lips, incredible fondness bubbling up.  
  
In the Escalade, Essex stirs.

* * *

Erik feels the movement of the metal encasing him and reacts on pure instinct, barring his arm out and pushing Charles behind him.  
  
Charles has learned plenty about his own telepathy, about how far exactly he can push at the moment. He knows this is too much. The more he tries, reaching out, out, out, the more pain he's in, the more difficult it is to hold Essex, keep him from using abilities Charles knows he has, because he was prepared before, but not now - He can't speak. Charles falls to his knees, crying out, clutching at his head, but pushing anyway, fully aware that the desperation, the terror, is exploding all around him, projecting outward, coating the beach in white-hot pain. His nose is bleeding again.  
  
Erik kneels to the ground with him and takes his face in hand. Charles-come back to me, his thoughts are quiet in comparison, little-threads pulsing gold in the dark but the dark is overtaking, he can't let it win. They glow stronger. _Come back to me. You can. I know you can._ He Orders it-it's the only thing he can think. _Come back to me._ We will face it.  
  
"No -" Charles gasps, and the agony is so overwhelming he screams, the frustration rolling off of him in waves. He can't lose focus here, he has to go back. He has to be there. But Erik is grounding him, Erik is forcing him back to the surface, back to his body. "Please, I - she's in danger, I need -" Charles can't breathe, the panic is so sharp, completely overtaking him. "I need to protect her." She's miles and miles away, only a blip on his consciousness, he needs to find her -  
  
 _Find her_ , Erik releases him, touching his hair, helping him to his feet. _Find her. I am right here._ He is, but he isn't. He stalks back to the car, rips open the door and yanks Essex out of the driver's side, throwing him to the ground and snapping something sharp and metallic into his hand. He jams it into Essex's throat, the threat clear even if he doesn't verbalize it. _Tell them to let her go or I will end you where you lie._  
  
He can't. She's too far away, and there are too many voices in between, too many minds, all clambering for attention, crawling over each other, the city of New York halfway into its day and bustling with energy and activity and thoughts. Charles gasps, torn apart from the inside as he searches, his mental presence frantic, running, searching, but he's never stretched this far before and the buzzing is too damn loud, impossible to discern. It's too far. "No - please!" He's followed Erik, perhaps instinctually, needs to protect him, too, needs to keep everyone safe - When did he become so useless? What good is he if he can't protect the things that mean the most?  
  
 _ **LET HER GO!**_ Erik screams at Essex in his mind, causing the agent to flinch and his neck where it meets the blade quivers, draws blood.  
  
"She is my insurance," he murmurs at them, slowly moving into a seated position despite his disadvantage, and Charles feels the tightening of mental fingers around Raven's throat relax, but never fully leave. And then they tighten again. "Unless you thought I'd drive all the way out here with a pair of Omega-level mutants lacking leverage. You've taught her some parlor tricks, but that's nothing compared to a dual assault."  
  
Emma, Erik realizes dimly. Emma's there. _No, no, no, no-this-this can't be happening_.  
  
"Drop the knife."  
  
Charles wipes at his face with the back of his hand, but the smeared blood does nothing to help him look and feel anything other than terrified. Still, there's something else. "Let her go," he says, and the words are hard, angry in the cold, quiet way he feels anger. "She has nothing to do with this. If you want my attention, you have it. But let her go, or I promise you won't like what happens next."  
  
"Here is what will happen next," Essex rises to his feet and removes the knife from Erik's lifeless fingers, tossing it aside. "You both could easily kill me where I stand-and you, my friend, could Order me into the ocean. If you do that, my associate will feel it, and you'll be without a sister. Is that what you want?"  
  
Erik's Orders are heavily tied to speech-he's Ordered Charles in the mindspace before but they share a connection and he's tried and it didn't work, they still have her-and now that Essex is awake, his throat has closed up, his words are disappearing and he could fix this, he's supposed to fix this-telepath, he thinks at Charles. He's a telepath.  
  
"That's right. I'm a telepath." Essex taps his temple.  
  
"I know," he says, though he's not sure to who, because he's known for a while. One telepath would be manageable, and certainly had been. It was what he'd been counting on. But two at once is an entirely different story. He can't account for Emma at the same time that he handles Essex. Perhaps if it were just the two of them, if the circumstances were different, but they aren't. Raven is involved, and he can't risk her. Raven. The other day, when she'd rushed into Warren's - Charles knows if he missteps here for even a moment he will lose something. But he and Erik are connected, and Charles knows that he can reach him. It's a dangerous move, but with his thoughts panicked and desperate, he knows what it looks like from the outside, and even to a telepath. He looks cornered. Charles lets him think that. Then he finds Erik, and shields them both. I have an idea, he says, and in this place they are together again, Charles reaching for Erik's hand. He thinks he's won. He's overconfident. He wants to gloat, so we let him. And while he has his defenses down, we endure and we make a move when he is not expecting it. Emma is watching, but with Essex indisposed, I know I can reach her. We only need a moment. They are thinking of him and Erik as separate entities. What they don't know is that they are stronger as the two of them, and nearly unstoppable. Charles will bet on that.  
  
It's much easier for Essex to believe that they're cornered because Erik really is cornered, every muscle fraught with tension like he's a wild animal ready to lash out and rip the agent to shreds-but that won't accomplish anything. Charles is right, they need to be smart, but he is unaccustomed to strategy. He knows how to kill and rage.  
  
"Then you also know that I am not messing around." He picks up the plastic gun and snaps the barrel back, ensuring its loaded. "Both of you, get back in the car. Now, please, I'm not in the mood for torture but I'm sure I can come up with something." He looks between them, applying pressure, worms tendrils into them and separates Charles's hold on Erik's pain, forcing the taller mutant to part his lips in a soundless gasp.  
  
 _I should destroy him_ , Erik thinks in the sheltered-place, dark and furious. Horrified that he is being made an instrument to Charles's obedience in this disgusting manner. Scatter his atoms. Take him apart by molecules, separate the spinning electrons until his DNA unravels like a wet noodle. He can't. He can't. He can't take Raven from Charles just because he doesn't know any better. Emma won't care if he dies. We can't leverage him back.  
  
Charles climbs into the car, wordless and obedient, and stares straight ahead. Every part of his mind is frantic, and he lets it be. He lets his control slip, and manipulates: to Essex, it will look as if he is fumbling, floundering, as if he is helpless. Unable to keep Erik from pain, though he knows he could, unable to protect his own mind. Being underestimated has always been an advantage for him, and now he will use it. In that safe, protected place, the one corner of his mind that Essex can't touch, he holds Erik. No killing, Erik. We do this together, and we do this smart. We face it. He soothes Erik the best he can, keeping them both calm here. There are suppressants in the back, and the jet injectors are metal. He's not immune to them, not at all. His telepathic abilities are far weaker than mine or Emma's.  
  
Erik is placed in the back seat, stretches out and feels for the metal that Charles knows is there, and nods. She will sense when I inject him. She will hurt Raven? Can you stop her from here? I can't-I can't let anything happen to her. They aren't facing one another-Essex has positioned them in their original spots presumably so he can run the car off the road and stage an accident of his own. Erik clutches his arm to his chest, bites his back teeth together to stop his jaws from shivering. Feels the hook and crease and indentation of silver and titanium lifting from their case, preparing themselves for flight.  
  
 _I would never, ever let anything happen to Raven. I would rather die_ , he assures, and every word of it is so fiercely true that he knows he can't fail. The problem was never reaching Raven, it was reaching her with interference. Charles knows her mind like he knows his own, and Raven is not helpless. It will be enough. With the static of Essex gone, he will find her, and Emma will pay for ever considering touching her. I won't be able to focus on anything but fighting Emma off. _You'll need to take care of Essex and the car, but he will be helpless. Please, Erik, no killing. For me._  
  
He's wide-eyed, hunched in on himself, missing the sun and cold from sympathetic overdrive-body swaying faintly from side to side as he thumbs the outer edges of production, protection, assassin. Stills. Essex doesn't notice the needles. Now, Erik says and plunges them into the agent's neck right before he enters the vehicle, forcing him to his knees as he struggles against the drugs in his veins. Erik gets out of the car and forces the gun from him, dropping the magazine to the ground with a singlehanded maneuver and discarding it at his feet.  
  
For Charles, Emmas shrieks against him, digging in to Raven with harpy's claws.  
  
There she is. Charles gasps out loud, his body trembling against the seat, but his mind is determined, fierce, angry in a way that focuses him instead of distracts. He finds Raven, sees the pain and struggle through her eyes, but his attention is on Emma even as he shields her. _Let her go_ , he warns, and there is something deadly there, something most would not think him capable of. Now. Perhaps his words are not Orders, but they are just as unyielding.  
  
Essex hits Erik with a palm strike to the forearm, but he should have guessed the inmate has layers to dive under. Pain the way an oak tree splits under lightning-strikes, burning-fire and distorted concert. Erik's response is to kneel and grab the gun, slam it into the side of Essex's skull, watch blood trickle down. The seatbelt detaches itself by its metal buckle and begins tying the agent up, leaving him bound and helpless in the dirt. Erik watches him, considers, but he has more important things to deal with. He steps away and moves to Charles's side. Bolstering. Present.  
  
Emma snaps up and rears back. Charles may not have honed his fighting, but she has-and she lashes out at him with poisonous edges, even while Raven struggles against her hold, calling up what she remembered from practice. She wouldn't make it easy, but comparatively her mind is like tissue paper and she's kicking uselessly at the door. He can feel Emma's frustration, her panic that this isn't supposed to happen- she was assured that they would handle this-  
  
It's Emma's mind he's fighting against, not her body. Her brain. While Erik has reduced it to a physical space, a world in which he can reach for the tangible, Charles finds he has a different advantage. Getting through Emma's defenses isn't wholly difficult when she's struggling, frustrated, holding onto Raven with sharp claws. But Charles knows brains, and hers is distracted, panicked, and overworked. She knows he is stronger. If he can take away pain, he can give it. Charles grimaces. The recoil is enough to knock the wind out of his chest, and he knows for her it will be unbearable. If he turned Erik's pain down, for her he cranks it all the way up, focusing every bit of attention on holding it. He doesn't like it. Charles is not cruel, not sadistic, but - _I'm only going to ask one more time_ , he tells her, and now he is threateningly calm. _Let go of my sister_.  
  
Her mind is like hands clenched with nerve-pain, and when she does release Raven it's only because it hurts her more to keep a hold on the blue-creature, and as soon as Raven has an opportunity she smashes Emma over the head with a lamp, while she's distracted with electric agony.  
  
 _I got her! I got her!_ he hears the little victory cry in his sister's head-she's not aware of Charles's presence, this is just her own semi-coherent rally, and then Raven's sliding down to the floor, exhausted and asleep. _Night, night, Charles,_ is the last thing she wonders before images of sheep jumping over barns lull her off.  
  
Erik dangerously sways, leaning heavy against the door and nearly falling into Charles when he gets there, vaguely aware that his heart-rate is through the roof and he's sweating and pale, reaching out for Charles with his left hand to touch his face, hoping to help in some way. He sinks to the ground and leans against Charles's hip, half-rested on the open door and the frame of the car, leg bent awkwardly.  
  
 _"Geht es ihr gut?_ " he mumbles, staring up with bright eyes, almost black from dilation and not in a fun way.  
  
Charles can't speak. He's completely, utterly spent, his entire body sagged against the seat. When he leans against Erik's hand, it's entirely unconscious, every muscle in his body unresponsive. There's blood all over his face. Erik, he thinks, and that's all.  
  
Breathing harshly through his nose, Erik forces himself to his feet, against the roiling nausea in his gut, the tightness in his chest. He moves to drag Essex into the back with intense effort made bearable only by his mutation, the snaps around the agent's arms and legs doing more than two out of four good limbs. 

* * *

Erik does not know how to drive. He does not know where they are, or where they are going-but he knows how to make the car move, how to read the GPS embedded in the dashboard and he has never been lost, not ever, and when he focuses and closes his eyes and tries to think through the fresh hell of torture pounding with every throb of his pulse in his wrist and elbow and fingertips-can't help the low moan under his breath, sharp-inhale. Essex is out cold. The car jerks to life, backing onto the road in stop-starts, and Erik's leaned over the wheel unnaturally. Charles comes in and out of awareness and they're amid traffic, people blaring and screaming too-loud, the sun in the sky is warm and radio-static in the background. Erik nearly crashes them into the hospital, driving up onto the sidewalk and through hedges and grass, scraping them off of concrete and skidding to a stop outside the emergency room. He's unconscious by the time nurses accost the vehicle.  
  
Charles is floating. He's aware that there's something on his face - an oxygen mask. There are people all around him, lights and sounds and chaos, but it all fades in and out, useless buzzing he can't focus on for more than a second. Words blend together, his limbs feel like jelly. He can't move, or see. When he wakes up, he's aware that time has passed. His head is bathed in low, seething pain, a steady thrum of it. When he opens his eyes, the light blinds him. He groans against it, turns away, and doesn't try again. Erik? His head explodes into pain at even the attempt, and Charles cries out, completely overcome with it.  
  
Doctors shuffle around, but they don't know what to do in the face of telepathic pain, so mostly they just move back and forth from one end of the room to the other. Consulting charts and vaguely panicking, giving him oxygen and fluids-but Erik isn't there-Charles is in a treatment area separated by a curtain, and effectively alone. "Charles?" a nurse hears him, moves to his side. She knows his name. Maybe Erik told them. "Can you hear me?"  
  
Charles can hear. The pain floods back, tormenting and inescapable, and he hisses against it. He doesn't want to hear them, their minds, but the voices assault him anyway. The noise that escapes him is just as much a helpless whimper as it is a cry of agony. Too much. Static-static-buzzing, the radio turned all the way up on the wrong frequency. He opens his eyes when it passes enough to breathe again, and fights every instinct to sit up, dizzy and nauseated and seeing double. "Where -" He coughs, flinching, and grips tightly to the edges of the bed. "Where - is Erik?"  
  
She's older, with a faint Bajan accent and hair tied up in neat, colorful dreads that contrast with puppy-print scrubs, like she belongs in a pediatrics ward instead of emergency services. She checks his chart and writes something down, moving to take his pulse and wrap a BP cuff around his arm. "Try and calm down, sir," she raises her hands. "Your boy up in psych, he's injured pretty bad. We'll take care of him, don't worry. You're in the hospital. You're both safe."  
  
Your boy - It would be funny if everything wasn't exploding behind his eyes. He sways, sick and useless, and falls back onto the bed, more exhausted than he can ever remember being. The pain almost feels like it's spreading to other parts of him, and he wonders if he isn't a little banged up, too. The exhaustion is almost enough to lull him before he's snapping up again, panicked and frantic. "Other - other man - where?"  
  
"Agent Essex is alive, don't worry," the nurse hushes him. "He hasn't regained consciousness yet, but we fully expect him to. We've already started prisoner precautions, and put in a call to the CIA's satellite office up here. Erik-? Isn't going anywhere, don't worry."  
  
"No, that's -" He grunts and forces himself to stay upright even as every molecule of his body screams out in protest. "Listen - to me," he gasps, and swallows back the nausea. "Agent Essex is very dangerous. You need to keep the suppressants in his system, do you understand? Tell your doctors that now." Perhaps he's a bit brusque and demanding, but considering the nuclear explosions happening in his brain at the moment, he thinks it might be fair. "And - and I need a phone. Please. It's urgent." He left his by his jacket. Along with his socks and shoes, he realizes, which is the least of his problems.  
  
She just laughs. "All right, all right, hold your horses. I got your phone right here." She retrieves it from her pocket and holds it over. Listen, she is an ER nurse, there isn't anything Charles could say to make her hurry her ass up. She has a radio on her belt and she presses down on the button. "Hi, I'm going to need a security officer to Agent Essex's room. That's 4011, yes. We've got a possible situation-" she covers the receiver. "He's a mutant, you mean? He's on power suppressors right now?"  
  
"Yes, he's a mutant, and he's -" Charles wonders what the likelihood is that he gets out of this without vomiting, which is quickly becoming one of his least favorite activities. Not that he supposes it was fun before. He's not thinking straight. "Dangerous. He's dangerous." The phone is a relief. Charles is thankful for his photographic memory, or this would be much more difficult, though it still takes him staring at it for a few long, frustrating minutes before he can recall Moira MacTaggert's private number. "Moira," he says the moment the line clicks into a connection, skipping the formality. "I need you to listen to me, p -" Damn it. Charles swallows down the sickness, and tries again. "Please." She's likely the only one who will.  
  
The nurse says something extra to the security line and gives him a nod, letting him have  
his phone call. "Charles? What's going on?" Moira usually isn't one for first names, but she's already heard the news and she can hear, further, the panic in his voice. "Are you all right?"  
  
"Fine." Mostly. That part is irrelevant, so he forces down the pain - which is really bordering on unbearable now, someone should work on those telepathic analgesics - and takes a deep breath. He doesn't know the story, but he's positive it wasn't in favor of Erik. "It wasn't an accident. Essex - he's a mutant, and the reason Erik's arm is broken. He's coming after us." The _he_ isn't specific, but Moira will keep up. He means Shaw. "Every shred of evidence will point to that. You need to trust me here. Please."  
  
Moira is silent for a very long time-well to Charles she's silent for a long time, an interminable amount of time, an unbearable amount of time. He becomes faintly aware of clacking on a keyboard. "It shows here-Nathaniel's last place of employment was-OK," she makes a snap decision. "OK. I'm going to call the hospital and advise them to keep him contained and suppressed. Uniforms are on their way." It was protocol.  
  
"Thank you," he gasps, because it will make every difference. Shaw is misstepping, fumbling in every direction. All he's managed to do is give Erik's defense more weight, and around the throbbing, seizing pain, he has it in him to feel smug. "Excuse me while I pass out," he tells her, hangs up the phone, and does exactly that.


	12. I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye I

When Charles wakes up next, he notices a very blue, _Very Lorge Hank_ in the chair next to his bed, reading the NEJM with a pair of wire-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose. He glances over when Charles stirs and bares his teeth in a fang-toothed grin. "I see you've rejoined us in the Land of the Living."  
  
"Don't remind me," he grunts, and doesn't attempt to sit up. The pain is better, at least, and he can open his eyes without seeing double and wanting to vomit, so he considers that progress. Hank is a sight for sore eyes, too, and even weakly, he manages to return the grin. "Raven -?" he asks, slightly panicked, but he knows if Hank is here, she's safe. "Ugh. Hank, please, I have a very important task for you - telepathic analgesic. It will only be useful to a small percentage of the population, but I will pay you any amount for it."  
  
"She's all right," he patted Charles's leg. "She's been sleeping on-and-off since the incident, but she's healthy, and happy. She sent me to spy on check-up on you." He winced sympathetically. "Raven's had a migraine as well. Given all of the telepathic cavorting you two seem to be doing, perhaps I ought to invest in a telepathic analgesic. To be administered to myself, at will, when you two get yourselves into trouble."  
  
"I really don't think getting ourselves into trouble is fair," he argues, except it absolutely is. Hank should expect it by now, though, and if trouble wasn't on his agenda, he involved himself with the wrong pair of siblings. "How long was I out? Is -" They haven't talked about it personally, for many reasons on Charles' side of things, but he knows Hank is very much aware of who's he concerned for. "Well, catch me up to speed," he saves.  
  
"Well, they've arrested Nathaniel Essex," Hank says with a slight eyeroll. "Unfortunately Emma Frost managed to vacate the premises before she could be apprehended. They have no proof other _than_ Raven's word, but they're looking for her. She's a known associate, so that's put a wrinkle in things, I believe. They wouldn't discuss Lehnsherr's case with me-apparently I'm not need to know. Hmph."  
  
Charles winces as he fights to sit up, but the room isn't spinning as violently as it was last time. He'll take it. "He's probably still being treated." He doesn't even try to keep the concern out of his voice, sighing and running a hand through his hair. Instinctively, he reaches out, ignoring the ache, his mental presence seeking through the building for Erik's bright spot. Still, when he can manage it, he grins at Hank, even distracted. "I left my suit jacket, shoes, and phone on a beach somewhere. They're worth about, oh, a couple grand. I think we also destroyed a CIA vehicle, but that part's less important."  
  
Erik is awake and not happy at all. Charles gets the vague impression that the unit psychologist has been trying to talk to him for hours, to no avail, while having metal objects hurled in their general direction and being glared at by secret service guys wearing earpieces. They finally just locked him in the observation room and left him be, where he's curled up in the corner of the wall holding his arm protectively and trying to concentrate and reach Charles through their connection. His relief is palpable when he finally feels Charles on the other side.  
  
"Less important than your suit jacket?" Hank snorts. "Your priorities, they're impressive-and not for the reasons you think. You've been out for a while," he adds in answer to Charles's first question. "About four hours or so."  
  
"Excuse me, Hank," he says, suddenly very distracted, "I have a call on the other line." He taps his temple, and it's not at all a funny joke. The effort was made. 

* * *

_Erik?_ Charles feels out the situation, his own relief considerable. The last time he saw Erik wasn't at all promising. _Erik, are you alright?_  
  
The answer is a whirlwind of sensations and emotions- _confusion pain grief-relief frustration heart-monitor beeping people talking asking questions dreaming, sand under his toes and sun in the sky and hands holding hands. Hard to breathe, hard to think, everything's white. Danger worried where's Essex, concern concern concern._  
  
Charles winces, both in sympathy and in pain, and focuses a bit harder. He wraps both he and Erik up in his mind, where it's safe and warm, and reaches for Erik's hand. The sun is shining for them now. Erik was so beautiful in the sunlight, his eyes brighter than Charles has ever seen them. _We're okay, darling,_ he soothes, and kneels by Erik in their safe place. _Essex is taken care of, and both Raven and I are safe. Breathe for me, please? Breathe, there we are. We're perfectly okay. You protected us._  
  
The force of Erik's response is a crushing tidal wave of warmth and wonder. Slightly careless with relief, he buries his hand in Charles's hair. Keeps him close. _Emma Frost? Raven is okay? Yes, Raven is okay. There's a monster by Charles's bed. The monster is reading the New England Journal of Medicine. Charles, there's a monster by your bed. He's drinking orange juice out of a straw._  
  
Charles laughs at that, perfectly willing to let Erik fuss over him. It's a relief, actually, a comfort he finds he needs, and he does the mental equivalent of crawling into Erik's lap. _Oh, that's Hank. He's a very friendly, very harmless monster, and also Raven's husband. She sent him here to play babysitter in her absence, and make sure we don't hijack any more CIA vehicles._  
  
Erik sits beside him and hugs him. _What will happen to them now? They think he did this? Is Charles in trouble_? Little frissons of panic try to climb out of the well, but Erik's exhaustion disengages their fingers and they're not very intimidating, they spiral down into the stone- _darkness, a pile of baby ducklings honking indignantly and biting at everyone they come across. They've got oil stuck in their wings, oil in the well and he's stuck in the well and the oil is rising_. Hank is delightful! It's no secret that Erik's fondness for people increases along a proportional axis to their visible mutation. _No more monster-talk. Someone's banging on the door. Go away, go away._  
  
Charles sighs. Erik has such an extraordinary, beautiful mind, but it's so very fragmented. It's something Charles believes will heal with time - it's necessity and pain that makes it so, and comfort and joy that seems to unravel it - but now, with him physically separated, it's a bit difficult. He wiggles out of Erik's hold, resettling them until he can cup both of Erik's cheeks. _Erik, love,_ he thinks, and there's so much affection there it might as well be dripping with it. _No one blames you. They know what Essex did, and we are both okay. But you need to talk to the doctors. You need to let them help you. How can you take care of me if you aren't well yourself?_ It's playing a little dirty and he knows it, but desperate times and all that. I'll be here the entire time, of course. Actually, I'd prefer you not to go. There's a spike of his own panic there, though he attempts to stamp down his own needs. It doesn't work. It's not in words, but the sentiment is clear anyway: _please don't leave me._  
  
He shakes his head, but Charles can tell it's not a refusal-it's not a rejection or even a form of dissent. His lips press together and he stares back, wide-eyed, reaches out to touch Charles's cheek with gentle fingertips. No, no. He won't leave. Charles is sutures for the mind and time and the sun is good, Charles is good. Peace is an option here, when they touch. People are talking to him. Tell us your name. _Do you know where you are. How old are you._ Erik must be a bird, he's as crazy as the loons. ( _The boy is a bad, bad bird/he falls out of trees._ )

* * *

"Everything all right?" Hank wonders, watching Charles thoughtfully.  
  
"Erik is having a bit of trouble," he sighs, and he knows he must be visibly frustrated. There's only so much he can do from this hospital bed, and while Erik won't become violent - he's not the mindless, insane monster anyone thinks he is - he does fear misunderstandings. To put it lightly. "He's... fragile, sometimes, and very easily triggered." _Erik_ , he says, in that safe space. _You need to come back. I know it's difficult, but I need you to try. Can you try for me?_  
  
"Hm," Hank says, and it's in the tone of voice that suggests Raven has already told him to tone down the judgmental but he's a physician, too. He, more than Raven, more than Warren, more than anyone else in Charles's life understands the stakes. Charles isn't the first doctor to fall in love with his patient, but-he's seen Erik. It's hard to believe that this is in any way healthy, for either of them. "Are the people on that floor safe?" he has to ask. "There is a lot of metal in here."  
  
Come back. Yes, he can come back. The lights are harsh and his eyes blink open at the ceiling and they're smiling at him, encouraging. He's on a mattress, and it makes him smile back, but his amusement is far more sardonic. They must sense some sanity, because they start talking, but he does not respond. When they ask him questions he blinks _yes-no-maybe-so_. It's nicer to stay with Charles, so he goes there again. _Are you in pain?_ is his first verbal-coherent thought.  
  
Charles is in two places at once, and it's becoming more difficult with each passing second. Unlike Erik's injuries, his are far more subtle, but no less there. He's been pushing, and pushing, and pushing, and he knows eventually he will snap, like a rubberband stretched too far. He purses his lips, unable to ignore Hank's thoughts. "He's not deranged, Hank," he sighs. "And I appreciate your input, but you haven't seen Erik." _No_ , he lies, and shields that pain, though he wonders if Erik will know anyway. _Please, Erik, you need to cooperate. For me._ There's frustration there, but it isn't directed at Erik.  
  
It's not a willful lack of cooperation, although the doctors surrounding him don't know that. He just can't. He's alone, the words stick to his throat. When he opens his mouth nothing comes out. It is a far greater privilege, and comfort, to speak to Charles instead in this safe-place between them. _Please don't lie,_ Erik replies, trying to soothe with his mental presence, but intimately aware that this may be the thing that pushes Charles too-far too-fast, so he gently gathers him up and kisses him on the forehead. _It's okay_ , he says, and that's not a lie, not exactly. _We're safe. You need to rest. I will stay with you._  
  
"I never said he was deranged," Hank contradicted with a smile. "Fear can make people do things they wouldn't, ordinarily. That agent, MacTaggert, stopped by as well. I believe she's still in the building. She asked me to give you her regards."  
  
Charles sinks into the bed, groaning. He's sweating, but he knows it's not particularly hot in this room. "I should speak with her," he says, but doesn't make any move at all to do so, drained and still disoriented. "Hank, how much of a fool do you consider me?" he asks, and it's not pointed. The question is genuine, his voice only a whisper. In the space in between, Charles bolsters himself with that affection, willing to let it be what it is. I'm sorry, Erik, he thinks, and he means it, because hiding from Erik has never done either of them good. I'm sorry, I - I'm sorry. He's unsteady again, shaken, and he doesn't know where to find his footing. He doesn't want to hurt Erik with his pain. He doesn't want to admit how much he's struggling in the face of Erik's struggle, admit how his mind is all twisted up as well, though not in the same way. He teeters, confused and frustrated, and buries himself in Erik's chest. I'm sorry.  
  
"Not that much of a fool at all, to be honest," Hank said mildly. "Why do you ask?"  
  
It's all right, is the immediate answer. You're all right. Erik closes his eyes, sinks back into the bed, lets the voices of the doctors wash over him and through him. Sinking under the ocean of them. They give him a tray. He picks up a slice of dry, room-temperature cantaloupe and eats it mechanically. They write down in his chart that he's unresponsive and wheedle some more. Ignores them. Eats a blueberry. His desire for Charles to look after himself is paramount, the most-forward thing. Charles is confused. He's frustrated and upset. Opens his eyes, picks up a few marbles and puts them back in place. Be easy. There is no reason to panic. What we will do is this. You will ask the doctor to bring you some food and water and you will eat and drink. Then you will speak with Moira and tell her what is going on. When you are done speaking with her you will get some rest. I will be with you the entire time. The resurgence of his Will bolsters him, and stability returns, a feedback loop through their connection. Does that sound like something you can do?  
  
"I - " Charles has experienced what he would professionally diagnose as a panic attack only a handful of times in his life, all of them alone, all of them while under immense amounts of stress. First when he discovered his telepathy. Next when he was a teenager, for reasons he does not recount. A few times in med school, though less notably, while worked to the bone, studying for two degrees, and running on empty without sleep and proper food. During times he craved submission and could not give it, though he supposes that would count as subdrop, which for him is so similar it may as well be a negligible difference - Regardless of what it is, his chest is heaving, and he cannot possibly get enough air into his lungs. The room is spinning, and everything is slowed down, sluggish and overly bright and splashed with radio static again. Voices are too loud, and there is so much pain he's unclear whether it is his or not. His hand covers his mouth, as if he can push it all back in. I'm sorry, he repeats, _Yes, Erik, yes, I'll - I'm sorry_ \- He lied. Erik told him not to lie, and he lied. He's a horrible submissive, there's nothing to excuse him. _I'm sorry, I'll - yes, I will - yes, I'm sorry._ It's barely strung together, and he knows there is nothing hidden from Erik now. His mind becomes a frantic pulse of pain-fear-frustration-panic-bad and he clenches tight to the hospital blanket covering him. _Don't worry_. But when he opens his mouth, only gasps for air come out.  
  
 _Charles_. It's an Order, a strange one-if a person's name could be an Order. An instant grab of attention, and somehow Erik is there. Inside his mind, across the barrier. Somewhere on the outside orderlies are shocked to discover all the metal implements in the observation room are levitating. _Calm your mind. I asked you to be honest with me, and you were. I need you to focus on my voice._ He takes Charles's face in his hand, kneeling to the ground where he's curled up in some dark recess. _I want only for you to care for yourself. And I know that you will, won't you?_  
  
The air whooshes back into his lungs, though it's painful and ragged, though it hurts and aches. _Yes, Erik,_ he answers, and this time he can mean it. He clings to Erik's presence, uncertain exactly of what's happening, but knowing that he wants to do as he's told. Erik wants him to breathe, to be calm, and so he will. Erik wants him to take care of himself, and so he will. Charles knows Hank is concerned, but he evens out his breathing. The pain doesn't fade, and neither does all of the panic, but he focuses. When the nurse comes to ask him if he's alright, he tells her he is, he smiles politely, he requests his own tray of food. He assures Hank. Inwardly, he grasps as tightly to Erik as he can, seeking.  
  
 _Good. I am here. You are all right. You wanted to protect me. I understand the urge. You haven't done anything wrong. Now we know the truth, and we can work to ensure you are taken care of._ He kisses Charles's forehead, gathers him close and does his best to shield him in warmth that chases away the encroaching dark. There is no part of him that gives Orders simply because he expects to be obeyed. _You remember what I told you on the beach_ , he murmurs, rubbing Charles's back in rhythmic patterns. _I will not punish you for rational behavior. You certainly needn't punish yourself._ Frightened nurses try to approach him with syringes made of metal that he deflects and bends away. Everyone's getting antsy.  
  
"Charles, do you need me to call someone in here?" Hank worries, frowning deeply.  
  
Somewhere far away, Charles is aware of what's happening around Erik, too. It hurts to focus too hard, but he focuses anyway, even as he curls himself as tightly into Erik as possible. Erik, they're afraid, he says, gently, but he doesn't want anything but Erik's hands on him. Please, it's okay. You don't have to - I'm okay. He sucks in a breath at Hank's worry, and forces a smile. "I'm alright, Hank," he promises, because he did not swear to Hank that he wouldn't lie. "Just - a bit -" He thinks it might be a submissive thing, and that Hank might be the best person to talk to, but there's no way he can broach the subject. He swallows it instead. "I still have a migraine, that's all. Nothing to worry over."  
  
"That wasn't a migraine, Charles," Hank tuts, raising his eyebrows. More than anything, Hank is probably the most relatable submissive Charles knows. Although he is quiet he isn't meek by any definition (just look at him-most people assume Raven's the submissive until they see her cufflinks), but Charles knows he's a lot more confident in his submission, and open about it, than he was at any point during their friendship. "You know I'm here if you need to talk." It's kind, but not cloyingly so.  
  
Erik is firmly entrenched in Charles's mind, and he isn't distressed here. He's present, and lucid, a solid voice to ground him. What's happening on the outside is vague. It does not match. People are shouting, trying to reach him. They're being buffeted back (gently, but firmly) by an invisible force. The door to his isolation room slams shut. Trays and instruments spilled on the floor outside. Bent syringes all around him. Radios sound off. _We need security up here-_  
  
 _I know you are,_ Erik just tells him, serene. _I know. We are okay. Together._ _That is what you said, is it not? We face this together. I think-it might help, you know. If you wish to speak with Han_ k. It's not an Order, or even a suggestion, but more an offering.  
  
Erik - He's spread too thin. He's worried, and still panicked, and everything is too much. The pain, the reminder of where it comes from, Erik's situation, his own creeping insecurity. It overwhelms him, even as he uses Erik's voice to ground himself, even as he clings to it as tightly as he can. "Hank," he gasps, and both hands are in his hair, pulling, tugging, as if he thinks that might somehow help. "I think - like a sub drop -" It's the closest explanation he has, but not quite. He wasn't in subspace, not that he knows of, but what he's feeling is definitely close to what he felt after the first time. He's sick with it, torn up inside, and he doesn't know how to fix it.  
  
Hank nods. "It's chaotic, right now," he says. "I'm assuming you weren't in subspace before this happened. I think-" he studies Charles carefully. "You were both attacked by a lunatic, Charles. You need time to process that, and you're not getting it. If his stability is compromised, that will contribute to your sense of groundlessness. It doesn't help that you're separated. Do you think it might help if you went up there?"  
  
"Well, yes, but." He shakes his head, sucks in a breath, and lets it go again after he counts backwards. Breathing exercises, like he might give to a patient. "I'm not sure if that's possible. And we'd need to be alone, and I'm especially unsure about that being possible." Unless he manipulates the situation. He could do it, he thinks, but the resulting migraine would not be pleasant.  
  
"It might not be," Hank grants, "but I'd say it's infinitely more likely that you'd feel better if you were there. You're his-" he's unable to hide the very faint grimace, but he continues valiantly. Their society prizes things more than simple delineations of role, after-all. "Attending psychiatrist. You can get them to back off him, if they're contributing to his unease. That will trickle back to you-and if he calms down, they might very well let him alone either way."  
  
Hank is right. Hank is also someone whom he does not give enough credit, and he smiles gratefully, ignoring his own crawling skin when he pats him on the shoulder. "I owe you lunch," he promises, and though he'd actually love to have a conversation about this, now is not the time. 

* * *

Getting upstairs is surprisingly simple, but he supposes everyone is on edge enough that it would be. Erik is barricaded when he reaches the floor, and while they warn him, he waves it off. Erik will not hurt him. Their connection hasn't broken, merely gone a bit silent, and he thinks that's because Erik knows he's here - the door opens for him, and he steps closer. "Erik," he breathes, and his knees are suddenly weak, as if he wants to fall to them. He attempts to steady himself. "I'm here." They're watching, he warns, though Erik already knows. But I - I needed... And Erik needs him too, he thinks. It's easier to breathe, not several floors separated.  
  
Erik remains just as taciturn, just as obstinate in the Real as his hospital-captors expect, but for Charles, in his mind, there is a burst of color and light that resembles a smile and he straightens up from the wall, chin lifted to take a deep breath. He looks immediately better for Charles's presence, like the color has returned to his face, rooted. Stable. *Are you OK?* he asks, fighting the urge to go to his side, to touch him. He's in an _observation room_. He is being _observed_.  
  
 _Hospital-captors_. Charles sighs, and steps forward, very aware that there are many eyes on them. He can't touch Erik, but he gets as close as possible, and finds that simply being nearer, sharing physical space, eases some of the sharp panic. I'm okay, he promises, and smiles. _Better now. Also, this floor is very cold and no one said anything about me not wearing socks. I understand you needed more care and no one knows what to do with my brain, but no socks? Quality of care is truly on the decline_. It's a joke, and he's grateful he can make it. That he can breathe, now that he's in front of Erik, though there are many things he wants to do at the moment that he can't, most of them involving him on his knees. He settles for a few feet apart, up on his toes, because the floor really is cold.  
  
Erik can't help it-they think he's crazy anyway. He touches Charles's elbow and pushes him, with infinite gentleness, onto the mattress that lays in the center of the floor. It's a poor substitute for socks, but at least his feet aren't freezing anymore. Everyone moved when they saw Erik about to touch him, to put hands on him-but he backs away quickly and lets the situation settle. No one's being hurt. Everything is fine. It's the only thing he can really do to take care of Charles at this second, and it's silly, but he smiles very faintly in the Real.  
  
Charles laughs, too, and crosses his legs on the mattress. _Thank you, you've saved my poor feet_ , he teases, but there's genuine gratitude there. Erik is taking care of him, in the only way he's currently capable of. Erik is here, and not in danger. Erik is - Charles chews on his bottom lip. _Are you - angry with me?_ He knows Erik isn't, rationally, but that panic from before unsettles him. It's farther away now, but for a moment it claws at his chest, and he needs Erik to put it to rest.  
  
Erik sits on the floor on the opposite side, resting his hands on the mattress as though that were a substitute for placing them on Charles. _No_ , he mouths, shaking his head. _No. Of course not. You are wonderful, Charles._ He's seated with his back to the door, expression not visible to the hospital-captors, so he looks up and smiles.  
  
Something pulled taut inside of Charles relaxes, and he takes a long, slow breath. When it's exhaled, he smiles again, this time more freely. There's still the edge of panic and a sharp dose of pain, but it's much more bearable now. Hank was right. _They're very nervous about us sitting here silently_ , he points out, and he can't help but grin. _I won't lie, it's a little amusing._ But Erik is clearly calmer, too. They're back in orbit, the way it should be, and Charles has to fight everything in him not to lean as close as possible, to seek affection and praise. Your eyes are a different color in sunlight, he thinks, and then flushes, not enough to notice through an observation window, but enough that he knows Erik will see it.  
  
Erik laughs out loud, a soft huff that barely qualifies, and his fingers trace patterns in the bare mattress like they would trace patterns on Charles's skin if permitted. _They mean well_ , he thinks. Thus far they haven't hurt him. They tried to inject him but he rained down the bent little syringes and they're on the floor near the wall, swept-away so no one could step onto a needle-point and hurt themselves. He can't trace that flush with his hands so he does with his eyes instead, warm. Everything is softer, now, in his mind. Quieter, easier. _What color, do you think?_  
  
His eyes don't wander, stuck on Erik's face, but his awareness does. _Are you in pain, Erik?_ he asks, and aches, because he knows the answer. His injuries look like they were at least looked at, but Charles doesn't like that they're there at all, and when the light hits it the right way, he realizes there's a bruise on Erik's cheek that must have been from the brief struggle. His fingers twitch on the mattress, wanting to gently inspect, to will it away. He's frowning. Even still, the question makes him put aside his fretting for just a moment. Biting his lip again, he thinks of an old memory. A vacation to an island, though he's too young to remember which - it's an old, old memory, before his mutation manifested, where everything is always a bit muddled. Charles is fascinated with the water of the ocean, with how bright and pretty it is. He stares, utterly mesmerized, leans too close and falls in, but his chubby, child legs tread, and the tide is calm and smooth. He wants to keep his eyes open so he can see, spend forever in cool green. It's nothing like the murky grey-blue of the water at home, and he thinks it's infinitely better. _Like that,_ he says, and even his mental voice is quieter, shy.  
  
Something about that memory makes Erik duck his head, like he hadn't expected a real answer-or expected a silly answer to his very silly question, but it's-honest, of course it's honest, and there's nothing alluring about self-consciousness but it's-with Charles, it's there, now-because it's the first time he's been regarded as anything other than what-he-was. Much the same way that Charles cannot help but see himself as Erik sees him-and find it just-this-side of unrealistic, but you can't deny the truth when it's inside someone's head, when they're so-close-he has never been seen the way Charles sees him. It makes his chest seem too-big, and he doesn't think there is anything he would trade for that feeling. _It doesn't bother me_ , he replies, not a lie, but truth-softened.  
  
Charles doesn't like that Erik is in pain, though, and if he's honest, knowing it's there only bolsters his own. It's something about their connection now, where everything seems to be shared. He focuses for just a moment, wincing at the effort, and smiles triumphantly when it works. This time he doesn't turn the pain off, just very low. If he couldn't stop it from happening, protect Erik from it, at least he can do this. Erik, he thinks after a moment, and there's a sheepish, embarrassed grin on his lips, along with the flush from before. _There are a group of medical professionals watching us through a glass window, and I really, truly can't stop thinking about getting on my knees for you._ Best to be honest. Erik did say he expected it of him, and the very least it will earn him a laugh.  
  
The combination of pain relief and Charles's statement has Erik covering his mouth with the back of his hand to avoid actively dissolving into undignified laughter, leaving only his eyes visible, crinkled in abject amusement. _I suppose it would not be a point for my sanity if I indulged myself in that manner_ , he returned archly, and he savors it for a moment before steeling himself. _Is this harmful to you? Getting rid of-?_  
  
 _No_ , he answers honestly. Seeing Erik holding back laughter distracts him, warms him with a steady hum of pleasure because he did that. Erik is pleased with him. Everything is alright. It doesn't require any concentration once it's done. Neither does talking like this. He's definitely in pain, and he definitely needs to go a bit easier on pushing his own limits, but that's unrelated, and also something he knows he won't do. If anything, now that he knows there's real danger, he'll only push himself harder. Charles grimaces, hoping Erik didn't catch that particular thought.  
  
 _Charles_ , he shakes his head. The buzz of that is cramped and sharp. _I know that we are facing the enemy, but you cannot push yourself past reason. If you are vulnerable, you will be targeted. You could be seriously hurt. You cannot_ \- a cold spike of dread slices through his gut and he tenses, biting down on his teeth to stop himself shivering.  
  
The last thing he wants is for Erik to worry, and especially to suffer. Charles frowns, sighing, and nods his head. _I won't push too far, Erik. I promise_. He's right, besides. If he's drained and weak by the time an actual attack comes, he won't stand a chance. _I won't get hurt. I'll keep myself safe for you._ Erik's distress is twice as poignant to him now, and it rolls around in his own stomach, twisting it up again. _Please don't be disappointed_ , slips before he can stop it, and he swallows, cheeks hot with shame.  
  
 _Not disappointed_ , he assures, closing his eyes and marshaling himself. _You cannot underestimate him-you cannot pursue him on your own-you must promise me you will not._  
  
Charles nods, and his hand stretches out for a moment, seeking, before he remembers where they are. To an onlooker, it could have been an idle movement, nothing anyone would catch. He links their hands mentally instead. _I promise, Erik_ , and it's solemn, honest. _I won't. Please, don't be afraid. We will be okay._  
  
 _OK_ , he mouths, and tries to smile. He looks about four million percent better than he did when Charles first walked in, primarily because they couldn't get any morphine into him and he'd been in excruciating agony for hours as a result. Now that it's been muted almost to the point of nothing, he looks about ready to fall asleep, peering at Charles through eyes like slits. He's almost laying over the edge of the mattress, blinking slowly. But he remembers there's something else to tell Charles and with great effort, recalls, _They think I need surgery. I am sorry. I didn't mean to make your life so difficult._  
  
 _Technically, I made your life difficult_ , he points out, and smiles gently. Charles doesn't resent Erik, and he never could, not for these reasons. The news does make him sigh, though. _You won't let them?_ _Erik, you need to heal. I don't want you to hurt._ He can numb the pain like this, make it go away, but as long as there is an underlying problem it will always come back. The last thing he wants is for it to cause more permanent damage. _What if I am there the entire time? Will you not let them help you?_  
  
He nods. _I must. I can't_ \- he's ashamed, and clears his throat, squaring his shoulders. _I cannot endure this indefinitely._  
  
 _I know you can't,_ and it isn't to shame him. Charles scoots just a tiny bit closer, enough that no one will notice but them. Their eyes have all but wandered anyway, bored with their seemingly silent, but peaceful conversation. _You are not weak because you aren't invincible, Erik. We both need to remember that._ He grins, just a little, and shakes his head. _I will be here the entire time. You won't feel any pain. It's a promise._  
  
 _I do not know how_ \- he admits. The idea is enough to make him almost vomit, and he presses his hand back against his mouth for a different reason. _I'm afraid_. Not of surgery, but of what he would do to a room full of people who tried.  
  
Charles bites his lip. It bothers him, too. Suppressants won't work, no matter how much they pump into his system, and everything vaguely metal seems to react regardless of whether he wants it to when he feels too much fear or pain. The anesthetic is what seems to panic him most, and so - _What if you stayed with me?_ he asks. He taps his temple, holds it there as he thinks, humming. _If you start to react, I can stop it. Turn it off. I'll keep you from feeling pain, so you won't need to be under. And we can stay somewhere nice and safe. Play chess, or any number of things that are far better than being in an operating room._  
  
 _Is that feasible?_ is the first thing he asks. _I do not want you to tax yourself just because-of my-ailment. You have just been through an extensive ordeal. Your mind is still recovering-I can feel it._  
  
 _Actually, you seem to expedite the healing process._ It's not a lie. Charles opens up more of his mind for Erik, careful not to overwhelm him - the buzzing, dizzying sensation is still there, everything more blurry and static than usual, but the deep, unbearable ache from before is nearly gone. He plays it back to the moment he steps closer to Erik. _It turns out you were my telepathic analgesic all along, Erik. I prescribe myself a healthy dose of you_ , he teases, and, knowing no one is watching any longer, he winks.  
  
It brings a silent laugh to him again, and he checks over his shoulder before giving Charles's hand a squeeze, quick-because he simply can't stop himself from reaching out any longer-and he drops it before a nurse can poke her head in. "Everything all right in here?"  
  
Charles looks up and smiles, perfectly polite. "Yes, we're quite alright. Erik was just telling me how he's ready and willing to have surgery, as long as a few conditions are met. Particularly regarding the use of anesthetic, but I do have an alternative." The nurse balks at that, and he laughs before she can ask, the gesture entirely too familiar to him as he taps his own temple. "Telepath. Sorry about that, I know it looks odd, but I think we've got things sorted out. Erik meant no harm."  
  
He hears the nurse's reaction before she says anything, the static skipping until it makes what are vaguely thoughts and feelings. There's fear, certainly, but also coldness. She saw Erik's face on the TV. She thinks he deserves worse than what he's got. _It figures his shrink is a genetic reject, too. Probably just as much of a whackjob. I wonder if he can read my thoughts, which ones can do that? Freaks are above my pay grade_ , she grumbles. "I'll get the doctor," she says out loud, and smiles.  
  
Charles smiles back. "Thank you," he says, not a hint of upset. On the inside, his heart sinks into his stomach. Freak, rolls around in his head, the way it does every time he hears it  
  
Erik on the other hand looks ready to kill. He jumps to his feet and makes to stalk over to her, outside the door of the now-open isolation room.  
  
 _Erik_ , he calls, and then, "Erik," for good measure, rising to his own feet. He's gentle as he catches Erik by the elbow, not holding him back, not pulling, simply to ground him. _Erik, peace. She's a frail woman in her sixties, not the enemy. But we can change her mind. We can show her another path, and we will. But not like this. Come back to me, please._  
  
The door of the isolation room slams shut behind her, causing the nurse to jump and Erik to relax back into Charles. His equivalent of shouting _boo!_ It was probably the wrong thing to do, because now even more people are crowding in, believing there was some sort of security situation-which isn't helped by the woman's shaken insistence that _that thing-that man in there-did it_.  
  
Charles sighs. He understands the frustration, but tension is high, and the last thing they need is men with plastic guns. _I will be right back, but I am not truly leaving,_ he assures, and gives the mental equivalent of a kiss on a cheek as he leaves the room to speak quietly to the nurses and doctors. They are psychiatric nurses up here, so he's a bit put out that he needs to explain things like triggers and PTSD, as if the concepts would change at all for a mutant, and it takes quite a lot of convincing to go along with his idea - _you want to do what_ \- but mostly they just seem pleased that they're not going to be in danger during the operation. He lies and says anesthetic doesn't work on Erik, anyway.

* * *

When he comes back into the room with Erik, things have calmed down some. Charles had been starting to feel a little sick, but that's immediately remedied when he steps back into Erik's orbit. All done, he promises. Mostly. We have some time before surgery, they're going to do security checks Also, that nurse you startled out of her wits is attending to another patient, and the one currently watching us through the window is a mutant. Total coincidence, I just happened to notice on the way in and thought you'd like to know. She doesn't think anyone knows, certainly. She's kept it a secret her entire life. Charles frowns, stepping as close as he can to Erik again. His bleeding heart is showing. I suppose I can't blame her.  
  
Erik's consciousness before, engulfed metal structures, twisting and blazing with black-rage smoke, reaching sticky fingers down into your throat. Choking you with it. Setting your insides to ash. (A small comfort could perhaps be gleaned-that his temper's never truly been directed at Charles in comparison.) When Charles shows him about the mutant on the other end of the observation window, Erik blinks away tears. "Gen-" the words die.  
  
The woman who enters the floor is a psychiatrist named Gabrielle Haller, who speaks fluent Hebrew and works as a patient advocate and security officer. She is also someone from Charles Xavier's past, with whom they are intimately acquainted. "Hi there," she greets Charles. "A pleasure to see you again, Dr. Xavier." Then she fixes Erik with a sunny smile. " _Ma kara, Erikleh_ ," she greets the way one would a cornered animal. She holds out her hands and incites him from the corner. She's not a mutant, and there are guards at the door waiting for Erik to act up. " _Tukhal ledaber iti_?" He shook his hand. Charles knows he can talk. Has even spoken to Carmen and Raven. Carmen had thought it was intentional. "He speaks to you, though," Gabrielle looks at Charles thoughtfully. They're like Shaw, Erik rails mentally. Please-  
  
This is not how he expected this day to go. The sun is barely setting, and Charles is thoroughly exhausted. He has patience, endless patience, and even more of it for Erik, but that isn't the issue here. The issue here is that he is quickly reaching his own limits, and whatever instability is shaking between them, he feels it so deeply inside of himself that it's a physical ache, a sickness. Charles has always felt an amount of secondhand, but he has never been so connected to someone as he is to Erik. Not on this level. "Yes," he agrees, and perhaps if Erik only spoke to him after coaxing, it would make sense to him. But he had spoken right away. _You are a telepath_ , he'd said, loud and clear, perfectly verbal. Charles steps forward, hiding every ounce of helplessness, burying it deep inside of himself and swallowing it. _Erik_ , he begs. _Please, talk to me. I need to understand to help you._ It's not just the deliberate thoughts that Erik will hear, and he knows that. He knows there is an implicit question, one he's asked from that first day: _but why me?_  
  
 _I trust you,_ Erik thinks back. _We had a connection. The day we met. I knew I can trust you._  
  
Charles can't say it's wrong. There was something between them the moment he stepped into that room, something incredibly visceral that he couldn't explain if he tried. _I know you're afraid, Erik_ , he soothes. _I know you distrust. But I promise you that right now you are safe_. He turns his gaze to Gabrielle, pointed. _I know her. There is no danger here, no threat. We are safe, Erik. If you do not trust them, trust me first, and we will work on the rest later. Would I mislead you?_  
  
"Hi," he croaks, looking up at her, still terribly anxious of the doctors outside the door. But they are safe in here, away from them, in this closed-safe-space.  
  
It's certainly a start, and Charles feels a thrill of pride. He wants to take Erik's hand, to squeeze it in encouragement, but for now he settles for a benign touch to the shoulder that he doubts anyone would take issue with. I _will keep you safe, too, Erik,_ he promises. _Thank you for trusting me._  
  
Gabby sits down on the floor beside him, holding a clipboard where several papers are stacked under the metal band. "So this is just a consent form. The screws and pins that are holding your wrist and hand together here, and your prior injury here," she lightly touches the scar on his inner arm, "have been damaged extensively by what happened." She shuffles the papers aside and retrieves some X-rays, more for Charles's benefit than Erik's, but you didn't need a medical degree to see the devastation that had been wrought inside. Bones shattered. Twisting metal off-balance. "I was also told that this is the result of a physical attack by Agent Essex. Is the true?"  
  
 _Who is she?_ Erik wants to know. His body believes that Charles trusted her, because he answers, "Yes. He in-injured Dr. Xavier as well."  
  
It's strange to hear his title from Erik's mouth. He'd used it before, those first few sessions, but it had melted into disuse naturally. Now it sounds strange, overly formal, and he's never particularly liked it to begin with (Dr. Xavier was his father; Charles finds it all a bit stiff, and that's coming from him). The entire situation is a bit strange, actually, but Charles' life has always been strange, and so he accepts it relatively face value. What he doesn't accept is the result of the X-rays, his lips pursed and his stomach dropping. No wonder Erik was in such unbearable pain. He checks his hold instinctively, but he doesn't need to. Everything is still properly blocked off. _An old friend,_ he answers Erik's question, which isn't a lie, but he knows Erik senses his - what is it, really? Not discomfort. Charles has never run into this scenario before, and like always, it's far from ordinary. He would be more concerned with handling it if he wasn't deeply disturbed by something far more important. "Yes," he confirms Erik's story. "Though less physically." An idle tap of his temple. He's still staring at the X-rays, clearly horrified.  
  
"So this is what the doctors are really concerned about," Gabby says. "Right now we're going to go in and see exactly what we're dealing with, what we can repair-you might be looking at another round of surgeries altogether, Erik," she winces sympathetically. "Your hand was almost entirely reconstructed, and fortunately a lot of that work hasn't been disturbed. We'd be having a very different conversation otherwise. This break-here-" she draws her finger down the X-ray, "has shattered the bone, and caught a bit of your wrist. It's consistent with someone holding down the arm and stomping on it, and the hospital will provide signed affidavits corroborating that. I understand that you believe you can help alleviate the need for putting him to sleep?" Gabby eyed Charles.  
  
"Hmmm," is what comes out of his mouth at first, thoroughly distracted. It's partially what was wrong in their relationship to begin with - Charles, as much as he was fond of her, and deeply so, was always half somewhere else, his mind never fully in it. There are very few people who have ever commanded (ha!) his full attention, and perhaps only one. It's an important expression of his submission, he's finding, but he was never capable of giving it to her. Charles looks up, blinks, and then plays back the last few sentences through their minds. "Oh. Yes, I can do that," he smiles apologetically, rubbing at the back of his neck as if he's been caught in a familiar act. Erik wouldn't know about that particular habit - even when he's strained in several directions, Erik still somehow manages to pull all of his attention toward him. A new center of gravity.  
  
 _It's okay_ , Erik says to him through their connection, shoulder-to-shoulder. _I don't feel anything. You did a wonderful thing for me. You and she were in a relationship?_ his lips pursed, curious and interested rather than jealous. They didn't seem to share hard feelings, he didn't think, judging by how they spoke with one another. "How long?" Erik asks out loud, putting away the X-rays so Charles didn't have to look at them.  
  
"It really depends. The CIA wants you to spend as little time in the hospital as possible. We might be looking at a several-hour procedure. Are you capable of holding him for that long?"  
  
 _If Emma returns-if anything happens-are you certain of this?_ Erik directs to him internally.  
  
Oh, right. Charles almost laughs, surprised. His connection with Erik is so natural he often forgets that, unless he deliberately dissolves it, the window is no longer one way. He wouldn't wish it otherwise, but it is a strange, new phenomenon - Charles has projected before, but never so consistently. He's always been rather shy when it comes to things like that, mostly because people find it disconcerting. _Yes_ , he confirms, and for the moment leaves it at that. Several hours. Charles pales. "I certainly can," he answers, but Erik's concerns are his. He doesn't think Emma will attempt anything so soon after - if he is drained, he can only imagine what she must be suffering after, well... Charles grimaces at the reminder. Still, as he is, there's not a single chance of him managing a psionic attack and managing Erik at the same time. But what other choice do they have? He has to trust that, even if something happens, he will hold. If Erik is involved, he will manage it. "I can hold him," he says, and adds a silent, _I'm certain. Let me do this for you, Erik._  
  
He shakes his head. _If something happens, Charles. You let me go. They can have someone on stand-by in case of an emergency. My life will not be threatened by some pain. I won't do this unless you promise to prioritize yourself._  
  
 _Nothing will happen._ He can't know that, of course - premonition is unfortunately not one of his abilities - but he can hope for it. He doesn't like the alternative, and his lips purse, arms crossed over his chest and chin lifted in the telltale signs of stubborn defiance, a posture he's used to adopting and that Gabby has seen plenty of, Erik much less. _I don't - Erik, I can manage it. It won't be a problem._  
  
 _You cannot know that. Whether or not you manage it is not the issue. We have been attacked twice in one day. Essex fully intended on killing us. If, G-d forbid, something occurs, let me go. They can handle it, so you can focus on saving yourself. This is not a negotiation. I won't allow you to be placed in a compromising position, for potentially hours, without your word that you will prioritize yourself if something should go wrong._  
  
 _But - fine._ It's short, and every sign, both mental and physical, points to the fact that he does not like it. Charles is aware that Erik can handle pain, and that he's done so before, but it doesn't sit well with him. _I give my word_ , he adds, because Erik will ask for it anyway. It's accompanied by a petulant huff. Charles is used to getting his way, to convincing, and it's the first time he finds himself chafing against Erik's Will even as he submits to it.  
  
"Are you two...-?" she taps her temple.  
  
Erik nods. "We can do it," he adds, hoarsely. His _thank-you_ is silent but very-much present. He resists the urge to rest his head on Charles's shoulder or touch him in some other way, but he compensates with a sense of mental warmth instead.  
  
"On the bright side, In a lot of ways this is a great deal safer than general anesthetic," Gabby points out, "and I think that they had some very real concerns about sedating you anyway, Erik. Most of his original surgery was done after he was tranquilized on the scene-so you probably don't remember a lot about that."  
  
He shook his head. "I woke up in the medical unit. Everybody had plastic guns."  
  
"According to your sheets, you had a myocardial infarction, so they were contraindicating a few different drugs-it looks like you and Dr. Shomron found a way around it, though. That's generally the biggest cause of complications-respiratory depression, aspiration, malignant hyperthermia-"  
  
"- _dying to death_ ," Erik said dryly. "Does she speak English?"  
  
Charles is busy sulking. Perhaps it's childish - it's definitely childish - but his mind is racing in the aftermath, every possibility flipping through his brain in snapshots. None of them are particularly comforting, and all of them lead to Erik in excruciating pain. Perhaps they tranquilize him in the aftermath, but what happens in between? Will someone be hurt? Will Erik have further complications?  
  
"It isn't her first language," he mutters, because it isn't, and his grin is begrudging. Charles clearly doesn't want to be amused at the moment. "Fortunately, I speak both medical jargon and Hebrew now, so there's no gap." That will be a surprise to her, perhaps. He could always understand, but he didn't truly know the language, nor could he have picked any of the words out and formed his own sentences. Erik has taught him more about his own telepathic abilities than he's learned in years of his own experimenting and research.  
  
I will not hurt anyone, Erik feels reasonably confident in saying. If it were an emergency, he thinks he could cope-it would be a different scenario than voluntarily sitting down in the operating room. Charles's safety would be at risk, and that would likely overpower all of his other instincts. And pain is a small price to pay for your wellbeing. That is simple math.  
  
Her eyebrows definitely arched. "Really! Do you still have that atrocious accent?" she teased with a grin.  
  
" _Mazzel toff_ ," Erik deadpanned.  
  
Charles rolls his eyes, arms crossed back over his chest as he's teased. Still, he grins despite himself, clearly unable to help it. "It was never atrocious, thank you," he mumbles, and at least his pronunciation has always been perfect. "Not that we have time to catch up, but I didn't realize you were back in the United States. You look well," he smiles. "I'll try not to be offended that you're apparently working in New York and decided not to ring me and let me know." He raises his own eyebrow. Mentally, he leans into Erik, a contrast to the could shoulder he'd been giving a few moments ago. I still don't like it, he feels the need to say, stubborn. He deliberately does not mention that he knows Erik is right, or that he's glad for the decision, that it was exactly what he needed. It doesn't mean he always has to like it.  
  
"Charles, _yakira_ ," she patted him on the shoulder. "When is the last time you actually checked your emails?" Gabby's eyebrows were going to be permanently affixed to her hairline at this point. "Try not to be offended with your own lack of technological aptitude," she smirks. The closer they demonstrate they are, the more Charles can feel Erik relaxing, becoming more of himself.

* * *

A knock to the door shatters that illusion though and whatever he'd been about to say died in his throat. "We've gotten everything prepared upstairs." The newest physician was a short woman in blue scrubs with a kind smile and eyes so vividly brown they looked almost red in the light. "I'm Dr. Vro, I'm the attending orthopedic surgeon on your case. You must be Mr. Lehnsherr. Or do you prefer Erik?"  
  
He just stared at her, and shrugged.  
  
"I suppose I'll just have to pick one, then. And you must be Dr. Xavier, it's a pleasure to meet you. I've read your work." Vro went for a handshake once Erik and Charles got to their feet. "I must say this is the first mutation-assisted surgery I've ever done. Are you two ready to get started?"


	13. I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _the once and future king_ , t.h. white

Charles isn't nervous about the actual procedure, nor is he worried about his ability to hold Erik through the entirety of it. All things considered, being with Erik within the confines of his own mind will likely be healing for him, as he'd said before. What churns his stomach is even the possibility that he'll have to let go, that Erik will feel any of it for even a moment. "A pleasure," he says, and swallows down the fear, replacing it with a smile. "I believe we're ready, yes." He knows he needs to trust Erik just as much as Erik trusts him, and he does. But anyone who knows Charles knows he has a martyr complex a mile wide, and that his last instinct is to protect himself over others. He chews his lip the entire way through the pre-op procedure, and by the time he's asked to work as Erik's anestheologist, for all intents and purposes, he's fumbling. But he can't afford that. Charles clenches his teeth, sucking a breath through them. I have it. Give me a second, he thinks, but he's hitting a mental wall and he knows it. He's panicked and unsteady, still, and now he's frustrated again.  
  
Erik's arm is immobilized on the table, and he's seated in a more upright position than usual next to Charles, watching the room warily. Dr. Vro has already explained that even with Charles's help, they need to paralyze the arm to prevent any kind of motion whatsoever, and that it can't be left to chance. When they come closer with the tray of instruments, Erik clutches Charles's hand nearest without thinking, gripping hard enough to hurt. He doesn't let go even when they're done, waiting on Charles to signal the okay. Erik tries to comfort him, tries to reach out beyond the blaring panic and terror screaming at his senses, but he succeeds only in burying his head in Charles's side, eyes closed to block out the operating room. It's okay. Everything's okay. We're okay. _Al tir'i! B'yado afkid ruchi/b'et ishan v'a'ira adon olam/v'im ruchi g'viyati/Adonai li v'lo ira adon olam_. Whatever the gathered people are thinking and reacting, Erik can't see, can't focus on anything but Charles's heartbeat against his ear.  
  
Erik needs him now. Everything becomes secondary to that. The doctors and nurses in the room are surprisingly unfazed by the display - Charles is clearly one of the only people Erik trusts, and he's in a state of panic. Charles forces it all out, breathes through his nose, and follows Erik's voice, his presence, his Will, lets it guide him. There's something not unlike letting go happening, although technically it requires a large amount of control and consciousness - but Erik is familiar, warm, and safe, and Charles finds that in the end, reaching him is like floating. For a moment, the world is hazy and blurred. When he blinks, neither of them are in an operating room. It takes Charles a moment or two to recognize his own apartment, and he's a little amused he wasn't more creative. It's a comfortable, familiar space, even still, and Erik has never seen it. "Ready," he says, and it's outward, a brief tear in the Reality he's created for them, gone as soon as it comes. Charles grins, rubbing at the back of his neck. 

* * *

"Please don't look at my desk," he laughs, because apparently his consciousness has chosen to go for very recently familiar, which means it looks like the aftermath of a disaster zone.  
  
In the Real, doctors and nurses spring to life, the sound of scalpels and metal against metal a background din that fades the further they sink into Charles's construction. Erik's still pressed into his side, at-first unaware that anything has changed, but slowly he climbs up out of the fear-fear-fear-panic-horror hole and lifts his head, with one arm wrapped loosely around his back-unable to bear letting him go. "This is where you live," Erik realizes, slowly, slowly starting to take everything in.  
  
"This is where I live," he agrees, and smiles. He doesn't expect to feel a little nervous about it, a little shy. It's the first time Erik will be in his space, although they've shared things far more intimate. They're standing in the middle of his living room, cozy, old-fashioned in the way Charles prefers, all intricate, handcrafted furniture and warm, neutral tones. "It's a bit of a mess," he grins, because it clearly is, books strewn about, blankets on the couch where he left them that morning. Raven's been sleeping over. There's a cup of tea long gone cold on the coffee table, where he'd curled up the night before, and the book he'd been reading - The Once and Future King, an old first edition of it that belonged to his father.  
  
Erik, unshockingly, gravitated toward the book and flipped it over so its cover was visible, a smile spreading out across his face. "Everything not forbidden is compulsory," he quoted, warm. Somehow the selection of novel didn't surprise him-Charles very much should fancy himself Merlyn-esque, Erik thinks with a quick little grin. " _Learn something/that is the only thing that never fails/the only thing the mind can never exhaust, alienate, torture, fear or distrust/and never dream of regretting._ You like T.H. White." Another familiar-line runs through, inspired by the frail-nurse and her tar-dripped thoughts. _That is the equality of man. Slaughter anybody who is better than you are, and then we shall be equal soon enough. All equally dead._  
  
Charles laughs, his cheeks warm with pleasure. "You're very attractive when you quote literature that way," he teases, and takes Erik gently by the hand, leading him over to one of his many bookcases. This one is utterly crammed with books, as many as he could fit, some of them lying on top of each other to conserve space. "A lot of these are just stragglers from the library back at the manor, the ones I thought to move over. My favorites, mostly, and some I just couldn't bear to let collect dust there. They were originally arranged alphabetically, but I gave up on that," he admits, chuckling. "Medical books over there, novels over here, miscellaneous between." He hums, leaning against Erik, and smiles up at him. Here, he doesn't need to be careful of injury - it's like it never happened, to keep them even further separated from the Real. "Shall we read for several hours to pass the time, then?" he teases.  
  
The comment makes him grin to himself, privately effused with an ephemeral joy at being-something that Charles found attractive. It's distinct from the praise that Charles often seeks, would never admit to himself he needed-Erik needs to be what is needed, and this is not easily definable. It moves with the other person, like a dance in synchronicity, but this-words, books. This is part of who he is, a very rare part that exists on its own-that isn't suffering or responsive, and Charles likes it. There is something powerful about that. "What is your favorite?" Erik asks, touching the spines of the books reverently, plastered inescapably to Charles's side.  
  
"I don't know," he admits, and follows Erik's fingers with his eyes, shivering as if it's his own spine being stroked. Everything is warm here, safe, comfortable, and Charles hadn't realized exactly how much he needs it. He clings to Erik's side, tangling himself in him as much as he possibly can. "I don't do favorites very well, if I'm honest. I like to think I'm eclectic." As a child, through adolescence, and into adulthood, Charles read whatever he could get his hands on, often as a distraction. Stacks and stacks of books, so many words he carries with him. There's something to learn from all of them, and Charles is nothing if not eager to learn. He grins when Erik reaches the binder at the end of the shelf. "That's my first dissertation. _On Mutant Genetics_. It's fairly outdated now, and I've published corrections since, but I'm fond of it. It was my life for a very long time."  
  
He flips it open, eyes scanning the words. "What was your theory?" he wants to know, tracing his finger over the graphs and numbers. "Shaw believed that mutants are the next stage in human evolution. That humans are inferior and we should rule them, before they rule us."  
  
"This particular dissertation is more concerned with how it works, what the gene is, how to isolate it and how it functions. The boring science of it, basically." He grins, leaning on Erik's shoulder to read with him. "It contextualizes it in the basis of human evolution - mutations have existed long before mutants as we know them, obviously. Your eyes are a mutation," he laughs, still pressed as close as he can. He's feeling a bit needy, really, though he isn't about to admit it. "But it does end with a reflection that emphasizes integration. Coexistence."  
  
"My eyes are _not_ a mutation," Erik squawks, stifling a laugh. "I control electromagnetism." He holds his hand over Charles's arm, rubbing at the soft skin of his wrist absently. Always seeking touch, contact, closeness. Not every relationship is this way-Hank and Raven both have distinct and demanding careers-they spend a great deal of time apart. Erik finds it hard to breathe when he isn't near Charles. Like his neurochemistry becomes unraveled. "Do you really think that we can coexist?"  
  
Charles laughs at the protest, because it's so - distinctly Erik. His conception of things are so vastly different from Charles', and he finds it absolutely thrilling. He could listen to Erik talk for hours about how he views the world and not once get bored, and while naturally fascinated with people, with minds, with stories, Charles has never felt that way about another. "Yes," he answers, solemn and resolute. "I think people fear what they do not understand, Erik. So we simply make them understand." His gaze wanders to Erik's hand on his wrist, and he finds himself suddenly impatient with the space between them. Charles grins, the same mischievous grin from the beach, and takes the binder from Erik's hands, carelessly throwing it elsewhere as he worms his way into the other's arms. It's strange, he thinks, how much he wants. New, and strange, and edged with terror, but in an a way that's altogether exciting. His mind wanders to Gabrielle - the difference is so plain it's astounding. "I wonder," he starts, hiding his face in Erik's chest. "If this feeling will eventually go away, or if I will always want around you. I have never wanted like this, Erik. Needed, yes, that's evident, but -" He shakes his head. "It's extraordinary, how much I want you in every way possible. All at once. I didn't understand how submissives could - how they could feel it all. How submission could be compatible with the intellectual. But it is. I would love to discuss mutant politics with you, Erik, and I know you value my opinion, regardless of whether or not I've spent the last five minutes thinking about being on my knees for you. I didn't think I could have both, and I..." He bites his lip. "I need both. At the same time."  
  
Erik swallows, distracted by the overarching discussion with the contemplation of Charles attempting to continue it while kneeling. He reins in that thought, brushes his hand over the wavy strands of Charles's hair that have fallen into his forehead. "I value your opinion in all things," he says seriously. "There is nothing superficial about you. Your submission would certainly not qualify. Surely you must know-capable submissives? Your friend, Hank?" He laments for the better part of Charles's existence that he has relegated this essential, necessary aspect of himself to mindlessness and simplicity, because everything that Erik knows is so firmly opposing. How Charles needs him is akin to oxygen. Maybe there is nothing supremely intelligent about it, about self-expression in its purest form, but intelligence without the warmth of a beating heart-it is meaningless.  
  
"It's not that I thought submissives incapable, Erik. Hank is one of the most competent people I know," he sighs, and it's undoubtedly the truth. Charles respects him to the upmost, and couldn't possibly think of a better match for his sister. "It's just that - perhaps I thought it was in spite of his submissiveness. That he was somehow able to rise above it. And he and Raven have a very - their dynamic is technically traditional, but they live lives separate of each other. There's a separation. They are equal partners in most things. And I -" Charles is hiding again, his cheek against Erik's chest as he idly reads titles from his bookshelf. "I wanted something... I've struggled for a very long time with the things I want, Erik," he laughs, because by now it is no surprise. "I never thought both was an option." He goes silent, then whispers, "I still don't, really. It doesn't seem real."  
  
"I feel the opposite," Erik said with a small laugh, stroking the other man's cheek and closing his eyes, listening to Charles's breathing. He's attuned to every shift of muscle, every heartbeat, a mirror image inside himself like a biological process. "When we are parted, I do not think I am real."  
  
"I've been -" They have been discussing this, and there has never been more time than there is now to do it. Negotiating, as they should be, as all new pairs do. Erik wants him to be honest with him, to tell him the things he thinks and feels. Charles finds there's a lump in his throat, however, so he shakes his head. "Nevermind."  
  
"Are you afraid to tell me?"  
  
Charles shakes his head again, this time more vehemently. "No. I'm not afraid of you, Erik," he whispers.  
  
He rubs his thumb over Charles's chin. "Tell me."  
  
Charles shivers, and the spark it ignites goes right through him, all the way to his toes. "I'm still separating things in my head," he admits. "I don't want them to be separated. I know I don't. But it scares me, Erik. It scares me that all the pieces could fit together. I kept them separate for a reason. What I could have, and what I couldn't. And now everything's shaken, and I don't know what to do. I -" He closes his eyes, breathes, and forces the words out. "It's different now. Before, I could ignore the need, and now it feels like I can't. I panicked earlier, Erik. I needed - I needed you, and I've never needed someone before. I need you now, I need - I was so much better at ignoring it before."  
  
"I felt it," Erik said quietly. It made him wonder if he was suited for this at all, if he was playing with someone's life in his fumbling, overlarge hands without a proper sense of things. If he makes the wrong choice, Charles suffers the consequences. "I do not think-it is necessary for you to-decide all of a sudden that you must do anything. You seem preoccupied with-delineating everything all at once. It is all right to figure out your comfort zone."  
  
"It's not like that, it's not a decision, it's not an off-on thing, that's the point, it's -" Charles shakes his head, quiet for a moment. He separates himself from Erik, feeling very small again. "You're right. You shouldn't have to feel - forget it, Erik, it doesn't matter. The least of our concerns is my apparent inability to handle things." He crosses his arms over his chest, this time not in defiance.  
  
Erik's eyes light with understanding, and he moves to wrap his fingers around Charles's forearm, hoping to smooth away some of the tension. "You know that is not what I meant," he murmurs, prising his hand gently away from his body to cup it in warmth.  
  
Charles lips purse, and he stays tense even as every instinct tells him to relax, to melt into Erik. "The last thing you need is to burden yourself with this," he mumbles. "With me. Forget it," he says again, but it's even quieter.  
  
"You are so focused on doing what you should be doing, what is right-" Erik shakes his head. "Very cerebral, and very intelligent, but I am not a scientist. I am not grading your performance. Does being with me make you feel good? Do I make you feel good about yourself?"  
  
"Yes," he says, because he knows it's the answer to both of those questions. "I don't see how that's relevant to the discussion we're having, Erik," he mutters, which is just a bit petty. A different kind of goading.  
  
It makes him smile. He's frustratingly slow to fight, though, because he spends most of his time trying to organize what he wants to say. "I know that I am making mistakes," Erik decides at last. "You are a person, and there are real stakes here. This isn't a fantasy. Please know that I am deeply conscious of this. You say you do not know what to do. Just feel. Just be. That is all you need to do. Let me take care of you. Keep being honest with me. That's all."  
  
"I -" They both know it's exactly what he wants. It's exactly what feels right, the intellectual aside. To lean on Erik, to let him decide. To let Erik take care of him, as he promised to do, as Charles vowed to let him. Charles stays tense instead. "You don't need to, it's not fair," he mutters, stubborn. Fighting, all the way down to his locked muscles.  
  
"Why would you say that?" Erik wonders. "I don't need the same things as you, but I do need you."  
  
The words settle cold in his stomach. Charles knows they likely weren't meant as they sound, but he reacts to them anyway. He turns his body away from Erik. "I have a poetry collection," he says.  
  
"We aren't finished this discussion."  
  
"Really, Erik? Because it feels fairly finished from where I'm standing." That one is definitely petty.  
  
"I have no idea what that means, Charles. Speak plainly."  
  
"No," he huffs, and goes back to crossing his arms.  
  
There's something about it that has Erik covering a laugh. "No, because that would mean you can't avoid the truth any longer-as long as I am in the dark, you can pretend to have an excuse not to face it, but I will not play mind games with you. That is not how this is going to work."  
  
"Oh, please, Erik, do tell me how this is going to work," he mutters, and huffs again.  
  
Every single reaction that Erik has rises up at once, and like a hand from out of the sky, the tidal wave is batted down and submerged under the ocean floor. Every single reaction that Erik has rises up at once, and like a hand from out of the sky, the tidal wave is batted down and submerged under the ocean floor. Instead he just relaxes all of his muscles at once, uncurling his fingers from his palms, and moves to sit down at the table beside the window where streaks of sunlight fall over mahogany, warming it. There's an abandoned chessboard there half-played and he worries a metal piece in his hand before flicking it forward.  
  
Charles swallows, feeling very cold and very small again. He checks, but - no, everything is in order. Even as he reacts, everything runs smoothly, his concentration absolute and completely effortless. At least that's one thing he's any good at. He thumbs idly at the books on his shelf, back turned to Erik, pretending as if every inch between them doesn't make him sick.  
  
Erik looks up after a long moment. "Come and sit," he says, the softness of the Order making it no less.  
  
Charles takes as long as he possibly can with it, dragging his feet. When he sits, it's with none of the practiced grace he usually shows, and he avoids looking Erik in the eyes.  
  
"I do not have all of the answers, Charles," he says at last. "All that we can do is try. Even if it is frustrating or awkward. Being with you is a great deal more fair to me than you will ever comprehend, I think."  
  
"I'm glad I'm the lesser of evils," he says, though he knows that isn't fair. Erik is being patient, and considerate, and Charles -  
  
He has his own defenses, and all of them are up.  
  
"You are not hearing me," Erik said, shaking his head.  
  
"I'm hearing you fine, Erik."  
  
"We both know that's false. You want me to tell you how things are going to go-we won't be having these discussions in anger. I cannot promise you that you can give everything of yourself to me and it will never hurt. Sometimes I will get it wrong. Sometimes I will fail. But I won't leave you in the aftermath."  
  
"Is that what you think this is?" he asks, and some of the sharpness is gone, replaced with disbelief. "You didn't fail. I didn't panic because you failed me, Erik, I panicked because we were six floors apart in a hospital after we were almost killed. That had nothing to do with any of your decisions."  
  
Erik shook his head dismissively. "I would have razed this place down," he said instead fiercely. "I nearly did."  
  
"When do you mean? When you were scared? Erik, that's not a failure. That's not a shortcoming. That's a perfectly justified emotional response to repeated trauma." Charles still refuses to look at him, but his voice is softer now. "You didn't hurt anyone. We managed the situation. I'm not - if you think I'm upset because of that, you're wrong. What kind of person do you think I am?"  
  
Another head-shake. How was it possible to be fluent in English and yet manage so catastrophically to fail communicating his point in it? "When you were scared. I wanted nothing more than to be by your side. I am so sorry I could not be there."  
  
"Oh, Erik." It's very difficult to be pissy when Erik is so sincere, and that's when the guilt kicks in. Charles swallows around it, but it bubbles up in his throat and threatens to choke him. "You were there as much as you could be. You didn't fail me."  
  
Erik touches his fingers to the base of his own throat, splaying down his chest. "I love you. You are not the lesser of anything. If it were my decision I would never leave your side."  
  
Charles does choke, then, whatever noise his body tries to make cut off as the weight of it slams into him. It settles horribly in his stomach, caught in his throat, and he knows, somewhere far off, that this isn't his physical body, but if it were, he would not be breathing easily. He brings his legs up onto the chair and pulls them close, burying his face in them like a child. "I'm so sorry," he whispers. Charles has made many mistakes in his life, but this one seems a physical presence, eating away at him now that he's recognized it.  
  
He's been keeping his distance, but that erases his intentions entirely and Erik rises from his spot across the table and moves immediately to wrap him up. The motion releases an unseen tension in himself as much as it is for Charles's comfort. " _Royk_ , you've done nothing. OK? _Ze beseder, ragua_."  
  
"No, I have," he sighs, and locks up. He doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve Erik's comfort this way, and his stomach continues to churn. He checks - no, all okay. At least he can do that. At least. "I was horrible, and I was horrible on purpose. Not by accident, not because I reacted. To rile you up, instead of talking about it. I threw a fit like a child. That's not okay."  
  
"You got upset. It happens. Just breathe." He rubs Charles's back, digging the pads of his fingers in against the mounting tension. "Will you tell me what I did?" Erik asks, imploring.  
  
That only makes him more miserable, and Charles sinks further into himself. When he speaks, his voice is muffled by his knees. "You didn't do anything," he mumbles. "I didn't get what I wanted, and then you said - you didn't need what I needed, which is basically code for 'you're very needy, Charles, but I don't know how to give you what you need' -" It's not Erik's words, but it's clearly verbatim. Charles makes himself as small as possible.  
  
"Oh," it startles a laugh out of him-he knows it shouldn't, but it's so ridiculously not how he feels that his brain is just tickled. "I don't need to _submit_ ," he corrected. "I do not know-what it is like-what your experiences are like. I need-you to submit. I do not-you will find," he switches tacks a bit, "that there isn't a limit to that."  
  
Charles peeks up from his legs, and he can't help but feel just a little amused, too. "Let's switch languages, English is failing both of us." It's a joke, and besides, it's almost impossible to tell any difference here except when Erik deliberately switches. He goes back to his hiding a moment later. "That makes me even more of an arsehole." And a terrible, rotten sub, goes unspoken.  
  
"There is never-never going to be anything that you want with sincerity, that I will not try and give you-that I will not want to give you," he says gently, pressing a kiss to Charles's knee. "But I am not a telepath. I can't read your mind, and I won't make decisions for us based on guesswork. It needs to be _all right_ to fail," he presses his hand against his eyes. "It needs to be OK to be wrong. I want us to feel like we can just talk to each other without worrying if _we_ should be on trial for war crimes."  
  
"It is," he sighs, because that was never the problem. Charles keeps himself small and huddled, and his voice is barely above a whisper, muffled and all, when it comes again. "You didn't make the mistake, Erik, I did. I wasn't - reacting to a failure, I was being pissy because that's what has always gotten me what I want. Digging my feet in. I wasn't respectfully goading, trust me."  
  
"Then you did, OK," Erik gently pushes his feet down off the chair and takes his hand. "Are you apologizing?"  
  
Charles huffs as he's separated from his curled up, miserable place, but naturally seeks Erik out, wiggling as far as he can go to the edge of the chair so their sides touch. He stares down at their hands, head bowed, and nods once, still thoroughly torn up inside.  
  
"You'll find fairly quickly that I don't respond to pissiness," Erik murmurs, smiling at him. "Look at me, Charles."  
  
Charles makes a noise, but not of defiance or frustration this time. It takes him a few moments, but he meets Erik's eyes, biting hard on his bottom lip as he waits and his stomach flips over itself.  
  
"If you want something, I expect you to ask for it. You don't have to trick me into meeting your needs. I am scared, too," he admitted. "I know I'm overly cautious."  
  
Charles nods, and fights the urge to hang his head again. The shame isn't something he'd expected, enough to have him squirming on his own. He's spent his whole life manipulating situations and disobeying, however kindly he attempted to do so. It feels wholly different now. "Yes, Erik," he whispers.  
  
"I am scared of being wrong. I am scared that the things I want make me a bad person. I am scared I will push you too hard, or hurt you. I don't always know the difference between abuse and normalcy. I need you to be open with me so I can make the best decision possible." He traces Charles's temple. "And if we get it wrong, then we get it wrong. It does not make you horrible, it makes you human."  
  
Charles bites hard on his lip, and for a moment considers staying silent. But that hasn't done them any good, so he takes a breath. "You want me to give you all of myself, and I - I want that, Erik, more than anything. But you can't meet that with pieces of you." It's soft, quiet. "If I can't handle it, or it makes me uncomfortable, or I need it to stop, I have a pause word. You gave that to me. Have you considered that - " He has to pause, here, close his eyes and start again. "I messed up, Erik. I was deliberately awful to you. But I'm pushing because you're holding back, and I can feel it."  
  
"Do you understand what you are asking?" Erik wonders, and it isn't exactly condescending because there's the faint impression that he doesn't fully know the answer himself. "I don't think there is any end to-" he taps his chest twice. "I'm going to frighten you away," he laughs.  
  
Charles laughs, louder than he intended. It comes out in little giggles as he attempts to stifle it, a hand over his mouth as he shakes his head. "Erik," he says, and now he's amused, "If you think that, you truly underestimate me and my needs. Excuse my goading, but: try me."

* * *

Erik's a butterfly, pinned to a board by his pretty captor who doesn't know he's caught anything at all. A great leviathan on the reel. His head cants forward at the words as though tugged by an invisible string-a whirl of dark-dark thoughts chasing the ends held down by thick-veined hands. "You don't know," he just shakes his head. "I don't wish you solely in my bed," he whispers.  
  
"Neither do I," he says simply. The laughter is gone, and what is left is nothing but quiet sincerity, a deep, longing ache that he thinks Erik just might meet. Charles stares into those beautiful ocean eyes, as lost as ever, but unyielding. "You said it yourself, Erik. This isn't a bedroom fantasy. Are you going to prove that to the both of us? I have been waiting."  
  
There is, of course, a great deal about the shape of his want that is lustful. A contrast, curls of oil blooming in water. Telling him what foods to eat, how to dress, the precise way to fuck himself open on the mattress-it's all the same beating heart. It tugs the clawing, endless riot in his gut up to his throat and disperses it out his fingers, making him crease his nails into his palm. It's the line most relationships draw. "I would make you wear my collar," he says like an idle motion, voice rough. "You aren't mine in some dark corner of the universe. If you are mine then you will be _mine_." He locks eyes with Charles at last.  
  
"Yes," he gasps, and it's so immediate that it surprises even him. There is no deliberation necessary when Charles knows, has known, exactly what he wants. Except it isn't a want, is it? It's a need, just as Erik expected, a need just as strong (if not stronger) as the need for food or water or oxygen. No lines drawn in the sand. He meets Erik's gaze, his own burning with that same heat from the beach, but this time hot enough to warm his entire body. "Yes, Erik," he repeats, lips parted.  
  
He unclenches his fingers, realizing he's dug sharp crescent-shapes into his own skin. They are both silly for denying their natures. It's not doing them favors. He knows he's coming across tentative. Tempering himself, reining it in. Couching his words so there's an option. Polite. Considerate. Everything Charles rails against. Erik's eyes flutter closed against the force of the Order, unaccustomed to letting go. "Get on your knees, Charles. Now. We're going to have this discussion properly."  
  
All of the air whooshes out of Charles' lungs at once. Something snaps inside of him, a tension he hadn't known was still there, the heat in his belly burning him out from the inside. He's on his knees before he needs to think about it - because he doesn't, when he's not so bloody in his head - breathless and obedient, his posture impeccable as he waits. It's almost dizzying, how easily it comes when he isn't fighting it, when he isn't locking it inside and shaming himself for it. There's nothing in the world more natural than being on his knees for Erik. He looks up at him with every ounce of relief and need he feels, the sun in his eyes again. For you, he thinks, and in this place, in this comfortable, private space that they've created, it echoes off every wall, humming.  
  
Erik lets his reciprocating desire show on his face, dark and intoxicated, eyes regarding him in near-slits. But he doesn't move, doesn't act, every part of his body perfectly poised in stunning control. He's just speaking. Wonders what he could do with his voice alone. "What do you do when you wake up in the morning?" he says, crossing his legs and leaning back into the chair to pick at the cushion idly, then to tuck a curl of Charles's hair behind his ear.  
  
Charles shivers at the touch, however brief, leans into it instinctively. It isn't the question he expects, though, and he blinks, taken aback for a moment. He worries his lip between his teeth again as he thinks. "I'm not a morning person," he admits, grinning shyly. "I don't have a routine, really. Lately, I -" Charles fights the urge to hide again. I think of you. There isn't much of a difference between verbal and not here, but it feels easier. "I work into the night a lot. I fall asleep reading, or working on case files. So I usually just pick up where I left off." No one could say Charles didn't have work ethic, but they also couldn't say that he had a healthy work-life balance.  
  
Erik gives an Order just because he wants to. Because he's been thinking about it since the last time they saw one another. Because he can. Charles his his. He should. Something unfurls in Erik like soft, leathery wings. There's no need to play cool and unaffected. He doesn't have to do anything. Grinning, Erik reaches and cups his hand over Charles's neck, thumbs his lower lip. "Lift your arms." He gives Charles a firm tap on the elbow, sliding down the fabric of his shirt and underneath. "Have you ever done this for yourself?" Erik's voice appears next to his ear. "Knelt like this?"  
  
"Yes, Erik," he whispers, shivering again. Erik's touch is completely electric like this, and he's aware of every movement, every breath. "When I'm -" His lip disappears between his teeth again, and he thinks it might bleed, so it does. _When I'm lonely, before, and needed it. And now when I think of you._ Charles shows him, eyelids fluttering at his own memory: him on his knees by the couch just days ago, a cushion to keep it from being too uncomfortable. So he could stay down longer. He couldn't put himself into subspace, but he didn't need to. He imagined Erik on the couch above him, petting his hair but otherwise paying no attention to him while Charles read over files for the day, worked on a proposal for a paper, drank his morning coffee. Idle, comfortable submission, submission he's craved his entire life. Perhaps Erik would decide he needed him for something, would call his name, tug on his hair when he didn't respond at first - he always gets lost in his work - and he would demand Charles' attention, like always, warn him for giving anything less... "Yes," he repeats, mouth dry, and cuts things off there.  
  
"A routine would benefit you," Erik murmurs, chasing after the ends of those thoughts curiously. Why stop there? He peels Charles's shirt from his back, tugging it over his head in a single swift motion and folding it up, returning to his spot behind Charles to rub his thumb over his shoulder, seating himself on the edge of the table to leverage himself above the other man. "A proper routine. I am pleased that you think about this, but you won't be thinking about it anymore," Erik hums, uses a finger to direct Charles's head to rest against his leg. "You will be doing it. For me. You'll take time for yourself. In the morning, and before you go to sleep. You remember how I prefer you to engage your Postures, hm? You will practice them." He's grinning to himself, unseen behind Charles. Sometimes he has great ideas.  
  
Charles lets himself be molded to Erik's liking, following every brush of fingers. He's shivering again, skin burst into sensation even though Erik barely touches him at all, even though none of this is physical. There's something incredibly stimulating and sensory about submission to Erik, he's finding, and it doesn't require anything sexual. His body and mind simply react to it, crave it. "Yes, Erik," he murmurs, and considers it. His mornings are often hectic, and his time at night never has a defined end. He recalls, sheepish because he knows Erik will see it, that he's spent plenty of nights, recently no exception, falling asleep bent over his desk. It's not doing any wonders for his back. "Every day?" he asks, not to be defiant, but to test the boundaries, respectfully this time. To see what he can get away with, and what he cannot.  
  
"Yes," Erik nods, and as he's thinking, he unconsciously corrects Charles's posture so he's sitting straighter, with little more than a few taps to his spine and arms. He drops his head to kiss the back of Charles's neck, letting the sensation of his submission wash over him in bright, vivid color. "It doesn't matter if I am before you or not. You are always mine." He tilts Charles's head, ghosts his fingers over the front of his throat. "I told you before that I expect you to take care of yourself. There will be no more of that. Do you understand me?"  
  
Charles moans, a quiet but shuddering thing, fighting to keep his posture to Erik's standards for perfection even so. For just a brief moment, he double checks something, careful not to divide his attention too noticeably - but, no, there's nothing to check. Their physical bodies are perfectly still, perfectly silent as the surgery continues, trapped in stasis as their minds meet here. Charles keeps that very blocked off from Erik, and then from himself. It can't touch them, and in the scope of things, time has never been more on their side.  
  
"Yes, Erik, I understand," he sighs, a content smile on his lips. It's a subtle thing, wholly unconscious, but during their spat the light from the window had faded. Now the sun is brighter than he can ever remember seeing it in this space, in the middle of the city, bathing the both of them in warmth. Something bubbles up in him, though, a concern, and he bites down on his lip again. "But -" Charles isn't afraid of Erik, but he is afraid of what he needs. Everything from before seems to reach him again, rising to the surface over the calm of Erik's Will, and he swallows it down to stifle it. Then he lets it go, because Erik expects him to be honest, and he owes it to himself, too. "But you've expected things of me before, and I've done as I pleased." What isn't vocalized is the harsher part, but necessary: _How do I know there are consequences when you've never enforced any? Will there be, or can I get away with it? T_ here's an intrinsic need to submit in Charles, and he loves to obey. Unfortunately, he also loves getting his way. It's a part of dominating him; he doesn't need force to happily fall to his knees, but he does need firmness to keep him there.  
  
"I was neglectful," Erik says softly. "I didn't wish to hurt you. But I promise you that I am very capable of ensuring you follow my Commands, Charles. I suggest you not attempt to find out what happens if you don't. I know you." Everything in him is languid ease, filled with confidence and comfort that had been missing from their prior interactions. "I know what you need." Charles can feel the assurance-dark-pleasure buzzing in his chest. "And I most assuredly know how to bring you in line." He punctuates that with a squeeze, feeling Charles swallow against the brand of his fingers. "And you may think that's about _this_ -" He grips Charles's hair and yanks, forcing him to look up. "But I know that you crave this anyway, don't you? I could put you over my lap and cane you until you're red and screaming, but you would love that. Believe me, _I know you_."  
  
Charles is shivering in earnest now, but Erik's words are exactly what he needs to hear. All the tension melts out of his body, and he's pliant and relaxed, even as he arches the way Erik left him. His eyes are half-lidded, and he's absolutely buzzing with sensation, but they need to discuss, too. So Charles speaks. "I don't want to disobey you, Erik," he breathes, and they both know it's true. "I don't want to push you. I don't - " He has to swallow before he continues, and the words alone have him squirming, his stomach twisting uncomfortably, "I don't want to disappoint you. But I - I don't want it to be a game." He's already admitted it, but now it feels different. Erik is different like this, and so is he. It still gets stuck in his throat, but he forces it out. "I know that's what it is for some people, but I don't want that. I'm very good at games, and I like them quite a lot, but not for this. I don't want to stop playing when it suits me." Charles can see Erik's eyes again, and he gasps at the heat in them, the reflected need, the dark, hazy pleasure. It's so much he's swimming in it. "And I will if you let me, because I - I'm not very good at giving myself what I need." Charles fights every urge to hang his head, small and ashamed again. "I crave all of this, you're right. I need it. But I can't give it to myself. I need you to keep me in line, or I'll keep nudging myself out of it. I've done it my entire life. I don't need fear of punishment to obey, that's not how I work, but I do need to know you're serious. That you mean it." There's another thought, there, and Charles shivers again. He considers keeping it to himself, but it comes out anyway, a breathy whisper, "And I won't disobey maliciously, Erik, but sometimes -" _Sometimes I think I need to be punished_. It makes his cheeks hot, and for a moment he squirms his way out of position. It's not something he's ever admitted to himself, but he thinks Erik somehow already knew.  
  
Erik immediately corrects it, the moment Charles relaxes out of his posture, and tilts his head back into a more comfortable position. "I know. Fear is not what I am after," Erik replies, his voice taking on a melodic, dreamy tone, as he feels Charles sink further and further down, he thinks he must be following him. Every shudder ripples over him, and he drags his nails down Charles's back lightly. Fear isn't what he craves, he's not even sure he could handle Charles being genuinely afraid of him, and he thinks that might be part of his initial reticence. Because what he _needs_ , what he _knows_ he needs, is of an intensity he's barely scratched the surface of. "But I am not playing around with you. When I discipline you, it will not be for pleasure, or delight. I have never played games in my life, and I surely don't intend to start. When you need to be punished, you will be."  
  
Charles goes silent for a long while. He's comfortable in position on his knees for Erik, and he doesn't strain, reassures and soothes fears Erik hasn't thought to voice - he isn't afraid, and he won't ever be. Trust and respect and love and every way that manifests - in firmness, and in discipline, too - are what will keep him on his knees, not fear or obligation. But the emotions from before creep up anyway, not banished completely. Erik has been careful with him, has been sweet and patient, and Charles has afforded him none of the same respect. The guilt settles in his belly, threatens to choke him in an entirely unpleasant way, nothing like the clever fingers from before. It isn't Erik that has been playing games, it's Charles. The shame that causes is unlike any other he's felt, and there are tears clinging to his eyelashes before he can stop them. "I'm sorry," he whispers, because he hasn't said it like this yet, not with Erik admitting he'd wronged. "I've been - I've been..." Charles shakes his head, overwhelmed.  
  
Ordinarily this is Erik's cue to back off. To soothe and comfort, to wipe away the tears and ensure Charles is calm and at ease; two instincts at war, and he's submerged this aspect again and again because he worries, because he can't be sure it doesn't qualify as sadistic or wrong that he knows Charles needs to be pushed through it. There is little to do with what he knows if he won't act on it, and that, more than anything is what cements his next move. Charles's awareness of Erik's mind slowly begins to filter out, sunlight disappearing through slats, and Erik stands, his face a mask as one eyebrow arches skeptically down at him. Their connection is still present, but Erik has muted it, lending a sense of coldness to himself. 

* * *

"Straighten up," he murmurs, voice deceptively soft. "And look at me when you talk to me."  
  
Charles' first instinct is to panic, a low, confused whine escaping him as Erik's mind slips away. Logically, he knows he isn't losing grip, that Erik is still there; Charles is holding him safe, and that hold hasn't faltered once, not even through their earlier turmoil. But Charles is so used to the warmth and familiarity of Erik's thoughts, the languid, beautiful pleasure of sharing them that it feels like he's being denied something, and perhaps that's the point. It's so uncomfortable that Charles is breathless with it for a moment, fighting against the urge to reach out and seek, to take what he knows he can if he wanted to. He straightens instead, his stomach knotting itself with shame and embarrassment as he forces himself to meet Erik's eyes. "I -" His mouth has gone dry, so Charles swallows and tries again. He isn't afraid, but the anticipation in his belly is no longer pleasurable. "I've been manipulating you and acting like a child to get what I want, Erik. I'm sorry," he says, voice trembling, and finds it difficult to keep his shoulders straight under the weight of it.  
  
Erik raps him sharply on the shoulder with something, a thin reedy piece of wood materialized out of the blinds that guard the windows, possibly it doesn't exist in real-life, but this construction is for the two of them. Erik knows how to manipulate it just as well, and he draws Charles's attention to the slouch. "Sit up," he repeats firmly, but not with any lace of anger. "Interlock your hands behind your back." Another tap to his arm. He's not hesitant, but he's also not making this quick, either, and he lets silence stretch for a long moment. "I imagine it's fairly easy to manipulate me," he says, almost thoughtful. "I don't always understand when it is occurring."  
  
Charles cries out, not necessarily in pain - although there is certainly a sting - but in surprise, his eyes wide as he processes. This is not the gentle, lenient Erik he knows, though he is the Dom Charles needs at the moment. There is no separation between the two, but Charles hasn't seen this side of Erik yet, not truly, and it has him trembling even as he fixes his slouch, locks his shaking hands behind his back. He forces himself steady, though his breathing is faster than usual, his pulse racing. "I'm sorry, Erik," he whispers again, and feels tears again before they fell, wet in his throat. "I didn't mean -" He snaps his mouth shut, biting down on his lip. The shame heats his cheeks, even as he catches himself. No, he knew he was doing it, and he meant to. He doesn't need to add another lie to his transgressions.  
  
"I told you not to lie to me," Erik murmurs. "It is good to see you are learning." He juts the wooden cane under Charles's chin, lifting his head up from where he knows Charles wants to duck, wants to hide. Erik won't let him hide from this. "Do you know the etymology of the word _sorry_?" Usually this would be accompanied by some light in his eyes, a crinkle of amusement or curiosity, but everything about his face is harsh angles, made moreso by the lack of awareness Charles has for his thoughts, the taste of them foreign now, easily obscured. This isn't a piece of Erik but rather a tapestry of the all, woven together and fluttering in the breeze. Freedom to be. Charles knows him as lenient, because he has been afraid to be what he is. And what he is, is very much _not_ permissive. "I'm sure you do." He gives a little huff. "In my language, the word for sorry is _teshuvah_. Do you know what _teshuvah_ means?"  
  
Charles doesn't flinch at the touch of wood, but he does swallow visibly, fighting every urge not to squirm. He stays perfectly still for Erik except for the rise and fall of his chest, the slight tremble. Etymology is a favorite study of his outside of the sciences, words deeply fascinating, but Erik has already answered his own question - correctly - by the time Charles opens his mouth. The next creates a crease between brow and forehead, frustration evident. Charles knows the language now, but in some instinctual way, a shortcut he took directly through Erik's language center. Recalling words is easy, and his sentence structure is flawless, but complex etymology requires study he hasn't done. With Erik's thoughts unavailable to him, he's in the dark. "No, Erik," he admits, and his cheeks burn hotter, redder, spreading to his ears with his embarrassment. If there is one thing Charles does not like, it is not knowing, but he can't lie either. For just a moment, he reaches forward, an instinct, a habit, seeking Erik's thoughts - but pulls back before he can be reprimanded, hoping perhaps Erik won't notice. Taking away his ability to listen in that way is the same as depriving him of any of his other senses, uncomfortable and strange, and Charles has rarely felt more helpless.  
  
Something snaps shut in Erik, like a door closing over the barest edges of fingertips as they're pulled away. A warning. "In our tradition, the word _teshuvah_ means _return_ ," Erik says simply, although the concept is not a simple one. "According to the _Talmud_ , before G-d created the physical universe, He created repentance. So it must be important. And it is," Erik seems to decide. "But _I'm sorry_ is not the end of repentance, Charles, it's only the beginning. Apologies don't mean anything without transformation. To return under its own auspices is to acknowledge your wrongdoing and take responsibility for it. Are you prepared to do that?"  
  
Charles flinches, fingers clenching where they're still interlocked behind his back. This is what he pushed for. This is what will ease the awful, terrible shame that turns his stomach. What will help them reset and start anew, stronger than they were before. If he does not accept the consequences - what is not immediately pleasurable, what is not fun - then he might as well not submit at all. It won't satisfy either of them. So Charles takes a breath, and nods. "Yes, Erik," he says, voice quiet but resolute. He isn't afraid, and though Erik's mind is closed to him, he keeps his wide open: yes, this is what he needs.  
  
"Then tell me, Charles. Why did you do it?" He moves, takes Charles's chin in his hand, tilts his head a little like a predator surveying its prey. In this space his eyes are supraluminal, overlaid in vivid layers of extraterrestrial green. "Because we both know that you meant it. Do you think I won't give you what you need, otherwise? Or is it simply more fun to force a reaction out of anger?"  
  
Charles has to remind himself how to breathe before he can speak, his heart skipping several beats, the guilt and humiliation of being called on something enough to shake him. "Because -" He wants to shake his head, helpless, but Erik is holding him still. "Because I knew it would get me what I wanted eventually, and I like things to go my way." It's an honest answer, and his whole body feels hot, his skin too tight. "You weren't giving me what I needed, so -" So he thought he'd take it. The thing about Charles is he knows how to make that seem like it was someone else's idea.  
  
"That's interesting," Erik hums. "Because from where I am standing, it would seem you were successful, wouldn't it?"  
  
"Yes," he agrees, because there's no denying that something has changed between them. "But -" Charles bites his lip, and his eyes fall even when his chin doesn't. "But..." It won't come out, and when he blinks, there are tears gathering behind his eyes again, tears he forces himself not to shed.  
  
"Look at me, Charles. I won't ask again. Finish what you have to say." The words themselves are hard, but Erik's voice is gentle, a contrast that terribly fits him even as his expression brokers no argument, nowhere to move, no exit from his Will or his control.  
  
Charles looks, his fingers clenching again instead, his toes curling where they're trapped underneath him. "But it doesn't feel good," he admits, ashamed. "I feel - terrible, Erik." There's no triumph here, no great victory. Instead he's left with guilt and shame and humiliation, enough to make him sick with it. Enough to suffocate himself on. "I don't like disobeying you." Even if it gets me what I want.  
  
"You feel terrible because of what you've done, or because you've been _caught_?" Erik arches an eyebrow. "Emotions are a powerful thing. Guilt is a powerful thing, but it is not altruistic. It is _inherently_ self-focused." He steps away, ensuring that Charles's head remains up with a light lash of the strip. "I am not here to force you to feel guilty about yourself and to revel in your shame. Those things are about _you_ , they are about how _you_ feel. I want you to explain to _me_ the reasoning behind why this type of behavior can't continue. Or do you know?"  
  
"Both," he admits, because he isn't accustomed to being held accountable, but it was Charles who turned himself in. Erik was willing to let him off the hook. Charles gasps, not certain what it's a response to - but it's the absence of Erik's touch that makes him yearn, makes him feel suddenly empty. "I don't want to manipulate you, Erik. I know I have to trust you to give me what I need." His mind naturally reaches for what Erik took from his body, seeking familiar warmth, but he snaps his mental fingers back quickly, as if Erik slapped them.  
  
Erik gives his physical body a little jolt with the reed, along his upper thigh, to sink the message in further. "Do you believe that I never would have given you what you needed, if you hadn't tried to maneuver the situation to your advantage? Straighten up." Another, less gentle thwak on his lower back, near the divot of his spine.  
  
Even with the barrier of his pants, Charles clenches his teeth at the first hit. The second makes contact with skin, and he hisses, biting his lip to control himself as he fights to keep in position like Erik wants him. It leaves a sting, something that he knows he would find pleasurable under different circumstances. "I could have talked to you and gotten similar results." But instead of this, of shame and guilt and the uncomfortable ache of knowing he'd disobeyed, he could be enjoying himself. Reveling in submission the way he wanted to. "I didn't have to do it like that."  
  
"You must understand," Erik says, noncommittally as if discussing the weather, but he kneels so he's eye-to-eye with Charles, scrutinizing every shift of his features. "I held back, and may still, because I am learning myself. I am becoming comfortable with boundaries, with limits, with instincts, with desires. You pushed me past that without consideration, and more, you assumed that I wouldn't eventually be capable of determining what needs to be done. You wanted me to react out of anger, to Dominate you out of anger, without recognizing how _harmful_ that would be to me. Do you understand?"  
  
The words, put plainly, make him feel sick again. They wash over him like cold water, more violently than the tide Erik had manipulated on the beach, leaving him shivering and breathless and without proper footing. There are tears on his cheeks before he can even think about holding them back, hot and shameful, and every inch of his body burns with guilt. He wants to hide, to curl into himself, but he holds position and Erik's gaze instead, even as his expression twists in distress. "Yes," he gasps, and it comes out a sob he chokes back, shaky and whispered. "I understand, Erik." And he does. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry -  
  
Another rap, this one more to refocus Charles's attention, Erik's pulled the reed back and zipped it along his chest, leaving a faint red impression. "Apologies are well and good, but what I want to know is whether or not this will be a theme for us. We cannot build ourselves around lies and manipulations. You would hate yourself for that, and I would hate you for it, too. Imagine, in years to come, that I discover you have played me for a fool. We, the two of us, have spent too long stuck in worlds that tried to bend us. We cannot twist one another. Do you understand?"  
  
That one smarts, but Charles bites down hard to keep from crying out. He's more interested in nodding, his breath hitching as he keeps the tears out of his voice. "Yes, Erik, I understand," he repeats, and projects as much of himself as he can. He doesn't want to manipulate Erik, he doesn't want to fool Erik, and he certainly doesn't want to hurt Erik - he's been unsteady, and afraid, and frustrated, completely thrown out of his comfort zone, but that's no excuse for the way he's acted, and he knows it. The weight of it clenches in his stomach, sticks in his throat as he forces himself to breathe. He wants this to work, to be real, to be healing, to be loving, and the way he acted wasn't a step to build that foundation. He can't promise it will never happen again - Charles doesn't like empty promises any more than Erik - but he can promise he will always try, that it won't become a habit.  
  
"Breathe in. Deeply." Erik places his hand over Charles's chest, feeling it fill against his palm. "No," Erik says, shaking his head when Charles begins to project outwardly. He removes his hand, the absence of touch as effective as a whip, he knows. "I want you to tell me in words."  
  
Charles has realized he's rather nonverbal at his most submissive, communicating instead in a language that perhaps comes more naturally than his first, even though Erik is one of the only people to allow him to speak that way. He's vocal, yes, but words become more difficult, and he has to search for them, bottom lip trembling as he fights not to seek Erik's touch. "I promise not to manipulate or lie to you, Erik. To be honest and open. If I want or need something, I'll ask for it, not trick you into giving it to me." It hurts to say it, and his voice wobbles, but he breathes the way Erik told him to.  
  
In many ways Erik relishes Charles's telepathy, and even actively seeks it, but at this moment there is something final and firm about words, about verbalization, that is more cemented than anything of impulse and half-formed notions. What a person thinks, what a person feels on a whim, is far more transient. Erik sweeps his thumb under Charles's eye, collecting up teardrops on his nailbed. He leans forward, barely touching his lips to Charles's forehead, speaking the question against his skin: "Shall I believe you?"  
  
There is no way for Erik to doubt that he's sincere, not here. Every inch of the room hums with it, pulses with it, and though Charles knows there are ways to hide, to deceive, Erik must know that he isn't. He still feels desperate, needy. "Please," he whispers, his heart aching in his chest. "I mean it, Erik, I swear." There isn't a whole lot he wouldn't do to prove it, just then.  
  
Erik kisses him then, for real, just a gentle brush. "I will be holding you to that. If it happens again, it won't be like this, do you understand?"  
  
Charles doesn't know exactly what that means, but he also knows he doesn't want to find out. His lips tingle in the aftermath, and he wants to be kissed again, to be held, but he doesn't move. "Yes, Erik," he says. He knows Erik isn't angry, perhaps never was despite Charles' best efforts - he promised never to act in anger. The tension of his own guilt is still tight in his stomach, though, and he doesn't know what to do with it. I'm sorry bubbles up again, but he swallows it, fighting to move his hands and wipe his own tears.  
  
Erik does it for him. "Give me your hands," he says, holding his out. Both of his are whole in this mind-space-he is whole-but he still moves his right gingerly, as if unable to move beyond the strictures of his own instincts that tell him pain exists there, but he offers it anyway.  
  
Charles gives them immediately, even as they shake, held in front of himself like an offering. "I'm -" He bites his lip again, and he knows if they were in the world outside, it would be long bitten bloody by now.  
  
He lifts them and lays a kiss across each of his knuckles. The sunlight slowly begins to filter back in through his mind, and his lips quirk up in a small smile. "All of this guilt that you feel, I want you to put it to rest. I want you to focus instead on what you've promised me. That will always be the most important thing. I forgive you, Charles. Do you believe me?"  
  
That is easier said than done. Charles can feel him now, bright and warm and gentle, smiling that beautiful smile. He knows Erik, knows that there will be no grudge, that this will never be used against him. But it still sticks inside of him, rotting and ugly. Charles sniffles. "Yes," he answers the question, but shakes his head at the same time.  
  
Erik shakes his head, and tilts Charles's chin up. "Yes, or no?"  
  
"Yes, I believe you," he breathes. "No, I can't - it won't go away." Charles tries to push it down, but it bubbles back up, like something meant to float that he pushes beneath the water's surface. He doesn't know how to anchor it. "I'm sorry," he adds, because Erik asked him to do something and he can't.  
  
"Put to rest," Erik corrects softly. "Not banish or force away. You said you would do what it took to prove to me that you are willing to repent. Is that still true?" He watches for Charles's answer on his face, knows the yes exists along with the frustration of being unable to control his finer emotions. "I know that my forgiveness doesn't affect your guilt. That exists for you alone. What matters to me is that we resolve this, and do better next time. I believe that you will. Do you believe that?"  
  
"I believe that you believe that, yes," he says, but his voice trembles anyway. Charles has seen guilt eat away from the inside, and he knows perfectly well that it can become self-fulfilling. He believes that he will do better, that he will be better for Erik. But he also knows that if he doesn't forgive himself, they will both trip over it in the future. "I - No," he whispers. Something is warring in him, and he doesn't know what to do, the panic from before rising in his chest. He checks, frantic, but - no, Erik is fine, Erik is safe, and so is he, their bodies still and silent. It's just his mind that can't breathe, that is choking on air, that is shaking.  
  
"Breathe. Look at me. I want you to look." He touches his own temple. "Not to see what you want to see, but what is. You know that I am not a stupid man. I understand the implications of everything that has happened here, and yet I am choosing to forgive you anyway." He smiles again. "Look, Charles." It's an Order, and Erik's mind is open to him, its vast expanses blazing over the horizon for miles and miles. He lets his perception of Charles float to the surface like a hot-air balloon in bright azure sky, colorful and aflame, but it isn't the idealized picture that's often in the forefront of his thoughts. They are both flawed creatures. They have both done harm. Erik understands that. But everyone hurts someone. The mark of whether it is forgivable is whether it is changeable. Erik's faith in Charles has always been unwavering, and continues to be, regardless of his own self-perception.  
  
Charles knows it should make breathing easier, but it only makes him choke. He knows, somewhere far away, that he doesn't need to breathe here. That he doesn't need anything at all here. It doesn't matter. He sucks in breaths through his teeth, forces them out in exhales that stutter. His teeth are chattering, but he knows it isn't cold. "Please -" is what comes out, but he doesn't know what he's begging for. He doesn't have the words to ask. The room is visibly darker, but he doesn't remember how to fix it.  
  
Erik waits, his hand laid on Charles's shoulder, everything in him firm and patient. "Show me."  
  
Charles waits until his chest isn't heaving under the weight of his panic, and focuses. There's guilt, overwhelming, palpable guilt, twisting and writhing on the surface, but he forces through that. He thinks of Erik's face, of his gorgeous, metal puzzle mind, all of its warmth and endless layers, how he wants to drown in it, then forces that away, too, because it isn't what he needs to show. He remembers Erik's voice, firm and detached, as he spoke of his own limits and boundaries - Charles is afraid. He's afraid, because he thinks he still needs, and he doesn't want to ask for something Erik can't give. But when he pushed, he wasn't pushing for fun. Charles can be careless, but he is never cruel. He is ashamed that he still needs something, ashamed that he is still untethered and drifting, that there is still panic raging inside of him, hot and seething in his chest. But if he can't ask, will he be desperate enough to do this again? Charles is miserable, twisted up, and he grabs for Erik's hand, the one closest, squeezing hard. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out, as if he's doing his best impression of a fish.  
  
For some reason, that seems to make him smile. A strange one, like the layers in his mind are filters themselves, still-present as himself, but the architecture zooms out in a complicated weave of patterns. "I see," he says, because he does, but more than that, he leans into himself, into the direction this has always been headed. "Did you think we were finished?"  
  
Charles blinks, confused again. "Yes?" he says, but it comes out as a question, because Erik clearly doesn't need his answer. His body tenses, and he attempts to follow Erik's mind, knows he could if he focused enough, would happily get lost in there for ages, but - no, maybe that's cheating. He likes that Erik can still surprise him. "Are... we not?"  
  
"No, Charles. We are not. I certainly don't intend to conduct this with you on your knees. This position, here," he gives him a light rap with the wooden reed on his hands, "is not meant for discipline. I wanted us to have this discussion with your full attention on me. Your guilt is about you. _My_ forgiveness is about _me_. I want you to know that I forgive you. I want you to see it inside of my mind, because it is true, and because what comes next is part of that process."  
  
"Oh," he whispers, rather dumbly. Charles swallows, and takes a long, deep breath, trying to rid himself of the rest of his panic, the anticipation flipping in his stomach again. "What... comes next?" he asks, and wonders, idly, if dread can be a positive emotion in some cases.

* * *

Erik helps him to his feet, and then steps back, and his mind doesn't filter closed again exactly. There's more of a shift, like a shadow over his features, eyes visible through altered light. Everything in his posture changes minutely, even down to the shift of gait, radiating power and energy. "Take these off," he says, and touches the tip of the reed to the hem of his pants.  
  
Charles uses the time it takes to remove his pants to steady himself. He takes slow, even breaths, ignoring the ache in his chest that doesn't technically need to be there. His balance is off, but he makes up for it by folding afterwards, because Erik wants him to (and because even in this mind-space, his pants are hand-tailored and inordinately expensive). Every instinct tells him to bow his head, but he looks at Erik because he knows by now that it's expected of him, and waits even as he squirms in place. With Erik fully dressed, he feels horribly exposed and vulnerable, which he thinks is rather the point.  
  
"There is one Posture that I have not shown you, Charles, because the only time you will ever be in this position is when I am disciplining you." One arm is folded casually over the other, fingers spread out over his bicep, leaned back into his hips and regarding Charles from a downturned gaze, unreadable as before but this time, Charles can see everything-this wasn't a push-pull back-and-forth. Erik had wanted him to be in his mind, and so his mind remains open. But these are places that Charles has only ever guessed were there. The places of vengeance and justice and guidance all converged on a single point. _Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof_. And justice he shall. "When you are in this Posture, you will not speak unless you are spoken to. You will not address me by my name. That is a privilege, and it is one you no longer have. Do you understand?" Every word drips out of him like molasses, reveling in themselves, cold and steel mixed with inky, endless darkness.  
  
Charles' skin is suddenly too tight again, his carefully controlled breathing stuck in his throat. No, this isn't fun, he thinks, and files it away to remember. It may be necessary, it may be exactly what he needs at the moment, but it certainly doesn't feel good. Charles isn't afraid, but he is dreading, his heart dropped far into his belly. "Yes, I understand," he says, and he knows if they were not in this place it would have barely made a sound, small and meek. The worst part - and he knows that they both know it - is that Erik feels it's necessary. It's Charles' own shame that will punish him most, and Erik's forgiveness that will keep him from drowning. He reminds himself of that as he waits.  
  
"They would not have taught this to you in school. Kneel normally." Erik waits for him to comply, expectant. The buzz of pleasure that is usually associated with seeing Charles unclothed is not present right now. Erik surveys him dispassionately, but there's a golden underglow beyond the shadows. This isn't a piece of Erik deliberately designed to give Charles what he needs. It is Erik, all of him, all that he defines himself as, who does this. He will not relegate it to a productive part of the machine.  
  
Charles takes a shaky breath and does as he's told. Usually getting to his knees for Erik is accompanied by a pleasure of its own, by relief and gratitude, but now he trembles as he goes, taking more time than necessary to keep his knees from knocking. He doesn't search for what Erik wants from him, though he considers it, but waits for a verbal instruction, his heart beating in his throat. Charles reminds himself of Erik's smile, of his floating, warm thoughts, and though Erik can hear because he does not hide, it's for his sake. He tucks it into his heart, neat and safe, and breathes.  
  
Erik rests the reed against his back, indicating for him to bend forward, an almost supplication. "Extend your arms above your head and lean into them." The words are hard, delivered like nails in a board.  
  
He tries not to tremble as he goes, to keep perfectly calm, accepting of what he brought upon himself. He knows he doesn't succeed. It takes a second try to steady himself correctly, but he stays once he's there. Charles counts his own breaths. He thinks of forgiveness. He recalls his pause word - not because he thinks he'll use it, but because he needs to remember it. To remind both of them that he has it. And he submits, even as the dread covers his skin in pinpricks of sensation.  
  
"Close your eyes," Erik instructs quietly. There's something humming in him, a frequency only they can hear. Charles isn't the only one who needs this, but on Erik it's like watch-work, locks clicking into place. The command is deliberate, a way to focus Charles's attention on his own body, on his breathing, on his thoughts. "You will receive twelve of these. When I strike you, you will count it out loud. If you miss one-or if you use my name, I will add another. Do you understand?"  
  
"Yes, I understand." Charles is the one that spoke it, and he barely hears it. It could be that he can hear his own heartbeat, a deafening thud. He knows if he tenses up it will hurt worse, regardless of where he's struck, but he can't help but do it anyway. Twelve, he thinks - he can do twelve. He can bear twelve, because his Dom wants him to, because he thinks he deserves it. Charles keeps his eyes shut tight and waits, the anticipation cold and sinking. Charles likes pain, craves it, has often fantasized about the many ways he could receive it, but he feels none of that excitement now. There is no thrill to this, and it occurs to Charles before they even begin that he will do everything he can to keep from ending up here again, even if they both know it's eventually inevitable - not because of the pain he hasn't yet experienced, but because he never wants to displease enough to earn it.  
  
The idea that he could bear twelve is swiftly and immediately called into question the moment Erik brings the rod down onto his shoulder. It comes without warning, and there's a separation between the impact against his skin and the pain, stretched out on time-dilation. It won't even leave a mark, beyond a faint red indentation, but it roars up his nerves as though his flesh has split open. Erik's mind is grim and calm, honed in the way a laser acquires a target and unfolding so the whole room is engulfed into that black-endless-space.  
  
"One," he gasps, just barely remembering. It aches, the pain stinging and felt all the way to his toes, and it's so thoroughly separated from a moment of pleasure that he can't even conceive it being so. Everything is narrowed down to his body, to the horrible, stingy throb, his skin seemingly on fire. By the time he's breathing again, the cane is whistling, and then there's a new blossoming of agony. Charles cries out this time, helpless and hurting, and fights every urge to flinch away, to break position.  
  
He gets to five before he begins to cry, and if there were room for such things, perhaps he would be proud of that. As it is, there's only pain and humiliation, his entire body warmed and blistering. By six he's whimpering. By seven his lip is bleeding with the effort to hold back pleas - surely seven is enough? Surely he's learned his lesson, when his entire being is bathed in that horrible sting. He knows there are welts now, can feel them. At nine he's shaking, violently so, and it takes every ounce of will he has not to buck forward and away, to keep himself steady and balanced on his hands. It's enough that he forgets to count, and the realization comes when there's too long of a pause between strikes, when the mind connected to his is colder than before. No, he thinks, not as a protest or aimed at his Dom at all but an internal exclamation, and he chokes on a sob, because if he couldn't imagine twelve, how can he possibly take thirteen?  
  
Briefly, Charles thinks of his pause word, and then deliberately pushes it back down. No. If he can't be disciplined when he deserves it, if he abuses a privilege because he is in pain, then the agreement means nothing at all. Charles goes limp except for the shaking and waits for his lashes, even as he cries.  
  
The man before him is experienced. This much is not obvious to Charles in the moment, when all he can think about is the electric, rending agony of each strike. His skin bears neat, reddened lines along very specific parts of his body. His shoulderblades, forearms, the back of his feet, his ass (those strikes were hardest, accompanied by the sensation of pinprick drops of blood). He avoids the entirety of Charles's spine and his neck, with the exception of minor taps to ensure that his posture is correct. In this space, there is no real danger, but this is not something Erik can compromise on, it is as ingrained in him as breathing, and it only serves to drive it in more: this is real. It is not a construction or a fantasy. "You're doing very well," his Dom says when he reaches eleven. "Two more. You're going to be good and count them. I know you can."  
  
Charles screams at the last one, and he couldn't tell you where it struck. "T- Thirteen," he sobs when he's caught his breath, and then everything sags out of him. The world is nothing but pain, nothing but searing, stinging, throbbing torture. His face is red from crying and his throat is raw from sobbing. He's sweating, panting, shaking, and his body tenses as he waits, waits - but nothing comes. Charles lets go and cries in earnest, sniffling wetly.  
  
The first thing he becomes aware of after a long while is that Erik's mind in its bright, kaleidoscope familiarity has returned, a floating cacophony of color and sound and painted landscapes, and he's balanced on one knee in front of him, a hand laid over his. He's still in Child's Pose, and Erik doesn't release him from it just yet. They're feathers headed back to Earth, ribbons of paper from blown-out buildings silently littering the ground. Everything is slow and dreamlike. "Open your eyes, Charles," he murmurs warmly, and brushes his fingertip under Charles's jaw to tilt his head upward. "Let me see you."  
  
It takes him a moment, not because he's at all defiant - there's not an ounce of that in his body, every inch of him limp and loose and submissive, every single fiber of him humming with it - but because he's lagging, because everything feels slow and too much. Charles' eyes are full of tears, clinging to his eyelashes, and his lip is trembling, but he looks. He looks, greedy for every detail of his Dom's face, for the ocean eyes he would happily drown himself in, his own eyes wide and trusting. He wants to say something, anything, to thank him or perhaps to ask if he was good enough, if it's over, if he's pleased, but he hasn't been told to and Charles is good. He is good, and he will be good, so he stays silent and he stays put and he lets himself be seen, every bright and aching part of him, every corner of his mind that no one has ever seen, the purest expression of his submission.   
  
He does not hide.


	14. I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i. _jewish legends & fairy tales_, gertrude landa  
> ii. _it isn't good for man to be alone_ , genesis 2:18  
> iii. _men at arms_ , discworld 15

It's a deliberate thing that he doesn't immediately grant Charles his voice, or move him from his Posture. It gives him room to spread out like this instead, overwhelmed particles of dust suspended in sun, reflecting an infinite spectrum, for Erik to soak up the way plants need light. It's a long time, most of which is spent bestowing faint touches under Charles's eyes, through his hair, his cheek, before Erik rises to his feet and retrieves a large blanket from the couch. "Sit up for me, sweetheart," he says, and gently drapes it over Charles's shoulders when he does, mindful of the welts even though they aren't real, they very-much correspond to pain centers in the brain.  
  
 _Sweetheart_. Charles' mind sings at that, delighted and warm even as he shivers, his teeth chattering for a different reason now as he falls. It doesn't much feel like falling, though, not when he's being anchored, not when every touch is gentle and soothing, not when he's so thoroughly cared for. Charles has stopped crying, nothing but sniffles, soft little whimpers when something rubs the wrong way, when he shifts a bit too much, because everything here is just as real to them as it is outside. He doesn't speak, but his mind is open, thinking not words but feelings, images, sensation _\- ow-want-warm-forgiveness-safe-his_ , floating and far off, flashes of his Dom's face reflected back at him. At the heart of it, at the very core, there is overwhelming love there, and Charles is not shy with it.  
  
He wraps an arm around Charles and tucks him in close, kissing the top of his head, murmuring snippets of poetry, _The Once and Future King_ , his memory not-eidetic but impressive nonetheless, and a folktale about an old wise man in a village who disappeared every morning, and when questioned the townspeople insisted he was going up to heaven, when really he was going to chop wood for a poor, kvetching widow in the forest. He whispers I love you, and You are forgiven, in-between and in his thoughts, with his hands and lips and body. ( _"Where is the door? asked Muflog. That was a puzzle the ancient bird could not answer readily. When the sun shines in the morning, he croaked, its first ray falls on the door."_ ) He squeezes Charles's hand in his, gives him back his voice and his name a quiet sigh in his ear, content. Pleased.  
  
Charles knows, somewhere very far away, that he cannot sleep, because somewhere else he is awake, still unmoving, still undisturbed, the clanking of metal and the murmurings of doctors. But they cannot touch him, and he cannot touch them, so he pays them no mind, sinking, sinking, sinking, and then floating back up, buoyed by gentle hands and soft, deep words. He's a sensory creature like this, eyelids heavy and mind and body seeking at once, every touch, brush, whisper felt with shivers and sighs and whimpers. Charles blinks when his hand is squeezed, and then he smiles, sunlight breaking through the clouds, tear-stained cheeks dimpled as he radiates elation, curled up safe beneath Erik's chin. Erik. "Erik," he whispers, not to get his attention but simply because it is his again, and he sighs happily, as if it his greatest pleasure. I was good? he asks, reaching out, peeking into Erik's mind. All done? All forgiven, all finished. Copacetic. He giggles, so pliant and soft, and presses his cheek against Erik's chest where he can hear his heart.  
  
All done. _Kol beseder_ , Erik returns with a little grin. The shadows have vanished, replaced by chattering songbirds in outrageous colors and mountains and brisk winter air (he thinks the winter is pretty, but can't deal with New York when it's like, fifteen degrees outside, go figure) and the sky a painted likeness of Charles's eyes, and he sees himself everywhere when he looks, in reds and beiges and browns. You were good, Erik reassures him, stroking the back of his palm. Adoration and fondness brim up and well over, and there's relief, too. A relief in having given him this, in being what he needed, in doing well, the evidence a product of his own work, right here in his arms.  
  
Charles hums, pleased and delighted again, Erik's mental voice just as comforting as when he speaks out loud. He revels in it, wraps himself up in it like the blanket Erik cocooned him in. There's relief in him, too, enough that he is nothing but a melted, pliable thing, utterly loose in Erik's arms. No guilt, no shame. He's repented, and now he is free, washed clean and new and forgiven. Done with. When he rises up in Erik's lap, whimpering as the sore, welted skin of his ass meets Erik's thighs, he is shy, looking at Erik through heavy eyelids. Please? he asks, and then gives the image: hands in his hair, soft sighs, lips on his. A kiss. Please, Erik? he asks again, using his name because he's earned the right, and he knows they both feel it when the thought makes him shudder. He could take, but he won't; Charles waits, patient and soft, to be given.  
  
He leans up, framing Charles's face gently with a blinding smile. Seeing Charles like this, knowing that he caused this, makes the fingers on his opposite hand tighten slightly into his palm, and he inhales slow through his nose, bringing Charles closer to him with a careful movement and touching their lips together softly. An unseen tension melts from his frame. _Mine_ , he thinks, loud as the clearest bell, in every language he knows. _You are mine. Sheli._  
  
There is awe when he gets what he asked for, nothing but warmth and gratitude, a mantra of _yes, absolutely, yes I am yours_ as he kisses back. He's not at all hesitant now that he has permission, now the he has asked, completely unrestrained and uninhibited as he moans against Erik's lips, kissing until he is breathless and spinning, for as long as Erik will allow him. "Yours," he murmurs, when he is nuzzling into Erik's neck, pressing kisses everywhere his lips touch. The action reminds him of something, and for a moment there is distress among the pleasant, buzzing thoughts, a frown on Charles' lips as he sighs sadly.  
  
Erik is a firestorm, fierce and protective and wild, holding Charles in place to focus on drawing out every sound and twitch. When he frowns, Erik pulls back slightly, pressing their foreheads together and thumbing his bottom lip. "What is it, hm?" His eyebrows knit together, a small smile accompanying. He thinks he will do just about anything to banish that sadness, trivial or immense.  
  
There is not a single doubt in his mind that Erik would burn the entire world for him. Rearrange its molecules, raise up the ocean, reverse its pull, if only Charles asked him to. Erik has power in him, too, power he hasn't even begun to fathom yet, but only because Charles gives it willingly, and the thought, for a moment, makes him completely breathless, astonished and silent.  
  
Words are difficult, now, even after Charles has been granted them. He kisses Erik's thumb when it touches his lip, sucks it into his mouth, not entirely certain why except that it feels good, that it is sensual and keeps Erik closer. He lets Erik see, gives long fingers on his neck, arched, want, longing and metal, thrumming, possession, belonging, the design always different, Erik's decision and put them together, accompanied by another frown. He knows it isn't possible, not at the moment, but - I wish I could wear your collar, Erik. There is longing there, and Charles isn't coy as he was on the beach; he flashes through every time he's thought about it, which is quite an awful lot, longing and wistful.  
  
Erik taps his finger against Charles's jaw thoughtfully, and then he smiled again, warm. I can't give this to you in the Real, he says, as he raises his hand. But I can, here. One of the little metal ornaments on Charles's table lifts up and dissembles itself, reforming into a neat circle with an intricate pattern etched into it. The letters are the last to manifest, on the inside where it will rest against Charles's neck, Latin instead of Phoenician, _lo tov heyot ha'adam l'vado_. "Lift your chin," he murmurs, and the ends separate gently.  
  
Charles eyelids flutter, chin lifted and perfectly still. When Erik closes that piece of metal around his throat, his entire world shifts again. There is no coming back from this, and Charles couldn't imagine a world in which he would ever even think of it. He thinks of intricate vows, of elaborate Collaring ceremonies, of tradition and lack thereof, and in the end all he does is smile, the beginnings of tears in his eyes, lighting the entire room with it. "I belong to you, Erik Lehnsherr," he whispers, simply, as if there has never been anything more true. Perhaps there hasn't been.  
  
Erik grins, bright, resting the flat of his palm over the hollow of Charles's throat, just above his heart. "I am yours," he rasps against his ear, closing his eyes against the tidal wave threatening to overtake him. "More fully than you will ever realize."

* * *

For a long time, Charles is silent. He rests his head back on Erik's chest, content to listen to his heart, to feel safe, warm, and loved. The welts smart every time he moves, inspiring a hiss or a whimper or a shaky breath, but he feels nothing but light, nothing but cared for. And it's that reminder that makes him speak up eventually, when the haze has settled some. There is something rising in him, unsettling the beautiful reality they've made - real, Charles knows, even outside this place - and he can't bury it inside of him. Not now. "Erik," he says, and lifts his head to look. There's no use hiding how anxious he is, and so he lets him see. "There's - there's something I need to talk to you about, and you won't like it. Neither will I. And truth be told, I'm very scared to speak of it," he admits, and laughs, though it isn't at all funny. "But I promised you all of me, so I'd - I'd like to, if you'll listen."  
  
"Of course I will," Erik says, kissing his knuckles and then his cheek, looking up at him with creased eyes. "Tell me?"  
  
It takes everything he has not to back out. Erik has his dark-deep places, locked in layers and tunnels and boxes, trapped behind puzzles and machinery, hidden from both of them where the agony cannot touch either of them until something escapes. But Charles has always had empty rooms with locked doors, latched tightly. He's tried for a very long time to forget what's behind each of those doors, to convince himself that there is nothing at all - empty, dusty furniture. But he knows that's a lie, and he does not want to lie to either of them. "My mother," he starts, and leans against Erik to steady himself, reaching for his hand to squeeze. "She was neglectful, Erik. She was drunk more often than she wasn't. Irresponsible, and selfish, and self-absorbed, she mostly paid me no mind. She didn't know what to do with me, and she was grieving and frightened. I don't blame her, even now. I understand her far too well for that, and I had plenty of lovely nannies." Charles smiles, but there is also no fondness, no familial love. Just pity, and the understanding he was cursed with, a young boy tucking his unconscious mother into her bed. "But -" Charles grips hard at Erik's hand, and takes a long pause. "When I was thirteen, she married a man named Kurt Marko. My mother was flighty, and certainly had not an ounce of maternal instinct in her body. But Erik -" His breath hitches, and his lip wobbles. "Erik, Kurt was cruel." And it's all he can get out for the moment, curling up in Erik's arms as if he is just a teenager again, his mind trapped behind a double latched door.  
  
Erik remembers Sharon from the brief memories Charles shared with him during one of their first meetings, He had not understood it then and cannot understand it now that Charles forgives her, even though he vaguely comprehends that things are not often as simple as he's learned to segment them as. He's known people who were alternatingly kind and horrific, and the distinct trouble it causes to classify them as one or the other, but this is Charles. A single aggression is one too many. However, Erik's almost touched on this before, too. When they were dealing with Emma Frost that first time, when they found the boy in the closet. There are, he thinks, very specific things that cause children to feel that amount of fear, and it was why he wondered who else was in Charles's family. At the time, he accepted the answer, but now it's the part of him that wants to comfort and protect that child which surfaces, unwilling to be angry. Erik smiles encouragingly up at him, brushes Charles's hair from his face, presses kisses against his skin. Gentle, grounding motions. "What did he do?" he asks, soft.  
  
"He -" Charles voice cracks, his breathing uneven. Every instinct tells him to bury it down, to lock it behind a door and let it rest. But he is safe here, he reminds himself, and he is Erik's. That boy in the closet can't always be banished. "He knew I was hypersubmissive, and I believe he misunderstood what that meant. What he did understand was that I was in the way of a fortune, one he thought he could bully me out of. He was a tyrant in every way. Everything I did, he -" Charles shakes his head, eyes tightly closed as he blinks around tears. He doesn't want to cry, but there's no way to hold it back. "Everything was offensive to him. I tried so hard to please him, Erik, to curb his anger, but it didn't matter. I got top marks in school, I won awards - in sports, in academics, in anything, I worked so very hard..." But it was never about what he did or did not do. Never about obedience and disobedience and fair punishment for wrongdoings and transgressions.  
  
The next parts are too difficult for him to speak. Charles cracks the door open and lets Erik see inside instead. Charles on his knees for hours, crying and alone, afraid to move but uncertain if anyone is coming back for him, if Kurt will be angrier if he waits - there is no rhyme or reason to his beatings, no pattern to his cruel punishments. Bent over his father's old desk, screaming and hoarse and terrified with his pants around his ankles, a belt buckle laid into his backside as he begs and pleads while Kurt screams obscenities, tells him that he deserves it (but what did I do - what did I do, I was good -). Blossoming bruises on his cheek from being slapped with the back of a palm, sudden and vicious. Open fists, Charles' back hitting the wall with no more room to flee. "I thought -" Charles' voice trembles, and he curls up into himself, tears staining his cheeks again. "For years, I thought he had won. Because I craved -" Charles shakes his head. He can't finish.  
  
"No," Erik says, tender. "You have always been good, Charles. I can see it now. Little kids, they want so much more control than they have. Nothing you could have done would have forced Kurt Marko to do anything. He was a grown adult, he should have known better. He should have been better. He wasn't, and that means he lost. He had the opportunity to develop a relationship with you that is based on mutual respect and understanding, and he threw it away because he would rather take out his temper on a thirteen year old."  
  
"I know," Charles whispers, and throws his arms around Erik, seeking and needy, lips trembling as he fights back sobs. "But I - it was the first time, and I - " He knows the difference now. He has seen it for himself, in no uncertain terms. There was the submission forced on him, on a child, and there is Erik's gentle, guiding hand, firm and careful. Safe. There are no more similarities between the two, nothing to even justify a comparison. "But I thought - If I am submissive, if I want any of the things he gave me, I..." So he fought it. For years, he fought it, even as he needed it, put up barriers and boundaries that he truly thought no one would break down. Defiant and haughty and stubborn, never giving room, never following Orders, occasionally contrary just to prove that he could be. Until Erik.  
  
Erik kissed under his ear. "Even _if_ you had somehow wanted it, that _wouldn't_ have been a justification. It was never on you. None of it." His arm tightens around Charles's back, mindful to avoid contact with any of the fading marks there. "Thank you," he says, affected and just managing to keep his voice even. "For letting me give this to you."  
  
Charles takes long, shaky breaths, his face buried in Erik's shoulder as he composes himself. It's old hurt, buried deep, deep down, but wounds so easily reopen, and Charles has torn this one wide for Erik because he knew he wouldn't poke at it. He was right. "Thank you for giving it to me," he says, and he knows he's wetting Erik's shirt again, but he doesn't seem to mind. "And - " He bites his lip, and forces it out. "Thank you for not doing it angry. I'm not sure if..." No, he knows. Charles would be afraid, and he does not want to be afraid of Erik.  
  
"That will never happen," Erik says, lifting Charles's chin to look him in the eyes. "It will never happen."  
  
Charles breath hitches, and all at once he's overcome. He's done quite a lot of crying, but now he smiles as he sniffles. It's overwhelming, he realizes, exactly how much he feels. "I love you," he breathes, because it's the only thing he can think. His hand wanders to his neck, and he smiles wider when he feels the metal there. He is Erik's, and he is safe.  
  
Erik repeats it back, and then playfully in every other language he knows. "Only twelve ways to say I love you. I must learn more," he grins. He thinks privately that this is the culmination of his existence, this is what he was made to do. He was made to love Charles Xavier.   
  
Charles laughs, delighted and grinning again, the closet door slammed shut. Some doors are allowed to stay locked, and Charles will keep it so until the next time he must let some of it out. For now he straddles Erik's lap again, wiping away all the snot and tears to slot their noses together, giddy and silly as he rubs Erik's with his. "I bet I can learn more." His ass aches where it touches the fabric of Erik's pants, and though those welts are a reminder, now he can't help but be a bit aroused by the leftover throb. He makes a good effort at hiding it, and knows he fails anyway. "Kiss me again," he demands, and the look in his eyes, bright and shining, makes it clear he is teasing, bossy and playful rather than disrespectful.

* * *

Leaning forward, Erik obliges, long and slow and drawn out, accompanied by the slightest bite of pain as his palm curves over those marks, where Charles is naked beneath the blanket, warm and large. The way Charles presses against him, flush and graceful, metal glinting from his throat-Charles can feel exactly what it's doing to him. "Your wish is my command," he returns, glib and delighted and terribly turned on. He's used to it, though, to balancing those feelings, existing within them without resolution, that he doesn't make any move to seek relief. It's part of the control, of being able to hold yourself apart.  
  
Charles moans, because he simply can't help it. Erik's hands are large, warm and powerful and so careful with him except when they aren't. Being disciplined wasn't arousing, not in the slightest - there was a difference there, sharp and indisputable, and the whole time he had stayed soft. But now it is over, not forgotten but forgiven, and the pain left behind is - Charles did warn Erik very early on that he is a masochist. He bites his lip, eyes half-lidded and smile mischievous and coy as he squirms in Erik's lap. It has more of an effect than he expected, the pain delicious and sharp-edged and Erik hardening beneath him, and his head falls back as he gasps. With his head bent back, he knows his neck is exposed, collar catching light and perfectly on display. Charles is breathless when he comes back up. "I do have a bed," he points out, suddenly a bit shy.  
  
Erik's head tips at that, but he forces his eyes to uncross and looks up, everything unfurling and dark and eager the way plants twirl up from soil, his mind soft-leaves and stop-motion time-lapses of life and growth. There are so many things he wants to do to Charles, with Charles, pulsing through his bloodstream, but-"Can we? Here? Is that what you would like?" It's intended as a check-in, but his voice is low against Charles's ear.  
  
Charles shivers, squirming again, and that certainly doesn't help the situation any. Everything here is real, and with everything that's happened - he's overwhelmed, oversensitive, needy, every touch enough to have him gasping. "Yes, that's what I want," he promises, smile bright and adoring because Erik thought to check at all, will never take what he does not wish to give. It burns inside of him, and he wraps himself firmly around Erik, never more grateful that he's fairly short, especially in comparison to Erik's long limbs. "Please carry me to bed, Erik," he whispers, equally low as he leans forward to kiss over Erik's pulse.  
  
Rising to his feet, he shifts Charles carefully so he's resting most of his weight on his legs wrapped around his waist, transferring them immediately into the bedroom. He let Charles down and stooped over to kiss him again, relieving the blanket from his shoulders and folding it up. This place felt real. He could hear the sounds of people outside, bird songs and the warmth of sunlight as it striped across the bed. He returned and began nudging Charles backwards. "Sit down," he whispers against his lips.  
  
Charles whines when they part this time, desperate for more in a way he's never been before. They have time to not be frantic - plenty of time, something informs him - but he feels hot and overwhelmed already, and he's been denied touch for too long already. Still, he does as he's told, scooting back on the bed. Something does occur to him, something he might not be able to say later if he gets too embarrassed, so he flushes and bites his lip. "Um - in the first drawer, if," he goes redder, squirming, "If you decide - well." Charles has the ability to edit here, to remove some of the more incriminating items, but he doesn't, because they both want real, and after what he's shared, the tools he uses to pleasure himself when he's lonely at night seem like nothing.  
  
"Mm. We'll see," Erik just smirks, but the way heat flashes through him tells Charles everything he needs to know. The decision has already been made. The only question is how much time indeed, because Erik can sense the air particles slowing around them, inside of him, fantasy and reality and imagination smoldering on knife's-tip. Right now, Erik wants to play. He unsnaps the plastic buttons of his black shirt, one at a time, drawing even this out. "Closer to the edge," he murmurs, "no slouching." Erik's eyes are locked on him.  
  
Charles sucks in a breath, certain he'll end up bursting into flame by the end of this. He's never wanted like this, completely gone for it. Every sensation is heightened, even sliding on the bed, the soft sheets rubbing against his thighs and ass in a way that makes him choke back a moan. "Always so concerned about my posture," he snarks, and it's not defiance, nor is it the pushing from before. This is playful, splashing in the ocean and demanding kisses, a teasing, goading little grin on his lips. He doesn't hide the pointed way he gawks as Erik undresses either, practically salivating.  
  
Erik's eyes hook on the collar around his neck, covered in his marks, the way his muscles twitch with anticipation, how hard he is already. "You've never looked better," he grins, sharp and predatory, letting his pants drop and stepping out of them in a single neat motion. It's a bit of a surprise when he crosses the room and kneels in front of him, looking up at Charles with an arched eyebrow. He trails a fingertip down the tip of his cock, no less in charge right now than at any other moment and it drips off him like honey. "If you move," he says, "I'll stop. Understand?" he lays a kiss along Charles's inner thigh. It's not an Order. It doesn't have to be. Charles will keep himself locked in place by the pure restraint of his own desire.  
  
 _Oh_. Charles cries out at just that little touch, twitching and leaking like an overexcited teenager. There's something about _Erik_ on his knees that strokes the fire in his belly, not because it's a submissive gesture, but because it's not. Erik can Dominate him perfectly exactly like this, and his head spins with it. He's right; Charles locks every muscle, trembling but still, determined to be good despite his playing. "Oh, Erik, please," he moans, unable to help it. And if he's already begging, he's not exactly sure how he'll come out of this alive. He thinks if he had to go, there are certainly worse ways.  
  
He starts slow at first, a mischievous bent to his gaze as Erik wraps his fingers around the length of him. Charles could almost believe he was going to play fair, until he sits up and takes him in deep, trapping Charles's hands on the mattress and swallowing against him, cheeks hollowed out. _Mine_ the gesture says. Branding Charles from the inside-out.  
  
Charles' eyes widen, his entire being narrowed down to searing, near unbearable pleasure. He's wrung out, everything too sensitive and too much and too hot, and Erik's mouth is warm, wet, perfect, his cock completely enveloped in velvet heat. It's too good. Erik has to know that, know that he's already too close to the edge. "Y - yours," he manages, and puts up a valiant effort, tensing every muscle he has, but in the end it's too much. His hips buck, just the smallest amount, and Charles whines low in his throat. Maybe, he thinks, hopeful, eyes bright as he looks down at his Dom, he will get away with it this time.  
  
Erik slowly slides off of him, looking up and daring to seem unaffected, except for the flush over his face. Charles can feel how much Erik loves it, having him this way, knowing exactly how wrecked he is. He drags his fingers through his hair, waiting for Charles to come down off that ledge patiently, rubbing his thumb over the back of his hand. Just when Charles thinks he can breathe again, Erik blows a puff of cool air over the head of his dick. "Be still," he reminds lightly, lips barely brushing him. It's forever-and-again before he sinks back down, and at exactly the point when Charles starts to feel that tightening pressure shooting between his legs, Erik stops. Every time, taking in the sounds of him begging with dark eyes. "Not yet," he commands, the Order firm. "You'll come when I say. If you behave."  
  
Erik is playing with him, and Charles knows he loves this, too, even as it tortures him. He's malleable in Erik's hands like the metal he loves, strung tight and precisely and held exactly where Erik wants him. When it happens again, Erik backing off at exactly the moment his stomach clenches, toes curling with pleasure, Charles cries out, loud and despairing, practically hyperventilating as he sucks air back into his lungs. He doesn't move, though, even as he whimpers, overwhelmed tears gathering in his eyes as he tenses and looks down at Erik with lust-darkened azure, lips swollen and bitten and parted. His hands stay exactly where Erik put them, his shoulders straight - no slouching - but his full lips are pouting now. "Erik," he gasps, and his voice is wrecked, low and raspy and desperate. "Please, I'll - I'll be so good, I'll do anything, please, oh. Let me, please. I'll be good for you, I'll behave." Perhaps it's babble, but it isn't an empty promise. Erik hasn't said not to, so Charles keeps his mind open and clear: there is nothing Charles wants more than to be good for Erik. *I'm going to be good, I promise-*  
  
He doesn't think there will ever come a time that he tires of hearing his name so debauched falling tumbling out of Charles's throat like scratched fingernails at the tip of a deep, burning well. "I know you are." Erik gives him a parting kiss and rises to his feet, gliding over to the first drawer of the bureau to inspect the implements. There's something to be said for toys, especially those carved out of delectable, high-quality metallic alloys-if the filthy grin over his shoulder has anything to say about it-but he opts only for the small bottle of lubricant near the far corner. There's time for the rest, right now Erik doesn't want anything intermediary between them. "Lay back on the bed," he Orders.  
  
Charles shudders at the Order alone, scooting up the bed and making himself as comfortable as possible. On his back like this, he can feel every welt, every precise, red line Erik drew on his skin, and the pain makes him hiss at the same time that he tenses with deep, helpless pleasure. His eyes are lidded again, cheeks pink as he considers whether to tell Erik something. He decides on yes, because he finds he wants to tell Erik everything, to lay himself bare and let him see. "That bottle was nearly full when I met you," he confides, squirming with both need and embarrassment, and simply because he wants to feel the sharp burst of pain. "I hardly ever, and then - almost every night, unless Raven was hovering, and sometimes even then," he admits, and thinks his cheeks might be on fire.  
  
The mattress dips under Erik's weight and he crawls toward Charles, hooking an arm under his leg, tugging him closer. The words pull a heavy breath out of his lungs and when he speaks in return it's coarse, gravelly, attention locked like a magnetic lodestone. "Sometime very soon you are going to let me watch you do this for yourself. Who knows if I'll even be as generous," he laughed. "Not today. I've been thinking of fucking you since the moment we met." His voice drops in pitch, heavy and suffocating, a hand clapped over Charles's mouth. "With my fingers. My tongue. My cock. Now I've got you. Mine to pull apart. You will give me everything." He bends Charles's knees toward his chest, moving along his body to kiss him, deep and messy. "Is that what you thought about? Every night?" He takes his chin in hand. "Answer me." The Order is a blaze up his spine, amplified by Erik's unrelenting need.  
  
Charles' breathing is ragged, each and every breath belonging to Erik. There is no fantasy of his that could ever live up to this. Erik is smoldering above him, merciless in his efforts to take Charles apart at the seams, but the truth is it doesn't take much at all. He was already falling apart for him from the very first moment they locked gazes. "Yes, Erik," he moans, and his whole body vibrates with it, humming with need to match. They are two forces meeting in equal measures, and their want of each other is no exception. Charles' eyes burn again, and if they held the sun before, it is fitting that the sun is a star, burning bright and hot. "I thought of you, of your fingers and your - oh, Erik, please." Erik hasn't seized his hands or told him to keep them still, so they roam down Erik's back, his nails faintly scratching as he attempts to pull him in closer. "I've wanted you so badly, I've thought of this all the time. I want to give you everything. I'm yours, Erik."  
  
The bottle cap flicks open, and Erik just leans back, watches him for a long, ceaseless moment. Drinking every crease of him in, unable to reconcile that this is where he is now. This is where he is, and it's so much brighter and fuller than he can comprehend. It occurs to him with a bit of a funny laugh that he can do this properly in here, that it won't be awkward-his right hand clenches into an experimental fist a few times, testing against the expectation of pain. It doesn't come, his fingers move smoothly, so he drizzles liquid onto them. When he does press inside it's slow at first, like everything with him, and Erik's smoothing the apple of Charles's cheek under his thumb and tasting his sounds. They are stretched out and skin-to-skin, a healing balm to raw exposure for them both. "That's it," Erik gasps. There's no more cold dispassion, but he isn't frantic, either. "Open up for me. That's it." A small noise escapes him, stuttering against Charles's mouth before he can swallow it back up.

* * *

The world out there is uncertain, and perhaps more dangerous than it has ever been. There is pain beyond this haven they have built together, excruciating and untended to. Here, Charles shelters them, wraps himself in Erik's voice - like molten, heated liquid, licking at his skin but never truly setting it aflame. He is generous with his noises, gasps and whimpers and sighs, hands grasping at the strong of Erik's back as if it the only thing that will hold him. "Oh, darling," is what spills from his lips, and his breath hitches, cradling the back of Erik's head as he presses them together again. "Oh, Erik." There is nothing but adoration there, dripping languid and warm between them. Erik's fingers are longer than his, they reach places he never could. There's no discomfort here, nothing but the thrill and ease of the stretch, his body opening for Erik as simple as breathing because his mind already has. Something jolts in him suddenly, and Charles is a livewire, crying out against Erik's lips and clawing at his back with overwhelmed sensation. "Oh - oh, Erik, more, there, please -"  
  
Erik's eyes are wide and blown, absorbing every sigh and twitch into himself the way he surely feels every spin of electronic subatomic particles in the atmosphere. The endearment makes him shiver, and his fingers circle deftly that spot inside Charles that makes him sound broken and desperate again and again. Stretching him, preparing him, dizzy in knowing how the slick clench of him, smooth and velvet will feel even better wrapped around his cock. Thigh-to-thigh, Charles on his hands and knees with a hand pressed in between his shoulderblades holding him in place. The overcome-want in his nerves burning out every trace of hesitance, self-consciousness. The image spills out over them like brackets of cold water-shock. Still, Erik lingers here, all-too fond, and then he shifts forward, pressing the bottle into Charles's hand. "Get me ready," he says, thin and hoarse.  
  
Charles' mouth has gone dry, and he licks his lips, moans his assent as he takes the bottle. Every inch of him trembles, and it takes him longer than it should with his shaking fingers. Once, Charles thought to himself that he did not want Erik to smother him. That the notion of it made his skin crawl, and in that context it still does, but now - he is smothered, suffocating. There is nothing but Erik, and Charles would wish for no different. He bites his lip as he wraps his slippery hand around Erik's cock, gasping at the heat of it, the girth of it in his hands. "You're so -" Big. Perfect. His cheeks were already warm and flushed, but they burn hotter. The anticipation flips in his belly, but he knows Erik will fit like a missing piece, as if he were part of Charles all along. There's no reason to be nervous, even though he still is. Charles watches Erik's face as he strokes, thumbing at the swollen, leaking head of him, swallowing around a gasp.  
  
It's difficult to find his voice, but he tries. "Erik, can we -" His eyes lower, that shy, uncertain part of him rising again. "Like this? Please?" It's different than the image Erik burned into him, and oh, he wants that too. There is no place he likes to be better than on his knees for Erik, but Charles has a different idea - and even if it's not his place to decide, he thinks he can at least request. He wants to feel the sheets rub on his welted back. He wants to feel Erik's strong arms holding his legs up and out of the way for him. But most of all, he wants to look into Erik's eyes as he takes him, as he claims him. To watch as it happens, and so Erik can see how thoroughly he wants every second of it. "Please," he whispers.  
  
Erik swore lowly. Charles was going to kill him, he thought once his brain reformed enough to consider coherent impressions. He wanted to go slower, to take his time, not to be overwhelmed by desire and baseless lust that curled alluringly through his neurons-which is the real basis of his prior suggestion because he feels his self-control swerve like groaning metal columns in a hurricane at even the image of Charles like that-but never let it be said that Erik Lehnsherr backs away from a challenge. It takes him many long, quiet moments of breathing to marshal himself back to the point where he can nod. Take it easy. Give Charles what he craves. It isn't Charles's place, but now that he's said it Erik can think of little else. Erik's eyes flutter closed when he jerks forward, a little unsteadily, regains his balance and rubs himself deliciously against Charles's slicked up hole. "Is this what you need?" he murmurs, one hand pushing Charles's knee up and the other trapping Charles's arms above his head in a vice grip.  
  
Honestly, Charles would take anything he was given right now and beg for it three times over. There's no thrill in getting his way, because the idea of there being another way besides what Erik wants for him, what he decides to grant him - as long as it isn't inconsistent with certain boundaries - is strange and utterly foreign. But it occurs to him that, as flimsy and inconsequential as concepts like virginity are, this is a moment of sorts. He's dabbled, experimented, but never like this. Never with another in this way. He makes sure Erik knows it, presses it into his mind: this is all yours, only ever yours. It leaves him breathless and floating, breath hitching as he's molded exactly to Erik's liking. The first touch makes him clench, but he knows he shouldn't, forces himself to relax and open and give, moaning as he aches for it. "I just need you, Erik," he says, simply, and there's no room to doubt it, the sun looking upon the moon. "Please, take what's yours." And he smiles, trembling and waiting, anticipation and desire burning him from the inside, as if there's nothing more natural. Nothing in the world he desires more. There isn't.

* * *

Something slams into Erik's chest like a freight train and he squeezes his eyes shut, going still, forehead bowed against Charles's, nothing but the sound of wheezing inhales through his nose echoing around the room.  
  
With his hands still trapped above his head, Charles can't reach out. He doesn't want to pull at Erik's hold, so he reaches for him mentally instead, concerned even through the heaving in his chest. "Erik?" Anxiety clenches in his stomach, churns it. Perhaps he said the wrong thing, did the wrong thing, perhaps he messed up again - but he can't get ahead of himself. "Erik, darling, what's wrong?"  
  
When he opens his eyes again, they're glassy, but he releases Charles's hands and spreads his fingers over his jaw. _"Lo de'aga_ ," he says, forcing his voice even. The fist around his heart unclenches with every painstaking beat and he exhales deeply through his nose. _I'm here. I've got you. It's going to be good. I promise_.  
  
Charles fights through the heady, thick curtain of desire, brings shaking fingers to Erik's face, straining to do so. I know, he thinks, but he's still concerned, brushing his fingers over Erik's cheek, tucking a strand of hair away. "What is it?" he asks, soft. "Please, Erik."  
  
He smiles against Charles's hand, shaking his head. He touches his palm over Charles's heart, feeling the way it flutters against his skin. "You're wonderful," he breathes, and kisses him. "You know-that I am-yours-you know that?"  
  
"Yes," he whispers immediately, and smiles back against Erik's lips. There is no way not to know it here. The praise warms him, calms him, but there's still doubt. "Did I -" Even the thought hurts too much to say like this, so he thinks, _Did I do something wrong?_  
  
Erik shakes his head, shushing him. _Absolutely not_ , he says, and lets Charles see that this is true. There's a complicated tangle of emotions swimming in his gut, sharp and bittersweet and heavy, but above anything else his love and desire for Charles is the strongest thread tying him back to himself. "You've never done this before, hm?" he brushes Charles's hair away from his forehead, leans down and kisses him slowly. "Just relax."  
  
Charles sighs into the kiss, every ounce of desire bubbling back to the surface. Erik is still pleased with him, still wants him, and that is the only thing that matters. His heart beats fast in his chest, a hummingbird's pace, but he isn't afraid or dreading, isn't worried besides first-time jitters; he opens his mind wide for Erik to see, to feel as he does, anticipating but not apprehensive, perfectly relaxed under Erik. "I want this more than anything, Erik," he whispers, and it's true. "Please." When he finds Erik's eyes, his own are shining, adoring and trusting and brighter than any star.  
  
Charles feels him latch onto that, cradling it inside of him amidst the crashing waves of fierce protectiveness that wash over ancient rocks rooted deep into the ocean. He shifts, forward and then they're pressed right up against one another, and Erik's inside him, unbearably hot and he's managing to go slow by some whisper of a prayer, or maybe it's a fucking miracle itself. He licks the palm of his other hand and rests its weight on Charles's abandoned cock, an off-beat rhythm with every minute, torturous slide deeper. The sound he makes is barely cognizant, a low moan that rends through them both. He needs Charles to see what he sees, an image blinding in its sincerity, as though Charles were the physical embodiment of an ache desperate to be filled, existing in his embrace, aware of only this, a snowflake melting against superheated iron. "You're perfect," he doesn't know if he says that out loud or not. "You're perfect. Look at me. Let me see you."  
  
It's everything Charles expects it to be, and as with everything involving Erik, so much more than that. He trembles as Erik presses forward, thighs shaking in their hold, but there's not a single drop of fear or regret in him. Instead he sings, elated and drowning in pleasure as Erik fills him, even as the stretch aches in the way he anticipated, panting and gasping at the touch of Erik's hand. His entire body has become pinpricks of sensation, and all he knows is Erik; when he moans his name, it's because it's the only word he remembers in that instant. He looks, and there's no denying what Erik sees reflected back at him in the hooded, hazy sky of Charles' gaze: love. Overwhelming, exuberant fullness, but more than that, the sense of completion. He is open in ways he has never been, panting and oversensitive, but it is exactly as it should be - Erik fits as he should, as if he were there all along. They go together. "I love you," is what he says aloud, and shakes with want. "Please. I'm so -" Full. To bursting, with more than he ever could have thought to ask for. Erik has given him everything, and Charles aches, hopes he gives even an eighth of it back. _We belong together, my darling_ , he whispers, and without his voice, it echoes around the entire room. _Take all of me._  
  
Whatever it was that Erik had submerged comes back full-force, stealing the breath out of him. There's a razor-wire panic that flits through, the briefest inclination on his part to hide and obscure and bury, but he lets it go and become the surface instead. An overwhelming degree of joy and heat and yes superimposed onto a cracked mirror image of rightness, shards that have dug into every area of his mind. There are no doors, there are no locked rooms, there is only the endless expanse. Painted, constructed, holographic landscapes switch-flipped and terrifying depths. Being with Charles, being able to give Charles this, he thinks he can trace every millionth of a particle of smashed glass. Maybe he can't put it together again. The Japanese call it _kintsugi_ , golden-joinery. Vases shattered onto pavement get plucked up and wound through with precious metals in every aberration. The broken pieces become works of art, living embodiment of object-history. Erik doesn't realize that he's crying even as he smiles, finally buried to the hilt, a pause in the great machine that is existence. Droplets of melted liquid-fire arc down his chest, and he thinks he's making a sound but he can't hear anything over Charles's pleas manifest in his mind. "Come here," his voice breaks, the way he pulls out and thrusts back in is deliberate and gentle even though everything in him is not. Yet another gift, something he didn't know he could give.  
  
For Charles, every great pleasure he has is remembered most in mind rather than as in a sensation of body. He's not certain if it's a product of his telepathy or one of personality; while he enjoys a good bodily pleasure as much as the next chap, Charles is far too cognizant of the fact that those things are fleeting. Each drunken peace comes with a throbbing, agonizing hangover, rarely worth the effort and momentary relief. But when the mind is involved, when there is a sense of lasting, irreparable change, something traceable, more than a fancy and more permanent than a moment of bliss, that's when it seems to matter. Every moment is locked in by a thought, and while he can recall every reaction his body had in astonishing detail, he rarely does. Charles has spent a good majority of his life scoffing at the physical to focus instead on pursuits of the mind.  
  
Never has he realized how entirely foolish that is, when the world - and true understanding of anything, appreciation of anything - requires a meeting of both.  
  
Erik gives him both in ways he's never imagined. There's no reason to separate the two, even when the physical is technically only mental - what is bodily sensation but tied to the brain, really, but this part of the brain matters too. While every shaking, splintered inch of his mind reaches for Erik, every damn door thrown open at once and every thought laid bare - every I love you, I'm yours, every instance of frightened how will I ever be the same? - what happens to his body matters too. Charles is gasping and sweating as he's filled, smiling and with unshed tears in his eyes. The pleasure is immense, terrible and overwhelming, but it is mostly an emotional one. His body is too distinctly aware of the fact that it is a stretch indeed, that Erik is hot and intrusive and that his mind wants nothing more than to let him in. It's a meeting of minds that will mark this moment, Erik's open and exposed for him to see.  
  
And then Erik thrusts back in.  
  
The motion is gentle, perhaps, but his reaction to it is anything but. Charles can't explain the way he shouts, back arched and every limb shaking. He's played with toys before, alone at night, but always briefly. The whole practice bored him more than he'd admit, and since meeting Erik, he hasn't had the courage to try again. It's nothing compared to this. His eyes widen, blown out and shocked as he trembles, tears spilling down his cheeks. Erik is nudging at something inside of him, his breath exhaling in a stuttered, wrecked moan. It's almost too much, rubbing insistently and big and Charles doesn't know whether to seek it or avoid it, but he goes with the former, his legs wrapped around Erik, his hands back at Erik's back as if he can pull him in further. Every single breath is pulled from him, and it takes everything he has not to come right then and there, full to the breaking and strung open in every way on Erik's cock.  
  
"Erik, Erik, oh, yes," is what he manages instead, and he barely recognizes his own voice. He's the picture of debauchery, lips swollen and red as he fights to beg. "Please!"  
  
Firsts don't always mean the same thing. Being bored, being in pain, those are overwhelmingly his prior experiences. Existing in his mind like a brain-in-a-vat ( _the most dangerous man in the world should be introduced/he has never, in his entire life, harmed a living creature_ ), well, Erik relates on a fundamental level. He has stopped ascribing this motion any sort of special meaning beyond that which is necessary to relieve yourself of built-up pressure, until Charles. Until right now, as though Charles has waited for it his entire life and Erik is the one to answer, this deluge of avarice, this roil of muscle and sinew and salt-flesh. Erik returns to his body with a shudder, wide-eyed, static-electricity in his system and coalescing right down to his dick the way Charles clenches him so fucking deliciously. "You like that," he laughs, his arm like a band over Charles's chest, holding him in place, dragging himself out to just the tip. "This is what you need, isn't it, _neshama_?" No more metaphorical meandering, they both know Charles needs to be _fucked_ and it redoubles microphone feedback-loop between them. "Let's see if you like this," he grins, sharp and dangerous, splaying his hand out over Charles's stomach as he angles himself to scrape deep within him, faultlines shifting under the ground, pressing down and snapping his hips with more give. Relentless, but never careless.  
  
Charles is certain he has never made sounds like the ones he is making in his life. If there was any room for embarrassment, he knows he would be, but there isn't. Instead he clenches around Erik as he pulls out, letting out sorrowful little whimpers because it's so unbearably empty without him now. His chest is heaving, and Erik is holding him down, keeping him in place, and that's delicious in its own right, his flesh so sensitive to touch it burns at first. "Please -" he gasps, and when he gets what he wants he moans, a full, proper moan, eyes rolling up into his skill for a moment as he's completely and utterly overwhelmed. "Oh, _oh_ ," is what comes out when Erik begins to move, eyes still wide and teary as if he can't believe it. He can't. Charles certainly knew there had to be merit to it, had felt that plenty secondhand, but he should have known it would exceed expectations. Just as he predicted, his poor back rubs against the sheets even as Erik holds him still, thankfully very soft, but it's an edge that sets him aflame all over again, and then Erik is rubbing against that spot deep inside of him, firm and merciless, and Charles can barely get his breaths out. His hands fly up to grasp at something, anything, and he wishes idly that Erik had tied them. Next time. "Erik - oh! I'm so full," he keens, and he doesn't mean metaphorically. Please, please, I need it-  
  
Erik tangles their fingers together, stretches over Charles to bind them body-to-body, every spare inch of flesh warm and solid as they fit, and Erik can't seem to wipe the smile off his face. Then he nuzzles his head down to Charles's neck and bites, hard, and his pace sets to match it, thighs bracketing Charles and holding him open to rut into him, every drag of skin sending a flurry of whipping sparks down his back. "I know you do-" he rasps. "You take it so well-Charles-" it's a broken cry, needy and twisted off-he's listening to Charles's body the way he listens to his sounds-the flip of his belly, the tug behind his groin as it tightens, the wet spot trailing from where his cock bobs against himself trapped in-between, untouched and so red it looks like it hurts-tidal locked, sensation storming the shore but receding before it overtakes, Erik's lips parted and panting harshly near his ear, digging his nails into Charles's palm. He keeps him like this for an endless amount of time, marked by Charles's desperation the way marks stand red against his shoulders. "I'm going to make you come like this," he mutters, long-past sensibility or tenderness. His mind is dark and open, every memory a star in the inked blackness, whispers of thought filthy and heavy between them. "I don't need to touch you, you're going to come just like this."  
  
Charles' body exists only as sensation, plucked out of him and drawn from a well he thought would be dry by now. For once, he focuses on the physical, because despite the dark, tantalizing hum of Erik's thoughts between them, it's starkly more relevant. He listens to Erik's panting, his groans, the deep, rasping timber of his voice, the sound of slapping skin where their hips meet, the filthy squelching from the lube, his own cries and moans when Erik thrusts exactly right, which is nearly every time, because how could he not know Charles' body when it belongs to him? There's no time to catch his breath, every sense overwhelmed and flooded, every brush of skin electric from the tips of his fingers to the curl of his toes, feet cane-striped. Truth be told, he'd nearly forgotten his own cock, so hard it twitches and leaks with every movement, purpling and trapped and aching. "Yes, Erik," he moans. He's so close it's dizzying, stomach tensing, breathing more gasps than inhales. "Erik, please, can I -" Charles throws his head back and wails when Erik's dick rubs his battered prostate, nerves fried as he pants and tears spill down his cheeks. "Please, Erik, can I - oh - can I come?" Because he won't last like this, and they both know it. But Charles is good, he is so good, he will wait. Not until Erik says, even if the notion of waiting any longer makes him want to cry. _I love you, Erik, I'll be so good -_  
  
Erik listens, and listens, for that precise moment when it all builds up to an overwhelming cacophony of sensation that *just* begins to stretch over into fear, fear that he'll be on this knife's edge forever and ever and he begins to quake with it, blind and scrambling, and then he does _something_ in his head, gripping the dial to twist it all the way _up_ and his fingers rest on Charles's throat, staring down into unseeing eyes, mapping-memory and Erik laughs, bright and carefree. "Come on, _yes_ -" his hand tightens and he jerks in a stuttered stop-motion and buries himself in deep, dragging Charles beyond the cliffs, rockfaces heaving and breaking apart, the roar of high-pitched whining in his ears a delectable tinnitus or maybe that's just- "Come on, come for me, sweet boy. Come on-"  
  
And Charles does. He's fairly certain he whites out, except there is no way to white out here, this consciousness deliberate and constructed entirely for them. Nothing slips, nothing breaks, nothing fades, still perfectly held somewhere far off where he does not need to maintain it. But here, here Charles screams, can hear it ringing in his own ears, Erik's name permanently branded into him. His body contorts, but Erik holds him, Erik anchors him, Erik forces him to feel every single second of it. It seems to go on forever, cock spurting between them hot and twitching, and even then it doesn't end, wave after wave of shuddering, sparking pleasure that borders on pain. And even that is perfect, even that makes him moan and whimper and whine. He's shaking like a leaf, wrung out and limp and panting, squeezing the hand in his. His eyes must have closed at one point, but when they open, fluttering and heavy, they're hazy and only see Erik. He's ruined, and happily so at Erik's hands. Taken apart only for him. "Erik," he rasps, voice wrecked, too, because in all those languages and all those memorized words, it's the only one he currently knows.

* * *

When he was younger, Erik remembers standing outside watching lightning strike over the mountains, every electric explosion in the dirt echoing through his body, shivering particles making his hair stand on end. His own release is quite like that, a loud, thunderous roar. He's still for a long moment in the aftermath, and he's careful when he slips out, not to jostle. He returns to gather Charles up in his arms, and he's talking, or maybe he's dreaming, a silly story about a servant who inherits a great fortune and when given the opportunity to leave with all the material possessions he could think of, he chooses only to follow nobly in the footsteps of the one who has granted him pardon.   
  
"Hi," he laughs. "I love you," he says when he thinks he can talk again, brushing damp strands of hair from Charles's forehead.


	15. I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _rage makes man a beast_ , yiddish proverb

"Mmmm," Charles murmurs, quite intelligently, he thinks, after Erik turned him entirely to mush. He's still limp and oversensitive, but he's caught his breath, at least, and when he laughs, they're quiet, hoarse little giggles. "Love you, too. Is it - is it going to be like that every time? Because any descriptor for that would be an understatement, but I truly might die." Charles wraps his legs up in Erik's, already missing being connected. "I might also get addicted," he admits.  
  
Who needs intelligence, anyway? Erik grins back, eyebrows arching playfully. "We'll see," he promises. "I shouldn't like to kill you, but a little addiction is perfectly acceptable." He kisses Charles's nose, teasing. "In my humble opinion."  
  
"There's nothing _humble_ about that opinion," he teases, giving a playful little huff of his own. There's still time, he realizes, and they've never had an opportunity like this. To lie here, peaceful and comfortable, no prison floors or barely padded cots, to soak in the afterglow. Perhaps it's the universe's way of apologizing for trying to kill them, and their reward for thwarting it. Charles tugs up the covers, uncaring that a shower would probably be in order. He'd much rather stay here. "Let's play a game, Erik," he hums after a pause, grinning up at him where he's settled into his chest. "I suppose it's not really much of a game, but - ask me a question. Any question. Something you've wondered. It can be trivial, or not." He wants Erik to know him, inside and out, and Charles wants to know him in return. There's no better time to learn some things, curled up in each other's bodies with their minds wide open.  
  
Erik hums, considering that. "Tell me about Gabrielle?" he settles on at last, aware that the two shared a relationship but not much further beyond that. "It seems as though you were close, once. Is she the only partner you have had?"  
  
Charles sighs, nodding. It's old hurt now, old disappointment, and much lessened by the fact that he's in Erik's arms. Even still. "Yes," he answers. "I met her while I was partway through my medical degree, so, oh, a while back now. We were together for close to a year, though I wouldn't call us together for the majority of it. She was - is - truly a star, Gabby. Whiplash smart, and perfectly capable. I wanted to think it could work." He smiles, bittersweet as it is, draws patterns on Erik's chest. "She's a D4.5. The highest I'd ever met. She made me feel something for the first time, but in the end it wasn't enough. She wanted a proper submissive, as I'm sure any Dom does, and I couldn't give her that. She said _kneel_ , and I thought of the applications of telepathy on psychiatric care, so you see the problem. We both knew we'd resent it if we dragged it on longer when we knew it wasn't right, so we went separate ways. Amicably. She moved back to _Tel Aviv_ the following year, I got my degree and made my way back to New York, and that was that. I saw it as proof, then. That I simply wasn't meant for it."  
  
"It would seem that is not the case," Erik said softly, kissing him. "As difficult as that is, I am glad you were able to form a connection with her, even so." He means it, definitively unwilling to begrudge Charles any form of happiness he experienced, despite if it only lasted a short while. Dominance and submission aside, it's evident that Gabrielle at the very least was intellectually on Charles's level, or close-to, which he knows is something the other man has lacked throughout his life just as much. "You merely needed the right inspiration, that is all."  
  
Charles nods, his smile soft. "I don't regret a second of it, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It's just -" He bites his lip, tracing a scar on Erik's chest over and over, idle and vaguely sad, in the way anyone is when speaking of old pains. "I have incredible friends, Erik. You've met my sister. And even still, it was all too simple to feel like I was the only one in the world sometimes. Like I was looking out, and no one was ever looking in. One way glass."  
  
"Not anymore," Erik said, shaking his head. If Erik could help it, he would never feel that way again. Unconsciously, his arm tightened around Charles's waist, and he rubbed his back, closing his eyes and relaxing into the sound of Charles's voice. "Tell me about your friends?"  
  
Charles laughs, shaking his head even though Erik can't see it. "That's not how the game works, you cheat. It's my turn." There's something so light about this. It's never felt this way, always a tension between them. What wonders negotiations and a good romp will do, apparently, and grins at his own thoughts. "But I suppose I have a bit of a headstart, so I'll give it to you. There's Hank, whom you've seen, briefly. Lovely, completely, and Raven's perfect match in every way. It certainly helps that he's one of the smartest people I know. You really don't want to be in the room when Hank and I start talking mutant-applied medicine," he warns, chuckling. "My oldest friend besides Raven is Warren, though, and he's - well, if you disqualify Raven for being my pseudo-sibling and Hank for being her husband, and therefore through association, that leaves him as my only friend. I know, a true shock, considering my charm." It's self-deprecating, but gently so. Charles doesn't think himself unlovable, it's just that most have no clue what to do with him. He has plenty of acquaintances, all friendly, but friends is a bit harder. "We very nearly didn't last through -" Charles clenches his teeth. "A difference. Our friendship is hard won. I trust him with my life, now. He's the first one I told about - well, us."  
  
"I _never_ cheat," Erik smirks, and falls silent while Charles answers his second question. "Warren was at the CIA, when Emma attacked you," he remembers-an expensive suit, pristine blond hair, a face filled with entitlement and stature accustomed to receiving everything he demanded. Charles apparently had a type, other than Hank. The thought makes his lips twitch. "I would ask another question, but you may not let me get away with it."  
  
Charles laughs, rolling his eyes at both the words and the thoughts accompanied, and scoots until he can settle his head on Erik's chest to listen to his heartbeat properly. "Use your free follow up now, then," he teases.  
  
"What did you fight about?"  
  
He knew it was coming, and it still drops his stomach, the room just that bit colder. Charles sighs, deep and pained, and calms himself by counting Erik's heartbeats. "Warren had a son," he says, after a long pause, and the word had sticks in his throat, uncomfortable. "And that son turned out to be a mutant. He didn't always handle it the way he should have." Among the hurt there's anger, but it's worn now, faded, long forgiven because at the core of him, Charles is built to understand, and he understands Warren better than most. "Oh, he loved him, that was indisputable. But he was also afraid, and fear makes people act against better judgment. He wanted him to be safe, and - well, we both know the world does not always grant safety to special. _Angel_ \- that was what he was called - he was..." Charles swallows, and manages a smile. "He was very, very special." It hurts to recall, but he shows Erik his beautiful, feathery wings, spread out and fluttering, morning sun streaming through the windows. Ethereal, almost. "He was a truly beautiful boy," Charles whispers.

* * *

Somewhere while Charles talked Erik had fallen entirely still, breath caught in his chest, heartbeat hammering against Charles's ear. "It's your turn," he croaks at last.  
  
Charles needs a moment or two to recover himself, his mind lingering near a door usually latched shut. He looks up eventually, fingers brushing Erik's cheek. "Are you alright?" he asks instead.  
  
"No," he answers softly, shaking his head. "Are you?"  
  
"No," he answers, equally honest, but he smiles. "But I will be. What do you need from me, love?" Charles brushes hair away from Erik's face, then plays gently with one of the strands, curling it between his fingers as an idle distraction.  
  
"Just this," Erik says, holding him close. It's a long time before he speaks again. "I cannot imagine the pain he felt. I am glad you were there with him, though I regret that you've been exposed to this-monstrous side of humanity." Erik smiles gently, and then forces himself to ask, calm and collected as a stone, because he is obligated: "Did Warren ever obtain Angel's remains?"  
  
"There wasn't much left," he whispers, and closes his eyes. Charles needs to keep them closed or he's sure he'll be sick, the day it happened permanently branded into his memory. He knows for Warren it is far worse, the tattoos on his arms entirely unnecessary as way of remembering. He will never forget, no matter how much whiskey he downs. "There's a better way. I believe that," he says, after what seems like an eternity but must only be minutes, curled tightly in Erik's arms. "That there's a future where that isn't even a possibility. I have to, Erik, or I'd eventually stop getting out of bed in the morning. But every day, even as I think that, I'm afraid. For Raven, for Hank, for every Angel born into a world that doesn't understand. I am so very afraid, so I choose to hope instead."  
  
"I wish that I could agree," Erik replies, kissing the top of his head. He's always known this side of Charles existed, but hearing him speak about it openly is like a knife cleaving him into two. "I want you to have hope," he says instead. He knows above anything else that if Charles lost his sense of hope, he would lose who he was as a person-the person that Erik has been drawn to since the minute he stepped inside his cell. He doesn't want to change Charles, but he will be the person that ensures Charles's optimistic vision of the world remains undisturbed. If Charles wants a school, Erik will build an army to protect it.  
  
Charles laughs, but it's hollowed out, more bitter than it is amused. It isn't aimed at Erik, but at a world that has already done its damndest to take away his hope. Building it up is a deliberate process, a form of resistance, the same as Erik's cold defenses. "Do you think I'm foolish, Erik?" he asks. "For believing there can be peace? That we can learn to live together, without tearing each other apart?"  
  
Erik shakes his head. "I think you are idealistic," he says softly. "And I think there is a place for idealism. But humans cannot even live _together_ ," he points out. "Let alone that they view us as a threat. They see us as dangerous weapons, unpredictable and useful only insofar as we can be controlled."  
  
"Oh, I know. I don't deny that." He would be foolish if he did, with the evidence right in front of him. Erik aside, he's seen it more times than he can count. "But they haven't been shown otherwise, Erik. There hasn't been an organized mutant rights movement, mostly because we're all terrified to be the leg that sticks out. Who wants to go public and become a figurehead, when they have traditionally been targeted?" He does grin at that. "Us, apparently, is the answer."  
  
"They have been," Erik shakes his head. "They have been shown otherwise, but they don't care. Your government refuses to capitulate to compassion even as preschoolers-human toddlers-are gunned down in their classrooms. What makes you think they will choose reason, when they can point to a mutant destroying a building on international television as all the proof they need?"  
  
"Because people are reasonable and compassionate when given the chance, Erik," he says, calmly and quietly, and sits up on his elbows to watch him. "Because they change their minds. You don't need to tell me that people have the capacity to be cruel, because I have seen it. I have seen it everyday." There's no mistaking Charles for blindly naïve. He simply isn't. "If they do not care, you convince them to. Fear can destroy, Erik, but don't tell me the world has never changed course because the hope for a better future was stronger than fear ever could be. The answer to fear is not more fear."  
  
" _You_ can convince people to, Charles." There is an aching fondness there. "The rest of us cannot, and there are more of them than there are of us. You're speaking in hypotheticals. Of course our society is better now than it was before, but that doesn't mean the underlying problem has gone away. When it became socially unacceptable to hate black people, the _Ku Klux Klan_ claimed they _aren't really racist_. When it became socially unacceptable to hate gay people, the Catholic church claimed to _love the sinner, not the sin_. People are still very much afraid, and people are still dying all over the world because of prejudice and fear."  
  
"Do you not believe in progress? Do you not believe that we have, as a society, a global community, become more tolerant? More willing to see different and not want to destroy it on sight?" Perhaps that's far too optimistic of a view, but Charles refuses to think otherwise. "The first instinct is not always to throw stones, Erik. Sometimes it is to listen. Sometimes it is to understand. The world will never be perfect, but it can be taught how to be kinder. And you are forgetting how those social changes came about in the first place, and stripping them of their power." He shakes his head. "I am not suggesting we sit tight and wait for them to make a decision on us. I am simply advocating for a fight that does not end in bloody hands. It's not just me who can convince them. We don't need fists, we need voices."  
  
"I believe that idealism and optimism have their place," Erik says again quietly. He exhaled slowly, carefully, looking up at the ceiling. "This fight has already shed blood. Innocent blood. Who will protect the people who do not have voices? Who will protect the people who cannot speak up? Who are immobilized in villages like mine, who are hunted and flayed open because they dare to have beautiful blue skin or marvelous wings? We must be willing and able to defend ourselves, because _they will not defend us_."  
  
"I know." And it aches inside of him, twists at his stomach every time he thinks of it. If he had not stepped forward, Erik's fate would have been effectively sealed, and none of the options promising. "I'm not - naïve, Erik," he sighs, and settles back on his chest, tangling their legs again. "I understand that sometimes force is necessary. I know that no revolution is ever wholly peaceful, though of course I'd like it to be. I don't think it's entirely idealistic to believe that there are other ways to change and empowerment, that's all. I listened, Erik, and so will they. Please give them a chance to."  
  
"You listened because you are exceptional. I don't hold my captors in an equal amount of esteem," he says, lips twitching briefly. "Shaw is a mutant, but he doesn't care about our people. He employs humans and makes deals with their governments to sell us to the highest bidder. He uses mutation as evidence for his washed-up Nazi theories. I care about what happens to us. I won't lead us into a war we cannot win without provocation, but when it starts, and I promise you it will start, I fully intend on giving them hell."  
  
"Then I will do everything in my power to make sure it never does." It's a vow, solemn and determined. While Erik prepares for a war, he will work tirelessly on peace and diplomacy. Charles is silent for a while, and when he speaks up again, it's quiet. "Do you think I'm extraordinary because I am a mutant, Erik? If my telepathy were gone, would I still be? Would you love me the same?"  
  
"Your telepathy is part of who you are," Erik says after a minute to really consider the question. "Without it, you would be a different person. No less extraordinary, I am sure," he adds. "I am certain I would love you as much as I do right now, if we had occasion to meet."  
  
"Statistically speaking, it was very likely I was one or the other, if I was going to be either - a D1 or a mutant, especially to the degree of my mutation. But lucky us, we got both." He laughs, and brightens some, kissing Erik's bare chest. "You're right. You can't separate my telepathy from me any more than you can any other aspect that makes the whole. Once, you said 'think of the things we can do.'" He looks up to meet Erik's eyes, then reaches for his hand to squeeze. "Promise me we'll do it together. We could change the world, Erik, I truly believe that."  
  
"And if they come for us?" Erik asks, serious, because he doesn't make empty promises. "Are you willing to do what's necessary? Are you capable of that?"  
  
"What do you believe is necessary, in that case? Do you mean massacre? Destroying them before they destroy us? Drawing lines in the sand and refusing to listen to reason because they proved you right? Because that will never be necessary to me, Erik."  
  
Erik's eyebrows fly up. "No, of course not. Do you think that of me?"  
  
"No, but I think escalating force leads down that road faster than either of us would like to believe." Charles shifts until they are face to face, cupping Erik's cheek. "It's a fine, fine line, love. And I don't want you to cross it. I won't let you." Perhaps not a very submissive thing to say, but Charles means it. "So, yes. I'll stand with you, if it comes to it."  
  
"Every one of the people at that Institute deserved to die. Not every human is a monster, and I don't believe that they are. As a policy, I _frown_ upon genocide."  
  
"As a policy, I frown upon _murder_ in general, but look where we are." Charles sighs, but despite how awful it might make him, it's fond. "I'll follow you, Erik. Willingly, and with all of me, as long as you promise to listen. The moment you stop is the moment I leave." It's not an empty threat. It's a promise.  
  
"In that case, I shall endeavor to ensure you stay," Erik smiles down at him. "I cannot promise you that we will always agree, but I will never stop wanting you by my side."  
  
"If we always agreed, where would be the fun? I love a good post-coital debate," he laughs, and kisses Erik on the cheek. "I believe you are good, Erik. Truly. And I don't think we need to be on different sides. Actually, I rather think us being on the same side is going to make every difference."  
  
"We will never be on different sides," Erik can promise him this. "I want our future to be bright. I want us to be safe. On some level, that is optimism."

* * *

Charles smiles, and brings Erik's knuckles - the one on his damaged hand, in the world outside here - up to his lips to kiss, a deliberate echo of Erik earlier. "You know what I think, Erik? I think this discussion, while endlessly fascinating, is an attempt to make me skip my turn. Cheater. How will I ever know if you're a coffee or tea person if you distract me with mutant politics?"  
  
"Do you really have to ask?" Erik grinned at him. "Coffee, of course."  
  
"Of course? Of course?" Charles' pitch rises in mock offense, his nose scrunched in playful distaste. "I'm sorry, but I draw the line here. That's absolute blasphemy, and I can't stand for it."  
  
"I will change your mind," he insists. "You haven't had proper _botz_." Charles gets an image, then, a sunlit cafe nestled on cobbled streets and the blazing heat of afternoon drawing barest edges of brown over the trailing leaves of potted plants curled around a rail, _sufganiyot_ -deep-fried, doughy, powdery confections with raspberry filling-served alongside delicate cups filled with coffee so strong it's red, a fine line of foam coating the top.  
  
"Mmm. Enticing, but I have a confession to make." He grins, and imagines there will be many disagreements like this. He can only hope they will all be handled as calmly, with as much love and care, but he knows they will always try. "I can't drink coffee that tastes like coffee. I think it's foul, if I'm honest."  
  
" _Ma_! No way. You haven't had proper coffee." Erik jabs a finger playfully into his chest. "I suppose you drink _tea, Earl Grey, hot_."  
  
"Tea, Earl Grey, hot with honey and a splash of milk, thank you very much." Charles grins wide, shaking his head. "How can you even consider reading a good book without a cup of tea? It's mad."  
  
Erik covers his mouth so Charles won't see him laughing at him. "What book are you reading right now?"  
  
"You saw the one I was reading most recently, it's out on the coffee table." He talks as if they live together, as if Erik simply missed it on the way in. "If you mean what new book, regrettably nothing. I teach a freshman genetics course at NYU which, no, is not fun to juggle with a private psychiatric practice and an impending criminal case, but you know I like to be busy. Would you like to grade some papers for me while you're here? That's been my reading material. I assigned one paper this term, well in advance, and somehow everyone is experiencing 'family emergencies'."  
  
Erik rubs his hands together gleefully, because of fucking course he would. "I'd be delighted. The secret is you take a black-out marker and just create some found poetry, and then give it back with D, and write _Ds make Degrees_ at the top. How can you possibly manage teaching a course on top of all this?"  
  
Charles laughs, full and delighted, and kisses Erik simply because he's overwhelmed with the need to. "It's twice a week, nothing too difficult. My real secret is that I don't sleep and fall asleep grading, but you've taken that from me," he teases. "If I knew my future Dom would make me take care of myself - well, no, I'd still be exactly where I am right now."  
  
"You shall need to come up with a more effective secret," Erik says archly, framing his face in both hands because he can, here. "I have full confidence in your capabilities."  
  
"Hmm. You're right, cloning myself is the only solution," he decides, attempting a straight face. He doesn't quite manage. "Would you be able to manage two of me? Just one is giving you a run for your money," he laughs, wicked.  
  
"I'd be thrilled to find out," Erik purses his lips, amused. He's not sure if it's his turn or not, but since he's a cheater anyway, he figures he'll press the advantage. "What do you do for fun?"  
  
"You've seen my schedule, Erik," he says, dryly, but smiles. "You already know the answer to this. I read, often. I spend time with Raven, and Warren when he has the time for it, usually to the end where I lose a round of pool. Or three. I have many talents, but I'm fairly awful at pool. I play chess, usually on the computer because everyone in my life now refuses to play with me. Sore losers, the lot of them. I take up hobbies and pet projects, whether that be a new science or a paper or attending a conference, which I do believe counts as fun, for the record. I enjoy music. There was an absolutely gorgeous grand piano at the manor, but there's no room for it in this apartment, so I haven't played properly in years. I like old movies, the more black and white the better, but Raven never lets that be my pick on movie nights. I dabble in the athletic. I'll never say no to a good run. I have awards in martial arts, which no one expects until I tell them, so feel free to be surprised. Raven still absolutely flattens me when we spar, but I'm working on it," he grins.  
  
There are many threads to that which Erik is eager to explore, but he reins it in, attempting not to pelt Charles with questions, but curious at both how alike and dissimilar they are in this respect. Of course he expects Charles's interest to stray toward the academic (truthfully he's not that surprised by his athletic bent, he's seen Charles's body after all, but he can see how others would be surprised-Charles is so intensely cerebral after all, but a healthy mind and a healthy body were often in sync), but sometimes he has to wonder-even if Erik were knowledgeable in scientific respects, he simply prefers life's more simple pleasures. He finds that they're opposites in unusual ways, partly because Charles is so much at once, he likes being able to challenge him, but at the same time there's the perpetual question of whether he's too simplistic for Charles. "Well, at the very least, I can certainly challenge you in chess," he settles on the answer warmly.  
  
Charles smiles, and leans in for another kiss. "You're wrong," he says, warmly and simply. "There is nothing simple about you, Erik. If you left me to it, I would spend my whole day with my nose in a science textbook, and then where would we be? I need more of the simple. That being said, I do intend to get another PhD," he laughs. "I love watching people gawk at my qualifications. That's another pasttime. What is your idea of fun? I can return the question, since you keep stealing my turn."  
  
Erik gives a little shrug. "I like to sing," he says, laughing a bit self-deprecatingly. "And read. Stories, mostly. Not really scientific things-I suppose you might say we're opposing in that regard, depending on your definition. I used to cook. My father had a metalworking shop and I would spend hours there, sculpting pieces."  
  
There's nothing to be self-depracating about, from where Charles is sitting (or lying, as it were). Erik has a beautiful voice, and his ability to create beautiful things from such simple parts always leaves him awed and fascinated. He could watch Erik mold metal for hours. There are gaps to fill in his collection of stories and poems, and he rather thinks he'd enjoy them even more if Erik read them to him. That's not what he comments on out loud. "Oh, thank goodness." It's perhaps a strange reaction, but Charles is grinning. "You cook. I'm absolutely hopeless at it, no matter what I try. I've burned water before. That's not a joke. I'd tell you the Christmas roast story, but Raven tells it much better and she does so love the opportunity to mock me."  
  
"Ah, I see we share a past-time," Erik laughs gently. "Of course, you know my next question will be for you to illuminate me on your _Christmas roast_." And it'll turn into a _Christmas roast_ , if you know what I mean. Erik and Raven really should be in the same room together more often. He quite likes that, though-it means that eventually, he'll be able to introduce Charles to the wonderful world of the culinary, rather than what he assumes are take-out boxes stacked upon take-out boxes and, like, McDonald's "salads."  
  
"I do not eat McDonald's," he protests, as if offended Erik would even think such things of him. His cheeks go a bit red and he runs a hand through his hair, sighing. "I told you Raven tells it better, but here is the Sparknotes version: I attempted to make Christmas dinner for us, which was a lovely gesture of me, by the way, and it did not go well. We ended up with a charred block that perhaps once vaguely resembled beef. Long story short, we went out to eat that Christmas, and it was very merry. Hank cooks Christmas dinner for us now, in case you're wondering. Occasionally he lets me in the kitchen to hand him things, but I'm otherwise banished."  
  
Erik's grin is entirely too toothy and he covers his mouth with the back of his hand. "I shall need to assist you the next time," he says, mostly a fit of fanciful thinking on his part, but if Charles is optimistic about the state of mutant-human relations, Erik can be optimistic about their future.  
  
"With Christmas dinner?" Charles smiles, as if the thought both elates and amuses him. "We'll have a very festive household in winter, then. I've never celebrated a Jewish holiday - well, unless you count with you, but I'm sure we can do better."  
  
"You should know there are about twelve major holidays in the calendar," Erik laughs. "We like to celebrate."

* * *

Charles realizes something, and considers how to ask. "Do you consider yourself religious, Erik?" he decides on. "I've heard you pray, among other things. I've wanted to ask, to know what you believe, but I wasn't sure if - well, if it would be insensitive," he admits, a bit embarrassed. "This is decidedly not my area of expertise. Mother dragged me to Church as a child, and then I got older and decided enough of that. That was the end of the whole business for me."  
  
Erik just smiles. "No, not insensitive. I-" he nods. "I am. I _believe_ in science," he adds as a caveat. "I believe in evolution and gay marriage and abortion and all of that. But, yes."  
  
"Well, I'm glad you believe in gay marriage, Erik," he says, lips pursed as he holds back a laugh. "Because I have some news for you, and it might be shocking."  
  
Erik snorts. "Indeed. In my language we call it _Masorti_. I follow what is ethical and reject what is unethical-what harms people, even if there are those who would say the _Torah_ mandates it. You have to understand that the Christian conception of G-d, and the Jewish one, are wholly different. For instance, you'll rarely hear about _sin_ in a synagogue. We prefer to focus on what you _should_ do. Be kind, seek justice, take responsibility for yourself."  
  
"That would have been far more palatable," he admits, and sighs. "I like to consider myself indifferent. Agnostic, perhaps, if you must label it. I believe in science, and ethics, and people. The rest I can't know, so I see no reason to dwell on it." Charles shrugs, but he's smiling. "I admire your faith, Erik. It's beautiful. I can't exactly get behind it, but I'll support you in whatever way you need."  
  
He smiled back. "I appreciate that, and I believe in those things as well, so we are suited." The conversation eases something in him, though, and his muscles relax from the tension that had first appeared in his shoulders when Charles had asked initially. "May I ask a-perhaps, more existential question?" his eyebrows raised, and when Charles looked up at him, he continued, "You are a telepath. Do the experiences of other people-is that the same as if you had experienced them?"  
  
Charles shakes his head. "Not usually. It was, when I was younger, but I can separate most things now. What is mine, and what is not. What belongs to me and what doesn't." There's a grey line, though, something blurry in the middle, and he purses his lips as he considers how to explain it to someone who does not experience it. "Pain, suffering - those things are more difficult, because they're so visceral. It's easy to feel that as my own, and I've internalized those experiences before. Even particularly strong positive moments can have that effect. I experience so much of the world secondhand, I sometimes forget exactly where I've been, what I've seen. Sometimes it's harmless - I'll see a movie through Raven's eyes, and convince myself I've watched it. Other times it's less so. I take bits and pieces of everyone I meet with me, for better or for worse. They aren't mine, but they become part of me. It's just the nature of it. On the bright side, I am very empathetic," he laughs. "I only live one life, but I've seen it through countless lenses, some I enjoyed, others completely and utterly horrifying. There's a difference between what I experience and what I experience through others, is the short version. But it gets blurry more often than I'd like, and there's no turning it off when it's... unpleasant." Charles grimaces. "I've seen the absolute worst of people, Erik, and been made to feel as they did. But I've also seen some of the best of it, and that makes the whole thing worth it."  
  
Erik nodded along. "I wondered that." It's part of why he's done his best to cut off the sensation of his experiences from Charles's perception-he meant what he said when they first met, transferring his own pain even in a small way was abhorrent to him. "That makes sense. On a philosophical level it is different, I'd think. Like, you know Hebrew through me, but you don't have the experience of learning it like I do-or else we'd be the same person."  
  
"Mmm, exactly. And the only reason I know Hebrew is because I pulled it out of a specific corner of your mind - I can't do that with most things, of course. I can feel what your mutation is like for you, for example, but it is never my experience." Charles hums, stretching, and winces at the soreness there. It makes him smile. "That being said, it is lovely to experience even secondhand. Do you always feel it?" His hand wanders to his neck unconsciously, to the metal there. He shivers.  
  
"Always," Erik confirms. It's so pervasive that being at the CIA is like being cut off from his senses, and Charles can feel every metal implement in the hospital around them, every quirk of atomic shift-although at this point Erik can't beyond what Charles has constructed here-he's thoroughly removed from the situation, but in split-consciousness, the surgical instruments moving within him, the foundations of the building, it's air moving over his skin. His fingers rest over the shimmery alloys around Charles's neck, protectively. "Did you know I can fly?" Erik grins.  
  
Charles laughs, thrilled at that. It makes sense, but he's still tickled by it. "I can't wait to see more," he says, and means it. Erik's powers don't scare him, not in the slightest. He isn't like those who would lock him away. "Electromagnetism - it's a fundamental force of nature, Erik. One of four. Without something you control and manipulate at will, the universe itself would crumble. Do you realize how potentially powerful that makes you?" Charles shakes his head, as if he can't comprehend it himself. "It's absolutely incredible. You're incredible."  
  
Erik shakes his head. "I don't see it as... power, I suppose." Being powerful is not something that's ever particularly interested him, but more than that, "I don't feel as though I control it. There are... _rules_ , there is a sense of what is right and wrong to do, what it will and won't wish to accomplish. Like a living organism. Like people's thoughts. You could bend another's will to you, but you know their will, and you prefer to respect it."  
  
"Being powerful does not equate to being - excuse my French here - a conscienceless prick, Erik." Charles grins, and rests his hand over Erik's, still lingering on his neck. His collar. "You have the power to bend me over backwards into any position you'd like, but you prefer I do it willingly. Ignoring the fact that you can, though? That you could at any moment? That's doing both of us a disservice." He tilts his head so the metal gleams, the sun from the window still bathing both of them in golden light despite the fact that outside this bubble, it's well into the night. "You do control it, whether you like it or not. You simply get to decide how and when you do so. I'm always aware that at any given moment I could do whatever it is I pleased - you control a fundamental force that binds this reality, Erik, but that's all nothing without the tools to experience it in the first place." With his free hand he taps his temple, and winks. "And so we balance, and try never to step over the line."  
  
"It's not the same thing," Erik disagrees softly. "I could do what I want, but the consequences would be catastrophic, and there are things I simply don't have the right to do. They are closed from me, and perhaps it's my decision not to push that boundary, but it is not a choice in the traditional sense. When you don't listen to nature, to what the atmosphere tells you, the reaction is horrific. There is always a balance between my Will and the laws of our world."  
  
"And yet," he says, and let that settle. "Do you think a lesser man would feel the same? That he would taste something potentially limitless and then limit himself? You're right, of course. It isn't much of a choice. But some would make it anyway, and you have not. Don't take something extraordinary for granted just because it is natural to you, Erik." And Charles lets him see, as Erik did before: Charles is frequently awestruck by Erik, but perfectly aware that he is fallible. That he is good, but that those limits can be tested. He has every faith in him, even still. "You are the farthest thing from a monster, my darling," he whispers, and lets Erik bask in what he is to Charles - everything.  
  
"When you asked me not to kill again," Erik says, quiet, "you seemed surprised that my objection was specific and not general-and again, when I asked you if you were able to do what was necessary-you implied that-do you think I relish killing?"  
  
"No," he answers, and it isn't a lie. He lets Erik see that, too. "But I know that you can justify it, and that frightens me." And that isn't, either.  
  
Erik's eyebrows slowly inch up. "Then you believe there is no circumstance under which another human being should be killed?"  
  
"What gives you the right to make that determination?" he returns, and effectively avoids the question.  
  
"What gives you the right to presume there is no determination to be made?" Erik shoots back pointedly.  
  
Charles sighs. "Of course I don't cry tears over monsters, Erik," he concedes. "Every action has consequences, and some of those are lethal. But I also know that when you play games with who deserves to die and who doesn't, the whole thing gets muddled."  
  
"You are not comfortable existing in shades of grey," Erik smiles. "I've never said we need to devise a list of the qualities all human beings must possess in order to live, merely that death should be a natural consequence to _some_ behaviors."  
  
"On the contrary," he disagrees. "My entire life is a shade of grey. I exist between, because I have seen both sides. No one is wholly good or wholly evil, it just isn't possible. When you make monsters of men, however true it may be, I would argue you ignore those shades."  
  
"Your implication is that I didn't have the right to kill those people. What _right_ do you have to make such a statement to me?"  
  
"I don't believe anyone has the right to make that decision." Charles shakes his head. "But I also know that my view is not always... viable. I understand why you made the decision you did, and I don't fault you it. Is that not enough?"  
  
"Is it?" Erik asks, because he supposes that's his real question. "I-" he breaks off.  
  
"Tell me?" he coaxes, but it's gentle.  
  
"If they don't kill him, Charles, I will."  
  
"I know that," he says, perfectly calm. "Do you really think I don't know that?"  
  
"Can you allow that?"  
  
"Since when do I allow you to do anything?" he laughs, but it's a bit hollow. Charles is silent for a long while, and then he sighs. "If you're asking me if I will resent you for killing Sebastian Shaw, you must know the answer. Would I prefer you didn't have his blood on your hands? Do I think it will bring you peace? Those are different questions."  
  
"It isn't about peace," Erik says softly. "It isn't even about vengeance. I would be satisfied to leave him in prison to rot."  
  
"I'll be perfectly honest, Erik," he says, and there is something darker in his eyes. "That is the least of what I personally believe Shaw deserves. The fate they almost condemned you to? A fate I would argue is worse than death? I would not object to that."  
  
He doesn't expect that, and his eyes widen slightly. He brushes his hand over the back of Charles's head, soothing. "I-" Erik chokes. "I don't regret what I did," he starts, "but it wasn't calculated. There is no prison on this planet that could contain Sebastian Shaw. I am not even certain he can be killed."  
  
"He can," Charles promises. "And he can be contained, too. Just not in a way current prisons are capable of. But humans are inventive, and I am willing to assist." It's calm, but dangerous. And perhaps that's even more deadly than Erik's rage.  
  
"I would much prefer you weren't involved," Erik shakes his head.  
  
"That's too bad, then, that I already am," he says, coolly. And in this he will be defiant, chin raised.  
  
"I know," Erik looks down. "I don't want you to compromise yourself for me. I don't want you to spend any more time around his mind than strictly necessary. He's already done too much."  
  
"Come here," he whispers, but it's soft, a request, even though they're still tangled. Charles presses their foreheads together. "Together, Erik. All of it. You can protect me, but don't shelter me. You know I'll resent that."  
  
Erik hooks his arm around Charles and presses him as close as he can get. "How can I not?" he looks up, a small smile on his face. "You must know I'll do whatever I can to ensure you stay safe. To ensure you aren't touched by this."  
  
"I know," he smiles. Charles kisses Erik's nose, and then both his cheeks for good measure. "But I want to protect you too, Erik. Seeing you hurt -" His voice cracks. "You asked about whether I feel the experiences of others as my own. When it's you, when it's like this, I do. I thought I was going to be sick, looking at those X-rays."  
  
"I'm sorry," Erik whispers. "I'm so sorry. I wish you didn't-that's foolish, isn't it? There's no point in wishing."  
  
"Why are you sorry for getting hurt?" he asks, taken aback. "I should be apologizing. I left you there. Vulnerable. I never should have agreed to that, I -" He swallows. "I failed you."  
  
"No, Charles. I made a choice. You and I both know I could have dispatched Essex." Erik says, with little heed to the fact that he'd frozen up each time they'd confronted the agent. "There wasn't an alternative. What happened was-don't take responsibility for something that isn't yours, OK?"  
  
"The other option was not leaving you alone in a damn plastic prison, with no way of defending yourself, when I knew it wasn't safe for you." Charles purses his lips. "Don't say it was necessary. I won't accept that."  
  
"What are you recommending? A jailbreak?" Erik smiles. "I chose to remain there." This much is true. "If I am found guilty, then we will deal with it, but there is a possibility that I might not be fugitive for the rest of my life, and I intend to take it. That means staying where I am."  
  
Charles has no argument for that. He opens his mouth several times, but each time it closes. The result is a fairly pronounced pout. "I don't like it," he mumbles, petulant.  
  
"I am strong." Erik strokes his face. "I can face anything the CIA have to throw at me."  
  
"I know you can, that doesn't mean you should have to." Charles sighs, but leans into the touch. "The sooner we get you out of there, the better."  
  
"On that, we can both agree." Erik kisses him, soft. 

* * *

"Did you always want to be a forensic psychologist?"  
  
Charles laughs. "Absolutely not. I wanted to be a scientist, like my father. He was a nuclear physicist. I realized fairly early on that, while fascinating, it was a bit too removed from the human for me. I found psychiatry somewhere along the way. I'm... naturally suited for it," he grins.  
  
"Indeed. I cannot imagine you as a nuclear physicist. No dreams of being a fireman or a policeman?" Erik's smirking.  
  
Erik shrugs. "I knew when I was a child that I'd be in the army, I thought I would be good with medicine, or human relations."  
  
"No. Briefly an astronaut, but I gave up that fancy quick," he laughs.  
  
"You would have made a very fetching astronaut. With the cute little helmets."  
  
"You would find me a very fetching anything, Erik," he points out, grinning. "What of you, then? When this is over, when there are no more prisons - what will you do?"  
  
"My imagination has no limits," he waggles his eyebrows. "I don't-I don't know." He hasn't thought that far ahead yet. "I only went to school until I was eleven. I don't imagine that qualifies me for much more than unskilled labor."  
  
"You could finish school. Or you could not," he says, smiling. "You have a magnificent talent for creating, Erik. You don't need a formal education for that."  
  
"If I had my choice, I would-want to be educated. When I was a child I used to want to be a social worker." He laughed. "I can't imagine many people would find me a comfort now."  
  
"Schools need social workers. Even, say, a school for mutants," he murmurs, but it's a joke, nothing more than a passing fancy.  
  
"Is that something you really want to do?" It's not the first time Charles has mentioned it.  
  
"Hm? Oh, no, that's -" Yes. "Just a thought. Nothing more."  
  
"Isn't it?" Erik's eyebrow arches. "Mainstream schools certainly aren't safe for many mutants."  
  
"And young mutants with baseline parents often don't get the support they need," he says, as if he's thought of it much more than in passing.  
  
"If we are really serious about the idea of changing the world," Erik says haltingly, "that starts with education. With children. With providing safe places for mutants, where they needn't be afraid of their peers."  
  
"I agree, obviously." Charles bites his lip, smiling. "Are you agreeing to start a mutant school with me?"  
  
"We will have to put your name on the letterhead," Erik grins. It's a yes.  
  
"I love you dearly," is what he says in return, grinning back, the room alight with sudden joy and endless, glowing adoration.  
  
"I draw the line at you teaching these poor souls nuclear physics, however." Erik boops him on the nose.  
  
"Surely you don't object to a thorough science education," he argues, and scrunches his nose in the aftermath. He attempts a straight face, but breaks out into another full, dimpled grin. "It should be an elective, at least."  
  
"Oh no," Erik smirks. "I demand you only teach that dinosaurs existed alongside humans, and abstinence. The most effective pull-out method."  
  
"You apparently need schooling, then," he laughs, and presses his body flush against Erik's again, this time giving a very deliberate roll of his hips.  
  
"Good think I have _Professor X_ to show me the ropes." Erik gave his ass a squeeze, eyebrows arched.  
  
Charles' giggles at that are cut off by a moan, and he takes to very shamelessly rubbing his ass, welts and ache and all, against Erik. "What does that make you, then?" he asks, breathless. " _Magneto_? Very scary. All our poor students will be so intimidated, until they find out -" He grins here, leaning in to nip playfully at where neck meets shoulder. Goading. "He's nothing but soft."  
  
"You better not make my codename a combination of _magnet_ and _neat-o_ ," Erik squawked. "And I assure you that I am _anything_ but soft." He punctuated that by curling his leg over Charles's and rubbing up against him.  
  
"I just did, and you're going to let me," he purrs, even as he gasps, hips bucking of their own accord. "Because you're soft." Definitely goading.

* * *

Erik laughed, and then he gasped-a sound of shock, not pleasure. " _Augh_ -"  
  
Charles stills immediately, panic flooding him. "Erik? What's wrong?" he asks, body tense.  
  
" _Iah_ ," Erik's body in the mind-world sags.  
  
Charles focuses. He has to blink several times, and then several times more, as if clearing out a fog. It's a painfully disorienting process, and the whiplash is enough to make him nauseous. His eyes adjust slowly, but they do adjust, and he's left cold and unsteady in the operating room, body aching from leaning over and sitting in one position for hours. "Is -" His voice is raspy, and he licks his lips. "Is everything alright?" he asks, because Erik is still on the operating table. Charles checks, but - no, there should be no pain. He swallows down the horrible ache of their separation, and tucks the time they spent together into his heart for later. He knows he'll need it.  
  
Erik's taking deep, wheezing breaths, and the beeping of vital stat monitors shrieks around the room, high-pitched whines. "I _cah_ -ah, _lo_ -still- _keep-me-still_ -!" the last word is nearly a shout. He's doing everything he can to keep it from Charles, to keep himself from thrashing, but everyone is panicking and Erik can't contain it for much longer, and then agony rends through Charles's nerves as though they were being put through a cheesegrater. At trying to reach for those centers of pain-relief, he finds only smooth surfaces, places his fingers can't latch onto. "Get the anesthesiologist scrubbed in, now!" a nurse is saying into the intercom. They've got him on standby.  
  
Everything is hazy. Charles feels dizzy, at first, vision double as if he's drunk, and then there's pain. So much pain he contorts with it, head throbbing despite the earlier relief as his legs bend. He's not grounded, somewhere between Reality and not, and he was so focused that the lack of control, the cold water splash of helplessness, of crippling agony - He wants it to stop. It needs to stop. It does. When Charles looks up, panicked, the world is frozen.  
  
Erik is laid out on the table, his good arm wrapped around the bad, forcing it to stay in place. His legs are curled up and his back is arched, an expression of unadulterated anguish braced on grim features, lips parted, every muscle tense and coiled, eyes comically wide. Nurses are mid-step, rushing to help get everyone necessary scrubbed in. The numbers on Erik's monitors are sky-high, blood pressure and heart-rate through the roof, but even this is paused in terrifying orchestra. The orthopedic surgeon next to him is the calmest one in the room by far, instruments poised in the middle of careful extraction.  
  
Charles shakes his head, back and forth and back. It's been years since he last lost control like this, and it's never been on this scale. He realizes, abject horror written all over his face - not that anyone can see it - that it's not just this room, or even this floor. The entire hospital is in suspended animation, their minds gripped tightly in Charles' hold. People will die because of him. Innocent, helpless people, cut open on tables by surgeons who can no longer move. They will die if he does not let go. It isn't working. "No," he gasps, and then screams, frustrated and terrified, pulling at his hair hard enough for it to tug at the roots. "No, no, no, no!"  
  
 _Charles_ , the voice comes into his mind very quietly.  
  
Charles is shaking his head, panic gripping him so tightly that his vision gives out. _Let go. Let them go, Charles, let them go, let them go now_ \- "No," he cries, because if he were to show someone his nightmares, the ones entirely his own, they would look something like this. "Please, no, I can't -"  
  
 _You have to let go_ , the voice says, gentle. It sounds like a woman, the kind of woman with a wrinkle-lined face and kind, bright green eyes and a sad smile. From the corner of his eye, he sees her walking toward him, white clothes fluttering in wind that doesn't exist, hands outstretched, an infinite well of compassion emanating from this pit that should exist where she is, and yet it does not. She is there, ephemeral as gold wound between the cracks. _Let them go, Charles. You can. It's going to be all right. Kas vekheyme makhn a mentshn far a beheyme._  
  
 _Let go now, Charles. He's gone. You have to let me go, Charles! I'm not a little girl anymore! Let go of this sick, stupid fantasy. This is all you are. Perhaps it's time we let go, Charles. We both know this isn't working. If you love him - Let him go. Let them go._ The world bursts into terrifying sound and motion all at once, leaving Charles with the recoil. It snaps back until he's bent over and retching, until the pain and terror and agony and confusion and buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, louder than he's ever heard it, is all he knows. A cracking, screeching roar. It's all he is. Charles Xavier fades out, fades, fades, and all that's left is every mind in the building, suddenly active.  
  
When he looks again, the apparition is gone, leaving only the flurry and noise of rushing doctors and Erik's making a sound in the back of his throat like sandpaper, wrung out with pain the way an old washcloth spills into a sink, forcing himself to stay still. They work quickly, but not quickly enough. Erik's praying, for nothing simpler than please let me pass out, let me pass out, let me pass out-eyes pinned to the ceiling, chest heaving-I smile with joy in the face of spring/a smile spreads over roofs and roads/look at the ground, cold as stone-he reaches for Charles's hand, gripping hard. " _Ze beseder_ ," he croaks, long past English. " _Ragua_."  
  
Charles is somewhere far away and unreachable. His hand is limp and lifeless in Erik's grip, no answering thoughts, no calming, gentle words of his own. There is nothing in there at all, nothing that is his. He checks the minds of every person in that hospital. One by one. Not deliberately, not purposefully, but because it is the only thing he can do. He becomes everyone at once, and no one at all. _Grandma! - What are we going to name her? - I need O-neg, stat! - I'm so sorry, Mrs. Smith. He didn't make it through the operation._  
  
They manage to get everything read and start to push an IV, which Erik resists fiercely, a static-humming in the air and everything jolts, instruments and trays slamming into the wall. Thank G-d for that surgeon, who manages to talk Erik down from mangling his own arm. He won't go under, desperately trying to reach Charles, but unaware of how. He searches for the places where Charles should be in his mind and pulls, hard, trying to connect.  
  
Charles has been in one hundred and twelve minds when Erik grabs him from where he's receded, somewhere buried at the bottom of the ocean of his own mind where he thinks no one, not even himself, will find him. But Erik can control the tides. His head snaps up, and everything floods back in at once. In the same instance, he pushes it all down. "It's okay," he whispers. "It's alright, Erik." He finally squeezes Erik's hand. _Kas vekheyme makhn a mentshn far a beheyme_ , he thinks, but it's not directed at Erik. "You have to let go," he says.  
  
Erik starts laughing, raspy and hoarse and half-deranged. " _Eifo lomed ze? Yah-b'ezrat hashem_ -" his grip is hard enough to seriously bruise, Charles's knuckles clasped tight enough to whiten and bunch them up. "You-my mind-" he huffs, smiling up.  
  
Charles isn't certain he even feels anything. Not because he's immune to pain, but because it's such a far off sensation that it doesn't register. "Please," he begs. "Sleep, Erik." He doesn't know if it will work, but he focuses anyway, calls up every bit of control he has, and pushes. Maybe it will do nothing. Maybe he will freeze the entire Eastern seaboard. It's all he can do, though. It's all he can do. It's all he can - Let go. _Kas vekheyme makhn a mentshn far a beheyme..._  
  
Falling back against the bed in slow motion, Erik's eyes close and his head lolls to the side, and Charles can feel the relief of everyone when the monitors begin to even out, but he can also feel something yanking at his tenuous grasp of control, a dog snarling against a rope. The sensation recedes, and they place a mask over Erik's face, and then get him set up on the ventilator. The riot of pain and flesh seared open disintegrates along with Erik's consciousness. In the distance, Charles could feel a bare brush of that woman's mind caressing his, diametrically opposed to the bitter, hateful presence from moments ago, fingers trailing over his shoulders in a soothing motion before disappearing entirely. It was a mind. There was no mistaking it. "Somebody want to tell me what just happened?" the surgeon asked, raising his eyebrows at Charles.  
  
Who is she?  
  
Charles knows Emma. Her surname is fitting, her mental presence - because Charles has never seen her in person, and hopes he will never have to - is as cold as ice, and just as recognizable. The reason for his lapse, the reason Erik was yanked from him. There's no room for fear or anger now, just a calm acceptance.  
  
But who else? "Someone interfered with me," he says simply, but his eyes are on Erik. He's gone to the world, utterly knocked out, but now that he is, Charles feels the echo of his pain. He pushes that down. "I don't know how long he'll stay like that," he breathes instead. "I'll be ready," he promises, and it's not just to the surgeon. Charles stands out of the way, and despite every crashing emotion he aches to feel, despite every panicked, desperate part of him, despite how small he seems huddled close to the corner of this operation room, Charles watches. Erik needs him, so he watches, and holds him steady. There isn't a force in the world that could have taken that from him, everything else simple background noise.  
  
"We're working on it," he nods. "We're lucky he stayed as still as he did. There's no damage, we're still good," he assures everybody. The anesthesiologist takes over once he extracts all of his implements, but Erik's arm is left open while they work on his other, pumping him full of a cocktail necessary to keep him sedated. "We want to watch him closely, and we'll ease him out at any sign of danger. Dr. Xavier, are you incapacitated permanently?"  
  
"I don't know," he answers honestly. "I've never -" He can still feel her. Of course he can. Emma has been reckless, perhaps desperate, her pride wounded since that very first time. She's looking for an in, a weak spot, but what she doesn't realize is that Charles has seen her, too. Past every humming, buzzing, active mind in this hospital, he can still feel her, the way he can feel Raven even miles away. For a moment, a single moment, it's as if she's standing in the room with him. His mind sears where it meets hers, and every muscle in him tenses. Erik told him not to seek. He told him, very clearly, not to go looking. Charles purses his lips. "There's still interference," he says, after what must have been far too long of a pause. "But I wouldn't say I am incapacitated."  
  
There's something on his side, an invisible force that he can't quite grasp, like it's not a solid mind. Like a hand in his, shoulder-to-shoulder, wielding a great sword of fire at the enemies over the horizon. Banishing them back. "That looked pretty incapacitated to me," the surgeon's saying. "He's contraindicated for most of this-so we're sedating him as lightly as we can, but it's very likely we'll need to toe him off and if that happens you should be prepared."  
  
"I'll be ready," he promises, and it's not just to the surgeon. Charles stands out of the way, and despite every crashing emotion he aches to feel, despite every panicked, desperate part of him, despite how small he seems huddled close to the corner of this operation room, Charles watches. Erik needs him, so he watches, and holds him steady. There isn't a force in the world that could have taken that from him, everything else simple background noise.  
  
Everything seems to go good for quite some time, and they start to dig back into the arm after ensuring that Erik was properly ventilated. Charles and the mysterious presence remained in close proximity. It wasn't anyone he recognized, but yet it was. He knew without knowing. It seemed to be staying by his side, making sure that he was all right, checking on him.  
  
It occurs to Charles that he's properly exhausted. Not mentally, but physically, his body slumped against the wall as he yawns and covers it with his hand. A glance at the clock informs him it's well into the night like he suspected, and this day is endless. He would have been perfectly content to stay wrapped in Erik's arms forever, the world far away, but Reality always comes. There's someone else here, but he's too focused on Erik to question it the way he should. Watching him undergo surgery, even the tail end of it, is a bit like having his own insides scooped out, sympathetic pain pinging through his body, but he grits his teeth and bears it. Erik would, for him. He can feel Emma. Not here, not in this room, not in either of their minds, Erik's quiet and sleeping, but he can feel her. He could find her. He could yank her, get to her before she has the chance to get to them. Make good on his promise, the one he'd made that very first time. Charles watches Erik's face, lax and calm in his unconsciousness, and he knows he won't.  
  
 _"Ir hat gut,"_ someone whispers into his ear. _You did good._  
  
Charles nearly jumps. His nerves are a bit shot, honestly, and his eyes stayed glued to Erik, but, _Who are you?_ He doesn't expect an answer, but truthfully, ear whispering feels awfully intimate for an unknown entity.  
  
There's no one there. The presence recedes, at long last, as if whatever it held watch over had abated for now. "We're just about ready to close him up for today," the surgeon says after another two and a half hours go by. They aren't finished, but they can only keep Erik under for so long and they're nervous about Charles.  
  
Charles is more exhausted by the second, and after two and a half hours of watching Erik under the knife, he admits his nerves are frayed at best. He hasn't eaten, either, and that certainly doesn't help. "Alright," he sighs, and rubs the heel of his hand into his eye. "Do what you must. I have him," he assures, and it's not false confidence. There could be a telepath convention in this room, all of them dedicated to getting to Erik, and Charles would like to see them try to pry him away. Out of his cold, dead fingers, he thinks grimly.  
  
They potter around for a while getting everything in order, and Charles is led to scrub out before Erik gets eventually wheeled to recovery. "We're all right, here," the surgeon tells him, stripping off his mask and gloves. "You should go home and get some rest. We've got an early day tomorrow."  
  
"No," he says, and it's firm. "I'm not - look." Charles is past polite now, he'll admit it. Raven would say it was him getting into one of his bitchy moods, and he loathes using those particular terms, but there's a time to call a spade a spade. "You don't know when he'll wake up, and he's clearly terrified of the lot of you. He won't harm you, but he will clang around some more of your fancy instruments and bend some more syringes, so I think it's in everyone's best interests if I stay. Unless you have another telepath capable of this sort of thing on staff, of course." They don't.  
  
The surgeon arched his eyebrows. "I don't make those decisions, Dr. Xavier. I'm sorry. You'll have to report to the agent in charge, MacTaggert, I think her name is? She mentioned wanting to talk to you."  
  
"Right. I can hear her, actually, so - excuse me." Charles at least offers a small smile as he excuses himself, and he doubts it'll be held against him given the circumstances.


	16. When I saw Genevieve I really liked it when she said

Moira's mind is a bright spot in the glorified headache of a hospital, and he finds her lingering and looking nearly as worse for wear as he feels. "Agent," he greets, though they're way past formalities at this point. In a bloody shirt and only the horrible socks they've given him, he's certainly looked more dignified. "You look tired," he points out, dryly, because she's probably been through hell in the hours he's been in an operating room, managing this mess. He really has no room to talk.  
  
Moira laughs, dry but nevertheless warm as she sits up in the small waiting room chair where she's parked herself, her pantsuit rumpled from where she'd slumped over in half-sleep. "You don't look so great yourself, Xavier," she salutes him wryly. "Nice socks? Are those candy canes?"  
  
"Beggars can't be choosers, they say," he chuckles, and all but collapses next to her. He's been leaning against a wall for hours now, and it hasn't done any wonders for his already sore muscles. "Can I ask for an update, or am I not need to know? I truly do feel like I'm part of the CIA now, with all the time I spend there. You should just give me a badge."  
  
She waves her hand. "I'll probably get into trouble for saying this, but they're digging up some pretty incriminating stuff on Agent Essex. The amount of finagling they had to do just to get you two out of there with no secondary escort is, frankly, alarming. I'm not entirely sure who I can trust anymore."  
  
"Me, of course," he teases, but it's also sincere. Charles lets his arm brush hers as he resettles, a friendly, comforting gesture. "The surgery went well, after it nearly didn't. That psionic attack the other day wasn't an isolated incident, but you're clever enough to have gathered that already. I've been on many lists, for many reasons, but very rarely has someone wanted me dead like this. It's almost flattering." He runs a hand through his hair, and he knows that in this moment at least, she sees right through him.  
  
"I've been making a few lists of my own," Moira laughs darkly, patting his arm. "Right now, it's looking like you, Duncan, Pryde and his freaking driver." Clever, indeed. "You look exhausted, Charles. Have you been sleeping?" her eyebrows arched.  
  
"Yes, actually, but it's been a very long day. I just assisted with my first surgery, where's my congratulations?" He somehow manages a grin, and then his expression turns serious, his tone to match. "Moira, I need to be here. I understand your instinct is to send me home, but I refuse to leave when I know I am needed. We both know I am the only one capable of calming him, and I know for a fact he won't stay under for long. Let's avoid further incident today. Tonight. Is it past midnight? I can't remember if I was wearing a watch - yes, I am, and oh, would you look at that. A new day is upon us."  
  
"I know," she waved her fingers again, eyes rolling slightly, but it's a fond expression. "But that doesn't mean they can't roll us out a cot." Her eyebrows arch, the implication evident: she wasn't leaving, either. "At the very least I'd imagine they're selling something hot and caffeinated in the cafeteria. Care to join me?" It's a friendly offer, rather than professional. They are, indeed, well past that point.  
  
"Why are you all coffee people? Hank likes tea. It must be a Dominant thing. You and your - your _Dominant coffee_ ," he mutters, and he's smiling again, which is a definite yes. Charles is a little relieved he'll have the company for a while, actually, and he offers her a friendly hand after he's stood. "I haven't actually eaten today. What are the odds anything is edible?"  
  
"Less than zero, but beggars can't be choosers," she throws it back at him with a grin. She raises to her feet and leads them to the elevator. The hospital is like a ghost town at this point, with only nurses and the odd dude with a bloody finger wrapped in a bandage passing them in the halls. The lift is empty. "What happened anyway? I managed to get Essex detained, but we don't have a lot to go on, here."  
  
"Oh, you know. He drove us out to the ocean where he intended to shoot us and, presumably, dump us there. It was quite a fun drive. The radio was on." Charles yawns, barely managing to cover his mouth. His inhibitions are way down, but he has a feeling she appreciates the bluntness in this particular moment. "He's a telepath, which I'm sure you've already discovered - if you haven't, then you know now. Erik got the suppressors in him before he could do any real harm to either of us, or I'd be in much worse shape, and by that I mean dead. Then I passed out and he drove us to the hospital. With a broken hand and no experience driving a car, so we both owe him credit for not crashing. In New York City. _I_ can't even drive in the city, Moira. It's bloody awful."  
  
Moira's shaking her head, squinting incredulously. "There is _so much_ about all that which doesn't add up," she says, not that she disbelieves him-at this point he hasn't been wrong yet and there are too many false leads in Essex's background to trust his word, but-"Why are they targeting you, Charles? Why didn't he escape when he had the chance?"  
  
"Why wouldn't they?" Charles raises an eyebrow, because this part doesn't require anything amiss in his professional relationships. "I've advocated for Erik from day one. I was the only one who managed to get a word out of him. And I know things because of it that aren't flattering in the slightest, and that I will make sure are brought up in trial. As for why he didn't escape - do you mean Erik? Because that's really more a question for him, but I'll fill you in, as is my job: he's not mad, as I've said over and over. His lawyer thinks we're looking at acquittal. Would you rather walk free with a cleared name or as public enemy number one, always a fugitive?"  
  
Moira chuckles. "Pryde's got a head full of it. You know, can I tell you something? This is the first case I've had in-oh, _years_ , where I've felt like there's a _genuine_ possibility, that person doesn't belong here. In prison? Probably. With us? No. I guess that makes me biased, these days. The trouble is, I think anyone with their right head on can see that this isn't about terrorism, but they're terrified of mutants."  
  
"And there's the rub," Charles says, and chuckles himself, something slightly darker to it. "Call me an idealist," he grins, a private one, "But I truly think this case is going to alter everything. How we act now changes everything." He nudges her side as they exit the elevator and walk toward the cafeteria, wholly purposeful and friendly. "I am glad you are the one assigned to this case. You've made just as much a difference as me, simply because you've listened. You can't know how much that's worth."  
  
Moira smiled. "I've found that things... go wrong, really fast, when we don't listen. We're in the position of authority, we have a lot of it, and that makes people complacent. It's easy to ignore the fact that you're presiding over human beings. That gets people hurt. I've seen a lot of shit over the years. Hell, before I knew any better I did some shit in the beginning. Trying to impress _Langley_ , ignoring the facts, it's not a good look. "  
  
"No, it's not," he agrees, sighing. "But we're all capable of it. I've been watching everyone in this hospital, which isn't saying much, because I do that whether I'd like to or not," he chuckles here, shaking his head. "The way they look at Erik - I can guarantee if you brought any human criminal into this hospital, they would not look at them like that. If this case had gone any differently - if it still does - he's not going to be seen as a terrorist. He's going to be a scapegoat. Mutant-human," he stops himself, sheepish as he corrects, "mutant- _baseline_ relations are dicey at best. The very last thing we need is a scapegoat to escalate it. I believe in democracy, Moira, in diplomacy, but I know what happens when enough people are afraid."  
  
"And they'll justify it by claiming he's a terrorist either way," Moira says, grim. "Even we won't have the authority to stop it. We're in a diplomatic shitstorm over here, if you want perfect honesty. The problem is that they're not interested in having him back. They claim they don't have the right resources to hold him, and my people are champing at the bit to keep him here. They could kill him for this, and honestly, I've looked at the footage again and again-I'm not even sure he was _sane_ at the time. To say nothing of what we found on our medical reports. We're hanging everything on a jury. If they do find him guilty, it'll open the door wide open to talk about legislating mutants, and we both know where that leads."  
  
"The beginning of the end," he agrees. There won't be anything he can do. At that point, Erik is proven right, and Charles will do everything he can to prevent that - for his sake. For theirs. "But I don't think they will. Again, call me an idealist, but not every major movement of history is a tragedy. There are triumphs as well." They've made it to the cafeteria, and he chuckles, reaching up to squeeze her shoulder. "Now, how about some lukewarm coffee? I think I can stand it as long as there's cream and copious amounts of sugar."  
  
"I've read your papers," Moira says, fishing up the metal canister that's been delegated to the night staff for times like this. Hospitals never really sleep, and it is just as crowded down here at midnight as it is in the afternoon, but things are closed-off. There's no hot food or pizza slices, but they still manage to find an empty seat. Moira drinks her coffee black, which also isn't a shocker. "Your early work discussed the parallels of the Neanderthals and the advent of _homo sapien_ s. Only this time, we're not fighting back with tools and rocks. We're so-primitive," she grimaces. "We're barely out of the caves and now we've got atom bombs."  
  
"I'd like to avoid the use of those," he sighs, and drags a hand down his face. He really is exhausted, and the ache behind his eyes is back, not that it's ever really gone. "My father was a nuclear physicist," he tells her, though it's more than likely she already knows. "Nasty things. It cost him his life, whatever he was working on. I'd much sooner dedicate myself to what will not destroy. And I will say - you have sharper sticks and pointier rocks, but your ability to reason has slightly improved," he teases, cheeky grin and all. "I don't count myself much different to you. We can coexist. If you read my papers, though," he laughs, raising an eyebrow. "You know that. Good on you for getting through them."  
  
"I'd like to believe you're right," she sighs. "I want to believe in the best of humanity, but I've been with the CIA for a long time. I've been around military all my life. Sometimes I think we just like to fight to fight. If it were really about logic, you know? If it were really a matter of who is right and who is wrong, then we'd have figured it out by now. It's been ten thousand years," she huffs. "Only this time we have an actual stake in the game. People are framing this as battling their own extinction. My superiors are genuinely concerned that mutants are aggressive and unstable. Erik did not do a lot to help that case."  
  
Charles huffs himself, making a vague gesture in the air as he rolls his eyes. "Erik's... aggression, and its warrant aside, they'd be surprised at how integrated we already are. Barring physically obvious mutations, and don't even get me started on those, there are so many of us hiding in plain sight. Terrified as you are of us." He purses his lips, staring down into his coffee cup. "For years I advised my sister, who is very much blue, to take on a more human form. Because I feared for her. I don't want that for us."  
  
"And that's what worries people," Moira pointed a finger at him. "G-d forbid you talk about gun control, but bring up mutants and suddenly everyone's desperate to know _who's-what-where_. That's the exact terminology my boss used with me over the phone a day and a half ago. _Hiding in plain sight_ , like it's nefarious. You can read people's minds. What does that mean for us? What does it mean when people like Essex telepathically assault others? Baseline humans have absolutely no defenses against it, and that scares the _hell_ out of us."  
  
"I can do much more than read your mind," he sighs, which only proves her point. Erik's point, too, which certainly doesn't make him feel any better. Charles plays with the lid of his cup, idle and exhausted. "Everyone fears what they don't understand, Moira. I only hope that with some understanding, there will be a little less fear. We aren't inherently dangerous, not any more than you are. But you know that." He smiles, more than grateful that she's here. "Now let's get back upstairs and see about those cots, hm? I could use a bit of a nap." Bossy Charles at it again, but at least she brought him out of his rather grumpy mood.

* * *

Charles brings up another cup of coffee with him (this one black), and lasts all of fifteen minutes in the room they put him in. The cot isn't terribly uncomfortable, all things considered, but he's restless enough that he knows he won't last. Getting to Erik's room is shockingly easy, which worries him for about as long as he can be worried about anything. Erik is still out like a light, head lolled, the only indication that he's still there the rise and fall of his chest. He attempts to stay awake and watchful. That lasts a good ten minutes, and then he's out, too, chair pulled up to the edge of the bed, head craned awkwardly and uncomfortably as he drifts into sleep.  
  
Sunlight has streamed through the window and fallen across his chest by the time he wakes again, and Erik shifts, reaching out to touch his hand without being fully aware of what's going on, blinking himself awake. He's crying, fully, and looks a little surprised about it, throat jumping under silent sobs. " _I-think-I-hate-this-side-effect,_ " he croaked, laughing and swiping under his eyes.  
  
Charles jolts awake, which nearly tips the flimsy plastic chair he's in over. He mumbles, something incoherent and slightly disgruntled, but squeezes Erik's hand in his. Erik has never seen him fresh from sleep, and the disoriented, pouting creature he is, but he makes an effort to be supportive. "Mmmms'okay," is what comes out of his mouth, and he offers a sleepy, gentle smile. "S'okay."  
  
"You stayed here," Erik whispers, smiling brightly through mechanical tears. His body's throwing off stress, or the medication is screwing with his hormones, because he's not upset at all. His mind is a bit rumbly and sleepy itself, like a lion yawning and stretching its paws in the desert. He squeezes Charles's fingers. " _Boker tov_."  
  
"Of course I did," he laughs, the sound hoarse with sleep, and smiles. "Good morning, Erik." He does a quick check, but no one is looking, so he leans down to wipe those tears, stroking Erik's cheek while he's at it. There's a bruise there, just as he knew there'd be, and he's very careful with it. "I brought you coffee, so the gesture is there, but not only should you probably not drink it, it's disgusting and definitely cold by now." He lets himself slump forward a little, eyes closing as the voices all come back, buzzing and humming, the way they do every morning. He finds Erik's and lingers there, making a pleased little noise. The silence through their connection was far from comfortable.  
  
Erik laughed and reached for the coffee anyway, taking off the lid and checking it purely from habit, but he already knows Charles didn't use creamer which makes his mind hum with pleasure. It's a half-thought courtesy on the other man's part but it's clear Erik is grateful. He takes a drink and then grimaces. "If this is American coffee, no wonder you dislike it," he snorts.  
  
Charles tries to hide the spike of delighted, thrumming electricity that shoots up his spine, but he knows Erik feels it anyway. It's still new to him, how knowing he's pleased Erik in even the slightest of ways is enough to have him shivering, the rebound pleasure he finds in it almost overwhelming. Submissives always talked about how it wasn't always the larger acts of service that counted, but he's never been privy to it before. Charles laughs at the reaction, covering his mouth with his hand. "It's cold cafeteria coffee, I wouldn't write it all off." He bites his lip, and effectively bites down the emotions he's been batting off, too. "How do you feel? Can I do anything?" he asks, swallowing down that helplessness.  
  
Erik looks at the door, noting that they're in a private room and he brushes a lock of Charles's hair from his forehead gently. " _Rage makes man a beast,_ " he remembers curiously.  
  
It takes Charles a moment. He realizes it's because he's been repeating it in another language, turning it over and over in his head. "I don't know where it came from," he admits, and his forehead creases.  
  
"That was the last thing my mother ever said to me," he looks up, eyes red, and maybe it isn't all medicine after all. "An interesting memory to choose."  
  
"Oh." Charles swallows, and suddenly it makes all the sense in the world. He looks without looking at the door behind them, and leans in until their foreheads touch. "Erik," he breathes, and his voice is thick now, heavy with emotion.  
  
He blinks up at Charles, a sad smile on his face. "What makes sense?" he asks, soft.  
  
Charles takes a long, slow breath, and debates whether to tell him. No hiding and no lying, Erik said, and this isn't something he can keep from him. He closes his eyes, the words getting stuck in his throat the first few times he tries. "I - when everything happened last night, I froze everyone. Everyone, Erik, including you. The whole hospital. No one was moving, and I panicked. I've never lost control like that before. Not once, not even when I was a child. And -" His heart stutters in his chest, the overwhelming panic of it threatening to swallow him just by recalling it. "I saw her," he whispers.  
  
Erik blinks at him... again. He looked as though you could bowl him over with a feather. "You saw-" he chokes off, laughing a bit through hiccups. " _Ima sheli?_ A memory?"  
  
Charles considers that, and then shakes his head, rubbing his thumb over Erik's cheek. "No," he says, and he's sure of it. His voice gets caught in his throat again. "Not a memory. Not in the usual way. She said my name, Erik."  
  
His eyes squeezed shut and he took in a very long, slow breath through his nose and out through his mouth. "You'll think I'm crazy."  
  
"I haven't yet, so try me," he whispers.  
  
"I-" he kept his eyes shut, unable to stand looking at Charles while talking about it. If he can't see, he can't be seen-but his expression is crumpled, just off of a nine hour surgical procedure and lacking ordinary defenses. "I believe in G-d," he whispers. "But I don't believe in ghosts. The dead stay dead. I know that."  
  
Charles strokes a hand through Erik' hair, gentle and coaxing. "Then what do you believe I saw?"  
  
"I don't know," he says hoarsely. "When I was younger, when I was still-" he has to laugh, and swallows roughly. "Before the fear got burned out of me. I used to see her. She visited me. She would sing to me. Play games. Sometimes she was there when I got hurt badly. I'm sure-I just made it up. I know that." What he doesn't understand is Charles's experience. "Maybe-it was just-a figment of my-imagination-"  
  
"Erik," he starts, and his breath comes out stuttered. He doesn't understand. Charles doesn't believe in these sorts of things, has never factored it into his life, but he doesn't know how else to explain it. "Last night, you have to understand that you were out cold. I couldn't feel you. I put you into what is basically a coma, for all intents and purposes, and then you had drugs on top of that. And..." He shakes his head. "She was there, Erik. The entire time, she was there."  
  
He covers his eyes with his good hand. "You-you're a telepath-you had to-know she wasn't-her mind-"  
  
"It wasn't you," he repeats, because it's the only thing he does know. "And it wasn't another telepath. But she was there, I could feel her." Charles' eyes are wide, and his mind is racing. "She - she was touching my shoulder, she told me I did well..."  
  
He shouldn't ask. He's torturing himself. He asks, barely above a whisper. "What did- _zayin_ -!" It's a muttered curse, and Charles feels him struggling to gain control of his emotions. Erik knows how real it seems. Knows that Charles knows without a shadow of a doubt that his perceptions weren't imaginary, and it's gutting him from neck to groin. His innards are spilling out all over the floor. He's lost the ability to speak aloud, and barely communicates in concepts-alone. _What did she say-what happened-what did she give you-what was it like-was she still-_  
  
Charles exhales, and it comes out something close to a sob. As connected as they are, he feels everything, feels it twisting and writhing in his own stomach as he gathers Erik's face in his hands, gentle and grounding. He lets him see: there's his own unbearable, agonized fear, frustration, helplessness, but he dials it down, and there she is. That mysterious, white-clad woman with Erik's eyes and - oh, of course. How had he not seen it, when it's in every feature of her? Written all over her calm, wise face? She's beautiful, absolutely ethereal in her golden serenity, and everything Charles needed in that moment. "She helped me," he breathes, and tears roll down his own cheeks, more than secondhand. "When I was lost, when you weren't there - she found me, and she helped me, Erik. She kept me safe from myself. I was so scared, I thought -" Charles shakes his head. "And she was there."

* * *

Erik can't maneuver his right arm at all, it's in dressings waiting for the next phase of surgical intervention and pain pulses through it even with the drugs, but his left is free and he clutches at Charles's back as a surge of grief and horror collide into him. His head burrows into Charles's chest, getting his shirt wet. He's a train crash, twisted ruins and gasoline on fire and screaming passengers, but they aren't passengers, they're his thoughts, every part-and-piece screaming in agony as they immolate, flesh torn from their bones and muscles, melting, putrid, black-a pin-drop shaking explosion in the dust.   
  
He's trapped on the ground and he can't move, and he's screaming for her, and the train isn't a train, it's their house collapsed in a blazing inferno. Thick sheets of smoke blanket the azure-brilliant sky. There's a heavy boot on his back and he can't breathe, face pressed against jagged rocks, screaming and screaming- _Kas vekheyme makhn a mentshn far a beheyme_ , Erik. The monster cracks her neck with a fingertip, she falls like a gunshot-thud, everything heaves and the world is destroyed-it's going to kill him, he's going to die from this-he's going to die from this again-zoom out zoom out zoom out zoom out float above leave your body behind   
  
"Charles-" he gasps, a wheezing, horrible sound. " _Rak shniah-rak shniah, ze beseder_ -" and then he's got it, gripped in gnarled, burnt fists, the piece of himself buried under the rubble, and he snaps himself into it, rolling over to stare at the hollow sun and the desert is hard under his back, and he floats away.  
  
Charles feels every second of it. He thinks it might kill him, too, but he bears it. He bears it because Erik needs him to bear it, and he needs - he needs - to be exactly what Erik needs. All he can do is hold him. All he can do is tremble with him, feel with him, weather with him. Erik is floating in his arms, and Charles grounds him, anchors him, brings him back gently, keeping them safe from the world outside. Erik is hooked up to machines, some of them now beeping, but Charles won't let anyone touch them. They won't even know. This is what Charles can do for him. This is what Charles must do for him. "I have you, Erik," he promises. "I have you. I'm here, darling, I'm here."  
  
 _Forgive me_ , he implores, over and over. _Forgive me. I never meant for this pain to touch you. Please, forgive me. I never thought-_ he's shuddering in Charles's hold, tremors near-to convulsions, but he's quietening down, easing himself through long-practiced wire circuitry and mantras and lines from poetry. _I never thought I would see her again. Forgive me._  
  
"No. No, love, shh," he hushes, holding Erik together as he kisses everywhere he can. Erik's cheeks first, tasting the salt of his tears, his nose, his forehead, his hair. "There's nothing to forgive. I am yours, remember? I am yours, and your pain is my pain. Let me bear this." It's already too late. Charles holds it in his heart, safe and tucked away. "I am yours, Erik. Let me be. I've got you, and you are safe with me."  
  
It's a long time before he finds his words again, half-scared out of his mind that they disappeared for Charles, too, and when he speaks it's like a pressure-valve release and he's laughing, shoulders shaking. "I-" exhale. "She-looked-different."  
  
"Yes," he agrees, because he's seen the comparison now. Charles keeps Erik gathered in his arms, stroking his hair and keeping him still. He doesn't want Erik to hurt himself, and there's still surgery to be done. "She's very beautiful, Erik. And you have her eyes. I have so much to thank her for, but giving you those eyes -" He smiles. "That's on the list."  
  
"You think-" he doesn't even know how to begin to say it. "It's real?"  
  
Charles goes quiet. When he finally speaks again, it's barely audible, his face buried in Erik's hair, half on the hospital bed with him now. "I have a vivid imagination, Erik," he murmurs. "But I don't think I can explain this away. I don't know."  
  
"She used to say we were split down the middle," Erik sniffles, grateful he was able to get that memory under control before the rest of it hit, but it doesn't seem to matter, like this his experiences are drips of water in a metal basin echoing off, taps turned to become a deluge.

* * *

Charles holds him for a long time, cradling him as best he can from where he's hunched over the bed. He plays with Erik's hair, humming a tune he doesn't quite remember the name of right now. He doesn't sing like Erik does, and he's not sure if it's nearly as comforting as when Erik sings to bring him down, but he at least has to try. "Can I let one of the nurses in, Erik?" he asks after a while, pulling back but reaching for Erik's good hand. "I'll be here the whole time, I promise. But if you're not ready, I can hold them back, too." He smiles, squeezing softly. "Whatever you need. Tell me what to do," he all but pleads, his heart still aching.  
  
"OK," he nods, rhythmically stroking the back of Charles's hand. It's OK. I'm ready.  
  
Charles squeezes Erik's hand firmly before he lets go, a soft smile on his lips as he sits back. He straightens himself out, clears his throat, but his mind still hums in Erik's, warm, gentle murmurs of I love you and I am yours. The nurse who steps in is the young, pretty mutant girl from the day before, the one who had watched them through the observation window. Charles hasn't investigated enough to know exactly what her mutation is, only that she is utterly harmless, meek and kind-hearted. She's fluttering with anxiety, thrumming with it, but he can't quite figure out why. She hasn't told anyone about her mutation, but she doesn't seem to fear Erik. If anything she finds the two of them fascinating, the way Charles knows from experience it is like to meet someone like you for the first time, has wanted to be near them, even -   
  
He realizes what he's picking up on when he notices her lowered eyes, the way she trembles and hesitates as she attempts to take Erik's vitals. "M-M- " She can't get the words out. She folds her hands in front of her, wrings them nervously, and stares at the floor. She's a submissive. It occurs to him that it's the first time he's seen another submissive in the same room as Erik. The poor girl looks like she's about ready to throw herself to her knees and bow her head, and while Charles certainly empathizes - yes, Erik inspires that in him too, he thinks wryly - it's bizarre to watch it, to fully comprehend exactly what Erik's Will is. Until exactly this moment, he had taken it for granted. Erik's Will can be overwhelming in the best way, and remains electric in every sense of the word, but it never suffocates him. He can't help it. He feels a thrill of pride, something completely unconscious. Erik is his Dom, and only Charles is capable of being fully his.  
  
Erik blinks for a second, and sits up, and he gently takes the blood pressure cuff from her shaking hands, laying it half-opened over the point where his pulse beats against his elbow. The pump floats up of its own accord, snagged by the metal lining its ends with practiced ease, and hovers before her, and he gives her a reassuring smile that seems to say _go on_ , even though he's yet to speak. She is the one from yesterday, he observes to Charles privately, head tilted. He's caught the bare edges of Charles's musings and it twists his smile into something amused. Only you, he murmurs mentally. Everyone else... is this way. His eyes indicate the girl, but not unkindly.  
  
The nurse squeaks at that, a quiet, surprised noise she makes, and Charles can't help it. He brings his hand up to his mouth, stifling his own laughter. He's not laughing at her, of course. She seems a perfectly lovely girl, and he's certain she's more than capable at what she does. It's not her fault that Erik is such a dominating presence, not any more than it is Erik's fault he possesses such a presence. It's just that he's never seen it in person, only through Erik's thoughts, and it's stranger than he could have imagined. Of course he spends plenty of time around Erik wishing to be on his knees, wanting always to be dominated in the way they discussed, too, in that endless, limitless way, but - it's different. Very different.   
  
The girl's fingers are still shaking as she checks, and Charles can practically hear her own elevated heartrate, the way she can't seem to look anywhere near Erik without sending herself into a tizzy. Is this really how it always is? he wonders, awed, at the same time that he brushes his hand on the girl's arm, smiling gently at her when she turns her attention. She seems relieved to have a distraction, and though Charles has been told his own presence can be offputting, it obviously isn't dominant. "Don't be nervous," he tells her. "He won't bite, I promise." Well, unless it's me, he thinks, perfectly aware Erik will catch it. That seems to calm her slightly, and she offers a smile of her own, moving to observe the - still quietly beeping - machines. She's pep talking herself, he realizes. Charles ducks his head to hide another laugh, still disbelieving. Was I - the first time - is this what I looked like? He remembers being at least a tad more... functional.  
  
Erik shook his head, an outward response to a silent question that Charles can tell makes the nurse curious, wondering if he's indicating something to her-maybe just indeed confirming that he wouldn't bite. Even though her clinical mannerisms were gentle and practiced, he still tensed when she touched him, an old thing. _Oh, no. Nothing like that._ Erik's still got the smile on his face, slight but very-much present. _You were-are-like nothing I've ever felt. You spoke to me, of your own accord. When you listened to me it was like-you were pulling on a line of electricity in my chest._ He shows it to Charles, the moment his conditioning broke and he managed to speak, assured and dry, _you are a telepath_. The moment he knew he could trust the man in front of him, from little else than the few statements he'd introduced himself with. _You never cowered, once._ Charles can feel it now, how difficult it is for Erik to be around the other submissive, like she's tissue paper and he's all claws and rending teeth and psychotic rage smashing her into pieces. He does not relish anyone's fear and it settles in him, an icy stone. _You saw me. Not just-this._  
  
Charles smiles, meeting Erik's gaze. He echoes back through their feedback loop what he sees in Erik, what his Orders and dominance inspire, though he's certainly already seen it: comforting, grounding, electricity that crackles and sparks but never burns, unless in that delicious, poignant, deliberate way Charles craves. There was always intensity, always an overwhelming need to kneel and obey and serve, but never at the sacrifice of himself. His submission to Erik has never, not once, come at the expense of anything. It has always enhanced, even when he feared it. Even when he does now - not Erik, never Erik, but the scope of his own needs. It's Erik he wants to submit to, at the end of it, not a faceless, matterless entity, like he sometimes fantasized about. It's what makes it so fulfilling.  
  
The nurse is lingering. She hasn't spoken a single word, but she wants to now, he can feel it. "I - I..." Her breathing is uneven, and she has her hands clasped in front again, head bowed. A Posture, basic and recognizable. She likely doesn't realize she's taken it on.  
  
Charles does not fault her for it. He might have, just weeks ago, and the thought is enough to humble him, gentling any reaction he has. She doesn't deserve his scorn. "It's alright," he assures her, patient and kind, and directs her attention back to him. "Is there something - _oh_!" Charles' eyes widen, and an elated, excited grin takes hold of his features instead. "Oh, that's lovely - I'm a telepath, did you know that? That's truly brilliant. What a gift you have."  
  
Erik winces, and he reaches out, touching her shoulder and meeting her eyes with a solemn nod. Trying to communicate ease, because he can't unstick his throat and he's tried a dozen times but the words die before they can form. He's apologetic-and it makes more sense now, that the submissives in the videotapes the CIA had were scrambling, that Erik allowed it to continue-because his Will is so intimately tied with his voice that it's hard to wrangle it from intangible air-Will itself, the draw to him, the pull, the hierarchy-that's automatic. But directing it, letting it manifest in deliberate Order-he's working on it, wrapping it in layers like a leather cord around his palms, doing his best to impart a sense of comfort, letting her know she can relax. When Charles speaks, Erik's eyebrows raise. _What can she do?_  
  
Charles grins. She's relaxing, now, letting her shoulders sag - idly, he straightens instead, not because he feels uncomfortable, but because she's reminded him about how Erik feels about his own posture, a wholly unconscious reaction, because his submission to Erik, they're both finding, never turns off and neither want it to - and now she's breathing easier, too. There's a balance, and Charles knows they'll find it. "Could you show him, too?" he asks, gentle and coaxing. She smiles, nodding, but hesitates, and Charles shakes his head. "No, I'm not sure either," he answers something she was clearly only thinking, but he's still grinning as he holds out his hand. There are bruises from Erik's grip the night before, scratches where the skin tore, where he dug his nails in hard during Erik's surgery. She takes a visibly deep breath, takes his hand, and then closes her eyes. They fade within moments, the skin perfectly healed. Charles laughs, genuinely delighted. "Brilliant," he repeats.  
  
Erik's lips part in a silent gasp, gently lifting Charles's hand and taking it close to his face to examine, touching where the marks used to be. Beautiful, he forms the words without sound, a well of gratitude directed at her, rising up in him for what she's done, and he lowers Charles's hand before anyone can get suspicious.  
  
"Thank you for sharing that," Charles vocalizes, his smile dimpled in the way it is only when he's truly pleased. "All of the good you've done here - that's very special. You should feel proud." She perks up at that, smiling. "Thank you," she says, seemingly finding her voice. "I wish -" Her eyes wander to Erik, dropping again. "The surgeon will be in soon. Please, feel better." And Charles knows she means it as she turns to go, taking her charts with her and lingering in the doorway before she closes it behind her. He's reeling in the aftermath, staring down at his own hand. The injuries weren't more than superficial, but her mind filled in gaps. She's been healing under the radar for months, had sought this work out to fit her mutation, to come to terms with it. There are so many like her out there, timid with such extraordinary abilities. With proper honing, barring limitations - most mutations have upper limits, of course - she could do so much more than she is. Like so, so many others. "They need us, Erik," he whispers. Because while Charles had coaxed her, Erik's effect wasn't fear. Not to her, and it doesn't have to be on anyone else, either.  
  
Erik raised Charles's hand to his lips and kissed over the newly-healed skin once the door closed, relaxing back into the mattress. "I know," he says back, soft. He's scared for her, scared that one day she'll do something that gets her noticed and then-with that kind of power-he turns his head away. Thank you, he says to Charles. They all know what she'd been thinking about doing. He couldn't risk that for her. "We'll be there," he promises. "No one should feel this alone."  
  
"We're so very isolated from each other," he sighs, the weight of it forming that crease between his eyebrows. He leans back into Erik, an idle, unconscious movement, because Erik has pull and Charles is helpless as always to respond. Willingly helpless, though, if there's such a thing. "Alienated, afraid to congregate or else draw too much attention - we can't live like this, picked off one by one or else going it utterly alone. My finding Raven was pure chance, the happiest of coincidences, and her finding Hank was more luck than most will ever experience. It's just not sustainable."  
  
"We won't be," Erik replies. "It won't be like this forever. We will find a way. A school, you said," his eyebrows arch, and he wraps his arm around Charles, careful to ensure they weren't being watched. "We'll do it. Somewhere safe. We need somewhere safe," he murmurs quietly. "Community is so important. Where I grew up, it was everything. People need that. You can't heal in isolation. Mutants come from all over the world, all different languages and cultures. It's the same for my people, most of us are diaspora, many live in fear, in insular locations surrounded with hostility. I was very fortunate to live in a place where it was normal to go to synagogue. When you aren't cohesive, when you lack self-determination, that's when people will stomp you into the ground. It isn't the same thing-mutants don't have a singular language or cultural belief system, but we need to be _normal_ , somewhere."  
  
"We have so much potential," he sighs, and it's not the same as many others have seen it. Not a longing for power, for combined forces. Charles sees a different future. "We could do so much. So many of us are afraid, terrified to even tap the surface of our abilities -" He thinks to the night before and clenches his teeth, because he knows he is guilty of it. Has always been guilty of it. "We fear ourselves because we have been taught to. There's no sense to it. There are so many beautiful, extraordinary things we could do, and we hide instead." Charles ducks his head. "Before you, before this - I was so complacent. I never would have followed through, Erik, even though I have the resources to help. How much better does that make me from those who would oppress us? I told Raven to hide. For years and years, I taught her to hide. I'm no better than them."  
  
"That is untrue," Erik says, taking his hands. "You were afraid. You didn't want her to be targeted. I have seen what happens to people that have visible mutations like hers, and I would not fault you for the advice you gave her. You were young, and afraid. You aren't afraid anymore. You're growing into your power, and you are willing to do something about it. That is not nothing. Is that not what you said to me? That people's minds can be changed? That people can change, and grow, and be better? Why would you exempt yourself from that?"  
  
"Mm, no," he shakes his head, still staring between them instead of at Erik. "I'm still afraid. I'm still terribly afraid." It's true, and he knows Erik has felt it. His heart still drops whenever Raven is blue in public - when she is herself, with no disguise. He reads every mind in the room when he and Hank are out for coffee together, and sometimes suggests they go somewhere more private when the opinion is unfavorable, as it usually is, never sure if it's for Hank or his benefit. There are still nights when he considers taking that serum, the one that will dull or perhaps even nullify his mutation. "I'm afraid every day. I don't know why I think I can guide others, when I can't guide myself," he laughs, and it's hollow.  
  
Erik squeezes his hands. "I don't mean that you don't feel fear. Everybody feels fear. What's important is how you respond to it. If I am grateful for nothing else, it is that I can stand beside you, and inspire you to be what I know you can be. The people we will meet, the people we have met-" he thinks of that nurse. "They will be just as terrified as you are. Do you think you could reach them, if you didn't understand what they're going through? That is what guidance means, Charles. You don't need to be perfect. You just need to be willing."  
  
Charles bites his lip, silent for a moment or two. "You make me less afraid. Sometimes more afraid, because there is more to be afraid of," he admits, and they both know his life has been shaken since that first session, irrevocably so. "But less afraid, too. Of myself, and what I am. What I feel, and what I need. I've never been in tune with these parts of myself. I've never - it's strange," he finishes, voice cracking slightly. "Thank you. For not letting me be less than I am." Erik has proven that he simply won't allow for it, and he grins, because the thought makes him straighten his shoulders.  
  
He brushes his thumb over Charles's bottom lip, eyes crinkled. "If nothing else," he says with a small smile-an expression that almost always proportionally increases along the direct axis of Charles's presence-"I will be here, should you ever require guidance. I, of course, am perfect and do not need to change in any way whatsoever. I'll get shirts made. _Magneto Was Right_."  
  
Charles laughs, the genuine, undignified giggles Erik often inspires in him. "I regret that codename very much," he grins, and then takes Erik's thumb into his mouth and bites, just a playful, sharp nip, his eyes bright with that familiar glint. "We both know I always require guidance, and that you're quite extraordinary at giving it, but don't expect to be let off the hook. I will never stop giving you a run for your money," he warns. "Really, you're going to find running a school and changing the world with me is your pasttime. Your job is keeping me in line, and keeping me in line means keeping up. I fear for you."  
  
As if in response to that, Erik cups his jaw and leans up to kiss him, lingering a little longer than he intended, deeper and spark-intense-electric, memories of that shivery-pleasure Charles had felt when they woke on the heels of pleasing him bobbing up to the surface. "You'll find that I don't spook easily," he says when they separate at last, running his fingertips down Charles's throat.  
  
Charles does shiver, biting down hard on his lip to stifle the needy sound he wants to make. There's no one watching, but the idea that there could be, outside of real danger and the consequences of that, makes his cheeks heat the same way thinking of Erik's collar around his throat does. "Among every other worry I had last night, of which there was quite an endless amount," he begins, and drops his gaze again, this time in shame, "one of them was that it wouldn't - translate over. That what we started in that place together wouldn't hold." The ease of it. The dynamic. Charles is faltering a little, unsteady because it's still terrifyingly new, but not nearly as much as he feared. There's a foundation now.  
  
"What you need to understand, Charles," Erik says very calmly, but with a hint of a grin at the corner of his lips, "is that it isn't your decision to make. Do you think I would allow our foundation to falter?"  
  
"No," he whispers, though he's still afraid. Of having it, because it's new and changes everything, and also of not having it, but the idea of it disappearing - of faltering, of ending up in that place of unsteady footing and meandering around both their needs - is far, far worse. He remembers something else, and swallows, keeping his eyes lowered. "Last night, when - I realized something, and I very nearly did something you told me not to do. In no uncertain terms. I didn't do it, but I thought about it." He knows that makes a difference. "It wasn't an Order, so I had every ability to do exactly as I pleased like I've done my entire life, and - and I didn't, Erik."  
  
Erik smiled, bright. "I think that is rather the point, don't you?" he kissed Charles's forehead. "I trust you, and I don't want to limit you. I don't want to force you into being anything other than what you are. I didn't make it an Order because there are things I simply don't have the right to Order you to do. When that happens, the only thing I can do is state my wishes, and hope that you will make the right choice. It sounds like you did."  
  
"The thing is, Erik," he says, and it's a new revelation, something that it takes him a while to get up the courage to say, "I want you to - hm. I don't know how to put this." Limit isn't the right word. It implies that something is being taken away from him, and that's simply not the case, even if it technically is. "There are things I would never want you to Order me into, or even ask of me. We both know what some of those things are. But this - we agreed on this. I willingly promised you this. It's different. To put it frankly, if you told me to step back completely, I would tell you to sod off, perhaps more respectfully, perhaps not, and I need to have that right. But this - it's..." It's a delicate and fine line. What he needs controlled, and what he knows he'll resent if he doesn't have freedom in. "I'm finding limitations are something I need, and I'm not sure where the line is there. I know I'll tell you if you cross it, though. I already have." He's getting better at that. Not perfect, neither of them are, but better. This conversation was out of the realm of possibility just a day ago, and Charles would call that progress.  
  
He presses their brows together. "I know," he murmurs. "I do not always know where the line is, either. We are both learning, together. I asked for your promise," he says, head tilted to the side. "Not your obedience, because-" he doesn't know how to express it. "Because that needs to be your decision. This is your life as well. The circumstances may change. I could be incapacitated, I could be killed. I don't know what will happen to the Orders I give you if that happens, do you understand? It-" he looks up. "It is like your telepathy, perhaps. You say you have the knowledge that you can do whatever you want. Technically, so do I. With us, I could make you do anything I wanted, but that would be irresponsible, abusive, horrifying. We do not know the future. There are some things that you need the freedom to decide. And in some things, a promise is worth more."  
  
The words spike fear, chilling and dizzying up his spine, but he forces that down. A hypothetical. Charles still needs to take a breath before he can respond. "I was agreeing," he smiles, because Erik and him are often on the same page, but reading the text slightly differently. It's sometimes exasperating, but more often than not exactly what they need to get a full picture. "I don't ever want to resent your dominance, Erik. I won't, as long as we can have these discussions. As long as you listen, as long as we both are honest, we'll be okay. I believe that now. But there is a line - I can't refuse to obey you because it doesn't suit me one day, and we both know it's a possibility if..." If Erik is lenient, but he doesn't want to say it. "So we dance, and eventually the steps become natural. I'm still learning to let you lead," he admits, sheepish and grinning.  
  
"Then it is fortunate that I am an excellent dancer," Erik smooths his thumb over Charles's cheek, tender. "I have no intention of allowing you to flounder, Charles. Rest assured in that. I-" he grimaces. "I did not trust my instincts. I was afraid of them, and the result is that you didn't get what you needed from me. It was neglectful, and I am very sorry." He touched his own chest with an open palm, sincere. "I'm learning that-what I am inclined toward, often is the right answer. It is frightening to let go, sometimes. I think you know what I am talking about." And he kisses Charles again, because he can't bear to be separated, as dangerous as the motion is in this place.  
  
"You don't need to be sorry, Erik. I didn't trust mine either, but I've already apologized for the way it made me behave." There aren't any welts on his body to show for it, so he got off lightly, all things considered, but he winces as if there are anyway. As if the pain is there despite there being no physical evidence. It's almost comforting. "We're learning. And if you need to apologize to anyone, it's yourself. Were you getting what you needed, either?" It's pointed, but gentle, and he squeezes Erik's hand.

* * *

"I am not-" Erik rubs at his eye, a scratchy little automatism, like a praying mantis waking up to the morning light. "This is difficult to talk about. It doesn't hurt, but-I don't have the right words."  
  
Charles laughs, not because it's particularly amusing, but because he understands. He leans back, but keeps Erik's hand in his. "Could you show me instead, or is that also difficult? It's alright to not always have the right words. I certainly don't," he scoffs.  
  
"I don't want us to fight because I struggle to ask for what I need. Most of the time, I don't feel a lack-and then things spiral out of control. By the time I realize, I have to fight all of this-" he shrugs and wiggles his fingers at his temple. "Is that what is wrong with me? You said I have traumatic disorder."  
  
"There's nothing wrong with you," he's careful to say, and he makes sure Erik knows he believes it. "If you haven't noticed, I struggle with the same things. I suppose I've also been through - well, you saw yourself." Charles looks away, because it isn't something he talks about. In his mind, the door slams closed again, locking itself and then latching twice more. "It's something we can work on together, just as we do anything else. We don't always have to get it right. But Erik," he says, and takes his hand again, stroking it with his thumb, "It's okay to need. You said it yourself: your instincts have proven right. Follow them, and if I take issue with it, I have ways of letting you know. You trust me to do that, don't you?"  
  
Erik nods, a warmth lighting in his chest. "Always," he whispers. "I trust you more than I have ever trusted another being."  
  
"Then trust yourself, too." Charles smiles, and brings Erik's hand up to his lips to kiss. "Because I trust you. If I didn't, do you think I would be here? Do you think I would give you this? I am naturally submissive, and if you trust the scale, as naturally as you can get. It's a part of me, a big part, and I crave it more than I may ever be willing to admit. You've seen that. But if you weren't worth submitting to, trust me when I say I would never have considered it. This terrifies me far too much. If I doubted you, I would have run kicking and screaming a long time ago."  
  
"You have changed everything about my life," Erik says, trying to move closer, like he is empty, bereft without Charles's touch. "Everything about my existence is altered because of you. You have given me joy." His features are serious, but Charles can feel the hot pinpricks of tears that don't fall behind his eyes, the sharp, citrusy sweetness of the smile bubbling up behind his ribcage. "You have made me feel-do you know-" he took Charles's hand and laid it against his own heart. Erik doesn't know how good he is. He doesn't know if he's always going to do this right, but he does know that he will always, always, always take care of Charles, who is the most precious being he has ever encountered. "There was never anything kind in me, or gentle in me, before you."  
  
"I don't believe that. It was already there," he whispers, but he's more concerned with kissing Erik this time, holding the world at bay as he does. They are very lucky he is a telepath, and suddenly all too willing to redirect minds like brushing dust off his shoulder. That being said, he grins against Erik's lips. "Your surgeon has tried to walk down the hall to this room exactly four times, and forgotten why and walked back each time. He's very disoriented, and he does need to operate on you, so perhaps we should discuss how today is going to go before he interrupts."

* * *

That makes Erik laugh, fully, with the delight at every time Charles talks about using his abilities that he can never-quite quash. "Emma," he says softly. "If she comes back-we need to be ready. Perhaps they should have everything-set up," he grimaces, tensing unconsciously and unable to rein in the reaction. It means they'll need to stick an IV in him-but he shakes his head and his body is shaking, minute tremors. "We'll get it set up," he says, firmly.  
  
"Last resort," he promises, but nods. The time it took to get everything settled yesterday was far too long, and the consequences too great if it hadn't worked out. "I'll hold us for as long as I can, the same as yesterday. Do you have any requests?" It's a joke, but he taps his temple so it's clear what he means, grinning. He doesn't think he can actually manipulate like that - last time, it had simply happened.  
  
Erik's still shuddering, but he grins, shakily, and steals a kiss before straightening up and smoothing out the sheets on the bed. He wonders if maybe this time, he can show Charles something of him. An old-life, buried away in hot-hot mountains and tiny storefronts and blazing-red glitter-rays of incandescent light, reflecting off of each particle in the atmosphere. The buzz and hum of lightning in the distance, standing on a rooftop to absorb every crack through his skin. "Anything," is what he says aloud, and he means that, too, because any space where they can be together-have privacy, is a treasured gift he has never known.  
  
Charles catches it, but he's not sure it it will work. He's accessed Erik's memories before, and he seems just as capable of manipulating the mind-world they create together, but he is also the one who needs to hold it. Can he do that? It's worth a try, but at the very least Erik won't be disappointed. "Alright," he says, and gives Erik's hand one more squeeze before he pulls away completely. "Here we go." And as if right on cue, Erik's surgeon enters. Charles winks where he can't see him.


	17. What she said about the giant and the lemmings on the cliff I

The bed is mobile and they slide the rail down and get everything ready for transport, and Erik is laying there, gritting his teeth hard enough to crack a lance of pain through his jaw. The white-bright fluorescents blur into one long line above him as he's transported to the OR, through a metal elevator that shudders with the internal build of his panic. The surgeon and nurse both look alarmed when they jolt, but the doors eventually open and then they're back in that familiar room, and Erik has to fight with himself not to break everything in it. He touches Charles's shoulder. _Tell them to get it ready_ , he says, mouth clenched shut in stubborn silence outwardly.  
  
Charles wonders if, eventually, Erik will be able to ask for himself. It isn't that he resents being his voice, only that it pains him that he has to be. It's a fleeting thought, easily brushed off. He makes the suggestion, and of course they listen, though they're clearly worried about a repeat of the day before. Charles is more concerned with Erik, and he takes his seat by the table as he did the day before. Every emotion seems to flood in at once - the strongest being that overwhelming panic - but he shoves it down and takes a breath, attempting to steady himself. _Que sera, sera_. It's never been his mantra, but there's nothing he can do to perfectly control this situation. He can only do what he can, and that much he knows he will.  
  
 _I'm sorry_ , Erik frowns at him, wants to reach out and touch, but he stays perfectly still while a nurse comes and wipes down the crook of his elbow with a wet, sterile wipe. Erik starts shaking his head, violently, and pushes her back. It's almost gentle, but she startles and trips-another submissive stunned by the force of sudden Will in the room. _I'm sorry, I'm sorry_ , he mouths, feeling quite suddenly and viscerally trapped-he's got to be strong, he has to endure this-Charles is afraid and he needs to be strong, he needs to take care of him, that is his job-it's the only thing in the universe that matters except for every part of his brain flooding adrenaline down-it can't matter more-his triggers can't be worth more than Charles-they call for security, and he's curling in on himself.  
  
"Stop! Everybody just bloody stop." It's exasperated, and he finds that everyone does. Charles has done tricks like this before, but never on this level. It's strange, what fighting an experienced telepath - two of them - and learning you can freeze an entire hospital in its tracks will do to you. There's far less helplessness once he realizes that, and he breathes a sigh of relief. Wherever Emma is, she's not in control. She won't beat Charles at his own game, not if he plays smart. Charles will be suitably horrified at his own abilities later, when there's room to be. With everyone effectively calmed down, he brushes them off, moves them like pieces on a chessboard that he doesn't need at the moment and focuses on Erik. "This is slightly terrifying," he admits, because he's never done something like this, "But look, Erik. It's alright. I can handle this. See?" He reaches out gently, takes Erik's uninjured hand in his. "There's nothing to be sorry about. Nothing to fear. All you need to do right now is focus on me, darling. That's what I need right now. Can you do that?" He inches them closer, releases his hold. _I'm right here, and soon it will be just us. Focus on my mind. Follow me._  
  
Erik squeezes his hand, somehow manages to be careful this time because the memory of his fingernails digging gashes into his skin knitting healing over is still fresh, and he nods along over and over with Charles's words, eyes locked on his face, lips parted to drag in halting gasps of air. He's still, now, the pause in the room enough for him to get himself under physical if not mental control, and he remains still when they come closer, hating himself for not being able to stop the tears that drip down onto his shirt. _Safe_ , he thinks. If his mind were limbs it would be crawling inside Charles, all feet and toes and fingertips wrapping themselves up in the blanket of Charles's consciousness. _Safe_ , whispers again. The nurse is nervous, but she does her task, and it's barely a pinprick. _Safe, safe, safe_.

* * *

When Charles focuses enough to grip hold of them both, blinking as his entire world and consciousness shifts - less disorienting than last time, but still fairly jarring - he isn't certain where he is at first. He'd been searching for Erik's memories, but perhaps they were too far for him to reach, locked too forcefully beneath panic and fear, because he knows instinctively that this is not Erik's creation. It's far colder, for one, and Charles shivers, wrapping his arms around himself as his teeth chatter. Could he not imagine himself in a coat? It's snowing. They're outside of his childhood home - the Xavier manor and estate - and it's snowing.  
  
He couldn't always get it right, apparently, because he truthfully couldn't be more far off from the memory Erik had suggested, but anything was better than an operating room. Something's different, though. Charles blinks, because he's been in front of this house many, many times, and he's never seen that sign. It's covered with snow, and his first priority is Erik - has he seen snow before? In person? Also, he must be freezing - but Charles is curious by nature, and so he rubs at it with his arm. _Xavier's School for the Gifted._ He stares. And stares, and stares. Then he laughs, full and hearty, and shoves his hands up his own armpits because it truly is frigid. "That's very on the nose," he comments. "This obviously isn't the future, I don't have that ability, so there's still time to work on the name. And yes, I suppose _Xavier-Lehnsherr_ is a bit of a mouthful..."  
  
Erik's body knows it is delighted before his mind races to catch up-still teary-eyed and startled-setting him stumbling into Charles before he gradually begins to grab hold of his bearings. Erik whirls around, and the cold takes a few moments to set in but when it does his teeth start to chatter, cheeks rosy and snowflakes falling into his hair. He's stunned, reaching a hand up to catch flurries, opening his mouth like a child to try and catch one on his tongue, and his chest constricts with a great unnamed thing, a powerful force of love that bursts forward like the arctic chill slicing pillowy drifts off of the iron gates before them. He wraps Charles up in his arms when he can think to, pulling him close for warmth to inspect the sign. "I like it," he beams. "Oh."  
  
Charles is beaming, too, and it occurs to him as it did the day before that they have time. They have time to explore, to learn each other, to talk and to play. The joy that realization is accompanied by nearly bowls him over with its force, and he's left breathless and shivering for more reasons than the wintery air. And because they have the room to be, the playfulness rises up in him. What better way to start their time together than with a bit of goading? Erik is going to regret allowing for that in his rules one day. While Erik is thoroughly distracted, he leans down to do what any sensible person would - bare hands and all - and crafts a perfectly round little ball (perfect packing snow, how delightful!) to punt it right at his chest. Charles grins. "Got you," he sing-songs, the face of innocence.  
  
It explodes on impact, raining all over his face and hair, and he let out a loud _whoop_ of shock, completely taken off-guard and yanked out of his contented reverie. Being this close to Charles, he realizes before his wily brain has time to slam down on it, that it's meant to be a joke and he lets out a huff, sweeping his elbow up over his head. "Charles!" he's laughing. Thinking quickly, he considers for a moment and then: the tree above Charles's head shakes and suddenly dumps a huge pile of snow onto his body, and Erik gazes back at him, the perfect picture of impassivity.  
  
Charles shrieks in surprise, wholly undignified as he's covered. It's utterly freezing, and Charles is used to New York winters; his teeth are chattering so violently he can hear them in his skull, and he pouts. "That's cheating!" he declares, but then he's laughing, too, so overcome with contentment and light that he can barely feel the wet seeping into his skin. Barely, but he definitely does. "Now you have to carry me into the house like a caveman because I'm so cold my legs have stopped working. I hope you're happy," he huffs, but he's grinning ear to ear, and his legs work perfectly fine. Another detail catches his attention as he's shaking snow and ice out of his hair. There's a weight on his neck, humming and reflecting light off the snow, one he didn't notice at first. Charles gasps, hand flying to his throat and, yes - it's there. His collar, exactly where it belongs. He sighs, relieved and ecstatic, and feels it all the way in his bones.  
  
Erik sees it at the same moment and then his long legs are eating up the distance between them and he stops just in front of Charles, laying his hands on his chest. He gently brushes off all the rest of the snow and bends to press his lips against the point where metal met skin, inhaling deeply and wrapping his arm around his back. Erik's eyes closed, that bone-deep relief amplified and whipped up in the air like dancing snowflakes.  
  
That certainly warms him up some. Charles gasps, shaking for a reason unrelated to the cold and squirming in Erik's arms, not to get away - never to get away - but simply because he's suddenly overwhelmed with sensation. "I missed it," he sighs, eyes half-lidded with pleasure as he gently strokes the thrumming metal. Truly, he hadn't worn it long enough for it to feel like part of him, but Charles knows it had anyway. He knew something had been missing, something he couldn't put his finger on.  
  
"It knows you," Erik says, trailing his fingertip across the intricately engraved designs. _Lo tov heyot ha'adam l'vado_. They weren't alone anymore. He pins Charles closer to him, an innate response to the squirming, and tucks his head under his chin. "Feel," he says, and then shows him. In this mind-space it's entirely of Erik's creation, and while there are many downsides to the fact that none of it is physical, tangible, there is one very curious benefit: every molecule of the collar has been exquisitely tuned to Charles, vibrating on a frequency made entirely for him, reflecting all the various points of wonder and peace and joy and desire that Charles inspires from their creator. There is music and poetry inside of it, vibrating harmonics. When it touches his skin, it sings with belonging.  
  
Charles closes his eyes and stops his squirming, doing exactly as he's told. It gets caught in his throat, the emotion of it, and he has to swallow several times before he can breathe properly, pinned helplessly and willingly to Erik's chest. The significance is not lost on him - this is a constructed place made only for the two of them, a safe haven Charles created for them to be. The fact that he wears his collar here is anything but coincidence. "I'm yours," he murmurs, his voice muffled by Erik's chest. It's nothing but the truth. "Why would either of us ever fight that?"  
  
A safe haven where Erik can do this, too. He abruptly bends and sweeps Charles off of his feet, bridal-style, grinning down at him deliriously. "We would only be fighting ourselves," he murmurs, a repetition of what he'd asked Charles back in his plastic prison. Why are you fighting yourself? Erik has spent too long fighting. He craves peace, affection, warmth, and seeks it unhesitatingly. The brightest star of that constellation is Charles, where every point converges at once. "Let us return you to your castle and get you warmed up, Prince Charles," he teases.  
  
Charles yelps as he's quite literally swept off his feet, startled but clearly overjoyed to be handled this way as he wraps his arms around Erik's neck. He wonders, briefly, if he should play offended at the title, and decides he can only grin, pressing his cold lips to Erik's throat. "If I'm a prince, what does that make you?" he asks.  
  
Erik had to think about that for a second. "I guess it makes me the princess," he smirks. He leads them up the long, winding gravel pathway to the front door, his astonishment at the sheer magnitude of this mansion clearly written on his face. "Charles, did you grow up here?" he says, eyebrows arched to his hairline.  
  
"I was more thinking the knight, actually," he's saying, but Erik is clearly distracted. It's not an unwarranted reaction. This place is far, far too big, grand on a scale that no one family could ever need. Nor five or ten, if he's honest. Charles sighs, and nods his head. "It's a terrible waste, really. So many of the rooms are completely useless, nothing but furniture collecting dust. Expensive antique furniture, but dusty and unnecessary nonetheless. They're -" Charles' mouth snaps shut as he remembers something. The sign by the entrance. "Classrooms," he realizes, awed into silence.  
  
"Not terrible," Erik says, setting Charles on his feet right side up so that they can creep inside one of the rooms together and look. "Wonderful. This place would be enough, more than enough to house a student population, Charles."  
  
Despite the sign, it's exactly how he remembers it. Untouched, drafty, and in need of more than a bit of work. Charles grins anyway, pressed against Erik's side. "I didn't know what to do with this place, or the inheritance attached to it," he admits. "I make plenty of money myself, so it's been unnecessary. I used it to pay for my education, of course, but there's an excess. A large excess." No use playing coy there. "I obviously didn't want to live here, especially alone, but I had no ideas beyond that. Selling it didn't feel right, and leaving it here to dilapidate was even more of a waste."  
  
"I suppose that makes me the pauper," Erik waggled his eyebrows. It was truly all entirely out of his grasp. What he did understand was Charles had it, and it was within his full control, which meant he could use it. "What would it take to alter what needs altering? For something of this magnitude? You would need to remove or add rooms, and the like. It could be done?"  
  
"If you're asking if I have the funds and potential resources for it, absolutely," he answers, and grins, because his considerable wealth, beyond routine charity work, has never been put to good. "And I could do it right. I'll need your help, of course. We'd have to be smart - what would they need? I'm not sure if it's possible, but if we could somehow account for unsteady, developing mutations, both physical and otherwise, of which there are near endless possibilities and types..." Charles is deep in thought.  
  
If Erik's honest with himself, this is... a lot. There's no way around the feelings. He's never seen anything like this in his life, could never hope to compare. There's more to the world than wealth of materials, but surely when you have such luxury, you are keenly aware of its absence. Erik is nowhere near Charles's equal. There's no way he could possibly keep up-accounting and money are utterly foreign concepts. He dutifully tucks that away-it's not as if either of them can help their circumstances-and it is true; these resources are their first, best hope to accomplishing what would otherwise be a lofty ideal. "Anything you need," he says, giving a nod. "We might start with a base outline-what age group, classroom materials, residential items, matters of safety."  
  
Charles sees the thread anyway, and he shakes his head. Refusing to address this would be entirely unfair to both of them, so he tugs at Erik's hand gently to draw his attention back. "I know," he says, in response to a thought Erik's had. "It's a lot, Erik. I don't need to tell you, but I've not wanted for anything material my entire life. Not any of it. I lived in this castle, Prince Charles. Ignoring that privilege is doing a horrible disservice to everyone who was not afforded it. But this is yours now, too." He smiles, and offers it up freely. "If you're thinking that this is the kind of lifestyle I crave, you're wrong. I don't need it. What I can do is make use of it, and now that I'm yours, it's yours to make use of as well. I don't need you to manage the money, that I can do on my own, and I have plenty enough that I don't need any more offered to me. But you have an extraordinary ability to create, Erik, and here are the raw materials." He gestures around them, eyes gleaming. "This is a cold, empty place in so many ways. I need you to make it warm with me." Which reminds him that he's shivering, still, as if remembering that physical sensation is a factor here, and he clings to Erik for that warmth he speaks of.  
  
He takes a few seconds to really listen to that, and then he leads Charles into the empty room with covered furniture and thick motes of dust sailing through suspended beams of sunlight. Taking a step back to survey everything, he raises his hand, casting it over the whole area. Where he gestures, things begin to change. There are more windows, casting everything in a golden glow, desks and chairs and bookcases and puzzles and games whirl into existence. Chalkboards and whiteboards with half-written lesson plans (a science class, detailing the effects of superspeed on the human body), plants and wind chimes hung from the ceiling trailing down over brightly-painted walls, offset by colorful splashes of abstract art. A place intended to hold laughter, and wonder, to nurture.  
  
Charles gasps. He knows Erik can manipulate this space by now, but it doesn't mean it doesn't surprise and thrill him when it happens. He's fairly speechless as he takes everything in, every little touch of Erik's warmth, the thrumming, beating heart of him. The heart Charles has, but sometimes forgets to use over the pull of his mind. When he's explored thoroughly, stroking the leaves of plants, knocking wind chimes to hear their music, investigating the lesson, he's smiling so wide his cheeks hurt, dimples firm indents in his cheeks. "They need both of us," he breathes. "Together." And nothing less.  
  
Erik touches his chest with his fingertips, a pleased little grin on his face. "Together," he repeats. "It is only missing children," he places a hand on Charles's shoulder, coming to a stop behind him. "You must be freezing. Let's take care of this."

* * *

The reminder has his teeth chattering again, and he huddles close to Erik. "Take care of me, then," he teases, and buries himself in Erik's chest, smiling and bright, even though Erik is cold and wet, too, even though he's now shaking from head to toe and his hair is drenched and matted from the melted ice.  
  
He knows exactly where to go, led to a room that may or may not exist, and he trails his fingers over warm cable-knit sweaters and pajamas and folds out two pairs, setting them on the bed before unbuttoning Charles's shirt and sliding it off of his shoulders. "You're all red," Erik says, touching a concerned kiss to his shoulders. "This can't hurt-can it? It feels-" vivid. Real.  
  
"I'm just very pale, and very cold," he laughs, and shudders at the exposed air, but it's certainly better than his sodden shirt. "You should see me with sunburn. That hurts." He makes a disgruntled little noise, recalls a summer Raven told him not to sit out and read without sunscreen. She Ordered it, actually. He did it anyway, just to be contrary, and then fell asleep, lazy and sprawled on the grass. The result was not pleasant. "When I hit my late teens, I went through a phase where I did the opposite of every Order I received to prove a point," he admits, and his cheeks warm, at least, because it's more childish petulance than rebellion in retrospect.  
  
Erik laughs as he unbuttons Charles's pants and strips off his underwear. "Lift your feet," he says, and when Charles does, he slides on the fluffy cashmere he'd picked out in its stead. He steps back to survey his 'work' with a little smirk. "You could always stay like that." Erik on the other hand is drenched and shuddering in whole-body muscle contractions, like hypnagogic jerks. He's biting down hard on his teeth to stop them from clacking together in his skull. "I had the opposite phase," he admits after drying off Charles's shoulders at least with a towel. He pats every inch of skin and fluffs his hair as well. _"Erik, come eat dinner. You can't tell me what to do, I'm a D5. You eat dinner!"_  
  
Poor Erik looks like he's about ready to shiver his way out of his own skin, and of course he does, he isn't used to the frigid cold like Charles is. When he's all patted down and dry, skin burning a bit with the lasting chill, he sits up from the bed to work on Erik. There's something demure about him that there very rarely ever is, and he bites his lip and lowers his eyes as he always does when he's hiding this. This electric, humming thrill he feels whenever he does anything vaguely resembling service, submission, though it's truly all the time with Erik when he lets it be. When he doesn't stifle it. Even getting him coffee is enough to rile him up with pride and need, apparently. Charles wants to - well, there's so much he wants, and he has years of repression to work through. It's the perfect time to iron out some corners, to try on what's natural for once, but he doesn't know what that means. He wants to find out. His fingers tremble a little for reasons unrelated to the cold as he slips Erik's shirt off.  
  
Erik stands perfectly still, patient and open when Charles moves, a corresponding shift of warmth rippling through his chest at the action. He catches the other man's gaze and holds it, using a knuckle to tip his chin up, watching the pull of submission on his features. "Just be steady," Erik murmurs the Order unconsciously. When his shirt is laid out on the bed, he rests Charles's hands against the top of his pants. It's evident without words that Erik enjoys when Charles does things like this for him, in a lazy, almost entitled way. "Now these."  
  
Charles has undressed himself for Erik, but it occurs to him that he's never fully undressed Erik. He's never been told to. It's clear what Erik wants from him, and for some reason his heart thuds loudly in his chest. He's seen Erik naked before, on multiple occasions now, but - it's not Erik's body that's flustering him, not really. It's the notion that this is service, that this is one of those small, important things he's craved for as long as he could conceptualize it, something that could fit into his life if he only allowed it to. Charles swallows and keeps steady, unfastening Erik's pants, pulling down what's underneath with them. Erik is standing, and for a moment he considers how this works, but he already knows. Charles falls to his knees to remove Erik's pants, leaning against his legs when he's done.  
  
Erik ran his fingers through Charles's hair, and curled them at the back of his neck, encouraging, before pressing the second towel into his hands. "Dry me off," he Orders gently, slowly beginning to warm up as the layers of wet fabric were shed from his skin. In the light and stark naked, many more scars were visible along his arms and legs, clusters of freckles spread out like constellations in-between. He doesn't flush the way Charles does, and wouldn't burn the same either, and he watches those blooms of red along a pale expanse. The contrast is curious to him. He traces it along Charles's back when he rises to obey.  
  
Charles does as he's told, both because he's helpless to it and because he wants to. Wants desperately to please. It's such a simple, basic instinct, but he's become so good at ignoring these things that the pleasure that blooms in his belly and sparks down his spine still shocks him. He's thorough, careful, gentle with scars as if they still ache, and openly fascinated by every inch of skin. There's still so much to learn. Charles ends up on his knees again, drying down Erik's legs, his feet, humming when he's finished with a little smile on his lips. He can feel that Erik is less cold now, and he can't help but be satisfied. When he looks up through his eyelashes, he's biting his lip again, just that tiny bit of anxiety reaching for him - is this wrong? Is it weak to need this? Too much? Should he fight it? Get up from his knees before Erik can tell him to? It all goes through Charles' head, because he's trained it to. _"Sit, Charles,"_ someone says once - Warren, not that it matters - so he folds his arms and stands through an entire meal, ignoring the ache in his legs. This time, Charles stays kneeling.  
  
Erik lowers just enough to take Charles's hands in his and help him to his feet, kissing his knuckles. Be easy, each butterfly-kiss seems to say. I've got you. There is no need to fight, in here. Not themselves, not one another. Erik realizes that he's been slowly replacing fight with learn, and he likes that, shows it to him, strokes the back of his palm across Charles's cheek. "Show me where the kitchen is," he says out loud, pressed close, skin-to-skin.  
  
Charles takes a slow, easy breath. No reason to fight. Erik's calm is contagious, and he lets himself bask in it for a few long, dragging moments, moments he needs to swallow the impulse to squirm. He pulls back and nearly does as he's told, but then his feet are digging into the carpet, fuzzy socks and all, cheeks flushed again. "Shouldn't we -" He indicates the bed, where Erik has laid out clothes for them. "It's cold," he adds. What he doesn't add is that he feels far less vulnerable when he's not naked. It's worse when Erik is clothed and he isn't - and electrifying in the way submission always is, not that he'll always admit it - but Charles still isn't used to it.  
  
"Mmmm," Erik tilts his head. "Are you cold?"  
  
"Yes," he says automatically, because it's the answer he knows will get him what he wants. When his stomach sinks, clenching in shame, he realizes it was the wrong one. Charles swallows, and stares at his feet. Not really, he corrects, unable to admit it out loud.  
  
He snaps the waistband of Charles's pajamas against his hip-a warning-with a gentle smile-totally naked, himself, and without an ounce of self-consciousness-and rests his hand at the small of Charles's back as he guides them to the door. "Like this, for now," he decides. There's nothing immediate about it, his mind a swirl of comforting lights and colors. "Show me where the kitchen is," he repeats, firm.

* * *

Briefly, he considers refusing. It's not an Order, though Erik's Will hums between them like it always does, and he knows what's expected of him, what obedience would look like. But why would he? What reason does he have to do that, besides the rising anxiety in the pit of his stomach, the very clear attempts his brain is making to self-sabotage what is obviously a good, natural thing? Charles sucks in a breath and nods, walking a bit too fast down the hall. It's a long walk, longer than he'd like it to be, and he doesn't look at Erik once, arms stiff at his sides. The kitchen is just as large as he remembers it, and it's different than the one he remembers as a child - he's had it updated since then, though truthfully no one has used it. The appliances are all stainless steel, and he can feel them singing through Erik, which brings his attention to his neck. He fiddles with his collar, twisting it this way and that.  
  
Erik floats close behind him, running his fingertips up and down the curve of his spine, gazing about curiously at each room that they pass. He can't imagine growing up in this place-it's more of a museum than it is a home, and he thinks it must have been lonely. No more, he resolves. He will fill every inch of those cold-dead rooms with evidence of their life, with them. He summons the teakettle resting on the stainless steel counter with a magnetic snap and curls Charles's fingers over it, and Charles can hear him listening to the resonance all around, feel as Erik's power flexes over the smooth alloys wound around his throat. "Make us your favorite," he murmurs, leaning over to kiss the top of his head.  
  
It's as if Charles has lost his voice, because all he does is nod, shoulders hunched as he maneuvers around the kitchen. Everything he needs is here, and he gathers from the cupboards - rising up on the tip of his toes to reach the top shelf when he needs to - and the fridge silently. Perhaps it's this place. This house with its empty rooms, its shut-tight doors, the furniture he was never allowed to sit on. The place he came into his submission, and promptly learned he wanted nothing to do with. He wrote it off here. Started to dig his feet in, to raise his chin, to fight down the horrible little ache when he denied himself. Charles was taught that it would bring him nothing good. The teakettle is whistling. Charles clenches his teeth and pours, none of the light, easy joy of submission from before, every muscle tense.  
  
Erik comes up behind him, wraps his arms loosely around his waist and rests his head on his shoulder. Doesn't push, letting it settle, listening to the slosh of water into teacups, and when he plucks one up from behind him he's curious to note that it's not one of _Greymalkin_ Manor's fine china sets, but an old chipped thing with hand painted birds and letters on the rim. A reminder that they're both here. _You aren't alone_ , whispers the teacup.  
  
Charles has gotten twisted up like this before. Many times, if he's honest, and he never knows how to fix it. Everything in him wants to melt into Erik's arms, bare skin against his, but he locks up instead. It's not a deliberate, disobedient thing like it was before, an attempt to get a reaction. It's something else, and he stares down into his own tea, still silent, still tense.  
  
"Drink," Erik Orders softly, rubbing circles into his shoulderblades with the pad of his thumb. He imagines it must be this place, the juxtaposition of now versus then. As much as his instincts scream at him to protect fix keep safe, he bears it easily, letting Charles have the space to react he needs. "It must be unusual to be here, with me." He didn't think he could possibly imagine Charles in the place where he'd grown up, and that cemented it for him; there was no reason to remain here if it was going to cause suffering like that, but-sometimes you need to face things. That wasn't something he could Order, so he didn't. "Do you want to stay?"  
  
He drinks, even though it's a tad too hot, even though he would likely wait longer for cool if left to his own devices. The question inspires a cagey little shrug, shoulders still hunched, because he doesn't know. If they're going to use this space, and he wants to, he'll need to learn to bear it. He's also not entirely sure the knots he's tied up in his stomach and in his locked muscles would go away if they left. Charles continues staring down at the counter.  
  
"Talk to me," Erik says at last. It isn't a request. "Tell me what you're experiencing."  
  
But it's not an Order, either. Charles knows it isn't, because his mouth stays stubbornly shut, his eyes lowered. He's gritting his teeth, the tea cup set down so he can ball his hands into loose little fists.  
  
Erik lifts his chin. "Tell me," he says, and now it very much is.  
  
Charles' jaw aches from all the clenching. "I don't know," he says, and it's the truth. "I don't - I can't - " He gives a frustrated little huff. "I don't want to push you. I promised not to, I meant it, but being here makes me want to. I don't want to listen to a word you say. And I'm really pissed off that I want - I want..." All of it. Everything they established, and more than that. That he wants Erik to Order him to his knees right now. "It freaked me out," he admits, finally, and plays back the moment on his knees. "I want to fight. You fought everything, Erik, and that kept you alive, but -" But he learned to fight himself, and make it look like outward rebellion. That kept him sane.  
  
"Why are you angry about what you want?" Erik asks, resting his hand over Charles's. "What distressed you about it? Do you think I am going to mock you?"  
  
Charles shakes his head, fighting to stay still. He wants to pull away, but he won't, and now his limbs are locked for a different reason. "No," he mumbles, and that's all.  
  
"Relax yourself," he taps Charles's elbows, and the Order is unmistakable. "And answer me clearly."  
  
Charles huffs at that, but does as he's told. There's defiance in him again, and he wonders if there might always be. If this is part of it, too, if Erik thinks he's broken because of it. If he will stop wanting him because he needs, needs and craves and wants, but sometimes needs this, too. This fight, and Erik is done with fighting. It clenches his stomach harder, makes him feel sick, and the words spill out. "I don't want to let him win," he hisses finally, and it's vicious, but not aimed at Erik.  
  
"I do not think you are broken," Erik says. "He is broken, and for that he has already lost. You are remarkable. I want to understand. Do you want me to fight you for eternity? Because I will, if you need it. Does it bring you peace? How does it help you?"  
  
"It doesn't," he mutters, and he's not sure if it's a lie or not. "You can't sacrifice your peace because I want to make you fight for it sometimes. Forget it." Bossy, cagey Charles, and this time he does move, scooting along the counter. "Give me a second, and I'll - I'll calm down, Erik."  
  
Erik takes a step forward into his space, resting his palm over the glinting metal of Charles's collar. "Surely you must know by now that my peace isn't an option when you are suffering. Answer me, honestly." Their eyes lock, and Erik refuses to let him drop his gaze, the snap of Order and Will palpable like static electricity. "Why do you need to make me fight for you?"  
  
That knocks the wind out of him, settling uncomfortable and sick in his gut. Charles clenches everything he has, fights it off for as long as he can, toes curling in his socks, his chin raised, before it snaps right out of him. It's a physical thing, and he never stood a chance. Didn't really want to. "I don't know," he answers, and it's honest. "I just do. Why do you need to breathe? Why do you need to dominate? I don't want to be forced, I just want -" To feel like he is, sometimes. To be taken firmly and held there, but not against his will. "My head gets mixed up. It gets twisted around itself, and I - I just need... I don't know," he repeats, helpless and bristling.  
  
The realization hits Erik like a sack of bowling balls, and just as gracelessly. He looks up, not for the first time damning himself as an irrevocably twisted pile of neurons wrapped around a cold-steel skeleton. "No, Charles. No." He shakes his head. "This is my fault," he says without room for argument. "This isn't on you."  
  
"What?" Charles stares, utterly dumbfounded. There's probably a tactful way to ask, but he's drawn too tight to know what it is. "How, exactly?"  
  
He's too gentle. Too lenient, Charles said. It doesn't matter that they have a pause-word. Erik cannot ignore it when Charles resists, when he says no-even if he doesn't mean it. Most Dominants can, most Dominants understand the line and he can't overcome his own fear. If he doesn't, Charles will never be happy. "Because I am broken." He smiles, for the first time truly bitter about it.  
  
Charles knows there's a proper response to this. He knows he should react softly, gently, lovingly to Erik's pain. He does, in some other part of him, where it churns his stomach. What he does is hang his head until he's staring at the ceiling. "Oh, _piss off,_ Erik," is what comes out of his mouth.

* * *

Instead of responding, he takes a step back and then walks out of the room. Naked as a jay bird, which makes his figure a little less imposing, but Charles can feel him ruthlessly suppressing any response that would genuinely inspire fear.  
  
Charles feels sick in the aftermath. He wants to follow, but he knows he shouldn't - and what good that does, after he mucked everything up again. And somehow Erik thinks he's the broken one. He groans, sliding all the way down the counter until he can bury his face in his knees. What he does do is check, keeping Erik in his mental perimeter, terrified in some far off part of his brain that he'll lose him. He doesn't. Erik is still here, and he is still here. In opposite rooms, but still in the same place, neither of them in a hospital. _Small comforts_ , he thinks, bitterly.  
  
Charles barely looks up, even though his mind hums, some of the aching, twisting emptiness dissipating. Slightly, anyway. He's not particularly in the mood for games, but he makes a move anyway. A throwaway one, and he knows it, but it's early game and there's room for that. "You didn't," he sighs.  
  
Erik nods, studying the board, which is laid out chaotically on both ends. Charles had just been sitting there, but it's a good opportunity as any to insinuate himself into the situation, so he makes another move after some genuine deliberation.  
  
Charles sees what Erik doesn't, but he's been staring for a good hour now. He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose and pulling his legs up to his chest in an echo of the day before. "Check," he says, moving the right piece, and it gives him absolutely pleasure. "I'm not really in the mood for this, Erik," he mumbles.  
  
"It's either this or we try again to resolve what is happening. Take your pick." Erik moves his king.  
  
"How is that even a choice?" he asks, incredulous, and runs a hand through his hair. He doesn't touch the board. "I don't like fighting with you. It - " It makes him feel worse than nearly anything ever has, actually. He's had a lump in his throat since Erik left him in the kitchen, and he can't swallow around it.  
  
Erik hasn't looked up from his side of the board since he sat down, but his eyes flick up now. "We keep ending up here, when you want me to fight your resistance. I think that you might not realize your instincts are perfectly normal."  
  
"They're clearly not," he mutters. He's not looking at Erik. "I'm just being impossible, like usual. Making everything more difficult than it has to be. Why do you think I only have three friends?" It's harsh, but aimed at himself. He's glaring at the chess board like it's offended him.  
  
"It's a natural submissive instinct to push the boundaries of an intimate relationship. Not everyone is like that, but a good deal are."  
  
"Then I'll stop," he decides. He makes a move on the board, shaking his head. "Check again, and problem solved."  
  
"I will leave again if you don't feel like respecting my intelligence." Erik's tone hasn't deviated from its flat, expressionless cadence.  
  
"Ah, right. I forgot -" Charles snaps his mouth shut. None of what he was about to say was complimentary, and all of it was rude. He closes his eyes and tries again. "Is there another solution I'm missing, Erik?" he asks, as calmly as he can at the moment.

"Just _stop_!" Erik says suddenly, and a flood of Will slams through the room like a tsunami. He reaches out and plucks the pawn out of his hands, casting it aside. "Will you for one second _stop and listen to me!_ " He doesn't realize he's made it an Order, but he doesn't end up saying anything else, falling silent.

* * *

Erik's staring at him, wide-eyed and frozen for several long, horrifying seconds and he rises to his feet, scrambling to the other side of the room to clutch a book protectively between his fingers, like it could act as a shield between them. "Disregard that," he croaks, and doesn't know how he manages to grip his Will strong enough to make it an Order when he can't breathe. The book thumps to the floor in favor of dragging his nails across his wrist hard enough to draw unsightly welts across the thin skin, nothing but breath and sound and pain.  
  
Charles sighs. He hadn't been afraid, nor had he been upset, but now he's frustrated around the horrible, empty aching, and it leaves a nasty taste in his mouth as he buries his head in his legs again. He stays silent.

Erik wheezes a laugh up at the ceiling, fully aware that he is straddling the razor's edge between running at full speed out of here and- _Oh my G-d, I can't do this. I don't care. You live in the cut, don't bother taking it out on your wrists, blödkind. Let him sit over the abyss because you can't get it together. He's yours and you can't even put him in his place. No wonder you don't like to be pushed. Mach dir keine sorgen, Wir haben alles verbrannt. You don't understand anything, Erik. You have to deal with being pushed by pushing back-aus diesem Grund können wir Ihnen nicht vertrauen_ -"Get up," the Order is hoarse, dragged out of the bottom of his chest in a dangerous rumble.

Charles' eyes widen long before the Order comes, but when it does his head snaps up at the same time that his legs knock together in an attempt to unfold themselves as fast as possible. The result is ungainly, and he trips over the chair on the way up. It's not fear in his eyes as he stares at Erik, it's concern. "Erik -" he starts, but doesn't know how to finish.  
  
"Fix the chair," Erik says flatly, another Order. It's like they're cumulative, building in the air on top of each other, and he's never given them like this before.  
  
Charles' heart beats in his throat, pulse racing as he does as he's told and gingerly tucks the chair in. "Erik," he tries again, and his mouth is dry.  
  
There are emotions here, but nothing as easily comprehendible as anger or frustration, and it's all broken through a fractured prism, light bending before it reaches the source, reflecting into billions of brilliant particles. "You are safe," he grits out. "I am not angry. I need a bandage. Take me to the medicine cabinet." Erik holds up his wrist, which is dripping small droplets onto the hardwood floors. Like before, these are all Orders, stacked on top of stacked on top of until the only thing that moves and breathes in this place is Erik's Will.  
  
Charles swallows his own emotions, one of which is fear, but not for himself. He doesn't feel unsafe, he feels worried, and it buzzes around him even as he fights to breathe around Erik's Will. Not because it's crushing, but because it's never been this - this much of a presence, like a third person in the room. It threatens to completely pull him under, but Charles keeps fighting it, even as he leads Erik to the nearest bathroom. It shouldn't be stocked, but it is, and his fingers shake as he reaches for disinfectant and bandages. "Do you - do you want -" It's hard to speak like this, and he shakes his head, everything caught in his throat as his heart pounds. "Erik, whatever this is, you don't have to -" He cuts himself off again, ducking his head. "I'm sorry I pushed you. We can leave this be, alright?" He offers the supplies, as if in surrender.  
  
Erik ignores him. "Breathe. Release the tension in your body. Fix it," he Orders when they get there, setting his wrist on the counter. Under the harsh lighting his face is impassive, not-exactly cold or harsh-there's the sense of wild energy roiling in his blood, raucous tides thinly leashed. He's hollow, frame rake-like, unnaturally vivid eyes with dark circles underneath. He shouldn't seem powerful. He is.  
  
Charles doesn't understand how that works, but it does somehow. He breathes, shaky at first, and then even, the tension he'd been holding in his shoulders lessening and then disappearing altogether as he straightens himself out. How Erik prefers him, he realizes, and he didn't have to Order it. It coils something up in his belly, and that threatens to twist him up again, lips pursed stubbornly even as his body is relaxed and poised. "Erik," he tries to be firm, but it comes out nothing more than a breath.  
  
Erik gazes at him, expectantly waiting for Charles to find the supplies and get started. _Du tust, blödkind? Ich habe dir gesagt, deine Spielzeuge nicht zu zerbrechen. Hu lo tza'atzuali_ , and you are an apparition. _My sobirayemsya poveselit'sya, myshka. Leave him be. Don't touch him. Weiß er, was du getan hast? Er wird dich nie wieder berühren_. "Take care of me." It. Take care of it. Take care of me.  
  
Charles' lips stay pursed. There's something wrong, and it sits awfully in his stomach. Still, Erik is bleeding, and it was an Order, besides, so he gets to work, nothing but gentle and soft as he disinfects - unnecessary, he knows, but he does it out of habit - and then wraps, silent the whole time.  
  
It feels real. The bandage sits snug against his skin, and the claw marks were deep and long enough to slash through his tattoo, which it now covers. He rolls his sleeve down over it once Charles is finished. He stands and bids Charles to follow him with a look; a flex of Will without words that is nonetheless just as powerful. "Go into the bedroom and kneel at Rest. I will be in shortly. Clear your mind and focus on your breathing. Focus on being calm." More Orders, on top of old, building up like a crystal lattice. Every thought, every move, every twitch is soaked in Will beyond anything Erik's exerted yet. It's becoming more obvious by the second that Erik has barely tapped the surface of his full capacity as a Dominant.  
  
Charles breathes, and reaches out for Erik's mind, but it's all so complex that none of it is on the surface. He promised not to go farther. There's no way he could disobey if he wanted to, but he believes - he knows, or none of this would ever be agreed to in the first place - that if he truly objected, he could stop this. Even if for some reason he couldn't use his pause-word, they're so connected that Erik would know if he was unwilling, honestly, wholly unwilling, and he would stop. Even if he did accidentally cross a line, he wouldn't hurt Charles like that. The pause-word is there for a reason. Their discussions on boundaries were had for a reason. And he isn't angry, that much Charles can feel. Erik hadn't specified on a bedroom, but he's fairly sure he means his bedroom.   
  
It's a good walk down a winding hall, and he takes his time, processing as he does. Farther away from Erik's Will, he finds it still follows him in a way it never has before. When he makes it to his childhood bedroom, debating for a moment on where to kneel - he decides on next to the bed - it takes minutes of breathing for him to even achieve something resembling calm, even with the Order. He keeps his Posture perfect, nothing shy of the standards Erik set the first time, corrections and all, and that helps. It helps more than he'd like to admit it does, and he knows he's beginning to slip. It's all too easy, but part of him still struggles against it, one last stubborn piece of him. It's treading water at this point, and he knows it, subspace and the calm and belonging that comes with it all too enticing. Erik, all too enticing.

* * *

Erik leaves him there for a bit, but Charles can feel him rummaging around, preparing something, and then the door opens, and he walks in holding a tray, which he sets on the nearest bureau to stand before Charles, appraising him with a lift of his chin. "Good," he approves, and he rests the tray in front of Charles and takes a seat opposite him, cross-legged. "You didn't get to practice today," he muses as he lifts up the small teapot and pours it into a delicate cup. They're both kitschy, cracked things with hand-painted figures along the edges. Herbal fragrances waft through the air, sweet, and there's a confection on a small plate that looks like a pastry or a cake with a fork beside it. He holds the cup out to Charles, handle-side first. "Drink," he Orders.  
  
Charles blinks, but he takes the cup and drinks, cradling it delicately. He knows for a fact these weren't in any of the cupboards of the kitchen, but he also knows he doesn't own a single pair of pants that would ever be Erik's size - his are all tailored, and Erik is more than half a foot taller - so it's a suspension of disbelief, a melding of minds. He's quiet, but there's a question in his eyes, a raise to his eyebrows, and that not-yet-squashed defiance, the sky of his eyes darkened with it as he waits.  
  
He guides Charles through drinking a cup and then fills another, before answering, "I didn't expect to find those here. I painted them." He turns over his own mug to show the childlike _alef-raysh-yod-kaf_ on the underside, letters wonky and lines faded in parts. There's a dog chasing a ball and a tree and a flock of birds shooting out into a black sun. He cuts a piece of cake and spears it onto the fork, holding it out. "Open," he Orders and taps Charles's bottom lip with his thumb. All of his other Orders have yet to disappear-like he's tying together the most complex, interwoven knot in a tapestry of Will.  
  
Of course Erik painted them. It's so difficult to be frustrated like this, and not only because he's been Ordered into calm. There's fondness, too, and a yearning, deep and aching. Charles meant it when he said he didn't like fighting, not the way they did in the kitchen. He swallows around his bite of cake, tongue poking out to lick at what's left on his lip, and sighs happily, because he really does have a near insatiable sweet tooth. Erik's Will is humming all around him, lulling him, soothing him. All his muscles are relaxed, but the thing is - Erik could tell him to focus on his breathing all he wanted, but he can't Order Charles out of his own mind. Even perfectly still, his head's not where it should be yet, and he doesn't know why he's fighting it. It doesn't make any sense, when subspace is such a blissful, safe space, when he knows Erik will take care of him if he lets himself. But he can't, and it hurts, like fighting the current of a strong river, scraped against every rock and branch on the way.  
  
Erik cuts up another piece and feeds him like that until half of the cake is gone, and then sneaks a bite for himself. He frames Charles's face with both his hands and kisses him, a bare brush of lips. "I don't care who else was here," he says, every word itself an Order strung out along the fairy-lights of Command. "You do not belong to them. You belong to me. You can fight it, but that will never change. I will always take care of you, and you will take care of me, because that is how it is supposed to be." Erik has had another epiphany, this one more obscure than the other, wrung out of him with violence and on the tailfeathers of blood and cold, dead eyes and monsters standing over tables and _weiß er was du getan hast, Engel des Todes bist? Weiß er, dass du, wenn du brechen, ihn zu Asche verbrennen werden? Weiß er- just stop. Just stop. Stop it. Atzor. Bevakasha, atzor. Rage makes man a beast._  
  
Charles knows that. He does not need an Order to tell him that, he does not need Erik's Will. His eyelids flutter, and he considers what it would be like to let go again. To let Erik wash over him, safe and Commanding, to give in. He wants it so badly. "I don't know what to do," he admits, the first words he's spoken in a while, and over the calm lull, he feels helpless and whirring.  
  
"It is a fight," Erik says. "But it is not one I can win for you. You need to make that choice."  
  
Charles shakes his head. He doesn't know if he can break Posture like this, so he doesn't, but his eyes close. "It's not that simple," he promises.  
  
He would find himself unable to, trapped in place as efficient as any restraint. "Open your eyes." Another Order. "Simplify it for me." And then another.  
  
The sound that escapes his parted lips is helpless and almost pained, like a wounded, trapped creature, but he obeys. "I know I belong to you," he whispers, because that's the simplest this can get. "And I know I want to. That's not a choice I have to make. It's made already."  
  
Erik flutters in the in-between space, someone Charles recognizes, who kisses him and makes sure to swipe away errant crumbs from his chin and speaks calmly, and the Upside-Down Man in the bathroom screaming _Test und Kontrolle Gegenstand ausgerichtet_. _He will never belong to you. Nothing will belong to you. He's an insect, blödkind. You know you can't resist pulling the legs off. Studie abgeschlossen. Entsorgungsprozess beginnen. Let him go. Show him mercy. Show yourself mercy. Unlock these tidal orbits. Let go. Let go._ He flutters too far and his head tilts, bringing every Order he's given so far together the way tectonic plates smash beneath the Earth's crust, under the only one matters: "Then let go."  
  
Charles has his own epiphany. This is not the river, not a current he is fighting. When he lets that last bit of hesitance - of fear, of frustration - go, just as Erik Ordered, it's not as if he sinks under and is drowned, Erik's Will clogging his lungs and asphyxiating him. It's as if he finally breaks the surface, Erik his only foothold in the water he'd plunged himself in, the only thing that keeps him afloat, and suddenly he can breathe. There's a whimpering sound that leaves him, low and helpless, but this time when he begins to sink, down and down and down, he lets himself. Thank you, something in him whispers, and whatever hold is on him - phantoms from closets or his own anxieties - is gone. Erik is the only thing holding him now.

* * *

Erik stares at him, long and hard, right through him down, down, deep down, and his hands twitch, and he lets out a choked noise, quelled quickly. Expelling the smoky wisps and the inverted apparitions that don't belong, because he isn't holding Charles's head under the water, nails digging into the back of his neck and killing the life out of him (you're wrong) the sticky-dark shadows scream at him to reconsider before vanishing. The tray lifts itself up and aside and he nudges forward, wraps his arms around Charles, hugging his body just as tightly as his soul. He inhales into the crook of his neck, rubbing his back. There is a corresponding sensation inside of Erik, for the first time Charles is aware that how Erik usually feels isn't how he's meant to feel-that there's been something missing, that he's failed to exercise some part of his Dominance right up until this moment-the edges of him fuzzing out and reconstructed in Will. He slides his hand under the hem to feel bare skin, overwhelmed with relief he didn't realize he'd been seeking. (You're wrong.)  
  
Charles is boneless and soft against Erik. He doesn't think he'd be able to tense if he wanted to, but his mind isn't tensed now, either, not an ounce of fight left as he sinks further down. Or floats further up. He doesn't know which one is more accurate, but in the end it's all irrelevant because Erik is holding him, Erik is lulling him, Erik is grounding him. "I'm sorry," he whimpers, and tears prick at his eyes but don't spill, because he doesn't know what made him do it. He doesn't know what's inside of him, what part still doesn't understand that Erik will take care of him. It all feels rather foolish now, when there's nothing more blissful than letting himself go.  
  
"Don't be sorry," Erik whispers, and it's still an Order, and he chuckles softly. "You can be sorry," he corrects. "You don't need to be sorry." His heart is pounding against his ribcage and he's trying to fit himself together, slotting pieces back into a board but the squares won't fit in the circles and they keep spilling on the floor. He tangles his fingers at the soft hair at Charles's nape. Quiet down, quiet down, he tells the marbles. He's inhaling audibly through his nose like off-rhythm morse code. "You did very well," he croaks unsteadily. "You helped me. You did good. It's okay. I've got you." And despite everything, he does.  
  
Charles leans into the touch, needy and seeking. The praise should delight him, light him up inside like it usually does, but it sinks uncomfortably in his stomach instead. He doesn't feel like he's earned that at all. Broken, but it's just a whisper, easily brushed off. "Can you - can you talk to me?" he asks, because Charles wants to understand, too.  
  
 _You did_ , Erik counters. _You did well._ Stroking his hand down Charles's spine, then back up in big, slow maneuvers, having shifted him so he was resting on Erik's chest, still positioned on his knees as Erik's come at him from the side to let him lean comfortably. He feels like he wants to break down and cry (something he does a lot of these days) but his eyes only grow hot without spilling over, and he just sits and pets and drinks in Charles's body against his. "Mm-" he manages to coalesce every crazed, hypernuanced thought pinging around telephone-poles and pin-ball machines into a single incoherent syllable, accompanied by a nod. "It's all corrupted."  
  
Charles leans as much as he can, but truthfully he feels close to crying himself, helpless and confused and clinging but not wanting to move too much, because Erik put him here and he wants to stay, he wants to be good, but he also wants to help, and he doesn't know what will help, and he doesn't know if he knows how to be a good submissive, what that even means, he's sure he doesn't, he's always messing up and they're always fighting because of him, and he's not fighting anymore but that doesn't mean he knows what to do - He whimpers. "I don't - I don't know what that means," he admits, and it crumples him up inside a little, because he's supposed to know.  
  
 _I'm sorry. I hurt you. Please forgive me_. He kisses Charles's neck, just under his ear. _You didn't mess up. You did exactly what I asked you to. This was not your fault. Blame doesn't belong here_. He kisses Charles's temple when he pulls away slightly, but feels more comfortable the closer he is and so returns his head to his shoulder, eyes closing. "I'm not a good Dominant," he admits it like he's been punched in the solar plexus. "I'm not fishing. I know I do some things well."  
  
He shakes his head, because he knows that isn't true. There's no reality where this didn't start because of him, and the tears threaten to fall. Charles makes another helpless, broken noise. "You are," he promises. "And you didn't hurt me. I'm - " He can't get it out. It all gathers up inside of him, a tight little knot again, a pit in his stomach. "If you're not a good Dom, then I'm a wretched, awful sub," he mutters, and feels like it. Has felt like it since Erik left him in the kitchen.  
  
He doesn't think he can say it out loud, so he lets his mind open. All of the things that are supposed to be natural and easy for dominants, he's a record player spinning backwards on. They keep encountering this, he thinks, because he keeps choking up whenever his Dominant desires take over, and it's hurting Charles. He doesn't know how to fix it. He fixed it tonight by accident, by flipping switches that shouldn't have been flipped. He told Charles to tell him what he needed and then he did and Erik couldn't-do it until his brain rearranged itself and he doesn't trust any part of that for it to be regular, no matter how relieved he is right now, he has a fundamental distrust of himself bred into him from years and years of living in an alternate dimension, where all sense of right and wrong is up-and-down quarks spinning off their axes (and this is given with detachment, but Erik curves Charles's awareness around this because it's where the maps won't lead, _distrust-distrust-distrust_ ) they get into conflicts and he doesn't even understand what they're fighting about. He's learning too slowly, lagging behind, and it grieves him deeply that Charles is the collateral damage to his stunning lack of real foundation. This is what children do, this is what teenagers do. They're supposed to fumble and explore and practice, but there's no space for that in an adult relationship. Erik does his best not to sound bitter and loathing-it isn't about who's fault it is and he's never wanted to play the victim, but then it rises up in a surge of insanity, at times he's most supposed to be protecting his submissive, and he can't-  
  
"Oh, Erik," he breathes, and shakes his head. _You're wrong_ , he tells him, but it's gentle, soft, and Charles opens too, opens and opens and lets him see the twisting, frustrated thing inside of him, the gnarled pit he's made of his mind that keeps creeping into his stomach. He can't find his footing, either. At every turn he second guesses, doubles down and then needs to reset, flounders, and trips over himself. There are instincts, instincts and needs and desires that are undoubtedly there, freeing and clear and tantalizing, and then there is what he's programmed into himself. Lifted chin, firm voice, keep the pace and never lag. If someone tells you to sit, stand. If someone tells you to be quiet, raise your voice and speak anyway, speak over them if you have to, do not ever wait to be spoken to. Argue even when the point is moot, if you are uncomfortable, use your tongue to your advantage and never hold it. They're not submissive instincts, and they don't come naturally to him - they shouldn't, they don't need to -  
  
but they've kept him safe, and in keeping him safe, they've kept him isolated from himself. Part of him, perhaps, is naturally rebellious. It wants to goad, to be held down and made to, to be kept in line, but the other part - the other part simply isn't used to this. He's taught himself that his submission is a useless, dirty thing, and now he doesn't know how to fall into it without feeling like he's doing something wrong. Like he's losing a game he's been playing since adolescence. He's buried right so deeply inside of himself he can't find it - what will please Erik? What won't? Is it wrong that he needs it so much? "I've never done this. I've never had the opportunity to give it a real shot," he reminds, and shakes his head again. "I've never experimented with this side of me. I've never accepted it. This is all new for me too, Erik. This is both of us." There is room for error, he corrects. There is room for experimentation. Up is down and down is up for the both of them, but - _We can right this together_ , he thinks. _I want this. I want this with you, so badly, and only with you. I'm yours._  
  
He presses two kisses to Charles's face, one under each eye, smiling gently at him. "I am honored that you have chosen me," he said with every ounce of seriousness he had in him. "I want-" he takes a very big, long, slow inhale, letting his diaphragm fill with air against Charles's belly. "You've gifted me with your truth. You've trusted me with you." Another kiss, along his jaw. "I do not have words to express how precious you are to me. I want-" he keeps hesitating, backing-down, losing his nerve, but steels himself up. He can do this. He can. "To show you the truth."  
  
Charles bites his lip. There are things he still hasn't shared, aspects of himself still closed behind doors, but they will get there. Erik has given him so much, and he's not sure exactly what he's offering, but - He needs to know. "Will it bring you peace?" he asks, and watches Erik's mind. "I don't need you to tear yourself open if all it will bring you is pain. If you aren't ready for it." That being said, Charles leans into every touch, every kiss, still on his knees. For Erik. "I told you I don't want pieces of you, and I meant it," he promises.  
  
"There are things that-" he swallows. "I may not ever be able to share with you, or another living soul. But I have shared with you that which I have never shared another living soul, so anything is possible." He laughs faintly. "I don't know if it will bring me peace, but I think-it might-ease something. For you to know. But I don't want-I-" he blinks and ducks his head. "I can only ask that you try and remember who I am, now."  
  
Charles smiles. Erik, with his natural, imposing dominance, always ducking his head. They're a match, aren't they? As if someone plucked them out from the void and created them together, only to separate them cruelly. Now they are trying to make a whole again, and the jagged edges they've made of themselves are chafing sometimes. It doesn't matter. They fit together, and Charles wants nothing more than to settle inside of Erik where he belongs. "I could never forget," he says. "It would be like forgetting myself." He leans forward until he's resting against him fully, giving Erik every bit of his presence and warmth.

* * *

He begins in silence, letting the shutters on these long-neglected dusty corners of his mind filter open, unable to bear looking as he shared, so he laid his head on Charles's chest, eyes closed, world-narrowed to the space in-between his heart-beat.  
  
Erik stopped speaking altogether around fourteen. It wasn't a conscious decision, or a single event that precipitated it, but rather the brutal and relentless application of conditioning on the part of Shaw and his lackeys to train him into being obedient, their insurance policy that he would not lash out at his captors, so that they could study him while he was conscious without fear of his Will contaminating their experiments. It took them three years to achieve success but, hard-won, he never spoke again. He endured silently, and because of this he was a prime target for sadists and to keep their secrets, forced to participate in horrors as an additional method of ensuring his compliance and loyalty, and simply because many of his jailers enjoyed their extracurricular surveys.  
  
 _If you open your mouth, you will destroy the world. Is that what you want, Erik?_ _They will know everything about you, and they will burn you like so much ash. Your Will is a blade, slipped in-between ribs right into the aorta_. Many things happened _to_ him over these years, but his body was just a body, a canvas for the long, endless march of events filtered onto his skin-and-insides. His Dominance shattered along the cliff-faces of inversion, submission a tactic of survival he wielded clumsily. He'd been terrified and ashamed at first, but they soon burned away what little, childlike compunctions he'd had about things.  
  
What destroyed him had been his own actions, his own choices. They told him to hit, he hit. They told him to dispose, he disposed. They told him to torture, he tortured. They never told him to kill. They realized that he valued life more than anything else, would do _anything_ , absolutely anything, to avoid others being killed. Once they discovered this, he was easy to break. A malleable child, _blödkind_ , and then he was their weapon. Their truth-bearer. After a while he relished it, eager to throw his pain off onto others, to repay the universe in kind for what it wrought upon him, even as he stood the protector between patient and scientist, a living contradiction surrounded by death and melted flesh.  
  
It's a rough translation onto Dominance, when he finally finds it outside of the Institute. When he sits across from Dr. Charles Xavier and hears a _voice_ in his mind and feels it tugging at his throat, and then words are spilling out before he can stop them, pin-drop explosions of shock that he's hearing himself, greeting the beautiful man in a deep tenor he hadn't possessed the last time he'd heard himself. The impulse to be rough, to be unforgiving, unrelenting, is a wolf's maw digging down into his soft underbelly and ripping open his entrails. He has been broken before by people who wanted to push him into aggression, over and over again until it became a reflex, until he _loved it_ , and all he can picture is Charles laid out on that table in their place.  
  
Every sick-sinister thought pours out of him like hot tears, and he leans back and away, a flash of horror and remorse and punishing disgust igniting in him, blood replaced with gasoline and oxygen as the accelerant. He never wanted Charles to know this part of him. What he shows now, the pieces that Charles calls them, are his own spymasters ferried under cover of darkness in the depths of his limbic system, cultivated over years out of the things he's wished, the fantasies he's allowed in dream-states, _Ima_ holding him close so he doesn't forget what human beings are like. For a split-second out of oily horror he's been allowed this, this gift of caring for another soul as deeply as he does Charles, this gift of speech and sound and movement. All he can do is pray he doesn't destroy Charles along with the universe itself because he dared call into the wonderful, welcoming world that has opened up.

* * *

Charles' tears are wetting Erik's hair, but somehow he doesn't think he'll mind. For a long time, all Charles does is hold him. There's nothing else he can do. As much as he wants to, he can't go back and take those experiences away - he could, but he would never be able to reconstruct Erik the way he should have lived. He would never be able to right things by separating Erik from all the hurt and pain. It's a part of him now, and Charles knows that Erik believes it's the darkest, most monstrous part of him, a part he needs to bury down deep and hide. But Charles has seen agony before. He has seen the marred, knotted things that are better locked behind doors. He's seen them, and he's now seen them in Erik, and it changes nothing.  
  
"I love you," he whispers, and there is no way to deny the truth of it. In this moment, it is all this place is built out of it, ringing clearly off of every wall and echoing in every corner of his mind. If he knows anything, he knows that. I know you, Erik, and I love you. Thank you for giving yourself to me, too. I promise to keep it safe. And then there's another truth he knows, something Erik needs to hear: "You don't need to be afraid of yourself, my darling. I don't fear you. I never could." Please, let's make it right together.  
  
He grips onto Charles's arm, squeezing hard, like he can't quite believe what he's just heard. He smooths out the sudden harshness by rubbing over his wrist instead, encircled in his hold. How does Charles know not to be afraid of him? How can he know? We're a pair, he laughs. What a marvel that they've found each other, he realizes. Hyperdominant and hypersubmissive, both forced to exist against their natural inclination, learning skills that became the other's inevitable blind-spot. Charles with his baser-spinal reflexes like an arc, bypassing the brain entirely to stand up, raise his voice, assert himself, and Erik accepting, gentle, compliant. Charles survived by squashing down his submission, learning to take care of himself because the possibility that he even could be dominated was slim-to-none. Erik survived by channeling his dominance into aggression, to be afraid of every part of himself that could resist.  
  
They can see the other, but not themselves. "We'll make it right," he whispers back, as the vice-grip from panicky fingers on his throat relaxes.


	18. What she said about the giant and the lemmings on the cliff II

Charles is gentle as he pulls back, finding he's no longer locked in place. He whispers assurances - I am going nowhere, do not worry - as he rearranges them, still content to be on his knees as he searches for Erik's face. It's still twisted in agony Charles knows he wants to hide, but Charles has learned to bear the pain of others, and perhaps it was all so he could bear this for Erik. He takes Erik's fingers, shaking and panicked, and wraps them around his own throat. His neck, where his collar still sings, music and poetry and belonging. He tilts his head for better access, and because he knows it looks pretty even in artificial light, and then he smiles, as if he's perfectly content to be in such a vulnerable position. He is. "This is right," he whispers.

Erik settles his hand where it's placed, and his fingers flex and tighten minutely, the warmth of Charles's skin humming underneath, contrasted with metal that has impressions of skin and even this small movement, Charles trusting and pliant under him, is enough to darken his gaze. Erik scrapes his thumb over his jumping pulse, soothing himself with it, pressing his forehead to Charles's brow. Mine, he can't help but think.

Yours, he agrees. His dimples are back, and despite his racing heart and the low thrum of electricity that he experiences whenever Erik is touching him this way - possessively, like Charles belongs to him and it's his right, which is all true - that warm, calm contentment from earlier is back. Then Charles laughs. Just a little thing, a chuckle, but it snorts through his nose, and then he's downright giggling, shoulders shaking as he leans against Erik. It's not hysteria, he's perfectly giddy, responding to some private thought.

Erik bundles him up in his arms and smiles into his hair, stopping to kiss at exposed skin and touch wherever he can. "Glad to know that I can inspire such amusement," he murmurs in Charles's ear, letting himself breathe. The tension in his body dissipates with each passing second. More that Charles is happy, and he is here, and it is a balm against the cracked, raw wounds of his exposure.

"No, no, it's not you, it's -" Charles is still finding it hard not to exhale in peals of tickled laughter, but he folds himself against Erik's chest and grins. "Sorry, I was just thinking - " And then he's gone again, fingers balled into Erik's shirt as he giggles and nuzzles himself close.

"There's your first mistake. Thinking too hard, that can't be good for the mind." Erik taps him on the nose, a small smile of his own spreading over his face. He waits for Charles to calm down enough to talk, curious and laughing a little, sympathetically, unable to help it when Charles was so obviously pleased.

"I was just thinking," he tries again, and this time he manages without dissolving into laughter, "About all the wretched society parties I was forced into. I still am, but I put my foot down much more than I did then. I'm a master of the graceful excuse, and a very busy man, so fortunately they're often true," he grins. "But you mentioned being a teenager, and all the fumbling nonsense we missed, and it reminded me - when I was sixteen, there was this... I'm not even sure what you would call it, truthfully. A waste of time and resources, rather than a proper coming of age celebration. But I was the heir, much to my stepfather's distaste, which is neither here nor there, and so I was paraded around. And oh, the posturing those high-society teenage Dominants did." He laughs again, because he simply can't help it. "So I imagined you there, how - how absolutely to shame you would put them by virtue of existing. I would have paid you perhaps a bit of attention. A bit," he teases.

Erik's eyebrows flew up. "Only a bit?" his nose wrinkles when he laughs, too. "I've noticed that there is a sort of competitiveness that seems to pervade the Dominants who are lower on the scale, like they need to prove themselves. It's cute, really, but I can see why you weren't charmed."

"Oh, it was cute, when it wasn't insufferable." Charles smiles, leaning back to look Erik over as if he's noticing for the first time. He looks - well, stunning is the word his mind supplies him with, perfectly casual but with all of his attractive features accentuated rather than hidden by that awful uniform, and especially the hospital gown he's wearing in the Real. "Do you think you would have taken a fancy to me, the know-it-all, indomitable Xavier heir?" he teases, playful. "I had quite the reputation."

"Are you suggesting you've changed?" Erik smirks back. Because he's only human, he straightens a little at the praise gleaned from Charles's thoughts, warmed by the knowledge each time it's made manifest, that he is desired. He imagines being there, surrounded by well-to-dos and dressed in finery, Charles bored and gorgeous in some corner, Dominants tripping and fumbling over his sharp wit. "You would have been the only one worth noticing."

"You never would have fit in there," he points out, but he's grinning, as if that knowledge does nothing but thrill him. Erik would be so above all of that, all of the frills and opulence and empty, pointless displays. "But thank goodness for that, because neither did I." No matter how much he tried to, when he was younger. He laughs again, shaking his head. "Their faces when I turned them down - most didn't even ask, as if they expected with full confidence that I would do whatever they pleased. I doubt some of them had ever been told 'no' in their lives. And then you -" He hums, pleased, and rests his hand on Erik's strong chest. Clothed, unfortunately. "You, I would have danced with."

"You are still meant to attend these events?" Erik's eyebrows climb up. He wonders if he'll ever get to go, finding himself irrationally annoyed by the idea of strangers pawing over Charles, on display like a piece of jewelry. Yes, he agrees, he would be out of place. A snarling caveman shoving Charles behind him so they would tear their greedy eyes away.

"They're different now that I'm older, but yes." He can't help but shiver, the idea of Erik possessive of him in that way spiking electricity again, that warm heat that pools in his belly. The idea that Charles is his and he wants others to know it, that he is proud of him. He's never been allowed that - when they're around others now, they're always keeping secrets. To have Erik's arm around his waist, his collar around his neck, led around one of those parties the way other subs are - Charles whimpers without realizing it, then quickly bites his lip to stifle any further noises, flushing with embarrassment. "Unpaired, uncollared submissives get... targeted, at these sorts of things. But they wouldn't dare, if you were there." And Charles loves the idea of that more than he'll admit. "You could show them that I'm yours," he says, and if his eyes have darkened with want, pulse racing, that's neither here nor there.

Erik isn't prepared for the feeling, and he tightens his grip over the back of Charles's throat, pressing his nose into his neck and breathing deeply to contain the small earthquake of dark desire ricocheting through him. His mind is a violent, colorful swirl of _no, no one else's, stay with me, mark you, keep you_ \- Erik nips at the crook of Charles's neck, follows it with lips and tongue. He shouldn't want this. It's mindless, animalistic, claiming instinct that he knows all Dominants possess in one form or another-you can't _own_ another person-but it's quite another to be faced with it all at once.

Charles moans, squirming in Erik's hold the way he's finding he does when he wants to be held tighter, to be touched more, to get infinitely closer as if he can crawl into Erik's skin and live there. His head tilts again, giving Erik all the room he needs, inviting him to take and claim however he pleases. "You're doing it again," he manages through the haze of responsive yes, I'm yours, keep me that floods through his system and makes everything fuzzy and hazy. He only points it out because he was very close to it, too - he shouldn't want this. Charles is his own person, and he has fought very hard for that right. But that doesn't change the fact that he is Erik's - he, of his own volition, willingly and consciously, chose that for himself. To belong to Erik because he wants to. It was not forced upon him, no freedom taken from him except that which he offered up in all too willing hands. There's a difference there, and it's not a negligible one. Charles is going to make a valiant effort not to get all twisted up by his own instincts, his needs and wants and desires. A little progress at a time. "You don't have to deny yourself this, Erik. Why are you fighting yourself?" It's an echo, and he grins, eyes creased in mirth and that light, playful glee that hasn't yet faded. "I'm yours. If you want to claim me, that's your right," he breathes, and absolutely shudders with the implication there, another whimper escaping parted lips.

His hand moves and he takes Charles's chin between his thumb and forefinger. Shocked heat is frozen on his face, open in a way he usually isn't, and he's raised up to rest on the balls of his feet, dark and glowering, the Upside-Down settling into his shoulders and whirring mechanics. When he speaks it's harsh, like gravel, and he touches Charles like he's a caged-creature, caught and defiant and chirping loudly, fluttering wings against his crushing hands. "You would choose to be mine? Why would you choose this?" his eyes blaze.

But Charles isn't afraid. Nor is he, in this moment, defiant. He doesn't wriggle his way out of Erik's grip, doesn't glower or huff or lash out with his tongue like he had earlier. Now he is still, obedient, not out of fear or reluctance, but because he aches to be. Because there is no sense fighting the tide, especially not when Erik has always controlled them. If he is a captured creature, it is because he put himself in the cage and handed Erik the key, and the realization is so strong that it threatens to overwhelm him. "Because we are a match. Because I was made for you, and you for me," he answers, and he's smiling even as his heartbeat pounds in his ears, audible perhaps even to Erik, his body a thrumming current. "Because we both need it more than we have ever admitted. Because you are what I want, what I've always wanted. Because you are who I want. Because I respect you, and trust you." And then the most important. Charles voice does not tremble, and for just a moment, his chin lifts even in Erik's grip, as if challenging him to take: "Because I love you, Erik, and there's nothing more natural than belonging to you," and the words are deceivingly soft, contrasting - but not, not at all - the fierceness in his eyes.

Erik shivers, bottom lip caught on his teeth as he stares, and for once he isn't ruthlessly shoving everything behind the metal watertight compartments leading into dark, endless forests covered in thick, rolling fog. He's shaking his head a bit, the way he does when he's confronted by people he can't speak to, but hasn't yet backed away. His hand is mid-air, hovering over Charles's cheek. Like he can't quite believe this is real, that there is someone made for him. "You should be afraid," he says. It isn't a threat.

"I'm not." Charles keeps his own mind open, blown wide and vulnerable for Erik to see, to feel. There is anticipation, thick and heady and pumping through him, pulse racing, but not a drop of fear. His eyes stay locked on Erik's, fierce and intelligent and wanting, blue darkened in its intensity. Chin still slightly lifted, his smile coaxing now. "And I won't be. You'll find I don't spook easily, Erik," he hums, stealing Erik's words from earlier as he stays still and waits.

Like this, Charles finds that everything Erik thinks comes out like an Order, even when it isn't, unspooling all the rest and rebuilding it again and again in new images. His right. A realization, because on some level he's been ashamed to admit how much he wants Charles, mind and body. Baser and intelligent. They're supposed to be opposites. One isn't supposed to lead to the other, but it always does. Charles is for him. He's supposed to take care of Erik, not only the reverse. And Erik hasn't allowed for that, stifled it because it isn't good, it's all the aggressive, evil parts of him rolled into one looming monster that wants, that wants to take and take instead of give. That screams against resistance and begs to burn itself out on Charles in retribution, that can't speak, but doesn't need words. He grabs Charles's hands and puts them against his stomach, curls his fingers around the hem of his shirt.

Charles isn't afraid, but there is a part of him that is nervous. He knows what he wants, and in some cases, even what he needs. He understands that that need is echoed in Erik, mirrored in him perfectly, equal or greater to but never less like he'd first assumed. What he also understands is that Erik is shattered in places, and Charles doesn't always know how to approach that. Erik doesn't make him nervous; Erik turning away from him, shutting him out - that is a real possibility. He's learned his lesson. Charles can't push, he has to let Erik decide, too. So he keeps his hands where Erik put them, biting his lip. "Please," he whispers, and his eyes are pleading just as much as his words are. "Take. It's yours. I'm not afraid. I choose this."

* * *

Erik reaches out and tugs Charles forward, and he finds himself falling not only into Erik's arms but through the veil, pierced into another world where shadows pop up in the horizon and grass sways under their feet, and Erik's pressed up next to him like a thousand feathers brushing exposed skin. Erik's rising to his feet and taking Charles with him to peel him out of his clothes. In a lot of ways Erik prefers him naked. There are less barriers, another way to shed the layers that he's built between himself and Erik. He kisses every part that he uncovers, utterly demands his attention through static electricity that ripples outward. Erik places a hand on Charles's shoulder to force him back to his knees in a firm movement, burying it in his hair once he settles and yanking his head back, watching the interplay of colors in his eyes.

Charles lets Erik take. He arches into every kiss, needy and seeking, his belly warmed with that heat Erik always inspires, but he doesn't take more than he's given. It's tugging and squirming inside of him, but he stays pliable. Malleable in Erik's hands, like the metal he so loves, humming like the collar around his neck. He goes where he's put. This is for Erik, and it just so happens that the hand in his hair, firm and harsh and delicious, make him moan, desire pulling him taut. His full lips are swollen from biting and parted as he stares back, his eyes full of want. Of trust. Of indisputable, desperate love, and the submission that comes with it. The submission Erik has earned from him, the way no one else ever has. Or ever will. "I belong to you," he reminds him, though he doesn't think there's any doubting. It's a renewal of a vow he's already made, layered on top of today's discoveries. "I belong to you - I'm yours..." And if Charles' breath hitches, if his eyes widen, if the revelation leaves him in awe in the aftermath, it can't be helped. He already knows it. They both already know it. But it's still so much, a physical, fluttering thing in Charles' chest. He's waited all his life for Erik. He can be patient, but there is so much of him to give - so much that is Erik's to take - and he wants to give it all at once. He only needs to know what Erik wants. _Please. Please, let me serve you._ And isn't that so entirely novel? Charles swallows.

He wrenches forward and kisses him like he's cursing, a silent growl in the back of his throat and he traps Charles's hands in his, in front of him on his lap, warns him to _keep_ them there with a glare and releases him. A flurry of sparks ignite trails of oil that lead from Charles to him, invisible in the atmosphere until they go off. He returns wielding fiery ropes, binds Charles tightly with intricate knots, a dual presence on his knees and in Erik's mind and positioned expertly by his touch. He's watching Charles, a great swell of love and lust storming as Charles begs to serve him and he's never been so fucking hard and he has to close his eyes or he's going to do something he regrets. He's always trying to soften this, to make it less _visceral_ -like Charles must be handled delicately, or gently, or he's _embarrassed_ of it on some level or-he doesn't know, but he wants his fingers back around Charles's throat and he's not feeling particularly creative-sorry, Charles, the world is narrowing and all he can hear are those whispers of _yours, show them I'm yours, claim me, it's your righ_ t-and he's going to shake apart. He's looming over Charles with every image flickering over his face like flames, gaze burning even hotter, and Charles can feel the collar tighten instead, vibrating at the same frequency as Erik, like it's an organic lifeform responding to him.

Charles gasps. He's bound tight, helpless and immobile and Erik's, the man looming over him like a barely-contained beast, and he's still not afraid. He's the furthest thing from afraid, actually, each of his breaths coming out panting, needy things, exhales like moans as he forms Erik's name with his lips. His toes are curled, his eyes nearly rolling back at that perfect, possessive pressure, and he hopes, somewhere deep and buried inside of himself, that Erik will choke him. With his collar, with his hands, with his cock, it doesn't matter. Steal his breath and take it, too, take everything, take and take and take until Charles is nothing but his, until he forgets his own name and only remembers Erik's, until he is so Erik's that neither of them will ever be able to take it back, to forget it or deny it and - He realizes, too late, that there isn't anything not projected here. Nothing that Erik can't see, not like this. Charles cheeks are hot, his whole body is, flushed pink with - with what? Not shame, he's a bit too gone for that. Whatever it is, it coils up in his belly, and Charles knows he is hard and aching, that he is Erik's for the taking and _Please, Erik, use me, let me serve you, take me, I'm yours yours yours I belong to you -_

Erik rocks back on his heels and explodes into action. He shoves Charles back until he's pressed against the edge of the bed with a palm hard on his chest, toeing his legs to spread out obscenely and Erik hovering over him, holding him down with one hand while the other goes to his belt. The action is deliberate and unhurried, not frantic chaos, a spot of coherence inside the jumble of searing need that pumps through his veins with every pulse of blood. For a moment it seems that he's let Charles go to undo the buttons of his slacks with both, but then he's grinding his knee into his sternum instead, pinning him hard enough to jolt shock, though still careful not to wind him. When Charles does look up it's to the sight of Erik grinning, hair a mess, wild and bright.

Charles doesn't remember there being a mattress, but it doesn't matter. They could be anywhere now and Charles wouldn't care, wouldn't blink, think twice or even notice. Presently, all he can really care about is that his mouth has gone dry, eyes narrowed down on those long, clever fingers and what he knows is underneath those slacks and oh, he wants Erik, but more than that he wants to please Erik, he wants to be claimed by Erik, he wants it so badly it physically hurts, a throbbing, needy ache inside of him. He's having a hard time breathing, and just to test, he squirms under Erik's knee pressed firm into him, but no, he's not going anywhere. He's held down and being made to wait, which he's perfectly willing to do usually and especially when he wants to be good - good, so good, a good, sweet boy like Erik had called him the day before right as he came, he'd do anything to hear that again - but now he just wants, not to get off, but to _please_. It's such a stark difference and he's panting for it, little whines escaping. "Erik," he tries, and doesn't recognize his own voice, drenched in need. "I'll be good, let me serve you, let me, make me -" Charles is very, very glad he's too gone for shame, especially with the way he's practically salivating at the first sight of Erik's (hard, he did that, he did, Erik wants him and not someone else, him because Charles is Erik's and that means Erik desires him, and oh -) dick.

Erik's only response to Charles's testing is to press him harder against the edge of the bed, yanking him by the hair to glare at him a little, taking his time while Charles writhed and gasped for it, naked and vulnerable where Erik hasn't even bothered to take his pants fully off. Sitting where Erik stands over him, uncompromising. Empowered. _Make_ Charles. Erik's head tips back and his vision swims and claws threaten to eviscerate him, a bolt of whining electric want making him twitch. He's never seen himself like this, half-strung out on arousal, spikes of molten, liquid nerves pooling in his stomach and arrowing to his cock, full and thick from only Charles's words, his desires redoubled back like a punch to the diaphragm. Erik lightly smacks Charles's cheek, pulling down on his lip with his thumb. _Open_ , the Order feels the way metal feels to him, stark and shining.

Charles feels the heat before he recognizes what's happened, a light sting where Erik's hand was. His eyes widen near comically, and then he moans so loudly it shocks even him, his entire being dunked in liquid flame. Erik slapped him. Erik _slapped him in the face_ and he liked it, wished it would have been harder, wanted Erik to pull harder at his hair, unbridled desire and the thick, intoxicating humiliation that comes with it, that might as well be the same thing in this moment - and then his mouth is opening. Lips parting, willing and open and vulnerable, as wide as he can go, open and open and Erik's. To use, to take, to make, although Charles truly couldn't be more willing than he is right now. I'll do anything, he promises and, dangerously, he means it. He means it with everything in him. Anything to get Erik's praise. To please him. Charles squirms again, unable to help it, trying to arch forward. Erik's cock is right there and he's fairly certain if he's not choking on it in the next few minutes he'll explode into flames.

His stomach clenches and he has to fight with himself not to come right then and there. The force of Charles's response hits him like a train, and he feels like a flashbulb peeling in the aftermath of photographic shutters, chains pulled on and rooms filled with impossible lights. He gasps sympathetically. So much of himself is based in giving Charles what he needs, and that isn't what he thinks about right now. He wants. He wants to hear that sound from Charles again, wants to reduce him to that alone, wants to hear it against his cock. What he'll sound like-his eyes so incredibly vivid and streaked with overwhelmed red, wants that perfect mouth on him, trails over his lips at last. For once Erik is careless, shoving in roughly. He pats Charles's cheek, hard enough to sting. Harder. Charles is like a livewire and every jerk echoes through Erik's body- _eyes open, look at me. Don't you dare look away._

Erik is absolutely stunning and gut-wrenchingly attractive in every way and Charles will admit - not out loud, that's entirely too embarrassing - that his dick is not an exception. Not even close. It's also big, and having it all but shoved down his throat at the same time that he's slapped again is enough to overwhelm his frayed, overexcited nerves. He wonders, briefly, if he could come just like this, simply because Erik used him without ever being touched himself (yes, he thinks, if Erik wanted that from him, if Erik said he could). Charles' moan is muffled by the cock in his mouth this time, desperate, but somehow that makes it even more humiliating - which turns him on, and he's never considered that, when would he have? All he knows is that he needs to do exactly what Erik wants from him, even though keeping his eyes open is a difficult task when everything is warm and swimming, when he wants to close them and lose himself to this. He knows what he must look like. Cheeks red from Erik's hand, mouth open and sloppy and wrapped around Erik's cock, expression blissful because there's nothing he wants more than for Erik to do whatever he pleases with him, tears in his eyes as he fights to breathe through his nose. He gags a little, but even that works him up, because he fights through it, keeps moaning, helpless to it, and he's so eager, hands held still because Erik didn't say he could use them.

On some level Erik is just as surprised as Charles-that he's loosening his grip over the reins of his own control-half-formed impulses that bubble up into existence without razing him to the ground. He floats between them, a dust mote buffeted by its own designs, fucking Charles's mouth slowly, perfectly in-control even as his breaths come short and uneven. He indulges himself and Charles is _aroused_ by it, not horrified, and that makes everything _so_ much better-and that is a relief because there's a brief moment where Erik _relishes_ the way he gags, the hot flush of humiliation and shock like cold water and desperation and thinks, _this is it-this is it-you've called me up and I won't forgive you for it_ -but it's so much better when it melts into helpless need. Erik responds to him responding, holds himself right along the edge and periodically withdraws fully, staring down at Charles, refusing to let him move or touch himself, just to watch him tremble. This is so much better. He feels when Charles's head lists forward of its own accord, seeking, and Erik slams his hand over his mouth, holding him against the bed like that and with his knee. _Stay put._

Charles whimpers. It's a loud, pathetic thing, but he doesn't have it in him to be anything but eager and needy, his mind devoid of coherent words as he helplessly apologizes without them, images and feelings and a caress of his mind against Erik's, something instinctive rather than willful. He shows Erik a feedback loop replay, not consciously but because he can't help but be open - not focused on the throbbing, leaking proof of desire against his own belly, but his hazy, consuming need to please. Nothing matters except that. He was drifting with Erik's cock in his mouth, not gone but deeper in sinking-floating hazy dreamy submission than he's ever been. He gives back the taste of Erik in his mouth (it's the second time he's sucked cock and he'd always thought it would be maybe a bit unpleasant but it's Erik and Erik is addictive and he thinks he could spend hours like that, would if Erik let him, greedy for it), the stretch of his throat, the achy scratch that's left behind, the way he gags just a bit when Erik thrusts all the way in even when he's prepared for it. He loves it. But mostly he loves Erik, and he looks up with tears in the corners of his eyes from the strain but his eyes are glazed over but somehow still bright, nothing lost and everything gained, and it would be impossible - utterly impossible - not to see that Charles was made to serve Erik. That he will never get enough of it.

Erik stares down at him, caught very suddenly by an overwhelming rush of affection, and he leans in, stroking the side of his cheek, where it's still hot and red and kisses him deeply. Swallows up every noise he can, swipes under his eyes. The sensation of tears against his skin twinges something buried far below the surface, and he tugs Charles to his feet by his bound hands. He presses up fully against Charles, letting his cock drag against the fabric of Erik's pants, and digs his fingernails into the curve of his ass, smoothing out the bite before giving him a proper smack. _Undress me_ , the Order slithers up from the curl of his toes to the base of his skull.

Charles in subspace - deeply, firmly in subspace, so far now that he can't imagine ever crawling out of it, can't imagine a world where he wanted to - is a sensual, sensory, needy creature. Every touch threatens to completely undo him, and he's shivering and whining even between touches. The smack has him jolting, gasping, cock twitching against his leg and mind hazy with pleasure-pain that all ends up lighting the same places in his brain, hazy and warm and desperate. His hands are still bound, but he doesn't let that deter him; Charles is clever, and if Erik asked him to do the impossible now he'd find a way. To please him. His fingers are shaking, but luckily there aren't any buttons on Erik's sweater, and all he needs to do is find a way to work it off. When he does, he's smiling and satisfied, not so much pleased with himself as he is pleased he could do what Erik told him to. When he ends up on his knees to remove Erik's pants, he can't help but leave kisses there, down by his feet and all over his legs, too, sighing happily at the contact. Erik didn't tell him he could, but it's almost unconscious, an instinctive, worshipping thing. He rests his cheek against Erik's cock and nuzzles, biting his lip with that small little smile. Perfectly content. Maybe Erik will fuck his mouth again. Maybe his ass. Maybe he'll take him over his knee and spank him. Charles whimpers, because whatever Erik wants, that's what he wants, and he looks up teary-eyed with all the adoration and trust in the world. Erik could destroy him like this, more vulnerable than he's ever been, but he won't. Charles has never been less afraid. Take my submission, freely given - He doesn't remember what it's from, but it sounds nice. Right. Erik's right.

There's a ringing in his ears and the world outside of Charles has turned way down like a dial yanked into position, lasering his focus down to the sighs and whimpers and gasps that follow his touch. Erik has never felt particularly attached to the implied power of his existence. Has never used it beyond the emergent, beyond what he's figured Charles might like, carried along the currents of his whims and in that way he supposes that Charles had all the power (and still does, to be honest). Erik has never paid much heed to his own desires, and he's startled by how much he wants, how heady and intoxicating it is to have Charles obey him. For a long time he bobbed along the white-river rapids, a piece plucked out of the dark, but the sound is starting to filter back in and he speaks for the first time, the Order a thick curtain of boiling, superheated plasma dancing gaseous flame and brilliant color. He wants to take Charles apart. The desire is so strong that he's shaking with it, every muscle poised like he's a jaguar circling his prey, dark and dangerous. "Get on the bed," he rasps into Charles's ear. "Get on your hands and knees for me. Now."

It's the first time he's heard Erik's voice in what feels like hours - it isn't, but it feels like it - and Charles is spinning and dizzy, the deep, raspy purr of it rebounding through every inch of him until it threatens to swallow him whole. The Orders are perfectly clear through Erik's thoughts because of how connected they are, but there's something especially poignant about that voice, demanding every minutia of his attention in a way nothing ever has, even his most beloved projects and people. Everything is wrenched out of him, every worry and fear and reservation, until all that's left is the need to serve, to obey, to please (oh, please). Charles may as well have been shot from a cannon with how fast he scrambles to obey, keeping his limbs as graceful and gainly as possible (Erik likes form, he likes structure, he likes when Charles is calm, though he's anything but calm with that cloying, aching need). He positions himself how he thinks Erik would put him, back straight and legs spread, open and waiting and his. Anticipating, wanting to be what Erik desires. What he needs.

The deeper Charles goes, the further Erik feels himself sink down into a space of himself that is opening up, a great vast expanse unrealized throughout his whole life. It isn't something that is made, it's always existed and Charles has foraged around until he's discovered the bare edges and now he's mapping it like a stellar cartographer, connecting the dots of stars. Erik dips the mattress under his weight and grips the back of Charles's neck in his hand, pushing him down against the pillow, poised over him gracefully, sighing out the tension in his body by pressing it flush against the prone man. He runs his hand down Charles's back, tracing every zing of pleasure and want that heats him up from the inside. Charles is unformed, a void of colors without a painting, and Erik feels suddenly and intensely like this is what he's here for, to shape him. To transform him from impulses and directionless sensation into art, this is his creation. He touches Charles's stomach and guides him to arch his back, and just when he's settled into position properly, Erik sits back and pats his ass, before he brings his hand harshly over the smooth, pale skin (alluring, everything about Charles is fucking tantalizing) spread out beneath him. Before Charles has time to recover he's doing it again, and again, like he's writing his own name inside Charles's neurons.

Whatever Erik wants, he will be. For the first time in his life, there isn't a trace of defiance or hesitance in him, no worry or creeping, sinking anxiety that he isn't right. His limbs are an extension of Erik's, moved only by his Will; he goes where he's put and stays there, trembling and grateful for every bit of contact. Every touch is a privilege like this, something Erik bestows on him, and he would be lying if he said he wasn't greedy for it. Charles doesn't try to coax or prod, to sway Erik in any direction. For once, he follows where he's led, not tripping over toes as they dance. He sighs, soft, lips parted, smiling at the gentle touch. Then his eyes widen as he's slapped, arching out of position for one single, fleeting moment before he straightens. Take what he's given. It helps that this is exquisite too, the sting as his ass reddens perfectly for Erik humming through his entire body as his dick twitches and leaks against his thigh. The pain is heady, and it mixes with pleasure, becomes pleasure because Erik wants him to take it, and he's panting, breaths ragged, dragged out moans. "Thank you, Erik," is what finally comes out of his mouth, a needy gasp. "Thank you, thank you, thank you -" He could spank him until he was sore and red and crying and Charles would thank him, would stay still for it even as he trembles, would beg for more if Erik asked him to, and it's so much that he sobs, dry and desperate.

"Hands above your head," Erik murmurs, barely recognizing his own voice and he rains a hail of blows down on Charles's skin, watching it bloom under his hand, the echo of smacks and Charles's reedy little whines filling the room and Erik slides down when it really begins to hurt, welts forming and he laves over them with his lips and tongue, soothing and humming to himself. "Do you want me to fuck you?" Erik asks, punctuates it with another sharp slap. "Say _yes, sir._ Do you want me to fuck you?"

Charles can't get enough air into his lungs, chest heaving with each panting, gasping, whining breath. His ass is burning, and there are tears on his cheeks now, his face nearly as red. He wonders, idly, if there are handprints. He hopes. He wishes he could keep them, even as he arches whimpering into the soothing touches. Erik has never asked to be called anything but his name - even when he had taken away Charles' privilege he hadn't replaced it with a title - and it only sinks him down deeper. He's belonged to Erik from that first moment, but never like this. He cries out at the slap, wiggling, not to get away but to get closer. "Yes, sir," he moans, and then shakes his head, not to say no, simply because, "Yes, sir, please," because Charles is nothing if not polite.

Erik traces two fingers over Charles's mouth. "Wet them," he grits out lowly, eyes black with gut-punched heat and he groans softly at the expression on Charles's face, doesn't think he's ever seen anything more gorgeous than this right now, Charles greedy and desperate for his cock, reduced to nothing but delirious, filthy need. He presses them against Charles's tongue, just the edge of gagging but not quite, kisses his cheek and settles himself over to rub his dick along the hot, red marks criss-crossed over his ass. He's so hard it hurts, every twitch and sigh a pulse reverberating into his groin, making him leak. "Say _please, sir, I want you to fuck me_." It's an Order, tight and restrained.

There's a filthy, wet 'pop' when Erik pulls his fingers out of his mouth and Charles chases them, whining loudly and lips still parted. He wants to serve so badly, wants that sinking, hazy pleasure of doing something to pleasure Erik. He arches his back harder, near painful in its unnatural, needy bend, wiggles against Erik's cock, not to entice, but simply because he's burning out from the inside and only Erik's touch can hold him grounded. The hurt is so good it makes him want to cry again. He's never said the words before. Thought them, quietly, but never said them. There's absolutely no room left for embarrassment, but still he flushes, some part of him aware that he wouldn't have done it on his own, and that makes him burn hotter. "Please, sir, I -" It's an Order, and he couldn't resist if he tried, but it's like it gets tugged out of him, humiliating and warm and sinking-sinking-sinking, "Please, sir, I want you to fuck me. Oh, I want you to fuck me, please, sir," and he's never heard himself more wrecked.

"I don't believe you," Erik growls, dips his fingers between his cheeks and circles his hole unrelentingly. He pushes in with a twist, quick, dirty strokes and inhales sharply as Charles jerks against him when he finds that bundle of nerves inside that makes him jerk and squirm against the mattress. "Say it like you mean it." He grips himself in his other hand, and he's so fucking hard he can smack himself against the raised, red welts, pain and pleasure blurring into one long, endless nerve ending wrung out like a washcloth. Before, when his Orders stacked up it was impossible to avoid and now it's like everything has been narrowed to Erik's voice, stealing away his thoughts so all he has room for are Erik's commands. "Beg me for my cock."

"Oh, oh, _oh_!" They're punched out, breathless little cries, tears streaming down his cheeks again. His body is squirming, not because he wants to escape, not to be disobedient, but because he's so overwhelmed his nerve endings are screaming, and he's close to it, too. The pain makes his head spin, the delicious, tight stretch, the burn of not being properly prepared (nothing like the gentleness of yesterday), the sting from the spanking, and the thick too-much-too-much pleasure of Erik rubbing relentlessly at that spot inside. He wants to take it for Erik, but it's so much, it's too much, it's - "Please!" It's dangerously close to a scream, jerking back against every thrust of long, ruthless finger, every slap of that thick cock, the one he needs inside of him yesterday. "Please, sir, please fuck me, I need it, I need it so badly, I need -" He gives another little cry, helpless, and bends to be exactly what Erik wants, reservations left far, far behind. "I need your cock, please, I need it, sir, please can I have it? Oh, please -"

He fights with himself not to bury himself in Charles immediately, incandescent with each punched-out word dragged from the other man's lips and as rough as Erik is capable of being-something they both haven't realized extends far beyond the surface, he doesn't actually want to blur those lines past the point of no-return. For there to be genuine pain and fear, so he slows himself down, shuddering as he works Charles open. In this place that is the both of them he snaps something into his hands and slicks himself up, and when he finally gives Charles what he's begging for-what Erik makes him beg for-he sheathes himself in one long, hard snap of his hips that presses their bodies flush together, and he bars his arm over the back of Charles's neck, holding him in place, strung-out and speared in two. "Show me, then," Erik rumbles. "Fuck yourself on my cock. Show me how much you need this."

Charles does scream, then. He screams and his whole body echoes and shudders with it, face pressed into the mattress before Erik tugs him up and holds him in place - his place, his place, Erik is putting him in his place. It feels like he's being torn in two and the electric-stuttering pleasure-pain of it is enough to white his vision out, Erik hot and imposing and big, his whole body sweating as he pants and cries and takes it like he's being made to. There's no getting away from the too-much, shivery crawling of his skin, stretched too tight, so he gasps and whines and does as he's told, pulling back and then arching to take Erik inside. Erik reaches deeper than he had the day before like this, hitting places inside of him dead-on every time Charles rolls his hips back, hips rubbing against his sore ass, and he can't. He can't, it's too much, he'll break. It doesn't stop him from fucking himself like Erik wants, but he whimpers through it, held always on the edge. "It's - Erik - _sir_ -" Charles' chest is heaving again. "It's too much, I can't -" But if Erik tells him to, he will, and he knows it. He needs it. It's Erik right to make him take it.

He doesn't expect his own response until it comes, imagines when this moment comes he'll pull away in horror but all that happens-"You can," Erik growls the Order roughly, digs his fingers into Charles's hips and adjusts himself so he can lay into him, holding him still and pressing his lips against his shoulders, his neck, letting out a stuttered gasp of his own that melts into a moan that sounds like it's been clawed out of him. "You will." _This is what you were made for. Made to be here for me. With me. Beneath me._ His mind is a white-out supernova of Will incapable of anything less than a litany of Orders- _mine, mine, yes, so good, you're being so good for me, tell me, say it, I want to hear you tell me how good you're being-_

This is what he was made for. Charles sobs, overcome and shaking, but he doesn't pull away. He doesn't struggle against Erik's hold, or pause-word, or even consider begging him to stop, because he's right. He was made for Erik, and Erik wants Charles to take him inside and break open on his cock, so he will. It doesn't matter if it's too much, he'll take it and thank Erik for doing it. He trembles under every touch, unable to escape the thick, impossible fullness inside, the heat and stingy pain radiating all over, and he loves that, too. Erik knows what he needs. "I'm - I'm good, sir," he cries, and he wants it to be true. He's never wanted anything more. "I'll be good, I'll be a good boy, I'm yours and I was - I was made for this," he gasps, and surrenders to it. His thoughts are runaway, desperate things, images and whimpers the same as the sounds he's making aloud, but there's one coherent thread: _I want to be so good for you. Please, sir, I want to be good -_

Erik moans again, a low, wounded noise punctuating harsh breaths in Charles's ear, and he's so ridiculously tight and hot and he's clutching Erik inside of him like liquid velvet, shuddering and crying and pleading under him and what he's saying slams right into Erik's chest. He spreads Charles's legs further apart so he can thrust up into him, hard, and splay his hand out across his stomach so he can feel Erik moving inside of him. Wraps his hand around his cock, how wet and messy he feels without even being touched, and Erik hums, shaking like a leaf above him. _Do you want to come, sweetheart? You're being such a good boy for me. Shall I let you? Is this what you need? Or will I slake my pleasure out on you alone? Leave you aching for it? Keep you on this edge-I don't need to let you come. This is mine. This is for me. This isn't for you. You are mine._

And Charles knows it. He's trembling and aching, leaving a sticky, wet trail all over his own belly - his belly, where he's warm and hot and coiled and he swears, he swears he can feel Erik stretching him, cleaving him open and making room because he belongs there, he belongs there - but he won't come unless Erik tells him to. Until he gets permission. He can't, he won't, clenched tight and taut as he shakes in Erik's hold, thrusting back into Erik's cock and into his hand and he can't, he can't - no, he can, and he will. Erik's words - are they words? Thoughts? It doesn't matter, nothing matters, they're reaching deep into his core and Charles can't do anything but cry and take it, take it, take it. "Please, sir, please," he's begging before he can hold it back, hoarse and wrecked. "Please, I'll - I'll be so good, so good for you, please, please, I'm yours." He doesn't even know what he's begging for. He wants to come, it hurts so bad he's shaking with it, but he wants to please Erik more, wants to do what he says, wants to be such a good boy. He'll bear anything, anything, if Erik will just think of him like that, be pleased and proud. Humans cannot own each other, but Charles has given himself over and he will never be the same, claimed so thoroughly as Erik's he can never undo it. And why would he? This is what I was made for. _I was made for you._

The collar at his throat tightens to the point of uncomfortable, a heavy brand against his skin and he can feel the metal through Erik, how his own body feels like metal, malleable steel and spinning electrons and petrichor static-electric jolts and Erik can mold him, too, and he doesn't decide immediately. His hand moves in lazy strokes, withdrawing all the way out of him only to bury himself fully again on every thrust, until Charles exists only in the moments between sensations. Kept firmly in Erik's hand, face pressed to the mattress, and he isn't letting go, ratcheting him up higher and higher, diving into the center of a cold lake and sinking down and surrounded by heavy, suffocating water and then he's floating on his back along the surface, blanketed by warm fog and Erik turns his head up, fingers hooked into his collar, kissing him messily and twisting his hand just-so, angling to batter against his prostate-it's always like this, when you can't go any further, he pulls Charles along, a water-sieve through a wire, shattered and reformed-"Come on, _neshama_. I want to see you come. _Now_." Erik locks eyes with him, the Order like a knife.

Charles can hear himself. He's screaming, a hoarse, vibrating wail of a thing, something wretched from deep inside of him where Erik has settled inside of his body so firmly he doesn't think he'll ever come out. He was right. It's too much, so much, bordering on absolutely intolerable it's so suffocating and overwhelming, and at first it brings with it actual panic because the collar around his throat is thrumming, not choking but grasping and oh, oh, how can he breathe - but he doesn't need to. He doesn't need to, because right now he exists for Erik, and does he need oxygen when he has this? When he is doing exactly as he's told? If Erik wants him to break, he will break. Charles is making noise again, hiccupping, shaking little sobs as he tries to come down from orgasm, his body quivering head to toe. He can't calm down. He can't stop feeling, a vessel for Erik's pleasure as much as he is his own, and he doesn't know how much he can take - but he does, then again, doesn't he? As much as Erik wants him to. Charles lets go, shivering and whimpering, sobbing as he holds his oversensitive body still. This isn't for him. He's Erik's. _Yours, yours, yours..._ Charles smiles. That will put him back together. Erik took him apart, he can put him back. He doesn't need to do anything but be his.

* * *

Erik slips out of him-getting fucked turns from pleasurable to exceptionally uncomfortable very shortly after orgasm-but his cock is a dark, angry red, a cold gust of air at the right angle could set him off, and he holds himself against Charles for a long time, smoothing his hand over his hair. _Mine_ , the answering thought is automatic. His arms are tight around Charles, not the featherlight touches designed to skyrocket him through Earth's gravitational field, but grounding, deep and steady. When Charles can start to feel his breath catching, more assured, Erik separates from him. "Sit up," he Orders, not letting him emerge from the deep-deep world just yet. "Come here." He tugs him to sit next to him, digs his thumbs into the creases between Charles's fingers. "Touch me," the command shivers through them, a bright zap.

Charles is a blinking, owlish creature, his limbs heavy and his mind buried deep, deep down, still Charles but so much Erik's that he's forgotten what it means to live the way he previously had. In this desperate, floating place, he frowns, because Erik hasn't come yet - was Charles not good, coming before Erik? But no, something assures him, Erik had Ordered, he was obedient, not bad. He wishes he'd come in him, filled him up to bursting, feels empty and longing all of a sudden, but Erik doesn't want that from him. Charles wants to curl up, to bury himself in his Dom's chest and stay there, but Erik isn't letting him, so he whines, still trembling and tear-streaked, come all over his own belly, and reaches for Erik's cock, squirming on his throbbing, sore ass. He gasps when it jerks for him, awed and delighted, because Erik feels good because of him, and that's all that matters. Charles bites his lip, nonverbal now, and searches Erik's expression, needy and eager even after coming - is he good? Is he good for Erik, is he giving him what he needs? Is he pleasing him? Charles' lip quivers with the rest of him, anxiety threatening to bubble up through the haze. He just wants to be good.

 _Come here,_ Erik urges him closer, splays his hands along Charles's jaw, a dark, hungry look on his face. "Look at me," he Orders, and it's not so Erik can see Charles, but so that Charles can see Erik. _Look at what you're doing to me. Look at how you make me feel._ His features, usually severe and taciturn, have melted into a haze of open pleasure, bottom lip disappearing behind his teeth and he jerks up against Charles's hand, and his eyes catch onto Charles's stomach and he twitches violently. He doesn't know if he's thinking or writing it into the very fabric of their shared mindscape. _You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. This is for you. Because of you. Because you exist to please me._

Charles gasps, all the oxygen stolen from him again as he trembles in Erik's hold. Erik is - there are no words for what he is, utterly captivating in every way, gorgeous, the most extraordinary thing Charles will ever lay his eyes upon, and there's no way to ignore what Erik meant to show him - it's because of him. Erik is looking at him, pleased because of him, trembling slightly because of him, leaking and painfully hard because Charles was good enough to earn it. He sniffles, an elated, surprised twist of a smile on his lips. He did this because he was good. A good submissive. It's a shock through his overwhelmed, overloaded system, and he hiccups again, biting on his lip. He doesn't know if he's allowed to ask - Erik is in charge, Charles knows that with his entire being. But he wants to please so badly, he knows he can. "Erik - sir -" Both, at the same time. Charles has to fight for his voice. "Is - can I -" He shakes his head, swallowing it down. He can't lower his gaze, so he squirms instead, hissing and crying out when it jostles his poor ass. If he deserved it, Erik would have offered it. He takes what he's given. Charles can be good, he really can be - Erik knows that, doesn't he? He knows that.

 _I know,_ whispers Erik, or maybe it's the world all around them. He thumbs Charles's lip, hips jerking upward into Charles's hand when he swipes just under the sensitive part of his head and he tugs him forward by his collar, pressing their brows together. "Ask me," he Orders, eyes locked on the absolutely stunning image of Charles's hand moving over his cock. Charles has irrevocably given himself to Erik, but Erik belongs in equal measure to Charles. _Ask me_ , says the world. _I'll decide if it shall be given._

Charles whimpers, because there is no holding back from that. He's held close, nowhere to look but Erik's eyes, and he wants to close his, to hide, but he knows instinctively Erik won't let him. He doesn't want to have to be told. "I - " It's strange, how Orders work. He has to obey, is compelled utterly, but it never feels as if it's forced from him. He always wants to obey, even when he says otherwise, even when he squirms and fusses. Erik knows. Erik has to know now. Charles can't find his voice, so he shows instead, hoping it will be enough: he doesn't want - he doesn't want it to go to waste. He wants Erik inside, any way he can get him. "My - my mouth," he clarifies, and somehow manages to blush scarlet, eyelashes still damp with tears. He's never swallowed, isn't sure if he would be able to, but if he can't have Erik buried deep inside of him he wants to taste him, and he knows Erik likes his mouth. Erik said to ask, and so, "Please, sir?"

Erik's response is a pleased groan, and he tangles his hand into Charles's hair, thick handfuls that remind them both of his place. " _Ken_ ," Erik murmurs lowly, guiding his head down and brushing his cock over that perfect red mouth. He thinks, distantly, that Charles must have been explicitly crafted to drive him out of his fucking mind and he wraps Charles's fingers around the base, bucking up slightly at the sensation and then settling back, holding himself still. "That's it," he gasps softly. Show me, the world says. _Show me how much you want to make me come._

Charles flushes harder, his belly twisting itself up with both pleasure that he's been granted something he'd asked for - he must have been good - and the realization that he now needs to follow through. Without Erik fucking his throat he knows he doesn't have any skill, and he's not even particularly good at that, his gag reflex always a bit too pronounced (but oh, Erik likes that, likes that he chokes Charles on his cock, and remembering that is almost enough to make him stir, soft and spent). But it's the fact that he isn't hard at all, already well past overstimulated that makes this poignant, because Charles wants to please simply to please. To make Erik feel good, with no outside reward or promise of his own pleasure. He focuses on the hand in his hair, firm and guiding, and makes up for lack of experience with eagerness, taking as much of Erik in as he can and swallowing around the urge to gag. Charles looks up at Erik as he sucks and licks, something purring and content inside of him again because he's serving, exactly as he should be. His eyelids flutter; he really could spend hours with Erik's cock in his mouth, and he would still beg for more if given the chance. He wants to always make Erik feel good.

The urge to chase his own pleasure simply for its own sake is not something Erik has ever grappled with before, but right now, as he watches Charles work over him, enthusiastic and loud and messy, he unconsciously tips his head back, warmth unfurling in his gut and humming through his entire body like languid drips of honey, and he lets himself feel. There is something incredibly healing about it, being able to simply luxuriate in this sensation, like he's a mythological figure lounging amidst gorgeous artwork and swathes of beautiful people, eating grapes and caring for nothing except immediate gratification. For someone whose body has been a canvas for only pain and sorrow, Charles is a soothing balm he can barely comprehend. He's more careful, now, gentling as the raucous, chaotic impulses from earlier recede like tides from the shore, but no less controlled-Charles no less his. He shows Charles with a finger at his temple what he's learning he likes-the concept so foreign and unfamiliar and miraculous-it doesn't take long before he shudders, making Charles take him a little deeper to spend himself, trembling, inside the welcoming warmth of his mouth.

Even with the best intentions and plenty of warning - he has both the physical tell of Erik's body, the twitching of that beautiful cock in his mouth and the trembling hum of his mind - Charles still chokes around his mouthful, coughing and sputtering a bit as he fights to swallow. He manages, much to his satisfaction, even though it's messy, some of it dribbling down his chin. He can't help but moan as swipes his tongue out to catch what he's missed. There's something absolutely intoxicating about it, knowing he pleased Erik, that he's tasting him, that he's inside, and his whole body is warm with it. Charles shivers, a dreamy, content smile on his lips as he cleans Erik best he can, then rests his head against his thigh, eyes fluttering closed as he sighs. _Yours_ , he murmurs, a pleased little hum. _All yours.  
_

* * *

Erik gathers him up in his arms, resting against the wall and dropping his chin atop Charles's head, laughing slightly to himself as he realizes that this-this is not what he imagined it would be like. Letting loose the gnarled, ancient grip of self-control would surely result in-death, you will destroy the world, Erik-but there's only Charles, content and satisfied and floating and he sighs, letting his eyes close as the twitching aftershocks of his release slowly fade and calm. An enormous surge of protective affection and love sweeps out of him, blanketing the room and everything around them in it. _I love you_ , he kisses Charles's temple fondly.   
  
Charles lets out another hum, a happy, purring thing, shivering again as he's kissed. His temple has always been sensitive, and though they're already connected, the touch releases an echoing, mirrored sensation of warm contentment, of affection, of love and adoration, Charles' thoughts free and pouring between them. All of them are of Erik. He's still floating, still sunk in that deep, safe place, but when he looks up it's to give a shy little grin. Love you more, he teases. There's a little tinge of something, but it's gone as soon as it comes, even as he reaches out, his mind a soft caress, asks, I was good for you?  
  
Perfect, Erik's reply is immediate, and he shelters Charles in his arms, rests his lips against the sensitive skin of his temple and speaks against his skin. "You are wonderful, _neshama_. _Ani kol cach ohev otcha_." He follows that twinge curiously, rubbing his thumb over the line of Charles's jaw. OK? he thinks, concern filtering through. _Nehedar_ , he smiles, and all at once the familiar thrum of Erik's mind whirls to life, pieced back together and with this new-knowledge, altered with the joy of his discovery.  
  
 _All okay_ , he promises, and it's true. There is not a dark corner of his mind accessible to him now. Charles is floating to the surface, but he finds it's not nearly as noticeable as the times before this; there's no line, just bone-deep, gentle contentment, submission a natural part of it rather than something turned off when they're finished. All okay. They're still in his childhood bedroom, and he knows this is a memory he will tuck away, storing and saving for when he needs it. He shivers, tucking himself more firmly, unsure if he's cold or just still oversensitive, his body wrung out. _I like it when you call me that_ , he comments, perhaps delayed, shy again as he smiles.  
  
Erik's nose wrinkles when he smiles back, warm. _That is fortunate_ , he laughs. He drapes the blanket lightly over Charles's shoulders in response to his shivering. _I should get surgery more often_ , he thinks dryly. If there was one way to promote positive reinforcement... his eyes crinkle, amused. He doesn't think he can recall a single moment in his life where he's felt such entirely simple happiness, and he transmits that as clear as he can.  
  
The mention of surgery drops his stomach. Charles is colder than he was just moments ago, and he knows it's not because of temperature now. He curls up even tighter, as if he can wrap himself so fully in Erik that he need not come out. "I don't want this to end," he whispers, using his voice again. They haven't had enough time, and he knows it will be over soon. There's never enough time. Always ending, always leaving. Charles frowns, his grip on Erik tighter than before, clinging.  
  
 _Yode'a, neshama,_ Erik murmurs softly. He hadn't meant to dredge up the obvious barriers to their uninterrupted contentment, but, _you are mine regardless of where we are. Distance is no threat to us_ , he promises, fierce and sure. _I won't let it be._ He presses another kiss to Charles's temple, warm and dry.


	19. What she said about the giant and the lemmings on the cliff III

Something occurs to him that hadn't before. When Erik is healed and returned to the CIA, the arraignment will be rescheduled. Then straight to trial, and if he knows enough about Erik's lawyer, he knows he will push for a swift process. Charles frowns, tucked underneath Erik's chin. "I'll see you in the courtroom, and likely in between, if I can manage to prove necessity," he sighs. "But there won't be - we won't be alone. That's months, Erik." Charles' heart already aches. "Months without this." Months without peace, he doesn't say, but he doesn't need to. Every force will be working against them, and they won't have a moment to simply be.  
  
"You will still be mine," Erik tells him firmly, his arm curling possessively over Charles's back. _That will never change._ And if they both know Erik, they both know he will do his utmost to find them slivers of _this_ -now that he's tasted it, he can't imagine existing without being this close, and he is if nothing else _resourceful_. Not to mention Charles's abilities. _We will make the time._  
  
Charles sighs, clearly not pleased with it, but there's nothing they can do. He will have to take what he can get, and right now, for just this moment, he is in Erik's arms. That is not nothing. The mention of it all still brings up another thought, another twinge, and this time it isn't so easily brushed away. Charles hides his face in Erik's chest and breathes. His hand, even trapped between them, wanders to his neck. To his collar. "I don't want to get twisted up again," he whispers. Left to his own devices, he often does.  
  
 _You will not be left to your own devices_ , Erik soothes, adjusting the blanket so it wrapped more firmly around them both, doing his best to come across as confident and strong, even though he can't imagine not being here, not needing Charles just as much. He must be strong, and he's good at that, so he carefully folds up all of the fear and grief that threaten them. "I think," he said at last after a long moment of consideration, "that we'll find ourselves here again. The CIA is just a building. We're much too powerful to be contained by a simple suppressor." They've already had experiences of connecting even before Charles began to unlock more of his capabilities. Their bond was proving to be something much deeper than a simple extension of his telepathy-at this point, Erik could feel him constantly, a steady hum in the back of his mind that's only grown with time.  
  
Charles has considered that, too. At length, actually, because at first it hadn't made much sense at all. He knew it would not be possible without his telepathy - Charles could tell, and it had certainly started out deliberate on his part - but it had grown beyond that. Still impossible without it, but - "If you asked me to hold Raven like this through two extensive, painful, complex surgeries..." Charles shakes his head, the implication clear, and he loves his sister more than dearly, understands her mind despite being banned from it. "I'm exhausted, Erik, I'll be honest. I can still feel that, vaguely. I haven't slept or eaten, and I've been pushing myself. There are so many factors to this I shouldn't be able to control - it's a lot," he admits, laughing. Arguments and Earth-shattering orgasms, to name a few of those factors, on top of blocking pain, vision, outside perception, creating and holding a mindscape in the first place, let alone one with sensation and any sense of vividness. "But I'm not even focused. Just a few moments ago, I really shouldn't have been able to think about anything. But we're still here. It's me, sort of, I can feel that, but -" He can't explain it. It just shouldn't be possible, but it's Erik, and so it is.  
  
Erik grins. It's easier to be confident, with that realization, because there is no doubt in his mind that the closer they become, the easier it will be for them to reach one another. Physical distance is difficult, but like this, they're hardly separate at all. It more-than feels real, it is real. A form of real. "I've been selfish, you know," he says after a moment. "I know this isn't something we can take for granted. So I have not been as strict as I normally would be." His eyebrows arched, expression bright. "I couldn't forgive myself for denying us this."  
  
Charles grins, too. Erik is right. If they are allowed at least this, he knows they will push through the separation, the alienation from each other that's just a product of circumstance. They are stronger than all of that, have proven it already. They will only get stronger if they keep it up. "Strict in what way?" he asks, lazy again, relaxed. He's taken to drawing patterns on Erik's shoulder, for the moment utterly fascinated by the freckles there. He's playing an extensive game of connect the dots.  
  
"Taking care of yourself," Erik said, twitching a little ticklishly under Charles's featherlight touches. "Sleeping. Eating. You need to be at your strongest, not even considering what we're enduring, and you will feel much better when you get into a proper routine. I expect you'll follow my guidelines even when I am not present. I will be checking in." Even now, lazy and satisfied, his Will flexes at the words.  
  
Charles shivers, and for a moment he needs to catch his breath. It's odd, how it's the simple aspects of their newly-formed, budding dynamic that often inspire this reaction. Not that their newly-formed, budding sex life isn't absolutely mind-shattering, sometimes quite literally, but this? This is something he never would have admitted to needing, and now he has it, them tripping over themselves notwithstanding. There's a learning curve, but they can only get better. He believes that. "They're fairly loose guidelines," is what he says, and part of it is to feign like his heart doesn't race at the thought of them existing at all. "I like loopholes, you know." He's searching for a reaction. Not goading, this time, but asking without asking, and they both know it. There won't be a better time than this, both of them sated and content, nothing like the heated, often necessitated discussions of before.  
  
Erik nods. "I want to be more strict with you than what I've outlined so far," he says, "my lack of elaboration on things was partially intentional-I intend to be specific, but I've needed time to come up with a grouping of commands that you can follow strictly, while having room to maneuver for unseen circumstances. I won't be there and I can't anticipate what is happening in my absence, so I don't want to lock you into something and cause strife when an emergency crops up. And, determining what is an emergency is another consideration. So I've been... somewhat less forthcoming while I've thought it through," he smiles. But it's plainly obvious that he has come to a decision.  
  
"Oh," is all he says at first. It's a breathless, needy little whisper, because he hadn't anticipated that. Truthfully, he'd expected more leniency he knew he'd chafe under, and he'd been debating how best to ask for otherwise. He bites his lip. "What did you come to?" he asks, attempting mildness, but they can both feel his racing pulse.  
  
"Quite a lot," Erik laughs. "When they put me to sleep after," Erik starts, and the next words are an Order, although to be perfectly honest he hasn't really stopped giving Orders-and there are degrees, they're learning, when Erik speaks now his Will is immediate, able to be tested and stretched, a casual, undemanding-thing, but still inspiring obedience. Versus the Orders of earlier which were indomitable and unable to be thought-against. "I want you to find somewhere quiet and write these things down."  
  
Charles hums at that, shivery and anticipatory, and he's gone back to his idle touching. It helps calm his nerves, though he's not sure nerves is the right word. He's anything but anxious right now. "I'm guessing that's not because you think I'll forget," he teases, but at the same time he speaks there's a yes, Erik - casual, relaxed, but not defiant, warm and curled up against Erik's chest. It's an extraordinary feeling.  
  
"It is not," Erik smiles. He closed his eyes and then withdrew a small legal pad buried in the sheets, and it was filled with a bunch of messy scrawl that Erik elected to read out loud rather than hand over to him, making the Orders that much more official and organized. Surprise, he'd put a considerable amount of thought into this. "I'm certain you will have questions. When I'm done you may ask and I will elaborate."  
  
Charles fights the urge to laugh, stifling it with Erik's chest. It's not that it's particularly funny, just that - it's endearing, and very Erik, and that's why they're here doing this. Because this is the two of them, and Charles wants nothing less. "Yes, Erik," he murmurs, smile pressed into Erik's skin as he waits.  
  
Erik, meanwhile, tries not to blush because he knows it's a little *silly*, but he's found this is the best way to ensure his commands are clear, concise and understood-and he finds himself curiously *nervous* about it, but he squashes that down. This *is* what he expects. It is his right to bring this up, to make certain Charles is cared-for to the best of his ability when he cannot be there to do so. He flips over the paper and begins reading.

* * *

_0\. emergencies will supersede these orders_   
_→ 0a. threat to life, safety, or relational integrity_   
_→ 0b. e.g. a patient, exposure, traveling (w/ modifications), illness, mourning_   
_→ 0c. not to be frivolously applied_   
_→ 0d. certain strictures may be relaxed at my discretion_   
  
_1\. you will wake and sleep according to a set schedule_   
_→ 1a. wake no later than 7am on weekdays, 11am on weekends_   
_→ 1b. prepare for bed no later than 1am on weekdays, 5am on weekends_   
_→ 1c. you will ensure your sleeping area is comfortable and clean_   
_→ 1d. you will cease all work-related activities one hour before bed_   
  
_2\. upon waking and before bed for up to 1.5 hour you will practice your Postures_   
_→ 2a. excl Child's Pose_   
_→ 2b. you may alleviate any arousal that occurs after you have completed each set_   
_→ 2c. during this time you will clear your mind and focus on my Will_   
  
_3\. you will care for basic needs_   
_→ 3a. hygiene; shower, shave, clean clothes, et cetera_   
_→ 3b. you will at the least eat breakfast, lunch and dinner_   
_→ 3c. you will not complete any work until you have eaten breakfast and dinner_   
_→ 3d. endeavor to eat healthily, limit "junk food" and empty calories_   
_→ 3e. lunchtime should be used for leisure, not work_   
_→ 3f. take time on the weekend to ensure your home is kept in order_   
  
_4\. you will obtain a collar_   
_→ 4a. non-metallic_   
_→ 4b. comfortable & tasteful (color optional)_   
_→ 4c. to be worn at all times under the shirt_   
  
_5\. substances should be used responsibly_   
_→ 5a. consume alcohol and non-addictive drugs in moderation_   
_→ 5b. power suppressors are not to be used prior to discussing it with me_   
_→ 5c. addictive substances are not be used for recreation_   
  
_6\. miscellaneous_   
_→ 6a. some dominants seek or approve of polyamorous activity, i generally do not_   
_→ 6b. if this becomes pertinent, it will be discussed in-depth_   
_→ 6c. you may be up-front about being in a relationship, be as honest or vague as you see fit_   
_→ 6d. you are permitted to ask questions and request modifications to these expectations_

* * *

Charles listens. He doesn't interrupt - doesn't even consider it, honestly, which is a testament to how seriously he takes this - and attempts to keep reactions off his face. He can't help smiling, that shuddering, deep-seated pleasure that has nothing to do with arousal twisting around in his belly. That said, there are concerns. Charles wouldn't be Charles if he didn't attempt to push some limits, but first things first. "'Polyamorous activity'?" He repeats back, and at that he makes a face, nose scrunched. Not because he disapproves on practice, he knows it's a very common, natural thing, and he's never been one to judge, but, "Erik, besides you I've had one other partner, and it very clearly didn't work. I have no interest in anyone but you." The thought actually makes him feel sick. "Did you - was that something you expected?" He did say generally.  
  
Erik seemed relieved. "No, I don't have any interest in it whatsoever," he says. "I am not a jealous person, but I won't approve of-" he made an aborted gesture, and somewhere in the back of his mind, wondered if maybe his understanding of normal wasn't-well, normal. On some level he'd assumed that was the default-he knows Charles, but that doesn't mean it isn't contextual. "I don't wish for you to be with anyone else," he finished lamely. "Like this."  
  
Charles smiles. Leaving room for him, then, another freedom they could discuss if it was relevant. He presses a gentle kiss to Erik's chest. "I don't, either," he promises. "I'm yours and yours alone." Best to get that out of the way. "I - actually, I'd..." He bites his lip. He doesn't know how to say this, exactly, without turning red, so he settles for mumbling it into Erik's chest. "I rather like when you're possessive of me," he admits. An understatement, he's finding. Charles revels in being Erik's more than he can always admit.  
  
That makes Erik smile faintly. "Then you are in luck, because it would seem I am half-caveman. I'll need to carry you over my shoulder at all times." It's only partially a joke.  
  
"I wouldn't call you a caveman," he argues, hiding his own amusement. "It's comforting. I like it." It's true, but he's stalling now. With everything out there, he's realizing he is nervous - this will set the tone, and Charles has never had something so tangible to make this real. Not that it wasn't, but before this, it was fairly start-stop-stutter and they both knew it. No being left to his own devices now. No switching off Erik's control over him when it became inconvenient.  
  
He reaches up and lays his hand over his cheek. "I meant it when I said you are mine, whether I am before you or not. This is what I expect. Nothing more or less than your best effort, Charles."  
  
That makes him shiver again, so he tries to focus. There is one glaring concern, but first to get the obvious out of the way. "My instinct is to bargain here," he points out. "To - to persuade you. But I don't really want that," he admits, quietly. Actually, if it was viable - if they shared physical space - he'd thrive perfectly well under more, and they both know it. More expectations, more rules. They're things he craves. Admitting that is harder, but he's getting there.  
  
"I care about your wellbeing," Erik says quietly. "And there are areas of your life that I'm not familiar with, I know this. It would be different if I were there, if I were aware of the minutiae, then I would know exactly what to do. You can always tell me your opinion. If I choose to accommodate it, it is because I believe it's in your best interest."  
  
"None of the concerns I have over most of this are..." Charles fights for the right words, chewing on his lip and tracing patterns into Erik's skin again as he considers. "I want to protest them because they'll make things inconvenient for me. Not in any real way," he knows perfectly well they'll benefit him, "just in that they aren't the way I'm used to things. And that's not -" It's not actually what he wants. He doesn't want to get his way on this, not really.  
  
"It is a large adjustment," Erik granted, "and it requires thinking of your life in a different way, but I am confident that you will manage. Your life is different, now. Mine as well. Things won't be as they were." He's imminently grateful for that.  
  
"I might mess up," he says. It's not with any pleasure - he wants and needs this. Charles isn't setting himself up for failure, he's being realistic. "I probably will, actually. And then -" He closes his eyes. This is an important part to him. "And then, I'll want to talk my way out of it." He's very persuasive, too. "Will it work?" He needs to know. That will set the tone, too.  
  
Erik taps the first item pointedly. "There are certain circumstances that will inevitably require this to be altered, but barring those, I will not allow you to forgo your responsibilities here. If you mess up, then you mess up. We will deal with it, but it won't change anything."  
  
"I was more asking if there would be any real consequences, or if - I understand why there's been hesitance, Erik," he murmurs, and lifts his head so he can meet Erik's gaze, still soft and pliant against him. "I don't fault you that, just as I know you don't fault me my reservations. But if we're going to right this, to do this, and trust me, I want it more than anything, I think - we both need to try to let those go." Which meant that Charles couldn't throw a strop and get his way, he thinks but doesn't say, and the thought is sheepish and small. Sometimes 'no' outside of a pause-word and a real, genuine objection (of which there was a world of difference) would need to be superseded by Erik's Will. They both already knew it.  
  
He stroked Charles's back. "May I ask you a question, instead?"  
  
Charles nods, leaning into the touch. "Technically, you just did," he says, because he's sometimes incapable of not being a smartass, especially as a defense mechanism.  
  
 _"Technically"_ Erik huffs, and then his tone turns a bit more serious. "Can you promise me that you will use your pause-word when you truly need it? Because the implication there is that I will override what you tell me, regardless of how you feel otherwise in the moment."  
  
"I promise." It's immediate, and completely earnest. It also makes him think. "When you gave it to me, you very clearly Ordered me to use it. I'm not sure I could hold back if I wanted," he points out, grinning. But either way, he means it.  
  
Erik grinned back. "I trust you," he murmurs, and then nods. "Genuine mistakes are one thing, but I've told you before, I won't tolerate deliberate disobedience. If you falter in that regard, there will be consequences."  
  
Charles sighs. It's out of place, not a reaction to the actual words being said - those he takes no issue with, and is actually extraordinarily relieved by. "It's a downside," he mumbles, and he's clearly talking to himself.  
  
Erik's eyebrows arch. "Pardon me?"  
  
"Oh. I was -" Charles flushes, and buries his head. The mumble that follows is fairly unintelligible.  
  
"You'll need to speak up." Erik taps his cheek with his thumb.  
  
The muffled word that follows is distinctly a "no," because Charles is entirely sure that if he admits this part out loud he'll combust. In his thoughts, even. He's very deliberately filtering those, too.  
  
Erik rubs his hand over Charles's upper thigh, rhythmic and slow. "I think you want to tell me. So tell me, Charles." This Order is warm, almost amused, and more than a little unconscious. Erik still hasn't reined himself back from whatever it is that's saturated every word and movement of him since they got here. Maybe he never will.  
  
Charles huffs, but it spills out anyway. "Wannakeepthemarks," and it's such a rush - but technically out there - that he hopes Erik might miss it, and the warmth that follows. It's a downside, he fills in the blanks even still, that he can't. Not the welts from being disciplined or the achey, delicious soreness of being fucked.  
  
He smiles slowly. "What's stopping you?" he wonders, curious. "Maybe not the physical, but..." he traces his hand over the swell of Charles's ass. "Sensation is sensation, is it not?"  
  
Charles blinks. "Well, yes, but -" He bites his lip. "Do you want me to keep them?" He doesn't doubt his own abilities to, if Erik wishes it.  
  
"Yes," Erik says instantly, hand tightening over where he'd loosely laid it. "I didn't realize you could." Or believe him, this wouldn't have even been up for discussion.  
  
That makes Charles squirm, a whimper pulled from his lips as he struggles with whether to arch into it or wriggle away. "I've never done it, but - it's not especially difficult, just..." He swallows. "It might be difficult to sit down, if you intend to keep this up."  
  
"I'm certain we can make it work," Erik smirks.  
  
"You're not the one with the sore arse," he points out, but he's grinning, too, comfortable and warm against Erik's chest. There's another concern, but it's floating somewhere far off, and he's finding it difficult to focus when he's found a new little cluster of freckles.  
  
"What else?" Erik wonders, aware that there was something.  
  
"The collar," Charles sighs. "I've thought about it, too. Like a placeholder." Something that wouldn't immediately out them, like a metallic collar. But he's frowning, his hand abandoning Erik's chest to stroke at the metal around his neck. "But - it just... I don't know. It feels wrong. Like I'll be wearing someone else's, and not yours."  
  
Erik frowned, sympathetic. "That was the least set in stone on the list," he admits. "I understand there are laws that dictate the Dominant is entitled to select a collar and it shouldn't be removed, but I doubt they'll apply in our circumstances. I'd consider this a placeholder."  
  
"It's not an objection to the collar. I - trust me, I'm very happy like this, and I would have no reservations about wearing it in public. That's not the problem." He's frowning, gripping to his collar tightly as if he can keep it there. "It's just - I want it to be yours. When we were out there," he gestures vaguely, "I missed this. Quite a lot more than I thought," he admits.  
  
Erik thought about it. "You can feel it right now, yes? You will be able to feel-" he tapped Charles's ass pointedly. "It sounds like you can manipulate your own perception of reality, not just others'. Is it possible you could ... transfer what you see here to the outside world?"  
  
Charles purses his lips, thinking. "I've never tried something like that," he says, because there was never reason for it. "But I suppose I could wear another collar, and manipulate what I see to be - well, my collar." He has to pause to let that sink in, his breath hitching. He very much likes the sound of that. "It would be easier than the other way around, in theory."  
  
"Yes," Erik agrees, letting his fingers rest over the cool alloys. "I would like that very much. That means when I am able to make you a proper one, I can include everything," he realized. Maybe he could anyway, he's never tried using his own abilities like that, imbuing physical elements with intangible data.  
  
"It's a much better placeholder option." He smiles, stroking Erik's hand with his. "I can't wait until it's real. Realer. When others can see it the way I do, too." He ducks his head, chuckling. "I teach eighteen year olds, you know. They will notice I am wearing a collar immediately. They're always gossiping amongst themselves about my personal life."  
  
"They shall have to keep gossiping," Erik laughs. "Tell me about it. What you teach."  
  
Charles laughs, shaking his head as he settles back down on Erik's chest. "There's not much to tell, really," he admits. "It's a first year genetics course. Very basic stuff. That doesn't mean I don't fail my fair share of students, but that's neither here or there." He grins, rueful. "When they learn I'm submissive, they imagine I'll be a pushover, especially Dominant students higher on the scale. They are sorely mistaken."  
  
"I should like to see that," he huffs, warm and amused. "I imagine it must have been that way with you quite a lot," he murmurs softly. Shutters open and wood paneling, Charles walking down the line through ionic columns and bright, peppy college students roaming about, peeling back the layers. "Being underestimated."  
  
When he laughs this time, it's tinged with bitterness. "Erik, you are one of the only people who does not underestimate me. It often works in my favor, but that doesn't make it any less infuriating."  
  
"I can hardly believe that the people you surround yourself with aren't intelligent enough to see you as you are," Erik's eyebrows arch. "I regret that you've needed to live like this. You are so-" he's a bit overwhelmed, and he laughs. "You're wonderful. _Nehedar_."  
  
"You're very biased," he chuckles, but kisses Erik's chest, warm and preening with the praise, the satisfaction rolling off of him in waves. He can't help it. "A professor at Oxford once asked me 'what my Dominant thought about all this.' I'd love for him to meet you so you could tell him to shove it just as I did. Politely, of course," he grins.  
  
"All of what? Your research? Surely you must be joking." Erik's eyebrows flew up. "Is it like that? Is it really like that?"  
  
"He was older, and had very outdated views on these sorts of things," Charles sighs. "It isn't always. But yes, it can be. Especially when someone wants to dismiss me. I go from being a qualified, educated professional to a wayward submissive who sticks his nose where it doesn't belong fast."  
  
"I can promise you I would not have been remotely polite. That is repulsive. You're brilliant, they should be thrilled to have you."  
  
Charles doesn't even try to hide how absolutely giddy that makes him, grinning from ear to ear. In fact, it inspires him to move from his warm spot to kiss Erik full on the lips, grateful and buzzing with that contentment from before. "He ate his words fairly quickly. I accomplished more with my research in the five years I attended than he did in his entire career." Charles isn't afraid to brag when it's warranted.  
  
"Good," Erik grins and kisses him back, warm and fond. "What is it like, for submissives here? What is it like for you? Your life? Do people give you trouble like this all of the time?"  
  
Charles shrugs, and looks a bit uncomfortable for it. "I don't have the typical submissive experience, so perhaps I'm not the one to ask. It's - it depends, really. On where you are, who you're talking to. I can tell you that every dominant at those high society parties expected me to be nothing more than a pretty trophy submissive, and were very disappointed when I made it clear how I felt about that. I can also tell you that there's definitely issues with harassment and workplace discrimination. I've experienced that much myself." He purses his lips. "I get more trouble because I'm... untypical." Strange and unnatural, were the words he'd both heard used and used himself, at his most self-deprecating. "People think I talk too much. They're right, but they all want to play proxy dom. Sit down and be quiet, Charles. No, thank you, I'd rather not. Then they get all uppity when I refuse to back down, and it's a whole ordeal. A colleague once told me, unprompted while we were out for drinks, that if he were my dom he would make sure I was so busy being chained to his bed I wouldn't have time for 'outrageous opinions.' You can imagine what I said in response."  
  
Erik blanched, lips parted in shock. "How dare anyone speak to you that way," he spat, furious. "It is hardly a wonder you were not compatible with them," he rolled his eyes. "They sound like children, pouting because the pet submissive won't come out of its cage at the zoo. Perhaps we oughtn't attend those parties, because I may very well kill everyone present. If he were your Dom," Erik mutters under his breath. "Your outrageous opinions were probably the only interesting thing in that bar."  
  
He can't help but smile, leaning forward until their foreheads touch. "He wasn't the first to make those comments," he sighs, but he doesn't seem too bothered by it. It's something he's become fairly numb to. "'If I were your Dom, I'd do such and such, you'd never want for anything.' Well, you aren't, and thank goodness for all that. Why would I offer my submission to someone who considered me a glorified pet, to be locked in a cage and taken out when it was time to play? But they don't see it that way. As something I can choose, or not choose, to give rather than for them to take. To them it's all some silly game. When I told that one off, he looked so shocked, as if he couldn't imagine me ever taking offense. He told me I was being dramatic." Charles huffs, nose scrunched again.  
  
"It's not a game," Erik shakes his head. "I don't know a lot about how society functions, but that sounds horrific. How can these people call themselves Dominants? How can they even tip the scale? What an utterly hollow existence. Can you imagine? And they had the nerve to tell you to kneel. They absolutely didn't have the right."  
  
"Personally, and this may be an outrageous opinion," it's dry, his scorn clear, "I don't see why my submission is expected when those demanding it of me have done nothing to deserve it. I'm submissive, not a mindless slave. I don't need to bend my knee for every hackneyed dominant on the street because they say. It's ridiculous to assume so. And when it's used as a flimsy excuse to discredit my work - ha! I've done just as much - actually, more, as a rule - than you to get here. My submission has nothing to do with it. It's especially ludicrous at conferences when my paper could easily run circles around their tired, mediocre, sorry excuse for academic work - learn to research and provide proper evidence for your asinine claims and then perhaps I'll fetch you a coffee." Charles is aware he's ranting. Fuming, a little. He's rarely given an outlet for these things, but he flushes in the aftermath, wondering if he's gotten a bit carried away.  
  
"No," Erik shakes his head. "Not carried away. They don't understand what it means. This-genetics," he waves between them. "It has nothing to do with how smart or capable you are. The fact that it's been conflated with this in your life is deeply horrifying. I am very pleased that you learned to stand up for yourself," he murmurs, "I am just sorry that it cost you so much. Living like that. Amongst people who are acting out a caricature." His arm tightens protectively over Charles's back. "At the very least, Raven and Warren seem somewhat adjusted."  
  
"Not everyone feels that way," he assures, and settles back down, a soft smile on his lips. "It's more of an annoyance than a true hardship. And I've found you." Charles buries his face into the crook of Erik's neck, humming. "It's not a game for you. For us. It feels..." He doesn't have words for how incredible it is. How much of a relief, even as they learn together. Especially as they learn together, perhaps.  
  
"Yes," Erik grins. "I never thought that I would have this," he whispers quietly. "I didn't even realize it was missing." He kisses the top of Charles's head. "I remember when I was a child, when my Will began to really manifest itself, people were terrified of me. Even then, I knew I would be different."  
  
"I always thought it would terrify me. Meeting a D5, if there was ever one out there to meet." It was a fantasy, of course it was, but one he learned to suppress. "Someone with that much power over me, that much pull, that much potential to unlock something I'd all but thrown away the key to - and then you showed up. And I'm still afraid, occasionally, of the scope of this," he admits. "But never of you. I've never feared you, Erik, and you've never underestimated me. Not once. That's brilliant."  
  
"Not once," he agrees with a laugh, cheeks sore from smiling. It's a good hurt. "I didn't fantasize about meeting a submissive," he confides. "My parents were happy, I'd known people in relationships, but it all got stripped away. I didn't know this was supposed to make people happy. They didn't let me around submissives very often, even my presence-well, you've seen. The few times I was-I knew I didn't want that. They can't keep their minds around me." He winces unconsciously. "And then there was you. Of course I value your mind."  
  
Charles thinks back to the nurse. The way she'd trembled and her mind had fogged, frozen in place. "Does everyone react like that? Every submissive?" Erik may not have much experience, but the thought of it was horrifying. He couldn't imagine even considering any kind of relationship like that. "Was I - did you know, immediately? That must have been..." Just as much of a relief as it was for Charles, but for an entirely different reason. "Everyone thinks you're very intimidating and imposing. And you certainly can be," he thinks of a few instances, though none of them frighten him, "but I find it - mmm." It's a contented little hum, Charles focusing on Erik's Will. Wrapping himself up in it like the blanket around them, eyelids heavy for a moment. "Comforting. Safe. Sometimes overwhelming, yes, but never in a bad way."  
  
"Every one," Erik nods. "It even happens with Dominants, on the lower end of the scale. It's why they won't let submissives interact with me at the CIA. I do not believe anyone there finds me comforting or safe," he laughs. "The fact we can even have a conversation is incredible to me. I think-a lot of my reluctance comes down to-" he gestures. "I want you to be your own person. I don't want you to be my puppet. You must understand I've never met another human being who could resist my Orders. I knew you were special immediately."  
  
"That's never been an issue," he tells him, and finds that it's true. Even in the beginning, overwhelming and nearly suffocating, nothing Charles had done had been outside of his control. He had been able to think whatever he pleased, including plenty of things that were wholly unflattering of Erik. When he disagreed with something, he knew it. When he didn't want to obey, he knew it. And when he chose to be obedient, it was because he'd chosen to be, even when there wasn't technically a choice. Charles honestly believed that. "I've never felt more myself than I do with you," he whispers, and cups Erik's cheek. "You have my submission because I've given it freely, not because you have the ability to take it from me. I hope you know that."  
  
He laid his hand over Charles's, smiling up at him against his palm. "Unflattering, I see how it is," he teased gently. "I hope you are aware that I do value your mind-and I don't expect you to agree with me. It is a source of distinct pleasure that you challenge my perceptions, and I respect you a great deal. Outrageous opinions and all."  
  
"I wouldn't be here if I didn't, Erik," he repeated from earlier, that smile mirrored on his own lips. "I know. I've always known. Thank you for that." Charles sighs, a pleased exhale, and finds his cheeks hurt too. A very good hurt. "I know what you're capable of. I know you could twist me up and around to be exactly what you wanted from me. But I also know you won't, and I truly wish everyone would stop bringing up that bloody case." For a moment he's irritated, but it's not aimed at Erik.  
  
"...Case?" Erik tilted his head. "You mean what happened at the Institute?"  
  
"No, no," he gestures, sighing. "There was - a few years ago now, I think. One of the only recorded D5s brought his submissive to the top of a building and Ordered her to jump from it. She did. Crying and screaming, but she did, and that seems to be the first thing anyone thinks about when 'D5' enters the conversation, as if one man's actions define the entire business. What happened to that girl was absolutely horrifying, but - " It just isn't applicable. Erik would sooner jump himself, he thinks.  
  
Erik's eyes widened, lips parting. He shook his head, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. He took a deep breath and exhaled audibly. "That doesn't frighten you?" It's pretty obvious that it scares the hell out of Erik. "I can't believe-" he rubbed his hand rhythmically over his thigh. "I scare myself," he laughed after a second. "I can understand why others feel the same."  
  
"I know," he sighs, and reaches between them to entwine their fingers together. "Of course the possibility frightens me, but that's all it is. A possibility. If I believed you were capable of that as a person, trust me when I say this is the last place we'd be at the moment. I said this to Raven, and she brushed it off, but she really shouldn't have - I can do the same thing." With his free hand he taps his temple, though it's unnecessary. Force of habit. "And I could do it without the fuss. She said it was different, but I fail to see how. I understand your Orders are sometimes less deliberate than my telepathy, but no less a part of me. Something I can use, for better or worse. I could make you bend backwards and like it too, Erik, but I'm just as likely to do that as you are. I don't see why I should fear you when you've given me no reason to. Even when -" He bites his lip, and shakes his head. "Like I said, over and over, and will continue to tell you, I'm not afraid."  
  
"You know, for certain, that I would never do that to you," Erik realizes and that seems to calm him down. Charles would have to know, he can see into the whole of Erik. "Not even at my worst." And there is plenty, he thinks, to be frightened of, but that is one thing he can say for certain. Sometimes he doesn't think he can even claim Charles is safe with him, but that continues to be true no matter how far they go, no matter how many pieces get rustled up from the bottom of the ocean. It's making him more confident, more willing to stretch out and experiment, the way he should've done. "Never," he whispers. "It is not a possibility."  
  
"I know," he whispers back, and squeezes Erik's hand in his. "Erik, look at me, please. I know." When Charles smiles, it's gentle and adoring. "You haven't earned my fear, so you don't have it. What you do have is my trust. This? What we're exploring together right now? None of it frightens me. None of it. It thrills me, and it's incredibly fulfilling - for both of us, I'm sure - but it doesn't frighten me, and it never will. What we have is not that, so please don't disparage it by even considering it in the same category. What we're building will never be that."  
  
He reaches forward and kisses Charles gently, steadying himself with the touch. He wishes he could describe how it feels, like being able to breathe and move without worrying that his existence is going to break something. Even Shaw had been afraid of him. The guards, the doctors, they're all terrified, he can sense it. "You treat me like a person," he finally puts words to it. "Not a wild animal. It's extraordinary. I hope you know that."  
  
"You are a person," he murmurs, and smiles against Erik's lips, leaning in for another slow, easy kiss. Charles shivers in the aftermath, toes curling, and somehow remembers the rest of what he's meant to say. "You're an extraordinary person, Erik, but you're just a person. I'm sure you'll make a mistake, but if it happens we'll discuss it. You've never once proven yourself incapable of that. Like I said, the moment you do is the moment I leave, but until that exact moment - and I don't think it will ever come - I'm yours. And proud to be."  
  
He carded his fingers through Charles's hair, closing his eyes. "Mistakes are inevitable," he murmurs. "I try very hard to control my emotions so that I don't make impulsive decisions. Despite what they tried to tell me, I never wanted my Will to be a weapon. With you, it... feels positive. A good thing. I've never had that before. And it sounds like-your submission-is similar."  
  
"Very similar," Charles confirms, sighing happily at the hands in his hair. It's soothing, relaxing, and he closes his eyes, nuzzling back into Erik. Idly, he checks to see how much time they have left, but - Charles blinks. "Erik?" he asks, alarmed, but there's no distress through their bond. He can feel that. He sits up anyway, searching. "Are you - there's no pain, is there? Nothing wrong?" It certainly doesn't feel like it.

* * *

Erik sits up, forehead wrinkled, that bolt of alarm immediately putting him on edge and he tries to feel out what's happening, stretching his perception to its limits. "No, Charles. Are you all right?"  
  
"I don't - give me a second." Charles closes his eyes, both hands at his temples. Whatever he's attempting, it clearly doesn't work, because he makes a frustrated, helpless noise a moment later, shaking his head. "Why can't I - I don't feel her -"  
  
"Slow down," Erik says, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Tell me what's happening. Feel who? Is Emma here?"  
  
"No," he says immediately, and then pauses, biting his lip. "Maybe? But I'm sure I would feel her, I got a good grip on her yesterday -" Charles takes a breath, shaking his head. Slow down. "I can't hear anyone. Out there. I must just not be focused enough, but I've never had to... it's not something I have to focus on. It's like a blindspot."  
  
He rose his eyebrows. "What does this mean? Is someone doing this to you? Can you withdraw us from this place?"  
  
"I don't know," he mutters, and closes his eyes again, one of his hands dug into his own temple as if it will make a difference. A moment later his eyes snap open, full of frustration, his eyebrows drawn together. "No, nothing. I can only hear you." But if he were being suppressed, wouldn't this be impossible? Effortless or not, this place still requires his telepathy.  
  
"Let's assume that maybe our connection defies traditional logic," Erik says. "Could Emma be trying to lock you down? Come on," he sat up and led Charles to his feet, hand-in-hand. "She might not have anticipated our bond. Suppressors wouldn't work on you, so she may be trying to do this manually?"  
  
"I don't - perhaps, but I know what she feels like, and she's fairly... this doesn't feel like her work." But it could be. He doesn't have another explanation. Charles allows himself to be led, lips still pursed as he focuses. "I've never lost control like I have these past few days," he mumbles, and it clearly terrifies him.  
  
"You've said that you're doing things that you've never done before as well. New things." Erik is torn between considering this good, bad, or a product of exhaustion. Nothing seems to be beating down the doors, but his hackles are raised, defensive.  
  
"Very new things, and old things in ways I never have," he admits. His eyes are closed again, his entire face twisted with concentration. He'd never had reason to do some of the things he has with Erik, and perhaps there's a learning curve, but something like this is so second nature for him that it might as well be breathing. Being cut off from it makes him feel more helpless than he'll admit. "But I - there should be something. Erik, I love you dearly, but shaking me isn't helping."  
  
"I'm not shaking you," Erik blinks at him, touching his face. "I'm not feeling any pain, so there's some part of your abilities that's still working. We're still here. The next question is whether or not we're trapped here."  
  
"You're not -" Charles blinks back, staring blankly for a long moment. "Someone is definitely shaking me. They're being fairly insistent about it, too."  
  
"It isn't me," he assures. "Someone outside?" Erik hates this, he's never more helpless than when he doesn't know what's going on inside of Charles's mind, and finds himself wishing not for the first time that he were telepathic as well so he could better protect him.  
  
"Someone outside," he agrees, because it's the best explanation he has. Charles takes a deep, slow breath, squeezing Erik's hand. "We'll be alright, we just - I just need to focus," he mumbles, but the helplessness is gripping hold of him, too, the room noticeably colder for it as he struggles. "Damn it, why now? I should have a hold of this. Why don't I have a hold of this?"  
  
"We're still here," Erik repeats, and raises Charles's hand to kiss his knuckles reassuringly. "That is no small thing. Panic won't serve us. You can still feel outside sensations, that's positive. So what are the possibilities here? Calmly," he reminds, brushing Charles's shoulders and keeping him close. His Will flexes more intensely like this, now that there's a problem at hand, wrapping them up in an infectious calm.  
  
Charles nods. When he exhales this time some of the panic has drained out with it, body visibly relaxed as Erik's Will seeps into him. He curls closer, seeking that warmth and safety. "I don't know," he repeats, much less frantic than before. "I've never had something like this happen, not since I was a child. Do you know - hm. When you're just waking up, and you've been having a particularly vivid dream, but something outside of it is calling for your attention? An alarm clock, or a voice. That's what it feels like."  
  
"Neither of us are in pain, and no one seems to be attacking us. What can you sense? Can you sense me?" Erik runs his fingers down Charles's spine in little soothing patterns, pulling them to the window where they can see outside. He pulls back the curtain. "Do you think you could be asleep?" he wonders all of a sudden. "Unconsciousness? You are exhausted." Erik should have told him to get some rest, but he wanted them to spend this time together, not knowing when they could meet like this again.  
  
"Unconsciousness," he wonders at the word, mouth pulled into a thin line. He couldn't have passed out, could he? He was exhausted, but not to that degree. At least he doesn't think so. "I can feel you here," he answers the question, leaning into Erik. "And I can feel - something, out there. Someone is touching me that isn't you, but everything out there is hazy. I can't hear anyone, or make heads or tails of anything. But I suppose if I were sleeping, that would make sense."  
  
Erik nods. "The real question is whether or not we can wake you up. I don't relish the thought of us being trapped here, but maybe this is your body's way of telling you that you need to rest. If no one is hurting you, then this is an internal issue, which means we can solve it holistically."  
  
"You could try slapping me in the face again," he jokes, attempting a grin. There's less panic, now, even beyond the weight of Erik's Will - if something were going to happen, it likely already would have. "I suppose even I have limits," he sighs, and makes a face. "I thought I was fine - I slept. An hour or so." But he can't actually remember the last time he had something to eat or drink. On top of that, he's been skipping out on sleep and meals in general, and he has felt like he's constantly under attack, stretching his abilities further than he ever has before.  
  
"That is not a reasonable amount of time," Erik chided gently, but he was smiling. "It sounds like your body is telling you that you need to rest, whatever form it will take. Like REM sleep, maybe. It would also make sense that it's happening now, yes? You feel safe. There's time to shut down the nonessential processes. I am still here. They may, however, think that something is wrong. Can I communicate to them somehow? Let them know they can continue?"  
  
"I don't know how you'll do that." And the thought of letting Erik go in any capacity is enough to inspire fear again, filtering through the calm. He grips tightens on Erik's arm, a bit too tight. "You can't go," he protests.  
  
"I'm not going anywhere," Erik assures him, tugging him close and wrapping an arm around him. He makes the decision easily after considering all the variables. "I'll stay as long as you need me to. They'll be fine." He was in a hospital surrounded by doctors, even if they didn't know what was happening, they weren't going to kill him. "It's OK. I will not go anywhere."  
  
Charles attempts to swallow down his own panic, reaching for Erik's Will. Part of the reason he hasn't been sleeping is because he's terrified of something happening to Erik while he is, and he can't bear the thought of being out while Erik still needs him. "Promise you won't go," he begs, and there's something else there as he buries himself in Erik's chest, in his arms, in his hold. "You can't leave me now. You need to stay."  
  
"I am right here. I won't go anywhere as long as I can help it." He kisses Charles's temple. "We're safe. Take a breath. I'm right here with you." Erik combs his fingers through his hair, doing his best to transmit calm-peace-stillness amidst the battering roar of panic.  
  
He sucks in a breath through his teeth, but it doesn't keep him from clinging, fingers digging perhaps painfully into Erik's skin. He can't be sleeping. Charles tries to focus on Erik's voice, on his Will, on his calm, but something is clawing at his chest and he can't seem to swallow it down. "What if you need me? What if something goes wrong? What if - I need to be awake, Erik, we need to wake me up. There isn't time for this. I need to be there, I need to - I can't -"  
  
"Charles, stop it," Erik says gently, letting the Order suffuse the room. "If you need to be awake, we'll wake you up. Right now, there isn't a whole lot that you can do that you aren't already doing. I'm not in pain. I'm opened up in the middle of an operating room. There are nurses and doctors everywhere. The worst case scenario is not that bad," he smiles. "We in fact, have time for this. The surgery is hours yet."  
  
Charles dips his head, hiding himself in Erik as he breathes. The panic is utterly suffocated under Erik's Order, and all that's left is a bit of a clench to his stomach. That dissipates, too, with steady, even breathing, but Charles still holds tight. "I'm terrified that something will happen again and I won't be able to do a damn thing about it," he breathes, muffled by Erik's chest. "When I'm not distracted, it's all I can think about."  
  
"I know," Erik nods. "Me, too," he murmurs. "At least if they showed up I could fight them off. I can't fight telepathy, not really. They keep targeting you, and I'm utterly incapacitated right now. If it comes, we'll handle it. We have handled everything that has come our way. We are stronger together."  
  
"Don't use my own comforting words against me, Erik," he sighs, feigning exasperation, but he's smiling where he's plastered himself against Erik's chest. He'd said them in the first place for a reason, and he'd meant them. All things considered, they could be in far worse places than Charles' dream world. The thought perks him up a bit. "We really have hours, you think?" he asks, and he can't keep the hope out of his tone. Hours, in a world of their design. They could do anything, theoretically. They could work more things through, things that will make them stronger when this is over, but they could also simply relax. It's more than tempting to sink into it.  
  
"You had a good point," Erik laughs. "I think so. And I think the more time we spend together, the stronger we become. Look at how far your abilities have progressed in even this short timeframe. Even if we don't consciously develop anything, it's evident that being in one another's presence is helpful and healing for us both." He smiles, taking Charles by the hand toward the hall, curious about where they are, wanting to explore and play.  
  
Charles laughs, because it's virtually impossible to be anxious with Erik so light and free. "Are you certain you're interested in starting a school with me, and not a mutant nudist colony?" he teases, because Erik has once again wandered into the hall wearing not a single article of clothing. Not that he's complaining, and he takes the time he's being led behind to admire the considerably nice view, grinning despite the flush to his skin because he knows Erik will see. "Prince Charles' castle hardly needs my imagination, by the way. For all the empty rooms, my father was at least thorough with what he did include before he died. There's a heated pool downstairs. A full theater. Also a nuclear bomb shelter, in case you were in the mood for explosives."  
  
"There is definite merit to that idea," Erik smirks, knowing full well what Charles was looking at. The more Charles spoke the wider his eyes got, and he mouthed nuclear bomb shelter to himself, eyebrows arched comically. Connected by the hand, he peeked in all the rooms, and they emerged in a large foyer decorated with high-ceilings and chandeliers and a large marble staircase. "You could fit my entire village in here," he laughed, an expression of open fascination on his face as he looked all around. "And it was just you and your parents?"  
  
"Yes, just us. I know, it's a bit mad," he sighs, because while it was fairly normal for him, he'd learned how unusual his own circumstances were with time. "We've barely explored a fraction of it. The grounds span for miles. I'm still fond of the gardens, personally. Raven and I got up to endless trouble out there," he laughs. He tugs Erik's hand, unwilling to separate but wanting to peek out the nearest window. The snow is still falling, quiet and calm in the nighttime. "I'd suggest we go out and play, but you're proving to be a Neanderthal who demands I be naked at all times," he teases, grinning from ear to ear.  
  
Miles. Erik isn't even sure he can imagine that, but he laughs when Charles speaks next. "Sometimes I have great ideas," Erik beamed, and he let himself be pulled toward the window. "Let's do it," he says after a second, and then, "preferably while clothed, I suppose." He gave a long-suffering sigh, dramatically sweeping his arm over his forehead.  
  
Charles laughs, lifting up on his toes to kiss Erik. He hasn't played out in the snow in years, and the idea of doing it with Erik makes him giddy. "Are you going to pull a pair of pants that fit your freakishly long legs out of nowhere again?" He purses his lips to keep from laughing, pointedly looking up at him. "It's really unfair, you know. I spent years subtly altering perception to seem taller, and here you are, a giant. In every way." And at that, he pointedly looks down, scoffing as he squirms and heat threatens to coil up in his belly.  
  
Erik dissolves into laughter, tugging Charles closer to him and kissing him soundly. "I'm sure we can rustle up something," he says, and then bounds up the stairs with Charles in hand behind him, and then he lets go and boops him on the nose. "You are _it_ , I believe the phrase goes." He ducked out of the way and started at a run, zig-zagging away from him. "Catch me if you can."

* * *

Charles stares, dumbfounded, as Erik dashes off, stunned still for a moment. Then he grins so wide his cheeks ache, breaking into his own run as he laughs. "You have longer legs, you absolute cheat! We've established this!" He doesn't manage to catch up before Erik reaches the bedroom, but he does tackle him when he does and hardwood floors are no longer an issue, soft carpeting to break the fall. The impact forces a little ' _oof_ ' out of him, but he's grinning and triumphant, straddled on Erik's thighs as they roll. "Caught you," he declares, looking very much like the cat who got the cream. Or a very pleased prince sat stop his throne. He supposes either comparison is apt.  
  
"Ah, but it's only good form to let you win." He grins up, tugging Charles down to kiss him again. His eyes crinkle, a wave of joy emanating from him that's so poignant it's nearly sharp. "Whatever shall you do with your spoils?" he says, reaching to brush the back of his hand over Charles's jaw affectionately.  
  
"I know what you'd like me to do. Neanderthal," he accuses, but somehow he's the one who ends up breathless and squirming atop Erik's thighs. Arousal has never been a particularly strong part of his life, and now it's mixed with so much love and safe, warm comfort that he's dizzy with it. There's no urgency, no rushed, unbearable need, and somehow that makes him flush harder. They've never really gotten the chance to be casual like this, not when every second counts.  
  
Erik bats his eyelashes. "Who, me? I am a paragon of virtue and innocence," he scoffs, fanning his own face like an old fashioned movie star. "It is not my fault that you have a mind in the gutter." He brushed his hand down Charles's spine and curled his fingers over his ass. In that moment, he thinks he could stay here forever. "But now that you mention it-"  
  
"We're supposed to be getting dressed," he protests, but it's rendered incredibly weak when he moans. His ass is still sore and raw underneath Erik's touch, and there's something absolutely delicious about that. He rolls his hips into that warm, big hand, biting down on his lip. "Would you want me like this?" he asks, and suddenly he's shy, eyes lowered as he scoots just a bit farther back. There's nowhere to hide like this. Nowhere to look but Erik, beautiful and bright and here. Charles never could have imagined this for himself, but he knows he never wants to give it up.  
  
Something about Charles seems to unlock a dormant, ancient thing in him, a carefree spirit that can't come out for lack of trust, but here it flourishes. Charles has made this place a haven, and he feels safe, for the first time since he can remember. It's safe, here. Erik props himself up on his elbow, nudging Charles forward just a bit, as though silently saying don't run away. "Like what?" he murmurs, lips pursed. He's tracing that blush with his eyes, unhurried. "I can't think of any scenario in which I would not want you."  
  
"Like this," he emphasizes with a more pronounced wiggle, one where he knows his ass will brush Erik in a way he thinks is enticing. Charles wants to be something desirable for Erik; he got a real taste for it earlier, and he hasn't been able to get it out of his head. It's intoxicating, being what Erik wants and needs. "But we really should be getting dressed," he repeats, and this time it's coy, teasing, Charles making as if he intends to climb off.  
  
Erik pulls him down again, rolling them over slightly so he's braced above Charles, hair hanging down into his face. "Always," he answers, looking for all the world serious and intense, but he's light, floating here in this liminal space. His hand tightens and digs into the reddened skin. "I want you always. In all ways." He gives him another kiss, this one lingering.  
  
Me too, and he realizes it's not out loud only when it echoes, reverberates, becomes a warmth that wraps around them and hums. At first when he moves it's to arch into that firm, possessive touch, seeking it, but halfway through he grins. Then he's squirming as if he can roll away, huffing and fussing though it's all for show. Another game of tag. "Up," he demands, every bit haughty, bossy Charles, even as his eyes are bright with mirth.  
  
He pushes himself up to his feet in an agile movement and takes Charles by the hand, helping him up. "OK, OK," he laughs, and it's only because he's not a teenager anymore that he doesn't decide to just roll Charles over and have his way with him again. His thoughts are a bright hum of desire and genuine, giddy pleasure. "Show me where these tailored pants are, my prince." He bows facetiously.  
  
Charles' laugh comes out a giggle, snorted through his nose, and his attempts to stifle it with a hand don't work in the slightest. He certainly wouldn't have complained about being held down and ravished, but he'll take this outcome, too, grinning as he leads to the drawers. "Are you going to dress me?" he teases, eyes still gleaming as he rummages for his favorite pair of pants, which shouldn't be here, but is. "Princes do like to be waited on hand and foot. It's only natural." There's never been a safer, easier way to push boundaries. Charles has never felt quite so light, the world melted down to the two of them and their games.  
  
It was a joke, but of course-"As you wish," Erik plucks them out of his hands, and picks up a pair of socks that are resting on the top of neatly folded clothing inside the drawer. He nudges Charles's foot up and helps him slide them on, crouching and bestowing a kiss to the side of his knee. With a wave of his hand they neatly pull themselves snug around his waist and button, and he looks out from a mop of curls that have fallen into his eyes, and he shakes his head to clear his vision, tapping Charles's foot to lift so he can roll on the sock. When he rises, he finds a dark dress shirt and holds it out. "This one," he decides and drapes it over Charles's shoulders, using the opportunity to run his hands along his arms and chest, relishing the contact as though he can't bear to be parted even in these small moments.  
  
Charles bites his lip to hide his smile, but he knows there's no way he can hide the fluttering in his stomach, the racing of his pulse whenever Erik touches him. He wants to get on his knees and return the favor and then some, but there's a game to be playing, and Charles wants to know how far he can take it. Now that it's safe, now that everything is soft-edged. "You can dress yourself, of course," he declares, and waves his hand, an overtly dismissive gesture. Charles lifts his chin, and it takes everything in him not to grin, to laugh. "Princes needn't concern themselves with things like that. It's beneath us."  
  
Erik snorted, unable to keep a straight face. "Of course, my _liege_ ," he says, covering his mouth with the back of his hand to avoid outright giggling. He opens the second drawer and pulls out a pair of worn jeans and a white T-shirt, which don't look like anything Charles would touch with a ten foot pole, let alone be in his house or Erik's size, but such is the way of this place. He dressed slowly, not breaking eye contact, and when he stood there in the shirt with his pants still undone he smirked and said, "Unfortunately I can't get the buttons. You see, my hands are too gigantic to work the tiny little-" he's laughing, and he curls Charles's fingers over the hem. "So you'll just have to _deign_ to help me."  
  
Charles wants to do exactly as he's told here, and such is the problem (and not a problem at all). Erik inspires instincts in him he would have thought long dormant, and now playacting is more difficult than intended. He's also so giddy he wants to laugh, to wrap himself up in Erik's arms and kiss him. But he's nothing if not persistent, and let it never be said he doesn't follow through. "No," he huffs, and puts on a very convincing pout. He pulls his fingers back to cross them over his chest. If Erik wants a bratty, spoiled prince, he'll get one.  
  
Erik covers his face, and he wraps Charles up all of a sudden in a hug, lifting him off his feet and spinning him around. He sets him on top of the dresser, leaning in to kiss him and push his back up against the wall. He separates, though, just when Charles begins to kiss him back and smirks across at him. "Ah," he holds up a hand. "That's what you get for not minding your manners."  
  
Charles was more than pleased with that turn of events, laughing and delighted, but being denied earns Erik a real pout, which he's been told is very persuasive. "No fair," he says, the picture of maturity. "Manners are overrated. Kiss me." And this time it's an actual demand.  
  
Erik's lips purse, and he leans in, only to pull away at the last second, putting his finger up against Charles's mouth instead. "Nope," he grins, doing up the button of his jeans slowly. He picks up a sock with his foot and dangles it in front of Charles. "You'll have to come and help me put these on. See how we peasants live."  
  
Charles fights every urge to bite that finger. When he huffs this time, it's real, arms crossed over his chest. All teasing aside, he actually isn't used to not getting what he wants when he wants it. "Kiss me first, and then I'll think about it." He attempts to stare Erik down, but he should have known that would only flip his stomach over, head bowed and lip bitten. Damn him and his impossible Will.  
  
" _Lo_ ," Erik shakes his head, a mischievous glint in his eyes. Even like this, his Will is an all-encompassing thing, existing like a palpable draw between them even when it's not actively being flexed. He sits down on the bed and cocks his head, meeting Charles's gaze easily. "First comes work, then pleasure." He waggles the sock pointedly.  
  
It's not an Order. There's an undeniable tug, a clenching in his belly, but he doesn't have to. He feels very much like the teenager he never really was, playing with boundaries. Charles continues to chew on his lip, but he can't lift his head this time as he shakes his head. This is deliberate, not a fit he's throwing, and it makes him almost dizzy. "No," he says. "I don't want to."  
  
Erik feels a shiver spread down his neck, the urge to Order away that defiance hot on his tongue, but he swallows it down. The game is afoot. "I suppose you'll never know, then," he tuts. "You'll find I can be very generous in rewarding good behavior. Besides. I think you do. I think you want me to Order you to get over here. I suppose I'll have to settle for taking care of myself. _Oy vey iz mir_ ," he sighs dramatically.  
  
Charles bites back a whimper, a mirroring shiver running up his spine. It's not a good feeling, really, being defiant. He would argue that it's actually the opposite, if the clenching in his stomach and the lump in his throat is any indication. But there's something that never really got settled, and they're safe here. They're learning here. Charles wants to know. So he clenches his fists, steels himself, and lifts his chin again, arms crossed firmly over his chest. "I suppose so," he returns. "That's what you get for not minding your manners." He's playing with fire. Charles thinks he might like to get burned.  
  
Well, that's about as far as Erik seems capable of going because his head snaps up and his stare burns, just as Charles anticipated it might. "Get me a jacket from the closet," he murmurs, and at long last there's a thread of Order behind it. It sweeps out as though suppressed all this time, stretching itself between them like a yawn. "Lay it on the bed when you come over here."  
  
Charles tests it when it comes. He's wondered, and now is as good a time as any to experiment, even though that stare makes him burn warm and shameful. So he digs his heels in, clenches his teeth, and fights for as long as he possibly can. It turns out it's not very long, but long enough that there's hesitation, at least, a drag to his feet as he does what he's told. He knows perfectly well that Erik wants him to neatly lay the jacket out for him, creaseless and orderly. His fingers go to straighten the fabric out instinctively, but at the last moment he pulls back. Leaves it crumpled. Charles fights to straighten out the knot in his stomach instead, but it only twists tighter. He knows if he were truly pushing he would lift his chin again, but he can't manage it, head bowed as he stares at his feet.

* * *

Erik looks at him. "You're trying to fight it," he realizes after a second, inhaling sharply. It's a surprise to him-he hadn't realized this was the direction Charles was interested in heading, and he's not sure how he feels about that. They both know perfectly well that if he Ordered something with intent that Charles would be forced to comply, but maybe it isn't real to Charles yet, and Erik wonders when it does become real, if he'll be afraid then.  
  
"No." It's immediate, and not out of defiance this time, because Charles certainly hears Erik's concerns. He raises his head to meet Erik's eyes, shaking his head. It's real for him, and it has been for a while. It's been proven on several occasions, and - Charles plays back earlier, lets Erik feel how very not afraid he is. How it inspires plenty of the opposite. It's curiosity now, light and seeking, a desire to know exactly how far he can go. How far he can place his toe over the line, where the boundaries are, what he can get away with and what he can't. It's nothing more than that. He's not actually testing the Orders themselves, he's testing his own defiance, and Erik's response to it. _I'm not afraid of you,_ he reminds Erik, gentle, more of a caress than words. _I'll never be afraid of you._  
  
Erik pats the bed and reaches up to brush his thumb over Charles's cheek, apologetic. "Like this?" he wonders, unsure himself. He supposes he tends toward lenience regardless, but here, when things are light and easy, he's inclined to allow Charles the freedom to explore and test and be himself, although clear, outright defiance definitely rose Erik's hackles, until eventually he had Ordered him over, so there was something-but that was more an instinctive response, not born of genuine displeasure. Playing around with resistance, evidently, is still difficult for him, but he smiles up at Charles. "Go and get your coat, too," is all he says, subconsciously Will-infused.  
  
It's different, Charles knows. He gets his own coat willingly, perfectly relieved to obey, but when he hops onto the bed it's into Erik's arms. They both need the reassurance, and he buries his face in Erik's neck, needing the skin on skin. Erik isn't displeased, he reminds himself. That needs to settle in before he can speak, a quiet, meek thing in the aftermath. "Sometimes I really won't want to," he says, biting his lip. "It was just a game this time, but -" _But it won't always be_. He wanted to give them a space to act it out, nothing more.  
  
Erik nods, kissing the side of Charles's jaw. "I understand," he murmurs, and he does. It's a good idea, and something they both need to get more comfortable with figuring out. He feels a little silly for his overreaction and he laughs under his breath. "It's-you think of me as-" he wraps an arm around Charles's waist. He doesn't say it out loud, but it hangs nevertheless. Charles sees him as confident, Dominant, almost casually so. He's still learning how to feel comfortable asserting himself, even within the confines of their relationship, as a person to another person. "You know-" he pulls Charles away to look up at him, eyes vivid even in the dim light of the room, "I've never felt more like myself, than when we're together. The more time we spend like this-" he kisses Charles's temple and smiles. "You're returning something to me I didn't know I'd lost." And, he realizes, the more they come up against these barriers, the easier it will become for him to react naturally, to trust his own gut, to be less afraid of pushing back.  
  
"I want that for you so badly," he whispers, and means it with every part of himself. It's a part of Erik that should have been nurtured rather than stolen, and he mourns for it the same he's mourned for his own submission. No more mourning, though. They would make it right, just as they had promised each other earlier. "And sometimes," he says, and this time he buries himself back in Erik, thoroughly embarrassed, ashamed of his own desires and instincts in a way not unlike Erik is of his, "I really will want to say no." He doesn't know why, exactly. The immediate urge is not unlike it is before when they were arguing - to say he will stamp it out, rather than explore it. But he knows that wouldn't be fair to either of them.  
  
"I will be here when you do," Erik promises, because regardless of what happens or how things shake out, it's the one thing he's always felt he can guarantee. Regardless of either of their insecurities, the longer they're around one another the clearer it becomes that they're both invested in this, and that's worth more than any passing insanity. He brushes Charles's hair away from his forehead. "Get your coat on," he grins and gets to his feet, tugging Charles up. "Does this place really have miles? Didn't you get lost?"  
  
"Put it on inside?" he asks, but he's grinning too, because this time he does as he's told. Really there should be scarves, perhaps a hat, proper shoes. There isn't a real chance of frostbite or pneumonia here, but he's always been sensitive to temperature, one way or the other. Either make him grumpy. "I didn't explore all of it," he points out. "But yes, sometimes, when I was very young. There was a lot of land to get lost on. A lot of rooms, too, even inside. You get used to it eventually. It made for a good game of hide and seek, at least."  
  
"Well, I have already found you," Erik proclaims with a proud grin. "So I will not let you go so easily." He shrugs on his own jacket and then meanders over to the closet, pulling out two woolly knit caps and two pairs of mittens, turning around to brandish them. They're all bright pink with cute designs, and the one he holds out to Charles has a little tassel on the end.

* * *

Charles laughs, incredulous and impossibly fond, because Erik is so - _Erik_. He considers protesting, because he has perfectly good winter apparel with no tassels, thank you, but instead he simply takes what he's given, grinning and bright. If Erik wants to dress him up like this, then that's his right. It's such a silly thought, but so - integrated, that he needs to stop to control the hitch to his breathing. This Erik and the Erik who held him down and fucked him sore and incoherent, demanding and utterly in control, are the same, will always be the same, and he gets all of it. No turning any of it off. He's smiling hard enough to bring back the ache in his cheeks as he makes his own trip to the closet, barely contained laughter written all over his face as he holds out... well, at first it might not even be recognizable as a scarf, considering what a monstrosity of fabric and patchwork pattern it is. "Raven made this for me when we were both children," he explains, lips pursed as he fights not to burst into those giggles from before. "It's absolutely hideous, but it's one of my favorite things in the world. Would you like to wear it? I think she'd find it hilarious, so we'd be honoring her."  
  
 _Erik. is. delighted_ and he takes the scarf immediately, wrapping it around his neck with a flourish. "I shall cherish it always," he promises solemnly, doing his best to keep a straight face and not-quite managing it. "Your sister has remarkable taste." He tugs Charles closer to him by the elbow and plasters himself to his side, wrapping an arm loosely around his hip. "Why, simply ravishing," he says, ruffling the tassel atop his head with a smirk. He feels like he might burst, a wild flurry of all-out happiness bubbling up in his chest, foreign and wondrous.  
  
"That's certainly one view of it," he mutters, but even in its dryness it's light, carefree, nothing but open, giddy joy in him. He waits for Erik to lead them down the stairs, bundled up and warm, and he keeps himself as close as possible, not at all comfortable with separating now. Even prepared, the outside chill makes him gasp the moment they open the door, ducking himself into his coat. The snow in the moonlight more than makes up for it, majestic in its calm wonder. Charles so often takes these things for granted, but there's no way to do that now. He looks up with barely contained awe, hooking his arm with Erik's as he watches. The world is more than a boring, incessant buzz again. If Charles has given Erik something he's never had, Erik is giving him something he's lost along the way.  
  
Snowflakes are beginning to gather up around streetlamps scattered along the walkway and Erik looks *enchanted* by it. "Look at this," he says out loud, an unconscious little statement under his breath that puffs out in foggy billows in front of them. "Oh." He's shivering even while bundled up, huddled close to Charles for warmth and, if he's honest, stability. It's not just the snow. "Come on," he has Charles by the hand and leads them at a slow jog through the swirling drifts, his free arm outstretched, a bright smile on his face.  
  
Erik is breathtaking like this, and Charles finds himself watching him more than the snow. It's utterly impossible not to follow, captivated and breathless, but he stops them with a short, gentle little tug. "Wait," he says, "I have something to show you. The life of this place." Because he needs to remember, too. He leads Erik to the gate, rusting in places, covered in snow, and purses his lips in concentration until he finds it. "A-ha," he laughs, and bends his knees, wiping it off. Etched lovingly and persistently into the metal is _'CX + RD,'_ along with a crossed out, illegible word underneath. "Sometimes I forget," he sighs, but he's smiling. "There's a heart to this place. Hidden, sometimes, but it's here."  
  
"Raven?" he asked, tracing his fingers over the word, sense the echo in the metal. He can feel her there, intent and serious, tongue poked between blue lips as she painstakingly made the angular slashes of her initials. He discerns what the crossed-out word is, too. It's all settled in the iron like an imprint, the way Erik can divine fingerprints and stored sensations inside objects, what was a momentary, fleeting impulse to mark their presence has altered the very molecular structure of the gate. He shows it to Charles with a touch to his temple. "Of course it's here. You were here," Erik smiles warmly down at him.  
  
Charles smiles even wider at that. Sometimes, it feels as if there's nothing of him here. Nothing but those empty rooms, the terror and alienation of his adolescence, the imprints of joy and love washed away like handprints in the snow. Fleeting and temporary. But that's not all this place is, nor all it can be. "Would you like to see our clubhouse?" It's ridiculous now, as an adult, but as a child it was very real. "We didn't allow outsiders, but I suppose I can make an exception. Raven will be upset I gave out the password without asking her permission, but I imagine she'll come around." A place where they could be themselves. In Raven's case, that happened to be very blue, but it was special to Charles too.  
  
Erik touches his hand to his chest solemnly. "I would be honored." It doesn't seem ridiculous to Erik at all. It's a natural response to the environment, a way for them to carve out a space that no one could intrude upon. He's glad they had that, and follows Charles down the path. As with the love and affection, these grounds also house their own horrors, like all places do, and Erik tucks them into his heart for safekeeping as he passes by, trailing his fingertips over benches, lamp posts, hedges.

* * *

It's a long trek in the cold. Charles stays pressed to Erik's side for both warmth and comfort, the night around them quiet and peaceful. The snow is sticking, but not enough that there's any difficulty, and he idly admires their footprints, two distinct sets. They were here, and they will continue to be. Their 'clubhouse' was intended to be a maintenance shed, at one point, far off onto the grounds. It was forgotten somewhere along the way, abandoned in the wake of his father's death like many things were. Charles had a hand in it, too; he smiles to himself, pressing the memory into Erik's palm where they touch, into their shared consciousness. He was very good at keeping things unnoticed. When he reaches it, his expression becomes serious, even as he fights not to grin. "There's no password," he tells Erik, a conspiratory whisper. "Passwords can be overheard. You can say anything you'd like, whatever comes to mind. Papaya, or antelope. It doesn't matter. What matters are the signals. I can teach you, but you must protect the knowledge with your life." It's all very silly, but in some ways, he knows it isn't. It's a language he and Raven still use, well into adulthood - Erik has seen it, but he hadn't known what to look for. As it should be, he adds, grinning, because that was rather the intended purpose.  
  
"Of course," Erik says, touching his fingertips to the edge of the shed's door. In many ways it really is like being invited somewhere secret, an untouched part of Charles's mind that he's kept a safe trove in which to escape with the one trusted person in his life. Being handed the key is a gesture of trust, even if it is a relic of childhood, and Erik takes that seriously even if the particulars are a bit charming. Tell me, he asks, eyes bright.  
  
"Knocks first," he says, and his smile is warm. Erik is right. This is a part of himself he has only ever shared with Raven, the one consistently happy part of his life. His one constant, and before Erik, the one he trusted above all else. "Simple. One knock is a question - are you there? Are you well? Two knocks back, something is wrong. I need you. Three knocks, all is well. Knock in this pattern," he demonstrates on the door, a series of raps that follow a simple beat, "and we know it's one of us, not an imposter." Which is silly, perhaps, but they were children at the time, and it doesn't seem so silly now. "Now hand signals. These we use much more frequently - less noticeable than knocking, and it doesn't require a surface." He presses his thumb and forefinger together, down by his leg where it won't immediately draw attention. "This means 'okay?' If you receive the same signal back, it's a confirmation. Yes, everything's well. This," index finger, tapped against his leg, "Means no, something is wrong. Then this," a closed fist, "Means danger, be wary. We aren't safe. There are more, like this," he rubs the back of his neck, a subtle gesture, "means we're not alone, someone is listening. But as long as you know those, you're generally good to go."  
  
Erik hugs his arms around himself suddenly, dropping Charles's hand to do so in an unconscious motion, but he gave him a smile and nodded his head a few times. "Very efficient," he murmurs, committing the gestures to memory with an approving glance over his shoulder. After a moment he squeezes Charles's arm and slides his fingers back into his, inching forward toward the threshold of the shed. "Shall we look inside?"  
  
Charles raises an eyebrow, concerned. _All okay?_ he asks, a thought rather than words. His hand reaches for the handle of the shed, but he doesn't push yet, hesitating. Erik is his first concern, but he has his own reservations, too, a sudden spike of fear that's much colder than the air around them.  
  
He squeezes Charles's hand, reassuring. _All OK,_ he sends back, gentle. _I'm safe. It's all right._  
  
Charles takes a breath, and this time it's his own worry that keeps him from opening the door. It's been so long. This isn't the physical place, and he knows without needing to check that it won't be the same when he goes back. But this place can be a memory, and he's choosing to remember it fondly. When the door finally swings open, creaking slightly the way it always did, it's exactly how he last remembers it, not as a child but as a teenager. The walls are covered in collective scrawlings, painted in places and not in others, writing on the walls, drawings from their collective childhood. Close to the door, under ' _RAVEN_ ' and ' _CHARLES_ ', respectively, are tally marks. Charles is winning by two. Posters they've both taped up - and at times taped over each other's, a playful war. Pictures of the two of them. A cozy, well-used couch, nothing like the covered furniture inside the mansion. A record player, vintage and clearly stolen from inside, albums scattered all around. A dartboard, the center of which is a man's face. Raven's doing. The middle of the wall, in blue spraypaint, Raven's handwriting - ' _MUTANT & PROUD_.' There are traces of the two of them everywhere, an even mix that certainly shouldn't blend well but does regardless. His bedroom inside was noticeably bare, void of anything personal, and it's clear why - all of that is here. Charles is speechless as he looks, heart clenched tight.  
  
Erik comes to a stop just behind Charles, taking in everything silently, eyes flitting about and catching on the various parts of the room that blended from Raven to Charles in seamless effort, his grip tightening without willful direction and he notices, easing up and stroking the back of Charles's hand soothingly. He takes a step further inside, gesturing to the marks and the dartboard, other odds and ends whose presence isn't immediately intuitive. "Tell me about everything?" he says, not noticing it comes out in more of a hoarse croak.  
  
Charles isn't looking at Erik, still staring as if he's also seeing it for the first time. He left this place and never quite looked back, but this is a part he misses. When it was he and Raven against the world. There's an ache now, but he shakes his head, seemingly snapping out of it. His fingers trace the tally marks, some of them very old, near reverent. "Games we played. Competitions. Silly things, anything we could bet against each other. We obviously don't have this wall now, but we still do it. 'Mark for me,'" he says, smiling. Another phrase in their private language. "The dartboard was Raven's idea. Anyone she decided deserved it, usually. Someone who hurt either of us. That man is Trask. Very openly anti-mutant." Self-explanatory. He crosses the room, gestures to more markings. "Our heights." Raven ended up taller, but they both know that. He points at a map, tacks stuck nearly everywhere. "Red are places we wanted to go together. Blue is where she's been, yellow is where I have." If the mansion is untouched, cold and hollow, this place, however small in comparison, is bursting with life, their story written everywhere.  
  
He turns and wraps Charles up in a one-armed hug. "She means the world to you," he says, unnecessarily because it's obvious to them both here, Charles's fond regard for his sister practically clinging to the walls of the clubhouse and over every knick-knack. By proxy he feels protective over Raven as well, already considers her someone to fight for and protect just as he does Charles. There's something sharp in it, a high-note that shrieks through the center of his chest. "I'm so very glad you have her." His sincerity is aching.  
  
Charles leans his head against Erik's shoulder. "I won't let anything happen to her," he breathes, and for just a moment the panic of days ago grips tight at his chest, squeezing. "Using her against me is a terrible mistake on their part. There is very, very little I will not do for Raven." It doesn't need saying, really. They have always protected each other, and despite her protesting, Charles doesn't intend to stop. He can't imagine his life without Raven in it, and he never wants to.  
  
Erik holds him tightly, swallowing and giving a reflexive smile. "They will do nothing to her," he assures, and he has to step away for a minute, closing his eyes and drawing his hands down his face. "Forgive me," he lets out a soft sound resembling a laugh.  
  
"Erik?" Charles gives him space, but he reaches out with his mind, not probing, but seeking. A gentle question, not a demand.  
  
He looks all around for a moment and squares his shoulders, coming back into their shared space and returning his arm around Charles's shoulder. He gestures to the map, doing his best to rein himself back into control, letting out a shaky breath. "Did you guys ever get to travel to the places you wanted together?"  
  
"Some of them, yes," he answers, but he's still clearly concerned. Charles shakes his head, reaching for Erik's hand. He only brushes his fingers over it, as if asking permission. "Talk to me, please?"  
  
Erik is accustomed to being numb, floating from experience to experience without residing in his body, a soul without a home. The past few days hover over his head like a guillotine, years of forgotten grief threatening to extinguish him. The woman in white, fading screams, painted teacups and a house filled with laughter and green plants and the smell of fresh baked bread. "You're good to her," he says. It's not an answer and it is.  
  
Charles bites his lip, considering. Then he tucks himself in close, intertwining their fingers as he does. "It's yours now too, you know." He doesn't know if it will be a comfort. It isn't the same, and it can't possibly make up for what was lost. But perhaps it will mean something. "Some hesitance aside, Raven likes you. She's my family, and that means she's yours as well." He considers it, the people he's gathered into his life. Those he holds closest to his heart. They're a strange, oddly assorted bunch. Lost souls and misfits. Charles couldn't imagine being more fortunate than he is.  
  
The response is a sudden smile, replacing what might've been tears on anyone else. "She reminds me of her," he says at last. "At least, what I imagine she might have been."  
  
"Oh, Erik," Charles sighs, and gives Erik's hand a squeeze, head resting against his chest. Listening to the beat of his heart. After a few moments he pulls away, but only to lead Erik to a shelf. "There was an Xavier family photo taken every year. Professionally, of course. Raven obviously was not involved. We made our own album instead." He opens said album with one hand. The pictures range from smiling, happy faces to silly and all the way back. Bunny ears over heads and stuck out tongues. Arms wrapped around waists, heads in laps. Sometimes Raven is blue, other times she's far more human-looking. They age as the pages turn. Holidays, birthdays, then graduations. This particular album ends, but Erik has snapshots of where they ended up. Hank is in many of the pictures now, a happy widening of the net. "You'll be a part of the album now, Erik," he murmurs.  
  
His smile hasn't diminished any, but he spends a long time staring at the white, glossy spaces between the photographs before he pulls his eyes up to the people in them, tracing his finger over Charles's younger visage fondly. Hank really is blue, and that's enough for him to breathe deeply and shove back the tsunami of shattered glass threatening to rain down over them both and shred them into ribbons. If any two people were perfectly matched, he lets out a little laugh.  
  
Charles smiles, too, but his concern hasn't lessened. His mind prods at Erik's, gentle, soft nudges, but he doesn't push any further than that. "Raven is going to look like she does now well after we both look like wrinkled old men," he huffs, instead of what they're both aware he's thinking. "It's really quite unfair."  
  
"Is that due to her mutation?" Erik wonders, slowly able to pull his concentration out of the pulse roaring in his ears and onto what's actually in front of them. His mind brushes back after the tornado stills, regretful to have allowed his pain to take up any space here.  
  
"Her cells rejuvenate and alter themselves constantly. She heals faster - much faster - and ages slower, if she ages past this point at all. It's completely fascinating and, like I said, utterly unfair." Charles brings Erik's hand up to his lips to kiss, then stares at their linked hands, as if contemplating. "You don't have to apologize for hurting, Erik. I've told you, I want to share in that too," he says, finally.  
  
"Due to the... shapeshifting..." Erik trails off, nudging Charles with his shoulder playfully. "I know," he says after a long pause. "Thank you-I didn't expect it, that's all. It has been years since I even truly considered-everywhere I turn-" he shrugs and the words die on his lips, uncertain where to go from there. "This place is wonderful," he whispers.  
  
"Raven has a place with Hank now, obviously. You've seen a glimpse of it, I think." Back at the CIA, during Raven's first lesson against psionic attacks. Charles doesn't say anything more than that, but it's clear he's thinking, humming to himself as he continues to stare at their hands.  
  
This time it's Erik who brushes up against him mentally, inquisitive.  
  
"Oh, nothing," Charles says immediately, and keeps his head ducked. There's a small smile on his lips, and the beginnings of a blush that he hopes can be explained away by the cold. This place is not well insulated, for all its comfort and nostalgia.  
  
Erik traces his finger over Charles's cheek. "Tell me?"  
  
He has a hard time keeping anything from Erik for long. "I was thinking about us," he admits. "About what we'll do with our space, when we have it. If we are serious about starting a school, and we use this place, we'll obviously need to live here. But not unaltered. So I wondered how we would alter it." He bites his lip. "To make it ours."  
  
"I like that idea," Erik murmurs. Our place. "We should paint the walls yellow," he grinned, then, quick.  
  
"We are not painting the walls yellow," he says, and on that he'll put his foot down. He's still smiling. "But I absolutely hate the wallpaper on those walls inside, so we have to do something."  
  
"Pink. Green. Plants," he enthuses, laying his head on Charles's shoulder. He projects a little image of forest-green walls and dark, hardwood floors, with lots of windows to let in the light and of course, little plants hanging everywhere. A wall of books encased in a mahogany shelf, incorporating many stylistic elements of Charles's study at his apartment with a warm grin. Then the image shifts to a bright yellow space with splashy, modern art on the walls and sleek, minimal furniture. "We'll figure it out. Whatever you like," he shrugs, content. The earlier slash of grief isn't forgotten exactly, but it's transmuted into softer things.  
  
"I do like plants." Charles reaches up to card his fingers through Erik's hair, now that he's not so high up (and that's punctuated by a soft little grumble about his height, and the thrill it brings him whenever he notices in equal measure). They'll figure it out together. Find a way to make something that's uniquely theirs, that couldn't exist without the two of them. Their style choices are very different, but that's going to be part of the fun. "Whatever we do, I demand a large bed to accommodate your freakishly long limbs," he grins. "And bookshelves. Lots of bookshelves. The rest I'll compromise on."  
  
"I think you _like_ my _freakishly long limbs_ ," Erik laughs, pressing a kiss to the side of his neck. He closes his eyes, letting the feel of Charles's fingers working their way through his hair calm the rest of his screaming nerves.

* * *

Bright lights sweep back and forth in a glaring flash overhead.  
  
 _"Dr. Xavier?" a voice calls out from the ceiling. "Mr. Lehnsherr?"_  
  
Erik blinks up.  
  
In the Real, outside of a dream, outside of their connection, Charles is fast asleep. It takes more of that persistent, irritating shaking, and a bright light shining in his own eyes before he grunts. He swats at consciousness like it's a fly for as long as he can possibly manage before he's forced to blink his eyes open, and it's clear as anything that he isn't happy about it.  
  
 _"Dr. Xavier? Are you alright? You were nonresponsive, we weren't sure -"_  
  
Charles mumbles something unintelligible, but waves his hand. " _M'lright_ ," is the very eloquent word he manages, and in the next breath he's reaching out, his telepathy sluggish and lazy, blinking awake just like he is. _Erik? OK? There's no pain, no panic_. Charles allows himself to be grumpy.  
  
He's propped up in a hospital bed behind a curtain next to a few other patients in emergency, separated from Erik who's been moved to recovery. They'd sedated Erik before attempting to wake Charles up again, and so his mind slumbers in genuine unconsciousness.  
  
 _Alles ist gut_ , he rumbles in half-response to a dream.  
  
"Hi," Raven's seated across from him, wearing a bright yellow floral print top and a swishy black skirt that compliment her brilliant sapphire skin tone. Her hair's down around her shoulders in wavy red ringlets, and she's drawn the attention of everyone in the area just by virtue of being in it. "Hey," she grins when Charles blinks fully awake.  
  
"Raven!" Now that he's lucid enough to realize she's here, Charles is delighted. It's the first time he's seen her since the attack with Essex and Emma Frost, and after his very recent walk down memory lane, she's exactly the person he wants to see. He can't help but throw his arms around her, kissing her beautiful, extraordinarily blue cheek. "You look well." And alive, which is exactly how he likes her.  
  
She throws her arms around his neck. "I look like I went three rounds with telepathic Mike Tyson," she cringes, and Charles can feel the vague pulse of a migraine behind her temples, but she's genuinely happy and by this point it's faded to a dull throb. "I was so freaking worried about you. Emma broke into our apartment before I'd even heard what happened, and then Moira contacted Hank, and-" she realizes she's blabbing. "You were almost killed by that _psycho_."  
  
"Oh, trust me, he looks much worse now than I do." All things considered, he came out of the conflict with barely a scratch. Erik is much worse off, which threatens to churn his stomach, but at the least there are small favors in this. "You were worried about me? Raven, you know I would never underestimate you, but a week of training wasn't enough to prepare you to go toe to toe with telepathic Mike Tyson." He sighs, running a hand through those pretty ringlets, but he's smiling. She's here, migraine aside, and they will be okay. "I was so worried I wouldn't be able to reach you. I've never found someone over that much distance before. The only reason I managed is because you were putting up a fight. Brilliant, by the way."  
  
" _Duh_ , because I'm awesome," Raven grins and reaches under her chair to produce a bouquet of black orchids. "I figured you wouldn't be into too cheerful. Warren's going to stop by later, too. He has another press conference. He's outright baiting Shaw at this point, I'm honestly a little worried about him. How's Erik holding up?" she tilts her head, lips pursed sympathetically. "They said you assisted the surgery."  
  
"Oh, these are gorgeous. Thank you, love." He kisses her cheek again, burying his nose in the flowers for a smell. He's smiling, but it fades slightly at the mention of Warren's conference. Charles already knew he was going to fight in his own way, but they've all got targets on their backs now. There's not a single person in his life not in danger, barring perhaps Hank, but Charles knows he'll fight in his own way, too. There's no way he'd let Raven do this without him. "Erik is as well as he can be. I held him up here," he taps his temple, "Through hours of surgery, but he's in recovery now. I didn't even think I could do that, but we're learning new things. Raven, do you remember our clubhouse?" Perhaps it's out of the blue (ha), but he can't get it off his mind.  
  
"Our _clubhouse_?" she laughs, smacking him on the arm. "Of course I do. It seems like the longer you spend with him, the more powerful you get. You've never done so much of what you're doing now, it's kind of cool. OK, minus the scary bad ass who keeps trying to punch your mind. Oh, the clubhouse," she sits back in her chair, crossing her long legs. "Remember Trask?" she snorts. "That was the year I got very good at darts. What made you think of that?"  
  
"Almost dying makes you very nostalgic, apparently," he laughs, and shakes his head. There's something so wonderful about being here with her now, circumstances be damned. _She means the world to you_ , Erik had said, and in a rush of fondness he realizes exactly how right he was. "We've been slacking on our travel plans lately. When all of this is said and done, how about a trip? We'll bring Hank along, of course. I doubt Erik has a valid passport, but there's always a workaround. What do you think, hm? Somewhere tropical? Or perhaps Asia, for a change of pace. I could learn a new language. I'm sure Warren owns several homes wherever we'd like to go, he wouldn't mind lending one out."  
  
"Oh, Charles," Raven murmurs softly under her breath. One of the reasons they clashed so hard was her insistence on providing him with a reality check whenever he went too far off the grid into the land of idealism and hopes, and even in these circumstances she tries to be the voice of reason, but for right now, at this moment, she just nods. "A trip. Yeah," she nods. "We could do Nepal!" she leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees with a mischievous glint in her eyes. She's always had a thing for Everest. "You'd make a cute mountaineer."  
  
Charles shakes his head, because he doesn't need to read her mind to know exactly what she's thinking. "You're very bad at humoring me," he chuckles, because she really is. There's a place for idealism, Erik had said, and there's certainly nothing wrong with having a pretty little dream to tuck away. "I would never make it as a mountaineer. I was really thinking of something more relaxing. I wouldn't complain about a beach or two." He eyes her sharply, though he's fighting not to laugh again. "Say nothing about my potential for sunburn, Raven. No lobster jokes. We all know I'm as pale as a sheet. We can't all have blue skin, unfortunately."  
  
"Ugh, _fine_ ," she makes a show of rolling her eyes theatrically. "Relaxing. Come on, who doesn't love a good hike," she ribs him, grinning. "I've always meant to go back to _Bangkok_. Never got around to it though. You and Erik would love it." Raven's definition of a good time has always been, ahem, unique, but Charles can see she's serious, images of kindness and beauty wrapped up safe in her memories. And some damn tasty food. "Beats this New York summer, barf. Oh, and we could do _Beijing_! My friend Lan's studying TCM there. She's always asking when we're going to go visit her."  
  
"That sounds absolutely perfect, Raven," he grins, wide and dimpled. He means it. It's really been too long since they've traveled somewhere together, and while New York is where he's anchored himself, at least for the moment, he admits the city can be rather suffocating. They could all use a change of pace. "Erik likely speaks a relevant language. Speaking of languages, and of Erik, do you know I speak Hebrew now? Another thing I didn't know I could do. I scooped it right out of his language center. Do you know how handy that is? Maybe not against psychos, but I'd say it should qualify as cool." It seems like he's learning something new about his abilities every day, to the point where even he's having trouble keeping up. "It's one of the more practical applications, along with - oh!"  
  
Raven snorts a laugh. "Do you mean you-" giggle "-Gabby used to call you atrocious-" she buries her head in her hands. "You can just pick up a language-" she blinks and looks at him. "That's wild. I guess I'm the only girl left out of the party, huh?" Raven's no slouch either, she actually knows Mandarin and a little Hebrew from time spent with Gabrielle and Lan, and her German and French are top notch. "He really doesn't mind you in his head," she smiles at him. Her own reticence was never about Charles and entirely all about her own control issues, but she's lying if she says she isn't happy that he's found someone he can really be himself with. It's what she's always wanted for her brother.  
  
"He really does not," Charles says, a happy little sigh. He's remembered something, though, and his cheeks are suddenly very red. "Raven, I have two questions for you. One, did you bring me a change of clothes? I'm very done with this bloody shirt. Secondly, do you think a very kind nurse would lend me some paper and a pen? Unless you happen to have that on you. I need to write something down. Do not ask what." She's going to ask what. And she will pester him until he tells her, because she's a rotten nag (whom he loves very, very much).  
  
She fish-mouths a little bit, leaning even closer. "Don't even try," she points a finger at him. "You had better start talking, mister. I did, in fact, bring along some of your things, but, you definitely won't be getting them until I get my fill of answers." She beams brightly. Oh, this ought to be good, judging by the color of Charles's face, which is almost secondary-mutation levels at this point. Blue and red. They're practically a flag.  
  
Charles groans, eyes rolling up to the ceiling. He supposes after years of being privy to the intimate details of Raven's relationship with Hank - Hank is very bad at filtering thoughts, apparently - it's only fair she learns a few details of his. Not much has ever been off limits between the two of them, anyway. "Erik wants me to write something down for him," he mumbles, which is absolutely a cop out answer and she'll know it. "Some... important things. That's all."  
  
Raven's eyes widen and her lips part in pure delight and she fans her fingers out over her chest. "Oh my G-d. This is literally the best day of my life. I hope you know that." Even with the cop-out answer, Raven knows Charles, and knows full-well what that is code for. "OK, OK," she hefts up a small duffel. "I brought your schedule so there's paper in there. And clothes, of course."  
  
"You're an angel, but also a pain," he sighs, but he really can't keep from smiling. Charles pulls her into another hug as he accepts the bag, kissing the top of her head. "I truly am glad to see you, Raven. You are a sight for the sorest of eyes." He thinks he's taken her for granted lately, and that just won't do. Charles can't imagine where he would be without her, and he will never need to find out. "But you will not tease me about this, do you understand? I am going to enjoy it, collar and all." He might as well tell her now, because the reaction will be far worse if he all of a sudden starts wearing one. A year with Gabby, and not even a mention of a collar. And yet.  
  
He hears her inhale before he sees her reaction and she pushes him back to hold him at arm's length, eyebrows raised. "You're serious." She hugs him again, squeezing him tightly. "You guys are really going for this, then." She winces, unsure how to feel about that. In the back of her mind this is destined for heartbreak, whether Erik ends up in prison for the rest of his life or someone figures out Charles is seeing a patient, none of it's particularly good, but at the same time-"I never thought I'd see this," she laughs, and it's teasing but it's also not. He can feel how genuinely happy she is for him.  
  
Like always, Charles doesn't need to read her mind to know exactly what she's thinking. Raven has her fears just as he has his, and he imagines it wouldn't be much different at all if their situations were reversed. He chooses to focus on the joy, because he knows, despite all her teasing, that this is something Raven has wanted for him, perhaps as desperately as he had. "I know the circumstances aren't ideal," an understatement, but he's smiling as he cups her cheeks in his hands, wanting her to see his eyes and the sincerity there, "but I'm happy with him. Incredibly so. Trust me, I did my fair share of fighting it, but there's no getting around it. So, yes. I'm serious." He bites his lip. "I know you have your reservations, and I won't fault you those, but your support in this means the world to me. I -" His voice breaks just slightly. "I can't do this without you, Raven. I know things have changed, but that much hasn't." Losing her is not an option, nor has it ever been.  
  
"Well, good," she thwaks him on the arm. "Because you can't get rid of me that quickly," Raven laughs. "I can't deny that you've been... well... happier. Your abilities are growing, you're talking about wearing a collar. That's crazy, I remember when you used to rant and rave about it," she grins. "Of course I support you. I just want you to be content, that's all. All of my reservations about it, that's what it is. I'm not begrudging you a good thing, I just want things to work out."  
  
"I know," he smiles. And he does. She's worried for him as she always is, as he is for her. They take care of each other in a world that rarely took care of them. Charles ducks his head to laugh, cheeks pink again. "It is a change, though, isn't it? When I was with Gabby -" Well, Raven was there the entire time. He believes he called the whole Collaring business overrated and pointless, among other colorful adjectives. "I never even considered it. We fought over it, actually. And then here he is, waltzing in and turning everything sideways."  
  
"She's _here_ ," Raven laughs. "She stopped in to say hi a while back, you were still super unconscious. You know, I'm starting to think you have a _type_." She suppresses another round of giggles. She is worried, that much is true, as only Raven can be. Charles has spent so long walling up his heart behind an an impenetrable fortress of independence and self-reliance, seeing it waver and seeing him grow stronger from letting someone in-"It's a good change, Charles."  
  
"Yes, I know. I saw her - yesterday? What time is it, anyway? I can't possibly keep track. Either way, she looked as lovely as always." Some might not use that particular descriptor for her, but they would be wrong, especially after what she put up with while they were together. There's nothing wistful there as there might have been even months ago, and it's nearly startling. So much has changed for him in such a short amount of time. "I think so, too. Do you remember -" Charles purses his lips together to keep from laughing. "In the beginning, when she tried dictating parts of my schedule?" His Negotiations stage with Gabby was rocky, to say the least. The strop Charles had thrown in the aftermath was perhaps one of his best. "Well..." He raises an eyebrow and ducks his head again, and the implication is clear. They could be a flag again, with the splotches of red that reach up to his ears.  
  
"Oh my-you're not joking," Raven cranes her head to watch him scribble on a blank page of his organizer. "Amazing. I'm assuming she doesn't know about Erik," Raven has to figure. "I think she'd be happy for you, too. You guys fought like hell, but you can't help your score." Gabby always got that, which helped when things eventually broke down. "So, you guys are really-going-full out on this?" she taps the leather agenda.  
  
There's something vaguely embarrassing about Raven watching as he writes these things down, but he supposes there shouldn't be. It's a natural part of life that he's suppressed for far too long, and he imagines this is part of it becoming normal. It won't exist in a vacuum anymore. If you are mine, you are mine. Charles fights back a shudder. "Part of it was our score, the other part was me being stubborn," he admits. In hindsight, there were plenty of times he didn't need to dig his toes in quite as hard, but he never would have eased up. He's grateful they ended things while they were still amicable. "It seems like it, doesn't it? I never could have imagined this for myself, but -" But despite any defiance, hesitance, and fiercely held independence left in him, and there's plenty, he's happy for it. Nervous, perhaps, but happy. "He's asking for seven hours of sleep from me, Raven. Please take a moment to conceptualize that." He hasn't gotten seven hours of sleep since he was a teenager. They both know that if anyone else had demanded it of him - Gabby and Raven herself included - his response would be something akin to piss off.  
  
"Have I mentioned I _like_ Erik?" Raven smirks, leaning back in her chair to re-cross her legs. "How are you feeling about all of this?" she turns the question on him for real, chewing the end of a pen and observing him casually, yellow eyes flicking about minutely and categorizing each movement like a cat. Raven's agility is nearly supernatural, exuding out of every movement even while she's lounging in a hospital chair. "I mean, this is like, zero to a hundred. Does he know how much difficulty you've had over the years?"  
  
"He knows," Charles sighs. The first question is a bit harder to answer, so he mulls it over, staring down at his planner. "It's strange, obviously, and I'm nervous, but not in a bad way. You have to know that I've wanted this the whole time. There's a part of me wondering why I'm not running in the opposite direction, but it would be like running from myself. I've tried that. What's the point? Where will it get me? I - " He takes a breath. "I want this. He hasn't had the usual experience either, so it's a bit of a fumble, figuring it out, but I don't think I've ever wanted something more. He makes me feel safe enough to try." That being said. Charles hides a wry smile, still staring down at his own scrawl. "Don't get me wrong, though. I'll certainly give him a run for his money." But Charles thinks Erik can handle it. Can handle him, and all of his defiance. He'll do his best, but when he inevitably steps himself out of place, he thinks Erik will lead him back in. A dance, and eventually they will have the steps memorized.  
  
Raven nods as he speaks. "I guess that's another part of the equation, you know?" He can feel her trying to put her thoughts in sequence, even to be diplomatic about it. "Putting aside the obvious issues," she raises her hands, "and assuming that everything will work out situation-wise," her eyebrows curve up. "Do you remember what it was like, at school? Personal Development and Relationships," she grins. "I know they put you in with the submissives even though I'm not sure it did you a lot of good back then," she huffs, "but our classes were different. We had to learn a lot of stuff, Charles. Being a Dom is more than just giving Orders. Erik's a D5, and that makes you two compatible, but it also gives him a huge degree of control over your life, and your safety. Which I'm sure you'll say is the point, but-it's like you said. He didn't have the traditional experience."  
  
"If you want me to be honest, I thought I'd forgotten most of it. Willfully, because you know I never forget anything. Postures," he says, and there's a hint of disbelief there. When Gabby had asked him - Ordered, except it hadn't made much of a difference - to get into them, he'd scoffed and fussed the entire way through. And yet. Always an 'and yet' where Erik was concerned. "He deserves credit, really. He's had to fight with himself, too, but he understands that. All of it. What it means when it's not a game, how it extends far, far outside - you know, the bedroom." A slight flush, but he continues. "He's made every effort to keep this safe for both of us. We're both learning, or relearning, in some cases, but I don't feel - honestly, Raven, this should be terrifying. But with him it isn't."  
  
Raven shakes her head, unsure that she's been clear. "I mean, right-Postures," she gestures, "headspace, anatomy, physiology, psychology, that's all things we had to learn as kids. Erik spent pretty much most of his life at the _Shaw Institute_ , right? Where would he have gotten that kind of education? I guess I'm a little worried about it from a practical perspective. I mean, let's take something basic like, I don't know," she waves her fingers, "flogging. We had to learn about that! Yeah," she laughs. "Or rope restraint. You can't just go hog wild and do whatever you want, you need to make sure you're not damaging people. If he gets you down into subspace deep enough that you can't reason properly, he could really hurt you if he doesn't know what he's doing, Charles. Have you considered that?"  
  
"Raven," he sighs, and his instinct is to tell her to mind her own business, but that's an unfair, unruly instinct, so he shoves it down where it belongs. She's worried for him, and besides, she has a point. "Of course I have. But he's not -" And now that he's thinking about it. Charles blinks. "Huh."  
  
"Huh?" she stares at him pointedly.  
  
"He knows Postures from every culture, ones that I had no idea existed because I wasn't taught them. Pause-word procedure. He's restrained me before," this part he's reluctant to admit, but since they're apparently going there, "and not once in a way that would cut off circulation or damage me beyond some soreness. Quite the opposite, he knew how to avoid it. He -" This part Charles isn't willing to admit in front of his sister, but he thinks of the discipline session. Even outside of the Real where physical injury wasn't an issue, Erik avoided it. Skillfully. "He knows what he's doing," Charles realizes. But not from a classroom.  
  
Raven's head tilts, eyebrows climbing higher as Charles speaks. "That's a little bizarre," she says, which is an understatement. "I suppose it's somewhat reassuring, though," she admits. "Because this isn't a game, bedroom or not. There's a lot of ways that things can go wrong when you give someone that power over you, physically. I'm glad he didn't hurt you-" she doesn't say that she has no idea how the hell Erik could have restrained him anywhere, but she believes Charles, "-but still. I'm assuming this is the first time he's actually done this before? There's a lot of margin for error. It's just something to keep in mind."  
  
It is a little bizarre. He hadn't thought to ask, perhaps taking the knowledge for granted. He files it away for later. "I know it isn't." Charles reaches for Raven's hand, smiling again as he squeezes. "Trust me when I say you won't find a pair who know that better than us. I am safe, Raven. That I can promise you. We aren't treating this like some silly game or playtime, which for me is truly saying something. You asked if I'm really doing this - yes. And it's nerve-wracking, but I trust him, and I'm learning to trust myself." Which is never something he could have said before this. "And he wants me to practice my Postures, so there's that," he chuckles.  
  
She leans over and hugs him again. "I'm happy for you," he repeats gently. "Really." And above nothing else it is reassuring, if strange, that Erik does know something. Raven's been imagining someone utterly inexperienced having their way, and it hasn't been sitting well. "You should know they've rescheduled the arraignment for tomorrow, and they're going to be transporting him back to the CIA as soon as he wakes up. Moira's already told them you should be there when he does, but in the mean time, you really should get some sleep. Everybody's all right, there's no better time for it," she grins.  
  
"Ugh. Sleep," he groans, but it's good-natured. Charles considers protesting, but part of that might just be those pesky self-taught instincts again, the other half anxiety. If something happens while he's asleep, he's certain someone will wake him up. "Alright, alright. Will you - are you sure you'll be okay?" Now it's his turn to fret.  
  
"Of course," she rolls her eyes lightly. "I'll stay here with you. There's no one better to protect me, after all." Raven's never been very good at humoring him, but it says a lot that she's willing to try.  
  
Charles laughs, and brings her hand up to kiss before he lets go. "There's strength in numbers, my dear," he grins, and with them it's always been true. They will protect each other, come hell or high water, and he doesn't wish to be in the shoes of anyone who tries to get in the way. Satisfied, Charles lets himself fall back against the bed. There'll be time to change and refresh later. Right now he's exhausted.  
  
She crawls onto the mattress beside him and curls up. "Go to bed," she taps him on the nose and closes her eyes, settling in like she belongs there. They're both out by the time you can count to three, and a nurse comes over and draws the curtain, sparing Raven a shocked glance before pattering off.


	20. She said "i like giants- especially girl giants. 'cause all girls feel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. [artwork & face claims!](https://ibb.co/album/x3qXhm)  
> 

It's the next morning by the time Charles wakes up, and it's to the sensation of pure, blinding panic battering his mind like waves from a tsunami. The origin is obvious, Erik's mind a shriek in the otherwise-calming lull of patients napping, doctors fussing, and there's commotion going on upstairs that sticks out, lighthouses in fog.  
  
Charles can't breathe. Panic claws at his chest and he's barely conscious, blinking sleep out of his eyes at the same time that he fights to swallow down the horrible, screeching ache inside of him. He knows immediately what the cause of it is, that it isn't his own, but it still threatens to utterly suffocate him as he gasps and heaves, clinging white-knuckled to the hospital bed.  
  
Erik! Erik, shh, I'm here, he reaches out, following their connection up several floors. Everything is foggy around the edges with sleep, but he fights to keep everything steady even as he trembles with secondhand terror. We're okay, darling. Give me a moment and I'll be right up. Raven is still beside him, and he nudges her out of the way with a kiss to the top of the head. Can you show me what's happening? Can you talk to me? If not, he thinks he can probably get a good feel for it anyway. Charles meant to be there when he woke up, but apparently his body decided to oversleep.  
  
Images smash into him, nurses gathered around a bed, startled and confused, objects flying around the room. Someone had thought it wise to re-up his painkillers with an injection of morphine, evidently, and the poor woman was now cowering in the corner with her hands raised over her head. A metal tray dents the wall next to her.  
  
Raven blinks awake, blearily. "Charles? W'zgoinon?"  
  
"Erik," all he says, and he doesn't stay for a longer explanation than that. Charles grits his teeth, panic settled cold and heavy in his stomach. The elevator is too unpredictable when the bloody things are always jammed or filled with patients getting transported, so he elects for the stairs, breaking into a run at the same time that he - gently, carefully - mentally nudges anyone he encounters on the way up aside.

* * *

"Erik," he gasps, thoroughly out of breath, but he knows Erik will hear him even around his distress. Charles raises his own hands, but not because he thinks there's even a chance of Erik hurting him. "Erik, I'm here." He could stop him manually, but he'd rather not have to. "It's me. You're safe." He just sprinted across a hospital to get to him. Charles avoids a random piece of metal with a step to the side, unbothered.  
  
"Dr. Xavier, you need to leave!" a nurse barked at him, grabbing him by the shoulder to try and tug him out.  
  
It was the wrong move. Erik growled and in an instant she levitated fully in the air, eyes wide, a shriek dying in her throat.  
  
Raven runs in several moments later, nowhere near as out of breath as Charles. "Erik!" she yells, commanding. "Put her down. Now! Put her down!"  
  
Erik lets her go, lips parted. Given that the woman was nearly to the ceiling, she begins to fall rapidly, and he puts his hand out at the last minute to stop her before she smashes into a bunch of broken glass, turning her right-side up and setting her on her feet. She swallows and barks something into her radio, fear and a little revulsion rippling off her.  
  
"It's all right," Raven pats her on the shoulder. "It's OK. You're fine. Why don't you guys all take a break, we've got it."  
  
"He needs medication," a man says. "We can't just leave him here. If this keeps up we're going to have to sedate him, again."  
  
Erik's standing in the corner, clutching his arm which is encased in a large white sling, eyes darting wildly between everyone. He steps into Charles's side, shrinking very suddenly back.  
  
In retrospect, Charles should have dealt with the other people in the room before he rushed in. He takes a slow, sucking breath, chest still heaving, and exhales harshly through his teeth. "Alright, everyone calm down and kindly get out, please," he hisses, and the effect is immediate even though it had nothing to do with his voice. They snap to attention and file out, practically single file, and Charles takes a moment to catch his breath. It doesn't work. "I can alter their memories later," he mutters, half to himself and half to Raven, the distaste thick on his tongue. He hates doing that, hates doing even this much, but desperate times.  
  
And then there were three.  
  
Erik, he calls, and reaches for Erik's mind, projecting as much calm as he can possibly muster. Charles crouches down, a half-kneel, not because he's afraid but because Erik is, huddled into the corner, and he knows enough about psychiatry - quite a lot - to know even the deepest trust can falter during an episode. I'm right here. We're safe.  
  
He's breathing shallowly, gasping, stuttered inhales through his mouth, and he reaches up, touching Charles's face with his fingertips, chest heaving with exertion even though he's barely moved. The bed crumples in on itself and slams into the wall, forcing Erik to flinch back, like he isn't the originator of it, frightened of his own shadow.  
  
Raven moves into the room and kneels down beside them, hand on Charles's arm. "Bad dream, I take it?" she murmurs, dry. Erik thus far has reacted favorably to her, so she puts her hand on his knee. "Hey, hey. We're here."  
  
Erik makes a noise in the back of his throat like a whimper, eyes wide and unseeing, and he lurches forward quite suddenly, burying his head into the crook of Charles's neck.  
  
Charles' arms wrap around Erik immediately, cradling him gently, always careful of his arm. He's got a firm hold of Erik's pain receptors, so he knows that isn't contributing to the panic; this is all a trauma response, but Charles can handle that. He strokes his fingers through Erik's hair, caresses the nape of his neck, firm and grounding and present. "Shh, shh," he soothes, soft despite the hoarse croak of his voice, heavy with sleep and panic and running up several flights of stairs. "There we go, love. I have you. We're alright." All okay, he repeats, letting it sink in through the bond, deep into their beings where both of them can feel it.  
  
He stays silent and grips Charles hard, and slowly begins to relax as time passes, the tremors in his body evening out. They become aware of some things hovering and vibrating all around them, mostly as it stops. Raven sits herself against the wall and lays her head on Charles's shoulder, settling in for the time it takes for Erik to come back to himself. The first thing he says, given enough time for Charles to actually catch his breath, and everyone to have relaxed for a good ten minutes, is a shaky, "Hi."  
  
"Hi, darling," Charles breathes, and it becomes a ragged, uneven sigh. He's slowly let the panic drain from his body, caught his own breath and focused on helping Erik steady his. Somewhere through the trembling he'd settled himself against Erik, too, still stroking his hair and petting gentle against his back, fingers digging in soft little patterns. Although he'd overlayed the entire floor with calm and stillness, there was a pervasive thrum of fear, something he couldn't take from them while they still had their memory. Charles sighs. It's unpleasant business, maybe, but he doesn't need their overreactions coloring what is already a growing bias. Erik is clearly terrified of this place, and it would be brilliant if they could stop trying to put needles in him while he slept. He can't fault them the mistake, but it really should be handled more delicately.  
  
But why would you treat a wild animal delicately? It's a bitter, far back thought, and he hides it from Erik as he kisses the man's forehead.  
  
"We're alright now," he smiles, a bit too shaky to be wholly reassuring, but it's only because his nerves are shot. "Now, how about -"  
  
Charles stops cold.

* * *

Erik immediately holds him tighter, a small cluster of metallic orbs hovering and raising into the air, growing spiky edges as if mimicking Charles's sudden stab of panic. Erik makes a soft noise, glaring over Charles's shoulder at the door, good hand clenched into a fist that digs his nails into his palms. The pins shoot out of the orbs and impale the closed door at the other end of the room in warning.  
  
Raven looks up. "What's going on?" she's the first to say, rolling to rise to her feet in a single agile movement.  
  
This is not the time, and Charles knows that's exactly the point. Attacking them head on at their best is one thing, but wearing them down over time is another entirely. He can't guarantee Erik will stay calm through this, and having Raven close - it's a comfort, but it makes her a simultaneous target without the need for a second telepath. He does the math, runs the invisible numbers stacked against his own abilities, however improved. There's no way he can possibly account for every factor, not without tearing himself apart from the inside. It's a fine line, and he's walked it too often these past few days. Even with some decent sleep, he's exhausted, weakened, lagging precious seconds behind like his telepathy is sleepy, too.  
  
When the door opens, it's not with a bang. It's a calm, nearly gentle swing.  
  
Charles clenches his jaw, grabbing for Erik's hand. Agent Moira MacTaggert walks into the room, just as worse for wear as she was a day ago when they last spoke. At first, besides the tired lines of her face and the creases in her suit, there's no outward sign of distress. Her expression is perfectly calm, blank.  
  
There's a plastic gun to her head. He'll never get his mental fingers around her before she pulls the trigger.  
  
_Check_ , he thinks grimly, and knows Erik can hear it. He can't swallow around the panic and nausea, and he knows he's digging his nails in hard enough to break skin.  
  
"Alright, Emma," is what he says, and it's not nearly as calm as he'd like it to be, shaky and hoarse. "Enough with the theatrics. Let's talk."  
  
"Why tell, when I can show?" Emma's voice calls out, and it is her voice. She's here, somewhere, even though it sounds like its coming from every wall, every window. "Omega-level. They weren't kidding," she huffs. "But not even you can keep this up indefinitely. My message has yet to sink in."  
  
What Emma doesn't account for is Erik. The agent holding the gun to MacTaggert's head is visibly distressed, as though unable to control his own actions, but he startles when the gun in his hands abruptly crumples beyond any reasonable usage and drops to the ground. Erik's on his feet, growling low in his throat, and he shoves his hand out, causing the agent to fly backwards across the hall, the sound of his suit sliding against linoleum a symphony in the silence.  
  
Charles can feel Emma's surprise, and quite suddenly, she steps out from behind Moira, having kept her distance. Erik lets out a wild scream and every shard of glass and piece of bent, sharp metal flies at her, shredding her white pantsuit to ribbons and forcing a thousand small cuts out of her exposed skin, blood staining the porcelain fabric. She holds her hands up in front of her face, struggling to get a grip on the thing in front of her. Wild animal indeed.  
  
The tray on the floor molds itself into a cylindrical baton and snaps to Erik's hand, and he steps over the broken implements, plastic and metal crunching underfoot. She moves her hand to her temple, eyes locking on Charles, before Erik rears back and slams her in the chest with the baton, and then in the head, causing her to slump over. He raises it up again, ready for the kill.  
  
Moira steps in front of the woman in white, raising her hands. This is good, she thinks. They can apprehend her, they can gain more clout, they can-  
  
"Erik, stop! Erik don't!" Raven cries, having pressed herself into the wall while a maelstrom of objects floated up around her in a flurry, a tornado that has yet to die down.  
  
Charles is in more pain than he can ever remember feeling.  
  
He isn't certain it's Emma. When the panic settled in, he'd instinctively grabbed hold of everyone, even the minds Emma's claws were dug into. There's no finesse to it, his scalpel to Emma's hatchet strikingly similar. The intention had been to freeze everyone, perhaps more precise than the day before. But he can't manage it.  
  
It doesn't matter if it's a block or an attack. Whatever it is, the rebound is searing, utterly unbearable pain, a screeching, roiling onslaught of it. It takes everything he has to lock it inside of himself, teeth clenched gnashing and tight around a scream of agony and the threat of projection. A migraine they can handle. This would fry anyone else, and Charles doesn't trust himself to be soft.  
  
He can't stop Erik. He can't freeze him in place. In this moment, he's as good as powerless.  
  
So he does the next best thing and throws himself in front of him. He may not stop for Moira, unseeing in his rage and terror, but he will see Charles. Their philosophies on preservation of human life notwithstanding, he would never put Charles in danger for an agenda.  
  
He will see that somewhere in the flurry of panic and chaos, Charles is bleeding. Not from his nose - though that, too - but from his side. There's something stuck in him, impaled somewhere in the storm. Not an intentional thing, but a casualty of destruction.  
  
The something is decidedly metal.  
  
"Please, Erik," he gasps, and then his knees give out and he howls.  
  
Erik feels it a few moments later and he drops with Charles, pressing his hands against the wound, feeling his blood wash over the back of his hands, lips forming a word that won't come out of his mouth.

* * *

Raven's at his side instantly. "Charles!" she yells, "we need a doctor!"  
  
The whirl around them stops and all the objects abruptly fall to the ground with clinks and thuds. The noise is deafening. Lifting his arm, Erik throws Moira and the other agents out of the room and slams the door, isolating them from the rest of the hospital as he crouches over him, touching his face shakily, brushing back his hair and getting streaks of blood everywhere.  
  
No, no, no, no.  
  
"Erik, you need to let me in," Moira bangs on the door. "Erik!"  
  
It's not a scratch, but Charles knows instinctively that it hasn't hit anything internal or particularly vital. All things considered, it's fairly shallow, inflicted in his mad dash to get between Erik and Moira. The pain isn't radiating from the wound, it's radiating from everything else, threatening to swallow him whole. Emma is unconscious. This isn't her.  
  
Charles makes gasping, heaving, whimpering noises, reaching blindly for Erik. His teeth are knocking together, chattering and clanking. "Erik," he manages, more a gurgle of agony than a coherent word. His thoughts fill in the blanks.  
  
_Rage makes man a beast. Please._  
  
Emma's already stirring again and crawling to escape, but Moira kicks her in the face and she finally slumps over. "I may not be a mutant, but I've got moves," Moira says to herself, blowing a strand of hair out of her face and fixing her blazer. "What's going on in there! Raven!"  
  
"He's hit," Raven shouts back. "And I think someone's in his head."  
  
"Well, I've just knocked Emma out. Is it Essex? We've been suppressing him!"  
  
Erik hasn't calmed down at all, clutching Charles close to him and refusing to let him go, blood soaking his hospital gown. He brushes his hand down his cheek, and he lifts up Charles's shirt, holding out his hand and gently extracting the filaments that have embedded in Charles's skin, taking off his shirt and bunching it up to press over the wounds.  
  
"I don't know-Charles, what's going on?" Raven's asking him, trying to keep a calm center for everyone to draw upon. "Is it Essex? Do we need to go after him?"  
  
Erik's head snaps up preemptively.  
  
Charles couldn't answer if he tried.  
  
He's felt pain. Plenty of it, in all amounts, both secondhand and personally. It's nothing compared to this. If he projects, if he lets go, he knows he could destroy everyone in this hospital. His agony could have a body count. The most dangerous mind in this building - in this country, perhaps on this Earth - and pain can be weaponized.  
  
So he traps it all inside. Charles starts to seize, body contorting, trembling, sweating, breaking apart in Erik's arms. His mouth is open, but no sound is coming out.  
  
His mind is extraordinarily powerful, but there's only so much stress a brain can take before it shuts down.  
  
The door blasts off its hinges and Moira just-barely jumps out of the way to avoid being hit. Erik hands Charles to Raven, leaning over to kiss him on the forehead before taking off down the hall at a limping run, once again... stark naked...  
  
"Erik! Get back here!" Moira shakes her head, eyebrows shooting up. "What the-hell-"  
  
Three more agents unload from the elevator and level plastic guns at him as he races past. "Stop! Inmate Lehnsherr!"

* * *

"He's going after Essex, come on," Moira grabs a gun of her own, one of the abandoned on the ground and cocks it. She'll consider later the fact that he can manipulate plastic, right now they have bigger things on their plate.  
  
"What the fuck are we supposed to do!" Raven crows, indignant.  
  
"Keep him comfortable, and get a nurse to help you look after that wound."  
  
Erik throws open the elevator doors at the end of the hall and disappears inside, slamming them closed and tipping his chin up to the ceiling, closing his eyes and exhaling. There's nothing in his mind but a predatory roar, and when the doors open he's on the first floor surrounded by patients and doctors who yelp in shock at his sudden appearance.  
  
He stalks past to the room where they're holding Essex, just off the main triage center with an armed guard outside. Erik throws them both down the hall with a sweep of his arm and the doorknob and lock shoot off, denting the ground with a metallic thud.  
  
Charles gasps, eyes wide and unseeing, and the world goes white.  
  
Erik was his anchor. The steady moor he attached himself to, the only thing keeping him tethered in a whirl of unceasing, inescapable agony. Every single inch of his body is screaming, bursting, screeching neurons, from the top of his head to his curled toes. There is no comfort here. There's only writhing, silent anguish.  
  
He reaches out, helpless and spinning, but it's too much.  
  
When he opens his mouth to scream, a hundred voices echo him. All around the floor is sudden torment, nurses and doctors and patients clutching at their own heads as the pain reverberates.  
  
No -  
  
Charles reigns it back in, but at his own expense. More than just a writhe, his body begins to twist itself up, heaving and shaking violently. His heart rate is more than elevated.  
  
And somehow, somehow, there's a corner of his mind still his. Still separate.  
  
It's repetitive, a single mantra, but it's there.  
  
_Kas vekheyme makhn a mentshn far a beheyme. Rage makes man a beast. Rage makes man a beast. Rage makes man -_  
  
Raven picks him up in one fell swoop, hefting him in a fireman's carry as she falls into step behind Moira.  
  
"Where are you taking him?" the CIA agent stares, incredulous.  
  
"Just trust me! We're about two seconds away from being fried to a crisp, here. Where's Essex being held?"  
  
"Follow me," Moira and the agents take the stairs, without the benefit of Erik's abilities the elevators are much slower.  
  
By the time they get there, it's to a vision of Essex, restrained in metal and lifted off the ground, face twisted in agony. "Did you really think we wouldn't have people here?!" he spat, landing a globule of saliva on Erik's arm. He wrenches it and Essex slams into the opposite wall with an ungodly crunch.  
  
"Nathaniel, stop this!" Moira levels her gun at him.  
  
"Erik, please!" Raven leans Charles against her, heavy. "Listen to me. Listen to Charles. We're here."  
  
"Did you really think you could keep pumping me full of suppressants and we wouldn't retaliate? We have people everywhere. The CIA, this hospital, your homes, your schools." Essex is raving like a lunatic, face contorted in a mirror of agony.  
  
Erik grits the back of his teeth and a strip of metal wraps itself around Essex's throat, squeezing, squeezing-  
  
Everything stops.  
  
There's still twisting, raging, incomprehensible agony. It's from more than Essex. It's from more than Emma. It's an injury just as Erik's arm, ignored until it's searing. If Erik's arm is hurt unproperly healed, breaks and gnarling snaps on top of existing damage, Charles' mind is the same.  
  
Every mind in the hospital is frozen, suspended.  
  
No.  
  
It's more than the hospital. Charles doesn't know how many minds he's gripped in his fingers and tugged like strings, but he knows it's far too many. He knows that when they snap back, the recoil might shatter him.  
  
And Erik's is not one of them. Not because he couldn't be, but because he needs him.  
  
Raven's hold is slack in her stillness. Charles falls in the aftermath, an ungainly, echoing thud. They only have moments. Perhaps less than that. Essex is still breathing, even unmoving.  
  
He won't be for long.  
  
He can't do anything but cough and sputter on his knees, crawling forward in a hazy, impossibly slow drag.  
  
"Er - ik," It's two syllables, and Charles isn't sure he can get much more out. "Rage - makes - man -"  
  
He wheezes, but his limbs still move. He has to get to Erik. On knees and elbows and among shattered glass and broken metal shards, Charles crawls, bleeding freely now from the wound there wasn't time to apply proper pressure to.  
  
The strip around Essex's throat tightens, pushing against his jugular, making his veins stand out as he gurgles and splutters, fingers twitching against the bonds that restrain him to the wall. Releasing his hold, Essex drops to the ground, a careening metal crash echoing through the room and Erik moves to Charles's side, forgetting him in his overwhelming concern, and he touches his fingers to Charles's temple, face crumpled in despair. "Charles," he whispers, crouching low and taking him in his arms. "What do I do-I don't know what to do-"  
  
There's no blue to Charles' eyes, the azure Erik adores blown out. They're dark, edged with anguish and strain, but he somehow keeps them from rolling back as he reaches for Erik. "Erik," he gasps, and contorts, screaming now that he can, entire body wracked. "I can't - hold -" All those minds in his grasp, and they weren't to keep them from Erik. They were to keep them from him.  
  
Erik was a flurry of chaos and rage, but he didn't hurt a single person that he didn't intend to, barring Charles. And that was his own fault.  
  
Charles sobs, helpless and terrified, and reaches for anything he can grab hold of. It's not rage that's destroying him. It's fear.  
  
Erik's mind is a shattered symphony of fear itself, cold, icy tendrils gripping his heart where it rabbits in his chest and he's barely lucid at this point, failing to understand the nuance of the situation, failing to grasp what's happening in the real world, his focus narrowed to Charles in his grasp and the looming, sinking horror that he doesn't know how to help, Essex curled in on himself in a twisted menagerie of metal and flesh. He cards his fingers through Charles's hair, sticky blood painting trails down his side. "Don't be afraid," Erik repeats over and over, without realizing that he's Ordering it. "It's OK, don't be afraid. _Ani kan itekhah_."  
  
Don't be afraid.  
  
Charles lets go.  
  
The world bursts into action. Voices and activity and movement and rebound that makes them dizzy, this pocket of the world collectively nauseous and unbalanced, but unharmed. Outside on the streets of New York City, people blink and falter, confused and sluggish instead of the seamless way they continued the last time Charles held them. They brush it off, and in the grand scheme of things, it was only minutes. They won't think twice of this later.  
  
Hearts still beat. People still breathe. The world continues on.

* * *

Charles' eyes roll into the back of his head, his heart stuttering in his chest. He's not breathing.  
  
Moira and Raven stutter back into life, with Moira blinking at the sudden change in everyone's positions, and then staring at Erik who's huddled with Charles near the corner of the room amidst broken glass and twisted chrome, and he lays Charles out on the floor, checking his pulse with two fingers and shaking his head rapidly, eyes wide and panicked.  
  
Raven runs over to his side. "He's not breathing-he's not breathing!" she yells up at Moira. "Get a doctor! Get someone!" she rolls up her sleeves and pushes Erik back, where he ends up shrinking into the wall, and starts compressions, counting under her breath. She tilts his chin back and plugs his nose, giving him a breath after thirty. "Where the fuck is the doctor!"  
  
"Security's advising them not to come in here," Moira returns to the doorway, winded.  
  
" _You are absolutely shitting me!_ " Raven shrieks. "You do realize I just saw this on television- _hm, hm, hm, stayin' alive_ -un- _fucking_ -believable-Charles _Francis_ Xavier, if you die on me I will _never_ forgive you!" Erik stands then and looks around, half-feral. He lifts his hand and two abandoned ball bearings snap to his palm, forming identical, playing card-sized sheets that hover in the air. "This is not the time, Erik! Not the time!"  
  
" _Mmmhhh_ ," he clears his throat and gestures for her to get out of the way, waving his fingers and ripping off the buttons on Charles's shirt, moving the fabric to reveal his motionless chest and the bulk of the gnarled wound at his side.  
  
"What is he doing-"  
  
Erik puts one of the slats on Charles's upper chest and the other on his side, breathing deeply through his nose and shutting his eyes. Everyone within a clear radius of Charles gets pushed backwards on their feet. Raven covers her mouth. Erik's breaths come quicker and quicker before quite suddenly, the metal sparks with static electricity and delivers a jolt large enough to lift Charles's body off the ground.  
  
For a single, aching moment, nothing happens. Charles is perfectly still.  
  
Then all at once he sputters back to life.  
  
He's wheezing, grasping at his own chest, eyes wide as he coughs and attempts to get enough oxygen into his own lungs. It hurts, too, like hell, actually, a burning, flared up pain, heart stuttering its way back to life, but compared to the throbbing, screeching in his head, it's practically nothing. At least it's all distracting from the open wound in his side.  
  
"Saw -" He really shouldn't be trying to speak now, but he forces it out anyway. "Saw -"  
  
Charles head lolls to the side, thumping audibly against the floor as he forgets whatever it was he needed to say. There's cracked glass there, so all things considered it isn't the best place to rest his head, but all that gets from him is a breathy hiss as he reaches out blindly.  
  
The metal bits lift off of his skin and discard themselves beside, and Erik waves for Raven to get him a pillow from the bed where Essex had been handcuffed to before his impromptu visit to the floor.  
  
Essex snarls, trying to move unsuccessfully. Moira re-adjusts her grip on her pistol, still pointed at his head, and someone hands her the suppressant jet injector which she moves to press against his shoulder. "I'm going to get out of here," he threatens, "and when I do-"  
  
"Save it," she rolls her eyes.  
  
Erik separates Charles's head from the ground and slides it on top of the pillow, and he's not really himself at the moment because he brushes Charles's hair back from his temple tenderly, in full view of everyone around them. Fortunately they all think he's insane, so it's less telling than it otherwise might be.  
  
Still, Erik takes his hand. Stay still. He looks up at Raven, plaintive.  
  
"Let's get a gurney in here," she says, looking more confident than she feels. "And... like... a blanket. Maybe."

* * *

Charles is in and out of consciousness, but he's breathing, which makes him distinctly better than he was a few moments ago. The mention of a gurney panics him for the moment he has the ability to let it, and despite being told to stay still, he wriggles and thrashes, crying out when that does absolutely nothing for the gash in his side. He isn't calm until he has Raven's hand in his, and Erik's gripped tight on his other side.  
  
_Stay stay stay stay safe safe safe safe safe_ \- It's not just projected to Erik through their connection. It's broadcasted as if through a loudspeaker, but unfortunately that loudspeaker is having technical difficulties because it screeches as it does, a loud, eerie whine that settles awfully in the stomach.  
  
"Can we get a freaking _doctor_ in here!" Raven grumbles and both her and Erik lift Charles up onto the gurney when Moira and Duncan roll it in, and then they're getting Essex, who's weighted down by the metal restraints so a third agent comes in to help and they slap handcuffs on him, dragging him out of the room.  
  
Erik touches Raven's arm and looks at her as though that will telepathically communicate what he wants, but unfortunately, it does not.  
  
"I can't-you need to talk to me," she murmurs, gentle. "What is it? Can you gesture, write it down?"  
  
Head-shake. His eyes look to the wound, twitching under Charles's labored breaths, and he touches his hand to his chest, and then lifts up one of the abandoned metal slats, forming it into a needle which he holds out to her. He hasn't left Charles's side, touching him and trying to broadcast safe, calm in return, but it's a bit of a feedback loop at this point.  
  
"Oh! Oh, OK-OK, yeah. Can we get some kind of suturing kit in here, at least?" Moira shoots back a thumbs up and heads out to the reception desk. "And preferably some kind of pain killer, for the love of G-d. Can you do that, Erik? Stitch him up? Do you know how?"  
  
He nods.  
  
Everything is very foggy. All Charles knows is that there's pain, and quite a lot of it, but he can't always tell where it's originating from. He supposes in the end it doesn't matter much. Either way his entire being is still exploding into agony with brief moments of clarity where he can squeeze a hand in his or get in a less heaving breath that doesn't feel like swallowing liquid flame and not much beyond that.  
  
He's patting Erik's hand - he wants to show Raven, too, but even semi-conscious and delirious with incomparable anguish he remembers she doesn't like this - until he has his attention, then reaches up to touch his temple. Or Erik leans down, knowing what he wants. It doesn't matter. He doesn't need to, but apparently he's forgotten, and he projects a stuttered, stop-start image - there's blood on Erik, and he's concerned, vaguely panicked. He doesn't realize it's his blood. Speaking of blood, he's lost a good deal of that.  
  
Erik takes his hand and presses a kiss to his fingers, reassuring. He's a bit steadier but he can't talk and he can't even form words in his head, all his thoughts a blur of whip-fast clouds locked in a cyclone. Guilt and horror and unnerving desperation, and he's vibrating at an imperceptible frequency, choking on his own incompetent fear.  
  
Moira returns to see Erik and Raven both leaned over him, looking more like concerned family members than a doctor and his patient (and his sister, OK, Raven gets a pass, here). "I got this from triage," Moira says, opening up the kit next to Erik. "Are you sure he can handle this? I could probably menace someone into-"  
  
"If they could be menaced, trust me, they'd be in here," Raven growls. "You've got this, right? You're good?" P _lease be good. Please don't do a hatchet-job on my brother and give him sepsis or something._  
  
A needle and thread float out and he takes some gauze and alcohol swabs out and lays them down, getting everything ready, and he makes a sympathetic grimace and looks at Raven. It's going to hurt, a lot, but he needs to clean it. He makes a small, aborted gesture, his hand flat against Charles's chest, indicating for Raven to keep him still.  
  
Even hazy and far off, Charles attempts to prepare himself for it. The most important part is that he doesn't project. He can handle the agony. Even if he can't, he can bear it, but if it gets tossed off from his mind to anyone else's he knows it could be deadly. He locks his jaw and closes his eyes, squeezing hard at Raven's hand before she lets go.  
  
It doesn't last. His mouth parts in a wailing, wounded scream, body attempting to thrash. It doesn't work with Raven holding him down, much stronger than him, but he certainly tries. It's not just the physical pain; the echoing throb in his temples intensifies, and he sobs with it. For a moment - just a moment - the horrible ache of it spreads outward, another off-tune whine that pierces like metal against metal, but he pulls it back. Clenches his teeth and draws it into himself where it can't hurt anyone else.  
  
Erik moves in quick, broad strokes, taking his time to make sure the wound is properly cleaned out. The whirlwind of his head begins to calm as he works, splintered in-between expressionless professionalism and a soothing warmth that he projects at Charles the entire time, cocooning him up and acting as cotton batting against the rending, searing pain.  
  
When he's finished the needle winds itself through the thread and he begins to weave Charles's skin together, and it becomes rather clear that he does know what he's doing, waving his hand over to mimic the fine motor control necessary and touching Charles's face and forehead while he works.  
  
"Here," a pill bottle rattles and Moira hands Raven two tabs. "Get him to take that. It's codeine, it should help. He doesn't have any allergies, right?"  
  
"No, no," Raven takes them and coaxes Charles to open his mouth. "Come on, this will help. It's just a little while longer. _Primum non nocere_ , right?" her eyes roll. "I swear, when we're out of here, they'd better get ready for a lawsuit, refusing to treat him because he's a mutant! It's ridiculous!" Raven doesn't have anything to do except hold Charles down, so she's relegated to _Bitching Duty_.  
  
"Well, it looks like we've got our own on-call doctor," Moira jerks her head to Erik, head tilted to the side. That's certainly an interesting bedside manner he's got there.  
  
Charles begins to drift. The codeine will help with the physical pain, at least, and the rest he can likely manage when he isn't being stitched closed. His sounds become pained little gasps and whimpers, punctuated by harsh, shallow breaths. His hand is clammy like the rest of him and his skin has a faint blue tinge to it, but he's grateful that Raven is stil holding it with her free hand. Nothing is particularly rational now. Despite Moira's eyes on them, he leans into Erik's touches, needing them to stay properly grounded. To keep from losing control again.  
  
"Mmm - mmmm," he mumbles, but it's clear he's trying to say something. He reaches out again, frustrated and fussing when he doesn't immediately gets what he wants. None of his thoughts are words, only images and feelings and reflections, but he tries to show Erik anyway. At first it's all a feedback loop of pain, but he fights through that, shows Emma's unconscious form the last time he saw it. The question is clear, though not explicitly asked: _is she taken care of, too? Safe?_  
  
Erik winces through the harsh jangle of sensation that bombards his consciousness when Charles projects at him, but he manages to nod. Once, twice, letting out a sharp breath-things don't coalesce in anything understandable. He doesn't know, reality hasn't filtered in and he's focused hard on his task, the stitches forming in neat, perfect rows. At long last the needle inverts on itself and ties everything off, and then Erik's placing a thick, soft bandage over it, motioning for Raven to help him with the tape. So much of himself is dedicated right now to not melting down and taking the room with them that he can't string together coherent thought, and everything else is pushed at Charles in a haze of _calm-relax-easy-relief. Safe, safe, safe._  
  
Charles pulls his hand back as if it was burned in the aftermath, whimpering and chastised. His telepathy is not the gentle, careful, effortless thing it usually is. It's jagged at the edges, frayed and cut open with the rest of him. It's grown spikes. He has to hold it back or he'll hurt someone, even Erik. It keeps him quiet and subdued, floating in tormented in between as he clenches his teeth and bears it, bears it, bears it.  
  
It feels like it goes on forever. When it's done, there's no distinct difference - everything still throbs, aches, burns, stings, he just can't feel the needle anymore. He's let go of both of their hands, afraid to touch - what if he projects? What if they suffer? So he stays silent except for the unconscious, pained noises and breathes harshly, breathes and breathes and wishes he could pass out but knows he won't. He can't speak and he can't use his mind, so he's thoroughly trapped, miserable and suffering, but at least it's not one of them. Small, small favors. They're safe. Everyone is safe. That's all that matters.  
  
Erik doesn't know what's wrong or how to fix it, so he stays beside him as long as necessary, bowing forward to press their foreheads together. No matter what happens he will put himself in front of it for Charles, whatever pieces of himself are left until he is nothing but shredded dust, and he tries to do that now, mentally, wrapping up all of those jagged spikes inside of himself and curling them around his own mind and body, housing them away from Charles's consciousness and bearing it with barely a twitch. Moira's stepped out to track down someone willing to examine Charles, Raven murmurs reassurances next to his ear, while Erik does his best to project over their combined panic, trying to convey through touch what he can't in words. Safety, love, protection. Presence.  
  
It's enough. Charles soaks himself in it, breathing and alive, in a hospital where the minds he had gripped are also breathing and alive, with his two most treasured people. Breathing and alive. There's not much more he can ask for at the moment, besides perhaps relief from the shredded, screaming throb behind his temples. He doesn't know when that's going to fade, but it's still taking everything to hold it back, teeth constantly clanging together as he clenches and grinds them.  
  
"M - m..." Words aren't working. Charles lets out a frustrated hiss, but he's unwilling to project, his connection with Erik one-sided for the first time in weeks. It's a noticeable loss. He settles for leaning into both their touches, never reaching out himself in fear of losing his very frayed, very fragile control. "Ow," is what he finally manages, and it's accompanied by the smallest, barest of grins, more for them than for himself, because he's just found the understatement of the century.

* * *

"Take it easy," Raven swats at him. Erik is breathing shallowly, about two seconds away from losing his ever-loving shit, which is super not helped by the fact that he can't feel Charles anymore and everything vibrates in the room like a warning siren. "Both of you, oh my G-d, you drama queens." She rolls her eyes, dragging them both into a careful hug.  
  
Moira returns a short while later with Gabby, who shoots everyone a wry salute. She has a cart with various instruments on it to take Charles's vitals, but Erik holds his hand out and stops it mid-track, causing her to bump up against it and he shakes his head, wanting everyone to just leave so he can do it himself. He's ready to shoot Moira and Gabby clear out of the room. The door shakes a little.  
  
Charles is barely conscious for all the pain, for his part, but he still recognizes when there's a problem. At first he tries sitting up, which is a predictably terrible idea, and he bites down the whine of pain that follows for Erik's sake. And Raven's. And everyone else, because despite the ache-ache-ache, he can hear voices buzzing louder the more panicked they get and he's really going to burn up from the inside, his brain useless, globby mush if this keeps up.  
  
"Let," he tries, and coughs, throat impossibly dry, "Let her." Charles beckons Gabby forward as well as he can, eyeing Erik. There's no way to project calm like this, or even to reassure him, and it leaves him feeling empty and helpless. He has to tell her something, and there's no way to do it without telling Erik, too, so he sucks it up and gasps it out. "Meds - not working." Or maybe they were, and the pain from his head was overpowering it. He couldn't actually be sure. What he could be sure of was that he didn't know how much longer he could endure, and Charles considered himself to have a fairly high pain tolerance, all things considered.  
  
Erik growls in the back of his throat when she approaches, like he really is an animal throwing himself over his mate to protect them from strange intruders. It's only at Charles's beckoning that he considers backing off, but he glares at Gabby the entire time, watching for a single movement out of place, a single aggressive twitch and everybody in the room knows Erik will crumple her like he did the bed.  
  
Fortunately Gabby is familiar with this particular brand of trauma and she gives Erik a soothing smile, gently wrapping a blood pressure cuff around Charles's arm. "Hey," she murmurs down at him, a light-hearted bright spot in the endless drone of nervous rage and horror that permeates the area. "Bit of a rough morning?"  
  
"H-ha," is what escapes him, a mock laugh that becomes a choked, wretched out sob as every muscle in him tenses, locks, releases, repeats. He doesn't know when this is going to end, but at least there's a competent doctor in the room. He trusts Erik with his life and more, and he did incredibly with what he had, but he's not in his right mind right now and everyone knows it. That being said, he needs him close, too, eyes tracking him even as he focuses on Gabby. "It - oh, _fuck_ ," he grunts, which for Charles is close enough to admitting he's in the worst pain in his life. He raises his hand to show Erik it wasn't anything Gabby did even as he fights back the urge to vomit, legs locked together as he trembled and sweats. He's too hot and too cold, in seething, horrible pain, but also experiencing numbness, his body heavy and disconnected. "Got - telepathic - analgesic?" If he doesn't laugh even slightly, he'll fucking cry, and then Erik might take down this entire hospital.  
  
Erik has an idea, but he's shaking and unable to verbalize it properly, so he touches Charles's temple and quickly runs off out of the room, knowing full well that it's only his presence that's keeping Charles stable, but he doesn't want to waste time trying to communicate when he just can't, he can't feel Charles anywhere and his thoughts are loud and incoherent.  
  
_I'll be right back, I'll be right back, soon soon soon_ -so he just runs as fast as he can, ignoring every stab of pain in his own body because Charles isn't there anymore and he didn't let anyone give him morphine, but he's accustomed to dealing with it in high levels and shoves it down as best he can.  
  
When he shows up at the nurse's desk he's completely naked, drawing several startled eyebrows, and looks ready to break down sobbing, cheeks splotchy with color, which makes everyone wary of the man they've already seen destroy several pieces of perfectly decent furniture. He wades through a bunch of staff he doesn't want until he finds the nurse from yesterday, the one who healed Charles's cut, and grabs her by the shoulder.  
  
He tugs her a little by the arm, wanting her to follow him.

* * *

Meanwhile, Gabby squeezes the pressure cuff and attaches leads from the EKG to his chest. "Not at the moment, I'm afraid," she winces with him. "Do you know what's going on, Charles? Can you tell us what's happening?"  
  
Charles gasps the moment Erik leaves, predictably panicked despite the wave of Erik's thoughts that at least somewhat explain his fleeing. He follows him as far as he can, but his telepathy shorts out, tugged back to him with a terrible rebound. It doesn't settle well, and he has to force stuttering, shaky breaths out, trying to hide it as he shakes his head. That brings on another onslaught of sharp, stabbing pain, one he has to close his eyes against. He really is going to be sick. "Pain," he manages, reaching up a shaking hand to his temple as if it weren't apparent. "Can't - no control." And he hates to admit it, and now he's panicked and trembling and worked up again, nerves thoroughly shot.  
  
The nurse in question jumps about five feet into the air at his presence. He's somehow far less intimidating like this, panicked and desperate, but she's still just as helpless to follow him. She's a sweet, gentle girl, not particularly suited for the high tension of the room she's led into, but above everything else is an intrinsic need to help. She looks for permission before she rushes to Charles' side. "I - um," it's unclear whether she's flustered because of the situation, Erik, or because she's been thrust into a room of high-Doms as an S2, but probably all three, "I can help," she explains. No one in this hospital except Erik and Charles know about her mutation, but it doesn't matter. She's a nurse and this is her job.  
  
Charles notices her steeling herself, and he has a feeling she's never done anything quite this big. He heaves out a choked, gasping breath. "Your best," he assures her, and it's not a full thought, nor can he truly manage a smile. It seems to calm her anyway, and she takes a long, slow breath before she presses her hands to Charles' side.  
  
Erik watches, wide-eyed, and Raven takes hold of Charles's hand again, squeezing gently. Moira's talking into her phone, issuing low orders for Frost and Essex to be taken into custody and suppressed until they can be officially charged, and Gabby prepares a syringe just in case the nurse's efforts are in vain-she's presuming the lady isn't offering some faith-healing operation-and gives his vitals a quick scan once all the machinery is set up. Erik perches himself on the opposite side of the room, eyes darting between everyone furtively, and Moira comes over to wrap him up in a blanket because he's unsettling everybody. He flinches at the touch and backs away, but she holds out the blanket and he snatches it up, draping it over his shoulders like a cape, not breaking his attention on Charles for a second.  
  
Charles moans.  
  
It's a low, hoarse noise of relief. With no pain medication - at least not any that worked, his brain deciding to circumvent that as easily as it did suppressants - the nurse's hands are the first taste of reprieve he's had. It doesn't do anything for the agony still raging behind his temples, but it does ease it some. It takes the edge off, and that's what he needs to be able to properly breathe again.  
  
The nurse takes shaky breaths of her own, face screwed up in concentration as she pants. "I - I'm sorry, I think that's the best I can do right now," she whispers, meek and apologetic, head bowed down low.  
  
Charles cranes his neck to look. It's not fully healed, but it's weeks of progress in what was only moments. This girl isn't unlimited in the way he and Erik are, he got a good glimpse of that the first time he read her. She has an upper limit, and there's an equal force applied to her work - healing too much, too soon leaves her exhausted, and she does look pale and weak. About to faint, really. He reaches for her hand with his free one, smiling as much as he can muster. "You've done more than enough," he murmurs, one of the first fully coherent things he's said in a long while. He glances around the room and the flurry of activity and chaos it's dissolved into and forces a grin around his own suffering, his voice a mock whisper that everyone will hear. The room desperately needs some levity. "Doms, hm? Bloody control freaks." And for that he earns a surprised, quiet giggle, which he considers a victory considering the circumstances.  
  
It doesn't ease the tension in Erik at all, he's still glaring at everybody as though he expects the situation to dissolve at any moment, as though he expects Charles to drop dead in front of him, and it leaves him horrified and numb and just standing there with his lips parted, his eyes fixed grim and blank on Charles. Dread lives in his gut now and has settled there stubbornly, an icy block that refuses to give up its home. He wants to throw everyone out and take Charles in his arms, but he can't so he animates only to tug his blanket tighter around himself, shivering. His mind is empty. Alone, a dead star for billions of years, cold and faded.  
  
Gabby smirks at him, though, and Raven laughs outright. "Only when we've cause to be," Raven says with a wink, patting his hand. "You scared the shit out of us."

* * *

"Was this some kind of attack?" Moira wants to know. "That wound wasn't severe enough to cause the symptoms you were experiencing, and we knocked Frost and Essex out cold. They shouldn't be bothering you again, but that leaves a bigger question."  
  
Charles doesn't have an answer for that. His eyes wander to Erik, his mouth dry, dread and emptiness sinking like a rock to the bottom of his own stomach. He can't reach out yet. He wants to, desperately, but his mind is a broken, burning place, a supernova exploding and collapsing in on itself, and he can't let Erik touch it.  
  
"It's still there," he admits, and touches his temple again. He doesn't want to, with Erik so on edge, but keeping him further out of the loop than he already is won't help. "It feels like someone's cleaving my brain open, if I'm honest. And I don't know why. It was too much with the physical pain, but it's -" He winces. It's still terrible, and it's straddling the line of unbearable.  
  
Erik taps his own arm with his open palm, looking down at it and then back at Charles, ignoring the fresh hell of agony that the motion shoots through his very soul and biting back a cry that turns into a shocked gasp instead, and he ruthlessly bites down on his cheek instead, hard enough to draw the metallic copper of blood over his tongue, keeping himself silent. His eyebrows are raised, willing everyone to understand.  
  
Even Charles has a hard time with that one, and he prides himself on speaking fairly fluent Erik. "I don't understand," he admits, quiet and helpless, because everyone is looking at him for a translation. Without his half of the connection, images and intentions don't filter through the same way. He can only glean as much as he can from everyone else, which at the moment is a pathetic, frustrating little to nothing. What he does know is that seeing Erik in pain frazzles his nerves again, and he snaps up from the bed like he's shot, ignoring the protests of everyone else and the pounding pain and vertigo. He stops in front of Erik, unable to keep himself from reaching out for his injured arm. "Don't do that," he scolds, eyebrows pressed together in firmness he can't maintain with Erik in front of him like this.  
  
He points at his arm instead, causing Moira and Raven and Gabby to all exchange equally confused glances. Raven follows, eyebrows knitted together, and lets Charles lean against her for support. Erik squeezes his eyes shut, frustrated, overwhelmed, and he covers his face with his good hand, forcing himself to breathe. When he finally opens his eyes, it's to repeat the action from earlier, resting his palm over the crook of his elbow, but this time Charles is closer so he touches his temple, as if equating the two.  
  
"Oh," Charles breathes, finally understanding. He's frustrated that it took so long, but at least he got it at all. Through excruciating pain and the broken, aching loss of connection between them, he thinks it should count for something. "Yes," he agrees, and bites his lip, closing his eyes. It's not related, but he desperately wants to take Erik's pain now that he's been reminded. It doesn't work, and the resulting panic and sick, helpless guilt leaves him dizzy enough that he all but falls over, Raven the only thing keeping him upright.  
  
"Does someone want to tell me what all that is?" Moira points at her arm, then crosses them both over her chest as though disapproving. It doesn't take a telepath to tell she's worried and covering it up.  
  
Erik hums lowly and shakes his head, blinking hard. He pretends to fix the bandage in place over Charles's nearly-healed wound, flutters his fingers over skin when no one's looking, trying to bring ease when nothing seems to. He's useless and impotent, every reasonable avenue stripped from him, locked in place by everyone crowding around. He rubs little circles with his thumb, head turned down, thoughts a disjointed well of blood and don't hurt, don't hurt, please don't hurt. He can't Order that.  
  
"Hey, easy," Raven catches him effortlessly. "I got you. Want to go back to the bed?" she says, hopeful.  
  
Charles can't do anything about it, either. They're trapped here with everyone hovering, and no way to turn their eyes or attention. He feels more helpless than he ever has, desperate and longing, a whimper caught in his throat. He wants to lean against Erik - he loves Raven dearly, but she's not... she's not - She's not his Dom, and Charles needs - he needs - He swallows, shaking his head, but the panic is still there, thick and hazy, the pain not far behind. He's getting more nauseous by the second. "It's just like any other injury," he gasps. "I pushed myself." And now he's suffering. It feels rather like someone cut off one of his limbs, actually. Or two or three. "If something happens, I can't..." He can't do anything, and now they're trying to keep two experienced telepaths in custody. He can't do anything. He can't help Erik. He can't be good for Erik. He can't take care of Erik, the way he's supposed to. He broke their connection and he promised not to. Charles sobs.  
  
There's no reasonable excuse for Erik to be there, either, and Raven knows it, and she can't think of any excuse that wouldn't come off forced and strange. "We've got them both in custody. They won't be going anywhere, and they won't be getting out of those suppressors any time soon. I've got Duncan on it personally. It's OK," Moira tells him, patting his shoulder. In reaction, Erik throws her back on her heels, and she trips, grabbing at the edge of the doorway to avoid landing on her ass. "Inmate!" she barks, furious. "That's enough!" Erik steps in front of Charles, like he can block out everything by being physically between him and the world. He abruptly takes Charles's hand, glowering at everybody who clearly thinks he's lost his marbles.  
  
Charles reaches out to handle it, instinctive and seeking, but nothing happens. Moira's fury and concern doesn't settle, nor does she give them space. Erik and him are no more connected than they were a moment ago. Suppressants have never worked. Alcohol and drugs have never worked. Charles hasn't been without his telepathy since he was nine years old. This is the closest he's ever been. All those years of wondering, of idly wishing. He never would have expected it would feel like this. His chest is heaving. His ears are ringing. The pain is almost negligible in the wake of it. Charles realizes what's happening. He's hyperventilating, the entire world spinning as he falls to his knees. "It's - it's gone," he cries, which isn't true, but it's so much of a loss that he can't breathe.  
  
Erik waves Moira out of the room, somehow managing to be careful to avoid sprawling her out on the floor, and he removes Charles's other hand from Raven's grasp, gently pushing his fingers against her shoulder, guiding her away. Then he does the same with Gabby and the nurse, physically leading them away before taking care of Raven, giving her a small nod that she had no idea how to interpret, but would guess it was some kind of reassurance before he shut the door and drew the blinds.  
  
The knob and lock fitted themselves back into place and clicked, preventing anyone from coming back in. Moira craned her neck, listening for any signs of distress, but when none came, she settled for standing just outside the door, on edge. Raven was the one who seemed the least upset by this turn of events, and Gabby was the one who suggested Erik was simply narrowing his field down to trusted people in an attempt to regain self-control, which was enough psychobabble that everyone mostly agreed.

* * *

As soon as they were alone, Erik knelt to Charles's side and wrapped him in a one-armed hug, covering him with the blanket and petting his hair. "It's OK," he croaks, forcing himself to sound steady.  
  
Except it's not. Charles wants to curl closer, but he can't do that with Erik like this. He's in pain, and Charles can't feel it, but he knows it's there and that he can't do a damn thing about it. His own pain is nauseating, dizzying, overwhelming, and he lets out little hiccups of distress, not loud enough to alert anyone but enough that it sticks in his chest. He's not breathing well. "I can't hear you," is what he eventually says, agonized, because it leaves him so empty he's helpless to it. He's gotten used to not being alone, and now the alienation is so stark it threatens to suffocate him. "I can't hear you, Erik," he repeats, desperate.  
  
Erik presses back to the wall and pulls Charles to his chest, inhaling deeply. " _Yode'a, yode'a_ ," he whispers back, barely audible, the words a hoarse slam of phonetics into one another that barely sounds legible now that Charles doesn't have his telepathy to sink into Erik's linguistic center, and Erik isn't focused enough to translate. " _Ani kan, kol beseder. Ragu'a ve'neshom_." He kisses Charles's brow, covering them both with the blanket like a little nest.  
  
He understands, but in the vague, jumbled way foreign languages sound when you've first learned them, when sentences take longer to string together and each word must be painstakingly translated into a native language. It's frustrating like this, another degree of separation. He sniffles against Erik's chest, pained and whimpering as he tries to breathe normally. "I can't hear you," he says, the third time he's repeated it. Miserable. "I can't hear anyone. I can't hear -" For Charles, it's like suddenly losing any other sense. His sight, or his hearing, except it feels like both at once. He's never felt so in the dark. "It hurts," he mumbles, curled up.  
  
" _Yachazor_ ," he tries to reassure, his face a stony mask without the benefit of seeing beyond, and now he's got an image of Erik like everybody else does; taciturn, silent, a solemn pillar amidst the raging storm. " _Yode'a_ ," he just repeats himself, too. " _Shomea, ve ro'e, ve margish_ ," he adds softly, and draws his fingertips down Charles's face as if illustrating a point. " _Anachnu batuach, ani mavtiach_."  
  
He misses half of it. By the time he's finished translating the first part, Erik is already onto the next. And why wouldn't he? It's his language, it's not Erik's fault Charles' mind is a hazy, jagged mess, that the last thing he's capable of doing right now is communicating in a language he shortcutted and never studied. He doesn't want to ask Erik to repeat himself, and he wants to ask him to speak English even less, so he just whimpers and hides himself in his chest. Erik could have told him that there were pigs flying outside and he wouldn't have known, and the thought puts so much distance between them that Charles really can't breathe. There's never been as many barriers between them as there are now.  
  
He seems to realize that Charles doesn't understand a few moments later-evidently unaware he's defaulted-when he says it again in English, "Safe. You're safe. I promise." He runs his fingers through Charles's hair in rhythmic, repetitive movements. " _Ani mavtiach_." He lays his hand over Charles's heart, encouraging him to take a deep breath.  
  
Charles breathes, but it's a stuttered, heaving thing, even as he leans into the fingers in his hair. They help with his frayed, torn nerves, at least, and he gets as close as he possibly can, grateful that there's skin on skin. He doesn't think he could bear clothes between them right now. "Don't need to speak English," he mumbles, feeling pathetic and small and useless. "Just - not fast." It's humiliating that he has to ask for that when he should be able to understand, but comprehending English is difficult right now. Charles wants to curl up into Erik's chest and never come out.  
  
Erik doesn't stop, letting Charles bury his head in the crook of his neck and holding him there, bestowing gentle touches across his forehead, cheeks, his hand, anywhere exposed. Ordinarily while they're in private Erik alternates between both languages, entirely unconscious, and very much unnoticeable when everything is equally comprehensible, but it stands out starkly without that. "It's OK," he hushes Charles, arms tightening around him. "I love you."  
  
Charles breath hitches. Usually when Erik says that, it's accompanied by - well, love. A wave of affection and fondness he can feel echo deep inside of him, that seeps into every crevice of his mind and body. It's not that it's empty now. He knows the sentiment is likely there. But he can't feel it, and when he peels back to look, he can't see it immediately there either. Charles trembles, and then he leans over, shaking head to toe, and is violently ill.  
  
Fortunately Erik feels it before it comes on and he manages to fling a garbage disposal can to them just before Charles upchucks all over him, and shoves it under him, moving to crouch instead, and rub his back in sweeping circles, nothing particularly telling about his expression, as though he's observing someone cross the street instead of his submissive lurching to heave up their nonexistent lunch, which is a sight that should inspire something from a Dominant, but his features are in the same grim, blank configuration as before. " _A'avtach atah_ ," he murmurs quietly. " _Ragu'a_. I have you."  
  
There's absolutely nothing in his stomach. It's all bile, thick and heavy on his tongue, and whatever fluid they'd pumped into him, which unfortunately doesn't seem to be much. He still can't stop retching once he's started, gasping and and panting and sweating, the cold, sick dread and pain finally catching up to him. Erik's voice is a lulling calm he clings to, but it's so strange to hear it without the rush of safety and familiar dominance that it only works him up further. It hadn't occurred to him that he might experience this differently, too. That there was an aspect to Erik's Will - to Erik - that he experienced uniquely through their bond. He can feel parts of it, still; he knows it's there, but it's so hollowed out at the edges, all of the color and nuance drained. It's not the telepathy he misses most. He thinks, desperate and bartering with whatever forces will listen, that he'll be happily baseline as long as he can go back to feeling Erik.  
  
When he's finally done, dizzy and cold and shaking still, he searches Erik's face. He knows it's Erik's. That those ocean eyes belong to the man he loves. But in this crashing, sinking place, where pain owns most of him, he can't recognize them. He can't feel what's there, and so it seems like nothing at all. The thought terrifies him so much he moves away instead of closer, crawling back on his knees. "Erik," he gasps, like he's not looking right at him. "Erik, Erik, please -"  
  
There's only a faint twitch of his eyes in response, imperceptible to someone used to reading facial expressions and basically nonexistent for Charles, and he reaches a hand out, placing it on his knee. "I'm here," he says. "Deep breaths," he Orders, and that at the very least is familiar. "Don't be afraid."  
  
Charles does as he's told, clinging to the Order like it's the only lifevest he has and someone's thrown him to sea. He doesn't know how to swim, he realizes. He doesn't know how to swim because he's always relied on floating, never having to tread, and now he's sinking. "Come back," he croaks, and touches his own temple. "Please come back." It's a plea. He's begging.  
  
Erik's lips part for a few moments, before settling into that eerie calm once more. "I'm right here," he says. "I know you can't feel it right now, but I'm here." He lays his palm over Charles's cheek. "I won't leave."  
  
He's always been able to feel it when Erik was upset. When he was panicked, or scared, or longing. When he was pleased, too. There's none of that now, and Charles doesn't know what to do. "I don't - I can't - I'm sorry," he settles on, and crumbles. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry -"  
  
"Come here," Erik Orders and wraps him up once more, shaking his head. "Do not apologize. It's OK. We're safe. I'm here." He's relegated to repeating the same three things over and over again.  
  
Because Charles isn't getting it. Because the panic is settled so deep in his stomach and pounding in his head with that excruciating, throbbing noise that blocks out everything that he can't get it out. Because he feels small, and weak, and pathetic, useless and vulnerable. Because it hurts to breathe, because his stomach is unsettled, because he's sick and hurting and still exhausted. Charles settles against Erik, but he isn't settled. He isn't calm. He closes his eyes to keep everything out, including Erik, and he hates that thought so much that he lets himself sob. Eventually he's still, and he wishes, hopes, and prays to beings he does not wholly believe in that he will just pass out. It doesn't happen.  
  
Erik is silent, holding Charles close and returning his hand to the back of his head, murmuring much of the same under his breath into his ear in a mix of languages. There is no panic, no frustration, no happiness, no love, no nothing. He is utterly devoid, only the soft sound of his voice an indication that he's even a human being. He settles into telling Charles a story, the contents of which are less important than the use of speech as a grounding tool.  
  
Erik's stories have never failed to calm him. To ground him, to lull him, to comfort him, to bring him down safely and warmly. He has never not been fascinated by them, either, always listening attentively, hanging on each word with delight and wonder. Not now. When he focuses enough to hear anything, it's the deafening, horrible silence behind the words, the hollowness. Eventually he shakes his head, sitting up through another round of nausea. "I need drugs," he gasps, which might have been a comical thing to hear come out of his own mouth under any other circumstance. He can't be awake right now. "Morphine, or - a narcotic, something. Anything." Just knock me out, damn it.  
  
He shook his head once. One might expect concern or confusion from him, but of course there was nothing, and his tone remained as it always has, bereft and dull. "I can't, Charles. You know I can't do that."  
  
"Yes, you can," he protests, and tries to be forceful about it when all he can manage to be is desperate. "You need to." Charles' eyes wander to the cart Gabby brought in earlier. There's a needle waiting there, and he knows instinctively that it's a pain med. Something strong enough. "Please."  
  
"I'm sorry," Erik whispers. "You won't do that." It's an Order.  
  
It hits him like a brick. Something rises up from the well, something thick and ugly and terrified. "So you'd rather I suffer?" he hisses, and sits up on his knees, ears ringing and body screaming at every movement.  
  
Erik mimics his body language, sitting up himself, at least as well as he can with his injury. His stare is blank. "Calm yourself, Charles." Another Order. "I won't allow you to rely on substances to cope. You know I can't do that."  
  
Charles physically recoils, as if he's been struck. Then his head bows and he crumples in on himself, impossibly still with his his arms wrapped firmly around his own middle. He's silent.  
  
He stays still for a moment before reaching for him again, resting his hand against Charles's shoulder. "You've been injured," he says. "Your mind needs time to recover. It will recover."  
  
"Don't touch me." Charles can't do cold like Erik can. Even without their connection humming between them, every hurt and fear is written all over his face, into the space between them, his defensive, curled up posture. He doesn't jerk away from Erik's touch, but his lips are pursed, that set, defiant way he rarely uses with Erik.  
  
He lets his hand drop to his side, totally unresponsive.  
  
Charles waits. He waits, and waits, and he realizes he's waiting for nothing. Erik doesn't move. He doesn't touch him. There's nothing through the bond, because it doesn't exist. Charles pulls his knees up and buries his head between them, sniffling, his shoulders shaking.  
  
There is so much of Erik that's locked inside of his head, without telepathy, Charles simply has no access to it. All the good, caring, empathetic, nuanced, complex parts of him are shrouded behind that empty gaze, like he no longer exists. Erik only blinks, staying where he is, not moving or speaking.  
  
Charles can't handle it. He can't. He stands to his feet, shaky and off balance, fighting off the urge to be sick again, and tries to make his way to the door. He's dizzy, and his legs are shaking together too much, so he ends up falling. It doesn't deter him. Charles grits his teeth and resorts to crawling, which happens to mean crawling through shards of glass.  
  
Erik does move, then, catching him immediately and helping him stand up as best he can with one arm, but adrenaline catches the rest of his lacking strength. "Where will you go?" he asks, more of that same frustrating calm. "I can't out there. _Shehe kan, bevakasha._ "  
  
That was the point, he thinks ruefully, but Erik will not hear it. He also doesn't mean it now that there's a grip on him, and Charles feels tugged in two separate directions. More than that. He wants to curl up into Erik's chest, but there's so much hollow there he knows it won't have the right effect. "Please let go," he says instead, and wishes for the opposite in the same breath, eyes lowered to the floor.  
  
"Stay with me," Erik says back, shaking his head once. His eyebrows furrow faintly, before his expression smooths back out. "It won't be better. Please."  
  
"Why?" he snaps, and it's more pained than vicious, more the beginning of a sob than it is harsh. "You don't care anyway -" And he hadn't expected that to come out of his mouth, but now that it has, he's trembling, the arm not held in Erik's grip attempting to wrap around himself again. "You clearly don't want me, Erik, so why don't you just let me go?"  
  
"Excuse me?" Erik blinks at him, eyes widening slightly. "Why would you say that?"  
  
"Because it's true," he mutters, and turns his back as much as he can, head bowed again. "Please let go," he tries again.  
  
"You would forget me so quickly?" Erik's grip on him tightens, the only sign that he is at all affected. "I won't let you go. You are mine."  
  
"I haven't forgotten," he whispers, because he hasn't. It's all still there, but he can't feel any of it, and it scares him more than anything ever has. "You have to let go of me." It's a flimsy protest, and Erik doesn't. Charles doesn't actually want him to. "Now, please," he attempts forceful again, demanding, but his voice cracks.  
  
"No," Erik repeats, a thready undercurrent of Will suffusing it. "You are mine. Come back here and sit down," he says, and that's an Order, too. He backs Charles up toward the bed and guides him to do so, the mattress dipping under his weight when he settles beside.  
  
Charles goes, and tries not to feel the calming, grounding effect the Order has on him, the spark it sends up his spine. He still feels it, head bowed to continue staring at his feet. "You won't love me like this," he whispers, wounded and terrified, swallowing around the ache. "If it doesn't come back, you'll - you won't love me like this," he repeats. "You don't want me."  
  
"Look at me. I need you to listen to me, Charles." Orders, overlaid like in the mind-world, building on top of one another. "I know you and I love you. I want you. You are still you." Erik tells him softly. He tilts his chin up to meet his eyes, green against azure. "I am still me."  
  
Charles stares for a long time, and he sees exactly what's there. Erik is no different than he was hours ago. Those gorgeous eyes are the same ones he has stared into more times than he can count, and he knows them just as well as he knows his own. Better. "I'm scared, Erik," he admits, voice barely a whisper. "I'm so frightened. I don't like this. It feels like I can't see anything properly, and it hurts, and I feel -" So utterly pathetic. Useless.  
  
"I know," Erik bows their foreheads together. "Me, too. I don't know how to fix it. I can't bear to see you suffer. Whatever happens, it will never change my regard for you. You need to believe that." It's an Order, one Charles can't be sure he realizes he's giving. "I love you, and I am not going anywhere. I won't let you go."  
  
"But -" It's a fear Charles hadn't realized he'd had. He'd asked a question, once, but it had been a hypothetical then. A philosophical curiosity, and not a real possibility. "I won't be able to give you anything without it," he whispers, and wrings his hands together, dipping his head again.  
  
"Don't be silly." His lips twitch, a split-second automatism. "I have everything I need right here." He brushes his thumb over the apple of Charles's cheek.  
  
Charles blinks. When he looks up, there's a twitch to his own lips, and then he laughs, the sound seemingly wrenched out of him. It isn't hollow, though. There's genuine amusement there, however clouded by pain and fear, and he leans against Erik as he chuckles.  
  
"You see? I can still make you laugh," Erik closes his eyes, tension easing from his shoulders-it isn't obvious he's been carrying it until it dissipates.  
  
"I laughed because you just Ordered me not to be silly, Erik," and then he grins, just the smallest hint of dimple, and reaches for Erik's hand. "I'll try not to. I wouldn't dream of disobeying," he teases, quiet. Relieved. It feels like them.  
  
"Oh," he lets out a very small, almost inaudible huff that could possibly, remotely, be construed as amusement. He tangles their fingers together and brings Charles's hand up to his lips, kissing his knuckles one at a time.  
  
Charles sighs, soaking up the attention. It's still more than uncomfortable to be without his telepathy, and the pain is still very much there, but at least there is this. He blinks after a moment, gaze wandering the door. "Why haven't they come in here?" he asks. Besides it being locked, anyway. He knows it isn't him this time, like it usually is when they have a spare moment alone in the Real.  
  
"They are afraid I will tear down the hospital," Erik says matter-of-factly. He rubs his hand over Charles's shoulder, keeping him close.  
  
"How did you get them to leave?" Charles blinks again, realizing he doesn't know the answer. "I didn't hear you say anything."  
  
Erik gives him a minute shrug. "I pushed them out."  
  
"You pushed them out?" he repeats, incredulous, but he realizes he doesn't particularly care at the moment. Charles curls up into Erik's good side, nudging until he's being held properly. "Did - were you scared?" he asks, quietly. It's clear when he means.  
  
"Very," Erik replies, nodding. He once more takes the opportunity to card his fingers through Charles's hair, to touch his face and neck, warm on his exposed skin.  
  
"Is growling at anyone who isn't my sister touching me going to become a habit?" he asks, and it's meant to be teasing, but there's concern, too, his voice thick with it as he strokes Erik's hand.  
  
Erik's cheeks flush a little. "I was not entirely rational," he murmurs. "I apologize." He's so perfectly in control that his voice doesn't waver when he says, "You stopped breathing."  
  
"I know," he whispers, and nuzzles into Erik's neck, nosing there for both of their comfort. "But you saved me, Erik. I'm okay now. Well." He purses his lips. "Okay is relative, but I'm not dying, so relatively speaking, I'm excellent."  
  
He draws his hand back and forth across Charles's thigh, then holds him close again, like a fluttering bird that can't decide where to settle. "Safe," is what he says, tucking Charles's head under his chin.  
  
"You'll have to let a doctor back in soon," he says, and grips tight to Erik, careful about his injuries. They both know it's true. "I won't fight you on the drugs if you're set on it," and honestly, even he's surprised he's deferring here. If only Gabby could see him now. "But I'm very dehydrated, among other things, Erik. I need an IV." He holds his own arm out, pinching at the skin. It takes a worryingly long time to snap back.  
  
"I'm set," he says immediately, "but I agree you need fluids. I won't fight them." He kisses Charles's forehead and then presses another to the top of his head, keeping him in his arms a little while longer. "I'll go and let them in, OK?"  
  
"Wait." Charles takes a long, calming breath, because this one is going to be difficult. "You need morphine, Erik."  
  
He shakes his head even quicker, predictable. "I ca-can't," he stutters.  
  
"I know." Charles squeezes Erik's hand. "I know, darling, but you're - I don't need telepathy to know you're in pain. You're carrying it again. There has to be something." If anything, only one of them needs to be in agonizing pain at a time.  
  
He inhales slowly through his nose. There's evidence of pain etched onto his features, in the tightness of his eyes and the set of his jaw, when one looks closely, but it's easy to miss. "I-I'll-try."  
  
"It doesn't have to be an injection." It's certainly the most effective way, but not the only way. Charles strokes his thumb over Erik's hand, soothing and slow. "Just something to take some of the edge off, okay?" He wishes he had access to some of the same, but Charles knows when no means no with Erik. There's a time to push and this isn't it.  
  
"OK," he nods, for once the expected battering panic is absent, from his thoughts and his demeanor, which is just as clear and calm as before. His fingers tighten around Charles's, and he swallows hard, but that's it.  
  
"One more thing." And this is the part he really didn't want to talk about, because it's the last thing he wants. He can't even say it, and without his telepathy, there's no way around spitting the words out. The end result is him fidgeting, a frown on his lips.  
  
Erik's head tilts. "What is it?" he prompts, soft.  
  
"Gabby is a D4.5. Remember you're meant to be a D4.6. There really shouldn't be a noticeable difference there." And there was starting to be.  
  
"Is there?" Erik's left eyebrow arches.  
  
"Erik," he almost laughs. "You have three high-Doms sitting out in the hallway twiddling their thumbs because you decided you wanted them out of the room. Yes, there is. Even when you're growling and incoherent you're very -" He gestures vaguely. "I'm starting to notice it more."  
  
Erik's lips twitch again. His head tilts, though, and after a long silence, he leads with the truth. "I don't know how," he finally admits.  
  
Charles sighs. That was why he didn't want to bring it up at all. Asking Erik to be less dominant would be like asking Charles to be submissive differently, which plenty had tried before. It didn't work. "Definitely don't give me an Order in front of Gabby," he warns, because that, while perhaps uncomfortable for the two of them, was avoidable. "You can do it as soon as she's out of earshot, and if it's immediate - I'm not sure what to do there, really. I told you I wouldn't dictate that, and I meant it, but Gabby is also very intelligent." And then there was the next part. "And I was - debatably, she would say yes - her sub for year and I can count on my hands how many times I properly took an Order." At that he flushes a little.  
  
There's something very tense about Erik right now, layered on top of pain and endless, mindless blankness that blends it all into one long drone of typical-stress. "I understand," he nods, touching Charles's face. "I will be careful." With Moira and various doctors and nurses coming in and out of the room, it likely wouldn't be an issue at all. Erik could give Orders to Charles telepathically, but that was not an option at the moment.  
  
"I know." Charles covers Erik's hand on his cheek with his own, and he realizes he doesn't need his telepathy as much as he thought he did. He knows Erik. It's more of a relief than he'd like to admit. "But that wasn't all of it. You can't - you're being very obvious, Erik, and I understand why, but -" Charles swallows. He doesn't want to discuss this. "You can't touch me like you have been."  
  
Erik's silent for several beats, until he just nods again. "I understand."  
  
He doesn't like it. He really doesn't like it, especially now with the promise of more people in the room. Charles is starting to get dizzy and sick again, clammy and pale and hurting. "But you can stay close," he whispers, and it's the same as pleading please stay close.  
  
"I will. I promise." Another kiss, possessive and tender all at once, before he gently separates them and stands to his feet, padding to the door (...naked...) and hovering his hand over it. The knob swivels abruptly and it flies open, and he pokes his head out to the sight of three very confused, very alarmed high-Dom women.

* * *

Gabby and Raven immediately beeline inside, followed by Moira, who takes stock just as critically. "Everything all right?" Gabby is the first to speak. "Charles, I'd like to get you set on some fluids and a mild anti-inflammatory. Combined with the codeine you're already on that should help ease things. Let's get Mr. Lehnsherr back to his room-" she's glancing to Moira.  
  
The door shuts behind them loudly. Not quite a slam, but enough to alert them to his presence. He's pressed up against the wall nearest to Charles, not touching him, but as close as he can reasonably be without drawing suspicion.  
  
"So far Charles is the only person keeping him from knocking down this hospital," Raven adds cheerfully, playing up the fact that she was talking about him while he was in the room like he couldn't understand her for their benefit. "He's the only person with any degree of control over him, _sooo_ -I vote let's keep him here. The last time we riled him up, Charles got impaled."  
  
"We're due to transport him back to the CIA in a few hours anyhow," Moira interjects, her own arms folded across her chest. "And that, we can't avoid, so if that's going to be an issue, Inmate-"  
  
Erik shakes his head.  
  
"Straighten your arm out and lay your hand flat on the bedside for me," Gabby says, rolling her eyes at his tone. She flicks the needle, which is attached to a long tube that leads to a rolling IV cart they've brought in with them. Quite suddenly, Erik blinks at it and it levitates from her grasp, and she stares at it hovering in the air. "Put that down now-"  
  
He touches the back of his own hand, eyes darting between the needle and Charles. The end rotates and points at him, and slowly moves toward his hand, uncapping itself and flicking out air bubbles all on its own. Everyone's breath is held when the sharp point zips forward and injects itself into a vein, smooth and so quick that there's barely a hint of pain in which is usually a crampy, awkward injection. Blood clouds for a second and then the IV begins to work its way into his system.  
  
"...Oh, .... _Kay_ , well, thank-you, Mr. Lehnsherr," Gabby grimaces at him.  
  
Charles doesn't feel even an ounce of fear. He barely contains his laughter as he ducks his head to hide it, and then he doesn't manage at all, chuckling quietly to himself. "Thank you, Inmate Lehnsherr," he says, deliberately, and it sounds so strange on his lips he almost grins. He understands the fear and concern here, but he's in more pain than he knows what to do with again and it's making him snarkier than usual. "Could we all calm down, now? No one's attacking, no one's getting impaled. Erik is just an excellent aide slash surgeon. We all agree nothing about this situation is normal. I know for a fact you don't have your MD in anything even vaguely related to anything you're doing right now," he looks at Gabby pointedly. "So everyone just sit back and bloody relax, thank you. Also, could someone please get Erik a gown." There's a vague flush to his clammy, paler than usual skin here, but nothing good old-fashioned embarrassment won't cover, which truthfully is most of it at the moment.  
  
It would be a series of Orders, if he were a Dom. He isn't, but it still kind of is.  
  
Raven covers her mouth, snorting into her blue hands. "Come on, big guy." Raven's used to being the tallest person in the room, but Erik at a slouch crept a few inches above her. She tugs him away from the wall and presses a pair of scrub pants into his hands obtained from a passing nurse. Erik stares at them like he doesn't remember how pants work before roughly shoving them on. His arm makes putting a shirt on a little more of a challenge, but they've found a button down for him to shrug on. Once he settles back into the wall, Raven moves to give Charles a hug. "Thank you for not dying on the floor."  
  
"Thank you for helping me not die on the floor," he returns, and he's smiling as he throws his arms fully around her neck and kisses her cheek. Now that he's a bit more used to being in constant, searing pain, her presence is more than welcome, especially with Erik flattened against the wall where he can't reach him. "I heard some of it, you know. While I was - wherever I was. Gone to the world." He gestures, dismissive. "Did you really have to remind the world of my middle name? Could we not have let 'Francis' remain birth certificate only? It's like you letting Warren put 'Charlie' on my tombstone, really. What did you say I would die from? Something about reading too much." It's all nonsense talk, idle chitchat, but around all the agony and the terror, he thinks it's good to have it going. Maybe it will help everyone lighten up some.  
  
"OK, first of all, _shut up_ ," Raven smacks him and moves out of the way when an orderly rolls a second cot into the room, smaller, which Erik goes to sit down on, posture straight and proper. "Second of all, Charlie Francis Xavier has a nice ring to it, don't you think?" Raven's giving him her evil smirk.  
  
"Francis," Gabby contributes with a huff. "You told me it was _Frank_."  
  
"And you're wrong. I'm going to die from you reading too much. You're going to die in your sleep at age 102 peacefully. It's decided."  
  
"Please try calling me Charlie again and see what happens, dear-heart," he grins, and all things considered, it's certainly had the intended effect. "You know I loathe it, and the only reason Warren gets away with it is because it's the least insufferable nickname he could come up with. And you," he turns his attention to Gabby, slightly pink, "Hush. It wasn't a lie. Frank is a diminutive form of Francis. It is a bit less posh, though, isn't it?" If now is the time for them to start ganging up on him for his affected English accent - which is obviously not wholly natural when he spent his childhood in Westchester, New York, and disappears at random, only to bubble up when he's putting on a show - then he supposes he brought it upon himself.  
  
His eyes always wander back to Erik, but for the moment it's nice to pretend things aren't as they are. That he's not being ripped apart from the inside. There are things left to joke about.  
  
Raven and Gabby tease him light-heartedly, both recognizing the need for a distraction, and to turn the tides of tension and fear in the room against themselves. "We'll just have to get Warren here, then, so you can at least hear your true name from someone." Raven pokes her tongue out at him (blue, just like her). Every time his eyes lift to Erik, Erik's peering back at him, unblinking and vivid green against the stark white of his scrubs half-buttoned up. He's got his legs up on the bed cradled to his chest, head resting on his knees, bad arm dangling limply by his side.  
  
"Or we could get Hank. He might take my side." It's unlikely, but there is the possibility. He'll never truly win with these girls in the room, and for a moment he's so fondly nostalgic it aches. Not because he regrets that things turned out the way they did, but because, despite all the things wrong with the situation, it was one to be fond of. "There's a terrible imbalance of dynamic in this room, and -" His eyes have caught on something. "Oh!" Charles' is grinning, all of a sudden, delighted and genuine. There's a cuff on Gabby's wrist he hadn't noticed before, and he's fairly certain he can make an assumption here. "Is that new?" he asks, as mildly as he can. Moira is out fussing in the hallway, and if Erik was more a part of the conversation than a looming figure, it might seem like a normal gathering of friends and family. He lets himself indulge, just enough to bolster himself for everything that will come next, and the pain that doesn't seem to be fading. "I can't believe you got a new submissive and moved to New York and didn't tell me. What nonsense is that? I have a phone, you know." He pauses. "Well, I don't at the moment, but that's beside the point. Raven, not a word about my email inbox."  
  
"I sent" - "He never checks his inbox-" Raven and Gabby speak at the same time. Gabby evens it out with a warm laugh. "It is new, yes. I'm only here as a consultant," she says. "Daniel works with the CIA, actually, he's a specialist in genetic mutation and psionics." Erik's eyes drop to her, and then flick back to Charles. "You'd probably talk his ear off if you got the chance. He's published some really interesting stuff."  
  
Raven made a little humming noise, which Gabby thankfully didn't pick up on. "He's an S4, yeah," Gabby laughs. "You know I've always struggled with my orientation," she shrugs, more open about it than Charles ever was, and part of the reason they'd become close in the first place. Gabby was frequently the most dominant person in the room, and like Erik, she struggled with lower-end submissives going into fawn-mode over her. Charles was close to what she needed, but she wasn't what he needed. They didn't fit, but they had learned a lot about themselves, which was beneficial in the long run. "But it's a good fit. We work well. Thanks," her eyes crinkle, genuine. "How about you? Anyone special in your life?" her head tilts. Even in the horrors of this hospital visit, she can tell Charles is different.  
  
"Mm, S4," he hums, because that makes perfect sense. If Gabby wasn't going to work with him, it would have to be someone on the other end of the submissive scale. Closer to S1 - but not S1, obviously - and there tended to be more fawning. Charles avoids looking at Erik as he smiles, ducking his head and folding his hands, IV and all, into his lap. "There may be a collar in my future," he admits, and he's already anticipating the reaction to that.  
  
Gabby's face lights up in pure delight. " _Really_! I thought so, but-" she doesn't say the obvious, that there aren't a whole lot of people out there that Charles is, frankly, suitable for. Her affection for him notwithstanding, she knows she is not the regular deal, either. "You've seemed more relaxed. More confident. Is it anyone I know?"  
  
"I'm not sure how you're picking up relaxed and confident," he laughs, running a hand through his (sweaty, bloody, and frankly disgusting hair) with a light-hearted grimace. "No, no one you know. High on the scale, though, before you ask. You were right about what a few points up might do, so thank you for the encouragement." She'd meant a .6 or .7, maybe a .8 if he could manage to find one ever, but that was basically a statistical improbability, even next to the relative impossibility of finding a D5. He doesn't correct her. "He's - well, he's perfect for me, if I'm honest," he whispers, and knows both she and Erik will hear it. "I don't want to hear an 'I told you so,'" he grumbles.  
  
She raises her hands, placating, while Erik continues to stare unnervingly at them, not altering his expression or motions in the slightest in response to Charles's statement. "I wouldn't," Gabby says, and it's sincere. "I'm really happy for you, Charles. And yes," she grins. "Relaxed. It's crazy, right? What a _balagan atomi_ ," she jerks a thumb at him, arching her eyebrows at Erik.  
  
He shoots her a very quick smile. They realize the room is comprised only of Gabby and Raven when he responds verbally, a hoarse, " _Ken ve tov, yedi'at hitromemut ru'ach_."  
  
"So, who is he? Where'd you meet him at? Come on, Xavier. Details." She made grabby hands at him.  
  
"Oh, no," he laughs, and shakes his head, which doesn't do wonders for the seething pain front, but he does little more than hiss, close his eyes, and reset quickly. "Take me out to lunch one day and I'll consider spilling the finer details of my relationship. All you need to know is that he makes me happy, and he's very handsome," he snorts. "Intelligent, fascinating, kind, and utterly ridiculous, which you know is a requirement with the life I lead. And tall. He's tall. Remember that time I got a bit tipsy and went on about how tall Dominants were overrated and often used it as an excuse to be arseholes? Or something of that nature? No, I take it back. It's very attractive. He's a mutant, too, in case you were wondering." He pauses, then grins. "A mutant, but not a telepath, and he beat me at chess once." That's really the sinker there, isn't it.  
  
"Check your email once in a while, bird-brain, and I will take you out to lunch- _wawawewa_ ," she waggles her eyebrows for comedic effect. "A non-telepath beat you at chess?" She pauses dramatically, pointing a finger. "Marry him."  
  
"OK, to be fair, a tall Dominant for Charles is like, five-seven."  
  
"Your inner Napolean is coming out," Gabby laughs. "I swear he used to think tall Dominants, did it on _purpose_." She sobers up a bit. "From the way you describe him, it sounds like he was made for you. And a mutant too. That's lucky." It was yet another thing that separated them-for all of their commonalities, Gabby was a baseline, there were some experiences she just couldn't understand.  
  
"They do do it on purpose!" he laughs, and when he smiles, even through the relative torture he's dealing with, it's a bright, open one, cheeks high and dimpled in his pleasure. He'd forgotten how much he adored her, and he never should have. "I honestly think he was made for me," Charles sighs when he sobers a bit, too. His smile turns wry, because this is something she'll understand better than anyone else. "Do you know how frustrating that was? A high-Dom who can put me into subspace, fine, sounds enticing. Color me intrigued." He waves his hand, clearly dismissive. "But we both knew it would take more than that, and it just so happens he has all of it. It's mad. Gabby, you know I wanted it to work as much as anyone, but the day you mentioned a collar I walked out on you." Not one of his finer moments. "Then for half a year I fought you tooth and nail to get out of it. And this time -" He lets out a breath, genuinely amazed when he thinks about it. "I suggested it first."  
  
Gabby's eyes widen. "What's his score? He can't be a .5 or .6, that's for sure. That's remarkable. I remember how frustrated you were, it wasn't a good time for either of us. The problem was that I knew you wanted it, deep down, but you wouldn't let yourself have it. I couldn't compel you, and therein lies the rub," she laughs. "Does this charming gentleman have a name? I'd be delighted to meet him."  
  
"This charming gentleman has a name that I am protecting with my life," he laughs, easily, and turns his eyes pointedly on Raven. It's all for show. He's about to lie through his teeth, and do it entirely effortlessly, not a skipped beat, not a tell in sight. "Do you know how much this one," he indicates Raven again, "Would nag and pester the poor man if I let her at him? No, I'm keeping things anonymous at least for the Negotiations stage. I don't want to get my hopes too high, and there's the matter of the public - we're both fairly in that eye, so to speak." Half-lies and almost-truths. And now there was the matter of score. "He's a .7." Higher than Erik supposedly is, because otherwise he'd have lied about Erik's lack of influence on him, as low as he could manage without it being too suspicious. There wasn't another S1 to cross check with on these things, so he could mostly make it up. "Thank you, by the way. For at least trying to brush me up on Postures," he grins, winking. "Even though I told you - what did I tell you?" Something about ridiculous and a waste of time.  
  
_Wow_ , Gabby mouths. "I've never met a Dominant that high before. I really would love to pick his brain sometimes, but I get it, I get it. Keep your secrets, Xavier." Her lips purse, amused.  
  
"Believe me, I've been trying," Raven pouts for show, leaning forward on her elbows. "I'm half-convinced it's one of those _oh yeah, I have a girlfriend in Canada_ , you just haven't met them yet-" she laughs.  
  
On the cot, Erik's watching between them blankly, rubbing his arm with his good hand, rocking back and forth with his legs tucked up to him, for all intents and purposes serene and grounded.  
  
"Mmm," he chuckles, and his gaze wanders to Erik again, something he couldn't manage before without drawing attention. He reaches out, wanting to comment, confused as to why he isn't getting running ones back, but - right. There's nothing there. His head throbs instead, empty and painful, and he grimaces. His attention turns back to Gabby and Raven. "No, he's very real. And before you ask, no, he doesn't have a wife and kids or anything like that. Raven's been through the lot. He does have an unhealthy obsession with my sleep schedule, but that I suppose I can live with," he jokes. It wasn't something he could live with before Erik, but things have changed.  
  
"That's only because your sleep schedule-" - "You're unhealthy-" they said at the same time, and looked at each other laughing. "This is why you keep us around," Raven says, "you need a gaggle of high-Dom women to tell you when you're being idiotic." Erik blinks back at him, poking his head up from his knees, and Charles can see that he's breathing shallowly through his chest.  
  
"Let's see," Gabby stands and grabs the small clipboard above Erik's head where the nurse had put his chart, scanning it. "Yeah, absolutely. I'll let them know-" a passing be-scrubbed man walked by and Gabby flagged him down, stepping outside. When she returned she had a small medicine cup with two oblong teal pills in it, which she held out to Erik. Erik pressed himself against the wall, making a soft whine in the back of his throat. "This is what they were having issues with," Gabby laughs. "It's OK. It's just morphine. It'll help."  
  
"Give it here," he says, and doesn't wait before he takes it from her. Charles climbs up onto Erik's bed like it's nothing, hiding the little breath of relief he wanted to give at being closer. He scoots all the way back. "They'll help," he repeats Gabby's words, soft and imploring. He meets Erik's eyes. "They're just strong enough to edge off the pain. I promise." Trust me, goes unsaid. He's the only one in the room besides Raven who's willing to treat him like more than a frightened, dangerous animal.  
  
" _Ya'azor,_ " Gabby repeats softly. " _Tarshi li la'azor._ " She puts her hand on the bed, standing on the other side to where Charles has settled himself.  
  
Erik is shaking and he snatches the cup out of Charles's hand, holding them in his closed fist, eyes wide. " _Lo. Lo, slicha. Ani lo rotze ze_." He's trapped his arm against his chest and his knee, trying to keep it completely motionless.  
  
"He doesn't want it," Gabby murmurs sidelong.  
  
"I know," he sighs, eyebrows furrowed. He's stretched his IV as far as it can go and it's straining a bit, but that's all mild discomfort when compared to Erik's pain. Not that Charles is without his own - he winces at just the reminder - but he doesn't need Erik to suffer. He rests his hand, gently, on Erik's arm. "Please," he tries, and it's very difficult to keep his voice casual when he wants to dip it into that low, pleading place.  
  
He holds out one oblong tablet to Charles. " _Chetzi_. No more."  
  
Charles purses his lips. "Erik," he hedges, and then his chin is lifted, a natural response. "That's barely enough to have any effect. At least a whole."  
  
" _Bentayim, bevakasha. Ani lo_ -" he blinks several times and says again in English, "please, for now." It comes out as a croak, as though his throat is sticking to itself. " _Slicha_."  
  
"Alright," he sighs, because pushing here is not an option. Erik is clearly terrified, and any amount is something. It's progress. "Half," he agrees. "No more. And you don't have to translate for me," he reminds, something private in his smile that's only for Erik.  
  
"He really trusts you," Gabby tells him once he breaks the tablet in half and Erik pushes it between his lips, then hugs himself again and sways side to side, self-soothing. "That must be why they keep trying to target you. I seriously doubt he'd cooperate for anyone else. This is the first time he's taken a painkiller since he's gotten here, so-definitely more than a half when you get the chance, OK? You could probably do with the other half."  
  
"He could do with the whole cup," he murmurs, and his eyes are on Erik, making it clear he'd never force that (couldn't, but that's beside the point), "But baby steps. Do you want to know the real reason they're targeting me, though?" Besides the ones he couldn't tell her, anyway. "Because I'm consistently the only one who's given him any sort of chance. Of course he trusts me. New rule, let's not speak like he can't hear us, alright?" It's a frustrated huff, and he can't cross his arms, but he would if he could. "He's not incompetent or a child. Is it a normal part of bedside manner to speak to your patients as if they're not there?"  
  
Gabby winced. "I know," she admits, not bothering to hedge on it. "I know. It's horrid. When you're around someone who doesn't talk that much, it gets to be second nature, but that's not an excuse. I apologize." She touched her hand to her chest, addressing Erik this time.  
  
" _Beseder_ ," Erik croaked, shaking his head. There was no mention that he trusted Gabby as well, at least enough to speak out loud to her at all, though he did significantly less than with Charles or even Raven.  
  
"This must happen a lot, huh?" Gabby wonders, looking between them. "Selective mutism, I'm assuming? It's pretty common even in clinical settings for people to treat nonverbal patients like they're less cognizant. Unfortunately it's human nature. You're just a leg up on us," she smirks.  
  
"Mmm," he agrees, sighing. Human nature indeed, and mostly unavoidable, but at least he can offer a reminder. "And no leg up at the moment, unfortunately. We're in the same boat." The reminder of that makes him sullen, and then he thinks about his own pain, which, while slightly less noticeable than before, throbs insistently. Charles stares down at his hand with a grimace, picking at the IV there. He's always hated those things.  
  
Erik takes the other, in-tact pill and holds it up to Charles with a nod. " _Echad_. Take it." Gabby starts, "I'm not sure-we should get the nurse-" He looks at her, eyes bright and vivid and terrifying, and the words die in her throat. It's the first time Charles has ever seen Gabby defer to someone like that.  
  
Charles tests that out. It's not an Order, and he imagines that was deliberate, so he shakes his head. "It won't be enough, and they're yours." He smiles, reassuring, at both of them, but he's mostly looking at Erik. "Unfortunately morphine doesn't treat these kinds of injuries yet." Making it clear his intentions before. He didn't want the pain to ease, he wanted to be thoroughly knocked out. It goes without saying that he knows from experience what will do that, and he lowers his head again to hide the bit of shame there.  
  
"OK," Erik tells him and drops it back into the cup, and he lets it hover above his palm and set itself on the end table.

* * *

Gabby blinks. "That cup was plastic. _Excuse me_ , but-that was plastic."  
  
Charles rubs his hand down his face, pinching at his nose. "Don't tell the CIA," he mutters, and can't be sure how well that's going to go over, "But he's not metallokinetic."  
  
"Don't tell the _CIA_ -Charles, what the _hell_ is going on here?" Gabby hissed, lowering her voice so Moira couldn't hear her.  
  
Raven moves closer to the circle. "They don't know how strong he is," she's saying. "They can't know."  
  
"That's the whole point-that's our _job_ , Charles," Gabby's staring at him, stance akimbo. "All those plastic guns, it's all _worthless_ , isn't it?"  
  
"No, that's not our job," he hisses right back, voice low. There's something fierce about him now, his own hackles raised. "We - you and me - are doctors. I took an oath just as you did. Do no harm." He nods toward the plastic cup that had just floated itself to the table. "Now think logically and tell me what they'll do to him if they know what he's capable of." A little black box, locked away, bound and gagged and sedated.  
  
Gabby sighs, and pauses for a second to really consider, and then shakes her head, raising her hand. "Charles, there's _one_ of him and there's _hundreds_ of people who work in that building, inmates, patients, soldiers, civilians. It's not fair to hide this information from them. He had an episode and he stabbed you, and you're someone he trusts."  
  
"He didn't stab me, I threw myself in front of him. Any of their guns could have done the exact same thing, and you'll notice that in the aftermath none of them lifted a finger to help me." Charles gets to his feet, panic dropping in his stomach. If she really refuses to listen, there's nothing he can do about it at the moment. "He's been there for months and he hasn't hurt a single person. Are you honestly appealing to my greater good sensibilities right now? Because you know how I feel about that. He's done nothing to deserve what will happen to him if they know."  
  
She rolls her eyes. "As if you'd think I'd side with the government on anything. I'm not going to be _party_ to the torture of another human being, but it's a mistake not to consider all the ramifications. They, the ones you're talking about, the ones who would black-box him, are a small group of people. There are _innocent people_ at that base, _my submissive_ is one of them." Her tone took a grim, hard line. "I saw the news reports. They don't even know what his mutation is, let alone that the security precautions they've taken are useless."  
  
"And that only matters as long as he is the dangerous monster they believe him to be," he returns, voice just as hard-edged as hers. Charles is more on edge than Erik has ever seen him; this is the submissive who had to make a fight out of even the simplest interactions, muscles tensed and chin raised, voice level and mimicking that of high-Doms. A facsimile. With Gabby, it's more necessary than it is with most, especially considering their history. "He's not a threat to be neutralized. He's a person. Perhaps you'll consider not treating him like a weapon they would all love to make out of him."  
  
"I think we should tell Moira," Gabby says. "She runs that facility just about as cleanly as she can. She's reasonable. I've known her for a long time. She's invested in this. She believed you about Essex. If something happens, G-d forbid, they deserve to be prepared. If it hits the fan, you and I are liable to lose a hell of a lot more than our licenses. Whether or not we forewarned of the situation will be used to determine if we're guilty of criminally negligent homicide-"  
  
Raven raises her hands. "Whoa-no one's talking about homicide, here."  
  
"Aren't we? Isn't that the entire point of this?" Her eyebrows arch.  
  
Erik has shrunk back into the wall, putting his forehead onto his knee, little tremors vibrating through his frame. " _Silchu li_ ," he whispers. " _Ani lo mitkaven lifgoa anashim_."  
  
Charles doesn't catch all of it, but he thinks he understands the gist. He's beginning to tremble, too, this time with barely restrained panic. "Absolutely not," he tells her, and clenches his teeth. Something is rising up in him again, bubbling and settling uncomfortably in his stomach, twisting and churning. He doesn't know if it's bile or the stress. "She's incredibly reasonable, and I like her very much, but she has superiors to answer to and they will not think the same. I understand your concern, but -" This is where he would do something. Reach into her mind, find the disagreement and persuade it out of her. She's a reasonable person, and there's plenty he could show her about the way Erik has already been handled. He can't. He pushes anyway. The result is nearly immediate. Charles back bends as if he's been physically struck. He crumples in on himself like the plastic gun Erik had crushed into nothing. His mouth is parted in a silent scream, entire body contorted.  
  
Gabby's eyebrows shoot up and she leans over to steady him, but Erik's already wrapped an arm around him to prevent him from falling off the side of the bed, glaring hard at the doctor and putting Charles back against the wall, studying his face with an empty, blank expression that would've been horror and concern on anyone reasonable. Gabby moves to take his pulse, eyes fluttering to the ceiling to count. "What are you trying to do? You're at your limits, Charles. You can't be over-exerting yourself like this," she mutters, because she knows him just as well as anyone else in the room.  
  
But he's not at his limits. Charles is aware of his own telepathy the way others are aware of their arms or legs. He hasn't hit his upper limit yet, if there is one. Whatever wall he's hitting up against, it doesn't actually exist. It's all in his head, which is so frustratingly ironic that it makes him grunt. Erik is injured and hurting just as he is, but he uses his mutation as if breathing, effortless and a mere extension of himself. Charles is lagging behind. He closes his eyes and clenches his teeth against the horrible, hideous pain, so sharp he's panting with it, and then he pushes again. The result this time is not much different than the first, except now he clutches at his head, fingers tugging at the sweaty, disheveled strands of his hair for purchase against the onslaught. His pulse races, heartrate accelerating, skin a sickly, bluish-pale.  
  
"Stop it- _atzor_!" Erik calls, and even though the Order isn't in English it's clear as a ringing bell.  
  
Charles wasn't going to push any farther, but now there isn't even a possibility. The pain is so strong now he isn't certain he can bear it. For all his caginess, his instinct is never to lash out physically. It's barbaric, unnecessary, and words are just as effective. His sharp tongue and sharper wit have always been his weapon, outside of his telepathy. Now all of that helpless, harsh frustration wells up and bursts, and Charles kicks at the nearest medical cart, watching it skitter a few inches and shake, harmlessly, with no gratification. "Damn it," he breathes, shoulders hunched, teeth grinding painfully amongst the current of agony he's been pulled back under. He's never been made to feel so small, and he looks it.  
  
Erik winks at it and it goes flying into the opposite wall, exploding into a thousand pieces. Gabby jumps, horrified, and Raven just smirks. "Feel any better?" she raises her eyebrows at Charles. It's taken them all several moments to come back to themselves in the wake of the Order, as though Erik's Will has sunk out across the whole room, and he swiftly tries to retract all those tendrils to little avail, because Gabby is gazing at him with more and more criticalness as time goes on.  
  
The cart's pieces begin to mend themselves and repair.  
  
"This is exactly what I'm talking about," Gabby points at it, not giving an inch.  
  
"Oh, calm down," Raven groans. "He was trying to cheer Charles up."  
  
It doesn't work, not really, but that's more to do with Gabby and not Erik. "Shut up," he grunts, and it's so outwardly vicious that he surprises even himself. He hasn't recovered from the dizzying bursts of pain, and he's not sure he will. It's suffocating him, and he looks more ill by the second. "Stop seeing bomb threats where there are only firecrackers, you need to listen -" He cuts off, mouth opened on an 'o'. Then he leans forward and retches again, coughing and sputtering.  
  
Erik's hand twitches but he doesn't move to embrace Charles the way he wants. " _Atzor_ ," he says again, quiet. "She won't." He raises his eyebrows. Erik can speak to Gabby.  
  
Charles is hunched in on himself again, breathing harshly through his nose. He can't catch his breath. His head bumps against the wall when he leans back, and he gasps, tears sliding down his cheeks as he grips hard at the bed. "Please," he stutters.  
  
"I never said what I will or won't do," Gabby grimaces at them. "You're so exceptionally good at making everyone else into the bad guy, but this isn't just your decision. You're asking me to risk my livelihood over your _belief_ that your patient is stable enough not to seriously hurt someone by accident, let alone on purpose, let alone that it's _already happened_. Give me _one_ reason why I should do that!"  
  
" _Biglali higadeti atah_ ," Erik snaps. " _Atzor_. He is in pain."  
  
Charles shakes his head. Then he shakes it again, hands coming back up to grip at his hair and tug, though he knows it won't help. He's crying in earnest now, but it's not because he's emotional. "Puh - lease," he gasps, the syllables separated again, and he's not speaking to Gabby.  
  
" _Yode'a, yode'a._ Tell me what you need," Erik Orders him, and leans forward so Charles can say it into his ear, away from the prying eyes of everyone around them.  
  
"You're the one who's agitating him," Raven tugs Gabby by the arm, and she's still reeling from the fact that she's pretty sure Erik just _Ordered_ her to stop, and she _had_ and her mind is still blank in the aftermath, so she lets herself be lead out.  
  
Charles shakes his head again, not because he's disagreeing - he couldn't if he wanted to, and he doesn't - but because he's not certain what he's begging for. He does know that the pain level has finally skyrocketed into intolerable territory, and that it's becoming far more difficult to breathe. "H-Hurts," he manages. This is so pathetic, and he's so utterly helpless.  
  
"I know," Erik murmurs. "Take my hand. Focus on my voice. You're going to be all right. I promise. Relax and focus on your breathing. My touch. Your body is just a body. It's just sensation. I won't let it kill you."  
  
Charles does as he's told, squeezing as tightly as he'll let himself as he sucks in panting, rapid breaths. "I'm sorry, I - I'm sorry," he gasps, and his eyes wander to the door, to where he knows Gabby and Raven are standing. It's clear what he's talking about. "I tried," he whispers, small, teeth still clanking together as he fights through wave after wave.  
  
Raven and Gabby are talking in low, hushed voices, and Gabby looks fairly animated in her dissent for a long time, but no one comes storming in to interrupt them. "I'll take care of it," Erik tells him, unruffled and unaffected. "If necessary."  
  
"I couldn't -" He grips tighter to Erik's hand as his head screeches in protest, every inch of him wracked with it. Charles is suddenly glad that he and Erik do not currently share a consciousness, because he could not bear sharing this. "Couldn't - not just." He makes a frustrated, wounded noise, pointing vaguely at his temple. Not just his telepathy, he means. "Can't think. Useless," he groans, and it's as bitter as he's currently capable of being. His nails are breaking skin, and when he notices, he recoils, guilty and sick. "S-S -" He can't get it out.  
  
" _Atzor_ ," Erik Orders again. "Don't apologize for being hurt. We are focusing on your recovery." He squeezes Charles's hand, not allowing him to let go. "You are over-extending yourself and it's going to stop. There is nothing that you need to stress out about right now. We have it handled. Do you understand?"  
  
"You don't have it handled," he protests, and his teeth chatter, both because of the pain and because being defiant right now is the last thing he wants to do. If anything, he's feeling the strange, new urge to curl up close and let himself be handled, just like Erik is suggesting. It's tempting, but he can't. He just can't. "You need me, I'll - let me -" Try again, he wants to say, but his mouth snaps closed. It was an Order, and a firm one, and he doesn't think he can argue with it right now. He doesn't have it in him.  
  
"Not now. You need to save your strength," Erik murmurs, stroking his hair. "Just relax. There isn't anything you can do right now. Accept it and let us help you get better." He pulls Charles back to give him a small smile.  
  
The smile helps, but there's a part of Charles that is still fighting, even like this. He's always been awful at this. "But -" He starts, but he can't finish. "But -"  
  
" _Lo_ ," Erik shakes his head.  
  
Charles makes a noise from the back of his throat, a mumbled 'hmph,' but it's so obviously a surrender that it doesn't matter. He melts against the wall, and towards Erik, finally letting go. The pain continues to come in waves, some of them bowing him over, others less severe, but it all mixes together until his entire being is locked jaw and tight muscles and overwhelmed tears.

* * *

By the time Charles settles down, mostly amid Erik's soothing chatter, Moira has returned with a wheelchair and on it is balanced a folded black prisoner uniform. "I'm sorry to cut this short, but we need to transport Mr. Lehnsherr back to the facility. Dr. Shomron has assured us they're equipped to handle the rest of his post-op care." Gabby follows inside along with Raven, the former who looks uneasy but says nothing all the same.  
  
Oh. He hadn't thought about this part. Charles feels the world fall out from underneath him, cold, unadulterated dread sinking all the way to the bottom of his empty stomach like lead. With no connection, once Erik is gone, he will be gone. Charles won't feel him. He won't know he's okay. He'll be alone, and in more pain than he's ever experienced, and if there was ever a time where he'd need his Dom - He's let go of Erik's hand, and already that feels empty. He can't possibly imagine the loss he'll feel when he's rolled away and put on a transport vehicle, miles away from him. There's nothing he can do. He's never felt so completely helpless, and considering his past and that he's been under attack several times now, that's saying something. He locks his protest behind his teeth, and wonders what he'll do about his heart, which feels like it's shriveled into nothing. Charles is full body shivering, still paler than he's ever been, sickly and small and weak and hurting. And soon he'll be doing that without Erik.  
  
He feels Erik still next to him and then he's throwing out a hand, sending the medical cart back toward the door and toward the intruders who are trying to separate them. "Lo!"  
  
Charles gasps, and this time he grabs for Erik's arm. "Erik - have to," he manages, though he's slipping past verbal, and past his own limits of tolerance. He's sure he's burning up from the inside, there's no other explanation. "It will be okay," he promises, but doesn't feel it.  
  
"No, no, _no_!" Erik shouts and with a roar the cart slams into Raven, who flips up very suddenly and vaults over it, landing on two feet with a huff. "No, no." He keeps Charles behind him, eyes wild and wide.  
  
"Erik, we have to go," Raven shushes him. "It'll be OK. I'll be with him the whole time, OK? Me and Warren and Hank. You remember Hank, right?" she goes to his side, seeing as how she's the only one who is remotely safe other than Charles.  
  
" _Ko'ev_ ," Erik croaks. " _Ko'ev bevakasha harshi li la'azor_."  
  
"Hon, I don't know what that means." She brushes his hair back from his face. "But if you don't cooperate it's going to end badly for everybody."  
  
Very badly. Charles is crying, distressed and pained and mostly incoherent now, but he's rational enough to know he has to let go. Raven is blocking them from sight, so he grabs for Erik's hand again and squeezes. "For me," he whispers, and knows that will seal it. Erik would give him the world if he asked. Unfortunately, Charles is asking him to take it away from him. Temporary. It's temporary.  
  
They are stronger than this, though it will hurt worse than any pain.  
  
Raven strategically adjusts herself to keep Moira and Gabby from seeing, when Erik moves forward to kiss him on the temple, uncaring who was in the room. " _Tishmor al atzmecha_ ," he says lowly into Charles's ear, and that's an Order. " _Al tishkach._ I love you."  
  
Charles clings to those words with everything he has. For just a brief, lingering moment, Erik's lips bring him relief. "I love you, too," he whispers back, a croak of a thing that only Erik will hear. It is only for him.  
  
Eventually the two guards assigned to transport him get in the room and they help Erik stand and get dressed, still very much treating him as an inmate without much regard to his privacy, but he does not notice an iota. Raven holds up the abandoned blanket and shoots Charles a vaguely disgusted look. Erik is finally dressed in all black and seated in the wheelchair, and his eyes don't leave Charles for a second.  
  
Charles is preparing himself. He is memorizing Erik's face, his eyes, the sound of his Orders, though he isn't speaking. It's all inside of him, imprinted in his soul where it could never be forgotten or taken away, but he does it anyway, a greedy, thirsty man who knows he will soon be deprived of water through a trek in the desert. When they begin to wheel him away, backwards at first so Charles can still see him, it takes every ounce of control he has not to shoot up and beg for him to stay. "Be well," he whispers and, because no one is facing him, mouths I love you again, knowing Erik will catch it. When he is gone from the room, when Charles can no longer see him, it hurts so bad that he honestly wonders for a moment if he will die. He grabs for Raven, buries himself in her chest, and sobs.  
  
Moira hangs back for a moment. "The arraignment is going to be rescheduled for tomorrow morning. Are you up for attending it?" she grimaces sympathetically at them, but she has a job to do, and she knows Charles is invested enough that not asking would be worse.  
  
Charles can't speak. There's no way to manage it, and his entire body is shaking violently, both hands dug into Raven like claws because he knows it won't hurt her. She has far too high of a tolerance for it to even sting. He nods, once, but if Moira doesn't see it, Raven will. He can't do more than that. "Pass," he croaks. It's not a complete sentence. This will pass, he means. His body is just a body. He will not die from this pain.  
  
"I got you," Raven assures him in her way, letting him rest his head against her chest. "He'll be there if he can, but right now we need some space. When you guys get Erik back to the facility, contact me on my cell. I gave it to Gabby. We're good, right?"  
  
"For now," Gabby murmurs ominously. "I'll have Daniel pass along the message." She gives Raven a nod upward, lifting her chin imperiously, but otherwise does not intrude. "I'll be escorting you back to the compound, if that's all right. It seems like you are understaffed at the moment," she shoots Moira a smile.  
  
"You're familiar with the case?"  
  
"I am, I was assigned to him while he was here. If you want to brief me further I'd be grateful."  
  
"OK. I'll let my superiors know, we'll fix your clearance. For now, with us."  
  
Raven hangs onto Charles while they talk and pets him. "Pass, that's right."  
  
Charles is incoherent at this point. He catches none of it, the words melting together to make gibberish, blurry edges fitting together only with pain and emptiness. He realizes some of the pain was ameliorated with Erik in the room, perhaps a lingering connection between them. It's gone now.  
  
It's not just the pain. He's dropping, too.  
  
Charles doesn't know how he'll ever be okay in that moment. Nothing matters but his anguish, and he hides himself in Raven - thankful for her as much as he can be, because without her he would be inconsolable - and lets himself cry.  
  
Raven pets him and shushes him as best she can, knowing she's no substitute. Her methods of comfort aren't particularly heartwarming, but she's there, and she can bear Charles's pain with him, even when it hurts her. They've been through too much to let something like this kill them. "Easy, easy, I got you. We're OK." She kisses the top of his head. "We're OK."  
  
He wants to pass out. He knows he won't. The pain is too much, too strong, too consuming. He's not allowed to use drugs. The only option left is to bear it. Charles tugs on Raven to get her attention, sniffling. "Home," he wheezes. He doesn't want to be in this hospital anymore. There's nothing they can do for him here, and they'll be just as happy to see him go.  
  
"I know, we'll get you home," Raven flags down a nurse, who turns out to be the nurse that helped them before. "Hi, we're going to leave now, is it possible I can get a wheelchair in here? Just to the front door." To Charles she says, "I'm going to call Warren. He'll drive us back."  
  
The nurse practically runs to get them the wheelchair they need, and if Charles was in his right mind, he would thank her from the bottom of his heart. As it is, he can barely manage to muster up a smile that looks more like a grimace as she helps Raven settle him into the wheelchair, even though Raven doesn't need the help. She hesitates for a moment before she hands him something. Charles doesn't need to check to know they're - very strong - pain meds. He hides them in the bag Raven brought down from his earlier room before everything went sideways, but knows he won't use them. "Thank you," he manages, and means it. They are not totally on their own. He will endure this, not just for himself, not just for Erik, not just for Raven and Warren and Hank, but for her as well. For everyone like her. It's a small comfort, but it's a comfort nonetheless.

* * *

Warren's voice cuts through the din when he wheels out the front doors. "You're a sight for sore eyes, Charlie," he gives a smile and helps heft him up into the front seat. "I heard what happened. Worried damn sick for you fools." He opens the door and sets Charles in the seat, buckling his belt. Raven gives the nurse a quick hug and a genuine thank-you from the bottom of her heart, grateful that they've had one consistent ally in this, and she dropped the girl her phone number in case anything went sideways.  
  
Charles has nothing left in him. He might as well be an empty husk, the only thing he's filled up with pain and loss. His head lolls to the side, eyes out the window though he's not looking at anything, and he's silent in a way he never is. For Erik, silence is expected. For Charles, it's the biggest warning sign, because as a general rule he's incapable of keeping his mouth shut. It's shut now, except for soft little whimpers, gasps of breaths when it hurts too much to lock it all down.  
  
Warren drives him back to his apartment and they all crowd inside, helping him to get into his bedroom where Raven takes off his shoes and helps him lie on the mattress. "You want some tea? A book? What will help, Charles? You need to tell me what to do." In any other circumstances she's sure he'd be delighted to comply. "I wish I knew, love. I wish I could get inside your head and shut it all off for you." She winces.  
  
Charles would normally protest getting his bloody, disgusting hair and several-days-unwashed body all over his sheets, but he says nothing. He doesn't think he can make it standing up through a shower, and he's not going to make Raven or Warren suffer through giving him a bath right now. He also knows under any other circumstance, he would eat up the opportunity to let his sister pamper him. Now, he barely registers it. His eyes catch on one of his pillows, and he realizes that - not here, but somewhere else, somewhere very much like here - Erik had laid his head on it. He grabs it and clutches it to his chest, but he stays completely silent. If he opens his mouth, he thinks he'll scream, or sob, and neither is one he wants to subject Raven to.  
  
Raven crawls in behind him, nesting up the blankets to drape over them both, like when they were children and either one of them had endured something particularly horrifying, two planets in orbit keeping one another in line so the universe didn't crumble and collapse on itself. Charles tethered himself to Erik now, and that line was being tested and stretched, but Raven was still here. She could still be here. She wrapped him in her arms and just held him while he wept.  
  
Without Raven, Charles is positive he would be crushed under the weight of this. But she's here, as brilliant as ever, and for that he owes the entire universe a favor. He wraps himself up in her, a child seeking warmth and comfort, and endures. But he doesn't do it alone. After what seems like hours pass, but could be far more or far less - Charles is barely conscious - he nudges to get her attention. "Go home," he tells her, not unkindly. It's barely a whisper. "Hank," he explains. He doesn't need to make her babysit him through the night. "I'll manage."  
  
"Fuck off," Raven replies without any bite, rousing from her drifty half-dream hypnagogia to indulge him, voice raspy and she clears her throat, the next words coming out warmly amused. "Go to sleep, babe."  
  
Charles would laugh under any other circumstance. In this one, he is fiercely grateful for her, and he kisses her head, burying himself back into her familiarity. It takes what seems like forever to listen to her. He floats somewhere between consciousness and not for far too long, hurting and aching, but eventually, sleep comes. Charles has never been more grateful to let it wash over him.


	21. Too big sometimes, regardless of their size"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _entreat me not to leave thee_ , ruth 1:16

Raven doesn't move for as long as Charles is asleep, she just strokes his arm and keeps him wrapped up tight, grateful that he's finally unmoving and still, breaths coming evenly, features relaxed into something approximating peace. Even when the night dawns and raises again, Raven just stays there, toughing out the cramps and awkwardness for his sake. Eventually she drifts off, somewhere between asleep and awake, her conscious mind hovering just on the surface to make certain he was calm.  
  
When Charles wakes, dawn just stretching over the horizon and the city buzzing as it begins its day, it's to a thousand voices at once. It's so disorienting he doesn't know what's happening at first. He bolts upright in bed, the sheets and Raven tangled up with him, and grasps at his head, shouting and alarmed. It feels like every person in the city is currently shouting at him, all vying for his attention at once. "R-Raven," he gasps, tugging at his hair, eyes wide and wild as he trembles. "Raven, they're - they're all coming back -"  
  
She shoots up out of position rather suddenly, bleary-eyed and half-asleep, scrambling for purchase. "OK, alright," she manages, her arms still wrapped firmly around him. "That's good, it's OK. Just lean into it. Focus on my voice. You know my mind pretty good. Try and pick me out." She concentrated on sending calm, firm pulses of peace, love, self to him.  
  
It's almost impossible to focus it. He feels nine years old again, overwhelmed and confused, listening in on conversations and thoughts and others' lives without being able to fully separate it from himself. A man down the street has just lost his wife after forty-five years of marriage. The woman downstairs is going into labor. Down the block, a couple has just woken up, blissful and tangled up in each other - He grits his teeth, closes his eyes, and focuses. There she is. Raven is a bright spot in the chaos, a warm, familiar hum. He doesn't delve too deeply, but he listens anyway, just enough to wrap his mental presence around hers and sigh. "It's back," he croaks. It's so heavy with relief it shakes. "Raven, it's back."  
  
Raven grins brilliantly at him. "I told you it would come back, you dope," she laughs and gives him a proper hug. "Don't strain yourself too much, OK? I know you don't like listening to me, but I'm serious. Erik wouldn't want you to throw yourself out of commission just as you're starting to normalize. Let it happen. They've got the bad guys in custody, they're suppressed, Erik is safe, I'm safe. Just take a chill pill."  
  
Charles is fairly horrid at chilling, as a general rule, but he'll do his best. But there's one thing he really needs to try, and he doesn't think Erik or Raven will fault him for it. There's less finesse now. Straining too much inspires that throbbing, awful pain, but all things considered, the range he has going on here is better and farther than it ever was before. His telepathy is usually fairly immediate, limited to whoever happens to be within a certain radius. It doesn't feel that way now, as if it were a trapped creature and now it has spanned outward, stretching its limbs and venturing beyond. Yawning after a long rest. He doesn't push too hard. He doesn't need to. The suppressants of the CIA building do nothing to keep him from the one mind he wants to touch most. It's a bit stretched, distant and static like a phonecall through a tunnel, but it's there. He's there. Charles could cry. He does, actually, the tears springing to his eyes before he can stop them. Erik.  
  
The relief and joy that washes over him is palpable in the room, so much so that even Raven can feel it emanating out of Charles through Erik, whose answer is warm and fond and affectionate, all the emotions Charles had been cut off from exploding outward and wrapping him up in heavy, weighted cords, binding him and returning him to his rightful place. Erik is all colors now, greens and golds and sunlight and desert soil and hanging plants, splashes of paint in silly designs and deep, deep compassion that threatens everything in an alluring haze. All nestled deep in his mind, never to be exposed. Only for Charles. *Charles,* his voice returns, hot tears and overwhelming love.  
  
Charles is crying in earnest now, which isn't doing much to help with the dehydration. He's a bit surprised he even has anything left. His relief and love is an equally palpable thing, crossing every inch of distance and thrumming between them as if they're touching in the Real. He opens his mind just as wide as Erik's, even though parts of his are still hot to the touch and broken, throws open every door and relishes in having someone to share it with. Healing always begins here. He's flooding his own colors again, warm beiges and soft, gentle blues, falling snow, freshly pressed cardigans, worn pages and mahogany. He wraps his mental presence firmly around Erik's, twining them so tightly together he doesn't think they can separate. Good morning, darling, he practically purrs, curled up close and nuzzling. He knows Raven can see the dopey, overwhelmed smile on his lips, the way it crinkles his eyes and shows off his dimples, but he's too overjoyed to care.  
  
Erik instantly curls up all around Charles's perception, a light and carefree laugh bubbling out of him. _You're here. I love you. Boker tov._ Erik's inside an isolation cell. It's dark and there's no light and no food and it's cold and there's no mattress, so he's curled up on the floor, and he's with Charles and it's warm and cozy and perfect. He leans into that, making a noise like a contented sigh that's almost a moan of pure _relief_ -the agony of separation has weighted on him like an iron chain welded to his whole body, unable to be manipulated, blow-torch hot and reddened. Despair, anguish all began to slowly simmer and recede.  
  
Raven smiles and shifts off the bed in a single agile motion, giving up the covers to wrap around him. "You tell him he needs to make sure you take a shower, bud. You look _ratchet_." She laughs and slinks out of the room to give them some privacy and get breakfast going.

* * *

Charles frowns, concern touching his thoughts where they meet Erik's, suddenly aware of his surroundings. He hates that cold, dark place, but there's nothing he can do about it. Instead he gives off the sensation of throwing open all the windows, bathing Erik in light and warmth, drawing him in and wrapping him up in Charles' sheets as he settles down. Sunshine on blankets and Charles nuzzled up underneath Erik's chin. I've missed you so much, love, he murmurs, light and soft and finally, finally without pain, so weightless with relief he floats. Every single muscle relaxes, and he moans more than he sighs, eyes fluttering closed. _Let's never do that again, okay? I don't think I can bear it._ He doesn't mean to, but everything is so open here that it filters through, Charles sobbing and helpless and wracked with agony as he reached out _for Erik, Erik, Erik,_ never able to find him. Silent and miserable, trapped inside without his Dom's anchoring presence.  
  
Never again, Erik agrees. He hated being cut off like that, trapped inside his own mind, unable to share the depth and height of his affections, unable to truly speak. Charles thought Erik wouldn't like him without telepathy, but Erik knows that it's Charles who won't like Erik. Erik is too detached and cold. Too dead. Only inside this bright-place can he love, and he latches onto it when it's given, burrows deep into every crevasse of Charles, surrounding him with as much of it as he can like warm, dripping honey. _Lo tov heyot ha'adam l'vado,_ Erik recites with a fond laugh, the inscription on Charles's collar, a reminder and an entreaty. _Entreat me not to leave thee. Where you walk, I will walk._  
  
Charles shakes his head, which Erik can't see, but it translates anyway. There is never a situation, no matter how much he longed for this, where he would not love Erik. He wraps himself up fully in his sheets and blankets, humming and content and finally, finally relaxed. It turns out that hours of consistent torment makes you a bit boneless by the end, exhausted deep down to his core where everything is still echoing with that extraordinary pain. It can't reach him now, though. _I should get up_ , he thinks, and doesn't even attempt to hide his pout. _Don't want to. Staying here instead._  
  
You will feel better once you shower and change your clothes, Erik tells him, and Charles can feel the way he purses his lips, the way his eyes crinkle when he's amused, facial expressions so terribly obvious now when before he was like smooth stone, a man made of clay and desiccated feet. _Come on, neshama. Up you go_ , he Ordered softly. _Get the blankets and clean up your bed. Then find some nice clothes and go take a shower._  
  
 _Mmmmnh_ , he whines, gives the sensation of grumbling and dragging feet, but he gets up anyway. It's the closest thing they have to waking up together, and he cherishes it, holding it close to his chest even as he continues to pout. He's never been a morning person, and he likely never will be. The blankets are all twisted up, and he glowers at them, letting Erik watch as he attempts to straighten it all out. _Can you stay?_ he asks, hopefully. Erik isn't able to go through his morning routine with him physically, but perhaps they can have the next best thing. Charles doesn't feel like he's straining to hold the connection, so there really should be no harm...  
  
 _Oh, yes_ , Erik's response is immediate, a rush of pleasure and pure, relaxed contentment soaking through Charles's awareness. _As long as this is comfortable for you, I have no intention of leaving_. Erik never wanted to leave this place again, truth be told, unless his presence was causing pain, he wished to nestle up here and block everything else out. _Did you know that you are adorable when you pout like that?_ he huffs, a sensation like hands drawing down his face, tender.  
  
 _Deal_ , he murmurs, but it takes him a bit to get up, sleepy contentment and heavy limbs as he blinks and yawns again. Charles wanders off to the bathroom, sluggish and warm, and finds he can barely feel his legs. For some reason he pauses, flushing again as he realizes he's actually going to have to strip to take his shower. Erik has seen him naked more than a few times now, but there's something so strangely intimate about it, in the full daylight of his bathroom first thing in the morning. Something they haven't shared together yet. _Are you going to look away?_ he teases, because he knows Erik won't.  
  
The realization filters through their bond like molasses hitched in melting desire, and the feeling of _Erik_ , pressed up against him, hands brushing over his shirt, as if he could tug it off from where he sat in the cold, dark, empty space. A void so profound it tore their souls in half, the disconnect, and now the idea of teasing intimacy is enough to raise Erik's instincts, draping his Will over Charles heavy and thick, and pure. _Mm, no,_ Erik agrees with a laugh. _Do you want me to look away?_ he smiles back.  
  
 _No_ , he thinks immediately, but he's blushing harder, the meek, shy side of him that only Erik inspires in him peeking out. His fingers are shaking a little as he undoes the buttons of his shirt, not because he's afraid, but because the anticipation is so thick. He can feel Erik watching like this, can feel his Will wrapped all around him, and it's such a heady, gorgeous thing. Charles grimaces when his shirt sticks to him and he has to peel it off, blood and sweat and grime, which does ruin some of the appeal. Not all of it. He steps out of his pants in the same way, biting his lip as he attempts modesty, covering himself like he's some virgin schoolboy. Only Erik could do this to him, miles and miles away, have him squirming and warm without even needing to be in the room.  
  
He can almost feel Erik's fingertips run up his arm, encouraging him to drop his hands, like a ghost settling behind him, the warmth of Erik's body is far, far away but somehow he's right over Charles's shoulder, breathing into his ear, voice low and raspy. _Nehedar. You are beautiful. Let me see you_. The Order is light, airy. There's concern there, too, for all the blood he sees, making sure there are no cuts and bruises to attend.  
  
Charles shivers, certain he can feel Erik as if he's right there. His eyes close, deepening the illusion, and he lets his hands drop to the side, lets Erik see - see what's his. The thought bubbles up a little sigh, a whimper, and he's suddenly very warm indeed. He notices the concern, though; Charles takes Erik's hand, or a perception of it, places it on his stomach, his side, lets it roam and projects what's actually there as he does. There are small cuts, bruises, from crawling on glass and being dropped, but nothing serious. Underneath the bandage, which he unwraps carefully, there is nothing but what will eventually become a scar. No pain, no gnarled wound. It's close to fully healed. _See?_ he asks, smiling. _I'm alright_. And still squirming, because there are other parts of him that Erik can see now, too.  
  
Erik is horrified, and Charles can feel it plainly, a suffocating hand over his mouth and steam that you can't breathe through, amid a forest of curling, dangerous things. He did this to Charles. All of the blood and scrapes and the wound-scar at his side, he touches it gingerly, barely-there tickles of fingertips. He did this. Erik drops his jaw onto Charles's shoulder and kisses him, more an image than an act, sorrowful and sorry and unable to comprehend how he can fix such a thing. Dangerous, monster, animal. Locked in a cage.  
  
 _No._ It's firm. Charles lifts his chin, gives the sensation of looking over his shoulder to frown disapprovingly. There isn't a single part of him that blames Erik for this, and it would be impossible not to feel that now. _You didn't do this, Erik. You were protecting us. I'm not upset. Please don't blame yourself for this._ He purses his lips, another pout from before, this one far more pronounced. He's put out, but only because Erik is disrupting his sleepy morning desire, lazy and weightless and warm, and he's not having it. _Now kiss me,_ he demands, bossy rather than timid in the aftermath. There is some of that, too, though.  
  
A little light out of the darkness and he can feel Erik returning to him, unwilling to grieve or throw pain into this moment, and his fingers slide across Charles's stomach as he presses all the way up against him, a sensation so incredibly real that it's disorienting not to find Erik behind him. _Get in the shower,_ Erik Orders instead, lips quirked up, but he obliges with a kiss just under his ear.  
  
There's more pouting there, but he does what he's told, smiling himself now that Erik's returned to him. He's spent too long in that dark, broken place himself to let either of them touch it, and he's more than happy to climb into the shower. It's large and roomy and perfectly big enough for the two of them, so Charles pretends Erik is right behind him as he fiddles with the knobs. Warm enough to turn his skin a nice shade of pink like always. He outright moans when the water meets his skin, head thrown back as he sighs. It feels absolutely incredible after everything.  
  
He doesn't imagine the way Erik crowds close to him, relishing in the warmth of his body and the spray of hot water, and his head tips back, practically luxuriating in the moment. It feels like the nicest thing he's experienced in days, their time during surgery notwithstanding, the coldness and emptiness of his mind and the room have stretched hours into millennia. And now he's here, and his hands roam Charles's body idly. His arms, his chest, settling on his hips, pressed up flush. _Good morning_ , he murmurs, a gentle mirth lining the repetition. The water feels so good against his own aches and pains, and his eyes shut, letting everything settle.  
  
Charles is utterly lost to sensation, practically mindless with it. For those millennia Erik notes, he was so convinced pain was the only thing he would ever feel again. That it would swallow him whole and never release him, a neverending torment where Erik could never reach him. He's so relieved he wonders if he might cry again, sighing and pliant where Erik's presence presses up against him, leaning into every touch. He's soaking it up like the water that washes away blood and grime and everything that came with it. Charles turns, mostly to get the shampoo, but he imagines facing Erik, leaning against that firm, beautiful chest. It's not just the water turning him pink. _Kiss me_ , he demands again, except this time it's edged with that shyness from before, more of a request than he originally intends.  
  
 _Mhm_ , Erik's response is more of a feeling, a noise of contentment and he can almost, almost feel it when Erik obliges, melting into every pore and molecule of his body. Stay with me, he entreats. Don't leave. Please don't leave. Erik encloses him, surrounds him. There is so much more that he wants to say, but he lets his hands and lips talk for him instead. They're far more loquacious than him. He imagines himself at the zenith of the horizon, basked in rays, every door thrown open. _Will I see you today?_  
  
 _Yes, I'll be there_ , he promises, despite the fact that even without the horrific pain he feels as if he's been run over by several overlarge vehicles. And clobbered over the head a few times, just for good measure. It's not just a migraine he's left with, but a full body ache, all of his muscles tense and taut, limbs left numb and jelly-like. Even so, he's soft in Erik's hands, light and pleased, closing his eyes to properly enjoy every pseudo-touch of fingers and lips. It's nearly as good as the real thing. Only nearly, though. Charles sighs as he reaches for the shampoo, bending in a way he wouldn't have to normally but that he realizes accommodates for Erik, as if he's physically there. He smiles. _I really enjoy this shower, but unfortunately it wasn't built for giant Neanderthals. We might need something bigger if we intend to make this a habit_ , he snarks, and it's such a relief that he can that his knees nearly buckle for it as he uncaps the bottle.  
  
Erik's laugh is infectious, sweeping out in the tiny area they share. _Ani lo yode'a_ , he smirks. _I think it's cozy._ He's up against Charles's back, as though that's the only space he can truly occupy. It's the only one he wants to. He digs his fingers, ghostly-touches kneading and soothing the knots and aches and pains he can find, expertly tracing down his spine and blossoming all that hurt into electric satisfaction. He threads his hands through Charles's hair when he begins to shampoo it.  
  
Charles moans, melting into Erik's ghostly, electric touch and his own fingers as they knead into his scalp. It's been far too long since he took a proper, hot shower and his eyes slip closed again, perfectly willing to indulge the way he likes. He's rarely willing to sink his own precious time for self-care, but if there's ever been one thing he's allowed for it's a long shower or a piping hot bath. I need to cut my hair, he notes, because wet it's creeping toward his shoulders, curling rebelliously no matter what he does, and he's never worn it this long. He gingerly winds a lock around his own finger, humming. It's no longer greasy and crusted with dried blood, so he considers it a large improvement as he tilts his head back to rinse. _I haven't had a spare moment to think about it. We're lucky I grow a patchy beard to begin with or I'd be a mountain man right now._ Charles grows facial hair, obviously, but it's usually so sparse he can skip a few days of shaving and there's not much to show for it besides some stubble and peach fuzz.  
  
Erik scrapes his fingertips over the stubble lining Charles's face, smiling next to his ear. When his response comes, it's almost his voice, aloud. The longer they spend like this, the more real it seems, their connection sinking into itself and drawing them closer regardless of the distance. The bond between them is humming, and Erik's stroking along it like he's touching Charles, reveling in closeness, in the small jolts of desire and intimacy that trail along. Erik himself hasn't had much opportunity to care for his own appearance, his hair long enough to develop thick auburn-sheen curls that frame his chin and shoulders, poofing off the top erratically. He's got his own several-days' old beard, that grows quickly and thick along his jaw. "I suppose you must leave the mountaineering to the Neanderthals," he teases back lightly.  
  
Charles hums again, a soft little smile on his lips as he turns in Erik's arms. He has to stand up on his tip toes to even begin to reach, but fortunately Erik is accommodating and bends for him as he rubs their cheeks together playfully. "I quite like it on you, actually," he admits, uncertain if he's actually speaking aloud or not. He'll need to figure that out before he goes out in public, but for now it doesn't matter. "It tickles when we kiss." He's shy again, the intimacy and warmth catching up to him. Erik taking a morning shower with him is something he's oft fantasized about as he went about his routine, however unstable that routine was - it was the small things he found himself longing for most, in their absence. Charles hides the fluttering in his belly by reaching for his body wash, but he knows there's no real hiding here.  
  
He swipes his palm over the pale expanse of Charles's stomach, through the lather of body wash, and the image of them there solidifies, Charles can see him shimmering, without clothing of course-Erik's preference for being entirely naked is justified in a shower, at least-and he grins down at Charles, a quick, sharp thing. "Mhm," is his simple answer, more a contented noise low in his throat. His eyes are bright, vivid in the fluorescence of the bathroom, and roam Charles's exposed flesh unapologetically. He lets his hands rest on Charles's hips, swaying a bit in an invisible dance. This, here, makes up for everything, he can't help but think. It was worth it for this.  
  
"It's absolutely worth it," he breathes, agreeing. Erik's touch tingles more than it does normally, lingering even after his fingers have moved on, and that deep, low voice settles right into his stomach and sends chills up his spine. Charles finds himself warm for reasons that are unrelated to the steam and hot water, soapy and squirming because despite his utter exhaustion, it seems some parts of his body are still perfectly functioning and he's abandoned proper washing for arching into Erik's hands and rocking lightly against him. He blushes harder, because he knows it's impossible for Erik not to notice. "Raven is in the other room," he says, not sure exactly who he's reminding here.  
  
"Is she," is all Erik says, warm and amused. He lets his fingertips glide up Charles's chest, resting against the hollow of his throat where his Adam's apple dips under the contact, and Charles can feel how pleased Erik is at that, at the way his body responds even to these barely-there touches. "I can feel you," Erik rasps against his neck, lips brushing the skin there. "Can you feel me?" he moves even closer, hips rocking against him so Charles can feel exactly how this situation has affected him, all a flurry of superheated sparks and wonder and delight, unhurried, a moment suspended in time that they can stretch and stretch.  
  
Charles whines, louder and needier than he would have expected, swallowing hard against Erik's touch. Erik is warm against him, which shouldn't be possible, and when he rocks his hips Charles can feel everything. He's hard and thick and deliciously there against Charles' belly and it's so overwhelming after their separation that he gasps, hips thrusting of their own accord as he rubs himself against Erik's thigh. "Yes," he whimpers, because it's exceptionally obvious that he can, and his eyes are half-lidded as he arches under the heavy, still warm water. "Erik," he says, and he means it as a protest, but it comes out a breathy moan. "We - we can't -"  
  
Erik grins down at him and his hand travels up, up, until he gently taps Charles's lips, holding the palm of his hand over his mouth and using his other to trace down and just-barely brush against where he's hard. "Oh, I think we can. You must be quiet," he says, with a voice like gravel. "Can you do that?" He doesn't stop moving, banding his arm across Charles's back to keep him still and shifting their position so his cock slides against Charles's for a brief moment, settling in between his legs. Their foreheads are bowed together, and he can feel Charles's noises against his palm, his breaths wet and desperate with the sudden realization that they can, that they have this moment, they have it-Quiet, quiet, Erik admonishes with a smirk. It's not even an Order, he's much too amused at Charles's efforts to stifle himself out of his own direction.  
  
For something lacking real physical sensation, Charles is incredibly worked up. He's gasping already, desperate even with so little attention, and he knows if there wasn't water to wash away the evidence he would already be leaking against Erik's thigh. His hips are rocking of their own accord, forward and back, little hitched whimpers he can't hold back properly escaping even as he closes his eyes and tries to swallow them down. He doesn't know if he's squirming to get closer or escape, but Erik is holding him fast, if not with his body than with his mind. "Erik," he moans, and knows that at least that was out loud, cheeks bright pink and eyes wide as he realizes. Something wicked and playful overwhelms him, because if Erik wants to tease, to play, then he will play. He bites down on the hand over his mouth, eyes gleaming mischievous and dark with desire and mock defiance.  
  
Erik's hand close over Charles's and he guides them down, down. "Show me," he says lowly, his own desire rising out like a palpable thing, the Order suffusing every ion and molecule in the air like steam rising to fog the mirror, spreading out and out. _Show me how you touch yourself when you're alone. Show me how you think of me._ The Orders build, dominating any sense of even-playful defiance, melting out everything except need-want-more. Erik's got this in his hands and he's here and he's not letting it go, not letting it pass them by, every opportunity to be alone with Charles and fill him up with hazy-sensory joy he'll grab and keep close to him as long as he can. _Quiet, now,_ he smiles, a gentle thing in the midst of cloying, thick momentum.  
  
Charles' breath hitches hard in his chest, throat flexing and bobbing as he suffocates on his own desire. He doesn't know whether to inhale or exhale, but every sense is so thoroughly clogged with Erik and the thick, blanketing effect of his Will and Orders that it doesn't matter. His cock is so hard it aches when he wraps his hand around it, biting down hard on his lip in the absence of Erik's hand, head falling back in a silent, shuddering moan. He's thought of this. Touched himself exactly like this, the water warm and steady around him as he imagined Erik, slow and languid and overindulgent in a way he's never been with his own body. He shows Erik the first time, only days after they first met: he was frustrated and embarrassed then, overwhelmed with his own want, thinking of Erik Ordering him the whole time. Charles whines, shifting until he can bury himself in Erik's shoulder, hips stuttering helplessly. "Erik," he gasps, and it's not quiet. "Erik, Erik, oh -"  
  
"Oh, you wanted me then," Erik breathes, clutching Charles hard against him. Erik's behind him now, head resting on his shoulder, looking down and his fingers are ghosting over Charles's, leading him in slow, shuddering motions. He's hard against Charles's ass, rubbing up on him languidly, casual, disinterested in chasing down his own need, just letting it sit and build and build and extend out all around them. _Look at you. Nehedar. Beautiful boy. That's it._ He skates his hand over Charles's belly, rests it there, feels how it twitches and jerks under the pool of liquid flame rising up. "Easy, now," Erik says when he starts to get into a quicker rhythm, and the Order is firm. "Poor thing," he whispers. "I can see you now-it's never enough-" Charles had been embarrassed to admit it on Erik's behalf, but Erik has no reservations, his voice a raspy, filthy deluge as he encapsulates the moment. He knows. He knows well, how his own desperation manifests in the cold-darkness, plasma melting his insides and going nowhere. Not now. "I'm here now. I'll give you what you need." His hands over Charles's again, guiding him, in long, agonizingly light strokes, pulling him up as if on a string taut with tension and lust. Erik isn't just behind him, he's everywhere, in the air, against his throat, behind his eyelids, in every slide of wet skin. No, the Order comes again. _Follow my lead. Slowly. That's right._ The Orders feel like dripping syrup sliding up his spine, right into the base of his neck. "Shh, shh," he reminds out loud. Out loud? His voice or his thoughts, mixing into one Real phenomenon.  
  
Charles bites down harder on his lip, belly tight with need as he lets out hitched, punched out little gasps, biting down hard enough on his dry, cracked lips that they bleed. He wants to beg for more, for harder or faster, to grip himself tightly and stroke until he comes shuddering and moaning Erik's name, but he won't. He won't unless Erik asks him to, because he's right. Erik is here and he will give him exactly what he needs. "Wanted you so bad," he whispers, though they both already know it, and his hips stutter, unsure if he wants to grind back against Erik's hard cock or into his own hand. "I didn't know what to do, I've never wanted like that -" He'd been half-delirious with it, fighting it at every step, angry and ashamed with himself. There's none of that now. He follows Erik's lead, entirely malleable, boneless against him as he takes only what he's given. Charles shivers, craning his neck to look, to see Erik as he commands his body so thoroughly he doesn't think it's his own touch anymore. His body is just another extension of Erik's like this. _Yours_ , and it's not so much a word as it is a truth, spread out undeniable for the two of them to bask in. I'm yours.  
  
Erik takes all that want and whips it up into a storm, crashing through Charles's chest like a freight train and zipping all the way down to his cock where it twitches in their hold, both of their hands, one-they're the same, here. No more shame, no more disgust. Only feeling, sensation, the power of Will. Erik's moving against him in rhythmic, easy rolls of his hips, sliding himself along the half-remembered red welts that almost seem real again, taking taking taking all that is offered and more. He gradually lets Charles speed up, scraping his teeth over the back of his neck in a near-bite, murmuring encouragement and heat-filled dirty fantasies into his ear. How much he loves this, how much he wants Charles, how he's thought about him every day, how he's always filled with want for this, here, where all the world slips away and it's just the two of them, Charles suspended on the tightrope between them, bound and kept. If he were there he would shove Charles against the mattress and fuck him incoherent, open him up with fingers and tongue until he's pleading and pressing back against him for more and he wouldn't give it, always on this edge just like him, Order him to be still and take what he's given, what Erik deigns to give him. His fingers brush over Charles's lip, dip into his mouth, and everything turns hot and frantic all of a sudden, desire bursting outward. _Let me see you. That's it. More. Do you want more? I've got you. Let me see you come all over your fingers for me. My name on your tongue. Mine. You are mine_. The Orders are tight, restrained, as though any second Erik will burst out of the illusion himself.  
  
When Charles comes, it feels as if he leaves his own body. He arches, back bending, neck craned, eyes fluttering closed, and he feels so intensely that he's certain he will break, but then he doesn't. Erik's Will holds him together, piecing back all the jagged edges of him until he's whole again. The sensation doesn't go away in the aftershocks, which seem as if they last forever in their own right - he's twitching, shaking, trembling against Erik's chest, lips parted sloppily for his fingers as he spurts hot all over his own belly. When he comes to, still trembling and gasping, the water has gone cold. It's washed away all the evidence of his own release, too, but he's still wracked with it, a sensual, needy creature even after relief who longed for this - for his Dom, for this comfort - since the moment he left the room. He's aware in some corner of his mind that when he came, it was indeed with his lips parted around Erik's name in a scream, but right now he doesn't have it in him to be embarrassed. He nuzzles closer to Erik instead, ignoring the cold that seeps into his skin as he shivers.  
  
Poor Raven. Erik laughs gently and guides him to shut the tap off, draping himself over Charles in every way he can, soaking up the aftermath like a plant arching in sunlight. There's nothing more that he loves than this moment, with Charles floating and happy between them, feared so deeply it sheared his soul that it was _gone_ , that he could never experience this again, and it makes him cling harder, a creature of instinct and possessive Will. _I love you,_ says the world, over and over, in every language Erik knows. Charles is shivering, so he Orders him to fetch a fluffy towel and wrap it around himself, not moving an iota from Charles's side as he does. _There you are. Let's get you warm._  
  
Charles is smiling, weightless and achingly happy as he wraps himself up in a towel and imagines it is Erik who does it. Erik who grabs another to rub over his hair to dry it until it is fluffy and bouncing with curls, a soft laugh escaping him at the force of his own joy. The night before seems like a vague, terrible nightmare in the aftermath, though he can still feel its effects. It can't touch him here where he is wrapped up just as much in Erik as he is in the towel, padding back into his bedroom and the soft carpeting there. He sighs as he digs his toes in, content and sensual and bright. Love you too, he murmurs, that delighted purr again. He knows he needs to dress himself, but that means sacrificing the sensation of skin on skin, and technically Erik hasn't told him to yet, so he just settles back into the warmth and comfort of his presence instead, tangling and tangling and assuring himself they will never come apart again.

* * *

He leads Charles over to the closet and bids him to select something comfortable, but professional-they have a big day ahead of them today. They're unable to postpone the arraignment any longer, and Erik knows he's going to have to face a team of opposing lawyers who believe he's a feral animal, a mythos he's done little to dispel since his arrival. Erik's a little nervous and it filters through, but he contains it all inside himself, wrapping it up in concealed ropes and tucking it under the darkest part of the mountainous soil of the big expanse in his mind.  
  
He instead surrounds himself in Charles, still riding the wave of his subspace (the compelling twin-state in Dominants, what Warren had once called Dominion in a rare discussion they'd had while drinking several years ago, when he'd explained that high-Doms responded on a biological level to subspace in a similar manner-just as subdrop had its own counterpart, the cut-an apt descriptor to describe the sensation of being gutted). As a D5 Erik entered Dominion pretty much in direct response to Charles's presence, always fighting with himself to be reasonable and not simply Order him to his knees every time he was in the room.  
  
Right now, though, he guided Charles through getting dressed, and then took a step back, a faint smile on his features. "You remember what comes next, hm?" Regardless of Raven, who was in the kitchen cooking breakfast and pretending like she didn't hear her freaking brother screaming in the bathroom (brain-bleach please).  
  
Similarly, Charles is always a breath away from this place. It doesn't concern or frighten him like it once might have, nor should it; there's nothing concerning about the way this feels, about the natural, simple joy subspace brings him, the ease of it. There's nothing missing, nothing stolen from him, nothing mindless or basic like he'd thought. Instead he's every bit himself, though now he buzzes with the need to please Erik. "Hm?" he asks, perhaps still hazy with relief and Erik's presence, every bit a pleased, curled up cat, brushing himself up against Erik's mind in search of affection and praise.  
  
"Hmm," Erik grins. "Come along," he tugs Charles by the hand to an unoccupied area of the bedroom, encouraging Charles to take a soft blanket and lay it over the carpeting. "You know it is morning time," he murmurs. "I want you to practice your Postures, just as I've instructed. You may start at Rest. I trust that you know the others, and I want to see how you will do this for me."  
  
A shiver runs up Charles' spine, and there's the beginnings of a flush that has nothing to do with how long he stayed in the shower on his pale skin. There's nothing outwardly sexual or intimate about Postures and, in fact, many of them are expected in public. Even designed for it, under the correct circumstances. They were taught to him in school under the supervision of a submissive teacher, though several of them are new to him, or modified heavily under Erik's instructions. There's nothing that should embarrass him about falling into them with his sister so near, and if he were any other submissive, it's fairly inevitable that he would have fallen into them in front of her countless times. But he's fought this for so long that it seems - strange, almost. Perhaps even deviant. He supposes the only way to combat that is with time. He wanted this to be real, with no off switch when it was inconvenient, with no boundaries besides the ones their situation necessitates, and it starts with the simplest of gestures. His discomfort is irrelevant here, Erik's expectations clear. So he says "yes, Erik," and takes a breath to steady himself. Charles is nervous and twisted up at first as he slips to his knees, uncertain exactly why. It melts away almost instantly. His body knows how to move, echoing Erik's instruction and corrections effortlessly, molding itself to his liking. Although his mind still hums, active against Erik's, there's a pleasant, gentle lull here, a state he's only ever reached under Erik's guidance and the weight of his Will and dominance. Meditation has always seemed like nonsense to him, the state it espoused utterly unattainable for him and his racing, racing mind, but he imagines it must be something like this. All that matters is Erik's Will, is forming his own body in a way that will please him and fulfill it. By the time he enters his last Posture, Charles is so relaxed he's sighing with it, thrumming with the need to please, to obey, to be Erik's wholly and entirely. There isn't a tense muscle left. If every morning is to start like this, Charles isn't certain why he ever felt need to complain.  
  
Erik only moves to issue minor corrections, primarily to the Postures he taught Charles that weren't in the standard American curriculum, and to modify slightly the more rigid aspects that Charles retained from his training, echoing pleasure and ease as he observes from his spot cross-legged across Charles. Finally, when Charles finishes back at Rest, Erik moves over to his side and wraps his arms around him, nuzzling into his neck. _Perfection_ , his mind hums happily. _You're wonderful._  
  
Tears prick at Charles' eyes, totally unbidden. Unexpected. His submission has never been perfection to anyone, and though it's certainly not the first time he's been praised in this way by Erik, the ordinary circumstances of it - and the reminder that this is to become his routine - overwhelm him. He sniffles against Erik's shoulder, feeling a bit silly as he clings. "I did good?" he asks, and it isn't fishing. Charles has been complimented for many things throughout his life and soaked all of them up, but his submission was never one of them. Quite the opposite. He still isn't convinced it's not broken, sometimes. That even Erik would be better off with someone different.  
  
 _Atzor_ , Erik hushes him. "You did so good," he smiles and reaches up to cup Charles's jaw and kiss him, fond and amazed. I will never want for another. You've spoiled me, you see, Erik laughs. Only you. The same sentiment has echoed in Erik, too, his hesitance, his lenience, his world of Eldritch horrors, his inexperience with a genuine, healthy relationship, his triggers and quirks. But they stay together, regardless, they help one another, they lift one another up out of the crevasses of past laments. We are stronger, together, he repeats those words with another kiss, warm. He's pleased with Charles and it rolls off of him in slow, rolling waves. "Now, we get some breakfast," he says, a reminder that this is also part of his routine. "Come and stand up with me." He leads Charles to his feet, kissing his jaw and temple because he can't give up the contact.  
  
Charles hums, happily obedient, a smile on his lips as he follows Erik's lead into the kitchen. His stomach is growling insistently at even the mention of food, and it absolutely clenches at the smell of it, twisting uncomfortable and empty. It's only when he's met with the sight of Raven sitting cross-legged at his breakfast table that he blushes bright scarlet. "Please say nothing," he mumbles, though he knows, without a doubt, that she will. He supposes it's the price he pays for the lovely breakfast she's cooked him, Charles practically salivating as he sits. And blinks, eyes wide and confused as he does. It aches, but - Oh. He swallows, ducking his head. There's no way for him to get any redder, but it crawls up to his ears and down his neck.  
  
Raven, sometimes, can be a consummate professional, a holdover from her days with Sharon and Kurt Xavier-Marko, and she just smiles, blue as can be, and slides over the plate. "Morning," she shrugs at him and sits down with her own, deftly ignoring the way Charles is squirming and blushing. "I take it Erik's here?" she looks around. Beside Charles, Erik gives his neck another brush of lips and curls up beside him, expectant as he looks over the plate of eggs and bacon, a full English breakfast spread out over the plate. "Eat up," is all Erik says, resting his head on Charles's shoulder.  
  
Charles laughs, letting out a sigh of relief. "Yes, he's here," he says, though it's entirely unnecessary when they both know. He thanks her silently, reaching over to take her hand to kiss. Really, Raven is far, far more than he deserves, and he reminds himself, not for the first time, to never stop being eternally grateful to her. He doesn't need to be told to eat, and he does it with far too much relish, aware he's only going to hurt his own stomach but unable to stop. Partway through he gets up to make his own cup of coffee and grab the daily paper from where it's usually dropped off just outside. He's singlehandedly saving the print paper industry, really. "Do you want the funnies, then?" he's asking Raven, teasing and dry. He's barely scanned any of the words yet, settles back into his seat (squirming a good deal) before he does. And knocks over his cup of coffee when he does, barely hissing at the burn in his shock.  
  
"Gimme, gimme," Raven says, holding out her hand, but when Charles drops the coffee they both notice that the cup rights itself and floats in the air, Erik's standing by Charles in their liminal-space, visible only to his bonded partner, hand outstretched. This is real, he's affecting the space he's in despite not being there, despite the distance and suppressors. The cup sets itself down on the table and then a towel floats over to them and drapes itself onto Charles's burnt fingers. "Are you all right?" Erik's voice is in his ear.  
  
 _No_ , is the answer to that. He's thoroughly, properly horrified, his mouth fish-gaping, his mind a shut down, stutter-stop of fear. He passes the headline over to Raven, and simultaneously reads it back over, the words perfectly memorized, for Erik's sake. _'President Considers State of Emergency In Wake of Rising Mutant Terrorism - Is the Mutant Registration Act around the corner?'_ The Mutant Control Act (MCA), a series of legislative acts intended to provide proper legal authority over mutant citizens - among them, the Mutant Registration Act, or MRA, which would make law that all mutants submit to database registration - ranked by threat - visible identification of non-physical mutations - Charles thinks he might be sick  
  
Raven grabs it from him and her eyes widen in horror. "Oh my G-d-no, this can't be _serious_. They can't _do_ this! What the hell is this?" she's immediately ranting, hackles raised, adrenaline pouring down her body. "I'm _not_ fucking _registering_ myself to the _government_ to track my _threat level_. This is _bullshit_ "  
  
Erik's silent beside him, slipped into that cold-space he felt like while they were disconnected, his features a stony mask. Statues don't move, but Erik does, and the paper folds itself back up and flips over to the comics, laid on the opposite side of the table. He's standing behind Charles, hands gripping the chair. Statues can't speak, either, but finally Erik does. "It's beginning."  
  
Charles shakes his head. Then he shakes it again, swallowing down his own terror. He reaches for Raven's hand, wraps himself up as closely with Erik as is possible shy of combining into one being. Grounding himself. "No," he says, and manages somehow to be firm. "Nothing is beginning. Not if we end it first. Are you ready for a fight, dear one?" he asks Raven, because he knows Erik already is, and he will do everything - everything - in his power to make it one that does not necessitate further blood on his hands.  
  
This case will do more than decide Erik's future. It will decide all of theirs.  
  
"You know I am," Raven says, jaw set in determination. She squeezes Charles's hand, her cat-like yellow eyes chartreuse-blue rimmed, a sign she's holding back tears. "You guys have to win," she whispers. "You have to. This can't happen. I won't let it happen, Charles. I know you're an Integrationist, I know you value pacifism, but this is unacceptable. If they come knocking on our door I won't go without a fight. I won't, I will not let them take you, or Erik, or anyone." Said Erik, meanwhile, is silent, muscles coiled up like a panther assessing prey, gaze hard and predatory.  
  
"We'll win," he assures her, which brings him back to Erik. It's a bit harder to focus on him like this, but Charles tugs gently at his mind, pulling him closer. Grounding him in the Real, with Charles, where he belongs for the moment. Where Charles desperately, desperately needs him. "Erik," he breathes, pleading. Please. Look at me. Talk to me. Come back to me, love, I need you now.  
  
Erik goes where he's bidden, pressed up against Charles's side, tension roiling through every fibrin-mesh-net of his blood cells and kinetic impulses. "I am here," he says, soft and serious. In the prison cell where he rests, he's got his mangled hand resting over his left forearm, where the AIDC is seared into his flesh.  
  
Charles buries himself as deeply in Erik as he can, seeking comfort as much as he wishes to give it. We can do this together, he promises. You told me we could, Erik. That we would change the world. Please, I need you in this. We can alter this future before it ever comes to pass.  
  
 _Do not worry, Charles,_ Erik looks at him, solemn, and frames his jaw with his good hand. In this projection, his mangled bones are present, wrapped up in the cast given to him post-surgically. It will be all right. _We are going to prevent this. I believe that we will._ He was so absolutely sure that it was hard to deny, infused with Will and certainty that was almost frightening. _I am right beside you._  
  
Charles looks down at his half-finished breakfast. Despite being absolutely starving just minutes ago, he no longer has any appetite. He leans against Erik's touch, taking slow, even breaths, and lets himself believe that it's the truth. There is no room to doubt Erik's Will like this, and he does not fight it. _Right beside you_ , he repeats, and makes it a solemn vow. They will fix this.  
  
Raven's looking around the room. "Erik, if you're here, please don't do anything, OK? Don't do anything, just-win your case, first, please. Hurting these people won't help us right now, not when you're still considered Extremist Number One." Erik can hear her, though she can't see that he does. "I understand," he tells Charles instead. "I promised you once that I would not act unless I was aggressed against. That is still true. Until someone demands I register personally, I will do my best to ensure we succeed in our case." And when we do, when this becomes an issue of immediate concern, we will act accordingly. That part is equally a promise.  
  
"No one is registering anywhere," he tells both of them, and the whole world while he's at it. Charles is a pacifist first and foremost, and he will never stomach violence where there could be civil diplomacy (in whatever form that took, some, admittedly, more aggressive than others). That doesn't mean he will ever stay seated for something like this, that he will not fight with all that he has just as Erik or Raven will. "Listen to me, both of you," he says, and squeezes Raven's hand again at the same time that he leans his entire being into Erik, "We will have the eyes of the world on us very shortly. It's about more than just this case. We can show them another way. I believe that. If it comes to it, we can discuss it then. But now we focus on the fight ahead of us." It might not be a physical one, but it will take all of their combined forces just the same. "We will do something. But not what they seem to expect from us. We will not become their justification."  
  
Raven's Separatist leanings have never been a secret from Charles, her ire still raised from the headline, and she grits her teeth, the saccharine promise of diplomacy and there's good people on both sides leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. Despite being unable to see Erik, it's a curious connection between the two of them that manifests now, an understanding of what this truly means, and a willingness to dive in and act directly against it. She knows this moment is tender, precarious, and to start a fight now with Charles will only aggravate the situation as a whole. That's what they want, they want mutants divided because a fractured community is much easier to subjugate than a united one. So she simply nods. "We'll focus on the case," she concedes, with no small amount of effort.  
  
Charles knows that Erik agrees with her, but he has already committed himself to non-violence for now, so he nods as well. "We will do something," he echoes calmly.  
  
Charles swallows. He may not read her mind at her request, but he knows his sister like he knows himself. There is startingly little of her that is hidden from him, perhaps except the specifics of her thoughts, and he has never needed those. His teeth clench, the hair on the back of his neck standing straight up. He loves them both more than words could possibly express, but there are places they can go that he could never follow. If this is the beginning of losing them, Charles doesn't know what will become of him. Shaw and the government he has wrapped around his slimy fingers will not kill him, but this might. This will. The horror of it is enough to silence him, the sound of his chair scraping against the floor deafening as he gets up.  
  
Erik is behind him, and he places his hands on Charles's shoulders. You will never lose me, he whispers softly. Never. I will always be by your side, regardless of what happens. He kisses the top of Charles's head. And you certainly will not lose Raven. She is passionate, but she is a rational being. She is your family. She loves you. As you are mine, and as I love you.  
  
Charles tenses rather than relaxes, as if he considers shrugging Erik off. He doesn't, but he's hunched into himself as he sets the dishes into the sink, washing them manually instead of opting for the dishwasher. I don't doubt that either of you love me, he thinks. That's all.  
  
 _We've had this discussion before_ , Erik says, rubbing small circles at the base of his neck. _And it did not pull us apart, then._  
  
Every part of him wants to melt into that touch, the back of his neck incredibly sensitive. He shivers, a noise muffled where it threatens to bubble up, but does not yield. A plate clangs far too loudly into the sink. _It was a hypothetical, then,_ he points out. _A pure intellectual debate. It isn't anymore._  
  
 _No,_ he agrees. _It isn't. But we've made promises and we intend to keep them_. Erik presses a kiss against that sensitive skin, a returning warmth of his usual-self. _And that means there is certainly time to try your way._  
  
Charles deflates at that, all of the tension seeping back out of him. He sighs, pliant again. "Okay. Then I will make sure it works," he vows. He realizes he's said it out loud, Raven somehow beside him as she brings her own plate to be washed. He manages a short, terse laugh, and it becomes something far more genuine as he lets himself relax some. He won't lose them. He would never allow that. "Didn't you miss me having voices in my head?" he jokes.  
  
"I like Erik," Raven grins, approximating where the man might be standing in Charles's proximity. "If you have to have a voice in your head at all times, it's not a bad choice. And I don't know what he said to you, but yeah. We'll make it work. I'm not going anywhere." She nudges him with her shoulder.  
  
Erik looks off in the distance, distracted by something, just as Charles's cellphone rings on the kitchen counter.

* * *

"I like Erik, too," he chuckles. He's about to reach out for said Erik, to turn around and comment something, but it dies in his throat when his phone chirps insistently. It's the irritating, default bell-noise because he hasn't gotten a chance to change it after Warren picked him up a new one (and a newer model which he has no idea how to use yet). Anxiety sticks in his chest for the moment he lets it, and then he's reaching for it after wiping his soapy hands on a dish towel. "Charles Xavier speaking," he answers, voice the picture of friendly professionalism.  
  
It's Moira. " _Hey, Charles. Are you feeling any better?_ " her own voice is more casual than he's ever heard it, and he can tell she's leaned back in her office chair, rumpled in the same clothing she'd worn the prior day-which was a lot to process, in-between debriefing Gabby and Fred, (whom she's come to consider on a first-name basis) and fielding Raven at the same time. Not to mention Charles and Erik. She sighs. " _I hate to call on you so suddenly, but the arraignment is coming up in an hour, and they're expecting your presence._ "  
  
"An hour?" Charles' eyes widen as he glances down at his watch. He can certainly get there, but not without a steady hustle. He's already balancing the phone between chin and shoulder as he scrambles for his jacket and shoes. "I'll be there, of course. And I'm much better, thank you for asking, especially if much better means not in excruciating pain. You'll be pleased to know I'm hearing voices again." He feels as if he can joke with her now, at least with these things. "How are you, then?" he asks, as mildly as possible.  
  
" _I'm sorry_ ," Moira winces. " _I tried to get through to you earlier but it kept going to voicemail. I'm having someone come out and pick you up. And, don't ask how I'm doing, because I just might have to tell you, and we'll be here for days unpacking the Eldritch horrors that a thousand years of therapy wouldn't help_." She cracks a smile.  
  
"Thousands of years?" he chuckles, but he supposes he understands the sentiment. There's plenty to unpack here, none of which is particularly pleasant. "I'll offer my services free of charge, if you'd like," he teases. "Do I get a briefing about what I'm about to walk into? You'll be happy to know I took a shower finally, so I don't reek of blood and sweat. That's always a plus." He's toeing on his shoes as he speaks, looking around wildly for his briefcase. He's always losing track of the damn thing.  
  
" _OK, well I have some pretty serious information to drop to you right now_ ," Moira says, switching from playful to professional in an instant. " _We've got Carmen who's already here, and the lead prosecutor is here as well, his name is Janos Quested and he's known for being harsh as hell. Fortunately there's not a lot going on here, it's just entering in the plea, which Erik will do. The problem is that Sebastian Shaw is registered on the attendees list. He'll be here, Charles, sitting in the witness section along with some of the families of the victims. They want to form a united front against Erik and they're receiving a great deal of support from Shaw. It's a political move_."  
  
Charles' heart drops right into his stomach. He's gone entirely still. "Excuse me, could you repeat that?" He says, his tone suddenly sharp. "I thought I just heard you say Sebastian Shaw was going to be attending, but that couldn't possibly be right."  
  
" _It's his right_ ," Moira says softly. " _There's nothing I or my superiors can do about it. I just need you to be aware of this before you come in here, I didn't want you to get blindsided. Erik doesn't know yet_."  
  
He does now, Charles thinks, teeth grit together. Erik's side of the bond has gone suspiciously quiet, but he knows he heard this conversation as well as Charles did. "Thank you for warning me, Moira," he says finally. It takes everything in him to keep his voice even. "Is that all? I'm heading down to the car now."  
  
"That's all," she says. "I'll meet you in the containment lobby and we'll transport Erik together to the conference room where they're holding it. Try and keep him together," she murmurs softly, a decidedly unprofessional request. "If he loses control at this hearing it won't be a good look for him." It almost sounds as if she's concerned for him.  
  
Erik is still standing next to Charles, but he is utterly vacant.

* * *

Charles is downstairs and in the car, a quick goodbye said to Raven (who looks as concerned as he's trying not to feel), before he even attempts to reach out. He needs to dull his own panic to a numb throbbing before he can even try. _Erik_ , he calls, staring blankly out at the city streets. _Together, remember? Please come back to me. We need to be together for this._  
  
Beside him in the car, Erik rests his head on Charles's shoulder, and then abruptly buries himself in Charles's chest, arms wrapped tightly around him. Once they clear the city he's blindfolded while they drive the next few kilometers to the compound.  
  
Charles has never seen the reason for the blindfold, if he's honest. Because the suppressants don't work, he can see just as clearly through the driver's eyes as he would through his own once he'd thought to try. Another way they've been underestimated, and it bolsters him just a little, his hands carding through Erik's hair even as they're still in his lap. _I love you,_ he reminds him. _Very much._ It's the most comforting thing he has.  
  
Charles can feel when Erik's being taken out of the dark cell and he's given a suit, and in the real he's just standing there, a lifeless and hollowed-out husk. They dress him themselves and lead him to the Protection cell where Charles will meet up with him and Moira. The car pulls in through the gate and the blindfold is removed, and Charles goes through the metal detector (another way they've been underestimated, frankly) and finally he's walking down the hall past many rows of plastic cells housing inmates that didn't fit elsewhere, until Erik comes into view. The suit isn't fitted perfectly, and he looks utterly zoned out. Pale and clammy and sweaty, immobile and silent. Only the sight of Charles walking down the hall causes his eyes, red-rimmed and brighter for it, to look up and lock onto something other than crossed-out peripheral fuzz.  
  
Moira is next to him, or he would throw his arms around Erik and hold on for dear life. As it is, he offers a shaky, but genuine smile, and reaches out to touch Erik's good arm. It's a friendly touch, but easily passes as professionally acceptable. "Hello, Erik," he greets, as if he hasn't been talking to him all morning. As if he hadn't showered with him and knelt in submission. The thoughts stick in his throat, heavy and lumping, but he forces it all down. _Look at me, please, darling. We're going to get through this together. And when all is said and done, I am going to fight to get you suit pants that fit your Neanderthal legs, alright?_ There's hardly room for levity, but if he doesn't try for humor he'll surely be choked on his own fear. Not of Shaw, but of what he could do to Erik.  
  
Erik's lips part and he gives a shaky nod, and with Charles's hand on him he can feel the minute vibrations wracking his nervous system, a low-level buzz of too-bright streetlamps about to burst and shatter glass into the night. Fred and Carmen appear shortly afterward and exchange greetings with Charles. Carmen gives him a slap on the back. "Good to see you, Dr. Xavier. Well, let's get this show on the road, shall we?"  
  
The slap truly shouldn't wind him, but it does. He can't panic. Erik needs him to be calm, but he hadn't expected this so soon. His telepathy is still - he's not sure what the word for it would be. Glitching, perhaps. It's coming in and out, and while he's used to the heavy, stabbing pain of a migraine, it's a reminder of what it could be. He has to watch himself. To be careful. "Let's," he agrees, and he follows them, staying as close to Erik as he can manage. _Together_ , he reminds Erik, but it's more for himself.  
  
Fred leads them down the hall to an elevator and they can't make this plastic, so the guns are out again, loaded and at their side rather than pointed at Erik, thankfully. Erik is practically plastered up against Charles and the closer they get to the open door of the conference room at the end of the hall, the more his steps falter and stop. He's shaking his head virulently by the time they can see the gathering of people inside, a sea of professionals wearing nice clothing and chattering about nothing as they wait for the proceedings.  
  
Charles sucks in a breath. This is going to be a delicate balance. They know he and Erik communicate telepathically, but too much intimacy here and they're in even more trouble than usual. There are more eyes on them, and these eyes will be far more critical. He stops, too, touches Erik's arm again because it's the only thing safe to touch. "Erik," he says, softly, and then, _We're okay. Remember, we're okay. I'm right here._  
  
 _I can't do this,_ Erik's voice shrieks into Charles's mind like a blaring red alert klaxon, piercing the air and warning everyone in the vicinity to man the battle stations, batten down the hatches, take cover. He's shaking visibly, now, causing Moira and Fred to regard them critically (as expected).  
  
"Come on," Moira says. "We're just in here."  
  
 _I can't. I can't do this, I can't do this._  
  
"Hold on," he tells them, waving his hand dismissively. His eyes are on Erik, and truly he couldn't be faulted for that anyway. This is his job, though he's never done it as he would any other patient. "Erik, look at me. You can do this. It will be over before you know it." _Erik, love. I'll be right here the entire time. I have you. Lean on me._ He doesn't know if he can manage it, but - there it is. While he stays professional and calm in the Real, he projects a hand in Erik's, a grounding touch at his cheek. _You can do this. You can._  
  
Erik shudders, bodily, wrapping his good arm around himself protectively, and gives a series of short nods in the Real. At long last he allows himself to be led inside. It's a simple conference room with two tables arranged at the front, one for the prosecution, where Janos Quested sat with another sharp, professional young woman and the one that Carmen leads them to for the defense. There are rows of chairs stacked on the sides and behind them in lines, filled with various elite socialites that Charles recognizes for a few, while others are simply strangers.  
  
At the front row, near the defense table, a man sits in an exquisitely tailored blue suit with a white button-down shirt underneath, complimented by a red tie. He's got cufflinks at his wrists indicating a Dominant relationship, much like Gabby's and Raven's. His eyes are pale, lifeless blue and he's got short-cropped perfectly styled blond hair, and he stands when they enter, offering a waxy, insincere smile. He towers over them all, even Erik, and when his eyes land on the man in question, the smile turns serrated. "Ah, _Kleiner Erik Lehnsherr, schön dich zu sehen. *ast du dich um dich gekümmert_?" His eyebrows raise expectantly. Aside from Erik, it's clear he's the highest level Dominant in the room, and many news reports have placed him publicly at 4.75.  
  
Erik straightens, short, shallow breaths exiting his mouth audibly, and in this room full of people, where Erik could not speak before, he answers softly, " _Ja, Herr._ "  
  
" _Wunderbar! Lasst uns beginnen_." Shaw gestures to the seat and Erik drops into it like a puppet with its strings cut. "You must be Dr. Xavier, and Agent MacTaggert. Lovely to meet you both," he extends his hand for a shake, his mind a roaring whirl of energy pulses and lightning strikes and atomic bombs and sterile laboratories.  
  
Charles could not have anticipated this. He barely has time to watch in thinly veiled horror as Erik becomes a puppet on a string, tugged as effortlessly as a few words, before he's put right in front of Shaw himself, that hand outstretched. Charles knows politics well. He knows the world of the elite well, though he has never once fit properly into it. He knows that all eyes are on him, and that how he holds himself in this moment will have an influence on how this all plays out. That this is all, unfortunately, a game of chess, and a single wrong move could cost him vital pieces and a strategic advantage they desperately need.  
  
He isn't prepared for his knees to almost buckle.  
  
The highest he'd met on the DS scale before Erik had been Gabby at a D4.5, and even she had inspired some vague tingling, a few errant sparks up his spine. This is more than that. Charles doesn't feel like he does with Erik, but it's worse, somehow. Thicker, like all of the oxygen has suddenly been drained from the room and Charles is choking on it. He can feel Erik, and if he seeks it out, though it seems to have receded, he can find that stronger, familiar Will and cling to it. He can ignore this horrible, bile-inducing urge to prostate himself to a man he finds nothing short of utterly repulsive.  
  
But his head still goes to bow, his eyes tempted to lower.  
  
No. Absolutely not.  
  
Charles clenches his teeth and locks every muscle. Then he lifts his chin and meets Shaw's eyes, giving him a firm, steady shake, forcing away even the slightest tremor. "A pleasure," he says, and it's cool in the way Charles never is, as sharp as any cutting insult. He sits next to Erik and pretends he doesn't feel close to losing his breakfast, as pleased with himself as he can be under the circumstances. No one on the scale has ever gotten remotely under his skin except his perfect match. Except for Erik. It won't start now.  
  
Charles already knows he will spend as little time as he possibly can in that man's mind.  
  
For a brief, brief moment, he considers -  
  
But no. No, he can't. He won't.

* * *

"Shall we sit?" Shaw says, congenial and syrupy. He gestures to the chair, his own Will flexing out to bash up against Erik's natural presence. That Erik is a D5 is painfully obvious in this moment, when not seconds ago Shaw had commanded the attention of everyone in the room, and now all eyes are on Erik, meek Erik who sits in the chair with his head down, eyes staring sightlessly at the whorls in the wooden table, tracing tracing tracing round and round in circles, just as his mind has become a whirlpool of dizzying circles itself.  
  
"This is a momentous occasion," Shaw says, and he's got an accent, a light one that speaks of solid European roots, and the few words Erik's spoken aloud in German mimic that accent precisely as though it's been (it has) beaten into him. "I'm certain your client," he addresses Carmen, a handshake for him, and Carmen is far less politic than Charles ever could be, simply staring at it hanging there in the air. "Will choose the right plea, today. After all, fifteen years is nothing compared to what they'll do to him in one of those barbaric prisons overseas."  
  
His disdain is obvious, and it's almost fascinating how he's spent a majority of his life up until now working out of a place that he seems to find, for lack of a better term, primitive. But Charles knows that Erik's village had a disproportionately high number of Omega-class mutants, a genetic quirk of the area, and Erik as his prized pupil would have helped him grow beyond any reckoning. And already has. Shaw _thrums_ with power, Dominance and mutation co-existing in perfect harmony beneath his skin-suit.  
  
Carmen practically snorts at him. "Get out of the defendant's area," he snaps. "Lawyer-Client privilege extends to here, so unless you want to be held in contempt I suggest you find your seat." His eyebrow is quirked, Dominant battling against Dominant, but Carmen's only a D3.3. Not nearly Shaw's match, but much like Charles, he refuses to be cowed.  
  
Shaw simply gifts him with another predatory smile. "Of course, Mr. Pryde. How foolish of me to forget such simple manners. I hope you will forgive me. I'm here for the families, of course." He gestures. "Surely you can understand how devastated they are over the loss of their loved ones."  
  
Charles' teeth are grinding together, though on the outside he looks perfectly calm. He's breathing more shallowly than before, but it's a nearly imperceptible difference. To balance it, he crosses his legs, keeps his chin perfectly raised, a show of confidence and defiance, and his eyes follow Shaw all the way back to his seat. His free hand touches Erik, squeezing gently. _I'm still here_ , he reminds him. _I'm still yours. Don't forget me_. They will make it through this. This is the beginning, and except against Erik, Charles has never lost a single game of chess. Not in his entire life. He'd like to see Shaw try. The thought is so vicious it seethes, echoing outward in subtle projection, a physical presence that surrounds him.  
  
A berobed older man glides into the room and through the parted section of the chairs, headed to the podium that rises above them all, what they all recognize as the presiding judge. His skin-tone is dark, with bright hazel eyes and short, neatly-styled hair. He's on the shorter end of the spectrum, but he moves with complete self-assurance. The placard resting on the podium reads Dominikos Petrakis, and Charles knew instantly that this was a veritable point in their favor, because Judge Petrakis was positively a mutant. He was also very much a Dominant, enough to clash with the high-Doms in the room, but his manner was a more subdued confidence, as though he simply expected everyone to fall in line. "Come to order," he says gently as he slides into his seat, arranging his things and tapping a file folder against the surface.  
  
Charles forces himself to breathe normally. There are still advantages here, and today is not a true fight. The odds are in their favor. His only concern is that Erik has gone silent and unresponsive beside him, as if dragged deep underneath the current of his own mind. Charles has reached him there before, but never like this. His eyes stay straight ahead, even as he attempts to find Erik among his racing, swirling thoughts. Erik, he tries, not allowing himself to be gripped by panic. _Erik, please._ The proceedings begin. It's all legal jargon at first, a recital of the rights Erik already knows and has exercised. Rights to a fair trial, to an attorney. It's what comes after that will matter. And if he can't find Erik in there, pull him out and anchor him, all of this will have been for nothing. His mind nudges and curls against the one next to his, seeking and insistent.  
  
"Mr. Lehnsherr, please rise," Petrakis says, and it takes a long, agonizing moment for Erik to pull himself out of the deep-deep world, the darkness that has clutched him in oily tendrils and dragged him back to The Land. It's only with Charles's mind against him that he manages to find anchor and he slides the chair back, listening with his body to the scrape of metal against linoleum, and rises unsteadily to his feet. He doesn't look at anyone, eyes fixed firmly on the wooden table before him. "Mr. Quested, please read the charges against the defendant."  
  
"With pleasure, Your Honor. The state finds Erik Lehnsherr to have committed the crime of criminal terrorism, _mala en se_ , or with inherent moral wrongdoing, on behalf of the Separatist Coalition of Israel-Palestine," he reads from his notes. "This act was committed on February 4th, 2019 at the _Sebastian Shaw Institute of Technology_ , whereupon the building was destroyed and during which act, ten members of the scientific staff were brutally murdered." His eyes glance over to the crowd of family members, and Shaw. "We aim to prove that Mr. Lehnsherr committed this violent crime knowingly and with full cognizance of his actions, and we seek the maximum penalty for these actions, life imprisonment."  
  
"Thank you, Mr. Quested. Mr. Lehnsherr, you may now enter your plea verbally."  
  
Erik stands there, utterly silent. By the grace of _something_ , Carmen's there, and he rises to his feet. "Your Honor, if I may?" Petrakis waves his hand. "My client suffers from a condition known as selective mutism. In reference to the United States constitution, he will be exercising his Fifth Amendment rights, with modification as I will be representing Mr. Lehnsherr's interests at this time."  
  
"So noted, Mr. Pryde," Petrakis murmurs, his tone warning, but curious all the same. He doesn't appear to hold any particular disdain for Erik, at least not at the moment, but it's possible he frankly doesn't hold disdain, period. "In this case, I'll ask that you enter the plea on Mr. Lehnsherr's behalf."  
  
"Of course. Mr. Lehnsherr is pleading Not Guilty, and we intend to take this case to trial. As we are utilizing an affirmative defense, we will be seeking Erik's testimony. This testimony will be prepared beforehand and read off by myself. Is this acceptable?"  
  
"So entered, and noted. Thank you, Mr. Pryde."  
  
Charles relaxes muscles he hadn't noticed were tensed, letting out a short, relieved sigh. It had been his intention to bring it up - he had been the one to officially diagnose the condition in the first place, and so it fell on him in the end - but as per usual, Carmen is just as quick-witted and swift on his feet as he would expect. There will come a time when he will need to testify about Erik, his mental state and his motives and intentions, and judging by the prosecution, be brutally pressed on it. But that day is not today.  
  
Today's fight, at the very least, is an easy one. It's more a declaration of what's to come than it is an actual battle, but even still. It means something that they even made it this far.  
  
Charles' eyes wander to Shaw at the other side of the room, daring to lift his chin as he does. Then he settles on Erik, emboldened to squeeze his good hand under the table. _We can do this_ , he promises again. _I love you._  
  
"Dr. Xavier, if you would please rise," Petrakis addresses him next, his calm hazel eyes unwavering.  
  
Erik is bidden to sit down, which he does, and he scrubs at his eye with his right forearm, casted, an automatism because there are no tears, there is no anything. There is no Erik. Shaw hasn't ceased looking at him the entire time, entitled and amused that his project is daring to fight back, an infant pawing at its mother's legs. Only there is no mother. His mother was cold steel and limpid, hateful eyes of impatience and demand and suffering. There is only the ground and the boot at his neck and screaming and twisted fire locked behind fluttering lids in jerky nystagmus. He stepped out of line, and the panic and fear overwhelm him. He wants to kill Shaw where he stands and he wants to kneel at his feet and receive the satisfaction of _doing well_. The impulses shred him open, and he wonders briefly, comically, a laugh like a light in dusty, endless _Sheol: Population, You!_ -if he'll throw up all over his feet. The laugh bubbles out of him in the Real, causing everyone to look at him.  
  
"Is something amusing, Mr. Lehnsherr?"  
  
Expectedly, there is no reply.  
  
Charles wishes, briefly, and only briefly, that he was not privy to Erik's every thought like this, because he is very close to being sick himself. He rises to his feet, and it's a testament to his own strength that he does not waver, nor tremble, nor shake. His chin stays lifted, comfortable, practiced confidence, a submissive with a Dom's mannerisms. His eyes are for the judge and the judge only now, waiting to be addressed, arms folded neatly in front of him as he waits. He reaches for Erik, even still, and this time he is less gentle about it. No, he says, and it's so firm it echoes beyond them. You said it yourself: you're mine now, just as I'm yours. His jaw clenches, unnoticeable to anyone who is not them. _Absolutely not. He can't have a single fucking part of you._ Charles does not curse lightly. There is nothing light about this. I'm yours. Remember that. There is no line to step out of except the ones we make together. He's still staring ahead, lips pulled up into a calm, unassuming smile. The charming Dr. Charles Xavier. Inside, he is vicious. _I can't be yours if you are not mine. So you must be mine, Erik. He never owned you. You are not to be owned. You belong with me, and I belong to you, and that's final. Do you understand? I am yours and that is that. Do not forget me so quickly._  
  
Erik's gasping reply comes moments later, weeping, shuddering, but he is outwardly stone. _I love you_. He pulls his legs up onto the chair, awkward with the injury to his right, a jangle of pain surging up to his knee and a brief flash of electric batons against his calf-dead-legged, an apt descriptor. Dead leg. Erik's smiling to his knees. He is crazy, after all. _I'm yours._ He rocks back and forth very subtly, grounding himself. When no answer is forthcoming, Petrakis decides to move on, dismissing it as an idiosyncratic notion from a barely-sane individual. "Dr. Xavier, you are the residing psychiatrist assigned to Mr. Lehnsherr's case, is that correct? Please state your full name and qualifications for the court, if you will."  
  
I know. I am yours, and I love you, he assures, and allows Erik to feel it, basking him in it, surrounding him in an impenetrable wall. This is something Shaw could never even think of touching. It is theirs, and he will not sit back and allow it to be threatened. "That is correct, Your Honor," he says smoothly, absolutely no outward signs of what's happening. He's still smiling, calm and disarming, nothing but polite professionalism. "Dr. Charles Francis Xavier, M.D. I received my degree from the medical school of Oxford University in 2015 and currently specialize in forensic and criminal psychiatry." He only lists applicable qualifications, of course, hiding a smirk of his own; they don't need a list of his three bachelor degrees and two unrelated PhDs. The math won't add up, if he were anyone else. It shouldn't be possible to have earned as many degrees as he has in such a short amount of time. He should, by all logic, be well into his thirties. But he's Charles Xavier, and impossible has never impressed him. He does not bow to it.  
  
For Petrakis's credit, he didn't flinch at Charles's mannerisms, didn't even blink-he was not a man easily fazed by anything. "Please note that for the record," Petrakis advises the stenographer. "Dr. Xavier, you were brought to this facility in order to accurately diagnose Mr. Lehnsherr and assess his competence for trial. As well as entering a plea, this arraignment will also serve to conclude whether or not Mr. Lehnsherr is competent to do so. Please describe the diagnoses you've recorded for the court."  
  
Charles doesn't flinch, either, calm and collected as he answers with all the confidence in the world. "As previously noted, Mr. Lehnsherr suffers from selective mutism, but I believe that to be a symptom of a larger issue and therefore a subdiagnosis. It is my professional opinion that Mr. Lehnsherr has C-PTSD, or complex post-traumatic stress disorder as indicated in the DSM-5. He experiences all four symptoms of post-traumatic stress - re-experiencing, avoidant, cognitive and reactive - and various anxiety responses associated, and has clearly been exposed to prolonged, repetitive trauma from a fairly early age. However," and at this he lifts his chin higher, hands refolded, "He is otherwise sound of mind and perfectly fit to stand trial. He has no personality disorder, nor dissociative disorder, and is fully cognizant outside of trauma-related episodes. I do not suggest he is capable of an insanity plea, nor would I recommend he be viewed as criminally insane. My patient is traumatized, not incompetent, Your Honor."  
  
Petrakis takes all this in nodding in the appropriate parts. He is not a psychiatrist and does not know the nuances of mental health, although like most educated people he is certainly aware of post-traumatic stress disorder, and has seen numerous cases where such a diagnosis was involved. Finally he says, "Understood, Dr. Xavier. Please note that for the court," he tells the typist once again. "In accordance with the Fifth Amendment, it is my ruling that this trial will proceed as normal, with the exception of Mr. Lehnsherr's testimony, which will be pre-empted and delivered by Mr. Pryde at trial. Are there any objections to this?"  
  
"None, Your Honor," Quested stated simply. Charles got the distinct impression he had quite a lot to say, but he was saving it for when it counted.  
  
"Very well, we will reconvene here in 48 hours to begin the proceedings. At that time we will hear evidence from both parties as well as witness testimony and cross-examination." He bangs his gavel once and moves to stand. "Dismissed."  
  
Charles lets out a breath he wasn't aware he'd been holding. This was the beginning, then. "And so we begin the fight," he murmurs, uncertain if it's to himself or not, but within full earshot of those at the defendant's bench. Together, he adds, for Erik. His eyes wander the room, and - there it is. Cameras. All eyes on them starting now. When the trial began officially, he knew for a fact those witness seats would be filled with more than just well to do elites who wanted to intimidate Erik into a Guilty plea. They would need to make it count. Fortunately, Charles has always put on a good show.

* * *

Erik shrinks back into Charles's side. There is nothing of the man they had captured on the news two months ago, who had stalked around with a glower on his face, Dominating every shred of the situation as he decimated a building. Now he looks ready to throw up, pale, shaking and clammy, and it's exacerbated by Sebastian Shaw, who floats over and puts a hand on his shoulder, in a bruising grip. A simple tap could kill a person. Erik makes a sound like a whine. " _Du hast die falsche Wahl getroffen, blödkind_. Lovely to meet all of you, I'll be sure to keep up with the proceedings. Ah," he notices the cameras and walks into the fray, turning on the charm.  
  
It's as if all of that uncontrollable, indominable rage is transferred over to Charles in that single moment. If Erik's anger is a maelstrom, vibrating, ripped apart pieces, shattering glass and screeching iron, so many stars exploding and cleaved from the inside at once, his is cold to the touch. Calm, nearly, and biting. In an unconscious projection - his telepathy is still unsettled - the room around them seems to drop several degrees, and he feels no satisfaction at the teeth chattering and comments. Charles is often quick with a response, and he's certainly no stranger to irritation, to frustration, to the sharp edges necessary for survival. He's trained his tongue into a valuable weapon. What is far less common is true, spitting rage, unsoftened by understanding or his own leash on it. Erik's rage can bring down buildings, but Charles'? At full force, he's certain he could destroy the world, make it scream in agony before he shreds every last mind in his own iron grip. Fortunately for everyone in the room, and for himself, there's only one in particular he's after. All he has to do is find that disgusting, vile, repulsive, sick - _No_. The noise he makes under his breath is not unlike the feral, predatory growls Erik made in the hospital the day before. He's trembling head to foot, fortunately out of view of the cameras and the judge, but no. He can't. But it doesn't stop him from nudging, a single shove of the mind that he knows for a fact Shaw will feel from where he's hamming it up at the other side of the room. He knows he shouldn't have, but what's done is done. It's as good a warning as it is a declaration of war. Charles fully intends to follow through.  
  
Shaw's response is immediate, his head snapping up, and then a large smile manifests on his face. "Ah, it appears we have a telepath in the room. Come say hello, Dr. Xavier," he beckons the man over, telling a joke that makes the gathered reporters laugh. "He's working with the defense, but I've always felt it necessary to make friends wherever possible. It ensures things go so much smoother, don't you agree?" he asked Charles. Erik was by his side, like a spell leaving him incapable of taking more than ten steps away. They all noticed it when he retched-nothing came out, and he held his arm over his own stomach, raising his eyes to the cameras who captured it, wild and uncomprehending.  
  
The world is watching. He has not a single doubt that people across the country are sat down in front of their TVs to get a glance at the monster they've created in their heads, the faceless, scary mutant-terrorist. No doubt that Raven is sitting in her living room with Hank, the two of them wrapped up for comfort. Warren, nursing a drink that it's far too early to be having. Perhaps even his mother, her pinched, pale face staring in that glassy way she did when he was a child and needed her most. The last time he spoke to her was a cordial, affectionless call on Christmas Day, but perhaps even she wouldn't miss this. Charles plasters an Xavier-Marko smile on his face, though if smiles could cut, Shaw would be nothing but grains of shattered glass. He rests his arm on Erik's, a reassuring gesture anyone would allow him in the wake of obvious distress. "Oh, I agree, I quite enjoy making friends," he hums, and it takes every shred of frayed, fractured self control he has not to lash out again, his mind cold and burning in equal measures. "Unfortunately, Shaw," no title, no formality, "I doubt there will be anything smooth about this. I'm afraid I only make friends I can keep. It's a preference of mine." His smile is charming, charismatic despite the words, the elite poster boy of the Xavier fortune who earned himself a reputation for getting exactly what he wants, when he wants it. Nothing less. His influence is far less than Shaw's, but he's well-known and respected in plenty of his own circles. " _Wer Feuer frißt, scheißt Funken. Du bist nicht mein Freund,_ " he murmurs, cool as a cucumber, his own accent flawless.  
  
Erik immediately parts his lips, shoving closer to Charles in warning, shaking his head and clutching onto his forearm with his good hand. Please no, dear G-d, please no. Please don't do this, you promised. You promised. Sebastian turns to face Charles, that congenial smile still on his face, and his fingers dig into Erik's right shoulder where he'd been cordially patting him. The grip is enough to cause a rocketing pain to shoot through him, and he twitches with it, expression otherwise blank. He makes a wounded sound in the back of his throat, inhaling sharply. "Bitte, Herr," he whispers, nearly-inaudible. "My dear Dr. Xavier," Sebastian is saying, "I do believe that we're both interested in the most diplomatic solution to this unfortunate series of events. I am only representing the best interests of those who have lost so much, here," he continues, facing the camera for effect. " _Mach dir keine Sorgen, Doktor. Ich bin mir sicher, dass wir zu einem gegenseitigen Verständnis kommen werden_." The news reporters look on, mixed-looks of confusion and admiration. "Thank you so much for deigning to appear here," he tells them. "Please make certain you capture Mr. Lehnsherr as well. I understand he's rather intimidating-" which he was most-assuredly not-leaned-into Charles and half-ready to lurch forward and lose his non-existent lunch, a dry-heave-empty bubbling up in his ribcage once more.  
  
" _Bitte_ ," he croaks hoarsely. " _Slicha_ ," he pushes away and stumbles toward the exit, all cameras on him.  
  
Charles promised he would not go after Shaw on his own, and he believes he's stuck to that promise fairly well. There are ugly, mangled, deep-dark-buried parts of him that want to do far more than play a game of verbal chess, that want to grab Shaw by his foul, nuclear warhead of a mind and disintegrate him into a mindless, useless thing, one who could never even dream of hurting the people he loves most. He would not need to kill him. There are other, far more effective ways, and perhaps he will agonize about his own apparent willingness to take those measures when he is not seething mad. As it is, he offers another sickeningly polite smile and an "excuse me, please" and follows after Erik. There are those who try to stop them at the exit, but Charles waves them off, dismissive. Unstable telepathy or not, when he's this worked up it makes no difference, and there is an unfortunate rebound. He dislikes harming others in any capacity, but he won't despair over a headache at the moment. "Erik," he says, the moment they are out of reach of cameras and politics and Shaw, alone in the hallway. It's actually all he can manage, his mind a turbulent, rushing current of disgust and cold, calm rage, of he is still there, I could, I could - No. No, Charles, he tells himself. Let it go.  
  
Erik shakes his head over and over, wrapped up in his own arm tight around his waist, hunched over and vulnerable. Shaw approaches them once they're well and truly alone near the elevator to take them back to that plastic hold. "Post-traumatic stress disorder, hm," he tuts curiously. "Unfortunate. I doubt that will matter in the long run, Dr. Xavier. I hope you know I am only here to help. After all, it was my institution that was affected. I daresay I hope he has been getting treatment here. It is a tragic thing, for someone so damaged to feel their only option is mindless killing. I pity you, Mr. Lehnsherr." A sharp smile.  
  
" _Ja, Herr_ ," Erik responds automatically, soft and painfully deferent.  
  
"I hope you've been keeping up with your studies."  
  
Erik bows his head. _You promised_ , he begs Charles on the inside. _It's OK. He's just concerned._ Like Shaw was a mentor, a father, and not a psychopath.  
  
" _Gut, Kleiner._ " Charles can feel the sickening warmth of praise in Erik, a twisted version of his own need to chase approval from his Dom.  
  
" _Danke, Herr,_ " is all he says. The elevator arrived.  
  
Charles is going to be sick. He's sure of it. He is going to be well and truly, violently, ill. Everything is spinning. Spinning and churning and hazy around the edges, and Charles realizes, suddenly and detached from the rational thought process, that this is his version of seeing red. He follows Shaw's mind down the corridor as he walks away, and for just the briefest of moments, he stops in his tracks. Grabbing hold of him was as easy as it was any other human or mutant. Charles knows if he is just a touch less gentle he could crush all of those delicate, repulsive thoughts and the neurons attached to them, turn him into living, breathing mush. Make certain he will never even consider looking at Erik again, much less speak to him. He doesn't even need to fry him, perhaps; if he pushed himself far enough, Charles imagines he could simply reprogram him. It would do the world good. No one would be worse off for it. He lets go. Shaw walks on, his mind snapping from Charles' grip like a harmless rubberband. He should be unaware, but truthfully, Charles couldn't bring himself to care if he wasn't.

* * *

And then they are in the elevator, guards facing the walls as if they have been Ordered there, and Charles reacts in a way he never does. He punches the - very firm, very sturdy - elevator wall with his fist, immediately crying out in pain. Like some aggravated, brainless, brutish Neanderthal. The immediate regret and chagrin is not even enough to settle him, and he paces back and forth in the small space, an unsettled beast as he cradles his (likely not broken, thank goodness, but close) hand. How the tables have turned.  
  
At that, Erik flinched and threw himself into the corner with his hands over his head, prompting the guards to stir moreso than they originally would have soared into action over Charles's fist, recognizing the expression of anger but ultimately choosing not to interfere. Perhaps out of Order, perhaps out of Charles's mind lashing out, but now they do, raising radios to their ears to call for backup and immediately grabbing at their holstered plastic weapons, training them on Erik.  
  
Charles snarls, the look of disdain so painfully obvious on his face it almost looks foreign."Stop it," he practically growls at them, two fingers raised to his temple in what would be an innocuous gesture if it wasn't accompanied by a rush of his power. Their arms drop to their sides. Their concern is gone. Charles reaches to find who they contacted through their bloody radios and tugs, stealing it all from them in one single, effortless motion. As if it never happened at all. No backup, no ridiculous, useless plastic guns. He doesn't recognize he's using his telepathy far more than he would under normal circumstances, in ways he would never usually apply it. He simply glowers at the opening of the elevator when it opens, releasing the guards from his hold. They won't think anything of this. They won't even remember. He gestures impatiently and they walk out. Charles crosses his arms over his chest and huffs, lingering in the elevator as he rolls his eyes to the ceiling and attempts counting backwards from ten. Then one hundred. It doesn't work.  
  
In the corner, Erik has made himself as small as possible, murmuring little things under his breath once the elevator is clear of people. Poetry and prayers, soothing mantras that sweep out with an accompaniment of calm peace calm peace calm calm-a force of Will that's overpowering enough to blanket itself over Charles's rage. He's breathing through his mouth, shallow, rasping noises that raise and lower visibly in his chest. Somewhere deep down he knows that Charles is hurting, and that it's his job to fix it, and that he's an adult and that he is capable of standing up and facing it, but the rage is too much, with Sebastian's presence still thick in the air. "I'm sorry," he whispers. " _Soleach ani._ "  
  
It occurs to Charles, when the worst of his anger is quelled, a fire beneath the blanket of Erik's Will, that he is likely frightening Erik. And Erik was the one worried about frightening him. Ha. The thought makes him so sick he's dizzy with it. It's just enough to bring him back under control, but not enough that he's pleased about it. He shakes his head, but doesn't look at Erik. "You have nothing to apologize for," he forces through his teeth, and he means it.  
  
Erik gasps lowly and nods, inhales stuttered, and he slams his hand over his eye, wincing hard at the shot of pain that streaks up his shoulder from Sebastian's grip and he begins to breathe faster and faster, covering his mouth. He pushes himself up against the wall further, willing himself to calm, but he can't reach his own mind. Everything is screaming in him, every fractured pieces hollering for its own state of attention, and he's supposed to be up on his feet helping Charles regain control but he can't gather his marbles and they're spilling all over the floor and he's making wheezing noises, hand over his heart now. This is how he's going to go. Here in this elevator in a suit that doesn't fit while Charles watches and rages, this is how he's going to go.  
  
 _Absolutely not._ He's not sure if he says it out loud or not. He doesn't think it matters. Charles moves before he makes the decision to, feet already halfway to Erik as he kneels in front of him. Shaw cannot have this. He cannot take this away from him. Charles finds it. It's a very recent memory, so all things considered it's right at the forefront. He barely even needs to search for it. Charles is sleepy and weightless in bed, tangled in sheets, and Erik is in a prison cell but it doesn't matter because in this projection, in their private bubble, he is with Charles as the sunlight streams in, already mid-morning though neither of them are aware of it, nuzzling and soft and sweet as Charles demands a kiss. He feeds it back to Erik, lingers on every detail. A soothing, lulling balm, takes his pain with gentle fingers and replaces it with this. Just this. _Don't forget me so easily_ , he reminds, and remembers himself.  
  
Erik's head shakes and he gasps. "Can't br-" his arm goes up around Charles, a reflexive response he simply can't help, burying himself in Charles's chest, trembling. He takes that memory inside of himself, touching every spare inch of it. Memories of a person he doesn't recognize. This person who is so carefree and sure of his own Dominance, this person who has Charles, who has a whole world built of light and wonder. "I'm so sorry-" he wheezes, " _Ani eshtaper, ani mavtiach_."  
  
Charles could lock down the panic response, and for a moment he considers it. The thought is so frightening to him it stings, but he forces that as far down inside of him as he can, locks it in a closet and forgets where the key is for the moment. Now he holds Erik in his arms, gingerly with his right hand where he's punched himself bruised and probably sprained. "Shh," he breathes, and buries himself in Erik's curls. " _Shhh_. Nothing to be sorry about. We're okay." He plays back that memory, keeps it on a looping feedback between them. Laughing on the way to the shower. The soft, ghostly kisses there. Warm, loved, and safe. Untouchable. Undeniable.  
  
It takes a long time for him to stop shaking, and then he's touching Charles's hand, lifting it to his lips to kiss the bruises there, concern pinging between them. "Doctor," he says, trying his hardest to come back to life, hating that Charles has to devote any time and space to his horror show. He can still feel Shaw's hand on his back, and a sickening part of him, the parts that are all formless blobs with arms and legs who plink-plonk like raindrops over the mountains in the horizon-who remember lullabies and children's books and cracked painted teacups with shakily formed letters _alef-raysh-yod-kaf_ -wants to go after Shaw, wants to return to his employ and go back to where he belongs. He shudders, looking away from Charles, disgusted with himself.  
  
It makes Charles sick again, too, but he stamps it down. Stamps it down and crushes it, obliterates it like he considered doing with Shaw's mind. Now he only holds Erik, shaking his head. "I'll be okay," he promises, and leans up to kiss Erik's cheek. It's not a difficult task when he's hunched over like this. He opens his mouth to say something comforting. Something soft, and sweet, nothing words that will soothe. What comes out is, "Please don't leave me."  
  
Erik shakes his head vehemently, lurching forward like he's going to be sick, but he just falls against Charles's shoulder, laying his head there and curling up in his lap, absorbing those grounding touches like they're water, like he's been walking in the desert, forty fucking years of it. "I won't," he whispers back. "I won't, I won't. I promise." He shoves the unruly plink-plonks, the desperate ones that vie for the front seat, firmly back into the fog and allows the forest to swallow them all up. He despises himself in this moment, that Charles has to see him like this-not strong, not competent, a child in a man's body waiting for the guillotine. His eyes close and he settles in his spot with no intention of moving. He had imagined this differently. That he would be indomitable, that he would face down Shaw and promise him an anguishing, agonizing death, a crushing of bones and flesh and metal spikes and humiliation, that he could speak confidently and articulately about what he had endured at Shaw's hands, to make the world see who the real monster was. But he's here, twisted up like a spider cornered, a curious toddler poking at it, all nasty little legs shriveling in on themselves.  
  
Charles can't think about it. He can't, or he'll turn tail and find Shaw where he can still vaguely feel him lingering floors down and there will be nothing and no one in this building, not even Erik, who could stop him. He rocks Erik instead. It's not a conscious movement at first, just a slow, steady back and forth, a swaying not unlike the one in the shower this morning. He feeds him more memories, plucking them out from the brightest corners of Erik's mind and wishing, idly, that he could be delighted at seeing them through Erik's eyes rather than his own. He shows Erik quiet, soft moments, sated and pleased in each other's arms, unhurried touches and banter. The snow on Erik's tongue, the moment before he'd picked Charles up and spun him full body. Their first _'I love you,'_ on a cold, rocky beach, Charles soaked to the bone. A silly debate over coffee and tea. He fills Erik so thoroughly with him, and thinks, perhaps naively, that he'd like it if one day there was no more space for Shaw at all.  
  
"I love you," Erik whispers it again, latching onto that memory on the beach. He'd thought it was beautiful, despite living in the place on Earth with the best beaches, a littered, rocky, cold palace of dark water and wilted trees had been wondrous to him under the cold sunlight of March summer in New York. And anyone who would disagree with him could drown under the ocean, because Charles had been there, with eyes brighter than any sea or sky, looking at him with adoration and submission in equal parts. He grips that memory tight in his hands, the first rays of sun beating over his skin, waves of water splashing over them both, shivering and laughing and clutching close to one another. He waves it over the evil like a sword on fire, in long swipes, much the way that Charles can remember that apparition doing the same for him in the surgical suite.  
  
The woman in white did not appear today, but somehow, Charles knows that she is Aware.  
  
The throbbing is coming back. It's a dull ache at first, a tiny, barely noticeable thing. Eventually it's a roar, because Charles has his hand dipped in too many pots at once - he is watching the guards, watching Moira, watching the others chatting downstairs, not yet leaving, watching Shaw, watching Raven miles and miles away - but he won't let go. He can't. So he buries himself in Erik instead, forcing easy, calm breaths, and he locks his doors again. Then twice. A third time. The lock on his father's study is broken and he's never gotten a chance to fix it. He hid under the desk once, a teenage boy with ungainly limbs, covered his head like he was avoiding the nuclear fallout his father always spoke of. Kurt Marko, raging and brutish - Charles swallows. "I love you, too," he whispers, and thinks of the beach, but he sees dying trees and the waste of the Hudson floated downstream. He forces it away until he can think only of Erik and those ocean-bright eyes, thinks of so many brightly colored fishes. The beach doesn't particularly matter in the end, but he hopes one day there will be proper sand and water becoming of those eyes. It won't compare  
  
Let them go, whispers Erik's mind, gentle. A repetition of that sweet, warm voice Charles had heard in the operating room. You can let them go. The memories, the people, the universe itself outside of their own created-worlds, a sun and Earth in orbit of one another. I'm here. Erik flinches at the image of Kurt, a rising anger of his own peeking out over the hazy, terrified panic in his gut. Let him go, whispers some part of him he can't discover-yet. That visitor in the cold-darkness, held down and suffering. They don't matter now. It's only-them, it's only-ever been them. Erik kisses Charles's knuckles again as if he can eliminate the bruising there with the gentle touch of his lips. _  
  
Be easy, be easy. Ragu'a, ragu'a. Royk,_ whispers the One in White, a barely-there perception at the periphery of their consciousness. _Rage makes man a beast._  
  
Charles shakes his head. There isn't time to rest. There isn't time to heal. There is certainly no time for the chill pill Raven urged him to take. "You'll need to go back," he whispers. Back to that dark, lonely place. Back where Charles can't see him. Back where he can't hold him.  
  
Erik shakes his head, desperate. _Please, no. Please no._ He knows it's in vain. No one here cares about whether he is uncomfortable, and it's not Charles's responsibility to agonize over his treatment and his life. He forces himself to nod and straighten up, concealing valiantly another wince of genuine pain, which said more about how painful it actually was, that he was displaying any signs of it at all. Charles moved next to him and he grit his teeth, moaning lowly, and not in the good way. _It's OK_ , he says with a smile. _It's OK. I'll be OK. We'll be OK. We'll find each other. In the mind-world._  
  
It is Charles' responsibility, though. His teeth clench, but at the very least - and it's not nearly enough - he can do this. It takes no effort at all when he knows Erik's mind as well as he does, even around what's beginning to be far more than a headache's worth of pain. He takes Erik's pain, gripping it tightly. He doesn't need it, and Charles won't let him carry it. This much he can do. Better, he thinks, not a question, because he can feel it. He lets their sides touch as they walk out of the elevator, and lets go. It makes him a little sick, a bit green in the face, ill looking like the day before, but he forces himself to ignore it.  
  
 _Be easy,_ twin-voices seem to say, infused with so much warmth that could not possibly be Erik, and yet Erik is the one standing before him. Erik hears it, too, and trips over his own feet, clutching onto Charles so he doesn't fall down. The thought slips out like water through his fingertips and he scrambles to take it back, suck it back in, because this is the real world and in the Real, Charles won't be allowed, and it's not his fault. _Don't over-exert yourself. You need to recover_. It's an Order and a gentle reprove, all at once.  
  
For a moment, Charles wants to fight. There's so much he wants to fight, and none of those things are Erik, but the Order sinks into his bones and he wants to fight it, to lash out against it, because he needs to. He needs to over-exert himself, doesn't Erik see that? He needs to keep them both safe, to keep them both steady. His power helps with that. He can keep the world at bay. But he swallows down his defiance, his rebellion, his anger, because it's misplaced and he knows it. They don't need it now. _I'll be back very soon,_ he promises, fiercely, and watches as Moira approaches them. She's confused, mildly concerned, mostly because Charles hasn't had it in him to tamper with her memory yet, but nothing is amiss. The guards are aware of nothing. No alarms raised, no guns hefted. No reason for Erik to be punished, though he knows he still will be, and - He can't do anything about it. On Erik's Order. Over-exerting himself doesn't seem to involve their bond, at least. I'll find you, he says. _We'll find each other. I won't really be leaving. We'll be okay._  
  
Moira is concerned, but she strides over to them with Fred in tow and the mild-mannered agent, whose memory is unaffected due to lack of proximity, just takes Erik by the arm and gently separates him from Charles's side, noting that there was no real harm being done right now. As far as reasonability goes, they're the optimal options. "OK, want to tell me what's just happened, here?" Moira says, a gun holstered at her side, but it's unused. "Is everybody all right?" Erik nods at her. They can't handcuff him properly with the cast so his good arm is held in Fred's grip, lightly at the moment.  
  
"Everybody's alright," he repeats, though it's a lie for him, and a rotten one. The moment he locks one door, it seems another bursts open. He can't keep up, and the return of yesterday's pain, however lessened, is not helping the situation. "Erik was a bit frightened, and we handled it. That's all. No one is hurt, and these gentlemen were here the entire time." No one is hurt physically, anyway, except for him. He pointedly hides his right hand behind his back. It's a perfectly reasonable explanation, though, and a true one. Charles is here to be Erik's psychiatrist, and Erik needed the help. This one he does not need his telepathy for, except to be with Erik through it.  
  
Moira, of course, notices he's hiding his hand, because it's very rare that anything escapes her watchful eye. He's saying that everything is fine, though, and there's little reason to figure that he's covering for an inmate. Not to mention that Erik right now does not look like he could punch his way out of a paper bag. Erik is looking at Charles with a devastated expression-although yesterday's escapades make it clear that everyone around them is only seeing him as a stony, immobile statue-horrified that he's unable to do anything to help. Can't reach out, at least not here, but in their minds he nuzzles up against him, fluttering touches attempting to soothe. "All right, let's get him back to adseg," Moira says, arms crossed over her chest.


	22. Do it for the living and do it for the dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _angels and demons_ , dan brown  
> ii. _4.48 psychosis_ , sarah kane  
> iii. _rozinkes mit mandlen_ , abraham goldfaden  
> iv. _todesfugue_ , paul celan

It's less of a torture this time, though not by much. At the very least, Charles can still feel Erik's presence. He says his goodbye, quiet and professional, watches him disappear down the hallway with that same sensation of sinking lead in his stomach. Desperately he wants to argue, to demand Erik be given better treatment, but there's not much he can do like this and he knows it. He will trip over himself without his telepathy, not because he's incapable without it but because he's far from at his best. He's pale and hurting and sick again, and he doesn't trust himself.  
  
Around the pain, Charles keeps Erik wrapped somewhere close to him, though he can't quite manage a full connection. He's there, humming through the bond, his mind never far from Charles, but they are separated. Still, if Erik needs him, he will be there. That's enough to keep him from the utter devastation of the day before, a small comfort that tides him over. Tomorrow he knows he'll need to help Erik articulate his testimony, but that is a battle for tomorrow. Charles' day is not over, even as he desperately wishes for it to be. He's behind on work, extremely so. There is a stack of papers piling up at his desk, some for grading and others from patients and paper proposals and research and various other responsibilities he's been neglecting.  
  
Charles skips lunch to grade when he's home, which isn't truly something he can afford. He's lost weight since this all started. He's always been a bit thin, but he's beginning to look hollowed out, a subtle change that would only be noticeable to someone who looked. A match for the dark circles underneath his eyes. He ignores the hunger pangs in favor of red pen. He spends the rest of his afternoon busy and buzzing, kept as distracted as possible. Idly he can feel Erik on the other side of their connection, but he never presses into it. The line is connected, but Charles' mind is so occupied that it might as well be giving off a busy signal. He's partway through rescheduling appointments and re-working his schedule when he realizes it's well past dinnertime.  
  
Raven calls and asks if he'd like to join her and Hank, but he refuses. They chitchat for a few minutes, Charles impatient and sick at even the mention of the court proceedings, and then he excuses himself. Instead of getting himself something to eat, he finishes up his proposal, ignoring the dull throbbing of his hand and the terrible pressure behind his temples. He checks his emails while he's at it, painstakingly responds to the backlog. The sun has long set when he pads into the kitchen. He's not hungry, he doesn't think. Something possesses him, because he bends down under the sink instead. There's a bottle of whiskey under there, a present from Warren ages ago that he's never opened. He's poured himself a glass before he realizes.  
  
Then he pours it down the sink, sighing and rubbing a hand over his face. Charles closes his eyes and searches. _Erik?_ he asks, and doesn't know if he'll get an answer. If it will work like it did this morning. If it does, how much does Erik know? How connected have they been? Has he projected? How much does he tell him?

* * *

Erik's day is predictable. They get him into the adseg cell, and notice he's favoring his arm because part of over-exertion had indeed been the withdrawal of pain relief, and he's been to medical and diagnosed with a sprain, torn ligaments of the shoulder, and of course they get no answer when they press him. They don't punish him further for it, which is a blessing, but he is still relegated to the dark-empty place, cold and alone in mind and body, so he presses himself into the corner of the wall and disappears into his own internal landscape, playing with plink-plonks on the mountain tops and flying through the air where stories are written in the clouds. The call of his name jolts through the atmosphere and he stops, a gnarled stick in hand, cartoon-vivid green grass under his feet, each blade swaying. _Charles_ , he returns, walking upside-down.  
  
Charles sighs in relief. Part of him hadn't expected an answer at all, and he trembles for a moment with the force of it. He can see through Erik's eyes, but he doesn't want to see that awful, cold cell, so he focuses on his own instead, wraps himself up in Erik's presence and does the same for Erik. He thinks Erik might be able to see through his eyes like this, but he can't be sure. His eyes wander back to the bottle of whiskey. Perhaps a glass wouldn't hurt. Two. Three. Let it never be said his mother taught him nothing. He pushes the thought aside and hopes Erik hasn't heard, and the thought of hiding anything from him twists him up even further. _Hi,_ he murmurs, weary and soft. _Are you alright?_ He fingers the empty glass as he waits.  
  
Unfortunately for Charles, Erik isn't completely lucid at the moment and he doesn't register immediately what's going on, so incredibly lost in his own mind after the gentle rebuff of Charles's busy signal, where he'd wanted to bury himself in Charles's presence and forget the entire world, it wasn't a possibility, so he'd retreated so far into himself that he struggles to notice anything outside. He's walking along the path, a mountain goat by his side, hopping playfully. The sun is warm. _Kol beseder,_ he returns, with a sensation like a smile, like the whole world is curving its lips up, and the path wobbles with it. OK? he returns, looking behind him, expecting to find Charles inside this world. Something sinister scrapes in the distance and he hurries up. The butcher is here somewhere.  
  
He truly is rotten. Useless. Charles stares up at the ceiling. When he moves, it's to pour himself a glass. It's a familiar sound. Mother taught him well, after all. Swish-swish. Just one more glass, dear. Okay, he lies, and takes a long, slow sip.  
  
Erik's head turns, hearing the noise, and suddenly Charles can feel hands over his. _Put this away_ , he Orders, soft.  
  
Charles grits his teeth. Thick, heavy defiance sticks in his throat like the burn from the alcohol, muscles tensed against it. He glowers as he lowers the glass to the counter, the noise louder than he'd thought it would be, the action more aggressive than it needed to be. He's not in the mood for obedience when every self-taught, reprogrammed instinct screams that he can't afford it at the moment. Fine, he grumbles instead of arguing, though, petulant.  
  
In the mind-world, Erik realizes belatedly that there are tears on his cheeks, and he swipes them away, turning so Charles doesn't see, but it doesn't matter. Like this, he's an open book, and he begins to walk again, holding out his hand for Charles to join him. Inside the small hut in the distance, they enter to find a fully stocked kitchen, and Erik bids Charles to the fridge to collect some food in the Real. _Pick something light_ , another Order, unconcerned with the pretense of defiance or obedience, and unsure if he can even combat it at this point. He's still crying, and he takes a towel from the dish rack and runs it over his face, smiling gently when his features are unobscured.  
  
Charles does, but only because he's as helpless to it as he is breathing. There's nothing attached to it, nothing but locked doors and and a sick, stretching emptiness that has little to do with the clenching of his underfed stomach. He doesn't even check to see what he's grabbed - something Raven brought over, and he imagines it must be light because otherwise he wouldn't be eating it. He's still in his kitchen. He and Erik are worlds apart. Useless. He's so disgustingly useless. Charles doesn't cry. He stares at the abandoned glass, and wonders idly how long it takes an Order to wear off.  
  
Erik guides him to the table. The shack is all wooden panels and filtered sunlight through large, gorgeous windowpanes and little houseplants scattered about. _Atzor_ , he admonishes, scraping a chair along the cherry floors to sit across from him and take his hand. Tell me what's wrong. He must be too overwhelmed and exhausted to agonize, because it's an Order before he even checks if Charles needs it to open up. It's almost amusing how simple the question is compared to what Charles knows Erik knows about the situation-everything is a poor answer, and one he recognizes Erik won't accept; because the obvious is what it is, but it doesn't rule out the specific. Eat, he says again while they talk. Everything about him is soft and muted, weary of his own incompetence at caring for his sub, and pushing down the feelings because they aren't anyone's responsibility but his own.  
  
There's a disconnect. What Erik sees is not what Charles sees. When he blinks, he's alone in the dark of his kitchen because he hadn't even thought to turn on the light. There are no plants and no sunlight. He feels Erik's touch, but it's so ghostly it might as well not even be there. He forks at whatever it is he's eating, and doesn't taste a bite of it. _I'm useless to you_ , he thinks, and that is what's wrong, what he's currently sick over. _And I fail you constantly. My head also hurts, and I'd like to go to bed. And exit this conversation,_ he thinks but not actively, but Erik will know anyway.  
  
 _Lo_ , Erik shakes his head and squeezes Charles's hands, a solid warmth he feels rather suddenly. _Not useless. This is enough. This is wonderful._ The truth of it is brighter than any sickness, and Erik slides closer, wrapping him up in a hug. _Please don't go._  
  
Charles wishes it were real, but it's not. He can feel it, but it's not, and when he blinks again he's alone in the dark and his apartment is more foreign and suffocating than it's ever been. _I won't,_ he promises anyway, and stares down at the container of food. It probably should have been heated up, now that he thinks about it. Oh well. It wasn't like he'd noticed.  
  
He's in the liminal-space, floating between Real and Unreal, and he tugs at Charles's mind, a gentle _let me show you something_ , and it won't help, because he can't help, he can't make it go away, but he shows Charles anyway because it's the only thing he has to offer; a sensory indulgence, the taste of food, the feel of a comfortable sweater, dim lights in the darkness (he leads Charles to his feet and has him switch on the lamps, at the least) and herds him to heat up the remainder of his plate, to get a glass of water, to notice the feel of coolness against his throat, to focus on the sensation of Erik's hands, the sound of his voice. The Real is what it is. It will never change. But there is no way that this, here, isn't enough. Erik would face Shaw a thousand times if he could still have this.  
  
Charles is not even very good at this, though. So what is the point? He follows along, tugged gently, and he does feel. Erik wants him to feel, and so he feels. It's nice, in an idle, sensational way. There's something satisfying about warm food in his belly and water down his throat, because he hadn't had that, either, and maybe some of the migraine is actually dehydration. He would bet on it. But Charles is so focused on keeping doors locked he barely feels Erik's hands in his. The hand that fits in Erik's naturally - Erik's uninjured - is swollen and bruised now. He can bend it, but barely. Another mistake. Another failure. _You really are useless, aren't you, boy?_ Charles can never lock the door to that damn study. "I should sleep," he whispers. He doesn't move, though, and he isn't tired. But he can't fail Erik again, and every second that's all he manages.  
  
 _You will,_ Erik assures. He kisses Charles's knuckles and takes him to the freezer to wrap some ice in a towel. Let's get some ice on this. He smiles down at him gently. You did wonderfully today, he says, his voice doing its best to drown out the disgusting intrusion of Charles's stepfather. _Never doubt for a second that you are good. I want you. Always. Don't worry about these doors. If you want me to see them, I will. But I am not looking. If they need to be open for a while, let them._  
  
He's not. He's really, truly not. He's never been good. Charles stares down at his own hand. The ice helps. It always helps. When the ice machine broke, he used a steak once. It was humiliating. Cain had seen. But that's another door, another door, another stupid, unlockable door. He needs to fix that if they really are to use the space for a school. Children deserve doors that lock sometimes. He stays silent.  
  
 _The last time I lost my temper, people died_ , Erik murmurs. _I would say this is a more favorable result, but I can't bear to see you in pain_ , he gives a smile. You are good, he shuts down that train of thought, Ordering it even if that likely won't catch. Charles was good. Better than him, but the bar for that is so low Erik will never be able to climb over it, stuck drowning under an incomprehensible ocean. Dominants are rarely the ones that need such assurance, but like this, Erik laments that he is not good-enough, always, a crumbling pillar (Doric, with a taped on sticky that reads _this column is ionic!_ ) and he puts those away, because Charles's pain is always, always, more important to him than his own weak, repulsive insecurity. _I love you._  
  
And at that, Charles really does cry. He crumbles against his own counter, legs pulled up to his chest like a helpless, useless, worthless child and he cries, again, because he is so sick to his stomach and overwhelmed and utterly, totally inadequate that it honestly shocks him. He wasn't the only one in that house suffering, but he was the only one he cared about. He heard Cain's beatings, too. He heard his mother's sobs. Spoiled, rich little brat, and isn't that the truth? What could he possibly offer Erik that he would want? What good is in his silly, privileged head? All about Charles. Always about Charles. He's the worst kind of monster. Privy always to everyone's suffering, and still so disgustingly selfish. Mother taught him well. Raven was right. He's not submissive. The only one he's ever served properly is himself. If S1 is code for self-absorbed, he's cornered the market. _Stupid brat, just like your father. You deserve this, don't you? Yes. Wallow in self-pity, why don't you, Charles? Like you always do. So good at making everyone else the bad guy. Go ahead and fucking cry. Do you think I'll feel sorry for you?_  
  
 _He should have_ , Erik soothes. _In this house, you are the one I care about. Of course you cared for yourself. Who else would? That is what trauma does. You give yourself what others do not. There is no shame in that_. Of course there were similarities between them, and it makes sense that it wells up these images in response, when Shaw is such a clear contender for a faceless abuser, an empty mannequin to pin one's own horrors onto. _Du willst nicht mit mir kommen? Bist du sicher? Ken, ta'niach li! Ah, Schuld an dir selbst, blöd kind. Du erinnerst dich daran, nicht wahr? Das haben du verdient. Du hast sie ins Grab gesteckt. Du hast sie alle ins Feuer gestellt. Stupid brat. Dummes Kind, blödkind! Do what you're told!_ -the voices of evil-ones mix until they are indistinguishable, in languages spanning time and distance. Erik grips them in his hands and wrenches, throwing them far into the distance to be sliced open by the butcher. He's good for something.   
  
_Go ahead and cry,_ Erik says, and it overpowers the condescending, putrid tone of Kurt Marko. _Go ahead_ , Erik's voice is gentle, soothing, and he sifts his fingers through Charles's hair. _I've got you._ He's shaking in Charles's hold where he's wrapped arms about him, inhaling stiffly against the screams that batter his consciousness.  
  
Charles cries, but it doesn't make him feel any better. He shakes his head. _It's not the same. It's not the same. Don't you see how repulsive I am? Don't you see I'm no better than those who hurt you? Don't you see_? Rich, spoiled, useless Charles, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and the world in the palm of his hands. _Don't you see me? I'll never be good for you. Look. You will tear yourself apart to make me happy and I won't be worth it._  
  
 _I don't care_ , Erik mutters. _Because you are worth it to me. You are good to me. I don't care what anyone else thinks, you included. I don't care if you can't see it. You are good to me_. Erik shows him. Charles is the brightest star he's ever encountered, the only planet in the sky worth noticing, the only thing he's ever held onto that feels good and warm and safe. The only person who has ever stood up for him, who has ever touched him kindly, who has ever said it's nice to see you. (" _I want to scream for you, the only doctor who ever touched me voluntarily, who looked me in the eye, who laughed at my gallows humour spoken in the voice from the newly-dug grave, who took the piss when I shaved my head, who lied and said it was nice to see me. Who lied. And said it was nice to see me._ ") The only one for whom it was never a lie. The only one who loved him like he was the only person on Earth that mattered. All love is selfish, even Erik's. Erik loves Charles because Charles makes him feel whole. Because Charles's love is more nourishing than food. Because Charles holds him when he's screaming and doesn't try to beat down his tears. Erik is selfish, too. _And that's OK. It's OK to love yourself. As I love you._  
  
 _I don't love myself,_ he says, _and that is the point._ He respects himself, and he fears himself, but any love was beaten out of him a long time ago, replaced with guilt and shame. He finally, finally wraps himself up in Erik, sniffling. I need to be good for you. It's a submissive urge, yes, but it's more than that. Or maybe it's not. Charles can't separate himself from his submission, at the end of the day, any more than a plant can separate itself from the soil. _I need to. You are my responsibility, too. You are. I need to be good for you, I need to help you. I need to protect you. I need to keep you safe. I need to_. And he feels so rotten at it right now, he thinks but doesn't say, but it's all the same.  
  
 _I know,_ Erik smiles down at him and kisses the top of his head, carding his fingers through Charles's hair. It's more solid now that Charles has opened himself up to Erik's presence, and he can feel Erik's fingers like he was right there. _You do all of those things and more. I could not have done this without you. Not in a million years._  
  
Charles doesn't want to feel the warmth of that praise, that approval, afraid of what it will twist up in him, but he does anyway. It makes him sniffle, another round of hot tears down his cheeks, and he can't help but still feel pathetic. He buries himself in Erik's shoulder.  
  
Thank you, Erik continues. For being there today. As much as Charles needs to be good for Erik, Erik needs to protect him and keep him safe from the suffocating fear and pain, so he wraps him up tight like a shield against the dissenting shouts that claim otherwise, surrounding him with all the love and affection he can, all of the approval he can give, because it only-ever belongs to Charles. That's it. _Royk, royk_ , he soothes. _Dos tsigele iz geforn handlen, dos vet zayn dayn baruf, rozhinkes mit mandlen_ , he sings in his raspy, tired voice.  
  
He wants to ask. He almost doesn't, but then he does, because hiding things from Erik - and he is, he is hiding, that had been his intention - makes him feel more sick than Sebastian Shaw or Kurt Marko ever could. _Does it hurt you, being my Dom? Does it burden you? We don't have to do this. We can forget it. You don't need to, for my sake._ He wants his collar back. But if Erik wishes otherwise, he'll forget he ever asked for it.  
  
Erik touches the hollow of his neck, returning the collar to him in this place where they are half-within one another. It shimmers in lamplight and sun. ( _"It is not good for man to be alone._ ") N _o_ , Erik answers honestly. _You are the only thing I have in my life that is worth having. Please do not take it from me,_ he entreats, pained.  
  
 _Do you swear?_ he asks, because he needs to know. Because if wearing Erik's collar will burden him, if it will weigh him down, it will surely suffocate Charles eventually, and he can't bear that. He needs it to be the joy and privilege it is. It can't be the sentence he always thought it would be. _Do you promise?_  
  
 _Do you not see_? Erik wonders, tilting Charles's chin up. _How you have healed me? His eyes crinkle. I promise you. This is a gift I could never have hoped to gain in my existence._

* * *

 _It made me sick_. He didn't want to think it. He really didn't, but out it goes. Charles clings, clings as hard as he can, as if he will never need to let Erik go. _Seeing you like that, with him - it made me so sick, Erik._ It wasn't Erik's fault. He doesn't blame him, not even in the slightest. But it felt so wrong to watch that he hasn't recovered, and even now -  
  
Erik goes still, and then turns his head, hiding his face in his hand. Shame sticks between them, hot and heavy and cloying like clumps of wet sugar splattered on the floor. His chest tightens up and his breathing constricts, sucking it in through a thin straw. Pure unadulterated hatred whips through, each lash more vicious than the next of self-flagellation. Disgust. Sickness, Charles is right. It's sickness. He's sick. He knows that. He knows. No wonder Charles had been so off-kilter, so affected, so triggered. Erik's disease escaped him, clung to the walls and the ceilings and the ground, trapping everyone in its path. He could never be Shaw's victim. Victims didn't choose to be victimized. Erik shudders, a full-body convulsion. _I know,_ he whispers. _I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Soleach li. Bevakasha. Please don't leave. I'll do better._  
  
He shouldn't have said it. He shouldn't have said it, he shouldn't have said it, he shouldn't have said it, he shouldn't have - _Shut your fucking mouth_. Charles whimpers in Erik's arms, backing up, but there's nowhere to go. He covers his own head, a mimickry of Erik in the elevator, and waits for the fallout. _No, that's not what I meant, I didn't mean that, it's not your fault, I'm sorry I didn't mean that, I take it back I didn't mean it I'm sorry -_  
  
Erik shakes his head. There's no use pretending he isn't what he is. He hugs Charles closer. I _t's OK_ , he soothes, hushing Charles's internal monologue with a swift outpouring of Will. _Be easy. You have nothing to apologize for._  
  
Charles shakes his head. He keeps shaking it, over and over, because it's so wrong it rises even above that calming, lulling effect of Erik's Will. He wishes the lights were kept off. They're too bright. He closes his eyes.  
  
Erik pushes away every feeling of himself. Toxic and disgusting, slime-mold oil of his hands, because he is selfish, too. Because he wants to have Charles, because it's the only thing that has ever mattered. To hold him and touch him in his monstrous arms. To comfort him in an inverse-backwards land. It doesn't hurt to be Charles's Dom. It hurts that he is too damaged, too sick-awful, to do it properly. Every single time Charles is eased by him is more than he can imagine, is more good and wonder than he can even comprehend. _Please be easy. Please feel my hands, here. Please hear my voice, it loves you more than you will ever know, and not the evil sweltering grime inside me. You are good_ , he whispers again. _Do not despair,_ he implores. _Not over me. I love you._  
  
Charles supposes he will simply have to show him how very much not the case that is, as he's already started to. They've both already come leaps and bounds from the first stuttering beginning, and now they have started something new, new and frightening and wonderful, and Charles will fight to keep it. He relaxes in Erik's arms, nuzzles into his chest, presses a hand to his own throat to feel the collar Erik put there. _I love you, too._ Besides, he is too damaged and backwards-broken to be a good sub, anyway. Erik said he was good, and he delights in that, wants more than anything in the world for it to be true - truly, more than anything, and the need and intensity of it always leaves him breathless when he's faced with it - but he just doesn't think it's true. I am the one who forgot you today, he mumbles.  
  
 _Atzor_ , Erik admonishes him, another outpouring of Will. _You are a wonderful submissive. To me. I don't care what anyone thinks about it_. He gives a small smile, and lets himself lay his head on Charles's shoulder, because he can't bear to face him when he speaks next. _I'm sorry. I wish it wasn't this way. I wish I wasn't evil_. _He used to be nice to me, sometimes. Everything is twisted._ Erik hadn't expected to see Shaw today, couldn't put up his armor in time, couldn't react the way everyone in society expects a victim to react, because he'd been ready to prostrate himself for the man, just like he had for so many years, to avoid the threat of death and punishment and agony. I couldn't show you everything. It doesn't matter anyway. It's all the same. I wish I hated him the way I'm supposed to. Erik did hate him. He did. Shaw killed his mother and sister. Shaw burned down his village. Erik is the monster because Erik took comfort from him when he deigned to give it.  
  
Charles shakes his head. He can't say it, not with words, not like this, so he shows. He wanted desperately to please his stepfather most days. There were no Orders that could have swayed him, not like Erik's. There was not even the threat of death. Marko is a twisted, vile man, perhaps, but not the one Shaw is. He would not have killed a child. Charles could have stopped it if he'd wanted to. He had his telepathy, and he had his immunity to whatever could have compelled him. He lets Erik see: Kurt Marko is a D2. Everything he does reeks of overcompensation. But Charles had stayed on his knees willingly, for hours and hours, until his they ached, because Kurt put him there and there was a part of him, one he hadn't yet taught himself out of, that wanted to please. That wanted approval. That wanted guidance. Perhaps it isn't twisted in the way Erik thinks he is. Perhaps it's what expected of a submissive, different from Erik's situation. But at the heart of it, Charles was seeking love from the father he lost. The father - He shows Erik something secondhand. Something that, normally, makes him so sick he pretends he had never seen it. Kurt Marko could have saved his father. He could have pulled Brian Xavier from the wreckage of his lab and saved his life. But he didn't. Charles saw it in a dark corner of his mind not long after the wedding. And Charles, knowing that, had knelt at his feet. Had allowed him to go to bed with his mother, his father's wife. _It's the way of trauma_ , Charles thinks. Everything becomes twisted. _But we can fix it._  
  
Erik gasps and hugs him tighter, hushing him with soft sounds and half-remembered lullabies. _Shulamith/your golden hair/black milk of daybreak_ -Erik chokes off a sob, denying with a shake of his head just as Charles does, the essence of Charles's guilt, because he is Not Guilty. Erik doesn't want to cry. He doesn't want to break down and collapse into a thousand useless parts, not right now, not when Charles's pain is so close to the surface, but he can't stop it. Not in the one place where it is safe. I'm a D5, he gasps, and it's a silent scream. I could have Ordered him to stop-  
  
Charles holds him tighter and wishes he knew any lullabies, but his mother never sang them to him. He only knows them from places outside. _And I could have wrapped Kurt Marko so thoroughly around my finger, even back then. I had control of my telepathy by the time he moved in. I was not a helpless child. But I didn't. I didn't, and my mother is still married to him, and my stepbrother suffered, and I became who I am._ And Erik became who he is, and Charles loves every broken, shattered, fragmented part of him. Will happily dedicate the rest of his existence to putting the pieces back together. It isn't your fault. It isn't your fault, it is his. It will always be his. _If you are willing to call me a victim, then you need to call yourself one. But both of us survived, Erik, and we are stronger. I won't ever let him touch you again. You're safe now, darling, and he can't have you._  
  
 _We were children,_ Erik tries, he tries so hard to comfort, even if he has to lie about his own complicity. Charles's best friend, Warren Worthington II, the scion of _Worthington Industries_ -Erik can't control himself, every little bit of anguish seeping out like an exploding canister. But this much is true. _We were children. You can't hold a child to the same level of accountability as an adult. Children want approval. It's natural. Even when children know better, they still make mistakes, because they can't see it all. Not like we can now. It's OK that we_ \- he stutters, for himself, certainly not Charles. _That we did what we had to, to survive. You did what you had to do. You had no fault in it. Kurt was the adult. He should have known better. He is the one at fault. And if I ever have chance to meet him, he won't walk away from it._  
  
Charles sighs. _Yes, he will. Because you're not the monster, Erik, and if I'm honest neither is he. Disgusting and vile and awful, and he took so much from me, but he's not a monster like Shaw is_. He doesn't know why he's arguing it. Perhaps just because he feels guilty for comparing situations that simply aren't comparable. He also lives right across the river, so that makes things complicated on the no-conflict front. Not that Charles doesn't try, but high-society is high society. Speaking of. 

* * *

_Warren_? he asks, confused, because he saw something there.  
  
Erik shudders again, pain rocketing through him, and not the physical kind, although it is rending and nerve-wrenching all the same, stringing him through a sieve and obliterating his skin until he is nothing but throbbing muscles loosely-knit together by fat and albumin-thin ligaments and tendons, twitching in exposed air. _I knew his son_ , comes the reply, heartbroken. _I didn't know they called him Angel._  
  
 _Oh_. Charles feels as if all the oxygen in the room is drained out, and the choking noise he makes is proof of it. Thinking back on it, it had been too strong of a reaction. Erik's heartbreak had familiar edges to it, as if he had personally experienced part of it instead of looking in on a total stranger's - Charles' best friend or not - grief. He thinks of Angel in stages, because he can't help it. A tiny baby with blonde fuzz on his head, wriggling in Warren's arms. Warren Worthington III, which Charles thought was an exceptionally silly name, and they all had a good laugh about it. Give him a name that's his, at least, he'd teased. He'd gotten one eventually. A young boy with his father's smile. Those beautiful, ethereal wings. The twisted, shattered, broken remains of his body. An empty casket. Feathers Charles knows for a fact Warren keeps. _Oh_ , he thinks. And nothing else.  
  
 _When he was murdered_ , Erik can barely get it out, cross-eyed vision and floating dreamworld. He's floating, on a warm river without a bed, without rocks or eddies. No current, just an endless loam of sparkling-glittery-diamond water. _I-_ it's dreamy, like the world. It was my job. To dispose of them. The remains they'd seen were Sebastian Shaw's trophies, the rest neatly incinerated in the place where they all go. _So you see, Charles, I was an instrument of perpetration._ And Charles can tell that it's more-than shock and trauma, it is the harsh wreckage inside his soul, a smoldering heap of charcoal-metal. It is G-d himself commanding that Erik be called up for judgment, for burning their bodies.  
  
Charles doesn't feel he's fit to pass judgment here, but even if he was he knows what he would say. He buries himself in Erik's neck, wraps both arms around him tightly, and he does not let go. There is grief. There is so much heartbreak for his friend, and for that sweet, gentle-hearted boy with a smirk like his father's and a wit he knew could have matched. There isn't a day that Warren doesn't break because of that loss, a morning that he does not blink awake and remember, and Charles, however slight, shares in that everyday. Angel would be into his teens now. But there is not an ounce of blame. _I love you_ , he thinks, firmly.  
  
 _I was with him in the end_ , Erik's voice is so quiet as to be merely a background hum. _He was a lovely child. I tried to keep him safe. To protect him. I fed him all of my food. I sang to him and held him when he was scared. He was loved, until the very end_. It's obvious now, that Erik had loved the baby as much as he'd loved anything back then, with his crippled, crooked heart. The atomic bomb Shaw had set off inside of him left behind nothing but a radioactive wasteland, and Angel's death was inevitable. Radiation poisoning or brutality by Shaw's lackeys. Erik hid himself away in Charles's torso. _Tell him that for me. Tell him his son was loved._  
  
Charles has to talk to Warren tomorrow. It's written into the schedule he'd spent all afternoon reorganizing. He's not sure how he'll manage, but he nods. It's a message he needs to pass on, however much it will hurt. Charles holds Erik tightly, repeats, _I love you very much.  
_

* * *

Erik cries quietly, not a sound coming out of him, just tears that stream down his cheeks as if he is unaware of them. _I am so sorry. I am so sorry this is hurting you. I wish I could make it stop. You deserve only kindnesses._  
  
Charles shakes his head. Once, a shaky bob, and then twice. He lifts his head to kiss at Erik's tears, though it won't dry them in the Real. _We bear it together. Together, Erik, remember? I'm sorry I was not strong enough today. I wanted to be. I'll be better for you, I promise._  
  
 _You were_ , Erik shushes him with a croaky laugh. _You are far stronger than you realize. In time I will show you_ , he promises. If he has to say it over and over, he will. It is no burden. All time they spent together was in Erik's humble opinion a precious gift beyond measure. There are no tears in the Real to dry, there almost never are even when Charles has seen them, simply a product of his telepathic connection, and so Erik lets him wipe them away. Gone and banished.  
  
He lets himself melt into Erik, then, and lets Erik melt into him. Settles under his chin where he feels like he belongs these days, eyes closed and breathing evening out. When he finally speaks - thinks, whichever, it doesn't matter - again, it's quiet. Barely audible, even if this is only in the mind. _I messed up,_ he says, and he isn't talking about Shaw. He's talking about what came after. If Erik hadn't Ordered it, Charles knows he would have gone to sleep without a meal in his stomach. He would have drank a full bottle of whiskey if left to his own devices, because one glass always became two or three or four, there was a reason besides the killer hangovers he didn't drink. Addiction runs in the family, after all. And, drunk and stupored, there's no way he would have managed a coherent nighttime routine. _I know you probably won't call me on it, but - it matters to me._ And he hasn't exactly shown it. Charles gave him a busy signal in more ways than one.  
  
 _I know_ , Erik says. _But you came to me before that happened. That is worth more than all of the rest. You missed lunch_ , he laughs. _But I believe we have salvaged the rest. I do not see fit to discipline you at this time. This day has been extraordinarily taxing._ Erik knew that might come off as lenient, but it was firmly his choice and his Will reached out even now. _So long as you come to bed as I insist. And Charles, you remember my words_. He thinks to the wine. _None of that. We will deal with our pain together. Not with substances._ It is an Order even though he does trust Charles to obey either way, he simply can't help it, his concern too great.  
  
 _You really don't give yourself enough credit_ , Charles murmurs, because Erik is wrong. This isn't leniency, and he needs Erik to know that. If Erik had decided he needed to be disciplined, he would have accepted that. Perhaps fought him a bit, he couldn't say, but he would have accepted it because he'd been given rules and technically he'd broken them. But he accepts this just as much. It's a change. A subtle one, perhaps, but one nonetheless. If he trusts Erik as his Dom - and he does, even in this uncertain, Negotiating stage, perhaps especially - then he trusts him with these decisions. He sighs at the next part. _Whiskey. There's rum down there, too. I haven't really done something like that in years, the time you saw me it was only a glass or two, but -_ But he has before. Drank himself into a complete, mindless stupor, the way he'd watched his mother do as a child. It's a habit. A terrible one, but a habit nonetheless, and one he's mostly broken out of himself before Erik came along.  
  
Erik winces sympathetically, but he nods as Charles lists it off. _All right, he says. I want you to get rid of these things. Give them to Warren if you must._ In his own household liquor had been available freely, his mother and father drinking a glass of wine every Friday night and during holidays, at Synagogue, in almost every store-it was an ever-present part of his life, and as such he hadn't developed any of the taboos that Americans seemed to have toward alcohol as something of forbidden fruit. He'd even been allowed to try a sip most of the time (and found it much too bitter, in the way most children did). It's one of the reasons he'd never had trouble with it, the early exposure of his youth normalizing it, making it a healthy part of one's life, as something to be consumed in moderation, and seeing those examples consistently. Although Charles can absolutely note his reticence to consume any type of substance at all beyond a shot or two. He'd had his own demons to fight in this regard, with substances much stronger than alcohol. And Sebastian Shaw had certainly not seen fit to disabuse him of this, and in fact encouraged it as it only made Erik more pliant. It leaks over into his decisions with Charles, his absolute refusal to let Charles play around with opiates to relieve a pain they couldn't touch either way. _We'll revisit it when it's necessary, but for right now, during this time, I don't want you near it. OK?_ the Order is just as clear now as it was before.  
  
 _I'm sure Warren will appreciate me gifting back his thousand dollar whiskey_. There's just the hint of a grin there, but Charles nods. Truthfully, he doesn't enjoy it, and never really has. The resulting pain is never worth it, and it's always left him feeling ashamed. Okay, Erik, he agrees easily, and there's relief there, too. He can trust Erik to make these decisions for him in his own best interest, when Charles, for all his independence, has sometimes struggled with that for himself. He curls back up in Erik's chest. _Thank you for taking care of me_ , he murmurs, because he means it, and because perhaps Erik needs to hear it.  
  
Erik slouches into Charles's hold, relief manifesting clearly in his mind, an electric bloom of pleasure that shoots from the top of his head to the tip of his toes, a sensation not unlike the shower this morning, heated water washing away all the aches and pains that had accumulated over the past several weeks. _It has been such a trying time for you,_ he thinks, his eyes kind. _Ever since you took this case. Everything has been thrown into chaos. You're handling it so very well, and you are in no small part responsible as well, Charles. You allowed me to take that control. You have come to me when something has happened that I would not pick up on. Your effort has not gone unnoticed, I hope you know that. You think of yourself negatively in regards to submission, but I could not ask for better._ In a way, Erik has always thought the phrase unconditional love to be stupid. Love always has conditions. People love one another for specific reasons. Sometimes those reasons are immutable and unchanging, such as the way Erik loves Charles, and sometimes they are not. Such as Charles's promise to walk away if Erik violated his very clear boundaries. He can list exactly the reasons why he had fallen in love with Charles, the aspect of his person that is most appealing, the attributes that make him who he is, every little shift and change of his beliefs and perceptions. And- _a thousand dollars? Really, Charles._

* * *

Charles' immediate echo of relief and pleasure is palpable. He's smiling, the first time since this conversation started, that sunshine smile that makes him look younger than he is. The one that creases his eyes at the corners and brings out his dimples, scrunches his nose slightly. He wasn't exaggerating in his thoughts earlier. There is nothing he wants more than to be good for Erik. The praise settles deep inside of him, gentles out some of the sharp, achey pain, and suddenly he can breathe again. Erik thinks he is good. I want to be good for you, he repeats from before, but it is brighter now, humming and proud because Erik doesn't feel as if he's failed him, and soaked in his Will like this, it must mean it is true. He's always wanted to be a good boy, as much as he's fought it, and the thought pinkens his cheeks but he must be if Erik thinks of him like this. He grins as the price comes back up. _I didn't buy it_ , he did, he defends, but then he's laughing, ducking his head. _You have expensive taste too_ , apparently. _That suit jacket you picked out for me this morning was three grand_. He's sure that will go over well.  
  
Erik looks down at him, a flood of love and affection outpouring from him, and his grin back is quick, that boyish one shedding years off of his features and making him look young, confident and carefree. It's the smile that only-Charles sees, in the mind-space they've created and in the Real, through their bond where no one else is privy. _You are_ , he laughs, full and hearty, and it breaks all of the horror-disgust-repulsion threatening through the door and sends it back because he is here with Charles and that is all that matters, it's the only thing worth living for, worth fighting for, and Shaw can go straight to the fucking underworld where he belongs. He does not belong here. He does not belong in this sacred-space. Erik casts him out, and his laugh tapers and then re-appears once more when Charles comments on the suit. _You looked very good in that suit,_ he winks. _I suppose I'll have to become accustomed to living in the lap of luxury, if I can see you wearing that Brioni again_.  
  
Charles laughs, too, laughs because he's so overwhelmed and grateful to have this again it hurts, because the sun is breaking over Erik's features again and there is light in his kitchen in the middle of the night, sunlight through windows. _I wish I could say you looked handsome in your suit_ , he teases, _And you did! You're always very handsome. But the pants were so ill-fitting you looked like an overgrown, gangly schoolboy, you poor giant._ He purses his lips to keep laughing, but he simply can't help it. Charles dissolves into little giggles against Erik's shoulder. _I can't wait to get you properly fitted. I do feel bad for the tailor, though, because if that's what you look like in a horrid, shoddy prison-issued suit that does not fit, when I see you in a proper one I may demand you immediately take it off and bend me over the nearest surface_. It's very bold of him, and he blushes for it, but he thinks he's allowed after the day they've had.  
  
Erik is almost giggling, and he clutches Charles closer, pressing kisses to his cheeks and forehead, his neck, the exposed line of his shoulder. _Then I'll endeavor to wear it constantly._ A memory bubbles up in him, bittersweet, but for once it's a gentle nudge, something that makes him smile. _Ima used to have trouble with my clothing. It was always too short in some areas, or too long in others._  
  
Charles does giggle a bit at the kisses, wriggling in Erik's arms. Everything is much more Real now; he can feel everything, which means he can feel the drag of Erik's beard against his bare, sensitive skin. Tickles, he notes, delighted, and settles more firmly in Erik's lap. His poor Neanderthal with his overgrown limbs. _I'll make sure you are well-clothed. Don't worry, you can tailor jeans and wear them until they have hole_ s, he grins.  
  
 _I suppose I need a shave_ , Erik observes with a huff, nuzzling against Charles playfully. The CIA would allow it, he figures, as long as he were supervised and the blade was ceramic. Not that it would deter Erik from obliterating them if he felt it necessary, but it was a small comfort for the agents holding him in custody. _You truly don't mind?_ the thought slips out almost by mistake, and Erik flushes, a little embarrassed by his own sudden insecurity.

* * *

 _Mind what, darling?_ he asks, idly, but all possibilities have the same answer, so he supposes in the end it doesn't much matter. At the moment he's very busy playing with Erik's beard, stroking it between playful, curious fingers, then rubbing their jaws together again for the sensation. It bubbles up another laugh, toes curling and joy shooting straight up his spine. It's so impossibly carefree, and he's giddy and pliable in the aftermath. _That you're a mountain man? No, as I said, I quite like it. You're always very handsome. Though, yes, a shave might be in order. That you have a penchant for t-shirts and turtlenecks and jeans and not four thousand dollar suits? No, I find it endearing, and you look very good in them. I have zero complaints, you'll find._  
  
It made Erik laugh again and he settled back against Charles. _That I don't know_ \- he grimaces. _I've never had tailored clothing. I don't know anything about your world. Your best friend is a CEO of a huge corporation. I don't have anything. Even if I get released, I have nothing to offer you._ It's clear that this has been on his mind for some time. I know I shouldn't care, but-you said before-it's irresponsible to ignore it. _And I don't want you to-_ be irritated with him, feel unable to introduce him to friends and family. Even if he did gain monetary support from Charles, he will still stick out.  
  
 _Oh, please._ Charles makes a valiant effort not to roll his eyes - he doesn't want Erik to think he's dismissing what he's obviously agonized over - but he doesn't quite manage. He cups Erik's cheek instead, a soft, adoring smile on his lip. _You have so much to offer me that is not monetary, Erik. We will get you tailored clothes and your own possessions, that I can happily offer you_ , and he likes the idea of it, admittedly, Erik can feel that, the notion that he can serve and provide in that way, that his considerable wealth can do some good in more than one capacity, that he can give his Dom things he hasn't had access to, _But they're just things, my love. Sometimes very nice, expensive things_ , he grins, clearly joking, _But just things. I only care about what's here._ He lets his hand roam down until it touches Erik's beating heart. A _nd up in that beautiful mind of yours. Besides, you've met all my true friends in some capacity already, remember? None of them could care less. Money was never their concern, even Warren, and he was born with the silverest spoon of us all._ But he does think of something. And in the wake of that, Charles can't hold back the loud bark of laughter he gives, obviously tickled by it, and just slightly horrified.  
  
Erik thinks that Charles simply could not understand the depth of his reaction, a thing he can barely himself; an affection so massive as to eclipse all traces of darkness in smoldering, glittery light. In here, there is no falsehood, no deception or deceit. It's only pure unadulterated desire to _help_ Erik-no, to _serve_ Erik, in a generous manner he's never been exposed to, and that warms him in ways a submissive *can't* comprehend, just the way a Dominant could never truly grasp the nuances of subspace. Erik cards his fingers through Charles's hair, a pleasant hum buzzing beneath his skin, and he smiles. *I must admit I did like that suit,* he jokes back gently, and then Charles is roaring and his eyebrows shoot up. _It's truly so amusing?_  
  
Charles shakes his head, because beneath the amusement, under the heavy, blanketing layer of pleasure that pleases him, an electrifying, dizzying understanding that he'd pleased his Dom, is a bit of growing hysteria. "My mother -" Charles only sees her a handful of times in a year. He shows Erik this. Holidays, sometimes, though if they can get away with a phonecall or a dispassionate, empty card - the one he sent this year for Christmas he did not even sign his name - they will. The bulk of their interaction are at those parties Charles so dislikes, where they meet up, kiss each other on both cheeks, and speak as few words to each other as possible. ( _'You look well, Charles.' - 'Thank you, Mother. You as well. How are things?' - 'Oh, well. And you?' - 'Splendid.' - 'Lovely.')_ That's it. On their separate ways, floating in the same location but totally uninvolved with each other. But there is no way, without ignoring every sense of decorum and high-society bullshit that is so deeply, deeply ingrained in him, that he can manage hiding being a bonded submissive from her. Not when they will be at those same parties, when others will inevitably ask her. Which leads him to the inevitable. "You'd have to, at some point, though I could put it off as much as possible -" Meet his mother.  
  
Erik starts laughing well and truly. "You're taking home your queer, Jewish, poor, terrorist Dominant-" he cackles. "I am certain that will go over very well. I can't wait." His lips pursed, amused, and he kissed Charles because he couldn't help it, whipped up with happiness and enjoyment of this moment, both of them laughing together, taking joy from moment to moment, and he tucks it all away because it's the most potent weapon he has against the encroaching darkness. These stolen moments in time, these mutual-understandings between them. He nuzzles Charles's cheek. "She sounds truly dreadful, you know. I wish you could have met my mother," he whispers after a minute. "She would have loved you."  
  
Charles' smile is sad at that, but bursting with genuine emotion. He kisses Erik's cheek, holds close to him, and because this is all a projection, wraps his own mind so firmly around Erik's that they sing together. "I wish I could have, too," he whispers back, achingly sincere. "I feel as if I know her." Whether by fluke of his telepathy or some strange, unexplainable phenomenon, Charles doesn't know. What he does know is that Erik's mother lives through and on in him, and he is infinitely grateful for that. Unfortunately, there are other people very much alive, which brings him to another root of his hysteria. This one is far less amusing, and at first he considers not even mentioning it. Erik will pick up on it, though, and so better to get it out now. "My stepfather and sometimes my stepbrother are at these events too, you realize," he sighs. "I'd expect you not to murder either of them." He's spoken little to nothing of Cain, but he is an apple not far from the tree, and that should say plenty. Truthfully, it's the reason he does not meet with his mother as often. If all he had to endure were empty, vapid conversations and her drunk stumbling now and then, being dragged to Christmas Mass, he would at least see her every Christmas.  
  
"I cannot make any promises," Erik tuts, tapping Charles on the nose in that achingly-familiar affectionate manner of his. "You haven't spoken about your step-brother before. Cain?" his head tilts. "I gather that he was equally as repulsive." Erik's tone gets a bit hard, there. These people who had hurt Charles. Erik cannot imagine being in the same room with them and enduring a single transgression against Charles. Erik is not politic. He is not diplomatic. If he didn't kill them on sight, which he very much isn't incapable of doing, he would absolutely flay them with a tongue like a knife. There is no question. Christmas party ruined.  
  
They'll have to work that out when the time comes, then. Charles waves his hand at the mention of Cain, a dismissive, scoffing motion that he follows with a look of distaste, a scrunched nose. "An aggressive bully like his father, that's all," he assures. Cain is a mutant with a physical mutation, a lower-end Dom like his father who used that power to assert and overcompensate over smaller, physically vulnerable Charles. It was always a pissing contest with him. ( _Charles held up squirming by the collar, feet dangling and panic in his eyes. "When I tell you to do something you do it, you subby little bitch. Know your place!"_ ) Just another set of humilation, another closed door's worth of transgressions. Charles grimaces.  
  
"Do you realize how strong you are, Charles? You opened up to me. You accepted me as your Dominant. You willingly wear my collar, after enduring these experiences, after being humiliated and made to feel as though your submission was inferior. Yet you, over and over again, come back to me. You are extraordinary, and this is trite, but you are also very brave. Bravery isn't about being afraid. I know you have plenty of fear. I apologize for monologuing, but-" it was either that or he was going to burn down the CIA building and hunt Cain Marko down and detach his head from his body, and _fuck_ the Torah.  
  
Charles shivers, but it's not because of Erik's darker thoughts. It's because of the praise. His mouth goes dry, his whole body thrumming and singing with it as he flushes hard and buries his face in Erik's neck. He's so warm all of a sudden, all the way down to his toes, tingling all over with that light, fluttery feeling in his stomach. "You really think that of me?" he asks, biting his lip, muffled slightly despite the lack of anything physical to do so. _I want to be good for you so badly, Erik, even though it terrifies me sometimes. I want this with you, because you've earned it from me. Only you._  
  
 _How could I think anything else?_ Erik laughs, sincerity buzzing between them like beating butterfly wings. You are the most incredible person I have ever met. Charles, I never, never, never-and please believe me that this is not an exaggeration-anticipated meeting an individual for whom I would become their Dominant. You are a psychiatrist. You understand how damaged I am. Even hours before I met you, I was a shell of a human being. No longer. Erik sits up, touching his fingers under Charles's jaw, tilting his head so he could look into those beautiful eyes. _I know that these words may sound.._. _mezuyaf_ , he decided upon. _You gave me back myself. You gave me you. You asked me once if I am a religious man. The answer is unequivocally yes, because I can only thank divine intervention that you came to me._ And it was OK if Charles didn't believe that, but Erik's gratitude is so strong that it covers the entirety of their bond, little hands stroking it gently.  
  
Charles makes a soft, choked off noise from the back of his throat, squirming in Erik's lap in an effort to hide his face again because in that moment he's so incredibly, impossibly overwhelmed. There's no way this exists for him. There's no way Erik exists, that he loves him as wholly and unashamedly as he does. But it's right here in front of him, and Charles doesn't need faith for that. "I love you," he whispers, voice cracking slightly, and then shakes his head, a breathless little laugh escaping as he buries himself back in the crook of Erik's shoulder, safe and happy. "Stop making me cry. I'm dehydrated," he teases. He lets himself bask in this as he settles, smiling so wide his face hurts. 

* * *

There's a curiosity there, somewhere in the very back of his mind, a ping of it. Charles is nothing if not curious. He decides not to follow it, though, content to simply be held for the moment.  
  
And of course there is no one on this planet more curious than Erik, it's a prime staple of his personality that he seeks to explore and learn, especially now that he is living in an environment relatively safe. Each new thing is a wonder to behold and discover, with Charles by his side. The sun, the ocean, the roads, the buildings, the flowers _(the one he'd picked for Charles to take back which had withered and died, and he'd held back on mourning that moment-it was a special flower-because Charles kissed him and that was infinitely a greater priority)_ the home-the apartment where Charles lives, the bookshelves, the odds-and-ends-the technology and board games and art and history, science _(mutation, genetics, Our People)_ and newspapers. Erik wants to absorb it all through osmosis, glean every second of knowledge he can. Only through Charles has it been possible. So, of course, he asks, what is on your mind, _tayer_?  
  
Some curiosities, though, do not lead to the most pleasant answers. Charles has never stopped that from seeking, but in this moment, he hesitates. There is plenty he could ask and tell that would lead somewhere that is likely softer, sweeter, brighter in its discovery. He bites his lip. I don't know if I should ask, he admits, but Charles has always hated not knowing more than anything. This particular curiosity has been floating around back there for a while now, he just hasn't had the moment to bring it up. _I don't want to upset you, if the answer is upsetting._  
  
 _I understand. Please ask,_ Erik bid him. _If I have an answer, it belongs to you. Whether it is sweet or unpleasant_ , he adds, picking up that first train of thought. He kisses Charles's brow, pressing his own there in a comforting, nearly automatic-unconscious maneuver.  
  
Charles nods, offering a small smile when he looks up. It takes him a moment or two to decide how to approach it, but perhaps there's something to be said about bluntness in this case. _How do you know what to do?_ It's fairly vague, so Charles takes Erik's good hand in his, brings it up to touch his collar, glinting and present even though there is nothing actually there yet. _How to be a Dominant. I don't mean the instinctive things, that's fairly obvious, you're a D5. I mean the Postures, and the pause-words, and_ \- He thinks of the discipline session, the best example he has. He'd trusted Erik not to actually harm him (though it had certainly hurt like hell, and that was a situation he did not want to find himself in again anytime soon), but in the moment he hadn't been aware enough to tell how practiced it was. How skillfull. Looking back on it he can. Erik was exceedingly careful even when he didn't have to be, when he knew none of those welts would physically hold. _You weren't in school where those things would have been taught, at least over here. But you still know them._  
  
Erik swallows, and lifts their joined hands to kiss Charles's bruised knuckles. _Sebastian Shaw considered me his prized project. Because I was a D5, I was not susceptible to his Will the way his other subjects were. He drugged me and conditioned me to yield to him. He expected perfection in this task, as he did in everything. He educated me in languages and literature, and in submission. My role at the Institute was not a Dominant one._ The explanation is delivered factually, without pause and without stuttering, as though Erik were reciting from a book rather than detailing the outer edges of torture and abuse. H _e expected me to service him, as well as the other Dominant members of his inner circle. I was used often as a way of ensuring that these people would be held to silence, and simply because my presence was desired at some point or another. Some were coerced into utilizing me under threat of death and exposure, while others plainly enjoyed it._ He gave a little shrug and then kissed Charles's jaw. _They were just events. Just aggressions. They mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. Please do not despair over me._  
  
Charles' blood runs cold. He goes entirely still in Erik's arms. He was right. He did not like the answer, and it is wholly unpleasant. But not unexpected. That somehow makes it worse. "Excuse me," he says, suddenly far too polite, the way he is when he is breaking inside - Stepford smiles, Xavier-Marko smiles, kisses on both cheeks and handshakes - and slips out of Erik's arms to climb shakily to his feet. When he gets there, he's leaning over the sink. He wasn't sick earlier. He might be now. That cold, silent anger is back, and he doesn't want Erik to see it.  
  
Erik rises fluidly, and comes to stop behind Charles, touching his shoulders, kissing the back of his neck. _Please do not despair over me,_ he repeats again, pained. _I am so sorry. I should not have told you this. Please come back to me. I promise it is all right._  
  
 _No, I needed to know._ It's immediate, and also true. Charles' muscles are all still tensed, his jaw locked, and so he is grateful he does not need to use his mouth for this. His teeth are going to be ruined if he keeps all this hideous gnashing up. _Give me a moment. I just need a moment._ He begins counting down from a hundred to start this time. Ten is not nearly enough.  
  
"Relax," Erik Orders, desperate to quell this horrible rage, this thing that he has caused by virtue of his existence. His experiences take him so far away from humanity that he hadn't realized it would create such a circumstance of abject sickening fury in his submissive. "Relax," he whispers again. "I am with you. I am here with you." I am here with you.  
  
Charles takes a deep, shuddering breath, and then he nods. The Order seeps into his skin, underneath his pores and down to his bones, to his lungs where he can get proper breaths in. He is not used to being angry like this. There were times when he was a teenager where he was angry, but never this way. Always fading, always resigned. Charles understands the world too much to spit at it. And yet. I'm sorry, he apologizes immediately. _I don't mean to frighten you, I'm sorry._ He is so sick at the thought of frightening Erik like Shaw could. The helpless, horrible disgust at himself from the elevator wells up again, and he tries to swallow it without choking.  
  
 _I'm sorry,_ Erik chokes, swiping at his eyes again as he realizes a deluge of wet, hot tears are dripping down his chin in full force- _akulal be'ze_! How can everything he does cause such harm? To his beloved, he almost can't bear it. He is so sorry that it twists the image around them, streaking the walls and floors and windowsills. _I want to be less scared. I want to be less- less._ Less Erik. Less imperfect. _Setz dich gerade hin, Erik. Sprich mir nach. Eins zwei drei. Nicht mit diesem verdammten Akzent! Nochmal! Kannst du nicht eine einfache Aufgabe machen? Weißt du, du hast das nur auf dich gebracht. Diese Unvollkommenheit wird nicht bestehen-! I want to be more._ More able to meet Charles's needs. More able to show him that he is exceptional in every way. More whole. Don't, he shushes. _You were angry. You had no outlet. You acted as rationally as you could. My only regret is that I have hurt you. Please, please, come back._  
  
"No." The force of it surprises him, and then he is turning though he does not need to turn, wrapping his arms firmly around Erik's middle and burrowing himself as closely as he can possibly get, deep, deep down in Erik's mind, in his soul, intertwining and locking and braiding. "No, darling, please. You didn't hurt me. I would never," and he stresses this, looking up so Erik can see his eyes, can see the sincerity that is so strong it's physical, "Wish for you to be less. To hurt less, and to heal, but never to be less of yourself. You haven't upset me. He has." In some dark corner of his mind, one he knows Erik will hear but wishes he won't anyway, he thinks he should have twisted the sick bastard's brain around his fingers while he had the chance. Make him bow and kneel and perhaps even beg before he ripped it all away from him and crushed it like he had for Erik.  
  
"You gave me myself," Erik repeats, so softly it's inaudible, only known through their bond. He frames Charles's face with both hands, gnarled and in-tact alike. _I won't let you do that_ , he says, and this is gentle. _I won't let you go away from yourself like that. Not for the likes of Sebastian Shaw and his lackeys. They do not deserve that. I could not_ \- he turns his head away, trying to avoid Charles seeing him wrecked with grief. _I could not handle-_ he knew what it would destroy in Charles. Destroying Shaw would destroy him, and then Shaw would have Charles just as he had Erik, and Erik shudders with it, small tremors like earthquakes all around them. H _e can't have you,_ Erik whispers viciously. _I won't let him have you._  
  
Charles sighs, turning his head to kiss Erik's damaged, broken hand, soft and gentled again. _I don't want his blood on your hands, either_ , he says, and he knows this is a debate they will have until the moment it is all over. _He needs to be stopped, Erik, but neither of us need to rip ourselves apart further to do it. I made a promise, and so did you. We do this together. I_ t's the best advantage they have, and Sebastian Shaw will pay dearly for underestimating it. That much he knows.

* * *

There are so many, what Charles would conceive as unopened doors inside Erik's mind, so many experiences that have made him view himself as something other than human, because humans cannot deal with listening to what was once entirely normal to him. Humans do not know what to say when you casually discuss burning bodies and torture, but even that has some place in media. What Erik endured at the hands of Shaw is not something he will ever be able to form a full picture of, to anyone else, and now he thinks, least of all Charles. He will not hurt Charles by sharing it, even if he wonders that Charles would ever love him if he knew fully. Those doors will remain locked. He is selfish. He has been given this magnificent being to care for, and he will care for Charles. He will. "You know that I am not interested in revenge," he says. "My desire to kill him is not rooted in anger."  
  
"I know," he says, but he's distracted. Charles' expressions falls, pinched with grief and sadness and perhaps, just perhaps, a bit of hurt. "Do you really think that of me?" he asks, quietly.  
  
Erik blinks. "Think what of you, _tayer_?"  
  
"That I can't handle all of you." He takes Erik's injured hand gently, slowly, with the utmost care. No sling here, he notes. It seems to go in and out, but it's awfully inconvenient to hold Charles with, and it is temporary, so he understands. He brings it to his lips to kiss, just the most grazing of touches. "That if I knew, I wouldn't love you? I thought you said you found me strong."  
  
"You are," Erik shushes him. "This isn't about strength. All love is conditional," Erik murmurs. "Expecting you to love me otherwise would be unfair and terrible. For example, if I were to turn abusive, you are not obligated to love me regardless."  
  
"And I don't think I could," he admits, and they both know it. "But this isn't one of those conditions. I want to help. How can I help if I don't know?"  
  
"It will only hurt you, Charles, at the very best. At the worst I am certain you would leave me."  
  
Charles frowns. He lets Erik's hand fall. "You believe that," he whispers.  
  
"I did vile things," Erik's voice breaks. "Vile, vile things. As Shaw's submissive."  
  
The word in this context nearly makes him retch. "Please don't say that," he mumbles. "You weren't - that's not what you were."  
  
"It _is_ ," Erik returns, rubbing his freed hand over his eyes. "He took great pleasure in imagining the most heinous scenarios, and he enacted them upon me." It's as close as he can come to discussing it. "Sometimes the line is easy to see, the most horrendous and violating events. But I am not the victim you think I am."  
  
"You are. Victims are not always helpless, tied down and forced against their will, Erik. Sometimes they are complicit." But no less a victim. He stares down at his feet, at the tile of his kitchen floor. "I wouldn't think of you the way you think of yourself. I wish you could trust that." He remembers something, another little detail in this mess, and it makes him feel sick again. He bites it down, but something bubbles right back up until he chokes on it. "Do you ever think of that, of him -" He doesn't finish. He doesn't need to. _When you Dominate me._ The answer is yes. Charles covers his mouth.  
  
Of course, this is a tangent; the true nature of evil lies far beyond. Even this, he realizes, is something Erik can discuss like a robot, even if he recognizes that Charles may judge him for it. It's a case of too many locked doors, not enough keys. At the question, he shakes his head a few times. _Please don't make me hurt you_ , Erik's mind whispers, knives in jagged ruin. Because of course it is yes. It is why he's lenient, why he struggles to raise even a finger, and it's so at-odds with the crimes he's facing life imprisonment for that it's almost funny. Sweet, child-like Erik who picks flowers and spins around in circles and decorates their mind-space with plants and sunlight, versus the glowering, stone-faced tower of fury and destruction everyone else sees on the television newsreels. _I think of him so that I do not become him_ , he gasps, a fight for air waging war in his lungs.  
  
 _Look at me, Erik_ , he whispers, and then looks up himself, waiting until their minds are locked together just as much as their gazes. _You never could. I know how difficult it is, trust me, I know, love, but - when you are you, when you allow yourself to be my Dominant the way I know you need_ , when you let go of him, have you ever hurt me? He shows Erik the second day of surgery, the first, their Negotiations, the discipline session, lingering, lingering. Charles pliant and whimpering in Erik's arms, perfectly trusting, perfectly safe, perfectly taken care of. _See it through my eyes. Have I ever been distressed? Have I ever been frightened? Look, Erik. What do you see?_  
  
Erik lurches forward in his hold, gripping tightly to Charles's shoulder. _I need it. I need it and I-"Ah-"_ he groans, a quiet, awful sound. He needs it. Relishes it. The sting of pain and denial. He remembers how his own terror melted away gradually, replaced with warm, heavy satisfaction every time the cane striped across his skin. It makes him sick, and it takes so, so long for him to do as he's told, to open his eyes and see it through Charles's. It clings to Erik like a barnacle on the edge of a boat, almost unnoticed except for the way the sea turns. The last word is higher in pitch, the way his panic rises along the same axis. But Charles was crying and barely-able to handle it, even considered using his pause-word, and Erik barrels through, unconcerned, and _BLARING_ panic-agony _"not scared"_ the voice whispers softly. _You weren't scared._ "Neither was I. I wasn't-I wasn't-sca-ared." _Oh, G-d. I'm so sorry. You don't need this. Not this. Not now._ Erik's panic is ratcheting up several levels at a time, skipping stairs.  
  
This time, Charles is calm. This time it's Charles who grips Erik tight and does not let him go, Charles who pushes down all of his own panic and fear and locks it away, locks it away for both of them, not because it doesn't matter but because it can't reach him right now. Not when Erik needs him. "You're not looking, darling," he whispers, and takes Erik's hand in his. Not letting him go. "Look. Listen." Charles can't Order calm, but he can project it. He can become it for Erik, and have it become them in turn. He didn't consider his pause-word because he needed it. He didn't, not at any point, and if he did he would have used it because Erik had Ordered it so. Charles shows him that, shows him the aftermath: all of that awful, twisted up shame gone, melted out of him, weightless and sighing and so, so pleased. So taken care of. Adoring and adored. "What do you see, Erik? I wasn't scared. What was I?" Grateful. Grateful and proud and warm and so terribly, wonderfully in love. Safe in Erik's hands, in his control, where he wants so desperately to be. "I need it. You see that, don't you? I needed it so badly, and you gave it to me. I'll need it again. We both will. Tell me what part of that is wrong. Tell me that this - you and me - is wrong, Erik. Do you think being my Dom is wrong? Do you think us having what we both need is wrong?" The answer is obvious. It isn't. There's nothing more natural.  
  
Erik very slowly, cautiously peeks out from the blinds and watches what he is shown, and before long he's traipsing out into the memory, beckoned by that eager promise of love and devotion that he could never resist, no matter how far gone he was. "It's not wrong," he barely even whispers. He knows that for sure, even when he is obliterated. He touches those threads of shame and guilt and they melt for him again, and he gasps, but this time it's awe. Erik did that. Erik made it go away. He's struck, still and motionless, caught in the wires. I'm scared, he admits, face buried in Charles's shoulder, hunched-over to do it. He can't put it into words, and so it becomes snapshots, visceral and saturated. The ever-present fear that Shaw is buried so deep within that Erik can never escape him. That he'll become an abuser, that he'd taken his training too well. He's already murdered people. Sometimes he looks in the mirror and sees Shaw's face. What if I lose control? What if I hurt you? It's- nice, he realizes he was about to say. Because it was-nice. Warm and beautiful. He reaches for that memory again, a perspective he could never hope to dream of. Charles saw him as-beautiful. In his element. Expert and skillful. It might be OK now. _What if I get worse?_  
  
Charles response to that is to smile, soft and warm, and he strokes his hand through Erik's hair. Do you trust me, Erik? he asks simply. Do you think of me as competent? Intelligent?  
  
 _Yes_ , the answer is immediate.  
  
Then you have to trust that I will never let that happen. Charles kisses Erik's head, his fingers still playing with those long, curling strands. _I have experienced abuse as well, Erik. I would never let that become what we are, and I know for a fact that neither will you. But I trust you, too. I haven't blindly given you my submission, and if you think me competent you'll know that. It took a lot for me to admit I needed this. To wear your collar, to make this real. But I'm not mindless in this. If I feel I am being treated poorly, if I am ever truly, honestly unwilling, I've promised to tell you, and I will. You know that. This is both of us, what we're building together. And we aren't wrong, are we?_  
  
 _No_ , he shakes his head again, curled up in Charles's arms, the illusion so vivid now that it appears he's dripping tears onto his shirt. _Not wrong_. Sinking into the sensation of Charles's fingers in his hair, his head tilting into it like a pleased cat-he likes that, a lot-even while his body calms down from the wracking tremors of earlier. _There is so much, so much inside me. So many things that happened, that he did, that I did. It's vile, Charles. I don't want you to ever see it. I don't want it to hurt you. It already hurt me. I won't let it hurt you._  
  
 _I know, love. And so it won't._ As simple as that, and Charles believes it with all his heart. He will do everything to make sure Erik does, too. To make their upside-down-backwards world flip rightside up, or at the very least have them both learn to walk properly on the ceilings. _Can I ask you a question, Erik? I already know the answer, so it's not much of a question_ , he thinks, smiling, _But I want to hear you say it. If I used my pause-word, at any point, for any reason, what would happen?_  
  
Erik lifts his head, red-nosed and sniffling and splotchy-cheeked, hardly the look of someone capable of delivering a solemn and serious answer, but he tries, anyway. _Whatever was happening, we would stop. Immediately. I would discern what caused you to use it and we would decide together whether we needed to stop entirely or if you would like to continue, with whatever you needed for that to happen. If I couldn't discern what the issue was, we would cease automatically and I would bring you down._  
  
He already knew that. He'd seen it in Erik's mind when he first gave it to him, but he beams now, as if nothing delights him more. _I know. Do you know that, Erik? I know you would stop if I needed it. If I really, honestly asked for it, with a pause-word. It's okay to be scared. But please, see yourself the way I see you. I couldn't ask for better,_ he murmurs, stealing the words from before, and kisses those splotchy cheeks, sure he can taste the salt of his tears.  
  
 _You know?_ Erik replies, pressing his lips together to keep his jaw from wobbling. _How can you trust me?_ The question slips out of him before he can stop it.  
  
 _I know,_ he repeats, solemn now, and brushes some hair out of Erik's face. _And that's how I can trust you. Because I know you, Erik, more than he ever did. He made you into something you aren't, but I know you as you are. How could I not trust you, when you're here with me like this?_  
  
"How do you know that this is the real me, and Shaw's version of me is the fake one?" Erik asks aloud, heartbroken because he isn't sure he believes this could be real at all, that he could be kind and love someone as deeply and powerfully as he does Charles, sure that it's another failsafe that will betray itself and crush Charles like a garbage compactor. He leans into the touch on his hair again, unconscious.  
  
"Because I've been reading minds since I was nine years old and yours is very complicated and beautiful, Erik, don't ever mistake that, but it's extremely hard to play me for a fool." His lips twitch, a bit of amusement there as he obligingly goes back to petting Erik's hair. He seems to enjoy it, and Charles lives to please, after all. "This? Right now? This is real, and you know it, too." There was really no denying it.  
  
"It feels real," Erik says. Nothing in my life has felt more real. He's slowly, gradually, beginning to calm and the storm of adrenaline fading from him leaves him tired, drained in the way that all his muscles are lax. _You-really think I am a good person? Even with-_ he winces. The trial. Everything.  
  
 _Yes_ , he answers, and it's immediate. He smiles again, shaking his head. I _f I thought you weren't, would we be here_? It's rhetorical. Charles was looking for excuses not to be here in the beginning, and it turns out he couldn't find any convincing ones. Erik being a monster would have qualified.  
  
Erik doesn't really know what to do with this information, and it's not the first time Charles has said such a thing to him. On the contrary, he's been quite adamant that Erik is not a monster, but now he seems to be really listening. Maybe out of desperation, the need to sink into something other than his self-flagellation, because he can feel it killing him. Killing him that he's not good enough for Charles, or frankly, anyone, or anything. And he wants to live. He wants to be here, to experience more of this, more of Charles's soothing voice and the fingers in his hair. Even, G-d forbid, the feeling of Dominance over Charles, but that's a dangerous road to walk down right now when he isn't fully convinced that he's not evil. _I don't want to hurt you. I never want to hurt you. Not ever._  
  
 _I know,_ he says, a repetition that he certainly doesn't mind giving. _Erik, are you listening to me still? Go ahead and listen. Feel, it's all open to you. In any of the memories I've shown you, have I thought of you as not good enough? It was always entirely the opposite_. Charles is awed by Erik everyday, and frequently wonders if he is the inadequate one. _It isn't dangerous. None of this is dangerous. You are not a weapon, you are a person, and you happen to be a person I am very, very much in love with, and also my Dom._  
  
Erik creeps forward and gently sifts through some of the memories open to him, and finds that it's far more pleasant to exist in them than it is in this overwhelming panic and horror, so he floats around for a while, just basking in the glow of Charles. _Thank you_ , he thinks softly, unable to trust his voice. _For showing me this._  
  
"It's yours to have," he says simply, and smiles wide again. As if it's his greatest pleasure to give Erik what he needs, because it is. "I'm yours. Aren't I?" It's a teasing question when both of them know the answer, one eyebrow raised.  
  
Erik stoops over and hugs Charles tight, taking a deep breath that they both feel, like it's trapped between them, a release of tension. "Always," he says into Charles's hair.  
  
Charles hums, soft and content. An agreement. He's quiet for a while, holding Erik, letting Erik hold him, listening to their combined breathing. "You're tired, love," he says finally. "You should get some rest." The implication that Charles will stay up, finish some work, fret some more, perhaps, is there.  
  
The response is a soft huff. "You will come and rest with me," he decides, and there's no room for argument with the Order. Don't forget your routine so quickly, he taps Charles on the nose with his finger and then kisses it for good measure.  
  
Charles huffs himself, that signature pout on his lips when he scrunches his nose where Erik kissed it for good measure. "I wasn't," he protests, indignant. "It's 10:30, Erik. I haven't gone to bed at 10:30 since I was a child." It's not an argument, just a fact.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "I am not condescending to you," he assures gently. "Tomorrow will be worse than today. You haven't had a good night's sleep since you were young. The brain needs it in order to heal. You will be at the best you can be if you can rest for several hours. Trust me," he kisses Charles's forehead.


	23. Do it for the monsters under your bed I

"I do," he says, and at that he smiles again. Something outside their little bubble alerts him, though, and for a moment he's so wrapped up in Erik that he can't tell what it is. That irritating bell-chime of his phone from the other room where he'd left it on the desk, shrill and full volume so he'd hear it. His stomach drops. _Raven? Hank, about Raven? Warren?_ Fortunately he knows Erik is safe, but - He doesn't feel like he has more horrors in him today. And yet. Charles hesitates, like he can't get himself to move.  
  
He closes his palms over each of Charles's cheeks and strokes his thumbs along the cheekbone, his bad hand healed once-more in this world, a reflection of the healing he feels now. It's all tenuous, and the ringing cellphone only exacerbates that pull, but he gives Charles a soft smile. "Let's answer it," he says. "We will deal with what comes. Together."  
  
Charles grunts, but it's less a protest and more a dragging of the feet. He calculates the amount of time he has before it goes to voicemail, staying in the warmth of Erik's arms as long as he can before he's muttering to himself and padding back out to his small study. He doesn't recognize the caller ID, so it's a number he doesn't have on instant recall - he hasn't gotten the time to put his contacts back in, but he knows Raven and Warren and Hank's numbers by immediate memory. Someone else, then. He sighs, bringing it up to his ear on the last ring. "Charles Xavier speaking," and it's still professional, but more mumbled than anything now, weary around the edges.   
  
"Xavier," is the gruff snort from the other side of the line. Speak of the bloody devil, of course. And oh, he appeared. How brilliant.   
  
"Cain," he sighs, shouldering the phone so he can get a good rub in at his temples with the other. "To what do I owe the honor?" He wonders, briefly, if this is a conversation he should let Erik eavesdrop on, but he needs his support more than he's willing to shield him from it. Despite his nonchalance, his fingers are shaking slightly where they grip the phone.  
  
Erik stands by his side, placing his hand into Charles's free one, rubbing his thumb in soothing circles back and forth. There's no trace of the rage and fury that Charles expects Erik to have, only a solid pillar for Charles to lean on, a glittering ocean for Charles to dive into and cool off the superheated panic and irritation and frustration. _Wash away your woes. Shtil vaser grobt tif, Erik. A shlekhter shalom iz beser vi a guter krig_. Edie Lehnsherr's voice crops up at the strangest times, right-there at the edge of Charles's periphery, but Erik misses it, believing it to be a memory of his own. _I love you_ , is what he contributes instead, firm and even.  
  
Charles blinks, confused and mildly alarmed for a moment, but then his attention is dragged back when Cain speaks. It's that same deep, guttural grunting noise he remembers, and it might as well be nails on a chalkboard for all it settles him. "You needa drop this fucking case, tiny," his stepbrother snarls, as eloquent as ever, and it raises every hair on the back of his neck. Tiny as compared to what, he's always wanted to ask, a human building? Cain is taller than Erik, perhaps the root of his previous distaste for tall Dominants.  
  
"Excuse me?" he returns, and considers simply hanging up there. He's more than on edge, and he doesn't have time for this. "I don't see how that's any of your business, thank you."  
  
"Look," and there's another animal grunt, something Charles wrinkles his nose at, "You ain't know what you're getting into here. I hate my dad as much as the next, but why bring up the past?" Charles' eyebrows raise at that.   
  
"The past? I'm afraid you've lost me. It's really quite late, Cain, perhaps -"   
  
"Shut up, bitch."   
  
Charles' mouth snaps closed. His body locks up. Adrenaline courses through him, thick and heady. It isn't obedience. It's learned fear.   
  
"What'd I tell you about speaking when you aren't spoken to? Still haven't learned your place." Charles is silent, trembling, like a stupid, pathetic child. He nearly drops the phone.  
  
Cain feels something happen to him rather suddenly. There's a sharp, electric, rending pain that shoots through his jaw, like an amplified toothache. Charles watches as his periphery changes slightly, a shadow moving behind him, and it's next to Erik. _Let him go, Boychik. Let him go._ Erik gasps in surprise, fairly certain he heard that in his ear, and Cain's mouth stops hurting.  
  
Charles is only pulled out of his fear, old and burned into him, by shock. Over the phone? Erik has no idea where Cain is, and last time he checked, he was actually across the country. There's simply no way. And then there's the voice, and he recognizes it, and - Cain is speaking again, apparently not thinking too much of things like usual.   
  
"Your dad got up to some fucked up shit, Xavier. Maybe you should consider your inheritance blood money. Call yerself a mutant activist or whatever they're callin' you, but you sure don't ask questions."  
  
Charles blinks. "My father was a _scientist_ ," he says, but his voice wavers, shaking like the rest of him.   
  
"What's he got up to experimenting on, huh, tiny? Why's he got that big ol' nuclear shelter down in the basement for? All those locked places?"   
  
He doesn't know what that's implying. "My father -"   
  
"Your dad experimented on people. Don't get high and mighty, you stupid -"   
  
Charles doesn't breathe for a moment. He's hung up the phone. Then he moves, shoving his shoes on at the same time he walks out the door, forgoing the elevator to take the stairs two, three at a time.  
  
Erik is after him instantly. "Charles, _stop_." The Order pierces the air.  
  
Charles, in full motion, looks as if he's been physically shoved back. He makes a helpless, frustrated noise, exhales through his nose, and fights back the horrible twisting in his stomach that overwhelms him whenever he's about to do something against Erik's wishes. "Let me go, Erik," he says, as calm as possible, but it's through clenched teeth. "Please," he adds, as if that will soften it.  
  
"Go where, Charles? Where are you going?"  
  
"Where are you going, _tayer_?"  
  
"Westchester, New York," he mutters, and grinds his teeth together. "And it's a forty minute drive without traffic, so if you could kindly let go -"  
  
" _Atzor_." Erik's voice is firm. "If you think I am going to let you run off to face this-I hesitate to call him a _person_ because that is a stretch-by yourself, based on nothing more than his calling you up to rile you, you do not know me very well. I want you to take a breath and pause for a moment, Charles." That, too, is an Order. Not in the way that Charles made people utterly still, but in the way of cooling down and assessing the situation. In times of crisis, Charles lead with his heart. Erik did not. "Tell me what is going through your mind. Calmly."  
  
Charles sucks in a breath like he's told. He tries to keep a grip on the anger and confusion and whirling thoughts as they drain out of him, but they slip through his fingers and he's left with resignation and calm. Reluctantly so, perhaps, but it's there. "Cain isn't in Westchester," he explains. "My father's research is in Westchester, locked in a safe and in his desk, and I never looked." Not once. But he calls himself an academic, an intellectual. Keeping those files undisturbed for all those years, and for what? His father's honor? He was eight when the man died. He doesn't even know him.  
  
"You told me that we would handle whatever happens to us together. Do you still mean that?" Erik asks, tilting his head. "You don't need to run off half-cocked, Charles. I want you to call Warren and Raven and tell them what's going on." That's an Order, too, because he's now entirely hyperfocused on discerning this situation out for them all, and if he has to maneuver everyone involved to do so, he will, because he won't let Charles bury himself in guilt and grief and rage-and that means he's not interested in arguing about it. Erik knows where that leads. He's spent his whole life there. Until Charles.  
  
"Yes," he sighs, because Erik is right. The phone is still in his hand - he was going to use it to call a car - and he takes another breath. It's Warren he dials first, perhaps because he's the first one Erik mentioned, perhaps because he knows if there's anyone who's going to stay calm in a situation like this besides Erik, it's Warren. He'll understand this better than anyone. Charles fidgets as it rings.

* * *

Warren takes a few seconds to pick up, yawning as he does. "Charles? This is your new phone, right? Unless you're not Charles, in which case, Worthington speaking." He lets out a laugh.  
  
"I think my father may have experimented on mutants," is what he says. As far as greetings go, it's not his best.  
  
It takes several, and I mean _several_ moments for Warren to answer. When he does, his voice has changed from what had obviously been newly-awakened to sharp and in control. "Based on what?"  
  
"My stepbrother - don't say anything, Warren, I know he's not the most reliable source," he sighs, and grinds his injured hand into his temples to fight off the growing migraine, ignoring the pang of pain there. "But I've suspected - what else could it be, besides nuclear weapons? You saw what happened in the wake of his death." Charles had locked that hunch away for a long, long time. He was eight, and grieving, and therefore not overly observant at the time, but there were far too many government agents swarming around for that to be a normal scientist's death. Warren was older, and also at the funeral. "He implied a connection to this case, and I've no idea how he knows that, but he clearly knows something."  
  
"I'm coming over there," Warren says shortly. "Stay put and be ready when I get there. Are you going to call Raven or am I?" For all his qualms about Erik, they were apparently on the same page. Erik was counting on that when he Ordered it in the first place, and thankfully Warren came through. They only met for a split-second, but Erik could nail a person down in half that time.  
  
A hand squeezes Charles's shoulder. "You're doing well, Charles. Keep breathing, _aun forzetsn derfarung es_." Its meaning is obscured. When Charles looks, he sees only a brief shadow, moving out of sight.  
  
Charles nods, hardly recognizing that Warren won't be able to see him. "I'll call her," he manages, and then hangs up. Warren won't be offended at the lack of proper goodbye, and he's barely hanging onto his calm even with the Order in place. He takes a few long, deep breaths before he dials Raven's number by heart. The moment she answers he's speaking before she even gets a chance to. "Raven, I need you," is what comes out of his mouth. "I'm not in danger, I just -" _I just need you._ She'll understand. The rest can be explained when they're all together.  
  
Raven doesn't question him. "'K, Charles," she mumbles blearily, having been in bed like a normal person. "Be there soon, luvu." She meanders around throwing on some clothes, a yellow tank top and a red flowy skirt allowing her legs room to move, and some flats. It wasn't an outfight perfect for fighting in, but Raven was agile enough to make it work. She and Warren arrive at nearly the same time, and Warren leads them into the apartment. 

* * *

He's also the first one to speak.  
  
"I think it's pretty clear at this point that we should head to Westchester," he says without preamble.  
  
"What's going on, exactly?" Raven hides her yawn behind her blue hand.  
  
Charles, for his part, is rubbing at his temples and wrapped as firmly around Erik as he can be at the moment. "We're airing out dirty laundry," he mumbles, and he's clearly worked up about it. There's no way not to be. "My father had his own skeletons in the closet, and apparently it's time to let them breathe." He's mixing metaphors here. It's all the same. Erik? he checks, like he's afraid he's going to disappear on him.  
  
 _I'm right here, neshama._ Erik settles his hands on Charles's shoulders, gaining as much comfort from the touch as he's trying to give. "You should let them know I am present," he adds. "And that I agree with Warren. We should go there and try to figure out what he was involved with."  
  
"There's a pretty big issue at play, here," Warren says, because they all know it, but he's the only one blunt enough to smash it through with a baseball bat. "If it's true, that's a wrench in your case you won't see coming."  
  
"What is he talking about," Raven grumps.  
  
"Erik's here, and he agrees," he says, almost robotically, and truthfully he'd forgotten he was the only one who could see and hear him. Even in the Real he's leaning a bit into where Erik would be. "Raven, I think my father might have done - research on mutants." It sits uncomfortable and sticking on his tongue, and it takes several long moments for him to be able to breathe again, let alone speak. "And he was a nuclear physicist, so truthfully..." It doesn't sound good, or pleasant, even with just that. Any human experimentation is generally unsavory, but mix in the word nuclear and it's generally worse. But out of his parents, he'd considered his father - But he was eight, he reminds himself, and his mother had been cold and unattached. Of course he would. He stares down at the floor.  
  
"Oh my G-d," Raven breathes without pausing to manage her reaction, more like Charles than anyone else in the room. "What kind of _research_? How did you find out about this? Is this related to the case-" her eyes widen. "Is this related to the _Shaw Institute_?!"  
  
"We don't know anything more than what Charles has told us," Warren shuts that down. "That's why we're going over to the _Graymalkin_ Manor and we're going to find out for ourselves. So I suggest everybody get ready to go, and dress for comfort. That means get rid of that skirt," he eyes Raven pointedly.  
  
"Do you think that we're going to end up in some kind of trouble, Warren?" she blinks. She's always ready for a fight, of course, but Warren usually isn't.  
  
"I don't know. I remember Brian's funeral. I remember the aftermath. It wasn't normal, and now that Erik's case is getting more publicity after his arraignment-Charles is his advocate, his _only_ advocate other than Pryde. It's in Shaw's best interest to find some dirt on Charles and expose it, and we already know these people are dangerous. So gear up. How far is Erik's range?" he asked Charles.  
  
Charles isn't sure if he's prepared for a fight. He isn't sure if he's prepared for anything, really, and in their bubble he grabs for Erik's hand. "Far," he whispers, which is the truth. "As good as mine." Which they're learning is rather unlimited, actually, all things considered. He's never pushed it, but if he has to he knows it goes much farther than he's tried. Omega-level, indeed. "Do you - of course you know the address," he mutters, shaking his head. Warren is one of the few people who does, and isn't that something. So much secrecy. Too much. Charles is more bitter than he'd like to be. If he's rotten, at least he knows why. The apple never falls far.  
  
Erik squeezes his fingers and he seems to consider something for a while before speaking next, unheard by present company, "This could be a trap. It's rather suspicious that Cain contacted you now of all times. He could be working for them."  
  
Charles looks to Warren, and then to Raven, expecting either of them to have some input on that. When they stare back at him, Warren's thoughts tinged with confusion, he sighs. "Oh, for the love of -" He pinches his nose and rolls his eyes. This is going to be irritating, having Erik here but not here. There's a workaround. "Raven, I'm about to do mind stuff, and you'll just have to deal. I'm not reading anything of yours," he informs her, and then closes his eyes. When he opens them, Erik is sitting in the room, even though he's not, a physical projection of him that they see, too. "There. Now, Erik thinks this could be a trap," he mutters, because he isn't going to wait for Erik to repeat himself. "And I'll admit, my stepbrother has never had my best interests in mind."  
  
Raven and Warren both startle as Erik abruptly appears sitting in the chair next to Charles, holding his hand. He looks terrible even in the projection, because they're seeing what Charles is seeing and it's the first time anyone other than him has witnessed Erik being affected by anything at all. His nose and eyes are red, cheeks ruddy, hair mussed from where he'd run his hand through it multiple times. He's wearing a prisoner uniform with an ugly number stamped on the front of it. Despite all of that he is determined, vivid eyes practically blazing with strategy and countermeasures.  
  
"I think it is suspicious that Cain decided to contact Charles now," he continues in the Real. "My plea was just televised. There is no reason why he could not have done this earlier. It's possible someone got to him and they figured out the best way to make Charles vulnerable, physically and emotionally." His unspoken thoughts were clear; Cain didn't anticipate Charles behaving rationally. He hadn't anticipated Erik.  
  
Raven looks sick. "What if it's true?"  
  
"It might be," Warren says, "but that doesn't mean he's wrong. It just makes their case stronger, and it's one step closer to taking you out of the game." He looks at Charles.  
  
The Markos are a good bet to making him vulnerable, an easy cheat into getting under his skin in the way most things do not. Whoever had dug into his past had done so efficiently. If Erik hadn't stopped him, he'd be halfway to Westchester by now, alone, and they both know it. Charles shakes his head, staring down at his feet again. "So what do we do?" he asks, and for once he's got no plan of his own. He isn't several steps ahead. In fact, he feels as if he's lagging behind and jogging just to keep up. "What kind of trap would they set?" He wants to open that safe. Desperately.  
  
"It's a dilemma," Warren acknowledges. "On the other hand, if we don't get to that safe first, they'll have a hell of a lot of ammunition."  
  
"But none of us are alone," Erik says. "I can try to reach the mansion. I should be able to sense if there are any people there right now. We can go in prepared."  
  
Charles blinks. "Reach the mansion how?" he asks, because Erik isn't the telepath here. "If anyone should be doing that, it's me. I can get a far better sense. And I'm closer in proximity and not blocked, however uselessly, by suppressors." So he'll do the scoping out. He's done it unnoticed before, even if there are, for some reason, other telepaths there. There shouldn't be, but he doesn't count anything as impossible anymore. But he knows he won't be able to at the moment, so he gently nudges Erik. "I need to over-exert myself. It's important." It won't be obvious what he's getting at with Raven and Warren around, but that's fine. He doesn't have the patience or time to explain at the moment.  
  
Erik gives him a look. "I can sense people," he insists. "Everyone is made of elements. I can track movement and presence quite easily." The shoe on the other foot of underestimation, but he is accustomed to that. "If it doesn't work we will revisit your idea, but right now it's important for all of us to stay calm. Losing our heads won't benefit anything." It's gentle. "I am going to try. Give me a moment." His eyes disappear behind dark circled lids.  
  
Charles shakes his head, because that isn't right at all. "I didn't mean you couldn't. I understand how your abilities work. I meant that I can get -" But Erik is already off doing it, so no point pushing. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth. He huffs, but attempts to push it down. There's no reason to get frustrated with Erik, even if his plan is clearly better. Erik can tell them if someone is there, yes. Perhaps even garner some idea of who. Charles could do that far easier, and learn much more. It's just the nature of their respective abilities, and Charles happens to have the advantage. But let Erik have it his way. He shouldn't over-exert himself. Charles crosses his arms over his chest and scowls.  
  
"He's right," Warren chides. "Even if your abilities are favored here, there's nothing telling us that you wouldn't just white-out into a melted pile if you tried it on that scale. And then we'd be completely blind when we get there." His eyebrows arch. Obviously the closer they got the easier it would get, and they absolutely needed Charles for that.  
  
Charles scowls harder. It doesn't sit well with him that apparently he's so weak as to need training wheels, restrictions, while Erik uses his abilities freely. But he's set a precedent for that, hasn't he? Limitless Erik who brings down buildings and weak Charles who loses his abilities when he needs them most and can barely handle a few psionic attacks. "Fine," he huffs again. He knows it's slightly unfair. He knows he's just on edge. That it's been a long day and apparently it isn't over, that his stepbrother brings out the worst in him consistently - the frightened, vulnerable side of him. But it doesn't mean he's any less frustrated.  
  
Erik keeps his eyes closed and reaches out, out, out. Feeling the Earth and the hum of people inside of him like blood cells moving through veins. In many ways he is Charles's utter opposite-at full capacity he can affect all of the physical world while Charles reigns in the mental. His focus sweeps forward until he touches the iron of that gate. It's empty in the Real-no school for the gifted here. Yet. He searches.  
  
Charles calms slightly as he watches through Erik's eyes. At the heart of it, Erik's ability is a mental one as well, though far more grounded in the physical world. If he isn't the one to scope, at least he can bolster, reach those places of focus and help Erik hone in on them. He sees it just as Erik does when he reaches the presence of others. They're in different places, spread out and absolutely searching for something. It's a bit frustrating, seeing this only through Erik and not being able to read them, but this is better than nothing. Far better. "Three of them," he whispers, before Erik does, and comes back to his own mind. There were four of them, but only three physically. Their three could all be mutants, too, which Warren is certainly not. The advantage could slide either way, depending on what they're dealing with.  
  
Erik reaches out further. The feel of their clothing, the metal they wear, weaponry, the shape of badges and uniforms, the ink of laminate or stamped-on words. Even whether or not anyone is enhanced physically, their metabolism and the processes of their bodies all within his control which he unfurls like flower petals, gently and easily, going down into the very particles of their existence. He wouldn't have time to do something like this in the moment, so he takes the opportunity now.  
  
It's strange that, when connected like this, they are almost one person. Charles draws back in, uncertain this time what he's looking for, but just as Charles makes sense of the sometimes buzzing static of his telepathy for Erik, tapering it to a point, Erik translates for him. He focuses on one in particular. The unnatural, hulking largeness, the ridiculous tattoos that Erik traces out - "Cain," he breathes before he realizes he's hissed it out, all the air leaving his chest at once. "That's Cain Marko." Which leads him to a simple conclusion: yes, this is a trap. There's no other reason for him to be there, and it makes perfect sense that in this situation he would be. He's one of the few people who know how to get there. The mansion isn't exactly hidden, they could find it if they wanted to. But why bother if someone knows the address and layout? Someone who lived there himself.  
  
"Cain is there?!" Raven squawks, growling under her breath. Cain was a fucking slime who didn't know how to do anything else but intimidate, and Raven had grown up under his thumb just as well. But rather than fear, like Charles, her reaction was only intense, superheated anger. "How _fucking dare him_ -"  
  
"It's going to be OK," Warren shushes her with a pat on the arm. "Better that we find out like this. You were planning on going there by yourself, weren't you?" he murmurs at Charles. "I can't imagine how that would have gone. They're trying to lure you there for some reason, G-d only knows why."  
  
"We won't need G-d," Erik mutters. With the sound of a magnetic snap, though this might've just been a product of Charles's imagination, Erik reaches for a pulse of power and jolts them, like a taser except precise to the points of their bodies that would incapacitate them, hoping to send them to the ground in a useless, twitching heap. Passed out. It would buy them time to get there before they found what they were looking for.  
  
Charles shakes his head. He's gone quiet again, and when he speaks, it's barely audible. "They wouldn't have found it quickly anyway," he says, certain of it. "It's in the sub-basement. Totally underground. Cain doesn't know it exists." And any house that has a constructed, underground sub-basement is probably not an ordinary house. Charles has always known this. He's tracing patterns in the hardwood of his floor, counting to one hundred this time. "I've never used my telepathy on Cain." It's an idle admission. "I could, certainly, but -" But he's not even sure he would have, faced with him in any sort of confrontational way. That he wouldn't have frozen up and regressed all the way back to where Cain has always liked him. "Let's go," he says, equally quiet, and then stands to his feet. "Before they completely trash the place, at least. I quite like some of the art there."  
  
Three picture frames on the wall hover in the air and re-form and separate into restraints, wrapping around their hands and feet. For Cain he uses multiple sets of restraints, and one around his neck for good measure, all of them trapping him to the floor. The other personnel had strips around their torso and legs. With Erik and Charles combined, Erik can affect the real world, and he practices it while rising from his chair, putting his hand on a thin flower vase that held a single dandelion and picking it up, fingers curled over it. The projection, mental, given physical prowess. He was as good as there. Warren and Raven looked equal amounts of terrified and awed at them both, having never seen the extent of Erik's powers. Like everyone else they'd just assumed metal. "Now we can go," Erik steps back, eyes opening, power thrumming through him.  
  
Charles states the obvious. "Only as long as this is uninterrupted," he points out, tapping at his temple in that familiar gesture. "If that goes, you're gone. It won't, but you need to know that despite the ease of the bond, the moment I falter is the moment you do." Two in one, and the rest topples from there. Charles doesn't flex his own power, but it's never been more important that he's in control of it. "Everyone cross your fingers and hope that Shaw hasn't somehow collected every telepath on the bloody planet," he mutters, dry, but any humor there might have been is sucked out.  
  
Raven looks unsure, but Erik nods. "I can still affect them from here, but in the moment, I cannot guarantee anything." Erik makes a face, one that wouldn't appear on his features ordinarily, but they're seeing Charles's projection. "Sometimes I become frightened, or overwhelmed. In that instance, anything could happen. We should not be overconfident."  
  
"We won't be," Warren assures, and he reaches into his blazer where a holster is strapped to his shoulder and pulls out a Glock .45, checking that it's loaded and that the safety's flicked on for now.  
  
"Warren!" Raven squawks indignantly. "What is that?"  
  
"Listen, I'm not a mutant. I'm the liability here, so you're _damn_ right I've got a gun."  
  
"Where did you even get that!"  
  
"I do _own_ a gun, Raven," he laughs. "I've just never had an occasion to use it."  
  
"Can you _use_ it?" Erik asks.  
  
"I can, yes. I've been going to the range since I was a kid."  
  
" _Americans_."  
  
Raven laughs.  
  
"Could we all please get going?" Charles is more than a bit on edge, and it shows in every moment. He's rubbing at his temples again, not because there's pain there - not any more than usual, anyway, and that comes with the territory - but because it's a habit. "It's an hour fifteen just to get there. We can talk in the car."

* * *

"They're down, Charles," Erik assures him. "They won't be going anywhere." Especially since at the moment, no one is interfering with Charles, and the two who normally could were suppressed and in custody. " _Baruch hashem l'katan nisim_. Let's go," he nods to Warren, who shrugs his blazer back on and re-holsters his gun, leading them out to the car. Erik opens his own door with his hand just as if he were there and slides into the backseat. They even have to make room for him (a lot of room, mind-you, he's all limbs and legs and arms). "It's possible," he says as they back out of the small driveway, "that this is the extent of Shaw's plan-Cain Marko likely doesn't have any valuable information beyond where the mansion is, but that he's there is significant. They expected you to show up, and Cain is perfectly aware that he can destabilize you simply by being present. That would give them plenty of time to incapacitate you. Perhaps they'd try suppressors, although those would be ineffective. It's also possible Shaw has a trick up his sleeve. We cannot underestimate this man." Right now, Erik is reasonable, but he's shaking as he speaks about it. "He spent the last twenty years experimenting upon mutants. Learning their abilities. Learning what affects what. He's had a telepath in his employ for most of that time, Charles, which means he is intimately familiar with how it works." The fact that he's worried is obvious in his tone and face.  
  
Charles is grateful to Raven for taking the front seat, because it means he can crowd close in the small, cramped space of the back. He's practically sitting in Erik's lap, and he doesn't particularly care what that looks like. "I've been in Emma's mind as much as she's been in mine," he says, and he's uncertain if Erik knows that. "I've seen her telepathy. How it works. It's different, you know. Similar, but not the same. There are boundaries to hers that mine simply doesn't have, and limits she can't push past. Believe it or not, I do not have those same limitations." For all the good it's been to them. "Don't underestimate me, Erik. I know I've been rather pathetic, but -" He shakes his head, unsure where to go from there.  
  
"Charles," Erik shakes his head. "Do you really think I'm letting you go in there without full reign? You are free to do as you see fit," he Orders that as well, superceding his previous command. "There is nothing to do with pathetic here. You were injured. There is no fault to be had. I wished for you to have time to recover, but you are of course correct. We cannot afford to have you limited, even if it might cause you pain." Even if that might cause Erik agony, to see Charles reach out and hit that wall and shriek into oblivion, but they don't know what they're walking into.  
  
Let them watch, then. It's the first time they can, really, besides the mess at the end of that hospital visit where Raven saw their muted goodbye. Charles nods and rests his head on Erik's shoulder, curled into him. Then he huffs, unbuckles his seatbelt (he's in the backseat and Warren is a very good driver) and climbs fully into Erik's lap. "Shut up," he mumbles, not to Erik, but to both Raven and Warren who he can feel watching in the rearview mirror. _I don't mind you protecting me_ , Erik, he assures. _I just need you to know I'm not weak, either._  
  
Warren just arches an eyebrow, and Raven grins-the behavior isn't unusual, it's just unusual in Charles, which is what really draws their attention in the first place, but he can tell they're pleased. Erik wraps his arms fully around Charles and holds him steady, running his hand up and down his back. _I already know that, neshama. You needn't fuss about it._ His lips purse, amused, and he kisses Charles's jaw. Unlike the other man, Erik has little in the way of embarrassment.

* * *

The radio flicks on of its own accord, and Raven grins. "Thank you, Erik," she says knowingly.  
  
He hides a quick grin in Charles's shoulder. _Work Bitch_ by Britney Spears started playing through the speakers, which prompted Warren to pinch the bridge of his nose with one hand on the wheel to make an easy turn. Erik bopped along to it.  
  
"Excuse you, Charles, this is an _LFA_. It's not the car's fault that Erik's seven feet tall."  
  
Charles' shoulders are shaking with barely contained laughter. He lets the tension melt out of them and exhales with another snort, grinning and soft in Erik's lap. As if this is some kind of found-family roadtrip to a vacation spot. "I haven't a clue what that means, Warren," he admits. "I'm a sub, and therefore incapable of driving." At least he fits that particular stereotype. Charles has his license, but can honestly count on one hand the number of times he's driven himself places.  
  
"Can I tell you a secret?" Erik asks in a faux stage-whisper.  
  
"I love secrets," Charles whispers back, perfectly loud enough for everyone in the car to hear over the radio.  
  
"I cannot drive, either," Erik smirks. The one time he'd tried he'd destroyed a CIA vehicle.  
  
"Yes, Erik, I know," he laughs. "And so does the CIA." Charles can't help kissing Erik's cheek, nuzzling up against him and that ticklish beard of his. "We'll teach you how to drive in Warren's car, of course," he teases, eyeing the driver with a grin.  
  
"You most assuredly will _not_ do that," Warren barks a laugh.  
  
"It's fine, you guys can just get around in one of those hummer limos."  
  
"We will paint it yellow," Erik contributes smartly.  
  
"And I will never, ever, be caught in it."  
  
"What is your obsession with painting things yellow?" he laughs. "No yellow cars. I put my foot down. I also put my foot down at this station." There is only so much bubblegum pop his migraine-prone brain can handle. He wants to change it himself, but unfortunately that means getting out of Erik's lap, and he's totally unwilling to do that. He pouts. "Raven, change the station for me and I'll give you rights to assume my form and mock me."  
  
"I like this song," Erik pouts _back_ , nodding along to the beat.  
  
"Yeah, Charles. * _You wanna hot body, you wanna Mazarati, you better work bitch!_ *" Raven sings at him, her smirk utterly gleeful.  
  
"Erik, you're breaking like, thirty stereotypes right now."  
  
" _Work bitch_ ," Erik deadpans.  
  
Charles' sigh is utterly put out and long suffering, but he has to burrow himself in Erik to hide his fond smile. "You're both ridiculous and I refuse to associate with either of you," he mutters, except he's still very much in Erik's lap. "I never should have introduced you to each other. Horrid, terrible idea."  
  
Warren takes pity on Charles and flicks it over to one of the indie stations that he periodically listens to when driving long distances. _In the End_ by Linkin Park filters through the car's impeccable sound system, and Warren and Raven immediately laugh.  
  
"Oh my G-d, it's 1999 again."  
  
"I think _Hybrid Theory_ was released in like-"  
  
"2000," Erik supplies, making Raven's mouth drop. " _What_? I had the album."  
  
"You had the-" Raven dissolves into laughter. It's so breathtakingly normal she could cry.  
  
" _It starts with one-_ " Raven and Warren break into song. Erik joins in at the bridge and sustains " _-watch you go!_ " for them to 'rap' horribly over it. He nudges Charles. "I _tried so hard, and got so far!_ " everybody's singing this awful song, sorry Charles. " _In the eeeeeeeeeend-_ " he breaks off, laughing.  
  
Charles' life has been incredibly strange, all things considered. He's used to it. This, he thinks, is the most ridiculous situation he has ever been in, and it makes him laugh so hard he starts wheezing, tears in his eyes as he attempts to catch his breath.  
  
"This is it -" he manages through gasping breaths around fits of laughter. "This is how I go. Charles Xavier, found dead. Please make sure you play this horrendous song at my funeral. And serve those creampuffs we used to -" He dissolves into more laughter. "Raven, I tried to tell him the Christmas roast story but you tell it so much better. I left out the sprinklers, and the eggs on the ceiling, and..." He snorts. Singalongs, and reminiscing. This really is a roadtrip.  
  
As the song ends, Raven's giggling so much she's taking in gulps in air between hiccups. "It-oh G-d-the- _roast_ -" she wheezes. "More like Christmas _Toast_. Erik, you should have seen this thing. It practically exploded. I'd never seen a roast detonate until that moment."  
  
"Sprinklers-" Erik's eyebrows fly up. "That is it, you are banned from our kitchen," he grins. "I told him that I will handle the Christmas cooking from now on."  
  
"That's a relief, because I can't cook, either. Runs in the family," Raven laughs.  
  
"I have cooks. Several of them. It's not very festive," Warren snorts.  
  
"Hank is a smart man," Erik beams at him. Amanda Palmer's version of _Everybody Knows_ comes up next, and Erik perks up, a smile on his face. "This is-" he laughs. Listening to music out in the open, not huddled in a dark corner praying no one heard him-surrounded by the people he liked most. " _Everybody knows that the war is over,_ " he sings along with a grin.  
  
"You know Amanda Palmer?"  
  
"Well, _first of all,_ this is Leonard Cohen," Erik explains. "But I know Amanda Palmer separately, yes."  
  
"You had access to music and stuff?" Raven cocks her head, curious.  
  
"I had very limited access to a computer," Erik explains, "to help me learn languages."  
  
"And you listened to music instead of-" Erik goes silent. Raven blanches, raising her hands and shaking her head. "That's not what I meant-" but in a way, it was. She didn't understand how someone could have the resources to escape from Shaw and not take the opportunity.  
  
"I was young," he says softly. "And stupid."  
  
"Bullshit," Warren interjects, intelligent as always. "You were a kid. That's some serious fucking brainwashing."  
  
"Emma would tweak things in my mind," Erik says, like it's any old ordinary thing, while Raven looks positively horrified. "It made me much less susceptible to escape attempts."  
  
She'd grown up with a telepath, there was always a fear there. When Charles had first made her freeze up and she'd realized the extent of his power, she panicked, and made him promise never to do it again-always that fear that he'd get angry during one of their fights-that eased as they grew into adulthood, she knew her brother, and trusted him.  
  
It also put another spin on just how much he trusted Charles, that there was absolutely no fear in Erik of him whatsoever.  
  
It's not lost on Charles. It never has been. He sobers immediately, listening silently as they talk. His mind tangles itself up even further around Erik, though truly there isn't a way to get much closer. Charles presses a gentle, sweet kiss to Erik's neck, burying himself in the crook of his shoulder. "I love you," he whispers, just loud enough for Erik to hear. The conversation grounds him again. He'll happily turn back to chitchat and singing to the radio in a moment, but two thoughts have connected. "Raven," he says, solemn. "Text Hank. Tell him where we're going. Someone needs to know where we are that isn't Erik." Who everyone thinks is a raving lunatic.  
  
And who can only talk to Gabby, so there's that.  
  
"Already done," Raven smiles back at them through the mirror, a flash of white against brilliant blue.  
  
"Thank you," Erik says back to Charles, just for him to hear. He'd tightened his grip when Raven began questioning him, and loosened up, smoothing out the wrinkles in his shirt. She touched a nerve, the one where he brings it on himself every day for his lack of power, for being unable to send a simple warning to law enforcement anonymously while people died around him. It's the nature of telepathy that it can feel like _your choice_ even when your subconscious is screaming in a locked box covered in dust and chains.   
  
Erik swallows, resting his head against Charles's shoulder. Everything has sobered for him as well. The people they're going to face are Shaw's men, who are looking for Charles, who might very well capture him and torture him and experiment on him and pull his skin from his muscles and throw him into the fire-  
  
"Shh, darling," Charles whispers into Erik's ear, holding him tight and placing another soft kiss there. It's strange how there's physicality to this. Honestly, he doesn't understand it, but that's research for later when his Dom doesn't need his comfort. "We'll be alright, won't we? We're together, you and I. We've handled everything else they've thrown at us, and we won't stop now." It's all whispered just loud enough for Erik to hear where here's curled into his lap, but he raises his voice slightly now, letting the two in the frontseat hear. "Besides, Warren has a big, scary gun. Who would mess with us?" he jokes.  
  
"We can just let them have it," Erik whispers. "They want you, they don't care about the documents." He's starting to realize that this is a horrible idea, and it's sticking his voice in his throat, and he hides his head in Charles's chest again, like a cocoon they've made. It's easy to tell the difference now, that they're in front of other people, that the Dynamics between an S1 and a D5 don't match up with ordinary folks. They touch almost constantly, they are a push-pull of fear and comfort, utterly open with one another in ways they aren't with their friends and family. I know you want to know, but it's not worth your life. I can't let this be worth your life. Charles can tell he is seriously considering Ordering them to turn around.  
  
"Don't," he breathes, but it's not defiance, or rebellion, or even frustration. It's soft, more of a plea than anything. Charles waits until Erik is looking at him, cupping his cheek. _Please. Let me have this. If something goes wrong, or if you decide once we're there we can't handle it, you can Order me to leave and I will. But please don't take this from me._ Charles needs to know, or it will torture him for the rest of his life _. I won't put my life at serious risk for this, more than what's already inherent here. If you need to, Order that. But please let me try._  
  
Erik nods, and it becomes clear that it was more a passing fantasy than a serious urge. He knows where the line is, at least here. He can't keep Charles from his own history anymore than Charles could expect him to ignore Shaw. "OK," he mumbles back, pressing their foreheads together.

* * *

"Is everything alright back there?" Warren asks, eyebrows pinched.  
  
"Everything's peachy keen," he responds, and it truly isn't, but at least between him and Erik it is. If Erik's trust in Charles is exemplified by his lack of fear for Charles' telepathy, Charles' is by his lack of fear for Erik's ability to Order him. Now more than ever he's learning to trust Erik with this, to defer to his Dom not mindlessly, nor helplessly, but because he trusts Erik with that power. Because he wants to, just as much as he needs to. It's such a strange difference for him, but ultimately one he finds comes more naturally than he ever could have anticipated. "If I kiss my Dom in the back of your car, does it make up for all the teenage canoodling I missed out on?" Charles is in his twenties and using the word canoodling, so likely not.  
  
Erik answers that question by kissing Charles promptly, while Raven pretended to stick her finger down her throat. Charles could tell she was happy for him, though, and Warren just huffed and rolled his eyes. " _Don't_ mess up my car," he warned, jabbing a thumb back there.  
  
"What is _canoodling_?" Erik wanted to know when they parted.  
  
Charles giggles at that, and holds onto this while he can. He leans down to kiss at Erik's neck, right against his pulse point. That usually riles him up, and now he grins there, fully cognizant of it. A tease. "Oh, you know," he murmurs, flushing. "A bit of _hanky panky._ Fooling around. Heavy petting," he snorts, and squirms a little.  
  
His eyes close and his head tips back, and he pulls Charles closer to him on instinct. "Hanky... _panky_." The words are delivered deadpan, in Erik's dry, low timbre, which just makes it sound all the more ridiculous. One eyebrow is cleverly arched. "You'll need to educate me."  
  
"Not in _this_ _car_ , he won't," Warren threatens.  
  
"Oh, shut up," Raven thwaks him. "Let them be gross before we have to go beat up a bunch of monsters."  
  
"Oh, please," he rolls his eyes, and he's still flushed in the cheeks, wriggling around in Erik's lap like he can't help it. It always makes Erik hold him tighter, and he always wants more of that, please and thank you. There's nothing more safe. "Do you know how much canoodling of yours I've been privy to over the years? Really, I should be projecting memories at you full force right now." He won't, of course, because he'd most certainly die of embarrassment in the aftermath, but the threat is there as he goes back to some sensible necking. "Besides, Erik and I are starting a mutant nudist colony once he's out of prison, so you'll have to get used to it." He tries to deliver it straight-faced, but it's such a ridiculous statement that he dissolves into laughter again.  
  
"A mutant nudist colony," Warren repeats stoically. "And what inspired this completely insane idea?"  
  
"Um, the fact that Erik can't go more than two minutes without stripping off all his clothes," Raven laughs.  
  
"Clothing is restrictive," Erik grumbles indignantly.  
  
"Listen, I get it." She'd had to be trained out of walking around naked everywhere herself, mostly due to Charles's horror at all times whenever she traipsed around the manor in blue. "My favorite part was when Charles got nicked, and your reaction-" she starts giggling full-force "was to just undress entirely for absolutely no reason-"  
  
"I was a little bit not in my right mind, if you'll recall," Erik smiles ruefully.  
  
"Hey, I was not complaining. Boy's got _abs_."  
  
At that, Charles makes an indignant, protesting noise, finally leaning out of Erik's lap to whack Raven lightly around the seat. "You _hush_!" he demands, arms crossed over his chest as he resettles himself to playfully glare in her direction. "This one's mine, thank you very much. You don't see me fawning over Hank and his blue - _blueness_ ," he finishes, rather lamely. "Besides, I've no idea how you were focused on his abs when -" Charles' face goes bright red. He coughs, clearing his throat. "Anyway, eyes and _hands off_ , sister."  
  
Warren and Raven take turns shrieking (Warren makes it look dignified, holding splayed palms over his chest) in delight and laughing.  
  
"OK, would you have preferred it if I'd said-" Raven covers her mouth, so amused that tears are pricking at her eyes. "His _blue blueness,_ Charles? Really? That's the best you can come up with?" she smirks, then. Raven's fondness for Hank tinges her mind, both physical and mental. He's austere, and covered in fur, but not inherently unattractive. Raven's smitten, and has been for years, it's only serendipity that they're similarly-affected physical mutants.  
  
Erik's lips twitch, wry. "It's good to be wanted."  
  
"You know I love Hank, and he's plenty handsome, I'm sure," and even he's laughing, still very much embarrassed but willing to let himself be teased. It's their right as his best friends in the world, really. "But he's very much not my type." What is his type? His type is getting nudged lightly. "You hush, too," he says, bossy as ever, and he leans forward for a kiss. "Ugh. It's woefully unfair," he sighs, but now he's smiling against Erik's lips. "Did you have to be attractive on top of everything else? You couldn't have been average in this one thing?" His gorgeous mountain man giant of a Dom with - well, let's not go there, else there be canoodling in the back of Warren's car.  
  
"Why do you think I never wear clothes?" Erik preens. _You are certainly greater in that regard, make no mistake._ He thought it privately, giving Charles a little wink, knowing full well he would turn red and the others would sense for a fact that Erik was telling him something mentally, and that just made him warm and glowy inside for some reason. Because they knew that Charles was his. He kissed the underside of Charles's jaw, nuzzling his neck.  
  
"He's certainly not average in the modesty department, either," Warren laughs.  
  
And Charles does indeed turn red, squirming until he can properly bury himself in Erik's shoulder. "Hush," he mumbles, but there's absolutely no heat to it, just an echoing, floaty pleasure that Erik wants him, too. That he is undeniably Erik's. There's something so incredible about others getting to see that, about sharing it with the people he loves most. He arches his neck so Erik has better access - projected collar and all, and bites his lip when he realizes something. If he's been sharing his perception of things with the two of them...  
  
"Raven, you could have said something," he mutters, blushing harder now. There's a grin on his lips. "You owe me, by the way. You said you'd pay money to see me in a collar once, so fork up." As if he needs the cash.  
  
Raven is howling. "I didn't know if you were embarrassed about it or not, to be honest. I've been tactfully avoiding the topic. See, I can be tactful! And oh no you don't, mister. That is not a physical collar. Although it is gorgeous. Did you design that?" she lifts in her seat to look at them through the rearview mirror and then promptly rolls her eyes as they're basically mauling one another.  
  
"I did," Erik nods. "I should like to collar him properly, but unfortunately, that isn't possible at the moment. He will, however, be wearing a placeholder." Erik smiles at Charles, their gazes locked and unmoving. He's speaking without looking at Raven, utterly focused on Charles's face.  
  
Charles smiles back, his stomach flipping in on itself. Fluttery and warm, all the way to his toes. "I'm not embarrassed," he declares, and it's nothing but the truth. A bit bashful, perhaps, because it's entirely new to him, but not embarrassed. His eyes are only for Erik, too, one hand settled on his own neck to feel. It certainly seems physical in this moment. "I'm proud to wear his collar," he whispers, finding himself a tad breathless. Your collar, he echoes in his thoughts, shivering slightly.  
  
It's so entirely strange to say, but there's no denying - even to himself - that he means it. Charles ducks his head into Erik's shoulder again, timid. "I really don't know where I'm meant to buy a placeholder, though," he admits, laughing to offset the intensity of the moment just a bit. "That seems like a Dom thing to know. Are there differences in quality? Designer collars? I paid absolutely zero attention if it's something I should know. I tend to plug my ears when the subject comes up." He can be a little sheepish about that now. It wasn't something he could joke about even a few months ago, but here they are.  
  
"Uh, yes, Charles," Warren scoffs. "Don't worry, I'll come with you. No metal, I'm assuming?" he cocks his head to the mirror. "There's a lot of little things that go into it. Some people get inscriptions, that's really common. There's like, very upscale brands, think _Lamborghini_ or _Ferrari_. Some are understated, some are more intense. You get your scene people and whatnot, O-rings are a staple of that community."  
  
"Not that," Erik stammers out. "None of those ones." It's an Order before he can figure out what he's doing. He realizes everyone is staring-or-thinking at him and he clears his throat. "Understated," he maintains, and it's written on Charles's list and in the brightest corners of his mind. "Tasteful. Preferably not one million dollars."  
  
Warren laughs. "Yeah, well those are more for people into exhibition, clubs, whatever. I don't have any examples on hand-this car's a _fucking clown car of Dominants_ ," he says and then he's laughing in earnest, more a bark than a genuine joyful noise.  
  
"There's also a lot to be said about what kind of material it's made out of. There are trends and whatnot. You'd be best off with something like a high-end leather, think..." he tries to transform it into Charles-speak. "Like the difference between your _Chopard_ and a _Fossil_. The leather straps of a _Chopard_ are infinitely superior, there's care and attention there. Same thing with a collar. A collar is supposed to frame the submissive. If you have a subpar collar, that says something."  
  
"Certain collars are used to display your dynamic to others," Erik chimes in with a nod. "I will leave it up to you, whatever collar you wish to pick. My specifications are only the above. Warren will tell you the significance of everything. He knows what he is talking about. If you wish to display our dynamic, you may."  
  
Charles hums, the low, idle way he does whenever he's processing new information. This is information he's clearly been willfully ignorant to, but no less fascinating now that it's relevant. "Thank you, Warren," he smiles, and stifles a bit of a chuckle in Erik's neck. "I really never could have imagined this for myself, but here we are. Also, my _Chopard_ was quite the pretty penny, but not one million, so if you're suggesting equivalency we're in the clear," he teases. There's something else he's curious about. It isn't a discussion for the whole car, however, so he thinks it instead, looking up at Erik as he does. _Will you get something to match?_ he asks. _Not now, obviously, but when you can? I know some Dominants don't wear cuffs or anything like that._ He doesn't know if Erik would want to.  
  
 _Of course I will_ , Erik says like it's the most natural thing in the world. _I'm incredibly proud and humbled to be your Dominant._ He's smiling unconsciously. _It is tradition for a submissive to pick out a Dominant's cuffs. Would you be willing to do this?_  
  
"It's-it's good, Charles," Warren says gruffly, concealing emotion. "It's good to see you happy."  
  
"Yeah, you big _doofus_." Raven's contribution is super academic as always. At the very least she keeps him humble.  
  
It's an onslaught of emotion. A mix of Erik's words and the realization that this is real, tangible, that he's sharing it with the two most cherished people in his life. People who never thought they'd see this. Charles truthfully never thought he would be here, either. Ever. And they may be halfway to Westchester for a frankly terrifying purpose, but all at once he's so overwhelmed with - with the joy of it, that he's struck utterly silent. Charles makes a choked, quiet noise where he's buried further in Erik's neck, nodding even as he closes his eyes. For the moment he's totally overcome.  
  
"I'll admit," Warren murmurs in that way of his-even though it's quiet he still effortlessly commands attention. Not in the way that Erik does, where avoiding his gaze when he's fired up is near-to impossible-but more in the way that Warren's a natural leader, he expects things of people without demanding them. "When I first sat down and thought about this I didn't think it was viable."  
  
Charles assumes they're no longer talking about collars. He smiles against Erik where he's still burrowed between neck and shoulder, and it's wry, now. "Neither did I," he says, though it's hardly an admission. "That didn't last that long, admittedly." He lifts his head and shifts about until he can watch Warren in the rearview. "And now?" Warren's opinion, however stubborn he can be, whatever arguments they've had, has always meant something to him. They both know it at the end of the day.  
  
"From an interpersonal perspective? It's like you were both made for each other. The circumstances you're under, the patient-doctor thing, we all know why these structures exist, but it's like you two live outside of them. Sometimes you just _meet someone_ and that's it. _Fuck_ what society says is healthy, they're adults, they're good for one another."  
  
Charles finds, for all the trouble and pain he's been having, that dipping in and out of their minds is as effortless as reading those in the same room as him. He barely grazes Cain, lips pursed and body tense at even a taste of that brutish, vile mind. When he opens his eyes, his eyebrows are pulled together in clear confusion. "Hm," he says, that considering noise he makes. "The other two - they're baseline. Not that you need to be mutant to be capable," he clarifies, eyeing Warren, and everyone in the car knows he's never thought that way, "But..." Not what he'd been expecting. "They're absolutely after the documents. They don't have a single thought of Shaw in there, either. Not like you'd expect. It's like -" Charles shakes his head. He knows exactly what it's like, and it's smart. "Even if I came alone, even if I was on edge, I would have checked first." And he never would have walked into an obvious trap.  
  
"The government?" Warren asks in a flash, because that's the next-obvious conclusion. "Brian was a nuclear physicist, and when he died, a lot of agents descended down on the place."  
  
"Shaw also sought government contracts within the areas he operated out of," Erik says. "We know for a fact that he was being funded for military research by the Department of Homeland Security. Moira outright said this."  
  
"That's... heavy, guys," Raven whispers, like she's afraid of being overheard. "That's way worse than Shaw, because his guys would be extralegal, meaning they're committing an active crime by breaking into the manor-it's willed to you and Sharon, not Cain. But if it's the government, then they technically have permission to be here, and they could even detain us or arrest us and call it interfering with national security."

* * *

"I do not like this," Erik shakes his head. "If it's the government, they might be counting on your intermittent telepathy. The CIA already knows you are injured. They might have developed a countermeasure."  
  
Charles bites his lip, considering that. "Perhaps, but -" It doesn't feel right to him. There were no thoughts of that, either, and there should have been. This time he knows it isn't his telepathy short-circuiting, or another telepath interfering. It's something else. "My father worked for the government. If there are documents in the manor, they are well aware of it. Why wait over ten years? Even if you argue that they wanted it to be empty so as not to alert us, no one has lived there for at least five. My mother moved out while I was still in med school. It just doesn't add up." Something is wrong. Charles' hunches are not often incorrect, and this is making him nothing but uneasy. "Even if they are hiding their tracks now that I'm clearly involved in a much more public, mutant-related case - why bring Cain? They know where the manor is. Why two agents, barely armed, in the middle of the night? They could have gone through the proper channels and gotten the same results. Something is very, very off."  
  
"What about your apartment?" Erik says suddenly, ever the chess connoisseur. "Perhaps they lured you here with Cain, so that they could ransack your apartment instead while you were gone. In which case we have walked into a trap, one that was very well-executed, since we are indeed here and not there."  
  
"What good would that do?" he wonders, eyebrows raised. "There's nothing there except case files, which would be incredibly easy to seize from me and is all on the record anyway. I don't have any hidden safes lying around." Perhaps it's reckless, but he's been told to do whatever he feels necessary, so he does. His apartment is a familiar space, and reaching it - "Empty," he declares. Charles runs a hand through his hair. There's a piece missing from the board and he can't find it.  
  
"Can you find out? Cain must know." Warren tilts his head and taps his temple with his fingertip. "Desperate times call for desperate measures."  
  
"I am uncomfortable with you asking that of Charles," Erik says firmly. "It is your decision," he says softly.  
  
He'd been unwilling to do it before. Perhaps that's what they'd been counting on. Charles sighs, taking a deep, grounding breath. He closes his eyes again, and immediately his face scrunches, both hands coming up to cradle him in that defensive gesture. "Why is he thinking that - there's no reason..." Unless he'd been told to. Countermeasure, indeed. Charles can go past surface thoughts, does it easily, but if he's so affected by them that he won't - he clenches his teeth.  
  
This, Erik can influence. He places his hands over Charles's. "Look at me." It's an Order, not firm and piercing through the veil of panic and anxiety, but soft, grounding because Orders grounded him and zapped his focus right to Erik like a magnetic snap. "Ignore what he is thinking," the second Order comes again. This one is firm. "He has no right to you. You belong to me." Order after Order. They begin to build again, palpable enough that Raven and Warren can feel the pull, the urge to comply with an intangible request, an impossible request for them because they aren't telepaths and they aren't Charles. "Let it be background noise. The deeper you go, the more it fades away. Can you do that for me?"  
  
Charles takes a deep, slow breath. "Yes, Erik," he breathes, and suddenly he's grounded again. Suddenly his every thought isn't spinning, churning sickness, the fear inspired in him from a young age. Now it's calm, clear focus, and when he closes his eyes again, he doesn't do more than flinch. They're closed for several moments, and then they snap open. "We have to turn around. Now," he croaks. It's such clear, bone-chilling panic that it projects through the entire car. They're already too close. Nearly there. "Warren, turn the car around now -"  
  
He slams his foot on the brake and spins the car around in a drift, an utterly professional move that is _insane that he knows, on a fucking Lexus_. The wheels shriek as his hand moves over the gear-shift and then he guns it, smashing the gas pedal and ripping them out of there without even bothering to check what the fuss is all about. Erik helps them, with a blink they're going at top speed.  
  
"What's going on?!" Raven yells over the din.  
  
Charles shakes his head, then shakes it again, rapid and terrified. He can't breathe. There's a twist in his gut, a horrible, aching twist -  
  
D5, he thinks because he can't speak. He has another D5.  
  
" _Everybody BE CALM_ ," Erik shouts and over the last several Orders he's given it goes off like an atomic bomb in the vehicle, leaving little particles of glittering dust in its wake. It's so effective that he himself follows his own Order and feels it in his chest, loosening the vice grip on his heart.  
  
Charles is calm. He breathes, slow and steady, chest no longer heaving, mind no longer racing. Then Charles opens the car door like he intends to jump out while they're gunning it full speed back to the city.  
  
With a sound like hands clapping, Erik delves into that house and firmly locks on the D5. Once he knows what he's looking for it's easy to find. D5s radiate, he's felt it on himself, and he sends a powerful shockwave backwards, punching through the chest of every conscious, living person at that mansion to incapacitate them. Being a D5 doesn't prevent you from being hurt. _"Charles close the door!"_ he lays an Order over it at the same time.  
  
 _"CHARLES! CLOSE THE DOOR!"_ Raven screams and unbuckles her seatbelt, jumping back to grab the handle and swing it shut, holding it there with force.  
  
Warren locks it and from the front seat Charles is trapped in, unable to pull up the spring.  
  
Everybody in this car knows that if that D5 tries it again, Erik will stop their heart. He is completely calm about it. The decision is made. "Get us out of here," Erik repeats Charles's last imperative to Warren who is more than happy to comply. He doesn't allow himself to think the obvious, their only objective is to get out.  
  
He throws several impeding metal spikes behind them for good measure.  
  
It won't matter. It won't matter -  
  
Charles is struggling in Raven's hold. The door won't open, he knows that. Rationally, he knows that. He doesn't want it to open. He wants them to get as far away from this bloody place as possible, even though it won't matter, it won't make any difference at all, it was all just a game and he'd nearly fallen right into it -  
  
"Erik," he gasps. "Erik -" _He'd said close the door, not stay. Order me, Order me, Order me -_  
  
"Stay inside the car. Don't cooperate with any Orders other than my own." Erik adds the last one for good measure, grimacing.  
  
Charles' eyes go wide. Can he do that? Can he? Will his mind do that? Will it work? He doesn't think so. He doesn't think so, and that means disobeying an Order, and he's already disobeyed one, but it wasn't Erik's - his Dom is - just listen to Erik, obey Erik... He's shaking violently, out of Erik's lap, curled completely into himself. Erik had said be calm, why isn't he calm? Why is he not listening? What's wrong with him? "I - I -" His teeth are chattering.  
  
"Listen to me," Erik Orders again, promptly. "There will be no consequences to disobeying. Just listen to my voice." He leans over, taking Charles's hands again. "You are here. You are safe. You are mine. Listen to that voice. It is stronger than any other voice," he says vehemently.  
  
That Charles believes. That Charles already knew. He throws himself bodily at Erik, burying himself as close to him as humanly possible, and then closer than that, wrapping his mind up in his Dom's in a way that no one else ever could. D5 or not, they're bonded. Erik's Orders, Erik's Will. That's what matters, at least in this dropping, submissive state. He closes his eyes and shivers, trembling all over. Erik's voice. Erik's Orders. Erik's Will. Charles is his.  
  
 _You are mine,_ Erik repeats over and over again, each more powerful than the last, built on top of one another, so certain and true that nothing can touch it. Erik won't let them touch it. "You are safe," Erik soothes him. Because he is. Because the next time some hack of a D5 tries to Order him to jump off a ledge, Erik will be there to stop his fucking heart in his chest.  
  
Charles doesn't even have the capacity to protest that fully, though he makes a distressed, whining noise. All that really matters is being in Erik's arms. His Dominant's arms. It's safe here, and he's doing as he's told. He's staying in the car, he's listening to his voice. No awful, horrid twisting can reach him here. Erik's. He's Erik's. "Yours," Charles is whispering, hiccupping, quiet things. "Yours. M' yours."

* * *

While they comfort themselves in the back, Warren asks the obvious in a caustic bark, "Why the fuck would they need a D5? What the hell were they trying to Order you to do? Open the safe? Is that how they expected to get in there?"  
  
"It doesn't matter," Raven whispers, horrified. "They can Order him to do anything. Drop the case, abandon Erik. We all know just how crazy powerful a D5's Will is. G-d, Erik-" she's shaking, tears in her eyes. It's not until now that she's fully realized how strong he is, and conversely, how trustworthy he's proven himself to be.  
  
"I incapacitated everyone at the manor," Erik says softly. "They will wake up eventually. Charles cannot go there. I need to go there," Erik says. "I need to get to this person before they wake up and ensure they won't be a problem." He fully intends on killing them, without hesitation.  
  
Charles is shaking his head. It's so against every instinct he currently has, but he's shaking his head, back and forth and back, shaking in Erik's arms. He can't say the word. He can't tell Erik no, not like this, but it's clear what he means. "Pr -" Charles whimpers. "Promised," he manages.  
  
"I promised you that I would not hurt anyone who does not aggress against me first," Erik tells him in a low, soft voice that only he can hear. "This is an aggression of the highest order. He attempted to murder you. I will not allow it, Charles. As long as this person is alive they are a threat to your safety and there is nothing on Earth that can stop a D5 short of Propofol-protocols and that has the potential for failure, as we've seen. I cannot Order him to stop. I cannot face him without the intention of killing him, because _I will lose and you will die._ "  
  
Charles shakes his head again. "Not - murder," he gasps. "Wasn't -" It's so damn hard to speak. He's never been in this headspace before. It doesn't feel like subspace. Like the floating, gentle safety of submission he's learned from Erik. It's something entirely different and he'd do anything to fight it off. "He wanted - me - alive." Which, now that he thinks about it, is rather worse than death. Charles would rather jump from the ledge.  
  
"He had you open a car door while we were traveling over a hundred miles per hour. That he doesn't want you dead after this is telling in and of itself. I won't let him torture you. I will not let him have you. That is an aggression." Erik spoke firmly, but still-soft, drawing his hand over Charles's hair, tugging him closer onto his lap. "I will not let him have you. You are mine and I love you." He doesn't realize that's an Order, too. As if he can Will his love into Charles's being and fight off the sick aftermath.  
  
Charles still shakes his head. "Please," he whimpers. "Please." No more blood on his hands. No more blood. Charles promised himself there would be no more blood. He's crying, now, because his body doesn't know what else to do, clinging to Erik with everything he has.  
  
"There won't be any more blood," Erik promises him, because he doesn't consider this D5 to have anything like blood inside. The blood he protects is his own, is Charles's heart and the iron that pumps through his veins, more precious than any element on Earth, more vital and life-sustaining and that means it's worth protecting at any cost. At any cost. Erik will die for Charles if it's necessary. That is what it means to be a healthy D5, at its core. Unhealthy D5s like Azazel Rasputin grow twisted with power and believe they have divine purpose, they rarely ever find a submissive because S1s are so limited, they go through life believing they are meant to subjugate. It is pitiful but Erik holds no pity for him.  
  
But it is blood. Azazel is more blade than man. He's seen that even through secondhand snapshots, has seen it broadcast all over the world in the way he'd Ordered that poor, innocent girl off a building. He's teeth and instinct and vicious, clawing greed. The absolutely lonely thrill of never once hearing the word no. There is not a thing in the world he could not have. Except someone like Charles. Someone with the ability to look him in the eye, even as he took his Orders. If there are around fifteen D5s in the world - among billions of beating hearts - there are even less S1s. The likelihood that he and Erik found each other is so slim it is nearly impossible. Charles feels no sympathy for the man. But he certainly pities him. "Another way," he whispers. "There's - has to be -"  
  
"There isn't," Erik whispers, and Charles has talked of the case before but this is the first time that Erik gets a glimpse of Azazel through his eyes, and it settles in him like cold fusion. He goes abruptly still, liquid nitrogen freezing in his body shattered with a hammer.  
  
Charles goes still, too. He can feel Erik through the bond, but in this state, any negative emotion from his Dom is enough to unsettle him. Not with fear, but because he's so twisted up it settles deep, deep into him. Affects him, too, and he'd do anything to fix it, to please him instead. He whimpers, pressing closer.

* * *

"Erik? Do you know who he is?" Warren asks what needs to be asked, because of them all, Warren will do what needs to be done without emotional frivolity. In this, they were right to include him. His only concern now is how safe it is to dispatch of a D5 teleporter.  
  
Erik ruthlessly shoves it back, not letting it touch Charles. "Azazel is a freelancer. Shaw has an underground social group known to intimates as the Hellfire Club. It started when he was in university. It's how he made his connections. Azazel was a mercenary. He will do any job as long as money is involved."  
  
Only Charles knew the rest of it.  
  
"Can he be reasoned with?" Warren wonders. "If he's loyal to the highest cash denominator, I daresay we're in the lead."  
  
"He was always polite to me." Erik shrugs. As polite as someone could be.  
  
Charles shakes his head. But he can't speak, or even coherently think, which is never a problem for him, so he only curls up closer in Erik's lap.  
  
Erik pets him, tucking his head under his chin. "Is that who attacked you?" Raven asks, only now relaxing her hold on the door and slipping back into her seat, minus the seat-belt so she can remained turned around, and she puts a hand on Charles's shoulder. "Just stay calm and listen to Erik," she Orders, because it can't hurt to have multiple sources of the same thing. Warren says the same thing from the driver's side, and it has the curious effect of mixing with Erik's Will, because Erik's Will is superseding the same thing.  
  
That's all he really wants to do. It's not that Charles is gone. He's proven he isn't, and he supposes after what was essentially being the rope in a D5 tug of war, that's saying something. It's just that he's so deep into a headspace that he doesn't know how to crawl out, or even if that's what he needs. He nods at Raven's question. It was unquestionably Azazel, and his being a D5 answers every other question they'd had. There are documents in that safe, and Shaw knows about them, but in the end they weren't what mattered tonight. If Charles is permanently out of the equation, it doesn't matter what his father did almost twenty years ago.  
  
"He needs to die," Erik repeats himself, but it's under his breath. He forces his fingers to relax, to be detached. His expression smooths over, becoming in the projection what he is in the Real. "And I need to handle it. The CIA can't hold me."  
  
"No." It's weak, a quiet, barely audible whisper. But it's there. It's a wonder he can say it at all, but he does, even though he can't look Erik in the eyes right then, even though he can't stop shaking. "No," he repeats, louder.  
  
"Yes," Erik says. It's not an Order, but he himself can't seem to get his own body under control eve as he tries so incredibly hard to marshal his feelings. They have no place here, and yet they do, exquisitely so. "Yes, I can't let him hurt you!" Erik doesn't realize he's shouting, completely overwhelmed. He jams his palm into his eye and breathes. "I ca-can't, I won't. I don't care what anyone thinks."  
  
Charles can't get himself under control, either. He can't lift his head, or stop trembling, so he doesn't. But when he speaks, it's resolute, however quiet. "Together," he insists. They do things together. Charles will happily defer, will trust Erik's judgment in a great many things, but not in cases like this. They've both already agreed to that. "We discuss - you care what I think." Charles knows it's true.  
  
"What do you think about allowing Azazel to abduct you and torture you?!" Erik pleads. "You don't know this man. You don't know what he is capable of. You don't know and I will never, ever allow you to find out."  
  
"Then don't," he gasps, but shakes his head, clinging to Erik tightly. His fists are bunched in his shirt. "But find another way. Please. Let me do something. I'm not helpless." He'd been terrified, he'd felt - but he'd still had his mind. He could have done something.  
  
"The second you enter his presence he will Order you not to use your telepathy, the second he has any kind of control he will Order you into helplessness. The second you falter, the millisecond you doubt or stop to strategize, he will have the upper hand. I cannot allow that. I can't." It's like before, with Shaw, with the children. He is begging. "I don't care about revenge," he whispers. "He hurt me. But I don't care. I just want my family to be safe. I can protect you. So I will."  
  
"You overrode his Order," he whispers. "You can do it again. I'm yours, not his. Your Orders should supercede his."  
  
He's suggesting being the rope again.  
  
"And if he Orders you to sever your connection with me?"  
  
"Order me not to," he says. "Right now. Order me not to, under any circumstances. You said it yourself - we are stronger. Our bond defies even the boundaries of my normal telepathy, unless I'm totally incapacitated. Order it." He finally looks up, and even in the dark, his eyes are bright with that stubborn determination. "You say I'm yours. If that's the case, there should be no problem. The only Orders I follow are yours."  
  
Of course he does, even if he won't consider this argument finished, it's just good common sense. A verse plays itself in his head, though, at random and all of a sudden, and it makes Erik smile entirely out-of-place. "You will listen to no other Orders but mine. I am your Dominant. You are my submissive. I love you. I will protect you. We face everything together. We are stronger together." He doesn't mean to say the last parts, but it's coming out of him unconsciously, like a mantra. "You will never obey an Order that compels you to hurt yourself. Not even from me. Do you understand? Even if I Order you to jump off that building, you are not to comply. Those are false Orders." He thinks to add that at the last moment, because that's all they need is for Azazel to find out who he is and put him under Propofol and force him to act as yet another instrument of devastation.  
  
And Charles absolutely soaks it up, like a plant stretching toward the sun. Perhaps it's what he needed to hear this the entire time. A re-claiming, something grounding and impossible to ignore. Erik demanding this of him when it's all he wants to give, when it's so deeply ingrained in him already that all he needs are the words. The Orders. Relief spikes through him so heady and thick that he's breathless, tears streaking down his cheeks as he leans into Erik with everything he has. "Yes, Erik," he breathes. "I understand." I _love you. I'm yours. Only yours._  
  
Erik sags and hugs him tight. Perhaps it's what he's needed all along, too. To be able to say those things, to be able to mean those things, to have them received. To know that there is some inborn protection for Charles, and to see that trust reflected back tenfold. The truth is, he trusts Charles just as much. So he'll try. But. _If this doesn't work-_ he murmurs softly. _I won't have a choice._  
  
Charles can be reasonable. Charles can defer. He has to bet on this working, though. He has to bet on them being stronger. But he knows what Erik is waiting for, so he takes a shaky breath, and finally he nods. If this doesn't work, we do things your way, he agrees, no matter how much he hates the idea of it. Because they are always in this together, and he won't let Erik lose him.  
  
At that, Erik relaxes completely against Charles, but his eyes are squeezed shut tight. "I'm sorry," he gasps, limbs gone limp. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just need-minute-"  
  
Every word Erik speaks feels like an Order to him now. It doesn't matter if he doesn't intentionally mean for it to be, he's so firmly wrapped up in his Will and in this vulnerable, submissive place that it doesn't matter. Which means that when Erik says he needs a minute, he whimpers and pulls himself back, even if every inch of him screams in protest. He's crying still. He stares down between them, lip wobbling. "Yes, Erik," he whispers.  
  
Charles melts back into him, taking deep, sucking breaths. He needs Erik more than he ever has, and to be separated in this moment would surely kill him. _I'm yours,_ he's repeating, his own mantra. _I'm yours, I'm yours and you'll protect me. I'm yours. I only obey you._  
  
Yes, Erik whispers back at each one, kissing Charles on both cheeks, and then his lips, bowing their foreheads together. You are mine. I will protect you. I love you. His eyes are closed, breaths even. You will stay with me.  
  
And finally, some of that vulnerable fear breaks through. Charles is confident in their bond, in Erik's hold over both his mind and body. His heart, too. But while he doesn't fear submitting to Erik - revels in it, thrives in it - the thought of submitting to anyone else is so sharp it's paralyzing. "Please don't let him," he gasps, and he doesn't care, in that moment, if he sounds pathetic.  
  
Erik makes a strangled sound and quickly turns his head away, so Charles can't see what the fuck just ran through the Ferris wheel of horrors powering his brain. It took him several shaky minutes to calm down enough to react like a normal human being. I won't, he mouthed, realizing only then that his voice didn't come out and he puts his hand over his mouth. "Ih-" won't. I won't. He's the weak, pathetic one right now but he will raze down the world before he lets anything happen to Charles.  
  
They're so wrapped up in each other right now that Charles feels it, too. He whimpers, bowing his head against Erik's chest. He wants to kneel, but there's no way to kneel, so he settles for curling in on himself. I'm sorry, he thinks, unable to form words either. Like they're so intwined they have the same weaknesses. _Upset? Make it better?_ They're more feelings than coherent, fully formed thoughts.  
  
 _Upset_ , he agrees, and the projection of him sways and falters, revealing tears. _You make it better._ He gives a watery smile, kissing Charles on the nose affectionately. You make everything better. His hold tightens further and he spreads his hands out over Charles's back, smoothing the wrinkles in his clothing.  
  
 _Upset at me_? he asks, still wobbly, because he has to. Because the thought of displeasing Erik in any capacity right now makes him want to tear himself apart from the inside. He nuzzles into Erik's neck, sniffling. _Bad?_ He's grounded in Erik, but that doesn't mean he's grounded in general.  
  
 _Never at you,_ Erik shakes his head, placing his palm over Charles's cheek. Bad. But Charles was there. That made everything better, no matter what it was. _Be easy. Royk,_ he smiles again. _I love you._  
  
 _Love you,_ he echoes back, hiccupping softly. He can breathe again, at least. Erik tells him to be easy, so he is, resting against his chest. Charles lets his eyes fall closed and drifts, not into sleep, but at least into a lulling calm. The fingers of his uninjured hand are still curled around Erik's shirt, though, and he refuses to let go.  
  
Erik uses the time to try and get himself back under full control, his eyes closing and his head resting against Charles's shoulder, while Warren sped them into a merge lane that headed back into the city.


	24. Do it for the monsters under your bed II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _in memoriam a.h.h_ , alfred tennyson

Charles is totally unaware of anything around him except Erik. Not Warren, not Raven, not the car, not the city lights and late night traffic. The radio is off, the silence in the car deafening, but he wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't. He listens to Erik's heartbeat, lulled and sinking. His phone is ringing by the time they're back in the city, full volume like he'd left it. Charles doesn't even react.  
  
Erik lifts it with his abilities and keys it on, holding it up to his ear. He doesn't speak into the receiver, just the sound of his breathing alerting the person on the other side. Raven pipes up, "Hello?"  
  
"Hey!" Raven's got sharp enough hearing that it registers to her. "Hey, _STOP IT!_ "  
  
" _STOP NOW!_ " Erik roars over the phone, the Order blasting through the distance by way of his abilities. His eyes widen in the aftermath, not realizing he was capable of doing this-but in his mind, there was no actual person there, and thus, his voice worked.  
  
Charles doesn't know if they can even hear him. The only reason he's here is because Charles is projecting, and he seems to be able to influence the physical world, but - There's a laugh from the other line, completely chilling. It runs up Charles' spine and makes his head spin, makes his stomach churn. There's a shuffling noise, a groan of pain.  
  
"Charles," someone says, and he recognizes the gruff voice. Cain. More shuffling, words in a language he doesn't immediately recognize. Then what's undeniably a gunshot. The line clicks off.

* * *

Everything clicks into place immediately. There was something off about how Cain originally contacted Charles. He was abrasive and disgustingly rude, demeaning, but you know I hate dad as much as you- that didn't fit. " _Zayinfuck_!" Erik curses when it slots together. "Azazel did not kill him. He likely didn't even hurt him. He is using Cain to get us to turn around and go back there. He has been controlling Cain this entire time. Charles, I need you here, right now. I need you with us," everything is coming up Orders today. He runs through the words that he heard in the background, trying to translate them. Slavic and Phoenician languages shared common denominators, as did most Romance and Germanic languages. If nothing else, Shaw had given him a well-rounded education.  
  
Charles' body is still with panic, a sob caught in his throat. It's only when he plays the moment back that he realizes what Erik does, almost at the exact same time. It was Russian, and Charles doesn't know the language fluently but he knows enough about languages to translate roughly: At the wall. It was a show. He's not dead. Cain is useful still. It doesn't mean he won't be when he proves he isn't. "I have no affection for him," he croaks, desperate as he attempts to sit up in Erik's lap. "But I can't let him die, Erik. There are other people there, they were all for show, they're innocent people -" Playing on all his weaknesses tonight, then.  
  
"He is showing that he will kill someone if we don't comply," Erik says rationally. "But it won't be Cain, the game is over if he kills Cain. It will be someone expendable. Erik dents the edge of his fist against his mouth. That laughter. " _G-d hazayin be'koos ememek_! I can't be like this right now. I cannot be like this right now, I can't be like this right now. I need to give up the front seat."  
  
Charles doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what to do, and he is panicking, and dropping, and helpless. Expendable. Expendable. Those people likely have families. They have loved ones. They have people who are to Charles what the people in this car are, he clearly saw that in their minds. They are completely uninvolved in this, stand-ins to throw Charles off. And they are going to die because of him. Charles grabs the phone and hits 'Re-dial.'

* * *

The phone snaps out of Charles's hand and the call disconnects immediately. Erik closes his palm over it, his face a mask. "We need to discuss a plan together."  
  
Charles flinches. He's not scared of Erik, but he is scared, and overwhelmed, and dropped in and out. He can't keep up. Everything is spinning. He doesn't know which way is up. "We go back," he whispers. "We have to."  
  
"I told you that I would protect you and I cannot do that if you are willing to throw yourself head-first into the hands of the most dangerous human being I have ever met. You need to stop, and consider your actions. You have a family. You are not expendable. Raven and Warren are not expendable."  
  
"I'm with Charles," Warren says gently. "But Erik is right, we won't be doing this half-cocked. We're going to need some kind of plan going in. He's already given you the counter-Orders, and I'm assuming Azazel recognizes Erik's voice which means he knows that Erik is here. Whether he anticipated Erik being here and planned for it we don't know."  
  
"Even if we go there, who's to say it won't just be pointless, and everybody dies? If he's found some way to control Charles or kill him or whatever, we're all expendable," Raven says, arms crossed. "I say we go home and forget about it. Cain can rot."  
  
"We cannot leave him there," Erik shuts that down firmly. "Going home was never an option. Dial the phone. You will tell me what they say and repeat what I say back to them, understood?" he tells Charles.  
  
Charles shakes his head. "He doesn't know," he mutters, because their perception of what's happening is not the same as what actually is. Erik might be influencing the physical world, but somehow, in some strange, unknown way he doesn't have an explanation for yet, that's only through Charles. Break the connection and it's gone. Azazel didn't hear Erik, and Charles was reading enough through the phone, subconsciously or otherwise, to know that. His laugh wasn't at Erik, it was at Charles. His lack of a response, his labored breathing, and Raven. He knows he's not alone, but not that Erik is here. It's an advantage they still have.  
  
"Yes, Erik," is what gets pulled from his lips. He dials with shaking fingers, and he can't keep himself from resting, whimpering, against Erik's shoulder. It's not a good time for this. Not when he's drifting so deeply in and out of this headspace he has no words for, but there won't be a good time. The phone picks up on the first ring.  
  
" _Allo_ ," a smooth, impossibly deep voice answers, and Charles feels the shiver go right through him. He clings harder to Erik. "Have you decided to come home, _kroshka_?" His voice is thickly accented, each word a slow, deliberate drawl.  
  
Charles is going to be sick. He's certain of it. Come home, as if they are domestic. As if Azazel isn't playing a sick game of cat and mouse with him.  
  
" _Ty govorish po russki?_ " Charles says nothing. There's an easy, almost gentle laugh from the other end. "I will teach you." It's a promise.  
  
He is definitely going to be sick.  
  
 _Ya khorosho govoryu po russki._ Enough games, Erik instructs Charles. He is a being of ice, a fortress of nothing. Tell me what you want.  
  
It was an Order. He might as well be Erik's mouthpiece at the moment, but if he wasn't, he wouldn't speak a word at all. Charles repeats the words verbatim, voice shaking but otherwise hollow, clinging to Erik though he isn't clinging back.  
  
There's a chuckle on the other side of the phone. "You wound me, _kroshka_ ," he sighs. There's a muffled sound in the background, followed by someone's scream. Charles feels the sick come up in his throat, and he has to swallow it down. "I want your company, da? Come to me."  
  
That's an Order. Charles chokes around it. Even if Erik's Orders override it - and they should, they should, they should, he has to bet on that - it still twists in his stomach like a knife.  
  
"Unless you want them to die?" Charles shakes his head, as if Azazel can see him, as if it will matter. "Then come. Alone."  
  
That's an Order, too.  
  
Charles digs his nails into Erik's skin.  
  
 _I'm not playing games. Tell me what you want or this negotiation is over._ The words in Erik's mind are hard as flint against metal, striking fire. Setting the whole forest of his sanity ablaze. Charles repeats the words. Lifeless, shaking, each one coming out more punched out and stuttered than the next. There's a pause on the other end of the line. As if Azazel is considering, and Charles can practically feel him tilting his head.  
  
"Did you think you had a choice?" comes the quiet, cold response. "Come to me. What I want is you. I do not care if these men die. _Bud' blagodaren_." Azazel is not doing this to prove his worth to Shaw, seeking a reward for his service. It hits him like a freight truck why that is. Charles is the reward.  
  
Erik is completely still and silent, eyes glassy, expression waxen, staring out of the window of the car. Raven and Warren can say nothing lest they reveal themselves. He's stopped breathing, all the color draining out of his face, limbs dull and shapeless like the dead. _You said we would try it your way,_ he finally communicates to Charles alone. _This is what you are walking into, on the bare hope that my Orders hold. If you can't do this, if you're going to freeze up, then I will step in. Give me the word._  
  
The other option is worse. Charles makes a choking, sobbing noise. I can do it, he promises, except he isn't sure he can. It doesn't matter. He has to try. There's a sickening crunch from the phone. Charles bites back a whimper. " _Kroshka_?"  
  
"Yes," he gasps, to both Azazel and Erik. "I'll - come. Alone."  
  
Another low chuckle. " _Khoroshiy mal'chik,_ " he purrs, and the line goes dead.  
  
Charles doesn't need to wrack his brain for the translation, even with his limited knowledge of Russian. _Good boy_. Charles leans over and retches. Nothing comes out.

* * *

The radio explodes in a flurry of sparks, causing Warren to yelp and nearly swerve into oncoming traffic. Fortunately he had excellent reflexes and avoided a collision by yanking the wheel hard back into the proper lane, to the sound of angry, irritated beeping. Erik is livid and the cold-star extinct-supernova hollows him out until there is nothing of his soul left inside. Every muscle in his body is drawn taught and vibrating, ready to annihilate. He's two seconds away from wrenching Azazel's intestines out through his mouth.  
  
Charles startles, too. He falls out of Erik's lap, then whimpers, a choked off, breathless sound. When he skitters back up, it's to the opposite side of the seat, pressed against the door. There are too many old, frightened instincts kicking in, and he's not sinking into that twisted form of subspace anymore. He's drowning in it. He pulls his legs up to his chest and covers his head with his arms, fighting to breathe. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry -  
  
Erik stays motionless. For a long time the only sounds in the car are his labored breathing. And then he shakes his head, jolted out of his dissociative state by the fear rolling off of Charles. Fear that of course he had caused, but it was nothing compared to what Azazel would do. "We are going home," he states.  
  
Charles doesn't move. He stays buried in himself this time, unsteady and unmoored. Please, he somehow manages. It's not a real protest like this. It doesn't have the ability to be.  
  
"Charles, you can barely speak," Erik tells him, looking at him in the eyes. "And that was because of my actions. Can you tell me honestly and confidently that you can face Azazel? He is a murderer and a rapist and a D5. He is a sociopath and he is highly intelligent. He may decide to have your brother do all the work for him, just for fun. Do you understand what you are asking me to do?" Erik's voice breaks.  
  
There's no other way he can live with. There is more than one innocent life at stake here, and if he leaves them to suffer and die, Charles will never be the same. The guilt will eat at him from the inside. Please, he repeats simply, because in this very moment, it's the only thing he can speak. _Trust us._  
  
 _Do you know how many people I have watched die just like this_ , the voice in Erik's mind is a whimper, not a bang, not like he'd expect when in the Real he sounds like a hammer driving in nail.  
  
 _I won't be one of them._ Charles doesn't know if he can promise it, but he does anyway. His head is buried back into his knees, both legs up on the seat as he crowds himself against the door, but Charles thinks up Erik's mantra from not long ago. _I am yours. I love you. You'll protect me, we are stronger together._ It's the one difference. Erik has never had this, and this will make all the difference.  
  
 _It's a game to him. A way to make people slave to his whims while he laughs. People I loved. Do you know how many times I-_ he can't finish that thought, and he covers his eyes with his hand, ashamed and disgusted with himself. _Now all of you are asking me to-again-_  
  
Charles is still far too connected to him for that not to sting him, too, in this state. He whimpers, drawn tighter into himself. Not because he's afraid, but because Erik is hurting. Because Erik is his Dom, and Charles can't help like he's supposed to. He doesn't know what to do to make it better like this. It's different, he reminds him anyway. _You've never had me. It won't happen again. Please. Please, Erik._  
  
*I can feel your doubt,* Erik reminds *him*. *It can't have a place here.* His facial expression shifts, then, smoothing out. *It won't have a place here.* He Orders it. *We will succeed, because we are together. There is no room for error so we will not make mistakes. _If you are going to be with me, I need you with me. No more hiding, no more fear._ This is exactly what Azazel wants. To send us spiraling out and incoherent so he can step in and pick up the pieces to his liking. It won't happen. And he won't see us coming.*

* * *

That he can cling to. It's not the cold, empty nothing of before, the vibrating, hollowed out anger he couldn't touch or attach himself to. When Charles lifts his head, even covered in tears where he'd been crying, eyes red-rimmed and nose running, there's determination in him too. _Yes, Erik,_ he agrees, and wonders if he's allowed back in his Dom's arms where he needs to be, at least for the ride there. He goes slowly, trembling, not afraid, but everything is different like this. To be rejected would shatter him. Together? It's a question, searching Erik for that strength and irrefutable Will from before. So much of their outside struggle has been Charles creating a safe, steady wall for Erik to lean against. Now more than ever, Charles needs Erik to be that wall. If he crumbles, they both will.  
  
Erik takes him back into his arms automatically. "Together," he says aloud for Raven and Warren. "Turn around. We're going to end this fucking thing once and for all." It's the first time any of them have heard him curse (outside of, ya know) and it makes Raven blink, because the Erik she knows isn't usually so prone to explicit outbursts of unpoetic disdain. Lean on me, Erik says. Dive into me if you need to. Every part of me is available to you. There are useful parts in there, and _they may look scary, but they will help you._ _They love you just as wel_ l. _He is going to try every trick in the book to knock you off your game. He'll threaten your family, he'll torture Cain. He'll control Cain and force him to hurt you. He'll come after me in order to convince you to join him. You will not bow to any of it. That is an Order and I expect it to be followed._ _This ends when he is dead, or you are free of him. We are going home tonight_. He kisses Charles's forehead.  
  
Charles does exactly as he's told. He climbs back into Erik's lap, and there has never been a better example of his submission to Erik making him stronger. All of the doubt and fear drains out of him, unnecessary and unreachable, and in its place he fills himself with Erik. With his Will. There is not a crevice or corner of him that he doesn't fill with it, until finally his eyes are bright again and his shoulders straight. Exactly how Erik prefers them. "Yes, Erik," he whispers, and it's not the hollowed out obedience from before, when Erik had yanked himself away from him. But there's a problem with this. He'll come back if we let him. If he isn't dead, Charles doesn't want that, he doesn't want that because it means Erik has to do it, He'll come back.  
  
 _I will handle it,_ Erik promises. _If you can't make him stop for good, I will_. That is a guarantee. His eyebrow arched, pointed. _I love you. We are stronger. Together._ Warren pulls off to the side of the road and reverses back onto the highway, his mouth set in a grim line.  
  
Charles takes a slow, sharp breath at that. How would I do that? he asks, because that had been the real concern here. If Erik's Will over him holds, if he really doesn't obey any Order but his, he should have full range of his abilities. But where does that leave him? He could do as he'd thought to do with Shaw. The thought disgusts him a little, but it's a viable one. If there's anyone besides Shaw whose mind needs reprogramming, it's Azazel. It might be the only thing keeping him safe.  
  
Find the point inside of him that desires to take you and turn it repulsive. Make yourself a hated thing, so that he will never have the urge to take you again. When he looks at you he will be sick. When he thinks about you he will want to cut himself open with glass shards. Erik tilts his head, the idea having burst out of him from nowhere, surprising even himself.  
  
Charles had thought of something similar. But it's a delicate, complex thing, the brain. One wrong move and Azazel is good as dead, and that is blood on Charles' hands instead. Monster or not, it will eat at him unless there is absolutely no other option. He doesn't know Azazel's mind, and he has no doubt that there are defenses in place. If he sets any of those off, everything is over. Charles swallows. There's really only one way. He has to play Azazel's game long enough for it to work.  
  
Erik is well-familiar with these kinds of tactics, and he is also well-familiar with his own failings and shortcomings. In the past he'd grown close with others, and out of a need to protect them, practically substituted himself for Shaw as jailer. Whatever his own emotions and daresay biological instincts demanded he do, Charles was an adult and he was strong. Endure or kill, they both know Charles couldn't live in a world where he didn't make the effort. Less than if he endured a traumatic experience, which needless to say he's already got covered. It's simple pragmatism, and Erik is nothing if not pragmatic. If he thought for one second that Charles doubted whether Azazel should live, this wouldn't be up for discussion. Doubt in his own capacity to endure was irrelevant; Erik knew he could. Briefly he stepped back to marvel at how his thoughts shifted, turning like a kaleidoscope, only moments before he wouldn't dare to entertain this. Driver's side indeed. Make the attempt, he nods. If you fail, then at least you tried. He is responsible for what happens now. _Not you. He came to our doorstep. He knows full well that you will put up a fight. And if you can't take it, if you can't, I will step in. These are just events. It's just pain. It can't reach you. It won't reach you_ , he Orders. _You will find the part of yourself that is buried deep inside and you will stay there if you have to. The part of you that is connected to me. It's brighter than anything else._ It is, however, making him reconsider the collar. Just saying. Broadcasting Charles's bonded state might not be so wise after all, because right now it's the only thing giving him an advantage. The thoughts are dry.  
  
Charles has endured before. It's not enduring that he's ever had a problem with. He thinks he and Erik's proposed strategies might be a bit different at the moment, but that's alright. They have different advantages. In the end, it will come to the same place. Charles will lean on Erik, and he will endure, and he will manage. He always does. Now, in this moment, it's for Erik, and that's more motivation than he's ever needed. It's the thought at the end, surprisingly, that sends a sharp wave of panic up his spine, and he shakes his head. No! It's such a strong protest that his own eyes widen. It may be Erik's decision whether or not he's collared, but he can certainly fight for it. He won't see it right now, it's just a projection. And after tonight it won't matter. It will be a statement that it didn't work. It's not an advantage, Erik. I thought that for years. That being collared would mean I was weak, or that I'd lost, or that others would - _please don't make me think that again_. I don't want to. Don't make my lack of a collar a strategic advantage. He's already thought of it that way his entire life.  
  
 _OK_ , Erik nods. It's only a passing fancy anyhow. When they go to meet Azazel however he will insist upon it, because he won't leave anything to chance and that much is final. His own presence is enough to maintain. (He'll insist on being made invisible as well.) You will need to separate yourself, he says instead. If there is one thing he can do to help, if there is one thing he is an expert on, it is enduring, and especially of this variety. Make a space inside of you that holds things which you find dear. Things you like, objects and people and locations. The feeling part of you, that will exist there. Meanwhile the reasoning and rational part will be the 'driver,' the outward expression everyone else sees. _Can you do that for me?_ he Orders. _Start with building something simple. Maybe your clubhouse, me, Raven._  
  
Charles blinks, because the Order washes over him like any other, tugs firm and focusing at his core, snapping to Erik like collected metal. He obeys, both because he wants Erik to be satisfied and pleased and because he has no choice. The images collect and gather and create a space perfectly vivid and for all intents and purposes real, and he offers them to Erik as if in open palms, but - That doesn't work for me, he protests. He's seen Erik do it. Many times, in fact. He knows how it works, and completely understands the concept. Psychologically speaking, and Charles knows much of this, it's an excellent coping mechanism, skillfully maintained over years of trauma. But it is not Charles'. He shifts in Erik's lap, touches his cheek gently. _I know you think it will protect me, but I promise it will distract me instead. I cannot be distracted._ They both know that. I will keep you with me. He won't see you. _If you stay with me, I'll get through this, Erik._  
  
 _Of course I will stay with you. That was never in question_ , Erik says, shaking his head. _You can't promise that. What if you resent me, after? Because I didn't make sure you were safe in here_. He touched Charles's temple. _This is all talk, Charles. This is all what you think right now. You don't know what it will be like. You don't know that you won't realize that it's too much_. Because it's been too-much with Erik. Azazel was a monster.  
  
 _Entirely different situations,_ Charles corrects, because they are. He sighs, leaning into the touch and closing his eyes. Soaking up all the contact he can before it's stolen from him. _I've endured before, Erik. Do you think I managed that without having my own methods? The only way I could possibly resent you after this - and even then I wouldn't - is if you left me while you had a choice to stay, and I know you won't._ Even if it hurts him. Charles hates the idea of it, terribly so, but they are in this together. _Just stay with me, please. Be my Dom while he plays at it. Don't leave. For a moment, just one,_ Charles trembles again, bowing his head against Erik's. _Please don't leave_.  
  
 _I will never leave,_ Erik tells him, looking into his eyes. _Never. Not unless something happens and even then I will break out and come there myself. On that you have my word_. He bowed their foreheads together, and then kissed him, gentle.   
  
_I love you, too. So very much, Erik_. Charles closes his eyes again. He's as close as he can possibly get, mentally and physically, the world utterly drowned out except for Erik. He's readying himself. After a few minutes of silence, his lips twitch, the barest of smiles. _Is it alright to admit I'm still frightened?_  
  
 _It is very much all right_ , Erik smiles back at him. _It's all right to be afraid. You don't need to eliminate fear. You just need to find what way works for you that will allow you to exist beyond the fear._ And Erik's method would accomplish that, but it would necessarily divorce Charles from his emotional self, the part of him that made him kind and loving and brilliant. It pained Erik to even show him how to do that, but it would ease his suffering.  
  
Charles shakes his head. _I need that part,_ he insists, because he does. It will keep him alive, too. Any suffering that comes from it, as far as he's concerned, is more than necessary. Erik, I know you can divorce yourself from my pain. _I know you will, so you can watch it and not destroy yourself or him or both. But I also know it will hurt you, whether you protect yourself or not._ He strokes Erik's cheek, frowning. I'm so sorry. If you can't at any point, please know it's okay. _I know I begged you to stay, but I won't ask you to if you can't._  
  
 _Don't you worry about me_ , he entreats fiercely. _Don't you dare worry about me. I will be OK. I will be here with you. I won't leave you. No matter what.  
_

* * *

Warren signals them once they get closer to the _Greymalkin_ manor. "We're coming up now. Everyone ready? What's the plan? Guns blazing? Just Charles goes in? Which I am _not_ OK with."  
  
"That's not happening. I'm his sister, I'm going with him, and I have a plan. I'm Sebastian Shaw and I've just brought Azazel a little care package."  
  
"No," Charles says simply. "Neither of you are coming. You're both staying here, in the car, and waiting for me to get back." It's quiet, barely audible even in the dead of night in the middle of nowhere. He reaches forward and takes Raven's hand. "I love you, Raven. I love you so much, and I'd really, really hate to have to keep you here with this," he swallows, taps his temple, "But I absolutely will if I have to in this situation, because I cannot lose you and that will not work. He wants me alive, not you, and he will use me against you. So please don't make me. I promised I never would, so please do not make me," he begs, voice cracking.  
  
"Charles is right," Erik says, hoarsely. "If you show up, he will incapacitate you immediately and he'll use you to torture Charles and vice versa. It will be a game for him. Stay in the car," he Orders them both. "If the car gets attacked, you can escape and defend yourselves. Otherwise, stay here." Because Erik had no such compunctions and he would not allow for any variables unchecked.  
  
Raven growls at him. "You can't do this! You can't just make me-"  
  
"He can," Warren says. "And we're useless against a D5 anyway. Look at us. We can't leave. Now, Erik's good people. He's not going to demand that you break my neck. I'm figuring Azazel isn't so magnanimous."  
  
This is not the last time he will see either of them. Charles reminds himself of that, uses it to harden himself for what comes next. He won't say goodbye. He will be back soon, and that would be unnecessary. He has to believe that, or this will never work. Still, Charles trembles as he leans over the seat to kiss her cheek. "I'll be back very soon, dearest. I love you." He looks at Warren, too, and despite the man's aversion to these sorts of things usually, it's clear he means it for both of them. Warren is more of a brother to him than Cain ever was, and they are both aware of it. "Hold the fort while I'm gone." It's a half-hearted tease, but it's all he has as he squeezes Warren's shoulder and climbs out of the car.

* * *

Charles straightens his shoulders as he follows the path. The lamps aren't lit, but he doesn't stumble in the dark, muscle memory serving as road becomes dirt and stone, and then he's at the gate. He gives one last squeeze to Erik's hand, and then he swings the iron open, listening to the rusted creak as he walks toward the main entrance.  
  
He doesn't need to wait that long. With a puff of red smoke and the nauseating stench of sulfur, Azazel is in front of him, his teeth jagged, sharpened fangs as he grins. " _Privet_ ," he greets. "You are alone?" It's an Order.  
  
Charles doesn't flinch, even as his entire being is twisted and pulled, the words sinking like lead into his stomach. He anchors himself firmly to Erik, wraps his presence around his Dom's as tightly as he can manage, even as he reaches out. Clever, imperceptible tendrils, impossible to detect. The beginning of a seed he will sow in Azazel's mind.  
  
Only his Orders. If his instincts know he is Erik's as much as his heart does - "Yes," he lies, and though he cannot show it outwardly, inside he is more relieved than there are words for. If it hadn't worked, he would never have been able to lie like that. A direct question worded as an Order, he knows from experience with Erik, leaves no room for deception.  
  
Azazel suspects nothing, because there is no way anyone could have prepared for their bond. That underestimation will cost him everything, Charles thinks. " _Khorosho_. Come in," he says, and teleports to the door, opening it for him.  
  
So it begins.  
  
Erik stays tight to Charles's side, his hand a bruising grip as he lays eyes on Azazel, but he is cold. He is nothing. The reasoning-part ( _The freezing reason's colder part,/And like a man in wrath the heart/Stood up and answer'd "I have felt"_ ) that rules now, with no room for remembered anguish. No room. Erik is silent as the dead, the dead that this man had given him. He follows Charles inside, sweeping a blanket of comfort around him.  
  
The inside of the manor is more a house of horrors than usual. The two men - innocents, he reminds himself, for all he knows taken from the streets and given Orders with no sense of what was happening, ordinary baseline humans with families and friends and lives, because his feeling part is what keeps him strong - are holding guns to their own heads. Charles does not need his telepathy to notice the wide-eyed terror in their eyes, the way they tremble on the verge of tears.  
  
Cain is in the middle of the large foyer near the grand staircase. He's on his knees and bleeding. Perhaps in his darkest, weakest moments he had wondered at this, but with it placed right in front of him, Charles only feels sick to his stomach.  
  
"A gift," Azazel tells him, still with that sickening grin, that deep, almost gentle tone. As if he truly is being kind and not tearing Charles apart. "He hurt you. _Da_?" Another Order.  
  
Charles can't lie when Azazel knows the answer. "Yes," he whispers.  
  
Azazel tsks, clicking his tongue. "A shame. You," he says, and in an instant Cain snaps to attention. "Here." He snaps and Charles watches as his stepbrother lumbers toward him, limping slightly. His clothing is torn, there are marks on his skin. When he is standing in front of him, he still towers, and it takes locking down every muscle he has not to tremble. "The last time you hurt him. When?"  
  
"Five years ago," Cain grunts. Charles can see the fear in his eyes, eyes he tried so desperately to burn from his memory.  
  
"Do it again."  
  
Charles knows exactly what's coming. He braces himself, but it doesn't stop the yelp of pain when Cain goes straight for his jaw with an open fist, the force of it turning his head. Nothing cracks.  
  
Somehow, Cain is holding back. Charles can feel it.  
  
"What did you say?" Azazel asks, as if he's curious, circling them like a predator.  
  
 _"You should have died with your daddy, you little bitch. You would have been better off,"_ Cain spits. As the Order demands, it's a perfect replication.  
  
Charles coughs. A bit of blood comes up, but he wipes it with the back of his hand.  
  
Only pain. It cannot touch him. Instinctively, he reaches for Erik.  
  
Erik is there. He is there, and he is so firmly rooted inside Charles that he cannot be supplanted. He is stood behind him, hands resting on his shoulders, chin against the crook of his neck. Fingers fluttering over the bruise on his jaw. It's only pain, he breathes softly. I'm right here. You should be right here with me. This is where you belong. With me. There is none of Erik here. None of Erik's reactions or responses. Everything is flung outward, a shield of conscience and strength, with _no room_ for pain his own. Everything of Charles is taken into him and reflected back in sympathy, symphony, warmth and love and gentleness. There is no anger. No fury. No fear. No distress. There is only the well, the Will of affection he holds for Charles, reaching out everywhere it can touch inside his mind, contained and hidden, a shining jewel, a precious secret.  
  
Azazel is speaking. Charles sways, a bit dizzy, trembling in reaction, but his mind is protected. Erik has him. He is Erik's, and Erik will take care of him. He repeats that, once then twice then a thousand times, those invisible fingers searching for the right foothold in that sulfur-coated pit that is Azazel's mind. Determined, still, because he has to be. "You beat him?" Cain nods. "Humiliate him? Make him kneel?" Cain nods again.  
  
Azazel chuckles. "You knew about _yego papa_ , hm? How long?"  
  
Charles looks anywhere but his eyes. He holds his breath.  
  
"Five years," Cain grunts again.  
  
Charles forces him not to count every single time he had seen Cain since. Every opportunity he had to tell him. Just another aggression in the room full of many.  
  
Azazel tsks again, then spreads open his arms. "Let's go see, then. Lead," he tells Charles, and it's an Order, but the tug barely reaches him. He starts to walk. Azazel pulls him back, fingernails like claws marking his skin, and this time it's him who slaps Charles hard across the cheek, then again with the back of his palm. It's dispassionate, cold, leaves his ears ringing. " _Polzat_ ," he says, not unkindly.  
  
Crawl.  
  
Charles breathes, and then he lowers himself to his knees. Just another humiliation. The way to the sub-basement is concrete stairs all the way down, and he doesn't know how he will not stumble. He'll endure.  
  
Erik endures. There is none of him here. This does not belong to him, breathes the mind-world. You kneel for me and me alone. It's an Order, superseding anything Azazel could possibly offer. This is for me. For us. So that we may ensure he never does this to another. No humiliation. No despair. Only-Erik. He's beside Charles, a hand twining in his hair. _I love you. You are no less._  
  
Charles clings to Erik as he crawls. Azazel is speaking, rapid, fluent Russian that he does not fully comprehend, his mind a whip of tortures and future expectations. _I love you_ , he whispers back. It's all he has to keep him steady. _I love you._  
  
He doesn't make it all the way down the stairs. He didn't think he would, not with how steep they are. Azazel was bound to become impatient. It's Cain he Orders to kick him the rest of the way down, and Charles tumbles half the way, bruising and winded and coughing. If something is broken, he would not be surprised.  
  
Azazel chuckles. "Poor _kroshka_ ," he sighs. "Get up."  
  
Charles doesn't have the Order to help him, and that makes it more difficult. He leans on Erik instead, whimpering in pain despite himself. By the time he's risen to his knees, there's a boot at his neck, shoving him back down. This time he flinches.  
  
"You will never walk again," he promises, and Charles can feel how satisfied and pleased the thought makes him. As if he is breaking in a toy. It makes it worse. "No need for it. On your knees unless you are tied to my bed."  
  
 _Erik_ , he calls out, because he needs to say his name to remind himself. _Erik Erik Erik -_  
  
 _I know_ , Erik's response back, a calm reprieve that spreads over him like a balm. _Tell me when. Tell me when and I will end this. You know I will. You are in full control, here. Just breathe through it. Find the parts of his mind that you must find. Make him never consider you again._  
  
 _I can do this_ , he promises, and he doesn't cry now. That will give Azazel far too much satisfaction, and he does not deserve it. _I love you. I'll endure. You're here_ , and the last part is for himself. Erik is here. He is not alone.  
  
Azazel Orders he lead them the rest of the way, and so he does, on aching knees and blossoming bruises. When they reach the large steel door, he demands he open it. Charles knows there is some kind of DNA-operated mechanism, and that his will do just fine if his father had any foresight. It was encrypted in the will. He also knows that Azazel could teleport beyond it if he wanted anyway. "I don't know how," he lies instead.  
  
Azazel sighs. "Wrong answer, _kroshka_. Cain."  
  
The beating that follows seems to last hours. His back is against cold steel, and he forces himself with every breath not to cry. Cain is just as he remembers him. His body remembers this. In some sick way, this sort of pain and humiliation must be like riding a bike.  
  
"Stupid, dumb subby bitch," he growls, and his insults have never been creative. "You deserve this." Yes, he does. His mind remembers too. "Shoulda learned your place." On his knees. Tied to the bed.  
  
Charles is still working.  
  
 _Almost there_ , he thinks, and it's more for himself than for Erik. _Almost there. Please don't leave. Please don't leave. Please don't leave -_  
  
 _No_ , Erik's voice is louder than any internal mantra, any remembered shame. _You do not deserve that. You deserve this. Here, with me_. He kisses Charles's cheek. _I am right here. And you have learned your place. Beside me. You have learned it. Over all of this ridiculous posturing and abuse. You have learned kindness_. Erik smiles, eyes bright.  
  
"Strip him."  
  
Just another humiliation. Charles watches Erik's smile, and makes it seem like he's staring at nothing.  
  
There are hands all over him that aren't Erik's, digging into bruises and twisting limbs. Charles knows exactly what a metal belt buckle feels when it digs into flesh, but it doesn't stop him from gasping and crying out.  
  
Azazel talks him through it, nothing like Erik would. "You'll be mine," he promises, and that sickening, horrible grin is back. He cups Charles' chin as he's punished, though Charles can't remember what for. It doesn't matter. "You'll wear a magnificent collar. Quit your silly job. Live chained to my bed and sleep at my feet. No thinking or mind-reading unless I ask," he Orders, and Charles go cold at the notion that it could have worked. "Speak when spoken to. You say 'Yes, Master.' Perfect submissive, _da_. No stupid shaking like the others. I keep you."  
  
This could have been his life.  
  
Charles has mapped out Azazel's mind. Just a bit more.  
  
 _I'm yours_ , he thinks, but it's becoming a question. The moment it is is the moment it works.  
  
 _Do not doubt it,_ Erik supersedes Azazel's Order with his own instantly. _Because if you do, then I will have to break out of here, and that will add seven years to my sentence_ , he laughs gently, brushing his hands over Charles's cheek. _Don't worry about the outside. Focus on the inside. Me. His mind. Wretched place, I imagine. Talk me through it._  
  
Charles does as he's told. He can hear himself scream, distantly, a bloody stripe up his back, because if Cain Marko was taught to be a good Dom he certainly doesn't care, or else Azazel is Willing him not to.  
  
Wretched, he agrees, though he pays little mind to the horrors there. He shows Erik how he's already altered. Subtle, small changes. Azazel absolutely has mental defenses, but he's slipped past all of them. It's a bit like performing a surgery, connecting tiny parts as he's being beaten bloody, and if he manages this at least he knows he is capable of wielding his scalpel of a mind effectively. Almost done.  
  
"Kiss me," Azazel Orders, grinning.  
  
At that, Charles cries.  
  
When he pulls back, that disgusting forked tongue no longer in his mouth, Charles watches as Azazel's eyes change from cold desire to -  
  
Utter terror.  
  
There's no satisfaction in him as Azazel falls backwards, everything stopping as he backs away.  
  
Hatred of him would only prevent him from taking Charles. Charles will never allow anyone to be taken again. There will be no more buildings.  
  
"Never again. Do you understand?" It's his own voice, a horrid, broken croak of a thing.  
  
Azazel nods, the look of horror and fear out of place. " _Da_ ," he whispers.  
  
"Good. Leave."  
  
Azazel does exactly as he's told. A puff of red smoke, the smell of sulfur, and then he's gone. Charles knows he will never come back.

* * *

Erik appears out of the dissipating cloud, and with Azazel's disappearance, his hold on Cain's mind is broken. "Kneel and be still," Erik Orders him, eyes hard and flinty. He moves to dress Charles first, his first priority, and he helps him to his feet, squeezing his shoulder before moving to the man's step-brother. "Answer me honestly." It must be an utter whirlwind for Cain to be quite suddenly faced with another D5. Perhaps Erik is Azazel's associate, but the fact that it's the extremely visible and well-known Erik Lehnsherr-that's a little peculiar. The fact that he's wearing a black turtleneck and a pair of jeans is equally bizarre. Erik crouches down to his height. "How much of that was because Azazel Ordered it?"  
  
Charles slumps back down anyway. He can't stand like this, not right now. The clothes are doing nothing but irritating the flayed skin, stripes of agony he can trace every line of, blood soaking into the fabric. He takes stock, cataloguing injuries. He doesn't look at Cain. But he can feel how terrified he is, just like he could whenever Kurt Marko was around.   
  
"Would have done it anyway," he grunts. Charles laughs. It's a stuttering, hysteric thing, tears down his cheeks as he hugs himself tight. He didn't expect anything more, and certainly nothing less. At least in this, Azazel found a willing participant.  
  
Erik doesn't react. Doesn't twitch a muscle, eyes perfectly cold and calculating. "Speak. What do you know of Brian Xavier." There is no room for obfuscating stupidity here, not with Erik's Will stretched out to encompass the entire Manor.  
  
 _Not now_ , Charles wants to beg. _Please not now_. But it's already too late. He makes a coughing, sputtering noise, and there's blood in his mouth he doesn't know the origin of. Perhaps from the first punch. Perhaps from where he's bitten his lip bloody, his mouth still tasting of Azazel. Like sulfur and smoke and some kind of alcohol. It doesn't matter, the metallic taste does nothing for the nausea.  
  
Cain's teeth are clenched, which makes him even less eloquent. He snarls. "He worked with the government to experiment on mutant babies, including us."  
  
 _Including us._ Charles knows that 'us' does not include Erik, but it does include him. He'll process it later. Right now it's just another blow. His ears are ringing. He might pass out. He gets to his feet anyway, ignoring the pathetic, whining noise he knows he's making, and stands until he can inspect the door. There's a place for a hand. He watches, as if out of body, as his own slides into the scanner. There are several beeps, an electronic voice he cannot hear over the rush of his own head, and the door slides open.  
  
He leaves both of them as he limps inside. It's a lab, covered in dust and the film of disuse, but Charles knows that's not what he's looking for. He walks right past it, test tubes still filled, experiments half-finished.

* * *

When Erik backhands him, it's will the full-force of his mutation, like a slap in the face with metal rebar. The _crack!_ reverberates through the room and Cain is sure his jaw is broken. "You will never bother Charles Xavier again. You will leave this place and never return. You will not touch him. You will not speak to him. You will not even think your miserable thoughts toward him. You will put this day out of your mind. Get up and go." He doesn't bother waiting for an answer, rising smoothly to his feet to follow Charles inside the dusty laboratory.  
  
There's a room off to the side with a safe. This one does not open with his hand. It wants a DNA sample. What a perfect time, he thinks bitterly, and bleeds right onto it. It opens for him, just like he expected it would. His father wouldn't leave his precious research abandoned. He'd want it passed onto his heir. Sins of the father, or something. There are dozens of files in here. Charles opens one, and one is enough. **_PROJECT: BLACK WOMB_** stares back at him. Inside are case files, all of them numbered. No names. He knows what he's staring at. Those are infants in test tubes. Infants identified as having a genetic likelihood of being mutant. There are older children, too. The experiments seem non-lethal. Exposing them to radiation. To stress. To chemical enhancements. But Charles knows well that words are often coded. He sees 'cardiac failure' on one, 'asphyxiation' on another. One of the babies was believed to be stillborn, but was very much alive. The words 'dissection' claw at him from the page, striking worse than Cain's fist or his own belt, now covered in his own blood. A glance at the pictures accompanied is enough to have him swallowing down his own vomit. He will be sick about this, when he has the capacity to be. Right now he simply slumps, the tears hot down his cheeks.  
  
Erik takes the file from him and flips through it, emotionless. When he's finished, he closes it and sets it back where it was retrieved. He moves over to Charles's side and sets a hand on his shoulder, silent and grounding.  
  
Charles doesn't look at him. The touch would be painful, but Erik is only here because of him, and so it isn't. "Lighter?" he asks, because he knows there's one somewhere in this place. His intentions are clear. The government already know the results without the paper trail, and there's no good these files can bring. The subjects are already grown, the families they may have been taken from long given up. There are no names or addresses or defining characteristics anyway, just cold numbers and tubes. It will only bring more pain to everyone involved. Let it rest. Charles has it memorized, and that is enough. He will carry this for the rest of his life.  
  
He shakes his head. "No. Absolutely not. You do not get to make this decision for them, Charles. This is evidence. It is someone's life. Their history. You can't take that from them just because it may cause pain."  
  
"There's nothing to take." He gestures to the files. "They're completely unidentifiable. These files are twenty years old. Longer. If there are better kept records, they aren't here." He's sure there are, somewhere. A government facility, some sorting place where all of this gets processed. The horrors that likely got lost in the undercurrent of corruption and politics. But they are evidence, however unusable at the moment. They'll be useful one day, when he'll make good of the suffering his father caused. A peeling back of what the government has been doing under everyone's noses for years. It was only a fleeting fancy of Charles', gone as soon as it came. Just like any of Erik's. He never would have gone through with it. Charles slumps again, staring at the wall.  
  
"It doesn't matter," Erik says. "That is how evidence works. The fact that these exist here is good enough. It ties this laboratory to having conducted these experiments, whether or not the participants can be identified. That is better than nothing." Erik looks up at the ceiling, inhaling through his nose. Wondering if it's the same department that Shaw was working for, picking up where Brian Xavier left off.  
  
Charles agrees. Of course he agrees. He is good with hunches, too. He always has been. So he points to a name on the front of the file, making sense of a thought he'd caught wind of days ago (days? Surely it must be years). Nathaniel Milbury. "Essex," he says simply. There's no reason to question how Essex was responsible for this when he does not look as if he's capable of being as old as the project suggests. Secondary mutation. So, yes. Very likely. Charles tries very hard not to notice that Essex's name - a man who nearly killed him and the man he loves - is right next to his father's. Of course he doesn't manage.  
  
He's sunk so far down below the surface that it's impossible to break out from under the pull, a wave splashing down into dark waters and submerging him. "That must be his real name," Erik says. "Let's look through these notes. There are a great deal more people who might be lurking in here. I have their information."  
  
Charles shakes his head. The files aren't going anywhere, and he knows they won't find anyone else Erik is looking for. The panicked men they've forgotten, desperate and terrified, trying to use a phone that hasn't been connected in ten years to call the police, are far more relevant. Charles can hear their thoughts over the roaring in his own ears now.  
  
He doesn't move, though. He just stares, glassy-eyed. Neither of his legs are broken, he doesn't think. Just a sprain. His wrist is, where he fell on it. His head is bleeding. There are bloody welts from his neck down to his thighs. Bruises all over his body. His mouth still tastes like sulfur.  
  
He wishes it was worse, idly. He digs his cell out of his pocket, where for some miracle it stayed. There shouldn't be service down here. There isn't. It's a long way up those concrete stairs. He closes his eyes and calms the panic. The men were teleported here. They have no way of getting home save walking miles and miles to the nearest house besides this one. Cain is already going, and his kindness doesn't extend that far at the moment, but he'll find them a way once he's upstairs.  
  
Charles doesn't move.  
  
Erik guides him to straighten up and with a flick of his fingers, Charles hovers off the ground, and he puts everything away before exiting the laboratory, not a minute too soon, leading them up the stairs. He sets Charles down on a couch in the living area and stops the agents in their tracks when they come to investigate. "Identify yourselves," he Orders, cold. "Answer honestly. Are you associated with Azazel Rasputin?"  
  
Charles sighs. "They're just people, Erik," he rasps, but it's already happening, so he lets it. They stammer and cower, but the message is clear. They're not. They're just people brought in to throw Charles off, ordinary civilians who were handed guns and Orders. He doesn't know what to do in the aftermath. They've just seen Erik, which is absolutely not acceptable. He'll have to wipe their memories now. For just a moment, he's frustrated by it. Hasn't he done enough tonight? Hasn't it been enough? He curls up on the couch on his belly, where the least bruises are. He wishes he could pass out.  
  
"Be calm," Erik Orders them again. "We'll ensure you're taken home. You will never speak of this incident again. Go and wait silently by the door." He sends them on their way.  
  
Charles takes their memories anyway. It's a fairly butchered process, more hatchet than scalpel. It will leave them dazed and confused, muddled for a few days. That's fine. They don't need to remember this, and better safe than sorry. Their longterm memories are unaffected. They remember their wives, their children. They're alive. That's all that matters. He wonders, briefly, if they should involve someone, but what good will it do? It's gone as soon as it came, just like downstairs.  
  
He clutches a scratchy, dusty throw pillow to his chest. It doesn't bring him any comfort.  
  
"Is there a vehicle here they can use?" Erik asks him, sitting on the arm of the couch, unaffected.  
  
"No," he answers, quiet, and stares at nothing. The one thing missing from the castle, apparently. A garage full of vehicles. "Warren can call one. Whoever's driving will get them where they need to go." No questions asked.  
  
"Good. It's time for us to leave, then." He rises and helps Charles to his feet. "Come on. Let's head back to the car." He holds Charles upright and places his hand on his chest, relieving him of his own weight so it doesn't hurt as badly to walk.  
  
Charles walks. He's bitten a hole through his lip, but he bites it harder to keep the noises back. The car feels exceptionally far away though the walk wasn't bad at all on the way in, and in the dark it's worse. His heart pounds even though he doesn't register his own fear.  
  
He knows what he looks like when he climbs back in. He doesn't look at either of them.  
  
"Take us home," Erik Orders, still-cold, before they have the opportunity to jump in with inane prodding and sympathies. "It's handled. Warren, call a car for the remaining agents once we're clear of here."

* * *

The blond just arches an eyebrow and backs them out of where they'd hidden, while Raven covers her mouth with her fingertips, eyes wide and horrified.   
  
"Charles," she whispers softly. "It was Cain, wasn't it? Fucking bastard. I'll break his fucking neck, I swear to G-d."  
  
"Not the time," Erik's voice raises over hers, harsh. He tugs Charles closer to him, laying him over his chest. The doors shut of their own accord. "Rest," he Orders.  
  
Charles doesn't move. He stares, utterly still and silent. Not sleeping, but drifting in and out of consciousness, watching as the world passes by out the window.  
  
There's nothing but to let it happen. It's a form of rest in and of itself, and Erik doesn't interrupt. Raven and Warren are silent for the whole ride home, and they see Cain walking along the side of the road, but Warren doesn't even slow down as they pass him. Erik tucks Charles's head under his chin and keeps his own eyes open hawkishly.  
  
Nothing is registering. When they make it back into the city, creeping in on four in the morning, Charles doesn't notice. He hasn't fallen asleep, but he wouldn't call himself awake, either. The car being stopped makes no difference to him. He blinks, he's breathing, but that's as much as anyone is going to get out of him at the moment.  
  
Warren and Raven want to come inside but Erik banishes them and gets Charles into his apartment by himself. He gets him into the shower and tends to his wounds after the warm water has healed them, and gets him dressed again in comfortable pajamas before putting him to bed, covering him with the blanket and sitting on the edge of the mattress, carding his fingers through his hair rhythmically. "Go to sleep," he Orders, and it's the first soft words he's spared since this started.  
  
The warm water certainly didn't feel great on his raw, welted skin, but at least it got rid of the blood. He needs to see a doctor, eventually. His wrist is a problem. His ankle might be, too. He's definitely set on a sprain. There's broken flesh in other places, open wounds he should probably disinfect more than he's capable of doing with the kit from his bathroom medicine cabinet. These are all thoughts far away from the surface, and he doesn't fight it as he drifts off to sleep.


	25. Do it for the teenagers and do it for your mom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. tw, mind the tags thx

His alarm blares at 6:30AM. His phone is on the bedside table, which happens to be right near his head because of how he'd curled up. He's set to meet with Carmen Pryde and Erik to go over testimony at 9. Charles rolls over. The blankets rubbing and catching on broken skin makes him want to cry, but all he does is bury his face in the pillow.  
  
Erik is there and gets him to sit up anyway, disinfecting is a fairly standardized process and he's done it hundreds of times. If there's anyone to have at his side right now it's Erik, who is practically a wound care specialist at this point. He changes Charles's dressings after inspecting them for pus or angry red streaks, but the wrist and ankle are beyond his capabilities. There's little to do for a fracture beyond setting and splinting it (which he could do, but Erik would rather Charles have it handled by a doctor). His own brand of medicine was, shall we say, less than optimal, a product of necessity, and Charles could afford to take proper care. "You're going to see your physician," he says calmly. "After you eat something." He finishes up and holds out a set of clothes for him to slowly get changed into, helping as much as he can. "We'll worry about the testimony later." If at all. Erik doesn't care about it.  
  
Charles wants to get back into bed. He wants to cry, which he hasn't done yet, at least not outside of that dissociated, outside state, more from overwhelming - whatever it was. Disgust, or anger, or pain. It doesn't matter. He wants to be sick, violently so, and the very last thing he wants to do is put food in his stomach. He wants to sleep for a good four years, groggy and exhausted and foggy-headed on top of everything else. But he's fairly sure his mind will take it as an Order, and if it doesn't, Erik might make it one. "Okay," is all he says, quiet and complacent. He winces as he dresses himself. His breathing hitches when he gets to his belt, but he ignores it. He walks into the kitchen and makes himself breakfast, toast and fruit and water, because it doesn't require cooking, and he doesn't sit because he doesn't want to feel the marks all over his ass. Leaning against the counter keeps the weight off his ankle anyway. He doesn't look at Erik.  
  
Erik makes him a cup of tea, and moves to press it into his fingers. "Drink," he murmurs. He's seen this enough times to know how it goes. There's time for deconstruction and processing further down the line, what matters in the early hours is a reestablishment of one's routine, and an emphasis on physical wellbeing. Eating, drinking, showering, hygiene. They help you feel human again, and it's something to focus on outside yourself, so it's what Erik focuses on first and foremost. He doesn't bother dealing with his own emotions, they don't exist anyway. All that matters is Charles.  
  
Charles hates that. He hates all of this, in some foreign, strange place where he is capable of such things. Erik feels like he is a million miles away from him, and his fingers shake where they hold his cup of tea. "Are you disgusted by me?" he asks, quiet as he can manage and still be audible. "Am I just -" He doesn't know what he was going to ask. Charles stares down into the hot liquid. It's not sweet enough.  
  
His eyebrows shoot up. "Charles. Don't be silly. Why on Earth would I be disgusted with you?" He lays his hands over Charles's, brushing a strand of hair out of his face. "What you did was extremely brave. I feel nothing but respect and pride for you."  
  
"It wasn't brave!" he spits, and he's struck by his own ferocious, sharp tone. It isn't aimed at Erik, but that it exists at all surprises him. He feels sick again. "Don't you dare call what I did brave," he whispers, quiet again, and attempts to twist his way out of Erik's arms. "It wasn't anything of the sort."  
  
Erik just stands there. He doesn't hold Charles hostage, letting him go, and his response when it comes is robotic. "You're entitled to your opinion."  
  
Charles laughs. It's a sick, twisted up thing, poison and daggers and tears pricking at the corner of his eyes. He wipes them away hastily, chucks the cup of tea, still mostly full, into the sink and wishes for a moment it would have shattered. It wouldn't have made him feel better, but at least it would have made a sound. He's forgotten that it hurts to walk. He pretends it doesn't bother him as he gets his shoes on, but he has to sit halfway through. Charles curls up on the couch and does everything in his power not to cry.  
  
He lets his eyes shut for a moment moves to wash the cup, setting it back in the cupboard and throwing the wet tea bag into the garbage, before moving out to the living area to help Charles with his shoes. He doesn't say anything else.  
  
Charles shakes his head. "Please," he whispers, and it's all he has in him. His voice is shaking, lower lip wobbling.  
  
He stops and moves to sit beside Charles, head tilting. "Tell me what you need," he says quietly.  
  
Charles doesn't know exactly. He closes his eyes as tightly as he can manage, and shakes his head. "I need you," he says, finally.  
  
"I am here, Charles," Erik replies, taking his hand. He rubs his thumb over the back of Charles's palm. "I am not going anywhere. I promise."  
  
"No, you're not," he mumbles, with his eyes still closed. Those tears are forming again, and he has to swallow them down, to take a few long moments to breathe. "You're here, but you're not. You're so far away, and I -" And he doesn't know what to do. It hurts.  
  
He inhales evenly through his nose, chest rising with the motion. "OK," he says, because he can't deny Charles anything on a good day, and this day is so very far away from good. There's no grand reveal of himself, but his eyes get softer. "Can I show you something?"  
  
Charles opens his eyes. There's less of that chilling, unreachable coldness, and he breathes a little easier. Something to recognize in those eyes he loves. He nods, still thoroughly miserable, but at least there's something.  
  
Erik stands and takes his shirt off, which might be a little, ahem, out of place at the moment. He raises his hand to still Charles's inquiry and turns so his back is facing him, and in the sunlight, looking at it directly, Charles can see dozens upon dozens of scars overlaid with one another. Cross-hatched stitchwork, poorly healed sutures, branded initials and slashes and keloid-formed lacerations forming a grotesque work of art with his body as the canvas. It's not pretty. Gnarled skin in some cases from burns, chunks of flesh taken out of him, gory whip-marks twisting over his shoulderblades. He taps his finger over the divot of his spine, drawing Charles's attention down to where A.R. is poorly inscribed, barely legible but he feels the intention in Erik's mind. He turns and retrieves his turtleneck, pulling it back on, and then sits down beside him and takes his hands again. "Whatever you think of me, you must know I think of you and then some. What people do to us speaks of them. You have done nothing to merit disgust. You held your honor. That is more than I can say." He offers a wry smile. "Whether you believe it or not. I'm not giving you mindless platitudes."  
  
Charles already knew they were there. It's an entirely different story, seeing them like this for the first time and honestly, truly knowing what to look for. He goes completely, utterly still, except where he trembles, which is all over. His eyes close tightly. Tears slip out, and he can't stop them. "He knows - he knew... about us. I know more than you ever wanted me to know," he whispers. He can't hide that.  
  
Erik tugs him close and kisses the top of his head. "There is no one I trust more, Charles. I wished to shield you from it, in the hopes that my pain would not cause you harm. You hold the best parts of me. And the worst. I used to believe it would be a terrible burden, but I know better, now."  
  
"It hurts," he admits, because it does. It hurts so terribly, terribly bad, aches deep inside of him where he knows it will act up occasionally, long after any marks or bruises or breaks from this fade. "But it's not a burden. If it is, it's one I'll carry for you," he promises. "So you don't have to do it alone." Just like Erik is holding him now. Just like he was there every moment while it happened. Charles shielded Erik from Azazel's mind, but Charles saw every corner of it. "I heard both of them at once," he says, and his voice is flat again, even as it shakes. His body threatens to curl in on itself. "Azazel. Cain. I thought I could turn them off, their thoughts, but I couldn't. Too much to focus on. I heard them the entire time."  
  
"I know," he says, because he was there with Charles while he was hearing them. "Their thoughts-if they can even be called thoughts-bear absolutely no consideration on you. On who you are. You are so infinitely above them they would be blinded by the sun before they could ever reach you." He gives a small smile. "That must have been incredibly difficult. I am so sorry you had to hear them." Cain was lucky to walk out of there alive. The only reason he had lived was because Erik knew Charles would not forgive him Cain's death, and Cain knew it. By the time he walked out of there, he knew it. It's a small consolation. "He owes his life to you. And rest assured, he is aware of that."  
  
"He would have done worse," Charles whispers. Azazel would not even have had to Order him, and he would have done far worse than some bloody welts and bruises, albeit on every inch of skin he can feel. Whatever Charles had done to earn that deep, sickening hatred, that gross infatuation, he'd done it well. "He's thought - things like that before. About me." He doesn't need to say what things he's speaking of, when he was naked and being laid into with fists and strap and buckle. It shouldn't be connected to the bloody, screaming, very much nonconsensual agony, but with Cain - and Azazel - it was. Is. "But he never would have acted on them. He was thrilled to have permission." And Charles thinks he might be sick at even the thought of it.  
  
"I am sure he was," Erik mutters darkly. He's reconsidering the whole alive part of Cain's status. "His weakness is, and always was, believing you are weaker for it. A schoolyard bully thinks they can Dominate with fists. That they are more important because they inspire fear. He could never win a person's respect through accomplishment. A person uses the tools at their disposal. He only understands violence. That is his problem. Not yours. You have never been what he thinks of you, and you never will." He touches Charles's temple. "Look at my thoughts. Hear my words. You are not his. Not ever."  
  
"Kurt Marko was awful to me," he says, and then almost laughs, because it's such an understatement it leaves a bad taste in his mouth, almost worse than the one already there. The water and tea haven't washed it away. "He was well and truly awful. More than his son, he taught me first to resent my own submission, however elusive it was. But he gave me attention, at least. He never encouraged me. He never praised me," he scoffs at even the notion of it, the reminder of his own cloying, desperate need to earn it somehow unsettling his stomach. "But he knew I was intelligent. He expected things of me. He never expected those things of Cain, I imagine because he wasn't capable of them." For all his strength, there was always little else but violence and crudeness in Cain Marko's brain. As if nothing else fit. "It must have stung." But there's no sympathy there. Understanding, but a cold, gnarled version, unsteady. He doesn't want Cain dead. He does hope he wandered for hours alone in the dark in Westchester, thoroughly terrified that another D5 would come along for him. "He wanted to own me to make up for it. When I went away to university, I slipped out of his grasp. This was the closest he was ever going to get."  
  
Erik touches Charles's jaw. "He will never get close to you again. Do you want to know the most ironic thing about it all?"  
  
There are many things ironic about it. He tries not to flinch away at the touch, however soft. It isn't physical, so it won't hurt, but Charles' body reacts anyway. "What is that?" he manages.  
  
Erik doesn't flinch back like he's been burned. He doesn't even hesitate, simply strokes his thumb over Charles's cheek. "They thought you were weak, because you are an S1. They tried to break you over and over again, and not only did they fail, but should they encounter me, they would be overwhelmingly powerless to my Will. You are the only one among them who can stand to be in my presence." Erik's lips twitch, and his eyes crinkle. "I am sure that would sting just as well. It gives me no greater pleasure than to know that they did not succeed in stripping you of something as wonderful as your submission. I am grateful that they did not succeed in breaking you. Because you are here, with me. Where you truly belong. I don't know if it's the right thing to say, but it is what I know to be true. Azazel wanted you because he thought you could give him something he has lacked his entire life. Something more than mindless obedience. But what he does not realize is that you would never be able to provide him with a soul."  
  
"It's exactly the right thing to say," he murmurs, and it's impossibly soft, considering what they're discussing. At the mention of Azazel, however, his lips purse, his expression hardened. If Erik wants Charles to know his full potential, to know that he will not spook and run at the first sight of unpleasant, it's only fair to tip his own cards. "I altered more than his perceptions of me," he says, though it should be overwhelmingly obvious.  
  
His head tilts, but there is no evidence of fear there. "How do you mean?"  
  
"He's not a D5 anymore," he says simply. "He'll never Order again."  
  
Erik's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, and then he laughs, plain and full.  
  
Charles blinks. Then blinks again. Finally he shakes his head. "Erik, what - why are you laughing?" Last he checked, completely altering someone's brain chemistry isn't funny. The fact that he can apparently do it even less so.  
  
"Oh-I am _sorry_ ," he chuckles and hides it with his hand. "You should have told me that before I named the most ironic thing about this."  
  
"I think you're missing the part where you're supposed to be horrified at this." Charles shakes his head again, and fights back his own smile. Trust Erik to never react appropriately.  
  
He leans over and kisses Charles gently on the forehead. "I know you frighten yourself. But I will never be afraid of you." Erik meant it when he said he trusted him. "I am glad you did it. It's the least of what Azazel deserves."  
  
"It doesn't hurt him in any way, and it will keep him from hurting others," he hedges, but he thinks that's just a platitude he's feeding himself at the moment. It's certainly a justification. "I've felt all of that," he gestures between them, the unspoken Dominance and submission clear, "Before, but I've never had reason to go there. It wasn't too difficult. I just rewired it." And somehow didn't break Azazel in the process, all while being beaten bloody. He supposes he deserves a bit of credit.  
  
"More than a bit," Erik snorts. "You ensured that the situation didn't end in a blood bath, and you prevented countless more victims from falling under Azazel's thrall. Although I could have done with a little more hurting on his behalf," he smiles. "Besides, I have always known who holds the real power in our relationship, Charles."  
  
"It doesn't work like that with us," he insists, shaking his head. Not because he's erasing his own power and agency, but because it's more than that. He reaches for Erik's hand this time, put off that he has two bad hands now. Less to hold Erik with, but at least one is only bruised from a fight with the elevator wall. "We're in this together. You hold the power in our dynamic because I choose to give it to you, but I could just as easily take it away. It's a willing submission. It's -" He doesn't have the right words, at the moment. "It's right. How it should be," he decides.  
  
"Yes," Erik agrees, because to him it's just semantics. Charles could ask him to do anything and he knows he would, and happily so. "You need a haircut," he laughs and tucks a stray strand of his hair behind his ear. "Admittedly it is quite cute like this."  
  
Charles can think of more than a few instances where that isn't true. "It's not just semantics," he argues, because now more than ever, it's not just semantics. "I -" He wants to lean into the touch. To let himself be light, to think about how shaggy he's let his hair get. But he can't yet. "Erik, last night was my worst fears very nearly come true." He says the obvious, because it needs saying. His submission used against him the absolute worst way. "And I would normally use this as an opportunity to confirm something I thought I already knew about being submissive, and submitting. But I don't want to do that. I actually want to do the opposite of that, and I -" He's not sure where he's going with this. Somewhere important for them, he thinks.  
  
Erik's lips turn down in a frown. "I am not quite sure I understand what you're trying to say, and I want to. Can you rephrase?"  
  
Charles shakes his head. "I'm not sure I know how," he admits, and Charles isn't usually the one who struggles like this. His thoughts are all terribly muddled, and he doesn't think they'll be much help. The result is frustration, thick and clinging to his tongue. "I - it's just, if things weren't as they were between us, I know -" He tries not to bite his lip, as bloodied and torn as it is. He does anyway. "You said you're glad my submission wasn't broken out of me. I think this would have done it." But it didn't, and if anything - he doesn't know what that means. That he trusts Erik more than he had even known himself, clearly.  
  
He touches his thumb to Charles's lip, a gentle admonishment for teeth. "It wouldn't have," he shakes his head, quite sure about that. "It's gratifying to know that what is between us is not simply a product of biology. There is something here, hm?" he touches Charles's temple. "More than telepathy. More than Dominance and submission."  
  
Charles rolls his eyes. "Was that in question?" he asks, because for him it never was. He'd thought he'd made it exceedingly obvious that if it were anyone else, Charles would just as easily wash his hands of it. It wasn't Erik's Dominance that made him stay. "That's not - I mean, it is. But I'm sure we could..." He's really struggling here. Charles sighs.  
  
"Show me," Erik says instead, gesturing to his own head.  
  
"That only works when I have it figured out up there outside of words, and I don't," he laughs. His brain is a bit overloaded at the moment, and not in a good way. Not in a seething pain way, either, so there are small favors in the world, but still not in a good way. "It's just." He shows Erik part of the original car ride to Westchester instead. The pride and joy he'd felt at the notion of wearing Erik's collar, of displaying their dynamic, budding and developing as it was. Of having a constant reminder. Of their dynamic in general, really. How he'd felt nothing but excitement at the prospect of learning more of it, of diving deeper instead of dipping out like he'd originally tried. He'd reveled in being Erik's, taken completely with the idea that he could be. That he was allowed to be, as fully and completely as he'd always needed. "I still feel that," he says, and the unspoken is just as clear. He didn't expect to, after something like this.  
  
He pulls Charles closer to him and kisses him softly. Expecting him to be skittish and adjusting for that if necessary, but not handling him like porcelain, either. He is Erik's. And he still is. It's brief, though. "This isn't something that can be taken from you," he murmurs, pulling away. Erik's skin is warm where Azazel's was cold and rough, the difference stark enough to matter if not altogether alleviate. "Not by anyone."  
  
Charles' breath gets caught in his throat. It's the first time he's been properly kissed since - There are tears, then. He doesn't notice them at first, but they're there, and he makes a strangled, whining noise from the back of his throat. Not pain. Charles closes his eyes and leans bodily against Erik, not caring that it's prodding some of his bruises. "Please don't let this change us," he begs. "I don't think of you as anything like him. You have to see that now, right? See that I don't view you as anything like that." Not like Azazel. Not like Shaw. "You have to believe that, Erik. It isn't the same. What we need and what we do, what we have now, it has nothing to do with them. That scares me more than anything he could do to me. That they'll get in the way of something right between us." That's what he was trying to get at, he realizes. What he needed to say.  
  
"They won't," Erik swears fiercely, brushing away those tears with his thumb. He kisses Charles surely this time, but no less gentle. But that wasn't different; Erik was usually that way except for very specific circumstances. It was common that he touched Charles like he was made of glass, but not out of any misguided attempt to coddle him. "They could never." He smiles and rests his fingers on Charles's shoulders, halfway to his neck. "I thought you might," comes out of him in a gasp, like he doesn't expect himself to say it. "That you would see Azazel and realize-"   
  
"I didn't and I won't," he swears right back, and he means it with everything he has. He shows Erik, just for good measure, just a peek of his thought process: there could not be more of a line drawn in his mind. There are no similarities drawn. No question that they are so entirely, wholly dissimilar that to compare them at all would be an egregious mistake. Charles is gentle right back as he brushes Erik's cheek with his less injured hand, soft and coaxing. "I would never have been his. Not a single fucking part of me belongs to him, Erik," he says, and it's so fierce that he nearly startles himself. "He can't take that from me. He can't take the joy you showed me submission could be, but only to you. I'm yours. And clearly I know it, don't I?" Because he was not forced to obey a single one of those Orders. Everything Charles did, everything he endured, he did consciously. Willingly, though the term is skewed here. Nothing kept him in place except his own will to end things. Charles makes sure he knows that, too, pressing it into his mind.  
  
"Consciously," Erik corrects firmly. The term is not skewed. Just because Charles had decided to endure instead of let Erik kill Azazel because Azazel had engineered the situation did not make the situation any more consensual. Erik refused to allow even a modicum of leeway there.  
  
"That part is semantics," he protests, though one look at Erik's face tells him he's not going to get far with that particular argument. He tries not to smile, and utterly fails. "Consciously, then. I'm willing to defer on this one," he teases. It doesn't matter, in the end. Charles has no delusions that he had wanted or asked for any of the things that happened to him. What he does with Erik is consensual, always. What happened the night before could not be farther from. There are no blurred lines for him here, and he makes sure Erik knows it.  
  
Erik smiles back, laughing a bit. "Good," he replies, and leans forward to kiss him again, because he always wants to be kissing Charles. "I love you, _neshama_. Beyond words," he whispers. "And you are still terrible at cursing." He separates to tap Charles on the nose, fond and enamored.  
  
"I am not," he mutters, offering up a pout in response. For a long few moments, he seems to hesitate, hovering, his stomach fluttering. It's not an uncomfortable twisting this time, but it still has him worked up. "Could you -" Charles stares down between them, as skittish as Erik expected him to be, but not because he's afraid. "Nevermind." Charles turns the other way, swallowing, and makes to stand.  
  
"Hey," Erik stops him, a hand on his knee. "None of that. Look at me," he Orders softly. It's interesting how in the past few days he's come from being practically terrified of his own Orders and giving them so freely. Ordinarily it's in response to defiance, but now it isn't, it's simple for its own sake. "Could I what?"  
  
Erik's Will seems to settle itself in his stomach, and he absolutely melts into it. He's biting his lip again, though, which is chewed to pieces. It's the thought that it's not entirely his fault that makes him sick. "I - could you..." He's having trouble again, though this time for a different reason. There's a bit of shame, there. Charles makes a soft, distressed noise. "Please?" he asks, without actually asking for anything. Unfortunately Erik is not the one who can read minds.  
  
He thumbs Charles's lip, a reminder. "Tell me, dear-heart," he returns, and the Order is soft.  
  
"Kiss me, but. Kiss me," he stresses, flushing now, and hoping that will be enough. It's not the ideal time for it, but even still. "Please. He - his..." Azazel had a very long tongue, and a very distinctive taste. Perhaps it's not the greatest violation, but it's one violation too many, and Charles desperately wants it gone. "Don't want him to be the last one to do it, even for this long," he mumbles, miserable about it. Charles had been kissed before Erik, but he'd certainly never wanted there to be another after. Not like this.  
  
Erik's smile is bright. "Come here, sweetheart," he whispers and pulls him closer, framing his face in both hands, warm and big. The first touch of his lips is gentle, but he deepens it when he feels Charles's breath hitch and it draws a pleased laugh from him, an out-of-place joy they've carved here because of course they have, because it didn't matter who came for them. Erik kisses him achingly slow, moving with every breath until he can coax forward those beloved sounds. Until he delves in with his own tongue, tasting everything that Charles has to give him and taking nothing that isn't offered. Until he can burn out every inch of Azazel until there is nothing left but them.  
  
But Charles offers Erik everything. It's already his. Against Azazel, he had resisted as much as possible. His sounds had been swallowed screams, pain and muted fear, his own tongue firm against the roof of his mouth. He did not want him to even consider that it might be consensual, that Charles might desire it, in those last moments before he took away everything from him.  
  
Now he's pliant, but responsive in every way. When he whimpers, it's a quiet, pleased noise, and his own tongue comes out to play, letting Erik lead but always a willing, eager participant. Erik tastes exactly like he remembers, even with his mouth dry and his lips bitten bloody. He kisses him until he's breathless with it, letting out soft, sighing moans, and whines when he has to pull back to breathe. As if he resents the need for taking him away. His eyelids are heavy, and he flutters, shy, almost, but terribly pleased, radiating with it and as close as possible. "Mmm. Better, thank you," he breathes, sweetly.  
  
There's blood on Erik's lips now and he touches his fingers to it, and then swipes out his tongue to catch the rest of it. The action makes him huff, amused at his own boldness, but given what they've been doing for the past few minutes it should come as no surprise that Erik doesn't mind a little blood. He minds it on Charles, though, minds that he isn't the reason for it. There is nothing deliberate or careful about Charles's wounds, nothing within the context of what Charles gives him willingly, and so it does not bring with it a spark that it might ordinarily in other circumstances. Instead there is only cold, dead rage, but all of that is at the back of his mind. "I love you," he breathes, nearly overwhelmed by it. So incredibly grateful for Charles's pleasure, that he can still inspire it, like medicine.  
  
"Promise me that I will never have marks like this again unless they are from you." And if they are from Erik, it goes without saying, they will never be like this. "If I get caught in a scuffle, fine. A bar fight, so be it." It's a half-hearted joke when there is nothing but solemn, quiet seriousness in his eyes. "But like this? Only from you. Promise me."  
  
Erik's head twists to the side suddenly, and he's overcome with all the piercing grief and terror that he's subsumed since this started, and he rests the back of his hand over his mouth, willing himself not to let the tears that prick at his eyes fall down his cheeks. He fails. Fucking fuck, fuck.  
  
Charles' breath catches. "I -" He's gone right back to biting his lip, hard. He leans forward, grieving just as much, and catches those tears. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked that," he whispers. "Please look at me. I'm so sorry."  
  
He does, after a long, agonizing moment. His eyes are even more vivid for being red. He swallows roughly and when he speaks it's in a hoarse croak. "I promise I will do everything in my power to ensure it."  
  
"I know," he says back. Charles knows he would have much preferred it didn't happen this time. That it hadn't happened at all. But Charles doesn't regret it, nor resent Erik for not preventing it. What he does feel is resolve. "I did this because it was the best option available to me, Erik. But I don't - never again." And now he's crying too, all of that wretched, pent up fear pumping through his veins. Even if shifting hurts like hell, he buries himself in Erik's shoulder. "Please, never again. The things he thought about -" He shivers, whole body wracked with it. "I would rather die. I would rather die, Erik."  
  
Erik hugs him. "I know. I know. It might feel like it is impossible to get those things out of your head, but I promise you that it won't be like this forever. I wish I could promise you that you would never have to hear another vile thought, but I can't kill everyone on the planet," he tries for a bit of levity. "I would. If you asked me to. I hate that you had to hear anything like that. You are so incredibly beautiful and smart and talented. Anyone who doesn't see it is a fool. But you are wrong, Charles." He pulls back to look him in the eye.  
  
"He would have smothered any of that," Charles says, and now, outside of the moment, he can be thoroughly, properly horrified. "Kept my head on low unless he fancied it. Kept me chained to his bed until he felt like playing. No learning, or people, or - or anything. It wouldn't have taken long until there was none of me left." Azazel might have thought he desired something new with Charles, but he would have crushed him in the process of keeping him. Destroyed him. He had no idea how to properly Dominate, nor what someone like Charles needed, and Charles, brilliant mind and all, would have withered away.  
  
"Do you think that I should have died, instead of enduring what happened to me?" he wonders, and he can't look Charles in the eye when he asks it, because he can't bear to think of what would happen if the answer were yes.  
  
"No," he answers immediately. "How could you possibly ask that? Erik, I - you're incredibly strong, and I know you often think it broke you, but it didn't. The fact that you are here with me now proves that. I only -" He swallows, and closes his eyes. "I only meant that if that were the life I was subjected to, I don't know if I could. We are different people, and perhaps you are stronger. But the circumstances are different. Imagine if -" He can't say it. He doesn't.  
  
"It is my hope," he says, slowly facing him again, his voice soft, "that you consider my life more valuable than whatever Sebastian Shaw dictated. Your life has equal merit. I will not allow you to entertain thoughts otherwise. I know you, and in this instance, it seems I know you better than you know yourself. You were told that you are weak, for almost all of your formative years, and that has caused you to think that you are weak, when it could not be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is, I don't believe there's a soul on this Earth who could do the things he wanted to do. If anyone dares to try again, as long as there is breath in me, I promise you they will not get far."  
  
Charles lets out a low, distressed hiss. "Don't say that," he demands. "'As long as there is breath in me.'" He's surprised by his own firmness again, and if he didn't think it would hurt and be more trouble than it's worth, he would cross his arms. "You're going to breathe for a very long time. At least eighty, bare minimum, old and grey, but I'd much prefer you to be well into your hundreds." And that's only because their mutations only allow for normal lifespans, or he'd push much farther. If it changes, so will his demands. Charles' lips twitch. "That's an order," he teases, eyes gleaming. "Am I understood?"  
  
Erik lets out a huff. "Yes, sir."  
  
Charles face twists up, nose scrunched. He'd asked for it, but still. "Ew. Don't ever say that again, it's gross," he laughs, and finally it doesn't get stuck in his throat.  
  
Erik laughs fully. "It felt very unnatural, rest assured."  
  
"On the contrary, it's quite natural for me to be bossy," he grins. "Fortunately, you seem to be able to handle it. So far." Another tease. It feels like he can breathe again, now. "But I've never said 'yes, sir' in my life -" It's a blatant lie, and Erik knows from experience.  
  
"Oh, haven't you?" Erik's eyes glimmer with mirth. "I must be mistaken."  
  
"Never in my life," he persists, and just for good measure, sticks out his tongue. "But I might consider it, if you ask very nicely. That's how things work around here, of course." He's trying so hard not to grin.  
  
Erik pokes Charles's tongue. "I seem to recall asking very nicely."  
  
"I don't think that was asking, and I also don't think it happened, since, again. Never in my life." Now he's grinning. He does huff, though. "Honestly, what's with the universe demanding I use up all my emergency clauses?" He's referring to Erik's rules. "I was hoping to save them up and use them all at once when I felt like sleeping in and eating junkfood." Which he knows Erik would never let fly. It's why he says it. He needs this banter. This - healthy, comfortable place, where his submission is treated as exactly what it is. Where it isn't frightening or a tactical disadvantage or a weakness.  
  
"You won't get out of my rules that easily," Erik returns, darting forward press a kiss against his brow. There's something healing about this, too, and it's not forced or a caricature. They are here, laughing and joking, because they are strong. Because there is no one who can take this from them. "Do you want to take today off? I could be persuaded to allow a little indulgence." His lips twitch.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "Not like that. From work," he clarifies with a smile. "You will never get a day off from being mine, Charles. That is a guarantee."  
  
"Oh." Charles takes a deep, slow breath. "Promise?" Perhaps he needs to hear it again. To resettle. To know that it's just as real as it was a day ago, that it's just as serious, that they both mean it just as much. He was scared, he realizes. Scared that this would unsteady things again. Back to the back and forth, the half in half out, the on and off. He was scared it would set them back, and they'd already come so far. He likes where they've gotten. Very, very much.  
  
"I promise," Erik says solemnly, taking Charles's hands in his and kissing his bruised knuckle very lightly, so as not to agitate. Erik liked it, too, so much that he thought he'd burst with it sometimes. "But I am serious about the other thing. If you need a day off, take one." He doesn't make it an Order, because Erik's testimony is necessary and the longer they delay, the longer the trial will be, and the longer they'll need to wait to be together, which he knows that Charles doesn't want, but he does let Charles decide if he can handle it or not.  
  
Charles sighs. "I don't know what I'm going to do," he admits. "Come with me?" Mostly because he knows he's going to have trouble walking, and he wants Erik to lean on, but also because he doesn't want to be separated. He leads Erik into the bathroom where he's got a full mirror. He hadn't been in the right mind to glance at himself at all, and so - Charles stares at his own reflection. There isn't a single inch of skin not thoroughly covered with bruises, and they look nasty. He purses his lips. "It really doesn't help that I bruise like a peach," he sighs. He's going to have to do what he used to, then.  
  
"You need to see a doctor," Erik tells him in no uncertain terms. "So that they can check for internal bleeding. You could have damaged kidneys, or spleen. This looks like a hematoma," he gestures to a spot on Charles's arm, his manner clinical now that the full scope of Charles's injuries is visible under the fluorescent lights. "We'll pick up some ibuprofen cream and painkillers from the pharmacy as well."  
  
"Erik, I can't see a doctor like this," he sighs. "They're going to call the police." He doesn't really want to look, but he takes a breath and lifts his shirt. There's a very worrying bruise on his stomach that actually could be a problem, and the marks on his back - they're already bleeding again, red and inflamed, skin broken all over. There are way too many dotting his spine for him not to be grateful he has some kind of luck, because that could have done more than hurt with Cain's full strength. They're definitely going to scar, nothing precise and calculated about them. He hadn't hit with the leather, just the bloody buckle. "Did you -" No, he doesn't want to ask that. Charles' mouth forms a thin line.  
  
"They won't, and it's not up for discussion." Erik's head tilted. "Did I-?" Charles knows he will make it an Order if necessary.  
  
He really doesn't want to ask. It had been the start of a horrified realization, and he'd be perfectly content keeping it to himself. But it will come out either way. "Feel it," he mumbles, and looks anywhere but Erik, prodding at some of the lesser bruises.  
  
"Do you want to know?" Erik asks quietly.  
  
"Tell me anyway," he says. No, not really. But it will bother him if he doesn't, and always has to wonder.  
  
"Yes," he murmurs. "You were not alone." He gives a small smile, drifting his hand through Charles's hair.  
  
"I know you didn't feel -" Did he? Charles' eyes widen, even more horrified than he'd been a few moments ago. No, he hadn't. Charles knows he'd kept that to himself. He might have felt the echo, but not the full experience. These bruises, these future scars - these are Charles'. He's content in that. "I hid some of these from you, a while ago," he murmurs, absentmindedly. "I don't even do it consciously. It's like when I used to pretend to be taller." He tries to grin, juxtpositioning the 'necessary for survival' with 'silly insecurity,' however deep-seated said insecurity might be.  
  
"Are you still hiding them from me?" Erik wonders. It wouldn't have mattered if Charles dug deep and numbed every receptor. He felt it all the same. Every lash and strike had been repeated in him. He's content to let the subject drop, to let Charles believe what kept him comfortable, because that was worth more than any echo of pain.  
  
"The old ones?" Charles sighs. "Some of them. I do it without thinking, really. It's a habit." Almost impossible to see them over the bruises, but Erik had shown his. It was only fair to be just as vulnerable, even though many of his are brand new and smarting now. He points some out. Makeshift, faded whip marks between the deep, purpling, flayed marks on his back. Burn marks, some clearly chemical. Old, healed over sutures. A few marks from a knife. "Almost all Kurt," he explains. "Not bad at all."  
  
"One scar is too many," Erik contradicts firmly. "Don't hide from me." He kneels and presses his lips over the raised edges of skin. "There is no need."  
  
"I didn't do it consciously," he protests. "Like I said, just a habit. I'll make sure not to around you. But I had go to school without anyone crying child abuse, and Raven - I didn't want her to see," he sighs, staring at his feet. "So I had to. I still will, until these heal. There's no way I can be in court like this."  
  
"That is fine, but you're still going to see the doctor." He rises and holds Charles's clothes out to him.  
  
"I can't see the doctor," he says, and it's not the first time, but now his teeth are clenched. "I'm not allowed to see the doctor. If it's a problem, I can take care of it. You're not the only one who can stitch people up, or you can do it yourself, if you prefer." It's clear he hasn't even realized what he'd said.  
  
"And who says what you are allowed to do?" Erik shoots back pointedly. "This isn't a discussion. You're going." And that very much is an Order. "I won't play trifling games with your life."  
  
Now he has to, but Orders don't mean he can't speak up. Defiance gets swallowed up fairly quickly by direct Orders, he's finding, but this isn't defiance. Charles shakes his head, and in that moment he looks terrified. "I've told you, Raven -" Charles' eyes widen. He goes quiet.  
  
"I understand," Erik says. He doesn't change his mind. "Raven is fine. And you will be, too. Feet up," he taps Charles's legs and slides his pants on when he does.  
  
Charles swallows. No, he doesn't. "No, I just -" He still lets himself be dressed, hissing as he lowers his shirt. Clothes do not feel good right now. He stares down at the floor again, quiet. "I just called you Raven, Erik," he mumbles. _I've told you, Raven, I can't see a doctor. He'll find out. He'll find out and he'll hurt Mother, he'll hurt me, he'll kill us -_  
  
"I know," he repeats. "You are both all right. He cannot hurt you anymore, nor will he. I'll be with you the entire time." Even as he grits his own teeth, the thought of stepping foot back in a hospital repugnant to him, but it's for Charles, and that supersedes everything.  
  
"You don't have to come," he says, gentle now, even though he doesn't look up. "You probably have things to do on that end, anyway. You could get more sleep," he suggests, hopefully. "I'm not afraid of the doctor. I'm - well, I'm not even afraid of him much, anymore. Habit, like the rest."  
  
"You're probably right. I am very swamped today. At 10:00 I have to stare at the wall, followed by a 12:00 lunch, and then at 3:00 I have a very important meeting with my friend, who I am pretty sure is a cockroach, and then there's a conference with my shadow... there might be puppets involved."  
  
Charles can't help it. He snorts out a laugh, undignified and loud, and finally looks up to mock glare. He thinks of something, though. "Are you going to - will you be around, then? When you aren't doing puppet shows?" Because the thought is far from unpleasant. "It doesn't hurt me at all to keep you here, obviously. And -" Charles bites down on his lip again, forgetting all those warnings. He can't find any issue with taking Erik around with him. He could be in the background, perhaps, and unseen to others, but to have a constant connection? He can't think of a better way to rid himself of years worth of loneliness. There's lost time to make up for, really.  
  
"Yes, Charles, I will be around," Erik grins back at him. "I would love to stay." Always, goes unsaid. "It is infinitely preferable to be with you than it is to be alone." He doesn't quite stoop to begging, but the entreaty is very clear. _Please don't leave me here by myself. Please don't make me stay here._  
  
"Okay, but we have to work out the whole not talking out loud thing," he laughs, and feels the delighted spark all the way to his toes. No saying goodbye. No one hour meetings. No constantly staring at the clock, wondering when they would run out of time. "I imagine if I start talking to myself on the tube and at the grocery store, telepath or not, people will want me committed."  
  
Does this work? Erik's eyebrows lift.  
  
This works, and you know it, he returns, but he's grinning ear to ear. He steps forward, careful of his ankle, reaching out to do - something, but then he seems to startle, stepping back. Biting on his lip.  
  
Erik blinks at him. _Charles_?  
  
 _Um_ , is what he thinks in response, and he shakes his head. _You're making me go the doctor, right? We should go._  
  
Charles, Erik curls two fingers around his jaw. _Tell me._  
  
Charles tries very hard not to flinch. He does anyway. Not because it hurts, but because he expects it to. "I just wanted to kiss you," he mumbles, like he's ashamed of it.  
  
"Does that bother you?" he cants his head to the side.  
  
"No, but -" He gestures to himself as if it's self-explanatory, wincing at the soreness.  
  
It is not. "But-?"  
  
"You probably don't want to," he mutters, and he's red all the way to his ears with shame. "With me. Like this."  
  
Erik bridges the space between them and kisses him, slow and sweet. _I always want to._  
  
 _It doesn't freak you out?_ he asks, because he looks like a walking crime scene and he knows it. It freaks him out, a little, he thinks but doesn't say.  
  
He separates from Charles then, eyes distant.  
  
Charles takes that as a confirmation, then. The shame flips over in his belly, and he nods. _It's alright,_ he assures, and moves around him to get his shoes back on. His ankle is incredibly swollen now, and it's not going to be pleasant.  
  
Erik stops him with a hand on his shoulder. "You're uncomfortable with the fact that I-" he doesn't finish. "Of course you would be." He is twisted. He knows that. His features are masked. "I apologize."  
  
Charles blinks. "What? Erik, what are you talking about?"  
  
"You-" he touches his own temple. "You said it freaked you out."  
  
"It freaks me out that I'm covered head to toe in bruises that my abusive stepbrother gave me last night, yes." He shakes his head. "Is that - that feels pretty normal to me, and I don't really know what it has to do with you."  
  
Erik gives him a small smile. "I misunderstood."  
  
Charles snorts. "Maybe don't listen to my thoughts and make assumptions," he teases, because he knows it's basically the definition of pot, kettle.  
  
Erik inhales quietly. "I will endeavor not to," he assures, too-formal.  
  
It had been a joke, but there's obviously something sore here. He reaches forward, careful of his bruised hand (is it a sprain? He has mobility, he can't be sure like with his opposite wrist, that's definitely a break) as he strokes Erik's arm. "Talk to me?" he asks, gentle. "Please?"  
  
"I-" Erik shrugs and looks down, shoulders slumping. "I don't want you to think that I take any pleasure in your pain."  
  
 _Oh_. Charles sighs, and shakes his head. Erik is slouching and it's impossible to get up on tip toes now, so he pouts, and resorts to tugging at his shirt. "I don't. This is what we're dealing with, but I won't let it get in the way of us loving each other, okay? I just didn't want to hurt you. But if it's not, all the better. Now please lean down so I can kiss you. This is so annoying, you should never be allowed to stand up." He hopes that lightens things at least a little.  
  
Erik obliges, bending so Charles can do just that. "I will always see you. You are still beautiful. Even when you look like a walking crime scene." He smiles against Charles's lips, sliding his fingers into the soft strands at his nape.  
  
Charles leans against him, settling against his chest. Contact hurts right now, everything raw and uncomfortable, but it's more than worth it for this. He's starting to drift off, actually, eyelids fluttering, as if he'll just fall asleep standing up and balanced on one foot against Erik. "Bed?" he asks, hopefully, because Erik's Order isn't time sensitive. He could always do it later.  
  
"I am afraid my Order is time sensitive," Erik shakes his head, regretful. "Internal bleeding waits for no man. Not even one as handsome as you." He winks outrageously and hands Charles his suit jacket. "Come along. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner you can come home and rest."

* * *

Charles pouts, but does as he's told. He yawns, a bit exaggerated, as if he can make Erik feel sorry for him and his woefully unoxygenized brain. "Uh-uh," he mumbles at the second part. "Trial. Testimony." He really should take a day off, but Charles is exceedingly awful at doing that, especially when there are stakes like this. He's limping because he won't be able to lean on Erik for long, and opts to take the elevator down to the curb, phone out so he can call a car.  
  
Erik just chuckles and follows him into the vehicle, wrapping his arms around him once they get situated, careful not to jostle. Are you sure? he thinks as they back out from the curb. The trial can wait. I've got a particularly elaborate puppet show scheduled for this evening. It'll be very thrilling.  
  
Mostly, he mumbles back, because truthfully he feels completely and utterly like shit. Feverish and hot and in more pain than he's willing to outright share with Erik, and his mind isn't even close to processing. He's afraid it's going to come for him when he least expects it. _If I take a sick day, you're staying with me. No puppet shows_ , he sulks. As if Erik would truly leave him alone in bed.  
  
 _I will stay with you always_ , Erik promises solemnly, kissing his jaw. A twinge of love so potent it's shocking the driver can't sense it pervades the gesture. _It will not come for you while I am here. If it does, I will fight it with you._  
  
The driver is doing his very best not to look at Charles strangely in the rearview, but fortunately the hospital isn't far. He stays close to Erik the entire time, nearly tripping as he gets out. It really does hurt, all of it, and he knows what reactions he's going to get the second he walks into that hospital. He looks battered, and he's submissive. It's fairly obvious what they'll assume. Charles really doesn't need their sympathy. He hesitates outside the ER, stomach churning, but it was an Order, so eventually he has to stop dragging his feet. He won't be Dr. Xavier in here. He'll just be some poor, pathetic bitch - Not his word. Charles flinches and hopes Erik didn't catch it.  
  
Erik jerks hard and draws back, eyes closing so he doesn't need to take this in. It's overwhelmingly stupid. He knows that it's not-he knows. He counts his breaths until they come easy and then takes a step forward to grasp his hand. _Enough of that_ , he says with a voice that drowns out all the others. _I don't want to hear you say that about yourself again. Ever._ He doesn't realize he's made it an Order.  
  
That reaction wasn't entirely aimed at him. Charles sucks in a breath, but nods. He's grateful for it, really. They aren't words he wants to think about himself, but unfortunately they're rooting around in his head now. Scrubbing them out is proving a bit more difficult than usual. _Erik?_ he asks, the question gentle but clear. He walks into the waiting room as he does, breathing harder.  
  
"It's OK," he says, shaking his head one too many times. _I love you. I'm here_. This wasn't the place for his insanity. He rests his hands on either side of Charles's shoulders, squeezing in reassurance.  
  
Charles frowns, but lets it go for the moment. He checks himself in at the front, but it's fairly obvious why he's here, what with the limp and the dark bruises all over his face and peeking out from his collar. They look at him exactly like he expects them to as he fills out the necessary paperwork. He tries not to let it bother him. At the very least he can redirect attention away from himself when it concerns the rest of the room. I don't much like the doctor, either, despite being one, he admits, trying not to stare too obviously at Erik. It's always such a fuss. They'll ask me at least three times if I'm sure I'm an S1, after they read that form. 'Have you been retested in adulthood?' No, but it's never changed in anyone else and I'm quite sure, thank you.  
  
Erik quirks his lips up obligingly and goes along with the conversation. _My doctor said the same thing about me, when I was young. And then I Ordered him to get me a lollipop, and that very quickly was the end of that._ It's dry.  
  
 _I wish you were actually here, then. You could get me a lollipop,_ he sighs. Still, everything is eased by Erik. His mind, his body, his heart. He curses under his breath as he realizes something. I could have just gone to Hank and avoided this whole mess. _I'm not thinking straight. He definitely would have given me a lollipop._  
  
 _I can still get you a lollipop,_ Erik smirks. There's a candy jar at the receptionist's desk and when no one is looking, it opens up of its own accord and a bright red sucker zips over to Charles's hand. It's quick enough to be a flash, and no one notices, all lost in their own forms and dealing with their unruly children.  
  
Charles fights back a snicker, mentally nudging Erik in the side. _You're ridiculous_ , he comments, but quite happily pops the thing in his mouth anyway, sucking with a near childlike sense of joy. He'll never complain about a sweet. Cherry, too. His lips will be even more red after this. His eyes wander to the TVs that are always playing in this place, but he scowls when he realizes it's a news station. No shock, either, that the two anchors are discussing Erik's impending trial. _Why can no one pronounce your last name? It's not that difficult. And they all use the same static image of you._ It's a grainy screen capture. Erik looks his most enraged, and thoroughly out of his own mind. They both know he was at the time. _It's an awful angle,_ he thinks, teasing, to soften the blow. _Not that there is one for you, of course.  
_

* * *

Erik has never seen it before now, and his eyes are riveted to the footage, mouth drying up. His throat works as if to swallow, but there's nothing to swallow. The building in front of him shudders, metal joints groaning as debris flies off, rebar and supports flinging to the side, and he's screaming and covered in blood, stark naked (they blur the obvious bits out for younger audience members), looking more like a wild animal than a human being, skin paper-thin over jutting bones, so underweight you can see his ribcage. It's in abrupt juxtaposition with what he's doing as terrified people run in the distance, and he's letting them go, even at his most deranged mindful not to harm them. He begins rubbing his knees rhythmically.  
  
Charles hadn't known they were going to play the whole bloody clip. Again. Unlike Erik, he's seen it more times than he count. He had it memorized by the first time, but now it's all but sewn into his memory, woven so deep it won't ever come out. He's grateful when the screen switches back to the studio, the topic switching with promises of updates and further developments. _Erik_ , he says, and reaches his hand out, making it look as natural as possible as he reaches for Erik. _Come back to me, darling. I'm so sorry you had to see that. I shouldn't have drawn attention to it._  
  
His expression remains completely blank, completely lost. "Forgive me," he gasps softly, animating only to dab his eyes on his sleeves, the movement dignified even when he feels anything but. This has no place here. _It's OK. I am OK._  
  
 _Shh. I'm so sorry_ , he repeats, gentle and soft. Eventually he's frustrated enough with the limitations between them to simply redirect attention around the room entirely, his hand reaching for Erik's and squeezing despite the sharp burst of pain. _I have you. I'm here. It's over and done with, and now we will get you freed. I love you_. The lollipop is still hanging out of his mouth. _Do you want your own?_ _What's your favorite flavor?_ It's such a trivial question, but perhaps a redirection is what they both need in general at the moment. It doesn't matter that Erik can't eat a lollipop right now. _I like everything but watermelon._  
  
Erik shudders, glancing up at the ceiling to compose himself. _I like watermelon,_ his mind slurs back, berating himself like blows from a spiked baseball bat that he can't shove this all back into a box, be what Charles needs, this is unacceptable-  
  
 _Hey_ , Charles interrupts, and swats those thoughts away as if they're nothing. If no one's looking anyway, he doesn't see the problem with climbing into Erik's lap despite the awful throb of pain moving causes, framing his face with both injured hands until he looks at him. I'm right here, love. _You don't need to be anything but what you are. I know how difficult it was for you to watch that, and I wish you hadn't seen it just now. It's alright. Shh. I'm here. I love you. Can you feel that? I love you and you're safe. We're in a horrid, quaint little waiting room, but we're safe and we're together_. Which wasn't true not even four hours ago, so there are certainly blessings here.  
  
 _I barely remember any of this_ , he admits at last, each word slammed into one another like screeching runaway trains and starts laughing, pressing his free hand against his mouth. It's new, because up until now Erik has maintained he did it in full cognizance and that everyone deserved what he had done. _I'm sorry. I'm so sorry-soleach li, bevakasha_ \- slow, deep breaths. He takes several. _Ani beseder._  
  
I know. You were afraid, and it all happened fast, I imagine. Charles had already seen most of it from Erik's thoughts, enough to paint a whole picture for himself. The footage, the thoughts, the way he spoke about it. He'd likely seen it far clearer than Erik, actually. _Please don't be sorry, darling. There's nothing to apologize for._ He waits a beat, and then smiles, soft, adoring. _You forget English, sometimes. Are you aware of it? I can hear you lose the words and switch. It's a multilingual thing, completely natural, but I've never been so consistently in someone's mind like yours - I like it. And your accent. It's incredibly endearing_. It's not far from Erik's comment about his hair. Something besides pain and terror, when both of them are so unsteady.  
  
It's such a flyaway observation that Erik huffs, kissing his cheek. It takes even longer for him to come back to himself enough to reply, and it's with a little shrug. _They taught us English at school, but I only learned it for three years, and I didn't care about it. I became fluent much later._ He supposes that's why his accent is much stronger than Gabby's. _You don't mind?_ his eyebrows arch. He's only ever heard one particular kind of comment about it, and they weren't kind.  
  
It works, then. Charles grins, triumphant and pleased. _I just told you how endearing I found it, so no, I don't mind,_ he promises, and he means it. _I like it a lot, actually. You pronounce words differently. Not wrong, usually, just with a different inflection. It's cute. And sometimes you switch mid-sentence - swap one word with the other. Muddle them up. It's hard to tell because it mostly all sounds similar to me, I'm so used to it now, but I could point it out if I had to. It's..._ He searches for the right word, humming. _Calming. The same way the actual sound of your voice is. Yours. I'd miss it if it was gone, so try not to become too American, alright?_ he teases.  
  
Likewise, he tells Charles in return, not quite able to give a smile back, unprepared for how raw and flayed open he would feel at seeing that image of himself superimposed on television, the way everybody around them just observes it casually while chatting and laughing, going about their lives like ordinary. There's no reason for them to care. No reason for them not to talk about it like it's an interesting conversation piece.  
  
Charles isn't sure if pointing out that they certainly have discussed it, but it's been playing nonstop on every news channel for months now and there's not much more to discuss yet is the best option. Mostly everyone in the nation, unless they somehow live under a rock, has seen that clip enough times to recite it. It's burned into the public consciousness. There'll be a different image soon. They'll think differently, he says, but he's not sure if that will be comforting either. Honestly, he feels a bit out of his element here when he's quite literally raw and flayed open himself. He's about to try again when his phone buzzes in his jacket, and he has to fight off the sick spinning panic as he pulls it out. It's Raven, though. Thirteen whole messages from her. He groans, and for a moment is distracted, ducking his head to reply back. He also has forty-six new emails despite clearing them out just yesterday, but those can wait.  
  
Erik isn't so sure they will. He struggles the last bit of the way to reign his emotions in, hating that he's forced Charles to look after him, and uses the time he texts Raven back to distract himself by watching all the people around them. He can't help feeling agoraphobic, skin prickly, despite knowing they can't see him. Being so out in the open is more of a challenge than he remembers it. A woman laughing beside him makes him startle and press into Charles's side, eyes wide. He tries to laugh it off. _I'm sorry. I'm really muddling this up._  
  
 _You're doing no such thing._ It's firm even as he finishes tapping out a message, which he's realized by now he has to do one-handed because even thinking about rotating his right hand makes him want to cry a bit. It's also his Dominant hand, because at least in that he's like the majority of the population, and that's going to be absolutely irritating. It's strange and uncomfortable, Erik. You're on edge already to begin with. But I'm right here, he promises, even as he rolls his eyes as another email comes in. Forty-seven. Subject line: _'Mistake Grading My Paper?'_ No, probably not, but he'll have to go through the bloody thing again now and if he recalls the name correctly it almost gave him a migraine the first time. Here, take my phone and check my email for me, he jokes, and leans fully against Erik, despite any discomfort, giving him the physical closeness as support. Everyone hates waiting rooms, anyway. They're up there in most hated locations, with the DMV.  
  
DMV? Erik blinks owlishly at him, uncomprehending. The phone hovers above Charles's hand in answer, and even that is a curiosity to Erik. He's never really spent much time looking at his phone, but it's a novelty nonetheless. It's pretty, he thinks and has to snort because it's a ridiculous thing to think about a phone, but it's true.  
  
Department of Motor Vehicles. Dreadfully long lines. Public enemy, he explains, a bit amused despite himself. It's endearing, if nothing else, that he gets to show Erik these things. Things that Charles takes wholly for granted. _It's a modern convenience, is about all_ he's willing to admit in defense of his phone, because he's nothing if not as detached from this brand of technology as he possibly can be. _It serves a purpose, though. My entire schedule is in there, but I prefer the physical version. All my pictures, too. My notes_. He smiles, just slightly. _I typed your rules in here too, just in case. A digital copy never hurts._  
  
That draws the first real smile from Erik in a while. It has its charms, then. When the TV turns back to the news, and subsequently him, Erik blinks at it and it shuts off. The nurse at the front desk fumbles with the remote, only to find it won't turn back on for her. Erik purses his lips so they don't twitch.

* * *

It doesn't actually matter much, because outside of their bubble Charles can hear his name being called. He groans, not at all pleased with needing to stand, because while sitting hurts, getting up after he's already been down is arguably worse. You don't have to come, he promises Erik, even as he starts the limping trek toward the nurse, lifting the veil that covered them.  
  
Erik follows after him, regardless. When they get inside, he sits down in the empty seat beside Charles, straightening and watching the doctor severely, distrusting.  
  
It's actually the nurse, who is a very sweet-looking and thinking old lady, and who regards him with far too much pity in her eyes and mind for his liking. "Hi there, dear. I'm just going to ask you some questions, if that's okay. Do you know your height and weight?"  
  
Charles grimaces. "Five foot six, 109ish pounds," he mumbles. It's definitely underweight, but nothing at all compared to Erik's BMI in those files he'd seen in his thoughts, or even when they brought him into custody. But Charles was a healthy, muscle-toned 124 when this all started, and there lies the problem, really. He'd been hiding that particular fact from Erik.  
  
"Hm," is all the nurse says, nodding as she scratches something on her paper. "And you self-reported as an S1? Are you sure that's correct?" She looks at him over her glasses.  
  
There it is. Charles fights a wry smile. "Absolutely certain," he assures her.  
  
"Hm," she repeats, nodding, and this time Charles has to duck his head to hide his grin. "Now this next question - you can be honest with me, honey," she says, slowly, and Charles hears the question phrased about a dozen different ways before she actually asks. "Did someone hurt you?"  
  
"No," Charles says, lying smoothly though in this case he knows no one will believe him. "I fell down some stairs, that's all." It's true, if the stairs later bent him over naked and beat him.  
  
She clearly doesn't believe him. "Alright then, sugar," she sighs, exhausting her old-people petnames. "The doctor will be right with you. I'll warn you ahead of time we're going to need some X-rays and a physical examination, so if you could change into that gown right over there?"  
  
Charles smiles, nothing if not accommodating. "Of course." When the door closes, his smile falls, all the polite friendliness exhausted out of him. He frowns down at his clothes like they've offended him, because they hurt going on and they're going to hurt coming off, and then everyone's going to see the damage. "This was a stupid idea," he grumbles, ashamed and grumpy.  
  
"She's nice," Erik says, and he's glad that she was because he isn't sure he could've been stopped from putting her head through a wall if she hadn't been, despite her age. In his experience, very few people are, which is a point in her favor. Charles really didn't need to bother hiding that facet from Erik, he knew full well that Charles was hideously underweight, and intended to rectify that as soon as possible. He helps Charles to get undressed and into the gown.  
  
"Okay, Erik, let's not be overdramatic. I am not hideously underweight," he protests, opting to stand this time so he doesn't have to acclimate to the horrible pressure-pain of sitting just to get up again when the doctor came in. "I am slightly below average. And she was very sweet, but she pitied me. I hate being pitied." Another issue with being weak, probably. Charles didn't play victim until it was in his advantage. He'd popped his lollipop out of his mouth and hidden it from her while speaking to the nurse, and now he pops it right back in, petulant. _Steal me another one on the way out?_ he asks, like that's what it will take to make this humiliating experience better.  
  
 _Why does it matter that she pitied you? She was kind. That is what is important. I doubt that ill-treatment by others is your prerequisite for being weak, so I would appreciate it if you ceased applying that descriptor to yourself._ He arches an eyebrow, pointed. _And of course I will, but only if you are a good patient_. He smirks.  
  
Charles tries not to feel that bit of a spark at that smirk, the one that runs up his spine and all the way down to warm his belly. He almost has a witty reply on his tongue when the door swings open again, this time to reveal a tall, serious Dom of a doctor. He isn't afraid, and normally he wouldn't even make the observation except idly, but -  
  
Perhaps Charles is more skittish than he'd thought.  
  
He introduces himself gruffly, and Charles barely has time to breathe before he's being asked to do a number of things. Put his full weight on his ankle (he can't, almost definitely a sprain, they'll do an X-ray). Rotate his wrist (he can't, almost definitely a break, another X-ray). His bruises are examined and prodded, lightly, professionally, and Charles does his best to numb the horrid pain that causes, biting his lip until it bleeds again to curb the whimpers.  
  
Then comes, "Alright, bend over for me, please."  
  
It's an innocuous request. He clearly wants to get a better look at the welts, to see how the skin stretches, to check for problems. But it's spoken as an Order. He likely doesn't mean to. The man's at least a high D3 - it must come naturally to him.  
  
It makes his heart drop into his stomach, and bile rise in his throat. Charles shakes his head, suddenly sweating.  
  
The doctor startles, eyes wide. There's no explanation for it. No breeze, no draft. No one to slam it shut. "You're a mutant, aren't you?" is what comes out of the man's mouth next. His lips curl, and not into a smile. He sighs. "I don't appreciate that kind of behavior in my hospital, Mr. Xavier. We don't play magic tricks here. Now please, if you could kindly bend." He clearly expects to be obeyed this time. Charles doesn't even fully comprehend the words. He's pressed tight against the examination bed, shivering and terrified, his mind a jumble of Russian and cold, dispassionate touches. Concrete beneath his knees and the thump-thump-thud all the way down.  
  
The doctor finds himself following suit, moving backwards until he's pressed up against the wall with nowhere to move. _Let him hear my voice_ , Erik Orders with deadly calm.  
  
Charles shakes his head, and this time it's directed at Erik, but there's nothing he can do. The perception shifts slightly. For his part, he's trying to find a way to wrap his arms around himself defensively without hurting himself, which truly isn't working. The result is that he's whimpering, shivering, sweating, the fever he'd felt earlier turning all his skin into prickling gooseflesh. He's still translating Russian in his head. He can feel Cain's meaty hands undressing him.  
  
 _Be calm,_ he Orders Charles gently. _If he so much as twitches in your direction, mentally or physically, I will Order him to stop. Do you understand? You are safe._ He touches Charles's face. The doctor wasn't in any apparent physical distress or pain, he simply found it impossible to move at the moment. _Apologize and tell him you simply got nervous. I will be with you the whole time. He's a D3. Between the two of us he's certainly not much of a challenge._  
  
That isn't the problem here. Charles isn't afraid of the man in front of him. Even under the wave of suffocating, overwhelming calm, he's not seeing what's in front of him correctly. It's Charles' turn to blink owlishly, swallowing around the lump in his throat. "I - um," he stutters, and he didn't even do this last night, so why is he choking up now? Charles breathes. "I apologize. I was nervous," he whispers, barely audible.  
  
The doctor seems calm, too, and Charles doesn't know if that's him or Erik or both. He nods. "No need to bend over, then," he sighs. "Please turn around."  
  
He does. He can hear the gasp that earns him, the second he sees what his back look like, striped all the way down to his legs. Tears slip down his cheeks, and he's calm but humiliated and he can't stop thinking crawl in Russian.  
  
"These are serious injuries, Mr. Xavier," the doctor's saying, but it all goes in one ear and out the other. Everything's buzzing uncomfortably. He's coming closer. Then there's a hand reaching toward him, and - he's calm, there's no panic, but his heart is racing -  
  
And Cain's thinking about - he's thinking about -  
  
"Don't touch me!" he gasps. He doesn't realize he's projected until the man is frozen again, this time mentally, and Charles is backing away. "Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't fucking touch me," he's repeating, and underneath blanketing calm he can't feel his body is reacting. "Don't come near me, please don't come near me, don't come any closer," he's crying even though the doctor physically can't, his hands pulling at his own hair.  
  
Erik stares vacantly at the scene in front of him for far too long, a high-pitched ringing in his ears blocking out all sound. He sees both of their mouths moving, but can't understand anything they're saying. Every time he tries to hear he jolts back, microphone feedback. Stop- _stop_ , he gasps the Order mentally. Stop. Look at him, Charles. Look. Be calm and look. He is a medical professional. He is not here to hurt you. Azazel is gone. He's gone. He will never give another Order again. Shame has no place here. It's a little too-loud like he's mentally deafened.  
  
Charles stops. He looks. It doesn't mean he sees what's actually there, and - he can be calm, and rational, and good about this. Not cry too hard, or show too much pain. Not flinch when he's touched. That's what he needs to do. But he shakes his head. _I need to leave. I'll go see Hank, he can do any of this. Just please let me leave here,_ he begs. He can't. Not right now. Charles doesn't want to be touched by a stranger right now. It's too soon, and too raw. It's prodding at too many bruises. He hasn't fixed the locks on the doors yet, or even created a room yet. He wasn't ready. It caught him off-guard and now it won't let go.  
  
It doesn't matter whether or not Charles outwardly shows signs of his pain, Erik knows it's there regardless. The Order for calm was for Charles's benefit, not his. Erik replies after a few seconds, nodding. _That is fine. We'll go see Hank._  
  
Charles feels sick and pathetic as he gathers his things. He doesn't bother explaining to the doctor. He erases himself, plants a fake memory, a quick examination that led nowhere because it did not need to. Mostly harmless, and never going to come up again. Something to finish the paper trail. Then he walks right out.

* * *

He should call another car. He's limping worse than before, sweating, breathing heavy. He starts walking instead, like he's dazed, the cool air at least helping with the clammy, too-tight-too-hot feeling. There are too many people on the street now, morning in the city in full swing. Someone bumps into Charles, a knock of the shoulder, and the whole world goes out for a second.  
  
It smells like sulfur. It smells like sulfur and smoke and blood. Charles doesn't know where he is.  
  
Erik tries to follow after him but he gets caught up in the crowd, people pressing in on every part of him, and he whites out completely. People shouting and yelling around them and panic claws desperately at his chest, his mind a rage of helpless fear and fury at himself, at his own fucking inability-cars are honking, sky too-bright, don't touch me. Don't come near me. Crawl. You pathetic bitch. Something's burning and he's covered in it and he vomits on the ground, on the floor of his cell, no one stops because no one sees him. The guards don't care. It feels like forever before Charles senses him at his side again, and he takes him by the shoulder, finding a quiet spot, and everything's shoved back down where it belongs. Submerged and screaming beneath the ocean's surface and he's implacably calm again. He presses Charles's phone into his good hand. "Call for a car," he Orders. "Direct them to Hank's."  
  
Charles felt it all anyway. He's lost and crying and confused, seeing but not seeing, but he does as he's told because he can't not. By the time the car comes it's beeping-honking too loud stutter stop and everything hurts, and Charles whimpers, climbing in, flinching. Everything looks wrong to him. Topsy turvy. Upside down. He doesn't recognize the city streets. It looks like a country he's never been to, sounds like a language he isn't fluent in. The driver asks "rough morning?" and he hears yeah, you'd like it rough, you subby bitch - By the time they get to Hank's office, which isn't far at all, everything is spinning. Charles keeps himself going because he has to. Charles keeps himself going because if he stops, so does the world around him. Charles keeps himself going and going and going and going and then he's stepping inside and he knows Hank's receptionist, she's a very sweet girl, Charles has talked to her many times, likes to discuss 70's music with her - He hurls noisily all over the entryway. Two for two. Her eyes are wide as dinner plates and she's a gentle, ordinary S3 and he hears _Crawl and Subby bitch, you love this, huh_ and thinks the world gets pulled out from under him again.  
  
Erik keeps himself locked away as far below the Earth's crust as he can, down into the molten core where his consciousness is burned up, because if he surfaces for an instant he knows he will intensify what is happening and that isn't something either of them can afford. They're at Hank's office which is good, he is a physician and he'll know what to do. He can't think very clearly down here, there isn't much room for his thoughts to maneuver, but he eventually figures out that he can latch onto Charles's consciousness and drag it down into the box with him, huddling close and keeping arms wrapped around him, away from the outside world. They don't need it.  
  
Charles goes, though he's not sure where he is. He doesn't know the difference right now, right is left and up is down and Erik is here but not and he's sweating but he's so cold it aches and he wants to go home. But he doesn't want to panic Erik here, and he doesn't want to be panicked, so he breathes in sharp stutter-stutters, drowns out the morning sunshine because it was far too bright for him. Charles buries himself in Erik, latches on tight and refuses to let go.  
  
They aren't outside. There's no sound here. Everything is quiet except for their combined heartbeat at a slower pace. It's dark, but not in a frightening way, the edges aglow in soft red-yellow light, and it's warm. There's soil underneath them where they sit.  
  
It doesn't particularly matter where they are. It all looks like too much to Charles right now, feels like concrete stairs and concrete floors and steel doors. He trades that for Erik, though, pushes and pushes and breathes until it's gone and he can count heartbeats. He's sorry, but he doesn't know if he can say it. He clings instead.  
  
Erik looks like he might be asleep, his body limp in Charles's arms, eyes closed, but Charles realizes that he is the heartbeats. He is scattered in the soil, alive in microbiology.  
  
Charles is too disoriented. Everything is too scattered, too quiet. He wants to blink and wake up, and close his eyes and sleep forever. He thinks he might hear voices, but Erik pulled him down here and he can't just leave him. They don't just leave each other. He settles for whimpering, too hot confusion, holding on to Erik because it's the only thing he does know how to do. Just be calm and listen to Erik. Who said that? Everyone. His heart did. Charles wants to listen.  
  
A little tendril curls around Charles's finger, a soft-green thing. _Want to go back to the Real? He's not keeping you hostage here. It's just quieter._  
  
He doesn't want to do anything. It doesn't make any difference right now. He might not be here at all. The sun burns cold out. Being with Erik is never a hostage situation, he just doesn't know how to be with him here or anywhere right now and everything's too untethered and it's really his fault. It's really all his fault. It's really your own fault, you know, boy. Someone is touching him. Please don't touch me. I don't want to be touched. Test tubes. Charles used to want to grow up to be his father. He succeeded, didn't he?  
  
 _It's not your fault._ Gentle laughter. The voice is oddly feminine, a little deprecating. _Taking the blame is easier than admitting you didn't have any control in the first place. It's nice not doing anything, sometimes. You don't need to do anything here. We can just sit._  
  
He really can't. He doesn't know how to sit. To sit or sit still. Never learned. He especially doesn't want to do that like this. Doesn't want to leave, either. Someone is calling for him, but if he goes out there without Erik he doesn't think he'll breathe right and if he forces Erik out there he doesn't think Erik will breathe right so really he's damned either way and maybe he's not helping at all. Maybe he's never helped at all. Maybe he's not any good at all. Maybe he's got too many chemicals in his blood. Erik is made of soil and spirit and the Earth and Charles is manufactured test-tube-experiment house of horrors plastic-covered furniture.  
  
 _There's nothing that you need to do. More gentleness. It's OK that everything feels wrong, sometimes. That there are no right moves. It doesn't mean you are wrong. You are organic, too. You don't need to be good. You can just be._  
  
That doesn't help. Charles does need to be good. He needs to be good, or he won't be anything. He needs to be good, good at everything, good at helping, good at being good. He needs to be good. This isn't helping. None of this is helping. He doesn't want to sit here. He doesn't want this. Charles opens his eyes. He's upside down, maybe. Rightside up? Tilted. He recognizes Hank, barely, and everything is so fuzzy. It hurts more than he remembers it hurting. Are his clothes off? No, just his shirt. Why his shirt? But it's Hank. He'll be okay, maybe. Charles opens his mouth but the only thing that comes out is more retching. Please just make it go away, he begs, and he doesn't realize he's pressed it too roughly until he sees Hank flinch. Be gentle, Charles. Gentle or you'll break them. Sorry, but it doesn't come out. Sins of the father. Mother, I'm frightened. Just go to bed, Charles. It's so bright out here and he wants to cry but don't you fucking do it.  
  
When he rejoins the world he drags Erik along with him and a bunch of instruments slam into the opposite wall as he does, metal twisting into awkward shapes and denting the ground with a loud screech. He's beside Charles and he just holds him, trying not to exist except for heartbeats. There is no reason for him to exist, his body is good enough. He isn't helpful and he doesn't need to be. He holds Charles and Orders him to be still through it for as long as it takes for Hank to complete his examination, the both of them trapped between this-world and the deep-dark.  
  
That's not right, but Charles won't argue. He's hurting too much to argue, open too wide to argue, flayed too hot to argue, and if he aches then so be it. He's ached and longed his entire life for something, he doesn't know what it is not to want. Maybe it's because of his father. Apples and trees. He just wants to cry. Hank is looking at something for too long and he sniffles, coming back and dragging everything with him as he sits up and covers himself, wincing at the pain. "Sorry," he mumbles, not sure who he's mumbling it to.  
  
Hank lowers the X-ray sheet and sends him a look of consternation. "Raven told me what happened," he says with little preamble. "Which was not much, considering. Is this going to be a problem in the future?"  
  
Charles has no idea what that means. A problem in the future? Is he going to be a problem? He doesn't want to be a problem, so he bites his bloody lip. "No," he whispers. Would everyone please just give him a second to lock some doors, please? He just needs a second. He just needs a second.  
  
"Mmm hmmm." Hank is skeptical. He raises the sheet again to study it, since no one is dying or screaming in his clinic anymore.  
  
He was pretty sure he kept still. So how did he move? Is Erik gone? Was he ever even there? Maybe Charles is imagining everything. That's a frightening thought, but a silly one. This is all so silly. Charles lets his head fall back and closes his eyes. He needs to find the red smoke and the stench that comes with it and get it behind a door, quick. Everything's leaking. "Broken?" he asks. It's definitely broken. Charles can fix it, he always does.  
  
Erik touches his face, reassuring him that he was still there. Don't fix it. Let Hank.  
  
"Oh yeah," Hank huffs. "You're going to need a cast for a while, but no surgery, thankfully."  
  
Hank can't fix his mind. He's not that kind of doctor, and even if he was, it wouldn't work. Charles is silent for a beat too long, and then he makes a face. "A cast?" He's trying to sit up, now, and, yes, wow. That hurts and he's dizzy. He sticks to the table. Bleeding again, maybe. "Surely I don't need a cast."  
  
"Ah, I forgot," Hank rolls his eyes, "you did your residency in what was it, orthopedics, again?" It's not biting, though, and Hank smiles, toothy. "Yes, Charles, a cast, and there's no arguing it if you want to avoid surgery."  
  
For a moment he almost says, _fine, I'll take the surgery, then,_ because Charles hates casts, but that would be ridiculous. He settles for a bleary scowl that manages to look far too much like a pout. "And - everything else?" He's sure Hank saw it. He turns his head so he doesn't have to see any sort of reaction there. Hank might be in calm physician mode now, but Charles can still hear the close friend brother-in-law gears working up there.  
  
"Most of it's superficial, thank G-d. There's no internal bleeding or damage to the organs, but you're going to be laid up for a while. I'm prescribing a painkiller to help take some of the edge off as well as a round of antibiotics, so you can get those filled at the pharmacy when you're feeling up for it. Your ankle is sprained, but not severely, though I recommend staying off it as much as you possibly can. Your wounds were dressed quite well, and the sutures were excellent, but I took them out and put in some dissolving ones while you were unconscious. The rest is standard wound care, and pain management." Hank smiles at him.  
  
Charles sighs, as relieved as he can be. He didn't think there was anything internal going on here, but Erik was right. Better safe than sorry. "Thanks, Hank." He was definitely going to tell Raven about this, and she was definitely going to worry herself sick. He had to nip that in the bud as soon as possible. A running to-do list. Charles is already going again, whirring like a rebooting machine. "Sorry for throwing up in your lobby. I'll make up for it," he teases, half-hearted. When he blinks, for everyone but him (and Erik), he's completely healed save for the wrist and ankle. The things that have physical tells, and complications. "Ta-da," he mutters, dryly.

* * *

Erik touched his face again, pleased.  
  
"If only it worked like that in real life," Hank says gently. "Trust me, you probably enhanced the lobby."  
  
A stuttering machine, because he really feels cold and sick and there's far too much Russian in his head still, but a machine. It's just a bump, Charles. "Perhaps, but I frightened your poor receptionist, and that is not groovy." His grin feels more like an act than genuine amusement, but he keeps it up because to not would be to admit he can't. "Alright, well. Cast me up, doc," he sighs, lifting his hand. "What time is it, anyway?" He's obviously not wearing his watch. He glances at the clock on the wall and pales. 8:30. No way he's making it. Now he has to call Carmen Pryde and say - what? He went on a bender last night, sorry can't make it? Charles swallows the shame and panic. No, he'll just reschedule. Eleven. He had a family emergency - and subsequently broke his wrist? No, he's the emergency. Stairs. He fell down. No bruises, though? Charles stares. What's wrong with his head? He's supposed to be so good at this.  
  
"She's a medical receptionist. She's seen worse," Hank's dry. "Just lay your hand on this armrest here," he wheels over a small stool. "You can drape your arm over the edge but make sure you keep it straight. The good news is that we managed to scan your actual arm which means the cast is custom-fitted to you, it'll be held in place with strips, which leave most of your arm visible and help to alleviate itching. So you can use a mouse or type with little issue. At the same time it will immobilize and support your wrist." He begins to apply the aforementioned cast design, with always more agility than one expected from a huge, well, beast.  
  
The stairs will be effective, Erik shushes him. It's more believable than what you looked like before. Erik can be gentle but this is a little too much to be recognized as the man that Charles knows. Erik prefers to be firm where possible. He's still plastered to Charles's side, holding him steady. You don't always need a bruise and even if so, you can just say your clothing covers them.  
  
Which doesn't help. It's just another thing out of place, another dizzying, uncomfortable sensation. Why is this frustrating him so much? Why is he so lost at sea? This isn't supposed to get to him anymore. Charles promised himself - The cast is in place, and all things considered, it's not awful. Charles smiles, and it feels like his face is drooping. "Thanks, Hank," he says again. "I'll drop by later, okay? Tell Raven I love her and that I'm fine." He sighs, shaking his head. "I really am fine, yeah?" Charles walks out of there with most of his dignity, except, of course, that he doesn't want to go outside. It's too bloody bright, too many people. Any of them could be Cain or Azazel or - stop it, Charles. Don't be overdramatic. Yes, Mother, sorry. Where was he going? Home. He needs to change right quick. He dials Carmen Pryde in the car. What else does he need? Something about - he's out of milk -

* * *

" _Paragon_ -oh, Charles," Carmen sounds like he's driving and he berps the horn loudly in the background. "Watch it!" he grumps at an old lady. Listen, it's been a morning. "Sorry," he waves his hands at her apologetically and she gives him the finger. Well, he tried. "Charles-what can I do for you?"  
  
Charles winces at the sound. It feels like it reverberates in his skull. "Uh -" Great start. He brings his hand up to rub his face, except it's in a cast. Right. "Sorry, it's been - I've had a rough start of it. Fell down some stairs. I broke my wrist, sprained my ankle. Not fun business, but I'm alright. I've just been to the doctor, but -" What did he want again? Charles' mouth is dry. "I'll be there, I just need another hour or so. Sorry for the -" What's the damn word? Loss. No. "Inconvenience." There we go.  
  
"Yikes. I'm sorry to hear that. Take your time," Carmen says predictably. "I'm just heading up there now. I'll see if I can pull any blood from the stone." It's gruff, but amused. "I'm glad you're all right, seriously."  
  
Charles tries to muster up something close to a chuckle. It comes out a breathless snort. "Thanks. Don't push him too hard, I'm sure he hasn't been having the best morning either. See you in an hour." There we go. Click. Taken care of. His apartment is just up ahead. Charles' head is spinning. What else does he need to do? Milk. Forget the milk, Charles, what else? Emails. What else? Warren. He looks down at his phone and taps out a quick, barely present _'all good.' What else? Polzat'._ He's clammy and dizzy again. He could have stopped by the pharmacy. Later.  
  
Erik keeps watch over him and he can feel it. Pages turning, a faint ruffle of warm wind. The guiding force from above that turns him onto the right path, pulls reminders out of thin air on the tip of his tongue, buffets him in one direction or another. Fluttering wind chimes. It's not the same as what he's used to, but there is a presence infinitesimally looking after him in a thousand subtle, small motions. They take him to the pharmacy and back home to change and eat breakfast.  
  
Charles already ate. He'll eat again. Take a handful of painkillers, chase them with a glass of water, he hates the bloody things but, fine, he'll admit he probably needs them. Back in the car. The blindfold, the suppressants that do nothing, the drone of someone familiar talking in the frontseat. Moira meets him downstairs, and he's fairly certain he dissociates out of that conversation. Through the metal detector. They have to take his belt off. He flinches, barely holds back a whimper. The lash never comes. Onward. Carmen Pryde is already in Erik's - Erik's cell. No turtlenecks here. Everything's too hot. His skin is prickling. Is his telepathy working? Yes. Deep breaths. He plasters on a smile as he's led inside. "Hello," he greets. "What did I miss, then?" he asks. _Cain is thinking - stop. Please just stop._

* * *

I mean, the black is close enough. Pryde looks grim as he rifles through a few pieces of paper attached to a clipboard. "No luck with stones," he laughed and stood when Charles entered. Erik has his head in his fingertips and his elbows against the table and he's staring at the wall unaware. Charles can still feel him in his head, and it's not a clear match up, he's still lagging behind drifting Charles from one thing to another. "But I've been taking a look at this medical report and it's pretty vivid." Erik slowly lifts his gaze and tilts his head at them. Beside Charles where he is not in the Real he takes his good hand, squeezing in reassurance.  
  
Charles doesn't want to look. He already knows exactly what's in there, but it doesn't mean he wants to read it again. "Mm," he murmurs, and reaches for it anyway, smiling politely as it's passed over. It means letting go of Erik's Not-Hand, and honestly that's fairly disorienting and he doesn't know what to do about it. Just focus on not being sick, Charles. That's all. His eyes skim the papers. "More than vivid, I'd say," he mutters, and he's gone a bit green in the face. "I had a thought." Somehow, in all the whirring. "That recording they keep playing everywhere. There's -" Pryde doesn't have the memory he does, so this is going to be difficult to explain. "There's a moment. Just a blip. I've watched the thing a thousand times now, but if you look closely - first of all, he's bleeding, and not 'I'm a terrorist and got attacked in self-defense' bleeding. There are brand new whip marks on his back." If they zoom in, it's fairly clear to see. How he'd manage to miss it the first dozen times, he'll never know. For all his wonders, he's only human, and the eye sometimes sees what it thinks it should. "Secondly, there's -" Charles purses his lips. Perhaps he shouldn't mention this at all.  
  
Pryde arches his brows. "Trust me, anything you've noticed will be beneficial. At the very least it can't hurt."  
  
"If I had the recording -" Charles sighs, then holds up his free hand after he's set down the charts. "Give me a moment." They don't allow phones in here, but if he badgers Moira enough he's bound to get one. He's right, because she can't actually stand in the way of this. The guard outside is hovering a bit more than usual, like Erik is going to kill everyone with a cellphone, but it is what it is. "Okay. Look." It takes quick fingers to pause the video at the right moment. "Screaming, yes. But then he turns his head and -" He's clearly saying something. No matter how hard he tries, though, and he's run it a thousand times in his head, he can't read his lips well enough to figure out what it is. It doesn't help that it's not English. He points to the edge of the screen. "And there's movement here. Something. Definitely not usable, but perhaps worth pointing out. It changes it from damning evidence, at the very least. It clearly doesn't show what they think it does." Charles has stopped seeing it that way a long time ago.  
  
"Oh, hell," Pryde laughs a bit. He lifts the phone higher and gazes at it. "Erik, what are you saying here, hm?" he murmurs to himself more than his client. The tone of his voice makes Erik lean closer to him and Pryde looks utterly shocked about it when Erik rests his head on his shoulder very slowly like he's ready to explode back at any moment. "Uh-!" he gestures to Charles over Erik's back like what do I do with this-? "This looks like German. _Danke vielen_ -thank you very much-is he talking to Shaw? No... you'd have killed him outright." He taps the top of Erik's head. " _Raus hier, verwahren_. Get out of here, keep something safe."You should be home resting, is the first thing Charles hears said in Erik's voice in quite some time.  
  
"Yes, well, I'm not," he mutters dryly, and realizes he's said it out loud a moment later. It doesn't really matter. Pryde knows he can read minds. He's smiling just a bit more sincerely now as he leans in closer, squinting. "How on Earth did you get that much from that grainy picture? Do I need glasses?" It's too early for his vision to be going out. It could also be that he wasn't expecting German, and his brain's too muddled to process much of anything right now. His foreign language processing is understandably shot after the night before. "It's keep them safe. Get out of here, keep them safe." Which completely changes how the scene is playing out, of course.  
  
"Don't beat yourself up. I'm trained in lipreading," Pryde tells him like that's a skill ordinary people just walk around having. There's a lot of lockboxes in his head now that Charles thinks about it. Almost as many, if not more, as Erik's, but for a much different reason. More in line with Moira and Duncan. "If we can get this enhanced, I'll pair it with a translator and an image enhancer, a jury should eat at least some of it up. You recall one of our initial conversations, those other patients-do you think this is related to them?"  
  
 _Well you should be_ , Erik looks up at him from his new spot, eyes bloodshot. _Hi._ Charles feels a kiss near his temple. _I love you_. "Someone remembers," he realizes, "because they remembered before, remember-" he flicks a finger at Charles. "Um, I don't remember," he screws up his face.  
  
"He's not making any sense, Charles. Make him make sense."  
  
Charles lowers his head to hide a relieved, soft smile, one that's only for Erik. He'll see it if even if it's hidden. Hi, darling, I love you too, he murmurs back. "It's absolutely related," he tells Pryde, with full confidence. Even he's a bit confused by Erik's next words, though, and he raises an eyebrow. "Usually I speak fluent Erik, but that one's iffy. I fell down the stairs this morning, I'm running half power here," he jokes. More like at 20% and draining as we speak, but that's neither here nor there. "Could you rephrase?" _Love?_ The petname is tacked on mentally, almost an afterthought. He's taken the phone back from Pryde to watch the recording over again, humming to himself. "What is this?" he mutters, to himself.  
  
"Embarrassing," he hid his head fully. "When-" it's slipping away, marbles clattering across the floor and rolling under the doors. "No, let me find it myself, I think I'm embarrassed." He busies himself carding his fingers through Charles's hair, separating the strands which fly up of their own accord. _For you,_ he floats a lollipop out of his pocket. Cherry flavored. Erik took it on the way out. "Kurt," he finally plucks a name out of the chaotic abyss. "Kurt Wagner." He pronounces it the German way. "But maybe-me, maybe I," he corrects dumbly, "maybe I know more about it."  
  
Pryde blinks at him. "I should damn well hope so," he snorts. "We'll get to Kurt Wagner," Pryde decides after a second, writing that down, along with underlining the confusing pronoun switches. "So, you'll be happy to know we've worked with Quested to determine how the Cross will work. I will of course read what we compile here today, and Quested's team will submit their questions for consideration in writing. We'll reconvene to answer them. Petrakis approved it last night. Right now we need to focus on developing a coherent timeline."

* * *

They're already an hour behind schedule, so he flips over the clipboard to a blank page. "In cases like this I usually like to start from the beginning-and because we've got a lot of ground to cover, and there's a great deal of-" he grimaces and just touches his own head. "I'm recommending we advance forward in increments of three years, starting with when you were first taken from your village. Can you describe the incident in which you were taken?"  
  
Erik just looks at him from his perch. There is absolutely no way that is going to happen today, not with Charles as out of sorts as he is. Erik won't countenance it. He shakes his head. Figure out the trial, hang the trial, hang him, he doesn't care.  
  
Charles is - disoriented. Very disoriented. There's a lollipop floating around where Pryde can't see it, and he snatches it and tries very hard not to laugh, shoving it back in his pocket. _Thank you, Erik_ , he manages, but - right. He has a vague timeline of things himself. There have been several points now where all of it was open to him, and Charles tends to soak things up like a sponge whether he wants to or not. Has he processed all of it? No, absolutely not. Is it going to take an incredible amount out of him to sit here and be professional listening to it? Yes, absolutely. Probably more than he has in him right now. He does catch the end of Erik's thought, and he frowns. Stop. No hanging. Eighty minimum, he reminds, because he just doesn't have it in him right now to even jokingly think about Erik dying. He sighs. Erik, the sooner we get this done - His eyes widen. German-Catholic teleporter. German. Teleporter. Charles stares back down at the screen, and finally recognizes what he's seeing. Kurt Wagner, the German-Catholic teleporter, or the edges of said teleporting, hence the strange distortion, and what he's fairly sure is smoke. Slow today, Charles, but we got there.  
  
"I know this isn't easy," Pryde says, "but if you want a shot at a normal life, you need to testify. That's why you stuck around, right?" his eyebrows arch. "This is our shot." Erik shakes his head again but he's looking at Charles _. If you don't have it I can't ask it from you. I will not._ He touches the phone and the picture clears up immediately, making him smile and Pryde stare. He's never seen Erik's mutation in action before and it's fascinating but that's definitely not why they're here. He was nice.  
  
The name Kurt is an unfortunate coincidence. It hadn't even bothered him a moment ago, and now it's making his head all muddled again. This Kurt and his Kurt - his Kurt? No, Charles was Kurt's - what? His stepfather. Sins of the father. Why does he keep thinking that? Charles has not given thought to sins his entire life. It's just a convenient phrase, something reminds him, like he's actually got voices in there. A convenient phrase to explain how your father was a corrupt son of a - He truly hates that word. Charles wants to argue. "I'm fine," he mumbles, because he's said it about a dozen times now. He's also just said it out loud. Charles grimaces. "Sorry, I was just - _" Why is everything spinning again? Project: Black Womb._ What a quaint name.  
  
Erik stands and shakes his head. "We are finished."  
  
"What- _Erik_! There are only so many ways we can push this trial back, and more than likely Petrakis will order that it continues without your testimony. If that happens, you will lose, and you will spend the rest of your life in an Israeli prison. Is that really what you want right now."  
  
"Yes," Erik says without hesitation. He can just spend time with Charles in their minds. That's fine.  
  
"No," Charles says, just as firmly. That's not happening. Not even a chance. That's not fine. He's not bringing Erik around with him like an imaginary friend, unseen and unheard, never able to have a life with him. It's not fucking happening. "We're not finished. Now everyone sit down, we're going to talk about villages and horrific, awful things." His foot is down.  
  
 _I will be an adorable imaginary friend,_ Erik crosses his arms, just as stubborn.  
  
 _And I'll go mad, so sit down and start talking,_ he demands, because he only has so little coherence to spare and even less patience. Best not waste it. Charles sits, hiding his wince. "Well?" he asks, eyebrow arched. "Go on, then. Sit." He's talking to both of them, as if he's the high-Dom in the room.  
  
Erik sighs loudly and straightens his posture. The sooner this is over with, the safer Charles will be. He knows that, but there is a lot about even that first incident which he kept from Charles. He will have to hear about Azazel and countless others, in addition to Shaw, and Frost.  
  
Pryde isn't so easy to dismiss, either. "We have this room for the day and I'm not leaving here until I have something I can use. I'm sorry, but that's final and you're going to have to get over it."  
  
"You would be an awful psychiatrist," Erik glowers at him.  
  
"I'm told my bedside manner is one of my best qualities." Pryde cocks an eyebrow back.  
  
He closes his eyes, continuing to stand. "There is something you both need to know about Sebastian Shaw," he murmurs, pained and soft.  
  
The sooner this is over, the sooner Erik will be free. That matters far more than some discomfort, a bit of mental and physical strain. He might not see it now, but Charles knows that he wants it. If he let this slide and Erik ended up withering away in a prison, neither of them would be fine with it. They would also never make it. This is the only shot they have, and there's more than enough worth fighting for. Isn't there? he thinks, pointed. Charles steadies himself. "Please tell us, Erik," he says, and he's professional and collected again. I can handle this, darling. Go ahead.  
  
He waves Pryde over to him, shooting an apologetic look to Charles. _I'll get to it,_ he promises, before bending (Pryde isn't short exactly but even three inches on Charles still has Erik towering over him) and murmuring something in his ear. He knows that Charles *knows* anyway what he's saying, but the taking him aside-it's a maneuver for Pryde's benefit, a camaraderie that he doesn't realize they both have until Pryde swears, loudly.  
  
"You're absolutely certain," he asks Erik, but they both know he is. Charles can feel him brimming with a practically incoherent mixture of rage and righteous victory. "Do you have any idea-any idea-" he's saying, gesturing wildly.  
  
Charles frowns. First of all, it's ridiculous that they're whispering like schoolboys, and second, he can just read either of their minds, defenses or not, especially with it so close to the surface like that. He deliberately chooses not to, and makes sure Erik is aware that it's a choice on his part, arms crossed over his chest. Which irritates bruises, but so be it. "Would one of you like to share?" he asks, practically vibrating with irritation and dread.  
  
Erik gestures for Charles to sit back down, and stays standing, needing the comfort of it. "I didn't discover it until this year. I've always known what Shaw was," he adds, grimacing, "just not what he did. Shaw is not his real name. He is very old, and he has implemented himself into positions that allow him the maximal amount of power throughout history."  
  
"According to what Erik just told me, the man's real name is Klaus Schmidt," Pryde explains. "And believe you me, this is something I'm going to prioritize. You remember how I said there would be a trial for Shaw if Erik were acquitted? The scale of that trial is looking a lot bigger. Erik-why didn't you come forward with this until now?"  
  
"I did not think I would be believed," he whispers. Even with Charles's trust of him, this is... _egregious_. "And I do not have any useful information. I don't know where he served. He doesn't have a tattoo. Schmidt may very well be an alias."  
  
"I didn't get where I am today without contacts, son. Rest assured if there is an iota of a trail, we'll find it. When did you discover this, and how?"  
  
"I sneaked into his office. It was part of my escape plan. I needed to make a copy of the key he used to get in and out of the laboratories, so that I could get the other patients to safety."  
  
Charles doesn't actually remember standing up, if he's honest, nor sitting down besides the rush of pain. What he does remember is the searing nuclear reaction of Shaw's mind. What most don't know about his telepathic abilities, and often completely misunderstand, actually, is that a majority of it is passive. He certainly can focus his efforts, but a majority of that effort is actually spent not reading. Contrary to popular belief, as nosy as he is, Charles doesn't feel the need to massively invade most people's privacy on sight, and he often holds back as much as possible. Narrows it down to surface thoughts, consciously, to ensure as much of that privacy as he can, and even then he often knows more than he intended. He often wonders exactly where the line in his mutation is drawn - what is feasible for a regular human, and what is uniquely his. Charles' brain is a running archive of vast amounts of easily recollectible, perfectly processed data, the likes beyond any modern supercomputer. While it's a neat party trick, recalling minute details from several years back in stunning specifics, it's also incredibly useful. Most of the information he gathers is just as passively stored, and he doesn't always know he has it until it's relevant. There's plenty of whirring going on in there. Charles stares ahead, but it's clear he's listening, and he nods mostly for Pryde's sake. He doesn't look surprised. He does look grim. But there's something else, too. "If only information gleaned telepathically could be used on the stand," he mutters to himself, lips twitching.  
  
"I am not a hundred percent sure I agree with that on principle, but right now, it can be used here," Pryde tells him darkly. "The more I know, the better chance I have of finding this information, the stronger case we have." It's unfortunate, then, that he knows he'll need to share this information with Quested, because he's a lot of things, but he can't have the man walking into this blind. No one deserves that.  
  
"The reason I mention it now is because it is important for you-" Pryde, he means, because he knows that Charles already does, "to understand the depth of his motivations, and the origin of his methodology. He came to my village because he wanted to study the phenomenon that produced Omega-level mutations, such as mine and Charles's."  
  
"Omega-level?" Pryde's eyebrows raise. "Kitty's an Alpha, and that's pretty damn high."  
  
"Most Omega-level mutants die in infancy. I survived, so I was of value. Mutation is its own class of genetic superiority." He spits it like an epithet, disgusted.  
  
"Isn't that quaint."  
  
"He believed that mutants were destined to wipe out their lesser-evolved cousins, _homo sapiens_ , just as _homo sapiens_ had done to _homo neanderthalensis._ He claims all _homo sapiens_ are inferior, primitive, and rife for subjugation."  
  
"He sounds like a lunatic," Pryde rolls his eyes.  
  
"A very powerful, well-connected, Omega-level lunatic."  
  
"Is he naturally Omega-level?"  
  
"No."  
  
"So he came to your village, and then what happened?"  
  
"He burned it down, forcing its inhabitants to cluster into a small area." Erik clutched his hands together tightly, having long switched over into an objective, scientific driver. "Azazel Rasputin was there. At the time I was not aware of his name. He Ordered them to shoot one another. My father was killed there. This happened before I came home that day."  
  
Pryde wrote all of this down. "And then what happened?"  
  
"He killed my mother and sister in front of me while Azazel held me down. He went to ensure everything burned smoothly and gave Azazel free reign over me." Erik shook his head, pressing himself into the wall. "I can't do this. Please don't make me do this." There is nothing plaintive about the request, just as cold and detached as his prior recounting.  
  
Charles reaches out, mentally rather than physically. Wraps himself entirely around Erik. You can do this, my darling, he assures. For us.  
  
But his brain is currently hot as a supernova, expression darker than he believes Erik has ever seen it. "A question," he interjects. "I believe every word of this testimony." Which isn't the question. It goes without saying. He continues. "Others may not. Even if we found a paper trail, and I'm positive we could if we looked hard enough - wouldn't it be easier to have witness testimony that corroborates what Erik is saying?" He looks at Pryde, mouth in a thin line, chin lifted. "We have that ability, don't we? To bring forth a key witness? Of course the prosecution would need to cross examine them, but that shouldn't be a problem."  
  
Pryde peers at him. "Absolutely, but we don't have any other witnesses-do we? The other patients-?"  
  
Erik's shaking his head, and he slides down to the floor, wrapping his arms around his knees. He isn't telepathic, but he can guess where this is going.  
  
This is the best chance they have. The one thing Sebastian Shaw will not expect. And in his own trial, it will be key evidence, before he can ever prepare for it. It has to be now, or it won't be at all.  
  
Charles goes through every possibility in that whirring mind of his. And eventually, he settles. "A passing thought," he murmurs. But he hasn't dropped it. "Sorry. Go on."  
  
"If you know another witness who is viable, we need that information now," Pryde insists.  
  
Erik hunches further.  
  
Fine, then. Depending on how this conversation goes, he could always erase it completely from Pryde's mind. Apparently he has far less compunctions about that sort of thing than he used to. Charles will address his own moral failings at a later date.  
  
What he needs is for Pryde to trust him. They can give all sorts of excuses as for where the information he's about to give comes from, but right now it garners an explanation.  
  
Slowly, perhaps too subtle to notice at first, he drops the perception filter for Pryde. Bruises blossom over his face, his neck, the peek of collarbone, his arms where he'd rolled his sleeves up on the way here, hot and oversensitive. They're deep, pulsing violet, and look exactly as painful as they are. "I didn't fall down the stairs this morning," he says simply, and waits.  
  
Pryde's eyes widen as he looks Charles over from head to toe. "What the hell happened? Are you-are you talking about yourself? You know I can't let you do that. It's a conflict of interest."  
  
Shrinking even more into the wall, Erik shakes his head over and over. No, no, no. Stop. Stop. "Stop," he croaks hoarsely.  
  
Charles takes a breath. He can't do this without Erik. There's no way he can violate him like that, whether it's a guaranteed acquittal or not. Erik, please. I know it frightens you. I know neither of us want to look at that man ever, ever again. I certainly don't. But he deserves to be tried for his own crimes, and if I can save you and bring Shaw down with him, I will.  
  
He puts his head on his knees and chokes back his initial response. He knows as useful as Azazel's testimony will be, they'll still make him go through with his own. He's on trial here after all, not Azazel, but it's perhaps in the hopes of prolonging that experience that he nods. "OK," he mumbles.  
  
So Charles takes a long, slow breath. He still has to close his eyes. "No, I'm not suggesting I testify," he explains. "I'm suggesting the man who attacked me last night does. Azazel Rasputin." Who, as far as the authorities are concerned, has been missing for quite some time.  
  
Pryde blinks at him again. "Azazel Rasputin the _D5_ ," he asks, but it's more like a statement. "Who is also a teleporter and a wanted fugitive, in many additional cases. What makes you think he'll come forward? He sounds like a co-conspirator of _this_ case."  
  
Charles had expected that, of course. He's not entirely sure what the reaction to this will be. "Repeat all those things you just named," he says, slowly, deliberately. "And then ask yourself why I'm sitting here in this room and not dead. Or worse." Carmen Pryde is not an idiot. His telepathy is the only thing that saved him. He doesn't need to know all the details, or that Erik's claim as his Dom was another factor. "He'll come forward. That I can promise you."  
  
There are a lot of things that Carmen Pryde is not. An idiot is only one. Liable to look a gift horse in the mouth is another. "If he enters our custody," he says, leaving a lot up in the air, "I'll be sure that the appropriate people are notified."  
  
"Brilliant," Charles says, and means to clasp his hands in his lap, except that one of those hands is currently in a cast. He settles for sitting straighter, closing his eyes, and restoring the filter. "Shall we continue, then?"  
  
Azazel's mind is still connected to him. Charles has it so tightly wrapped around his little finger that none of this will take any effort at all. It's absolutely horrifying, the amount of power he's learning he has, but, again. Later.

* * *

Erik keeps shaking his head. "I cannot do this," he repeats again. "Just take me back to my cell."  
  
Charles doesn't know what the right move here is. He doesn't know if he should push to get him through this, or - or what? Let it go? Leave massive holes in his testimony to be picked at by the prosecution?  
  
He's already close to tipping off the edge himself. But Erik needs him now. _Please_ , he all but begs. _I know, Erik. I know how difficult this is. I know how impossible it seems, putting these things into words. But I need you to do this. If not for yourself, then for us_. Erik had been very plain about giving Charles anything he asked for this morning. This is what he wants most. _I want a life with you. A long, joyful, extraordinary life. I can't have that if you're behind bars somewhere. A long time ago, I asked why you'd taken a chance to be happy together from us. I was wrong then. You hadn't. But if you stay silent now, you'll be denying us it. And don't we deserve it, darling?_ Although Charles doesn't move, there's a mental caress there, a brush of knuckles against cheek. _After everything, don't we?_  
  
"Yes," he mumbles again, aloud. _You think you were wrong?_  
  
That you stole a life from us? I was absolutely wrong, and I've already admitted it. For all his stubbornness, Charles has proven several times over he has no problems admitting when he's truly wrong. Not many people have ever held him accountable, is the problem. That their dynamic does and that it's exactly what he needs is no secret. _You didn't take anything from us. We have a chance, Erik. A beautiful, rare chance to build something incredible together. A happy, long, healing life, complications be damned. But not if you're locked up._  
  
"I just need to get a sense of what happened," Pryde adds. "It's the only time you'll need to do this. The cross-examination is completely voluntary."  
  
Erik wishes he had a blanket. _I'm glad you don't think that anymore,_ he whispers softly, a mental projection standing behind him and speaking into his hair, laying kisses there. Drawing comfort and giving it as best as possible, so incredibly apologetic for what must come next, that they can't just leave this cold place and go home and spend the rest of the day in bed talking and holding one another and watching television. Charles could show Erik all of his favorite TV shows. Did he even watch TV? Erik would probably like TV, as long as it didn't have his face in it, he thinks with a huff. It's a silly fancy, but healing wasn't always grand gestures.  
  
It takes a long time for him to reorient himself back in the moment and he sits up sitting with his legs in a half-lotus position, back straight. He recounts the rest of the incident in an icy tone, completely detached, describing how Azazel had been gleeful at the discovery of a D5, of having someone under his power that technically couldn't be Ordered. For someone like him it was the ultimate rush, and the first occurrence happened then and there.  
  
Pryde is ordinarily a fairly passionate person, unafraid to be honest in his emotions, although more like Warren in manner and that's likely why him and Charles got along on the surface, but there's not even a flicker of reaction now. He asks clarifying questions in a warm, but measured way. "And then you were transported to this facility. Do you recall how?"  
  
"They had a van."  
  
"Was it marked? Plates?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Were you transported directly after the assault?"  
  
"No. I was made to bury the inhabitants of my village, after which time the pit was set ablaze."  
  
"And this was at age-"  
  
"Eleven."  
  
Pryde strategically lifts his clipboard to rest on his forehead.  
  
The sound Charles makes is choked, more of a gasp for air than anything. They're far too connected, and even with Erik perhaps deliberately skirting around thoughts for him, it doesn't matter. If Erik had felt every lash as if it were his own last night, Charles smells burning flesh now. It crawls up into his nose and suffocates everything else, crackling flames and the thick stench of grief. He claps his hand over his mouth, closes his eyes, and does his very best not to be sick. It just barely works, but it sends him into a coughing fit. Everything aches. It's nothing compared to what Erik endured at the age of eleven. "Pardon me," he croaks. _I love you_ , he thinks, and doesn't see how it could possibly make up for anything, but it's all he has to offer.  
  
Pryde waves his hand dismissively, still tactically covered by the clipboard, and when he lowers it no one's the wiser except the telepath in the room who is fully aware he's not alone in his horror. "Talk me through the mundane aspects," he says, hoping it holds effect on multiple fronts. To give them a bit of a breather and to establish a pattern of systematic breakdown.  
  
 _Don't-please-you don't need this. I don't need to do this. Let me leave. Just let me leave. We can be finished._ Erik doesn't think he can go on if it's going to hurt Charles like this, it's the reason he hasn't spoken about any of this explicitly. He can't have it cause Charles pain. It's already done enough. It makes up for everything.  
  
 _We'll bear it together. It's going to hurt._ He can't promise it won't. Even if he hides it, even if he dulls the connection enough that Erik doesn't feel it, the absence of feeling will speak volumes anyway. _So that we can heal from it. The sooner we finish this session, the sooner I can take you home with me. We'll make a late lunch together. Watch television, listen to music, lie in bed and chat. That's the kind of life we can have together if we finish this, Erik. For us, please._  
  
He inhales sharply, wishing Charles were on the ground with him so he could bury himself in his chest, but that wouldn't be a good idea even if it were an option. "Mundane?" he breathes out, swallowing.  
  
"For example, where were you held? What was a typical day for you like from the time you entered the Institute?"  
  
"I had a bedroom in the conditioning complex, which I was not permitted to leave until I ceased speaking. I was punished for speaking by Azazel."  
  
"-speaking." Pryde is incredulous. "What do you mean, speaking?"  
  
"A D5's Dominance is related to presence but it is also related to their voice. You need to be able to speak to give Orders, so to protect his operation Shaw had to make sure I wouldn't Order him or his subordinates to abet my escape. Azazel oversaw this aspect of my training, because I could not Order him to release me."  
  
"How did he punish you?"  
  
"Physically. Sexually. Humiliation. Isolation. Wait," he waves his fingers. "I don't know the words in English," Erik realizes after a second. He looks at Charles for help and then shakes his head when he realizes he very much does not want him to see those things.  
  
It doesn't matter. Charles has already seen it, and in far greater, gorier detail than he's seeing now. There was the added _pleasure_ from Azazel's perspective, the satisfaction and thrill. Even with it missing, his brain supplies him with it. It gives him both at once, victim and and perpetrator. He has to stand up. Charles nearly trips as the chair screeches on the floor, and then he's pacing, sprained ankle be damned, a hand tugging through his hair. Azazel had the whole thing planned out last night. He may as well have lived it, and never has he hated his own telepathy more. Even as it saved him. Cain first, those sausage hands all over - "D4.6," he gasps. "On the record." Because he'd really rather not go to jail for falsifying labs, thank you very much. It's not nearly a decent enough distraction, but he waves his hand. "Go on, please. I'm just stretching my legs."  
  
That reaction makes him want to beg the session to stop, again, but he doesn't because he knows Charles won't want him to, and he knows he's right. Every time he hurts it drags Erik out of his lens and he buries his head deeper between his knees, palm pressed against his eyes. He wants to be of more support, but he can't afford to divide himself up into two distinct pieces or he won't accomplish either goal.  
  
"Just try and describe it," Pryde guides him gently, and lifts his eyes to Charles. He's conversely calm and in control, well adept at keeping his emotional reactions at bay. It takes a lot to faze Pryde, but this is testing that limit.  
  
"Like drowning, but I didn't drown. Like he would kill me but he didn't kill me."  
  
"Did he use a rag?" Pryde asks calmly. "Over your mouth."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"OK," he nods and jots down the correct word. "And dying, but you didn't die-I need you to be clearer. Did you almost die?"  
  
"No. The gun was empty."  
  
"Did this happen in other ways?"  
  
"Yes. He wanted me to think he was going to kill me."  
  
"OK, I understand." He wrote down two words. "When did you stop speaking? Were there rules for who you could speak to?"  
  
"I stopped speaking when I was fourteen. Then I was moved into the main laboratory with the other subjects. I was given a supervisory role over them, because I was _Herr Shaw_ 's favorite." He doesn't realize the slip-up. He also doesn't realize he sounds proud of that. "There were rules. Only to certain people. Only when I am spoken to."  
  
Charles breaks all of those rules. Erik smiles at him very faintly.  
  
Charles knows most, if not all, of this. He also remembers that very first conversation. Erik's bartering list. No cutting, burning, waterboarding, starving, raping, and so on and so forth... He'd thought it was a set of limits based on hypotheticals, and found the list a bit excessive at the time. Ha. His teeth clench at the slip. Herr. As if he was anything but one of the most vile creatures Charles had ever had the misfortune of coming into contact with. As if he deserved, at any point in his miserable, too-long life, even a single ounce of respect. He'd touched that man. Shaken his hand, and somehow not twisted his mind up into a frying, useless mess of misfired wires and crushing, screeching neurons, a nuclear reaction in his own brain befitting of his precious mutation - Charles needs to breathe. He's going to a place he won't come back from. Teetering far, far too close for comfort. He focuses on something else instead: you are a telepath. The first words Erik ever spoke to him, a clear, deep rumble. He'd thought, at the time, that it was because Erik knew he could read his thoughts anyway. That it was deliberate, defiant, the lack of speaking. He almost smiles, knowing it isn't, and he'd still said them, not even a full five minutes into meeting. Keep going. They have to keep going. He reaches out for Erik mentally again, gentle, easing fingers, coaxing out the memories and steadying them at the same time. Preparing himself for when they're spoken, and soothing both of them for when they do.  
  
Erik huddles close to him, in their minds, where it doesn't hurt those purple-black bruises spread out across his entire body, it nearly seems, to let Charles curl up against him. He'll get Charles to pick up something for them, Ibuprofen lotion and he can lay Charles on the bed and cover all of them with a soothing balm, that's a much nicer thought, he huffs internally. _I love you._ Charles seems like he probably watches soap operas. _What's your favorite soap opera?_ he hides a grin. He feels himself slipping into something but he doesn't know what it is anymore.  
  
"I definitely don't plan on including the aspects of being a D5 in here," Pryde assures Charles with a smile and arched eyebrows. "But it's important for me to have all the information so I can craft an appropriate testimony. Shaw is unfortunately higher on the scale than what you reported Erik as, so I'll have to figure out something else that incorporates these elements in their proper context." He scribbles some more notes down before continuing, "were you educated? You obviously speak Hebrew and English exceptionally well."  
  
"I was educated in mathematics, sciences, languages and literature. I speak twelve languages exceptionally well," he corrects. "I was also expected to behave submissively, and was educated as a submissive. I was given a medical examination very early which Herr Shaw conducted."  
  
"Did he involve you in his efforts to make himself an Omega-level?"  
  
"Yes. I underwent testing and experiments every day. My mutation was not well-developed at that time and he sought to improve my abilities. He tested my responses to temperature, pain, light, emotions, sexual arousal, pharmacology and adrenaline. That began immediately."  
  
Pryde hides a grimace unsuccessfully. "Did you eat regularly?"  
  
"Food was given as a reward. I was not rewarded very often. Sometimes on my birthday," he realizes after a second, and not wishing to seem ungrateful, adds, "that was nice."  
  
That was nice. Charles almost laughs, as out of place and egregiously inappropriate as it would be. He doesn't, and in the aftermath, he's positive he might cry. _Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives_ , he thinks, and isn't positive Erik is savvy enough with his American daytime soaps to know that it's an answer to his question. He's back to pacing. Hank would not be pleased, and it doesn't feel great when his bruises rub every time he moves, or the previously open wounds stretch, but so be it. Charles only knows nine languages exceptionally well, which means he's lagging behind and needs to work on that. Wait. Ten. Almost there, then.  
  
 _Don't get competitive_ , Erik chides, but it's amused and incredibly fond.  
  
The clipboard's coming in real handy. "You were very underweight when you were taken into custody," he remarks, and he taps a word on the charts when Charles passes by him, hypophosphatemia. "How's that ankle-? How often would you say you ate a substantial meal?"  
  
"Rarely. My birthday. When I did a good job on some tests. Sometimes Emma brings me chocolate. She also brings me little metal things. She said it was important to have hobbies. Shaw saw that as distracting. I don't advertise, but he lets me keep it."  
  
"Emma-Frost," Pryde starts. "Emma Frost who's in custody Emma Frost."  
  
"Yes. She taught me how to develop my mind so that I could endure more extreme testing conditions, particularly chemical and pharmacological agents. She liked to play around in my thoughts and makes sure I don't wander very far."  
  
"OK," Pryde starts getting into the nitty-gritty of things. "You mentioned that you were put in a supervisory capacity toward the other subjects. Did you volunteer for this role?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Could you have refused this role?"  
  
"No. My life was threatened, but I did not care whether I lived at that point, and so the lives of the other subjects were threatened."  
  
"What were your duties?" Erik doesn't answer. "Erik?"

* * *

This time it isn't about Charles. Erik is gone, staring vacantly at the wall, his legs dropping to the floor straight out in front of him. Sands through the hourglass.  
  
Charles lets out a breath. This room is too small. It's incredibly, impossibly small and he feels as if he's suffocating and his skin is far too tight and he's feverish again and he doesn't want to do this, now or ever, but as they say, _c'est la vie_. So he kneels in front of Erik (and winces, there's no hiding that, his knees are skinned and bruised to hell) and reaches out with his mind, seeking him out and gently, gently tugging him back. _Come back, please, darling,_ he murmurs. _I've got you. Come back to me._  
  
Erik looks at him blank-eyed and in the Real he is completely absent. In their minds he's still there, crouching beside Charles, and he touches his knee, rubbing away the soreness with his thumb. _Is that Days of our Lives?_ he asks, lips quirked up, amused.  
  
Charles doesn't feel any sort of amusement. It's him who hasn't smiled now, and he can't even pretend to muster one up. He forces his eyes to stay on Erik's Real, vacant face rather than the projection of him his mind is giving off. _My nanny liked it, so we watched together,_ he thinks, hollowly. Because he had a nanny, at eleven. He had a nanny and lived in a castle and his biggest problem was that Mother drank too much whiskey and rum and wanted to marry Kurt Marko, who Charles hated, and that his father - who Charles had looked up to - was dead. He'd cried about that, at night. Curled up and sniffled and felt well and truly sorry for himself. "I -" He has to get out of this room, but he can't. He settles for covering his mouth again and swallowing hard several times, until finally he doesn't think he's in danger of vomiting with every breath.  
  
 _It's OK._ You don't have to be here. He will survive. A cockroach in the wake of an atomic bomb, only the atomic bomb is Sebastian Shaw's mind and Erik Lehnsherr's crawled out of the rubble. A sickly, disgusting insect with an ugly hard shell and too many legs that curl in one one another. There is no need for Charles to bear this with him. _You can-_  
  
"This is important," Pryde says, oblivious to the mental discussion. "When they put Shaw on the stand, he'll tell them that you demonstrated an early aptitude for violence, even murder-"  
  
Erik presses himself back against the wall, hard. "I didn't kill anybody. I didn't-"  
  
 _I'm not going anywhere_ , he swears. _Please don't think of yourself like that_. "It's okay," he says, out loud, and wants desperately for his own voice not to crack. "I know, Erik. We both know. But we need to hear it, alright? Can you tell us?" _Can you tell me?_ Not that it should be any comfort. How could Charles possibly bring him any comfort? Any solace? He's a rich, spoiled brat from Westchester. His father came into an inheritance, then added to it with government blood money, by experimenting on children, infants, and now it's all sitting in his bank accounts (multiple, plural, bank accounts) so he can buy himself fancy suits and watches and antique mahogany furniture. Charles has never felt like they are more different than he does in this one instance. He cannot, for the life of him, think of one thing they have in common.  
  
 _Please don't do that. Don't do that,_ Erik begs him, staring up vividly. _Don't make me an instrument of self-harm. I don't want that. Don't relegate me to that. You are worth so much more than that. I can't do this without you._ He rests his head on Charles's shoulder in the Real, because he doesn't care and he doesn't know how to make it sound better or more comforting. He's not crying or shaking, and he relaxes. Fortunately he already did that to Pryde so the lawyer doesn't seem bothered by it. "I conducted experiments. I made sure the other patients did what they were-" he grits his teeth and stutters, "told. I was responsible for punishing them. I was responsible for operating the equipment used to dispose of them when they died. I never killed anybody. I tried to keep them alive for as long as possible."   
  
Charles knows it isn't fair. It isn't fair, and it isn't rational, and it takes everything he has not to reach up and run his fingers through Erik's hair, to pull him close, bruises and all, and forget that there is anyone else in the room. _I'm so sorry._ For many things, some of which are incredibly out of his own control, but the world has never apologized to Erik for all the things it took from him, and so Charles will do it in its stead. He still doesn't know how it could possibly help. Perhaps the scales will never balance, the joy that Charles can provide never outweighing the horrific pain. But it's all he can do, trying. He's already vowed to do so until his dying breath.  
  
Erik shakes his head and settles himself against Charles, trying to be careful of the bruises but he doesn't think he can exist anywhere else right now. Maybe it's not professional, but none of this has precedent. Pryde still doesn't seem jarred by it. _They already balance,_ he thinks softly. The smallest of moments with Charles were worth more than years of pain. Call it disproportionate healing. Even the fact that Charles was here, regardless of the situation, the fact that he could touch him, that they were safe, was more joy than he knew. He keeps answering Pryde's questions numbly, unpeeling back more and more of himself until he was nothing but an exposed nerve. Vaguely he wonders if this is the point at which Charles will learn more about him than he wanted, realize what a monster Erik *really* was, that he's entitled to rot in jail for the rest of his life. Pryde asks various questions about what each thing means, how the operation was established (sounding more and more like a prison and less like a hospital, with Erik at the top having more quote-unquote _privileges_ but also struggling with his own complicity).  
  
"How would you punish them?"  
  
"Hitting them."  
  
"With your fists? An instrument?"  
  
"My fists. They had to condition me to do it because I wasn't very good at it."  
  
"Condition you how?"  
  
"Yelling at me, threatening to kill them. Making the situation very chaotic. It was better for me to hurt them than what would happen if I didn't, so I did it."  
  
"Did you gain any gratification out of it?"  
  
"Sometimes. I was angry a lot." Erik covers his face, ashamed. "They didn't deserve it." He loses Pryde's next question by curling up in on himself against Charles.  
  
 _That will never happen. Never._ Charles is very close to breaking point, he thinks, but not because of Erik. If he has to hold it together, if he has to be strong for him, then he will be. But there is one thing he has to make abundantly clear. _Erik. Come here, love._ Not to a physical space. Into his mind, which, besides the corners that are currently whirring and processing, a thousand places at once as it often is, besides the numb horror he feels - not at Erik - is so full of love that it honestly surprises him sometimes. He certainly didn't doubt his own capacity for compassion, and he's loved deeply before. But this he has no precedent for, and it's always there, if not active then humming just beneath the surface, waiting patiently for its cause to return. _Nothing that you did will make me turn away from you. I promise._ And professionalism be damned, Charles rests his hand on Erik's back, stroking gently. He doubts Pryde will bedgrudge him this, nor think anything of it beyond Charles being a human being, and Erik needing the contact.  
  
If he does, he certainly doesn't say anything about it (but he doesn't). He repeats himself, beginning to get into what Erik meant by pharmacology, aligning the information on his medical sheet with what had happened in the laboratories, and to get a sense of the long-term problems that may arise for future reference (and because that information is going to be emphasized heavily in his report-not only what happened, but what continues to happen and will likely happen for the rest of Erik's life). _I'm so sorry you have to hear this_ , Erik tells Charles in the private foyer of their thoughts, an opened-up space filled with life and sunlight. I never, ever wanted this. They say it's supposed to be healing to tell your own story, and maybe it would be, Erik feels like a piece of debris stuck inside a screeching train. Shredded open. There is no way that this information will be used positively in his regard, except that Pryde nor Charles don't seem to be horrified at him, so maybe this is another case of his normal being upside-down. But he did it. He did it, he took gratification out of it as Pryde asked. A jury won't want to hear about that. _I never wanted you to be hurt by this._ He tries to ease away the horror in Charles's chest with his hands, breaking it apart like an ultrasound.  
  
 _Shh. None of this is your fault, do you understand? You know as well as I do that everything gets muddled in times like this. This was never your choice, Erik. Do not for a second believe it was, or that any reaction that was conditioned into you meant anything at all._ Charles does not want to hear this. To even suggest that what he's feeling at the moment is anything but grim resignation would be a terrible lie. _Still, he'll listen._ Erik deserves to be heard, and Charles will personally guarantee that he is, even if he has to go toe to toe with everyone who dares attempt to silence him (and the list is extensive, as it turns out). It doesn't matter. Everything starts with him listening, and his own pain, in this context, means nothing at all. You're doing so well, my love. Just a bit more. Just a bit more. Charles draws patterns on Erik's back, gentle, soft strokes where Pryde will only see broad rubs, another subtle filter of perception. He writes _I love you_ where he knows Erik will feel it, each letter carefully constructed and, finally, his lips twitch. It's not quite a smile, but the feeling is there.  
  
 _Don't silence yourself, either,_ Erik warns gently. That isn't what he wants, fighting for one or the other to take precedence. Since the beginning Charles made it known that he would advocate on Erik's behalf and from that moment he's been nothing but mired in this, attacked on every front and worn down and stretched to the outer limits of a person's ability to withstand. Erik would be lying if he said he didn't feel responsible for that somehow, but he won't let his own blame usurp Charles's feelings. When Charles traces the letters on his back his lips quirk up again, in the Real, and he finds Charles's other hand, touching it gingerly over the cast.

* * *

Pryde gets deeper into what acting as a submissive means, and Erik explains in very stilted, spare language what he was expected to do. Pryde gets as much of a list of names as he can, but there's far too many. Business meetings, staff, personnel, anyone who worked in Shaw's inner circle, this Hellfire Club, people who weren't involved but who dealt in money, government contracts.  
  
He has to pause for himself after getting into the specifics-they can't avoid it and shouldn't, not if they expect to hit this as hard as Pryde intends, make everyone crawl out of their own skin in horror and discomfort and it's tactical, awful to be relegated to tactics, but it will see him free and that's what matters-which Erik relates tonelessly, and somehow that's worse. There's no evidence that Erik even understands half of what occurred, and he keeps framing it in terms of what he chose to do, because he initiated most of it, like that matters.  
  
Pryde laughs mirthlessly. "Pardon me," Pryde coughs. It's the first sign that he's genuinely affected. "Let's-ah-keep going." He waves his hand, which holds a pen, drawing a little zig-zag in the air.  
  
Charles breathes through it. His job here is to steady Erik, to anchor and guide him through the process, and he's absolutely going to do it. It just so happens that, for all the horrific processing this is leading to, puzzle pieces he'd spent quite a lot of time not fitting together though he'd had all of them individually, being near Erik steadies him just as much. He desperately needs that. He wishes this wasn't all in the backdrop, but he's learned not to take anything for granted. Every moment is utterly precious. Touching Erik in the Real is different than in the mind-world they've created together, and it occurs to him how little he has, in the grand scheme of things. As brilliant as the latter is, this is - obviously - much more grounded. Prodding at bruises hurts, because there's no way to prevent that, but he'll take that over lack of contact anyday. It feels like an indulgence, touching him out here. He'll revel in it while he can. Erik doesn't need horror from him right now. He'll be the reprieve from it. I love your hands, he thinks, which is so exceptionally out of place it's almost laughable, but it's what he can manage right now. He can see the one touching him now, in the Real, for what it is. Calloused and worn and likely broken, too, though not as much as the other. All the same. Instead of touching him in his mind, Charles does the opposite - he flips over Pryde's perception, just as subtly as before, and brings Erik's hand up to his lips to kiss each knuckle. These hands won't ever be used for that sort of destruction again. He'll make sure of it.  
  
Erik laughs softly, eyes crinkled. You are the first person who ever saw them as anything but evil. In some ways he prefers the mental projection better, because he is whole there. He can touch Charles the way he should be touched, instead of half-measures. But any measure is better than nothing and Charles is right, this is more visceral somehow. Every second precious. He melts into the soothing kisses. Frankly it is not hard to calm Erik, which is the one saving grace about this. Despite his initial reluctance and the minor outburst he's yet to raise his voice, or descend into memories. Perhaps it's the simple fact that the closer Charles is, the more stable he is. They're there for at least another hour while Pryde hones his notes, Erik's flat monotone punctuating his quiet questions, before he gets to the real meat of the case itself.

* * *

"When did Azazel transport you to the States?"  
  
"Seven months ago."  
  
"What was the reason for this?"  
  
"I don't know," Erik shakes his head. "He moved everything to his primary offices and began dismantling the facility in _Arad_."  
  
"What happened on the day you decided to leave?"  
  
"He was planning to kill us all. Perhaps he came close to being discovered, I am not certain. I thought the other patients deserved a better life than what they had."  
  
"These patients, Erik, do you know where they are?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"They're still alive?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Will you tell me where they are?"  
  
"No. They are safe."  
  
"Can you promise that?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"So you broke into his office and made a copy of the key. Then what happened?"  
  
"I made a mistake that day in training." Charles's observations were right-on after all. "I got punished for it. I had grown close to another girl there-" he shakes his head suddenly.  
  
Almost eight months now. One more day, actually. They're creeping past the chill of New York winter and into an unseasonably warm spring with every passing second, and he wonders, idly, if the trial will extend as far as into summer. Likely, considering the tizzy it's going to send both the government and the public into. They'll prolong this as long as possible.  
  
Charles blinks at the pause. He's still holding Erik's hand in his (mostly) good one, and there's not much he can do with the other. He rests it, gingerly, on Erik's arm. What is it, darling? he asks, mentally rather than out loud. He's spoken, now and then, throughout the process. Gentle, coaxing words, or clarification for Pryde's sake when he could pick something up from thoughts that Erik couldn't express properly. Better, though, like this, where he can pretend they have some sense of privacy, ground both of them outside of this necessary, grueling process.  
  
 _I'm sorry_ , he blinks it away, inhaling loudly. "Her name was Magda. She was closer to my age."  
  
"Did you know her all sixteen years?" Pryde asks.  
  
"No, she was new. She was a baseline human, acquired as a control. The controls usually died very quickly. Mutants tend to have better immune systems, are more resistant to physical hardship."  
  
"How long did you know her for?"  
  
"Seven months, when we first came to America. She was really scared and I was afraid she would be killed if she kept making a fuss, so I tried to make her calm. She was helping me plan. She worked as an architect so she knew some things about the kind of building we were in. My mutation filled in the rest of the details."  
  
"Were you planning on killing anybody at that time?"  
  
"No. There was another mutant in the facility, Kurt Wagner, who could teleport. He came with us from _Arad_ , he was there about two years. He had a physical mutation a bit like Azazel, but he was blue and had designs all over his body, scars from his time in the Munich circus."  
  
"You say you were close with Magda, can you elaborate?"  
  
"We were friends," he shrugs. It wasn't a physical connection, but he thinks he likely did love her. "She was a high-Dom, so she could talk with me more easily than the others, who were submissive. I didn't know a lot of high-Doms." Until now, he figures wryly. "She had two little kids. Twins. They were mutants, too, probably why she was selected."  
  
"So the plan was to teleport the patients out of there?"  
  
"Yes, and destroy the facility and the equipment. But he killed Wanda and Pietro in front of me and-" he shakes his head. "It was a stupid punishment. They died for no reason. Magda wasn't even there. I guess I lost my mind." Which was odd, because it wasn't the first time that happened.

* * *

Charles' reaction is strange. There's horror, certainly, but that's been there the whole time. Some kind of comfort, perhaps, in knowing Erik wasn't alone in this, contrary to whatever reaction might have been expected. It's what exists beyond that that surprises him. Wanda and Pietro - Wanda and Pietro, Wanda and Pietro... He sits back, hissing as he does, and thinks. And thinks, and thinks, and thinks, mind an imperceptible blur of turning, working gears. Something is off. Even in Erik's thoughts, he's absolutely positive he hadn't consciously processed this bit of information. It was either deliberately obscured, or obtained so passively that he didn't make note of it. Why, then, does he know it? Why does that seem - Erik isn't lying, he doesn't think. He's certain that his account is correct, and there's little room for deceit like this. When what he says is a stretch of the truth, Charles can always see that. So what is this? What does it mean? Wanda and Pietro. Wanda and Pietro... Charles huffs, a frustrated, confused noise, but waves his hand dismissively. "Go on," he urges. "It's alright, Erik." But his mind is far away, almost entirely focused on another task. As if he's solving a particularly difficult puzzle.  
  
Erik draws back at that like he's been struck. He makes himself be rational, though. There is proof of all of this, he knows there is. You can't hide an operation of this scale no matter how resourceful Shaw was, burning the _Arad_ facility to the ground wouldn't change anything. He's sure there's proof even in his old village, if anyone bothered to send a forensic team there. It's been done before historically and despite the fires you couldn't erase a whole human being like that. Not even with Shaw's abilities. Humans are notoriously difficult to get rid of, he knows first-hand. He knows he is not lying, he knows that Charles doesn't disbelieve him, but the thread of skepticism hurts. _What do you think happened_? he asks mind-to-mind, afraid of the answer.  
  
 _No. No, no,_ he assures, and immediately he snaps back. The perception filter is still up, but Charles only strengthens it, framing Erik's face with his hand, stroking his cheek with his thumb. _Shh. I know you aren't lying. I know this is true._ There's just - There's something. Charles doesn't have an explanation for it. Perhaps he's just exhausted, perhaps his telepathy is on the fritz again. But he doubts it.  
  
He sends Charles an image, two dark, curly-haired haired children. Twins who look like their mother, who share twin abilities of transmuting sound into visible color that can knock against the physical world or make shapes in the air. They're just under a year old, small little things about the age Angel was when he got murdered.  
  
He's already seen it, is the thing. And whether Erik consciously shared it or not, he's seen - he's seen. Angel was older, but that's not an issue he's going to bring up at the moment. Whatever is going on here, perhaps it means nothing. Perhaps it's an emotional reaction that his mind is reeling from, and can't properly make sense of. He's found he knows most of what Erik has told him already, so is it really so strange that he already knew them, too? Charles shakes his head, and attempts to shake it off. _I'm sorry, Erik,_ he says instead.  
  
 _You don't-think I am-making this up-?_ Erik knows the answer already, logically, but that doubt twists in his gut and makes him feel ready to retch. He leans into Charles's touch, eyes fluttering closed against his hand. _My memories aren't always linear. I don't remember everything perfectly, but-_ he remembers enough.

* * *

"Do you remember what happened that day, when you began to bring the building down? When the scientists were killed?" Pryde asks.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "Not well. Bits and pieces. I was psychologically unstable, and severely injured."  
  
"That was your hand? Your leg?"  
  
"No, that happened long ago. I got surgery for my hand."  
  
"What happened there?"  
  
"I was hit repeatedly with an electric baton on my leg. My hand and arm got stomped on. Shaw used his power. I think there is a name for it but I don't remember it." Charles is intimately familiar with the details of it either way, considering that Essex targeted that arm specifically when he broke the bone there again.  
  
"So this is-" he taps up the footage again and pinches it in to Erik's back. "That looks like a full sized-" He blinks. "I'm honestly shocked you could stand. I'm honestly shocked you weren't killed," he says, which isn't a professional comment, but sometimes it's hard to remain completely objective. He certainly doesn't fault Charles.  
  
"I don't remember it, but I can endure a great deal of pain." He sounds proud, in a twisted way. Maybe he is. For all that Charles needs to be good, Erik needs to be strong. He'd woken up during surgery and kept himself still, so that said something. "Ms. Frost helped me learn how, in my mind. I have to do physical therapy a lot, for those scars. Because I can't move right. Dr. Shomron helps me."  
  
"We'll be hearing from her," Pryde mutters darkly. "And from him, as well, as an expert." And from Charles, obviously. That won't be fun, but it'll give him a chance to give Erik a chance, and conversely, them a chance, at a life. A real life. Erik clings onto that desperately, and lays a kiss in the center of his palm when he thinks Pryde isn't watching.  
  
 _I believe you. Of course I believe you._ There's not a single doubt in my mind, he promises, and that's the truth. There's no denying that. Pryde's never watching, really. Charles has that locked down to a science by now, a background process that requires absolutely none of his focus. Pryde would see whatever he wanted him to see now. Or nothing at all. The absence of them, an empty room, or the illusion of blindness. Complete darkness. It still frightens him, his own abilities. He hasn't fully processed that. What last night taught him about his own mutation, either way, changes everything. These were things he'd never even considered himself capable of. Erik had asked him, quite a while ago, what he could do. That list has doubled now. Tripled. He suspects it won't stop anytime soon. We're going to have such an extraordinary life, Erik, he thinks, and for the moment whatever had caught his attention earlier is cast aside. That's truly what matters, and when it comes down to it, all his exhausted mind can focus on.  
  
 _Can I kiss you?_ Erik wonders, smiling faintly. Poor Pryde.  
  
Poor Pryde, nothing. He won't see a thing. Charles manages his own smile, however small, and ducks his head as he's in the habit of doing in moments like this, cheeks faintly pink around the purple-black. That out of place shyness, when usually he's anything but. Erik seems very capable of drawing it out. Even, apparently, over a kiss, when they've shared so many now. He wonders if it will ever stop, that fluttering in his belly. _Go on, then,_ he says, as if he isn't aching for it, too.  
  
Erik laughs, then, eyes bright and he leans forward, framing Charles's face in his left hand instead of with both like he usually would, but this is infinitely better somehow because it is them, and he realizes his prior worries were silly. He makes sure not to jostle the tender bruises there too much. They're both a sight for sore eyes, he thinks fondly. In the Real there's a bruise on his own cheek, blooming ugly green-chartreuse from where Essex had hit him. He just pauses here, unhurried, relishing in being able to touch. No amount will be enough, he shakes his head, and then he does mold their lips together, pleasure and warmth unfurling inside of his chest and relaxing the clawed grip on his heart. In the Real, Pryde's asking clarifying questions and Erik breaks off with an amused arch of his eyebrows to answer, "Kurt is with them. He's only a teenager, I do not want him involved in this. He deserves a normal life," and then he goes back to his task.  
  
His lips are sore and swollen, cracked, and he hasn't stopped biting them enough for them to even begin to heal. By all means, this shouldn't be pleasurable, especially when he shifts to get closer and every part of him cries out in pain at once, battered by it. Somehow, it is. It's Erik, and it's dizzyingly Real, and his head is spinning and this morning wasn't nearly enough to wash away every single trace of Azazel, but every time they do this he knows they'll come closer. Charles has very nearly forgotten Pryde is even a factor, his stuttering mind drowning all of that out. It's when Pryde speaks up and he moans, soft and wanting, into Erik's mouth at the exact same time that he realizes exactly what he's doing. Pryde heard and saw nothing, his perception filter stretching naturally to accomodate what he obviously does not want the other man noticing, but he knows. His cheeks are suddenly bright scarlet, the color spreading up to his ears and splotching down to his bruise-covered neck. _Okay, maybe we don't put our tongues in each other's mouths in front of the nice lawyer man,_ he thinks.  
  
Erik bursts out laughing, shoulders shaking and he traces the back of two fingers down Charles's cheek, pupils gone wide to eclipse malachite. _You're missing something_ , he thinks quite suddenly, tapping his finger along Charles's neck. Somehow he's found it within him to be playful now of all times, and he can only thank Charles for that. _What if I really like putting my tongue in your mouth?_ Does that bear consideration?  
  
Charles can't help laughing, too, flustered and still blushing. It goes without saying that he really likes Erik's tongue in his mouth, so perhaps it's worth at least a little consideration. _Mmm. What am I missing, Erik?_ he asks, and tilts his head slightly to give better access. It's bruised now, and there are the imprints of Cain's disgusting, stubby fingers around the splotchy purple, but that doesn't make it any less Erik's. Even though the touch leaves a tender, shivery feeling behind, it's not unpleasant. As if his body knows it's Erik's as much as his mind does, and that Erik is meant to feel good.  
  
 _You don't know? Hm. I guess it must not be very important._ He lays a kiss under Charles's jaw. Pryde is continuing, and Erik only pauses his ministrations to deliver half-hearted answers, distracted by covering every inch of bruised skin with his lips, replacing the sense-memory of Cain with himself instead. I love you so much. Do you know that? "Yes, I'll give you the address," over Charles's shoulder.  
  
 _Yes. And I love you just as much._ It all feels very nice, which, after the night before - early this morning, really - is such a shock to his system that it nearly makes him cry, overwhelmed and oversensitive and perfectly, blissfully pliant under Erik's touch. He sighs, eyelids fluttering closed and body melting, when Erik's words from before finally sink in. They were playful, teasing, but now they make him frown, heart aching. It's very important, he protests, which he's sure was never in doubt, but after all of that - perhaps he's just a bit more sensitive to it, even after he'd been the one to instigate it in the first place. It's one of the most important things, actually, and I can hardly stand not having it. He could create a perception of it, now, for the two of them. But there's something about this being so physical, for once, and the thought that it wouldn't be - Charles can't help the pang of desperate, sorrowful longing that washes over him. All those years spent resenting even the thought of it, scoffing and putting his nose in the air, and now - he wants. So very badly.  
  
 _When I am free, I never want to see this skin bare of my collar again_ , Erik thinks and it's dark, possessive and touching on the deep, infinite well of Dominance that they know they've barely cracked the surface of, every time they come together he falls further into the darkness but they're never going to reach the bottom of it and maybe that should be terrifying, to both of them, but right now it just warms him, a spark that reacts to Charles's desire to be kept that threatens to fan the flames of a blazing forest fire. He kisses a bruise near Charles's collarbone, tugging down his shirt for better access.  
  
Pryde interrupts them by addressing Charles, "So there's something I'm going to need your help with as well. I think I've gotten enough here today to draft a good testimony, and we'll hear that tomorrow. I should warn you in advance that the first part of our defense will be upsetting. Do you remember when you were first brought into our custody?"  
  
Erik nods. "Somewhat. They put a thing in my neck and then I woke up on a bed and I was handcuffed and there were doctors and nurses everywhere. I woke up and slept a lot. I think they keep drugging me." He blinks owlishly. "I didn't like that." He hums against Charles's lips where he'd returned to kiss him again. Kissing is much better than remembering.  
  
"That's right, they took you into surgery because you were very nearly dead. They also performed a number of evaluations and they took photographs documenting the extensive injuries you had at the time, and we also have your intake interview-I'm not sure if you recall that, you were very traumatized."  
  
"Mm. I don't," head-shake.  
  
"It's a little jarring. All of it is pretty jarring, but I didn't want either of you to get blindsided by it."  
  
Charles, for his part, is floating somewhere quite a ways off. He's thinking of collars, specifically Erik's, and how absolutely tantalizing the notion is, never taking it off. Having it on at all times, unable to remove it but never wanting to. He's thinking he might as well go and pick out a placeholder, perhaps without Warren, because even with the bruises there it's such an itchy, terrible twinge of longing that he doesn't want to deal with longer than he has to. He could take Erik, now that it seems they won't be detached from each other. He's thinking that he quite likes the idea of all those cameras noticing it, even if it isn't Erik's collar, of knowing he belongs to someone, of him knowing that it's Erik -  
  
Perhaps not the most convenient time to be sinking into subspace, but he's actually in the same room as Erik's Will now, and the physicality is making him dizzy. It's also making him breathless, and needy, and he whines because speaking means he needs to pull back from Erik's lips.  
  
"Excuse me," he says, clearing his throat, and to Pryde it will seem as if he'd simply gotten lost in thought for a moment, grim and serious when he's currently anything but. He's certainly not clawing at Erik's shirt, as far as he's concerned. "What did you need my help with, exactly?" The fact that he sounds at all composed is a feat worth mentioning, truly. "If there's anything else I can do to make this process smoother, I will. I'm assuming I'll be testifying eventually as well."  
  
Erik hums pleasantly as the sensation of Charles's sinking-deeper sinks deeper into him, loosening his muscles, serenity and pleasure buzzing between them. _These sounds are lovelier in person,_ he smirks, knowing full-well how affected Charles is, how close they are to another person, and frankly not caring one iota. He can feel through his own Will the way Charles responds and it's breathtaking in and of its own, and Erik makes a low noise in his throat, swallowed up by Charles's mouth. He's kissing less carefully now, more with need and heat, and he twists the fingers of his good hand into the soft material of Charles's shirt. He'd almost forgotten this. Almost.  
  
"You will be, and it isn't eventual," Pryde shakes his head. "I'd like to get your testimony out of the way as quickly as possible. In fact, I'd like to lead with it. Before I read this off, I'm going to call you as an expert witness. That means you'll be cross-examined by Quested, but it'll also throw them off their game, since I'm sure they don't expect us to lead with it. It'll also frame what I'm going to be sharing with the jury."  
  
For a moment or two, it doesn't process. Charles is too busy melting into Erik's kisses, eager and responsive, soft, needy noises spilling from parted lips as Erik's tongue and Will Dominates all of his active focus.  
  
When it hits, it's a wave of freezing water, and it drops into his stomach with the same amount of force. "Excuse me?" he asks, and pulls away from Erik's lip with wide eyes, which Pryde will see. His head spins, tugged between headspaces. They're not mutually exclusive, he's learned, because he's always somewhere near subspace with Erik around, but he'd been perfectly content to get lost entirely. "You want my testimony to lead?" Charles had been expecting some time to prepare himself. "Not that I'm refusing, just -" It's a lot. Panic begins to settle in around the floating pleasure, rising above it.  
  
"It's not a requirement," Pryde says, "but you're Erik's sole advocate, other than myself, and you're his psychiatrist. The fact of the matter is that they will not hear Erik's voice tomorrow, they'll hear mine, and it's a poor substitute. I won't be in the witness box, I'll be at the defense table. The first person on the stand should be someone who is vested in him, not a nameless expert."  
  
 _I have faith in you_ , Erik whispers between them, kissing him gently. It's spoken with all the love and Will he can muster.  
  
"I'll do it," he says, though there was never any question. If it will help Erik's case, there was never any question. "You're right, of course. It makes perfect sense. I'll take the stand first." That being said, he doubts it will be a pleasant experience. No matter. For Erik, he'll do it. _For you_ , he thinks, mostly because he likes the sound of it. He sighs against those beautiful lips, wishing he could go back to that sinking-floating again, push down this horrid anxiety he has now.  
  
"All right, when they take Erik back we'll go over what you're going to say so none of my questions catch you off guard. I can make sure to send an itemized list with them as well so you can prepare while you're at home." Erik brushes his fingers through Charles's hair. I am so grateful to you, he murmurs softly. You don't need to do this if it's too painful. Erik would rather rot.  
  
He'll be alright. If he's honest, Charles has no reservations about public speaking - he's rather enamored with crowded lecture halls, actually - nor with holding his own against intimidation, but it's the stakes here that unsettle him. Besides what little they saw during the arraignment, this is going to be the world's first view of Erik. What he is outside of that bloody overplayed video. Who better than him to give it, though? I'll do it. Of course I will. Charles leans into that touch, sighing happily, but Pryde's words catch him again. When they take Erik away. An entirely different burst of panic grabs him now, and he twists his fingers in Erik's shirt, desperate. No. No, don't go, he whimpers, eyes wide. This is the first time he's gotten to really touch him in what feels like ages beyond those fleeting ones at the arraignment, and the time before he hadn't had his telepathy. As natural as a sense as that is for him, he hadn't gotten to really feel it.  
  
 _I'll be right here with you_ , Erik assures him, peppering his face with kisses. _I won't go anywhere. I promise you. I am very much looking forward to that lunch in bed_. His lips twitch. Pryde gestures for Charles's phone. "And I'm sorry to have to do this now, but I need to make a call, please. This can't wait."  
  
It's not the same. It's wonderful, and he'll enjoy every moment, but it's not the same. Charles pouts, because now he absolutely has to get up. In Pryde's perception, he'd been sitting close to Erik on the floor for comfort. If he's going to physically hand him his phone, he'll need to remove himself from Erik. He does it with the utmost reluctance, whining as he goes. _I want to stay in your arms_ , he sighs, even as he walks to Pryde straight-faced, handing over his phone. I want to wear your collar. Honestly, it hasn't left his mind since Erik brought his attention to it. He is curious enough to raise his eyebrow at Pryde, though. "Do I get to know who you're urgently calling on my phone, then?" he asks, and the lines blur there because he knows he sounds a bit breathless. From pain, conceivably, and not from making out with his Dom on the floor.  
  
Something to look forward to, Erik says, giving him a goodbye kiss before he stands up, and when he does, Erik slowly rises to his feet as well, taking his seat back at the table and folding his hands in front of him as well as he can manage with the cast covering his arm. _Would you like to go to the store after this? We can get one today. I don't like seeing you without it. Even if it is not mine, yet._

* * *

Pryde dials quickly and holds up a hand, shaking his head. " _Hola, esta es Carmen Pryde. Eso es correcto, sí_ ," he pauses, laughing. "Yeah, yeah, Kitty _está muy bien. Ella está en décimo grado, ahora, ¿tu hija? No, no es por eso que llamé. Presta atención, necesito todos esos archivos que tienes. Sí, todos ellos. Estoy dispuesto a pagar. No me importa la autorización de seguridad. Me debes, haz que suceda_." They go back and forth like that for a bit before he hangs up. " _Gracias lo aprecio_. All good, thank you very much," he hands the phone back.  
  
 _Yes_ , he answers immediately, eager, but his attention is a bit divided now. That admission earlier about being incredibly nosy? It still very much stands. Best to be transparent about it, he's found. Charles taps his temple, where there, surprisingly, isn't a bruise. He'd hit his head on the way down, and there's a bump to show for it somewhere beneath his hair, but not there. It's also a strange place to punch, and so Cain hadn't. "You haven't known me very long," he points out to Pryde, and there's a grin twitching onto his lips. "But I feel I should warn you that very little gets by me, and I apologize for that. Your daughter is beautiful, by the way, and incredibly gifted. You're very lucky." He hasn't said it yet, because there hasn't been occasion for small talk. There still isn't, truly, but after the talk they've all just had, perhaps it's necessary. He can't help thinking, idly, that if he was going to recruit students for a mutant school, brilliant Kitty Pryde, even seen through her clearly adoring father's thoughts, would be one of his first choices.  
  
Carmen barks a laugh. "She is, and I am. I suppose there's little need to stand on ceremony. Unfortunately a lot of this is classified, so I don't know how much I can feasibly tell you outright. I'm chasing down some leads on Shaw. It's what I'll need your help with when the time comes. Izzy's a good guy, but he's not very reliable. I want to make sure he gives us all the information."  
  
"You are going after him," Erik realizes, wide-eyed. "You need to be careful. You shouldn't do this by yourself. If he finds you-  
  
"-don't bother convincing me otherwise. you're _damn_ right I am. Erik, how many people actually know this information? Are you aware?"  
  
"Me and Magda were the only ones as far as I know. Shaw never realized what I discovered."  
  
 _Me and Magda_ inspires something - what is it? Not jealousy. Possessiveness? No, that's wrong, too. He's genuinely grateful for her, this woman he never knew, for giving Erik companionship when he couldn't. Besides, their roles in Erik's life are entirely different, and not only because of their DS scores. It must be insecurity, then, that tells him that perhaps Erik had loved her more than Charles, this woman who shared experiences with him Charles never could -  
  
He pushes that aside, and not only because he's fairly positive it's ridiculous. "I'm in," he announces, though it was already obvious he would be. "Whatever you need from me. Another thing you should know is that it is very hard to lie to me," he grins, despite the nature of what's being discussed. He takes a breath before speaking again. "I'd like to ask a favor for a favor, then, though I imagine you've already agreed to it - I'd rather not anyone know about what actually happened last night." About this, he's grim. "Azazel Rasputin has plenty of crimes to answer for already. My assault is the least of them, and it never needs to see the light of day."  
  
Erik smirks down at the table, a low huff of laughter leaving him that causes Pryde to tilt his head curiously. _Charles, really. Jealousy looks cute on you. I did love Magda_ , he shrugs a bit. _But not like that. And I most assuredly hope that you never share these experiences with me. I could not bear that, I do not think._ He taps his temple, as if in reminder. _You occupy a space within me that no one can hope to match._  
  
"Consider it done," Pryde nods at him when the explanation isn't forthcoming. "Azazel's done enough to land him in prison or worse for many years over. I'm just sorry he won't get justice for that, but it's a small consolation that evidently he'll help our cause. That is what you're insinuating, I take it?" He's a high-Dom but he's not that high, and he's a perfectly ordinary baseline human-albeit very well-trained and experienced, but Charles's abilities are nothing more to him than a source of fascination. He isn't afraid any more than Erik had been.  
  
Charles flushes, embarrassed. He still forgets that Erik can hear those aimless thoughts of his sometimes, the ones that come between the more logical conclusions. It's payback for all the years he'd teased others for it, really. _She's the closest thing you've given me to an ex, and so what do you expect? I'm only human_. He huffs. I _f I start talking about wearing Gabby's collar, would you not be a bit jealous?_ Perhaps that will get a reaction. Charles finds he quite likes when Erik gets possessive, all that puffed chest Dominance he'd mocked for years. That's payback, too, that he now finds it so completely attractive.  
  
"Yes," he answers, because there's no reason to play coy with this. He's grateful to have a distraction, too, because otherwise he would be much more affected. "He made a mistake coming for me last night, and I fully intend to take advantage of it." Because to make something vaguely resembling good out of the nightmare will be a step toward healing, as much as he never wants to see that face again. He'll bear it. "Prison is the least of what that man deserves," he says, perhaps darker than he intends. "I can now personally vouch for that." Let Pryde make of that what he will. He's sure it's haunting his eyes, still painfully fresh, and he doesn't have it in him at the moment to hide that.  
  
Erik grins again. _If you start to talk about wearing Gabby's collar, I will know you've gone well and truly insane,_ he sends back, his mind the pure personification of a wink. He finds he is possessive, of course, but no more jealous of Gabby than he was when he first heard about her. Because he knows unequivocally that Charles is his, that there is no competition, because if one ever dared to present itself he would quash it ruthlessly, remind Charles exactly where he belongs, and with whom. The thoughts are pleasing, luxuriating rich-dark things that pulsate between them unseen.  
  
"I'm sorry," Pryde says with a grimace and it manages not to be pitying as much as matter-of-fact. Having spent the last three hours thoroughly dissecting Azazel's proclivities had not left him enamored of the man, and now he's dealing with two of the man's casualties as a result and let's just say he's more than satisfied to see him get deserved comeuppance.  
  
"You are in danger, as well," Erik murmurs hoarsely. "I do not want more people to be hurt because of me. Please-"  
  
"I've been doing this a _long_ time, Erik. Shaw isn't the first and he won't be the last."  
  
Erik's eyebrows shoot up. "You mean-"  
  
" _That's_ on a need to know basis." Pryde does wink. "Shaw's a very well-connected, very powerful mutant and that does complicate things. I won't send people in to die, but I fully plan on having him answer for his crimes. _All_ of them. _If_ we can get him, there's a very real possibility he can lead us to more. In exchange for more amenities, a room with a view, what have you. That's if they don't hang him."  
  
"That might be difficult. Shaw absorbs kinetic energy. He is very difficult to kill. I've tried." It went without saying Erik had failed and been punished harshly for that transgression.  
  
"I can turn it off." It surprises him that he says it. It had been rattling around in his brain since last night, dark and contemplative, but now with all the information put together he knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that it's true. Charles doesn't look at either of them as he stares down at the table, no expression on his face, tone completely level. Almost casual. "His mutation," he clarifies, though he doesn't need to.  
  
And not just his. Erik's, too, if he wanted. Anyone's.  
  
"Fortunately for him," he says, coolly, "I'm a psychiatrist, and not an executioner." But if the sentence has already been handed down? No, Charles won't find a single thing wrong with assisting. Murder he objects to, on moral principle. Justice is another entirely. Put him in a box, a glass box, stare at him and make him admit to his crimes before the world. Not a shred of dignity.

* * *

"That is _very_ encouraging to hear," Pryde whistles lowly, smiling, a brief, cold thing. He's killed before, he knows what it feels like to watch the life leave another person's eyes, and it's not something he's ever relished, but he thinks for Shaw he'll make an exception. One can entertain a revenge fantasy every now and then, but Charles is right. What Carmen values more than vengeance is justice. _Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof._ "And I wish I could ask that of you right now, but we can't tip our hand. Erik is right, the second he gets wind of this he will start razing everything down. I imagine he's kept some mementos, but he's not that sentimental."  
  
"If he comes to harm you, you will do what must be done," Erik says, and it's not an Order out loud, but in their minds Charles knows it for what it is. "Either of you." He's grateful to Carmen, too, because he could never offer money, he had no hope of a decent defense (or even a lawyer that believed he _should_ win the case). Pryde was more than he ever could have asked. "Do you have a picture of her? Your daughter."  
  
"Oh, yeah," he snorts fondly and withdraws his wallet, by this point he's replaced all the metal on it so he can have it with him. He takes out a small photograph and slides it over. "She was a couple years younger then." It looks like a class photo, of a young girl with dark curly hair and brown eyes and a mischievous grin. She has freckles over her nose like Carmen, but Erik imagines she looks more like her mother.  
  
Erik traces his fingernail over the photo for a second before sliding it back. "You must be very proud."  
  
"That I am. She can become intangible. That is, pass through solid matter. _Phasing_ , she calls it. That G-dforsaken news article-" Carmen's lips twist mirthlessly. "Her power's not frightening like yours or Charles's, but I can hear it now. _What's to stop her from walking into a bank,_ et cetera, et cetera. What's to stop _me_ from walking into a bank, first of all? Ridiculous." He rolls his eyes.  
  
"Hmm," Charles smiles, though he doesn't need the photo when he's seen her in action plenty of times in Carmen's mind, as recently as this morning. He hadn't been lying, or saying what he'd said as a mere pleasantry. She's truly extraordinary, Kitty Pryde, and he can only imagine what she'll grow up to be. "She'll certainly get up to her fair share of trouble," he laughs, because he's seen that much already. "But not robbing banks, no. The last place she needs to be is a mutant registry." He's more than a little bitter about that, too. Just being reminded leaves an awful taste in his mouth. Something much lighter occurs to him, however, and his eyes brighten. "I hope she has a excellent birthday, by the way," he says, only slightly sheepish to have plucked that information from Carmen's brain. "Sixteen only comes around once." He sticks his hand his pocket, mostly out of habit, but then he's thoroughly delighted when he realizes there's a sucker still in there. Grinning, eyes crinkling and dimples showing, despite how it stretches some bruises, Charles unwraps it and pops it right into his mouth. "Do you have a favorite flavor? I asked someone this question earlier, but they said they enjoy watermelon, which made their opinion utterly invalid." Just a breather. They all deserve it.  
  
"We're planning on taking her to see her grandparents," Pryde laughs. "She'll enjoy the sun. _Netanya_ has way better beaches. And excuse you. Watermelon is the best flavor," Pryde gawps indignantly. "Followed closely by lemon and orange."  
  
"Those are awful... except watermelon," Erik cringes. "Watermelon is nice." He shoots Charles a grin when Pryde looks away.  
  
"Don't tell me you like black licorice or something equally disgusting."  
  
"Do they make licorice lollipops?"  
  
Pryde shudders. "Absolutely not."  
  
"That sounded bad. Maybe strawberry. Green is nice."  
  
"Green?" Pryde snorts.  
  
"What flavor is green?" Erik looks sheepish.  
  
Charles laughs outright. "Green apple, most likely. Something sour." He makes a face at that, nose scrunched. "Which is disgusting, by the way. Why make candy sour? Who decided that was a good idea? Candy is meant to be sweet, that's why it's candy. What a blasphemous concept." If it isn't glaringly obvious yet that Charles has a massive, insatiable sweet tooth, he does. "I don't play games with sweets, so I suggest both of you exit this conversation while you're still in my good graces. I once stopped speaking to my sister for a week because she made me a bitter birthday cake as a joke," he teases.  
  
"Sour candy is my favorite," Erik insists, hiding a smirk. "They used to make those little worms." He gives Charles a little image of holding a worm with pressed-on googly eyes, moving it and saying _wiggle, wiggle_.  
  
"They still make those!" Pryde laughs.  
  
"I am not very fond of sweets," Erik admits with a huff. Maybe it explains his whole no junk food policy.  
  
"You and Kitty would get along famously," the lawyer jerks a thumb at Charles. "I can't keep cheesecake in the house. I'm like, what's wrong with a salad?"  
  
"Salads are good." Erik can't think of the last time he had anything other than peas and potatoes, but he's definitely not fussy, and he's infinitely grateful to have it. His tastes are remembered from childhood. Once he got to eat pasta with Alfredo sauce, which wasn't unpleasant, but meals under Shaw's care had always been about necessity, and forcing himself past his own reservations in order to survive. Aaaaaand that was definitely not the point of this conversation, so he forces himself now to stop thinking about it.  
  
"Or a good steak," Carmen sighs lovingly. "Blue steak. That's where it's at."  
  
"The steak is blue?!" Erik's eyes widen.  
  
Charles claps a hand over his mouth, ignoring the spark of pain that inspires. It doesn't stifle the undignified, snorting giggles that escape him, but it's worth a try. "No, the steak isn't blue," he manages through peals of it. "That's -" _Adorable. You're adorable_ , Erik. "Repulsive, by the way. Completely. At that point just bite into the poor beast with your teeth, it might even be less bloody." He's grinning ear to ear, now. "I truly fear your stance on vegetables, both of you."  
  
Charles is very firmly anti-vegetable, as it is, and he's always been an exceptionally picky eater. As a baby, it was almost impossible to get him to eat anything even vaguely green and leafy. He's gotten much better, but it's probably a very good thing that he has a Dom so concerned with his health now.  
  
 _"Steak isn't a vegetable,"_ Erik and Carmen both say at the same time. Carmen points at him and says "jinx!" to which he replies, _"what is jinx"_ in that serious glower, which only serves to heighten the hilarity of the moment. Charles's laughter makes Erik want to reach out for him physically, but he keeps his distance as befitting his duty in not having his submissive fired on the spot. I will convince you of the merits of little wiggly worms, he returns, laughing gently. He's not accustomed to displaying happiness in front of anyone who isn't Charles, so it's more muted with Carmen in the room, but Charles can tell the older man is pleased that Erik is coming out of his shell more. It's not often he gets attached to clients, but he'd be lying to himself if he said his desire to win this case was purely professional anymore.  
  
Charles is still laughing. He opens his mouth, perhaps to offer new insight into this conversation, perhaps to explain the fascinating concept of jinx, but it snaps shut. He means to scowl, but even with Carmen in the room, it looks much more like a pout on his full lips. "The guard outside is becoming impatient," he explains, sighing. "Always so antsy." Charles is usually a bit less judgmental in tone, but after hearing the more unsavory thoughts of the men in charge of pointing plastic guns at his Dominant, he can't say he's the most patient. Erik isn't the only one allowed to be a bit protective. He knows he gets to take Erik home with him. He knows it's unfair. It doesn't stop him from thinking no, don't go, please, before he can help it. Even if Erik and he aren't physically touching now, there's the potential for it. They're sharing physical space, at least. He'll miss it. He always does.  
  
"Yeah, well, tough," Carmen rolls his eyes. "I booked a day-long slot, so they'll just have to suck it up." He does sigh, though. "We should probably break here, I have a lot to sort through and we still need to get started on what you're going to say," he jerks a thumb at Charles.  
  
Erik almost wants to ask if he can stay, but he just stands dutifully, a whisper of a touch at the back of Charles's neck intended to comfort. I will miss you, he says silently. It will be all right. I promise.  
  
"Before you go," Carmen looks up at him. Way, way up. "Are you being treated well in here?"  
  
Erik tilts his head. "Aside from Agent Essex, no one has hurt me."  
  
"Yeah, this conversation's a little one-sided," Carmen mutters under his breath. "I mean, you're getting proper meals, no one's verbally harassing you, that sort of thing? Are you being let outside at all?"  
  
"Yes, I do not know, no." Erik blinks and looks at Charles for help. "I feel safe." As safe as he could feel. "Agent Duncan is nice. Agent MacTaggert gave me a present," he remembers fondly. Charles in his floppy hat. The burn of vodka. He'll keep that one tucked close. "She is nice. Some of the agents are... rude, but that is," he shrugs. "Not significant."  
  
"Remind me to send her a fruit basket. And they're still keeping you in adseg-is there any reason for that?"  
  
"I do not think so?"  
  
Charles' scowl deepens. He was going to bring it up with Moira, by the end of this. He still will. "I don't like it," he states obviously. "It's not as if you're getting much contact outside of these sessions in general, but is it truly necessary? Punishing you for trauma responses is barbaric. I'd like to see how they like being put in a dark, tiny room whenever they're frightened," he mumbles under his breath. "It certainly doesn't facilitate a healthy psyche."  
  
Fortunately, Charles was there, or this would be much worse. And regardless of what they decided - but he would push, and he is very convincing - he will still be there. He can't help messing with Carmen's perception one more time, making himself look like he's standing a fair distance as he worms his way into Erik's arms, head resting on his chest. He likes this spot. It's his spot, he's decided. No bruises will take it from him.  
  
 _You promise you'll stay?_ It's what will make this bearable. Charles smiles. _You need to come shopping with me_. He tries to hide the little thrill the reminder gives him, the way it shoots up his spine in that familiar electricity.  
  
Carmen's eyebrows shoot up. "Wait a second, I thought they had you in there for an _infraction_. What are you talking about, Charles? Give me that phone," he makes grabby hands at it, and when it's passed to him, he dials as he speaks. "Tell me what happened. I'm going to get this sorted out before you go," he assures Erik, who isn't paying much attention to him anymore.  
  
 _It's OK_ , Erik promises. _I don't mind. Being with you it is almost like I am not here_ , he laughs privately. _I promise I will stay. And we will go shopping_. His arm comes up around Charles and he kisses the top of his head, then ducks it under his chin. _I love you_. He trails his fingers along that line of electricity, mindful of the tenderness there.  
  
"They always plop him in there when they aren't sure exactly what to do with him," he sighs, and he imagines it has something to do with how terrified they are of him. This entire plastic prison is proof enough of that. "I've been raising concerns about it from day one, but Moira can only listen to so much of my badgering before I get drowned out. The last I saw was in the elevator after the arraignment -" He sighs. That was not a pleasant ride. "Erik was having an episode, and understandably so. He'd just been pulled aside by Shaw. He certainly didn't hurt anyone, nor even lash out. It's usually that way. I don't see why non-violent, perfectly reasonable fear responses should be met with punishment. If anything I should be contacted." That was his job.  
  
But he's a bit divided, too, with Erik so close. Charles smiles against his chest, perfectly content to be there. Separating, even with that promise, will hurt. It feels so completely natural and safe that he wonders, honestly, what he'd done when he didn't have this. His mountain man with those large, warm hands. It should be unpleasant, being touched where he's raw and torn open, but it only feels shivery in that delicious, wanting way. _I love you, too. So very much. Do you know I'm yours?_ he asks it like it's a wonder to him. It is.  
  
"They're terrified of him," Carmen translates that easily and leaves a message with the administrator to call him back as soon as possible when it becomes clear he's reached an answering machine. "We'll get this sorted out," he promises Erik, who just looks like he's standing there. In reality, he's fluttering fingertips over Charles's shoulders, twining in the hair at the nape of his neck. You are mine, Erik grins down at him. He doesn't know if he can properly relay how pleasant that thought is to him. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night drenched in a cold sweat and he has to remember that this is his life now, that he has Charles, that Charles is his. It eases everything. He keeps his touch light, not wishing to aggravate Charles's injuries any further. "You're right, they should be contacting you, but there's also the simple fact that it's likely easier to just put him in isolation. Needless to say that's an egregious use of the space. Solitary confinement is horrific on its own merits. It's not doing Erik any favors whatsoever."  
  
"No, it isn't," he agrees, and it's grim. He's glad to have another voice to speak up on Erik's behalf, another ally in this. It's more than a relief, when usually he's waved off by higher-ups, nameless, faceless entities who would much rather Erik be black-boxed and have done with it. Charles would stage a jailbreak before he let that happen. No more tiny, cold rooms soon. Only open windows and lots of plants. It's a promise. The guard is getting more antsy by the second. He's about to barge in. Charles sighs, and clings harder in the few moments he has left. _I love you so much_ , he repeats. _I will miss this_. Their connection will make up for it, but even still. There are things even their mind-world can't perfectly replicate. Charles has them memorized by now, but he soaks it all up anyway. He won't say goodbye. Not only would it be inappropriate when Erik won't truly leave, it would hurt.

* * *

Carmen practically glares at the guard when he finally does enter, and he instantly moves to Erik's side to roughly grab him, which prompts the lawyer to rise to his feet and bark, "Hey! Calm it down, son."  
  
"I don't answer to you," the guy grunts. It's the meat head with the shaved hair and tribal tattoos.  
  
Erik's not even in the room. He's still with Charles, surrounded by windows and plants. _It's nice._ He smiles. _Don't take Warren_ , he laughs a little under his breath. _He will make you buy a collar made of entirely diamonds._ _They will spell out PROPERTY OF ERIK along the front. It will be obscene._  
  
"Something funny, inmate?" the guy rolls his eyes and shoves Erik out the door.  
  
"Don't think I won't go to your superior with this! Be careful, for _Christ's sake._ _Fucking_ animals," he spits when the door shuts behind him.  
  
As soon as they're both settled, Charles knows he will have Erik back. He will hold his hand in the car, and go shopping for a placeholder collar with him, the thought of which still makes him shiver. But now? Now he aches, and it takes everything in him not to show it on his face as he - carefully, slowly, and still wincing - sits back down. "Now you see what I've been dealing with," he mutters. "It's like they're picking brutes off the street and fitting them with plastic guns and power. I keep telling Moira, but nothing gets done about it. You should have seen the fuss I caused when I brought up his right to practice. That's when they knew I'd be a problem," he laughs, bitterly. Because Charles is the last person who will stand for it.  
  
" _Oy_ ," Carmen says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "CIA, ladies and gentleman. Honestly, I got the impression Moira was pretty on top of things, but-" he winces. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest she's dealing with people a hell of a lot less reasonable than her. Did that get sorted at all? Because that's something I can fix."  
  
"All sorted, to the best of my knowledge. I was firm on that," he assures. Erik is startlingly unlikely to mention transgressions when they're made against him, thinking them ordinary, but he's fairly sure this would have come up. "That was a day one concern, along with ' _I'm a D5_ ' and ' _the facility I took down has been experimenting on and torturing mutants for years'._ " His smile is more of a grimace now. "We've been through several new shocks since then, as you can imagine. Never a dull moment."  
  
"No shit," Carmen huffs. His notebook is filled with pages and pages of notes, and he flips over to a blank piece of paper and repositions his pencil. He's already starting to write in a haphazard scrawl of shorthand unintelligible to anyone except him-and Charles, for the moment. "Well, at least they did one thing right. What did you know about the case before you went into the interview room for the first time? What did you expect to see?"  
  
"Woefully little, except what I'd been debriefed on and what everyone else had already seen on the news," he admits with a sigh. "I wasn't aware of his medical records, and I was only given a shorthanded version of his file. They told me that he refused to cooperate and asked that I do his labs." They both knew how that turned out. "They also weren't sure if he spoke English, and so I wasn't, either, until I walked into the room. As a rule, I tend to keep judgment out of these things. Understanding begins with an open mind. I knew I was willing to listen, and that the case seemed - odd, to me." He knows Carmen will ask for clarification, so he purses his lips and considers how to word it. "The video recording of Erik bothered me. He didn't look to be in his right mind, so it struck me as odd that it was being discussed as an open-shut terrorism case. I wanted to know his motive and intentions, which, of course, besides care of his psychological wellbeing, is my job. Besides that, I've trained myself out of expecting anything." He certainly couldn't have prepared for what he found, either way.  
  
"And what was your initial impression?" Carmen plans on getting the actual information in Charles's words first and then streamlining everything into smaller, concise chunks that a jury will be able to digest easily, going for maximum impact, minimal sound. The more Charles spoke in here, the less he'd have to say out there, everything stripped to essentials and that meant every word of his testimony would be hard-hitting, nothing left extraneous. He's writing as Charles speaks.  
  
"That he was calm and intelligent." Which wasn't the impression most got, but it was the one he'd had. "That he spoke fluent English, and was perfectly willing to cooperate and answer my questions." He leaves out the part about Erik's Will and Dominance, of course.  
  
"How long have you been working in this field, by the way?" Carmen redirects slightly, drawing a line above his current notes. He wasn't always the most linear organizer, but he's gotten this far. "You seem fairly young, and you're a psychiatrist, right? That means medical school?"  
  
"Four years, coming up on five," he answers smoothly, and his lips quirk. "I started university when I was sixteen, and finished my undergraduate with three bachelor's degrees at eighteen. Then I earned my first PhD when I was twenty-one, and my medical degree in psychiatry when I was twenty-three. I studied for those degrees concurrently. I'm twenty-seven now, turning twenty-eight this coming summer."  
  
"Well, that's a relief," Carmen laughs. It's a joke but it's also true. The fact that Charles has this experience is an asset, it means the defense can't make him come across as some child starting his first year of residency. Most of the rest of his questions are establishing in some manner, his impressions, his diagnoses-which Carmen pauses on, curious. "OK, so it's obvious that Erik has selective mutism, do we know exactly what enables him to talk to us? Did he speak to you in your interviews from the beginning? I also made a note, here-" he flips back and circles something. "Your initial comments to the judge were that he shows no evidence of dissociative disorder, but that seems... inconsistent with my observations. Can you explain that in more detail?" It'll be helpful when he reads on Erik's behalf as well, to get a better sense of what the long-term impact is.  
  
Charles hums, thoughtful. If he's completely honest, sometimes he doesn't understand exactly why Erik spoke to him that first session. "I don't think there was a science to it," he admits, chewing on his lip. If Erik were here, he'd scold him. "The first thing he said to me was _'you're a telepath'._ He was perfectly calm and collected. Since then, he's said it was because he knew he could trust me, but I don't have any hard explanation as to why that was." He doesn't think Erik does, either. There's no reason not to be truthful here. "As for the clarification, I said he had no dissociative disorder, not that he showed no dissociative symptoms. Those symptoms are common in sufferers of C-PTSD, which I diagnosed him with. Derealization, depersonalization, dissociative episodes and dissociative amnesia are all avoidant symptoms, which he does experience. Those symptoms are rarely diagnosed separately, unless in the case of a dissociative disorder that needs to be treated separately - dissociative identity disorder, for example, which Erik shows no signs of."  
  
Carmen writes while he speaks. "OK, that might not be so relevant to the jury since they won't hear him speak regardless. A lot of people are under the impression that because selective mutism sufferers _can_ speak, their 'decision' _not_ to is deliberate-and that will be the big sell for the prosecution, that Erik is exaggerating to make himself seem sympathetic. So be prepared for that. Speaking of which, and I have to ask this, is it possible that Erik could fake these symptoms?"  
  
Charles thinks that one through. "Not to me," he laughs, but he's uncertain if that one's going to fly. That he's a telepath and intuitively knows these things is part of the story, though, so perhaps it will have to. "But even barring that, it would be incredibly difficult and to display every symptom of a complex, nuanced disorder consistently and realistically would be nearly impossible for as long as I've been seeing him. He would need to be the greatest con artist alive. I should also mention the majority of patients I've treated suffer from PTSD - I'm well-versed. His mutism is linked to that trauma, and is intimately tied to his other symptoms, so the same answer stands for that, too."  
  
"OK, on the stand, nix the con-artist comments," Carmen smiles at him. "Everything else you just said will sound like _he could if he was smart enough_. Your emphasis on his intelligence notwithstanding, we don't want to give them any opening if it isn't necessary. This is good, though. Honestly, and this isn't related to your testimony, and I doubt you even have any real answers here-but it's a consideration now, huh? I mean, this place is about as regimented and isolated as a person can get and he still ends up in an adseg cell more often than not. If he does get acquitted I will be shocked if he's not arrested again within the year. That tends to be the case with people in his situation, unfortunately. He's not a violent person, but I can see him lashing out and scaring some police officer and we're right back where we started. He's going to leave here with eighty bucks and a recommendation to a halfway house and that's it. Criminal justice system at its finest."  
  
Charles blinks, and for a moment - because of the familiarity they just shared a few minutes ago with Erik, and the stutter-whirring, not quite full processing speed of his own brain - he wonders exactly what Carmen is talking about. And then he remembers. He's just Erik's psychiatrist. It would be wholly inappropriate for him to take Erik home from all this. He's going to do it anyway. But still. "When he was little," he murmurs, and his lips twitch, this time sadly, because - because it's not at all strange for him to have this information, but it hurts to know it could have been useless throwaway, "He wanted to be a social worker, and he just adores children. He loves literature, especially poetry. Once, he very nearly cried over a wilting flower in session." It was in bed, but same thing. "I think you underestimate exactly how good Erik is, and exactly how devastating it would be if that was wasted." The voice crack isn't entirely professional, Charles, but he's clearly close to this. He'll leave it. Charles stares down at the table, and for a very long time he's silent, his heart racing and dropped into his stomach. He would never let it happen. It's not reality. They're going to do such magnificent things together, things befitting of both their potential, but if - if for some reason things weren't as they were, if there wasn't a perfect storm of him and Pryde - He doesn't think it. It hurts too much. "You asked me once if he deserved to walk," he says, voice quiet. "Yes. The answer's yes. He deserves a shot to live, too. He's got so much more more up in that head of his that isn't trauma, rage, and pain. It's really quite extraordinary." Getting closer to a line, but not there yet. If Charles had somehow managed to stay firmly professional (in what world, with Erik as he is?), he imagines this is how he would feel, even still. That he would be twisted up right now for an entirely different reason than he is, but twisted up nonetheless.  
  
He would probably look a lot like Carmen (OK, maybe not that detached-Charles wears his emotions on his sleeve even on a good day, but it's poetic). Carmen does not actually look like anything anyway, it's just his mind and the way he shakes his head, incredulous. "Look at all this," he flicks the yellow legal paper. "If I can't make the jury see that, I deserve to be fired," he laughs and pats Charles's arm. "I don't think we're going to have a problem there, but I'd like to look into some resources to help him integrate socially so he actually does have a shot in hell out there. You know, I did not anticipate someone like you on the other end of this," he has to figure, watching Charles's expression. It's a little up in the air whether Carmen actually understands the situation, because as Charles is discovering, Carmen's good at a lot more than just criminal law, but he hasn't commented on it and shows no intention of doing so. He's already lying about Erik's score. "A lot of the psychiatrists I meet in the course of this work are punching out the clock-they're not bad people, they're stretched thin and they've seen a lot. At the end of the day, _most_ of my clients are guilty," he reveals dryly. "It can be wearing. People trying to game the system, it gets old. I hope you don't lose this. When it's worth it, it's worth it."  
  
Charles hates to disappoint. That's not facetious. For all of his stubborn defiance, at the heart of him, he truly does. So he grimaces, not at the pat on the arm (ow, it's not Carmen's fault he can't see those bruises anymore), not at the mention of resources that Charles knows full well he'll be providing himself, but at Carmen's hope that he doesn't lose this. "I got into this field," he starts, voice still quiet, "To help people. To listen and understand those who no one else would, and let me say this. It's not just my mutation that makes me damn good at it." Charles had a natural inclination toward people. Toward compassion, and understanding. It was just the way he was, facilitated by his telepathy but always beginning at the core of him. "I've met my fair share of guilty patients, and even still, I think I may even have helped them, if there was something in there to salvage. It's not pleasant work for a telepath," he grins, wry, "But I've done what I meant to, and that's what matters. But I think, after this -" He's thought about this. Quite a lot, actually. "After this, I'm done. I believe my talents and resources are better utilized elsewhere, and as much as I love to multitask, even I know when I'm stretching myself too thin." He laughs. "So you're on your own in this broken legal system, I'm afraid. I'll be saying plenty from the outside, but I'll be quite cross if you don't shake things up from in here." He already was, with this case. "It needs someone like you. So, likewise."  
  
That just makes Carmen smile back, just as wry. "I expected you might say something like that. Whatever happens, wherever you go will be lucky to have you. All right, I'm going to streamline a lot of this, but expect more of the same when you do go on the stand. I'll be sending you an email with some key questions so you can make sure you go up there prepared. I understand Sebastian Shaw is attending most of these hearings, by the way, which is also something we need to figure out how to deal with. I don't want Erik losing it in there, a lot of our case hinges on the fact that he's reasonable and approachable and that doesn't work if he's melting down. I imagine it's not good on his mental health, either. Have you two spoken at all about a plan for dealing with this?"  
  
It was a more than fair question. Charles sighs, rubbing at his jaw with his hand. It was supposed to be an idle gesture, mostly because he can feel his stubble growing in as a patchy little beard - he hasn't shaved yet - but he winces at the soreness. He's just lucky it wasn't broken. "Yes, we've discussed it," he murmurs, even though they haven't. They will. Charles has ideas, none of which he can share with Carmen. "I'll take care of that. Erik can self-soothe with the best of them when he needs to, and we've been working on coping strategies." Not in the traditional way, but forget that. Charles bites his lip, considering. Then he says it. "Thank you. For doing this. I understand I'm not the one who should be thanking you, and he already has, but I'm not even talking about this case. I've said you're lucky to have your daughter - and you are, she's brilliant, what a treasure - but she's also lucky to have you." The meaning won't be lost. "I can write as many papers as I'd like about baseline-mutant cooperation, but -" But they needed people like Carmen to make it work in practice.  
  
"You know she'd be thrilled to talk to someone like you, right? I'm sure it didn't escape your attention that her IQ is higher than my total body weight," he huffs. "We love each other, and we get along, but I just can't keep up with her. Not many people can, and I reckon you have some experience with that feeling. She's already auditing classes at university level, getting credit where she can. I encouraged her to take a slower path but maybe that's not what she needs." He presses his lips together, giving a little shrug. "And you let me know if I can help with those papers at all, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say probably not," he gives a laugh. "You can't legislate human beings. It's like this word _illegals_ , you know? You can't say a _human being_ is illegal. The less we stand up against that precedent the bleaker our future looks."  
  
"We're incredibly bad at this, as a general rule. I'd like to do everything in my power to avoid us repeating any of our unfortunate history, and I have a considerable amount of power." He's speaking of the entire lot of them, humans. Baseline, mutant, at the end of the day it's just another modifier to the human experience. Even if all humans develop mutant genes at some point, mutatis mutandis, human-and-necessary-extra, it doesn't need to be a clash all the way down. They aren't Neanderthals anymore. Charles purses his lips, considering again. "I'd love to meet your daughter, you know. I am a professor, and I happen to know exactly the feeling." And here's the part he hasn't spoken to another living soul about except Erik. "I'm going to open a school for -" He grins, sheepish. "For gifted students, shall we say. I have the qualifications. I have the resources. And I've seen far too many children like Kitty suffer because they don't have a safe space to learn and grow and explore themselves."  
  
"Well, I think that's a fantastic idea," Carmen says immediately. "And sorely needed. You're likely going to face quite a bit of opposition if you go through with it, so you let me know if you need any legal advice. It's not my usual roster, but I'll make an exception. And if you have a card or something, I'd be happy to pass it along to her. I think she'd benefit from talking to someone on her level. L-rd knows she needs it. She doesn't _intend_ to come across like anything, but people tend to believe she's just showing off, you know, or acting like some kind of know-it-all. Doesn't help that she _does_ know it all. It'll be good for her to have a challenge, and get some input from someone with your life experience. I appreciate it, really."  
  
Charles laughs, completely delighted. He's been there. Oh, has he been there, more times than he could possibly count. Know-it-all Charles Xavier, with his nose in the air. It takes a bit of rustling around for his wallet (worn leather, no metal), to find his business card and hand it over. "I'd love to speak with her. I wish I'd had someone to challenge me at her age. I was being underestimated at every turn, and it wasn't particularly fun. I spent more time proving myself than learning, sometimes. It will be my absolute pleasure, trust me." That he means. In the beginning of all of this, Charles had considered Carmen a formidable ally, and he still does. But now he's wondering if perhaps he's someone, with a bit of time and familiarity, he could consider a friend. That's still a fairly foreign concept for him. "That being said, don't think I won't take you up on that legal offer when the time comes. You may regret it," he teases. "Associating yourself with mad Charles Xavier and his school of freakshows. You're in for it." There's only a little bitterness there, though. Charles is full of nothing but hope. Charles needs to be hopeful, and it's just been renewed.  
  
"You don't know _me_ very well, but I like a challenge, too," Carmen smirks. He rises to his feet, figuring Agent Beefcake probably isn't too happy about their continued commandeering of the room, and extends his hand. "We're up bright and early tomorrow, so take some time, go over this. If there's any questions or concerns, you know how to reach me." He slides Charles's card into his own wallet after shaking with his left, adjusting for Charles's injury. "Let's get this done."  
  
Charles is bursting with something as he shakes Carmen Pryde's hand. "Let's," he echoes, and doesn't quite manage to hide his elated, sunshine through clouds smile.


	26. Broken hearts hurt but they make us strong and

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. soz original had no formatting rip me  
> ii. _romeo and juliet_ , william shakespeare

They walk down together, then go their separate ways, and Charles has that silly blindfold on and is halfway to the checkpoint by the time he realizes exactly what he's feeling, covered head to toe in bruises and following what will certainly go down as one of his least favorite nights of existence. It's hope. It's pure, unbridled hope, bundled up so warm and tight in his chest that he's left breathless and reeling. And he has to share it with the man who's given it to him. Charles reaches for Erik, and immediately he's burrowed as deeply in his bonded as he can be. _Hi, darling_ , he manages around the emotion, but even in his mind it chokes him, the sound coming out strained. _I could feel you eavesdropping, so I won't bother filling you in. That's very rude, you know._ Pot, kettle. Charles' cheeks hurt, and not only because of the bruises. He has some shopping to do, and he'd very much like to take his beloved along. Perhaps tomorrow will take this again, steal it out from under him, and leave him fighting for air. But now could it really hurt to, despite every bit of pain, be grateful for what he's gained?  
  
Erik presses against him, laying his head on Charles's shoulder with a grin. _Hi,_ he whispers back, enveloping Charles in as much of that sensation as he can, touching over the blindfold with amusement. Blindfold, he laughs gently, thinking it incredibly silly. _You look fetching._ He kisses Charles's jaw, far happier to be here in this Escalade with him than stare at the wall of his cell. _I cannot believe you told him about the flower. It was special!_ His body shakes with laughter.  
  
 _Very special_ , he agrees, and he's laughing, too. Apparently it bleeds out into the Real, because he can feel eyes on him that aren't Erik's, and he doesn't much care at all. Let them think him mad. Charles curls as closely into Erik as he can, uncertain if he's bending perception to do it physically or not. In the end, it all amounts to the same thing. He gets to nuzzle his Dominant, a pleased, soft little hum parting his lips, and though everything still aches and throbs, he can't bring himself to feel any real pain. There's only this, comfort and that warm, blissful sensation of sinking and floating until the blindfold is taken off and he's climbing into yet another car. He has errands to run, but after that, he wonders if there would be anything wrong with reveling in that place for just a while. Erik's Will, still ever-present and physically fresh in his mind, certainly makes him want to. By the time they're in the city again - Charles grasps Erik's hand tightly, for both their sakes, because it's still awfully crowded and noisy out here, the city proper always gives him a headache, too many minds clambering over each other at once for his attention - he's losing some of his nerve. He knows these types of stores are perfectly normal. There's nothing odd about walking into one, and it's not like it's a sex shop. This is a natural part of most people's lives, and to be walking into one with his Dom at his side, even if no one else can see him - Charles is still fidgeting and blushing. We could do this another time, he suggests, except he very much wants to go in. He's just stalling.  
  
Erik looks faintly green, but he clutched onto Charles's hand like it was a literal life-line, trying his best not to hurt him. The crowds were overwhelming even to ordinary people. He can't imagine anyone he knew as a child comfortable in the streets and at one point his arm flies out to stop a car in its tracks before it literally runs a poor old lady over and he's agitated and vibrating faintly by the time they hit the store. Every little noise calls his attention and he keeps himself firmly plastered to Charles's side. Oh no, he shakes his head. We very much can do this at this time. His eyes are drawn to the metal section naturally, having not sensed this much previous metal in close proximity for years. He smooths out a defect in one of the black rhodium pieces before moving along obligingly.  
  
Charles squeezes Erik's hand, not entirely sure who he's reassuring here. It takes a few more deep, centering breaths before he moves inside. Fortunately there doesn't seem to be anyone to assault him on entry, so he slides in on his own. 

* * *

And is immediately a bit overwhelmed, despite it being much, much quieter. For one, this place is huge, which he'd felt might be necessary - he absolutely does not want to walk out of here without a collar around his neck, but he also doesn't want to pick one out at random and call it a day. Presumably, though they could always replace it if they saw fit, this is a collar he's going to be wearing for quite some time. A wide selection is good, and - and Charles is currently distracted. The last time he'd been in one of these stores it was with Gabby, and he'd been embarrassed and stubborn and huffing about. Now his mouth has gone dry, his eyes caught on the section dedicated to restraints. How had he gone so long without knowing there were so many different kinds? Some of the ropes look incredibly soft - Charles makes a noise at the back of his throat, because while he'd been plenty unaffected and even put out and bored last time, everything is different with Erik at his side. His cheeks must be on fire. _Um_ , he starts, intelligently. _We could leave_ \- Charles is fidgeting again.  
  
Erik shook his head. These are cheap, he flicks one and the soft swish of the tail flutters in the air, seemingly on its own. _You don't want to buy everything in the same place. This store's specialty is collars, that is what they are good at. Everything else here looks subpar. I see cotton, polyester-oh, they do have some hemp, but that smells after a while_ \- he doesn't realize he'd thought all that out loud until he looks to see Charles staring at him and he gives a little shrug. It turns out having Erik with him holds a dual benefit, not only because Erik is there to nudge him further inside and against his own inclinations and fidgety embarrassment, but it turns out he knows a lot about the products that are being sold on a market and construction level. _If he tries to sell you that thing, we're leaving,_ Erik mutters dryly, standing next to Charles with crossed arms and giving the sales rep a judgy glare. He seems to think better of offering Charles the piece in his hands though (even he can tell it's an entry-level collar and he is entry-level) and diverts at the last second to a teenaged couple. _Most places like this have a more lucrative selection in the back storage, that's what you want. Come along,_ he smiles and gestures for Charles to follow him further.  
  
Charles does as he's told, another strained noise slipping out of him against his will. Everything is new. He feels a little like an out of place schoolboy, hot and itchy, and it's almost impossible to swallow around the lump in his throat as he walks toward the bigger selection. There are so many, and it's finally dawned on Charles that he's going to be wearing one. Around his neck. For everyone to see, and for himself to feel, weighted and physical, unlike a mind-projection. He swallows, eyes wide, and he's chewed through his lip open again, the copper of his blood thick on his tongue.  
  
Erik puts his hand on Charles's lower back, standing behind him so he can feel his weight as if shielding him from everyone else. _Be careful_ , he Orders, tapping Charles's lip gently. _It is all right. We have plenty of time._ His own emotions on the matter are carefully shielded, but Charles has gotten glimpses over the last little while of just how much it matters to him, how pleased the idea makes him, but he doesn't push beyond guiding Charles's eye to items that are durable and well-made, letting him make the aesthetic choice himself. In a way that makes it better, because it's what Charles associates with him, and there are a few benefits to not being able to do this himself after all. "How do you feel?" he murmurs in Charles's ear, curious.  
  
 _I -_ Charles shakes his head, and when he breaks off into a whimper, it's to turn around and hide himself in Erik's chest, outside perception warping instinctively to accommodate. He's not distressed, or unhappy, or panicking, sucking in slow, even breaths. He's just overwhelmed, and it's the best answer he has right now. Overwhelmed. This is a greater, more significant moment for him than he'd considered, and around all the others he's experienced he'd thought it wouldn't affect him as much. He's already worn Erik's collar, after all. Asked for it, and promised to never take it off. It's different like this. Tangible, and shockingly real. "I never thought I'd be doing this," he whispers, though they both already know it. "It's - sorry, this is silly, I just -"  
  
Erik gives him a smile, kissing him on the forehead. "Not silly. I am very glad I can be here with you, did you know that?" he tucks Charles in close and holds him, swaying from side to side gently. "This is important to me. I am glad it is equally as important to you. You don't need to rush with it."  
  
"It's important to you?" he asks, and it's really only the Order to be careful that keeps him from biting more holes into his lip, that nervous habit he's going to need to work on. Charles already knows the answer, and he can feel it, too, but he finds he needs to ask anyway. To hear it spoken. "You want to collar me? Really?" There's - awe, there, he recognizes. Complete awe, and unbidden, tears spring to his eyes. He makes another helpless, slightly frustrated noise, because he absolutely does not want to cry here, but - but - Gabby had wanted to collar him, yes. She'd brought it up several times. It's just that it was never what Charles wanted, or what either of them needed, and now it is. Now it is.  
  
He swipes his thumb under those tears and nods, eyes crinkled. It had been one of the first things he mentioned, when Charles finally broke down and admitted he didn't want this to only extend to their dynamic in the bedroom. "I do not ever want for you to doubt that you are mine again. It is my goal that no one should, eventually, but for now, this is... more than satisfactory."  
  
It's laughable, now, that it was ever even a discussion, though it had changed everything. That either of them ever had to admit to that, as if this - them, their dynamic, his submission and Erik's Dominance - could ever be a bedroom game. "I won't," he promises, and takes a shuddering breath. He's going to look at collars in a second, he truly is. Just one more moment. He needs to hear something else. "This is real, then?" Outside of a mind-verse. Not a game, or a fantasy, or a fleeting fancy. If Charles puts on a collar today, if he gives himself totally to Erik like he knows he already has, it won't be in halves. It isn't how his submission works. If Erik's Dominance is vast, sprawling, and bottomless - Charles' submission is more than its match. He knows that now. Erik should, too. This means more than he knows how to express, and he thinks - he hopes - that's reflected right back at him in Erik.  
  
"It is real," he whispers back, fond. "It has always been real. We just stumbled a little bit, that's all," he smiles. "I do not want half, and neither do you." There are many times, more often than not, really, where he feels inadequate in his Dominance. Shockingly, right here and right now, he feels more at ease with it than he can ever recall. "I could not be prouder that you belong to me."  
  
They might still stumble. It's likely they will, actually. That they'll make mistakes, the both of them, and need to work things out. Talk them through, and smooth out some wrinkles. Charles has never been more confident in their ability to do that. Together. He closes his eyes and keeps himself buried in Erik's chest, blinking more tears down his cheeks. "Are you -" His voice cracks, so he swallows and tries again. "Are you sure? After everything, are you -" Charles has never seen his submission as anything but a burden, to him or anyone else. There's still the nagging fear that perhaps, eventually, it will burden Erik too.  
  
"I have never been more certain," Erik says solemnly, rubbing Charles's back through his shirt in soothing circles. "I see you, Charles. And I do not see a burden. I never have and I never will. Are you sure that this is what you want?" he pulls back to gaze at him, serious. "I cannot guarantee that it won't be difficult, or that things will even get easier with time. I can promise that you are right. We are extraordinary. And there is nothing on this planet that will prevent me from being at your side, if you will have me there."  
  
"I've never been more certain," he whispers, and his breath catches. They still actually have to put the thing on, and if he's already crying, he's not entirely sure how he'll make it through that. Charles laughs, quiet and sniffling, and takes Erik's hand in his. "I've never wanted anything more than I want to be yours, Erik, and I never will. I want this." He takes a breath, and straightens his shoulders. "No half measures. I want to wear your collar."  
  
"That is fortunate," Erik laughs, squeezing Charles's hand in his. "You are beautiful," he murmurs and taps one of the display cases. They're a little pricier, but, "these ones. You won't find better quality in here. Why don't you look them over and select one that speaks to you." And if it sounds a little like an Order, well, sue him. His eyes catch on one in particular, made of a soft, thin, shimmery looking material in a deep sapphire tone, flecks of turquoise sprinkled throughout. It's classy but definitely more upscale. He doesn't say anything. He meant it earlier when he gave Charles free reign over what he wanted, so he hums under his breath and focuses instead on drawing his fingers through Charles's hair. Besides, maybe Charles would be more fond of something traditional like black. That... has its upside as well. Erik is doing very well pretending to be cool and unaffected, thank-you very much.  
  
Charles turns, takes a breath, and looks. Being a little pricier has the added benefit of craftsmanship and beauty. He may not know much about collars, but even he can tell these are high quality, crafted delicately and individually. His eyes naturally skip over the more gaudy ones - with too many gems embedded, or anything hanging at all, a matter of preference - and sweep over the rest. Warren had suggested leather, and at first that had seemed appealing. He'd seen plenty of submissives with plain leather collars peeking out from their shirts, and it had always seemed like the most obvious choice. The least likely to garner attention, and therefore the least likely to give him away as kept, if he ever chose that for himself. Now he finds that thought more than a little silly. Why would he ever want to hide being Erik's? His gaze falls, eventually, on the collar that had caught Erik's eye, too. He lingers. There's something about the color of it, he thinks. It's incredibly pretty, and he likes it a lot, but - it's not quite right, is it? His lips purse in thought, and after a moment he moves on. There's one right next to it. It could be its twin, honestly, though the material is different - slightly thicker, perhaps less shimmery, but no less soft or delicate. And the color... Charles thinks of island water, dipped toes, falling in feet first and the absence of panic in the wake of utter delight, bubbles rising to the surface and the scattering of tropical fish. Then he looks up, meeting Erik's eyes, and back down again. He smiles. "That one," he breathes.  
  
"Are you sure? I am quite fond of this one," Erik taps over the display case to a thick leather collar with a belt buckle and an O-ring that has PUDDIN stamped on it in garish bedazzled letters.  
  
Charles huffs. He's not looking at Erik, though, and he doesn't even spare that ridiculous monstrosity a glance, relying on Erik's image rather than his own eyes. "Don't ruin this moment for me," he teases, but his voice is cracking again. His pulse is racing.  
  
Erik's chuckling. "It's actually very well made, if you can believe it. Some people," grins and looks over the one Charles has indicated for real. "It's lovely," he murmurs, warm. He'd been drawn to the color of the other one primarily-and he hadn't been lying when he said he'd begun to favor more intense blues since meeting Charles. It would bring out his eyes. Charles didn't dress particularly showy either way, favoring darker suits, so it would be an added pop. "Ask them to retrieve it. I'll put it on for you." The words are accompanied by a little zap of electricity at the base of his spine. A fine choice indeed.  
  
Charles needs to take a few breaths to compose himself. There's something caught in his throat again, clogging it. One of the salespeople - Charles honestly couldn't tell you a single thing about them, which is so astonishingly abnormal for him - takes notice of him, and he can't really do much more than point. She's smiling, and perhaps she says something, but he hears not a single word of it as he holds it in his hands. They're shaking.  
  
He leads Charles over to a full length mirror and moves his hair away from his neck, gentle, and plucks the material out of his fingers. It's softer and lighter than it looks, and hypoallergenic. It catches the light of the store, definitely a more understated piece that got picked over in the wake of showier designs, but very much eye-catching. "Breathe," he murmurs, drawing it over the line of Charles's throat and fastening it in place. He slips two fingers under it, ensuring it's snug but not constricting. When he finally meets Charles's gaze in the reflection, he forgets to inhale himself, hand tightening slightly over his shoulder.  
  
Charles is breathing. He's also staring, completely speechless. There are tears down his cheeks again, catching on his eyelashes when he blinks. It's not Erik's collar, perhaps, not the one crafted specifically for him, but - But. "Do you -" He clears his throat, inhaling sharply. "Do you like it?" he asks, quiet. Seeking.  
  
"Charles-" Erik's voice is rough, and he turns the other man around in his arms, kissing him soundly. There are no words. He didn't expect to be this overcome, but-Stunning. You are simply magnificent. Erik rubs his thumb over the material, a pleased hum in the back of his throat.  
  
Charles gasps into that kiss, melting into it. Kissing back is all he can do to not cry in earnest, needy, soft noises pressed against Erik's lips as his entire world spins and shifts. There's no going back from this, he thinks. He would never want to. When Erik pulls back he's panting, pupils dilated, electric-hum in his veins and floating. Maybe no more of that unless you want me to kneel for you in the middle of this store, he warns, because his knees were feeling particularly weak at the moment. It's all he wants to do. He's pleased Erik. His Dominant. Charles is Erik's. His breath catches again, and he stifles a sob.  
  
Erik looks dangerously close to Ordering it from him, but he smooths his hands over Charles's shirt, getting some of the wrinkles clear, and inhales slowly. As delightful as that sounds, perhaps you had better go up and pay, he says, and it's intended as a joke but his eyes are dark, captivated by the sight of Charles wearing his collar. It would be his. It didn't need to be metal to belong to him. I knew that you were mine from the moment I saw you, he says, sneaking another kiss before taking a safe step back.

* * *

The last thing Charles wants is for him to move away, however slightly. A low, protesting whine slips before he can bite it back, and he can't even find it in him to be embarrassed. He's supposed to go pay. He's diverted everyone's attention, so it's not like it matters much, but he really shouldn't be standing in the middle of this store, dangerously close to subspace - Charles shakes his head, and steps forward, not away toward where the cashier is, but toward Erik. Like he's being pulled in by a force outside of himself and he can't possibly resist the pull. His fingers - the ones not encumbered by a cast, and others rest there - tangle in the fabric of Erik's sweater.  
  
The lady's eyes hook onto the material at his throat and she gives him a smile, and Erik's whole body sings with delight. It's a bit shocking, just how affected he really is by all this, and he stays as close to Charles as possible while he fumbles with his wallet. It's a little uncomfortable to be thinking of his father right now, but he recalls an afternoon, one of the last they'd spent together, when he got home early from school and Iakóv sat him down at the table and told him that he needed to _be careful with people,_ that all Dominants experienced Dominion differently, but because of his DS score, it could be overpowering, it could be dangerous, and he had to make sure he was in control of himself at all times when in public with his future submissive because the potential for dropping them into subspace at inopportune times ran much higher with D5s-he would be hit harder, faster and without warning and he had to prepare for that. His education at Shaw's hands held none of this training, the specialized kind that all D5s went through separate from their classmates in secondary school, and his consciousness is here if his body is not. The people in the store are reacting to it, shifting awkwardly amongst themselves and casting their eyes down, heads bowed. Erik clears his throat and does his best to rescind those tendrils of his Will he can feel all around him like ropes, wanting desperately to wrap Charles up.  
  
Charles couldn't have told you a single thing about the transaction. He doesn't know how much it cost. He doesn't even know what card he used (it doesn't matter, they've all got enough in the accounts associated to buy a house, car, and spare some change for an upscale shopping spree, or two or three). His signature is more of a wavy line than it is the usual distinctive, neat scrawl of his name, so he truly hopes no one decides to check his accounts today because it will almost certainly get flagged. He's floating. Still there, still present, still able to think and move and talk and function, but - he's floating, and sinking, and aching. Charles' eyes aren't glazed over so much as they're heated, burning, twin suns or else collapsing supernovas with warmth to match beneath his skin. When he's finished, receipt tucked neatly away with his wallet, smiles and pleasantries exchanged, he doesn't immediately go for the door. Erik is standing off to the side, and he waits. He doesn't lead, chin lifted, shoulders lifted high to appear taller, meeting every gaze on the way out the way he's trained himself to do. He doesn't storm out like the last time he was in one of these places, clucking his tongue dramatically and leaving Gabby in the dust. He waits, quiet and soft, and smiles, fingers playing with the edge of his collar. Waits to be led, or Ordered, not mindless but perfectly content to obey. Charles doesn't even notice the difference, but it's irrefutably there.  
  
Erik holds out his hand for Charles to return to his side, and stands behind him when they exit the store and after he guides Charles to call for a car to take them home, his thumb rubbing along his stomach, eyes half-lidded, lips parted. His skin is hot, the world narrowed entirely to the shift of Charles's thoughts. Everything is ablaze, wavy lines of humid air and he feels like a match has been lit inside of him, igniting him to the azure pitch that matches his _neshama's_. "Oh, Charles. Look at you," he rasps against the shell of his ear, breath warm. "Are you mine?"  
  
Charles is trembling. Just slightly, or perhaps he's shivering. He can't tell, but his lips part at the words, belly warm and fluttering with the heat behind them. Erik must be pleased with him. "Yes, Erik," he whispers, painfully soft and deferent. Wanting, and content, too, and all of this is so strange and wonderful and he can't help but touch his own collar, as if reminding himself that it's there. "I'm yours." He sighs, eyelids fluttering, and rests against Erik. There's simply no mistaking that, and he hopes he never does again.  
  
"Ken, my beautiful boy, _tiferet sheli_ ," he whispers, touching his lips to the back of Charles's neck where the thin strip of shimmery material meets his skin. His collar. Charles is wearing his collar. _I would see you wearing only this_. It's soft and dark and he's sinking down away from reality into the warm, glittering space between them, those cords of Will thicken around Charles, overlaying his throat, down his arms, his wrists. _Did you like those restraints?_ he asks, remembering how they'd stopped Charles in his tracks, the open look of wanting frozen plain on his face.  
  
Charles shivers in open delight at the praise, thrumming with it. He would do anything to earn more of those sweet, possessive words, he thinks, to hear Erik call him _my boy_. To tell him that he's doing well, no matter how mundane the task. His breath hitches. There's no denying that the restraints had fascinated him, even as he flushes with the reminder of his own flustered interest. Charles already knew Erik could tie delicate, intricate knots, even without the proper tools. He'd imagined it. It wouldn't need to be sexual, and perhaps that was what had stopped him most. Erik could simply tie him because he felt like it. Take away the use of his hands for no reason other than that, or tie him to the bed and bid him wait and be patient (something he finds incredibly difficult around Erik) simply because he desired it. Turn him into an art of intricate bindings because it was pretty to look at and Charles was Erik's to look at. Charles was Erik's to do with what he wished. It was his right. Charles' mouth has gone dry again. "Yes, Erik," he gasps, barely audible. The car has stopped in front of his apartment, but he hasn't noticed.

* * *

Erik spends the whole car ride kissing him. Gentle and sweet, spanning his hands over Charles's chest, his thighs, laying him back against the seat simply to touch and taste. There are distinct advantages to being invisible, to never breaking off contact again. Being able to work away all the tension in Charles's body until he melts into a veritable puddle against the leather, and Erik dips his thumb into Charles's mouth, bowing their foreheads together. "Eyes open," he whispers warmly, gazing back at him with so much love and adoration he's filled to bursting. _Beautiful, perfect boy. My dear-heart. My own._ He reaches over and opens the door when they pull up, a blinding smile on his face. It doesn't stop, Erik touching him, words low and dark in his mind and Erik's pleased sounds against his ear, almost a moan as he lets them into his now-empty apartment. Everyone was watching you. They could not look away. _I do not blame them. But you are mine, aren't you?_ He unbuttons Charles's blazer, slipping it from his shoulders.  
  
Charles was frightened. He hadn't realized it until this moment, breathless and yearning and pliant in Erik's hands, whimpering and soft, but he was. He had been afraid his body was no longer his body. That it belonged not to him or to Erik - and that was the real crime, truly, because he wants desperately for it to belong to Erik - but to someone else, the way he used to wonder if it did. If it was so branded by fear and lashes of belt and fists and stocky fingers that it could not be his to give anymore. That's nonsense. His body knows exactly who it belongs to, and Charles needn't worry. It's that trembling thought that steals his breath again. He's shaking, but only with need, now, eyes that bright, burning blue. "Yes, Erik," he whispers, and his voice shakes, too. "I - I want -" Charles swallows, and there are tears in his eyes again, overwhelmed. His lip disappears between his teeth, worrying it. He can taste Erik on his tongue still, and it's such a delicious relief that he's left lightheaded.  
  
He can't help kissing Charles again, curling both hands large and warm over either side of his neck, tilting his jaw up for a better angle. There is no way he will allow anyone to take Charles from him, not his body or his mind. It doesn't matter who. It doesn't matter what happens. There is one inviolable truth that he knows and it is that all of him belongs to Charles, and vice versa. He tastes those needy sounds for himself, can't help meeting them with his own, pulling Charles flush against him, tugging Charles's head back with a firm grip in his hair. _Tell me what you need, hm? What can I give you, sweetheart?_  
  
The gasp pulled from his mouth is a stuttered moan, panting, warm breaths the only thing he can manage at first. Erik's Will feels as if it's wrapped around every inch of him, tugging and knotting more intricate than any rope, and that hand in his hair is just the right edge of pain. Focusing, tantalizing. Charles shakes his head because he likes the pull of it, and for a moment he's forgotten how to speak. "I want -" His chest is heaving already, and he knows he should be in quite a bit more pain. But he isn't. "I want to please you," is what he comes up with, because truthfully it's all he can think. It's a sweet, earnest answer, but Charles fidgets, wondering if it's adequate, eyes lowered shyly.  
  
"Oh, I know," Erik breathes tenderly, smiling down at him with crinkled eyes, lifting Charles's chin to look at him and thumbing at his jaw appreciatively. "I want you to take these off, OK?" he rubs the material of Charles's shirt between his fingers. "It's still the morning, so I want you to go and begin your Postures just like we said. I'll be there to observe shortly." There is nothing that would please him more, he thinks, except the knowledge that one day soon this will be their routine in reality. No more secrets, no more hiding. Erik is turning out to love domestic bliss, and he's firm on this routine. Even when he does finally come here in the Real, he won't give this up. "Be very careful because I don't want you to hurt yourself. Can you do that for me?" His Will is licking its paws like big cat, stretching out possessively and ready to devour. Charles can feel it like an omnipresent glow, light under the doorway. Charles is his. His perfect, wonderful boy and he's going to take such good care of him. _I love you,_ he kisses the top of his forehead.

* * *

It had been in the back of his mind, tucked away among the buzzing stuttering of his brain when he'd woken up. Erik was attempting to give him a routine, something he'd sorely needed before him. It bothered him, regardless of how new it was, when something was thrown off. There had been no time or strength for Postures earlier this morning, but Charles had longed for them, something he'd find bizarre just months ago. He beams, now, practically lighting up, because he knows this is something that pleases Erik. Something he can do, an everyday method of obedience, and he needs it. "Yes, Erik," he murmurs, eager, smile soft. "I love you, too." The only thing he doesn't like is that he needs to part from Erik for even a second in this scenario, but knowing he can be where Erik wants him when he comes in is enough to move him. He patters off to the bedroom, fluttering and warm, folds his shirt and removes it just as he's told. Then, slowly, carefully, wincing only slightly, he lowers himself into Rest. His knees throb, torn as they are, but it's more than bearable considering the purpose, and the carpet is soft anyway. It's not long at all before he's sinking far, far beneath the surface, nothing but the bliss of obedience and Erik's Will holding him.  
  
Erik pads in when Charles is finally back at Rest, having paused at the doorway just to watch him, eyes tracing the delicate line of his collar and he has a tray of food in hand. It's all real, though where he's obtained it from is a mystery because Charles's fridge is woefully understocked, and he traipses over, wearing nothing but a white button-down shirt, buttons left undone, a trick of his own making him the picture of luxuriating comfort. It took Charles much longer to complete his Postures today, which Erik capitalized on. Charles is learning quickly, there are almost no corrections to be made anyway, and when he does make one final adjustment, it's with a lingering touch and a kiss. " _Tistakel atah_ ," he murmurs, entirely lost to the sensation of Charles's eager obedience, floating on chaotic river rapids of his own Will. " _Yeled na'eh ve mishtalem sheli_." He trails one finger down Charles's exposed chest. "Open up," he taps his bottom lip, playful, and retrieves a piece of pineapple from one of the small bowls. Charles can see there's an assortment of confections similar to the ones in the mindspace, only these are real (there's a couple of cake slices, still-warm and moist, a few cookies and a bowl of fruit-these were sitting in the fridge, courtesy of Raven). Come to think of it, the whole house smells like baked goods.  
  
It isn't surprising, if he's honest. Raven is always fussing, and if she knows anything it's that the best way to get him to eat anything is to sweeten it with some sort of baked good before or after. Charles is smiling, fluttering-floating and heavy eyelids. He opens obediently when Erik tells him to, moaning quietly around his bite. Pineapple is his favorite. There's no doubt in his mind that he's pleased his Dominant, either, and if this is something he gets to experience every morning, he's sure he might eventually burst with it. There are few things more satisfying. Charles allows himself to drift, soft and trusting as he eats by Erik's hand, quiet noises of pleasure and hums of gratitude. "You're spoiling me, Erik," he smiles after a taste of cake, a gleam in his eye as he sucks Erik's finger into his mouth when he's done. To get the frosting off, of course. His eyes slip closed, and he sighs happily, content to stay here on his knees for as long as Erik pleases.  
  
"I thought about feeding you a salad, but it didn't look as pretty," Erik winks at him, thumbing off a stray crumb on his cheek. "Always," he whispers. "You deserve to feel only pleasure. Only love. That is what this body was made for." It's punctuated by kisses the center of Charles's chest. Erik makes sure Charles eats enough to be full without sacrificing comfort, and then leads him gently to his feet to help him undress the rest of the way before guiding him to the bathroom and bidding him to sit at the edge of the tub, running him a bath instead of a shower this time. It would be easier on his joints, make the cast less obtrusive, and let Erik hold him while he soaked. Almost instinctively he knew how hot to make the water, and he touches him and kisses him near-constantly while it fills up.  
  
Charles is humming with pleasure by the time he sinks into the warm water, boneless and sighing with it even as he hisses at the initial shock of pain. Subspace and obedience to Erik is in itself a pleasure, perhaps the greatest he's ever felt, but Charles finds he can't say no to a bit of pampering and decadence. Knowing that Erik Wills it - that he believes Charles deserves it - makes it all the sweeter, and anyone would be hard pressed to find someone as content and relaxed as Charles in this moment. "Feels good," he sighs, and it truly does. There's pain, too, but it's so far away he barely registers it. When he opens his eyes again, he offers Erik a bit of a pout. "I wish you could join me. I want you to feel good, too." He's stripped down to the essentials, now, all of that murky, whirring processing put aside. All that matters is feeling what Erik decides he should, taking what he's given and reveling in it. "Erik?" he asks, when those warm, big hands are on him again, eyes half-lidded. "I love you." That's all. Just a sweet whisper of it. Charles wanted it on his tongue again.  
  
Erik shifts him up just-so and then he's slipping in behind him, taking him up in his arms. " _Ken, neshama?_ I love you, too," he returns, with an amused grin. He flicks his fingers and a bottle of shower gel hovers over the spout to foam the tub up with bubbles, and he rains down a little shower on Charles's head. "I feel so good," he murmurs, and it's simple, earnest honesty. Because of you. Always. He taps Charles on the nose and leaves behind a trail of bubbles.  
  
Charles wasn't going to be the one to mention bubbles, but he certainly won't complain now that he has them. In fact, he's perfectly ecstatic about it, near childlike glee as he splashes lightly. It's been far too long since he took a proper bath. "Mmm," he sighs, head falling back. "I'm yours?" he asks, not because it's in question, but because he simply wants to be reminded in words again. Because there is time to indulge, to luxuriate, to relish in this. To linger in this. He wonders, idly, if he could stay like this. Spend the afternoon like putty in Erik's hands after the horrific night before, submitting happily and eagerly rather than - Rather than that. If he could stay in subspace, where he's safe and cared for, after that sick twisted perversion of it. He wonders if the world will let him. If Erik will let him. His cheeks go faintly pink. Is that okay? To even want that?  
  
Erik kisses the top of his forehead. This is exactly where you should be, he thinks softly, and they are in-tune in a way that has less to do with telepathy and more, he thinks, to do with convergence. Because up until this moment he wasn't thinking about it, had fully intended for Charles to spend the rest of the day with him, in bed, being looked after like he was meant for. Because Erik can look after him. It's just another facet of his Dominance that he's learning about, how much simple pleasure and joy he takes out of caring for Charles, making him feel good, safe, comfortable. It is doubly poignant for Erik because he's been convinced for so long that he is incapable of caring for anything, that nurturing is an anathema to him, when it's all he really wants in the world is to make Charles feel like this for the rest of his life. More than OK, he shushes him. "Mine. Forever."  
  
Charles lets out a choked, helpless little sob of a noise. This is what he needed, and somehow Erik knew to give it to him before he could even mention it. It's not that it's unheard of - isn't that what he'd been told his entire life? That when he found a Dominant suited to him, he would know how to care for him, what he needed? He reaches up to wipe at his own tears. They aren't there, his cheeks dry, but he does splash the water about. Charles realizes something, then, reaching that same hand down to touch his collar. His collar. Erik's collar, and then he's smiling again. "Can I get this wet?" he asks, sheepish, because he hadn't been listening when that woman told him anything, and he was sure it was in there somewhere. He hopes so. He absolutely does not want to take it off, ever.  
  
Erik lathers up some of Charles's shampoo and works his fingers through the wet strands, humming idly. "It can get wet," he laughs softly. He'd been paying attention, but he hadn't needed to. He knows the material like his own skin, every molecule gradually shifting under his observation. Personalizing, learning Charles's body. He can feel himself through it. It likes you, Erik repeats the phrase applied to his own collar, fond. I sympathize.  
  
Charles smiles, melting and pleased all over again His hair really doesn't need to be washed twice in one day, but he supposes after the greasy mop it's been lately, with the hospital and the dried blood, it certainly can't hurt. Charles won't say no to having Erik's fingers in his hair, even when they massage enough to find that tender bump at his crown. He does sputter when it flops into his face, curly even when damp and lathered. "I really do need a haircut," he sighs. Ideally before tomorrow, actually, but does he really want to go take care of that? No, absolutely not.  
  
"I can cut it for you, if you like," Erik raises his eyebrows. "I know how." He soothes over the bump gently, letting Charles be the decider since most people didn't trust non-professionals with that process. He was good at it, though, Charles could easily tell that; it was a skill many submissives learned to groom their Dominants in European countries. Erik had no problem with the reversed roles; it was just part of who he was. Things wouldn't always even out. Charles walked with his head up. Erik genuinely enjoyed taking care of him, and not the other way around.  
  
Charles blinks, following Erik's thought process like crumbs left for him to find. "I think you're wrong about that," he murmurs, smiling softly. It's quiet, not meant to argue but simply to express his own thoughts. Except under very specific circumstances, that's never something Erik's taken from him with his Dominance. There's a difference here, dropped into subspace, but he's no less articulate or opinionated. The relief he feels every time he realizes that is so palpable it nearly stops him in his tracks. "Why is that a role reversal? Something that needs to even out? I think that's a bit silly. I have more of a problem submitting to -" He gestures, idly, to the bath. "Than I do to some of what would be considered more traditionally submissive acts, sometimes. Besides, you quite like it the other way around, too," he reminds, a coy little grin on his lips, and this time he does duck his head. "Whether I lift my head my head in public has nothing to do with anything, as far as I'm concerned. I don't submit to the rest of the world, I submit to you. I don't need to conform to them any more than you do, Erik, unless you decide you'd like it that way for whatever reason. To hell with societal expectations, I say. We're not playing a game, are we? So there are no rules." He pauses, and his cheeks flush. "Besides the ones you make." Which Charles has found he does want to follow, actually. Erik has been caring for him this whole time, and Charles has nothing but soft, pliant, enthusiastically submissive, going where he's put and reveling in what Erik gives him. The insinuation that he hasn't been, that Erik has been anything but Dominant when his Will has him bound tight still, is frankly offensive.  
  
Erik laughs softly as he continues, catching the last line of his thoughts. I _suppose that was my point. It might not be traditional, but if you don't mind, I certainly don't. And I do not think you do. I can feel it._ He taps over Charles's heart. _We fit together. In traditional ways, and not._ Erik does shrug a bit, though. _I suppose I do not really know the difference. I do not know what Dominance is supposed to look like, beyond some childish notions. It feels..._ he plays with a few strands of Charles's hair, separating them carefully to avoid tangles. _It feels Dominant, to me. Like I am supposed to take care of you. But I know most people would not view it that way. I like providing for you._  
  
Charles sighs, though certainly not at Erik. For one, I don't think there's tradition lacking here. There's certainly precedent. He knows enough from others to know that much, at the very least. When Erik goes about untangling strands, he tilts his head instinctively, letting him do as he pleases and not fussing, and - well. He smiles, shy and gentle as he looks down at the frothy water, because that's certainly not lost on him. _It feels Dominant to me, too,_ he teases, because it goes without saying. Charles is completely in Erik's hands, and he doesn't see why this is any less a submissive act for him than if it had been the other way around. _You like when I serve you like this, too. It pleases you._ At that his belly is warm, less because it's a different act and more because he has to consciously recall moments he felt that expression of pleased praise from his Dom that he yearns for, and it flusters him when that need is so sharply echoed in him now. Charles on his knees, carefully undoing Erik's pants while his hands are bound, tongue lightly poking out in concentration. Charles' eager statement that whatever belonged to him belonged to Erik, that he would use his considerable resources to serve him. That he wanted that. _I like those things, and so do you, but this is - no less that, I think. I don't understand why it's different._ Charles has never felt so comfortable in his own submission, actually. So willing to simply let be, and please Erik in whatever way he saw fit. It's such a noticeable difference it pulsates between them, as if his submission is just as much a living creature as Erik's Will.  
  
Erik makes a low, soft noise in Charles's ear as those images wash over him. Maybe he's a little more traditional than he thought, he has to smirk. _We'll get this sorted out,_ he decides promptly, curling Charles's hair around his fingertip. _You'll take care of me as well._ Maybe not a haircut, per se, but Erik 's beard was getting out of hand. _It doesn't do for both of us to show up to a trial looking like twin cavemen, as delightful as that thought sounds._ His lips purse, amused. For right now _I have something else in mind._ The tap switches off and he helps Charles stand to his feet, snapping a towel to his hand to start and pat him dry, lingering everywhere, pressing up as close as possible. He takes his time, making sure there's not a drip of water left to make him cold, luxuriating in the closeness.

* * *

Charles doesn't point out that there's not much he can do from here. While Erik seems capable of manipulating the physical world on Charles' end, it wouldn't hold the other way around. He knows that instinctively. The thought is brushed aside, mostly because he's far more inclined to let the delight wash over him at Erik's decision, at the thought that he'd made the decision. He stands obligingly, perfectly malleable in Erik's hands even as he shivers at first, less from the cold and more from the bruises and welts being grazed. He can almost ignore them. "I like when you - you know," he mumbles, and his eyes are lowered, less in submission - because Erik has always demanded he look, actually - and more in embarrassment. Charles fidgets in Erik's hands and the fluffy towel, cheeks hot again. It's a surprise to him, still, some things, and despite them settling, he's still easy to fluster. Perhaps he always will be.  
  
Erik well and truly starts laughing. "I'm not here, am I?" he realizes that belatedly. "It feels like I am here," he buries his head in Charles's hair. It's a mistake he is incredibly grateful to have made. That Charles could give this to him is a gift beyond measure, he doesn't even remember to feel embarrassed about the slip-up. "What do you like?" he asks, brushing the pad of his thumb over Charles's lip. Everything feels warm and slow, his Will dripping everywhere, steam against the mirror, condensation gathering up. "Hm?" He grins, and doesn't hand Charles any clothing to get changed into. There isn't anything overwhelmingly sexual going on in his head right now, but whatever he's got planned doesn't involve any clothes.  
  
Charles smiles, too. Erik's laugh is beautiful and always tugs warmth into his own belly, coaxing a chuckle of his own. That he can help Erik be somewhere besides alone in a dark cell is incredibly special to him, too, and he supposes he owes his telepathy an apology for all the years he scorned it. For more than one reason. Being reminded of his own flustered thoughts makes him squirm, though, shaking his head despite how difficult it is to deny Erik anything with his Will slinking all around him. "Uh-uh," he manages, and tips forward to bury himself in Erik's chest, timid. "You know," he insists quietly, even if Erik doesn't know exactly what he's thinking of here.  
  
"Maybe I do," Erik trails his fingertips down Charles's back, tickling in-between the divots of his spine. (He doesn't.) "Maybe I just want to hear you say it." Erik's response to Charles's flusteredness has never been to back off, he almost seems to enjoy it, when he knows it's not rooted in genuine fear or panic or shame. Charles is all the sweeter when he's shy, and Erik finds he likes nothing better than to draw him out, peel back the layers until he is exposed, keeping every part of him safe and cared-for.  
  
Charles shivers. There should be more soreness there than there is, but it's Erik's touch, and a projection, aside, so he certainly won't question it. He keeps himself firmly burrowed in Erik's chest, bare because his shirt is still unbuttoned. It always amazes him, how playful and - himself, he's capable of being, even while dipped far-deep into subspace. He's seen enough from both D5 minds he's encountered to know that any other submissive would be fairly mindless at this point, but he certainly isn't. It's that thought that has him peeking up through his eyelashes, the picture of coy. "Is that an Order, sir?" he teases, and squirms at the reminder of the last time he'd been Ordered to call Erik that, even as he flashes a mischievous grin.  
  
"Mhm," Erik murmurs, eyes bright. The Command winds its way up Charles's spine, following his fingertips in hotwired sparks. "I think you just like it when I Order you," he whispers conspiratorially. "Which is most convenient, because I happen to like it, too." Unlike Azazel, Erik values Charles for his mind, for his input and opinions. Sometimes it results in clash, but he wouldn't have it any other way. It's what he needs, that push back, someone to keep up with him, who can deal with the force of his Will without disintegrating underneath it. That being said, there's something appealing about making Charles incoherent, but even then, Erik seeks his pleasure, not his pain.  
  
Charles lets out a breathless gasp, shuddering head to toe. To say he likes it would be as much an understatement as saying Erik likes giving them. It doesn't keep away the flustered, renewed fluttering in his stomach now that he actually has to tell him, though. "I like it when you decide those things for me," he finally admits, splotchy red climbing up to his ears as he goes back to burying himself in Erik's chest. "What I eat. What I wear. I didn't think I would, but I do." There are decisions he doesn't want made for him, at least not without prior discussion and his own input - when and what he thinks, outside of specific situations (like his morning and evening Postures, or a contained session), what he does with his work or who he sees and associates with. He's open to suggestions, discussions, but that's not the same. Still. He likes it, very much, and while it's something he's seen plenty in other submissives, he never thought he'd crave it the same way. It had always seemed an inconvenience to him. When he's settled some, he laughs, still hidden. Charles gives the image of his own ass, not as it is now - he doesn't think of that - but swollen, hot to the touch, reddened from Erik's palm. "Not only pleasure," he says, cheeky.  
  
Erik gives him a light tap there, lips pursed dryly. "Pleasure was definitely a predominant feature," he grins, and takes a step back, holding out his hand. "Come along," he murmurs, voice low. He leads Charles back out into the bedroom. "Lie on your stomach," he Orders softly. "Hands above your head."  
  
Charles sighs, soft and pleased. "Yes, Erik." He's not always going to be so eager to do what he's told, and they both know it. Now, he is. Obedient and singing with it, thriving from it, Charles lies out on his stomach, wiggling around until the bruises don't ache as badly, and reaches his arms up. That hurts, too, and he keeps forgetting about his wrist, so it's a good thing Hank insisted on a cast. Charles considers none of that for more than he has to, his mind blissfully quiet - but not dulled - as he waits for Erik's instructions.  
  
There are none, exactly, except for a murmured relax, as Erik dips the mattress with his own weight, the sound of a bottle cap snapping open. He spreads his fingers out over Charles's back, slowly working into the muscles between his shoulders until all the tension there seeps out and moving down, pausing periodically to kiss his exposed skin.  
  
Charles smiles, cheek pressed against soft sheets as he melts all over again. It hurts, now, that he'll admit. Some of the bruises he hasn't even catalogued yet, dipping along his spine in mottled patterns he discovers only through Erik's fingers. It doesn't bother him. The relaxed, quivering ease of his muscles and the comfort of gentle touch is enough to lull him past any discomfort. His eyes fall closed, eventually, against his will. Not sleeping, but drifting, soft moans and sighs slipping from him as he turns into nothing but any other malleable material in Erik's hands and Will. He can't remember the last time he was this relaxed. Perhaps it never existed.  
  
Erik smiles to himself after a good while of this, pleased of his success in turning Charles into a boneless blob, and subsequently it helps with the aches and pains from the bruising and muscle tenderness, and he goes gently with his fingertips over his ankle, before coming back up both legs, applying every skill he knows to making sure Charles is comfortable. He pauses after a while and just lays next to him, gazing into his eyes. How do you feel?  
  
"Mmmmm," is the incredibly eloquent answer, a happy breath of a sigh. Charles toes are curled with pleasure, body humming gently even around the soreness. He wriggles until he can nuzzle in close to Erik, breathing him in as he settles himself into the crook of his neck. "Spoiled," he giggles.  
  
"Good," Erik whispers back, kissing him on the nose. See, there was a benefit to making Charles incoherent.  
  
"Not incoherent," he mumbles, sleepy and soft and floating so nicely. He isn't, really. Charles could think all sorts of things right now, but he'd absolutely rather focus on Erik and the thrum of his relaxed muscles. He's sure it will hurt much more later, and they'll deal with that then. "Mmm. Do I get cake for dinner, too, or is that where you put your foot down?" he teases.  
  
"Surely there must be some _real_ food that you like?" Erik laughs, stretching beside him and letting him rest against his chest. "I told you, all of that thinking is dangerous. That is why I prefer never thinking any thoughts."  
  
Charles laughs, too, perfectly content to be moved. He can hear Erik's heart like this, even though there's no actual heartbeat to hear, and that's one of the most calming things he can think of. "Nope, only sweets. I'm allergic to everything else, I'm afraid," he grins. "And for someone who never thinks any thoughts, you sure have a busy mind." Charles loves Erik's mind.  
  
"Pasta. Pizza. Lasagna. Shawarma. Baked potatoes. Tacos. Sour cream. Hamburgers. Pitas. Falafels. _Shakshouka_. No, I just keep naming tomato dishes," Erik grimaces. "I hate tomatoes. Bread. Hummus. Donuts. No, that's a sweet. Street food! _Bourekas_." He makes a finger gun at Charles. Erik's tastes definitely run savory, almost entirely opposing Charles's preferences.  
  
Charles makes a gagging noise. "Did you just name sour cream independently? That's disgusting." He can get behind some of those food, at least. Picky eater or not, he does actually eat things besides sweets. "I'm not nearly as bad as I used to be, but if you try to get me to eat brussels sprouts or green beans I might riot. I can't do spicy, either, or my nose starts running. It's unpleasant business."  
  
"Sour cream is great!" Erik squawks indignantly. "Brussels sprouts and green beans are not... good..." he relents. "Pickles! Olives. Green onions. Garlic bread. Shirred eggs. Obviously I would be remiss if I didn't suggest bagels." He smirks. "You don't like spicy food? Oh, Charles. I suppose I will just have to make you mashed potatoes and peas. _Bon appétit_ , courtesy of the CIA."  
  
"Sour cream is an abomination, and I hate peas." He scrunches his nose. "And olives, too. Nasty things. I'll give you any sort of carb, fine. I'm also allergic to shellfish, which I've heard is very not kosher, so that's one thing we have going for us. You can't eat it, my throat closes up and I break out in hives, best keep it out of the house." His lips are pursed to keep from laughing, but he doesn't manage in the end, little peals of it escaping as he muffles it in Erik's chest.  
  
"Do you have any other allergies?" Erik wonders, making a mental note. He didn't like that Charles was allergic to it-shellfish was often used as an ingredient in non-food items, but fortunately at least in that regard Erik was familiar enough with everything to avoid the contact.  
  
"Trust me, I know," he grumbles, because having to navigate that was sometimes difficult. He never ordered any kind of seafood out, either. Risky business. "Cats. And latex." He grins against Erik. "Sorry if that was your thing," he teases.  
  
Erik laughs. "No, but I am disappointed about the cats. I thought for sure I could put one on your head at some point. Maybe some cute little ears." Erik considers it for himself and says, "I think I should have an Epi-Pen." There's no mention of that in his medical records.  
  
"It's a mild allergy, to be fair. I sneeze a lot and get dreadfully itchy," he shrugs. Charles recalls something, kissing exposed skin, sweet and idle. "You're allergic to penicillin. Is there anything else?"  
  
"Um, bees," Erik thinks after a second. It's not in any of his records, but-"I almost died when I was little." He laughs. "I guess now it is relevant. I might get to go outside soon." His hope for acquittal is less certain than Pryde's, but he isn't discounting the possibility. It's hard to, when Charles is right here. He twitches under the kisses and runs his fingertip under Charles's chin, grinning at him.  
  
"I beekeep in my spare time, so unfortunately -" Charles can't manage to say it as dryly as he meant to. He dissolves into relaxed little giggles again, scooting up until they're face to face. He wants a kiss, but he's going to wait for Erik to give it to him. He considers asking, but something else occurs to him, and he frowns. "Erik?" he asks, quiet now. It's clear he's thinking again.  
  
He leans forward and bestows a kiss to his lips in answer, eyebrows raised curiously. "Yes, Charles?"  
  
"I -" He shakes his head, and lowers himself back down to rest his cheek against Erik's chest again. "No, it's nothing," he whispers.  
  
Erik kisses his brow, stroking his thumb along his cheek. "Tell me," he murmurs.  
  
"It's just," he begins, and sighs, because the whole thing is probably silly. It doesn't mean he's going to get it out of his head. "You've spent most of your life - and, I mean, I know - but what if..." He trails off, squirming despite the awful way it rubs every injury he has.  
  
"Careful," Erik Orders. "What if what?" he smiles gently.  
  
He sighs again. "What if there's something better for you out there? It isn't like you've had the opportunity to - I mean..." Charles has himself all worked up now. "There are experiences you haven't had, and maybe -" Charles would love to be the one to give them to him, but perhaps that's wrong. The last thing he wants is to be another form of captivity, the only thing Erik knows.  
  
"Like what?" Erik tilts his head. "I cannot think of anything I would rather have more than this." Even without freedom, this is enough already.  
  
"Well, yes," he says, slowly, and turns his head so he does not have to look. "But you also - I mean - you don't exactly have much to compare it to that's pleasant, Erik," he points out.  
  
He shrugs. "Maybe that is true, but I cannot imagine there is anything more pleasant than being in love. I am very lucky, I think."  
  
He doesn't want to say it. He really doesn't want to, but he does anyway. "You could love someone more," he whispers. It's like his heart is breaking at even the mention, and Charles closes his eyes, fairly sure he can hear the shatter.  
  
Erik laughs, but it's not unkind. "I truly do not believe that is dependent on life experience," he points out, soft. "I could ask the same of you. Is it fair to suggest that you love Raven more than me? Love is by its nature all-encompassing. I will never love anyone the same way that I love you. Ever."  
  
"Of course not," he says immediately, alarmed, and feels incredibly silly in the aftermath. Point made, then. Charles looks up at Erik to pout. "Don't be reasonable when I'm trying to have a crisis, please," he snarks.  
  
"Very well. Let's prepare the poison vials," Erik grins. "I am ready if you are. Are you more of a _Montague_ or _Capulet_ , do you think?"  
  
"Neither. _A plague on both your houses_ ," he sighs, scoffing, but there's a grin on his own lips, too. It can't be helped. "I only meant that I don't want to box you in, but I suppose I won't. We're going to be extraordinary, aren't we?" The two of them, together. Charles hand wanders up to his collar and he smiles. "I really like this," he whispers. The collar, but - this in general, too. Being Erik's.  
  
"You won't," Erik says back, absolutely certain. "We want each other to be happy. When opportunities arise, we will take them." He ghosts his own fingers over the collar, humming contentedly. You are wonderful. It suits you very well. The collar, and being his.

* * *

Charles glows at the praise, warm with it. He's giddy and boneless all over again. When his mind wanders this time, it's to a much more pleasant place. His cheeks heat with it, but he stays silent, careful to hide in Erik's chest as if it will make any difference.  
  
Erik leans down and kisses his shoulderblade, humming quietly. Don't hide away, the Order is warm, coaxing, drawing him out.  
  
Charles can't squirm, either, so he settles for a little whine, finally peeking his eyes up. He's soft and shy again, fluttering back into that deep place, though truthfully he never left. Just thinking, he promises, still pink, and bites his lip.  
  
He touches Charles along the face, kissing him properly simply because he can. _Tell me what you're thinking about_ , he rumbles mentally, not letting him drop his eyes. He taps Charles's lip. Careful.  
  
Charles is practically vibrating, and when he thinks about discussing this, his cheeks only darken. He's fairly sure there's no blood anywhere else, actually. Just - the other things in that store, and stores like it, he admits, flustered and timid. _I don't have - anything, obviously, and -_ Sure, Erik could use an imaginary piece of his blinds to craft a cane to discipline him with if they're both in his mind, or summon restraints out of nowhere when he wants him bound, but there won't be many occasions for that anymore. It's much more likely at least one of them will be out here. His toes curl, a poor substitute to the wriggling about he wants to do, but at least it's something.  
  
Erik grins. _I mean to remedy that,_ he promises lowly between them, stroking his thumb along Charles's cheek. It's clear he has no intention of using imaginary anything. Theoretically, Erik could make what he needed himself, but he likes the idea of taking Charles somewhere specific. He can handle it by himself he supposes, but it's infinitely more pleasing to imagine otherwise.  
  
Charles would absolutely be fidgeting if he could manage it without disobeying that Order to be careful, but he settles for useless wriggling and a whine of embarrassment. _Please tell me you mean we're going to order things off Amazon_ , he sighs, because the thought of having to go into a store and buy things with his card that are going to get used on him in all manners of ways is - okay, it's fairly arousing, but Erik doesn't need to know that. Except he will anyway. He groans and buries his face into Erik's neck, scarlet through and through.  
  
He laughs lightly. _I do not know what Amazon is, but if you mean online shopping, the answer is regrettably-or perhaps fantastically_ , he corrects, amused, _no. You need to go in person._ Surprise, or probably not, Erik believed in having the best. The fact that Charles could afford it not withstanding, the items would be more comfortable and last longer, and present infinitely less danger. _I was thinking later on we might go and take a look._ _There should be somewhere suitable nearby._  
  
 _Later?_ Charles' eyes go wide, his heart pounding in his chest. He can't think of a protest, really. They have the time, and it will keep him from worrying himself sick about the trial tomorrow. Besides reading over those questions Carmen sent him - he heard the email ping in earlier, unless it's from his students or spam or concerning another patient, which could also be possible - there's not much he can do. He supposes he has effectively taken the day off, and he hadn't scheduled any appointments. Today would have been a day to work on other projects, but - Well, this is another project. Technically. But Charles has an idea, so he hums, that thoughtful, soft way he does when his mind is working out the finer details. _I have an idea. It's - well, it'll be messy if it doesn't work, but I know for a fact I can clean it up. If you want to try it._  
  
 _Oh?_ Erik's eyebrows arch, playful and curious. And if it kept Charles from worrying, well, all the better. _And what is your idea?_  
  
 _It's just_ \- There are flaws in the plan, some he'd considered before mentioning it, others he's only just worked through. Even still. _I want you to go with me. And I know you will, of course, but - I could make them see you. So it looks less like me mucking around by myself and more like -_ More like a submissive, likely newly collared, out with his Dominant. It's mostly that appeal that made him want to do it, but he'd also be lying if there weren't other motivations. _It's all perception. I matched Raven and Warren's to mine, which is why they saw you as you are, but I could easily change that. They wouldn't have to recognize me, either. I've done that before, too. We could look like us and it wouldn't matter. It's all fairly simple stuff, nothing too experimental for me._ And he really wants the experience, he realizes. For once, to be seen like that. Being out with Gabby was always a push and pull, more than often not a push. He deliberately swept ahead of her, never gave her an inch so perhaps at first glance no one would even assume he was the submissive - except they did, of course. It was all silly pride. Now, though? Well. Now it's all different.  
  
Erik's smile is soft. _I would like that,_ he says, because the only thing more appealing than being the one to invisibly tell him what to say and where to go, is to physically be there with him. He's thinking about the store they went to a little while ago, though, and he laughs into his hand. _Hopefully I do not embarrass anyone_. He cringes a bit. It's an issue a teenaged D5 would have, for the love of-well, he huffs, there's nothing for experience. The more often they were out in public, the more used to it he would become. Besides, if he says so himself, he didn't do that terribly. Sort of. OK, everybody was pretty much almost in subspace. Whoops.  
  
Charles blinks, confused for a moment. Then he plays back the memory through Erik's eyes, and can't help laughing. _Oh. I didn't notice_ , he admits, sheepish. Mostly because, yes, he'd absolutely been in subspace, no almost about it, and - still was? He'd always thought of it as some strange, mythical place, a black and white divide, something to be equal parts longed for and feared, something that would steal away all his thoughts and hard-won independence. Who needs it. Charles snorts, finding it almost impossible to put himself back into that mindset. It doesn't jive at all with comfortable, steady hum of this, with lying on Erik's chest and feeling safe and relaxed and - kept. His hand wanders back to his collar. _I like subspace_ , he declares, unnecessarily, and smiles.  
  
 _I like it, too,_ Erik taps him on the nose, unable to explain how satisfied he felt right now. He hadn't spent his life longing for this because he never understood that he needed it, conditioned to view any aspect of his Dominance with suspicion. He's still nervous a lot of the time, but right now he just feels warm and comfortable, in-control. Balanced. Come along, up, he says, guiding Charles to an upright position and then to his feet, to take a seat in front of his mirror next to the bed. Erik smirks down at him and fluffs his hair. "I was thinking a little Carrot Top, a little Justin Timberlake. You know how it is."  
  
Charles laughs, until he catches his own reflection. Even though he knows what he'll be seeing now, it doesn't ease the shock of it. It feels far too similar to his adolescence, tracing bruises and bumps and welts and taking stock in the mirror. This one hurts, this one isn't too bad. He watches as his own expression changes, from relaxed, amused glee to flat, mouth a thin line. "Oh," he says out loud, and his hand comes up to trace his cheek, his jaw, where Cain threw the first punch. It's deep purple.  
  
Erik lays his hand over Charles's, and the contact is warm, glowing through his whole body as though he'd taken a drink of liquor. It's not conscious on Erik's part, but evidently his abilities extend to manipulating the sensation of the body as well. He'd done more than soothe away aches and pains, he'd been literally shifting the perception, sodium and potassium channels through neurons adjusted for ease. His own expression where it meets Charles in the mirror is calm, unaffected.  
  
He takes a breath. It isn't the pain that bothered him, but the knowledge that it's all there. That someone else had done this to him, and those someone else's were two people he could openly say he despises. That Cain, who he'd vowed to never let touch him again - ever, ever again - was one of them. But Erik is here, and Erik will take care of him, and Erik promised he would do everything he could do to make sure it didn't repeat itself. So Charles closes his eyes, and he finds Erik's Will, still all around them, clinging to every wall of this room, and sinks into it. When his eyes open again, he's smiling, tremulous and small.  
  
Conversely, Erik doesn't seem bothered, but Charles knows him well enough to know that isn't true if he searches for it underneath. Erik bends down and kisses his temple softly, squeezing his shoulder. He can't fix what happened, but he can do something about the pain, about the frustration, he can make sure Charles is safe now, so that's what he does. He goes to retrieve some supplies from the bathroom and when he returns, he begins combing his hair out, letting his Will fold Charles up completely until he is wrapped like strands of soft rope.  
  
And Charles, for once, leans into it immediately. He doesn't fight it, or fuss. His eyelids get heavy, subspace tugging him back down, down, down, and he follows eagerly, sighing softly and moving as if he's testing invisible bonds. Not to undo them, but to comfort himself with the knowledge that they're there, that Erik has him. He certainly wouldn't mind real ones, either. His lips are half-parted, and despite the circumstances, he doesn't think he's ever felt safer. "Are you going to shave me, too?" It's quiet, and he didn't mean it seriously, but he realizes in the aftermath that he would let Erik. Happily. He can't think of anything more submissive for him than trusting someone with a razor around his face now, but he would let Erik do it without even blinking, would lean into every touch. Charles had already decided to give all of himself to Erik, but perhaps, until right now, he hadn't actually surrendered it. He has now.  
  
Erik laughs gently. "I might," he says next to his ear, as if he's just seeing where everything takes him, completely going with the moment, but Erik almost always has specific plans in mind, he just adjusts them depending on what happens, so Charles knows for a fact that he's already considered it and decided. "You will have to be patient and see." He tilts Charles's head back and starts combing out sections, working efficiently, without hurrying.  
  
Charles is going to have a hell of a time letting anyone else cut his hair from now on. He's not sure he'll ever be able to associate it with anything but this, with gentle, safe floating, with warmth, with leaning against Erik and letting his eyes fall closed. He's usually just as bossy during haircuts as he is any other time, even though he's had the same stylist for years now. Now he doesn't even look, trusting Erik, perfectly content to leave it all in his hands. When Charles blinks at a gentle tug, he notices himself in the mirror again. For a moment he doesn't recognize himself. The person staring back at him is utterly relaxed, soft-edged and docile, with that trusting smile, but still - still... It's Charles. Not some sub he's watching from afar, envious or otherwise scoffing when he recognizes his own jealousy. It's him, and everything he knows himself to be. His lips part in a silent gasp, and he's left stunned and wide-eyed.  
  
"It is not that bad," Erik grins at him, knowing full well what he's really thinking about. In truth he hasn't opted for any sort of dramatic change, able to easily intuit the style Charles normally wore and opting for only a slight variation on it, enough that Charles would notice the difference but others wouldn't. Erik is good at making statements like that, drawing enough of a line between Charles's experiences and his expectations that he knows Erik is behind it, without drastically altering anything at all. He dusts off his shoulders, collecting the mess with a wave of his hand and depositing it in the garbage before rubbing his thumb over his jaw. "I think I will," he decides, kissing the top of his head before moving onto his new task. He wields the straight razor expertly, not leaving a mark. It's just more excuses to touch him, to care for him, lead him down deeper into that place and feel its counterpart in himself.  
  
Charles hums, staying perfectly still and pliant as Erik works. He expects to be foggy-headed when all is through, and perhaps he is, but not in any way he recognizes. It's almost as if everything is sharper, every touch amplified, and he gasps at each one, left panting as Erik wipes away the foam. It's - what is it? Extraordinary. Beautiful. Charles flutters, and smiles at his own reflection, a stark contrast to before. "You left it longer," he murmurs, not a complaint but an observation. His hair curls when it's given even the slightest length to do so, and he's been known to snip it shorter to prevent it for as long as possible. He thinks Erik enjoys his curls, though, something he's always been a bit self-conscious about. Of course he would. Charles is limp against him, so deep down that he's uncertain how he'll ever come back up. But it's safe here. Warm here. Nice here. No reason to now, not with Erik taking such good care of him.  
  
Erik's nose wrinkles in amusement. "A little bit," he agrees. "I was going to go for the ramen noodle appearance, but this is more professional." He rubs his fingertips over Charles's shoulders, watching him through dark eyes. _You look lovely,_ he adds, eyeing Charles's form appreciatively. It doesn't matter that he's covered in marks and bruises, the fact of which does cause Erik a great deal of distress, but he sees beyond them. There is nothing that Charles can do to obscure himself from Erik.  
  
Charles sees them, but distress is so far away here - as long as it isn't Erik's - that it may as well be negligible. He curls himself into Erik, sighing softly again, bowing his head. He's ended up on his knees, tucked in and relaxed, and with Erik back to standing - He's staring again, with those same wide eyes from before. _That's us_ , he thinks, astonished. He's never seen it reflected in anyone's minds the way he usually does, because no one has ever seen them like this. But Erik is tall, broad-shouldered, vivid-eyed, perfectly in control, and Charles is - not weak, but certainly smaller, soft, compliant, on his knees and collared and completely bare while Erik is fully dressed. Trusting and open and calm. Perfectly content to be where he is, and fully cognizant of it. This must be what a D5 and an S1 are meant to look like, he thinks, still staring. This must be what he and Erik are meant to look like.  
  
He puts his hand on Charles's head, curling his fingertips into the newly-cut strands, keeping him in place against his leg and because he can, because he wants to, he adjusts Charles's position just a little, unable to stop himself from smiling. _This is us_ , he agrees, but he means _you are beautiful_. He tilts Charles's chin up, leaning down to kiss him. He touches the collar again, just because he can. Mine. Nothing lost, only gained.  
  
Charles nods. _Yours_. Perhaps, some other time, he will worry. He will doubt, and fuss, and shift himself out of place. They will deal with that then. Right now, there is no place else he would rather be, and he moans quietly when Erik pulls back. Even so, he doesn't complain. He'll take what he's given. "Thank you, Erik," he whispers, smiling sweetly. He bites his lip, careful not to hurt himself. "Are you happy?" he asks, looking up with azure eyes hiding nothing. Shy, but not hiding. It sounds like, _are you pleased? Have I pleased you?_ In this moment, it feels like the same thing.  
  
"Yes," he whispers back, and their height difference is a little uncomfortable when Charles kneels so he crouches down to kiss him fully, still hovering well over him. Yes, he is pleased. Yes, he is happy. Yes, to everything. "Are you happy, Charles?" he sweeps his thumb under his eye tenderly.  
  
It's such a silly question, now that it's aimed back at him. Charles leans his cheek against Erik's big, warm palm, and he smiles like Erik has given him the world. Like Erik is the world. "Yes, Erik," he sighs. "I'm happy." Astoundingly so. Charles opens up and lets Erik feel all of it, soft and blanketing and full and near frightening in its intensity, except that it isn't. It couldn't be.  
  
Erik likes hearing the answer, as silly as it might be, likes the fact that he's the reason behind Charles's smile, and hums against his lips. "Good." It might not be a shock to discover that Erik isn't good at relaxing, and these moments between them are the closest he's come probably ever. The more he sees Charles safe and happy, the more protective he finds himself becoming. They're supposed to be doing something, but he just lets them stay like this for a while. There's no harm.  
  
Charles drifts again, humming, warm, sighing. He's still on his knees, and perfectly happy to be there. In fact, he might have protested to being anywhere else, though if Erik wanted it, of course he'd go. His eyes are closed again, his breathing even, a soft, pleased smile on his lips. He's radiating adoration and devoted submission and pure, comfortable love. His phone chimes from across the room. Charles tenses instinctively, but then it chimes again. And again. And again. He sighs, this time not with pleasure. 

* * *

"Raven," he explains. If it were an emergency, she'd call. If that weren't possible, she'd bang on his door or else use the spare key she has to let herself right in. She just wants his attention, for whatever reason, but Charles - well, his attention belongs entirely to someone else. He relaxes again, ducking his head at another novelty. Let Erik decide if he wants it to be divided. For now he's content to stay exactly where he is.  
  
He thinks he could spend all day like this, but it's not good for Charles's knees at this point, so after a little while Erik tugs him up to his feet and presses the phone into his hands. "So that she does not barge through the front door," he murmurs, amused. She is worried. Let her know that you are all right, he touches Charles's cheek.  
  
Charles leans into that touch. It takes a few moments of readjusting before he can devote himself to anything that isn't Erik, and even then he knows he is still his entirely. He looks down at the messages regardless, and finally reads them. The first few are exactly what he'd expect. Hank told her about his injuries, just like he knew he would. He can't begrudge him that. It's the last few that furrow his brow. "She wants us to turn on the TV," he mutters, and doesn't move to do anything of the sort.  
  
Erik leads Charles to sit on the bed and blinks over at the television embedded in the wall, which flicks on obligingly to the last channel it was on. "Really, Charles, home makeover?" Erik's eyebrows arch and he laughs.  
  
Charles has it in him to look embarrassed at that. He does grab for the actual remote, though, flipping the channel. Immediately he knows what he's meant to be looking at, and he imagines a real glance at his phone - he has news updates turned on - would have given him the same thing. The screen shows a crowd of shouting, sign-carrying people, not at all unheard of in this country. It's the headline bar underneath that informs him of exactly why this is different: ' _ **MUTANT PROTESTS SWEEP THE NATION IN RESPONSE TO MRA.'**_ He can't recall any sort of _'mutant protest'_ proceeding this, and he knows it's because it didn't exist. The crowds are small. They're still surrounded by what appear to be police in full riot gear, as if even a small gathering is enough of a threat to them. Charles watches live footage of Los Angeles, where a man - a mutant - is grabbed, and his response, Charles imagines entirely defensive and subconscious, is to give off a visible electric shock. The voltage couldn't have been high. It doesn't matter. He's quickly swarmed, held down by all his limbs and forced to the ground while people panic in every direction. Charles stares, completely silent, and processes. Faster than he'd expected, but inevitable. And so it begins.  
  
Erik is standing by the bed, arms crossed, features set in a grim line. "They think they are battling their extinction," he mutters. "They will fire the first shot. Mark my words. That man is lucky to be alive, if he still is alive."  
  
Charles shakes his head. Erik doesn't believe in Shaw's ' _washed-up Nazi theories,'_ in his own words, but he believes part of them whether he would admit to it or not. He believes that there will necessarily be shots at all. "This is good," he says, slowly, as if he's trying to convince himself of it. It should have been far more organized than this, less of a confused mob, but the beginning is always messy. It's a start.  
  
Erik just stared at him. "Excuse me?"  
  
Charles backtracks into his own thoughts, his heart clenching painfully and stuck in his throat. He bows his head. "I wasn't comparing you, if that's what - if that's where the objection is." Better to nip that right in the bud, because he wasn't. He's made it abundantly clear before that there's no comparison to make, and he would never go back on that. "Unless you're upset about - it is good. It's something."  
  
"It is," he agrees in a too-even tone, "not what I am upset about. What exactly was your point?"  
  
"There's a rule to telepathy, where thoughts don't always - it wasn't formed, Erik." He's barely speaking in a whisper. His throat is clogged, and being dropped down into subspace is not making this conversation pleasant or facilitating expression of thought when he's far more worked up about upsetting Erik. His eyes are lowered. "Just because you expect the same things doesn't mean you'll even begin to react to it the same way, it's just - _'battling their own extinction'_. It's a bit - dramatic, don't you think?" Erik believes there will be a war. It's not something Charles will accept.  
  
Erik sits down beside him and wraps him up in a hug. "I do not expect even remotely the same things. I am not _capable_ of believing the same things, because I have never been, nor will I ever be, in a position to enact that ideology. Do I believe that baseline humans hate and fear us? Yes, I do. Do I believe they're _inferior_? Absolutely not."  
  
"I did acknowledge that," he points out, and relaxes into the embrace, letting out a breath he hadn't even been aware he'd been holding. He swallows around the lump that's formed there, not out of fear, but upset that he'd displeased Erik at all. He's having a hard time focusing on anything else, but Erik is here and he won't let him drop. He's still safe. "That was the _'washed up Nazi theories'_ portion. Your words. I just - he expects a level of violence here. A lot of it, and an overwhelming, crushing defeat, which you do not, but -" It wasn't a comparison so much as it was an acknowledgment that nearly everyone - Shaw, Erik, Moira, Raven - expects this to go south, no matter where they stand ideologically (though for Shaw he imagines it's more _'according to plan'_ than _'tragedy'_ ). Call him naive. Call him foolish. He wants desperately to hope that neither will happen. He has to. It's simply who he is.  
  
"Violence doesn't make Shaw a Nazi," Erik returns softly. "He believes in eugenics, in racial subjugation, in class hierarchy, in the advancement of colonial values. I lived with him sixteen years. Maybe I was a mutant, but some mutants are better than others. I believe that oppression should be resisted. They aren't the same thing. They can _never_ be the same thing."  
  
"Erik, I would never argue that," he says, shocked, and shakes his head. His eyes are wide. If that's what Erik honestly believed he was suggesting, he's surprised he's even a fraction of the calm he is now. "That's what - yes, those are the things I acknowledged you did not believe, the things that make him abhorrent. They aren't the same, which is why it wasn't a comparison. At all. I -" He's trembling. His voice is shaking. It can't be helped. There's panic rising up in him, and he can't stamp it back down, so he settles for staring at the sheets.  
  
He sways Charles from side to side lightly, tucking his head under his chin. "You haven't displeased me," he murmurs quietly. "I do not expect you to agree with me on everything," he lets out a huff of a laugh. "That would be a little silly." But he can't ignore it when his name and the word _Nazi_ is placed in the same proximity, either. He believes Charles didn't mean it, and maybe it isn't fair to question him for a stray thought, but this issue isn't going to go away. Erik doesn't want there to be unspoken disagreements between them. Besides, and maybe he's sensitive to this in particular, he knows this won't be the first time he ever hears something like that. Only it will be fully intentional. After the trial he'll undoubtedly be associated with Charles's mutant school, if he isn't in the spotlight of his own accord, and he doesn't intend to stay silent on what's important.  
  
"I didn't put you in proximity, I put you in opposition," he whispers. He's fairly sure there's an emotional reaction happening here, which is more than fair. The problem is that Charles hadn't said - or even thought - anything that Erik would disagree with. It had been poorly strung together, as most thoughts were, he'll give it that. But not offensive in its actual content and meaning. "We're not disagreeing on anything." Charles knows the difference between the violence Shaw suggests is inevitable and necessary and the kind Erik does. They couldn't be more different, or charged by more different intentions. They're opposite, actually, no more similar than Shaw and Erik themselves. Incomparable. That Charles hopes neither of them get what they're expecting is true, but unrelated to how he feels about either of them. He wasn't conflating. He never would. He's - hurt, he realizes. That Erik thought he might.  
  
"What I heard was that you think I believe part of those theories," Erik murmurs, "whether or not I'd admit to it." It's not surprising that he had a knee-jerk reaction to it. He didn't believe that Charles thought he would conflate them, but Charles had a habit of positioning him in relation to Shaw at all, especially considering their first discussion of the matter had ended with Charles openly questioning whether Erik believed humans should be destroyed, outright massacred, before they destroyed mutants.  
  
"I didn't -" He sucks in a breath. This conversation should probably wait, but the longer it did, the more it would settle uncomfortably between them. Best to rip the bandaid off, no matter how much it made him shiver. Pulling back from Erik is the only way he's going to get anything out, and wrapping his own arms around himself is a poor substitute. "I did. You're right, and it was poorly worded. I didn't mean you believed any part of the theories, and I'm sorry I thought it that way. I shouldn't have put the two together at all. I meant that there's a level of - that there's a war, in both cases. That there's an extreme level of thinking, regardless of from which side, that leads to bloodshed, inevitably, and that I hope it doesn't. Which you already know." He swallows. "I was wrong to even suggest you were capable of that. I wasn't even - it wasn't you I was questioning, it was where I think some of these separatist thoughts lead when they're taken to an extreme. It frightens me, I've been plenty open about that. I don't agree with it. I don't think the answer to violence should be more violence. I never will. Do I agree that there are extreme situations where extreme measures need to be taken? Fine. Yes. But I don't think it should ever be the default, and I don't think you do either. But you are -" Charles takes another breath. "You go there much easier than I do, Erik. It doesn't mean you're anything like him, and if I ever suggested that, I am deeply, truly sorry." He means that. "But there are places that you can go that I can't, and we both know it."  
  
"I am not an extremist, Charles," Erik tells him softly, leaning over to kiss his forehead. "Thank you, for apologizing. I know you don't believe that of me," he adds, giving him a smile. "I won't let them register me. They will say I'm breaking the law. And many otherwise hardworking, well-meaning baseline humans will say that I am wrong, because it is against the law. They won't question it. You know what is going to happen if they pass this. Carmen Pryde is not going to let his child be put in a government database. He'll be aiding and abetting, and if he is not caught it's because he has the contacts to forge the necessary documents. If they do not want a war, this is an incredibly tone-deaf amendment to make. There are mutants everywhere, in every culture and religious affiliation. Once they realize how improbable our cooperation is, they will resort to violence."  
  
"I don't believe you're an extremist, either. I think some of your thoughts can lend themselves to extremism, but so can mine, unchecked." Charles isn't blind to the flaws in his own thinking. He needs them pointed out just as much as Erik does. As much as anyone with strongly held beliefs does. "And I'm fully aware of that, too. The last thing I want are these laws passed. You know that, and you know I would never stand for it either." He's grim, admitting that, but it's true. Charles would fight in his own way. "I simply believe that there's a way to end this before it starts. That there is a way to avoid the first shot." His teeth are chattering. There's an awful clenching in his stomach. Charles wants to lean into Erik more than anything, but he's not sure if he should. If he's allowed.  
  
He tugs Charles back into his arms in answer. You are always welcome here, he smiles, pleased to reconcile the distance between them both. "I think this amendment is extreme," he admits. "It's offensive, and disgusting, and entirely, completely in-line with Shaw's outdated theories. Which I am certain you agree with, but if I can't attack them with pipe bombs, at least let me rant." He winks.  
  
"I think so, too," he admits right back, because it is. Because there is no possible way he could argue for it, nor a single possibility that he would ever try. Charles buries himself in Erik's chest and forces himself to breathe, feeling - he's not sure. But he knows something for certain now. All things considered, it's the best possible way he could have learned it. It doesn't mean he isn't trembling in the aftermath, or that his fingers don't clench hard in the back of Erik's shirt, but he manages a tiny smile.  
  
"What did you learn?" he whispers, smoothing his hands over Charles's back soothingly.  
  
"Stop doing that, it freaks me out," he teases, however shakily. He does still forget Erik can do it when they're like this, despite all the compounded evidence. It's the result of years of one way glass. "I wondered if - all the other times we've had disagreements, I'd already come down. From subspace, I mean. At least slightly. I wondered if I would be able to -" To do any of the things he'd just done. "I already knew the answer was yes. It's good to know for sure." He'd done it in the car on the way to Westchester, too, but he's not sure if that was subspace or not. Something else entirely, maybe. It doesn't matter. He does feel like everything's spinning, and like he's a little sick, but that's not the worst side effect.  
  
"Of course," Erik kisses him. He's obviously held no doubts about it. Now that Charles is less panicked, he can feel how anxious Erik had really been, and it's melting away. More snowflakes on heated iron, twinkling notes dissolving in the air. As strongly-held as his convictions are, he doesn't like fighting, and he likes making Charles feel negatively even less, but he wouldn't have even spoken up if he didn't think Charles could properly vocalize his opinion. The news station switches over to footage of yours truly and begins outlining the pros and cons behind registering dangerous mutants, and Erik struggles not to laugh. "Good to know I've become the face of this charming debate."  
  
Charles doesn't look. He stays buried in Erik's chest, taking deep, slow breaths, because whether he could articulate his opinion or not, dropping out of subspace - and getting pulled back into it, because Erik's Will is still clinging to the walls and hung in the air like humidity - is a lot. He needs to reorient himself, but fortunately he has the ability to do that safely. He's drifting comfortably again when he starts actually listening to the news coverage.  
  
 _"Maybe we just rate them one to five risk level and only track the dangerous ones, you know? Like a list of offenders. Let everyone know they're in the area, keep them clearly marked, make sure the authorities have counter measures -" "Well, that's what I'm saying, Jim. We all need it on our IDs, if you ask me. Mutant or not. Everyone deserves to know."_  
  
Charles makes a choked, low noise. "Repulsive," he manages, clearly seething even muffled by Erik.  
  
Erik is laughing outright by now. "Counter-measures," he smirks. "You know, he _is_ right. He should _definitely_ have that on his ID. I'd say he is about a _level-five asshole_."  
  
Charles manages a snicker, too. "We're watching the worst news station this country has," he points out. "Their opinions on everything are so disgustingly awful I sometimes tune in to challenge my own optimism on the human condition." It's not even a joke, really.  
  
 _"It's just like - we need to be hard on them here, or they're never going to learn that they can't use their powers to get what they want. What's stopping them from killing the president? This is a national security issue. I hope one of these next laws is mandated - what are those called? Suppressors." "Oh, yeah, yeah. If they want to be part of this country, they have to be American like us. No superpowers."_  
  
Charles blinks. Then he blinks again. "What does that even mean, in the context of this argument? Being mutant has nothing to do with being a naturalized - I'm losing precious braincells, Erik," he huffs.  
  
"We have to be American," Erik covers his mouth and loses it. "Oh, good. He thinks the water is making everyone into a mutant. Well _that_ is actually true. Definitely the water."  
  
Charles loses it as soon as Erik does. He's still resting against his Dominant's chest, refusing to do more than peek out, but now he's lost to giggles.  
  
 _"Here's the question all of us parents are asking ourselves. Could our kids be mutants? I heard normal humans can have mutant kids. What would you do with a mutant kid, Jimmy?" "Well, you know. I'd say - my wife, she's thinking about it, and I said to her the other day, I said, if we get a mutant, it's gotta go to boot camp or something. Send it off. I can't deal with raising Superman." "That's what I said to Judy! That's exactly what I said to her, haha. Good thing both our boys are normal - sorry, baseline, that's what we're calling it. We have to be PC! Alright, back to you, Ann -"_  
  
"That's utterly horrifying," he mumbles, and he's sobered up some. "And I don't doubt that some parents will feel that way." Some already did. They needed someplace to go, now more than ever. Charles is usually filled with determination about something, but never as much as he is about this.  
  
Erik isn't surprised in the slightest, and in fact this is one of the primary reasons why he supports Charles's school. There is of course the aspect of education, and that he's fond of children is no secret from anyone, but, "they will," he murmurs. "Mutants need a place to go. The more decentralized we are, the less capable we are of defending ourselves, the less confident we are. Look, look at this," he gestures to the television. "All I hear are their voices. There is not one mutant on that program. If they're there, they're silent. I wish I could be there. They say we are Superman while one, missing the message of _Superman_ entirely, for the record-ever _read_ a comic book? and two, somehow failing to recognize that they're an echo chamber, because despite having powers, mutants are terrified to be open about themselves."  
  
"No, they recognize it," he mutters. "I'm optimistic, but not a fool. They recognize they're an echo-chamber, but they don't see fit to change it. What I can guarantee you is that there is at least one mutant on set at that studio, and they feel just a bit more unsafe and unwelcome." It was statistically likely. An intern. A camera operator. An editor. Someone there was going to be a mutant, likely several someones, and this would be the message they heard loud and clear. "They won't listen because they want to. They will listen because they are made to." Charles intended to make them.  
  
Erik arches his eyebrows very pointedly, _CHARLES_. "Mhm," his lips twitch.  
  
Charles huffs. "What?" he asks, and goes back to hiding in Erik's chest.  
  
"Oh, I agree" Erik hums. The thing about it was Erik is perfectly willing to talk, and use words, and debate, but at the end of the day it's not going to be effective unless Charles literally makes them, which isn't something Erik is comfortable even thinking about. The more vocal mutants become, the more afraid baselines will get. They won't understand how their beliefs tie into historical context, they'll claim they are the victims, and cover one another while overzealous cops beat innocent people to death in the streets. Maybe Charles is right, maybe there won't be a war. Maybe they'll just quietly let themselves get preemptively crushed out of existence.  
  
"You're wrong about that," he insists, because he, of course, didn't mean literally making them. Even thinking it makes him sick to his stomach, so he brushes it off as quickly as possible. It was never even a consideration, nor would it ever be. "I didn't mean all baseline humans, Erik. There are people who will listen, and that's all we need. But we've had this conversation before." He manages a smile, however dry, and settles down. "You promised my way first. So you'd better get ready, too." Fighting without blood spilled was just as much of a fight. It was an even more tiring one, actually.  
  
"Only if I get to talk to... Alex Jones," Erik reads off the TV ticker. "He is really excited about the water theory." Erik runs his fingers through Charles's hair rhythmically. "I did promise, and I intend to keep it." Erik wasn't sure if he would be very good at it, though. He can't even speak, a fact he often forgets when in Charles's presence. How can he fight with words? He leans back against the wall and takes Charles with him. "I have faith in you," he says simply, because when all is said and done, he does.  
  
"We'll figure out a way," he promises, because they will. Charles lets himself be moved, humming as he leans back against Erik's chest, nice and comfortable between his legs. "You promised me a day of floating around in subspace and being pampered," he pouts, looking up at him. "I'm cross now. This is what you get for spoiling me." At that, he offers a shy little grin.  
  
"It's not my fault," Erik squawks. "Blame Alex." He jerks his thumb at the TV and it flicks off. "Or Raven. Or really anybody except me. Mmmm, OK, come along," he decides after a second, sliding off the edge of the bed in a fluid motion and holding his hand out. "Let's get you dressed."


	27. We won't stop until somebody calls the cops

Charles pouts even harder at that, but he does take the offered hand. "We aren't staying in bed all day?" he asks, and tries not to sound like he's whining. It doesn't exactly work. He was quite enjoying lazing around, for once.

Erik laughs. "We need some things, first," he says Very Mysteriously. He leads Charles over to the closet and picks out something that for once is not a freaking suit, but he doubts Charles owns jeans either so it's basically still business casual. He hands him a black top with a grin.

"Excuse you," he huffs. He takes the top, and then opens several drawers. One has track pants and sweatpants - for running and the gym - and the other does contain a pair of (expensive, designer, tailored) jeans, thank you very much. He grins.

Erik absolutely 100% goes for the sweat pants with a big racing stripe down the center. He holds them up. "Lovely."

"Erik, that's what I wear when I'm sweating buckets and not actually fit for public viewing," he protests, but it's mild. If Erik wants him to wear them, he will. That's still strange to him, but - he wasn't lying before. He likes it.

He buries a laugh in Charles's hair and instead opts for a dark pair of jeans, mostly because that image is infinitely more appealing.

Charles slips on some underwear, then the jeans. He hasn't worn them in - a while, he thinks. Months, at least. They fit snugly then, but Charles finds that now, without a belt, they're big on him. Not exceptionally so, but enough that they're no longer the perfect fit. He frowns, and turns his head to hide it, but Erik likely already caught his observation.

Erik slips the shirt onto his shoulders after he straightens up. He's already caught it, but he doesn't mention anything about it. He's already fully dedicated to ensuring that Charles takes care of himself, and that includes his eating habits. So it will, he thinks, be remedied as soon as possible.

If he eats three meals a day like Erik's rules demand, he'll fill out quickly. His hair's cut, he's working on sleep. All good things Erik's forcing him to pay attention to. Charles smiles at that thought, then bites his lip, looking Erik over. "Are you going out like that, or can I dress you?" he asks, just a bit shy again. At the very least he'll need to button his shirt up. If only he wasn't wearing pants. It'd mean he'd get to be on his knees again, at least for a little while. Charles lowers his head to hide his pink cheeks, embarrassed at his own - submissiveness? Erik would probably tell him not to be, but. Habit.

Erik is underweight enough to be positively skeletal, even though he's gained thirty pounds since his admission to the CIA's custody according to the notes Carmen had him look over a few hours ago, it's still far, far too little for his height. He gets regular nutrition via a tube (super not sexy) to balance out his electrolytes (his regular diet is the very bland peas and potatoes, but surprise, there's a reason for that beyond we don't understand how other things could be kosher), but it's essentially voluntary (he sits there and doesn't kill anyone, so, _"voluntary_ ") and there's no needles involved. If he continues as he is, he'll probably get to eat things other than peas and potatoes soon! And he'll look even more menacing and gigantic than he already does. Good luck, Charles.

"Don't worry," he smirks. "You will be on your knees soon enough." His head tilts, very curious at Charles's suggestion, though, and then he nods and sweeps his hand out after lifting Charles's chin to catch his eyes, the almost predatory look on his face relaxing into a soft smile. "Of course. Dress away."

Charles flushes even more than before, fidgeting. He does want to do this, though, more than he'd realized. To serve Erik this way. His fingers are trembling a little as he starts at Erik's buttons, taking each one slowly, his belly fluttering more than it usually does when he's touching his Dominant. Idly, he wonders - well, whatever he wonders, he tries to redirect it away from Erik, cheeks hotter as he finishes up the last button.

Erik might not be a telepath, but he's very good at picking up when those stray thoughts skitter off, and he's even more curious when Charles's cheeks flush bright red, so of course he murmurs, "Let's hear it then," with only the faintest trace of an Order almost sparking from his exposed skin up through Charles's fingertips where they met his body.

It's enough to make Charles full body shiver, his knees suddenly weak. The fidgeting only gets worse, which is particularly hard with one of his ankles mostly out of commission. "You said - and -" There are many innocent ways to be on his knees, all of them incredibly fulfilling. All ways he's learning to love. Charles had thought something less than innocent, in that one moment. He ducks his head and gives the image, on his knees with his mouth very full, and not with food, and wonders if he might burst from the embarrassment.

"Mhmm," Erik breathes approvingly, and he leans over to kiss him, cupping his jaw. Maybe someday Charles wouldn't be so embarrassed of himself, but in the interim, Erik found it very charming. "Well, I certainly wasn't thinking about innocent ways."

That doesn't help. Charles whimpers against Erik's lips, panting from what was, in the scheme of things, one of their more chaste kisses. "I thought we had to go out," he protests, mostly because he's - well, thinking about that doesn't leave him unaffected, and he'd rather not go out in public like that. And now it's all he can think about, on his knees with Erik's hands in his newly-cut hair, pulling, tugging, using Charles like Charles is meant to be used, because he's Erik's, he's meant to serve, and maybe if he did a good job Erik would call him pretty names, tell him he's being such a good boy - He really is a fantastic shade of red.

Erik closes his eyes, feeling himself sink even deeper, into territory where he can barely recognize his own thoughts, eyes half-lidded and nearly black, a current of pure need bolting through his body. Rather than dissolve and shove Charles down where he belongs, because make no mistake, he does _belong_ there, Erik just straightens his shoulders. "We do have to go out," he murmurs, not bothering to hide how thick his voice is. "And so we shall, hm? It will be up to you to control yourself." His whole expression is bright, nearly everything coming across an Order when he's like this, his physical form a personification of Will that threatens to burn Charles from the inside out.

Charles trembles. He is burning, a slow, delicious burn he's never experienced before. But Erik wants to go out, and for him to control himself, so he does. "Yes, Erik," he whispers, soft and obedient again, floating just as easily as he had before. He doesn't turn to leave like he normally would, gathering his things to go downstairs. He waits for Erik. Charles creates a perception field for them before they even get close to being in public instead, knowing instinctively it will hold - they won't recognize Erik as Erik, but they will see him as his Dominant. Charles swallows, finally letting that sink in. It's the first time he'll ever be seen this way in public - as someone's submissive, collared and all - and he can't help but be just a bit nervous, stomach fluttering.

The last time Erik was outside he had freaked out multiple times, so he wasn't looking forward to that, but being with Charles would help. He needed to deal with it. Insecurity threatened to creep in, but he resolutely banished it and looked over at himself in the mirror to see what Charles had picked out for him to wear, having zoned out a bit while preparing himself for the excursion. Being near Charles would help, the deeper into subspace he went, the more Erik responded, the calmer he felt.

Charles had kept him in the same outfit, though. He's just a bit sheepish about that, but - he hadn't known what Erik would like, and he'd looked perfectly good as he was. Charles didn't get any thrill from dressing Erik, except that, in this perception, it's clear he has plenty of money. The fabric and make is impeccable, and everything's perfectly tailored, which is difficult for Erik's proportions, as previously discussed. Anything bought off the rack is going to be too long or too short somewhere, but nothing is. Charles intends for that to be reality. Another way he can serve Erik, just like he'd promised. Erik doesn't need to worry about him being in subspace, at least. He's very much there. He fits himself into Erik's side after he's grabbed his phone and wallet, smiling softly up at him. Charles would call a car before they made it down the stairs, except he doesn't know where Erik intends for them to go. It's a fairly quiet neighborhood, by city standards - there's a grocery store and shopping center within walking distance, but Charles doubts they're popping out for milk and toothpaste.

 _You will have to come shopping with me_ , Erik tells him once they head downstairs. He doesn't know what good clothes look like, not really. Other than a suit and tie, but he decidedly does not want to walk around wearing that (and subsequently does not know what decent suits even look like either way). He doesn't know what will look good on him, either, and he expects Charles definitely has an opinion on that. Now that they're outdoors he's reverted back to mental communication, floating Charles's phone out of his pocket. _We're headed to Times Square, which is a little touristy, but it will be worth it._ He tells Charles the exact address for the driver, and for the first time, the man's eyes land on him as well. He tenses, draping an arm protectively over Charles's hip.

And Charles, in turn, rests his head on Erik's shoulder, mostly because he's flustered, but also because he can. He's fairly sure the guy smiles knowingly at him in the rearview - submissive, Charles can see his collar when he bothers to look - and he wonders if he's giving off _'I'm a submissive way-deep in subspace out with my giant Dom'_ vibes. He honestly wouldn't doubt it. There's embarrassment there, but also quite a lot of pride that he hadn't expected. Times Square is incredibly crowded, he points out, but it's not framed as an argument. Just an observation. It could be overwhelming even for him, and he's been taking trips into the city since he was a child. Anywhere with a large crowd of people tended to make Charles a bit nauseous at first, less because of the people and more because of their thoughts. Too much to focus on at once, an overload of the senses. The buzzing turned to a veritable roar until he processed it back down.

Erik slides in beside him and pulls the door closed, letting Charles rest on his shoulder once they settle in. The man is asking him where they're going and he looks down at Charles, shaking his head a bit. Being addressed always made him clam up and retreat further, and it's so disorienting that he forgets to reply to Charles's observation-but Charles can see it in his mind. He knows it will be a challenge, but as long as Charles is comfortable, he can force himself to do it. If Charles struggles at any point they can just leave and go somewhere else. Erik has back-ups, but this is his first-choice.

Charles won't struggle, really. He's perfectly used to it. It's uncomfortable for the first couple minutes the way walking with a rock in your shoe is uncomfortable, gone as soon as he refocuses. Charles smiles and gives the driver the full address, ignoring the raised eyebrow there. It's gone in a second, and Charles hears him go over possibilities, all of them wrong, one of them making him blush, his head bent further into Erik. He hasn't had a relationship for others to speculate on since Gabby, and this one has been so secretive that the only people left to wonder are the people closest to him. He can feel the driver's eyes on him, but they're not unkind or leering or anything but curious, so he relaxes, and can't help the spark of pride that jolts through him again. He thinks my collar is very pretty, he tells Erik, smiling and pleased and back to floating.

The driver being submissive makes this an awkward drive for him because nothing Charles can do can eliminate Erik's conscious rating, but he must not be very low on the submissive scale because he can still drive the car, unlike the nurse in the hospital who nearly imploded in Erik's presence, but maybe that's the cushion of mind versus body. Most people find it genuinely hard to be around Erik for long periods of time, even Carmen and Gabby struggled with it and they were high-Doms, the push-pull between their conscious mind and Erik's Will and their inability to understand the source of tension going on inside of them a challenge, but it was easier like this. For now. The driver is fortunate he's not a lecher, because Erik has only just realized that everyone else is a sucky asshole and if they think anything untoward about Charles at all while he's here, he might very well murder them in public. He is right, Erik thinks fondly, rubbing his thumb over the material. The driver definitely notices, and now Erik sees him clear his throat at the obviously Dominant flex of Will. Whoopsie doopsie.

Charles bites his lip, uncertain whether to be more embarrassed or more - proud? He can't help it, really, burying himself in Erik's shoulder, bowing his body into him completely, as much as is acceptable in public. There's leeway here, he thinks. But no one else seems capable of being around Erik without turning into completely mindless mush, and Charles? Charles can. Erik is his Dominant, and he's perfectly made to serve him. They're a match. He probably shouldn't be thinking some of those things, because it seems to draw out Erik's Will even more, but. Oopsie. Charles is in a deeper subspace than he thinks most submissives experience, subtler than the intensity of Erik's Will but still very much a marker of his own score, and he's not going to drag himself out anytime soon. He can't. He smiles and floats for the rest of the car ride.

Erik rubs his thumb over Charles's knee, just barely up the inside of his thigh, and that's definitely not acceptable in public but he's obscured by the passenger seat. It's helpful when they begin to enter the fray of crowds, cars getting louder, people up against them on all sides. Erik's breathing starts to come faster, but he rips his focus away from the window and keeps his eyes on Charles. Charles who is wearing his collar, who wants to serve him, who thrives on every current of his Orders.

Charles is flushed and flustered again, but if it helps Erik, he's certainly not going to complain. By the time the car stops he knows Erik is worked up, and it works Charles up in turn, not to panic him but to make him desperately want to take it away. There's no way he could have focused on anything else, but he blankets himself completely in Erik's Will, letting it turn him not to mush but into a livewire of sensation. He exists to serve Erik, in whatever way he asks or needs, and he hopes that's enough to focus him. It's enough to focus Charles, he realizes. What would normally be an overwhelming amount of minds to read is still somehow narrowed down to just Erik, as if in a crowd of people, he's still the only one who currently matters. He's the world, and Charles looks at him exactly like it.

He bows their foreheads together, touching Charles's face, and kisses him because he doesn't care if there's a person in the front seat anymore. It's chaste, at least, more to ground himself than anything. Stay close to me, he murmurs when they finally pull up to the sidewalk. If Charles left him by himself he thinks he'd melt into oblivion right now. He gives the driver a nod of thanks and gets out first, holding the door open and his hand out for Charles to take.

 _Yes_ , Erik, he agrees, and it's a promise, just as solemn as any other he's made. Charles would never leave Erik alone like this. He never could. He takes his hand when it's offered - after he's finished tipping the driver, though he'll do that on the app, too, but they take a percentage of that and there's no reason not to be generous - and glues himself firmly to Erik's side. He doesn't have Will to wrap around him, but he does have his thoughts, eager, soft little murmurs of love and submission, of trust, of support. That he can offer.

The store they're going to is tucked in-between two larger ones and people easily miss it, walking right on by, but Erik knows what he's looking for and heads toward the automatic glass doors. There's hardwood floors inside and a saleswoman is wearing a black pantsuit, who greets them at the door but then moves away to deal with something by the shelves, and upon first look this place is worlds away from the collar store. There are some collars here, but they're the basic high-quality leather and metal pieces, through Erik Charles can feel none of them have imperfections. There's jewelry displayed in cases, and in the front of the store they open with bomber jackets, trench coats, punk wear with distressed patches and spikes sewn into the shoulders, shoes and other relatively tame items which branch out and become more obviously obscene the further into the store they go. masks, pieces incorporating chain mail, handmade latex, lingerie of all shapes and sizes, _et cetera et cetera._

Charles isn't entirely aware of his surroundings, at first. He lets Erik lead him, perfectly content to do so and reserving most judgment, but as they walk further into the store he gets increasingly flustered. He's blushing again, a deep, embarrassed scarlet, clinging to Erik's arm and staying pressed tightly into his side. He'd expected this. Erik had told him, specifically, that they were going to 'take a look' at things exactly like this, and that there were places more suited to those needs. It doesn't make him any less mortified to be standing in one of those places, his mouth dry and want warming his belly despite himself, because - well. He has a reason to be in one of these places now, doesn't he? Charles hasn't learned not to be embarrassed by his own desires and needs yet, especially not around people who aren't Erik. He's sure he'll learn, but right now if he could melt into Erik, he would. _What are we looking for?_ he asks, curious despite himself.

None of this is what Erik is looking for at the moment (though after he's gotten what he needs there's no reason to avoid giving it all a once-over) but everything on display is entirely handmade and ethically sourced, and the shop has an _atelier_ which works by appointment that Erik fully intends to take advantage of at some point. Right now he's looking for the specific and he leads Charles into a section dedicated to a variety of restraints. There's handcuffs, latex and leather bindings, harnesses, fuzzy playful things, and what really catches Erik's eyes, the ropes. Charles was right, Erik is very capable with a rope and he knows exactly what he's looking for. He had not missed Charles's internal musings on being tied and displayed-it's been on his mind since. He reads the labels quietly, thumbing through them and discarding what he doesn't want. Bamboo, hemp and polyester all get cast aside-a saleswoman asks if they need help and Erik looks at her, shaking his head. _No, thank you._

Charles feels his breath hitch. The place to get aroused and drop far enough into subspace that everything becomes a hazy, cloying need to serve and please is probably not in the middle of a store in Times Square, but here they are, and if you told him this was going to be his life a few months ago he absolutely would have laughed at you. As it is, he's finding it very hard not to squirm and whimper at even the thought of being tied up with any of this. Would Erik tie his hands and make him work around it, like he had before? Tie him in intricate knots just because it pleased him? Tie him to the bed? He's glad he's bowing his head into Erik, because if the saleswoman got even a glance at him there's no way she wouldn't know that Charles is combusting on the inside.

The woman gets the hint when he glares at her and she toddles off to do something else, this place is classy enough that most of its patrons are left alone after only a quick check-up, so no one comes by to bother them again. He lets Charles lean against him while he browses and then finally nudges him, drawing his hand down his cheek, a mirrored flare of heat in his own gaze. That Charles is dangerously close to losing his cool right here is alluring in its own way, but Erik remains the picture of composure. He settles on three different ropes, holding them out for Charles to touch. _Soft enough?_ he asks. One is white silk, incredibly soft. The next one is jute, less soft, more durable but its strands are neater looking and dyed a deep red-and one is nylon, which is much stronger and synthetic. They're very different constructions, even though they look relatively similar. For someone who has no experience it's a decent introduction and covers a variety of scenarios.

Charles lets out a shaky, shuddering breath, and touches like he's bid. If he's honest, it's hard for him to tell the difference, especially in this moment. He's never paid much attention to any of this, because it was never relevant to him. Even during the year he'd had a Dom, if you could call Gabby that, he'd been incredibly resistant. They certainly feel soft, and the electric-shivery reminder that Erik plans to bind him with them, in any number of ways, is enough to have him trembling. He nods, breathless, as if he's forgotten how to even think properly. There's so much he wants, so much he's never tried. Charles is a completely blank canvas in so many ways, but he's eager to learn. Incredibly eager, actually, and the noise that slips from him at that thought is far too much like a moan for his liking when they're in public, so he bites down hard on his lip, forgetting all those earlier reminders as his skin pricks with sensation.

 _Careful_ , Erik chides him lightly, tapping him on the lip. He lets his thumb linger there a little longer than necessary before setting them in the basket perched on his arm. The fact that Charles can afford to spend a little extra means they find some _tsubaki_ oil in their basket as well. As pricey as the ropes can get, there's a lot that goes into the art and caring for your tools is important. Erik smiles down at him, warm and reassuring. _There are a few more things I want to get out of the way, first. Then we can look around and you can see what interests you. Sound good?_ In stores like this it wasn't uncommon for submissives to wander around in a daze, so no one even pays them any mind when Erik kisses him softly, every touch over-sensitized between both of them.

Charles is finding it difficult to breathe. He's also finding it very difficult to not be on his knees begging to serve, but he tries to push that down far enough that he can be at least slightly coherent. Yes, Erik, he murmurs, soft and slightly dazed, and presses himself back into Erik's side. He doesn't think Erik needs the comfort right now, but Charles absolutely needs the touch. He's dizzy without it, the only thing keeping him at all anchored Erik's Will. He wants to be kissed again, touched again, Ordered - definitely that - tied up, used properly... Charles bites back a groan, careful to swallow it instead of biting down physically. Erik told him not to. Again. He should listen. He should be a good boy. That meant being patient and not demanding they leave so he could sink down as he likes. Besides, he can't help being curious. Charles clings to Erik and tries to stay at least slightly composed, nodding, though he's not sure for whose benefit.

Erik's smiling, much more affected than he's letting on outwardly. Charles can tell by the way his hands shake, when he looks at Charles for too long he swallows a bit too roughly, then jerks his eyes away and pretends to focus on something in front of him before they inevitably slide back onto Charles. The section they enter into next is at the very back of the store, but Erik stops dead in his tracks, causing Charles who is behind him by half a step to bump into his shoulder. There's a lot of different items on the walls and shelves back here, namely crops, whips, floggers. Whatever he'd been anticipating doing melts out of his head and is replaced by the pleasant, calming loam of absolutely, positively nothing.

Charles startles, making a low, confused noise. He's hypersensitive and hyperaware of everything Erik does, everything he thinks and feels, too, a side effect of his telepathy that's proving to be a natural part of his submission. He nudges at Erik, both with mind and body, gentle. Erik? he asks.

No response, nothing. Erik's eyes are pinned, unseeing, to the twin full-sized whips that are overlaid on each dark-oak wall above the smaller selections. They're clearly a decoration, no one could use a device like that on a human being without injuring them severely, even killing them. Erik's biting down on his tongue hard enough that blood blooms at its tip, in the Real and here, but he's completely oblivious to it.

Charles follows Erik's eyes, and it sinks in slowly, then all at once, like being dunked under cold water. Immediately he's in front of Erik, as if he can block his line of vision - he can't, Erik can see right over his head - but at least it's something. He was clinging to Erik's arm, but now he grabs for his hand. "Erik," he breathes, quiet but as firm as he can manage like this. "Erik. Look at me? Please?" He's begging.

He blinks slowly and his eyes gradually move lower to lock onto Charles's, head tilting downward to facilitate the gesture. There's no sense of panic in his head, because there's no sense of anything. He's looking at the colors of Charles's irises, imagining there's little clouds in the striations of white barely visible, tracing each line starting from the dark ring outside and moving toward the pupil where the color blazed brightly, matching the island tropic of his collar.

Charles frowns. Erik's mind has receded from his, but he knows it's still there. It doesn't help the horrid dropping in his stomach, the beginnings of panic in him. It's too much of a change, too much of a contrast, and all at once he's cold and clammy and unsettled. Erik, please, he pleads. Come back. He needs him, but he doesn't say that. It's implied anyway.

 _I'm here_ , Erik tells him at last, touching his neck, breathing too-evenly. _It's OK. You are OK._

Charles makes a noise from the back of his throat, like he doesn't quite believe him. He tugs gently at Erik's hand, attempting to direct them in any direction that isn't in front of them. Anything to get him away from what's obviously distressing him.

Erik lets himself be led easily, and he puts his head on Charles's shoulder when they're hidden behind a shelf that contains some CDs, holding him close. He's sorry. He didn't mean to. He thought it would be OK.

Charles shakes his head, and simply buries himself in Erik, curled up around the basket he's still holding. There's no blame, or upset, even. He's just a bit panicked, a little queasy, but it's fading fast. _I'm sorry_ , he thinks. He should have known, but - how would he have known? He still should have known. It's his fault.

 _Stop that,_ Erik murmurs. _No blame_. He holds out his hands and takes Charles's in his, leading him back toward the problematic section. With more preparation Erik doesn't react outwardly this time. He moves ahead toward a selection of canes, which are infinitely more precise and easier to control, which Erik evidently prefers over the whips with looser tassels on the end. He moves a bit sluggishly to choose one, heart beating erratically in his chest.

Charles whines, not in protest to the section itself but in response to Erik's distress. He would have been perfectly happy to walk away and move on, but there's no use tugging him away now when he seems determined. He does his best to calm him, at least, pressing himself back against his side, forehead pressed near his shoulder. The contact is necessary or he'll fall apart, but he thinks it might help Erik, too.

Erik puts a few other things in the basket (a couple are for discipline, and mostly won't be used in any other circumstances, but there's a couple of things there that Charles suspects Erik might use for impact play instead-and it's his intention to have a better, clearer discussion of this but his head has melted away anything resembling logic so he's moving on instinct) and then heads far away from that section, relaxing the more distance they put between themselves and those stockwhips. Erik doesn't lose his cool, and he returns to holding Charles close once they return to the main area. Thank you for staying with me, he thinks softly, affectionate.

Charles wasn't paying much attention, and at least for right then his curiosity hadn't been the stronger instinct. All of his focus was on comforting Erik the best he could, every part of him instinctively reacting to Erik in this state. He's calmer when they're away, too, because Erik is, sighing and relieved. The affection makes him smile more than the words themselves, sweet and grateful and pleased, and he nods. Charles is every bit an extension of Erik at the moment, in a way he hasn't noticed. When Erik shifts, even slightly, so does he. When Erik is worried or distressed, he is, too, and it feels like twofold. He keeps himself folded into Erik's side, not capable of being anywhere else.

 _Have you seen anything you are interested in?_ Erik asks gently, eyebrows knitting together in the center, knowing full well Charles's curiosity was a large part of who he was and that his own slip-up had only been a very small portion of their time here. He's seen Charles's eyes roaming about.

That gets his attention. Charles whines again, this time in embarrassment, and tries very hard to hide himself in his Dominant, cheeks already red as if they need little more than a reminder.

Erik grins, a dimple appearing in his cheek. Now that was a promising reaction. _Come on_ , he runs his hand through Charles's hair. _No need to hide_. They both know he'll find out one way or another.

Charles shakes his head, another low noise escaping, but he doesn't lift his head or speak or think anything coherent. It's not disobedience, really, or even actual reluctance. He's not distressed. He's just incredibly embarrassed, and buzzing with want all over again, and it's overwhelming.

 _Look at me_ , Erik Orders, and his eyes are fully locked on Charles once he tips his head up, hands fluttering over his cheeks and shoulders soothingly. _Tell me what has caught your attention._ Erik wants to know, but he also discovers that with Charles as deep into subspace as he is, he just enjoys Ordering him for its own sake, tightening between them, drawing them closer more immediately than any rope binding.

Charles immediately snaps to attention, as effectively as if Erik had electrified him. His whole body is thrumming with it in the aftermath, and he squirms, even as he does as he's told. Rather than words, the answer comes in images - truthfully, his attention has been all over, and there isn't much that hasn't caught his eye in some shape or form, flitting from one section to the other, lingering nowhere in particular. Charles has never had an opportunity to sate his curiosity in this particular area, and there are some things that - admittedly, and he's thoroughly embarrassed about this - he doesn't even know the purpose of. There are things he's more curious about than others, but he has no way of knowing what interests him when he's never given it more than passing thought. Charles is - well. He wants to try, is what's embarrassing him most. He wants Erik to make him try things, if he's honest, because he's far too bashful to admit he wants to himself. He wants to find out what he likes, what he doesn't, because it's becoming increasingly obvious that - well, he doesn't know. And with Erik, he's eager to try everything. Very, very eager, and so absurdly willing.

 _Hm_ , is all Erik says to that, but he's essentially been given free reign, and he is very curious himself to see what sticks and what doesn't. It's pretty easy to tell when one thing or another really jolts Charles's interest, though, and he indicates a few things here and there as they wander around, gauging his response before deciding whether to place it in the basket. Among such offered objects are: a candle, a gag-Erik is deeply amused as he holds this up-handcuffs, chains, a clamp, a vibrator-another grin-a violet wand, a metal pinwheel, a corset-this is deeply traditional submissivewear that is not often seen, but Charles knows that Erik is very familiar with them-a paddle... Lots of things go in the basket today.

By the end of their little shopping spree, Charles is thoroughly crimson, squirming, and panting. His breathing has quickened, his pupils have dilated. He's less aroused - though he is certainly that, make no mistake - than he is dunked so far and quivering into subspace he doesn't know how he'll ever emerge. Images flash through his head, one after the other. Charles, tied up and teased mercilessly. Charles, gagged, which absolutely should not make him whimper the way he does, but it's the thought of Erik doing it, the things he might say, the heated - bent over Erik's lap and paddled red and crying, that voice - strung up and tugged around by clamps... Some of them are overtly sexual, more filthy than he would normally give himself credit for. Others are far less so, just as routine as morning and evening Postures, just more things Erik could add to a long list of ways he asked Charles to submit throughout the day. There's no hard line. They all blend together, all adding up to a million different possibilities. New ways to express what Charles craves. So badly it hurts. By the end of it, Charles actually needs to stop walking for a moment. His knees are weak, his pulse is racing. He whimpers and rubs his face against Erik's shoulder. Not distressed, just overwhelmed. Everything is just spinning, and he really, really wants to be on his knees for Erik where he knows he belongs.

As Charles is learning, Erik doesn't really have any specific interests or fetishes, beyond the things that he knows he is _good_ at (describe any person's interests, really) but more in-depth it's all related to what _Charles_ finds stimulating. Which mostly turns out to be what Erik's expected, if he's honest. A lot of people, Gabby included in this, fell under the erroneous impression that Dominance and submission was something you _did_ , and not something you _felt_. It's why so many relationships fail, Dominants go through the motions believing that it's what they're supposed to do, and become frustrated when their sub isn't interested in their _Thing_ or whatever. (Which can be a dealbreaker, but Erik is definitely more of a mental guy, which makes his outward expression of Dominance quite versatile.)  
  
Much like Charles he didn't have a lot of exposure to his own wants and needs, but he's realizing that he doesn't really require a whole lot of experience there; what's important is what they collectively build and discover. It does mean a lot of this is new territory for him, in this context. There's some things he knows he _isn't_ interested in, but fortunately it hasn't been a big issue and there's plenty more they have in common. He settles his hand over Charles's elbow, an unconsciously Dominant position mirroring the one he wanted to take, giving a very minute shake of his head that only Charles could detect, still very amused, and very fond of him. _Not to worry. Just a little longer. You'll make it for me, hm?_ it is definitely not a question, and he inhales a little sharply at the sensation of Ordering him while he's so far down like this. Hopefully Erik can wait.

It's not that Charles is discovering he's interested in everything, though perhaps that is true. It's not the paddles or the gags or the clamps themselves that get him going, because he doesn't live under a rock. He's a grown man, he's seen them before, and they've done nothing but bore him. It's not that there are even things that interest him, like Erik asked before, things he desired more than others. It's that everything could be used as a tool for him to submit to Erik, that for him, outside of firm boundaries, ones he knows he and Erik share in common - there just isn't a limit. There isn't a limit, and he thought for so long there wasn't even a start. If Erik's Dominance and desires don't taper off, neither do his. Charles eyes are heavier with the Order, but he nods eagerly, refocused. If Erik wants him to wait, he'll wait. He floats more than he walks to get everything paid for. He's so wrapped up in Erik that he's forgotten other people exist, so he looks up at Erik for direction, not listening to anything himself. If he needs to say something, he'll say it. When he needs to hand over his card and sign his name, he will. It's not himself he's existing for in this moment, it's Erik. Charles half-buries himself in Erik until then, buzzing and drifting, his mind flashing images of submission.

One thing that turns out to be a bit awkward is that they naturally address Erik, either out of the misguided perception that Erik would speak on Charles's behalf, or simply because his aura made people more inclined to defer to him (probably that), but he shakes his head and tells Charles his answers, kissing the top of his head and dropping a hand to his shoulder. There's definitely no mistaking what Charles is, now. They get everything put into bags and Erik drapes them on his arm, radiating pleasure and a little, daresay, excitement. Save for his minor glitch out, this trip went exceedingly well. Even when they re-emerge onto the street, Erik finds himself so wrapped up in Charles that he doesn't notice anyone else.

It's Charles who finds himself more startled by the crowded street, actually. It's far more sound and sensation than he was expecting, and he blinks, sluggish and uncomfortable, folding himself into Erik as entirely as possible as he calls a car. The time it takes to pull up is almost overwhelming, everything close to overstimulating him, and he sighs and folds gratefully into the car after Erik when it does come. They already know where they're going, so Charles basically curls himself into Erik's lap. It's a testament to how absolutely deep he is that he doesn't question what it looks like. He doesn't care. If Erik is pleased, that's all that matters. He bows his head, smiles, and settles, oriented to Erik and Erik alone. _Erik?_ he asks, his whole body angled toward him. Like a compass pointing true north, it seems he can't help that, always shifted exactly where Erik is. _I love you._ It's soft, sweet, near shy, and utterly sincere. Charles' love is never separate from his submission, or vice versa. They're inseparable when it pertains to Erik, because Charles is submissive, Charles is Erik's submissive, and he loves Erik very much.

 _Is that a secret?_ Erik thinks back, smiling down at him softly. He uses his own body to shield Charles from the crowd until the car gets there, and then they spend the ride back with Charles practically in between his knees, Erik holding onto him and letting him rest on his chest. _I love you back_ , he laughs silently. It definitely isn't a secret. The gaze Erik sets on him can only be described as adoring.

Absolutely not, except when necessity makes it so, but he wanted to say it. Even when it's most obvious, he finds himself compelled to say it. Charles instinctively knows the drive back to his apartment, the city streets, begrudgingly, familiar to him. By the time they're home he's buzzing with anticipation, his breathing picked up all over again. When he's following Erik up the stairs, he's fairly sure he'll burst with it, actually, right into flames, and he whimpers softly under his breath. Please, he thinks without actually thinking. _Please let me serve you_. It's all he's thought, the only thing that matters. Charles has become it. He's waited, he's been patient and good. But he wants, so, so badly, more earnestly than he ever would have thought possible.

Erik runs his thumb over Charles's cheek. With a broken wrist and injured ankle, and a body covered in bruises, they won't be using ropes today but Erik certainly doesn't seem distressed by that, because he's got plenty of other very interesting ideas to play around with. He sets the bags on the counter. "Patience," he admonishes, but it's teasing. Warmth exudes out of him. He smooths his hands over Charles's shoulders. "How are you feeling?" He means mentally, but also physically.

Charles makes another whimpering noise, leaning into the touch. He doesn't have words for what he's feeling. Warm, and anticipatory, and humming. Not distressed, or frustrated, or even impatient. Hazy, but not - gone? Still very much here. And physically, he's - not in pain. Even though they'd did some walking, even though he'd been dragging around his bruises. No pain, really. "Good, Erik," is what comes out, which seems like a gross understatement, but Erik asked him a question and he wants to answer. He feels floating. Deep. Tuned in to Erik. He feels like he wants to be - good. He wants to so very good, whatever Erik decides that means. "I - I want to please you," he whispers, not for the first time today, ducking his head as his cheeks heat. Like this, it is a feeling.

Erik smiles down at him. "Do you think you did well, today?" It's not a trick question, Charles gets the impression any answer would suffice, but he can also feel Erik's opinion relatively strongly with how close together they are and he knows that Erik is very pleased with him. He just likes to hear Charles say it.

Charles keeps his head lowered, trying not to fidget too much. Some of it is to keep his weight off his ankle - that hurts - so it's all rather convenient. He goes to bite his lip, and then whines, remembering. Be a good boy, Charles. "I - yes?" he says, but it comes off like more of a question, barely a whisper. Painfully shy, which is not what he's ever expected from himself, but Erik pulled it right out of him, and then ripped it away.

"Is that a question or an answer?" Erik taps the counter, gesturing for him to sit up there and relieve the pressure from his poor foot. He begins taking off Charles's shoes, then his socks. Erik grins up at him, tracing his fingers along the inside of his knee.

That makes fidgeting much harder if he doesn't want to kick Erik in the face. Looking down now also means he's looking at Erik, and he just barely manages not to chew at his own lip. He's sensitive all over, head to toe, and it has nothing to do with his injuries, broken out into gooseflesh and shivering at even ghosts of touch. "Mmm," he mumbles, in place of an answer, and his eyelids are heavy again. He hopes he was good. It's all he wants right now, the only thing he currently exists for. There's never been such single-minded focus for Charles.

Erik removes his socks and shoes and sets them aside, and then moves to unbutton his jeans and shirt before tugging him to his feet. "I think you've done very well today," he hums, content. His pride and pleasure at Charles are almost palpable in the air. "I want you to go and take the rest of these off for me," he murmurs lowly, the Order tugging at the base of his spine and spreading all the way up to the back of his neck. "When you are done, lie down on the bed and wait for me. There are some things I need to take care of out here. You'll be patient, right?" his eyebrows arch expectantly and he punctuates it with a kiss to Charles's lips once he rises to his feet.

Charles is absolutely on cloud nine, just the simplest bit of praise enough to have him tingling all over, preening and overjoyed. He smiles brightly, still shy, but there are dimples where there weren't, the sun turned on inside of him and warming every inch of skin. "Yes, Erik," he promises, and lingers in that sweet touch for as long as he can before he's dutifully padding off to the bedroom again.


	28. And even then we'll start again and just pretend that

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _butterfly_ , nelly sachs  
> ii. _me-rahok_ , yocheved bat miriam

It takes him a while to get his clothes off with the cast on one hand, but he doesn't think Erik is expecting any rush. When he's done, despite the difficulty, he folds them neat and orderly, sets them aside and climbs onto the bed. Charles doesn't know exactly how Erik wanted him, so he settles for relaxed but upright, and can't quite keep his toes from curling or his stomach from clenching. Erik said to be patient, and Charles absolutely doesn't want to disobey, but - it couldn't hurt to peek, could it? Just a peek. A good, patient boy would probably not do that, but - He reaches out with just the barest of intention, his telepathy creeping past the doorway not unlike he's peeking over the corner. For Erik, it should be fairly obvious. If he wanted, he could make it so Erik wouldn't notice at all. But that would mean a lie on top of the peeking, and if he's going to be scolded, he'd at least like for it to be for something playful and not a violation of trust. Charles shivers, wondering if Erik will notice. There's a thrill there he can't deny, like playing with fire and waiting for the burn.  
  
Erik's head tips up as he feels the curl of Charles's mind at the back of his neck like ghostly little fingers and he smiles to himself. He's taking things out of the bags and separating them, and there's a lot more there than Charles initially remembers, with many things he doesn't because he'd been down so far at the store. Erik does the mental equivalent of closing the blinds with a laugh and a chiding, _Patience, Charles. Almost there._ He feels a little electric zap shoot up his chest, a warning. Truthfully, Charles's eagerness makes everything more intense, amplifies his own Will until Charles can feel it vibrating all around him on an audible frequency. _If you aren't patient, you won't get your reward._ Erik taps him on the nose playfully.  
  
Charles' pout is partially for show. He gives the image of it, making certain Erik can see it before he settles back down. _Yes, Erik._ He's squirming, pleased and giddy, though, the extra attention all he needed to close his eyes, take a deep, slow breath, and wait like a good boy. He doesn't think there's anywhere further down to go, but he sinks further anyway as he curls himself up in Erik's Will, giving a shuddering, breathy sigh as he relaxes against the pillows. There's not a single worry in the world that isn't Erik, not one concern that isn't pleasing his Dominant and shivery, eager anticipation. He'd thought he'd been in subspace before, but it's never been anything quite like this.  
  
After a while he hears Erik come in before he sees him, and when he does it's like all the oxygen gets absorbed out of the room and refocused on him. Even with just his consciousness being here his Will pervades every crack in the room, every shift of Charles's skin. He's got a couple of items in his hands which he sets off to the side and he sits beside Charles on the bed, brushing his hair out of his face. "Do you remember your pause-word?" he asks softly, and then he taps his temple. _Can you project mentally?_  
  
The tap to his temple makes him gasp, Charles' entire body wracked with it as his lips part. It's always been extraordinarily sensitive, a jolt of connection, and considering the circumstances, it's only moreso now. He only means to think the word, but it comes with the memory instead, a playback-repeat that's entirely unconscious - "If you become distressed, physically or mentally" - and it only takes a moment, a second, to play through the entire interaction, as if in fast forward, but for Charles it isn't. He's always gotten the impression his processing speed is extraordinary, and in the time it takes him to blink, he's shivering and warm with the joy of first receiving it, with his gratitude and genuine pleasure. _Yes, Erik,_ he says, unnecessarily. _Afor_. Charles stares up at the world, bright and trusting, and tucks the word away somewhere close. Not anticipating its use, but knowing with every part of him that if he should need it, it's there.  
  
Erik touches his lips to Charles's temple afterward, chasing more of that shivery, shuddering sensation. Charles is already very deep down, which means they can start off at a higher level than normal, and Erik wants to give something to him that he doesn't think Charles has ever experienced before. It is new territory, so he eases into it, letting Orders compound upon Orders until all that Charles can focus on is Erik, and the way his body is primed for even the slightest bit of contact. "Come here," he touches the edge of the bed and lets Charles scoot up. The more he follows Charles into that place, the less the line exists between words and Orders until there's nothing left. His hand trails over Charles's exposed chest. "Undress me."  
  
Charles' mouth has gone dry again, eyelids heavy. It's such a simple Order, but as deep down as he is, it sinks into every part of him, vibrating. His hands may not be bound, but the cast makes things just as difficult, and Charles is shuddering need to serve. The clothes are a construction, but he's careful with them anyway even as his fingers tremble, finds he isn't frustrated or impatient with his own struggle, only determined. He's panting and flushed, but devoted, starting with Erik's shirt and putting it aside gently, working all the way down to his pants. It's going to be awkward to pull the fly down with his left hand, unused to it, and instead of simply doing it that way, Charles uses his teeth. His eyes are lifted upwards to watch Erik's reaction, shy and fluttering, except his eyes are scorching. He squirms as he pulls them down, his heart beating double time in his chest.  
  
Erik places his hand over Charles's heart, rubbing his thumb back and forth. When he's fully bared, though, he doesn't make any sudden movements except to reach over to the end table where he'd placed his little collection of items, still in the bag. "Close your eyes," he says softly. When Charles obliges, he continues, "I want you to focus on my voice." His fingers flutter over Charles's jaw. "I want your attention here," he taps Charles's jaw, not this specific place, but, "in your body. Where I touch you. Do you understand?"  
  
That's always been difficult for Charles, but he doesn't think it will be now. Everything is a physical sensation, overwhelming in its intensity, and he's less stuck in his own head than he's ever been. "Yes, Erik," he whispers, shivering. "I understand." His instinct is to squirm, but he forces himself still, trembling all over as he waits.  
  
He smiles at Charles, more a sensation than an image, with his eyes closed, and after a few moments something rustles and he drapes a soft material over his eyes, drifting his head forward to tie it around the back of his head. The blindfold is heavy enough to keep his lids closed without constricting him, so that he doesn't forget himself and blink them open. He guides Charles to lie back and bids him to be still, the Order twining around his body just as effectively as any rope. It narrows down his focus completely. When Erik had touched him earlier on his stomach it had been primarily about pain relief, relaxation, but now his hands ghost over Charles's skin lightly, almost ticklish, following where he twitches and jumps, and when Erik speaks again his voice is near Charles's ear, low and throaty. "Relax. You'll stay where I put you and you won't move, will you?" He slides his hands up Charles's arm and places his hands behind his head, leaving his wrists lightly interlocked without jostling the cast too much. His fingers slowly work from the inside of Charles's knees to his inner thighs, spreading his legs and keeping them like that while nevertheless deliberately avoiding anything more intense. For now.  
  
Charles' breath hitches, picking up in little stutters in his chest. He isn't panicking, or afraid. It's nothing like that. It's just that even with a blindfold on, Charles has always been able to see, barring those first few trips to the CIA. In the car earlier he'd seen Erik next to him as well as he could with his eyes unhindered; it's a natural part of his telepathy, to fill in the senses he loses, no more conscious than Erik's sense of the Earth's magnetic fields. Charles has never not known where Erik will touch him, even when he was most unanticipating, and now it feels - he's not sure. It's so utterly new that he's panting and wriggling before Erik has done much of anything, his skin prickling and ticklish and burning everywhere Erik's fingers graze. "Y-Yes, Erik," he whispers, and hears the stutter in his own words, the way his voice breaks off into a shuddery sigh of a moan. His instinct is to reach out and see, but he knows that goes against Erik's instructions - focus on Erik' voice. Be in his body. It's almost unsettling, and he lets out a low, confused whimper, thighs shaking where he's fighting the urge to close them and hide. He's not even sure if he can, and he wants to obey, desperately, but it's so strange and his belly is so full of insistent butterflies, heart beating in his own ears.  
  
"Shh," Erik soothes him, not relenting but not ramping anything up for the moment either. "I know you can do this for me. Do you trust me?" he pinches one of Charles's nipples lightly and spreads his hand out over his stomach, leaning forward to kiss him over the brow. "You can take this." A tap against his throat, the bite of nail against his flesh just enough to draw his attention. He is attuned to Charles now more than he has ever been attuned to the Earth, a secondary mutation he never knew he possessed, as though he can feel every jolt in his own body. Charles can hear him breathing evenly near his ear, slipping between languages but the meaning is all the same. _You're being so good. My wonderful, sweet boy. I know you can take this_. And Charles knew it was just the beginning. He was fully in Erik's hands now, where he belonged, and Erik would never release that hold over him. They will leave this space forever altered, as they always have, new experiences imprinted upon them.  
  
Charles trusts Erik in this moment more than he trusts anything. There is nothing to trust but Erik, everything narrowed down to him and the sensations he's plucking from his body. Nothing else exists. "Yes, Erik," he breathes, "I - oh." His body jerks at the attention to his nipple, cheeks red again as he fights with every breath not to squirm away, muscles in his stomach tensing and then relaxing as Erik touches. He's always thought his body fairly unsensitive, if he's honest. Touching himself - or, worse, being touched by someone else - has always been more of a chore than an experience, a motion he's gone through. As boring as filing taxes or doing paperwork. This - This is not that. He's aware he's making soft, gasping noises, but he barely hears them over Erik's praise. Yes, he'll take it. Whatever he's given, no matter how strange it is. He trusts Erik. He wants to please Erik, more than anything else. If he wants him to take this, he will, because - because he's a good boy, isn't he? Erik's sweet boy, like the first time - Charles' breath stutters in his chest again. That's all that matters. He wants to be so very, very good, so he fights to stay still, to not peek, even as his pulse races and his toes curl, even as he shakes, already completely overwhelmed. This is where he belongs. This is his place, taking exactly what he's given. Being Erik's to do with as he pleased, his body an instrument as any other.  
  
Erik taps him on the nose at one point, still playful because he's him. And because really, Charles, thinking about your taxes at a time like this. Erik trails touches down his legs and lands on his feet, digging his thumbs into his arches. He bestows alternating types of contact, light touches interspersed with firm pressure and the razor edge of his fingernails, slowly but surely beginning to focus on the parts of Charles's body that made him gasp louder, electricity melting into a buzz of pleasure and arousal, his limbs heavy and restrained from nothing more than Erik's Orders. He drags Charles deep under the tides of the ocean, where tectonic plates shift beneath the floor and send up plumes of sand raining down on him. At first he just uses his hands, but then Charles feels the hard edge of something plastic dip down from his collarbone to his ribcage. "Head forward," he murmurs. He hears Erik fidget with something, the rustle of the paper bag, and then he taps his lips. One interesting thing to note about Hebrew that doesn't exist in English is the existence of the imperative class (which changes the verb entirely and very effectively functions as an Order simply by virtue of being spoken), whereas in English Dominants need to learn to use pure inflection to convey their demands. _"Pe'ar_ ," he reverts back to where he's most comfortable.  
  
It's entirely different if he's thinking about how he's not thinking about his taxes, which is exactly what he's not doing. Charles is swimming in sensation, drowning in it, but rather than suffocating he's reveling in it. There are tears already forming in the corners of his eyes, trapped behind the blindfold, and he can't help jerking or twitching when nails scrape against his skin, sometimes prodding at bruises - it's inevitable, he's covered in them - that should be unpleasant and panic-inducing, considering their origin, but isn't. It's just another sensation Erik bids him to feel, and whatever he's given, he'll take. He follows the Orders the moment they're out of Erik's mouth, eager and seeking and impossibly oversensitized, fine-tuned to nothing but Erik's Will. Any language would have done. Charles doesn't think he would need to even understand to do exactly what he's told, his body following instinctively, not his own anymore. It's Erik's. Everything is Erik's. When Charles had first asked for Erik's collar, he's not sure he truly knew the meaning of surrender. Of submission. He's learning now. How could he ever doubt his place when it's so stunningly, shockingly clear? He doesn't ever want to forget.  
  
He taps Charles's chest with the plastic wand again, whatever it is it's separate from the gag he carefully places between Charles's lips. It's made of soft leather, checked meticulously by Erik to ensure there's nothing in it he's allergic to (that had taken up most of his time to be honest, he'll save the rope care for another day, or maybe get Charles to help him with it...) He can still talk and make noises, it's just less coherent, so Erik asks near his ear, his own voice almost unrecognizable, "Comfortable?" he kisses Charles's forehead, passing his thumb over the pebbled bud of Charles's nipple, giving it a sharp pinch out of curiosity. Not all of Erik is gentle, this much Charles is sure of (their last encounter notwithstanding, a great deal of Erik is considerably not gentle), but it's a side of him more reticent to come out and play; the build-up isn't only for Charles's sake.  
  
Charles whimpers behind the gag. This is one of the things that he had been uncertain of, actually; anyone who knows Charles for more than ten seconds under the right circumstances knows he has difficulty shutting up, but the strange thing is he's finding that in subspace he's much - well, quieter isn't the word for it, exactly. He's plenty vocal, and more than willing to speak when bid, but he listens more. He's more inclined to wait before he opens his mouth, and deep enough in he loses coherent words altogether, becoming sensation and images and feelings unless Erik Orders he speak or beg, as it tends to play out. But it isn't uncomfortable in any physical sense, and Charles knows that's what Erik's asking, so he nods and sucks in greedy breaths through his mouth and nose. But everything is so intense like this. He's utterly helpless in Erik's hands, and the strangeness hasn't quite worn off yet. Perhaps it's for that reason that when Erik pinches his nipple, he absolutely convulses, his shout muffled by the gag and more tears springing to his eyes where they leak out from beneath the blindfold. Erik has given him far more intense pain during sessions like this, but it's the situation. He hadn't been expecting it, had no way of anticipating - he'd instinctively sighed and leaned into what he thought would be a gentle touch. And perhaps, just a little, it's that he's finding his nipples are much more sensitive than he's given them credit for, hard and pink and as needy for Erik's attention as the rest of him is. Charles whines high in his throat, body arching for a single moment before he settles back down, breathing harsher. He wants to take everything. He wants to stay still, and be good. He will. Charles knows enough about what he likes and craves to know that he needs Erik's firm, rough touches as much as he does the gentle, soft ones, and Erik has plenty of evidence that he responds beautifully to it.  
  
Erik kisses his neck, just near his collar, and then moves to soothe the cramp of pain he'd left with lips and tongue, grinning against Charles's skin as he twitched and writhed. At first it seems like there's no rhyme or reason to anything, but he figures out that there is a pattern a while later, that no matter how painful a touch might be, Erik never follows it consecutively. It's always gentle after, but perhaps he's feeling a bit playful because at long last he flicks on the power to the wand in his hand with a blink of his abilities, that Charles feels more through Erik than his own perceptions, a rush of electricity through the seat of his mutation and all the charged particles of his body, and he curls his fingers loosely around Charles's cock just as he taps it against his stomach, releasing a very tame volt of sensation that prickles his nerve endings and sends a shock through him. It's not painful as much as it is sensation, entirely different to anything he's familiar with.  
  
Charles shudders, fingers balling where they're still held over his head, toes curling and uncurling as he whines again. The sound's loud even through the gag, echoing in his own ears as he gasps and pants. His cock's been hard this whole time, though he hadn't noticed it, twitching and beginning to leak against his thigh, but whatever it is that's coursing through him - He whimpers, that loud, low noise, not distressed but wholly overwhelmed, and clamps his legs together. He's not sure if it's because Erik is trusting him to hold himself still by now - he thinks it must be. It doesn't matter. There are tears on his cheeks now, clinging to the blindfold and making everything damp and hot, head spinning as he shakes his head where it lies against the pillow. The words aren't going to come out, but it's clear what he means. It's too much, even just like this. He's feeling too much. Charles is shivering all over, consistent, soft little noises slipping from behind the gag.  
  
The violet wand actually doesn't go as low as Erik makes the voltage, today's lesson is evidently not about pain at all, but sensation strung out of every nerve ending and dissipated over Charles's exposed skin. Erik slowly slips his thumb back and forth under the head of his dick, situated so his head is near Charles's ear and he's letting him lie up against his shoulder. If you need me to stop, you tell me, he Orders between their minds, brushing away his hair from his forehead with two free fingers from the hand holding the wand. _You're doing so wonderfully. I love you so much. Relax, I've got you. I'll take care of you. I will always take care of you. You are mine._ He touches Charles's collar appreciatively.  
  
But Charles doesn't pause-word, or even consider it. He's overwhelmed, completely, keening and whining with every breath, chest heaving, but even as he thinks too much, too much he knows he would absolutely take more if Erik wanted it from him. He's going to. He gasps something that might have been a word behind the gag - but isn't his pause-word, it likely started as Erik's name - arching into the touch at his forehead, wanting to shift closer and away all at the same time. Biting down around the gag in his mouth, he forces his legs back open, giving Erik more access even as he shakes and trembles. He's Erik's. Erik has him. His body isn't his, and all he has to do is let Erik decide what should be done to it. He wants to be good, he wants to be a good boy, he wants to be so good for him. He wants to please Erik. He can take this.  
  
Erik gives him another little jolt, pairing it by increasing his grip between Charles's legs, sending a crashing river of electricity all the way to the tips of his toes and back up where he feels Charles jerk in his hand, and he hums in pleasure that melts out of him and settles deep into Charles's gut, connected so intimately that one automatically leads into the other. He keeps Charles focused on his voice, murmuring observations and praise between kisses, what started as a slow deluge gradually increasing in intensity until he's finding every zap just this side of painful, mixing with dark heat that wafts off of Erik right into him. The inside of his leg, his calf, his inner thigh, right near the thatch of curls next to Erik's hand, up his belly and even circling one of those sensitive nipples. He knows when to back off and when to give more, and the longer it goes on, the more he gives until Charles is a hoarse, twitching wreck under his hands. "Good? Hm? Is it good? Do you want more? Do you think you can handle more?"  
  
Charles isn't sure how he's still breathing, his whole body suspended in one constant, shuddering breath, one gasp for air that he never gets fully into his lungs before he's crying out again, whimpering on the exhale. The blindfold is stuck to his face, damp and warm, cheeks covered in tear tracks. He's stopped trying to anticipate where the next shock of sensation will be, and it makes it more intense, belly constantly dropped with anticipation, fluttering and clenched tight. "Y-Y-" It's the beginning of a sound more than a word, and Charles sobs, fighting with everything he has not to curl into himself. Yes, Erik, it's good, he thinks with all the coherency he has left, even his mental voice shaking, because it is. It's good - shivery, and electric, and extremely overwhelming, painful even when it's astonishingly pleasurable because there's so much, but good, especially because it's Erik making him take it. This is Erik's body. Except if he needs to pause-word, and he doesn't, he doesn't get to decide what he can handle. He can take it if Erik wants him to. Oh, please, he begs, and he's not sure what he's begging for. To be used, he thinks. However Erik pleases. If Erik wants him to take more, he wants it more than anything.  
  
Many different half-formed images run through Erik's mind and he forces himself to stay calm, halfway to overwhelmed himself, but just as before the deeper he goes, the more control he finds he has. He's so aroused himself that it's nearly painful, and the inspiration that, well, Charles is meant for him, meant to take care of him, too, that strikes like a bolt of lightning. He rises and Orders, "Get up on your knees," in a harsh rasp, slipping out the gag from between his teeth and letting it fall down his neck next to his collar. He slides it off because he doesn't want the sight obscured and grips Charles's hair in a rough grip, tugging his head backwards to release the knot of the blindfold with his abilities. His own eyes are ablaze.  
  
Charles cries out, the sound finally uninterrupted by the gag. In contrast it sounds like it rings off the walls, clinging to them and reverberating out. He's trembling so much that nothing is steady, blinking against the sudden flood of light and stimulus, lips parted into a permanent 'O'. But he does exactly as he's told, scrambling in his eagerness. Catching onto Erik's thoughts like he's clinging to them, fresh tears spilling down his cheeks. Yes, he thinks, over and over again. _Yes, yes, please, I'm meant for you, let me serve you, Erik, please,_ and it's the realization that he truly doesn't care one way or the other about his own pleasure as long as Erik's pleased that has his cock bobbing, leaking against his own belly. "Please use me," and that time it's out loud, hoarse and gasped and wrecked, azure eyes matching flames and filled with unshed tears.  
  
Erik thinks he should never have put that gag on Charles because that voice makes him shudder. There are thoughts in his head-how much Charles liked choking on him, how wrecked he was when Erik slapped him that first time-they're darker, deeper parts that he can't access outside these moments, entirely contrasting with his normally gentle demeanor, and he's gradually sliding way down into the darkness, and they drip out of him, wrung out like a coarse rag. "You're mine, aren't you?" Impossible for him to say anything that isn't an Order right now. "Look at you, such a greedy boy. So eager for what I give you. My pet. Mine to _use_. Mine to _fuck_." The words are harsh like nails on a board, but underneath it is impossible not to realize the overwhelming affection he feels for Charles in this moment, pulsating like liquid sunlight, not a drop of degradation in him. He thinks Charles is the most perfect vision he's ever seen. He brushes himself against Charles's lips, not yet shoving forward. No. He wants to hear. "This is what you need, hm?" His fingers dig tighter into Charles's scalp and he gives him a little jolt with the wand at his shoulder.  
  
There's no way he could doubt it. Charles likes this, craves this more than he could ever admit outside of these moment, and having it now - he won't be able to articulate it until well after the fact, but it's healing in its own right. He needs it just as much as Erik, and every inch Erik sinks deeper down into that dark place, Charles follows, eyes glazed over with pure need. "I'm yours," he agrees, still that hoarse, desperate croak, nothing at all unsettled in him. He's just as openly responsive, the words sending shivers down his spine and electricity unrelated to the wand sparking down to his toes, though the actual jolt makes him whimper and shudder violently. Yes, he's Erik's. Erik's pet, Erik's greedy boy, whatever he wants him to be. Please, please. Charles tries to chase after the touch of him, just as hungry as Erik suggested he was, eyes hot as coals and nearly just as dark. He can't take what he's not given, but he wants so desperately to please. "Yes, I need it, I need it," he gasps. Charles bites his lip, and then he lets go of any inhibitions he might have had left - none, really - and lets it all spill from him, lets Erik have every wanton shred. "Please, sir? Please, I was made to serve you." He's aching for it. He's never needed anything more. "I was made for this," he insists, and he's absolutely certain it's true.  
  
Erik drapes the wand over his shoulders again but doesn't set it off, tilting Charles's head back and finally giving him exactly what he's asking for. It's only when he's halfway down Charles's throat that he finally reactivates the device, grinning down at him at the sound he makes against him. Erik's eyes cross as he looks up toward the ceiling, then drags them down to watch Charles, enraptured by the sight of him on his knees, wearing his collar, completely out of it on desire and delirious from subspace, open and trusting and his. Erik is in no rush to achieve release at all, and he instead focuses on delivering more sharp jolts to Charles's body, making him wriggle in place. He lifts Charles's good hand and places it on his hip, smiling softly down at him. "That's it. You can use your hand if you like." He can't believe how happy Charles looks, and it makes his cock jerk against Charles's tongue, leaking steadily as his gut clenches. "Maybe I'll keep you like this for the rest of the day."  
  
At that, Charles moans louder than even he expected, mouth still stretched around Erik's cock. Every time he thinks he's used to the length and girth of it Erik slides deeper in and reminds him that he's not, and he has the moment of panic that melts into dizzying, overwhelming need as he chokes, as tears spring to the corner of his eyes. He's nothing if not determined, and rather than reaching between his own legs, Charles focuses on taking as much as he possibly can, gagging slightly. Even that has him squirming and leaking, desperate little whimpers as he forces himself to breathe through his nose and not jerk too much with each new sensation. _Please_ , he thinks, and looks up at Erik with those teary blue eyes, devotion staggeringly clear. _You can use me however you like, sir. I'll stay here all day, I'll serve you for as long as you want, please use me._ And it's not just jumbled babbling. Charles means it, and just the thought is enough to warm his belly all over again, to make him let out more of those wrecked, needy noises. He could spend hours like this, Erik thick and heavy on his tongue, deep-deep down in subspace. Why wouldn't he? This is his place. This is where he belongs. His mind flashes with images. Erik doing something else - reading, or watching television - with Charles between his legs, his cock between Charles' lips as he paid him little mind except to pet his hair or give him Orders. Charles eyes roll back as he moans this time, his own cock jerking entirely untouched. He's forgotten he has permission, or else it simply doesn't matter.  
  
Erik laughs a little, fond and amused, and he taps Charles's hand again. He doesn't blame him, he's so far gone and Erik wasn't very clear at all, but he doesn't have any intention of giving Charles permission to touch himself right now. That's not what he's meant to be focused on. Of course, if Charles does come, well, that's his own business, but it won't be because he's distracted chasing his own release. Erik means it when he says Charles is meant to serve him. That thought is enough to shake Erik's foundation, as it always does when he entertains this line of reasoning. He's never in his life had anyone focus on his pleasure, on what he wants, before Charles. It's borderline uncomfortable, he doesn't navigate it very smoothly, being a little harsher or jerkier with commands than he usually is when he's focused on Charles, but no less affected. He slowly sits down and slips out of Charles's mouth with a wet pop, but doesn't let the contact go bereft for too long, beckoning Charles to resettle himself more comfortably between his legs. He's still holding onto the wand and he gives Charles a sharp little rap on the ass with a grin.  
  
 _Oh._ Charles almost giggles, too, because that makes much more sense. He's not embarrassed like he thinks he might be normally, doesn't even give it a second thought - he's far too busy whining when Erik slips out of his mouth, pouting with those swollen lips of his until he can settle back down. Wriggling against the attention to his ass, gasping as he mouths at Erik's cock hungrily. He does use his hand, then, but only to steady things while he works to get him all the way back in. He loves that. The stretch of it, the ache in his jaw, the way Erik is too big for his mouth, how obscene it must look from where Erik's sitting and staring down at him. Watching him as he fights back his gag reflex with all the eagerness in the world, like Charles is a beloved pet and this what he was made for. His eyelids are heavy, and Erik hasn't told him to look, so he lets them slide closed, humming pleased and content around his mouthful. There's absolutely no place else he would rather be. Charles lets himself serve, and thinks of nothing else, for once his busy, busy mind a focused, gentled thrum of pleasure feedback. Blissfully tuned in to Erik and only Erik.  
  
He threads his fingers through Charles's hair, eyes like slits and locked on Charles, a honing beacon incapable of looking elsewhere. He abandons the wand to frame both sides of his face, chest buzzing with electricity as though he were the one being zapped. His stomach clenches hard when Charles finally takes him all the way in, and he gives a choked off groan in response. "Charles-" he whispers, keeping himself from digging fingernails into his flesh. "Eyes up here. Look at me." His leg slides up Charles's side to trap him even closer, teeth digging into his bottom lip hard enough to cut. "You like-you like this, you like doing this for me, hm?"  
  
There's something calmer about Charles, now, but no less needy. He sighs happily when he's pulled tighter, when Erik cups his cheeks, moaning quietly around the cock in his mouth. He's a floating, docile creature again, gagging occasionally, but his eyes are full of adoration and that stunning, whole-hearted devotion when he looks up and blinks them open. _Yes, Erik_ , he thinks, pulling back to breathe only to take Erik right back in, desperate to please even as he chokes when he takes too much too fast. _I love it. I love serving you like this. I want to please you_. It's earnest, no room to doubt his sincerity here as he stares up with those bright blue eyes Erik seems to cherish. There's something - beautiful about this, Charles is thinking, in some warm, faraway place where he can only think of Erik and being good for him. Something incredibly right about it. It feels so good, better than any touch to his own body, and he floats, floats, floats, everything about him radiating contentment. Charles is Erik's, and if he asked him to rest between his legs and warm his cock for hours, well, that would be well within his right. He'd be all too eager to do it, not a single complaint.  
  
"Look at me," Erik whispers again, but he doesn't mean with his eyes. He wants Charles to see him, not how he looks-which is debauched as he ever has, something almost resembling a stricken expression on his face that Charles knows from recent experience shows up the deeper into Dominion territory he gets-but how he feels. Like this he thinks Charles will be able to parse it better than him because it's a riot in his body, fireworks popping off in the base of his brain stem, that there is no end to this. There's no end, when he lets go more and more, he's been so focused on providing specific experiences that have deliberate stops and starts, sectioning everything and regimenting it even when he's said and feels, Charles knows this, that he does not want there to be a distinction; his own hang-ups about his more baser urges making him initiate less often than he might otherwise (spoiler alert, Charles's fantasies are not far from reality if Erik were completely adjusted); and finally having the first glimpse of what it would look like. It's overwhelming. It's beautiful, just as Charles observes. If Charles weren't a telepath he thinks this connection between them would suffice, that a D5 and an S1 are meant to forge spaces inside one another's souls and curl up there away from all outside influence. At the store they barely even registered other people, and Erik is so incredibly humbled and pleased and amazed that this extraordinary person before him wants him just as badly. It's healing. It's silly that either of them ever anticipated their negative experiences coloring this (and they do, but not in the expected ways) because it's so far beyond what Erik knows to be true that he can't grasp it.  
  
Charles feels that his cheeks are wet again before he registers that he's crying, but upset is so far from what he is that it's almost laughable to even consider he might be. Instead, Charles is happy. Unfettered, weightless, and so utterly floored that this is something he gets to have. That he gets to belong to and with this gorgeous, complicated, extraordinary man, that he gets to wear his collar They're still learning, the both of them. They're still testing the waters. But at the heart of it, at the core, this is what it is: beautiful, and fulfilling, and so far from frightening or damaging that there is no reason to even wonder at it anymore. This is us, he thinks, awed, an echo from earlier. Charles doesn't let Erik's cock slip from his mouth even as he processes this, sucks and laves at the head when he pulls back for a moment or two to rest his own jaw, and then he takes him back in. Back where he belongs, inside of him, serviced by him. This is how it should be. _I was meant to be yours, Erik._ In every way, in every form. No start-stops, no distinction, no end. They're endless, the two of them, sunk deep down but there is no bottom to reach. Just this. Just them. What could possibly be more right than this?  
  
He doesn't even know how long it goes on for, losing track of time in a delicious way he's never considered in his life and now he doesn't know that he can think of anything else but this. Erik isn't so great at expressing his pleasure aloud, keeping himself still and silent; it's conditioning that's difficult to overcome, but Charles can feel he's starting to slip, his hips stuttering up and burying himself further, and his eyes flutter closed, hand tightening in Charles's hair. His breathing hitches on a gasping whine and he twitches hard beneath Charles before shaking his head, letting out a soft huff. "Here-c'mere," he rumbles, because he doesn't want this to end, never wants this to stop-"Get up here-" he nudges Charles to where he can run his hands down his chest, putting his head on his shoulder, catching his breath, shaking a little. You like wearing my collar, hm? You're so pretty like this. Love you so much-  
  
Charles pouts, whining not unlike Erik took a particularly tasty lollipop from him. The reluctant 'pop' of his lips is obscene as he goes where Erik wants him. This is nice, too, but that's to be expected. All of it is. Charles smiles, dazed but pleased, pressing himself against warm skin, flushed and panting and catching his own breath. "I love your collar," he whispers, and his eyes widen for a moment at the sound of his own voice. Raspy, ruined. He hopes Erik lets him go back down. He hopes it gets worse, that he has to change perception of it tomorrow, but that he knows everytime he speaks why his throat is scratchy and sore. _I love you, too._ "Am I being good?" he asks, something almost innocent about the earnestness of it, as if his lips weren't just wrapped around Erik's cock. Charles wants to be very, very good.  
  
"Always," Erik whispers back, leaning up to kiss him and curling his hand over Charles's ass, sliding him up even further and drawing his fingertip down Charles's cock, feeling its warmth in his hand with a smile on his face, that melts into the kisses which become less careful and deeper, Erik's hands finding different parts of his body to settle against. It's grounding for him, a way to relax his thoughts and let them fly off instead of coalescing into sharp points. He's realizing the more often this happens that he always needs to be doing something, he has a hard time just existing for himself, or running things, or planning things-so he consciously tries to relax and he kisses Charles's jaw, down the side of his neck. He supposes there's no better time than now to try-it's what this time has been for, after all. They have the time, that spans in front of them for the rest of their lives, to do something different just because they can. He rubs his thumb over Charles's lip. "Touch me," he says, leaving the Order unspecific, letting Charles migrate toward his strongest impulse.  
  
Charles smiles, pleased with that, melting into each kiss and touch. Pliant and soft in Erik's hands. He's not always good, and he knows that, but he always tries. There's always a part of him that wants to be, at the end of it, and right now that part of him is nearly all of him. Erik's Order pulls a sigh out of him, eyelids fluttering. This is new, and Charles' pulse races when he realizes. He doesn't think he's ever been given this kind of choice while in subspace - usually, Erik is very clear with his instructions. He likes that, of course. Likes being told exactly what will please him, Ordered down to a fine point. But maybe there's appeal here, too. Charles bites his lip, stomach flipping, cheeks flushed, and he's shy again, despite everything. Despite that his lips are swollen and puffy from sucking Erik's cock. He flutters, indecisive, for a moment, before he leans up and forward, stretching to kiss Erik's forehead. His cheek. His jaw, his neck, his shoulder, and then the other, down to his chest and his stomach, the fingers of his uninjured hand following in ghosting, sweet touches. He knows what he's doing, and he doesn't think anyone has ever done it for Erik before, which is a shame that needs to be remedied as soon as possible, something he wishes he'd thought to beg for sooner. His eyes are rolled up and watching the whole time, nothing but that open adoration. Charles kisses past Erik's stomach, nuzzles against his hip, features soft and reverent, blissful, kissing and stroking and working past his cock - but not before pressing a kiss there, too, rubbing his cheek against it - down his thighs, his legs - one that hurts more than the other, he knows, kisses and loves that one all the more, all the way down to his feet. And then Charles kisses there, too. One and then the other, eyes burning hot. Serving, as he should.  
  
Erik keeps himself still, not really realizing what the outcome of his Order would be until Charles starts moving and Charles can feel it in how every muscle is tense, poised for action like he's waiting to jump out of his skin and fight for his life. Somehow these touches, gentle and sweet, are more threatening than anything he's known before if only because he's never known it before. He doesn't expect this, couldn't have anticipated, and he swallows roughly, covering his eyes with his hand. There's nothing wrong, but much the same way Charles felt like things could be too much, this straddles the line for him, and in the same manner, he withstands it, trying to stop himself from grabbing hold of the situation again and pushing forward because there's nowhere to go, not really, it's just them, an endless inky expanse where all the nerves gathering under his skin are stars dotting the night sky, a million years-dead. Trying not to be broken, mangled up, dysfunctional-human beings could die without touch, there are studies that show infants who don't get handled fail to thrive, fail to grow, eventually they just don't learn how to accept affection at all, or they become desperate for it-and he hasn't understood until now how desperately he needs to be touched, a reminder that he is in fact still a person after all-it's one of the easiest ways Charles knows to calm him down. A kind word, a kiss. It doesn't take much, but all together, so much concentrated in one place-he feels like his soul is about to shiver out of his body. It's OK anyway, isn't it? Is it? It's safe. He's safe. By the time Charles gets to his feet he's practically vibrating, but he's moved his hand to watch him, finally unable to resist the urge to reach out and touch in return, laying his palm over Charles's cheek when he passes back up.  
  
And Charles smiles up at him, still lingering and propped up on his knees. Still smiles at him like Erik is the world, because he is, kisses back up until he can rest, sweet and nuzzling, against one of Erik's strong thighs. His fingers rub gentle, loving, intricate patterns into his skin, stories of his own devotion, his own trust, the way he serves Erik and cares for him in everything - no stutter-stop differentiation - and always will, as long as he's allowed. _I love you_ , but it's more of a feeling than words, a collection of gentle kisses to a constellation of freckles he's found, even as far as down here. Charles will know every inch of Erik's body one day, but for now every discovery is a joy. _Okay? Is this okay?_ he asks, for a moment fluttering again, uncertain.  
  
"Yes," Erik croaks, voice rougher than he wishes it would sound, but he smiles and it's genuine. He doesn't know what he's done to deserve Charles. It hits him like this periodically during the day as he's spent more time by Charles's side, he'll notice him lost in thought or working on a project or meet his eyes only to see pure adoration reflected back and can't comprehend how someone as genuinely kind as him chose Erik, but he doesn't think he will ever stop being grateful for it. It twists a deep, ugly anger in him that Charles has only ever heard himself described in terms of flaws, and Erik isn't naïve, he knows perfectly well that Charles has them, but they're almost silly in comparison to his strengths. _You are good,_ he thinks at him, finding his flustered shyness endearing as always, and knowing over time it would develop into confidence that Erik wouldn't change the rules, wouldn't demand the impossible, wouldn't blame him for things that were out of his control. It doesn't matter that Charles doesn't even believe it right now, Erik will be perfectly content to tell him so for the rest of his life.  
  
Charles takes a slow, shaky breath, and feels himself overwhelmed again for a moment. Good is all Charles has ever wanted to be, and good for Erik is turning out to mean more to him than anything else ever has. He will not always be good. He will mess up, just like he said he would when the Negotiations started. But he knows, without a single doubt, that he will always want to be good, at his core, and when he fails, Erik will still love him. The correction, the discipline, as he's already seen, will be just as healing. He never needs to worry about being good again, when Erik will always make sure he is. His good, sweet boy. He whimpers. Charles kisses closer to Erik's inner thigh, soft, ticklish kisses, not to tease but simply because that's what he is at the moment. Soft and vulnerable, sweet, rubbing his cheek against Erik's cock when it twitches near him, giving it the same attention as any other part of Erik's body. _Erik?_ he asks, and he is still shy, if calmer.  
  
He ghosts his fingertips over Charles's sensitive temples, smiling down at him, incredibly satisfied that he at least knows that, now. That Erik will love him, will continue to love him, regardless of what happens. _Mhm?_  
  
Charles is fluttering again. He lets out a shuddering, moaning sigh at the touch, resting his cheek against Erik's thigh. Could we - will you - please? It's not a full thought, but he's flushed and squirming like before, despite what they've done since. "Please?" and he's forgotten how his own voice sounds, thick and hoarse and needy.  
  
Erik laughs gently, forcing Charles's head up to look right at him. "Ask me nicely," he murmurs, low and deceptively soft. "Use your words, Charles."  
  
That only makes Charles squirm harder, his breath catching in his throat, the exhale coming out too much like a whimper. He's been good, but he finds himself closing his eyes and shaking his head, one of those low, shivering noises from before. _Can't_ , he insists.  
  
"Look at me," Erik Orders him, and when his eyes open it's to Erik gazing at him in infinite warmth, heat spreading through his fingertips where he's trailed them along Charles's throat. He curls his fingers there, resting lightly, and gives a little squeeze to punctuate the next Order. "I think you can. Ask me nicely, Charles."  
  
Charles gasps. It's a little like staring directly into the sun, and it's exactly what he needed. He's shivering again, leaning into Erik's fingers. "Will you please fuck me, sir?" he whispers finally, incredibly soft considering the request, his cheeks hot. "Please, Erik?"  
  
Erik's grinning down at him, and he beckons Charles to lay on his back, hovering over him with shimmering thoughts emanating from him like waves of heat in a vast desert the shared mindscape between them alive with the colors of them both, greens and blues and blazing strands of gold twining them together. "When you address me, you will use your words." With the exception of your pause-word, he tacks on a mental reminder, tapping him on the nose. Which you can convey however you'd like. "Am I understood, Charles?"  
  
Charles whimpers, because that's not always easy like this. But if Erik wants him to use his words, he'll try. He'll be good. "Yes, sir," he whispers, and hearing it from his own mouth makes him shudder. It occurs to him, all at once, that this is his physical body, lying against his own soft sheets, Real and tangible. It isn't Erik's - a thought he laments for just a second, yearning - but it's Charles', which wasn't ever the case before. A new first time, then. Charles is so breathlessly eager to offer it up. "Please," he sighs.  
  
"I know," he says tenderly, bending down to kiss him. "Roll over onto your stomach," Erik directs him simply, and while his thoughts aren't necessarily coherent at the moment, what is evident is that he doesn't intend to oblige Charles's request right away (although it is crystal clear that he will, at some point, whenever he feels like it). He picks the blindfold back up, laying it out straight and refolding the edges of the fabric. There are many infinite ways to use their situation to his advantage, he thinks to himself, amused. He helps get a pillow under Charles's arms, so his wrist is supported comfortably and once he's in position the blindfold is re-affixed, snug and secure. Erik straddles either side of his thighs, but makes no move beyond pressing a kiss to his shoulders, every part of his Will unfurled and dispersed throughout the room, a humid scent on the air.  
  
Charles goes easily. He's heavy-limbed and almost sluggish, like he's sleepy, but he's anything but. Soft-edged and relaxed and needy, nothing but hazy, sensual submission, but still awake and at least partially coherent. He's perfectly content to be wherever Erik puts him, though he wriggles once he's there, as if testing invisible bonds again, or seeking more sensation. The blindfold isn't nearly as discomforting as it was the first time, and he sighs into it. Nothing hurts like it should right now. He's sure it will, when it's something he can feel, but right now everything is warm and soft, and Charles makes those quiet, sweet noises, because Erik hasn't gagged him again and he doesn't seem capable of not being vocal like this. He considers, just for a moment, playfully peeking - will Erik let him? Will he be scolded? But he settles instead, surrendering to it. No peeking. Let Erik decide what he gets and what he doesn't, sight included.  
  
He lightly runs his fingertips down Charles's spine, closing his eyes while he tries something-he can control almost everything else in the physical realm, there's no reason to think he can't-a slow smile spreads across his face as he sinks into the particles of Charles's body, and he tweaks just so, flooding him with a slow-building, overpowering sensation of liquid heat as though a match has been dropped onto a spark, igniting him from the inside out and pooling heavily in his stomach. It turns out he doesn't need the wand after all. It follows Erik's fingers wherever they touch, from the nape of his neck right down to the dimples above his hips, and he guides Charles onto his knees slightly, rubbing his thumb over the bruises on his ass like he's burning them up, removing any trace.  
  
For Charles, it's utterly too much, but in that heady, light-headed way he's learning is just enough. By the time he's up on his knees, he's careening fast toward incoherence, toward being reduced to nothing but simple, unadultered sensation. With the wand, at least there was a disconnected, individual sensation, something to follow and anticipate besides every grazing touch. The tap of plastic, even as each buzzing jolt blended into each other. Now everything melts far more seamlessly, and he's making constant noise, gasps and sighs and hitching moans. He can feel it through Erik, too, is stuck in the loop, touching and being touched. Every particle and then his own overheated, prickling skin and the blindfold is useless anyway because Charles finds he can't hold it back, cries in dismay because he'd meant to be good but it's not so much peeking as being flooded, even with his eyes shut firmly tight. His fingers are clenched in the fabric of the pillow and he's shaking and unsure if he's crying again but he knows the choked noises are coming from him. "S- Sorry, I'm sorry, sir," he manages through chattering teeth, and - it's almost truly too much, because of that, his punched out, breathless whine stuttering. Charles' chest is heaving and he's breathing too harshly, and he's not distressed yet but it's getting there, panic and dread twisting in his belly. He wanted to be good.  
  
Erik sits on his haunches and makes his way back up Charles's body, using his fingers to dislodge the blindfold and set it aside with a kiss under his ear. "Listen to me, hm?" he's still touching, careful, soft featherlight little things. "I think we both know that was a little useless. What did I ask from you? Your attention. Are you paying attention to me, Charles?"  
  
"Mmm -" He's not sure why he's panicking, even with the blindfold off, but Erik steadies him again. He turns toward that warm, deep voice like he's turning back toward the sun, taking shaky breaths as his body trembles, leaning into every soft touch. He's okay. He's safe. He's not doing anything wrong. "I - yes, sir," he whispers, and can't help curling himself closer to Erik. He hadn't told him to be still - even though it was always sort of an implied Order, stay put - and he needs the contact desperately. "I don't - I don't want -" He shakes his head, sniffling, way-way down and at least trying to use his words.  
  
Erik ends up on his side, nose-to-nose with Charles, smiling at him gently and kissing him. "I won't let you," he whispers back. He traces his fingertip down Charles's jaw. _You are doing perfectly._  
  
Charles smiles back, timid but bright. He blinks, considering something. Then he rubs their noses together, laughing that soft, floating laugh he does when he's far down like this and there are no worries except his Dominant. "Okay, Erik," he murmurs, as if his word is all he needs. Erik is the judge of how good he's being, and, finally, in this moment, Charles doesn't see any reason to argue it. Erik will tell him if he needs correcting. I - He goes to project it, but catches himself, biting on his lip. "I love you," he says instead, squirming like he's shy about that, too. Like Erik hasn't said it back any number of times.  
  
 _I love you back_ , Erik thinks automatically, will always respond no matter the situation. Erik guides him back onto his stomach, spreading his hands over his back and sending another buzzing jangle of electric heat through his body, smiling when Charles arches into it. "Still paying attention?" It's teasing.  
  
Charles sighs, much calmer now. There's more of that heavy, hazy pleasure, bordering on pain for his oversensitive body. Never too far, though. He keens softly, rubbing his cheek against the bedsheets like he's seeking more sensation. It feels nice. Dragged back down to the bottom of the ocean, but Erik will help him breathe. "Mmhmmm," he murmurs, and wriggles in Erik's hands.  
  
Erik laves at the base of his spine, giving his backside a firm pat before wetting two fingers and curling them inside of him, inverting every blazing gust that blew through Charles's body back up inside him, which only amplifies when he seeks out that bundle of nerves that make his toes curl, dipping him abruptly into the world of limitless sensation without a build-up-leaving him free to move, to see, to express however he has to. Erik's free hand dug into Charles's hip supportively. Every part of Charles's body is beautiful. He's active, but his frame is slight and not built for packing on muscle, edges a little softer than Erik's hard angles and lines, which he appreciates all the more. And, he thinks with a smirk to himself, Charles has a magnificent ass. It should receive the worship it deserves. Erik scoots down and spreads him apart, slipping his fingers out to lay a chaste kiss over his twitching hole, gauging his reaction with the cocked ear of his mind.  
  
It doesn't take long at all for Charles to be out of his mind with pleasure. Even if there are non-physical elements to this, the thought that this is his body, not a construction of it, is such a heady rush that it leaves him breathless around gasping moans. His toes curl, whining low and desperate, up on his knees again as he squirms. Both into and away from that touch inside of him, lips parted in a silent scream the first time Erik finds that spot and he's sure he sees stars, cliche as it may be. Erik's fingers already feel like an impossible stretch, hole clenching tight around them, and he knows there's no way he's ever going to take Erik's cock with just spit and not have it cleave him apart in a way that's more uncomfortable than pleasurable, so thank goodness for the lube in the bedside drawer, but - oh. Charles yelps, helpless and surprised and wriggling, because it's not the first time Erik has kissed him there, but. But. He whimpers, his whole body red as he pitches forward like he means to escape.  
  
Erik hums against him, more a sensation than a sound, barring his arm over Charles's back and holding him in place with a grin that he can feel through his whole body. He traces little patterns over the sole of Charles's foot with one hand and keeps him still with the other, applying his tongue in long, broad strokes that feel as if he's licking him from the inside out, tasting his nerve endings and leaving nothing unbared. Erik grasps his cock after several moments at his task, thinking that he likes Charles so very much. Knowing how limited his experiences in this realm are, being the one to expose him, take him apart, melt beyond the barriers of shy timidity until Charles is nothing but writhing, seeking motions. That it is infinitely, exquisitely better for being Charles's real body and not a construction, even if he is-there's barely any separation between them while he's making good on his heated promises not long ago stringing him through a battered wire like the way metal bends to him, iron and Earth and blood. Letting it be too much, too much and not enough, not-yet. When Erik speaks it is against him, around his own finger as he re-introduces himself, scissoring him open and rubbing up against his prostate again and again like a flickering candle. "Good? Let me know, Charles, or I might stop." His own voice is affected now, a hot whisper.  
  
Charles is nothing but writhing, seeking motion. If he's not gasping for breath, little punched out puffs of air, he's moaning, soft, continuous keening noises. He wails when Erik's fingers rub insistently against his prostate, uncertain exactly how he's going to manage taking his cock when he knows from experience - even if it isn't physical experience, and he suspects that will only be more intense - exactly how overwhelming that is, the thick head of it always nudging without Erik needing to do any finessing at all. But he does, and that makes it worse - infinitely, exquisitely better, but worse for his shot, overloaded nerves. He doesn't think he knows words any more. He whines at Erik's, shaking his head helplessly as he rocks forward and then back as much as his Dominant will allow, always unsure if he's bucking away from oversensitivity or into it.  
  
He gives Charles mercy, pausing long enough for him to catch his breath before starting all over again, and *that* is good, too, waiting for him to come down off the ledge just to send him free-falling again and finally Erik releases him from his clutches with another affectionate pat, crawling up to the head of the bed and leading Charles with him-he thinks Charles follows on instinct, barely pausing to consider before he's resettled in Erik's lap, and Erik blinks open the dresser drawer and retrieves the bottle inside without any preamble, gazing up at Charles with adoration shining in his eyes. Technically he doesn't think he needs this, it's all from his perspective a sensation, but it's more coherent like this, _better_ like this, so he presses it into Charles's hands, kissing the line of his jaw. "Get me ready," he Orders hoarsely.  
  
Charles knows he means with the lube, and - oh, he hadn't thought of that. This is still in his head, isn't it? There's nothing physical about Erik's body, and therefore nothing physical to penetrate him, but - well. Somehow, impossibly, his cheeks manage to heat when he looks down at Erik's lap. It certainly looks real. Anyway, he knows he means the lube. It's a deliberate stretch of the Order that he finds there's occasionally room for as he ducks down and takes Erik in his mouth, moaning as if he's the one receiving the pleasure from it. It can't hurt to get it wet in more ways than one, and his eyes are burning despite the hazy desperation in them when he looks up. The weight on his tongue steadies him again, and he sighs, an unhappy, shivering breath when he forces himself to pull off before Erik does, the reluctant 'pop' of his lips filthy. This will be better. Erik will be inside him. Charles shudders as he uncaps the bottle and pours a generous amount on his hand before he wraps it around Erik's cock, lips parted. He's intimately acquainted with it, so it shouldn't be cause for revelation, but Charles knows what sorts of toys he's used to stretch himself in this bed before - they're in the same drawer, not a memory of them, this is his actual bedroom - and Erik is bigger. Irrefutably. They've been down this road before and yet somehow he finds himself wondering if it will fit now, unconscious, nervous, fluttering thoughts that he can't recall having before but that heat his cheeks and pull forth a whimper. Somehow, it makes him want more.  
  
He never fails to be stunned at just how much Charles likes having his cock in his mouth-a fact that turns out to be a devastating sexual weakness for the both of them-how much Charles likes it in general, and Erik certainly doesn't object to the 'misinterpretation.' He can't help drawing Charles closer to him, swallowing up his noises in a heated, dirty kiss. "Come here," he wraps his arms around Charles and encompasses him on either side of his thighs, rubbing insistently against him. Slowly he lowers Charles down onto him, letting himself sink inch by agonizing inch and moving his thumb in slow circles under the head of Charles's cock. He doesn't realize he's smiling unconsciously-there's very few moments that Erik does smile, in the Real it's almost none at all-but sex with Charles is definitely on the top of that list.  
  
Charles had assumed Erik would put him back on his knees, that he could bury his face in the sheets and pillows and hide for this part. Like this, settled in Erik's lap, there's nowhere to go. Nowhere but Erik, his gorgeous smile, his impossibly vivid eyes, his delicious, huge cock, and Charles is sweating and shaking and gasping, hot all over, skin stretched so tight it no longer feels like his own. He was right about Erik nudging right against his prostate when he's far enough inside, lips parted on what he thinks might have been a scream if he had the air for it. He's so full. Bursting, surely, split open. There's no way around the stretch, more noticeable than it's ever been and pleasure-pain-overwhelming and Charles has sat in Erik's lap before, but never like this, thighs trembling and tears on his cheeks from the overstimulation. It's too much. It's past too much. Charles whimpers and closes his eyes shut tight, wriggling, but that just reminds him that he's full of cock, full of Erik, flush against his thighs with nowhere to go. There's no way he can take it. There's no way. Too much.  
  
Erik drags his fingers lightly over Charles's ass and lifts him up a little, letting the combination of gravity and a small snap of his hips upward thrust his cock even deeper inside Charles, and he tightens his grip between Charles's legs to eclipse the burn of pain. Charles is brilliant like this, a palette of colors and sounds, moving above Erik like he is made for this, he is-Erik swears lowly and shakes his head. "You can," he growls lowly, eyes ablaze, and he lifts his head to brush his lips over the tears on Charles's face, tasting salt on his tongue. "You'll take what I say you can take." He barely sounds human, muttered Orders spill from him without conscious intention. "Look at me. Look at me while I fuck you. You take me so well. Don't you? Answer me, Charles."  
  
 _You'll take what I say you can take_. Charles gasps, shuddering full body, and his eyes snap open. They're so dilated that the blue is nearly edged out of them, wide and helpless as he trembles in Erik's lap. On his cock, trapped there because Erik wants him to be. Charles whines again, and nods, a jerky motion that he knows won't suffice. "Yes, Erik," he moans, finally, and if Erik doesn't sound human, neither does he. His voice, ruined and thick with sensation, is almost completely unrecognizable to him. He can't imagine anyone has ever sunk as far deep down as he is right now, nothing but shattered, collected pieces of Erik's Will, and Charles has forgotten about his own cock, twitching and leaking in Erik's grip, painful by now (but he can't, he doesn't think, not without Erik's permission, and that makes him moan, too), has forgotten about anything except how it feels to be so utterly full. He was made for this. He was made to take Erik just like this, and the thought has new tears spilling down his cheeks, lips trembling like the rest of him. "Oh, please, sir," he croaks, squirming in a way that makes him cry out. He can't move at all without Erik moving inside him, rubbing up against that place inside. "Please."  
  
Erik noses up against Charles's cheek, possessive and grounding himself so he can stay in control and hold himself over the line, keep himself from being rough and careless, letting Charles acclimatize to him instead of fucking him how he wants to and he lets Charles feel that, too, how he's trembling with the effort to go slowly, carefully, when all he wants is to bury himself inside. He guides Charles to rock against him, embracing him with his legs, letting Charles rub against his stomach so he can use both hands to hold Charles in place. "Tell me what you want, Charles. Maybe if you ask me very nicely I'll give it to you." He speaks right into his ear, gripping strands of his hair in his hand and yanking, his mind a white-out of heavy-corded arousal and it breathes through Charles as he breathes, and it must be his mutation but it feels like there is need inside every air particle around him. Every gasping inhale Charles takes in it settles in his lungs, his throat, and Erik grips his neck in his hand, squeezing lightly as he thrust just a little harder than before, a little less gentle.  
  
When Charles opens his mouth to scream, no sound comes out. His lips are parted, his head tipped where Erik yanks it back, tears still on his cheeks, but those gasping, choked breaths are all that come out. He doesn't have the air to waste. There's no room in him for anything but Erik, everything else long melted out, and that hand on his throat - Charles sobs, rocking down unconsciously at the same time that Erik thrusts up, and his eyes roll back for a moment. When they open again, they're hot as stars. "Please fuck me, sir? Please use me," is what finally spills out. He doesn't care if he gets to come, even bobbing angry red against Erik's firm stomach, doesn't care if he breaks as long as Erik takes what he needs from him. They're not empty words, spoken for Erik's pleasure. They're echoed in everything he is, which right now is Erik's, and that's all. "I was - ah -" Every time he moves he's overwhelmed again, thighs shaking violently, Erik's hands the only thing holding him up as he's rocked in his lap like the tides. "I was made for you to use." Everything else is secondary. Charles wants to serve, so earnestly it's breathtaking.  
  
And at this point Erik barely remembers to breathe, sizzling oil-hot flecks painting his insides and he swears he can feel Charles through his own Will, and he lets out an overwhelmed gasp, long and loud when it coalesces inside him and drops him so far below the surface of commanded Dominion that he loses all sense of composure. He is attuned to every shift of Charles's submission, how eager he is to bend to Erik, how much he wants Erik to control him, keep him. And Erik will. He will break Charles, right down to atoms, and then just-as carefully build him back, and it's not long before Erik well and truly does begin to fuck him, withdrawing most of the way before letting Charles slam back on top of him, the sound wet and filthy and every time Charles thinks too much Erik meets him with not-enough and sinks him lower, drawing his nails down the line of his throat, keeping him suspended on a stuttering exhale, giving him a jolt with each roll of his hips deep inside that's more intense than anything a violet wand could produce.  
  
Charles well and truly loses all coherence, then. He's nothing but stuttered, pitching moans, nothing but gasps and trembling and oh, oh, oh, wailing Erik and sir and it's all the same thing, it's all the same purpose, his body taken apart because his Dominant has use for it. He cries out at every hard snap of Erik's hips, bounced in his lap in rough, merciless jolts of heat and electricity, slapping skin and his own noises ringing in his ears, except Erik's are, too. Every time he thinks there's a moment to breathe he's shoved back down, so full he can feel it in his belly. He clenches tight, molded down to nothing but this. He's meant to take Erik's cock, meant to be fucked full and open and even if it's too much, he'll take it. He'll take it because Erik says so. Charles whines so loud it echoes, and even through the violent tremble-shaking of his own limbs, he bears down, forcing his body to do what it was made to do. What Erik demands it do. He's nothing but that, and when his mouth manages to form words that aren't Erik's name or something equivalent, he begs, "Oh, please, please, oh please -" Charles wants to be so, so good. He wants to be used properly, and he is. It's the only thing worth begging for.  
  
Very soon, Erik thinks, he will do this for real, he will get to do this for real, but right now it is so close that it's nearly indistinguishable. Erik's hands are warm and gentle on his face, his lips, providing an immediate contrast between the rough, hard thrusts within him and the touch of skin and sweat and the drag of his own cock against Erik's muscles, reducing him to a single point of sharpened pleasure and Erik keeps him like that for what feels like hours, and when Charles opens his mouth to moan again Erik shoves his fingers inside, pressing them against his tongue, occupying every part of him. He's not being gentle anymore, barely even considerate, and how much richer and more complete his pleasure is now that it's slotted entirely with Charles's desires, and Erik grins to himself as he entertains whether or not he really will let Charles come this time, or if he'll make him wait until he can be here for real, truly use him just as he wants, let him hover on the edge of this indefinitely while Erik slakes himself-listen to him beg for it and withhold just because that's not necessary-and that brings with it a twinge because Erik knows how badly Charles craves to serve him, and how he rises up like tides crashing over him to oblige, to let Charles take care of him, to meet every aching urge to be good with praise and opportunity.  
  
Charles knows - he has to know, somewhere far off, somewhere inaccessible to him at the moment - that Erik isn't physically with him now. Anything that comes from this will be a projection, anything that isn't here in his shaking limbs and the gasps he steals around Erik's fingers, which he sucks just as eagerly and messily as his cock, needy and debauched and ruined. But it doesn't matter, because Charles can't think of those things. He can't think of anything but the rocking of his own hips, the way he leaks white all over Erik's stomach, the way he's bounced and jostled on Erik's cock like he weighs nothing, like he is nothing (and everything, like he's everything to Erik, like being his means he's finally himself) but something to serve - his mouth, his ass, his everything. All of it. Even still, there's no end to it. It's painful, now, the pleasure, completely and wholly too much, and he can't come, won't let himself, until Erik says he can, but it hurts, it hurts - and Charles is whining around the fingers now, loud and overstimulated, leaking tears and precome and muffled pleas, taken apart so completely. He'll take as much as he's given. He will, he will.  
  
It's a nice fantasy, but the reality is that Erik promised Charles his reward, and that Charles has been so very good today weighs heavily on him, and more than that, he wants to give Charles this, to see him fall apart completely, to narrow his world even further down to Erik and Erik-alone. To remind him wholly and completely that no one can take him from Erik, that he will always be here to keep Charles right where he belongs. And that has its benefits, too, makes Erik twitch and jerk against him, groaning low into his ear. "You want to come, sweetheart? Is that what you want?" Like is typically common of bilingual folks his native accent is stronger with emotion, only contributing to how deeply overcome he is. He slips his fingers out of Charles's mouth and draws his hand down his chest, leaving a wet trail and gives his ass a sharp slap, just-enough-not-enough hovering on the edge-"You're being very good, aren't you? Do you think you deserve it?"  
  
Charles cries out the moment he doesn't have Erik's fingers to suckle on. His eyes are blown wide as he wriggles uselessly, into and away from the harsh slap. It only nudges Erik right against his prostate, rubs him there insistently enough to make him sob. But Erik is speaking to him, in that thick, heavy, deep voice, that accent that Charles associates with him, with his Dominant, something so deliciously familiar by now. Charles nods, a lurching bob of the head, because he does want to come, he wants to come for Erik, he wants to come so badly even if it's not what he's here for. It's the next words that give him pause. Does he deserve it? He bites down on his lip, whimpering, tear-stained and wrecked and in this moment uncertain. But Erik means it, doesn't he? He's been good. He's been good, he's tried so hard, and there are no tricks here. No traps to fall into. No expectations he won't know about until he fails to meet them, no changing rules without prior discussion. If he had done something wrong, there would be discipline, but - But Charles hasn't done anything wrong. He's followed all the rules, he's listened, he's done exactly as Erik said. Isn't that being good? It's the first time he recognizes it and it's hazy, but perhaps that's what he needed. So Charles nods again, shakier this time, and gasps. "Y-Yes, sir, I've been - I've been good," he moans. "Please?" Just as earnest and soft as his first request, as if he isn't out of his mind with want, deep-deep down and sitting on Erik's cock.  
  
"Careful," Erik taps his lip in reminder, smiling up at him gently. Charles can feel how incredibly pleased he is to hear him admit to it of his own accord-and that it's the first time is not lost on him at all-if he has his way (and he will, of course he will) he'll make Charles discover that fact for himself again and again, for the rest of his life-and he reaches between them to jerk Charles's cock at a slow, but nevertheless demanding pace. He doesn't hold off or stop this time, though, letting Charles twist up higher and fly out of orbit with every hard upward thrust of Erik's hips underneath him, and Erik doesn't stop until he spills over his fingers, and even then he pumps him through it, just on the outer edges of definitely too-much. Erik gives him a smirk and abruptly crashes over the edge with him as he lifts his hand to his own mouth and licks a stripe over the outer edge of his thumb, tasting Charles for himself and it should be strange but it's just filthy instead, Erik's complete lack of shame, how few reservations he has about anything, especially when it comes to Charles.  
  
Charles breaks. There's no other explanation for what happens, the white-out, gasping ecstasy of it, the scream when he finally comes, the stuttering of his own breathing as Erik fucks him through it and he whimpers, low and ragged and used. There's no way for Erik to truly come inside of him, and so he knows it has to be a projection, something not-really there, but it feels like it anyway, hot and overflowing and too much around the thick stretch of his cock. It feels like it, and it's so good it makes him cry because it means Erik is pleased, Erik used him just like he said he would. He was good. Charles is vaguely aware of Erik slipping out of him - he whines, distressed, frowns because he's so empty - registers that he's being moved, but he doesn't know how or if time has passed at all. All he knows is that he clings to Erik, needy and crying and shivering. Somewhere outside of his body, he's aware that he's sobbing, actually, without any real tears, chest heaving with it, that he's desperate for contact, starved for it, that the only thing that matters right now is being in Erik's arms. It's not a drop, but he thinks, maybe, maybe he's heard of this. A rush of endorphins, submission as a chemical reaction in the brain as much as an instinct, intensity of subspace, but it's all fuzzy nonsense right now, a language he doesn't know. All that matters is that he hold onto Erik as he sniffles and drifts, all that matters is that his Dominant is pleased and good? He was good, wasn't he? That's what the world boils down to, and Erik is the world. Charles just needs to hold on. Erik will take care of him.  
  
And Erik does. He wraps Charles up in his arms and legs like a long-limbed octopus and tugs the blanket over them both, warming him with his skin and the trapped air between them, peppering his face with soft kisses and whispering silly nonsense into his hair. Tells him that he's perfect and wonderful and good in every language he's even remotely familiar with, a shielding, comforting balm against the overwhelm that threatens him. Happy to be the world, because he can control this world, he can give Charles everything in this world, and this is a facet of subspace that anyone other than a D5 would be completely ill-equipped to handle but it only rises its equivalence in Erik, easily-met and keeping Charles so firmly that he can't think of anything except Erik's Will. "I love you," he breathes, affectionate and fond.  
  
Charles loves him back. So very, very much. He doesn't consciously project it, a bit far gone for that, but he knows Erik will know it just the same. This isn't drifting, he realizes. He's perfectly moored, tethered to Erik's Will just as he should be. Every touch is grounding, every word spoken comforting and warm. It eases the shivering, and soon his sobs are only hiccups, stuttered breaths, soon he's rightside up again. He smiles, then, brilliantly, not an inhibition in the world, curls up into a ball and rests on Erik's chest and lets all those outrageously long limbs keep him safe and sheltered. He thinks of the first few times something like this happened, when he can, nothing close to as intense as this because they weren't ready for it yet (will there be more as they go? Charles shivers), thinks of stories and songs. There was an end and a beginning, then, to subspace, to his own submission, and there isn't now - and oh, he likes that - but the routine was a nice one, and he longs for it just the same. "Please?" he asks, hopeful, and looks up at Erik with bright, teary blues, light as the sky again. Tell me a story, please? It doesn't need to be a projection. Everything Charles is asks, soft and sighing and limp as he nuzzles into Erik's chest.  
  
Today's story is in fact a poem, and Erik murmurs it in the original German-as a child he'd kept thin copies of Sachs' poems under his bed, hidden in defiance and learning more of the world through them than the yelling tutelage of Shaw, red and blistering. (And because there were no other voices to sympathize with a pain made manifest from his own hands-where are the words?/for your inflamed ascension, the words-every story Erik knows is held within a deep well of reverence, and so it makes sense that they surface most easily around Charles, who inspires an equal degree of it.) Now there is no defiance at all, silly to think he'd ever needed to make a bold statement about anything, when he knows now that his Will is more indomitable than the beating heart of the molten mantle of which Sachs spoke. It must be why he thinks of it now, in this moment where he couldn't be further from his own pain. "S _chmetterling/aller Wesen gute Nacht/Die Gewichte von Leben und Tod/senken sich mit deinen Flügeln/auf die Rose nieder/die mit dem heimwärts reifenden Licht welkt,_ " he recites, warm. ( _How beautiful is the hereafter/Painted in your dust. Through the flaming core of the earth,/Through its stony shell,/You have been delivered._ )  
  
Charles hums, letting the words sink into him and float beneath the skin. German is one of the languages Charles knows, one of the nine (now ten, he reminds himself, quite proudly). He's perfectly fluent. It's become a twisted language, though, if he's honest. Marred by Shaw, and by the fact that, barring a few circumstances, he's only heard Erik use it when he's afraid. It doesn't sound that way now, and that's healing, too, as if Charles can forgive the entire language. It sounds very European, even so, Erik's accent almost indistinguishable from how he would speak the words - or worse, Shaw himself - and he frowns at that, rubs his cheek against Erik's skin for more contact and sighs. "Say something in Hebrew?" he requests next, smiling softly. Just a peek of that shyness, looking up at Erik from his claimed spot. He'll try to turn off the part of his brain that naturally translates, if he can. Wants to hear the words for what they are, and see if he catches them on the first try, his lagging behind at the hospital not forgotten. Maybe he'll learn something. Maybe he can ask. Charles likes very much that there's so much to learn from each other, in this safe-warm place.  
  
Erik hems and haws for a while, picking something more modern so that Charles would have an easier time translating it, and because he has a fantastically extensive collection of poets up in his head, it is once-more lyrical, a story instead of a phrase, from one of the few early settler-poets of female perspective, Yocheved Bat-Miriam lamenting on her flight from Russia in Cranes from the Threshold, and Erik sounds so much less stilted and restrained in Hebrew that it can't be any more obvious that he dislikes German, associates it almost entirely with Shaw, and only peripherally with the stolen-poets he managed to sneak, with Kurt Wagner ( _Ze Incredahbl Nightcrawlahh!_ in his almost outlandish accent, the teenager was impossible to dislike even second-hand) who didn't know a lick of English back then. It is a language of fear, for him, even the good is hidden and terrified, and Charles hears it tinge his thoughts and dreams when he's frustrated or nervous, even when he's speaking English outwardly. It also can't be denied that he expresses himself much better in Hebrew than in English, which he's always viewed as far more technical and jargon-filled, more dense and full of unnecessary filler and bulky spaces between concepts. " _Metapchim eliv ve'elayich/(sgura merchako hazhiv!)/metapchim mishtapchim yamay li/ve sharim chalomech ahuv_ ," he obliges Charles's request with a grin.  
  
Charles soaks that right up like a sponge, humming low and pleased the way he does when he's intrigued, when something is new and therefore fascinating and extraordinary. It's always the case with Erik, even the familiar sparking that interest. "Again? Slower, please," he breathes, and smiles impossibly bright when Erik obliges, as if he's given him an incredible gift. Hums again, presses kisses to warm, exposed skin. Then he runs it over in his own head, in Erik's voice, already translated but just because he wants to hear, to be convinced he has it perfectly committed to memory (he does, it's a given). "Mmm. I love your voice," he murmurs, and finds himself so grateful he nearly cries again that Erik gave it to him so freely.  
  
Erik recites the rest of the poem _from my days are poured out from me/pounding, to Alone to the stone and the threshold/that chanted your hymn to the age/like a gold-bearing letter they guide me,/like a name on your very first page_ in the original Hebrew, and in-between kisses that he barely pauses to keep talking, can hardly bear to be separated from Charles for longer than a moment. " _Ani mechabev atah_ ," he returns with a laugh, thinking that he's never held any great affection for his own attributes the way Charles clearly does, and the compliment warms him, especially because it is about the one thing that he struggles with more than anything, the one clear, visible indicator of his human difficulty. _Ein kol ve'ein o'ne_ , no voice and no answer.  
  
Charles loves him all the more for it. Erik is the most extraordinary person Charles has ever met, or will ever meet, and every facet of his being, every strength and quirk and flaw is one that he adores. Everything new he learns is treasured, tucked neatly in his heart for safekeeping. There is more than great affection there, and he lets Erik see it. That being said, he does giggle a moment later, as if tickled by something, squirms against Erik's chest and buries his grin into his Dom's neck, still soft and weightless and happy and now amused.  
  
It makes Erik laugh, too. "What is so funny, _neshama_? Hm?" He pokes Charles in the side lightly, tickling him a little. "Is it that?" His eyes are crinkled up, impossibly enamored by him. "No?" His brows are arched, playful.  
  
It should be noted that Charles is exceptionally ticklish, and he squeaks at the touch, recognizing it a mile away. He lived with Raven for years. He tries to give a dignified protest, but it's all just a bunch of wriggling, a very undignified " _noooo_ " as he continues his giggles and pouts. "Now I'm not telling you," he announces, childish, playful petulance as he sticks out his tongue.  
  
Erik's shoulders shake with laughter, grinning from ear-to-ear. Erik doesn't renew his ticklish assault, though, content to let Charles relax back against him and he resumes petting his hair. "Oh no, I think you will tell me," he says with the little _zing!_ of an Order attached to it, and it's incredible how far he's come in only a month that he can even imagine himself at one point being reluctant to voice Orders, when Charles responds to beautifully to even the most innocuous of them.  
  
And Charles shivers, making a soft little noise at the back of his throat, nuzzling into Erik's chest again as his eyelids flutter. He's nothing if not responsive. He's still grinning, playful and boyish, peeking up now from where he's resettled himself. "It's just - there's an imperative in English, Erik," he laughs, and how utterly Charles it is that he caught onto that while in the throes of agonizing pleasure and deep-deep subspace and filed it away for later processing, but it's Charles and of course he had. "You were thinking that Hebrew has an imperative, which it does, obviously, but so does English. Indicative, subjunctive, imperative, but, yes, the imperative: go, for example. You're using the infinitive without the 'to', which absolutely makes it an Order." And of course he's talking language semantics after getting fucked silly and used quite thoroughly, because why wouldn't he be. "Sit. Eat." Kneel, he thinks and does not say, and then hears it in Erik's voice, shudders full body and is suddenly breathless. It seems he really will spend all day in subspace, then, though there's not much differentiation around Erik anymore. No start-stops. And why should there be? It's such a nice thought he melts right into it.  
  
Erik dissolves back into laughter. "I know," he murmurs, achingly fond. "However, you can say, _please sit down_ or you can say _sit down_ or _I sat on the chair_ or any number of combinations. The word doesn't change, but in Hebrew, it does. So a submissive in Israel will use _yoshev_ , which is considered technically an imperative class, but a Dominant will use _shev_ , which becomes an Order by virtue of being spoken." The effect is immediate, and Erik murmurs, "Disregard," so that Charles isn't inclined to obey a random act. "If a submissive uses that word, it won't work, of course. Sometimes little kids try different classes to challenge the barriers, but I have heard that most submissives find the imperative very jarring-it is also a bit strange. Like very much overcompensation, you would never see an adult submissive doing that. You also very rarely use _me_ or _I_ when speaking in the imperative class, which happens more frequently in English. I would say _kneel_ is the closest English equivalent, actually. The hardest difference for learning languages to me is that I need to distinguish between... blink and _blink_ -" the latter being an Order. "In Hebrew that doesn't exist."  
  
Charles blinks. A moment later he loses it to giggles, completely consumed by fluttery, warm amusement, to how achingly easy this is. Every time he catches his breath he falls right back into it, until he's wriggling about with it like he's being tickled again, his feet kicking lightly where they were tangled up in Erik's legs. It's so - nice. So incredibly nice, he almost can't fathom it.  
  
Erik blinks right back at him, adoring. And because he's on a roll now, he decides to go on, mostly because the topic is very interesting to him and because it's uniquely relevant to them as a whole. "And if I didn't want to make it an Order I would use _yoshev_ -but in Israel it isn't uncommon for Dominants in professional places to make little things Orders, like _sit down for class_ or _read your books_ or what have you, which I understand is very out of place in America. Hebrew distinguishes between Dominant and submissive as well as masculine and feminine, most semitic languages do. There is a lot about American culture I do not grasp because it is a very different world, people seem almost to be divorced from their orientations."  
  
Charles manages to compose himself, because it's very interesting to him, too, even when he's caught a case of the giggles. "It depends, but yes. I'm not the person to ask," he admits, sheepish. "I can hardly tell when anyone is doing it, regardless of language. Ordering, I mean. It just sounds like the rest to me. I could tell with Gabby for a while, and that was new, but it wore off. Then it started to sound -" He huffs, looking for the right words. "It stuck out, when she did it, but it stopped making me feel anything. It was like playing a game you're very tired of. Frustrating, for the both of us. With anyone else, I can tell, but it doesn't usually process differently," he comments, shrugging. "Hank telling me to sit has about the same effect that Warren telling me to does."  
  
Erik pokes him in the cheek, and idly hopes that Charles never tires of him. "Have you spoken to her since the hospital?" he thinks about that all of a sudden-his memories of that time are muddled, especially because he initially met Gabby both times during periods of intense distress and dissociation, but he does know that Gabby figured out he's not simply ferrokinetic, and so far nothing has changed in his CIA routine. They still have the plastic weaponry and the suppressors around the place.  
  
Charles frowns at the end of that thought, concerned. "Of course I would never get tired of you. Please don't think that," he breathes. He sighs at the question, though, shaking his head. "No. I should, but - " He gestures vaguely. There's always so much happening, and sometimes the threads get loose. Besides, he's not particularly looking forward to it, if he's honest. Charles loves Gabby, and thinks, detached from the feeling now, that perhaps he was in love with her, at one point in time, or at least wished desperately that he could be. The jury was still out on that one. The problem was that they had history, and even with it well and truly behind them, it cropped up when they least expected it. Mutual break up or not - the last time, anyway - there was quite a lot of baggage, and that sometimes made things difficult to navigate. Especially when they disagreed on something.  
  
"I do not think she told the CIA," he murmurs, giving Charles a smile. "Perhaps you should give her the benefit of the doubt. She seems to care about you." That being said Erik realizes that he's playing advocate for someone who likely would not return the favor, and who views him as just-barely held together by the loose ends of his own frayed-knitted consciousness, but he does believe that Gabby is generally a good person and wouldn't seek to maliciously harm Charles. And her concerns were rational, even as they pitted Erik as an omnipresent bad guy at worst, at best an ill-contained beast. That she believed it truthfully and without malevolence, it makes sense she'd want to protect others from him-and he hadn't missed that extended to Charles, too.  
  
Charles sighs. "No, I don't - it's not that," he says, though it is a bit of that, too. It can't really be helped. "Gabby is wonderful, and I'd never claim otherwise. She would never maliciously hurt anyone, and she's a damn good doctor who cares for her patients. I truly believe that. But we have disagreements, and we don't work through them how we should," he laughs, and for a moment it's old bitter more than amusement. "I have a hard time arguing with her. Not because I feel I have to yield, but because -" He purses his lips. Because she thinks he does, just a little, and it wasn't entirely her fault. Frustrating nonetheless. "I feel as if I have to play-act around her, sometimes, if I'm honest. Like I'm forcing one role or the other." It's never been natural. He can never settle, because neither fits him. It's nothing like here, with Erik. Even with their fumbling, the dynamic they're building stronger each day seems inevitable. Easy, like breathing, when they let themselves fall into it. There's no acting, and perhaps quite a lot of that has to do with DS scores, but just as much with their natural compatibility.  
  
"I think I understand," Erik nods. "You don't want to yield when you are not obligated to, but by not doing so, she might become offended that you were not taking her seriously? I suppose I cannot speak to understanding that, either," he laughs. "I have always been in the position of knowing that were I to speak, people will yield, if I want them to." His own issues notwithstanding, when he was a child Erik practically felt entitled to obedience, like all kids do, a little D5 shithead was no different, but he'd been swiftly and inhumanly humbled out of it, and now rested on the total opposite side of the fence, finding it a pure joy every time Charles does listen to him, even if it is an Order and he technically has no choice, Erik can tell that most of the time he is not forcing Charles to do anything he really doesn't want to do. The difference is like night and day, and he is glad for it, because it shows him where the line really is. "I am glad you do not need to act with me."  
  
It's not quite that, either. Charles doesn't know what it is, if he's honest. His submission is still mostly a mystery to him, except when it's framed like this. Here, with Erik, with their dynamic, with the things he's finding he likes more than he ever thought he would, with the limitless well he finds his own eager need to please and serve and be Erik's, in every possible way, is. He loves taking Erik's Orders. Thrives under them. "If you were forcing me to do things I didn't want to do, really didn't want to do, you'd know," he promises, not for the first time, and it's part of his trust that he doesn't fear it for even a second. Erik will never take the ability to question and raise concerns from him - it's written right into his first set of rules, if he ever had any doubt. "Besides, sometimes -" Charles bites his lip, forgetting to be careful again as he flushes with embarrassment, hiding in Erik's neck. Maybe one day it won't make him so bashful, admitting things like this, but for now it can't be helped.  
  
"Ah," Erik taps his lip again, raising his eyebrows. "Go on," Erik Orders, warm and amused. He's never minded Charles's shy side, finds it as endearing as the rest of him, and it helps that he is uniquely qualified to draw him out despite it.  
  
Charles huffs, and doesn't look, but he does do what he's told. "I like it when you make me do things I only kind of don't want to do," he finishes, unsure if that's an okay thing to admit. He thinks it is. "Or - or even don't want to do at all, actually, but not - really don't want to do." He's not sure if that makes sense. His cheeks are red anyway. "I like that you don't, um. You don't let me get my way always, and you make me do things that are good for me, and sometimes just because you want me to. It's -" He makes a noise instead of using his words. He likes it. He likes Erik having that sort of control, and he likes that he can say no - but not pause-word, full-stop no - and still be made to do it anyway. Because Erik wants it, and Charles is Erik's, and he decides. The noise he makes when he thinks that is far too hitched, and he squirms in the aftermath, suddenly too warm.  
  
"I like it very much, too," Erik agrees, almost a purr. It took him a while to come to terms with it, but the closer they get, the more he sees that it's what Charles needs, even if on the surface he can get ornery about it. It's different than forcing him against his will to do something he is afraid to do, or is panicked about, or changing his perception or forcing him not to speak his mind, he's had that experience once before and even remembering it is enough to make him feel sick. What Charles is talking about is something Erik finds he does like very much, and the more he encounters it, the more confident he becomes and the clearer the lines are, which in turn only make him more confident.  
  
Charles shivers. "We haven't really scratched the surface here yet, have we?" he asks, quiet, because - he really doesn't think they have. They've come exceptionally far, in the time they've had together, but he knows their dynamic is something that can only grow and develop over time, with comfort and learned confidence. There's so much they still haven't explored, not all of it fun and pleasant, but all of it astonishingly real and fulfilling by virtue of being theirs. All things they collectively need, and can provide each other. Charles is awestruck in that moment, as he often is, thinking about it. How fortunate is he, that he gets to learn and experience this with Erik? How had this become his life?  
  
Erik shakes his head, because he's had the same thoughts, only his have been tinged with worry that he won't be able to remain as stable and in control as he feels now indefinitely, that inevitably he will lose his cool, he will have more hang-ups and it will get in the way, he'll do something irreparably wrong-but it hasn't happened yet. Every time they are together they grow closer, learn better, become deeper entwined, and it's almost enough that Erik thinks maybe this is the place where he is safe, from even his own mind. But he knows that isn't true, that eventually he'll fail, he won't be able to control a situation, he won't be able to look after Charles-he's only human, every Dominant has that experience at some point-he'll need to use the pause-word himself, he'll have a fucking panic attack while Charles is in subspace-it's inevitable, and he's worried about it, but not enough to ever hold himself apart from it. Because he is more-than fortunate, Charles has blessed his entire life and irrevocably altered it, in every possible way, he has become a person because of Charles, he's found some writhing vestiges of humanity buried under the rubble of his soul and Charles has helped him plant them into soil, grow them into tiny little green things. He will never be able to express how happy Charles has made him, how excited and fascinated he is to stand by his side.  
  
Charles shakes his head right back. "I'll mess up too, Erik," he points out, still quiet. He shares the worry. Of course he does, but the more they do this, the more they learn, the less it gets under his skin. "I already have. We both already have. But then we work it out, don't we?" He smiles, propped up on his elbow as he looks at Erik as if he's everything. He is. "We don't always have to get it right, it just doesn't work like that. We just have to want it, and we have to love each other, and we have to be willing to put in the work, which I think both of us are more than willing to do," he laughs. "You're worth it. All of it. Ups and downs, good and bad, though trust me, it's not a balanced scale there. And you are safe here, darling. It won't ever break us. I promise." He takes Erik's hand. "We're stronger than that. But no sense worrying about it until it happens, right? I personally am quite enjoying how wonderful it is to get it right." He ducks his head, grinning, and has to hold back a laugh. "You - I mean -" He snickers.  
  
"I am glad to still be such an incredible source of amusement," Erik huffs at him, tickling his side lightly. It's funny how Charles is on the other side of this debate now, because he distinctly remembers a conversation where he'd told Charles that it needed to be okay to mess up, and now he found that, well, it was. Even the bad almost always turns out to be a good thing, something they learn, something that they adjust for. Even at their most passionate disagreements, there is respect and consideration. That feels safe.  
  
Charles laughs, then, wiggles about to avoid the tickling, pouting again. "I was just thinking how if I acted the way I did just a few days ago, you would react totally differently. I can feel that. And so would I. We're just - we're learning. It's incredible. It feels -" He doesn't have adequate words for it. "Nice," he finishes, lamely, but he's beaming.  
  
Erik's eyebrows go up. "How you acted?" he's curious, about how Charles has perceived such a difference in him, in them both, and what that means.  
  
Charles snorts, and goes back to lying on Erik's chest, mostly because he wants to hide a little, embarrassed by some of this, but also because he's lazy and boneless and doesn't want to hold himself up. "Let me give you a hypothetical. I decide, today, right now, to throw a fit about sleeping. I don't want to. I tell you no. I tell you to piss off." Because Charles can throw an exceptional strop, and it just isn't going to change. "How do you handle it?"  
  
Erik just starts laughing, but the answer is easy enough to pluck from the surface of his mind where it's bobbed up for Charles's taking. He'd figure out the reason why, and if it was as silly as because I don't want to, Erik would make him get ready for bed in excruciating detail before putting him to sleep whether he wanted it or not, and in the morning they would absolutely address the petulant insult. But if it were for a real reason, like nightmares or anything like that, it would probably be a bit different. He'd still end up asleep of course, but Erik would help him calm down and there wouldn't be any method of discipline considered as long as he apologized. He shrugs, and then realizes with absolute bafflement that the response came to him almost as quickly as an inhale, with no agonizing over any of it, a natural extension of Will and it feels indescribable-he is right, the more confident he does get, the better he gets at this. His instincts aren't bad at all, although he's been thinking that he might... and now Erik is embarrassed, a flush making its way over his face.  
  
Charles grins. "See what I mean?" he asks, and can't help looking just a bit smug about it.  
  
Erik's glad that his stray thought didn't get picked up on, because he's blushing fiercely and he clears his throat, laughing and ruffling Charles's hair. "I do," he concedes, warm.  
  
Well, now it did. Charles' curiosity piques immediately. "Tell me?" he asks, and does his best puppy dog eyes. He's heard they're fairly legendary, and now he's hamming.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "You had best not laugh at me."  
  
Charles turns mock solemn immediately. "I would never dream of it," he promises, already trying not to laugh.  
  
In all honesty Erik was fine being the butt of a joke or having others laugh at his expense, but he is genuinely embarrassed so he mumbles, "I thought maybe I should, if I get released, if I should-see if there are-materials that I can consume, educational-because I didn't get any of the Dominance lessons." And then maybe he wouldn't be so woefully behind, and even if he found out that he was on the right track, that could only increase his confidence, right? He hopes Charles doesn't think it's a silly idea. "I know they're geared for a younger age group, but-" he shrugs.  
  
Charles softens immediately, and he doesn't laugh. Instead he smiles, biting his lip. There's a moment of brief hesitance before he stretches up and kisses Erik full on the mouth, not chaste, but sweet and soft, lingering. "I love you," he says, simply, and then grins. "And I have a relevant confession to make."  
  
Erik tilts his head curiously. "Indeed?" he lays the palm of his hand over Charles's cheek, rubbing it with his thumb. "Do share."  
  
Except now he actually has to make it. Charles groans, face beet red as he closes his eyes. "I failed my ninth grade personal development class," he mumbles, barely audible. Yes, Charles Xavier had failed a class.  
  
"What! How do you-what? What happened?" Erik is very sorry, but he's desperately trying to keep a straight face.  
  
Charles makes a face, then mumbles something that is very much inaudible in answer. "I didn't laugh at you!" he protests, huffing.  
  
Oh no. Erik covers his mouth immediately, making a choking sound.  
  
Charles pouts. "Erik," he sighs, still so red it hurts, and thoroughly humiliated. He actually sits up to straddle Erik just so he can cross his arms. "I -" He looks away, huffing again. "I walked out, okay? We had to do - and I didn't want to, so I walked out! It was pass-fail, we had to pass all the units or no go."  
  
Erik stares at him, all traces of amusement melting out of him and he resumes rubbing Charles's cheek under his thumb. "That is a stupid reason to fail a class," he says point-blank. "You shouldn't have been made to go past your comfort zone in the first place. I am glad you did walk out. It certainly hasn't been to your detriment, fortunately for me." He gives him a wink.  
  
"It was a stuffy private school, they were big on that. It wouldn't have been a problem, it's just -" He doesn't know if he should mention this part. He knows it's going to drag things up from the woodwork, but he's thinking about it anyway. Not mentioning it just means it gets stuck up there. Charles finds that if he gets things out to Erik, he often does feel better. "Cain was - horrible to me. All week. If I didn't follow his Orders around the house -" Charles shakes his head, staring down between them. "He told Kurt about the stupid exam, and he made me do them - my Postures, he made me do them and then he left me for hours and it was humiliating and I hated it and I was fourteen and the last thing I wanted was to do them in front of these frilly old teachers who saw me as another rich boy sub to marry off to a rich Dom and -" Charles shakes his head again, this time harder. Clears his throat. "So I said 'no, thank you, I'd rather not' and I walked out."  
  
"For the record, I do not think that counts as failing," Erik taps him on the nose, his own wrinkling fondly. "You knew what to do, you just had a moral objection to it, one that I fully support." Erik does wonder about Cain, then, very briefly, about how he'd Ordered Cain to never bother Charles again, and he wonders if that Order will stick. He's found thus far that there is no time limit for his Orders, but some do wear off, usually the ones he doesn't intend to be permanent and that's more or less a gut thing that he hasn't worked out yet, but he absolutely had with every fiber of his being intended for Cain to be irrevocably altered by what he'd said to him. He wonders if he ever meets Kurt Marko, short of killing him where he stood, he'll likely do the same thing, maybe with an added zing of humiliation of his own, so everyone else could see what a sad, pathetic man he was.  
  
"I'm not sure you can just Order my demons away, Erik," he says, but - but he's smiling, however small, however much there's something ugly and churning inside of him now. "Especially my stepfather, who I'm obligated to shake hands with about twice a year." And feel awful and twisted up about for weeks before and after. Neither here nor there.  
  
"I can certainly try," Erik tells him back, thoroughly displeased by the thought of Charles ever encountering this person again. "It won't be like that anymore," he decides, looking up to meet Charles's eye. "You are not alone with it any more. You never will be again."  
  
Charles smiles at that, too, even though there's something behind it. "He beat me for it. One of the worst, and there were bad ones," he mumbles, though he's sure it was implied. "I had perfect marks, exactly perfect, in all my other classes, but - he called me a failure. Said I would never learn anything. That I was useless, and stupid. I passed out during it. I couldn't - and he left me there, and Cain found me and laughed. It was a Friday, and the next morning at breakfast -" His breath hitches, and not in a good way. "Mother looked at me and said _'good morning, Charles.'_ That's it. She knew. She knew perfectly well, and she didn't even look me - she didn't even look..." He breaks off, covering his mouth with his hand to choke back a sob. Shakes his head again. "And I smiled and said ' _good morning, Mother'_ and we ate breakfast." Like a family.  
  
Yes, well, Erik never had any doubt about that. He held no fondness for Sharon Marko at all, despised her just as much as Kurt and Cain, regardless of whether she physically touched Charles or not. You can't be a child's mother and not know what's happening to them under your own roof. Sharon might not be a violent person but she is a coward, and it's no less forgivable. "I love you," Erik whispers to him, kissing him gently and taking his face into both hands, smiling up at him. "You were failed by your family at every turn. Even if you did less than perfectly in certain areas, the appropriate response is to bolster a child's self-confidence and esteem, not to hit them and berate them."  
  
Charles bites his lip. "I could have said something to her," he whispers. "I wasn't a good son. I could have - I should have done something." He still carries that with him.  
  
"She knew, Charles. I know you know that she knew." It's soft. "She married him. There is no way that she wasn't aware of the kind of person he is. You can't hide something like that from your spouse indefinitely."  
  
Charles shakes his head. That wasn't what he'd meant. "He hurt her, too," he argues, swallowing. "I heard it. Not the same way, but - I could have done something, and I didn't. I failed her because I was a coward."  
  
"You were a child. There is no comparison. You are not responsible for that. She was responsible for you, and she did not rise to it. If she had, you wouldn't feel like this. It is because she did not, that you began to take on those feelings in the first place. Children aren't supposed to take care of their parents, they aren't supposed to engineer familial dynamics like that, and I know you don't expect any other child to live up to that kind of pressure."  
  
Charles closes his eyes. "When Raven moved in," he starts, whispering. "I read to her. Every night, I read to her. Because no one had ever read to me, even before, and I wanted - I thought it would help. And it did, but it wasn't exactly the same. I still do it, occasionally. When she needs it." When his eyes open again, they're full of unshed tears. His voice shakes. "Thank you for telling me stories. I'm not a child, and you aren't my mother, obviously, but it's very nice."  
  
Erik wraps Charles up in a warm, large hug, kissing the top of his forehead. "I will tell you a million more," he promises. Does he even know a million stories? Maybe he does, and if he runs out, he'll start making them up. Storytelling was in his blood, _Salonikans_ were known for it before their community dissolved, the advent of the symposium integrating into practice and intersecting uniquely, the value of philosophy and culture and books and knowledge inherent in both peoples. But his father was gruff and taciturn-and Erik has always been more like him, except for this-it was his mother who told them to him first, who kindled his love of literature from the moment he was conceived. It's a way that she's still here, her influence helping Charles now, just as it helped him.


	29. Nothing ever happened

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _the wizard of oz_ , l. frank baum

Charles smiles back, however tremulous and slight. He settles against Erik's chest again, breathing even and slow, cuddling in close and letting his eyes close. "Can we order in for dinner?" he asks, then, as if they'll be eating together. "There's nothing in the kitchen, and I'd rather not make another trip to the store. We could -" He nearly jumps out of his skin at a loud bang, eyes wide and panicked, and then he realizes it's still happening, and it's his front door. He groans. "If we ignore her she'll go away," he mock-whispers, thoroughly put out that he has to get up and put on pants. Maybe Erik's nudist tendencies are rubbing off on him. The banging gets louder, practically breaking the poor wood of his door down, and he rolls his eyes. "Christ, Raven."  
  
"Can she see me?" Erik asks, and he slowly gets them in an upright position and rises, not even reaching for his own clothing as though he intends to go answer the door just like this. "Get dressed, I'll let her in-and I think we should," he tuts. "She's worried. She hasn't seen you since yesterday. It is a bit unfair to keep her guessing." His lips twitch. "We'll order in." He conveys that Charles can go search for takeout pamphlets and get whatever he'd wish, Erik couldn't eat it even if he were there, for more than one reason-even when he's released he'll be on a modified diet for months to come. Greasy pizza is unlikely to qualify. He reaches over to kiss Charles's forehead one last time. "Then come out and say hello," he finishes the Order with a grin.  
  
"I know, I know," he sighs, and smiles. Truthfully, he very much wants to see his sister. It will help everything feel at least slightly normal. "She can see you just fine," he assures, and then goes off to get himself cleaned up and dressed after another quick kiss. When Charles comes out to the small living area with several takeout menus, he's dressed more casually - besides pajamas - than Erik has ever seen him. Baggy (baggier, now) sweats and a ratty old Oxford sweatshirt he'd gotten sent to him at sixteen. Which said plenty about how much he'd grown, but it'd been overlarge, thank you much. It covered most of the bruises, and had the added bonus of being comfortable.

* * *

"Hi, love," he greets Raven, moving to kiss her brilliant blue cheek. "Chinese? Pizza? Indian? Maybe not Chinese. I had that mild reaction last time, and once is enough. I'm making you stay for dinner now that you've come to bother me, of course, and if Hank doesn't like it he can pop over too," he teases.  
  
Charles hears the "Erik! Oh my G-d! Put some clothes on!" before he finally pads back out. Raven's got her hands pasted over her eyes as though blocking out the sun. "Charles! Fix him!" she waves her fingers at him. "And his-abs. G-d. And I vote Indian, because you've had pizza like, five times this month." Erik wraps his arms around Charles from behind and kisses his shoulder, looking incredibly unconcerned. "And-is that-are you-" Raven ogles his neck. "What."  
  
Charles gives Erik a glance, and suddenly, what do you know it, he's wearing clothes. Also sweatpants, like they were having a lazy night in. The benefit of his Dominant being a mental construction of himself at the moment. He's grinning, trying very hard not to laugh. "Personally, I think this is the opposite of fixed, but there you go - and what did I tell you about ogling him? I'm calling Hank, maybe he'll distract you in his _blue-blueness._ " And distract him from how he's just turned red, because honestly, the collar felt so natural already he'd forgotten it was very new. "I'm not sure I know what you're talking about, dearest," he says, coolly, because of course he does.  
  
Tears spring to Raven's eyes, and she covers her mouth with her hand, smiling back unseen and overcome with a sudden jolt of powerful emotion. Charles doesn't realize how he left things with her, limping into the car entirely disconnected and covered from head to toe in bruises, looking half-dead and zoned out and horrified, Erik serious and glowering, Cain trudging home on the side of the road-and it's been years since Raven saw him, having long-eschewed the Xavier-Marko political get-togethers, but he's just as repulsive as he was when they were children. And now it seems like miles away, they're both smiling and laughing, and they look genuinely at ease-which isn't something Charles could ever fake around her, and he's got a collar-which is new. "Just let me be happy for you, bird brain," she laughs.  
  
"Oh, Raven," he sighs, overcome as well all at once, and then he's wrapping her up in his arms. Careful, because he's still dreadfully sore all over and she isn't a projection, but firm nonetheless, burying his face in the crook of her shoulder. "I love you, and I'm quite alright. Well." He should be honest. Charles bites his lip. "Not perfect, but much better than I'd thought I'd be, considering. You can thank this one." He indicates Erik over his shoulder, smiling, because it's important that Raven knows that he's well-taken care of. Even without reading her, he knows she's worried. She'll always be worried, just as he'll fret over her.  
  
Something else snaps into place, then. It always does with Raven around.

* * *

When he pulls back, there's a tear on his cheek. Just one, and he swipes at it, grinning. "Now. Let's order enough Indian to leave me with leftovers tomorrow and watch a movie, hm? Not a horror movie this time, you have far too much fun with it." He considers something. "Technically it would be Erik's turn to pick in the group rotation, since he's never picked before. But I think I can convince him to pick my choice," he whispers to her, as if he won't hear. Then tilts his neck, just slightly, bashful and flushed again, even quieter, "Nice, isn't it?" And right by his leg, where he knows she'll see the movement, he does their secret-language signal. All okay, which, even if he couldn't fake his own ease, said absolutely everything.  
  
Erik catches that and smiles to himself, and when Charles pulls away he wraps him up in a hug from behind, kissing the top of his head while Raven flicked through the takeout packets, and she laughs softly when he gives her the all-clear. "It's really pretty," she agrees, leaning over to inspect it more closely. Fortunately Erik had put away the other evidence of their shopping trip, just saying.  
  
"And what is your choice?" Erik asks as he moves them over to the couch while Raven orders the food.  
  
Oh, right. Charles forgot about those things - when did he have time to do that? No reason to question it, cheeks a little more red, but Raven never has to know. "I don't actually have one," he admits, laughing, and leans into Erik's arms. "But I'll have a strong opinion on anything you can come up with, rest assured." There are things he has to talk to Raven about. Quite a lot of things, actually. Things he needs to do. Right now, for just this moment, Charles doesn't think of any of them, yawning (he'd only slept an hour and a half last night, after that) and burying it in Erik as he settles. "Mmm. Excuse me," he mumbles, and very much could go for a nap, actually. "Raven, he made me take a day off. Can you believe that?" He huffs, but he's grinning, and the whole thing had been entirely elective. He remembers pouting about getting out of bed. Charles isn't really even listening for the response, though, because he's become fascinated by something on Erik's arm, staring.  
  
"Ohkay, food is ordered! And I texted Hank so he'll probably drop by, too. And I let Warren know you're OK, too. He's just as worried as I am, but he's being all stoic about it," Raven rolls her eyes. " _Men_." Erik... does not know any modern movies at all, and his suggestion is... the silly, the effervescent, _Wizard of Oz_ , because that was his favorite a very long time ago. It takes no time at all for Raven to find it online and beam it over to the television, and usually she has opinions on movies, too, but she sort of... wasn't sure about movie watching with Erik, especially not her favorite genre of movies, and she could dig _Oz_. "Ohhhh, _oh_! Erik, you would love _Wicked_. Um, Broadway much. We are literally in New York. Charles. _Charles_." Raven smacks him on the shoulder when she sits down next to him. "You are neglecting your duties as tour guide. How did the arraignment and testimony stuff go, by the way? Can I ask?" Erik takes Charles into his arms and runs his fingers through his hair, soothing and content.  
  
Charles pretends that doesn't hurt, badly, with his injuries. Raven isn't the most delicate, ever, but he loves her the same. "How am I neglecting duties, Raven? There hasn't exactly been time to pop out to see a Broadway show, but trust me, it's on the list." _Wizard of Oz_ is one of his favorite movies, actually, and he's more than a little pleased to not only be watching it, but to share it in common with Erik. He knows the words to every movie he's ever seen, but there are few he relishes like this one. It was Charles who had gotten Raven to watch it throughout their childhood, and Charles who had taken her to see _Wicked_ the first (and second, and third) time. He's smiling big and dimpled by the time it starts to play, even as he gives her the short, edited version of what she's missed. The rest she'll see on TV, and won't that be fun, but Charles doesn't worry about it. He's still a little distracted, and he keeps flashing images at the back of his head, moving them very noticeably out of Erik's grasp. A playful game of keep-away.  
  
Erik is incredibly warmed by the fact that Charles not only approves of his choice, but actively hosts his own enjoyment and it makes him smile to himself, eyes bright as Judy Garland flounces across the screen with her little dog. He eventually catches on that Charles is swiping this way and that in his mind and catches onto the edge of those thoughts, yanking them back toward himself curiously. _Keep-away, Charles?_ he smirks down at him, rubbing at his temples with his fingertips, letting him melt into his arms in pleasure and relaxation. _You must know I play for keeps._  
  
Charles stifles his delighted giggle in Erik, but even that doesn't stop him from squirming. He's settled half on Erik's lap (and isn't that something, after earlier), warm and boneless, and he bites down on his lip to keep the airy little moan from ever reaching Raven's poor ears _. That feels very nice, mm. Sorry, Erik_ , now he's distracted from his distraction, or else pretending to be.  
  
 _Tell me what's got you so interested_ , Erik Orders with a grin down at him, and Raven can definitely tell they're locked up in one another, the world slipped away. She's never seen Charles act like a real submissive before, and it's a little jarring, but it seems as natural as if he'd always behaved this way, always looked up at his Dom with open adoration and deference. Raven's aware she's a bit of the third wheel here, every time Charles and Erik are in one another's presence they're a bit in their own world, but she's happy to be it, because it means everybody is OK.  
  
Oh, there will be times Erik becomes the third wheel the way everyone else does, naturally, when he and Raven are together. It's been the norm for years and years. Everything is new now, though, giddy and bright and wonderful, and Charles finally has this. Someone to be lost in. Someone like Raven's Hank who, early on, he'd found himself plenty - not jealous of, per se. That wasn't it. But quite the same as Raven feels now. Speaking of Raven, Charles thinks of her cuffed wrist, then Erik's noticeably bare one, running the two images together. It's clear what he's been thinking of, after that, and he's a little embarrassed about it, smiling shyly up at him.  
  
Erik laughs softly, because he'd been thinking almost the exact same thing. They really are so close right now it's hard to define where one ends and the other begins. _I cannot wait to have them,_ he says, because it's the truth and he can't lie like this anyway. Because as much as Charles is his, he belongs to him as well, and there is something very alluring about the idea that the rest of the world knows that he is bonded, that Charles has picked them out for him-everyone imagines their ideal relationship when they're young, but Erik's always put it out of his head because his life was only expected to go one way. He was meant to be of service, he would only have pain and stolen moments, he would never belong to anyone, he could never take care of anyone. The only examples of closeness his body would know rooted in violation and fear and disgust. Erik shuts his eyes tightly, regulating his breathing. It's a clear, tangible example of how far he's come from that existence.  
  
Charles is so incredibly grateful for that. He would comment, but suddenly he's distracted by the movie rather than the other way around. There's no way to hide his open joy as _Over the Rainbow_ begins to play, and - quietly at first, under his breath, as though deeply embarrassed - he hums along, sometimes the vaguest hint of words as his lips move. Almost unconsciously, a dozen and more times he's hummed or sung this exact song flash for Erik. As a child, soothing himself, sniffling in bed. As a teen, dancing around his own bedroom. In the shower, to Raven after a nightmare, hummed idly to himself as he studied, a forgotten pen behind his ear and ink smears on his cheek. Watching this movie alone only a few years ago, red-rimmed eyes and a pint of ice cream, feeling thoroughly sorry for himself after his only break up, sighs and _I'm going to be alone forever, aren't I then?_ But now here they are, and Charles is smiling even through his timidity, ducking his head, and by the end he's singing quietly. There's nothing wrong with Charles' voice. It's quite a nice voice, actually, a soft tenor, and he can hold a pitch perfectly well. It's just that he doesn't often do it in front of others. Embarrassment, mostly. It's certainly the first time he's done it around Erik.  
  
Erik smooths his thumb over Charles's temple, cards his fingers through his hair, a matching smile on his face as he listens, and he tucks this moment as far down inside of himself as it will go, knowing that whatever happens, it will be there to ease future pains. He doesn't sing along, mostly because he's enchanted by Charles's rendition and it mixes with his Will that floats around the room heady enough that even Raven can feel it. When his favorite part comes on, though, he mouths entirely unconsciously, silent but for Charles who can hear the recitation perfectly in his voice, _As for you, my galvanized friend, you want a heart. You don't know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable./But I still want one._  
  
Charles sighs, sweet and smiling, melts into Erik's arms. The food comes, Raven goes to get it, and Charles finds he doesn't want to do more than pick at it, not terribly hungry at all and more concerned with enjoying his two favorite people in the world. He's sure there's an Order coming when he sloshes it around with his plastic fork instead of eating again, but there's another knock on his door and that's his distraction. It's Hank, in all his blue-blueness, and it occurs to Charles that, ridiculously - well, it is a bit like a double-date, isn't it? He grins at that, and realizes Erik and Hank haven't properly met. "Hi, Hank," he offers up for his part, raising a hand in greeting. And he's - never been like this around other people, he realizes. Shy, and quieter, soft-edged and pleased, perfectly content to - oh. He'd been kneeling, hadn't he? Raven sitting cross-legged beside him, pressed comfortably against his side in front of the table they'd spread their food out on, but Charles had been kneeling practically at Erik's feet, resting against his knee and near purring as fingers stroked through his hair. He hadn't even noticed, had settled himself entirely without thought. Bizarre. _This is - bizarre, isn't it?_ And yet it had felt so normal. Charles' head spins.  
  
Erik knows Hank from Charles's memories and will admit that he is more biased toward people with physical mutations, but he nevertheless clams up when Hank enters the room even as Hank says in his Midwestern drawl, "pleasure to meet you, Erik," and promptly has to sit down to avoid his head spinning. He's been used to being essentially the only submissive in the room when it came to their friend group, but he's no S1 and he's quite overwhelmed by Erik's Will even as it's a simple conscious projection. Erik nods and smiles politely, closed-lipped, before turning back to Charles, shrinking into him a bit more.

* * *

"So, what are we watching?" Hank asks as he settles himself against Raven, using the opportunity to catch his bearings so he doesn't embarrass himself.  
  
"The _Wizard_ , obviously," Raven sighs happily. "Eat your _naan_." She grins up at him.  
  
"Yes, dear."  
  
It is unusual for them both, Erik thinks, but wonderful all the same.  
  
Charles has watched Hank and Raven before, with no uncertain amount of envy. Their dynamic isn't always clearly visible to outsiders - just by virtue of who they are, and their respective DS scores, D3 and S3, perfectly dead center as far as that goes, Raven just as the threshold for high-Dom, Hank just at the one for a higher-scale submissive - but it's there, especially for him. The way Raven taps him and he leans full body toward her, offering her every ounce of his attention. The way he bows his head just slightly around her. The way they talk, Hank deferring even when Raven is outrageous, slow-drawled and respectful and _'yes, dear'_ that he knows is _'yes, ma'am'_ in private, but, no, he absolutely does not want to think about what his sister gets up to in the bedroom like he's been forced to for years now -  
  
But Hank is watching back this time. Charles can feel it, can see himself reflected in Hank's mind. The way he leans into Erik unconsciously, shifts when his Dominant does, adjusting in any number of ways to accommodate. The way he kneels, not fidgety or uncomfortable. How when Erik taps him on the elbow gently, a silent warning and reminder, he takes another bite of food even as he huffs.  
  
He's acting submissive. And of course it's not a shock, at this point. Charles is more than aware with a collar around his neck. But to have someone else see it - his cheeks warm, and then he does squirm about. Not uncomfortable, just.  
  
Sometimes it feels like he's stepped into some incredibly odd technicolor world, too. Charles' head is swimming with it still as the movie ends, stunned quiet.

* * *

Erik is seated on the couch and he leans over to drop a kiss onto the top of Charles's head, curling his hand over his shoulder and guiding him to lay back with his head next to his knee. Comfortable? he asks, not exactly referring to Charles's position, gazing at Raven and Hank curiously. Erik can't keep himself held apart from Charles for very long, always touching him and (before Hank arrived) murmuring things to him, which now gets supplanted by mental voice instead, fussing over him like a baby bird trapped in a nest, only peripherally aware that other people are around. He's being appropriate, just physically affectionate, and Hank and Raven both notice that Charles isn't perturbed by it like he'd been with Gabby. Erik doesn't talk a lot even around those he can outside of Charles, more comfortable expressing himself through fingertips than words, and he silently makes sure Charles eats at least one plate of food, encouraging him with a gentle smile.  
  
Yes. He's exceptionally comfortable, actually, which - it's a lot. He knows by now they're expecting him to have fussed, because they've seen it before. Sat up straight, shouldered off a touch or two, tensed when he'd been guided into something, said something about the way he's clearly being encouraged to eat - less encouraged, more Willed, too. Charles knows that in any other situation he'd handled before he wouldn't be, that he'd have rolled his eyes or sighed or been petulant, just to keep - keep what? Keep up an act he'd been playing for years and years? Some misguided sense of dignity? He's sure it will happen, eventually. That he'll get ornery like Erik noted, at some point, because part of that is just the way Charles is, something he needs just as much as this. But not everything is a constant fight now. It hasn't hit him how much things have changed for him until exactly this moment, and Charles is still shocked. He feels... like himself. Exactly like himself. Has laughed and smiled and sang at all the parts of the movie he would normally, answered a question Hank asked with just as much enthusiasm as before, nudged Raven with his elbow when she teased him for something. But everything's shifted. The whole world's shifted. How hadn't he noticed how much?  
  
Erik's arms tighten around him and he can't help but kiss Charles's cheek, bent over from his impossible height in almost a pretzel to do so. He's taller than Hank, even, which is saying something, although he's much more a bean pole than the former. It's easy, it's easy to be here with Charles, it's easy to be with Charles. He doesn't have anything to compare it to, not the same way that they all (including Charles) note the difference from past experience. The only thing Erik knows is pain, and the only thing he wants is to avoid it whenever possible. Physical, mental, sexual, emotional. If he can limit the amount of real, un-pleasurable pain that enters into Charles's conscious perception, it's the closest he'll come to thinking of himself as doing a good job, not demanding more of himself, not struggling to fit into the gap. Erik has never had a submissive, has never been afforded the opportunity to be a proper Dominant, but all of that initial stumbling he felt is melted away right now. He moves in anticipation of Charles's movements, cares for him before he even realizes he needs it, in a million small touches. It's a dynamic that neither Hank nor Raven not only haven't seen from Charles, but haven't seen before, period, and they'd be lying if they said they weren't fascinated. It makes Raven wonder if regular people are missing something, or if it's an equal experience, everybody's just getting what they need at a higher or lower level. She can't imagine Hank being any more or less submissive than he is, would be uncomfortable if it swayed too far in either direction, and that tends to be most people who are middle-of-the-road.  
  
But Charles has always thought of himself as - not Dominant. He knew he wasn't. Absolutely he knew he wasn't, and every fantasy and idle longing he's ever had would be proof enough of that. But - less. Or lacking, would be a better term. He'd always felt like nothing. Like he existed outside, in anything but those silly fantasies. But everything Erik does is mirrored in him. He anticipates just as easily. Tilts, and bends, and yields, sighs quietly, responds instinctively. Gives and takes and gravitates, hums, their own field of it, like he's been knocked out of orbit his entire life and suddenly, finally, he's exactly right. In place. In his place. In Erik's field, Erik's hands, at Erik's feet or his side or wherever he needs to be at the moment, wherever he's needed. Whatever will best serve. Charles' breath hitches. "Let me get this cleaned up," he says, and smiles, takes the empty containers and nearly trips on the way to the kitchen, forgetting his ankle. He knows Erik will follow him, and counts on it. Charles leans over the counter and takes a deep breath, wide-eyed, but not panicking. Yet. He's getting there. Charles' biggest weakness is his ability to twist himself up in that head of his.  
  
And follow he does, not noticing how Hank relaxes from his tensed-up state when Erik's Will retracts into the kitchen. He catches Charles by throwing out his mutation before he falls and Charles hovers in place before finding himself rightside-up, gently set upon his feet, and Erik puts a hand on his shoulder and guides him the rest of the way into the kitchen. Tell me, Erik murmurs between them, still-mental, his eyes meeting Charles's calmly, a solid pillar against panic and twisted thoughts chasing their own tails and tropical fishes in ponds being eaten by piranhas.  
  
Charles is biting on his lip again. Hard, too. The problem is, there's nothing wrong. There's absolutely nothing wrong, nothing forced or faked or uncomfortable and that's - the problem? He shakes his head, frustrated, makes a sound at the back of his throat.  
  
 _So, let go_ , Erik Orders him softly, a parallel of the first time he'd reached beyond himself and did what he thought was best, not what he thought Charles wanted. He knows this very well, it is old. The brain is not accustomed to peace, even though it seeks and seeks, when it finds, it doesn't trust. It's suspicious. It doesn't know how to function. It builds itself up into a crisis just to feel familiar. Erik kisses his forehead. You need to let this heal, he says, and that's an Order as well, touching his bitten lip. No more blood. No more.  
  
What Erik thinks is best. What his Dominant knows is best for him. Charles finds his shoulders relaxing, all the air he'd been holding inside of him let out like a deflated balloon. No more tension, no more self-sabotage. He shakes his head, looking up with a tiny, hesitant grin. _Are you going to stop kissing me, then, so it can heal?_ he teases, playful sass and arched eyebrow and, yes, just a bit of goading. But not because he's uncomfortable. Not because he thinks Erik won't give it to him otherwise, or to control how he does. And it makes every difference in the world.  
  
Erik grins back and kisses him so lightly, so gently, that it feels like a feather. _I find kisses are healing in and of themselves_ , he replies, very knowledgeably. It's a new form of medicine, one that Erik is pioneering, and Charles is the only patient worthy of receiving the cure.  
  
Charles is very happy to receive such a cure, but he does pout. It's not the kiss he wanted, and it might be the only one he's going to get, but he's willing to push a little more. To try those puppy dog eyes out again, big and blue and earnest. Charles isn't completely blind to his own charms. _Properly? Please?_ After all the telepathic voyeurism he's been forced into with Raven and Hank, he thinks making out in his own kitchen - if Erik allows it, anyway - is perfectly acceptable.  
  
Of course he does, there's no way he can resist it when Charles asks so nicely. he takes a single step into his space and molds their bodies together, delivering a much less soft, invariably more heated version of a kiss against Charles's wanting mouth. It's good. Erik forgets they have company. Sorry, Raven.  
  
And so does Charles, inevitably, when he falls right back into Erik's orbit, moaning soft and eager and fluttering. He's floating, again, perfectly pleased to be, except - well, there's some smugness there, too. He's gloating. Just a little. It can't be helped. Charles likes getting what he wants - likes not getting what he wants, too, but that's another story. Is that it, then? I just have to say please and flutter my eyelashes? I'll keep that in mind, he snarks.  
  
 _You had better,_ Erik smirks back, the response effortlessly Dominant while essentially being true-Charles could, for just about most things, and Erik would happily oblige him. He tugs a lint ball out of Charles's hair and discards it.  
  
He knows that. Asking is sometimes just as difficult, though. An act of submission in itself. Throwing a fit and stropping about for what he wants is easier, but now he knows it won't work. It doesn't mean he won't do it, but he knows better, so when he does - well. Charles thinks, briefly, of the items in the other room and fidgets against the counter. _This is really how it is now?_ he asks, and swallows. What they both need. What they both gravitate toward. And Charles realizes that he's still very much afraid it will be taken from him, snatched right out from under his feet.  
  
 _Yes_ , Erik nods once. Because he's had it now and there is no way that he can let it go. Unbidden his thoughts chase the edges of Charles' and he swallows, remembering what's to come. The sun is already dipping below the horizon. They need to wake early to drive to the court house, because they aren't having the official trial at the CIA complex, which means Erik will need to be transported, and he buries himself a little bit further into Charles because he heard the guards talking about those protocols and-then he'll be in public and Shaw will be there. Shaw will be there and will listen to every word that Carmen reads out loud, a substitute for his own voice, sitting calm and unaffected with that smirk on his face, amused by his wayward pet. Erik shudders. _Yes, this is how it is,_ he repeats, louder, pushing the thoughts away.  
  
Charles' teeth clench. He doesn't miss the choice of words, and it churns ugly and twisted in his own stomach, his eyes dropped to the floor as he tries to breathe around it. He'll be on the stand first, and no telling how long that lasts. Shaw will be watching him, too. Charles remembers something he has to do. He looks up at Erik, grimaces. I'm sorry, he whispers, and then his mind, for just a moment, goes blank. Not empty, but closed off from Erik entirely, though they're still connected. Like a shut door.  
  
Erik swallows, staring at him. Not understanding where he went, or why, still connected by touch but unbearably empty, even though he can feel the outer edges, it is so much less than he is used to having that he reels from the loss, a low, wounded noise bubbling up in the back of his throat that he submerges before it fully spills out. _Please come back,_ he implores. _I did not mean to think about it. I'm sorry._  
  
"Shh," Charles whispers, trembling himself. It hurts. It truly does, uncomfortable and strange and wrong. He buries himself in Erik's chest, shaky and clammy. It doesn't feel right, far too much like the hospital. He whimpers, too. "I didn't - I don't want you to see -"  
  
 _See what?_ Erik shakes his head. Anything you have to do, anything you must bear, you know that I am here with you. Don't hide.  
  
But he can't. Charles feels his chest get tight, and this time it's panic so deep it claws at him, his breathing hitched and uneven. "I can't," he insists. "If you - I can't, you'll -"  
  
 _Stop_ , Erik Orders softly. _Take a deep breath. That is not up to you. Anything that is inside of you I can withstand._  
  
Charles breathes. His mind comes back - which means the panic does, too, thick and suffocating - but he pushes it down. "We should say goodnight," he mumbles. To Raven and Hank, he means. They shouldn't have this discussion with the two of them sitting in the living room. He's staring at his feet.

* * *

Right, Hank and Raven. Erik guides Charles out to see them once he's reasonably sure Charles won't fall apart-more for his own benefit than theirs, like Erik, he knows they could withstand it, as well. But it is not their place. It is Erik's place, and so he will. He takes Raven's hands and leads her to her feet, pressing her jacket into her arms. "What-is everything OK? "  
  
"It will be," he promises her, and smiles as well as he can for the moment, leaning forward and up to kiss her cheek, to hold her as tightly as he dares. "We have an early morning, but I promise I'll be alright. I love you. Get home safely, yeah?" He says a goodbye to Hank, too, hugging him one-armed, listens to his reminder to keep off his ankle, elevate his wrist, and then - And then they're alone, and Charles is staring at the floor again, shame and fear and panic.  
  
"What did I do?" Erik asks, infinitely grateful to have the curl of Charles's mind back around his, but no less aware of what happened, only that he made some kind of mistake and triggered something and it's up to him to care for Charles, not to hurt him, so he gets rid of all the parts of himself that hurt and lifts his eyes to the other man's, once more calm and effective and in-control. He offers a small smile. "Tell me what happened," he murmurs the Order quietly, leading Charles to sit down on the now-empty couch.  
  
"No, no -" And that's worse. Charles trembles, shakes his head, vehement. "You didn't. You didn't do anything wrong. It was me. I - I did, I didn't -" The words are all stuck in his throat, and he looks and feels decidedly miserable now, a stark contrast to how he's looked nearly all day. "I didn't want you to see."  
  
"But I will," Erik replies quietly. He touches Charles's knee, rubbing his thumb in soothing, rhythmic patterns. "You must know I won't let this go on. Talk to me. Tell me what I need to know. Let me see."  
  
Charles swallows, genuine fear radiating from him. It's not at Erik, but it's there, and it spills out between them heady and sick. "I can't," he insists. "I can't. I can't, Erik, please," he begs, and his teeth clank together, his legs coming up to curl in that self-defensive ball, except his ankle doesn't want to bend. He gasps, trembles harder.  
  
"Why not?" Erik asks instead, his own mind a logical click-and-whir, steadying in the face of panic. "What do you think I will do?"  
  
Charles shakes his head, eyes shut tight. His mind answers anyway, what he can't in words, what he's spent, beneath everything, all day processing. Hate him. Fear him. Leave him. Think he's just as bad as Shaw.  
  
"And this is what you want instead?" Erik murmurs, soft. A life of lies, of omission, of knowing that whatever-it-is rests between them, staining everything even if Erik decides (which he won't) to leave it be? "That is not good enough for me."  
  
It's not good enough for Charles, either. He flinches anyway, hugs his arms around himself. "I'm sorry," he gasps.  
  
"Tell me, Charles." The Order is equally soft, and Erik doesn't let him look away.  
  
Charles breaks apart. He shows him, instead. Azazel's mind connected to his, far off and hot to the touch, rewired and reworked. Reassembled to Charles' liking, a perverted twist of all the terrible, horrific things Azazel wanted. He had thought, _You will call me Master. You will bend to my Will._ _You will be my pet_. And Charles, terrified and angry and horrified, desperate and beaten and listening, always listening, to the rotten, vile thoughts, how he would let Cain fuck him bloody then have a turn himself, whip him screaming and broken on top of the bruises and aches, excruciating, perfectly vivid detail, Charles feeling it down to the sensation of hands on skin and torn open flesh - He flipped it perfectly opposite. Charles had hidden it last night, but now Erik can see it. The last connected thought before Azazel teleported in that haze of smoke and sulfur, after Charles said, as if an Order, leave: _Yes, Master._  
  
Erik... doesn't... understand. Nothing changes in his expression, certainly not the awful, looming judgment and horror that Charles expects. And it's clear that he doesn't think anything particular about Charles because there's enough there that if Erik truly thought him awful, he would, even with the disconnected pieces, but he doesn't understand how Charles could possibly consider himself equivalent to Shaw. Erik's sure he's had much worse thoughts about far less horrid people, only he didn't have the power to enact them, which is really the only difference. And there's the fact that it is Azazel, and Erik doesn't have any sympathy for him whatsoever, not even a little bit, everything Charles had told him and shown him up until now Erik only thinks well, good. Azazel deserved it. And he'd probably think that now, if he actually understood what Charles was trying to get at. Azazel called Charles Master? Humorous, in all honesty.   
  
That Charles turned Azazel's desire for violation and rape onto himself instead? Fucking perfection. Oh, maybe Erik really is the evil one. Look how twisted up Charles is about it, thinking himself as monstrous as Shaw. Well, that's the real answer, isn't it? Charles isn't the bad one here, Charles is perfectly contrite about it while Erik's whole response is essentially the mental equivalent of a shrug. He leans forward and takes Charles into his arms. I do not know if you really know what he did to me, you know, he gives a little huff. _Maybe you do, because you seem to know most of it already, but I can't think of it. I can't speak it into existence, it doesn't exist in memories that can be quantified and verbalized and linearly linked together. Rest assured, you are nothing like him. You reacted out of pain and rage and fear. You reacted after being, G-d forbid, exposed to those memories from his perspective. That is not the same thing._  
  
It's not that Charles has any sympathy for Azazel. The thought that he ever could is enough to make him vomit, actually. But. But. "It was -" He gasps, and finally sobs, leaning into Erik's touch. Seeking it desperately. "You're not - disgusted? Afraid?" He still can't breathe, even thinking about it.  
  
 _No, neshama,_ Erik kisses his forehead, tugging Charles into his lap, resting him over his chest. He doubts he'd have been disgusted if Charles had tortured Azazel physically instead of in his mind, but that it was all a projection only bolsters Erik's resolve. He's got his eyes closed, breath caught in his chest, struggling to keep his hold on himself so he doesn't slide into the one place he absolutely cannot come back from, it won't matter if Charles dissolves in front of him, he won't be able to come back and be present. Rage makes man a beast. _Alles ist gut. No, get away, get away, get away, inhale oxygen. Inhale. Exhale._ He curves around it like a bullet bent to his Will.   
  
That Azazel experienced, what, the equivalent of a particularly visceral fantasy? That he believes he was raped and tortured even if his body bears no marks? No, fear and disgust are not the emotions Erik feels. He's almost ashamed to admit what he does feel, because he does not want to frighten Charles. Because truthfully, good. Good, Azazel got to feel a fraction, an iota of what he had done, of how completely cut off from his spirit he'd made Erik, how he'd banished Erik to an eternity of nothingness, not only an assault on him, but making him violate laws that preservation of life did not even begin to cover. Making him a perpetrator of his own torment. Good, maybe Azazel feels one fraction of an iota what he'd done to Charles, sickly-disgust and every horrific-laid plan to bear, and every tool at his disposal to break him apart. To every victim, to that woman he Ordered off the roof, to the subjects under his custody, good. _Get away, you have to come back, you have to let go. You have to._  
  
Charles isn't afraid. He's deeply relieved, all the way down to his bones, but he isn't afraid of Erik. Frightened, still, and shivering, but not because of these thoughts. He buries himself further in Erik's arms, wraps himself up. _Stay here, please?_ And he asks very nicely. _I need you. Please stay._  
  
The words are grounding and Erik laughs softly, nodding and letting Charles rest his head. _I am here_ , whisper his thoughts, and he is. _And I love you. Very much. Nothing will change that._  
  
 _I could do it to you, too,_ he says, because if he doesn't say it now he never will. _I could do it to anyone. And that doesn't -_ Make you sick to your stomach to think about, like it did to him?  
  
 _You would not harm an innocent if you could help it._ Unlike Erik. He can't help that thought, and he sits up suddenly, elbows resting on his thighs, curled inward. He has been trying valiantly to stay here. Even if Charles did hurt someone innocent, Erik could probably find it within himself to forgive him, find an explanation of sympathy instead of horror. _I know the kind of person that you are. You do not relish suffering._  
  
Charles whimpers. In the absence of Erik, he curls back into himself, but it's a poor substitute. "I'm sorry," he whispers, voice breaking.  
  
"I do not think you have anything to be sorry about," Erik says, lips quirking up faintly. He settles back down against the couch and pulls Charles to him once more.  
  
Charles goes willingly, easily, nuzzles as close as he can possibly get. "Prison will be far too good for him," he says, after a long silence. His voice is colder than it ever is. "It's something, but -" He deserves far worse. In this, Charles is willing to play judge, jury, executioner. No one else could.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "He does not deserve your judgment. Let him rot, and pay him no further mind." That's all that had to happen, Charles leaving Azazel a lifeless husk and despising himself for it, Azazel's last act on the planet to permanently stain Charles's soul with the red blood of his blackened, warped insides. No, it wouldn't do.  
  
"I intend to," he sighs, and shakes his head. No further mind. It won't be possible, and Erik knows it, too. But there's this, and each other, and Charles presses himself into Erik like he wants for them to become one being. Sometimes, he does. "Are we -" All okay?  
  
Erik wraps him up again, smiling. _We are,_ he nods. _All good. Kol beseder_. He means it. There isn't an ounce of fear or disgust in him, just relief that he can put Charles at ease.

* * *

Charles smiles, too, still trembling, and doesn't let go. _I'm very tired_ , he admits, finally, as if it's a great failing. He realizes that they've spent the entire day together, start to finish, however truly horrific the start had been. Morning to evening. There are still loose ends to be tied up, and perhaps they can do that together. An evening routine just like their - admittedly jerky - morning one.  
  
As if on cue, Erik yawns and makes a stretchy noise, covering his mouth by the end of it, and it's so incredibly ordinary and silly that it almost doesn't fit with the preconceived notion of Erik at all, and he laughs softly. _Apparently, so am I,_ he says, leading Charles to his feet. He helps him put the house back in order from Raven and Hank's shenanigans and then leads him to prepare for bed, happiness pinging off of him that this could be them, will be them eventually, mornings and nights together stretched into infinity, and he has to take a breath against the joy of it.  
  
Charles feels that joy and echoes it, his own breath hitching. Several thoughts cross his mind all at once as he's led into the bedroom, all too happy to follow. The first is that the bags that had mysteriously disappeared from the counter are set neatly in here where Erik must have put them, and he very much wants to go through them curiously like an eager child on Christmas morning. The second is that Erik is effectively giving him an evening routine just as he had this morning, and the thought is enough to have him squirming. It's exactly what he needs. It's exactly what, if they both have their way, they're both going to get for the rest of their lives. This is how it is. Charles reaches up to touch the collar on his neck.  
  
Erik is gazing at him with impossible fondness and he Orders Charles to get undressed and lay down with him, curling them back up in the blankets where they belong, warm from skin pressed against skin and the pleasing thought that, for the first time, Erik will be able to sleep here with him. He wonders if it will make the nightmares less intense. Then he worries a bit, because he doesn't want to hurt Charles accidentally in his sleep. He's been known to hit and yell and fling his power outward, bending metal and bedframes. _Can you stop me?_ he asks, quietly. _If something happens? I don't want to hurt you._ It's definitely the opposite reaction a person should have to finding out Charles could make him do anything, but honestly, Erik has known for a while that Charles could make him do anything, he didn't even need his powers.  
  
 _Yes. I'll be here,_ he answers, smiling, and presses close. He's laughing, though, which is fairly out of place considering what's going on here, but he can't quite help it. He really is quite tired, and now wryly amused.  
  
 _You see, we always end up here. Naked in bed. With you laughing at me._ Erik pouts.  
  
 _Not laughing at you, darling,_ he assures, because he rarely ever is. This time, just a bit, and he grins, kissing Erik's cheek. _It's just - you made me write down rules and everything, and then you forgot your own routine. Does that mean I get freebies when I forget, too?_ he teases.  
  
Erik hugs him. _Technically I did write that I could choose to be lenient when it serves me,_ he points out, grinning. Truthfully he hadn't forgotten, but with Charles's injuries and the long day ahead tomorrow, it makes little sense to spare a good deal more time with Postures when Charles will benefit from rest even more, and it leaves more room for tomorrow morning instead, a grounding routine he knows that Charles will need before the grueling day begins.  
  
 _Those weren't your exact words, I have them memorized_ , he hums, exceptionally cheeky, and nuzzles right back into him, tangling all their limbs together. A bit of pillow talk before bed never hurt. _You do know that you're - you're exactly what I need, don't you?_ _That what you're giving me is more than I ever thought I'd have?_ And he'd live, surely, without it. But something would always, always be missing. _I need you to know that. I am so grateful that we are doing this together, Erik. I am so grateful to be wearing your collar right now_. Please don't ever make him take it off, he thinks sleepily. Not at Erik, but at the world. Don't take it from him.  
  
As long as Erik shall live, he will ensure that no one ever does. If it is within his power at all, if he has anywhere to move, any way to decide and influence, Charles will bear his collar for all of his days. It's a good thought to fall asleep to. Erik's arms only tighten around him rather than going limp, an unconscious bid to keep him ever closer. "Luvu," he mumbles, and then, an Order, "Sleep now. Ni ni."


	30. While we strive to figure out a way we can survive.

When Charles wakes, it's to the blaring, excruciatingly irritating sound of his alarm like every morning. He grunts, half-asleep and disgruntled, and burrows further into - it doesn't feel like his pillow, now that he thinks of it. It's warm, and definitely skin, but Charles doesn't have the brain functioning necessary to distinguish why this isn't a normal morning for him. Raven? What's she doing here? Doesn't matter. Sleep. He buries himself deep in warmth and keeps his eyes stubbornly closed, just as unwilling to wake as he is every morning, the buzzing not set in yet and the haze of sleep still worth chasing after. _Five more minutes. Ten. Fifteen._ He can skip a shower, everything's vaguely sore and it hurts and he wants to stay warm. Since when does he sleep naked?  
  
The sound has his bedmate shooting up into full wakefulness with a jolt, and the alarm splinters in on itself before Erik can think to silence it the old fashioned way. He's breathing hard, adrenaline sluicing through his over-sensitive neurons, but he's here. He's in bed. With Charles. "Um," he says sheepishly.  
  
Charles, who grumbles, as if nothing at all happened, and takes the opportunity to steal all the blankets and settle back into the pillows. Charles who is very decidedly not a morning person and never will be. " _Mmmmmnghwarm_ ," he offers, voice thick with sleep.  
  
"Charles." Erik on the other hand is absolutely a morning person and he's already wide awake. "Come on," he tugs the blanket futilely and then starts laughing.  
  
" _Nnnnnooooo_ ," he cries, utterly dismayed, and curls up into a ball, tugging as much blanket back as he can. He nuzzles himself into the pillows, murmuring softly. " _Fi'mins_ ," he mumbles. _Five minutes. Or fifteen._  
  
Erik loves him indescribably. "Come on," he murmurs, piercing the veil of foggy exhaustion with an Order. "The shower is equally warm, I promise you that." They don't have a lot of time for a long, drawn out morning, but Erik set the alarm early enough so that Charles would have time to do his routine and tend to his wounds and care for himself, under Erik's watchful eye. The sun is dark in the sky, a cold chill blowing at the windowsills.  
  
Charles pouts spectacularly, groggy and displeased. He doesn't stop the entire way to the shower, looking very much like Erik kicked his puppy as he rubs sleep out of his eyes with a fist and grumbles. "Cold," he declares, standing in the middle of his bathroom blinking like he doesn't know how to work his own shower. "Too early." Anytime after seven o' clock should absolutely not exist. Charles was going to start a petition to get rid of it.  
  
Erik feels himself in the Real being yanked off of his cot on the floor and he blinks for a second, torn between the sensations as he knows his body is being led to its own shower, and his eyebrows knit together before he focuses back on Charles, on what he can sense here. There'll be more of that today, until they meet in the Real, most of yesterday Erik spent alone in a dark room, unbothered. Now he has attention on him. He gets Charles into the shower and steps in after him, finding it far more preferable here than in the Real-the shower the CIA gifts him with is cold and harsh and grating, and there's someone standing there watching him entirely without life, and he grimaces and turns back to Charles. He thinks the guard is saying something to him, but he wouldn't reply even if he could. "Warm," he counters, letting the steam of the water speak volumes. "See?"  
  
"Mmhmm," he agrees, far from coherent as he blinks and lets it wash over him. He sees both places, now, confused by it. His telepathy is slower to wake up than he is, sometimes, as if it's its own creature. It wraps around the world around him as he wakes up, slowly, reluctantly, dozing against the shower wall and Erik. The city sleeps, too, but not all of it. Outside, a woman goes for a run and he listens to her plan her day. The businessman next door runs stock market numbers. Someone a block down is ill, and Charles' nose twitches sympathetically, the beginnings of a sneeze. It's part of every morning, becoming everyone, and eventually it's just buzzing, a tapered, controlled noise. He reaches blindly for his shampoo, lids still half-closed. "Mmm g'morning," he finally manages, a bleary but sunny smile and sleepy blinking azure.  
  
Erik takes the bottle from him and squeezes out a dollop onto his own hand, working the lather into Charles's hair himself, grinning down at Charles unbidden. " _Boker tov,_ " he replies fondly, watching him as he slowly became more awake and aware, letting him ease the transition with Erik's hands against him, and warmth and the promise of coffee _fine, tea_ , and breakfast and Postures and actions repeated into words, the routine as visceral and physical as Erik's own hands, with every ounce of love returned.  
  
Charles melts into the touch, into the promises, into this. If this is what he gets to wake up to every morning, it's almost worth going through the whole unpleasant business of waking up. He's sore and hurting, but that's nothing compared to having Erik here. Charles smiles like the sun that hasn't quite risen yet, hums Over the Rainbow under his breath and trusts Erik to take care of him. When he's being toweled down, he blinks again, makes a noise that's clearly meant to indicate a request, still not fully there yet. He could send an image. He puckers up his lips expectantly instead, which is silly, but it's his first instinct. _Please?_ He's learning to ask nicely.  
  
He laughs at the image, unable to help himself, covers his face with the back of his hand and almost giggles and quite abruptly muscles into Charles's space, kissing him thoroughly and ending with him half-pressed against the counter. He ends up with their foreheads pressed together, arm wrapped around his waist. " _Hmmmmn_ ," Erik makes a pleased sound.  
  
Charles moans, soft and pleased. He's sluggish and sleepy and doesn't give back quite as much as he's given, but he's immensely pleased. Radiates with it, even around the grumping he's in the habit of doing. "If you think we're waking up before dawn when this is all said and done," he says, the first truly coherent words of the morning, "You are sorely mistaken." Bossy, grumpy Charles, grinning so wide his cheeks dip with it.  
  
"Charles," Erik protests. He peeks his head out the window once he leads him into the bedroom, relishing the way the sky is just barely tipped with pink-amber. "Mornings are the best part of the day. I will sway you to my side, worry not." He gently guides Charles down into Rest and releases him after giving him a peck on the forehead. In the mean time, there is breakfast to prepare. Erik is vaguely aware that he's being made to eat breakfast in the Real, that he has a physical therapy appointment with Shomron that makes the outer edges of his mind cramped and testy with fear, but this is much, much more pleasant to focus upon, and he lingers next to Charles even while he's supposedly planning breakfast, grateful for the contact.  
  
Charles is all too happy to have him here, and very happy to be on his knees, too. He embraces him even when he can't, soft, familiar brushes of his mind, and lets his own float as he grounds himself in routine. Lets Erik see how he flourishes under it, even still blinking off the last hazy edges of sleep. Truthfully, he doesn't want Erik to leave, even into the next room. Even if it's efficient. So, despite the fact that he knows his Postures like breathing now, exactly to Erik's specific standards, he makes a mistake. He's sure Erik will know it's on purpose, that he's asking for correction. For attention. That's okay, though. They both need it this morning.  
  
Erik's already seated cross-legged before him, evidently he's not as comfortable with efficient as he thought today. He can make something quick. If worst comes to worst, there are leftovers in the fridge that he put away last night. His correction is less a correction than an assurance, that he wasn't going anywhere, that he was right here. An assurance for himself, that he was here.  
  
That's exactly what Charles wanted for both of them. He smiles, warm and loving and bright, puts an arm or a shoulder just barely out of place the rest of the way through, a mimicry of that very first time. Tenses up where he knows Erik prefers more relaxed structure, or else slouches slightly. Not because he doesn't know better, but because it means Erik can touch and reassure them both, putting them in orbit and into their place. Charles finishes off at Rest with his hands in the wrong position - palms up, like he'd learned in school. He smiles, wry, and waits. Thinks, _I love you._  
  
He picks up each hand and kisses Charles's fingertips, grinning back at him over the edge of his knuckles before placing them in the proper position. His own hand is being bent unnaturally in the Real, where he's being made to practice lifting his arms over his head and his physical body is frustrated and sore, and he's afraid and ready to forgo this entire thing and just live inside Charles's head for the rest of his life, which is such an appealing thought he has to force himself not to make it reality through Order. Because he could, but they just have to keep going. They just have to endure this and get through it, and then they will be free. Free. Erik's never been free. Even the experiences he has inside Charles's mind are more than he's ever had, the world so much larger and more imposing than he can comprehend. It's not an alluring thought, he's scared of freedom, too, of everything being too much, but it does mean that they can be left alone in their own world on their own terms, to sleep in as Charles desires so strongly (even if he's terribly adorable to wake up early). Erik's smile turns soft. _I love you very much, Charles_.  
  
He's already said it this morning, but he repeats it in his mind a thousand times, all of that open for the taking. _I love you, I love you, I love you. We're going to be extraordinary,_ he reminds. The soft carpet is nice underneath his cut up, bruised knees, though, and the natural positioning of his hands is better for his wrist and the cast, and - yes, Charles is drifting sitting up, right there in Rest, murmuring as his eyelids slip closed. He really isn't a creature suited for early mornings, Erik.  
  
"Charles!" Erik laughs, affronted. "Are you falling asleep right now?"  
  
He was, until he was rudely disturbed, jolted back awake suddenly. Charles pouts. "Uh-huh," he responds, unapologetic, even though he knows Postures are a time for reflection and focusing on Erik's Will, all things he cares very much about and takes very seriously. When the sun is out. "Sleepy." His eyelids go back to drooping.  
  
Erik can't help chuckling, eyes crinkled up. "Come on, _yakir_. Sleepy head. Time for breakfast." He lifts Charles to his feet by his hands and walks him over to his closet. "You will have to pick out what to wear, I am afraid I do not know what is appropriate."

* * *

It takes Charles a while to decide what to wear. He drags his feet on it for as long as they have, holding different suits up, sighing, putting them back down, before he makes the final decision. A smart, darker grey suit, impeccably tailored, very him and incredibly expensive. It would accentuate his collar subtly without drawing too much attention - subtle, proud, not showy. It also looks damn good on him, if he's completely honest, and he looks himself over in the mirror before nodding. If he's going to be broadcast all over the networks, let him look like this, collar peeking out from his shirt and all. By the time he's fully dressed, he feels much more like a functional human being. He lets himself be led to breakfast, though truthfully he has a nervous stomach at this point. That likely doesn't mean he'll get out of eating, but still. He takes stock of what's actually in his fridge - woefully nothing. He's out of eggs, and milk, which meant no tea and certainly no coffee. He'd eaten the last of most of his fruit yesterday morning. "Does a banana count as breakfast?" he asks, holding it up from where he finds it on the counter. It's going to have to, because there's no way he can get down heavy leftovers without being sick. They'll have to sort out the kitchen situation eventually, and the thought of grocery shopping with Erik - Charles smiles, a bit fluttery at the thought. They're bordering on full domestic now.  
  
"Oh, Charles," Erik shakes his head as he takes stock of the fridge. He hadn't realized this-despite being the one to use up all the rest of the ingredients while baking for him yesterday-and he can feel Charles's roiling stomach from here, so he nods and closes his eyes for a second, and then selects a small bar of chocolate from the pantry and holds that out as well. "Caffeine and sugar are good for you," he declares with a grin. Hopefully there is somewhere he can get some coffee or tea on the way. Warren's going to be there this morning as well, because he's making an appearance at every part of the trial, sitting pointedly in the defense isle and using the opportunity to speak into the cameras and exert his influence, so maybe Warren will bring the Goods, too.  
  
Charles grins, very pleased that he's being allowed chocolate for breakfast. He wiggles a little as he hops up on the counter instead of taking a seat at the kitchen table like a normal person, legs dangling a long way down. Some of the sleepiness has edged off, but it's still morning, and there hasn't been coffee, so he's groggy. Naturally. He did sleep plenty last night, though - what time had they gone to bed, eight? Unheard of. He'll admit maybe it feels kind of nice, though grudgingly and not out loud. "Could you grab my phone with your phone grabbing abilities, darling?" he asks, taking little bites of chocolate and humming, pleased, at every one. Sweet tooth. And yes, apparently Erik's extraordinary control over a fundamental force has been relegated to phone grabbing abilities this morning. "I should actually read the email I got sent yesterday." He's not letting himself panic about this. They'll get through this.  
  
"Phone grabbing-" Erik peels off into laughter and extends his hand, snapping Charles's phone into it from where it's buried in the couch cushions. Carmen's sent him two different emails, one with some of the attached medical files so that Charles and Erik could see them for the first time before they were hugely on display in the courthouse, and the other of condensed questions and Carmen's notes detailing Charles's answers and some suggests on phrases and keywords to use and avoid.  
  
Charles yawns as he accepts it, smiling wide and kissing Erik's cheek. He still has to lean up to do it while he's sitting on a counter, and he tries not to shiver at the reminder of their formidable size difference and exactly how much he likes it. How his phone is charged is also a mystery for another day - did Erik have something to do with that? Fascinating. Anyway, he sighs at the medical files, flipping through them quickly. He's already seen them, and Erik's lived them, so no need to dwell too long. He does grin at something, though, showing a few negative tests to Erik. "Six months," he giggles, tickled. It seems like ages ago. They've come so far - and actually haven't had a lot of physical contact since then, believe it or not. A true, absolute shame that will be remedied by the end of all this.  
  
Erik on the other hand plucks the phone out of his hand when it's bidden and stares down at it. The screen scrolls of its own accord-Erik's already fully familiar with how the phone works, even though it's only the second time he's ever used one. It's telling him everything it needs, like a living little bird in his hand chirping for water and being cared-for under Erik's ministrations. Objects shouldn't feel anything, but to Erik, they do. Erik zones out a bit as the images assault his eyes, but he eventually smiles back at Charles and hands the phone to him again. He bends down to kiss Charles on the forehead. "Are you afraid?" he asks, meaning nervous or any other more minor implication of the word, really. He knows Charles isn't easily intimidated.  
  
Charles hides his smile, but mostly because he's considering. "No, I don't think so," he realizes. He reaches for his phone back, glancing through the other document. His screen is covered in notifications, many of them the aforementioned news updates from the day before, but he ignores all of them and speed reads. Exactly what he'd assumed. "I'm really not," he repeats, blinking. Surprised.  
  
"Carmen said that I shouldn't get upset in the court house," Erik mumbles quietly. The reason is clear, he does not believe he can follow through with that promise. Especially because Shaw always knows the quickest, easiest ways to get to him, to force him into reacting. It's probably why he's deigning to appear at all. It's clear Erik is afraid, that he will tarnish the whole operation by bringing that building down, too.  
  
Charles knows that. It's why he hadn't asked, when it's only going to stir the fear around. This is where he would normally bite his lip, but Erik said needs to heal, so he fidgets instead, humming. Thoughtful. "What if I got rid of him?" he asks, which is truly not the best way to phrase the question.  
  
Erik.... blinks.  
  
Right. Charles carefully hops down from the counter (and still winces), tugging Erik gently toward the large window in his living area. The city is waking up, now, and there's a woman getting into her car. He doesn't think Erik has ever seen this from this perspective, at least not with him, and better to show than to tell. "See her?" he asks, and truly this is a perception on top of a perception, but within a blink she's gone. And her car, for good measure. "He can't do anything during the trial, but I know if he's sitting there he's all you'll be watching. At least for a little while, I could... edit him out." Never without Erik's express permission, though. It would absolutely get under Shaw's skin to see Erik not respond at all, as if he weren't even there, and all the better.  
  
Erik shakes his head violently, more afraid of that than the alternative, but not for the reasons Charles might initially assume. Shaw could do something, say something, hurt someone, and he'd have no way of knowing. He would be in the dark. That empty space a pit. And, more than that-and it's more than fear, or reaction, it's a decision, Erik shakes his head again and says, "No." He's staring out the window still, and his green eyes flutter closed. "No," he repeats again, softer. Erik was afraid, this is true, but he won't be cowed. He wants to see Shaw's face. "I can face him."  
  
"Alright. I wouldn't have done it without asking you first, and I absolutely won't do it now," he assures, because he needs Erik to know that. After - after, he needs Erik to know that. They can address the implications of the choice in a second, but he needs an answer to this now. "I will never do something like this without... you believe that, don't you?"  
  
Erik blinks again. "Of course I do." There's no hesitation there. He trusts Charles fully.  
  
Charles nods, shaky. "Thank you," he breathes. He's not sure if it's more than he deserves, but he knows it's the truth. Erik isn't afraid of him. Charles takes Erik's hand in his, looking up at him. "You do know you're stronger than you think you are, don't you, Erik? Stronger than he ever gave you credit for. You don't -" He doesn't want to say it. He takes a breath. "You don't belong to him. You never did. I walked into that room and you knew I belonged to you, isn't that right? And that means you belonged to me, too. I'll be right there the whole time. Physically, and in here." He taps his temple, then grins, because it's silly, perhaps, but he taps his heart too. "And in here. He could never take that away. I'd honestly like to see him try." He has, Charles thinks. Repeatedly. And look how far that's gotten him. Look at how they've come out on top, every single time.  
  
He hugs Charles all of a sudden, resting his chin on the top of his head. He carefully makes himself think nothing, letting his eyes close and relaxing against Charles, and then he grasps onto him very suddenly, and feels himself in the Real being led into a hallway and he's more there than here, mind snapping back like a rubber band. He can feel a rope being affixed to his neck, over a heavy fabric bag that's situated over his head, and panic bleats at his nerves, consciousness abruptly divided. "They're transporting me," he mutters, clearing his throat so his voice doesn't sound so wobbly. "It's not at the CIA?"  
  
"Shh. Shh, love," he murmurs, and tugs him down gently so he can pepper him with kisses. He still can't quite reach his face without the ability to get up on tip toes, but he kisses what he can. It's all exposed skin when Erik is still - at least here - stark naked. "No, the CIA doesn't have a proper courtroom. Technically they're already making concessions by allowing it to be held up here at all. Don't worry, it's a short ride, and I'll be there soon. I promise." It won't be like it is now, but Charles will be there.  
  
He smiles a bit, because the CIA don't know that he's cheating. He isn't behind a bag and blackout goggles and noise cancelling headphones, although he feels a little like he is, he drags his fingers down his unencumbered face here as if to reorient himself. "Can I-" stay, he thinks, pressing as close to Charles as he can get. Stay here.  
  
Charles smiles softly, squeezing Erik's hand. "Always, darling," he promises, though he's grabbing his things and heading out the door, keeping Erik pressed into his side. Invisible to the rest of the world, now, but no less present. "Now, we actually have some extra time, so I'm going to have the driver stop for coffee on the way there, and you're not going to say a word about how not coffee it is." Teasing, grounding. Just focus on me, Erik.  
  
And naked. Erik laughs and walks by his side, not fazed by the cold at all, nor even a shred of embarrassed-even knowing other people can't see them, the fact that they're out in public should engender some form of modesty, but it does not. "I will introduce you to proper coffee some time," he promises, inhaling slowly into his lungs, the chill a soothing balm.  
  


Charles fixes that, anyway, because while _Erik_ might not be embarrassed, Charles is decidedly red-faced whenever he processes it. _Proper coffee is vile,_ he returns smoothly, settling into the car when it comes. He's still a little flushed, and the driver raises an eyebrow. He waves it off with a polite smile and makes his request. The nearest coffee place to the courthouse is a Starbucks, because of course it is. All the same. _Clothes, Erik. Outside. I like you in turtlenecks, which won't be seasonably appropriate soon so I have to enjoy it while it lasts, and besides public decency laws, I also don't need everyone seeing your -_ Ugh. Charles rubs a hand down his heated face.

Erik is laughing into his neck and he gives Charles's ass a pat while he waits in line for his coffee. _I think you like my Ugh_. This is the first time Erik's ever been to a Starbucks and he looks all around curiously, fascinated by everything he sees, heading behind the counter to inspect the machines and look over the food and one of the machines has an _Out of Order_ sign taped to it which Erik surreptitiously removes and he fixes it with a wave of his hand, just a problem with a faulty mechanism. He gives Charles a thumbs up from behind the cashier and makes bunny ears behind the green-aproned man's head.

Which is very much not fair, because now Charles has to give his order and not crack up. It barely works, his straight face clearly two moments from dissolving into undignified giggles, but he pays the barista's confused thoughts no mind. It's fascinating to watch, how intrigued Erik is by everything, how much there is to show him and watch him experience. He's leagues better in public than he was just a day ago, even knowing he can't be seen. In the meantime, Charles' mind cycles through coffee orders, which, fortunately for everyone he's about to order for, is one of Charles' specialties. Like a magic trick, always knowing exactly what you want. He grins. _I'm like the high-Dom coffee boy_ , he comments, and finds himself more wryly amused than horrified at the thought, which is progress in itself. _Do you want anything_? Technically that shouldn't fly, but absolutely no one would have to know, and - Charles just doesn't feel right not at least asking. He swallows around the lump that's suddenly in his throat. So many small ways to serve, to please, to submit, and Charles wants to lean right into it instead of resisting. Grabbing a coffee for someone has never been an act of service before, and now, with Erik, it is. He wants it to be.

Erik picks up one of the bags of coffee beans and everybody looks as it floats of its own accord while Erik holds it up, grinning, eyebrows raised. It's one of their blonde roasts, which Erik has never had before and ergo his curiosity is more apparent than anything else. He doesn't know how he would drink coffee, he doubts he will be allowed anything, but maybe that isn't true, they will be there for hours, Carmen would probably get permission or something for a lunch break. His own coffee order was conservative-he didn't know that Starbucks was pretty safe as far as even their fancier drinks went, so he just went with black, no sugar. He migrates back to Charles's side and cups his jaw, affectionate and terribly pleased.

_I'll make sure no one notices your coffee_ , he promises, and waits for his full tray of an order to be made. He'd ordered for Carmen, Moira, and Warren, too. High-Dom coffee boy, perhaps, but there's only one Dom whose approval in this actually matters to him, and the thought has him fluttery and shy again, ducking his smile. _I like - doing things like this. For you. I like serving you_ , goes unsaid, but it doesn't need to be. Sometimes there's the kneejerk urge to separate it, to divide himself into categories, but it just isn't possible anymore. Charles is Erik's not in some dark corner of the universe or only when it suits him to be, but all the time. He finds there really is no limit to the amount he wants to serve, ordering coffee the least of them.  
  
Warren drank hot chocolate, Carmen was definitely a horrifying fancy whipped cream monstrosity guy, and Moira was like, a pumpkin spice latte person, because of course she was. _I like it when you do things like this for me_ , Erik murmurs back, gentle. _Thank you_ , he says, because no matter what happens, he doesn't feel entitled to it by default, he appreciates it all the more when Charles does do things like this for him.  
  
Charles smiles, terribly pleased himself, Erik's praise settling him more than anything else could. _I wouldn't mind_ , he offers, though, bashful but sincere. _If you - expected it from me? You should. Expect it from me, I mean._ And now he's fidgeting in the middle of a Starbucks and turning a nice shade of pink. _That's your right, too. To be served by me._ There goes the fluttering in his stomach again. Charles has to take a deep breath before he can collect his order and give his thanks, and it doesn't stop those wayward butterflies.  
  
Erik hums at that, pleasantly surprised by how alluring that thought was. On the rest of the journey to the court house Erik spends most of the time finding places to kiss, a reality much lovelier than the one where he's in the back of a van while his arm jostles on bumps and he's trapped in silence and he can feel the guards staring at him in disgust. Here there is no worry, and Erik finds himself leaning into that the closer they get. _I love you_ , he whispers by Charles's side before he enters the gallery early, where only a smattering of people had gathered. There are no cameras yet, but Warren's there charming people nonetheless. Shaw isn't there yet.

* * *

Carmen and Erik are. The first thing Charles notices when he enters the gallery is that Erik is seated at the defendant's table, in a dark black suit that is appropriately fitted (thank Carmen, who also noticed how lumpy and awful the prison-issued suit was), and that he's shaved and gotten a haircut, which makes him look infinitely younger in the Real, and a great deal better than he ever has prior. He's got a temple-mounted suppressor dug into his flesh, which flashes and beeps cortical patterns into a remote device, which is patently useless but he sits there and bears it screeching up against his mind anyway.  
  
"Dr. Xavier," Carmen gives him a pat on the shoulder. "Good to see you."  
  
Charles is very distracted by the way Erik looks. He'd been going off the last time he'd seen him and Erik likely hasn't seen himself yet, so the mental projection hadn't accommodated. Now he looks - younger, and cleaner, and exceptionally handsome, not that he isn't usually. Charles brushes the thought off for later, but he's positive that Erik catches it anyway. _You look stunning_ , he thinks, just in case he doesn't. _Hi, darling._ As if they'd been separated for a moment. He looks different than yesterday too, he realizes. Carmen's eyes wandered for just a moment, and he knows why. Collar. He hadn't been wearing it yesterday morning, and it's the first time he'll be wearing it - in any real way - in public. He tries not to let that fluster him, smiling naturally. "Dr. Xavier was my father," he laughs, and manages to say that without wincing. Not the time, shoved behind a firmly locked door. "Charles is fine. I'm trying my hand at playing intern, by the way, so here you go - excellent choice. You can't go wrong with whipped cream, I always say." He hands over the drink with a grin, leaning against the table as if he's just as relaxed as ever, and speaking as if Carmen had ordered for himself and Charles hadn't extracted it right out of his head.  
  
Carmen snorts a genuine laugh and takes the offered treat. "You are _definitely_ on my good side today," he gives Charles a wry salute. Honestly, he's stopped thinking of him as Dr. Xavier either way, but they're in court, so it's best to remain professional for the time being, lest he slip up and wouldn't that be fun. He isn't that disturbed by the fact that Charles figured it out; at this point he's become comfortable just assuming Charles knows everything about him, but that does present some challenges, since technically Charles doesn't have the security clearance necessary, but that wasn't particularly drafted with telepathic mutants in mind-so thus far he's just sort of ignored it.  
  
Erik smiles down at the table, hands folded demurely in his lap, and Carmen inspects the cup intended to him before sliding it across and he wraps his fingers around its warmth, closing his eyes as the smell wafts up. His arm and hand are still encased in a cast, under the suit jacket, but he's no longer handcuffed; security are on stand-by, but thus far he's been cooperative the entire time he's been in custody, so it's a concession. It's been over a decade since he's had genuine warm coffee and he forgets where he is for a second, lifting the cup to his face to press it against his cheek.  
  
Carmen gestures for them to gather 'round. "All right, so we're going to start with you," he points at Charles. "We'll be going over everything. Then Quested will have the opportunity to cross-examine you. This applies to me as well-keep your answers short and to the point, don't speculate, don't argue. If you don't know the answer, say _I don't know_ , and move on. If you don't understand the question, ask for a rephrase. Don't bother guessing, _ever_. If you can't remember something, _I don't recall_. You don't need to be charming. Try to avoid slang and verbal fillers. Don't elaborate when you don't have to, don't volunteer any further information other than what's being asked of you. This isn't about your opinion. Stick to the basics, a jury can tell when questions are deliberately misleading and I'll have your back if he crosses the line. Then Erik, you'll be in the witness stand while I read out your testimony."  
  
Charles nods, not a single argument. Despite his more casual chat with Carmen yesterday, he knows, perfectly well, what's acceptable in a court of law. This isn't the first time he's testified in a criminal case, but he doesn't take the reminders as some sort of knock against him. This is a lawyer's job, after all, and Carmen is a damn good lawyer. He'd hedge to say one of the best. Charles feels himself shifting, the difference perhaps imperceptible to anyone who doesn't know him well enough, professionalism slowly veiling him in polite smiles and careful words and patient advocacy. There's no getting around that all of this is shockingly personal to him, but none of that, not even an ounce, can show. Nothing reactionary, and absolutely no personal feelings slipping through. Charles is a working professional, Dr. Xavier who has earned a reputation in his field. That reputation is one of compassion, but also efficiency. It's far more approachable than Erik's, but no less a game face. Shoulders straighter, chin lifted, breathing even and mind clear and focused. _Let's get this done_ , then, he thinks, and it's just as much to himself as Erik.  
  
There's no mistaking that Carmen's aware Charles is a _forensic psychiatrist_ , this won't be his first deposition ever, but it doesn't do any harm to go over it, and for Erik to hear it, too. For the first little while the only people on Erik's side are Charles, Carmen and Warren. Everyone else is with Quested, the families of the people who are impacted, the _victims_ of Erik's atrocities. Shaw and his cohorts file in a short while later and then Petrakis and the bailiff follow suit.

* * *

The jury is a group of twelve men and women, and Charles can tell that two of them are mutants, a middle-aged D1 who works as an ASL interpreter and who can flatten himself to be paper-thin, and an S4.2 who attends Columbia and whose mutation allows them to grasp immediate quantum trajectories. It's the latter who's a bit more interesting, because they're the one more apt to be labeled _dangerous_ by the MCA, whose committee on mutant relations are all looking to this case for precedent.  
  
"All rise," is called out and everyone does so, with Erik staring at his feet and avoiding Shaw entirely. Ordinarily the Prosecution goes first in criminal proceedings, and Quested has already done so the day prior, calling up architectural experts, displaying victim profiles, attempting to link Erik to the Separatist Coalition of Israel-Palestine by way of presenting cases that would have required a ferrokinetic, so on and so forth. The documents from the _Arad_ facility are used to explain how Erik came to be an unstable mutant, presenting him as having been in the Arad facility's care for years after _Erik_ decimated his village when he manifested his powers.  
  
The CIA weren't aware that the _Shaw Institute_ was connected to _Arad_ , and neither is Quested, but nevertheless Shaw is called to testify as to the destruction of his own facility-the _Shaw Institute_ have grants with a number of mutant institutions globally and he admits to being aware of Erik as one of the few Omega-level mutants in the world who survived past infancy. Today's proceedings are almost all Erik, with the exception of testimony by Sebastian Shaw, who is called to the witness stand first. He maintains that he knew Erik Lehnsherr as a violent child without self-control, who became mentally unhinged after the death of his parents, which he was responsible for.  
  
Carmen immediately objects. "Excuse me, that's conjecture. Erik Lehnsherr isn't on trial for the murder of his parents, and there is no evidence to support such a conclusion, so I recommend we stick to pertinent facts."  
  
"Agreed, Councilor Pryde. Sustained, jury will disregard." Petrakis gives them all a severe nod.  
  
Erik looks stricken, and the pen in Carmen's hand bends and melts where no one else can see, leaving ink all over his pages and skin. "Oh my-" he stares down as he realizes what's happened and hastily tries to clean it up.  
  
Outwardly, Charles has absolutely no reaction at all. He stares at Shaw as if he's reporting on the weather, not implying that Erik - in a place where the rest of the world, jury included, will hear, regardless of a judge's call to disregard - is a violent, uncontrollable madman who murdered his own parents in cold blood. All while he knows full well exactly what he's done. There's no mistaking the difference between him and Shaw. He never should have insinuated they were anything alike, because the thought alone makes him want to writhe. Charles offers up the handkerchief - meant to be decorative, but functional just as well - he keeps in his pocket, a quick, graceful movement that will go unnoticed to anyone not looking for it. This is still controlled. No one has noticed the mess, and Charles will prevent them from doing so if he has to. He sips at his coffee, and reaches out for Erik, wrapping him up tight every way but physically. _Listen to me, Erik,_ and his mental voice is firm, doesn't shake in the slightest. _This is a tactic. This is him trying to get under your skin, and you aren't going to let him. You aren't, are you_? he asks, and that is gentle. _Focus on me. Lean on me. We both know what he did, and soon the world will. Don't give him an ounce of satisfaction in the meantime. He doesn't deserve anything from you, and he'll never have it again. Remember that we belong to each other. He gets none of you._  
  
Shaw goes on to describe his recollection of what happened at the _Shaw Institute_ , how traumatizing it was, playing himself up as the victim undoubtedly. He keeps his cold eyes locked on Erik the entire time, and Charles can feel that he knows exactly what he's doing, focusing on what he believes to be Erik's deranged behavior, on how many times his Institute was called to develop a way to control Erik, and how they failed to succeed-which he manages to make sound like Erik's fault. Naturally.  
  
Erik hugs himself, rocking back and forth very subtly and focusing on keeping his power reined in so he doesn't melt the walls and foundation of this building. Just like he thought he might. He does lean on Charles, in every way but physical, his mental grip nearly bruising in its intensity. He shakes, struggling to breathe.  
  
It doesn't matter that the jury are ordered to disregard the comments, it is legally impossible for Petrakis to Order it from them which means they heard it, and it will influence them on a small level whether they admit it or not. Carmen objects as often as possible, forcing Shaw to stick to the basics and highlighting to the jury that there is something wrong with this testimony, something inconsistent. When it's Carmen's turn to question him, he rises to his feet smoothly and lifts his chin, determination blazing in his eyes.

* * *

"Can you read this report for me, Mr. Shaw?"  
  
"It's Dr. Shaw," the man corrects haughtily.  
  
"Oh, my mistake. _Doctor_ Shaw." Carmen's eyebrows lift and the bailiff grasps the file, moving it in front of the podium where Shaw's fingers slip the paper from the folder. "Just the highlighted portion is fine."  
  
"Forensic analysis team found evidence of an estimated one hundred and twenty-two separate skeletal remains near the development town of _Arad_ , subsequently referred to as _Sisim_. Twenty of these remains are estimated to be between the ages of two to seventeen years old. In addition to the remains there are-" Shaw falters for the first time that Charles has known him, blinking before continuing on, "there are imprints of various metals, personal belongings, furniture and clothing that suggest the people were deliberately buried in one central location after they were killed, which was then liberally doused in gasoline and ignited, destroying all victims' identifying features and pulverizing much of their bones."  
  
"Right, so as you've mentioned, you're fairly confident Erik's village was destroyed when his power manifested, is that right?"  
  
"Not confident, _per se_ -"  
  
"So you're _not_ confident that Erik is responsible?"  
  
"The information I was given was obtained by the doctors and nurses at the _Arad_ facility. I did not conduct the investigation."  
  
"But you seem pretty interested in commenting on said investigation. Flip to page seventeen, please. The _Arad_ documents place Erik's entrance age as eleven. Can you name me an eleven year old capable of burying a _hundred and two_ grown adults in a mass grave?"  
  
Charles can feel the jury shift at the deliberate use of phrase, already extremely uncomfortable.  
  
"It would seem so."  
  
"We'll save the psychology, I'm talking _physically_ , Dr. Shaw."  
  
"I couldn't speculate on that, Councilor."  
  
"Furthermore, we have documents here that clearly state that Erik Lehnsherr manifested his abilities in elementary school. Care to speculate on that?"  
  
"Objection," Quested rolls his eyes. "This trial has nothing to do with speculation. Dr. Shaw is not the defendant."  
  
"Sustained," Petrakis rumbles. "Keep it relevant, Pryde."  
  
"Let me rephrase. Are you aware, Dr. Shaw, of any information that contradicts the medical report released by the _Arad_ facility, namely that Erik manifested at age eleven?"  
  
"I am not aware," Shaw mutters.  
  
"No further questions. I'll be entering this forensic report into evidence," he lifted it off the podium and placed it on the judge's bench. " _Sisim_ is currently undergoing complete excavation, and you'll be sent the full report for deliberation."

* * *

Charles listens with more than his ears, mind reaching out - and staying perfectly tethered to Erik's, holding him steady, at the exact same time - to the courtroom at large. There are murmurings, whispers among them, both audience and jury. The cameras are on. He has no doubt that the live feed is being played across the nation, curious citizens, human and mutant alike, tuning in. Watching in homes, in offices, in gyms and restaurants and waiting rooms. That doesn't immediately concern him. What does is whether or not it was enough, and if the uncertain, flustered confusion that's draped itself over this room is anything to go by, it surely was. Mass grave, they think. Eleven years old. There's a quiet, subtle buzz, mental voices raised on top of one another and lulled in the same direction. Some of the jury fear Erik. They may even fear mutants. A man sitting stone-faced believes whole-heartedly in the MCA, and will vote affirmatively if it ever comes to a vote. Even still.  
  
That's all they need. Reasonable doubt. They're convincing more than those two mutants, and Charles knows they have everyone's attention now.  
  
Shaw is called off the stand. Charles watches him go, grasps onto his searing, nuclear-fallout mind for just a single instant before he lets go, too, not lingering for more than he has to. When he's called to the stand himself, he goes smoothly despite his subtle limp. He smiles politely, not for any reason besides niceties, though it's certainly charming. It's practically ingrained, a secondary mutation. But everything about him is professional, proper, and fiercely competent.  
  
S5, someone thinks, a voice among the mass of them, noting his collar and then his posture, his raised chin, his unwavering gaze. For the briefest of moments, one anyone will miss, his lips twitch. Not quite.  
  
He goes through his testimony without faltering, voice his normal calm, soft tenor. There's nothing to object to - it's strictly factual, no sentiment or opinion. His qualifications, and the subsequent years he's worked in his field, clarifying any inconsistencies with his age. His official diagnosis, repeated for the court, and Erik's symptoms. His observations, and purely that, spun from a psychiatric standpoint with no filler. A recounting, stripped bare, of his interactions with Erik since, from initial labs and interview to trial. Erik is severely traumatized but competent and cognizant, and shows no psychological inclinations toward persistent violence or aggression, nor sadistic tendencies. He has been compliant and cooperative.  
  
He listens, background whirring and processing, as they fit together eleven years old/mass grave with recurring and persistent trauma/beginning in childhood/severe dissociative symptoms and watches as they begin to lock into place.  
  
When it's time for cross-examination, Charles is calm as can be.  
  
Erik has his head buried in his hand, braced over his arm lying over the table as he shivers, forcing himself to stay calm and in control. This is the image the cameras catch onto while Shaw and Carmen went back and forth, shrinking in on himself. There are a few on the jury who think he's being dramatic, but there are also those who believe that he's sincerely affected, which shouldn't be tactical, but is. He completely zones out the time between the Prosecution's final statements and when Carmen moves to make his Opening, only tuning in at-  
  
"-and we seek to demonstrate that over the course of sixteen years, Erik Lehnsherr was systematically tortured and experimented upon by a subsidiary of the _Shaw Institute_ , whom also transported him to the United States in anticipation of dismantling their _Arad_ program once it became clear that they were under investigation for medical malpractice by the Israeli government. Dr. Shaw and his organization is responsible for the destruction of _Sisim_ , the deaths of countless patients in their custody, and drove Mr. Lehnsherr to act in self-defense when he escaped from the Institute on American soil, where he also managed to save the lives of twelve other victims, most of whom were underage. To start with I'd like to call to the stand professor and Dr. Charles Francis Xavier, a renowned expert in the field of post-traumatic stress disorder and forensic psychiatry-"  
  
Carmen leads Charles through his testimony easily, and they work in extraordinary tandem as if practiced (which they are, but they also have equal goals in mind here, despite their different motivations). He only asks enough questions to allow Charles the opportunity to express everything worth expressing-for the defense's side, Charles is given more free reign to talk, to explain his perspective, his impressions, his qualifications, it's only during the Cross that he will need to zip up and only give the bare minimum.  
  
Outside Charles can feel when the crowd begins to grow larger, protesters with posters and curious onlookers and civilians and anyone and everyone in-between. Some people are openly supportive of the MCA and registration, while others are plainly on Erik's side just for the bare fact that he's a mutant and he's somehow become symbolic and synonymous with mutant rights, especially because it's seen as a more fringe conspiracy theory that the Shaw Institute were experimenting on mutants-only now it's turning out that this might not be so fringe after all.  
  
Carmen sits down when he's finished guiding Charles through it and Quested enters the area. "Thank you for that information, Dr. Xavier," he starts off perfectly amicable. There really isn't anything about him that suggests genuine animosity, thus far the people involved in this system all appear to be professionals with dedications to their parts of the job, and it's funny because Quested is a mutant and Pryde isn't, now that Charles gets a look at his mind-he can control wind, slight enough that almost no one knows about him. "I will assume by now that you have reviewed the footage of the _Shaw Institute_ 's destruction. Can you, in your own words, describe the psychological prerequisites necessary to go through with such an attack? You maintain that Mr. Lehnsherr isn't an extremist, but it can't be denied that ten people are dead. This was an act of violence. I find your claim that he has no psychological inclinations toward aggression incredibly unlikely."  
  
This is, despite everything, despite any personal entanglements and stakes - and there are many, the fact that he's wrapped himself snugly up in Erik's consciousness one of them - Charles' job. He doesn't look at the camera as he speaks, nor angle himself even slightly toward the jury, the way Shaw had done (erroneously, someone should have said something, but here they are). His answer, when it comes, is calm and composed. "Mr. Lehnsherr experiences dissociative symptoms related to post-traumatic stress," he explains, repeating information he's already given. "Which entails a detachment. When an individual has been subject to repeated and persistent trauma in the form of violence, a triggered dissociative episode can include an acting out of that violence as a defense mechanism. He has no unprovoked inclinations for aggression not related to those episodes and extreme psychological conditioning."  
  
"And is it your opinion that violence as a defense mechanism is acceptable?" Quested asks.  
  
"Objection, as fascinating as Dr. Xavier's treatise on the acceptable limits of violence may be, this isn't a lecture hall."  
  
"Sustained. Councilor Quested, do you care to rephrase?"  
  
"Disregard," Quested shrugs. "Very well, then, Dr. Xavier. Then is it your _professional_ opinion that Erik Lehnsherr is susceptible to repeated episodes of violence, within the context of appropriate triggers, which are, I presume, too numerous to elaborate fully for this court?"  
  
Charles, for just a moment, hesitates. There's no outward sign of it, and no true inward one, either, but he's perfectly aware that how he phrases himself is going to matter. "Erik Lehnsherr has been susceptible to dissociated episodes of violence when exposed to triggers related to his trauma," he allows. There's no getting around that with a body count, but there need only be proof that the violence was an act of self-defense. "Appropriate triggers in this case, while numerous, are extreme acts of violence or threat in themselves."  
  
"So when Mr. Lehnsherr feels threatened, it's _reasonable_ to conclude that he may once again resort to violence such as what we witnessed earlier today," Quested rephrases Charles's statement and turns it back on him, one eyebrow arched.  
  
That's not at all what he said, but Charles doesn't so much as blink, nor does he argue, his own eyebrow arched. "It doesn't follow that one episode will lead to another. Mr. Lehnsherr's triggers are related to the trauma he experienced from childhood, acts of extreme violence. An episode triggered under those circumstances is not the same as any perceived threat. He is capable of distinguishing between the two."  
  
"How is it that you are able to determine with such certainty that he is? I have here the documents from Mr. Lehnsherr's stay at the hospital. He severely injured the detained individuals Emma Frost and Nathaniel Essex, he assaulted you via shrapnel, and he used his abilities without regard on several of the nursing staff. Is that incorrect?"  
  
Charles lifts his chin higher, but doesn't show signs of reaction. "All the mentioned incidents were under duress and actual threat, as well as exposure to the extreme aforementioned triggers related to that trauma. Mr. Lehnsherr was acting in self-defense for himself or others in all cases." He pauses, and then adds, "It is also factually incorrect to say I was assaulted."  
  
Erik tenses in his seat, unseen because his face is obscured by his arm.  
  
"Factually incorrect," Quested murmurs. "Then perhaps you'd care to correct the record?"  
  
"An assault implies intent. Mr. Lehnsherr had no intent to cause me harm, and was under assault himself at the time." Charles doesn't say the word accident, but it's implied anyway. He'd much rather that be on the record than an assault, because it certainly wasn't one. He tugs Erik's mind where it's in his grasp, a gentle reminder, an embrace.  
  
"I'd like you to watch a clip for me, and tell me what you think about this when it's finished playing. I'd like the jury and audience to please be aware that this footage is graphic, so anticipate that and prepare yourselves." Quested presses play on the remote by his side and the television they'd wheeled in flicks on to show an image of Erik-an image that has _not_ been played on the news.  
  
Nothing blurred out this time, and with the sound relatively in-tact-it's an iPhone video taken from witnesses on the scene-naked and bloody and limping and crazy-eyed, yelling, " _Sag mir, wo Shaw ist!_ " at a scientist wearing a lab coat who's thrown clear of the building as it smokes and shudders in the backdrop. The scientist raises his hands, and debris flies up around Erik, poised at him. Erik grabs him by the collar and abruptly impales him on spiked ends, blood dripping out of his mouth and soaking his white clothes.  
  
He's the last one to die-Charles recognizes him from Erik's memories, a man who traveled with them from Arad, who routinely enjoyed Erik's _services_ , who gained a great deal of pleasure out of inflicting pain-and everyone watches as Erik resolutely stalks back into the crumbling structure, pulls out every last body, folds them all up peacefully with their arms over their chests and covers them with their own clothing. There's an audible phrase he keeps saying but it's not coherent through the video, his voice too low for the muddled iPhone to pick it up. Then he stands and it fades into what everyone else is familiar with, him shouting _keep them safe!_ in German as a plume of smoke curls up at the edge of the frame.  
  
"You say that you don't believe Mr. Lehnsherr has sadistic tendencies. That looks pretty premeditated and sadistic to me. You understand we aren't merely talking about an assault, here. Mr. Lehnsherr murdered ten people and then presented them to law enforcement like trophies."  
  
Of course during their time preparing Erik's testimony this had come up. Carmen made them go through it in excruciating detail, as much as Erik remembered at the time, and although Erik's recollection is fractured, he did maintain at one point that he went back inside for them-the dead-before he crushed the building to the ground. The murders themselves are disjointed in his mind, but he does remember the horror of recognizing his actions, resolving it was necessary, and doing what he could for them after the fact.  
  
It's a kindness that no one on the jury or the international public will ever grasp, no matter how Charles spins it.  
  
Charles feels sick. He feels well and truly, absolutely, sick. It doesn't show on his face - he covers it just as instinctively as he does his bruises - but it's there, plain as anything, for Erik. He's faintly green and clammy, and his knees threaten to bend, his ankle suddenly far too weak to support his weight. He doesn't fall, but he thinks at any moment he might. He's seen it already, in Erik's mind, the outer edges of it. It's nothing quite like this, the room hushed and disturbed and horrified, and he is, too, but - But not because he's terrified of Erik, and what he's capable of. Because he's horrified that Erik was pushed to this. That this is the culmination of years of compounded torture and trauma completely unimaginable to everyone in this room. Except Charles, now, who has seen far too much of it. He's horrified that this is his gentle-hearted, kind Erik, who loves poetry and literature, singing and sculpting and picking flowers. That this is what they made him, a being of rage and justice. And yet, still - still - They'll never understand him. Erik, in one of their first sessions: _you could never understand me_. But Charles does. And he aches for him.  
  
"Erik Lehnsherr was systematically abused and tortured for sixteen years, beginning at the age of eleven. Some of that abuse which was perpetrated in the building you just watched be destroyed," he says, when he says anything at all, and it's a testament to his strength that his voice does not waver. "The resulting psychological effects are more than severe. That does not make Mr. Lehnsherr sadistic outside of psychological conditioning and triggers he was consistently and repeatedly exposed to under those circumstances. Professionally speaking -" It's the first time Charles visibly falters, when he takes a stuttering breath. "I have never worked with a patient exposed to conditions and trauma as severe as his. The effect that had on his psyche is near unspeakable, and has precedent only in instances of equivalent trauma - instances of psychological and physical torture outside the realm of normal comprehension that mark the very worst of human history. There is no possibility that a mind can sustain that sort of trauma without fragmenting, and that Mr. Lehnsherr is a functioning individual at all is frankly astonishing. That is what I think."  
  
Perhaps it's out of line. Perhaps there will be an objection. Charles says it anyway, and knows the jury hears it. He knows everyone will hear it.  
  
Charles can feel Carmen's reaction before anyone else's, a solemn hum of yes, there it is, good, you got it. Because it isn't just Charles that can see the response of the gallery and the jury, the looks on their faces are plain for everyone at this point, telepath or otherwise.  
  
And it turns out to be a wonderful segue, because Quested recognizes for himself when he's lost the court of popular opinion right now, so he simply nods and says, "No further questions."  
  
"You may step down, Dr. Xavier," Petrakis bids him with a wave of his hand.

* * *

He sees Erik surreptitiously rubbing the back of his hand over his eye, catching tears that no one else will see fall. _Soleach li_ , he whispers inside Charles's mind. _Bevakasha. Slicha._ Desperately wishing Charles hadn't seen it. For all that he claims he isn't guilty over it, now he desperately wishes this hadn't happened, fuck his morals and sense of righteousness, if only Charles didn't need to see it-see him like that.  
  
Carmen doesn't give anyone any time to pause from the way they've begun to question what they think they know, in no small part thanks to Charles. "The defense calls Mr. Erik Lehnsherr to the stand," he calls out, clear as a bell.  
  
The judge bids him to rise, but Erik is still and silent while the command is clearly hanging in the air, like he can't hear anything, can't get himself to move.  
  
This is the most dangerous thing he will do all day, and Charles does it without skipping a beat. The entire world bends, perceptions altered imperceptibly in every direction. For a single, lingering moment, there are no eyes on Erik, no eyes on him. The cameras will not catch this, not aimed at the defense table, and there is no one currently capable of swiveling them, Charles managing that as well. He has never wielded his mutation like this, demonstrating that he is truly Omega-class. Never in his life. He gives it no thought, and for just a second the world pauses for them. Charles reaches for Erik's hand as soon as he reaches him, nearly tripping in his attempt to hurry. _Listen to me. Look at me, Erik. Look, darling._ He touches Erik's face as he crouches before him, as gently as he can while he wears this cast. He meets his eyes, Erik's filled with tears because his perception is always truer than what everyone else sees. _Nothing has changed. I love you. I love you with my entire being, and this has changed nothing. You said it last night: this is mine to bear. This is my place. Anything that is within you, I can withstand. Now I need you to get on that stand and show everyone that you are not the monster. I need you to do this for us. For me. Can you do that, Erik? Please?_ Erik promised he would give him anything, if he only asked nicely. Charles is asking nicely. Begging.  
  
Erik's takes a long time to focus his gaze up to Charles's and he abruptly places his hand over the other man's, trying desperately to force his heartbeat to slow down, marshal the panic and fear and grief threatening to crush him under its waves. Charles's voice is the only thing keeping him anchored, and he catches on the collar at his throat, a brilliant blue just like the sky, like the azure of his eyes. He traces his fingertips over it gently. _Not a monster?_ he whispers, and the thought is so soft it's almost inaudible beyond the crashing of waves and tides roaring inside.  
  
Not a monster. And that's not what color this collar is, Erik, he corrects, gentle, and then, because they have the time - because every mind (perhaps except one, and he couldn't give a damn, let him watch, let him see, let him know he's utterly lost) bends to him, humming and held carefully in his gentle fingers - he kneels, even if it's more of a crouch. The gesture is the same either way. It's the color of your eyes, or the closest approximation in that store. _Did you know that's why I picked it? Because if I cannot have the collar you designed for me, I wanted it to have a part of you. Your beautiful eyes. You are not a monster, Erik. You are extraordinary, and I love you very much. Please, for us._  
  
Erik leans over and kisses his forehead, pressing them together to pull himself the rest of the way together. _Charles?_ he murmurs, blinking a bit. He hadn't thought of this before now. They hadn't prepared for it, either, so maybe it's not such a great idea, and they'd have to-maybe it's a horrible idea-but things would be faster, if it worked.  
  
Charles blinks right back, catching onto the thoughts but not entirely sure where they lead. _Yes, darling?_ he asks. Horrible ideas are becoming his specialty, so whatever it is, perhaps it's worth a try.  
  
 _If I were-_ he looks around at everyone suspended in mid-air, smiling a little at Charles's display of power. He taps his throat. It's such a silly idea that he's almost positive it isn't feasible, there's no precedent in the world for it.  
  
There's no precedent in the world for quite a lot of things, and yet here they are. Charles isn't fazed. _If you were what, Erik?_ and it has just an edge of playful try me, even now.  
  
 _If I were able to speak, Councilor Quested would ask me questions, too._ Erik looks sheepish. _After Carmen reads what he wrote-_ he looks at Charles, lips quirking in a frown. _But you would have to translate._  
  
Charles considers that. _What are you asking me to do?_ he asks, and it's clear he doesn't think it's a silly idea at all.  
  
 _I could think what the answer is_ , Erik says. _But you would have to say it out loud. Then he could cross-examine me now instead of making my testimony last for two days._  
  
It could work. It could absolutely work, if it were to be allowed. They would need Carmen in on this, though, so he stifles a bit of a laugh at the outrageousness of the moment, stands - but not before leaning against Erik's knees, head bowed, not before kissing him on the cheek quickly when he does - and taps Carmen on the shoulder. All of a sudden he's come to life, and truthfully, it's only been seconds. Charles hasn't stopped time or anything like that, but time is a perception and the cameras weren't rolling to catch the rest. No one will be the wiser - except, perhaps, for one person. One mind he can't hold quite as effortlessly as the rest, but there's nothing he can do even if he can see. Let him. "Hi," he greets, as if it's perfectly normal for everyone to be suspended as they are. His daughter phases through solid matter, he imagines he'll survive the shock. "Don't mind everyone else, they're perfectly fine. How do you feel about telepathic assistance for cross-examination? Is it doable?"  
  
It's perhaps a deep testament to Carmen Pryde's character that he only stiffens minutely, taking stock of the situation he's found himself in after a quick glance at everyone else, an-are you sure they're fine?! in his own mind, not verbalized aloud, before he's quickly analyzing what Charles has actually said to him, looking at Erik who's also in motion, determining that he must've wavered somewhere-and grateful that Charles caught everyone before it spilled out. "I'll definitely have to approach the bench with Quested for it, but it should be feasible. The Cross is actually voluntary for Erik because of the Fifth Amendment, defendants are not obligated to testify against themselves, so he'll probably be happy for the opening. If you're willing?"  
  
Erik gives him a nod. "Yes. I do not want-" he swallows. "I want to-" presses his hand against his mouth, breathes. "I want to stand up for myself. He will ask what everybody else thinks already. I want to address it."  
  
"Are you sure? Because once you're up there, I can't help you, Erik."  
  
"I am sure."  
  
"Then, I think it should be OK. I don't think you'll get an objection."  
  
Charles nods. That's all the answer he needs. Erik deserves this chance, and he can give it to him. When he got all high and mighty about giving a voice to the voiceless in medical school, he didn't anticipate quite as literal an application. He grins despite himself, blinks, and suddenly the courtroom is in motion again. No one is any different than they were when Charles paused them, nor are they aware any time at all has passed. No headaches this time. No tells at all, actually, and he feels perfectly fine himself. No migraine. In fact, he hasn't had one in quite some time.  
  
He's getting good at this. Perhaps he's allowed just a moment to be smug.  
  
Erik wants to reach out and touch him, somehow managing to be amused despite the situation, and he moves to approach the witness stand. he's sworn in to which Petrakis reads off his placard-do I solemnly affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under injuries and penalty of perjury-to which Erik gives a single nod.  
  
Carmen rises from his seat smoothly and flips open his folder, raising his chin to regard the assembled jury with something resembling determination behind his otherwise calm demeanor and gestures for Quested to follow suit. "Your Honor, can we approach the bench?"  
  
Petrakis nods. "Up here, then."  
  
"As we've previously agreed, I've prepared Mr. Lehnsherr's statement in advance which I'll read for the jury now, but we'd also like to extend to Mr. Quested if you so choose, the opportunity to conduct a cross-examination here rather than submitting questions to us after the fact."  
  
Janos's eyebrows raise. "Your client is mute, correct?"  
  
"That's right, which will necessitate a rather unusual workaround. As you both know, Dr. Xavier is telepathic. He can translate Mr. Lehnsherr's responses and dictate them for the court."  
  
Petrakis blinks, eyebrows raised. "Do you have any problems with this?" he looks to Quested.  
  
"No, Your Honor. That will be acceptable." It looks like Pryde's instincts are dead-on, as usual.  
  
"All right, that'll be it, then. Dr. Xavier, if you want to take a spot up here," he motions for Charles to take a seat on a chair he's obtained from the gallery and placed near the wood-paneled box.  
  
This case is making history all around. Give them more to talk about, as far as Charles is concerned. He can hear the murmurings all around at what's happening, many of them shock, a few of them genuine outrage. There are those who do not like it, and Charles will have to live with that. Let's see if they can't change a few minds today, just as he promised. He sits in the offered seat. Carmen is about to read horrific things off a paper, and Charles does the mental equivalent of linking his hand with Erik. They're in this together, now. They always were. Do you know it's very hard for me to call you 'Mr. Lehnsherr'? Not only for obvious reasons. He hides the twitch of his lips well. It might not be there in actuality, only for Erik though they aren't facing each other. _When we first met, you said 'my name is Erik, please use it.' Are you aware that was an Order? It feels exceptionally wrong to even refer to you as anything else - well. 'Sir' works, too, but that was also an Order. Very much so._ Some chattering nonsense while they wait. It seems to help Erik, anyway, and trust Charles to be talkative. That's one of his specialties, too.

* * *

Quested returns to sit down, while Carmen remains standing, and he flips open the file. "This testimony comes in two parts," he starts calmly. "The first will be a written account of Erik's experiences leading up to the event in question, and the second will be a detailed evidence submission with medical records, video footage and photographs that demonstrate the truth of this affidavit. Unfortunately Erik suffers from a condition known as selective mutism, which is an anxiety disorder predicated around the ability to produce spontaneous speech. It would be my preference that Erik share this testimony with you in his own words, but this will have to suffice. As my colleague mentioned once before, what you're about to hear and see is quite graphic and extreme."  
  
Carmen had already fought the fight necessary to present it at all, with Quested's objections being that it would unfairly bias the jury, but that was overruled by Petrakis in summary as the reality of the situation couldn't be held responsible for Erik's failure to properly defend himself. Jurors are already leaning forward in their seats, attention on Carmen like puppets on a string; there's no denying he can command a room, an otherwise unassuming individual, he's in his element now, wielding words like a mutation of his own.  
  
He gets started-and it's already deliberate that he's switched from using Mr. Lehnsherr to Erik's first name alone-humanizing him. Subtle, but distinct, and people catch on pretty quickly. Erik tries to focus on his hands in his lap, and on Charles. _Was it an Order?_ he huffs. _I didn't realize. Do you mind it?_  
  
The chronology follows nearly verbatim what Erik had told them in the CIA complex, but Carmen's stripped it out, made it more evocative in some places, clarified what might've been muddled in Erik's own words, demonstrating clear and effective timeline that has everybody gasping by the time he's done reading the first three paragraphs, and they haven't even begun to cover his time at the _Arad_ facility.  
  
One juror, the Columbia student, looks about ready to vomit by the time he explicitly details Azazel's first assault, and where Erik had used sparing language, skirted over the implications, Carmen does not. Everyone's mind is ablaze, even those most inclined to see Erik punished, even hanged for his crimes are faltering now, and it might be victorious except that Carmen is using Erik's worst experiences themselves as a weapon, and Erik has his fingernails curled into his palm, drawing little blood droplets down his wrist.  
  
It seems to go on for hours, time dilating and stretching, and Erik finds himself floating out of his own body. There are pages of it. By the time he's on the third one, people are genuinely unsettled, distress thick in the air. Some people have their own experiences clanging loudly at the forefront of their memories, others are entirely unable to fathom it at all. Experiments, assaults, medical procedures, torture, mock executions, humiliations, suffering upon suffering upon suffering overlaid like cross-hatch marks.  
  
By page five, Petrakis calls a recess.

* * *

Charles feels all of it.  
  
Now there's a migraine. A terrible migraine.  
  
It happens, sometimes. A side effect of his telepathy. The minds around him slide in, and Charles slides right out. Perhaps it's a form of dissociation in itself, a coping mechanism for a mutation that can otherwise be quite overwhelming. He was nine when it kicked in, and wholly unprepared for it. In moments like this, it's fairly easy to lose himself.  
  
Warren is thinking about Angel. About what was left of his body. Charles becomes him, for a short while. He loses his son. He brands himself with the date. When he looks down, he can see the tattoos on his own arms, except they're covered and bare besides underneath. It doesn't matter.  
  
Around him, everyone stands, stretches, steadies themselves. Charles stares at nothing, drifting in and out of minds until he has become everyone in this room and forgotten who he is.  
  
Shaw is absolutely terrified by now. He's spent much of this trial in a position of amused higher-than-thou superiority, not believing there was any way this ended other than with Erik being branded as a mad man and carted off to jail in a country he didn't need to give a second thought to ever again. Not now. Shaw's name came up in the first paragraph, and everybody's been openly staring at him since.  
  
But he stays where he is, because-and Charles realizes this now-he wasn't only a witness for the Prosecution, he's also been subpoenaed by the Defense, and making a run for it would only cement him as the villain. Right now he still thinks there's a possibility that Erik can be painted as crazy, but doubt is beginning to seep in. The record is too thorough. It's too coherent. They have more evidence than just Erik's word, too, he's sure of it, and he's starting to feel trapped in place, buzzing with pulsating energy.  
  
Erik's got his head between his knees, struggling to take in oxygen, hiding himself away when the cameras try to descend in the wake of the recess. Carmen puts himself bodily between them, barking at them to get back, give everyone space. It's always been his intention to stay and help Charles when he needs it, knowing he will, horrified that he has to sit and listen to this-but they went to that place that Erik can't come back from, in front of the whole world, and he isn't here anymore, he's not here-  
  
He stumbles off to the side and vomits all over the floor a short while later, ending up on his knees and instantly flanked by guards with plastic weapons.  
  
Charles snaps into action. In half a second, the world is wrapped around his little finger again, migraine be damned. Not stopped, but altered in a thousand nuanced ways in the blink of an eye. The guards step back, their memories imperceptibly changed, and any moral compunctions he has are gone now. No one saw. No one will see. Charles creates a bubble, flips whatever perception he has to. And he gets right to his knees in front of Erik, tugging them both out of the way of the sick on the floor. He'll do something about that in a second. It doesn't matter to him now. "Erik, look at me," he whispers, and his voice breaks. There are tears on his cheeks, but he's not sure he's shed them. In the end, it doesn't matter. "I am so proud of you. I am so -" Charles takes another shaky breath. "I am so in love with you," he finishes, because as always, it's what he has to offer. It shouldn't be enough, but Erik keeps promising it is. "And I am here, and we are in this together. I am here, and so are you."  
  
Erik buries his head in Charles's chest, stiff as a statue, and he feels himself starting to retch again, pulls himself off to the side just in the nick of time but nothing happens, thankfully. He just dry-heaves repeatedly, drenched in sweat and trembling, mind entirely empty. He takes in air like he's breathing through a straw, the world swimming because he can't seem to make his lungs work. His fingers brush over the edge of Charles's collar.  
  
That's alright. That's nothing Charles can't handle. He gathers Erik right back up, lets him hold onto his collar as he slips his fingers into Erik's newly-cut hair, stroking gently. It's slightly damp with sweat, but Charles doesn't mind that either. "Shh, Erik," he soothes, and hums to him quietly. _Over the Rainbow_ , and they will get there. He does mind that they're being watched by someone who knows their way around telepathic redirection, but he does nothing. Shields it from Erik, at least in this. _Look_ , he wants to say. _Go ahead. Look at what you've wrought, and watch as it crumbles right on top of you, you sick son of a bitch. You'll pay for all of it._ He's projecting right into that mind, but he doesn't realize it, too busy rocking Erik in his arms.  
  
And that mind projects right back. _Keine Angst, Ich schaue zu_. It's doubled-down on fear, now, all pure, directed motivation because he knows, now. He knows _Kleiner Erik_ 's weak spot. He's exposed his belly and Shaw won't hesitate to rip in the knife. Charles is the only thing, he realizes, keeping him from freedom. The only person who commanded the jury's attention from the get-go, who can communicate with Erik in a meaningful way. Pryde's got his skills, but he'll be easy enough to take care of. With Charles out of the way, Erik will crumble. He won't be losing anything. Best-laid plans.  
  
Every time Erik starts to have a thought it gets obliterated on the surface of a superheated volcano. The only way he can survive this is to stay below the surface, hollow himself out. If he thinks any thoughts he will die. His heartbeat hammers against Charles's chest, stutters in his own, tightens up and jolts him in blaring-static arrhythmia.  
  
Charles isn't afraid of Shaw. Perhaps he should be, knowing what he does. Perhaps he should be, with Erik falling apart in his arms, turned off and stuttering, the result of every wretched thing that man ever did to him, whether by his hands or another's. He isn't, though. Not in the slightest. He doesn't engage. He doesn't project back. He doesn't double down on his redirection, either, does absolutely nothing to hide him and Erik from view though he knows he could. His telepathy works on Shaw, it just requires a targeted effort. Just because he is more difficult to manipulate does not mean he cannot be manipulated. He and Erik are not each other's weakness. They are each other's greatest strength, and to think otherwise is a gross bastardization he does not find at all out of character for Sebastian Shaw. He cannot imagine that he has ever loved someone in his long, miserable life, and perhaps Charles pities him that. The recess will be over soon. Charles will hold Erik until then, rock him and sing to him. He recites lines from books, some that Erik knows, others he may not. He keeps him close, and steadies out his heartbeat with his own. Strokes his hair how he likes, and makes sure he knows he is loved now. Above all else, he is loved, and this will all be over soon.  
  
Erik ends up in Charles's lap fully, a practically silly demonstration as even at his smallest and most vulnerable he eclipses Charles in every way, long limbs strewn more over the floor than on Charles, but he starts to calm at long last, head tilting up into that touch like a cat basking in the sun, making distressed, low noises that are more a rumble against Charles's sternum. He strokes his hand along Charles's jaw and settles it against his throat, over his collar, a reminder of everything between them and it's the first thought he has in what feels like a million years, how grateful he is that Charles wore it today.  
  
Charles smiles, soft and adoring. _I'll always wear it, from now on. There won't be a day I won't be wearing your collar, Erik_ , he vows. He kisses the top of Erik's head, and laughs quietly, despite the situation. Despite the prying eyes, which Erik hasn't noticed and will not. Erik needs him now, and Charles will give him everything. _You overgrown octopus,_ he teases. _Your legs are the size of my entire body._  
  
Erik hides a smile in Charles's neck, breath hitching on a sob that threatens its way out. For all that Charles has seen him cry, he's never done so in the Real, not physically-a distinction Charles finds difficult to make, sometimes, with how close they've always been. Maybe he isn't capable of it. The noises that come out of him are ones you'd expect with tears, but his eyes are dry, at least in the world. He laughs a little and kisses Charles's skin where his head is buried. _You can be an axolotl._  
  
Charles holds him through it just the same, hushing him with soft nonsense words, kneading gentle fingers into the nape of his neck. _Why do I have to be an axolotl? Am I missing a joke here, Mr. - No, I really can't do it, can I? Strange. Good, too, because I love saying your name, Erik._ He kisses the top of Erik's head, grinning. _Erik. Erik. My Erik._  
  
 _They're cute._ Erik blinks up at him, mind torn in two as his body doesn't seem to know what's going on and shudders with instinctual terror, while his mind glitters, smiling. He thinks of a picture, puffy-faced little creatures of all pink with smiles of their own that tapdance along the shore. It's wearing a top hat and a monocle and leather shoes for good measure.  
  
Charles takes care of both. Last night, Erik had been adamant about it as Charles panicked and shook: it was his place to handle it. It's Charles' place to handle this, and so he does the best he possibly can, rocking his overlarge Dominant in his lap, fussing and kissing and petting. Grounding him with touch. _I'm not cute_ , he protests, and kisses Erik's nose when he pulls away from his chest long enough for him to get to it. _I'm actually the opposite of cute. You couldn't find someone less cute than me if you tried, I'm afraid._  
  
Erik's nose twitches at the contact, wrinkling up and his limbs get heavier, tension melting out of him more and more the longer they remain in proximity. _Good thing I don't want to try,_ he whispers fondly, feeling a prickle at the back of his head as though sensing Shaw's eyes boring holes into them. He shivers and burrows closer. He told them- bile wants to rise back up in his throat, sorrow piercing him like a bullet. _I don't think I can, Charles. You're wrong. I'm not strong._  
  
 _Shh. No, none of that. It's not true._ It's firm, and Charles goes back to rocking him as much as he can. It's a bit difficult when Erik is far, far too large for his lap, but it certainly won't stop him from trying. _You can. I know you can. Just a bit more, love, and then we can go home for the day. You can do this, and I'll be here the entire time._  
  
 _They're scared of me,_ he says, heartbroken. There is not one iteration of him that truly relishes the fear of others, not even the butcher, not even the part of him that kills, but most especially not this part. He hopes Kurt and Roberto and Xi'an are all right. He lets out a small huff that might be a laugh when he thinks about how ill-fitted Tabitha will be in her new environment. David was always patient, though, well-suited to look after troublemakers and misfits. If Tabby didn't blow up the place.  
  
 _They don't understand you right now, my love. But they will._ He knows it might not be possible, what he's about to suggest. Perhaps it's cruel, to give Erik hope if this is something he wants, but he can't help but offer it. He can't help but offer Erik everything, from that very first moment. It all belongs to him. Charles belongs to him. _Perhaps I could check on them for you. Would it put you at ease?_  
  
Erik nods into Charles's chest where he's still hidden, thinking nothing of cruelty or success or failure-even the suggestion is more kindness than he knows what to do with at this point, half-existing in memories and strikes and screams.  
  
 _I know their minds through yours now,_ he continues, and watches carefully as others begin to settle back down. The recess is ending. Charles could extend it, if he needed to. There is no rush. Even with this migraine, he is in perfect control, and as long as he is, they have all the time they need. _I don't imagine it would be too difficult to find them, though I've never tried that far before. You'll help me, won't you? You're very good at helping me_. Charles wants to keep Erik wrapped up in his chest through all of this. Perhaps he will. What's stopping him? What's stopping him from putting a projection of Erik on that stand and keeping the real one here, safely tucked away?  
  
Erik nods again. He'll do anything for Charles, do anything to help him, even if he feels particularly drained and useless right now, even if he's gone away far below the Earth's core. Some piece of him will stay here and help. He's good at helping. The thought warms him. _Cameras_ , Erik whispers softly. He doesn't want to leave. His fingertip trails down Charles's temple, concern wafting between them. Pain?  
  
Cameras. That's what's stopping him. He curses, soft and out of place, sighs as he kisses Erik's head again. Back to the drawing board, then. He'll reverse it. Put Erik's physical body on the stand and coax out his mind. That will work, won't it? Anything to help. Charles desperately needs to do right here. He can't allow himself to be helpless. _Just a bit, darling,_ he promises. Barely anything.  
  
 _Too much_ , Erik shakes his head, rubbing his thumb against Charles's temple slowly, back and forth. Everyone is beginning to file back in, jurors still sick to their stomachs and knowing they've only got miles more to go, and Erik isn't in his right enough mind to decide to stand up, so he just keeps himself in Charles's arms, damn what the world saw.

* * *

The cameras are going to be a problem. Charles takes care of that while he can, grateful the damn things are at least operated by a person - which means they're operated by a mind. They're still perfectly in the clear. They do need to get up, however, and Charles attempts to start that process for him, but. Well. Erik absolutely overpowers him physically, even dreadfully underweight and limp, and he can't help faint amusement. He normally loves this realization, but now it's just a bit inconvenient. _Erik, love, we need to get up. I promise I'll be right here. You can leave your body and come be with me on my little chair, if you'd like, but we need to get you physically over there. Alright?_  
  
 _OK_ , he acquiesces easily, his tone dreamy and far-off. He untangles himself gracelessly and stumbles to his feet, swaying like a drunkard and leaning on Charles too-heavily as he's guided back into the witness box. Petrakis strides into the arena and takes his seat, and Quested returns to the Prosecution table. All twelve jurors are returned, and Carmen flips over to the sixth page.  
  
Charles takes his own seat, and then he lets the perception filters drop. Thoughts are changed and redirected in a million tiny ways at once, his careful, steady scalpel job affecting them just as little as it did before. Nothing happened that they noticed. Charles and Erik both stretched their legs a bit, and returned to their places just as unremarkably as anyone else. He reaches for Erik's mind and tugs gently, keeping it close to him. Coaxing out a projection, and this time he smiles and sits on Erik's lap, because it just won't work the other way, and keeps his physical body still even as his mind tangles itself up in Erik. They'll be okay. Erik will get through this, because Charles will tether him through every moment. He directs Erik's hand to his collar. _Right here,_ he reminds. _I'm yours, Erik. I love you._  
  
Erik puts his head back on Charles's shoulder where it belongs, hands flexing restlessly in his shirt, lips brushing over exposed skin as Carmen begins to detail the intricate workings of Shaw's so-called Hellfire Club. _Don't listen_ , Erik begs him. _Please don't listen to it._ In the room with Carmen he'd been as vague as possible, and for every tactful swerve in the opposite direction Carmen now barrels head-first, the headlights of a truck crashing through walls of solid ice.  
  
Charles already knows the details. He's gotten them far more vividly than Carmen could ever hope to describe them, in excruciatingly slow motion and from several different angles, all of them equally horrific. They'll stay with him for the rest of his days, burned into his mind like a brand. _Alright_ , he says anyway, and settles against Erik's chest where he belongs. _Alright, Erik_. And he doesn't. He kisses Erik instead, slow and gentle, as the world burns all around them. This is all he can do. This is all he can offer. It's Erik's, though.  
  
It is, as it's always been, enough. He wishes he could gather up every burned drop and cast it out of them both, but maybe he wouldn't be Erik anymore, maybe Charles wouldn't be Charles anymore. Is it right to think that he is the sum total of his experiences? That any of this had a hand in shaping his personality-of course it has on some level, for better or worse. Charles said it once before, it would be impossible to extract the pain from his self, without collapsing the whole like unraveled strands of DNA. Erik's eyes cross, finding himself oddly academic, and he lets out a small huff of laughter. _I love you. I'm sorry._  
  
 _I love you back. Do not apologize for this, please._ Charles has learned quite a lot about his own strength, recently. For all that he raged and writhed against even the possibility of underestimation, rising to occasion as if his mere existence was a challenge to be overcome, he gave himself little of the regard he expected to earn from others. There is no way to scrub the blood from the baseboards, but they can rebuild and paint every wall yellow. No way to hide the bones and remains in the basement, but they can build a new structure right over it. Houses of horror and Stepford smiles can become schools, he thinks. Erik's unspeakable pain and twisted experiences can lead to - well. He curls Erik's fingers back to his collar, places his hand right over them. To this. _Would you like to see something?_ he asks, as if they're simply sitting at home, the deep of Carmen's voice droned out.  
  
Erik hides a smile in his neck, pleased despite the situation, and although he wishes it wasn't necessary at all, there is one good outcome of it all which is that Charles has-for the briefest of moments-ceased to underestimate himself. It's lamentable that the prerequisite has become such extreme experiences and Erik would much prefer to simply spend his time enlightening Charles the old-fashioned way, but there's no denying he's right. Erik is unspeakably proud to be by his side. _Of course,_ he nods as Carmen finally, finally flips over into the second half of his presentation, involving photographs and CIA-captured video footage from Erik's first days in custody. Charles can feel the steady stream of shock and confused dismay increase in the room as though coalesced into a sharp point.  
  
This is going to go on for a while still. Carmen is working his way up to the medical files, which, while thoroughly, utterly horrifying, they've both seen several times now. He intends to point out how every facet - every cracked bone, every scar, every gnarled, jagged mark and healed over gash that makes up Erik's beautiful body - corroborates with Erik's testimony, which it certainly, undeniably does, but neither of them need to hear it elaborated. There's no reason to continue ripping open old wounds when they're already being laid bare for all to see. A brief distraction, perhaps. He can provide that. So Charles closes his eyes (not in the Real, but it's unnecessary regardless), and shows Erik what's changed: the buzzing is gone. It's gone, perhaps for now, perhaps forever, replaced with a clarity and control he's never had over his own mutation before. Every mind, rather than muffled and distorted the way too many gathered in one place has always been, is clear as a ringing bell. He can move in and out of them in less time than it takes to blink, control every function in just as little time. He demonstrates in silly, harmless ways, implanting songs in their heads, shifting them in their seats. A woman touches her nose with a tapped finger, then drops her hand a moment later, completely oblivious. He moves outward, to the protestors outside, to the streets of New York, then outward, outward, outward, weaving in and out of minds like breathing - He doesn't know how far he can go, but it's farther than he's ever gone already. Charles grins, self-satisfied and, despite everything, despite his own crippling fear, proud of himself. _Nifty, isn't it?_  
  
Erik watches in a daze, and grins in delight when the lady taps her nose, and he follows as Charles expands and expands, amazement like raindrops pinging on the open window of Charles's mind against his own. Perhaps there should be fear-he doesn't know his own upper limits, but the things that are closed to him are the way the Earth moves on its very axis, the orbits of planets in systems and spatial trajectory-Erik knows he is powerful, he could do so much more than bring a building down, he could melt the fabric of existence as everyone knew it, melt a person down to noodled molecules and reconstruct them from nothing, maybe there is no upper limit. Electrons spin inside of him and conduct and objects sing to him their histories. But Charles does not need the world. What is conceivable for him is only within the limits of his very imagination, and maybe they should be afraid of one another, but Erik is just awed and humbled that Charles is his, and that pride makes Erik smile for Real, hidden behind his hand where he's got his head balanced on the podium, fingers splayed over his face to hide himself as good as possible. His gorgeous, extraordinary mutation used like breathing, unencumbered by fear and self-doubt. No, he doesn't fear Charles. There is so much good, he thinks, that Charles is going to do. So much wonder to discover, every joy eclipsing every horror. _Beautiful_ , Erik whispers back, kissing his forehead.  
  
There's something else, too. Something he discovered entirely by accident, but that changes everything, he thinks. _Do you trust me, Erik?_ he asks, though he already knows the answer. Can feel it between them as clear as anything. Can I try something else? Just for a moment.  
  
Erik doesn't even think. _Yes_ , he nods. He thinks it must be something to do with him, so he gestures between them. _Show me_.  
  
Charles takes a breath. There's a beat where nothing happens at all, Carmen's voice a steady background hum speaking horrors currently far away, and then something does. Innocuously, where no one will see it but them, Carmen's pen floats. It's a shaky, jerky motion, not at all controlled like it would be if Erik was doing it. That's because Erik is not doing it. It's Charles. Not telekinesis, he explains. He still isn't telekinetic. He's using Erik's mutation through him.  
  
Erik coughs into his hand-which only Charles knows is as close as he's come to outright laughing, while Carmen cues up medical photographs of Erik's emaciated body while he was sedated during the first few days of being in the CIA's custody, including the raw, flayed open skin on his back that looks more like roasted meat than a human, and which causes everybody else to hold their breath. And Erik's laughing, because Charles is delightful. _You can have it,_ he says gently, offering everything he can, without a moment's consideration. _If you want to use it, it is yours. I could teach you._ It definitely is different, though, because no matter what Charles can do with his consciousness, he will never share Erik's body, and Erik's mutation lives inside all of his body, inside every particle, and that can't be replicated. But through him, through Charles learning to recognize its components through him, he could definitely make life more convenient for himself. His phone-grabbing abilities as they were.  
  
Charles smiles himself, giddy and bashful as he hides himself in Erik's chest. His whole body feels lighter with the praise, electric tingles up his spine. _No, thank you,_ he refuses, though, shaking his head. _I don't want it. It's yours, and I like when you use it much better. Besides, this is difficult,_ he laughs, and the pen clatters to the ground. It doesn't make a noise in any of their minds, as if it simply rolled off the table. It's twofold concentration, for Charles. He has to focus on manifesting his mutation and Erik's. He can use it, but he could never hope to have the same control, even if he fine-tuned his own manipulation. It's more the practical applications he's concerned with, the implications here - if he can use Erik's mutation, with enough control and practice, he could theoretically use anyone's. It's far too much power for him to have, and Erik can feel the undercurrent of fear threatening to sweep the wonder away with every breath.  
  
 _I will keep you balanced_ , Erik promises him, tilting his jaw up to look him in the eyes. Because, he thinks, if there's one thing Charles knows, it's that he won't hurt Erik. Erik trusts him completely, and yes, it is a lot of power. Erik has dealt with the implications of that his entire life, knowing that he could Order anybody to do anything and they would be helpless to comply. Even with Charles, as long as Charles didn't reduce the mental and cognitive components of his Dominance, Erik could technically Order him to use his own mutation to Erik's benefit, too. But life isn't about that, Erik thinks. Not for them. They aren't like Shaw or Azazel, it's not about what they can do. It's about what they do. And if Charles falters, if he struggles to make the right choice, Erik will be there to help him decide upon what to do, in a way that preserves his integrity and commitment to non-violence.  
  
Oh. Charles' breath hitches, and all at once he feels a bit like crying. Not because he's distressed, but because he's so exceptionally grateful. Charles should never underestimate Erik's ability to know exactly what he needs before he even begins to recognize it within himself. It took some time to regulate, but now more than ever he wonders how he could have ever gone without this. Without their dynamic, without the push-pull surrender-control full trust. His hand comes up to touch his collar again, and his fingers tremble. This is what they were always meant to be. The world isn't shifting from normal like he thought it was last night, it's finally righting itself. _You'll keep me in place, then?_ It's meant to be teasing, but it doesn't come out that way. He means it, and he needs to know. Charles has been stepped out of orbit his entire life, always over or under correcting, and if there's anything he's longed for, it's someone to give him that. To keep him in line. To keep him in his place, and to give him one. Charles' place has always been Erik. To be Erik's.  
  
Always, Erik says, kissing him gently. As much as Charles will keep him in place, he thinks, remembering when Charles had vowed not to let his hands be used for destruction ever again; which is _poignant_ now more than ever that they are here, in this room, listening to all of the horrible things Erik had never done.  
  
Another recess is called after a juror, a young office aide who's never had to deal with anything like this before, comes dangerously close to passing out and Carmen stops the proceedings to get her a glass of water, sympathetic. It's not very often the defense attorney is pitted as a good guy-Carmen's dealt with prejudice and stereotypes his entire life, but there is definitely a bit of a shift after that, and then comes the more damning part of his evidentiary data, which isn't something that happened of its own accord-Daniel Shomron-who has entered the arena now and begun explaining everything in his mild-mannered lilt, had pushed for it after recognizing the symptoms.

* * *

Quested is clearly troubled when the Defense starts using autopsy data in their own arguments, listing the genetic markers present in the kit Shomron had performed while Erik was sedated. He can feel Quested re-framing his arguments in his head, recognizing that it wouldn't look good for him to run at Erik like a common criminal after all. Carmen concludes the first part of his defense, and subsequently Erik's testimony, by going over the accumulated information on _Sisim_ , comparing Erik's story with the available reports that are more-than exceptionally conclusive. It's more-than reasonable doubt. Carmen ends the proceedings by indicating that the next few days will cover the other patients, which Erik was instrumental in saving.  
  
Quested takes a little while before standing up, his quiet mind ticking away like a watch while he enters the arena, as Shomron and Pryde collect their poster boards and remove the television; it would be unfairly prejudicial for him to deliver the cross-examination with those images still up. He opens his mouth and then closes it, considering, before finally murmuring, "I'm aware that there is a great deal of nuance in this case," he addresses the jury first. "Make no mistake that this has gone unnoticed. Nevertheless, what I want you all to remember today is that this is a court of law. This is what you are here for, to determine whether or not Erik Lehnsherr is guilty of the crimes he has committed; and there can be no doubt that he did commit them. Erik Lehnsherr is not a judge, nor is he an executioner. It is not up to him to decide whether or not these people should have lived or died, regardless of what they allegedly did." Charles can feel people grimace at the term, but Quested doggedly continues on, turning to Erik. "You pleaded Not Guilty to premeditated murder and terrorism at your arraignment, is this true?"  
  
Erik lifts his head, looking at the jury for the first time, and then back at Charles in his real position beside him. _Yes_.  
  
Everything shifts subtly, in that one instant. It will be far too disorienting for Erik to be separated during this, in two places at once, so he gently releases the projection, sits up straighter in his own seat. They are still linked, still entangled. He doubts there will ever be a time they aren't, now. "Yes," Charles answers for him, unwavering. He hides a smile, and, though it's never actually not coursing through him, he reaches for Erik's Will. Not to sink into subspace or anything so drastic a change - though, again, he's learning it's not, that he's always just a breath away, or perhaps always in, just subtly enough that it's unnoticeable - but to become exactly what Erik needs now. A projection of him, in this moment, for the entire world to see him. He can't really think of a better way to serve, and that he can offer this makes him so satisfied he can feel it in his bones.  
  
Quested continues, while Erik leans into Charles, drawing strength from their closeness in a way he draws strength from little else. "Did you intend to kill these men, Mr. Lehnsherr?"  
  
Within the courtroom, although not on camera, it's as though Erik speaks for himself, in the projection of his voice that Charles associates with him, low and deep. "In the moment, yes. However, it was not premeditated."  
  
"Do you care to distinguish the two?" Quested's eyebrows raise.  
  
"My motive was to escape. I was injured and afraid. Two children were murdered in front of me. The ones responsible were the first to die."  
  
"So you're saying this is a crime of passion?"  
  
"Rephrase the question, please," Erik asks politely.  
  
"It occurred in the heat of the moment?"  
  
Charles translates the idiom so he doesn't have to ask again. "Yes," a nod. Evidently he had taken Carmen's advice and did not offer any more than what was demanded of him.  
  
"Can you describe in your own words what led you to the decision to murder them?"  
  
"My recollection of the event is poor. I wished to protect the patients under my charge. I believed if the scientists alive that the children would not be safe." And they still aren't, not with Shaw fully aware that they are alive now, and knowing that they'll damn him even more.  
  
"You claim a poor recollection, and yet you can clearly determine your own motivations for the act?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Doesn't that seem contradictory to you?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Elaborate, if you would."  
  
"I do not know how." Erik looks at Charles for help, even though he knows fully that Charles can't step in here.  
  
Charles, for all intents and purposes, has become a vessel. It's his mouth that's moving, though Quested isn't looking at him, nor should he be - Erik is the one speaking, Charles his concentrated Will and consciousness, poured out into this courtroom through him. It takes him a moment to be anything but what Erik needs him to be. He can't help, perhaps, but he can bolster, shift Erik's mind gently, help him focus. Bring his thoughts together to make a more coherent whole, but not edit a single one of them. This is Erik's fight, just as his with Azazel was his, but he won't leave him for a single moment. _You can do this,_ Erik, he promises. _Let them hear you. Speak whatever language you need to, it will come out in one they can understand either way. I have you. I will make sure they hear._  
  
The encouragement bolsters him, and he lifts his chin, nodding. "I know who I am," he decides on, switching to Hebrew in his own mind, but like Charles promises, it comes out in English. "I wanted it to stop. I was not given the tools to do that within a legal context. My-" he looks down at his hands, then, trailing off.  
  
 _Go on_ , Charles urges, gentle and nudging. _Go on, please, Erik. Tell me, so we can tell them. Speak. You're allowed now. You can speak, my love, and they will hear._ Charles can give him this, what no one else ever could. Charles will.  
  
Erik can practically hear Carmen's voice in his head, too. Don't prevaricate, be blunt. He can speak now. He's allowed to. With eyes on Shaw, he replaces clients at the last second. "Many of the people who raped and tortured us were law enforcement personnel. The police could not be trusted. We could not escape unless our captors were deceased." And that turns out to be what it comes down to, and what Carmen's been pushing for this entire time. Erik held no reasonable belief that he could defend himself in any other way.  
  
"So you admit that you knew the only way to escape was to kill them, correct?"  
  
"My initial plans did not involve murder. I recognized only within the-heat of the moment-that there was no other option."  
  
Most of Quested's line of reasoning comes from that angle, attempting to get Erik to admit that he planned it in advance-although noticeably he's stopped angling for terrorism-it's been proven that Erik was in America long before then-trying to trip Erik up, twist his words, show the world that he's manipulating them, that he believes himself to be above justice and the law, that he didn't care whether they lived or died, that he even relished killing them, using footage of Erik's [removed]which is more grief-stricken than victorious) during some of the more brutal killings, and then moving onto Erik's treatment of the bodies, which spoke, in his mind, to a comfort with death.  
  
"At the time I was accustomed to the dead," Erik does admit. "It was my duty to dispose of them when they were murdered in the laboratories."  
  
"Then you would say you had little compunction with the idea of murder."  
  
" ** _Objection_** ," Carmen calls loudly. "It seems Mr. Quested failed to peruse the literature I made available to him in Discovery, but it is entirely prejudicial to frame these actions within the context of a choice when no _meaningful alternative_ existed that preserved the lives of those still living."  
  
"On the contrary," Quested argues, "regardless of whether these decisions were made in cognizance, it cannot be denied that Mr. Lehnsherr was exposed to death from a young age, and Dr. Xavier has made it clear that these experiences resulted in drastic dissociative episodes that would reasonably divorce him from the concept of murder as we know it."  
  
"Overruled," Petrakis decides gently. "Please answer the question."  
  
"I did not murder them," Erik's voice shakes, even as Charles's does not. There's a long moment when Charles thinks Erik might break down and refuse to go on, collapse under the weight of his own grief, but then Erik stands up-prompting the bailiff and guards to tense around their weapons-and tugs on his suit sleeve, holding out his arm with the AIDC. "My grandfather burned the bodies of his parents. So did I."  
  
Charles can absolutely tell when Quested realizes that everyone in the room is staring at him like he's the one on trial, and he ends up backtracking. "I understand. But you did kill these men."  
  
"Yes," Erik says. "I did. I cannot speak to whether they deserved it. I can only tell you what I know to be true. They would never have stopped. Not ever."  
  
"Thank you, Mr. Lehnsherr. No further questions."

* * *

By the time Erik steps down, Charles feels every eye of the jury on him, and many of those who were convinced that he was evil and out of control, have begun to question their own opinions.  
  
There is a place that exists outside of the law, and perhaps Quested is in his right to question it. The boundary is thin, and it is too often crossed. If you had asked Charles a month ago, he would have agreed that murder is unacceptable, unjustifiable, under any circumstances, good intentions or otherwise. Roads paved.  
  
He still agrees with that. Murder is such. A justification becomes an excuse, and an excuse becomes permission. With permission, the unthinkable becomes possible.  
  
But Erik is right. What he did was not murder, and every mind in this courtroom begins to understand that, just as Charles did.  
  
Someone is speaking. Charles does not hear them, even as he stands from his chair and follows. His eyes are full of tears, but no one will see them, and they will never be shed. Erik? he whispers, and his lips twitch into a watery smile.  
  
 _You are absolutely extraordinary, my darling. I am unspeakably proud to love and belong to you._  
  
Petrakis addresses everyone after the commotion has died away. "Thank you all for your contributions today. Please get some rest. For now, session is adjourned and we will continue in the morning." He bangs his gavel lightly.  
  
Erik decides that the best opportunity to pass out is when he's mid-stride back to the defendant's table. _I lo_ \- and he's crashing face-first into the floor.


	31. These trying times without losing our minds

Charles realizes what's happening before Erik's body does, and in an instant he's in motion, sprained ankle and injuries be completely damned. There's no projection to cover this, and there could not be, with cameras aimed right at them. There's no need when any reasonable person's reaction would be to catch him. Perhaps they would not throw themselves bodily underneath Erik, cushioning his fall with a grunted, winded _'oof'_ and a full grimace - that did not feel good, not at all - but it is what it is. The alternative, that he let Erik fall, is so far outside his own comprehension at the moment that it does not exist at all. Unfortunately, Erik, even, as mentioned, terribly underweight, is quite heavy on Charles' bruised, battered body, and he grabbed with his wrist without thinking, but what is a bit of pain? What is some discomfort?  
  
It's his place to bear it, and he will.  
  
He finds Shaw's mind in the mass of them, as clear as any other. There is not a single person in this court who has not turned to him. Some have shifted in their seats, moved to create physical space. As if he is the abhorrent one. They're correct.  
  
He hopes _Herr Doktor_ heard every word from the man he tried so desperately to silence. He hopes, for the rest of his remarkably vile existence, it plays on repeat. He hopes it is the last thing he hears before he dies.  
  
He will never forget this.  
  
Shaw heard every word, and the cameras nudge up against him like battering rams, to a barrage of no comments from him. He's already considering who will represent him as legal counsel, because as it turns out, there may very well be no avoiding the prospect. He's so certain he's in the right, here, that he's bettering mutantkind, that the humans and their silly justice systems are worth little-to-nothing-he'll play their game, for a time, but the time will come when they show their true colors. They'll react savagely, threatening their prisons and firing squads, and he'll need to act, to bring them swiftly under ruthless command. Perhaps Erik will join him at his side once more, when the boy realizes the world is turning.  
  
"Whoa!" Carmen explodes into action as well, one of the few in the room who know that Charles is injured underneath his projection, and helps him to his feet. He rolls Erik off of him and lies him in the recovery position, head lolled over his outstretched arm. "Hey-are you all right, Doctor?" the cameras are still rolling, so he uses Charles's title, crouched down with a hand on his shoulder, steel blue eyes to azure.  
  
Charles coughs, and then he coughs some more, completely winded and with waves of shivery pain coursing through his entire body. He'd nearly forgotten that, actually, the pain - it's not something he's unused to. Mind over matter, as they say, and Charles was always more of a mind. "I'm quite alright, thank you," he manages, and offers a smile. Though it's polite, he's positive that Carmen will see the true gratitude underneath. "Quite alright."  
  
They're going to be just fine. Better than. They're going to be - well, it goes without saying.  
  
They're going to be extraordinary.  
  
Warren's come over by this point. "Always the klutz," he grins at Charles and helps Carmen get him to his feet.  
  
Petrakis glides down from the podium with a bottle of water in hand, kneeling to check Erik's pulse with two fingers at his wrist, consulting his watch. "I've asked the EMTs to come take a look you both. We'll transport him back to the CIA once we know he's fine, but it looks like standard vasovagal syncope to me. Did you hurt your wrist in your fall?" he addresses Charles, eyeing the cast.  
  
Charles rolls his eyes where only Warren and Carmen will see it, but he's grinning softly, too. His expression evens out as Petrakis approaches, and he actually considers the question, bringing his arm up to inspect. "No, I think it's alright. Just a bit of pain, Your Honor." The other injuries were more the problem. He's feeling a little sick in the aftermath, if he's honest, but nothing he couldn't handle, and nothing anyone else would be able to see. He's got a bit of a headache, too, but it's not nearly as bad as it should be. As good as he can be. And then he realizes something, all at once. The cameras. They're not going to catch his perception filter. He's covered in bruises, even if most of them are hidden by his suit. His eyes widen, dread twisting his stomach.  
  
It's only a few moments later that Erik rouses, and he pitches forward, that headache slamming into him and mixing with his own searing panic. He just barely stops himself reaching out for Charles, feeling his pain and fear like his own, and Petrakis steadies him, offering him the water while a medic makes sure they're both OK. Some reporters on the scene are already calling the incident a dramatic outcry for attention. Erik ends up on his feet a few moments later and leaves them when Fred and Christopher Summers, Carmen's aide, flank the scene. "Let's get you guys out of here," Christopher motions to Charles and Carmen. Erik will obviously not be accompanying them.  
  
 _Shh, we'll be alright, darling,_ he promises, though panic has him faltering, thick and heavy in his stomach. _I'm still here. I have you._ They never really leave each other, now, though Charles wants absolutely nothing more than to stay physically with Erik. He lets himself be led away regardless, brushing Erik mentally, holding him tight. He tries his very best to keep it under control, his dread, to keep it off his face as he and Carmen exit the courtroom. He's not sure he manages. He takes stock. The bruises and cuts on his face. They've only darkened since he got them, if anything, a terrible, nasty black-purple. His jaw, his cheeks, underneath each eye, a few gashes from where he fell down those concrete stairs, most noticeably above his eyebrow and across his forehead. Everything's swelled up and rather unpleasant to look at by now. The state of his lips, clearly bitten right open and split from blows. Unavoidable, the cameras will catch every inch of it. Then there's his neck. His collar covers most of it, something he'd loved, but - There's a decidedly finger-shaped bruise peeking out, from where Cain had held him steady. He knows exactly what it looks like. He knows exactly what they will say. His shame displayed for all to see on national television, though it's far less than Erik suffered. Somewhere, Cain will be watching. "Excuse me," he says, and then abruptly darts to the nearest bin, grateful that there are no cameras here, to be noisily sick.  
  
Erik touches the small of his back, beside him again, brushing his fingers through his hair. When he returned to consciousness he'd returned as well, in the Real he's being examined and for the first time the person talking to him and touching him outside of the very few people in Charles's circle of trust and one nurse, isn't looking at him with cold professionalism. Maybe they're a mutant, too, or maybe they know someone who wasn't able to get their day in court. What is clear is that even in the immediate aftermath, things have started to change. The news stations are not playing that clip of him anymore. (They are, however, playing the clip of Charles speaking on his behalf, bruises and all.) But here, he is beside Charles, his mind slowly coming back online like a reboot. Hush, he rubs Charles's back. This is not your shame. It was done to you. Do not own something that is not yours. Be easy, he murmurs against Charles's ear for only him to hear. Cain will never bother Charles again. Erik is stronger, now. There will be no more fumbling around if something does happen, if he does end up breaking Erik's Order.  
  
Charles knows today was a success. He knows, regardless of what he looks like on a television screen, that everyone is listening. Exactly what he promised he could make happen is happening, Erik's voice heard, and that is what matters. But - All those years he'd hidden it. All those years he'd gone to school with bruises and welts, with cuts and scrapes and burns and sometimes broken bones, though those required lies and casts and _I'm dreadfully clumsy_ and he'd hidden it, redirected it, erased any trace of it and kept his dignity, kept that at least, and now there was no hiding. Now it was being broadcast internationally. _Weak, subby bitch. You like that, huh? You like being a spineless little bitch? You fuckin' whore_ -Charles retches again, but nothing comes out.  
  
 _Atzor_ , Erik shushes the voices with a single command, gathering him up in his arms. _That isn't your dignity._ Truthfully Erik believes the concept of dignity is meaningless, something people use to judge themselves and others for having the audacity to struggle-and that there's certainly no dignity in abuse-but now is not the time to present logical counterpoints to Charles's feelings, although that can have its place, he focuses instead on comforting him, grounding him. _You are a person. A good person, and you are mine. That is what this means._ He touches Charles's collar gently. _He does not get to dictate your submission to you._  
  
Charles goes willingly, though he trembles. He's redirected everyone away from this corridor, so - even if this is not Erik's physical body - they won't be disturbed as he buries himself in Erik's chest, his projection still wearing that smart, well-fitted suit. _I'm not weak because I'm yours,_ he mumbles, and he believes it, of course he does, but he needs to say it. He needs it to exist in words between them. _I'm not weak because I submit to you. I'm not weak because I wear your collar. I'm not weak because -_ He breaks off, swallowing down his own nausea. He can't.  
  
 _You can,_ Erik says, the Order soft, wrapping Charles up in his arms and kissing the top of his head, his forehead, near his sensitive temples. I think you like this suit, he huffs, smiling down at Charles, eyes crinkled fondly. _Finish what you started to say. I want to hear_. And he wanted Charles to hear it, too, in his own voice.  
  
It wrenches a sob out of him. Charles grips tight to the back of Erik's jacket, gasping. _I'm not weak because I want the things he made me feel humiliated for wanting. He hasn't won. Neither of them have won. What they did to me was not -_ He takes a sharp, stuttering breath. _It was not consensual. It was not Dominance. It was abuse. The things I want and need have nothing to do with that._ And he doesn't need to be humiliated and ashamed for it.  
  
 _No, you do not. Not by anyone else, nor by your own self. Your submission is magnificent. It is what allows you to be mine. It is something I can use as a tool to bring you joy. It is something you choose._ Erik's sunny pride at Charles is self-evident in his affectionate smile. _So I will be here to make sure that you remember that. Always._  
  
Charles feels the sun burst inside of him when he realizes that Erik is proud of him, and isn't that - isn't that how it should be? Isn't this exactly how it should be? He's still trembling, burrowing himself further in Erik's chest. In his comfortable, familiar Will. You don't think of me as - _subby bitch stupid useless boy mindless whore bad bad bad_ -Charles swallows.  
  
 _Charles. Look at me._ Erik lays his palms on his chest. _Do you think that I think that of you?_  
  
Charles looks up, and the only thing keeping him from chewing on his lip is Erik's Order not to. _No_ , he whispers, and even in his mind it is impossibly quiet. _No, you think I'm -_ He shakes his head, a choked noise.  
  
 _Tell me, then. Go on._  
  
Charles shivers. _You think I'm strong, and competent, and intelligent. That I am kind, and idealistic, but not naive or silly. Sometimes silly, but not like that. You think I'm capable, committed, and passionate. That I am brave. You think I'm delightful_. A word from earlier, picked up from Erik's thoughts directly. It had made him feel like it. Delighted, certainly, Erik's praise and approval the greatest gift he could imagine. _Magnificent. Beautiful. You think -_ Charles breath hitches. _You think I'm good. That I'm good, in general, but also_ \- Good for _Erik_. A good boy. His teeth are chattering. He sobs, shaking all over.  
  
 _Yes, I do_ , Erik's thoughts are a rumble and he tugs Charles closer to him again, a surge of possessive protectiveness bolting through him. He loves bestowing praise upon Charles, but even more than that, he finds he loves that Charles hears it, internalizes it, can produce it for himself confidently and accurately. And you most certainly are every one of those things. Those things are what this collar symbolizes. _Not worthless. Not mindless. Mine. My wonderful boy. My good, kind, beautiful Charles. Do not ever think for a moment that this represents anything less._  
  
Charles is shivering all over. He buries himself back in Erik, in his chest, wraps his arms around him, still tightly grasping the back of his suit. Being yours is not a weakness, he affirms. No, it isn't. Being Erik's is exactly what he should be. Being Erik's is being loved, and cared for, protected and wanted and given what he needs, whatever that need entails. Being Erik's is finally, finally being in his place. Being Erik's is being himself, no longer alienated, no longer stifled, no longer afraid. Charles, in submitting to Erik, in being his, has become stronger than he's ever been. Happier, steadier, and more powerful. He knew all of it already. Acknowledging it like this still makes him breathless.  
  
Erik loves him so much it feels like there are rooms growing inside of his chest, like his body is making itself bigger to accommodate the overwhelming force of his emotions. And there are already so many places inside of him for Charles to go, gifts for him to explore and discover, places he's worked on tidying that aren't pain and terror. Places where there is soil and growth, a reminder that he has done more in his life than destroy, that he is nurturing Charles, helping him. Making him happy. Caring for him, protecting him, wanting him, giving him what he needs. _No, it isn't,_ he repeats softly back to Charles, grinning down at him.  
  
Charles goes to bite his lip, and when he can't, he whimpers, a soft, protest of a noise. But it's what's good for him. It's what he needs, and Erik has given that to him, just a small fraction of what his Dominance has done for Charles. _What does it mean for you?_ he asks, quiet. Timid in this, despite everything, curled up in Erik's chest. He doesn't look, not because he's afraid, but because he already knows, on some level. It would overwhelm him, he thinks. _For me to be yours? For me to belong to you? To be your submissive?_  
  
Erik rubs his thumb along Charles's bottom lip, pleased that Charles remembered after all. The question scatters to every corner of his mind, and he struggles to condense it into a verbal, coherent reply. In the end he's not a hundred percent certain what Charles means, precisely-what he thinks of Charles as his submissive, or what it means for him? He thinks that he's given a fairly good overview of his perceptions of Charles, so guesses it's the latter and tries, _I suppose it is the other side of the same coin. A lot of what you need is reflected in me in dichotomy. I can give you what you need, and that makes me happy. I can heal instead of harm_. There's a bit more under the surface, things he has tucked away along with the pain so that Charles doesn't go searching, because he doesn't think it's compatible, and this conversation might graze the edge of it.  
  
Charles catches it anyway, when perhaps he would not have in the past. _You don't - think it's compatible?_ he asks, quietly. He doesn't know exactly what that means. _Please don't hide from me. Whatever it is, I'd like to know._  
  
Erik clears his throat, caught, and rests his chin on the top of Charles's head. He supposes there is no real way to hide this from Charles, even if he isn't a telepath, he is smart, and they will be together for a very long time. He's probably already guessed, which is uncomfortable because Erik doesn't know what it means for himself, doesn't know if it's another expression of Dominance in a strange form or if it's just something that got broken along the way. _You know that I need to take care of you_ , he mumbles, not trying to obscure for obfuscation's sake, but it definitely required some prodding. _I need to be Dominant the same way you need to submit; and that is immutable._  
  
Charles blinks, and squirms until he can extract himself from Erik's chest to look up at him. _I don't - I'm confused,_ he admits. _What about that do you feel won't be compatible?_  
  
 _A lot of the things that I gain satisfaction from are rooted in being of service to you._ It hearkens back to an earlier conversation they've had, where Erik tried to name it once before, how he's never felt the need to abide by traditional roles, that there are things he'll always want to do that society will tell them is more submissive in nature. _To give you what you need, whatever that may be._ Erik is definitely hedging a bit, but he is being honest.  
  
 _I still don't understand why that would be at all incompatible_ , he says, perfectly honest himself. _Why is it 'strange' or 'submissive'? I think it's a perfectly Dominant urge. I certainly don't think it's broken, or deviant, if that's even a concern, and I also think you might be looking at it from the wrong perspective because - because that is what you've been made to know. Unless you're saying_ \- He doesn't think so. Actually, he thinks Erik just said the opposite not even five minutes ago. It still makes him feel choked, considering it.  
  
Erik's eyebrows lift. _Saying_ -?  
  
Nothing, he mutters, and stares down at his feet. _I don't - it's nothing. You didn't mean it that way, so it's nothing._  
  
 _This is not easy for me to talk about,_ Erik says quietly. _Mostly because I don't understand it myself. Will you tell me? It might help if I can give you a concrete answer one way or another._  
  
Charles shakes his head. No, he doesn't want to. He doesn't want an answer. He doesn't want to know. He doesn't want to deal with the cold dread in his stomach that pops up every time he considers this for more than a moment. _We should probably not stand in this hallway. We should go home._  
  
Unfortunately, Erik picks up on it, and fear buzzes under his skin when he considers that maybe Charles does know the full extent of it, and he is horrified by it, he does think it's terrible, wants nothing to do with him-didn't they just listen to hours worth of how exactly he had been twisted? And that's enough to make his eyes dim. _I won't make you do anything that you are uncomfortable with_ , he promises. _Don't worry._  
  
Charles wants to cry again, suddenly. He shakes his head, once and then twice and then a third time, pulls his hand away from Erik to rub at his own face and tears that aren't there, but bruises that are. _No, that's not - it's not like that. It's not because of you. It's not. I don't think you're twisted. I never have. You have to know that, Erik. It's plain as anything. It's not that._  
  
Erik thinks he figures out a way, the inspiration hitting him all of a sudden. _How would you define being Dominant?_  
  
But Charles only shakes his head, rubs the heel of his palm into his own bruised eye and sniffles as he stares back down between them. _I don't know,_ he shrugs, miserable. He forms half-hearted answers, then discards them just as easily. He's - afraid, underneath it. Not of Erik.  
  
Erik sighs inaudibly and takes those tendrils and puts them back where they belong, deep under the ocean; it was a mistake to go there, and he knew it was a mistake. Charles's cold, icy dread is all he needs to feel to grasp that. _OK. It's fine,_ he soothes. _Please don't be afraid._  
  
That makes it worse. Charles feels the panic grip him, and he doesn't know what to do about it. He's doing it again. He's messing it up. He's being - He shakes his head, again and again and again, wraps his arms around himself and well and truly hates himself. It's something Erik has felt before, that utter disdain, but it's never been quite as sharp.  
  
Erik doesn't know what to do, because Charles doesn't want to know, but when he takes everything and puts it back, it makes things worse. Erik ordinarily has an infinite well of patience, but he's embarrassed and awkward and on the edges of a full days' worth of televised memories, and he's frustrated with himself, so he closes his eyes and breathes deeply. Charles, stop it, he Orders, his tone soft as always. Come here. He wraps his fingers around his arms and lowers them, gentle. _What are you afraid I believe?_ it's an Order where he might have been a little more delicate otherwise, eyebrows arched.  
  
Charles wants to run. He absolutely, one hundred percent wants to run, if not physically than in some other way. With closed doors, or Xavier-Marko smiles, or a large glass of wine followed by shots of vodka until he is drunk and hazy and doesn't remember what he's afraid of. But he's not allowed alcohol, is he? Because Erik thinks - He shakes his head. "I'm afraid you're doing this all for my sake," he says, because he has to, and feels sick all over again. "That you've - that it's all because it's what you think I need, so you've just gone and -" He can't finish. He doesn't. He's afraid it's all an elaborate game after all, and Charles is the one deciding all the rules.  
  
Erik looks at him, eyebrows pinched together. He doesn't bother speaking in anything other than Orders at this point, unwilling to chase the conversation to the farthest corners of the world and back, and because it's a conversation they've needed to have for a very long time. Should have had at the start. "I do not understand what you are saying," he admits softly. "So I need you to elaborate. I always have your best interests at heart, of course I do. That does not make it a game."  
  
Charles makes a strangled, frustrated noise from the back of his throat. He feels a bit like a cornered animal, and when he backs up and knocks into the garbage can he'd been sick in when this all started, it's only worsened. "That's not what I meant," he huffs, because Erik is always so gentle with him, and not only does he not deserve it, Charles' instincts in moments like this are not nearly as kind. "I meant that sometimes it feels like - like you're only doing this because I need it, not because you do. That I'm just - that I'm -" Forcing you into something you don't really want, because you think it will make me happy.  
  
"Charles. Why would I devote myself to your happiness if it were not something I needed? Does it really feel like I do not want to be here, with you? Like I do not want to be your Dominant?" His expression is pained.  
  
"That's not -" He claps his own hand over his mouth to muffle a sob, none too gently. He thinks of yesterday. Of Erik putting on his collar, and the pride and joy and fulfillment he'd felt in waves. That was real. That he knows was real. Those discussions, those promises, those vows, that was real. "But you - what if - I'm too much, so you just. No one knows what to do with me, they never have. So maybe you've just - and I've been selfish -" He shrugs, helpless and thoroughly worked up. "I know I am, actually. Selfish. Because I want you to need it too. I really do. I want you to need to Dominate me like I need to submit, I need that. I need -" For them to be compatible. Charles has spent his entire life being incompatible with everyone. Off frequency in varying increments, but always off. Hearing it in relation to the two of them terrified him more than he'd ever admit. Being with Erik is the only time he's ever felt right. He can't be wrong here, too. He just can't. He can't.  
  
Erik taps him on the nose, smiling faintly, and just a little bit, he thinks Charles is silly-but-not-like-that. "Everything that I do for you, Charles, I want to do. I need to do. And I know that you know that." But it is-complicated. Orientation isn't a straight line, and Erik was raised as a submissive. Sometimes he sees no appreciable difference at all between what he wants, and what he was educated a submissive is _supposed_ to do. And Charles, being submissive, should realistically have a problem with that. How can he forget sixteen years of his life? How is it possible that none of it transferred to him, changed him-made him some-hybrid that can never bond properly with anybody? Erik needs to be in the position of power, to direct the situation, to be the supporter, the guider, the leader, and that will never change. But he also needs to serve, to provide, to nurture, to give, and it is _blurry_. Erik covers his eyes, suddenly and abruptly overcome by the feeling of tears as though he's been punched in the face, shaking. _Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. I will find it all and cut it out._  
  
Charles knows he will not forgive himself later if he walks away from this, so he chokes down a sob and tries his own question. _Does it make you feel submissive, when you do those things with me? When you care for me? When you provide for me? When you nurture me? Do you feel like you are my submissive?_ It - does not sit right, the words. They don't feel right.  
  
Erik breathes in deeply, drawing his hands down his face. His eyes are dry. "No," he says out loud, and he is confident in that answer. Even the question being phrased that way is jarring and a little _funny_ , to be honest. He does those things for Charles because Charles is his. And he does belong to Charles, but the idea of submitting to Charles is simply not congruent. He does it because he is responsible for Charles. He takes care of his submissive. Erik frowns at his feet. He also knows that Charles is probably right; that he's not looking at this from the proper perspective. Not only that, but he worries that his opinions about what is and isn't submissive are tarnished by Shaw, by the Hellfire Club, and he doesn't want those backwards perspectives even touching Charles. The problem is that he doesn't know what the right perspective is. He only knows what he was exposed to.  
  
 _It feels wrong, doesn't it?_ he asks, and, though he's staring down, too, his lips twitch into something vaguely resembling a smile. _Because it is. Can I ask you a question, Erik?_  
  
Erik nods, and because he can't help it, he touches Charles's elbow, pulling him a bit closer.  
  
Charles goes willingly. Then, in rapidfire recollection, he offers two instances. One: Erik's thoughts as he heard them, a reflection on how he has learned to groom others because it is expected of a submissive in European countries to do so. To serve their Dominants in such a way. The second, far more vividly: the actual act of it. Charles, gasping and held still by Erik's Will, dipped deep into subspace, his expression one of utter trust, of adoration, of reverence. On his knees while Erik looks upon his work with heated eyes, one hand overlaid on Charles' collar. _Can you tell me who is the Dominant and who is the submissive, Erik?_ he asks. _Do you have any trouble distinguishing?_  
  
Even the memory alone is enough to stir Erik's Will, a cord laid dormant between them shifting under the surface and abruptly rising up, saturating the room as Erik steps into Charles's space, hand going to the collar at his throat with little warning. _No, Charles,_ his answer is a near purr. Charles is his submissive. His.  
  
Charles inhales sharply, suddenly dizzy with relief and the near suffocating electricity that Erik's Will always sparks right up in him, but he isn't finished. More images flash. Charles in the bathtub, his hair washed and his body scrubbed while he melts into every touch and looks at Erik as if he is everything. Letting himself be taken care of in a way he usually never does, not a word of complaint or a moment of fuss. _Now? Can you tell?_ Charles on the bed, now, spread out on his stomach while Erik massages every tense, aching muscle, every bruise and welt and sore spot until he is boneless and moaning and far, far down, the only thing he can think of Erik's Will. It is, from a different angle and completely flipped context, absolutely an act of submissive service. Not from this one. _Now?_ Charles on his knees in a mind-world, soft and complacent and floating as Erik feeds him and he dutifully takes every bite he's given. How about now? Erik dressing him, slow and deliberate, while Charles shivers, lifting his legs obligingly so Erik can pull up his pants. One more. Charles gasping in pure, unadulterated pleasure while Erik takes none himself, his hand worked on Charles' cock and not the other way around. Charles' mind hums in subspace, an extension of Erik's Will as he takes what he is given. Allows Erik to pleasure him as he sees fit, does not ask for more and certainly not less. He thinks he's made his point.  
  
Erik's response is to violently drop into Dominion, despite their very public location, an elastic band being snapped-a transition so abrupt it submerges them in scorching water, after hours in the cold; the edges of his Will swiftly spilling out-after so long contained and kept in neat little boxes to stop himself affecting the court room-into every part of the hallway and causing a submissive janitor around the corner to gasp and stumble into a closet to gain control of themselves. Erik doesn't care-no. More accurately, because he is if nothing else conscientious, he would care, does not enjoy making people uncomfortable-he isn't aware of anything at this moment except for Charles. "Get on your knees," he Orders, both hands resting on either side of Charles's jaw. "I want your on your knees. Right now." His eyes are blown wide, color high on his cheeks. Charles can make his point kneeling. Where he belongs.  
  
And Charles, as beautifully responsive as always, drops right to his knees with a gasping sigh of a breath not quite decent enough for public, but no one will see them here. Perhaps he wouldn't care, in this single moment, if they could. Just like that, he's swept back into orbit. Just like that, he's adjusted to the proper frequency. "Yes, Erik," he breathes, and there are tears in his eyes as he looks up, as his whole being submerges beneath Erik's Will. He's so relieved he can't fathom it. Where he belongs.  
  
Fortunately the place has cleared out by now, with Christopher and Carmen having given up on Charles coming with them and leaving the area after texting Charles requesting him to let them know that he's OK. Erik breathes in audibly, stutters through his nose, keeping himself still, as he just-barely recognizes where they are, realizes he can't put Charles in heavy subspace while they're in the court house, can't think about how much Charles likes him-somewhere along the way he'd gotten twisted up today and it's not difficult to figure out why that is considering where they are, but it's been hard to feel right and good and normal. Like he's been put together wrong. But none of that matters. Actions don't matter, Erik has never done anything that Charles objected to, he could demand anything, request anything and Charles would undoubtedly comply, because it makes Erik happy, and Charles likes being taken care of because Erik likes doing it. He isn't wrong. It isn't deviant. He should really stop thinking about it right now. (And about the reverse; Charles on his knees thinking about Erik's hand on his-they're in public, Erik isn't seventeen, damn it. Self-control, please.)  
  
Charles had gotten twisted, too. But he feels the need to correct, _I also just like being taken care of._ It's quiet, that shy, slightly uncertain tone he takes on matters concerning his own needs and desires, cheeks faintly pink. Not just because you like it. Perhaps that's not very traditionally submissive of him, but he honestly can't think of why it wouldn't be. Besides that, Charles has always - well. Look at the house he grew up in. Not once in his life was he ever cared for in any meaningful way. The closest he's had is Raven, and to call Raven nurturing would be a stretch. They've taken care of each other, certainly, but Charles was older. Charles provided. Charles read her bedtime stories and let her sleep in his bed when she had nightmares and did what he thought he needed to keep her safe. Charles is exceptionally bad at letting others care for him. That he lets Erik do it at all is an act of submission, of surrender and of trust. And if Erik asked him again what his definition of Dominance was, it would more than allow for this: a Dominant, the way Charles has always conceptualized one, takes care of and protects a submissive. Not because they're weak and incapable, but because that is a Dominant's responsibility. It's less about serving and more about - providing, and such. Service and obedience and surrender and respect in exchange for order and guidance and care and protection. When he offered his submission to Erik, did that not mean he trusted Erik to give him what he needs? And if that includes being cared for when he finds himself failing at it, why is that wrong? If Erik enjoys doing it, how is it not even better? Twisted up. _We're not incompatible_ , he whispers, and just for a moment, rests himself against Erik's knee, closes his eyes and revels in it.  
  
Erik practically sags in relief, because a lot of this has been trapped in the fishing net of his mind like gunk, killing all the wildlife, an oil spill into the sea. Seeing it put into this context almost makes him feel stupid; of course it should be this way, he can see for himself he's never forced Charles to accept his care. Honestly, Erik's never thought of it as wrong so much as he worried-he needed too much. It's more of the same, he realizes with a small smile. Both of them afraid of their own desires. In the end they find their way back to each other and it always turns out that they are one half of a unified, wondrous whole. He lets his fingers drift over Charles's collar. It has never been a game. And while he does not desire Charles to obey him out of fear or panic, and has clearly drawn a line down what he will and won't Order, Charles is not the one who makes the rules, not while he has given himself to Erik.   
  
If he chooses to leave, if he chooses otherwise, then that is another story, but as long as he is Erik's, for as long as he wears Erik's collar, he will be Erik's. And there are a great number of expectations that exist there, all tied into the pulsing of his Will like a beating heart. There is some truth to the idea that Erik will do anything to make Charles happy, but it is incorrect to assume that Erik is changing himself in any appreciable way to do so-because it is himself. He needs it. And it is equally incorrect to assume that his Dominance is something he's had to force himself into, to do that. Everything that Erik does, especially between them, is born out of his Dominance. The more he explores it, the truer that becomes. And he has never encountered a situation where he did not know how to handle Charles's submission or his needs, even at his most baffled, he almost always ends up directing the situation where it needs to go. The realization fills him with an odd sort of self-pride. He is Charles's Dominant. He alone knows what to do. How to help. How to heal. How to care for. "Mmhmmm," he makes an appreciative noise in the back of his throat.  
  
Charles leans into the touch, soft and gentled now, all his edges smoothed. He had no time to throw a fit, in this particular wandering. He'd been working up to it, was thinking rather spectacularly about how to do it - something about wine and vodka, about throwing around petulant words before he could be crushed himself. Erik completely circumnavigated that. Cut it right out before Charles' defensive mechanisms kicked in and got out of hand. _You really do_ , he confirms, momentarily awed, though he shouldn't be. _Know what to do. How to handle me._  
  
Sometimes it takes longer than others, but Erik realizes that they get there in the end, and he's never wavered in his confidence to power through until they do. He's a little awed himself, because up until now, he's never felt like he's done anyone an ounce of good. That's what it means, for Charles to be his. That he is good, too. Idly, he cards his fingers through Charles's hair. But-he catches onto a thought and laughs a bit. _Wine and vodka, Charles? That can't taste nice._  
  
Charles hums, distracted entirely by those fingers. It feels incredibly nice, and resting against Erik's legs on his knees like this, there really is the danger of falling too deep into subspace. It's just - he's missed this. Missed Erik's Will, the warm, familiar thrum of it. He laughs quietly, too, though the implications aren't completely funny to him. There's a saying related to this, but I've forgotten it at the moment. Something about beer and wine and feeling fine. Can we please go home, _Erik?_ He looks up imploringly, because right now, it's the only thing he wants. Perhaps there's more to discuss, some loose ends and patching to do. He'd like to do it in their own home. Their own home. Oh. Charles smiles.  
  
Erik helps him get to his feet, giving him a lingering kiss. _Yes, Charles. Let's go home._ Because it should come to no surprise by now that he does consider Charles's apartment home, or really anywhere that Charles is-but there's something alluring about a physical space, a truly private arena to call their own. He's never had a home before. As they head to the car outside, he floats all the way back, warmed thoroughly from the inside by the idea. Home.


	32. So if you wanna burn yourself remember that I LOVE YOU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. thx so much 4 your reviews, it means alot & is deeply appreciated!

They're on the opposite side of the city from where he lives. With the traffic, it's going to take an inordinate amount of time to get back, and he groans inwardly at the idea of it. He just wants to be home. He's not sure what inspires it. It's a playful urge, not at all unlike the kind of goading he does now. Part of it might be to test his newfound control over his mutation, too. Whatever it is, it's obvious what he's doing: in between what seem like perfectly innocent, aimless thoughts - their empty fridge, his list of people he needs to text, his reminder to himself to actually get rid of the alcohol under his sink (he thinks obedience in there, so perhaps less that one), are images of his own submission. Like flipping through a scrapbook, from the first Order obeyed - coffee-related, funny enough - to the first time on his knees, first drop into subspace, to very recent images - hazy, deep-seated satisfaction, Erik's Will seeped into his bones, the overwhelming need to serve and please, his lips stretched obscenely around Erik's - But he never lingers for long, as if it's unintentional. As if he doesn't know what he's doing. He does.

The car they're in inches forward at an infinitesimal pace, and Erik looks uncomfortable stuffed into the backseat, Charles sprawled out over his lap, when the images begin sifting through his mind-mundane at first, and then-he jerks, bodily, hands tightening in Charles's clothes, stomach clenching as he inhales sharply. " _Charles_ -" it's a warning, or maybe it's not. Heat forces his eyes into slits as he drags the smaller man closer to him, about ready to settle him very conspicuously between his knees. It turns out Erik's self-control isn't the greatest when he's sliding deeper into Dominion by the second, bolstered by Charles's playful turn of thought. It turns out it's definitely not difficult to rile Erik up at all.

 _Mmm_. Charles is sliding right into that mirrored, floating place, too, and he grins, only slightly sheepish as he squirms in Erik's lap. _Yes, Erik?_ he asks, and has the gall to bat his eyelashes over it, the picture of innocence. He thinks of the first time Erik wrapped his hand around his throat. Just for a second, and then it's gone, replaced with a grocery list. A breath later and they both watch him slide into his Postures for the first time, expression open bliss as Erik praises him, deep voice murmuring very good, Charles and - Charles is not unaffected either, shivering all over.

Erik nearly growls at him. He could Order him to stop-because their poor taxi driver looks about ready to spontaneously combust, _whoops_ -but that would mean he'd stop and that's infinitely worse. He should probably care about what other human people think right now, who definitely don't consent to Charles getting mauled in the back seat of a cab at 5PM in the afternoon, but Erik's a little far gone and he yanks Charles fully onto his lap, in a way that is absolutely _not_ innocent, his hands settling warmly against the curve of Charles's ass, pulling him flush to his body. "You're playing coy," he rasps against his ear. "Unless you would rather to go the grocery store."

Said taxi driver won't see anything he's not supposed to see. Charles gasps, utterly delighted at the attention, his gaze half-lidded and hazy now. _I don't know what you mean, Erik,_ he whispers, and this time he mocks a soft frown. As if he's genuinely confused. His eyes lower, the picture of demure submission. Do you want to go to the store? he asks, knowing full well what the answer is. Whatever you decide, sir. Charles recalls other instances of Erik's hand on his ass, particularly an instance of it being spanked red. Then he makes one up, something that hasn't happened yet - Charles wriggling across Erik's knees as he cries out, a paddle wielded, he imagines, quite expertly, a hand on his back to keep him still and force him to take it, even as Charles cries and whimpers, but they aren't done until Erik says so, until he decides Charles has had enough, he's been mouthy and coy and perhaps he needs to be put firmly back into his place... They need milk. And eggs.

His nostrils flare and Charles feels him stir beneath him, a long, hard line pressed against his inner thigh. In one sudden movement, Erik traps Charles's good hand behind him in a tight grip, and tugs his head back by the hair to expose his throat. Which he then bites, promptly, a flash of teeth soothed by his tongue a few seconds later. "I should give you my cock right now," he mutters, dazed. Tendrils of thick, dark arousal roll off of him, fogging up the air with his Will. Images of his own flare up and slam into Charles, stealing away his breath and replacing it with pure need. Using him here in the car, making him give Erik more of those delicious slivers of fantasy, getting himself all hot and bothered while he chokes on it, but-such a shame. They need milk and eggs, so there won't be enough time to bother letting him come. He can take care of Erik like he's supposed to and squirm and beg the entire time they're walking through the isles. Erik finds himself smirking unconsciously. The best of both worlds.

Charles' eyes roll back. Any traces of coy and demure are drained right out of him when he moans, panting harshly as he tries to catch his own breath. He's undeniably affected, squirming in Erik's lap in earnest now, gasping and straining against his trousers already, his eyelids heavy as he drowns in Erik's Will. If Erik bid it, he would absolutely get right to his knees and suck his cock in the middle of New York City traffic in the back of a stranger's car, and he would love every single second of it. He catches the end of those thoughts and whines loudly, struggling in Erik's hold as if it will get him anywhere. As if there's anywhere to go. This is what he'd been goading for, to be put back in his place after he'd twisted himself out of it, but it doesn't mean he can't fuss. Perhaps he needs to. No, please, he pleads. I'll be good, I promise. I'm sorry, sir.

Erik chuckles darkly. "Oh, I see. You don't want it, then. That's not what you were thinking moments ago. Far be it for me to keep up with the tides of your thoughts," he taps Charles's bottom lip with his thumb. "Perhaps I'll just take care of myself."

That's worse, and infinitely so. Charles' eyes widen and he shakes his head vehemently, whimpering. Take the privilege of coming from him and he'll survive, though he'll squirm with it, close to bursting already and they've barely done anything. But he needs to serve Erik, has been aching for it all day, longing for it. "No! No, no, please," he gasps, as if Erik has just threatened to take away his greatest privilege. He has. "Please, sir, let me - I'll be good, I'll be so good, please let me. I'll do anything." He really, truly will.

The button of Erik's pants pops undone of its own accord. "You can watch, if you like." Two can play this game, Charles. Erik looks indescribably smug, "You've gotten me all worked up, but I know you're not thinking about this. Just an accident, hm? Don't worry, you can continue refining your shopping list." While he's trapped helplessly against Erik, nowhere to move- "What else do we need? Ah, flour." Erik's hips stutter, belying his cool facade when he finally gets his fingers around himself. "I used that when I baked for you. Mm-how good you looked eating out of my hand." He spreads his legs a little more, creating some friction where Charles shifts against him just-so, but certainly not enough to relieve that pressure. "Look at what you've done to me, Charles," he stares up at him, voice rough and low. Even now his Will is everywhere, using his own body as a tool of Dominance like anything else at his disposal.

Tears spring to Charles' eyes, and the desperate, needy sound that escapes him is entirely too debauched for the back of this car, but it's too late for thoughts of decency. He wriggles just as helplessly as Erik predicted, whining with every breath now. "Please, please, please," he begs, lip wobbling as he stares at Erik's cock. He won't ever touch without permission, but he wants so badly. Use his mouth. Come on his face. Charles' eyes widen at his own suggestion, as if it were startled out of him, and he turns a pretty shade of scarlet.

Erik shudders, cock twitching visibly at the image. "Shall I let you, Charles? Because if you don't want it, I won't give it to you." Erik trails his finger down Charles's cheek, nail biting at the skin of his throat where he'd fastened his teeth only moments before. It left a mark. "It _seems_ like you forgot your place. I don't blame you. I can be so obscure when I speak." He raises his hand to his own mouth and licks a slow stripe over his palm before resettling it between his legs, rhythm agonizingly slow, the slide of skin against skin unmistakable. " _Panim yafim_ ," he slips out of English. "Maybe if you ask as pretty as you look, I'll let you have my come."

It's absolutely torture. Charles sniffles, whimpering loudly as he practically writhes on Erik's knee. It's not because he's squirming for any friction or touch, his own cock trapped painfully where it's rubbing against the zipper of his trousers and twitching at even the notion that's Erik bit him hard enough to mark, that he's so utterly his it's preposterous he doubted it for even a second. It's because he wants to be the one to serve Erik more than anything, to touch his cock and please him like he's meant to, to be used properly - and oh, Erik was right earlier, except he doesn't just like it, Erik's cock. He well and truly loves it, is extraordinarily preoccupied with it whenever he has even a moment to think about it, finds his mind slipping to it sometimes when he's idle, how it feels in his hands, twitching and weighty, on his tongue, the taste of him, the way it gags him even at his most prepared, inside of him as it stretches and cleaves open, always entirely too big at first, making him gasp and shudder and clench but it always fits in the end because Erik makes it, and why wouldn't he, he was meant to take it - Charles is a shaking, desperate mess. "Please, sir, please, may I have your come?" he pleads, and it's fiercely earnest. He doesn't need to pretend to beg for something that he wants more than he can properly express at the moment. It's written all over his face as he watches, hot tears sliding down his cheeks. "Please, I want it, I want it so badly, I - I need it, sir," he gasps. It doesn't matter where he gets it, what Erik deigns he's worthy of, he'll take anything. In his mouth, on his face, his body, in his hand. He'll lick it right off his fingers if he's allowed, thank him for the privilege. It's such a patently filthy thought, and not the first he's had in this exchange, and Charles squirms harder, flushed head to toe as he recognizes his own neediness.

Even if Erik hadn't been patently bluffing-(teasing, really, Charles was only being playful, after all-but something in him rises up at this. They both need it, the reaffirmation-nothing broken, nothing lost, only gained. Unfortunately for Charles, Erik found this entirely too good. Let it go on much longer than he initially planned because Charles looks completely wrecked for him and he hasn't even been touched)-he's sure this would have made him reconsider. There are few things on this planet that Erik likes more than reducing Charles to incoherence-and many things he enjoys for their own sake, his libido perfectly healthy, but he has never needed Charles to put on a show for him. (Although that thought is a curious trail in and of itself. Because he could, because it's his right. Erik has never felt the _opposite_ of shame before encountering Charles, a pure entitlement to his own urges, and it is intoxicating enough that he has to shut his eyes and clamp his fingers around the base of his dick to stop himself coming then and there.) What he's always enjoyed though is Charles's sincerity, which is an infinitely preferable thought anyway, he doesn't want fake. He wants to hear what they both know, what Charles can't stop thinking in his head over and over, wants him to hear his own voice ruined-"Get on your knees right now," Erik growls, entirely finished teasing.

The Order means he has to face the situation they've found themselves in, and it nearly undoes him. Charles has never thought himself an exhibitionist, even if that's not exactly what's going on here. The driver suspects absolutely nothing, and neither does anyone in the bumper to bumper traffic they're sitting in. Charles has not only created a perfectly benign perception - himself leaned against the door and staring out the window, a put out look on his face as anyone would have in NYC traffic during rush hour - but cut everyone else off from Erik entirely, too, his Will untouchable and erased from memory. But Charles knows. Charles absolutely knows, and he has to force himself to breathe as he fumbles down to his knees in the cramped space, the only way he fits by squeezing between Erik's knees. It should humiliate him, and it does. It has him squirming though there's nowhere to squirm, his face actually radiating heat. But Charles likes it. It's such a heady realization that he spins with it, dizzy and panting, eyes dark stars framed with blue edges. The reality that Erik could ask this of him, Order him right to his knees regardless of situation and demand to be serviced, whether it embarrasses Charles or not, whether it's convenient for him to do so in the backseat of a sedan or not - That it's his right, and Charles will obey because that's his place? He moans, unable to help it. "Please, sir," he begs.

And Erik knows it, Will unfolding down all around them. He's hard enough to hurt because Charles wanted to play, and he doesn't have to do anything at all except get what he needs. The idea that the reverse were somehow true-that he could submit to Charles under the same auspices, is nearly a comedy. A twisted caricature, born out of his own lack of comprehension. It doesn't matter how it's framed-he could lay Charles out on the seat and do the same thing, get right to his knees and echo every action, but it would be because he wanted it, because he decided it, because Charles would take what he gave him. Because he would be the one to reduce Charles into a boneless, begging heap and force him to stay still and take everything-if he wanted. And he doesn't. He wants to get off, he wants to come, he wants to jam his cock down Charles's throat and listen to him moan with pleasure like he's the one being touched, and he isn't-and maybe Erik won't even bother, he needs to learn some consequences, playing coy will get you nowhere, Charles-it's such an indescribably selfish urge and for some reason that makes it better. And Charles looks so good on the damn floor, shaking and twitching and hot with shame-Erik slides his hand into Charles's hair and tugs his head forward, shoving between his reddened lips without much finesse, doesn't care-Charles is for him, not the other way around, not right now. "You had better make me come, Charles," he mutters darkly, lip curled in pure license. "And if I see a single drop wasted I'll take you over my knee right here and redden your ass until you cry. Maybe I'll do it anyway."

Erik is right. Charles wanted to play. He wanted to fight, just a bit, to squirm and make like he could resist for even a second, and he wanted to be put back into his place. He wanted to erase even the notion that what they're doing together could ever, under any circumstances, be a game. Now he's wrecked and on his knees, gagging on Erik's cock in the back of this car and moaning for more every time he has enough breath to do so, mouth stretched in that delicious, vulgar way. Even as it humiliates him, even as he's keenly aware of honking horns and glances in the rearview, he gladly submits to it. If Erik wanted to punish him, however playfully - different from the more serious discipline sessions he does not want to think about right now, because those mean he needs actual correction, but those are his right, too, Charles will submit to those, too, Charles consented to those, too - that would be his right. To take him over his knee because Charles was being a bit of a brat, or simply because he felt like it. Thought Charles could use the reminder of who's in charge here, because there shouldn't have been any doubt and for minutes too long there was. There are wet, sloppy noises that he knows are coming from him, the sound of his gasping and occasional sputtering, tears stinging the corner of his eyes and Charles doesn't think he's ever been so turned on by a situation and yet it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because Charles is here to serve Erik. When Erik comes, he's thrust far down Charles' throat and he gags, coughing, still not quite used to this. He's whining a moment later, distressed and desperate, come on his cheek as he swallows what he can and goes back to clean the rest, soft, almost kittenish licks, eyes glazed over and moaning like he's greedy for it. He is.

Erik swipes his thumb over Charles's cheek and dips it into his mouth, making sure he does exactly what he said, not missing any at all. Erik looks ridiculously sated, suit rumpled, cheeks flushed, pupils dilated. Yet he's breathing evenly, fully in control as though he were designed for this, to be served like this, and he doesn't stop Charles from remaining where he is, watching him through half-lidded eyes, brushing his fingers over his face tenderly, bestowing affection on his beloved with still-to-no real intention of returning the favor right now, letting him stew in his own thick arousal, because... he can. And that's all the encouragement he needs. Because he likes that Charles wants him, wants to be touched, to be fucked, to be used, and now there's nowhere for him to find relief because Erik's lazy about even moving. So Charles has to just sit there at his feet and deal with it-Erik doesn't even bother putting him back in his lap, running his fingers through his hair idly and letting himself sink back into the seat, thoroughly pleased-hums unconsciously, his mind a hazy bright-spot of-good, perfect-that's it, clean me up-he snaps Charles's hands up to his knees with a burst of power, restraining them against the fabric of his pants where he can see them, making well and sure Charles doesn't give into any temptation. He's completely restrained, between the seat and Erik and with only the ability to shift a little in either direction.

Charles wouldn't have touched himself even if he'd been able to, sunk so far down into subspace it's a laughable concept. Erik decides when and how he's pleasured, not Charles. He focuses on his task instead, soft, moaning sighs parting his swollen lips as he licks and sucks, cleaning Erik thoroughly but careful of oversensitivity. When he's finished, not a drop left, he rests his cheek against Erik's thigh, shivering and whimpering. His own cock is painful by now, straining in its confinement, even though Erik hasn't laid a finger on him. He wiggles about as much as he can, as if testing - there's nowhere to go. Nothing to do but stay here on his knees, and - he doesn't need reciprocation. This isn't tit for tat. This isn't Charles running the show like he'd worked himself up into thinking in that hallway. If Erik decides he deserves something, he'll get it. He's already let Charles have his cock, he should be grateful, and he is. Deeply satisfied that he'd pleased Erik, that he'd been a good boy and done what he was told. Not a drop. His breath hitches at the thought, but he settles down. Just be good, Charles. Let Erik take care of you. It's strikingly clear, as it should always have been, who's in charge here.

And that is exactly where Erik decides to keep him, until the gridlock clears up and they start to inch forward more frequently and Erik has his eyes closed, hand drifting through Charles's hair, against his cheek and neck, his shoulders. Even though Erik's already found his release he finds himself periodically overcome by electric tingles in his chest, every time his eyes open and he finds Charles again by his feet, slipping further and further down into the darkness of desire that he can't fathom existing in any other way-this is where Charles should always be, should always be moments away from, it should permeate every part of his life, and it does-Erik grins up at the roof. Very good, he agrees, bowing forward to kiss Charles's forehead, and then his lips, affixing his fingers around Charles's throat to hold him up in place while he dominates his mouth again with his tongue, an oral fucking in place of his cock.

Charles melts and moans into it, submitting utterly. He's eagerly responsive, but doesn't squirm or fight or try to take more than what he's bid. Soft and perfectly content at Erik's feet, crowded up against him even with his own arousal still a hot liquid heat inside his belly and Erik's taste thick on his tongue. When they part, he gasps for air, lightheaded. "Thank you, Erik," he murmurs sweetly, beaming up at him like he's given Charles the world. Like he's rewarded him. He has. Erik's pleasure is its own reward, his praise what he craves more than anything. Getting off is nearly irrelevant when weighed against that, and it should be fairly obvious by now that he'd happily spend hours on his knees warming Erik's cock, would raise not a single peep of complaint. Would beg for the privilege. His cheeks heat again, and he ducks his head into Erik's knee.

Erik lays his hand over Charles's and strokes the back of his palm, overcome by a sudden rush of affection. "What else do we need?" he asks, smiling as he sits back in his seat, somehow perfectly capable of thinking about groceries while Charles is swirling in heated need, and he lifts Charles's chin to watch his eyes, waiting patiently, expectantly for the answer.

Charles blinks. He's never had an issue with memory, and he had made a mental list this morning. Now he finds himself completely incapable of recalling it, which is new for him, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth but not biting. "Um - food," he answers, and it's not snarky. It's what he manages to come up with. Not vegetables. Those are gross.

He laughs, eyes crinkled up fondly. "Oh, really? No broccoli, then? Brussels sprouts? Aubergine? Lettuce." Listen, now Erik is thinking about food. Food and Charles (and sex with Charles), probably his two favorite things. Unfortunately Erik's not here, so he only gets one of them, but he can live vicariously. Maybe Erik will reward him with a cheesecake instead. _Mm. Cheesecake._ Erik laughs at himself, covering his mouth. He's caught the giggles, his brain deciding that all the tension abruptly evaporated from his body after this horrific day means it's time for abject silliness.

 _Mmm. Cheesecake._ Charles smiles, because Erik has a beautiful laugh that he can't not smile at, the sound of it one of his favorites in the world. His hands are still restrained, so he nudges his head against Erik's hand, the request clear as he looks up shyly. _No vegetables, though. And you can't make me_ , he thinks, childishly, because it's something he's said plenty before in relation to this - _I'm a grown man, Raven, you can't make me eat my vegetables_ \- but he realizes a moment later, squirming, that it's wrong. Erik can make him. Very easily.

And Erik definitely knows it, only continuing to chuckle as though Charles had said something amusing. He settles his hand back into Charles's hair and massages his scalp. He's a bit lost in thought, fascinated by the idea of the grocery store probably a little more than a normal person would be, with the idea that he will eventually be able to cook for Charles, for himself, to decide even this small thing-which is intensely opposite of the majority of his experiences; it started with his almost rebellious request-and for him it had been, when he first met Charles. Like it had been true before, which it wasn't, because it wasn't possible, but now it is-he can... theoretically just do whatever he wants, he can decide what he wants to do, when he wants to do it, and that extends to Charles by default. Charles mentioned the concept of freedom early-on, but Erik hadn't even been paying attention, but he's close enough to Charles now to be able to sense what Charles does-that everyone today was beginning to reconsider their opinions, which meant now it's a real possibility. Erik's eyes have glazed over and he drags them back to Charles, grinning down at him. _Oh, but we both know I can_. And that it's a very real possibility he will.

And Charles will let him. Charles will, regardless of any fuss, let Erik decide for them. This is something he can give him, a way he can serve. Not only by offering his own deference, but by letting Erik provide in the way he needs. Taking the guidance and order he needs in the same breath, with the same actions. He can offer control over the situation, over his own, very soon, but also over Charles'. What to wear, and eat, when to sleep, a thousand tiny decisions woven into an intricate map, the world laid out before them and Erik leading because they've both agreed he should. Perhaps he won't always go complacent and soft, but he will always go - serious objections and pause-words aside - the applications extending far beyond what they buy at the grocery store, but no less applicable there. "No vegetables, I won't eat them," he protests again, no heat because it's empty, even with a slight pout to his lips. Maybe he still wants to play, or maybe he wants Erik to continue to affirm that all of this is real. It's their life. It's what they both want, what they both need, and it should have never been in question. He doesn't need to knock himself out of orbit anymore.

Erik kisses his forehead again, hand curling around the nape of his neck and resting there, thumbing over the mark he'd left just under his collar. The only mark on Charles's body he should have. The only one that brings Erik pleasure just by looking at it, warm and fluttering in his belly. "Oh, you will," he promises simply. And he doesn't intend on Charles forcing down a plate of something he hates, either. He'll win him over, not only making him eat something healthy for a change, but making him enjoy it, too. Because he can provide that, he's quite confident about it, and because Charles deserved to enjoy every aspect of his life, even the most mundane elements.

Charles is buzzing with it, breathless as he leans into every touch. He shivers at even the reminder of that bite mark, such an obvious claim he's overcome with it. He's calmed a bit, but he's no less needy - and no less hard, either, he realizes when he shifts with a gasp - but it still doesn't matter. Erik knows what he needs, and Erik will take care of him. "New kitchenware," he murmurs, and it's a response to an earlier question. Not right now, perhaps, but eventually. Not only is Charles' equipment scarce - he doesn't cook, so buying new pans and such had seemed unnecessary, he's dragged the same old ones from the manor around for years - but it's definitely not ideal for keeping kosher. There's also probably more lingering bacon grease in that old pan than can ever be scrubbed out. The little things. They get this, now. It can be a consideration.

That makes him beam, and he shakes his head. "I'll take care of that," he promises, because it actually bears a lot of consideration, for both of them. And it had been a little bit of what he'd zoned out on earlier, because, OK, as much as Erik is in control here-it feels... wrong, to limit Charles based on his religious beliefs. He could, he shrugs. There's no real reason why he couldn't, it might even be easier if they both lived under one diet, but it feels disrespectful to Charles somehow, there's no justification for it, so he won't. "You can keep your frying pan, but I will need one of my own." He'll also need utensils, but that should be about the only difference. He doesn't plan on eating meat, so as long as Charles keeps everything separated, it'll be fine. He can teach the difference, but Charles very clearly gets the impression that Erik will consider the kitchen his domain, thank you very much. No Christmas toast for them.

Charles shakes his head. "It's not," he insists, quietly. Because he's thought about it, too. Plenty, actually, and Erik can get that impression. "I obviously don't share the belief behind it, but there's no real reason we can't consolidate a bit. It makes sense to cook for both of us, especially if you'll be the one cooking." He shrugs. It's less Erik dictating a belief - which he would not be okay with, obviously - and more him dictating diet within certain parameters. If he's out or about, with Raven or Warren or what-have-you, Erik's right, there's no reason for him to keep kosher, and so he won't. Still. "But there's no reason not to have a kosher kitchen. It's your kitchen," he smiles. "I'll keep my pan, though, far away from your pan." In case someone else wants to cook for him with it, he thinks sheepishly. Charles can provide for Erik and the people he cares about in many ways, but cooking? Not one of them.

Erik grins at him. "Truthfully, I expected that you would likely eat kosher more often than not anyway, since I do not exactly plan on cooking us two different meals every time," he huffs, leaning over to kiss Charles on the forehead again. It's hard to remain separate even now, he needs to touch Charles, to have that sense of closeness. "But I'm perfectly happy to find a spot for anything you might like. I presume you aren't a vegetarian, for example." Erik thinks he'd like to be, though. The idea of consuming animals is unpleasant to him. Maybe that makes him silly. Ms. Frost always rolled her eyes when he looked uncomfortable (G-d forbid _ungrateful_ , which is another matter altogether) whether it was _treif_ or meat in general. But now he has the opportunity to just _not feel_ like that anymore, and it's... incredibly overwhelming, in all honesty. "My kitchen," he laughs, swallowing roughly. "I love you." It's a bit random, but sometimes he just needs to say it, is overcome by the urge to announce it at any intersection of moments.

"I love you, too." Charles grins up at him, completely overwhelmed with Erik's pleasure. It's dizzying, really, and he has to stop to breathe, rubbing his cheek against Erik's hand when it comes to rest there. For a moment he loses his train of thought, subspace and satisfaction making everything heavy, and when his eyes open again (he hadn't even noticed they'd closed), they're bright. "I'm not big on meat, actually. I don't mind." Another shrug, easy. Not a sacrifice, but another way he can accommodate. Another way he can give Erik the life he wants, can serve him. "If I have a sudden craving for a burger, which I won't, I'll go out with Warren. It's fine. Your kitchen," he reasserts. Erik's control, Erik's choices. All his, and Charles could offer it right up. It thrills him more than he'd like to admit. It would be a bit harder after they moved. Charles has thought about that at length, too, near constantly if he's not too occupied to keep it running as a background process, but that's another story. He hums and brushes it away, resting against Erik's knee again. Only a few more minutes left to the ride, so he has to take what he can get. He'll miss being on his knees like this. That he's spent nearly the whole car ride between Erik's thighs instead of on a seat is not lost on him.

"What do you think about?" Erik wants to know, doesn't want it to be brushed away, even if he's a bit preoccupied himself with that alluring mark under his jaw, and Erik tilts Charles's head to kiss over it, exhaling softly next to his ear. He will be on his knees again before they get home, Erik thinks to himself. Maybe this is how they'll travel from now on. Why shouldn't they? Maybe Erik will tell him not to use a perception filter. So that everyone can see exactly where he is, know exactly who he belongs to.

Charles gasps, eyes darkening and pulse racing in that tell-tale way it does when he's excited by something, even as he blushes. It's not unheard of, for submissives to travel that way. Not by any long shot. Not common, perhaps, but not outside the realm of polite society. He thinks - Charles' breath hitches, and it gives him away even as he tries to hide in Erik's thigh. No, he wouldn't mind. He has to catch his breath and clear his throat before he can speak, and it doesn't come verbally even then. _Our school,_ he answers. _I can't stop thinking about it._ There's so much to do, when he sits and actually considers it. Runs the numbers. It's completely doable, but it will take work.

Erik suddenly, though, seems to consider something and he pats the seat next to him, releasing Charles from his hold enough so he can re-situate himself on the seat. Erik buckles him in with the seatbelt, drawing his hand down his cheek. Again, is it silly? Yes. But Erik got a sudden image of Charles being crushed between the seat in a head-on collision, so, maybe not the most optimal way to travel. When he finally gets Charles settled he pulls him more-or-less back onto his lap, which is also nice, the full-body contact deeply missed in the interim. It's also an opportunity for him to rub his knee between Charles's thighs, tease him with just a little added friction while he considers the actual conversation. Like he doesn't know what he's doing. Neither can I, Erik admits. Can I help? With planning? Erik doesn't know how he'll help, exactly.

Charles huffs. As if they're not in an extraordinarily good position to stop a head-on collision - especially now. He can hear every mind around them, and it would take less than a fraction of a second for him to become aware of any danger, alerting Erik and thereby stopping it right then and there. He stops his pouting to whine, though, needy noises as he squirms in Erik's lap. No one even wears seatbelts in backseats. It's getting in the way and he considers undoing it, however defiantly, to get more contact. If he can't be on his knees, he can at least get more of this. _Mmhm_ , he murmurs, distracted, but he does mean it. He's already counted Erik in.

Erik starts to make a sound buried in his shoulder until he's full on laughing, patting Charles's knee like he can't catch his breath. "I-" he struggles to suck in air, eyes teary and then he puts his head back in Charles's neck. "Help-"

Charles blinks, confused and, just a little, affronted. _Are you laughing at me?_ he asks, and then he's pouting again, vaguely prickly.

"I forgot about my powers-" Erik's gone again. The seatbelt tightens minutely around Charles. Then less than minutely, trapping him firmly into the cushions of the seat. Behave, Erik tells him, trying to sound stern, but he's still fighting back a grin. At himself, though, definitely not at Charles. In terms of bad ideas, this one turns out to be fantastic. He can absolutely use that seatbelt to his advantage, Charles.

He takes a breath and presses down on the button to release the seatbelt, knowing full well Erik can keep it there - it doesn't even snap back - but knowing it's more doing it that matters. He lifts his chin. _I don't need it,_ he insists, but his shivering gives him away.

"Is that what you think?" Erik murmurs. Nothing even happens, Charles pressing futilely at the button. The seatbelt tightens even more, instead of less, and Erik snaps his hands to his knees, once more restraining them there, leaning over him from his own spot. Charles no longer has the friction to move up against, nowhere to seek except empty air.

This is where he should absolutely back down, and perhaps he'd get away with it. Be back in Erik's lap, where he could sigh and rock and kiss. His stomach flips in on itself, practically consumed by - not dread. He's not afraid, not even a little. But there's fluttering in his stomach that tells him this is dangerous, that he's playing with fire here and certainly not behaving properly. Erik's Will is suffocating. Charles still manages to keep his chin lifted. _Let go_ , he thinks, and it's shaky even there. Breathless. He never learned to back down in situations like this, unfortunately, and the last time he tried something like this - needed something like this - they weren't nearly well-adjusted enough to navigate it.

Erik's eyebrow arches up at him. One of his hands slides up Charles's inner thigh, not enough to provide any sort of relief at all. The other spreads out over Charles's jaw, holding his head still so he could glower at him, eyes intense and Will heating the air like a gasoline fire. Every minute twitch of Charles's defiance against him only lights the match, again and again. Fields ablaze. "You want this. You want that." _Let me go. Put me on my knees. Use me. Make me come. I don't know what you mean, sir. Oh, I'm so sorry, sir_. "What makes you think," he nearly snarls, but his voice is so low it's soft, deceptive. Beneath it he's hot, not angry, the difference is definitely stark. Charles decided to play with fire, and Erik's going to let him get burned a little. "That I care about what you want?"

Charles is shivering, fully body shudders, skin prickling and stomach tensed. There's a line he's toeing here. He gathers up all that defiance inside of him and manages to stare right back, lips pursed as he squirms futilely in Erik's hold. He's burning on the inside, and he has to project answers because he knows his voice will shake. He knows he'll gasp. _Because I always get what I want,_ he returns, petulant.

"When I ask you a question, you will answer me out loud," Erik Orders, rubbing his thumb over Charles's bottom lip again, blinking slowly down at him. "I want you here. I want you to sit here, right here, and you will have to deal with that. Because I care about what I want." Erik trails his hand down Charles's chest, and when he strains against it, shoves him hard back into the seat, holding him completely still with surprising strength.

They're coming up on his block. The traffic around this part of the city is light, it's a residential area. Charles is winded and gasping, heart pounding in his chest so loudly he can hear it in his ears. But somehow he manages to smirk, even as he trembles. _Actually, we have to get out of the car. I told you I get what I want_ , he thinks, still not out loud. He's imitating smugness more than he feels it, his entire body set alight with the need to bow to Erik.

"Incorrect," Erik purrs against his ear. "Tell him to keep going. We need milk and eggs, after all." It's an unmistakable Order. Erik can feel it inside of Charles like a string pulled taut, ready to snap, and he could grip it in his fingers and wrench, have Charles gasping and begging to please him, whatever he wants-but something in him feels more aggressive, more firm in response. This is one of the first times Charles has actively said no, with that smug little smirk on his face. Erik almost wants to slap it off him. But he would probably enjoy that. He pats his face instead, letting his hand travel lower and lower, and then abruptly pulling away before Charles has the opportunity to push up against him.

This is a balancing act. Charles has an inherent need to obey and please, of course he does, but there's - as they've discussed more than once, there's a need for this too. There's a need to be defiant and put firmly back where he belongs, especially after he worked himself up about it, so Charles huffs. His projection asks the driver, perfectly polite and composed, if he could please take him to the nearest grocery store. It's right down the street, and usually Charles simply walks there. Even though it's his voice speaking, Charles' mouth doesn't move - that's an illusion, too. I don't much feel like going shopping right now, Erik. Now they're getting into proper strop territory, and his affected accent, even mentally, has gotten all the more posh for it.

"Isn't that too bad," Erik croons, and now he's the one smirking. Like he thinks Charles is cute, and his Will has bottomed out in his stomach, threads deeper and grasping harder than he even realized they could. There's no optional about what he's asking anymore, every word a dripped Order. "What do you feel like doing, Charles? You always get what you want. You should have no problem telling me."

He has to answer out loud. It gets ripped right out of his throat whether he likes it or not, but he's learned that while questions phrased as Orders demand truth and responses, they don't have to be full answers. "I want to go home," he says, and it would be haughty if it didn't shake, if it wasn't so breathless, like he can barely gasp it out. It's the truth. He truly doesn't feel like grocery shopping right now, and when the car stops in front of it, he huffs, like he might refuse to get out of the car.

Erik leans forward, brushing his lips over the shell of Charles's ear. "You will do," he murmurs in a vague approximation of yesterday, when he was buried deep inside Charles who writhed on his lap, "what I say you will do." _You will take what I say you can take. You will want what I want you to want._ "Now-" he unbuckles the seatbelt with a blink and the door unlocks and pops open. "Get out of the car."

* * *

 _Shit_. It's more a feeling than it is a word, but he knows it's in there, too, floating around their shared consciousness in that posh, haughty tone he's taken on. Except it isn't quite as collected or haughty, because Charles is gasping for real, now, stumbling as he gets out of the car, his knees knocking together as his legs struggle to hold him up. He nearly trips, forgetting about his ankle as he steps up on the curb (but Erik wouldn't let him fall, and that's a thought, too, that he's safe and well taken care of even when Erik is being firm). He walks a few feet in front of himself, dazed and trembling, and stops himself to breathe. _No_ , he thinks, weakly, and his head jerks, like he isn't sure whether to raise his chin in defiance or bow his head in submission.

Erik catches him easily, and the crowd of people zooming in and out of the automatic doors-he's never seen those before, and it's all a little much. Erik collects himself and then stoops to speak directly against Charles's neck, right up along that mark where he nips at him in reminder. "I want everyone to see me. Make it happen, Charles."

Charles shivers, and he makes it happen, swallowing down the instinctive yes, Erik he wants to give. He modifies Erik just as he did the day before, filtering him so he won't be recognized, but still looks like himself. Charles is dizzy. _Home_ , he insists, one last time, and it's not even a full thought. It comes off like the tantrum he promised he'd eventually throw, a child stamping their foot.

It's swallowed up in Erik's Will, though, a drop in the ocean so bare Erik isn't even worked up, isn't even irritated with him or annoyed that Charles is circumnavigating him, because he's so incredibly in-control of this situation that it's humorous, truly, that Charles thinks he can get out of it just because he's feeling petulant. _Now. We're going to get a cart, and we're going to buy what we need, and if you are good, then we will see what happens when we get home. Am I understood?_ People are walking by, watching as Charles is appropriately, silently dressed down by Erik, who looks completely in his element, a broad hand settled on Charles's shoulder possessively. Usually a submissive walks behind a Dominant, but Erik likes walking a pace behind him, as if he's on display, a hand at the small of his back or the nape of his neck, letting him know he's right there, guiding him forward.

Charles can't even manage another huff. It's definitely a question, though, so he mumbles a little "yes." Not 'yes, Erik' or 'yes, sir' as he always has in these situations ('yes, I understand', when Erik had taken away his privilege to call him by name but not indicated to call him 'sir' yet), and it's the most defiance he has. He grabs a cart when they're through the doors, steering it off to the first aisle. He always goes from front to back of the store, it's his routine. No reason to stop now, and if Erik had another idea, well - Charles swallows. It's getting hard to even think defiantly. His legs are still shaking, which makes walking difficult, and he can't help but be grateful for Erik's steady hold on him.

Erik puts his hand on the cart to stop it, shaking his head. _I believe we said something about vegetables. This way_ , he guides them back toward the produce spilling out in bins by the front entrance, which draws Erik's attention for a long moment, stopping him in his tracks as his eyes fall over everything. Erik decides then and there that he definitely likes the grocery store.

Charles does trip, then, just a little, but follows because he doesn't have much choice. Even if he's throwing a little hissy fit right now, leaning against the cart and waiting for Erik to do as he will, he has to duck his head to hide his smile. This is something Erik gets to experience now. This is something that will eventually be so common for him like it is for Charles - boring, mundane - they'll be doing this twenty, thirty, forty years from now. He wonders if he'll have perfected the tantrum yet, or learned to like vegetables.

Erik catches him again. _Careful_ , he murmurs softly, and it becomes clear that he's not exactly in his element when confronted by the astounding array of choices available to them. Erik doesn't even understand how to pay, because he starts asking Charles what that is (the self check-out that keeps yelling _'PLEASE REMOVE ITEM FROM THE BAGGING AREA'_ at a helpless old lady), the conveyor belts ferrying people's orders down to the scanner, cashiers and machinery.

It's like Erik's a relic of another time, in a way he is-even before the crazed horrors of his life, his experience shopping was at _Sisim_ 's very small, very over-crowded _shuk_ on Fridays, where you had to push past throngs of people, and where you could argue and barter and trade for what you wanted, but even that is different-there's no expectation that there's any wiggle room, it's all pre-ordained. And there certainly weren't rows upon rows upon rows of the same, differently-branded food in colorful packages and boxes available.

Erik fortunately does skip over the broccoli, but picks out some lettuce (spinach, chard, _what is iceberg lettuce?_ he has to ask, reading the tag), some zucchini, garlic, apples, chickpeas-he lifts up a bag of dried apricots curiously, having never seen them before-olives, lemons, tomatoes-stops off in the cheese isle and promptly gets distracted reading all of the packages, looking to Charles for his opinion before finding a kosher version of that (he hovers over the feta before moving on, _self-control, Erik_ , an image of a variety of dishes flashing through his mind, olfactory-memory of his father's cooking, _ladotyri_ and _saganaki_ and _phyllo_ and, _move along Erik_ )-dates, mint, parsley-

He comes to a full stop over a basket of pomegranates, picking up one with far away eyes. He has a small little smile on his face as he puts it back. But this definitely isn't Erik's Free For All (they would absolutely be leaving with like, twelve of everything) so he looks down at Charles, nudging him gently with his shoulder. _What would you like?_

Charles is content to watch, actually. It's not as if he doesn't have the money to pay for it, though without a car to load up he usually tries not to leave the store with more than a few bags. However much he'd wanted to fuss about walking in here, watching Erik navigate this place, something that's so ordinary to him it barely even registers, in and out, milk and eggs boring-errand-necessity, watching Erik walk around with wide-eyed wonder and amazement and joy, like it's all new and thrilling to him - His breath is caught in his throat. Charles shakes his head, not defiance this time, and swallows. _I - whatever you'd like_ , he manages. He feels - he doesn't know. His legs are shaking for an entirely different reason. This store is always several degrees too cold, but he feels uncomfortably warm.

He truly hadn't intended to monopolize the grocery trip, but it's a little impossible to avoid. He's simply fascinated and thrilled by it all, and he notices Charles's reaction after helping a young woman and her screaming child retrieve a humongous and heavy box of diapers from the shelf high above her head, using his ability to float it down into her cart with a little grin. But before Erik can address it, she looks immediately relieved and smiles at them both. "Oh- _hey_! You're from the TV! I saw you this morning." She's a baseline, but her daughter-the infant cradled in one arm-was born with the ability to emit large, colorful sparks from her fingers that didn't appear to have any discernible reason beyond the aesthetic.

She's looking right at him, and of course she is. She certainly doesn't recognize Erik, who she will never be able to place, not as anything more than - clearly - his Dominant. Normally this is where he would turn on the natural charm, regardless of anything else, and be genuinely delighted to have a friendly chat with her. He would coo at her darling little one, mention that she's a mutated-mutant, displaying the gene from infancy rather than in adolescence like the majority of the mutant minority, which is quite groovy, and it would all be good and fun and uplifting. Charles genuinely loves people, and there's rarely a time he enters a store or any sort of public area without a social interaction bordering on unusually familiar for complete strangers. It's less a telepath thing, more a Charles thing.

But there's something else in her thoughts, something he knows would be there even if it wasn't right on the surface - it is - and Charles. Charles -

Charles barely manages an "I'm so sorry, excuse me" before he's turning tail and bolting in the other direction, panic and dread and shame so poignant he really isn't confident in his ability not to be sick again. He doesn't know where he's going, but the store isn't particularly big and all the aisles look the same and there's a hand fisted in his own hair and he was right, he was absolutely right, it's too warm in this place, but also too cold, where is the entrance? Where is he going?

Erik throws her an apologetic look and mouths Sorry before there's a hand on his shoulder guiding him into an unoccupied region near the frozen goods section, and Erik halts him with little more than an intention, his Will easily wrapping Charles up in itself before he has time to dissolve. He brushes Charles's hair behind his ear, looking at him softly. _Tell me what happened_ , he Orders, meeting his eyes calmly.

Charles' mind is a blaring, panicked place, and he shivers as he's touched. At first he jerks away, not because it's Erik, not because he's throwing a fit but because he feels cornered, he feels sick, he feels faint he feels wrong he feels Azazel Cain bruises _looked at you they know they know battered stupid weak gonna be sick promised myself I would never promised they know they know sitting funny shifting too much he made me I didn't want to he made me he made me I didn't want to closethedoorclosethedoorclosethedoor -_

Erik uses his ability to open one of the employees-only doors and takes them through it to an empty storehouse, finding a corner where no one is and settling himself against a pallet, tugging Charles into his arms and holding him. The barrage from Charles's mind is like physical blows, but he withstands it easily, meeting every word with its soothing counterpart instead. He gives Charles the same words he did in the hallway, the ones he spoke himself, in his own voice, what he knows to be true from what Erik knows. _Not stupid. Not mindless. I know_ , he says, because he does. _I know. I've got you._

Charles is making choked, punched out noises, the beginnings of sobs he's barely holding back as he curls up in Erik's arms. "I'm sorry," he gasps and stupid stop it stop it Charles get a grip don't be a baby suck it up don't you dare cry. He tries to breathe, but it gets stuck in his throat every time. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," he babbles.

 _I do not want to hear you apologize to me for this_ , Erik murmurs at him, eyes crinkled as he touches Charles's cheek. He brushes away the tears dripping down his jaw. Neither does he need for Charles to stop, to be anything other than what he is. _You are doing so good,_ he says, quite out of nowhere. _I want you to know that. Dealing with this isn't easy. I know that. I'm so very proud of you. Thank you for staying here with me. For not hiding away._

Every time he catches his breath, it stutters right back out of him, whooshing out his lungs and leaving him winded and gasping. His vision is blurred at the corners. Charles didn't study psychiatry for years not to recognize a panic attack in himself, but it certainly doesn't make it easier to handle. "No one ever knew," he whispers, broken, and he knows they still won't. He'll need to drag up the business with Azazel now, make it personal, but no one will be the wiser about Cain. It doesn't matter. _Raven, and not all of it. Warren, as little as I could get away with telling him. Not Hank. Not even Gabby, and we -_ And hadn't it been brilliant when she'd said something vaguely reminiscent in an attempted scene and he snapped right back, jolted and sick, couldn't breathe, and later she sat him down and _I need to know what you reacted so violently to, Charles_ and he couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't -

No one knew. No one would guess, and so they didn't, and Charles preferred it that way. _Everyone thinks I had everything. The thing is, I did, I know I did, and I know you know that, I know when you met me you couldn't fathom me possibly understanding hardship and you are right, I am incredibly fortunate, I am astoundingly privileged_ \- Charles has had a silver spoon hanging out of his mouth his entire life. He grew up on acres and acres of land and a mansion built ten generations ago, wealth accumulated over time and passed down through the family, high society and old money, bank accounts filled and gold bars in a safe, private jet and if Charles wanted something he had it. Clothes and books and food and extravagant vacations and the prestigious, rich-kid private school and now he has all of it in his pocket, all that wealth, that huge mansion, it's all his.

Charles has everything, what is there to cry about? He lets them think that. Lets them think that house was paradise, with its three pools and tennis courts and home theater and endless guest rooms (there are thirty bedrooms in that house, why, who would have ever needed that many), that he's snooty and priss and proper and has never known pain. Lets them think it so he can pretend it's true, that every day in that bloody house wasn't a living, personal hell, that he didn't board a plane and dash overseas at the first opportunity, taking Raven with him -

At what cost. At what fucking cost. He chokes, but no tears come.

Erik frames both sides of Charles's face, shaking his head gently. Charles. _I have never, ever, presumed that you could not understand hardship._ Charles is privileged and there's nothing that anyone can do or say to make that untrue, and feeling guilt about it is silly-Charles is a single human being, and when they do get their school up and running, countless lives will be positively impacted by it, even saved-but it certainly doesn't mean that Charles isn't entitled to pain. That he hasn't suffered, nor that it made up for anything he's endured. You cannot put a price on terror and disgust and fear and trauma. Judging them based on their first impressions wasn't fair, Erik believed, because Charles thought Erik was an unrepentant murderer and Erik thought Charles was too sheltered to understand what drives men to kill. That he couldn't possibly know the worst of Erik and not shy away. Charles was there in that court room, and it happened repeatedly. People horrified and disgusted and flinching like he was a bug in a display case, an alien life form, the sole resident of Planet Shaw. It's not Charles. People can't understand when an experience is so far beyond human conceptions of accountability and right and wrong and the reality of being forced into no-win scenarios, making decisions that meant people got hurt. That meant people got killed. And Erik wishes to this day that Charles still didn't understand, that has never _been_ his desire, not ever. _No one knew,_ he agrees softly. _But that is no longer true, for either of us. There is no grey area, Charles, do you understand me? There is nothing about your actions or circumstances that justifies what happened to you. You should not have paid for your lifestyle with blood. Not as a child and not now._

 _No, it's_ \- Charles shakes his head, and he still can't breathe. When he does, it hurts, a burning ache in his chest. He has had these thoughts before, several times since they've met. What is Charles' pain in the wake of Erik's? How dare he cry tears when what he's endured is nothing in comparison, and softened by the inordinate amount of opportunity he's been granted? _Boo-hoo. What a poor little rich kid grown into an entitled academic-turned-doctor._ What could he possibly understand of suffering, with his three thousand dollar suits? He doesn't deserve to feel like this. There should be none of this. It wasn't that bad. It wasn't that bad. _"Did he touch you, Charles? I'll fucking kill him, that sick bastard, we'll kill him -" "Please, Raven. I just want to take a shower. I just want to go to sleep." I don't want to wake up. I am tired, I do not want to wake up._ Fall asleep numb and scrubbed raw in the shower, blood down the drain, _I didn't say no this time, does it mean that I asked for it? Like father like son. Take the red one first, Charles. You can have a lollipop when you're done. Be a dear and fill my glass, would you? Mother's thirsty. I should kill him, too. I could make it look like an accident like his father. No one would miss the little brat. It wasn't that bad. It wasn't._

 _You did not deserve what happened to you. It is silly to put pain as this lofty ideal that only those who have experienced what you deem to be truly horrible get to have. Pain is not objective. You know that._ He runs his thumb over Charles's temple. _There is no objective standard that you must meet, or a criteria you need to rise to, in order to feel your feelings. And I absolutely will not allow you to minimize your own suffering by comparing it to mine, my pain is not a yardstick_. _I have never thought that you should feel less than you do, because of what I experienced. I feel empathy for you, because I know what it is like to hurt. And you feel empathy for me for the same reason. And I am grateful for it._

But he's guilty. He's guilty, every day, for hurting, for not being able to put it behind him. And there are parts of him that he knows it has twisted, parts that he is afraid - like Erik was earlier - will not be compatible. Off-frequency. There's evidence to the contrary, but Charles has gone his entire life feeling as if there will never, no matter what, be someone who could ease the horrible, longing ache inside of him. Erik does. He's afraid one day it will be too much, and then he won't.

 _So am I_ , Erik admits softly. T _here are many things about one another that we simply don't know, because we are scared to admit them, but it will not be like that. I know who you are and you know who I am. We know that we fit. There's a lot about the conversation we had even moments ago that hasn't been completely resolved, mostly because I think we lack the language for it, and that is true of things inside of you, as well. I know that. But we will learn it together and overcome it together, and it will be in line with our own natures. Which are very much compatible._ Erik kisses him on the top of the head. _There is nothing about you that will shock and horrify me, Charles. I think you know that by now._ After all, he'd practically laughed at what happened with Azazel. Erik was fully familiar with the dark and twisted.

Charles sniffles, though there were no tears, buries his face in Erik's neck. Eventually he can breathe again. Eventually everything is locked behind the appropriate doors, ready for a time when they'll sit down and open them together, address what's in each of them and face it. Now he grins against warm, exposed skin, only slightly, but it's enough. _I told you shopping was a bad idea. You should have listened._ He's snapping back to orbit.

 _I am sorry_ , Erik replies solemnly, eyes downcast. _I thought that your objection was rooted in something less serious. I would not have brought you here if I had known you were distressed this way._

Charles shakes his head immediately, pulling back so he can frame Erik's face in his hands, cast and all. "No, I was - I was being less serious," he assures. "It was. I didn't know. I wasn't, before it happened. I was just throwing a tantrum so that you'd handle it, Erik. You were right. If I was really distressed, it would have been different. I would have let you know."

 _Nevertheless_ , Erik smiles at him. _For the record, I was enjoying handling it. However, if you wish, we can return home_. As much as the push-pull between them was being tested in bonds of defiance and playfulness and curiosity, Erik doesn't intend on letting Charles ride out the edges of his panic attack in full public view. _We can just pay for what we have, I'm certain it's enough to make a good meal._

 _Are you going to handle it more when we get home?_ Perhaps it's bold, especially after he spent the last - how long has it been? Five minutes? Fifteen? Twenty? Regardless, he spent them in a backroom reliving old trauma, some of that very much related to the horrific way he came into his submission. Somehow, that makes him need it more. Maybe it's wrong. Twisted. Bad. Charles doesn't think so, at least not at this moment, and he doesn't think Erik does, either. He hopes not. _We still need milk. And -_ He goes through the list in his head. They have most of it covered, actually. _Ice cream_ , he decides to add.

 _I might very well_ , Erik smirks down at him. Making it very clear that it is his decision, that he will decide what is best. In reality this decision is more-or-less available on the surface of his mind, the only question he really has is how to classify it, and if he should beforehand-because he very much thinks there's a different degree of-he doesn't know. Discipline? One feels very much like punishment, although Erik decidedly does not use that word-whether it is or it isn't. It feels like a response to a transgression. The other... is much less serious, less severe. Maybe there is pain involved, withholding, some type of restriction, but it's-Erik doesn't know. He doesn't have the language for his instincts, which is part of the problem. An affirmation? Meeting defiance with assurance, perhaps. Certainly none of Charles's trauma responses made him any less inclined to do exactly what he'd always intended to do-some of which depended on how Charles behaved in the store-and there was a pause, there, between encountering that woman and now-as though existing in a bubble, _afor_ -lite, and only-just has it resumed. And some of which he's already been considering since Charles's very first push-back in the car. He turns it over in his mind, whirring away while he helps Charles to his feet and finds them their cart. _We can do ice cream_ , Erik laughs gently, magnanimous. _But you'll need to eat your real food before dessert. What is your favorite kind?_

Charles tries not to shiver at those thoughts. He'd been thinking something similar, actually, though it isn't his to classify. Whatever discipline Erik thought he needed, he already knows he'll submit to it. But there might be - this is one of those twisted up things, and at first, he'd thought Erik didn't want much to do with it. The part of him that needs to be taken firmly in hand, that needs _no_ outside of a pause-word to mean _yes_ sometimes. The part that needed to be disciplined as a form of... what, exactly? Catharsis? And was willing to act out to get it. That part of him is very much out to play, wriggling about at the back of his mind. Ice cream first, he insists, in that vein. Charles always does dessert first, if he's going to do it at all. He's always had a bit of a weak stomach, which is why not eating comes so naturally. He couldn't keep a lot of food down as a child. He still can't. If he's nervous or stressed, it's only worse. _I like all ice cream. Vanilla over chocolate, as a rule. Strawberry. I don't like mint chocolate chip. We could get enough to fill up the freezer, for good measure._

Erik gives him a sideways look. _Charles. We are not getting enough ice cream to fill up your freezer. You may get one carton of ice cream._ His lips twitch, hand settling itself firmly back on Charles's shoulder where it belongs, in his typical spot a step behind him, taller frame eclipsing his, his chest pressed up almost fully against Charles's back. His eyes widen once more as they head to the freezer isle, and the isles are even more overwhelming than the produce section (which mostly does resemble a _shuk_ ). Just rows and rows and rows and rows of- Erik is staring at everything-the alien crash-landing on Earth.

Charles grins. It's - amazing, to watch, really. Erik taking everything in, as if it's all incredibly new to him. It is, and Charles gets to experience all of this with him. He does take the opportunity, while Erik's back is turned and he's staring at some pizza rolls, to put two cartons of ice cream in the cart. He won't notice, obviously. So much for potentially behaving.

 _Charles. What is a pizza roll._ Erik's head is tilted. _What is a bagel bite. What... is an eggo?_ He holds up the box pointedly, very much distracted by everything just as Charles predicts he would be, but it probably starts to get less cute and amazing and more annoying when Erik starts inspecting literally everything, his mind an endless stream of questions and curiosities, like an overgrown child in a literal candy store. Unlike Charles, though, Erik doesn't have much of a sweet tooth. He doesn't like ice cream or chocolate or sweets, so eating healthy comes infinitely more natural to him. He turns out to be, not gregarious like Charles, and not even _friendly_ -he doesn't talk, just gives a wide-eyed look of earnestness when people address him at all; but he's been suckered into helping three other people with fetching things they need by the time they are ready to check out.

It's incredibly endearing. Charles is incredibly endeared, very much in love, and he's also snuck popsicles and later Oreos into the cart by the time they're in line. (It's mostly just to get a reaction, at this point, but also because it's totally healthy to eat three Oreos and then skip meals, what are you talking about. There's a reason Charles has been underweight and fairly scrawny his entire life and it's not healthy eating patterns.) He's also struck up a conversation with nearly everyone he comes into contact with, in true Charles fashion. He's waiting for Erik to turn his back so he can sneak a candy bar into the mix when his head snaps up and he's thoroughly distracted. "Oh, no," he tuts. "Erik, stay here with the cart." Bossy. Charles walks right off, forgetting that he has the wallet, and therefore the money, but duty calls.

 _Char-hey!_ Erik calls after him indignantly. He's trapped in the line-up after a person with a huge cart slides in just after Charles leaves, and thus can't stomp after Charles, so he's stuck there with no money and people are trying to make conversation with him, and he has to just shake his head rudely, clammed up and completely overwhelmed all of a sudden.

Charles is very torn. He hadn't left for no reason, obviously, but he absolutely should have thought this through better. He makes a frustrated little thinking noise, and ultimately slides back in the line - "sorry, excuse me, that's my Dom" - which is... wow. He never thought saying those words would do that, just the words. Give him shivers, make him glow with pride. "Sorry, darling," he murmurs, sheepish. But. Well, he has an idea. Charles rather effortlessly splits off his consciousness until there's a projection of him walking around out there, one that finds the poor, scared little boy he'd heard, crouches down and herds him off toward his mother all while Charles engages in a conversation about the Mets in line.

Erik had focused himself by organizing all of the grocery items by class onto the conveyor belt, and that's how he discovers Charles's trove of junk food. He's taken them all off and placed them aside to be put back, except the carton of ice cream out, and he honestly hovers over that, too, _Charles_ , but he's feeling generous so he keeps it. Today has been incredibly difficult for them both. _Hi_ , he whispers, leaning into Charles with relief when he comes back. He's still not that great about being in public, the few minutes he'd been alone had set him shaking. _No need_ , he shakes his head. Charles had done the right thing. He was just-it's just-everything is-so much. He smiles reflexively at his own feet.

 _We're okay_ , he promises. _You're doing excellent, Erik, I shouldn't have left. I can just always hear them, you know? Lost children, and the like. It doesn't feel right not to listen. They're louder than everyone else._ The conveyor belt is moving. Charles runs his chances of sneaking a candy bar in there, but it seems wrong to take advantage of Erik's distress. It's the only thing that stops him. He digs in his wallet to get out his card, smiling at the cashier as she chats with him, too. The charm is turned all the way up, but it's never an intentional thing, usually. Raven had once said Charles' secondary mutation was making people like him.

"I can never get my husband out shopping with me," she's grumbling. She's fifty-five (just had her birthday), an S3.5, has three children, two grandchildren, and a dog. Her husband is an electrician. She dropped out of high school, has since earned her GED but never went to college and regrets it everyday. Her marriage is not happy. She's baseline but her youngest is a mutant. As far as Charles can see, he can control the growth of plantlife, to the point of sprouting flowers in places there should not be flowers, which Charles finds beautiful and fascinating and she finds disconcerting, still. And yes, this is the kind of information he knows about people within a second of meeting them and no effort involved. "I love seeing young couples out shopping together."

"We like to do things together," he returns, grinning, and inserts his card, leaning against Erik behind him. It's true.

 _No, do not worry so_ , Erik shakes his head. _You did the right thing. I could not leave them alone if I knew about it, either._ And then the lady is speaking to them. Erik looks at her and nods his agreement, giving her a close-lipped smile-and at that point it was expected that Erik contribute too, but at least Charles easily makes up for it. He tries a little and darts forward to kiss the top of Charles's head impulsively. Through him Erik can see her life as well and some of it doesn't make sense to him, but the impression is that she's unhappy, or at least discontent, and Erik thinks it's incredibly unfortunate.

All paid. They have a lot more bags than he expected, actually, and now the problem is carrying them. Usually Charles really does just walk - it doesn't make sense to call a car to go right down the street. He's pouting, too. _You couldn't have allowed me my cookies? Cruel._

Erik raises his hand and the bags simply levitate up in the air. This requires a great deal more work than manipulating metal and it's undoubtedly something Charles would have difficulty doing by accessing Erik's mutation himself. He has to sink right down into the atomic structure of things, pulling on the forces between objects and not merely relying on an object's conductivity. _You will thank me when you have all of your teeth at eighty,_ Erik tuts, amused. _Tell me_ , he says as they start to walk, and he takes Charles's hand all of a sudden, holding it with a rueful grin. _What kind of food do you like, anyway? Other than sweets._

Charles can barely levitate a metal pen two inches off a table with the amount of control he currently has over mutation-by-proxy, so suffice to say this would be utterly impossible for him. For now. _I've told you what foods I like. Mostly everything besides red meats and vegetables and anything too spicy, honestly._ Charles didn't mind trying new things. He's not even too picky, he just has a hard time keeping food down. Nervous stomach. He's very happy to be holding Erik's hand, and the closer they get to his apartment, the more anticipation twists in his stomach. They'll be alone again.

 _That is so unspecific,_ Erik laughs. He runs through some possibilities with that criteria in mind, though, and by the time they approach Charles's apartment Erik's wrapped an arm fully around his waist, walking at a slow and leisurely pace, and when they get inside he stops what he's doing and just hugs Charles for several moments, finally alone and able to sag against him, eyes shut and head resting on his shoulder.

* * *

Charles laughs, too, but he doesn't offer more than that. There's not really more to offer. He melts right into Erik as soon as he's pulled into the hug, sighing happily and settling into his usual place in his chest. _Okay_? he checks.

 _Thank you_ , Erik just says, spanning his hands in Charles's hair and kissing him again, holding him close and tight and not letting him go.

He'll take that as a tentative _yes_. An _okay as possible_ , all things considered. Charles lets himself be held, at least for right now soft and pliant, his eyes slipping closed. He needs it, too.

 _I love you so much. Do you know that?_ Erik hasn't found his voice, yet, the thoughts more a riot of intense, colorful feeling than verbal statements. The bags float onto the counter and everything begins to unload and sort itself, which Erik does as a way of grounding just as much as touching Charles.

"Yes," he says immediately, and blinks, confused. He hadn't really meant to say that out loud, mostly because he didn't think it needed an answer, and - _oh_. The Order. Charles' breath hitches at about the same time he grins. _I love you, too. You're ruining the fun of unloading groceries, though. Stop that._

Erik looks at him. _The fun of unloading groceries_ , he thinks with pursed lips as he pulls back, mid-way to levitating an avocado into the fruit bowl. _Well, Charles, I would hate to deprive you of your fun._ His eyebrows arch, and he gives a shrug of his shoulder. _So, put them away._ He leans up against the counter with his arm crossed over his chest, expectant.

First of all, avocados don't belong in the fruit bowl. Secondly, Charles hesitates, and that gives him enough time to suss out the situation. No, it wasn't a direct Order or he would already be moving. That decides his next move for him, which was already made, barring that, because his first reaction was to bristle. Charles crosses his arms over his chest and then, more directly than he's ever said in response to something like this, declares, _No_.

Charles's _face_ belongs in a fruit bowl. Erik's head tilts, though, unfazed. _Because you always get what you want_ , he surmises, tone enigmatic. Charles can't tell a whole lot from him right now other than that he didn't Order it-gave Charles an opportunity to comply, to demonstrate he'd learned his lesson, which it's clear he hasn't. And that's fine. Isn't that right? His Order was still very much in effect.

"Yes," he replies simply. Noticeably not 'yes, Erik' which is definitely going against an instinct here, but technically so is all of this. And he's not lying - Charles really does get what he wants a lot of the time, nowadays. He leans against the counter and huffs. And because I don't feel like it, he adds, that smug little smirk back on his face. Charles gets the bulk of his satisfaction from being good. He also gets an awful lot out of, apparently, being a brat.

Erik meets his eyes, his own wide and green and narrowing subtly. He takes a step forward, shifting so Charles is pressed up against the counter, and leans in. "I thought we had this discussion already, Charles. I. Am. Not. _Interested_. In what you _feel like_. Put these things away. Immediately." The Order slices up Charles's spine like a touch from an electrical socket, standing all his hairs on end.

And leaves him gasping, pulled taut, head bowed as he scatters to do what he's told. His face is hot, in the aftermath, not from the pleasant, shivery fluttering he usually feels, but from the beginnings of shame. There was playfulness, and then there was disobedience, and he'd very clearly crossed from one to the other. Charles swallows, fingers shaking as he sorts out the rest of their groceries.

Erik lets him stew in it, because he's felt it from Charles from the moment they left the court house, and he's simply not inclined to be lenient anymore. There may be nothing that Erik feels the need to punish, but he certainly won't stand for this consistent, unsettled, shifted-out of place, either. Constantly being challenged, disregarded, overruled. It's funny that he ever entertained the idea that Charles ran the game, because it turns out there is something very different between needs and wants. And Erik finds he genuinely doesn't care about what Charles wants or feels at any given point. Because it's not up to Charles's whims or fancies, and when Erik says something, he expects it to be followed. So Charles can sit and deal with the shivery, shaking sensation of his own insolent audacity, and Erik will probably make him get out all the implements for dinner and help him chop up as well, and then Charles will sit and eat and he can stew and fume and fight all he wants.

Charles tries to bite his lip to stifle a whimper, but he can't. Insolence. Part of him wants to huff, to stalk around and drag his feet and make noise, and the other part is so thoroughly chastised that Erik is... not angry, he's not that, but he's certainly not pleased with him. He'd been given an opportunity to prove he could be good and he hadn't taken it - he'd outright thrown it in Erik's face, actually, and then had the nerve to smirk about it. It's that more than anything, the thought that he's displeased Erik, that has him squirming, groceries put away and suddenly untethered, fidgeting in the middle of his kitchen. _Erik_? he tries, like he'll drop the whole thing. Some part of him still believes he will. He has before.

"Yes, Charles?" Erik murmurs. He doesn't raise his voice, even when he's displeased. Even when he's genuinely angry, he remains firmly in control of himself, the most damning evidence there is when he'd abruptly gotten up and walked out of the room back in the mindspace. Now, it's evident he isn't angry, but like Charles figures, he's also not particularly overjoyed, either. He left Charles in the kitchen to his task and settled into a chair with a book from his bookshelf, and when Charles calls his name he looks up from across the island from his perch on the living room chair.

"Um." It comes out out loud, which makes it sound appropriately shaky and wavering. The first time he'd been disciplined, Erik had told him that apologizing didn't make everything go away ( _"Did you think we were finished?_ " and his breath hitches, not with excitement) but acknowledged that it was the first step. A sincere apology here, he thinks, might be appropriate. Erik's first definition of what he believed to be disobedience allowed for goading and boundary pushing, and perhaps what he'd done in the car was that. They were now crossing into willful and disrespectful territory. He'd been given a choice and clearly made the wrong one. Charles fidgets, rolling and unrolling his sleeve, jacket discarded. He doesn't know it is, but it won't come out. "Nothing," he mumbles. Maybe Erik will drop it anyway, and he knows that's not what he actually needs, but it's still half hopeful. It's rising up there on the wants list, because contrary to what he seems to think when he's trying to get a rise out of Erik, goading or throwing a strop, he doesn't ever actually like the consequences. Erik's displeasure and disappointment in him (even as he continues to love him) is not, and has never been, enjoyable, and neither is his own answering shame.

Erik gazes at him calmly. "If you have something to say, Charles, speak up." Otherwise, he bids Charles to retrieve some ingredients from the pantry and fridge after they're put away. Tomatoes, eggs, oil, lemon, garlic, herbs, spices and he floated out some equipment from the cupboards-a stainless steel pan he found in there, cutting board, and knife. He also rose from his spot on the chair and retrieved some ingredients of his own, water, sugar, yeast, flour, salt and yogurt. A broken wrist meant Charles couldn't do a whole lot to help him out here, and he didn't need it, so he said, "I'd like you to tidy up the rest of this place. It's been neglected for the last little while, so we'll rectify that." He definitely does not give Charles the choice, there. "Start with your jacket." He indicates Charles's discarded blazer with a flick of his eyes.

Charles is absolutely tugged out of place, unsteady. He can feel it: the natural need to submit and please warring with the self-taught, ingrained urge to clench his teeth and fight. Fight nothing tangible, and to no productive end, in the past, but fight nonetheless. Just like Erik has been changed by his experiences, his needs altered until they are an inherent part of his Dominance, so has Charles' submission been by his own experiences. This is one of those ways. He can feel his wires getting crossed up there, waiting to be untangled, the frustration beginning to reach a head. So he huffs, does not so much as respond, and grabs his jacket to bring it into the bedroom and discard it - in the right place, and neatly so, but still. There's a proper, well overdue strop happening here now, not interrupted by anything, and Charles does his best to stomp around as he tidies up. He makes sure to grumble while he does, some of those things decidedly petty.

Erik completely ignores him. Even the general whir of his thoughts that let Charles know what he's thinking and feeling on a general basis have been shuttered over, much like when he'd first been disciplined. He began to cut and dice the tomatoes and onions and garlic, the knife moving in clean, practiced motions guided by his left hand. Even though his right hand technically did work here, his consciousness didn't let him use it normally because of sense-memory. He makes use of the available surface area of the counters to whip up a batch of yogurt based dough, turning on two burners and working simultaneously. Eventually the house begin to fog up and smell like herbs and baked bread. Erik waves a sliver of green at Charles when he looks up. "Do you like cilantro?" Some people, through a quirk of genetics, thought it tasted like soap. Better not to ruin the entire dish.

It does smell extremely good, even just wafting from where he's stomping around in the bedroom. Charles can't deny that for even a second. If Erik's going to cut himself off, though, so is Charles, a petulant instinct. He's still there, unlike the day before, not a closed door as much as one that's cracked instead of blown wide open like usual. He has far more trouble than Erik seems to not projecting like this, when it's what the link was created for in the first place, a way to let him in; if anything it's all just muted, most thoughts stifled while the rest filters through, which right now happens to be insolence. He grunts at the question, arms crossed over his chest. "It's fine," he sighs, because he isn't going to lie just to be petty. No genetic quirk in that respect, at least. It tastes respectfully citrusy, and mostly tame. Charles makes more noise as he works his way out to his desk, which, even after he'd straightened it up some the other day, still needs a lot of work. He scowls at the state of it, papers tangled up in each other and scribbled notes strewn about in every direction - he'd started plotting up renovation potential for the manor.

By the time Charles is finished making his desk into something respectable Erik has cracked three eggs into little wells in the tomato-based mixture of the frying pan, covering them lightly with grated cheese and melted butter, and throwing some sprinkled green onions on top. The dough is finished up as well-Erik's abilities sink into the molecules and it rises and whips itself up like a stop-motion animation; Erik's control is phenomenal, when one really stops to consider exactly what mechanisms are in place for him to utilize electromagnetic force to alter the state of objects themselves. Molecular shift and pull. The _naan_ is placed on the griddle to pop up and brown, and he floats a pot holder over to the table and closes his eyes, hovering his hand over the heated pan to rapidly cool it down, leeching the heat from the metal in a soft ripple so that when he serves the _shakshuka_ tableside Charles won't burn himself on it. When Charles finally wafts back into the dining area, Erik materializes behind him and guides him to the table with a hand at the small of his back. He lets his satisfaction that thus far Charles has done a good job with the tidying be evident; despite his temper tantrum Erik loves him and that will never change; still loves taking care of him, which extends to feeding him. He sets down the naan after it's finished and brushes his thumb over Charles's forehead, through his hair when he sits. "Eat," he murmurs, and it's an Order as much as anything else.

Charles is, despite everything, absolutely fascinated with Erik's mutation and his subsequent control over it. He's had years to manifest, explore, and hone it, albeit under the worst possible circumstances, while Charles has had none of that opportunity. He simply hasn't allowed it for himself. While Erik wields his powers like an extension of himself, Charles still struggles with facets of his, preferring to keep them at arm's length if he acknowledges they exist at all. That there are barriers self-imposed inside of himself, holding him back, goes without saying. There's something to be said for what he's already discovered and perfected: Erik is only here because he makes that possible, only capable of existing in the same space because he's managed to create an alternate perception for them to live inside of, constantly altered and shifted in any number of minute, nuanced ways. That isn't where the bulk of his attention is, though, and he sighs at Erik's soft touch, at his satisfaction, straining against the pleasure it inspires inside himself as soon as he processes it. He's frustrated, not so much a cornered animal as a cagey, bristling one. It radiates off him in waves as he does as he's bid and eats; it's really quite delicious, but Charles isn't going to be the one to admit it right now, all worked up.

It wouldn't be accurate to say that Erik was fine with Charles's frustration, but he doesn't let it cow him, either. He doesn't bend to it, nor is he under the impression for himself that he needs to do anything possible to alleviate it, his Will and presence like iron and steel against the chafing Charles wants to do against it. There's no real tension from Erik, either, perfectly confident in himself and assured of exactly what their respective places were. Erik settles in the opposite chair with his book, The Once and Future King.

Charles' instincts are not always kind. He is kind, that he knows. If there is anything he knows he is, it is kind. But these gnarled, stubborn parts of him, born of anger and fear and indigence and survival, these parts that have tangled themselves up in the way he submits, they are not always so. The things that inspired them were not. So Charles scowls at Erik, too, even as other, more natural instincts - or is it all the same? Is it all the same beating heart, the way it all comes together, all things they need? He doesn't know. All he knows is that he is torn, wanting to be grateful, to be gentle, to ask to sit in Erik's lap and be read to, right where Charles himself had left off. To let it be done, to be kissed and held and adored, to serve Erik in the same breath. He doesn't. He can't. Not right now. He stands up from the table in a huff instead, taking the plate to the sink. It clatters when he lets it go.

"You can continue to throw this tantrum, Charles," Erik speaks up at last after the echo of the clattered dish fades away. "I've said it to you before that you need to learn to tell me what you want when you want it, not bang and smash around. When you ask me appropriately, we'll handle this." Erik raises his eyebrow at Charles, and then just as easily goes back to his book. "And you're not to throw things about any longer," he adds, and that's an Order. Because he could very well Order Charles to calm down and stop and relax and let it go, and maybe that's what Charles wants-to be put back in line, to be cared for-but it's not what he needs right now. He needs to learn how to mitigate these instincts that war within him in the first place, to understand that he can't beg for submission with gnarled words and fists and insults and stomped feet and that Erik won't simply fold and mollify him. And that means he needs to learn that he can't wheedle and manipulate the situation when it suits him, that Erik expects him to have a degree of self-control, in how he addresses Erik, in how he asks for things and demands for things. "By all means, however, clear the table." Erik Orders after a moment, gesturing before him.

Charles feels that shame from before bubble right back up inside him, frustrated tears pricking at his eyes that he will not, under any circumstances, let fall. He clears the table in silence, then. He does not bang around, or stomp his feet, or scowl or speak biting words, though there is certainly a part of him that wants to. That wants to say fuck you, Erik and perhaps it is something that he thinks it, where he knows it will be heard, his penchant for cursing only peeking out when he is extraordinarily petulant or extraordinarily upset. Now it is the former. He puts away what is left, because Charles could not eat all of it, feels full which is not normal for him and it might have made him warm but now it just makes him uncomfortable. When he's done, the dishes washed, his breathing uneven and that horrible shame sunk right into his bones, stomach unsettled, he stands in front of Erik and drops his eyes but does not say a word. Fidgets in front of him, head bowed.

Erik glances up from his book but doesn't put it down. He is displeased, hearing the edges of those curses behind closed doors, there's a small knit in his brow that would be a flare of cold, hard adrenaline on anybody else, but simply looks like a passing thought on Erik. It's not a rise, precisely, as it is a genuine disappointment in Charles, an expectation of better. "You want to be taken in hand, is that it?" he murmurs, not even bothering to look at him anymore, eyes scanning the words on the page. "You see, unfortunately, you're injured. So I can't do that, regardless of whether you deserve it or not. Are you looking to kneel, then?" Erik doesn't even Order it, just asks in that implacable calm voice.

Charles' breath hitches, his entire body shifting. Like he's curling in on himself, making himself smaller, because he is. His lip wobbles as he stares at the floor, and pointedly not at Erik. "I don't know," he mumbles, barely audible, and trembles.

"Well, perhaps you'd better reflect on it," Erik just says, and there's something cold about that, in place of the sharp zing of a cane or palm. Before Charles can say another word, though, Erik continues, the cold, hard tone of his Order soaking into the walls. "Go into the bedroom and strip. You can start at Rest." He doesn't look up.

* * *

Charles wants to say 'yes, sir,' but nothing comes out. It's all caught up in his throat, shame hot in his belly as he nods and scatters. There is nothing exciting about removing his clothes now, not at all unlike that first discipline session. He folds everything neatly, not certain if he's stalling before he needs to be still. When he sinks down to his knees, he's shaking, defiance shifted out of him in the aftermath of Erik's cold Orders. Of his disappointment. Charles sucks in a breath and tenses to hold back the tears, refusing to let them come.

Erik doesn't come into the room immediately, taking his time, finishing up his chapter in fact before he does, the shutters still very much closed on his mind and his expression. He finally enters the room, looking tall and imperious with his hands akimbo as he regards Charles coolly. "Untense yourself," he Orders. There's no softness anywhere in him at all. "And put your elbows down, you're not a chicken. When you do your Postures you will do them correctly or not at all." He's aware that it's not defiance that resulted in the mistakes but shame and panic, but he is not gentle about the reproach. "Do you understand me, Charles?"

Charles corrects immediately, the only thing to find issue with his trembling when he's done, which won't stop no matter how hard he attempts to still himself. "Yes," he mumbles, and the sound barely comes out at all, his gaze narrowed down to his own knees and the floor. It's not petulance that keeps it clipped now, but genuine shame, the fact that he knows if he speaks any more than that it will shake, get caught up and hitched and he will cry.

There is actually more than one punishment Posture, although they're not legal to expect in a school, Charles is aware that they exist; if not aware of what they entail. Erik knows them from every corner of the world and several that are invented, some of which are nearly stress positions, some that are more humiliating than others; but Erik isn't interested in humiliating Charles, even at his coldest and least impressed he will take care of Charles. That is not a privilege Charles has to earn, it is inherent in everything Erik does, whether or not Charles is grateful for it or throws a fit of temper in spite of it. It is as iron and powerful as Erik's Will itself. So he simply Orders Charles into Child's Pose, the least of all the punishment Postures, but one that leaves him no less exposed and surrounded with his own thoughts. There's nowhere to go, nowhere to escape to, except for Erik's Will and Erik's lack of pleasure in him. "You will stay there until I tell you otherwise. Hopefully you will find some clarity in it." Erik doesn't leave him alone. He could, and he entertains the notion; lets Charles see that he could, but that he is choosing not to, because he is careful. But neither does he have any intention of giving Charles any more than the most basic of acknowledgment. He lies on the bed instead and reads his book, legs crossed over one another, only the sound of his breathing and the turning of pages the only evidence that he's there at all. Erik's attention is a privilege. Charles didn't want it, and this is all about what Charles wants, right? So Erik turns the page.

It doesn't matter that the Posture itself is not humiliating by nature. It does not matter that it is not a strain - much of one, anyway, everything is a bit of a strain right now with his cast in the way. Charles well and truly hates this Posture, and he hates that he is being Ordered into it, because the reality of it is not something he wanted. It is not something he ever wanted. It is not something he'd been eager to repeat after the first time, and he had promised himself he would do his best not to end up here again. Of course he knew it was not unrealistic. Of course he knew that eventually he would need correction, and he would find himself here again. That doesn't make it pleasant, or any softer. Any more bearable. It feels like hours pass, Charles crushed under the weight of Erik's Will, usually a humming, bright thing, now hardened by his Dominant's displeasure. Cold and sinking, wrapped around him. It's still familiar, still a comfort even now, but not in the same way. It feels like it takes hours, but eventually he can hear himself sniffling.

Erik hears it, too, but he doesn't let Charles up. Not yet. Because it is a correction; because it will always be a correction whenever Charles feels like he can force a reaction out of Erik from irritation or anger or frustration, just like that first time. Because there is no shifting out of place. There is no moment at which Charles does not belong to Erik. It is pervasive and consistent and Charles will learn that, whether he needs one discipline session or a thousand. He continues reading his book until Charles finally lets go of the tight, tense cord inside of him and starts to cry for real. And even then Erik doesn't let him up. He kneels down beside him instead, not touching. "Tell me, Charles, does this make you happy? Are you content right now? Because we can keep doing this. I have nowhere else to be."

It isn't about that. It has never been about that, about forcing a reaction. Or maybe it was. The idea that he'd done the exact same thing he'd promised he would not do eats away at him, Charles choking on a particularly wracking sob. "No," he mutters, miserable, which is fairly obvious when he's red-faced and crying in earnest now.

"Then tell me what it is about, Charles. Because what I see is that you aren't interested in submitting to me, that you want to do this on your terms, and that isn't something I will ever abide. Speak."

"No, I -" Charles is shivering, and there's no more attempt at keeping himself together. To keep composed, or quiet, or unaffected. When he sobs, it's loud and shakes him to the core. He can't shake his head but he wants to, not to refuse, but because it is all he has. "I don't know," he answers again, helpless and uncomfortably vulnerable.

"You told me that you aren't interested in playing games, in delineations, but the way you are behaving now, you are treating it exactly such. You are relegating everything we are to games and strategies. Is this only worth your while when I do what you say, when I bow to your demands? Is that how you think it will work between us?"

Charles whimpers, choked off and low, loses himself to violent, heavy sobs. It hurts to breathe, and it hurts to cry, the tears hot and stinging his eyes, the world salt and shame. "No," he gasps.

"No _what_ ," Erik growls.

It feels impossible to form his tongue into words with it thick and useless in his mouth, with snot running from his nose and, with his head bowed, everything humid and clogged up and wet. "No, that's not what I think, sir," he sobs. It really isn't.

"Then why don't you tell me how you think this is going to go. Who you think is in control here. Is it you? Are we still playing your game? Am I giving you what you want, Charles? Shall I keep you here the rest of the night, so you can relish in your victory?"

This isn't what he wanted. Charles doesn't know what he'd wanted, if he'd gone into it wanting anything at all, but it surely wasn't this. It will never be a victory to know he disappointed Erik when it's the one thing he wants to avoid above all else, when knowing that he did is twisting him up so thoroughly on the inside it feels like he's being torn apart. "No," he gasps again, and he's sobbing too hard to get anything else out, shoulders shaking where they're bent over in position.

"I'm going to ask you a question, Charles, and you can answer it how you wish. Out loud or in your mind, but you will answer it. Am I understood?" Obviously that isn't the question. Erik's voice has gone softer now, a single warm thread of familiarity that he won't let Charles crash through the bottom of his own pain and fear.

Charles makes a valiant effort to stop crying, at least long enough that he can properly answer. There are still silent, new tears spilling down his cheeks. "Yes, sir," he croaks.

"What do you think I want? When you look into my mind. When you see how I interact with you. What do you think I want?"

Charles lets out a broken, confused whimper, because he wants to answer, needs to, but he's not certain what Erik means by the question. In general? Charles' mind seeks out the conversation from earlier, replaying it for the both of them. Erik needs to Dominate him, to control and lead and guide him, to take care of him. To provide for him, to bring him order, to protect him and love him and control him in the way he needs to be controlled. To take care of his needs, all of them, because Charles is his. That's what he wants, too, all of it, of that Charles does not want - and perhaps does not, knows he does not, in his heart - have any doubt. Now? Likely a reflection of the same thing, because it never turns off. No delineations, no games, no corner of the universe or moment of the day or circumstance where Charles is not his to Dominate and care for, the two hand in hand. No instance where Charles is not his, where that Dominance is not applicable, because that is what fulfills him - both of them, but Erik too. If you are mine, you are mine. It's an answer, if not a verbal one, and the only way he knows how to properly answer it, especially still crying, breath hitched gasps.

"So then you tell me, Charles, do you think I deserve to be told _fuck off_ and no and go away and everything else under the sun? Is that what I've earned?"

Charles honestly wonders if he will be swallowed up by his own shame, then. He certainly chokes on it. "N- " It's interrupted by a sob that slips right through his clenched teeth, followed by a painful hiccup. "No," he whimpers.

"I am a person. I don't enjoy being insulted and raged at. Is that something you like? Have I ever given you anything less than the respect that you are due?"

Never purposefully, or willfully. "No," he wheezes, and wants absolutely nothing more than for the Earth to open up beneath them and swallow him right through the floor, but that would be the easy way out of this.

"Then, why, Charles, have I _yet_ to receive an apology from you?"

Charles breaks, utterly. "I'm sorry," he whispers, and means it with every fiber of his being. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry -"

Erik's Will envelopes him again, warm in the face of Charles's sincerity. Nevertheless, he continues, because he is nothing if not a perfectionist, exacting, demanding, even in this. He doesn't need to cause pain to punish, but neither does he revel in Charles's shame and horror, either. He remains calm, but he doesn't let Charles flap in the howling chasm of his own terror. Erik rewards the words with a touch to the top of his head, brief. "Sorry for what, Charles?"

"I'm sorry -" Charles is crying again, if he ever stopped. He doesn't think so. "I'm sorry I was disrespectful. I'm sorry I insulted you. I'm sorry I was rude, and childish, and disobedient, and that I tried to - tried to undermine you, to - to take control when it isn't mine to take. I'm sorry, sir," he hiccups.

He lets the truth of that sink into Charles's body and mind entirely, until it is just as much of a fever pitch as the last time he found himself here, right up to the point that he truly didn't think he could handle it anymore. Because this is something Charles needs, too. To repent. To return. To atone. It's not something a lot of people are comfortable existing in, but it's yet another way that they are indeed compatible. Erik knows, and he will take care of Charles. And Erik knows exactly where the line is. At long last Erik bids him to raise his head, cupping his cheek. "I believe you," he murmurs softly, giving Charles a gentle smile. The first in who-only-knew how long. His mind begins to filter back in like rays of sunlight, warm.

The pain had helped him, last time, though in the moment it had seemed unbearable (even though it was not the greatest pain he had ever felt, or even at all close to it). Helped is an understatement, actually. It had given something to focus all of that energy on, a way to release it. A way to feel as if Erik was drawing it out of him, this repentance, a way for Erik to correct a wrong tangibly and act it out on his body. Enact justice, give him what he'd earned as a consequence. He'll need that again, and they both know it. Need a cane or a palm or whatever tool Erik decides to use. Now it's not an option, and he feels no less sorry, sniffling pitifully. He doesn't know if it's over, when last time he did. It still swirls around in his stomach, awful especially after a full meal. He still feels like crying, staying in position even as he latches onto Erik's mind, greedy and overwhelmed by it as if he's forgotten what it feels like. That's one of his least favorite parts, he's finding. There's no immediate release like last time, and he swallows around the lump in his throat, repeating the words Erik just spoke in his head, over and over, like he's trying to remind himself of something that just happened. Make it real.

* * *

Erik guides Charles to sit back at Rest and slowly envelopes him in his arms, a physical manifestation of the Will that wraps around him just as tightly. "Come here," he says softly, guiding Charles to rest his head against his chest, rubbing his back in soothing circles. Y _ou're all right. You did very well._ And he had, Charles would realize after a moment. Most of that Erik hadn't even Ordered from him, he'd offered it himself, stayed in position. He had apologized, and understood exactly where he'd went wrong. It was enough. It was justice. In the future and when able Erik really preferred physical discipline, which is not something he's very comfortable admitting to himself, for much the same reasons as Charles-and because frankly there were clear demarcations between discussion and the actual action of discipline-whereas today the discussion itself had been a form of discipline, forcing Charles to sink so far below the surface he couldn't breathe, to confront all the sick, nasty emotions that arose and exist inside of them for that brief period of time-but it doesn't make this any less effective. _I've got you,_ Erik kisses his temple.

It's enough. It's justice. Charles doesn't need to dictate what constitutes enough discipline, nor should that ever be something he gets to consider. It isn't his place. If Erik believes he's done enough to be properly forgiven, that he's atoned enough, then he has. There's something wriggling about in his mind, a nasty spot of panic he can't scrub out, but Charles focuses on taking comfort now that it's offered, on evening out his breathing, on swallowing down the horrible shame that had clotted in his throat like blood. It takes longer for him to calm than it did the first time he was disciplined, but he thinks it must just be the difference. Erik shouldn't be ashamed or horrified for preferring physical discipline when Charles needs it just as much. Compatible. He shouldn't be so afraid. I was good? he asks, shaky and seeking, an echo of that first time, too. He has to know. He has to be.

You were so good for me, sweetheart. So good. My wonderful, good boy. I love you so much. Erik needs this part too, the delineation, to know that he is no longer in the zone necessary to deliver punishment. "You did so well for me. My sweetheart. My good boy. You endured this for me, just as I asked and you endured your punishment beautifully. Just how I expected you would." It is over now, sweetheart. I love you so much. You are in your place, now. With me. You belong to me. I have brought you home beside me. Where you belong.

Charles sobs again, at that, but no tears come. He whines instead, overcome with it, curled up in Erik as the words curl up in him, spinning the world back to where it belongs. Dragging the ground beneath his feet until he's no longer hovering, off-center and off balance, topsy-turvy shifted. Erik calls him sweetheart more in moments like this, and it curls his toes with pleasure, soft sighs and a gentle plunge beneath the ocean floor as he sinks down to the place he's been fighting. He's Erik's good boy again. Nothing to correct, no wrong to atone for. All forgiven. If there is a part of him still panicked and frightened, surely if he presses close enough it will go away. Charles doesn't want it here.

And Erik holds him close, for as long as is necessary for those last vestiges of panic and fear dissipate until he looks down at Charles and see only trust in those eyes reflected back at him. _I love you, sweetheart. Kol beseder,_ he whispers between their minds. _All done now, Charles. You have taken your punishment beautifully._ _You have repented, my love. You have repented._ Charles's place was for Erik. Planets out of orbit, but at long last, the gravity well-restored. Planets circling their orbital paths, just like them.

 _I love you. Copacetic._ It's what he's been waiting to hear, perhaps before he even recognized he needed to, but of course Erik had given it to him. Charles smiles, however watery and bleary, sniffles those last few hiccupping tears into Erik's chest. Deep down below where the plates shift together, where the waves settle over him, where Erik controls the tides and he can float and know he will be managed, controlled, taken care of. He's safe here. He can speak - without permission, too, he's allowed, he can call Erik by name, he's allowed, it's all over and done and he has those privileges. He has to be good now, though. That means telling Erik what he needs to know to take care of him, so Charles takes a big, shaky breath, and closes his eyes tight. _Erik?_ he asks, and wants to take it back instantly. To rip it away. But if he doesn't talk now, it will come up again, and again, and again. Charles needs to communicate. It was an Order, he thinks. _If something is wrong, you tell me. I expect you to be honest._

 _Yes, my dear?_ Erik replies.

Charles shakes his head, gives a hitchy sigh. It's easy, on his knees with Erik enveloping him, to make himself small enough to where he disappears in him completely. _No, I can't._ He wants to stay where it's safe, where he doesn't need to be embarrassed or ashamed of himself.

 _No, Charles. I will not start this cycle again. And I know that you do not want this to happen again, any more than I do. So you will communicate to me what you intended to at the start,_ Erik Orders gently. _Now, please._

The problem is, he doesn't have words for it. He doesn't even have images, or properly sorted out feelings, his telepathy just as useless as his mouth in this instance. Charles makes a soft, distressed noise, rubbing his wet cheek against Erik's warm skin for comfort. _I don't want it to happen like this again_ , he promises, because he absolutely, one hundred percent does not. _But I - I also... do, a little._ It's wrong. It has to be. Charles waits for Erik to pull away from him, to tell him he's being sick and deviant and too-much. _I wasn't just trying to get a reaction. The first time I was, and I got - you took care of that. But this time, it was..._ He huffs, frustrated with himself. He doesn't know. He doesn't have the words.

 _You were looking to be punished,_ Erik fills in the blanks easily. There is no shame, or fear, or disgust anywhere in him at all. _You want this to happen again, in this specific way? Without the use of a cane or other physical implements?_

Charles curls up tighter, eyes squeezed tight as his own shame makes him dizzy. _No, it would have been better if - but I just needed -_ He makes a low, helpless noise, breaking off.

 _To be put in your place,_ Erik fills in gently. _To know that this is what happens when you step out of line. That there is a stop and an end to each discipline session. That I will be here to show you exactly where you belong._ He taps Charles's knee. "On your knees. With me. Serving me. Because make no mistake. You are mine. You belong at my knees. Knowing that you are mine.

Charles nods, fairly miserable about it all, but as usual Erik put something into words that he'd been rolling around in his brain for a while. It wasn't that he wanted there to be a stop-start, that's absolutely not what he'd been vying for, or that he wanted to make a mockery or a game out of something he took very seriously. He truly did, too, more seriously than he'd ever taken anything. Wearing Erik's collar wasn't something he had or would ever do lightly. _I wasn't trying to... manipulate you,_ he thinks, and feels sick just hearing it. _I don't want to do that, I promise I don't. Ever. But sometimes, I -_ He needed to step out of line to know that he'd be put back into it, safely and soundly. He needed the discipline, the punishment, and to do that he needed to disobey, sometimes. He needed to act out, and know that Erik would handle it. It didn't feel nice. It wasn't fun, which is why to say that he'd wanted it or that it was a victory for him would be wrong. But he needed it, and - he tries to show Erik, too, opening up. How all the sticky, gunky, twisted up parts of him had melted away, receding in the tide with that _kol beseder_. That _good boy. That you took it so well, sweetheart._

Erik tucks Charles up into his arms, letting him rest against his chest. _I love you so much, Charles. So very, very much. You will always be mine. And if, sometimes, you lose your way, I will always be here to guide you back. I promise you, Charles. You will never be alone again. Not ever. I love you, I love caring for you, I love even this aspect of it. Because I know I am giving you what you need, and that you will return to me safe and sound at the end of it. Because you are safe, Charles. I will always protect you. I will always nurture you. You will always be mine._ Erik buries his head in Charles's shoulder, letting go of the tension that had been building in him, as well, at having Charles back where he belongs, in Erik's arms. Feeling safe, and warm, and peaceful. Those tides firmly receded. And when they come back, Erik will stand at the shore and he will raise his hands and he will Will the tide back in the opposite direction where it belongs.

Charles sniffles, but he nods, wordless. He knows all of that. He has always known all of that. It was never, for even a moment, in question. He can't look at Erik as he asks his next question, the one that had been eating at him for a while. _It doesn't... disgust you? That I need this, after - it doesn't scare you? I don't want to make you -_ But Charles had seen it, in Erik's mind. Days ago in his kitchen, as they worked through the memory of that first session together. Each strike of the cane had brought him satisfaction, a calm, focused fulfillment and peace. A working-through of his own. Compatible. Charles needs to hear it anyway. _It doesn't - you don't mind it?_

 _No, Charles. I do not mind it_ , Erik smiles softly. _I need it. Just as much as you do. You are not forcing me do these things. This is part of our relationship, a part that is beneficial to us both. I love you, Charles. Every part of you. It seems we are very compatible after all_ , he laughs gently.

 _Love you, too._ Charles smiles right back, and though it's hidden in his chest, small and trembling even now, he knows Erik will know it's there. He lets himself drift, perfectly limp and warm in Erik's arms. There's no panic, no fear. No disgust at himself. Quite a bit of curiosity buzzing around up there because he's remembered something, but for once Charles doesn't feel the need to have it immediately sated. He's too relieved and relaxed for that, dropping down too nicely.

Erik grants that to him, too, letting him sit leaned against Erik, slowly and gently floating down into subspace where Erik likes him. He likes Charles in subspace, a warm curl in his chest when Charles finally is able to let go enough to get there. He will strip Charles down, but he always, always, will build Charles back up. He leans against the wall and lets Charles bury himself contently in his chest, running his fingers through his hair, whispering lines from poetry and song, obscure and otherwise. Yiddish fairy tales and poetry from Wisława Szymborska and songs, crooning lullabies in languages from faraway lands.

* * *

Charles listens, and he smiles, and he floats. It's nearly overwhelming, sinking so deeply after he'd treaded water for so long. When Erik finishes a song, he squirms in his arms, not to get away, not to fight. Just to feel, and know Erik will hold him tighter in response. _Erik?_

 _Yes, sweetheart?_ Erik kisses him on the forehead for good measure, warm and lingering.

Charles grins, wide and pleased and fluttery. He peeks up from his spot buried in Erik, shy and adoring. _Our kids are going to love you._ He's very ambiguous about that.

Erik looks at Charles thoughtfully. Our kids-you mean- "You mean the students at our school?"

Charles blinks. Yes, but - He looks up at Erik, wide-eyed. Did you think I meant something else? Because now he's thinking about it, too.  
  
Erik ducks his head sheepishly. _Perhaps. I apologize-I've made a misstep._ He didn't wish to make Charles uncomfortable.  
  
Charles is silent for a while, then. A long while. _It would be a long, long way off,_ he points out. _But with you, I - no, I don't think I'd mind at all, if that's something we decided._

 _Yes_ , Erik laughs. Yes indeed. _We will come to that decision when it is more feasible_ , he smiles softly. _May I ask what you meant when you said you think our students will like me?_

Charles laughs, relaxing just slightly. He wasn't ready for that conversation, not nearly, but this one he is. _I think that's fairly obvious, Erik. They'll look up to you. You'll be very good for them._ He hopes he is, too.

Erik isn't so sure. He's scared of that, truthfully. What if they're scared of him, instead? He smiles faintly. _I hope that I can help them_ , he says. _I am not so sure I would go as far as to say look up to me, but it is very kind of you to say._

 _Oh, shush_ , he smiles, waving a mental hand as he goes back to sinking against Erik's chest, drawing patterns there with gentle, exploring fingers. He's quite fond of this one little cluster of freckles. _Would you teach? I'm sure there's a way to make it work, if you're interested._

 _I think I would like that,_ Erik whispers softly. But the obvious problem stands in the way. Or maybe, knowing how far Charles has come in his mutation, maybe not?

 _That's what I meant by 'a way to make it work',_ he grins. He's thought about it - he's thought about a lot of it, at length, as he'd mentioned in the car. _I wasn't absolutely sure it would be feasible until today, but I know there's a workaround now. We'd be in the same building, even. Theoretically it would be effortless. I'd just need to find a way to properly filter it - I'm sure I could._ The same way Erik had figured out his mutation at the molecular level. It would just require some practice. That Charles can give Erik this, give him this opportunity - he spins with it, breathless, for a moment.

 _What could I teach?_ Erik wonders, curious about Charles's ideas for that, too. It's obvious that Charles could teach anything, but Erik isn't so sure it's cut-and-dry for him, nor does he possess any qualifications. The prospect makes him decidedly a little giddy. Helping. Healing. Not hurting. This is his life now.

 _Mm. Metalworking class, of course, you ferrokinetic._ Charles can't help but be giddy, either. For Erik, for himself, for the prospect of the two of them doing this together. They would, realistically, need other teachers. But the thought of dividing and conquering subjects, of teaching these students who need them more than anything, is so deeply satisfying and exciting he's always buzzing whenever he thinks of it. _I'm kidding, though that is an option for elective. Literature, perhaps. Languages. Don't worry about the qualifications, we'll make it so. You'll be excellent at whatever you decide._

 _Metalworking class._ Erik starts laughing, and nudges him with his shoulder playfully. _I don't understand why they use that word, by the way,_ Erik has to sidetrack for a second. _Ferrokinetic... because, there are non-ferrous metals... in fact a great deal of metal is non-ferrous, and the word itself as applicable in chemistry also makes no sense, ferrous means iron in a +2 oxidation state, versus ferric which means presence of iron in a +3 oxidation state; divalent versus trivalent, none of which is relevant to my abilities._

Charles laughs. _They use metallokinetic, too. Equally as inaccurate. I'm uncertain why you're surprised they're failing to see this when one glance at the way you manipulate metal is strikingly dissimilar to the way any telekinetic would. Levitating, bending and changing, certainly. All possible with telekinesis._ Perhaps it's only Charles who notices the difference because he's seen it intimately from Erik's end, but the force behind it, to him, is fairly obvious. Now he's curious about something else, sidetracked momentarily. _Have you tried every possible application of your abilities, Erik? Do you think you know everything you can do? I've wondered some things._ Even with his excellent control and practice it was possible he'd missed something here or there, especially if he hadn't known to try or been otherwise told to. Unlike his own abilities, Erik testing and pushing the limits of his own don't frighten him.

*I suppose I sometimes fail to appreciate the difference between what I can do, and what a telekinetic can do. When I learned physics, I was learning to put names to things I already can see." He lifts his hand and snaps an empty soda bottle to it that had been resting in the recycle bin in the hall, turning it over a bit, and then he tapped his nail against it. Charles could feel through him the ripple of energy and sound and light and disturbance at every molecule. "I can change metal into other metal," he says. "Copper to gold, pyrometallurgy of gangue to iron, boraite to boron. Nickel and copper into platinum, which means I can perform the electrorefining all on my own. I can perform aqua regia to platinum and remove metallic impurities, to produce a pure product without the necessary ecological impact those refining processes normally cause." He then ducked his head, sheepish with his own sense of warm pleasure at knowing he can do these things. "I can even produce Q-carbon from carbon," Erik says proudly. "But _everything_ I can do? I'm uncertain," he murmurs. "Most of what Shaw wanted from me. He wanted me to control my powers so that I could be a weapon for him, to give him unlimited sources of wealth... everything I know how to do like _this_ -" he reshapes the bottle into a perfect sphere. "I teach myself, because I didn't want my abilities just for hurting people." Erik looks down at his feet, ashamed. Shaw always wished for him to gain the utmost control of his powers so he could be Shaw's lap-dog, so he's only learned such refined control under the auspices that it would be used for Shaw. "The answer is no," he settles on softly. "I have not tried every application of my abilities." The thought scares him, deeply. Would he need to endure pain again? Would he need to suffer again, to learn the most his abilities can do? After all the only way he can learn to control his powers is through rage and pain. Shaw taught him that very well. I don't want to be hurt anymore, he whispers, shaking a little.

 _Absolutely not. Have you forgotten, my love?_ It's gentle. Charles is smiling, remnants of wonder swimming in his gaze and in his mind, feathered out between them as he shifts. There's awe and warmth there, pride that this wonderful man is his Dominant, that he gets to belong to him, but not even a trace of fear. He's mostly off his knees, now, crawled into Erik's lap, so it doesn't take much until he can squirm and cup his Dominant's cheek, press their foreheads together. _I will never, ever let that happen. I promise you. We can learn together. What he taught you, Erik? That you need rage and pain to learn? It's just as false as so many other things he tried to convince you of. May I show you something?_ He doesn't wait for an answer. It was more to prepare Erik for the onslaught of the image. Charles filters out the excess and shows the day before as Erik leaned over him, manipulating his body like a fine-tuned instrument. At first it's just the images, Erik's fingers on Charles' skin, awareness of the reactions happening between them, of what, exactly, is happening on a molecular level, both within Charles' body and outside of it. Then Charles' pleasure filters in, stuttering gasps and too much but also moaning, gasping, toe-curling intensity, wailing as he convulses with it. _I could see from your mind that you had never tried that level of manipulation before. You thought 'there is no reason I can't'. Beyond overstimulation, do I look like I am at all in pain here, Erik?_

Erik nods his head yes, at Charles's first statement. _Wonderful! It seems anger unlocks your gift. Anger and pain. You and I, we're going to have so much fun._

* * *

Shaw's voice, a perfect recollection just like Charles's eidetic memory, the event seared into Erik's mind so fully he can recall every wretched second of it. Slowly he begins to watch as Charles moves on, moves onto the first time he's noticed Erik realizing that he might be able to try something different. And he did. And it worked. He did it. He did it and Charles liked it. _You won't have to hurt me?_ Erik's eyes are wet. It's not a question Erik would usually ask. Usually he is rational. He trusts Charles and he knows Charles. It's an emotional reaction, tugging into his smallest, most vulnerable core. The parts of him that don't fully trust that he's not safe, that deep-place meaning sometimes you don't fully recognize where you are. He hides his head in Charles's chest.

It's something Charles is well-equipped to handle. He reaches up to run his fingers through Erik's hair just as he had earlier, stroking near the nape of his neck. Gentle and grounding, keeping Erik tethered to him and nothing else. "No, darling. No more pain, I promise. Shh. Come back to me, Erik." He projects calm, soothing, his own peace he'd fallen into after his discipline. How everything has straightened itself out, how those sick, stuck together and clattered feelings have been shooed right out of him. What Erik has given him, and what he can give right back, safety and stability. He is Erik's, and he would never hurt him. Ever. They're both safe here. _You'll teach me too, Erik, won't you? We'll teach each other?_ Charles is scared, too. Erik will help him. Erik can help him.

 _How can you teach me? Nothing else works. You said no more pain._ Erik shakes his head, struggling to come back, trying not to melt in Charles's hold. What happened with Charles is at the back of his mind right now, where all the rationality and logic lives. One of the blankets on the bed shifts off and Erik wraps them both up in it, shivering a little. Somewhere in Erik's mind Charles knew this would come eventually, after the day they've had, the court case, the hours-a mental reboot after passing out can only take you so far. Erik tries to claw to the surface. Tries to break out but he's down in the deep-world now. 

(-" _Stell ihn auf den Tisch!"-no, I don't want to, stop!- "niedrigste Dosis Propofol bitte-" -metal sinking in, the metal in his blood feels his blood- "Schmerz offenbart dein Geschenk!" -no, "bitte" I- "Entfernen Sie alle nicht benötigten Werkzeuge, bereiten Sie die Elektroden vor." - table. Metal. Exposed. Barely-conscious, contract-screaming, screaming, screaming- "Du kannst damit aufhören, Erik! Schau dir die Münze an. Finde deine Kraft! Bewegen Sie die Münze! Bewegen Sie die Münze! Bewege es! BEWEGE ES!-"_ )

There is a line here, and Charles is terrified to cross it. He is well and truly terrified. But all of those times he'd trembled and cried, shook with memories shoved behind doors, and Erik - _"Calm, Charles,"_ an Order, and he'd had to snap right back - Erik trusts him. Erik trusts him, and nothing he can do frightens him. So Charles takes all of those sickening, horrific memories, all of those words, all of that pain, and he wrenches it away. Shoves it to the back of Erik's mind where it can live, but not touch. Where it will not harm him, at least for this moment. He shoves the memory he'd given earlier right to the forefront, coaxes it up, not a projected recollection but Erik's memory, then shifts it with a dozen more in quick, effortless succession, all of Charles, all of the two of them safe. Drowns him in love and affection, and banishes all else. "Shh, love," he whispers, even as he trembles himself. "See? You are with me now, and I won't let it touch you. I won't. No more pain."

Erik shakes in Charles's hold, sniffling loudly, his projection dripping everywhere, all down his face and even onto his suit, overwhelmed and adrenalized and still convulsing like an electric current is running through him. In real life as stone-faced as Perseus without the mirror. Cracked down. The screaming dims. Shaw's voice shoved behind that door. Erik's focus gets ripped away from the door where he can still hear the echoes before it slams entirely -( _"vielleicht ist Schmerz nicht der richtige Reiz. Der beste Anreiz ist vielleicht das Vergnügen"_ )- Charles, Charles is here- "No more pain," he wheezes, watching himself splay his hands out over Charles's back, using his abilities to- maybe it's not pain- no, "stop it. Stop it, **_stop it_** ," he starts smacking his hand against his head, hard-making it evident he's not talking about Charles, but himself. _Stop it! Stop it! I don't do this!_

Charles takes a deep, sucking breath, shaking a bit himself as he reaches for Erik's hand. Wraps his own around the wrist, and knows, has to know with all that he is, that Erik would never harm him. Never. "Erik," he whispers, soft and coaxing, a calm in the storm, a single life boat in the raging waters, grabbing Erik before he can drown, "Darling. Please, look at me." He will gladly brace the freezing waters if he means he can pull Erik out, still shifting forward memories. Memories of calm, and joy, and laughter and love. Erik has them now, and Charles will make absolutely certain that when all is said and done the pain and terror will seem like the blip on the map, not the other way around.

As soon as he feels Charles's hands close over his wrist he goes limp, the only movement from him his eyes which slowly raise to meet Charles's. He's curled up in the fetal position in Charles's lap, which again, looks rather funny from an outside perspective. All the screaming inside of himself is trying to be drowned out by what Charles shows him, and he wants it, too. He doesn't want to drag Charles under. For him to see any of this. "Char-" his voice cuts off, and he just stares.

He's seen this before, but it still frightens him. Charles knocks all of that down to the back of his own mind where it belongs, every ounce of fear and sense of his own inadequacy, and he holds Erik. He holds him, and rocks him, and waits. Waits it out, like Erik did for him in the store, with gentle hands and projected calm, as much as he can possibly muster, and feeds him those memories, a steady stream of them from inside rather than out. Reaches the brightest corners of Erik's mind and taps right into them - it's him, it's mostly all him, and it makes him breathless with gratitude and awe - and spreads them all out, filling the empty space.

It normally doesn't take that long for Erik to recover from a falter, but they spend a long time on the floor today. After an hour or so Erik starts drawing little patterns on Charles's overturned hand, a small sensation of warmth emanating from him. The smallest _hello!_ from the death zone. They're crossing to the other side. Away from death and into the light. Recognition-bright-Charles-safe.

* * *

Charles, who had spent the better part of the hour stroking Erik's hair, stirring up those memories, flipping through the poetry he knows - everything he's ever read, of course, but it's tipped so far back he has to go searching as if through a library, he truly has neglected it - notices it immediately, a soft smile breaking over his own expression. "Hello, darling," he whispers. His legs are very, very, very much asleep and the pins and needles are becoming painful, not to mention the bruising underneath, but, well. Small price to pay.

Erik slowly shifts his legs off of Charles and rubs out the pain there with a forlorn expression, then touches his face, apologetic. He's not altogether back, but he's almost there. He lets Charles lay on him instead when he returns their positions, and he tangles their fingers together. "I don't know what happened," is the first thing he says in what feels like forever, and his voice sounds choked by hoarseness as though he'd been screaming for hours. Of course Erik was perfectly silent. "Please forgive me. I'm-are you- _hurt_?" he looks about ready to crumple again at a second's notice.

"No, not at all," he promises, because he hardly thinks his legs count. The least he can do is bear some weight, and even when he was fully gone, Erik's body apparently knew not to bear down completely. He was always half off his lap, a necessity for them with Erik, as usual, physically eclipsing him. By quite a lot. "There's nothing to apologize for, dearest. I'm right here." He gives those fingers a squeeze, resting his head on Erik's shoulder. His suit jacket had come off at some point, leaving him in a rumpled dress shirt and Charles still naked, but it doesn't bother him, or even completely register. "I love you. We're alright. Do you find Shakespeare overrated or the greatest author of all time? I'm constantly astonished at our inability to think outside of dichotomies, but it seems to me that taking a moderate position on this is outlawed. I was thinking perhaps we won't teach _Romeo and Juliet_ , but it seems remiss not to teach a classic. _My bounty is as boundless as the sea/My love as deep, the more I give to thee/The more I have, for both are infinite._ Not without merit, I should think, but perhaps if we cut it out we could at least focus on something less... _Romeo and Juliet_."

" _Titus Andronicus_ ," Erik recommends in his scratchy, soft voice almost immediately, because of course he does. He busies himself with thinking about the actual answer to Charles's question, drawing his fingertips over Charles's hand again, grounding himself in the touch. _Not over-rated, it's negligent not to consider Shakespeare's contributions to literary tropes and much of modern media is still inspired by it._ He does, however, prefer _King Lear_ and _Double Falsehood_ over _Romeo and Juliet_ or _A Midsummer's Night Dream_ as are the usual two contenders for the Shakespeare unit in school. _There's a great deal that can be used from his plays to make literary analysis that is still new and relevant to the times, and to the lives of people right now._

"I agree," he beams, perfectly pleased to have gotten an answer at all. Erik would be excellent at teaching literature, not that it was ever in doubt for him. He hopes he'll be passed along the papers students write under his tutelage, because he can only imagine they'll be encouraged nothing but that same excellence. " _A Midsummer's Night Dream_ is often neglected in American schools, actually. We like _Hamlet_ and _Othello_ , and, occasionally, _Macbeth_. I'm quite fond of _Hamlet_ , I'll admit." Of course he is.

"I played Oberon," Erik grins all of a sudden.

Charles blinks, confused for a moment before he grins himself. "I bet you were brilliant," he comments, and kisses the underside of Erik's jaw. Then he's unbuttoning Erik's shirt, distracted.

"I was ten," Erik laughs. He shifts a bit to allow Charles more room, letting the buttons pop off with his abilities to make it easier for the other man. "So that is unlikely. At the time I was sure the _LOUDER_ I said my lines, the _BETTER_ I was."

Charles only wanted to slide the fabric off his shoulders so he could get at the freckles there. Perhaps Erik's silliness from before is rubbing off, because he grins at them, victorious, before he kisses the skin they occupy. "Hello, old friends," he greets.

Erik shivers at the touch, just like the last time Charles had bestowed kisses on him like this. His shoulders rise up after the movement when Charles pulls away, seeking lost contact unconsciously. Even the slightest brush of fingers or lips on areas other than his own lips and hands make him want to melt into a gooey puddle.

Charles smiles, and takes that as invitation to go right back to kissing. He really does love these freckles. He loves all of Erik's freckles. "Have you found all of my birthmarks, yet? I don't think you have. Shall I point them out or would you like to discover them yourself?" He hums this as he works his way to Erik's chest, tracing patterns with his fingers and following with his lips.

"I know every part of you," Erik whispers back fiercely, chin propped on his chest to watch Charles. He was, as Charles was finding out, exceptionally sensitive, clamping down on his teeth so he wouldn't just moan outright over little more than a kiss on the sternum.

"Hm, really? I think there'll be a quiz later, and it's pass-fail," he teases, kissing every mark, every freckle, every scar. Charles laughs as he realizes something, puffing hot air over Erik's skin as he squirms with it. "Oh, Erik," he giggles.

"Mm- _hm_ -?" Erik mumbles, entirely distracted, stomach clenching as heat decided to make its presence known from the top of his chest all the way down to the tips of his toes. "Glad I can still be- _hmmm_ -amusing."

Well, now he's less inclined to be amused and more inclined to be intrigued, and a bit worked up himself. Charles forgets what had been funny in the first place and bites his lip - apparently it's healed enough, or else the Order wasn't strong enough - and looks up, eyes hot and fiercely curious. Then he leans down and kisses one of Erik's nipples before he wraps his mouth around it, sucking.

" _Oh_ -" stutters out of him before he can stop it, sounding like he was just punched in the gut and not kissed, and he jerks hard under the ministration, hand flying to Charles's head.

Charles hums, absolutely delighted by that reaction. It warms him right up in response, Erik's pleasure, as always, inspiring his own in shuddering waves of heat spreading through his entire body. He doesn't pull away until he's kissed and licked and sucked and - very lightly - nipped the bud in his mouth swollen and perked, and then it's only to switch over to the other side, moaning himself. He's pleasing Erik. He needs this more than he thought he did, Erik's displeasure and disappointment still lingering around in his mind. Forgiven, done with, but this matters.

Erik curses lowly, the sensation entirely new to him and he throws his head back, one leg coming up to rest over Charles's hip. When Charles nips him, he lets out a hiss of pleasure that honestly shocks him. His chest heaves with the effort he's undertaken not to cry out or squirm too much.

Charles shivers head to toe, the pleasure feedback utterly devastating. He gasps with it, shaking in Erik's hold as he comes off of Erik's nipple with a 'pop', lips newly swollen and eyes burning stars. The thing with Charles is, he could probably come just from touching Erik, and it's a bit embarrassing how hard he is in the aftermath. "Can I...?" he asks, voice shaking, not entirely sure what he's asking for.

He sits up to regard Charles, a flush working its way down Erik's neck, nowhere near as stark as on Charles's pale skin but definite. Erik's already fully hard without a single touch, simply from the limited caresses Charles bestowed upon him. "Can you-?" his eyebrows raise, and he tries to regulate his breathing so he doesn't seem like an overexcited fucking virgin, which is patently ridiculous and more than a little silly.

Charles thinks it's breathtaking. It's not even close to the first time he's seen Erik affected, but it's - "You're gorgeous," he gasps, eyes wide and blown with desire, and he squirms in Erik's lap, which does wonders even though Erik is still wearing pants. "Please?" He still hasn't asked anything, but he wants.

"Yes," Erik breathes out roughly, before he even realizes that he doesn't know what Charles is asking for, but yes. Erik will give it to him, anything.

And Charles moans, full and loud and stuttering, kisses his way down Erik's chest. Like the last time he did this, he lavishes attention everywhere, every mark and discolored patch of skin and scar and freckle. He sighs, kissing and licking and nuzzling, trembling with pleasure himself and sunk down below the ocean again by the time he gets anywhere near Erik's pants. He has perfect use of both his hands now, barring the limitations of his wrist, but he goes right for it with his teeth anyway, whining as he works to pop the button and pull down the zip. It takes him a while, but the flood of satisfaction is palpable. He pulls them down far enough (hands involved this time) to rub his cheek against Erik's hard cock, turning his head to kiss. It's almost chaste, but the way he's panting and staring up at him, eyes hooded, is anything but.

Erik is a shivery, twitchy mess, lips parted, panting audibly and hair stuck up from where he'd dragged his fingers through it unconsciously, keeping himself under some kind of control. By the time Charles gets down to it, Erik's already leaking and his cock is a dark, angry red. Charles's light touch makes him twitch, and his eyes roll back, feeling like his whole body is one long, exposed nerve. He makes a sound Charles has never heard from him when he kisses the tip and meets his eyes, holding himself desperately still.

If Charles didn't have a need to seek permission, he's absolutely positive that noise would have made him come, his own cock hard and bobbing up against his stomach and leaking drips of translucent white. He's gasping, breath warm over Erik, and then he does what he finds he wants to do all the time and gives it the attention it deserves. Instead of taking it down his throat, he sucks and licks instead, alternating between suckling on the head and licking long, hot stripes from base to tip, nuzzling and kissing everywhere in between. Kittenish little licks, then hungrier ones, like Erik's cock is nothing more than a particularly good treat he's devouring. The moment there's a new drop of precome he's there in an instant, licking it up and moaning as if it's the best thing he's ever tasted, his own eyes glazed over. It is, because it's Erik, and he's not just sucking him off now. He's worshipping.

His legs are drawn up a little, nudged on either side of Charles, struggling not to make any sudden movements. "I-" he isn't even going to say anything, eyes crossing when they finally blink open again, vividly locked on the image of Charles licking him, savoring him like he's something-he doesn't even know-"Charles-" he just mutters, a hand fisted tightly in his half-off dress shirt.

 _Something to be worshipped._ Charles fills in the blanks, then presses them firmly in Erik's mind, because it's true. It's absolutely true. Erik is everything to him, Erik deserves this. Erik deserves to be kissed and touched and served and loved. Charles will give him this, give him this every day if he wants it. It's his right to receive it, and Charles' greatest pleasure to give it. _Please?_ he begs, in his mind, because his mouth is very busy and he doesn't intend to stop for anything unless Erik asks him to. He wraps his hand around the parts of Erik's cock he isn't lavishing attention on, takes the head into his mouth and sucks firmly. _I love you so much._ It isn't lost on him that this is the second time today he's pleasured Erik with no reciprocation, all of his attention focused on Erik and nothing else. He makes sure it isn't lost on Erik, either.

Erik clamps his hand over his eyes very suddenly, bowing up so his spine develops a slight curve but not enough to jostle Charles entirely. There is a great deal of pleasure that isn't dampened, his cock practically jumping between Charles's lips. It's a reflex to the overpowering, overwhelming feedback loop in his head, that's just edging into distressed, the more Charles says those things to him, the more he touches with love and affection. He runs his fingertips through Charles's hair and forces himself to breathe. This is something he needs, too, but like Charles, Erik struggles accepting certain things that are good for him. He's trying hard not to cry, stupid, _stupid_ -

Charles feels all of it. He lets his mouth pop off of Erik's cock, not without reluctance, letting it practically slap him in the face, resting it against his cheek as he looks up. He can use his mind to speak when his mouth is occupied, but he wants Erik to hear this, even if it doesn't make much of a difference, even if he won't be hearing it, technically. "Erik," he breathes, and waits. Waits for Erik to look at him. Waits for him to see the warm, unwavering adoration, devotion, trust in his eyes. "You deserve this. Please let go for me, darling. Please?" _Let me give you what you're due. Let me serve you. Let me pleasure you. Let me love you._

His hips stutter up when Charles pops off and trail of stickiness ends up on Charles's cheek where he rubs, and Erik makes himself start breathing again, crumpling up a little so he can lay his palm out over Charles's opposite jaw. His head's ducked to the side so Charles can't see his expression. _OK_ , he nods, not trusting his voice.

His beautiful, magnificent Erik. Perfect, kind, brilliant Erik, strong Erik, lovely Erik, careful, loving, patient, firm, Dominating Erik. His Dominant, his darling, his love. Charles doesn't think the words so much as he breathes them into the other man, his mouth back on Erik's cock and his affections radiating with every touch of tongue, every stroke of his hand. When he feels Erik tense, the tell-tale shift in both mind and body, he pulls back and lets him finish, sticky, hot trails of come all over Charles' face, a bit in his mouth where he keeps it open, down his chin. Erik should see the evidence. He looks up with the brightest smile, humming with his own pleasure and satisfaction, though he hasn't once been touched, still unbearably hard against his own thigh. _I missed a few drops this time,_ he says, cheeky and bursting with love as he swallows what he managed to collect on his tongue. He moans at that, too, sighing happily.

Erik was shaking, minute little trembles and he abruptly hauls Charles up to his lap where he can kiss him full and proper, laughing a little through wet eyes. *I think I can let it slide,* he croaks mentally, pulling back just to gaze at Charles and marvel at this person who had come into his life. _Oh, you poor thing,_ he breathes it out, barely-words, rubbing his thumb up alongside Charles's inner thigh. He slowly, carefully encircles Charles's cock with loose grip, not enough to provide any real relief at all, mostly because he wants to go back to kissing, and being eye-to-eye with him, and so that he can not exert the effort he _definitely_ intends on when he can, you know, move again. _Come here_ he murmurs. "Does that feel good?" He doesn't bother even wiping Charles's face, staring at him-covered in _him_ -well, _shit_. If Erik hadn't _just_ come he'd probably be hard again right now.

Charles was perfectly content to ignore how achingly hard he was, denied all day, but when Erik touches him he whines, loud and desperate against his lips. It's too much noise to properly kiss, sloppy as he tries to keep his hips still. He hides himself in Erik as he nods, cheeks suddenly flushed now that he's being paid attention. Apparently his Order to answer questions out loud when they're asked has worn off, because he's definitely not doing that right now. Charles squirms, because he can't help it, gasping and so worked up it's painful.

Erik lingers there for quite a while before he slides down Charles's body, spreading his legs with his own knee and laying a kiss on his stomach, grinning up at him brightly. "Keep still for me," he Orders, and a ghost of air puffs right over the head of his dick where Erik has settled himself comfortably. "You can do that, right?"

Charles closes his eyes in the absence of Erik to hide in, trembling and oversensitive. Even if he hasn't been consistently aroused, it feels like he's been on edge for hours now. "Y-Yes, Erik," he moans, fingers of his uninjured hand digging into his palm. He's still covered in Erik's come, red-faced and close to bursting, belly taut and tense as he lets out shaky gasps of air.

He smiles, wrapping his fingers firmly around Charles's cock-Ordering, "Look at me, _neshama_. That's it-"and not breaking eye contact once as he sinks down, engulfing Charles deeply. He doesn't gag or choke, now entirely back in a realm that he's comfortable with-giving instead of receiving pleasure, and he noses right up to Charles's damp curls on every pass, knowing full well that he is fucking good at this and quite happy to deconstruct Charles right down to the molecular impulses of arousal for it. He barely even looks put out. He can sense right when Charles begins to tip over the edge and just before that happens, he settles his fingers into Charles's hip, swiftly calling up his abilities and forcing him back enough so that Erik can have some room to play, just a little bit.

It doesn't take long before Charles is crying, something he's finding he's inclined to do when he's overwhelmed in situations like this. His mind is split between the pleasure he's currently receiving - and it does, it feels so good - and the pleasure he'd given, Erik's hidden expression, the stutter of his hips, the warm, surprised want there, his acceptance of Charles' offered service and affection. It's exactly what he needs, the two in perfect balance. Giving, receiving, knowing Erik's got him messy and claimed in more ways than one. "Oh, please," he moans when he can't help it, and his face had already been tear-stained, his eyes already red-rimmed from sobbing earlier during his punishment, and it's so much he's drowning in it. "Please, please, it hurts, Erik -" He'll take it if Erik wants him to. Charles is a good boy, he really is, but oh. Oh, please.

Erik vibrates a muffled noise against him, a hum of delight as he traps Charles between his hands and the wall, and slowly Charles feels the iron strands keeping him at bay loosen and Erik's eyes are on him, and his mind is alight with joy as he gets his hands under Charles's ass and shoves him down as deep as he'll go. _Let go, dear-heart. Let go. I've got you._

Charles' mouth opens and his head falls back, but nothing comes out. He knows it should have been a scream, but all that escapes is a punched out little gasp, ragged breaths and barely audible whimpers as he shakes with it and fresh tears slip down his cheeks. It's a wonder he even has any more of those. He doesn't calm down when it's done, trembling violently, and he knows he's not panicking but it feels like it, desperate, stuttered noises as he reaches for Erik, needing him as he chokes on a confused sob.

Erik's there quickly, moving back up to gather him in his arms. I _t's OK. You're all right,_ he whispers between their minds, fluttering his hands over Charles's chest and stomach, rubbing his back when he lets Charles settle his head against his shoulders. _I've got you. I promise._

Charles doesn't know what's happening, but his chest is heaving. He's making soft, hiccupping noises, overwhelmed, clinging as close as he can possibly get. There's a disconnect and it's making him dizzy, the room spinning, but Erik is here. Erik has him. It's all alright. "Love you," he whispers, shaky, muffled by Erik's shoulder.

"I love you," Erik murmurs back, tugging Charles impossibly closer, not only within his body but within his mind as well, willing to keep him here like this for as long as possible. It's all right, his touches say over and over again. _You're OK. You're safe. I have you. Nothing can get in the way of that._

It takes a while for Charles to settle, but he does. It turns out he really has run out of tears, wet, clogged sniffling noises, and he hopes Erik doesn't mind that he's rubbing snot and tears into his shoulder and neck. "Can we go to bed?" he asks eventually, voice small and quiet. It's been a long day. Charles wants to curl up into Erik's chest and drift off and, for once, he's not going to make a fuss about how early it is.

Erik smiles down at him and brushes his hair from his face. "Of course we can," he murmurs, but it's early enough tonight that Erik sees fit to ensure Charles goes through his routine. Erik stays close to him the entire time he goes through his Postures, no sharp reprimands or coldness any longer, just intermittent touches and soft smiles. After Charles finishes Erik sits him on the bed and tends to his wounds, making sure everything looks good and feels as good as it can. He includes a bowl of ice cream somewhere in there, because he can.


	33. And if you wanna cut yourself remember that I LOVE YOU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _prism_ , louise glück  
> ii. _war of the foxes_ , richard siken  
> iii. _songs of solomon_ , 8:7

There's something to be said about routine. About Postures and goodnight kisses. About falling asleep, content and cared for, in Erik's arms. When sleep threatens to take him, he goes willingly for once, head propped against Erik's chest instead of the pillow.  
  
Except when Charles wakes up, it's well before his alarm blares. Even groggy and uncomfortable - the shift of his slowly healing bruises, his sore, raw throat - he knows intuitively that it's still the middle of the night. A glass of water certainly won't hurt. He grunts, rubbing at his eyes. Erik is still there, sleeping soundly and wrapped up in sheets as if he isn't miles away in a CIA complex. It takes a bit to untangle himself from those long limbs, and when Erik stirs, his mind floating toward consciousness, he eases him back down. Sends _sleep/safe/warm_. No reason to wake him because Charles needs something to wet his throat and a trip to the bathroom. He'll be back in a moment, pleased to climb back into those protective arms.  
  
Something feels - off, vaguely, but he can't put his finger on what it is. His apartment is silent as anything save for Erik's soft breathing, the hum of various electronics and assorted appliances. The city around him sleeps, for the most part, their minds dreams and daily processing, quiet background whirring. Nothing at all to be concerned by. Charles imagines it's just a silly paranoia, the way children fear monsters under the bed and adults cry ghost.  
  
He flips the light on.  
  
His knees give out. He doesn't manage a scream.  
  
His mind does, a barrage of screeching panic and horror that even the deepest sleep wouldn't muffle.  
  
 _Erik Erik ErIK ERIK ERIK ERIK ERIK ERIK ERIK ERIK -_

* * *

It definitely helps that Erik wakes with the slightest noise. The alarm clock yesterday was new, and had startled him, but most of the time Erik doesn't startle, he simply blinks wide-eyed and sits straight up, ready for the day as though he hadn't been down deep at all, a holdover from years of constant vigilance. This same training kicks in now before he's even fully conscious and he flicks every metal implement in the room up and at serrated edge, propelling himself in front of Charles and aiming everything at the intruder.  
  
There's no intruder. There is Cain Marko, propped up in a mockery of himself on Charles' couch, legs spread wide out as he'd done more times than Charles could remember. He's wearing clothes, but Charles can see - he can see - He's oozing out as if he's leaking, blood and other fluids, melting into the worn leather. He doesn't have eyes anymore. He's absolutely, definitively dead. Charles can't look. He can't. He turns his body and bows to the floor, curled in. There's no trembling, or shaking, or retching, though his throat closes around all of it. No sobbing. There's nothing but cold, reverberating horror, clinging to every wall and filling every space until it's all that this place is. All that he is.  
  
The metal implements drop and Erik immediately drags Charles to the bathroom, shoves open the shower curtain to clear the place and holds up a hand. The command, _stay here_ clangs through his head. _Stay here, be calm, don't make a sound_. Erik kisses him on the forehead before he goes, soldering the door with a wave of his hand so no one can get in and then methodically sweeping out to ensure there are no other surprises around the apartment. Maybe Charles could've done that himself, but he's a mess and Erik's going on pure instinct. But he knows where Cain came from, even as he checks the locks on the front door to see if they were tampered with.  
  
There's nothing and no one. Besides Cain with his entrails hanging out, the apartment is silent and untouched, not a hair out of place. The bowl Erik served ice cream in is still sitting in the sink where it'd been left to wash in the morning. Charles has climbed into the bathtub. His knees are curled into himself. He's staring at nothing, feeling nothing, projecting nothing. There's nothing but muted horror, nothing but the slowly creeping realization that this is his fault. A man is dead because of him. He won't ever scrub this blood off his hands.  
  
Erik doesn't touch Cain, other than to levitate a small sheet to drape above him, where its edges hang just over any surface so that there's no contamination. There's no purpose beyond the aesthetic, shielding the corpse from view. Erik clears the rest of the apartment before coming back to Charles, after palming a large kitchen knife and sticking it to his arm like a magnet. Unwilling to be caught with his thumbs twiddling, he makes his way into the bathroom and gathers Charles up in his arms. "Charles, I need you to listen to me." _Can you do that? Focus on my voice._ The Order permeates deeper than he can ever recall sending one.  
  
Charles looks up. There are no tears, and no panic behind his eyes. There's nothing there at all, but he's listening, snapped to attention like the metal at Erik's Command. He nods wordlessly. _Yes, Erik_. Nothing more.  
  
"We need to handle this," Erik whispers. "I checked over his body and there is nothing there that would lead anyone to conclude you are responsible." In fact there are unmistakable traces of sulfur. Erik can dispose of it and wipe the apartment down, but, "we need to call the police, Charles."  
  
There is plenty to lead the police to believe he was responsible, like the fact that it is his stepbrother in his apartment with no signs of forced entry. They would be right. He is responsible. Charles nods, just as lifeless as the corpse in his living room. If he rots in prison for this, that's what he deserves.  
  
Cain was the son of a very prominent man. He would be missed, but Erik is confident in his own ability to take care of it so that even if he were missed, he wouldn't be found ever again. It would save Charles from a stint in prison, from his own trial undoubtedly, from facing Azazel in an arena of his own, from destroying Erik's chance at freedom once it comes out that his only credible witness is a deranged murderer of his own, from unraveling their lives as Erik knows it. It's perhaps not surprising though that Erik respects Cain more as a corpse than he ever had as a human being, that Erik had zero compunctions about killing him initially-but Charles is civilized, isn't he? Erik is the beast, here. He needs to make a decision that will impact the rest of Charles's life, but wouldn't that be better if he were around to live it, not locked in prison? Even if it's only for a little while, even if they definitively prove the difference, Erik already knows what it's like and he cannot allow Charles to go through that. He will protect Charles. He will. "We'll handle this," he decides after a long moment.  
  
Charles nods. If he catches Erik's thoughts, he doesn't react to them, legs curled back up into his chest. He's staring at nothing again.  
  
"You're going to go and stay with Raven and Hank," Erik Orders him. "They're your family. You can trust them. I will handle this and I will let you know when it's done, understood?" What is another body, anyway. Erik is already cut off from everything he's ever been taught, his soul is done. He can still save Charles's. He kisses Charles's temple. "Go, now."  
  
Charles nods one last time. He's wearing sweatpants they'd put him in before bed. He grabs a coat, but no shirt, puts on shoes with no socks, doesn't take his keys or phone or wallet. He looks at the sheet, and it's enough to utterly destroy him. To filter everything else out. Raven's apartment is in walking distance. They'd chosen them together for that reason. He walks the whole way in the dark on autopilot, staring straight ahead, his feet knowing where to go while his mind has shut off. When he gets there, he knocks on the door. He doesn't pound, or bang, or shout Raven's name. He simply knocks, over and over, staring lifelessly.

* * *

Something happens.  
  
A hand on Charles's shoulder, and when Raven answers the door, he isn't there.  
  
He knows who she is before his mind has fully caught up. The woman in white is stood before him, the world completely at a stand still.  
  
Perhaps, during any other circumstance, Charles would feel the mixed confusion and wonder he has since his first encounter. He would blink, or smile, or be comforted in some way. Now he only stares, straight through this apparition as if he really has walked into Raven's apartment. As if there's nothing out of the ordinary. He says nothing. He doesn't move. He just stares.  
  
She places her hands on his face. The world ripples and shimmers around them. "There is still time," it says, head tilted. Familiar eyes, a familiar spread of freckles dusting her nose and under her eyes.  
  
Charles doesn't know what that means. He doesn't know anything right now except that he is empty, and can't imagine ever being full again. There is no reasoning, moral or otherwise. There is nothing at all, so he stares and he blinks. He doesn't understand.  
  
"There is time to save him," the voice repeats softly.  
  
Who? Cain? He's very much dead, so Charles doubts that. But she doesn't mean that. Neither of them will live with this. He finds Erik's mind where it's still tethered to him. _Please stop._  
  
Erik's moving, the minutiae of his actions shielded from Charles's view as much as possible. _Charles. I told you I have got this. Be easy. It will be all right. I know it does not feel like that right now, but it will be._  
  
Charles shakes his head. He grabs Erik's consciousness and he yanks, firmly, a show of power, until he is no longer in his apartment. Until he is right here, where the world has reformed in front of Raven's. _Stop. Please_ , he repeats.  
  
 _Charles!_ Erik's shout is more a sensation than sound, he hasn't even moved Cain's body-it's still there-he has to handle this. _Charles, send me back!_  
  
No. He wraps his arms around Erik's middle, and he shakes his head. No. Charles will handle this, but not like this. He promised never again. Never again would Erik's hands be used for something like this. He won't break that promise.  
  
Erik's arms go around him immediately. He has to take care of Charles. It doesn't matter. It's only one more, that's nothing compared to what awaits if he doesn't. If only he hadn't just been standing there foolishly, this could be resolved-maybe Charles would grieve but Erik can handle that, too, he can shoulder this situation-

* * *

The door opens and Raven's stood there, blue as can be, staring at them both. "What-what's going on," she stares. Erik naked as usual. Charles silent and dead-eyed.  
  
It isn't Erik's to handle. Cain deserves a funeral. He deserves a proper burial. He deserves some justice, however little he was served himself while he was alive. Kurt Marko, vile as he may be, as wretched of a father as he's always been, deserves to know what became of his only son. Erik believes that with everything in him. No more. It was never an option. He doesn't look at Raven. He doesn't answer her. He keeps his arms around Erik, buried in his chest, and he grabs the other mind still tethered to his, this one not through love. Where both he and Erik can see it, because he cannot shield now, Azazel pops into existence in his apartment. It was his deed. Shaw's, too, but his is coming for him. Let him take credit for it. Let him stand there and watch as the police come. Let him call them himself. Charles has been with his sister all night.  
  
And Raven and Hank both will corroborate it without hesitation. Raven was there when Azazel first struck.

Erik keeps Charles wrapped up in his arms and blankets, on Raven's couch. Hank brings him tea and Erik gets him to drink it a little bit. The riddle was: _why couldn't we live in the mind./The answer was: the barrier of the earth intervened._ Erik painstakingly rips apart the fabric of that barrier until there is nothing separating them. A barrier made from _tachrichim_. That woman in white. _Baruch dayan emet;_ blessed is the True Judge. A lion came and ate the donkey. ( _Natura non contristatur_? what happens for good reason or nothing at all? But there isn't a reason for death. _Nature isn't saddened_. You can only have two items in the box, never three, and G-d doesn't know everything.)

Of course, none of this is applicable to Cain. And Erik will never pretend that he wanted the man alive. His grief is not for that. It is for Charles. It is a space for Charles. An empty box. A waiting plot. How we treat our dead is an indication of our enlightenment. Erik will give up his own seat, he will protect Charles's soul at all costs. He is already consigned. Let Charles have peace. It's best that Azazel shoulders it, and it is the most hopeful outcome that could occur, with Azazel being taken into custody and that will alter the outcome of everything in forward momentum, but Azazel showed up in Charles's life for only one reason. Erik brought him there. It is more of Erik's dead. Always more. Only now it has struck Charles. But Erik isn't thinking this, it's a selfish train. Let Azazel have the responsibility. Erik needs no comfort, he puts himself in front of Charles and wraps him up and- _From the pierced clouds, steady lines of silver./Unlikely yellow of the witch hazel, veins/of mercury that were paths of the rivers-/then the rain again, erasing/footprints in the damp earth._ -reads to him, speaks to him, smooths out the creases, becomes a void for him to echo and scream.  
  
No screaming. Charles stares straight ahead, and he does not move. He goes, limply, where he's bid, shifted in Erik's arms like a doll. He listens as the sirens echo, watches, for as long as he has to, as they storm his apartment. Azazel is holding a dagger with Cain's blood on it. He will confess to everything. There is no room for doubt, and now every bruise on Charles' body will be accounted for. Pieces falling into place. Charles thinks he remembers that once, a very long time ago, strung out and crying, in more pain than he knew what to do with - Cain had broken his leg, cracked it in more than one place, had beaten and humiliated him, had spit in his face and touched him - he had wished for Cain to just disappear. To no longer exist. Not to be dead, but certainly to stop living. he wonders if this is the universe granting him his wish, fourteen years later. If this is what he gets. But mostly he thinks nothing. He wonders nothing. He feels nothing. He stares, shivering even under the blankets, and he does not speak a word.  
  
There will eventually be time to counter all of those impulses and arguments, but Erik doesn't do it now. He just holds Charles and lets him float in a balm of nothing, protecting him from the outside world as best as he can.

* * *

The sun rises. His apartment, less than a block down, has become a crime scene, caution tape and closed off street. There are more officers than there need be. Azazel is in custody. He was read his rights, and then he confessed, in gruesome detail Charles did not listen to. He's disconnected for the most part, the entire thing playing in the background like a TV he's forgotten to switch off. They will call Kurt and Sharon Marko to identify the body. Even missing crucial parts of himself, he is Cain. He imagines at the funeral the casket will be closed. The sun rises, and Charles stares, glassy-eyed and numb, still except for when he shivers.  
  
Erik knows what to do, here. This is something he has done a thousand times in perpetuity. It is something he will know until he dies himself. He guides Charles away from the scene in his mind and fosters him in love instead, in stories and memories that he can recall. Good things, some made up, others that mostly involved them. Images of Raven and Warren and Hank, Charles's real family. His complete and absolute certainty in Charles, that Charles is good and unmarred even now. Especially now. Charles doesn't have to go to the trial any more, because his testimony is complete, but Erik watches himself guided into the room. They'll be going into the report on _Sisim_ today, and with a hundred and twenty-two people, it'll take all day long. Erik doesn't exist outside of Charles.  
  
Charles is the one turned off now. The day passes in a rush and a drag all at once, existing outside of time altogether. He doesn't think he leaves the couch. He doesn't think he moves at all. There's a background droning, something far off and distant, but he doesn't listen to it. He wonders why no one has called him yet, but the reason becomes clear eventually. His phone is back at his apartment. It doesn't matter if he'd had it, because he wouldn't be able to answer it. "I'm Charles Xavier," he'd greeted all those years ago, hand outstretched and polite, dimpled smile. He watched as Cain's mouth dropped into a vicious snarl, as the world went topsy-turvy and he ended up on his back, staring up in fear - He wonders if Cain has friends. He must. He wonders if he'd had a submissive. Perhaps. No cuffs, but perhaps. He wonders if anyone has ever loved him like Erik loves Charles. Unlikely, but possible. He's offered food, but he can't get it down. He's offered more tea, which he drinks and does not taste. He stays still on Erik's lap, staring but not seeing. He needs to get his formal suit drycleaned for the funeral. He needs to remember how to be an Xavier. He thinks he already has, nothing inside of him. Hollowed out like the home he'd grown up in.  
  
 _That is untrue_ , Erik hushes him softly. _I know you. I see you. I love you._ It's not the first time he's said it today, but he makes sure that it is heard. He lays his hand over Charles's heart. _I will be there with you. You are not alone anymore._ Erik sincerely doubts Cain had any real friends or lovers. Someone like that couldn't hold a normal human relationship, and it's sad, but it isn't Charles's burden to carry. Erik won't allow him to carry it, not by himself. If he has to, if he needs to, if it's too unbearable to truly think himself a victim of Cain instead of complicit in some manner-because Erik knows deeply about complicity, then he will help Charles carry it. He will not let it crush him.  
  
Charles has never once thought of Cain Marko as irredeemable. He has not even thought of him as evil. Cruel, brutish, a bully, absolutely. But not deserving of death or even that same cruelty. He had hoped even as he spit words claiming otherwise that, perhaps, one day - But Charles is naïve, isn't he. He can hear Raven and Hank in the kitchen where they think he's not listening. Hank had gone to work and come back to find him in the exact same spot. He's repeating the word in shock a lot. _I'm worrying them_ , he thinks, the first coherent words he has said or thought in hours now with intent, and of course it is those. He should get up. He should smile. He should make a snarky comment, make Raven laugh with him. Hank will follow suit. He can't. He just can't.  
  
 _No. You don't have to_ , Erik shakes his head, kissing his temple. _This isn't the time for it. They can look after themselves. I will look after you._  
  
Charles doesn't argue. There's nothing in him that has the energy to argue. _I should call my mother,_ he says instead, because that is his duty. As her son, that is his duty. He can't ignore that because he's - because he's - Because he feels broken.  
  
 _You will,_ Erik tells him. _But not right now. You shouldn't do anything except stay with me._  
  
Charles doesn't argue that, either. He goes limp again, his mind a swirl of Sharon Xavier-Marko and her tightly pursed lips and Cain's gouged out eyes before it turns off. He drifts this time, in and out of sleep, and lets Erik look after him.  
  
When Charles is fully asleep on the couch, Erik covers him in a blanket. He's put on some pants at least by this point and he goes to update Hank and Raven, ensuring that they're taken care of as well. He cooks everybody dinner and sets some aside for Charles when he wakes up and then goes and takes him back in his arms, playing _The Wizard of Oz_ on Hank's TV on low.

* * *

Charles feels like he sleeps for days. When he wakes up, groggy and blinking, it takes him a while to remember. It sinks right into his stomach when he does, dropping like lead. The _Wizard of Oz_ is still playing on the TV. A horse of a different color. He curls himself up into a ball in Erik's arms, ignoring the discomfort, and closes his eyes again.  
  
Erik lets him. There's nothing else to do. There are no patients to see or cases to look over. Warren stops by with a note of good will from Carmen. Court went well. The daily minutiae of life is handled. The only thing Charles has to do is exist. When Charles wakes up again he makes Charles eat some soup, still largely curled up in his arms, and he tends to his wounds again. Raven leans down to whisper in his ear that they can go to the bedroom and so Erik bundles him up and carries him, bridal-style, through the doorway and gently sets him on the mattress, sitting down beside him to pet him.  
  
Charles hadn't thought about work. It doesn't matter. Even if it wasn't handled, the news has broken by now, played alongside the trial on news stations. His stepbrother was brutally and viciously murdered in his apartment. There's not a single soul who would fault him a few days off, even if he hadn't wrapped things up with his other patients in anticipation of starting a mutant school. As far as they know, Charles and Cain were estranged, perhaps, but still brothers. He's trying to think of a good memory he has with Cain. A single good memory. He keeps coming up with horrific ones instead, head lolled on Raven's pillow as he flips through snapshots of his own abuse like a scrapbook.  
  
He halts that in its tracks, placing his own hands over the weathered pages and shutting it gently. He doesn't need a good memory. Death doesn't obligate you to consider someone good, but neither does he need to relive these memories on a loop, either.  
  
Charles thinks of his father's funeral instead. He wonders if he would have cried, if he'd known what he does now (shockingly little, but that's a thread he's let hang loose). He'd been eight and it had been his father, the only one in the world who had given him even a sliver of affection up until that point. He thinks so. He has good memories of his father, at least. He used to pat his head, in some blurry, strange world Charles barely remembers. Sometimes, when he wasn't busy, he would teach him to play chess. He let Charles read his books. To himself, but read them nonetheless. He knows the funeral will be extravagant. He knows he will be expected not only to attend, but to play a role. To be the grieving stepbrother. He is grieving, he thinks. Not the same he did his father, but he is grieving. He needs to call his mother. He needs to remember how to smile.  
  
Erik stays with him through it, offering all that he has offered and more, everything that he can. It can't fill up what is missing, he knows that first-hand, but it is a light in the otherwise empty darkness. Eventually Charles will turn on and face the world, but he doesn't have to right now. Erik shrouds him in floating peace, as much as he can. He sings under his breath, into Charles's hair, the lyrics unimportant. _(While we strive to figure out a way we can survive/these trying times without losing our minds/so if you wanna burn yourself/remember that I love you..._ )  
  
Charles is drifting again, his mind a spinning, uncomfortable place to live. It's hot to the touch, every other thought punctuated by crime scene photos of Cain's desecrated body. Somewhere far off, he recognizes this is a long time coming. It hasn't stopped. The attacks, the fear, the reliving of trauma. It simply hasn't stopped. He's thoroughly battered by the tide of it. He wonders if he's as strong as Erik thinks he is, or if he will simply sink into this. If he will drown. He can't save everyone, but how can he live when he could not even save his own stepbrother? Was he not his responsibility? Was he not his burden to bear? His mother made a choice to broaden the family, and he is his mother's flesh and blood. The only thing she has. Her only son. There is blood on his hands now. Charles hasn't taken a shower, and he never touched anything, but he's not sure it will ever come off. It shouldn't.  
  
This is not yours to bear, Erik counters him at every turn. _And you will not sink. You will not drown. Hold onto me. He will weather the tide. Cain made his choices. Azazel made his. The responsibility is theirs, let it be theirs. Let it lie with them._ It's the only thing that Azazel ever wanted, turning all of his own distorted sickness outward so that the world could pay for his evil with its own self, every body burned a scream into the atmosphere, an exaltation, a catharsis of release for his own blackened insides. Azazel would burn everything and everyone if given the opportunity, enact his filth and disgust. Erik will not let him do the same thing to Charles. There is no blood that needs washing away. They will face it together.  
  
 _I let him,_ he thinks, and it's the first time the words are spoken, even if they are not out loud. He writhes in it, and for just one, aching moment, tears prick at the corner of his eyes. _I let him. I let this happen. I'm guilty by association. I did this. I did this. He's dead because - because... Because of me. I killed him._  
  
 _Atzor_. _You did not. This is not yours. You are not responsible for the entire world. No one can ask that of you. You are not G-d. He murdered Cain. Not you. You tried to save him. Even when he would hardly do the same for you. Remember who you are._ Erik touches his face. He will remember for the both of them if it is necessary. Cain is dead because Azazel made a choice. It is that simple. He won't let Charles become twisted up in the aftermath.  
  
"No!" It's the first word he's spoken aloud in nearly twenty-four hours now that they're creeping into the middle of the night, and it's appropriately hoarse. Charles struggles to sit up, wobbly and unsteady, tangled in Erik, but he does. "No, I - he was my responsibility, he was my stepbrother, and I let him die. I could have controlled it, I could have had Azazel in custody sooner, but I didn't and he died. He's dead, Erik, don't you get that? He's dead and it's my fault! Mine!"  
  
Erik goes up with him, rubbing his back. "Hindsight delivers the harshest judgment, Charles. If you could have predicted this, you would have prevented it. If you are trying to convince me to hold you accountable, you will not succeed."  
  
Charles isn't breathing right anymore. He can hear himself struggling for air, like he's out of his own body, as if he's watching someone else. His chest is heaving, the world is spinning. He's hyperventilating, but it doesn't matter. "I didn't want him to die," he gasps. "He was - but I didn't want him to die, Erik. I didn't."  
  
He just rubs his back, holding him steady. "I know, _neshama_. I know you didn't. I was there with you. I offered it then. You endured all of this to prevent it. You didn't do anything wrong. Trust me. Believe me."  
  
"Then what was - what was the point!" He's raising his voice, and he knows he shouldn't be. He can't help it. It's all violently rising to the surface, knocking him winded and scrabbling for enough oxygen to fill his lungs. He's digging his nails into Erik's skin. "I - and he died anyway -" I moved the coin and they died anyway. I endured for him and he's still dead.  
  
"I know," Erik breathes into his ear, not flinching at the sensation of nails in his flesh. Endures it until he bleeds himself. "There is no point, _tayer_. I wish there were. It's just another form of cruelty. I know."  
  
Charles doesn't have any more tears to cry. What he does is not crying. These are heavy, painful sobs, dry and wracking his entire body, shaking and heaving and forced out of him with every breath. He clings to Erik as he crumbles, the only thing keeping him from being crushed under his own grief.  
  
He holds Charles steady, whispering random nonsense into his ear, anchoring him with his voice. Keeping him afloat, withstanding it in a deep, heavy loam of calm and tranquility dragged from deep under the ocean, from the molten core of the earth inside of him. _Let go. Let him take it. I love you. I've got you._  
  
Charles doesn't know how long he sobs, shaking and gasping and coughing, sputtering every time he forgets how to breathe. When he catches his breath, it starts all over. He doesn't know if it's an hour or two or five. All he knows is that Erik is there, steadying and sheltering, that when he buries himself in his shoulder and goes limp, finally, mercifully still, coughing and hiccupping, he still has him. _Please don't go_ , he begs. _Please don't go._ _I tried to save you. I can't lose you. Please don't go, please don't die, please don't be taken. Please just stay._  
  
 _I'm right here,_ Erik promises. _I'm right here. I won't leave you. Not ever. You did,_ he huffs softly, kissing the top of Charles's head. _You did save me. Not dead. Right here. But you can't leave, either. I won't let you be taken._ Not by his own grief, not by Azazel, not by anyone. Wherever Charles goes, he will follow.  
  
It hurts to breathe. Even though he didn't cry tears, his nose is clogged, every breath a congested, blocked sniffle. He ignores it all in favor of holding onto Erik as tightly as possible, terrified that at any moment he will be torn away from him. _She helped me again_ , he says, buried deep in the place between Erik's neck and shoulder.  
  
Erik has his hand over Charles's heart, helping to steady him, to take in one breath at a time. He knows without knowing who Charles means, and his own chest tightens a bit, but it's the only sign of his response. _She is good that way_ , he murmurs back, tender.

* * *

 _I have to go to the funeral._ There is absolutely no getting around it. He will need to be there, to stand beside his mother and Kurt Marko, to be the son and heir. The thought of it steals his breath away again, and he lets out another choked gasp. _I don't - it will be..._ It will be unpleasant. It will be awful. There is no shortcutting that. Warren will be there, he's sure, but that will not soften it. Nothing will.  
  
 _I know_ , Erik nods. _You will not be alone. I will be there with you. We will endure it together, I promise you._  
  
Charles attempts something resembling a smile. It's barely a grimace, exhausted and weak. The sentiment behind it stands. _Thank you. I'm - I'm sorry. I promised I would be there with you through this trial, and -_ And look at him.  
  
 _I'm looking_ , Erik smiles back at him, gentle. _You are here with me, so it seems you have kept your word after all._ His fingertips flutter over Charles's jaw, affectionate.  
  
 _Do you know I love you?_ he asks, suddenly. _Really, truly love you, Erik? You know, don't you?_ Even the possibility that he doesn't is heartbreaking for Charles in this moment.  
  
His fingers frame Charles's face in a mirror of the woman in white for just a moment, and for an instant it is not at all difficult to discern where Erik learned to be gentle, where he'd kept it inside of him all this time. "I know," he whispers, eyebrows knit together, bittersweet. _I know. You show it to me every chance that you get._  
  
 _Promise me you won't ever forget, Erik,_ he says, and for just a moment, it is the fierce, strong Charles who has kept his chin raised all these years. _Promise me, no matter what, you'll know._  
  
He's still smiling. _I promise you_ , he touches his lips to Charles's forehead, soft. _I will always know._  
  
Charles wants, more than anything, to kiss him. On his knees on Raven's bed, he finds it more difficult to try and maneuver that than he thought, and something not unlike a pout finds his lips. He could pull Erik down, or he could simply ask. _Please come down here and kiss me,_ and even that is more like Charles, demanding but soft, indignant at their size difference.  
  
He laughs a little and obliges warmly _. Do you know that I love you?_ he repeats between each one.  
  
Charles leans into each one. He needs them more than he could ever admit, but he doesn't have to. Erik knows. "Yes," he whispers, and he has almost no voice at all, cracked and rasping. He'll need to fix that. "I know." I'm sorry for this. I should have - you must have been worried. He must still be. Charles doesn't feel like himself, or perhaps he won't for a while.  
  
 _Don't apologize to me_ , Erik hushes him, laying him back against the pillows so he can relax and not strain himself. He hovers over Charles, balanced on his good elbow, peering down at him like he's the most important thing Erik's ever seen. _I do not need you to censor yourself for me. I love you, and I am happy to be here._  
  
He'll need to call his mother in the morning. He'll need to help make arrangements for the funeral. He'll need to be Charles Xavier. Right now he's content to simply be Erik's Charles, something he never stops being, tugging at him with a huff. Down here, please. You're too far away, mountain man. At least he still has this in him. At least it isn't stolen from him, not yet. _I'm not tired, but you must be. You should sleep._ It's not true that he isn't tired. He's exhausted. Charles just knows he won't sleep, so best to put it out of mind.  
  
 _Am I close enough now?_ he smiles down at Charles, speaking right against his lips. At the bid to sleep, he only shakes his head. _Not tired,_ he assures. _Let me stay with you._  
  
Charles seems to consider that. A moment later his legs come up to wrap around Erik's waist, pulling him in impossibly closer. _Better_ , he sighs, and it is. It really is. _Can we talk about something - I don't know. Normal. Anything._ He can't handle anything else. He needs to know it isn't gone, everything they've built. That this isn't what will break it.  
  
 _This is not something that can be broken, Charles,_ Erik says, kissing him again softly. They are, he thinks, like twin ends of a rope that only create a stronger bond by being pulled, only grow closer, never farther apart. _Did I tell you that Carmen made me try something called a ..._ Double Chocolaty Chip Creme Frappuccino _... which was..._ so _much._ He sends an image of a container with the little mermaid on it and a huge glop of whipped cream and mocha drizzle. _Which Carmen described to me as... a party in your mouth, so..._ That _was my day._  
  
When Charles laughs, it comes out choked, more sob than chuckle. It's something. It must have happened while Charles was all but catatonic, receiving only one end of the feedback. He's sad to have missed it, but there are other things he won't miss. _I'm going to tell Mother about the renovations, once -_ when there's a moment for it. He's decided well before this that he wants it started as soon as possible, and had been planning on calling her. Technically he can do whatever he damn well pleases with the property now that it's officially his, but he owes it to her, he thinks. It was once hers, too. Thinking about something in their future is grounding, gentling, so he swallows and continues. _You said you wanted to help plan. If you had millions of dollars to build a school, what would you do?_ It's not really a hypothetical. It's strange to think, but also - there's joy, too, dampened and buried, but it's there.  
  
It's definitely not Erik's day, but it's the only good thing he can recall in the last 24 hours, so he goes with that and not, say, being forced to his stomach in front of the entire jury after getting up out of his seat and touching the television screen that was displaying images of his village. Warren describes this as _good_ , naturally, because their sympathy has ramped up even further since then. Carmen had an absolute _shit storm_ of a melt down about it at Petrakis (who's very abrupt _this is not the CIA, this is my court room and there will be justice and order-_ continues to be repeated everywhere as if that's an indication of which way he's leaning himself).  
  
The footage on the TV shows Erik fighting and struggling to breathe, entirely a creature of instinct even though he knew better, should've just laid limp, but he's suffocating. The guard responsible (it's Buzz Cut, nobody's shocked) is thrown out and even Quested announces his utter lack of support over their actions. Among other choice occurrences today are Erik watching images of his mother's remains be brutally described by the coroner whom they've called up as an expert witness, and Sebastian Shaw delivering a televised interview claiming that Erik has always been disturbed and prone to hyperbole. So... frappuccinos, that's pretty much it.  
  
That's what Erik lets Charles have, because everything else is inconsequential, little blips in the dark.  
  
Otherwise Erik has spent the entire time with Charles, submerged in this deep-down place that they've made. And vastly, vastly preferring it here. _Millions, hm?_ Erik can barely fathom it. The school he's familiar with from his childhood is a little brick hut, barely a lean-to, they'd thrown rocks in the windows and the glass shattered and it was a horrendous summer that year so they taped plastic bags over it so wasps wouldn't get in. _Oh, G-d, please let this happen some other time._  
  
Erik firmly wrenches himself out of it and applies his mind to the task at hand, grounding himself in their future, their joys vastly outweighing their sorrows. _I would make it a residential institute,_ he suggests softly. _Many of the mutants we'll see will be rejected from their homes. They will need places to stay, and so all of the accompaniment that requires. Kitchens, laundry, bathrooms, play areas. Classrooms of course. Maybe a simulation area; you mentioned there was a bunker underneath the mansion? Perhaps it could be converted, to give them room to practice their abilities. Sports facilities? If it's a secondary as well as elementary school, I think most of them have teams of some sort. Electives? Technology, arts._ If he really does have millions to burn, he could well and truly transform the place into one of the best private schools on the East Coast.  
  
Charles catches some of it. He's already caught it. It's all there at the back of his own mind, all ready to be processed. There is nothing he does not see through Erik's eyes anymore, not a single moment of the day in which they are not two-way connected. But he can't, right now. He simply can't. If he dives down into that pain, into that horror, he will not climb his way out. So he doubles down and focuses, taking deep, shuddering breaths, even as it makes him wheeze.  
  
 _The East Coast? Since when do you think small, Erik?_ he teases, because he wants to do better than that. He will do better than that. _I'd already planned for all of that, actually, so we are on the same page. The bunker will absolutely be converted, and I was thinking there was some way to account for various mutations. Some kind of simulation, but also physical integrity to withstand mutations that require it. It's nuclear bomb proof already, but that won't cover everything. As for living space, there are two main wings with twelve bedrooms on either side. They're fairly big rooms, we could easily assign two to a room with no issue at all - that leaves, currently, a maximum capacity of forty-eight students. I think that's more than enough space to start with, but if anything ever changes of course more rooms could be added. I hadn't decided on if I wanted there to be some sort of... separation. By wing,_ he means. Talking the finer points will keep him from sinking, so he does. He talks. Segregation by gender feels fairly - archaic, personally. Arbitrary. A girl's and boy's dormitory is something an old English boarding school does, which, besides aesthetic, has little place here. He's seeking Erik's opinion on even the smallest of things. He'd already planned to, but now it feels more real. Like a possibility. Their school.  
  
 _The East Coast is big!_ Erik huffs back indignantly. Even if it weren't a silly joke, though, Erik truly believes Charles is capable of making something stunning on a global level. Not merely a state's pride and joy or even a nation's hidden treasure, but an international symbol of hope and peace and shelter. At the last bit, though, Erik shakes his head in disagreement. _I understand the urge to be progressive, but I think there should be a segregation there._ It comes before he has time to fully form his thoughts, and so could definitely seem archaic, especially given the community he'd grown up with.  
  
Charles snorts, but he's not laughing at him. _Why? Is there any reason besides an outdated sense of propriety? Put two boys like us in the same room and it won't matter anyway,_ he points out, and the thought of he and Erik as schoolboys at boarding school nearly makes him smile. They're going to experiment, mostly with their primary orientations whether that be Dominance or submission, regardless of gender expression. _If they're inclined to the opposite sex, I guarantee you that a wing of separation will not stop them, and if they aren't it's irrelevant. The risk remains exactly the same and they can choose roommates based on compatibility and comfort._  
  
 _That isn't the reason,_ Erik shushes him, laying a finger over his lips playfully. _I think we should focus on safety,_ Erik murmurs, regardless of propriety. _We'll be dealing with a sensitive demographic. Rates of abuse and domestic violence are higher in the mutant population, and co-educational facilities will present additional problems even amongst well-adjusted older students._  
  
Charles makes a face, and he's nearly - nearly - forgotten everything around them, sunk instead into this place with Erik. He bites that finger, boldly, eyebrow arched in playful opposition and defiance. _Have you studied this at length, then? Read peer-reviewed articles and longitudinal studies about co-educational facilities? I think you're making a great many assumptions here. Even if we do segregate by gender we're going to run those risks. I can guarantee you the deciding factor is not going to be the gender makeup of our student body, either. It's going to have much more to do with their DS score break down._ It's something else he's considered, so he dips out of the current argument for the moment to bring up something else. _We're going to need to educate them on that, too, you realize._ Charles can't decide if they're the most distinctly qualified or unqualified for that job.  
  
 _Don't be catty,_ Erik chides him gently, grinning down and poking his tongue when it peeks out again. Of course, Charles is correct, and additional separation by DS score would be the ideal, but- _Maybe I am old-fashioned. I think if you run a co-educational facility you will need to consider all the factors. The truth of the matter is that some students are not going to respond well to that environment._ Of course, if Erik were given a choice as a teenager, he'd be entirely wary of spending any significant amount of time around male students his own age, but that's neither here or there. He's willing to admit to a bit of sexism if it gets his point heard. _We definitely will need to provide PDR classes. I think we're among the few people in this country that are uniquely equipped to do so._  
  
It's a lot to consider, but they have plenty of time to hash it out. Together, because while it was originally Charles' idea, there should be no doubt that it is now their project. Their future. _It's not going to be possible to separate, efficiently, by both gender and DS score. There will be far too much overlap. Personally I'd rather the two like-scored Dominants with different gender identities be paired together than the D4 and S2 boys._ That seemed like it was asking for trouble, even in the most well-adjusted students. A proper, well-rounded PDR education could help, but Charles knew there would still be limit-testing if there were adolescents involved. It was just the way of things, and it would be their responsibility to make sure it was always safe and acceptable. Speaking of, he grins, lightly, back up at Erik. _And don't tell me what to do. You're not the boss of me,_ he sing-songs.  
  
Erik supposes that's true. He also knows there will be outliers, and they'll need to prepare for the possibility; but that's certainly doable. There were also distinct advantages to co-ed dormitories, in healthy students it allowed them to interact with opposite-sex peers in a productive manner, instead of promoting a hardline separation that fed into stereotypical gender roles. None of which Erik had a problem with, but he can't imagine himself letting someone who was afraid to be roomed with an older boy live in that fear night in and night out, either. A residential facility would inevitably bring up a lot of issues for them both-you need to be able to handle _yourself_ before taking on a child, let alone multiple, varied-age children, but Erik's confident that they will, between the both of them, do as good of a job as they humanly can. _That's lesson one on the PDR curriculum. Erik Lehnsherr equals boss of Charles Xavier._  
  
 _You're ignoring the fact that co-ed doesn't mean they will necessarily be grouped with the opposite gender, it just allows for the possibility. If someone has a genuine concern or fear, of course they won't be forced into it. That's why I said we should assign and accommodate for roommates based on compatibility and comfort. There is, realistically, enough space to even allow for single rooms in the case of extreme circumstances. Some mutations will naturally mesh better together, too. Everyone will be as comfortable as possible._ It's all they can do. Charles scrunches his nose at the last part, squirming beneath Erik with absolutely no intention of getting away. He needs this. He needs their dynamic, he needs their normalcy. He needs to feel like it's all real again, so he grins wider, encouraged. _Who says? I say I'm the boss. My name on the business card, I get to be the boss._ Oh, but he doesn't. And he doesn't want to be. Not even for a second.  
  
There's a lot of things about this that Erik isn't confident in his own ability to manage, primarily revolving around his own lack of knowledge, but he doesn't have a whole lot of preconceptions, either; content to yield to Charles's greater experience in that arena. He can only go based off of his own experiences and education, which were shall we say not productive. But, he's moved on from considering it, his grin is huge. _Oh, I say. And I will have you know I am a very. fantastic. boss._ He punctuates the statement with kisses, and holds out the flat of his hand over Charles's chest to push him down in between the blankets, trapping him quite contentedly.  
  
Charles sighs, eyelids fluttering. Erik's Will has been wrapped around him all day - it always is, unless in the case where it can't be, like in a courtroom - tethering him, grounding him, but now he lets it envelop him, holding him down just as much as Erik's hand is. It's the most comforting thing he can think of. _I hope we can teach them about this in those classes. That this is a possibility,_ he breathes before he can help it. Not our exact dynamic, I understand that's far too intense for most people not on far ends of either scale. But something like this. A healthy display of their orientations, not the toxic caricatures. _I never would have imagined this for myself. I never would have thought it was possible._  
  
 _We will_ , Erik assures him with a nod. There is no greater gift that he can possibly think of, that he could use his existence for something good, for it to model an example of health instead of twisted disgust, that he could potentially help guide others out of the edges of despair and into the sunlight. That his relationship with Charles could be a real representation of the joy and love that Dominant and submissive dynamics are supposed to entail; especially for those students who will inevitably end up on the higher ends of either scale, which he and Charles both know firsthand how complicated such a thing can be even without additional upsetting factors. Erik can't really imagine his life without the events that occurred since his Will first began to manifest, but he knows how much he struggled even during the brief period afterward and before his descent into madness. And Charles on the other end, the same. Erik is not one to mindlessly say it gets better, because it's a ridiculous concept; you can't guarantee that someone in hell will ever feel OK again. But you can show them that there is something OK, something that exists beyond hell. Erik never got that. He knew an Upside-Down place, with no compass, no North, and maybe if he had, he would have escaped much sooner.  
  
Charles can't help it. He lets out a little laugh, a bubbled up giggle that he attempts to muffle with Erik's neck. It doesn't work. _I can't believe I'll be in charge of teaching submissive students Postures._ It's such an absurd reality he's fallen into, so much so that he would consider this his Upside-Down months ago. He would be wrong. There's nothing more right, and even through all of it, he and Erik straighten things out between them more with each moment they spend together. There is only more to learn and experience, never anything lost or broken. _I suppose it's a good thing you have me practicing them so much._  
  
Erik laughs, too. _You will be able to nurture those students in ways you were not,_ he murmurs softly. _No one will walk out of your class._ There's no specifically corresponding element of Dominant education, Erik doesn't think, other than that Dominants are aware of the Postures and how to perform them. There are actually tandem Postures, and mirrored ones, which he hasn't gotten into with Charles yet because he's a bit nervous he'll lose his head, but that he actually intends on exploring at some point. But generally Dominants don't perform them without a submissive, whereas many submissives will do Postures even alone to help ground and regulate themselves. But it's absolutely a jarring, subversive experience when it's not your inclination. Which, again, Charles knows first hand. Outside of Erik, he's sure his experiences were probably similar. Which gave Erik a bit of courage that he could overcome his own reticence eventually. _I suppose I'll be in charge of teaching Dominants how to wield their Will._ And isn't that a concept.  
  
 _Mmm. You'll be in a unique position to help high-Doms figure out how not to drop lower-end submissives into subspace accidentally. You're getting there,_ he grins, and honestly, he is. Not that it's applicable here, with him, where even the briefest touch of Will feels enough to sink him far down deep. It's exactly the grounding he needs, and if anything he's trying to coax it from him. Charles' eyes close and he lets out a breathy, needy sigh, clinging to Erik's Will like he had dug his nails in earlier. Like he's afraid it will leave him, too, which he knows by now simply isn't possible. There is no shifting out of place when there is not a moment he does not belong to Erik, he reminds himself. _I never would have thought of this as a source of strength before you. I'd like them to think of it that way. I'd like them to know it doesn't need to be what I made it._ A frightening, reviled thing, cast aside except when he could not help but fantasize, and then regarded as a cause for guilt and disgust. There are times he is still frightened by how much there is inside him, how absolutely natural it is after years of convincing himself it wasn't. He knows Erik knows. He knows they will overcome it together, too, the same as they will overcome Erik's reservations about his Dominance. It all fades with each passing day. Each passing second.  
  
Erik responds nearly unconsciously, letting his Will unfold like great plumes of smoke enveloping Charles as close as possible. Molecular. _I am not very good at that myself,_ he laughs, because a look, a wayward comment from Charles has him practically Ordering the man to his knees in literal public, which is not... optimal... but he's not sure how much of that is him, being a high-Dom, or being a D5. Like Charles believes, though, they will figure it out. They'll get better at it. Charles is already so good at navigating subspace, at just existing as himself, at learning to let it in. Erik is very, very proud of him and he lets that be known in its intensity. No cause for fear. No disgust whatsoever. As a Dominant Erik is firmly aware that many people believe Dominance is superior to submission, under the misguided ideology that submission is weakness, but in Erik's experience, Dominance is much more fragile, Dominant ego is much less suited for bruising, which make Dominants more aggressive, violent and codependent without a tether. Dominants cannot function well without submissives and there are plenty of studies that prove this. Of course this does come dangerously close to apologetics, but it's a perspective Charles has little experience with, the idea that Dominants could theoretically be considered weaker-and Erik's experience makes him much less inclined to be merciful in his private thoughts about it. All Erik knows is that they are stronger together, that he would not be capable of enduring the trial and its implications without Charles by his side. That he has never imagined for himself a relationship where there is a healthy exchange of power, where there isn't abuse and torture and humiliation. There were no fantasies, Erik firmly rejected the idea as often and vehemently as possible, believing himself to be a perpetrator, or that he could only function as an object of suffering. He will do whatever is necessary to ensure that Charles sees himself for what he is; a wonderful, beautiful being who is good and worthy and capable.  
  
Charles' chest feels tight for an entirely different reason now. Erik's Will and, more than that, his pride in him, is enough to leave him gasping, a sob stuck in his throat. His breath hitches, lips parting with choked, stuttering noises, but he isn't distressed. Every time Erik thinks of him that way, he's reminded that this is something he has now. This is something he gets to experience every day, every moment of the day, with no end or pause. This is the life he gets to live. Erik loves him for all that he is, every single part of him, and does not mistake his submission for something it is not. In the same vein, it's never reduced to an inessential, weaker part, something to cast off - it's treasured, encouraged, and nurtured. There is no one Charles has ever been so himself with, and no one he ever will. That position is uniquely Erik's. "I - Erik?" he whispers. It's out loud, which means it's a croaking, weak thing, but it's audible. Charles finds he's at his most shy when he's just slipping into subspace, or at least the deeper parts of it. There's rarely a time around Erik he isn't at least half there, what seems to be a natural part of their developing dynamic. It's a softer response in him, when everything begins to float and he's flustered by his own - everything. Perhaps one day it will fade, but in the meantime, Erik doesn't seem to mind. His cheeks are faintly pink even in the dark, and he wriggles beneath his Dominant. Not escaping. Hoping he will be kept more firmly in place, an unconscious desire. Charles doesn't ask anything, turning his head into the pillow to hide like he's wont to do. Erik is clearly trying to train it out of him, but it will take time.

* * *

It's time that Erik is happy to spend. He lays his hand over Charles's cheek and turns his head to peer down at him, meeting his eyes, smiling softly at him. Tracing the flush that creeps up his skin. "Yes, Charles?" he murmurs aloud, and it's a question that ends up being an Order, an encouragement all at the same time. Share with me. Let me see.  
  
Charles' eyelashes flutter. A soft, pleased noise escapes him, belly warming at the Order as he's gently coaxed further beneath the surface. It's safe and warm here, and Erik will take care of him. He leans into the touch instinctively, seeking. _I thought this would frighten me. I thought I would want less, the more we did. That I would - but I haven't. I just want more_ , he admits, shy and squirming again, legs dropped back down so he can move them, too. _You were worried about frightening me, remember? But Erik, this is... I've never known something more safe. I don't want to stop._ To stop experiencing, and learning, and being. Certainly to never stop being Erik's. His hand comes up to touch his collar, and his eyes widen, as if he's shocked it's still there. As if he were afraid it had disappeared.  
  
Erik's hand moves over the collar in synchronicity, his grin warm. _You are safe here,_ he affirms gently. Always. He's never been particularly confident in his own ability to provide, to protect, to shield instead of harm, but he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will do everything possible to ensure that Charles never stops-feeling, learning, experiencing, everything he has to give. _Always. I am to my beloved as my beloved is to me._ Erik laughs a bit. _Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vineyards; for our vineyards are in blossom/Two rabbits were chased by a fox, of all the crazy shit in the world, and the fox kept up the chase/Let me tell you a story about love:/You cannot get in the way of anyone’s path to happiness, it also does no good._ The problem is figuring out which part is the path and which part is the happiness.  
  
Charles sighs again, soft and floating. His eyes have slipped closed, and he's let himself go. Down where Erik takes care of him, where there is nothing he needs to do except be his and be good. When his eyes open again, there's still that hint of shyness. He's biting on his lip. _Will you - please?_ Ask nicely, Erik says. Tomorrow morning, the world will need Charles to be something besides just Erik's, to face it, but he can take this with him. He can use it. Not alone, Erik promised.  
  
"What shall you have me do?" Erik asks aloud, the words as far from Dominant as one can get, but in true Erik fashion, the dichotomy is immediately attuned, every action poised for pulling Charles out of himself and caring for him until there is nothing left but Erik's presence, steady and anchoring. _If you remember to ask nicely, of course._ He taps Charles on the nose, endeared.  
  
Charles doesn't think they're far from Dominant at all. He shivers, nothing like earlier, and turns his face until he can hide his expression in the pillow again. He doesn't know exactly what he'd meant to ask for, only that he needs. He bites harder on his lip, wriggling more beneath Erik's hold, and shakes his head helplessly. He is still stunningly bad at asking for, and even knowing, what it is he needs. Right now, it's frustrating and overwhelming, sunk into subspace where articulating is sometimes more difficult, and he whimpers quietly.  
  
 _No_ , Erik Orders lowly, splaying his fingertips across Charles's face. _Be still. If you can't tell me, show me._  
  
Charles gasps, breathy and low, and shivers again. It's exactly what he needed, but he doesn't know how to show Erik that. He tries, still biting on his lip, harder in the absence of the ability to squirm. He doesn't want - sex, that's not what he's looking for. Not only are they in his sister's bed, which is a boundary he's not currently shameless enough to cross, he's wrung out and exhausted and he doesn't think he could get aroused if he tried. But he needs. To be Dominated, more firmly than usual. He needs the guidance, and the grounding, and the reassurance. He doesn't know what it amounts to, but he looks up at Erik, eyes hopeful and wide. _Please_?  
  
Most of the time Erik doesn't see that much of a difference-it's quite easy to imagine that Erik just has no off button at all, but in this very moment, he's aligned to the same wavelength as Charles. He needs to be Dominant nearly all of the time, but he's imagined himself a bit like a computer powered down-today has been too much, too much everything, and his whole body is alive in fire, an exposed nerve of panic and pain circuitry, and he wasn't sure what he would've done if that had been Charles's angle (well that's not true, he probably would have acquiesced, but that's for another day) that is until Charles stirred and once more wrapped tendrils of Erik's Will around him, and now he's in much the same position-desiring something he doesn't understand the name of. Most people have a clear separation of Dominance and submission, but Erik doesn't, which makes this uncharted territory.   
  
He bids Charles to sit up and gracefully rises to his feet, leading Charles off of the bed. The door clicks in place, locking, providing them the illusion of privacy although he is almost certain Raven wouldn't intrude either way. "OK," he looks up, something instinctive tugging at him, falling down a huge chasm quite suddenly and it's like everything that comes to Erik, entirely without context or reason at all other than yes! this! this is the right thing! in his heart, and so he follows it and hopefully he won't annihilate everything! "I know," he smiles down at Charles where they're both stood and touches his face. "I'll take care of you. Do you trust me?"  
  
Charles is finding there isn't much of a line, either, and certainly not one he could draw in the sand. There's no off switch, just as he'd told Erik. In that, they are completely compatible, their dynamic revolving around the assumption that, unless under extenuating circumstances, they are always - well, them. It's not a dynamic most are capable of, but it's proving to work perfectly well for them. But it's just that, in this moment, in this instance - he needs more. Something. Erik seems to know what that something is better than he does, so he nods eagerly, bottom lip still stuck between his teeth. _Yes, Erik, of course. I trust you completely._ That much he knows with absolute certainty, and it's exceptionally obvious with one look at Charles' current expression.  
  
Erik taps his thumb across Charles's lip, a warning. He takes a single step back from Charles, the warmth of his body receding faintly, but still palpable across the small distance between them. Charles would recognize his next maneuver, if he's never done it himself with a Dominant; the beginnings of this are usually taught in PDR classes. Erik holds his hands up at level with his chest, palms-out. It's meant to be a mirrored Posture, and Erik's expression is calm, expectant. These Postures, in tandem function almost like a dance, but with less movement and no true focus on rhythm, although they can and often are set to music, they are mostly designed to tug on the basic parts of the brain responsible for Dominant and submissive urges. It's a focus of the body, of the spirit, of Dominion and subspace existing, parallel. This is a basic start, and there are complicated motions and positions, some quite acrobatic, which he has no intention of getting into. It's enough to simply attune them to one another, Erik's Will as physical a presence as his body, a mirror image of himself in impulses.  
  
Charles had seen this in Erik's mind earlier, but he hadn't expected it so soon. He takes a deep, shaky breath, feels it tremble through him. This isn't the first time he will attempt something like this, but the only other time did not go well at all. Charles is shivering in earnest as he steps forward to mirror, clinging to Erik's Will with everything he has, steadying it inside of himself and letting it guide him. Erik is his Dominant. He belongs to him, and things are different now. He's safe, and cared for, and his submission is understood. It has finally, finally found its match in Erik's Dominance, for once not a resounding too-little-too-much. But his eyes are tightly closed, and there is something holding him back. Something tense in his stomach, and trapped up in his mind. I won't be in subspace, his mind is trailing off somewhere, ridiculously, because he already is in subspace, whether he's attempting to knock himself out of it with his own panic or not. _I won't, I can't, I'm broken -_  
  
 _Cease_ , Erik halts him with a simple Order, and he touches his hands to Charles's gently. It's not part of the Posture, but that's fine. Most Dominants and submissives find their own rhythm with these, and Erik is happy to involve touching in theirs. _I did not tell you to close your eyes. Open them for me, Charles._ His voice is very firm, but warm, alight instead of cold and frigid like during a discipline session. The difference is like night and day.  
  
And exactly, as it turns out, what he needs. Charles' eyes snap open and he gasps, toes curled into the carpeting beneath him. "Yes, Erik," he whispers, and lets it guide him. Gives himself over until his entire mind, even those hurting, grieving places becomes _Yes, sir. Yes, Erik._ His whole being opens up after that, lips parted, eyes bright, his belly fluttering instead of dropping. In that instant his submission is as physical and palpable as Erik's Will, reaching tentatively out to meet it. His lip disappears between his teeth again as he takes slow, shaky breaths through his nose, his heart racing.  
  
The touch turns out to ground Erik as well, and he takes another step back into place, guiding Charles through the beginning stages of standing kinesthesia, which involves a series of gestures surrounding the motif of mirroring. Charles's response causes Erik's eyes to flutter briefly, a warm, rich sensation flooding into his own stomach as he shores up, feeling his hair stand on end. "Good, Charles," he says unconsciously, the words dragged from a deep, primal place inside of him. "That's exactly right." Much like the more advanced Postures (but not typical of the Postures he has Charles practice on a day to day basis, preferring those to be rote, relied upon and used as a base) these ones require genuine skill and some people are better at them than others. Most tandem Postures are only taught at basic level in school, but more advanced levels include aspects of stance, style, space and execution. Erik's projection is very technical, and there's a subtle emphasis on the aesthetic that he's consciously stripping out (and there's a clang! of sticks in the machinery, that conditioning is difficult to go against, but he wants every part of this to be theirs and no one else's and that means he isn't concerned about trifling nonsense like flair, not to say that he isn't demanding in his own right, because he is-Erik is a perfectionist and he is very exacting about it-but his corrections are always gentle), focused on the maneuvers in their most simple elements. You can often tell about a couple's dynamic just by watching their tandem Postures, and Erik and Charles find a routine almost instantly. Where one moves, the other follows, slotted into place like a key into a lock. Turning, shifting, guiding.  
  
There is a very noticeable point, a snap in place, when Charles stops thinking and starts feeling. Being. The first time he'd tried this, he'd been in his own head and it had tripped him up at every turn. He worried about going under, he worried about his technique, he worried about anticipating rather than intuiting, he worried about everything, and the result was a frustrated, huffing mess, squared shoulders and awkward, out of sync movements, clenched teeth and jaw. He hadn't done exactly right at all. He'd failed rather miserably, actually, and sulked about it for days afterwards. Offers to try again were brushed off insistently, until there were no suggestions of it at all. Postures he could endure, but this? This was not for him. It is for him. It is absolutely for him. There is nothing more natural than being in sync with Erik. Nothing more natural than being led and guided by him, than giving himself up and receiving in turn. There is not a moment where he needs to consider what to do, not a second that he hesitates, following every instruction, easing into every step. Everything down to Erik's breathing is mirrored in him, and, he imagines, so must be the beat of their hearts. He exists, in this moment, to fulfill Erik's Will. To become a mirror image of him, a reflection of his Dominance, a physical manifestation of it. He needn't have worried about subspace. He is there, and it did not take effort. It did not take strain. He's down, as far as he's ever been, held there steady and safe by Erik. He's glowing with it. Steadied, strengthened, bright, a soft smile on his lips and reverence in his gaze. He has never been more tethered. He has never been more - He doesn't know. He doesn't know the word, but it's such a brilliant, all encompassing feeling there is no room for anything else.  
  
They finish on the floor, legs crossed Lotus-style, hands on one another's knees, heads bowed together. Erik's eyes are dark in the dim light, pupils dilated and affect dazed as he reaches out to touch Charles's face, all traces of hesitance within him obliterated in a way he's never felt... ever. In his entire life. And instead of becoming harsh and terrifying and violent and psychotic, he feels... pure. Joy. Clean. He is caring for his submissive. He is looking after Charles. Drawing him out, threading every last vestige of subspace through a wire until it's bare and exposed for him. Every instinct-the parts of him he's always suppressed for fear of being too... much, too animalistic, too atavistic, too intense-is awake, blinking and yawning and fierce. His gaze is half-lidded, and he rubs his thumb back and forth across Charles's cheekbones. "Look at you. You're beautiful."  
  
Charles feels not a shredded ounce of shame. No guilt, no disgust, no echoes of pain. Not here. He breathes easy. He smiles uninhibited, all dimples and soft edges, radiating pride that he's pleased and trust that he will be taken care of and his own mirrored, incandescent joy. When Erik touches him, he leans into it instinctively, as if they are still in a Posture, tugged forward by Will and need and a desire to be further connected. His own eyes are half-lidded, and he no longer bites at his lip. "Thank you, Erik," he breathes, as if his praise is the greatest gift he has ever received, the best possible reward. It is. When he sighs again, it shudders through his whole body, an exhalation of pure, unadulterated pleasure. His mind is clear, and open, and humming. He had wondered, not long ago at all, if there was farther into subspace to sink. A deeper bottom. There is. He's there, and it's breathtaking.  
  
Erik leans in and follows his fingers with his lips, kissing Charles gently and then deeper, more. Breathing in, eyes closing at the sensation. Every nerve ending is alive, but there is no pain. _Not any more. I love you._ There's an unbidden smile on his face, the private expression reserved solely for Charles, the only one who sees him at all. The first one who ever did. Erik is all warmth and praise and delight in Charles, and just when he thinks he's reached the pinnacle of his devotion, it disintegrates and sends him further into the depths.  
  
Charles absolutely swims in it. It's heady, and breathless, and beautiful, and he doesn't think he's ever felt something as intensely as this. His eyes flutter closed, his heart pounds in his chest, his pulse races. His entire being is drowned in sensation, and he's opened up impossibly under Erik's careful guidance, beneath the warmth of his praise. This is him stripped absolutely bare, raw and pure for Erik and Erik alone to see. "I love you," he whispers back, and hums with it, all reverence and adoration and devotion and deference. He's perfectly attuned to Erik, to his every movement, his every thought. Poised and offered up, his whole self available in a way it's never been. He doesn't worry about finding his way back to the surface after he's sunk so deep. Erik will take care of that. Erik will take care of everything. All Charles has to do is be his, and that takes no effort at all. He was made for this. To be exactly Erik's, and therefore exactly himself.  
  
The watchmen that go about the city found me: 'Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?'/His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as banks of sweet herbs; his lips are as lilies, dropping with flowing myrrh./Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it; if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, he would utterly be contemned, Erik recites softly. _Ani l'dodi ve'dodi li._ He touches a fingertip to Charles's lips and cheeks, playful. As if to say see? The truth. Erik rests against him, and lets Charles rest against him in return, a twin duality of relaxation. This is where Charles belongs. Right here.  
  
Charles sighs again, a breathy noise that becomes a hum of content as he curls himself into Erik. His skin is warm and familiar when he presses himself against it, and he rubs his cheek into Erik's hand when he strokes there, sensual and soft, a slow blinking, sweet creature that kisses Erik's palm. He's calmer than he's been in ages, and vibrating at the same time. "Yes, sir," he murmurs, smiling like the sun. "Yes, Erik." _I'm yours. Please keep me._  
  
 _Mine_ , Erik practically purrs in response, a low rumble from deep within his chest. So very pleased and grateful for Charles's submission even now, especially now; that he can still smile. That Erik can make him smile. Nothing lost, only gained, between them.  
  
Charles beams at the praise, at the word. He huffs softly, not frustrated but torn; he wants to be closer, to kneel or else climb into Erik's lap - he's not sure which impulse is stronger - but Erik left him somewhere and he doesn't want to break a position if he'd prefer he didn't. Deferring, letting Erik guide him. Letting him decide even the tiniest of movements while he's in this headspace. So he doesn't ask if he can move, he asks, _Where would you like me, sir?_ Every limb is for Erik to direct, every breath and heartbeat. He is utterly, completely Erik's, and if he was in a place to realize how deeply under he is, it might have surprised him. Now it's unfathomable to think of anything else.  
  
 _Oh_ , that sends a bolt of unadulterated electricity through Erik's entire body that leaves him on a shudder, and his eyes pop open, overwhelmed by it. The thing about Dominion that Erik's never realized before, because up until he met Charles he's never felt it before-aside from the obvious possessive, grasping darkness-is how reactive he gets, every twitch of Charles met by a parallel and rising urge within him. He's close enough to the wall to lean back against it and he drags Charles into his lap, between his legs, relishing the contact of skin against skin.  
  
Charles gasps, going easily when he's tugged and folding himself exactly how Erik wants him. He smiles again, one of those bright, brilliant smiles, eyes wide-eyed trust and adoration as he settles himself. He squirms even then, not for any reason other than to know he's in his place, knowing Erik will steady him. He's never been more vulnerable, not in his entire life. He's also never felt as safe.  
  
 _You are perfect,_ Erik whispers to him simply because he can, because he will never get tired of saying it. Because the sight of Charles's unencumbered smile is his favorite thing in the world. He guides Charles to rest against his chest again, the same position he's been in for much of the day and night, only this time there is no more tension in either of them. Simply perfect.  
  
Charles is alight with the praise, practically purring with it as he curls up in Erik's chest. He's glowing with pride, because he does not question anything here. If Erik believes he is perfect as he is, then he is. There is no room for doubt, no room for argument, no reason to feel self-conscious. "Thank you, sir," he whispers instead of any of that, sweet and sighing, and lets his eyes fall closed. He's going to be good for Erik. He's going to be so, so good, so he doesn't have to worry about anything, so he can be praised and held and tended to, and all he has to do is exactly what he's told. All he has to do is be what Erik needs him to be. He's Erik's perfect boy, because Erik says so.  
  
It's such an overwhelming rush of power and Dominance that Erik feels himself tear up, and he doesn't stop; he doesn't stop filling Charles up with everything that is true and good about him, with everything Erik believes wholeheartedly, that he can sink Charles down into this place where he is nothing but an extension of Erik's thoughts and allow him to see himself as Erik does, that he has this opportunity-it's almost too much, Erik realizes, it's-he could do anything, Charles is trusting him so completely-  
  
And Charles looks up at him with more love than he ever thought himself capable, more trust than he has ever given to another human being or ever will. His eyes shine with nothing but sincerity, nothing but soft, malleable submission there, nothing but complete and utter surrender. There have been D5 and S1 bonded pairs in human history, of course there have. Not many, because the chances are so slim, the odds so low, but they have existed. There is precedent. Charles thinks that is possible that no other submissive has looked up at their Dominant with as much devotion and veneration and love as he is looking up at Erik with now, sunk to the very bottom of the ocean where he cannot imagine many have ever gone.  
  
Erik rubs his neck and shoulders, needing the physical anchor. He would keep Charles like this forever if he could, just so he could commit this expression to memory, so he could speak the words he knew to be true and be wholly believed; that Charles was _good._ That he was _perfect_. That he belonged here at Erik's feet, in his lap, at his hands, with him. By his side. That life they are waiting for still within reach. That nothing and no one can break them apart or destroy what they have. That he is loved, and worthy of love and respect and awe.  
  
Charles is making soft, pleased little noises, hums and purrs. He settles fully against Erik's chest, huddled up in Erik's lap. Presses his cheek to warm skin and absorbs everything, taking it into himself like a sponge meant only to soak up everything Erik gives him. He is wrapped up so deeply in Erik's Will and mind and body that in that moment he is wholly inseparable. Something is floating near them. Charles blinks at it. It's a ring, he thinks, spinning metal that must be Hank's because it's far too big for Raven's finger and it certainly isn't Charles' or Erik's. He looks up at Erik, head tilted as he waits to tell him what's expected, why he's decided to float around his brother-in-law's engagement ring, perfectly eager to do as he's bid. After a moment, he realizes an explanation won't come. It's Charles' floating it, so deeply entangled in Erik that he's tapped into his mutation. He giggles, squirming, but doesn't know how to stop - he didn't know that would happen, but now it's not at all concerning to him unless Erik decides it is. "Sorry, sir," he whispers, sheepish and still-bright. Perhaps they would need to teach him some control over Erik's powers after all.  
  
 _No pain,_ Erik gasps back, kissing him deeply. He'll teach him with kisses. _Feel it?_ So far down as he is Charles is practically attuned to Erik's body, and it feels-like being stroked from the inside out, like every curve and flavor of metal has its own taste in Erik's elbows, his feet, his fingertips, behind his ears. He knows instantly this ring is made of gold and silver entwined, the exact amounts of each, every individual groove, every nick and imperfection. The flow of particles like soft, infinite bristles on his skin.  
  
Charles shivers full body, his eyes rolling back as he whimpers and wriggles about in Erik's lap. He's fairly greedy for more kisses, but he doesn't take more than Erik gives him. Those are a privilege and a reward. He knows the ring as intimately as Erik does, but still when he focuses on it, tries to move it deliberately, it vibrates and spins violently before falling harmlessly to the ground. Charles stares at it, tries to make it float again, but it doesn't move. He pouts up at Erik. _Please help me, sir?_ he requests, because Erik was awed by him using his mutation, and Charles can't fear what Erik praises him for.  
  
Erik slides his fingers over Charles's and closes his eyes. _Feel,_ he breathes gently. Leaning forward, he ghosts his lips over Charles's once more, letting Charles _feel_ the sensation of metal through their points of contact, a shivery, delicious sensation that zips all the way up their spines. Erik threads that through and extends it out to the ring, brushing the outermost tendrils of his power over its surface. _Lift. You can do it. I know you can. Perhaps I'll kiss you anyway._ He grins, brightly. Apparently the nuances of positive reinforcement are lost on him because he is very happy to provide it in either success or failure.  
  
He doesn't need the promise of reward like this. Erik's Will is so tightly woven around him, he's so deeply sunk under, that he would do anything if it meant Erik would be pleased. Erik is asking him to do something, and Charles desperately wants to do it for him. He breathes, and feels, and shivers, eyes nearly rolled back as he experiences too much all at once, metal humming through him in a way he's obviously never experienced except by disconnected proxy. If he does this, Erik will be pleased. He will kiss him and praise him and call him a good, perfect boy. Lift. Charles focuses and pushes, apparently with far too much zeal, because rather than lifting the ring zips across the room and clangs off the wall with enough force to dent. His eyes go wide as saucers and he clings to Erik in the aftermath, shame hot on his cheeks. _I'm sorry, sir,_ he thinks, thoroughly miserable that Erik had asked for something and he'd failed.  
  
 _Shh, shh,_ Erik laughs softly and touches his cheek. _You did wonderfully._ Much better than Erik's first time. Erik will do everything in his power to ensure that Charles only ever knows the pleasure of Erik's mutation. That he learns it through joy. No pain. _Move the coin_ -no. Because it isn't necessary. It's just a perk. Just another way to explore the world. There is no need to be good or bad. Just feel, and touch, and love. _The more we practice, the easier it will be_ , he adds, gentle.  
  
Charles calms immediately at the words, but - oh, he wants to please. He wants Erik to call him good boy and sweetheart and pet him gently, craves it more than anything. He can do better if it means Erik will be proud of him. Perhaps if he does it without being told, he'll be all the more impressed, and he finds he needs that. So he closes his eyes and he listens to the humming, the map of every metal object in this room, and he tugs. He doesn't know what it is at first that comes to him, and then he does - they're paperclips, stuck together, perhaps lying about on the nightstand and once connected to something. Charles thinks he can work with them. He takes a big, steady breath, pressed tightly to Erik, and he - well. The attempt had been something like the flower Erik had made him what feels like ages ago, but the result is a twisted metal spider, so many limbs incorrectly formed, a messy ball of heated intent. It's nothing close to intricate or pretty like Erik is capable of, but Charles had done his best to replicate what he's learned from Erik's side of their bond. He grins at it anyway, watches it float near them, and looks up at Erik with all the wonder and hope in the world. _For you,_ he insists, an echo. He's aching for Erik's praise.  
  
Erik's grin is blinding and he bundles Charles up suddenly in his arms, a rush of piercing affection rising up in him. _Oh goodness_ , he murmurs in Charles's ear, thinking this is it. _I will cherish this always, neshama,_ he laughs warmly, and lets it settle onto his palm, regarding it with way more pure, genuine love than it probably warranted, but Erik is completely besotted. Truthfully, and Erik is nothing if not honest, it _is_ a wondrous attempt. Erik couldn't do anything like this for years and Charles is already surpassing him in less than an hour.  
  
Truthfully, he's only tapping into Erik's control, not harnessing his own. Charles isn't actually the one doing the work here; Erik is, he's simply - well, making him, but he thinks there must be a softer term for it. It's mostly the fine-tuning of his own mutation he's grappling with. Charles doesn't much care for the distinction though, nothing but completely and utterly delighted, dizzy with pride as he settles back into Erik's arms. He's absolutely buzzing with it, bright and beaming and fidgeting, near childlike glee exuding from every one of his pores. Erik is impressed with him. There's nothing but bright, electric-charged pleasure for him now, his mind a warm hum of _pleased him/made him proud/being good_. The bottom of the ocean, Charles is finding, is a joyous place as long as he is good. He can be very good.  
  
 _Very, very good_ , Erik repeats, not much caring for the distinction, either. He is happy to share this part of himself with Charles. It's the way he perceives the world, it's not separate from himself, it's... the ions, the particles, the atoms. Electrons flow and sway and push and pull. Erik remembers... when he manifested, the first time. The very first time. His father trapped under his old, rusted out car after propping it up on blocks to try and fix something, only it fell, and he began to yell, except he _wasn't_ trapped because little Erik had his hand out and the whole thing was hovering inches from his body. So he shimmied his way out and Erik told them about the way all the grass feels and the thunder and lightning and _that's why you go on the roof all the time!_ And how pleased and proud Edith had been when he made two of her coins stand up on their ends. How his teachers at school thought it was exceptional, how they encouraged him to get better so he could be successful and maybe even famous. Erik puts his head down on Charles's shoulder. Those memories... he didn't recall that before. He didn't know he still had them.

* * *

Charles jerks suddenly. It's an unexpected movement, and his eyes go wide. There is panic, a genuine fear response, but it's so muted deep-down in the ocean that he only registers it in the suffocating clench of his own chest. He whines through his teeth, clings tightly with all his limbs and looks at Erik as if he has the answer, swallowing around low, soft distressed noises as something yanks him in both directions. He's sick, lightheaded as if he has whiplash, clawing unconsciously at Erik's back. Somewhere between dropping and not, suspended and scared.  
  
 _Charles, look at me,_ Erik Orders without a second thought, taking his jaw in hand to guide his eyes where they belonged. _I am right here. There is nothing to fear. Calm. Focus on me. There is no other direction but here. Only here and now._ Erik is sorry. He takes everything that got stirred up and puts it back where it belongs, somewhere he couldn't remember it before, so it will be erased now. _It's OK. You don't have to look at that. I am here. I have you._ He bids Charles to relax, drawing him up in his arms. Be easy.  
  
Charles' body calms, but his eyes stay wide as he stares at Erik, the fear knocked out of him but somehow still reflected in dilated blue. He shakes in Erik's arms, violent and confused, whimpering, uncertain where to go or what's happening, the world spinning wrong on its axis even as he settles. He clings to Erik, but - _No, it was beautiful, please don't make it go away,_ he sobs, because it wasn't those memories he'd reacted to. Charles wants to grab for them, but he doesn't - is he allowed? Erik shouldn't be sorry. This is wrong. No, he wants to go back. He whines again, clammy and sick even without the panic, rocks back and forth in Erik's lap like he doesn't know where to go.  
  
Erik gives them back easily, and Charles's mental fingers curl around them as easily as if he'd tugged on a string. Erik touches and soothes him. _I won't let anyone or anything hurt you, Charles. You are safe here. I promise you are safe._  
  
Charles gasps, unsettled and trembling in Erik's lap. He grasps tightly to Erik's Will, allows it to fill every part of himself. To steady him, to guide him, to anchor him at the bottom of the ocean until he can properly lead him back up. Erik has him. He'll be okay. He is safe here. "I'm sorry," he whimpers, burying himself in Erik's neck. "I'm sorry, sir, I'm sorry." Erik will ground him again. Charles knows he'll take care of him.  
  
"You've done nothing wrong, sweetheart. Be easy. Breathe for me. I've got you. Do you trust me?" he speaks into Charles's hair, a low, lulling hum that's barely voice at all. Trust me. Believe me. There is no falsehood here. "You've done wonderfully. I am so happy that you are here with me," he says roughly. It's the truest thing he knows.  
  
"Yes, sir," he whispers back immediately, and calms just as fast. Erik has him, and as long as he does, there's absolutely nothing to fear. He's taken care of. He's steadied, and controlled, and guided. He's loved. Charles squirms in Erik's lap, huffing quietly. It takes a while to settle, but when he does, he drifts for a long while before he speaks again, mentally or otherwise. _Erik?_ It's soft, accompanied by a wholly unconscious nudge of the mind. Charles' own mutation is wide open like this, not locked behind self-imposed walls like usual.  
  
Erik does his best to nudge back, a little playful even now. _Yes, dear?_ he smiles up at Charles.  
  
Charles is delighted with that, dimples back as he smiles. There's no shame, but some of the shyness is back as he peeks up from Erik's chest. Hmm... He realizes he has more than one question. It results in a pout, thoughts a little tangled up. He seems to decide eventually. _Would you have liked me if we met at boarding school, sir?_ He's not sure why that's on his mind, or why the answer matters. Charles would be smitten. Charles would have fallen just as fast and probably twice as quickly to his knees and he never would have really gotten back up, much like now. Exactly like now. _I'd have practiced my Postures better if you were around,_ he admits, cheeks dusted pink.  
  
 _I would have loved you,_ Erik says back without hesitation. He doesn't have the prerequisite cultural background to correctly envision himself as a child in boarding school, but his imagination fills in a lot of the blanks. He would have been thrilled to wake up every day, if only to have the opportunity of encountering Charles. He probably would have embarrassed himself a lot, he thinks with a laugh. He was always an over-confident, demanding child. He's sure that would have transferred over into his teenage years. Perhaps Charles was a bit of the same; compensating for his submission, afraid to give in, but Erik would have seen him immediately. He would have loved him immediately.  
  
Charles lights up at that, grinning and soft, nuzzling into bare skin and sighing. It's nice to imagine. It's nice to think about. He wouldn't change anything they have now, but it would be a world with far less pain for the two of them. In the end, it would lead to the same place, though. It would lead here, where everything is warm and safe and right. Where Charles is Erik's, as he was always meant to be. _I did them alone in my room in college, when I first moved out,_ he admits suddenly. He was sixteen, around the time he should have been experimenting and coming into his own submission fully. _Different than you have me do them. Sometimes it helped. Sometimes it just made me frustrated. But I used to pretend that someone was watching and telling me - telling me what to do._ His cheeks get just a bit hotter, not shame or genuine embarrassment, just soft timidity. It feels better now.  
  
Erik settles his hand at the back of Charles's head, twisting into the nape of his neck gently and carding through his hair. _I am incredibly pleased to be able to observe you,_ he replies. _No more pretending, hm?_ He leans forward and delivers another soft kiss against Charles's mouth, deeply satisfied.  
  
 _No more pretending, sir,_ he promises, and gives a mirrored sigh as he's kissed, eyelids threatening to flutter again. There's something on his mind, something pinging around with no fear or panic, but uncertainty. He isn't sure he's allowed to ask, but here, sunk down, is the one time he may be able to bring it up, when everything is earnest and open and achingly honest. Erik tells him not to hide, to always voice his concerns. He bites his lip anyway, hovering around it as he lulls back down to Erik's shoulder.  
  
 _Tell me?_ Erik asks, but here, it's an Order, the way everything inside of him has become an Order for Charles to mirror just as their physical bodies mirrored one another.  
  
 _Will you want me to do other Postures, sir? Besides the ones you've taught me?_ It's more a question than an answer, but he needs it to be the lead up. He worries his lip between his teeth. _It's just - I don't like one of them. At all. I was - afraid, when you... but you didn't. So it was fine._ It's jumbled, but still fairly clear. Charles had wondered if he'd have to pause-word. He isn't sure if he'd really have to if it happened, or if his mind would work around the association with Erik. He doesn't think it will ever be relevant, and he's hoped it wouldn't be. It doesn't frighten him now, but it has. That anything with Erik could be tainted by his experiences.  
  
Erik's head tilts. _Show me which one?_ he says before addressing the rest of Charles's questions and concerns, but it's evident that he plans on doing so, he's just taking a small detour so that he knows exactly what to avoid up front.  
  
Charles makes a quiet, vaguely distressed noise. His cheeks are hot, this time with humiliation. He doesn't know the name for it - they all have names, he thinks some of them are arbitrary, some of the ones Erik gave him are different than what he learned - because he thinks he's blocked it out, shoved it in a door he doesn't have the key to right now. It's not a kneeling Posture, like most of the ones Erik has him do. He thinks it's supposed to be a punishment Posture, actually, and a fairly common one, which begs the question of why he'd had to walk out of a classroom to avoid doing it for an exam, but Charles doesn't question that right now. He flashes a quick image. Bent over and touching his toes, hands wrapped criss-crossed around his ankles, head positioned just so, back arched out. It's clear what it was designed for - he doesn't touch those memories, but it's obvious it was used for that with him, too. It's not a strain Posture, but it's also not fun to hold for hours at a time, especially after - well, what it was designed for having been done, but that's also something that happened.  
  
Erik touches his face, grounding. _No, Charles,_ he murmurs softly. _I showed you the only punishment Posture that I expect from you._ Erik does not relish humiliation, regardless of circumstances. Most of the punishment Postures he couldn't bear to look at, let alone Order. _If I teach you something that makes you uncomfortable in that manner_ -he's not talking about the discomfort of, for example, Child's Pose, but genuine distress- _you will not be expected to do it,_ he promises. _And regardless of what happens, if you use your pause-word, we will stop. Even if you are at Rest._ He taps Charles on the nose.  
  
 _I didn't think so, you said - so I didn't think I had to say anything. I would have if you did._ But he hadn't, and so it wasn't a problem. The other Postures, some of them Erik expects and some of them he doesn't, don't have nearly as strong of an association, and now it feels like they don't have it at all. They're expectations of Erik's, now. He relishes in them instead of dreading them. _You haven't ever asked me to do -_ He cuts himself off, squirming in Erik's lap. There's a genuine curiosity there, but he's too shy to pursue it. Even thrown wide open like this he needs a bit of coaxing, and perhaps, unconsciously, he enjoys the pull of an Order. Guidance, physical and otherwise, like the encouraging hand Erik always keeps on his back as they walk.  
  
And Erik as always obliges, a soft, _to do-?_ bubbling up between them. And like always, there is no impatience or frustration there, only an endless well of love and wonder that Charles is his, that he can coax him to share and to put his mind at ease.  
  
Charles makes another noise, this one far less distressed and much more breathy and shy. His cheeks are hot either way. _Those ones, other ones,_ he provides, which is not an answer at all. Images flash, but they're far too quick for Erik to properly settle on. _And you've never said - you know_. He goes through some basic Commands, Orders that are fairly ubiquitous, at least from where he's standing, or sit-kneeling, as it were: At Rest, which Erik has used. Kneel, definitely. There are some that are missing. It's not that they have to go through the motions, or even that they've had the time, but he's wondered. He was educated submissive, enough to know some of what to expect, at least, and his limited experience backed some of it up. He finds he wants - well, everything, with Erik. All of it, whatever is offered, whatever he pleases.  
  
 _I've never said what?_ Erik asks, his thumb still rubbing over the apple of Charles's cheek. _Be specific, Charles,_ he Orders gently. The images and flashes are a little too quick for him to parse, and much like Charles, his curiosity has been piqued. If only so that he can determine what is due to pain and what is due to ignorance, or what is due to simply a lack of confidence that must be built-up toward. Either way, like everything else he is finding, that Charles desires it usually puts it right within Erik's sphere of interest, regardless of its past associations. Some things are a bit too hard to break, but even certain things he never would have expected himself capable of, he's actively enjoyed bringing about with Charles. They fit together. They belong together.  
  
Charles fidgets, burying himself completely in Erik's chest as he properly answers. _You've never told me to Present, or - anything like that._ He knows the basic Command is accompanied by any number of presentation-based Postures, none of which are things Erik has taught him. Some of them are simple and utility, the back straight, feet apart, hands clasped behind at-attention, others... far filthier, and for far different purposes. He's always thought of the whole thing as fairly humiliating, and had strained against it with the only experience he did have. With Erik - well. Everything is different with Erik, and the humiliating, outside of actual distress, hardly seems a deterrent when it's spurred both of them on in the past. Erik's eyes looking over him in inspection of what belongs to him is wholly different than the thought of anyone else doing it. Charles shivers.  
  
Erik laughs a small bit. _A little of the former, and a little of the latter, but definitely no ignorance. I have no desire to humiliate you, Charles._ Well-that's not one hundred percent true. It's maybe... ninety-five percent true. The other five percent admittedly gets a little warmed by Charles's shy embarrassment, likes to make him look and see and relish in it. And it's no secret laying heavy now that Charles is certainly shy, although there are many things he's becoming more accustomed to, Erik has been allowing it to unfold naturally, gradually. Presentation postures will become part of that-Erik's always intended for it to be so. In specific circumstances. For specific reasons. And then eventually simply because Erik might desire it at any given point; which is how most of Charles's other Postures came about, especially kneeling. Some of the pacing is for Erik's benefit, and some of it is for Charles's-not to throw him into the deep end without being aware of the minefields underneath the ocean's surface, spike-bombs waiting to detonate. Made all the more volatile by explosions of Erik's own (most of them are Erik's, let's be honest); he's found it's much easier to talk and experiment and ease-in; much like they're doing now.  
  
Charles shakes his head. _No, I didn't mean - well..._ He bites his lip. There's a difference between humiliation and _humiliation_ , and Erik has already proved that he feels similarly, but using the same word won't help without the images, and Charles - he can certainly conjure them up, but that means looking at them and it makes him fidgety and hot all over again, mostly incapable of arousal but certainly aware of where it would be. Aware of what inspires it, and exists beyond it. Erik's Dominance, and the many forms it takes. He's distracted, anyway, by the thought that - there's more. There's so, so much more to ease into, things that will become part of their routine, new expectations and rules and aspects. He thinks, like Erik noted, it should make him want to go slower. To wade in first, and he does, probably. But he also wants more, desperately, wants their dynamic to stretch and grow, wants... just, more. More ways for Erik to Dominate and control and guide him at any given time. Because he feels like it, because it's his right, because Charles belongs to him. Present, for no other reason than Charles is his and should be ready for such things at all times, whatever he happens to be doing. Oh. His cheeks are bright pink, now, and he's squirming in earnest.  
  
Erik's body clearly lied to him before when it told him he was too exhausted to feel any sort of heat, because he absolutely does, settling into the same places of his form that it always does, at almost all times whenever he is in Charles's presence-how could he not, with the understanding that this is something Charles has thought about often, imagined, tied to-Erik tamps down on it. It's one thing to entertain a notion, but he's fairly sure that the agony in his arm isn't lying to him. The dark circles under his eyes, the hoarse, rasped quality of his voice. Charles's bruises and aches. No, he's already made that decision for tonight. They need rest. Well-controlled like everything else about him and he barely even shifts. _I know,_ he says, because so often he is gripped by the same powerful urge to just take Charles and have him in every conceivable way-but it simply isn't responsible, and it is Erik's job to protect Charles. To keep him safe. And that makes every moment that they do slide deeper into these places even more meaningful, because it's done with consideration. But, Erik grins at him, he needn't worry himself over a lack. They will never lack. There is nothing that Erik isn't willing to try, to explore, other than the obvious and that they both agree on. Charles will get to experience all of those images in his mind and more, Erik promises. _Because you are mine._  
  
It's never lacking. That was never the issue, except, perhaps, when they were both tip-toeing around themselves. He trusts Erik to take care of him, to make these kinds of decisions. He hadn't expected or wanted those things tonight, though if Erik had asked them from him, thought it was what he needed or something Erik needed and it wasn't distressing (Charles promised to be very serious about using his pause-word, even if he hasn't had to yet), he would of course submit to it. It's more something else that has him warm, something behind any kind of immediate gratification. I want all of it, he admits, and hesitates, looking for the right words. Not in isolation. All together. _I want it to build, and build, until - there'll be so many ways, and..._ He's breathless thinking about it, really. All of the ways Erik could Dominate him in a day, from rules he's expected to follow to parts of a routine to expectations to individual Orders and acts of service and submission. Praise and rewards, correction and discipline if he needs it, always firmly in place and always, at all times, Erik's. How it could all weave together to make a beautiful, constantly shifting whole, a map of the two of them woven intricately and delicately, built from a strong, steady foundation that begins right here, with Charles being Erik's and wearing his collar. "I want all of it," he repeats, and around the hoarseness, his voice is heavy with desire that isn't at all strictly sexual in nature. He does not want there to be a single corner of his life this does not touch. Perhaps it's intense, perhaps it's well beyond what most have. Charles thinks it sounds perfect.  
  
 _So do I,_ Erik returns, enveloping Charles in his arms and wrapping a leg around his hip for good measure. He could never have envisioned long ago that he would be describing himself as Dominant, as perfect. But that is the reality he's found himself in now. Nothing lost. Only gained. Every morning he wakes up and for a split second he forgets where he is, he expects cold steel ( _-die Ordnung-checking patients, IVs-was möchtest du zum Frühstück, mein Herr?-_ ) and then he gets to relive it all over again, a mind catching up to itself from the very first moment that Charles walked through the door of his holding cell. The knowledge that he has Charles, that he has found a place to lay down his head and feel at peace. It sounds perfect. Erik will happily, eagerly, devote the rest of his life to peeling back every single layer of submission that Charles offers him, to encouraging even more that he may be reluctant in (but willing). It is just as he said. Charles is perfect. Erik doesn't even mean flawless, really, everybody and everything has flaws. He means that every part of Charles, flaws or not, is perfect to him. Is good for him. And he gets to learn that over and over again every morning.  
  
Charles sighs, happy and pliant and so impossibly in love in Erik's arms. He falls silent and drifting for what seems like a very long time, and when he turns his sunshine smile on Erik again, he's resurfaced a bit, but not by much. Perhaps he'll never fully rise up again when they're together like this. _I think I can sleep now,_ he breathes, and it's true. Tomorrow morning will not be pleasant. It will hurt. But he's ready to face it now, he thinks. Erik has given that to him, and in the morning he will still be there to give it to him all over again in a thousand nuanced ways that make up who they are, what they have, and the life they're building together.  
  
Erik kisses him on the top of the head and slowly uncurls himself so that Charles can stand up, helping him to his feet in an effortless motion. He's favoring his right arm more than usual, a symptom of wonky neurology, but he either isn't in pain or has himself submerged so far beneath the world that it doesn't register. "Come and rest," he breathes against Charles's jaw, bringing him to the bed and laying him down, following in short order. _I will keep you safe. I promise._ And in the morning, he would be there, to weather it with Charles.


	34. And if you wanna kill yourself remember that I LOVE YOU

Nothing wakes Charles in the middle of the night. He sleeps right through, undisturbed and soundly, snoring softly and clinging to Erik the whole time. When he does wake, it's not to his alarm like usual, his phone forgotten still at his apartment, but to the sound of a clattering dish and distant laughter. He blinks awake, not startled or frightened but drifting, slowly as ever, to the surface, untangling an arm that's very much asleep to rub at his eyes with a closed fist. Downstairs, Hank and Raven are wide awake and likely lamenting their loss of a bedroom, fighting for normalcy in their own way, ingrained in their own routine. Coherency hasn't fully set in yet, and therefore not all of the dread, either. Charles keeps himself tangled up in Erik, in the warmth of his chest, nuzzling. "Morn' -" He yawns, long and drawn out, "-ing." It feels good to say it. It feels good that he can. Charles knows he can't stay buried underneath Raven's blankets forever, but just a bit longer couldn't hurt. He thinks somewhere Erik's physical body is already up, so he won't mind if Charles tugs all those blankets for himself, greedy and sighing at the warmth, cocooned.  
  
Erik's projection is also awake. and he turns and smooths Charles's hair away from his forehead, smiling down at him. " _Boker tov,_ " he returns warmly. It's possible he didn't sleep, sitting up all night to guard after Charles, which he continues to do now with gusto. Love is never far from his mind, and within the earliest dredges of the day, Erik makes sure it's the first thing that Charles feels. He shuffles to let Charles have some more of the blankets, wrapping him up like a burrito. "Comfortable?" he murmurs, dry.  
  
"Mmhmmm," he murmurs in agreement, muffled by all the fabric he's swaddled himself in and Erik, because he was always going to want contact. Truthfully, he's dreadfully sore. Everything feels like it'a stiffening up as it begins to heal, slowly but surely. Most of his bruises are still just as dark and vibrant, but some of them are mercifully turning color. Not that the bright green looks any better on the skin, but it's at least progress. "Did you sleep?" he asks, concerned when he's awake enough to be, and struggles to turn and get a better look. It's comfortable and warm, but difficult to move in, and he huffs with the effort. "Kiss," he demands on top, though he'd intended to ask nicely. Too groggy to remember his manners. He's sure he has awful morning breath but projections don't need to worry about that.  
  
He touches a bruise, wincing sympathetically and shakes his head at the first question. "Not tired," he grins and worries his fingers over a more pleasant mark, the one just underneath his jaw that Erik had given him, covered by the collar. Even if he weren't a projection he wouldn't mind, and he bestows a kiss on Charles's neck and then his lips, gentle. "Good morning," he repeats in English, amused.  
  
Charles frowns sleepily, fussing in his self-inflicted bondage to get an arm out and rest a hand on Erik's cheek. "Erik," he sighs. "You can't - not sleep, it's important." Especially now. He sets his jaw, chin lifted in that stubborn way of his. "I'm not sleeping again until you do, or if you don't," he decides. It's not really his to decide, but he's just decided it.  
  
Erik just has to kiss him again. "I couldn't," he whispers, giving a small shrug. "I watched over you. It was pleasant," he assures, and tucks a piece of Charles's hair behind his ear.  
  
Charles is still frowning. He understands, but it doesn't make him feel any better about it. It's not fair to ask Erik to handle two stressful situations at once on no sleep, let alone with the recommended amount. Regardless of what gets runs through in court today it's bound to be horrific by nature, and to deal with Charles' emotions and fallout on top of that - he purses his lips, chin still lifted despite the urge to melt and accept. No, he won't let him.  
  
Erik shakes his head and touches Charles's face. "That is my purpose, _neshama_. One I have happily." He kisses Charles's jutting chin for good measure.  
  
"No," he insists, huffing. "No, I don't - no." His arms are crossed over his chest now, which looks far more intimidating (but likely never to Erik in the first place) when he doesn't have soft, sleepy edges and a serious case of bedhead.  
  
Oh no. Erik has to tickle him. And touch his hair. "I love you."  
  
Charles can't help squirming, letting out hitched giggles, and he hates that his severe frown looks so much more like an indignant pout now as he tries to wriggle away. "No, I mean it. I won't let you."  
  
He looks down at Charles and nods, eyes crinkled up. "I will try to do better." He can't make any promises; when he's under a lot of stress he almost never sleeps. His body won't let him, a vestigial holdover of guarding those under his watch, preparing for danger, finding some way to maintain a bit of control on his situation. That being said, Erik's projection yawns and rubs his eyes blearily.  
  
"No, I meant -" Charles shakes his head. He doesn't think he'll end up winning here, but he has to try. "I don't want you to see my half today. Just focus on yours, okay? I can still be here, just on your end instead. I don't - no, I don't want you to deal with this on top of everything." He's dead serious, all of those soft edges gone and his heels dug in firmly. It's too early for this, but the day's only going to get worse from here.  
  
"No," Erik looks at him. "That is not happening. This is not a discussion. Don't send me away," he Orders, because he's genuinely scared that Charles will, and he'll have no ability to stop him, and-he cannot let that happen. "I will be right here with you. I told you that I would not leave you and I will not." Besides, he thinks, Charles is not exactly offering a tantalizing alternative. Stuck in his own horror show for hours at a time. At least yesterday there was some reprieve, he could drag his focus out of it. "Let me be here," he brushes his fingertips over Charles's collar, soft.  
  
Charles doesn't want to let it show how relieved he is that Erik took that choice from him. The thing about needing Erik's Dominance in every way and admitting that he does is that it doesn't always connect, even after all their progress. So Charles crosses his arms again and does his best impression of a scowl even as he radiates relief and gratitude, which he knows full well Erik can feel. "Fine," he grunts, and looks not even close to how intimidating he thinks he looks.  
  
Erik tickles his temple. "Fine," he huffs in a dramatic eyeroll, straightening himself out like a board and flopping down beside Charles, popping back up to poke him a little in his burrito nest. He can't help himself, Charles is adorable and he loves him unquestionably. "Come on, sleepy head," he murmurs. Even though they're at Raven's he will still insist upon routine. After that, then they can start to handle everything else.  
  
Charles can get cranky in the mornings, if it wasn't already exceedingly obvious, especially if he's already on edge. Most would avoid him when he's in a mood like this. He ducks under the blankets until he's nothing but a Charles-shaped lump, huffing. "No," he mumbles. But he's peeking through Erik's mind, a silent make me lingering in the space between them.  
  
"Come on, dear-heart," Erik Orders him up and awake. "I want you to go and get into the shower and I will be there shortly, all right?" it sounds like a request, warm, but it's very clearly not. "I need to speak with Hank and I will fix up this bed." And he can get a start on breakfast, it's the least he can do for their hosts.  
  
Charles can't hide the way the Orders immediately snap him into place, until he's humming a bit more on-frequency. He wasn't going to admit he needed it, perhaps more today than he ever has. He certainly isn't going to look happy about having to get out of bed, pouting thoroughly the whole way to the bathroom. He's still bleary and sleepy and grumpy while he tries to figure out how Hank and Raven's shower works, but he feels better once he's under the spray. It's warm - he turns it up until it's almost scalding, even though he usually doesn't prefer that, and lets his head fall back. His mind is wandering immediately, a checklist of obligations, all of them unpleasant. He needs to call his mother. He likely needs to give a statement on the night this happened. He'll have to drive out there, to where Sharon and Kurt Marko have a house on Long Island - he truly hates Long Island, for the record - and play the dutiful son, plan the funeral and offer his support and grieve, a game of house he can't imagine slipping back into under normal circumstances all while he knows - he knows... Cain's gouged out eyes float to the front of his consciousness and Charles turns the heat of the water up until his skin around the bruises, what little there is, is bright red.  
  
The knobs turn suddenly, bathing his skin in lukewarm water instead of the scalding burn he'd lobstered himself into as Erik steps through the door. He's spoken with Hank (updates, got some advice about his arm, got some advice about Charles), made Raven breakfast (what are tater tots? they cook like fried potatoes, so it's fine), made the bed and fixed the couch and adjusted some of Hank's clothes to fit Charles as best as he could; avoiding the necessity of Charles having to go back to his apartment for the time being; he likely wouldn't be allowed inside anyhow. Erik slides in behind Charles and wraps him up, buffeting the stream of his thoughts with his presence, a calm and orderly balm to the sharp, shrieking edges. They will handle it together.  
  
Charles finds it utterly ridiculous that among everything he's grappling with right now, one of those things is fear of facing Kurt Marko. As if he hasn't faced far worse. As if he hasn't stared it in the face unflinchingly and, despite everything, made it bow to him. As if he couldn't wrap that man around his pinky finger in less time than it would take him to open his mouth. But he won't, is the thing. He knows he won't. He really can't remember the name of that Posture. It must be something simple, something to the point. It doesn't matter, honestly. Charles remembers exactly how it felt to be bleeding and aching and bent over like that, hands trembling where they held his ankles, legs shaking. _"Now stay there until I come to get you, boy."_ Charles was a fairly flexible person, and even as an awkward fourteen year old growing into his body he'd been athletic. Touching his toes was no problem. It became a problem after five or six hours, as it turns out. Charles is staring at the shower wall, still having made no effort to wash any part of himself.  
  
Erik helps him to do so, countering those thoughts steadily. He will be right beside Charles. He will not allow anyone to harm him, and he will never need to endure that Posture again. Erik promised, and he doesn't go back on his word. Life is different now. Even if he needs to endure facing Kurt Marko, he isn't alone any longer. He is safe. He is an adult. He is strong. He has a family that love him without reservation, even if it isn't his parents. It isn't enough to make up for that loss, because nothing might be, but it is different, now. They will get through it. Erik is confident of that, regardless of if Charles is. He can be certain enough for them both.  
  
Charles is aware of how far he's come. It's exactly why he doesn't want to go back. He doesn't want to feel like that again, small and entirely useless, insignificant, helpless. Weak. It's not a matter of whether he can endure it, whether he will survive it. He knows he will. It's just - He's come so far. Every time he slides back there, it's devastating. He takes a shaky breath when the water turns off, surprised that it's over. Charles doesn't remember any of it. Immediately he leans into Erik, seeking exactly what nearly got beaten out of him. Erik is letting him reclaim everything people like Kurt Marko - especially Kurt - took from him. Charles clings tight.  
  
Reaching for a towel, Erik dries him off methodically, going gently over every nick and bruise, crouching to get even at his feet. Erik kisses the inside of his knee on the way back up. _You can endure it. You can survive it. You will not slide back there, because I will not let you. This is yours, now. All of this. This life, this love, it belongs to you. No one can take it from you._ Erik wraps him up in the towel once he's done.  
  
But what if he does? What if he forgets? What if being around Kurt reminds him of everything he's ever tried to teach himself, every backwards, twisted instinct? What if he remembers his own vow to never wear someone's collar? What if he gets scared, and everything feels wrong again? What if Kurt blames him for Cain's death, as he should, and he drowns under the weight of it? What if his mother looks at him with those hazy, unfocused eyes and pursed lips and he feels like he will never be loved again? What if every time he does his Postures he thinks of Kurt Marko and his pinched face, his curled lip, his this is what's good for you, boy and he never, ever gets it out - Charles is shaking.  
  
 _That will not happen_ , Erik interrupts him gently. _Do you think I will allow that to happen?_ He kisses Charles's shoulder, bundling him up. _I will not allow any of that to happen. That is what I mean by keeping you safe. It means I will not let anyone take you from yourself._  
  
But Charles feels like it already has. Because when he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, with Erik's collar around his neck, his first thought isn't the joy of it. It's, he's going to see it and he's going to know _I'm weak just like he said_. It's not a conscious thought. It's not a rational one, or how he actually feels. But it hurts, and Charles feels ashamed in the aftermath, sick with it, and that's exactly what Kurt wanted.  
  
Erik touches his hand to the collar. _Atzor_ , he murmurs. _You know these thoughts are not true. They are intrusions. You cannot stop him from believing that you are weak, but he is the one who has lost. Not you. You have only gained. You will only ever gain, and he will only ever lose._ Whatever Kurt wanted, he didn't succeed and he never will. Erik will ensure it for the rest of his days.  
  
Charles feels himself pulled right out of those thoughts. He wraps himself back around Erik, cheek against bare skin, needing the contact. His own skin feels flayed and raw and prickly, but he can ignore it as long as Erik touches him. That works better than the other word, he comments, and it's clearly an idle, half-formed thought, Charles unsteady and seeking what he knows Erik can give him if he allows it. He wants so badly to allow it.  
  
 _Allow it,_ Erik Orders, soft. _This is for you. It is what I give to you, it is not what is taken from you. Maybe Kurt does not know the difference, but he strikes me as a man who does not know much of anything at all. Trust me. Believe me. I will be right here beside you._ Just as Charles stays with him.  
  
Charles feels a bit hysteric when he laughs, like the sound is ripped from him, but he isn't panicking. _At least I can say with confidence that you likely dislike Kurt Marko more than I do,_ he mutters dryly. Charles doesn't think, even now, that he can say he hates the man. He's fairly sure it's not the same for Erik.  
  
Charles undoubtedly understands the feeling; it's the benefit of outside perspective. Erik will probably never hate Sebastian Shaw as much as he's supposed to, will always detest himself more because he doesn't, but that's what it's like living with an abuser for so long. Things become distorted. You see sides of them that make you believe they might be redeemable. You push down everything they did to you so that you could insist it wasn't that bad, but Erik knows exactly how bad it was, and he will never allow Kurt Marko a single inch of leeway. It is a lot more than he deserves. Kurt owes his life to Charles, and Erik will make sure that Kurt _knows it_ if he even thinks of mouthing off.  
  
Charles snorts, catching the last of that thought. He's taken to pressing himself as tightly to Erik as he can manage, as if he can simply crawl inside his skin and stay there. _He will,_ he promises. _He always does. And he will call me 'boy,' like I'm twelve again and not twenty-seven years old._ And he will feel like it, too. He always does.  
  
 _And I will be there,_ Erik promises back. _I will not let you drown. And he will not let Kurt have any opportunity to do so._ He has no right to make Charles feel inferior; when he is the most vile creature in the area. Erik has to smile a bit. If he wants to puff out his chest and beat his fist against his heart, Erik will absolutely rise to the occasion and shove him down where he fucking belongs, and that has nothing to do with outdated models of submission or Dominance. To let everyone see him for what he is.  
  
 _Erik, no,_ he protests weakly, shaking his head from where it's completely buried, Charles desperate for more contact. He can't hide how his breath hitches in response to the flare of Erik's Dominance, even directed at something not involving him. He's realized, somewhere in the mess of his own thoughts, that when he's in subspace, and even well outside of it, but really he can't tell the difference much anymore with Erik, he craves - well. Things he shouldn't, perhaps, considering. _Good boy. Sweet boy. My boy._ It makes him shiver, and not at all with humiliation or fear. With pride, and wonder. It's comforting and every time Erik uses it he sings, anticipating the next time he'll do something that will inspire it again. _Come for me, sweet boy_ , that very first time - It should bother him, he thinks. It doesn't. Quite the opposite. He shakes his head again, trying to get his thoughts to work at least somewhat linear. It would be nice if they wouldn't go off-rails every two seconds, at least. _You can't, remember? You won't actually be there._  
  
"I will be," Erik rumbles, pulling Charles even closer to him, his own Dominance flaring up even further at his response. He will _actually_ be there. Charles can ensure that, just as he did at the store, and Erik has realized-during the hours he's spent awake and mind ticking like a loud, slow clock, that Charles may not be able to mitigate the technology in the room, but Erik can. What's stopping me- Charles had asked. The cameras. Well, that isn't wholly true, is it? It may stop Charles, but it will not stop Erik. "I have been thinking about it," he says lowly.  
  
Charles blinks, his mind slow to catch up, stuck in too many places. He's always in a state of multitasking, but when he's distressed, things get muddled up there. It's not unlike how metal objects seem to float themselves around whenever Erik is panicked. _I don't understand,_ he admits. _I couldn't - we can't just -_ Well. He doesn't have to bring Erik as Erik. He could bring him as his Dominant, just as he'd done in several stores now. They could fudge up the details until everything blows over and it's possible to be open with things. It's just... "I don't know if I can," he whispers.  
  
"Tell me why," Erik says, and it's not a request.  
  
Charles closes his eyes tightly, shame hot in his belly. _I don't want him to ruin it. Us._  
  
 _Do you think I will let that happen? Are you really convinced that you will let that happen? That you would give us up for some cruel words and a disgusting mind? No. That is nonsense. I know that you are scared, Charles,_ Erik says gently. _But I believe that you care more about us than you do about him. I believe that you know who I am and who you are. I believe you will not let anyone tell you what you should and shouldn't define this as. Just as you never have._ He knows that Kurt brings up all of Charles's insecurities, but Charles also came a long way on his own, by his own merits, his own personality. Even if Erik weren't here, he believes Charles would be able to handle it. But Erik is here. And that just makes them stronger. Together. Always.  
  
Charles knows Erik is right. It doesn't make breathing when he thinks about it any easier. He chokes out a frustrated noise, muffled by where he's hiding in Erik. _I don't want to be ashamed of this. I just don't, Erik. I'm so proud of this, I'm so proud to wear your collar, I'm so proud to be yours. I don't want to be ashamed of it for even a second. I can't. I just can't feel that, and he always -_ Kurt has always made Charles ashamed just for existing, and of his submission perhaps more than anything else.  
  
 _It won't happen,_ Erik says firmly. _Maybe_ , he grants, maybe. Maybe Charles will shy away from his submission. Remember all of the horrible things he's endured, exist for a brief moment in everything he was made to feel by over-compensating, incompetent Dominants. _But_ , Erik smiles at him. _Not us. Not me. Do you remember what you made me promise yesterday, Charles?_  
  
Charles probably does. He remembers everything. He shakes his head anyway, too worked up and mind too much of a minefield to go searching for it right now.  
  
 _You made me promise that I will always know that you love me. Do you think that you will forget that?_  
  
 _No_ , he answers immediately. Of course he won't. Charles knows that better than he knows anything about himself, about the world, about anything. He doesn't see what that has to do with anything. He can know Erik loves him and still - and what if Erik can't coax him back? What if he can't guide him back to his place like he has before? What if Kurt finally breaks him for good?  
  
 _Do you think,_ Erik says over all that, _that your love for me means at any point that you will feel shame about me?_  
  
Charles hesitates, not because he doesn't know the answer, then shakes his head. But - But he'll shame about himself.  
  
 _No_ , Erik touches his cheek. _You will not. And I know that you do not believe I am incapable of guiding you when you lose your way._ And he knows that Erik does not believe that Charles will listen to Kurt over him. It has to do with everything. Erik will always be there to remind Charles, no matter what, of the things that really matter.  
  
Charles makes another low, agitated sound, still muffled by Erik. He knows that's true, too. There isn't a single part of him that actually doubts it. If this were any other time - He doesn't finish, as if he's forgotten to, biting his lip. It's the realization he needed to snap this into place and firm up his own resolve.  
  
Erik's eyebrows raise. "If-?" he prompts, the Order calm in the air.  
  
 _I'd be fighting already. More than I did. You, and this._ He brings a hand up to touch his collar. _I definitely would not want to wear this. I'd want to brush you off. But I don't. I want - I need -_ Just like last night, just like whenever he's distressed, he needs just a bit more than usual. More steady guidance, more calming, firm Dominance. And he knows it. He isn't afraid of it. He's even gone as far as to basically outright ask for it, in this moment.  
  
 _I know what you need,_ Erik murmurs quietly. I always will. And it takes a great deal of strength, Erik thinks, to ask for such a thing without reservation. Not weakness. Look at me. Erik has never, nor will he ever, consider Charles weak. He lets Charles see that. There is nothing about him that Erik would ever consider inferior, or shameful. Never. Not ever.  
  
"I know," he whispers, and he's peeked up from Erik's chest finally, even as he's wholly unwilling to separate even an inch until he's made to. "I wouldn't - I couldn't if I didn't know that, Erik." But he does. With every part of him, even the frightened, backwards parts.  
  
"I know," Erik says back. "And I will never let you forget it. Never." He kisses Charles's forehead. _I love you. And I know that you love me. And I promised you that I will never forget it. Which means I will not allow you to forget it, either._  
  
 _I do. I love you._ Charles knows there are things to be done. Too many things, actually, and he shouldn't have wasted a day not tending to them. He can't help burying himself right back in Erik, arms clasped around his waist like if he isn't holding tight enough he will be wrenched away from him.  
  
 _None of that,_ Erik tells him. _You wasted nothing. You did as I instructed you. And now we will tend to those things, together._  
  
Charles sighs, running through the mental checklist again. There's no way he's getting into his apartment, not that he wants to go anywhere near it, which means he'll have to borrow Raven's phone. Unless? Well. He's done far more incredible things, all from considerable range. His lips twitch up into the barest hint of a grin, and he looks up. How far a distance do you think your phone-grabbing abilities range? He'd literally have to find it over the distance and zip it through a window into another window without damaging it, but at no point has Charles ever underestimated Erik.  
  
Erik's eyes close and he holds out his hand. The window in the living room props open all of a sudden. Charles feels him reaching, reaching, sinking into the atmosphere. Moving. Prowling along ground-lines. Delicate tug. The bathroom door creaks open and Charles's phone hovers in the air, levitating to rest on his outstretched palm. Erik grins at him brightly.  
  
Charles can't help but be delighted by that, and his dimmed, tired grin becomes a real one, eyes shining with wonder. He tugs gently until Erik leans down for him and he can kiss his cheek, then the other and his nose and full on the mouth for good measure. "You're brilliant," he breathes, and means it, lightheaded for a moment by how much. This extraordinary, beautiful man is his Dominant. "Absolutely brilliant. Do you know that?"  
  
He can't help but feel pride in himself, warm and glowing, at the praise. Before he met Charles, Erik never truly saw himself as anything other than a weapon. His abilities were a tool, sharpened and honed and nothing more, but that's never how he perceived the world. They'd been bent out of order, out of shape, mangled and wrenched into forms that they didn't fit. His abilities were meant to be joyful. To bring joy. He much preferred this. "Thank you," he whispers back.

* * *

Charles has already resolved to spend the rest of his days bending everything back into shape, just as Erik has promised to do for him. The reminder makes him sigh, and he takes his phone from Erik's hand, wincing as soon as he unlocks the screen. He has exactly as many messages as he thought he'd have, and with his contacts loaded back in, the numbers all have names now. He can't hide how two missed calls from 'Mother' - one from yesterday morning, the other in the evening - have his chest clenching, breath stuck in his throat. He scrolls down his Missed Calls list. Carmen Pryde, likely when he'd disappeared into the hall with Erik. One from Warren, around the same time. Raven.  
  
And then - Cain Marko. It's from 10:34PM that night. Charles backtracks and does the math. He was sleeping by then, Postures practiced and ice cream eaten, tucked protectively into Erik's side. It could have been Azazel using his phone. Or it could be Cain, still alive. There's a voicemail. He taps to play it without thinking. The first thirty seconds are static silence. Charles is ready to assume the next thirty in the minute long message are, too, when he hears it. Cain's voice, undoubtedly: " _Sorry_." Click. Charles stares, playing the word over as clearly as if he'd replayed the message. The thought that this could be Cain Marko's last word is entirely too much for him to process at the moment. His legs are suddenly shaking far too much to stand without propping himself up against Erik with his full weight.  
  
Erik knew as soon as he opened the message, every electric circuit and storage unfolding itself as though the phone were telling him in its own words every bit of data it held, and he was about to snap it back into his hand when Charles heard it. He waves it over to the counter and catches Charles in his hold, making sure he's upright. _I've got you. It's OK._  
  
Charles can't explain the rush of indignant anger that wells up inside him, gnarled and sick, puffs of air through his nose as he reaches out to kick at the bathroom counter. It's with his good leg, and it does absolutely nothing except stub at his bare toe. He makes a useless fist behind Erik's back when that only serves to work him up further, frustrated tears springing to his eyes. "That's not fair," he hisses under his breath, shaking his head. "I've known him fifteen years, and not once - not once! - has he so much as considered an apology, and then - and then -" He deflates with his next stuttered, heavy breath. "Damn it," he finishes, and hates that there are tears on his cheeks.  
  
He halts Charles before he can smash his foot and hurt himself, and brushes away those tears with his hand. "You do not know if that was Cain, Charles," he murmurs quietly. "Azazel could have Ordered him to say that. Even if he didn't-it is, frankly, too little and too late." Charles was right, it isn't fair, it isn't fair to have to react to words that are empty. If Cain were really sorry he would have shown it in his actions and as Erik forced him to admit, he wanted to do those things anyway. So, nothing lost and nothing gained, either.  
  
"He wanted to do worse than that," he mumbles, rubbing at his own face long after Erik has taken care of the tears. "He wanted to do a lot worse than that. Do you know how long he wanted an excuse? All the revolting, vile things he's thought when he knew I could hear them, let alone the things he already did, I'll never get his disgusting hands -" Charles shakes his head, swallowing hard, and stares down at his feet. He can't open that door right now. "There's no good memory, Erik. I've gone through everything. He hasn't done a single damn thing to make me have even a shred, an ounce, of sympathy or regard for him, he certainly had none for me, and still -" And still. Charles would have endured the bruises, the pain, the humiliation all over again, tenfold, if it meant he didn't have to see him put into the ground in a few days.  
  
"I know," Erik says, because he'd been there, he'd seen it, too. It had been too much focus for Charles to shield him from it while he was ripping into Azazel's consciousness, and Erik sat there and listened to everything and remained perfectly still, focused on Charles, a shield between him and the outside world as much as he could, a sliver of shadow blocking out the infinite rays of burning sun and overspilling sky. He's done nothing to deserve Charles's grief, and Erik suspects Charles isn't really grieving for Cain, because why would he? There is nothing good, but there is a void. A vortex where good _should_ have been. Where the _possibility_ of reconciliation existed, while he still lived. "I know." He kisses the top of Charles's head.  
  
"For years I thought I could change him. He terrified me, Erik, and I thought I could help him." For Charles, the most heartbreaking realization is that he never managed it. That for all of his idealistic dreams and insistence on the good in people, on his own ability to change minds and hearts, he hadn't been able to sway his own stepbrother. "I tried. I tried so hard to - I saw what Kurt did to him, too. I felt that on top of everything he did to me, and I carried that. I took the blame for things that weren't mine, turned his attention on me instead, shifted things around until it was me getting the lashes, and he knew. He knew, and it didn't matter. It didn't matter. Over and over I extended my hand, and it didn't change a thing. He hated me as much as he hated anyone." Charles' voice cracks, eyes shut tight as he chokes back more tears. It's not fair. "I've dreamed of that sorry, Erik. I dreamed of it. Not because I wanted to laugh in his face like I damn well should have if he ever even thought of it, but because I wanted to accept it."  
  
"I know you did," Erik says softly, swaying him subtly back and forth. Sometimes people couldn't be saved, couldn't be reached. Sometimes they were born twisted and broken, or they were made that way by the world. For so many, many years Erik assumed he was one of them, a broken person, a twisted monster. Irredeemable. He's done so much _wrong_ , he's put so much _sickness_ into the universe and as someone who can feel every particle and electric charge of atoms rubbing together, every strike reverberates until it alters the core of his make-up, changing, grinding, twisting, _killing_. But Charles made him see that isn't the case, and he doesn't think he can go as far as to forgive himself in the past, but he can see that in the past, his intentions weren't evil. He wouldn't have chosen this life, he would have taken any step to correct it if it had been made apparent to him, other than the one he took, if that were viable. Cain isn't the same, Azazel isn't the same, Shaw isn't the same, Kurt isn't the same. They're incapable of comprehending innate goodness and idealism because they are _broken_. That is what being broken means. It isn't Charles. It is them.  
  
"Raven used to tell me - she still does - that I can't save everyone," he whispers, and keeps his eyes closed against the onslaught. Sniffles, that building congestion hard to breathe around, curled back into Erik's chest. "But I want to, is the problem. I want to, and I can't leave well enough alone, and I never would have stopped trying. If he came to me in thirty years and apologized and meant it, I would have accepted it. Because I can't not, Erik." He just isn't built that way. It's not in his make-up.  
  
"I doubt he ever would have meant it," Erik says, gentle. Cain just wasn't built that way. It wasn't in his make-up. But there is nothing wrong with Charles's urges, either. Charles is the kind of person this world needs. "That is why you are strong, where they are weak." He gives a small smile. "They didn't take that from you. They never can."  
  
"It's a bit pathetic," he mutters, the self-deprecation roiling inside of him and unsettling his stomach as much as anything else. He still blames himself for this. He doesn't know if there's a chance he'll ever stop. Finally, reluctantly, he pulls away from Erik's chest, rubbing at his eyes again. "I don't think I can wear Hank's pants, so the ones I was wearing will have to do, but I can guarantee something." He holds Erik's hand as he leads him into Raven's closet, rifling around until he founds one of his cardigans. Charles manages a smile. "She always stole my clothes. She says 'you dress like a stuffy old man' - which by the way is patently false - and then she steals all my favorite sweaters." At least he's sounding a little more like himself than yesterday.  
  
Regardless of Erik's opinions on idealism, _pathetic_ is the one thing he doesn't believe of Charles. The reason that people like Erik exist is so people like Charles are free to impact the world positively. Of that he is certain. "Here," Erik holds out the pants he'd been working on fixing. "These may fit. I made an attempt." His smile is quick, shy.  
  
Charles takes them and steps into them, wincing at the slide of fabric against healing bruises. It's hurting more than it did to begin with, the soreness sunk deep into the skin. They don't fit perfectly, but it's certainly better than it should be. "Brilliant," he repeats from earlier, and pulls his sweater over his head. It's the closest he's going to get to presentable, but he still feels and looks a wreck. No way around that. Charles debates the merits of calling his mother before he even gets downstairs for breakfast - he can still hear them chattering away down there, Hank's been considering whether or not to check up on them for the past fifteen minutes - and, in the end, he looks to Erik for the answer. For the guidance. A sign of strength, to accept what he needs, rather than recoil from it. He needs to keep reminding himself of that.  
  
"Breakfast," Erik decides simply. "And then we will call your mother." He flutters his hand over Charles's hair, reassuring. _I love you.  
_

* * *

Charles nods, smiling weakly, and straightens his shoulders a bit as he walks downstairs. Erik is behind him the entire time, that protective, Dominating hand at his back, and it's likely the only thing keeping him steady now. The moment he walks into the kitchen the conversation stops, both sets of eyes on him, and he tries to muster up a grin. "Hm. I do so love that reaction. You both do realize that as a telepath I can hear you talking about me even when I'm not in the room?" He reaches for Raven immediately, burying his face in the crook of her shoulder. If he had something else snarky to say, he's forgotten it. Raven feels familiar in all the right ways, and having her here after everything is incredibly healing. "Stop stealing my clothes, we're not children anymore," he mutters in her ear, but there's absolutely no heat. She can have all the stuffy sweaters she wants.  
  
"Shut up," Raven mumbles back, wrapping blue, scaled arms around him. She's grateful in this moment now more than ever that she asked Charles to stay out of her mind so many years ago because it means he isn't privy to the loud clanging of her thoughts, or as much as she can convince herself that's true, at least. She spent her formative years in that mansion, always shoving herself in between Charles and Cain when she could, existing in her 'human'-looking form so she wouldn't rock the boat, concentration divided all the time. ( _"You're devoting half of your strength to maintaining this image. If you want to push yourself, you need to be comfortable with yourself." Hank's words, when they'd first met._ ) It's easy sometimes to forget that Raven was given much the same opportunities as Charles, once Sharon officially adopted her. She went on overseas trips, dressed in the finest clothes, went to the fancy private schools. But she was always hidden away, like she didn't exist. She probably wouldn't even be expected to go to the funeral, not that she wants to, but for Charles, she'll play pretend and be pretty and blonde and _Oh, that's the Darkholme girl, isn't it?_ Grimace.  
  
Charles grimaces, because whether he likes it or not he catches the edges. It's more difficult now than it ever was to block out her thoughts, though they've been locked behind a self-imposed wall for years. Since the very first time she asked. He would gladly put himself inside a box for her if it meant she was comfortable. If it meant he got to keep her trust. "I like you better like this," he tells her, and offers a small, sheepish smile when he pulls back. Enough that she knew it wasn't an intentional breach of their agreement, or even anything well-formed. Just the edges, sometimes impossible to miss when she was thinking loudly enough. "You know that, right? I know I made you - I know. I was wrong, Raven. I like you better like this. As yourself." Going into this, he needs her to know that. She does. He's apologized for it until he went blue. But now, more than any other time, he needs it to be said.  
  
"I know, Charles," she gives him a watery smile and flicks him in the forehead playfully. He'd just been trying to protect her. She gets that, no matter how much it fed into her own insecurities and complexes, a lot of the time it worked. There's no way she could've gone through school like this without taking a beating, and she's lived it enough to know that's the case. Life improved for her at the Xavier mansion, but she never forgot her roots.  
  
Erik plates them all some of the breakfast he's cooked and sets it down, and Hank appears in the doorway, giving everyone a toothy grin. "It's a good job Erik is here, because my version of breakfast is a single banana and a protein shake, and I am fairly certain no one wants to endure that this morning."  
  
"Those are good," Raven grins. "He should stay by us more often, look at this place. It hasn't been this spotless since we moved in." Raven and Hank were, let's say, people who liked their house a little more lived-in. "Have you talked to Sharon, yet?" Raven winces. "I sent her a text. I know, I'm really classy."  
  
"Honestly, dear, a text?"  
  
"Look."  
  
"You can't have him, he's mine," Charles grins, sticking out his tongue. The thought of eating right now makes him feel sick to his stomach, and maybe if he knocks eggs around with his fork enough it'll look like he made a dent. He sits perched on the chair, half because it's his natural inclination to bring his legs up like that, half because it keeps the weight off some of the worst of the welts, which, while healing, are not feeling great this morning. "Good morning, by the way, both of you." He leans in to kiss Raven's cheek, offers Hank a genuine smile, however small. It's leagues better than he managed the day before. "I haven't called her yet," he sighs, after it's been long enough that it's clear he's dodging it. "After breakfast. I'll probably end up driving to Long Island today. I would count on it, actually." He makes a face. He really hates Long Island, and the McMansion they've built there. At least the castle he'd grown up in is classy in its opulence, but expecting Kurt Marko to have an ounce of class is asking far too much.  
  
"Eat your eggs," Erik murmurs, standing behind him with a hand on his shoulder, thumb rubbing back and forth against his collar unconsciously.  
  
"I'm going with you," Raven says, leaving no room for argument. "Warren's going, too. Hank's on call so that's not an option, but we'll all be there," she maintains, firm.  
  
"Did you get your audition sorted?" Hank asks her from the living room where he's retrieved his white coat.  
  
"Oh, yeah, Alyssa's going to reschedule it for sometime next week. It's a callback, actually," she says with a little grin. "You're looking at the new face of _Colgate_ , babey!" she fans her cheek. Raven's been struggling to break into acting for as long as Charles has known her, but her most prominent role was fifteen minutes of tape for _The West Wing_ that got cut to a walk-on, which she still proudly boasts about, for the record. She mostly does stage plays... and now, commercials. Things are coming up Raven Darkholme.  
  
"... _Colgate_?" Erik's eyebrows knit together.  
  
"It's a toothpaste company. They decided to do a mutant positivity angle," Hank explains. Sometimes Erik's knowledge gaps were... bizarre.  
  
Charles finds them endearing. Extremely so. He beams, because besides Hank, no one has been as openly supportive of Raven and her ambitions as he has. "I'd pick you up and spin you, but Hank would yell at me for straining my wrist," he teases. So would Erik, though less yelling and more gentle scolding. "I'm so proud of you, love." And he truly is. "I can't wait to see it." But there's a discussion to be had. "I'll accept that you're all coming to the funeral," he sighs. "And I appreciate that, very much. But I need to go alone for this part. Don't argue with me, please," he shakes his head. "It's not me playing the martyr. It just makes sense for me to handle this part. I can endure it, I promise you." He glances behind him at Erik, leaning into his touch, into his Will. "Erik is coming with me, besides. We don't need to cram everyone into that house and make a fuss. It's only going to agitate everyone."  
  
"He is correct," Hank taps the side of his nose with a claw.  
  
Indeed, correct, Erik adds mentally, predictably: gentle.  
  
"What, no WAY-you are not going there alone-" Raven starts, but she cools off by the end, to a faint glower that's mostly directed at Erik. "Are you sure he's going with you?"  
  
"Quite sure," Erik says with a nod.  
  
"It's only a few days," he sighs, because those few days are going to be a living hell, guaranteed, but it's nothing he can't handle. "And Erik insisted he come, so I promise he's not going anywhere." That part's dry, but he's infinitely grateful for it. Erik is going to get him through this, and one look at his body language - leaned into Erik, adjusting for every movement, following every cue - speaks volumes to how much he's attuned himself, even now an extension of Will. Especially now. "Time to bring a Dominant home to Mother," he mumbles under his breath, snorting because it sounds ridiculous given the circumstances. He's still playing with his food more than he's eating it, mashing potatoes and eggs together.  
  
"Now I want to come just to see the _look_ on her face," Raven grins evilly. Meanwhile Erik reminds Charles to finish eating, murmuring the Order into his ear where their hosts can't hear it, but it's obvious anyway. He feels himself being loaded out of a van and into the court room for the day, where he sits sluggishly in his seat, staring at nothing while his mind is more or less gone. The excavation committee will likely take up most of this time, the details drawn out and excruciating, and Erik closes his eyes, drawing up every last speck of calm that he has inside of him to shore up. To say that he is infinitely grateful to be here with Charles instead is the understatement of the century.  
  
He will probably be far less infinitely grateful when Charles loses it, which seems inevitable at this point. He forks at his eggs and eats as much as he can actually stomach, which Erik's Orders always seems to account for. Erik knows what he needs, and the least Charles can do in return is anchor and ground him in this reality rather than that one. He squeezes Erik's hand. I didn't do my Postures. This is the second morning. He's genuinely upset about it, too. In school they'd taught them that they were grounding and meditative, that they could help a submissive with focus and self-discipline. He'd found that ridiculous. Not anymore.  
  
He won't be. Erik anticipates it won't be easy or particularly fun, but he will be there to weather it all and if necessary drag Charles back from the edge. He smiles a little at Charles's pronouncement, too. You let me worry about that, he assures, because Charles hasn't done his Postures yet. Erik fully intends for him to once he speaks to his mother, a way to come back to himself when it was all said and done, and to prepare him for the drive ahead. Put these away and then we'll make the call, he taps the plate and brushes his lips over Charles's brow.  
  
Charles can't properly explain how much he needs this form of Dominance today, but it would be unnecessary if he could. Erik already knows. He clears his plate and kisses Raven on the head. "I'm going to go make a call," he tells her, and gives Hank a pat on the back and a one-armed hug on the way back up to his sister's bedroom. He left his phone in her bathroom, and he's sure she won't mind him monopolizing the space for another few minutes.  
  
He leans against Erik with everything in him, body and mind, as he dials. Wraps his presence and Will around himself and breathes.

* * *

His mother picks up on the second ring. "Hello?"  
  
She's been crying, and she's also drunk at - oh, quarter to ten. He hates that he notices. "Hello, Mother," he greets, and his voice is the polite, restrained calm reserved for moments like this.  
  
There's a pause. "Oh, hello, Charles. I've been trying to call you." There's flighty disapproval there, as if Charles is a naughty child and she isn't drunk first thing in the morning. As if she hadn't been trying to reach him because his stepbrother was mutilated in his living room.  
  
Charles tries not to grimace. He won't be able to when he's in front of her. He doesn't manage. "I apologize, Mother. I didn't have my phone."  
  
There's rustling on the other end of the line. "That's alright, dear. When will you be here? There's planning to be done. Kurt is very upset you haven't been involved."  
  
He pretends that doesn't drop his heart right into his stomach. "I'll leave as soon as possible. Are there arrangements already made? If you need me to do anything from the car, I'd be more than happy to." The dutiful son. Not once in this conversation have they said anything remotely close to what a grieving family would.  
  
"We're going to have the funeral recession at the manor. Cain did so love it there."  
  
No, he did not. "I'm not sure the manor is in a state to entertain guests, Mother," he points out.  
  
"Oh, that's alright. It can be arranged. All the better, now that we're selling it."  
  
Charles heart stops at that. "Pardon me?"  
  
"Well, you know how it is. We're all downsizing these days, darling. Kurt believes it's in our best interests to let go of the past, and I've agreed. I know you hoped to inherit it, and of course we'll need your consent, but what's a dusty old house, hm? Your father would have wanted it. Bless his soul."  
  
Bless his soul. His teeth grind. "My father - mm." Charles closes his eyes and feels that every muscle in his body is tense, which does absolutely nothing for the pain. This is already not going well. "Alright, Mother. We can have this conversation later. Is there anything else?"  
  
His mother gives a sigh. "It's just a shame, isn't it?"  
  
Yes, it's just a shame. He can hear the crack in her voice. He knows there's genuine emotion there, but nothing Charles has ever done has coaxed it out. "Indeed. I'm sorry." And in return, there's not an ounce of emotion in his tone, something so wholly strange for Charles that it sounds foreign.  
  
"Well, nothing to be done for it. Could you do me a favor, Charles, dear?"  
  
He grimaces. "Yes, Mother?" Bring me a drink, dear.  
  
"We're quite out of wine here, I'm afraid. I'd hate to entertain without it."  
  
"Certainly, Mother."  
  
"That's a love."  
  
Charles takes a deep breath.  
  
What Erik grasps, and perhaps all he needs to grasp, is that he is vehemently, utterly hostile toward Sharon Xavier-Marko in a way he hasn't anticipated; in a way he's promised himself he wouldn't allow to spill over to where Charles had to manage him in addition to everything else-and it's not entirely because of Charles, either-there's a deep disgust in Erik he's only just able to quash before it leaks toxic, thick sludge. Barely resists the urge, barely, to grab the phone and growl at her like a fucking animal. He lets out the snap of anger in a single whoosh of air, exhaling deeply in tandem with Charles, and ends the call before she can hang up with a blink. Erik's spent plenty of time entertaining hideous, well-to-do people. The sound of Sharon's voice, the cadence and mannerisms, have him easily falling back into old rhythms. Patient and silent and polite, he guides Charles to put the phone away and down into his Postures. As he promised, so that Charles could process the call while reflecting the most basic tenet of their connection, reaffirming to himself that he does belong to Erik and leaving an open point of contact between them with his hand warm against Charles's skin, bright and pleased.  
  
He wants to focus on his Postures. He wants to sink into them, to sink into Erik's Will, to drown out his mother's voice and the sloshing wine and whiskey make when they mix together in a glass. That's-a-love. Charles is distracted, and he makes silly mistakes, mistakes he shouldn't make when the motions are so ingrained by now, when he absolutely knows what to do. He's not wrong, just a half beat off, mixing up the rote learning of school and what he's delighted in learning from Erik. When Erik has to correct him again, he sucks in a breath and lets it out with, "Do you think of me like her?" It was impossible not to taste Erik's disgust. Charles has always thought he is so much like his mother.  
  
Erik's eyes jerk up to meet Charles's, widening a little. Of course not, he says, head tilting to the side, and he makes another minor adjustment to Charles's form, smiling when he relaxes into it properly. _Why would you ask such a thing?_  
  
 _Because you should. I'm exactly like her, Erik._ He wonders if Erik will see it better when they're right in front of her. He knows - he knows - that some of his idle mannerisms are hers, learned over the years. That they share features wholly undeniable. They have the same nose, the same mouth. Those eyes Erik loves so much? Hers. They're hers. They're icier on her, perhaps, but no less blue. Their handwriting is shockingly alike. The way they tilt their heads. The way they speak, the way they move. Their smiles, at least when Charles is attempting to be overly polite. And there was a period in his life where Charles took up the mantle and there was a very real possibility of him being drunk at quarter to ten. _I'm my mother's son_ , he whispers.  
  
His head shakes, once. _None of those things make you similar to her._ And none of those things are the reason for Erik's reaction, not precisely, but he's not self-aware enough to really understand what he'd been responding to, something that exists in her and wholly does not in Charles. Something he knows, something that is so achingly familiar and sitting in his mind, putting its fingers in his mind-  
  
But it does. It does. Erik will see it when they're side by side. He'll notice it. He leans himself out of position, swallowing around the lump in his throat. _You look so much like your mother!_ He knows. He sees it in the mirror every morning.  
  
Erik taps his finger over Charles's elbow, a reminder to relax. _I know what she looks like_ , he returns, soft. _I do not see her here. I see you._ And they could not be more different. He sees someone in Sharon but it is not Charles.  
  
Charles purses his lips and straightens himself back out, falling back into Posture. He should let Erik guide him. He should take a breath, let himself be grounded and soaked in Erik's Will. He's going to need it. He does need it, now. His mind conjures up his mother again, the way she pinches her expression. How her lips purse together when she's irritated. He knows he does it, too. His heart drops back into his stomach.  
  
Erik touches his face, shaking his head again. _Let me,_ he responds to those desires instinctively. He can't help but reflect Charles back in a mirror image, what he sees when he looks. Those eyes crinkled up in amusement and joy and want and love and fire. Those lips when they beam at him, when he can't help but giggle at a ticklish graze of Erik's fingers, when they set in grim determination and focus and pout in distraction. Every feature in Erik's perfect recall, distinct and beautiful. _She is not here_ , he says again.  
  
Charles bites his lip. He doesn't believe it, but that man reflected back at him in Erik's thoughts - He's never seen his mother truly laugh. He really doesn't think so. He knows he doesn't, either, when he's around her. That he bottles up his amusement for later, pinches it behind his lips and in his throat and swallows it down like a shot. He and Raven shrieking in laughter as they ran the length of the main garden, then bowled over and crying with it in their clubhouse years later, darts in Trask's face and an inside joke. She never took it from him completely. Charles has always laughed.  
  
And Erik will make sure that he always does. That when he returns it will be with every piece of him in tact. This is not the first time Erik has been grateful for Raven, but once more it creeps up in the back of his mind, for giving Charles some method of escape and release during his time at that house. He names the next Posture for Charles to fall into, steady and guiding.  
  
Charles takes a long, deep breath, and when he goes into his next Posture, he does it with all of his attention. He knows it with his body as much as he does his mind, exactly to Erik's standards and not to anyone else's. He seeks out that Will, lets it become him. This is something else she can't take from him. Perhaps his mother loved his father, but he knows that the marriage she's languished in for sixteen years is utterly loveless. That if she had her way, his would be just the same, some high-society Dominant woman she could make politics out of for Kurt. Well, too bad. He belongs to Erik, and very happily.

* * *

Erik smiles at that, and leans forward from where he'd taken a mirrored position at Rest, kissing Charles and letting his hand rest on his neck, hovering over his collar in an unconsciously possessive gesture. There is more that he can share, so he does-how Charles molds his body to each Posture like breathing, when he is attuned and mind open to Erik's Will, how his form is graceful and elegant and gorgeous. How he sinks so deep beneath the surface of the world and matches his heart beat with Erik's, all his thoughts a whisper of love and adoration and trust and glittering contentment. All of that is for Charles, every good thing, every flickering facet of submission and tethered ties. It could never be taken from him because the people who tried to, could never, ever understand the concepts of devotion and joy in the first place.  
  
Charles melts into Erik, sighing and content despite himself. He knows every self-taught instinct should be screaming at him to writhe in his hold, to strain against those possessive fingers over his collar, but he doesn't feel any of it. He leans into it instead, seeking what he's always needed. When Erik pulls away - and he doesn't chase or protest, perfectly willing to let Erik decide when they're done - he's properly steadied, smiling softly. "Please," he whispers, because he needs this. He never wants that to be turned around again. He doesn't want to go into this without it. He never wants to go without it again, not for a second.  
  
He tugs down the collar momentarily to expose the now-fading mark he'd left there only a day ago, or was it two? It isn't a bruise or a bite, so it's disappearing fast, and he scrapes his teeth over the spot where it had been, where no one else will see, where it blends into the fingertips still seared into his flesh. The only imperfection (perfection? Yes, howls the dark, ancient parts of Erik, but since we're civilized human beings we don't hit people over the head with clubs and drag them back to our caves anymore...) that should be permitted to stand. His sigh against Charles's skin is soft, soothing even. Always.  
  
He shivers, and the noise that slips from parted lips is in every way a moan. Out of place, perhaps, but it can't be helped, and he arches his neck to give Erik more access. I rather like being hit with clubs and dragged back to our cave, he murmurs, shy and grinning slightly as he aches for more touch. When these marks are gone, when the soreness that shouldn't be there is soothed, he imagines there'll be quite a lot of that, and Charles will be nothing but willing. Enthusiastically so. They could never take that from him, either. They certainly made their best effort. But what he does with Erik, what he offers, what he takes, and what he gives, those are all vastly different from anything he ever experienced at the hands of Kurt and Cain Marko. It's something they could never have. It's the greatest joy, all part of a dynamic he needs, and craves, one of loving and healing. Charles knows that in the deepest, truest parts of himself. In his heart and soul. They could never take it from him now.  
  
Erik can't help grinning against him, running a hand down his chest and crooking his finger in the fabric of Charles's stuffy old cardigan that he adores so much, for the record, and tugging him closer to kiss him again. _All yours,_ he says, mind lit up like a beacon. _Always yours. Forever._  
  
Charles moans into that, too, parting his lips with a gasp to let Erik right in. He lets him Dominate it, pliant and eager and always, always willing, even when he initially seems otherwise, even when he fights, even when he strains. His head spins with Erik's Will, and perhaps subspace isn't the best place to be right now, but then again, why isn't it? Why shouldn't it be? He's Erik's. He's so utterly, totally Erik's. "I like doing my Postures," he whispers when Erik breaks the kiss, pink-cheeked and shy, but not ashamed. He hopes Erik has him do them every morning, until he's so old his knees creak in protest when he falls to his knees.  
  
His eyebrows bounce playfully in return, his mind warring against yes-forever. Until Charles is a hundred and twenty, G-d willing. Even longer. Who knows what the future holds. And no-even the hypothetical twinge of pain in his fantasy is something Erik feels fiercely compelled to guard against. He will build Charles new knees. They'll be even better than the old ones. He'll make him little knee pillows. He'll give knee massages.  
  
Charles lets out one of those helpless little giggles, leaning forward until he can tuck himself into Erik's neck. Plant a soft, sweet kiss there. For someone so willing to bend me over his knee and spank me red and crying... He trails off, playful, but - well, yes. There's that spark of electric heat, the shudder. He did it to himself, really, and now he has to deal with the aftershocks and shy embarrassment at his own needs.  
  
"Mhm," Erik lets out a deep noise that's vaguely reminiscent of a purr. His hands come up across Charles's back and splay there protectively, holding him for as long as he possibly can. He loves every impulse, every line on need that Charles expresses, reflected back in himself tenfold. He certainly doesn't deny it, though.  
  
Charles laughs again at that, eyes creasing just as Erik remembered it. _Oh, please,_ he grins, shaking his head. _"'I'll scare you off, Charles',"_ he imitates, deepening his voice dramatically, affecting Erik's Dominance in a laughable mockery. _You did so, you caveman. We're equally at fault for denying what's good and natural._ But now they're here, easing and learning and exploring and growing, and it's damn near perfect.  
  
Erik's grin is quick, and just a little embarrassed. _I did not know any better,_ he defends himself, chuckling lightly. "I do _not_ sound like that," he snorts.  
  
 _Do so!_ he insists, grinning brightly now as he nuzzles and kisses, sweet and open. Reveling in it while he can. "I'm a big, bad Dominant, Charles, you'll be so frightened," he goes on in that faux-deep, and then dissolves into giggles. Look at him now. He wants more, more, more, never less. If only Erik knew then how easily they fit together, all their pieces, even those ancient instincts and desires Erik thought he needed to bury. His own need for constant Dominance. Look at them now, how they both thrive. He wants to say it to the world: look. You tried to ruin this, to take this from us, and you failed. _I like it better this way_ , he murmurs, eyes shimmering with submission and that beautiful joy.  
  
 _As do I,_ Erik returns, expression bright. When he was very young, he used to fantasize about... he decides to cut that thought off, finding it a bit too heavy for the moment, but the end-result is this: if he had known back then what he knows now, that he would have Charles, that he would have this, his daydreams would have been much more pleasant. Even the idea of longing for this would have been enough. _Never less,_ he agrees solemnly.  
  
They probably need to get up. Charles doesn't want to be the one to suggest it. He also doesn't want to be the one to do it, so he all but climbs into Erik's lap. On his knees, by his feet, at his side, in his lap. His place. Where he belongs. "I don't want to go," he mumbles, perhaps childishly. He wants to stay right here, curled up and soft and floating into subspace in Erik's lap.  
  
He lets Charles linger there for just a little bit longer before he rises and helps Charles to his feet in a single careful maneuver. "I know," he murmurs sympathetically. He leads Charles out of the room, hand at the small of his back-his place, perfectly echoed. "Do you have everything you need?"  
  
Charles sighs. Ideally, he should have his wallet, but there's not much to do for that. He should have grabbed it on the way out, but he was far from in his right mind. He's rubbing at his temples, a sure sign of stress, even without the pain. Besides the headache. Always the headache. "I'm as ready as I'll be, I think." He can borrow some cash from Raven, maybe, and of course he'll pay her back. The rest he'll work around. His mind is already on the hour long drive ahead, but perhaps he can sit in Erik's lap. That will make it better, at the very least.  
  
Erik holds his hand up and his head tilts. Charles can hear him listening again, searching. Seeking. Through the open living room window, after about a minute, his wallet sails through and thuds onto the carpet near the television. He snaps it to his palm and presents it to Charles. Ask and ye shall receive.  
  
Charles grins, delighted all over again. "Thank you, Erik," he says brightly, and kisses the edge of his jaw after he stretches up to reach. Forget the sprained ankle, it's better as far as he's concerned. He finds Raven to say his goodbyes, gives her a long hug and a kiss on both cheeks.

* * *

Then it's outside to call a car, and a trip to Long Island is quite the pretty penny, but it isn't as if he doesn't have the money to spare. When they're settled in, he does climb into Erik's lap, resting against his shoulder where he belongs. _She's an S3,_ he tells Erik, mostly to prepare him. Like a mission briefing. _My mother. My father was a high D2, nearly a 3_. It's supposed to be genetic, where you fall on the scale, but they were both completely average. And both baseline, too. Mutant children to baseline parents isn't at all unheard of, but they did get a genetic outlier in every way. Charles was full of surprises.  
  
 _My parents were baselines, too,_ Erik tells him, curious about the genetic outlier component of that-arms coming up to hold him in place and let him rest his head on his shoulder. His mother sounded relatively average. Erik's encountered S3s in the past and they didn't tend to respond much differently than lower-levels. S2s were usually the most reactive, but Hank, for example, definitely struggled to conduct himself professionally and not behave entirely in deference. Erik's been spoiled by Charles, not needing to watch himself as much, but being in public is a different story. Stripping Erik's consciousness of his Will would effectively alter who he was and it would change the dynamic between himself and Charles, and Erik simply isn't comfortable with that. So he nods and prepares himself like Charles anticipates he'll need to do, wrapping up the long, effusive strands of his Will leaking out even now around his own palms and body, reeling them in like fishing line.  
  
Charles frowns at that, an unhappy sigh. He hates that it's necessary. It feels like something's missing when it's gone, though he can always still feel it, like a slumbering creature with one eye peeked open. Watching over him, silent and promising. It's so strange, watching other people react to you. Other submissives, he really means. _I never feel... I mean, I do. Feel that way. But it's not at all the same._ Even as deep into subspace as he'd been last night - as far as he's ever been - he was aware of things. _But I also... I've seen other submissives in subspace. It's not the same. They don't... it's not as much, I don't think._ _And outside of it, there doesn't feel like - I'm not sure how to explain it_. There's never been a line for him, that off switch Erik noted he doesn't have either. Now even less so.  
  
 _It is simply normal to me,_ Erik replies with a small smile. _I do not think it would be possible for me to have a healthy relationship with another submissive,_ he admits after a second. There would be no way. Charles can speak with him. Argue with him. Make his opinions known. Preserve his own ideology and self and sense of opinions, make choices and cultivate his own desires. Even as deep into subspace as he can go, spurred on by Erik's only-increasing Dominance as he begins to trust himself more and relax his painful grip on it, he is still Charles. Erik is so careful around submissives-what Charles sees is not the whole of it. Erik doesn't even speak and they're almost ready to kneel for him. Some have, he's thrown people into subspace just by existing in their vicinity. If he acted outwardly, made himself known-he shudders to think of it-( _"Wenn du sprichst du wirst zerstören die Welt. Ich werde dich retten, Erik. Du solltest dankbar sein." "Ja, Herr Shaw._ ")-but maybe Azazel was inevitable. That's why all D5s who are registered get snapped up by the UN as children. The only reason Erik didn't is because Shaw played dirty. Azazel spent his whole life accustomed to having everything he wanted snap into his hand at a whim, why would he ever need to feel humility? If Erik weren't taken in by Shaw, he could have turned out the same way.  
  
Charles shakes his head, shifting in Erik's lap until he can kiss his cheek. _No, you wouldn't have,_ he promises. Erik and Azazel could not be more different, their cores fundamentally opposed. It occurs to him, not for the first time, that if Erik's life had not been irreversibly altered by Sebastian Shaw, they would have absolutely no occasion to meet. Their paths would likely never cross. It makes him frown, clinging tighter. _I would have gone my entire life feeling nothing of what everyone else did. There are even fewer S1s than there are D5s, Erik. They hardly ever bond, because usually they're on opposite ends of the world, or else incompatible in other ways. But we were - I couldn't say what would have happened, but I know we were made for each other. I was made to be yours._ He feels that more strongly than he's felt anything. Not simply because he's an S1 to Erik's D5, either. More like it is a piece in a connecting puzzle. _And I am yours because I choose to be. Every day, every moment, I choose to be. It's beautiful, isn't it?_ Erik need not restrain himself with him. Charles was meant to handle it, to flourish underneath it, Erik's Dominance never for a moment overbearing or frightening. The more he experiences it, the more he desires it, seeks it, always with a mirrored need and intensity. And Erik was meant to handle him likewise, to bring him down and hold him in a place he never would have found otherwise, untethered and unsettled, longing and empty and missing something vital. Something he needs by nature. Yes, he thinks. It's beautiful.  
  
 _Beautiful_ , Erik whispers between them, nuzzling his cheek against Charles's. _I am so proud that you choose to be mine. And you can choose it._ He spent so much of his childhood being drilled and conditioned to thank Shaw for his fists and teeth, Erik sometimes tricks himself into being grateful like he's supposed to; but he doesn't want to consider that Shaw had a hand in any of this at all. Erik made the choice to take that building down, not Shaw. Erik made the choice. That's how they met. Erik chose.  
  
Charles hums. _You chose,_ he agrees. They both did. And perhaps that, more than anything, is inevitable. They are. Perhaps, one way or another, they would always end up here. Not here exactly, but together in this way. Two perfectly fitting pieces, regardless of any frayed edges. Charles is distracted, though, and he rubs his face against Erik's again. Not ticklish anymore, he comments, and sounds a bit sad for it. He misses the beard a little. Erik is handsome either way, and he does look less like a wild thing now, but it was fun while it lasted.  
  
 _You liked my beard_. Erik sounds delighted.  
  
Charles laughs, shaking his head. _I like you no matter what. I'm not sure why that's at all a surprise._ But yes, he liked the beard. If it was properly groomed, it would be extremely fetching. He would not be at all opposed to it growing back.  
  
Erik hums, pressing the back of his hand over his mouth. Not that his beard had been particularly properly groomed before, but-you know. Tomato, potato. The idea that he is fetching to Charles is, as always, enough to make him preen inwardly, his chest aglow. He curls his fingers over Charles's jaw, still grinning.  
  
 _I like when you feel that way._ He grins back, leaning into the touch. _When you get - proud, and confident. You deserve to feel like that. I like you with a bit of an ego, I'll admit it. You must be aware that you're the most beautiful person I've ever met?_ Call him biased, it doesn't matter. Charles backtracks quite a long way and projects something he doesn't think he ever has. The first time he'd met Erik, a thought far beneath the surface because he'd stamped it out for the sake of professionalism and poise: _he is beautiful_. Those ocean eyes, that strong jaw and features, that first hint of a smile. Charles has felt attraction rarely in his life, the whole business muddled and boring to him. There was never a spark before Erik, a tug in his belly. It's always there now. Erik is stunning, and sometimes it's so noticeable it leaves him breathless. _Gorgeous. My Dominant. Not anyone else's. They can't have you._ He clings. Charles is allowed to be a bit possessive, too, he thinks. No one else gets to be Erik's. Only him.  
  
 _I like you biased,_ Erik smirks sharply back at him. It's a bit of a put-on, Charles knows full-well that Erik's confidence waxes and wanes, an ebb and flow that is almost consistently controlled by himself-the moments that Erik can see himself through Charles's eyes, and not his own. It would be incorrect to say that Erik doesn't _know_ he's attractive. He does, but he dislikes looking at himself. Blurs his own features out in his mind. It's different with Charles. Now he enjoys being attractive, enjoys knowing that Charles _likes_ him. That Charles sees him behind it. It's indescribable. It feels like the closest he can imagine to what his life would be like had he grown up normally. He would've been cocky as _hell_ and self-assured, and entitled and bold. Dominant to the nth degree. Charles inspires all of it and more. _Surely you must have been privy to my thoughts about you_ , he realizes a moment later, and then he's laughing for real. He thinks he loved Charles then.  
  
Suffice to say, Charles finds cocky as hell ridiculously attractive on Erik. He'll happily spend the rest of their lives reinforcing that confidence, letting Erik feel self-assured and flex every Dominant muscle he has. _Yes, I heard you loud and clear,_ he laughs, and feels his cheeks heat just slightly. Erik thought he was a beautiful man. There's absolutely no describing exactly how much that flustered him, how pleased it had made him to be attractive to Erik. _I was very put out by it, by the way. Do you know what it's like to go twenty-seven years with all of your fantasies featuring faceless, shadowy beings, even in a relationship, and then all of a sudden I can't get your face out of them? Your hands, even in those silly plastic handcuffs?_ _What would he look like with a shirt off. How would he touch me. Would he put me into subspace, would he want the things I need._ Beautiful, perfectly, yes and yes.  
  
Erik's eyes flash, rich, electric heat slowly pooling behind his ribs and spreading down his abdomen. "You are coming dangerously close to being put on your knees in this vehicle," his voice is low and pleased and muttered right into Charles's ear, aloud after quite a while in silence, the partition between the driver and the backseat enough for him to feel safe enough to do so. Erik recalls it in just as vivid detail. The way Charles's eyes had locked onto his. That gasp when their hands touched. The first time he said _Please, Erik._ His kindness, his generosity, the way his mind had opened up like a flower from the moment he knelt at Erik's feet. _You were the only thing I thought of._ He still is, mostly.  
  
Charles shivers, that full-body tremble, and squirms in Erik's lap. When he grins, it's fierce and bright. Not defiant by a long shot, but absolutely goading. "I dare you," he whispers back, eyes burning and locked on Erik as he recalls that first time. How everything had snapped into place, as if he'd been kneeling at Erik's feet his entire life. The relief, the electricity, the sense of belonging he had never imagined for himself. The way everything had narrowed down and focused, the world no longer a buzzing, overwhelmed mess of frayed thoughts and shot nerves and the box he had confined himself to by what he felt was necessity. He'd climbed right out and found a new place, the world realigned, a planet who had found its orbit, Erik's voice, thick and hoarse and deep and sunk into his bones, beneath to his atoms: _It's good, hm? Yes, Erik. It's good. It's so good._  
  
"No," Erik thumbs his bottom lip, shaking his head. "Not a dare. Where you belong. Any moment that you are free, you should spend it kneeling for me. Go on, _neshama_. Between my legs." The Order is so natural coming from him now, such a long way from that first time when he'd agonized over the slightest step. He hadn't known any better. But he is learning. He is a quick study. Erik's expression holds no trace of hesitance any longer, only bone-deep assurance and satisfaction.  
  
They both are. How afraid he'd been, how ashamed and worked up, how much he'd agonized. Now he sighs softly as he goes, smiling and graceful, does not fall so much as he returns. Erik is right. This is where he belongs. When he's settled he rests his cheek on Erik's knee, eyes fluttering closed. Perfectly comfortable, terribly pleased. "I much prefer this," he murmurs when he peeks back up, an echo of not long ago. Not a dare, not a game. Just a natural state of being, the way of things. Where else would he be? He hopes every time he responds like this, Erik realizes it just as he does: we are made for this, my love. At one hundred and twenty, I will kneel for you on little knee pillows and love you just the same. And what an extraordinary life we will have made. He can't wait. Every moment is a gift, every second is cherished. Charles had resigned himself to a life of boredom and loneliness, to boxes and locked doors. Not anymore. There is so much for them, and he is eager and ready. _More, please, Erik._  
  
 _No more,_ Erik tells him, carding his hand through Charles's hair, a rhythmic back and forth of his fingertips soothing his scalp, combing through the few knots that had curled up. It might be a Dominant urge or just an Erik urge, grooming him and fussing over him and always keeping some kind of physical guard over him. A hand on his back, at his neck, in his hair, on his cheek. It tugs deep at the wound up cords of his Will, humming and satisfied that Charles is back where he should be; everything has settled where it belongs. _Never again.  
_

* * *

For a long while, Charles is silent and drifting. Not sleeping, but simply relishing, eyes closed and humming at those long fingers in his hair, at Erik's Will wrapped around and surrounding him like thunder rumbling somewhere in the distance. He's aware of what's coming, but content for the moment to be distracted, to be calm, to rest quietly on his knees where he belongs. "Ah!" It's a sudden exclamation, breaking the silence. Charles grins, all self-satisfaction and awe and vicious, bursting pride. _I did it_ , he declares, and has absolutely no reservations, in this moment, to be humble about whatever it is he's celebrating. He looks up at Erik with every bit of passion he's proven himself capable of, wonder in his eyes.  
  
 _What did you do, hm?_ Erik's head was lolled on the window, content to soak up this healing, recharging time before they needed to face the day ahead. That he could draw upon it during strife and keep this in the back of Charles's mind, and his own. His eyes crack, maybe he'd been dozing himself, a hypnagogic state spurred on by the lack over the last two days. Charles's bright grin causes him to smile back, fond.  
  
Charles pouts. He's lost it. His mind has snapped back like a rubberband, the recoil painful and bordering on seething, but it passes within a few moments. He hadn't been shielding it from Erik or anything of the sort, his latest exploration of his telepathy, but it had been running in the background much the same way some of Erik's processes are now, namely the ones in his Real. It's ridiculous, but he's disappointed Erik didn't get to see. Charles, for once, is quite proud of himself, and - well, there's nothing wrong with seeking a bit of praise, is there? Especially for something he's struggled with since it manifested, when there's still very much an urge to box it up and forget this whole limit-testing business. _You missed it,_ he sighs. He could try doing it again. There would be no harm, and if there is, he could always stop. Now that Erik's paying attention he feels a bit... shy, though. He might not be able to replicate it. He doesn't want to embarrass himself.  
  
 _You will never embarrass yourself in front of me,_ Erik tells him gently. _If you don't succeed, you can simply try again when you feel ready. After all, you already accomplished it. I felt that much._ He smiles. _Will you show me?_ he has a habit of asking questions but they're definitely not questions at all, not with his Will uncurled out in the backseat and all through the air, so palpable you could nearly smell it in the air-like when snow falls in the early morning when the sky is dark and silent.  
  
Charles takes a slow, focusing breath as he steadies himself, drawing on Erik's Will this time, too. His eyebrows are furrowed in that stubborn determination, and he brings two of his fingers up to massage and knead at his temple. It's an unnecessary gesture, but one he'd gotten into the habit of as a child first learning how to use his mutation willfully. It still serves its purpose, a physical grounding of what's entirely mental. Unlike Erik's mutation, his telepathy has nothing to do with his body, but it certainly helps to be calm and centered in every way. When he's tired or hungry or in pain, that's when he finds it shorts out most on him. Healthy body, healthy mind.  
  
He starts with the driver's mind. Erik's is always anchored to his, and displaced because they aren't together. He could find him in the courtroom if he wanted, but best to start here, where Charles physically is. He breathes, branching out, pushing as if treading through water, weaving through. It's a bit difficult when he's moving in relation to them, but in some ways he thinks it's a boost. Fluidity, some forward motion even when he knows it shouldn't matter. He's only in long enough to grab a foothold, the barest, impossibly gentle caress, and then he's onto the next, finding his next target through them. A bouncing around, a game of baton pass they're entirely unaware of. It goes on what seems endlessly, idle thoughts that aren't his own filtering in and out, the world through a thousand unique sets of eyes. The farther he goes, the more it begins to tug and strain, eyebrows pressed tighter together and lips pursed in concentration. Farther, farther, he can go a bit farther - He grins. Someone's mind settles on a sign. _Welcome to Salt Lake City_. Charles does the mental math on that one, memorized like state lines: 2,170 miles. Every thought of this man's is absolutely crystal clear. Charles knows about his wife, his children, his job, his three dogs, his impending move to California. What he likes to eat for breakfast. He's smoking, which even secondhand tastes of tar and nicotine in dizzying quantities, he's never had the stomach for it. Not too shabby. A month ago, he could barely cross a state line to follow Warren, a mind he's known since he was a child.  
  
Erik gasps aloud, his eyes widening and lips parting in shock. His absolute amazement is unable to be contained, unable to be attributed to anything except for Charles. Erik peeks out at the man with the cigarette and gives Charles a playful grin before blinking. The stub of the cigarette flamed and the cherry evaporated off of the tip, falling harmlessly to man's feet. _Oh_ , his mind breathes. There is no way he could have done it without tagging along in Charles's mind, his consciousness aware and his body following his mind following his neurons and back again. They are stronger together. Erik likes this so much. He doesn't know how to begin to explain it. Just... playing. Exploring. Learning.  
  
Charles beams. It only lasts a moment, because the next is the inevitable rebound. It's harsh this time, less a rubberband and more a crack of whip against his consciousness, and he gasps, winded and spinning. It absolutely hurts, and the nausea is so overwhelming he's positive he'll succumb to it. He clings to Erik's knee, head bowed into his lap as he rides it out. It passes, minutes instead of seconds, and he's lightheaded and sick in the aftermath. It doesn't stop him from lifting his head slightly to grin again, the migraine he's now got worth it _. I did it,_ he repeats, triumphant. _It's pretty good, isn't it?_  
  
"Oh," Erik murmurs and arches his head forward to rest it against Charles's, immediately protective as a bolt of fear washes through him, and he pets Charles all the way through the reverberations, keeping him still and counting his breaths with him and adjusting just a smidge so that he wouldn't feel as sick, wouldn't feel as agonized. There's no reason why he can't. _It's beautiful. You are beautiful._  
  
The pulsing behind his temples fades with every breath. Still there, still the sign of a strain, but nothing close to what it would have been if he'd tried it just a week ago. He's starting to think some of it is just that mental block, a self-imposed restriction he's having a hard time breaking down. A wall he's trapped behind, but chipping away at bit by bit. 2,000 miles. Only 3,000 more to Israel. And an ocean, but he doesn't see why that should be a limit. He's shy as he ducks back into Erik's knee. He could do it, he thinks, just like he'd offered. He just needs practice.  
  
"Oh, Charles," Erik realizes what he's doing and all of a sudden chokes up. _Please don't hurt yourself for me_ , he whispers, kissing his sore temple as lightly as possible.  
  
 _It's for me, too. I want to know they're safe just as you do. And I won't push too far_ , he promises, smiling up at him. The touch doesn't even make him wince, soothing like ice to swelling even though Erik's fingers are warm. _I thought I'd aim for the edge of the West Coast before I threw myself into uncharted waters,_ he laughs, but no sound comes out. It's more a feeling than anything, when he's trying to outrun a migraine. _My goal for this trip was middle America. I think I'm doing okay._  
  
 _You are doing incredibly_ , Erik tells him, just stunned. _I do not believe there are any limits to your abilities whatsoever. With time, you will grow more confident. You will not be as nervous. Truly incredible._ Erik loves Charles's mutation, because it allows them to be together, because he loves hearing Charles in his mind, sharing his consciousness, being as close as conceivably possible. Whoever could hate it, Erik thinks they are insane.  
  
I'll tell Raven you think so, he says before he can think not to. It's not as bitter as it might have been years ago - aimed at himself, not at her - but it's there nonetheless. He's considered it more than once. If even his own sister is frightened of what he can do, how could he ever hope to find someone who wasn't? If Erik needs keep his Will leashed or else make others uncomfortable, and uncomfortably compliant, for Charles it has always been his telepathy he needs to keep checked. Don't be invasive. Don't project. Don't influence, especially not that, don't tamper, don't bend. Charles could wrap the entire world around one pinky finger if he was so inclined, but he isn't and he won't. He won't, but in the process of ensuring that, he's built walls up all around it. Imposed rules. Dos and do-nots. This, what he's doing now? It is absolutely a do-not. Now that he's contextualizing it that way, some of that ingrained fear begins to slip in. This is dangerous, isn't it? He's dangerous. Raven stuck-still in the garden, her blue face scrunched in frozen frustration. She's not moving. Charles is terrified, crying. Why isn't she moving? He hurt her, he hurt her, the one person in the world he loves most...The walls were built for a reason.  
  
 _You forget that you are not alone any longer_ , Erik soothes him gently. _And neither am I. You did not have anyone in your childhood to help guide you, who understood your abilities and who wasn't afraid of them. Now you do. Me. You are not dangerous. No more than I am. But we will not let one another go down that spiral. If you do something like that, I will make you stop. I promise you._  
  
Charles lets the panic slip out of him, even as fear continues to tug itself around his heart. _You promise? If I get out of line, you'll - you really promise?_ He needs that. He needs that, or there will always be a wall. If he knows Erik will check him, that he will take control of this - of him, as he does in nearly everything else, in the same effortless way - the moment it gets out of hand, perhaps all of the walls and restrictions won't be necessary.  
  
 _I promise you, Charles. I am your Dominant. In all things._ And all things considered, Erik's judgment isn't truly that terrible. He has a very good sense of basic right and wrong. He doesn't want to hurt anyone that is innocent. He is capable of understanding and empathizing with people even when they hurt him; even when they hurt Charles. Sure, that doesn't extend to every human being on the planet, and maybe between them both with their respective levels of power, they will make a mistake; it is only human. But if it happens, they will handle it. They both have a good sense of one another's blind spots.  
  
If that happens, they'll handle it. Charles has already proven that he's willing to check Erik when he falters, not because he's his Dominant, but - well, isn't it just another act of service, at the end of the day? Charles will never let Erik lose himself. He manages a smile, resting his cheek on Erik's thigh. _I like that. 'I am your Dominant.' It's nice, and -_ He's just realized something. He sighs, the smile dropping. We need a game plan. I obviously can't introduce you as Erik Lehnsherr, my Dominant who also happens to be in court standing trial right now.  
  
 _You can refer to me by a pseudonym, if that will make it easier?_  
  
Charles makes a face. _Do you think 'Erik' is common enough of a name? I really don't want to call you anything else._ It actually made his stomach churn a little, for some reason.  
  
 _Maybe you could spell it the American way,_ Erik thinks to him. _And you could call me by my mother's maiden name, Eisenhardt._  
  
 _No one's going to see it spelled,_ he points out, grinning. _Even still. Alright, then. Would you like to come up with how we met, Eric?_ He deliberately sends an image of the American spelling, which is an uncomfortable crossing of wires when he's seen it on paper so many times. Not as uncomfortable as something like 'Steve' would be, at least.  
  
Erik winces, too. _That's awful,_ he laughs. He taps Charles on the nose. _Maybe we met because I'm a tourist._  
  
 _Oh? Did I convince you to stay States-side with my submissive wiles?_ He thinks of something attached to that and he immediately starts laughing, trying to muffle it in Erik's lap. _We could tell my mother we're getting hitched in Vegas soon to get you fast-track citizenship. She might have an actual heart attack._  
  
 _I do not understand what you just said,_ Erik laughs, which only further serves to highlight his tourist point. _The one thing that I think we could theoretically do, that might alleviate most of the questions of logistics, is to be honest that I am a D5._  
  
 _Now you've lost me. How does that alleviate the questions? Unless you mean the logistics of you being able to Order them about. Honestly, the likelihood that there's an incident is almost certain._ He's still grinning into Erik's knee. _Do you really not know what 'getting hitched' means? That's endearing. It just makes me want to get hitched. Maybe not with Elvis around, though._ Now that he knows it's a language gap, and likely a cultural blindspot, he can use it to his advantage.  
  
 _Charles_ , Erik tuts. _What does Elvis have to do with it?_ he lays his head on top of Charles's, bowing his spine forward in a position that had to be uncomfortable, but just needing more contact. _It would not seem so strange that we met recently, and I will be moving here to be with you._ He understood the desire for privacy, but it would likely eliminate invasive prodding of their relationship. People didn't understand S1s or D5s, so any inconsistencies or curiosities could be (and honestly probably were) attributed to that. _And if anything happened, and my presence, the way your mother might react-it's best to be honest. I would not wish to embarrass them and make them more hostile._  
  
 _I agree._ There's little else for it. Most people who did intimately know the situation didn't understand it. Sometimes it evaded Charles' rational understanding, even. It was just the nature of it, of them, and he didn't mind, for once in his life, not understanding all the nuances. They were learning it together, and in the meantime, everything was undeniably real. True. Still budding, still growing, still new, but already something more than most people will ever hope to experience with a partner. _Hmm. Elvis getting us hitched..._ Yes, he's still on that. They have twenty minutes until they reach Long Island still, he's allowing himself to be silly before it's knocked completely out of him.  
  
 _I see that I am destined to remain in the dark forever about this,_ Erik tickles the nape of his neck, and then kisses over his collar.  
  
Charles giggles, wriggling about at the touch, then leaning into it. _Married, Erik. 'Getting hitched' means getting married._  
  
 _And you must get hitched in Nevada with Elvis Presley?_ Erik's mind conjured up an image of a conga line of dancers all wearing white leather jackets and sporting black guitars and pompadours. _And that can make you an American citizen?_  
  
Charles snorts, finding himself genuinely delighted to explain this particular cultural phenomenon. He sends an image of a Vegas chapel, Elvis impersonator and all. _People 'get hitched' in Vegas spur of the moment, often without considering that it's a binding legal agreement, but alas - it's fast, and classless, and what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, except a legal marriage that must be annulled, of course._ He's grinning. _Also, no, it won't make you a citizen, but it is likely the fastest way to a green card at the moment. Not specifically a Vegas marriage, just - well, marriage. Something to think about._ Charles is nonchalant about it.  
  
Erik is, too. In fact judging by his next question he seems to have taken the entire concept of _marriage_ for granted. Of course they would _marry_. They belonged to one another. If he was acquitted it makes sense for them to marry for immigration purposes regardless, and married couples shared benefits that non married ones didn't. _Do we need to go to Vegas?_ he asks all of a sudden, sounding a little... wary. _I... would prefer not to be... married by Elvis impersonators._  
  
Charles laughs, shoulders shaking with it as he buries his face in Erik's lap. _No, Erik. We do not need to go to Vegas. It was a joke. One that was lost on you, but a joke._ There's - something there, though. A fluttering in his stomach, and he's not sure what it is. Anxiety, he thinks, but he can't imagine what for.  
  
 _-if you wish to marry, that is,_ Erik says very softly. _I understand that it is... significant._  
  
 _I do._ That part is immediate, not a moment's hesitation. _Of course I do. It isn't... I'm not sure what it is, actually,_ he admits, eyebrows drawn together. _But it's not that. I'm yours in every way, Erik, of course I'm going to be yours that way, too. Besides, I'd like to live in the same country, ideally,_ he teases.  
  
 _Only ideally?_ Erik touches his lips to Charles's forehead. _Are you afraid that it will not happen?_  
  
 _No, it will. One way or the other. That is a promise._ Charles will absolutely not allow them to be separated. _It will just be far easier to run a school together if you are a legal resident of the United States. The problem is - Well._ It's a big, glaring problem, and he's not sure what the workaround is. Perhaps this was the cause of anxiety, then. He's been running this through his head for quite a while.  
  
 _What is the problem?_  
  
 _It needs to be a legitimate marriage, and for a marriage to be legitimate it also needs to be legal, and I am your acting psychiatrist._ Back to the basics. It's easy to forget when they are so, so beyond that it's honestly laughable. He sighs. _I won't be once your case is concluded, but there needs to be a two year separation for it to be considered an 'ethical' relationship._ Erik could stay in the country illegally for two years without issue. It would just be complicated, and likely messy when they plan to start something like a school together. The fact that he's stretching boundaries and the law like this is a bit... dodgy, but Charles has already long since accepted that his and Erik's relationship was never going to be defined by doctor and patient. It didn't even start that way, honestly.  
  
"I have never felt like you are my doctor," Erik tells him, his voice quiet as it always is, only just above a whisper when they're not in the sanctuary of their apartment or behind a closed room; but no less sincere. Is the law really this strict? What about for S1s and D5s? I think we could make a compelling case.  
  
 _I don't think there's an 'we're meant for each other, it's practically destined' clause in there,_ Erik, he laughs. If only.  
  
 _No_ , Erik shakes his head. _There may not be, but there should be._  
  
 _It needs to be two years no-contact, too,_ he adds to the previous law, sighing. _And if a patient is 'particularly vulnerable' - we're in a legal dead-end here, Erik. Might as well not mince words. They're looking at years of hush-hush._  
  
Erik suppresses his first urge, which is anger, because-how dare _anyone_ classify their relationship, but it evaporates quickly as it always does, and his response is calm and measured. _Do you think I am that kind of patient? That even if we waited we couldn't?_  
  
Charles groans, closing his eyes. _With sixteen years of unimaginable trauma aired on live national television for everyone to see? Yes. Absolutely. You would fall into the category. And we run the risk of - an acquittal is generally no-backsies, but it puts the whole thing into question when your strongest advocate is also engaged in an inappropriate relationship with you._ Again, no reason to mince words here.  
  
 _Do you think this kind of thing, as well?_ Erik has to know.  
  
Charles blinks at that. _Do I think what kind of thing?_  
  
Erik's not sure what he's feeling but it makes him rub his knee over and over with the flat of his palm. _That I am a patient?_ That he was vulnerable, and it was _inappropriate_.  
  
 _No_. He reaches for Erik's hand, squeezing it firmly in his, and offers him a reassuring smile. _No, Erik. I haven't ever truly thought of you as a patient, and maybe that's a moral failing on my part, but I don't think so. You are a person. I see you as a person. You are -_ Charles bites his lip, searching for the right words. _You are what I diagnosed you with. There's no way around that. But it does not make you anything but someone who struggles, and has been through far too much. I have... I would like to believe I have never used my status as your doctor to take advantage of the situation, nor would I ever. I don't think the labels ever applied to us. If you did think of me as a doctor, I highly, highly doubt you would have spoken to me._ If Erik had been assigned anyone else, anyone else at all as a psychiatrist, this story would have ended much differently. Charles refuses to think about it.  
  
Erik is shaking his head unconsciously, agreeing. _I do not think it is a moral failing, either,_ he says after a long moment. _In terms of our-_ he doesn't know how to describe it in words, their structure, their comprehension of the world, their maturity levels, their ability to support one another, Erik has always found them to be equal. He has never felt like Charles is holding his life in his hand. In fact, Erik always feels the exact opposite. There is a bias there, but it isn't the bias people think. Charles really shouldn't be treating Erik, because Erik is his family to begin with. He knows every time Charles has to act in a professional capacity how much it costs him, how upsetting it is. _Our situation is incredibly unique_ , Erik says softly. _I refuse to believe that we do not deserve to set a legal precedent. Is it truly illegal to have a relationship with a former patient?_  
  
Charles sighs again, lips pulled into a frown. He nudges further into Erik's lap, cheek pressed into one of his inner thighs. _Yes. Without a period of separation at least, yes. And in a case like this, we're talking jail time illegal._ It wouldn't really do to lock him behind bars in place of Erik, even if it would be a much lesser sentence.  
  
 _We can endure a period of separation,_ Erik says. Not literally, but he is confident that they could keep themselves under wraps until it would work for them to re-emerge as themselves. The people who are important already know. Also, Erik tends to believe that starting a school while on the surface it will seem above-board, it will necessitate eventual dealings that are extralegal in the long run. It will have to accommodate, eventually, the kinds of problems that only mutant children are uniquely exposed to, especially if it is to be a place of sanctuary. In which case Erik thinks even if they can never come truly clean, they could likely be open about themselves at school-for the most part. He is sure they can do it. They can do anything they set their minds to. And Charles has a lawyer friend now. Maybe Carmen can help.  
  
Charles laughs, for more than one reason. _I love when you talk mass fraud and cheating the system to me. Incredibly attractive,_ he teases. He generally doesn't believe in 'above the law,' but the thing is, it's more a matter of existing outside of it rather than above it. It doesn't apply, and it can't by its very nature. He's had the exact same thoughts. If their school is to be, as they both seem determined to make it, an international hub of mutant growth and sanctuary, it will need to exist outside some of the current laws. He cares more for what is _good_ than what is _legal_ , and always has. _He's your lawyer friend, too. He shared his frappe._ Honestly? Carmen already knows they do not follow doctor-patient rules. Many things, certainly _not_ an idiot.  
  
 _You think that Carmen knows about us? And he never said anything?_ Erik's eyes are wide, even as his grin is quick, as always warmed on a deep, level by Charles's pleasure. Erik, of course, has almost no intrinsic respect for law enforcement officers at _all_. Carmen Pryde and Dominikos Petrakis earned Erik's regard by being kind to him, but those occurrences are rare. He believes that there needs to be courts of law, and that civilization depends upon the proper, functioning use of those systems. But these systems cannot be called correct when there is so much brutality and racism and classism and capitalism involved in all of it. So his opinion is condensed rather simply: the law is not always equal to justice. _Tzedek, tzedek tirdof._  
  
 _Oh, I can guarantee it by this point,_ he snorts, mental voice dry. _I confirmed it for him last time._ Erik missed this part. Charles' cheeks go a bit red, and he hides in his Dominant's leg.  
  
 _You told him?_ Erik's eyebrows shoot up. _And he was OK with it?_  
  
 _No, no, I didn't tell him,_ he shakes his head. _I just confirmed a suspicion. I saw it._ He would tap his temple to indicate saw meant he'd heard it in Carmen's thoughts, but it's all a bit sore up there still. He sends an image of the temple tapping instead.  
  
 _I trust your judgment either way, I would merely have been surprised. You did mention to him I am a D5, so maybe he thinks it is inevitable. But he hasn't complained about it?_  
  
 _You tell me. He seems tolerant of it, from where I'm standing. No complaints._ It doesn't surprise him. He's just grateful he doesn't have to fill Erik in on the details here.  
  
Erik kisses his temple again, hoping he can melt away the residual dredges of tenderness. _I have full faith in our ability to overcome whatever problems await,_ he says, with complete and possibly unrealistic confidence. All I want is to be by your side. Everything else is just bureaucracy.  
  
 _So do I,_ he says, and in this he has mirrored confidence. One way or the other. Realistically, it will take at least a year to renovate the manor into something appropriately school-like anyway, especially if we intend to convert the sub-sub basement into something more mutant-specific. They would need to find someone willing to do that kind of work. He's sure Erik can do some of it himself, too... Charles really can't help how everytime he thinks the words _'our school,'_ regardless of the situation, he becomes incredibly giddy.  
  
 _Talk with Carmen,_ Erik suggests. _And his wife. They will probably be able to help you find people you need, and I am willing to bet their community is mutant-friendly. I would be able to do a lot of that work, but some things are beyond my capacity; I am not fully educated in things like plumbing and construction, but most forms tell me what they need. You might wish to get a second opinion._  
  
 _Oh, I will,_ he promises. In the meantime, there is an infinite amount of work that needs to be done on the upper floors, not to mention the grounds. Everything from aesthetics to function, and some preference in there, too. _We'll be moving into the master bedroom suite, for example, and I can tell you right now I will not leave it as-is,_ he mutters. Everything down to even the smallest details needed to be entirely redone. From the ground up. In the end, it would likely resemble the place he'd grown up in only the most superficial of ways, and all the better. Charles grins up at him. _There's so much for us to do._ He's excited, determined, not daunted.  
  
Erik is just as thrilled, the prospect of working together with Charles in creating this space is entirely fascinating to him. He's done some renovation work in the past, so he is confident that he will be able to help, and that only makes him more excited. To contribute, to see the shape that their lives entwining together will take. _What is the master bedroom suite?_ he understood all of those words individually, but not combined.  
  
 _A space we're going to remodel, refurnish, and renovate together until it no longer resembles the place my mother and stepfather lived and becomes our own,_ he sighs, but that's of course not the answer Erik is looking for. He shows him the sheer vastness of the space, the last time he'd seen it: it takes up the entire middle portion of the second floor and extends outward, too. It's several rooms connected to each other but not to the outside corridor, private quarters. Endless couches, fireplaces (yes, multiple), a small library (it had been his father's personal collection), a grand balcony, a bed that would easily fit much more than two people. Walk in closets that could accommodate for even his mother's extensive wardrobe. The bathroom is larger than most people's bedrooms; the bathtub fits six and has about a thousand jet settings. This is barely scratching the surface. _That_ , he says, dryly.  
  
Erik's eyebrows are going to develop a life of their own. _That is opulent_ , he settles on after his brain catches up to what his eyes are seeing, images flickering past one after the other. The thing about the mansion now, and what he hopes to help alter, is that it's all so empty and barren. There's no life, there's no feeling. He thinks he can do something with all this space to give it an infusion of warmth, and whatever Charles prefers the aesthetics of it be, it will have character and it will be lived-in and it will be theirs. He doesn't realize he's still smiling.  
  
 _We'll decide together,_ he adds, and he's smiling, too, despite himself. When he scowls, it's surface irritation. _Did you see the way it's decorated now? My mother loves white. White walls, white couches, gold trim. Why? You can't sit on a white couch. You can't curl up with a good book on a white couch without worrying about sullying it. And they're so stiff. The point of a couch is to be comfortable, isn't it?_ he scoffs. He certainly thinks so.  
  
 _Perhaps she is longing of the insane asylum from which she has secretly escaped,_ Erik deadpans scandalously.  
  
Charles bursts out laughing, unable to help himself, and hopes, even when he doesn't, that Erik will say something similar to her face. Which brings him to a thought, once he sobers up. It might be a good time to try, actually. He looks up and taps his own throat. _Do you want me to try...?_  
  
Erik grins back, a reflex by this point whenever he makes Charles laugh. _To try-?_ he touches his own throat, eyebrows raised. _Like the court room?_  
  
Charles nods. _Exactly. But I think I've figured out how to circumnavigate me having to speak for you._ Necessary in the courtroom, but not in this case.  
  
Erik tries not to feel fear at this, tries really hard-but the problem, of course, isn't that he _can't_ speak.  
  
 _I know._ Charles sighs. _It's nearly the same concept as in the courtroom, just without my mouth moving, but if it frightens you, if you can't... it's all the same. We don't have to even attempt it, Erik._ He reaches up to take Erik's hand again.  
  
 _I'm sorry,_ he looks away, breathing shallowly. It's a good plan. It worked on the stand. But the idea that everyone will hear his voice, will hear his thoughts, without censure. Without a barrier, without safety. It's too exposed. It's too much. He's deathly afraid that the years they're planning together will stretch into an unbearable burden for Charles once he realizes how deep Erik's pathology really goes.  
  
Charles shakes his head. _No. Please look at me, Erik._ He squeezes the hand in his. _Absolutely not. That won't happen. And it also wouldn't be like that - you'd be filtering through me, not directly to them. But if that's too much, even, do you honestly think I'll be upset? Of course not. We're in this together, Erik. Whatever the case, we will always find a way. Together. You are not a burden to me._  
  
He just nods several times, giving Charles a smile and squeezing his hand. _I'll try._  
  
 _You don't have to,_ he promises, because it needs to be said. _I never would have done something like this without asking. If it doesn't work, that's alright._  
  
He smooths over his fingertips across Charles's temples, affectionate. _I know you wouldn't,_ he returns warmly. _May I see your idea?_  
  
Charles smiles, and then his eyelids flutter at the touch. He shivers and for a moment can't answer, dreadfully sensitive. _Mmm... oh, it's not any different than in the courtroom, in theory. It's just that instead of physically speaking and altering the perception to your voice, I'd just skip the speaking and project. I'm still the proxy, we're just skipping a step. No cameras to make noise for._  
  
 _They will hear it in their minds?_ Erik blinks curiously.  
  
 _Yes_. Charles blinks, too. _How do you think we're speaking to each other right now?_ he laughs. "All the same," he grins, out loud, of course.  
  
For some reason that seems less frightening than the alternative, but Erik still is wary and tense. There's nothing he can do but wait and see; he can never predict exactly how functional he'll be at any given point when it comes to this. Sometimes he can mouth words, or nod, or gesture, and other times he just stands there locked down like a statue, even his thoughts regulated down to only impressions of feelings, putting everything in a box to keep it contained and safe. But he came with Charles and he intended to be here with Charles, which meant necessarily, doing his very best to be _here_. He was, he could at least admit, fairly comfortable with the idea of Charles projecting for him. He might use less concrete words, but hopefully that would still be OK. They would know what he thinks of them.  
  
Charles nods, and squeezes that hand again. "Perfectly okay," he promises. "But maybe we don't tell them exactly how we feel right off the bat." It was going to be a long few days.  
  
He purses his lips. _I will do my best not to make you uncomfortable,_ is what he comes up with, because it happens to be true while at the same time doesn't force him into promising that he'll abide rudeness and disgusting behavior toward his submissive.  
  
 _Very diplomatic, love,_ he teases. He opens his mouth to say something aloud, but it gets cut off by thunder in the distance. It's starting to rain, droplets hitting the roof and window of the car. He hums. _I like the rain, usually, but this is appropriately foreboding._ At least he can still attempt humor after realizing how close they are.  
  
A crack of lightning splits open the sky and Erik shivers, eyes fluttering closed as the sensation echoes inside of him like a shock of cold water on a metal conductor melting into superheated plasma. He sends it to Charles, how the thunder charges the air, how alive and visceral everything else, how heavy the clouds are in the atmosphere you could feel it in your bones, deep and weary and sinking and leaden, and smashing together until brilliant, eclipsing light screams from the grey, dense fog. _I love it,_ Erik says, quite unnecessarily. His head is craned next to the window so he can catch the next flash.  
  
"You're beautiful," Charles can't help but whisper in that cracked voice of his, awe dripping out of the words. By the time they're turning into the affluent neighborhood where the Markos live, their mansion at the top of the hill, it's pouring down rain, the sound drowning out everything else. _We're going to be sodden by the time we reach the door,_ he notes, and any other time it would thrill him, messing about in the rain with Erik. It would likely be a time to play, for joy. For just a moment, he hates them for taking this, too.


	35. And ask you what you think because your thoughts and words are powerful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _deuteronomy_ 20:1-3

When they get out of the car, Erik raises his hand and Charles notices that the rain seems to be falling around him instead of on top of him, as though he's encircled by an invisible sphere bouncing flecks of water away from him and keeping him perfectly preserved. Erik walks inside the bubble with him, and touches his face reassuringly. They will still have joy. They always will.  
  
When his mother answers the door, she, unsurprisingly, has a tumbler of whiskey in her hand. She's dressed in - another surprise! - a white dress, her polite smile already plastered on those lips of hers. She kisses both of his cheeks, and he kisses both of hers. "Hello, Charles, dear," she greets, and then her eyes fall on Erik. Charles watches as her lips purse. "And who is this? I don't believe we've had the pleasure of meeting."  
  
"Ah, right. I'm sorry to spring this on you, Mother, but this is my Dominant, Erik." He's not even going to entertain thinking an _American spelling_. "I wish you two could have met under better circumstances, but he wished to come along and share his condolences." Charles has that utterly fake, beautific smile on his face. There's not a hint of eye creasing, dimples, or joy.  
  
His mother's face is pinched. "Oh, how _lovely_ ," and even if he couldn't hear the high crack in her voice, he can hear her thoughts perfectly well. He's bristling, because - think badly of him all you will, but he doesn't do well when Erik is in the picture, he's learning. She brushes everything off like usual, smiling again, and he forces himself to settle. Pick your battles, Charles. "Well, in you go. Your stepfather is waiting."  
  
He tries not to let that twist him up into knots. It does anyway. "Brilliant. Thank you, Mother."  
  
She closes the door behind him, then looks him up and down. "You're empty-handed," she notes, and he feels his heart drop as she narrows her eyes. "Honestly, Charles? Have I not raised you better than this? After all I've done for you. Showing up late, empty-handed, with -" She nods her chin toward Erik. It isn't a flattering indication. "An unexpected guest? You'd think you're riff-raff off the street."  
  
He forgot the wine. He forgot the wine. He forgot -  
  
"We'll see what Kurt thinks of this," she sighs, an airy huff, and just like that, years of progress and healing drop right out with the floor beneath him, leaving him unsteady and wide-eyed, the storm outside loud enough to shake the windows. "You know how he feels about these things, Charles."  
  
He's twelve again. He drops his eyes to his feet. "I'm very sorry, Mother," he whispers.  
  
He feels rather than sees her point her nose up. "Quite right. Shoes off, please, dear. We've just had the carpet redone."

* * *

Erik takes a step forward, putting himself in between Charles and the woman, and extends his hand to her. He isn't able to name what exactly the sensation he's feeling is, but all of a sudden he is so incredibly sorry for her-and he would never, could never, forgive her for her transgressions against Charles, but-she's _here_. She is _here_ , and if just for a moment she could look beyond herself and really see her son, then Charles would have a _mother_.  
  
Just like that, he understands, and given that she's not a mannerless barbarian (apparently), when she obliges the contact, he gives her an oddly genuine smile and a nod, patting her hand once with his free one before letting go. When he returns to his spot behind Charles, he sets fingers on his shoulder and sends him a whisper of warmth and reassurance.  
  
_Not so. You are here. You will not be harmed. I promise._  
  
Sharon Xavier-Marko has rarely seen anyone beyond herself. Charles forgives her. Charles understands that she never wanted him, that she was given this life and that she did the best she could with it, exactly as she believed she was supposed to. Marry rich and have a family. She could never understand him. She doesn't - She doesn't love him. Charles knows that. She tolerates him because he is a part of the motions she must go through, is baffled and utterly disinterested beyond what is strictly necessary. He's come to terms with it. He's come to terms with it. He removes his shoes quietly. It's not about being harmed. Being in this house at all is a form of harm. Hearing his mother's thoughts is a form of harm. Realizing that he is little more than a accessory is a form of harm. _You can't make her love you, Charles._ Well, no. He _could_. He won't. "Charles?" She's in the next room. Charles plasters on his smile and straightens his shoulders. "Coming, Mother," he calls, and goes.  
  
Erik goes with him. _No_ , he says again, this time the word is crystallized, so at least he knows he can do that much. Nothing has changed from the moment Charles walked through that door until now, and nothing will be changed when he leaves. _You cannot make people love you, not without fundamentally altering who they are and turning them into glorified puppets, but people who are incapable of loving you are not capable of destroying you_ , _either_. Charles is strong. He can endure being here, and Erik will help him. And it is different, now, because there's never been any love in this house, and now there is. Because Erik is here, and he will fill Charles with all of the love that he's due. He will be loved here, too. There is nowhere he can go that Erik won't reach him. That being said, his grip on Charles's shoulder tightens a little when they enter the room that Kurt Marko is in, because his empathy does _not_ extend that far.  
  
Kurt Marko, unlike Sharon, unlike Charles, was not born into money. He was not born high on the scale, and still isn't. Everything he does reeks of overcompensation, the stench noticeable from a mile away, from the way he sits to the way he dresses to how many rings he's stuck on his fingers. Perhaps some of it is merit - technically he is Dr. Marko, and was long before he married Charles' mother. He worked with Brian Xavier (and subsequently let him die in what was publicized as an accidental chemical fire, and Charles is ready to assume wasn't that at all). Brian Xavier, Charles is willing to admit now, may have been vile in his own right. And even still? Charles did not have his telepathy at eight to check, but he felt like his father loved him. Kurt took that from him, like he took so many other things. He could have had at least one loving parent, and if he had to be ignorant of the atrocities he committed in a New Mexico lab to appreciate it - Another time, Charles. Save that one for later. Kurt's lip curls the moment he steps into the room. "You're late, boy," he drawls.  
  
Charles swallows. Hard. "Yes, there was traffic, I apologize," he says, and it doesn't come out more than a whisper. Sharon hadn't given him a time to be late for. It was difficult to be late to something like this, and -  
  
Kurt's thoughts have always made him feel like disintegrating. Like crawling into the floor, covering his ears with his fingers and shouting to drown them out, else he be violently ill. He just lost his son. He just lost his son in a violent, horrific way. Charles has no doubt that Cain was tortured before he died. He saw the body. Kurt has, too. - _good riddance, he was always a loose cannon_ \- Charles covers his mouth. The room is spinning. His legs are shaking. Kurt is speaking. "Is that how you greet me?" His voice is raising, above Charles' nausea, above the thunder outside, and he steps forward in that way that has always made Charles aware that even if he ran, he was going to get caught. "Have you forgotten respect, boy? Your mother told me you forgot a gift. Is that how you treat us, you ungrateful little whelp? I should beat some fucking sense into you -"  
  
Charles closes his eyes tightly and waits for the blow.  
  
Kurt stops in his tracks as though he's hit an invisible wall, and Erik steps forward, his face a dark glower. _You will never touch him again._ ** _Sit down._** He doesn't need to speak aloud for the Order to manifest itself in the room, unleashed coils of Will lashing at Kurt's consciousness like whip-cord cables. Kurt sits, as if he's being pulled on strings. He gapes in the aftermath, mouth wide like he's catching flies, his wife flittering about with faux-concern at his side instead of at her son, but that's to be expected. Charles' eyes are still closed. He's shaking, still tensed for something that isn't coming.  
  
That's fine. Neither of them expect Sharon Marko to step up and be what she's supposed to be. Erik is at Charles's side, and he will stay there for the rest of his days. _There will be no more violence against Charles in this house._ He leans over and kisses Charles's temple, touching the back of his hand soothingly. _You are safe. I have got you._  
  
Charles is having trouble breathing. His stomach is churning, and this room is suffocating, even with Erik to provide him with oxygen in the form of love and care. It tastes like blood and it smells of cigar smoke and alcohol and he does not, has never, and will never want to be here. "What the hell have you gotten yourself into, boy?" Kurt's voice again, this time terrified but no less raving mad. It runs Charles' blood cold. He continues to tremble.  
  
Erik doesn't know if Charles has to concentrate to project for him, but his response is nonetheless immediate, not in words but in a string of concepts. Some of them are Orders, which need no translation, and some are statements, but all are flexed with the type of Will that Kurt has never experienced before; a rending cold snap through the whole manor. Charles is not obligated to answer Kurt if he does not deign to speak to him with respect. It is imminently obvious right now that Erik has all the cards in this room, but he does not act out any more than he has to, to ensure that Charles is safe. But he _will_ , that is very clear, if Kurt Marko continues to disrespect and insult him. If he wants to remain in control of himself, he will address Charles as _Dr. Xavier_ and be as polite as he is _capable_ of being. If he doesn't, Erik will step in. He will not threaten Charles or aggress against him while he is in this house.  
  
Charles is aware of it happening. He can feel it. He's fairly sure he projected it, which is the way he'd intended for it to work - when Erik wished for something to be projected, with Charles as what was essentially a conduit. He doesn't know how long he stands there, still sick and shaking, reeling with everything in this room. His mother speaks up first, surprisingly. "Charles?" Her voice is cracking, and this time not with disgust. "Would you like a drink?" Charles doesn't think his mother has ever offered him something like that. He swallows around the thick lump in his throat. "No, Mother. Thank you." He could have made her frightened of him years ago if he wanted this. He could have inspired this in Kurt Marko, silence and seething rage covered by terror and compliance. It isn't satisfying as he'd imagined. It never could have been. There's a particularly loud crack of thunder, and he jumps, skittish and on edge, staring at the floor as he listens to Kurt Marko's thoughts. _\- freaks run with freaks, should have offed him when I had the chance/worthless like his father, always getting in the way/get him alone to sign those papers -_  
  
Erik doesn't really care if it's satisfying-that's not the reason why he's doing this. He could, if he wanted to, be cruel in this moment, really play on Kurt's terror and force him to feel every wretched thought he's had about Charles back twenty-fold, paper cranes infinitely constructed and cutting on sharp, sliced edges. He doesn't. He ensures that Kurt won't hurt Charles, and that Kurt won't insult him, and then he leaves them to do as they will. Connected as they are, Erik is privy to Kurt's thoughts as well, and he believes he knows what it's about. But Charles will never be alone. He will never be alone again. _You do not need to listen to that,_ Erik tells him and gently bids him to shut the door on them. Kurt will never be able to isolate him and hurt him again. The thunder melts through his body like warm butter and he wraps that sensation around Charles.  
  
Charles never expected it to be satisfying. They were idle, childish fantasies, of turning all that cruelty around and overcoming it entirely. No more serious or sincerely felt than his wish for Cain Marko to disappear off the face of the Earth, be wiped from existence. He'd never actually wanted it. This isn't about what he wants. His legs are still shaking and his ankle is starting to ache, so he leans against one of the chairs. He doesn't sit, because that's far too comfortable a position for the moment, but he at least stops standing in the middle of the room. His mother makes another attempt. "Charles, dear, are you sure you wouldn't like a drink?" He manages one of her smiles. "I really am alright, Mother, but thank you. I don't drink alcohol." And she meant something alcoholic. She's standing by a cart that he's absolutely positive has vodka and whiskey and rum but no water. Perhaps if Erik weren't here, he would have gotten absolutely sloshed to handle this. But he is. Kurt snorts. He supposes that's not covered under insult, but it still tenses Charles right up again. "Make your mother a drink," he grunts. Charles says "yes, sir" before he registers it, not because he's Ordered but because - because - and goes to do as he's bid. Inside, he cracks into a thousand pieces. He's only ever wanted to call Erik that. He doesn't want it to be ruined. Please don't let it be ruined.  
  
Following behind, Erik wraps his arms around Charles's waist and rests his chin on the top of his head. _Atzor_ , he wraps those thoughts up in his Will and dissolves them. Nothing is ruined. He will never allow it to be. Finding he can; finding he can reach inside all of the panicked places and bring peace into Charles's neurons and molecules. _Sit_ , he guides Charles to do so, across from Kurt and Sharon and not beside them, and then takes their glasses, looking into Charles's memories for what they prefer and making it expertly. He brings it over when they're finished and holds them out.  
  
The silence after that is deafening, punctuated by rumbling thunder and the wind whistling against the windows. The lights flicker, and his mother sighs. Charles wants to fold his hands into his lap, but his cast prevents it, so he lays them on top of each other instead and counts his own breaths. "We've decided to have the funeral in Westchester," his mother says, and he isn't looking, but it's noticeably after a long draw of whiskey. She's starting to slur her words more. She'll go down for an 'afternoon nap' soon. It's likely why she hasn't realized she's already told him this. "It will be lovely, don't you think, dear?" He isn't sure who she's talking to. Lovely is not the word he would use. His eyes are in his own lap. "Yes, Mother," he says, because Kurt says nothing. He feels her choosing her words around the buzz of intoxication. "I did not realize you were... inclined this way, Charles." _Inclined_ this - ah. A euphemism. Quaint. "Yes, well," is what comes out of his mouth. Discussing the finer points of his sexuality with his mother and abusive stepfather is not on his to-do list. "Hm," she says. Kurt grunts. Charles waits for the floor to do its job and just devour him already.  
  
Erik snorts under his breath and returns to Charles's side, sitting next to him in a single graceful movement with his back straight, and he leans against the cushion when he's settled, bringing his bad leg up to cross over his good, holding it in place with his left hand and tugging Charles against him slightly to rest where they can remain in contact. Unlike Kurt, everything from Erik's posture to his expression to his actions is effortlessly Dominant, and when Sharon looks at him, he merely arches an eyebrow at her as if shrugging. He resists the urge to actually shrug. Something about her is still deeply, deeply unsettling to him but being in her proximity has muted it, being able to feel her from Charles's perspective has muted it. The disgust and contempt are largely gone, even while she wears that white dress.  
  
That white dress that rides up more every time she shifts. Charles does everything not to notice that she's piss drunk and falling apart at her perfectly manicured seams, like he always has. He leans against Erik, drawing on his Will for comfort. For guidance. For everything he still has. "We have shrimp cocktail," Sharon offers. "Shellfish allergy," he reminds her, and does his best to smile apologetically. She raises an eyebrow. "Since when, dear?" _Oh, I don't know, Mother. My entire bloody life._ _But you wouldn't know, would you, when you weren't at the hospital when my throat closed the first time._ "It's new," he mutters dryly. She nods as if that makes sense. "Well, alright." She pauses. "Have you seen the news? Dreadful. Mutants, is it? What nonsense." It's airy, a filler. She doesn't have an actual opinion on it. She's regurgitating words she's heard spoken around her. She hasn't read a news article, or even watched a full coverage program. There are no dots connected, even when he and Cain are two of them. It's, to him, one of his mother's worst qualities. "I am a mutant, Mother," he reminds her. Sharon blinks, and then she scowls. "Charles, don't be ridiculous. You are not." Charles exhales through his nose.  
  
Erik well and truly pities her, and it's this that lets Charles know that Erik feels none of it for him. It's cloying and sweet and saccharine. He's seen creatures like her before, so utterly broken by their circumstances that they wander through their existences blissed out and uncomprehending, the people who would never survive, nothing but skin hanging off a skeleton. At first you want to help them, but they're beyond help, so all you can do is ignore them while they are herded to their death like panicked sheep. For some reason that's what he thinks about when he looks at Sharon, because like her, those people-he'd pitied them, through no real fault of their own, they weren't reminiscent of human beings any longer, they were beyond saving. Erik blinks the images away, unsure why that's coming up now. Sharon Marko is waifish and thin but she's still red and relatively healthy looking (a little _too_ red mind you). Pity, it's all pity. Whatever happened to her that led her to this, there is nothing that can be done for it. Certainly not by Charles. In a way he pities Kurt, too, because these are two people who will never know joy, and despite their best efforts, they could not stamp it out in Charles.  
  
One day, someday soon, in all likelihood, she's going to drink herself to death. Then Charles won't have been able to save her, either. "So, Mark," Sharon says, all pleasantries, and crosses her legs again. "Where are you from?" "Erik," he corrects, and smiles when he wants to grit his teeth. "His name is Erik, Mother." She blinks. "Oh, my mistake. Charles, is that truly the collar you're going to wear?" Her voice cracked again. He takes a sharp breath. His mother's collar is an ornate, diamond-encrusted necklace monstrosity and worth more than his apartment and almost everything in it. It was one of the first things Kurt dug into the Xavier money for. Overcompensating. "Yes," he says simply, and rests his hand over it. He will not be ashamed. He won't.  
  
He touches his fingers over Charles's, stroking at the skin underneath his collar for a moment, letting Charles feel his sense of pride instead of their twin resentments playing in stereo; because that is what it is. They both recognize very clearly that Charles has something they never will. Jealousy is an ugly burden. _Tel Aviv,_ he answers the question anyway, drawing attention back to himself with a faint smile.  
  
His mother had an equivalent secondary school education to him. He still watches her struggle to place the city, whether because she's drunk or otherwise, and he takes another heavy breath. "Israel, Mother," he informs her, as kindly as possible. It's almost funny.  
  
She purses her lips. "Oh, how nice." Charles bristles again. She goes on. "So are you -"  
  
That anger is getting closer to the surface. It's not at all buffeted by Kurt's silent contributions. "Jewish. He's Jewish, yes." And queer and poor and absolutely perfect.  
  
"Charles was baptized," his mother feels the need to add, as if it's at all relevant.  
  
That's _enough_. "Charles hasn't stepped foot in a Church in fifteen years and can speak perfectly well for himself, thank you very much," and he turns her blinding smile right back on her. Sharon's eyes widen and she says nothing. Alright, perhaps there's a bit of satisfaction.  
  
Erik really, _really_ struggles not to laugh out loud. It echoes between them instead, a silent chuckle. _I was told if I entered a church that I would be struck with lightning, so baptism is unfortunately out of the question._ He plays with the ends of Charles's hair that are curled up at his nape, unconscious and doting.  
  
"That's enough," Kurt interjects, and he sounds like he's choking. The thunder nearly drowns him out. "Sharon, tell him what we've decided." Charles can always feel when lower-level Dominants Order, because it feels not at all unlike children asserting authority they do not actually have.  
  
Sharon, ever-dutiful, flashes that disingenuous smile. "We've decided you need to be bonded, Charles, dear," she informs him.  
  
Charles blinks. "Excuse me?"  
  
His mother tilts her head, and he hates that he notes he does the exact same thing when he's confused or imploring. "To a Dominant. You're well past the age for it, and we've been dreadfully worried. We feel it's in your best interests to make the arrangement, as I was first bonded to your father."  
  
He balks, aware his mouth is as wide as Kurt's was earlier. "Mother, that's absurd -"  
  
"Charles, please," she sighs, face pinched as if he's being unreasonable. Naughty, naughty Charles.  
  
"No, absolutely not," he says, and stands to his feet. "This is not the _1800s_ , Mother, you can't _give_ me away."  
  
"That's not yours to decide," Kurt snarls.  
  
Charles stares. His protest gets caught in his throat.

* * *

_I am afraid that it is,_ Erik returns calmly, rising to his feet behind Charles. Even in silence the projection of his voice settles inside their minds, drowning out protest, drowning out thunder. When _Erik_ Orders people, it feels much like a crack of lightning, spreading branching dust-patterns of Lichtenberg scars over the atmosphere, feathery and fern-like, imprints on electrons.  
  
Charles shivers at that one, Erik's Will sinking underneath his skin and electrifying every cell of him until he's a live current for his Dominance. Kurt is catching flies again. His mother looks green in the face. He turns himself until he's resting against Erik, tucked into his body. _Thank you, Erik,_ he whispers, only for him, because he would not have gotten through this unscathed without him. He would have endured, but unscathed? Absolutely not. The room is silent again except for the storm outside. Kurt thinks should have killed him and Charles feels like he's going to be sick again.  
  
_Always_ , Erik returns, drowning that thought out, too. Kurt should have killed Charles, because it's the only way that this could ever have turned out like he wanted. It's the only way he ever could have destroyed this soul, but he didn't do that. And he didn't win. And he never will. Bully for Kurt Marko. Erik closes the door again. Charles does not owe Cain anything. He does not need to play posh and dutiful heir. He is a grown adult who can make his own decisions. Erik's looking for a single, solid, good reason for Charles to be here other than his own sense of propriety and with every passing comment from these people Erik comes dangerously close to Ordering their leave. What consequences could possibly be worse than continuing to endure this. Charles makes enough money on his own to support himself, the mansion and his inheritance are his without interference. What reason do they have to still be standing here listening to this.  
  
_It's what's right,_ is Charles' immediate answer, not a single beat of hesitance. He's pressed tightly into Erik's side. _I am her son, flesh and blood. They raised me._  
  
_They did no such thing,_ Erik returns fiercely.  
  
_They did, Erik. They could have thrown me out. They did not._ Because they needed him. Because Kurt Marko knew that Charles was Brian Xavier's rightful heir, and throwing him out on the streets would do less for him than keeping him around for as long as he was useful. Until he could make him forfeit his right to everything. It doesn't matter. _It's what's right,_ he repeats.  
  
_They no more raised you than Sebastian Shaw raised me_ , Erik says, and it's firm enough to almost leave no room for argument even if it's not an Order. _They are not responsible for any of the goodness in you. You did that yourself, despite their best efforts._ And Erik finds he doesn't give a damn about what's right. If this is right then he would rather be wrong.  
  
_They're not the same._ Charles' eyes are closed and he's trembling. _It wasn't like that all the time,_ he insists. It was. It absolutely, literally was. _They were - they tried their best. It was my fault._  
  
_That is false. They tried nothing. A child is not capable of making an adult do anything they don't want to do. It was ridiculous of me to allow this._  
  
_No, it - I have to be here._ He's finding it hard to breathe. Charles is no longer thinking like Charles, or perhaps he is, but not the Charles Erik knows. _I killed his son, I have to be here. He deserves to hate me. He deserves to beat me. I deserve it._ He's thinking of that Posture. He's thinking of a whip, nothing like the one used against Erik but nonetheless enough to break skin and the cause of those raised scars on his own back. He's thinking of Cain holding his wrists down and snarling Scream all you like, bitch boy, no one's coming for you while his mother walked by in the hall. _I deserve it._  
  
_No. You don't._ Erik shakes his head quite suddenly. _And we're leaving._ He doesn't bid Kurt and Sharon to stand, either. He doesn't say it's been a pleasure meeting you both or even really acknowledge them at all as he leads Charles back into the hall. _We've given our condolences. Put your shoes on._ He should have recognized this for what it was, but he hadn't.  
  
Charles puts his shoes on while the panic beats at him like the thunder outside, beneath the skin and full-body. He hiccups, and something like a sob comes out. _We can't go_ , he protests. _Let me go back. I need to be there. I need to. It's my duty._  
  
_No_ , Erik murmurs and it's soft. _You do not need to be here. You never need to come back here again._ He slips Charles's coat on over his shoulders. _You owe them nothing. He wishes you were dead. Your mother doesn't even know you are alive. There are a great many people on this Earth who deserve your respect and allegiance. They are not among them._ The door opens with a tug of Erik's power and he guides Charles outside, still protecting them from the elements.  
  
There's no car here, so they stand out in the rain. Under normal circumstances he would be fascinated by the show of Erik's power. Now he's panicked, and he shakes his head. _No. No, I have to go back. I have to go back, Erik, let me go back right now, let me go back -_  
  
"I said **_no_**." Erik's voice echoes roughly from where it erupts out of his throat, raspy and hoarse from disuse and still-soft, but somehow louder than all the thunder in the sky. His Will is more immense than Charles can ever remember feeling it. "I said no," he repeats the Order, achingly calm, and leads Charles to start walking down the sidewalk. _And I am your Dominant. You have only to do what I ask of you._  
  
Charles snaps into place immediately. When he's more coherent, when the tide of traumatized thoughts and instincts recede, he will recognize that this is exactly what he needs. That Erik's Dominance, and his submission to it, to him, has given him something he has struggled for years to give himself. That Erik truly does know what he needs, and that he will not hesitate to give it to him, no matter how much Charles fights it. His body knows it, and the rational part of his mind knows it. "Yes, Erik," he sniffles, and follows, head bowed. What's right - there's nothing more right than obeying Erik unless he absolutely cannot, is there? Isn't that what he's supposed to do?  
  
"Come here," Erik Orders of him gently and leads him to wrap his arms around his neck. It isn't necessary because Erik is a projection, but it will help ease the fear of what he's about to do, it will help make it more coherent an experience _. Step up onto my feet. Hold on tightly._  
  
Charles doesn't question it, not because he's incapable, but because he's not all there. He's shaky, and hurting, and his mind is storming as much as this part of the Tri-State is. "Yes, Erik," he says again, and does what he's told.  
  
It undoubtedly takes Charles a long moment to realize what happens next as well, but he's _hovering_ off the ground. The rain and wind are thudding against the spherical shield surrounding them, muffled as though through the window of an old, creaky house on a stormy night. And then Charles is flying, _soaring_ straight up into the air.

* * *

Which is completely fascinating and all kinds of impressive, but perhaps not the best thing when he's moments away from a panic attack. Charles gasps, immediately sick and terrified where he might have been amazed otherwise - definitely would have been amazed - his whole body shaking as he holds on for dear life and hides, as much as he can, in Erik. He trusts Erik won't let him fall. He's not afraid of his mutation or any of its applications. He is not mentally prepared to fully process this.  
  
"I will always be here to take you away from anything that will harm you," Erik tells him, and his voice echoes around the sphere. He guides Charles to sit down on the transparent floor that he can feel underneath him, cross-legged, with Erik's hands on his knees. _Al tira! You are about to join battle with your enemy. Let not your courage falter._ The enemy is inside them. It always was. But Erik is beside him, before him, and he will not let Charles falter.  
  
Charles doesn't want to look. He doesn't want to notice. He keeps his eyes firmly closed, and denies himself the joy of this, denies himself the wonder of this, denies himself everything. There are tears in his eyes, but how can he be sure they aren't raindrops? There's panic in his chest, but how can he be sure it's not thunder? He wraps his arms around himself and locks up. If he cut Erik off now, he would plummet to his death. But bully for Kurt Marko, Charles has always wanted to believe that he deserves to exist. He doesn't always manage, but he always wants to.  
  
"I won't let you do that," Erik murmurs. Because he promised Charles that he would keep him safe, and protect him, and love him. And he won't let him cut himself off from that. He moves closer to Charles's side and takes him in his arms. _You deserve to exist. You deserve to be alive. I want you to be alive. I want you to live. I respect you, and I love you, and I know you have always done the best you can do. Now it is time to go home._  
  
Charles is still in Erik's arms, his eyes closed and his stomach sick. He doesn't say a word. He doesn't think a word. He goes limp.  
  
Erik takes him home, above the water and the traffic they zip across the grey, foggy sky, and leads him to his feet so that he can touch down to the ground when they land next to Raven's. Both Hank and Raven have gone to work and Erik lets them in.  
  
Charles doesn't move. He doesn't open his eyes. He's trembling, but maybe it's adrenaline and maybe it's not. His side of the connection is not just quiet, not just incoherent, not just panicked or scattered or numbed. It's completely silent.  
  
He nudges Charles up the stairs, struggling not to panic himself. _Please come back,_ he says, touching near his eyes.

* * *

Something happens instead, halfway up the stairs. Something pulls on Erik's consciousness and tugs. It would be disorienting for anyone, especially for someone like Erik who's already split between places. When the world reforms, he's no longer in Hank and Raven's apartment. It's a recognizable place, one that should be immediately familiar. He's in the hallway of the manor, stood in front of the open doorway to Charles' bedroom. There are sniffling sounds coming from underneath the covers of that large four-poster bed.  
  
Before he can process what's going on fully, he's moving on his feet toward the bed, knows instinctively where he is and what's happening and he draws the covers back with his abilities, a gentle pull as he sits down next to the figure.  
  
It's Charles, but not. His face is much younger, more boyish. He hasn't grown into it yet, his body more scrawny and thin-framed than the muscle he's managed to build as an adult, more awkward and clumsy than assured and graceful. The eyes are the same, that bright azure Erik adores, though rimmed with red from crying and marred by fear. The moment Erik tugs away the blankets he's stumbling back on the bed, eyes wide and heart pounding in his chest. He's naked underneath the covers. Along his back are angry, vicious marks, overlayed on top of bruises and fading welts. They're fresh and bleeding, dug deep into the skin. Careless and violent.  
  
Having only initially intended to tug them down enough to see his face, realizing he was unclothed, Erik gives them back and wraps the younger Charles up delicately, careful of the marks. He holds out his hands palm-up in placation, his smile gentle. "Hello there," he murmurs softly.  
  
Charles sniffles, rubbing at his eyes with the blanket. He seems mostly unfazed that there's a strange man in his bedroom, wrapped up tight and shivering. It hurts to move too much. "Hi," he whispers back, voice hoarse from crying, and blinks up at him owlishly. He looks ready to bolt at any moment.  
  
Erik climbs very slowly to sit up next to him by the headboard, not reaching for him, or making any sudden movement. His Will is totally withdrawn right now, but as a telepath Charles can feel it there, resting up like a spool wound around and around Erik's own body so that it doesn't filter out; which is peculiar because every other Dominant bursts with all the Will they can muster up, throws it out into the world and begs the world to bend to their desires. "My name is Erik," he says, eyes crinkled slightly.  
  
"Charles Xavier," he says immediately, more a kneejerk instinct at this point than an actual introduction. He offers up a small, watery smile, looking impossibly young and fragile compared to the man Erik knows. "This isn't real, is it?" he whispers, because even as a memory, even as a fragment of Charles' consciousness, he's quick on his feet and smart as a whip. He understands the world in ways most could never hope to, his eyes pooled with wisdom well beyond his years.  
  
"No, _neshama_. It is not, but I am." He holds out his good hand. A promise that it will not be like this forever. Regardless what form Charles took, what fragment he encountered, Erik could not contain his love the way he could contain his Will. It spills out even now, fond and affectionate and piercing.  
  
Charles sits up further in the bed. He whimpers quietly at the pain, rubbing at his eyes again, and takes Erik's hand. Even this fragment of him understands that Erik loves him, and that he will take care of him. "What does that word mean?" he asks, and it should be achingly familiar territory. Charles has never lost his childlike curiosity for all things, his thirst for knowledge. "I don't speak that language," he admits, embarrassed as he ducks his head into the blankets. He also hasn't learned how to properly hone his telepathy for that yet.  
  
"You will," Erik grins at him, his own eyes bright. He folds up Charles's fingers in his now-even-larger hand, rubbing his thumb over his knuckles. There is no derision for his lack of knowledge, nor any expectation that he should know. His comment is true, somehow. Charles will know it. Erik loves him, and he will speak Erik's language too, one day. "It means soul. You see," he keeps talking, as though he's telling Charles a bedtime story. "The soul is divided into three parts. _Nefesh_ , which is life. _Ruach_ , which is wind. _Neshama_ , which is reasoning."  
  
"Oh," Charles whispers, impossibly quiet. It's not storming here, the manor silent in the dead of night, only disturbed by Charles' crying before and now their voices. He thinks that over. "I'm important to you, then," he decides. He doesn't mean him. He means whoever he will be, whoever he intuitively knows Erik will love. "Do I love you, too?" It's such an innocent question, an entirely earnest one.  
  
"Very important," Erik says, and he shakes his head. "Now and always." His eyebrows come together as a spike of sorrow clutches at his heart, and he shoves it back down with a swallow. Down his esophagus and into the hollow vitreous fluid holding his organs where it's muffled. "You do," he nods, smiling again. "At least, you will. Some day." His answer is confident but not expectant.  
  
Charles huffs, reminiscent of his older self. He picks at some fuzz on his blankets, the pout on his lips the same, too. "No one really likes me now," he mumbles, sullen. "Except my sister. My sister loves me, but -" But she doesn't understand me. It's not projected, but Erik will know him enough to fill in the blanks. "Will I meet you soon?" he asks, and looks up with that infinite hope shining in his eyes. The hope that never truly got drained out of him. If it ever did, Charles would cease to exist.  
  
Erik carefully pulls Charles against him until he's resting against Erik's side, putting one arm around him as lightly as possible to avoid chafing the cuts and bruises. "I wish that you would," he says instead of lying. "I would have loved to meet you now."  
  
Charles sighs at that. That doesn't seem fair to him. He already feels like he's waited forever. He hums, thinking of his next question. "Do you know..." His voice is impossibly hushed, deliberately so now. The way one talks about the most delicate secrets. "Do you know about the voices?"  
  
"Do you mean your telepathy?" Erik asks, tapping his own temple with a smile. "I do. Your mutation is beautiful."  
  
Charles makes a face, nose scrunched up. "It is not," he argues, that same tone he uses with Erik when he's older. "It's the worst and everyone is afraid of it. I hate it." He truly means it, too. "I wish it would just go away."  
  
"People are afraid of things they do not understand," Erik says softly. "I know that you have had to deal with listening to thoughts that are not pleasant. If I could take that from you, I would. I am a mutant, too," his eyebrows raise playfully.  
  
That gets his attention. Charles' eyes widen, wonder and excitement written all over his face. "What can you do?" he asks, bright-eyed all of a sudden, perhaps less tactfully than he would have at twenty-seven.  
  
It makes Erik laugh, gentle. "I can manipulate subatomic particles, specifically electrons. At your age, though, it was just metal." He raises his free hand and calls up a tiny ball-bearing from an abandoned toy in the back of Charles's closet, and it hovers between them. He shapes it into a small, delicate rose of intricate design and holds it out. "For you."  
  
Charles gasps, all of that wide-eyed wonder he still has years later. "That's incredible!" he exclaims, and reaches out for the flower like he's afraid he might break it. Like he isn't allowed. He cradles it in his palm, looking at it much the same he will fourteen years later. "Your mutation is beautiful. Mine's just a curse," he sighs, frowning again.  
  
"I promise you that is not all it will be," Erik's voice is low, soft. "You will do incredible things with your gift, Charles. You will save lives. You will know happiness. I swear it to you."  
  
Charles clearly doesn't believe it, but he wants to. He goes back to picking at the blankets wrapped all around him. "Does it always hurt?" he asks. He taps his temple. "I always have a headache, especially at school." It's maybe ridiculous to mention it when he's covered in bleeding marks, but this one is a sign of his curse.  
  
"You do experience pain, but not always," Erik answers, both about the headache and the marks. He won't lie to Charles, even as a child, but he can be tactful when he needs it. "I imagine school must be difficult for you." He doesn't mean academically, of course, but simply due to what Charles mentioned just now; his abilities, the constant awareness of everyone else's scattered thoughts, their undeveloped impressions.  
  
Charles is sullen again, his frown deepening. "I don't have any friends," he whispers, staring down at the flower Erik made him. He unconsciously projects, and it seems his telepathy is exactly as undeveloped as it should be at this age; an unsteady, disorienting stutter-image, accompanied with an appropriate amount of static and nausea. Charles alone during a free period, pretending to read while he watches everyone else talk and laugh amongst themselves. It's tinged with loneliness and shame. He and Raven are in different grades. He feels utterly alone. It's something Charles has never shown Erik, the loneliness of his school days insignificant to his adult self.  
  
Erik doesn't seem surprised by it. It's a natural conclusion to draw. Charles was always smarter than his classmates, in a higher curriculum, dealing with issues that most children could not understand even disregarding telepathy and mutation. "You will," he promises again. "Your peers aren't capable of the maturity they'd need to truly relate with you, but that will even itself out in time. I did not have any friends, either, when I was younger."  
  
He's still frowning, radiating unhappiness, still projecting without meaning to. There's just a tiny glimmer of pride peeking through, dimmed by how hollow it is in comparison. "I'm skipping another grade," he tells Erik. It's the only thing he has, besides Raven. His studies. His books.  
  
"What grade will you be in?" Erik asks, and it's not simply obliging; his interest is genuine, his urge to reach out and comfort at a near fever pitch. He remains perfectly still, though, his arm draped loosely over Charles's shoulder.  
  
"Tenth, technically, but I'm taking some college classes," he answers, and smiles shyly. "I still have to take some ninth grade classes, too. I think it's all a little unfair, but they said so." He pauses, and realizes maybe Erik doesn't know how old he is. "I just turned thirteen," he adds, and sounds proud of it the way any child who just became a teenager does. He should be going into eighth grade. His mother and Kurt Marko were married officially only months ago.  
  
Erik smiles back, nose wrinkling in amusement when he says that it's unfair. Maybe so, but going the slow route wasn't always a bad thing. "That's extremely impressive," he says and it's sincere. "What is your favorite subject?"  
  
"I like science. All science," he replies without hesitation, which should come as no surprise. Then he tilts his head, considering. "But I like English classes, too. It's just that I've read all the books we're assigned, so it can get a bit boring. I like to read." He stares down at the blankets again. "That's what I got in trouble for today," he whispers.  
  
"Reading?" Erik clarifies, inhaling quietly through his nose. "Can you tell me what happened?"  
  
Charles nods, but he's clearly receded into himself, tense and clammed up. "I was reading, so I didn't hear him when he called for me," he admits, and sounds thoroughly ashamed of it despite the fact that it's near impossible to hear someone calling from downstairs up into Charles' bedroom. It's just the nature of the mansion, how it's built, the distance between. "He said the next time it happened, he'd burn all my books. I didn't mean to ignore him," he adds, lip wobbling. He sounds like he might cry again.  
  
Erik drops his hand to Charles's shoulder, squeezing gently. "I know you didn't," he breathes, barely audible. "And so does he. One day you will look back at this and see him for what he is." And Erik doesn't mean when Charles is an adult, the Charles that Erik is familiar with. Because even that Charles doesn't know yet. Not really. "You try your best. That is all anyone reasonable can expect of you. You're a good child, Charles. I promise you that."  
  
This Charles sniffles, but even now, in true child fashion, he pouts. "I'm not a child, I'm a teenager," he protests. He's obviously trying to hold back tears, his chin tucked in tightly to his chest. When he brings his legs up under the blanket, he's effectively formed a protective ball, something Erik has seen Charles do even as an adult. "He says it's for my own good. That it's the only way I'll learn to be - to be a good submissive," he says, quiet and ashamed.  
  
"Well, to me, even teenagers are children." Erik smiles at him, and nods once when he speaks again, expecting that; but it doesn't make it any less painful to hear from this image of Charles. "He is a liar. Your submission is defined by yourself and the person to whom you bond as a Dominant. It is no one else's business."  
  
Charles buries his face in the blanket to hide the fact that he's crying again, trembling and shivering. "Am I old like you, when you meet me?" he asks, and it's muffled by fabric, but there's that classic Charles snark.  
  
"Yes, Charles," Erik has to laugh. _Old like you._ "We are the same age, roughly."  
  
Charles peeks up from his blankets. When the question comes, it's fairly heartbreaking, given the circumstances. "Does it get better soon?"  
  
Erik's eyes flutter shut for a split second longer than an ordinary blink, and he touches the back of two fingers to Charles's cheek. "I wish that it did. If this were real, I would take you far away from here."  
  
Charles sighs, hiding his face again. "Why are you here, and not with older me?" he asks, and that curiosity is back.  
  
"The older you is with me," Erik says. "In the world. I believe I am here because I am needed here."  
  
Charles considers that, humming in that thoughtful way he does, now and then. "Needed for what?"  
  
He opts for honesty, even though it mightn't make sense. "To be your friend. If you wish."  
  
It takes a moment or two, but eventually Charles smiles. That sunshine through clouds smile, small at first but then spreading over his features until his dimples show. "Yes, please," he breathes, ever polite. Besides his sister, who he loves dearly but feels responsible for, Charles has never had a friend.  
  
"Yes," Erik beams back at him, feeling his heart do a somersault in his chest. That's the reason he's really here. To elicit said smile from Charles, to bring goodness to even these horrific moments. He lifts up their joined hands and gives his a gentle squeeze as though shaking on an agreement. "Friends."  
  
Charles continues to smile as their hands drop again, shy but clearly delighted. "Will you stay for a little while, then?" he asks, hopeful. "I'd really like to ask you questions. It was only my birthday a few days ago, did you know that? Is it my birthday in the real world, too? I don't much like my birthday, but this year Raven and I did something special so it was alright. I didn't even mind that Mother forgot again, really." He did. He did mind. Very much.  
  
"I will stay for as long as you would like me to stay," Erik says, and means it with every fiber of his being. He lets Charles settle against him before answering. "It is not your birthday," Erik says, because if it were he knows Raven or Hank would mention it. He's a little embarrassed that he doesn't know Charles's birthday, but maybe Charles never mentioned it for a reason. Maybe by the time he became an adult he well and truly hated it so much that he himself forgot. Erik could sympathize. He didn't like his birthday, either. Sometimes it's a bit unfair that Charles has access to his medical records, but he doesn't have a handy list of that same information. (His already passed by the time they met. _September 18th 1991_ , his records say.)  
  
"Who's Hank?" he asks, because Charles at thirteen is still a telepath, and incredibly nosy. He's very happy Erik, who is his friend - and more, when he's the same age, he's thirteen, not an idiot - knows Raven. He worries about her so much. That must mean she's okay, and still in his life. He never wants to lose her. "It isn't July? My birthday is July 13th. Why do I have access to your medical records? Are you ill?" He frowns, worried about Erik now.  
  
"Oh," Erik starts laughing and makes a mental note to shield himself very carefully here. "It is April," he says. His mind automatically supplies _Nisan 14_ and _thank G-d for potatoes, peas and NG phosphates._ "Hank is your sister's husband. He has a physical mutation similar to hers. He is very blue, and furry." Erik conjures up a picture of Hank's toothy grin. "I am not ill, do not worry. It is simply part of your job when you're older."  
  
Charles eyes go almost comically wide. He grips tight at that image of Hank, beyond excited about it. "Oh, that's brilliant," he breathes, and tears immediately spring to his eyes. He wants that for Raven so badly. To know that she found it is the best reassurance he could ever receive. By the time he gets to the next part, he's equally as intrigued. "Part of my job? Am I a doctor?" He's never fancied himself a doctor, necessarily, but it wouldn't be a bad job. "I can't decide if I want to study biology or physics or psychology at university," he admits sheepishly. All three, is the answer, young Charles. You'll study all three, at the same time, and somehow manage three degrees in two years. He truly has no idea what he's capable of yet.  
  
"You are," Erik returns, grinning back. "As far as I know you completed courses of study in all of those subjects." He may even have more than one doctorate, but Erik doesn't know that for sure, he just suspects it. "I know that you attended Oxford university and graduated with an MD when you were 23, which is very young even for a first degree, let alone your fourth." He sounds almost proud.  
  
Two PhDs and one MD. A total of six degrees, two rigorous higher-level graduate courses, one requiring medical school, by 23. Though this Charles doesn't know it, it's as if the world whispers it to Erik, as if Charles - his Charles - is watching, informing him. This Charles, freshly thirteen, gapes as if it is beyond comprehension. "I go to Oxford?" he gasps. "I thought - well, I thought I'd go to Harvard, maybe, I hadn't considered Oxford..." This is the beginning of Charles' life with the Markos, not the end. Harvard is four hours away. Oxford is across an ocean. It does not take much thought to guess why a slightly older Charles made the choice he did.  
  
"I am sure you considered them both when you made your decision," Erik says diplomatically. He doesn't know the difference between them, and he barely knows where Oxford _is_ let alone how it stacks up against Harvard. Erik's lucky he knows how to _read_.  
  
Charles blinks, picking up on that. "Oxford is consistently ranked the best global university, it's located in England," he murmurs, offhand, "Harvard is about third, it slips around with Yale and Stanford - I'm sorry, where are you from?" He knows his older self must know all of this, but he doesn't. "Did you... not go to school?" He doesn't sound judgmental, just fiercely curious and hoping not to offend by asking something Erik did not want him to hear. "I thought maybe we had met at school," he admits, because - well, admittedly he'd been thinking about all the ways it could have happened. How he could have met a man who calls him _neshama_ and wants to be his friend.  
  
"That must be why you went there," Erik laughs gently. "I simply take for granted how intelligent you really are, sometimes. A common theme in your life, surely." He answers the first question, "I am from Israel, from the _Negev_ ," and everything about that is tightly reeled in to desert and sun and sky and laughter and houseplants. The second question is slightly more complicated. "I was homeschooled. We met because I caused an accident with my mutation. You are helping me to fix it."  
  
"Oh." Charles bites his lip, another habit that carried into adulthood. He smiles. "Israel. Have I been?" He means his older self. "I imagine it's beautiful." Erik can feel him hanging onto those images, his telepathy clumsy and teenage-awkward, a bit like tugging too hard. "I've never been to a place with a desert. I burn very easily in the sun," he says, sheepish. He still does.  
  
Everything good he has he gives, and nothing moves beyond that. Unfolds the images so Charles can find his feet on the ground and smell the thunder in the air and watch lizards scrambling under rocks and bent up trees and running galoshes in mud as rain pelts, cups of thick red coffee and baked _challah_ wafting down the dirt road. "You haven't," he says, "but you know Hebrew now. I imagine someday you will go there with me. We'll sell out the sunscreen company."  
  
Charles blinks. "Oh!" It's genuine shock. It's not only because he isn't at all used to someone who understands his telepathy enough to do something like this for him, but also because - "I've been here before," he says, and he's certain of it, eyebrows scrunched together. This is definitely not something Erik's Charles has mentioned, though he's seen the same images.  
  
Erik goes gravely still. "Here-as in, Israel? Perhaps I misspoke, I simply assumed you hadn't."  
  
"Well - I haven't. Been to Israel." Charles ducks his head, deeply embarrassed, and chews on his lip. "It's just... I've had dreams. Exactly like that. I always forget my dreams, but - no, I'm sure of it. I've dreamed of that place."  
  
"What did you dream?" Erik asks, forcing his voice even. Thinking perhaps this is the point at which the old and young are converging.  
  
Charles squirms much like the older Charles does, red with embarrassment in much the same way, too. "I don't have them anymore," he says. "I only got them for a little while. I dreamed of that place, and a boy, and... just images, really. Silly dreams. I don't remember them much when I wake up." He shrugs.  
  
Silly dreams. Erik's relief is nearly a physical entity. But now he is definitely curious. "Did he look like this?" he conjures up an image of himself, ten years old with a mop of red curls wearing a baggy Pink Floyd T-shirt chasing after an older girl with darker features who's playing a game of keep-away with him (" _HA! Lochedet li ilu atah mesugal!_ " " _Ruthie! Atzor! Chozeret kan!_ ") and waving the Frisbee about mockingly.  
  
Charles' eyes widen, and he nods, grinning brightly. "That's him!" Older-Charles has seen Younger-Erik, but Erik would get the impression that this is not, in fact, the old converging with the young. This is something entirely different. "I saw him when I was first... when I first heard the voices," he sighs, making a face at the reminder of his own budding telepathy. "I always tried talking to him, but he never answered me." Charles pouts, as if he finds that very rude.  
  
The boy has the same vivid green eyes as Erik in front of him, the same smattering of freckles dusting his nose and under his eyes. The same lines and angles. Erik's hair darkened with time, more dishwater than auburn (the red's more obvious when he grows a beard, though he's clean-shaven now), but it's still there. He doesn't expect Charles to recognize him, he's much younger then than Charles is now. "If he heard you," Erik whispers, his voice coming out like a croak, and he clears his throat apologetically. "He would have answered."  
  
"Oh." Charles blinks, and understands. But then again, he doesn't. "But..." They hadn't met yet. Charles had no reason to dream of Erik, who lived in Israel, across an ocean and a good five-thousand miles distance. "How is it possible?" he asks, that fierce, insistent curiosity.  
  
"I don't know," Erik says, giving a little shrug. "You mentioned that this happened when you first manifested, so I think maybe over the years you learned to block away your telepathy-but you could always theoretically do things like that." And that Charles would seek him of all people out even back then, did make sense. He's the only D5 in Charles's age group likely on the planet today. At ten years old he was just beginning to manifest his Will, just beginning to terrify his teachers and worry his parents.  
  
Charles' eyes widen again, and he gasps. "You're a D5?" He's practically bouncing on the bed with excitement now. It's childlike glee, nothing like the electric heat older-Charles felt when he learned, obviously, but just as strong of a reaction. His grin could split his face, almost too-big for his younger features. "I'm an S1! I thought - that's groovy," is what this young Charles settles on, and looks much more like a child than his pride would allow him to admit.  
  
Erik laughs in genuine delight at the reaction, grinning back. "I felt much the same when I first encountered you. Not many people are able to hold a full length conversation with me. It is indeed _groovy_."  
  
None of this actually happened. On this night, fourteen years ago, three days after his thirteenth birthday, Charles cried himself to sleep, completely alone, hurting, scared. But right now, he curls up into Erik's side, grinning with the dimples he never grew out of. "Thank you for being my friend, Erik," he murmurs.  
  
Erik hopes that Charles will remember this, on top of it. Maybe he can superimpose every terrible memory until there is nothing left but dimpled grins and laughter and groovy mutations. "I will always be your friend," he returns solemnly, giving Charles a very light squeeze that approximates a hug, mindful of his injuries. "Thank you for being mine."

* * *

When this Charles drifts off to sleep, lightly snoring against Erik's shoulder, another Charles, the same Charles, Erik's Charles, wakes up. Everything is hazy and disoriented for a moment, and then they are sitting against a wall in the hallway of Raven and Hank's apartment. He doesn't know how much time, if any, has passed. The storm still rages on outside, the eye of it right over them. Either way he curls himself up, right where he belongs, in Erik's chest. "Hi," he whispers.  
  
"Hi," he whispers back, touching Charles's face with his open palm. I love you. So much.  
  
Charles leans right into that touch, seeking it. Then he grins softly, eyes bright and shining, and meets Erik's gaze. Clear azure skies to sea-green waters. " _Ani ohev otcha_ ," he whispers in return.  
  
It makes him lean down and kiss Charles unprompted, a surge of affection bubbling over that he couldn't contain inside himself, spilling out in touch and sensation. He would have spent as much time with the younger fragment of Charles, as much as he wanted, but he is very grateful that his Charles returned to him, too. Charles is still in his coat, which is dry from the shield, and he wraps it up around him to provide them with even more protection from the icy wind against rattling windows.  
  
"I'll always come back to you. I belong to you," he murmurs simply, and then he blinks. There's more to unpack here, and Charles is - there's a lot that Charles is feeling, that he's grappling with. He chooses to settle on, "Did we fly home?" And now, now he's amazed.  
  
"We did," Erik nods, and then he grins, maybe just a little bit proud of himself. It's the farthest he's ever flown. It's one of the biggest things he's ever accomplished, aside from the _Shaw Institute_ , which he's hesitant to label as an accomplishment. Something he did on his own, because he wanted to do it, inspired by his own motivations and through his own circuitry. If that's the definition, it is the biggest thing he's ever accomplished.  
  
Charles shakes his head. Then he climbs into Erik's lap properly and kisses him until his head spins, until he's breathless and panting, eager and hot and just a bit messy with relief and bone-deep desire that has nothing to do with lust (well, okay, some to do with it). _You are the most magnificent, extraordinary, beautiful person I will ever have the pleasure of meeting and I am so proud to be yours, Erik,_ he says, and presses it into Erik's mind, into his heart, into his soul and his being and hopes he never forgets that this is how Charles sees him. This is how Charles loves him. And he is so, so grateful.  
  
_I'll fly you home every day. I'll fly you everywhere._ Erik's dizzy with it, his hands coming up around Charles's back, twirling in his soft hair as he sags against the wall, relaxing into it. The words Charles speaks bring tears to his eyes, which he doesn't bother to swipe away. Charles is a gift beyond any measure, and he is so pleased to learn more of him every passing moment-( _I'm sorry I didn't know your birthday-_ shame-twisting)-every reminder that Charles is his inspires an equal fervor of devotion and admiration, every touch a brand that melts and reshapes him like liquid metal. He is frequently awed and enraptured by the breadth of Charles's intelligence and competence, but more than that, what Erik values more than accomplishment at all, is his infinite well of compassion that he wields against Erik like the most insidious knife. The one weapon he has no defense against, no comprehension of, he is taken-apart from it and he would have it no other way.  
  
Charles is laughing and crying, against Erik's lips where he doesn't want to part. So he doesn't. He goes on kissing him, his tongue shy but eager, fully open, until he's moaning softly, until he's squirming in Erik's lap, until he's lightheaded. Anything you want to know, he promises. _You didn't know my birthday because I didn't tell you, but anything, all of it, it's yours. I'm yours. I'm yours, I'm yours, I'm yours_. And he presses it into Erik's mouth, too. They have the rest of their lives to learn everything there is to know about each other, and then discover more they never knew along the way.  
  
Erik coaxes his lips apart and delves inside, tasting every hitch of his breath for himself and nipping at his bottom lip playfully, soothing it with his tongue. _I love kissing you,_ he swiftly replies, mind to mind and content not breaking apart in order to speak. _Mine_ , his body and soul automatically respond, the pitch to a vibrating tuning fork, the only response he is capable of giving like breath. _Neshama_ , literally breath, a soul exhaled into a the glass vessel of personhood, carried by the wind through the atmosphere like soaring through the sky.  
  
Charles is shivering for an entirely different reason than the chill. It doesn't take long at all before he's moaning in earnest, gasping and whining for it, submitting to every nip and swipe of tongue. He takes Erik's hand and brings it up to his collar, wrapping his fingers around it and then arching just to feel it tug, eyes rolling back. He's Erik's. Erik knows what he needs, sometimes better than he does. Erik loves him. And somewhere, among the desire like thunder and the love so overwhelming it cracks like lightning, he thinks: _Ha! Now you know I'm three months older._  
  
_You're two months older!_ Erik snorts back. _July to August. August to September. I'm very protective of my extra month._ His fingertips tap lightly against Charles's collar and then grip firm, rubbing the pad of his thumb up along the bob of his Adam's apple. Then under his jaw, tilting his face up. Smirking when the action makes Charles keen against his fingertips.  
  
_Do you know the statistical probability -_ Charles becomes distracted from that train of thought when Erik continues to touch him, another low, needy breath escaping his still-parted, newly-swollen lips as he arches into it. _More, Erik, please. - the statistical probability of two Omega-level mutants, a D5 and an S1, being born two months apart like we were?_  
  
_Less than 3 in a billion people are D5s,_ Erik reasons, _and there are even fewer S1s. I don't know the rate of incidence in Omega-level mutations, but I'm guessing the odds are stacked in the range of trillions,_ he's perfectly happy to talk about math while making Charles moan into his mouth.  
  
_The world population was recently estimated at about 7.7 billion, but in 1991 when we were both born it was -_ Charles loses that thought, too, because Erik's tongue is in his mouth again and he's unconsciously wriggling in his lap, which provides some very interesting friction. \- It was 5.4 billion, so - Oh, Erik, please...  
  
Not necessarily pertinent, Erik replies, letting his hand slide down Charles's back to curl over his ass enticingly. _I can't remember the statistics for my birth year, but I do know that I was taught the 1:5 ratio in primary school, which makes 20 in 7.7 billion very recently the largest concurrent global D5 population._ And those classes had been fun, with every eye in the room trained on him as they went over the mandated _gibbush_ procedures for all registered D5s and the legality of Will as a deadly weapon of assault. Erik's dreams of being an public relations representative or, G-dwilling, a _malcontent_ who pissed the bed and deftly avoided the draft at all, were certainly pipe dreams. He was going to be thrown into an elite unit and he'd have spent the rest of his days at a classified military base. Erik snapped Charles's hands behind his back all of a sudden, holding him in place so he could have his way with him. _Please what, hm?_  
  
Charles has given up on math for the moment. He'd been working up to a statistic on mutations, but that all seems incredibly irrelevant and unimportant when he's panting and trying to rock into Erik's lap. He pouts when his hands end up behind his back, because he'd been using them to steady himself to do the grinding, but he also can't hide his enthusiastic moan. It makes his cheeks heat, that shy embarrassment Erik tugs out of him riled right up as he gasps. _Please, Erik,_ he repeats instead of answering, eyes hot. Thunder rumbles close by, and Charles shudders.  
  
Erik does, too. It's more than just a shudder, though, a short sharp crack repeating inside his body, outward-moving pulses of sonic boom! and he feels his mouth go dry and his throat stick together as a whirl of supercharged, electrified arousal struck inside him in the same split second as the sky lit up by the window, with Charles in his lap and he let out a noise reminiscent of being sucker punched in the diaphragm and then he's digging his fingers in, hard, at the exposed skin he's clasping. Completely unconscious, possibly uncomfortable. His grip relaxes immediately when he realizes and he rubs his fingers over the crescent-shaped nail marks at Charles's good wrist in apology.  
  
Except Charles has thrown his head back and moaned rather than protested the harsh treatment, squirming harder in Erik's lap in response. When he finds the right angle even without his hands for leverage he gasps louder than the next round of thunder, hips rolling boldly even as his cheeks turn redder with that shy need. He's watching Erik through half-lidded eyes and he's quickly forgetting the reasons why he shouldn't let Erik claim him in the hallway of his sister's apartment. "I'm yours," he croaks aloud. "I was born to be yours, Erik."  
  
Erik struggles to take in air, short, quickly punctuated inhales through his nose that's buried in Charles's shoulder. _Yes_ , he agrees, remembering rather suddenly that child crying on the bed just moments before, and he holds Charles still, eyes fluttering shut. " ** _Afor_** ," he murmurs without warning.


	36. All the people's mouths are moving, all you hear are car alarms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. tw 4 holocaust, antisemitism  
> ii. _tell-tale heart_ , edgar allen poe

Charles freezes immediately. He doesn't know exactly what the procedure here is, but he does feel his heart get stuck in his throat. Had he missed a cue? Crossed a boundary? Thought something wrong, or upsetting? It's the first time either of them has used that word, and he knew it was inevitable but he hadn't expected it right then. Erik? he asks, hesitant and concerned and vaguely frightened as he tries to crawl out of his lap.  
  
Erik covers his eyes with his hand, shaking minutely. _I just need a moment. You've done nothing wrong, I promise._ He lets Charles more-or-less sit on his knee instead of directly in his lap, still allowing them to be attached at the side, not altogether pulling away from him, but the distance helps Erik breathe more easily. He touches Charles's face and bows their heads together. He is very clearly and very obviously shutting watertight compartments down on whatever it is, but he does his best to impress that it has nothing to do with Charles.  
  
Charles frowns, concerned, but doesn't push and doesn't protest. Whatever it is, Erik said he needed a moment, and he won't take that from him. He tries to reassure himself in the meantime that it wasn't him, that he hadn't done anything wrong, but it all gets a little twisted up in his stomach anyway. He must have done something. Charles stares down between them, counting seconds between thunder and his own breaths.  
  
His pulse throbs painfully in his ears, hands hot and itching to rend and tear himself out of his own skin. He's trying to be responsible and not dissolve into a thousand pieces on the floor and melt into the concrete foundation of the building, but his thoughts keep slipping away. His heart (I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this!) thuds, loud knocks ( _\--tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the beating of his hideous heart!_ ) under the floorboards, water beneath flood doors trickling. The minute ticks by and Erik doesn't breathe the entire time, violently bending his mind around the shape of riotous fear. "I promise," is what he ends up saying out loud, after swallowing a hard lump.  
  
Charles sits there winded and choking on his own fear as he waits, silent and jumping every time there's thunder out the window though he always expects the noise. _Erik?_ he responds, as gentle as he can manage.  
  
"Charles," Erik breathes. "I'm so sorry."  
  
Charles shakes his head. _You don't have anything to apologize for,_ he breathes, and worries his lip between his teeth. _Please help me understand?_ If Erik is ready for that.  
  
"Thank you," Erik says as though it's an answer. "For letting me come to you. For letting me help comfort you."  
  
He blinks, and nods once, fear still locked between his teeth and making it hard to breathe. What - did something... It's better not to guess. Charles could press for an answer, but he doesn't want to do that. Erik will tell him when he's ready to tell him.  
  
The answer is hard for Erik to quantify, especially because he's struggling to apply the same light touch he always uses around this particular subject. All he knows is that he can't get those images of Charles out of his head so quickly and the idea of feeling lust while they're so close makes him want to dry heave his lungs out of his chest. "I'm sorry," he gasps.  
  
Oh. Definitely Charles' fault, then. He should have known. He also shouldn't have - really, it should have been him, he's the one who instigated the whole thing, what's wrong with him? He feels small and ashamed, swallowing as he moves further away from Erik to curl into himself. _No, I'm sorry,_ he whispers, and buries his face into his own knees.  
  
Shaw is sitting right across from him. Erik makes a sound worryingly close to a whine in the back of his throat and pries his focus away from the bile roiling in his gut. He wants desperately to fix what he's done, there's not an ounce of blame in him, but all he can do is say words that must seem empty and hollow. _It's no one's fault._  
  
 _You haven't done anything except keep us both safe, Erik, please don't ever apologize for this,_ he promises, but it doesn't stop him from feeling sick and disgusted with himself for letting it happen in the first place. He doesn't know what to do. _Please tell me what to do? How to help?_  
  
 _Please don't go away._ His chest hurts. Maybe he's having another heart attack. His heart's weak. _Oh, G-d._  
  
Charles won't. He removes himself from his own knees, his own stuttering heartbeat and racing terror forgotten for the moment. I'm right here, he whispers. I'm here. You're safe. We're safe. I won't go anywhere.  
  
 _I'm sorry,_ he's spinning, or the room's spinning and he's still, and he cups his hand over his mouth, breathing rapidly and deeply into it. He should never have done that. Why did he do that? What gave him the right to do that? No one was being hurt. No one was suffering. It was good and right and he made it wrong.  
  
Charles shakes his head, desperate and firm. If it were me, would it not have been my right? If I got distressed and used my pause-word, would I have been wrong? You used it exactly as you were supposed to, to keep us both safe. _You took care of me. Thank you, Erik._

* * *

 _-geh weg bitte hör auf ich will nicht atzor ani lo rotze ze! parakaló afíste me ísiho stamatíste! aufstehen knien dann, weine für mich. keine angst. ich weiß, dass du das willst. halts maul. verficktes dorfmatratze-du bist perfekt. du kannst das. spricht er? natürlich, aber sein mund hat viel bessere verwendungen-steh auf, Erik-_  
  
" _Geh weg_ ," Erik slams his hands into his eyes, raising his voice over the cacophony  
  
- _ob sie unser geschäft wieder genießen möchten-  
  
_ " _Bitte geh weg. Geh weg. Geh weg. Bitte verzeih mir-_ " with a sharp tug they're not in the apartment anymore. Legal teams are looking at them. He's speaking out loud. Too low to be made out, but vocal. Everyone has gone deathly silent. Staring. Video and sound crew trained on him. Shaw's little smile curled on his lips, fond and affectionate. Erik slips out of the chair he's in and goes to his knees. Words have turned into low, wounded moans.  
  
Petrakis calls a recess instantly. Carmen crouches beside Erik and he flinches and scrabbles backwards  
  
 _-dies passiert, wenn sie submissives nicht richtig trainieren-er denkt, dass er ein dominant ist. wie süß-  
  
_ the flash of an older-style bulb next to him, click of the lens constricting, makes him jerk a livewire and sweat trickles down his neck, stark in the cold lighting of the room. It's too cold. _"In ordnung,"_ he slurs. All Erik animates to do, pupils comically dilated like he's in a drug awareness commercial, features slack and clammy, is try and grab Carmen's shirt and tug at it. When that doesn't work, he clutches near his heart and rocks back and forth _  
  
-sag hallo erik_ -  
  
" _Hallo. Ich werde brav sein, ich schwöre es_ -"  
  
 _no no stop please no no no no I don't want it I don't want it I DON'T PLEASE STOP MOTHER HELP PLEASE MOTHER_  
  
Charles is next to Erik, a projection just as Erik has been for him, unseen to the rest of this courtroom. Unseen to the cameras, unseen to anyone. But he's not looking at Erik. He's not looking at Erik and his clammy, terrified face, not looking at Erik and his vivid greens wide and unseeing. He's looking at Sebastian Shaw, who, despite everything, has not learned that he should turn and leave this place and run far, far away if he knew what was good for him. He's standing, watching the scene in front of him with that disgusting, charming smile and _Wunderbar!_ and Charles - Charles feels something snap.  
  
He hears himself snarl. _"Findest du das lustig? Macht es Ihnen Spaß, Herr Doktor? Ich würde nicht lachen!"_ He's stalking toward him, past the defense bench and up into the audience, eyes wild and dark, his rage whipped up and projected stronger than any storm. _"Findest du es lustig, diese Spiele zu spielen? Findest du es witzig, dich nach Belieben zu drehen und zu beugen? Mal sehen, wie es dir gefällt. Mal sehen, wie es sich anfühlt."_  
  
Charles smiles, and when he does it is his mother's smile. _Really, Charles, I don't see what you're making a fuss about. Let mummy have a drink._ " _Geh auf deine verdammten Knie._ "  
  
And Shaw does.  
  
" _Lo, lo, **hafsek** , Erik. Atah kan im'li._ Get these G-dforsaken cameras out of here! _Tish ma, habet li_ -"- _hör mir zu du kleine schlampe_ -Carmen manages to come in from beside and uses his suit jacket to wrap around Erik's shoulders, shielding him from view as best he can. No one is sure what's happening anymore. Erik's under the table and Sebastian Shaw is on the floor. At least the cameras have found a better target.  
  
"All nonessential personnel clear this area now," Petrakis commands, striding down off the podium with a bailiff in tow.

* * *

Sebastian Shaw is far, far less graceful about submissive behavior than Erik. He's a D4.75 and he's never taken an Order in his life. He's never once been compelled to do anything that he didn't want to, engineering and manipulating events so that all of their players were from the start destined to fall in line, to obey without question. He fancies himself a product of calculated efficiency, but that doesn't explain the warmth he feels at seeing Erik where he belongs, nor the memories which have little to do with procedure-Shaw's convinced himself of that, it's an effective way to ensure loyalty from followers-but it doesn't explain why Shaw participated. When he does comply, the chair he's in gets shoved roughly aside, dragging across the floor with a loud scrape. Just like that, he lowers.  
  
Everyone's heads swivel back around to Erik, the only person who would conceivably orchestrate such a thing, who's gasping " _Tu ihm nicht weh, bitte tu ihm nicht weh, ich liebe ihn_ " over and over.  
  
And still, he smiles. " _Wirklich, Charles. Ich kann nicht anders, als Hingabe zu inspirieren. Wenn du ihn wollten, mussten du einfach fragen._ " Of course Sebastian is familiar, jovial even, like Charles is an old friend whom he's offended by some offhand joke, and now he's rectifying it with fine liquor and sport. Even now, he's calm and serene. Assured of his own rightness. But Charles can feel the whirring underneath, the jolt of what-just-happened-he's desperately trying to compensate for.  
  
The door that's been cracked is thrown wide open. mother please please mother help me please Charles has run out of sympathy. Charles has run out of compassion. Charles has run out of patience. _don't do this please cain i'll do whatever you want just PLEASE don't do this no NO MOTHER! MOTHER! MOTHER!_ He was a child. Freshly thirteen. Snow had been falling outside, and Charles was in ninth-slash-tenth grade, taking college credits from Columbia. They were children. Charles cries for them, body wracked with sobs, and brings shaking fingers up to his temple. He could make Sebastian Shaw feel every bit as helpless as they were. He could make him suffer. But he doesn't. He snarls, " _Kennen Sie die Gnade, die Sie ihm nicht gezeigt haben_." He steps back down to the defense bench.  
  
Charles lets Carmen see him, because he's currently in his way, and he wraps his arms around Erik. _"Shh._ We are safe now," he whispers. "You are safe. _Shh_ , darling, come back to me. That's it. _Shhh_."  
  
Carmen blinks critically at him for a second and then resolves himself with a nod in Charles's direction, knowing full well that those aren't words a doctor says to their patient. "We need to get these cameras out of here," Carmen murmurs next to Charles's ear, unaccustomed to communicating telepathically, so keeping his voice as low as possible. He's not an idiot. He knows what a flashback look likes. He's had a few himself over the years.  
  
 _Barmherzigkeit ist für die Schwachen!_ Shaw calls out after Charles in his mind, projected at knifepoint. He's still trapped on his knees. _Ich habe ihn stark gemacht. Schau dir an, was du ihm angetan hast. Simpering wie ein erbärmlicher Säugling. Was er braucht, ist ein ordentlicher Fick._ It's deliberate, a method of shocking Charles with accompanied images. Shaw watching over as Sisim burns, while Erik is shoved into the ground. _Azazel liebt es, Geschenke zu geben. Er versuchte mich lange zu beeindrucken. Er kam an diesem Tag sehr nahe. Hat er dich beeindruckt, Charles?_  
  
Cain, in microscopic overlaid images. Charles and Erik together, two Omega-level gems indeed.  
  
In the _split-second_ Charles's focus wavers, Shaw raises his hand into a fist and brings it down on the ground, causing the whole floor to crack open and rending a huge concussive shockwave through the room. Then, then he rises to his feet. The audience titter in confused horror, scattering down the isles like lost marbles and stampeding for the door.

* * *

Erik screams and throws himself in front of Charles and Carmen, and all the debris hurtling toward them bounces off of an invisible barrier and tumbles to the floor harmlessly. " _Verzeih mir. Verzeih mir._ " Erik raises his hands in the air, surrendering. It's the first time anyone has heard his voice in any meaningful way, straight from his own lips, cracked and dry and scared out of his mind. " _Bitte tu ihm nicht weh. Ich werde mit dir gehen, Herr Shaw. Ich werde dir beistehen. Das verspreche ich. Bitte lass ihn gehen. Alles was du willst._ "  
  
"You still haven't gotten rid of that _horrendous accent,_ " Shaw drawls and then rears on his heel, backhanding Erik hard in the face. Erik's jaw snaps to the side and he crumples immediately, as though dead. Only the rise and fall of his breathing lets Charles know otherwise, along with the chaotic whirl of his thoughts-he's not only alive but still conscious. " _Er möchte dir Gnade geben_."  
  
" _Bittherr_ ," he gasps.  
  
Petrakis's eyes go wide and he hides himself under a table, dialing the phone in his pocket quickly to contact the CIA. He's only an Alpha-level mutant, if he tries anything he could get all of these people killed. He briefs Moira as quietly as he can, but Shaw is clearly distracted by his prizes.  
  
 _yeah you like that don't you you fucking slut this is what you were made for go ahead and scream you little bitch you subby little bitch take it take it take it_  
  
" ** _STOP_**!" The door is wide open and the wall has crumbled. There's absolutely nothing in the world that could stop him now. Well, no. That's not true. There is. But it certainly isn't Sebastian Shaw. It takes less than a second to wrap him around his little finger, just as he'd always known he could. The world around them vibrates with psionic energy strong enough to kill everyone in this room instantly, but Charles hones it right where it needs to go. Right onto Sebastian Shaw. When he's on his knees, Charles stares right down at him. There's no thrill there, but there is coldness icy enough to bite at the skin and crack it right off. He doesn't attack him. He doesn't kick him, or punch him, or step on his repulsive face and grind it into the cracked floor of this courtroom. He says, "Fine. You had your chance, _Herr Shaw._ We will do this your way." And lets him, all at once, experience everything he put Erik through. A mind can't snap back from that in any natural way. Charles knows it well. He watches. He finds that place where Shaw has hidden his beloved mutation, and he turns it right off while he waits. As easy as flicking off a light switch. He has run out of mercy.

* * *

Quested joins Petrakis once they realize that Shaw isn't going to stop-and that the CIA can't do a whole lot about it. He's raising his foot to bring it down hard onto the floor and ripple the whole room in supersonic energy-and they collectively decide to do what they can to barricade the audience and jury and cover everyone as they ran through the doors. A large spire of stone and silt erupts out of linoleum and juts toward the ceiling, forming a protective dome around Erik and Carmen (and Charles, by default, but he can't see the psychiatrist). The people who are still in the room are shocked to see Petrakis controlling it.  
  
And then everything... goes still. Shaw is on his knees (again). Lifeless and dead-eyed. The thing about it is that unlike Charles, unlike Erik, Shaw is weak. He is accustomed to being in the position of power. He has never felt vulnerability, he has no defenses against it. Even Azazel was more prepared for the onslaught, his own years of hardship forming him into a cold, hateful ball. Shaw has never known hardship. He's never suffered for anything. When he came close to being caught he merely changed his identity and updated with the times.  
  
" _Bitte_ ," he gasps, a sickening mockery. " _Bitte hör auf_."  
  
Charles takes no pleasure in this. He feels no satisfaction, no joy, no thrill of power. This is not him acting out on a long-held fantasy, because those fantasies simply do not exist in him. While Charles likes getting what he wants as much as the next person, while he is extraordinarily good at it and certainly likes to strop around entitled when it suits him, it has never been his desire to take the world and warp it to his whims. The world does not belong to him, and he has never once felt that it did. That it should. He is not Sebastian Shaw. He is not Kurt or Cain Marko. He is Charles Xavier, and he knows who he is. He also knows what must be done. He stares coldly down at the pathetic man at his feet, and he shakes his head. Crouches down until he is on his knees with him, but certainly not for him, and tilts his head.  
  
"Did you stop when he asked, Klaus Schmidt?" Charles' eyes are heated, burning skies. "Did you? Look at those cameras still pointed at you. The world is watching, _Herr Doktor_ , and it is seeing you exactly as you are. Mercy is not weak. You are, and you have lost. Unfortunately for you -" He does not release his hold on Shaw's mind, but he does not kill him, either, though he knows it would take little more than a blink of his eye. "You don't deserve my mercy," he says, and lets Shaw, for once in his miserable, inordinately long life, know hardship and pain. He lets him reap what he sows.

* * *

Carmen Pryde isn't a mutant. He isn't particularly fast or particularly strong. He's got a gambling problem and he's too overprotective of his daughter. He loves his wife like air but he's secretive even though he's not actually hiding any from her-he genuinely loves his family but nonetheless, a holdover from _HaShayetet_. What he is, is smart, quick on his feet and difficult to rile. And right now Shaw is at the point just before he collapses into the dying star of his mind, and that's exactly the point at which he will break.  
  
" _Sisim_ wasn't the first time, was it?" he looks down at Shaw, a folder in his hands. It was Shaw's turn to get on the stand today and Charles knows by now that Carmen _had it_ , Isadore _came through_ for him and he'd been banking on unsettling the good doctor long enough to trip him up. This isn't in the official trial, but anyone with a shred of investment here knows that there should be a change of venue and given Shaw's interrogative vulnerability, Carmen is interested in expediting that process.  
  
" _Nein_ ," Sebastian mumbles mindlessly. He's keeled over, hands and knees, retching thin dribbles of stomach acid onto the ground. He doesn't even bother wiping his own face.  
  
" _Wo war das erste mal?_ "  
  
" _Auschwitz_."  
  
"That's right. You were born in 1910, weren't you? I'd say that makes you well over a hundred years old." He flips the pages in his hands open to a sepia-toned, curled up photograph attached by paperclip to the records, of a young man in a uniform that looked remarkably like Shaw. "That's some mutation, _Herr Doktor_."  
  
" _Wir wussten es nicht besser_."  
  
Pryde gazes at him calmly. It's an eerie, intractable calm. While everyone else is stunned, shocked, _horrified, furious-_ Carmen is a pillar. And anyone who is astute enough to put the pieces together knows that this isn't _his first time_ , either.  
  
"I recommend taking this man into custody, Your Honor, with full compliance defined under articles six, seven and eight outlined in the ICC subject-matter jurisdiction coda of the _Rome Statute_. I can have the Security Council on the phone in five minutes."

* * *

Now Petrakis is the one catching flies. He climbs back up onto the podium, letting the stones sink back into the earth. "Bailiff," he barely thinks to call, finding himself floating out of his skin. This situation is completely unprecedented, and yet somehow, everybody in the room can feel the truth of Shaw's words as if they'd been wrenched out of him and thrust into their minds, while Erik Lehnsherr is curled in a ball on the floor. "Dr. Sebastian Shaw. I find you to be in contempt of this court and you will be held accordingly until such time as the correct proceedings take place. Read him his rights. We're adjourning for the day, and get me that UNSC line."  
  
The bang of his gavel echoes like a gunshot.  
  
And reap, Shaw does.

* * *

There was a reason for the wall. There was a reason he boxed himself up and tucked his telepathy tightly away except in the smallest, manageable doses. In a single instant, Charles had knocked it down, and in the aftermath he can't build it back up fast enough. Sebastian Shaw is well and truly neutralized. He will never hurt anyone else again, for as long as he lives. But now there are 7.7 billion voices clambering over each other, eager to be heard all at once, and Charles knows that it wasn't a matter of restricting himself merely because he was afraid, though it was that, too. It was because he was not ready for it. It was because he cannot control it. When Charles screams, clutching at his head, a projection and a Reality, an everywhere at once, for one single moment, for one suspended breath - The entire world hears it.  
  
Erik crawls over shards of broken glass and wood splinters and clutches onto him, wrapping his arms around him as tightly as possible and burying his consciousness as far down into Charles's mind as it can go, all of his Will entirely unspooled and lashing out, completely focused on its singular target. The submissives in the room kneel and bow their heads, lower Dominants are shocked to follow suit, high-Doms look at their feet and feel their legs tugged to the ground. Everyone in the room kneels to Erik, but only one person is important to him. His mind is the brightest echo, from five thousand miles away Charles felt him, from a trillion miles away he would feel Erik, and Erik would feel him. He hangs on. _Come back to me. Please come back to me. I love you. Please don't leave me._  
  
There is one thing in this world that can stop Charles full-power. It is not a D5. It is Erik Lehnsherr. The wall rebuilds itself. Not everything is behind it, tendrils of power and potential long suffocated slipping out and slithering off like snakes, but a good majority of it does. He is not ready for it. There will be time for experimentation, time for practice and honed control, and it is not here. It is not now. Every door in his mind shuts closed except for this one. Except the one that opens up to Erik. And he says, with all the love in the world, with everything that is not gone: Yes, Erik. He is bleeding. Here, in the Real, everywhere. Thick droplets of it are streaking down his face, perhaps from his nose, perhaps from his eyes, Charles doesn't know. He doesn't care. He collapses into Erik. He comes back. 7.7 billion voices, and only one matters now. The most powerful mind on this Earth, and it bows only to Erik.  
  
He is covered in Charles's blood as if reborn. Erik will never be clean of it. He never wants to be clean of it. It is his place for Charles to be in his arms, wherever he is. The Real, every fragment of memory. Every fragment of himself that reaches back, finding one another in hidden closets and underneath beds and running through muddy fields. _My Charles,_ Erik says over and over again. Charles. _Sheli. Mój. Meine. Moy. Mon. Mere. Meyn. Mou. Minha. Mane. Zma. Mio._ Every fractured word of every language he knows and every broken thought in his head have all converged on one universal truth. He was made to love Charles Xavier. _Thank you, sweetheart. Thanks for not melting everybody's brains._ Erik would grin if his jaw wasn't broken, as it is, he twitches a bit and cries out before he can suppress it. Ruthless shame creeps up. Ruthless, slicing fear. And then he realizes that Shaw can't hurt him for it anymore, and for the first time in sixteen years, everyone else can see his tears, too.

* * *

The world around them is disoriented and stuttering, as if it is all an illusion. Charles rewrites the last few moments as they all rise to their feet and blink, chaos and cacophony, but Erik and Charles are shielded from all of it. They chatter and clamber, but Charles does not hear them. In the Real, his body convulses, twitching, his own brain practically melted out of his ears with the force of power it was not equipped - yet - to harness. He only has eyes for Erik. He is yours yours yours yours yours and the mirrored knowledge that he was made to love Erik Lehnsherr. To belong to him, forever and always. When Charles smiles, close to passing out, there's something silly-but-not-like-that about it. _I win_ , he whispers, and he isn't talking about Shaw.  
  
In Raven's apartment, Erik is crouched over him, holding him in his arms, blood all over him. There's blood all over him in the Real, too, and maybe it's Charles's blood. Maybe he bridged himself between consciousnesses so pervasively, Erik's abilities so honed in, that it dripped all over him or maybe it's just his own blood from his broken nose and fractured cheekbone. From the tooth knocked out of his head that rattle around. He has to slowly move his tongue about to push it between his lips, the motion making him stutter a high-pitched gasp because he can barely open his mouth. They're a sight for sore eyes in every sense of the word, but Erik knows just what he means. _You win,_ he brushes Charles's matted hair from his face. _You will always win._ And so will he, because Charles is still in his arms, and he is still smiling up at Erik.  
  
Charles can't manage a laugh like this. There is no pain yet, and perhaps it isn't coming, but perhaps it is. Either way, if he could, he would be. Ridiculously, impossibly, he would be laughing. _Yes, that, but I meant something else,_ and those burning skies become clear ones, the clouds parting. The storm rolling over New York has passed. Humor him, Erik, he's two seconds from passing out.  
  
Erik taps him on the nose playfully. _What do you win?_  
  
 _Approximately 6,900,_ he breathes, and the projection of him grins wide enough to split his face and show his dimples. _Beat that._ Charles' eyes roll back, both projection and Real.  
  
He slumps over Charles as a projection, and in the Real, gathers Charles in his arms as he's laid out on a stretcher and wheeled out of the court room. Everybody saw what happened on television and Raven and Hank run home immediately to try and contact Charles, which is how Hank finds him sprawled out on the floor, no Erik to be found. Hank takes him to his clinic.


	37. Inside of him, he's empty now, there isn't even one small breath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. yay, we've finished the first arc! _i like giants_ is followed by _primum non nocere_  
>  ii. _my mom_ , kimya dawson

Charles doesn't wake up for a week and a half. He's alive. There's no doubt that he's alive, his brain activity extraordinary - enough to break several machines, actually. To short them right out and create a flurry of sparks and, in one case, a rather fantastic explosion, which is frightening and inexplicable when it's never happened before. Eventually it becomes clear that whatever is going on in Charles' mind, it cannot be recorded on a scan or a graph or a machine. At least not one that currently exists. The best explanation is that he's entered a comatose state, but there has never been a coma like Charles'. He's running a constant fever. Sweating, convulsing at random, occasionally bleeding from the nose. But his vitals are good, his breathing normal. There's nothing to be done but wait. His mind stays tethered to Erik's. There's no response like Erik is used to, but his mind is open, as if he'd left it as a reassurance: _I'm still here, darling. Don't fret._ Occasionally a memory or a feeling will float to the surface - cold or pain, most often - and he's there. He's not gone.   
  
When he wakes up, everything feels heavy. Opening his eyes is like wading through a pool of molasses, thick and sluggish with unconsciousness dragging him down like sludge. He groans, lips parted in discomfort. And of course the first thing he thinks, not a fever dream or a jostled up memory, is this: _Erik_?  
  
The first thing that Charles notices is that Erik isn't a projection. Erik is there. Erik is _literally there,_ in front of him. He's wearing a soft brown sweater and dark jeans that don't quite fit him right, but they're new and his. His face is covered in dark, ugly bruises, arm enveloped in a comfortable sling, but he is there and he is whole.  
  
The last week begins to filter into Charles's consciousness as his consciousness filters back into the world. Erik was released on bail with the stipulation that he be placed with a legal guardian, Dr. Hank McCoy, under the supervision of his new attending psychiatrist Dr. Gabrielle Haller. The bail was paid for by Raven Darkholme, who has enough access to the Xavier trust to post the quite-substantial amount, and who has never actively dipped into those funds before other than approved travel trips. It's Charles's money, but she made an executive decision there.  
  
Erik's wearing a full-time temple-mounted suppressor that does nothing, but he dutifully uses his abilities in a limited fashion when he's around his Department of Homeland Security trial services officer, an S4.8 named Betsy Braddock who took quite a long time to warm up to him-distrusting his Will, distrusting his mutation-but who ended up being as fond of Erik as anyone in close proximity to him usually gets as long as they're not power hungry cock-goblins like Buzz Cut. Conditions of this release include regular drug tests, ankle monitoring, in-person check-ins as well as phone check-ins. He is also strictly limited to only travel within a specific number of blocks.  
  
Janos Quested dropped the charges entirely of terrorism and first degree murder, and Erik has continued to show up for his trial which has still gained a massive degree of public scrutiny, for the much lesser charges of voluntary manslaughter and excessive use of force. Janos has also agreed to be the liaison prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, who have detained Sebastian Shaw at the _Hague_ while preparing pre-trial investigations (and who has, curiously, ended up working with Carmen Pryde and his contacts for the fact-finding portion of said investigation, of whom they both make up two components of the hearing body).  
  
In this Erik has been scheduled to start regularly meeting with Janos and Carmen in order to prepare for testifying at the _Hague_ -a concern that overwrites his movement restrictions-as ICC trials are a great deal more victim-oriented than regular criminal proceedings. They've also been in contact with the settlement near _Bnai Brak_ , specifically Kurt Wagner and David Eisenhardt. He's been silent to everyone except Raven and Carmen, but Raven not being telepathic, can't speak for him the way Charles can, which made assuring his compliance difficult.  
  
In a week, everything has turned itself completely upside down. And yet, Erik has had little time to appreciate this, because of Charles's submersion of consciousness. He's been worried sick and out of his mind, spending every waking moment at Charles's side that he's not otherwise occupied, and woefully inept when it comes to handling his own affairs without Charles's gentle guidance in the outside world. Raven and Carmen and Hank are wonderful human beings, but they aren't his Charles. He reads to Charles when he's alone, he sings to him and has surrounded his room in trinkets and plants and drawings and sculptures, like a dragon's nest or a _Ziz's_ palace.

* * *

At that first tentative _Erik?_ and the flutter of his eyelids, Erik breathes out and covers his mouth with his fingertips, reaching for Charles to touch his face and kiss his forehead. Hi, he says mentally, an overwhelming surge of gratitude- _relief-thank-you-toda-raba-please-don't-go-again_ swirling up like a miniature hurricane. Erik can't smile-his jaw is wired shut, but his eyes are bright and his thoughts and feelings are a warm glow that more than make up for it.  
  
Charles will process the flood of information later, when he's sure he'll have questions. Right now the large majority of it goes right over his head, filtered in but not fully registering. He's blinking, everything stiff from disuse, wading through gunk to get to Erik. He's the only thing that matters now, and Charles sighs as he arches into those fingertips. Erik is here, beautiful and Real and looking a bit worse for wear but still absolutely stunning, even with that silly beeping thing on his temple. How he got here, what day it is, how long he was out - irrelevant. He curls up in the familiar purr of his Will, wrapping it around and around himself. "Hi," he croaks back, and his voice hardly sounds like his voice anymore, cracked and weak. _I was dreaming_ , he tells him, and smiles like he still is. _It was a nice dream._  
  
 _What did you dream about, tayer?_ Erik asks, curling his limbs up onto the bed to take Charles into his arms. Nothing else matters right now to him other than the feel of conscious-alive-well Charles. His Will flexes unconsciously to Charles's desire, molding itself around the whole hospital room. _I love you_ , Erik reminds him with a kiss to his temple. _I love you so much._  
  
Charles gasps, frozen at just that gentle brush of lips to the temple. It doesn't hurt, per se, but it's so sensitive he can't breathe for a moment, shuddering down to his toes. Which he wiggles for good measure, because he hasn't existed in his body - or much of anywhere - for what feels like years, and the sensation of it is bizarre. I love you, he whispers. It takes some more shaking off of sludge, but eventually he shows Erik what he was dreaming of: two boys, one with a mop of unruly auburn, the other with neat brown hair that curls rebelliously at his temples no matter what his mother does, one in a t-shirt, gangly long limbs and freckles and tan skin, the other pale as snow and dressed in his private school uniform with the tie undone and the sleeves rolled up, his dimples punctuating his smile. The sky and the ocean meeting in their eyes. They run in the desert with thunder in the distance, dirt roads and laughter, then by the lake at the edge of the Xavier manor. Young-Charles trips and Young-Erik grabs him before he tumbles. Never letting him fall.  
  
Erik lets out a noise that after a few seconds registers as a laugh, facial expression mostly fixed in place to avoid pain. Back then, though, his smile was wide enough to crinkle his eyes and dimple his cheek and wrinkle up his nose and show off every tooth in his head. He ran and jumped and tumbled with the best of them, never particularly graceful or gentle, but even so he would have made sure not to hurt Charles. Not to let him come to harm. He wraps Charles up in his arms and the blankets on the bed, so careful not to jostle him too much or create any pain. He lifts Charles's hand up and brushes his lips carefully over each of his knuckles.  
  
Charles frowns, the expression strange on his face after more than a week of stiffness, the muscles even there stiff and unused. The bruise on his jaw is healing quite nicely, though by now it's a sickening yellow color. His poor Erik. He can't get his arm to move for a moment, and at first it frightens him. It goes eventually, as if it had been slower to wake up than his mind. Whatever he'd meant to do with it, he's distracted by the IV there. He pouts down at it and, in true Charles fashion, is already trying to move his other (still casted) hand to pick at it. _What day is it?_ he asks, groggy and sluggish and still waking. Then, after a moment, sheepish and laughing silently, _What year is it? It feels like I've slept for decades._  
  
Erik whaps his arm gently above the cast. _Don't play with it,_ he Orders, but there's no way he can even pretend to sound stern in his mind. _It is April 26th 2019. Happy Passover. You were comatose for a week._ To his credit, Erik manages to sound calm and collected about it. He looked, to the outside world, calm and collected about it, too. Gabrielle believes his attachment to Charles is borderline _doctor-patient transference_ but his distress at being barred from Charles's hospital room, which looked mostly like Erik was also comatose, made her relent and re-sign him on the approved visitors list.  
  
Charles huffs. His brain feels like it's processing everything in slow motion compared to the whirring he's used to, molasses and backed up sludge blocking up orifices and pores and sticking to every limb, which is incredibly frustrating. Gabrielle - borderline doctor-patient transference - attending psychiatrist. Comatose for a week. He blinks, and then, for a moment, there's stuttering fear gripping him. _Shaw...?_ He should be completely harmless after what Charles did to him. It should be permanent, a sentence far more fitting for him than a jail cell. He thinks it was. But he needs to know that no one was hurt while Charles was out, though surely Erik would have mentioned it. He's not entirely rational or all-there yet.  
  
 _Detained_ , Erik hushes him. He does sound nervous about it, but not because Shaw is of any danger whatsoever to anybody beyond an ordinary human. In custody Sebastian turns out to be polite and congenial, just as in life, as though this is all some big misunderstanding. _They have him in_ Scheveningen _. Apparently he is allowed a computer, and to cook his own food._ It's dry. Erik certainly wasn't given such provisions at the CIA. Carmen and Janos were selected as two of the judges. They just passed ruling on whether it would be _in camera_ or not. The media will be allowed. Erik's not particularly pleased about that, but he's also dutiful, understanding the necessity. _He will be allowed to examine personally every witness against him_. There's the reason for his nerves.  
  
He hadn't broken him completely, then. Charles bites his lip, teetering on the edge of something he knows is a dangerous line. It doesn't stop him from feeling vaguely disappointed. Had it not been enough? Shaw must be thoroughly terrified, traumatized, and yet there he is in Erik's mind, smiling as if the world is still playing his game. He should be relieved that he did not destroy another human being's psyche, rip it to shreds like he'd had every opportunity to do, turn him braindead and dribbling, but the fact of the matter is - _"You do not deserve my mercy,"_ his own words, viciously cold. He'd meant it, too. Charles clenches his teeth. Fine, then. A longer game, but there is no reality in which Shaw wins anything. It's all a downhill crumbling from here, and if he's conscious enough to watch it? All the better. Perhaps it's cruel. Perhaps he should be terrified at the shift in himself, if there was one. He isn't.  
  
Erik touches his face, gentle. I _am grateful you did not_. It's hard for him to describe in precise words why he's grateful. If Charles isn't worried about it, then he really isn't, either, because that's the only stipulation he's ever held for why Charles shouldn't be personally involved in his own vengeance scheme. If anyone understands vengeance, it's Erik, but-I'm not the only victim. The world should see him for what he is. If he's convicted, Janos told me they'll be seeking the maximum of reparations. Which was ironic; Sebastian was wildly independently wealthy and influential, almost all of it blood money, and before now Erik didn't know exactly what he'd do if he were freed. He has no assets whatsoever, but it's looking very likely that Shaw will be held accountable. If he's convicted Erik will have access to a vast sum of money-and so will the other patients at the _Institute_ -which he hasn't given a lot of thought to handling. On top of that, Erik had promised Charles to keep him in check, to remind him of his own moral compass, and regardless of whether Erik personally agrees with it, it is within Erik's own moral compass not to let Charles falter. Execution is also on the table. Ordinarily it would not be, but Carmen has precedent on his side.  
  
In the end, Charles is grateful, too. Erik knows him better than he knows himself in some cases, and this is one of them. He does not want Sebastian Shaw's blood on his hands, nor is he sadistic enough to enjoy the thought of it. The thought of that churns his stomach, actually, and considering there is no one in this world he despises more than Shaw, that's saying something _. I can help you_ , he says, and avoids most of the rest of it for now. _With the money, obviously. I'd like to do that for you._ There's something shy, there, and Charles offers that small, seeking smile of his. Not that I'm the one to ask if you're looking to accumulate wealth and keep it, he teases, because he knows Erik isn't. I'm about to put millions of dollars into a complete renovation of a mansion and then open a school that I intend to turn no profit from. I imagine the family lawyers are going to call me mad.  
  
Another soft, laughing huff. I would be honored to have your assistance. _I was thinking perhaps we could establish some kind of trust that will help our students when necessary._ It's a lot of disposable money, and as much as Erik despises the thought of taking it, if he can do any good with it, maybe it's worthwhile to pursue keeping it instead of donating it like he intended when Janos first told him. Ironic, his first thought was for _Yad VaShem_. It's only fitting. _Raven accessed a substantial sum to post my bail. If I show up dutifully, they will give it back to you at the conclusion of my trial._ He almost sounds guilty about that, because they hadn't asked for Charles's permission, but Raven ensures him that if she had not done it, she would be in much worse trouble.  
  
Charles makes sure he knows that, yes, she would have been, and gives Erik the most withering look he can manage. It's much more achingly fond than withering. Then he chuckles softly, but the sound barely comes out, more like a choked wheeze than anything. He tries not to wince. _I like that idea. We can do good with it, I promise. But I do have to ask_ , and he grins, _Do you actually know my net worth, Erik?_ Because it'sgoing to matter soon, when they're finally doing some good with it. If his father filled the accounts with blood money and his ancestors benefited off the back of colonialism, let him break the cycle.  
  
 _I do, actually_ , Erik looks a little sheepish. _I may or may not have looked you up. That is some mansion._ It's one of the few things that kept him sane; and he's a little embarrassed to admit he actually printed off a small picture of it and kept it in his pocket to remind him that Charles was there and that they had a future together, and Gabrielle called it strange but he's willing to let her think he's just an obsessive patient. Fortunately for them, Gabrielle doesn't think it's at all unusual that Erik formed a strong bond with the first person to show him kindness, but Charles definitely has a conversation in his future if Erik's memories are to be trusted.  
  
Charles is deliberately setting the inevitability of that discussion aside for now, because he is not equipped to deal with that coming out of a week-long coma. _3.5 billion_ , he says anyway. _It puts me at the bottom of the Forbes 400, but I'm on there, every year. Which means that, trust me, I am in no danger of running out of money anytime soon._ Perhaps he would eventually run his resources dry, and he would absolutely diminish his own fortune while every Xavier before him added to it, but he has no obligation to be a dutiful heir. He does have to be good, and he will be.  
  
 _Only the bottom?_ Erik would be grinning if he could. _Are you sure you can slum it with only a potential millionaire?_ The entitlement set out by the _Hague_ Trust has already been shown to him, and the amount on it nearly made his eyes cross, but that's a drop in the ocean compared to Charles's assets. Notwithstanding if he ends up with the full amount they're seeking, most of it he does plan on donating, outside of what's necessary for his own comfort, and he isn't anticipating the necessity of a lot. _They also stated it would help my case with immigration to show I have a sustainable income, and if I invest it, it's possible I won't need to work in my lifetime_. The thought is insane. Erik's wildest fantasies prior to meeting Charles included prime _cardboard box real estate_ and _black-tie dinner at the soup kitchen._  
  
 _I can help with that, too,_ he promises, because Charles actually hasn't dipped into his inheritance at all except to invest and donate. His rent and the majority of his belongings are all things he'd bought on his own dime, although really it was all his dime. He'd been separating the two to feel better about the whole thing, but now that there's a use for it he has no reason to be shy. _You realize that even if you didn't have a cent to your name it wouldn't matter, though, don't you?_ Charles still intends to take care of him. To serve him in every way possible, with all of his ridiculous privilege. It's Erik's, now; they aren't two separate entities, going it alone. At least - well. Charles bites his lip, suddenly overcome with what might be completely irrational terror, but it's there anyway, and so sharp he feels nauseous.  
  
 _I know,_ Erik tells him. Because he does. He shakes his head and touches Charles on the cheek again, his skin warm and Real. Be easy. _You will never be alone again,_ he tells Charles, with all the sincerity he can bear, cracking through every pore of his being. _I promise._  
  
Charles eyes close, and he chokes around a swallow. _If you wanted an actual separation, if - I'm not holding you, Erik, nothing is -_  
  
 _Never_ , he interrupts, unwilling to allow that train of thought any leverage. _You are right,_ Erik says, his lips twitching vaguely around pain. _Nothing is holding me. I choose to be here. You will not be rid of me so easily._  
  
Charles exhales sharply through his nose. When he opens his eyes, they're filled with tears, and he can't say why. He smiles again, mouth trembling around it. _You're free, Erik,_ he breathes. Perhaps with restrictions now, but soon those will be gone, too. _And there will never be another cage.  
_

* * *

He's been floating around in that since they came to get him in his cell, letting him know that he's been released into the care of Hank McCoy on conditional bail. It doesn't feel real until this second, with Charles's bright blue eyes open and looking at him. _Free_ , he laughs, soft, collecting the edge of his tears on his thumbnail. He hasn't even begun to comprehend what that means.  
  
Erik could, theoretically, go anywhere in the world after this. He could do anything. That he intends to spend his life with Charles, building something that will become the two of them, that will change the world for the better, is such a precious gift he's absolutely unable to fully comprehend it. More tears replace the ones Erik swipes away on his cheeks. He reaches for Erik's good hand, placing it on his collar which is - yes. It's still there. It's right where it should be. _Are you ready to start?_ he asks, and his eyes crease and his dimples show. _We have so much to do, my love._ He doesn't just mean the school. They have so much to build, and the foundation is all right here. It never once cracked. He intends to make sure it never will.  
  
He's more than ready, he's delighted, and it radiates out of every fiber of his being. He rubs the pad of his finger over Charles's collar, feeling the material shift under his touch. How funny that Sharon Xavier-Marko tried to make him feel inferior for it, when Erik thinks it is the representation of everything good in his life. And, he hopes, in Charles's life, too. He will devote himself to ensuring that is the case. To ensuring that Charles never has cause to doubt again that he is wanted, that he belongs at Erik's side _. I do not desire to go anywhere without you_ , he says, because he needs it known. The world pales in comparison to Charles.  
  
Charles shivers, arching as much as he can into that touch. He covers Erik's hand with his own, IV and all, a silent _please keep it there._ It's comforting, and Erik's hand is warm, and he wants to remind them both that it's there. That it will stay there. That, barring a change in design, it will never, ever come off, because he will never stop being Erik's. We will go together, then, he promises, and grins at him, body curled into Erik's despite the stiffness. _Now that I speak every language in the world, international students are even more of a possibility._ Okay, yes, he's still bragging about that. The power he'd experienced that knocked him out for more than a week? Absolutely terrifying to him. This part of it? Incredibly _groovy_ , and it gives him bragging rights, and he likes when Erik chides him for it.  
  
Erik ducks his head into Charles's, shoulders shaking with laughter. _Groovy_ , he snorts, completely in love. _Really. Every language? Now you are just showing off._ And Erik adores him for it. His brilliant, wonderful Charles. He unconsciously keeps rubbing his fingers there, soothing because he can, because he's here now. For as long as he is free, this is where he will stay. Where he belongs. Charles was right, it is so infinitely superior to truly be here, to be able to touch with his real body, it's nearly overwhelming.  
  
It really is. _And also - Erik, darling?_ He's smiling, careful of Erik's injuries as he nuzzles into him. _You're making me dizzy. In a very good way, but I just thought you should know._ His Will. It's so, so much more like this, every breath humid with it, and Charles is going to spend the rest of his days drowning in it. Wrapped up in it. Bound by it. Nourished by it.  
  
The pleased sound in the back of Erik's throat is also deeply real, and he flutters his eyes shut, inhaling slowly through his nose. "Mhm," he mumbles, letting his Will uncurl more fully than he has in a week. _There is something else you should know,_ he remembers after a moment.  
  
Charles tries to focus and not moan in delight. He manages with a soft sigh and a flutter of his own eyelids, his legs tangling up with Erik's and his head nuzzled into his neck. _Hm?_ he asks.  
  
That makes Erik's hand tighten over his bared throat nevertheless, and he has to rip his own focus from that in order to respond. _Carmen anticipates that Shaw will bring up my DS score as part of his defense strategy, so he requested that my labs be run again for certainty, with the excuse that my Will is stronger than the results warrant. They claim the original test was in error,_ he huffs. _They're blaming the laboratory for faulty equipment, but I am registered now as a D5._  
  
Faulty equipment. Charles grins, because in the scheme of things, that was the best possible outcome for this. It does bring up a few concerns, but nothing they can't handle. Mmm. Alright, well, that's one area we no longer need to be secretive about. He considers something. _Do they... I mean, do they think it was you? Who took care of Shaw?_ Charles was technically across the city, but anyone watching that play out would doubt Erik's involvement. Carmen had been the only one to actually see him, and if he hadn't known about them before, he definitely did now. Last he checked psychiatrists didn't go around calling their patients 'darling.'  
  
Erik gives a shrug. _They don't know what happened, but I have been asked numerous times if I had anything to do with it. I told them the truth, because it is fairly obvious I was not in my right mind on the footage. And yes,_ Erik confirms, _Carmen is fully aware._ He also hasn't said or done anything to give up the game, which is as much implicit support as he's legally able to give. Reasonable doubt is a powerful motivator. _Shaw said your name on camera, and they asked him if you were present, and his defense team said no. They are claiming it was a deliberate confession, due to a guilty conscience._  
  
Charles scowls at the reminder of his name on Shaw's lips. He'd like it if he kept both their names out of his filthy mouth from now on, but alas. His mind wanders to a few more names, and he brightens, unable to help nudging Erik with his leg in his enthusiasm. You spoke to the others? He'd seen some of that in the rundown Erik had given him through the link, though most of it is still hazy and processing. Charles can definitely reach Israel now, he thinks, but it seems it's no longer necessary. He'll admit to being a bit sad he doesn't get to say hello himself.  
  
He nods, his fond adoration seeping through even now. _They're doing wonderfully. Most of them are underage so they won't be testifying on the stand, with the exception of Kurt Wagner, who will be seventeen in a few months time. And you could still say hello! if you wanted. They're mutants, too._ Erik thinks they would love Charles, because _he_ loves Charles, and he can't imagine anyone reasonable not liking him. _I did not speak with them myself,_ Erik admits. He taps his own jaw very lightly. _Janos and Carmen did, through the VPRS. I think you will like our lawyer. She's very nice_. She's also an S2, which made their single meeting interesting, to say the least. _Once the pre-trial procedures are complete, we'll be appearing together. I'll get to see them._ And if Erik is a little excited about that, well.  
  
Charles beams at that, radiating his own joy for Erik. Maybe a quick _hello_ is in order. Erik could speak that way, too, and it would be - well. That brings him to another, possibly far more problematic problem, but he doesn't actually want to address it. He buries himself further in Erik's neck, body curling up until it's tucked into a ball around his Dominant's.

* * *

 _We should address it, Charles,_ Erik murmurs warmly, tucking him even closer. Against his body and his mind, his hand going to pet his hair unconsciously, combing through the strands. While he was comatose Erik had taken it upon himself to look after Charles whenever he was in the room alone, so Charles actually was clean-shaven and hygienic, and his mouth didn't taste like soot, since Erik had painstakingly made sure he was as comfortable as possible. The heaviness in his limbs and the stiffness of his muscles were practically the only real inconvenience he had, he even smelled good. _Or at least name it. And then we can just ignore it._ Which sounds like a good plan to Erik.  
  
Charles noticed some of that, too, and he had known the culprit immediately. Erik would take care of him. It would be nice if he could just stick with that thought, which is incredibly warming and makes him want to drown in Erik's Will again. The problem is that what needed to be named couldn't actually be ignored without - well, best not to think that else Erik have a heart attack. So Charles grunts and shakes his head. _Let's skip to the ignoring it part,_ he suggests. He'll figure it out. Somehow. Later.  
  
Well that wasn't good. Erik buzzed worry, another current in the well-oiled machine of his anxiety. _I think you know that isn't possible_ , he says after a long moment of just letting himself bask in Charles's presence. Having some great, looming threat hanging in the air between them does not sound like his idea of a good time, and besides, he is fully confident that they will be able to figure it out and face it. Together.  
  
 _Okay, let's not call it a great, looming threat,_ he sighs, because that was only going to make him incredibly anxious about the whole thing. Charles figures he should skip to the part where he comes out with it. It's just - it's all kind of a mess up there now. _I think that's what I was doing for a week, damage control, but it's... Dangerously close to 'bleeding from my eyes and nose and ears until my brain matter oozes out, too' territory_. Not so much right this second, and Charles is actively shielding - or maybe can't even reach it himself - but he's becoming more aware of it with each passing second. Either it fixes itself or he has to find some way to deal with that. He'd rather not have his brain melt out of his orifices, but he'd also like to just... not have to address this at all.  
  
 _You were in a coma for a week because of it, I think it is safe to say we need to address it,_ Erik smiles silently. His recollection of what happened in the court house is faulty, but he does remember bending over Charles's broken body, horrified and bloody and begging him to wake up without a response. He also remembers that scream, louder than any he's heard before. He'll never forget it. But he is reasonably certain that at the worst of it, when the walls were dissolved and his mind threatened to consume everything, Erik hung on and hung on and Charles acquiesced with a simple Yes, Erik that didn't end with anyone's brain melting out of anything. If he could do it then, he'll do it now. He'll do anything necessary to protect Charles and keep him safe. _Your mind is the most powerful on this planet. I don't think it will be easy for you to learn to handle it, but you have a habit of underestimating yourself._  
  
Charles makes a noise of protest, hidden completely in Erik now. _I feel like 'most powerful on this planet' is hyperbolic,_ he says. It isn't.  
  
 _It isn't,_ Erik laughs. _I never exaggerate._  
  
 _Oh, please,_ Charles laughs right back. _You do, too. Especially about me._ He's dodging the issue here. Happily, too, because Erik smells nice (had the projection had a smell? Had he neglected that?) and is warm and Real and he's been reminded of Yes, Erik and now he wants to say _Yes, Erik._  
  
 _The cutest on this planet,_ Erik insists. _The most beautiful. The smartest. The kindest. All one hundred percent true._ They're silly statements, but it's not difficult to tell that Erik means each one with all genuine implications in tow. _Please don't hide from me_ , he whispers softly. _I just got you back. I don't want to lose you again_. He tries not to let on how deeply it affected him, how terrified he really is. It's not Charles's responsibility to handle Erik's emotions for him, but he can't bear to think about what might happen if Charles closes his eyes and doesn't wake up again.  
  
 _Why do you always say that? It's 'not my responsibility.' It absolutely is._ It's Charles' place to take care of Erik, too, though not in the same way Erik takes care of him. That also probably includes not dying on him, or falling into a permanent coma. Erik will take care of him, but he has to let him. So he sighs, shutting his eyes tight, curls up as close to Erik as he can comfortably get, and takes a deep breath. _Alright. I'll show you, but not if you aren't ready for it. It... isn't pretty in here, Erik._  
  
He cards his fingers through Charles's hair absently. _I am ready,_ he says, meaning it fully. He isn't here only for the beautiful parts. Anything that is inside of Charles, Erik will withstand. Erik should withstand. It is his place, it is what he was always intended to do. Not to kill or suffer. To take care of Charles. _Let me see,_ he asks, pressing his lips gently to Charles's temple.

* * *

At first, nothing happens. Then everything does, all at once, and they are no longer in a hospital bed. It's unfortunate to let the physical Real go so soon, but they have the rest of their lives for that. This at least needs to be named. The walls of the manor are crumbling. It isn't like being attacked by Emma Frost, where they shook and vibrated a bit. This is not an outside attack, not trembling floorboards and half-night days. Where the antique wallpaper shreds, only void, blank space exists, filled with enough noise to deafen. This is Charles' brain consuming itself, a star gone supernova and the core collapsing a trillion times into itself. The doors will not stay closed. Every time he slams one shut, another two or three or ten open, their contents spilling out into the hall. Some are more dangerous than others, more upsetting. Others are simply memories.   
  
Raven walks by in his mother's clothes with a younger version of him ( _"Don't laugh, Charles!" "I'm so sorry, it's just - you look utterly ridiculous!"_ ). Gabby holds up a collar, and he gets the same urge to bolt that he did then. Warren is drunk enough to sob, and Charles sobs with him. The voided spaces scream, voices he's never heard but also has, memories that aren't his, languages he never studied but now speaks. The world shouts for his attention, blocked only by these walls that are not sturdy enough to hold their burden. Life and death and sorrow and joy, but it all amounts to so much noise. Where Charles' childhood bedroom would be, the door is locked and bolted not once but a thousand times, chained up and decorated with yellow caution tape.   
  
There's muffled screaming from inside. Charles turns his back on it. "I told you," he whispers.  
  
It isn't just Charles's burden anymore. Erik stands beside him, a hand on his shoulder, at his back, guiding and firm as it always was. He doesn't flinch back or shy away no matter how loud it gets. Truth be told, as much as he wants to endure and face it with Charles, he wasn't certain at first that he could, until it happened. Every particle in the atmosphere of his own mind vibrates in synchronous frequency. But he can. He hangs on, just as he did before. Every scream echoes within him, and spaces open up to accommodate. There is so much space in him that he didn't even know he had, until now. _I'm right here,_ he says in return, soft but insistent. When Charles turns, he takes him into his arms, soothing _. I've got you. I love you._ Wherever Charles goes, Erik will follow. This is his simplest universal truth.  
  
It was worse a week ago, but this is what they're working with. Charles buries himself in Erik's chest, and frankly doesn't know where to start. Everything he can't handle yet seeps out, and it's mixing with everything else. Unless he spends the rest of his life channeling all of his energy into slamming doors closed, building walls that will only crumble again, running up and down these mental corridors - The screaming from behind his bedroom door gets louder. It's undeniably his own voice. Charles winces. _I don't know what to do, and I'm afraid,_ he admits.  
  
 _I know, Erik_ soothes and takes his hands, leading him to the door. _We need to face this. I know you think you can't handle it, but you can. I will bear this with you. We will handle it together. I will not let you be killed and taken from me by people who do not deserve you. I deserve you,_ Erik's voice cracks in the mind world. Maybe he isn't the smartest, or most beautiful, or most kind, but he _loves_ Charles the most. He will love him as much as he deserves to be loved and more. _You deserve us. These are just monsters. We have faced far worse than that in separation. Together they cannot destroy us._  
  
Charles digs his feet in and drags them, but the polished wood has nothing to grip to and all he does is slide, whimpering loudly. Shaking his head, vehement. _No. No, please. Please don't make me go in there._ He looks up at Erik, and he has never looked more terrified, wide eyes filled with unshed tears. _Please don't make me,_ he begs.  
  
 _Du musst Kraft lernen. Si vous voulez agir comme un Dominant, alors agissez comme tel. Ich will nicht! S'il te plaît ne me fais pas de mal, Erik. Ne me fais pas faire ça!_ Erik's face here isn't waxy and impassive, unmarred by wires and screws. He lays his hand on Charles's cheek, smiling. _I've got you, Charles. You're safe with me._  
  
He can't. If he goes in there, he will not come out the same. He might not come out at all. Charles shakes his head again, and the tears slip down his cheeks. _I can't,_ he insists. _I can't go in there. Please, let's leave it locked. It should stay locked._  
  
 _You will,_ Erik says, and in the same room as Charles, in the same breath, his Will is more powerful than a force of nature. Bending the fabric of space and time itself. _You will come out. You will. I will make sure that you do. This door is never going to stay locked. This door has never been locked. Everything behind it has always tried to catch up to you. I think it's time to turn around and fight, Charles. You can fight. I know you can fight. I know you don't want this to kill you. If you don't go inside, it is going to kill you. I can't let that happen._  
  
Erik is right. The door isn't locked. It's wide open. It's him inside, and he isn't screaming. This Charles stares at the wall, bathed in moonlight from the window. His skin is littered with bruises and scratches and marks, his lower half covered by the sheets but the rest of him exposed. He doesn't look at them when they walk in. Charles knows by the sound of his own voice, the hiccup to it, that he's cried himself out of tears. All he says is, "It didn't get better." Charles feels his throat close. He can't walk any farther into this room. The greatest enemy for Charles has never been anyone but himself, and it is that monster that terrifies him most.

* * *

Fourteen and silent. They're in Paris on a routine collection mission. Erik at the side of the road, looking lost. _Oh, pauvre chose. Où sont tes parents?_ The woman's son has a lovely mutation. Ink flows from his fingertips. _Vous voulez pratiquer votre Testament? Ordonne-lui à genoux, alors_. All the rivers turn to ink and all the trees turn to paper, and there is still no room for this sorrow.  
  
"I know," Erik whispers back. "But it will." He leads Charles inside. He can have a life. He can have love and joy. It will not be beaten out of him. There is no monster in this room greater than Erik Lehnsherr. Death who chooses life. The one fear itself runs from.  
  
Young-Charles stares not at Erik, but straight at him. His lips purse like his mother's. "You lied to him," he accuses. Charles trembles, and shakes his head. "No, I didn't," he whispers, and his voice breaks. His younger self scoffs. "Yes, you did, and you know it. You were going to leave me here and pretend you didn't hear me. You were going to leave me here like Mother did." He's going to be sick. "No, that's not -" "Yes it is!" The room is shaking, somehow, or maybe it's not. "You were going to leave me here and pretend it never happened! You didn't go to Oxford because it was the best school. You went because you're a coward. You couldn't stand it, could you, Charles? So you ran away. Just like you always do." Charles stares down at his feet, silent and ashamed.  
  
"Enough," Erik Orders softly. Erik is his friend. That is what friendship means. It means that Charles isn't alone anymore, either or any incarnation. " _Ich liebe ihn_. He was afraid to enter by himself. Anyone would be. Do not fault yourself that. He is here, now. So am I. We will not leave. I did not lie to you, then. And I am not lying now."  
  
Young-Charles makes a face, sniffling as he crosses his arms over his chest. "What else have you lied to him about?" he asks, but his voice sounds more broken than accusatory now, the aggression gone. "Did you tell him you already knew about Father? Did you tell him about how you knew about that lab, and you never checked?" Charles shakes his head. "Please, don't -" "You saw it in Kurt's head," Young-Charles cuts him off, his boyish face twisted in anger. "But you didn't want to think about it, so you shoved it behind a door, didn't you? Because that's what you do." "I didn't know what to do, you know that, I didn't want to lose him twice -" "You never had him!" Young-Charles snaps, all of the vitriol and spite Charles knows himself capable of. He winces. "You never had anything. Do you think your sister would love you if you hadn't done what you did for her? Do you think she would still love you if she knew what you thought about her?" "Stop, please -" "You could have stopped him and you didn't," Young-Charles croaks, and his face crumples in agony. "You didn't. Because you're a coward. Because you're so afraid of yourself. How do you expect to help others when you can't even help yourself?" Charles' breath hitches. "I'm sorry," he gasps.  
  
"I know everything," Erik speaks softly, but his voice raises above both of theirs combined. He's standing beside the adult Charles with a hand still on his shoulder, and he takes steps forward, pushing him toward his younger self. "And I love him. I love you. You have me." And G-d knows, Erik knows that isn't much of a consolation. It's all he has to offer them. "You helped me. You saved me. You still are."  
  
"That's everything," he says, and realizes that both of them have. It's hardly a whisper, until he's standing by the side of his bed, looking at his younger self. "You loving me -" "Is enough to change everything," Young-Charles finishes. All of the anger has melted out of him, and he looks broken again, dried tears on his face. "I screamed, but no one came," he whispers. Charles sucks in a breath. He takes Erik's hand and squeezes so tightly he knows it would bruise in the Real. "We are now."  
  
Erik squeezes back, lighter but only so as not to hurt him. No less firm, no less present. "I know you did," he says to the Young-Charles, sitting down on the bed. With Older-Charles's hand in his, he wraps his free arm around the child and tugs him into his side. "We're both here now. You'll never be alone again. I swear it to you."  
  
"I tried to stop him." "I know," Charles whispers. "I said no. I didn't want it." "I know," Charles whispers. "I was so afraid, and it didn't stop. I just let him do it. No one came, and now -" "I know." Charles is crying, the tears thick and clinging to the roof of his mouth, to his tongue, to his throat, everything heavy and sticking together. "I know."  
  
Erik puts his hand on Older-Charles's knee. "Look," he tells him softly. "Look at him. He didn't deserve this."  
  
Charles can't do it. His breathing is ragged, his heart caught in his throat. "I'm sorry," he gasps. Young-Charles is curled into Erik's side. "I didn't want it," he sniffles. "I didn't. I said no."  
  
" _You_ didn't deserve this, Charles," Erik repeats to him, a hand curled over his jaw. "I know you did," he says to the Younger. "But let me tell you something, OK?"  
  
 _I did. I don't remember - I couldn't have_ \- Younger Charles looks up, eyes wide and red from crying. "What?" he whispers.  
  
"Even if you begged them to hurt you, they are still wrong for doing it."  
  
Charles shakes his head, and feels sick to his stomach. He's looking at his younger self, not at Erik. "That's -" Younger Charles is staring at his collar. "No," Charles breathes. "It's not the same." He'll grow up thinking it is. It isn't. It never was.  
  
Erik pets him gently, smiling a little. "When someone doesn't care about your safety, they are abusing you. Full stop. That exists _independently_ of whether you said yes or no."  
  
Younger Charles scowls, and now he recognizes it for what it is. "Aren't all Dominants like that? It doesn't matter. I'm submissive so they don't care." Charles stares down at his and Erik's linked hands, and he smiles sadly. "No," he says. "They are not." "He called me -" Charles nods. "I'm sorry," he whispers, again.  
  
"The Dominants in your life didn't treat you with respect or dignity," Erik agrees. "They made you feel ashamed of your submission, but there is nothing wrong with you. I can't speak for all Dominants, but I am not like that. Neither is Raven."  
  
"She's my sister," Young Charles mumbles, and sniffles again. Charles doesn't quite manage a laugh, but it's something. "I know. It's different," he agrees. "Why did you forgot about it?" Young Charles demands, looking at Charles. "Why did you lock me behind a door?" Charles has no answer for that except shame.  
  
"Well, I am not your sister," Erik pats his shoulder. He listens when Older-Charles speaks up and nods with the words, and when an answer doesn't come along after a few beats, Erik decides to give one instead. "These experiences are a source of incredible pain. It's a natural human instinct to flinch away from the things that hurt us."  
  
"Are you going to get rid of this room?" Young Charles asks. Charles thinks about that. He looks at the bed, then at the floor around it. He's not going to give his younger self the newer memories he's formed in a projection of this place, because those are not his to have even if it doesn't work like that, but he smiles as he thinks of them privately. "This won't be my bedroom," he answers. "But no, I won't get rid of it. There was good here too. You know that." "I wanted to burn the sheets but I couldn't start a fire so -" "You threw them in the lake," he finishes. It's not funny. It's incredibly sad. It's something a desperate, scared child does. "Not our best idea. But we have new sheets now and the lake survived."  
  
He looks on at Charles, pride welling up between them. "And so did you," Erik murmurs, infinitely tender.  
  
"What are you going to do to this place?" Young Charles asks.  
  
Charles bites his lip. "I don't know," he admits. "I think..." He swallows, and takes a long, deep breath. "I think perhaps it's time to stop locking doors."

* * *

Erik wraps him up in a hug all of a sudden, a large swoop of affection swirling up in the room, distinctly out of place where only pain and suffering and grief clung to the walls before. He loves Charles fiercely, without reservation, and he is so very proud of him for this. He is undoubtedly the strongest person that Erik has ever met, not because of his telepathy or even his experiences, but because Erik is watching him treat himself with love, watching him resolve himself to begin unlocking these places inside. Erik will stay beside him for as long as it takes. He will enter every room, face every unknown horror.  
  
And Charles, despite everything, can't help smiling. Only a twitch of it, only slightly, but it's there. Everything in here hurts, and he can hardly bear it, but Erik is here, and Erik is proud of him. He buries himself in his arms, nudges until they're tightly around him. "I don't feel very strong," he whispers, because he doesn't. "And I still don't know what to do. I'm still afraid, Erik."  
  
"I know," Erik squeezes him just as tightly as he needs. " _Kol beseder._ You are strong even when you are afraid. I will not let anything happen to you."  
  
Charles stiffens for a second, and then laughs. He laughs, impossibly, and takes deep, gasping breaths into Erik's chest, and then the world spins and they aren't in his head, they're in a hospital bed and it's Real and there's so much more to do up there but right now, right now, what is going to help him heal is this. His younger self wasn't alone. He threw the sheets into the lake in the middle of the night and both the lake and him survived. "Please take this IV out, it's itchy and you won't let me do it myself," he mumbles, and it's so ridiculous but despite it all, despite everything, Charles is smiling.  
  
Erik's mind is full of relief-wonder-thank-you just like when he first awoke, and he props Charles's hand up gently on his cast, eyes creased with warmth as he held out his good arm and stretched his fingers toward the metal embedded in his vein. When Erik pulled it was so fast that Charles felt nothing at all, and the catheter separates from the plastic, and hovers in the air before he directs it over to the disposable sharps bin. _Better?_ Erik asks, eyebrows arched.  
  
 _Much, thank you,_ Charles murmurs, and then musters up a grin. _Have you been playing my doctor? I don't see Hank in here._ He doesn't actually know what time of day it is, or which way is up, because he's incredibly dizzy now and very nauseous but Erik has him and it will be alright. He settles against Erik's chest as he takes a good look around the room. _Is that a cactus? Can I touch it?_  
  
He nods, lips pressing together in a faint little smile and he extends his palm toward said plant (it's only one of about thirteen that Erik has migrated into this room, all along the tray of his bed, his windowsill, the shelf over his head). It levitates and comes to rest in his palm, swaying in its clay pot. _Be careful,_ he reminds fondly. It's very sharp and spiky, but there's pretty flowers growing in red notches along the sides.  
  
Charles pricks himself anyway, and gasps before he grins down at it. "I forgive you," he tells the plant, ridiculously, because perhaps he is lightheaded and near giddy with relief that it will be okay. Somehow, despite everything that tried to destroy them, that will continue to try, it will be okay. "I like him. He's very cute. Can we keep him?"  
  
Instantly Erik wraps up his finger in his soft sweater. It's very soft and Erik loves it dearly, and in a heartbeat does not care that he's getting blood on it. _We can keep him,_ he promises solemnly. _What will you call him? A good cactus needs a name._  
  
 _No!_ He pouts as the tiny drop of blood stains Erik's sweater, thoroughly distressed. It's a very soft sweater and it feels nice underneath him and it also looks good on Erik, and he doesn't want it to be sullied. They'll have to wash it carefully. Charles knows tricks for this. The question makes him hum thoughtfully, and what he thinks, after too long of a pause, is _Cactus_. Yes, Charles. Exceptionally creative. They apparently didn't teach plant-naming at Oxford.  
  
One of the perks of freedom, he's discovering, is the ability to wear very soft clothes and he relishes it. He's going to wear this sweater until it falls apart, blood and all. _You can't name it Cactus._ Erik makes that huff of a laugh again. _Carl the Cactus. Casey the Cactus. Callum the Cactus._  
  
 _Carl? Carl is a terrible name for a cactus, no offense to any of the many voices in my head named Carl._ At least he can have a sense of humor about it now. He's pouting again, and tangling his fingers up in that soft sweater of Erik's, rubbing his cheek against it. It isn't as nice as Erik's bare chest, but it's very nice and he has no problem with it. _I want to name him Cactus,_ he huffs. _His name is Cactus._  
  
Erik rubbed his thumb over Charles's cheek, and in the Real, his whole hand practically eclipsed Charles's face like a giant. He discovers in his rustling that Erik now has a port in his chest, a central line embedded in his skin to provide genuine TPN since a liquid diet wouldn't cover his refeeding. It means he doesn't have to go to the clinic multiple times a day (well, visiting Charles doesn't count), which gives him a little more agency until his jaw heals. Fortunately he's completely accustomed to the sensation of hunger, unlike many patients who struggle with non-solid food, and hardly seems affected at all by the change in his routine. Erik is also willing and able to inject himself, viewing it as much less stressful than the alternative. He's nowhere near as tranquil as Charles when it comes to lying in a hospital bed. _Very well,_ he acquiesces to Charles's ridiculous name. _We will call him Cactus, but you cannot hold me responsible when he doesn't like his name._  
  
Charles is distracted by that for a moment. He's incredibly unobservant right now, very out of it, but he tries to look Erik over more carefully. Even considering everything, Erik looks... healthier, than he was. He's filled out more. A lot more. Even after time in CIA custody, his face had been incredibly sunken in when they'd first met, his handsome, strong features visible but marred by how gaunt he looked. When everything heals up, Erik is going to be unfairly gorgeous. He's going to have to fight other submissives off with a stick. It's a ridiculous thought, it all is, and Charles is so pleased he could cry that at least, right now - right now he can laugh. _You hush. Our cactus son loves his name. He just told me._  
  
Considering that a healthy weight for Erik's height is over 200 lbs, he practically looked like he was dead in those first interviews with the CIA. He's almost 35 lbs heavier which in two months is leaps and bounds better than anyone could have possibly anticipated. Erik knows they weren't even sure he was going to _live_ let alone thrive. That he has, Erik pins solely on Charles. Because his wildest fantasies included sinking off into an abyss where no one got hurt because he was gone. The patients were safe, he could drift off into oblivion. Only Charles showed up and it wasn't an option anymore. He wanted to fight. As any medical professional will tell you, the will to live is a good indicator of survival. _That is why I've given you Cactus,_ Erik's mind shimmers in delight. He doesn't think he'll ever get over the fact that Charles finds him attractive. _So you can wave him in their faces when they threaten your Dominant._ As if Charles is one to talk. Erik sees the eyes on him everywhere they go. Erik's eyes are on him everywhere they go, let's be real. Charles is congenial as well as beautiful, so people naturally flock to him. Erik is a glowering skeleton, which is a lot less enticing.  
  
 _I find your glower very attractive,_ he says teasingly, but truthfully, because of course he does. He also finds Erik's smile and his grin and his laugh and his silly nose-scrunching attractive, but having his silent, Dominant protector loom over him with that huge, warm hand at his back - Charles shivers. He can't lie and say it isn't enticing, and the thought reminds him of how strong Erik's Will is when he's actually in the room with him and that just threatens to sink him right under. He does scoff at Erik's observations, though, shaking his head. _Erik, no one looks at me when we're in public together._ It's strange, because Charles is a telepath. He should be perfectly capable of seeing those things, and he is, vaguely. He knows he's moderately attractive. But desirable, the way Erik is? It just doesn't seem possible. He's going to be waving Cactus at plenty of pretty submissives, he knows it.  
  
 _They do,_ Erik's mind purrs at him, Will rising up all around them like a reflex as Charles hovers on the edge of falling through the clouds, melting through both of them like butter in a sizzling pan. Hands over the elements, warming his whole body with its protective curl. _They know you are mine_. He missed Charles so much. A week without him was too long to bear, even with the wispy reminders that he was still there underneath the foggy loam of comatose unconsciousness.

* * *

 _I am yours,_ he whispers back, and closes his eyes. He doesn't want Erik to have to be without him again, and in all likelihood he won't have to. Perhaps they will travel apart, but even then the separation won't be nearly as felt as it has been in the past - they are connected. There is nowhere one of them could go where the other wouldn't follow. Charles is so taken up by dizzying affection and devotion, wrapped up in Erik's Will. Among that humming is a spark of discontent, though, and Charles' lips have had time to heal fully, but they're still full and red when he pouts again.  
  
Even if they do have to travel apart, they know they can bear it. The Real isn't the only place they meet. If Erik can help it they will never be parted again. He will always be behind Charles, guiding him with that Dominating hand, whether it's as a projection or as himself. He is, however, immensely gratified that right now, he can really be here. It almost doesn't feel real. Erik tugs at that spark gently, easing it away into separate strands so he can see what it is.  
  
Charles isn't going to be the one to say it. He'll just pout about it, perfectly happy to rest curled against Erik's chest with tendrils of Will all around him. He puts Cactus the cactus aside, and looks up at Erik with his wobbling lip. He wonders, not for the first time, if Erik really would give him the world if he pouted enough about it. He doesn't think so - he spoils Charles rotten, but there's always order, too, always balance, always structure - but he thinks he'd consider it if he asked very pretty, said please, and Charles can't help just a little thrill at that. He's only human.  
  
It's not even a hypothetical, Erik absolutely would. There is nothing that he won't do for Charles, short of what's physically impossible, and even then he thinks he'd find some way to accomplish it. If Charles asked. Nicely. He taps his thumb against those pretty lips and smiles down at him, faint but no less sincere. _Tell me,_ he Orders, because Charles absolutely will be the one to say whatever it is, if Erik has any say over it; and he always does.  
  
Charles is aware the noise that comes out of his mouth is dangerously close to a moan, but it can't be helped. Orders sometimes affect him no less than they did that very first time, when it was so shocking it had stopped his entire body in its tracks, his nervous system nothing but electric sparks. _I was just thinking that we can't kiss properly for a while_ , he sighs, which actually can't be helped. It's one of the biggest shames Charles thinks he has ever encountered, and he looks appropriately torn up about it, his pout only more pronounced by the second. Charles had found kissing rather unappealing before Erik, actually. Now it's one of his favorite activities.  
  
He still can, of course. Just not, well, properly. He leans forward and delivers a chaste (because that's pretty much all he can accomplish at the moment) but warm kiss to Charles's mouth. Hoping to startle one of those noises out of him so he can feel it on his skin, he drifts his hand up to Charles's collar. _Only one of your favorite activities? Tell me another._ And if that's an Order, too, well, sue him.  
  
It works. Charles gasps, shuddering into it, eyelids fluttering in that way they do when he's just beginning to float further down. He's fairly sure Erik isn't asking about his everyday hobbies, so he bites his lip, blushes faintly, and conjures up an image of him on his knees. Then another, and another, and another. In Postures, on dirty CIA floors, in cars, in bedrooms, both projected and otherwise. It's true. Charles loves kneeling for Erik. Charles really would find no problem with always kneeling for Erik.  
  
It's been so long since he's had Charles before him. So long since he's touched him, really touched him, with his own hands. Seen him. Spoke to him. Heard him laugh. Watched him smile. He's already careening hard into Dominion from that gasp alone. _Perhaps if you ask me nicely, I will let you kneel for me now._ The words in his mind are low and soft, but with a thin undercurrent of heat.  
  
That earns him another quiet, choked noise. _We're in a clinic,_ he protests, but it's weak and they both know it, even as he shyly peeks up with that soft smile and pink cheeks of his. He could ask very nicely. He could say, _please, Erik, may I kneel for you?_ And he knows it would get him delicious results. But Charles has been sleeping for a week now, and everything is so overwhelmingly different, this brand new world, and he finds he wants to play in it. He wants to edge out the horrific and the scary and the painful. So he wears that pretty smile, genuine shyness but just a bit more deliberate now, and he looks up through his lashes. I couldn't possibly kneel for you here. Which is practically code for _please, please put me on my knees._  
  
Erik jerks a little as he finds himself sinking even further into the hazy fog. I don't recall soliciting your opinion on the matter, Erik murmurs back, fond as he strokes his thumb over Charles's lip. _Ask me for what you want. Nicely._ He punctuates the Order with a little tap. Erik can play very well, it turns out.  
  
Charles gasps again, hot air puffed out over Erik's thumb. He knows his manners. He learned perfectly well how to say his please and thank yous. Charles is nothing if not polite, and that means he knows how to ask nicely. He's always wondered how much leeway he actually has here, though, so he bites his lip. He should ask _'may I, Erik?'_ Instead he says, _Let me kneel for you. Please._ He gets away with it, and it manages to sound more like a demand. Charles has to stifle a giggle, awfully pleased with himself even as his toes curl with want.  
  
 _Mmmm. I'm not sure I believe you want to kneel for me._ Erik can't resist dipping his thumb just inside Charles's mouth, eyes half-lidded as he swipes over his bottom lip slowly, like a kiss with fingertips. _I know you can be nicer than that._  
  
There are many, many advantages to being telepathic that come along with the horrors, Charles is learning. One of them is that he can suck Erik's finger into his mouth and speak at the same time, gaze half-lidded and hazy. _Please may I kneel for you, sir?_ he asks, as nice and sweet as can be.  
  
Erik lets out a hum of approval, straightening a little more so he could help Charles upright, and then he guides him to his feet in between Erik's legs, where he's still seated on the edge of the mattress. Barak, he murmurs, and it almost sounds like his voice. No sooner than the words enter Charles's mind than he finds himself compelled to obey by an even stronger instinct than he would if Erik had Ordered him in English.

* * *

It's actually probably good for his sore, stiff muscles to move around like this. That's the last thing he's thinking as he sinks to his knees, though, tugged straight down to the bottom of the ocean in a single movement. Charles gasps, eyes nearly rolled back as he settles, resting against Erik's legs and listening to his heart pound in his ears. _Yes, Erik,_ he murmurs belatedly, but it's a reaffirmation, too. He wonders if - Charles bites his lip, overwhelmed.  
  
Something slots into place in Erik that's been disjointed and out of balance since he'd fallen out of his chair on national television. Since he couldn't reach Charles and he'd had to fend for himself in this new and overwhelming world, everything was cold. People were starting to treat him better. His circle of allies widened to more than the core four. People were starting to grasp that he wasn't an evil person and that made it easier but it didn't because Charles was gone and he was drowning and suffocating in high altitude at the same time. And now he's back and he's where he belongs and Erik could sing with it. _My Charles,_ he breathes out a harsh sound. Everything is warm now. _My beautiful boy. You came back to me._  
  
Charles chokes out something close to a sob, but it's dry and cracked and he leans hard into Erik's knee. _I'll always come back to you, Erik_ , he promises, but it won't be necessary because he won't ever leave. They'll figure out how to manage this powers so this doesn't happen again. They'll work out this situation with Shaw. They'll decide what to do about their relationship, and how best to eventually make it public - who to keep the secret with, and who not to. But right now all Charles is concerned with is this. Is being on his knees for Erik how he belongs, and he looks up at them with those - open, he's awake, he's conscious and alive - big blue eyes. _We have time now,_ he points out. _We can focus on..._ He's biting on his lip, shy again. _On not just surviving. On us. On this._ They can play, and learn, and grow. Exactly as it should be.  
  
 _Time_ , Erik repeats dumbly, because it hasn't sunk in yet even after a week that he's free. That they're free. _Please don't go again. Please don't go. I'll help you. I'll do whatever it takes_. He brushes his lips over the top of Charles's head, plays with his hair, touches him in a million fluttering feathers. His fingers notice Charles biting at his lip again and he smiles to himself, private and only for them. Careful now. They just healed.  
  
 _I won't. I promise I won't. I'll do everything I can to stay with you._ He can't actually promise something like this will never happen again, but he wants to. There's nothing he wants more than to stay here with Erik, actually, long fingers petting his hair as he floats on his knees. _Well, you can't bite them for me so someone has to,_ is what he says in reply, and flashes a coy little smile as if he's perfectly well-behaved and innocent.  
  
 _Oh do they?_ Erik finds himself a little bit possessive at that. I _suppose I'm the one needing Cactus after all._  
  
Charles can't help it. He giggles, squirming around with it as he stifles it in Erik's knee _. I meant me, you silly man,_ he grins. _And while I am a raging masochist, as we both know, and frequently fantasize about you turning me over your knee, I think I might draw the line at cactus play._ It's ridiculous. It's utterly ridiculous. And Charles is so, so happy, and also shivery because he likes when Erik is possessive. Very much.  
  
Erik huffs so loudly he nearly chokes. _That's horrid,_ he shudders at the mental image. _I'm not sure if that's worse for you or worse for Cactus_. His legs come together a bit to bracket Charles on either side, holding him firmly in place.  
  
Charles is finding it difficult to mock offense when he wants very much to moan at being held in place like that. _Are you saying you wouldn't love to be smashed against me? Rude. I'll just get up and be on my way, then._ He absolutely will not and the thought actually makes him whine in protest even though he'd been the one to say it.  
  
His legs tightened around Charles even further at that, an entirely unconscious action. _You will do no such thing,_ he murmurs, his Will extending out at even the thought. If Charles wanted to leave, truly wanted to, truly needed to, Erik would let him go. It would be the most painful thing he's ever done, and he's done a lot, but he would. The line is thin and vague, but present. A lot of Dominant/submissive relationships were predicated on loose definitions of a Dom's influence, which results in a harsh, possessive, controlling nature that makes it hard to move and breathe. Not in the good way that Charles needs to be held, but an oppressive, thick-veined hand over your mouth. Erik isn't like that, but he definitely does have a possessive streak, a need to keep what is rightfully his. As long as it is rightfully his.  
  
Charles does moan at that, a heavy, shuddered breath of it, lips parted as he looks up at Erik with burning eyes again. _I want to be kept,_ he promises. If he ever didn't, and it will not happen, but if he ever truly didn't, he knows Erik would let him go. It's so outside the realm of possibility now that it hardly even matters, does not warrant thought at all. _Please, Erik. Be possessive. Make me kneel, keep me here for as long as you wish. I'm yours. It's your right._ Charles knows full well he can take away that right if he needs to. If it ever becomes a possibility. But it isn't now, and he certainly doesn't foresee it. Charles is Erik's, and he will stay exactly where he's told to. Where he belongs.

* * *

Erik's blood sings at that, a sympathetic shudder running through him very faintly. A vibrating pitch-fork tuning frequencies until all that's left is Will in place of oxygen. _Yes, Charles,_ every part of him rumbles it, an atavistic predator waking from heavy slumber, blinking vivid eyes at him and licking its maw as though ready to devour. _Mine_ , say the oxygen particles, stroking inside Charles's lungs.  
  
There's absolutely no reason for the reaction. It's not rational. It doesn't make sense, when he's so content on his knees like this, when it's exactly what he needs. It has nothing to do with Erik, and he knows it. The tears spring to his eyes before he can stop them, and his whole body starts to tremble, and not from pleasure or desire or the electric-pulse of Erik's Will. He's terrified, beneath the lull of subspace. Shaking, and starting to heave out harsh breaths. He shouldn't have to, they aren't even doing anything - But Erik Ordered it. Even at Rest. Charles clears the muck in his throat and croaks,   
  
" ** _Afor_**." It's the first time he's ever used it.


	38. Every message settles the score

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _trees are sanctuaries_ , herman hesse

It plucks a chord at his heart like a melancholic string, and Erik thought that maybe if this happened he wouldn't know what to do, he'd fumble and he's been scared of that inevitability, only now it's happened and his body moves on pure instinct. He rises up and tugs Charles to his feet immediately, sitting them both down on equal ground on the bed. Hey, OK, he frames Charles's face with both hands. _It's OK. Look at me. I need you to tell me what's going on right now. Can you do that?_ it's an Order, the Imperative in Hebrew unconscious but all the more tying as Erik gazes at him through an endless well of calm and structure.  
  
Charles' mouth is making choked, distressed noises, gasping, hitched breaths, and his chest is heaving with the beginning of hyperventilation. He doesn't want this. He's crying, and he doesn't want to be. He'd been so happy on his knees for Erik, it isn't fair. He can't speak out loud, even though he tries to at first. Nothing comes out except those panicked sounds. _I thought of him for a second,_ he admits, and him could be many people in Charles' life but his mind flashes Shaw and then Erik and Erik on his knees and Shaw on his and his own voice snarling out an Order except it's not because he's submissive and Erik is Dominant but for a second it was crossed wires and if you wanted him you only had to ask and Charles can't breathe, he can't breathe, he can't breathe -  
  
For a split second, Erik can't breathe, either as the images crash over him, himself in stereo-motion. If his teeth weren't wired together they'd be chattering now. _You should never have had to see that_ , he whispers, pained. _I'm so sorry, Charles. Please forgive me. Please. I'm so sorry._  
  
Charles shakes his head violently, jerky bobs, eyes wide and panicked, because Erik shouldn't have to apologize. He hadn't done anything wrong. It was Charles' fault, stupid Charles, he was messing things up again and why would Erik want a submissive like him and it's because he's not good enough, he's not good enough, he's dropping dropping dropping his throat is closing _Erik I can't breathe please help me I don't know what to do_ and the room is spinning and he is shaking and clammy and dizzy. He is going to be sick.  
  
Erik's body jerks in a single convulsion, an instinctual disgust at himself as that day peels itself back around his head in repetitive camera flash-bulbs coming up against a wall before those dissolve into exploding lights. He wraps his arms firmly around Charles and holds him in place. _Stay with me,_ he Orders. _Deep breaths. It is not like that anymore. Not for either of us. I am your Dominant and you are my submissive and I love you very much. You are perfect._  
  
Charles gasps against Erik's shoulder as he anchors himself in that voice. His Dominant's voice. His Dominant's touch. His Dominant's praise, and love, and approval and Will. The world is spinning and Charles is sick but he is also grounded, or being grounded, grounding, Erik is holding him and Ordering him and he is safe. His mind is not an intentional projection anymore, a messy jumble of he has me he has me he is my Dominant I am safe I am his as he comes back, always comes back, right to where he belongs. The only place he ever truly has belonged, to the one he belongs to: Erik.  
  
 _I've got you,_ Erik soothes him over and over again. _I've got you. You're safe. You belong with me._ He tucks Charles's head under his jaw, protective and comforting.

* * *

Charles calms slowly. He is safe, and loved, and protected. Erik will always take care of him. It isn't like that. Eventually his breathing is only stuttered instead of heaving, and then it isn't at all. He clings tightly, cradled in Erik's soft sweater. _I'm sorry,_ he sends, after beats of silence.  
  
 _No,_ he returns, firm and certain. _Don't apologize. Thank you for helping me take care of you._ An echo of what Charles had told him a week ago. He runs his fingers through Charles's hair repetitively.  
  
 _I don't know why that happened,_ he mumbles, embarrassed and unsettled in the aftermath. But Erik is holding him, and petting him, and rocking him subtly against the aftershocks. It's the first time, and the first time always sets the tone. Charles bites on his lip. _You're not mad I...?_ He knows Erik isn't. He knows he never will be, if Charles needs to pause-word again, and it's inevitable that he will at some point. He needs to hear it.  
  
 _You do not have to know why,_ Erik shakes his head, smiling gently. _It is your word, you can use it whenever you like. I am not mad,_ he assures, and the truth is unmistakable. _I am very happy you did._ The situation itself, that Charles was distressed, isn't good, but Erik is glad that Charles felt able to do so, that he was able to protect him as much as he could.  
  
 _I love you. Do you know that you are an incredible Dominant?_ He pulls away from Erik's chest, untucks himself from his chin, because he needs him to see how much he means this. That there is nothing but sincerity in his eyes, and truth in his words. _I know you worry. I know you doubt yourself. But you are exactly what I need, Erik, even when I'm afraid to need it. Thank you for taking care of me. Thank you for letting me be yours like this. It's the most precious gift, and I am so grateful._  
  
Erik's lips press together and his eyebrows crease in the middle, expression crumpling as he works to handle the sudden influx of raw emotion that crashes over him. _Always_ , he replies, immediate. Always, constant, forever. For as long as it's rightfully mine. He touches Charles's face, under his eyes and sweeping over his cheekbones. He's done too much to ever view himself as a good Dom, a good person, but he does know that he will do whatever is necessary to safeguard Charles's soul. No matter what.  
  
 _It's always going to be rightfully yours, so don't hold your breath on that one, alright?_ And Charles smiles wide enough for dimples despite the new tears on his cheeks, curls back into Erik. _I like those flowers on the windowsill. What are they? Do they smell good?_  
  
They float over so Charles can inspect them for himself. One is black orchids, the same as what Raven got him in the hospital. The second is purple vincas, and the third is a bundle of bright yellow roses, which do smell very good. _For you,_ he withdraws a rose and holds it out with a flourish.  
  
Charles beams, and, despite how ridiculous he knows it is, feels his belly explode into butterflies. He ducks his head and a flush spreads over his cheeks. "Thank you," he whispers, impossibly shy considering all they've done together. "I love it." And now he's squirming with it, like a schoolboy who just got his first kiss.  
  
Erik kisses that blush. _Yellow is for joy,_ he explains. That is what the flower lady told Raven, anyway. He thought it was a little more subtle than red, even though that had been his first choice, because he was a giant sap. _I will get you them every day,_ he promises. _A thousand of them. If you want._  
  
 _Don't spoil me,_ he laughs, head still bowed, but he's smiling wide enough for it to hurt his cheeks. This is his life now. This is what he gets. He thinks it's unfair that Erik has had time to get him gifts, and he hasn't been able to please and serve his Dominant at all. He has to make up for lost time here. What is that plant over there? And that one? He indicates them, curious and wide-eyed now, genuinely intrigued as he is by most things. _What is that? Did you draw that? Who is that card from?_ Well, apparently he's finally become aware of his surroundings.  
  
He answers all of Charles's questions in sequence. _It is called a Mother-in-law's Tongue,_ he said of a green, thick snaky cluster of shoots in a large pot. _That one is a Bird of Paradise, of a thin, sharp multicolored leaf that resembled a duck's head. I did._ The drawing is of a cartoon-styled turtle with large eyes, in cross-hatch shading, accomplished by the subtle application of Erik's abilities to manipulate the metal pen. _That is from Gabrielle._  
  
Charles scrunches his nose at the last answer. It's not fair. He knows it's incredibly not fair, but he's absolutely dreading that conversation. _Does it say 'Get Well Soon! You're engaging in an inappropriate relationship with your ex-patient and I'm going to grill you for it'?_ Don't be catty, Charles. He can't help it.  
  
Erik laughs. _It does not. It says 'Please spare the cactus.'_  
  
 _That's just as bad._ Charles pouts. Cactus loves me, he insists. Speaking of all this, though, his eyes wander toward the door. _Where is everyone? What time is it? I'm very happy it was you here, Erik, do not get me wrong for a second, but I admit I expected more weeping over my bedside. Did they all give up on day three?_ He's joking.  
  
He shakes his head. _Hank is on-duty, but he comes to check on you often. He doesn't like to stay long because of me. Raven does as well when she's not at work. Warren at least once per day. It is quite late right now, so they are possibly asleep. Gabrielle tells me daily that I should pursue a better hobby than nursemaid. I stare at her. We have a very affectionate working relationship._  
  
That brings up about a thousand more questions, and Charles barrels right into them. _Work! Did she get the commercial gig? Oh, please tell me she did. I need to see my sister as the face of Colgate. How is Warren? I imagine he's having a field day with all this. How late is late? Where are you sleeping? Please tell me it's not here. Also, this cast is itchy and Hank promised it wouldn't be so while I'm bombarding you with questions what is the likelihood I convince you to let me take it off early._  
  
 _She got her commercial. Warren is coping. He's going to be appearing alongside us at the trial. It is 11:00 PM. I am required to stay inside Hank and Raven's apartment from 1:00 AM until 6:00 AM. I have to report to the court house at 8:00 AM until 5:00 PM, and then I come here until 1:00 unless I have an appointment. The likelihood is approximately zero percent._ Erik answers each one as they pop up, endlessly patient. He'll answer questions all night if Charles wants.  
  
Charles hums, processing all of that as it comes. He has more questions. He has a lot more questions, actually, but perhaps it's best not to ask all of them at once. He's momentarily distracted, anyway. _What if I asked very, very nicely and kissed you in that sensitive place on your neck and said please, sir?_ It's worth a shot. He's going to assume no, but he also just wants to ask to see if it might get a reaction.  
  
 _I would still say no, but you are more than welcome to try._ Erik's eyebrows waggle, amused.  
  
So Charles leans forward and kisses Erik's neck softly, and somehow ends up the one blushing. He buffers it with another question. _Are you going outside, at least, and not cooping yourself up in here? I imagine I didn't do much, and you would have known if I woke up. You could have done some frollicking, or something._  
  
Erik's muscles twitch under his mouth, toward him, and he drops his head onto the top of Charles's, his arm coming up around his waist. As always with Erik, these gentle touches have him pliant and melty. At Charles's next inquiry, he shakes his head. He's nervous to go outside. He doesn't know how to act around people, or how most of society works. He's lagging sixteen years behind, and hasn't been properly outside for most of that time. Erik is free, but he doesn't know how to be free. Especially not without Charles.  
  
Charles smiles. _We obviously can't go far, but do you want to explore with me now?_ Nothing in the world sounds better to him. He doesn't mean right this second - though he certainly wouldn't say no, if Erik wanted to - and he doesn't even mean strictly venturing outside. There is so much for them to explore now. Endless possibilities for them. They have the time for it. Charles grins at a thought, hiding it in Erik's neck as he kisses there again and, when he's feeling particularly bold, mouths at it, sucking gently. He probably should not leave a mark, but a bit of necking couldn't hurt.  
  
He nods eagerly, and then dissolves a little under the attention, resting his head on Charles's shoulder and exhaling a puff of air right over his collar, hand wandering to settle on his waist. In the Real it felt like Charles was smaller, somehow, Erik's hand much larger over his hip than he remembers, which shouldn't be surprising but makes Erik laugh a little _. Yes, please._  
  
That makes Charles shiver, gasping at even a breath of a touch. His neck and temples are extremely sensitive, especially to Erik, what with the constant connection and the collar. Anything near his collar or involving his collar makes him want to beg and fall to his knees, but that's neither here nor there. _Yes, we know you're a giant, Erik,_ he comments dryly, but it's ruined when he goes bright scarlet in the aftermath as his thoughts derail again.  
  
Erik tugs the collar down a bit so he can brush his lips carefully over the skin there, the contact dry and warm and dragging. Chasing that sensitivity, his thoughts a pleasant whirling loam of mine-love-you and he definitely loves that Charles is smaller than him, he fits perfectly in Erik's arms. Where he belongs. _Tell me what you're thinking of,_ he Orders, kissing under Charles's jaw.  
  
 _Oh, no._ Charles whines loud from the back of his throat, and not only because he's being kissed right where he was just thinking he's most sensitive. _How big your cock is going to be when it's inside me for the real first time,_ he gasps out like it's been pulled from him, and immediately bring his hands up to cover his face. He's going to combust with embarrassment.  
  
It has him shaking in the aftermath, nails digging in suddenly, harshly where they're buried, leaving crescent-shaped marks in Charles's side. _Oh, Charles. If you hadn't just woken from a week long coma I would take you home right now and show you._  
  
Charles has reached a new shade of red. It's all the more visible now that his bruises are healing some, the yellowish-green showing off the color better. He peeks through his fingers. _You... want to?_ he asks, like he isn't sure. Painfully shy.  
  
He touches over Charles's hands, lowering them from his face so he can gaze into his eyes warmly. _Very much._  
  
He squirms under that gaze instead, offering a timid, sweet smile. _I know we've already done it, but... Not like this._ And every time he's thought about it he's felt like he's going to drown in liquid heat.  
  
Erik touches that smile. _Not like this,_ he agrees, because he still remembers the first time Charles went to his knees and wrapped those lips around him on the floor of his Protection cell, and how shocked and electrified he'd been. He can't imagine having Charles in the Real. It's enough to short-circuit his brain. _But we will. Be very certain of that._ It's a heated promise.  
  
Charles pouts, arching into the touch, pressing closer for more contact. _I don't want to wait,_ he breathes, perhaps childishly, but he absolutely doesn't. It feels like he's waited years for this. Lifetimes.  
  
 _It is yours, Charles. You have it. You have me._ He brushes his hair from his forehead. _But it's my job to keep you safe. Why don't we start with a meal, you haven't had solid food in a week. You must be starving._

* * *

He's not, actually. He's not hungry at all, and the mention of eating makes his lips purse for an entirely different reason. _Can we wait until tomorrow for that?_ he barters. He really feels like he might just throw it back up if he tried, and he'd rather not. There is something he wants to do, though, so he bites his lips. _My legs are really stiff. Can we... go for a walk?_ He's not sure what it is about it that makes his stomach jolt with excitement. Maybe just the realization that they can. Not a projection, not a fantasy, not a stolen moment after an attempt on their lives. They could literally, actually, together, decide to take a walk.  
  
Well, it's not an imperative-he'd been on IV nutrition, so Erik acquiesces with a nod. He's been on a limited diet for months and knows the struggles intimately, so he's sensitive when Charles is genuinely nauseated. _I have some of your clothes here,_ he confesses, a few things he'd brought in the idle fantasies that Charles would wake up and be whole again. He hopes this isn't just another one of his dreams. _Let's get you dressed, because as much as I love your ass, I'd rather everyone not see it flapping in the wind_. He smirks at Charles's hospital gown.  
  
 _Eriiiik_ , he whines, and his whole face goes red again. He makes a low, needy noise he can't choke back fast enough, ducking into Erik's shoulder to calm himself and hide. Erik is here. Erik is Real. Erik's Will is making him dizzy again. _I want you so bad, this isn't fair._ He really, really does. In every way.  
  
 _Get dressed,_ Erik holds out his clothes, gazing down at him hotly. _If you behave yourself until you are cleared by the doctors, I might be inclined to reward you._  
  
Charles does as he's told, huffing about it. If his thoughts get away from him and he projects a two-sided, feedback loop image of him on his knees in that Protection cell, it simply can't be helped. His telepathy is on the fritz after a week, of course. He would never be so filthy on purpose, and amplify all the noises and sensation -  
  
 _Charles_ , Erik's voice in his mind is tight and restrained with need. Behave. It's an Order, meanwhile Erik is glaring at him like he's about to be devoured whole. He slips off the gown from Charles's shoulders, and he's entirely naked underneath. Erik makes sure he knows he's being looked over.  
  
Charles gasps loudly, trembling and fidgeting in place. He closes his eyes so he doesn't have to look at himself being devoured whole by Erik's eyes, but he feels it anyway, heat tugging in his belly as he bows his head and nods. _Yes, sir,_ he whispers, and doesn't make any move to dress himself. He's currently far too worked up, and at least he knows there's another function of his body that definitely works after a week of being in a coma.  
  
The expression on Erik's face is not nearly as punched-out as it would ordinarily be, simply because it can't, but his eyes are burning in the aftermath of that telepathic onslaught. He struggles to control himself. It's been a week. He's been alone for a week. Funny how insurmountable that seemed when prior to February he'd been alone for sixteen years. Erik doesn't realize he's making a fist as his own eyes flutter closed. Trying to force himself not to say _good boy_ in response-slips out anyway-trying not to consider how hard Charles is just from thinking about sucking his cock. He swallows harshly and helps Charles step into his pants, unwilling to cross that line and able to marshal himself once he gets another look at the hospital bed. He isn't willing to play around with Charles's health, even if he looks fine, Erik wasn't qualified to make that distinction. _Now behave,_ he reminds Charles with a pointed tap to his ass, having gotten himself fully reined in by the time Erik buttons up his shirt for him.  
  
Charles yelps, more from surprise than anything else. It didn't hurt, and even if it did he would like it, but it threatens to work him up again. Erik telling him to behave does things to him that aren't entirely sexual at all, and though he does want to play and explore, he also knows he shouldn't push too far. Charles wants to be a good boy. So he shivers and nods, gives another quiet yes, sir, and puts on his own shoes. He can behave, and then Erik will reward him. _How far are you actually allowed to go?_ he asks, mostly so he'll stop thinking about how bad he wants.  
  
 _I can travel throughout Manhattan, but no further_ , Erik answers, and once they exit the room, he takes a deliberate step away from Charles, seeing as that they're in public, folding his hands behind him formally. He walks with his back straight, posture impeccable. Mentally, he keeps that steady presence at the base of Charles's spine, hovering just as close as he usually would. _Shall we see if we can locate Hank?_  
  
Charles sighs at the loss of contact, frowning even though Erik hasn't actually left. Do we have to locate him? he asks. He knows it's the right thing to do. He knows after coming out of a week-long coma he should probably check in with a doctor. It's just... he doesn't know. _Just a short walk,_ he implores. _Then we'll have him look me over. We'll come right back._  
  
Erik gestures with one hand before returning it behind his back, giving a very faint nod. _A short walk,_ he acquiesces with a firm tolerance.

* * *

Charles is giddy anyway. Erik is all stiff, formal posture, and it's a good instinct to have. They have to watch themselves now. But it's the middle of the night, and most of the city is sleeping, and Charles can shield them from outside eyes. So he does, and he lets Erik know, and he takes his hand, grins over his shoulder, and tugs him out the door, into the chilly night air and this quiet part of the city and stars covered by smog and light pollution but outside, together, free. Charles' legs are shaky and stiff and he runs a little anyway, laughing into the night. _Come on, come on,_ he urges, looking younger somehow, boyish joy like the dimpled boy from his dream.  
  
His lips twitch a bit. In the Real he's much less expressive, and even less than that now, but all his adoration spills over to Charles in rich, thick waves of endless glittering joy. He lets himself be tugged along, shivering a little in the cold even though he had a soft leather jacket to put on before they left the building. _Yalla, yalla, I'm coming, I'm coming,_ he huffs affectionately.  
  
Charles knows there's a park not far from here. Sometimes he sat there for a bit after visiting Hank, with a book or his laptop or a stack of papers. It's small, and inhabited by shrieking children on weekends and around school hours, but he doesn't mind. It's completely deserted tonight. Like something private, just for them, and Charles bypasses the bench by the pond where he normally sits and goes right for the playground, grinning. _Will you push me on the swings?_ he teases. This is their first time out together, it occurs to him. Not on the way to a hospital or after an encounter with a madman or with one of them as a projection. It makes him so breathlessly happy, the chill turning his cheeks pink, his eyes shining even in the dark.  
  
Erik has a slight limp that's more noticeable now that they're actually on a walk, but he manages to keep up with Charles's fast clip even if he can't run, doing a little skip-hop thing to catch up when he lags behind too far. _Would you like to be pushed on the swings?_ he smiles back, boyish, and darts over to hug him after getting one look at those eyes. _You need only ask, Charles._ He feels his heart constrict as they approach the turf, so full for an instant that he wonders if he might crack with it and light itself would spill out of him.  
  
Charles feels even shorter than he was in comparison to Erik's projection. Perhaps he had adjusted slightly, not out of self-consciousness but so it would be easier to do things like lean up to kiss him. He stands on tip-toes (his ankle is impossibly stiff, but it takes weight now) and kisses the underside of Erik's jaw, as gently as he can possibly manage. Just a ghost of a touch. He hadn't been serious about the swings, but - when was the last time he'd done something like this? When was the last time he'd allowed for it? So Charles grins, darting off on unsteady legs to plop himself down. The cast makes holding onto the chains difficult with one hand, but he manages without pain. "Push me," he demands instead of asking, eyes bright as he laughs.  
  
 _Perfectly alright,_ he assures. The nauseated feeling was almost entirely linked to the thought of eating anything, and the dizzy, groggy sludging about seems like it's fading every second. It's ridiculous to feel genuine excitement over being pushed on some swings, but when he pumps his legs out as Erik pushes and goes a bit higher, he laughs with earnest delight, the sound ringing out in the darkness.  
  
"Do you trust me?" Erik asks, all of a sudden.  
  
Charles doesn't even hesitate. "Absolutely. Yes, Erik." It doesn't matter why he's asking, it's always going to be true.  
  
Erik steps back quite suddenly, Charles has enough momentum to swing himself and when he goes up again, he goes higher than he ever ordinarily could on his own, and then he's soaring out of the swingset through the air! He's not falling, though. He's levitating. And then he gently lowers to the ground.  
  
Charles gasps, eyes comically wide as he realizes what's happening. It's not fear, though. He's laughing, laughing with joy and adrenaline and awe, laughing and laughing and when he's on the ground he keels over with it, holding his stomach tightly as it pours out from him. Just like Erik worried he might, he's positive he'll simply burst with all that he's feeling right now. "That was incredible!" he exclaims when he can, when he has enough breath for it, and his voice is that raspy croak but it doesn't matter. He's running for Erik, then, careful not to bowl him over as he wraps his arms around his middle. "You're incredible," he whispers, looking up at him with all the adoration and wonder in the world.  
  
Charles's happiness makes Erik feel like he's floating. He immediately hugs him back, tucking him close. I thought maybe you would like that, he says, eyes crinkled. Do you want to fly for real? He holds out his hands. Charles missed it the last time, couldn't truly appreciate it, but Erik knows that deep down he was amazed, and he wants to give that to him. _I don't know if I can do it as good as what I did before, he warns. I was motivated extrinsically, but I would be comfortable with a lower-level if you wish to try._  
  
"Yes, please," he says immediately, still breathless and eager. His heart is beating in his chest, pounding hard enough to be audible, but he feels not even an ounce of fear. Erik would never let him fall. It's not even a possibility. "Please, Erik," he breathes, thrumming with excitement.

* * *

When Charles takes his hand, their feet begin to hover off of the ground as though pulled up by an invisible magnet, as though gravity were turned off in this one area. They floated higher and higher and then Erik realized they were going too high so they jerked a bit and lowered abruptly before it began to even out. Some day, Erik would be able to make it look effortless, push off the ground and soar through the air, but right now it was jerky stop-starts. Still, they were flying. Just high enough so that their feet could touch the top of the swingset, but still.  
  
"Ah - whoa!" He's laughing again, at first with surprised wonder and disbelief, because of course this would have never been possible by himself, then in that same giddy delight, only amplified now. Charles can hardly breathe he's so completely overjoyed, and if he couldn't appreciate it last time, he's thoroughly amazed now. He's wide-eyed, the picture of wonder, gasping as he looks down at the world below them without a twinge of fear but no lack of sheer, unadulterated happiness. "Brilliant," he breathes, and he's so achingly proud to be Erik's in this moment that it drips right out of him, hanging on his tongue.  
  
 _Can I tell you something?_ Erik asks when the movements start to get less abrupt and a little smoother, bolstered by Charles's hand in his.  
  
"Anything," Charles murmurs fiercely, and squeezes tightly.  
  
 _Do you remember when I told you I could fly?_  
  
He grins. Yes, he remembers. He remembers every conversation he's ever had with Erik, every word spoken precious. _Yes, why?_  
  
 _It was just a guess. Mr. Shaw never taught me how_. His eyes are smiling, like it's a secret meant only for Charles.

* * *

Charles gasps loudly, and all at once he's so overcome with love and pride he really can't breathe. He's sure that he is going to burst with it, overflowing and too-big with emotion, and the whole city - the whole world - will know of a love they could not possibly fathom except by proxy. Surely nothing like this has ever been felt. "You are brilliant, Erik," he whispers, and his hoarse voice is thick with it. "Truly the most extraordinary creature I will ever know, and I have known everyone." _Always take me flying_ , he begs, and finds he can no longer speak aloud, the emotion stuck in his throat where he can't swallow around it. Even his mental voice shakes. _Promise me that even when we are old, you will love me like this and you will take me flying so that I can tell you how absolutely honored I am that I belong to you, Erik. How beyond proud I am that I get to wear your collar and be the one you look at like this._ As if Charles is the amazing one.  
  
 _We won't need a car any longer,_ Erik promises him without reservation. _I will love you and I will take you flying any time you need to go anywhere and you will tell me that you love me and I will tell you back every moment I get and you will tell me that you are honored to belong to me and I will tell you every moment I get that I am honored you chose me. That I am honored for your pride. That you are the one I look at like this. As though you are the amazing one. I promise you this. Because you are the amazing one._ His eyes are radiant. Joyful.  
  
They sound like Bonding vows. They're flying higher now, above the city lights  
  
"Charles." It's his voice, croaked out of his closed lips, slurred by the wire holding his teeth shut. It sounds like a statement but instead it's a call for his attention. "Look at me."  
  
Charles is trembling, matching tears on his own cheeks, and he fights so hard to breathe, to swallow, around the overwhelming joy of it all. "I am looking, Erik," he promises, and his voice shakes like the rest of him, heavy with everything that radiates from him, seeps from every pore, love so strongly felt it has changed every atom, every molecule, rearranged his very DNA. He is sure of it.  
  
"Bond with me," he says. A Bonding isn't quite a marriage. It's more like a betrothal. It's when Dominants first begin to wear cuff _s. You are mine. And I am yours. You are honored to be with me. I am honored to be with you. You are proud of me. I am proud of you. You love me. I love you. You are devoted to me. I am devoted to you. Please Bond with me. Maybe I cannot wear cuffs, yet, but I will wear something fashioned in their place. Because I promise you that one day we will be married. I promise this to you._  
  
Charles is dizzy. He doesn't know exactly how Bonding works, if he's honest. He does know that he wants it. He wants this. He wants to be Erik's in every way possible, he wants to belong to him, he wants, he needs, he chooses. He doesn't know if there are vows that he must say, if there are words that are often spoken, but it doesn't matter to him. He says what he feels, and his voice shakes with every word, whispered above the New York City skyline. "Yes. I'll Bond with you. I'll be yours, today and everyday. I will love and devote myself to you, I will wear your collar, I will never take it off. I will serve you, and offer you the full range of my submission and obedience, everything wholly of my own volition and given freely with my consent. Everything I have, everything I am, I will give to you. My mind, my body, my heart, and my soul. I will let you care for me, and provide for me, protect me and love me, I will let you Dominate and control and Order me. I give you my trust and offer my deference with the understanding that you will not harm me, that you will put my safety and wellbeing first always, and that I always have a safe way out. I give you my respect with the knowledge that I have yours in return. I will follow you to the ends of this Earth and back, and take you with me where I go in turn, I will be so fully yours that we can never be separated. I Bond myself to you, Erik Lehnsherr."  
  
As it so often happens between them, what is in Charles's heart entirely coincides with what Erik feels literally all of the time. To him, these are the Formal Words. The Ritual Declarations, and he returns them with such joyous wonder that he's shocked they're still in the air, that he won't waver from the strength of his love but yet the world only shimmers around them reflexively, a little _I got you, don't worry!_ from deep within his mutation.  
  
 _As you will be mine, I will be yours. Today and everyday. I will love and aspire to be worthy of your devotion. I will wear the symbol of you upon my person, and I will never take it off. I will care for you, and offer you the full range of my Dominance and Will. Everything wholly of my own volition and given freely with my consent. Everything I have, everything I am, I will give to you and receive from you with reverent hands. My mind, my body, my heart and my soul. I will care for you. I will provide for you. I will protect you, and I will love you. I will Dominate you, control you, and Order you. I will accept your trust and deference with the promise to never allow you to come to harm. I will put your safety and wellbeing first. Always. And you will always have a safe way out. I accept your respect and you have mine in return. I will follow you to the ends of the Earth and beyond, and take you with me where I go in turn. I will be fully yours, so that we may never be separated. I Bond myself to you, Charles Xavier._  
  
Charles is crying in earnest now, the world below and around and even above them completely irrelevant when his world is Erik. When he feels, knows, and trusts in his heart that they have just Bonded. He is a Bonded submissive, in his Dominant's arms. He knows he is supposed to kneel, but there is no ground beneath them, and technically Erik is supposed to Order it, so he only clings to him, gasping and soft and certain that this is the moment that begins his life. He does not say _I love you, I belong to you._ His being becomes it, and whispers it, the entire sky bright with it and they have become the stars, their love written into them.  
  
Erik does not say _I love you, I belong to you._ He becomes it. A perfect reflection, as though there is no separation between their souls. There never was. Charles dreamed of Erik when he was a boy and lamented that Erik never replied. But Erik did reply, nineteen years later. When Charles first walked into that CIA holding cell. When he said, _"You are a telepath."_ He knew he could trust Charles based on nothing more than an instinctive awareness that he knew Charles Xavier. He knew that mind. That soul. That mind was a wisp in his subconscious. Not strong enough for him to know what it was. He only wishes he could have responded sooner. Maybe their lives would have been so much better. Maybe they could have saved each other. Erik is so sorry he did not hear it then. But he hears it now. And for the rest of his days he will listen to Charles Xavier and he will love Charles Xavier and he will live for Charles Xavier. He will lie for Charles Xavier. He will kill for Charles Xavier. He will die for Charles Xavier.  
  
 _Barak, Charles_ , Erik says. And suddenly, as they're floating above the Manhattan skyline, Charles can feel the floor beneath his feet. _Barak bishvili._  
  
And Charles kneels. With tears in his eyes and a love that stretched over an ocean, over continents, transcended language and time and space and rationality, Charles kneels and he shakes his head. "We saved each other, my love, my heart," he whispers, and knows it to be true. "It was not too late. We saved each other." Perhaps nineteen years was a long while to wait for a response, but Charles is not sorry that he waited it. There are many more years stretching ahead of them, infinitely brighter. _Can you hear me?_ young Charles had whispered, a boy who hid in the closet and clutched at his head, manifesting power beyond his comprehension even now. _What's your name? Who are you? Please, can you hear me? "My name is Erik. Please call me it._ " And he is heard loud and clear. Charles looks up from his knees and he smiles, and knows that the world has finally righted itself. It certainly isn't too late.  
  
Charles kneels, and then Erik is brought to his knees, purely by the force of his love and devotion, to take Charles into his arms. _I love you,_ he croaks. _I love you, Charles Xavier. With every fiber of my being that I have to give, I am yours. I love you_. He rests his head on Charles's shoulder, overcome, shaking with silent sobs.  
  
Relief. Relief. Relief at last. He is free.

* * *

Charles has forgotten what words are. He couldn't form that if he tried. He squirms until he can bury himself in Erik's chest, until he can kneel and be held at the same time, high above the city where the world cannot touch them because they are the world.  
  
It is a very long time before something in him whispers, something he is not sure is fully conscious, something from deep within, _May I show you something?_  
  
 _Yes, Charles. Always._  
  
The world does not fade away so much as it blurs. His mind is collapsing in on itself still, but where there were once locked, rattling doors and empty corridors, there are open doorways, repainted walls, and plants in every windowsill. There are pictures that are not staged, drawings and trinkets and no chains and no locks. Outside the window Young-Charles plays with Young-Erik, running round and round until the lush greenery of the Manor's garden in July meets with the desert, sun and dirt roads and _ha! I am older by three months!_ and _You are older by two!_ It is not perfect. It will not be easy. But they will do it together. "Thank you, Erik," he breathes.  
  
 _One day,_ Erik says, _It may come to pass that you will need to find a part of me that I am lost to._ The part of him that wasn't ten, but was one year older. How things change in a year. _I deeply sorrow for when that day comes. I hope that it never does. I would not wish that upon you. Never._  
  
 _I would,_ he says right back. _I would, Erik. Because that is my place. Because I will find you, and I will save you, as many times as it takes, just as you will do the same for me._  
  
 _I always will,_ Erik regains his composure, but does he really? It blurs together at this point, the Real and the mind, and when they're this close it's difficult to tell the difference. _It's beautiful, Charles. Look at them. They're happy._  
  
There's absolutely no reason not to be happy, Charles thinks, shaking with emotion still as he curls into Erik on his knees in the sky with the world a blur of lights down below. He's just Bonded. On the subject of their younger selves, he simply says: _It truly isn't fair that your legs are so much longer. You will always win when we race._  
  
 _Well, now you have the advantage,_ Erik thinks dryly. He might be frustrated eventually that he can't run, because he'd always loved to do so as a child, but it's a good consolation. Giving the victory to Charles makes him feel like even this might be worth it.  
  
Charles shakes his head. _Don't you dare give the victory to me. I will win everything fair and square._ He mourns this, too. He mourns all that Erik had taken from him, but Charles will do everything he can to make up for it. If Erik wishes to run, he will create spaces for him to run, he will crawl so it evens out, he will do whatever he has to. To serve Erik, to please him, just as he'd just vowed. To make Erik smile. _I wonder if I can still do a cartwheel,_ he thinks, perhaps ridiculously right now. _Will you take off this silly cast so I can check?_ Maybe if he keeps asking nicely enough it will happen.  
  
And it does make Erik smile. Only Charles is the person who seems capable of eliciting any form of real expression from him at all, something his legal and medical teams continue to lament. Even Raven, though he trusts her enough to speak to her, sees him only as stiff and formal and a little lifeless. When Charles's telepathy had cut off, Erik's whole internal world vanished with it, not a trace of it in his face. But even then, Charles saw him. Only Charles ever has, and ever would. Erik will always be grateful for this. _No, Charles. Not until you have healed. I will let you do all the cartwheels your heart desires once you do._  
  
Charles pulls back so he can pout properly, but it's all a show at this point, his lips attempting to twitch back into a smile. _My Bonded Dominant is so strict and mean, whatever will I do,_ he faux-laments, and then shivers for an entirely different reason than the night chill they're shielded from. Bonded Dominant. Even Erik being strict has its perks, plenty of them, he needs strict, quite thrives under it when it's Erik and - there goes Charles' eyes fluttering. There are lots of applications to Erik's strictness, which is never actually in juxtaposition to his gentleness, but perhaps none more enticing than... he's forgotten to behave again, _oops_.  
  
Erik almost growls at him. He tilts Charles's jaw up, a heavy-gripped hand in the strands of his hair. Every time Charles slid into those thoughts Erik shivered sympathetically, cold-fire chilling his skin and warming his insides and swelling up his blood. Charles isn't the only one who wants. _As pleasant as this excursion is, I want you to be checked by a doctor so I can take you home._  
  
Charles bites his lip. _I'm a doctor. I declare myself fine. Please, can we just go home?_ He's not sure if that's allowed. That thing on Erik's ankle is definitely tracking his location as they creep past midnight, and Charles' home is only about a five minute walk, but it is still not Raven and Hank's place.  
  
Erik shakes his head. _Let's get you checked out by Hank, and then we'll leave. I can't go to your apartment, they will know and I will be put back in detention. But you can come back with me to Raven's?_ It's hopeful. Charles's apartment isn't a crime scene anymore. Erik made sure after CSI left that the place was spotlessly cleaned and he got some new furniture as well, throwing out the things covered in blood. But he still wouldn't blame Charles if he would rather stay with him at Raven's either way. Raven and Hank had a pull-out couch and they slept on it, relegating Erik to their bedroom out of kindness, but Erik just slept on the floor. Hank counts it as a win when he notices that after four days Erik sneaked the pillow to use. By the end of the week he'd taken the blanket, too. He'll get there. With Charles present he'll likely jump right over his reticence.  
  
He'd actually... not forgotten, but put it so out of his own mind that it hadn't registered. There's simply too much going on in there for it to all mesh perfectly right now, but they'll work on that. They'll work on everything. He won't think about murder or blood or Cain Marko right now. He refuses to. No locked doors, but surely he's allowed to gently close some. He needs this one closed. So Charles nods. _Alright. Yes, Erik_. He hopes he can say that for the rest of his life. _Yes, Erik_ even as he puts up a fuss. _Yes, Erik. Yes, Erik, please, Erik, yes, sir -_  
  
His fingers wander to Charles's throat and squeeze lightly. He's done thinking about Cain Marko for the day. That man, those people, deserve none of Charles's attention or time and he can think of so many ways to focus him on what matters. _Good boy,_ he rumbles, pleased. _You're going to behave until we get home. If you don't, I will need to discipline you._ His eyebrow arches up. He isn't talking about the cold, dead discipline sessions where Charles needed correction.  
  
Those aren't dead. Cold, perhaps, wholly unpleasant while they're happening, as those things are, but sorely needed. He doesn't want Erik thinking of anything that happens between them as dead, because even that is thriving and alive and filled with love. But he doesn't think Erik will deign to discipline like that tonight, because Charles does not think he will need it. He shudders instead, letting good boy melt right through him. He could be very, very good. A nice, well-behaved boy, and Erik will pet him and praise him and likely reward him kindly. He is as generous with his rewards as he is firm and efficient with his punishments. But Charles could also play, just a little, so as he bows his head in deference, he flashes images of Erik's cock down his his throat as he gags on it. His telepathy. On the fritz. Of course.

* * *

Erik learns to control his flight in _record time_. They practically zoom back to the hospital, with Charles in his arms, his posture more natural and graceful like out of a Superman comic instead of jerkily rolling around the air. When they landed on the ground, Erik didn't separate from him, a hand still at his back, and when that image hit him he turns and grips Charles's jaw in his fingers, glaring at him. _Unless you want to gag on it right here, behave yourself._ It is not a threat.  
  
Charles gasps. It would not even be the most public place he's had Erik in his mouth, technically. This time when he looks up, he deliberately flutters his eyelashes, bites on those full red lips. _I'm sorry, sir,_ he whispers, and does not sound sorry at all. _I can't help it._ He makes himself the picture of demure, but they both know full well he can. He pretends that an image of Charles swallowing every drop in the backseat of a stranger's car slipped. Poor Charles, really, look at how his telepathy is short-circuiting, don't you feel terrible for him, Erik?  
  
Erik is much more in control of himself than all that but at this point he's shoved so violently far down into Dominion it's impossible for Charles not to follow him into the depths of subspace, and they walk through the sliding doors, a perfect picture of professionalism even as his thoughts are a dark whirl. _Is that what you want, Charles? Hm? I ought to shove you on your knees right now. Make you Present for me in front of this hospital building._ Erik's eyes flash, like a literal lightning circuit, charged particles in his body like a livewire.  
  
Charles bites down hard on his lip to swallow a moan, and even then it comes out, however muffled. Erik hasn't taught him what he expects from him in that way yet, and even the mention of adding something new to their dynamic makes his head spin with want. If Erik Ordered him to Present right this instant, regardless of what form he preferred, Charles knows he would do it now without a moment's hesitation. _Whatever pleases you, sir,_ and it isn't playing anymore. Charles is sunk down beneath the ocean, newly Bonded and Erik's.  
  
Feeling Charles deep down in subspace as a projection turns out to be much different than feeling it in person and Erik gasps loudly, almost a wheeze, his whole body shaking with leashed energy, with lightning cracks and whipped up static electricity. Erik is positive he has never been as aroused in his life as he is right now. He is so hard it hurts. He can barely breathe. Charles is his. Charles belongs to him. He is entitled to Charles. It is his right. Charles is his Bonded submissive. A feedback loop, microphone-shrieking static of love and heavy, heavy want. A computer console at the nurse's triage station sparks, causing the receptionist to yelp in shock and slam her feet into the floor to roll her chair back away from it (unharmed, just startled).  
  
Sometimes service is comprised of acts not Ordered. A good submissive knows to fill a Dominant's need even when it is not expressly asked of them, offering themselves in whatever capacity. Charles doesn't know exactly where he's pulling the words from, but he knows in his heart they're true as he carefully maneuvers them past reception and to Hank, who happens to be standing in his hospital room at a loss for where he's gone after being in a coma for a week. Perfect timing. He hardly notices. Erik wants him checked, so he will submit to it.

* * *

 _Hi_ , he greets his blue friend, and realizes belatedly that he hasn't spoken it. He'd projected it, not just to Hank but to the entire hospital, a reverberation of hi echoing from every wall. Charles has only done that unconsciously when he is very, very preoccupied, what is perhaps a natural inclination - telepathic communication, Erik would note, is far more normal to him than verbal communication, what he turns to when he is stressed or scared - usually suppressed. He smiles sheepishly, shy as he ducks his head, which will seem especially bizarre to Hank. "Hi," he whispers, out loud this time, unnecessarily.  
  
It's almost jarring watching Hank's perception of Erik versus his own. To Hank, Erik is rigid, hands behind his back, straight lines and formal edges and moving like a shadow next to him. Hank's one of the few people that know, so Erik is freer around him, but he's still very, very closed off, expression blank. And then to Charles, his eyes are warm, that simple _hi_ dragging across the walls and tapping a well of fondness that melts out the obliterating lust into gentle adoration like the calm of an ocean after a huge tidal wave. Hank knows, so after a few seconds, Erik takes another step closer to Charles and puts his hand on his shoulder, gazing at the doctor expectantly. He's working on sucking up the tendrils of Will saturating the room like returning strings into the hold of a wind-up doll, but it's enough that Hank's flustered. He lives with the guy and he hasn't gotten used to this yet, his own head ducking as he scratches his neck and clears his throat. He has a clipboard and he runs Charles through the beginnings of a cognitive mini-metal status examination. "How's everything feeling?" he asks, directing him to sit on the exam bed. Erik stands beside him, staunch and calm.  
  
Charles is impatient. He's perfectly willing to see this through because Erik wants it of him, but he certainly does not want to be here when he could be home (or a home, but wherever Raven is can be home for him, too) drowning in subspace and consummating his Bond with his submission, no offense, Hank. _Perfectly fine, just a bit stiff,_ he answers politely as he hops up, and then his eyes go wide when he realizes he's done it again. This time it was only directed to Hank - and Erik by default - but people usually find that kind of communication jarring and uncomfortable. Invasive. He keeps his head bowed, both because he's still very much in subspace but also because he's embarrassed, cheeks red. There's been rewiring up there, and apparently he hasn't figured it out yet.  
  
Hank's eyes widen a bit. "Are you having some trouble containing your telepathy or are you just preferring to speak like that?" he asks when he can find his voice, struggling to rein in his concentration and then at long last-"Erik, can I ask you to step out for a moment, please? I'm sorry. I need to be able to focus on this." Erik does not look pleased at all. He glowers and Hank amends, "or you can stay. That's fine," meekly.  
  
Charles fixes the situation with little more than a blink. Erik's Will becomes shielded, Hank's perception of it effectively cut off. He's still standing there, perfectly Real, his Will still present, but Hank won't be able to perceive it as such. All better, and Erik will be pleased. "No, I think -" Even in subspace, it's not difficult for him to think. He purses his lips. It's not that he can't control his own telepathy, it's just that he had controlled it too tightly for years and his sudden crumbling of that had knocked things out of balance. He warns Hank with a tap to his oversensitive temple this time, then projects an image of Raven, blonde and uncomfortable, walking around the world always negating her natural form. Putting constant effort into being normal and palatable to the world around her. The applications are different, but - "Like that," he explains. He'd just need to find the right boxes and shove these parts back in. The world may accept Raven and Hank as blue, he will fight tirelessly until it does, but his mutation will always be uncomfortable to others. It needs to be leashed properly.  
  
Erik vehemently shakes his head, then. _No_ , his eyes blaze. _Your mutation is beautiful. Just like Raven and Hank. You are perfect. If anyone is uncomfortable with it, they are only uncomfortable with themselves. You should express yourself however you feel comfortable. Mutants are a reality now. Psionic isn't a dirty word. I refuse to believe that you are somehow exempted from the same standards as anyone else._ Erik can't breach the mind, but Mr. Shaw told him over and over again if he could just _try! Just learn!_ Just find his strength! _Findest du Kraft!_ He could move the Earth itself out of planetary alignment. People wouldn't be comfortable with that, either, but Erik refuses to let Charles put himself into a box just to be normal and palatable anymore than Raven prefers to stay blonde. Charles can tell that Hank agrees, fundamentally and philosophically, but Hank is also a bit embarrassed because everybody has secrets. Everybody has things they don't want people to know, even their closest friends and spouses. He doesn't blame Charles or expect him to stop being telepathic, but it's definitely intense knowing that everything about yourself is made bare for the person across from you. The only people, frankly, that Charles has ever encountered who don't really mind that are Erik and Carmen-and Carmen's reluctance is purely professional.  
  
Charles shakes his head, staring at his feet. It's not an invasion of trust and privacy when Raven is herself. All at once he is nine years old again and crying because he has been cursed, because he hears voices and they are not his and he is scared and he is alone and he is ten and Raven is frozen and he is so, so sorry. People did not give their consent to him messing about in their head. It's different, with other mutations. They change the self and the outside world, which is everyone's to influence. Charles is an invasion just by mere existence, and he tapers down as much as possible. Only surface thoughts. Only project with express permission. _Emergencies are emergencies, use your discretion, never bend, never break... Get out of my head, Charles!_ It's not the same. It will never be the same. His self-expression is a violation of others. It always will be.  
  
He loves Raven an extraordinary amount, but he is not fully himself around her. Erik will have noticed it by now, the uncomfortable, suffocating way he holds himself back with her more than he does anyone. It isn't just turning off an ability, because his telepathy is so a part of him that it is completely inseparable. Being without it completely does not just cause discomfort, it inspires agony like he has never felt before - they have both seen that. It was not just pain, it was loss. The greatest loss he has ever experienced. And around Raven, he experiences that, however subtly. He is cut off from her, cut off from himself, and he feels loss. But he can't tell her. He can't say anything. _I can't lose her,_ he whispers, and shakes with it. _If I tell her, I will lose her. She could never love this part of me, and I can't stand that._ It is better if he holds himself back. More with her than anyone, but with everyone else, too. It's enough that Erik lets him be himself. He doesn't need more than that. He doesn't.  
  
 _She is your family, Charles. Give her the opportunity to show that she has changed. Because you've been inside of her mind before, these past few weeks, have you not? And she hasn't responded that way. She hasn't been disgusted, has she? She allowed you to train her, mentally. She no longer bristles when she hears your voice in her head. I think you should give her some credit, just as she gives you credit for the way you have learned to embrace her self-expression. She loves you. Let her love you how she is supposed to love you._ Erik touches Charles's temple, soft. _Do you trust me? Do you think I would tell you to do this if I believed for one second that she would hate you? I have spoken with her about it, you know. And she told me that she is sorry. She told me, in fact, that when you wake up, she wants to tell you that she is sorry. Because I am not the only one who lost you for that week. Raven has been positively beside herself with worry and grief._  
  
She is his family. He is building such a beautiful, extraordinary family, and family members - brothers, sisters, partners, spouses, parents, friends - make mistakes, but they are meant to love each other through them. He is terrified, and he is uncertain, and he does not know that unleashing himself this way will not ruin everything, but he trusts Erik. So he nods his head, whispers, _Yes, Erik,_ and wishes desperately for it to be true.  
  
 _You are a wonderful, brave, brilliant man. You are my good boy. I love you so much. Just endure a little longer, sweetheart. Then we will go home, and we will be alone at last. Ask Raven and Hank if they can stay with Warren tonight. Given all that has happened, I believe we are entitled to a little privacy._ He leans over and brushes his lips carefully over Charles's temple.  
  
Charles swallows, overwhelmed. Erik truly thinks all of these things of him. He is Bonded, now. He is a Bonded submissive and he is loved and he is cared for, even when he does not know what is best for himself. Erik will make sure he has it, and in return Charles will give him everything. Everything, it's all his. All of his service, all of his devotion, more love than he thought himself capable of. He never slipped out of subspace, but now he plunges deeper, and the result is a whine when Hank touches him to check reflexes, tugging at Erik's sweater until he can bury himself in him. He loves his sister and he loves Hank and he loves Warren and he loves his family, his brilliant found family, but right now he just wants to be Erik's.  
  
He must be pouring some of that out, because Hank clears his throat with an abashed smile. Much like Erik suspects, though, there's no disgust or revulsion at all about the telepathic input. He will happily open his mind as well as his heart. "Perhaps you two should go home," he says gently, looking at the protective way Erik grips him over even the most cursory of clinical touches from an interloper.  
  
Erik's glaring at Hank, a little bit overwhelmed by Dominant instincts-there's literature on this, how D5s have a different playing field when it comes to evolutionary biology, their genetic markers are so rare and their dynamics are so bizarre for a reason-not only does Erik have Dominant instincts, the ones every Dom can relate to, but he also has D5 instincts which are a great deal more atavistic than one might expect in an enlightened society. Erik knows, logically, that Hank is a submissive. That Hank isn't a threat. But when his hands are on Charles, all of Erik's hackles raise now that he's firmly stuck in Dominion. If he were able to he'd probably be baring his teeth right now.  
  
"I can find no evidence that there's any medical reason to keep you here-physically you're entirely the same, as long as you take care of that ankle and that wrist. The cast will be coming off in about a week, and you might be a bit sore, but you didn't need surgery for it so you should make a pretty full recovery on everything," he pronounces. "And, Erik, if you take a bag and a half tomorrow, you can kick your start time into tomorrow morning." His eyebrows raise. Sitting through 12 hour-long IV infusion would probably kill the mood. The things are portable and reasonably unobtrusive, but not so great for the better things in life. "I want you both to be careful, you understand me?" He's looking at Charles specifically now. "Let's not play coy, here, I'm your physician, both of you, so let's have the awkward talk."  
  
Erik's glare seems to say _excuse me?_  
  
There's no way he means what Charles thinks he means. He goes red up to his ears, still clinging to Erik's sweater, and shakes his head adamantly. "No, nope, absolutely not," he manages to get out, and his voice is cracked for a different reason. "We are not having this discussion. I opt out."  
  
Hank fixes him with his patented I'm the physician and you're the patient and you're going to do what I say regardless of DS score look that's withered many a person before Charles in its day, especially delivered from a seven-foot tall furry monster. "We don't need to go into any detail with you both in the room, I'm happy to take Erik aside instead."  
  
Erik's eyebrows raise. _Surely you are trying to tell us to be careful of Charles's hand and ankle, which I am fully aware of, Doctor._  
  
"No, this is more or less about you."  
  
Charles grunts. His first instinct is to cross his arms and scowl, because that's just who he is - except with Erik, and then sometimes with Erik anyway, except the whole _'I'm your Dominant and you'll do as I say, Charles'_ actually works even outside of direct Orders, especially outside of them, which is still bizarre even now sometimes, and absolutely perfect and delicious but that's - _no, stop it, brain_. _We're not there yet_. He bites his lip, because seesawing in and out of deep subspace is dizzying and he wants this part over with already so he can just lean into it. "No, I do need to hear this. He's my Bonded and I'm entitled to it." He just wanted to say that, really. It thrills him as much as he thinks it will.  
  
" _Mazal tov,_ " Hank says all of a sudden, a broad grin lighting up his face. "You two really went for it."  
  
Charles gives a grin of his own, unusually shy as he ducks his head and kicks his feet where they're still hanging off the exam bed. "Thank you, Hank. We really did. We still are, actually -" There were other Rituals associated with Bonding ceremonies. Charles is aware of them. Charles would like to partake in them. "So if you could?" He tries to sound as unaffected as possible. His voice cracks again and he's still bright red and head bowed and far into subspace, so it clearly doesn't work.  
  
"I understand, so I'll be brief, but I'm going to be pretty frank. Under no circumstances should Erik be the receiving partner. You will _one hundred percent_ need clearance from a physician before engaging in any penetrative activities. The injury to your leg might find you're in more pain afterward. The arm is an issue, so try and keep it aside. Once the break clears up you'll only be limited by your range of motion. Keep things low-impact for now, you are still recovering from a myocardial infarction and we want to gain weight, not lose it. As for Charles, be careful of your hand and ankle." It's glib. Hank's a lot more glib without Erik's Will suffocating him.  
  
 _What do you mean, low-impact?_  
  
"Sex is a form of exercise," Hank explains. "Which means you're putting your body under stress that it's not capable of keeping up with yet."  
  
 _If I may be frank in return, that seems rather arbitrary._  
  
Hank isn't Gabrielle, and he's not Charles, so it takes him a good minute to work out what Erik's referring to. "The people who oversaw your medical treatment prior to the CIA didn't have your best interests at heart. I do. You are extremely lucky they didn't kill you outright. You underwent three major surgeries just to approach stable your first month here."  
  
Erik grimaces. _Understood_ , he replies stiffly, the hand dug into Charles's shoulder bordering on painful in grip.

* * *

How could Charles not have thought of all that? He's a doctor, too, albeit not the kind Hank is, but he went through medical school and - what? He was just going to encourage Erik to go at it without even considering all of the many, many ways he could be injured or hurt by this? He hadn't put Erik as the receiving partner on the table at all, but even so there was an incredible amount to consider here that they haven't needed to consider because the vast majority of their activities were done outside of Erik's physical body. It washes over him like cold water, dunks him under in a different way, and all of a sudden he's ashamed and horrified. "Understood," he whispers. It's Erik's duty as his Dominant to care for him, but that doesn't mean Charles can be selfish and unobservant to his obvious needs. Part of serving is anticipating those needs, accommodating them, and he'd hardly even considered them. Less than an hour into Bonding and he's already proving a rotten submissive, but that was rather to be expected, wasn't it?  
  
 _Atzor_ , Erik Orders him softly. The Order is so pervasive that even Hank, nulled for the most part from Erik's Will, pauses in his tracks. _You are a wonderful submissive. This is Hank's job, and you did your duty to ensure that you heard the information. You are not selfish. We were both caught up in this._ Something that Erik knows he bears a large portion of the responsibility for, given his Will. _Thank you for staying,_ he murmurs, kissing the top of Charles's head. _Our previous experiences did not need to take this into account. It's only natural that we forgot it is necessary. Now we know, and we will exercise the appropriate caution. You are my submissive. My Bonded._ And let's just say Erik loves saying it. _Which means I am the one who decides whether I find your submission acceptable. I do, and it is. Ragu'a. I love you._  
  
"In addition," Hank says softly, looking at Erik. "You're still recovering from a significant maxillofacial injury. I know that in the past you've experienced psychosomatic vomiting. Were you shown how to use those wire-cutters?"  
  
 _Wire-cutters?_  
  
"I'll take that as a no." Hank moves to retrieve a plastic-wrapped set from his pocket and holds them out. "I'm just going to get you to sit on the bed, here," he directs Erik calmly. "I'm going to peel back your lip if that's OK?"  
  
 _Fine_ , Erik says, looking like a cornered animal when Hank does so, indicating the wires on either side of his teeth.  
  
"These are very simple, very basic binds. All you need to do is sever them with these, and you'll be able to open your mouth enough to release any emesis. If that happens, you'll need to come back in and get re-wired, which is a simple outpatient procedure. Make sense?"  
  
 _Yes, Dr. McCoy._ Erik looks like he wants to be swallowed into the Earth whole.  
  
 _Yes, sir._ And just like that, Charles is dragged beneath the ocean where it's warm and delightful. He watches as Hank demonstrates essential medical knowledge, files it away in the part of his brain that's still processing things like that for future use. He's not Erik's physician, but he is his Bonded submissive which means it's his duty to keep him well. His mind is a big, sludgy mess, which is not something that a doctor like Hank can help him with - or any doctor, really, because no one in the world has a brain like Charles' - but that's all irrelevant for right now. While he watches, he thinks of _'my'_ things he likes his Dominant to call him, and sinks, sinks, sinks. _My submissive. My sweetheart. My good boy - that one is good, he likes that one. My sweet boy is also nice, my beautiful boy. My pet,_ which he hadn't actually had time to reflect on, and now that he does he's got goosebumps - His mind is definitely wandering again.  
  
Hank McCoy no longer exists for Erik, goodbye Hank. He's pressed up against Charles, eyes fluttered closed, mouthing idly at his neck and not even comprehending that they're in front of someone else. _Kanu'a sheli. Meyn tayer. Yeled sheli tov. Yeled sheli metuka. Yeled sheli nehedar. Chayat adam sheli._ He repeats them in every language he knows, but in Hebrew, they're vivid words, associated solely with Charles and the image of Charles, his perfect, lovely submissive who wants to please him and make him happy. He does it so well. He almost misses it when Hank dismisses them, eking himself out of the room as fast as possible. _Let's go home, dear-one.  
_

* * *

No one in the entire world exists but Erik. Charles is very, very deep, sinking farther every second, and now that Hank is no longer in the room and there's nothing to pay attention to but the fact that he's Bonded, it's all he is. The thought of having to walk even the short distance to Hank and Raven's makes him whine, a pout on his lips as he tugs at Erik's sweater, wraps his fingers in the soft fabric and pulls him close to bury his face in Erik's neck and kiss. His Erik. His Dominant. _Claim me, please. It's your right, sir,_ he breathes, apparently forgetting they aren't home yet, or perhaps not caring. They haven't finished their Bonding ceremony. What else matters?  
  
Erik bids them both to rise from the bed and he hugs Charles close. _My beautiful, lovely boy. Come along. Let's go home,_ he soothes, low and lulling and so far gone he can hardly recognize the sound of his own voice between their minds. He leads them out of the hospital and before Charles has time to stop and think, Erik's got them up off the ground again. There was no way he was waiting five minutes.  
  
If Charles notices the change in altitude, he absolutely doesn't react, for an entirely different reason than the first time. He clings to Erik the whole time, and whimpers when he realizes he's going to have to separate long enough to get inside. If he was coherent or aware enough, he might notice Raven is noticeably missing, but he doesn't because all that matters is Erik. They're two steps inside the door before he's tugging at his Dominant again, needier than he's ever been. "Please, sir," he whispers. _Please, please, please, Erik._  
  
They're alone, and Erik is shuddering with thinly veiled need. He leads Charles into the bedroom, slowly stripping off his clothes with an almost out-of-place reverence. He stops and kisses at every new inch of skin uncovered, faint brushes of his lips as he kneels to help him step out of his pants. Charles, his mind purrs, thick and pleased and wanting. He can't help peppering the insides of his knees and thighs with butterfly-light kisses. Inhaling slowly through his nose. Relishing his scent, because he can smell him now. They're here. They're here. They're together. He kept his promise. He didn't take Charles until they could be together. And oh, how he wants. Charles. His Bonded.  
  
Charles is trembling head to toe by now, heavy tremors and bitten back noises as he chews on his lip. He's completely overwhelmed already, fully hard and straining a bit toward his belly, and Erik has barely even touched him. He knows a good boy would take whatever he's given, and he is, he will be, a very good boy, but Erik is wearing clothes and he's gorgeous in them but Charles wants so desperately for him not to be. It's killing him. Erik has seen Charles' naked body - his Real body - since that first time on his knees (with Erik's - mmm), but Charles hasn't. He hasn't, and he feels like he'll fall apart if he has to wait a single second more. He wants to see every scar, every imperfection, every beautiful, warm, perfect inch, to worship and love and serve as he's meant to. "Please, Erik?" _Let me undress you. Let me serve you. Let me love you as you deserve._  
  
"Mmm," the noise is soft, thick. _Yes, sweetheart. Take these from me._ Erik's eyes are heavy, singularly focused on Charles as he raises to his feet to let his submissive care for him. He doesn't get all the way there before he encounters Charles's cock, beautiful and red and leaking just a bit at the tip. Erik's distracted. He can't take him down like he wants, so he just mouths little kisses along the exposed head, feeling it twitch mightily against his fingertips. _Look at you._  
  
Charles' mouth falls open to a breathless, strained moan, fighting every urge to move his hips. He has never been this aroused in his entire life, never felt this soft and submissive and aching and considering he'd thought plenty of times that he couldn't be more than he was then, that's saying something. He whines and tugs gently, murmuring _please please sir please_ until Erik is up all the way. He's still wearing that leather jacket, which Charles finds insanely attractive, but it has to go, so he tugs it off and strokes Erik's chest through the fabric of his soft sweater, because it feels good under his hands and it must feel good on Erik's skin, and Charles is here to be good for Erik. Then it's up and over his head (Erik has to help him a bit, it's difficult with the sling, and he's too tall anyway) and Charles kisses every inch of Erik's chest he can reach with his lips, gentle and careful and adoring and reverent, nuzzling into the hair there, kissing both nipples, murmuring I love you into the firm muscles of his stomach. By then he's on his knees - where he belongs - and just like he's proven himself wont to do, he pulls down Erik's zip with his teeth, doesn't let it bother him that he has to work to get his jeans down with one hand. He kisses hipbones, thighs, knees, giving extra attention to the leg that hurts most. Then he kisses both feet, too, just like that first time, bowed down low to the floor, and looks up at Erik through his eyelashes. _I am yours. My Dominant, my Erik. My Bonded._  
  
There's a dim light on at the corner of the bedstand that flicked to life when they came in here, and though the room is cast in shadows, Erik is bared more fully now than he ever was at the CIA. Every mark and scar stands out starkly, and he would feel shy. He would. He would be ashamed of this body. He would hunch in on himself and conceal himself from view, so that the proof of all his horrors wasn't manifest on his skin. The gnarled curves and slashes and piles of damaged, knotted keloids harshly slashing up the canvas of his back, the many circular burns and hotknife bumps and clean, straight lines along his arms and thighs and hips, slashed at a downward angle that meant they clearly weren't self-inflicted. He would feel shame about this body, but this body is how he touches Charles. It is how he makes Charles feel good. It is how he experiences all of the wonderful things that Charles does to him, all of the pleasures they share reflected like an infinite, repeating mirror. He cannot help but love it for that. When Charles's lips brush over his feet he starts a bit, twitchy, and then bends down slightly to cup his jaw, reverent. Reverent. Seeing him bowed before him-there's another word in Hebrew, not _Barak_ (Kneel, from the same root word as _Baruch_ , or _bless_ , and that's a funny little juxtaposition isn't it?) but _K'ra_. _Bow down_. Erik resists a shudder. Barely. Mine, he murmurs softly. _Mine. You are mine. You are where you must always be. Serving me. Submitting to me. Yielding to me. Loving me. Wanting me. Needing me. Please._  
  
Charles finds Erik's body beautiful. He grieves for all the pain he was put through, every line of it carved out on his skin in scars like a map of horrors and trauma, but in the end he loves them no less than he loves Erik's freckles, the strong, defined curve of his jaw, the point of his nose, the purse of his lips. The thick, long swell of his cock. They are not pretty, his scars, but they are a part of Erik's body, and Erik's body is his to love and worship, to serve and want. _Yes, Erik. Yes, sir._ This is where he belongs. This is where he will always belong. He thoroughly lavishes Erik's feet with attention, bent over and down, his mind a hum of reverence and submission and not even a tug of shame like he always thought something like this might inspire. He was wrong. It's joy he feels when he finally looks up at Erik with bright, shimmering adoration, when he straightens up but stays on his knees. He nuzzles against a muscled thigh, and when that draws his attention to Erik's cock, he gasps. He was right. It seems bigger like this, and his mouth goes dry with need. That will be inside him, somehow. Erik will be inside him. When he moans, it puffs hot air right over it, and Charles knows he should wait for permission, but he is so needy. He mouths at it desperately, eyes rolled back with pure, unadulterated pleasure, as if he is the one being touched. _Please, sir, may I?_ he asks when his eyes open again, shy as though he hasn't done this before. Erik smells delicious, musky and warm and Real and Charles is already unraveled.  
  
There's something different about this time. (Why is this time different from all other times? _Listen, 'tis the season_.) It always seems that when they are together like this, something new opens up. They learn more. They go deeper. They unravel like the petals of a rose and drift into the warm balm of Dynamic winds. But even still, even now, there is more to unravel. Erik has been holding back. Not out of secrecy or fear, but because he didn't wish to make it known in the CIA complex that he was a D5, that his Will was more intense than anyone could possibly hope to comprehend. But now? Alone? Alone with Charles, in a home that accepts them, alone with his Bonded? Every strand of Will unearthed from the world's molten core inside of him simultaneously riots outward and sparks into Charles, hot oil flecks staining him from the inside out. Erik's eyes are eclipsed, black edging out brilliant emerald as he draws Charles closer to him. _Look at you_ , he can't help but repeat himself, because _look_. Charles is staring right at him with wrecked eyes, gorgeous mouth parted to suck in stuttering breaths, chest heaving and knees splayed out unconsciously, desperate for him. He grips into the strands of Charles's hair, making a sympathetic noise of almost pained arousal and just that feather-light touch has the tip of his dick leaking, sticky little strands that gather at the edges of his lips. Erik feels the desire in him like metal wrenching trains off of tracks. _Look at my needy boy. You want to suck my cock? Is that it? Then ask me, Charles. Nicely. Use your words_. He can't even comprehend at this moment how he has enough capacity to think, let alone Order, but it's a compulsion. Orders stacked upon Orders. The room is sweltering, tendrils of Will alight in liquid flame.  
  
Charles knows, more intuitively than with any rational part of him, that if anyone else were met with the full force of Erik's Will like this they would shatter. Even the strongest, most composed and controlled submissive would become nothing but a mindless, simpering puddle of limbs, an empty husk, a puppet on strings with no capability to think or want independently of Erik. Charles does not. Charles is burning alive, superheated metal in Erik's capable hands, but he is not burned out. Every part of him is electrified, from his open mind to his oversensitized skin to his leaking cock and down to his curled toes, dug into his thighs where he kneels. He has never felt more clear, more himself. More like he belongs. That he is right. An S1 needs a D5 to reach subspace, that is true. But only an S1 - only Charles - is capable of properly serving Erik in the depths of Dominion. Only he can match him. Charles whimpers, cheek rubbing against Erik's thigh, needing contact at all times or he will simply break. He does not want anymore. He needs. He needs to serve, he needs to worship, he needs to pleasure. He needs, he needs, he's burning. There are no reservations left in him as he lifts his eyes, lips swollen and red from biting. Stretched around Erik's cock they will only become more so, and he moans at just the thought. "Please, Erik?" he gasps, and his voice was already hoarse, but soaked in desire like this, it is nearly unrecognizable. He knows that will not be enough - Erik told him to use his words - so he whines and tries again, before he needs to be corrected. "Please, sir, may I suck your cock? I promise I'll be good, I'll be so good, oh, please, may I?" He's begging. Not to be pleasured, not to be touched, but for the honor of serving Erik. Because that is what it is - an honor, the greatest he will ever receive.  
  
Erik sits himself down on the edge of the bed, beckoning Charles closer to him, fitting him between his legs where he belongs. He frames Charles's jaw in one large hand and rubs his thumb over his lip, over the barest strands of precome gathered there, and dips it inside so Charles can taste it. Perfect, the thought slips out, gentle amidst the roaring hurricane of Dominion swamping the room like a humid jungle. _Open up, sweet boy. That's it. Don't think I didn't see how much you think about this. How much you love servicing me this way. Do you know how wondrous you are?_ He starts sitting, letting Charles go at his own pace, but then his hand curls around the back of Charles's head, firm and he lifts up a little to thrust inside that welcoming warmth, relishing the way Charles gags and moans around him. _I should never let you leave. These pretty noises you make against me because I make you feel so good. Hm? Ah,_ he chides when Charles starts to pull off in order to get him down deeper and he smacks his hand over Charles's cheek, enough to redden the skin there. _You will take what I give you._  
  
There's little hiding that Charles absolutely loves this particular act of service. It's ridiculous, truly, that he ever wondered if he wouldn't. The last time he'd done this in the Real, Erik had been holding back, not only his Will but everything else about him. Scared to frighten Charles away. Now they are in - not their bedroom, but a place that is home for them, alone, Bonded. There is not a single breath that is not consumed by Erik's cock or his Will, and when he takes them, desperate but not worried, through his nose like usual as he's fed more, he finds he's breathing it in. He's suffocating on it, but he'd happily exchange oxygen for this. If he never breathed properly again, if his lungs only filled in this way. Breathe in only Erik's Will, only taste his cock, be nourished like this on his knees and never need anything else. He moans so loudly it's barely muffled when Erik slaps him, arching into the touch instead of away as if he'd been stroked rather than struck, because besides the sting that has his cock twitching against his thigh, it's all the same. It's all what Erik gives him. He whimpers but goes slack and complacent, murmurs sorry, sir because he can, and looks up with watery azure, the blue edged out by desire and love. Charles is always projecting with Erik, but sometimes it is stronger, when his own instinct to suppress that form of expression are melted out; now, it is more than it's ever been, his mind an open, pouring current between them, feeding images of his submission - yes, keep him on his knees, keep him here for hours for days for years never let him up, tug him where you want him pull his hair slap him call him sweet boy - and their Bond, the words repeated on a loop like an electronic device stuck on replay. _I Bond myself to you, Erik Lehnsherr -_  
  
Erik doesn't _tolerate_ Charles's telepathy or his projections or his mental voice, the way everybody else does. In the future, he'll undoubtedly meet people who are just as receptive to experience it, but at the moment there's not a single person in his life that is eager for it the way Erik is. And maybe that's a product of his upbringing, or just a facet of his personality-contrary to popular opinion, Erik really isn't that reserved. He's unfailingly honest and open about his feelings, but there's a wall that traps him inside his body and Charles is the one who slides through it like the most pleasant of ghostly encounters. He isn't a private person. He lives his life under a microscope and always has-the only Keep Out signs are for Charles's benefit, not his own. Rarely, before he Knew, for the children. Afraid Charles's compassion would overtake him and he would divulge their location to an untrustworthy party. But he knows better, now. At this point there is truly no separation. So many years alone in the dark, every stroke of Charles's thoughts against his is like the gentlest caress. Wrapping him up in hot cocoa and soft sweaters and crackling fireplaces in his brain, and maybe the truth is so simple-Erik is the naïve one, when he says _everyone will learn to love you._  
  
Because he knows that there are cruel people in Charles's life that were not capable of love, but he can't fathom the alternative. How could you possibly conceive of it? He is utterly blind to the idea that there are individuals on this Earth who find telepathy abhorrent, when it is the most nourishing thing he's ever encountered. He cherishes it. He's greedy for it, his own mind always bumping up against Charles's like an affectionate puppy, tail-wagging as soon as he opens his eyes like he's been gone a thousand years instead of four hours asleep. Every image of submission is joyfully accepted with waiting hands, cradled water amidst the vast sepia sands moved by magnetics. He lasts seated for a while, content for Charles to lose himself in it, but soon he tips up to his feet, eager to sink down further into his Control. Every twitch and gasp has Erik moving in symphony, losing the tenuous grip he has on coherent words until he is nothing more than Dominance-responding. If Charles needs to breathe he will make oxygen. _I Bond myself to you._ Erik doesn't say it back. He exists in it, he is made out of it. It is written on the underside of all his cells and processes. His fingertips flutter over Charles's face, amused and warm. The more Charles accepts, the more he gives and it isn't giving anything away. He is not carving pieces out of himself to give to Charles. In giving them, they become alive.  
  
There should be a point, he thinks, where he panics. Charles has done this more than a handful of times now, but barring that first time, it was a projection. While startlingly Real and exceptionally vivid, Erik's body accommodated his in a number of ways that it cannot in this space, this physical, carved out Reality, and he knows it. He hadn't managed to swallow all the way down that first time, mostly because - and he will note this for the rest of his existence - Erik is huge in every aspect of himself, this certainly no exception, and it was his first time with any cock in his mouth. But when Erik pushes in that last bit of the way, feeds himself in down to the root, Charles gagging, his throat bulging and constricting around the intrusion, when tears prick at his eyes and spill freely down his cheeks, he doesn't panic. He doesn't struggle. He doesn't even move, perfectly content to stay trapped between Erik's legs on his knees as he inhales through his nose where it settles against musky curls. He can't breathe, his throat burns, but it absolutely doesn't matter. He doesn't need oxygen if Erik is here, and if he does he will be given it.  
  
Charles is a private person by contrast. He is friendly, polite, congenial and social, that is true. There is no one who loves a good conversation, small-talk and philosophical debate alike, than Charles Xavier. But he is wary, or perhaps just weary. While trusting, sometimes naively so, while extraordinarily capable of seeing the good in people, there is so much of himself he does not give. All the reservation comes down to a fear that, for all that he accepts others, freely and effortlessly, he will not be given that same acceptance. He does not even think he should. So he is cagey, reticent, locks down the parts of himself he finds incapable of being loved - his submission, his telepathy, to only name a few - and throws them into the lake. Hides them underground, where no one has the passcode. Perhaps, up until this moment, he had still held back. When he swallows around the full length of Erik's cock, forcing his throat around the strain, he lets the last barrier fall. Whispers _hi!_ from deep down in the basement, and finally, finally, the last door unlocks, swings open, and he says _come in, you are welcome. Come in, this is your home._  
  
Listen, you do not need to tell Erik twice. He is all over that door. Not even because he's curious or because it's something new, but because Charles invites him and it makes his soul glow. He is wanted. He is trusted. He is the one who will love and nourish all of those parts that Charles has buried underneath, he will coax them out and give them breaths and give them compressions and tell them it's going to be all right.  
  
There's a lot to be said for tangible goods. Erik is a gift-giver, as evidenced by the veritable treasure trove in Charles's hospital room. He's touchy and and affectionate and he tries to say the things that are true, the good things that Charles needs to hear, that Charles needs to know. He is not so much for the small-talk or the philosophical debates, his own opinions rooted and stubborn, he doesn't enjoy battles of wits (and truthfully he's not very witty anyway, Erik's strength lies in sincerity and he's comfortable with that). He couldn't tell you this because he thinks it's utter nonsense, that he only takes, but giving is in his nature. What Charles gives him is beyond measure. The opportunity to take care of him. The most fragile of secrets and dreams and hopes laid out in his hands. The unwavering belief that Erik will be there for him, will love him.  
  
There are three parts of the soul. _Nefesh_ , the spark of life. _Neshama_ , the breath of life. _Ruach_ , the wind that carries them forward. And of them all, _neshama_ is the closest to its creator, because the creator breathes it from their lips into the glass-blown vessel it will occupy. Every moment with Charles Erik feels himself being filled up, taking shape, gaining color. Charles makes Erik good. Here and now, Erik feels himself becoming good. With his submissive at his feet, lost to the world but for him, and discovering that he can give this world.  
  
Unconsciously Erik mumbles something that might be his name, vaguely unintelligible. No more cages. No more locked doors. _Only here. Only us. You are mine,_ says the world narrowed-down. _You belong here. You are loved here._ Erik doesn't know how long he keeps them there like that; make no mistake, he keeps Charles there, slipping himself out from between Charles's lips inch by inch and fucking himself forward again, an age-old rhythm he once had the audacity to believe didn't appeal to him. When he pulls himself back again, though, he just rubs himself along Charles's cheek, staring down at him, intense and fiery. There are other parts of this ritual. He knows them in half-whispers, many yanked right out of those locked doors, some mangled up in a twisted caricature of his own experiences. Like everything else, though, there is no place for horror here. When Erik says it, his own world has entirely become engulfed by Charles Xavier. His submissive. His Bonded.  
  
 _Rise_ , he tells him, a single word laden with dark promise. _Get on the bed._ There is a whole world of Postures that they've yet to touch upon. Erik firmly intends on rectifying this.

* * *

Charles is crying. Some of it, he knows, is because he's just gotten his throat fucked to the brink of asphyxiation and then back again, gasping, desperate, sucking breaths but not a moment of panic, but the rest of it is this: there has never been a time in Charles' life where he was fully accepted. Not one. Partially, that's his own fault. Charles gives just as freely and deeply and earnestly as Erik does, wraps others in affection and acceptance and understanding, but he is not so kind with himself. He has not given himself the chance, and it is the one thing he has been unwilling to offer completely.  
  
He does now, and Erik takes care of the rest. He always does. In return, Charles gives him everything. There is plenty to learn about each other, but here is what no one else could understand, not even him until very recently -  
  
Their souls are well-acquainted. The rest is a joy they have the rest of their lives to indulge in.  
  
His legs are shaking as he climbs onto the bed. He doesn't know where Erik wants him, so he sits near the edge, swallowing hard around anticipation so thick it clings to the walls, humid and cloying and knocking around with the stretch of Erik's Will. His eyes flutter, a soft moan escaping his wrecked, sore throat; it's not suffocating, he was wrong. It's nourishing. Charles inhales it, needy and soft. _Please, Erik_ , he begs, not with his mouth, but those full red lips are swollen obscenely from Erik's cock when he pouts. Even a second apart is too much now.  
  
And that is something that Erik is still curious about, were he mentally proficient enough to string more than one coherent thought together at a time. They know one another. He finds it hard to believe that Charles tried to reach him all those years ago and he simply fell on deaf ears. He can't conceive of it. But he can't deny the instant awareness he held upon first setting eyes on Charles that he was trustworthy. That he belonged to Erik. Erik sits down beside him and breathes kisses over his eyes, pressing lips to those tears and brushing them away with his thumbs. Here's a fun fact that none of them know, but they're both going to find out very fucking quickly: normal Dynamics are enhanced by Presentation postures because they are more intense, more in-depth, and allow for greater vulnerability. A D5 and an S1, however, are a different matter. They feel traces of it as they submerge in respective subspace and Dominion, a planet and its moon locked in an inevitable orbit. Erik feels the shift near instantly as soon as the Order leaves his mind.  
  
In ordinary Postures, Rest is the default. In Presentation, the default is Basic; but this is a standing position and Erik skips right over it. Erik has different names for them, most in German, which he idly flicks by, casting away those associations altogether. His mind automatically supplies an alternate, _c_ _hasof_. Reveal. The image is instantaneous; Charles starting on his hands and knees, lowering himself onto his stomach with his arms folded under his chin. It is near immediate. They become locked onto one another like nothing else before. Whatever bottom they thought they'd hope to reach in subspace or Dominion has dropped out and sent them into orbital free-fall. Thunder strikes of molten need clap under their skin. The need to yield. The need to claim. Erik would be gritting his teeth to keep himself together if he had the ability.  
  
Charles is aware he is making noise. He isn't sure if those are just his attempts to inhale more of Erik's Will, or hitchy little moans, soft whimpers into the bed. Erik needn't have wiped his tears, because he can't be certain but he thinks he might be crying again, this time with a need so strong he vibrates with it. He knew the Posture before Erik's image fully registered, his body a perfect replication of it, grace and Order and reveal, there is no part of him that is hidden. There is nothing Charles wants more than to stay in position and be good now, but he still squirms, threatening to break it but staying all the same; he's burning alive, his skin absolutely on fire, his blood liquid heat, his body sweating out a fever that he can't break without Erik. "Please!" and while it may only be a whisper in actuality, croaked and hoarse, his telepathy, once a coiled snake and now unraveled with the rest of him, spreads it out and fans it until it echoes. Until the walls shout _please!,_ too.  
  
Erik groans, a low, animal sound that's entirely new for him, and dips the mattress under his weight. His gaze is riveted on Charles, on the aborted little movements of his hips into the bed as he struggles to keep himself still, on the way his back arches at even the shiver of a touch to his skin. Perfect. He is perfect. His hand raises and the closet door opens, something snapping into his palms. Be still, he Orders roughly. His arms are lifted and pinned to the small of his back and Charles feels the sensation of a rope sliding over his skin. It's soft and durable, painted bright red against pale flesh. His wrists are bound together, the loops more-or-less decorative to accommodate his wrist, and then harsher up by his forearms to really keep him locked in place. He binds Charles's feet to his thighs, and gives his spine a sharp tap with something thin and wispy. _Arch your back for me. That's it._ _Chasof_. He says it again and everything redoubles, again. Streaks of red slowly enwrap him, as though they're physical extensions of Erik's Will made manifest in intricate patterns.  
  
Except in a projected-world, and even then, this is the first time Charles has been bound like this by Erik. He does not struggle against it, he settles. Even with heat and need whipped up under his skin, soft whimpers of it escaping every time Erik touches him for more than a moment at a time, when a knot is tied, when he is secured in a new way, he sighs with so much delight and relief it would surprise him if he had the mind for it. He arches exactly as he's told, moves only to accommodate, except when he trembles. He knows this is for Erik's pleasure. He still whispers, voice shaking with the sincerity, "Thank you, Erik." It repeats itself mentally, images of gratitude, of service, of how he'd longed for this, how his eyes had caught on that rope in the store and it had never quite left his mind. Erik is helping him stay still. Erik is helping him stay in his place. There's nowhere to go except where Erik bids him, and he wriggles as much as he's capable, not to get away but to feel it when he can't get far. Charles moans loud and full, thinks _thank you very much, sir,_ because he knows his manners, not from the way he was raised (and how strange that even with his mind buzzing like a livefeed for Erik, not a single image of anyone unpleasant pops up) but because it's good to be thankful when given a gift. Good boys ask nicely and say thank you. He wants to be Erik's good boy. Erik will show him how.  
  
Honestly, the line between Charles and Erik is getting more and more blurred. Not in the love of every anticipatory touch and movement, (although there is this) but-what pleases Erik is what pleases Charles, and when Erik is pleased, Charles is pleased, so Erik seeks his own pleasure because it kindles Charles, and so on and so forth. He wonders, almost amused, one of those skid-away thoughts you have when you're deep into something that's scattered your consciousness out, whether it would be this way if they weren't mentally connected. Sometimes he wonders if this is Charles's telepathy at all, if it isn't simply their souls resonating. Because Erik isn't a telepath. Is the thing. Erik shouldn't be able to project as confidently and easily as he does, he shouldn't be able to manipulate the mindscape the way he does-and there's plenty of excuses to go around. Ms. Frost's training on a pliable neurochemistry (and, he realizes, it's quite fine to think of unpleasant people because they're abruptly obliterated into a thousand dying stars upon contact), Erik's level of openness, being a D5 and an S1-but what it comes down to is how it feels.  
  
And for once, Charles doesn't have to split his focus between anything. He doesn't have to monitor guards or switch perceptions or call out sensations (although, concession: Erik's projection had been almost like breathing by the end of it). Erik fully intends to capitalize on this. Erik does show him. He shuts his eyes and like soft, prickling feathers Charles sees himself, bound and held open, hazy and vulnerable and trusting and kept. Erik's. He runs his fingertips down Charles's spine next to one of the intricate knots, and pauses to admire his work. Sometimes he stops to press his lips over a freckle, nose into the divot of his spine, spread his hands out over his stomach. But mostly he is held, suspended in a moment. _You are a vision,_ Erik purrs lowly, eyes in slits. _Tell me how you feel, neshama._ He splays his hand over the curve of Charles's ass, a smile in his heart when Charles unconsciously leans into it.  
  
It's both, and always has been. It wouldn't be possible without his telepathy, Charles knows this, because even undiscovered and locked away he intuitively knows his own mutation. It is something he can give, and so he will give himself credit. But if Erik were anyone else, if their beings did not mesh as well as their minds, it would not be possible either. Not to this extent. A bit of this, a bit of that, and Charles is left unspeakably grateful.  
  
Charles is shivering even though it is incredibly warm, trembling almost violently. Every time Erik touches him he arches, whining and then sighing into it, not wriggling anymore but leaning into the control. When he answers, it is not in words. If Erik wants words, he will form them, because he's perfectly capable, but this is a language too. This is a language very few speak or are comfortable with being spoken, but Erik seems eager for it. He sends _in my place/kept/submission_ , presses the concept of it gently into Erik's mind, letting it linger there and unfolding it like a gift. Then _Bonded/happy/belonging,_ wrapping them both up in it, and he squirms a bit at that, a shaky little breath parting his lips as he rubs back against Erik's hand, even while he knows he should stay in place. Safe/held is next, but it's followed so closely by _needneedneedneedneed_ that it's nearly eclipsed, and Charles stutters out gasping sighs in the aftermath, shaking with it. "Very good, sir," is what he finally murmurs, which in comparison is such an understatement that it should go without saying that even at his most eloquent - and Charles can be very eloquent - there is so much of him that most do not ever get to see and experience.  
  
Erik absorbs those sensations with stunned delight, every time they manifest inside him, like it's the first time he's ever experienced it all over again. And keenly aware that this is the first time that they've been able to experience this. In the Real. He's been humming a bit unconsciously, pressing kisses where his fingers were curled moments before, and when Charles speaks to him in the language that only they share, he finds himself seized by an abrupt surge of desire/need/please/claim that has him replacing gentle lips with the harsh sting of his open palm, reddening Charles's ass under his hand beautifully. The impact causes him to rock forward, dragging his swollen dick across the sheets and Erik follows the pain with pleasure and soothing, leaving kisses where he strikes every time, each one a blow of its own. Very good, he repeats the words, luxuriating in slow, unfurling power, leathery wings beating a staccato drum against azure skies, antiquated instincts emerging from under the tide. Charles doesn't need to be verbally eloquent. His body speaks for him. His heart speaks for him. Erik listens.  
  
In the place that can still think, Charles wonders why Erik always uses that word: _antiquated_. Aren't they both here, now? Don't they both need this in the present? There is nothing outdated about the way Charles submits, nor the way Erik Dominates. In fact, he would go as far as to say that it has never been done this way before, nor ever will be again. It lives with them and it will die with them, perhaps the culmination of everything this should be. Charles is screaming by the end of it all, but with his hoarse voice it sounds the same as his moans, broken, wrecked noises that spill from lips swollen by Erik's cock and all he can do is take it. There are pauses between each strike, so he whispers thank you, sir between each one, not because Erik told him to but because he means it. Because he is incredibly grateful to be given this attention, because the heat radiates through his entire body, because by the end of it he is crying and he cannot tell the difference between a slap and a kiss, contorts himself to rock into both just the same. Charles is squirming now, worried idly that he will undo the pretty knots, and he's forgotten to be still. He doesn't think he can be. Not when Erik spanks him again and he arches forward and back, cock dragging against the sheets and dribbling precome, not when he cries harder and moans just the same because he wants more. Charles sobs when he remembers that in the morning he will not have to create a sensation of lingering soreness when he sits. It will be there.  
  
It _feels_ ancient. It _feels_ primal. Erik worries about the strength of his desire to claim Charles. To permanently, inexorably rewire him until the evidence of his submission to Erik is as plain as the color of his eyes. To fuck him until he wants nothing more than to Present himself for Erik's use. There is a great deal of love, and affection, but there is also a great deal of need that hums all the way through his body and short-circuits in his dick. It makes him feel less civilized, sometimes, like he is the caveman after all. He doesn't ever want Charles to feel like he is lesser for it. The knots hold. Erik is very good with a rope. Charles can squirm to his heart's delight, and Erik sits back on his haunches and watches through lidded eyes, satisfaction peeling off of him in waves of distorted heat. Now, Erik says between them, panting softly through melted, shuddering lungs. He spreads Charles open for him and delivers a sharp slap right on his hole. _You're going to take something for me. You are not to come until I tell you. If you do, I'll simply repeat the lesson until you can withstand it properly._ Dark plumes of possessive magma roil under his collected exterior.  
  
Charles has never, not once, felt like he is lesser with Erik. He feels like he is more, and every instinct and need is mirrored back at Erik tenfold. If Erik is ancient, primal, then so is Charles. He whines loudly at the slap, clenching hard, and when the feedback he's constantly receiving from Erik means he sees how filthy that looks, he gasps and squirms harder in Erik's grip. He can't get enough air into his lungs again, Erik's Will choking him like his cock did. But it doesn't matter. This is all he wants for. This is all he needs. If Erik wants him to take something, he will take it. He's worried, though; he's never come without Erik's permission, even when it felt impossible not to, but he's never been this worked up. Never. His dick is leaking enough that he wonders if he already has come, near purple, uncomfortable and straining and becoming painful. Every time it rubs against the sheets he bucks, forward and then back, the stimulation too much. But he wants to be good. _Yes, sir,_ he whispers, sends _be good/please/take it_ unconsciously.  
  
Erik growls at that and does it again, and wants to feel Charles clench around his tongue. Lament, lament. What a good, perfect, filthy boy he has in his bed, rubbing himself in his own wet spot. Erik wants to play. He wants to see. This is the time for that. Now is the time, when every passing second their Bond solidifies creates more channels for his Will to filter through, more transparent eggshell-thin filament layers to peel back and reflect. But for a split second he considers abandoning that plan altogether to pin him face first into the mattress and bury himself. But Erik is Dominant. The further he sinks, the harder his grip. The clearer his thoughts. Shining glitter. Charles is too far gone to see what preparations he makes, but he feels the warmth of metal, not flesh, press into him at last. The intrusion isn't nearly as significant as his cock, but even-still, it's the first taste Charles has had in the Real and he stutters through every second of it in crystal-magnification. He's taken his time here, slicking Charles up and working him methodically enough to slip the device past. Unhurried. Maybe they were there for an hour. Maybe it was ten minutes. Erik honestly isn't worried about the end. (He honestly isn't really even worried about Charles coming, because that's the answer.) There may never be an end. He might just stay here forever. It is where he belongs.  
  
Charles can't breathe. He's floating in and out of his body, those wrecked, desperate noises wrenched from him near constantly until he is nothing but sensation. Nothing but Erik's fingers and tongue and whatever he has made for him to take. Charles doesn't need to see it. The metal has warmed up inside him, thick and intrusive because while his mind knows and has taken Erik's cock, far bigger than this, his body hasn't. He's clenched and whined and panted like this is his first time, like he is a virgin again and Erik is preparing him to be fucked, because he is. Because he is. Because after this Charles knows he will be addicted, to the stretch and the ache, he already is, he knows he will beg to Present himself to be claimed as often as Erik likes. His muscles are tense where he's tried to keep himself together, stomach taut, smears of white on his belly and in that wet spot beneath him that Erik continues to stretch him open, and then - Charles has felt his prostate grazed during the long, dragging agony of pleasure, but Erik twists his hand, or his powers, Charles doesn't know, Charles can't tell, and he hits that place inside he's never had touched in the Real, not actually, and - He screams, vision going white as he comes, panting and scrabbling for purchase but his wrists are tied together, there's no way to grab, nowhere to go but forward and he's a whimpering, shaking mess, cheek pressed into his own come, the realization sinking in only moments later. _I'm sorry, sir,_ he somehow manages, hot with shame, squirming, but he can't turn around and now he's crying harder. _I'm sorry, I tried, sir, I'm sorry_ \- He wanted to be good. He really, really did.  
  
He just hums, almost a laugh, because he hadn't really even gotten started and already this is the reaction he's warranted. It is addictive. Erik is never leaving this bed again. He hushes those scattering, panicky thoughts with a pat to Charles's ass, still firmly wrapped around its toy, and makes absolutely no move to stop anything that he's doing. Now, Charles, he murmurs. Be easy. I did not say you could not. Erik relents only enough so that Charles doesn't edge right over into truly painful. He can give pain, but some pain does not belong. At least, not today. Erik waits until he can feel the ramp of sensory-overload twitchiness ease off a bit, but doesn't even worry about Charles getting hard again before he continues in his efforts. _I'm certain you can give me more_ , he adds almost conversationally. _Such things can be hard to control, but we're going to learn together._ Erik will teach his body to obey him. He will relish every second of it.  
  
Charles' teeth are chattering in his skull. He wants to obey, more than anything. There's nothing he needs more than that. If Erik thinks he can take more, he will. He can't help but clench, whimpering loudly now as he's filled with warm metal, Erik in complete control of every sensation. It only makes the stretch seem bigger. He can't close his legs to escape it. He can squirm, but that only rubs his oversensitive, twitching dick into the mess he's made of himself and the sheets, only rocks him forward into it. If he squirms back, he nudges the toy into that spot again, and Charles sobs when that happens, panting and dizzy. "Please, sir," he mewls, crying in earnest, his ass red, his hole clenching around a toy, tied up pretty while he's covered in his own mess. When he catches a glimpse of himself from Erik's eyes, he's utterly breathless. That's him. This is what Erik has made of him. And shouldn't he always be like this? Presented for Erik's use. _Please, sir_.  
  
Charles knows instinctively that it's not a vibrator, but the only reason it isn't is because Erik doesn't need one. It's right around the time that he can feel himself swelling up against the mattress once more-if Charles is the only one who can serve Erik in Dominion, Erik is the only one who can rise up above the waves of Charles's subspace, truly, Erik is patient on an inhuman level, his own dick heavy and ignored between his thighs-that the toy stretches out inside of him, shifting just a bit bigger, and buzzes right up against his prostate. Erik accompanies it with a loud, hard slap that echoes through the room with a crack. _Lovely_. There is no other word for it. _My lovely, Bonded submissive._ A feast of sight and sound and taste. Each movement a chorus of Charles's submission to Erik.  
  
Charles' scream does not just echo throughout this room. It reverberates a solid five city blocks out, not the specifics or the pleasure-pain, that even subconsciously is only ever Erik's, but anyone awake at two in the morning absolutely stops in their tracks. He would be embarrassed if he had the capacity for it, that he's projecting like that, but he doesn't. As it stands, Charles is a sobbing, overwhelmed mess, and he hasn't even had Erik's cock inside of him. He's panting, gasping for breath he can never catch, his noises soft ah-ah-oh punched out of him in the aftermath that are swallowed up by Erik's Will. _I can't,_ he breathes, because surely he's going to break. He's squirming again, writhing uselessly, and anywhere he goes he's assaulted with sensation. Controlled completely, always in Erik's hands. There's nowhere to go, nowhere he wants to. _Please, sir, I can't._ But he will, if Erik wants it. If he's asked to. Charles will do anything. Charles will take anything. _I belong to you, please, sir. Pleasepleasepleaseplease -_  
  
Erik hears that broadcast, a sonic boom breaking the barriers. Hears them hearing it and preens, captivated and proud to be the source of it. _You will not break_ , Erik replies sternly, giving him another reproachful smack. His Will shimmers and flexes and tightens around his throat and slithers down his spine and curls over his messy cock. Tugs at his ribcage and skips heart-beats. _I am your Dominant and I will take care of you. Now focus yourself. I expect nothing less than your very best effort, Charles._  
  
Charles sniffles as he's rocked forward by the slap, taking ragged breaths as he tries to do as he's told. He wants to listen, to be a good boy. It's the only thing he is right now, the only thing he needs. _Yes, sir,_ he whispers, rubbing his cheek into the dirtied sheets as he cries and focuses on Erik's Will. That's all he needs to do right now. He can take it if Erik says he can. He inhales, binds himself in more than just the rope, and becomes a focused hum directed only by what Erik's Will demands, only by what Erik bids him to take, no more and no less. Of submission, of obedience. He's Erik's Bonded submissive, and Erik expects the best of him, which means he can give it. The entire world in his hands, every mind wrapped around his finger, and all Erik needed to do was Order and expect to be heeded. _Yes, Erik._ That's all that matters: _yes, Erik. Yes, sir._ He'd stay here indefinitely if that was what Erik wanted from him, and he wouldn't come, not until he had permission. Because he's a good boy. He is. He's Erik's boy, and that means he has to be the best. He has to make his Dominant proud.  
  
Erik follows him into the deep, deep world. He isn't finished with the toy, but now Charles can sense other things, too, that Erik kept under wraps until he was adjusted. Erik can be merciful. He feels the metal feeling him. He feels himself against it. It should be cold machinery, but Erik senses every imprint of every ridge and it's reflected in his entire body. Erik braces himself over Charles, tracing fingers along his throat, leaning a bit left (and that just means it's Real, not a projection) but nonetheless blanketing him in the sensation, chest-to-back and bound up. And at last, when Charles is writhing under the relentless, buzzing stimulation inside of him and the overwhelming, tortuous binds of rope and Will, he drags his cock down the tender welts he's left behind, ghosts between his cheeks, brushes over the outer edge of the toy faintly. OK, it's not an at last. Not really. But Charles is doing very well this time, Erik sees fit to give him a little reward. To let him know how well he's doing, how good he's behaving. _Just a little more, now._  
  
Charles has come to think of metal as an extension of Erik. The way it hums for him, bends for him, sings for him. But even this was possible as a projection. Erik had already learned how to affect the physical world. It's Erik that wasn't Real, and when he leans over him, his cock dragging exactly where he's needy and desperate for it, Charles sobs harder. It's the greatest reward he could have received, because it's the one thing he hasn't had. It's almost enough to completely overwhelm him again, Erik warm and perfect and Real behind him, and he's crying for a different reason. This is all he's wanted. These past two months, this is all he's wanted. Every loss, every bruise, every fear. Every threat. It was all for this. _Thank you, Erik, thank you, sir, thank you thank you thank you -_

* * *

He feels the metal more than he feels it inside himself, when Erik slowly extracts it from him, much larger than it had been going in; and the reason for that is imminently obvious when Charles's litany of gratitude and longing slams into him and he has to adjust his position to press himself in right at the head. It's not going to be perfect. Correction, it's not going to be what Charles remembers. Erik can't say if Charles will find it perfect or not, but there is something undeniably, without question Real about it. The projection of Erik was whole, and that meant things were convenient. In the Real, Erik's gait is a little off, so he has to adjust Charles to account for that. He's listing to one side more than the other, held in place by Erik's strong hand. In the Real, he's a bit slower, more careful while he figures out his own physical limits. But he is there. He is right there. He has Charles, he is inside of Charles. He brushes his hair out of his face and kisses the back of his neck and exhales softly into his ear. Erik thought it might be worse, somehow less impressive, but once again he doesn't realize how wrong he is until he has it. And it is. _Perfect. I love you,_ he gasps between them. _I love you so much. Thank you for being mine. Thank you._  
  
It is better than he remembers. It is absolutely, impossibly, one hundred percent better than Charles remembers. He was well-stretched for this, loose and open and receptive, limp and pliant after orgasm, oversensitized and overstimulated. He was prepared to take Erik's cock. That doesn't mean he isn't still overwhelmed by the stretch of him, doesn't gasp at how full he is. Fit to burst, clenching hard, but there is no pain. There is no pain that isn't also pleasure, no sting or burn that doesn't make his head spin with crashing, dizzying need. He's crying, crying more than he has this whole time, not because when Erik slides all the way in he's pressed right there in a way that is entirely more than he remembers, but because this is his Bonded inside of him. This is a completion. This is a Ritual. This is a culmination. Charles is whole. He is finally, finally whole, and he sobs with it. I love you. I love you. I am yours, I belong to you, and I love you so very, very much. _Ani ohev otcha. I love you. Please, sir, please, Erik, claim me. Claim me. It is your right. I Bond myself to you. Bevakasha._  
  
Charles lit a match and threw it on him. He could deal with that impassively if it purely resulted in need, but Erik has to make himself be still so that he doesn't crumple into tears right there. The sensation is odd; Erik isn't upset at all. It's Charles's love washing over him, in his own language. For some reason that's the thing that gets him and he laughs, kissing his cheek. (The kisses are still awkward, sorry 'bout it.) He doesn't end up crying in the Real, but there's no difference either way. He is here. He is whole. Maybe it's not the exact definition, but in this moment, with Charles beneath him, all the doors of his beautiful mind thrown open and gentle wind currents buffeting within, he is whole. Worming his hand under his body until he can spread it across his stomach for a better angle once he's buried deep, Erik takes his time slowly withdrawing before snapping his hips forward to give him a real thrust. You are Claimed, his mind returns automatically, breathless laughter and joy and tears and wonder and endless, endless heat. _I Claim you as it is my Right. You are my Bonded as I have Bonded myself to you. Toda raba. Ani ohev otcha, toda raba._  
  
The kisses are perfect. The angle is perfect. Charles chokes on a moan, the sound more wrecked than anything, more a sobbing breath, and he works his hips back to meet him. Fucks himself back on Erik's cock where he's thrust deep inside, and the punched out gasp that elicits, the way his eyes roll back, it's all Real. It's all a reaction to physical sensation, to Erik Claiming him. He strains his neck until he can be as close to Erik as possible, until he can see better, rubbing the very Real tears on his own cheeks all over his Dominant. They are his, too. All of him is his. There's another vow, something half-remembered, but Charles has run out of words. He breathes, and out comes _never again/never apart/always his_ and it becomes a Vow, anyway. It becomes the truth. Charles' mutation does not affect the physical world, but he will cross rivers and move mountains before he lets them be parted again. No more cages. No more doors. They are home now.  
  
 _My good, sweet, precious boy. My pretty, filthy boy,_ he groans out, watching for how eager Charles is to fuck himself on him, to meet Erik's thrusts with each wanton roll of his hips. Who craves praise and encouragement. _My pet._ How Charles begs to serve him, to be choked by his cock and fucked and how he cries when he can shower Erik's body with kisses, longs always to follow every Order given. _My treasure. Sweetheart. Dear-one. The one who is cherished._ The one who needs his love and affection. _My submissive The one who is Claimed. Never again. Never apart. Always yours and you are always mine. My Bonded._ How joyful they both are when they step through to this brilliant, luminous home they've made together.

* * *

Charles does not know how much time passes while Erik showers him in praise and affection, gentle encouragement when he whimpers and tenses, overstimulated, reminds him that he was meant to take this. To be Claimed. He rocks back into every thrust, every deep roll of hips, every press of cock inside him, Erik's huge hand warm and steadying on his belly. He's distracted by it for a moment, because Charles had thought that, perhaps, he had exaggerated the stretch of Erik inside him. A fantasy, a wonder at their size difference. He had not. He whines loudly, squirming hard with Erik's cock all the way inside again, clenches and makes those desperate oh, oh, oh noises the entire, agonizing pull out. There is something else different about this. It is languid, slower than usual. Charles can feel every inch, shivering and empty and clenching around nothing every time Erik leaves. It's entirely overwhelming, and so exquisitely perfect. He can feel it. He can feel it. "This is - ah!" It's his voice, cracked and ruined. Tears squeeze out of his eyes again, and he bears back as Erik's cock slides all the way back in. "This is... the beginning." The beginning of their life together. _Please, sir?_  
  
 _Oh, yes, Charles,_ Erik encourages him warmly, that hand slipping down to his cock that's leaking all over him, and twitches hard in his hand just from a simple feathery touch. He grips it loosely, almost like he's going to tease, and then abruptly he is not. He begins to work Charles in earnest, lifting Charles up slightly so he can see for himself, and that gets an even better angle with Charles half on Erik's lap and he shudders with the sensation that brings, when Charles realizes it and moans and flutters all around him. And let it never, ever be in doubt that Erik adores Charles's cock. It belongs perfectly in his hands. In his mouth. If Charles wants to fuck him, it will belong there, too. The deep, angry colors it turns when Charles is strung-out on glittery lust, how wet and messy it is when it's in his hand. How Charles's body shifts with every stroke of his palm. The combined sensations, either way, are designed to plow Charles's orgasm through his whole body like an oil rig crashing through a burning building. _Come for my, sweet boy. Come for me. You've been so, so good. This is our beginning. This is where we start. Let me see you, neshama._  
  
Charles could have come without a single touch to his cock, but that he was given it is enough to utterly devastate him. When he comes, exactly on Command, obedient and screaming, he clenches and squeezes and thrusts himself back. Desperate to take Erik with him. To serve his Dominant, to be Claimed fully, begging please sir please Erik even as he spurts all over Erik's hand and the ropes that cover him pretty and tight and kept. When Erik's cock twitches inside of him, Charles thinks he must white out completely. Everything closes in, the world closes out, and he is full and whole and complete and Erik's. Bonded and twitching with the aftershocks, strung out and floating in the deep world with no bottom. Used, Taken, Claimed, Erik's come inside him where it belongs. He does not notice that all of Manhattan was hit by a sudden psionic jolt. Completely harmless, but perhaps they'll need to work more on that. Charles simply whimpers.  
  
Erik comes as soon as Charles does. It's supposed to be a myth, a fantasy, but even now their bodies are simply an extension of their minds. Their Bond. Erik holds him wrapped in his bindings for a long, long time, and he tells him a story in the immediate aftermath. Not worried about cleaning up. They'll get to it. He holds Charles while he shivers and floats. _A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live._  
  
Charles is beginning to think that coming down from subspace - being brought down - is just not a reality for him unless he is violently dropped out of it. There is no down or up. There is only Erik, and the constant of his Dominance, and Charles' responsive submission. There is only them. Charles listens eagerly to the story like always, floating, floating, adoring. _Erik?_ he whispers, after what feels like hours have passed. _Was that... good for you?_ He shouldn't need to ask. He doesn't. But somehow he is shy again, his eyes closed and his cheeks pink with more than the aftermath of his release.  
  
He would be beaming brilliantly if he could. He touches Charles's face instead with his fingertip, doing his best to transmit that sensation its staid. His eyes are crinkled up, the same kind expression he always wore only for Charles, most especially it increased proportionally along the axis of Charles's shyness. _It is the most wonderful experience I have ever had_ , he answers, completely honest. He's not just talking about sex.  
  
Charles beams for the both of them, slow at first and then with his entire face, boyish dimples and eyes creased at the corners. Me too, he murmurs, and means it with his entire being. He sighs, squirming in his bindings until he can be closer, pressed up tighter. _I was right. I'm definitely going to get addicted._ When time and bodies allowed for it, he really couldn't imagine not begging for it. Not Presenting himself constantly for Erik's use. The thought makes his cheeks burn hotter, and he hides as much as he can.

* * *

 _You were right,_ Erik enthuses warmly. _It would seem I am also an addict. It is one addiction I could not be more grateful to have_. Although, the squirming makes Erik laugh, and brings him to what he must do next. Let's get you out of these, he Orders-because at this point everything is an Order-indicating the ropes. _It's not safe to leave you in for too long. I'll come right back once I put them away, OK?_ He leans over and kisses Charles's forehead though for good measure, and then has to sit up and stretch his leg. When he removes the ropes it's in one single motion and he feels all the knots come undone and fall away. Erik collects it and then puts it back in the closet. Everything else is taken care of discreetly. Out of sight, out of mind. All that's left is to strip the sheets, and then he can go back to cuddling with Charles how he wants. _Stand up for me?_ he asks, bringing Charles to his feet.

* * *

Charles misses them and their comfort as soon as they're gone, sighing in protest. Erik also warned him that he was leaving, however briefly, but it doesn't keep him from pouting and nearly crying while he's gone, overwhelmed and needy. He stands when Erik bids him to, but while he probably means to take care of the sheets, Charles nearly bowls into him, arms wrapped around him as he buries himself into bare skin and whimpers. His teeth are chattering, knocking together, and even he's surprised by his response. _Stay_ , he begs. _Please don't go. Stay._ The thought of being separated right now is physically painful. Charles doesn't think he would survive it. If there's something biological going on here - there must be - he's unconcerned for the moment. He just needs Erik.  
  
 _Oh_ , he breathes, and lays his hand on Charles's face, letting him see. _I am going nowhere. I promise you. See?_ he lifts his hand to grip the sheet and it gathers itself up off the bed and rolls into a little ball, which then goes into a garbage bag. He had Charles sit on the bed and then lay down as soon as the sheets were gone. _You need me, and I need you._ And Erik knows what it's like. He is not a submissive, but he believes he's experienced subdrop before after the time in the CIA when Charles needed to call him. Being separated sounds like the most painful thing that Erik can imagine right now. He is very pleased to instead curl back up on the bed and tuck Charles into his side, wrapping him up in his arms.  
  
 _It won't_ , Charles promises. He isn't going to argue that it was an awful place, because it was, regardless of how hard he worked to accommodate for him, urging Moira at every opportunity. It was not a place for healing. It was not a place for growth. It was never going to be a place they could start a life together, and neither was a regular midrange security prison. But they are here now, despite the stipulations, and Charles is so incredibly grateful. _This is the beginning._ He clings as tightly as he can manage without hurting Erik, curling himself up. He doesn't want to share Erik with the rest of the world. He doesn't want to leave this room. Surely there's a post-Bonding grace period, regardless of the fact that no one can know they've done it. _Don't go_ , he begs, and now he thinks he understands how Erik felt when he asked or else thought the same thing at the end of every session. It's so entirely different now, but Charles has never felt quite this needy. _Stay here in bed with me._  
  
 _I will stay for as long as I possibly can,_ Erik tells him with every ounce of sincerity he has to give. _It will be all right, Charles. I will not let anything_ happen _to you. I will not leave you. We will be safe._ He soothes those worries with kisses for each one. _However, what I would like to do, is to begin your morning routine in an hour._ He says it very politely, but even now, they're still Orders, suffused with so much Will it's hard for them not to be. Completely unconscious. _This is part of how I care for you. And it is only for you. Never the world._ He taps Charles on the nose.  
  
Charles nods, but he's still fairly miserable when he thinks about separating. It's actually devastating, and he knows it shouldn't be. They'll be separated like this plenty of times in their life together, hardly glued at the hip. It's just - he doesn't know. Something must be wrong with him. He sniffs, eyes closed as he nuzzles into warm skin. _Yes, Erik,_ he murmurs finally, because he's being ridiculous and he knows it. The thought of going through his routine helps a little, admittedly. Erik deciding it is Dominating guidance he sorely needs right now. He tries not to feel ashamed that he's so... needy, right now, but it's still there, cheeks flushed with it instead of shyness.  
  
 _None of this_ , Erik hushes him, gentle. _You are perfect._ He tucks Charles into his side, rubbing his back and running his hands through Charles's hair, taking his own comfort from the actions. _Do not be ashamed of needing me. I am pleased that you do._  
  
Charles hums, pleased and settling again. Everything is pleasantly, achingly sore, which is never really something he'd completely accounted for before. Honestly, there was no way to make it one hundred percent Real. This is, and he squirms just to feel it, gasping softly. _How do you feel? Do you hurt anywhere?_ He gently rubs at Erik's leg with his own, sends an image of his bad arm though it's unnecessary, concern pinging around between them.  
  
With some very spare exceptions, largely motivated by terror, Erik doesn't lie to Charles. He won't start now, so he just replies very softly, _I don't mind._ That in itself is true. He would endure any slight, any hardship, any pain, to be here with Charles. Truthfully, what is his, right now, is hardly in that scope. His muscles ache and his arm throbs, likely from a point at which he forgot himself and tested weight against it, and it's wonderful.  
  
Charles frowns at that anyway. He hadn't been entirely coherent for some of it, and so he hadn't been watching, but he'd tried to monitor for pain. There was never anything agonizing, and there isn't now, either, but it's still far too much. He attempts to move enough to check everything for himself, but his sore ass rubbing against the bare mattress they're now lying on is not what he's come to expect it to be, and he lets out a strangled, gasping moan, eyes wide. That's... new. He can feel every heated welt Erik had raised up with his hand, every ache inside of him. He bites down on his lip. How is he going to function if he walks around like this all the time, constantly reminded of Erik's Claim? Is he just going to be constantly - like that? He blushes again, wriggling about as he tries to settle with his toes curled, but suddenly preoccupied with dragging those welts around against the mattress, making hitchy little sighs.  
  
Like usual, Erik was telling the truth, his pain present in the dull pulse it usually bleat, but honestly a little better than normal. Sex and endorphins help, and Dominion increases sympathetic activation, eclipsing nociceptors and replacing them with adrenalized desire. He'll probably be much sorer later on, but for now, he's floating and content. When Charles begins to rub along the mattress, though, it makes Erik laugh, dark and delighted, and he shifts Charles over onto his side so he can curl his own hand over the marks, warm and tender. Charles will have to learn how to function, because Erik doesn't think he'll ever leave him unmarked again.  
  
Charles gasps out a full moan at that, rubbing himself against Erik's hand. There are still fading bruises all over his body, but once those are gone? He could truly become Erik's canvas. He tries not to think too much about it, because there's another part of him that's attempting to stir at just the concept that Erik can do that now. Fuck him whenever he pleases, take him over his knee just because he needs the reminder of who he belongs to. Oh, no. Charles goes bright red to match his ass. _Please do_ , he whispers anyway. _Like your collar. So I always know I'm yours and Claimed_. Antiquated, perhaps, but is Charles going to fight his own instincts anymore? Probably, yes, but not right now, and when he does Erik can coax it right out of him.  
  
 _Yes_ , Erik murmurs the response unconsciously, echoes it throughout his whole self. _You will be. I will make sure you are, for the rest of your life. You are mine,_ he purrs back, giving his ass a little jolt just because he can. _And I love you very much._ He leans over and drops a kiss to Charles's forehead, suddenly quite a bit more tender than territorial. He's quietly going through what he has to do today; it's a busy one, and knowing that Charles will be there for it is enough to overwhelm him. He's become accustomed to coasting around, silent and cut off, worried sick. He needs Charles. Just as badly. Without him, Erik is a shell of a person.

* * *

 _Mmm. Love you, too._ Charles lets himself drift again, eyes fluttered closed. Idly watching as Erik runs through his list, he's creating a half-formed one for himself. He's not at all sleepy (he did technically sleep for a week, after all), but he is floaty, freshly Bonded, letting subspace and Erik's presence lull him. Completely unconsciously, his telepathy creeps outward, something that's never happened in quite this way before. Not without him doing it deliberately. It seeks out familiar, comfortable minds, ones he's connected to, if not the same way he is to Erik - sleeping, sleeping. _Oh!_ That one's awake. He gives it a little nudge, still unaware of what he's doing, a little _hello!_  
  
Shock. Curiosity. Warmth and incredible love. Hi, tentatively comes back, not directed the way Erik can do it with him, but unmistakable. It's Raven, who's just gotten home with Hank and has started rummaging around downstairs. There's no fear or disgust like Charles expects every time he enters, just overpowering relief that he's all right. Hank told her Charles woke up but little else; medical confidentiality still stood even amongst family, and honestly he didn't know that much anyway.  
  
Charles' eyes snap open, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest. He hadn't sought her out. Honestly, he hadn't known he was doing it at all, as if his mutation was a separate entity to him - it feels like it, a bit, as if he doesn't know it nearly as well as he thought he did. How can you know something that you cram into a box and bury, after all? And once you let it out, how can you possibly expect it to go back in the same way? But Raven isn't upset. It isn't the first time he's seen her mind, not at all, but it is the first time in... oh, sixteen years, the vast majority of the time he's known her, since he's sunk this far into it. Even while he was training her he had kept himself out except the places that were strictly necessary. Now she's there, connected to him, humming and warm and distinctly Raven, and Charles' breath hitches, a hand coming to cover his mouth as he sobs. It's utterly indescribable. Like for years he'd been seeing her but not actually seeing, cut off and blind from the one person, before he'd met Erik, that he loved most in this world. Hi, love, he says, and even his mental voice is choked with emotion. I missed you quite a lot. He doesn't mean the week they were apart. Charles tentatively shows her images, memories and feelings, careful not to overwhelm her: the two of them playing in the garden, Charles tucking her into bed, movie nights, clubhouses, holding each other through the worst of everything, Charles' voice promising I am your brother and I will be there, no matter what. She had been there for the words, but now she can feel the aching sincerity of them, the way he'd carried that vow around with himself everyday and tucked it firmly into his heart. It doesn't make up for the sixteen years he could not share this with her, but it is a start.  
  
Raven is crying, too. She's so, so sorry and so grateful all at once. This has been a long time coming. When she asked Charles to stay out of my head she'd been only a child, desperate to contain the experiences she underwent prior to sneaking into the Xavier household, afraid and ashamed and eager to be seen as strong and worthy instead. And then it was insecurity and anger and she wanted to keep him away from those feelings, because he was her brother, the one person she loved above anyone in the world and he didn't deserve to feel her frustration lashing out at him. And then it had been years and Raven didn't want to upset the balance, but she was more permissive about it as time went on, she stopped noticing or commenting on it if Charles accidentally slipped up. Maybe she was hoping one day he would cross the barrier, pierce the veil, but she couldn't admit to that without admitting she'd been wrong. She'd been the hurtful one. Maybe it took an outside perspective, Erik's perspective, to help her get over herself, but she's incredibly glad all the same. She doesn't know how to operate her own mind, not really, so it all bubbles up in one grief-wrapped ball of love and joy. _Please share it with me,_ is what comes back to him. _I'm sorry._  
  
They've done wrong by each other, but Charles knows it isn't and has never been out of spite or malice. They have done everything to protect each other, and they had occasionally made mistakes. It was inevitable. They were children when they first made them, frightened and under more stress than they should have been. Charles also knows, without a single doubt in his mind, that they have done each other more good than bad. That they have provided each other with the love they needed to survive as the people they were and would grow to be. Perhaps, if Raven had not been there, a bright spot in the pain and fear, that spark of hope that has never once gone out in him would have been swallowed. But she was there. She was there, even when she wasn't. So Charles smiles through tears. _I forgive you,_ he promises, and presses that forgiveness, that incredible love, into her mind. Just as she forgave him. _Thank you for realizing. I love you. Also, I'm very naked and in the bed you sleep in with your husband so please don't learn the nuances of telepathic connection just yet,_ he laughs, because through every hardship, every pain, every trauma, every fight, they have always, always laughed, and loved, and been each other's family.  
  
Laughter now, echoes loud enough they can hear it downstairs. Erik's smiling at him, fond. _Charles! You two better wash those sheets. That's horrifying._ It's not. She's indescribably happy for them. It's hard to imagine she once believed Erik was an evil, psychotic murderer who was twisting Charles all out of shape and manipulating him with his own feelings. Raven can be judgmental, but she's swift to forgive, to see the good in people when it's presented to her. Especially when said people have her brother's blessing. But she'd never stop being protective of him, she'd never stop worrying about him, or the little family they've all managed to carve out here.  
  
Charles laughs, too, hoarse peals of it that hurt his throat, but it doesn't bother him. He disconnects from her with the image of a kiss on the forehead, and then he's rolling back into Erik, tangling himself as much as he can. _I've decided we aren't getting out of bed_ , he tells his Bonded, and it's punctuated by one of those indignant huffs of his. _We're staying here all day, and I'll just make everyone think it's a national holiday that requires this sort of thing and then tomorrow, maybe, we can get up. But not today. Today we are staying in bed._ He thinks of all the things they could do in bed, from cuddling and talking without worry, to decidedly filthier things. They could also do both at the same time, since Charles does not need his mouth to be chatty. Isn't that enticing? He looks up at Erik with those bright blues. Please?  
  
Erik's laughing, now, his fingers tightening where he's rested them, and then he soothes out the pain and trails his hand along Charles's back, leaning away to touch his face. He'll probably figure out how to stop Ordering later on, but for now, his whole mind is swamped in glittering, sparkly Will and he leads Charles to sit up, and then stand. _Come along, neshama. Let's get you into the shower. Perhaps I'll let you chat to me_. His eyebrows raise.

* * *

Charles shivers, finding he's even more responsive than usual. _Yes, Erik._ He lets Erik lead him to the bathroom, clinging and attached the entire time. Even if he's settled a bit since earlier, he still thinks he might cry if Erik was more than a few steps away. He's decidedly not thinking about the fact that he will have to be soon, distracted by the suggestion instead. Oh, please, he gasps before he can even think to stop it, cheeks red in the aftermath. He truly does love that form of service, but it seems Erik likes it, too, so perhaps he shouldn't be so embarrassed. He still is, fidgeting in front of the shower as he clings to Erik's good arm.  
  
He grins down at Charles and starts the spray, taking up some of the soap and creating a lather against Charles's chest. _If you be very good and stay still while I do this,_ he murmurs between them, dragging his fingers along Charles's still over-sensitive nerves, _then perhaps I will consider it. Do you understand?_ Hopefully he'll figure out how not to sound Growly and Dominant while they're in public.  
  
They're not in public now and Charles wants to bask in it, biting his lip to hold back a moan while he smiles shyly. _Yes, Erik, I'll try,_ he whispers, but he's already failing a bit at the 'be still' part. It feels like his skin is sparking everywhere Erik touches, and he gasps, eyes closing as he fights not to squirm away. It's the most sensitive he's ever been, and when Erik brushes a nipple he jerks, nearly slipping as he reaches out to steady himself. His cheeks are bright red from more than just the warm water, soft, sweet noises rising up over the sound of the stream.  
  
Erik takes his time. He does genuinely wash Charles, everywhere, with the all the reverence that exists inside of him meant only for his Bonded. He teases a little, and plays, but he also worships and that's evidenced from the tips of Charles's toes to the top of his head where Erik massages shampoo into his scalp. The line between Dominance and submission for Erik is getting a little bit clearer now that he's right in front of Charles. You can serve, you can provide, without submitting. Every action he takes is that of an owner caring for its belongings, and it is so very different to the times he's committed similar acts for others that he's honestly surprised he ever tried to compare them.  
  
Charles smiles at that, soft and pleased, because he'd known that even when Erik doubted it, even when he hadn't been sure how to put words to the difference. Nothing Erik has ever done for him has felt submissive, even when he was all twisted up about their dynamic, too. It certainly doesn't feel that way now. He sighs into every touch, accommodates for whatever Erik wants, submitting to the care. To being cared for, which, for Charles, is absolutely an act of deep, trusting submission. That being said, when he tilts his head back up after rinsing out the shampoo, he bites his lip, shy again. _Can I...?_ He doesn't mean what they'd discussed before - he does, but not right this moment. He doesn't know why this seems like such a big deal, why it has him shifting his weight from one foot to the other, which he still shouldn't be with one ankle still being weaker. _Can I... you too?_  
  
Erik's grins and smiles these days are all mental, but honestly there's not much of a difference. He doesn't see it on Erik's face and yet he does. Not a projection, but their Bond so pervasive it's almost impossible to distinguish the two. So he smiles again softly, down at Charles and sweeps his hair from his forehead, tender. _Yes, dear-heart. You can._  
  
Charles takes a deep, shuddering breath. He's not sure what it is that's affecting him. Maybe it's just the fact that Erik has never been here for something like this. He'd washed Charles, shaved Charles, cared and dressed for Charles, but it had never been something he could do for Erik in the sense that it was Real. In the mind-world he had served this way, but never out here. His fingers are shaking a little as he works up a lather, starting at Erik's chest like he'd done for him. Charles goes slowly, like he's savoring, eyes wide and adoring as he reaches up and tries not to miss a single spot. He's careful around scars, even those long healed and faded, gentle and reverent and worshipping, his mind a low hum of service and submission. Erik is here. He can do this for him everyday if he's allowed, wash him and touch him the way he deserves to be touched, with all the care and love in the world. Charles can offer this. He doesn't think he's crying, but if he was it would be washed away by the water, Charles devoted to his task. When he ends up at his feet, down on his knees, he bows all the way down and kisses them for good measure, washing them just as carefully as any other part. And then, even though he still has to wash Erik's hair, he stays there when he's done, eyes closed in bliss.  
  
 _Every day,_ Erik tells him. Every day, forever. The port that Erik has is embedded under the skin at the upper right side of his chest, a circular sub-dermal implant about the size of a dollar coin. Both of their casts are custom-fabricated, totally waterproof Wrist Hand Immobilization Orthoses from _Activarmor_ , the company that Hank's clinic works with to produce the least intrusive casts for his patients. Each of them have his clinic's logo on them, along with a geometrical pattern design. They look identical, except Charles's is white and Erik's is bright pink. When Charles gets down to his legs, he notices that Erik's right leg leans inward, and because he's standing he's resting almost no weight on it at all. He smiles down at Charles and crooks his finger upward when his eyes finally open. _I love you,_ he whispers between them. _Ani ohev otcha._  
  
 _Ani ohev otcha. I love you, too._ Charles is breathless and overwhelmed, and there are no tears to wipe but he rubs at his eyes anyway as he stands to his feet. There's a seat to this shower, and he waits until Erik sits for him - their height difference is stunningly obvious in the Real - before he reaches for the shampoo. He's biting his lip as he all but sits in Erik's lap, running his fingers impossibly gentle through the strands. His breath keeps hitching in his throat. He can do this now. Everyday, just like Erik said. He can wake up in the morning and he can serve Erik just like this, and any other way he needs or desires. He gets to. The suds aren't washed out, but Charles abandons his task to hide in Erik's neck, overcome with it.  
  
The seat is for Erik, actually, Hank had it installed when Erik came to live with him, but the whole thing is quite big enough for Erik and Charles to stand comfortably with room left over even with the seat; a product of Hank's own size. It's also conspicuously big enough to fit two people. _Ken, neshama,_ he agrees, warm and fond, holding Charles in place with his left arm. _Kol yamim, rak le'li._  
  
Charles pulls back with a soft, adoring smile of his own. He's biting his lip again, reaching up to finish what he'd started and rinse Erik out, then settling right back into his lap when he's done. I miss your beard, actually, he decides, and imagines he will watch it grow and be shaved off many, many times, hopefully by his own hand. He can't wait, but he doesn't have to. This it what he's been waiting for. _Was I very good?_ he teases, still shy, but there's something coy there, too.

* * *

 _Very good_ , Erik looks up, eyes bright and so vivid in the light of the bathroom they're nearly alien. _Would you like your reward, Charles?_ His gaze turns molten, heated.  
  
Charles' breath hitches, pulse kicking. He's going to chew another hole into his lip at this rate. Yes, please, Erik, he murmurs, polite and incredibly eager as he wiggles himself in Erik's lap. He waits like a good boy, though, arms down at his sides as his own eyes burn, the sky darkening with the promise of a storm.  
  
Erik trails his fingertips down his arm and then murmurs, _Barak. Between my legs, Charles. Keep your knees spread and lock your arms behind your back. Look up at me._  
  
Yes, Erik. Charles goes instantly, careful not to slip, but there's quite a lot of traction in here. Locking his arms the way he normally would is difficult with the cast in the way, but not at all impossible when it's not as bulky. When he looks up, the adoration and devotion there is endless, a sky stretching out with no end, bright and vivid. His collar doesn't match, but it does accentuate, tropical waters meeting clear skies.  
  
He leans forward on the bench and takes Charles's head in his hand, guiding him firmly toward his cock which stood at full hardness from the simple suggestion from earlier that Charles wanted this, that he loved doing this. _Show me_ , Erik demands roughly, looming over him even while Charles is knelt.  
  
Charles moans, all too eager to do exactly as he's told. Erik hasn't thrust himself inside or given express instructions, so he lets himself relish in it. This is his reward, the opportunity to serve Erik this way. A gift he's been given for being well-behaved. He mouths at that thick, beautiful cock, licks and kisses and worships, and eventually parts his lips and takes it inside, cheeks hollowed out around even just the first inch or two. He sucks firmly, drags his tongue along the vein that runs up the shaft, gasps happily when Erik leaks for him and he can taste. Erik told him to look, so he does even as his eyelids grow heavy, his enjoyment written all over his face. He's getting better at this, still gags slightly when he takes too much too fast, whining, but he's learning. Erik is too big for him not to choke at least a little, but there's quite a bit more skill than the first messy go-around, Charles is a quick study and always aware of what Erik likes most. He wants to be the best at this, eventually, and he's sure he'll get there with practice. _I love serving you like this,_ he breathes because he remembers he can. He's trying to take Erik deeper in, harsh breaths through his nose while the rest of him hums with contentment and hazy submission. _If you let me, I'd do this every morning. Get on my knees for you and serve you just like this, and you could start your day with my mouth because it's yours. This is your right, and it's my favorite reward. It really is._ Charles likes this far more than he ever could have imagined.  
  
 _Perhaps I will_ , Erik rumbles so low it's barely intelligible, eyes locked and honed in on Charles, breathing shallowly through his chest as he lets himself be lost to the image of Charles before him, the sensations along his skin. Things Charles has discovered Erik likes: watching him-the stretch of his lips, the way his muscles shiver against the intrusion. Listening to him-the completely unadulterated, unashamed noises Charles moans against him. The way he's learned to use one hand and work Erik's cock against his tongue. The way he licks at as much as he possibly can even when Erik's shoving down his throat. His mind. How utterly down he goes, like this is the only thing he can possibly conceive of doing. That this is a _reward_ for him. That Erik is a _reward_. His joy. His submission. Erik inhales sharply and lets out a soft groan of his own when Charles finally takes him all the way in.  
  
Erik is not nearly as vocal with this kind of pleasure as Charles is (though he _talks_ more, which is absolutely delicious and sets him alight every time, the guidance he needs even in this context, while Charles loses his sense of articulation after a certain point, becomes sensual and feeling rather than verbal). The moment he hears that groan, his entire body shivers, the electric throb of it pulsing beneath the skin. Erik is too deeply in his throat for his wanton, drawn out moan to not sound garbled, but the pleasure it brings Erik is all that matters. He nuzzles into the curls at the base, still choking, eyes still pricked with tears, throat constricting as he fights with his gag reflex (and loses, but he's getting there). When he pulls back, it's to gasp for more air before he's taking him back in, bobbing his head in Erik's lap with no lack of enthusiasm. It becomes sloppier then, all messy, wet noises, but Charles is completely, utterly dedicated and loving every second, moaning in earnest. _Please, sir, will you let me taste you?_ And that's completely earnest, too, eager, as if he can't fathom a better reward for good behavior.  
  
It turns out Erik _likes_ that, too, and his stomach clenches and flips over and he glares right at Charles, all intense, atavistic lust whirled up from his spine and arrowing to his groin until he can feel everything tightening up and he stands up all of a sudden, dragging his hand through Charles's hair and tipping his head up. _Pe'ar_ , he grits out, low and restrained.  
  
Charles gasps, a low, broken whine slipping from him in turn. His lips are freshly swollen, near unnaturally red, his eyes hot as he's tugged where Erik wants him. He parts his lips immediately, the Order digging right beneath the skin, his head held back as he looks up wanting and hopeful and open wide. _Please, Erik, please,_ he begs.  
  
 _Good boy,_ Erik praises, rich and dark. He guides the head of his dick right over Charles's mouth and with the sensation of being slammed in his gut by a wall of fire, he spills over, getting most of it in Charles's mouth, but a few flecks land on his cheek and some on Erik's own fingers, and when Charles swallows he collects the droplet he missed and pushes his fingers against his tongue, too. Not a single drop wasted.  
  
It's technically the first time. Erik hadn't come in his mouth the only time they'd done this in the Real, and everything else was just a projected approximation after that, nothing to actually taste and swallow. Charles moans like he's never tasted anything better in his life, eyes rolled back as he sucks eagerly at Erik's fingers when he's fed them. It's Erik, and that makes it a gift. _Thank you, Erik,_ he sighs, delighted and buzzing with satisfaction.  
  
Erik swipes his thumb over Charles's bottom lip, affectionate and very well-pleased. _A wonder. You are a wonder, and a gift to me._ His eyes are crinkled up at the corners, fond. The spray's started to go cold above them though, so Erik turns it off and slowly lifts Charles to his feet, kissing his forehead. And then he sets about toweling dry every inch of him, and usually that's the part at which Erik leads him into his Postures, only now Erik is also dripping wet. He laughs when he realizes he's tracking water all over the floor when he first starts to tug Charles back out into the room.  
  
Erik kissed him on the top of his head and said, _Sweetheart, I need to administer my TPN. If I do not now, we will be late for check-in. So I want you to do your Postures for me, and I'll just be on the bed over here next to the table._ There is a small tray with all the implements and equipment next to the outside of the closet that Erik wheels over with his power. _When I'm done I'll come and sit with you and make sure you're doing them correctly, OK?_ They both know Charles can do them correctly, but they both also know that Charles likes the contact during it, too.

* * *

All of Erik's supplies are prepared already, because it's an involved process. Erik goes through it methodically and with practiced skill, despite his reluctance to separate from Charles, he doesn't cave in and return to his side, he continues setting up his medication because it's the one thing he really does _have_ to do. On the tray is the bag with the TPN solution, syringe, a multivitamin vial, tubing, the pump and the key. He fills a prepared syringe with 10mls from the vial and injects it into the bag, rocking it gently until it all turns light yellow. He takes the blue cap off IV tubing next and spikes the bag, then lifts it straight up so the solution can filter into the tubing. 12-hour infusions mandate a pump, so he turns it on, inserts the battery and presses it into the cassette to lock it in place. He's just about to reset the reservoir volume to full and slip on the small backpack that goes over his shoulders and holds the bag in place under his clothes when he senses Charles lose his equilibrium and in a heartbeat his hand shoots out and Charles rights himself before he thuds onto the ground. _Easy, Charles. I've got you. I'm right here._  
  
He's being utterly ridiculous. Erik is barely even across the room, and he'll be much farther later. They do have to be separated, and they will have to be. Intellectually, Charles is more than okay with that. He's well-aware that they won't be attached to each other constantly, and he might even find it suffocating after a while if they were. Not because Erik is suffocating, he isn't, but simply because there are solitary activities that Charles very much needs for his life to be completely fulfilled - research, his studies, teaching, the list goes on. They can't always do those things together, though they've already decided to work together to build a school. Why, then, is he so worked up now? He straightens himself out and folds into the next Posture, but he's frustrated and he feels empty, needy, clammy. There's no way he can go out with Erik in public like this, he'll give them right away.  
  
 _I'm right here,_ Erik tells him the entire time, gathering Charles up in his presence as much as he can. This is the part he can't be interrupted for, so he gently makes sure that Charles is wrapped up in his Will before he continues by opening the port access kit. _Just a little longer._ He prepares the port and the needle using his abilities before at last the needle floated up and entered the skin. Then he covers it all in place with transparent tape and watches as the solution filters into the port, after turning on the pump, which beeps a few times and then goes silent. Erik then heads over to the closet and picks out a soft button-down white shirt and slips into it. The buttons do themselves up and then he dresses in a pair of worn, comfortable jeans and Merino wool socks. He sits himself down across from Charles then, resting the tips of his fingers over Charles's knee, looking at him calmly. _See? I'm right here._  
  
 _Settle, Charles. Focus on Erik's Will, on your Postures_. He's thoroughly reprimanded himself and managed to focus by the time Erik comes to sit with him, but the second he does he pitches forward and finds the closest patch of bare skin he can. It's almost unsettling for him, watching himself have such a strong reaction. He doesn't know what could possibly be wrong with him. It's making him sick, thinking about being apart, it's twisting him up and he's suddenly nauseated worse than he'd been when he'd first woken up. He opens his mouth to apologize, but all that comes out is a pathetic little whimper.  
  
 _Charles, tell me what is going on here, hm? I am not going anywhere. I was just across the room. You need to talk to me, neshama. I don't like to see you in pain._ He hushed him and kissed his head and rubbed his back.  
  
 _I don't know,_ he sighs, and it's completely honest. Even with their dynamic, even while accepting he wants Erik's control and Dominance more than anything, he also knows he's a fiercely independent person even within the constant pull of Erik's control over him and his life. Some of that was necessary, but it's also his personality. It doesn't make sense for him to crumble because Erik left him alone for a moment, or to feel he'll be physically sick because they'll have to spend a day apart. I _don't know what's wrong with me. Please don't let go,_ he begs, but Erik will have to and Charles doesn't feel like he can stand it right then.  
  
 _I think you should come with me today_ , Erik says quietly. He doesn't know what to do, he doesn't know how to make that better, because it's not a product, as far as he can tell, of emotional distress or genuine difficulty. Charles knows the rational truth but feels incapable of not being around him. Is it physical? Psychological? Is it something to do with their Bond? Their hormones or neurochemistry? Telepathy? Concern wafts off of him. _I don't need to go to the court house today, but I have to see Gabrielle and meet with Ms. Braddock and Ms. Yorkes. They want to meet you, too. Ms. Yorkes anticipates that you will be with me for the duration of Sebastian Shaw's trial._  
  
 _Okay_ , he acquiesces, because the alternative sounds physically painful right now. But that leaves them with an actual problem, one that does make him incredibly anxious. Before this, it had always been Erik they had to be concerned with, his Will a far more obvious indicator of their relationship than Charles' submission. Even close to subspace he'd managed to be professional - that first conversation with Moira comes to mind. It's always been practically invisible to others, his orientation, the only reason they knew because they were already aware of it. He's not so sure about right now, when clinging to Erik as tightly as possible seems his first instinct, and on top of that, his telepathy is... not broken, necessarily. But it's unsettled, almost rebellious, creeping outwards and seeking. It all amounts to a dangerous game to be playing around other people.  
  
 _You will behave professionally,_ Erik tells him, touching his cheek. _I will ensure that you do, and if you need to touch me, or be close to me, we have done that before without damage._  
  
Because he could manipulate things to make it so. There's no reason he shouldn't still be able to do that, though. He's not worried about his telepathy being less, he's worried about it being more. Charles nods, and rubs his cheek against Erik's hand, biting his lip. Okay, he says again, but it's still unsettling. He tries to pull back, to return to Rest and wait for Erik to bid him stand to get dressed, but the moment he's even slightly removed his skin is crawling. Charles gasps, leaning forward again to hide in Erik's neck, to nuzzle there.  
  
Erik sets his hand on Charles's shoulder, soothing. _Maybe we should ask Hank to look up whether this is an issue for Bonds between D5s and S1s? I feel... different, as well_ , Erik just admitted it.  
  
Charles knows there's usually an adjustment period. Bonded couples can take time off work, to let everything settle and do... whatever it is they need to do, he'd mostly kept himself willfully ignorant there because it was something he'd never have. Except now he has it and he wishes he'd paid more attention, even if it wouldn't directly apply. _How do you feel different?_ he asks, and thinks that it's probably a good idea to find out one way or the other. As long as he doesn't have to stop touching Erik to do it.  
  
Technically Charles could tell people he Bonded and get that time off, but Erik isn't sure how that will work if he's unable to be honest about who he's Bonded to, or if that's even necessary for the paperwork. People have a right to privacy, but that's muddled when it comes to your profession. And then there's Charles's telepathy-so theoretically Erik thinks it might be possible to simply forge his existence, but he doesn't have any other official identity but his own. It's something to consider, at least. And even still, Erik has obligations, even if Charles weren't working full-time (and much of his duties have been largely suspended due to the impending trial anyway, technically being with Erik at the ICC and in the court house and at his lawyers' meetings is part of Charles's job, so there is that). I do not quite know how to describe it. _I seem to be a bit more balanced than you, but I presume that is my Will, my ability to control myself in order to stabilize you. Nevertheless, being parted from you... would not be ideal for me right now._  
  
He's also fairly sure any other obligations he might have had are taken care of now, considering the death of his stepbrother (he doesn't linger there, forces himself not to be panicked when he thinks of the funeral he'd missed) was blasted all over the news, then he fell into a coma. He'd been tapering off patients in anticipation of leaving his profession, and his teaching position was almost definitely filled in his absence. Charles is actually the one with far less to do than Erik now, which is bizarre but true. _You've also been more..._ He doesn't know how to put this. He sends an image of Erik the night before, the way he'd growled and would certainly have bared his teeth if it were possible. Like that. He can't help but smile a bit, because he finds it terribly attractive, that possessive protectiveness, though ideally they'd stabilize to the point where Erik doesn't snap at Hank and Charles can go more than two seconds without being touched.  
  
He ducks his head a little, almost shyly. _I honestly do not know how I would react if a stranger touched you right now._ The idea makes him want to lash out and shriek like a harpy and claw out the person's eyeballs. Charles is _his_. Yikes, he laughs under his breath. _Apparently being Bonded makes me act like a wild animal. That is not encouraging_. Or, judging by the sudden heat blooming in Charles's belly, maybe it interesting. Erik's ears perk up at it, and he gives a soft huff once Charles is fully dressed. *We will manage this,* he murmurs. *I know we will.*  
  
He knows it should be incredibly frustrating, and it is, in a way, to be relegated to whatever neurobiological forces are at work here. But there's something... he honestly doesn't know how to describe it. Thrilling, maybe? Because he's positive this never would have been possible with anyone else, and they're proving their Bond is natural. Vital, and thriving, and incredibly Real. Charles doesn't find any of Erik's instincts worthy of 'yikes,' not anymore than Erik thinks he's pathetic for becoming a human leech. They're amusing, maybe, and they'll even out until they're not so extreme, but the heart of them is something Charles is deeply attracted to, something that makes him want to drop to his knees. He whines loudly, plastering himself into Erik's side. _Please, please don't let go until you have to. Please promise, Erik,_ he begs.  
  
 _I promise,_ Erik kisses him gently on the bottom lip, still connected by their joined hands. His kisses are still a little bit less coordinated than usual, but he's been practicing, too. It feels more like Erik. _Let's go get something to eat. I'll stay right beside you._ Charles is worried about being needy and submissive in public and, uh, Erik is not. He'll draw the line, for Charles's comfort, but he's very much all right with the idea that people know Charles is his, that Charles is affected by him, that he is lingering in post-Bonding hormones because of him. No, not pathetic. It pierces something deep inside of him and makes him want to forget about the Hague and forget about trial services and have his way with him. Alas, it is not to be, not if they value their time in the Real together.

* * *

Charles clings to Erik the entire way to the kitchen, where Raven and Hank are still buzzing around. He smells coffee, which is promising, but the thought of food makes his stomach turn and he wonders at the likelihood of getting away with skipping breakfast. Despite the fact that seeing his sister tugs at his heart in all the right ways, he doesn't break from Erik's side. He actually leans further into him, head ducked into his shoulder, almost meek. Hi, he greets, and he's smiling, but - oh, for the love of. He needs to figure out this projecting thing. "Hi," he corrects, laughing softly.  
  
"Hi," she laughs, beaming gently at the both of them. "Did you notice Erik figured out clothes? We're very proud of him."  
  
 _Hush_ , Erik's eyes crinkle at her very faintly. He moves over (with Charles in tow) to prepare him some coffee and a plate of fruit, bananas and strawberries and the like.  
  
She moves to snatch up a strawberry, bright red against brilliant blue. Hank and Raven's fridge got shifted from leftover take-out to fruits and vegetables now that Erik is there, and he's been cooking for them and keeping the place completely spotless, which Charles can tell niggles at Hank, but they haven't yet brought it up to him. It looks so, so much nicer now than it ordinarily did when they lived by themselves. Pristine, like an estate show.  
  
"Good morning, Charles. Good morning, Erik. Hello, dear," Hank greets them all and kisses Raven on the cheek, stretching himself on his toes.  
  
 _Good morning Hank,_ Erik returns politely.  
  
Charles blinks. Is he projecting for Erik? He must be projecting for Erik. He'd done it last night, too, but for some reason it's just now registered. He'd meant for it to be like this, but he hadn't been able to tell if it had worked or not. Apparently it had. He grins, still pressed tightly to Erik's side. "Morning, Hank," he greets, quiet but cheerful, and then he's pouting down at the pile of fruit Erik's put on what is presumably his plate. He likes fruit (it appeals to his sweet tooth), but he still feels like boycotting food, fearing nausea. He tugs on Erik's sleeve like he needs to do that to get his attention. Do I have to eat that? What about one strawberry? Or half a strawberry. Charles is looking up hopefully, all while he's - aware of Raven watching them. Because he's allowed to read her mind now, and his telepathy is having a field day whenever he's not leashing it in. "Hush, Raven, or I'll show you the things that happened in your bedroom last night," he threatens, but that only serves to turn him bright red and squirming against his Dominant. He absolutely will not. Only Erik gets to see him like that.  
  
That makes Erik emit a noise suspiciously like a growl, vibrating deep in his chest where Charles has curled himself up (to the left, avoiding the port) close enough to feel it rather than hear it.  
  
"Um, Erik, did you just growl at me?" Raven's mouth drops open.  
  
 _No_ , he says. He definitely had. Eat one strawberry and see how you feel, he encourages Charles, holding one up to his lips.  
  
Charles doesn't know whether to be amused or turned on, and judging by his shiver and the quiet, stifled laugh that comes after it, he's decided on both. His nose scrunches at the strawberry, but he obediently opens his mouth, chewing and swallowing. His mind supplies him with another time he'd opened up wide for Erik this morning, and he bites back a whimper, pushing that down (he knows Erik catches it anyway). It doesn't immediately unsettle his stomach, so it's a good sign. He won't admit he's actually a little hungry. "Hank," he starts, as he's nuzzling into Erik in front of his sister and brother-in-law, "Do you know anything about D5-S1 biology? It's not my field of study, nor yours, but I thought it was worth asking before I had to turn to Google. I haven't kept up on any of it." It's reasonable, honestly. To begin with, there was shockingly little research even out there, and then he just hadn't thought it would be relevant. He hadn't wanted anything to do with something that forced him to confront his own needs, which he'd resigned himself to never having filled.  
  
Hank blinks at him and sits down on an oversized chair, nursing a cup of hot coffee. "I know a little bit, yes," he nods. "I took the liberty of doing some research ever since I discovered you two had Bonded, but I'm no expert. I'm an orthopedic surgeon by trade, so don't quote me on any of this, but-" he gathers himself, trying to determine how best to word it. "When a D5 and an S1 meet, and the precedence is exceptionally uncommon in history. There are many five recorded instances of it, and there are instances of it occurring in the _Tanakh_ as well," he adds for Erik's benefit, and Erik's eyebrows shoot up because isn't that interesting. "Depending on how historical you view that information, obviously it's presented in literature time and time again as a romantic ideal, but all of our data comes from extremely limited sources. The last D5 and S1 pair were noted in 1971, over 40 years ago, and medicine wasn't as advanced back then. The data I've found suggests that being in close proximity to one another, if you are compatible on a personal level, will result in the release of a specific hormone they called _sunagine_ , from the Greek for _to draw together_. This hormone does not exist in non S1 and non D5 humans."  
  
"What." Charles is staring wide-eyed, because that's absolutely fascinating. Biology and genetics are clearly two of his favorite subjects, and that he's neglected to research something that's immediately relevant to him - whether he believed it would be or not - is testament to how much he'd attempted to separate himself from this. It hadn't worked, and now he's woefully behind but intrigued, his mind zinging with that familiar, insatiable curiosity and thirst for knowledge. "That's - _huh_. I wonder at the evolutionary purpose and ramifications of that..." He's biting his lip, mind whirring away, and he grins shyly as he nudges into Erik. "We're genetic marvels, darling." He's said it before, but they truly are. And apparently they were made for each other. Most Omega-level mutants do not make it past infancy, and they'd been born on different continents. Skipping over everything it took to get them here, it really is amazing that they found each other and Bonded. They'd be something for the history books, in more than one way if he could help it.  
  
Erik feels Charles's fascination and it immediately makes his whole expression soften. Charles sees the smile, but even Hank and Raven can see how fondly Erik's looking at him. It makes Hank's lips twitch, pleased for his friends. "It would certainly seem to go against the traditionalist view that nature intends sex for procreation," he agrees with a snort. "But that's not really true of other animals, either, so there you are. Now, evolutionarily speaking there is a definite boon to D5-S1 pairings. The last pair to be studied showed an increase of all of their natural skills when they were in proximity to one another. They responded to IQ tests faster and more accurately. Their information processing was improved. Their emotional reasoning and development progressed significantly, and they even became faster and stronger. I'm not talking about mutation, or special abilities, but it seems like when a D5 and an S1 meet, they ramp each other up to their best possible potential. Which honestly explains how well Erik is doing right now, and how much more powerful you've grown in only a short time."  
  
Charles processes all of that, his eyes still wide as he runs through every experience he's had since meeting Erik. They've both been through an extraordinary amount, and come through all of it together. They've discovered things about themselves and the world that they would not have without each other. They've increased in power, but also in confidence. They've become happier. And perhaps, if they were meant for each other... "My telepathy is a non-physical mutation," he murmurs, thinking it out as he speaks. "That has potential physical applications through... well, it's essentially mind control, but we'll dress that up nicely for my sake and concede that I can't physically alter anything through my own body. Erik's is a distinctly physical mutation, on the other hand, that requires mental control and stability, but has its roots in the body. Assuming both those mutations have no upper limits -" He doesn't need to finish. Together, they could alter everything in the world. Nothing was outside their range of control. They were born two months apart, with complementary Omega mutations, and a connection that Charles had picked up on at the age of nine, five thousand miles apart. It was difficult to throw the word coincidence around here.

* * *

Erik is religious-he hasn't been to Synagogue yet because he honestly isn't sure he won't just collapse on the floor in a puddle of snot and tears, but one of the first things Gabby brought him-and subsequently one of the reasons he trusts her-was a _tallit_. He prays three times a day (and if Charles can't separate from him then he'll be there for that this morning, too), he's _shomer Shabbat_ and observes _kashrut_. It's _evident_ he's religious, but he's never gone as far as to say G-d has done any of this, and honestly doesn't think he'd be taken seriously if he did-let alone that he isn't altogether certain that's the case either way. Erik's conception of G-d is unusual; and doesn't actively extend to the belief that there is a sentient being controlling the actions of everything on planet Earth. Nonetheless, Erik doesn't believe in coincidences. Not when it comes to something like this, although he has never gone so far as to say he believes in the idea of soulmates, he does absolutely believe in the concept of a soul. And what is a soul, alone? And then Erik's hit with a memory and he's laughing suddenly, his mother at the table calling Esti a real _lamedvavnik_ in sarcasm when she refused to pick up her dog's excrement off of their driveway. _Eighteen twice adds up to thirty six, and eighteen is chai which makes it two-lives._ It's a silly tangent, Erik definitely doesn't consider himself or Charles to be anything of the sort, and yet- _two lives_. Two souls, bound together, the world at their fingertips. It's difficult to call that a coincidence.  
  
Charles is, as he's said before, not at all religious. It has had shockingly little to do with his life, and he doubts it ever will except through Erik. He will defend his Bonded's right to practice and believe whatever it is he does until his very last breath, will partake in whatever holidays and rituals Erik wishes to share with him, will gladly and eagerly listen to him talk about his faith, but he doubts it will ever extend farther, and that's perfectly alright. He certainly respects Erik's beliefs, and would take any of his thoughts on the matter seriously. He is a fan of the intellectual debate, but this is not his place nor does he have his own conflicting views to begin with. All Charles knows is that there are things in this universe that cannot be explained purely scientifically, that defy reason, and he and Erik are one of those things. Call them soulmates. Call them twin-souls. Call them whatever you wish. All Charles knows is that he was meant to be Erik's, and that he reached the point in his life where he is - he's finally in the right place. Finally tuned into the right frequency. Charles bows his head into Erik's shoulder and has to catch his breath, his dress shirt gripped tight between his fingers. _I was always meant to be yours, Erik,_ he thinks, and it makes every moment of awful, wretched loneliness worth it.  
  
And Erik doesn't mind that one bit. He has no singular need for anyone else to believe the things he does. He doesn't even think he would know how to entertain a philosophical debate about G-d's existence; it's simply not something that can be debated scientifically. You either feel that it is true, or you do not, and you cannot force people to see your truth. You cannot tell them that their truth is less valid than your own, especially when so many people reject religion because of the very _real_ pain and harm that it's caused them. That Charles values and respects it is more than enough. It's something that still threatens to bring him to tears, daily, actually. (He's secretly had a hope that maybe Charles will go with him to a service one day, because he's frightful at being out in public by himself, but he saves that for another time; he doesn't wish to make Charles uncomfortable after all.)  
  
He's not really thinking about all of that at the moment, though, instead he's occupied himself by rubbing Charles's back and kissing his hair like a cat grooming her young. _You are mine_ , he hums, a vibration at the same frequency. It is them. Their frequency. Their lives. _You are mine. You will always be mine. You belong here._  
  
Hank, meanwhile, continues, "And as for being Bonded, the flood of _sunagine_ will become more intense," he warns them. "The Bonding triggers an abrupt release of neurochemicals, many of which non-Hypers don't possess. From what I've read, there seems to be a good deal of separate Dominant and submissive instincts in Hypers that also don't exist in the same degree. For instance, Raven isn't territorial over me, nor does she nest or display aggression when others intrude no us, whereas Erik clearly is. After doing some research, I can verify those are Hyperdom instincts."  
  
Charles is going to greatly enjoy researching this himself when he's in a position to. There are likely scholarly articles and firsthand accounts hidden out there in the world, and Charles is excellent at research. It did earn him awards for his work in genetics, and, unbeknownst to him at this exact moment, one of his working theories on mutation is fueling the mutant's rights movement that's cropped up, not just in America but globally. Right now, he's far too occupied with what amounts to purring at Erik's attention, preening under it, arching for more. "If Erik stops touching me right now I'll cry," he adds to the conversation, and manages a sheepish, shy grin, knowing Raven will get a kick out of it.  
  
Raven's eyebrows shoot up. "What-you're serious? Oh my G-d. What? Really? That's... uh, that's not convenient at all, guys."  
  
 _It is convenient for me,_ Erik's mental voice is low and distracted, sorry everyone.  
  
Hank shuffles in his seat, looking suddenly very sheepish as Erik's Will flies out around the room. "I would recommend that you two stay in as much physical contact as you can," he says to his feet, head bowed. "Evidence shows that the more contact Hypers have during the Bonding process, the stronger the Bond will be, and the more stable they will be as a result. There is also something else you should know."  
  
Charles hums, reacting to Erik's Will with a delighted sigh. He looks very much like he wants to climb into Erik's skin, or have Erik climb into him, tangling himself up as much as their bodies will allow in current company. And even then he probably won't feel the need to be all over his Dominant in front of his sister normally. "Hmmm?" he asks, thoroughly distracted.  
  
Erik's expression is nearly predatory, mixed with affection and devotion as he straightens out all the wrinkles in Charles's shirt, caring for him in the most simple, basic way he can.

* * *

"I can't confirm if this is true or not, but there are unsubstantiated reports that Bonded Hypers seem to experience a type of biological mating imperative," he explains as clinically as possible. "How long and how often is unclear, but if this is true, it will likely become an issue for you both at some point in the future. I believe what you're experiencing now is simple post-Bonding hormone surge, and not a cycle, as you're both relatively lucid and able to be around us, but should a cycle occur, we'll need to prepare for that. The literature I've read indicates it's lengthy and medically taxing on the participants."  
  
Charles blinks, trying to shake off the hazy desire to drop to his knees or otherwise Present for his Dominant long enough to process that. "Biological mating - excuse me?" His eyes widen, because it's fairly impossible to do the kind of research and work he did without understanding exactly what's being suggested here. "Do you think... I mean, biologically -" It was impossible for either one of them to conceive, obviously, but as Hank previously mentioned, procreation was certainly not the only natural reason or purpose for sex. It also had a lot to do with bonding and power dynamics, both which are incredibly relevant here. Mating cycles usually had more to do with procreation than all that, but it wouldn't be unheard of, and among potential D5-S1 pairs, some of them would be able to, anyway. Evolutionarily speaking, it would make sense, if the purpose was to strengthen and reaffirm a Bond. "Lengthy and medically taxing - oh." Charles has let that sink in, and now he's turned a stunning shade of red. They might need to declare it a new color it's so bright, actually.  
  
"Now, I can't verify if that's true or false," Hank warns. "Biologically speaking it seems that the cycle would improve your Bond in some capacity. There are also unsubstantiated reports of increased psychological awareness between both parties. A little bit like the link you share, actually, if I'm reading between the lines, but perhaps less psionic and more intuitive. It's all very sparse, anecdotal at best, so I would take all of this with a grain of salt." Erik doesn't seem embarrassed. Frankly he doesn't seem like anything. He seems like he's just switched off, staring at a chip of paint in the wall beyond Hank's shoulder.  
  
Charles is aware immediately, his focus switched in less than a blink, and the panic that drops into his stomach before he even fully processes or ascertains the situation is so overwhelming it shocks him. _Erik? What's wrong?_ He's fairly sure his fight or flight has kicked in, and his heart is pounding in his chest, fingers clinging tighter to Erik's shirt.  
  
 _Define imperative,_ Erik struggles to croak.  
  
 _I don't know what the definition is here, it usually just means there's a biological incentive or intense urge to - Erik, please,_ he begs, tears already welling up in his eyes as he holds as tightly as he can, his mind gripping Erik's, too _. If it happens, we can - I don't know, we'll figure it out,_ he promises, and honestly looks like he's two seconds from breaking right down.  
  
Erik is shaking, face ashen and then he abruptly buries it in Charles's shoulder, arm coming up around him. Someone dropped a pin-drop explosion in his chest and all of his thoughts and feelings are seeping out of the cracks.  
  
 _Please talk to me, Erik,_ he begs again, and his legs are shaking. He's a moment away from dropping to his knees and bowing his head down low as if that would somehow help, desperate and panicked and genuinely frightened. _Whatever it is, I'll make it better. I promise. Please don't be mad, please, please don't be mad -_ He's not sure why that's his first instinct. He doesn't think it's even close to what's happening here. It's what he thinks anyway.  
  
"Erik? Charles? Are you guys all right?" Hank's on his feet immediately, his voice calm and clinical.  
  
 _Forgive me,_ Erik shudders. _Forgive me. I am not angry,_ he promises, kissing Charles's neck near his collar. _I do not think I could endure something like that._  
  
Charles' eyes well up with tears immediately, but he isn't sure why. All he knows is that he whimpers, and then he's the one shutting down, still leaned into Erik but also trembling. He doesn't answer Hank, and he bites down hard on his lip, now wobbling, feeling thoroughly pathetic and humiliated.  
  
Erik wants to soothe away the pain he's causing but he can't think over the bleating, crushing adrenaline and cortisol raging down his nervous system and the fingers in his mind peeling back layers and bodies contorted in unnatural positions and-Charles is intensely grateful they're near the sink, even if it's not ideal, because he promptly leans over it and retches. There's nothing actually in his stomach to vomit, so it all comes out bile and spit, his head spinning and his body trembling violently.  
  
Erik and Charles are going to have a wire cutter party, confirmed. Erik moves fluidly with him, resting a hand on his back, rubbing away the tension. Hank moves into action and gets him seated on a chair, next to another chair for Erik to drop into beside him of course. "Do either of you want to tell me what's going on right now?" his gaze shifts to Erik unconsciously, but Erik just has his head in Charles's shoulder. He's so, so sorry. He'll do better next time.  
  
Charles wants to make it better. He has to make it better. But he doesn't have words, and he's shaking too much, and everything around him is spinning and he's dizzy dizzy dizzy and his ears are ringing and someone's voice is booming in his head and he can't breathe and he wants to crawl into a hole and disappear, it would be better than being here where he's not good enough not wanted broken goods -  
  
"Please help him," Erik gasps out loud, through clenched teeth and hoarse, so it's not as intelligible or sonorous as his voice usually is, but he's begging Hank to do something because he doesn't know what to do because his brain is exploding into a thousand pieces, his own panic and terror crashing into Charles's and of course it's his fault, he can't-  
  
"Erik, I don't know how to help him, I can't help him if you don't tell me what's going on," Hank says calmly, putting a hand on both of their knees. It's the wrong thing to do. Erik lets out a furious growl and kicks him away with his good leg. Hank startles but recovers quickly, not even winded. His own mutation comes in handy sometimes. "Erik, stop it now. Both of you take a breath and reel it back in. You're here, you're safe. It's all right."  
  
 _I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Please come back. I'm sorry. I will not do it again._   
  
Charles needs to make it better. It's not Erik's fault, it isn't, and he's failing, he's worthless, he's awful he's wretched he's rotten he's a stupid, mindless whore and all he does is ruin things. He sobs and throws the chair aside, falling to his knees and burying his face in Erik's lap, breathing harsh and uneven. _Please please please please_ , he pleads, and then again in Hebrew, a thousand times over.  
  
Raven grabs Hank by the hand and drags him from the room.  
  
" _Nnnn_ ," Erik whines, distressed. Those words slap him in the face with all the force of Shaw's mutation, ripping apart every bone in his head and not just his jaw. He slips out of his own chair onto the floor and takes Charles in his arms, rocking him back and forth over and over, head laid up in his shoulder. Charles sniffles, trying to wrap Erik up in his mind as well as he can. It's hard to focus, and he's panicking, but being held in Erik's arms helps. It helps, and he's starting to breathe again, and he feels less like he wants to be sick, less like he's dying. "Please," he whispers again, out loud this time, face buried in Erik. The sound of Charles's voice helps. Erik's emotions are a riotous whirl. He can't be mindless. He can't be mindless. He can't succumb to a biological imperative he can't force Charles he can't hurt him he can't he won't survive it will kill him he will die please don't make him don't make him hurt anyone else _geben du ihm einen kleinen anreiz, frau frost-_  
  
"Oh, Erik," he gasps, and then he's shaking his head. He's shaking his head and he understands and he can't find the right words but Erik has to know, he has to know, that it could never happen. It would never happen. He nuzzles into him, whines softly, rubs his cheek against as much bare skin as he can find. _You will never hurt me like that. Erik, please, come back. I promise you won't. You never could. You'd be helping me, darling, you're always exactly what I need, don't you see that? Don't you know that?_  
  
 _Please don't let me hurt you,_ Erik shudders, the tears finally coming, soaking Charles's shirt through tightly-slammed eyes. _Don't let me. You can make me stop._  
  
 _I can. I can, Erik,_ he promises, and cries, too, not entirely sure if they're sympathetic tears or triggered by his own distress. His distress is Erik's, and Erik's is his. They're more connected right now than they've ever been, and Charles focuses on being as close as possible. _I won't ever let you hurt me, I promise. I swear it. You never would. Never._  
  
 _You promise?_ Erik chokes off, and shoves it back down his throat where it belongs. He keeps rocking Charles back and forth, back and forth, gripping him tightly in his arms.  
  
"I promise," he breathes, shaky, and presses the sincerity into Erik's mind, wraps them both up in it. Charles would never let Erik lose himself that way, not any more than Erik would let Charles lose himself. "You will never hurt me. I promise."  
  
Erik leans right into that mental press like being scritched along the back of his hair near his ears, the way Charles does when he's deep into the biosphere of rage and panic, and he lets it wrap him up and slowly his breathing begins to even out, too. "Zorry," he slurs aloud, soft. "I love you."  
  
Charles reaches up and actually strokes at that place near his ears, responding instinctively to a need. " _Ani ohev otcha_ ," he returns, whimpering quietly as he lets himself be rocked and held, holding Erik in turn. He's entirely certain some of that could have been avoided if they weren't so tightly woven together, but it was also mediated by it. "Please, please don't let go," he whispers, broken, eyes shut tight as the last of his tears slip out. He won't make it, he's sure of that. If Erik leaves him right now he'll crumple up and die.  
  
Immediately Erik softens against him, tension seeping out of his muscles as his shoulders drop from his ears, soothed instinctively by the touch and by the warm curl of Charles's mind against his. Never, Erik promises, fierce. _I will never let you go._ He can't promise not to physically let him go of course, that's inevitable, but it doesn't matter because Charles is within him, embraced by him, held by every cell in his being and that will never change regardless of where they are.  
  
Charles sniffles again, nodding where he's nosing into Erik's neck. He wants to be in his chest, but there's no bare skin there. _I really want us to be naked right now,_ he mumbles, miserable about it because they can't be, and he doesn't mean he wants them to be having sex. He means he wants them to be skin to skin, to feel Erik against him, his warmth and his beating heart. It's not exactly the most civilized instinct, even still, and Charles couldn't care less. He's five seconds away from falling back on his original plan. It's Bonding Day now, everyone gets a day off.  
  
Erik slides his hand up under Charles's shirt anyway, laying his fingers over his heart, rubbing faintly. _I know the feeling,_ he returns, wry, and then picks Charles's hand up to place it under his own shirt, above his own heart, careful not to jostle the IV line. _You are my favorite person. Did you know that?_ his smile is slight.  
  
Charles smiles brilliantly at that, still blinking away tears, and it's pressed into Erik's skin. _Yes. And you're mine,_ he promises. He doesn't know what time it is, but they probably need to get going soon. Charles doesn't want to get going. Charles wants to be on his knees between Erik's legs, his hair stroked like a beloved pet, or curled up against him in a pile of blankets. He wants to be told stories and trade questions and listen to Erik pray and explain mutant genetics and his theories and discuss their future together. He wants to maybe be rewarded again, if Erik thinks he deserves it. He does not want to be around other people.


	39. my head keeps turning like Russian roulette/thoughts are like bullets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. tw, mind the tags   
> ii. _mad girl's love song_ , sylvia plath

_Well, I can do one of those things,_ Erik laughs softly, somehow more stable than he ever expected himself to be after such an abrupt trigger, but that's the other thing Hank said. Their emotional development improves around one another. They're two planets, twin souls in orbit. He gently guides Charles to his feet and leads him into the bedroom, not breaking their contact. The bureau opens and a small bag lifts out of it, with a smaller leather pouch inside, and a book with Hebrew letters floats into his outstretched hand once he tucks the bag under his arm. _Gabrielle had to teach me how to do this,_ he says all of a sudden, shy _. I didn't even know how to put them on properly. You're supposed to learn before your bar mitzvah_. Erik never had one.  
  
 _That's okay. Sometimes we learn things late,_ he smiles, because it's true. Better late than never, for things like this. He's learning now. He's reconnecting now, and it's the most beautiful thing, and he is so grateful to watch. Charles is clinging tighter than before, biting his lip. _Do I have to let go of you?_ He tries not to sound like the thought breaks him, but he knows he doesn't manage to conceal anything. He doesn't want to get in the way of Erik's religious expression, but also if he doesn't have a point of contact he might start crying again and he also might not stop.  
  
 _No_ , Erik smiles over at him again, brilliant and vibrant even if it isn't physical. He drops a small satin _kippah_ onto the top of his head with a short burst of power. It's tie-dye, of course. The leather pouch has two sets of black straps, and the longer one floats up and begins wrapping itself around Erik's arm, after he closes his eyes and lets out a long stream of Hebrew that Charles recognizes is a blessing. It's wrapped three times, and then seven times down from the small black box at his bicep where he's rolled up his shirt. The smaller one goes up around his head and then he lifts out the large _tallit gadol_ (it's not traditional white and black but rather a splash of swirling watercolors and plants and birds decorate it) from the bag and separates from Charles just long enough to recite another blessing and hold it over his head for a second before draping it down over his shoulders. This action is less smooth, inexperienced, but Charles can feel the corresponding hum of rightness from Erik, and in order to keep Charles close to him, he levitates the _siddur_ in front of them, open to the correct page as he runs through the _shacharit_ service, swaying them both lightly from side to side. He's barely reading it from the page, most of it muscle-memory, and his thoughts are a pleasant roll of _gratitude/charles/love/peace_. It's different now than it was at the CIA, or really at any point after his abduction. It's whole. And now, with Charles beside him-it's almost overwhelming.  
  
To say it means nothing to Charles simply because he isn't religious and does not share Erik's faith would be an egregious mistake. It means everything. This is a part of Erik, and that makes it a part of him. The sentiments behind it may not be felt the same way, the prayers and words may not resonate the way they do with Erik, but Erik's faith absolutely resonates with him. This is a part of himself he was forcefully disconnected from, and that he has returned to it, that he's reconciled it back inside of himself, is something Charles is so unspeakably grateful for. It is something he is honored to be a part of, in whatever way he can be. They may not believe the same things, but the amount of deep, endless respect and awe he feels will never change. He waits a long while after it is done, humming and soft, holding Erik but not intruding. He wants to ask questions. He wants to know more. He wants to be a part of this aspect of Erik, too, he is eager for it. Erik need not worry about making Charles uncomfortable. He is only happy for him, proud of him, impossibly in love with him. Nothing else.  
  
All the little implements put themselves back and then Erik takes Charles into his arms properly, feeling his heart do a little flip as Charles's perceptions trickle into him. On top of all that he has been given, he gets this, too. To force his world down to the moment between heartbeats and prayers and to have Charles at his side. _Questions?_ he wonders, curious himself. _Of course, ask_. It's so soft, the gentlest of brushes, a tenderness he didn't know he was capable of until he met Charles and now overflowing in abundance.  
  
Charles immediately buries himself in Erik, breathing him in deeply. Erik smells very good, and he is grateful to be held like this _. I just don't know very much,_ he admits, shy. There was no occasion or reason for him to learn. He does not know much about any religion, to be fair, including the one he was baptized into. _But I would very much like to learn, if you'd be willing to teach me_. He means it earnestly.  
  
 _I would like that very much_ , Erik returns, tracing the back of two fingers over Charles's jaw. _To be fair, there is a lot about it I do not know, either. Only what I recalled and taught myself._ Regret. Grief. But, We will learn together. _I met Carmen's daughter,_ he adds all of a sudden, lips pursing in amusement. _Kitty. She is quite spirited. He invited me to their seder. It was..._ he tries to find the words. Y _ou were not there. I missed you._  
  
 _Passover_! Charles' eyes widen, and immediately he frowns, a deep regret flooding in from his end of the Bond. He's heard it several different times now, has had the date repeated more than once, and only now it sinks in. He'd had it marked in his calendar. He counts back days, pouting _. I missed it,_ he laments, deeply upset about it. _I'm so sorry._ As if he'd meant to knock himself into a week long coma.  
  
 _We will have many, many more,_ Erik tells him with a grin. _I am simply grateful you are here now. You were missed. You are loved. There is a service this Saturday that includes a holiday liturgy, if you are interested in attending._ Erik is deeply interested in doing so, but once again, terrified to be outside without Charles, in an environment so fraught with emotional significance to him. _Carmen lives in Midwood. He invited me to come with his family._ In Erik's mind that invitation naturally extends to Charles, because Charles is part of him; that, and Carmen knows. If there were any doubt before that last day, there's none now, but Charles can see Carmen's simple acknowledgment for what it is. He knows, and doesn't judge. An ally. A friend. Erik likes him a great deal, in his reserved, shy way. Charles is the only one who sees anything else.  
  
 _I'd be honored,_ he says immediately, and means it. Whatever part of this Erik wants him to have, he will gladly take. Anything he'd like to show him, to tell him, Charles will more than gladly listen to. The mention of Carmen makes him smile slightly; he's always liked the man, and the sentiment has been mutual between them, a respect built out of professionalism and shared values that quickly turned personal. His daughter is also brilliant, and Charles is more than eager to meet her. That there are parallels there with his younger self and he'd like very much to ease the way for her if he can goes without saying. _We truly are doing it, aren't we?_ he asks all of a sudden, still clinging with everything he has.  
  
 _We truly are,_ Erik says back, touching his face and kissing under his eye. _And I am certain she will love you. Any guidance you have to give her will undoubtedly be appreciated. She is very mature for her age. Well, mostly._ She flicked peas at Erik from her plate at one point just to see what he'd do, and interrogated him about being a _big scary terrorist,_ which- _tact_ , teenagers do not have. But he liked her, all the same. Their little family was growing larger by the second.  
  
Charles laughs, delighted. _I was her age when I started college. I've seen her mind, she could easily do it, too. Not that I'd suggest that, but it might be something to think about. She can do incredible things._ He hopes they can encourage many students to do incredible things, in the future. To reach their full potential, in a nurturing, encouraging environment. The thought of them having a large group of children to look after makes him grin, and immediately his mind begins to work. He has about a million calls to make. Not now, when all he wants to do is be held by Erik and told he's loved and a good boy, but soon. They'll need all kinds of permits and permissions and go-aheads before they can even think of starting a mass construction, and then there's everything that comes with it. Charles has always liked a project. This will be his biggest project yet, except it's not just his. It's theirs.  
  
Erik kisses his forehead again. _It's time for my meeting with Ms. Braddock,_ he murmurs, pained. _I need to go, or they'll detain me again._  
  
Charles tries exceptionally hard not to pout. He doesn't manage. _Okay_ , he sighs, because there's no alternative. He doesn't make any effort to move, or to stop clinging. Especially not to stop clinging.  
  
Come along, Erik guides him to the living area to retrieve the coat he'd taken from Charles's apartment, which is folded neatly in a plastic bag. _It will be all right. I promise. Ms. Braddock is very nice_. A bit taciturn, and blunt, but in the way Raven is, not out of cruelty.  
  
That's not what I'm concerned with, he promises, because people do not frighten him. Charles loves people. He does not love people when he is freshly Bonded, apparently, and he doesn't manage to wipe the pout off his lips as he follows Erik out, making sure both Hank and Raven know things are alright before he does. His skin is uncomfortable and crawling again, and he doesn't... feel like he should be walking? He'd much prefer to be on his knees, and he tries not to blush when he realizes, ducking his head into his coat as if he can pass it off as a chill.  
  
Poor Hank and Raven are like sixth and seventh wheels at this point.  
  
 _Relax_ , Erik Orders of him, but it's got a different flavor to an Order somehow. Less imperious, more a gentle tug between the both of them, a realigning of internal machinery designed to play off of one another, because frankly the idea of going outside and having other people look at Charles was setting Erik's blood on fire in a bad fucking way. _It is OK. Ragu'a. We are together, and we are safe._  
  
Charles isn't panicked, honestly. He knows he is safe as long as he's touching Erik, which might be a problem when he inevitably has to stop touching Erik, but that's a concern for when it happens. What he is is terribly uncomfortable, as if he's doing something wrong. Not in the sense that he's guilty, more that things aren't as they should be, which, after a night of them being exactly as they should be, is incredibly unsettling. There's nothing to do for it. _You'll have to lead,_ he reminds, which he prefers anyway. Charles will follow Erik's lead, and stay close and stay touching and it will be alright and he will not die. Why does he keep thinking that? He seriously wonders if his heart would stop now if Erik were to be wrenched away from him, and the thought is terrifying not because he fears death - he does, in the healthy way anyone with too much left to do does - but because he fears, more than anything, losing Erik. He tightens his grip on Erik's arm, stifling a whimper.  
  
Erik's eyebrows raise, uncertain what the reminder is intended to signify. _Do I not lead?_ he asks noncommittally as he helps Charles into his jacket and grabs his own from the back of the chair in the dining area. In the light it's a dark brown instead of black, and still endlessly soft like all the rest of the clothes Erik now owns; most of which don't fit him in some way, and this jacket is included. The arms are a bit short, coming to stop just above his wrists and revealing the outer edges of his white shirt, but he relaxes into the hug of fabric when it's on. He does lead Charles out of the apartment, a hand conspicuously at the small of his back as always. The idea that Charles could die buzzes under his skin, an electric jolt, harsh and uncompromising. _Cease that_ , he murmurs, the blunt words at odds with his kind tone. _You will not die. I will not let you.  
_

* * *

 _You do. You definitely do. It wasn't for you,_ it was for me, he admits quietly. He's practically jumping out of his skin the moment they're outside. A car horn honks and he skitters into Erik's side like a frightened animal, blowing a puff of air in the aftermath. There's absolutely no reason for any of this but everything is far too bright and his telepathy is overzealous and he's pouting and miserable. _It's cold,_ he mumbles, for good measure, because it should not be cold this close to May. It was patently unfair and more than time for spring.  
  
Erik's already shivering in nothing more than his little jacket, and he curls closer to Charles as if able to suck all the warmth out of him, and then something happens. The air around them ripples and the chill in the air just plain evaporates. They're wrapped up in a toasty sensation, all fingers before a crackling hearth. Erik blinks and looks around. _Charles_?  
  
 _Um_ , is Charles' eloquent response, because he's blinking, too. Clinging to Erik's side and squeezing his hand hard enough to hurt, but blinking. He gives the mental image of a shrug instead of actually shrugging, biting his lip. _I don't... think it was me?_ He could do it, if he'd wanted to, but he hadn't thought to. Then again, his telepathy seemed to be doing whatever it wanted anyway.  
  
 _Be careful,_ he taps Charles's lip unconsciously. Charles could alter their perceptions, but a quick check made it clear that this wasn't a projection-it was Real. Erik closes his eyes for a second and it gets a bit colder. Wavers. And then warmth again. _It is... me,_ he laughs, startled.  
  
Charles smiles, pleased at both the sound and Erik's discovery, still buried in his side. _Thank you for making it warmer,_ he murmurs brightly, a little less miserable now because he's too busy being awed and proud. His Bonded Dominant is capable of these things. He can care and provide for him. He will keep him safe. He's fairly sure those thoughts come from somewhere deep and primal, but who is Charles to fight instincts? It feels nice to think it. Warm, and comforting, and right.  
  
 _Only with you,_ Erik thinks, remembering Hank's words. Nothing has felt more true. _Do you want to fly?_ he asks all of a sudden, smiling mischievously. All those times he thought he'd give Charles the world, and only now is he starting to believe he actually could. An upper limit. Erik doesn't know if he has one. He had many limits at the _Shaw Institute_. So many walls slammed up against repeatedly amidst demands and screams. They're all falling away, melting in the wake of Charles's devotion and pride.  
  
Charles wonders if he will learn his own limits. If there are limits, or if he really can do the things he'd wondered at. Right now everything feels out of control and twitchy, immensely better than when he'd first manifested but still shaky in that new, startling way. It doesn't matter right this instant. They will learn together, as they should. Flying means Erik will hold him, and that's what he wants more than anything in the world right now, so he nods, smiling and strangely shy. _Yes, please,_ he whispers, bowing his head and going right back to chewing on his lip.  
  
Erik puts an arm under his shoulder, because it will be less intimate when they land in front of the trial services building, and they push off, soaring straight up into the air as people stop and gasp at the public display of power. A child points at him and her mother shoos her away, nervous of the strange mutant. Others look on with awe. Erik notices none of it, having eyes only for Charles. _Remember that inside this building you are my doctor,_ he tells Charles, his voice stern and commanding in their minds, but with that thread of gentleness that always exists. _So you must act professionally. Do you understand?_ It's an Order, but honestly, everything he's saying is one, so it hardly needs delineation anymore. He thinks one day they will be so close together that there won't be one.  
  
Charles frowns, looking down between them even though it means he's looking straight down at the city below. It is a good thing he has never been afraid of heights. _Yes, Erik,_ he whispers, but he clearly isn't happy with it. After a moment he realizes something, and he shakes his head. Temple suppressor, he sighs. His meaning is clear. Erik should not be able to harness enough power to fly with a temple-mounted suppressor. It was best to let them think he was affected by it for now. Charles goes back to pouting soon after that.  
  
He kisses Charles on the cheek. _Thank you for reminding me,_ he says, setting them down far enough away that it will look like they've walked there. The building in question comes into view, looming and large, and Erik shores himself up. These meetings until now have been very one-sided, with Ms. Braddock asking him perfunctory questions and him nodding. With Charles there he will be expected to provide answers, and he hasn't thought of preparing for it. _I love you_ , is what he says instead of doing so.  
  
Charles stops in his tracks, because - he doesn't know if he can do it. He doesn't know if he can go in there and act how everyone expects him to act. His stomach is collapsing in on itself, and his pulse is racing, and he's sweating even though it's still chilly and he wants to claw his skin off a little, which is not a good sign. He bites his cheek this time, hoping it will stifle the distressed noise he wants to make, and it does, but he has to swallow it instead and it gets stuck in his throat.  
  
 _Charles. You can do this. I need you to do this,_ Erik says to him calmly. _I will be taken away if we do not endure this, and I know that is not what you want. I know you will not let that happen. You are very good at taking care of me, so I need you to do this for me. I will not let anything happen to you. Nothing has changed. We are as we have always been, and always will be._  
  
That helps, but it also twists him into knots. There's nothing to be done about it. He's just being ridiculous, and silly, and letting this get the best of him. He nods, because he can't get any words out of his mouth just yet, or make them form in his mind. He'll do it.  
  
Erik knows he will. He has his own trepidation, but it's muted; this scenario is very familiar to him. Uncertainty, floating around in white river rapids that thrash and threaten to break, new people and places and sights and sounds that wash over him indescribable whispers of expectation and confusion. It might be easier if Charles waited outside, then Erik could just stand there and stare like he usually did, but Erik can't even entertain the thought of being parted from him for that long. Charles is spinning around in subspace and it's supposed to be his job to guide him firmly and make him feel protected and assured, and he keeps coming up against immutable steel reality he can't bend to his Will.  
  
It's Charles' job to make sure Erik is taken care of, too, and that means being there for things like this. He huffs, but it's in response to himself, not Erik. Whatever it is that's gripping him, he's just being stupid and childish. Needy and incredibly pathetic. Charles straightens out his shoulders. We can go in, he says, and it comes out more formal than he means it to. He doesn't like it. He wants to touch Erik, to curl up in him, to go somewhere safe. But he can't, so he'll just have to cut himself off from it and manage.  
  
 _No. You are being my submissive. There is nothing wrong with you,_ Erik chides firmly, because he won't entertain that kind of thinking regardless of where they are or what is happening. He also dislikes the formality, the separation, being cut off and shrivels a little at it, but he bolsters himself up and guides Charles along the steps with his hand still at his back and only removes it to hold it over the pull-out doors and open them for him, forgetting about the TMS in his haste to look after Charles.  
  
Charles is busy rearranging everything. It's nearly impossible. He feels incredibly unbalanced, his entire world shifted the wrong way, or the right way and he's meant to be coming at it from the wrong way. Thinking Erik wants me to behave professionally, so I will helps, but it switches him into the wrong mindset, more submissive than doctor-psychiatrist-professional. He knows the two can go together, they can fit, but they can't right now and when it's taking up more space, or all the space, the end result is that he's more dizzy than he was outside. He's fought submissive instincts his entire life, but the difference is that there'd really been nothing to fight. Dominants didn't actually inspire his submission, for the most part, and fighting the urge to dance was far simpler when you couldn't hear the music. It's a silly analogy. This whole thing is silly. Charles raises his chin, forces himself into step with Erik instead of walking ahead to be guided, finds the parts of himself, large quantities of himself, that want to shrivel and die and shoves them somewhere. The result is a muted, hollowed out version of himself, all the loving, feeling parts thrown in the river. It's not an analogy. There's self-manipulation going on there, as if he's rewired his own brain for the sake of duty and propriety. His mother would be proud.  
  
As they're walking into the building, they're accosted by a reporter with dark black hair cut in a sleek bob and a cameraman. "Oh-this is him-Dr. Xavier, would you care to comment on the events of the past week?" This isn't new. Since his release Erik's frequently encountered reporters all eager for a statement or an interview. The internet has been in uproar, and Erik and Charles's names are almost always mentioned on popular front-page social media outlets (with frequent calls for both of them to do AMAs on Reddit, Charles's Twitter account has skyrocketed in followers, Tumblr fan blogs have appeared featuring candid photographs of both of them, together and separate), especially after the results of his latest DS panel became public knowledge. Most of which Erik's withstood silently while Carmen fields the questions.  
  
Raven and Hank have a computer and he's used it a few times, but became frustrated and withdrawn after reading too many posts like _Lehnsherr's a timebomb waiting to explode, they should've left him at the CIA, stop victim-blaming, he was part of an underground torture ring for 16 years, they found Cain Marko in Xavier's apartment, Rasputin only admitted to it because Xavier mind-whammied him, who do you think killed him, Lehnsherr or Xavier? Frankly it only gets more disturbing than that. Charles is accustomed to the scrutiny. Erik embarrasses himself on a daily basis, flinching away from anyone who gets too close,_ which fuels the fire rather than contains it, attributes to the persona everybody expects him to have. Silent, glowering, broken Erik and his winsome guardian, fabled mutant rights activist Dr. Charles Xavier. Charles is interesting in his own right, a vaunted university professor embroiled in what's being called the _Case of the Century_ , yes, but the implications on the MCA and his own contributions to the field are only the tip of the iceberg. Charles has been in the limelight since he was small, an S1, an Omega-level telepath, the scion of the Xavier-Marko clan, there's a reason he knows how to ooze and schmooze; but now it's amplified ten-fold because in addition to all of that, he's the line-in on Erik Lehnsherr. The only person able to communicate with him and attain his perspective.  
  
As the crew approach, Erik veritably pushes Charles behind him, shielding him with his body. Too sensitive from Charles's internal processes, shoving his foot into the door so it doesn't slam shut and lock all the way, surrounding him with the best mental balm he knows how to make. There should be a right answer, it should come to him. He should know what to do. He focuses on a projection of himself, his fingers skittering along the back of Charles's neck, attempting to ground. _Don't cut it out. You don't need to cut it out._ Erik said you're expected to behave professionally. He did not say _you aren't my submissive here._ Because that's false. Charles is Erik's Bonded submissive no matter what happens. No matter what they face, no matter how they need to adjust. Charles is Erik's. It cannot be cut out. It cannot be erased or effaced.  
  
But he's jumpy and on-edge and the flash of camera-bulbs makes him sweat, and his entire demeanor shifts to one of a tightly coiled animal ready to lash out. Caged, cornered. Threatened. The temple-mounted suppressor begins to beep dangerously and it's all Erik can do not to crumple the machines in on themselves with a grip of his fist. He shoves his hand into his pocket, dragging fingernails across his palm.  
  
This is the only way he knows how to protect those parts. It's not possible right now. He can't be both. He can't be both, because all of him belongs to Erik but the parts that belong especially to Erik will die like this. Erik perhaps didn't conceptualize exactly how strong those instincts were, and for once it is not Erik's Will that needs to be tugged around himself and contained. For once, Charles' submission is too much instead of not enough. So he's self-corrected, or else break. Faced with two options, you pick the lesser evil. Charles flashes a charming Xavier smile and steps around Erik, chuckling as if the whole thing is amusing. As if he isn't dying inside, as if Erik letting go of him doesn't threaten to utterly devastate him. As if somewhere his heart isn't shattering, their Bond unsettled. None of that shows in his face, in the casual way he sticks a hand in his the pocket of his trousers. "I was having a rather long nap, actually, so I'm afraid my comments are dreadfully outdated," he grins, and then proceeds to ooze and schmooze. He's exceptionally good at this. He knows how to charm, how to smile in the right places, when to be witty and when to answer straight. He's leagues better than his mother ever was, really, because he has a natural ability to be likeable while she never did. That he's young and attractive and successful in his fields, plural, and on the Forbes 400 (bottom of the list or otherwise) is all part of the appeal. He's being asked to explain his theory of mutatis mutandis - it's his most recent genetic theory, coined with terms like _'X-gene'_ and _'X-factor,'_ truly he's done revolutionary work in his field and suddenly those papers and theories are being dragged up, people are using a dusty old Latin tern he'd repurposed in mutant protests and he'd be delighted and proud if the parts that could feel that were turned on - when he pretends to check his watch, tutting. "Unfortunately we do have an appointment to make, so if you could excuse us?" None of it is real. He's cold to the touch. Clammy, and feverish, all at the same time. His hand is shaking where he's buried it in his pants pocket. Charles is shattering inside, but Erik told him to endure so he will endure. He walks without touching Erik, because he does not see how he can get away with it otherwise, and feels the parts he's locked away begin to destroy themselves.  
  
The picture they snap of Erik and Charles shows Charles smiling congenially and Erik flinching, pale and slack-featured, but they gracefully let the duo head to the elevator. Once they're inside, Erik turns and abruptly buries himself in Charles's shoulder, tremors vibrating his frame. He can't do this. He can't do it. Charles is dying and it's his fault. He promised he wouldn't let anything happen to him and now pieces are getting obliterated, and he tries to hold on with everything in him but they're slipping through his fingers like grains of sand. He's aware distantly that the low, wounded noises filling up the small space are coming from him but he can't stop it. He's supposed to be the strong one, but he's anchored by Charles. He spent a week dead and then he got Charles back and now he's losing him again. Maybe he made a mistake. They shouldn't be Bonded because Erik can't handle it. He can't fix it. He can't make it right. Charles told him he'd be destroyed if Erik let them be together and now it's happening. His hands smooth over every inch they can find, trying to hold it in place. Keep it, protect it, take care of it. They should just go home. Charles is right, they shouldn't be here. They need to go home.  
  
They shouldn't be Bonded. Charles is weeping somewhere inside. He's going to vomit, again, and all he has in his stomach is a single strawberry. "Please," he gasps, and it's not the Charles that just charmed reporters. It's Erik's Charles, which translates simply to all of him, not fragmented off portions designated to different facets of his life. "Please - please, I'll do better, don't take it back. I'm trying, I promise, please don't take it back," he croaks, and he sounds as broken as he feels.  
  
 _I'm hurting you,_ Erik wheezes. Charles promised Erik wouldn't hurt him. But he is. He shouldn't have let Charles make that promise. He shouldn't have set him up to lose. Erik shakes his head, combing his fingers through Charles's hair. _It's yours. It's always been yours._ He'll never take it back. Charles is his. _Please don't let me hurt you,_ he is aware that he's begging and it's not dignified but he doesn't care. _Please_.  
  
Charles shakes his head, and when he closes his eyes everything feels like it's blacking out. He pulls it all back together but he's still shaking and he knows he has to stop and he thinks he can stop it but right now this is how it is, and he whimpers as he leans into those fingers in his hair. _You're not. You're not, I promise, it's not you. It's just..._ He doesn't know how to explain something he has no explanation for. It's frustrating and he feels so completely pathetic.  
  
 _We'll just go home,_ Erik trembles, massaging his fingers into the nape of Charles's neck. It's not a rational thought, and maybe he'd be more rational if it wasn't causing his submissive to fall apart to be here. Erik will give him the world. If they have to take him back into custody he will endure it for Charles. He's swaying from side to side, stressed and disjointed. _Beseder. Nachzor bayit._  
  
 _No no no no,_ because that isn't an option either. If he has to be without Erik like that again, he truly will shatter. This is their only option. It's difficult, but he'll endure it. He can overcome this. They're both unsteady, and he thinks, wryly, that a D5-S1 pair are not meant to go out in public before the Bond settles. New research has emerged. He doesn't regret it. The thought that Erik might makes him want to pitch himself off the top of this building. _I can do this. Please, just. Talk to me through it?_ He hates that he has to ask for that. He bows his head, both on instinct and because he's embarrassed. Because he feels like these things are something to be ashamed of again.  
  
 _Atzor_ , Erik shushes him. _Klum al-lehitbayesh. Atah me'ule kanu'a sheli. Ani ohev otcha. Du bist meine Lieblingsperson_. The more stability Charles shows, the less likely Erik seems to dissolve into a thousand particles on the spot. His marbles are still scattered, though, so he's all over the place language-wise. _Ich könnte es nie bereuen. Ani mitcharet merea atah. Bitte, lo chashov ze. Nous parlerons ensemble, beseder?_ He offers a smile, pulling back only so Charles can see it in his eyes, and kisses his brow. _We tell her I'm sick. So we don't have to leave tomorrow._  
  
Charles doesn't know if that one is going to fly, but honestly he's at the point where he isn't going to argue. Erik looks sick, too, green in the face and just about as close to keeling over as he is, which makes them quite the sight. _Yes, Erik,_ he nods, and is so relieved that he's being touched again that he's spinning with it. He manages to peek up a tiny little grin, biting his lip to hide it. _But - my darling, I do speak every language now, but if you could maybe pick one or two per sentence?_ He's teasing, however weakly.  
  
Erik flushes, ducking his head and so relieved he could soar. He realizes a few seconds later that he's literally hovering off the ground and sets himself back down sheepishly, his mind a big grin. He hugs Charles tightly, kissing his temple again. It's OK. They're going to be OK. He recognizes Charles again. He's smiling again and joking. It's all right. They're going to be OK. English feels fuzzy. His head wants to devolve into German but he knows Charles doesn't like it, so eventually his thoughts settle on French, his fourth language learned young enough and via immersion to sound native. Être prudent, is what he says, touching Charles's bottom lip, and the elevator finally shudders to a stop. _Merci d'être revenu vers moi. Je t'aime._  
  
Charles shudders when the elevator does, feverish and cold all over again. He's shivering, but he hasn't taken off his long, fairly heavy coat, so there's discernable reason for him to be. French is more than alright, just as any language would have been (he'd teased, but he'd followed along effortlessly). French is his second, actually, and something Mother knew that he picked up on, but there's no real association there. He misses Paris, if anything. He and Raven had enjoyed Paris. _Je t'aime_ , he returns, less eloquent again as he lets Erik lead him out of the elevator. _S'il te plaît ne me laisse pas partir, mon amour._ The two seconds that he had let go had been enough. He honestly doubts his ability to endure more than that. He'll watch perceptions and field appropriately. Just please, please don't let go of him.  
  
 _Je ne vais pas,_ he promises solemnly. _Tu vas bien. Je t'ai._ Erik's own memories of French are mixed. It's one of the languages Shaw taught him, but he also remembers how beautiful Paris was, how Ms. Frost took him to the Eiffel Tower and let him look over the side down at all the tiny dots below, each one a whole world condensed into a pinprick. His hand slips into Charles's as they step off of the elevator and into a hallway with a long row of offices. Erik knows where he's going, and they enter a conference room with 311 stamped onto the plate of the door.

* * *

Unexpectedly, there are two individuals present. Betsy Braddock, the trial services officer, is an S4, about 4'11" on a good day (compared to Erik it's... amusing, honestly) with naturally bright purple hair and matching eyes, who wears a slim, professional black collar underneath her business suit. And Gert Yorkes, a mutant who can talk to animals, an S2 with wild, flyaway hair and a playful gaze rises to greet them. "Dr. Xavier, Dr. McCoy advised me you would be attending today's meeting, it's a pleasure to meet you," says Betsy, holding out her hand to him. Her mind is artsy and colorful, and she doesn't seem especially severe.  
  
"Good morning, Erik," Gert adds, standing and after several painful moments finally managing to look him in the eyes. They've met once before, with Carmen, but Erik still can't speak with her. "And Dr. Xavier as well," she grins at him shyly, her tone warm and empathetic. Instead of holding out her hand, she touches her own chest with an outstretched palm. "My name is Gertrude, I'm the VPRS liaison for the ICC."  
  
 _Good morning Ms. Yorkes. Good morning Ms. Braddock._ Erik bows his head dutifully, which looks absolutely silly given that they're both subs.  
  
"Oh! Good _morning_!" Gert's eyes widen. "It's nice to hear your-hm," she's not sure whether _voice_ is applicable.  
  
He should have read them from down the hallway. He never should have waited for it to hit him like a freight train because Charles is not well-adjusted enough for this. Not by a long shot. He should have suggested they use a projection to handle this and stayed in the elevator. It would be an elaborate illusion, but he has absolutely no doubts that he could have done it.  
  
It takes everything in him to swallow down the bile in his throat and shake the hand offered to him, and even then it's only the barest of touches before he folds it back. "Good morning. It's a pleasure to meet you both," he manages, polite and friendly as possible, but it comes out like a hoarse whisper and he has to clear his throat. Charles wants to snap at them. He wants to scowl and challenge them and prove that he's infinitely more suited for Erik, which is ridiculous because Erik is not interested nor is he displaying any sort of Dominant traits but Charles wants to look them in the eye and tell them -he sucks in a breath, that hand coming back up to rub at his temple. "Forgive me," he breathes, waving off the sudden burst of dizzying nausea. "I still have a bit of a migraine. I'm sure Dr. McCoy informed you about the coma," he laughs, and it comes out choked but he warps it until it's fuller, a subtle perception switch. "I'm pleased to be here today, and to be Erik's voice," he jokes.  
  
 _stay away from him he Claimed Me not you he's MY Dominant_ Jesus Christ.  
  
Erik conversely has to school his features to avoid the twitch at his lips-for some reason the possessive little animal that lives in his chest is warmed by that response-and he gives Charles's hand a squeeze where in the Real he's still stood next to him and a step behind. _Tu vas bien,_ he repeats privately, soft. _Tu es le seul pour moi_. When Betsy shakes his hand, though, the tables are rapidly turned and Erik barely resists the urge to push her back; which is the only thing that startles him into stillness.  
  
"These sessions are generally pretty informal," Betsy says, taking her seat once more. "But I've asked Gertrude to join us today since this will be the first time that it's possible to receive a response from Mr. Lehnsherr," she explains. "I trust that things are going smoothly since your return to the home?" she asks Charles, rather than Erik, who takes a seat when Charles does, projection folding its hands in his lap while Erik remained connected to his submissive, seats pushed together, thighs touching and fingers curled protectively over his.  
  
"Oh, certainly," he assures, and his voice is raspy and quiet, the result of disuse, mostly, so he projects it louder and clearer for their sake, the same way he had in front of the press. It's nonchalant and muted even as he smiles, because there's no reason to be overly enthusiastic about returning to an apartment where his stepbrother was violently murdered and that thought promptly gets shoved back in the depths of his consciousness where it belongs. He crosses his legs instead, in the projection, while in the Real he curls closer to Erik. "I was brought up to speed on everything, so I believe I'm as well-informed as I can be after losing a week of time," he murmurs wryly, still perfectly polite. Inside he's having a bit of a tizzy. What features would Erik find attractive on them? He guarantees his are better. Erik is his Dominant. He was Claimed. They can't have him now.  
  
Erik can't help it. He nudges Charles's shoulder, playful. _You could dye your hair yellow_. Betsy actually knows that Charles is living with Raven and Hank, so there's no need to equivocate there. Everybody that lives in that house has to be accounted for in regards to Erik, and it makes sense-given that Charles is publicly the only person who can communicate with him on a regular basis-that he is there. "That's excellent to hear, I know changes like that can be difficult to adjust to. Has Erik had any incidents since coming to live with Dr. McCoy, are you aware?" She asks this every time they meet ( _have you had any incidents_ , like he's a poorly trained dog), and he simply shakes his head, so she doesn't realize that he finds the question patently offensive. He would never cause an incident in someone's home. He has excellent manners, and he knows what is expected of him as a good house guest. _I do not cause any problems._  
  
Charles, unlike Erik, visibly bristles. It's not just in the Real; his projection arches an eyebrow, leaned forward slightly in his chair. "No, he has not, and I am extremely aware," he says, and bites his tongue, hard, to keep from questioning the semantics here. Incident. Even people that mean well treat Erik like some sort of animal, when he's shown nothing but willingness to accommodate and cooperate. "In fact, as someone who frequented that house long before Erik stepped foot in it, I can guarantee you would never have found it in better shape. He's done a wonder of good." Charles wants very much to lash out with his tongue, on edge, skin crawling, but he does no such thing. He wants to, though. Erik's entirely playful comment is getting under his skin now, too. Is there something wrong with his hair color? His mother is blonde. Perhaps if he'd been born blonde...  
  
 _Don't be silly_ , Erik touches said hair, smoothing it away from his forehead. He sends an image of yellow walls and yellow cars, and yellow clothes and yellow shoes. Yellow skies and yellow suns. Warmth. A joke. You are perfect to me. Maybe Erik isn't normal-he doesn't have wandering eyes, he isn't interested in polydynamics like a lot of couples are. Until he met Charles he didn't even know he could feel desire of his own accord; never noticed another person's features, everyone's faces melted into one long droning lull.  
  
The fact of the matter is that sitting here, he is doing his best to be serene and docile, to keep every tendril of Will from licking at Gertrude and Betsy's awareness, while Gertrude sits with her hands twirling over one another nearly ready to hit subspace because she's in the same room. But she's a professional and she can work through it. It's happened before, and she's more interested in seeking justice than she is in wallowing over it. Subspace is a natural part of society, but it can be intimate, and it wouldn't be appropriate, except that Erik's D5 which means neither party can help it. Erik feels a thin sizzle of frustration because he doesn't want her subspace. He doesn't want to be responsible for her, or for any submissive other than Charles, and yet he is. He is. So he sits, and he barely even breathes, barely even moves, doing his best to preserve their sense of dignity and cognizance.  
  
Betsy's eyebrows raise. "I'm happy to hear it," she says, giving them both a smile. Erik isn't a typical client for her; most of the inmates she sees on a regular basis are not as high-profile, and generally are troubled and problematic, so it's not an unreasonable expectation to have, it's just more of the same in the endless slog that is the system. "I've also received some session notes from Dr. Haller, and she's noted that Mr. Lehnsherr displays a pattern of obedience that's very atypical for his DS score. Does he give Orders at all while in the house?"  
  
If Erik isn't normal, then neither is Charles. The thought of being anyone else's, of being submissive or obedient to anyone else, or even at all intimate in a way that isn't strictly familial or platonic honestly makes him feel sick, and he tucks it away before Erik finds it lingering there in his thoughts because he's certain it's not going to help with serene and docile. He does not want to have this conversation. He does not want to talk about Erik Ordering, because that's absolutely none of their business unless they make it a public display for whatever reason. Erik's Orders extend outside of him, but at the end of the day they are for him. His Dominance is for him. Charles purses his lips. "No," he answers stiffly. "Not usually, no." Of course he does. Of course he does, he is Charles' Dominant and it is his Right to Order him as much as he pleases, within contextual boundaries they've already discussed. "He's cognizant of the effect his Will has, especially on submissives, as I'm sure you're aware Dr. McCoy is. He's been courteous of that." Charles thinks _I am the only one suited to be Erik's Bonded, you would never manage_ and it's such a vicious, petty thought in this context that it would shock him if he wasn't clinging to the chair in the Real.  
  
Charles might consider it petty and vicious, but it makes Erik glow, because he is right. He is the only one suited for Erik, and that he recognizes it in this moment is a source of infinite pleasure to him. He does catch onto those thoughts momentarily, and his grip tightens, as though he can keep Charles with him and away from any other Dominant who would dare to try. It is Erik's right to take care of Charles. No one else.  
  
"Not usually?" Betsy hones in on that, like it's some kind of crime for a Dominant to give an Order. Erik being a D5, and having a Will enough sufficient to force people to do as he wishes might be factoring into it a little, but-  
  
 _I do not give Orders unless it is necessary,_ Erik offers, not bothering to define _necessary_. Anywhere outside of Charles (which falls under the category of necessary to him), he reserves Orders for matters of safety, his submissive's wellbeing and comfort, or in rare lapses, if he's triggered and needs whatever is happening to stop.  
  
"Dr. Haller was correct," Charles says, and tries not to clench his teeth. "Erik is far more considerate with his Will than most Dominants higher on the scale. He has never Ordered frivolously or outside of a specific need, and never at the expense of anyone's comfort." It's true, except in situations that warranted it completely. Life or death, or concerning Charles' wellbeing. He would very much like the conversation to turn away from this. He does not want to discuss Erik's Dominance. He will not make it through. He knows it's an invasion. He knows he should not. Charles nudges at Betsy's mind anyway, careful, gentle, urging the conversation forward. Nothing lost, merely shuffled a bit. It's either that or he jumps across the table at her for daring to question his Dominant's Orders.  
  
Gertrude is looking over a file and using the opportunity to get herself under control. Even while Erik's doing his best to retract his Will, it's difficult for her to focus. "Thank you for taking the time to meet with us," she speaks up at last. She's not polite-it's more genuine than that. "Our first meeting wasn't particularly conducive because of your mutism, so today we'll be briefing on protocols and what's to be expected during Sebastian Shaw's trial."  
  
Of course, Ms. Yorkes. He notes that Gertrude is looking at him, not at Charles, even despite her DS score. He's so used to being disregarded that it makes him shrink back a little, pressing into Charles's side and laying his head on his shoulder, inhaling his scent.  
  
"I'm currently working with Janos Quested and Carmen Pryde to conduct a testimony review in anticipation of you going on the stand." Unlike Betsy, Gert addresses Erik specifically. "This will be completed in a series of stages, during which time your travel restrictions will be lifted and you'll be accompanied by Dr. Xavier to The _Hague_."  
  
Erik's discomfort is palpable, ricocheting between them. _I have already provided testimony to Carmen._  
  
Charles feels promptly sick again. His teeth clench together in the Real to keep from chattering, but he's cold and uncomfortable and breaking out into a sweat. Even his projection is clamming up, eyes toward his lap, hit with a second (or third or fourth, honestly) round of nausea. He nods his head to show his understanding, though he isn't being addressed here, and presses his lips tightly together. He's messing about with his cast, because it's something to fiddle with, but he can't be certain if it's only the Real doing that. He doesn't think he can remove it without the proper tools but he can certainly try.  
  
"You did, but this is a separate case, and we'll be focused specifically on what happened to you, as opposed to your actions."  
  
Leaning into Charles, Erik doesn't know how to ask his next question, and he's distracted by the thought of talking to these people who aren't Charles, who aren't his Bonded, who are looking away and fiddling with their clothes and struggling to compose themselves. Distracted by Charles fiddling with his cast, trying to remove it amidst a fresh wave of nausea-and they're going to have to do something about that or else this day is going to end up a hell of a lot longer-and he abruptly reaches down and halts him mid-action. _Stop that_ , speaking of Orders, and it's firm.  
  
Gertrude must be able to tell Erik's struggling because she just smiles. "I'm sure you must have a lot of questions. We can take as long as you need."  
  
He keeps himself composed, if only for Charles's sake. _Mr. Shaw is being charged with crimes that I can't testify against,_ he decides.  
  
"That's true, but you should know that it's absolutely within the ICC's purview to prosecute the crimes he did commit against you. Our meetings are about you, but we're undertaking a full investigation into every alleged act."  
  
 _What about Kurt and the others?_  
  
"You're the only living victim over the age of majority we've identified, so most of our testimony is going to come from you. We'll be reading written affidavits from everyone else and Kurt Wagner will also take the stand. Together, we'll be able to develop a coherent narrative of events and ensure that Mr. Shaw is brought to justice. In addition, Mr. Shaw has the right to question you directly, which we will need to prepare you for."  
  
A buzz of panic, and Erik starts shaking his head unconsciously. It was hard enough to have Carmen read his statement for him, to sit silently while Charles mediated everything; there is no way he can handle facing Shaw like that. He'll crack, and then Charles will crack, and they'll be ended like two eggs splattered on a hot sidewalk. This is how they're going to die, and Erik won't let it happen.  
  
The Order helps more than anything else has. Charles is properly chastised, but it gives him what's essentially a second wind. The nauseated feeling passes, except where it's coming from Erik's side of the Bond, and he straightens his shoulders enough to take a deeper breath. _No, it isn't_ , he promises. _Remember what Hank said? Remember what we've promised each other? There is nothing we cannot handle together._ By the time of that trial, the Bond will have settled, and Charles fully intends to make it as strong as possible. They will be unstoppable. Honestly, the thought of Sebastian Shaw being at all threatening to them is entirely laughable.  
  
He keeps shaking his head, certain, tendrils of Will creeping out until Gertrude's scraping her chair back against the floor, eyebrows knit together. _No, I can't,_ he says and then says it again. I cannot. He will destroy me. _He will force me to-_ he gives a full-body shudder, convulsing hard in Charles's hold. Snapshots of the last time he spoke to Sebastian Shaw scream through his head-news stations playing it on blast, his confession-and he buries his face in his hands. It will be a million times that. _I won't be able to-I won't. I am not strong like you_. Unlike at the CIA or the hospital, though, Gertrude bounces back, nothing in her thoughts but comprehension. It's common for traumatized Dominants to behave that way, and given her occupation it would be weird if she wasn't prepared for that. "We can take a break, if you need to," she says to them both, eyes flicking between them.  
  
Charles doesn't even look at her, Real or projection. _You are exactly as strong as me, because we are only as strong as the two of us_. That he knows beyond any rational comprehension. In the Real, hidden by projection, he takes Erik's hand in his again, bows his head close. _He will not force you to do anything. He never will again. Not when I am around. Do you trust me, Erik? Do you really, honestly trust me?_  
  
 _I do not trust myself,_ he cringes, eyes fluttering closed. _I do not trust him. I trust you._ Charles is the only one who ever made him feel safe. He remembers being on his knees-Charles standing in front of him, bullying him to the ground, making him admit himself. Charles protected him. But even if he doesn't physically hurt Erik, Mr. Shaw will tell everyone all the things Erik did. Insult him. Make Charles disgusted with him. Force Charles to see him like that, a dead-eyed slave. What happened isn't a secret. Erik doesn't have any secrets anymore. His life is under constant public scrutiny and he just floats from day to day in a dissociative fugue, bumping up against camera flashes and news articles and reporters and lawyers and trial officers. He knows that Charles knows. He knows that Charles has seen it all in his mind, but they can _pretend_ like he hasn't. They can _pretend_ like he doesn't. They can lock it away and gently let it dissolve into the atmosphere. Mr. Shaw is smart. He will use every single tool at his disposal to wreck Erik's credibility and he has so much ammunition. And if he cracks and falls apart what will happen? Will he take them both into the darkness? Will he ruin them both?  
  
 _Stop, please._ It's not an Order from Charles. It isn't firm, or commanding, especially not now. It's soft, pleading, but he knows that it will catch Erik's attention more than any snapped Order ever could. T _hat will never happen. There is nothing, absolutely nothing that you have done, that could turn me away from you. Do you remember what you said to me, when we were in my mind? I know, and I love all of you. I love the parts of you that you cannot stand and refuse to let yourself be kind to. I know, and I do not ignore it anymore than you ignore the parts of me that are hurting. Look at me, Erik, please. Look at me. If you trust me, then you trust we can do this. He is weak. You must have seen that. He is weak, and he is pathetic, and he will never hurt you again. I won't allow it. I simply will not. I am your Bonded submissive, and it is my duty to serve and care for you. Do you trust in my ability to do that, Erik? To do what I vowed last night?_  
  
Erik slowly draws his hands down his face, head bowed, and gradually he meets Charles's eyes. All he can do is nod, every incarnation of his voice locked in his throat and vanishing into the clouds. Mr. Shaw was his Master, for years upon years upon years. Erik honestly isn't even sure he can speak against him. Those urges that sickened and horrified Charles are still inside of him. He still feels like he's stepped out of line and he wants to crawl back into place and be told _du hast es gut gemacht, kleiner Erik_ and just submit to his punishment with his head up- _findest du Kraft-_ the part of him that's outside the window with Charles, but he isn't outside the window anymore. He isn't running through muddy streets. He's in his room playing with a shiny metal sphere, homework on his desk, collar at his neck. The door is locked but he isn't the one who locked it. He's locked in. They'll be back soon.

* * *

Charles feels like he's been shredded apart, like he is suffocating. But Erik found those parts that needed him and he took care of them, and Charles will do the same for him. He swore that he would, and he will not go back on a single promise. Not to Erik. So he steps forward in this place he does not recognize, quiet and careful. "Erik?" he whispers, forcing his voice not to shake. Erik did not flinch at the sight of him covered in another's marks, and he won't when he inevitably faces more of it. Charles will not flinch at this. This is a part of his Erik, and Charles will love him with all of himself.  
  
In the Real, both Charles and Erik are unresponsive as Erik tumbles head-first into himself and tugs Charles unceremoniously after him, across the landscape in his mind and deep down until they're dumped onto the cold tiled floor of his living area in the Conditioning complex of the _Arad_ facility. The tiny version of him is drawing the heavy sphere in a circle on the floor, watching it go around and around and around. He's wearing an oversized short-sleeved gray shirt that just barely covers everything, and reveals the tattoo that takes up almost all of his forearm. He's seated at Rest, hair shaved close, features gaunt and expression void when he looks up at Charles and he rises to his feet gracefully, going to him. Silent and tugging him toward the bed. There's no blankets, pillows or sheets and the mattress is indefinably dirty. Erik's mind is calm and compliant, wary only because he doesn't know if Charles needs to be lead or expects complete control. Once he figures that out he'll melt into whatever is most pleasing.  
  
Charles, to his credit, does not show it on his face as his heart breaks into a million pieces. He merely smiles, soft and painfully gentle. This is not Real, and so he can do things that he technically is not capable of doing out there. He reaches for the sphere Erik was playing with and it comes to him, spinning around on the floor. Technically he needs Erik to do this, but all of this is Erik, and it's more effortless than his first two attempts. "Hi, poppet," he greets, wondering if this Erik has a proper grasp on English yet. If he doesn't, it will translate. "I'm sorry - I should have asked before I touched. Were you playing a game?" He doesn't know if Erik will respond, but he can be patient.  
  
He lets out a startled gasp as Charles demonstrates his mutation and touches his own cheek, rubbing his hand in a self-soothing repetition. He gives Charles a smile back, that he can tell is reflexive, practiced, and yanks the oversized shirt over his head. Shaking his head. There's no game. All of his attention is focused on Charles. When Charles doesn't move toward him, Erik tilts his head and pats the spot beside him, welcoming. A shiver runs through him. If he doesn't get it right he'll be punished again. The last one who got squeamish had him pissing blood for a week. " _Es ist okay, ich werde mich um dich kümmern_." His voice is soft and hoarse, like he has laryngitis. "You want English?" Charles can tell his grasp is not excellent, but he can understand most of what's said to him.  
  
Charles does everything he can to keep from vomiting. He decidedly does not look anywhere but Erik's face, holding his breath, and he switches languages. He's not quite composed enough for perfectly structured Hebrew, so he thinks in English, letting it come out in Erik's first language. "Please, Erik, could you put your shirt back on?" he asks, voice still incredibly soft. "I was not sent here by anyone or for anything. I'm just here to talk." That probably will not go over well. Charles feels incredibly out of his depth, but he will do whatever it takes. "I know you. We're friends. Do you not remember me?" It's not a reprimand. It has absolutely no heat, and he smiles again. "I've known you for a very long time, Erik. I'm here to help you."  
  
Uncovered, Erik's behind and thighs are mottled with dark, partially healed bruises and raw scrapes, and he's got a smattering of scars along his body that will only grow as time passes. He lacks the gnarled whip marks on his back, the stab wounds, the surgical keloids-it's altogether less and somehow not, because there is fresh blood on his skin. It hasn't been cleaned or attended to, just covered by the shirt; a kindness he usually doesn't get. He honestly looks more terrified to dress than undress, but he immediately obeys and then slips to his knees at Charles's feet. At the question, he shakes his head, looking up at wide eyes when he hears Hebrew. " _Lo_ , you shouldn't!" he surges up and puts his fingertip against Charles's lips. "He'll get mad at you."  
  
Charles knows what it's like to go to bed with bleeding marks. Perhaps not like this, but he understands. He would tend to Erik, wash him and care for him, but he doesn't think he could stomach it. He doesn't think it would help, either, the same way Erik knew to cover his bleeding back rather than attempt to treat it. "Shaw? No, please don't worry, Erik," he hushes, and moves back until he hits the bed. He pats it gently, not climbing onto it himself. "He can't hear us, and he won't bother us. Alright? I promise you that we are safe now, the both of us." Perhaps this Erik is less trusting than a younger Charles was. Less easily reached. Charles reaches out anyway, flooding the room in that impossible, undeniable love, the comfort and warmth he knows does not exist here. "You can trust me. I'm your friend," he repeats.  
  
Erik's mouth drops open as the sensation wafts over him and he immediately bursts into tears as though punched in the face, snot rolling down his lip and wet dripping onto the floor. " _Ima_?" he croaks-and it's hard to explain how his thought processes slam up against one another, a honking logjam of screechy steel. The last time he felt something even approaching this-" _Lo, geh weg_ ," he pushes his hands out from his body as though shoving the invisible wall of _love/comfort/warmth/joy away_ and wraps his arms around himself, sniffling loudly in the silent room.  
  
Charles' heart breaks all over again, but if there are tears on his own cheeks, he does not acknowledge them. He doesn't touch Erik, but he crouches down in front of him - the only time he will ever be taller. It isn't a kneel, or meant to resemble one, simply to put them on the same level. He hesitates a long while, swallowing his own emotions, letting the ones he'd projected radiate but not pushing. "I know her, Erik," he whispers, as if he is telling the greatest secret. "Your mother. You can trust me."  
  
It's a test. He should have known it's a test. The blaze behind Erik's eyes rages. The fluorescents in the room make them seem even more vivid than normal with liquid gathered at the edges, red-rimmed. He's shaking like a leaf in the wind, even as he shores up and tries to shout. It comes out creaky and pathetic. " _Herr Shaw ist mein Meister! Sie kannst mich nicht anlügen_."  
  
Charles expected something like this. He shakes his head, staying exactly where he is. "I am not lying to you, Erik," he promises, quiet and solemn, and does not press the truth into him. He will let Erik come to the conclusion himself. "I promise I am not lying. I'm your friend, just like I said, and this isn't a test. I'm here to talk, that's all." He meets Erik's gaze, stunned like always by how vivid those sea-green waters are. Tropical fish swimming by, and Charles is drowning but he feels peaceful and safe. He ends up floating to the surface. "You know me, don't you?" They've always known each other.  
  
It takes a long, trembling moment for Erik to finally slide his gaze over to Charles's. Terrified because at any given opportunity the adults around him changed the rules. They could scream and insult him while feeding him a full meal or beat him with a smile, and he couldn't anticipate it. Sometimes they'd tell him to do things and he'd do it and still be punished; his world never made any sense and he doesn't know if it's a test or not. He's wavering. Those eyes. He's seen those eyes before. Unconsciously wrapping more of that sensation around himself, as though peeking fingers out from a blanket where they won't be slapped away. "Who are you?" he whispers.  
  
Charles smiles encouragingly. He carefully, slowly wraps Erik up in the sensation, warmth and comfort and reassurance, and always love. Love brighter than either of them could fathom at this age, but that existed nonetheless. Bundles him up as if it is truly a blanket. "My name is Charles," he introduces himself, dropping his last name even though it goes against the grain. He's still crouched down, but he doesn't touch. He wants to, to comfort in that way, but he won't just yet. "I'm your friend, Erik, like I said. You've known me since you were young... Younger, I mean," he laughs softly.  
  
Erik trips forward on his feet a little, seeking it out but not quite knowing where it came from. "Are you-?" he touches Charles's temple, not at all shy about the contact.  
  
Charles nods, grinning softly. "I am," he confirms, not moving at all. He winces just a bit at the contact, but mostly hides it; he's just incredibly sensitive there, in any context. "I can use your powers, too. I'm sorry I didn't ask first. I'm still learning," he admits, and he doesn't have to mock sheepishness here. He truly is.  
  
He notices, eyes narrowing, and then strokes again featherlight. "Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?"  
  
He shakes his head. "No, Erik, don't worry. It's just very sensitive," he explains, and smiles gently. "Sometimes I get headaches because of my mutation, that's all." He stays perfectly still, demonstrating that he's not at all hurt. "Do you want to sit and talk with me for a while? We could play a game, or read some poetry. Do you like poetry, Erik?"  
  
Erik nods, eyes wide. "Yes, sir," he says, because he doesn't know Charles's last name. He creeps forward and perches on the edge of the bed when bidden, balancing on his feet and wrapping his arms around his legs. "You don't want-? It's okay if you do. We don't have to play a game. I know what to do."  
  
Charles pretends that doesn't twist him right up inside. He's infinitely grateful they're not connected telepathically, because all that shows on his face is a kind, patient smile. "Charles," he corrects, gently. "And no, dearest. I just want to talk. Do you have a favorite poem? I don't have a favorite poem. Do you want to know a secret?" He leans a bit closer, drops his voice low. "I didn't read much poetry, but my favorite person in the world likes it very much, so I've started to. It's quite nice. I like to read, so now I get to hear all kinds of new stories. I bet you like stories. I do, too."  
  
He nods again, shuffling a little closer and hugging Charles with one arm, leaning into his side. "I have a favorite," Erik admits into his shirt, muffled by fabric. "But I'm not s'posed to read them. _Bitte_ , don't tell."  
  
Charles shakes his head, solemn. He gently hugs Erik back, holding him loosely against his side. "It will be our secret," he promises, voice still hushed. "What is your favorite?" he prods. "I'd love to hear. I never forget anything I hear or see, isn't that neat? So I'll remember it forever."  
  
When he does finally recite it, he doesn't lift his head, afraid of what will happen if he does. Herr Shaw is his Master. He is not supposed to love anything else, but the tattered books he tapes up under his mattress tell a different story. Ms. Frost never seemed to notice, but maybe she did. Maybe they sent Mr. Charles in here to take his confession; but it will be worse if he lies, and he can't stop thinking about those eyes. He would know that color anywhere. He thought he forgot what the sky looks like, but he remembers now. " _I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;/The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,/And arbitrary blackness gallops in:/I should have loved a thunderbird instead;/At least when spring comes they roar back again./I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead./(I think I made you up inside my head.)_ " He grimaces a little. "It's stupid."  
  
Charles shakes his head, squeezing, impossibly gently, at Erik's shoulder. "No, it's beautiful," he whispers, and the words are dripping with sincerity. His voice shakes, choked with emotion, but he forces himself steady. "Gorgeous. Thank you so very much for sharing that, Erik. I'll keep those words forever." He truly means it.  
  
"Did I hurt you?" Erik whispers, lifting his head to pin him with a scrutinizing look. "I'm sorry. Please don't be sad." He raises his hand and lays it on Charles's cheek, as infinitely gentle as the touch to his shoulder.  
  
He shakes his head, offering another soft smile. "No, Erik. You did not hurt me," he promises, but doesn't lie and say he isn't sad, because he is. Achingly so. They do not lie to each other. "I'm just very happy I'm here talking with you right now. Do you want to know another secret?" he asks, just a bit playful now.  
  
"Yes," Erik says, very serious and solemn. He touches his fingertips over Charles's smile, and under his eyes where they crinkle at the corners. A foreign expression, here. "I will not tell anyone. I promise."  
  
"Alright. It's going to be a bit hard to believe, but I need you to trust me. I would never lie to you," he says, and then he is solemn and serious, too. "I have a library, Erik. A very large, old library, and when you are older it will be yours too. There will be so many books you will not have time to read them all before we find new ones to replace them with. I promise you that. You can spend as much time reading as you like."  
  
Erik sniffles again, wiping his nose on his sleeve, face ready to crumple again at any moment. His fingertips anxiously knead into Charles's thigh, rubbing rhythmically over and over, rocking himself backward and forward with the movement. "How do we know each other?"  
  
Charles hums, rocking Erik gently. Back, and forth, and back. He moves the hand on his shoulder to stroke what little hair he has. "We met when we were both children," he answers honestly, though Charles is clearly much older now. "But you probably won't remember me. We were very far away, so it was difficult for us to talk. I'm from New York."  
  
Instantly Erik's eyes close and he melts against Charles, a devastatingly familiar anxiolytic balm via touch. "I would remember you," Erik whispers. I _fancied you'd return the way you said,/But I grow old and I forget your name./(I think I made you up inside my head.)_ This man who calls himself friend. Erik makes a halfway distressed whine in the back of his throat, completely involuntary, letting his other arm come up around Charles's side to bury himself completely. "Are you from the future?"  
  
"You could say that, yes," Charles laughs, because technically he is. It all amounts to the same thing, in the end. "We meet again when you're older. The Erik I know best is older."  
  
"Did we meet here?" Erik flinches in Charles's hold.  
  
Charles shakes his head. "No, Erik. We met in New York, actually. That's where we live now." He emphasizes we, still running his hands gently through Erik's short hair.  
  
"New York?" he's shocked. The next question is unfailingly blunt, unfortunately for Charles. "Are you my Dom? Do you know _Herr_ Shaw?"  
  
Charles grits his teeth, but it's gone in an instant. "No, I am not. And I did not know him before we met." The words are more stilted than before, but he does everything in his power to keep the emotion behind them from leaking out. His eyes have closed of their own accord.  
  
"I'm sorry," Erik squeaks, hiding himself again. "I hid him from you?" It's clear he still expects Shaw to be in his life.  
  
He takes a deep, slow breath, and gentles everything out. Patient, and soft, and loving, his arm back around Erik's shoulders to tuck him in safely. "No, you didn't. I knew about him. But he's far away now," he says simply.  
  
"No! I'd never leave him!" Erik abruptly pulls back, a wild look in his eyes. "Do not lie to me! You cannot trick me. I will not let you."  
  
Charles takes another breath, and does not flinch. "I am not lying, Erik," he murmurs, soft and slow, and tilts his head. "You know I'm not lying. You know I don't lie to you. We're friends, and that isn't what friends do."  
  
"He is my Master. I can't leave him." Even if the alternative, Charles and his nice eyes and his books and New York and-Erik's shaking again. "What are you? You showed me-that-" he touches Charles's temple again.  
  
His shoulders are hunched, a bit too tense. It's the only sign that he's distressed, and his expression is still open and gentle. "I don't understand what you're asking me," he says, kindly. "I told you who I am, Erik."  
  
Head-shake. "What are you to me?" Even now he's watching Charles, scrutinizing the tension in his shoulders, and he blinks away tears, wiping at his eyes. "Did I hurt you? Did he make me hurt you? I'm sorry. _Ani lo rotze lifgoa_." His eyes widen. _Mistake_. His hands fly over his head, and he skitters back against the wall, braced for impact.  
  
Charles shakes his head, evening it all out. He smiles again, and though it's difficult, he makes sure Erik can see his dimples. He wraps all of that love around himself as a reminder, and he makes sure it is genuine even as his own eyes fill with tears he will not shed. "No, Erik. You haven't hurt me, and you never will," he whispers. "I've told you the answer to that question, too. We are friends. You are my very best friend in the world," and if his voice cracks, it can't be helped. "And I love you. That is what I am to you. Someone who loves you."  
  
His fingers lower slightly so he can peek out from them, eyebrows wrinkling in the center of his forehead. " _Herr_ Shaw says love is weak. I'm supposed to be strong." He looks about two seconds away from crawling back to meld himself into Charles's arms and never leave. "You love me?" his voice definitely cracks.  
  
"On the contrary. Love is what makes us strongest," he assures. He doesn't move toward Erik, but he keeps himself open, still blanketing the two of them in warmth. "Yes. I love you very, very much, Erik," he says, and then a tear slips down his own cheek. He doesn't move to wipe it, and he smiles with both his mouth and his eyes, that crease in the corners, endless azure skies that shine with the love he's promising.  
  
Erik does, finding himself completely incapable of letting his friend cry by himself. He scoots up again and swipes his thumbs under Charles's eyes, and then uses his shirt to dry his cheek. "Please don't cry. I will not let anything happen to you. I promise."  
  
Charles smiles. "Thank you, Erik. But I know that already. We do not let anything bad happen to each other, because that's what friends do." He slowly wraps an arm back around Erik's shoulder. "I can't do this when we're sitting together in the future, you know. You grow to be very, very tall," he teases.  
  
For a split-second, Erik's lips twitch, and he tamps down what might've been a grin on anyone else, eyes alight. "Really? You do this in the future?" he lays his head back down. "How tall am I? Do I go to school? Am I nice to you?"  
  
"Put my arm over your shoulder? No, I just told you I can't, because you are a giant in the future," he laughs, and pokes gently at said shoulder. A fond little squeeze follows. "You are a whole foot taller than me. You do not go to school, but you will, I'm sure, and you are also going to teach. You are very nice to me."  
  
Erik shakes his head. "Hold me," he mumbles, turning bright red. He's not a baby. He doesn't need to be held. He's just humoring Mr. Charles. That's all. "What do I teach? Are we married?" Because Charles says he loves him and-it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. "How come you're wearing a collar?"  
  
"Oh! Absolutely, we do like to hug," he says, and rubs at Erik's back, smiling softly. He doesn't acknowledge the embarrassment there, chuckling at what comes next. "You don't teach yet, so I couldn't say. Whatever subject you decide on, but you will be brilliant at anything. And no, we are not married." Yet. "I'm glad you do not find it to be the worst thing," he grins, and manages, somehow, not to react at all as he answers the next question. "I am a submissive," he says simply. No reason to hide that.  
  
His eyebrows are about ready to pop off of his head. "Are you my submissive??!" Listen, Erik might not have gone to school, but he was a smart kid. Either that, or he just can't conceive that this person who loves him and treats him nicely isn't also his future-husband; because that means he-that means-"It is not-" he chokes. "The worst thing."  
  
Charles does not know whether to laugh here. He stifles it with his free hand. Erik is too intelligent, and he doesn't think it will do him any good to lie. "Yes," he says, nodding. "In the future, when you are older, yes. I am your submissive."  
  
"But-" Erik stares at him, having honestly not expected that answer even though he knows it must be true. But you can talk to me. But you aren't scared of me. "But I'm not a Dom."  
  
Charles shakes his head. "You are," he counters. "You are a D5, aren't you, Erik? Would you like to hear another secret?" He gestures for Erik to come closer, cupping a hand over his mouth as if to shield the words from others.  
  
"I was just born that way," he insists, shaking his head. "I am not really like that." He shuffles closer, putting his head on Charles's chest and waiting for the secret.  
  
He lets that go, just for the moment. "I am an S1," he stage-whispers, directly into Erik's ear, cupping that hand over it.  
  
"Is that why you can talk with me?" Erik is fascinated. " _Herr_ Shaw doesn't let me talk with anybody, not really."  
  
Charles nods, grinning. "Yes. That's why. Good, isn't it?" It really is.  
  
"You are the first person I ever met that I do not feel...you do not..." Erik doesn't know how to explain it. "Except Mr. Ivanov."  
  
"I am glad," he says, simply, and if his voice shakes again it can't be helped. He pulls Erik just a tiny bit closer, cradling him, and then decides that he is done with this bare, disgusting mattress. He reaches behind him and suddenly there is a blanket, fluffy and soft, and he wraps it around Erik, more than careful with his injuries. "I brought this from the future with me," he grins. "I should have brought you a plant. We have many plants in the future. We have a cactus, most importantly, and we named him."  
  
Um Erik's crying renews ten-fold and he bundles himself up in the blanket, uncaring about his injuries in the slightest and sinking into the soft fabric like a warm embrace. He lets out an involuntary shiver of pleasure and burritos himself up next to Charles. "You're s'pose to sing to them. It makes them grow better. _Ima_ always sang to them."  
  
"I'll make sure you sing to them, then. You're a much better singer than I am," he laughs. Charles doesn't have a bad voice at all, but he doesn't do it often out of the shower. They will have a lot of plants, though, and they will all need love, so perhaps it's time to start. "We named him Cactus, by the way. Our cactus. His name is Cactus, and I like him very much."  
  
"He likes you too," Erik is sure. He can't imagine anyone or anything not liking Charles, and if they did, Erik will show them the error of their ways. The protective instinct is a natural conclusion, but it still surprises him. Much like his older counterpart. "You let me talk," Erik whispers. "Everyone else... even _Herr_ Shaw." He'll never make this connection completely, but somewhere deep in his subconscious, he recognizes that Shaw has always been scared of him. "I wish I could meet you soon."  
  
"You can talk to me as much as you like, Erik," he promises, and holds the burrito half in his lap with all the care in the world, rocking gently. "About anything. Always, no matter what. I will always listen."  
  
Erik's eyes close without conscious direction, more comfortable than he can remember being for the last two years, and it's threatening to break him apart. "Cactus is a horrible name for a plant," he croaks roughly.  
  
Charles snorts. "That's what you said in the future, and I'm afraid it just isn't true. You see, my secondary mutation is plant whispering." It is not. "He likes his name. I know he does."

* * *

"I am certain he does not," the response comes, in Erik's warm, deep tones, sonorous and filled-out instead of fragile and small. Beside Charles, the bed creaks under his weight and he lays a hand on his shoulder. Tiny-Erik is still cocooned in his lap, letting off little shudders and then readjusting himself inside the blanket contentedly, rubbing at his own face and eyes like a baby animal. I am sorry that you had to see this.  
  
Charles, to his credit, doesn't jump at all. He continues rubbing at the younger Erik's back, an endlessly adoring smile on his lips. _I don't mind,_ he whispers, and it is impossible to deny it. _I told you, I love these parts of you as well. I always have and I always will._  
  
"Whozthat?" Younger-Erik mumbles and looks up. His eyes go round as saucers when he settles them on this different version of himself. They share the same eyes, the same freckles. His buzzed hair is lighter, the adult is much taller and bulkier, but the essential features are largely the same.  
  
This is such a nicer alternative to what really happened on his thirteenth birthday. After finishing his homework, Mr. Ivanov made him a plate of _pirozhki_ and then featured him as the entertainment to a lucrative business deal involving several senior-level Hellfire associates. He lost his dinner and broke his kneecap. Not his favorite birthday. Now he can remember this. Even if it didn't happen in the Real, he remembers being thirteen and rocked in Charles's arms wrapped in a cozy blanket. There is no greater gift he could receive.  
  
"Go to sleep," Older whispers and leans into Charles's other shoulder. _Let's go home,_ he says and holds out his hand. _You shouldn't be in this room anymore._  
  
Charles smiles, and feels tears streak down his cheeks. Something is rising up in him again, something unignorable and near violent in its intensity, and he takes Erik's hand. Alright, he agrees, and then _, Yes, Erik._ Perhaps he hasn't done nearly enough. Perhaps it is just a drop in the ocean. But he was here, and that means something.  
  
 _It means everything,_ Erik says, pressing their foreheads together. _More than you could possibly know._ Or perhaps, just as much as Charles could know. It isn't so long ago that he found himself sitting at the bedside of his Bonded on his thirteenth birthday. _Thank you. For staying with him._  
  
 _Thank you for letting me_. He moves in a shaky, jerky motion, wrapping his arms around Erik and burying himself fully in him. Inhaling him, tears pressed into bare skin. _Thank you for letting me, Erik. Thank you for letting me love him, too._  
  
 _You are welcome everywhere that I am,_ Erik tells him, rubbing his back. Seeing the two of them together like this, so viscerally, feels like it's rending him into pieces. Charles is right. He will choose this, every time, over Sebastian Shaw. _We can do this,_ he says at last. Together.  
  
Charles laughs, a wet little sound into Erik's chest. _I know, darling. I'm the one who said it the first time_ , he snarks, apparently still capable of it. He peeks up to meet Erik's eyes. Together, he agrees.  
  
Erik huffs. _I was agreeing, Cactus Head_.  
  
 _I was being fresh, and that was uncalled for,_ he declares, pouting entirely too exaggerated, full lips wobbling. _Don't use my cactus son against me. You don't need to be jealous he loves me more._  
  
He fully starts laughing, which causes tiny-Erik to stir from fitful sleep and pet Charles's hair unconsciously, as though sensing his tears. _It seems he wishes to care for you as well,_ Erik remarks dryly. Some things never change.  
  
 _We have to go back,_ he murmurs after a while, after he's settled younger Erik back down and leaned fully into older Erik's arms, the desperation and neediness whipped right back up. He doesn't want to go back out there. He thinks it's been taken care of, knows instinctively that he's kept them both safe, but - Charles whines. _We could go somewhere else and stay,_ he suggests, even though it isn't an option.  
  
 _I wish we could,_ Erik whispers gently. But we need to do this _. The sooner it is over, the sooner we can start really living. I want that life with you. The books and the teaching and the peace. We cannot have it unless we go out there and fight for it. I want to fight for it. I do not know if I can do it, but I want to try._


	40. i am joining all my thoughts to you/and i'm preparing every part for you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _the iliad_ , homer  
> ii. _snow and heavy rain_ , richard siken  
> iii. _psalm 139:8_ , _isaiah 31:9_  
>  iv. _pirkei avot 2:13_ , yohanan ben zakkai  
> v. _todesfugue_ , paul celan  
> vi. _tulips_ , sylvia plath  
> vii. _aida_ , elton john

_You can_ , Charles promises, but he sniffles as he clings tightly. _It's just I feel like... I don't feel very good, he admits. It hurts, I think. I'm sorry, I'm actually the weak link right now. And always,_ he thinks, and tries to shield it.  
  
 _It doesn't matter,_ Erik says, soft. _You can be weak. So can I. Sometimes I think we are strongest where each other's links are weakest. Is that silly?_  
  
Charles' face falls. He hides it, swallowing, and pretends he hadn't tensed. _No_ , he says, finally, a beat too late.  
  
Being in this room is getting to him. Making him stumble. Erik clears his throat, shaking his head. _It was. Nevermind that._  
  
 _No, it wasn't._ It's firmer. Charles shakes his head. _It wasn't. I agree._ It wasn't what he'd reacted to. _Let's go home_ , he repeats Erik.  
  
 _What did I do?_ Erik asks, and in this close of proximity it's better to just assume it's an Order.  
  
He doesn't like the way it's phrased. He doesn't want to have this conversation. Charles sniffs. _You agreed with me, that's all,_ he mumbles, and doesn't offer more. You were right to. I was right.  
  
Erik hugs him. _I do not think you are weak any more than you think I am. But there is nothing wrong with struggling sometimes, and we both do. We hold one another up in those places._

Charles hesitates. _You've just never admitted that something submissive about me was weak before,_ he says, and then shakes his head. _It doesn't matter. It's pathetic. We should go back, like you said._

 _That wasn't what I was referring to_ , Erik replies quietly. _I meant there are parts of these circumstances, this trial, that we will find trying in individual ways. No matter what happens, we will be there for one another._ Stupid, of course he said something stupid here. Erik waves his hand and the room dissolves, shimmering out in a spark of heated embers. He was raised by Sebastian Shaw, a high-Dom notorious for his disparaging opinions about submissives. How can he not be affected by that? Altered by that? It probably seeps into his words in ways he can't anticipate, even if he doesn't intend for that interpretation. Sickly, black sludge inside of him. Disgusting.

 _Stop. Please stop,_ he whispers, pained. _Please don't do that. It isn't true. You haven't made me feel like that, not even once. I'm sensitive to this, you know I am, so I reacted. I know you would never mean something like that._  
  
Erik shakes his head viciously. _Don't excuse my behavior._ He grimaces and swallows. _I'm sorry I wasn't clearer. I said it poorly. I do not think those things about any human being, let alone you. But I was not educated properly. You are right to question me when I say something offensive._  
  
Charles shrugs, his face hidden _. You would have been right,_ he mutters, and even in a place without any physicality it's barely audible. _The way I'm behaving out there right now is pathetic. It's fine. You can say it, I won't be hurt by it._ Yes, he would.  
  
 _Charles. Stop it. This, too,_ ends up being an Order. _Nothing about you is pathetic. Do you think that I believe you are?_  
  
There's a long pause. Then, quiet and small, muffled by Erik's chest: _No_.  
  
 _Do you think I am the kind of person that would Bond with someone that I view as pathetic? Do you know the kinds of people that I consider to be pathetic? You are not among them. I watched you comfort one of my darkest pieces without hesitation. You are here and doing this for me even though you feel terrible. You are exceptionally selfless, and I am very proud to call you my submissive._ He strokes Charles's hair.  
  
 _I started being more pathetic after we Bonded,_ he points out, and winces a moment after because he hadn't wanted to. It had slipped. _And if you knew I would act like this, you wouldn't have -_ He cuts himself off.  
  
 _Acting like what? Mine? Hardly. Besides, I am hardly unaffected. If you had known I would stalk around growling at everyone and restraining myself from shoving people away from you-_ he huffs. _It is a natural process, I think. I have absolutely no regrets. The only thing that concerns me is that you are unhappy._  
  
 _Hardly_ , he repeats, and bites his lip. _I'm not unhappy. I'm very, very happy, actually. I'm just..._ The circumstances could be better. He had plenty of instincts, stronger than he'd ever felt them before, and none of them involved being in public, especially around other submissives who could steal his Dominant away. Charles doesn't quite realize where that thought's gone.  
  
Erik chuckles. _There is no one on this Earth who can hold a candle to you. To be perfectly honest... I like your instincts. All of them._  
  
Charles hides even further, but he's positive Erik will be able to tell he's blushing. _...You do?_  
  
 _Very much so_ , Erik confirms, leaning back to give him a little tap on the nose. _I am not-accustomed-to being-desired that way. It is-alluring,_ he admits, looking a little flushed himself. Our instincts are very suited for one another in that regard. Because the more he feels it from Charles, the more he seems to glow from the inside out. Charles belongs to him. Charles wants to belong to him. It's heady.  
  
 _Mmmm_ , is the eloquent response he gets in return. Charles smiles at the familiar tap to his nose, but he's still flushing as he goes back to burying himself in Erik's chest. We should really go back. And then when it's over, we can go home and... He's thinking of something Hank said. It's utterly ridiculous that he has instincts for that, but apparently he does. It really, absolutely is not the worst thing.  
  
Erik's eyebrows raise. Distinctly curious. Sorry, buddy. _And what, Charles? Hm?_  
  
Charles shakes his head, whining. _Uh-uh, please don't make me_. Erik is going to make him.  
  
Oh yeah. _And what, Charles?_ he repeats again, the firm zing of Order arcing through him.  
  
Charles whines louder, but this time it's accompanied by an image of Charles absolutely covered in bites and marks, thoroughly Claimed, among endless blankets and pillows. A nest, with Erik looming over it and petting him, growling at whoever dared disturb them. Charles need not worry about anything but obedience and service, as it should be so soon after a Bonding. And that, Erik.  
  
 _Oh, Charles,_ Erik gathers him up, wisps of Will rising off of him like smoke rings dissipating through the atmosphere. In this black, hazy space they're visible, landing on Charles's skin and seeping into his bones. _If you keep talking like that we are going to have a different problem on our hands._ (Or in Charles's hands. Or maybe his mouth. Hm.) Because the truth is not far from fantasy. In the Real, Erik's practically vibrating with leashed urges to keep himself still and compliant, when all he wants to do is spirit Charles back to their home and have his way with him. _Certainly nothing wrong with those instincts, neshama._ They're not in the Real, though, so Erik nips his throat, hard enough to send a twisting frisson of fire racing down his spine. _Mine_.  
  
This isn't exactly convincing him that they should return to the Real anytime soon. Charles cries out loudly, his entire body arching in the aftermath. Everything had been narrowed down and muted, and now it's as if Erik reignited a flame that explodes on impact, his veins suddenly pulsing with liquid heat. He shivers, not entirely sure which way is up but absolutely positive that he can climb into Erik's lap and nuzzle into him, which he does. _Technically I didn't say anything, Cactus Head,_ he breathes, just to be fresh, in the hopes that Erik will take it upon himself to remind him of his place.  
  
The next bite he delivers is decidedly more than a nip. _Such insolence,_ he smirks. He should probably be caring about where they are and what's happening, but honestly whatever the consequences of this will be, they're already there, and this is much more fun than his filthy childhood bedroom. _You belong with me. I don't like hearing you put yourself down in my voice. I am not going to back out of our Bond, so I need you to put those thoughts to rest, because every time you say it I want to Claim you all over again. Which might not go so well in front of my trial services officer._  
  
Charles is a shivering, melted mess, wanting nothing more than to inspire more of that attention, but he still manages, somehow, to grin. _She wouldn't see anything I didn't want her to_ , he promises, and his eyes flash. _Because I'm not weak. I'm strong, and I belong to you, and I am the only one in this world capable of giving you this. I'm your Bonded and belonging to you means no one else can have you._ If there's a wild, possessive look in his eyes as he grips tight, so be it. _Let's go back so we can have this finished and you can drag me back to the cave, you giant man._ Seeing Erik smaller has reminded him of how absolutely huge he is, and he shudders thinking about it, visibly swallowing.  
  
OK, so Erik miscalculated here, because his first instincts were to say that Charles disparaging himself inspired all of his raging, ancient core to rise up and mark and own but it turns out that Charles loudly proclaiming _he is Erik's_ just about triples that reaction and Erik lets out a low groan. _Yes, Charles_ , he finally manages to acquiesce, pulling himself together enough to kiss him on the forehead and lead them both to their feet, hand-in-hand. The appointment with Gabrielle was going to be, ahem, interesting. If it weren't court ordered they would absolutely be skipping it. He might skip it anyway.

* * *

When his eyes open in the Real, Erik finds two sets of eyes on him, from recently-reanimated Betsy and Gertrude, who are none-the-wiser on their absence. "Erik? Do we need to take a break?" Gertrude repeats herself after the vacant look on his face finally catches up to her perception.  
  
 _No_ , he returns, swallowing down the taste of bile in the back of his throat. _I have concerns about my fitness to be questioned by Mr. Shaw,_ he just says it, finding his former confidence in their ability to succeed vastly overshadowed by the reality that he had no idea how he was going to accomplish said goal.  
  
Charles' perception smiles politely, legs still crossed and hands folded neatly as possible in his lap, while in the Real, he absolutely abandons his own chair to crawl right into Erik's lap. "I don't share those fears," that projection says simply, aimed toward the two women across while he mouths at Erik's neck, rubs his cheek against bare skin, sighs happily at the contact like a purring, pleased cat. _You can do this. We can do this_ , he reminds him, and whines, fingers tugged into Erik's shirt again. This is probably not the ideal circumstance for this conversation, but Charles will burn alive if he doesn't, so there's that.  
  
The movement brings Erik immediate relief in the form of loosed tension from his shoulders, which drop down from his ears, and he bares his neck in a gesture that on anyone else would be deemed submissive. On Erik it represents relaxation, allowing Charles to take care of him, to draw comfort from him, to know he is loved and trusted. Erik's projection is a more accurate depiction of his feelings on the situation: head bowed, back straight, hands folded neatly in his lap, and feet flat on the floor in a seated Rest posture many subs fall into on formal occasions that he's never completely trained himself out of when stressed. "May I ask why your opinion differs?" Gertrude requests, tilting her head at Charles curiously. She holds a great deal of genuine respect and sympathy for Erik, which is in short supply these days even amongst well-intentioned individuals, but it _is_ plainly obvious to her that the mere _idea_ of being cross-examined by Sebastian Shaw is sending him into frenzy.  
  
It doesn't faze Charles. It would have, not long ago, but now it almost inspires... not amusement, not really. That isn't the right term for it. There's something about how Erik's ingrained mannerisms in stressful situations like this are all submissive while his are all Dominant (raised chin, leaned forward, eyes met, raised voice, even the way he balances his weight and squares his shoulders rather than perfectly straightens them) that strikes him, because it's so utterly divorced from the reality that it's bizarre. He wonders if he'll ever show Erik how he learned those mannerisms. It's silly, in comparison. That he'd felt the need to do it, and the reasons he did, less so, but it's all backwards-instincts. His projection regards Erik calmly, that polite smile on his lips. "I've worked with Erik for a while now," he says. "I'm aware of what he's capable of, even when he is not. He told me in a session that he would like to face Sebastian Shaw, and I know it to be true. Erik has a habit of underestimating himself. I'd like for it to be unnecessary, his testimony, but unfortunately that isn't the case, and I know he has a great deal to say that he wants the world to hear. That he wants Sebastian Shaw to hear. I would not see him surrender that right when it was already once taken from him." The words are spoken calmly, in that quieter but still confident way that is less faux-Dom bravado and more natural Charles. His Real self, that is entirely Charles, places a kiss near Erik's ear. _I know you can do this. I will be with you the whole time. You'll fight for me, won't you?_  
  
The curious thing about it all is that when Erik has displayed Dominant mannerisms, such as with Charles's parents, as a D5 most people expect him to act like Gabby or Carmen, but D4s are boisterous in a way he is not. More akin to Charles when he's putting on his front; balanced in pose, firm of voice. Erik's natural Dominance has always tended toward self-assured impassivity. Even at partial Rest, he exudes leashed power, a quiet, determined dignity that people find difficult to challenge. It's daresay one of the reasons why people treat him with automatic hostility, hackles raised at the unknown variable in the room. Erik nods-at Charles alone, not their conversation. He will fight. He will at least try and endure it, but that doesn't mean he isn't worried. _I am concerned that it will harm the Prosecution's case if he examines me._  
  
"In what manner?"  
  
 _He will attempt to undermine my credibility._  
  
"Can you explain that in more detail?"  
  
 _During my trial Mr. Shaw testified that I murdered my parents and destroyed_ Sisim _. My DS score was not public knowledge then, but it is now. He will claim that he took on the care of me in order to mitigate what he termed a malignant D5. He will say I forced the Hellfire Club into perpetrating abuses as a form of torture_. Erik makes all of that come out evenly, and his projection is calm and docile, but in the Real he is shaking, holding back ugly sobs. This Bonding thing has really done a number on his emotional calibration.  
  
Gertrude blinks, stunned. "Is that what Mr. Shaw told you at the time?"  
  
 _Yes. He raised me as a submissive in order to curb my dangerous Dominant instincts._  
  
"Is there any merit to what he's saying at all?" she looks at Charles, not overly familiar with D5s. Erik is the first one she's met, and the only other reference the public has is Azazel Rasputin, who is not exactly a shining paragon of Will.  
  
Now Charles' hackles are raised, even while he's aware he's likely misunderstanding the question. He bristles anyway, head snapping up from where he's buried it in Erik's neck to glare viciously. The perception of him is far more composed, but not by much, his jaw hardened as he raises his chin higher and arches an eyebrow, eyes suddenly hard. "Excuse me? I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you're asking." It's all calm poise hiding Charles' version of rage, which is far icier than Erik's and bites just the same. "Are you asking if there is merit to Sebastian Shaw's claim that D5s are inherently uncontrollable, dangerous beasts? Because I assume you are not, since that would be ridiculous."  
  
Gertrude flinches, and then readjusts herself, squaring her shoulders. Being an S2 in this field can be challenging. "I'm asking if there is merit to Sebastian Shaw's claim that Erik could force people to do what he wanted, up to and including the acts that were perpetrated against him. If there is the slightest possibility that a D5 could do those things-" "-and there is precedent for that," Betsy adds, making a vague hand gesture everyone knows is referring to Azazel, "-that means the Defense have a shot at this thing. Mr. Shaw doesn't need to cast aspersions on all D5s, he only needs to target Erik."  
  
"Oh, I see. My mistake. So you're simply suggesting there's merit to a defense that suggests an eleven year old boy is capable of atrocities unfathomable to polite society merely because he possesses the ability to potentially commit them, and that, somehow, this defense will supersede Shaw's confession to being a _literal, actual Nazi._ " Charles smiles, but if smiles could cut, they would both be bleeding. "You're right, that is far less ridiculous."  
  
Erik touches him on the arm, shaking his head. Charles. _That is not what she is suggesting. The answer to your question is yes,_ he addresses Gertrude, completely stymied by the fact that he's somehow managed to have that come out even. Erik remembers himself as a child. Demanding, bossy, entitled. _Play with me!_ he yells at Ruthie, who's busy with her homework. _No, I don't want to. I said play with me!_ as the little girl trudges to her feet, wide-eyed and confused. Mr. Shaw always told him his Will made him irresistible; made everyone want to put him in his place. Charles isn't imagining how everyone's gazes automatically get drawn to him when he enters a room, magnetism in more ways than one. _If I were sufficiently deranged, I could have Ordered all of it. It is also possible that I inherently lowered their inhibitions to the point that they were incapable of controlling themselves where they otherwise would have, in which case they are less culpable._  
  
"If that's the case, then you are probably correct," Gertrude says with a small smile. "That there's a kernel of truth to what you anticipate their Defense to be makes it more than likely that it will be their defense. And that's very good news for us, because as Dr. Xavier is clearly intimating-" she fixes him with a dry look, "it's a patently ridiculous claim. D5s are a statistical anomaly, but there are enough of them out there that we have evidenced childhood development data; D5 children are no different to any other child on the DS scale. On the other hand," she steeples her fingers, "Erik has touched on the tip of the other iceberg already. Mr. Shaw's participation in the _Schutzstaffel_ will be investigated concurrently, but separately to the crimes he's being charged with against Erik. I understand-I _understand_ ," she looks at Erik when he flinches away from her, meeting his eyes. There's a burning behind hers that she keeps carefully leashed. "I understand that is hard to hear. It's deeply regrettable, but his confessing to being at _Auschwitz_ has no bearing on the acts committed by the _Hellfire Club_."  
  
Charles is still on edge. That his eyes are narrowed and his posture still guarded cannot be helped, apparently, and he feels incredibly like snarling. He can't tell if this is a Bonding instinct or a Charles instinct, or if, in the end, it is all the same thing. "I apologize for my reaction," he says, but does not change the way he is sitting, and if one were to catalogue the differences, they would see that his projection has grown at least a good two inches. "I stand by my point that Erik's testimony will not harm the case against Shaw. If anything, it will strengthen it when the defense's case is proven baseless and, frankly, offensive." He's equally upset about the deeply regrettable news, but it will all end up the same. There is only one way for this to end, with two potential flavors. Either Shaw rots in prison, deteriorating without his precious Omega mutation, or he's hanged like the Nazi he is. Charles can live with either.  
  
Erik honestly isn't sure how to classify his reaction to Charles's instincts. The only times he has ever felt like this in his life has been around Charles. Gratitude wells up, and he wraps his arms tightly around him, holding him close in his lap. Thank you, he whispers, and maybe it's not an ordinary response, but he's honestly touched. Charles keeps him safe. He stands up for Erik. Maybe he doesn't think Charles owes her an apology. Neither does he think Ms. Yorkes did anything wrong, in fact he stands by his original impression that she is a rather nice woman, but-he kisses Charles's forehead, brushing his hair back from his face. _Thank you._  
  
"There's no need to apologize," Gertrude echoes the sentiment. "In cases like this it's difficult to keep objective, especially when you've been working with Erik day in and day out for the last two months. It's not easy to hear these things. For the record, I absolutely agree with you. Even if they choose to pursue this line of defense, Erik's testimony will be the backbone of our case, and it won't be hindered in any way by a cross-examination attempting to paint Erik's Dominance as the culprit behind his abuse. It's an unsustainable analysis not backed by science, and it's frankly insulting. I watched the trial tapes, and you should be aware he said some fairly incriminating things there as well. I'm not certain how precisely his team plans on spinning that, but at one point he directly implied that Erik deserves to be sexually abused. We have a lot on our side, and with the other plaintiffs' testimonies, I'm fairly confident that Mr. Shaw will spend the rest of his life in prison."  
  
Whether that be 70 years or detention until his execution, she didn't clarify. There is little precedent for this.  
  
Charles calms, softening an incredible amount at Erik's attention. His body in the Real melts, purring and pleased, nuzzling back into Erik's neck. He presses sweet, idle little kisses there. It's in stark contrast to the projection of himself, which is poised and composed again, legs recrossed and a wry smile on his lips. "I am more than fairly confident," he murmurs. "I know what he said, and more than that, I know what he did. Any other outcome would be one of the greatest failings of any legal system in human history, and I have more faith in us than that."  
  
Erik's eyes flutter closed and his head drops to Charles's shoulder again, running his hands up and down his back and then through his hair, sifting in rhythmic, soothing motions. "If only telepathic evidence were admissible," Gertrude grins wryly back at him. "So we won't be getting into your actual testimony preparations today," she maintains, consulting her file and tapping it on the metal desk. Erik feels a shiver run through him sympathetically. "I just wanted to sort of give you the lay of the land, and let you know what's currently happening. We'll be flying you out to Israel in a couple of weeks to sit down with the rest of the victims and go over your joint statements, and we'll also be making arrangements for Dr. Xavier to join you as well. Do either of you have any questions for me?"  
  
The projection of Charles hums, shaking his head. "No, I believe you've perfectly laid out the land for me. Thank you," he says, polite, and looks toward Erik, tilting his head in question. It's utterly ridiculous, because his actual body is making soft, almost mewling sounds, peppering kisses over every bit of skin he can reach, his hands tugging insistently in Erik's shirt.  
  
Erik looks like he wants to ask something, but he hesitates, overcome with sudden nervousness-not real panic, but a fluttering, shy ducking away, like he's out of place and too many eyes are on him. His projection is rubbing his palms back and forth over his knees, while he desperately seeks comfort in the Real, pulling Charles as close to him as he can, going so far as to slide his hands underneath his suit jacket and span them over bare skin, searching for warmth and that familiar tug of Charles when he bends to Erik's Will, the noises he makes-Erik doesn't realize he's unconsciously rocking Charles in his lap, pressed up close to his stomach.  
  
His eyes flutter, pulled in two different directions and he huffs a laugh, clearing his throat. Israel? He didn't realize they would be going-  
  
"To _Bnai Brak, yes_. The twelve other patients are staying with your aunt and uncle, and we've been in touch with them. Would you like their phone number, Erik? They're very excited to hear from you."  
  
Erik just... blue screens?  
  
Charles' eyes widen. Had he missed that, somehow? Was he not paying attention? It's entirely possible when his attention is dragged toward Erik, toward his Will, toward his need to be reClaimed, which is - rather pressing, now, but he puts that aside for the moment. Erik, he breathes, and he pulls back to touch Erik's face, smiling softly. _Perhaps we'll be buying out sunscreen companies sooner than you thought, hm?_  
  
He makes a sound suspiciously resembling a sniffle. _I did not think they would want to see me,_ he admits, swallowing the lump in his throat like a hard coal. It had been why he never reached out to his aunt and uncle prior; satisfied that David stepped up and took responsibility for twelve undocumented traumatized _goyische_ mutant children and unwilling to further impose upon his family. Erik's family.  
  
Charles is suddenly overcome, too, bowing his head into Erik's as he reaches up to stroke his hair. Of course they do, Erik. Of course they do. He can only imagine that meeting Erik's family will be vastly different than Erik meeting his, and the thought is almost enough to startle a laugh out of him, sympathetic tears pricking at his eyes. _I'm very excited to meet them, too. Hopefully they will like me._ The sudden spike of nerves is undeniable.  
  
They will love you, Erik says with complete confidence. He flicks his gaze down to Gertrude. They wish-?  
  
"Very much so," she enthuses warmly. "Ellie and David were both under the impression that you had been murdered at _Sisim_ , so it's quite emotional for them as well. You also have a cousin who was born after you were taken, and his name is Near," she's writing as she speaks and tugs out a few papers stapled together from her folder. "If you'd like, here's some pictures," she slides them across the table. "Those have their DS score information on the back, and your uncle is a mutant as well. He can view events in slow motion using accelerated perception, which-I am not exactly certain how that applies to real life, but it sounds very fascinating."  
  
Erik looks ready to disintegrate again. _I only met them once. I was seven and they came to our_ seder _. I- have a family._ Erik has a family. A family who grieved for him, who were left behind in the aftermath, who grieved for his grandparents and sister and mother and father, for his friends and teachers-everyone who-Erik- _Charles let me up,_ he gasps _. Please let me up. I need air-  
_

* * *

Charles swallows, but does as he's told, quickly extracting himself from Erik's lap. It's completely natural for him to have this reaction. He's only having it secondhand, and he cannot possibly imagine the scope of it (he can, actually, because there is little difference from what Erik feels and what he does). His Real position coincides with his projected position, then, the two merging, and Charles only shields his expression, crumpled into something pained as he stares down at his folded hands. He means to say something, either to Erik privately or out loud, but nothing comes out.  
  
The chair scrapes back against the floor as Erik stumbles up to his feet, knocking the papers off balance and rising to his full height, which causes Betsy to tense automatically and Gertrude's eyebrows to fly up at the sudden explosion of movement. Erik cannot let this spill over, and the only way he is going to be able to protect Charles from it is to put some distance between them so he can grab whatever piece he has to and slam it in place, and he flees the room abruptly to do so.  
  
"Excuse me!" Betsy moves after him. "This session isn't over yet- _Lehnsherr_!"  
  
Charles should have accounted for that. He does what he can in the aftermath, touching the woman's shoulder. "Let him go," he whispers, though he doesn't need to, and suddenly the session is over. They gather their things as if they'd dismissed him, and Charles is left there. He stumbles off to find a bathroom, with enough dignity left to not want to crumple in the middle of this building, and he doesn't make it even a foot past the door before he's on his knees, blocking everything that he's experiencing from Erik.  
  
Erik is crouched down just outside the door, head between his knees, breathing shallowly through his mouth and plugging his nose, eyes entirely unseeing straight in front of him. They're drawing a bit of attention, sorry 'bout it. When Charles exits the room, Erik sags toward the wall, toward him instinctively.  
  
They aren't drawing any attention at all, then. Charles knows his way around a perception filter like he knows how to breathe at this point, there could not be anything less complicated. He's put deliberate distance between him and Erik, walked right past him, and now he's coughing and pale and shaking, hidden from Erik, hidden from everyone, his heart pounding in his chest.  
  
The moment Erik realizes he can't sense Charles anymore he starts wheezing in earnest, groping blindly and struggling to his feet to weave through the corridors in a desperate bid to find him.  
  
Charles has managed to crawl in front of a stall, and now he's retching onto the floor, the entire world raging, spinning panic, dizzy cold-sweat. Classy. _Here_ , and it's a gasp, barely a word, and suddenly Erik is connected to him by a thread again, a map of the distance between them _. Here, I'm here._  
  
No sooner than he says it does he feel Erik's arms come up around him from behind, his head buried in the crook of his shoulder, eclipsing him with his body.  
  
Charles gasps. Nothing has come out of his mouth except violent coughing, his entire body shaking to the point where he can't even keep up on his hands properly. He's burning up, but he feels freezing, and then alternatively like someone has set him on fire and there are a million little needles dragging all over his skin. He can't form words, so he gives _off let me up/air/space._  
  
Erik skitters away and plasters himself back against the wall, burying his head in his knees and trying not to need his wire-cutters.  
  
Charles makes a choked, desperate noise, a sound of absolute, guttural agony, shaking his head as much as he can possibly manage, his head screaming _nononononononono_.  
  
Erik shoves his palms into his eyes and hunches down even further, bracing his head on either side of his knees and locking his arms around his legs in a protective ball. Rocking back and forth, he floats in the abyss, unaware except for his tether to Charles, a screaming resonance sucked into the event-horizon-silence. Dry, black rain sprinkles from the sky and lands on his skin like snowflakes. _He grasp'd the ashes scatter'd on the strand,/and on his forehead shower'd with either hand,/grimed his fair face, and o'er his raiment flung/the soil that on its splendour darkly hung,/his large limbs, prone in dust, at large outspread/and pluck'd the hair from his dishonour'd head-_  
  
Charles has to cut himself off. He has to put up a wall or Erik will know. Erik will know that his skin is burning off, peeling right off the bone. Erik will know he's screaming inside, that his organs are rearranging themselves and disintegrating, his stomach dissolving itself in acid, his neurons separating and screeching. Erik will know that he's dying, he's dying, he's going to die - He pitches forward, a wounded, animal noise slipping through tightly clenched teeth, and his body starts to convulse.  
  
He shovels in the darkness in the mid-day sun until the sun goes away and with a wretched sonic shriek, they are alive in fire.

* * *

You grieve your own death at the point where your family tree sheds its leaves into the wind. At the point where you watch yourself rise into the sky. At the point where the fluttering, ruined fabric of a burned _tallit_ scrapes down the tarred road and you recognize Ruchami's embroidery along the top, scratched out of existence. At the point where you trudge behind the red-faced demon, cowed and docile toward the white van and stop only to notice a single burnt shoe laying on razed grass. No human being can grieve a hundred deaths. You grieve one death a hundred times. You watch your mother burn for each of their bodies.  
  
Nothing in comparison to what he's left behind, and how he will return with the taste of them still on his tongue.  
  
He has escaped this pit once before. For the rest of his life he will be digging himself out of here. He clambers out of the trench with fingertips dug into wet earth. Elbows dug in, feet outstretched, Jacob's Ladder with steps of flesh crushed under him, the animal part of him that shrieks for survival. _We are always going forward./We are never going back._ He hits the ground hard and shoves himself up to his feet, and then he's turning, gripping under Charles's shoulder to wrench him up and out. I've got you. You're safe now.  
  
 _i'm dying i'm dying i'm dying_ When Charles is wrenched out from the deep, it's like being pulled out of the water after full minutes of drowning. His lungs aren't ready for the air. He gasps and wheezes, coughing, hyperventilating, shaking and twitching. It's not his mind overreacting, it's a physical reaction, and the entire world is crashing, tethered only by Erik's touch. He spins, and then he's prostrating himself, head bowed all the way down to the dirty floor.  
  
Erik lays down beside him, stroking his hair, curling up his legs into the fetal position and putting his head near Charles's shoulder, taking in big, wheezing breaths through his nose and he can't breathe, his nose is stuffed up and his mouth is wired shut and he twitches, struggling to inhale air. _You're safe now. You're safe now._  
  
Charles stays like that, shaking like a leaf, churned up on the inside. Erik isn't in front of him to bow to, but he stays down like that, forehead to the ground, inhaling in frantic, needy puffs. There's no rationality left to him. Erik is touching him again, but he's burning from the inside. He's well and truly burning, and he whimpers, low and pained, destroyed because his Dominant needs him and he can't tend to him. He can't move. The Bond is going to snap and it's all his fault. That thread is going to break. Erik will leave him because he isn't suitable. There are other submissives in this building who could better serve him. Charles has failed.  
  
"No other submissives," Erik gasps through clenched teeth, draping himself over Charles's body, resting his head on the back of his shoulder. Erik followed that thread down into the Sea of Terror- _If I ascend to heaven/You are there/if I make my bed in Sheol/You are there/And he shall pass over to his stronghold for fear and his princes shall be afraid of the ensign saith the L-rd whose fire is in Zion and his furnace in Jerusalem_ -followed it down into the deep where it holds strong, vibrating resonance, and gripped him and raised him up. No matter where he is, he can find that thread, constructed out of his own Will and sparkling-glitter subspace. He strokes mental fingers against it soothingly.  
  
It isn't red. Everyone was always talking about the red string of Fate or what have you, but Charles is positive that it isn't red. It isn't red, but it is there. It's there, holding them tightly together, snapping him into place, except for some reason he's still burning. For some reason he's still sweating, and trembling, and gasping, for some reason he's running a fever but still shivering cold, for some reason he feels like he's being cleaved apart from the inside. He doesn't know how to beg, so he makes those low, wounded noises, a distressed, yowling animal, face rubbed into the tile beneath him. Inside he is watching his father's casket be lowered into the ground and he's sobbing but his mother won't hold his hand anymore. _She says Calm yourself, please, Charles. We are in public._ He tries. He can't.  
  
It's not red! Maybe that's Erik. The red string conjures images of _ayin hara_ and ghostly eyes and universe-glares and there could be nothing further between them. _Keinahora, go and see what is the right way that a man should seek for himself._ Erik sees gold, precious metals liquefied and glowing. He slips his hand into Charles's instead.  
  
Charles' hand is slack at first, and then it squeezes hard enough to bruise. He's not in his body anymore, but he's not in his mind, either. He isn't calming down, but he's breathing. He doesn't know what to do except smash his face further into the ground, twitching. The needles are poking and prodding and there's an awful metallic screech. He's whining louder, and they're in an inconvenient location in the middle of this bathroom. Charles thinks please not now. He's not ready to die here, on this bathroom floor like an animal. He's got so very much to live for now.  
  
Erik drags him off the floor and into his arms, rocking him back and forth. Erik's thoughts and feelings are muted, a hundred and twenty-two locks in his mind that he is forever climbing towards. Torque and wrench, that hand on his shoulder. _Hervorragend, mein Junge!_ Her eyes lifelessly staring at him. He is lifelessly staring back. A corpse with the power of walking on its own feet.  
  
If he dies, at least it will be like this. It will be in Erik's arms, safely held, the thread still connecting them. It will be with the rest of the world muted out, stopped in place, a seething in between where the pain doesn't touch. He's already been granted more than he could conceive of. There's no need to be greedy. Charles gasps and thinks, alright. If this is it, alright. And he goes limp in Erik's arms, his eyes closed. Still breathing, but utterly still.  
  
Still breathing. They're both still breathing in between the spaces of heart beats. Physical processes still processing. At least it is like this. Erik smiles.  
  
There's nowhere to go now. No corner of his mind that sucks them both in. A boy at his father's funeral, hiding in the closet, crying himself to sleep, watching sheets float and bob in the lake because it wasn't a river, it had no current, he threw them and they stayed. Drunk out of his mind in an Oxford dorm, swaying back and forth, submerged in his studies without coming up for air, on his knees with no feeling and a shaking loneliness that seeps into his bones. All those parts are here, and they aren't. Converging at one point, with the entire world pressing in. Charles is burning, and it hurts, but not nearly as much as the boy he couldn't save. _Please, what's your name? I'm Charles Xavier. Please, can't you hear me? Can't you hear me?_  
  
He is digging their graves in the sky and covered in ash and on the ground and staring at her staring at him and there's a foot on his back and he is in the room and out of the room and in the air and out of the air and on his knees, on the bed (dirty mattress, pristine exam, their fingers on the metal and the metal in him and they are in him and he is outside), on the floor, on his feet dragging them down the line, two point five hours. Two point five hours, two point five hours, two point five hours _nine hundred eighty two degrees Celsius_ (automatic, he's never been to America) eighteen thousand degrees Fahrenheit. _I can't hear you. If I can hear you, then you can hear me. Please don't hear me._  
  
Charles can see him and he can hear him and he knows him. Just silly dreams, but they weren't. _How did you know this? Because I got it from your mind._ No, he already knew. He wakes up in the morning and he forgets, but they weren't dreaming at the same time. Seven in the morning for Charles is one in the afternoon for Erik. Five thousand miles and seven hours apart. _I looked in the mirror and I saw your face. I knew those poems before you told them to me because I watched you read them and tape them under your bed but they weren't in a language I could understand yet._ He doesn't know Hebrew but he knows what it sounds like when someone is praying. It's raining dry and black and Charles reaches for Erik's hand, says, _I'm sorry, but I always saw you. Please don't bury us here_.  
  
 _You are a telepath. Why did you speak to me? How did you know?_ He already knew. He already knows what you need, how? Why are you bothering with this insipid English, anyway? It will be an advantage to us if I know how to speak to them. (To him.) _Baruch atah adonai l'borei li k'moti mitkayem_. Erik squeezes back, emerald to azure in the dirty mirror. _As the light lies on these walls, this bed, these hands./I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions./I have given my name up to the nurses/And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons./My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water/The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,/And comes from a country far away as health._ I can't make promises. I bury everyone I love here.  
  
Charles has known him for so long. For two months he was alone, and no more. From the swaddle of his crib he stirred at the sound of an infant's cry, half a world away and the thread stretched and stretched and it never snapped, before his telepathy had even manifested, before either of them knew loss or lashes. Burning skies and bloody sheets and it never once unraveled. _No, that's not true. You've always loved me and I am not going to burn here, I am not going to let you dig us a grave. Don't put us in the grave yet._ And Charles gets to his knees, takes those hands that have dug, bows himself low and he breathes, I _am so sorry I left you here. You answered, but I wasn't listening. I hear you now, Erik. Please, let me help you. You were never alone._  
  
 _You did not leave me here_. He presses his lips to knuckles. Arms around his back. Every lash felt. Manifest for every mile. _You were never alone. I was never_ -Erik gasps. _We were never. You hear me. Please don't hear me. I hear you. You don't know me. Yes, I know you. Our lives are not our own/from womb to tomb we are bound to others/you don't know me/yes, I know you/I grew up in your hometown-_  
  
Charles hears him, though. He will never stop hearing him. _I know you like I know myself. Better, actually, just as you know me_. It's raining but it's not raining ash and Charles feels the thunder crackle inside him and he shivers and his sister asks, _Charles, are you alright? Yes, I just felt something._ He kneels here and takes both of Erik's hands, both of them his and neither of them broken even when they are. He knew every scar before he saw them, was there to watch each one as it healed. _Erik, darling, I don't want to die now. I have too much to live for._  
  
 _No_ , Erik shudders. _I won't let you die. Not by me. I will protect you_. How can he protect anyone. He promises to protect them and that means- _the only reason he's alive is because he's of use to me, my boy. If you don't want to practice, that's fine. No, please, no. I'll practice. Don't hurt me. I want my mama. Don't hurt me. I don't care about you. Shut the fuck up. NO!-SHUT UP! Stop talking. Stop screaming. Don't you understand that he will kill you. The clock is ticking, Erik. Don't watch me do this._  
  
"Erik." It's wheezed out, coughed. Charles is shuddering against him, eyes open. He twists, but it hurts and he's hot and he doesn't know which way is up, the world is searing around them. Nothing is Real. It is but it isn't. The city is silent and still and he's afraid again. "Erik," he moans, a croak, azure wide and pleading as he places a hand carefully on Erik's cheek. "Erik. Erik. Erik." Like it's the only thing he knows how to say.

* * *

"Charles. You are here." He's crouched down in a stolen space. The sheets are twisting in the wind. The mirror is under fluorescent light and you're slapping foundation onto bruises but it's the wrong tone and it makes you look like a clown. You just fell down the stairs. It's your birthday so today you get oatmeal with fruit. Tonight you'll get liquor. So will they. The buildings are wild and ancient, you're turned around at orientation and you don't even care, _lovely morning, innit?_ It's raining and grey. You're thrilled to be an ocean away. Happy sweet sixteen. You love the rain. They're going to know I killed their whole family. We can't go back to them. Please don't make me.  
  
Charles shakes his head. He shakes his head, and then he shakes it again, foggy and blurred and they can't exist like this. They can't do this again. They won't come back. They'll get trapped there like Charles did, and they won't come back. They have to get out. Charles has to get him out. The world is too still. His skin is too hot. If he's sick again, everything will spill out. He rocks forward until he's out of Erik's arms, which is the most painful thing he's ever done, and the agonized, gurgled noise he makes is proof, and then he's crawling. Knees and elbows across the dirty floor and he doesn't know where he's going. There's nowhere to go. Where is he going?  
  
Erik flinches and hugs himself instead, eyes wide and sightless. It's him and he doesn't know how to stop. He's so sorry. _Please don't go._  
  
He'll fix it. He has to fix it. The further away Charles gets, the more it hurts. The more it feels like his skin is being flayed off, and the more the world begins to warp. The voices are coming back. His own perception is hazing up. Cain Marko is standing by the door, his eyes cut out of his face and he's grinning. It's Shaw, it's his stepfather, it's a man he's never met. Charles keeps crawling, his ears filled with the sounds of his own tortured whines. _I'll fix it. I'll fix it. I'll do anything._  
  
Someone's lifting him to his feet. You know who it is. She tilts her head down at him. How is she taller? She wasn't in life. Erik came up to her shoulder by the time he was ten. She is now. She's still wearing white, but you can see it now. She wore this in September, the shawl over her shoulders fluttering in stagnant wind. She smiles down at him, eyes crinkled at the corners, and lays her hand on his cheek, skin warm and alive. Her mind is vibrant, a splash of oil paints and vegetables pulled out by their roots. "It's time to go home, Charles."  
  
Charles wants to cry, but he thinks he's run out of tears. It hurts too much, and she shouldn't be able to hold him up because she shouldn't be real and he knows it's not him but he doesn't know what else it is and it's awful but it frightens him. It frightens him, and he doesn't ever know what to do because she looks at him like a mother should and it breaks his fucking heart and he doesn't know how to reconcile it. _Please, I need to fix this_. He doesn't remember where he was trying to go, or if he had a plan at all. Charles whimpers, and he curls into himself. It's too loud. It's too hot. "Please!" and it's a scream, piercing in this place where everything has stopped. "Just - please!"  
  
Her mind is there and he knows everything about her. Max was born in _Jasło_ and and his parents joined the army young, conscripted against their will and held in esteem when they kept the line. He survived by the good grace of his wits and humor. When he moved to _Jo'ara_ they spit at him in the streets and called him a collaborator. Ruth was a tailor from _Yishuv_ in _Tzfat_ , and when she was a child, she was buried alive under rubble and she spent the rest of her days in wide open spaces. He likes his fish sweet, much to her chagrin.  
  
They move to _Sisim_ in the autumn, and are immediately embraced by their neighbors. When she is born, the party rages until dawn. As a child she wants to be famous, a movie star or an actress, but she isn't built for the city so she learns how to farm. How to keep their town going. She laughs and vomits the entire time she's pregnant and vows never to do it again (calls the child after her mother who's horrified, _don't put me in the grave yet!_ but _Iakov's_ people do it and she follows their _minhagim_ , and ignores her family's snide remarks about it) but she does and the hospital walls shake and vibrate as Erik comes out of her.  
  
"I know you do," she hushes him, sounding like him. "We're going to fix it. I promise." She holds out her hand. "It's time to go home, _klayner_."  
  
"Please just - please just -" Does she not understand that he can't do this? Does she not understand that he's had to stare into his mother's cold eyes for all of his life and that hers are devastating? Does she not understand that he can't touch her? Does she not understand that he's had to watch her body break and then burn more times than he can count and he doesn't know what she wants from him? When he looks down at his shaking hand, it looks like sizzling flesh. He gasps. And then he shoves past and runs. He doesn't know where he's going. His ankle still throbs, but he doesn't care. The fire in his lungs is worse. He runs down the stairs and out of the building and into the streets and the world is still and frozen. Cars are stopped in the middle of the street. Everyone is motionless and suspended. Charles' hands tangle up in his hair, yanking until he pulls strands free, and he screams. He starts screaming and he doesn't stop.  
  
Everyone except for her. "I know you want to run away from me, but as long as you need me, I will be here." She gently tugs his hands down, smooths hers over the place where he's broken the strands out. "I'm not here to hurt you, Charles."  
  
Charles shakes his head, and he doesn't know if he's finished screaming or not. Erik needs you. Erik needs you, he's always needed you. He's left him alone in that building and every instinct, every single one, is telling him to go back but he can't while he's like this, until he figures out how to fix it. He doesn't know how to fix it. He knows it hurts and he's going to die. "Please," he repeats himself, and he closes his eyes and covers his face. "Just - help him." Why does she keep coming to him?  
  
"I am helping him," she laughs softly. She holds out her hand. "I wish it wasn't so painful, _tayer_."  
  
"Don't -" Don't call me that. Please don't call me that. He has no tears left but he still sobs, and his legs are shaking but he thinks he could still run. But where will he go? Where could he possibly go?  
  
"I know that you are afraid," she looks at him, and she's about his height now, a little shorter. "I can't make the fear go away, Charles. But I know that he needs you, and you need him. That's why I'm here."  
  
He knows that, too. Of course he knows that. But he doesn't know what to do and he's honestly in so much pain and it's nothing comparable to Erik's, like usual, so he's trying to get rid of it and it isn't working. "I don't know what to do," he admits, and it's clear because he's stopped the world for them and it didn't help. He can't look at her. He can't look at her because Erik called for her afraid in the night and she came and he cried _Mother! Mother!_ and no one ever did and it isn't fair that it ended up like this.  
  
She watched him walk through the world like a shadow, a wisp, _sheydim_ in the night and she used to scare him with that, tickle him and make claw-fingers and cover his face with a blanket and poke him in the sides. She watched him shove away his grief and he never knew that she was staring back. She looks ethereal but her _rage_ is all earthly. She puts her hands over Charles's and squeezes. If she could have come for him, too, she would have. But she is here, now. "Neither do I, _tayer_. I don't have all the answers. All I know is that it won't be fixed out here."  
  
Charles swallows everything up and he walks back in. He has to weave through frozen people, their faces stuck on their last expressions, the world around them moving but they aren't. It's too many flights of stairs. He can't tell if the pain gets better or more intense the closer he gets, but then he's in that bathroom and Erik is still on the floor and he drops right down to his knees and he makes a pathetic, needy noise. "Please," he whispers, broken. "Come home. I need you."

* * *

He's curled up in the fetal position, arms around himself, shaking minutely and surrounded by frozen people. When Charles touches him he animates, eyes fluttering and he tugs himself upright through heaving lungs. I'm sorry, he whispers, touching his face. Erik finally looks at him, at him instead of through him. _I didn't mean to get lost. I didn't mean to hurt you._  
  
Charles doesn't say anything. He throws himself at him, trembling and hurting and afraid, shakes his head. Not his fault. Never his fault. He can't breathe anymore and he's gasping into Erik's skin, shaking, and the world is still frozen and it hurts so bad but he doesn't know what to do except this.  
  
I don't know what to do, he shivers, clutching him just as desperately. He is so sorry Charles is hurting. He doesn't know how to fix it. He should know. Charles is his. He should know. _I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I love you. Ani ohev otcha. Bevakasha chazor._  
  
First of all, he's burning. He's burning and if he doesn't stop he will burst into actual flames. Charles sits back to shrug off his jacket, fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. They're in a bathroom and the world is frozen and breaking and he doesn't actually know how far it extends, but he needs to get it off or he'll die. It get stuck and then he does start to cry, whimpering and scared. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he moans.  
  
 _Stop_ , Erik Orders him, and it comes out a croak but his Will is still the strongest thing in the room. _Stop_. He touches Charles's shoulder and moves his own hand over the buttons, releasing them and pushing Charles's shirt away himself, gathering him back up in his arms _. I've got you. You're safe now. I will not let you die. Never._  
  
He can't tell if it's better. He still feels like his skin is crawling. Charles sobs, helpless, and nods, thinks yes, Erik and tries to curl up as closely as he possibly can. He doesn't want to be weak. He wants to be strong. It's just it hurts, and he's afraid and he doesn't want Erik to lose himself because he isn't capable of saving him. He should have saved all of them. _You can't save everybody, Charles. Why not? Why not? It isn't fair_.  
  
 _I know it's not fair,_ Erik rocks him back and forth, tucking his chin over his head. _You saved one person. You saved me. You keep saving me_ , he laughs wetly and sniffles an inhale into his hair. _You are mine. I am so happy you are mine. Please don't leave me._  
  
Charles whines. Then, in what will almost certainly prove to be a problem later, he tugs at Erik's shirt and rips it apart at the buttons, and truthfully he didn't think he was capable of tearing what's fairly high-quality fabric but here they are and Hank did say something about strength and speed increasing. All he cares about is getting it out of the way, careful not to disturb anything as he presses his cheek against bare skin and finally, finally, breathes a little easier, whimpering and still in Erik's arms.  
  
He's still got the IV in, the tubing filled with white as it goes from the bag strapped to his back into his chest, but he tucks Charles easily on his left side, running his fingers through his hair, embracing him with his leg in a bid to keep him closer. Breathing lighter for their closeness. _You're OK. I've got you. You are mine. You will always be mine._  
  
 _Hurts_ , he whimpers, shivering, because it does. It's better now that they're partially bare, now that there's skin to skin, and he rubs his cheek against Erik's chest over and over. He knows he needs to let the world unfreeze. He knows he can't let them stand motionless like that forever. He's forgotten how to let them go, though, and he needs Erik so badly, more than he's ever needed oxygen or food or water, and he doesn't know what to do except this.  
  
 _You can,_ Erik kisses him on the top of the head, running his hands up and down the bared skin of his back. _You can let them go. I know you can. Let them go, Charles,_ he Orders softly. _Let them go. We're OK. We're together again. We'll never be parted. I'll always come back for you._  
  
Charles takes a breath, and the world is in motion again. There's quite a bit of confusion, and their headaches become his, but no one is harmed. They walk around dazed for a moment, and then they are fine. He can't move. He can't move from Erik's chest. He has to stay here, he has to be touched _. I'm sorry I ripped your shirt,_ he sniffles. He's still feverish, half delirious.  
  
 _I did not like it very much anyway,_ Erik says, which Charles knows is a bald-faced lie because Erik loves all of his new clothes with an almost-unnatural passion. It's OK, though. He'll get new ones. He much prefers to be skin-to-skin with Charles, anyway. Maybe he'll never wear clothes again. That's a nice thought.  
  
Charles would miss his soft sweater. He doesn't miss it now, because he's shivering with his full body, and he rubs his legs against Erik's and it's fabric and not skin and he whimpers. Why does it still hurt, he asks, confused and frustrated, rubbing tears into Erik's skin as his hands run along his Bonded's arms, desperate for more contact. He doesn't know what time it is. They had an appointment. They can't go like this.  
  
 _I do not know,_ Erik says back, every twitch of pain rending through him in echo. He doesn't know why it hurts, he doesn't know what time it is, he doesn't know what he is going to do about his appointment that he is undoubtedly late for, and he'll be in trouble because it's ordered by the court and he can't get up off of this grimy floor and he can't stop shaking and he can't stop holding Charles or he will disintegrate again.  
  
Erik even thinking about letting him go has him just about ready to burst into tears again. He clings, with arms and legs and mind, whimpers loudly. If they separate again, he doesn't know what will happen. Absolutely nothing good. _I could find her._ Her mind. Gabby, he suggests, but it's weak. What will he tell her? That he and Erik are shirtless in a men's room and he is two seconds away from ripping off his pants or else spontaneously combust?  
  
Listen, Erik already had that thought and he's just barely containing himself from doing it himself. _We don't have another option_ , Erik mutters, clutching him just as tightly back. He wants to be home, in bed, not on the floor of some bathroom stall in public because what he wants are very un-public things and he's shaking again, gasping in distress. It hurts but he can make it better, he knows how to make it better, like a divine inspiration and please, please, please don't let him, not on this disgusting floor.  
  
Charles whines. It really does hurt. It hurts in a way he's never felt pain before, deep underneath the skin, and every time he shifts he whimpers and sniffles. Erik isn't close enough. By now he's practically clawing at him because he doesn't know what else to do. They need to reach Gabby before she comes to her own conclusions. He doesn't want to be in anyone's mind but Erik's, but he forces himself outward, nails digging into Erik's arm as he shakes. His skin is absolutely burning to the touch. She's easy to find, and she's frustrated and confused. _Gabby_ , he calls to her, doing everything in his power not to sound pained. _It's Charles._ Obviously. He realizes belatedly that he does have a phone in his jacket pocket, but removing himself from Erik physically in any way is something he can't bear. _I'm sorry to intrude like this, I know it's strange. I'm with Erik._  
  
He's never spoken to her quite like this and her eyes fly open, wide and disoriented. _Charles?_ she thinks back inside of her own mind, brows knit together, wondering if she's getting through. _What's going on? Where is Erik?_ He's never been late before. She's worried, too, because he's unfailingly punctual and these appointments aren't optional. Why is it that every time something goes wrong with Erik, Charles is there? And why does Charles always seem to be more in the know than her? Yes. Frustrating.  
  
 _Um_. No, he can't clam up. He can't clam up just because it's her and he's been avoiding this, because amicable and mutual break or not there is history and there is hurt and he doesn't always know how to act around her. He never did. It doesn't help that everything is burning and screaming inside of him, internal organs shoved around to make room for pain. _Erik is with me. He's very ill._ It's not wrong, technically. Charles gasps as another spike of pain jolts right through him, nails drawing up red marks on Erik's skin. When he notices, he whines, distressed, and soothes at them.  
  
 _Want to go home,_ Erik shudders and draws him closer, onto his lap, embracing him with arms and legs and banding his arm around his back, pulling his head down to rest against his bare shoulder. Gabby isn't convinced of anything. _Betsy confirmed that he showed up for his TSO meeting. Where are you two now?_  
  
Charles wants to go home, too. He rubs his face desperately in Erik's shoulder, squirms in his lap. It hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. _I don't know_ , is what he sends back to Gabby, and it comes out with a projection of his pain, a gasp. He can't hold it back.  
  
 _I can give him an exemption for today but he'll have to make this time up, Charles. This isn't a good precedent. The more of these he skips the less compliant he'll look for the judge. So you better be damn sure he's sick._ Charles can feel her skeptical expression. Erik is forcing himself not to reach across the city and claw Gabrielle's face off and shriek at her inhumanly. She's talking to his submissive like that. She thinks she has a Right to Charles.  
  
Charles doesn't have the patience for it. He's in agonizing pain, which he knows for a fact she just felt, and she wants to scold him? That isn't her Right. Erik's agitation doesn't help; he never wants his Dominant to think he's being challenged, especially not now. His teeth clench, another wave of helpless pain shooting down to his toes. _He's sick, and last time I checked that wasn't a crime. Do you need a note or will you take my word for it?_ It's clipped, accompanied by distress and the feeling of a clenched jaw.  
  
 _What- is that? Is that you?_ Gabby is grimacing against it, breathing out harshly. Erik won't say he's pleased she's in pain, but he's pleased she's in pain. Charles is his. It serves her right for questioning that. He does not resist the urge to growl at her from his spot against the wall, the noise harsh like gravel in his chest. _It's not a crime. I'm telling you what the expectations are. Where are you? Are you still in the TSO building? Do you two need help?_  
  
 _No! We're fine!_ Okay, Charles. Maybe we don't snap at her, especially when it actually is her business where they are because Erik's compliance is the only thing keeping him out of detainment and she's partially in charge of that and also he's supposed to be professional and Erik's doctor, but it comes out and he can't stop it and then he's whining from the back of his throat, in so much pain he's positive his skin is melting off now. He rocks in Erik's lap, convulsing again, drenched in sweat, dangerously hot.

* * *

No, no no no no-Erik clutches him tightly, grabs hold of him and they explode out of the room, through the window and leaving piles of brick and ceramic for the cleaning crew to deal with but Erik doesn't care, they have to be home. They have to be home so Charles can stop thinking of himself as burning alive because if he does it again Erik is going to choke on his own vomit and throw them back in the place where everything burns and he bursts through the door of the apartment when they land, dragging Charles to the bedroom unceremoniously. _Take off your pants,_ he Orders lowly, glaring at him. Who's Gabrielle?  
  
Charles whimpers, sniffling loudly. It wasn't a conscious description, it's the only thing that even comes close to the heat that's searing under his skin. He fumbles all over himself to obey, crying and aching, trembling and finding it impossible to breathe because Erik isn't touching him and he's displeased and he's - no, but he is. His pants get stuck when he tries to kick them off with his underwear and he's crying and fidgeting and reaching for Erik as he trips over them. Perhaps it's pathetic, perhaps, but it hurts, it "hurts, Erik, it hurts, it hurts so much," he gasps.  
  
But no, Erik's doing the same thing until they're both naked; with a bit of help from his abilities, so they're not all just tripping over one another and flailing around like idiots, and then he tugs Charles onto the bed, pressing them together skin-to-skin, holding him with his hand carding through his hair. _I know, I know, I know._  
  
It helps. It helps, an awful lot, actually, but Charles is still crying and clinging with all his limbs. He can't settle, no matter how much he tries, squirming and uncomfortable. "I'm sorry," he mumbles where he's pressed into Erik's neck. "I'm - I'm sorry, I'm sorry," but he doesn't know what he's apologizing for.  
  
 _Atzor_. No more apologies. Erik's Order is firm, winding up between his shoulderblades like a rap from a thin reed. Embracing him with a thousand tendrils, holding him still and in place. Where he belongs. _You are mine. You are with me. It is good. It is good._ So much better than before. Relief.  
  
Charles whimpers as he's held, tears wiped into Erik's skin. He moves as much as Erik's Will allows, tiny, helpless rocking motions, sniffles muffled by skin as he puffs out sighs and low, distressed whines. _Please, Erik,_ he begs. _Please, sir._  
  
 _Tell me what you need,_ the Order overlays onto the last, until the room shimmers with it, sparkling and luminescent. The only thing he needs is to relieve the pain. He needs the pain to go away. To release its clutches from Charles. Give him over to Erik where he belongs. He can't hunt it down and eviscerate it. He can't force it to relent. He can't fight it away. He doesn't understand what's happening or how to make it stop and he needs it to stop.  
  
 _I don't know,_ he cries, and it's entirely honest because it can't be anything else. He's still rocking in Erik's arms, jerky, unconscious motions, tears streaming down his cheeks _. I need you. I need you, please, I need you, sir, I need you, Erik -_ He doesn't want Erik to have to see him hurt. He wants to make it go away for him, but he can't force it out. The only thing he can do is cling and rock and hope Erik will take care of him.  
  
 _I'm right here. Look at me._ Erik touches his face, meeting his eyes, and then his hand travels down Charles's back and curls possessively over his hip, holding him physically in place. He's pulled between everything and he's agitated, borderline angry, furious at the world for trying to take Charles away from him and fiercely guarding him now. _No one will take me from you. No one. I am yours._  
  
Charles looks up, teary-eyed, and whines loudly when Erik holds him still. He squirms, but it's a useless effort, and he was never trying to get away. _Yes, Erik_ , he mumbles anyway, and tries to settle against his Bonded's chest. It's going to be over soon. It is. Erik has him, and he's going to take care of him. Everything will be alright. He just has to endure a bit more, that's all. So he closes his eyes and forces himself not to buck, sniffling and miserable but Erik's. He's Erik's. It will be okay, Erik has him, he promised. It's just some pain. It can't touch him, isn't that what Erik said? He'll be okay.  
  
He will be. Erik will make sure of it even when he's lost and screaming. It will be over soon. He doesn't relent his hold, he just keeps Charles still against him, holding him through it.  
  
His phone is ringing, abandoned where he'd had it in his back pocket. Charles doesn't hear it. He's whimpering too loudly for that, the sound of it constant and pathetic and echoing between them. He counts minutes at first, and then he doesn't. It doesn't go away. It ramps up, occasionally, and he clings tight and cries harder, then calms until he's caught his breath and settled, nuzzling, into Erik before it starts up again. The worst moments are getting more intense, the time between flare ups worse, and he's starting to think something is very wrong. _Please, Erik,_ he begs again. Maybe they should call Hank. Would Erik even let Hank near him like this?  
  
Erik growls and snaps the phone to his hand, smashing his finger into the answer button and holding it up to his ear. Silent, of course, so the other person had hopefully start talking before Erik throws the stupid thing at the wall and splinters it into a million pieces for daring to interrupt them while he's trying to care for his Bonded. The idea of anyone coming in here and disturbing them makes him want to break things, but he doesn't know what else to do. He doesn't know. Hank will know better than to try and get between them. Won't he? No. No. Hank is a threat. Everyone is a threat.  
  
He's fairly sure it's Gabby, is the thing, and the thought of anyone who could even be considered his former Dom being on the phone right now makes Charles tremble. He can't hear what she's saying if she's speaking, but he's almost positive she's taken on that tone she does when she's scolding him. As if he's still hers to discipline. The thought makes him tremble harder than he already is. He doesn't need her to do that. Erik takes care of that. If he needs discipline, Erik will be the one to handle it. He's so hot. He's covered in sweat, it must be disgusting. Maybe they really do need Hank. _Erik, it hurts,_ he says, because he needs to or it will overwhelm him.  
  
As soon as Erik hears her voice he lets out a low snarl, ending the call before she can keep going. _No one will discipline you but me_. He shudders harshly and struggles to clear his vision from the intense, pin-point tunnel it's drawn into and frankly, Gabrielle is lucky she's not injured right now. She goes to re-dial the phone and finds it shooting across the room, slamming into the opposite wall and shattering. _Leave us alone!_  
  
Charles doesn't know how he manages to take the phone and dial Hank's number, but he knows he does it. When it picks up after a few rings, at first all he can get out is a whimper. He doesn't think he can do this mentally without projecting, though, and no one needs to feel what he is right now. It's bad enough he has to share it with Erik and hurt him, too. "Help," is the gasp of a word that comes out at first. There's a chance Hank will have as little idea as they do, but trying to wait it out if something is seriously wrong is not a good option and it's not one Erik will live with if something goes wrong.

* * *

"Charles? What's up?" Hank asks, and then realizes what was said. "Where are you?"  
  
"Your house," he answers, which is a relief because not too long ago he was on a bathroom floor in the same situation. "Hurts. Badly. Hot," are the descriptors he gives for this predicament, and he can't hold the phone properly but it seems to have switched to speakerphone and is holding itself up on its own just fine. He moans as pain radiates through his body, head to toes, and bucks violently against it.  
  
"OK. Hang tight, I'll be home in a few." Hank ends the call and it really is a few minutes later before they hear the door downstairs. Erik grips Charles harder when the door opens, and cold-eyes Hank from across the room, and if Hank is shocked at walking in on them naked he doesn't show it on his face. "When did this start?" he asks, unshouldering his medkit. Erik tugs Charles against him, closer and away from the interloper. _**INTRUDER**. Invader._  
  
Charles is far gone enough to not be mortified, and that's truly saying something. He clings to Erik with everything in him, both to calm him and also as if he's scared of Hank, or at least wary, even though he isn't, even though he trusts him and doesn't feel it. Erik is protecting him. Hank is safe. He'll be okay, and finally his mouth opens on more than a distressed whine. "An hour? Two? Don't remember," he gasps, eyes closed, and even with Erik holding him firm he writhes a little.  
  
Hank starts fussing over him, taking readings and measurements, and Erik literally growls at him when he gets too close with an implement. When Hank asks to take a blood sample Erik looks ready to commit homicide. "All right, all right-you know this is seriously impeding my ability to do my job," he points out, crossing his arms. "What preceded it?" Hank honestly doesn't sound like he knows any better. "It might be related to the Bonding process, it might be some kind of telepathic reaction; there's not a lot of medical science to back this stuff up. Have you two tried...?" You know.  
  
What preceded it? Charles doesn't have the words to express that, so he projects an image of Erik leaving the room earlier. The moment Charles had been alone and not actively touching him it had kicked in, or started to. It takes his hazy mind a second to catch up to what's being asked, and then he gasps. Oh. That could explain the rocking of the hips, and - okay, his inability to be mortified by this situation only extends so far and if he notices that he'll combust for an entirely different reason. There's also the fact that Hank is a submissive making that suggestion, even if he'd clearly insinuated it would be the two of them (as it should be) and this time it's Charles who snarls. No. Erik is his Dominant. No one else's. He'd promised. He'd promised, only Charles. He's suddenly much more distressed for an entirely different reason, however completely irrational.  
  
Erik glowers. _That is NONE of your business, Doctor._   
  
"Well, actually, it _is_ my-OK, OK," he raises his hands, and suddenly Hank is on his knees, staring at the floor, acutely mortified as Erik's Will threatens to overload him. "I think... I know what the problem is," he mumbles to his hands.   
  
Listen, Hank is a medical professional. It takes a lot more than his best friend _fucking_ his Dominant to raise his hackles, but _this_ , here? This is mortifying. Hank wants to get to his feet more than he wants to breathe and he is horrified to discover that the struggle to disengage himself from Erik's Will has resulted in actual tears in his eyes. Please end him now.  
  
It also only serves to work Charles up. Seeing another submissive on his knees for Erik, barring the rational, logical explanation for all this, makes him want to tear his own skin off. He wants it to stop. He wants Erik to focus on him, and the tiny part of him that's still aware he doesn't want his brother-in-law suffering through the humiliation agrees. His mind comes up with a solution. "No!" It's louder, snapped, petulant. Defiant. Like this, he knows what kind of reaction it's going to inspire. "No, stop it. Don't do that," he tells Erik, orders him, really, and he only manages to be huffy for a second before it sinks in. He's already thoroughly chastised before Erik even responds, cheeks heated with shame on top of the fever and head bowed.  
  
Erik isn't even focused on Hank, but he releases him swiftly, as an after thought. Because Charles asked him to. It's a little disturbing, honestly, how little anyone matters to Erik outside of Charles. Hank gets the distinct impression that his life is in danger right now, and he slowly stumbles up to his feet. "You two-I think it would help if you were close-" and Erik is completely ignoring him, curling his fingers around Charles's jaw to tilt his head down and pin his eyes, blazing. You would Order me? his lips quirk up. "I'm going to-" Bye, Hank. "I'll check on you two in a little while." **_Get out!_** Erik Orders him, sending him tripping over himself toward the door.  
  
Charles squirms, forgetting entirely that Hank was even in the room as his heart kicks in his chest, a lump in his throat that's entirely unrelated to fear but does have anticipation settling thick in his belly. _Sorry, sir_ , he murmurs, whining when his squirming gets him friction and - how neither of them noticed that he's leaking against Erik's thigh is completely beyond him but also irrelevant. _But you can't look at anyone but me. So I had to tell you to stop._ It's a huff. He's pushing it. Right now, he's absolutely pushing it, but he needs. Needs. More than he's ever needed anything.  
  
 _I can't look at anyone else but you?_ Erik smirks up at him and drags him closer, rubbing himself along Charles's inner thigh, eyes going half-lidded when they part for him so deliciously, settled in his lap where he belongs. He digs his fingernails into Charles's ass, scraping roughly. He's teasing but even the idea makes him burn, the idea that anyone else should be in his bed. The idea that anyone else is his. He's the one that said it and he's ready to rip, what, himself apart? Tear apart his own flesh for daring to suggest it. Feels how much Charles wants him and has to laugh, a dark chuckle. _Because I don't see you preparing yourself for me. Wet your fingers, Charles._ He's not going to go slow and draw it out and tease him and work him up like he usually does, because he can't breathe except to Claim him again and again. Charles is so fucking lucky Erik didn't turn him over on that bathroom floor. Charles is his. He doesn't need foreplay. S _pread your legs and let me see how badly you want it._  
  
Charles wants to cry at even the mention of someone else in Erik's bed, wants to tear himself apart. He's so hot, and it hurts. It never stopped hurting. It's overwhelming and it's too much and he's sweating and panting and Erik can make it better, he can fix it. Immediately his fingers are in his mouth because he doesn't have any other lube and his thighs are spreading wide, dick bobbing and dribbling where it curls toward his belly. It's already purpling at the tip, and he squirms and rocks in Erik's lap, crying out when Erik scrapes his nails over his ass. He's been ignoring it all day, but it's sore, no marks left but he can still feel it. Please, Erik, it hurts, is where his mind has gone again, and he wriggles back far enough in Erik's lap that he can rub his ass onto his cock, boldly, head thrown back at the contact. _Do it, do it, do it_ , and if he's being bossy and insolent because it's getting results, because it ramps up Erik's instincts to Claim that he would act on anyway and means Erik gets to reassert his control over him and his responding obedience, so be it.  
  
Erik's nostrils flare and his lips curl, and he gives Charles's ass a warning slap. _I will give it to you when I want to do it._ Charles, Ordering him. His chest glows, warm, like a tiger watching its young play hunt. It's adorable, how Charles thinks he can influence Erik's Will over him. _I was going to do it quick. I was going to give you what we both need, but I won't reward insolence._ Another slap. _Open yourself up for me. Slowly._ He swipes his thumb over the head of Charles's dick and shoves his own fingers into Charles's mouth once he moves to obey, letting him taste himself. How much he wants Erik. Charles is never leaving this bed again, it's confirmed.  
  
Charles gasps around the fingers in his mouth, tears gathering in his eyes all over again. His ass feels incredibly sensitive, and he whines at the slaps, wriggling and confused about whether he wants to move into it or away. He does know everything still hurts, underneath it at all, that it's too hot, but Erik Ordered slowly so he slides his own finger in exactly that, eyes fluttering at the sensation of anything inside. With just spit, it should be a fairly rough go. It isn't. His finger slides right in and he clenches around it, adding another and needing more. So, so much more. Erik's fingers are longer. He was never good at finding or reaching that spot inside himself. He's pouting and frustrated, whimpering loudly as he fucks his own fingers. "Not enough, sir," he sighs, biting on those cherry-red lips, looking properly miserable and debauched.  
  
His eyes _fly_ open at that, and he's got plans but they melt right out of his head when he watches Charles's body absorb those digits in a single thrust and his sense of control finally, finally fractures and maybe he does reward insolence because he bats Charles's of the way and slides three fingers right into him, _what_ , Erik shudders and burns. He rocks Charles down against his hand, gasping sympathetically when he brushes up against that bundle of nerves and Charles tenses all around him, hot and buttery and so good and not enough and he's rocking his own hips up, dragging his dick across Charles's inner thigh and so close-  
  
It's better. Erik's fingers are better, they're longer, they're bigger, they fill him up more but it's not enough. It's not nearly enough. Charles is crying again, chasing those fingers desperately and clenching whenever they even begin to leave him as if he can trap them there. He can't breathe, he's - but he is, he's burning. "Erik, it hurts," he cries, clinging with all of his strength, and he thrusts down hard on Erik's fingers. It feels so good, but it's not enough. "It hurts, it hurts. Please, I'm ready, please, I'll be a good boy, please sir," he gasps.  
  
He doesn't have it in him to be delicate anymore. _I've got you,_ he mumbles, half-delirious _. I'll take care of you._ He somehow manages to go slow, replacing his fingers with his dick, holding Charles in place with an arm across his neck, forcing him to take every inch forward as Charles grasps him desperately, twitching and moaning. Erik's eyes are wide on his, and it should be dry and awkward but he's dripping all over himself and he just _slides_ right in and-" _Mnnnhhhh_ , Charles-"  
  
There's absolutely no reality where Charles should be able to take Erik's cock dry without it cleaving him apart, without it hurting something awful. He does. It doesn't hurt one bit, and instead he cries out in relief, trembling violently as his Bonded slides in. He's making constant noise, moans and high, needy whines, clenching hard when he's sitting on Erik's thighs with his cock all the way inside. Where it belongs. Claiming him. Filling him up. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, sir," he sighs, and finally settles, gasping and soft against Erik's shoulder. He rocks, just to feel, not thrusting or fucking himself, because he can't fathom a world right now where Erik's cock isn't inside him even on a thrust out. He realizes, belatedly, that he's come, twitching in the aftermath, Erik's stomach covered in it, but he's still hard. It's utterly impossible, but he doesn't have the ability to question it right now, mouthing at Erik's shoulder. _Feels better, sir, thank you_ , he murmurs, sweetly.  
  
Erik rubs his hands over Charles's thighs, digs his fingers into his hips and dips them through the wet spot on his own stomach, a wild, untethered expression on his face as he feeds them back to Charles, watching those lips close around him and Erik drags fingertips down his face, marking Charles with his own come, be can't bite so he scratches and buries his nose into the crook of his shoulder, inhaling long and deep. Mine. Mine mine mine mine. Thoughts are edging out. He sees an expanse of pale skin without blemish and needs to-needs-his belly clenches and he spills inside of Charles with barely a movement, and then he withdraws and fucks himself up into it, into where he's filled Charles-his thoughts are devolving, he should plug him up and make him walk around like this, Claimed-covered in him-Erik's trembling, set ablaze and warring with gnarled instincts begging him to take, to hurt-no, no, he can't hurt. Charles is his. He must protect. Yes, he will keep him safe. _Good_ , he slurs, eyes fluttering. _Take care of you_. He hears the noise in his head as if it's fallen from his lips, low and wounded.  
  
But Charles needs it, too. He does. He needs to be Claimed, to be Marked and take everything he's given. His instincts are a perfect mirror of Erik's, not one single thought out of sync. This is part of being taken care of. When Erik comes inside of him, Charles moans loud enough that he's fairly certain they hear it from space. He squirms into it, needing to feel it, needing to know he's properly Claimed, but he's far from sated. It doesn't hurt anymore, but his skin is still impossibly hot, and he locks his legs around Erik, rocking in his lap with soft little noises. _Please stay inside, sir?_ he asks, because the thought of him pulling out makes him want to scream in agony. He buries himself in the nearest patch of bare skin, his own taste on his tongue, nuzzling and kissing and mouthing. _Please, sir._  
  
Erik rubs his cheek against Charles's, self-satisfied that he's where he belongs seated fully in Erik's lap, strung out on his cock, and it's good-it's a good position. It's natural for them; it's not a lot of work and that means Erik can keep him there for as long as he wants, forever-the Bond pulsates and thrums between them, eagerly responding to that idea. _Yes_ , he purrs, smiling up. Not feeling particularly more coherent, but the tension has eased the slightest amount. _Always. Mine now._  
  
 _Yours. Always,_ he vows all over again, and hiccups, settling sniffling and loose-limbed against Erik where he belongs, filled up and Claimed. He doesn't know how much time passes. He thinks he might come again, bouncing subtly in Erik's lap where the stimulation inside is constant, rubbing right against that spot. It doesn't matter, it just leaves him pliant and sighing, murmuring _I love you, Erik_ and _I'm yours, sir._ Maybe it's minutes. Maybe it's hours. But eventually his head snaps up and he whimpers, low and distressed, the Bond spiking with his upset. He clings tighter, clenching around Erik inside him and crying.  
  
He will chase down the source of that upset and **_kill_** it. Sink his claws into it and spill out its guts. He's been playing with his fingers against Charles's stomach, feeling it twitch for him and smoothing his thumbs over his nipples, scratching at the hard nubs and wetting his fingers in Charles's mouth to circle them unforgivingly when that bolt of distress clangs across his awareness like a red-alert klaxon. What is it? he doesn't think in words so much as concepts, an existential **_???????_ **popping up above his head. _Tell me_. That, at least, is a clear Order.  
  
Charles cries harder, overwhelmed and strung out on hormones and melted, warm sensation. Rationality has dipped right out. He barely registers anything, his telepathy pinging around them for potential threats to their Bond. Gonna take you away from me, he whines, distressed enough to hyperventilate. He shows Erik what he hears: voices downstairs, loud and disruptive for him like this. They're all ones he recognizes, but like this they're all the same. They're going to take his Dominant away and he can't.  
  
 _I won't let them,_ Erik growls. _I won't let anyone._ It's not in English anymore, he's long past the point where his thoughts are linear and orderly. It is Charles and everyone else. They want to kill him. They want to hurt him. They want to make Erik hurt him. They want to burn him. _Nnnnnnnnnnnnng_ \- He brushes his fingers through Charles's hair, still buried all the way inside him, and he remembers that and it eases the threat of panic and danger because Charles is where he should be.  
  
Charles soothes himself with it, too. He pulls himself up with shaking muscles, crying out the moment Erik begins to slip out, and then suddenly drops himself back down, letting gravity take care of most of it. His head falls back and he lets out a wrecked, half-startled scream. His dick twitches between them, spurting again. He can't make sense of the voices, but he can feel them - one of them is confused, then... Charles gasps, hiding himself in Erik. Someone is challenging their Bond. They're going to tear them apart. _No no no no nononno_ , he mind becomes screeching, red-alarm panic, nails digging into Erik's back _. No! No! I'm yours, I'm yours_ -  
  
 _ **No**. Stop. Atzor._ Erik vibrates underneath him. No one can challenge them. They can tear apart the whole earth. Anyone who tried would be a fool. A dead fool. The walls rattle and shake, and Erik clutches Charles closely to him. Not letting him move an inch. He makes an amused snort when Charles comes on him again and wraps his fingers loosely around his cock, possessive and too-tight. _That's right. Mine_.  
  
Charles hiccups loudly, writhing in Erik's grip and on his cock before he calms back down. He's safe. Erik has him. He's right where he belongs. He rocks himself in Erik's lap to soothe himself, occasionally coming up an inch or two to gasp and drop himself back down, eyes fluttering and body spasming. He should be well past oversensitive now, but all he feels is hot and needy. Whatever he needs, Erik will take care of it. He doesn't need to worry. He just needs to stay here, full and Claimed, and be a good boy.  
  
They were going to spend most of the foreseeable future like this, and that was perfectly acceptable to Erik, but after a while he started to get a second wind and he sat straight up, gripping Charles at the throat. _Hachrea_ , he Orders the Presentation posture without a second thought-inhaling sharply as a fiery whirl of arousal kindled inside of him. Similar to Revelation-at the start-except the person's hands were behind their back, grasped at each elbow, and knees were folded up under him so that when Charles leaned into it the stretch ached through his hips and shoulders.  
  
That hand on his throat completely undoes him, ramping everything up again. He's come at least three times and somehow he's still hard and aching, whining loudly as he Presents exactly as he's been Ordered. He's shaking a bit too much to hold it perfectly, but he tries his absolute best for Erik, open and ready to be Claimed again. Please, sir, he moans, and his skin is starting to crawl again, tears blurring his vision. It hurts again. _It hurts, Erik, it hurts,_ and he doesn't care about sounding pathetic. All he cares about is Erik Claiming him as is his Right.  
  
He drapes himself over Charles's body and enters him in one long, relentless thrust, holding him down at the neck and kissing his shoulder, and his cock is pressed into the mattress and there's nowhere else to go but Erik and he is immeasurably pleased, Charles is his. Loved and adored and taken. _Good boy,_ Erik murmurs against his ear, sitting up to find a better angle and truly fuck him. He shouldn't be able to, it should be too much and it is and it's not enough. Every obscene sound of Erik's hips snapping up against him echoes mine.  
  
Charles is a panting, ruined mess. Every snap of hips has him bearing back, oversensitive and overstimulated and it's still not enough. He's hot again and Erik is the only thing, the only one who can make it better. If Erik comes in him again, he know he'll feel better. He'll be full and Claimed and Erik's, and all he has to do is be a good boy and take it exactly like Erik wants him to. He arches into it, moaning loudly around the fingers gripping at his throat. _Please, sir,_ and doesn't know what he's begging for exactly until the words slip right out of him. _Fill me up, please. Please, sir, I need you, I'm empty, it hurts_ \- He doesn't want to be empty. He wants to be filled to bursting with Erik, enough that he'll never come out. His mouth is open, a stream of helpless, desperate _oh-oh-oh_ 's falling from him constantly.  
  
And Erik does. Of course he does. He can't deny Charles anything. When he finally tenses again, and he's sure at this point it's fucking dry, Erik shivers and clutches onto him and buries his head in his shoulder, making a low, loud, long, distressed sound that doesn't stop even though he continues fucking into Charles on automatic, his mind a riot of _mine/no one else/never take you/mindless/empty/nothing/mine/mine/mine_ -"Charles," he gasps, and he can speak, and that makes it better. Charles. Charles is with him. It's OK. It's safe. It's safe. He's not hurting Charles. Is he? Is he hurting him? Is he making those desperate noises out of pain? Erik touches his face and struggles to check, to reassure himself, a compulsion scrubbing his mind raw like hands that he can't stop.  
  
Absolutely not. Charles shakes his head frantically, reaching back with his mind, arching back with his body where Erik is still buried to the hilt. It makes him whimper long and loud, but he presses _feels good/need it/grateful_ into Erik's mind, needing him to feel it, too. It hurt so badly when it flared up, and Erik had taken care of him. He'd filled him up so nicely and made it go away and Charles had come again and it felt so good even though it should be too much and somehow, somehow, he's still hard against the sheets, a puddle of mixed fluids sticking him there as he whines. There's come running down his thighs, and it's exactly what he needs, even as he clenches to keep Erik and his come inside. Erik is making all the pain going away, and taking such good care of him. "Thank you, Erik," and it's slurred, but clear, as he nuzzles back where his Dominant is pressed against him. "Feels better. S' good. Love you. Yours." He sounds almost sleepy, now.  
  
Erik doesn't pull out. Can't or he'll suffocate, too. It's a call-response. His mind scrabbling up panicked and then soothed by Charles's buffeting calm, his hazy pleasure, and Erik relaxes back into him, presses kisses and smiles along the skin of his neck and shoulders. He takes care of his submissive. He takes care of Charles. *No one else* can take care of Charles but him. He is happy. *Erik* is happy. He purrs mentally, physically too even, vibrating little groans along his back. Charles can sleep now. Erik arranges him so he's the little spoon, head pressed against the left side of his chest so nothing gets disturbed, and still buried deep inside him. *Sleep now/ _yeled sheli nehedar_ -* murmuring flashes of praise and contentment and pleasure. Charles is such a good boy. His sweet boy. He did so well. He pleases Erik so much. He takes care of Erik. Erik takes care of him.  
  
"Mmm," he murmurs, soft and content, and he truly is happy. He's smiling, hazy and bright, calmed and warm in Erik's arms, but no longer burning. Everything is sated, even with Erik's cock still inside of him (don't leave, please, please, stay inside). Erik's arms are around him, and he'll hold him tight and protected and in his place. There's nothing in the world that will ever be more right than this. "Love you, Erik," he whispers, sleepy and hoarse, and his eyes fall closed as he cuddles back into Erik's chest, humming and sighing until he drifts off to sleep. Comfortable and safe and loved and Erik's. Claimed. His. Everything is as it should be.  
  
Erik's eyes slip closed as well, and he holds Charles to him tight, still inside. Where he belongs. Protecting Charles. Keeping him safe. Making sure he is loved and caring for him. Claimed. He belongs to Charles as Charles belongs to him. He hums in satisfaction as his eyes slip closed, as well, and he follows Charles into the deep of dreams.


	41. I Only See the Lights

Charles doesn't know how long he sleeps. He knows he dreams with Erik, silly, happy things, too hazy to grab onto once he's awake. He knows it's safe in those dreams, that they are together, that Erik holds him even then and sings to him and tells him stories he half-remembers. He knows when he wakes up it's to the sound and feeling of commotion downstairs. Not so much shouting or danger, but whipped up emotions, some of his favorite minds active and worked up. He whimpers from the cradle of Erik's arms. Everything's cooled and dried and it's sticky and a bit uncomfortable, but he nuzzles back for comfort, confused and groggy. Sends _no/make it stop/safe?_ and then warm/Bonded/his in the same breath, still lingering somewhere in-between full consciousness as he sighs sleepily. He wants to sleep a little more, but he's also very hungry all of a sudden, and worried and vaguely sore. Erik will take care of him. Right? Right.  
  
He will. He gently slips out. _Clean sheets/clean Charles/dinner/return to nest_ humming in his mind brightly. An alarm is beeping somewhere-his TPN pump, and he realizes it's past 6 PM now, so he slowly takes everything out and winds up all the tubing and puts it away, Charles still pressed up behind him where he belongs and then he leads them both to the shower. _Love you. Love you so much._ He tugs Charles into the shower, sits on the chair and makes Charles kneel at his feet while he washes him with gentle fingers, soothing away the hurt.  
  
It honestly doesn't hurt. Perhaps it should, but besides a pleasant, thrumming ache, there's nothing, and that just reminds him that he's Erik's. He's a little distressed to be cleaned, actually, but Erik can always make him messy against later when the urge to Claim again comes back (it will). He hums and sighs and smiles through the whole shower, leaning into touches soft and happily compliant, blissfully submissive. When Erik is drying him off, he pouts again, nudging into his chest. "They're loud," he sighs, and he's talking about the voices. He can't even distinguish right now; that would take attention he isn't willing to give. "Make them go away," he sighs.  
  
 _OK_ , Erik soothes. _I will make them. Do you want to come with me?_ The thought of not going with him makes him want to break down. He digs his nails in, gasping. _Don't leave me,_ he begs, which is a yes _. Never leave you,_ Erik is still totally naked, and so is Charles, when they head downstairs to see who has interrupted their Bonding time. Erik takes a few steps forward and demands of Raven to tell him what is going on. It's only with Charles so close and hidden behind him that he feels only moderately less likely to murder anyone in this exchange. It's the little victories.

* * *

It's what Charles expected, in a faraway place where he was actually capable of thinking and not begging to get his brains fucked out before he burst into flames. Gabby had not been happy with Charles hanging up on her, and what was obviously Erik's mutation shattering her phone against a wall. She had come to check up on them, likely worried. Hank had not guarded the door as effectively as he could have, likely because he'd just been Ordered out of the room. Gabby had heard... well, she'd heard. And Charles is humiliated and distressed again, hiding behind Erik and looking ready to bolt. He is not in the right state to handle this. He wants to go back to his nest, perhaps with some more blankets and pillows.  
  
By this time Hank and Gabby were on the couch, and he had his hands in hers, explaining the situation as it happened the best way he knew how. The most pressing matter seeming that Charles and Erik had formed a Pairbond, the term used to describe a Bonding between an S1 and a D5. And that this results in the medical imperative to solidify the bond, via mating, until the two are stable again. What he also maintains is that if this process is interrupted, it will have drastic, possibly fatal consequences to them both. So she's angry. She's upset that she's been lied to and kept out of the loop. But she stands up and points a finger at Erik, at Charles behind him. "I'm going to leave, for now, and I'm not going to say anything. But we will be discussing this, rest assured, when you two are stable."  
  
Erik looks at her and manages to croak, " _Pleezleave_ ," amid clenched teeth. " _Talklater_."  
  
"Just make sure to get them through this in one piece," she huffs to Hank, before grabbing her bag and heading out the door.  
  
She's angry. She's not his Dom - the thought makes him want to rip himself to shreds for even considering it right now - so it shouldn't matter, but she's important and it does and she's going to try and break them apart, because it's wrong and unhealthy but that's not true. It's not. He and Erik are right. They are. They were born for this. He's sniffling against Erik's back, arms around his middle and still hidden as much as he can be. He's still trembling when the door slams after her, her mind rebounding against his in her anger. He flinches, close to tears, the hormones absolutely messing with him in every way.  
  
 _I will not let her take you from me_ , Erik hushes as he takes them back upstairs to the bedroom. _You are mine and I love you very much_. He lays back against the nest of pillows in their bed, which had stripped itself and been replaced by clean sheets via use of his power. He takes Charles into his arms, settles him back into his lap where he belongs. _You are mine. You are my submissive. She is not your Dominant. I am your Dominant and I will take care of you. Not her. Never her. I care for you._  
  
Erik will take care of him. He has to keep reminding himself of that or he'll break into a million pieces. He has to know that he's Claimed, that nothing will break their Bond. He does. Erik loves him very much. Charles snuggles up into his chest, forcing back tears and replacing them with quiet purring once he calms down some, once he's warm and tucked safely in Erik's lap. It can't be described as anything else. They're in their nest. Erik is protecting him. Nothing bad will happen. Nothing will tear them apart. "Strawberries?" is what he finally whispers, smiling up at Erik shyly. He only had one this morning, and the concept of being fed fruit by Erik's hand is distinctly appealing right now. Erik's going to take such good care of him.  
  
Erik gave him what can only be described as a closed-mouthed grin. He lifts his hand up and the door creaks open, letting the container waft right into the room and settle itself in Erik's hands. Looking amongst them now Charles will notice a variety of snacks and trinkets had found their way into the bed where Erik presses them into the blankets in a self-soothing motion, and he finds a chocolate bar and holds it up brightly. Charles then gets prepared a strawberry-chocolate mixture with Erik's brow furrowed in concentration as he manipulated the two items at a subatomic level to reform in proper function. He holds it up and strokes Charles's lips, expectant.  
  
Charles' eyes widen and he gasps in utter delight. Erik is brilliant, always, and the things he can do, from grand scale to seemingly mundane, never fail to fascinate him. He opens up obediently as soon as it's offered, moaning softly as he's fed. Thank you, Erik. It's technically the most real food he's had in more than a week. He lets himself relax entirely, soft and content to be cared for, a sweet smile on his lips between bites. Until there's chocolate residue on Erik's finger he didn't catch, anyway, and he chases it before realizing he'd much rather suck Erik's finger, whining as he grabs his Dominant's wrist to keep it there. His eyes flutter.  
  
Charles is fed the entire container, with chocolate melted onto each one, and by the time they're down to the last few Erik is shivering again, wanting him again. Worry, confusion ping off of him. Charles, _I need your help. You need to help me OK._ Not words but it's thoughts splattering against him like raindrops, warm thuds of water. Erik wants to fuck him again, and then Charles is on his lap and he's doing that-sliding inside with a relieved groan, muscles trembling, and he's putting his hand on Charles's cheek, letting him take his fingers again to get the last remnants of his meal. He would do this every day, he should. Charles should kneel at his feet and be hand fed every meal. He's forgotten what he wanted to say before.  
  
It's relief for Charles, too. By the end of it he'd been feeling full but incredibly empty, squirming and hot, and the moment Erik is back inside it's a relief so palpable he actually cries again, just a few little tears down his cheeks as he rocks in Erik's lap and suckles on his fingers. He touches Erik's cheek, eyes wide and blown out but searching. _Anything. I'll do anything for you, Erik. Please tell me._ It's a bit hard when Charles is sitting on his cock, he knows, and the haze is threatening to take back over, his own dick dragging against Erik's stomach and leaking again, but he wants to help. If Erik needs to help with something, he needs to help. To serve. To obey. To love. That's what he'd vowed.  
  
 _Not now,_ Erik laughs in his mind. _Later. After. After this._ He thrusts up slowly, a gentleness he doesn't realize he's still capable of and that more than anything is what reminds him that he's here with Charles, that he wants Charles. That he will take care of Charles. Not mindless No pain. To protect. To provide. To love. Endless, endless love. Erik presses his cheek against those tears of relief, like he can absorb them through osmosis. They belong to him, too.  
  
Charles smiles, hazy and pleased, moaning softly now. He rests against Erik's shoulder, kissing at his neck and sighing at every thrust, bearing down on it, bouncing himself up and down with a constant string of those needy, wanting noises. It's only after he realizes something that his eyes widen, and he pulls back to gasp. "Erik," he breathes, and he's not afraid or concerned. He's shocked. Somehow he still has the mind to be.  
  
 _Charles_? Erik replies back, touching his cheek. _What is it, dear-heart?_  
  
Charles covers the hand on his cheek with his own (and sighs happily, leaning into it on instinct, threatening to lose his train of thought), before he reaches with his casted hand for Erik's other hand. It's still in a sling, but somehow it's holding him, keeping him steady in his lap. It shouldn't be able to. It should hurt. Charles doesn't feel any pain from Erik's side of the Bond, though. None. He's worried that maybe he took it away, but when he checks he hasn't. And when he moves his own injured hand in a way that should strain it, there's no pain there, either. No pain. He grins, nuzzling against Erik's hand.  
  
 _No pain,_ Erik gasps. _Delight/wonder/joy_. Charles has to hold onto the back of his palm rather than taking one another's hands, since Erik simply doesn't have the range of motion with his fingers curled up unnaturally in contracture, but he sees himself holding Charles steady while Charles anchors himself on the back of Erik's hand and-it's good. It's so good. There's no pain. Tears form in Erik's eyes. _No pain. I love you so much I love-_ laughter, joy, eyes bright and boyish. _Love you so much. Ani ohev otcha_.  
  
Charles is slightly cross that he can't kiss Erik full and sloppy and deep in this moment, but he settles for smiling right back, for placing a million little kisses all over Erik's skin, echoing everything. Delight, and wonder, and joy. There is nothing scary about this, nothing more natural. The movement jostles him and he moans, eyes wide as if he's forgotten Erik's cock is inside him. He goes back to rocking after that, skin heated, puffing hot sighs into Erik's neck. No more pain, no more fear. They'll melt it all away together. _More, please, sir,_ he urges Erik, that shy smile peeking up because he knows he'll get it.  
  
He ends up laying Charles on his back, pressing their foreheads together and using the opportunity without pain to lay it into him, pushing his legs up near his shoulders and bracing over his body. It wasn't long before they both came again, and Erik's eyes were alight as he dragged his hand through the mess on Charles's own stomach, drawing it all the way up his chest. It's not the same as marking him, which Erik laments he cannot do, but it's second best, covered in the evidence of pleasure that Erik gives him. Spread out over lines and slashes scratched by his own nails. He stays like that for a long time before gradually flipping Charles onto his belly, taking both of his hands and tripping them above his head to fuck him harder, let him rub into his own mess with every hard snap of his hips.  
  
Charles has lost count of the number of times he's come by this point, but he's fairly sure it's more than what should be possible for a man his age. Sometimes it's dry, and sometimes it isn't, and it all amounts to him being messy and totally, completely Claimed. He thinks he whites out for a bit, and when he comes to he's in Erik's lap again, purring loudly, nosing into his neck and squirming in his lap to feel. Erik is still hard inside of him. He's still hard, bobbing insistently against Erik's stomach where he presses close. He doesn't worry too much about it being over, not when everything is overwhelming ecstasy, the heat insistent but not painful anymore with Erik to sate it. He bites his swollen lips, which he's obviously been biting this entire time, somehow shy again while covered in come and Marks. _Can I..._ No, he can't. But he could always hide it. Can he? He wants to. _Please, Erik?_  
  
 _Tell me what you want, neshama_ , Erik touches his face, the motion gentle and at odds with the violent need of mark ownership Claim mine roaring through his head. Charles can't hide from him. There is nothing Erik shouldn't know. It is his right to know so that he can please his submissive. He vibrates a satisfied noise against Charles's neck where he'd been busy pressing kisses and inhaling his scent.  
  
Charles gasps, biting down hard on his lips. There's nothing to hide, and he doesn't want to, but what if it's out of line? He absolutely has to please his Dominant, has to be good for him, or he'll break right apart. He shakes his head, whining, but it's an Order like this, everything is. _I want... um._ Words are difficult. He kisses Erik's neck, as if that will help him understand, hopeful.  
  
 _Tell me_ , Erik whispers back, scratching underneath his jaw. They're so connected that he knows, he knows, and Charles can feel how delighted it makes him; he just wants to hear him say it. Not out of line. Never out of line. _I am yours. Show me that I am yours._  
  
 _I want to... leave a mark_ , he mumbles, cheeks red as he hides. It's not the same urge to Claim as Erik has. It's not even close, not cut from the same cloth. But Erik is his Dominant. He doesn't want anyone else to touch him like this, ever. He doesn't want anyone else in his bed, he doesn't want anyone else being his. No other submissives. Only Charles. He wants to see part of him on Erik, too, and Charles is wearing a collar but they haven't gotten around to placeholder cuffs and he just needs - Please? he asks, sniffling at the thought of Erik wanting anyone else. Claiming anyone else, collaring anyone else. He can't bear it.  
  
Erik thrusts up roughly in answer. No other submissives. No one else should be in this bed. No one else will touch him this way. The idea makes him want to shred something, that Charles could still doubt-it roars in his ears, and when he finally says it, Erik tips Charles's chin up and practically purrs in assent. _Ken, samen li_. Show me that you know I am yours.

* * *

Charles lets out a startled moan, eyelids heavy. He doesn't doubt it. Erik is Bonded to him just as he is Bonded to Erik. They vowed themselves to each other, and that vow goes both ways. He takes a deep breath and leans forward, nuzzling and kissing. It's sweet and still shy, but something eventually overcomes him. Charles opens his mouth and bites, soothing it with his lips and tongue a moment later, sucking until the skin breaks for him, smiling and pleased. He goes back to purring, kissing what will be a rather deep, purple mark lovingly. Erik is his, too. His Dominant. No one else's. No one can have him.  
  
There is no word for the noise that rips out of Erik when Charles bites down, and he twitches in his hold, abruptly coming all over again, leg scrambling to pull Charles closer. The parts of his mind that all swirl into the atmosphere and scatter into stardust are beginning to coalesce, driven up by _pain-mark-bruise-yours_ and he bats them away before they can take form, shoos them right into the sun to burn on impact. _Yours_ , he gasps back. _No one else's._  
  
Charles is purring, filled and pleased, Erik still firmly inside of him. He thinks maybe he came again, too, but he can't be sure when he's been clenching and moaning this whole time. _Okay_? he asks, touching Erik's cheek gently. He's shy again, just a tad uncertain.  
  
 _Kol beseder,_ Erik smiles back up at him. There can be no doubt, no matter how much he tries to toss the dandelion fluffs back into the burning sky, that he loved it. They're close enough together like this that it's hard for Erik to hide his less traditional urges, although he makes a valiant effort since every time they have this conversation it devolves. He's known for a long time that he needs to put it all in the box and bury it under the ocean, but for just a second, everything crashed to the surface and he's too deep into Dominion, into-this, the Bond, and he realizes he's crying because he can't put it all back fast enough.  
  
Charles is crying, too. He doesn't like that. He doesn't want any part of Erik to be thrown away, not any more than Erik wants him to box things up himself. He whines, low and distressed, lip trembling as he shakes his head. He kisses at Erik's tears. _Please_ , he begs. _No boxes. You promised._  
  
 _You don't want it,_ Erik crumples, and he hides his face in Charles's neck. He doesn't want it either. He hates how twisted everything has become for him. Nobody could want it. He doesn't want it, either. It makes him rotten, melted spoiled fruit in jungle heat. He runs his fingers over his mark, shivering and soothing himself with the sting of pain.  
  
He can't swallow around the lump that's formed in his throat. No, that's not right. Charles wants all of Erik. It was his idea. It was a bad idea, then. He feels hot and ashamed, sick, and suddenly his skin is crawling again and there's a sob bubbling up in his throat. _No_ , he gasps.  
  
Like this there's no way Erik can hide it, anyway. _More_ , is all he says, touching Charles's lip, ashamed and frightened that he will be turned away in disgust. It's a secret, shh. More marks. More bruises. More pain. Bad. Wrong. He knows it's wrong. He didn't escape without a broken psyche. He would cover Charles in them if he could, but he can't, and it's bubbling up in him, this connection where he's wide open and spilling out. _Please. More._  
  
Charles isn't disgusted. He is suddenly terrified, trembling hard, tears streaming down his cheeks. He'd liked it, too, but not because it hurt Erik. But Erik likes hurting him in that way, and that's not wrong, but - it's different, and he doesn't know how, but he's scared and he wants to give Erik what he wants and maybe he wants it too because it's - but - Erik asked for something and he wants desperately to give it but what if he thinks of - what if... He's shaking violently, and he knows it's going to make Erik think he's wrong and he isn't, he isn't. It's Charles' fault. It's Charles who can't breathe, Charles who can't be what Erik needs. He doesn't deserve to be Bonded to Erik if he can't even be what he needs, he's going to die -

* * *

Erik's stomach drops out from under him and his mind goes blank. Blissfully blank. He hugs Charles against him and rocks him, still inside him, breathing evenly. _Stop_ , he Orders. _Calm. Breathe._  
  
Charles is still crying. He's calm, his thoughts have quieted, but it hasn't changed the sick in his stomach, his horror that Erik has slipped away from him again and it's not Erik's fault. He should have been able to do it, and now this is always going to broken and it's no one's fault but his. He doesn't want to be comforted when he doesn't deserve it, but he can't tell Erik to stop, so all he does is cry, feeling sicker with every passing second, his skin prickling with heat and that awful, needle-point pain.  
  
Erik tilts his head up. What comes next isn't words so much as impressions, firm and calm and in control. _You don't have to indulge my every passing fancy, to be a good submissive. I love you and I am never renouncing our bond, so stop. I asked, I didn't Order. You said no. I respect that, and you needn't feel guilty about it._  
  
That's not right. It doesn't matter. Charles shakes his head, whimpering and stuck and hurting, and he doesn't know what to do. Stop. Erik told him to stop, so he tries to stop crying, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek. It doesn't work as well as it should.  
  
He touches Charles's cheeks. _It is right. It does matter. Stop disparaging yourself. Stop telling me you do not deserve to be Bonded to me_. He brushes his lips over those tears, tasting salt through his clenched teeth. _I would never have wanted you to force yourself into doing something you aren't comfortable with. I always want you to be honest with me._  
  
But it's not - that's not - Charles doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what to do. He closes his eyes so he doesn't have to look, and everything hurts again and he doesn't know what to do because he's supposed to be what Erik needs, he is, and he's not. He's not. If he can't give him what he needs, he's not. Erik always tries to be what he needs, probably forces himself because Charles is needy and selfish and manipulative and convinces him, and Charles is never - stop, he's supposed to stop, but he can't and it hurts and he curls into himself, as much as he can.  
  
Erik is delighted to give Charles what he needs. He loves to do everything they do. In that, he is very much traditional. Erik is the broken and twisted one. It is natural that Charles should shy away from the things in the box. Dominants aren't supposed to want the things he wants. Charles is submissive. He likes to receive pain, not to give it. (But doesn't he? They both like that mark. Erik shivers, touching the bruise at his neck-so good-)   
  
He likes to be fucked, not to fuck Erik. Nothing hidden, a fantasy out of the box. Tying Charles down hands above his head and sinking onto his leaking cock, forcing him thrust up as slow as Erik wants. Holding him on the edge. Ordering him to be still as Erik takes him inside of his body, sheathes Charles inside of him and hold him where he belongs-runaway thoughts, runaway thoughts. He likes to kneel, he doesn't want Erik to kneel before him. Is that true? That one time-when he Ordered Charles to stay still and he took Charles deep into his throat, looking up at him from that position and both of their eyes burned with it-does Erik crave Domination?   
  
He is Dominant, of that, they know without a doubt. All of his instincts are Dominant instincts. He likes to give pain. He likes to Claim Charles. He likes to fuck Charles and care for him and Order him and discipline him when it's necessary. It's difficult not to assume that Charles is right-that Erik's inclinations aren't anything more than a product of damage. Of course Charles doesn't want to give that to him. There is no blame, there is no tension. There is only understanding. _I have no expectation that you indulge me in this part of my psyche, Charles. I understand that it is not-ordinary._ _My desires aren't normal, Charles. I know that. I would never want you to act outside your nature to appease a part of me that is dark and awful. I know that these things are bad for me to want. Thank you for saying no._ Thank you. Thank you. I'm so sorry. Erik's sniffling, stuffed-up and hard to breathe against the wires, buried hidden in Charles's shoulder. _Please, please don't leave me._  
  
But that's not it. Charles shakes his head, distressed and frustrated, tears slipping out when the words aren't. They're not twisted or bad or wrong and he'd wanted to show that, but he'd gotten scared and he hadn't wanted to but it had happened anyway. They've discussed this before, and Charles feels the same way now that he had then. He doesn't think there's anything backwards about the things Erik wants. The framing is off. He's not looking at it from the right angle. He had liked marking him like that, it's just - He whines, confused and miserable, eyes shut tightly closed. They're not bad or wrong. Charles does want those parts, too. He really does. He's not twisting anything, because Erik isn't, either. He'd been the one to ask, not Erik. And he knows - he knows - that he would happily have marked Erik up all over if it had been framed differently, if he'd been thinking about it differently, if Erik hadn't been ashamed and he hadn't gotten spooked. There are marks on Erik's shoulder and arms from his nails. It's just... it's just. They're not wrong and I want that part, too and I would never leave you, he insists, and it's undeniably true, nothing hidden here, but he's still crying and he can't stop.  
  
 _What is it, Charles? Please._ He's saying please but like this, he's nothing but Orders and instincts. You said you-would have happily-what made you not want this? Erik struggles valiantly to sound calm even though his whole mind has surged back up; nothing hidden here, not even when he tries to blank himself-his mind has always been Charles. He didn't hide; he just didn't want to hurt. And he is so sorry he caused hurt. Spooked Charles. _I'm sorry. Please do not cry. Tell me-is it how I thought about it? What I framed it-as?_  
  
Charles sobs, too, scared and upset. He rocks in Erik's lap, mostly to comfort himself. He's made it worse. It's his fault. He hides in Erik, curled up as small as he can possibly make himself. _I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,_ he whimpers.  
  
 _Never like him,_ Erik manages to gasp out between hiccups.  
  
Charles knows that. He does. It wasn't a rational thought, none of this is. It's his fault. It had slipped out. He shouldn't have gotten scared over nothing, he shouldn't have reacted. Erik is the one who's going to leave, because he's bad and he doesn't know how and he doesn't want to hurt him. He doesn't, not even really in the way Erik wants to hurt him, and he doesn't know if he can and if that's something Erik needs - the thought makes it impossible to breathe. He just wants to be what Erik needs so badly. It's all he wants. He doesn't know how to not be right now.  
  
 _I don't need it,_ Erik sushes him. _I just need you. I just want You. Do you really think I will leave you?_   
  
Charles curls into himself again, but there's nowhere to go. He can't go anywhere or he'll break, but he can't look at Erik, either, the words enough to devastate him (do you really think I don't know) and it hurts so badly and he's pathetic so all he can do is sniffle and hide, everything unsettled. It's not fair. It's not fair. He messed up again and he doesn't know what to do and it hurts and he feels sick and Erik shouldn't have to sacrifice anything for him, he should always have what he wants and needs, Charles wanted so badly to give him that and he'll think he's wrong now and he's not and Charles wants those things but not - not - he shakes his head, agonized.  
  
 _Not what?_ Erik begs to know.  
  
He doesn't know. He doesn't know the difference. He doesn't know. He knows he wanted it because he'd asked for it, he knows he'd happily do it again, but not... like that. He doesn't know what that is, what made him scared, what he doesn't want. Charles is crying again, and he's frustrated and upset and humiliated and hurting and it's all his fault.  
  
Humiliation burns in his stomach and he covers his face with his hand. _I don't want you to be like Shaw._ He doesn't know what else to do. He's ripped open and threadbare and every time he tries to explain, it makes it worse, it makes Charles hate himself, he just wishes his stupid mind could be normal. So he could stop hurting everyone all the time. He lets out a loud, overwhelmed whine.  
  
 _Stop it!_ It's not an Order because it can't be. It's not even close, broken and distressed, just as much a whine as Erik's. He's whimpering, quiet, hiccupping noises. _Stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it please stop it -_  
  
Erik immediately does, rocking Charles back and forth in his arms still.  
  
Charles shakes his head, and it hurts and he doesn't know what to do but he tries, contorted uncomfortably in Erik's arms so he can be small, so he can hide, the closest he can get to ducking into his knees. _Your mind is normal, you're not hurting me_ , he promises. He means it. _Why do you want it? What do you want? Please tell me._  
  
Erik doesn't know. _I like knowing the marks are yours. I like when you put them there. Your Claim on me. I want-_ he breaks off and shuts his eyes, ashamed, embarrassed. The answer, though, when he gives it, is honest. _I don't know. What do you-mean?_  
  
Charles doesn't want to ask. He especially doesn't want to ask now, like this, and not because he's disgusted. But he can't not ask. _Do you want me to do the things you do to me? The same way?_  
  
Erik shakes his head. That at much is decidedly clear.  
  
But maybe he misunderstood. Charles has to be sure. He can't have this linger. _You don't want..._ He thinks of things Erik has done to him, specifics, some memories and some clear fantasies they've shared between the two of them. Charles bent over and spanked, with Erik's hand and then with a variety of implements Erik mostly hasn't used yet but that he's thought about plenty. Charles slapped, choked. Charles on his knees, Erik's hand in his hair, not so much sucking cock so much as having his throat fucked. Charles being used, and fucked, and controlled. Things Charles has wondered about, too: clamps and wax and all sorts of things related to pain that he's mostly too embarrassed to fully expand upon but that he's sure Erik will coax out of him eventually.  
  
Erik already shivers at those images and his hips stutter up to where he's buried in Charles. _No_ , he says again, without hesitation. This is an easy answer, one that takes absolutely zero thought before answering. _I want to be the one doing those things. Always._  
  
 _Then... like this?_ Charles thinks of something Erik already has from his perspective, shivering and moaning on the bed with his fingers gripping the bedsheets, Erik bidding him still, controlling what pleasure he feels and how he feels it even while he's technically the one kneeling and pleasing. Charles on top of Erik, bouncing on his cock, while Erik looks on with hooded eyes and stays motionless, tells him how to fuck himself and calls him things like sweetheart. And - Charles is well aware being penetrated doesn't automatically make someone submissive, or even imply it. It doesn't work that way. He enjoys getting fucked by Erik, would never, ever, ever want to give it up, and is burning for it right this very moment, but if Erik wanted it the other way around? If there was an itch to scratch? Charles in any number of positions, Erik using him, his cock, just as thoroughly as any other part of him. Using him and Claiming him just the same. Telling him when to move, how fast, how slow, tugging at his hair, slapping him when he bucks before he's told. Being praised, called a good boy. Charles' nails scratching at Erik's back, lost to pleasure. Charles biting and marking because he wants everyone to know that Erik is his, too, that no one can take his Dominant away from him.  
  
Erik growls and shoves Charles on his back and is about five seconds away from doing just that, when he remembers Hank's brutal warning Erik buries his head in Charles's shoulder, hot and ashamed and groans thick with arousal and he's sorry, he's sorry he wants those things. He's sorry, he's sorry, _please don't think you're not what I need._ He's shuddering.  
  
Charles sniffles, wiping at his face with his arm. _Erik, why are you - I want it, too_. He's confused as to how that got at all mixed up, but hormones are raging and the thought of not being what Erik needs is enough to destroy him. Mentally, but physically, too, and he still hurts, biting back the whine he wants to make because Erik has slipped out of him and it's making him want to sob all over again. _I do. I just - I meant I don't want to do it for the reasons you do it to me. Or the same way. You said... pain, and -_ He conjures up an image of himself slapping Erik like he's had done to him, then quickly gets rid of it, because he doesn't like it. It doesn't do anything for him. He'd thought maybe it did something for Erik?  
  
Erik shook his head, vehement. He slowly embraces Charles in his lap and lets himself slide right back home, sighing in relief before answering truthfully, _That would frighten me._  
  
 _Oh, thank -_ Charles breathes his own sigh, all the tension melting out of him as he wriggles around in Erik's lap like he's making himself comfortable on his cock. He is. He buries his face in his neck. _It frightened me, too,_ he admits _. I didn't like it._ He definitely doesn't think he ever would.  
  
I am sorry I made things so twisted up again, Erik murmurs, soft, apologetic. _I do not ever want for you to think that you are not enough for me. You are perfect._ He beams up.  
  
 _You didn't. You're perfect, too, Erik,_ he promises, and smiles right back, however watery it is. _And none of the things you want are twisted. I want all of you. No boxes, okay? I want to serve all of you, even the parts I don't understand right away. You're my Dominant._ But he really needs Erik to start fucking him again, because it hurts. It hurts really badly. He could ask nicely, and he will, he's sure. Erik likes making him do that, he likes reminding Charles of his manners. But right now he has a better idea, so he kisses Erik's neck gently. And then he bites. Hard.  
  
Erik's reaction is immediate and he growls lowly before twisting Charles up onto his belly and yanking back his knees to Present his ass for Erik's pleasure. In a second he was buried back inside on a harsh snap of his hips, sliding in all the way to the root and then withdrawing only to thrust back in just as hard. _Mine_ , he rumbles, bracing his body over Charles's, his head and neck right at the perfect spot that if Charles just reached over he could- _mmmmnnn_ -bruises were blooming where Charles left his impressions and he could feel how amped up it made everything-  
  
Charles screams, eyes rolling back as punched out, high whines slip from his throat. It's exactly what he needs, and he thinks it's exactly what Erik needs, too. There's absolutely no question who has the control here, and though they belong to each other, there is no denying who's submissive. Who is kept, owned. But Charles still leans over and does exactly as Erik suggested, however nonverbally, because - because he thinks of those submissives in a room and how they questioned Erik and how they went into subspace and no, no, Erik is Charles' Dominant. Charles' and that's it. He bites and sucks and snarls, bucks back into every thrust, and they probably look like a pair of wild animals and he doesn't care.  
  
He drags his cock out to the tip and slams it back inside on every thrust, buying himself over and over at a brutal pace, making low, loud grunts every time he hits home and feels Charles tighten and spurt between his belly and the mattress and covers his hand in it and spreads it all down Charles's back, draws his fingers with it own over his own face. **_Mine_** , Erik snarls right back, gripping his fingers in Charles's hair, rubbing his own come all over him, all over Erik, inside him where Erik fucks into himself, into his seed, and every time Charles's teeth scrape him he gives an aborted shout, drags his nails down his back-again and again-  
  
When Erik comes again, he's entirely sure he whites out this time. He's so full he's frothing with it, Erik filling him enough that he leaks even around the thickness of him. He's purring again, utterly satisfied (but somehow not sated) and pleased and boneless, everything scary and uncomfortable fucked right out of him. When he comes to, Erik is slipping out, perhaps to wash him again, and the sheets, which are in desperate need of it, but he whines in protest. "No!" It's almost vicious, pouting defiance as he tries to clench hard enough to keep Erik inside, reaching down to plug himself up. He can't be empty. He can't, he can't. "No! You have to stay," he croaks, and this time - this time it sounds like a faux-Order, the scowl he's wearing falling a bit as he realizes. Maybe he'll get away with it.  
  
Erik doesn't even fight him, he just rolls back on top of him and resumes fucking into him leisurely, holding him against his chest and throwing his right leg over Charles's hip to keep him there. Mine. Not going anywhere. Doesn't want to go anywhere. Loves that these sheets are filled with Charles, what he's made Charles feel. He presses Charles's face into one of the cooling spots and hums contentedly. Mine.

* * *

But Charles - well. Maybe it's part of the Bond. Maybe he needs to be absolutely certain about this, too. So he whines, bucking from underneath Erik like he wants to get away, wriggling and huffing. He pouts up at Erik, which looks ridiculous when his face is smeared with his own come and tears of overstimulation, squirms enough that he dislodges Erik's cock, even though it makes him cry out.  
  
Erik nearly roars with indignation and he immediately pins Charles back down to the bed on his stomach with his hand at the base of his neck, locking his legs over Charles's so he can't move an inch and trapping his hands above his head. _You want my cock inside you_? is the semi-coherent flash of Orders that are more images than anything else. _Mine. You are mine. Beg me to fuck your hole Charles or I'll rub myself off on your ass and come on the floor instead._ His eyes are nearly pitch black. He's rocking his hips back and forth, dragging his dick right the crack of his ass, right next to the place that Charles wants it most and refusing to give it to him. Until he yields. Until he submits.  
  
Charles is breathless. He absolutely wants to whimper, to relent, to beg Erik to fuck him and apologize for his insolence. To say _I'm sorry, sir_ and take whatever discipline Erik sees fit. But there's another instinct at war here, and he needs that one satisfied, too. This is their Bond, the beginning of their life together. That means every part of them needs to bound together. So he thrashes even though he can't get anywhere, pouts and strops. _No! Don't want to,_ is what gets sent back, petulant. _Fuck me anyway. I want to do it myself. Let me up. Now!_ And that's very much what would be an Order if Charles were a Dom.  
  
 ** _Beg_** , Erik growls, and the Order snaps through him like no other ever has. It's like being punched in the solar plexus with electric ice, slamming into his neurons and lighting him up and stealing his breath right out from under him. His hand tightens over Charles's throat, smashing his face into the mattress. Nowhere to go but Erik's Will.  
  
The noise pulled from him is strangled and desperate, and he whimpers loudly, stomach twisting and mind left reeling. "Please fuck me, sir!" he gasps, the words punched out and muffled by the hand around his throat and the sheets he's pressed into. He's started crying again, but not from actual distress, his entire body superheated. "Please fuck me, use my hole, come inside me, please, sir, please," comes tumbling out around whimpers, because he'd been defiant.  
  
He doesn't stop growling and purring and making slow, vibrated sounds in his chest as though he were an animal as Charles submits to him, relaxes against him, and he climbs up a bit and slams himself into Charles's body with a loud grunt, forcing the bed against the wall and the pictureframes to shake a little. _You are mine. When I tell you to do something, you **do** it._ He rears back and something flies into his hands, the cane swishing across the room into his hands. It's a long leather implement with a steel rod and Erik brings it down swiftly over Charles's ass, stingy and all of a sudden real. Erik fucks him through it, pulling out, delivering a swift strike and then thrusting back inside.  
  
Charles has absolutely no idea where he got that from, considering they aren't in his apartment and the thought that Erik had brought it over anticipating he would need it has him heating up but not as much as the snap of the cane, a soundless gasp knocked right out of him as the sting is fucked right into him. Brutally, the bed creaking with it, his ass raised to take it. This is where Charles should be a good boy, a very sorry boy. He should cry and apologize for being an insolent brat, for not doing as he's told. But for some reason he doesn't. He sways his ass away from the blows, whimpering but somehow still defiant, mind a strange mix of desires and needs, shouting no! He doesn't need to be disciplined. He doesn't want to be caned, he wants to climb up on Erik and fuck himself until he comes. He should get what he wants.  
  
Erik uses his ability to hold Charles in place, forcing him to take what Erik wants him to take. _You will get what I say you get_ , Erik murmurs, punctuating each word with a stinging swish of the cane. He braces his bad hand, cast and all, pain-free over Charles's neck to keep his head down and delivers blow after blow on a brutal rhythm, interspersed only with the feel of his cock sliding out and then back in again harshly. _Mine. You receive discipline when I say you do._  
  
It doesn't take long at all after that for all the fight to melt right out of him. He's a whimpering, sniffling mess soon, and he realizes fast that while the cane had certainly hurt in the mindspace, it was nothing compared to the Real. The sting blooms all over his overheated, oversensitive skin, and he cries out with each swish, gasping loud and winded when Erik fucks into him in between. He knows he should apologize, but even when he starts crying it doesn't come out, biting down hard on his lip to keep it in.  
  
Mmmm. Good. Satisfied that he's been appropriately cowed, Erik soothes over the painful welts with his warm hands, not breaking stride in the slightest with his thrusts but slowly beginning to gentle. _Mine_ he murmurs at Charles's throat, draping their bodies together. He will give Charles what he needs. He will take care of Charles.  
  
Charles lets it slip, finally. He's crying in earnest, even as everything gentles, loud, heavy sobs as he shakes with it. He doesn't know what made him defiant in the first place, but it hurts and all the shame sinks in and - "I'm sorry, sir," he cries, and trembles with it. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry -" Who was he to question Erik's control over him, and then his discipline? He turns red with the shame of it, thoroughly chastised and completely pliant under his Dominant. Put in his place.  
  
 _You wanted to know if I am aware that you are my submissive._ And Erik is very, very aware. Whenever Charles needs to be put in his place Erik will see fit that it is done. If Charles doubts that Erik will put him in his place when he needs it, Erik will be there to erase all thoughts to the contrary. _You are mine. This is your place. I will always bring you back here. H_ e brushes kisses along the back of Charles's neck. You are forgiven, sweetheart. You took it very well. He slips out a small amount and then fucks in again, surrounded by his own fluids that leak out of Charles's overused hole, down his thighs, and Erik shudders. Charles is covered in marks and come and filled with him and-this is where he belongs. Red and crying and submitting to him.  
  
Charles sighs happily, relieved and completely submissive (not that he ever isn't) underneath Erik, crying and soft and well-fucked and freshly disciplined. It hurts, it hurts badly, but Erik forgave him and he's a good boy again, sweetheart, and that's all that matters. He has to take his discipline when he's defiant or ill-behaved, Erik gets to decide when he needs it. He knows this. He's Erik's. It's what he needed, of course it is, they're going through everything, solidifying everything, grounding everything. When Erik comes inside him after he finishes fucking him as he pleases, using him, filling him up enough that it practically gushes down his thighs, he whines loudly. He's hiccuping into the sheets as another mostly dry orgasm is ripped from him, dick twitching with little spurts of come that adds to the sodden sheets. He reaches out with his mind, still trapped beneath Erik, the image of what's essentially grabby hands. _Can you please cuddle me, sir?_ he sniffs, shy and sweet again. But he can't pull out, it goes without saying. He clenches tight at even the mention.  
  
 _Always_ , Erik murmurs, taking Charles into his arms. Almost as soon as he does, he sags, eyes fluttering closed as his body catches up with his mind and he curls his arm over Charles's chest, keeping him contained in an octopus-hug of many limbs, his cock jerking pitifully inside Charles as though ready for another round before it just twitches dryly instead. _Ani ohev otcha, neshama_.  
  
 _Ani ohev otcha,_ he returns right back, a content, hitchy purr as he slowly stops crying, sniffling wetly into Erik's chest. The welts smart, and they will for a while now, he's sure. He can't even imagine what it will feel like when he's truly being disciplined for something more serious, and while he isn't afraid, he also isn't particularly eager to find out. He never is, even when he needs it - he supposes it wouldn't be discipline otherwise. He needs it, and Erik needs to give it. Right now, though, he's pleased, obedient, and loved and warm. This should be really uncomfortable, he points out, idly, because there isn't a single part of him that isn't covered in come and his ass should absolutely be too sore and sensitive to even touch, let alone his cock, but here they are and Charles knows full well they'll go another round.  
  
Erik purrs at the thought of it, and just shuffles closer, pushing his cock in even deeper. It's not uncomfortable. They shouldn't be able to do any of what they're doing, but all Erik can think about is that they are here and they are safe and Charles is in his arms and it is good. He hums contentedly as he settles Charles into his chest.

* * *

Charles is sleepy again. He thinks he must drift off, warm and protected against Erik's chest, filled up with his come. When he blinks his eyes open, stretching against his Dominant, wiggling to feel him still inside, the clock on the bedside table glows to inform him it's well past midnight. He wonders if they're alone, but there's a muffled voice from downstairs alerting him that someone is sleeping. He ignores it, archiving it with all the others and focusing only on Erik. He's hungry again, and they probably could use a bath, even if the thought of rinsing Erik's come out makes him want to cry. Instead of asking for any of that, another thought comes to mind, aware instinctively that Erik is awake, too. _Do you like horses?_ It's completely, utterly out of the blue, and perhaps strange considering they've just woken and their predicament, but Charles looks up with a soft, sleepy, adoring smile.  
  
Erik rolls over lightly and then readjusts himself so he's cradling Charles closer. _I have never seen a horse,_ he admits with a bit of a laugh.  
  
Charles hums, eyes fluttering again as he curls up. Hmm. _Really? The manor has a stable, you know. It hasn't been used in years, but when I was young and Father was still alive, I had my own horse. She was very ornery and I loved her very much,_ he murmurs, nuzzling into Erik's neck to inhale his scent. He shares the image with Erik, a blurry, pre-telepathy memory of a tiny Charles atop a large reddish-brown horse.  
  
 _I hope she wasn't called Horse_ , Erik taps him on the nose, letting out a huff of laughter. _Have you ridden at all since you were young?_ he follows those memories down curiously, wanting to absorb them all up and carry them with him, the most precious of secret rain-drops.  
  
Well, now Charles is absolutely not going to share what her actual name was, flushing with embarrassment. In his defense, he'd been five. _Not much, he sighs. I just haven't had the opportunity. They're lovely animals, though. Mother made us sell them when my father died._ There's old, frayed hurt there, just another sadness surrounding that particular time. _Do you know I can hear the thoughts of animals, too? Not words, obviously, but feelings. The sense of things._  
  
 _Ms. Yorkes can do that_ , as well, Erik remembers after a second. Being a mutant helped foster trust between her and the other victims, and Erik would be lying if he said he would be more open with lawyer from different demographics. _Perhaps you should invest a portion of your resources into reopening the stables. Then you will always be surrounded by opportunity,_ he smiles down at Charles, stroking his arm contentedly.  
  
 _Perhaps. I think I'd like that,_ he says, smiling softly into Erik's skin, pressing featherlight kisses wherever his lips wander. _The children would, too, I imagine. I certainly did when I was younger._ Charles liked everything when he was younger, to be fair, fiercely curious about the world around him. _Mother hated the stables, and when I would ride. I always got dirty. I wasn't allowed to get dirty. She said dirty clothes were for 'urchin children'._ He can only imagine Erik was not given the same restrictions.  
  
Snort. _It gives me no greater satisfaction than to know that your mother would classify me as an 'urchin child.'_ He sends an image of his own instead, chasing Ruthie through muddied trenches before clomping into the kitchen with dirty boots and receiving Edith's wrath over it. She'd be spitting mad, shouting at them to get out and they'd just run through the house, and she'd be left in the dust, hand on her hip, eyes rolled to the heavens.  
  
Charles grins at that, laughing quietly. It reminds him of something else, another piece he can share. _I was a sick child, actually,_ he hums, as if it's an afterthought. _I had to stay in bed a lot. And I was privately tutored when I was very young, until I was about ten, probably because of it. I didn't play much, so when I could it was exciting. Sometimes Warren would come over. He got me into trouble, he huffs._  
  
 _Somehow that does not shock me,_ Erik replied. He's met Warren. He likes Warren, too, a great deal. _Tell me all about him,_ Erik asks as he does finally slip out and gently guide Charles to his feet to deal with the sheets once more, and when he gets a look at Charles, he groans in appreciation. I almost don't want you to wash off, he admits, but it isn't comfortable like that after a while. It's itchy and nasty, and he wants Charles to feel good. That's his job now. Sated and good and clean and fed. He leads him to the bathroom.  
  
Charles pouts deeply as Erik slips out, instantly feeling empty. He's perfectly happy to be chatty about his childhood and his best friend, but right now he's distracted, and not only by the way Erik's come is seeping out of him. I want to keep it inside, he sniffles, and clings to Erik as he's herded back toward the shower. He really does look like he might cry because of it, whatever it is that's driving them demanding he be full. He also looks like he might jump back on Erik's cock at any moment.  
  
 _I know,_ Erik shushes him as he turns the bath on-rather than the shower, so he can sit down on the tub's floor and guide Charles to sit right back where he belongs. _See? I have the greatest ideas._  
  
 _Better_ , he agrees brightly, and calms down once Erik is inside and he's nice and comfortable again. After that he's perfectly content to relax against his shoulder, thoughts drifting in and out. None of it is linear, but he wants to share all of it with Erik, and in return have things shared with him. _It's very old, the manor. I'm sure you know how old, since you looked it up,_ he teases, smiling up at his Dominant. _There was this dreadful old vase in one of the rooms. Warren smashed it to pieces while we were messing about once, and then dragged me into this wretched lie with him. My mother ate it right up, if you'd believe it. She adored him._ If he sounds a tad bitter about it, it's because he is. She seemed capable of liking other people's children, at least on the surface. _But first we tried to glue it back together, and I can tell you right now it didn't work._ He gives the image of two boys, one several years older and blonde, one that tiny, rounder-faced Charles, bent over the ruined vase with glue and tape like they're performing a surgery. They're squabbling over it, and the blonde boy says _'trust me here, Charlie!'_ It's frayed at the edges, hazy like all of his pre-mutation memories, but clear enough, and he snorts. If he had a penny for every time he heard that. He'd be at the top of the Forbes list.  
  
 _I take it he was the trouble-maker of the duo,_ Erik remarks dryly. He'll be in closer quarters with Warren over the next year or so, and it helps that the single time they've met and exchanged more than two words, Erik has been fond of him, even able to speak with him; which shows that his body believes Charles trusts him. _And yes, Charles, I do indeed know how old it is_. Erik still has his little picture, but it's buried in his bureau now that Charles is with him again, a totem touch-stone no longer needed.  
  
 _Oh, absolutely. But he was good to me. He's a good friend, and I owe him quite a lot._ Even when they fought - and they've fought - Charles has always trusted Warren. When his telepathy manifested and he found that everything Warren said was what he actually thought, unlike so many others, it only cemented how much he liked and, dare he say it, looked up to the older boy. Now he's one of the people Charles considers family, of which he wouldn't trade for the world. He grins at the mention of the little picture, which he finds patently adorable, and nuzzles sweetly into Erik's neck, mouthing at one of the bruises forming there. _It's a very low-quality picture. Outdated, too. Soon enough you'll be living there. I was thinking... well, I don't see the reason not to get a jump-start on things. I want to start making calls._ His mind wanders again as Erik washes him, though. _Do you like to swim? Do you know how to swim? They are in the water._  
  
Warren was also one of the first people to publicly stand up for Erik, which went a long way to cementing Erik's own like of him. And he'd been there for Charles when he needed him, never seemed to display an issue with his telepathy; they were all good things. Even still, it wasn't easy to think about another person at this exact moment so Erik pushes that out of the way. Another Dominant no less. Erik shakes his head. _No, we didn't have any kind of lake or ocean when I was growing up and I never learned afterward._ If Charles would scan his memories over the last week and a half, this is a new development. Erik went a while without showering after tearing out a pipe in the wall once the spray hit him. The only time he ever Ordered anyone at the CIA was due to a water-related trigger. Their proximity to one another really does seem to represent improvement in all spheres, but Erik isn't sure how far that will extend. Right now, there's no fear at all. Erik flicks a bit of water at him and grins.  
  
Admittedly, he hadn't thought that one through, but there's nothing but pleasant enjoyment here now. He grins, too, flicking right back, and then the jostling makes him moan and he clings tightly, soft, needy noises the only thing that come out for a while as he fights to stay still in Erik's lap. _I like to swim,_ he says when he can talk again. _We had pools, and a lake, and we visited places with an ocean often._ He shares the images: tiny, tiny Charles being held by a woman who clearly isn't his mother as he splashes gleefully, chubby legs kicking, the memory half-remembered and mostly sensory. Splashing around in the lake with Raven in the summer. A beautiful, white-sand beach, the waves and the feeling of raw, sensitive skin from blooming sunburn. He winces on instinct, but he's still smiling. _I boycotted sunscreen for a bit, simply because everyone was always telling me to wear it._ And he had to be contrary. If Erik reminds him and he's in a mood he'll pout just like he used to, insist he doesn't need it, and then end up wearing it anyway because Erik can do that. The thought makes him shiver.  
  
 _I will make certain you do,_ Erik smirks at him and taps him on the nose leaving a big foamy ball of bubbles behind. It would be adorable, except for how he's still halfway to fucking Charles even in the bathtub. Which should be, again, awkward and somehow is not. That distracts him for a while before he, too, feels the haze clear and his thoughts begin to circle in proper order. _You will turn into a red ice pop if you boycott sunscreen on our trip._ He's struggling, you know, not to think about that, but it's hard not to think about all the stuff that literally just happened yesterday. And this morning. And Gabrielle knows. _Oh, G-d._ Erik pinches the bridge of his nose. _We're in for it, now._  
  
Charles glares, but not at Erik. He buries it in Erik's shoulder, because it's probably unwarranted, but, alas. _Please don't think about her,_ he begs. She's the Dominant who had the biggest Claim over him in the past and the reminder that she was present for part of their Bonding honestly makes him want to tear himself apart, especially because she'd been angry about it. He's trembling.  
  
Erik brushes his hand over Charles's hair, shaking his head. He will not let anything get in the way of them. He spreads his legs a bit and tugs Charles back against him, a firm reminder. Whatever claim Gabrielle thinks she had over Charles is long-since obliterated. In fact he can't help but be a little pleased that she witnessed part of their Bonding, because it means she knows her place now, and it is far away from his submissive.  
  
Charles purrs at that, pleased and comforted, rocking as much as he can in Erik's lap without sloshing the water out. Said water is filthy, but he doesn't mind as he lets Erik wash his hair free of come, making those happy, rumbly noises as his scalp is massaged. He reaches for the shampoo while he waits, lathering it up in his hands to take care of Erik, too, as he should. We should get things for the bath, since you like them so much. And Charles absolutely loves them, which is great because now he has a reason to indulge. _We can turn the water yellow. Or pink,_ he grins. Plus, they smell nice. Erik smells nice. Washing his hair means he has to move a bit in his lap, and that devolves quickly into moaning.  
  
He laughs, eyes bright at the thought. The thought that he can like things now, he can indulge in things now with Charles, it's safe and Charles is with him, his submissive is in his lap and digging his fingers into Erik's hair which makes him gasp and press his face up into Charles's hand, and then he's holding Charles down in his lap to give a good thrust that sloshes water over the sides, and that just makes him laugh more. _Yellow and pink,_ he decides abruptly.  
  
Charles gasps, eyes glazed over for a moment, because he very much wants to start bouncing in Erik's lap. Maybe Erik will let him once they're out of the bath. He very much wants to. He shakes his head to clear it, going back to his task. _Yellow and pink is a wretched combination,_ he teases. _Oh! You have proper clothes now._ Not that Charles wants him to wear them. He doesn't. _Please let me get you a pair of jeans that fits properly? And a tailored suit. For special occasions only, I promise. Oh, and a watch, and some shirts, perhaps those sweaters you love with better proportions for you..._ Charles wants to spoil him, too. To serve him this way now that he can. New shoes. And... He bites his lip, looking down shyly, but there's a huge smile on his face.  
  
Erik kisses his neck, shivering in delight at the idea that he can do all of this, now. He can wear what he wants, and do what he wants. It's a recognition of freedom in small movements, the comprehension that he can engage with all the silly trivialities that people take for granted. What to wear, what to eat, when to sleep, what hobbies to fill their time with. It's a whole world Erik remembers being frightened of when they put him in the back of that Escalade and took off his handcuffs and told him get out. But Charles wasn't there, and now he is and it's so much better. _Anything_ , he murmurs softly. _Anything you'd like. I want to try everything._  
  
 _I was thinking about..._ He's still biting his lip as he reaches for Erik's hand, but not so much to hold it as to raise it up so he can nuzzle against where his cuffs would be on his arm if he were wearing them. It still isn't at all a good idea to get him actual cuffs, but he should be wearing something. Charles wants that desperately. _I got to pick my own placeholder collar. You should get to pick your placeholder cuffs, too. Something that reminds you of me._ His other hand comes up to touch his collar at the mention, sighing happily. Exactly where it should be.  
  
That makes him shake his head all of a sudden, shyly, like he isn't certain it would be a good idea-not the cuffs themselves, because that goes without saying and is something Erik's been thinking about since he asked Charles to Bond with him in the first place, but-  
  
Charles blinks, trying not to feel disheartened. Erik isn't saying he doesn't want to wear them. He repeats that a few dozen times for himself so he doesn't cry, reaching out with soapy fingers to touch his cheek. _What is it, Erik?_  
  
He ducks his head a bit, nervous. _I was thinking you should pick them out. I want-it should be you. I want to wear something you chose._ The reminder of Charles couldn't be any clearer, something he's seen, something that represents how he feels to be Erik's submissive-Erik laughs a bit and nuzzles his hand. He has no idea if that's even traditional, but fuck tradition.  
  
Technically it is, and what I just suggested was non-traditional, he laughs, but now it's his turn to be uncertain. He squirms, forgetting, again, how they're connected, but even that can't distract him from the bit of cloying anxiety that's curled up in his stomach.  
  
Erik touches his face. _It's OK if you don't wish to. I would be happy to select something._  
  
 _No, it's_ \- He bites down on his lip, shaking his head.  
  
T _ell me_ , Erik says, but it's not surprising that like this, it's an Order.  
  
Charles sighs, resting against Erik's shoulder as he tries to make sense of his own thought process _. I just don't know what to give you. I've thought about it a lot. I wanted it to be sentimental, maybe, but it can't be obviously mine - no Xavier family crests,_ he snorts, because that's the last thing he wants to brand Erik with. _And the only piece of jewelery I have that's sentimental beyond my family is... well_. He laughs, embarrassed.  
  
Erik starts laughing. _You wouldn't want them to call me an X-Man? It could be good._  
  
 _Shush_ , he murmurs back, and scrunches his nose up. _That sounds awful, actually._ But his mind has wandered, quite far away. Not unpleasantly, but certainly drifting. Wondering. No one would look for a ring before cuffs, he mumbles, still embarrassed, face hidden in Erik's shoulder. He wouldn't wear it on his ring finger, either. It would be fairly inconspicuous. A ring that fits Charles will not fit Erik, but they have a mutation for that.  
  
 _I like that idea,_ Erik replies softly. _Do you have one? A ring? I would be honored to wear it._  
  
 _Yes_ , he mutters, and his face is red and he doesn't offer anything else, playing a game of Keep-Away with his thoughts again.  
  
 _You should know by now that I am not very good at keep-away,_ Erik smirks as he tugs on the coiled up edges of those thoughts and unravels them for himself. _Tell me about it.  
_

* * *

It's utterly embarrassing, but there's significance to it and he knows it. Honestly, he's surprised Erik hasn't seen the ring before; he normally wears it on his right hand, and has since he first bought it (even through - well), but he supposes the circumstances have been such that he wouldn't. It's pure platinum, and that wasn't going to fly past the highly sensitive metal detectors at the CIA. He'd just never thought to put it back on, and if he had the cast would make it difficult. Charles lets Erik see, yielding easily to his mental tugging: Charles, sweet sixteen, an ocean away from North Salem, New York with fresh bruises and forming scars to show for it and Kurt's influence still breathing down his neck.   
  
He'd been frustrated, angry, and perhaps a little petty, but with good reason. His stepfather had made it clear that he would allow for his little stint in England as long as he behaved himself like the submissive heir he was, as long as he returned for breaks and did as he was told. He'd had the ring made in his first week overseas, and just in time for his birthday, a present to himself. It's engraved with delicate, scripted Latin: _Non ducor, duco_.   
  
It's a phrase Dominants often cite to sound particularly fancy and, frankly, faux-intellectual about their own Will, and that Charles - that a submissive - had it engraved on a ring was absolutely an act of defiance.  
  
He was not a puppet of Kurt Marko, nor any other Dominant who crossed his path. He would not be cowed. He would never bend, never yield, never kneel. That he has, and that he's done it willingly? That he's realized being led isn't a weakness, and that he can still choose and follow his own path? That he's admitted that craving Dominance does not mean he is lifeless, weak, or without choice? That submitting does not equate to being used and exploited without consent? Passing the ring onto Erik means more than a generic piece of jewelry ever could, especially considering Erik's own past. Erik is in control over not only Charles, completely by Charles' own volition, but his own life. He leads, will lead, but Charles has also led himself here. He has chosen this path. He has not and will never be led mindlessly. He can still make change and choose. Erik will never take away his choice, and in the end it will always be his choice. That he'd made this promise to himself and still chose, completely willingly, to submit to Erik, to belong to Erik, to follow Erik is astounding even now. Charles hides in the aftermath, red-faced and nervous, shy, mumbling, _I know it's absurd. You don't have to wear it._  
  
When Erik finally sees it, he gasps, and clutches Charles tightly in his arms, burying his head in his submissive's hair while he lets out an unobtrusive sniff that's come to mean he's holding back real tears. It's not the first time he's cried in the Real with Charles, and now that they're undergoing the Pairbond imperative it's certainly happened without him even realizing it; but its not just mental anymore, the space between them where his mind can react in ways that his physical body has forgotten how. He crushes his eyes shut as they track down his cheeks and drip over his jaw to mix with the water they're still sitting in, and lets out a small laugh, kissing Charles on the top of the head. It's not the first time he's heard that phrase; Mr. Shaw liked to wear similarly engraved jewelry-the epitome of faux-intellectual and fancy if ever there were one-which somehow makes it more poignant instead of less. To take this symbol, this sigil, as a token of his Dominion over Charles, of his life as it is now, as the representation of them, of how far he has come into a world he never could have imagined possible. "I will wear it always," his voice is croaky from disuse and a bit muddled, but he wants this to be heard.  
  
Charles finds himself crying, too, waiting until Erik pulls away enough to lean up to kiss his cheeks, to rub his own against his. The movement reminds him of where they're connected all over again, and his eyelids flutter, that soft purring noise pulled from his lips again. "Thank you," he whispers back, shy but infinitely pleased. Glowing with it. It had meant more to him than he'd been able to articulate or even conceptualize, and that it means something to Erik too means the world to him. He'd been told before that it was silly by people who had perhaps meant well, but it had given him this. It had all led to here, in Erik's lap, Bonded. It's at my apartment, in that box on the nightstand. We can get it the next time we go over there. He wants to see it on Erik's finger. He knows it won't fit, but he has no doubts that Erik can adjust it properly.  
  
It doesn't take much for the ring to appear in the bathroom with them, and Erik holds out his hand, letting it rest in his palm reverently as though it's an ancient artifact instead of a simple piece of jewelry. With a touch, and with hope that this would be acceptable, the words shift from _Non ducor, duco_ to _אֲנִי מַנְחֶה ואֲנִי הֲלִיכָה_. Charles can read the transcription easily, _Ani manche ve'ani halicha_ , but the meaning doesn't transpose well. _I will guide and I will walk_ makes little sense until the concepts converge in Erik's mind. _I will lead and I will follow._ The word _follow_ , from the root _ה-ל-ך_ meaning to _walk_ , the same as _halacha_ , or _Way of Walking._   
  
Like everything about Erik it holds dual, even triple meaning. A small band of swirling, brilliant magenta streaked with bright pink and fuchsia unfolds through the center of the engraving and winds around the entire ring, and he lets it levitate in front of Charles, giving him a shy look of entreat. Something of them both, combined. That's what he wants. Together, not one oppressing the other. They will walk together. And that they both need for Erik to take a step behind and lead him in steady hand-it's representative of how far they've both come.  
  
Charles is definitely crying now. He sniffles with it, attempts to bite it back, but it comes out anyway. He wraps himself around Erik as firmly as possible as he sobs, letting it all out, body wracked with it. He's worn that ring as a promise and a curse for years. Carried it around with him as a sign of his own abnormality, the reminder that he would never be satisfied and that he shouldn't be. A lashing out at the people who had taken something from him, something others found joy and peace and love in, who taught him that submission meant twisting and eradicating fundamental, essential parts of himself, meant weakness and betrayal of his own values. And here they are, and it's transformed, just as everything is between them. Here they are, and - "It's beautiful," he whispers, the words hoarse and choked, muffled by Erik's neck again. He can't let go. "It's perfect. You're perfect, Erik. My darling, my Dominant. I love you." He wants to get out of this bathtub so he can show him how much, skin suddenly hot. He's fluttery and shy, but he wants.


	42. psychosomatic imagine having shadows swooping to sadness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _king lear: act 5, scene 3_ , shakespeare

As though led by Charles's internal wishes, but very much acting of his own accord, Erik switches off the tap and guides Charles up to his feet, retrieving a towel on the wall to dry him off slowly. I love you, he returns, soft and no less sincere. I am so proud to be your Dominant. He holds out his left hand for Charles to put the ring on; it would be less conspicuous on his right, but his fingers aren't able to stretch out properly for it. Besides, he likes the idea that it's on his left. It's not that obvious; if he wants to wear a ring, that's the hand it'd be on either way. He can't imagine he'll ever tire of telling people that _it's mine. I wanted it._ Regardless of the full story. Because it's the truth, from start to finish. _You are mine. I want you._

Charles sniffs again, more tears slipping down his cheeks, because he hadn't expected to be the one to put it on. They're out of the bath which means he's empty and uncomfortable, but there's only one thing he wants to do in this exact moment. Charles sinks down to his knees in one fluid, effortless motion, holding Erik's hand the whole time. He kisses each knuckle, reverent and loving both, before he slips the ring on. It fits perfectly, as it should, and he cries harder when he sees it. He's worn that ring, however altered it is, for more than ten years. Nearly every day. He knows instinctively that Erik can feel him inside of it, that he hums inside the metal, and now it's his just as Charles is. "I am yours. I want you," he whispers, and his voice breaks, but there's never been anything more true.

Erik slips his fingers into Charles's hair once it's on, the metal of the ring against his scalp as he cards his fingers through the wet strands. Beautiful. He is beautiful on his knees where he belongs, unashamed and loved. Erik thinks in that moment as he looks down that the whole world can go to hell. Nothing is strong enough to break them apart. Nothing will keep him from having Charles here. A grumble from his stomach, perhaps. Erik laughs. Come with me and we'll get some food to take back upstairs, he commands, crouching low enough to press a kiss to Charles's forehead. He plans on taking quite a bit with them, because he will not relinquish Charles from his bed for the foreseeable future.

"No!" It's not so much defiance as it is fear. Charles springs to his feet, wrapping his arms full around Erik's middle, burrowing into his chest. He plants his feet firmly into the bathmat he'd been kneeling on, as if that would somehow keep them grounded here _. Can't. They'll take you._ No. His mind is a panicked _hurts/but hungry/back to nest_.

 _They will not,_ Erik hushes him in a single silent command. He doesn't look like anything other than what he is in this moment, stark naked, vivid green eyes dilated to maximum and hair disheveled, every muscle stood out in contrast, coiled up, a viper ready to lash out and stance set, ready to toss away any incoming attacker to the side like a rag doll. _Safe with me/protect/mine/take care of you_ , he sends back a glow of low, possessive feelings tick-tocking with their pulse. He leads Charles downstairs, in front of him this time instead of behind, hand-in-hand, his natural instincts firmly in control. His gaze flits about to assess the area, tense and prepared.

Charles follows after him, flush against his back. Hiding again. There's no one in the kitchen, though, and Hank is dozing in the living room, likely still here to watch over them and assist if they need it. To keep them alive, honestly. It's Hank, one of his closest friends, but Charles still practically snarls. There shouldn't be another submissive around Erik. He curls around him, nuzzling into bare skin to soothe. Hurry, please, he begs, because he wants to go back upstairs as soon as possible. He wants to be in their nest, surrounded by their scent and pillows and their Bond.

Erik isn't even sure what he gets as he opens the fridge with his abilities and floats out just about everything he can see, and it follows them quickly back up to the room and spreads itself over their mattress as the sheet slides off and replaces itself quickly. Hank must have come up here during one of their reprieves and laid out a good bundle of them because there's plenty more where that came from, but Erik doesn't even consider it at this point. He's got everything laid out and he presses Charles back into the bed, surrounding him in trinkets and food and finally exhaling a relieved sigh. Mine, he rumbles contentedly.

* * *

Charles decides, rather suddenly, that he isn't hungry for food right now. He is, but it can wait. What can't is this. In a moment of boldness, he gently nudges Erik until he's on his back and settled against the pillows, as if he wants to curl up on his chest. He doesn't. He scoots backwards until he's straddling Erik's thighs instead, cheeks hot as he remembers what he'd wanted to do in the first place. He's empty and hurting again, and it would feel so good, but. Charles bites his lip, whining. _Can I... sir, can I..._ He brings his hands up to his face to hide it in the absence of Erik's chest or neck or shoulder, fiercely shy in this moment.

He brushes his thumb over Charles's bottom lip, already gazing at him with heated, half-lidded eyes _. Tell me what you want, Charles_ , the Order melts through them both, sizzling oil on a heated pan sliding all the way down Charles's spine, pooling in his belly. _Perhaps I'll allow it._ It's barely-magnanimous, more a dark, filthy promise.

He whimpers, peeking through his fingers. Those eyes can completely undo him under normal circumstances, but now they're molten, heated emerald and Charles feels it all twisting around in his belly. He can see the ring on Erik's finger, as if it were always there. As if it belonged there. "I want..." He swallows, scarlet as he holds back another whine. "I want you inside," he mumbles, barely a whisper, and it's true and the only way he can think to phrase it without bursting. He doesn't know what has him so shy when he was rather shameless just an hour or so ago, but he is. "Please?"

 _No, Charles,_ Erik growls at him. _Look at me and use your words. Tell me what you want._ There is no mistaking the spark of Order but at this point it's impossible for him to speak anything less, and especially now, when Charles is acting shy and fluttery and he has the opportunity to drag it out of him, expose him, make him verbalize all those filthy thoughts he's unused to expressing for anyone else but Erik, so many ways to know one another, so many ways Erik can stake his Claim. He's vibrating with it, eyes locked on Charles with nowhere to go.

Charles gasps, and this time he does whine, loud and strangled. He lets his arms drop down to his side and looks even though Erik's eyes make his skin burn hotter, even though he wants desperately to hide, to forget all this and climb back up and nuzzle into his neck so Erik can fuck away the hurt and he doesn't have to be embarrassed. But he does want this, he's just painfully shy about it. "I want -" He swallows, but the Order makes it impossible to not do as he's told. As he should. _When I tell you something to do it, you do it_ , and Charles squirms as he remembers his welts, the swish of the cane. It all slides right out after that, whether he wants it to or not. " _Iwanttofuckmyselfonyourcockpleasesir_." It comes out in a jumbled, barely coherent rush, and he feels like he might just combust from the embarrassment.

Erik lets out a pleased, satisfied hum from the depths of his chest and his Will unfolds even further, an impossibility and yet the deeper they go the more there is to uncover, to peel away and there's no end, no end to the dark, luxurious allure of Command that has him sitting up and dragging Charles closer to him-but not onto his lap. _Not yet._ It would be so easy to give in and give Charles what he wants, but Charles has to earn it. He dips his thumb between Charles's lips, smirking down at him. _You'll get what I give you. If you're good. Such a demanding, greedy boy. I'll give you something, because I am feeling charitable. Put that pretty mouth where it belongs. Suck me. Now._

The words leave him winded and spinning as much as a blow would, a startled, needy gasp parting his lips as he scrambles to obey. It feels like ages since he's had Erik's cock in his mouth, and he's filled with genuine gratitude, enough to cry, overwhelmed, as he bends to nuzzle against it, to kiss and lick at it. It's not what he asked for, perhaps, but the chance to prove himself, to please enough to be granted it, is enough to have him overcome with the need to do just that. He chokes as he tries to take as much of Erik as he can down his throat in one go, apparently not capable of it even now, but even through the burn of tears and the vague panic as he gags, he fights through it. He wants to make Erik proud. He's a greedy boy, but he's a good boy, too. He learned his lesson earlier. He's going to be so good. This is where he belongs, and he makes sure he rolls his eyes up so Erik can see them, filled with tears but also burning devotion.

It still surprises him how he can give an Order and have it be obeyed with such open, wanton desire that Erik is shaking, placing his hand over Charles's cheek, feeling himself in the hollow when Charles sinks down on him again and he groans, low and loud as his stomach tenses up and his eyes turn to slits. _Mine_ , he murmurs softly. _My beautiful boy. So good for me._ He slides his fingers up through Charles's hair and grips, hard, shoving him back down and fucking up into his throat, letting the sound of Charles gagging against him zip straight up to the back of his neck, making everything hot and electric. Erik isn't usually so free with his pleasure, but there's nowhere for it to hide as Charles draws it out of him, and he's panting quietly, cheeks flushed and sweat dripping down his shoulders, gasping as his legs spread a little more, tension loosing from his body into the more vulnerable position that sears through the air, humid and warm. Only Charles can see him this way, eyes fluttered closed, lashes long against his cheeks as he lets himself revel in this. His submissive servicing him, just as he's supposed to.

Seeing Erik reveling in his own pleasure when he hadn't even been willing to take it for its own sake in the beginning is what utterly devastates him. Charles moans, garbled around the cock fucking into his throat. He leans into the hand tugging at his hair, feels his ring rubbing against his scalp, feels the tears slipping down his own cheeks as he lets Erik guide him and serves as he's meant to. He sucks and licks as much as he can, follows Erik's thoughts as much as his hands and hips; if Erik likes something, he amplifies it tenfold, sucks harder, opens his throat more, swallows around him. When Erik groans again, louder than Charles has ever heard him, his own eyes roll back. It's unexpected, exactly how much it affects him, how it punches right through him. He loosens his throat, breathes harshly through his nose, and, incredibly, spurts come up against his own stomach. Besides the hand in his hair, there's nothing touching his own cock, not even the sheets. That he came entirely untouched because Erik was pleased is not lost on him, and he's red-faced and overwhelmed in the aftermath.

It's undoubtedly the most erotic thing Erik has ever seen and he cries out with it, an unconscious "-Unh, _G-d_ -" falling from his lips, eyes crossed and staring sightlessly right through him and he spills over, pulling himself out of Charles's mouth slick with spit and come and still furiously red and hard and he grabs Charles and drags him up to his lap, shoving his legs apart to bury himself inside, arms around him clawing down his back. Get up here, get up here- he's never-no one has ever-not for him-not because he mattered-his chest heaves through stuttered inhales as he desperately thrusts up into Charles's loosened, welcoming hole. _Mine-mine-this is mine-_ he spreads his palm over Charles's belly, draws streaks of his own release down his cheek, presses his own face against it and gasps sharply.

Charles has rarely seen Erik so worked up, and he's nothing if not responsive. "Ah - oh, oh, oh -!" He's free with his own noises now, not even biting on his lip as Erik slips all the way in him, all of his limbs loose from orgasm and his hole swallowing Erik up, greedy for it. He wants to make him feel good like this forever. He wants to serve him, to please him, to remind him that Charles is here for him. That he can do whatever he pleases with him, use him however he sees fit, and Charles will love it. Charles finds his footing, hands reaching up for Erik's shoulders, and he starts to bounce. His thighs ache with it, the sensation delicious and only further egging him on, and he bears down hard every time Erik thrusts up. The result is completely overwhelming, and would be entirely too much, but the overstimulation is perfect in this moment. He screams Erik's name at the top of his hoarse, overworked lungs as he comes again (the neighbors and poor Hank definitely heard that), and fucks himself right through it, whining and crying like he can't bring himself to stop, head thrown back, sweaty and shaking.

Good, _good_ they heard it, let everyone hear it-Erik's mind is blown away, a match to the gasoline of his thoughts obliterating every rational concept-Charles is his and he wants everyone to know it and he doesn't care who sees, who hears, good they know he is making Charles sound like this, only him, he is the only one who can make Charles submit make him beg make him scream-he doesn't stop when Charles tenses around him, keeps fucking him through it-come for me, come for me again, give me it again-let me hear you-let me hear you, sweetheart, let me hear you-Erik's filling him up again and he rocks Charles into it, clawing over those cane marks and he hates that he can't use his mouth because he'd flip Charles onto his belly and lick it right out of him until he came untouched again and fuck him until he gave up more of those delicious high-pitched whines and it's for him, his mind is dissolved and filthy and every whispered fantasy wraps Charles up with tendrils of Will and need-Charles desperate and flushed and writhing and beautiful for him, how could he ever believe his submission was wrong-gorgeous, he's stunning and Erik is captured like a fly in amber, lost in that azure gaze.

And he does. When Erik comes, filling him up, Charles' eyes go wide as saucers and he comes again, comes crying and screaming and bouncing on his cock, comes blinded by tears and clinging to Erik and scratching at his shoulders because it shouldn't be possible but it is and it's so much and so good and he can't breathe but he doesn't need to. All that matters is that Erik has him, that Erik is here, that Erik is praising him and loving him and owning him. When he manages to calm down, he's still shaking, toes curled and eyes crossed, lips parted. He slumps against Erik's shoulder, hiccupping out dry, hitched sobs, still clawing at him to keep himself steady as he sits down on his cock. Erik's come is leaking out of him again, despite being plugged inside, and he whines, distressed and concerned. His solution is to catch it with his hand and bring it up to his lips to lick it off, sighing contentedly, purring against Erik's chest. Not a drop wasted, and Charles moans when he sucks the last bit into his mouth as if he's been fed his favorite sweet.

Erik's eyes are locked on him wildly and he wonders as his heart skips and thuds loud enough to roar out his nervous system, if Charles is literally going to fucking kill him and he shudders out a laugh, pressing closed-mouth kisses to his cheek where he's messy from come and sweat and Erik and he scritches his nails down Charles's back, over the deep claw marks he's left there without conscious thought. Marked and owned and kept in his place. Look at you, he murmurs lowly. Look how much you love being mine. He pulls out just a bit to feel himself press back in where Charles is slippery and hot and ready for him, even now ready for him, he should always be ready for him, he should always be in Erik's bed Erik should always be fucking him, biting him, Claiming him-he should always be blissed out and happy and cared-for and Erik loves him so much if the sight of him licking Erik's come off of his own fingers-Erik shivers, hips snapping upward as that threatens to undo him again-didn't kill him then surely the weight of his absolute adoration very well might.

Charles does. He adores Erik, with everything he has, looks at him like he hung the sun and the stars and the moon in the sky, like he is the reason the world turns. He smiles brightly at the praise, dimpled and sweet, nuzzles into Erik's shoulder and kisses where he'd scratched him earlier, deep red lines from his nails. He would think it was in apology, but he's decidedly not sorry about them, and Erik doesn't seem at all upset to have a few more marks. I do. I love being yours, he purrs, and is about to ask for more, to beg nicely for it, when his stomach growls insistently. He turns bright red, ashamed as he hides, an embarrassed laugh drawn out of him. He peeks up at Erik, a soft, mischievous grin on full, swollen red lips. Chocolate? he asks, as if he can live on fruit and chocolate alone. He should, honestly. Fruit and chocolate by Erik's hand, in between helpings of his come. The thought only flusters him more, all of that shameless heat fucked out of him and replaced with shyness again. No shame, though. Not even an ounce, even as he fidgets in Erik's lap with embarrassment at his own lewdness.

Erik can't help pressing his lips to Charles's, chaste out of necessity but lingering, long, body to body so he can transmit the full force of his love and devotion through touch alone. He loves it when Charles loses himself enough to be properly filthy, and it zings up between them even now, but he lets out an amused puff of air over Charles's lips as he pulls back slightly and snaps a container over to his hand out of the veritable nest he's made between them. Full of food and jewelry and clothes and gifts and pretty things, all that Charles should be surrounded by. Open up, he murmurs fondly, picking up a flaky triangular pastry and holding it out for Charles. He made them a couple of days ago and boxed it up, _bourekas_ made with _phyllo_ with _za'atar_ , fluffy potatoes and sesame seeds that Hank and Raven snatched up in a heartbeat, but they're light and filling and store well.

* * *

Charles sighs happily as he opens up as he's told, moaning at the taste of food. Unlike usual where his appetite is rather dulled, eating a chore he has to force himself into, he's starving now. It helps that the food itself is delicious, and he settles, content and positively spoiled, against Erik as he's fed. _You really do enjoy cooking,_ he murmurs, thankful that he can talk without doing it with his mouth full. He's unwilling to stop eating, but he also has manners. _I'd ask you to teach me, but I truly think I'm beyond help_ , he grins, sheepish. _My cooking results in explosions and injuries._

He grins, a mental twinge accompanied by a soft smile as he lets Charles lick away the crumbs from his fingertips. _I do,_ he agrees, content. _My father taught me how to cook. They're called bourekas. They're Greek, where he is from. He made aliyah when he was nineteen,_ Erik says, and for once the sharp pains that accompany thoughts of his family are soothed by the simple fact that he's sharing some of his history with Charles; a gift he didn't think he'd ever get back, being able to see the joy without the suffering. _All of his family are from Salonika, but after the war, they went back to Athens and he was raised there. So he actually spoke a lot of Ladino, which I never got to learn, regrettably._ He picks up another one to feed Charles while he's talking, equally grateful that they can have this kind of conversation unencumbered.

 _There's always time,_ he reminds Erik, because there is. Endless time, now, or as endless as their lifespans will allow. Time to learn, and reclaim, and renew. Time to explore and reflect. There's so much for them to do, together and separate but always connected, and it thrills him. _Was he tall, your father?_ He wonders, an idle curiosity. He's seen Erik's father, but not... well, not beside Erik as an adult, obviously, and the scale of things is sometimes skewed in memories. Things seem larger or smaller based on perception. Erik's mother wasn't tall, he's learned, but Erik is his mountain man, so perhaps it comes from somewhere. Charles' mother is fairly average - 5'4, he's only a few inches taller - but his father been nearly 6'0. He clearly did not take after him much in that department.

Erik's eyes crease, gentle. *He was very, very tall. I am taller now, but he was about 6'3 or so. He was S3.5, my mother was the Dominant in our household," he has to laugh at that. He reached the top of Ima's shoulder by the time he was nine, and she could still bark an Order that cowed Erik and scattered Ruthie and _Aba_ to the opposite side of the house.

Charles hums in between a bite of food, pleased to know more. To learn more, to understand more. He wants to know everything about Erik, but he's in no rush. They have the rest of their lives for it. _Tell me more?_ he asks, gentle but coaxing, but not at all demanding. If it becomes too difficult for Erik, or he needs a change of subject, Charles is more than happy to move onto something else. There are plenty of other things he wants to know, and plenty of things to tell, if Erik would prefer that for the moment.

He kisses the top of Charles's forehead, doing an inventory on himself and discovering that the usual horrified-tension of grief isn't as strong under his skin as it usually is, and maybe that's the Bond, or where they are, but it's like a snowglobe, like pieces of his family are falling all around him silently, careful and undisturbed and shielded by brilliant glass from the agony. Precious moments encased and kept safe by Charles. He's unused to talking about himself, though, and it shows; the information a bit shy when it comes. _She was a very high-Dom, actually, D4.7. I think I got my Indication from her._ A person's genetic Indication was how many Dominance-oriented chromosomal mutations one could display on the range of S1 up to D5, the more Dominant Indications a person has, the higher on the scale they go. Erik has all of them, Charles has none of them. _But she was like me. She didn't like to give Orders unless she had to, or to my father only._

Charles feels... he bites his lip, and before Erik can feed him again, he curls up into his chest, swallowing hard and shutting his eyes tightly. He's silent and still. Please, go on, he urges, not wanting Erik to stop, wanting desperately to hear, but even his mental voice is thick with emotion he's trying to keep muted.

Erik shakes his head. _Please don't hide from me._

 _I'm not hiding,_ he says, but he supposes that technically he is. Not for his own sake. It's hot, sick shame that floats to the surface eventually, pinging between them, and Charles can't look at Erik right then.

 _I am sorry, I did not mean to dredge up something painful._ A twinge of sympathetic guilt crops up at that. There's not a whole lot Erik finds he can give to Charles that isn't marred with some sort of sorrow or another. He wishes he could surround Charles with all the love he knew as a child, to show him that there was something more that he deserved, to induct Charles into his own family and give him everything he'd missed, but even if he could, it would still be-he shakes his head again. Forgive me.

Charles shakes his head, because that wasn't at all what had happened, and now his own guilt threatens to suffocate him. He still can't look up. _No, it's not - please don't apologize for sharing this with me. Please don't stop. I want to know._

Erik shakes his head again. _Tell me,_ he Commands softly.

He keeps his eyes closed. _I can't look at her. She keeps coming to me, helping me, and it's so hard to even look at her, Erik. She's with us, and I can't even_ \- It's too painful, and utterly, completely selfish of him. He wants to know her. He wants to love her, he already does, the way Erik did. The way Erik still does. But he can't look at her, and it makes him sick thinking about it.

He crushes his eyes shut and puts his head on top of Charles's, holding him close. His reaction to it isn't evident, a confusing miasma of disjointed clenching tension he can't pin down. _I didn't know_ , he whispers, gentle still _. I'm sorry._

 _Why are you sorry?_ The last thing Erik should be is sorry. He should be disgusted with Charles, angry with him. He waits for that reaction, wondering if it's a few seconds delayed, and realizes after a moment that he's crying, his shoulders shaking.

It's not like he doesn't know the feeling. She came to him many times over the years, in his peripheral vision, half-remembered dreams and hallucinations, more painful experiences he can't consider right now or he'll take a hard dive right off the deep end in the middle of what should be a joyous time for them. If he knew how to stop her from appearing, how to stop Charles from feeling this pain, he would do it. He knows; how could he not know? The image of someone who was a proper mother, who-regardless of whether she is Real, would have undoubtedly loved him like a son. Like his mother was supposed to. Erik would cut out any part of him that makes Charles unhappy without a moment's hesitation, just tell him what to do and he'll do it. Please.

She's always wearing white. Perhaps it's a strange observation to make, but it's followed by images that tell otherwise. All of his own mother's favorite dresses are white. Sharon Xavier-Marko has a clear preference for white, something he's shared with Erik before, something he's seen now in person; white dresses, white furniture, white teeth. She fussed endlessly over her teeth, else how would she smile so disarmingly? Even after all that alcohol. After his father's death, she'd replaced warm, worn brown-leather with white upholstery covered by plastic. There was not a summer gone by where she did not wear a flowy white sundress, white high heels and expensive, white designer sunglasses. Erik has his mother's eyes. Charles has his mother's, too. _I would never ask that she stop, and I can't express how grateful I am, how - how humbled..._ But he can't look at her and not see his own mother staring down at him with her pinched face and her upturned nose, tutting, _Really, Charles, don't be silly, dear._ He can't help but be nine years old again, hearing his mother's thoughts for the first time and realizing that she did not love him the way a mother should love a son. That she never could. And still, every time he sees her, he waits. He hopes. For a glimpse, for an inkling, for a thought beneath the surface that vaguely resembles maternal affection, not the mockery she plays of it. He never finds it.

Erik doesn't respond-can't respond, the sudden surge of images in his own mind such a stark contrast to the sterile, heartless rendition in Charles's memory that he struggles to take in oxygen for several moments. In life, his mother preferred earthy tones, flowers and silly prints and swishy, flowing fabrics, many sewn by her own hand, but-he can't, he just can't go there, he can't go there-he's seen her in white, too-always in white. For _tachrichim_ she never got. For the 10th of _Tishrei_ , when he was born. A representation of loss and life and light. _I'm sorry,_ he gasps out. If she were Real. If she were there. Erik knows that she loves Charles. There is no other possibility. _If she knew- if she knew, she wouldn't-if she knew the pain she caused, he is certain she wouldn't-_

Charles shakes his head, and he stamps it all down. All of the sadness, all of the longing, all of the aching, stretching pain, the musings of _if I had only been a better son, perhaps_ \- because it has no place here. He should not cry tears over the mother who never wanted him. She did not change his diapers, rock or sing him to sleep, feed him. She left it to strangers, held him only when necessary. A family photograph, posed and formal. Charles is chubby-cheeked and fuzzy-haired in her arms, dressed in a ridiculous outfit, held away from her body as if she is disgusted by the mere thought of him touching her. As if he is a strange prop she was given to hold, and not her year old son. They both look distinctly uncomfortable, as if Charles could already sense her complete and total disinterest, her disdain. It's hung on a wall in the manor. People look at it and say, what a lovely family. He shakes his head again, choking. _I don't want that,_ he whispers. _For her to stop appearing to me. I want to know her, Erik. I want that very badly. It doesn't matter. I don't hurt over it anymore._ He does, as much as he shouldn't. He does, nearly every day. He wonders what he could have possibly done wrong. What he could have done right, what he could still do, to make her love him.

He kisses Charles's cheek. _Stop that,_ he murmurs. _Every part of you has a place with me. Don't you dare shove it down for my benefit. I want all of you, not just the polite bits. Just like you wouldn't ask that of me._ It isn't fair, that Erik got that kind of love where Charles didn't, and he so desperately wishes he would have heard it when Charles cried out to him all those years ago-why didn't he hear it? Why didn't he respond? Why didn't he know? Charles is his submissive, he should have been there to take care of him, to hold him and love him. How he deserved. And he is allowed. Erik is the one who decides what is allowed, here, what he wants, he has that choice, now. He can choose what he wants. That is what freedom means. Charles does hurt over it, and he should hurt over it, and as painful as it is Erik accepts all of that pain with just as much reverence as the light and love. He doesn't know how to make Edith go away. She will always be part of him, she will always be connected to some strand, some wayward thought, and if he can just find those pieces and cut them out so Charles doesn't hurt he wouldn't be a person anymore; he knows he wouldn't be anything that Charles recognizes, so what can he do? How can he take care of Charles? How can he breathe? _I know you do not doubt that I love you, so do not doubt it, Charles. If you say I am not a twisted being of rage and horror, then trust in my love. Use that beautiful mind of yours and see what I see._ He strokes Charles's face.

Charles sniffles quietly, and he shakes his head. _I don't doubt that you love me, Erik. I don't doubt that for even a second._ He occasionally doubts that he is deserving of that love, but not usually, and not in this moment. Before Erik, he did not doubt that he was loved, either. He saw it in Raven, in Warren, in Hank. Charles has felt lonely, as if he is outside of all things, perhaps, but he hasn't questioned that he is, indeed, loved. It's just that - She's my mother, Erik, he whispers, and something in him breaks. It's held together by Erik, by the strength of their Bond, but it still shatters between them. She is my mother. She's supposed to - isn't she? _I know she only had me because she felt obligated, but even so..._ Other mothers have testified to holding their children in their arms for the first time and falling in love, even unexpectedly. He has seen that reflected in their minds, the wonder as they looked upon their newborn children, and Charles knows it was absent. He sobs. _Why doesn't she love me, Erik? Have I truly been such a horrible son?_

He puts his head on Charles's shoulder and rocks him back and forth gently. Images of sunflowers and dandelions, fields of them swaying in the breeze, puffs blown off by the wind and sailing on the air. _She is broken, Charles. It was never you. You were never going to fix her. Some people are just broken. I wish there was a better answer._ And he had searched for one. If he could've just done the right things, been the _right_ kind of good, maybe Mr. Shaw would have loved him, too, would have treated him with respect; wouldn't have burned every last shred of his humanity in horrific concert. _But some people are broken, whether by nature or experience. Some people go over the line and can never be brought back. And I know it is so painful to look at Ima and realize all the things you didn't have. But you do have them, in her. I don't know how she is here or what is Real, but I know that she would have loved you as fiercely as you can see. That is what you deserved. What you still deserve._  
  
"I still love her," he mumbles, muffled into Erik's shoulder as he is rocked, but it's his voice, raspy and full with emotion. He hasn't said it in quite a while, because he hasn't been certain the sentiment still stands, but he realizes in this moment that it does. That he has cut himself off from it to survive the reality, but that it is still there. That the boy who tucked his mother into bed after she became too drunk to stand and cleaned her sick from the floor is still here. He would pet her hair, whisper Sleep now, Mother and pretend that she was holding him when she became limp in his arms, consciousness dragged out of her. That boy grew into a teenager who cried out for his mother to help him and then cried harder because she did not come, and a man who kisses her cheeks at parties and checks her mind to see if she's been drinking too heavily, herding her with mental nudges to drink water between glasses of wine and tumblers of whiskey. I still love her. I do. Charles understands his mother too much not to love her. A gift and a curse. _I don't despair because I have love I was not given, Erik. I'm overjoyed. I only wish_ \- He will never stop looking at Sharon Xavier-Marko and thinking, _please. Please, Mother, just look at me. I am your son. I am your only son. Doesn't that mean something?_ He reaches for his mother's hand as his father's body is lowered into the ground, and she turns away from him. _We are in public, Charles_ , she reminds him, and he sucks up his tears and forces a smile. Exactly the way she taught him.

 _I do not think anyone could expect you not to love her_ , Erik says, soft. Certainly he doesn't. It's never as simple as to say someone should or shouldn't love another. There are many people in his own life that any rational human being, Charles himself would say he should not love. From the outside they can only see the suffering caused; when you're on the outside you can't see the struggle, the push-pull, the desire for a void to be filled so strongly, the briefest glimmer of possibility, the roles that are played and should be played. Erik just hopes that his own mind won't become a place of pain for Charles, because that's the one thing he doesn't think he can cut out without destroying himself entirely. The one thing no one could take from him, no matter how hard they tried, no matter how many ways they mangled him up and twisted his soul. They're always there, standing over his shoulder, every last one of them. Every life, on top of his own, carried from now until the end. _Finde deine Kraft, kleiner Erik. Sie bedeuten nichts. Wischen Sie diese ekelhaften Tränen ab._ He shakes his head. _What is worth learning, we teach each other. That is what I know.  
_

* * *

Erik's mind has never been a place of pain, even in its darkest corners. Charles would no sooner ask Erik to rid himself of those parts than Erik would ask Charles to, and he finds them beautiful in the same way Erik does the darker parts of him. Something overcomes him, then. A desire pulled up from the depths, heat on his skin, but not in the same way it has been. Perhaps, though. It's all the same beating heart. Charles looks up with tears in his eyes, and he gently slips out of Erik's arms. It's so horrifically uncomfortable to be separated. It hurts, more than he'd expect after all the time they've spent sating it, and he nearly breaks because of it. He lies on his back, scratches and welts pressed into the sheets and pillows as he whimpers quietly, and he bites his lip. He looks up at Erik with bright azure, with unequivocal devotion and love, however shy, eyelashes clinging to tears, and he spreads his legs, slowly, thighs trembling. It's terribly _gauche_ , to say it the way his mind conjures it up. To think _please make love to me_ , but he knows the feeling comes across without the, perhaps unfortunate, wording. "Please, Erik," he whispers.

Erik moves with him, unable to stand being separated for even a moment, the twin motions like a dance, following where Charles leads _. I will guide and I will follow._ A great jumble of emotions pours out of him then, water poured between two glass jugs endlessly filling, in the spaces where the breath of soul can't touch. Erik is _good_ at _sex_. He knows this, it's what he's trained for, there's very _little_ about it that's mysterious to him. He can read people in a heartbeat, dig in and down and build up and uncover every desire, every dark whim, and play on it until they're stretched out like a violin string on a note-sustain.   
  
It's not a secret he's kept from Charles, but it is something he's tried to keep from Charles-to be less _that_. To reach him from himself instead of putting on a show, but Charles is his heart and soul and it's not difficult to pick apart the pieces that are on display, that he falls into on rote because he's twenty-seven years old and he doesn't know anything else, never learned anything else-never learned to make a sound or let himself fall apart until now.   
  
Firsts don't always mean the same thing-and he remembers the first time, the first time it had been Charles's first time, how overcome he'd gotten to the point of hiding his face, because he can't give that to Charles. He can't erase everything that's come before, but this-and he's not cultured enough to even comprehend how _gauche_ the wording is, taking the request at pure face value-is not something he knows. He lays his hand over Charles's cheek, and comically echoes what Charles once thought to him; _will I be good enough? Will I be enough?_ He hopes he's shown Charles that he loves him, but he also knows he's more comfortable with desire than-eye-roll, he's overthinking it, because of course he is, because that's what he's trained to do. To analyze, hold some fraction of himself apart to ensure things go smoothly, to catalogue and orient and control.   
  
He throws away his thoughts instead, afraid they'll burn Charles to the touch, make him flinch away or conjure up images that have no place here-and goes between his thighs instead, pulling up one of his legs to position himself better and pressing their foreheads together, their lips, as much as he's able, touching with his fingers where he isn't. _Yes, Charles. I love you,_ he whispers back. No matter how twisted, how mired up in old circuits, he can be kind to Charles.

Charles does not know sex, by contrast. He has had sex, before Erik - his first time was not his first time, and even barring what he does not want to acknowledge in this particular moment, sheets sunk down in the lake by rocks, he has had sex before. Not this type of sex, and even then it was incredibly limited experience considering the circumstances, but he's had it. His knowledge, even so, is limited. He is shy with it, fluttery, his belly twisting up in anticipation every time they try something new. He has fantasies pent up for years now, things he is curious about, things he longs to try, to have done to him, and he is eager and willing to learn.   
  
There is so much he would like Erik to teach him, to pull from him, to act out on his body. So, no. Charles does not know sex, and perhaps that means he is not yet good at it. But he does know what it is to love. When Erik is inside of him, when he has found a slow, even rhythm, one that has him moaning softly, he reaches for Erik's cheek. He cups him there, gently, waits until the sky meets the ocean in their eyes, and he opens up. He projects in a way he knows Erik has never experienced before. In a flash of images neither jerky nor disorienting, he snapshots every moment they've had together, displaying them not only in Erik's mind but in every corner of this room, surround sound where the screen is every facet of their consciousness, everything else nudged out of the way. From first words to first touch, the first time Charles kneeled, the first time they kissed, the first time they said they loved each other.   
  
Every time they persevered, every fight they've had and every time they worked through it with respect and love and building trust. Charles being collared, Erik putting on his ring just an hour ago. Their Bonding vows, the city a blur of brilliant lights beneath them. Every tap on the nose and peal of laughter and kiss, every time they cried and broke and put each other back together. Charles unfurls it all for Erik to see, drenches them both in love so utterly consuming that it drowns them in it, the world fading out until they are the world. The only thing in it and the one thing it is made of. _I love you, Erik,_ he murmurs, and cries, because perhaps Erik has had sex. Perhaps they both have. It will never have been like this.

For all that Erik hates the water, he relishes drowning now. He turns his head to kiss at Charles's fingertips, puts his hand on his hip to guide him forward and draw it out. Going slowly, being gentle, shedding the armor of deep-dark thoughts that threaten to rise above because-and they do exist in him, it's not to say that everything that's come before has been an act, because it's all part of the same whole; but this part is something that he's thought atrophied and discarded before it ever had a chance to flourish. The part that can be good and kind and gentle, the part that can focus on simple sensation in basic motions, the part that isn't a call to response but a bridge making way for both pieces connected at the start. For every time Charles has stood up for him, for every time he's made Charles laugh or smile or see a different perspective, one where he is loved and cherished and protected above anything else, for every second they spend beside one another in the Real, shoulder-to-shoulder, for every time they've met one another in those darkened rooms and brought light and happiness instead, because in the end, like recognizes like.  
  
There's little in the way of acknowledgment that Erik doesn't grasp, and it's led them here. Survived and built anew. There is nothing in their combined history that approaches what they've made together, combined. Nothing that ever was or will ever be like this. Erik will show him everything he's ever dreamed of or ever questioned or ever had a fleeting thought about, with pleasure, with brilliant joy. What is worth learning, they teach each other. They meet one another in blind spots and cross through the ravines, over dried-out lakes and pits of ash. The bright, green places watered by sunlight. _I will do such things,/What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be/The terrors of the earth./Come, let’s away to prison;/We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage:/When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down/The oldest hath borne most: we that are young/Shall never see so much, nor live so long./The wheel is come full circle: I am here._ "I love you," he smiles back.

None of it was an act, and to say so would be the gravest of mistakes. Not a game, or roles being played out for the sake of being filled. It never was with them, and it never will be. There is nothing more Real about this, nothing that changes anything, because it is all, in the end, the same. The same soul, the same heart, the same whole. What they've made together, and what will always be. There is nothing turned off here, as Charles would perhaps think not too long ago. There is nothing packed away. Everything is exactly how it was, exactly how it always is. The same beating heart. The same love. Theirs. He cries when Erik smiles at him, works his own hips to meet each thrust inside of him, not with urgency or desperation but with longing to be connected, to be touched and wanted and kept. To be cared for and protected and loved. Loved so, so deeply. When he comes this time, it is not with a scream. It's untouched saved for the rub against Erik's stomach, but it isn't Earth-shattering. It is slow, and drawn out, whispered in a gasp and a sigh against Erik's lips, however chaste the kiss must be. It's in the way his eyes flutter, the way he murmurs Erik's name, the way every part of him oozes with love. He wraps his arms around Erik, then his legs, keeping him inside, and he smiles. "My darling," he whispers. "My Dominant, my love. My Erik." What an extraordinary life we have. Could you ever have imagined it?

The way it hits him is just as intense, just as captivating as if he'd wrenched it from Charles beneath him in Claim, and in its way it is just as Claiming, if not moreso because everything has been stripped away. Every action, every urge, every thought and spoken desire melted down, precious metals converted to liquid and reformed in the shape of the ring at his left hand where he rubs it against Charles's cheek, laughs for seeing it because it is on him a Claim of its own, a marker of where he belongs. The memories rise up quite suddenly; dreams of floating in an ocean connected like little otters by tiny hands, laying on their backs, looking up at the sun and the glittering sea surrounding them. Chasing after him on sandy beach shores and flicking him with sand, shouting and grinning until his cheeks hurt from it. A submissive he called his own, a nameless entity who loved him, who held him and wrapped him up in soft blankets and stood fiercely in front of him and who he would rip apart the world for. Who loved him. Caught you! tugging on his arm, falling into the lines of coasts and staring down into brilliant azure. _I'm three months older than you. No, you're only two. You've only been alone for two months._ He never could have imagined it. He should have. He should have known.

When Charles laughs, it shakes right through them. He has to gasp a bit for air, something between a sob and a giggle caught in his throat. He covers Erik's hand with his, tugs it until it rests over his collar, the metal of the ring glinting over the tropical waters. "You owe me," he tells Erik, and grins despite the tears in his eyes, biting on his lip to stop it trembling. "For those two months. I was alone in this world for two whole months, you jerk, and I expect to be compensated properly for it." It's so completely silly, and Charles takes his free hand, cast and all, and bops Erik's nose.

Erik grins back, another mental twinge, curling his fingers over Charles's cheek. _I will spend the rest of my life making up for it,_ he promises, all solemn sincerity even amidst the silliness. His nose wrinkles when it's touched, dozens of freckles spreading out with the motion.

That catches Charles' attention. He whines, tugging insistently on Erik until he's closer, until he can kiss all over his face, every last freckle, every inch of skin, careful of the bruised, sore places, but giving them attention all the same. _Can I ask you something,_ _Erik_? he breathes.

 _Always_ , he returns back immediately, eyes bright and warm.

 _Are you aware,_ he begins, and his grin splits his face exactly as it did when he was a child, dimples taking over, eyes wide and clear and vivid, stretching out like the sky, _That you have the cutest nose in existence? The absolute cutest nose to ever grace this planet? Or any planet, if there are planets inhabited by creatures with similar noses to us. You would beat them, too._

Erik snorts a laugh, and ducks his head self-consciously when he realizes that his nose wrinkles up again with it, a boyish gesture he's never grown out of even now. _Flattery will get you everywhere,_ he smirks, touching that dimple that manifests in Charles's cheek fondly. He can't think of any other point in time where he's really felt good about himself than these moments with Charles, where Charles finds him desirable, that make him pleased to be exactly what he is. _You make me so happy. Do you know? Do you feel?_

Charles bites his lip, everything threatening to overwhelm him again. _Yes, I do know, actually. It's exactly how happy you make me._ He's still grinning, giddy and soft and floating, and then something flashes in his eyes. It takes a bit of effort and he knows for a fact it would not be possible if Erik did not facilitate it, but he flips them over until he's on top again. Erik's slipped out a little, but no matter. Charles sinks right back onto him, moaning even as he giggles and looks down at his Dominant with that teasing, mischievous grin. _Pinned you! I win, I'm afraid. It's because I'm three months older._

Erik arches right up underneath him, gasping and locking eyes with him, and sliding his hand down Charles's back to settle against his ass and pull him closer, smiling back with a slight huff. You win, he concedes, full to bursting of incredible fondness that threatens to sear him from the inside out. _Whatever shall you do with your prize?_


	43. they told me it's for my own good/my voices up on my shoulder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _i love you to the moon and back_ , tim warnes

Charles' cheeks flush, but he stays grinning and delighted. This, he declares, and proceeds to ride Erik for all he's worth, moaning loud enough for all to hear. It's a blur of pleasure and joy and love and deep, carnal desires, of Dominance and responsive submission after a while. By the time Erik flips him over and bids him Present, he's incoherent and whimpering again, begging and pleading and murmuring please, sir, please. He doesn't know how many more times he comes, how many more times Erik does. They stop to eat and wash again, to do other necessary, human things between them, and by then Charles is burning and Erik is growling again and back they go.  
  
When he wakes, Erik still inside him but soft, slipping out of him when he shifts, Charles whines with what little voice he has left. It's not that he's in pain. On the contrary, his body seems to be glowing, renewed, healed in ways it wasn't before all this. When he rolls his ankle, there's not a twinge. He is, however, sore. There's an ache there indicative of being fucked silly for - what time is it, anyway? What day? He's aware of more things now. They're covered in come and scratches, Erik in several more bite marks and what amount to hickeys, him with a red ass and welts and rather vicious claw marks, all that he loves dearly, but he hadn't taken inventory before. They've accumulated more pillows, more trinkets. The room absolutely reeks of sex, and while the scent isn't nearly as offensive as it should be, it's also slightly more intense than it was in the heat of passion. Charles murmurs softly and curls into Erik, smiling. _Good morning_ , he greets, groggy and sleepy and shy, uncertain if it actually is morning.  
  
Erik. is. conked _out_. He rolls over when Charles finally blinks his eyes open and pulls him back on top, only to realize that he's cognizant and the first thing he notices is he's soft for the first time in G-d knows how long, and he raises his hand to his chest to find the wires and tubing that should be there aren't, even though there's a slight ache that indicates they were very recently, which would mortify any other reasonable human since obviously Hank had tended to him while he was whatever that was, but shame is one thing Erik's always lacked in this arena. It can't be that far ahead, they're still in the room and he's not in prison so somehow, someway they've managed to avoid the wrath of the TSO, although that's the furthest thing from Erik's consciousness as he finally cracks his eyes open. Hi, Erik blinks up at him, smiling. His nose wrinkles when he gets a good whiff of the room and he snorts a laugh. They're a little ripe. The curtains on the window are drawn, but sunlight is streaming through as dawn breaks into day, casting golden stripes across the nest that is their bed.  
  
 _How do y - oh, my goodness._ Charles buries his face in Erik's chest, hoarse, embarrassed laughter filling the place between them, and it's clear that he's blushing because even his ears are bright red.  
  
 _Adorable_. Erik brushes his hair. _I think we owe Hank a new mattress._  
  
 _Mhmmmmm_ , is what he comes back with, agreeing (a new bed in general, it's creaking and that's saying something considering... considering), but he absolutely refuses to lift his head and notice what he did a few moments ago. He tentatively sends an image over, tinged with utter mortification and a sense of satisfaction he currently refuses to admit to: Erik's neck. It looks like it's been mauled, broken skin and indents of teeth and deep purple. Either Charles did it or there was a very enthusiastic vampire in here who got more than their fill.  
  
 _Uh oh,_ Erik huffs, a great deal more pleased about this scenario than he had any right to be considering that his neck likely resembled beef jerky. He reaches up and traces his fingertips over the marks, content and humming. _Never let it be said that I do not give as good as I get,_ he points out, tapping Charles's shoulder and drawing a nail down his back.  
  
Charles would never have said that. He groans, fully aware that he looks like he's been attacked by some kind of wild animal (and he's very pleased about it). And that's just the scratches. I'm not sitting down, he decides, speaking of the rest of it, because - it's not bad pain, really. It's actually the most delicious pain he's ever felt in his life, but it's sore as hell nonetheless. Ever. Chairs are now my sworn enemy.  
  
Erik smiles at him. _Come on_ , he sits up and holds out his hand. I have the remedy for that. And no, it isn't hair of the dog. Erik's eyebrows waggle playfully, but Charles can make out impressions of _steam/shower/relax_ in his mind. He may be lucid again, but he won't ever be rid of the urge to care for his submissive, and they're rearing up now.  
  
 _I am absolutely not moving,_ he huffs, pouting impressively because Erik removed himself. Charles crosses his arms over his chest, and in the end moves anyway, his legs shaky and jelly-like and barely holding him up. Fine, he'll go, but he'll be grumpy about it.  
  
 _Come on, cranky-pants,_ Erik smirks at him and takes his hand, leading him into the bathroom, supporting his weight when necessary. In the light they both look like they've been mauled respectively, and Erik lets out a mental whistle of approval when he catches himself in the mirror.  
  
 _Stop that,_ Charles demands, because now he's bright red again and has to cover his face with his hands to avoid looking at both Erik and the mirror. _This is all your fault, you know. You and your hyper-Dominant urges,_ he huffs. Okay, Charles. It takes two to tango, and he definitely was not, at any point, nor will he ever, complain seriously. In fact, he's going to spend the rest of his life reveling in those hyper-Dominant urges.  
  
 _I do not seem to recall doing this to myself,_ Erik's eyebrows raise, expression bright as he leads Charles into the shower, wrapping arms around him. _But I certainly will not cede blame to anyone else._  
  
Charles peeks through his fingers, which are still covering his face even as the shower turns on. _I had to, or every old submissive on the street would want you for themselves and they can't have you because you're my Dominant and that's that._ Perhaps that's leftover from the whole Bonding process, but Charles actually feels it, too. Not to the point where he's about to go around snarling at other submissives again, thank goodness, but to the point that it will always be true. Too bad, so sad. No one else ever gets you again but me. He's the one who belongs kneeling at Erik's feet and by his side. Charles smiles at the reminder.  
  
 _And you call that sad?_ Erik smiles at him, beginning to tend to the claw-marks and scratches on his visible skin tenderly. He's relieved to discover that he doesn't start snapping and snarling himself at the idea that there could be any other submissive but Charles-as much as he's enjoyed this Bonding process, it's pleasant to feel like himself again. Himself, but more. Himself with Charles by his side. Pleasant indeed.  
  
Charles snorts. _I'm sorry, are you claiming that wasn't you? Because I'm very certain it was._ In fact, considering all of the bursts of them that broke through even under the influence of what amounted to a heady chemical mix of hormones and biological imperatives, he's impressed. They were far from mindless. They never could have been, between the two of them. Remember not too long ago, when we fought over these instincts? I'd like to go back and inform us of this. There will never be anything in the world more natural than them and their dynamic, solidified but still growing. This isn't the end or the culmination, it's the beginning, and there's never been anything more thrilling to Charles.  
  
 _I would never claim otherwise,_ Erik scoffs indignantly. He's surprised to discover that he's quite proud of them, really; when not weeks ago he's certain the sight of Charles like this, at his own hands, would have horrified him. They really have come a long way. _We had to learn,_ he sighs, content. And if ever there were a class he is grateful to have passed, it's gaining the knowledge that he really can be-this. Dominant in a way that heals, instead of harms. _I do not think it is possible for us to be mindless,_ he murmurs softly. _When we are together. It is all part of the same whole._  
  
 _Do you feel..._ Charles doesn't know exactly how to phrase this. He hums, thoughtful and equally as content, leaning against Erik's chest as he washes his Dominant and tends to him as he should. _Does it still frighten you, what we do together? What we'll continue to do? I know there's... at least for me, there's more. Does it still worry you?_  
  
 _No_ , Erik replies, shocked to realize he's being perfectly honest. If Charles had asked him even a few days ago his answer might be different, but having sunk down into the very core of him, the glowing ember of Dominion that rests in his heart, and coming out the other side more whole than when he started, Bonded even-he shakes his head. _No. Does it worry you?_  
  
 _Not at all_ , he says, and it's equally as true. Sunk down and confronted with the depths of endless, glittering subspace and coming out the other end a more whole, more stable version of himself was not something he ever could have imagined. That he could be respected, loved, and accepted as who he is at the core of him, fulfilled in it, and still be Charles, was unfathomable. Erik's Charles, now, but Erik's Charles, he's learning, is exactly himself. The best version possible, because rather than restricted and stifled and suffocated as he'd thought giving into his own submission would make him, he's entirely free to thrive as himself. And he is thriving. _It's brilliant, isn't it?_ he grins.

* * *

Now all they had to do was figure out how to deal with the situation they've now gotten themselves into, Erik laments quietly. Because it's the elephant in the room, and now that they're relatively sane again, Erik doubts they'll get very far before they have to face it.  
  
 _Do you mean Gabby?_ He can think about her without wanting to tear himself apart again, but it's fairly close, considering how humiliating it is that this is how she found out. He's not ashamed of their Bonding, but he is absolutely horrified that instead of a calm, controlled discussion she'd - well. _I can guarantee she hasn't told anyone else. But if she feels she should, or she has to, she will._ He knows that much.  
  
 _She seemed very upset,_ Erik murmurs. _I know that you two have a history, but can you count on that in this instance? She is already hiding quite a bit on our behalf._ He's not so sure he believes she'll keep their secret, but he doesn't know her as well as Charles does. Nor does he know what would constitute her feeling as though she should break their little circle of trust.  
  
 _If she felt it was wrong, morally reprehensible or otherwise dangerous, for her not to_ , he sighs, which she already does. She one hundred percent already does, and she's come to her own conclusions and made her own assumptions, very few which are correct. She'll wait until she can talk to us about it, but that's about as much as we can count on. It's enough. Charles doesn't particularly want to think about the alternative to convincing her to keep hush-hush. It's not a pleasant one, but he knows he'll resort to it if he has to.  
  
Erik shakes his head. We will cross that bridge when we get to it. _If it becomes necessary, I'll handle it. You needn't worry,_ he says softly. _I suppose we will find out soon enough-I doubt she's willing to allow me to skip today's appointment. Thus far she hasn't said anything, so she is at least giving you that benefit. Hopefully we can convince her that it is the right thing to do._  
  
Charles says nothing, but it won't matter. Erik will feel his unease, the drop in his stomach, the way the bubble has burst. If it needs to be handled, he will handle it, too. He is hopeful neither of them will have to, as he always is. _She has choice words to say to me,_ he sighs. It's an understatement. She intends to go for the _throat_ , he's certain of it, worse than she did at the hospital.  
  
 _I will not let it get to that point,_ Erik promises quietly. _And I will be right beside you. As I have been, as I always will be. We will get through this._ He kisses Charles's forehead. _If she wants to go after you, she will have to get through me, first._ Erik isn't so certain that Gabrielle is eager to harm Charles, and as scolding and deprecating as she can be, he can't imagine that she'd prioritize that over the situation she's faced with-it's Erik that's the concern, so if he can show her that it's not what it seems to be, that it's not dangerous or morally reprehensible from his perspective, perhaps she'll listen to reason. It's an idle fantasy, he knows, but they have little other choice in the matter.  
  
Charles shakes his head. _It's not about harming me, but she deserves to say her piece. Please don't defend me or stop her from doing so._ He imagines that won't go over well with Erik, but he looks up as he asks it, blinking against the spray, solemn and serious.  
  
Erik gazes at him calmly. _I won't let her insult you without reason. Her objections are professional, she should be expected to conduct herself professionally._  
  
He sighs. _Erik, we both know this falls well outside the boundaries of professionalism. It's very much personal. Besides, I will have heard much worse, and I am capable of handling it._ They both know it's true. It will likely lead to some self-deprecation, but no reason to bring that up.  
  
Being capable of handling something does not entitle you to experience it, Erik murmurs, unrelenting. _You have done nothing to merit punishment, and I will not let her do so. It has never been, nor will it ever be her place._  
  
 _According to the law and the oath I took, I very much do deserve punishment,_ he reminds, but he's clear that he no longer feels he does. It's unprecedented, the two of them, and cannot be defined by such things. Gabby doesn't understand that, and it is hope to help her to. _We broke up years ago, but she still... well. She can't help it, Erik. Don't silence her because of it._  
  
 _She is entitled to her opinion_ , Erik agrees, _but my priority will always be to ensure you are safe. You cannot ask me to do otherwise._ He lifts Charles's hands and kisses his knuckles. Besides, we both know I'm plenty capable of patience. He'd been more than permissive with Kurt Marko, after all. _As long as she stays in line, I will stay in line._  
  
Charles snorts. _Erik, if that's what you call permissive..._ He laughs, somehow able to, and shakes his head. _You practically muzzled him on sight. I'm fairly certain that's not the correct definition of that word._  
  
 _I was exceptionally permissive!_ Erik gawks at him. _I handled myself with the utmost restraint, I'll have you know._  
  
 _As opposed to what, murdering him in front of my mother?_ he asks, dryly.  
  
 _It was on the table,_ he snorts a laugh. OK, he did force Kurt to call Charles _Dr. Xavier_ the entire time they were there, which probably wasn't necessary, but...  
  
 _I never expected you to be completely civil, Erik. He wasn't very kind to me._ That is quite the exceptional understatement. He's thinking, now, that eventually he will call his mother. There's no way to hide that from Erik, so he doesn't. Not now, and perhaps not in the foreseeable future, but he will. His mother who now knows he's that way inclined, not marrying whatever rich Dominant woman she'd selected for him, and also does not know where _Tel Aviv_ is in the world. He snorts. _She told you I was baptized,_ he recalls, and rolls his eyes. At least it's amusing in the aftermath.  
  
Erik's laugh echoes off of the walls. _I can see where you get your subtlety from._ Another kiss near Charles's brow. Truth be told he can't quite fathom where Charles came from. It's no secret that Erik truly detests Sharon and Kurt both; whatever positive attributes Charles can identify in Erik he is positive came from his own upbringing before Shaw, whatever lessons his mother taught him having stayed buried somewhere until surfacing now in safety, but Charles doesn't have that same backbone. Everything he's accomplished has been entirely of his own doing, and Erik is sure to let him know how much he admires him because of it. _I'll be sure to don my_ kippah _the next time we visit. Get a rousing rendition of_ Hava Nagila _going._  
  
Charles is aware he has some of his mother in him. Perhaps not as much as he'd thought, but it's certainly there. He'll come to terms with it eventually. _My family were Puritans, when they first settled here,_ he laughs. _I was baptized Roman Catholic, which I'm sure they'd be absolutely appalled at, but besides that I'm sure the life I've chosen to live and even my mere existence would warrant being burned at the stake or stoned to death. I take great pride in that, really._ Turning his ancestral home into a school for freaks is going to be his life's work, after all.  
  
 _Puritans_ , Erik blinks several times, not-quite skeptical but seeing Charles standing before him now certainly puts a comic twist on that. _Well, I daresay you've fallen off the wagon, much to my never-ending existential delight._ He massages his fingers through Charles's hair, dipping him under the spray to wash away the soap.  
  
Charles moans softly, losing his train of thought for a moment. Erik's fingers are magic, and he did have his hair pulled quite a lot recently. It's bliss, and he'll eagerly await his chance to return the favor. _I was thinking,_ he hums, because as soon as they're out of the shower he knows they should address the situation they're in, _When all of this settles, we should... I mean._ He's fidgeting, then, reaching for the shampoo. Why this particular conversation is making him nervous, he doesn't know, but it's a fluttery kind of nervous. _You know. Talk._ He gestures vaguely.  
  
 _Of course,_ Erik hums, rinsing out more of the lather, detecting that nervousness and easing it with his fingers. _What do you wish to discuss?_  
  
He bows his head, less to facilitate with the rinsing and more to stare at his feet. He makes another gesture. _You know,_ he offers again. _Us_. He's got specifics in mind. It's not nerves, per se, that he's feeling. There's shivery anticipation, too, and beyond that, expectant joy. Not a trace of dread or true worry. _The last time we discussed... expectations, and rules and such, the situation was vastly different. It's practically outdated now, though I know you'd like to keep parts of it. And - well, if you wanted..._ There's quite a lot of room to expand upon things, to add, no longer limited by the idea that there would be physical space and distance between them. They've learned and developed more since then, too, grown into their dynamic. The circumstances have changed, no longer a tentative first go. _And I was thinking... I know there's a pause-word in place for both of us, but perhaps we could sit down and..._ He goes a bit red, here, his face still tipped down. _Discuss things at length? What might trigger a reaction, and, similarly, what we might be interested in. If there are limits, and what those limits are. Write it all down, like you asked me to that first time._ A proper, final Negotiations stage, is what he's suggesting. There's never been an opportunity to sit down and hammer it all out. Perhaps they've gone a bit backwards, traditionally, but Charles thinks this is exactly right. He bites his lip anyway, fidgeting again. If you'd like, of course.  
  
Erik's smile grows as Charles elaborates further and he tucks his head under his chin, fond. _I would like that very much_ , he murmurs in response. He's considering it all as Charles speaks, and his first impression is that he's doubtful he can be a hundred percent certain he can define a limit; although certainly Charles has presented things that he had a viscerally negative reaction to, including the recent curiosity on his own behalf over whether or not Erik wanted Charles to inflict pain on him outside of the marks that he does wear with a great deal of pleasure. That had been a decided no, but then again, if that were interesting to Charles, he can't say his reaction would be the same. He's figuring it's probably going to work a lot like that, the push-pull between them largely motivated by one another's comfort zones. _It might not be easy, but I think it will be very worthwhile for us to have that conversation. And hang tradition, anyway._ They're a Pair, he doubts that traditions apply to them as typically defined, most relationships they've both encountered are far more, frankly, egalitarian than their own, even Hank and Raven downstairs are on more of a level playing field. Both he and Charles both desire the full spectrum of Dominance and submission, of that he is sure, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't a bit apprehensive about it now that he's got his head on straight. He's not afraid any more, but they'll undoubtedly encounter situations where his instincts will go against how he was taught, and vice versa; Charles has equally struggled with relenting to his own submissive instincts that may or may not contradict how he's always considered himself. They can both safely say there is no more fear in the unknown discoveries ahead, but they are unknown. Not to mention Erik spending a majority of his life educated as the complete opposite orientation is not going to be without its difficulties, but he's confident that no matter what they encounter, together, they will only grow stronger from it as they navigate their relationship. It helps that they have a very strong foundation of trust and mutual respect, which he is infinitely grateful for _. I think that is a very good idea._  
  
Charles doesn't even attempt to hide his pleasure, looking up to beam at Erik despite the water in his face. He tugs him down gently, humming and bright with the possibilities as he climbs into his lap to wash his hair. It's settled, then. As soon as we have the time. Which, realistically, is not far off. He's certain this conversation won't have them set forever, but it will be essential to how they navigate from here on out, and this time he knows they're both prepared to have it. Charles finds he's proud of them, too, and so incredibly grateful. _I like this,_ he whispers, practically bursting with it.  
  
 _Oh, do you?_ Erik beams back at him, as much as he can, holding him in place to lay a kiss over one of the marks blooming over his shoulder. Charles looks much better wearing his bruises. These are the only blemishes that should ever appear. If anyone ever lays a hand on him again, Erik can't pretend to hold himself responsible for how he reacts. It seems his protective streak only grows larger with every passing day. He hums happily as Charles drags his fingers through his hair, still-sensitive as ever. When all's said and done, they end up dried off and Erik leads them back into the bedroom, guiding Charles into his first Posture of the day. It is routine, after all. _Are you all right while I plug in?_ he asks, crouching over him to brush his hair away from his temples.

* * *

Charles smiles up at him, nodding. _I promise I won't cry if you leave me,_ he teases, but it's true. Everything is stable now, settled down and comfortable. When Erik does, in fact, stop touching him, he's just as calm as before, content and warm and dreadfully sore but in the best way imaginable. His eyes are half-lidded as he relaxes into his Postures, mind the focused, quiet humming it's meant to be during this part of his routine, cleared out except to ground him in Erik's Will and his own submission. He doesn't fidget, or fret, or mess up deliberately in the hopes Erik will take notice and correct him - not today, anyway, not this morning after their Bonding. He does realize, somewhere outside of his body, that this is the first morning he's one half of a Pairbond, and that it changes everything and nothing. This is where everything begins, but it's already been in motion long before this. There's a soft, blissful smile on his lips, every movement fluid and graceful despite the jelly-limbs and soreness he'd been working with, and of course it is. Guided by and focused on Erik's Will, there should be an expectation of no less.  
  
Erik moves to the bed and gets all his equipment set up, where Hank has left everything out from the night before, and he'll definitely need to find a fruit basket for the poor physician. He roots through the closet and ends up dressed in a black cable-knit turtleneck over a white long-sleeved shirt that hangs down at the cuffs and hem, paired with dark jeans and hiding the small backpack carrying the bag feeding into his IV line. He sits across from Charles, finished by the time he's back into Rest again, and he places his hands over Charles's knees. _Hi_ , he smiles at him, eyes crinkled affectionately. He'd been watching for a bit, pleased to simply bask in the glow of Charles's submission as it wafts through the room, but unable to resist touching him a moment longer.  
  
Charles' eyes flutter open, but he doesn't remember when they'd closed in the first place. He hadn't been sleeping, merely basking himself, floating quite happily in a calm, peaceful subspace. Hi, he murmurs back, a bit shy as he returns that smile. He keeps himself at Rest, looking his Dominant over appreciatively. _You look absolutely gorgeous. I really do love you in a turtleneck, it'll be a shame when summer rolls around._  
  
 _Then I suppose it is a good thing I've yet to acclimatize,_ Erik replies, smiling down at his feet privately. He may or may not have deliberately worn something he thought Charles would find pleasing. Who can say! He lays his hand over Charles's cheek, his own eyes closing at the warmth against his skin. _You're beautiful like this, you know that?_ he'd been struck by it earlier, how gracefully Charles moved between each Posture, how his happiness at being in position resonated through the entire room like specks of dust caught in the sun.  
  
Charles finds everything Erik wears pleasing, barring a prison uniform or hospital gown, for obvious reasons, so it would be difficult to avoid that. He ducks his own head shyly at the praise, glowing with it. _Thank you, Erik. I'm glad you find it pleasing,_ he breathes. That Erik finds him in his Postures beautiful makes him almost giddy, when he's only ever been mocked or criticized for them before. As most things between them are, it's incredibly healing. _Perhaps I should be the one to walk around in the nude today. It would be a change of pace_ , he grins. Erik does seem to prefer him that way.  
  
Erik smiles back. _As delightful as that would be, I am uncertain that would appeal to our case_ , he has to laugh as he leads Charles to his feet toward where he's hung up some of the clothes he brought over from Charles's apartment. _I like this one,_ he murmurs as he picks out a dark blue button-up shirt with clean lines at the collar and sleeves.  
  
Charles smiles, pleased that Erik made the decision for him. Fluttering with it. He tries to hide it, but he knows it shows anyway, that his dimples peeking out from where he's bowed his head again are a dead giveaway. _Cardigan or jacket?_ he asks, simply, letting Erik guide him in even the smallest of ways, and realizing exactly how much he likes it. _I see you've collected some of my stuffier pieces here. Raven calls it 'old professor chic' when she's being nice about it. You must have a preference,_ he teases, but that pleases him, too. That Erik likes his silly, stuffy sweaters.  
  
Tilting Charles's chin up to look at him properly, he picks out a bright yellow knit cardigan, holding it up with a playful smirk, one eyebrow raised mischievously. _You cannot blame Raven for her lack of taste,_ she cannot help her shortcomings.  
  
Charles laughs softly, shaking his head. _Did I own this before? You do love yellow._ He certainly doesn't mind wearing a color that he associates with Erik, slipping it on without a single complaint. He feels... amazing, honestly, to be dressed the way Erik decided he should be, though he'd taken Charles' own preferences into account. It warms him in a way he didn't expect, has him swallowing around emotion, fidgeting a bit as he wraps his arms around Erik for a moment _. I like this,_ he repeats from before, softer.  
  
 _You are a gift_ , Erik runs his hand down the front of the fabric once Charles pulls it on over his head, overcome with a rush of affection that he doesn't think will ever stop happening. It seems every moment he is struck by it, by how incredibly lucky he is and how happy he's become. It's like living in a dream, and he's not naïve-he knows there are challenges and difficulties and problems, but he used to fall asleep wondering if he would ever have occasion to experience real happiness, and now he's got it. _That is my favorite one_ , he smiles gently, squeezing him back one-armed while the other picks out a pair of simple dress pants.  
  
Charles attempts to not become entirely overwhelmed by the flood of emotions from Erik's side of the Bond, but he certainly doesn't manage not to smile so wide his face hurts. He supposes he's doing it for the both of them, because the feeling is extraordinarily mutual. He barely even looks at the pants before he's slipping them on obediently, zipping them up and putting on his watch when they're back in the bedroom. His hand wanders up to check his collar, but it's exactly where it should be, and he sighs, more content than he could have imagined for himself, especially during the morning hours. Facing Hank once they're downstairs is going to prove difficult when outside of Bonding hormones he's utterly mortified, but he'll manage somehow. The pink of Erik's cast catches his eye, concern flooding into him as he gently reaches for it. _Are you in any pain?_ he asks, searching through the Bond for it.  
  
While the flood of Bonding hormones made Erik's pain vanish for a short while, his body has once again returned to the dull, ever-present ache that blooms from all over the rest of the time. The fresh break of his arm and jaw, his fingers twinging in time with the humidity rising in the air, his leg whenever he bears weight on it; but he just sends Charles another smile and cups his jaw, tapping him on the nose playfully. _Nothing incredibly bothersome,_ he assures, and he returns the favor, drawing his hand down Charles's side. _How is your ankle? And your wrist? I noticed this morning that you were moving it around a bit._  
  
To be fair, he's been bearing weight on his ankle from the beginning. It aches, but it's nothing particularly noticeable, and he has nearly full range of motion back. His wrist is still broken, he imagines, even if it does feel slightly better than it did. He shrugs. _Perfectly fine,_ he says, but he's frowning. Anyone in Erik's position would be taking medication for pain management, and he knows for a fact Erik isn't. He bites his lip. _Can I...? Please?_  
  
Erik's head tilts, eyebrows arching. _Can you...? What would you like?_  
  
 _Help you_ , he answers, and taps his temple. He doesn't want to do it without asking first, but he desperately wants to, eyes hopeful as he looks up. _I won't turn it all the way off, so you'll know if something is wrong or hurts more, but - please, let me help you?_  
  
Erik's arm tightens around Charles briefly, touched by the offer. _I would be incredibly grateful,_ he murmurs between them. True to form he hadn't taken any analgesic medication (or any medication for that matter beyond the TPN which is sold to him only as the item most likely to keep him from being permanently hospitalized) since his release from the CIA (and prior to be honest)-and after three major surgeries he would be lying if he said he wasn't feeling it. Even the mention of potential relief is enough to make him sag slightly against Charles.  
  
Charles is overcome by relief of his own. That Erik is allowing him to help this way, to serve this way, to soothe the horrible aches and pains he knows have been a part of him for too long is a gift to him. He takes a slow, calming breath, and closes his eyes. It's not a particularly difficult application of his telepathy, especially after the practice he's had, but he wants to be precise about it. When he opens his eyes, he's nearly certain he managed. Erik should feel almost no pain at all, and what he does feel should be extremely dull in comparison to what he's used to, only there to remind him not to overexert - that is the point of pain, but he absolutely does not need all of it. _Better?_ he asks, hopeful and breathless.  
  
Erik lets out a gasp of surprise as tension he didn't even know he held melts right out of him. He's forgotten what this felt like. _Charles_ , he responds, a bit delayed. _This is-wonderful. Thank you-_  
  
It takes real effort not to tear up. He tightens his arms around Erik, a choked little noise escaping, because he can feel it, too. Erik's aches have been his aches, and now there's relief, and he was the one to give it. _No more pain,_ he promises. _I won't let you suffer through that anymore. From now on, no more pain than is strictly necessary. I'll make sure of it. You'll always feel this way_. Another thing he can offer, another way he can serve. Charles finds himself incredibly grateful for his mutation, not for the first time in these past months. It has caused him pain, but it has also given him this. Given Erik this.  
  
He drops his head onto Charles's and squeezes gently where he's held. _I love you,_ he breathes out after a long moment taken to compose himself. These past few times that Charles has done this for him he can honestly say is the first time in over a decade that he hasn't been in pain-and it's the absence that makes him realize just how much he'd been coping with for so long. _You do not know what this means to me-_ there is truly no way he could ever repay this, and he knows it isn't about that, but- _Thank you._  
  
I _love you, too._ So very much, he whispers, and his mental voice cracks. _But you already have, Erik, and I do know._ There's no way he could possibly express in words how much Erik has given him, nor how pleased he is to be able to give this. It means the entire world to him that he is the one who can, perhaps the only one. That this is something he can do for him, every day, an act of service and love that he can offer. He sniffles, forcing back tears as he looks up with a bright, dimpled smile. _I'm so relieved you feel better. Come on, darling. We should get downstairs._ The world requires their attention again, but that's just fine. They'll face it together.  
  
Erik laughs wetly and slides his arm around Charles's waist as they head downstairs, because if they have to face the world he will do it head on-there is nothing about their Bond that shames him and he is prouder than ever to have Charles by his side.

* * *

The world is waiting, of course. Hank and Raven are both there and fix them with twin looks of incredulous wonder; at least they aren't disparaging about it, though.  
  
 _Good morning,_ Erik greets as he moves to begin breakfast for everyone.  
  
Charles is not at all ashamed of their Bond. Charles is, however, going to die from embarrassment, and he groans as he covers his face with his hands. This is one of those times he would prefer not to be privy to their every thought, and suddenly he wishes his brain was still filtering Raven out. "If you could both stop thinking so loudly, I would greatly appreciate it," he mumbles, and he's going to have to fix that perception-wise because his voice sounds wrecked. Kind of like he's been screaming his lungs off for hours. Hm, strange. He's currently the color of a firetruck and he decidedly does not sit down, because no one needs to see him squirm around. He goes to make himself a cup of tea instead, mostly to give himself something to do.  
  
Erik leans over and kisses his cheek, not remotely embarrassed-in fact one could even go so far as to say he was pleased, but those are ancient instincts at play, outliers that shall not be counted. He began to prepare all of the ingredients he'll need to make proper _ful medames_ , a dish consisting mostly of fava beans (which were soaking since before Charles awoke from his coma, whether that's a plus or a minus remains to be seen), tahini, _Aleppo_ , herbs, oil and spices. He also cracked some eggs into a frying pan, balancing everything with a mixture of one-handed expertise and his mutation to catch the rest.  
  
"I see he's trying to win us over," Hank barks, clapping Erik on the back as he retrieves a cup of coffee from the percolator. "It's good to see you two up and about. I have to admit you gave us quite a scare." No sooner than he'd told them about the Pairbond imperative than they actively devolved into doing so, so let's just say it was _jarring_. He'd also had to tend to them during it, but his thoughts are decidedly less freaked-out than his mate's. He is a professional and his self-image is dependent upon that, so there's very little that will sway him from the notion that he's responsible for these people, certainly not the fact that they're in a beneficial relationship. He wouldn't have called it that ordinarily, but anyone with two good eyes can see that Charles and Erik are both benefiting from the Pairbond in expected ways. "I'd like to let you both know as well that Dr. Haller wants to meet with you; and as much as you're likely dreading that, I've prepared some materials for you two to take with you to the appointment." He grabs a folder from under his arm and holds it out to Charles. It's all the research on Pairbonds that he's collected over the past twelve hours or so.  
  
Charles owes Hank way more than a fruit basket. He sighs in relief, because he'd thought to do something similar, but that Hank thought of it before him is brilliant and something he should have expected in the first place. He sinks out of his embarrassment long enough to grin, quickly flipping through and offering a one-armed hug. "Thank you, Hank," he sighs, emphatic. "Anything new in here?" He's speed-reading as he speaks, absorbing information with that whirring, powerful brain of his.  
  
"Well, primarily that it's seeming very much like an inevitability," Hank says over the rim of his mug. "When two compatible Pairs meet, in this instance, a D5 and an S1, if they're compatible-and this isn't based on DS score alone; Azazel Rasputin wasn't compatible with you despite being a D5, and so on and so forth. No one quite knows how this is determined, but once two compatible mates meet, the imperative is very much an imperative. If you two had been separated, it's very likely you would have both began crashing, possibly to the point of fatality."  
  
Erik's eyebrows shoot up. _That would seem to rule out the respective positions of either Pair_ , he points out.  
  
"Quite right," Hank nods. "There's no legal precedent for what you two are undergoing at the moment, but there's a very good argument to be made that your Pairbond supersedes any former doctor-patient relationship."  
  
Charles hums, having set the folder down so he can read while he prepares his tea. "It wasn't an imperative until we initiated a Bond, though," he points out, not that anyone needs to know that. It's interesting to consider nonetheless. "Fascinating. As far as I'm aware, Bonding is usually less... biological, isn't it? Beyond cultural Rituals, it was my understanding that its significance was mostly emotional and symbolic, not -" What he and Erik had experienced, which had real, physical consequence, and inspired psychological and physical changes he can feel settling even now. "Honestly, to say we still operate according to a power dynamic based on our doctor-patient relationship is completely laughable," he scoffs.  
  
"Indeed, Bonding is very much a set of traditions and rituals-for example, Raven and myself are Bonded and we are not beholden to any similar imperative, but the same doesn't appear to be true of you two. I'd be happy to run some tests, gather some more data-"  
  
Erik flinches, and then ducks behind the fridge, not wanting to intrude.  
  
"-but I reckon that isn't what's best for you both," he finishes softly. "What I can say is that there is absolutely a biological component at play here. My mutation allows me to sense pheromones and you both are simply off the charts, like nothing I've ever encountered in a baseline or X-gene positive human before. Whether that's due to your conscious decision to Bond or whether your decision to Bond was born out of these impulses remains to be seen, but I reckon you'll have quite a lot of time to figure that out." He smiles gently.  
  
Charles shakes his head. "I don't need to figure it out, actually," he argues, and turns to cross his arms over his chest. He's not offended, necessarily, but he is firm on this. "It does not remain to be seen. I'm certain there were impulses and instincts at play that drew me to Erik. I don't have a single doubt about that, and actually, there's quite a lot more evidence than you're aware of that leads me to believe it," he laughs, because it stacks up. Nothing about him and Erik is a coincidence, but he wouldn't say it's chocked up to a biological imperative, either. He knows it isn't. "But there were about a thousand prior opportunities for us to Bond, and we didn't. Not until the exact moment we were ready for it. Perhaps there's something to be said for that biologically, I can think of more than a few explanations, but I know very well that this was a choice. We were born completely and utterly compatible for each other, a perfect Pair, and the rest was us." He smiles softly, biting his lip as he looks over at Erik with all the fondness in the world. "The rest was us," he repeats, barely a whisper as his chest tightens with emotion. The rest will always be them. There is nothing mindless about it, and to say that what occurred between them was a simple inevitability of genetics and biology would be a gross oversimplification, a misunderstanding. That he knows beyond any scientific, quantifiable data.  
  
Erik moves to his side, wrapping an arm around him and kissing his forehead gently. _It is my opinion that what makes us compatible is our selves,_ he agrees, soft. It's just as Hank said. Being a D5 has only the barest to do with it. Being a mutant, being the product of his genetics-Erik doesn't know; what part of him is genetic and what part of him is himself? Mr. Shaw would say as a mutant he is of superior stock, but neither has he ever put any trust in those washed-up theories. _It is our life. Our choice_. Nothing more important exists, in his opinion.  
  
Hank smiles. "Well, you won't get an argument from me, but I think it's definitely useful information for dealing with Gabrielle. She won't be looking at it from the same angle. Knowing that there is a biological component in play may help keep you two safe."  
  
It's everything, in the end. It's everything that makes them who they are, culminating in what they've built and what they're building. A Pairbond that's uniquely theirs, and would not be possible with anyone else. He takes a deep breath to clear out the emotion of it again, pressed into Erik's side as he looks up with a watery smile. I love you, he whispers, just for Erik, and then sighs, turning his attention back to Hank. "Did she say anything to you last night? I heard her, but it was all understandably jumbled up there at the time," he says, sheepish.  
  
"She was upset," Hank sighs. "She said she wants to talk to you both, I got the impression she isn't going to do anything until she does. I told her what I know; and I convinced her not to disturb you two further, but that's about all I've got. I recommend you make your appointment if you want more information."  
  
Exactly what Charles already knows, then. He sighs again, this time deeper as he rubs at his temple. "She might not have a phone at the moment," he mumbles, remembering that fact suddenly. He flashes Erik a look, but there's no heat there, and it breaks into a smile. It can't be helped.  
  
Erik starts laughing, burying it in Charles's shoulder _Oh-I am sorry-_ his shoulders shake. _I may or may not have-_ his eyes crush shut, amusement overtaking him. _Poor Gabrielle._  
  
Charles snorts out a laugh, too, finding Erik's completely infectious as usual. He rolls his eyes, but smiles just the same, because somehow he's incredibly endeared to the fact that Erik smashed Gabby's phone into a wall for daring to interrupt their Bonding. "I suppose I could..." He doesn't particularly want to dip into her mind right now, but it's the best shot they have at reaching her to sort this out before she decides to be rash about it. She wants to wait and give them the benefit of the doubt, but making her wait for this discussion is not going to help their case at all. It would be best to rip the bandaid off as soon as possible, actually.  
  
Erik puts his hand on Charles's shoulder. _How about we go and make that appointment_ , he suggests, because it's frankly the best of any option available to them. He doubts she's going to be rash at 7:00 AM in the morning, but with an 8:00 AM appointment-the sooner they get there, the better, in Erik's opinion. Charles can sense that she is in her office, waiting.  
  
No sense digging his feet in on this one. Charles nods even as he makes a face, nose scrunched up and eyebrows furrowed, and grabs the folder off the counter. He's not particularly hungry now that he's got this on his mind and looming over him, anyway, so perhaps they'll take a raincheck on breakfast. _I think last night was the only time you'll ever catch me so eager to eat,_ he snorts, mostly to distract himself, because he'd been completely ravenous. Perhaps the next time there's an imperative - Hank had said cycle, implying... well. Best not to think about a repeat performance when they're just out of the first one. _Let's get this over with, yes._  
  
There's a lot there that Erik _can_ respond to, but he only gives Charles another kiss to the brow. _Thank you,_ he says to Hank, because in lieu of a fruit basket the least he can do is provide a sensible breakfast. He's certain he can figure out Charles in the interim, and Raven moves to ensure nothing else gets burnt.   
  
Charles isn't... nervous, per se. Alright, no, he's fairly nervous. His stomach has twisted itself into agitated knots and his thoughts are clambering over each other, half-formed arguments already set aside. _Are we taking a car, or...?_ The last few times they've gone somewhere, Erik has taken care of their transportation.  
  
Erik grins at him. _Hold on to me_ , he directs, his voice calm and low as it always is, as they step out of the townhouse and into the street. He touches Charles's cheek. They no longer need to worry about transportation as far as Erik is concerned. He can do this. He can take care of Charles even like this. _We have got this. I promise.  
_

* * *

So much for my MetroCard, Charles jokes, and happily wraps his arms around Erik as they lift off the ground. It's just as brilliant as it was the first time he was aware of it happening, and he can't help the delighted laugh that escapes him, holding on tight and feeling not an ounce of fear. Erik always takes care of him, and there's not a single part of Charles that does not trust him. By the time they've landed he's worked himself up again, but he's also found his resolve. They've got this. They've faced worse, and whatever they face, they'll do it together. Alright, he sighs, and forces himself not to take Erik's hand as they walk into Gabrielle Haller's office. Let's do this, then. Charles squares his shoulders.  
  
He's gotten better at flying in the short time he's had to practice it as well, movements through the air fluid and clean and he sets them down in front of the building, squeezing Charles's hand before letting go.  
  
The door opens for him without being touched and he leads Charles up to the eleventh floor where Gabrielle is waiting. Despite what Charles can feel from her, she crosses out into reception and greets them with a smile. "Thank you both for coming. I'll be talking to you alone, and then I'll talk to you both together." Erik immediately shakes his head. "Please-there's coffee and things on the table over there, we won't take very long. Charles?" she gestures for him to step into her office.  
  
Charles nods, a polite smile on his own lips. "Yes, alright," he agrees easily, and gives Erik a mental squeeze more than a physical one. _I'll be right in there, and if something goes wrong, you will know. It will be okay,_ he assures, before following after her. His posture has changed again, and it changes further the moment he's not at Erik's side. Squared off shoulders, raised chin, he meets her eyes when they're inside and waits for her to say what she will.  
  
She sits on her desk, crossing her legs in a less formal stature than usual. She's decked out in the latest Dominant-styled business suit, feet encased by pointy high-heels and accentuated by the slight hint of jewelry; cuffs at her wrists, _Akoya_ pearls in her ears. It's altogether familiar, only now they're in respective positions she never thought they'd be. Colleagues, certainly. Friends? Hopefully. This? She'd been upset at first, and she still is, but she's in crisis mode right now, so what comes out is a lot more patient than Charles anticipated. " _Yakira_ , what are you doing? Talk to me about this."  
  
Charles sighs. It's exactly what he expected, actually, because not only has he been monitoring from the moment they made a decision, he knows her well enough to know that, despite their own history and their stunning lack of communication at times, she is reasonable. She has always tried to understand, even when she could not manage, and to fault her that would be completely ridiculous. He sets the folder he's holding on the desk and leans against it rather than sitting, casual. "I'll gladly explain," he says, because there is quite a lot to explain, "But first, may I show you something?" He taps his temple to let her know it isn't in the folder he brought. Erik might be encouraging him to allow more expression with his telepathy, but he is still hesitant with it. He certainly won't now unless she allows it. "It won't be much, I know it can be disorienting or uncomfortable," he smiles.  
  
She gives a little gesture, nodding her head. Gabby never had an issue with his telepathy, but unlike Erik it's definitely more philosophical than personal-most baseline humans are to a certain degree uncomfortable with telepathy, but Gabby never asked for him to restrict himself around her, he ended up doing so naturally when her unconscious barriers kicked in and resisted. It's common in people who have strong, forceful minds, actually, and he can feel Gabby actively relaxing herself to let Charles show her what he needs to. In a way this is better; she can see it for herself, and not rely on second-hand narration filled with justifications. "Please," she adds. "I'd like to see."  
  
The beginning of the memory is muted, because it isn't through his eyes. It isn't his. They're looking through Erik's, now, a perspective he treasures but filters out because not only is it jarring, it's mostly irrelevant at this particular point. They're staring at Charles. He looks exactly how Gabby would expect him to look; prim, posh, stuffy-suited and professional but approachable, his briefcase in hand, his chin lifted, that polite, kind smile on his lips and his head tilted with curiosity. The words he speaks aren't particularly important, but Gabby can hear them anyway ( _"Hello. My name is Dr. Charles Xavier."_ ).  
  
This is ostensibly their first meeting. Charles lets it sink in, because Gabby knows about Erik now. She knows what inspired his mutism. She knows about the years upon years of conditioning, and he knows she's wondered, all this time, what he'd said or done to earn Erik's trust enough for him to speak. Wondered if, perhaps - he doesn't fault her it. They all have, at some point. But it's right here. Within the first two minutes. _"You are a telepath."_ They've switched back to Charles in time for the whole world to fall out and shift on its axis, for the universe to fundamentally alter itself. Everything he knows shreds itself away, evaporates into the air. He shows her the parts he hadn't recognized at the time, fans them all out and bites his lip to stifle a gasp, because it isn't the first time he's put them all together like this but it is entirely overwhelming.  
  
Erik is smiling at him, speaking again as everything obliterates itself, all of Charles' carefully constructed defenses and faux-Dom mannerisms and professionalism stripped until he is bare and spinning and breathless, until he obeys, until some faraway corner of his brain shouts _this is him! This is him! This is him!_ It's no longer gravity holding him to the Earth but Erik, those vivid sea-green eyes anchoring him, grounding him, tethering him until he's exactly where he needs to be. Charles is still a thinking, feeling, autonomous individual, but he's been presented with something that will change absolutely everything, and something - someone - that, impossibly, he already knows. His mind shouts, overlaid on top, dragged from the depths of his consciousness: _yes, yes, yes. This is what you've been waiting for._  
  
The rest of the memory flips by in fast-forward. Charles clings to professionalism, but it comes out stuttered and warped, strange, as if it does not belong and the words hang awkwardly off his tongue. He moves to the outside where she can see they are mirroring each other, something he hadn't noticed the first thousand times he watched this moment but does now; when Charles shifts, Erik does, and vise versa. Erik puts his handcuffed hands on the table and he follows suit. Charles speaks of accommodations and rights and it comes out _how can I serve you?_ Charles takes a breath, letting the memory naturally fizzle and drop when he walks out the door. He looks at Gabby expectantly, but there's a smile he cannot rid himself of, so he ducks his head.  
  
"Tell me," he breathes, "What do you believe you just saw?" The answer is simple: not the first meeting of a doctor and his patient. Not a first meeting at all.  
  
She drums her fingernails on her mahogany desk, black polish reflecting lamplight as she watches what she's given. The thing about it is that she's not a cruel person, but she is a skeptical person-her mind skips over the implications that their souls are in-tune and her sense of ethics, deeply ingrained, takes over. "I'm not sure," she does admit, nails clacking against wood before she leans forward on both hands, her own dark green eyes on the ceiling as she processes. It's not difficult to figure out what had originally drawn Charles to her, now that he can zoom out and consider the whole. She reminded him of something he's been missing this entire time, and that isn't lost on her. She wasn't the right fit, but what she sees with Erik-nevertheless, she can't condone this.  
  
"You have to know that isn't good enough," she murmurs, pained. "I'm sure you feel like this is _different_ , somehow, and I can see that it is. He's a D5, and that's extraordinary, but Erik is-was-your patient. He's spent _years_ conditioned to respond to the eminent authority figure in the room, and that is you. There is no way he can consent to a relationship with you. He simply doesn't have the tools to understand why this dynamic is unhealthy. That man is _convinced_ that he loves you. The fact that he's able to put you into subspace isn't _good enough_ , Charles."  
  
 _Erik is convinced he loves him._ Charles' jaw clenches, his eyes narrow, but he keeps his voice calm. "I'm sorry, but out of everything in what I just showed you, you're focused on subspace?" There's not a doubt in his mind that he'd sunk under that first time, tentatively floating near the top, buoying himself, because he'd been terrified of the implications. That wasn't what he'd meant to show her, because in the end she'd already known that. "Erik was met with plenty of authority figures in that complex. Why didn't he speak to any of them? Why didn't he respond? Because I was submissive? You know that makes absolutely no sense given his history. You are seeing but you aren't looking." He'd said this to her before, and now it echoes loudly, reverberates around the room as he crosses his arms. "Erik was never my patient, and I was never his doctor. Perhaps in title, I will grant that, but it was never our dynamic. In order for it to be unhealthy, that would have to be the case. This has little to do with Erik being a D5 and everything to do with -" He shakes his head. "Don't be stubborn for the sake of it. You know _damn well_ what you're dealing with here has nothing to do with doctor-patient transference."  
  
"This isn't about my being _stubborn_ , Charles. You can't claim that you aren't his psychiatrist simply because you don't feel that's the case. I don't know why he spoke to you. Because you are a telepath, because you could show him that you're trustworthy. He speaks to me, too, and I certainly do not labor under the assumption that I'm anything other than his therapist. What do you think I'm dealing with, here? What _else_ should I be focused on? How much you love your **_patient_** , Charles? Really?" Now she's riled up, and rising back, but her own Will is a drop in the ocean compared to Erik's in an almost comical manner.  
  
It always has been, at the end of the day. He snorts, and feels himself rise accordingly, eyes flashing with their own danger. "Would you like to know why he speaks to you? Hm? Because _I trust you_." He lets that sink in, though does nothing to prove it, chin still lifted to meet her gaze. "You saw that entire interaction, don't be daft. I had no time at all to prove anything to him. I barely spoke more than a sentence, and you know perfectly well he has every reason to distrust a telepath. You are dealing with something entirely unprecedented." His lips purse. "And yes, by the way, I _can_ claim that if it's true. Look me in the eyes and tell me that the roles assigned to us always fit, Gabrielle. That they are always the ones we actually play, that their dynamics always hold. I'd love to hear it." He raises an eyebrow, and those words cut.  
  
She points her finger at him. "He will never, _ever_ , be able to share an equal partnership with you. You will _always_ have a degree of power over him that compromises his ability to choose what is best for himself. He _worships the ground you walk on,_ I see that now and I should have seen it before. You showed him kindness, very likely for the first time in years, and he _responded_ to that!" Her voice raises a bit, but she regulates herself-it's clear that this is personal for her, too. She cares about Charles, and she cares about her patient, and she's seeing something that is dangerous to both of them. "You can't tell me you don't understand traumatic attachment. I allowed him to spend every waking moment at your bedside because he was more distressed to leave and that was my mistake. He cannot choose to be with you in an informed manner. This is hurting him, Charles. You're hurting him. You're hurting yourself. You're hurting me, you're hurting Hank and Raven. You lied to me, you expected me to put my career and my job on the line so that you can _ **sleep with a patien**_ t. That's _not_ OK. That is not OK and don't you **_dare_** tell me I'm being daft and stubborn for the sake of it. That is **_not_** fair."  
  
 _So that you can sleep with a patient._ Charles swallows, not because of what she's said but because of something he remembers. His mind shatters outward, and in a single instant he replays every interaction he's had where he's known, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Erik loves him. Is it possible he allowed himself to be blind to it? That there's truth to what she's saying? He's never had authority over Erik, perhaps, not in any real sense, but - Young-Erik chose him over _Herr_ Shaw, but his vehement refusal at first, his rage at the notion that Charles would take him away, is it not similar to... He shakes his head, but his words are quieter. "That isn't what's happening here," he says, but it's clear she's gotten far underneath his skin. Dug into his insecurities and prodded at every bruise. Has he hurt Erik as nearly everyone before him has? Was wrapping him up in a blanket and rocking him just as cruel as whipping him bloody?  
  
She swallows, too, mollified by the fact that he seems to be listening at the very least, now. "So _tell me_ what is happening, here. I've kept your secret. I didn't tell anyone about the range of his powers, and I haven't told anyone about your relationship, yet. So tell me, Charles, why I _shouldn't_. Why this isn't what we _both_ know this is."  
  
He was listening in the beginning. He's always listening, but he'd been unwilling, the morning after his Bonding, to hear it disparaged and relegated to words that had never fit it. He doesn't apologize, because he certainly doesn't regret what he's said. He's shaky, still. He's twisted up again, bile in his throat at the thought that he could have hurt Erik, damaged him when all he ever wanted was to heal. His mind explodes outward, and he knows he's projecting and that she sees it. Charles, nine years old, following around a same-aged Erik. Perhaps he's eight, there's two months difference there. He follows him up to a roof and sits with him, hanging his feet over the edge as they listen to the thunder in the distance. _"Helloooooo,"_ young Charles sighs, the epitome of childhood petulance. "Please look at me. I'm right here!" When it doesn't work, he huffs and settles for watching the sky, leaned toward Erik as their legs swing. Years later, thunder still makes him jump from something other than fear, fizzles electricity he should not be able to feel up his spine and makes him shiver. It's not a fantasy, or a strange, fabricated dream. It's foggy, hazy, the way dreams are, but this one is more than a decade old. It's Real. "Don't ask me to explain to you, in words, what transcends them," he says, simply. "Not if you aren't willing to see what's there."  
  
Gabby reaches out, eyebrows knit together. "Is that-" _Erik_? But of course it is. She's seen a childhood photograph of him, Carmen found one logged into a remote database and displayed it during the medical part of his trial presentation (something something hammers and subtlety, but no one can deny his effectiveness). She lets out a soft breath. It was _Purim_ when they first met, and she took him to the Reform temple she went to on holidays in the States because that's the _fun one_ , because they'd been in that stage of their relationship where they were having fun (Gabby isn't religious, describing herself as _hiloni_ when asked, but Synagogue often isn't about _religion_ at all, even when it is-), and she remembers being surprised that Charles knew what everything was, for someone who is more or less an atheist like her, let alone a _baptized Roman Catholic_. He'd even known some of the songs, hands opening the _siddur_ the proper way without fumbling like most native English speakers, even when there is familiarity. She always assumed he looked it up for her, but that's silly-such in-depth awareness, after they only spent a few weeks together? "It was Erik," she mutters under her breath, because she's skeptical and professional and prone to storming past obvious conclusions, but she's not _stupid_.  
  
He laughs, attempts to stifle it with his hand, but it's still startled right out of him. He'd forgotten that, or at least not given it any thought in quite a while - nothing is ever truly forgotten with Charles, and that's the thing. He'd assumed, in that moment, that he'd picked it up from her. That he was responding to her thoughts, her intuitions, because they were in sync. He hadn't looked it up. He'd moved instinctively, known instinctively, like he was being guided. "It was Erik," he echoes in a whisper, and shakes his head. Of course it was Erik. _Spin the globe and see where you end up, Charles!_ His finger always lands on exactly where Erik is. _Huh, that's weird, isn't it? It's not. It was Erik. I've heard this before, I've seen this before, I can't put my finger on why I know this but I do -_ Erik. All Erik. He would wager his considerable fortune that it goes both ways.  
  
She leans back on her hands, re-crossing her legs, exhaling a long sigh. "I don't know what I'm seeing here," she repeats the admission, shaking her head. "I don't want to hurt you, that isn't what this is about. You have to understand where I'm coming from. What would you do, if our positions were reversed? What would you think? How would you respond? Help me digest this. Because if I make the wrong move I'm condemning _two_ people, who I care about a great deal."  
  
If the positions were reversed he would be at a distinct advantage here, but he doesn't say it. He doesn't need to rub that in her face now. "I don't know how to explain it to you in a way you will understand," he sighs, because it's true. He has more than a few arguments, all of them perfectly formulated by now. They rely on science and facts, appeal to rationality. He opens the folder he's placed on the desk and nudges it toward her. "Hank has done research on Pairbonds. How once they're formed there's an imperative, compatibility studies, the biological and genetic benefits - but you can read those later," he decides suddenly. He doesn't even want her to open it now. "It's fascinating, truly, but that's not what this is. It won't help you make sense of it. I need you to look."  
  
He leans over the desk and meets her eyes again, a lump in his throat as he approaches her in a way he tried while they were still together. They couldn't bridge the gap then. This one is different, and he knows if he tries he can build her a bridge, the chasm no longer uncrossable. "Think about what I've just shown you. Does any of that make sense with the conclusion you've drawn here? I've known Erik well before we met physically, and you know I haven't made that up. He didn't look at me as an authority figure when I walked into that room. I know you've seen how he acts when he does. Look at what I've shown you and think, please. The night we broke up - the last time," he corrects, and snorts, because there was a bit of back and forth there and they know it, lived through it with frustration and heartache both, "You said you aren't the right Dominant for me and that we both know it. What did I say back, Gabby?"  
  
She closes her eyes, taking a breath, because she's found her submissive as well and things are good, but this will always be a sore spot; and they can both say that it's because they aren't compatible but for her it will always be because she wasn't _enough_ , and that does _cut_. To her, Charles always found her Dominance to be offensive, and that hurt, because she really did try her best to bridge that uncrossable gap. Maybe that's what makes her finally pause, and answer. "You said you hoped I would be there, when you did find the right Dominant." She smiles a bit. "And I'm trying, I hope you know I'm trying." She looks up, meeting his gaze in return. "I've never seen him act that way with anyone else. Certainly not me, if his Will weren't so pervasive you'd think he was the S1. He's not like that with you, though."  
  
Charles nods. It isn't her fault. He had felt not enough, too; it wasn't that her Dominance had been offensive, it was that it never could have been what he needed, and he'd taken that to mean he was too broken to experience it properly. She hadn't known how to give it to him, and she never would have learned. He never could have shown her, even if he had suddenly broken down every wall he had (and he wouldn't have). It wasn't meant to be. It still stung. "Yes, that's what I said, and it's still true," he says calmly, but he's still leaned forward. "But that's not everything I said. I said _'But I don't know if I'll find him.'_ " It had been the heat of the moment. He had been close to tears. She had assured him he would find the right one, but he had used a masculine pronoun. "Everything I've told you about the way I experience attraction, that hasn't changed. There's been no more self-discovery there."  
  
For Charles, it's all fairly blind. If Gabby had been a man, he still would have tried with her. If Erik had been a woman, the end result would be the same. It was just the way he was wired. "But I said _him_ , and neither of us acknowledged it, but I am now. It wasn't your fault. I think -" He's been rolling this around in his head. "I've met another D5 now, though _met_ is a terrible word to use for what happened that night. His first Order worked, and not a single one after. I didn't feel his Will at all." Which is strange, he realizes, but true. He'd felt his hellpit of a mind, but not his Will after that first instance. It's not unlike how Gabby's effect had worn off over time, until, in the end, he'd felt no pull at all. Sebastian Shaw? Nothing, and D4.75, because he'd been thoroughly repulsed from the get-go and they could not be more opposed. "D5s seem predisposed to Order everyone, at first glance. But an S1, perhaps..." He's beginning to think they're predisposed for _one_.  
  
She breathes in, long and audible. "You really believe that? That you two are- _destined_ for one another?" she grimaces, the word a bit hackey on her tongue, but it's the only thing that fits. He's shown her that, hasn't he? From the first moment they met, in that awful detention room. "I don't want to take this from you, from either of you. Not if it will do more damage than good, but I have an _obligation_ to my patient, too. To make sure that this isn't something that will crash and burn, and leave him even worse than how he started. Can you honestly say that it won't end up that way?"  
  
Charles shakes his head, but it's not in response to her question. "Look, Gabby," he urges her again, but it isn't at all unkind. It's gentle, and fond, because he is fond of her. He's come around the desk now, and he takes one of her hands in his. Not professional, but he's not appealing to her as a professional. That was never going to be what this was. "I want you to look at the both of us, and tell me what you see. If it was going to crash and burn, don't you think it would have?" He reaches his free, casted hand up to the collar he's wearing, holding her gaze the entire time. "Do you think I would be wearing this if I simply wanted to _sleep with my patient?_ If this was about subspace? I wanted that very badly, yes, I won't deny that. But you know me better than that, Gabby. Would I put it above my work? My morals? If I honestly, for even a second, believed I was damaging him, do you think I would have let it get this far? Please tell me you know better than that. And I know -" He closes his eyes. His voice breaks, and he takes a stuttered breath. When he opens them again, there's pain there he knows she's always seen. _Tell me what's making you react this way, Charles_ , and he couldn't. He just couldn't. "I know you know I have my own history, whether I've told you about it or not. Do you really think I would allow this because he could put me down? That I would have been able to? I've looked at this from every angle. If you know me, you know I have."  
  
"I know," she concedes, squeezing his hands in her own. She'd been angry, certainly, but that they're here shows she's given Charles as much benefit of the doubt as she can afford. "And I can't deny that he's miles ahead of where he should be, either, and I'm assuming that has something to do with you. I don't want to take this from you," she repeats softly. "From either of you. I don't. But that means that I'm in a _massive_ conflict of interest with my own patient now, a fact I can't rectify because he won't speak with another therapist, and even if he did, it would force him to lie about his life every time he talks, which means he won't benefit from that relationship at all. And I'm not willing to do that to him, but you haven't _just_ changed your dynamic. He shouldn't be _my_ patient anymore, either, but I'm compromising myself to keep this situation stable. That is not ideal. I've got a lot at stake here, and that will affect his progress."  
  
Charles sighs. "Gabby, think about this situation in its entirety for a moment, and then tell me, honestly, if you believe someone like Erik was ever going to benefit from traditional therapy. Take me out of the equation entirely and tell me what you're left with here." He could benefit from Gabby, that Charles believes. She's brilliant at what she does, and he has no misconceptions that anything she's done thus far, anything she's said, has been for any purpose but what she believes is best for the two of them. "I want you to consider what would have happened if it hadn't been me that walked into that holding cell. I know you won't tell me you think that alternative is better." He shows her what Erik had decided, what he'd been resolved to do, and they both know the outcome from there. Dead, or dead in all but name.  
  
She winces. "You know I'm glad it was you," she says quietly. "I'll always be glad it was you." She looks up at the ceiling once more, and Charles can feel her genuinely considering the thought experiment he posed. "I think there's a great deal of benefit he can derive from therapy," she says, and that's not something she's willing to compromise on. "If you're his submissive, you can't be his therapist. I'm not the best option, but I can be more objective at least. I want him to keep coming here. I won't negotiate that with you. He needs a proper therapeutic relationship. You can't give that to him. If we're doing this, he needs to keep coming here."  
  
Charles immediately raises his hands, as if in surrender. "I never would have argued that," he tells her, solemn, and there's not a hint of falsehood there. "I said traditional therapy, as in - well, far more traditional than this. I would never deny him something that could be beneficial, and I believe you can be beneficial. Are there things you won't be able to handle that perhaps I can? Yes. I won't lie and say I don't think that. But there are also things I can't be objective on, as you've just said, for any number of reasons, and you can be. Neither of us will fight you on that."  
  
"Well, between the two of us, I think he has a fighting chance," Gabby huffs. She doesn't know if she's making the right call, here, she still isn't confident about it, but they both know what she was always going to decide. She's not in love with Charles anymore, but he's her family, he's more than just an ex or a fling. She can't stop caring about him, even if that means she does have to compromise on her ideals. The alternative, Charles potentially in jail and Erik adrift, alone; it would be a far worse fate. It helps that she knows Charles, and that he's been able to show her what he thinks about it, the complete certainty that he's not just manipulating his position to take advantage of a patient, that there are real emotions and real people involved. It makes all the difference. "I'd still like to talk to him alone, if you don't mind. And I'll call you both back in here when we're done-there's something I'd like to show you, actually. But I need to get his perspective as well." She's leaning toward this, and Charles knows it, but what Erik says will influence her.  
  
He has more than a fighting chance. Charles is infinitely grateful, but perhaps he always knew it would end up here. There's a longer conversation they need to have, something far more personal, but now is not the time, so he simply nods. "Alright," he concedes, and moves to walk out, but he stops near the door. He can't help the sheepish grin that takes over his face as he taps his temple and leans against the frame. "In the spirit of full disclosure and honesty, I feel I should tell you we're connected up here. Always, I mean. He heard everything we just said, and out here I'll hear everything, too. I won't interrupt, I can tune it out, even, but it can't be turned off." It can, but not without extreme discomfort on both sides. It wasn't going to happen.  
  
She smiles back. "If you could tune it out, I'd be grateful. I'd like to have this conversation with Erik alone. As though on cue, a light knock to the door comes and it opens, with Erik stepping in. Gabby is average in the height department for a woman, but Erik absolutely towers over her when they're standing next to one another. She gestures to the chair by her desk and moves to sit across from him. "This shouldn't take long, and I'll come grab you when we're done. Thank you." Although Erik does speak with Gabby, he's still much more reserved than he is with Charles, and that is imminently evident by how he holds himself, seated with his feet on the floor and hands folded formally in his lap, head bowed. _You did really well,_ he sends a mental equivalent of a hug before Charles steps out.

* * *

Charles ducks his own head at the praise, sending the mental squeeze right back. He does tune the room out as he closes the door behind him, though, dulling Erik's end of the Bond. He'll likely still retain it, but it shouldn't matter much as long as it's not actively processed. Into the vast, endless filing cabinets of his overlarge brain it goes. Charles smiles to himself and keeps busy by making coffee, scowling at the lack of proper sugar. There's no reason to be nervous. Whatever they discuss, he trusts Erik. He trusts Gabby, too.  
  
Their conversation is much shorter, but Charles can feel that Erik becomes distressed early on, tugging his legs up to the chair to wrap his arms around his knees. Gabby remains calm and in control, and eventually the sharp notes of grief fade and get replaced by resolute certainty, and then a faint hum of satisfaction. The door opens at last and Gabby steps back out, beckoning him to enter the office. Erik is still seated, and he looks up, standing and going to Charles immediately to give him a hug in the Real. As everything filters back in Charles can see Gabby asking him if he understands what is happening, the way their dynamic will be perceived by others, and whether or not he feels capable of making that decision; and what it would mean if he couldn't, that it's up to her to determine such. He'd lost his composure at the implication Charles would be taken from him and his response was visceral. _Please don't take him from me. I love him. I just got him back. He's mine. Don't make me live without him. Don't hurt him. He doesn't deserve that. I'm the D5. I am responsible._ Gabby heard more in that than he'd said, and he can see when she makes her final choice.  
  
There's a lump in Charles' throat. It had gone against the grain to feel Erik distressed and do nothing, and now he hugs him back tightly, takes his hand and strokes the ring on his finger to remind himself that it's still there. "How are we going to handle this, then?" he asks, and he already knows, but he holds his breath anyway.  
  
She rises from her chair and clutches a cup of lukewarm coffee in her hands, sipping from it idly. "I'm not going to tell anyone about your relationship," she says. "As far as I'm concerned, that information is privileged, and does not meet the qualifications for imminent harm to yourself or others," she addresses Erik, who already relaxes in Charles's hold. "You'll still be coming to our appointments on a regular basis, and we'll make the formal switch for me to take over as your primary therapist. However, I have a condition for this. If either of you can't abide by it, then we'll be having a different discussion."  
  
He has some concerns with that, but he's not going to voice them right this moment. It shouldn't at all change the arrangements for the Shaw trial, and it absolutely cannot. There's no way Erik going to Israel by himself - without Charles - is at all an option. There are ways around that, though, and he highly doubts she'll disagree, so he nods. "Alright," he says for the both of them. "What is the condition?"  
  
Charles can feel that Gabrielle is aware of that as well, and has no desire to change anything in that sphere, but she does intend to act as Erik's primary therapist; that is, regular appointments, and the like. Charles is a forensic psychiatrist, so it makes sense that he would stay on and deal with the trial. Right now, though, she's less concerned with that then, "You both need to be honest with me from now on. I can't do my job effectively if I don't have all of the information, and I hope that by now you can trust that I don't make rash decisions. You cannot hide things like this from me again."  
  
Charles squeezes Erik's hand before he steps forward. "You have to understand that the situation was far from my ideal, and by the time it had changed I was in a coma," he manages a smile, but it's strained by emotion. He's quiet, now, and it's because, "I apologize. It was my decision to keep this from you, and I shouldn't have. We both know I've never been entirely open or honest with you, and that's something I'm deeply sorry for. I'd like to fix it." He's nothing but sincere now, blue eyes darkened and fierce with it. "Starting now, if you'll allow it." He means in everything, professional and otherwise. She deserves that. She always did, but sometimes there's no helping it, even when the desire is there. Sometimes there's a wall, an uncrossable space. He'd like nothing more than to cross it now, and he holds his hand out to her in offering.  
  
She takes a step forward as well and slips her hand into his, much smaller and daintier, if anything about Gabrielle Haller could be considered dainty-but she is, even if her mind is absolutely not. "Of course," she replies, and she means everything as well; everything Charles is comfortable sharing. She's never made demands for this, despite knowing that there were always elements in play she couldn't see. She'd always been willing to let Charles come to her on his own terms, but it's fitting that it's taken them until now to finally be able to cross that barrier, with Erik by his side even now. Erik has his other hand and he gives a squeeze, nodding to them both reassuringly. His bearing is immediately different now, acting as Charles's Dominant and not just his patient or a prisoner, more relaxed, confident and self-assured and firm, a solid pillar of strength and protection next to his submissive. Once-more that casual Command, in the way he briefly touches Charles's collar, grounding and soothing, before gripping his hand lightly. And that in and of itself is enough for Gabby to think that maybe she made the right call after all.  
  
Charles dips his head, perfectly aware of what she's seeing. He's not embarrassed. Shy, perhaps, in that way he only is in matters concerning this, but not embarrassed. His lips twitch even as he leans into Erik. "Let me buy you a new phone," he implores, and tries very hard not to laugh. "It's the least I can do. Then perhaps the next time you need to reach me you'll remember what my email inbox looks like at all times and not send me one. It's called a text message, Gabby." Speaking of, he hasn't properly checked his phone since he woke up. He can only imagine the horror.  
  
Erik's lips twitch and he drops a kiss to the top of Charles's head, nuzzling into his neck contentedly. I apologize for that, he murmurs, the voice in Gabby's mind representing him soft between them. I was a bit out of my right mind. Or perhaps more in his right mind than he's ever been, but that's just semantics. "You're forgiven," Gabby laughs. "And I will take that new phone, thank-you. My provider wasn't too happy to hear I'd need it replaced and I'm definitely not forking over the device balance. It's an iPhone six, hardly worth the trouble." She rolls her eyes, fond.  
  
"Brilliant, you're due an upgrade anyway. Everyone wins," he grins, and he finds he truly means it. There's something happening here that should have happened quite a while ago, and not for the first time Charles finds himself stunned at the life he's found himself leading. It's completely extraordinary. "You said you had something to show me?" he asks, head tilting in his curiosity, that little ping! of it zipping through the Bond. Some things never change.

* * *

"I do," Gabby smiles and drops his hand to move back behind her desk. "I had this idea in mind for a while now, and I know it's going to seem incredibly unconventional, but I'd like you to give this a try," she says to Erik.  
  
 _What is it?_ his own ears perk up, his curiosity more muted than Charles's ever could be, but nonetheless present.  
  
"Not an it," Gabby holds up a finger. "A she." She kneels down to retrieve something under her desk and puts a cage on top when she rises, and there's a medium-sized black and white bird with striped feathers perched asleep on the beige line drawn between both sides of the bars.  
  
Detangling himself from Charles, Erik creeps toward it, entirely unconscious, drawn by the little peeps she's making as she dreams. _She is beautiful_ , he whispers, eyes wide.  
  
"Her name is Naomi," Gabby grins at them. "She's an African Grey parrot, about a year old by now. I'd like you to look after her."  
  
Erik's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. Charles can feel that he's fascinated by the concept, warmed at the possibility of taking care of something, but he's reticent because he's not the only person in the house and a pet is a big responsibility, especially a complicated one like a bird. Charles might not be happy about it and that unsettles him. _Why me?_  
  
"Well," she taps her fingers against her hip, thoughtful. "As an African Grey, Naomi is very verbal and very intelligent. She'll ask you for food, for play, she'll train with you and follow simple commands, and she'll chatter up a storm. It's my hope that you'll become more comfortable speaking with Naomi, and that gradually might help you learn to speak in other areas of your life as well. Additionally, even though this is a big commitment, Naomi is a therapy animal, so she's very well-trained and quite responsive."  
  
Erik looks at Charles, trailing mental fingers along their Bond for his response. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't interested, but he will always prioritize Charles first.  
  
Charles blinks, his own eyes wide. He's listening as Gabby explains, watching and feeling as Erik reacts, and something clenches at his chest. It gets stuck in his throat, and he finds he can't swallow around it. It takes several moments before he can speak. "She's gorgeous," he murmurs, and his voice cracks before he clears his throat. "I think it's an excellent idea." He's not sure what it is he's reacting to, exactly. If it's Erik's interest, Gabby's thoughtfulness, or both. Either way he finds himself staring at the floor as he attempts to compose himself, mind flashing images even Erik won't be able to cling to as he takes a shaky breath and smiles.  
  
 _Are you sure?_ Erik takes a step back into Charles's orbit, wrapping an arm around his waist. It's private, just for them. _We can say no if you do not wish for it._ It's tinged with a bit of regret he can't hide-already he's attached to the little creature, besotted from barely a minute of contact; Erik is an animal lover, a facet about him that he's scarcely been capable of indulging over the years, but it turns out to still be true after all this time. But as always it's overpowered by his desire to ensure that Charles is happy.  
  
Charles can feel that. He knew it would happen the moment he saw her, an inevitability so clear to him because he knows Erik, and he shakes his head fondly. _Absolutely_ , he whispers, only for Erik now. Honestly, he's already attached, too; if she can help Erik in any way, and he's positive she will, he already loves her. It isn't as if he doesn't appreciate her on his own, either. Charles hasn't had a single qualm about this. He's smiling still when he lifts his head. _You won't hear any complaints from me, Erik,_ he promises, but he can't help how it's still heavy with emotion.  
  
Erik's gratitude is all-encompassing and he puts his other arm around Charles as well. _Thank you,_ he whispers back, closing his eyes and breathing in his scent under his ear where he's nosed in.  
  
"Would you like to hold her?" Gabby asks gently. Naomi's eyes are blinking open, pupils fixed and not pinning, her head bobbing curiously as she regards them. She fluffs up and pokes around with her feet before gazing at Gabby as though in deference, not moving even when Gabby opens the door.  
  
He tugs Charles over to the cage, unwilling to be separated from him at the moment. We will take good care of you, he promises the little parrot solemnly, and holds out his finger as he's instructed.  
  
"Now, just say _step up_ , and she'll climb right on. Don't worry about dropping her, Greys are hardy."  
  
" _Step up_ ," Erik murmurs, poking his finger through the open latch. Naomi obeys instantly, wrapping her long talons around his index finger and chirruping in delight. Erik looks down at her with an enormous rush of affection and slowly strokes the back of his right knuckle over her head, the movement a bit awkward, but she patiently endures it. Erik's smiling, eyes shimmering. _Thank you._  
  
Charles' breath hitches. His hand comes up to cover his own mouth, but the noise that escapes him, even stifled, is far too close to a dry sob. His eyes close, and he shakes his head. "Excuse me," he mumbles, and keeps his end of the Bond as quieted as possible, dulled. He's still smiling behind his hand. "She really is gorgeous," he whispers, voice drenched in wonder but tinged by sorrow. Bittersweet.  
  
Erik puts her back into the cage, saying step down like Gabby taught him, and returns his arm to its proper spot. _Please don't hide away from me._  
  
Charles shakes his head again, lets his hand drop to his side. I'm not hiding, he promises, barely a whisper. _I'm very happy for you, Erik._ That much is absolutely and undeniably the truth. He's bursting with it, when he lets more of it filter outward. To see Erik like this is a joy he can't properly express, and he feels endless affection for the bird in that cage for inspiring it.  
  
He touches along that thread of sorrow, shaking his head. _I'm sorry if-if I did something-_  
  
 _No_ , he says immediately, as firmly as possible. _No, you did nothing, darling. Please don't apologize for this._ He reaches for Erik's hand, threads their fingers together, strokes at that ring again as he stares between them. _I'm sorry. I'm sad, perhaps, but it isn't because of something you did. It's nothing, really. I promise. Don't pay it any mind._  
  
 _Do you expect me not to?_ Erik smiles down at him, gentle. _Tell me. Please._  
  
Charles' throat is clogged with something again, and he forces himself not to choke on it. He doesn't look at Erik. _You're so very good at that,_ he whispers, and shoos away what might be the beginning of tears, swallowing hard around them. _Taking care of things. People, animals, belongings. It's so natural to you, and that you ever thought -_ Erik had worried whether his predisposition to take care of others was perhaps a twisted instinct, but Charles knows by now it's not. It's so naturally Erik, an intrinsic part of him, a core trait that makes up his beating, beautiful heart, his gorgeous soul, and tied to his Dominance as everything is. That it was taken from him, that it was used against him, that it was twisted into a mockery and a shame and a tragedy - Charles can hardly stand it. He wants to give it back to him quite desperately. Not only in the form of his submission, though certainly that, but in as many ways as possible. With birds, and horses, and plants, and students. Erik is a natural caregiver, and to provide him with opportunities to care and heal and help rather than the horrific twist of his nature that led to destruction and hurt - _I was sad for a moment, thinking about it,_ he explains, and finally looks up. His eyes are watery, but he's still resolved not to let those tears fall. _But it's alright. I promised you that I would never let it happen again, and I won't. You're extraordinary, Erik. I love you very, very much._  
  
He lays his hand over Charles's cheek, magenta-plated platinum against flesh where his ring touches over him. You gave it back to me, he whispers in return, soft. Gabby is still in the room, but she's tapping on her computer, eyes on the screen to give them the illusion of privacy. You have given me everything, Charles, Erik tells him, eyes shining with sincerity. He has no doubt that there is so much more that awaits him, that Charles will give him, things he can't even comprehend. Already he could never have imagined what he has now. _I love you to the moon and back. I love you to the moon but further/around the stars/out of our galaxy/through the comets and rings of far away planets/riding on a rocket ship back down to Earth to wherever you are._ His nose wrinkles when he smiles again.  
  
Charles smiles, his eyes on the cutest nose in existence and dizzy with the rush of deep affection and love he feels before he turns, sheepishly, back to Gabby. "Excuse us, we have a tendency to do that," he snorts, because they do. Forgetting that anyone in the world exists besides them is perhaps a habit of theirs to work on, but it's the morning after they've established a Pairbond and he doesn't think it can be helped. He wants to get home as soon as possible, actually, because there are things he's eager to discuss, a life to begin planning out together, but there's something else he wants to say. Several things, but Gabby isn't going anywhere, and he finally feels he can. It doesn't have to be all at once. "Actually, I - there's something I'd like to tell you about. It concerns Erik's future, and my own, and -" He's still nervous about this, for some reason. He's only told one person besides Erik, and not even his own sister, yet, and he takes a breath. "I'm going to step out of the field of psychiatry and start a school, Gabby," he comes out with, and he respects her and her opinion. What she has to say matters to him, which is why he'd avoided their earlier conversation in the first place. "For mutants. A school for mutant children. With Erik."  
  
Her lips part in shock. "You're serious," she says, but he can feel her delight thudding like raindrops over the windows of his consciousness. "You've been talking about what to do with that estate for years. I'm glad you've finally given it a good use. Have you started on the logistics of this yet?" With Erik would be a challenge, but it wouldn't be impossible. There's nothing legal to prevent Erik and Charles from working together to establish a place like that. "I'd be absolutely thrilled to help in any way, I hope you know. I think it's a wonderful idea. A needed idea. And you would do wonderfully as a teacher," she tilts her chin up to Erik, hands folded on her desk. "I've been holding off on this, actually, but it seems like now might be a good time to let you know that I've been working with DHS to get you an emergency resident visa. This means you'll be free to live and work in the United States, and we're still compiling a lot of your identity documents but the eventuality is that once it's all sorted out, you could, if you wanted, pursue obtaining your GED or high school diploma."  
  
Erik blinks. That's not something he's ever really thought a lot about, but he supposes it makes sense. _Were they able to recover anything?_ he asks, leaning into Charles unconsciously. _About my identity?_ As far as he knows the only things that exist are what Sebastian Shaw entered into his medical database, and he doubts that was very accurate.  
  
"They were, actually. You were born in _Arad_ , and I've been talking to the administrators at the MDA outpost that handled your labor and delivery, and they're still sorting through a lot of the documentation. You were both taken to _Soroka_ afterward, but there's a lot of back and forth while we locate all the necessary documents. The good news is that we've managed to find your birth certificate, so everything else will fall into place from that. That's good news for your school," she grins at Charles. "Erik will be a legal resident, and he can pursue his own education which will facilitate his role as co-founder."  
  
Charles grins, wide and dimpled, ecstatic at what's unfolding. He's breathed a sigh of relief, tension he hadn't even known was in his shoulders melted right out. That's the second person who used the word needed. Charles already knew it to be true, but it certainly bolsters him. "Brilliant, that's completely brilliant," he comments, and presses himself against Erik's side. No Vegas necessary, then, and he'd never particularly liked the idea of their marriage being a legal necessity. Now it can be strictly theirs, when it actually is legal. "I haven't worked out all the logistics yet, no, but I assure you I'm going to throw myself into it as soon as possible. I'm more than open to suggestions. Right now I have about a dozen family lawyers to call," he sighs, because it's about his least favorite activity. It will get the ball rolling nonetheless. "On top of permits and legal nonsense, I also need to work on budgeting and investing - I understand I have quite a lot to work with, but considering I don't intend to charge tuition..." That was something he hadn't even brought up with Erik yet, but he's positive that he'll get nothing but whole-hearted support on that front. It was likely already an assumption. Private schools were inordinately expensive, usually, especially ones worth their salt, but it would never have sat well with him. The students without the support or means to afford it were the ones who would need it most. That did mean, however, running an organization that would require an immense amount of resources at a permanent loss, and while 3.5 billion was absolutely nothing to scoff at, he did intend to keep it running. "It's quite the project. This is - this is it, Gabby. When I told you that I felt I was searching for something that meant something, and that perhaps psychiatry was it, perhaps it wasn't? It wasn't. This is it." Although he'd needed psychiatry to get there. Funny how that worked, isn't it.  
  
Erik smiles at Charles privately. Theirs. It will be theirs. It's always been theirs, legal necessity or not, but Erik finds he agrees. A marriage purely on their own merits. Some day Charles Xavier would be his husband, and he can barely contain himself at the thought. _No, I certainly won't argue with that._ Charging tuition is something Charles rightly figured Erik is firmly against, and- _If I do end up with reparations, which is very likely going to happen considering just how deep a hole Mr. Shaw has dug himself into, we'll have a good deal more to work with as well._ He squeezes Charles's knee in a show of support. I'll be right there beside you. Whoever you need to speak with, whatever we need to do, we will get it done. It isn't just Charles's project anymore. Erik doesn't know how much he can really contribute to this, but he can be by Charles's side, and that's exactly where he intends to stay.  
  
"I'm really happy for you," Gabby tells him, her grin fond. "Given the way the tides are turning, mutants are going to need a safe haven. And I have no doubt you'll get everything in order. I have a considerable number of contacts in the United States government that you'll probably find useful, I can get you a list of names and occupations as soon as possible. Via email," she smirks. "So check it once in a while, _yakira_."  
  
 _It was never just my project, Erik. It was always ours._ It will continue to be theirs. Erik perhaps underestimates exactly how critical he's going to be in all of this, but Charles couldn't possibly imagine doing it without him. He wouldn't even have thought to, if he's honest. Every step of the way they'll be doing it together, combining both of their strengths and visions and resources to make a cohesive, extraordinary whole. It could never be otherwise, and the labor they'll put in will be of love. It sounds nice, doesn't it? Co-founders. He smiles back at Gabby, and there's nothing but aching sincerity and gratitude as he takes her hand again. "I can't thank you enough," he tells her, and his voice wavers again. "For giving us a chance. For listening. I promise to check my email more often." And he says much more than that in those words, but he knows she hears it. "We both should have done better to keep in touch, but there's no time like the present, is there?" There will be time for everything now. Charles looks back at Erik, and feels his chest tighten. You've given me everything, he whispers, suddenly, and he can only imagine how much more there is.  
  
 _Everything I have is yours, Charles,_ Erik tells him, and they're sitting now so he lays his head on his shoulder, relaxing further the longer they can go really being themselves without anyone reining hell down on them. It seems that Charles's trust in Gabby wasn't misplaced, and he is extremely grateful to her. _This means everything to me, Dr. Haller. Thank you very much, from the bottom of my heart._ He touches his own chest with splayed fingers, giving her a sincere smile.  
  
"I wasn't able to be there for you in the way that you needed back then," Gabby tells him, a bittersweet smile on her face. "But I'm here, now. I'd like to keep in touch, as long as I don't have any more broken phones." She gives Erik a look and he ducks his head, sheepish. "I'll do my best to support you both. And I've heard that you and Erik are flying out to Jerusalem in a couple of weeks, you'll have to let me know how you like it. If you get a chance, try and get to _Tel Aviv_. It's like nowhere else on Earth." She winks.  
  
Charles swallows down what threatens to bubble up, but he doesn't quite manage. When he stands and moves around the desk, holding out his hand one last time to her as if to shake her hand, he changes his mind. He pulls her into a hug instead. "I will try," he promises her, close to her ear, and kisses her cheek when he pulls away. "We won't be strangers, and not only because of Erik. I'd like to meet your submissive when he isn't setting my Dominant's bones," he laughs. "If he keeps up with you..." He trails off, tone teasing, and then he's the one to wink.  
  
She pats his back fondly. "We'll be Acknowledging in the fall," she tells him, plucking at her cuffs a little self-consciously. She's unused to wearing them, but her mind is full of simultaneous exhilaration. "You should both consider yourselves invited."  
  
 _Are you referring to Dr. Shomron?_ Erik blinks at her slowly, and she picks up the cage to hand it over, covering it with a small towel so Naomi won't be frightened. Erik clutches it protectively, handling it with infinite gentleness.  
  
"I am," she grins. "We met a while back at a conference and just hit it off."  
  
She sounds happy. Perhaps she was with him, too, but there was always turmoil there. Always fighting, and push-pulling, and will-we-won't-we. An uncrossable distance. When he agreed they should go their separate ways, this is exactly what he'd hoped for. Charles gives her hand a squeeze, and then takes his rightful place at Erik's side. "I'm very happy for you," he says softly, and means it with his whole heart. "It sounds like you've found someone who suits you. You know I'll be there." He's looking at Erik, now, though, and he's aware that the way he's looking up at him - like he is the world, the universe, the reason - is strikingly obvious, but he doesn't hide it. They've both done alright for themselves. But just alright, of course, he adds, snarky and grinning and only for Erik, tucked into his side.  
  
 _Oh, just all right,_ Erik smirks back, and shuffles the cage a bit to poke Charles in the side where he knows he's ticklish. Just all right, poke poke poke. Gabby's watching them, a funny expression on her face, and she darts forward to give Erik a brief hug, which he stiffens for minutely, but endures with every bit of patience he's always held. "I'm happy for you, too," she says softly. "For both of you."  
  
Charles is almost too busy squirming and trying not to giggle in that undignified manner to be properly startled and delighted. Almost. He ends up trying to hide his silly grin in Erik. "I told Gabby while we were together that tickling me was absolutely not allowed and would result in me being very cross," he says, muffled by Erik's sweater and eyeing Gabby as if expecting her to corroborate, then peeking up at Erik with a coy, all-too-pleased look. "So I'd watch it, mister." He's going to take on that bossy tone and poke Erik in the side, now. He's asking for it. He always is. He loves Gabby very much, but he's ready to go home now. "Thank you again," he murmurs to her, and, for just the briefest moment, tentative and perhaps shy, presses gratitude/fond/happy into her mind, hiding in Erik fully in the aftermath of what was truly only a split-second sensation.  
  
Gabby just smiles in the aftermath, though, touching her own temple like she's chasing the sensation. "I've let Betsy and Gertrude know that you showed up for your appointment, by the way. You two should get home, enjoy your weekend. And Shabbat shalom," she thwaps Erik on the shoulder and steps back, sitting up on her desk again. "I've also sent you both some materials on how to care for Greys, so take a look at that. I think you'll find it informative."  
  
Erik gives him a one-sided hug, and then lets the cage go, allowing it to float up beside them instead which is much more convenient with only one good arm. _Toda raba. Shabbat shalom ve kol tuv_. He bows his head respectfully and then opens the door, gesturing for Charles to exit first. The rest of the day is wide open to them, and the realization sets a flutter in his chest. They can do whatever they like. They're free.  
  
Charles feels very much like he's floating as he exits the office, and then the building, leaning back into Erik as he walks because he's always just that single step behind, guiding and leading. He stops on the sidewalk both because they need to and because he's currently a bit overwhelmed, wrapping his arms around Erik's middle and burying his face in his chest, taking care that no one will see them. It can't be Real. Any moment he's going to wake up alone in his apartment. There's no conceivable way that this is his life now.  
  
Or that Erik is going to wake up, alone in a dark cell with little else for company but glaring guards and condescending officers, but that isn't their life anymore. It never will be again, he promises, kissing Charles's temple. _I have you now. I won't let you go._  
  
He shivers, sensitive as ever, and smiles up at Erik. _I think we should have that discussion today,_ he suggests, and feels nervous all over again. In an anticipatory, pleasant way, but nervous nonetheless. It won't be a short one, or a particularly easy one, in some places, and _I'd like - I'd really like to have it, while we have the time._ To move forward in every way, with none of the uncertainty and confusion and fear of when they'd first initiated all this. Or at the very least, far less. He wants to do it right, and exactly as it should be done. If you'd like, he adds, biting his lip.  
  
 _I would like,_ Erik murmurs back, smiling down at him. _Very much._ He holds out his hand. _Shall we go home?_  
  
Charles nods, takes a deep breath, and holds on tightly. _Yes. Let's go home, Erik,_ he breathes, and feels his heart leap into the air well before his feet leave the ground. They can do that, now. Go home together. He doesn't know if he'll ever tire of it.  
  
Erik sets him down just as carefully outside the front door and gets them in to put the cage on the table, removing the towel to get Naomi comfortable and to retrieve some leftover breakfast before guiding Charles to the couch. Where would you like to begin? he asks, holding out the plate.


	44. all the dishes rattle in the cupboards when the elephants arrive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _4.48 psychosis_ , sarah kane  
> ii. _on tortures_ wisława szymborska

Charles chews on his lip (which definitely has a new hole or two in it after the night before, by the way) and stares down at the plate, not feeling particularly hungry with all the fluttering his stomach is doing. He wants to kneel, rather desperately, actually, but he's a bit too shy to ask for it, and instead his mind becomes a flash of images and concepts that he can't seem to settle on. _I'm not sure,_ he admits, and his eyes are lowered as he plays around with his food instead of eating it. _Have you thought about - I know last time..._ He trails off, fidgeting. He finds it hard to believe that Erik hasn't been working on modifications to that original set of guidelines and expectations since it became obvious that not only has their dynamic blossomed, certain parts no longer apply. _I know certain things have become implied. We could break it down more this time, perhaps? Either way, I think it might help to have it written and set, however subject to modification, if... that's alright._ For both of their sakes. Clear expectations and rules, nothing unspoken, nothing a surprise. He'll happily accept discipline when he deserves it for breaking one of those rules, but not for something he couldn't have known not to do - or something he hadn't known to do. It would likely never have been an issue in the first place, but this cuts out the likelihood of a misunderstanding. Predictability in that way seemed to work for both of them, which is why he's incredibly grateful they're doing this at all.  
  
In all honesty, it is a bit too early for Erik to have formed any real opinions and expectations of Charles beyond that which is designed to ensure his wellbeing. And now that he's here, he can ensure that Charles follows his routine. He's not yet comfortable demanding things simply because he wants them-but he does tap his foot on the floor when Charles goes to sit next to him, shaking his head. This, in as much, is something he knows he does desire. _If we're to have this discussion, it will be properly. On your knees, bevakasha._ It's framed as a request, but the thread of Order is persistent. And eat your food, his lips purse in amusement. _Truth be told, most of my rules only encompass a few basic concepts. For you to take care of yourself, to allow yourself to be taken care of by me, to be honest with me, and to be respectful. That hasn't changed, nor do I anticipate it changing._ He knows that's not the answer that's very satisfying, but like Charles, he does better with specifics than generalities. _Why don't we start with this?_ he lifts his hand and the pad of paper that Charles wrote down his original expectations floats out from the bedroom and lands on his palm. _What parts do you feel no longer apply?_  
  
Charles breathes a sigh of relief as he sinks to his knees, more than pleased with the Order. It's exactly where he wanted to be and they both know it. Truth be told, the answer is satisfying, at least for him. It's more or less what he'd expected from Erik, but checking in like this, even if it's only to reaffirm and tweak, feels incredibly important, and he knows it's the same for Erik. _Most obviously the parts that were meant to establish things,_ he says, though it hardly needs saying, but it does change the list quite a bit. _I'm wearing your collar now, so I don't need to obtain one. And I think we've both decided that 'polyamorous activity' is never going to be a discussion between us. I'd... really like if it isn't, actually_ , he mumbles, and looks down, because just the thought makes him feel sick to his stomach.  
  
 _Agreed_ , Erik murmurs wryly, picking up the pencil he'd floated out as well and crossing off both items. He couldn't imagine it then and he can't imagine it now, but as always he'd been devoted to making certain that Charles didn't feel stifled, especially since such things are fairly common; total monogamy is quite unusual, even for Bonded partners, others could often be brought in for scenes and the like. Erik grimaces at even the thought. It's become quite apparent since yesterday that they're both supremely uncomfortable with the mere suggestion that anyone else belongs. He does spy another thing though and circles the addendum on substances. This had been maintained before Erik really held any comprehension of Charles's relationship with drugs and alcohol, so he crosses it all out and simply writes, _must obtain permission beforehand_. It's a much clearer interpretation of the guideline; not outright forbidding it, but certainly involving Erik on a deeper level. He raises his eyebrows, holding it out for inspection.  
  
There's really shockingly little Erik can do to make him feel stifled barring a few clear boundaries, as they're both learning. When the next change is made, Charles leans over curiously, and instantly sighs. That was my next concern, he admits quietly, and stares down at his knees. It's something he wouldn't have properly asked for, but absolutely needed. That Erik knew and changed it accordingly isn't all surprising, but he smiles softly anyway, pleased and grateful. _Yes, Erik_ , he agrees. He's sure there will be a time he does not want to follow that rule, but that isn't what's being discussed here. _Is there anything else...?_  
  
Most of the rest of it is, as Charles identified, contingent on the fact that Erik wasn't present to help moderate everything-particularly the rules associated with keeping his living space clean, the specific times to go to bed and whatnot-all of which Erik can much more easily deal with on a case by case basis now that he's there; and he's honestly more comfortable taking care of Charles's needs in that way rather than making Charles do it himself, so he instead flips to a new page and fills out the new clause he just added, plus the expectation of a morning and evening routine, and re-writes the fact that Charles is free to question or bring up concerns when he wishes, that Erik may decide whether some rules are strenuously applied or not, emergencies and Charles's discretion about their relationship. He also keeps in-tact the provisions about not working at least an hour before it's time to sleep, eating healthy, and maintaining personal hygiene. He also stops and taps the pencil against his lip, nose wrinkled up as he considers. _You mentioned that you're rather an active person. Another important aspect of taking care of yourself is physical fitness_. It ties into what Charles has already suspected from the beginning; Erik is a perfectionist, and he does expect the best of Charles, and that includes his physical form as well.  
  
Charles nods, still hiding his smile. He realizes he's brought himself into a relaxed Rest now that he's eaten as much as he thinks himself capable of, the plate set neatly beside him, and it surprises him for a moment. There's so much that's shockingly natural, now that he's allowed it to be. _Yes, Erik. I used to go for morning runs regularly, but..._ He'd fallen off that wagon, unfortunately. It would be good to be kept on it. _I have a question_ , he adds, quietly, and it clearly isn't related to exercise. He waits to ask, seeking permission in case it would be interrupting something Erik had planned to say - he's not sure when he made the switch, but there's something... formal about this, almost. As much a ritual as Bonding was.  
  
Erik simply pencils in establish physical fitness routine under self-care and tilts his head, moving on easily from the subject; they'll have plenty of time to hammer out the details later on. _Please ask_ , he murmurs, nodding his head in assent.  
  
The first part isn't so much a question as it is a request, and it's also the easier part, so Charles bites on his lip again, eyes lowered as he addresses that. _I know rules like 'do as you're told' and 'don't lie to me' and 'be respectful' are exceptionally obvious and have been implied since the beginning, but_ \- But he'd like if they were written down, too. Not because it would make them any more real or him any more or less likely to follow them, but because... he's not sure, exactly. It feels like something he needs. So when he's disciplined if and when he breaks them - and it will happen, that much is inevitable - he knows it was something discussed and agreed upon, formally and together. He would have regardless, but there's... he honestly doesn't know, but he does know it's important to him, and right now they aren't on the list at all.  
  
It makes Erik pause for a moment, because he does agree that those things are important, but-he's uncertain how to frame the whirl and jumble of thoughts and emotions that bubble up. He draws a circle around everything that's been mentioned thus far and makes an arrow, writing _CHARLES_ on the place it joins, and then another circle, another arrow, _CHARLES_ & _ERIK_ in his wobbly left-handed script, slanted unnaturally. Under that he adds _honesty, respect, listening_. Because they are in a relationship, together. These are expectations that should be held of both of them, not just Charles; and that brings him to his next consideration, what, if anything, Charles expects of him. He holds out the pad, an essential free reign for brainstorming ideas. At this point it's all scattered, but once they agree on everything, he'll codify it into a real outlined contract.  
  
Charles finds Erik's handwriting incredibly endearing, but he doesn't mention it. He's too busy wracking his brain for something, a confused jumble of his own reaction as he chews thoughtfully on his lip. _Perhaps we should essentially rewrite our Bonding vows, for this particular part_ , he suggests, a slight twitch to his lips, because he's made it abundantly clear what he will offer, and what he expects in return, things Erik has already echoed. _And... I - there's a difference between 'respect' here, I think, that is perhaps worth mentioning. One has much more to do with deference_. Charles is willing to give it, he wants to give it, he knows Erik expects it and desires it of him, but it's something he has quite a bit of struggle with. His mouth has always gotten him into trouble, and no one has ever curbed it. He doesn't want to be silenced, not even close, but - he's not sure how to put it into words, frustrated suddenly. He needs to be able to speak his mind, freely and openly outside of the loss of that privilege during discipline. That he absolutely expects, and refuses to compromise on, but fortunately so does Erik. _But_... he shakes his head. He doesn't have the right words for this. He only knows what he needs, and what his pride will allow.  
  
Erik sets the pad down and closes his hands over Charles's. _I'm not certain I'm completely comfortable writing something like that into a list of my Ordered expectations of you_ , he replies, because they don't lie to one another. _Although I certainly appreciate the sentiment-what I can understand of the sentiment_. The acknowledgment that Erik is the Dominant, that Erik is Charles's Dominant, but he's secure in that, he doesn't need a rule. _I don't need for you to act more submissive, if that isn't your natural inclination_. And Charles's tendency toward submission waxes and wanes proportionally to Erik's Will, which he does know. Charles can be catty and sarcastic, and petulant, which Erik decidedly doesn't respond to positively-and which would seem to be covered under respect as a whole-but this feels more like legislating Charles's personality, and Erik sees nothing wrong with his behavior outside the aforementioned, even if it's not traditionally yielding.  
  
Charles shakes his head, and can't help but smile. _That isn't at all what I meant, but thank you_ , he murmurs, completely honest himself as he looks back down at his lap. He hadn't been thinking clearly enough for that to actually come across, but Erik's response reminds him of exactly why this will always work. _You're wrong, though_ , he points out, quietly, because if they're being honest and clearing up misconceptions, perhaps it's worth mentioning. _It isn't... I don't know how to put this,_ he admits, frustrated again. _It isn't a question of dictating my personality, or 'acting more submissive'. I'm not even sure what that would entail, if I'm honest. But deference doesn't actually mean, to me_ \- It doesn't mean bowing his head and going along with Erik's every whim and fancy regardless of his own thoughts, or keeping his mouth shut, or sacrificing his own opinions and values, which he would never allow in the first place. It does mean knowing when to yield to Erik. Perhaps it doesn't belong on a numbered list, but it is something he's considered. _There's a difference between... expressing myself and my positions and being insolent. I know I have a tendency to cross the line_. And they both do need Erik to bring him back over it. It's a conversation they've had before, but in a check-in like this, especially when they've both had trouble with it, there's no harm in bringing it up.  
  
 _You can,_ Erik agrees with a small smile. More than any insult or insolence, what he truly struggles with is being _provoked_. And that's something Charles tends to do when he's agitated, a line that he does cross, that Erik can't abide simply because it is as much about disrespect as it is about disregarding his limits. And he knows that Charles is aware of that, which makes the discipline that results from it all the more meaningful. Not only is it a way to remind Charles of his place, but for Erik to be able to establish his own boundaries, his own needs, and to have a healthy outlet for them both; for Erik to administer punishment and for Charles to endure it, from someone who has his best interests at heart, who isn't exacting vengeance for the purpose of cruelty. It's an expression of something they both need. _But that is what I am here for. To ensure that you know where you belong, who you belong with_.  
  
It does remind him of something. It's not a comfortable topic, and the last time they'd discussed it, it hadn't been the right forum for it, both of them riding off of strong emotion. This, he imagines, is exactly the right one. But he can't do it, even though Erik already knows. There's too much shame there twisting around inside of him, unsettling his stomach as he fidgets out of position, wringing his hands together. He nods instead.  
  
Erik shakes his head. _Tell me_ , he Orders softly. It's not even a conscious act at this point, but something that derives from their proximity, the longer they're together, the more comfortable Erik feels settling into his natural instincts. _This is about being honest with one another, and ourselves._  
  
But Charles doesn't know how to be honest about this, because he doesn't have a better explanation for it than he did before. He doesn't think it's a conscious need, or where, exactly, it comes from. He swallows and lets Erik say it for him, using his voice from a memory: _You were looking to be punished_. He knows it won't be a single occurrence, whether it's instinctual or otherwise, because it had even reared its head during their Bonding, where everything was instinct and stripped-bare need. He knows it makes him hot with shame, because he's fairly sure that shouldn't be an instinct of his. But he knows it's there, all the same.  
  
He touches Charles's face. _I do not see why it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be an instinct of mine to-_ he cuts himself off, equally ashamed, if not moreso, because being punished is much different than delivering punishment. And that is something that Erik needs, buried deep under the ocean, under the core of the Earth where he can't go. _But it is_ , he finishes quietly. _We mirror one another_.  
  
Charles laughs softly, then, head still bowed, because to him there's nothing at all strange or concerning or upsetting about Erik needing to punish him, and he supposes that's just the way this goes _. I just._.. He takes a breath, and looks up, searching. _You don't mind? It doesn't bother you, that - if I act out, you'll..._  
  
 _No_ , Erik murmurs, leaning over to kiss his forehead. _It does not bother me_. In fact even now there's a corresponding glow, a rise of Will sizzling at the point of contact. If Charles acts out, Erik will put him down. Whatever creature of instinct lives inside of him had reared its head in response, a roaring miasma of Dominion that's only begun to surface properly. There had been no agonizing, no preparation, he'd fell seamlessly into it where one moment bled into another and deeply satisfied at the response it got. Erik isn't comfortable with that aspect of himself, it frightens him, because he doesn't want to think of himself as a person who desires to inflict pain on anyone else, least of all Charles, and yet, here they are.  
  
That gets Charles' attention. _But it's not the same_ , he argues, and on this he is firm. _You have to know that, Erik. You aren't inflicting... yes, alright, there is pain involved_ , he concedes, because he knows perfectly well that he needs physical discipline and Erik has expressed that he needs to give it. _But it's not pain in the same way. It's another way of taking care of me. It helps me, and it helps you, too. I don't want_ it to frighten you. That's what frightens me, he admits. That eventually, it will get to Erik. That it will bother him. That Charles will need too much, and it will disgust or horrify him.  
  
 _I know,_ Erik replies, soft. His eyes flick up and he stares at a point over Charles's shoulder, a bit far away. _I know it isn't the same thing. I_ \- he lets out a long breath. _I suppose that is why I am Dominant. I do not_ \- he's sure he's not communicating his point effectively, and the last thing he wants is for Charles to misinterpret him. _Like when you-_ he transmits the image that Charles sent him in a brief burst, not long enough to be distressing, of Charles slapping him in the face. _I-_ he's stumbling, he knows he is. _I do not need pain. It frightens me. It makes me afraid. I remember every time I've been punished and-I do not want you to feel like that_ , his voice cracks even in their minds and he swallows against it. _That is not what I want. I don't want-I do not want to hurt you. Or make you suffer. I know there is a difference, I know_. He covers his eyes, drawing his hand down his face. _Your needs, your desires, do not frighten me. What scares me is-is how much_ \- how much Erik needs it too. How much more he needs, that he simply can't access yet. They really are mirrors.  
  
He winces anyway, because it's terribly uncomfortable and he's so inexplicably grateful that Erik was firm on not wanting that sort of pain, because Charles knows he isn't capable of laying a hand on him. He would much rather do anything else, up to and including enduring physical torture himself. Which is not what Erik's discipline is, and he knows that they both know it. _But you've seen... Erik, I've felt that way, too. Frightened, and humiliated beyond reason, and in that sort of pain_. The pain that he knows Erik will never inflict on him. _You know that. You've seen that. So I know you've felt the difference. You have to know that I know the difference too, and not once - not once - have I mixed them up. If I do, for even a second, I'll stop it. I promise I will. Your discipline of me has nothing at all to do with that. They could not be more different. We're mirrors, Erik, you're right. It frightens me a bit how much I need, too. But we do both need it, and isn't that -_ Healing. It's healing, he thinks, to be given this, what he needs and will always need, in a safe, controlled, loving environment, and not the sick, abusive twist that was fed to him. Incredibly healing.  
  
He takes Charles's hand again and kisses his knuckles. The truth is that the more they engage with this, the more they explore, the less afraid he becomes. There will come a time where he feels the difference as much as he knows it intellectually, of that he is sure. And Charles is right. For all the trouble they have separating everything sometimes, it is healing. It's a way for them both to regain the control that was taken from them. _Nothing about you disgusts me,_ he says, smiling gently. _I love every part of you. This included.  
_

* * *

 _Then you know that I feel the same way about this part of you_ , he murmurs, and smiles right back. It falters after a moment, and he bites his lip. _That being said... well. I imagine that's a separate part of the discussion_. He did say this would be a long process, but as a check-in to the check-in? Charles scoots until he can lean against Erik's knee, nuzzling. _I'm glad we're talking about this openly. All of it, he whispers, because..._ it feels like a shift, even if nothing is exceptionally new. Like the end of something, and the start of something else. He can't quite put his finger on it.  
  
He scritches his fingers through Charles's hair, fond. _Agreed_. And maybe they should have done it sooner, but at the same time, they have more of a foundation to build upon now, they know more, they trust themselves and one another more deeply and it's far more conducive to a productive Negotiations stage, he's finding. They're getting comfortable with themselves, able to openly face and discuss the nuances that they weren't capable of in the beginning. It's just a sign that the longer they're together, the stronger they become. They've shed the vacillating, back and forth, one foot in one foot out, uncertainty and replaced it with the strongest Bonds of Will forged with deep devotion and love. It couldn't be more right.  
  
Charles hums, incredibly pleased to soak up that attention, leaning right into it. It really couldn't be more right, no. _Can I ask another question?_ he murmurs after a moment, softly, and there's something shy and uncertain about him again as he turns his face into Erik's leg. Something fluttery and nervous floating around in his belly.  
  
 _Always_ , Erik says, and he means it. He separates the strands between his fingers, untangling them from one another and brushing them out, smoothing his hair back over his head in broad, rhythmic strokes.  
  
He's momentarily distracted by how deliciously good that feels, his eyes closing as he sighs, but he finds his train of thought eventually _. I know there are things that won't be covered by rules and expectations of either of us that are still a part of our dynamic. Orders outside of them, and even beyond that, things you ask that you expect obedience in._ Sometimes things aren't Orders, perhaps just to give him the chance to obey on his own terms. They're different than requests, clearly, but not technically the same as Orders, which he obviously has to follow. It's all a complicated map of Erik's Dominance, and he greatly enjoys all of it. _But do you._.. Erik had offered this information, the very first time they'd had a real discussion about this that didn't exist in vague obfuscations, but he'd been vague about it. _Does it - you enjoy it_? Because Charles does. Very much. He craves it, desires it, needs it, and finds himself a bit lost when it's gone, actually. He shows Erik what he means in images: Erik picking out his outfit this morning, as he has nearly every day since they settled into themselves. Erik deciding what he eats, and how much is acceptable, taking Charles' feelings and physical limitations into account. Telling him to clear the table, or wash the dishes, or tidy his desk. Erik choosing and dictating any number of mundane things that all add up to a whole, and Charles deferring unless there's an issue, a conflict (or he doesn't feel like it, but that's another story). He's chewing on his lip again, a spike of shame, but mostly just shy embarrassment. _I just wondered if it was the same for you, since we're... openly discussing everything, now._  
  
Erik's response is without hesitation. _It is_ , _and I do. A great deal_. He wasn't accustomed to giving Orders before Charles, and it's taken him a while to settle into it, but he truly does need to give them just as much as Charles needs to follow them. Every one overlays the next, forming an intricate map of Erik's Dominance like a crystal lattice. The simplest of instructions warm him, especially knowing it's what Charles needs, what he responds to, what makes him happy. Being in the position to take care of him, to guide him, to ground him in Erik's Will. He notices Charles chewing at his lip and taps it with his finger. Leave that alone, this Order is tender, a drizzle rather than a deluge, but no less immediate. Charles can feel it then, how it's becoming more automatic, how Erik leans into the structure of Command as a way to not only soothe Charles, but himself as well, rubbing the fabric of a well-worn blanket between his fingertips. It's not purely for Charles's benefit, that much is obvious. Erik needs it too, just as much, adores it just as much when Charles moves to obey him, as powerful as cracks of thunder in the sky and electrifying his nervous system.  
  
Charles is glowing in the aftermath, relieved and pleased, because he'd known that, but it was good to hear it. Incredibly good, actually, and now he's melted right into it, soft and sighing with a smile on the lips that he's no longer biting. _I always thought that I wouldn't... but I really do need it, he admits, quietly. I feel -_ Steadier. More stable, more balanced, more in control even though he's technically surrendered it to Erik. Calmer and grounded. The idea that what we have could ever have been contained to the bedroom is completely ridiculous. But he knows for a lot of people, Bonded couples alike, it is. When it isn't, it isn't nearly as pervasive, as constant, as all-consuming. But Charles needs it like that, and apparently so does Erik.  
  
He laughs lightly. _I venture our expectations of what we would want in a relationship-which is more theory than anything else-are challenged by the reality of being in a relationship with each other_ , he figures, analytic. _I remember when you didn't wish me to give you Orders unless you asked for them-you didn't believe that you would respond well to it. But we fell right into that_ , his eyes crinkle up. _And you respond beautifully._  
  
Charles flushes at the reminder. _The situation was different then, and I was terrified_ , he points out, but it doesn't stop the pink from spreading down to his neck and up to his ears. _Besides, it's less about what I honestly thought I wanted and more about - well. I know what I need now_. Sometimes he's still ashamed, but there's less of that with each passing moment. _I need more, not less_ , he mumbles, admitting it not for the first time, but he's just as shy.  
  
 _Something I am incredibly grateful for_ , Erik murmurs lowly. _Every time I think I've discovered the edges of my Dominance they unfold outward, endlessly. It scared me_ , he admits. I thought it meant that I am a bad person. _But you are right. It is so much more than that. Every time I see that I can make you happy, it-_ he lets out a huff of air, a mental shrug. _It reminds me that my Dominance is good. You gave that to me. I never could have expected that._  
  
At that, Charles beams up at him, all pleasure and dimples. He nudges against Erik's hand while he's at it, a silent plea for more petting, please, eyes creased at the corners as he settles his head on his knee and looks up at him adoringly. _It is good. It's very good. And we've gotten very sidetracked_ , he laughs. Linear discussions were not their collective forte, evidently.

* * *

 _We have time to be sidetracked_ , Erik taps him on the nose, amused, and he holds up the pad again, drawing a little bubble with ERIK written at the top. _There's quite a lot of things under your name, but this relationship shouldn't only be about me and what I want_. _I'd like you to think about what you want as well, what you expect from me._  
  
That makes Charles hesitant, perhaps nervous _. I understand where you're coming from, Erik, and I more than appreciate the sentiment, but_... He doesn't think it's the same. The things he wants and expects are written under his name, too. _There's nothing applicable in the way it is for me. Not because I don't want or expect anything at all_ , just - He shakes his head. He's not sure. _You're implying things are one-sided, but that's just not the case. Everything you've written down that you expect from me is for me, too_. And the things he expects and wants most don't need to be written down, he doesn't think. They're implied just as much as what's not written down under his, a fundamental part of their dynamic.  
  
Erik nods, and he just draws a little question mark in the circle instead, not dismissing it but not pushing it further, either. He draws a little line from respect down into Charles's column and adds _deference_ , raising his eyebrows in question. Now that Charles explained it a little better, Erik thinks he knows what Charles meant-deference as an expression of respect, a word that encompasses what can't truly be written out on a piece of paper; that if respect isn't given, there will be consequences.  
  
Charles nods, chewing on the inside of his cheek now that he's been recently Ordered to stop gnawing on his lip. _Habits. If you'd like them to mirror each other, if we're truly going to be thorough_ , he grins, and points out both his column and Erik's. _That would fill yours, too. Though for the sake of avoiding redundancy, one or the other would work_... Now that he's thinking about it, perhaps it would be beneficial, with things like ' _respect_ ' and ' _deference_ ' having made it onto the paper. Implied and always assumed, perhaps, but if this is a contract for both of them, it should apply to both of them. Charles can think of at least a few things he's not willing to compromise on Erik's part, expectations he has, but now he's having trouble getting them out. It's not that he's frightened, or that he thinks there's even a possibility of Erik objecting. It's just - he doesn't know, and now he's fidgeting.  
  
Erik taps his cheek pointedly. _Enough of that_ , he murmurs the Order, and then another. He could just ask, but much as Charles wanted to know before, he enjoys giving Orders, needs to as much as Charles needs to follow them. He poises the pencil over his own column _. Tell me._  
  
Charles pouts, but does exactly what he's told, even as he wriggles about on his knees. The Order focuses him, but he still has to dig through his own thoughts and fumble for something coherent. _Most of what I expect, like I said, is implied in our dynamic. I expect you to heed my pause-word, even if it's just as much yours_. He'd put it in his Vows, actually, and then Erik had echoed it. He needed that safety, that bit of control he knows he can tug at whenever it's necessary. _I expect you to care for me, but that's more than implied in my own expectations. I expect you to protect me, even from myself_. That was extremely important to him, actually, and Erik is the only one who can. He's the only one with the right, too. _And discipline me when I need it, at your discretion, but_ \- They've discussed this. He still has to take a slow, calming breath. _Not when you're angry_ , he whispers. That one is perhaps the most important to him. To have it be broken, even if he could pause-word out of it, would be a frightening breach of trust. If Erik ever truly is angry, and he has been, Charles expects him to take the time to compose himself before he addresses the issue. He doesn't know how he'd react otherwise.  
  
Erik writes as Charles speaks, almost before he does, though Charles's expectations of him echo the expectations he holds of himself. _Pause-word, care, protection, appropriate discipline, composure_. He kisses Charles's brow, giving him a small smile. Even at his angriest, Erik had more or less retreated into himself. His own anger is effectively a trigger, and this is part of the reason why he responds so poorly to being antagonized, there is no way he can imagine himself acting out in rage, barring the most extreme of circumstances, which Charles could never hope to come close to. _Always_ , he promises. _I will always make sure you are safe._  
  
Charles smiles, too. _I know_ , he says simply, and he does. There isn't a part of him that is frightened of Erik, or that believes any of those expectations will not be met. _That's all I have, I think,_ he adds, rolling it over in his own head to make sure. Perhaps not a long list, but everything on it is very important. He's glad, in the end, that it's written down for both of them. This was a good idea, and like usual it was a joint effort.

* * *

He nods, and then solemnly-because this will be the harder part of the discussion-draws a line and writes _LIMITS_. He doesn't bother separating them; anything that goes in that category applies to them both. It's good to have their expectations listed, their wants and desires, but it's equally as important for them to acknowledge what they don't want, aside from vague implications.  
  
Charles tenses slightly, and then, because he's nervous, goes back to lip biting. _You know_ , he begins, and now he's laughing a little, even though he's sure parts of this will be anything but amusing, I've... it would be completely different now, but - He shakes his head, flushed and embarrassed, and hides in Erik's knee.  
  
 _Stop_ , Erik taps his lip again. _I mean it_. He lets his hand curl around Charles's jaw. But?  
  
Charles looks properly chastised at that, sucking in a breath and letting it out in a soft, apologetic noise. _Sorry, sir_ , he murmurs, leaning into Erik's touch. Years of habit didn't break easily, but Erik seems determined to at least make sure he isn't constantly biting holes in his own lip. Another way he's taking care of him, and demanding obedience. It grounds him more than he expects it to, steadies him, even though he's still flushed with embarrassment. But it would have made bringing some of it up easier, he finishes his thought, and shows Erik what he means, flashing an image. It's a fairly standard checklist for Negotiations stages; some work on a rating scale, this one is far simpler (for his sake, but he doesn't need to mention that), lined with _Yes, No, Maybe_. It's a recollection from his own memory, so it's filled out, and though Charles deliberately doesn't linger, it's glaringly obvious that the majority of the columns are marked with _'No_.' He snorts, ducking his head as shame floods back in. _They weren't, most of them, even then. I didn't actually need to put them there, but_... Putting them in the 'Yes' column meant admitting he wanted them.  
  
Erik takes stock of all the _nos_ and tilts his head. It's fairly evident that nothing on this list remotely phases him, but it's important that they ensure these things are clear. Both the hard _nos_ and the _maybes_ , for different reasons. Where extra deliberation and care would be required, or what is outright unacceptable. _So tell me what still belongs on this list, he_ Orders softly, repositioning the pencil. _With us._  
  
It's funny, actually, because some of the things on that ' _No_ ' list for him are not only things he's expressed incredible desire and need for with Erik, but things they've already done. He hums, bowing his head against Erik's leg as he considers. It's clear that this time he intends to be honest, both with himself and and his Dominant, and that it's not particularly easy for him, either. _What still belongs as a 'No'?_ He's assuming that means a firm limit he's not willing to have pushed without prior discussion, without there being some sort of change, either for himself or both of them. An _'under no circumstances, right now_.' There's shockingly little, now, enough that he finds himself struggling to indicate one. Everything seems to have migrated to the ' _Yes_ ' ( _please, sir_ ) or eager ' _Maybe_ ' category. Something eventually gives him pause, and he struggles not to bite on his lip. His shoulders tense. His mind becomes a flash of images, all of which he attempts to tug away, not from Erik but from himself, and he's started holding his breath, eyes closed tightly. _I..._  
  
 _Atzor. Neshom_. He brushes Charles's hair out of his forehead. _Tell me._ _That is the entire purpose of this exercise_ , he reminds softly. _To ensure that what we have is safe. I expect you to let me know when you know that something will distress you, so that I can take care of you. Everything that goes on this list is protected. I will not let it hurt you_.  
  
But the thing is, Charles isn't even positive if it would distress him. He knows it did when he checked it off on this list, but he isn't certain now. They've already incorporated parts of into their dynamic. In fact, he would say they've been beneficial parts for them, and that there are more than a few ways in which it would be effective, where he wouldn't at all question Erik using it, regardless of how uncomfortable it might be in the moment. But it is something that hurt him, in the past. Erik already knows about it. He takes a deep breath. _Being... abandoned, or_ \- He knows Erik would never actually abandon him. That he would never leave or forget him, especially after discipline. But there's still a part of Charles that is thirteen, left in a strain punishment Posture, crying and alone and scared and the hours tick by and no one is coming. He's bleeding and his muscles ache but he was told not to move so he doesn't. Not until his legs give out, not until it's hours and hours later, not until he forces himself to admit that no one is coming to get him, to tell him that it is over, that it's alright, that he isn't all of the awful things he was called during his beating. There's still a part of Charles whose heart clenches every time Erik says go and wait for me, that fears he just won't show up. That he'll be on his knees like that forever, waiting. _It's not a 'No'_ , he whispers eventually, eyes still closed. It doesn't belong on the list, because - Every time Erik does leave him in a vulnerable position, and every time he shows up again, Charles heals a little more. He takes a deep breath. _It just... I remembered why I put it there. Why it was a 'No.'_ He'd underlined it, on that list. Checked it twice. But with Erik, things are different. With Erik he is safe, and he knows he'd never be hurt like that. That _'I'll come back for you_ ' means he will. It's a tangent, perhaps, but - no, Charles thinks maybe it's important it came up, even if he's hiding in the aftermath, even if those images are still lingering.  
  
Charles can see that this doesn't surprise Erik at all; in fact it's come up once before when Erik's disciplined him even when he'd been angry, and needed that time to compose himself, when he couldn't use corporal methods, he set that aside and stayed in the room with him while reading a book instead of outright leaving him alone. He's gratified to realize that was the right call after all, because he'd considered the alternative for a brief moment before dismissing it, as a form of discipline itself, knowing that it would be uncomfortable for Charles, a substitute for pain. But he couldn't go through with it, something told him to listen to the spaces in between, and he is immeasurably glad that he did. But, like Charles mentioned, Erik does think that there are reasonable applications of this form of discipline, and he doesn't intend to disregard that altogether. However, something absolutely needs to be addressed here. _If that were ever to happen, I would always set an established time limit. I would never leave you for that long without giving you clear expectations_.  
  
It takes a while for Charles to process his own thoughts, curling up closer until his head is bent into Erik's lap. _It doesn't have to be specific. I'd just need to know_ \- That he was coming back. There's no hiding that it would be incredibly uncomfortable for him, but discipline was not meant to be pleasant. The point here is that it would not be distressing, in the sense that it would do actual damage. _As long as we were still connected, I think I'd be more than okay_. Erik's mind is muted during discipline, but he always knows he's there. If he could still reach him, if there was a failsafe or if Erik could tell when something switched from emotions whipped up and expected during discipline into actual terror and emotional distress, it would be different. _It is different. Everything is. I... actually, I think -_ It might be as healing as the physical discipline sessions are. If Erik deemed it necessary. If he'd earned it. He swallows, shame buzzing around their Bond again, because admitting that was decidedly not easy.  
  
He nods, trailing his fingers down to Charles's collar reassuringly. That's part of the reason I haven't discounted it entirely. Nevertheless, Erik poises his pencil over the section and writes _abandonment w/c_ or _with caution_. Even if they're both aware it won't happen, trusting the other person to be respectful of such, that's the purpose of this list. A written acknowledgment of everything. No way for plausible deniability.  
  
Charles nods, too, cheek pressed against one of Erik's thighs as he exhales, eyes still closed. There's more, but he thinks he needs a second before he brings them up. It's not that he thinks Erik's limits are going to be any more fun for either of them to discuss, but he needs to take a step back. Perhaps alternating for a moment is a good idea. _Do you have anything...?_  
  
Erik takes a breath and conjures up one of the items on the list, without accompanied images or emotions, just a neat red _X_ beside _rape fantasy_. Predictably, there's a spectrum there. Between them things are different, and Erik isn't opposed to exploring that, but it's as much an area of instability as abandonment for Charles. Playing with consent not something they could ever just jump into safely.  
  
Charles lets out a hitched sigh of relief. _Agreed_ , he whispers. He deliberately stamps down anything associated, too, but it was underlined on his ' _No_ ' list several times, one of only a few despite the long list. It's the same as it for Erik here, he thinks. He isn't entirely opposed to the idea of safely and slowly and very carefully working up to something resembling it, but it does make him wonder. Is there... _I know we've discussed my saying 'no' to certain things and having it not... Having it not mean no, outside of a pause-word_. It's not the same thing, but it's important that they check-in here, too, even as they've worked through it outside of a formal discussion. _Does that still frighten you...?_ He can't help holding his breath, because that he needs that override has never been a secret.  
  
His instinct is to say _yes_ , but what ends up coming out is, _it depends on the circumstances_. He gives a small smile, tucking Charles's head under his chin where he's leaned forward, unconsciously wrapping an arm around him. Before now it would be a _yes_ , but they've already encountered scenarios where that isn't the case. It- he shakes his head. Being mentally connected to you is important. _Even if you do not use your pause-word, if I can feel that you are seriously objecting to something I will stop and check-in. Whether that ruins the flow of things or not,_ Erik simply can't operate another way. Erik's mental voice is flat and even, too-calm, too-composed.  
  
Charles notices. He tenses, swallowing around the shame that bubbles back up. _I'm sorry_ , he whispers, and feels dizzy with it.  
  
He tilts his head. _There is no need to apologize_ , he murmurs. But the purpose of this is to have a rational discussion and it won't do for him to get upset or dissolve, so he's maintaining himself, controlling himself. This is exactly what we should be _doing. It's all right_. He rubs Charles's back.  
  
It feels like he's pushing Erik past a limit he's uncomfortable with, and the thought alone is enough to make him feel sick. He's searching for an alternative. He's spinning with it, wracking his brain for a way he can rewire himself so it isn't an instinct, so it isn't a need, so it isn't something he benefits from. Every time he tries to say _I don't need it_ , it gets stuck right inside of him. He doesn't think he can lie about this to Erik, especially not right now.  
  
Erik kisses his temple. _We knew this would not be easy, but I do not need for you to lie to me or to eviscerate yourself for me. When you need something, I think I've proven I can respond to that need_. Proven to Charles, perhaps, but more importantly he's proven it to himself, and that bolsters him. It makes him confident when he says, _I do not think this is an exception._  
  
But it frightens him, that he's pushing Erik past where he wants to go. He has to believe he isn't. He has to believe that he's not forcing Erik into anything that he isn't inclined toward, that he doesn't also need in mirror. He still can't open his eyes, or force away the awful shame of it. _I don't always need - I don't always want..._ Charles has defined this before, but now is the time to be as clear as possible, to check-in and make sure they are on exactly the same page. _I don't want or need you to override every 'No.' If you ask me to do something and I say no and I have a reason for saying no, if something upsets me or concerns me or confuses me or frightens me or - any number of things, really, of course I want you to stop and check in, Erik, even if it's not distressing enough for me to think to use a pause-word. Of course I want us to discuss it, and decide together what to do, whether that's me yielding or us working on an alternative, in bed or out of it, regardless of the situation._ He thinks that might help. It's helped him sort it out in his own head. _But sometimes I know what I need, or what I want, or what I should do, and I have no reason to say no, or I don't actually want to say no, and_ \- And that's when he needs it. If Erik isn't sure, if he needs to stop and ask what's happening before he makes a decision, that's more than perfectly fine. Why he doesn't want to do something, or obey an instruction. The difference between not wanting to go to bed because he doesn't feel like it and because he's worried he'll have nightmares, something Erik brought up himself. They required two different approaches, both of them ending with him getting what he needed in that particular instance - deferring. _And last night, when - I said no, I don't want to be disciplined, I don't want to listen, and you said_ \- Charles shivers. And that was the height of their instincts, where he knows nothing was hidden or forced. _Because we both knew I needed it, and that it wasn't my decision to make._  
  
The more Charles talks about it, the more whatever it is in Erik's chest begins to loosen and his emotions gradually filter back in, tentative and low-fuzz microphone-static feedback. It does help. A great deal, because that's exactly the type of scenario he had in mind-in both ways. That the necessity of him checking in periodically isn't contrary to Charles's needs, and last night-when Charles very clearly said no, and Erik entirely shut him down. There's no agonizing; it felt right and it still feels right. His fingers trace down Charles's neck, thumb brushing the claw-mark near his collar. _I find it difficult to put into words what about this truly upsets me, but nothing you've mentioned qualifies, he assures softly. I'm your Dominant. And as we've discovered, I'm not particularly inclined to permissiveness_. Most people would say otherwise, that Erik is too lenient or too gentle, but Charles knows him better than that by now. He doesn't let things go, he doesn't let things fester or fail to resolve, he doesn't allow Charles enough slack with the rope to hang himself or bungee jump off the deep end. There's room to maneuver but it's clear when there isn't. But Charles is right, this is the time for complete honesty, even if it's challenging. _I suppose my-discomfort-tends to be relegated to-the bedroom. In certain respects_. But not in others, as evidenced. He clears his throat, pressing his lips together and averting his gaze.  
  
Charles is equal parts relieved and nervous, but not fearful. They need to have this discussion, and whatever they decide, he knows it will be right for both of them. _Can you elaborate?_ He asks, gentle, coaxing, and he nuzzles into Erik's lap, hoping to comfort them both. _On... what those respects are_?  
  
 _If you were afraid or panicking_. That's about as specific as Erik knows how to be, because he can think of a thousand different scenarios where he'd freeze up but he can also think of a thousand more ways that it could be the product of a more beneficial whole, if it happened the right way. He can't know that until it happens, until they face it; the way they did last night, which turned out decidedly all right and still makes him tingle, but he does know off the bat he can't blow through genuine fear.  
  
 _I don't want that. I wouldn't ask that of you, and I'd_ \- Afterward, he can't imagine feeling good about it. There's a difference here, there's a line, as Erik pointed out. Genuine fear and panic are not the same as being overwhelmed or uncomfortable - not distressed, or even uncomfortable in the way discipline is, which is a whole different ballgame, but uncomfortable because he's being denied, or held in a position, or made to take something. Those are things he would enjoy being pushed past, within reason, even if he squirmed or fussed (too much, too much), and things Erik has enjoyed pushing him through. But it's not the same, and he tries to hide how the thought of Erik ignoring a fear-induced _no_ during a bedroom situation makes him feel like losing his breakfast. He knows he doesn't fully manage. _I don't want that, and not in a 'I'm denying an instinct or need' way. Right now, I - it would not do anything but, to be frank, terrify me_ , Erik.  
  
Erik slams his hand up against his mouth and lets out a loud rush of air around his fingers, exhaling shakily. Relief melts through him, relief that he doesn't need to force himself past this, because he _would have_ , if it were necessary, they both know that. Erik's prone to applying double-standards to his own limits. Charles's are firm and unwavering, Erik's are regarded as an obstacle or an inconvenience to be disregarded when they interfere, and it will likely take years before he sees his needs as anything else. But his eyes crush shut and his arms tighten around Charles, grateful and shaking. _Thank you_.  
  
Charles is hardly focused on the relief because he's too busy swimming in concern. He takes his own shaky breath, hiding in Erik's knee to compose himself. _Erik, if I ask you a question, will you be very, very honest with me_?  
  
He nods, and then adds verbally, _I will certainly try my best._  
  
He closes his eyes, staying bent over and hidden, but he's feeling carefully along the Bond. _Have you ever pushed yourself past the point you were comfortable for me_?  
  
Erik isn't sure; his conception of this isn't self-aware enough for a proper answer. The closest he can come is the time during his surgery, when Charles provoked him into Ordering him, when he'd slipped into another facet and shoved his way through all of his fears until they both came out the other side. But he's glad for those moments, when they've happened. _I do not regret anything_ , he says instead, soft.  
  
Charles makes a choked, distressed noise, and his eyes are firmly shut. This terrifies him. He can't make words, and his fingers are clawing into his own thigh.  
  
 _You asked me to be honest with you_ , Erik says back, quiet. _I do not want to hurt you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me._  
  
He shakes his head. It takes a few more moments before he can speak, mental or otherwise. _Erik, if I told you I'd pushed myself past a boundary for you and didn't tell you, how would that make you feel?_  
  
He rocks forward a bit, guilt and shame warring for first place. He doesn't let it rule, because Charles is right. _I was wrong. I wasn't comfortable telling you to stop. It felt worse than just-facing it._  
  
Charles was wrong for pushing it. He was disciplined for it the first time, but by the time it happened again, Erik seemed much more set on pushing down those boundaries for himself than sitting him down, having a discussion, and then deciding what to do about the transgression. It was a transgression. He feels both guilt and shame in sickening quantities, unwilling to open his eyes.  
  
There's no excuse for what he did. He just wanted Charles to know what happened. He doesn't know what to do. He was wrong. He made Charles feel like this. He can't promise it won't happen again. If their positions were reversed Erik would be horrified, just as horrified, just as frightened and upset and betrayed. But he needs Charles to know. What happened- _I don't regret it for a second. It was, we both needed that push. We would have always ended up there_ , he realizes. _Even if I had disciplined you and we moved on, it would have kept happening, because I wasn't listening to my own instincts, to what you need. I am not always going to be comfortable, but I am learning how to navigate this._  
  
But Charles has done the same thing. He hasn't always been comfortable. There are boundaries and walls he's knocked down for himself. There are times he was terrified, and ashamed, and backwards-instinct threatened to rule, and he pushed past all of it. It was never because Erik provoked him, but it has been because he's Ordered him. He's still spinning with concern and fear, hidden in Erik's lap. _We know better now. We're better now_ , he argues, and he thinks it's true. He knows it is. He can conjure up a good dozen instances since then where Erik has come to him, where they've talked about it and discussed it and worked through it. _And if it happens again..._ he trails off.  
  
 _And when we need things to stop, or we need a time out, we've both proven that we can call for that_ , Erik murmurs. _I wouldn't endure just for the sake of endurance, and I trust that you wouldn't, either. When we've pushed ourselves, we've needed to push ourselves. Sometimes we need to, but I can't think of a single instance where I've regretted the outcome. Can you?_  
  
Charles shakes his head, but his eyes are still closed. _No, Erik_ , he whispers, but it's true. If they had never pushed themselves, the likelihood that they'd be stuck back there in that mindset, spinning their wheels and denying themselves something they needed - denying themselves this, their Bond, the culmination of everything in this discussion - is more likely than not.  
  
Erik kisses him gently. _You didn't transgress anything. Any more than I did. I'm not going to punish you for that. I asked you what you needed and you kept trying to tell me. I wasn't listening. But I am listening, now. We know better, now. Both of us. And I think-we're so connected now, that we know the difference. Whether we're just hurting ourselves, or whether we're breaking the mold in a positive way._  
  
Charles nods. He honestly agrees. He does snort as he turns his head, finally peeking up at Erik with a tiny, sheepish grin on his lips. _I think that was the last time I could get away with telling you to 'piss off' without consequence, so perhaps I should treasure it as the end of an era_ , he teases. It was the end of something, and a much needed one. But that he ever thought Erik was too lenient is laughable now.  
  
Erik's grin is mental, but no less present. _Indeed_. And it's not just because of Charles, either. Despite how it came around, Erik needs him to know that. He requires this just as much. He's more assured than he's ever been that they're on the right path, that they're making the right choices, here. He's not just indulging Charles, he needs this, too. He's always needed it, but only now has it ever been safe. _I love you_ , he murmurs, fond. _Very much._  
  
 _I love you, too_ , he murmurs, and smiles up at him, kissing his knee before he bows his head against it. All things considered, they're doing more in this discussion than they've ever been able to, and it's because they're ready for it. Both of them are ready for it _. I... actually didn't expect this to be so easy_? he laughs. But he's certainly not complaining.  
  
 _I suppose I did_ , Erik says, eyebrows arching as he realizes he's being totally honest. _We were always capable of this, now we're just ready to be here, for real._  
  
And now they're here, and Charles feels full to bursting with joy and genuine pride. He's proud of them. They've fought hard to be here, both the outside world and themselves. It won't always be easy, but it will always be theirs. That being said, some conversations were still going to be difficult. _Do you have other limits_ , _Erik_? he asks, quietly. _Or... anything you're not sure of, that we can discuss_? Because they've been doing that, too.  
  
He nods. _Things that are unsafe, or unsanitary. But I would be surprised if you didn't share those concerns_. He laughs a _bit. I know you mentioned earlier that there was more, on your side? Can you share that with me?_  
  
His nose scrunches, because if Erik hadn't brought it up, he certainly would have. But the question forces him to take another steadying breath, and he yanks all of the images that threaten to bubble up and throws them somewhere they can't reach either of them. His mind is focused on the list he'd first thought of - everything on it is organized by category, and what he's projecting is a list of implements for impact play (and discipline). Most of them are marked ' _Maybe_ ' with a scattered ' _No_ ' because even he isn't that big of a liar, and he shows Erik how that's changed, snorting quietly despite himself as they all move over to ' _Yes_ ' except one. _Hands, paddles, floggers, crops, canes_ , the list is fairly exhaustive and he's more than eager to try until he gets to ' _Belt_ '. It's an underlined ' _No_ ' on this old list. Now, it tentatively shifts, but stays mostly where it is, however much the underline disappears. Whether he wants it to or not, there's a flash of an image, a man touching his belt threateningly and Charles feels fear shoot up his spine, sick and dizzying and cold like being dropped into a frosted lake. _It wasn't always what he used, but there was an understanding that he always could. Then, recently, with Cain._.. Charles thinks he might be able to work through the association, perhaps it would even help, but - It reminds me of him. Of them, he admits, quiet. Even if Erik never thought to use one, even if he knows, it will make him feel better to have it written down. That's what this is for.  
  
He does know, and he's never had the urge to do so, mostly for the exact same reasons. It gets written down alongside _noncon w/c._ There are a few implements that Erik isn't comfortable using, but since Erik is the one in control of that, he's not worried about it. He squeezes Charles's shoulder, giving him a small smile. _We're aligned there_ , he assures softly. _What else?_  
  
Charles sighs, because this next one he's having a bit of trouble with. It's on the list as ' _Verbal Humiliation_ ,' but he's lumping it up with ' _Degradation_ ,' because they're related up there for him, and he shows Erik and then ducks back into his lap. _There are things I don't even think you'd do, but... they're pretty hard limits, I think. I wouldn't be okay with it. And other things that I'm_ \- um. Now he's bright red. You've lost him, Erik.  
  
 _Be specific_ , Erik Orders, even though he's not incredibly sure he wants to hear, they need it to be clear. Charles is right; there's nothing within that sphere that he's interested in, that are hard limits for himself as well, but it's important for these things to be illuminated properly. He smiles a little. A way for them both to control the outcome. _I don't_ \- he grimaces. I _wish I didn't have to even hear it. But I think it is important that we draw the line clearly. That is the definition of keeping what happens between us safe_.  
  
 _Well, actually_ \- Maybe the easier part first. He doesn't think Erik is thinking of it this way, because it isn't, technically, between them, but it might be classified this way for others. _Some of the things you've said - I don't consider it actually degrading_ , he clarifies quickly, because that's important for both of them. _But you calling me things like_... He lets Erik's voice take over from here, mostly because he's far too embarrassed to repeat them in his own. His mind becomes _you need this, don't you, greedy boy and my pet - to use, to fuck and what a filthy boy_ and the way he'd talked to him during discipline, but that would never really have been considered degrading, more... scolding, chastising, as it should be, even if it inspired appropriate shame in the moment. But it's abundantly clear he has absolutely no qualms about any of that, and he shivers at the reminder of the first bit, red up to his ears. _That stuff is... more than okay. I thought I should clarify that first_. It's good to check-in on what's well-received too, not that Erik could have doubted it with the way he responds.  
  
Erik touches his cheek, sliding his thumb over skin. _I don't consider it degrading, either_ , he murmurs quietly. It's clear that is the line for him, but this is good-Erik knows he can let his mouth run away from him sometimes when he's caught up in the moment. Some of that stuff he probably should have checked-in first, but-it is the line, for him. He has no interest in the broad aspects of humiliation, and never will; that's never what it's been about.  
  
Charles smiles up at him, leaning into the touch. _I like it. A lot_ , he murmurs, even as he blushes - because he's shy and embarrassed, not humiliated. _Anything like that, I don't... well, to say I don't mind would be an understatement, he laughs, and then tenses as he ducks his_ head again. The line's already drawn, but he might as well make it as clear as possible for both of them. He closes his eyes. Things like _greedy bossy insolent filthy pet, that's all perfectly fine, especially when paired with sweetheart good boy precious treasure, as they often are_. There's nothing particularly degrading about it, especially when it's all true and softened by praise (he is a greedy, demanding boy, he loves to be filthy for Erik, and Erik loves it, too), and anything that comes during discipline, things Erik points out, correction to behaviors and expressions of disappointment or disapproval, that's all fine, too. Uncomfortable, but it's supposed to be. What's not fine, what Charles will never be able to hear without internalizing and Erik will never be able to live with - _bitch whore slut cunt stupid useless worthless worthless worthless ugly good for nothing freak mindless hopeless subby bitch you'd let anyone do this wouldn't you you stupid slut you think you're so smart but all you're good for is_ \- Charles is shaking. Hard.  
  
Erik leans forward and kisses his forehead, drawing him away from those thoughts and back toward reality. _No_ , he says quietly, shaking his head. _I've never, and I never will_. He refrains from flinching at it; swallowing down his reaction like acidic bile. He slips his hand down to Charles's neck, just resting there. _None of that stuff is fine_.  
  
Charles is taking shaky, stuttering breaths, the bile in his own throat rising up. His eyes are closed and he's still trembling, still shaking, still drowning because he can hear that voice perfectly and for years, for years, he had those moments locked behind a door and now they keep peeking out and he doesn't know what to do. He can't look at them. He can't acknowledge them. They didn't happen, they never happened, it's the one thing he'll forget. His teeth are chattering and his nails are scratching at his covered thighs again, digging in hard. _You don't want to..._? He knows Erik doesn't. He knows. But part of this isn't rational now, and he has to hear it. The thought of Erik's voice calling him a _stupid, worthless slut_ makes him want to tear himself open from the inside out.  
  
 _Absolutely not_ , Erik replies, bringing his other hand up to frame his jaw. I never will. Never. Even if the idea weren't enough to sicken him on its own merits, which it is, Charles isn't the only person in this room who's heard comments like that. That is a hard line for both of them. _You are wonderful, and I love you very much._  
  
Charles gives a jerky nod. There's still panic making everything foggy, his head clogged with it, and it's hard to form words even if they aren't speaking aloud. He doesn't want to end this discussion, because there's still quite a lot to talk about, and he wants to talk about it. _But - Can... Erik, can you..._ Now he bites his lip again, completely unconsciously as he buries his head in Erik's lap.  
  
 _Tell me,_ Erik prompts in the Imperative, soft. He smiles a bit as he touches Charles's lip. _Let it heal, Charles._  
  
 _It's healed_! he insists, but it's not so much defiance as it is embarrassed indigence and perhaps a side of petulance, and that sounds more like him. He sniffs, though he hasn't been crying, fidgeting on his knees as he sends the image of Erik's fingers in his hair instead of asking, immediate as soon as Erik Ordered it. It's all the same for him. Please? He just needs the touch right now, something to ground and comfort, and maybe it's pathetic but it can't be helped.  
  
Erik laughs. Of course, he returns his fingers exactly where they were, grateful to be touching as much as Charles is to be touched, and there is nothing pathetic about that.  
  
Charles hums, pleased, and melts right into it. He's silent for a while, still composing himself, flashing images occasionally and then knocking them away, replacing them with Erik. _Is there anything else for you? Another limit, or something to discuss?_ he asks, quietly.  
  
Erik considers that for a bit, stroking the hair curled near Charles's ear rhythmically. _There are some things I wouldn't wish for you to call me_. He grimaces.  
  
He leans into Erik's hand. Charles can already guess, but for the sake of clarity, _Like what, Erik?_  
  
He closes his eyes, setting his chin on the top of Charles's head. _There are certain things I wouldn't want you to call yourself as, either_ , he adds. How to explain. Not explain, really, it's not that relevant, he can't imagine it will ever come up, but-it's more common in people who share a dynamic that encompasses all aspects of their lives. _Anything to do with_ \- wince. _Master or slave. Anything that effaces your sense of self_. That is, people sometimes removed personal pronouns altogether, referring to themselves as this one or some such. Erik clears his throat. Anything-as you mentioned earlier. _I don't like hearing that_. There are more, but he honestly can't even think about it without wanting to vomit. _You get it, I'm sure._  
  
Charles grimaces, too. He doesn't say it, but he'd be more than a bit uncomfortable if Erik wanted to call him his _slave_ or have him refer to himself as a thing, even if it fits some traditional category for their power dynamic. It implies something he's wholly uninterested in, namely a complete lack of autonomy, which is never something he's comfortable sacrificing. It's part of what makes his submission worthwhile to them both in the first place. _I get it. But you're okay with_... He trails off, because if he's completely honest, and he's determined to be, Charles has been trying to figure this one out himself. He's been alternating between Erik's name and 'sir,' completely unconsciously, responding to some instinct for deference and following internal cues unless Erik asks for one or the other - either for him to use the title, or in a situation he's been forbidden to use his name, necessitating it (discipline). And frankly, despite it being ubiquitous, he'd thought... well, he'd thought he'd have a problem with it. In his everyday life he's completely avoided it, which for a younger submissive is actually quite strange. But it hadn't upset him when Erik had requested it, nor does it upset him now. It's nice, actually, to use an understatement. He likes it, and Erik seems to expect it in certain situations and be pleased when he offers it, so - perhaps it doesn't need discussing. Perhaps it's just another reclamation.  
  
He swipes his thumb under Charles's cheek tenderly. _Yes_ , he murmurs, smiling _faintly. I am OK with that._ If he's being honest, there is a lot there-a lot in terms of names and titles, many things he can't even predict for himself, but there are things that are quite acceptable, things that he does like. His name, obviously. It'd been among his first Orders, after all. _Sir, of course. My Dominant._ He smirks a bit at that. _My love. My darling_. Accompanied by a sense of warmth and safety. And for them both they all fall within a similar pattern, of personhood, of respect and pleasure and trust. Erik doubts they'll run into any particular issues there, so he simply writes _depersonalization/degradation_ in the _LIMITS_ column to encompass everything they've discussed; they both have good memories, he doesn't want to be that specific.  
  
It's funny, because darling was his mother's word first. Charles, darling, can you fetch that for me? He's repurposed it since then, made it his own, until it feels strange from her lips and not from his, with the genuine affection behind it. As if she'd picked it up from him and hollowed it out, made a mockery of it, and not the other way around. He's called Raven things his mother called him for years: dearest, darling. As they've gotten older he's added sister in front of most of the endearments, mostly as a joke, because they clearly look nothing alike, are not blood-related, and having people who don't know them assuming they're an item in public when they show casual affection - linked arms, sides pressed together, kisses on the cheek or head - is a distinctly uncomfortable experience for both of them. Insert he and Raven fake gagging at each other here. It's different with Erik, obviously, but the same concept. So why wouldn't sir be added to the list, when it was always meant to be a title of earned deference and respect, which he owes Erik as his Bonded submissive? It doesn't need to be in question. He isn't at all twisted up. Charles shakes his head, hiding his smile in Erik's knee. _It's quite incredible_ , he whispers. It really is. There's so much healing happening here that the notion that they're hurting each other should be utterly foreign.  
  
Erik laughs, giving Charles a squeeze where his arm is draped over his shoulder. We are incredible, he returns back, nose wrinkling fondly down at him. _You know what this reminds me of?_ he taps the pad. Images of gorgeous paper-thin contracts written in calligraphy surrounded by artwork and framed delicately, micrographic images made out of swooping words and symbols. This is where they originated, after all; these Negotiations stages. Most couples don't display their contracts; if they even have contracts (many don't, it's considered old-fashioned, beyond those checklists new partners usually go through). The _ketubah_ is definitely a cultural distinction, and encompasses more than just expectations, they also include property rights and things like that, at least in the olden days. Now they're more or less drafted to standardized texts, promises to love and keep and protect and whatnot, but some people write their own.  
  
Charles ducks his head shyly, uncertain of why that pleases him so much. It does, though, and he's smiling and fluttering with it. _I imagine this will be more of a living document,_ he says, because things are bound to change over time. But if that's the case, we could always just have another session like this and redraft it. Perhaps they should plan for that, actually. To sit down like this and talk things through, to go over their contract and decide what, if anything, has changed. But if you'd like... He can't imagine typing this up and printing it out. Erik is doing all the writing now, and Charles feels there's something right about that, but on the actual document he'd like to have his handwriting represented, too, especially for what he expects of Erik. _My handwriting is atrocious, though, so good luck reading it, he_ snorts, and shows Erik some of his written paper drafts: Erik's scrawl might be clumsy, but his looping, running-together script is barely legible. _It's because I went to medical school_ , he jokes.  
  
He laughs. _I like your handwriting_. He finds it perfectly legible, perhaps because he knows Charles's mind the way he knows his own, through every looped letter and slash of phrase. _And you're right, of course_. After all, one of the clauses they do have is that things are subject to change and grow and be questioned, and Erik will never expect anything less than that. But, he thinks, someday-when they are married, this would be nice, too. A representation of themselves. Of what they value, of what is important to them. The foundation.

* * *

Charles' dimples are showing. He makes a valiant effort not to bite his lip, this time out of that shy, fluttery affection, resting his cheek against Erik's leg instead. It's nice now. More than nice. I'm very glad we're doing this, he murmurs, because it feels exactly right. He doesn't think they're done, though. Part of him wants to be. To end it here, on such a good note, but all the notes between them are eventually good. They shouldn't leave anything undiscussed, not now. But he stays silent, basking in Erik's touch, in the moment.  
  
Erik kisses his forehead again, an unconscious movement at this point when his affection can't keep itself contained to his body. _What else?_ he murmurs, because Charles is right-it isn't over, yet, but he is positive that when it is over, it will be over on a good note. With them, everything is. Good.  
  
He sighs, eyebrows furrowed the way they always are when he's thinking over something seriously. There are small things he wants to discuss, and then larger topics, but he doesn't think it particularly matters what order it all goes in. The places they've gotten sidetracked to have been essential. He might as well go for what's going to be, perhaps, the most difficult discussion in all of this. _Erik, we need to talk about..._ He swallows, and lets Erik's voice finish for him: _I do not think it is compatible_. They've hashed it out since then, and it always comes back to the same place of understanding and relief, but it needs to be discussed here, openly and calmly and safely. It can't be a constant point of strain, and Charles has his own things to add.  
  
Whatever that is Erik tenses, decidedly and suddenly uncomfortable, assuming it's something he's-for whatever stupid reason, brought to the table, and he grimaces, taking a breath. _OK_ , he mumbles, trying not to be incredibly embarrassed. But it's fine, whatever it is, it's fine. It will be fine. He'll ensure it is fine.  
  
 _It's not - Erik, can you look at me, please_? He waits, and reaches up for Erik's hand, because he won't need it to write at exactly this instant. He links their fingers together instead, just as much for his own comfort as for Erik's, stroking against the ring there. He's still so delighted that it's there, has to smile every time he notes it. It felt like a heavy burden on his own finger, but it looks like it's always belonged on Erik's. _There are things you don't believe are... you're worried, even now, I know you are. That there are parts of you that are twisted or that don't fit our dynamic and what it means to be Dominant, and I need you to please talk to me about them so I can understand. I know we've discussed it before, but I think it might be good to go over it again. He pauses, and closes his eyes, because_ he's more or less asked this before but he needs to ask again, to get a firm answer when both of them are being totally honest and neither are distressed. _Do you, under any circumstances, want me to_... He can't say ' _Dominate you_ ' without it getting stuck in his throat. He knows Erik knows what he means. _To... switch roles_? he tries anyway.  
  
Erik freezes, jerking his head away so Charles can't catch his expression, everything in his mind muting out all at once. _You don't have to worry about that,_ is his response, after several moments of smashing himself together so he can be a person. I promise.  
  
Charles swallows, but he doesn't relent. Not now. _No, I do. I do need to worry about it, Erik,_ he insists. _Please don't hide from me. We promised to be honest with each other._  
  
He shrugs, letting out a huff of air, misplaced amusement. _I don't know. I do not know what it even means anymore. What do you mean by-switching roles?_  
  
Could you tell me if there's anything you can think of that might potentially qualify? he asks instead, and mutes his own reactions, too, sinks them underneath and stays calm and quiet.  
  
Embarrassment. Erik shakes his head. _I don't know. I don't know, I don't_ \- and he doesn't, actually. His conceptions of Dominance and submission have been incredibly skewed, to the point that he associates a lot of things with submission that really aren't submissive; to the point where even if his answer were yes and Charles were comfortable doing so, he'd find himself calling _afor_ instantly once it began; anything that they've done in a reversed role qualifying as not OK for him. He doesn't know.  
  
Charles swallows again, but it feels like there's something clotting in his throat. _Okay_ , he whispers, and lowers his eyes, scoots back until he's staring down at his own knees and the floor. _I'm sorry._  
  
Erik sniffs, hiding his head in Charles's hair. _It's my fault. Not yours. I'm no good._  
  
Charles' head snaps up at that. _Take it back,_ he says, and it's fierce, sudden, and bordering on an Order. It's not, because it can't be, won't ever be, but his jaw is clenched.  
  
His eyes widen and he ducks his head again, looking away, trying to compose himself. He raises his hands. _OK. I'm sorry._ This is going to devolve and it's going to be his fault, and he can't stop it, watching it all unfold in slow-motion and-  
  
He flinches, the bile from before rising up until he swallows it down. Then he shakes his head. _No. It won't. It won't,_ he whispers, insistent. It's not going to happen this time. _There's nothing twisted and bad about you, Erik. There's absolutely nothing that's you that isn't meant for me._  
  
He swallows himself, inhaling sharply through his nose, and nods. They owe it to themselves to be honest, to work through this, but he can't help the pervasive shame that threatens to burn him from the inside out. I _don't want our dynamic to be reversed_ , he says, because he knows that much is true. And when they'd been stripped down to the barest parts of their instincts, that hadn't been the case, either.  
  
Charles will do everything he can to burn that shame out. He reaches for Erik's hand again. _At any point? Ever_? he asks, because to have it out in the open, a note of finality for both of them, means something to him right now.  
  
He shakes his head. _No_. He looks away as he really considers it; the fact that-and this is what truly makes him cringe away from himself, what makes him hate himself-that there might be some instinct for him to hurt himself that way, to twist things up and seek harm and retraumatize himself, surround himself by the familiar. There's nothing wrong with submission, but for Erik, it's not healthy. It's not good for him, or for Charles. _No_ , he says again. I _don't want that. I am your Dominant. That is what he knows._  
  
Charles squeezes the hand in his, stroking softly. There's nothing about it that should make him hate himself. It's a perfectly natural response to trauma like this, however much it hurts to know it's an instinct for Erik - this is why he's distinctly unqualified to be his therapist, but fortunately for them both he isn't. What he is, is his Bonded and his submissive, and this is his place. This discussion is important for them to have. _Last night, and a few times before, when I demanded something... when I Ordered something_. Not playfully, where Erik is sometimes willing to indulge him - and he has no doubt about it being an indulgence - but with some intent, however silly. Charles is not inclined to it. He's taught himself to mimic, but it's like putting on shoes that don't fit. Inevitably there's a stumble, and it looks ridiculous, even if he's convinced himself in the past it doesn't. _You found it funny. Among other things. Why?_  
  
Erik's lips twitch. _I was not laughing at you_ , he promises, and that much is true. I suppose- he doesn't know quite how to put it into words. At the idea that Charles could challenge his Will. At the idea that Charles was not his submissive. At the idea that Erik wasn't in control.  
  
 _Hm_ , is all he says, his own lips twitching, and lets it sit between them. _What if I started doing it more often? Ordering you around for the fun of it? I could even use a language with a real Imperative_. Erik didn't actually need to point it out for him. He's used it in other languages before. He had a ring engraved with what's essentially a Dominant cliche. Erik was twisted, but Charles twisted himself. No less a result of trauma, and he's had to unravel it all, too.  
  
He leans forward and brushes his lips against Charles's ear. _You could try_ , he murmurs lowly. But it wouldn't change anything. Charles could never supersede his Will. They both know how it would end. With Charles exactly where he's supposed to be, Commanded to his knees at Erik's feet.

* * *

He takes a slow, deep breath, as if he's working himself up to something. It takes everything he has to straighten himself up and then stand, instincts screaming because they aren't done and this is a conversation where he should be on his knees, where he'd very happily gone to them, and Erik clearly still wants him there. But he stands anyway, crosses his arms, lifts his chin, and looks down at Erik, because while he's sitting is the only time Charles will ever be taller and even then it doesn't feel like it's by much. _Get up_ , he... Orders (he has to fight a wince), and his heart is pounding and his pulse is racing but he meets his eyes. He's noticeably a few inches taller, features noticeably a bit more severe, no smile and no dimples.  
  
Erik doesn't expect it and he immediately flinches, sitting back and staring up at him wide-eyed. "Stop it," he Orders in return, hoarse and wispy. His voice shakes, but even this is at once more powerful, with more force of Will than what Charles presents to him.  
  
The alternative, that he never knew - Charles shakes his head. He feels a little like he's going to be sick, seeing Erik flinch because of him, and he doesn't know what made him need to do it in the first place. Certainly not to frighten him, or because he'd wanted to take control of the situation, but - the instinct is there. He knows it's there. He knows because he put it there, because he trained it into himself. Because while submissives were practicing Postures and gossiping about training collars he was watching Dominants so he could mimic their speech patterns, and he doesn't think Erik knows the full range of it because he's been ashamed. And that's absolutely what he feels now. He stops. He shrinks. He drops his eyes and stares down at his feet.  
  
He knows it's Charles, that it's some kind of experiment, but he can't help how his heart thuds in his chest and his nerves arc, on fire and all the metal in the room vibrates like a tuning fork's been rung and he breathes into his cupped hands, eyes fluttering shut while he regains control. Whatever he'd thought he meant by _I don't know_ , this wasn't it. It's never been it. He doesn't, nor will he ever, want this. He can dish it, but he can't take it, not without wanting to shrink into a corner and cover his face. Not without falling back on every instinct he has, and the fact that he Commanded Charles to stop instead of obeying wordlessly-and how sick and horrified it made him-his stomach roils and he gags behind clenched teeth.  
  
Charles can't move. He's not sure if it's because he's stuck, physically incapable, or because it means he has to look at what he's done. At what his backwards-instincts inspired, and see what he'd always known. His mind is a dead, empty, hollowed out zone, not detached from Erik but utterly pulled back, and he stares expressionless at the floor, at his feet, because he knows if he moves, if he looks, if he so much as blinks, he'll break apart into a million pieces and it won't help anyone. It did devolve, and not because of Erik. It's never because of Erik.  
  
He actually forgot that he told Charles he could try, and that more than anything tugs him out of himself before he spirals down into a genuine panic attack. He can't panic. He can't get lost. Because he is in control, and anything else is just a perversion. He taps his foot on the floor again and straightens, rubbing his hands over his knees. _Come back where you belong,_ his next Order is issued far more confidently, one eyebrow arched when their gazes finally meet. He doesn't need to be taller or look more severe. Charles learned well from all the Dominants he studied, but that's child's play compared to a D5. His Will isn't contingent on _gever gever_ stuff, on machismo and fluffing and grandstanding. In fact Erik very rarely raises his voice at all, extending his Will in quiet firmness. Even now there's nothing particularly threatening about him, but the air crackles all the same when he sits up, returning to what has always been natural for him. _No more twisted instincts. Now we know_ , he gives a small smile.  
  
It's not particularly graceful, the way he falls to his knees this time. It's more like his legs give out than a conscious, deliberate movement, though he is relieved to go. His shoulders are tense, and he folds into the formal, school-taught Rest, palms up rote-learned, staring at his knees with his head bowed. His mind is muted all the way down still, and he can't manage to smile back, but the shame seeps out from where it's all caught up inside. Leaking like he can't contain it.  
  
Erik corrects him in simple taps. _Come back_ , he whispers softly. _I miss you._  
  
Charles' lip trembles as his shoulders relax, the only outward sign he's affected, and then his mind folds outward again. It's stinging with that hot, painful shame, with guilt and fear and horror, but he lets Erik have it anyway, because it's his to have. He doesn't look up. He can't say anything, his own voice caught in his throat.  
  
 _I didn't know_ , Erik kisses the top of his head. It's not your fault. _I told you to try. I am sorry_.  
  
Charles' shoulders tense again. He grips tight to the fabric of his pants, and tries very hard not to gag himself. He shakes his head.  
  
Erik touches his jaw, lifting his chin. _Yes_.  
  
He purses his lips, swallows, and shakes his head again. He doesn't say it, or project it into a deliberate word, but it's clear enough: _No_.  
  
 _That's not up to you_. Erik blinks down at him, calm. _Is it?_ he presses their foreheads together. _It doesn't matter if you try and Order me around. It won't change the fact that I am your Dominant and I always will be. I'm not afraid of you_.  
  
That helps him breathe, at least. His lips still stay pursed, though, something stubborn in him hanging on. He huffs, chest puffed out like it had been when he'd given that faux-Order with his faux-Dom voice (and he hadn't even been able to say it out loud), and he shakes his head one last time.  
  
Erik trails his hand down to Charles's collar and punctuates his returning _Yes, Charles,_ with a squeeze. _Do not forget who gave you this_. The difference between their applications of Will is utterly like night and day, and even now Charles is poised to respond to Erik, in a way no other submissive can. In the way even another S1 might not be able to, perfection in neurochemistry. _You are mine._  
  
Charles would never - could never - forget, and he'd appreciate it if you wouldn't think about other S1s, thank you very much. 'Application of Will' is also a silly term. Charles doesn't have Dominant Will to exert. It's all borrowed parts and patchwork pieces, and he's a good actor but that's all it is. Never his role to play, and not even well-casted. He doesn't shake his head again, but he does huff, crossing his arms to offset the way he does respond, gasping quietly, eyes fluttering. _Yes_ , he agrees, and then, when he remembers his protest in the first place, pouts. _No_.  
  
 _Mmhmm_ , Erik smirks down at him _. I am not very convinced._  
  
 _No_ , he insists, louder, because raising his voice is a tactic he's learned and it usually works, too. He keeps his arms firmly crossed. _You can't apologize for this. My fault. And that's - And that's fina_ l! That's another thing he learned to say, but he doesn't remember who he picked it up from. It doesn't come out, and he fights very hard not to squirm because now Erik's Will is unfolding all around him and he wants to go back to where he belongs.  
  
Now Erik laughs, nose and eyes scrunching up like they do when he's truly amused. _Oh, is it?_ He chuckles a little and taps Charles's arms. _Back at Rest_ , he Orders, and even though it's warm it's every bit as ironclad as if he'd demanded it on a shout. Properly, this time.  
  
Charles tries very hard not to shiver with delight at both the Order and the Posture itself, now that it's to Erik's liking. It doesn't stop him from squirming around once he can, pouting up at Erik with his chin slightly raised (he definitely can't muster more than that). _Yes. It's final_ , and he means it to be firm, but it comes out timid.  
  
Now, Erik continues calmly now that Charles is exactly where he wants him to be. _I can apologize for it and I will, because I am the one that is responsible for ensuring that what happens between us is safe. That is what it means to be properly Dominant_. He hadn't known. If he did, he would never have permitted it to happen like that. He thought for a brief moment that he did want to be-maybe he needed it. Maybe everything he's always been told is right. He's just born like that but he's not really like that. So in the end, it's good that it did, just as they've always maintained. _But it did, and it turns out we both know the difference. Don't we_?  
  
Charles is still pouting. _Yes_ , they know the difference, but - he shakes his head again, and wriggles in position, like he's been physically bound and he's trying to squirm his way out. He doesn't actually know what his protest is, only that he's definitely having it. _Take it back,_ he mumbles, and the last time he'd said it Erik had listened.  
  
He will never take it back, he can stumble and falter and that's fine, everyone does and he absolutely will again. But he will never knowingly relinquish his responsibility, his control, his Will. He is not the submissive, here. Every time he thinks he is, every time he flails around and can't figure out where the lines are, when it is presented to him he reacts swiftly and vehemently like a Dominant. He is Dominant. _I won't_ , he returns, firm.  
  
 _No, your apology. Take it back. I don't want it_ , he insists, and now - now his head is lowered, even as he continues to squirm, now he's staring at the floor and all that shame is back and he's swallowed it and it's in his throat and sliding down to sit sick in his belly. _It's my fault. I'm the broken one. I'm the one who's not good. It's me_. His lip is trembling again. _And that's final_ , he adds.  
  
 _Look at me,_ he says, the Order soft. _You do not tell me what is final_ , Erik murmurs back, Will unfolding like great beating wings all around them _. Neither of us is broken. We are trying our best._  
  
Charles looks, but his lips are pursed again and his chin is lifted and he's sure that Erik is wrong. _I am, and I do get to tell you that because it's true_ , and it's a good thing he's not speaking out loud because his throat is constricting with the words. _I'm not a good submissive and we should just accept it_.  
  
 _That is not your decision to make,_ Erik gazes back at him, fond. _It never will be._  
  
Charles wants very, very much to yield, to sit quietly on his knees and maybe have Erik's hand in his hair again, as he always does, but he forces himself to scoff instead. _I'm pretty sure it is, actually_ , he returns, and there's that catty petulance.  
  
He draws his hand down Charles's cheek instead. _It's not. That is **final**_. The snap of Command echoes even after his voice fades.  
  
Charles' mouth opens on a gasp, then stays open as if he's going to protest again, but instead it snaps shut. He doesn't make a sound, eyes lowered again, but there's a very clear mental _hmph_. And that's it. Because he knows Erik's word is final.  
  
Erik smiles at him, a buzz of distinct pleasure flashing through him that happens every time he makes Charles yield to him, to what they both need, curling his thumb over his lip. They're exactly where they should be.  
  
And Charles has definitely yielded even as he pouts, as he always does and always will and always wants to. Needs to. It's what's natural, and those self-trained instincts could not be more fake. They're, frankly, laughable besides Erik's natural, instinctive Dominance. _What if it happens again? What if I always do stuff like this?_ He thinks he might. He thinks some of it might actually be part of his natural submission, and he's twisted it all up just like Erik has.  
  
Erik laughs a little. _I will always do stuff like this,_ he taps Charles's lip, drawing a finger down his chest. I _am not going anywhere, and neither are you_. In a way, Erik's own meekness could very easily be the exact same, something caught off balance instead of what it naturally is, what he exudes now, what was in him as a carefree child. Self-assurance, without all the belligerence that comes with most Dominant personalities. These are people who want control, who crave it, but who can't simply mold the outcome to their Will the same way. It's perfectly matched with Charles, who is spirited, who needs that strength to yield to, who doesn't respond to peacocking and posturing and scolding and finger-wagging because it's not real strength. Gabby was one of the first Dominants he met that didn't immediately resort to those tactics, but they're still there-a Dominant who has to engineer situations the old fashioned way, who can't simply compel the result. And Erik likes that a lot, that Charles can say no to him. They've both seen when people can't, how much of a mockery of human interaction it really is.  
  
Charles would never ask - would never want - someone, especially Erik, to break his spirit. That's not what this is about. He likes, very much, that he feels free to be himself with Erik more than he has with anyone else, to express himself, to speak his mind and have his own beliefs and a strong sense of self. To have passions, and interests, and fears and dreams and plenty of opinions. If he didn't, this would never work. He would run screaming and never come back. But he also craves - he also needs - He shakes his head _. I don't know_ , he mumbles, and maybe it's still petulant, still pursed lips and tense shoulders. He's playing with his cast where he's staring down at his hands, shifted obviously out of Rest.  
  
 _Well, then it is fortunate that I didn't ask_ , Erik replies archly, tapping his arm. I value your opinions, but at the end of the day, my decisions are final. _If this happens again, then I will be here, again, to ensure you know your place. For the rest of our lives. I will be here. Now, return to proper Posture, please._ His eyebrows raise as he repeats the Order, pointed.  
  
His ' _hmph_!' is verbal this time, but he quickly and gracefully slips back into Rest, exactly as he's Ordered. It's clear he's trying not to smile around his pout now, and it truly is a valiant effort. _I don't like Postures,_ he grunts, which is an outright lie, because every time he's Ordered into one he loves it and he loves it now, too. Feels calmer and more grounded and that shame and guilt has been burned out whether he wants to stubbornly hold onto it or not.  
  
Erik grins back at him. _Do not try and lie to me, Charles,_ he murmurs. _You will not get very far._ He brushes Charles's hair out of his face and tucks it behind his ear. All the shame and guilt he felt from moments ago is melted away in the face of what is truly theirs, what they've been building toward this entire time. They are where they belong.  
  
Charles doesn't even try to hide how he shivers at even the simplest of touches, sighing softly as he leans into it. There's still a pout, but it melts into a smile as he ducks his head. _We could be done and you could let me up,_ he suggests, but it's not a real suggestion and they both know it. He wants to stay exactly where he is, perhaps more firmly-led now that Erik's flexing his Will, because he needs it. Now he's just waiting for the conversation to come back around, because Erik seems much more confident in his answer to Charles' original question and they still need to resolve it.  
  
 _We could be,_ Erik hums, _but not yet._ He smiles back, soft, and pats his knee for Charles to rest his head once more. _All of the instincts I have that say yes to your question, they're not healthy. They're not natural. And as we've discovered, it's quite distressing to both of us to indulge. I-_ he grimaces. _There are a lot of things I need to work out_. He taps his temple. _Things that should be left for therapy, perhaps. But one thing I am certain of is a solemn no on that front,_ he murmurs quietly. _I do not, under any circumstances, wish our roles to be reversed._  
  
Charles bites his lip, but leans forward and rests as he's bid, solemn again. _I do think you should talk about these things with a therapist, Erik, but I also know you have to talk to me._ His voice is quiet again, soft. _Because some of the things you consider submissive instincts are actually... well, they're not, to be blunt about it. It's the same with me, in a way. And we need to be able to discuss those things as they come up, because..._ He flushes a little, and conjures up an image of Erik's neck and the marks all over it, mostly covered by his shirt now. _Otherwise we'll miss out on what could be very enjoyable experiences for both of us. You don't need to be concerned about anything that you sincerely want or need, outside of a traumatic compulsion and not even then, disgusting or upsetting me. We are compatible, Erik. I would almost go as far as to say we are the most compatible people there are,_ he laughs. _But we have to work together, and be honest with each other._ He lowers his gaze. _That means me, too._  
  
Erik lifts the pad up and decides to write it down, because it's always been an unwritten rule of their interactions, but there's something final, something real about putting pen (or pencil in this case) to paper. He scrawls out _DISHONESTY_ under _LIMITS_ and underlines it twice. _I've always tried to be_ , he replies softly. _There are some things that I can't voice, that I might not be ever able to voice, but even then-you've seen all of it, or enough to put the pieces together. But I haven't lied to you. I never wish to. I hope that you feel comfortable enough with me to tell me the truth as well. I feel like you do-and I am incredibly grateful for your trust._  
  
 _I do_ , he promises, and he's staring down at his knees, at his hands still where they should be, but it's only to compose himself. _And I am incredibly grateful for yours, Erik. More than I could possibly say. But please don't... I know you've tried to get rid of things that you feel won't please me, and I've done the same, and we can't. I know it's much easier said than done, but I think we both need to try. We should know by now that the only thing that happens when we share more of ourselves, the only thing we're met with at the heart of it, is acceptance, and understanding, and love_. And as he speaks it, he knows it's true. His voice cracks, because it's true.  
  
Erik kisses the top of his forehead once more, resting his hand along the side of his neck, a warm and present weight. _I agree with you_ , he whispers back. _There is not one single thing about you that I do not love. I know that must be hard to believe, but you can see in my mind that this is true. You can feel that it is true._  
  
Charles sighs, leaning into it. His eyes flutter closed. _I do. Sometimes I have trouble believing it, but I always know. Do you know it's the same for you, Erik? That there is no part of you, not a single part, that I do not love?_  
  
 _I know that you-love me,_ Erik replies, pained. _I don't know how_.  
  
 _Because you're perfect, Erik,_ he whispers, without hesitation. _I don't mean you aren't flawed, or hurting. But to me? You're absolutely perfect. Stunning in every way. And I'm very sorry if you ever doubted that, but I will do everything I can to help you believe otherwise. Fortunately, we have a long time,_ he smiles, and swallows around the emotion of it.  
  
Erik starts shaking his head, and covers his mouth. He's sorry. He shouldn't be ruining this moment with his sudden bout of, what is it, insecurity? But it's more than that. Deeper than that.  
  
Charles bites his lip, and looks down. _You're not ruining anything. It's still true,_ he insists. _It's always going to be true._  
  
They said they were going to be honest. He looks at the word written under _LIMITS_ and swallows down his urge to obfuscate. He can't shy away from his own sins. And in this moment, when they're supposed to lay it all bare, where everything should be illuminated. Eyes open. Nothing unvoiced. _Perfect-_ he gasps, exhaling audibly. _Sometimes all I can see is the monster. The torturer, the rapist, the murderer._ He thinks of little Naomi, how sad Charles had been for him. He wants to be that. A caretaker. But he isn't. _I've never doubted that you do, but-how could anyone love me? The only answer I have is that you are so fundamentally good it isn't possible for you to hate anything. Even me._  
  
It's like he's been slapped, at first, the way he reels with it. Charles shakes his head and swallows down the bile in his throat at what's just been implied here. It makes him sit up straighter, tense, but he tries not to show it. _Except you know for a fact that's not true, Erik,_ he says, and he's hurting at the implication, it's hurt him, but he has to put it aside. He has to be the calm one here, because Erik absolutely needs to know. _You've seen how I act around people who actually deserve what you're implying here. Do I treat them as I do you?_  
  
Erik covers his eyes, looking away. Convinced for a second that the source of his pain is the knowledge of the truth, voiced and unveiled at last. _Remember the light and believe in the light/an instant of clarity before eternal night._ He shakes his head at last. _I've tried so hard to make sure that I'm not-that I'm not forcing you to do anything, changing your-feelings, somehow. Making you love me. When you wouldn't otherwise. I manipulate everybody. I'm not a good person, Charles. We both know that._  
  
 _Except I don't know that, so please don't put words into my mouth._ Charles sits back, calm, but his jaw is clenched and it's impossible to hide the hurt in his eyes, wide and vividly blue. _Is that what you think of me? That I'm so easily manipulated? That I've just gone along with all this because... what, Erik? Because I'm too good to hate you?_  
  
 _I try not to get stuck there,_ Erik shudders, hands firmly clenched over one another to the point of pain breaking through the barrier in his lap, eyes clenched shut. _It's not-_ he swipes at his cheeks, rough. _I hate myself. So much. All the time. You know? So much that it-this is what it does. It hurts you. I'm sorry. I wish-I wish I knew what to do._  
  
 _Sometimes I think Gabby is right in something she said today, that you only love me because I'm the first person who was kind to you, that there is absolutely nothing special about me and that if there ever were another S1 you would immediately leave me. That you might still, when you realize I have done nothing for you except convince you that you love me when you don't._ He's staring down at the floor. It all came out in a rush. But that's not true, is it?  
  
His eyes fly open at that, wide, and he instantly wraps his arms around Charles, holding him close. _Absolutely not. That you are kind is only one of the many, many reasons I love you. You are the most remarkable person I've ever known. I will never meet another soul that measures up to yours._  
  
Charles smiles, but it's watery, the pain still behind his eyes. _Then you need to believe that the same is true for you, Erik. Everything I've ever said to you about this is true. I don't love you because I can't bring myself to hate you, I love you because you are completely extraordinary, because you are perfect to me and for me. I'm sorry if I've ever failed in expressing that, but I will believe it with my entire being until you can, too, and long after._  
  
 _I can't erase what I've done, he whispers softly. I can't justify it or make it go away. I will always be the person who kills because I have suffered too much._ He plucks Raven's words out of the ether, a half-memory that he's found access to since their Bond solidified. _I will always be the person who tortured others because I wasn't strong enough to resist._  
  
 _Erik, look at me. Please._ It hurts, hearing that now. It aches horribly, because neither of them knew what they were dealing with then. That Erik chose to pluck it out, that he knows exactly how much Charles had reluctantly agreed with her, fighting with his own moral compunctions, hurts. _You didn't have a choice. Do you understand me? In that situation, in that place, you were stripped of your choice. They took that from you. It has absolutely no bearing on who you are. I am so sorry that it had to be the way it was, but that wasn't you. I know you. I see you. And you are good, Erik. You are so unbelievably good, and you did it for good. You did so much good._  
  
 _I'm a D5. I had a choice, didn't I? I should have Ordered-_ Erik's expression crumples and he hides it behind his hands, pitching forward to rest his face on Charles's shoulder. Taking comfort even now. He doesn't deserve it. _I never did. I never tried._  
  
 _They took that, too,_ he whispers, and bites down hard on his lip to hold back the noise that might escape otherwise, tears pricking at his eyes. _You didn't have a choice. But you have one now. You have many, now, endless choices, and you've chosen this. To help, and heal, and build, and love. You are not a monster, Erik. You are far from it. I am so sorry you were forced into believing you are, but I will prove to you that you aren't._  
  
 _Every time I try to see myself the way you see me it feels like I am just-letting myself off the hook. Saying that it's OK. But it isn't OK. I'm responsible. Aren't I?_ he chances a glance up, eyes bright. _I would have always chosen this. Chosen you. If I could have._  
  
 _I know, my love. I know, my darling,_ he whispers, and he cries in that moment for both of them, moving his hands to hold Erik, too, to stroke his hair. _And I am so sorry it wasn't a choice then. Do you know what I would give if I could make it so? Everything. Truly. But we're here now, and you aren't. You aren't responsible except for the good you did. Those children, Erik. They're safe now. They go to school. They smile. You did that. You gave them that. You aren't a monster, and there is no hook to be let off._  
  
His eyes flutter back closed, tension seeping out of him where Charles rubs his fingers through his hair. _I love you. Beyond words._ The only time he's ever seen himself as anything else is with Charles. Because Charles loved the monster out of existence, until all that is left is Erik. He likes the person he is when he's with Charles. He will always strive to be that person, to be the person who is worthy of that love.  
  
 _You are. You will be. I promised, Erik,_ he murmurs, and lets the tears fall down his cheeks as he promises it all over again, voice quiet and achingly sincere. _No more pain. No more being twisted, no more hurting. I won't ever let your hands be used for something like that again. I love you so much, and I will keep you safe, too. I swear it._  
  
Erik rubs his own cheek against those tears, reaching up so he can catch them on his fingertips. _You always have, he whispers_. He heard what Charles said in that court room, even if no one else did, even if he was half out of his mind at the time. He's seen it through Charles's eyes and fit the pieces together. Charles faced Shaw, for him. He stood in front of Erik and faced the real monster. He took on Moira, and Gabby, and the doctors in the hospital. Erik will never forget it.  
  
 _I'll do it a thousand times over for you,_ he promises, fierce and honest, because he will. As many times as he has to. He sniffs, and looks up with a tremulous little grin, a hint of his own brand of danger there nonetheless. _If they want you, they have to go through me, and as I am discovering, that is not particularly easy. No one hurts my Dominant and gets away with it._ Together, they're fairly unstoppable.  
  
And Erik really does feel safe with him. From the moment Charles draped that blanket over him up until he set foot in that detention cell, through all of the trial testimony and hospital visits and car chases. He just hopes that Charles feels the same in return. He hasn't been good at returning that favor. Charles has been hurt on his watch, the evidence is still fading on his body. Erik grimaces. _I will never let it happen again,_ he vows, quiet but no less dangerous. _I will keep you safe. Always._  
  
 _Erik_ , he shakes his head, vehement, because not only is it not true, there's far more to suggest the opposite. The pain is written all over his face as he touches Erik's casted hand, his jaw, the softest, gentlest of touches. _I chose mine, you_ \- He shakes his head. He let it happen. He promised Erik no more hurt, and it happened anyway. He hasn't forgiven himself.  
  
He turns his head and kisses Charles's palm, just as gentle. _No_ , he stops him softly. _I chose mine, too. There is no one to blame but the perpetrators. Not you. I would endure it a thousand times if it meant keeping you safe, and with me. I will always choose you._  
  
They could argue about this endlessly. Charles bites his lip, wipes the new tears on his cheeks onto Erik. _Never again?_ he asks, and wants desperately for it to be true. Maybe it's not realistic. Maybe there will be something in the future they can't predict. But he wants to think they can hope for it. _I want to be safe with you, Erik, h_ e says, barely audible as he curls his head back into Erik's lap.  
  
 _Never again,_ he whispers solemnly. _We know better, now. We are stronger, now. No one can take us away from each other_. He tilts Charles's head up to kiss him softly on the lips, sliding his hands through his hair. _Mine. You are safe here._

* * *

Charles smiles, however teary-eyed, and leans forward to kiss Erik's nose. His. Charles is every bit Erik's. _You're going to hurt your back if you keep bending like that,_ he points out, almost scolding as his lips twitch into something more teasing. _Speaking of, I wish I'd brought up my 'Maybe' for strain Postures earlier because after this conversation it just seems silly._ And then he's laughing, giggling, really, caught up in it as he squirms until he can bury himself back in Erik's knee and shake with it. They'll always come back here. Exactly where they belong.  
  
Erik lets out a bark of laughter, amusement quick and sudden and he tugs Charles up slightly-still on his knees, of course-so Erik can hug him properly, a dam of tension burst so that only a warm glow is left. _Is that something you are interested in exploring_? For Erik's part, he's a little more reticent. He's never had any intention of using them as a form of punishment, but there are different types of suspension bondage that he thinks Charles might find intriguing to say the least. It's a challenge in a different kind of way, not meant to be painful, but definitely aware of one's body and its position in space.  
  
He's still laughing as he's tugged, and he goes more than happily, glowing with it even as he considers why he'd originally been hesitant. _I'm actually fairly flexible,_ he tells Erik, a bit shy for some reason as he nuzzles into him, needing the contact just as much. _I wouldn't mind trying. I think it's just the idea of - it was humiliating, then, but it wouldn't be with you._ It might upset him in practice, but if it did, they could stop and talk it over. Charles believes that much unquestionably, and that's what makes all of this possible. We're incredible, you know, he echoes earlier.  
  
 _There are certain Postures that I don't think I could-_ Erik murmurs, shrugging a bit. _It would be too-close. And I know it is the same for you._ He kisses Charles's temple, yet again, an idle movement he makes as many times as he can remember to, when he remembers there's un-kissed skin and that must be remedied. _I am not certain how comfortable I would be using stress positions on you in general,_ he just admits it-using a much more negative terminology without really realizing it, grimacing a bit. _But it is something I'm willing to explore, if you are._  
  
Charles shivers like always at the kiss, sighing happily. His eyes close, and for a moment he forgets to respond, humming. It can be a 'Maybe' for both of us, then. _I don't feel any real need to explore it,_ he says, and it's honest. He wouldn't be opposed, if Erik decides he wants to try, but he's also not particularly eager. It makes him wonder. _Is there anything else like that? There are a lot of things that, well -_ He flushes, and ducks his head into Erik. _But are there things you aren't sure about? Or more limits, even_. They really might as well be exhaustive here. Leave no stone unturned. It feels like a joy again, even with all of the past weighing it down. Something to explore together.  
  
Erik does write down _strain postures [maybe]_ before moving on, tapping the pencil against his lip unconsciously as he considers. _Drowning_ , he says after a moment. Some people liked this aspect of asphyxiation, and Erik can definitely do asphyxiation, but not like that. The word in his mind is cold and terrified, thrown under ice-water, even as he maintains his sense of control. _I don't like water_. Sometimes, with Charles, it's been all right, but he can't count on that always. There'll come a point where he does inevitably get tetchy about it.  
  
Charles makes a face, shaking his head quickly. _No, I don't like that either,_ he says, and not just because Erik doesn't like it. He has absolutely no desire to be drowned or almost-drowned. Unlike Erik, Charles rather likes water, and swimming, and the like. Not like that, and he would never have indicated he wanted it from Erik. The word _asphyxiation_ does get his attention, though, and then his mind is wandering. Mostly to Erik's hand around his throat. He makes a noise, thoroughly red as he hides in Erik.  
  
Perhaps it's that which allows him to keep going, on a roll, and he lays his hand on Charles's neck, a way to ground them both. The rest tumbles out in sharp staccato. Erik isn't really embarrassed to talk about these things, but he knows they're telling. But they're talking _exhaustive_ , so here goes. Cutting. Burning. Guns. Needles. Cages. Hoods. Bad pain. CBT. Sadism. Definite limits. Possibly electricity- he does have the violet wand, but that doesn't seem to affect him at all. Perhaps because of its unthreatening shape, because Erik can control exactly what it feels like. Further than that, there are definitely negative associations around something harder like a taser. There's another thing there, too, but Erik forces it down, because for some reason it feels like limiting Charles somehow, in a way that might not be acceptable, in a way he isn't sure he's comfortable controlling him. But he doesn't know how he'd react to it, even if the end result was benign. It's a general thing rather than something specific to the bedroom, that much is certain.  
  
 _Okay, I might ask for clarification in a second, because that was a lot -_ Charles runs the words over in his head, and he's going to say there's almost definitely no complaint there, but for the sake of clarity and exhaustion, it couldn't hurt. He's had his own questions and concerns, and that's what this is for. _But... tell me? Please? I_ t's impossible for him not to catch it like this, and he looks up imploringly.  
  
Erik sits back for a second, and then lays his right hand over the dark AIDC branded into his inner left forearm.  
  
Charles swallows, and then shakes his head. _I don't understand,_ he admits, except now his attention is drawn to it, and he wants, briefly - but he's not sure that would be at all appreciated, so he leans back and waits for an explanation instead.  
  
 _Would you ever wish to get a tattoo?_ Erik asks because it's the easiest way he can think of to broach the subject, and it will give him a sense of how this should go depending on Charles's answer.  
  
Charles blinks, chewing on his bottom lip as he considers that. _I'm....not morally or intellectually opposed, and I don't have a fear of needles, but - why, Erik?_ he asks instead.  
  
Erik scratches his neck, nervous and awkward. _I don't know if I would be OK with that. I do not want to tell you what you can or cannot do with your body, I-if that was what you wanted, I-_  
  
 _I don't have any real desire or urge to get a tattoo,_ Erik, he assures immediately, because he can do that. Easily. I _n fact, I'd much rather not, and wouldn't have anyway. You wouldn't be limiting me in anything. And even if you were, it - I mean... hm_. Now he's thinking.  
  
 _It would not-_ he grimaces. _I would not bring it up if it weren't-I would try, but-_ he wouldn't succeed, he knows. It would change things. He would have a hard time looking at Charles's skin; perfect as it is, and not see-even if he didn't have the experience of being forcibly tattooed against his will, he remembers the very first time as a young child he pointed at his grandfather's arm and asked what those numbers were. As modern and oriented as he is, there are some religious prohibitions that are hard to break, and he's perfectly fine if Charles wants to eat bacon cheeseburgers for every meal, but this is a little different. Or maybe it isn't, and he's a hypocrite. He doesn't know.  
  
Charles shakes his head. _First of all, I definitely don't want to eat bacon cheeseburgers for every meal and you wouldn't be perfectly fine, either,_ he snorts, because that would absolutely never fly with Erik and they both know it. Not because of the meat consumption, but because Charles' health is something Erik is very much not permissive about. _And second, I mean it, Erik. I have no desire for it. I don't... mind them, myself, like I said. I understand why people do it. But I also understand why you're objecting,_ he says, softly, and reaches for Erik's hand. _Even if I did... perhaps this is a dicey area, but I wouldn't have - it wouldn't have bothered me. There are things I would object to you controlling, and I might if it comes up, but - as a general rule..._ Charles is finding he's willing to defer on Erik's final decisions on a great many things, as long as, if there's a concern on his part, they discuss it first and his opinion and input is considered. He bows his head. _Maybe that's... bad?_ He hadn't thought it was, he'd actually been thinking positively about it, but -  
  
Erik smiles softly. _No_ , he murmurs. _I do not think it is bad._ And he doesn't-his own objections tend to surface when it comes in response to his own needs, as though they're not as important as Charles's-and they're not, because what he needs more than anything is for Charles to be OK. To be safe. Whole and healthy. _I just-_ he looks up, meeting Charles's eyes and squeezing his hand gently. _I can't get rid of it, you know? For the same reason I never should have gotten it. I'm stuck with it. I do not want you to ever feel like that._  
  
 _They are. Your needs are important, Erik. I need you to believe that, because otherwise we can't do this properly_. He'll be firm on that. This whole discussion being possible is a sign of progress, though. This particular topic is a sign of progress. He squeezes right back, a soft smile on his own lips. _No tattoos. I don't need or want one, and I more than respect your decision._ And that's final, end of story. Charles... likes that, actually. It flutters around in his belly, despite the circumstances. He hasn't thought much about tattoos, if he's honest, besides noting them - except. Well. Except Warren's, and that's a brand all of its own. He doesn't feel limited at all, and he can't think of many things he would feel limited by, which is - it's strange, he'll admit it. It's so opposite what he expected of himself, but none of that was expected while he was being honest with himself.  
  
He raises Charles's hand to kiss his knuckles. _Thank you,_ he whispers. Truthfully, there are few limits that Erik places on himself when it comes to Charles, other than preserving his sense of dignity, safety, personhood. Erik's learning to trust himself, the more he proves it to them again and again that he does have Charles's best interests at heart, that he does know what is best for Charles, that he can protect him, even when Charles can't see it in the moment. But they always end up back here. Rational and oriented and loved. He gives another small smile. _You mentioned you had questions, about the rest._  
  
Now he's embarrassed, not because he's particularly interested in any of Erik's limits - he isn't, at all - but because they graze things he is interested in, and admitting it is incredibly embarrassing for Charles right now. _Um... what is 'bad pain' classified as? Is there a limit to how much... well. And I assume - I mean, I don't want... you seem perfectly willing to leave marks -_ And he'd like more, please. But he doesn't know how far it goes. How far Erik is willing to go, and how far he is.  
  
 _Oh_ , Erik looks at him, thoughtful. _No, I meant in the technical sense of the word._ There is good pain, the kind of pain Charles is thinking of, and then there is bad pain, non-consensual pain, distressing pain, frightening pain. Agony. Rending, harming, hurting.  
  
That's what the clarification is for, then. Charles certainly isn't about to disagree with that. Check that one off as a hard limit. It does... make him wonder, but he's far too embarrassed to ask at exactly this moment, so he focuses on something else. _Are we... you really don't want it to turn off, right?_ He doesn't even think he could. But he knows most people tend to do that. Relegate it to the bedroom, or specific moments. Raven and Hank do it. As far as he knows, even most high-Doms like Gabby operate like that on some level. His own inner-shame makes him wonder if it's bad, again, but... it's not. It's what he needs and what's natural. And Erik does, too. Doesn't he?  
  
 _No_ , Erik says again, meeting his eyes. _There is no off._ There never has been and there never will be. _You are mine, and you will be mine, no matter where we are. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that._ His head tilts, though. _Tell me about what you wanted to ask, just now._  
  
He can't say he didn't want to ask anything, because that would be a lie and they've established they're against those, so he just makes a vague whining noise and shakes his head. _Not important?_ he tries, hopeful, and he's hidden his face again.  
  
 _Tell me,_ the Order doesn't sound as imperious as it feels, especially when Erik's eyes are crinkled fondly, but the snap of Command is unmistakable.  
  
Charles sighs. Those pesky Orders (that he loves and responds perfectly to). _I was just wondering... do you have limits about pain? And marks? And earlier, you said there are implements you don't want to use, so are there..._ Implements he does want to use. He's wondering something else now, too, but one question at a time.  
  
 _I won't cut you, and I won't burn you. I won't leave scars. I won't injure you. I am good with just about every kind of implement except for certain kinds of whips, knives, guns, and tasers. And there could be things I'm simply forgetting at the moment._  
  
That about lines up with what he'd thought, and also what he's good with. He makes another noise, not distressed, just, _Please slap me but don't... use a closed fist, that would frighten me_. He doesn't think Erik ever would but perhaps it's worth mentioning, because _guns and tasers_ are part of the discussion. _I... think I'm okay with mostly everything else, but I could just not know they exist_. He huffs, embarrassed. He probably shouldn't be because he's just said _'please slap me,_ ' and now he's red in the face because he's thinking about saying that.  
  
 _No_ , Erik shakes his head immediately. _I would never do that._ The idea itself is enough to make him nauseated, and he frames Charles's jaw with his hand instead, gentle. _I would never be comfortable what is essentially beating you._ He needs to make that very clear. He's fine with marks, with impact play, with slaps-and Erik doesn't hit hard anyway, but he _can_ -and he knows that in the future it's likely, it's just something he needs to work up to, he needs to prove to himself that it's OK. For them both. A product of trust and time and effort. Some submissives and many Dominants get off on the feeling of fear, but that's honestly Erik's _single_ hard limit, the one thing he knows he can't _just push past._ It was even fine when Charles cried beneath him, after being disciplined last night, he remembers-a bit red-faced himself, how pleased he was that Charles was in his place, yielding and soft and freshly marked. But there was no fear. If there had been, he knows more than he knows how to breathe that he'd have stopped it right there in its tracks.  
  
 _I know,_ Charles murmurs, and smiles, because he's never for a second doubted that. And he's never been afraid, either. He shows Erik flashes, particularly of him being disciplined, where the likelihood for fear would probably be highest - Erik has already seen it, but he reassures him with it now, opening everything up. _No fear._ Discomfort, because it was discipline, but no fear. _I... feel safe, actually,_ he admits, and he's a bit ashamed of it because he doesn't know what else to be, looking down. _That you'll take care of me, and put me back in place. It feels safe._  
  
Erik tilts his chin back up to meet his gaze. _I am very, very glad to hear that,_ he whispers, eyes bright. He rubs his thumb back and forth over Charles's cheekbone, unable to resist leaning forward and kissing him again, long and lingering and warm. No shame, here. It is what they both need, and Erik loves it as much as he loves every other aspect of their relationship. It isn't something he endures. _I always want you to feel safe with me._  
  
 _I do,_ he promises, and sighs happily into the kiss, soft and sweet against it. He wishes he could kiss him properly, pouting because of it, but soon enough. This is is good, too, and Charles settles back into nuzzling into Erik's lap. _I'm not actually ashamed, it's just a little ridiculous how many of my fantasies are..._ He trails off, snorting even as his cheeks heat up all over again.  
  
Erik smirks at him. _Go on,_ he compels, eyebrows raised playfully. His hand slips back down to Charles's neck, rubbing at the fabric of his collar. Erik wants to hear every fantasy Charles has, wants to do his utmost to bring all of them to vibrant life, will spend the rest of his existence doing just that, whether in the bedroom or simply here, like this. The two of them.  
  
A huff, but images begin to flash. It's nothing Erik hasn't seen, but the sheer amount of them is perhaps staggering and many of them aren't specifically sexual. Bent over the bed, Erik with any number of implements while he squeaks and squirms and thanks him. Tied up and flogged because Erik wanted it. Charles mouthing off, faux-Ordering, and instead of indulging it Erik takes him over his lap, lowers his pants and spanks him soundly until he's sniffling and red, then decides he hasn't had enough. Makes Charles decide what he uses like when he'd asked what Charles was interested in in that store, mostly because the thought makes him squirm with embarrassment, but not true humiliation, and they both like that. He's been thinking about that one in particular, because he's been thinking about being put back in place and also about things Erik could use, and. Well. Now he's scarlet up to his ears, and wriggling all over as he burrows deeper between Erik's legs.  
  
His fingers grip in Charles's hair a little tighter, and he tugs just enough to raise his chin, to see his eyes and trace that blush with the back of his casted hand. _All of it,_ he promises lowly, eyes heated. _All of it and more. I have you now. I am never letting you go. There is so much for us to explore and experience together. I cannot wait._ He brushes his thumb over Charles's bottom lip, an idle movement that doesn't begin to express the burning ember glowing in the center of his chest.  
  
Charles is swimming in shy embarrassment now, making a soft noise as he's tugged. His own eyes are heated even so, even as he tries to hide again, squirming as much as he can currently manage on his knees. _Me either,_ he admits, barely a whisper, but his eyes are closed because it's much harder to hide when Erik is holding him. _Do you ever...? Like that?_  
  
 _Look at me,_ Erik whispers, bowing their foreheads together, keeping his thumb slipping slowly back and forth over Charles's lip. _Let me see you. Don't hide away. Do I ever-? Which?_  
  
He makes a noise of protest, a huff, but does as he's told even as he continues his squirming. _Fantasize about... things like that,_ he answers, and it certainly doesn't help him stop blushing.  
  
 _Oh, yes,_ he murmurs. _You forget I had little else to keep my mind occupied while I was under the illustrious care of the CIA._ Erik laughs softly. Being trapped in a glass cage surrounded by people watching him 24/7 wasn't conducive to alleviating himself at the time, but he lived inside his mind, where he could do what he liked, where he was free, with Charles. Some of the things he thought about back then, still thinks about now, aren't explicit in any way. Shopping, going for walks, feeding the birds in Central Park, drinking coffee and cooking for him. Sleeping beside him, wrapped up cozy. Hot showers, privacy, warmth. Caring for him in a million small touches, adjustments, instructions, Orders. And others decidedly are. Many of those Charles mirrors in return. Erik likes seeing him squirm, likes drawing him out of his shyness, likes drawing out his pleasure until he's hoarse and screaming and begging and moving, seeking, wanting. He likes that Charles tries to resist him because he can respond, remind him of his place, make him submit. So many ways to experience delicious pain, twin sensations, ways Erik can serve him and be served in return. His expertise is somewhat greater, over a longer period of time, and there's no real end to the things he'll try to accomplish his ends. Taking Charles apart, putting him back together whole. Altered only by the inevitable knowledge of Erik's love for him.  
  
Charles gasps, because knowing something is there is entirely different than having it acknowledged. Those are all things Charles has dreamed of, too, somewhere along the way. Things that he still does. Things he wants, and desires, craves, things he needs and longs for. It's not that he had any doubts, or that he didn't know those things were there. There's shockingly little he hasn't seen of Erik, even if he hasn't actively processed or made sense of it yet. It's just... he's not crying, but the noise that escapes him sounds suspiciously like a sob. _We really are compatible,_ he whispers. It's not that he'd doubted it. It's just that for entirely too long he'd been certain there was no one in the world for him, and Erik is. They're for each other. Throughout this entire conversation, misunderstandings aside, there hasn't been a single moment they've clashed. Where their desires and needs have fundamentally opposed. Because they don't, and they will not.  
  
 _We're free, now,_ Erik smiles down at him, removing his thumb from Charles's only so he can press another close-mouthed kiss there. He doesn't say I'm free-because he is, but he thinks, that maybe Charles is now, too. Free to be himself, free to be accepted and loved for exactly what he is. _I am for you. Always._  
  
 _We're free now,_ he echoes, and there are unshed tears in his eyes as he smiles and buries himself back in Erik where he belongs, wrapping himself up with his body and his Will and his beautiful, extraordinary mind. _But you can't make me eat vegetables,_ he pretends to huff, with all the stubbornness in the world and another soft laugh.  
  
 _I think you'll find I can,_ Erik returns dryly. _I have, and you've more-than liked it. Do not lie._ His lips turn up, amused, and he runs his thumb under Charles's eye, swipes at the corner gently. _Do you have any other questions?_ he asks after a long moment, swaying them from side to side unconsciously.  
  
Charles hums thoughtfully, wracking his brain for an answer. It's not like there isn't room for discussion later, that they can't always sit down like this and go over things if they feel it's necessary. He knows they can now, and that Erik will make certain it happens when it needs to. He's been doing that since the beginning. It's just that if there's something now, something they haven't gone over, he'd like to bring it up. _Um... it's about my telepathy, actually,_ he murmurs, and he sounds... meek. Nervous, even to his own ears. His eyes have lowered again. _Is there anything you're... uncomfortable with? Have I ever made you uncomfortable?_ He holds his breath.  
  
Erik's expression stills for a moment before breaking out into as large a smile as he can manage in his current state. _No, Charles. Absolutely not. I love your telepathy. I love feeling you in here._ He taps his own temple. _And I love that you are becoming more comfortable with being in here._ Even though _in here_ , in Erik's case, can be quite awful at times, he's well aware. He doesn't expect any more from Charles than what he's willing, but Erik is immeasurably grateful for his gift. It let them be together while he was locked up. It lets them communicate like this, like breathing. It lets him feel what Charles feels. _I suppose I would be uncomfortable if you-_ he shakes his head. _But you wouldn't. I trust you entirely._  
  
Whatever it is that Erik thinks he wouldn't do, he knows he wouldn't. If I what? he asks quietly anyway, because he wants to hear it. He's still tense, because he can't help it. In any relationship he's ever had this has been an issue in some way, whether they would admit it or not. Charles has always felt that his mere existence is an invasion, a transgression, a breach.  
  
It's Erik's turn to lower his gaze, and he swallows roughly. _If you controlled my body without asking me first._ But he knows that's not exactly cut-and-dried, because Charles has done that on multiple occasions-by making projections of him, by altering his senses; alleviating pain and letting him feel what Charles feels. But he can see that Erik means something entirely different. Not because Erik thinks Charles is capable of it, but because he's experienced it before, first-hand. Like a mannequin on strings, giving him no choice, locking his consciousness inside limbs that bend themselves in twisted caricature, watching his own hands-his own feet commit acts he screams against and can do nothing for, listening to himself speak words he doesn't want on his tongue-Erik shudders and sucks all of that back up and throws it behind a door. _It would-I would not have time to-calibrate my reaction._  
  
Charles grimaces, pulling back as if he's been slapped, and then he's shaking his head. His eyes are closed, and he can't stop shaking it, actually, the thought of it so repulsive and horrifying to him he can't breathe for it. _I would never,_ he swears, and shakes with the sheer force of it. _I would never, Erik. Never. Never, never, I would rather - I would never,_ he finishes weakly, and he's utterly terrified at that notion that he could.  
  
 _I know you wouldn't,_ Erik touches his temple, and lays a kiss there. _I have never been afraid. Not once. I trust you._  
  
He flinches at the touch, not because it hurts but because he knows what he's capable of and for all his progress, he's still scared. He's very scared. _You should be_ , he whispers, ashamed, eyes closed.  
  
 _Yes, well,_ Erik's head tilts dryly. _I could Order you to keep out and deconstruct your molecules. It is a silly argument, because I am not capable of doing that to you._  
  
Charles shakes his head. _Sure, but you can't fundamentally alter me as a person without me ever knowing and I could,_ he mumbles, thoroughly miserable about it and willing to punish himself for something Erik never would.  
  
 _No, you couldn't,_ Erik tells him simply. _Any more than I could kill you. Just because someone is theoretically capable of something does not mean they are able to do it. When your telepathy went away, you asked me if I would still stand by your side, and I would. But I can't lie and say I didn't miss having all of you, and knowing that you had all of me in return. Your telepathy is a gift. I cherish it. It let me come to you when I was at my most desperate. It removed my pain. It lets me speak to you now. It lets me feel you in here._ He touches Charles's heart. _I would never choose to give that up. Your mind is extraordinary, and I want all of it. I love all of it._  
  
He isn't convinced, but he does wince at the memory. _I'm afraid if I let go and stop leashing myself up like you've told me to, I'll lose myself,_ he admits. _And I'm very grateful for what it's helped us achieve, but sometimes I still think if there was some magic cure -_ He knows he wouldn't. He knows 'cures' like that are only a few experiments away now, and wouldn't the world love it if mutants lined up and ' _cured_ ' themselves out of existence. He knows the thought horrifies him. But Charles has always had different standards for himself and others.  
  
 _Absolutely not._ Erik's eyes flash. _And I know you know better than that. You were without it, and you did mourn. I would never allow it, and that is final._  
  
 _I liked being drunk,_ he admits, and it's such a shameful thing for him that he curls up, bending himself into as much of a ball as he can manage like this on his knees. _And under the influence of drugs, because it dulled everything. I could still hear, but it wasn't so bloody loud all the time. I could meet someone without knowing their greatest fear and worst pain because they thought of something tangentially related, without knowing exactly what they thought of me in perfect clarity. I still heard it, don't get me wrong,_ he laughs, and it's bitter, a leftover of a time Erik has seen shockingly little of. His adolescence and now his adulthood, but not much of what's in between. _But it felt like... less. The hangovers were brutal. It felt like dying, sometimes. Incredibly painful, like the entire world was screeching - you've seen a bit of it, and that was incredibly tame in comparison. But I kept doing it, night after night, sometimes in the mornings and afternoons,_ he snorts, _Because it was something. It was something. It kept me from remembering._ He shakes his head. Not for very long. _But I thought, 'well, I'm exactly like my Mother' and -_ He still does, because he knows that about himself. He knows he's perfectly susceptible to popping a few pills and going on a bender if it means he can just haze it all out for a few hours. Erik wonders where Charles came from, but Charles knows. The apple really didn't fall far. He knows.  
  
 _There's nothing inherently wrong with that urge,_ Erik points out. _Being an addict isn't a personality failure, Charles. I should know._ He taps his elbow, where he knows Charles has seen the track marks. _The difference is what you do with it. You are a respected forensic psychiatrist with six post-secondary degrees. Your mother can't point out Israel on a map. Not to disparage her, but frankly she is barely alive. You want to live. You want to love, and grow, and change. That is what matters. Don't be ashamed of that._  
  
 _Most Americans can't point out Israel on a map, we're not exactly taught to be worldly and culturally sensitive,_ he snorts again, but point taken. The fact that he completed those six post-secondary degrees while highly intoxicated for a good portion of it is mildly impressive, and even he's willing to admit some of that. _It's just - it feels like a failure. Like at any moment, I could become just like her. I know I won't. I didn't then. I somehow knocked out several dissertations and groundbreaking theories, actually,_ he laughs, because there's no reason to be self-deprecating about one of the few things he's proud of, even if it does make him a stuffy, soft academic. He's still curled up when he says, timidly, _They're using it as a tagline now, one of my latest theories. I'm technically still knee-deep in paper revisions..._ But all of that effort is making a real, worldly difference. Charles can't completely hide his pleasure at that. He hasn't gotten a chance to fully process it, but it's all he's ever wanted.  
  
 _I know,_ Erik murmurs back, fond. He's read as much of Charles's work as he could find during his week off, much to Raven's chagrin at needing to fork over the cash for several new academic subscriptions, and Hank's chagrin at Erik's consistently stealing _his_ access, too. _You should be proud, Charles. I am._  
  
Charles is fairly prolific as far as academic work goes, across all of his fields, so that's impressive, but now he's squirming and embarrassed. _Erik!_ _Some of those papers are incredibly old and outdated, and they don't always properly archive my corrections and comments -_ But Erik read his work. He's smiling, wide and ecstatic, boyish in his surprised wonder. Erik read his work, despite the fact that the majority of the people in his life find it incredibly dull and have only ever skimmed or asked for the SparkNotes version. He doesn't know why that pleases him so much, but it does, and now he's warm all over.  
  
 _Of course I did,_ Erik taps him on the nose playfully. _Some of it was a bit over my head; I made some notes, actually,_ he admits with a huff. _For things I wished for you to explain when you came back to me._ The image pops up easily, in the bureau by the bed, a stack of pages with Erik's messy scrawl in red pen, comments and question-marks and observations and arguments of his own.  
  
That absolutely thrills Charles. He surges up with affection, no longer curled into a ball as he leans up and kisses, gently but with no lack of enthusiasm, all over Erik's beautiful face. _Oh, that's brilliant, I've always wanted - you know, mutatis mutandis, or homo sapien mutatis mutandis, which is absolutely a mouthful and all abbreviations look awful to the eye, at least to me - is in direct opposition to... other theories you've been exposed to, but it's grounded in fact._ Not that Erik ever believed those washed-up theories, but it's interesting to note because even outside of Shaw it's what he's stacked against, and a trap even he fell into during some of his earlier work, drawing comparisons that were necessarily flawed. _Mutants are not a separate species from baselines - we are all homo sapiens, even if some of us are mutatis mutandis homo sapien, or mutant-class - and to say that we are goes against every precedent of evolutionary genetics. We are no more opposed to each other on an evolutionary level than groups of same-specied, varied spiders are, for example. Not that spiders have nearly the same hang-ups as we do over anything remotely unknown or different, but the point still stands._ You've gotten him started, Erik, and now he's bright-eyed and puffed up.  
  
 _I'm certain that's true,_ Erik nods, and he's never argued that point, not seriously. It's a fool's errand to try and unravel the science behind it when Erik can barely pronounce half the words on the page, but he does know people, and he does know history, and he does know extremism and fanaticism. _But let me ask you something. Do you believe that skull shape is an indicator of intelligence? For example, Caucasians versus African Americans?_  
  
 _No, of course not, but you're getting into cultural factors that have no bearing on science except in skewed pseudo-studies._ _They do, however, absolutely have real-world applications because as much as it would make things simpler, human beings - which we all are, across every spectrum - do not rely on pure scientific fact and rationality to make their judgments and decisions. He sighs here, because wouldn't that be lovely. It would be a less feeling world, perhaps, but it would also end with everyone less likely to throw rocks at each other. But this 'battling their own extinction' nonsense - if we could all stop with that, perpetuating that narrative, it'd be rather appreciated since it makes absolutely no sense. This isn't nearly the first case of mutatis mutandis in human evolution_. He scoffs. _Yes, alright, I'll grant it's a bit more noticeable than varied skull shape and melanin production, not that it ever stopped anyone from noticing before, but it's certainly not some strange new species developing. We're so genetically similar to baselines it's nearly neglible, and last time I checked still perfectly capable of interbreeding and fertile reproduction... The whole thing is silly. He shakes his head. This isn't a question of genetics, though the genetics are fascinating and telling and I'd love to explain them to you - it's just exactly what you're thinking of. This is a fundamentally human problem, which we would never find in spiders because spiders, for all their lovely contributions to the world, have not learned to oppress each other for their variations. Compete with each other, certainly, sometimes consume each other, but fortunately that's about as far as it goes. Us humans are civilized, so..._ He rolls his eyes.  
  
 _Well, precisely. That's precisely my point. It's pseudoscience. Craniometry and biometrics and heredity. It's all nonsense, and it's been disproved for over a century. Yet you will undoubtedly find many people today, many_ young _people, who believe it is true._ _They take action based on these beliefs. People die because they believe it's true. People are forcibly sterilized, institutionalized, enslaved, and worse because some_ Galton fanboy _decides their skull looks too odd._ Erik barely contains his own eyeroll. _The fact that what you're saying is true doesn't change how a willfully ignorant majority will react. They_ believe _that we're a separate species. All the evidence in the world won't change their minds. They'll simply accuse you of fabricating a conspiracy to cast your mutant brethren in a positive light. Talking about genetic similarities and fertile reproduction won't matter because they aren't evolved enough to care in the first place._  
  
Charles sighs. _I conceded the point, but like always, my love, I disagree_ , he smiles here, soft and fond, bringing Erik's hand, ring and all, to his lips to kiss. _Human beings have an extraordinary capacity for change and growth. I am positive I cannot change the entire world barring ridding them of their freedom to think as they please, however flawed and hateful, but change of thought is possible. Changing minds is possible. Of course I'd like to do whatever I can in the meantime, to ensure the safety of -_ He won't say 'their people,' as Erik has before. _But they will listen. They already have._  
  
Erik laughs, curling his fingers over Charles's face. _I suppose we're getting a bit off the track, here, but this does bring me to something I've wished to present to you for quite some time. When we do open the doors to our school, we will be putting a target on the back of every person enrolled there. I think we should seriously consider investing in tactical equipment and self-defense curricula._  
  
Charles' nose scrunches, and he sighs. _I don't like the idea of it,_ he mutters, but what he's not saying is perhaps even more clear: _I've thought of it too, I hate that it might be necessary, but I agree._ Objecting because they shouldn't need such things and then being caught off-guard and their students and faculty getting hurt (or worse) as a result is simply not an option or a bet he's willing to make for the sake of being right. He'd much rather not be proven wrong, but if he is, he's going to have precautions for it.  
  
 _Hope for the best and prepare for the worst,_ Erik gestures between them, smirking. They really do compliment one another. Charles may not be comfortable with the idea, but Erik decidedly is. _I can handle those preparations myself, and ensure everyone understands what to do in the event it's necessary. I'm fairly proficient with security protocols._  
  
 _Oh, no. Absolutely not._ Charles shakes his head, and he crosses his arms in that stubborn way he does. _I teach you evolutionary genetics and everything I know about the intellectual side of things, you teach me this. I expect to be just as proficient by the time that school opens._ And he won't budge on this. There's no future he'll allow for where he isn't just as capable of protecting all that he cares for and loves. He'll defer to Erik as he does in all things, but he wants to know, too, however much he doesn't like that they might need it.  
  
 _Of course,_ Erik blinks at him. _That was never in question. I will be making sure that every staff member is proficient in all the systems I establish, and in proper self-defense._ Which Erik does know, despite the fact that there's no evidence he's ever used it; but a brief flash of his tussle with Essex shows another story. Swiftly delivered palm strikes, elbow strikes, hammer fists, heel kicks. Erik is well-proficient, studying Krav Maga with his father from childhood and honed under Sebastian Shaw's brutal tutelage. It's a side of Erik rarely seen, even by Charles, the pieces of him created for a single purpose: destruction. He can use many forms of long and short-range weaponry, and manipulate cyber security systems with ease. Meek little Erik can bite as well as bark, but he almost never employs that knowledge now, and a sharp look from an adversary is usually enough to cow him anyway. But this is different, pre-emptive instead of in the moment, and those are skills that can be passed on.  
  
Charles ducks his head, grinning to himself. _I wouldn't be so disparaging about your own ability to bite in the moment, since when it involves me you seem more than capable of it,_ he murmurs, and means it in both ways. _Not that I would ever ask for it, but if someone threatened me seriously, and for some reason I couldn't defend myself..._ Charles truly fears for them.  
  
Even the suggestion is enough to make Erik's eyes flash over. All those dark facets screech to the surface in a split-second crescendo of terrifying concerto. How the body bends. How it breaks. _Gut, Erik. Mal sehen, ob ihm die Idee des Scheißens gefällt seine Eingeweide auf dem Boden._ A teenaged Erik grim-faced and focused on his task, blood and steel and nameless, writhing enemies. _If said person values their hands, they will not lay a finger upon you. That I can promise._  
  
But Charles is fairly vicious when it comes to Erik, too, if his reaction to Sebastian Shaw is any indication ( _"you don't deserve my mercy,"_ and it's so cold that it makes him shiver). He can't help thinking about... there are still fading bruises, overlaid with Erik's marks now, sickly green-yellow and what are now becoming scars, the skin gashed open. _I can't imagine what it was like to watch that_ , he whispers, head bowed, because he remembers, out-of-body, through the concentration of a task, what it had been like. Screaming and fear and agony. He hasn't been able to talk about this, because it was easier not to. _I... you must have -_ Charles swallows.  
  
 _I should have murdered him on the spot,_ Erik replies quietly. He doesn't wish to dredge up Charles's feelings of responsibility, because he's sure he will try and claim it, but the truth of the matter is that Erik went against what he _knew_ was right to preserve something he no longer _cares_ about. And now Charles is covered in bruises and remembered violation and shocking violence and horror. That will never be erased, it will never go away, and he will never make the same mistake again. Erik holds so much hatred and rage for that man he will be lucky if he leaves The _Hague_ with his life at all.   
  
He is the one responsible for breaking Erik of his Will, that very first time, when something happens that you have no reference for in quick succession, at such a young age. He'd been utterly _stunned_ into humiliated submission, into detached grief and clawing numbness, that everything which happened after came by Erik's hands as though he were an automaton, unseeing, unfeeling, unthinking. Every single notion he'd ever held of the world obliterated at once, like death itself. Sebastian Shaw is technically responsible, but those feelings are complicated, wound up in perceived fondness and love and desire. Mr. Ivanov made him a defiled-thing.   
  
And then he had the _nerve_ to try and Claim Charles for himself, like a pretty doll on a shelf he just had to have. And he watched it, every second branded into him like _A.R._ on his spine, on the underside of his brain, wired through every neuron. Every cry and scream and convulsion and mark. The worst part is that he bore it all, didn't even twitch. Watched lifelessly. _Nothing has changed./and beside the old offences new ones have sprung-/But the howl with which the body answers to them- A palette of brilliant colors. Red, yellow plasma, chartreuse borders, the dot of freckles on a shoulderblade, cream-colored skin a bloated canvas, twisted away in the corner, the sound of flesh scraping against linoleum. Nothing has changed./Except perhaps the manners, ceremonies, dances_. Erik grits his teeth against the wires. _You will never, if I have anything to say about it, have reason to imagine it ever again. I swear that to you._  
  
Charles shakes his head, but he's curled in on himself again. He's shaking, and he shouldn't be. This should be old by now, finished and done with. _I chose that_ , _because I had to_ , he insists, and his eyes are tightly shut. It hadn't mattered in the end. Cain had still wound up in his living room, mutilated and dead. It hadn't been that bad, though, not compared to - it hadn't been. That he'd seen and felt every thought and sick, blackened fantasy, that he can still taste sulfur on his tongue when his mind wanders too far, that doesn't matter. He's been inside that man's mind now. He's seen himself underneath him, felt every burn and scrape and lash and trace of fingers and tongue and - but it doesn't matter. It didn't really happen. That he'd had to watch Erik go through it, and then see it imagined for himself - see himself the broken, tortured doll, the pretty collected toy, know exactly where on his body he'd be branded... _It's alright,_ he whispers, cracked, and pushes it away. Far away. _It doesn't bother me. It's over._  
  
 _No, it is not all right,_ Erik returns fiercely, imagining for a split second he can hear the sound of his own teeth cracking. Pain lances through the barrier, a ghostly-illusion. He can forgive every transgression against himself, but Azazel laid a hand on Charles and for that he cannot be suffered to live. And Erik was there. He should have stopped it, he should never have catered to it, to this _delusion_ that Charles had some kind of choice when there were no moves to make, no moves other than what Erik could have done but just like when he was a child, he _sat there_ , watching, silent. What _fucking good_ is being a D5 if he can't open his mouth. One day when Charles is more healed he will understand that and he will hate Erik just as much as Erik does. But until that time Erik learns from his mistakes, and it will never happen again. It's too little, too late, but it's all he has to offer. It's right there in their contract. Charles expects him to protect him. But there's no use falling into the trap of guilt and horror. Guilt is a _useless emotion_ , it will only serve to make Charles feel more upset and more at fault, and it's about Erik, not about Charles. It's selfish. So he takes what he can from it, he learns what he had to learn, and that will have to be enough. He can be here instead. He can focus on healing and health and love and laughter and joy. Even if it's never over, he will be here, to protect Charles from the aftermath.  
  
Charles shakes his head again, the noise he makes soft and scared but not of Erik. _I'm sorry I didn't - if I had been better at it..._ It wouldn't have gotten as far as it did. _But it is alright, Erik. Nothing really bad happened._ He doesn't actually believe that, and if it had been Erik, the minimization of a trauma would horrify him. He wants to, though. It's not making light, just being realistic. In the grand scheme, nothing.  
  
 _I do not believe that, and I know you do not either. You are worth everything to me, and you were harmed. That will never be all right. I am sorry,_ he whispers. _I am so sorry it happened. I am so sorry I allowed it to happen. Nothing can make it right, but I will try and fill your life with so much good, so much good that you deserve, and maybe someday there will be more good than bad and you will feel good, first._  
  
 _I already do_ , he promises, and it's perfectly honest. _You don't have anything to apologize for, Erik. You truly don't. Besides, he didn't even... and if he did, it would have been fine. Cain helped me._ Curled up half in Erik's lap, he doesn't seem to notice that there's anything off about what he's just said.  
  
 _He beat the shit out of you and filled your mind with filth, all of which I was fully aware and present for, so yes, he did even. If that happened to me you would be saying the exact same thing, and you know it. There is never going to be a point at which I agree with you, and if you still have doubts, feel free to examine my perspective in detail._ He presses his lips together, grim. _How did Cain help you?_  
  
Charles flinches, trembling. _He protected me,_ he whispers, shrugging, and now he's properly ball-like. _I was an ungrateful little bitch. It's fine._  
  
 _Stop it,_ the Order snaps across their Bond like a cold frost. _I won't abide you saying those things about yourself._  
  
He's bent over, now, head bowed all the way down. _Sorry, sir,_ he mumbles.  
  
 _Good_ , Erik murmurs back reproachfully. _I do not like it when people insult my favorite person. Not even you are exempt from that._ He tugs Charles up with a tap on the chin, a light pull at the strands of hair where his hand is buried and lays his head against his knee, pressing their cheeks together.  
  
Charles shakes his head, lips pursed, something like a noise of protest escaping even as he bites down on the inside of his cheek to stifle it. _But_ \- He swallows it back down, huffing. It's true, goes unspoken.  
  
 _I not care if you think it is true or not. The only opinion that is relevant to me in this matter is my own. Stop that, Charles,_ he taps his cheek. _Stop hurting yourself. I won't watch it._  
  
There's a another huff, and then a scowl. _It doesn't hurt,_ he insists, petulant, and then, because he's a brat, waits a second before doing it again, this time deliberately. It can't be helped.  
  
 _I don't care,_ Erik says again, matter-of-fact. _I said stop it, and so you will._ And regardless of whether he wants to or not, the Order makes it quite Imperative. Erik nuzzles his cheek a bit. He adores this man. Even now, amidst all the pain and devastation, all Erik can see is the beacon of Charles's mind, his personality, the flavor of his thoughts and the depth of his emotions. He truly has no other desire in this world than for Charles to see himself as Erik sees him.  
  
 _But it doesn't hurt, so what's the point,_ he scoffs. He pulls back despite wanting very much to be touched and petted, because he needs to make a point and cross his arms or he wouldn't be Charles. _I'll just bite my nails instead now. That's a grosser habit, I could get sick from that. Are you going to make me stop doing that, too?_ Apparently he's feeling a little petulant this morning. It probably has to do with the whole fake-Order thing, and an examination of his own needs under the microscope. Part of him still prods just a little, because he's so delighted every time Erik responds. Poke poke poke.  
  
Before Charles can raise his hand to his mouth, Erik moves quicker and gives a short, sharp rap on the back of his palm, just hard enough to sting. It's a push-pull, the way Erik remembers turning over in his thoughts while he was alone in that glass cage. Binding in a thousand small words and touches, keeping him in place. _Absolutely. As is my Right_ , Erik Orders back in a low murmur.  
  
Charles shivers noticeably, and it would likely send him right back into his place under normal circumstances. It's just that he'd gotten himself worked up, and Erik holding him a little tighter with his Will helps. So he smirks, that smug twist of lips he's used to be catty before, and brings his smacked hand up to bite at the corner of his thumb. He's definitely had a habit of pulling at the skin there with his teeth before. _That didn't hurt, either,_ he taunts, and meets Erik's gaze.  
  
 _Exactly right,_ Erik hums. _Because I don't feel like hurting you right now. So cease._ The Order is accompanied by another sharp rap.  
  
That's exactly what he needed. Charles drops his hand, and it ends up with his other in perfect Rest again even as he squirms to get there, his belly full of butterflies and his spine tingling with the aftershocks. _Yes, sir,_ he murmurs, and sighs right into it.  
  
 _Very good, Charles,_ Erik praises him even as he goes back to nuzzling, running his fingers through the strands of Charles's hair. He spares a few extra strokes for his collar near the nape of his neck, more settled himself.  
  
Charles doesn't think he'll ever get tired of hearing Erik praise him like that, or that it won't melt him down with buttery pleasure that warms him all over. He hums, pleased and relaxed, leaning into the touches but holding position. _Punishment collars,_ he says, seemingly out of the blue, because Erik is stroking his collar and the skin around it and it feels amazing and he never wants it to stop. I don't like them. _They freak me out, actually, and it'd mean you'd take my collar from me and I... it would be too much, I think. Hard limit. I think that's everything you or I haven't mentioned_ , he breathes, but if something comes up, he knows they can discuss it.  
  
Erik flinches at that-he has scars on his neck from the fact that he wore one for sixteen years straight, including the brief period of time Charles saw him in that room-hadn't even bothered mentioning it because the very idea is enough to rattle him to his core, and shakes his head vehemently where he's slipped down to Charles's shoulder, nearly bent in half for it but unwilling to yield the contact. _Agreed_ , is all he rasps, and it writes itself down alongside everything else. _Is that all?_ he wonders, amazed; mostly because they're here, they're doing this, they can do this. In full presence of one another, at last.  
  
 _I think so,_ he murmurs back, equally amazed. It's... everything he can think of, at least, but they'd hashed it all out. They'd had a real, serious, dedicated discussion about it, and they'd gotten sidetracked and devolved a little, but not much. It had always come back around to the foundation they've been painstakingly building together. They'd done it with trust and respect and love, and Charles can hardly believe that the result is that this is theirs now. _Unless you have something._ He leans up and over, smiling down at the pad Erik's scribbled everything on. Technically this particular page, a list of their limits, shouldn't be something to smile at, except that it is. Because they'd gone over them together, and now they knew and it would be safe. _I really like this, sir,_ he whispers.  
  
 _As do I, neshama,_ Erik smiles back, as radiant as can be, considering. He's really hating this whole jaw thing; for the record. As they both know his expressions are more mental than physical, but it's a seamless transition, one that doesn't carry over with the wires. Charles can sense it anyway, his eyes crinkled up affectionately. And everything is laid out, but it's not final, either. This is, and will always be, a living document, subject to change in any number of ways as they grow deeper into themselves. _I love you, so much,_ he breathes softly.


	45. ciò che non siamo ciò che non vogliamo

_I love you, too,_ and if his voice cracks a bit with emotion, it can't be helped. They've done this together. They've built this together. He'd really like to write it all up and make it an actual document, something to display and cherish, and perhaps they can do that later. He'd like that. Charles knows he wants to get to work on a number of things, but he thinks, idly, that it can wait for tomorrow. Today is for them, and... he bites his lip, suddenly shy. _We have the rest of the day,_ he points out, as nonchalant as he can manage.  
  
Erik's smirk turns positively impish. _We have the rest of our days_ , he realizes, a little existential for the moment but the fact that it's true makes him ache to bursting with happiness. _What would you like to do today, hm?_ He goes back to stroking Charles's collar, sitting up straight to alleviate the kink in his back from stooping over so long. He stretches out all the muscles in waves until a satisfying crack pops and he melts back into a slouch.  
  
 _Your poor back, stop that,_ Charles scolds mildly, and concern flitters around and replaces the shyness for just a moment before he's back to flushing. Then he's burying his face in Erik's knee and mumbling out his answer, out loud, because even muffled mental words tend to come out loud and clear and he wants to get away with it. _If you'd like,_ he adds, peeking up hopefully. _I know it's rather silly, considering._  
  
 _Now, Charles,_ Erik laughs lightly. He certainly has no regrets about his back, for it allowed him to wrap Charles up this entire time in his arms. _Speak up,_ the Order is warm.  
  
It's also going to give him a permanent hunch by the time they're fifty, and that might kill the mood. It's all distracting from what's really got him all flustered, and he groans. "I asked if... you'd like to go on a proper date with me, Erik." It's all so silly, honestly. They've Bonded, agreed to spend the rest of their lives together, faced death. But there just wasn't the opportunity for it, and - well. Charles likes the idea of it, no matter how juvenile it's making him feel to ask it like that. He likes it a lot.  
  
Erik beams, surprised and delighted by the request. _I would love to,_ he leans over yet again to kiss Charles on the top of the head, a sudden movement born from all the glittering warmth cascading through his body quite at once. And truthfully; they've done a lot of talking, a lot of fucking and making love and fighting (for one another, on behalf of one another, with one another) and negotiating and generally, the cerebral and physical backbone of a relationship; the water and sunlight to plants for survival, but now they need nutrients, too. They need to actually live that life they want, find things they enjoy doing together, spend time together. Erik's positively overwhelmed by how much that idea excites him. This is the part that Erik actually doesn't know at all; he hasn't _been anywhere_ since being free, is utterly unfamiliar with the area and doesn't really know what normal people do on dates other than dine, which is out for obvious reasons. Charles doesn't like the cinema. Erik doesn't like the beach. _Museum?_ His lips twitch. _Bar trivia_. (Hank and Raven are always going to that one.) At least they'd win. _Music? Walking? Dancing? Carnival!_ Now that he's started, he wants to do everything all at once, and he hides a laugh in his hand.  
  
Charles is incredibly delighted to indulge, and if he's honest? It's been a while since he's done anything for the sake of it. Anything for fun, for pleasure, because he finds most things dreadfully inconvenient when he could be holed up writing a paper or working on a project. Warren and Raven generally have to force him into it. _Now?_ He's eager, excitement that's been drained out of his life fluttering in his stomach, and he can hardly believe it. First of all, I wouldn't mind the cinema with you, and though there aren't any beaches in Manhattan, our first date was on a beach and you seemed quite happy, he points out. He struggles to call it a first date when directly before and after their lives were threatened, but it's a fond memory nonetheless. _Bar trivia and dancing I generally consider evening activities, so perhaps we'll wait until it's past noon,_ he's grinning so wide his face hurts. _I've obviously combed New York museums back to front, but I would love to show you. I'm not so sure if there's a carnival in town, but there are festivals going on - hm._ It's got him thinking, actually. _There's... I'd like to take you someplace, actually, if you'd like? I think you'd enjoy it._ Now he's shy again, smiling softly.  
  
 _I will love and cherish the Hudson river, always,_ Erik returns with a solemn hand over his heart, and he leads Charles to stand, framing his jaw with both hands and sliding them down to squeeze his shoulders gently. _Wherever you wish to take me, I am certain it will be wonderful._ That and he would walk into a cave filled with bears if Charles wanted to, and he's assuming there are no bears involved. They can only go up from there. _Can I check in on Naomi first? I want to make sure she has food and water, and leave a note for Hank and Raven. If they object, we may have to give her back,_ he realizes belatedly, because, uh, this is not their house. He's a bit dejected at that, but he'll cede to their decision.  
  
 _They won't,_ he assures, because he already knows. He knows his sister, and he knows Hank, and there won't be any objection there besides a few snide comments that he'll happily volley right back at her now that he's awake. Besides, it won't be permanent, but it's got him thinking about it as he chuckles and leans into Erik before letting him go. _You know, Raven and I living with each other is dangerous. We love each other half to death, but we're fiercely competitive._ And they tease each other endlessly, as any good sibling duo did. It left most people's heads spinning, once they got a rhythm going.  
  
Erik delivers one final kiss to his temple before migrating over to Naomi's cage, delicately removing the towel and greeting her curious, chirpy face. She's wide awake and has been sitting pretty this entire time, head bobbing back and forth as she stamps around to regard her new environment. Her temperament is exceptionally calm for birds notoriously neurotic as Greys, and she's accustomed to being handled. Erik checks the food restrictions on the side of the cage and goes to retrieve an apple from the fridge, letting it cut itself into slices while he works out how to detach the water drip on the side. That takes about five seconds-things always tell Erik how they work-and then he's opening up the front end with a pointed finger at her. "Be good," he murmurs, continuing the conversation mentally with Charles as he arranges everything, _I like Raven and I like you. Now I'll be twice as fond._ Naomi decides to contribute to this by making microwave beeping noises. _Beep beep beep!_ "Beep, beep," Erik says back to her as he shuts the door, but not before giving her head a scritch.  
  
If he's going to utterly melt into goo every time he sees Erik interact with this bird (who is a lovely, sweet little creature, and he's already fallen just as in love) he may have trouble, because it seems patently unfair that he be so endeared to someone and perhaps dangerous to his health. His heart is expanding in his chest, and truth be told, every time he thinks he's reached the limit for loving Erik he's proven wrong. He shouldn't ever imagine such things. There is no upper limit. "I love you," he murmurs, because he has to, and grabs for the extra house key, his wallet, his phone while he waits. His phone that he glances at and, "oh, my goodness." Three-hundred and seven emails. That's not including notifications, text messages, missed calls. He rubs at his temple, immediately sticking the damn thing in his pocket. Some other time. Some other time, soon, but not right now. He's about to go on a date. "It's warm out, but you're going to wear a jacket anyway, I imagine," he grins. His mountain desert man.  
  
Erik grins at him, retrieving his leather jacket from the hook by the door in response and slipping it on with some effort over his shoulders, expecting there to be the standard pain and surprised to discover the usual barrier isn't there. It's still stiff and immobile, but that corresponding jolt doesn't alarm him and it takes considerably less time. He sends a pulse of _gratitude/love you/cute bird!/why so many emails/Dr. Haller said I should get a social media account-_ that comes out in a tumbled rush of pre-verbal swirl, mostly bolstered by a sense of heart-skipping lightness. He ducks into the bathroom for a second and runs his fingers through his hair, making a face at himself in the mirror before following Charles out into the street.  
  
Charles immediately falls into step, Erik's hand on his back exactly as it should be. He's technically the one leading, considering he actually knows where he's going, but Erik's guiding, protecting, safe against him and he couldn't feel more warmed by it. He makes sure to check his projection filter, because he doesn't intend to be professional on his date - yes, he really does love that - with his newly-Bonded. _I always get quite a lot of emails, but considering my newfound popularity..._ he laughs at the notion of it, because he's definitely known in academic circles and his field(s), as well as the high-society crowd, but now - well. He shakes his head, because he'll need to process that some other time. _We do need to get you a phone. We can text each other from the same room, while we're communicating like this and also talking out loud,_ he jokes. _You really haven't been out and about? There's so much to show you..._ His mind begins to flash places, eager and practically giddy with excitement, a spring in his step that's been missing for far too long.  
  
 _People have a lot to say about me, evidently,_ he presses his lips together. _Someone always wants to take my picture. Dr. Haller said it might help if I controlled my own narrative_. Those words were for sure plucked right out of Gabby's mouth, no doubt about it. Charles can practically hear the air quotes. _I don't really like going out because of it._ He gives a little one-armed shrug, infinitely grateful for that filter now, and the relative anonymity it offers him. He knows he can't hide behind that forever, that he's expected to make some kind of statement confirming one thing or another, and people are having a field day with the recorded testimony Charles gave on his behalf, as well as for sure dragging Charles along for the ride, high-society crowd and all. It's practically a two-for-one deal. Erik rubs his thumb over the dimples of Charles's lower back, pressing right up against him simply because he can. _I am very much looking forward to the tour,_ he murmurs close, his smile ever-present.  
  
It would be a process, perhaps, getting the world to see the Erik he does, but he doesn't doubt that it will happen. He's worked tirelessly so far, urging everyone to just open their eyes and look, and he doesn't mind doing it on a larger scale. He already has, with his defense of him, with his assisted testimony. The rest would come and fall into place, until they're just as charmed as he is. He is going to be the co-founder of a mutant school, after all. _We'll tackle it together,_ Charles promises, because they will, as with everything else. I'll be here the entire time. I'm used to having a spotlight on me, so this is something I can help with, fortunately. But he doesn't worry about it now. Now he's much more concerned with spending time together, and he looks up to grin, trusting Erik to guide him even if he's splitting his attention. _Would you like to know one of my secrets?_  
  
 _Always_ , Erik replies, warm. The sun is bright in the sky and it's a little nippy for him even now, and the buildings are large and looming and the crowd is still overwhelming even when no one gives him a second look (although Charles does get the odd double-take), and he ends up much closer for it.  
  
Charles grins, and nods toward the crowd on the sidewalk in front of and around them. They chatter and walk (occasionally run, joggers and sweatbands and earbuds) around them, some checking their phones, some pairs clearly Bonded, holding hands or with the submissive walking two steps behind, but it's far more orderly than what's expected on a NYC street. No one collides into each other, no one bumps shoulders, no one steps into their bubble. If there's an obstacle, they walk around instead of into as seems to be the New Yorker way. _I call it telepathic crowd control, and I truly should get paid for it,_ he snorts. He isn't influencing anyone's individual movements, just guiding them to not stomp all over each other. None of them noticed, nor would they, but it assured neither of them get shoved, which he's sure Erik appreciates. Just a tiny application of his mutation, something he's never shared, too sheepish to mention it.  
  
Erik's eyes widen and he laughs, utterly delighted as he always is whenever Charles shows off what he can do. _You are magnificent,_ Erik tells him, stopping them in the street to kiss him just because he can. _And I appreciate it very much, Charles,_ he whispers, stroking his cheek. If Erik never met Sebastian Shaw and grew up to live the life he was meant to, he imagines he would still be intimidated by this place in all its glory. _Sisim_ didn't even have a hospital. This place is utterly incomprehensible to his sensibilities-not the first city he's ever been in, not by a long shot, but the energy, the wild vibrations in the atmosphere, calling to Erik as individual as personalities themselves. Objects swirling around in a tornado of cacophony, marvelous and terrifying. Without Charles, it was just terrifying. He stayed home and read a book. _Like I said. A gift. You are a gift._ Even now people bend to avoid them, attention diverted to their task, a thousand minute alterations that would leave them entirely intact.  
  
He has to keep reminding himself that this is actually happening. They're really stopped in the middle of the sidewalk in the city together, both of them in the flesh. He ducks his head to grin, swimming and shy with the praise like always. Charles grabs onto Erik's jacket. _Have I told you how handsome you look in this yet?_ he asks, looking up as he bites his lip. _Honestly. It's completely distracting. I know you're very convinced flying is the only way to travel now, but if we get you a motorbike..._ He trails off, wiggling his eyebrows ridiculously as he laughs. After spending his formative teenage years firmly rejecting things like fantasies, he's allowed to indulge now.  
  
Erik rocks back on his heels, pleased and tickled by that. _I shall learn to drive_ , he promises dutifully, leaning into the touch, enjoying the feel of Charles's hands running down the material. _I think that technically you bought it for me,_ he has to figure, looking a little sheepish. _I was not paying a whole lot of attention when Raven bailed me out. We want shopping, as you can see._ He grins. _I got to pick out things, it was a very interesting experience._  
  
 _You would wear anything well - anything that doesn't look like a lumpy sack, that suit at your arraignment was dreadful, I'll admit that - but this is very, very nice. Next time I'll be there,_ he promises, and there's a faint note of regret. He knows he couldn't have helped it, that it certainly wasn't his choice to knock himself into a coma, but he'd left Erik alone regardless. He'd missed pivotal moments, too, and he can't help but be a bit cross about it. Huffing at the reminder, he reluctantly twists himself in Erik's arms until they can walk again, everyone still dutifully avoiding them and each other. _Of all the times to be unconscious! I suppose I can make up for it now,_ he grins, because eventually, sooner rather than later, actually, a week was going to seem like a drop in the ocean. One day they will have spent more time together - physically - than apart. _Although I'm not particularly looking forward to being fifty-four,_ he muses, laughing as his nose scrunches up. _You'll be attractive as anything, that's for certain, but I'll miss people double-taking when I tell them how old I am. Perhaps I'll age well, the dimples help,_ he rolls his eyes, because he's always hated how pronounced they are even well into adulthood, how they make him look schoolboy-ish. People who didn't know-know him did expect a stuffy, old, balding professor, of which he is only a few of those things. He takes some pride in that.  
  
 _You make up for it every time you smile,_ Erik says, a boyish grin on his face. Erik certainly doesn't look childlike in the slightest-every once in a while, mischief and humor cross paths on his visage, making him look younger as he really is. Most of the time he doesn't, except for when he smiles, a facet of physical expression only ever reserved for Charles Xavier, all those accumulated stresses and wrinkles and hollowed-gauntness, disappear for a brief moment. He looks, for a split second, how he always was meant to. With Charles. All he's thinking about now however is how handsome Charles, dimples and all, is. _You will be breathtaking_ , Erik tells him and his sincerity is breathlessly enthused.  
  
 _You're ridiculous and terribly biased,_ he accuses, laughing again, but then he's flushing with pleasure anyway. They're walking in the opposite direction from his apartment, which he's rather grateful for because as much as he needs to pick a few things up, he doesn't want to be reminded of the last time he made the trek between his and Raven's on his date. It's a decent walk, but not far, the place he's taking them first - not long enough for a good run, which he misses, actually, maybe he'll go out for one tomorrow. He's distracted between bits of banter by a flea market set up shop, and normally he would never stop, but now he grins and tugs Erik over to booths filled by chipped antique china and homemade jewelry and pottery and rugs and scarves. _I don't wear scarves besides the one Raven made me,_ he snorts, _Because I worried someone might imagine me wearing a collar underneath it._ It's so silly, another tiny facet he can share freely now. And funny, too, considering high-collars and scarves seem unappealing now because they would hide his collar.  
  
 _I certainly hope you feel no need to hide this any longer,_ Erik touches the edges of Charles's collar with a warm smile. As they move deeper into the flea market, something he is familiar with, Erik picks up some lovely home-sculpted jewelry pieces and very carefully fixes a few that had broken outside the owner's watchful eye; not changing them but mending cracks, smoothing out bits of dirt they couldn't scrub clean. He's holding them in his hands with a smile and notices the proprietor watching him, and sets them down delicately. _Beautiful work_ , he tells the man, head ducked a bit.  
  
Charles smiles. He won't ever tire of seeing Erik interact with others like this, the quiet, thoughtful way he changes the world around him. It's a bit more difficult to influence the walking patterns in a closed, far less linear space like this - and it isn't instinctive, as it is on a city sidewalk - so he's not surprised when someone bumps into him, but he is amused and delighted when it's a tiny person, a boy no older than six or seven - six, he learns quickly - looking up at him with wide doe eyes when he turns around. "Hello there," he greets, smiling softly. "Are you a bit lost?"  
  
The boy nods. "You're from TV," he whispers.  
  
He laughs. "My name is Charles Xavier. Let's find your father, then, shall we?" The boy nods eagerly, some of his terror eased. Charles has a habit of finding lost children in places like this, but he certainly isn't going to complain if it means they're safe. He takes the boy's hand, the other leaned into Erik. "We'll find him, don't worry. Would you like to know a secret?" The boy nods. He's timid, the way lower-scale submissives tend to present in childhood. "We both have powers, just like you," he mock whispers, still crouched down slightly.  
  
The boy's eyes nearly pop out of his head. "What, really?"  
  
Charles grins. "That's right. I promise there is absolutely nothing wrong with you."  
  
Erik crouches down to the boy's height, giving him a gentle smile as he withdraws all the tendrils of his Will to avoid alarming him. He raises his hand and a small metal coin levitates out of the boy's pocket to land in the center of his palm. It suddenly forms itself into a small, shiny golden sphere, engraved with intricate designs, flowers and birds and patterns. _Just like you,_ he whispers fondly, eyes bright as the metal ball levitates up and into the boy's hands. When he's got it clasped in both, Erik touches his shoulder. _Your abilities are a gift, little one. Never let anyone make you feel bad for them._  
  
The boy looks completely mystified, awed and bright-eyed and when he whispers "whoa, cool" it's so filled with childlike joy and wonder that Charles is radiating with his own delight. He's looking down at the ball in his hands, and then, obviously terrified, he focuses. Charles helps just a little - he doesn't want there to be an accident here, or to draw too much attention, not where it isn't safe - and the ball is soon covered in ice, frosted over, and so are the boy's hands. If he'd done it on his own, it would be much more than that, and Charles lets Erik know it. He doesn't have an ounce of control. "That's completely, absolutely brilliant," Charles murmurs quietly, awed himself. "What's your name, poppet?" he asks, though he already knows.  
  
The boy kicks at the ground, smiling shyly. "Everybody calls me Bobby," he mumbles.  
  
"It's an absolute pleasure to meet you, Bobby," he says, with all the honesty in the world, and he catches Erik's gaze as he straightens up and takes the boy's hand again. He's Omega-level, he whispers, just for Erik, and can't help but be worried for him. They both know how that tends to end up.  
  
Erik tenses, at Charles's side as his left hand is occupied by the child, and he steps even closer at the news. _We will make sure he is protected. You should give him a way of contacting you. Some kind of mental cord he can pull on that will let you know if there's any trouble._ He's not sure if that's within Charles's capabilities, but he doesn't see why it wouldn't be. The boy wouldn't even need to be aware of it. Erik doesn't feel comfortable letting him go alone, whispers threatening to spill over into the foreground; being hunted, going hunting-his grip tightens over Charles's shoulder, abruptly.  
  
 _Don't fret, darling. We'll make sure he's safe._ Charles won't allow for anything less. Bobby is barely six now. In a few more years his significant abilities will start to properly manifest beyond a few frosted over surfaces and constant chill, and that's when he'll be in the most danger. That's when he'll need them most. No mutant school exists yet, but it will. Perhaps it's a bit too early for recruitment, but he's willing to bet quite a lot Bobby would benefit from enrollment. _If he's in danger, I'll know,_ he promises, because it is more than within his range of abilities, and something he'd done before meeting Erik, even. Now he's sure it's much more effortless and refined, but that goes without saying.  
  
"Bobby, does anyone know about your abilities?" he asks, gently, as he searches the crowd for the boy's father.  
  
Bobby shrugs as they walk, still timid and meek. "Just Mom and Dad," he mutters. "They said I gotta stop or I'll get in trouble."  
  
That sounds about right. Not cruel or ill-intentioned, just baseline parents who have no idea at all what they're dealing with and fearing their son's potential. Fearing their son by default. They can't be blamed. He squeezes the boy's hand unconsciously, heart clenching. Endless untapped potential, and equal opportunity for an accident if he isn't properly guided - or worse. Charles has already decided that under no circumstances will he let harm come to this little boy.  
  
 _Are you absolutely certain he wasn't sent to us?_ Erik murmurs, still tense, head darting all around, body completely poised on edge. He's trying not to let his triggers get the best of him, but he's been in this situation before. He's been the Bobby in this situation before. _S'il vous plaît, monsieur, j'ai perdu mes parents._ They need to be absolutely certain.  
  
Charles grits his teeth, because he does not at all like the implication there. Then he does what he's a bit uncomfortable with, because he trusts Erik. Because he needs to keep them safe, too. Bobby's mind is simple, the way any six year old's is. His full name is Robert Louis Drake, but everyone calls him Bobby. His parents are William Drake and Madeline Drake; they appear to be completely normal, an accountant and a nurse. Bobby's mother is Jewish and his father is Catholic and he celebrates both holidays, brags to a friend at school that he gets "double presents." He was born in Long Island, where he seems to live a perfectly normal, middle-class Long Islander life. He likes baseball. From a young age his temperature has been lower than average or what should be normal; he shivers and puffs out frosted air, which was concerning on a family vacation to Florida in the dead, scorching heat of August. His parents knew for a fact he was a mutant when he became upset and turned the dinner table to a block of solid ice, the floor around it a slippery, thin sheet. The memories underneath are more of the same. He looks to Erik. _Unless someone completely, utterly altered his entire mind, and I'm almost positive I would know at this point..._ He shakes his head. No one knows about little Bobby's potential except them.  
  
Erik lets out a breath, giving a nod and relaxing minutely. And then he sweeps out himself, tugging at the belongings strapped to everyone's sides, in their bags, on their belts, their purses. Their phones, until he finds it- _Madeline Drake, incoming call from Raysh Bass_ -and points. His mother is over there, Erik murmurs at last. She's got her phone up to her ear, worried sick and speaking in a low, vehement whisper to her sister.  
  
Divide and conquer, then. Charles flashes a smile and a thank you, darling, a mental embrace because Erik needs it, and leads Bobby over to his mother. He doesn't need to lead far because as soon as they're close enough he's running for her. Chuckling, he follows after, smiling as he watches Bobby grab for his mother's leg. "Hello," he greets, amused and beyond relieved that he can feel genuine concern and relief and affection from her. She fears for him, too. "I've just met your son and I have to say, he is an absolutely extraordinary young man." He means it in more than one way. Bobby peeks up and grins at him, one tooth missing in the front, shivering, his hands still frosted over.  
  
Erik reaches for the boy's shoulder and in a second he stops shivering, feeling warmed for once as the frost melts away and drips onto the linen of Madeline's pants. "Oh-" she immediately crouches to hug him. "Bobby! You can't just run off like that whenever you want," she scolds, brushing his hair back from his face. "Oh, I'm so glad you're OK." He mumbles something at his feet and she gives him a wet kiss on the cheek. "You're not in trouble, you just scared Mommy, that's all." She looks up at Charles and Erik, her smile watery. "Thank you for finding him. I'm Maddy," she holds up a hand to shake.  
  
"Erik," he returns, taking one of her hands in both of his. "Lehnsherr." He shrugs at Charles and decides there's no reason why he can't be honest. Especially if this child will eventually covet a place at their school. "This is Charles Xavier."  
  
"I thought I recognized you two. I'm glad it was you who found him. Sometimes when he gets scared-" she grimaces. "And there are all these people-" Charles was right, she really does fear for him a great deal; the same way Warren had feared for Angel.  
  
Bobby looks awed again, staring down at his defrosted hand and clinging to his mother with the other. He can't fathom having control over his powers like that, because his only seem to work when he doesn't want them to, or when he's scared or upset. It's not at all uncommon in early manifestation, before the mutation settles, but for Bobby it's a bit more. He doesn't have a clue what he'll eventually be capable of. He shakes Maddy's hand, slightly awkward with his left, still smiling. "Don't worry, there was no trouble at all," he assures her, and winks at Bobby. He attempts to wink back, and just blinks instead, and Charles stifles a laugh. "If you'd like -" He digs in his trousers for his wallet, then grabs out a business card to pass over to her. His voice is quieter now, despite the fact that they're off to the side and no one would hear them even if they were shouting, an instinctive bubble drawn around them. "If there's any sort of problem, feel free to contact me. I believe I can help Bobby, quite a lot, actually. In fact..." He glances at Erik, considering. There's no reason not to tell her, to give her something to think about, and they'll be having this conversation countless times in the future, but he's a bit nervous, even still.  
  
Erik smiles gently. _We're working on developing a place where people like Bobby can feel free to be themselves. Where he doesn't need to be afraid, and where you won't need to fear for him. Does that sound like something you would be interested in?_  
  
Maddy's eyebrows shoot up. Her interest is absolutely piqued. "A place-like a-daycare?"  
  
"Well, not quite," he replies, and takes a breath. Some parents would be more than happy to cart their children off and wash their hands of the extra trouble, and Charles has no delusions otherwise. He does know Bobby's mother is not one of them. "A school, actually, for gifted children like Bobby to learn and thrive and live among peers with similar needs. You'd be more than welcome to visit and involve yourself in Bobby's life and education, of course, I would never suggest taking your son away from what I can tell are very loving hands," he smiles, and it's entirely sincere, "But I do urge you to consider it for the future. Bobby -" He glances at the boy, and lowers his voice again, however unnecessarily. "He has tremendous potential, and I want you to know there is no reason to fear it. He will do incredible things, but in order for that to happen I truly believe he will need proper guidance." His brow is creased with a touch of sorrow now, because he knows what he's about to say too well. His tone is softened by it. "Your son is extraordinary, Maddy, but that also means that he is at risk. We'd like very much to help him."  
  
She looks skeptical, taking the card with her lips pinched together. "Listen, you're not the first people to darken my doorstep. I'm not going to just let you take my kid away and test him and G-d knows what else."  
  
Erik touches her shoulder. _I promise you that is not our intention. I've been a lab rat most of my life and I guarantee you I have no desire to see your son or anyone else placed into that position. The choice is entirely yours, and yours alone. Please consider it._  
  
Charles nods, expecting that. "For now, please take me up on my offer. I know you don't know me, and I certainly don't expect your complete trust, but I assure you," he murmurs, and it's that quiet and emphatic way of speaking that naturally touches people, unrelated to his mutation, "That I have your son's best interests in mind. I would never wish harm on him. I've seen too many people I love hurt by a world that does not understand them, and I only wish to prevent it from happening to others," he whispers. "So I more than understand the inclination to protect, and I admire it. I would never take your son against your will. All I ask is that you consider it with an open mind. You have quite a bit of time to do so, fortunately," he laughs. Then he crouches down to Bobby's level, holding out his hand. The boy shakes it eagerly, and Charles notes he's already cold again. "I'm very glad we met, but do try not to wander off without your mother and father, Bobby," he teases.  
  
Bobby looks sheepish, timid but still grinning. "'Kay. Can I keep this?" He holds out the sphere Erik made him, looking between his mother, Charles, and Erik. Charles feels his heart tugged, and knows full well every student at their school is going to have him wrapped around their collective fingers. Physical mutation or otherwise, he'll move mountains and stop the world from spinning before he sees any of them hurt. When he's had his say, with Erik's help, there won't be a safer place for people like Bobby.  
  
Erik's expression remains impassive, but his eyes crinkle fondly. _You may indeed,_ he returns, definitely the sterner one of the two. If anyone would be responsible for discipline it will undoubtedly be Erik, but many children responded well to that kind of authority and Bobby is no exception.  
  
"I'll take it under advisement," Maddy plucks the card from between Charles's fingers. She's less nervous than before but not wholly sold on it; but that will change as time passes and Bobby gets old enough to really put himself or others in danger, and it's just a matter of time before she's consulting that phone number. "Thanks again for finding him. Are you sure you don't want that back? It looks valuable."  
  
 _Quite sure, Ms. Drake._ Erik bows his head to her.

* * *

Charles smiles. "Of course. Right, well, we'll let you be on your way, but it was lovely to meet you." And it was, truly. As the two of them walk away, Erik behind and touching him again once the filter is back up, he finds himself slightly giddy with it. This is exactly what he'd had in mind when he'd first turned the concept around in his brain. A child like Bobby would only attract more danger as he grew, and to have found him, to know that the seed was planted - he shakes his head. _We're really going to do this,_ he murmurs, awed by it. _Together, too._ They were going to help and heal and teach together.  
  
 _We are,_ Erik returns, tugging Charles a little closer to squeeze him gently. _You'll be very popular with the students._ He's amused, and very besotted. He enjoys watching Charles interact with others, in a way he's not able to describe with words, to the point where he wishes he didn't need to interject at all, so he wouldn't disturb it, like fresh, crisp snow sinking underfoot. An apt simile given who they were just speaking with. He smiles faintly. _You're wonderful._  
  
Charles snorts, but he ducks his head, too, terribly pleased and fluttering. _That little boy just looked up at you - and it's a very far way up, mind - like you put the sun in the sky, you silly, brilliant man. I wouldn't be too sure you won't be the favorite, but I assure you I'll do my best to win them over,_ he grins, and there's that playful competitive streak. The bounce to his step is back tenfold, and if there was ever a time he felt he was on cloud nine, it's now, with a future he's excited for seeming more real than it ever has, still on a date with the man he loves - his Bonded, his Dominant. _Perhaps I'll bribe them with sweets. Ice cream for dinner every night at the School for the Gifted._  
  
 _Absolutely not,_ Erik chides, resisting the twitch of his lips from appearing on his face. _We still want these children to leave the school with every tooth in their head, Charles._ Oh, yeah. Charles would be the favorite, and mean Erik will be the one making everyone eat their steamed broccoli.  
  
 _Oh, nonsense! Pish posh,_ Charles waves his hand about, making a valiant effort himself not to burst into laughter. He feels so incredibly light, and he flashes a mischievous grin up at Erik, those vivid blues gleaming in the natural light. _Vegetables aren't necessary. Ice cream is the food of champions, aren't you aware? I'll be handing out lollies every class, too. Children need positive reinforcement, Erik, darling._  
  
 _Fruit is nature's candy,_ Erik returns dryly, looping his arm under Charles's. He can't stop himself from smiling back, the world completely tuned out as every iota of his focus zeroes in on Charles, as it always has and always will.  
  
 _Oh, I have no problem with fruit. I quite like fruit, especially when you feed it to me by hand._ And perhaps he's only saying that because they're in public and he wants to see if he can get a bit of a rise out of Erik as they dip back onto the main streets of New York, but can it truly be helped? No, absolutely not. He's on a date with Erik, he's floating on clouds, bursting with happiness, grinning ear to ear even as he realizes his own boldness and ducks his head. There's real shyness there, but the way he peeks is distinctly coy.  
  
 _Always happy to introduce positive associations between you and healthy eating,_ Erik's eyebrows arch playfully as he steps back into the street behind him, just as always. He strokes a nail against skin just beneath Charles's collar where a light scratch curves over where his neck meets his collarbone. It doesn't need to be helped. Erik very much prefers that it is not helped, thank you very much. Now that the influx of Bonding hormones isn't wreaking havoc on his control, it looks like Erik's not the one affected by that boldness, and he enjoys watching Charles squirm.  
  
Charles huffs, mostly to hide that the touch does make him squirm. He has to fight not to arch into it, to make a noise wholly inappropriate for this setting. _I'd prefer if you fed me ice cream, honestly. Or cake. If I asked very nicely, I imagine you wouldn't at all object to me eating lunch at a bakery, would you, darling?_ He bats his eyelashes, entirely over the top, and then breaks out into another grin at how ridiculous it is. He's leading again, even as Erik guides and protects, warm against his back. Their little detour was far from unpleasant, and Charles honestly can't remember the last time he was in such good spirits. _You love me, which means you'll indulge my every whim and fancy, obviously. I'm very spoiled._  
  
 _Indeed you are,_ Erik returns, but they both know it's true-Erik would give him everything he asked for, as long as it's within reason, and he sees nothing wrong with lunch at a bakery. _As long as it included something healthy in it._ He smirks back. _And I love you a great deal._ He ducks forward to press a kiss to Charles's temple. _Even if you resemble Minnie Mouse with those eyelashes._  
  
Oh, please. Ridiculous or not, he eats everything Charles does right up. Lunch at a bakery hadn't been a real desire, but now that he's actually thinking about it - what's healthy at a bakery, though? He'd absolutely been thinking about a slice of cake, perhaps with a side of ice cream, with as little nutritional value as possible. Now he's having fun so he grins up at Erik, never one to sacrifice a good bout of teasing. _You'll let me get away with it, too, because you play big, bad Dominant but really you're a huge softie pushover,_ he sing-songs, quite aware it isn't true but also quite unwilling not to poke at Erik. There's a world of difference between this and the frustrated provoking he'd done at the beginning of their relationship, and that he feels perfectly comfortable doing so, that there isn't a single undercurrent of frustration or genuine complaint speaks wonders. It seems this is all about living out what they've discussed.  
  
 _I most certainly will not,_ Erik snorts, and then for good measure, pokes him several times in the sides. _Will I? Not so soft now, hm?_ Poke. Poke. Poke. Erik chases after him with his fingers, until he's a squirming, giggly mess. _Pushover. I'll_ push _you._  
  
It makes walking incredibly difficult, and now he has to stop in the middle of the sidewalk and Erik is very lucky he's capable of creating pockets of space for them anywhere. He's pouting as he squirms, now, even if he's secretly delighted for the attention. _Quit it!_ and it's one of those faux-Orders that does absolutely nothing, and has not a hint of heat or intention attached to it. _We're in public, and you're absolutely still soft. I'll keep saying 'oh, pretty please' and throw in a sir and eventually I'm going to have cake, so perhaps you'd like to skip the middle part?_ he asks sweetly, and his grin is fierce. Truthfully, any other Dominant at all and he'd steamroll them exactly like that, even Gabby. Charles is truly exceptional at getting what he wants. Unfortunately for him (or fortunately, very fortunately), Erik is the one person who doesn't constantly indulge him.  
  
 _You can have quiche. With broccoli and potatoes._ Erik scritches his neck for good measure, and pulls him a bit closer to muss up his hair, eyes bright and amused. _Should I quit it? Really? I thought you wanted ice cream and cake?_ He tickles Charles in the sides. Which Charles absolutely knows isn't happening. He'll be lucky if he gets a cookie at this rate. Plus, Erik gets to watch him wriggle about, so it's really a win-win-win. _Such a cruel, taskmaster of a Dominant you have._  
  
Charles tries very hard not to giggle again as he's tickled (it doesn't work, and it's accompanied by an undignified squeak), but the pout is completely genuine as his hair is mussed. _Hey! Not the hair, it did nothing to you_ , he insists ridiculously, and fusses at it all while wriggling to avoid any further attempts at tickling. Unfair, truly, that he was born this way. One touch in the right place and he's a squirming mess and no doubt Erik will take advantage for the rest of their lives. _Cruel. Who orders quiche at a bakery? Especially with broccoli? That's utterly obscene and I will not stand for it,_ he huffs.  
  
 _I think it looks better like this,_ Erik hums, looping their arms again after he's finally decided Charles has had enough. _And I like quiche. Ish. I do not know what you Americans are doing with this whole_ pie crust _nonsense-_  
  
 _Quiche reminds me of high-society parties, and you mentioned broccoli so I'm immediately turned off,_ he states, matter of fact, but is perfectly content to loop their arms and go back to their walk. It's leisurely and unrushed and he's so incredibly happy it actually does radiate, to the point where even the most ornery New Yorkers are finding it difficult not to smile around them. It's not a projection he usually allows, but he hasn't noticed. _You know, there's a bubble tea place around here that Raven and I go to together and you'd be utterly appalled at how much sugar I like in mine,_ he laughs. _But it's right next to a good old-fashioned video store, and sometimes we forget HBO and Netflix exist to root around in there and argue with each other._ All things Erik is now actually privy to. He's not some strange, outside entity in his life anymore.  
  
And Erik has never been more grateful for anything in his life. He's a lot less free with his joy than Charles is, but it's no less present, especially to the resident telepath in the area, resonating from him in glittery sunlight reflected off of endless seas. Erik is definitely not a fan of boba, because- _Tapioca. Yugh. I am afraid I am simply not inclined toward tea, in any incarnation. Naturally you would be the opposite. As long as it's got a truckload of sugar, I presume_. Erik winks at him.  
  
 _First of all, it doesn't have to have tapioca, and secondly you're a tea-hating menace who enjoys coffee without milk or creamer so I'm afraid your opinion doesn't matter here_ , he snorts, bursting with affection. He hopes they tease each other about this until the end of their days. He grins as he stops them on the curb. _We have to cross the street and there's no convenient place for it, I'm afraid, so it's time to get you sent back to prison for jaywalking or else avenging me after I get hit by a car_ , he huffs.  
  
 _I am not a menace!_ he laughs. _Coffee is delicious and tea was introduced as medicine, and it tastes as such._ Erik shakes his head and stops them, holding out his hands. _If you want to conceal us from view, now would be the time to do so._ His intention is quite clear, to simply float them above the masses until they safely reach the other side.  
  
 _Erik!_ he laughs, but it's not a protest. Charles is clearly delighted by Erik's newly-honed abilities, and he'll never pass up an opportunity. _And here I was looking forward to some illegal activity. I'll just have to evade taxes instead. Get on with it, then_ , he sighs, as if he's put out and not grinning so wide his face hurts.  
  
Erik is delighted by it as well. He loves nearly any opportunity to use his mutation in a mundane fashion, and when Charles takes his hand, they both lift off the ground easily. Charles doesn't need to hold his hand for it to work, Erik just enjoys having him close, and they vertically levitate high enough to pass right over the rows of honking, speeding vehicles. The sensation of walking on the ground develops and Erik 'touches down' in the middle of the street, letting Charles 'land' beside him so they can walk the rest of the way, before descending invisible stairs. Erik grins over at him.  
  
Charles is so incredibly endeared. His heart aches all over again once they're on the ground, but he attempts to pull a serious face, and muster up a tone to match. _Could you levitate me again? Only me and just a few inches, please._ He doesn't think Erik will question him and he's betting on it. _I'd like to experiment with something. Trust me?_  
  
He doesn't question it, of course, touching Charles's shoulder and watching as he hovers right up to Erik's height. _Now you are finally my size._  
  
 _That was the point._ Charles huffs indignantly at the reminder, and leans forward to kiss Erik's nose. _Alright. That's all, thank you_ , he says, as serious as he can manage. Those damn dimples give him away.  
  
 _The world is different up here, isn't it?_ Erik's grin is cat-like and he swipes his thumb over Charles's cheek before setting him down gently, the wrap of his powers against Charles's body like a physical manifestation cradling him with the utmost care, sensitizing every nerve ending before it recedes and he has both feet flat on the ground.  
  
 _You're completely awful and you'll get no more kisses from me. Let me know if it starts to rain, you'll be the first on the block to know,_ he huffs again, except he's so happy he really might burst so it's not nearly as effective. He lets them settle back into the natural way of things, Erik behind him, until he's warm and safe again and weaving them onto the next street.  
  
Truly that would be the most horrific of punishments, and as though Charles were serious and Erik is reminding himself he wasn't, he darts forward to steal a kiss before they cross over to the following block, and hums, pleased with himself and content like the mischievous creature he is.

* * *

Charles is terribly pleased, too, glowing with it. He's beaming as he tugs them toward a misleadingly small entrance to a shop as their first true stop, the door of which Erik absolutely needs to duck into. The bell chimes cheerfully at them. No one greets them, and the place is nearly empty - there's only one employee and he's in the back - except the immense amounts of books. The shelves are stuffed to full capacity, and bins are full to bursting with them, not to mention the ones on tables and strewn about in odd places, over the beaten chairs and couches of this place, the old-fashioned, dim lighting, the stained antique carpeting and hand-carved bookends. It looks like something out of time and Charles adores it, a bit nervous as he glances up at Erik. _There are sections, but a word of advice, don't bother looking at them. Everything's always mixed up. You'll never know if you'll get an autobiography or a book of poems, or if it will be in a language you can read._ Well, perhaps Charles has solved that problem for himself, which is brilliant, really. _Sometimes you'll find something incredibly valuable and first-edition lying beneath an outdated encyclopedia from a year ago, but that's the fun of it._ That Charles loves this place and spends quite a lot of time browsing and adding to his personal collection when he remembers to indulge goes without saying. It's his first choice over a corporate bookstore anyday.  
  
It goes without saying that Erik is immediately enchanted by the place, drawn as though tugged on a string toward the back where he manages rather easily to find the hidden poetry of the place. It turns out his abilities come in handy, he never seems lost or unable to find what he'd like; it removes the mystery to some degree but at the same time-he ends up holding out _The Bell Jar_ with a laugh, eyebrows raised. Erik's little collection of books grows as they wander through the shop-he frequently gets distracted by some title or another mid-conversation; Erik's love for books knows no bounds and he handles each one with reverence, and then they fly back into their respective spots on the shelves, doing a little twirl in the air before settling. In the proper sections, this time. _It's lovely,_ he murmurs, coming to a stop behind Charles where he's parked browsing, bending down to lay his head on his shoulder. _Thank you for showing me this._  
  
Charles ducks his head and laughs, fluttering with it. _You need more books, hm? We'll have significantly more space for them soon, and I'd like to fill up every shelf. I prefer to get them here and places like here._ Some of the books cost less than a dollar, but Charles always pays more. He'd wager a guess that he's one of the customers that keeps this place afloat, and he certainly doesn't mind. He lifts the book he's been flipping through so Erik can see; it's a beaten, worn copy of _Pride and Prejudice_ , which is not his favorite and also a book he owns several times over, but it's the margin-writing that drew him in. There was an old sticky-note protruding and that was his first clue, and his hunch was correct; the margins are all covered in messy scrawl, individual words and lines annotated with smudged ink. _This is what I love most, if I'm honest,_ he murmurs. _Knowing I'm in dialogue with someone that I will likely never meet, that we've shared this moment and understood each other, that we've read the same words and both been inspired to pen our own. I treasure it. I'm sure you know by now that I write in nearly every book I own -_ Thoughtfully, lovingly, carefully, pausing to mull things over, often going back to add to his own notes on second reads if the book was intriguing enough. _I hope that one day they will end up in a place like this, for someone else to consider and appreciate. Perhaps that's silly,_ he adds quickly, because he's come to expect a reaction.  
  
Erik's eyebrows raise, fond, because of course Charles likes _Pride and Prejudice_ and that's of absolutely no shock to him whatsoever, although he's never actually read it all the way through, Erik isn't a big fiction lover in general but he can appreciate it when others enjoy something, and Charles isn't the only one who pens his thoughts, although Erik doesn't tend to write on books themselves; this isn't much of a shock either, he likes things neat and orderly, and handles his possessions with borderline mechanical cleanliness. That Charles does, however, is woefully endearing and he just grins, and as if indulging in a bit of troublemaking, snatches up the pen to draw a little smiley face underneath his message, adding _:-) -אל_ at the end for good measure.  
  
Charles grins right back, shaking his head. _A truly rivoting addition the dialogue,_ he drawls, but means it. He sets the book down lovingly, and wraps Erik's arms around his waist, sighing happily. It doesn't at all bother him that they're in public, especially when no one is looking. _I will ban you from this place myself if you continue to organize, however,_ he laughs, looking pointedly up at Erik. _It's part of the charm. Next you'll be organizing my desk._ He pretends to shudder in horror.  
  
 _You should organize your desk,_ Erik insists, pulling him close. _How can you find anything on that monstrosity?_ Erik silences any further argument by, of course, kissing Charles in plain view of anyone who has the fortune of stumbling upon them. _Only you would find this uncategorized librarian's nightmare charming._ It's clear that Erik finds Charles charming, though, so do what you will.  
  
It's clear that Charles finds Erik charming despite the pronounced, impressive pout he's now sporting, so do what you will. _It's not a library, it's a used bookstore and not everything needs to be orderly. Like my desk. If you try to get me to organize it, I will be incredibly cross and no kisses for you,_ he declares, smug, as if he's learned the secret to getting what he wants with Erik. _There's method to my madness. I like losing important documents, it's always fun to panic a bit_ , he jokes.  
  
 _No, nope, absolutely not. Not only shall you organize it, but it shall be done amidst plenty of kisses. And that is final._ He kisses Charles right on the tip of the nose, fully satisfied with himself.  
  
Charles makes a face. _I'm sorry, but who put you in charge?_ he asks, incredibly boldly, and raises his eyebrows with one hand on his hip. Except he can't actually look Erik in the eyes after asking that question, so he looks down and fidgets and the whole thing is ruined. He's not too upset about it. _I can't organize my desk, I won't be able to get any work done!_  
  
Erik chuckles, drawing his hand down Charles's chest, eyebrows raised pointedly. _I am certain I can help incentivize you._ He trails his fingers down that arm and lifts Charles's hand to his lips, kissing his knuckles. _After all, someone needs to play Mr. Darcy._ He gives a ridiculous little bow. _M'gentleman._ He smirks up.  
  
That earns a startled laugh from him, before he forcefully rolls his eyes. _Oh, say no more, please. Darcy was fairly insufferable and Elizabeth Bennet did perfectly well without him, so if you'll excuse me -_ He turns his back on Erik with a dramatic huff and crosses his arms, but it's ruined when he peeks over his shoulder to smile.  
  
Erik grins back. _I never read it,_ he admits, sidling to press himself all the way up Charles's back and kissing the nape of his neck. They got some looks from another patron next to the bookshelf, who just rolled their eyes and moved along, grumbling about n _ewly-Bonded high-Doms, do you gotta be this possessive in public-_  
  
Charles flushes, but does absolutely nothing to discourage Erik, not that he could shy of being genuinely uncomfortable (which he isn't). It could be worse, and he finds a bit of necking in public perfectly acceptable, thank you very much, enough to tilt his head and hope for more of it. _Mr. Darcy is a rich snob who hates dancing, finds all women who don't read vapid and useless, and insists that you need a rich, established family history to preserve to be truly cultured. But sometimes he's reluctantly kind and sensitive to needs other than his own, and therefore epitomizes romance? I find it utter rubbish, so perhaps we don't call you Mr. Darcy,_ he snorts. That Charles has a lot to say about things like this go without saying, and he chuckles. _Unless you go around calling me 'tolerable, but not handsome enough' behind my back, anyway. Personally I find that very attractive._  
  
 _Good thing I find you both tolerable and handsome,_ Erik murmurs into his ear, brushing his hair away from his temple in a sweeping movement from behind, laughing softly. At one point he knows he'd have been self-conscious about the fact that he's not from Charles's world, that he doesn't come from money nor does he have a _long established family_ , but after seeing quite a bit of what high society has to offer Erik can safely say he is glad his ideals are in stark opposition. And he is equally grateful that Charles agrees, even if he is used to getting his own way. Erik smirks against his skin, unable to do it for real but giving him the sensation of a little nip right at the base of his jaw, tapping it with his finger playfully.  
  
At that errant thought, Charles smirks even as he shivers in Erik's arms. _Perhaps something to do with it, but I'm not certain you can say it's because I'm rich that I get my way._ It's not his mutation, either, because Charles doesn't and never has used it to influence people in that way. _It's just a talent of mine, I'm afraid._ What Charles wants, Charles gets. It helps that he fights with every breath to earn those things, that he always deserves the praise and recognition, and gives back tenfold. He's also stunningly bad at giving himself what he actually needs, until recently, anyway. He turns in Erik's arms and looks up with those large, vivid eyes of his. _About that cake, darling..._ He's trying very hard not to laugh.  
  
Erik picks up the book he'd been eyeing with a tug of his power, and it flies to his hand so he can hold it out. _Salad People_ by Mollie Katzen, available for ages six and up. Perfect for Charles's culinary skillset. _I'll be your adult assistant,_ he waggles his eyebrows.  
  
Charles purses his lips to keep from smiling or laughing, arms crossed again. _You think you're quite funny, don't you?_ he asks, raising his own eyebrow. _I'm definitely having ice cream for lunch now. There's no getting around it, if you want this to be a successful date._  
  
 _I am hilarious,_ Erik insists, unable to keep the amused grin off his face. _And I'll consider it. As long as you behave._ He taps Charles on the nose, and for once, his devoted, bright expression makes him look much younger than his age; normally not the case. Erik's even got a couple of grey hairs lurking about his temples and he's barely thirty, but now he's just delighted, an everyday, ordinary guy on a date with his submissive. If it weren't guaranteed to adversely impact his health Erik would feed him ice cream every day. He'll do anything to ensure Charles always has reason to smile at him like that.  
  
 _You're still in your twenties, not barely thirty,_ he smiles, and stands on his toes to run his fingers through those strands. _We'll work on it, but you'll be a very attractive silver fox either way._ He's not going to think about anything that inspired those grey hairs, because they simply don't have a place here. Today there's absolutely nothing to worry about but them. _Also, you're out of luck, my love, because I don't plan on behaving but you're still a big softie,_ he teases, and sticks his tongue out, eyes creased in the corners as he swims with the joy of it. The ease.  
  
 _You had better not let anyone else know,_ he says as he leans right into that touch automatically, suppressing a shiver that starts at the end of Charles's fingertips and twitches down his neck. As though chasing that sensation he touches his own temple in an unconscious mimic before realizing what he's doing and dropping his hand abruptly, grinning through a rising flush. _I must still be known throughout all the land, far and wide as Fearsome Erik._  
  
Charles is delighted by it, and he can't help but fold himself properly into Erik's arms, a place he's come to feel like he belongs more than anywhere else. On his knees at his feet and in his arms. Everything else, as they've proven, is all mere circumstance. Irrelevant. _No one who knows you actually thinks that, you know. My poor pushover of a Dominant. I'm just too much of a force,_ he grins wickedly from his spot against Erik's chest, where he pats him in mock-sympathy. _It's alright, I'll let you think you've won sometimes._ He truly does love goading, and now that they're settled enough to allow for it, it's really quite fun. It's all them, and Erik was right. There never actually was an off switch.  
  
And Erik is nothing if not indulgent, perfectly content to let Charles believe he has all the sway here; and if he's honest there's quite a lot about that which is true, and Erik knows it, and he runs his fingers through Charles's hair where he's buried his head. He's OK with the fact that Charles knows it, because Charles also knows that he won't compromise where it matters. There is room to wiggle around, but he can't push Erik's decisions and wheedle his way out of them when they're made, not unless his objection is serious and rational. _I'm glad you're having so much fun,_ he chides playfully.  
  
The thing is, for the most part, Charles doesn't want to. He's perfectly content to let Erik decide things for him, to defer to those decisions, and gets as much a thrill out of it as he does goading and pushing buttons, batting his eyelashes and knowing Erik will indulge. They both do. It's strange to think he'd ever wondered at whether or not they worked together, because when they let themselves be, they couldn't be more aligned. He's nothing but giddy as he leans into Erik's touch. _Where do you want to go next? I have about a dozen more places in mind, but if there's something you want to do or try, I probably know somewhere._ And there's that eager need to please and serve, as if it isn't a universal constant. Charles is finally comfortable admitting it.

* * *

 _I shall let you lead the way,_ Erik tells him, wishing he did know enough to make a request if only to have Charles be able to show him with that gleeful excitement manifest even further. _Take me to your favorite place,_ he decides after a moment, and that decision is the easiest one he's made all day. _It can be your favorite place or simply your favorite one on the list so far_. Erik leaves it up to him. He's not normally one for surprises, but he's finding with Charles he's more-than content to meander along, come what may. He's still alert and vigilant, but he trusts Charles, enough to walk with his proverbial eyes closed.  
  
Charles huffs, eyebrows pulled together as he thinks. Honestly, he's not sure he has one. There are plenty of activities he can think of doing that Erik might enjoy, and that he would certainly enjoy doing with Erik, but those things aren't necessarily place specific. Eventually he comes to a decision, and after paying for the books he's gathered in a stack, and Erik's, too, because he absolutely can't leave this place without an armful of books he'll read in one sitting, he steps back out onto the street. He waits until Erik is behind him, safe and guiding before he walks, mind a warm glow that curls against Erik's like an embrace as he backtracks and walks leisurely to their next destination. He's chattering away, then, mostly about the books he'd picked up while Erik was busy with poetry, a blur of associated images and feelings, using his telepathy as much as his words as he never truly has before. He's going on about the Romantic period when he stops short on the sidewalk, biting his lip. _Perhaps we should go the other way,_ he says, even while every part of him is tensed, wanting very much to walk forward.  
  
At some point Erik will probably react normally to situations like this but right now, a piece of a twisted nail on the ground snaps into his outstretched palm and lengthens into an impressive dagger, and he glares up ahead at whatever intrusion Charles has categorized. _What is it._  
  
Charles sucks in a breath, and tries very hard not to be amused or exasperated by what he knows is a well-honed, necessary set of instincts. It helps that he's also incredibly endeared to it, and that it makes him feel safe, a shiver up his spine because his Dominant is more than capable of protecting him. He shakes his head all the same. _Erik, we're alright, darling. I just wasn't sure if our date was a good time to involve ourselves in a mutant right protest, considering we're faces of it,_ he snorts. But he also very much wants to see for himself.  
  
Erik immediately drops the dagger and forms it into some useless lump, letting it drift under a newspaper and tensing up even more because that's all they need is for someone to see him using his abilities offensively at an MCA protest. He glances around to ensure that no one saw and considering how close in proximity they are, Charles's filter won't do a whole lot of good and he's too amped up to properly focus on altering the cameras so he simply nods. _Drop the filter. I suppose we ought to say hello. Who said our dating life has to be boring?_  
  
They're actually a good block away still, a little more, but Charles has learned to filter the minds around him far more effectively than he ever has. It's not so much an active process and a headache (though it is still that, a bit) as it is an instinct, one he's finally letting himself listen to rather than tightly leashing. By the time they're on the campus of Columbia (which is one of his favorite places in the city, despite being a workplace), Erik can hear the protest, too.   
  
It's mostly students, but that isn't to say there aren't a good number of older mutants, too, and the baselines who choose to support them, many of which don't work here. Charles hangs back at first, observing. Their signs are varied, from _'Mutant Rights Are Human Rights!'_ to _'WE EXIST'_ to (and he's proud of this one, he won't deny it), _'Mutatis Mutandis!_ '. They're all gathered on various levels of the steps, shouting slogans and occasionally speaking up individually, and a group has formed around them that clearly isn't involved. Their thoughts range from curious (in the genuine way and the _'let's watch the freaks assemble'_ way) to outright hostility, and Charles clenches his teeth but certainly can't expect anything else. The sheer amount of campus security and local police officers that surround the place is also, frankly, disturbing for what's an entirely peaceful protest. This is the beginning of a movement, though, and that they're out here fighting means something. He can't help but feel hopeful, as should be expected of him.  
  
Erik and Charles are spotted almost immediately by reporters and students alike, and it's only a matter of time before they're swarmed and tossed into the fray. Erik reaches out to the barest edges of the gathering, taking stock of every gun, every police badge, every riot shield and taser and posterboard and ink smudge until every quivering molecule is under his conscious direction, and he keeps it there, poised and ready to twitch at any moment of aggression by the humans. Charles is accosted quite effectively by people clamoring to know his position, reporters asking for his own input as well as the translation of Erik's desires. "Dr. Xavier! Mr. Lehnsherr! Are you aware the Mutant Control Act has 381 votes to 208 as of yesterday morning?" a young student editor calls out toward him, wearing a circle-M badge on her denim jacket.  
  
Charles doesn't fear crowds or people or commotion, nor is he intimidated by them. He is hyperaware of every mind within a certain radius, and while it's something he's perfectly capable of, it's not something he's particularly used to with this much intention. It's thunderously loud, and cheese grater to the brain tapped-microphone static in places where the emotions run high. He manages to smile regardless, not a hint of strain. "No, I wasn't," he admits, tone grave, and watches carefully for Erik, as close as they can possibly be without giving themselves away. "That's absolutely horrifying. What I'd like to know is -" He cuts himself off, head snapping to the side at the jeering going on nearby (" _go home, freaks! No one wants you here!"_ ) and it's starting to pick up steam. It only takes one person to embolden people to this sort of thing, and now they're chanting, too, loud shouts of _freaks! abominations! criminals!_ and Charles feels his heart sink. It's fear in their hearts, not hatred, but it all manifests the same way.  
  
The counter-protesters are getting louder, pushing in stronger, until something breaks. "These people are _innocent_!" a voice calls above the din, and Erik doesn't know if it's burst from his own throat or if it's a combination of rising emotions, or if it's someone else or a product of Charles's abilities, but the jeering stops as he steps forward. " _You_ came here with your guns, and your badges," he points his finger. " _You_ brought bullets to a _school_ because you daren't classify us as human beings. The MCA is a violation of every civilized law in existence." It has to be his voice-that grit of rage, the wavering of emotion, it's Erik's voice, and he's stunned himself back into stifled silence with the realization. He clears his throat and ducks his head.  
  
At first it's quiet enough to drop a pin. There's hushed, stunned silence (and perhaps Charles does have something to do with it), and then all at once it breaks. There's cheering. He feels his heart thud in his ears as they break back out into chanting, alternating _"We stand with him!"_ (something from early on in Erik's trial, when it became clear there was something more happening) and " _mutatis mutandis! Mutatis mutandis!_ " and he truly can't breathe for it. Charles grabs for Erik's arm without thinking, and the cameras catch it but he doesn't care. There are tears in his eyes. You are absolutely incredible, my love, he whispers. Thank you. I love you so very, very much. _Ani ohev otcha. Je t'aime_ \- And he keeps going. And going. And going. There's a grin on his lips as he watches these brilliant students and those who've gathered to help cheer and feels himself fall even more impossibly in love with Erik Lehnsherr.

* * *

Erik barks a laugh, utterly startled, and that's the image the cameras end up catching to undoubtedly loop on the evening news-of Charles hanging onto his arm, a mild-mannered grin on his face, eyes bright as he looks down at Dr. Xavier. It's no secret that the two share a close professional relationship, it's been the subject of many internet debates (and other quite unsavory forms of media, thank-you very much, the day Erik discovered what _fandom_ -yes, seriously-was, made a harrowing day indeed) and television segments, so fortunately there's nothing particularly peculiar about their positions now, but Erik makes sure to take a polite step back once the cameras swarm again and allows Charles to take the lead, content that the spotlight is back where it belongs and not with those counter-protesters. _Well, I stand with you, Charles Xavier,_ Erik sends to him privately, a well of incredible fondness breaking over them like a tidal wave; for once Erik was able to do for Charles what Charles has done for him every day since they met, and it is a miraculous sensation.   
  
The rest of the time is spent with him standing silently on guard, a determined glower on his face, holding a sign of his own that reads _MUTATIS MUTANDIS_ with a circle-M and _Magen_ David sketched next to one another, because if Carmen Pryde's taught him anything, it's that ham-fisted works when ham-fisted works. Let them put him on that G-d awful Fox. He's heard worse _._  
  
Charles, for his part, does plenty of talking for the both of them. He's good at it, and everyone knows it; he certainly doesn't have any trouble fielding every question that comes his way, eloquent but pulling no verbal punches. He talks with his hands, raises or lowers his voice, pauses where he needs to pause, and the gathered protestors and the cameras absolutely eat it up, Erik silent and protective in the background. By the time things wind down and the crowd breaks up, Charles throwing back up the perception filter for both of them until they simply disappear, he's spinning with hope again. He tugs Erik after him, careful and aware of his limp, but it's that insistent, gleeful hop to his step as he manipulates his way into an empty lecture hall.   
  
_This is where I've lectured for the past few years. In my spare time, of course,_ he laughs, and climbs up onto the raised, stage-like portion of the room with the podium. _Are you here for a lecture on genetics?_ he teases, and he looks younger than he ever has, bright-eyed and breathless and exhilarated, hopelessly in love. Starry-eyed, really, as he looks down at Erik.  
  
Erik remains silent, but guarded the entire time, and doesn't make any further statements despite a bit of cajoling from the gathered press. Charles is much more savvy than him, anyway, and despite his emotive call to arms, Charles is better off doing the talking because he's the one with tact. Erik's good in small doses and he knows it, so he strategically doesn't interject again, unless of course the situation devolved; which it blessedly does not. He follows along until they're inside and then he's grinning again. _But of course, Professor Xavier,_ Erik bows, and sticks one hand behind his back. When it emerges again, there's a bouquet of sunflowers grasped in his fist, and he presents it with a flourish. _I heard a good foundation in biology is worth a dozen roses._ He tips his hat, eyebrows bouncing. _Shall I be in your debt?_  
  
Charles doesn't even try to stifle his delighted giggle as he takes the offered flowers, flushing with pleasure and not bothering to question where on Earth Erik conjured them from. _These aren't roses, so perhaps you're more in need of a lesson than I thought,_ but he's melted goo and it's obvious. He sits down on the edge of the stage, grinning so wide his face hurts and threatens to split. _Perhaps you'd be interested in some... private biology lessons, sir?_ He's terribly bad at role-playing, apparently, because last time he checked he isn't supposed to call his students ' _sir_ ,' but he's wiggling his eyebrows playfully anyway.  
  
Erik grins and abruptly the sunflowers turn into a dozen roses in his hand, thorns plucked and stems smooth. _Perhaps I merely needed an excuse to be alone with you, Dr. Xavier. You see, I'm hoping to gain a little extra credit-_ Erik can't, he dissolves into laughter, audible, covering his face with his bright-pink casted hand.  
  
Charles' chest is tight. He swallows, and then he's dropping the flowers beside him and covering his face, trembling slightly. _Sorry, just - just a moment, Erik,_ he assures, but his mental voice is cracked.  
  
He moves to sit beside Charles, letting them disappear into thin air, and takes his hand. The playfulness from before vanishes, replaced by by tender concern. _None of that,_ he murmurs, shaking his head. _Talk to me_.  
  
Instead of answering, Charles nearly bowls him over in his endeavor to be as close as possible, sat up on Erik's lap with both arms looped around his neck. He stays like that, bursting with emotion ( _joy/fear/love_ ) and nuzzled into his neck and the softness of his sweater for a long few minutes, trembling but silent. _I'm just happy,_ he whispers eventually.  
  
Erik grasps onto him quickly and holds him there, ensuring he doesn't fall over and grins up at him through strands of hair that have fallen into his face. _Me, too,_ he whispers back, placing his hand over Charles's heart. _I am so very glad that I met you. I am thankful every day._  
  
When Charles pulls back there are tears shimmering in his eyes but not on his cheeks, and he brushes a hand through Erik's hair, fussing and then just stroking because he wants to. _Have you ever been this happy? I've never - honestly, Erik, it feels like it's too big to fit inside of myself,_ he laughs, breathless and slightly incredulous. Perhaps something would break the bubble eventually. It wouldn't change the fact that they had this now.  
  
 _Not ever,_ he answers with a slight huff, and true to form, his eyes close and he nudges against the hand in his hair, leaning into it with another little shiver. So much already happened to try and threaten the bubble he suspects it isn't a bubble at all, and that's what really shocks him.  
  
 _Let's have a party,_ Charles thinks abruptly, and then flushes, ducking his head in embarrassment with his hand still in Erik's hair.  
  
Erik clears his throat all of a sudden and forces down whatever threatens to buzz at his mind. Charles can hear his thoughts reassuring themselves, and then kicking over themselves for being stupid. _A party?_ he asks, laughing a little. _OK. Let's do it._  
  
Charles bites his lip. _I meant - talk to me?_ he asks, concerned, and chases after whatever that was. Erik's thoughts don't need to reassure themselves, he wants to do it himself.  
  
 _Just some word association, that's all,_ Erik mumbles; now it's his turn to be embarrassed. _I know better._ He gives a smile.  
  
He hums, leaning in close to kiss Erik's cheek. _I'm sorry,_ he murmurs, still concerned. _We don't have to, it's just.._. Charles is still embarrassed.  
  
 _We should,_ Erik says, touching Charles's cheek. Erik likes making him happy, and this is no chore at all.  
  
 _You're supposed to, when you get Bonded,_ he mumbles, and it's fast, almost enough to miss it, like he's fast-forwarded it as he hides in Erik's neck. Most Bonded pairs had a private, closed ceremony for themselves - the actual Bonding, the Ritual of it - and then a ceremony for others, too, to celebrate it and acknowledge it with loved ones. There was a fancy high-society way to do it, but that's not at all what Charles is thinking of, especially considering they couldn't even if they wanted to (he doesn't).  
  
Erik laughs again, soft. _I presume you do not intend for that. I think it sounds like a wonderful idea, Charles._ As far as he's aware, the people Charles would like to invite to such a gathering are already aware of them.  
  
He pulls back to look at Erik, grinning. _Really?_ He doesn't know why he wants it, really. Perhaps because everything is truly starting to feel real, and a bit of celebration - a celebration of them - seems like it's in order. Hiding is still necessary, but they have to do far less of it now, and the future is looking brighter than ever. There's no reason they can't do things other Bonded pairs do, like go on dates and have Bonded ceremonies.  
  
 _Really_ , Erik repeats, leaning up to kiss Charles because he can't help it. _This deserves-_ he flounders a bit, unsure how to express himself. _We have both seen, and experienced, so much of what happens when people are not compatible. The kind of love that we share should be celebrated; it should be seen and heard and known. I've always believed that._ He pecks Charles on the nose for good measure.  
  
Charles smiles, scrunching his nose up and kissing Erik's in turn. Then he rubs theirs together, laughing, but still somehow warmed by his own gesture. _Plus, I get cake out of it, presumably, so it's a brilliant idea._  
  
 _Hm,_ Erik tuts, and then decides, _Perhaps you will. If you are good_. He grins.  
  
 _I'm always well-behaved, Erik,_ he tuts right back, and flashes those eyes of his. But his mind is already going, a pleasant buzz as he settles more comfortably in Erik's lap. Where will they have it? They could use his apartment, and spare Hank and Raven, though they have considerably more space and Raven would probably insist. How will they decorate? What food will they serve? Will they recite part of their Bonding vows? Who will actually be on their small but important guest list? He's grinning wide again, utterly light.  
  
 _Hank, Raven, perhaps Gabrielle and Daniel? I presume he is aware by now. Carmen and Teri, and their daughter?_ Erik suggests at once, already warmed by the idea that he has _friends_ , now, people who are on his side, who _Stand With Him_. He smirks quickly, though. _I fear if we allow Raven to help with the decorations._ She'll probably order them a special cake. He's laughing, shoulders shaking.  
  
Charles is laughing, too, because whatever they do, whatever they plan, it will be something special. _Warren_ , he adds. _Who else will bring inordinate amounts of booze?_ he snorts. _It might be a bit difficult, that, but that's alright. I can have rum and coke without the rum. Coke and coke,_ he grins.  
  
Erik snorts. _And I presume he will bring the music as well. Unfortunately for us, or perhaps fortunately._ And in all honesty Erik is absolutely no slouch when it comes to partying, it's a little-known secret that he can throw down with the best of them; but most of his party experience is a bit extreme. It'll become about drawing lines there, too, between what is fun and what is acceptable. There's a reason why Erik won't take pain medicine and it's not simple trauma, although that is a factor; booze and drugs are a definite no-go for him. Sorry, Warren.


	46. la fine non è la fine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _loose lips,_ kimya dawson  
> ii. _house of leaves_ , mark z. danielewski  
> iii. _mi shebeirach_ , prayer for the sick  
> iv. _snow and dirty rain_ , richard siken

That had been an honest concern for him, too, so perhaps it was for the best that they made the executive decision here. Charles wouldn't have. He smiles softly, kissing Erik's cheek. His Dominant keeps them both safe. _Let's go spend the rest of the day enjoying the sunshine, shall we?_  
  
And they do. Charles remembers that he's allergic to certain types of pollens and sneezes up a storm, but fortunately Erik finds it endearing.  
  
The week that follows is more of the blissful same, but with dashes of reality Charles finds refreshing rather than upsetting. Erik has appointments and court appearances, and while he's busy with those Charles gets to work. He calls lawyers and brokers and local government offices, inquires and negotiates, talks numbers and feasibility and permits. There are preliminary plans being drawn up, all of which need to be precise by the time they send them out for approval (except in the places some of the work will be... more underground, shall we say). That requires a visit, or several, really, but in the meantime he's more than enjoying drawing them up with Erik, envisioning and discussing and occasionally arguing.  
  
That's how they spend most evenings, huddled together with the future in mind. When they aren't going on dates, wandering the city, attending services, going to bar trivia with Raven and Hank (and winning), playing pool at Warren's (Charles loses).  
  
They've become Internet sensations, pictures of them popping up whenever one of them steps out anywhere, Charles' offhand comments becoming well-quoted both for and against the movement. Their contract is written up and displayed, now. They sent out handwritten invitations to their Bonding ceremony, too, and received RSVPs on all ends. Planning is underway, the ceremony and party itself in just a few days.  
  
There really isn't anything that doesn't seem to be looking up.  
  
Except the one thing Charles has... not hidden, exactly. But he's decidedly not acknowledged it, and perhaps there was quite a bit of deliberate door-closing.  
  
When he's woken up in the middle of the night, he can't see. Not the room in front of him. Everything is spinning and flashing, every hair raised and his skin prickling. He makes a dash for the bathroom and just barely makes it, but he isn't sick. He gasps and sputters over the toilet instead, gripping at first to the porcelain and then to his own head, grabbing strands of hair and tugging until they come loose and perhaps he should stop doing that if he doesn't wish to be bald but he can't help it.  
  
He hopes he hasn't woken Erik up at the same time that he knows, full well, that he has.

* * *

Erik becomes more accustomed to being out in public, and as the days go on the times that he steps out of the door, he's dressed smartly and in the latest Dominant-styled shirts and pants; a decision he made early on to migrate away from the clothes he was used to wearing at the Hellfire Club, the ability to actively decide what he wanted to wear a privilege he doesn't waste.  
  
He's grown fond of wearing hats, too; some of them humorous (tye-dye beanies, swirls and flowers and knit-patterns that Raven haphazardly tries to incorporate) and most dark, simple things that cover his hair and match whatever he's donned that day. There are comments on that shift, too, that Lehnsherr is embracing his Dominance and the implications of such (is he dangerous? How can we trust a D5 in public? and on and on while others are decidedly more supportive, and of course others are borderline-scary-creepy, _I wish I had a D5 to Dom me_ , and _Lehnsherr always looks so severe, I'd love_ -etc etc, Erik stays away from the internet, thank-you-very-much).  
  
Attending services with Charles and Carmen for the first time is an experience beyond words. Carmen's congregation write a hand-penned card thoroughly welcoming him into the fold, and he's called up for an _Aliyah_ the first time, with Charles by his side to sing out shakily, in his own voice, a gift he doesn't think he possesses until it bursts out of him- _You shall not oppress your fellow. You shall not rob. The hired worker's wage shall not remain with you overnight until morning.-_ and they're hugged, and fed, and Carmen fixes his _tallit_ because he's still wearing it wrong (they go over your shoulder and chest, Erik, Carmen laughs, and it's fond.)  
  
He spends his days and nights amongst Charles and their wayward family, Warren and Raven and Hank and Carmen and even Gabrielle and Daniel. They argue and play chess and make plans for the _Greymalkin_ Estate and he loves every second of it, coming more and more out of his shell to embrace the image he's cultivated as the silent protector, the defender of the innocent, the stern D5 you don't want to cross. It makes things easier when people accost them, throwing a glare their way to back them down.  
  
The wires on his jaw finally come off, thank G-d, and he chirps and beeps and talks to Naomi like she's his child, carrying her on his finger through the apartment and teaching her to fly and play with blocks and ask for her food. It really does help, gives him a sense of his own voice, lets him hear himself in a space where it's safe. He can speak. _Herr_ Shaw doesn't own him any longer.  
  
They struggle, as well. Erik struggles to really assimilate into lived-life, so on-edge that even a minor inconvenience has him springing into action to barrel forward and shield his loved-ones from harm. They're still working on it. He struggles to contain the horror-evils that permeate every inch of his mind in burning symphony, and sometimes they end up on the floor rocking back and forth, holding one another through the maelstrom. But it's getting easier, they're breathing easier, they're learning. They're coping. Through closed-doors and gasping uncertainties. The trip to Israel is looming closer and it's got Erik twitchy, but he dutifully holds it all at bay, more concerned with caring for his submissive and living in the sunlight.

* * *

When Charles wakes up and bolts out of bed, though, all those instincts come roaring back and Erik launches himself to his feet, wide awake. He stalks into the bathroom on light feet, and when he sees Charles bent over he goes to his side instantly, splaying his hand over Charles's back, rubbing at his shirt, combing through his sweaty hair. "It's OK," he murmurs in his low cant. "It's OK. Breathe. I've got you. You're safe. You're home."  
  
Charles shakes his head as vehemently as he can at the moment, leaning forward to retch again. His eyes are tightly closed and he's shaking, unsteady and clammy, his fingers kneading at his own temples. His cast is off now, but Hank keeps reminding him that it's not fully healed, that if he wants full range of motion back he needs to be careful. He hardly listens except when it's Erik reminding him, and sometimes not even then, in true Charles fashion. It's the last thing on his mind now as he gasps and fights with the clench of his own stomach. "I'm fine," he croaks, while he's clearly not. "I'm fine, Erik, you should go back to bed." He's curled into himself, deliberately hiding his face.  
  
"Stop it," Erik Orders gently, curling his hands over Charles's own and moving them down. His own pink cast is gone, but his right hand is still curved unnaturally in contracture and likely always will be, the range of movement entirely debilitated and leaving him with only broad strokes, using the back of his hand and his abilities and sweeping motions of his arm to accomplish finer tasks. He's right-handed so it's not easy to switch, but he's diligently attending PT to help compensate. "Look at me. Tell me what's happening." Erik has fallen into himself, straight-backed and solid and calm, Will flaring up all around them like sparks. Where he once wavered at Ordering he does no longer, beginning to sound as easy as breath.  
  
This was inevitable. Among the pain and shivering-cold despite the warmth of an unusually hot early May, there's shame now, too. Even in the dark, with his hands down Erik will see what he was hiding. There's thick blood running down his face from his nose, caught on his lip and smeared on his hands. His mind flashes out images, similar incidences, all of which he's neglected to inform Erik of. Bent over the kitchen table with plans drawn up, he wipes it on a napkin and buries it under other trash, redraws the plans to hide the stain. At Warren's, he excuses himself to the bathroom, stamps down the pain and buries it so Erik won't feel it through their connection ("just a headache," he'd said, because he can't hide all of it). A dozen more times, sometimes just a drop, sometimes a stream that he can't stop bar waiting it out, accompanied by splitting, horrific pain he hasn't felt in these amounts since their stint in the hospital. It doesn't usually last long, but it is rather unbearable. "Didn't want to worry you," he mumbles, looking at the floor instead of Erik as his nose leaks more blood.  
  
Erik rises and plucks a tissue from the napkin box, gently dabbing at the blood and encouraging Charles to lean forward and breathe through his mouth, pinching off the flow. His movements are clinical and practiced, as if he's been here a thousand times before. He can feel the snap inside Erik, the bruising ache of hurt and deep disappointment, and he can also feel it smoothing out, as though Erik is brushing his hands over paper and erasing the crinkled lines. "Let's get this taken care of," is what he says as he brushes the napkin across the blood, watching it bloom over fabric.  
  
That hurt and disappointment, even while he knew it was coming, is more difficult to manage than any of the pain he's felt. He swallows it along with some of his own blood as he curls up even further, practically bending in half. "There's nothing to worry about," he insists, and lets Erik see: just a throbbing ache, horrid but ultimately fine. He can live with it. "It's fine," he whispers, and it's clear it's what he's tried to convince himself of all week.  
  
"You and I both know that is not the case," Erik replies quietly, what is known to be true in the moments between the spaces. He guides Charles upward with a finger at his jaw, Commanding, "Sit up for me, please." The words, so polite, but the thread of Order as always zings up Charles's spine.  
  
Charles doesn't peep a word of protest, mumbles a "yes, Erik" on instinct, sitting up straight despite how wobbly he is at first. The sharpness to the pain is already fading, less of a stabbing, screeching torture and more of a deep-seated migraine, pounding at his temples. He keeps his eyes closed, partially because even without the lights off everything throbs uncomfortably, and partially because he doesn't want to look Erik in the face right now.  
  
Erik strokes his temples lightly, as though trying to soothe away that ache with his fingertips, and gradually moves closer to press their foreheads together, drawing that pain into himself, catching it on the edges of his abilities and turning down the neuron-sparks bit by bit.  
  
It helps. It's not gone, because there are some things Erik cannot touch, a pain that eludes him, but it certainly does help. He hates that he knows perfectly well that if he'd told Erik the first time it had happened, they could have avoided some of the agony, at least. Charles keeps his eyes closed and breathes through it, left with an ache that's more than bearable, that doesn't threaten to completely overwhelm him. "Thank you, Erik," he whispers, and doesn't open his eyes, chewing on his bottom lip.  
  
"Stop that," Erik taps his lip pointedly, his voice still very low and even, barely-audible except for the echoing walls of the bathroom. He pulls back so he can press a kiss to Charles's temples, each one, drawing up more of that spiky, shrieky sensation until it's nothing but a pulse-beat reminder. "You are welcome, Charles."  
  
Charles stops immediately. He ducks his head, and opens up more of what he's knocked out of the way. Every night he dreams, but they aren't dreams. They aren't nightmares, either, though they're horrifying and painful, leave him sick and dizzy for the first few moments he's awake. They're shouting, screeching, screaming cacophony, pure chaos, voices and voices and voices and they're all reaching for him, dragging him down and down and down. It's all just noise. Terrible, senseless noise, and every time he makes sense of something, digs into one of the louder calls for his attention, another is shrieking and it's loud enough to shatter him. It's utterly agonizing, and completely disorienting.  
  
"Your telepathy," Erik surmises, stroking the back of his neck as he encourages Charles to rest his head against his shoulder. His own reaction to this is unfathomable, murky underneath the water. On the surface he is predictable; he wants to help, he wants to dissipate the pain and prevent Charles from suffering.  
  
He nods, a shaky bob as he goes where he's led. He hadn't meant to hide this from Erik, except he knows that's exactly what he did with bloody napkins in the garbage and rearranged, muted thoughts. "It's fine," he repeats, eyes still firmly closed. "It really is. Just... settling, that's all." But he can't be sure, and it hurts and he's been frightened and the one who he goes to when he's frightened and needs comfort is Erik, except he's denied himself that up until this moment.  
  
"I would encourage you," Erik starts, very soft and very gentle, until Charles hears the thin thread of steel underneath. The frosted-ice of Will freezing over metal architecture. "Not to lie to me."  
  
Charles shivers, and not from pleasure. "I didn't lie -" But he shuts himself down, mouth snapped shut, because technically he had. They don't need to play a game of semantics here. The shame drops heavy back into his stomach, twisting it up into knots. "I didn't mean to," he whispers, except he knows he had. He hadn't done it maliciously, but he'd done it deliberately.  
  
"Again," Erik murmurs. "I encourage you to consider your statements."  
  
He tenses, the words more than enough to straighten him out. "I meant to," he amends, and it drips with guilt. He hasn't opened his eyes, and he doesn't intend to anytime soon. "But..." Charles shakes his head and doesn't finish, perhaps wisely.  
  
"Open your eyes and look at me," Erik tells him, the Command insistent against Charles's skin, buzzing along his nerve endings and raising the hairs on his arms. "But what?"  
  
Charles is fidgeting as he does what he's told, pulled away from Erik's shoulder as he wrings his hands. "But I was going to tell you. Eventually," he mumbles, and his cheeks heat with embarrassment and shame. That much is the truth. "I didn't want... everything's been good, and I thought if I waited it out..." he trails off, shrugging helplessly.  
  
"I see," Erik just says, quiescent as always. He never raises his voice, even when adrenaline crackles in his chest. "Let's get you cleaned up." He rises in one movement and flicks the tap on with a blink, wetting the napkin and tilting Charles's head up to get at the remaining blood flecks under his nostrils.  
  
It always feels worse than if Erik had raised his voice, because even if trauma weren't a factor, this is what he responds best to. Charles doesn't need to be yelled at, and he never has. "Yes, Erik," he whispers, perfectly compliant as he lifts his head for Erik to wipe off the remaining blood. His nose has stopped gushing, at least, and most of the pain is completely gone. "It really is fine," he tries one more time, despite knowing it would be better if he didn't. He's just digging a bigger hole for himself at this point.  
  
"It perhaps would be best if you ceased speaking at this point, Charles, unless you plan on contributing something constructive to this discussion." Erik is _absolutely_ mad, where there was question of this before there is none now-he never speaks this way even though his voice is centered-but he's doing a superhuman job at not displaying it, every part of him calm and poised.  
  
Charles' breath hitches. His face clean, he swallows the considerable lump in his throat and bows his head to stare down at his feet even as excuses bounce around in his head, none of them particularly constructive. Erik is very rarely angry with him, and it's absolutely uncomfortable.  
  
Erik cleans him up the rest of the way, his hands gentle but expression shuttered, touches light and careful-caring and yet-he doesn't speak, every emotion at once caught in his throat and he is keeping them all at bay, being responsible and collected. He changes Charles into dry nice pajamas and sets him back on the bed, sitting beside him to stroke his temple where the pain once resided.  
  
Charles is silent, too, the touch to his temple making him wince. Not so much with pain, certainly not with fear, but with sensitivity - it's been the source of horrible agony, and Charles' fingers haven't been nearly as gentle with it when Erik wasn't looking, kneading in frustration, digging his nails in. "I -" He closes his mouth again, not looking at Erik, thankful the lights are off.  
  
Erik leans over and kisses him where his fingers were, so soft and careful not to jar, a warmth to ease the pain. "Yes, Charles?"  
  
It doesn't hurt anymore, at least not right now. Charles almost wishes it would. He shakes his head and stares down at his lap, whatever he'd been planning to say caught in his throat.  
  
"Tell me," Erik Orders, quiet. The energy in the room practically crackles with electricity, but Erik makes no move, no statement to suggest anything other than maddening, deafening calm.  
  
It's still worse than if he'd started yelling. Charles feels it more than he ever would the alternative, shivering again as he squirms and stares down at his hands. "I probably should have told you when it first happened," he mumbles. "But -" He shakes his head again, biting his tongue. Literally.  
  
"No," Erik utters flatly, the first switch of tone into just the slightest hardness. "None of that." He taps Charles's lip. Charles knows instinctively what he means. No biting, no scratching, not his tongue or his lips or his nails or anything that causes the most minute frisson of pain. Not now. "I am not playing around. Do not. Now tell me-but what."  
  
Charles swallows, hands clenched in his lap (but not scratching, no digging in of his nails), his entire being becoming yes, sir in response to those words and the strike of Will accompanied by it even when it doesn't come out of his mouth. He hunches into himself. "I didn't want to think about it, I thought it would go away," he mumbles, barely audible.  
  
"I know that," Erik says softly. "But I am your partner. You did not trust me."  
  
Charles shakes his head immediately. "I did-" But the protest dies quickly. Not being honest is a breach of trust, and he knows that. If everything were reversed and it was Erik who had kept something like this from him, he would be upset. "But..." He doesn't have another 'but,' really.  
  
"All of the good that has been happening, Charles," Erik utters softly, and shakes his head. "This has been occurring the entire time, and I wasn't aware. You chose to obscure it from me, and I did not know. I hope you understand how this makes me feel."  
  
He swallows, and this time it gets caught, something choked bubbling up. He wants to say it wasn't that bad; that it wasn't serious, that it didn't matter, that it was just a few bloody noses and that he's lived through far worse. It isn't the first time he's chosen to suffer something in silence, and it had served him fine in the past. None of those things will make either of them feel better, though, so he hunches into a smaller ball and mumbles, so quiet it barely comes out, "I'm sorry."  
  
"Are you?" Erik asks, eyebrows arched. "It seems you would have been content to continue hiding this from me if this hadn't occurred."  
  
"I was going to tell you," he mutters, staring down at his clenched hands still, but point taken. He'd been hoping it would take care of itself first, even if that was all wishful thinking.  
  
"You do not get to decide what is important and what is not," Erik tells him. "Not when it comes to your health. You had no right to supersede my Will, intentionally, by obscuring the fact that you are routinely in agony." The words are hard, unforgiving. "And you know it. I know you know it."  
  
Charles' lip begins to tremble. He does know it. Truthfully he'd known better when he was doing it, too, even if he'd stamped down any of that. Nothing comes out of his mouth anymore when he tries, so he simply nods where he's hung his head. The shame swims around in his gut.  
  
Erik just sighs. He honestly doesn't think his feelings in the matter are relevant; he's conditioned not to make a fuss and he's upset and he doesn't know how to handle it so he just nods back and pulls up the blanket over Charles. "OK."  
  
It's not okay. Charles knows it isn't okay. There is a contract in this room that they'd both written up and signed that made it abundantly clear it isn't okay. But he can't say that, or anything, so he plays with the fuzz on the blanket, everything caught up in his throat and his eyes closed tight.  
  
"Now that we both know what is happening, I will do my utmost to help you overcome this," Erik promises him, leaning over to kiss his forehead. "And I will do my best to help alleviate the pain you feel. Right now, you need to get your sleep."  
  
It makes him feel sick, but Charles shakes his head. He's not going to sleep.  
  
Erik fixes him with a look. "What would you prefer to do, Charles?"  
  
He doesn't have the answer to that. Be swallowed up by the floor, probably, but he goes back to insistently picking at the blanket instead, fighting every instinct to bite his lip or cheek or dig his nails into his own skin.  
  
"Yes, well," Erik finally lets his impatience through, in a small huff that he retracts before it even exits his mouth, straightening up and forcing it all away, forcing himself into that pillar of strength he's always been. "Charles, I will be honest with you," he says, glancing over at that contract on the wall. "I can't take any action right now. So it would be best if we went to bed. We'll discuss this in the morning when we're both in a better frame of mind."  
  
For a while all he does is stare at the blanket, silent and worked up. Then he huffs, too, not at Erik, and settles stiffly onto his side, as far to the edge of the bed as he can manage without rolling off. He doesn't think he'll actually fall asleep, especially not knowing what will greet him when he does, but he isn't going to fight Erik on this and make it worse. He knows when he's in the wrong, and he is now. They can discuss it in the morning. It's only a few hours anyway.  
  
Erik settles behind him, wrapping an arm around him and kissing the back of his neck, stroking his collar lightly. _I love you,_ he murmurs mentally, pulling up the blanket to cover them both. He's not going to sleep either, but they can still have this-a moment out of time to remind them of all that they do have. Erik isn't willing to forget it. He keeps a hold on all those pain receptors and nulls them out as best as he can even now, hoping to induce relaxation at least.  
  
The pain isn't the problem, and what is there Erik can't dull. Knowing he's trying helps, even still, and Charles is only tense for a moment before he relaxes into Erik's arms, sighing out a breath and closing his eyes. _I love you, too_. It's not that he's forgotten, or that he ever could, and he knows Erik hasn't either. It's not like this exists outside of the category. Perhaps he drifts a little. Never into a full sleep, or anything even close, but he's bobbing in half-consciousness by the time the sun is peeking through the curtains. Charles doesn't make any move to get up, eyes open as he stares at nothing and tries not to think about what's looming. He's done a fairly decent job so far.

* * *

As the sun begins to stream through the slats in the blinds and lay strips over their bed, warming and bright, Erik slowly moves to sit up and guides Charles to do the same. "Let's get you in the shower," he says simply; the start of their morning routine that they've settled into almost on rote. It's helpful to fall back on, when there is strife, when there is tension, it is immutable; it is constant.  
  
Charles has clung to it especially hard lately, considering what his sleeping has consisted of. Usually he'd draw this part of it out, a game he's become especially fond of. Convince Erik to stay in bed just a bit longer, entice him with sleepy kisses and touches and whine when he's finally dragged into the shower (unless he'd managed to entice Erik, which has definitely happened, and he does love starting the morning off with some service), grumpy but soft and clingy as he always is in the mornings. Now he goes with nothing more than a nod, and he doesn't so much as drag his feet on the way to the bathroom.  
  
Erik eases up behind him, taking his clothing from him with gentle, sweeping touches, lingering and genuinely reverent as he always is; but like Charles he is silent, making his directives known in taps of his finger or shakes and nods of his head until they're settled into the shower at last. He sits on the bench, and guides Charles to kneel at his feet with a hard tap of said foot, the Order unvoiced but very much spun through the air waves.  
  
Charles kneels without complaint. It's not at all uncommon for them to shower like this, and usually he takes no small amount of pleasure from it, bright and floating as Erik takes care of him and he stays firmly in place. He knows it's still his place, that would never be in question; it's just that it doesn't feel quite the same, and it bothers him far, far more than he'd ever be able to express in words. The joyful, relaxed hum of their morning is muted out, and while it helps to be on his knees like this, to ground him and remind him that Erik still wants him there, that he still belongs there, where he would normally smile up at Erik and nuzzle against his legs, or bow all the way down to kiss his feet if he was in that sort of subspace (he did that yesterday morning), he stays still and silent and stares at the shower floor.  
  
He cards his fingers through Charles's hair and bids him to lay his head on his knee, calm. "You are upset," he murmurs softly. "Tell me what is going through your mind." With Charles on his knees and the wisps of their ordinary routine in the air, it's not difficult at all for Erik's common statements to flip over into Orders and this is no exception.  
  
Charles doesn't know exactly what's going through his mind. He shrugs, tense, but eventually words come out anyway, because they have to. "I upset you," he whispers finally, because that's most of it. That's what's bothering him, what it all comes down to. Charles sometimes acts rebellious or defiant to be put back into his place. He sometimes disobeys because he needs discipline, and he can be catty and petty and even vaguely cruel when that's what he needs, when he doesn't realize he needs it. But this is different, because it wasn't either of those things. He doesn't want to disappoint Erik, ever, and he has and he knows it and it's eating at him. It probably has since he first made the decision to do it, because he knew it would end up here. He had to. Charles isn't an idiot. It doesn't matter that he'd thought, at the time, that he was doing it to help both of them; he'd made the wrong call, and he'd upset his Dominant, and he doesn't like that. At all.  
  
"The point there," Erik murmurs softly, "is that you took it upon yourself to make that call. You did not include me in any of these decisions, when they are simply not your decisions to make. You did not trust me, you did not believe I could take care of you and help alleviate the situation. You did not loop me in." Erik's voice never wavers or lifts from its quiet cadence. "Of course I am upset. You knew that this would upset me; and you did it anyway. I cannot even conceive of the reasoning behind your actions, here." Is it that Charles only wants Erik as his Dominant when Charles feels like it? Is it that Erik isn't good enough to deal with whatever Charles deems as irrelevant? Is it that ultimately, Charles feels as though he is in charge? Is it that undermining Erik's authority is a form of satisfaction to Charles, that he can do it, whenever he pleases? Is it that Erik isn't worth enough to trust; even with these insignificant issues. Erik ducks his head, putting his hand over his eyes. "Of course I am upset. And I understand that you are guilty about it-are my emotions relevant?"  
  
Every thought of Erik's twists sharp into him, worse than a blow. In the end he can't breathe properly, and he chokes on his own spit. He's trembling on his knees as he stares down at his hands, clenched and shaking again. "Yes," he gasps, and his voice shakes, too, heavy with emotion he can't conceal, nor should he. "I - I wasn't thinking, I -" It's not good enough. He knows it isn't good enough. None of those things are true. Charles hadn't done it to undermine Erik, or because he didn't trust him. He certainly hadn't done it because he believed Erik was only his Dominant part of the time, when he felt like it, when it suited him, which is something he's been accused of before and now it sits like a rock in his stomach, sunk all the way to the bottom. He'd done it because he wanted it to go away, and admitting it to Erik would make it real. Because it terrified him and when things terrify him, especially this thing, Charles' instinct is to hide. In the closet, across an ocean, behind a smile. It hadn't been his decision to make, Erik is right. That contract they'd signed together, smiling and laughing and looping letters and finishing with a flourish of both their names could not be more clear about that. It hadn't been the right choice. But he'd made it, and Erik has every right to be upset. "I'm sorry," he whispers, head bowed. And he is.  
  
And that's the crux of it, honestly. Erik doesn't really believe that Charles doesn't consider him his Dominant-what he does believe is that when Charles's instincts are to hide-he hides even from Erik, because he simply does not want to bring Erik into his world. It is Erik's right to be there, as delineated by their contract; Erik has always felt it is his Right to be there with Charles, to be-exempt-from this hiding. To travel the ocean together. To hide in the closet together. To brush away those smiles and replace them with sincerity. To make the terrors real and fight them, together, the way that they do for Erik. When Erik is dropped deep into the shrieking, screaming rust-world inside, Charles is there with him. Hands on his face, through his hair, comforting him and keeping him. But Charles can't give Erik the opportunity, because Erik isn't-trustworthy enough. To come to with terrors. "No," he mumbles, and his voice cracks a bit and he reins it all in, coming up normal, straight-backed posture and calm, calm columns. "I am sorry. I am sorry you did not feel like you could take this to me."  
  
"No -" It comes out broken, choked, utterly devastated, because there's nothing Erik could have thought that would have hurt more than that. He crumples, rocked forward with his arms around himself. Erik should not be apologizing, even if he isn't. He shouldn't ever feel like Charles doesn't trust him, because there is no one Charles trusts more, will ever trust more, including himself. He's let Erik into those dark, frightening places, past the door that was locked and thrown behind caution tape. He shakes his head, over and over. "No, no, no," he insists, and he's not crying, but it's certainly in his throat.  
  
 _I know you did,_ Erik says, holding him and helping him sit up so he can get an arm around him, bending in half himself to do so because of his height. He knows Charles has let him in beyond anyone and anything imaginable, and maybe it is not his right after all to demand more, when Charles isn't comfortable with more-maybe it's not his right to think that Charles doesn't trust him when he's demonstrated it in gasping relief. _But you didn't come to me with this. You were scared and you didn't let me in. I couldn't protect you. I couldn't keep you safe. I didn't uphold my promise. You didn't let me keep my word. What do I do? What can I do?_  
  
It's not Erik's fault, and he knows they both know that. Charles is comfortable with more, and he does think it's Erik's Right; he'd made a mistake. It was a horrible mistake, perhaps, but instincts had kicked in and he'd let them. It wasn't anything more than that, and certainly nothing spiteful. It was the only way he'd survived all of those years, and it had seemed like the natural choice. By the time it was more than instincts, it was likely just stubbornness, or else selfishness, and it isn't a particularly appealing part of Charles' personality, but it is there. It's a habit that needs to be broken, like backwards-instincts and biting his lip, and he'd let it get the best of him. It's not an excuse. This is a transgression. He squirms in Erik's arms, miserable, and shrugs, his head still bowed. He doesn't know what to do. It's not really his choice. Erik is the aggressed party here, and Erik is the Dominant, and Erik is the one he should have come to for help when he needed him. Because he did need him, and Charles had taken that choice away from Erik.  
  
"Finish washing up," Erik murmurs, "and pick your eyes up off the floor. You know what you did, you know the effects of your actions, Charles. So we are going to continue our routine for this morning, and then we are going to deal with this in the appropriate manner. Do you understand?"  
  
Charles sniffles, swallowing visibly. "But I -" He doesn't know what he'd planned to say. Another excuse, maybe, or something to soften all of this, because he gets no satisfaction out of this. Absolutely none. He would much rather they forget about this and go back to their actual routine, which includes quite a bit of kissing and necking. But he knows what he did, and he knows it isn't what either of them need now. "Yes, sir," he mumbles, and looks up as he does what he's told.

* * *

Erik nods at him and helps him, free with touch as he always is, a juxtaposition of his current emotions roiling underneath and his continuing urges to care for his submissive, for Charles, coexisting in tandem. He guides Charles into his Postures back in the bedroom and sits across from him at tandem-Rest, eyes closed, meditating beyond a barrier that Charles can't reach as he sinks into the physical manifestation of their Bond; every morning, a reminder of them, and this is no different. Sometimes their relationship, their Bond, includes this. Includes frustration and uncertainty and tension and push-pull, and sometimes Charles's Postures reflect that, too. But every day, unfailingly, his body tells him through its motions that he belongs to Erik. And even now he still belongs to Erik. That much is certain.  
  
Charles hasn't doubted that in a very long time, and if he's honest with himself, he never did. By the time he settles back into Rest he's calmer, though still visibly upset. His eyes drop to the floor again on instinct, though it's never been part of his Postures or Erik's expectations to avoid eye contact; it's been the opposite, actually. Look at me, one of those first Orders. But Charles can't, and his fingers curl into his thighs instead of staying in that relaxed, perfect form until Erik leads him out of it with touch or words as he has every day, shoulders hunched slightly.  
  
Erik takes his hands, in both of his. One mangled and one ordinary, a squeeze from the left to draw his attention. "I know that you are in pain," Erik murmurs. "I know that it hurts, and that you are scared. I know that you didn't intend to hurt me."  
  
That much is all true. He lets out a breath, because at least Erik knows that. That he would never intentionally hurt him, that he never wanted to, even when the end result was that he had. He bites his lip, without the distraction of his hands, and nods, still not looking at Erik.  
  
"Eyes up," Erik Orders; predictable, but comforting all the same. "Do you understand why I am upset?"  
  
Charles takes a breath, looking up. He knows those eyes better than he knows his own in the mirror, has known them all his life, and it is comforting even when it's uncomfortable. Because he knows Erik has every right to be upset, and that right now he is. "Yes, Erik," he whispers, and his voice shakes again.  
  
"So tell me, Charles," Erik whispers. "I want to hear what you understand."  
  
It takes everything he has not to hang his head, but his shoulders hunch forward, a soft sniffle escaping. "I kept something from you that we should have handled together, against your Will," he mumbles, quiet but audible because he knows Erik deserves to hear it. "It was your Right to know and I hid it. I didn't - I didn't let you take care of me, like you promised to. I took the choice away and I kept it to myself. I lied to you," his voice breaks there, because he's promised several times over in that contract on the wall to always be honest. To never lie to Erik, his Dominant. Charles skin is flushed with shame.  
  
Erik nods, and he reaches out to touch Charles's jaw. "So how do you think I should respond to this?"  
  
Charles swallows, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth, then releasing it. Don't bite. "I - I don't know," he mutters, averting his gaze.  
  
"How is your head?" Erik asks instead, brushing a finger toward his temple gently.  
  
He doesn't flinch away, or even wince, now that he's expecting it. He lets Erik feel: it doesn't hurt. There's a slight ache, something that seems impossible to rub out, but it amounts to less than a headache. It's not a constant pain, and it hasn't been. "Doesn't hurt," he mumbles, unnecessarily.  
  
"That's good," Erik smiles, and leans over to kiss him on the forehead. "Charles, I can't abide this. You know I can't. Do you understand how so much of this could have been avoided if you had simply come to me? Tell me why you didn't. And I do not want to hear another lie."  
  
"I don't know," and that's huffier than it has any real right to be, but the energy of it isn't aimed at Erik, even if it's all the same. It's not a lie, and most of what he's said so far hasn't been either. It wasn't because he didn't trust Erik. It wasn't because he didn't think Erik might be able to help, either, because even if he couldn't he could comfort him while Charles did, and make the whole thing less frightening. He could make a decision for him that absolutely would have made this easier. All Charles knows is that when he first saw blood, when the room spun and he nearly fell out of his chair because the rushing pain was so terrible, he'd instinctively shielded it from Erik. That part wasn't so much the problem, but when he'd buried a bloody napkin in the garbage he'd been thinking no, this isn't happening. If he didn't acknowledge it, it wasn't. Telling Erik would have broken that illusion. "I just didn't," he sighs, because he's frustrated with himself and the choice he's made, but it comes out petulant and short anyway.  
  
"I suggest," Erik murmurs dangerously, "that you don't take that tone with me right now." Regardless of whether it's aimed at him, Erik is frankly running thin on patience. The fact that all of this occurred _just because_ is not any better, honestly. Erik's been made a fool, walking around thinking everything is just fine because Charles wanted him to, because Erik has no control over what Charles chooses to share with him, when he's bleeding and crying to himself in the interim and he's so fucking angry about it he can barely see straight. He doesn't care anymore about the why. The why doesn't matter. The denials and half-truths and lack of trust; it doesn't matter. They both know exactly why it happened, they both know exactly what it implies, and they both know that Erik won't allow this to go without consequences because they've been here before. Erik swiftly rises to his feet. _Do your Postures again. I don't want to see any mistakes. I'm going to make a coffee._ And rein himself in, because he's furious and he has every intention of disciplining Charles for this, but he's not going to do it now and they both know why that, too.  
  
 _Yes, sir._ It wouldn't have come out of his mouth even if he'd tried to force it, his throat closed tight.  
  
 _"Charles, this is becoming an actual problem -"_  
  
 _"Raven, please, what are you even talking about? There's no problem here. Everything is perfectly fine, dearest."_  
  
He's piss drunk more often than he isn't, barely sleeps for the nightmares, wakes up with bruises he doesn't remember because he doesn't know how not to be bruised anymore and he would rather give them to himself than be without them. He has three papers to write and he does them all with a hangover, because if you can't see there's something wrong with him, that he's cracking and ripping at the seams, it isn't happening. When he receives those papers back, they're all top marked. He gets pulled aside and told it's the best paper they've ever had the pleasure of reading. He's sixteen and the happiest he's ever been in jolly old England, and perhaps it's true, perhaps he was. Perhaps everything was fine because he wanted desperately for it to be. He's vomiting and Googling _how many OxyContin to overdose?_ There's no answer, it depends on the person, which means he can take another few and be just fine. The label says _Do Not Take With Alcohol._ He uses vodka to wash them down. But none of that actually happened because it was fine and he was happy but the problem here is that he actually was happy, immensely so, was it such a crime that he'd just wanted to live it - He knows it was. He knows this is a problem, and it's Erik's job to make him the best version of himself he can possibly be, to expect no less than that of him, to be inspired to the same as a result. That's what this is about, that's why he consented to this, signed a contract and hung it up on the wall. When he's earned discipline, he gets it. And he's twisted up inside. He's guilty and ashamed and sick with it. It doesn't make him any happier about it. He's been in the same Posture for longer than he normally does the set for, and he's timed it out to be rather perfect, but it doesn't matter if Erik is going to cool off. He's sure he's watching, but Charles slouches a little anyway, sniffling. Everything was fine.  
  
The point is that it's not fine. It's not fine that Erik was lied to. It's not fine that every good thing they've been building has been tainted by hidden bloody napkins and excruciating migraines shoved beneath doors that Erik purposefully held no access to. Of course it isn't malicious, Charles isn't a malicious person, but his intentions-a person's intentions aren't always what matter. Sometimes what matters is simply the outcome, and the outcome is that Erik was cast away. He was left outside. He was left to participate in this charade, this caricature of wellness he couldn't differentiate. Sure, Charles is guilty and ashamed because Erik finally saw him. He still insists it's fine, he still insists that he didn't mean to-and that means Charles really doesn't see the impact of his actions on the greater whole of their relationship. If every time something of this magnitude happens Charles sees fit to hide it, because he can do that and there is nothing Erik can do. He knows Charles inside out as he knows himself and can Charles even comprehend how much that affects him? Because he should have known anyway, he should have figured it out. He's so watchful and observant for the slightest twitch and tick, Charles had to have modified him to some extent; and he's not particularly frightened or upset about the method, more that Charles saw fit to do it in the first place. So that he could continue to live out his existence of pain and misery because it was all fine. Well it isn't fine and Erik will not accept that, and if Erik has to enact discipline in order to drive that home, he will. Because Charles is right in the end; it is his job. It's his job to know, to ensure Charles is the best he can be, and that means he needs to be with Erik. Not alone. Never alone, never again. Erik finishes his coffee.  
  
It isn't fine. He meant to. He knows exactly what it amounts to, and the fact that this is the way he's been taught to handle things, the way he always has - It doesn't much matter, because the end result is this. It's Erik's job to correct him when he fails, and it isn't Erik who failed here. Charles waits on his knees at Rest and he doesn't cry, even as his lip trembles, even as he sniffles, even as some of his instincts say to get up and run and not face this, either. But what good has that ever done? What positive change has it ever inspired? He isn't frightened, he never is with Erik. But there's something strikingly different about this than any other time Erik has seen fit to discipline; Charles instigated every serious session that came before this. Even if he didn't know it consciously, he was looking for discipline to put him back in place, to remind or reassure. His actions were worth that reaction, but even still. This isn't that. Charles feels it settle into his stomach, the weight of it. It isn't a good feeling.  
  
No, it isn't. And Erik has come to realize that he has a need for enacting discipline just as much as Charles has a need to be disciplined. As Charles settles back into Rest, Erik comes back in, his mind shuttered off and expression looming, vivid eyes dulled to near-normal. "It is clear that you understand exactly what you've done, and we've discussed the whys," he speaks lowly, the same calm, even voice as he crouches down to Charles's height like a predator surveying its pray, balancing on the balls of his feet as though ready to pounce. "I understand that you are in pain; that you are using coping mechanisms you have always used. That will not fly with me. It never will. You may be able to fool me periodically, as you've done, but I will find out. I will always find out, because I know you, Charles. For a split-second, you made me feel like I do not know you. And I will not abide that. You are punishing yourself for your own pain, and I have no intention of contributing to that. You did not want me to help you. You did not want my presence. So I'm not going to cane you or strike you. Get into Child's Pose." Now his voice is hard, like hammers and nails.  
  
Charles knew it was coming. It doesn't make it any less unpleasant, the way his stomach lurches at just the words, the way he trembles even as he goes smoothly because not only is there no room for disobedience here, there's no room for mistake. It's not a stress Posture, or humiliating by nature, but Charles has never once enjoyed this - needed it, but that's wholly different from wanting. He straightens out and doesn't tense besides the clench of his jaw, the only thing keeping him from letting out a sob. Everything is taken from him like this, denied, and it's immediate: his privilege to speak freely, to use his Dominant's name, to feel his beautiful mind (and how fitting, when Charles has been carefully guarding his own for days now). It isn't pleasant, but if Charles can't accept it when he needs it outside of genuine fear and concerns then the contract on the wall really means nothing, and he won't accept that.  
  
It is fitting, and it's what Erik has grasped onto and wrenched; that distance, that numbness, that denial separating him from Erik, casting him away, turning him into an outsider. If that is what Charles wants, then Erik will give it to him. In small measures. A fitting punishment. "You will be here for an hour," Erik tells him, voice flat and hard. "I will return after that period of time. I recommend you use that time to really consider what it is you would like out of our relationship, for yourself and for me." All at once Erik's mind recedes, but for the smallest thread; a ripcord to pull on if necessary, a golden-glowing line leading between them that can't be stifled, and that Erik doesn't try to stifle. But inasmuch as Erik will permit, Charles really is alone once he steps out of the room. Alone, just like he wanted to be.  
  
It hurts. Perhaps a cane would have been effective - there are times it's incredibly effective, and he's sure it will be in the future - but this stings more. It's absolutely agonizing, far worse than twelve strikes could ever hope to be. When he can no longer follow him with his ears - and he really couldn't past the door closing, his Dominant has a way of walking so quietly he's sometimes startled when they are connected and he knows, intellectually, exactly where he is - he begins to truly sniffle. He tries to count minutes, and eventually, against all odds because Charles is incredibly good at this sort of thing, he loses track. He can't remember if it was seventeen or eighteen because he loses track of the seconds and it's all downhill from there. He knows what he wants. He knows perfectly well, and it's never changed. He'd let a nasty habit he'd learned rote ( _"what are you talking about, Charles? Don't be silly, everything's just fine_ ") get the better of him, overcome his devotion and submission and trust in his Dominant, and that's what eats at him. That he'd made the mistake at all, that he'd chosen to lie and omit when he'd paid such lip service to honesty and openness. It isn't lip service, he knows it isn't. He'd messed up. He'd gotten twisted and reacted to fear and pain with an old instinct (hide, deny, don't let anyone know, suffer silently), but he knows he'd always wanted his Dominant to know. How could he protect and care for him if he didn't? How could they have a healthy foundation of trust and respect if Charles hides everytime he gets scared, cuts him off as if he isn't worth trusting? Undermines his Will because it's, perhaps, easier in the moment?  
  
He's crying before he realizes he is. Part of him wonders if he really will be left like this indefinitely, if anyone is coming back. If it's been centuries or ages already because it certainly feels like it, and every sobbing, choked breath feels like it takes up the space of days. But he trusts his Dominant, as he always should have. When Charles falters, when he fails, when he errs and transgresses, it's his Dominant's job to show him better. To discipline him. He'll come back. He'll come back, and he won't be left here. He doesn't want this. He doesn't want to be alone. It's awful, well and truly awful. It hurts, it aches, it's so empty he forgets to breathe a few times, trembling all over as he cries. But he stays in position, and he doesn't tug that cord he knows is there. He stays still and he cries and he hurts and he trusts his Dominant, like he always should have. He trusts him. He does. More than any instinct to hide. He trusts him. He doesn't want this. He wants exactly what he's denied both of them.  
  
The minutes tick by slowly, so slowly, and Erik doesn't break. He doesn't nudge or tap or soothe, he endures it, until Charles finally begins to see past the fear and past the ache and past the breathless panic, and into himself. Until he does exactly what Erik asked of him, until he really considers what happened, what it means, and where to go from here. It takes a long time before Charles finally does begin to cry, until he does begin to reach for that trust that he knows is there, has always been there, until he reaches for it instinctively only to find it gone because he wanted it gone, until he realizes that Erik belongs there with him. Erik is no fairweather Dominant. Things do not have to be peaceful and pleasant for him to love Charles. He just needs to love him, to be there to love him. The hour does go by, a century, a year, a minute. A breath. A heartbeat. And Erik's before him, light-footed and ghostly-gliding over the floor as he's wont to do, until Charles feels fingertips on his jaw and senses the folding, hard blinds shuttered over Erik's mind begin to open and stream in the light.  
  
It's such a relief that Charles chokes on it, coughs and sputters, and he's calmed down from the wrenching sobs that started somewhere near the half-hour mark, dissolved into quiet, wet sniffles, but now he whimpers loudly. He wants to reach for that presence and grab, to wrap it around his fingers and tug and never let it go, but he doesn't because he's still in this position. His eyes are red-rimmed, dark circles that he's been hiding but doesn't now, his face stained with tears and snot, and he's forgotten what it is not to be trembling and horrifically empty. He knew his Dominant would come back but that he did heals something panicked and vulnerable and small. He trusts him. He trusted him to come back, and he trusts him with everything. He does, he does, he does. He doesn't want to be alone anymore. He can't be. Please don't leave him alone, he's so sorry he ever cast him away. He's so, so sorry, but he doesn't say it, he doesn't think it, waits as he starts to cry in earnest again.

* * *

Erik's mind has been somewhat closed off since he found Charles in that bathroom, but now it roars to life, a blinding, glittering supernova amidst a deep, inky blackness that is still as full of love as the day they met; even in anger nothing had been lost. Nothing could be lost. Erik wraps up all those tendrils of love and infuses them through his Will, and bundles Charles up in it, leading him slowly to his knees so he can hold him, rest his head on his shoulder and card his fingers through his hair. _I'm here, neshama. I've got you. I love you very much. I will always come back for you, sweetheart. Always. Do you know that? Do you know?_ he smiles sincerely for the first time in what feels like years, but has only really been hours.  
  
Charles knows. But he can't even nod as he trembles against Erik, can't conjure up the words. He doesn't think he has them right now. He's completely overwhelmed, sobbing wet and loud into Erik's shoulder, his entire body wracked with the force of it though he thinks he should have cried himself dry by now. He doesn't move from where he's put, doesn't grab or cling, stays shaking and crying and gasping for air, whimpering, sputtering, but his mind has found Erik's, intertwined, slotted itself into place in their connection, their Bond, after he'd nudged it slightly out of sync for days now. It feels like learning how to breathe again even as he coughs and tries to get enough air through the sobs, which he can't seem to stop.  
  
Erik doesn't expect a response, he just gathers Charles up, legs and knees and arms and all, into his hold and rocks him very lightly, letting him get tears and snot all over his shirt with no complaint whatsoever, just keeps murmuring things in his ear mostly along the same lines. This has been coming for a while, Erik knows-now. Now that he's aware, of course it has. The hiding, the secrecy, the pain, the maladjustment; it's all lead to one thing-the inevitable collapse of those barriers, and Erik is here to be the shield instead, for Charles to lean on as he should, heavily and without reservation. _I've got you. I love you so very much, tayer._  
  
For a long time, Charles does nothing but cry. Eventually his sobs become hitched breaths and silent tears, and then those become hiccups, painful in their force. He's limp and pliant in Erik's arms, shivering when he calms enough to stop shaking like a leaf, but every time he thinks he's done he cries more. When his mind forms something resembling coherent, deliberate thought, it's still more conceptual than actual words, the telepathic language he knows more instinctively than any other: _all done?/please/sorry forgiveness still mad?._  
  
 _All done,_ Erik presses back, kissing the top of his head, lifting his chin to wipe away tears that continue to fall over his thumbs, kissing at them as well. _I forgive you, dear-one. I always will._ It's the reason he'd been mad in the first place, not because Charles had completed some random act of malice or even because he enjoyed the power and thrill of rage, but because he couldn't take care of Charles, because he was worried and confused and alone. Just-as alone, because he wasn't seeing the Real Charles. But they come back to each other, just as Erik came back to him. Charles came back, and of course Erik takes him in with open arms. _Not mad,_ he promises softly.  
  
 _All done. All forgiven._ If there is a part of him that was still tensed, it completely relaxes now, boneless and limp and mostly in Erik's lap. He's calmed down, but not calmed down. His mind isn't making words, just thoughts and images and all done, all forgiven and the reminder that Erik is here and that he came back and that Charles can feel him. It feels more like a drop than the floaty, warm subspace he's used to, like he's been thrown into the ocean and Erik's Will is the only thing keeping him from drowning, but that's alright, too. He trusts Erik with that vulnerability, too. He does. Erik will take care of him. That's what his Dominant is supposed to do.  
  
Erik's always been afraid of the water. He's a creature of the desert, after all, but eventually triggers get the best of him until it's a call-response to terror itself. But as Charles sinks deeper into that ocean Erik runs off the pier and dives in without a single moment of hesitation, grabbing onto him like a lifeline and submerging underneath with him, and with a burst of Will that flies out of him, they can both breathe again. _I'm here,_ he says in the depths. _I've got you. You're safe._  
  
Charles doesn't know how to float back to the surface, or if he ever really gets there these days. He doesn't know what's up and down - _I know he's the only one who's ever been able to put you down, Charles_ \- because subspace is less a mythical fairytale-realm and more a permanent reality. He just knows there's Erik, and there's his place, and that it's with Erik and that he knows it and he'd never actually forgotten it. So Charles doesn't think too hard about it, doesn't panic or try to force anything, just stays hiccupping against Erik's shoulder, nuzzles in closer, soft whimpers and easy breaths and he's Erik's and he was never meant to be anything else. His mind clings to Erik's, tethered and embraced, whispers _love you/submission/all done all forgiven/not alone_ and he doesn't worry about anything else. He lets Erik handle it, and trusts him with everything that he is.  
  
He rubs his hand over Charles's back rhythmically, and he's realizing that the surface isn't really the surface of the ocean at all. It's more like a cave, a pocket of air within the ocean where he can rely on himself, where he isn't completely dependent on Erik, but that still very-much exists within the deep-down space. Most couples do scenes, sessions of intimate play that start and end in specific times and places, but that's never been the case with them outside of discipline. And even then there is no real start or end, it's simply a different application of the exact same thing. They are themselves at all times, a little more or a little less vulnerable and dependent, but always steeped in one another. In Will, in subspace, whatever that may look like, in Dominion, it all swirls around. A cosmic whole. Erik is settled now, stroking Charles's hair and kissing him and singing to him under his breath, raspy little things that make no sense. _Loose lips might sink ships but loose kisses take trips to San Francisco double-dutch disco..._ He grins. _Forgiven. Not alone._  
  
Charles still isn't thinking in words. It usually doesn't take nearly as long for those to come back, if they leave at all, but he's not questioning it because he doesn't have the ability to do that right now. This is perhaps the way his mind naturally works - in images and concepts, in telepathic projection, in rapid-fire processing and soft humming and deep submission, vulnerable but not frightening, things like words and constructed language unnecessary tools and foreign entities that would only trip over themselves. He meets Erik where it matters, draws up memories to ask for what he wants instead of requesting - replays Erik telling him stories and singing, calling him sweetheart, stroking his hair, presses it into him as he murmurs not-words, just soft noises, and sniffles into his neck. It's accompanied by please, but rather than a word, English or Hebrew or French, it's breathless anticipation and bright-wide eyes pleading and grateful devotion because he knows Erik will give him what he needs. This is perhaps Charles more bare than he's ever been, more raw, his submission, his self, broken down to the core elements with nothing to obscure them.  
  
That's all right, Erik doesn't need words. He only needs Charles, and he soaks it all up, grateful and pleased for it. What comes next is topical, at best, Erik barely thinks of it before he's reciting it, in a dry, amused sort of cant. Where his Dominion has free reign, where he can stretch out and be received by the one person who will never be obliterated by it. The Atrocity is lost along with its secret cargo and all aboard _... shhhhhhhhhhhh ... and who would ever know of the pocket of air in that second hold where one man hid, having sealed the doors, creating a momentary bit of inside, a place to live in, to breathe in, a man who survived the blast and the water and instead lived to feel another kind of death, a closing in of such impenetrable darkness./By you, this World has everything left to lose./And I, your sentry of ice, shall allways protect/what your Joy so dangerously resumes./I’ll destroy no World/so long it keeps turning with flurry & gush,/petals & stems bending and lush,/and allways our hushes returning anew.  
_

* * *

Erik's voice, even if it's only like this, only in his head - everything is and outside of it, it doesn't much matter, Charles exists in a world where imagination and thought is his only limit - grounds him more than anything ever has, until he's warm and safe and made of tremulous smiles, peeked up through tears still clung to eyelashes and vivid blue edged with red. He hums and the world reforms a thousand times over, until the Real is memories and thoughts and the sound of Erik's voice. Dropped in the desert, but that's too hot, Charles is sweat-slick and nose scrunched, it feels like home because it's Erik's home but then he thinks of Oxford, rainy overcast skies, umbrellas, it's cold and shivery and perhaps dreadful but he likes it. Inside, outside, they're everywhere, the entire world at their fingertips and time and space completely irrelevant. Charles is expanding outward, his mind a wide-open expanse that might consume if it wasn't so utterly consumed by Erik.  
  
Wind-chimes tinkle in the distance where their bare feet hit the hot, hot sand underneath and it is sand, or more accurately dirt because there are no roads here, just carved out pathways where rusty vehicles make their voyage and Iakov slides himself out from under the car and looks at them both, amused and chiding. _What are you just standing there for, hm? Waiting for the rain? It never rains here!_ Throwing his arms out, petulant and bored and hot. And the droplets land on his face all at once from amongst the twisted treetops, and they're soaked and walking on cobble-street paths surrounded by looming, magnificent architecture and Erik's pressed into his side, grinning and delighted. _Ani ohev hageshem!_ And the rain is warm, washing away the blood and the hidden desperation until it runs down the streets and sinks into the gutters.  
  
Somewhere along the way, Charles gets dragged somewhere else, somewhere half-thought and half-stepped, because he isn't grounded in anything that isn't Erik. There's flashing, rapid-recall memories and images and concepts and every word ever said to him and every place he's ever been and every dream he's ever had, every thought he's ever thought and everything converging on Erik. There's rain in the desert but it doesn't wash away the blood. He murmurs, confused and unsettled, and it's all rubbed into Erik's skin, his shirt, thick red droplets of it.  
  
Erik is afraid, there's blood on the sand and he can't look at it, look away, look away- but it's Charles, it's for Charles, it's on him for Charles so he takes it and takes it. Takes it into himself, lets it soak him and cover him, and he's been here before. He's been here before with blood on his tanned skin, tinged darker for it and running down freckled arms and tracing over scars and dripping off his fingertips as they dig in and he stands and closes his eyes and breathes and holds on, eyes fluttering under closed lids as he watches floating thoughts and phrases and memories flick by like pages from a book turned too quickly. He's been here before and he can take this blood, too.  
  
Charles I need you to stop fidgeting if you're good perhaps you'll get a treat / he could be the reason, yes. Sharon was devastated, and to think we might have... / _Charlie! look here's what we're going to do / Father is DEAD Charles do you understand that do you know what that means you couldn't possibly please just go to bed Mummy needs to rest / oh, Charles, don't be dramatic. Hush, Mother needs another drink (you're the reason he's dead) / Ruthie!_ atzor! Chozeret kan _/ my name's Raven are you really not going to tell on me? /_ findest du Kraft, Kleiner Erik _/ wow you're just a scrawny little bitch huh listen this is how it's going to work / need a good fuck, don't you? / stupid WHORE / you're a worthless, hopeless brat and if you didn't come with an inheritance you'd be out on the streets / cry HARDER for MOMMY she's not coming you dumb slut / Charles this really is becoming a problem / maybe you shouldn't be here, son. This just isn't the place for you. it's just not a world built for people like you. / just do as you're told for ONCE! /_ findest... du... Kraft _/ make everyone the bad guy / Tie you to my bed and show you your place /_ CHARLES OH NO OH MY _\- / we both know this isn't working / die alone... / are you afraid Charles / you're drunk again / You are a telepath. / mindless whore mindless whore mindless whore / erik help me please_  
  
 _Dies ist dein Platz. Du werden sich ohne Frage Präsentieren. Du hast es wunderbar gemacht, kleiner Erik. Du kannst damit aufhören. О, маленький ребенок. Никто не придет за тобой, маленькая мышка. Ты знаешь, почему я это делаю? Когда мы в земле, мы больше не люди. Я не могу похоронить тебя в земле, поэтому я возьму тебя на землю. Делай, что хочешь, господин Иванов. Ваши склонности меня не интересуют. Findest du Kraft, Erik? Tu es. Zeig mir deine Kraft. Sie sehen, Frau Frost. Er hat keine Angst mehr._ I'm not afraid anymore. The place for you is here, with me. The world we will build is for the both of us. We are building it now. Every word, every stroke, every sigh. A torturer turned-caretaker. A brilliant, lonely man who has found his companion at last. His guide. Your Dominant. _Binden Sie ihn fest, Mr. Wyndgarde. Er weiß was zu tun ist. Fick ihn wenigstens so, als hättest du eine Erektion!_ I will tie you to me. When I tie you I will keep you and I will hold you and I will love you because I know what to do. I have found my strength. Here. I can help. I can help. I've got you. Hand in hand. _Die Waffe ist noch nicht einmal geladen und du zuckst zusammen. Schwaches Stück Müll. Wo hast du das gelernt, Jeschiwa? Sie legen Ihre Hand vor Ihr Gesicht. Diese Hand gehört mir. Mal sehen, wie du ohne auskommst._ I've got you! Take my hand! He has it now. He has it. Erik grabs him, hand-in-hand. He knows his strength and it isn't power and suffering. It is Charles, and it always has been. Even then. _Yahol atah shomea li?_ Heellooooooooooo? I'm right here. _Lo, lo._ Hand over his eyes, shielding from the- _Ich kann dich nicht hören Bitte hör mich nicht._ I hear you now. I hear you now and I always have and I always will. Come home to me. Come home.  
  
Something is screeching. Someone is screaming. It's him, and it hurts, but Erik is here and he was always here and he is safe and he clings to his shirt and wrenches them both out and there's so much screaming and so much blood and part of it is his and some of it is Erik's and then he's coughing and - There's blood on his hands and he stares up at Erik, wide-eyed and terrified, and this time he doesn't edit. It hurts and he will let Erik help the hurt. "I'm scared, Erik," he gasps, and there's blood all over his face but neither of them are strangers to blood or pain or to each other.  
  
"I know," Erik whispers back, covering those bloodied hands with his own, taking the blood into his own skin without a flinch. He raises Charles's fingers to his lips and kisses his knuckle, leaving a trail of blood on his lip that he doesn't wipe off. "Me, too. Me too. But it's OK to be scared. We're in this together. Whatever happens, we will face it together. I will take care of you. Always." His eyes are locked on Charles's, azure to painted sea. Erik's are wide and stunned, but he's steady. He's here and he's steady and he's got Charles in his hands and by his side and they will be OK.  
  
When his telepathy first manifested, Charles had wondered if it was a curse. If it would kill him. The migraines, the awful truths. What if it does? "I don't know what to do," he admits, and it hurts and he reaches for his temples, kneads them viciously, but it doesn't rub away. There's a reason most omega-class mutants die in infancy. What if he's run out the clock? What if this is all he gets?  
  
"I know," Erik tugs his hands away and presses Charles's head to his chest instead, twining his hand through the hair at the nape of his neck. "I won't let it happen," he shakes his head, a deep, clawing fear rising up in his chest like bile threatening to expel, hot and sickly-sweet and thick and cloying, like garbage, like rotting meat, like burning corpses. Charles can't die, he can't. He can't. Erik doesn't know how to save lives. Please, G-d, let him learn. Let him learn. Erik's rocking back and forth, a pattern Charles recognizes from prayer. I will do anything. I will be anything. Please let me save him _-Mi shaberich avoteinu avraham, yitzhak, v'yaakov, vimoteinu sarah, rivka, rachel v'leah hu yivarech virapei et hacholeh charles xavier hakadosh baruch hu_ \- Erik is his Dominant. Erik promised to protect him. And Charles's mind bends to him, it does, his fingerprints are all along the inside of Charles's neurons, dusted-reveals spiral-whorls unique to him and him alone, he can make images and noise and thoughts and feelings, he will learn, he will learn, he refuses to let Charles suffer. How come Erik doesn't struggle this way with his abilities? What Shaw did to him? Did it make him strong? Did he find his strength? Charles always watches him, always marvels at his intricate control. "It won't be," he murmurs, so soft. "It won't be all you get. I won't let that happen. I will go down into Sheol myself and pull you out."  
  
Charles bows his head, frightened and ashamed. He is hurting Erik with his pain because he is weak. Because he is the subby little bitch who snivels and cries for his mother when she could not possibly care less, who clings, cloying and whimpering like a baby, and Erik is strong. Erik is stronger. Erik has found his strength and Charles will not because it does not exist. "I'm sorry," he whispers, trembling.

* * *

 _No, no. Stop it._ Erik puts his hand on Charles's face, framing both sides of his jaw gently, pressing his forehead against his temple. Weak and strong, they're stupid words. No one ever uses weak and strong for good things. Erik found his strength because it was beaten into him until the fear burned out, eighteen thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Charles is weak because he cowered at flying fists. It's nonsense, it's nonsense and Erik rejects it. That isn't strength. That isn't weakness. It's abuse and disgusting perpetration and it has no part with them. Erik cried for his mother, too, and then he screamed her away so she wouldn't see what he'd become. What he did, how he acted, how he begged for it, how he lured and charmed and seduced and loved it on camera. Strength means you shed your mother and you shed your fear and you turn into a cold, hard dead thing, a piece of coal smoothed out into nothing, nothing, nothing. That isn't strength. Erik's real strength comes from here. He puts his hand on Charles's heart. _Everything I have ever done for good has come from you and I. From your strength. It exists right here. I see it every day. Do not hide your pain away from me. I want it. Perhaps that is strange and awful, I should not want your pain, but it is mine. It is mine as it is yours and I want it. I will bear it with you._  
  
Charles clings tight to Erik, fingers tangled up in his shirt, clenched fists and reddened eyes and he doesn't feel strong. He's in pain and he's bleeding and it hurts, but he tightens up against it and he doesn't hide away. He doesn't hide away. "You don't think... it's because I'm too weak?" he asks, and his voice shakes, but he doesn't look away. All his life he's been told that he's weak, and he's done everything - everything - to appear strong. To be everything but who he was, because who he was? Who he is, is fundamentally weak. _Non ducor, duco._  
  
"Our minds are so close, Charles, all the time. Look at me. Look, not just at my eyes. See what I see. Have you ever seen within me, that I have thought of you as weak? Not ever. What I do think is that weak and strong are stupid words. I don't think they have a place with us. It is hardly relevant. We're the strongest beings in this country, most likely." He gives a little smirk. "And together we are unstoppable. You make me strong, not because I snarl and rage and fight and scream. Because I've cried with you. I've grieved with you. I've shown you my pain. I've faced it with you. I could never do that alone. You gave me that strength, from you, and you have done so in return. That is strength. I will guide, and I will walk with you, Charles."  
  
Charles shakes his head even though it makes the entire world spin. Erik doesn't think he's weak. He doesn't think Charles needs to change, to put on a front, to wear a mask and a smile and conceal his true self. Not with a ring or a cure or a raised chin. He's only ever encouraged the opposite. It hurts to keep his eyes open. Something is still bleeding. He curls into Erik's lap, into his chest, keeps his fingers tightly clenched in the fabric of his shirt. "It hurts, Erik," he admits, barely audible, and lets Erik know. Because he deserves to, because he's more than learned his lesson, and because that is strength, too. Because they are stronger together.  
  
"I know, sweetheart," Erik whispers, kissing his temple and rocking him gently, little half-aborted movements not nearly enough to shudder the world with dizzy agony. Simple reminders of his presence in swaying dance, curled up together to face the storm. "Share it with me. Let me see. It's mine, too."  
  
It is agony, but it's far less with Erik. He doesn't seem to mind that he'd leaked tears and snot and spit all over him and now he's following it up blood, ruining what's a perfectly good sweater. Charles sniffs and lets himself be rocked, lets Erik take care of him as he's meant to. It hurts, it's seething and loud and inescapable, but with Erik it's at least more bearable. "Erik?" he whispers, when some of the pain has dissipated. He sounds terrified, small, voice cracked and vulnerable from the deep-dark. He feels that way, too.  
  
"I'm right here," Erik says back, brushing his hair from his face, wiping away that blood with his sleeve because he doesn't care about the sweater; it's a good sweater and it feels wonderful on his skin, and that's why he chose it-it's how he chooses all of his clothes-they're smart and well-styled but they're all soft and comfortable and wrap him up in nice sensations every day, and that's something Charles has given him-something he never thought he could have, even his clothing is a gift and he smiles. But it's just a sweater. He can get another one, or maybe he'll wear this one too, because he doesn't care if there's Charles on it. He'll wear this badge with pride. "I'm right here," he repeats, so soft. "What do you want to tell me, dear-heart, hm?" He cups his cheek, rubbing his thumb along the bone under his eye.  
  
Charles doesn't open his eyes, his temples still pounding insistently, his nose still occasionally trickling blood. The images he shows are jagged and shaky, strangely faded and hazy, like all of his memories are before a certain point. Erik has seen glimpses of this, but not the whole; there are still parts of him to share, but these are things he's almost forgotten. He is young, incredibly young, swaddled in a too-big bed. He wants to go outside and play, but he can't. He's running a fever. If he sits up, he'll lose his stomach. He's dizzy and whoozy, he can't keep down food. The Charles Erik met in his bedroom years later was thin as a rail, but not like this. This Charles is tiny and fragile and sickly, ghostly pale beyond what is natural. He misses his horse, Red; he can't play with her because he's undergoing treatment. He does his lessons in bed, asks his father if he can borrow his books because he's far outgrown the ones for children. He has frequent nosebleeds. "I was a very sick child," he says, quietly.  
  
Erik is overcome with the urge to go to that child and grab him up and cradle him close and keep him warm and safe from every single threat, every single drop of terror and fear, evaporate any sign of pain. He just inhales slowly through his nose and lets those instincts out for his submissive in the here and now, because he can do that, he can care for Charles. "I suspected you were," he replies solemnly, softly. Charles has mentioned it a few times, or perhaps Erik has seen glimpses of it-as mentioned, but either way he can put the pieces together. Erik never was sick with it. Omega-level mutants are so rare and so many of them die in childhood, overloaded and overwhelmed by their capacity, but Erik was always strong, always rough-and-tumble and grinning and running and absorbing the sunlight; the Earth took care of him and he took care of the Earth, a hardy, sturdy child with no clue that he can smash planets together. Erik shakes his head, guilty for it. He can reverse the very orbit of this globe, but he can't remove that persistent pain from Charles, so what good is it, anyway? Nothing. It's worth nothing.  
  
Charles shakes his head. He doesn't remember properly. He was too young, and it was before he remembered everything. His mind didn't do things like it does now. It hurts to go searching; his head rebels, screeching and sick, but he pushes right through it. A man who looks very little like him sits on his bed. He takes so much after his mother in looks, but perhaps they have similar face shapes. Father says, _"Take the red pill, and then the blue, Charles. If you are sick we will need to repeat the experiment."_ Dr. Xavier is kind about it, at least. The red pill does nothing except taste strongly of medicine. The blue pill turns the world upside down in Earth-shattering agony. He becomes sick, and his father sighs, pats his head. _"It's alright, Charles. We'll try again tomorrow."_  
  
Erik detests him and always has. This is no secret but it becomes amplified into a roaring rage when the images are shown; a rage that he carefully wraps up and buries under the Earth in the biggest landscape he can find, because Charles doesn't need rage. He needs love, and now Erik can love because Charles gave that to him, too. He experimented on you, Erik states, bluntly obvious; obviously that is what is happening but he's so shocked and horrified it's the first thing that pops out of his stupid head. His arms tighten their hold and he tucks Charles's head under his chin. _You should never have endured that, Charles. Not ever._  
  
This is part of his past that he has not yet processed. He goes easily when Erik tucks him beneath his chin, shivering and yet hot from the onslaught of pain that still has him clammy and reeling, but he shakes his head. Perhaps he was helping, he offers, weakly. He doesn't know why he still feels the need to defend the father he never truly knew. Because he was the one Charles believed he had, that he had lost, maybe; if he was rotten, too, it sours the whole lot. Then there is nothing good for him to sprout from, and does that not make him poisoned, too? Does a tree sewn from a rotting, wretched seed not grow into more of the same?  
  
 _That is not how human beings work,_ Erik tells him quietly. _You had Raven, h_ e rationalizes in Charles-speak, in a language he can understand at the moment. _She helped you; she showed you what real love is like._ And despite the catering, it is true on some level. Charles learned goodness from somewhere, unlike Cain Marko who knew only violence and only begot it, and only sought to apologize upon a likely order from Mr. Ivanov. _You watched your parents and you realized that what they were doing, is not something you wish to do to another human being._ Erik pauses, unsure if his own experiences are welcome in this space; if he's taking-over and making it about him when it's not-but he teaches by example, he speaks by example, he relates by drawing lines to his own experiences, he feels others' viscerally as a result because he can pinpoint the exact sensations as they occurred to him in the past; enough to make him shudder in sympathy.  
  
They relate to each other, and it is always, in some way, about them. Whether they have wanted it that way or not, what they experience is shared. One cannot be separated from the other, but they can learn from each other. It's strange to consider it, that their experiences mirror each other in unexpected, sometimes inexplicable ways; as if someone thread them together and set them on paths meant to converge right here where they could help each other most. "I need to know," he mumbles suddenly, into Erik's soiled sweater. _But I don't want to._  
  
Erik kisses him, gentle. A kiss of all the things between them that are adoring and lovely, companionship and partnership and mutual trust. Trust that sometimes needs to be reminded, but all the same, it is there. _All I knew from age eleven onward was torture and rape,_ Erik says, and it's the first time he's really said it for himself. Not because he was on trial or because Carmen was encouraging him to use blunt words. _Don't prevaricate._ _I became a violent person. There were no seeds in me to grow. They were extracted and hardened and became only gnarled steel. But my mother visited me in my dreams and appeared at my bedside and I stole away literature that told me the world I lived in was not good. I wanted to be good, so badly. Just like you. Everything I know, everything I do to you, everything I say to you and expect of you, is in exact opposition to what was drilled into me. I look at those things and I think, it might be good to have them, for this singular purpose. To know exactly what I must never do. To know exactly how I must never harm._ He gives a small smile and kisses Charles on the head. _I think you might relate, if you look really hard. If you look. With that gorgeous, strong, vibrant, incredible mind of yours. I know that you need to know. And I know it will be hard, because you will see things as they really are. But I need you to know that there is simply no reflection within you. You are good. You are good and you are mine and nothing you could ever learn or say will change that. I know you. Even when you hide away, I know you. Whenever you are ready to explore this, I will be there with you. You are not alone. Never again. I will never leave you._  
  
Charles is grateful that his eyes are not open. That he has shut them tight to keep out the bright morning sun and the edges of pain. _What if you're wrong, Erik? What if I'm exactly like them?_  
  
 _Let me tell you a secret,_ Erik smiles, and somehow in this dark place full of blood and tears, his eyes manage to brighten, crinkling at the corners kindly. _Even if, even if somehow it were true and you are revealed to be this monstrous, vile creature that you are so afraid of becoming- I will still love you. You will still be mine. I will still be here. I will become a monster alongside you and we will terrorize the universe together. You are mine, Charles Xavier. I am afraid there is nothing that can be done to change it._ He taps him on the nose. _But I happen to know for a fact that I am not wrong. I happen to know for a fact that you are the most kind, generous, loyal, compassionate, intelligent, accomplished, beautiful person I have ever met. And if I am wrong, that means I am a monster as well, for my moral compass must be entirely broken, and I will walk beside you in all my monstrous glory._  
  
Charles can't help it. He starts to laugh. He laughs, sniffling and hoarse and choking on it. He laughs still trembling with the aftershocks of pain, bloodied and sick and sweating. His shoulders shake and he laughs, ridiculously, miraculously, perhaps a tad hysterically until he is smiling, too, until he is dimpled and soft and no longer so afraid. "I love you," he croaks, and kisses Erik again for good measure. Sits up in his lap until he can cup his face, stroke feather light over his jaw, the bruise faded and colorful now. Presses their foreheads together and does not mind that he is smearing dried blood all over his other half, because it belongs to him, too, and there is no reality in which Charles is not his. "But it's already been too long, Erik," he whispers, and sighs. This is something buried that cannot be buried anymore; every second he lets that secret-place sit under his property, collecting dust, is a second it eats away at him, and another second he does not know what is his to know and could help them now. He did not look last time. He did not acknowledge. He locked it away, and he left it to rest, but it's rested much longer than weeks. _It's already been too long,_ he repeats, quiet and solemn.  
  
 _Then it has been too long,_ Erik agrees simply. _But it is never too late. We are here now, together. As you have seen, that changes things. You have a big, strong Dominant at your side who will ensure that nothing, not any single thing that this experience on Earth that we human beings call life, will come to harm you. When you are ready to go there, we will go. That place belongs to us, now. Not to fear and secrecy. We will rebuild it in a better image. We will make it a place of love and hope, and safety for our kind. And that is how I know you are nothing like the ones who built it_. He leans back slightly, cupping Charles's jaw to kiss him soft. _Ani ohev otcha, me'od._  
  
 _Ani ohev otcha,_ he breathes, and shakes his head. He shakes his head and laughs again, ducking it as he sniffles, sucking up snot and blood and wiping it uselessly on his own arm. _You're right. There is not a chance that they could have conceptualized a love like this. I cannot possibly be the same._ But there are practical issues here, because as much as Charles would rather not wait and dread, they do not have the luxury of certain things. _I don't want to go without you,_ he huffs, because even the thought of it makes him want to retch.  
  
 _You will not,_ Erik promises. Even if I cannot be there in body, _I will still be with you. We have proven very capable of surpassing such nonsense as the physical realm_ , Erik grins, rubbing his back and tracing over the healing claw-marks he left only a week ago. A week seems like so long, and yet not long enough. A week of arguments and chess games and laughter and planning and kissing and making love, as Charles called it. Erik's trying to get better at that. He's still much more fond of fucking, thank you very much, but it's impossible to deny that even the lewd, filthy aspects of him are full of devotion and affection and yes, love. And in the heat of the moment he wondered if all those things were moot because of what Charles hid from him, but it turns out that isn't the case, because they still exist, they still happened, they still have them. Only now they're more. Because Charles is here, all of him, and they have deeper to go yet.   
  
_My plant, his chair,/I'm thinking This is where/we live. When we were little we made houses out of cardboard boxes./We can do anything. It's not because/our hearts are large, they're not,/it's what we struggle with./We have been very brave, we have wanted to know the worst,/wanted the curtain to be lifted from our eyes./This dream going on with all of us in it./Here is the river, and here is the box, and here are the monsters we put in the box to test our strength against./We were in the gold room/where everyone finally gets what they want./I said This is the Moon. This is the Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take you there. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugarcube... We were in the gold room where everyone/so I said What do you want, sweetheart? and you said Kiss me./We are all going forward./None of us are going back._

* * *

Charles giggles out another hiccupped laugh, resting in Erik's lap and against his chest. Exactly where he belongs, listening to his voice, his beloved poetry that Charles has learned to adore where he once took for granted. From Erik's lips, everything is new and lovely. _I love you so very much, and rest assured I very much enjoy being fucked_ , and when he grins, it's silly and wicked and shy all at once, timid and embarrassed, because if there was ever a doubt that every filthy lewd part of Erik is echoed in perfect synchronization in Charles, then he will quickly eradicate it. But his mind is thinking of other naughty things at the moment, and he bites at his lip, humming as he considers.  
  
Erik shifts him so he's properly on his lap, sliding his hands down to his hips, trailing down his chest and up to his jaw. It barely takes anything for them to end up here, he's finding. Even in the midst of darkness and teeth and blood and sickness, they can turn it into this. Into touches and words and two bodies learning one another in perpetuity, for all the things they've yet to learn, a vast expanse they end up at with the slightest twitch of the wind; and a lesser person might say they're still in a post-Bonding haze, but Erik disagrees. He can't imagine a world where even the most wayward of glances at Charles doesn't draw him closer as if pulled on a string. He's so damned glad those wires are off so he can lean down and press his lips over a small bruise peeking out of Charles's collar. Hm, he huffs, breath ghosting over where his tongue follows. Because they're not in a mindless haze. They don't forget; they don't banish away the world. They come closer to one another, slipping effortlessly in and out of every plane that they occupy. Sometimes these conversations lead to actions and sometimes they hover along the edge, playing and talking and teasing. _None of that_ , he smooths his fingers over Charles's bottom lip and then his hands span over Charles's back, warm and large and keeping him. _Playing Keep-Away again,_ he laughs. He's no good at Keep-Away, tugging on those thoughts until they spill out, little tendrils of Order and Will wrapping around them, electrifying as it will always be. He's certain of that. _Tell me about these pretty thoughts of yours, neshama._  
  
Charles makes a soft, startled noise, eyes fluttering at Erik's attention. It feels so good to have Erik's lips properly against his skin like this, lips and teeth and tongue, and he sighs happily, right back in place. _I have a lot of thoughts right now, and only some of them what I would call pretty,_ he admits, grinning as he squirms, perhaps a bit too deliberately, in Erik's lap. He's fairly sure covered in blood and snotty tears is not the most enticing he's ever been, but he can be playful regardless. He can be everything with Erik. _How opposed are you to something illegal, Erik?_ he asks, completely innocent. Because Charles is a good boy, of course.  
  
 _I presume you've met me before,_ Erik returns with another cheeky grin. Charles could be covered in guts and mud, and Erik would still find him beautiful. He gets his thigh between Charles's legs, spreading them out a bit and rubbing up against him in retaliation, relishing the way he moves; like artwork, a sensual choreography just for him, and he knows it's entirely unconscious and that makes it better somehow-Charles isn't putting on a show, he isn't trying to be anything other than what he is, and even now-covered in blood and snot and nose-reddened and eyes rimmed with tears, he is beautiful and he is Erik's. _Tell me, then._  
  
Charles makes another choked little noise, wriggling about and huffing. _You're distracting me_ , he accuses, that full-lipped pout, but he's all soft-edges now, not a hint of petulance. It's strange, perhaps, and maybe it shouldn't be this way, but he always feels renewed after Erik disciplines him. As if he's earned his place again, as if he's come back, and now he is Erik's boy again. He tries not to flush at his own thoughts, because he truly is going to be sidetracked. _It's just that I don't see why a big, strong Dominant who can change the Earth's orbit if he so pleased,_ he grins here, a tad coy, _should be at all inconvenienced by a standard-issue, very much electronic ankle tracker..._  
  
Erik's smile is slow, genuine instead of wry this time. "Oh," he breathes, because oh, _duh_. He could, couldn't he? A blink of his eye and he's still in Manhattan, still in his apartment, still roaming about as he always does (or doesn't, really, given his personality). Erik doesn't even need to pause, it's guaranteed that he can do it. _Between the two of us I think we'll have it covered_ , he agrees with a soft laugh. Erik can change the technology and Charles can project what needs projecting if anyone bothers to get in their way. As usual, they are two halves of a whole. Physical, mental, spiritual, scientific. Grounded, walking amongst clouds. Erik has never felt more patently lucky-if it's luck- _keinahora_ , if it's fate, if it's destiny or G-d himself. Whatever Erik needs to thank, he is thanking it now. I love you, is what he says, and then he chases those sidetracked thoughts just for playful curiosity, because Charles is still wriggling all over him and he's so gorgeous and he's come back to Erik and Erik wants everything, all at once, and he lets it suffuse through; burn out until it's a warm ember instead, redirecting his microscopic focus to the issue at hand. _I'm quite capable of that. Shall I fix it now?_  
  
Charles laughs softly. _We're not leaving right this instant, I assume, but I don't see why not._ They do have the time today. Perhaps they should do it now, get it done. Not only because if there's a chance for an answer to the end of the excruciating migraines, the worrying pain and sickness and his coma, even, he's sure they'd both like to have it as soon as possible, but also because it will be conveniently sandwiched between something much more pleasant - their Bonding ceremony is in just two days. A spoonful of sugar, and it's something they still have. It could never be erased. He dips his head as he feigns another entirely innocent squirm, but completely naked as he is, Erik's clothed thigh rubbing against him - he bites on his lip, gasping as his eyes fall closed again. _Can you - say it?_ It comes out before he's processed what he's asking, cheeks red with more than his earlier tears, splotchy with it.  
  
Not right this instant, but they're here, together. They're whole. They're free. And Erik doesn't want it looming over them, not any more. It does not get any more than what it has already taken. As soon as they can go, Erik thinks they should. They can navigate the barriers and obstacles easily, buffeting any contention with precise applications of their respective abilities. Barring all-out failure, Erik will simply resort to his fists to get the job done if necessary. So yes, perhaps today. But not this instant. In this instant, he tugs Charles closer so he can get his thigh right up between his legs, dropping his head onto Charles's shoulder to nip at the sensitive spot under his ear. "Oh, nehedar sheli. What shall I say to you?" his voice takes on that tone, deep and slow, tender and heated and protective all at once, vowels lengthened a bit by the way his accent thickens as he's more affected.  
  
Charles shudders. It's absolutely no secret that he loves Erik's voice; the deep, purring rumble of it, his lovely accent, the way each words drips deliciously off his tongue like honey. He bucks, perhaps shamelessly, into Erik's thigh, gasping softly again. He's used to quite a bit of attention in the morning, and he has made it his duty to follow through on an offhand comment he'd made a while back, though he hasn't mentioned it to Erik (he knows). He's still, after all they've done, shy as he squirms until he can rub himself where he hopes, if he's persistent enough, Erik might have some trouble with the zip of the form-fitting jeans he's wearing. "I can't tell you to say it or it won't mean anything," he insists, pouting.  
  
"Oh, I guarantee you-" Erik murmurs, eyes hooded as he wraps a hand around the curve of Charles's ass, and trust him-he's already having trouble. The thing about it he is not like this anywhere else but here in this bubble, in these private moments-where Charles is concerned there's no contest. He's starting to wonder if all those jeans in his wardrobe were a good idea. But Charles likes them. He notices how his eyes linger and it feels so good, and he's a little embarrassed by that-that he likes being pleasing to Charles, that he likes looking good for Charles, knowing that those eyes are on him as they move through their day, as they cross paths 'purely professionally.' So he tucks those thoughts away, dipping his finger just between that crease, just enough to tease, scraping his teeth over the mark he'd been laving over with his tongue and pressing his right thumb against Charles's nipple. There's no fine-motor control necessary, there, rubs it until it perks right up for him and he sticks his thumb in his mouth briefly before returning it to draw a cooling, shuddering zap of heat down into Charles's gut. Perfection, he is- and Erik meant to say something and he's gotten distracted, tsk, tsk Charles. "-it will mean what I want it to mean." Such a shy thing, so much to unfold and discover like flower petals. So he does, rasping the Order directly into his ear. "Tell me now, go on."  
  
Charles whines loudly, that splash of red dragging all the way down to his neck as he arches right into Erik's hands. In the time they've spent together, Charles has learned an awful lot about his own body. He'd truly thought his nipples were a mostly dead-zone, no spark; his own fingers inspired nothing but boredom, not that any other part of his body had been different. When Erik touches them, even grazes accidentally on his way to something else, he's finding it drives him wild. Enough to earn a considerable reaction from only that, and it's embarrassing and flusters him right up whenever Erik even goes near them and he knows for a fact there are clamps somewhere and he hasn't been able to stop wondering and - mmm, Erik's Ordering him and he's rocking unconsciously against him, grinding his ass against the denim of Erik's jeans, bucking into those clever fingers, even with no fine-motor skills. "Want you to call me a good boy," he mumbles, and he ducks his head and sniffs, because he'd taken his discipline and he'd come back and he wants to be good again, so, so badly. Erik's pretty, sweet, good boy, and he's so embarrassed but he wants, he needs -  
  
 _Oh, fuck the morning. Perhaps I shall bind you and we'll see exactly how much you like those clamps, hm?_ Erik hums, and his voice in Charles's mind curls over every inch of his consciousness. And then Charles speaks aloud, and of course Erik knew but this is so much more delicious, and he's braced for it in some way but he's not, not when Charles's thoughts spiral out and Erik makes a little noise against his throat where his lips have found purchase once more, barely audible except for proximity to his ear. The appointments and deadlines can wait. Erik needs him, it doesn't matter how, it doesn't matter where, it's rising up in him and he's sinking like an unbalanced scale pitched by a lodestone, guiding him into Dominion and tipping him right over into Charles. "You want to be so good for me, don't you, sweetheart? I know, I know," he croons in soft sympathy. "Mm. And you think it will mean nothing, do you? If I were to..." He carefully guides Charles to lay back against the wall and then moves over him, dropping little kisses against his skin until he reaches those tantalizing red buds, already so eager for his attention, he can't resist drawing them into his mouth, circling them with his tongue, sucking until they're firmly at attention-one and then the other as his free hand splays over his stomach and thumbs his navel. "Mm? Will it mean nothing, _neshama_?" He murmurs, breaking away to flick his eyes up, dilated and dark. "And you are my perfect, beautiful boy. Why shouldn't I say it?" He laughs, vibrating the sound against Charles's sternum. "Look at how you arch up for me. How good you are for me. My good boy. Yes," it's practically a growl. He swipes his fingers over Charles's chest. It means everything. Charles is right where he belongs, safe and sound in Erik's hands. "Your body knows where it should be, doesn't it?" Never nothing. Always everything.  
  
"A-Ah!" Charles probably should have expected Erik to pick up on his inner monologue, but it still startles and flusters him when all that attention is on his chest, when he can hear the wet noises Erik's mouth makes as he sucks and laves at the oversensitive buds, can see, when he looks down to watch, captivated by Erik's Will, the way they're already puffy and hard and wanton. It feels indescribably good after a morning of being not-touched, so much so he nearly cries from the relief of it. "Yes, sir," he gasps on instinct, except then he's aware that all the filthy, whimpering noises have been coming from him the whole time. He's squirming and hot as soon as that sinks in, one of his hands coming up to his mouth so he can bite at his own fingers like a makeshift gag. He has a feeling that's not going to fly, but it at least stifles the moan he makes when Erik's fingertip barely grazes one of his spit-slick nipples and his dick twitches, leaking precome against his belly.  
  
Erik makes another sound low in his throat, appreciative and appraising all at once and his mind clicks into place and Charles knows what that sound means, locks and keys fitting into one another; Erik knows exactly what he wants in those moments, he's decided exactly how he's going to take Charles and it spills out of him in long, dark tendrils of Will that burst out of him and coat the room in hazy, honeyed waves. "None of that," Erik chides him. "Return to Rest," he Orders, a delighted smile on his face. Charles is his. He can have what he wants, he can do what he wants. He has the power and it's nearly intoxicating.  
  
Charles was very much enjoying the attention, so he sulks a bit at losing it for even a moment. Even so he murmurs a dutiful, quiet "yes, sir," and shifts gracefully to his knees, straightening out until everything is perfect Posture, exact positioning, no slouching or even a finger out of place. Erik likes these things to be exact, and Charles knows his Postures by heart now, by soul, especially something so completely basic, but there's something about being deliberate that he always likes when he's like this. Like this. Soft and incredibly eager to please, shy but unashamed of his own submission. That's exactly what he is as he looks at Erik, eyes still red from crying but bright with desire and the shimmer of subspace. He was disciplined this morning, and he knows he doesn't have to, but he wants to prove that he can be good, now that the slate is clean; that he can be Erik's good boy.  
  
Erik has to stop to just look at him, and he rocks forward on his heels to kiss him, a gesture infinitely more gentle than the roil of heated promise wafting from his thoughts, touching his face. _Beautiful_ , he thinks, and it's not even intended for Charles to hear (although he does, of course, and Erik doesn't mind this one bit) but it's an automatic, unconscious expression; what he always thinks when he watches Charles go through his Postures, how he moves and breathes and settles. Lovely. Erik's eyes flick over him once more before he sits back, regarding him expectantly. "Interlock your fingers behind your head," Erik tells him, because Rest is almost always the beginning and never the end. "You may lean against the wall if you wish," he adds, because he wants his boy to be comfortable, after all. The rest of his instructions are more a press of concepts than words; for long periods that position can be straining, so Charles is free to drop out of Presentation and lean most of his weight on his hands and drawing his elbows inward to relieve the pressure-but only when it gets uncomfortable. There is no more cold-pain. No more discipline. Charles has returned to him, to his rightful place, he's been so good and took it so well, he's learned and atoned. He nudges Charles's legs further apart, and then Erik sits back on his haunches, all focused intention as he holds out his hand and something lifts and rustles out of the back of the closet and snaps right to him. Charles recognizes the metal instantly as it glints in the early-morning sunlight, those clamps and their accompanied chain draped over Erik's hands as he inspects them for imperfections and smooths out the ones he finds. He only ever uses the best on his Charles, what he deserves. "You will hold this position and you will not break it," the Order is thick, mixing with deep-dark strands of Will feathering all across his oversensitized body. He leans forward to deliver his next Order. "And I do not want to hear you stifling yourself, _tayer_. These pretty sounds belong to me." He punctuates that with a squeeze to Charles's throat.  
  
Charles moans before Erik even touches him, eyes rolled back simply because he's being looked at like this. Like he is a precious, beautiful thing, like Erik cannot help but stare. Like he is pleasing and worth the regard; it evaporates any earlier fears of weak and useless, because if he can inspire this in Erik, it would have surely been enough. He finds a comfortable, easy balance to the position, keeping his Posture impeccable, thoroughly Presented for his Dominant. He does not lean where he does not need to. He wants to be good for Erik, to impress him, to delight him, and he certainly won't take the easy way out of a task because Erik demands the best from him, he always will. "Yes, sir, everything I am is yours," he whispers, and it holds all the devotion and love and warm desire, pooling thick in his gut and shuddering down his spine in waves, eyes hot as he arches into the hand at his throat and never away. But then his eyes are on that glinting metal, breathing harshly but not at all because he's panicked; since the first time Erik pinched his nipple and he responded with astonishing electric-snap pleasure he's been wondering. His lip trembles as he fights not to bite at it, as he tries not to squirm even an inch. "Oh, please, Erik," he pleads before he can stop himself.  
  
Little engravings appear along the shiny surface, and it slowly changes, from titanium to something harder, stronger, shinier and laced with a black undertone, sleek and honed in quality beyond anything a store-bought manufactured item could produce. He so loves form and structure, in everything, but most especially the things that he touches Charles with, that work over his body in this way. The clover clamps themselves are in an elegant, sweeping design and have a tight spring that Erik loosens with a mild application of his power in order to lessen the intensity for this first time around, and he starts at the left side, placing his hand over Charles's heart and drawing it down over his nipple, an unaware smile on his features as he leans forward and sucks it back into his mouth one final time, humming against Charles in pleased delight before drawing back and sweeping his fingers over it, drying the area with a flick of his wrist until leaving him stood up straight, chilled and exposed to cold air. He opens the clamp and aligns it, letting the ends close over that perked up bud and finally releasing it, assessing Charles's reaction before attending the other side.  
  
Charles nearly forgets why they're here for a moment as he watches Erik work. He's magnificent like this, and Charles has been awed since the first time he watched Erik manipulate something with any precision; he's so controlled, in all things, but this is perhaps one of his favorite applications. When Erik creates. When he bends to his Will using his mutation, breathing it out into the world as if it is effortless, and he imagines it is. It's utterly gorgeous, and he knows that it's perhaps what Erik sees when he demonstrates the same freedom with his own mutation, but -  
  
But that is a thought for later. In the now Charles sighs, fluttery and hot as he fights to keep still, Erik's mouth on his nipple driving him mad. It's the anticipation of something new that has him coiled up tight, trying not to bite his lip because he's thought of it plenty but he can never quite know what something will be until it happens. Everything with Erik tends to exceed his expectations.  
  
This is not an exception.  
  
There's no real explanation for the intensity of his reaction. Charles jerks, somehow managing to hold position by a loose thread of control as his eyes pop open from when they'd shut and he lets out an embarrassingly loud wail.  
  
It's not quite as embarrassing as the spurt of precome his cock gives, untouched and curling insistently toward his stomach, already purpling at the tip. Besides some grinding against Erik's thigh, the reminder that he's nearly ready to come from having his nipples played with is enough to mortify him, and then excite him in the same exact breath. Charles takes harsh, panting breaths, whimpering softly as he looks at Erik with wide-eyes because he's fairly sure he wasn't supposed to react so strongly but it's Erik and his body is strangely sensitive in deeper subspace and - he's red all over anyway, but he doesn't wriggle, because that would mean breaking position and he's going to be good.  
  
Erik on the other hand is staring at him as though about to devour him, his bottom lip tugged between his teeth as he observes Charles's reaction and he shivers, an arc of static-electric desire raising all his hairs on end, and this-a lot of submissives say they can't understand the Dominant mindset at all; there's plenty of academic research on submission, freely available everywhere you look, but Dominance is lesser-categorized; with most making the assumption that Dominants are just control freaks or sadists. Which, granted, many are. Dominants are more cagey about it, with people unaware of simple things like Warren's explanation of the Cut. Dominants don't like airing their intricate workings, but this, right here, is what Erik would classify as the exact purpose of his Dominance. To watch his submissive twitch and gasp and whine in glorious, writhing need, to know they are the cause of it, to hold another human life deftly between their fingertips and unravel them with a single tug and tie them back together in looping, complicated knots. "You like that, hm?" he murmurs hotly, eyes locked on him. He couldn't look away if he tried. "Oh, don't you worry," his gaze wanders to the thick length of Charles's cock, straining almost uncomfortably against his belly. "I'll be taking care of you." Erik doesn't touch himself at all despite the fact that he's fully hard and pressed uncomfortably against the zipper of his jeans; there's no thought to it, not when Charles is bared in front of him and wide-eyed with shocked pleasure. There is nothing a soul could do to his body, there is no drug he could take, that would feel better than this, here and Erik's nearly shuddering with it, stroking Charles's thigh as though to ground himself before he repeats the same action on the right until both are encompassed, connected by the chain that rests coolly against his skin. When Erik sits back to survey his work, he can't help a satisfied moan of his own, eyes heavy and dark. "Tell me how you feel. Look at me and tell me how you feel, Charles." His name on Erik's lips is a rasping plea of his very own. _Show me. Give me your want. Show me how good it feels, how good I make you feel. How much you love being mine._  
  
Charles can hardly breathe for it. He's sweating but not because he's agonized, twitching through pain; though there is pain, and it's completely addictive, sharp and tugging and constant and he's whining. His breaths come out in heavy, needy pants, and he sucks as much oxygen into his lungs as he can as if he fears he won't get another chance, lightheaded and prickling with sensation and fighting so, so hard to stay still. Words are not coming naturally now, pupils dilated as he keeps his chest arched out for Erik's pleasure, because he wants to - he needs to - "H- aah..." is what comes out of his mouth at first, and Charles moans as he shifts just slightly and the chain moves with him, swallowing to center himself and try again. "It's so good, sir. Hurts, but it's good. I feel..." He does bite his lip, then, but not to stifle anything. "I feel like I'm yours. Like I'm -" He doesn't think he can say it out loud. His cheeks are scarlet like the rest of him. Like I'm displayed for your pleasure. For you to look at because I belong to you. That was the point of Presentation, but to feel it deep inside of himself is another thing entirely and he fights not to fidget out of place. It makes him shudder, because he's very rarely liked the thought of something more than that.  
  
Erik runs his hands up and down Charles's spread legs, too-close and not close enough. "Exactly right," he whispers back, rocking forward to splay his fingers across Charles's throat, kissing him deep and hot and messy so he can absorb all of those desperate noises into himself, breaths coming out short and sharp through his nose. "That's exactly right, and I do love looking at you. My beautiful submissive. Oh, you look so good." How could he not, when Charles takes this so well, he always does, those sweet whines throbbing straight to his dick like a pulse-beat. He lowers himself, then, so he can lay a kiss right on the head of Charles's cock, backing away when it practically jerks under his touch and he grins wide, and blows a puff of air across instead. Just as he does, he sinks himself into Charles's nerves and forces him to stay on the razor edge of release-it's one of the first things he ever learned how to do that affected the human body, funnily enough, for Charles and Charles alone-keeping him firmly locked down because he doesn't want this to end too soon-but he wants, he wants to see-this is for him, Charles is Presented for him, because Charles is his-as he reaches a hand up and grasps onto that chain with his fingertip, giving a sharp little tug right as he sinks down onto his cock, engulfing him in one long, relentless swallow before popping off with a wet, dirty noise that echoes through the room.  
  
Sometimes Charles thinks it really will be too much. That his body will run out of space for pain-pleasure in one encounter, that he'll explode into a screaming twist of overloaded neurons and melt into a veritable goo of sensation and that will be the end of him (and what a delicious, perfect way to go). When Erik swallows him down and tugs, the noise that escapes is not only loud enough to startle him, another strangled, pitched wail, it's positively raunchy, something straight out of a film he'd never bothered to watch. He's certainly made worse, but Charles hasn't learned not to be embarrassed by these things out; among the ragged, panting breaths, the helpless whines because he knows he's so so close, he fights every urge not to curl into himself, not to squirm and hide his splotchy red face even as he feels the desperate urge to (be good be good stay still be good for Erik -). "Please, sir," he gasps, shaky and low and somehow, somehow still terribly shy about it.  
  
"Mmmno," Erik rumbles warmly, more a noise than a response, looking like the cat that caught the mouse who wants to play, and he smiles up, utterly serene and caught in a moment out of time-pausing just to take this in; every sight, every sound amplified in his own ears. He maneuvers down so he's nearly on his stomach, comfortable and propped up on his elbows so he can rub his hands along the pale flesh of Charles's inner thighs, keep him spread open and wanting and waiting and suspended on a single beam of laser-focused light. "Not yet, _tayer_." He can barely keep his eyes open, dark slits trained on every heaving twitch of Charles's muscles and he slides long fingers over his cock, working him in a tight, sure grip and rubbing him along his tongue, humming his pleasure in languid, molten strokes. The chain attached to the clamps lifts upward of its own accord and tugs taut, twisting in on itself to gain traction so Erik can suck a finger into his mouth and feather it insistently over his hole, pushing in just as he stuffs all of that lovely, leaking dick right into his throat. "Mmh," he tries to say something but it's muffled and he snorts what's likely a laugh, thoughts twinkling against Charles's mind instead _. Listen to you. You're my good boy, aren't you? Tell me, Charles. Say it to me._ Charles wanted to hear him say it. Well.  
  
"H- Ah!" Charles is finding it difficult not to wriggle his way right out of position when Erik is absolutely overloading his senses, and he doesn't know what to pay attention to. The hot, wet suction on his cock, the vibrations from Erik's laugh, the stretch of something just inside him, the piercing, stingy pain at his nipples that blends seamlessly into the pleasure. The filthy, debauched noises he's making, gasping, hitched breaths that come out as drawn out moans and whimpers - and still, somehow, what affects him most is Erik's voice, even when it's only in his head. His eyes flutter closed because he can't look at Erik while he says it, belly pulled taut and tight and muscles locked to stay still and properly displayed (and there is a strain, and that's delicious, too). "M'goodboysir," is what comes out of his mouth, bunched together and mumbled as quietly as he can manage, and now his ears are red, too.  
  
Erik's rocking very slightly against the floor, his own erection trapped between a rock and a hard place (if you know what he means) and these jeans are definitely ruined for the day, and he's utterly content with that; but it isn't what he considers right now as he curls two fingers right into him and brushes against that little bundle of nerves making him jump, and Erik holds him down with his elbow and keeps him in his place. He comes up for air and nuzzles Charles's dick against his cheek, eyes fluttered closed, a peaceful expression on his face more suited for deep, deep dreams than this, but when they finally snap open and catch on Charles he shakes his head. "I can't hear you, Charles. I said tell me." Another twist of fingers, another sharp yank on that chain, his tongue finding that one sensitive spot and flattening against it, and Charles always gets so wet for him, precome practically dribbling into his mouth and he sucks it all up, laves at his slit for more, keeps him locked in and drowned in the endless expanse of Erik's Dominion. He's flushed, a light sheen of sweat over his temples and dampening his hair which falls into his eyes now that it's long enough to brush his shoulders, curls sticking to his skin; debauched isn't the word for it. He is entirely in control and reveling in it.  
  
Charles' chest is heaving now, and he's completely dizzy. It feels like everything is coming all at once and from the same place, sensation and pleasure and pain blending until he's wracked by it. It hurts, and not just because his nipples are so achingly sore he could cry; it's because he knows if Erik didn't want him to wait, he would have already come by now, screaming and shaking. It's entirely too much, and at first the only thing that comes out are keening whines. "I'm - I'm your good boy, sir, I want to be so - hah, ah... good for you," he moans, and Charles is debauched, utterly controlled and kept and displayed and played with, like a pretty, beloved pet. "Please, please, sir, it hurts, please," he begs, and then despite the fact that he's spent the better part of the hours before this sobbing his eyes out, overwhelmed tears slip down his cheeks.  
  
"Mmmm," Erik just replies, because he's busy swallowing Charles back into his mouth, and he knows how to make it look good, how to wreck and ruin with nothing more than a clever tongue-and he'd like to say he's always known it's different now but he definitely has, in the past, fell back on old training habits-he's sure Charles would be displeased about it but half the time he's not sure what's him and what's wire-circuitry so there's really no point to highlighting it. They'll learn, the both of them, and they are learning and right now, there's skill only because he wants Charles to feel good, but it's just enthusiasm for himself, because he wants to do it. He's not concerned about putting on a show, or appealing to Charles's masculinity or any other nasty complexes on arrival. The difference is indescribable, the pressure in his gut has melted away into luxurious throbs of satisfied desire, his Will exhaling with every breath. He lets up, eyes burning obsidian holes into Charles's, lips spit-slick just because he wanted to taste his beloved submissive, he wanted to treat him and make him feel good and stoke him ever-closer and Erik smiles up at him, laughing again. "And you beg so nicely," he says. He lets up all at once, loosening the grip on Charles's neurochemistry like a relaxed fist, and lowers himself back down, wanting every speck of Charles's release for himself as those clamps give a sharp pull, as his fingers long and seeking knead up against him until his hips are stuttering and Erik bodily holds him down, refusing to give way. Mine, he growls between their minds, dark and possessive and devoted.  
  
When Charles comes, the world explodes outwards. He screams, bucking uselessly against Erik's strong hands, wailing and keening and shaking, and all at once the room is light and color and exquisite sensation, is submission and gratitude and tightly-held devotion, shades of brilliant red and magenta and Earthy-toned greens and tropic waters fading into his own blues, the vast expanse of sky and clear, vivid pools that stretch out for miles. He comes and everything hazes, slows down, becomes humid and charged with it, a static hum that has nothing to do with Erik's abilities or any force properly investigated. It pulses in steady waves until Charles calms, trembling and whimpering softly, biting down on unnaturally cherry lips and blinking open azure to stare, reverently, at the World. His World. And somehow, those lips part and he whispers, "Please, sir?" A bashful, wanting smile.  
  
Erik's stomach drops out and he blows out a loud huff of air as he grinds down into the floor, eyes flying open to absorb every single thing that Charles is exploding outward, crawling up in between his legs, touching his face, the two of them motionless in the eye of the storm, chaotic filaments rushing by in a hurricane-whirl. Kissing him and eagerly seeking that sticky, hazy sensation that floods into the world around them. _I've got you,_ he promises, smiling full and bright and breathless. He waits until Charles begins to still, until the roaring tsunami beating down the towns and cities recedes, and slowly begins the process of removing the clamps, ensuring to soothe the overwhelming, pained sensation of blood returning there with his lips and hands. _I love you,_ he says tenderly, hooking into the sharp, uncomfortable wrench until it gentles and they're both off, and he taps his elbows, letting his arms down and bidding Charles to wrap them around his waist, lifting him up into his lap. I love you so much. _You are so beautiful._ And he loves this part as much as any sensual, sexual aspect of their intimacy; when Charles is boneless in his lap and swimming in submission and he'll ask for a story or a song, and Erik will whisper silly things or fantastical things or erotic things into his ear until he's ready to rejoin the Outside. Erik could live in this space for a thousand years and never be tired.  
  
But that's not what Charles wanted. He does want it, that's absolutely true; he's swimming down in that deep-dark, outside of the cave with no air except Erik, no chance for oxygen that isn't breathed into his being by his Dominant, but it's not a story or a song he needs right now. Even among dragging, twitching sensation, the sore throb of his poor, abused nipples (and it hurts so good), what he wants is - he's beyond words again, pouting as he squirms and fusses in Erik's lap, rubbing his cheek against Erik's shoulder and neck to soothe. The soft whining noises, he realizes, are coming from him.  
  
Erik smiles down at him where he's tucked away in his lap and in his arms, safe. _Show me,_ he breathes the Order and that's oxygen enough for the both of them.  
  
Charles huffs, breathing it in at the same time that he continues to fuss. Colors explode outward again, softer but still insistent, maroons and lively greens as he tugs on the sweater Erik's still wearing; there's a question there, but he's not sure Erik speaks this language. He's pouting, and then - the zipper to Erik's jeans, which he knows were incredibly painful and constricting where Erik is still hard and also broken, because Erik is not by any means small (his mouth goes dry at the reminder), pops right off, the teeth shredding fabric until the discarded metal floats near them and Charles whines in embarrassment, sheepish and squirming and ducked into Erik's neck.  
  
Erik laughs, having completely forgotten about it as he rolled them over to take Charles in his lap. Now his awareness is back full force and he twitches, thumbing Charles's cheek. _Oh, of course. Let's get this off. It's been rather irritating,_ he huffs and his jeans slide right off his ankles with a tug outward and upward to expose himself, hard enough to hurt.  
  
Charles very much wants to help with that, to serve as he's meant to. Asking is perhaps a bit beyond him right at this moment, so he mouths at his Dominant's neck, at the now-faded marks he'd left there during their Bonding, deliberately rocking in Erik's lap. He's loose-limbed and hazy with aftershocks of his own pleasure, sighing softly, still pouting as he waits to be given permission. The space between them is still colors and sensations projected outward, sweet, gentled out want, bright devotion, the hazy warmth of subspace.  
  
It keeps the smile on his face and he combs his fingers through Charles's hair, kissing his jaw. _Go on, sweetheart. Take care of me_. Erik grins at that-it's an odd turn of phrase and yet it isn't. Because Charles is his. Because he can be taken care of, too. He can feel gentle strokes and loving hands and it's for him. It's Charles's love for him, enough to leave him breathless all over again.  
  
Charles smiles, too, soft and pleased. He crawls out of Erik's lap reluctantly to kneel between his legs, making himself comfortable and resting against one of his thighs (mm, they're strong, Erik's filling out so nicely and everything's so much bigger on him, it's really quite distracting every time he notices -). He nuzzles Erik's neglected cock, not to tease but because he wants him to feel loved, because he likes worshipping properly, giving soft little kisses even during what should be a filthy act. When he finally opens his mouth, lips parted obscenely just from the tip, sighing in satisfaction at the taste of him, he gives a little huff. He's come to admit to himself that taking Erik down his throat without gagging a bit is maybe impossible, at least for now, but he's been trying to train himself into other things under Erik's patient guidance. He rolls his eyes up at Erik because he likes to look, to see, his own eyes hot and gleaming. And then he swallows Erik down to the back of his throat in one go. Charles gags and sputters, tears forced out of the corners of his eyes as he whines and fights the panic, inhaling harshly through his nose, but he manages, and he can't help but be infinitely proud of himself.  
  
Erik lets out a forceful groan and grips his fingers into Charles's hair-not to push or pull but simply out of instinct, nails digging in, the scrape of his metal ring against scalp. This is the part he's unused to, and it's become evident over the past week that they've been together. Erik is exceptionally confident when he's focused on Charles, but he turns startled and wondrous and even a little nervous when that same energy is reflected back. Until Charles he's never experienced what it's like to have someone fully dedicated to his pleasure. Any touch to him was cruel or clinical, and he does well, really well, not to overreact and shoot off immediately under the best of circumstances but Charles looking up at him like that, knowing that he's genuinely learning this for him, like it's a skill he wants to develop solely for the purpose of making him feel good. This isn't the first time, but Erik continues to be overwhelmed by it every time he realizes it, and that, paired with Charles's immense satisfaction with himself that's washing over them both in stereo-mimicry-"Charles- _oh_ -" he utters unthinkingly, trembling with the effort of holding himself still.  
  
Charles moans loudly, eyes wide with his own wonder and delight even as he chokes, eyes tearing up as he has to let up to breathe. He's getting better, noticeably better, but if Erik isn't holding his hair and fucking his throat - where everything is in Erik's hands, which he trusts instinctively and unquestionably - he still struggles not to panic if he stays down too long, but he doesn't think Erik minds. He more than makes up for it in enthusiasm, sucking and licking as much as he can through the debauched stretch, cheeks hollowed out with cock as he hums. _I love making you feel good, sir,_ and it's the first coherent, worded thought in a while, cheeks flushed around his task because he's still shy about offering this up. _I love this. I love serving you. I really would do it every single morning if you let me. You could keep me on my knees after my Postures and I'd start the day off just like this, and you could talk about what we're going to do while you're in my mouth, because I'm supposed to be good and take you -_ Because that had become part of the routine, too. Like a little private meeting before the two of them, Erik grounding them both and readying them for the day ahead. He certainly wouldn't mind servicing Erik during it, but he's finding there really aren't circumstances where he would mind. _And I could make sure you feel good because that's what I'm supposed to do. I'm here for you. My mouth was made for you like the rest of me. I'm yours, Erik._ For all that he rarely shuts up under normal circumstances, Charles is more sensual and prone to sighs and moans than words like this, so he's not sure what's inspiring it unprompted, but even as he's embarrassed and squirming he's eager and sincere. _Can I please have your come, sir? If you think I deserve it. I want to taste you so badly, I'll be a good boy and swallow all of it, I promise,_ he breathes, and that's patently filthy, but now he can't take it back.  
  
A loud thunk echoes through the room as Erik's head hits the wall behind him and his eyes roll back and the response is instantaneous-he lurches forward for a split second, catches himself so he doesn't thrust deep into Charles's throat before he's ready, and instead steadies himself with a hand on Charles's cheek, looking at him wildly and he can't even think to formulate an answer, except for the choked-off sound he buries in the back of his bad palm. Every thought melted right out of his head-he's stunned and for a moment he wonders if he's paralyzed, but then all that heat shifts into ignited plasma clouds billowing through his chest to slam into his cock where it twitches violently and then he's doing just that, coming in long, thick stripes coating Charles's tongue. Electric zaps continue for a long time, an abandoned, sparking wire with frayed ends that bathes both of them in shuddering aftershocks. He's breathing shallowly, and by the time he gets himself pulled together enough to speak, all he can manage is a croaky, low, " _Charles_ -"  
  
Charles is shivering in the aftermath, the rebound through the Bond enough to have him tingling as he does exactly as he'd promised and swallows every drop. He cleans Erik up with his mouth when he's done, too, careful for oversensitivity as he nuzzles and licks and hums with bone-deep satisfaction (he did that, he'd pleased his Dominant). Then he's crawling up into Erik's lap, soft and boneless again as he curls into his chest. When he peeks up, it's with a shy, dreamy smile. _Was that... okay?_ he asks, biting his lip. Was he good?  
  
Erik just laughs, gentle, and tugs him up for a kiss. _Very good. Very, very good,_ he soothes when he can think to catch his breath, and then after a few moments adds dryly, _and it most certainly was not okay, Charles_ , smiling against his lips. He's never felt anything like what Charles does to him. _There is no way that any sane, rational person would categorize what just happened as okay. Marvelous. Incredible. Much better synonyms. You are exquisite. I cannot believe that I have you and I am so very, very pleased that I do._ He runs his thumb over Charles's cheek, tender.  
  
He laughs, too, mostly because he's embarrassed and delighted and floating, tucking himself properly into Erik's lap now that he's served Erik properly. "We have to take another shower now," he mumbles, and then he squirms to get comfortable and blinks, confused, before he realizes and dissolves into helpless giggles. _I'm sorry I keep ripping your clothes_ , he offers in explanation, sheepish and slightly mortified. _Who's really the caveman here?_  
  
 _I didn't like those anyway,_ Erik returns, amused. And he is not at all put out by the idea of another shower, a proper one this time, unmarred by distance, where they can press close and talk and touch and relax without the imperative of the outside world pushing in. A bubble inside their bubble.  
  
A shower sounds nice. Charles doesn't want to move, though, so good luck getting him into it. He's making up for all the clingy early morning cuddles he missed out on, all the benefits of post-orgasm, pleased subspace, nuzzling into Erik's sweater and sighing. The zipper from Erik's jeans does float, though, and he grins at it, because maybe experimenting with his mutation is contributing to the awful, hideous pain he's experiencing periodically, but he also doesn't think he can turn it off. _Look_ , he urges, even if Erik already is, like a child showing off. He's shy about it, but it is fun. Sometimes, when he forgets to be terrified of it, it's fun.  
  
Erik's laugh turns fond, and then genuinely amused as he watches the zipper float up. He raises his eyebrows and slowly it begins to alter, and he holds up a hand, indicating for Charles to watch him, to really watch him. Sink down into his nerves and sparks, feel the way molecules break down into particles and atoms and then finally, the rush-proton, neutron, electron. Give it a little nudge, sway its orientation. Up-down-spin-left-right. He doesn't expect Charles to be able to do this. It took him many, many years to refine this level of control, and it was only when he met Charles that he was truly able to do it with seamless effort. He lets Charles know that, as well, smiling pleased as the zipper begins to lengthen and alter. What he wants to show Charles isn't showing off, or an attempt to have him replicate the maneuver. He wants Charles to feel the metal. Feel it how he feels it. Feel the molecules shift, how it buzzes under his skin so pleasantly, how every centimeter unfolds for him because he has the privilege, as though the object itself is speaking to him. _Hello, I'm a zipper. I'm sorry I broke. Your pleasure broke me! Ugh, don't abandon me. I can still be of use to you._ And it is, because it curls up into a delicate rose, which he presents to Charles on his palm.  
  
Charles does watch. It sends electrified tingles up his spine, and then he's sighing softly, eyes half-lidded with buzzing pleasure by the time there's a beautiful, intricate metal creation in his palm. He doubts he'll ever be able to manipulate Erik's abilities with anything close to the same ease, but that's alright; as he told Erik, it's not his, and the broad strokes are more than enough. That he can feel it, and know it like this, more intimately than anyone could ever hope? More than enough. He stares down at his palm and smiles, something quietly mischievous there, because a moment later Erik's ring is slipping off his finger. Not all the way, because Charles doesn't want it to, but he redirects some of the energy he understands far better now there and gives little, useless tugs. _Trade you?_ he offers, but he knows Erik never will. He hopes that ring never leaves his finger.  
  
Erik huffs and shakes his head, but then the rose unfolds again and slowly reforms itself into a ring, each strip unwinding and circling itself around until the shape alters into a platinum-engraved version of itself, which levitates up to Charles's eyeline and swirls around, catching the sunlight. I could never, he whispers back, eyebrows raising. Shall this be enough? It's engraved with a phrase, _אל תפגעי בי לעזבך לשוב_ , because he's feeling playful, but also a great deal sentimental; like he always does with Charles, so perhaps that's not so shocking.  
  
Charles is delighted as always, laughing softly as he takes the offered ring and turns it around in his palm. _I'm afraid it's just not the same_ , he sighs, and it truly isn't. There's no ring in this world that could be; Erik can do absolutely incredible things with his abilities, but it will never have lived with him as that ring did. _Though this one has been very close to your crotch, so perhaps_ \- And then he's lost to giggles, burying his face in Erik's shoulder as his own shake with them.  
  
After a second Erik breaks down and loses it, covering his face as he's overtaken with laughter. _Are you certain my crotch-ring doesn't approach the same value as your own?_ he snorts, his face split into an absolutely besotted grin. _I rather think it's a contender._  
  
Charles only laughs harder when Erik joins in, giggling himself into a snort and keeping his face tightly pressed into Erik's soft, soiled sweater. _It does get points for that,_ he admits. _I do love - well. So close, but no cigar,_ he's grinning and shy and completely overwhelmed by how happy he is. There's been a dark cloud obscuring everything whenever he blinked for a moment this past week, with his little secret hanging over both their heads. Now there isn't, and Charles is limp with relief even knowing what comes next. _My legs are still jelly, so unless you carry me or float me, no shower is in my future._ He knows what comes after that shower. He isn't certain if he's ready for it, but it doesn't matter. He will be, because Erik will be there with him. The rest they'll figure out.


	47. Rest you, my enemy, Slain without fault, Come from the grave, long-sought,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _elegy for an enemy_ , stephen vincent benet  
> ii. tw antisemitism, racism  
> iii. _avalanche_ , matthew good

_Well, seeing as how I do not feel like letting you go-_ Erik starts, and then they both lift off the ground, still holding one another close, the feel of an invisible floor beneath them as they easily levitate toward the open bathroom door. Erik slowly untangles them until their feet hit the real ground once they're inside, and he leans down to kiss Charles's forehead once the taps turn on of their own accord and steam begins to fill the room. _I love you,_ he murmurs softly, touching Charles's face. He peels himself out of the rest of his clothes-or, well, they do that themselves, and then they're floating up-up over the lip of the bathtub until they're settled back on the chair.  
  
_I love you, too,_ he murmurs back, soft and smiling, but his mind is wandering as it's wont to do. The last time he was anywhere near Westchester - he shivers, and not from thrumming energy and pleasure, clung tight to Erik's body. The water runs red with his blood, and it reminds him too strongly of another morning, dead-eyed and limp and covered in fresh bruises that ached and cried for attention with every twist of limb.  
  
Erik touches him, as he always does, grounding him in the moment where they are. The spray of water hitting him, sprinkling over his face and mouth; it's usually enough to send him sprawling in the opposite direction, take in heaving, gasping breaths of precious oxygen. But he's here with Charles and he can turn his head away and put it on Charles's shoulder, and he can breathe. And so can Charles. _I know you can,_ he murmurs softly, hushing his body's shivers with a small shift of his ability, bringing in the soothing, warmth of calm to ease the adrenaline-cortisol-epinephrine overload. _You're here with me._ He smiles a little when Charles looks up at him and raises his eyebrows. _See?_  
  
Charles nods, but his mind is whirring in that way Erik could never protect him from, the muted pain from before raging at his temples. He brings a hand up to massage at them, completely on instinct. _I'm going to need to work on this_ , he sighs. If they are going to make a school out of the manor, and he fully intends to, he'll need to re-wire a few things up in his brain. Make new associations. He already is, but just like it did when he was an older teen, the thought of actually going back is a lurching punch to the gut. _I hate being there. It always makes me feel like I've gone steps backwards. It reminds me that -_ He shakes his head, pursing his lips. _I failed utterly, escaping from there. I never feel like I left_.  
  
_And that is not why we are going back,_ he reminds Charles gently, pulling his hands away so Erik can stroke that spot instead, and if he can't remove the pain he can at least suffuse it with a warmer sensation. _And we are going back. Not just you. We are changing it into something far brighter than you could imagine back then. That is the ultimate escape, in my opinion. Or at least a very grand fuck you._  
  
Charles can't help but grin, however faintly. He sighs into the touch, eyelids heavier, because the soreness might still linger but Erik's fingers certainly feel nice. _It makes me wonder if I'm qualified to be a guardian to our future students, you know. I did a wretched job of it last time I tried_ , and it's something he's never admitted before. He swallows and stares down at the water circling the drain. _I thought my father was an excellent parent to me all these years, and it turns out he turned me into his science experiment._ It's quiet, not bitter or angry. He still can't muster it up for the man. He was kind to him. He was a good father.  
  
Erik shakes his head. _Sometimes people are kind to us_ , he tries to verbalize. _But that does not mean they are good people. It does not make them good parents, or guardians, or physicians. Sometimes people were nice to me, too. But they were still committing a crime, and they had no regard for my real wellbeing. Your father is not exempt from that because he acted fondly toward you, and I think you know that. You know the difference, even if you won't admit it to yourself, and that is what will make you an excellent guide. And if you stumble, I will catch you._  
  
Charles is still staring at the drain. He's not sure what it is that makes him lurch forward and turn the water off, leaving them dripping wet and standing in relative silence, but he feels cold and uncomfortable in the aftermath. _I failed her. You must know that. I completely, utterly failed her, and that she still associates with me is a miracle I shouldn't accept but am indescribably grateful for_.  
  
Erik waves his hand and all the water lifts up and wicks off of them, leaving them dry as it swirls down the drain, except for their feet that still touch the warm rivulets rushing past. He brings Charles closer to him and settles him on his shoulder. _You did your very best, and she knows that. She is only young, and she's already so confident and well-adjusted. You have to know you had a hand in that. If you made her feel a certain way, it seems as though she's forgiven you, and vice versa, Charles. She wasn't perfect, either. That's what siblings do._  
  
He shakes his head, unable to swallow around the lump in his throat. _That isn't what I meant,_ he insists quietly.  
  
Erik presses his lips together, tucking Charles's head under his chin. _Then what?_  
  
Charles had completed all of his secondary school coursework by fourteen. He could have easily graduated university by sixteen, several degrees under his belt, but he'd held himself back. He'd stayed. It wasn't because of his mother, as much as he'd still ached for her. The reason isn't at all shocking when only one thing ever truly mattered to him in that house: Raven. At five years younger, he couldn't quite justify dragging her to another continent with him. So he waited, and he bided time, and he played dutiful heir and took extraneous college courses from Columbia, earning himself his first degree in biology. Kurt knew his grip was loosening, so he wrenched tighter. The punishments became more frequent, more severe, more humiliating. Cain turned eighteen and decided to stay at home. It seemed Charles was his favorite form of entertainment. It didn't matter. He only needed to wait it out. It was a pretty sentiment that didn't always help.  
  
At sixteen, when he boarded a plane and set off, Raven came with him, Charles with a broken arm and Raven still playing with dolls (or destroying them, but still).  
  
Leaving her behind was never an option. She was only just eleven, and he couldn't count on his parents or stepbrother being kind to her in his absence. He couldn't shield or protect her telepathically across an ocean, not then. He'd wanted her along, too; she was the one bright spot in what had been a fairly miserable, lonely existence, his only friend years older, married, and already inheriting parts of a multi-billion dollar company. Warren tried, but he hardly had time to breathe.  
  
But at sixteen, battered and hurting, perhaps he wasn't prepared to be her guardian as well as her brother. He certainly tried.  
  
Charles didn't neglect her. He doted on her just the same as he does now when he came up for air in his studies, reading to her, playing with her, tucking her into bed at night as he'd always done even as she insisted _'I'm not a little girl anymore, Charles!'_. He packed her (special, calorically-dense) lunches. They played games and saw plays and traveled to France and Spain and Italy and anywhere he could cram into his tight schedule and her schooling. He was there when she cried, when she came home from school upset because she'd fought a playground bully and her mutation had sparked, when she needed help with her homework. He encouraged her to stay blonde, but only because he was terrified of the alternative. He never asked that of her in their own home; he told her how pretty her blue skin was, combed her bright red hair, helped her come into his strength even though it once earned him a black eye, and he'd laughed it right off.  
  
But there was another side, too.  
  
Charles, vomiting and shaking over the toilet, three in the morning with Raven tucked in but she can hear perfectly well. He's too drunk to stand, shaking with a high. There are deep, dark circles under his eyes, and he's a good two stones underweight, looks sickly for it. He can't go more than two hours without a drink. He brings a flask to his classes. He pops pills like candy. Sometimes he crushes them, brings them up to his nose and snorts because it gets them into his system faster. He doesn't sleep, and when he does he wakes up sweating and screaming. He's hopped up on a deadly mix of caffeine and alcohol and opiates. Every time he's forced back to Westchester - far, far too frequently, Kurt deliberately calling them back for silly, inconsequential things, and he goes like a good heir, boards a plane at his beck and call - it only gets worse.  
  
Raven saw all of it. He tried to hide it from her, but she saw it anyway.  
  
Charles hasn't forgiven himself for it. He never will.

* * *

Erik nods along as he's shown. _Charles_ , _I know all of that,_ he brushes his hair out of his face, leans over and kisses his brow. _I will not diminish it in any capacity. Neither will I say that it was OK,_ he said, because he's always been honest, and he won't start lying now. People like to say Erik holds Charles up on a pedestal, but the truth is that he knows perfectly well the implications of everything that he knows, and he accepts it anyway. He's been sitting in a glass house his whole life, he'll certainly not be the one throwing stones. _Charles, you weren't perfect. It wasn't a good thing to expose her to, and I won't insult your intelligence by telling you it is. But what I said still stands. You did your very best. You were sixteen years old and dealing with the effects of substantial abuse, and Raven has grown into a wonderful young woman, most definitively due to your intervention. I know you will always view yourself poorly because of it, but Raven doesn't. And it isn't because she's too naïve to know the difference, because she does._  
  
He makes a sniffling, whimpering noise, out of tears and curling into Erik for comfort he doesn't believe he deserves. _I wasn't fully sober until twenty-five, Erik, and you've seen how I've slipped_ , he sighs, bitter and self-deprecating. He's extraordinarily good at hating himself, too. _Do you know who held me through the fever and the shakes? Raven. I made her watch as I destroyed myself, and then asked her to pick me back up._ Charles clenches his jaw, and he can't be sure if what runs down his cheek is a droplet Erik missed or a tear. _If that was my very best, I should forget about being a guardian to anyone. What am I thinking? A school, with children? Please. And forget about -_ Charles shakes his head, choking, his fingers dug into Erik's back.  
  
_I wasn't until three months ago,_ Erik tells him quietly. _We do not know what the future will hold, if we might slip up again, but addiction isn't a personal failure. It's the result of both environmental and genetic factors, and needless to say, we are in abundance of both. You can't tell yourself how Raven feels, Charles. You need to talk to her, and listen to what she says about it, because that is what is important._ He lifts Charles's jaw up and kisses him very, very lightly. _I relate, very deeply to what you are saying._ He doesn't give an example, here, and his mind obfuscates everything entirely, because it's not important _what_ , only _why_. _But the answer is that we were both the product of our environment. You have learned, and you have grown, and you recognize the impact of your actions, and you take responsibility for them. That is a milestone many people never, ever reach. It's the quality that will make you a wonderful caretaker to any child that passes your way. If you trust me, then trust me, Charles. Do you think I would allow you near a child if you posed a danger to them_? Erik takes this route and pushes down every single thing that threatens to bubble up, maintaining his aura of calm and peace.  
  
Charles sniffs loudly, but even as he burrows back into Erik's chest, he shakes his head. _No_ , he answers, because he doubts himself but not Erik. _Can I ask for something, Erik?_ It's quiet, and restrained, as if he almost hadn't thought it at all.  
  
_Of course you may,_ he says without reservation. _What do you need?_  
  
_I don't want you to Order me - really Order me,_ he clarifies, because there is a difference between what is Imperative and what is not, and Erik uses both in interlocking, intricate ways as he Dominates him, _Not to drink or do drugs._ Not because it's something he doesn't want Erik to control (it is, and it's in their contract) but because he'll always wonder, for the rest of his life, if the only reason he didn't reach for the bottle was because he was physically incapable of doing so. Obedience under Orders can be incredibly gratifying, but when Charles makes a conscious decision to act according to Erik's guidance, expectations, and standards (or not, as in this past week) it sometimes holds even more weight and significance. He bites his lip, ashamed, and stares down at his feet. _I don't know if it's something you're comfortable with or something I can ask for, if it's my place, and I certainly won't dictate how you decide to handle it, but please..._ Don't let him get away with it. Don't let it be something that falls to the wayside, because everyone in his life has already decided that he will do as he pleases regardless and all they can do is sigh and wait for him to make the right decision, and perhaps that's true, but Erik expects better of him. He's more than proven, this morning no exception in the slightest, that he does not let things slide. _Please. I need someone to hold me accountable, and I won't do it for myself if I think I can get away with it. I know you've already done so, but..._ If he slips, and he might, he needs to know it won't go unaddressed.  
  
_I understand,_ Erik tells him, and he does. It's part of the reason why he doesn't straight out just Order Charles to do and be everything he expects; even the things that are within their contract, Erik doesn't simply say _Charles, never behave whatever-way_ as an Order, because that would fundamentally change who Charles was, it would remove any possibility of Charles genuinely choosing to behave in ways Erik expects, which would completely undermine the entire fabric of their relationship, their respective identities, et cetera, et cetera. Charles often talks about the burden of his telepathy, the burden of knowing he could make anyone do anything, but the thing is-So can Erik. Charles is one of perhaps 25 people on the planet who can override Erik's commands if they really wished to, but that doesn't change the fact that Charles trusts Erik so much that he simply wouldn't do that-it's a balance. It's always a balance. So Erik has to be very careful about what he does, how he does it, what he chooses to Order, and he nods, because Charles is absolutely, 100% correct and he knows it. This isn't something that should be Ordered. But it is something that should be enforced, and expected, and held to writ. _And I promise you that I will take care of you, in this respect as in all others. I will not allow you to fall to the wayside, and I will never simply let you do as you please. Not with this nor anything else._ He of course, brushes Charles's hair aside and kisses him again, because he can and because sometimes he feels like it's a compulsion, to always be touching and kissing Charles as much as possible during the moments they are alone, the few moments of the day that they're alone and not publicly scrutinized for every twitch of movement.  
  
Charles knew that was coming. He breathes a sigh of relief anyway, melting completely until all the tension is gone. _Thank you,_ he sighs, and lets the moment drag, Erik's fingers in his wet hair, smoothing down his back, kissing at his temple. _Now, let's get dressed and do something incredibly illegal, shall we?_ When he lifts his head, it's with a small, wry smile.

* * *

_Indeed, let's,_ Erik's eyebrows bounce as he gifts Charles with a grin of his own and lifts Charles to stand before they're rising up over the lip of the tub and landing neatly on the floor, both dry, so he takes them directly into the bedroom to re-dress (in his case, _oopsie_ ). Erik's wardrobe primarily consists of soft sweaters, jeans, a couple of blazers and dress shirts, and button-downs. He picks out one of the latter in dark blue and slides it on, careful not to jostle his arm, and does up the buttons with his abilities, grabbing a pair of matching dark jeans to go with it. The final piece is obviously a hat, and while his outfit is more or less conservative, he grabs a knit tie-dye monstrosity and plops it over his terribly wayward curls with a delighted smile on his face. He tilts his head at Charles's clothes, thumbing through them curiously. _Shall we dress you in all black, like a cat burglar?_  
  
Charles laughs softly, looking fondly on said monstrosity of a hat. _No, thank you._ He runs a hand through his own hair, sighing; it's getting long again, and he should probably cut it sometime soon, the curls at his nape beginning to form minds of their own. He doesn't remember what he was wearing the night - no, he does. It was after the arraignment, and he hadn't changed except to discard the suit jacket. It doesn't matter, and he doesn't know why he'd thought of it. _Can I...?_ It's silly to ask for it when he technically doesn't need it. Charles' face flushes, and he fidgets as he stares at his feet. _No, nevermind._  
  
Erik tilts his head up. _Can you what?_ he asks, and that takes on the tone of an Order, an unspoken tell me as Erik is always wont to do. If Charles worried that Erik wouldn't enforce their contract, he really doesn't need to; Erik doesn't let things sit unresolved, even the most mild of things; and it's a personality trait that can get annoying real fast when someone doesn't want to be called up on every single thing, but Erik isn't perfect, either. He's got his flaws, and at least this one does get results when push comes to shove. He's not afraid to dig, to poke, to encourage and insist.  
  
Charles finds it refreshing, actually. It's something he's grateful for, because he, by contrast, is much more likely to sweep things under the rug and have them stay there. They truly do complement each other in every possible way, enough that Charles sometimes wonders if Erik is some fever dream he's made up inside his head. It doesn't stand to reason that two people be so perfectly suited. "Wear one of your sweaters," he mumbles, avoiding Erik's eyes even with his head lifted as his feet turn into each other. They aren't going to be out in public, and Charles has taken to wearing Erik's shirts occasionally in private, mostly to bed, because... they smell like him, and it's comforting, and they're oversized and he thinks Erik rather likes it. It makes Charles feel safe and, if he's honest, owned, and that he likes that goes without saying.  
  
"Oh, of course you can," Erik tells him, his voice warm and incredibly fond and surprised-they're going outside-he wants to-but-oh, yes. His nose wrinkles and his eyebrows draw together as he smiles, sunlight reflecting in his eyes and making him seem all the more bright and delighted. He trails his hand down Charles's chest appreciatively. He does like it. Very much. Charles is beautiful in anything, in nothing at all, but when he does slip into bed donning one of Erik's shirts he has to admit-the slight is alluring in more ways than one. It soothes the frantic, possessive beast in his heart and it ignites it all the same, Charles is his, Charles is draped in him-touched by him, even when Erik isn't touching him; and Erik should always be touching him. Erik lingers over his own clothing now, before he decides on a black cashmere piece with a hood, and baggy odds and ends that are meant to drape even off of him-it's fashionable, apparently, but Erik likes it because it's the softest thing he owns and he can bundle himself up in it, put the hood up and be surrounded by it everywhere, like a soft, warm hug wherever he goes. So it goes without saying that the fabric of it is soaked in Erik, even though it's been washed, Erik can still sense himself in the seams. He guides Charles to lift up his arms so he can dress him for himself, and can't resist running his hands over it once its settled. "I love you so much," he rumbles, pleased.  
  
Charles is flushed and squirming in the aftermath. It's far too big on him, but it's one of his favorites of Erik's mostly because Erik likes it so much, and because it looks damn good on him, always smells like him even fresh from the wash. It feels good all over, even on his sore nipples - and when he notices that, fussing slightly at the reminder, he goes redder - and he can't help ducking his head into it, terribly pleased himself. _Thank you, Erik_ , he murmurs, still shy but beaming now. _I love you, too. Very much._ He sighs; if they were going to be lounging around the house alone, he might stay like this, nude except for this sweater, covered only in Erik with plenty of access. They aren't, though, but he still feels safe, comforted, a physical reminder on top of his collar, ever-present. _I like wearing your shirts,_ he admits, smiling softly. He likes being Erik's. They spend so much time hiding it in their day to day that he likes any reminder he can find, not that he needs it. It's a bit disheartening to know the most important part of his life could land him behind bars. He tries not to think about it, but he'd shout it from the rooftops if he could. For now the extra reminder, even only for him, grounds him. He can do this if he has Erik to do it with him. _How do I look?_ he teases, for now, and does a playful turn.  
  
He drags Charles closer to him and runs his fingers from Charles's hip right to curl his big palm over the swell of his ass, giving it a good squeeze for measures beyond the pale, and he's not red in the sense of embarrassment but his cheeks gain more color as his eyes turn half-lidded and he bends his head right down to Charles's ear, scrapes his teeth in that spot connecting to his jaw that he loves to lave with attention because Charles always makes such pretty noises when he does, and-oh, he'd take him right here again if he could, if they didn't have to face the world, he's warm-it's not the intensity of fire-hot need that pervades the atmosphere but instead it's slow, an ember in his chest spreading to loose limbs in the aftermath, and he just rubs his hand where it's laying, swaying them from side to side. He has to complete _shacharit_ before they go, and he'll do it with Charles by his side. His submissive the answer to a prayer he never realized he'd been saying for his entire life. _My precious boy,_ he murmurs lowly between their minds. _My gift._ He laughs a little, unaware until this moment he'd dropped right into Dominion just on the sight of him and he climbs his way back up into the more focused calm of his ordinary personality so that they don't end up on the damn floor again. Or the bed. Or the wall. Listen, Charles, you knew what this was. Erik's libido is particularly high, most Doms suffer the same concern, but he's finding as a Bonded D5 it's ridiculous. A pity they must leave the house. _I love it when you wear my things, in case you weren't aware,_ he snorts a mild self-deprecation.  
  
Charles grins, bashful but incredibly pleased with himself, with knowing that he can have this effect. It works both ways, and that he's now flushed for a different reason, that he'd arched into the touches and made soft, needy noises, that goes without saying. _Your 'ordinary personality'? Oh, please._ He rolls his eyes for show, biting his lip and looking up coyly. _You and I both know you never really climb up. Everyone goes on and on about how you put submissives in subspace, but Erik,_ and now that grin turns wicked, playful, and Charles can't help but feel fiercely proud. _You're always in Dominion when I'm around, even just a little, and not when you're around them. Because you're Bonded to me and it's for me._ Charles is feeling particularly bold this morning, apparently, but he hardly thinks Erik will mind. He runs a hand down Erik's chest, feigning innocence. Are you going to finish dressing me, sir? he asks, sweetly.  
  
_I don't know,_ he purrs and the answer is dragged up entirely from his subconscious, and he's breathing a little more ragged. He doesn't know because he's right on the edge of pinning Charles to that wall beside them and pulling down his jeans and rubbing himself along Charles's ass and he knows it's still red with the welts from a few days ago, from the smacks of his hand-and he's wearing Erik's sweater and it looks so good on him and he's making such beautiful, gorgeous sounds just for him and-he can't climb out, Charles is right, never wants to climb out and his fingers have loosened the grip on the well he should have climbed out of and he's sinking right back down. Erik's eyes flutter closed and he bows his forehead against Charles's, slowly regulating his breathing until it comes out even, _normal_ as he'd said. _Ordinary_. Erik laughs. _So you do not think I am ordinary, hm?_ and it's playful and less _'I don't know because I want to fuck you and that requires undressing you_ ' and he finally manages to rein it all in, although it's never truly reined in. Not when he's near Charles, but he does settle, and he picks out a pair of dark blue pants, from his own side, and he holds them up and slowly they begin to alter themselves at the waist, slim down until they're just the right height and width for Charles's body, the body he knows better than his own, and this is just as good. Dressing his submissive, preparing for the day, caring for him even in this as he slips them on for Charles and leaves long, lingering touches while he does. "You look lovely," he whispers, so soft. "Thank you for asking this."  
  
"Mmmm," is all that comes out of his mouth, and then he's lunging forward to wrap his arms firmly around Erik's waist, to bury himself completely in the warmth of his chest. It feels good, to be wearing his clothes. To be touching like this, to feel their closeness thrumming between them and to know nothing is getting in between. Charles is always clingier after discipline, even the small corrections that are separate from what happened this morning, minor infractions that do not require him in Child's Pose with the dread and uncomfortable lurch of it dropping his stomach. It's especially so today, now, when he knows what's ahead, when he's been so afraid and guilty, when the punishment itself put distance between them and featured something he struggles with. He clings hard, fingers tangling up in the fabric of Erik's shirt, and he doesn't say anything, but he doesn't have to.  
  
Erik wraps his arms fully around Charles, pinning him as close as possible to his body, not for heat and lust but in full, thick strands of Will that excise any thoughts of Erik truly distancing himself from Charles. Not ever, not even in Child's Pose when he's left 'alone.' There is still a glowing, golden strand between them that cannot ever, ever be eliminated by anything. Not by circumstance nor by others' denial, nor by any trigger or flashbulb-shrieking memory. Throughout it all the one single Truth: Erik is here with Charles. Charles belongs here with Erik. Behind him, in front of him, by his side, pressed close to his body in these liminal moments gathered up out of time and space that they make for one another. No more fear. No more guilt. Charles has atoned and he's been so good, he's always good for Erik. Whether he's hiding or relying on old coping mechanisms. Not once, not once, has Erik felt otherwise. Not once has Erik ever said, _you are Bad. You are awful. You are wrong._ The words don't even appear in his mind along the traces of his ruminations, they can't appear. Charles only knows what he means because they're so connected that every last speck of Erik is open to him. They're blank-spaces that he knows how to fill, because Erik is incapable of forming the words.  
  
_My good boy,_ he simply says in response, thumbing Charles's lower lip, all that warmth rising up again. _My sweet boy. Do not worry yourself about it, OK?_ He touches Charles's stomach where that cold stone has settled in his gut, loosing its hold, untightening the claw-finger vice grip it once circled over him. Nothing shall ever get in between of us. _I will never allow it to happen_. That's the purpose of his discipline, the grand-scheme of all that he does. To soften those harsh edges cut over years of horror and rain-soaked misery. To bring Charles to him, warts and all, and to give himself back. Warts and all. Charles loves Erik despite the myriad, myriad of evil he's done in his life. Charles loves Erik when he touches him, and does not view his touch as slimy, oily tentacles of sickness rose up from the deep-dark ocean inside of him. He craves Erik's touch and it is soft and gentle and sometimes-not, and that's good for him, too. Erik is good for him. Charles makes Erik good, and Erik makes Charles good. It is simply the way of things.  
  
_I'm not afraid of that,_ he promises softly, and he isn't. That he clings harder after he's disciplined, that he's a bit needier - it's not because it was at all damaging, even when it made him cry (and it never hasn't, nor does he ever think it won't, because the worst part of it is knowing he'd disappointed Erik and that is always worth the tears itself). It's because he feels new, and wanting, and soft, because he feels good and loose and that pit is gone. He feels free from it, whatever it is he did to earn the punishment in the first place, in a way he never could have in his past, because they are not remotely the same. He relies on Erik a bit more than usual, seeking comfort and guidance and love, but there is not a single moment where he fears Erik will take him apart without putting him back together. Erik is good for him, extraordinarily good for him, and Charles always wants very much to be good for Erik, even during times he isn't the most well-behaved. There is so much healing here.

* * *

What he's afraid of, right in this moment, does not have to do with them. _I don't want to know, Erik,_ he admits quietly, and lets it sit between them as he continues to grip tightly, desperately. For once in my life, I don't want to know, but it's mine to know. I have to. I hate that he left me with this. Saddled him with it. A grand estate and upwards of three billion dollars, a private jet and a bomb shelter, but so much of that he would sacrifice for just - well. They both know it.  
  
Erik rubs his back, in long sweeping strokes. _I know_ , he whispers back, pained. _I know, sweetheart._ And he does know, not just because he can feel it within himself as though it's happening to him, as close as they are. He knows because-  
  
_Hurry up!_ Magda hisses, and the laboratory is dark where they've sneaked in, keycard held tightly in Erik's clenched fingers-  
  
and he's skeletal here, a pile of tree-twig limbs and skin stretched over ribs and hips that jut out unnaturally, and the word comes to him before he can squash it down from Zeyde's stories, _Muselmänner_ -  
  
_They are inferior, Kleiner Erik. We are the future, not them. Their genetics are impure. You could do with a bit less of this_ \- he thumbs Erik's nose fondly, musses up his messy, oily curls because he hasn't had a proper wash in days.  
  
-he's dirty for them anyway, a sick sack of bones ripped into by those who don't pause to consider, by those who do and come to him with petrified eyes and he soothes their fear away, " _Es ist in Ordnung, Ich liebe es-_ " soft-smiles, fluttering touches by a hand still in-tact-  
  
"But we've cleared that nasty little accent right up, haven't we, my boy?" Shaw continues with a fond, sharp smile. "Those eyes certainly make up for it. You're a genetic marvel, _Kleiner Erik_. You've found that brilliant strength for me. We're going to change the world. They'll beg to lick dirt from the bottom of our boots, don't you worry."  
  
Touches his own chest, waves his hand rapidly, a gestureful "I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying-" and with a beep-click the door to the back office opens and they slide in like spies in the night, desperately combing through piles of-  
  
_Dr. Klaus Schmidt_ \- and Erik's always known.  
  
_This fucking place,_ Sebastian gripes as he storms through the exam suite. _Those vendors'll rip you off for a shekel if they thought they'd get away with it. Can you believe I paid three for this? Utter sham, these fucking people, I've gotten only a singular use out of them and science has thanked me a thousand times over. Me, mind you. It's not like I recall their names-_ as he's preparing his instruments, muttering under his breath, until he remembers his temper and melts into a congenial smile-  
  
"What is that-oh my G-d- Magda breathes, hand going up to her mouth.  
  
Erik shakes his head and waves his hand and throws the files back haphazardly. _No time for it, find those keycards_ -

* * *

Erik's eyes widen and he kisses Charles's neck and he's so sorry that slipped out, it's not meant to-he's not meant to share like this, not when Charles is hurting so much, he only wants him to know- _Ani yodea, ani yodea, tayer_ , he breathes and he doesn't realize he's slipped into Hebrew, a comfort to strike those memories away as though with a baseball bat. "It is yours to know," Erik tells him with his voice, firmly in the world and not within his mind, so disgusted with himself because he'd turned this into-he's so sorry, but he also knows. "And I will be right there with you." He can't believe that's any sort of comfort, but he rubs Charles's back and presses his lips to a small patch of shoulder visible at the neckline of his soft sweater because it's still too-large. "We can't change what happened. We only can do what we can do. And we can know this, Charles. Together. We will learn and and we will vow never, ever to let it repeat itself."  
  
Charles has already seen these things, somewhere unconscious and unprocessed. He’s sure of it. There is little that has not slipped, falling from the between spaces where their minds blend into each other, where they meet, and sometimes he finds it difficult to tell where one begins and the other ends. There are times they are one beating heart, one feeling, thinking soul, and there is little need to delineate at all. Even when he learns and sees something new of Erik, it feels and sounds like something he already knew. It doesn’t stop the force of it from unsettling his stomach, dropping him into a sick, dizzy place. He’s seen Shaw’s mind, now. The wretched, rotting stink of it, the gross justifications for the atrocities he’s lined up in neat, orderly rows, the bodies he’s stacked because he does not see them as people, never could, the adamant refusal to see himself as anything but in the right -  
  
But this, for Charles, is perhaps the worst of it. The affection, twisted and revolting, that he feels for Erik. That he’s utterly convinced himself of, as if it is genuine concern or care for his well-being. The way he sees him, truly, as…  
  
Perhaps his reasoning for what he had done to Erik could be explained away (by the standards of monsters, the absolute scum of this Earth, the dirt caked at the bottom of humanity’s boots) by his need to keep those under him in check, but there was another D5 under his thumb, too. Charles knows why it happened, and that he knows is one of the reasons he wishes, in his darkest moments, that when he had Shaw on his knees, begging for mercy he does not deserve, that he had taken that encounter to another logical conclusion.  
  
But that’s not a thought he allows himself to indulge in often.  
  
His fists are clenched tightly behind Erik’s back. Then he takes a slow, careful breath, and he shakes his head. He looks up, his jaw set but his eyes shining with every shred of true, untainted, unmarred affection, adoration, and love he has, and he tugs gently at Erik until he leans down, flooding the room with it. He tugs so he can kiss that beautiful, handsome nose of his, stroke it with a finger and smile through the horrid wrench of emotions that threatens to consume him. He centers himself on Erik instead. “You have a lovely nose,” he whispers, and it drips with sincerity. It isn’t the first time he’s said it. He says it quite a lot, actually, in and out of bed, calls it cute and beautiful, rubs his own against it and laughs. “And gorgeous hair.” The hat is in the way, but after he has Erik all but crouching for him after another insistent tug, he can curl some of it around his fingers, freshly-washed and still faintly damp. “And your accent - Erik, I adore it. I know we intend to keep you here in the States, but I hope desperately that you never lose it. It gives me butterflies, do you know that?” Perhaps a silly expression, like a schoolboy discussing his crush, but it’s the reality of it. “All the things he would have changed in you, all of the things he hated? I love them, Erik. I love them so dearly, and so fiercely. I know you know that, but I wanted to remind you. When we change the world, you and I, not only will he not be a part of it -” And that is fierce, too, fierce and sure and vicious in a way Charles hardly ever is, edged with genuine hatred that makes Erik’s fears that perhaps Charles could not bear to hate anyone ridiculous, because he does, oh, he certainly, absolutely does - “But it will be because of those things, and with those things, not in spite of them. I love you, Erik. I love you so much. So, so much,” and if he trembles a bit as he says it, it can’t be helped.  
  
He is in the Real, right now. He is here with his hands balanced on Charles's shoulder because a faint wind could knock him off his feet. He's shaking, trembling like a leaf, and when Charles presses his lips to his nose-Erik very rarely cries. It's not something Charles would ever know, because he does-he cries so often, and he'd be embarrassed of that the way any ordinary man would be, society being what it is-but he's only-ever grateful for his tears, because in the Real, he almost never does. They're so close that the difference is negligible, mixing together until what Erik experiences deep inside manifests itself on his face, not a projection but an unveiling, a peeling-away to Reality. He has expressions, too. Fond, angry, amused, afraid, terrified, heartbroken. All the range of human emotion, for Charles to see. But in the Real, he is a statue, just like they call him on television. Stern, stoic, some have gone so far as to say brooding. The Byronic hero of the new generation, but for his collapse in court-which is analyzed and debated to this day ( _Is he faking it? Is he crazy? He's a victim. He's having a flashback. Leave him be. We stand with him. He's a mass murderer, why are we showing him sympathy?_ and on and on, thousands of notifications each day-) unusual and disorienting for the public because he does not emote. Charles saw it once, when his telepathy was recharging.  
  
When Charles kisses him, tears immediately spring to his eyes. He's utterly silent, eyes smashed shut, body shuddering.  
  
It's not quite clear why-he's not panicking, he's not reliving terrors. It's Charles. It's Charles and his beautiful, wondrous love, enveloping him and telling him things he's needed to hear for so long, that he's been ashamed to even care about because they're so silly and inconsequential, except that they're not. 

* * *

_Some mutants are better than others, my boy, so understand your place._ Erik's lived a whole life built precariously on the fact that he is a lesser class, a lesser being, for having the audacity to hide a _siddur_ under his bed. For having the audacity to form German words with a guttural / _chet_ / instead of the light tap of /bach/. A slam of fists to the table and his hands glow as he rears back and smacks Erik over the collarbone with his open palm, and he shrieks and claps his hands over his mouth and falls over, pain obliterating all thought. _I said we would work on this, didn't I, little one? You know I care for you. You know I'm only doing this for your own good. This is your only chance. When we rule the Earth, I want you by my side, but I won't have a street urchin next to me. You must learn to be cultured, Kleiner Erik-_  
  
It's a piece of his past he hates to examine. He tells himself that Mr. Shaw wasn't _really_ very cruel to him in that regard, he didn't care about Erik's origins-that Erik was _Jewish_. And he wasn't deliberately nasty about it, either, in any of Erik's memories. Shaw often greeted him with chocolates and pats on the head, asked about his day, spoke to him in a kind voice. It existed in his unconscious actions. In offhand comments. In how he day after day attempted to exterminate Erik's identity, to mold him into a true representation of mutant heritage. _Your mutation is all that matters, Kleiner Erik. When people ask you what you are, and where you come from, what do you say? I am a mutant, Herr Shaw._  
  
Erik grips onto him tighter, a pressure valve inside of him having suddenly exploded with-relief, joy, love, grief, so, so, so much grief and sadness, he is so sad- and he is so full of light, now, and incredulous amazement. "I-" he gasps around a creaky throat. "I love you so much, I-" he's so sorry they came here, to this place inside him, he didn't mean to. But he knows what it's like to know. How hard it is to live with the knowledge, that someone close to you could have committed atrocities beyond all human comprehension. He is so sorry, but he is also so happy, so happy to stand by Charles's side and hold his hand and hang onto him, keep him afloat, tell him stories and sing him songs and hug him and rock him and kiss him and make sure he is loved and that he knows he is loved, because it's all he deserves in this world, and nothing they find in Westchester is going to change the fact that Erik reveres him.  
  
_Thank you_ , he kisses Charles on the lips even though his are wet. _Thank you, I love you-_  
  
Charles is choked up, too. He kisses back, wet from tears and sloppy with emotion, clings tightly. He whispers, " _Ani ohev otcha_." _One day you will love me and you will know my language, too_ , and Charles does. When Erik switches languages on the couch with Raven and Hank, forgetting a word in English, needing to express himself in his native tongue, Charles switches with him instinctively. Raven laughs, rolls her eyes, says, "You're doing it again, you two." (She says that a lot about them, and not only because they've switched languages - you're doing it again, you two, fond but exasperated, sharing a look with Hank, and Charles grins, sheepish, because whatever it was, he's sure they're guilty of it.) He knows all of Erik's Commands in Hebrew first. He says, tell me a story in Hebrew, say something in Hebrew, just to hear, to practice, to listen, turning off his mental translator so he can be certain he's hearing them as they are. There is rarely a time when Erik settles in to pray that Charles does not go with him, soft and quiet, watching with awe and adoration and it does not matter, not in the slightest, not one single bit, what he does or does not believe in. He will spend the rest of his life kneeling close to Erik as he prays, listen to the stories and the songs, attend services, celebrate holidays. Delight in his accent and think of the desert as his home, too, no matter how sweaty and sunburned it makes him, because it was once Erik's and still is. Kiss his beautiful nose. "I love you for you, darling. Every beautiful, extraordinary part of you, never in spite of. Please know that." Because it will help Charles know it's the same for him. "Through everything, know that."  
  
Erik hugs him even tighter if that's possible, lips pressed together; and he buries his head in Charles's shoulder, as bent-over as he needs to be for that. The truth of the matter is that ever since that first conversation at the CIA; Charles is the one who has created the space for him to come back to himself. To live as he wants to live, to slowly creep toward the things that have always mattered to him, what has been stifled for over sixteen years. He's self-conscious and nervous every time he outwardly expresses himself as himself, but through Charles he's learning not to be afraid, from his decision to cover his head to Charles staying with him as he prays, to attending services and debating Torah with Carmen (who is an atheist, which makes their discussions all the more interesting-but even for atheist Jews it's more the finer nuances and its various interpretations; halacha is fascinating enough on its own merits-) to caring for Naomi and decorating their house and dancing badly to music (by dance we mean largely unconscious bopping about) and telling stories (in Hebrew) to their plants to make them grow better, to traversing the wide expanse of bookstores together and arguing over literature and its merits, to having rooted political opinions and speaking them aloud.  
  
Charles has been the one, the only one he's ever met, to encourage him to live as himself and it is something he will never, ever forget and his love is so large it can't be contained inside his body, whenever he thinks about it he has to move, swaying them side to side as it bursts from him. He isn't telepathic but yet his Will is something beyond the physical, and it fills with it, in every form. Charles loves him so much, and he feels it and experiences it every single day, every moment, even when Charles is being catty and sarcastic and distant, Erik knows it is there. Like a ripcord he can pull on if he needs it, the knowledge that no matter what is happening, if Erik needs him he will be there, and the force of it is enough to bring him to his knees. They buckle, but he remains standing upright, Charles in his arms. _I love you so much, neshama,_ he starts, thick with resonance. _I love every single part of you. You are the most incredible being I have ever met or ever will meet in my entire life, and beyond. I know you believe it is hyperbole, but it is not. You must never, ever forget it. When their voices crowd you, you must remember that I love you more powerfully than the monsters can fathom. You are a beautiful, extraordinary person. You belong with me, to me, and I shall always keep you. I love our contract, you know that? I look at it every day and it steals my breath away because it reminds me that we are here. We are here. We are building our life. Our good, good life_. The tears are still falling, but he's laughing a little, and kissing Charles again, and he can breathe again.  
  
The feeling, as always, is mutual. His entire life Charles has been put into a box that does not fit, and he has kept himself in the box. He created a box for himself, stuffed everything that did not belong or match up neatly inside and shoved it underground where he could never hope to find it. The key was thrown away. He wasn't even fully aware how suffocating - how incredibly oppressive - that was until Erik made him believe it could be different. Until Erik loved him and saw him and knew him. Charles is still afraid, and some days he is still ashamed. But he is less so with Erik. He is learning, just as Erik is. So he kisses back and then he cries, too, with tears he can't imagine still having, and he kisses away Erik's tears and he smiles, brilliantly, and with the dimples he was mocked for. "Let's get today over with, so we can come home and you can take me to bed," he teases, even as he sniffles, and he doesn't have faith the same way Erik does, but if there is someone or something out there to thank - some higher being, some cosmic force, Fate, whatever it is - Charles is thanking them with everything he has for bringing Erik to him.  
  
He unconsciously presses his thumb to that dimple, first one and then the other, smiling back at him radiantly. In the Real and between them, an expression he is still learning is all right, that Charles teaches him daily is good. He has a dimple of his own, on the right side of his face; one that's visible even when he doesn't smile, the product of trauma rather than inherent genetics; a nail driven through his cheek, but it did the job all the same, and it even looks mostly-natural. But Charles's are not a product of pain, they are sweet things that appear when he is happy-and if he were not simply gorgeous with them, which he is, Erik would love them on that principle alone. He bites his own lip; a gesture not similar to Charles's in the slightest, more focused determination, showing up usually when that dark, luxurious, Will-fueled heat overtakes him for just a moment out of time, the incredible span of feelings they unearth in only a short time, all leading right back to this. To them, two bodies, two souls, in love. _Oh, worry not. That is where we shall finish today._  
  
He leans forward and presses a kiss right to Charles's dimples that haven't quite disappeared yet. Erik pulls out his accouterments for shacharit, while Charles kneels by his side and hums under his breath the same tunes that Erik uses.  
  
At first when he started this, Erik sang so lowly it was not but a whisper, terribly shy and borderline nervous, but as the days went on and Charles stroked his legs and nuzzled his knees and rubbed his feet, Erik became more confident and now he sings loud enough to really hear, in a strong dramatic-bass vibrato. Erik's spent a long time not talking, but he's always sang when he's alone, sneaking prayers and simply entertaining himself when he was locked away, and even though he's had little vocal training he can sustain notes for quite a while on little air, and has an impressive vocal range that bursts out of him unexpectedly. Today it's a bit different. Today he is singing for Charles. Eyes still wet, croaky and a little hoarse, but Charles can hear the difference.  
  
Today he is not thanking G-d for his blessings, he is thanking Charles. Because of everything the Earth has to offer, Charles is the one who has brought it to him, and though he wholeheartedly believes that Adonai brought Charles to him, today he thanks Charles; because G-d cannot control what human beings do. That is not within his purview. Everything that Charles has given him has been solely a product of Charles's own self, his own thoughts and feelings and decisions, and Erik is so incredibly thankful for him and so for today, he finally lets it out in the only forum he knows how. Charles might find it uncomfortable, he hopes he doesn't, and Erik is barely aware he's doing it. When he's finished, he puts it all away and tugs Charles up to his feet, wrapping him up in a final hug before they head down the stairs.  
  
Charles doesn't find it uncomfortable. He finds it deeply moving, beautiful, breathtaking. It should come as no surprise. He does stop them when they're mostly out the door, Erik shrugging on his coat. They've had a quick breakfast. He managed a few bites, no more, and it's clear he was becoming increasingly antsy through the whole thing. He can't eat while he's nervous. "Wait, maybe -" Charles stares down at his feet. It's cowardly, to put it off. He'll never be more ready than he is right this moment. But he's afraid. All these years, Charles had held onto the notion that his father had loved him. That if he'd only still been alive, Charles would be loved by a parent. That he would not have suffered. He chose Oxford because it was very far away, yes. But he also chose it because it was his father's alma mater, and he'd hoped, in a silly, idle way, that if there was even a chance at an afterlife, if his father was watching... Perhaps he would be proud of Charles.  
  
Erik tugs him close and puts both hands on his shoulders, one loping awkwardly and mostly just the back of his palm, but all the same. "I know," he tells him, softly. "I know, and I am with you. We will get through this, I promise you." Charles is a lovely, brilliant person regardless of what his parents tried to stifle, if they can be called parents at all. They do not rule him any more than they ever influenced who he is to this day, and that isn't mindless adoration. Erik knows, every drunken fight, every miserable lapse into self-pity and twisting, cutting words and neglect. He knows, and as he's always made sure Charles knew, he accepts it for what it is. They are pieces of Charles and he loves them just as much as the ones Charles would define as more pleasant. And they don't change the fact that Charles is extraordinary and always will be. "Whatever lies in that house will not change you," he murmurs. "And if you falter and forget that, I will be there to catch you."  
  
Charles sucks in a breath. Erik is right. He has to believe Erik is right, even as fear and doubt chip away at him, threatening to devour. "Okay," he breathes, and nods. "Okay. Let's go." He's assuming Erik will be flying them, and at least that means he can be held for however long it takes to get there. He needs it. He needs Erik, needs his Dominant, a strong hand to guide him through this without breaking. Erik will take care of him in this, too.

* * *

Charles doesn't need to hang on, but Erik is a little nervous about such a long flight, so he cautions him to wrap his arms around his neck, front-to-front, the safest position in case something somehow goes wrong. Erik doubts it will, even if he falters, the very fact that Charles may be in danger will spur him to correct it, in that he can be fully confident. When they step outside, they jet up into the air, not high enough to make them sick, but enough that they won't be spotted by any equipment watching them. Erik makes certain of that anyway, that shielding bubble appearing in striations of air all around them that blocks them from sensors and prying eyes, reflecting light in just such a way as to make them almost entirely invisible. Erik grins at Charles when he realizes what he's done and they begin to soar at incredible speeds. The one good thing about _Erik Airlines_ is that it's far, far faster than any vehicle and they'd be going fast enough for the wind to shear their faces if not for that protective arc surrounding them. "I wonder if I could break the sound barrier," Erik posits as an idle thought.  
  
Charles has known for a while that Erik would be able to manipulate light if he tried - it only stands to reason, really. He hasn't had the time to mention it, and now he laughs softly, delighted even as he thrums with fear and nerves. "Probably," he murmurs back, and closes his eyes, not because he's sick or frightened from flight, but because he's going to use this trip, however short, to ground and prepare himself. They're there all too quickly. The first thing he notices as Erik sets them down in front of the manor's main entrance is that there's blood on the ground, dried and old and caked into the stone. It's more than likely his. Images flash, a thousand at once, and Charles swallows around them, clenches his teeth and fists to batter them away. The manor looks different in the morning light. It feels too much like revisting a crime scene where he was the victim. He stares for too long at that tiny speck of blood, silent, his side of the Bond vibrating with insistent dread.  
  
Erik raises his hand and stares determinedly at that caked-on blood, and it slowly coagulates into one spot before melting right through the ground, not a speck left to see. Erik simply won't abide Charles's blood in any capacity where it does not belong. With Erik, inside himself. It doesn't feel too much like anything, it is exactly that. Erik inhales sharply through his nose as his eyes catch onto the too-familiar spires and swirls of architecture that call out to him like everything does these days, and if Charles is afraid of his own mutation, well-Erik never was, not really, because he's always had impeccable control. But he can do so much now, whether by his own capacity or Charles's influence he doesn't know. It's frightening all on its own, but right now he's not thinking about that; he's wrapping up all of his thoughts and feelings and memories and putting them in a box, letting another facet come out to drive. An observer, he's a bit formal, but no less compassionate. "Let us go inside," he says, clasping Charles's shoulder in his hand.  
  
The inside is worse. Everything feels like it slams into him at once, and Charles suddenly can't breathe. That night replays itself like a horrific dream right in front of him, acts itself out. He watches himself - Charles shakes his head, and feels the ache in his jaw where Cain punched him. He tastes his own blood. Everything is exactly where it was left that night. He doesn't know what makes him walk up to the gun left sitting on the floor, but he does, and then he crouches down and picks it up. The safety is clicked on. There's a residue of sulfur, and Charles retches, numb, his eyes glazed over.  
  
He puts his hand over Charles's heart, and then draws it down his arm to take the gun gently from him. It dissembles itself and forms into a neat ball that he settles on a nearby table. "Charles," he speaks in his gentle lilt, framing either side of his jaw. "Look at me, _neshama_ ," he Orders. "You are not there. Not anymore. You are here with me. You are safe."  
  
Charles looks. For a moment, brief and flashing, he becomes someone else. Not Erik's Charles, but some Other-Charles. Dead-eyed and limp, wearing a black studded collar that is not his own, spikes digging painfully into the pale skin of his neck. There's a ring attached to it, and to that ring there is a chain, thick and heavy. It's connected to a headboard, part of an overlarge black-and-red monstrosity of a bed. His arms and legs are chained to the posts. He can't move much, not to turn his head or squirm, spread-eagle and naked and left here. There are bruises littered all over his body, burns and cuts and brands. He's bleeding, leaking other fluids, covered in handprints and sulfur. He's not a crime scene, but a product of his Master's attention. His blue eyes, normally vivid azure like the clearest sky, look dull and pale. His dimples have disappeared.  
  
Erik is an observer, and he does not react. His face doesn't shift even an iota, and neither do his internal processes. He cares a great deal, and a great spring of compassion grows from within him and shrouds Charles in feathery greens and blues and browns, water and plants and soil. He combs Charles's hair away from his face and tilts his chin up, shaking his head with his eyebrows raised. "Come away from there," he Commands, and even quiet and soft, it's got enough power behind it to knock down a building. "Stay with me."  
  
So Charles does. He pulls away and it floats down where he can't reach it and it can't reach him, a half-remembered thing that he knows did not become reality. He left this place with Erik, his hope and his love and his dimples in tact. He wears Erik's collar, and in the morning he wakes in their bed, or a bed that is theirs for the moment, safe and held and cared for. He still stares into the space between them, something stuck in his throat. "Okay," he mumbles, and doesn't move. He can taste sulfur on his tongue. Down his throat.  
  
"Remember that I love you," Observer-Erik whispers, and he doesn't smile, not in the Real or between them, but Charles can feel the glowing warmth of what would be one anyway. "Very much. He will never hurt you again." His eyes flash, and often that's a literary hyperbole, but with Erik it's very much real, an electric current buzzing in his body from something deep and dark within him, a silent agreement from the Butcher and the Paragon, the protectors that live in the Vast-Landscape. "The only collar you will ever wear is mine." He touches it pointedly.  
  
It's all stuck on his tongue, and for once it's Charles who finds he can't speak. His limbs feel like jelly, held down by lead, but he gets up anyway, swallows and swallows but can't get the taste or the clotting mass in his throat to go away. It's too long a walk to the stairs that lead down, and seeing the concrete nearly makes him retch again. In the light of day, it's even more obvious he never would have made it down crawling. He was always going to be kicked, stumbling and shattering all the way. He knows exactly what step it happened on. He can feel the foot on his back. Charles shakes his head. He can't.  
  
"We can," Erik tells him firmly. This place doesn't belong to any of them. It belongs to Charles. He won't allow Charles to know at this juncture that he can feel every scream, every sob, every splatter of blood that the inhabitants here thought they could wash away in every atom of the walls, imprinted on them and thus upon Erik as well. He Observes it, categorizes it, and puts it neatly where it belongs inside of him, lifting his chin. "I promise you that we can." He squeezes Charles's shoulder, and rubs near his neck to soothe him down. "You can."  
  
Charles nods. He doesn't smile, or seek more touch, or speak. He waits until he can breathe again, swallows down bile and sulfur and sick, and walks down the stairs, past where he tumbled, down where he broke his wrist on the fall. He doesn't linger. There's an article of clothing he knows is his lying in front of the door to the lab, but Charles doesn't even give it a second glance to see what it is. He puts his hand on the keypad, waits for the electronic chime he barely remembers, and walks inside. The lab looks exactly like it did last time, but this time Charles switches on all the lights. Best to start here, with dusty test tubes and half-finished experiments frozen in time, and work his way up to the safe and his father's second office. He's hollowed all the way out, brain whirring with scientific knowledge and chemistry-physics-biology and not much else as he checks. He should probably be wearing gloves or eyewear just in case, but what's a chemical burn or two?  
  
Of course, Erik stops him before he gets very far at all and directs him to do just that with a raised eyebrow. Erik isn't a scientist, his experience with laboratories has largely been as the experiment and so he does know more than the average person, but not enough to be of help here. Charles knows what he's looking for and Erik does not, so Erik stands silently behind him, a ghostly specter ready to spring into action at a moment's notice, ensuring that Charles moves slowly and safely through every step of the way and keeping a steady hand at his back. They can do this. Together.

* * *

It's difficult to know exactly what was happening without proper context, but in many cases Charles can guess. He moves as efficiently as he can, never lingering too long, never letting himself think too hard about it and why there are dangerous, volatile chemicals sitting around in test tubes like some evil genius lab. Eventually he finds something he does have context for. The pills he was given as a child, or at least some of them - Charles doesn't remember what else was done to him, but this he does remember. They're what he thought they were, upon closer inspection. A handful of placebo pills, suppressants and enhancers. It seems fairly standard, almost excusable, except for the doses, which likely would have killed anyone not Omega-level and would have caused harm to anyone, even him or Erik. There's also the fact that there are injectors nearby that aren't filled with either, but do contain enough tranquilizers to take out a horse or two, as well as a chemical he doesn't actually recognize, so he's not sure exactly what the idea there was. The medical bed has straps, and upon closer inspection, there are instruments that probably shouldn't be there for something totally innocent and helpful. He checks the freezer and has to take a deep, steadying breath. There are vials of blood in here, and they're all labeled ' _C.X.'_ Hair in bags, too, dirty blonde like his was as a child. Skin from a biopsy. "I guess I was a lab rat, then," he says, and if it was meant to be funny, it isn't. A drop of his blood is still sitting under a microscope. He doesn't have any memories. He wonders if they're behind a wall, too. If he's too numb to reach them right now. "Maybe..." He doesn't have a good excuse.  
  
The Observer ruthlessly crushes any sign of the Erik Charles is familiar with behind his eyes when he threatens to rage to the surface, holding him down with gnarled, scarred hands, machinations of his own whirring but all Erik does is gently guide his hand away from the vial he'd picked up, to set it back down in its holder. "You were not a lab rat," Erik tells him, his voice firm and calm, fully in-control. "You were a child subjected to horrific and unethical medical procedures." He lifts the hand in his and kisses Charles's knuckles, one after the other, all softness, each one saying I love you for the Erik who can't. "If there are walls," and he is sure there are. Charles is a telepath, fully capable of sectioning off things he can't deal with even from himself, the same way he could control his own perception of Erik's marks and welts on him, his collar, his pain. "We will find them and walk through them together. In time, when you are ready."  
  
Charles nods, even though he isn't certain of all that. Unethical, perhaps, but horrific? He doesn't think so. There must have been a reason. He doesn't linger here long, setting everything aside, because he knows where more answers are. When Erik is behind him, that guiding hand at his back, he sheds the gear and walks into his father's office - the secret one, not his study above-ground. The first thing he notices is that his desk looks like Charles', scattered papers and disarray. The second is the picture, framed and dusty but clear as anything. It's a family portrait from when Charles was around five or six. Younger Charles, chubby-cheeked and smiling, stares back at him. He kept this on his desk where no one but him, presumably, would see it. That means something. It does. It counts for something, doesn't it? Doesn't it?  
  
"It counts for nothing," the Observer replies to his thoughts verbally. Shaw kept a photograph of Erik in his wallet. It doesn't count for anything. There is no excuse for strapping a child down in four-points and administering pills that make them so sick they can't even think, to pumping them full of poisons that would kill any normal human being. Erik doesn't expect that Charles will see it any time soon, because it is always easier to imagine a scenario where you weren't a victim who had no sense of control. Minimization and self-blame are preferable, as illogical as it sounds, to the uncomfortable truth that there had been no choice, no free will, having it stripped away until you could only thrash and scream. They both suffer from a hefty bout of both, but Erik will never let him get away with it when he tries. He will always bring the truth, because that is what they vowed to one another. He turns the photograph over. "You were a lovely child," he says, the same calm firmness of earlier, and there's nothing empty about the statement. He isn't lifeless and automatic, and he truly means what he's saying.  
  
It isn't the same. What Shaw did, and what his father did, it isn't the same. Erik is mistaken. He's conflating the two, equivocating, because that's what humans do. They draw connections between two things that are fundamentally dissimilar because they crave shared experiences. There is nothing in these two situations that could be more different. Brian Xavier was kind to his son, he patted his head and gave him books to read, he was not - he could never, he would never allow for the rotten, vile things that had happened to Erik happen to Charles, he was good to him, a loving father, a doting husband, he loved him, he was worth mourning -

* * *

The drawer of the desk is locked. Charles grits his teeth, practically growls in frustration, visibly agitated. Before he can ask Erik to open it for him, it dents and clicks and throws itself open. He assumes Erik did it, rifles around for only a moment before he finds the inexplicably thick file labeled 'Charles F. Xavier'.  
  
It starts at a year old.  
  
There are detailed descriptions of every experiment, procedure, and test.  
  
What Charles ends up paying more attention to, for once, are the pictures.  
  
His own body, prone and weak. In every picture he is a helpless, dead-eyed or unconscious child. The notes explain things coldly, how he reacts. Charles experiences seizures - his body mid-writhe loss of hair thick clumps missing nosebleeds covered in his own blood prone to illness, little to no appetite, frail bones bedridden and sickly debilitating pain what looks to be his stricken, agonized face caught mid-scream reacts to number of stimuli differently when enhanced or suppressed smooth cuts chemical burns that he knows are still evidenced on his body but assumed were from - the page says -  
  
_emotional physical sexual (n/a, not at this time)_  
  
_I can only conclude that should Charles not be properly suppressed and contained, he is a danger and a threat to the safety and wellbeing of both himself and others. He possesses potential currently unknown. I am working on inhibitors to permanently limit and control further mutation -_ no _responds violently against suppression, even unactivated_ nono _can only assume that his mutation was designed to destroy him and all it touches_  
  
no  
  
_veritable ticking time bomb, unless the threat is properly neutralized_  
  
no  
  
Charles is a highly intelligent, constantly learning child. His brain is a weapon of mass destruction. It is best for all of humanity that he never reach his full potential.  
  
Charles kicks the desk, hard, and screams at the top of his lungs, a nearly inhuman shriek of despair he cannot fathom making.  
  
_As my son, I wish Charles a normal, unencumbered life. I hope to rid him of this persistent sickness. It must be eradicated before it can begin to consume him, and worse, the world. He has already proven himself capable of it._

* * *

Erik doesn't argue with him or attempt to demonstrate logic in the face of his suffering, but his opinions do not change. Charles throws it back often, that their circumstances are nothing alike because his parents this that and the other thing. Erik's opinions do not change. The more he learns (though, much like Charles given how very closely linked they are, each 'new' thing is only an instance of suffering that he's already been aware of, either in mind, spirit or Erik's ability to draw conclusions-ultimately based on his own past; and that says more than anything he could logically come up with about the similarities between them. Like knows like knows like.) the more solidly rooted these opinions become, Aspen trees with thousand-year winding, threaded systems that span cities. In fact he pays no attention to that objection whatsoever, he just nods and acknowledges Charles's statement; acknowledges his pain-fueled insistence and lets him speak what truth he knows, what truth he will let himself know, what matters to him and Erik accepts it into himself and creates space, an infinite Hilbert-space with no start and no end, for Charles to grow into and shriek into as loudly as he needs, to rend into with sharp claws and rage against and riot against.  
  
He just steps forward and carefully touches his cheek, embracing him lightly, watching for any sign that he wants to break away. There is nothing he can say to this. It cannot be made better, it cannot be altered. But it can be withstood. Erik was made for one singular purpose, to withstand, and he unfolds pieces of his mind that Charles isn't familiar with, where facets roam free in their respective corners and the world is quiet and soft. A world for slaking grief, a world that molds itself to what is needed in that moment, facets splintering off of one another even now into new identities. In the face of this discovery, with Charles poised so precariously on the knife's edge, Erik speaks to him like laying himself down at his feet, _Shiva_ before _Vamakali_. _Remember yourself. Remember who you are. Remember that I love you. Remember how I touch you. Remember our home. Remember our future. Please do not let him take you from me._  
  
Charles is shaking. He feels as if he will disintegrate into thin air, and Erik is here but he isn't and Charles isn't gone but he cannot fathom ever being the same. His foot is throbbing, sharp, useless pain that brings him no satisfaction. There is more to the file. When he moves it, something falls out and he doesn't want to look but he does anyway. Xavier, Sharon. 05/30/91. It's a sonogram. Charles stares. He stares, and he stares, and he stares, and he does not move. There are two babies in his mother's womb. Eventually he crumples to the floor.  
  
Erik quietly shifts what he can to alleviate that pain and goes to the floor with him, catching him before he falls just as he promised to do, settling him against his chest and carding his fingers through Charles's once-more lengthy hair, in need of another trim that Erik will in the future take great delight in snipping just as he had a month prior. He is here, and he is. He follows Charles down into the dark, picks up his hand and squeezes, creates the light where there is none inherent to lead the way through this nocturne jungle of sharp spikes for trees, but metal has spoken to Erik for as long as he could breathe and he sways them away. _One foot in front of the other._ Inhale. Exhale. _Two steps back to counter it. One foot in front of the other. One foot. I_ nhale.  
  
He thinks, probably, that his father is right. That he is the monster and was all along. That anyone who looks at Erik and thinks otherwise has not known Charles. He thinks, quietly but in a place Erik will find because he is incapable of hiding, that he knew this all along. He is a telepath. His mother's mind is not particularly guarded. Erik was forced to bury his sister. Charles murdered his before he knew how to speak. Those are the facts. That's how it goes. He wonders why his father did not just give him cyanide. It would be a lot less cruel.

* * *

_No!_ it's Erik, now. Another Erik that Charles hasn't met, but not the Observer beside him. An Erik who clasps his hands, wild-eyed, shimmering wetness of tears frozen in place, startled and grief-stricken himself. _No, you cannot say such things, I won't let you I won't let you I'll Order you not to-_ An Erik that shoves his hand into Charles's heart more roughly than normal, an act of passion, not violence. Never violence and he rubs away the ache, apologetic amidst reactivity and then takes his face in hand. _I don't care what any of them say, that is not murder and you are not a weapon of mass destruction. That is not fact, that is nonsense written by stupid humans. You are my Charles and I love you and you cannot die, please, please don't-_  
  
Charles' eyes are wide, but he doesn't speak. There's something clawing and scratching at his throat, but nothing comes out. He can't cry. He can't sob. He can't scream. It's fact. It's indisputable, scientific fact. He has always felt that his mere existence was an affront on others, that it took from them. That in order to live as he was meant to, he would need to harm and assault and violate. Here it is. Here's why. Here's the proof. Erik's abilities are for creation, twisted for destruction but it never truly fit. Charles' are a ticking time bomb. Better to throw himself on it while he still can.  
  
It isn't proof of anything other than the fact that he was surrounded by scared, fragile humans who held no comprehension of the beauty they were faced with. There was no logical reason to assume that of Charles, they condemned him based on the fact that he could potentially do something and Erik has been forced to answer for the same thing his entire life, for crimes he has never committed and never would, judged guilty simply because another person could theoretically imagine a scenario where it was potentially possible. Erik is shaking with rage, with all of the fiery destructive pieces of him that burn brighter than the hottest sun in supernova, he wants to rip Brian Xavier out of the ground and burn him into atoms all over again, how dare him. How dare he have the gall to ever exist at all, how dare he claim to know Charles better than Erik knows Charles. _"No, you will not!"_ Erik screams. The Order sinks into every neuron Charles has. Another Order that puts all other Orders to shame, because the deeper Erik sinks into his Dominance, the more it unfolds for him and this time it explodes for him, a product of panic and terror and resolute, righteous fury.  
  
Charles is trembling in the aftermath. He isn't frightened, but he is shaking, he is wide-eyed and shocked and reeling, the Order sunk so deep into his core and his being that he knows he will never rub it out. He does fumble until he can get to his knees, a compulsion he couldn't possibly ignore, head bowed as he shakes and finally, finally begins to cry, the numb horror and terror and disgust and shame knocked right out of him as he reaches for Erik blindly. "You have to look, Erik," he insists, and his voice sounds nothing like his, cracked and broken, raised in his own despair. "Look! Look." His sister was born dead because Charles couldn't be created without destroying. There are pictures of her body in his file, a reminder to Brian Xavier and a reminder to him now. "I'm - I don't deserve - I'm exactly what they say I am..."  
  
Erik shakes his head, and rises up with Charles so he can continue holding him, rocking them both back and forth as a measure of grounding them both. In their minds he is tall-for-his-age and tanned, dark auburn hair entirely untamed and in possession of his whole foundation, the foundation he was raised on, vibrant and passionate and a little rough around the edges, emotions running deep; tides that smash at cliff-faces thrashing into the sea. He takes Charles's face in his hand, his grip too-tight, kissing where his tears track down his cheeks. "No," he refutes with all the childlike confidence he possesses. "You're mine and you deserve me and I deserve you. I don't care what they say you did!" his voice is rough, and the words are in Hebrew rapid-fire because he doesn't know English yet even though he raptly consumes new episodes of _Friends_ that he doesn't understand but they remind him of something he doesn't yet know how to name. Of someone. "I love you," he trembles, tracks running down his own jaw. "I'm looking and I love you! I did bad things too and you still love me. I think it's all bullshit! They can't know you murdered her. Sometimes twins eat eachother. That's just science! They're stupid and _I hate them_. They're trying to take you away from me and I hate them and I don't care about _anything they say!_ "  
  
His Will has just begun to develop and it's raw like this, before he knows how to stifle it and wrap it up the way he does like a cord around his palm, it crackles out of him with every word he speaks, it's what terrifies his _Ima_ and his teachers and his Rabbi, makes his classmates edge away from him 'cuz they know he can just kill them by speaking even though he wouldn't, he wouldn't but he does, he makes that boy kneel and practices 'cuz _Herr_ Shaw was gonna kill him and he can't let him die even if death is preferable if he _really_ wants to die after he can just _kill himself_ , but Erik has to give him that choice, he has to-he sniffles loudly and it all tumbles out of him uncontrolled.  
  
It's what makes _Aba_ sit him down and tell him about _consent_ but he never learned his lesson. If anyone is bad it's him but Charles loves him anyway, and now Charles thinks he's evil but he's the purest, most beautiful thing Erik's ever seen and he's going to murder anyone who makes him feel otherwise but Brian Xavier is dead and Sharon Xavier-Marko is good as and Charles doesn't want him to kill anymore because Charles loves his hands and tells him _there shall be no more blood,_ and no one did that for him in his whole life and a murderer wouldn't touch him the way Charles does, a murderer wouldn't smile at him the way Charles does. The way Erik doesn't smile at Charles because Erik is the murderer in this room, he killed ten people in cold blood and Charles forgave him. Erik forgives Charles, if he needs to be forgiven to live Erik forgives him, he forgives him, he forgives him, OK? OK?  
  
_I forgive you, i forgive you you can't go i just got you i can't live without you  
_

* * *

Charles doesn't know what to do. In the end he does nothing. He crumples again, overwhelmed and devastated, the world blown open and shredded and replaced with a reality he never wanted to look at, that he turned away from for years. He pulls his legs into his chest and he curls up, fetal-position trembling, like he was in the womb where he destroyed what could have been his twin. The pain is back. It's just a dull throb now, but it will get worse, because regardless of Erik's thunderous Will, he can't convince Charles not to despise and fear himself without altering all that he is and this is something to despise and fear, this curse of his. He can't take this wretched, consuming loathing from him. He lets the pain become him, the splitting, screeching ache of it. Somewhere upstairs, more than a decade ago and right now and right here, Charles is sick and feverish in his bed. He is weak and tiny and his father's treatment is killing him, but he doesn't know to be anything but grateful.  
  
Erik climbs into that bed with him, terrified and desperate and without the knowledge yet of how to quell himself, too-big feelings trapped inside a tiny body, even if he does come up to _Ima's_ shoulder. He hugs, and he rocks, and he doesn't know what to do so he sings and he prays, and he chatters like a little magpie inconsequential things, heartbroken for his friend and companion. For his Bonded, now and in the future, Bonded to the best person he knows, there's nothing better for him in the world. Erik will never listen to that voice, the one Charles has that reviles him, that despises him, that shouts as loud as it can in every moment. Erik will never listen, it can shout all it wants. Boo _hoo_! There's nothing in the world that can stop Erik except for Charles himself and even then Charles could never make him listen to it, not without killing him first.  
  
Charles stays like that for what could easily be the better part of an hour. The boy in the bed stays like that, too, crying and rocked, shaking with pain and a fever. At some point he started bleeding, but that part is irrelevant. It's not a lot of blood, not even enough to dirty Erik's favorite sweater. At some point the horrific agony of it lessens, and what's left is the rebound, seething static, the clattering, senseless noise. He hasn't spoken in a long while, but when he does, it's heartbreakingly quiet. "You have to let me, Erik," he whispers.  
  
Erik shakes his head. Once, twice, three times. "I won't let you." He dabs away the blood, at some point having returned to baseline a while back, with several key things shuttered in huts under floorboards and released to the sky in hot-air balloons. "You can't ask that of me."  
  
Charles sits up, dizzy and sweating, hair damp with it. His face is dreadfully pale, all the color drained out. Perhaps it's all leaking out of his nose, with all the bleeding he's been doing. He's been losing weight again, even as he eats as much as he can; Erik is right. He's been editing. He's wondered if perhaps it's a sick trade-off. That Erik approaches a normal weight for the first time in sixteen years, and Charles get sickly thin again. He would offer it in a heartbeat. From my flesh to yours. "What if it really is what he says? What if it's just killing me? What if that's what I am?"  
  
"I don't think it is," Erik says, carefully. "Your mind affects your brain; you've proven that. You're able to alter your physiology, in positive ways, and negative ways. When you experience input you can't yet comprehend your body reacts viscerally. I think the opposite is true. Now that we are together your abilities are growing-you are doing more, longer, better, faster, and your mind is adjusting to that. But you can't do it if you edit and hide and deny everything. You can't do it alone. It will find a way to come out and it will not be pretty."  
  
Charles shakes his head. It throbs in protest, and he grunts, leaning against Erik bodily as he closes his eyes. "I don't want it," he admits. And that, perhaps, is the difference between them. Erik nourished his abilities before Shaw reached him, and now in his freedom he revels. Charles remains staunchly terrified, perhaps still fearing the pain he experienced as a child when they were tampered with, perhaps just fearing himself. Something alienated and despised cannot be properly learned, and if it's not learned it cannot ever hope to be controlled. "It is damaging me, Erik. Whatever happened, it is damaging me."  
  
"No," Erik tells him. "You said it yourself. Something alienated and despised cannot be properly learned, but I know that you are not destined to despise this part of yourself. If you truly hated it so, you would not seek to start a school for mutant children. You would not speak about our people. You forget I was there when you lost it, and I was there when it returned. I know that it brings you joy, you just need to remember it. And I will not let you forget. I know it hurts, but I also know that when you are in tune with yourself, when you are trusting yourself and trusting me, that pain eases. Of course you are scared-and you are-wrong-" he shook his head, waving that away. This isn't his time. "I know," he just whispers softly, squeezing Charles in a gentle hug, letting both arms come up around him.  
  
Charles feels strongly that every mutant, regardless of the nature of their abilities, should be accepted. They should have space and opportunity to flourish, to grow, to come into themselves and all that they are and have those things welcomed with open arms because they are fundamental characteristics of their beings, and those inherent characteristics should never be cause for banishment or oppression, fear or hatred. That is a core belief of his. It is unchangeable, immutable, steady. But he still manages to shake his head again. "It's different," he whispers, but it isn't. It isn't and Charles knows it, too.  
  
"It's not," Erik returns kindly. "And I know that deep down you do not believe it is. Your very sense of ethics and self is proof positive of this. I've told you before, I am here for you. I will not let you falter. I will not let you make decisions that go against who you are, and that extends to your abilities. You've said that you trust me, and that you are not afraid of me. Then trust me. I am not just talking nonsense, Charles. I know exactly what it is like to be interfered with, to be petrified of my own mutation, to believe that it is killing me. I lived for so long in that mindset, and in the end, that is what was killing me. You cannot learn to control your abilities until you begin to accept them, and for mutations like ours, that can be fatal. You are not wrong. I nearly destroyed myself on a molecular level before I learned that truth, and I will not let you reach that point."

* * *

An Omega-class mutation is a fully-mutated X-gene in every case. It is the human body turned up to eleven, every dial cranked on one particular as-needed aspect. There is no upper limit. There are no limitations. The human body, however, does have those. It needs to change along with the developing mutation; if it is left to lag behind, it will destroy itself, overloaded with what, in many cases, it was not built to contain. It will reject itself, rip itself to shreds to regulate. Most Omega-level mutants die in infancy because they are simply not capable of it. Erik's body needs to become a vessel capable of harnessing enough energy to smash planets together, and in order to do that he needs to learn and understand and know himself, his mutation, his capabilities. Charles' mutation is not in his body. It is in his mind, it is in his brain, and the human brain is vastly capable and extraordinary but prone to collapsing in on itself. Right now it is collapsing in on itself. Charles survived infancy despite interference; if he's honest with himself, he knows he was sick from the treatments and not from the cause. That his body survived tampering proves he is not weak, if such a word exists. He has the capability to control this. It is his to control. "I trust you," he says, voice shaking. He is afraid. Terrified, actually. But the alternative is worse, and he knows it.  
  
Erik leans over and kisses his temple, strokes his fingers down Charles's cheek. Erik has never believed in the philosophical concepts of _integrity_ or _dignity_ or weakness as most humans applied them to themselves; finding such words are only ever used to disparage and not in accordance with reality. He didn't conduct himself with either, and he survived. That is what people do. They survive, and Charles survived. Not only did he survive, but he grew into the person that Erik loves. The person before him who is kind, who is generous, who is funny and brave and still-willing to trust, to trust Erik who has never viewed himself worthy of such an honor. Who is silly and who has always remained true to his indelible sense of ethics. He has never lied. If he were ever asked to define the nature of strength, it's all that Charles is and all that he stands for, even if they disagree on some of the nuances. What they've discovered here hasn't changed Charles's fundamental foundation and least of all the Bond they share. For Erik has always known this was the inevitable conclusion to the puzzle pieces waiting to be put together, whether by recognizing aspects of his own similar experiences or because he's seen it in dreams and pieces and spaces. He has always known, and he is sitting across from the same Charles he has always known. Good, and Erik's. And Erik believes without a shadow of a doubt that Charles's brain is just-as extraordinary as his beautiful mind, and though there are times he feels left-behind, caught up in the raging tsunami of telepathic reverb that he can't understand because he's not, that he can't affect because his brain isn't physiologically capable of it, he will do whatever is possible to ensure that Charles reaches his full potential with all of the love and grace and acceptance that he shows others. "I am so proud of you," he whispers between kisses. "Every day, I am so proud of you."  
  
The lump is back in Charles' throat, but he doesn't sob. For years he chased praise from a dead man who would never understand him, who blamed him for the death of a daughter he never knew. For years he followed that shadowy figure, seeking kind words and paternal love and affection that did not exist outside of a perversion. He is done chasing him. That man is in the ground, and Charles finds that Erik's pride is far more satisfying that anything that man could ever give him. He may not be ready to accept it, but knowing it's there makes every difference in the world. "I can't leave those files sitting in the other room," he whispers, his throat still tight. He rubs at his eyes, puffy and red. "I have to look at them, and then I have to figure out what to do with them." Fortunately, he does have a lawyer friend now. Perhaps it was worth making a call, especially if there was something to link this to Shaw. Charles doesn't doubt it.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "You do not," he reminds Charles gently. "You have a lawyer friend now. This is what Carmen does. It's what he was trained to do, and he can do it with far more objectivity and far less pain than either of us. As you say, if there is a link between them, it may assist the Prosecution's case at the ICC. At least someone will pay for what was done, if not the original perpetrator. Give them to him and let him handle it. That is my opinion. You do not owe anyone your suffering. There has been enough of it in this house."  
  
Charles shakes his head, too, eyes closed as he continues to rub at them with the heel of his palm. It doesn't take the awful sting out. "I'm going to see them one way or another, Erik," he breathes. "I would rather do it now, on my own terms. But you don't have to do it with me. You've seen enough of this." Besides. "Kurt Marko worked on this project, too. If you think I won't get dragged into this eventually, you're mistaken." The media will absolutely fall all over itself for this when it becomes public knowledge, and Charles knows it will. It should.  
  
He gives a little smile and curls his fingers over Charles's, tugging them down and when they're at his lap, holds up his hand, where his magenta-streaked platinum ring glints in the low-dim lights of this hideous place. "I will be right beside you, Charles. There is no place I would rather be." Another kiss, this time to those knuckles. "You are mistaken if you believe you are destined to bear this alone, that this is only yours. It is not. We are in this together." Erik means this existentially, but there is a practical reason as well. If the Xavier-Markos were working with Sebastian Shaw, Erik is irrevocably linked to this, and if Shaw was involved in any way with these experiments-Erik swallows, eyes closing. Expression evening out, wrinkles smoothing as he marshals himself in control. The implications are staggering. Erik was by his side for most of his life. He struggles to breathe.

* * *

Charles is aware of the implications. He has been since he first realized there was at least some connection here, however thin the thread. Somehow, he musters up a weak smile of his own. "Together, then," he declares, and gets to his feet, knees knocking together at first. Everything is still pounding violently at his temples, light and sound and nausea, specks of blood on his chin that Erik didn't wipe, but he fights his way through it. He waits for Erik to steady him, and himself, too, that guiding hand on his back even as his legs shake. One of the files is still open on the floor when he walks into the other room.  
  
There are dozens of files in this safe, actually, some of them particularly hefty. Charles rubs at his temples insistently, and lets out a thin, stuttering breath. "Okay. Divide and conquer?" he suggests, with all the dread in the world but *somehow* he's still Charles, that tremulous smile as he hands over the first file. "Look for names you recognize. We're going to have to point them out later if they exist anyway." In the meantime, he pulls his phone out of his (Erik's, he's wearing Erik's clothes, they're here together and in this together and he's Erik's) pocket and dials Carmen Pryde's number. When he opens the nearest file and is greeted with what is clearly an unconscious, heavily pregnant woman strapped to an exam table, he has to cover his mouth with his hand to keep from losing his light breakfast while he waits for the other side of the line to pick up, the ringing echoing in his ears like screeching.  
  
During the time taken to recollect themselves, Erik has straightened himself out; using his sleeve to dab at the rest of the blood on Charles's face delicately before taking the file from his hands and flipping it closed. He neatly waves his hand, a calm pillar in the center of the room as all of the papers flutter up into the air and stack atop one another, floating down onto the counter next to them in two pristine piles. Divide and conquer.  
  
Carmen picks up on the fourth dial, the line static-y and distorted in the unique way international calls frequently are. He's holed up in the Netherlands for the weekend while Erik's trial is on recess to allow the jury time to process everything that's occurred thus far. " _Pryde speaking_ ," his voice finally breaks through, sounding all the while like he's speaking into a tin-can at a sleepover pressed up against opposing walls. Charles can feel it when he swipes through the phone and recognizes the number calling him. " _Charles, afternoon-ah, morning if you'd prefer,_ " he barks a signature, dry laugh. " _What can I do for you?_ "  
  
Erik doesn't need to manually search them, he merely lays his fingertips over the top of his stack and lets it tell him what it knows. His chin lifts when he finally does come across a name he recognizes. _Maximoff_ , he mouths over his shoulder and slips the record out from the bottom so it rests next to them, flipped open to two white-haired babies, _P_ and _W._  
  
They are not the children he remembers.  
  
Charles can hardly breathe again. He knew it. He doesn't know how, or _why_ , but he knew it. Something hadn't sat right with him from the moment Erik told that part of his story, and it wasn't because he'd doubted Erik's honesty or perspective. Especially not when he could see that it was his true, lived experience. It was something else, a niggling feeling that told him something wasn't quite right, or at least not as it seemed.  
  
There's a long enough pause from his end that he's sure Carmen is wondering if the call dropped, so he takes a shaky breath and speaks. "Hey," he greets, but he knows there's enough tension in his voice even over an ocean that it's clear this isn't a casual ring-up. "I need your help with something, unfortunately. Erik and I..." He doesn't know exactly how to phrase this. He opens the first file on his stack while he waits, knowing Erik is investigating his own. "We found some evidence that I believe is pertinent to the Shaw case," he settles on, and chokes on a breath as he's forced to look at the more graphic images inside. Charles thinks he's developed quite a strong stomach, but considering the circumstances, this is pushing it. "I wasn't sure what the process here was." That he sounds close to crying and vomiting both is irrelevant in this exact moment.  
  
Erik has moved on from divulging the information of his stack via touch to flicking through papers in movements that seem idle, but for the clench of his jaw and the grip of his fingers within papers that threaten to crumple them, wrinkles forming where his nails dig in. He's taking short, stuttered breaths in through his nose, rasping as though through a straw, each one cramped in his lungs.  
  
The images slice into him the way scalpels did. The way he sliced the scalpel in. Bundling it all up inside of him, he throws it into the sun to burn up on impact, expression cold and hard as he forces himself to look at every one, memorize every face and every scar and scream that echoes out of the words so clinical on-sheet but the sheet tells Erik what it's seen, and Erik sees it and Erik feels the metal entering his body and he feels their fingerprints on the metal and he is nothing, a mere animal for dissection, a genetic marvel hooked up to machinery that talks to him. He's going to do good and make Mr. Shaw strong, and to do that he has to find his strength, but he is a weak, piteous thing and he struggles where he's bound and they talk to him. _Hello, Erik, my darling. I know you are suffering. Soleach li, Erikleh. Ani ohevet otcha. Kas vekheyme makhn a mentshn far a beheyme._ The machine touches his cheek and smiles sadly at him and watches while they strip him body and soul. " _Ani ohev otach,_ " Erik says and Mr. Wyngarde who likes to take a break on Erik's mouth raises his eyebrows and scoffs. _"I see you haven't learned anything from Ivanov."_ He is strapped to the table and he hears the metal and the leather twined together as his belt slides through the loops.  
  
The twisting nuances of Charles's emotional cracks are lost within the very real cracks of the phone line, and Carmen is only human, so he doesn't pick up on it; but he does hear the words, and he can put two-and-two together. His reply comes delayed, not by any of his own emotional reaction but simply due to technology. " _-all right, Charles,_ " his murmured voice blares through on static. " _-is this physical evidence? Something you can touch and see_?"  
  
" _Slicha, lo habiti_ -" Erik utters from his spot across the room. It's loud enough for Charles to hear mid-conversation, but he's sightlessly pinned a fixed gaze on the opposing wall, file folder in hand, motionless in place.  
  
Stupid. Charles is so incredibly stupid. What made him think exposing Erik to a reverb of his own trauma was in any way a good idea? If Charles remembers any experimenting, it wasn't of the same make, nor was it on the same level. He was only a child and those memories faded. It should be him flipping through these files, and he should have been firm on Erik waiting outside. "Yes," he whispers, except he knows Carmen won't hear him over the bloody static. He blows a breath out of his nose, a puff of noisy air, and then shakes his head. His father wanted to play with his mutation? Amplify it, suppress it, tear it apart and exterminate it? Charles will show him what it was made of in the first place. He closes his eyes and listens. He knows Carmen's mind. The sound of it, the feel of it, the color of it. He knows the frayed edges and the secret-classified places, the bright-spot, bursting love for his wife and daughter. An ocean is nothing. Space and time are nothing. There. There. Charles takes a sharp breath in, ignoring the flood of clanging, shrieking hurt. _Can you hear me better now?_ he asks, and he feels the familiar tug of Carmen's mind as he crawls over to Erik, carefully touching his Dominant's arm. He's here. They aren't. _Stay with me, darling. This is a much more secure line. I can show you, but it isn't..._ He shakes his head and swallows. It isn't pleasant.  
  
_Whoa!_ Carmen's response is not a word as much as is it the epitome of _!!!_ and there's a measure of total fascination and curiosity there; much the same as when he met Erik the first time and realized he didn't just control *metal*, a fact he hasn't shared with the CIA, thank-you very much. _Are you in The Hague?_ somehow, Carmen knows he's not, that this is _Charles_ at his most determined. _OK, Charles. Show me, I'm ready._ And Carmen is. His mind is all roads and winding lines and keys and locks. There really is not a whole lot that phases him and he's dealt with everything the trial has to offer with equanimity and clinical calm. Charles knows he cares, he cares a great deal, but he has to keep it inside and do his job so that the right people are punished for the right crimes, because that is how the justice system works. That is how society keeps turning.  
  
It's OK, no. It's OK. He can bear this for Charles. Erik inhales sharply at the touch and then leans into it, blinking rapidly with a harsh grunt struggling to force everything away. He can. He can do this. He's not weak. He's not weak he is strong and Shaw is weak and he should be here, because he is Charles's Dominant and he is here for Charles and he will protect Charles and it doesn't matter if Charles doesn't remember it, the images make him sick like they should because it's horrific and Erik already knows, he's already seen it, there is a piece that can do this and he just needs to find him. _Come on, Dragfoot. Come on, come on. Please come on, I need you. I'm sorry I tried to lock you away. I know you were only trying to help. I need you because Charles can't do this alone._ _He could, but I won't let him. I love him. We love him. Bitte._ Erik traverses the mountain tops, dragging a stick behind him. _My name is the Butcher. Before you were, you were just Dragfoot. Not a monster at all. Will you help? Will you die? Yes. Then I'll help. Stay here, these mountains are full of monsters._ "Erica Christopher," he points at another file and another and another, over and over he recognizes names and he points them out with empty, ruthless efficiency, writing them down on a separate piece of paper after levitating a pen into his palm. "Do you recognize any names? Let's write these down," he says, so very calmly.  
  
It doesn't matter that he's capable of it, this is absolutely the farthest he's stretched his telepathic range consciously. His temples are throbbing with it. He's clammy and hot to the touch and his nose is bleeding again, but he refuses to cow to it. He will find his strength, too, and not for Sebastian Shaw. Charles swallows down the pain and he swallows down the fear and he swallows down the abject, pulsing horror, and he shows Carmen what's in front of him, lingering on details he knows are most important, providing them smoothly and carefully, cutting out the emotional reactions though it all remains tinged with it. This room is stained by his agony and disgust and despair, little space to breathe or exist beyond it. _PROJECT: Black Womb_ , a government-funded experiment designed to discover the nature of mutation in utero and into early childhood before full manifestation and activation of "relevant genes" (the science is a bit outdated, as it should be), to test would-be mutants in that fragile, developing state, first proposed by Dr. Brian Xavier. There are connections to both known Hellfire members and victims alike. There are also far too many "Deceased" markers in these files when the majority of subjects are between the ages of one and five, or women in late-term pregnancy. And then, as he's sorting through documents, he finds it. It's completely innocuous-looking, except he knows exactly what it means. A grant from the Shaw Institute. On the records, on the books, staring right at him from a pile of similar grants and approval letters. Charles crumples, bent over. Erik's father was taken from him by Shaw. Charles' father worked with him.  
  
So he was looking for Omega-level mutants with your father, Carmen puts it together immediately, mental eyes roving over every image he's given without a reaction. There will be time for that later. This is exactly what they'd been anticipating all along; that the government were well-aware of Shaw's activities and unwilling to admit it, but whatever agency was in charge, Moira didn't have any idea about it-did she? Carmen shakes his head. He knows Moira, she wouldn't be involved with something like that, and Charles would know. Right? His eyebrows raise in the office where he's holed up, piles of papers of his own surrounding him. _This means they're fully aware of the Arad institute, and that it's likely there are other places still in operation despite the capture of the Hellfire Club's more illustrious members. You should know we also have Jason Wyngarde, Donald Pierce, Amahl Farouk, Harry Leland and Victor Creed in custody up here. They're all upper-level members and they're being tried for many of the same crimes as Shaw._  
  
This is the most dangerous part of Erik and he has no conception of emotions, of another person's sadness. His expression is blank and unaffected, but something makes him kneel before Charles anyway, reaching out a hand to steady him. "You will be all right," he says, and his tone is flat, cadence without rhythm. His job isn't to comfort, he shouldn't have been brought out for this. He knows that this person belongs to him and it's his duty to ensure they are safe. No one has ever belonged to him before. Erik is irresponsible bringing him here and there'll be a reckoning for it later. Right now he struggles to produce a response that humans make. "I will protect you," he tries gruffly, eyebrows knit together, and he pets Charles's head, like a dog instead of a person, with an awkward rhythm.  
  
Yes. That's exactly what it means. The petting is decidedly uncomforting, but this is a part of Erik, and just as Erik loves every broken, shattered piece of him, so too does he love this part. That he grimaces instead of smiles, locks his jaw, is only a product of the situation he's in. Charles knows there's more, something he hasn't found yet. It isn't lost on him that everything was displayed far too neatly here for him to find, that every single file and document from start to finish found its way into this room conveniently before his father's death. He has always felt that it wasn't an accident. Those suspicions are all but confirmed now. _What do we do with this?_ he asks, and it's aimed at Carmen, not helplessly but with every ounce of determination he has. These crimes will not sit beneath his house any longer.  
  
_OK, all right,_ Carmen reorients. _I want you to contact Mr. Summers, he's private security for Paragon LLP, he'll take you to my office and we can store the documents there._ Carmen's listening, too, hears the silent curiosity from Charles regarding why exactly he'd found those files and nods to himself. _It's possible someone put them there for you to find. Someone who would've had access to the laboratory. You should be careful, Charles. It's equally possible that this person doesn't have your best interests at heart, in which case you being in that laboratory is-_ he doesn't need to say it. Charles could've walked right into a trap. _Contact Christopher. He's well-trained and up to date with the case._  
  
"It will be all right," this part tells him, brusque and empty and he ruffles Charles's hair, still-awkward while he focuses the pencil in his other hand to write down more names, and then he stacks up everything back in their neat piles, tense for any intrusion that awaits them, his whole body poised to action like the predator that he is. Emerald eyes vivid and dilated in the dim lights, still-bright enough to stand out, expression set in a dark glower. He stretches out his power, seeking any person or threat. He misses his machete. It's long and he can scrape it behind him and that scares people. He is good at scaring things. He is not good at making Charles feel better, but he can keep him safe, and that's what Erik wants. _Are you seriously petting him like a fucking animal, Dragfoot. Come on. Act like a person._ "Be silent," he mutters back under his breath. "You," he points at Charles. "Where is the thing I need to kill."  
  
He already did walk into the trap, and then he'd sprung it. It had ended up with him covered head to toe in bruises and with a few broken bones, a reminder of extensive trauma and something he hasn't yet been able to scrub from his skin, but Carmen doesn't need those details at precisely this moment. He has the number he needs, and the assurance now that this will be handled. No more dirty Xavier secrets hiding in the basement. _Alright. Thank you, Carmen._ He sends gratitude amongst the ache of pain and heartache, then breaks the connection like the click at the end of a phone conversation. They'll touch base later.  
  
The rebound is enough to nearly bowl him over with its force, but he clenches his teeth against it and still manages to bristle at being addressed like that - you, as if he's a nameless thing - too tense and on edge to consider holding his tongue. "Excuse me?" he seethes, and the hair on his neck is raised, blood still dripping from his nose. He's pulled up the sleeves of Erik's sweater but they keep rolling down, getting in the way as he tries to wipe at his face with the back of his hand. If someone was a threat to them anywhere near here, Charles would know. "There's nothing to kill. There's no threat." He sniffs, searching for his phone among the sprawl of papers. He can't handle this now. He can't handle this part of Erik on top of everything else, on top of every delusion he's held onto breaking right in front of him. He just needs to get these files somewhere safe. He just needs to find the rest and then get out of here.  
  
He slaps down a huge armful of them onto the counter after gathering them all out of the cupboards in one long swirl, glaring at Charles, but he's hunched in on himself, silent and prickly. He stalks over to the medic aid station and pulls some napkins out of the cupboard and creeps up to Charles, holding them out instead. He then touches the fabric of the sweater and the sleeves roll themselves up and bunch at his elbows, remaining there. "Don't be mad at me." It's evident he meant it to come out accusatory and harsh, but it doesn't, it's just a quiet rasp. He points at the stack. "It's all there. We can leave."  
  
"I'm not mad at you," he snaps right back, and closes his eyes to take a calming, steadying breath. He looks and feels like he's about to keel over, pale as a ghost, but he won't allow it to happen. Instead he dabs impatiently at his nose and face and holds the napkin there to stop up the flow. Erik is trying to help and stay together at the same time. He can't fault him for this. He shakes his head anyway. "There's something else besides these files. I know there is." He won't leave this place until he knows. He won't leave this place until he has everything, until he never has to come down here again. It's that stubborn determination that gets him to his feet after he picks up his discarded phone, even as he sways, even as his brain picks itself apart and screeches in protest. He has to finish this. He has to finish this.  
  
He sets a hand on Charles's shoulder, and this feels more familiar. Somehow this Erik recognizes it and he tilts his head, reaching out for Charles's collar. When his fingers brush the fabric he recoils them like he's been burned, afraid to damage it, to soil it with himself. It's yours, too. Mine. "OK, Charles." He helps Charles stand up straight, buffeting him with a subtle application of his power. "Where do we go?"  
  
Charles doesn't know. He feels sick and he's in excruciating pain and he's overwhelmed by grief, and the last thing he wants to do is go looking for clues his late father may or may not have left him. He stumbles back out to the main room anyway, certain there's something here. This room hasn't been touched. He doesn't know if Shaw knew it was here, but he would bet anything the government didn't. Who decided to end the project, ultimately? Whoever it was, Brian Xavier or someone with access to this lab knew and left everything here to be hidden and then found. "Help me check everything," he mumbles, rubbing at his temples again. "Anything that doesn't look right, anything hidden. If there's something here, I need to find it." He wanders into the office, an unsteady whirlwind as he opens every drawer.  
  
Erik raises his hand arms and everything opens all at once, every file flying out, papers laying atop one another neatly on the computer desk. He begins to methodically check each one without touch, eyes closed as the words on the paper, the raised ink in micrometers denting looseleaf, pictures raised on edges, particles and fibers speaking to him. He listens.  
  
Nothing. There's nothing there that he doesn't already know. It's all horrific, all sickening, all terrifying. There are more images of his own weak, fragile body, put through tests that it should never have gone through, poked and prodded and injected and exposed to radiation and chemicals. But there's nothing to suggest that any of this was left for him specifically. There's nothing here that feels -  
  
Charles head snaps up suddenly. Then he turns face and breaks out into a run to get up the stairs to the main floor.  
  
His stoic protector is at his heels, dragging himself through his limp to keep up and expressing nothing of pain. When they arrive at the main floor he tenses again, a spring-coil ready to load into action like the gun he'd found on the floor, only Erik is a whirlwind flurry of claws and fists and elbows and knees, and he will stop at nothing to keep his family alive. He is bad at being a person. He is good at keeping his family alive. He roamed around the mountains for so long but now he has a use again.  
  
There's nothing to claw or swing at. Charles doesn't stop, close to passing out from his own dizzying pain, winded and lightheaded, but the adrenaline keeps him going. He takes another flight of stairs and a long corridor to the master bedroom suite, redone to the style and preference of Sharon and her new husband, but the one part they had left mostly the same is the library. His father's private library. Charles immediately begins throwing (valuable, old) books off the shelves, teeth grit together as he searches. He's right about this. He's certain of it. "It's here, it's here," he's muttering to himself, and he will check every book in this damn room if he has to. He will find whatever it was his father left him, and then he'll burn it because he doesn't want it. How dare he leave him anything.  
  
How dare he make Charles ache, even now, to make him proud.  
  
Erik puts his hand on Charles's shoulder again. "Stop," he gives the Orders and looks a bit disoriented at the fact that they work, "Sit," he points at one of the armchairs. "Breathe normally." He waits for Charles to comply and inhales long and slow himself. "We will find it," he assures Charles. "I can do it much faster than you. Now calm down before you pass out. Focus on the information I'm collecting."  
  
Charles huffs loudly as he's all but told to sit and heel, the Order somehow different like this, right now, in this moment. He knows he shouldn't rail against this, but he's more on edge than he can remember being in ages and the awful torment going on in his head isn't helping. He massages near violently at his own temples, legs pulled up to his chest as he focuses and waits. It's here. Let Erik find it, fine, but it's here.  
  
Erik sifts through every single piece of paper, bookend, nook and crack and cranny that this place has to offer. His eyes are closed, head tilted up toward the ceiling, peaceful and quiet as he's surrounded by waves and waves of data that he isn't able to categorize and sort fast enough, but that's fine. Charles can, and that's all that matters. He picks through the computer, which goes faster as he hooks onto the metal circuitry and hard drive contents, this he can flip through just as fast, the metal doing just as it's supposed to. Helping Erik. Help me, Erik asks the room, a pure product of savagery and he's never asked before. Help me. I know he is mine even though I don't fit. Give it up. Give me the answer.  
  
Charles sorts through every bit of information Erik gives him, whirring rapidfire, neurons smashing together as he forces himself to breathe through it.  
  
There.  
  
An old, worn copy of _Great Expectations_.  
  
Charles Dickens. His father was many things, but apparently not particularly subtle. He finds it and he grabs for it, nearly shreds the old, fragile binding in his shaking hands, and there it is.  
  
In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.  
  
He takes a breath. It's a letter.  
  
_Dear Charles,_  
  
And shakes his head. He can't.  
  
The letter floats out from the book, still in its envelope, and settles itself in Erik's outstretched hand. He moves to sit next to Charles where he's perched by an antiquated chess set, both facing one another, and presses his lips together. He places the letter on the table next to the overturned king. He's in the mountains and he's in the room, and he's split between himself struggling to keep everything together. To find his strength. To be what Charles needs. He cannot falter. He isn't allowed to falter. "You do not need to," he reminds the other man in his same firm, even tones, but there's an Erik that Charles recognizes behind his eyes, too. Afraid to come out and dissolve into empty, shattered shards.  
  
He does need to. He needs to.  
  
Charles needs to find his strength, too.  
  
He takes the letter out with shaking fingers and tries not to notice again that his father's handwriting is strikingly similar to his own. His legs are pulled up to his chest as he reads. It's several pages long, the elegant but messy scratch of faded ink smushed to fit the space even still.  
  
When he's done, it falls out of his hands and flutters uselessly to the ground. Charles buries himself in his knees and says nothing. He's trembling again.  
  
It flies up and back into its envelope. Erik already knows what it says-despite his condition, he watches from afar and from his eyes and from before Charles, by his side, surrounding him on all levels in different fractured kaleidoscope reflections, colors and slash across the atmosphere. He crouches next to Charles on the chair, tugging down his legs. Taking both of his hands, pressing his forehead against them.  
  
At first he wants to struggle, but it's only because - is he angry? Does he have the energy and space inside himself to be angry, to be seething, to be rage and spit and fire? He doesn't know. Is he grieving? Is he devastated? Is he sick inside? Yes. Maybe. It's all a dull, terrible throb, and he doesn't know in which direction it's all pointing him. He wants to burn this fucking house to the ground. He wants to cry. He wants to scream, and kick, and find some hole to crawl into and never crawl back out. He wants to find every person even vaguely responsible for anything even remotely similar to the things his father did and...  
  
"We can go," he says, and doesn't look at Erik. Take the files and the letter and go. It's the only thing he can do now.  
  
" _Rage makes man a beast_ ," a voice says from the dark. It's Erik's voice, the Erik he knows. Soft, and gentle in the face of it. He knows what it is like to be angry. To raze things to the ground and burn every last scrap. It won't help. It won't help Charles, because this place, he knows, will eventually become a place of healing and life and learning. And he knows that Charles wants that, in the spaces of himself that still tick-tock evenly a set of principles that no fire could erase. "We can," he whispers, rising to his feet and taking Charles with him. But they will return, too, because they are not beasts. No matter whether the Butcher is in front of him, no matter whether pieces of that letter should flutter to the ground, singed in the aftermath of an atomic bomb. "I love you." He rubs his thumb over Charles's hand. If he is here for any reason at all it is to remind Charles of that while they roam the dark passages.  
  
Rage for Charles is different than it is for Erik, besides. It doesn't lick like flames. He never could have gone through with any of it even if it was what he wanted, and the both of them know it. "Why not me?" he asks, and it's quiet and defeated and morbidly curious, because that's something he can't escape, either. Why? he used to ask his father. Why this, why that. "Even after my father died, even if there was some sort of agreement. There clearly was, but even still. Was I not deemed useful -" That he's bristling at not becoming one of Shaw's victims is both ridiculous and offensive, perhaps, but it's still a genuine question that he has. Fine, he grew up into an worthless integrationist academic. But when he was younger? Charles shakes his head. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe he was just more useful somewhere else. If he's been a pawn in a long game of chess the entire time, it wouldn't surprise him now. His father had known he would come looking for answers. He was always meant to get involved in this.  
  
"I do not know," Erik whispers back, shaking his head wide-eyed. "You were the type of person Shaw would have foamed at the mouth to have. Powerful, young, trusting. Your father must have intervened on your behalf, or you would very likely be dead right now." He brushes away Charles's hair and kisses his forehead. "I am not saying that I wouldn't kill him where he stood, but I am grateful Shaw did not get his hands on you."  
  
What could his father have possibly done to keep Charles away from Shaw even after his death? It wasn't in the letter. He knew he was going to die, that Charles would come looking for answers, and he'd had the nerve to be bloody cryptic? He clenches his teeth, staring down at the floor. More than that, he'd had the nerve to act as if he'd protected Charles. As if he'd loved him, as if all of this was a misguided attempt to keep him safe. To imply that one day, Charles would understand why he'd done the things he did.  
  
The worst thing is that he does.  
  
"Shaw killed him," he whispers, finally. "Or - he had him killed, at any rate. Maybe Kurt Marko could have saved him and didn't, but Shaw was the one to do it in the first place. It wasn't an accident." Charles can put two and two together. He doesn't know how the rest of the pieces fit together quite yet, but that much is obvious to him.  
  
"I know," Erik whispers, pained. Since they entered that laboratory, since the moment Erik found out that Mr. Shaw and Brian Xavier were working together, the possibility was imminent. Mr. Shaw didn't leave loose ends, and Brian was a loose end. If he were guilty, if he waffled in uncertainty, Shaw would have no use for him. Charles on the other hand didn't bring those same complications as an infant, which meant he was undoubtedly right about something else being at play as well. Erik isn't sure how to feel about any of it; it's not his to feel, in any case, but Erik is grateful at least that Charles was spared the life he lived. Being useless to Mr. Shaw meant nothing at all. Erik was useful because he was hardy, which meant Mr. Shaw could push him over and over and over and over and over again to his limits until he ceased to exist at all; and in the end Mr. Shaw stole his light, put it into himself, became Omega-level. All the damage Mr. Shaw caused, all the destruction and murder and evil; all that which came after he found Erik and dissected him for parts. That was Erik's fault. In a way Erik is relieved; if Brian died when they were nine, that meant Erik wasn't responsible. But Erik still feels responsible. He's responsible for everything Mr. Shaw did; they're irrevocably linked. He's responsible for being Mr. Shaw's protégé.  
  
"Stop." It's quiet, even as it's said through clenched teeth and jaw. He knows he isn't angry at Erik, that he has no right to be even if some of those insinuations and implications sting terribly. Even if he'd winced at them as if he'd been struck. They're the truth, and harsh realities exist. Fine. It is what it is. What he won't allow is the rest of it. "Just... stop, Erik. You're not. Do you really think any of this could be even remotely your fault? He was doing it long before you, and he would do it long after you if we didn't do something about it. You had no choice. You weren't an active participant. Nothing he did was your fault and I know you know it, too."  
  
He doesn't, though. Not really. He's done too much, taken too many actions, lifted his own hands for harm too often. But he nods all the same, that anger causing him to inch away; discomfited and nervous. "I know," he whispers back anyway, trying his best to soothe, and he comes back forward to rest his open palm on Charles's forearm. "I'm sorry." For saying it, for what has been discovered, for every single strike of pain that's been delivered.  
  
Charles lets out a huff of a breath and exhales sharply through his nose, and it all melts out of him anyway. He's not in the right state of mind to have this conversation, or any conversation; his skin is crawling, his nose is still bleeding, his head is shrieking pain, and he wants a drink. He wants a drink, and then another, and it's such a pulsing, bruising need he spins with it because he thought he'd trained it out of himself. It only serves to make him hate himself more. It's ever-present, but now it's a current, a low, persistent thrum of disgust. "Don't be, there's nothing to be sorry for," he sighs, and pulls away, wrapping his own arms around himself instead. "Let's just get out of here." He grabs for the letter, and the book it came in, folding it back inside with more care than it honestly deserves.

* * *

Erik guides him out of the front door, only too happy to soar into the air and away, away from Westchester. His mind is a hum of silent calm, like an non-obnoxious form of elevator music. It doesn't take them long to get back to Manhattan, flying is a great deal shorter, much shorter than that ride they took with Warren. Erik's letting them down to the ground in no time at all, and he's still holding Charles, unwilling to let him go just yet.  
  
Charles lets himself slip into a dreadful, sickening numb, but his mind is still whirring. Images flash, names and dates and words and numbers, connecting and bleeding into each other, an exaggerated form of the way his brain works normally. It's all background noise and processing, the inner-workings of a computer analyzing data, and there's fairly terrible pain, too, but Charles is ignoring that by now. "I need to get these safe," he mumbles, as if dazed, and he's clutching files and horrors even if he didn't need to, as if afraid someone would snatch them from him.  
  
"Don't worry about that," Erik says and then he does indeed take them from him. "I'll make sure they get to Carmen. You just come inside with me." He kisses the top of Charles's head and guides him in, draping himself over that whirring process to swaddle the pain in cotton batting.  
  
"Mm," he breathes, and he's not sure if it's agreement or protest or nothing at all, an idle, empty noise. The book is his and he keeps it, will not let it go and would fight even Erik for it, clutching it tightly to him except he doesn't know where to put it. He doesn't want it with the rest of their belongings, but he can't imagine not having it close, either. In the end he simply holds it, rubbing at his temple with his free hand, jittery and on edge. "I don't - I can't be here right now." It's agitated like the rest of him, and he's pacing like a caged animal, his sister's living room entirely too small just then, his mind whipped into a dead-end fever pitch.  
  
Erik doesn't take it from him, or even concede it to him, he simply lets him have it. The papers tuck themselves into their own respective bookends, melting into the tomes to become part of them. A surefire way to hide them and keep them safe, simply to dissolve them into nothing, and reform them when it's time. He leads Charles back outside and directs him to hold on, and then they're in the air again. And they're going higher. And higher. And higher. The protective bubble around them preserves oxygen and altitude perfectly, to keep them safe and healthy, but higher they go. Until they can see all of Manhattan sprawling out, and then higher still so they can see rolling hillsides and harbors and where houses become rectangular-shaped dots, through winding clouds that Erik feels in his veins, the pulse of a million pounds of water crashing into one another dissipating into wisps all around them.  
  
But he's still standing still, and holding this letter even if it isn't a letter and he's panicking a bit because he needs to be able to see it, and he keeps getting stuck. He's hitting a wall, and then he has to rewind everything like an old, stuttering VHS. The static makes his head hurt, and the voices make his head hurt, and everything makes his head hurt, and eventually he shakes his head. It's wondrous and brilliant and it should make him feel awe but he's only frustrated and numb and vaguely uncomfortable. "I really - I need to be..." On the ground. Somewhere else, even if he doesn't know where else he could possibly go. Alone, just for a little while. He needs some space. He needs some air. He needs to make his skin stop crawling.  
  
The sphere blooms in orbit and then their feet are touching the ground, and Erik's touching his shoulders. "I don't want you drinking, or doing drugs, or hurting yourself. That, I will Order." And he does, and it is. Their conversation this morning notwithstanding, Erik's emergency clause is very much in effect right now. But he understands. He doesn't allow any of his thoughts or feelings to escape beyond that, he just gives Charles a kiss on the brow and takes a step back from him. "Please come home," he whispers, and trails his fingers down Charles's arm to squeeze his hand once. Then he's letting go, as he always knew he would, should Charles need it. And he's asking, and he needs it, and he's letting go.


	48. War:/first, one hopes to win;/then one expects to enemy to lose;/then, one is satisfied the enemy is suffering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i. _kaddish_ , memorial prayer/prayer for the dead

Charles shakes his head, a lump in his throat, and he squeezes that hand before it lets go. "Of course I'll come home, Erik," he promises sincerely, because the thought that he wouldn't is ridiculous and excruciating. He's not asking to be let go, he's asking for some space. He musters up a weak smile and taps his oversensitive temple once. "I'll be up here." If Erik needs him, or if Charles needs Erik. He's not going to obscure anything, if Erik wants to go looking. It's not Erik Charles needs to get away from, and part of him wants very, very much to take him with or else stay and be comforted, it's just -  
  
It's just he can't, at precisely this moment, and he knows Erik understands because it's been the same for him. "I love you," he says, because it needs to be said, and because it won't ever not be true. He echoes it with everything it is and everything he has in him, and even when he's hollowed out that's quite a lot. Then he turns and walks away before he convinces himself otherwise.  
  
He has to stop by his apartment. It's not particularly pleasant, but it isn't the first time. It's an in and out affair. He considers leaving the book behind, but in the end he holds tight to it. He considers changing into sweatpants, but in the end these are Erik's and he can't. So all he does is swap his shoes out for an old, beaten pair of trainers, not his newer running shoes because those are with Erik, and walk back out the door. It's not the ideal running outfit, perhaps, but it's all he can handle right now.  
  
Then he throws up a filter so no one in the world disturbs him and he runs. And he runs. And he runs and runs and runs.  
  
Until his lungs ache. Until his newly-healed ankle screams. Until he's shaking and sick from the migraine that never went away and covered in sweat, hair drenched with it, and then he keeps going until eventually, eventually, he stops.  
  
He'd only meant to go his usual circuit, if he's honest. It's three miles at the most, a quick morning jog to get the blood flowing that Erik has been eagerly encouraging, Charles suspects half because it's good for him and half because if he's still in the house when he comes back he can see Charles sweaty and energized and ready to fall to his knees. Something about neurochemicals and subspace.  
  
Now he feels... empty. Dropping, probably. He's on the bridge which Erik would hate, and he doesn't know how many hours later it is. Many, he would guess. His legs are shaking but he still climbs up to drape them over the side, recklessly and illegally, because Charles isn't afraid of water and who's going to stop him? He wants to go home. He can't really move, though, and part of him doesn't want to, so he rests his head against the metal and looks out onto the Hudson.  
  
Erik can't run, an evidenced facet in the reality of his physical existence as he turns and limps down the sidewalk, tugging his tree-limb dead leg behind him uncomfortably as pangs of nerve-jangling pain settle into him. He wraps it around himself, tugging on some cords of his nervous process until it loosens its agonizing vice grip on him. It doesn't give him back mobility, but it removes the grimace set into his jaw that only Charles could see anyway.  
  
He walks until he begins to slide his leg behind him like a broken doll and people accost him next to a café where he's unconsciously found himself, _Turkish Delight_ where they serve his favorite coffee-flashbulbs going off as they get a glimpse of _Erik Lehnsherr, out by himself?_ because it's new, and they revel in it. Always he's accompanied by his doctor or his psychiatrist or his friend, the blue and effervescent Raven and most especially with the latter they're prevented from their exploitative hobby as she snarls and shields him. He brushes his hands over his face, rubbing at his warm skin and gleaning comfort from his own childhood soothing mechanism, hunched and tense as he declines to comment with parted lips and subtle head-shakes.  
  
 _Please, stop. Please stop. I don't want to. I don't want to I'm not anymore I'm not there anymore I'm not he's not I'm not everyone can see me, everyone can see this it's there forever when they want it they just need to peel back Onion layers and dig Deep, Deep,_ and he's there and he'll always be there and they'll find it and show it in court and they'll prove it and the lights keep blaring and snapping and he stumbles into the bricked walls, throwing his arm over his eyes because he still remembers the motions, no he isn't th  
  
" _Atzor_ ," he croaks under his breath, unheard by the masses.  
  
A hand grips his shoulder and leads him out of the fray, a hard shout scattering the paps like the cockroaches they are back into the dark corners from whence they came. "Erik," the man's voice is too-off, too-loud too-raspy, and he recognizes Christopher Summers from his awkward cadence and he melts into the touch, grounding and centering. Grounding and centering. "Erik, it's OK. Come on," he flashes his gun at the single straggler and the woman trips on the curb over her stiletto heels to follow her leather-decked cohort onto the back of his motorcycle.

  
He's still shaking in the aftermath and they go inside and Christopher gets him some coffee, and they make it with _Elite_ because they know him and there's a _Circle-M_ on the window, and they _Stand With Him._ It's empty this time of day and they're tucked into a booth and Erik just stops and breathes and stops and breathes and strokes along the bright cord of his Bond and Charles doesn't want to leave, he doesn't want to cut and shear away those cords he just needs space and Erik is the one who can't handle it he's the one who always needs Charles who dissolves into noodled spirals of DNA onto the floor because he's so, so broken-  
  
"Just drink. Carmen told me you have some files for him."  
  
Erik nods and produces them from his sleeve, from one place to another. His abilities are growing. Always growing because he's with Charles. He's still with him. He's OK. Stops and breathes. Mouths _yes, sir_ with his head tipped down to the mahogany table, swirls and whorls of arcing patterns and he traces them with his fingers.  
  
"Do you want a drive home?"  
  
 _No, sir._  
  
"OK. Thanks for the files. I'll make sure those paps don't bother you again."  
  
 _Thank you, sir._  
  
"All right. I'm on my way." He salutes, grateful for the conversation because most people jabber on and on and he works hard to catch it, spent years in therapy honing himself but it's still a pain in his fucking asshole when they don't stop and consider. The bell above the door jingles as he exits.  
  
Erik leans back into the plush cushions and cradles his coffee, lifts it and presses it against his cheek and savors the warmth.  
  
The proprietor is an old Bosnian man who remembers the war, the sandbags thrown from Army convoys into flooded streets and med-tents filled with crying women without husbands and clothes torn and shred, bodies bloated in sewers. He's calm for it, a pleasant S5 which is almost as rare as Erik is, teetering right on the edge of just-able to cope with Erik's quieted Will. He speaks Arabic and so does Erik, so he chatters amicably to his customer as he prepares a second cup and some special _baklava_ he's ordered in from a kosher kitchen (his isn't, but the coffee equipment is all separate) because EMJC is just next door and Erik likes it. "Don't worry, _'iinah majana lank 'ant eumili almufada_ l!" Džan smiles down at him, careful not to slosh the liquid from the _botz_. " _Tabibk lays huna?_ "  
  
Erik shakes his head, and touches his hand over his chest, finally looking up and fixing his emerald-eyed gaze onto the man, pressing his lips together in sincerity. He's left to be after that and lets himself float into the glow of nothing, buffeted by winds of mind as he sets foot down into the Landscape, searching out the Butcher and shaking his hand, hugging him one-armed and gruff so he doesn't think he's weak for it. _Thank you for taking care of him._  
  
 _Lo, he still needs you._  
  
 _I'm scared. It's too close and I can't stop seeing their faces and they're dead._  
  
 _They are dead, but you aren't. Charles isn't. Your life is alive like a garden, it sings to you because you know how to make those vines stretch up into the sky._  
  
 _Am I good for him? Am I making the right choices? They all feel wrong and he's still hurting and I'm not good._  
  
 _Maybe you're not good. But you're good for him. And he needs you now, Erikleh. Go to him. He loves you. He melted me out of the fire and I'm standing here on the mountain because of him, and he doesn't even like me very much._  
  
 _No one likes you, Dragfoot. Laughter, musical. But we love you._

* * *

Erik appears next to him just as his knees hit the pavement and he crouches down, pushes Charles's hair from his face, and kisses him. "I'm sorry," he whispers the same thing he had back in Westchester, but this time it's warm, and full of bursting, sorrowful empathy and all the love he knows how to feel, all the joy and wonder and sadness and feathers, embracing him. "I'm so sorry. I love you so much. I've got you. I'll always come when you call. Always."  
  
Had he called? Charles doesn't remember, but he doubts it would ever need to be a conscious thing. He knows he's been staring into the abyss and that the abyss truly had stared back, but now there's Erik instead and he's shaking so violently, sick and sweaty and cold, and Erik has him. The dark waters of the Hudson are nothing at all like Erik's eyes, and Charles chokes, buries himself in his chest and becomes small because he doesn't always have to be big to be strong. The book is still in his hands, clenched tightly in white-knuckled fists, but he lets Erik hold him, too, lets his shaking legs and abused lungs be soothed by him, his static-filled, stuttering mind.  
  
He doesn't cry but his lips tremble with the rest of his body and he'd been burying himself in Erik's sweater but this is far better. "I'm sorry," he croaks. "I'm sorry, I just -" He shakes his head and it all gets swallowed up by Erik's chest anyway, even the broken, hitched sob that finally escapes.  
  
"Sh, sh," Erik smiles gently and tugs him closer, book and all, to his chest and guides him to rest his head on his shoulder. "I've got you, sweetheart. I've got you. You don't apologize to me. I know," he says, his voice a low croon as he cards his fingers through the strands of Charles's hair against the nape of his neck, rocking him very slightly. He brushes his fingertips over Charles's, lets them loose but not enough to drop the tome, merely to rid that pain of clenching so tightly. It's a subtle thing, like most of Erik, a woven tapestry of care built out of thousands of these faint touches. Charles doesn't need to be big to be strong, and he doesn't need to stand tall to be strong, either. He can be strong in Erik's arms; and Erik would argue it's where he's the strongest. Where Erik is the strongest, too. They've both found their strength and it isn't in academic papers and Stepford-smiles and billions of dollars and needles and medicine and destroyed scraps of metal from buildings crushed to the ground and smoke of fire from all their dead. It's not in gunfire and bombs and screaming; it's not in the curve of power emanating from them both, tweaked and interfered beyond its original intention, the intention they've also found: love, healing, compassion. They've found their strength after twenty-seven years apart (but have they been? _Hellooooo, I'm right here. Can you hear me?_ ) It's in one another. It's always been in one another. That glowing, brilliant strand entwining them. "My Bonded," Erik whispers amid the picked-up winds around them, and it's softer than silk and louder than the Earth. "My Bonded, my dear-heart. I've got you."  
  
Charles' breaths are hitched, weak things, his heart pounding in his chest and in his ears long after he's stopped running. He curls as close as he can possibly get in the position they're in, precariously dangled over the river below them and past the barrier, but none of that could reach him if it tried. Erik would never let him fall, and Charles would never let Erik fall; they've saved each other, regardless of what anyone claims to know or believe, even, sometimes, themselves. They've saved each other, and Erik will always take care of him, even when Charles isn't sure how to be taken care of. "I'm sorry I got your sweater all gross and sweaty," he mumbles into Erik's chest, ridiculously, sniffling all the way, because this is where it will come back to. This is where it always ends up.  
  
Erik laughs, the sound gentle and comforting. "It is a sweater, after all," he says amid chuckles and he pulls back so he can comb Charles's sweaty, stringy hair from his face again. "You are mine," he whispers. "Mine, always. I love you so much." All of him, even the darkest, dangerous parts. They are all soothed into existence by Charles. Erik would apologize for the Butcher but he doesn't, because he took care of Charles when Erik-That-Is could not, and he did a good job, because Charles made him good. And he is just a man, not a scrape-knife-ground wielding monster psycho horror evil like Mr. Shaw tried to convince him, his hands push the bodies down the line but he is just a boy, skeletal and lifeless-eyed but he finds the children and teaches the blue one how to read and the blue one prays over his cross and Erik-Erik, he is Erik after all, sits with him and watches over him and protects him. It's what he is, after all, what these good people make him to be. A protector, guardian. Not-Evil. So he doesn't apologize, he just reminds. _I am here, and not-him._ He has returned because he always does and always will. This is where they end up.  
  
It takes a few heartbeats, but Charles smiles, too. It hurts, somehow, like remembering how to use a muscle long atrophied, even though it's only been hours. Like wading through sludge, and his limbs are having difficulty dragging themselves, but he manages. He peeks out from Erik's chest and his dimples peek out from his cheeks, soft, sweet crevices that he no longer scoffs at when he sees in pictures or the mirror because Erik loves them and those who hated them rarely had occasion to see them in full, anyway. "I'm yours, and I love you," he returns, barely audible over the wind off the water but Erik will hear him just the same. He needs, but he doesn't know what, exactly, or how to ask for it, so he sighs and settles back into Erik's chest, the book finally set down away from the edge so he can tangle his fingers in Erik's sweater instead, white-knuckled at first, too, afraid he might be taken. "I lost a shoe," he sniffs, and it is actually a loss, because he'd loved those shoes. Charles has billions of dollars but he wears his shoes out until they have holes, until the soles are thin and crumbling and the laces don't stay tied (that was the problem here), and it was Erik who argued that if he was going to run every morning, he needed shoes that would support him and not give him blisters. He's going to get blisters almost definitely, now, but he's more concerned about the old friend he's lost to the Hudson.  
  
It makes Erik grin in full, the right-sided dimple of his own deep against his face, a scar turned evidence of his joy for being right here with his beloved. His fingers ghost over Charles's cheek and he can't help himself, he kisses him on the mouth, follows it with his thumb so he can feel that beautiful smile against the pad and there's no room for hatred here but he does, he does hate every single person who told Charles that any part of him was to be hated, and good they held no occasion for this gift, for the gift he gets each day of Charles so bright and brilliant smiling up at him, and his kisses are soft, slow. Drawing out. Drawing Charles out, the burning ember in his chest languid spreading through their limbs and keeping them cozy against the cutting water-winds.  
  
Lips against plush lips chapped and warm and fingers, and oh how Charles is right, he never leaves Dominion when he's in this orbit. His tongue comes out to play for only a moment, enough to wet his thumb so he can rub and press his forehead to Charles and beam anew, rocking them both back and forth and at long last he shakes his head, nuzzles their faces together, gives Charles's nose an endeared tap. "Never lost," he breathes, all the gnarled claws shredding his heart receded to oily depths in presence of this bone-deep relief. Relief that they are here. He holds out his hand and from the choppy waves a single shoe emerges, shoots up over the ledge until it drops by their side, one lace half-undone.  
  
"Never lost," he whispers again. "But perhaps we shall fix them up." He bends and removes Charles's other shoe from his foot, and then both his socks. He lays Charles back against the rail and sits beside him, taking his sore feet into his lap so he can dig his fingers into those arches, the underside, his ankles and between his toes. Releasing pain and replacing with more slow warmth. I love you, he adds as he raises Charles's foot up to him so he can kiss his big toe, playful. While he stretches out his ability and knits up all the imperfections and frayed edges and worn soles of those shoes until they're gleaming-new again.  
  
Charles laughs, still spinning and breathless from the kiss, from every touch, and he's not dropping anymore but he certainly is sinking, shy and bright and warm and putty in Erik's big hands. Exactly where he should be. "But I like my new pair, too," he protests, and part of the reason he'd liked this old pair was because they were falling apart and he was fond of them for that, for weathering all of those long runs when his head became too heavy for him to hold and he needed to sweat it out, but he'll just have to wear them both out now. Erik can pick which ones in the morning, a silly ritual to add to their list.  
  
He squirms in Erik's hold until he can climb back into his lap, a sudden, jerky movement, but then he's there, barefoot and pink-cheeked from more than his earlier exertion and the wind and he doesn't know what he'd wanted. He bites his lip, eyes wandering from Erik's beautiful eyes (the sun is still out, they're brilliant in natural light, fluorescents never do him justice) to his cute, handsome nose to his lips and back up. He needs, desperately, but he always has trouble with this part - knowing what it is he needs - and usually Erik lets him get away with it because he knows. Charles huffs. "Please," he tries, because that usually works.  
  
Erik has to kiss him again, he just has to, his lips still slick from Erik's tongue and he makes a low hum of a satisfied, rumbled moan and he's still slow and soft but now he's licking right into his submissive's gorgeous mouth and he's opening for him and melting in his arms, and his cheeks are painted with that red flush of sinking subspace and Erik loves him so much he can't breathe for it and not simply because he hasn't come up for air. When Charles breathes that please into him he laughs, the sound mostly muffled by kisses and finally relents, looking down at him because even in his lap Erik still eclipses Charles in borderline-comical height. "Mm," he purrs his acknowledgment, framing Charles's face with both hands, one limp and one fond, slipping back and forth over his cheekbones and feathering against his dimple and thumbing his jawline. No more trouble. No more tension and disgust. It's disappeared like snowflakes on elements of warmth. It means nothing in comparison to them.  
  
"Tell me what you need," he Orders, thick and honeyed and accent-roughened, because he never will lose it. Not merely because Charles loves it-though that is positively enough-but because it's always been ingrained, throughout blows and yelling and patronized rants, it is part of him. A part no one could eliminate, even when they hollowed out his voice. When Charles gave his voice back, it returned as he is. He used to spend hours sitting in his ugly room, on his bare, dirty mattress practicing desperately through ruddy, tear-tracked cheeks, trying to be what was wanted, hating every bit of himself that his mother gave him. Hating his long, thin limbs that jerked about like a spider electrified, his thick, coarse hair and his thin, nasty features; that's the word Mr. Shaw always used. _Nasty_ , a bug on a windshield that needed scraping off. Bony and spindly and sick, a piteous creature in the back of rooms made use of because there's nothing better on demand. A beloved protégé only for what lived inside of him, never the outside.  
  
He's been loved back into existence and he will love Charles back beside him. Tell me what you need, sweetheart, he smiles inside their Bond, that resonates until they're nothing but snow-melted, luxuriating, chocolate-rich heat. It's easy and pure, what Erik gives him now. Charles belongs here in his lap, asking please with the knowledge that Erik will oblige, will provide, because he loves his good, beautiful boy and he will do anything for him, anything at all, he will make the world bend and sway to his Will so that Charles is pleased.  
  
Charles is moaning, a low, pleased purring, wriggling in Erik's lap with heavy-lidded eyes because his Dominant knows exactly how to make him melt. How to drown out all the tension and hurt and fear and replace it with this. With thick, humid need, with desire and care and softness. He scrapes out all the ugly things inside Charles with his tongue and lips, with gentle but insistent touches, replaces them with eyelashes fluttering and limbs gone boneless and pliant and soft noises escaping from parted, too-red lips among his panting breaths. He was always teased for that, too, his lips, in vulgarities and misogyny-charged comments he cannot think now and hardly remembers because they simply don't matter.  
  
Erik is the most gorgeous person he has ever met, will ever meet, inside and out alike and there's nothing exaggerated about that; if Erik investigated, he would find it's nothing but the earnest, heartfelt truth. From his long, strong limbs to the coarse, thick hair escaping his hat to the shape of his bones, his nose and face and lips, the nearly ethereal beauty of his eyes and the tan of his skin and the rough timber of his accent, the way the words curl deliciously beneath his skin -  
  
It's all Erik. His Erik, his Dominant, his Bonded.  
  
Charles lets out a helpless, needy breath, clinging hard and desperate to Erik. "You," he gasps, because it's all he can think of. "You, Erik." He needs Erik in those moments more than he wants to admit, needs him more than he needs to breathe, and he'd been ashamed to admit it when he shouldn't have been. This is what his Dominant is here for. To guide him, to care for him, to bring him home. He's positive that what he's feeling, the urgent, pulsing need to submit and be handled, soft and safe in glittering subspace, to be Ordered and bound and kept and reassured, to be reminded of where he belongs and who he belongs to, is echoed perfectly in Erik. Perhaps he'll be made to ask for it properly, but he knows Erik knows.  
  
He has no idea, at first, what makes him climb out of Erik's lap.  
  
It's not a test because he already knows how it ends up. It's not a test because there's no other way for it to end. But Charles climbs up on the railing and dangles himself right over, the unforgiving current of the dark river below, and he looks over his shoulder as he stands to his feet, the metal cold on bare skin.  
  
He stares down into that abyss and thinks come and get me, don't let me fall because every part of Erik has sworn to never let it happen, and not even Charles himself could stand in the way. He'll get what he needs.  
  
A buzz of _panic!!!!_ explodes in Erik's mind when Charles steps up onto the rail and then Erik's swooping right over, vaulting himself in a long, athletic movement from where he'd been crouched, hand on the cold, hard ground to right himself and then he's perched right beside Charles, rising to his feet and pulling Charles to him. Lifting them off that bar and bringing them back to safe ground. "Mine!" he cries out hoarsely, eyes wet with tears that leak from him, a burst of overwhelmed emotions all clanging for attention as he grips Charles to him hard, when their feet hit the ground he cups his face and brushes his shoulders, desperate to reassure himself that he's safe and sound.  
  
He molds himself in the space that's left over, into all the spaces left over by people who tried to carve Charles out, who tried to slice him up and take away that which is so beautiful and delightful and that which created this gorgeous, perfect, pretty, incredible line between them that glows and hums every time Erik touches it, and Erik throws all the Will he can find into it, because he'd been terrified the last time he blew an Order like an atom bomb peeling-back layers and scattering to the four corners of the universe, the hundred-million-corners that make up the fabric of their physical world that Erik can touch and feel and sense thrumming, pulsating a beating heart. Two beating hearts. "You are mine," says the universe, says Erik into his ear, says his teeth into Charles's neck as he Marks and Claims and it doesn't matter where they are, if people are watching, good. They'll see what love looks like. They'll see that Charles is his wondrous Bonded submissive whom he adores, and who adores him and he's breathless from it.  
And Charles finally breaks, but it doesn't matter. Erik will put him right back together.  
  
He breaks, tears he didn't know he'd had springing to his eyes and he sobs and squirms and cries out, breathless, needy sounds, hitchy gasps for air, and his cheeks are red and he's overcome and overwrought and overwhelmed and shaking, clinging to his Dominant as he cries.  
  
"I'm going to be so good for you," he promises, and it's emphatic and desperate and accompanied by a loud, wailing noise when Erik bites him in that place that always makes him wild, not dissimilar from his expression of pleasure that morning and cut from the same cloth. He clings with everything he has, with arms and legs both, nuzzles and digs in his nails and goes wherever Erik wants him. "Because - because I'm yours, I'm yours, I'm your - your good, sweet boy and you love me and you'll take care of me and protect me and you won't let anything take me away and you're my Dominant and I'm always going to love you and submit to you and come back to you and I'm - I'm going to be good, Erik, I'll be good, such a good boy, please let me be good," he begs, broken and cracked, because Erik is the only one who ever has. "Please let me good for you, Erik. Please? Please, please, please, sir."  
  
"Mmmhmmm," Erik moans darkly up against him, hands still under Charles's sweater as they dip beneath his pants, cupping him and dragging him over his thigh, eyelashes thick and brushing over his face as his eyes flutter closed, letting that need, that desire; and it's not purely sexual, it never is. That desire to be good, in all respects, that desire to submit and they move seamlessly between wants, and it's not purely sexual because their intimacy in that way simply isn't purely sexual. It's the constant urge to be closer to one another, to experience pleasure and love and submission and Dominance as they are two humans, two animal beings soothing one another, naked and bared and Erik wants him, Erik always wants him-  
  
Erik's going to take him home now, he's going to take his magnificent submissive home and unwrap him from his clothes and press him into the bed and make love to him, long and slow and relentless until he breaks right open-he hasn't broken, not truly, that is Erik's place. Erik's place and only Erik's to hook fingernails into the layered casing of built-in mechanisms and age-old coping skills and peel them right back like albumen-shell-skin, thin papery walls that he pulls away to reveal the soft core beneath, to surround it in beating, liquid-plasma Will and reform it until it's strong, strong with Erik inside him. With Erik's body inside him and Erik's Will underneath the light-spilling-out under crumbling doors. With Erik's heart in his hand soothed and mended. They mend each other, that is what this is. Body and mind and spirit and soul.  
  
Erik takes him home and tugs that sweater from him. "Hafshet li," Erik's Order is in the Imperative, because he usually speaks English because somewhere within he's still afraid of speaking his own language and less-so in recent times, far less so from that first moment he laid eyes on Charles, that first moment it was not the first moment, that first moment it burst into life behind his eyes, dusty sneakers pounding dirt roads with his best friend beside him. _This is Sisim!_ he'd gasped-hair long enough to reach his shoulder in curly tumbles as he stood over the cliffs across an endless desert without a soul or a sound obstructing, a king with a stick in hand-breathlessly as he threw his arms out all around them. _It means Swallows, and I love you._  
  
but now with memories bleating up to the surface he's tensed with it, but he doesn't want to anymore, Charles gets this from him, shaking and trembling but Real. Everything about them, always real. " _Atah sheli_ ," he pauses just to kiss him, to touch him over and over because this is for them. Not the suffering rage. The cooling, tropical-waters of belonging, for Charles the color of Erik's eyes and for Erik the azure sky glittering sun Rayleigh-scattered kaleidoscope along the surface, a place to dive in and revel. Their Bond shimmering as Charles's hands smooth over his clothing, " _Hafshet li ve heye iti,_ " he murmurs, the words dripping from him in long, slow curls of consonants and vowels wafting over Charles twined with Will and sinking him down, down-oh, Charles is going to be so good for Erik because Charles was made to be good for him, he is made for nothing more than to be Erik's sweet, beautiful, good boy-

* * *

Somewhere among the gasping, twining need, the beat of twin hearts synced, something sticks. It has no place here, but it's here nonetheless; sweaty, and cloying, and grasping at limbs, scratching at his skin and tying itself around his ankles. Erik is bare before him and his Will is suffocating in the perfect way it is in these moments, and Charles can always still breathe but now there's panic and his chest starts heaving -  
  
Charles whines, shakes his head a dozen times to clear it, to banish it away, to rid himself of it. He doesn't want it. Whatever it is that has dropped cold, wind-swept panic into his throat and his stomach where there should only be desire, heady bone-deep devotion and submission, he doesn't want it. His lips are trembling and he's distressed and a word is bubbling up and he doesn't want it, tries to bite it down, to swallow it, it was an Order but maybe if he fights it. He wants, it's not fair. It's not fair. Charles' shaking hands come up to his hair, tugging, tugging; give him a second. He can wash it away.  
  
He wanted to good and it's not fair and he's biting on his lip as hard as he possibly can, hard enough to bleed, but the word comes out anyway.  
  
Erik's Will retracts and so do the Orders, and he's suddenly shaking and exposed lens-flares under pocket-sized microscopes, an ant burning up through sunlight in refracted glass and he struggles not to flinch away, so-so-sorry and stupid and he shouldn't have done this, resorted to this, he's unhealthy and sick and wrong and of course he shouldn't have.  
  
Charles is hurting and he just learned all of this and Erik's doing this now? What is wrong with him-and of course Charles will just feel even worse, even worse because Erik's slicing himself open with regret and grief and anguish and he'll think it's his fault, and he needs to _KONTRLLIERE DICH SELBST, LEHNSHERR, EINEN GRIFF BEKOMMEN, DUMMER JUNGE-_ he strikes himself with broken fists and grips that stupid, stupid boy- _aufstehen du verdammter blödkind, Komm da rein!-_  
  
throws him back in the room where he belongs and wanders the mountainside until he can find Paragon-always Paragon but that's the name of Carmen's firm and it's the name of the one inside him who can be compassionate (not necessarily kind) and objective and fair-hearted-slides it into place and shudders, hands shaking, and his head shakes too, once. The tremors stop. He straightens up. He is Erik Lehnsherr, and he is calm and in control. Everything will be all right. " _Sag mir was falsch ist_ ," he Orders, voice clear and firm.  
  
No no nononono -  
  
That wasn't what he'd wanted, he'd wanted - he'd only needed - it was just because -  
  
"I remembered something," he admits, weak and hoarse and miserable and unable to breathe, because he has to, and then tears are falling down his cheeks and he hates himself and his stupid, ever-processing brain and the way it works, how it's constantly feeding itself information, how he'd set it to a task and it'd listened. It couldn't have hurried that up? It couldn't have caught up while he was running and panting and empty, not when Erik was touching him and he'd wanted nothing more than to be taken to bed, drowned in Will and reveling in his own submission? He can't exist like this, but he doesn't have the parts that Erik has. He can't go running off and bringing fragments back. It's never worked like that for him and he has no choice but to stand here as the only part he knows, naked and humiliated and crying, still needing and now decidedly not-getting while he starts to hyperventilate.  
  
Charles tugs harder at his hair and it's at least satisfying when he takes strands with him, plucked from the root where there's brief, stinging pain.  
  
Of course the Butcher gave him false information. That's what the Butcher does. He can't cut people up anymore for burning so he cuts Erik up instead. He was stupid to trust him. He was stupid to think he could-and he wants to cry because he's been betrayed, picturesque mountain huts and slaps on the back and camaraderie all a joke, all a lie. The Butcher never told him yes, Erik, you make the wrong choices so you should always guess the second. The Butcher told him he was all right. The Butcher is a liar and he's been betrayed and it hurts, and he can't hurt. There's no room for him to hurt over his own silly Landscape, it's not even real, he just made it up to cope. He's not crazy, he knows it's all fake and he's _frustrated!_ because he can't find the right _decisions!_  
  
and he's frustrated because he needs to _get a grip, Lehnsherr. Get a grip you are an adult, you are a grown man not a helpless child you are an adult and you are a Dominant and your submissive just pause-worded and you're stuck inside this asinine daydream you made when you were eleven you fucking unbelievable piece of shit get out there and fix this_ He can't, he just can't he hasn't dealt with all the rotten horror yet, because it is his past but it is Charles's present and he doesn't get to wallow when Charles needs him, that is what they promised-  
  
Paragon can. Irritating as the twirls of Erik's mind can be, whatever it is that trudged him forward one-foot-the-other, this is how he got it done. Taking in the situation, Paragon decides that Charles needs mercy. It is a curious sensation to know that Charles belongs to him, but he feels it in every inch of his genetic make-up, so he trusts that it is so. Paragon crosses the room and envelops him in a hug, easing away that humiliation because it is not right. Charles should not be humiliated. He did nothing to deserve it, and Paragon knows when a person deserves it. Charles deserves to be loved, and cared-for.  
  
" _Zieh dir nicht mehr die Haare aus,_ " he Orders first, because Charles does not deserve to be hurting himself. if it is a right, Charles did not earn it. He has spilled enough blood, for whatever transgression he believes he has made. It has been paid for. " _Sag mir, woran du dich erinnerst_."  
  
It's the wrong language and it's the wrong Order because it's the wrong language and it's the wrong everything and the memory bursts out all at once and then it doesn't, snaps back like elastic and burns on impact and it's just as good as a lash and he can hear everything going on inside because nothing is hidden from him and it hurts and it aches and he's sick and he doesn't want to talk about the awful things, he doesn't want to stand here and be hugged like this he doesn't want to feel stupid and it isn't Erik's fault, it's his, it's always his, it's his fault and now he can't pull his hair and his arms are uselessly falling to his sides and he's a stupid, fucking worthless -  
  
"No!"  
  
It happens all at once.  
  
Everything flies off the shelves. Off the walls, off the bed, off the bedside tables, off the counters in the bathroom. The walls are shaking. The room is humming, pure, vibrating energy, eardrums ringing and skin prickling and he's shaking all over but so is everything else.  
  
The room is shaking and Charles' eyes are wide and snapped open because it's not Erik making it shake.  
  
And all at once Erik has returned. It's an Erik Charles knows but it's not, because the Erik Charles knows, his Dominant, wouldn't crumple before him and press himself back into the wall, features screwed up in terror and pain and heartbreak, and he sinks to the ground, wrapping his arms around himself and the language doesn't change but it becomes smaller, afraid and covering his face. " _Bitte, bitte hör auf, ich liebe dich_ ," he whispers, desperate and broken. " _Ich weiß nicht, was ich tun soll. Ich bin schlecht, ich bin ein böses Kind. Ich weiß, dass ich schlecht bin. Bitte hör auf. Ich liebe dich. Ich werde es reparieren._ "  
  
The room abruptly stops shaking. There's an audible, deafening thud as everything that had lifted and thrown itself about falls, hitting the ground all at once. It's forceful and it makes him flinch but nothing shatters, shuddering with lingering energy, vibrating and spinning and humming, but nothing breaks. Their contract, framed up on the wall, is cracked but unharmed.  
  
Charles makes a broken, confused noise from the back of his throat and panics. He runs to the bathroom and throws himself at the toilet, and then, unlike this morning, he is violently ill.  
  
The door locks itself behind him without him needing to touch it.

* * *

Erik rocks back and forth, moaning softly under his breath, barely-audible even in to anyone in his immediate sphere, and he stifles any sound in his bad hand, biting down on his knuckles and drawing pain out of his nervous system. Look at what he's done and he can't move from the floor where he's bundled himself into the corner, a pathetic wreck and he promised he'll fix it but he can't fix it because he's too broken. Unfit. He can't take care of a person. Charles is his and he can't, look what he's done-  
  
Si _eh, was du angerichtet hast! "Lo, lo atzor ze bevakasha, bevakasha-"_ it wants to be a shout but it's a soft, stupid whisper to his own feet, and he's shaking his head, eyes open and the scene before him is blurred by tears and there's snot running down his lip and Mr. Shaw was right. He's a stupid, stupid boy and he should never have told Charles he can take care of him because everything he loves is burned to black rain and he keeps speaking the Dead Tongue and it's for the dead-  
  
so quiet, in the atmosphere where he doesn't go, written in the lines of the sky: _yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'meh raba be'alma di vra chirutei ve yamlich malchutei bechayechon uv'yomeichon uv'chayei de'chol beit Yisrael ba'agala uvizman kariv ve'imru_ A familiar voice in the dark, and let us say-the Butcher scraping his axe behind, knelt down to touch his face. And he's not a Butcher at all. " _Amein_ ," he responds aloud, soft and stunned. The Betrayer is here with him. _Yitbarakh ve'yishtabach ve'yitpa'ar ve'yitromam ve'yitnasei ve'yithadar ve'yit'aleh ve'yithallal shmeh d'kudsha-_  
  
" _B'rikh hu_ ," he croaks. It's for the Dead and he isn't dead yet. Blessed be He. _The Butcher told him so, but didn't he lie? I didn't lie. He is yours and you are his and no matter where you are, you can care for him. You are good for taking care of him. But he's sick and I can't fix him. You can get to your feet. OK._ Wobbly but the door unlocks for him and he sits just inside the threshold. He feathers out his power along the cracked edges of their contract and carefully, so carefully threads together the bits of broken glass and wood until it's mended.  
  
" _Ani ohev otcha_ ," he rasps. The right language, not a Dead Tongue. " _Bevakasha hachzer le'li,_ " he whispers, rocking himself gently. " _Soleachi li, ani lo olel tov, yodea. Ani an'im, hishavea_." He inches himself inside so he can press himself up against Charles's shoulder, a skittish creature partially-there, easily swatted away like an overlarge bug. _Please don't throw me away. I'll do better, I'll make you feel good. I'll fix it, I love you so much. I'm sorry I didn't react good. You didn't do anything wrong. You were good. You are good. You're mine. It's all I know, it's all I know that you are mine and you belong with me and please don't go, please, please,_

* * *

Charles is crying quietly, frightened, retching over porcelain as his body shivers and shakes with tremors. The bathroom is coated in thrumming, ear-popping psionic energy, energy that has never been physical for Charles except in his head - he is nine and he is afraid, he thinks of his perception filters and mental blocks as a shield, pushing everything back and out, like the knights in fairytales or the superheroes on TV he's sometimes allowed to watch, the morning cartoons - but this is Real, and it's loud and confusing and it vibrates with every heaving breath. There's a bubble around him but he instinctively lets Erik into it, because he's Erik's and the locked door was never really for him. He doesn't flinch at the touch, leans hesitantly against him as he wipes at his own mouth with the back of a hand. "I'm sorry," he says, trembling and soft, and he is. He is. "I shouldn't have - I'm sorry, I didn't want - I was bad, I'm sorry," he whimpers, and when his closes his eyes it's so tight it hurts, tears leaking out with the force.  
  
" _Lo_ ," Erik whispers back. " _Pkach einei shelcha_ ," the Order is soft, but it's Erik's Order this time, even though he's still in a halfway state. The Butcher is right. Charles belongs to him, to all of him, every fractured piece made into a whole by this all-encompassing knowledge and no matter how far gone Erik is, it is known throughout the Landscape far and wide. It is the soil and the trees and the wood that makes the houses and the sun and the moon and the stars. It is written inside all of him and it makes him warm, and he hums with the pleasant reminder, all the tension of his muscles draining out as soon as Charles leans back against him. He is accepted. He isn't thrown away. He isn't a bug.  
  
He is Charles's Dominant, and he is for taking care of Charles. " _Titnatzel lo le'li,_ " he smiles, brushing away those tears with the pad of his thumb when Charles obeys and his eyes crack open. Erik taps his nose endearingly and shifts up to wrap him in a hug, loose-because Charles didn't want a hug before and he is sorry. " _Atah hetavta,_ " he insists, unable to resist the small grin on his face. It's out of place because they're supposed to be in horror and fear and sadness, but Charles came back to him and spoke to him and he's overjoyed by it. And maybe that's wrong. He's been wrong so often today, but they're here again because they always come back to one another and Charles whipped up the room in a fury but their contract remained in-tact. Even amidst his explosive tsunami of emotion, panic and anger snapping through every particle surrounding them, their contract was passed by, unharmed.  
  
" _Toda raba avur mitbate milot shelcha_ " he continues, affectionately thumbing along the line of Charles's jaw. Erik did react poorly. He'd been embarrassed because he thought the physical expression of his Dominance was wrong-that it disgusted Charles that he could possibly feel lust at a time like that, because Erik's always-only ever a hair's breadth away from it, regardless of the situation-a sickly, bad part of him he can't excise. But he should have been better. He's just messy today, all messy in his dumb little head and he's done disparaging himself because it never helps, even if he's bad it never makes him better.  
  
What does is this. Just this, he brushes his lips under Charles's eye. It makes him better and when he's better he can take care of his submissive, and it makes him smile in the dark hours. " _Bevakasha haged li ma kara_ ," when Orders it again, it is touching Charles's jaw, a fluttering, gentle thing, conveying through his fingertips how precious Charles is to him. It is in the language of Naomi chirping happily at them for apples and Raven shimmering into an impression of Charles giving a lecture and Hank's toothy grin as he looks over his newspaper and Warren's barking, dry laughter and it's their family, chosen and found. The language of the Alive.

* * *

Charles is messy today, too. He sniffles, nose stuffed up and tongue heavy with his own sick, stomach churning uncomfortably and lurching, but he curls up quietly against Erik's shoulder. It wasn't that he hadn't wanted a hug, he'd just been worked up and panicked, too, and he hadn't known what to do. He'd dropped out of that safe, comfortable space and he hadn't known how to react, how to cope with the awful wrenching, but they're both back here now. The room stops buzzing after a while, or at least it calms; less a loud, urgent pulse of energy and more a gentled hum the more Erik stays, and speaks, and Orders and cares for him. "I remembered something and I didn't want - I know you wouldn't want me to get it mixed up," he mumbles, and his eyebrows knit together because he realizes after a moment that he's speaking more than one language, a mix of his and Erik's but he's sure it'll be understandable, anyway, so he keeps going. "I didn't want to stop but I was getting... so I -" He bites his lip, lowering his eyes and sniffing again. "I'm sorry. I don't even remember what I remembered," he admits, and it's such a strange thing for Charles to say because he remembers everything, but Erik was right. There are parts of Charles' mind that even Charles doesn't have access to. It wasn't that he'd been at all disgusted; he's always a breath away from there, too. It's not bad, is it? If they both want it, it's not bad? But Erik told him to pause-word if he started to get distressed or needed to stop and he'd known it would get his wires crossed and he just - he'd done the right thing, hadn't he? He'd been good? He'd listened?  
  
Erik's arms around him tighten up a bit, both arms now, and he leans his head down on Charles's shoulder. Just rubbing and hugging and rocking. "That is what I told you," he says, mid-smile, and he touches Charles's face again, his head, his neck; hemming and hawing over those strands of hair he'd tugged on, soothing them with his fingers digging gently into his scalp. Fussing over him, is what it is, an instinct Erik simply can't bury the same way he makes little nests for them in their bedroom and wherever they settle. Grooming him, petting him, holding him close.  
  
He's so pleased and proud, and not one second has that wavered; even when he wavers and veers off sharply into flashback-nightmarezone-upside-down spirals and Escher-stairs winding infinitely over themselves, Erik is always so incredibly admirable of his wonderful submissive who does exactly as Erik wishes, even when he is spiraling-down. "You listened, sweetheart. You always do," he kisses Charles's temple. And of course Charles is right, Erik could never abide that and would have inevitably pause-worded himself, because there is no scenario on this planet where he would want to indulge himself while Charles mixed things all up like an overworked blender. This is where they would be, holding and talking and loving one another all the same. They straighten each other out, by nature of being in one another's proximity.  
  
"You never apologize to me for using your pause-word, _neshama_. That is exactly what I want you to use it for, and you did so good to use it today. Thank you," Erik repeats himself in a mish-mash, the spoken language they've begun to create for themselves that no one else, even native speakers of their own respective tongues, can understand but them. Switched back and forth and combining together different conjugations, roots and concepts at a rapidfire pace, and he's returned as well, because there is nowhere else for him to go; nowhere else he wants to be than right here by Charles's side. He's snapped up into the front-seat again, the Erik Charles knows; his Dominant, calm and quiet and thoughtful Erik who will do whatever is necessary to take care of him and bring him home.  
  
Charles immediately swells with pride at Erik's praise, puffed up and pleased with it as he always is. It radiates right off of him, that pleasure, sinks into the crevices of the room around them as he lets it drape itself over both of them and edge out the fear and horror. He nuzzles into Erik's chest, insistent and nudging until he can be exactly where he wants to be, a soft, small smile on his lips. His stomach is still sick, and something is lingering at the far corners of his mind, looming around a migraine; he knows whatever it is he'd remembered isn't far, but he'll have Erik to hold him through it and make sense of it. Right now he's concerned with something else as his eyes wander the room briefly, arms tightening around Erik. Everything is on the floor, all of Erik's meticulously-arranged items (that Charles sometimes messes with, grinning and mischievous). "Did you...?" But he knows instinctively it wasn't Erik, and he doesn't know what to make of what that leaves him with, confused and frightened again.  
  
Erik shrugs, but shakes his head after a few moments. "No," he whispers back. "But it is OK," he assures, because if he knows one thing above all else it is that whatever happens, he will be there beside Charles to guide him through. It's niggling along something he's wondered at in the deep, deep world, an unformed question he can't rise to give name to. But it's that in and of itself which has him convinced that this will be OK, that has him certain enough for his words to be the truth, not only as he knows it; which he does, but as a universal constant the way physics bend to his Will. "I think it is OK," he says on a small smile. "I think it is us."  
  
Charles gladly wraps himself up in that reassurance, eyes closed again as he squirms to get properly comfortable. Or as comfortable as he can be on the fairly cold bathroom floor with their belongings knocked all around them, but if they can be comfortable in holding cells, they can be comfortable anywhere. "What do you mean?" he asks, quietly, and he's still frightened, but Erik's calm helps. It always does. _Be easy, now,_ he's always saying. _You be easy now._ Charles smiles before he can help it, hiding it in Erik's bare skin, pressing it there. It was one of his first stronger, intentioned Orders, and it's always so warm when it sinks beneath the skin, dragging him right down to that deep-dark place.  
  
Erik scoots back until he can rest against the wall and get Charles curled up properly into his lap between his legs, embracing him with all of his body and rhythmically petting his hair and ghosting his fingertips down his spine, little electric jolts not intended for anything else but to further melt away tension, loosen those knots, the ever-present ache of stress that he is here to soothe, the reason he exists. To ease, like the Order Charles remembers. To be rid of the agony and let in the light.  
  
"Sometimes I can sense people. I'm good at reading them," he permits softly, "but not like that." His lips turn down in a frown. "I didn't notice it at first. Because you are by my side very often-" not often enough, if he's honest, he knows that they will both need space eventually, it's not healthy to build an entire world on one person and Erik doesn't expect Charles to, but Erik's lived a very insular life dependent on an abusive, inconsistent authority, and then imprisoned-it's not shocking he has framed all the good things he experiences as Charles, but he'll grow into himself as an individual alone the longer he's free and open. "-and I can see them through you. I'm used to it."  
  
And he likes it very much, goes unsaid. He adores Charles's mutation in all its forms, in all its applications, when he uses it on Erik to ease his pain and enhance his pleasure and create them beautiful spaces and beautiful bonds, but it's not just Charles, Erik has known that for a long time and at first he turned to the mystical, the spiritual. They're soulmates, their souls are entwined, it's a divine providence-and Erik is comfortable with that; when Charles is incapacitated, it's still-there. It doesn't dissipate. Erik can still manipulate it, so it must be a Bond created of them both, right? But now Erik isn't so sure. "But when I've been alone-sometimes I see them, too. I thought maybe, it's just because distance doesn't matter-" he shrugs. It's not telepathy, not really. It's shifts, like the way Charles and Erik shift around one another, their body language a mirror image. How they make space and accommodate and move in tandem, a choreography of love and devotion.  
  
People shift, too. Perhaps not out of love, but impatience, frustration, happiness, affection. When someone wants something they shift toward it without moving an iota, and Erik senses it, and shifts accordingly to provide it. A cup of coffee, a newspaper, a stethoscope or a packet of script lines. It's become stronger the deeper Charles and Erik go, and even Hank and Raven have commented on just how intuitive Erik is-and he always was, as a child he had to learn to anticipate before being told what was expected of him or else suffer the consequences, usually in the form of kinetic-energy fists and feet and unforgiving yells of blustering, irate disgust.  
  
But it's more, now. He is more, now.  
  
Charles hums, quiet and thoughtful, perfectly content to be pet and fussed over, to be held and kept warm and safe and Erik's. "I've noticed, too," he murmurs, and he'd noticed it well before Erik and him had Bonded, before the telepathic connection Charles had established had settled as anything more than a tremulous, tentative thing, snapping as soon as Charles left the room. The things Erik described in his past, how he was able to manipulate and circumvent Emma Frost, keep her out of his mind - he and Raven have been practicing on and off for more than a month now, whenever she remembers she wants to learn, and she simply isn't capable of it. Her mind snaps back like a rubberband, and perhaps there's some truth to the fact that Charles is simply a great deal stronger than Emma Frost is, but in the end...  
  
He'd wondered, too. It doesn't seem to be the same, though. But perhaps it is? He purses his lips, considering. "What just happened didn't feel like yours," he tries, peering up at Erik, stroking idly at his chest with a finger. Patterns and letters to make words and secret messages drawn into the skin. "It felt like what's up here," he taps his temple, indicating his mutation, "But out. But..." Charles makes one of those soft, thoughtful noises again, more curious than frightened now. "Your mutation could have applications similar to telepathy, really, if - without me, you're not hearing what I do. And when you're manipulating my mutation, I think that is because we're Bonded. I think this might just be a case of..." Charles was heavily suppressed as a child, well before his mutation manifested. But he's undoubtedly omega-level. There's no telling, exactly, what he's capable of. "I don't think you're wrong, exactly. I just think it's more me than you, but... me with you." He grins. "The same way there were things you couldn't do before, either." That being said, Charles is still terrified of it, but it does stand to reason. Everything they are is enhanced now, and they're growing everyday. Learning everyday. Changing everyday. It's frightening and exhilarating.  
  
That's exactly what Erik means, though incapable of articulating it himself, once more Charles has perfectly encapsulated their predicament. Their joy, their pleasure. The Bond. "It doesn't feel like yours," he agrees in a soft whisper, tapping his own temple. It feels like Erik's. Without Charles, a separate entity, a growing-into something he can't-quite comprehend. If one could even suggest that Erik is at-all alone anymore. Erik wouldn't. He couldn't, he cannot imagine himself without Charles and it grieves him even to attempt, a benign and silly thought experiment that has him tensing and clutching Charles tighter. Or perhaps something he's always had, looking back on it. Is it a mutation of its own? The way they are, together? Bound by genetics and physics and scientific explanations?  
  
Erik isn't comfortable with expressing his faith outwardly, even to Charles, it's a barrier he's yet to cross despite praying three times a day with Charles right beside him, it's been months and he still shivers with nerves, but he shores himself up to convey that he suspects it is not. He suspects that it is their souls in tandem, and he knows Charles doesn't view it the same way. And it delights him just how smart Charles is, and he hopes Charles doesn't think what he believes is the product of an inferior mind-but Erik doesn't think so. Charles knows he's smart, he tells people that he is smart, and it makes Erik warm inside because before Charles, he was always regarded quite plainly as stupid.  
  
The end result no matter what they each believe the cause; they're stretched beyond what anyone could ever expect of them in isolation. While Erik's end is more subtle than what Charles just produced out of nothing, a shocking flash of vibration and sound and force, it is growing and someday he will be able to read them for himself, himself, without tapping into Charles's mutation which by now feels like breathing, difficult to distinguish. He does it unconsciously while they're outside amongst others, lightly tapping on the window-panes of their consciousness, a curious cat peeking in and captivated by what it finds. Each one so unique and versatile and beautiful, and yes, some sickly-dark-disgusting and he quickly flinches away, darts into the bushes and tugs himself back, Charles squeezing his hand in reassurance before he tip-toes back out. Erik loves it. He loves that he has it, whatever it is, wherever it comes from, a gift from Charles to him.  
  
Everything in the now is a gift. He branches out to explore with Charles by his side and discover all the wonders of human life that he's been deprived of, some overwhelming and bizarre but many a thrill that brings a grin out on his features, an expression that only Charles is privy to if the cameras are to be believed. Stoic Erik and his resting-glower-face, but for Charles he is lit-up, dizzy with bliss.  
  
Charles isn't so certain it isn't a product of what was already there for both of them, drawn out by their Bond and proximity to each other. He doesn't think he ever would have tapped into it without Erik's patient, guiding encouragement, but perhaps these more mind-oriented abilities wouldn't have been something Erik would have noticed, either. He's always been much more in tune with his abilities as relating to his body, and Charles always thought there wasn't any other way to conceptualize his own except in the mind, accepting and acknowledging that the physical is outside of his influence; but here they are, teaching and learning, and in the end it doesn't particularly matter. They match and complement each other in every possible way, and what one doesn't have access to the other surely will. To say that one is stronger than the other is completely ridiculous. Erik will never have the telepathic capabilities Charles does, and Charles will almost certainly never have telekinetic abilities even close to what Erik can do, but even still?  
  
They are likely the only people capable of matching each other, and separately they are two of the strongest on this Earth. He would argue they have the potential to be the strongest.  
  
Charles has never sought power, and he never will, but perhaps there's just a little thrill at that. There's nothing they won't achieve together if they're determined enough, really.

* * *

He hums again, latent telekinetic abilities pushed aside for a moment because there's something else on his mind. Charles ducks his head until he's properly hidden in Erik's chest, but now that he's not editing or hiding, he knows Erik will sense the shift. He bites his lip. "You didn't see it, did you?" he mumbles, barely audible, cheeks hot. He doesn't elaborate, small in Erik's lap, perhaps even anxious.  
  
He tilts Charles's chin up at that, unwilling to leave him hidden and presses his forehead to Charles's brow, a kiss of skin and he touches his fingers against Charles's lips, a method of grounding them both in the present. The Real, where he can calm and soothe his Bonded and he gives a head-shake, but it doesn't matter, because Charles is his and it is his to see, just as all of Erik is laid bare for Charles, because he is Charles's to see. "Tell me," the Order is whispered, an echo of the Before, only now it's right. The right Order in the right place in the right language. Erik is the right-Erik and Charles is, always and forever, right for him. _Bevakasha, haged li ma kara. Ani ohev otcha._ He kisses Charles's nose, his own wrinkling very slightly as he smiles, reassurance and affection bubbling up and over. The longer they're together, the more they give of themselves to the other, the more stable he becomes, all deep calm and passive strength and pure, unbridled Dominance.  
  
Charles purses his lips, pouting, his nose scrunched up. He thinks he can get away with this; sometimes Erik's Orders have loopholes if he's sneaky about it, if he's feeling particularly contrary. He need only tell him what it is that he's hiding, not necessarily all that it entails. "I'm hiding something else from you," he admits, but then rushes to explain, "But it's not bad, alright? It's just a secret. A surprise," he murmur shyly. He shows Erik careful, obscured peeks; flashes of Keep-Away, Charles going about something privately while Erik is in meetings and appointments between his own work. Now that he checks, Erik absolutely doesn't know still, Charles' hidden pocket safe. He grins, delighted. "You don't get to know," he sing-songs, wriggling in Erik's lap and far too pleased with himself now that he has his answer.  
  
Charles always surprises Erik; every day, he is often-shocked, pleasantly-so, at his own existence and this is no exception but it is immediate-Erik's whole face changes-he'd been ready for grief, ready for sorrow and it shows in his bearing, poised and calm and safe, ready to endure-and this he does with equal amounts of joy because it is his to endure, it is his place and one he takes gladly, because he is good for taking care of Charles and and taking them through to the other side, to ease the grip of oily, blackened claws, banishing them back into the depths where they belong; steadfast and _en garde_ , wielding every aspect of that thing called Dominance within him-  
  
This is something else entirely and he gasps in delight, a large grin slowly making its way known, eyes bright and creased, nose fully wrinkled up as it overtakes him. "Oh," he murmurs, stunned and perhaps it's not the right response-maybe he should tug back and tumble after Charles and wind all around in a thrilling hide-and-seek-Erik's No-Good at Keep-Away because he can never let Charles just keep it away; not only is he curious but he's unrelenting in his nature, striving seeking finding and bidding Charles to yield, soft and needing and gasping beneath him.  
  
But he utterly doesn't expect this and no one's ever tried to keep something from him in a good way before-not since _Ima_ died; she was always the one who brought him gifts. They were quite poor in _Sisim_ so they were always small and handmade and Erik cherished them, and he's struck by a sudden influx of feeling, a pang in his heart of pure endearment to this wonderful, amazing man he has in his lap.  
  
Who stays there by his own will, and he lets out a soft laugh, and then he does tug, but only so he can kiss him properly, pouring out the rush of affection and fondness like water from a jug, from his overflowing heart to Charles, spreading through him and filling him up. "Oh, Charles-" he's crying again, how silly, and he's laughing and he tucks strands of Charles's hair behind his ear, those which would dare to obscure his beautiful face. "I didn't know," he promises, solemn. Pinky-swear, and he kisses him again.  
  
It really should be far more disgusting to be kissed after he'd thrown up the way he did, and his mouth is dry and scratchy and, yes, gross, admittedly, but he finds that if Erik doesn't mind, he doesn't. It's similar to how he keeps touching Charles' sweaty, stringy, matted hair, the curls weighed down by it. Charles is laughing when they part, too, shy and fluttering again, biting on his lip as he fidgets. "It's for our Bonding ceremony," he whispers, dipping his head, the butterflies back in his stomach before he can shoo them away. "So you won't have to wait long. It's actually several surprises, I went a bit overboard, but even still - don't expect too much, I don't want you to be disappointed," he mutters, and his mind becomes a vague sense of self-conscious fussing. "I just... wanted to do something extra, that's all." He hopes that's okay. He hopes Erik likes it, and now he's second-guessing and working himself up, the way he usually does.  
  
Erik does not remotely care, or even seem to notice. He's done far more disgusting things than that, and between them, he finds there is nothing to truly disgust him at all. Charles needs to be kissed, and Erik needs to kiss him, and nothing can stand in the way of it. And he keeps carding his fingers through that hair, getting at all the knots, pulling them down and free because Charles deserves to be comfortable and Erik will always be there to comfort him, to touch him and take care of him in ways big and small. When Charles speaks, he just huffs a laugh and holds up his finger to halt the incoming barrage. "No," he murmurs, soft, but firm. "None of that. Charles, I-" he swallows. "I know I expect a lot from you," he starts, quiet. "But you exceed every one, every day. I could not be prouder of you. You come back to me, and you-you let me-" love you, you let me love you and take care of you and that takes care of me, and there is warmth in the dark, cold places because you put it there. "Nothing you ever do-especially that you-would gift me-I could never be disappointed. Not ever." The truth of it, the sincerity of his statement, is blinding .  
  
Charles chokes on a noise, then, head lowered because there are tears pricking at his eyes. He swallows them down, but still feels them in his chest, in the overwhelming burst of emotion. He has to stay like that, teary-eyed but smiling, for quite a while before he can find his voice. "There's something else, while I'm at it," he murmurs, and he's timid again, uncertain, drawing those idle patterns on Erik's skin to distract himself. "I know we decided to recite an abridged version of our Vows. I was thinking..." He takes a breath, and keeps his head ducked, even as he looks through his abilities for a reaction. "Would you like to say half in Hebrew? And I know there's a bit of cultural Ritual here, too. I was thinking I'd like to. If you did," he breathes.  
  
The reaction he finds is staggering, and Erik has to suck in a breath through his mouth, and he touches his palm over his chest, steadying himself. He's nodding before he can find his own voice, and he grasps Charles tighter to him, tucking his head under his chin. "I-yes-" he manages, and whatever-it-is loosens its grip and he gives a gentle laugh, pulling Charles away from him and stroking along his brows with his thumbs. One adoring and one lagging down, but no-less. "I would like to," he says, shaky. "Very much."

* * *

Charles grins brightly, whatever it was that had coiled in his stomach untensing as he melts back into Erik's lap. "I was hoping you might," he whispers, and leans forward and up once he's settled to kiss Erik's nose, to nuzzle his own against it. "I want all of it, you know. All of the parts you were told aren't good, that you had to hide away? I think they're absolutely brilliant, and I want to learn them, too. To know them and love them and cherish them. I want to speak your language and know your customs, celebrate your holidays and sing your songs. I already do. It's part of me because I'm yours, and anything that is you is something I love and know. You were right earlier, Erik," he says, voice quieter, "I don't believe in some of the things you do. But please don't doubt for a second that I respect and cherish them because they're yours. I find it beautiful, and it will never be in spite of. I'll remind you as much as you need to be reminded, because that's what I'm here for. To love and serve you. All of you," he whispers, and smiles softly as he playfully bops their noses together.  
  
He's not prepared for that and it shows in the way his lips press together, keeping in everything that abruptly rages to the surface and begs to spill out, and it does anyway because it can't not with how close they are, and Erik finds he doesn't mind; Charles has always been the only one to see him for who he is, anyway. The only one who knows he can smile, that he has an internal life nothing to do with pain and suffering and righteousness, who knows he can be soft and silly and who knows he can love, deeply and immensely, for this one human being who has come into his sphere and who trusts him to make it home for them. So of course it's only natural, only right, that he sees this, too.  
  
The shuddering way he contains a sound approaching a gasp, the way he holds on tight-tighter than before, fingers bruising in their grip on the side of his neck, where he'd been tracing his collar in a repetitive soothing motion and then Charles was speaking and they clenched down. "I-" is all he can get out and he brushes his eyes over the sweaty strands of Charles's hair, not disgusting at all; there's no way Charles could be. Erik will get down into the dirt and trenches with him, this he cannot doubt. "I know," he croaks, letting his fingernails recede and apologetically rubbing the crescent-shaped marks left behind.  
  
Sorry, sorry. No more hurt. He inhales long and slow, focuses on relaxing his muscles. He does know-in the deepest parts of him, if he didn't know there's no way he'd allow Charles to stay with him every morning, noon and night. There's no way he'd walk into _shul_ behind him-a place where they don't use a filter, where security officers (regrettably armed, but suitably intimidating) shoo away reporters and paparazzi, where they can simply be themselves amongst people who know and who accept them for what they are; the very small pocket of public space that they belong-and lift his voice.  
  
There's no way, not because he's a private person who wouldn't dare be vulnerable otherwise, but because he'd been terrified over it and ashamed of his fear, and only recently able to come to terms with the fact that everything Shaw did was _intentional_ and _targeted_ , for very specific reasons, too _close_ and too much to look at fully without wanting to fucking _fly out to The Hague and melt him into the fucking ground-_  
  
because fear is a powerful motivator and it's hard to look past fear, but he Knows even while some tiny, trembling parts of him _poke poke poke_ at his shoulder, hopping up onto tree-ledges to do so, _are you sure? Are you sure? Is it OK?_ and Charles feels it when he soothes them down, self-reassuring. _It's OK. Remember-when, remember-when._ Remember when he peeled himself out from the dirty moss and asked Charles to help them in his cell, and he helped. And he could eat and pray in peace. All that's left is the love. Remember when. And they hop down, scattering away the Landscape, satisfied and a little more confident.  
  
He knows, and this too is a gift Charles has given him back. "And I-" he traces over Charles's nose in return, huffing as he marshals it all down. "I hope you know-" his features shift, sympathetic and sincere. "It is the same for me. I want-I know you celebrate certain holidays, even if you don't-" believe, or gain joy from them, viewing them as nothing more than obligatory familial duties fraught with the overtones of empty-smiles and sloshing whiskey tumblers and clenched-fists over white-lined dinner tables "-I would celebrate them with you. We will make our own traditions."  
  
Without the backdrop of shoulder-hunching despair, on both their parts. Erik in his miserable room hoarding candles and arranging nine in a row, shoving them all under his bed when the door opens, scrambling to the opposite side-clutching dandelion stalks in his hands to wave them over his shoulder and jumping a mile in the air, throwing them down when Mr. Shaw creeps up behind him- _Was um alles in der Welt machst du, mein Junge?-nothing sir, nothing I promise_ -Charles pasting on a grim shadow of a smile as his dead-eyed mother waves her empty cup at him- _be a love and get me a drink, hm?_ Kurt bringing his hand down on the table in demand-none of that, none of it.  
  
Erik will have none of it anymore. Holidays are no longer to be reminiscent of past tortures. He forbids it, and that's the end of that, because he said so. Because he's the Dominant and he gets to decide, and he's decided that they will only ever have joy in their household, and it will be in combination of both their respective cultures, because he is so entirely, overwhelmingly grateful to Know. "I love you," he breathes as he curls one of the long strands of Charles's hair over his finger, brings it up and kisses it, adored like every other part of him. Erik knows and Erik is safe with Charles. All of him. And Charles is safe with Erik. They are to one another, forever and ever, and it's the strongest vow that Binds them.

* * *

Charles' lip is trembling, an outpouring of emotion as he tries to stay still and keep it all contained but it never works and it never should. It all comes out, trembling as he curls back up in his Dominant's lap where it's safe. Erik is right; most of his holidays have been dreadful, and he'd be lying if he said he felt particularly festive when Christmas rolls around, but perhaps that could change. Perhaps he could show Erik every silly custom and carol and tradition and make new ones up, too, ones that are distinctly and extraordinarily theirs, celebrate Christmas and Boxing Day and New Year's (though not in Times Square, that sounds like a very personal circle of hell for a telepath and his deeply traumatized Dominant). The promise of it hangs between them and Charles sniffles, beaming, dimples and all, despite his stuffed nose, his still-unsettled stomach, the migraine he's nursing. Despite everything. "I need to take another shower," he laughs instead of anything else, the emotion stuck in his throat, and then he's humming again. "You didn't shave the last couple of days," he notes, an idle observation except then he's rubbing his cheek against Erik's jaw gently, squirming in delight when the growing beard there tickles. "Will you before the Ceremony, or will I be publicly Bonding to my mountain man?" Not that he isn't always that, of course.  
  
"Mmhm," Erik's answer is a low, satisfied rumble that doesn't at-all address the question, more in response to the sensation of Charles's cheek pressed to his. "Do you want to Bond to your mountain man?" he asks, delighted as ever when Charles beams up at him, enchanted as ever, utterly besotted as ever, a wild creature found in the shredded woods of plastic walls and plastic guns, tamed down and following behind at his heels, ever his loyal protector from the moment he laid eyes upon him. Because the mountain man most certainly did wish to Bond to Charles, publicly and between them, every day, every hour he'll renew, every vow made again and again because he has fallen so hopelessly, desperately in love with his submissive in the vast expanse of Dominion he'll never crawl out of _. I Bond myself to you, Charles Xavier-_ his very most favorite words he's ever said- _I will care for you, I will provide for you, I will protect you and I will love you_ -he says it to himself every morning upon waking and every evening before bed, a _Shema_ just for them, and it will be on his lips when he passes like the holy words. "I don't like shaving," he admits abruptly, and then dissolves into startled laughter at his patently absurd declaration.  
  
"Yes," he says immediately, because he always thinks Erik is stunning, bare-faced or with a full beard, but he certainly likes Erik with facial hair. Perhaps he wouldn't go as far as to say he prefers it, but he definitely, absolutely loves it; the tickle of it when they kiss, the scratch of it on his thighs, and - Charles shakes his head, eyes fluttering as he forces himself to concentrate. He strokes Erik's growing, impressive stubble for only a day or two of missed shaves, smiling softly. "You don't have to, if you don't want to. And when you do, I could..." He was going to say he could do it for him, because he definitely knows his way around a razor, but now he's shy about it. He clears his throat and lowers his eyes. "Well, anyway, you don't have to," he finishes lamely. "You certainly won't catch me complaining."  
  
Erik's a little distracted as the rest of Charles's thoughts filter in and he pulls him up onto his lap properly, a hand winding down his hip to settle against his ass, everything paused from before roaring back up to life and warming him from the inside out, an ember blown to full fire, his lips parted and head tipping back as that image burns right into him-and he forces himself to look down and remain calm and in control because he doesn't know if it's all right and he's unwilling to jar this sliver of peace they've found for a simple physical impulse-  
  
to rub his face along the delicate skin of Charles's inner thigh oh yes the way they part for him so easily because Charles is his to settle between his legs and breathe heavy all over him, inhale his scent deeply in return- _mmhm, no, no,_ he huffs, practically yanking himself up by the shirt collar and reorienting on his feet, and his hand slides back up to rub Charles's back, calm and easy. It's all the same whole, the same burning ember of Dominion whether they're intimate or not, they're intimate, trading stories and promises and jokes and laughter, and it's just as luxurious and good and Erik melts into it all the same, hopes it's OK, no-it is going to be OK because that's his decision, he decides and he's decided.  
  
No more of that, no more horror. They do not need it today. They do not deserve it. They are newly-Bonded and they should be grinning like loons over whether Erik's going to go full-Viking mode on their public ceremony (he is) and whether Charles can out-maneuver Warren at pool (he can't, but he can pull a good hustle 'til the very end-and now he has Erik on his side, trigonometry coming naturally to him as flexing fingers) and at Warren's affronted _you cheat!_ and at Raven's smirking mimicry and Hank's patient, long-suffering eyeroll at his own Bonded, who he loves very much. They should be full of love, all of them, and Erik will set himself the task of ensuring it is so for as long as he lives.  
  
And then there's another image overlaying the last of Charles's steady hands working against him, just as he had all those weeks ago that seem like mere hours, he can't fill enough of himself with those memories and he's aching for more to store lovingly inside himself; and this is one he's divinely interested in exploring. The metal in Charles's fingers and against him, scraping finely over his skin, bottom lip snagged on his teeth as he concentrates, spots of red on his cheeks as he conceals just how much he likes it-because Erik knows and he can know, how connected they are he can sink right into those impulses of Charles's own and bathe himself in gentle impulsion, and there is so much good for them to explore, Erik shivers with it.  
  
"You could," he murmurs back, skipping over those shy stop-starts and driving into the root. "And you will," he says, touching Charles's jaw. "I would like it very much." Erik's distaste of shaving has apparently not crossed over into Charles doing it for him; and in-fact has most to do with the memory of fumbling disposable razors in his less-acute left grasp; he can use his abilities for it, but he misses being able to of his own accord. He misses it, the instinctive preference lifting his right before his left, and the all-too conscious switch-over. His abilities make up for form and function, but they can't erase twenty-seven years of neurology.  
  
He should stop being surprised that Charles does. It's a natural conclusion he didn't draw himself, and more's the pity because it is an excellent suggestion and one that has him singing internally, yes, good, mine-  
  
And Charles flushes just as Erik expects him to, pleased and gasping softly, murmurs, "Yes, sir." It turns out that after his third shower of the day, they find out exactly how okay all of it is, crawling in and out of bed and only leaving when the rest of the world calls out for them. Fortunately, they handle that together.  
  
It always comes back to this. They spend the next day and a half planning and talking and laughing and teasing and playfully arguing, praying and kneeling and singing and kissing and loving, a rise and fall of Dominance and submission and nurturing of their deepening Bond before they display it for their found family.


	49. Love and I had the wit to win:/We drew a circle that took him in.

The morning of their Bonding ceremony, Charles wakes up crying.  
  
He's not fully conscious. The light is just barely creeping through the windows, the sun breaking over the clouds, earlier than he usually stirs. Erik has become more lenient and indulgent with him sleeping in on days they can get away with it as long as he's in the mood for those things, but the earlier he wakes, the longer he can convince his Dominant to lounge about in bed with him. It usually takes him quite a while to come to, sleepy and barely-human, but he's aware that he's sniffling, that there are tears on his cheeks, that he's overwhelmingly sad.  
  
The obvious answer is to roll over until he's tangled up with Erik as much as possible, whimpering sleepy and confused, seeking comfort instinctively.  
  
During his detention at the CIA, Erik had nightmares almost every time he shut his eyes and as such learned to stay awake perched in the corner of the four walls he begrudgingly called home; moreso when Charles visited, leaving his imprint inside the crevices that Erik sought, cupping them in invisible hands and draping himself in the memories, vastly preferable to the ones that awaited him behind closed eyes.  
  
Since coming to bed with Charles each night, this shifted, and Erik began to dream properly. He dreamed of black blobs with circles for arms and legs hopping long! and far! over tree-tops and landing on roofs of houses and it's amidst this that Charles wakes him by rumbling, sadness peeking in on his fantastical atmosphere and the plink-plonks shrink away at it, melting into consciousness and still-existent. Erik hushes them and blearily cracks his eyes open, Charles's tears piercing him before he's awake enough to moderate his response, which turns out to be to clutch him terribly, afraid-  
  
every time he's jarred out of eye-fluttering REM it's to an intruder; hidden-secrets or flashing red-tails and he jolts upright, awake immediately only to discover there is no threat, and the adrenaline begins to melt away into concern. He touches Charles's cheek, leans over and kisses away salty tracks. "Charles?" he whispers, sliding his hand into his hair and putting him back against his chest where he belongs, comforting him in strokes and trails and fingers and hands and lips, arms barring over him strongly and soft blankets and soft sunlight.  
  
 _I've got you,_ his mind rolls over and blinks awake, ready to face the day.  
  
But Charles is still bleary and half-asleep even as he cries, a horrible lump in his throat as Erik soothes and pets him, holds him firm and warm against his chest. It's rare Charles wakes up first; now that he's actually getting any sleep at all, it seems like his body is cherishing it, stocking up on it, and he's a downright lump when Erik allows him to be, sleeping in and grumbling when he isn't allowed _five more more minutes, please, Erik?_ He doesn't know what's wrong. He must have been dreaming, but he doesn't remember it; all he knows is that he's achingly sad, not panicking or hurting physically but sad, that it's in his throat and chest and stomach, that he clings to Erik and the blankets and rubs his tear-stained cheek against lips and fingers. "S'okay," he mumbles, sniffling, because he is, he thinks. It's just so terribly sad.  
  
Erik just smiles down at him, sympathetic and full of sincerity, cupping his face and kissing him, tender and soft. _It is OK, ahuv sheli. I have got you,_ he tells him solemnly, tracing his touch across Charles's throat and chest and stomach, working to dissolve that sensation like a ghostly massage on the inside of his neurons, even as he thinks that it's perfectly acceptable. Charles is allowed to be sad and he can be sad here, and Erik will take care of him because he is safe and warm and loved, surrounded by blankets and Erik's skin against his, and the sun streaming in through blinded slats leaving strips of golden light across their bed. Chasing away the bad dreams into the day, bringing in space for sadness to bloom so it can be healed.  
  
It would help if he knew what he was sad about. It feels like he's mourning something, but he doesn't know who or what. In the end he supposes it doesn't matter; whatever it is, Erik's fingers and lips and presence chases it away, nudging it toward the back of his consciousness until it truly is a faded, far off dream. He's sleepy and pliant and murmuring after that, even with tears still clinging to his cheeks and eyelashes, rolls until he's properly in Erik's arms, legs tangled together and hidden in his bare chest. Erik isn't wearing a shirt. Mmm, that's nice. Charles likes when Erik doesn't wear a shirt. Time to go back to sleep.  
  
When it rises up again, if it does, if it's important to mourn and important to acknowledge, Erik will be there, too. In the meantime he lets it fade, because there's nothing for a thing that can't be recalled and forced to the surface, and they've got much brighter things on the horizon. Not that this would in any way mar those; but it is easy to let it go when much nicer things are calling, and that's for the both of them. Life is hard enough without fussing over nameless agonies, and Erik gives it space, but he will not give it them.  
  
In two more days beyond they'll fly to Israel, where their feet will hit the dusty tarmac and they'll be herded to _Bnai Brak_ , a _Hareidi_ neighborhood where David and Ellie are nestled comfortably, though they aren't themselves, living just on the outskirts, with a plot of land big enough to host twelve unruly children and teenagers and soon Charles and Erik will join the fray, and they're things Erik still hasn't come to grips with and he knows he has to, but he doesn't know how to do it without hurting Charles.  
  
And it's easy to let go with much nicer things spilling over the horizon, even when he can name that particular grief.  
  
"Uh-uh," Erik taps him on the nose before he can bury himself fully back into the bed. "Time to wake up, _za'ir tayish_ ," he laughs softly and slowly sits up, stretching over a yawn and bullying Charles out of the bed alongside him, pausing to make the bed to military precision before herding him into the shower like the sleepy, stubborn little goat he is. Erik clings to him the whole time, a small, grabby, contented thing humming and petting his way through the morning glow.  
  
The morning glow that Charles, now that his eyes are dried and his sadness dissolved, forgotten somewhere in the sheets and conciousness (sort of) is pouting and huffing through. It's a perfectly normal part of their mornings, and he hasn't yet become cognizant of things like date and time and personhood. He's too busy whinging as he's put under warm water, eyes still stubbornly closed as he leans against Erik's body. The beginning of the rest of their lives. Erik will always have this to look forward to. "Mmm back t' bed," Charles demands intelligently, yawning loudly as he rubs at his eyes and makes faces.  
  
This is it. This is the life they'd fought for.

* * *

And it is precious, precious to Erik. Every silly, sleepy moment. He will defend it fiercely from all that seek to destroy it, and he will love into it just as much, if not moreso. He picks up the sponge from the rack and lathers it up, pressing it gently against Charles's skin and drawing it down. Charles is leaning on him where they're sitting and Erik's relaxed into the spray of warm water and Charles is murmuring little noises into his neck and sometimes Erik is sure somewhere along the way he'd perished and ended up here, in the world to come where paradise reigns and it gave him Charles. In all his whinging, stamped-foot glory. Erik smirks at that, and lifts up said foot to soap in-between his toes. " _Mwen renmen ou_ ," he adds aloud, because this is equally their routine. Erik finds a new language each day to tell him _I love you._  
  
The water is warm and Erik's hands are nice and Charles continues to wriggle when he's moved too much, soft and dozing near Erik's shoulder. Some mornings he's more inclined to be a person, usually when they spend more time in bed kissing and rolling about first; this morning, probably not for a while. His telepathy is still blinking awake, too, as sleepy and unwilling to emerge from unconsciousness as the rest of him, picking up thoughts and chatter all while he projects _warm/back to bed?/discomfort/Erik._ He's terribly cerebral in the mornings. "Now," he demands, and pats Erik's cheek expectantly. When he doesn't get his request (if it can be called that) granted right this second, he pouts and repeats himself. "Now," and then, grudgingly, "Please."  
  
He laughs and taps Charles's nose fondly, getting soap bubbles on it and he sits back and the laughter grows until the walls catch on and join in. " _Za'ir tayish achshav im meva'ab'im_ ," he says, magnanimous in his own early morning haze, and he lifts his hand so they levitate right off him and form into a big,  
  
 _:-)_  
  
twirling around until they dissipate into the air and flop back down to the drain. Once Charles is washed up and dried off-and, OK, Charles. It's Bonding Day. Erik isn't a total taskmaster. He'll allow Charles some room to wiggle about, to stretch and roll amid the covers (Erik will just remake them pristine again, it's a given), some room to be kissed and stroked and shivered into real wakefulness, with all of Erik's attention poised on his mind and body-Erik follows suit, rolling his shoulders once the towel is discarded in the laundry, and he pauses in front of the mirror, drawing his hand over what has now become a true beard along his jaw, and he gazes at Charles thoughtfully.  
  
Not now, G-d forbid, he's liable to chop off a lip, but-  
  
Erik tilts his head at Charles, curious.

Charles doesn't even catch that ping of curiosity. Charles is heading straight for the bed, jumping on it until it creaks and he bounces, startled laughter and soft little giggles as he rolls and tugs at the covers until he's in a comfy ball with them all gathered around him, where he sighs and nests and disappears until he's little more than a vaguely Charles-shaped lump.  
  
And then he bounces some more, and those giggles rise up from that lump. It's Bonding Day and Charles hasn't quite gotten to that level yet, but among the grumpiness there's an accurate amount of joy, too, the tears from earlier long forgotten now.  
  
" _C'meeeeeere_ ," he demands, muffled from the blankets. It's not a bed if Erik isn't in it. _Come back to bed. Come back to me._ Charles projects _cold!_ because without Erik, it is. Dreadfully so. Take pity on him.  
  
The noises that escape Erik can only be described as drawling giggles, if the low, deep timber of his voice didn't automatically make them a tad more serious sounding, but he pads back out into the bedroom obligingly and crawls up onto the bed, flecks of water following where he dents the mattress until he's right up alongside Charles and he tugs the blanket, revealing his face and grinning widely down at him. " _Peekaboo_ , I believe the phrase is."  
  
Charles giggles right back, cheeks dimpled and eyes half-open, legs kicking out against the sheets. " _Noooo_ ," he protests, perhaps ridiculously like the rest of this, and buries his head right under a pillow. Which he then promptly peeks out of, one vivid blue eye open as he makes sure Erik is playing his silly, sleepy game. "Come under," he huffs, still bossy but it's gentled out by soft features and squirming. "Or else." Or else! He's big and scary this morning, which really means he wants to be urged into pliant, sweet submission by the end of it and they both know it.  
  
" _Chamud yeled_ ," Erik laughs, darker, richer this time as he walks his fingers up where Charles's arm is hiding. "Or else what, hm?" His eyebrows raise, always fond when Charles gets bossy and indignant. He leans down right up close to Charles and suddenly darts forward to kiss him on the nose. "Or else this?" And then he kisses him between the eyes. "Or this?" And on his cheek where his dimples show. "Maybe this. Truly terrible, I must admit. Devious, Charles Xavier."  
  
Charles huffs, clearly not certain if he wants to smile or pout, laugh more or whine. He lurches forward, perhaps to make some sort of attack of his own, but all he manages to do is splay himself right over Erik, flopped, useless limbs and damp hair and sleepy indignance. "Stuck here," he declares, infinitely proud of himself and apparently unaware that Erik is much stronger than him and easily twice his size, letting his eyes flutter closed. "Sleep forever. I win. Goodnight."  
  
Erik's face wrinkles up in delight and all of a sudden Charles finds himself swooped over and onto his back, landing delicately into the soft pillows; Erik is much stronger but he is also much more gentle, and there is never a moment in question that Charles could come to harm. Erik draws his hand down Charles's face, rumbling in pleasure at his prize. "I win," he whispers back, running his hand down Charles's chest, brushing his thumb over a perked up nipple that's got his catlike attention and he gazes down, humming before pressing a kiss right above it, and then abruptly tickling Charles along the sides. "I've got you," he breathes again, only this time it's luxuriating, Charles is his and he's in his nest where he belongs, surrounded by gilded treasures and good things and Erik.

* * *

Charles kicks and laughs, squirming delighted and boneless in Erik's arms. He's all too happy to be caught, really, and when he finally blinks his eyes open, his smile is blinding and he's soft-edges and dimples and it's always when he's bossiest and grumpiest that he turns out the clingiest and neediest, the most eagerly submissive (not that he's ever not eager to submit, that's a ridiculous, outlandish notion), but how fitting for today. "Morning," he mumbles finally, sleepy and shy and reaching out for Erik. He knows what day it is now, and it's got him warm and elated and bright-eyed. "May I have a kiss, please?" he asks, and how sweet and polite he is now.  
\  
" _Boker tov, neshama,_ " Erik whispers back, fingertips embracing his face and arms embracing him as he slithers up to oblige, long and lingering and affectionate. He is won by that smile every morning; every morning a new story of how he fell in love with Charles Xavier, and he'll need to pick one for today amidst a quantity so vast it makes his head spin, and as eagerly submissive as Charles is, Erik amounts to his equal counterpart in Dominance, his mind a place warm and firm to keep Charles in hand, a steady column to lean up against and shed his stubborn armor. It isn't needed here. Erik wears it for them, big and strong and easily able to bat aside all threats to their foundation, leaving Charles safe and sound a step ahead.  
  
 _Mmhm_ , he likes that. He'll stand guard of their bedroom fortress where his submissive lies prettily atop piles of precious metals, but there is nothing more precious than the press of living flesh into gold and silver. Or in this case, silk and Egyptian cotton, purchased by Charles because they feel good and because he wanted nothing less than for Erik to feel the slide of buttery fabric over sore muscles, and Erik loves them passionately; silly as it might be, Charles is right and he adores wrapping himself up, rustling tiny movements throughout the night just to revel in the sensation, alternated with light, invisible strokes of Charles's flesh during his periodic blinks of wakefulness to check on the world.  
  
 _I love you,_ he utters between kisses, airy and floating in the knowledge that today is Bonding Day and nerves vibrating with excitement.  
  
It's Bonding Day, and Charles echoes every thought in amplified mirror, with just a hint of nervousness. He's been anticipating and preparing for this day for what feels like ages, and now that it's here? He couldn't have prepared for the force of the fluttering, floating butterflies in his stomach, the race to his pulse now that it's properly set in. He bites his lip, looking up at Erik with that shy but unabashed adoration. "Do you want your first gift now?" he asks quietly. "This one - I'm not sure if it's going to work, and it's not for an audience, exactly, so..." He laughs, ducking his head. "I thought we'd do this one in the morning. If you'd like it." He's clearly twisting himself up about it, fingers bunched up in those soft sheets as he worries at his poor lip.  
  
At the mention of said gift, Erik laughs, touching Charles's lip in a silent reminder, eyebrows raised in warning even now, before he lays his hand over Charles's cheek; or more accurately, you know, eclipsing his whole head. "I will love it," he says, a statement of fact so pure it's enough to inspire genuine belief that it's worth everything on word alone. "Thank you, Charles," he says before anything is presented, already so incredibly grateful at even the idea itself; it could be a shoelace and Erik is delighted, because Charles desires to do this for him. That in and of itself is a gift to Erik, and he ensures that Charles knows it.  
  
It's absolutely not a shoelace, but the reminder does bolster his confidence a bit. Charles eases up on the insistent gnawing of his lip, still fluttery and shy as he sits up on the bed. "Okay. Can you close your eyes for me, please?" he asks, breathy and soft. "I'll tell you when to open them." There's a silent _trust me_ here, but it's wholly unnecessary; Charles knows with every fiber of his being that Erik does.  
  
And Erik does, and they flutter underneath his eyelids rhythmic and unawares, a soft smile still lingering on his features. He's seated upright now, his good leg tucked into his lap, right one extended and hands folded neatly in front of him as he sits and waits patiently.  
  
Charles sucks in a sharp breath, exhaling it slowly. There's no reason to be nervous, really; there's no reality where Erik won't be at least touched by the effort, even if he finds the whole endeavor silly. He still waits until his heart stops pounding in his ears, but his pulse is still in doubletime as he slides off the bed and rummages through the bottom drawer of Erik's bedside table. Hiding in plain sight, as they say.  
  
It's an older, faintly distressed leather-bound journal, but this one is utterly unique. In the center is a hand-carved, meticulous rendition of the Ziz; the winged, breathtaking creature that Charles had first seen in Erik's mind as he told him his very first story, wrapped up in his arms against dirty holding-cell wall and kept safe as he calmed from his first true dip into subspace. This one is pulled directly from that memory, as if he'd taken the image and perfectly transferred it; he had, with quite a bit of work because while his abilities allow him to do such things, it still required learning a skill. Fortunately, he is a fast learner.  
  
The inside is a lovingly transcribed, flawless account of every story and poem Erik has ever told him in his own words, deviances from any original text and original work both. If the words were spoken in Hebrew, as they so often are, they are written as such; if English, the same, and likewise with a mixture of both or a different language altogether. The calligraphy is sloppier in places where Charles needed to use his left rather than his right, or where his right ached from the use, but no less beautiful and careful. He used pens intended for this purpose in any number of colors Erik might find pleasing, and annotated in places there need be - to explain a pause, a lapse, a switch. The pages are illustrated, too, sometimes in perfect detail clearly making use of eidetic memory and recreation abilities, others scrawled, silly doodles born from his meager artistic ones.  
  
There's a dedication on the first page, Charles' looping, messy scratching whispering:  
  
I know the world has not always listened to you, or made space for you to speak, but I have always heard. Your voice is my favorite sound, and your stories and poems, borrowed, retold, and created, are woven into my very soul. I cannot thank you enough for the gift of them, except to remind you that I am always listening with the most eager of ears, mind, and heart. You asked once what my favorite book is, and now you have your answer. I have never loved words as much as when they came from your mouth.  
  
Happy Bonding, my darling.  
  
Yours always,  
Charles F. Xavier  
  
He holds the book out in open palms, takes a deep breath and whispers, "You can open your eyes now, Erik. It's still a work in progress, but I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind that."  
  
And then he waits, his eyes closed and his heart thundering again.  
  
Re: Love and I had the wit to win:/We drew a circle that took him in.  
Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2019 7:52 pm  
by Erik Lehnsherr  
It remains clasped in still hands as Erik stares down at it, eyes wide, lips parted in a frozen expression that remains on his face as something happens inside of him that there are no precise words with which to document.  
  
The Landscape, or what he less accurately describes as his mind, has always been a place he walked in search; thrown himself into empty spaces, found huts, night skies and mountain tops. A place where he fashioned the things he needed to survive, and where said fragments were scattered throughout, and while it began as a childhood method of coping; grown larger with each imagination, tended to in moments of skull-numbing boredom, perfected against the razor of Ms. Frost's intrusions (she and many telepaths after would remark how unique this mindscape was, in how much control Erik held over it where psi-nulls in the same position could not say the same, how comfortable Erik was with mental contact in ways that psi-nulls just weren't), a method-practice.  
  
Inside the grassy hills and rolling slopes there's a man-shaped monster with a long butcher's knife, all that's missing is his large triangular head, taken straight out of an abandoned video game Erik had been playing before the world ended. If Erik closes his eyes he can pretend he is the Butcher and then it won't be so painful, he likes cutting up humans because he's sheyd, a demonic monster from the underworld, he's a badass, he doesn't care about anything. And the mythos only grew as more personalities developed, drawn from more needs. Eventually it stopped being made up at all, and they began to form their own hierarchies and structures, and Erik moved seamlessly between them in order to drag himself through with the semblance of a cognizant mind.  
  
Paragon, the king of the Quiet Place Under the Universe a blessing from his mother, where the walls spoke in her voice. Tiny little creatures who ran and jumped and played, painful relics of childhood. Lullabies and Sirens to soothe and comfort and blend, who learned the bodies of men brought to them and relished the power of persuasion and a hundred more, and a hundred of each of those. Charles has felt his seamless shift between them, the way his demeanor changes and his cadence changes and his language changes, the flavor of his Orders change and his thoughts and perceptions themselves are subtly altered, tastes of emotions he ordinarily doesn't have; in some cases that which is twisted up entirely. The way one detests another, the way Erik interacts with them when they're riled up.  
  
He tells himself he's not crazy because he knows the difference, because he made it up(-but did he? it's unconventional but he's here, he's sane-he is-, he can love and he can even be Bonded) Because his memories may not be linear during the times he's been hurt but it's not delineated by his-other personalities, or whatever they are. The five hundred thousand faces of Erik, over here. It's a lie to say it's deliberate. So he doesn't say that, he doesn't say anything at all because he doesn't know how, but at this very instant something happens inside of him that has never happened. The Landscape is alive of its own accord and every single half-imagined facet has poked its head out of its home, has opened its ears where it lives intangibly in soil, atmosphere, molten core.  
  
Some are hideous, burned, piteous creatures with hunks of charred flesh peeling off, collecting it along the trail as they heave agonizingly on, faceless horrors with lengthened limbs and plastic skin, one a great looming leviathan like the image drawn in bound leather; some Charles recognizes-Paragon, the Butcher; without his knife and dragging his leg behind him, grizzled and grumpy. Some younger, reflecting Erik at that age, some immediately magnetic orbits drawing you closer like a sailor on a ship, dashed along rocks. Some an inch tall, little tinies peeping at Butcher's feet, crawling all over Paragon's cape, cradled in Lullaby's hands to be crooned a song.  
  
All united by one inalienable fact. They love Charles Xavier, and this is a gift beyond any measure of a thing he's ever been given, and he doesn't know what to do; none of them know what to do so they just showed up, a colorful community of silly beings made up to survive and stuck with him, every part reaching out to Charles in tandem, his chest opening up spaces between cavities he didn't realize existed, rooms and rooms where love hasn't been and now fills up and outward. He touches Charles's cheek with the back of his hand, lips pressed together so hard they've whitened, tears formed underneath his lower lid that overflow without obstruction.  
  
"Charles, I-" he's never heard his own voice so affected, and in a way so distanced, like every fragment is speaking at once mended together in this single moment of time. He's stopped breathing, he can't speak. How could he possibly express what has been done to him, what Charles has done to him-he cradles it so carefully, strokes the outer edges, protective and rocks back and forth as he flips through the pages. Slow, certain not to crack or fray them in any way. He ends up laughing, croaky and rasped. "I got you a flower." Charles is a telepath; he knows there's more to it than that, but-Erik's shoulders are shaking and he's covering his mouth, dissolved.  
  
Charles is a trained, established psychiatrist. He knows better than most, and is in a unique position even besides his studies and practice, to know the way a mind bends and changes when exposed to trauma. To give this a label beyond the obvious and officially-recorded would be a terrible misunderstanding, a mistake; he knows since Gabby has begun to work with Erik she has certainly tried, expanding on his original diagnosis, but she would be utterly wrong. She is. To say Erik is extraordinarily dissociated and fragmented speaks the obvious. To tie him to a diagnosis would be doing him a wretched disservice, because Charles has worked with patients with dissociative disorders and none of them function quite the same as Erik does. Perhaps he's simply biased, or his connection to Erik makes it difficult for him to be totally objective; he'll concede that point. He doesn't much care. Erik's mind, his entire being, is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. That it is born from trauma and suffering devastates him, but that it exists now is only more reason to love him among an utterly endless list of them. All of him, every single, shattered, broken, mending piece of him that makes up the Erik he vowed himself to, and will again in just a few hours.  
  
He finds himself choked and breathless, too, his chest too-full and heaving slightly as he wipes at his own tears. "Um, there's -" He has to take a moment to compose himself, rubbing at his own eyes as he takes shuddering, slow breaths. "That's not all of it, actually. I didn't know I could do this when I started, but I found out and I thought... it's sort of neat," he admits, lapsing in humbleness but in no way less shy as he sniffles and keeps his eyes lowered. "If you want me to show you?"  
  
All Erik can do is nod, his attention split between Charles, between easing away the piercing ache of his reaction-mirroring themselves like always, the movement to a dance they'll spend a lifetime learning and adapting and perfecting; for fun and efficiency and in the dark and in the light. He keeps drawing his fingers over Charles's face, only retracting them if Charles needs to duck away; retrieve any items, but otherwise-and this gorgeous book, which has immediately taken up residence inside of Erik, replicated in its entirety as a table centerpiece of the cherry-wood hut that Charles once visited.  
  
Charles is sniffling, finding it difficult to breathe, but he manages. Gently, carefully, he takes Erik's hand, guides his fingers until they touch the first page. Immediately Erik's voice floods the room, a stereo-recall echo of a memory vibrating off the walls, and with it unfolds an image; Charles cradled delicately in his arms, softly crying with the flood of hormones and the aftermath of his first deep-sink into subspace, far off and foreign to him now when he exists always inside it but no less cherished and precious. As he glides Erik's fingers along the page, the memory unwraps itself, flutters open like a blossoming flower with outstretched petals, drenching the room in the calming, lulling timber of Erik's voice, raspy from disuse but no less deep and Real and his. It's inside their heads, but somehow outside of it, too, as if a recording and not a mental recollection but with none of the static or separation.  
  
"I'm not sure how I did it," he laughs, breath hitching. "But it's wrapped up in the words somehow. A perception filter, maybe? I've done that, tied it to a room or around something or someone - never like this, but..." He shakes his head. It doesn't matter. "Whenever you need to be reminded that you are heard loud and clear, that your voice has touched and changed and healed, you have this. I-" His voice cracks, lip trembling as tears slip down his cheeks. "I hope you like it," he whispers, entirely inane considering the reaction they're both having.  
  
Erik recognizes this work, because it is the exact inverse of what he's always been able to do, and he knows for certain that it is not a perception filter. He could never do this the same way, but objects have always spoken to him, told him what he needed to know, guided him to their working parts. They held the suffering around them, and Erik could always gain a sense of right-and-wrong in places by listening to the objects; he always knew if an area was home to violence and trauma, or happiness and home. Charles learned how to channel specific memories into the object, to extract it and display them at will, using the object itself as a vessel to receive imprints like a blank canvas. It's beautiful work; a magnificent application of power that he can sense, each quivering strand alive and vibrating. It's the first thing this item told him as he brushed careful fingertips over it, that there are echoes inside it that sing and spark, and those echoes are tinged by further warmth in molecules of Charles's love, as he conceptualizes it-and Erik has to squeeze his eyes shut to control himself and he tugs Charles close to him, hugging him tightly and ensuring not to damage the pages before him.  
  
He gasps as he's wrapped up in Erik's arms, going willingly and softly as he's cradled and rocked with his gift between them. His breaths come in hitchy little sniffles, a surefire way to tell he's close to tears or else overwhelmed by strong emotion, but Erik's lap is safe for those things as he crawls into it. That he'd given his Dominant a gift he appreciates and loves - and there can be absolutely no denying that - is the greatest gift to him. He revels in it, gentled and swimming with it, with pleased, elated submission, with love. Charles' eyes flutter closed, too, not drifting toward sleep but sinking happily into that place only Erik could take him. "I love you," he murmurs, so quiet and soft, and dripping with the wholehearted sincerity.  
  
Erik kisses his forehead and his nose and his chin and finally his lips, bowing their heads and splaying his fingers across Charles's temple. "I cannot properly tell you-how deeply this has-what you've done for me. I never, ever want you to doubt yourself when it comes to how much I appreciate the efforts you take to-how much effort you've taken-" and it's true, he can't properly tell him, it's all particles in the air, dust-motes with smiling faces tumbling along rays of sunshine. Charles has listened, and endured, and created, and laughed and cried with him, submitted to him, gone with him, stood in front of him fiercely and in deference, protected him, and this-what it is most, is a representation of Charles, of Charles's vows themselves. The intention, craftsmanship, the memories stored within, time and space and love. There is nothing more Charles about this gift in and of itself, a product of devotion and generosity he has never deserved, not ever, but which he has received wholeheartedly from his Bonded, and which he will safeguard to the ends of the Earth and back.  
  
Charles feels suddenly like there is simply too much inside of him, like he is bursting; and so out it goes, into the world between them, humming and buzzing and singing and filling every empty space, an effortless projection that seems far more physical than it ever has before. As if they are surrounded by one of Erik's bubbles of energy, except this is energy entirely Charles, psionic in nature. He hiccups softly, though he hasn't been crying, and lifts his hand, grinning sheepishly. There's a cut there, faded and healing. He probably should have wrapped it, but alas. "I nicked myself while I was carving," he admits, laughing softly as he lowers his eyes again. "I knew if you saw it you'd make me tell you how it got there, so -" Blood, sweat, and tears. There was quite a lot of all of it, offered up freely and eagerly.  
  
Erik raises up that hand and kisses over the mark tenderly. He will take sweat and he will take tears, but never does he want blood. He strokes Charles's skin, regretful, but it's healing, and Charles has given him this gift that is healing him in return. "I have something for you, as well," he tells him in secretive tones. Charles could find it if he went digging, but he'd have to rip apart the soil and dig talons into the fabric of the sky and destroy the atmosphere, because Erik is very good at scattering things into the Earth and air, river rapids and roaring bonfires. His lips twitch, warm and amused. What Charles can easily discern is Erik's hope that he likes it, that it is a little silly, that it is not something ornate but rather sentimental; very much like Erik himself. He's simple, and what he wants most is for Charles to feel loved and to know how deeply appreciated and adored he is, every day, every second Erik can do it. "I love you," he whispers, leaning into that psionic sensation all around them, holding out his hand as if to touch it.  
  
Even so, every drop of spilled blood is Erik's. It's just the nature of things, though he would never ask for it. From the blood poured from his nose as his telepathy expands past the limitations imposed on it to the wounds earned protecting them to the tiny pinpricks from a cane breaching sensitive, welted skin during disicpline. Charles offers all of it.  
  
It's not difficult to hide things like this from Charles, if he's totally honest, even if things often do slip; he's taught himself through careful, deliberate, fear-induced training not to go where he's unwanted, even if the block is like this. That isn't to say he hasn't slipped, especially as things become more natural, but Charles responds to Erik in every way, and so, too, he would in this. Unless he was feeling rebellious, anyway. He tries to hide how he reacts, lip-biting and practically bouncing in Erik's lap, soft and fiercely, fiercely curious as always, that ??? pinging between them insistently. "Can I see?" he asks, and tries not to sound too breathlessly eager. He fails.

* * *

Erik's head shakes once, then twice, a responding, delighted grin on his face. "Not yet," he whispers. "Soon." Charles can sense it; he's prepared something small for the ceremony itself, what he wants Charles to hear and what he wants their friends and family to hear as well, something secret between them, that only they know, and something expansive that everyone else will understand as his solemn oath. He doesn't elaborate any further than that, and taps Charles on the nose when he pouts, admonishing and fond and affectionate all at once.  
  
And Charles does pout, because while he doesn't pry into things like this, it certainly makes him want to. It should come as absolutely no surprise that Charles is no good at surprises; not in that he doesn't honor them, in most cases, but in that he's impatient about them, curious and seeking, always prodding and probing subtly. Getting him Christmas and birthday presents has always been a nightmare. "Please?" he asks, trying out those wide-eyes of his that Erik adores and sometimes gives into. "Just a hint. A peek? Please?" A huff.  
  
It only makes Erik laugh, and he kisses that pout. In truth and honestly, Erik hopes he doesn't pry too hard-he certainly won't forbid it, finds it endearing in fact, not a nightmare at all. And he's already offered a hint, but-because it's not spectacular in the same sense that Charles has done for him-and of course he's a little red-faced in the aftermath because how could he possibly-but then he really thinks, thinks about what it is he's wanted to say, what he wants Charles to feel and knows, it's something that is gained all at once, rather than hinted at over time. He hopes Charles will like it, that he won't find it-well-lacking-but he gives himself the benefit of the doubt because they know one another, they speak one another's language in combination as its own creation. He hopes-a little flustered, now-that Charles feels the same-awe, the same stunned joy and wonder that he did just now, because it's such an incredible-overwhelming, beautiful sensation to be surrounded that fully and deeply by someone else's love, to know that parts of yourself have forever imprinted upon them, and he desperately, desperately wants Charles to know that the exact reverse is true beyond any doubt.  
  
Charles already knows, but whatever it is - "I will love it," he promises, with the same steadfast earnestness that Erik had before, something that absolutely could not be doubted. He tugs and pushes gently but insistently until Erik is lying down and he can climb carefully right over him, wrapped back up in blankets and nuzzling into his neck, placing soft, sweet kisses there. Erik is being indulgent this morning, a few more minutes of lying about in the sheets certainly won't hurt. "I have two more for you. One of them for the ceremony, one of them... for just us, again. After it," he mumbles, and then his cheeks are bright red and he huffs again because there's really no wonder what that surprise entails, if not the details, and now he's awfully flustered and wriggling.  
  
Erik's eyebrows definitely climb up at that, and he brushes his thumb over Charles's bottom lip, a slow grin of his own appearing. "Then I'll tell you," he leans up to nip at the spot under Charles's ear just above his collar-well-marked, paid attention-to, loved each and every day and today is no exception-"I look forward to after it." And that's no shock; Erik's easy to get going and even the suggestion, paired with Charles's embarrassed squirming, has that hazy warmth spread out of his chest and down to his fingers so he can touch and rub it into Charles and relax him, make him melt and tell his body as well as his mind that it is loved.  
  
For a brief moment it slips outward, though Charles is careful to keep the surprise itself concealed; Charles, flustered and biting at his lip, squirming and thinking about it whenever he has a spare moment to do so, dropping himself right into subspace even while Erik isn't around. It's an explanation for the needy lapful of Charles Erik had gotten a few days ago when he'd returned from an appointment, Charles practically accosting him at the door and begging to be put on his knees. "I hope it pleases you, sir," he whispers shyly, and it's breathless and earnest and his eyes are heavy with a sudden drop down-down-down. Whatever it is, he's thoroughly worked himself up over it, and it's something he hopes beyond hope pleases his Dominant, appeals to those deep-dark instincts. All of his gifts are carved out from love, are for all of Erik, but this particular gift is meant to incite a more... primal part of him, that Charles loves with every part of him, too.  
  
Whatever it may be-judging by Charles's reaction to it, Erik grins up at him, kissing him slowly, transferring all the heat and love built up inside him down-down right into Charles's neurons, plucking them up and suffusing it outward until all he can do is breathe humid, damp air steamed with tendrils of Will and glittering need-"I am certain I will love it," he laughs, because truly, and Charles knows this by now, what really whips up those dark, luxurious parts of him coincide with Charles's heavy eyes and breathless pants and desperate pleas. And in this arena he is absolutely fascinated to know-fascinated to discover what it may be, because although it is a gift intended for him, it is something he too can give back to Charles, in that deepest expression. "Everything that you are pleases me," he whispers, full of aching sincerity.  
  
Charles gasps, breathless from more than the kiss as he floats half-on Erik's chest, legs tangled up in him, surrounded by silky sheets and bare skin. He noses back into Erik's neck, all soft noises and breathy sighs and warmth and beating-heart, curled toes and pliant limbs ready to follow Erik's guidance. Erik who has such a distinctive, Earthy smell, and Charles has wondered at it because it's certainly not a cologne; it's uniquely him, and completely intoxicating, and he mouths at his favorite spot between neck and shoulder, faintly red from the last time he'd overcome his own timidity and asked if he could _please, can I, sir -?_ And it was granted, and so he did. He sighs, floating. "Can we just stay in bed all day, please?" he asks, laughing. "I'm very comfy like this."  
  
Erik laughs again, terribly fond and miserable for it, because he too would like nothing better than to stay here and show Charles just how primal he really feels today-today of all days, when he will get to stand in front of the people who matter to him and declare that Charles is his, that he's found him, that he has him. A joy and a wonder beyond anything he could have imagined for himself. But today he has to meet with Ms. Braddock and Ms. Yorkes, and Carmen, and deal with the trial and travel and Sebastian Shaw and his life beyond Charles, a life he has yet to process and a life that has no place here, that encroaches on all that he really wants to live, but if he and Charles want their life, he needs to show up and go through with it. "I wish we could, _tayer_. Believe me, I wish for nothing else at this particular moment," he breathes back, mid-kiss, hands tracing patterns on Charles's hip and holding him close. Holding him down and against him.  
  
Charles pouts, clinging tighter himself. He won't be the one to dislodge himself without a clear Order to do so, because today of all days perhaps he's feeling primal, too. "If it keeps you out of prison, I suppose I'll allow it," he sighs, grinning softly as he inches down to continue his nuzzling. He must be feeling particularly bold, because he nips gently at the skin, not enough to mark but enough that Erik will feel it. "I know everything's mostly done, but perhaps you want me to cook more food for our guests while you're gone?" He snorts at his own joke. If they want to burn his sister's kitchen to the ground, certainly. Erik has even tried to teach him a thing or two; he is apparently beyond learning except in doses of 'chop this' and 'stir this,' and even then he needs to be properly supervised or disaster strikes. It's definitely a secondary mutation.  
  
"Hmmm," Erik hums a low noise of assent at the feel of Charles's teeth on his neck, shifting so Charles has better access. Baring the neck is something ingrained in submissives from a young age: don't do it around a Dominant unless you intend to court that Dominant. It is a symbol of yielding, (and in outdated texts, even consent; even accidentally) so be very careful of yourself and your actions; and Erik does it effortlessly because to Charles he does yield, he is not self-conscious in the slightest about that fact, because they both know full well who is in charge here, when one of his legs has neatly trapped Charles against his opposing thigh and one over-large hand is spanned out across his behind, kneading the flesh there unconsciously, the two of them buffeted by warmth of Dominion. So many Dominants had issues with admitting they too belonged to their submissives, and to Erik that seems positively foolish. He is happy and proud to have Charles's marks on him because he has Charles, because Charles likes him so much that he wants everyone around to know that no one else gets him, and how is that anything a Dominant could scoff at? He doesn't get it, but he doesn't have to. He has Charles. "I perhaps would not," he grins right back, beaming and sunny. The idea of Ordering Charles anywhere right now other than on his knees is positively alien to him. He'll need to find a strength beyond reckoning for it, he's sure.  
  
The notion that anyone but Erik could be in charge here is truly, honestly laughable, and Charles' eyes wander to the contract framed up on the wall. It fills him with utter joy every time he notices it anew (and makes him want very badly to be on his knees), enough that he ducks a smile into Erik's skin, still soft and floating. He doesn't bite or mark, merely peppers kisses all over the newly-exposed flesh, adoring, devoted little reminders that he's Erik's and he wants to please his Dominant, to make him feel good. "Erik?" he hums, squirming in the comforting hold just so he'll be held tighter (and perhaps reprimanded with a tap or two) as he often does. "If I asked very nicely for something, would you give it to me?"  
  
"You know that very much depends upon what it is," Erik leans up and kisses the tip of his nose, his lips pursed together in amusement. A twinkle in his eyes, as his hand draws down Charles's side. He's shifting in contentment underneath the ministrations, shifting up and into the touch of Charles's lips. "But you also know that I'm far more inclined to be generous the nicer you ask." He grins.  
  
Technically he'd been aiming to ask something else, but now Charles has an idea in his head and the original question, whatever it was, seems very far away. He's quiet for a few moments instead, seemingly soft and content atop Erik (and he is, and very much floating in subspace, too, but that doesn't mean he can't be playful and smart). Then he grins wickedly, eyes flashing where Erik can't see them before he bites down hard and sucks viciously at the mark he knows will form, terribly pleased with himself as he soothes with the gentle kisses from before _. Or I could just do it and ask for permission after,_ he purrs, smug and unwilling to unlatch himself from his Dominant's neck long enough to speak. _May I bite you, please, Erik?_ he sasses.  
  
All at once, Erik hisses and arches up underneath him, arm tightening over his back as he drives his thigh between Charles's legs and pushes him down against him, shuddering faintly in the aftermath. "You-should know better than to snark after I've generously- _hmmmm_ -forgiven your lack of manners," he says, and his voice sounds far too hoarse to his own ears for his liking, throat-cleared, laughing faintly to himself. "Tell me what you wanted to ask," he murmurs the Order softly, nuzzling into the side of Charles's cheek.It takes a while for Charles to remember anything that isn't the red mark on Erik's neck and his desire to suck at it insistently until it darkens up and sticks around until the next time he's bold enough to go for it, humming content and grinning and absolutely self-satisfied. "Something about... oh." He laughs, remembering his own rather silly request. It makes him tuck back in under Erik's chin, drawing those idle, looping patterns on his bare chest. "Can we have breakfast in bed? It means less time we have to be dressed, and more time we can spend right here. It's Bonding Day, which means it's a special occasion." And that Charles is feeling particularly clingy and sentimental goes without saying. "Plus, I don't want to get up," he mumbles.  
  
Erik starts laughing and kisses him on the forehead. "Well-" his eyes close and he stretches himself out to the kitchen. I believe I can do that. Hank and Raven look surprised to see the utensils and ingredients floating of their own accord, and while everything cooks, Erik brushes Charles's hair out from his face and behind his ear, all of a sudden leaning up to give a sharp bite of his own, and when Erik gives a mark, it's unforgiving, not enough to draw blood or cuts, but the bruise that blooms there doesn't require any help at all to darken, and he brushes gentle lips over it instead, easing away the sting. Mine, he purrs darkly, giving his ass an insistent smack.  
  
Charles gives a sharp yelp of surprise that blends right into a loud, drawn out moan, and then soft, needy noises from where he rests on that strong chest. Yours. All yours, Erik. He's rocking his hips subtly against where Erik's thigh is slotted between both of his, not exactly chasing gratification but just to feel, to know that he's there, sighing with heavy-lidded eyes. It's strange how sometimes displays of Dominance like this can calm him instead of riling him up, though they certainly have that effect too; it's just that everything is so connected and woven together that it doesn't matter much. He's here in bed with his Dominant on Bonding Day and for just today, perhaps the rest doesn't need to matter outside of the allotted times where it's absolutely necessary. Sometimes there doesn't need to be sorrow or hardship, only joy. "It's strange, isn't it?" he murmurs, looking up at Erik. "We used to have such limited time together, and every second I dreaded when we'd have to part. Now we have the rest of our lives spread out before us, you're the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing before I go to sleep, and it somehow still doesn't feel like nearly enough." He wonders if that will change. Perhaps even out, but he can't imagine it ever truly disappearing.  
  
"I know exactly what you mean," Erik whispers back, and he knows exactly what Charles means when it comes to being calmed instead of whipped into a frenzy, as well, like all that heat and ardor get transmuted into pleasant warmth, fire crackling from hearths and melted tension. Erik doesn't believe there will ever be a time that he will get enough of Charles, but he knows that's not precisely regular. He's not good at space but he completely understands the need for it. Maybe one day he'll enjoy having a few hours to himself every once in a while, but right now it makes him want to cry. Which, uh, probably isn't healthy. He huffs a laugh.  
  
"I'm not sure it's unhealthy," he mutters, because he knows if he was putting on his psychiatrist hat this is where he might pull out words like codependency and displaced attachment. But the thing is, Charles is someone who enjoys quite a bit of alone time. He likes space, even from those closest to him, and often needs the recharge and effective reset, craving time with a good book or a project as much as with his loved ones. It just isn't the case with Erik. He bites his lip, considering that, rolling it around his head as he lets his eyes close. "Perhaps it's unhealthy in itself, but I often consider you an extension of myself," he admits, and can't help feeling nervous about it, as if Erik might not agree. "We're certainly separate, individual people, and I'd have no problem with us doing things as such. Of course I wouldn't. It's just - it feels like you've completed something in me, like..." Charles shakes his head, embarrassed and unable to properly articulate it. "All things considered, this is still incredibly new for both of us. I don't think space will be a problem in the future. But I'm not sure I'll ever feel like I have enough time with you, Erik, even if we spent every waking moment together." Which would be unhealthy, and also impossible, but it's still the truth. Besides, even when they're apart, it doesn't feel like it; Charles knows the moment he needs Erik he's there, and _vice versa_.  
  
"In a way, I suppose we do," Erik taps his temple with a grin. "Even if we aren't actively talking or touching one another, I always know you are up here, and that is so-comforting in a way I cannot fully express to you." He thinks it might be the same for Charles as well. "The knowledge that you are there, you know. That I could peek in and say hello if I wished to. That is-it feels-healing," he decides. "Not unhealthy." He ventures a guess that the absence of such a thing, for them both, two people who were alone for so long, who were not given love in proper measures, it's a move into nourishment and not the opposite. He's sure of it.  
  
"I do feel the same," he confirms, though he certainly doesn't need to. He smiles softly, inching up until he can kiss Erik. It's a soft, close-mouthed, nearly chaste thing, but his lips tingle in the aftermath, his whole body, too, and it's really incredible. "I also imagine it's a Pairbond thing," which is something their friends have taken to citing when Charles or Erik do something weird together, display a dynamic at an intensity they couldn't fathom, "which, not coincidentally, is what we're celebrating and reaffirming today." He grins, humming as he rubs their noses together. It's one of his favorite activities. "How is the cooking down there going?" he asks, delighted as always by the effortless display of Erik's abilities, watching through the Bond as things whip themselves up in the kitchen with a quiet awe as if it's the first time he's seeing something like it. "I never eat much of anything at parties, so perhaps it's good we're eating now..." That Charles has more than a few unhealthy tendencies when it comes to food has never been directly addressed, but he's aware Erik knows. He's willing to keep it unspoken, along with his recent drop in weight.  
  
"I am aware," Erik gives him a soft smile. Of both the statement, and its implications, he doesn't specifically say, but it's exactly why he's dedicated himself to ensuring Charles eats properly to begin with; and over the last few weeks he actually has gained some weight since Erik consistently makes him eat both breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes it's not a lot, and he doesn't force it when Charles is genuinely too nervous or upset to eat, but he does keep it a focus of his routine.  
  
The recent drop isn't anything drastic, not that Erik would ever let it be; a few pounds, but the few pounds matter when he's still yo-yoing around underweight. He'd hit 115 and now he's falling back toward 110, which is only slightly underweight, according to BMI calculations alone (in actuality he should be 130, probably 135, and maybe then he'd finally look less frail, but hush because at least he still has an ass by some quirk of genetics) so he'll certainly take it. It doesn't seem like a consideration worth making at all when Erik is finally approaching something close to healthy and he'd much rather celebrate that than fret over some silly numbers on his end. Sometimes when he's exasperated and frustrated he doesn't understand the apparent obsession, but that never lasts long. Mostly he's just as overwhelmingly grateful for this as he is everything else, for the guidance and control he needs. Which reminds him. "This evening will not come fast enough," he admits, buzzing with energy again. "I can't remember the last time I was this excited for a social gathering, you know." Never, is the answer, because nearly all of them have been high-society posturing or drunken blurs. He props himself up on an elbow so he can properly see Erik. "Are you excited?" he asks quietly.  
  
There's a good deal of trouble on Erik's end, and he's required phosphorous supplementation since the start and given that he'd been just in the middle of transitioning to solid food when he had a huge lapse in the form of getting wired shut, TPN had been advised not to lose any steam. He got the port out during the same surgery as the final orthodontic procedure and gradually moved into being able to eat the things he was accustomed to prior to his abduction; which was actually recommended by his nutritionist because it's largely legumes and dairy and meat and fish, lots of protein, healthy fats, carbs and vitamins-and often touted as a subset of one of the healthiest diets in the world. But his appetite is extremely low, and he's describing eating food as chewing sawdust on more than one occasion.  
  
He forces himself at the same times he cooks for Charles, and has been gaining steadily from 130 in the CIA detention center-at the point of time where a pound a week was ' _borderline_ ' and he'd had routine edema and pulse rate checks-to 156 on an oral diet, far faster than his physicians expected and they're almost obsessively checking him about it. Only they suspect it's the Pairbond, improving his overall stability and allowing for a much higher caloric intake than would be advisable in another patient of his stature. It's the same for Charles as well; when they're both in one another's orbit, their physical as well as mental health drastically improves, an environment rife for physiological stability automatically at hand. It'll be a while before Erik's where he should be, but he's only about 44 lbs below his target weight and approaching fast. He's started to gain pallor, actual muscle tone, and exhibit stable temperature and life signs.  
  
It should perhaps come as no surprise that he's equally dedicated to ensuring Charles is healthy; seeing him skip meals and fall further behind only hearkens to years of starvation and desperation for Erik, who simply can't abide it, who has to cope with daily vitamin packets and scales and charts and monitoring; and perhaps another person would be more lenient in that arena, but he's only too familiar with the consequences of not looking after one's self that Erik will probably never not keep an eye on Charles, but it's a small price to pay for consistent health, at least where Charles is concerned.  
  
He blinks back, a fond smile on his face and reaches out to touch, warmth against Charles's cheek. "Very much so," he whispers, eyes crinkled. "Are you?" his eyebrows raise, knowing full well what the answer is, but it's always nice to hear.

* * *

Charles laughs softly, leaning into that big palm. It's more than comforting that Erik's hand covers his entire face, practically, makes him feel safe and warm and a good deal of other things under other circumstances. "Mmhm. Very much," he agrees easily, because he certainly doesn't mind repeating it. "You know, at my coming out party -" He makes a face, because it's an exceptionally stupid name for an exceptionally awful day in his life. Sweet sixteen is certainly not one of his favorite birthdays, not only because of the wretched party and considering what it came directly before - leaving, at least temporarily - it should come as a surprise and perhaps not one at all. "I had to dance with every eligible Dominant in the room, to let them try their hand at courting me." Which meant technically only women should have felt inclined to dance with him, by prim high-society standards of what was acceptable, but that wasn't the case and there'd been quite a lot of courting from his male Dominant peers, too. "It was a lot of being groped and gawked at, really, and the whole experience was dull and demeaning, but if you had showed up?" Charles grins, pressing his cheek to Erik's chest again, muffling his next words. "I've said it before, but I would have told them to give it up right there. No use vying for my attention when it's always been yours, even when you weren't around to catch it."  
  
Erik makes a face along with him, because not only does it sound horrifying, but the name is incredibly silly. He grins by the end of it, though. "Are you certain? Perhaps I would have danced a jig. Bagpipes and all. You know, I think I could get Raven to find some. Surprise," his eyes widen comically. He'd hated this story when he first heard it and he hates it now, but he bolsters them both by finding the amusement in it. "I love a good..." he loses the ability to keep a straight face by the end of it and starts actively laughing. "Pipe." It should come to no equal shock that Erik has a terrible, tragic sense of humor the more comfortable he gets, the worse it becomes.  
  
Charles loses it, too, muffling it slightly with Erik's chest as he shakes with laughter. Their ability to make each other laugh under the worst of circumstances was never in question, so doing it under the best of them comes as easy as breathing. It's almost difficult to be in their orbit with no barriers between them like doctor-patient professionalism because of how often they're just... like this. Anyone who expected constant gloom-and-doom is to be massively disappointed. "Yes, I'm sure. You could do anything and I'd be swept off my feet. But there was a point to this..." He's distracted, momentarily, because he's found one of Erik's nipples and decided he wants to play with it, ever the curious kitten. "Hm. Oh! At the Bonding ceremony I'm supposed to be given away, there's a whole Ritual to it, like I'm some prized object you've won for courting me properly. I just wanted to point out something I'm very grateful we won't be doing - I used to think of Bonding ceremonies with dread." He'd figured even if he did get incredibly lucky and find someone matched to him, the actual motions of it would be dull and rote-performed. Not so. This ceremony will be entirely theirs, and Charles is bursting with grateful joy.  
  
Erik shifts underneath him and slides his fingers through Charles's hair, massaging at his scalp soothingly. "Needless to say I am gratified that will not be a feature of our ceremony," he murmurs, looking up as their food floats into the room on different plates. This morning it's simple, fried eggs and labneh with parsley, tarragon and mint and topped with olive oil with pita bread. There's never a shortage of interesting meals ranging from the few different cultures of his family, even when poor Charles might want, like, shepherd's pie.  
  
"I don't actually like shepherd's pie," Charles comments idly, picking up on the errant thought. It's too filling, and it should be fairly obvious by now that he has difficulty keeping anything too heavy down. Or anything in general, actually, but it certainly helps when it doesn't feel like he's sludging through a meal. Erik's cooking has helped because he wants to eat it, to appreciate it, and it does taste good; even so, he scowls at it, like it's an unwanted intruder on their lazy morning. "What if I'm hungry for something that isn't food?" he tries, wiggling his eyebrows as he attempts (and utterly fails) a straight face.  
  
"Does that thing perhaps come equipped with a variety of bagpipe-esque double-entendres?" Erik snorts, one eyebrow arching up as he hands over Charles's plate. "Think of it as incentive." His lips purse and he regards the food expectantly.  
  
He seems to be in a staring match with it at first, pouting quite spectacularly, but eventually he lifts the fork and takes a bite. Erik was just going to Order it anyway, he might as well get the satisfaction of yielding to his Will on his own. It is good, too, no way around that. "We can't, anyway," he sighs. Because he knows if they start rolling around in the sheets that way they won't get back out, because Charles feels very much like he wants to cling and refuse to let go. He feels like that already, and he pushes food around his plate and frowns. "You'll come back soon?" he asks, and it's a silly question, but something about Bonding makes him want to dig his metaphorical claws in. His physical nails, too, if he's honest. "Today is an important day. I'll be cross if you keep me waiting," and he tries to sound indignant, but he ends up smiling instead.  
  
"I will," Erik promises, and then he taps Charles's lip. "Eat your food, _neshama_. Don't think I cannot see you pushing it around instead." He lets out a huff, stroking the back of his hand fondly over Charles's cheek. Truth be told he feels the exact same way; and hardly wishes to leave at all. But he wants even less to wind up back in detention, where none of this would be possible either way. Truth be told he likes that Charles wants to dig in and keep him here, right where he wishes to be kept, but the greater good, and all that.  
\  
"I'm full," Charles huffs, even though realistically he's only had a bite or two. He takes another anyway, scrunching his nose up at Erik in mock-petulance as he chews. "I'm a little nervous, but not in a bad way," he admits, after a few moments of silence, cheeks faintly pink. "What if I forget my Vows?" That part is a joke. He won't, and he couldn't. They're written right onto his heart.  
  
Erik kisses his forehead. "You will not," he assures softly. "And even if you do, none of us are expecting you to recite something memorized. Just speak from your heart." Of the two of them Erik has a much higher degree of probability forgetting anything, but Charles can tell it's the exact assurance he's told himself. If worst really comes to worst, what matters is how he feels, and there is no forgetting that.  
  
That Erik worried over this makes him giddy, somehow, and he ducks his head to hide his smile. "You say that now, but my heart is silly and gets overexcited when it's near you," he snorts, but it's true. If he thought it would fade, it hasn't, and sometimes all Erik has to do is glance at him from across a room and his less-metaphysical heart starts pounding in his chest until it's tight and he's breathless. "What we really can't do is let people make speeches." By that he means Raven and Warren, who are absolutely going to make speeches.  
  
Erik can relate. Sometimes he imagines his heart is a cartoon and it's beating so hard it's making cookie-cutter shapes in his chest as it explodes outward, like he's Penelope from Looney Tunes. When Charles talks about speeches, though, he smirks. "I take it to mean that Raven and Warren absolutely will be making speeches and there is nothing we can do to stop it." And though it will definitely be at their expense, Erik almost can't wait. Both of them are incredibly fond of Charles, and they will no doubt contribute to the atmosphere they've all cultivated without effort. Love, and affection, and joy.  
  
They're his family, and he would walk to the ends of the Earth for either of them in a heartbeat if they needed or asked for it, but that he will be embarrassed and exasperated goes without saying. Incredibly fond, too. It's just the nature of things, and he supposes he deserves it for putting himself into a coma for a week and worrying them both senseless. Charles has since heard the things they said to him while he was out, when they thought he couldn't hear. He couldn't, but he's seen it in their minds.  
  
He doesn't need the Xavier legacy. He found a family all his own, and now it's Erik's, too. Theirs.  
  
"I wasn't allowed to watch cartoons as a child, so Raven and I marathoned quite a few later on to catch us both up," he grins, and sets his plate aside (not even half-finished, but he's distracted) in favor of nuzzling and kissing again. "When all is said and done, I say we go to Disney World. I've never been and dreams come true there, you know." He's not serious, but the idea of Erik and him waltzing around Disney World is making him grin ear to ear anyway, silly and impossible to even imagine just months ago.  
  
"Does it count if your dream has already come true?" Erik smiles at him. It's cheesy, but, well, so is he. Maybe they'll put Charles's face on a float for him. That idea has him grinning to himself. He picks up some pita bread and dips it in the spread, holding it up when Charles finally pulls away. "I'll trade you a kiss," he says, knowing full well it's a currency which will get him very far indeed.  
  
Charles was already thinking it. The offer makes him purse his lips, though. "Kiss first," he demands, and thinks himself very sneaky, as if his intentions aren't stunningly obvious.  
  
"Oh no," Erik grins back. "You should know I do not negotiate with _very adorable terrorists_." He taps Charles on the nose. Well, pot-kettle, since the only alleged terrorist in the room is, of course, Erik, but the intention is what matters. Charles will absolutely be eating first.  
  
Charles lets out one of those very intimidating ' _hmph_ ' noises, crossing his arms. "Fine. But it has to be a good kiss. With tongue, or no deal." As if he has any leverage and isn't going to end up doing it anyway, because Erik says so.  
  
Erik starts laughing. "We'll see," he smirks back, sticking out said tongue for good measure. "Only if it's a very good bite." He waves bread in front of Charles's mouth.  
  
With another ' _hmph_!', he opens wide and takes as big of a bite as he thinks he can actually manage without feeling sick, chewing deliberately while he straddles Erik. When the bread's all swallowed he grins, pleased with himself. "Pay up," he insists, arms still crossed.  
  
Erik beams up at him, as if he could ever truly consider this a payment for anything firmly intends on a million more. A trillion more. He arches underneath where he's laying and tugs Charles down promptly, delighted to oblige and kissing him, long and and soft, pulling Charles closer just as he begins to lean back, with a low hum in his throat as he deepens it without a second to consider whether they truly have time for anything more intense-which they clearly don't, but his tongue absolutely wants to come out and play and he smiles when Charles makes an unconscious sound against him. _I love you,_ he whispers between them, fond.  
  
Just like that, Charles is gone again. He's floating and sighing softly against Erik's mouth, his own tongue shy and yielding but absolutely out to play and he's spinning and lightheaded by the time Erik finally breaks the kiss. "Okay, now you can't leave," he insists. Forget the rest of the world, he wants his Dominant all to himself. "If we skip my Postures..." He doesn't actually want to skip his Postures, at all, but he also doesn't want to get out of bed and stop kissing Erik, and in the end all he can do is pout.  
  
Erik laughs. "Now, now, come on," he slowly extracts himself and sits up, leading Charles to sit as well and then stand to his feet. He draws his hand down Charles's arm and bends down to kiss him on the forehead. "Kneel at Rest, _neshama_." He doesn't have to give the Order, but he likes to, and he knows Charles loves to receive them just as much. He doesn't have to separate from him, either, and crouches down alongside him, touching his face.  
  
It's silly to think he wanted to stay in bed at all now that he's being Ordered to his knees, and Charles leans right into it like always. He hums and sighs and feels his eyes flutter briefly, and it's so soft and simple compared to the Earth-shattering force of the first time but no less satisfying. Now it's warm and grounding and perfect, the Earth righting itself subtly rather than shifting wholly on its axis, and he has no doubts about where he belongs as he folds himself into a flawless Rest position. "Yes, Erik," he breathes, lips parted with that eager submission. He hopes Erik has him do this every morning until the very end, that he never stops wanting to see it just as Charles will never tire of doing it.  
  
Erik feels it curl his own toes, and his muscles shift as though in sympathy, eyes turning half-lidded while he watches, Dominion responding with exceptional alacrity to the sight of his submissive following the faintest shift of his Will, extended out fully through the room, saturating every particle. He thumbs over Charles's bottom lip, unable to resist stealing another kiss, and then marveling at how it's no theft at all as Charles practically arches right up against him in response and he smiles, slow and catlike while he Orders the next Posture in sequence, and then the next, hands never leaving Charles's body moving underneath.

* * *

By the time he's back at Rest, Charles is firmly in subspace as he always is when he's through with his Postures, mind clear of anything that isn't Erik's Will. It's been established by now that he never isn't, usually, but now he's heavy-lidded, toes curled, humming frequency and deep-deep down. That energy is back in the room, not just a mental projection but a physical, persistent psionic force, buzzing and tuning itself and clinging to them, and it's completely unconscious; he couldn't break the bubble if he tried, but he certainly isn't creating it with intent. "Happy Bonding Day, sir," he whispers, for what won't be the last time, sweet and smiling on his knees where Erik put him.  
  
Erik shifts until he's right up against Charles, running his thumb over his cheekbone and then across his lips, kissing him deeply, the ever-present buzz in his own chest melted out into a searing flame as he thrusts his tongue inside, all that coiled Will unfurling and mixing together with the sparking strands of Charles's psionic energy until there's simply nothing left in the room but them, the purest form of their Bond, spread out and glowing deliciously. _Happy Bonding Day, tayer_ , he whispers back, grinning brightly down at him. "I love you."  
  
"I love you back," he murmurs, breathless and with newly-swollen lips. They plump up and become unnaturally red after even the softest of kisses, but fortunately for him it seems to please his Dominant. "I'll be waiting for you." He'll be preparing for their ceremony, too, and the reminder sends a thrill straight down his spine, nerves and fluttery energy. They're really doing this.  
  
Erik groans and shakes his head, fingers tightening their grip in his hair as he sneaks yet another kiss, this one far less chaste. " _Mmmno_ ," he grumbles, but it has nothing to do with Charles's statement. He doesn't want to leave this room, especially not when Charles is still on his knees beautiful and bathed in sunlight. " _Fiveminutes_ ," he mumbles, a bit delirious with how overcome and intense his sudden drop down into Dominion has gotten, his chest a flurry of hot sparks. How is he expected to part ways now? How is he expected to go an entire day adrift and solitary? He doesn't think he can manage.  
  
Charles is nothing if not responsive. He gasps, both at the filthy, heated kiss and Erik's Will snapping all around him, electric-current static energy, ricocheting off his psionic bubble and getting directed right back in until he's bursting and lit up with it. It's overwhelming. He's whimpering before long, nuzzling into every touch, his eyelids heavy and his limbs loose and utterly relaxed, thoughts of protesting long gone. "Mmmm, yessir," he's murmuring instead, practically a purr as he stays pretty on his knees for Erik until he's Ordered somewhere else.  
  
Everything is hot and liquid, molten desire swamping the room as everything Erik's been keeping tightly pent up washes over them and he delivers a sharp nip to Charles's bottom lip, relishing how it reddens right up for him. The next sound Erik makes is dark and filled with promise, and Erik scoots him closer, murmuring, "Mhm, come here," under his breath so he can feather his fingertips across Charles's thigh and spread his legs wider. "Want you," he rumbles deeply, the Bond flaring to life as though quiescent and humming only moments before, wrapped intricately and woven with strands of superheated Will.  
  
Charles wants him, too. He wants him desperately, wants to obey and please and serve him, soft little noises slipping continuously from full lips as he does as he's told. They don't have time for it, not even for something rushed; he whimpers, distressed, torn between two impulses. If he lets this devolve, Erik will be in trouble, and that puts them and their brilliant future in danger. If he doesn't, it means being ripped away 

This is why, when push comes to shove, Erik is the Dominant and he bows their heads together, using the time to let himself come under control and respectively, for Charles to do the same. He doesn't resist another soft nip at his lips though, smiling softly down at him. "Consider this a promise," he murmurs lowly, and then kisses him once more for good measure, eyes fluttering closed and pulling back just before he loses himself to it. _You are mine,_ he says within their minds and with his hand over Charles's heart. _I love you so much. I cannot wait to come home,_ he continues, and it's true of today, anticipating their Bonding, but it is also true of every day, now and in the future and as far beyond as he can possibly conceive. _You are the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, and I will do my utmost to ensure you feel it is so for as long as I live._ He gives him a little tap on the nose and slowly guides them to their feet, feeling more calm, now. Centered, responsive just as much to Charles as Charles is to him, an anchor of stability. He chooses something neat and smart for Charles to wear and a white T-shirt and some jeans for himself, because in that they definitely do veer in opposite directions, but he loves Charles's style as much as any other part of him.  
  
Charles likes Erik's jeans and t-shirts, and his far less stuffy, Dominant-styled sweaters and general _chic_ , the way he doesn't look like he's raided the closet of a greying university professor like Charles, but Erik never seems to mind his cardigans or suits either. He's not sure there's anything they wouldn't find pleasing about each other, even the unpleasant things. "One more thing," he whispers, biting on his lip. "Can I please see your hand?" His left, Charles means, and through the Bond it's clear.  
  
  
Erik holds it out obligingly, not a single thought spared for disagreeing, even though he is curious and it pings off of him like a chirpy little bird; a sound they're both quite familiar with by now given Erik's fond doting over Naomi. He's left enough time in their routine each morning to ensure she's well-fed and played with before he heads out and fortunately she's always surrounded by someone in some form of another for most of the day, so she doesn't resort to neurotic pecking and dissatisfied slumps. It might be a little silly, but Erik looks after her with as much attention as a parent might to a child, which bodes well for her considering Greys typically possess the intelligence of a two year old. He's not really considering that now, though, more concerned with whatever it is Charles has planned that he's blissfully unaware of. Even in a simple matter like this his trust is unerring and pervasive.  
  
This time Charles is far more simple in his planning. He takes Erik's hand and twines their fingers together, Charles' looking small and fragile in comparison, Erik's eclipsing like always. Then he brings Erik's hand up to kiss the ring on his finger, lingering and achingly intimate as his eyes close and his lips warm the metal. When he finally lets his Bonded's hand go, there's a dimpled, bright smile on his face, eyes creased with it, too. "That's all," he admits quietly. "Come home to me soon, darling."  
  
It makes Erik beam, the expression causing him to look far younger than he ordinarily does like always when he's desperately charmed by something or another that Charles does, and he accepts the kiss as though he's been given something precious; to him, it is, and always will be. He can feel it through the metal, sinking into the grooves and nicks he's come to know intimately every moment it rests against him and although he could, he's never fixed it up beyond what was necessary to alter its form, prizing each real part of it and all the moments that have sunk into it over the years, even the less savory ones, because it's a roadmap that's led him to Charles Xavier and he couldn't be more grateful. "I will," he whispers, drawing his hand down Charles's cheek one last time before letting him take him to the door, and kissing him again as he leaves just because he can.

* * *

By the time Erik has completed all his scheduled appointments and is on his way back, Charles has worked himself up into a proper tizzy. At first he set himself to straightening things up and moving them about and decorating (handmade decorations, of course, some silly, some intricate works of Erik's creation and unique, as always, to them) as much as he could for their intimate, quiet ceremony, dragging around furniture to make more space with Raven's help. That didn't take long, though; there was no sense setting out things like refreshments well before the evening, and so he'd been left with no true obligations and there was the dilemma. Aside from stewing in his own nerves and anticipation, he did have quite a bit of work to do. He's started several new research-oriented projects and papers, because of course he has, as well as a steady stream of corrections and additions to his former writings, and there's always an endless number of calls to make about their future school, emails to respond to, detailed plans to draw out to present to Erik later...  
  
But nothing has held his attention for more than a few minutes, and considering how liable he is to getting lost in his work, that's saying something.  
  
When Erik walks in, unlike every other day he's in the house himself, he's so worked up about something that he doesn't greet him at the door. The house is noticeably Charles-less, actually; he's taken to sprawling in the living room with his laptop and papers spread out all over the coffee table because it's the largest surface for it, a disorganized-organized mess as his whirring brain works on a task. He isn't, though, nor curled up on the sofa with a book like is second most likely, chattering occasionally to Naomi in Erik's absence (he's dearly fond of her, so Erik really need not worry about his doting being silly, Charles finds it nothing but endearing).  
  
He's definitely in the house, the Bond from his side a frantic, nervous thrum, but absent. There isn't even the jolt of _!!!_ that results from Erik being physically near after time apart, as if he simply hasn't noticed yet.  
  
Even though Erik can feel Charles's side of the Bond, Charles can feel it when Erik gets home immediately by the loud, jarring jangle of _PANIC!_ _Panic panic panic panic!_ that greets him once his beloved steps through the threshold. It's new an immediate; Erik's day consisting of appointments and check-ins and there's only a blip once when Ms. Yorkes begins to divulge the finer points on Erik's long-lost family, so this is sudden, something that's only just happened.  
  
Charles' responding panic is sudden and nauseating on top of all those frayed nerves. His own red-alert, and the palpable need to soothe and serve rises up all at once, bubbling over, and hi _s Erik? Erik, love, what's wrong?_ rings out immediately. Charles himself is still noticeably missing, but the intricately-woven strand that ties them together at all times leads up the stairs to the bathroom, where he is and has been for what is far too long to be a human necessity.  
  
"Oh," Erik dissolves instantly upon seeing him, enveloping Charles in a large bear hug. "Oh," he laughs, then, and whatever it had been that startled him so has evaporated like steam on a burner element. He rubs Charles's back, filled with relief and joy at his presence. Digging a bit deeper reveals the elusive cause of his startled buzzing !!!!, and it all too clearly becomes apparent that it's pure silliness. Charles wasn't there when he got back. He'd been worried, working himself into a tizzy; not about anything concrete. He'd been afraid, truly afraid. Something might happen to Charles, something would come between them, somehow Charles would end up hurt or kidnapped or a dozen other things. It made tending to his obligations much more difficult, a veritable ball of post-traumatic nerve endings screaming for attention. "I'm-you're here," he breathes into Charles's shoulder, brought to tears. "You're here, hah-oh," he's blinking them back, swallowing a lump in his throat. "I love you," he mumbles into his yellow cardigan. It's his favorite, ever since the first morning they'd slept together and he selected it out of the closet for him. "Luvusomuch. 'M zorry."

* * *

His own relief buzzes between them until he's dizzy with it, lightheaded and only able to cling to Erik as he shakes his head. "No, darling, no, that's perfectly alright. I should have been downstairs. I meant to be. I'm sorry I frightened you. I love you, too. So much." It isn't an Order or a written-out expectation, but Charles has greeted Erik at the door every day; shaking up that routine would give anyone with Erik's experiences a fright, and it was even shaking Charles a bit. He liked their routine, and while meeting Erik at the door like an obedient submissive Bonded should probably bother him, it doesn't. He loves it, and it isn't like he's sitting idle and pretty all day. Usually he's frazzled and overworked, actually, and Erik embracing him is exactly what he needs to relax. Now, among the regret at having missed his chance, there's obvious embarrassment, and he's red up to his ears, squirming in Erik's arms.  
  
Seeing Charles and feeling him and listening to their Bond roar to life at even fuller contact does wonders to gentle Erik's wrung out nerves and he spends a lot of time just petting Charles, as though making certain he's there, eventually petering out into pleased, happy noises as the sensation of properly being home with his submissive gradually filters in. "'M sorry," he mumbles again, a bit embarrassed himself at such a disproportionate response, especially because he can sense where Charles is almost all of the time, can especially sense when he's in danger or unhappy. Now he's curious and he pulls back, tucking a strand of his chestnut hair behind his ear. _???_ his mind requests, fingering along Charles's squirmy discomfort, the sensation of that only furthering Erik's curiosity and slowly-returning Dominion. It's no secret at all that Erik likes when he's shy, but he needs to care for his Bonded as well, to ensure there's nothing truly distressing him.  
  
Charles is perfectly happy to be pet and fussed over, but he was rather in the middle of something. At Erik's curiosity, and the demanding flood of Will, he only squirms harder. It's not distress that pools in his belly but jittery, shy nerves, and he shakes his head against Erik's chest. "Can't tell you," he mumbles, and if Erik pays closer attention, he'll see Charles' clothes are definitely askew, as if he'd hastily thrown them back on, that he's covered in a thin layer of sweat, flushed from more than embarrassment, and most incriminatingly that he's half-hard and tenting his slacks. "Um - we have to start getting ready. For the ceremony."  
  
"Oh, Charles," Erik rumbles all of a sudden dragging him suddenly closer so he can splay his fingertips over his cheek, lips parted in a satisfied smirk. He bends down to brush his lips over the shell of his ear, tugging his head back by a hand that's buried himself in his hair with a bruising grip. "Is that what you've been doing, hm?" Sorry, Charles, Erik definitely has something of a one-track mind these days. Every day. All day.  
  
"No! Well, yes, sir, _mnhhh_ -" Charles is finding it especially difficult to think of anything else now, too, not that he was before Erik got home. He's still noticeably jittery, but now he's sinking right for deeper subspace, purring with it after the upset. "It's part of the surprise," he admits quietly, and tries in vain to block out the counter where there's very clearly a bottle of lube with the cap popped. His face is teetering into that new shade of red territory. "You weren't supposed to come home in the middle... I missed you, so much, but I planned it out," he huffs.  
  
Consider Erik _extremely interested._ Not that he isn't always interested, but these newest shades of red just might be his new favorite color. "Oh my," he murmurs back, letting his hand trail to squeeze a handful of Charles's magnificent ass, tug him closer until he's brushed up against Erik's pant leg, pupils entirely dilated to eclipse green as his breathing roughens. "Mm," the sound comes low in his throat and he noses down to the mark he'd left this morning, running his tongue along its outer edges. "I like it more this way," he decides after several long, luxurious seconds of settling into his power, feeling out exactly what's occurring here. Knowing that Charles will be before him, before all of their friends and family, thinking of him. Of this. He nudges Charles's legs apart with a thigh and backs him up into the wall to press a heated kiss into his mouth, intense and blistering. "Knowing that you are mine," he chuckles darkly, drawing a hand down his chest.  
  
The noise Charles makes when Erik squeezes his ass, a loud and drawn-out, surprised keen, the way he rocks back instinctively, would be more than telling even if Erik didn't have his mutation. He does, though, and Charles had meant to block it out before he got home, but now here he is and he's being backed against the wall panting and moaning helplessly against Erik's mouth and he did not expect this much sensation, perhaps this was a terrible idea because how on Earth is he going to focus and not pop an embarrassing, inappropriate erection -  
  
"H-ah, ah," is what's coming out of his mouth, eyes practically rolled back as he attempts to rut against Erik's thigh. "This isn't - ah, everything," he breathes, his own eyes darker, his lips bitten red as he grazes them with his teeth. "It... um. It's part of a bigger surprise, but I wanted - oh, sir, please," he cuts himself off, whining loudly.  
  
It's like a lightning strike in his gut, and Erik bars his right arm over Charles's throat, stilling him as much as he can so he can draw his free hand down the placket of his trousers, just tracing, feeling the heat of him pressed up and Erik wants, with a force that is so immediate it's a physical blow between them, everything he'd kept tightly leashed this morning roared back in dizzying echo. When Charles looks up at him his eyes are in slits, barely open but managing still to be focused on every centimeter of him, and he can see himself a reflection, how utterly undone he is, how desperately he grinds himself against Erik's jeans and the noises escaping his pretty mouth. Erik needs him now. "And what do you want?" he growls the Order fiercely; leaving room for interpretation because despite it all he does wish to allow Charles his secrets, his surprises but if his reaction right now is anything to go by, Erik already loves it. He's swiftly aroused, an erection of his own at full capacity and he wants to bury it inside of Charles, but that might prove challenging so instead he grits out, "get on your knees, now. Get on your knees, sweetheart. Look up at me, get on your knees." It's almost a snarl, and when Charles obliges, Erik toes part his legs, chin tipped up. If he wanted _primal_ he going in the right direction. "Tell me what you feel. Look at me." He takes Charles's chin in his hand, gasping with the strength of his own reaction and it's purely to watching Charles like this.  
  
Charles goes breathless and moaning to his knees exactly as he's told, and for a second his eyes do roll back. Erik's reaction is entirely too much, whipping him up into the heated, deep-dark need he'd avoided this morning, eyes hazy and body thrumming with electric spark as he squirms to be closer. "I wanted to please you, sir, that's what I feel," he gasps, biting down on his lip as he whimpers and rocks back, but there isn't any leverage and this isn't for him, anyway. It's for Erik, it's absolutely for Erik. "I wanted -" He's red again, fussing, that nervous twist to his belly because he's never done anything like this before. If Erik asked first, if he initiated it, certainly, without question even if he was flustered, but never on his own, an offering of submission and service. "I wanted to be ready for you, so if you wanted me tonight you wouldn't have to wait," he finishes in a rush, needy and deeply embarrassed as he wriggles about for Erik. "You could just take it out and -" He shakes his head, sure he's about to combust as he whines again. "So you could use me however you pleased. Because I'm yours." That's how he feels, besides flustered. He feels like he's Erik, and this is only part of his gift.  
  
Erik lets out a shuddering exhale, eyes fluttering closed as he struggles to marshal himself, flung so far down below the surface of his own Dominion he can't figure out which way is up and he can't-it takes a few seconds for him to realize that the stuttered gasps filling the room are coming from him-every time he thinks about it-it's unlike anything he's ever experienced. He has a submissive, he has Charles-Charles who is so eager to please him, in every facet of their lives, from waiting for him by the door when he comes home to this-to being ready for him-he curses lowly, breathing audible through his nose. It is unreal, and the idea that Charles couldn't please him, couldn't be a good submissive is positively laughable. Erik doesn't need tradition, he doesn't need what anyone else expects is good submission. He needs only Charles, only this, only now.  
  
"Oh I will be," he mutters, dark and affected. It's a wonder he can still talk. "I will be taking it out, _hmn_ -" he crouches down beside Charles and gives his ass a resounding smack. "Rest assured. I will be taking it from you and I will be _taking_ you until you're incoherent because you are mine, you are _mine_ ," he slaps him again. He punctuates that with a sharp squeeze to Charles's cock sequestered away in his pants. "And this." His fingers walk up Charles's chest and pinch his nipple through his shirt, hard, without any effort needed to search because he knows every inch of this body like it's his own. Traces along his throat and his thighs and even the soles of his feet. "Every part of your beautiful body and this-" his tone softens and he traces a fingernail over Charles's temple. "Is mine. Your beautiful mind. I would have all of you-what you do to me. You do not even know." And Erik was ready, just now, so ready to unzip himself and thrust himself down Charles's throat and fuck him here on the bedroom floor because he can't get at what he wants, not yet, but he won't like that, either. Charles is his, and there are no barriers between them, but he wants to wait. Because this is something that he wants to savor, from now until tonight, it's a form of gratification that he doesn't want to immediately satiate. He curls his fingers over Charles's jaw instead, bowing their heads together. "And when I do," he whispers, heated, "it will not be a five minute affair moments before our bonding. It will be all of me. And it will be all of you. And I assure you that you will feel it for days to come," his lips purse. Oh, he doesn't mean _fuck him so hard he can't walk_ , although there will be plenty of that. He means he is going to _deconstruct Charles from the inside out_ until he finds himself zoning out at work, at the grocery store, in his dreams, remembering all the ways in which he belongs to Erik, all the ways in which Erik calls up his submission and utterly, viscerally, mindblowingly alters him for that knowledge; and all the ways in which he remains the same, as well. All the ways he is Charles, and Charles who is Erik's.  
  
And he simply can't wait. But for right now, he will. "I love you," he finishes at last, a gentle whisper.  
  
Charles can't breathe. He's cross-eyed and panting and flushed, squirming and chasing after Erik's touch, utterly captivated by the reaction he's inspired and the dark promises. If this is Erik's reaction to what he'd considered the tamer part of his surprise, he truly can't anticipate what the force of the whole will be. He can't stop moaning softly, hips rocking of their own accord against nothing, lips parted as he twists this way and that in Erik's hold, not to escape but to be held tighter. "There's no way I can get ready and greet guests now," eventually falls out of his mouth, and it's hoarse and cracked. He swallows around it, but it doesn't help. He doesn't need to be out of subspace to be around others, the ones that make up their mismatched family; he'd been self-conscious about it before, but no longer, at least not usually. He tries not to be. There's no shame in being Erik's, and he knows it. What he should probably not do is grind against Erik's thigh in front of them, and he's worried it's a distinct possibility like this.  
  
Erik's grin is positively filthy. "You can," he murmurs back, managing to be gentle even in the unrelenting tide of his incredible desire. Because Erik can, and if Erik can, Charles can. Because Charles is an extension of Erik's Will, and as it is unleashed, he finds that he's able to bend himself into exactly as Erik needs in the exact moment it's needed. And Erik doesn't want to dissolve into a puddle of frothing lust, even if his body is screaming yes! That one! Do that! We like that! Erik's mind is a far more controlled beast, and there are so many flavors of this to pick out and savor, a fine wine blooming across the palate of his neurons. There is no way he will skip the more distinct notes for a quick rut, and the longer he holds out, the more it opens up beneath him, for him. The way Charles will, drenched in the full and utter force of his desire. So hold out, they shall. He does bend down and kiss him, though, unable to resist that simple an urge before buttoning up the rest of it to explore in full tonight. "You are beautiful like this, do you know? _Hm_?" he slips his thumb back and forth over the apple of Charles's cheek. "Incredible. Absolutely incredible." His whole expression has shifted from one of tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, blazing, raging-inferno-of-need into bright-eyed adoration, tinged by unashamed desire-not just the carnal, but everything, free and unfettered, love that's deepened by Dominion, a purer color.

* * *

If Erik says he can, that he must, then he certainly will. It's as simple as that. It doesn't take long until the raging lust inside of him has gentled out because Erik wishes it even as the heat stays pooled in his belly, become a softer, sweeter version of the same energy as he nuzzles against Erik's fingers and sighs. "Thank you, Erik," he whispers, cheeks still dusted pink as he smiles shyly, and now that he's calmed some the twisting nerves of before are back in his stomach. They have about an hour until their guests arrive, and Charles finds himself positively bursting with nervous, excited energy, all tuned into Erik's Will and reflected right back in enthusiastic, floaty subspace as he stays on his knees until he's bid to rise. It's never been explicitly demanded of him, but if he's put on his knees he never gets up until Erik gives him permission, a facet of submission he never needed to be told, a tiny detail in the working, constantly shifting whole that makes their dynamic. "This is the first time..." Their friends and family have certainly glimpsed at their dynamic in the past few weeks, and they comment on it plenty, but this is different. This is displaying it, airing it out, letting it breathe in its entirety when so much of it has been private by necessity. It's part of why Charles had wanted this desperately in the first place: their dynamic is theirs, and he likes that much of the two of them is only for them, but perhaps tonight he wants others to see, too. To say look at what I've found, what I have. His eyes wander to Erik's ring and he swallows; for years he buried his submission like a dirty thing, and tonight is about embracing it. It makes up half their Bond, after all. He's more than willing to do it, but he's nervous.  
  
Erik laughs softly. Of the two of them he's definitely more suited for nerves; after all, these people-they know Charles, they love Charles. Erik is-he's the outsider, and-it's silly, he's lived in this house for days, weeks even, but-he swallows, abruptly overcome, wondering if-because they all-and he can't speak for it all of a sudden, not wishing to offend Charles with his own stupid insecurities, and it chokes him up. What if they really don't like him, because they all had to be convinced he was acceptable, because he's still a criminal by and large, he hasn't been declared innocent yet and what if they don't believe him, or believe he's what's best; his sister herself had reservations and Raven's been the one most in his corner since this started, and not to mention Gabrielle, and he's spinning with it, having not given himself any time to breathe this last week let alone really, really think about it and-he just wants them to like him, to see what he sees in their dynamic, to see that he can be a good caretaker, that he can guard Charles and protect him and love him and-because they've seen everything else, all of the death and destruction and everything that's happened-every-Charles got hurt because of him and what if they blame him-he inhales sharply, bracing a hand against his own heart. "I'm sorry," he gasps, not expecting this, oh G-d-  
  
Charles is there. Immediately he's there, to buffet it, to soothe it, to work out the creases and weather it and take it into himself because it's his, too. Erik is still crouched over him and he scoots forward on his knees, presses himself closer. "Shh, Erik, shh, my love," he murmurs softly, rubbing their cheeks together and laughing quietly when he's tickled by Erik's beard, does it again before he rubs their noses together in that gentle, affectionate way. "Come back to me. You know that isn't the case, yeah? You've seen it through me." He taps his temple; Charles rarely filters out what he actively processes, it's all there for Erik to see, too. "Yes, I've known most of them longer. But you've won them over just as you did me, don't you doubt that," he chuckles. "Do you think for even a second that my sister would allow me to keep this going if she thought you would harm me in the long run, or that we would harm each other? Warren? Gabby?" He shakes his head. "True, there would be absolutely nothing they could do to change my mind, but you've seen how... protective they can be," he hedges, grinning. "They like you, Erik. More than that. They have never seen me happier than I am right now, because I haven't been, and they know that, and it still isn't the only reason they like you. Not by far. This is your family, too. Perhaps it was mine first, but now it is yours, too, and not only because it's mine. Tonight is the first of many nights where that is true." And what a thought that is. Future celebrations, ceremonies, holidays -  
  
With their family.  
  
His eyes flutter closed against Charles's hands and he leans into that touch, desperate to curtail the hurricane of feelings he's worked so hard to submerge only for them to surface now in a violent storm. "It's OK if they don't like me," he whispers back, because it is. "I just-I _juh_ -" he wheezes, pressing himself closer to those soothing fingers when Charles digs them into his hair, in that spot behind his ears he loves. "I love you," he breathes, trembling faintly. "I _neh_ -never want-I just want them to see-I can make you happy," he gasps. "And keep you safe. I just want to make you happy." It's clear this isn't about what Charles's family thinks about him, although that matters, deeply to him.  
  
"I know, darling, and so do they," he soothes, hushes, kisses, peppering them all over Erik's nose and cheeks as he strokes at his hair, whatever hat he'd worn today discarded so he can scratch and lavish attention, pulling thick strands through his fingers. "And it wouldn't be okay, by the way. It would never be okay. It does matter what they think of you, but fortunately for us they care for you deeply." If Raven hadn't come around to Erik, if she hadn't grown just as fiercely fond of him as he knew she would, he doesn't know what he would have done. Break apart and shatter, perhaps. It never would have felt alright. "Listen to me, please, Erik. Everyone who is attending this ceremony cares for you. It isn't just about me. They know you make me happy, but Erik, my love, they care that you are happy, too. That we are happy together. This isn't a celebration of me, it is for us, and everyone invited is here to see how deeply, truly happy and healing our Bond is. And it is. I cannot express how much it is, and I know you feel likewise. So," he takes a breath, and smiles. "I suppose there's not much to be nervous about, when we look at it like that. And besides, you've..." Here Charles' voice cracks and he trails off, because he's been thinking about this. He shakes his head. "Before you, there was something missing, and I don't just mean to me. You've - I..." Head shake. He's too choked up suddenly.  
  
The hat is a silly one, a black beanie with a big yellow patch of Tweety Bird emblazoned on the front, which is entirely at odds with the fashionable dark denim and crisp blouse he'd chosen to pair it with, but that's more or less exactly what Erik is. Formal, serious, and playful blended into one overlarge package. He smiles against Charles's lips when they pass his and kisses him before he can pull away, eyes big and bright, and he touches his equally gigantic hand to Charles's cheek. Before him, Erik was missing everything. Family, friends, a home. He loves Charles, but he loves his family as well, and he really is worried they might not... that they might see him as someone he isn't, someone scary to tiptoe around. With his Will as substantial as it is, even Warren has a hard time not shying away, and Hank can barely say more than one word to him. Raven's all bluster, but she too struggles, and he just wants them all to know that he would do anything for them, all of them. "Me, too," he whispers.  
  
"Erik, you fail to see exactly what you've given everyone," he whispers, and then there's a tear on his cheek and he laughs because the probability of getting through this evening without crying is zero and so he might as well start small early on and work his way up. "Trust me when I say you have more than earned your place in this family, and that they are yours, too. Perhaps your Will is significant, no one can get around that, but do you think it changes a thing? Besides, they're all getting over it. It's practically old news by now," he jokes, but it really isn't far from the truth. There's certainly acclimating going on. "I have never been closer to my sister than I am now," he says, and his voice breaks again. He has to blink back more insistent tears, "And you can absolutely give yourself credit for some of it. I feel like I am finally seeing her, that she's..." He shakes his head again, frustrated with his lack of eloquence here, but it's been indescribable. He loves his sister more than he could ever say, more than his own life, truly, and to be given the chance to share this with her has meant more than he's able to express right now. "And Warren -" He closes his eyes, swallowing. It doesn't need to be said. "Gabby, Carmen - Erik, this is us. Our family. None of this is possible without you, so please don't disparage yourself. You aren't alone anymore, and not just because of me."  
  
Erik shivers, buried at the juncture of Charles's neck and leaving trails of wetness against that mark he left only hours beforehand. _I love you so much,_ he says between them, so incredibly fond and devoted he feels as though it's about to burst out of him at any moment. There's so much in what Charles has said to him that he could choose to respond to-the joy of Charles's unwavering belief in their little unit, the guilt over Warren that's went unsaid all this time, the tears blurring Charles's vision, but what strikes him most is the sincerity of his statements; not that he's ever insincere, but Erik simply hasn't ever encountered such stunning certainty that anyone but Charles has a cause to like him. He's not accustomed to it, and when he looks, he can see himself in ways he's never before perceived; for all that Erik believes he's a monster, for all the twisted gruesomeness of the world he's experienced, he truly is guileless in the way most adult men aren't, and it's something people respond to on an instinctive level. And although he'd never admit it, he really does just-want them to like him, for himself, and this isn't a way he's ever felt. He's always-lacked innocence, been mangled and tormented and broken, but that-it's not how they see him, and-they don't-he gasps, soft. They really don't see him like that. I'm so happy you and Raven are becoming closer, is what he focuses on at long last, getting himself under grips. _And-you and Dr. Haller, and-_ everyone, Warren included, even if Erik has a hard time landing on it. _They're all so wonderful, you know-I-_ he isn't sure how to express it, but he doesn't know what he would do if any of them really didn't like him.  
  
Charles sniffs and waits for Erik to lift his head so he can rub their cheeks together again, grinning and shivering at the ticklish sensation. He really does love Erik's beard, and he really, truly, absolutely loves Erik. "Fortunately, you won't ever have to know what happens if they don't like you, because they do. We are a family, and they do. Although -" He laughs here, ducking his head as his grin draws out his dimples. "We may need to worry about them understanding us. Do you know what you just said?" He isn't talking about the content. He replays it for Erik in perfect recall, giggling when he reaches the part he'd meant to highlight. "We're mashing Hebrew and English words together, Erik. We're making Franken-words." And not just in a way native speakers of one language attempting another sometimes did. They were doing it in a mastery of both. "Nobody will understand us soon, regardless of what language we pick," he snorts.  
  
Erik blinks as he hears himself speak what essentially sounds like gibberish and he huffs. _Love anyanu familot_ isn't a phrase in any language as far as he's aware, and it's far more than simply smashing the two of them together; they've blended phonology, morphology and syntax as well as vocabulary, and he grins sheepishly back at Charles. "I was going to say at least Dr. Haller could understand us, but perhaps that has gone out of the window," he murmurs, and then reflects on that particular bout of garbage he's just rattled off. "How peculiar. I did not even notice we'd done this and-" like everything else about them, it's completely subconscious, a total blending of them both until neither is indistinguishable from the other, the way salt and water separately combine to form saline.  
  
Charles grins wider, if that's possible. "Fascinating, isn't it? I noticed a while ago. It only happens sometimes, after we've rapid-switched and need both languages." In moments like this, usually. They always switch between fast and effortlessly, as if they've both been speaking each other's respective languages their entire lives. "Speaking of Gabby, she's endlessly in awe of my improved accent," he mutters and rolls his eyes for good measure, but it's fair. When he'd spoken Hebrew with her, the words had always fallen awkward and strange off his tongue except in specific moments when they didn't (in retrospect, all Erik). An accent isn't something he could have perfected just by knowing the language, nor even something he could have replicated through a language center perfectly, he doesn't think; he's been practicing, but even when he first spoke it with Erik he was leagues better than any of his previous attempts. A good deal of it was muscle memory. His mouth wasn't used to making the sounds Hebrew necessitated, but somehow it's like he's been speaking it always, now. He doesn't sound anything like a native speaker with a naturalized accent, of course, but it's not foreign on his tongue anymore, not overly-stressed. "It's really incredible. By the way, who is salt and who is water? Could you not have come up with a more romantic comparison?" He can be cheeky if he likes. It's Bonding Day. They should be getting ready for that, but Charles just wants to stay on his knees and talk instead. Hear Erik attempt to copy his mixed accent again, a blending of upstate New York and posh English that falls one way or the other depending on his mood; the last time Charles had lost it for a good hour, cracking up every time he remembered. It didn't help that Erik kept tickling him.  
  
"I like your little accent," Erik grins at him, and tickles him for good measure just to hear him squeak. In all honestly Charles sounds almost totally native when speaking Hebrew except for the three sounds that aren't found in English, one of which most Israelis don't pronounce anyway other than as a glottal stop, the second of which Charles is perfectly familiar with since he grew up speaking French and the third-well, he'll probably never pronounce _chet_ like a native, but it's close enough as to be functionally irrelevant. He's far better at sounding like a native speaker than Erik is at English, but since Charles has told him on more than one occasion he likes that, well, Erik isn't too worried about it. "Clearly I am salt," Erik tells him. "Because I am so salty all the time." He winks in terrible exaggeration.

* * *

Charles is laughing, wriggling when Erik goes to tickle him again, beaming up at him when he tucks hair behind his ear instead and cups his cheek in that huge hand. It grows fast, his hair; it probably needs a trim soon, but fortunately for him he has his own personal stylist. His chest feels tight again, not with panic but with fondness and the jittery nerves in his stomach return when he realizes what time it is. "We should get ready," he murmurs, even as he doesn't move an inch. "I think it might be bad form to be late to our own Bonding ceremony because we're holed up in here," he grins.  
  
Erik smiles down at him and leads him to stand up. "I was thinking-" he starts, and then he touches his own face, over the quite-prominent beard he's grown in only a week. Honestly, it's such a chore keeping himself clean-shaven the phrase five o'clock shadow may well have been invented for Erik himself. His own hair grows unruly, on his head and his jaw, unless he consciously keeps an eye on it, but he's confident he can go at least three hours without sprouting a beard... the only trouble is, he does hate shaving. And, well, Charles did offer... "As much as I prefer to be a mountain man-" He grins a little sheepishly, and gives a shrug.  
  
Charles doesn't think the concept of shaving his Dominant should make him shiver down to his toes, but he's long since stopped trying to police these things in himself. He lowers his eyes instead, biting at his lip. "What would please you, sir?" he asks, and tries to pretend his voice isn't breathy and soft, that the phrase itself hadn't come completely natural.  
  
Erik holds out his hands and lets Charles take them before tugging him backwards into the bathroom, and he extends his palm, letting the straight razor settle itself at its center to give to Charles, pausing only to kiss him, feeling a bit strange about the endeavor because it's a definite role reversal. Between them both he's far less likely to have opportunity to indulge in at least this aspect, but he's never been in this position and it's a curious sensation. A good one, though. Something they have, to define for themselves as everything else, which is silly considering it's perfectly traditional, even as his respective experience tells him it should be opposing. But Erik likes the idea of it, and he most especially likes what the idea of it does to Charles, which makes him a good deal more confident when he passes the razor over. "I'll try not to twitch," he laughs, fond, he laughs, fond, suppressing a shiver of his own at that phrase itself.  
  
Charles is finding that anything he does for Erik becomes an act of service by virtue of it being done by him, and even the smallest acts - fetching him something even if Erik was perfectly capable of getting it himself, washing his clothes, tying his shoes - can have him humming with satisfaction, especially when it earns him praise. For some reason this is riling him more than usual, though, and he bites down hard on his lip as he settles himself and gets to work. He's obviously no stranger to a razor even when his own facial hair is light and barely gets past a stubble, but there's something wholly different about this. His belly is flipping over on itself, and he has to stop a few times to catch a hitched breath and steady his hand, vaguely flushed as his tongue pokes out from his lips in concentration, a quirk that only shows when he's very focused. By the time he's done he's breathless and the tips of his ears are pink. "Did I please you, sir?" he whispers, an echo of his first question as he fidgets and waits.  
  
By the time Charles is halfway through Erik's looking at him through a hooded gaze, having to stop every few moments just to touch him, tracing the backs of his knuckles over his jaw, his thumb across Charles's lower lip, fingertips to his oversensitive temples. The idea that their positions could be in any way reversed once more laughable when he remembers just exactly how Charles fidgets and shifts unconsciously, or all-too consciously, and Erik pulls him forward when he's done, molding their bodies together to kiss him intensely, pressing his back to the wall as he rasps, "Yes, Charles-" into his mouth, eyes regarding him brilliantly under the fluorescent lights.  
  
Charles moans into the kiss, breaking it with a low, needy sound because he would like very much to kiss him for the foreseeable future and hopefully continue to please him, but they have guests on the way and they both need to change and do some preparation. The word preparation reminds him of the bottle of lube on the counter, which has him red in the race again, and then when he squirms into the wall enough to feel part of his little surprise inside his eyes threaten to roll back, a gasping whimper wrenched right out of him. "Alright, so I won't be sitting this evening," he decides, covering his face with his hands. Erik is going to make him sit and watch him squirm and hide it from everyone else. He knows it.  
  
Erik's grinning at him brightly, and he kisses him once more just for good measure, sliding his hand down to give his ass a squeeze. "Won't you?" his eyebrows arch, far more playful and unruffled than he has any right being considering precisely what he knows he's doing to Charles, and what he will be doing for the next few hours, and the few after that if he has his way. Which he will, because Erik always gets his way. It's good to be king.  
  
The squeeze makes him squeak, the sound morphing into a drawn out moan and he has to close his eyes to compose himself in the aftermath. Erik knowing about this is absolutely better, but it's also liable to kill him and he's going to need to do a better job of not getting worked up. Easier said than done, when all he wants to do is be Ordered back to his knees so Erik can -  
  
He whines, shaking his head. "Guests. Ceremony," he whispers, and he's not telling Erik, he's reminding himself. Even so Charles nuzzles into Erik instead of going to get anything done, perfectly content to do as he's told instead. There's no use pretending like he won't be in deep subspace all night, even around others, but they're family. They should see him as he is. Being Erik's is definitely part of who he is. Being submissive is, too, even if there are parts of his personality which aren't traditionally submissive. And Charles thinks maybe he can start to be okay with that. With being submissive, being seen as submissive. It's frightening, but Erik will help. Erik always helps.  
  
Erik frames his jaw with his bad hand, more a press of skin than any real finesse, his next kiss warmer, but no less reveling. "You will have to help me," he whispers, rubbing and kneading where his other hand has made its new home. "I am not very familiar with how things go in the States." But Erik will help Charles, too; the two of them are either side of a coin, each picking up where the other may stumble, and there is truly nothing to get through here. This isn't being done out of obligation, it's because they want it, and that means they get to decide how it's done. They get to decide how to present themselves, and Erik exceedingly grateful that being his is how Charles wishes to portray himself, because he doesn't think he could act any other way than as Charles's Dominant, and finally it's an atmosphere he doesn't need to obscure this fact; he can be himself, because Charles belonging to him is in equal parts a measure of who he is.  
  
Being Erik's is absolutely how he wants to present himself. If he's honest, besides drawing on some inherent, perhaps traditionally Dominant-coded personality traits that are actually part of his submission in a large way (and the reverse, in Erik, not coincidentally), his public persona is forced. It isn't natural, and he's positive Erik has noticed by now. He's constantly on edge, constantly vigilant, watching his every movement through the minds of others and adjusting accordingly; it's far more ingrained after years of practice, but in the end it doesn't come any easier than it did when he first started. He's over-compensating at every step, raising his voice, his chin, keeping stride just a step ahead, being mindful of how he speaks, what words he uses, how to hold himself, his shoulders, his legs, his expressions, keeping score like it's a game -  
  
It's tiring, sometimes. It's utterly, completely exhausting. He's never fully relaxed. He's never himself, only the faux-Dominant Charles that exists because he was traumatized into believing it needed to.  
  
"Can I..." He bites his lip harder, swallows. Then he shakes his head, dismissing his own request before he can get it out.  
  
While the reverse is certainly true, for Erik it's a good deal less deliberate; because it was born out of a much different need. There were no mind-games at stake, there were no points to keep track of; he never became his opposition out of the desire to be seen as competent and self-sufficient. Every submissive action in him is born from flinching, like blinking in response to dust particles and it makes those behaviors totally ingrained on a molecular level. They aren't covering up his natural tendencies because Dominance as a trait of personality, as the guiding factor, as the deciding factor, is something that needs to be taught, and Erik had no useful role models beyond the very early ages of childhood. While his mother absolutely was a highly effective Dominant, that memory, tailored toward his youth as it was, isn't enough to make it up.  
  
Although he does strive to be himself when they are alone-when Erik believes he's fully relaxed-he demonstrates high levels of deference in unusual ways, even toward Charles in some cases. If he's triggered, if Charles is firmer than normal. Sometimes he'll react appropriately, with equal and greater Dominance, but just as often he shrinks back into the meek self-defense mechanisms he grew up with, defaults into passive observance, sitting like a pretty fern without a thought in his head. There is nothing inherently wrong with Dominance or submission, but within them both, it's the product of an extreme environment, subversive and altogether unhealthy, but in many ways their relationship is a safe place for them both to stretch out and practice what might not come naturally, each expression of their respective orientations garnering a positive reaction that feeds itself, and really becomes the basis of their dynamic. "Mm, mm," Erik shakes his head. "None of that." He taps Charles on the nose. "Tell me."  
  
It's less mind games and more a trauma-induced 'perhaps if I were Dominant this never would have happened to me, so I will make myself Dominant so it never can after.' He falls back on it, too. When he's stressed, when he's scared, when he's backed into a corner; raises his voice, squares his shoulders, bares his teeth. But they are learning. Resetting, reorienting, reorbiting. Nothing has ever felt more natural, and they have instincts they can listen to now. It's like teaching himself to breathe, sometimes; by the time he's trying he's already done it, become it.  
  
"I just..." He exhales a breath through his nose, shifting uncomfortably. "I get into my head. I start second guessing myself, and I -" Even around Raven, and Hank, and Warren. He starts to change the way he talks, and walks, and sits, however subtly. The other night Warren had given him a raised eyebrow when the couch was full and his instinct was to kneel at Erik's feet; he'd talked himself of it, taken the armchair instead (he'd ended up perched on Erik's lap, but that's neither here nor there). He keeps himself in check, but it's in check in a way he doesn't need to be. It's backwards-instinct policing. "I don't want to do that tonight. I was wondering if maybe we could..." He doesn't know. He just knows he doesn't want to feel ashamed, and he wants Erik to be able to express his Dominance in a safe environment, too, for them both to present according to their dynamic. Their dynamic that he's incredibly grateful and proud of, the one they're celebrating and affirming tonight. It's not about presenting according to tradition, it's just -  
  
He doesn't know. He wants it, very badly.  
  
Erik touches Charles's face. "I want you to follow your instincts," he says in response, the Order just-as-much unconscious. He's not so sure about himself; his own instincts are-the nuances of their private dynamic notwithstanding, he struggles much less within the confines of their bedroom; literally, not figuratively, than out of doors. In public, he is much, much more docile and he worries that he won't be-that he won't do a good job, that he won't be Dominant-enough, that Charles will let down his guard and he won't-and he wants to, it's so frustrating sometimes believing that he'll be the one to hold Charles back, although the evidence, objectively speaking, says otherwise. Erik doesn't talk much and likely won't for most of the night, but his actions speak plenty. A tap to the shoulder for Charles to kneel, touching his lips when he moves his food around his plate instead of eating it, migrating to Charles's side when he's accosted by someone Erik doesn't know, drawing a hand down his back, serving him when they go somewhere or silently indicating for Charles to retrieve something or another for him, a look or a glance is all it really takes with a Pairbond and how Orders are given doesn't matter as much as that they are, and Charles always follows them regardless, always. Erik just works himself up about his poor speech and ducked head. He suspects it might be the same for Charles as well. They're both still operating under how Dominance and submission has been defined to them, but the only thing Erik cares about tonight is that they are both relaxed and happy. If he has to step outside of his own comfort zone for that, he will, because that's his place. He's here to make sure Charles is taken care of.  
  
That's exactly what he wanted, actually. Charles takes a breath, even as he continues to fidget, to gnaw on the inside of his cheek because it's less noticeable than his lip (Erik always notices eventually, and he notices nail biting, too, signals perfectly clearly for Charles to cease with that). He doesn't need what anyone might deem overt, traditional Dominance; Erik takes care of him in thousands of minute, intricate ways, Orders and guides and reprimands when it's necessary, all without ever opening his mouth. It's exactly what he needs, and all the evidence points to it. There's not a moment of the day when he doesn't belong to him, when he isn't acting according to his Will (and when he isn't, that's taken care of, too). "I like it," he whispers, still chewing. "When we... when other people that we're safe with can see it? How you Dominate me." It's mumbled, like he's afraid it's wrong. "I like it a lot." And on this night in particular, he doesn't want to shy away. This will help both of them. Healing, like everything else between them. They'll be in their own home, and if they need to take a break or duck out, they can.  
  
"I like it, too," he whispers back, drawing his hand down Charles's chest approvingly. "A lot," he laughs, and takes a single step back, because they probably should be getting downstairs. He does give a tap to Charles's cheek, one eyebrow raised in warning, but that's all it ever really takes. "I love you" he leans over to kiss him, wrap his arm around his waist, possessive. "I am so very pleased you are mine." He won't ever stop being pleased about it.  
  
"I love you, too," he murmurs, leaning right into that possessive touch. Charles can't help but shiver when he looks up and notices Erik's freshly-shaved face, tingling with the reminder that he'd done that for his Dominant. He shakes it off, humming softly. "I'm just going to change right quick, if you want to head down without me. I won't be more than a minute. Oh!" He grins. "Could you fix the sound system, darling? It's crackling something awful and I'd really like to keep my eardrums in tact." He didn't even bother fiddling with it, if he's honest. If it's electronic - or has a working part in general - it's definitely Erik's domain. His handyman. He'll take care of the sound control so their neighbors don't despise them more than they already do, though. This is it. They're going to have fun, and Charles can't help grinning so wide his face hurts now, even with the slight tinge of nerves.

* * *

Erik's already slipping into his ordinary silent self, so he just answers with a nod and another quick peck to the cheek, retrieving his hat from the ground and jamming it over his mess of hair, pausing in front of the full-length mirror beside the bed only to straighten it out and unconsciously smoothing his hands over the wrinkles in his shirt, and OK, fixing up his sleeves and dusting off his jeans before easing himself downstairs; always a challenge on his leg, but he's developed a system that mostly involves hopping and leaning on the left-sided rail (getting upstairs is trickier, and he's going to develop a kink in his back by the time he's thirty if he keeps going, but that's neither here nor there). Raven and Hank are already home and they both greet him with big smiles and gentle hugs, and he maneuvers to the stereo to tap at it once, deciphering the problem and sorting it out with a crease of his brow. He migrates to the door to let in the folks who have just rung the bell-who turn out to be Warren and a few trusted friends who had his back on the Quezon conference, and they seem startled to be meeting Erik Lehnsherr, who Warren apparently did not warn them about and which he's extremely chipper for, relishing their shocked jaw-drops and even further still at the fact that he's supposedly a D5 who bows his head to the pair of them, both S3s and overcompensating for it big time in the business world.  
  
"He doesn't talk much," Warren murmurs under his breath to them, and then slaps Erik on the back. "It's good to see you again, Lehnsherr. Keeping Hank and Raven on their toes?"  
  
Erik nods short and sharp in response, smiling just enough to wrinkle his nose. He likes Warren, but of all of Charles's friends, Warren intimidates him the most, he has a natural gravitas and Dominant-authority that Erik finds difficult not to wilt under.  
  
Warren's also come equipped with two six packs, one under each arm. "Do you want to grab these? A little, y'know, _mojo_?" he wiggles his fingers.  
  
Erik gives him _'jazz hands'_ and they float right out and hover in the air, much to Warren's absolute delight.  
  
"Now, Warren, what have we said about not using people's mutations as inconvenience-free cards?" Hank interrupts them with a toothy grin of his own, giving Warren's hand a firm shake. "Good man, you came packing."  
  
Charles sings quietly under his breath as he changes, something he only ever does when he's certain no one is listening and he's in too excellent of a mood to be self-conscious that someone might be. It's only to avoid someone noticing he'd... dirtied this pair of slacks in his haste, and he doesn't bother with anything over-formal. This isn't a high-society snoozefest, and he does need to remind himself as he puts on something smart but equally comfortable, complementary to Erik because he can't not be and in a deeper blue because Erik thinks it brings out his eyes.  
  
He flips his shirt a bit, just enough for his collar to be exceptionally visible, too.  
  
No one would ever call Charles Xavier a wallfower. Quite the opposite, actually. But halfway down the stairs he's stuck, not in fear or even because he's nervous, but simply because he's watching. There's a grin on his lips as he leans on the railing and observes Warren and Raven go through their usual greeting, gets caught up in how handsome Erik is, how tall even when he hunches...  
  
Charles bites his lip. Then he's watching too closely, because he trips over a step and tumbles. Erik's mutation predictably catches him before he totally faceplants, but the damage is done. "I've had grander entrances," he snorts.  
  
Watching Erik turns out to be more intriguing than Charles banked on when he first started, because this is the first time... ever... that Erik actively is anything other than _sitting there real good_. He's no less silent, but he manages to make his presence known in a number of small ways; he doesn't gesture or write or act out charades-it's a bit of a misnomer that people with selective mutism do, as the disorder is anxiety related to spontaneous communication, not just speech, with some people more adversely impacted than others and Erik is fairly severe. He nods or shakes his head, sometimes mouths an obvious word, smiles in the right places but otherwise-potted plant, meet Erik.  
  
In what he's come to consider his home, surrounded by a large number of safe people, some he is not capable of speaking with and some he is, even while there are some strangers about he's... more visible, helped undoubtedly by his Will, which automatically snaps people's attention to him even when he's doing nothing as if he's the most fascinating creature on the planet Earth, but he's filled people's drinks, guided them toward the snacks with a nudge to the shoulder, weighed in on a few conversations with an exaggerated shrug or two, and woven about the room-not seamlessly, per se, he's not a social animal, but he's almost halfway comfortable and Charles can feel that people are beginning to feel at ease around him, even those who were leery of his Will at first shake (which is, well, everybody, to be honest, with the great exception of Charles).  
  
People ask about various things around the house or comment on something that's done just so and Erik subtly indicates a photo of Charles, 'talking him up' in his own way, his lips pursed fondly. When Charles trips, though, Erik's head snaps up instantly and he gasps, hand shooting out to right him mid-air and he's still levitating when he speaks, feet hitting the floor soft and gentle. Erik is at his side without a word, touching his face in concern, looking him over. There are too many people here for him to even form words in his thoughts, an existential question mark-inquiry of his well-being sufficing instead. Accompanied by no small measure of love and pride that radiates from him, and he runs his hand down the fabric of his shirt in silent approval. Charles looks good, very good.  
  
"You always did have to steal my thunder," Warren barks, some good-natured cajoling in order.  
  
Charles laughs, soft and sheepish, and shakes his head. "I'm perfectly alright," he assures quietly, because besides losing his balance for a moment nothing had actually happened. Erik was there to protect him like always, and even his own clumsy preoccupation couldn't get in the way. He shoots a scowl in Warren's direction for good measure, but it melts right into a happy grin not a second later. "It's my Bonding ceremony, which makes it rightfully my thunder. Deal with it, Worthington." He offers a half-hug instead of a shake, then gets wrapped up in one of Raven's more crushing hugs, slapped on the back by Hank shortly after. He shakes hands with anyone else he comes into contact with, slipping into what's a more relaxed, eased out version of himself; he chatters up a storm like usual, talking more than enough for both him and Erik, but there's far less posturing.  
  
It's nice. It's incredibly nice.  
  
When the doorbell rings next, he's the first one to it, delighted and grinning and ready to throw his arms around Gabby with far less hesitance than he would have a month ago. He doesn't miss that Erik's hand is right at his back.  
  
This is how it's supposed to feel, maybe. He could get used to it.  
  
At Charles's snipe to Warren, Erik hesitates for a moment and then sticks his tongue out at him, which makes Hank and Raven both spontaneously combust into giggles while Warren plays at being extremely offended; but he toes the line, making it clear he's only kidding and giving Erik's shoulder a squeeze before he melts off to entertain the masses peeling off the charm in a schmaltzy, overexaggerated way at Raven, who gives him far too many eyerolls for it to have merited any success.  
  
Gabby's always been a little restrained, and on the surface that worked for her and Charles, but the latter has definitely always been more affectionate than the former, so he's not shocked when Gabby seems genuinely surprised by the display, but she laughs and hugs him back with both arms. "Hi!" she grins. " _Ve shalom_ , I hope it's all right I brought a guest."  
  
Dr. Shomron peeks out from behind her, waving an expensive bottle of wine. "And the guest picked out the wine, so blame him," he smiles ruefully. "We haven't met formally, but Gabrielle told me about you both." On first look Daniel 's a discreet sort, professional and affable in spades. "I've heard a lot about you, it's a pleasure." He holds out his hand to Charles; and like recognizes like here. He's on the much higher end of submissive than average making his way in a Dominant's world, and that necessitates some compensation in even the most well-adjusted individuals. He shifts the wine to give Erik his left. "Mr. Lehnsherr, likewise. How's the arm?"  
  
 _Erik_ , he mouths, touching his own chest with a smile-he's not an inmate anymore, or a patient, and wishes to disabuse Daniel of the association-before shaking gently. Dominants, especially males, are typically reared toward having firm handshakes and all that, but Erik touches people as if they're priceless museum hangings, as if the slightest shift of his skin will leave an imprint on the image. He taps the arm in question and gives a subtle nod, pressing into Charles's side and taking the bottle from Daniel, another small, seemingly-insignificant way he exerts his Will. It's exactly how Charles should feel, and Erik wants to make sure he always feels that way. He should only-ever be around people who do, and Erik won't abide people that don't.  
  
"Absolutely. It's a pleasure to finally meet you under better circumstances, I've heard plenty, too. I'd like to actually pick your brain, later," he laughs, tapping at his temple. It's one of his favorite gags, if he's honest. Always best to get the knowledge that he knows much more about you than you do about him out of the way; it's a side effect of his mutation, and it can't be helped. "Thank you, and thank you both for coming. I appreciate it very much," and considering what led up to it, it's heartfelt, and he makes sure to catch Gabby's eyes for a moment. He steps aside to allow the both of them in though he wasn't in the way to begin with, a genuine smile on his face.  
  
Which is impressive considering his eyes had lingered on that wine bottle for just a second too long, but he swallows around the thickness in his throat. It's just wine, and it isn't like anyone here is getting sloshed. It's just that two years sober - a year and a half, if he's honest, and he's slipped - never feels like much at parties, when everyone else is doing it. He deliberately stamps out any thoughts of his mother's voice, but the fact that he has to do it is telling. It's fine. No one's doing jello shots, Charles, there's no reason to be tense. He still finds himself leaning back into Erik, seeking out those strands of Will and pulling them around himself like an embrace. Erik won't let anything hurt him. There doesn't need to be echoes of pain tonight.  
  
Erik gives him a real embrace, too, stooping over to rest his head on Charles's shoulder. He loves Charles very much, and he couldn't be prouder of him. And there is nothing on this Earth that will prevent him from taking care of his amazing, brilliant submissive. Besides, Charles isn't the only one not indulging, and it isn't just for his own benefit, either. Erik doesn't like liquor, it hearkens back to many bad memories of his own; at the unfortunate end of a drunken bender in all the wrong ways. Purim at the CIA really was one of the few times in his life he'd indulged, and he isn't interested in starting now. It looks like all the quote-unquote fun is being held by Warren and Raven and their merry gaggle of buds, and he quietly lets it find its way into Warren's good graces, who gets the message and out of sight, out of mind.  
  
It's just another part of his life Gabby wasn't privy to, so she hadn't thought to tell Daniel to bring something different, although she brandishes a wrapped gift of her own and she elbows Charles at the 'gag.' "He's being silly," she rolls her eyes, fond. She doesn't bother hiding that it's a book, something she knows neither of them have, a rare edition of _Grey's Anatomy_ she happened upon many years ago that just recently made it over to the States with some of her belongings now that she was planning to fully immigrate here. She couldn't think of a better home for it than Charles's bookshelf, and that's one thing she does know about him. The front insert is home to a lovely hand-painted depiction of Mendel's flowers, illustrated in distinct sticky-colorful vibrancy by Nachum Gutman, complete with a signature.  
  
While Daniel keeps talking, oops Erik tuned you out. Erik clutches it reverently, running his fingertips so, so delicately over the raised edges, eyes wide with wonder.  
  
"That would be wonderful, purely a personal indulgence, mind you. My work is entirely relegated to the realm of theoretical physics, bridging the best of psychiatry and quantum mechanics," he grins in good nature. While he and Charles are both submissive and psychiatrist, and relatively congenial, that's where the similarities end, and it's where he can tell the two make an actual match, having come close in one another enough to realize exactly what they were missing. Now that they both had the missing piece, it's so much easier for them to look at things objectively, and appreciate one another for what they are instead of what they wish the other person was. It's a breath of fresh air.  
  
It's a breath Charles is unspeakably grateful for. Yet something else he never would have had without Erik; would he be capable of this, without him? To feel not an ounce of bitterness, not a moment's hesitance as he leans forward to wrap Gabby up in another hug? They haven't come close to bridging the gap yet, but now they have the opportunity and it's done wonders for both of them and their perspective, healing old wounds and granting closure. They're talking as they did in the beginning except without the attraction; navigating each other without constant strain, and remembering what drew each other together in the first place. There's ease and love again, without burden.  
  
It's brilliant. Charles nearly chokes up, because all of it is brilliant, and he's going to make sure this book is among his very favorites, his most treasured, a centerpiece. "Thank you," he whispers to Gabby before they part, and it aches with sincerity, his voice trembling with it. "Really. I can't tell you what it means that you're here tonight." She can sense some of it, though. Charles is unconsciously projecting, has been this whole time, contributing to the comfortable, relaxed atmosphere. The room is humming with energy that isn't just Erik's Will, and when Raven tosses something for Hank across the room, Charles' hair stands up at the back of his neck. He turns to check, and Raven is staring at Erik because whatever it is has decided to float mid-air and it's the logical conclusion that Erik is the culprit. Charles grins, sheepish and still awed, himself. He can't do anything like this deliberately. He's tried. It's been happening, though, out of the blue. Things have been floating, displacing themselves, flying off shelves. He hasn't told anyone but Erik, partly because because he's frightened but mostly because he wonders everytime if it's a fluke. It isn't. "You've got the wrong man, I'm afraid. I'll take credit where it's due," he points out quietly, wry grin and all, and can't help but thrill at Raven's shocked face because in all her years of knowing him, he's never had telekinetic abilities.  
  
Everything's so wonderfully different with Erik. He can't get the damn remote to the stereo to stop floating, but that's fine. He's not fretting tonight, and it shows; in his posture, in his expression, in his entire demeanor, how he isn't so guarded and cagey. Charles is relaxed in a way he just isn't around people like this, usually, and it's because Erik is behind him, steadying and warm and present. This is Erik's Charles. Anyone who doubted for a second that this is good for them both won't by the time this night is through. No one would be able to.  
  
Gabby warmly smiles at him and returns the hug once more, giving him a gentle squeeze. " _Ani l'atah shtaim sameach me'od. Be'emet_ ," she whispers just for them both, eyebrows raised in fond amusement at Erik's reaction. " _Chashavti mechabev hu ulay_ ," she adds in a conspiratorial whisper; it's something she picked with both of them in mind, Erik less so for the medical bits and more for the artist, a bit of an Old _Yishuv_ folk hero and that would call back to his mother's roots in Jerusalem. It's a one of a kind piece, that if it's genuine more than likely belongs in _Shulamit_ , but she isn't concerned with its authenticity (although she has it on good authority that it is genuine, or at least genuine-adjacent-the bookseller is a friend of her family's and known for procuring what he calls _avud otzarim_ , and his people absolutely have ties back to Old _Yishuv_ , but that's neither here nor there). Erik, for his part, is still deeply fixated on it, and peeks up only to spare her an absolutely stunned look of gratitude.  
  
 _Toda raba_ , he mouths, placing his hand on his chest. He's touched, truly-and he recalls when he violently resisted her presence during their Bonding, calling her an intruder and an interloper, and he couldn't be more apologetic, not merely because of this gift, which shows an unspeakable degree of thoughtfulness, but because she had been willing to stand behind them, to stand behind Charles, and that is more priceless than any artifact.  
  
When Charles halts the can of Diet Coke mid-air, though, he turns and lets out an audible laugh, the first noise heard from him, for many of them the first time, startled into it and grinning sheepishly. He flicks his finger and it returns to its rightful owner, and Hank salutes him wryly in thanks, while he then tends to the remote. Charles is, as he's always said, simply brilliant, and he's so thrilled that all of his friends and family get to see it the way he does, too. The Charles who belongs to him. Whom everybody realizes belongs to him. They really are starting to feel it, all of them, and he suddenly can't breathe for the choked-up lump in the back of his throat. He has to pause for a minute, waving his hands to pardon himself, abruptly overcome.  
  
Charles is feeling it, too. They're not even started yet and he's feeling it, and he's perfectly content to step to the side with Erik, to smile and lean into it when their foreheads get pressed together, an intimate reorienting. _I love you. I love you so much,_ he whispers, just for them. By the time they're back to the party, his chest still too-full and his stomach fluttery but a wide, dimpled grin on his face, everyone's mingling and laughing and chatting and eating and it's -He sucks in another breath. It's very nice, that's all.

* * *

Fortunately for him while they're waiting on their last guest, Raven catches him and that devolves as it always does because they love each other endlessly but they're also both menaces and true siblings (fortunately for everyone else, their effortless back-and-forth, made even more effortless lately, is fiercely entertaining to watch). There's a dart board in this room and it's only here for one reason, and Hank groans good-naturedly because once these two get started they don't usually stop and if Warren's in the room to goad it's even worse.  
  
"Today is the day I defeat you, sister dearest," he promises her sweetly, except probably not at darts because Charles has many, many talents, but a good throwing arm is not necessarily one of them. The doorbell interrupts his next thought, and he grins. "After I get the door, anyway."  
  
"Stalling and you know it!" Raven cries at his retreating back, smug. Erik taps his own chest with two fingers and indicates the darts, keeping a mental eye on Charles simultaneously. "Have at it, _Magneto_." He doesn't even need an expression to say _please dear G-d don't tell me that's caught on_. "Oh, but it has," she smirks evilly. She watches as he lines up and shoots and gets one completely dead center on the first go, because of course he does, and she shouldn't be shocked but she still squawks and jumps up and down, pointing at him. "Charles! You can't use him!"  
  
Charles is laughing when the door swings open, mid-taunt to his sister. "Yes, I can. The playing field is finally evening out, love, and you're steadily on the wrong side of it." He swings his head to their new guests, and his face truly does hurt from smiling, immediately throwing a friendly hand out for Carmen Pryde to shake. "Hi, welcome to this mess. If you're changing your mind about attending, there's still a socially acceptable out," he jokes, because there's quite a lot of weird in this house and he wouldn't have it any other way.  
  
Kitty Pryde peeks her head out from behind her father. She and Charles have met before by now, and it's no secret that he's unfathomably charmed by her, nor that the two of them get on like a house on fire, for many reasons but also because they can talk with their computer-brains without needing to slow it down and break it up. He would have loved that at sixteen, especially by someone lower-leveled submissive (Kitty is an S2.7). She's sharp-tongued and mischievous along with what's more traditionally submissive and he adores it, and that she's begun to think of him as a mentor-figure warms his heart unspeakably. "Hi, Professor," she greets with a wave.  
  
He scrunches up his nose, still uncertain if he's old enough for a permanent Professor. "Hello there, Katherine," he returns, and laughs when her nose scrunches up in turn, her whole face twisted like she's sucked up a lemon. "Thank you for coming, you lot. If you're any good at darts, now's your chance to try your hand against our resident ferrokinetic." That it became an in-joke among the members of their little inner-circle should come as no surprise.  
  
"Good to see you both again," Carmen gives his hand a shake and then opts for a one-armed hug; the man's been to his house and sits next to him at Synagogue on the off-Saturday besides. Point is, no need to stand on handshakes as far as he's concerned, Charles is part of the family. The fact that his daughter is won by him only sealed the deal.  
  
Erik takes a step from out behind Charles toward Kitty and taps the silver-plated _Magen_ David she constantly wears around her neck, brows arched in question and it levitates toward his hand as though he's asking to borrow it for a moment. The equally mischievous bent in his eyes says it's for a good cause.  
  
Kitty grins right back. Despite being low on the scale and well-past the age where she's started coming into her own submission beyond early instincts and education, Erik doesn't seem to daunt her at all; no one can figure out why, exactly, because she's certainly not S1 or 5, and occasionally she does bow her head and get quieter. It's likely a personality quirk, or else she's just too stubborn to be totally cowed. "Yeah, sure, go for it," she says easily, waving her own hand.  
  
Charles is distracted by something, for his part. Warren has stepped up to the dart board, and he is a deadly shot; he can out-maneuver Charles as easily in this as he can in pool. He bites his lip, concentrating, focusing on all that bubbled up, thrumming energy, closing his eyes...  
  
And instead of the dart moving out of his hand like he'd intended, Warren's beer lifts up and starts to float. It's different than Erik's mutation, so much so that he doesn't understand how someone confused the two (well, no, he does). This is clearly telekinetic in nature, and it wasn't what he'd wanted but it works because Warren's taken off-guard enough to hit off-center. Charles grins. "Well, good enough," he decides. He's got a bit of a headache now, but it was worth it. Maybe learning to control latent telekinesis won't be too terrifying.  
  
"Alright, alright, point to the ferrokinetic," Warren rolls his eyes. Lacking a mutation entirely, let alone a psionic one, it makes no sense for him (and he'd absolutely tell you this if corrected) to suspect Charles at all; it's always been his best friend's thing, that he can't affect the physical realm, and he doesn't really notice the difference except sometimes Erik is _suckier_ at his mutation than others.  
  
Erik of course has already been aware of it for some time, so he's certainly not shocked, but he's just as warmed by it as any other application of Charles's mutation and he sends a quiet wave of pride his way-nothing like the Pryde he's now decided to indulge for just a second. While Charles is busy focusing, Erik just waves his hand and the pieces of Kitty's necklace melt apart, and reform the words _PROFESSOR X_ above Charles's head, which follow him around until he isn't distracted enough to notice it.  
  
He shares a fist-bump with Kitty once he does.  
  
"Ha, _ha_ , you two," he snorts, but he's bursting with glee, especially because Erik and Kitty seem so chuffed by it. He deserves it, really, for spreading Erik's secret-codename onto Raven, and though both are ridiculous and should never leave this room, it's a part of woven-web of family, too. Jokes and names and teasing, layered on top each other and making everything here warm and comfortable. He fits himself where he belongs, with Erik looming right over him, a strong hand at his back, and gets to mingling. If he's still nervous about the actual ceremony, it's mostly melted out by now; what is there to be anxious about, in front of family and friends? Besides being teased mercilessly, because when he takes his own shot at the dart board, he barely makes the outer edge. "Test shot," he insists, his dimples set permanently into his cheeks this evening.  
  
Erik's cooked enough for a whole farm, all spread out on plates in the central living area featuring a variety of Middle Easter, Greek, American, and something special for Kitty-Charles got the information on her favorite from her father (and got his favorite from Kitty, and so on and so forth, until all found something at the table they liked and there was enough leftover for everyone else to try), and where he found the time to do all of this remains a mystery, only that it wasn't in the fridge this morning and it was in the fridge by the time he traipsed back in, panic-in-tow.  
  
The first suspected culprit is hijinks and generalized shenanigans but Carmen gives up the game early and admits that Erik charmed some old ladies down at the Center into using the kitchen facilities, and then got roped into playing _Mah-Jongg_ for two hours as payment. Well worth it, he thinks (aside from the fact that he still doesn't understand how to play _Mah-Jongg_ ) as he sits back (figuratively speaking) and watches everyone dig in.  
  
More importantly, he watches Charles in his element, happy, at ease with his family and people he trusts. Erik feels like he's letting off little fireworks explosions every time he walks, but no one else seems to notice. So weird. Erik spends most of the time amongst their friends as Charles's telekinetic wing-man, using any opportunity he can to engineer scenarios for him to show off, grinning all the while. No one else can see it except for Charles, but they somehow can tell by how he moves, the brightness in his eyes.

* * *

After what feels like minutes but could very well be a couple of hours, the night well raging on, he taps Charles on the shoulder and when he turns around, in just a private moment they've found all of a sudden when everyone else is preoccupied with one another, Erik kisses him, soft and reverent and delighted. _I love you,_ is the first concrete thing he's said all night, on a teary inhale. He touches his face and his hair, just to reassure himself that this is real.  
  
Charles is teary-eyed, too, breathless from the kiss and from the reassurance that this is definitely, absolutely Real. That they are here together, surrounded by family, that they have this. It isn't going to melt away like a dream, or burst like a bubble. He rests against Erik's chest, eyes closed as he listens to his heartbeat and lets his Dominant pet his hair. _I love you, too_. When he peeks up, there's that hint of shyness. _Should we do this, then?_  
  
He looks out over the crowd, not shy so much as abruptly nervous, as though everyone in this room couldn't see how much Erik practically broadcasts his love of Charles with every step. They don't fool many people, what with all the staring at each other googly-eyed constantly, but it's fortunate for them that no one here needs to be fooled. He just hopes that they know, that they really know, that Charles has someone who will always do their very best physically possible (and impossible) to care for him, to love him the way he has deserved to be loved all along. And they've done such an extraordinary job of loving him in Erik's absence, but he hopes they will let him take the reins where they cannot-that they trust him, and don't just view him as a criminal or a psych patient. _I believe we should,_ Erik murmurs back, taking both of Charles's hands in his. One without a grip and one making up for two, but still gentle all the same.  
  
They know. He's positive they know, and even if they didn't, they will after tonight. There won't be a single doubt in any of their minds, and not because Charles did any tampering. If he's honest, he hasn't always been the easiest to love; he's chafed against it, his lonely soul a few beats out of sync and unable to synchronize. But here they are, and he's so grateful.  
  
There are tears in Charles' eyes as he clears his throat, and with a nudge of his power suddenly the room is quiet and focused on him. "Thank you all for coming, I -" They're not even at the ceremony part yet and he's choked up, has to take a breath to center himself. This is where, if they were anywhere else, he would push through by puffing out his chest and squaring up his shoulders. Make himself taller and raise his voice, falling back on ingrained mannerisms. But he doesn't. He looks up at Erik, a lump in his throat, and he knows he looks like a man seeing the sun for the first time but he isn't self-conscious about it. This is what they're here for.  
  
Let them see.  
  
Erik knows immediately when the ghostly-impulse pings and instead settles his hand on Charles's shoulder, grounding and drawing attention to himself. Charles is his in every possible definition of the word tonight. Mind, body and soul. He won't ever let him forget that, or the strength that it brings to them both, and for a moment he seems taller, more focused, pulling in attention on his own without any shift from Charles's abilities needed, an extension of Will that he's kept leashed the entire night. Always holding himself back, coiling his own mind against itself so it didn't rub up against others. He doesn't want anyone to be uncomfortable, though, and silently asks Charles to let him know if that's the case and he will draw back.  
  
Hank is perched by Raven's feet, who's sitting on the couch so he doesn't look as awkward, and Gabby's followed their lead instinctively so as not to create the same situation for her submissive. Gabby is uncomfortable, but she's dedicated to pushing through it, and so is Warren; the sensation completely and utterly foreign to him even in small doses and now shocking, but he presses his lips together and nods to himself. There's nothing wrong with being affected by Erik's Will, that's just the name of the game. He is what he is, and Erik is what Erik is. There's no use putting one's self down, that's exactly what he's drilled into Charles for year after year and it seems he does practice what he preaches; but he can definitely understand now the source of all that insecurity, having experienced it himself for this brief moment. Warren's submissive friends are seated cross-legged on the floor in a semi-circle.  
  
In their society, of course, Dominant and submissive dynamics are not merely between mates but also parents and their children, and Carmen knows his daughter well enough by now to offer her a hug instead of a place near his feet, where another submissive child might be more comfortable. Her response to his Will is peculiar; and he suspects it might be due to her mutation, that it passes through her in some capacity, especially since she's affected by it in some cases but not others, and not when Erik's being particularly overbearing in said moments.  
  
He gives Charles's shoulder where he's clasped it a slight squeeze, stooping over to press a kiss to his temple. _We love you,_ he whispers, because it's not just him in this room. They all love Charles in different ways, and he wants Charles to feel that, to look and really see the way they see him, this small gathering of people that have looked beyond the barrier of their own accord and remained because they loved what they saw there.  
  
It's entirely too much. Charles has known, intellectually, that he is loved by his small found family for years; he raised Raven himself, even when he faltered, brought Hank effortlessly into the folds, tethered Warren through the most devastating of losses and kept him afloat. He tried with Gabby, even if he failed. He was still lonely, and drifting, and hurting in ways they couldn't always understand, had never experienced and had no reference to help with, no sense of what he needed because Charles didn't, either; but they were there, and they're here now when he's found the missing piece in all of it. When he's found Erik, who he's spent his whole life reaching desperately for. _We love you, too,_ he murmurs right back, because it's true, and Erik doesn't need to doubt it. This room accepts him just as wholehearted as they do Charles, and that they're here -His lip is trembling. In this moment, it's him who can't speak. He turns his head as tears well up in his eyes, breathing steady to keep them from falling.  
  
Erik touches his face, frames it in both hands and bows their foreheads together. _You can,_ he says, smiling brightly, as though it's just the two of them. _You have always been my voice. Another in a long line of wondrous gifts you give me_ , he huffs a laugh, soft. _You can speak this, too. I know that you can._ Because it's what Erik needs, and he needs it because it's what they both need. And Charles is here to serve Erik, and Erik is here to _need things that make them both better. He is here, as he always will be-to take care of you, he strokes his cheek lovingly._ I am right here with you.  
  
Charles sucks in a breath, but nothing comes out except a shaky exhale. He had something planned, but he's forgotten entirely what it is and lacks the ability to recall it. Words sizzle up to the surface, pinging around his overactive mind, but they get lost as soon as they come, chasing themselves away and floating off. He doesn't have words for this. He shakes his head, helpless and nervous, a pit in his stomach. The last thing he wants is to disappoint Erik, especially now, especially here. _No, I can't. I can't, I'll -_ He bites down hard enough for his lip to bleed, tears stinging his eyes.  
  
Erik shakes his head. _No_ , he murmurs, and taps Charles's temple. None of that. He swipes away the blood with his sleeve, completely uncaring about the shirt. _You will be calm, and you will focus upon me,_ he Orders, gentle. _Because you will do nothing other than what I most love about you. You will be yourself. No matter what that means. And I will love you. So will everyone here. Neshom ve atzom shelcha einayim._ _You do not need words. Rak zchor_.


	50. the world's first wonder/nursed by the surge and thunder/how I laughed when the loud void lightened,

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i. _psalms_ 27:3  
> ii. _the way one animal trusts another_ , carl phillips  
> iii. _the awefull battle of the pekes and the pollicles_ , _cats_  
>  iv. _bloodflood_ alt-j  
> v. _before you the rain_ , tuvya ruebner

English is not Charles’ first language, nor the one he turns to when he’s stripped bare and raw, when there is nothing of him that’s hidden. Or perhaps that’s incorrect, and it is; English is his first language, within the modern conception of language, but certainly not his first form of communication. Just as Erik’s mutation is melted into and ingrained in every cell of his body, wrapped so intimately into his cells that being cut off from it is like the loss of breathing, like suffocating in the dark, just as he could feel it from his first conscious moments, so too could Charles’, though with a bit less physicality; his mind has always operated in a way divergent from most humans, including most telepaths, or perhaps he’s just more conscious of the way that they all work. When he’s nothing but instinct and emotion, nothing but his purest, most basic self, this is what comes most easily to him: the feedback loop of sensation and image and feeling, something that exists in all humans outside of the boundaries of language and culture and time and place. The thinking, feeling parts that the brain develops well before it understands words. Words are unnecessary for human communication, and anyone who has ever navigated a language barrier would know it - they are a construct, however helpful as tools, but communication is natural and intrinsic. There are ways to transcend those things, and Charles does.  
  
But he’s never used it for something like this. He’s never used it at all except with Erik and in bare-bones ways with those he’s closest with, skittish and timid like he anticipates being slapped on the wrist for the attempt. He certainly does.  
  
Not here, he thinks. Not here, not now, with these people gathered here to listen and know and love, when Erik is asking for him in his entirety. Erik’s Charles doesn’t hide away, not even when the exposure is frightening. He will serve him, in the best, most natural way he knows how, because tonight and every night there is not a single part of him that does not belong to Erik, that he will not give freely, even the parts that go with dragged feet.  
  
When he begins to project outward, when the room begins to noticeably hum with energy, warping it into a bubble of intimate, shared consciousness, there are audible gasps. Charles forces himself not to shy away, even as his breath hitches and he leans more fully into his Dominant.  
  
He shows them two little boys in a roof, nine years old, feet dangling and thunder in the distance and the desert spread out before them in a way Charles never should have experienced as a child but certainly did. One of their lips are moving, but it doesn’t matter what he’s saying; that Charles was chatty as a child, too, that he poked and nudged and huffed when he didn’t get the attention he wanted, that goes without saying. Now that he’s better investigated these memories, these dreamlike, far-off things, he thinks he was wrong. Erik heard, in his own way. He answered.  
  
Charles wasn’t alone. Neither was Erik.  
  
He doesn’t show or linger on any of the horrors, any of the awful, tragic things, the closed-doors or the broken places, not because he doesn’t trust those in this room with them (though there are those that he is not comfortable knowing, particularly the most innocent set of eyes, the youngest), but because they don’t belong here. They aren’t necessary here, and he doesn’t need to push them away because they don’t even appear. They have no place.  
  
Instead he shows them every joy; every echo of a laugh, every ghostly imprint of a smile, the sensation of dimples and crinkled eyes and scrunched noses from fond taps and acceptance and respect and love and trust and care and warmth and comfort and home. A brush of a hand over Charles' collar. Kisses to the temple. A hand at his back, around his waist, the warmth of an embrace after years without.  
  
Their Bonding, far above the city - and he feels the awe at that, can't help but grin - where they've already spoken their Ritual words, done the deed, and what's left is this.  
  
He finds his voice. "I've spent quite a lot of my life dreadfully lonely," he whispers, admitting it the room though they all know it. "But I never had to be. Erik," and he's only looking and focusing on one person now, the room drenched with it, his devotion and adoration coating all four walls and clinging to every mind, "I have known you for as long as I can remember, and loved you just as long, however impossible it may seem. You are..." He blinks back tears, and then lets them fall, not bothering to keep them out of his voice, either. "The most extraordinary person I have ever met, or will ever meet, and to know you is a privilege greater than I could imagine, but to belong to you makes me unspeakably fortunate. I will never understand why I was granted the right, but I won't question it. Just know it is a privilege beyond any other and the greatest honor I will ever receive. If I began to list the reasons I fell in love, from your gentle heart to your fierce protection to your silly jokes to the arch of your nose, I'm afraid we'd be here all night," and he laughs softly through tears, hears the reaction echoed, "But know this, please: when I Bonded to you, I did it with the full knowledge that everyday I would find a new reason to, and I was not wrong. Each and every day I discover a new way to be yours, Erik, and in doing so a new way to be me, and for that I cannot express my gratitude. You -"  
  
He has to take a sharp breath here. There are tears on his cheeks, but he lets them spill. "You have given me the gift of myself by simply being you, because I can now say with absolute certainty that I was meant to be yours, Erik. I was meant to be serve you, and belong to you, and love you. There is no part of me that is not yours, because there is no part of me that could be anything else. My whole life I've found myself searching for something I could not reach, and in you I've found it, but the truth is that it was always there. You were always there."  
  
Charles has to pause again, to sniffle. "I will spend the rest of my life serving you and loving you, being yours as I always was. I do have one thing to say, but I'm afraid it's not to you." Here he grins through the tears, even as they clog up his throat, watches the raise of eyebrow and delights in it. "It's to those boys on the roof, who need to hear this most."  
  
He takes a shaky breath, and everyone in the room can see the boys in question, flat on their backs now as they watch the shifting sky. "You aren't alone. You were never, not once, alone - except, perhaps, for a brief period before one of you was born, but luckily the other of you was not yet out of diapers," and he laughs here, too, the sound hoarse and sticking. "Everywhere you go, anything you do, any pain you feel, you are not alone. There is someone out there who is yours, who will lead and guide you, who loves you more than language can convey and knows you in equal measure. I know that sometimes you will be afraid, and you will be lonely, but to those boys, I want to say: it's alright. Because you have never done a single thing alone in your life, and you never will. There is someone for you, and they love you so very, very much. It is a love worth waiting for. A love worth fighting for. A love worth more than anything in this world."  
  
Charles is finding it difficult to breathe, his lips and jaws trembling as if he's got the shivers, but he steadies himself with Erik's Will and works right through it. "Everything leads to here. Everything I am, everything I was, everything I will be, it's yours. You are mine to serve, and listen to, respect and trust and love. Mine to lead and follow, in deference and devotion. My Dominant, my darling, my other half. I Bond myself to you, Erik Lehnsherr, today and every day."

* * *

It goes without saying that every person in this room, perhaps even in this building or maybe the whole world itself for the briefest of moments-a bare flicker, their own memories supplanting Charles's the further away they become, old hurts scarred over with fingertips running the whitened flesh instead of gaping, eviscerated skin-  
  
a woman looks up in the morning sun of _Mahane Yehuda_ , recalling one no longer with her, Fridays alone with too many bags of spices in her basket; she's always recalculating, he used to do the shopping-the stunned father running toward his infant daughter as she stumbles amongst pebbles a towering blizzard away-she's only just beginning to take her first steps, and her fists already ball up when strangers come into the house and she can throw a tantrum a mile, but her grin is just as vibrant and he never wants her to lose it, he has to let her fall if she's to dust herself off-best friends make a pact to raise children together, they just click even though their society doesn't understand how two Dominants could make a proper home-a volunteer lets an Alzeimer's patient teach her piece jigsaws, no one else realizes he's a prodigy due shaking hands and the fact he's blistered and shouted his entire extended family to opposite corners of the globe,  
  
that every person who has ever been impacted by a love-  
  
conventional, high-school sweethearts who married and selected their post-secondary institutions together and who struggle with being irritated by their spouse's flaws before remembering their gifts-unconventional, platonic-a squadmate who's spent the better part of 18 months in _Fallujah_ convincing everyone he can convert piss into water being the only one who knows what you're going through when you receive word your folks are getting a divorce-familial, a mentor, a one night stand that doesn't know your name but knows your father used to do cocaine with you when you were eight years old-  
  
is moved to tears. None any less obvious than the other, but each in their own way; affected by what Charles has shown them. Not influenced into a reaction, not forced to display, but it's impossible to see love, really see it, as a sentient human being capable of affective empathy, without reacting in some capacity. Warren dabs neatly at his eyes with a handkerchief, Kitty is sniffling in defiance, Carmen is grim-that training runs deep and the only one in the room who can see it for what it is, knows he is shivering on the inside-Raven is smiling, Gabby has hidden her face in Daniel's shoulder, and his in her hair.  
  
It goes without saying, but the world speaks.  
  
When Charles looks to Erik, holds out his hand to unfold the kaleidoscope colors of his mind, the sprawling Landscape and desert plains eclipsed by snow-capped mountains and icy fjords, he shakes his head. He takes the hand-G-dwilling there will never be a day he cannot-but Charles bounces harmlessly off when he moves to tug apart those strands as he's done every day for Erik since they've known one another. Only Erik's very soul, the essence of him condensed into that glowing strand tying them together regardless of hell or high-water, tells him that it is not due to distress and it is not due to rejection.  
  
News footage of the protest shows them reacting. It shows Erik mouthing the word _innocent_ , it shows his passion and clarity but it does not, nor does any footage, broadcast the sound of his voice. With one very stark exception, that dark day of his trial when Sebastian Shaw highlighted to the world his true face, his Devil-form, gnarled and ashen-skies coating the tops of polished leather shoes, obscured in flashbulbs like a psychic vampire, invisible to reflections because he is reflected in nothing. When Erik fell to his knees and moaned _Go away_ mid-terror, and when he thrust himself in front of Charles to beg mercy, to spare him.  
  
In individual moments between certain members of this room he has spoken, but when even more than two of these same people come together, the sound vanishes.

* * *

The unit that Carmen was part of, is nicknamed _The People of Silence_. The saying goes, _As the bat emerges from the darkness, as the blade cuts through with silence, as the grenade smashes in rage_. He traversed from Sudan to Brussels to the Land, gripped withered hands in his and watched bloated bellies burst open, he stood dressed in regalia and denied dying mothers entry to safe haven because they didn't meet the criteria and he was expected to remain _silent_ and he did not. He raged, he was the darkness and the blade and the bomb and the quietly, secretly shoved under the rug because he could not abide it when his commanding officer told him to _just follow orders_ , not from a nation built on the backs of blood excised by men who uttered those same syllables like a swinging guillotine.  
  
And the only other person in the room who knows this as deeply and intimately as Carmen is Charles, who is desperately in love with a man who cannot speak. Conditioned into him through electricity and screaming and water, by a man who would turn out to be among those men that excised such a heinous payment for their joy. And now everyone in the room is watching Erik, every muscle atwitch with the slightest tick of his Will swaying to and fro, a blade that is the grass, and they expect that Charles will graciously interpret it for them, show them in their minds as though they were right there, allow it to seem as though they heard it straight from his lips.  
  
"I love him," he gasps instead. It's so soft it would be inaudible but for the silence that welcomes it.  
  
Erik's eyes are wide in shock, because he's intended to speak so many times before and always it caught inside him, a fly trapped in acid. He isn't eloquent and he isn't pretty. The Ritual Vows never make it in. But it bursts out of him in raspy, harshly-accented staccato, fast and rough. "I love him. He is mine. I am his I always, reh, _respect_ -trust him keep me safe." He's clutching Charles's hand in a bruising vice-grip, drawing cuts across the skin and terrified. "I love him because he reads me stories and kisses me. And take ca- _care_ of him-" Erik is not exempt from affectation; his eyes hot and wet. "I fly with him everywhere," he whispers-the declaration lacking context. "I have everything. I wa- I _guh_ \- give everything. Anything."  
  
But Charles told him he loved his voice most of all.  
  
So he isn't silent.  
  
"I love him."

* * *

Charles' heart drops into his stomach and suddenly he cannot breathe.  
  
He heard Erik's voice before he knew it was a gift. He knew it long before that, but before he understood he had Erik's voice, raspy and quiet and deep and compelling, Commanding, before he knew the significance, he had already decided that it was his very favorite sound. When the world is silent and Charles needs noise to fill it, it's with the timber of Erik's voice. He never expected to hear it now, not without the interference of his telepathy, whether projected or by his own mouth. When he does, he can't quite explain the force of what happens. He doesn't think there's a word, a phrase, or even a concept to cover it.  
  
What he does know is that he falls to his knees and sobs.  
  
He keeps Erik's hand in his, but he drops to his knees, reverent and shaking, tears wetting his face as he looks up and smiles through them, brighter than he ever has and with every ounce of love he has in his heart. He looks up at the World, and the World looks back. "He loves you, too," he whispers, and becomes it. "I am yours. Thank you. I hear you, Erik." And he always will.  
  
Erik shudders, pressing both of his fingers into Charles's hair, gentle and soft and apologetic for his poor palm. _I love you,_ he says softly, in the way he's more comfortable with after many long moments of piecing himself back together, in no small part to Charles, which is the way of things. Erik to touch him and magnetize the lodestone with which to lead him home and Charles regarding him with such open, piercing submission freely given to him in front of all who matter-there is no way Erik can't become himself again in the face of it, the Erik that Charles knows, or at least an Erik who can speak full sentences.  
  
 _You listen to my poetry and take Naomi out flying and doodle little Pac-Mans in my beautiful gift, and tell everyone nice things about me all the time. You like my voice and work sixteen hour days because you don't want your patients to go home sad. Your favorite sound is laughing. You are beautiful when you kneel. When you move it is like dancing but you don't know it. You hum under your breath when I pray. You love your sister because she's blue and terrifying- not because she is blue-_ At this point Charles is projecting and everyone who hears that laughs wetly.  
  
Erik smiles, sunny and bright and only for Charles, eyes creased and nose wrinkled fondly. It's clear he means to continue, to speak from his heart as well as from within the place where they are at peace. Not content with merely a stuttered proclamation of that which he hopes by now everyone already knows. This is a Bonding Ceremony, it is a place of vows and of public acknowledgment, so he pulls another deep breath into his lungs and tries his very best to verbalize the tsunami of affection and fierce loyalty and desire that lives within him, always.  
  
 _I know you aren't perfect. You can be petty and petulant and you like to provoke people and push buttons and I'm not too good at that and I would never change it. I love it because it teaches me how. You were loved from the moment you could breathe because even though I wasn't born yet my soul was alive because you were alive, and it's OK if you don't know that's true, I do. You are my favorite person. I get to see you every morning when I wake up and every night before I go to bed. Being your Dominant is the single-greatest joy I have ever known and will ever know; positively affecting your existence is the most wonderful gift I have ever been given and I am so, so honored to spend the rest of my life trying my hardest to care for you and protect you and make you smile._  
  
For the only time that he will ever voluntarily do this, he removes his ring only so that he can allow it to levitate in the center of his palm, for everyone to see.  
  
 _On this I inscribed I will guide and I will walk. An equivalent phrase may be said, Ani ledodi vedodi li, I am to my beloved as my beloved is to me. In Hebrew this makes the acronym ELUL. Ayin, Lamed, Vav, Lamed. During the month of Elul we add Psalms 27. In Palms 27:3 it says Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear;/though war should rise up against me, even then will I be confident. It is because I have my beloved by my side, and it doesn't matter what rises up against us, I will love you until it no longer threatens. I swear to you in front of everyone present I will keep you and protect you and fill your life with good feelings, until all that has risen up against you no longer threatens. And after that, just because I want to._

* * *

It should be noted that by the time Erik is finished speaking, Charles is a trembling mess on his knees, wracked with quiet, shuddering sobs and sniffling to clear his nose enough that he can properly breathe. He never thought he would be here, and yet here he is.  
  
With a wet face and a running nose, cheeks ruddy where the tears irritated the skin, he looks up and finds he doesn't have words again. He tugs on Erik's hand instead, a soft, imploring noise; he doesn't want him to come down, he's perfectly content to be lowered on his knees in front of everyone, but he wants his attention even though he knows he has it. He has never been more outwardly submissive in front of others, not without violently railing against it, and that he's in subspace, deep down in it, goes without saying. This is Erik's Charles, and in turn, Charles' Charles. So he tugs and he looks up and he trusts that Erik will take care of him, and he doesn't hide it.  
  
There's nothing to be ashamed of. There's nothing to hide here.  
  
Erik crouches a little bit anyway so he can properly rest his hands on either side of Charles's face, an action completely ubiquitous with who Erik is, with who Erik is with Charles, unable to resist touching him tenderly at any opportunity it arises. Everyone else in the room has instantly evaporated, which is also a common theme for them as those closest to them will attest. Hi, sweetheart, he smiles down at him and kisses him softly. Despite their proximity to public, it's not exactly chaste, either, warm and long and lingering, just because-he can, because nothing else matters to him in any given moment than Charles, than tending to him, making sure he's OK, wiping his tears and shielding him from the world.  
  
Charles sniffles louder, still crying but certainly not because he's distressed. He's breathless and wide-eyed and bright after the kiss, smiling that slightly crooked, dimple-cheeked smile that puts the sun to shame, eyes creased with it in the way Erik loves. When he reaches up, it's an unconscious thing, images and sensation accompanying the touch because when he was younger he needed to touch to project. He doesn't anymore, especially not with Erik, but it makes him shiver with the connection. His mind is open, wide, wide open, not projecting to anyone but Erik except in the overflow of raw, stunned contentment, joy and love. He's tumbled into that place where words don't come quite as easily, but he doesn't think Erik will be upset by it. He just waits, looking up with all the devotion in the world, softly reverent; letting Erik guide. A quick intermission to know he was acknowledged, to assure himself that he's safe in subspace even in front of others, that this is for them.  
  
 _Safe_ , Erik whispers back, completely gone to anything other than Charles, tendrils of Will pulsating through the room so vibrantly anyone even remotely tipping submissive will find themselves tumbling headlong into subspace right after Charles, but everyone is safe here, and everyone has someone here they can depend on; Erik isn't responsible for them and he doesn't have to be. It should be obvious to anyone that knows him even a little that this would be the inevitability, and anyone who isn't comfortable-in more than just the cursory bizarreness to the higher-Doms, which has faded by now, he knows Charles will help him solve that, too.All that he has to care about is his submissive and his eyes are half-lidded, utterly devoted. _Safe. Safe, always safe, my beautiful boy who I love so much. I could never begin to express it linearly. My only hope is-that you know. That's all I care about. Do you know? Hm?_ his hands slip to Charles's neck, on either side not around his throat, rubbing under his jaw and over the mark he made this morning and against his collar.  
  
Charles knows. He knows, he always knows, he could never question it. He presses it into Erik's mind, the concept of his complete, unwavering trust in that, rather than specific words. Leans into Erik's fingers, murmuring softly. He reaches up again, touching Erik's arm, blinking with that brilliant smile still as he thinks a question without words or real intent - ? His head is tilted, but it's just as much a display of submission, giving Erik access, as it is curiosity. No one else exists.  
  
Erik blinks at him slowly, warmth unfurling in his belly and spreading out to his fingertips and he lays kisses all along Charles's jaw, down the line of his throat, touching that spot where he's most sensitive and rising up to meet him when he urges closer, humming lowly. "Mine," he whispers back right into Charles's ear, not a projection because it doesn't need to be, because there is no one else here for him. He can't stop it any more than a river can stop coursing, the tone of his praise becoming thicker, richer for it.  
  
Charles shivers, tears still clinging to his eyelashes. No one else is here for him, but he's still peripherally aware that there are people in the room, and he bites his lip to hold back the low, needy whimpers he wants to make; instead he follows every touch, mirrors every movement, soft and obedient on his knees for Erik where he belongs. He tugs at Erik's hand again to get his attention, projecting yours in as raw of a way he knows how, with the echo of it deep in his soul, and then the question again, this time more insistent. He looks up at Erik expectantly, waiting for the World to answer.  
  
 _Mmm_ , Erik wants more of those, though, and he wants them right up against his fingertips and into his mouth and against his body, and he wants-wants- _nnnh, do they need to stay?_ Can they go somewhere that Erik can peel back more of the gorgeous layers of submission Charles is sinking deeper, deeper into and Erik is fast veering into the filtered-off swirls of Dominion that are very much private, but it doesn't matter because Charles is before him-it's like it's new, like it's new all the time like he's just discovered this magnificent sparkling corner of the universe he wants to bathe slip into like a warm bath, but he has to take care of Charles, that's his main priority, and that means ensuring that he's comfortable and maybe they're entirely floating off into the ether now, but eventually this will be his life and he won't be comfortable if Erik goes off the rails, so he inhales slowly, rubbing at the juncture where Charles's neck meets his shoulders, then kneading into his back, soothing instead of dark and needy. His own head tilts and his eyebrows raise, a huff of soft amusement falling from his lips. _Show me?_ he implores, having gleaned only the intention of a question without any specifics, but there's absolutely no impatience there at all. It's fond, gentle.  
  
A whimper, then, and Charles lips purse, the beginnings of a pout, because he's floating and he's not sure if he can because he's not entirely sure what he was asking, either, or Erik would know. He wants to show Erik, though, to be good, so he hums under his breath, and touches Erik again, letting everything flow out of him through the touch. A conversation from this morning plays, softened out corners and tinged with adoration, with contentment. Then he presses the question back in, overlaying it in an intricate, unique form of expression that so few know is Charles' most natural form. Erik had something planned. Erik had a gift? He bites his lip. Anything Erik wants to give him, he wants to receive, if he thinks he deserves it.  
  
Erik lets out a laugh, grinning brightly and holds up two fingers. _You deserve everything_ , he tells him, kissing him again. This time softer, sweeter. Beautiful, he can't help it, every time Charles is like this, down this deep, the way he communicates an absolute treasure to behold. More than most Erik is acutely geared toward understanding it, and sometimes he wonders if that's nature or nurture. He sometimes laments and worries he's the only one who does, because the one he is closest to, Raven, was afraid of telepathy in her formative years.  
  
Warren, perhaps? He's the fearless type, and Erik's been privy to the few times Warren's offered for Charles to take a dive into his mind. Warren's the same on the inside as he is on the outside, the only difference being that he keeps his grief under wraps so as not to upset the normals, but around Charles he's perfectly blunt about it. That's not what was relevant there, and Erik laughs again and he reaches into the pocket of his jeans.  
  
 _This one is a bit silly,_ he warns. It's a promise as much as it is a present, but he holds out a belt buckle without the belt on the palm of his hand, a perfect replica of one that Charles would recognize as the same type he wore that day at the CIA Agent Stevens let him slip past in error. _Do you remember?_ Of course Charles does, but Erik just wants to be sure they're both paying attention to the same thing; it's the only reason he ever asks.  
  
Charles' breath hitches as if he's looking at something precious instead of mundane, nodding breathlessly. His eyes are wide, but he's nothing but delighted and fiercely curious. It's funny, if he thinks about it; Charles has quite a lot of trauma relating to belts, the buckle certainly included, but he's nothing but fond of this one, and one of his first dips into submission included a belt around his throat. He wasn't frightened. Things that should be frightening aren't with Erik, and if they are he still feels safe. Now he's not thinking of those things, focused instead entirely on his Dominant, eyes wandering from the buckle to his face before he reaches out tentatively, touching again so the memory unfolds for both of them. It was the first time he'd seen Erik's mutation in anything but memories, and he'd been completely, utterly fascinated, awed and charmed. Erik made him a beautiful flower, and Charles' thoughts are tinged with a vague sense of sadness, of loss; he hadn't gotten to keep it.  
  
Well, Erik grins, he'll like his present, then. The buckle suddenly unfolds entirely, metal reshaping and restructuring itself until it begins to resemble the exact shape and structure of the item he'd first made for Charles, an intricate rose; only this one comes with ornate inscriptions and designs etched into it on the deepest levels, some of which are only sensible to someone with Erik's mutation; which also means that Charles and Charles alone can see them. It ends up with quite a few more strips than what could possibly be involved in a buckle of that size-Erik had shaped and stretched and outright created them from thin air, the new ones shinier, and that in and of itself forms a pattern of light and dark reflective, bronze material. _I wanted you to have it,_ he murmurs, levitating it up so Charles can hold it and keep it if he wishes. _But-you know, that wonderful gift that you gave me-it took you so much time, and effort, and thought,_ he begins to add softly. _You had space, you infused every particle of that with your deliberate care, and as much as I might try, I simply can't produce something on that level, because-_ he isn't sure how to word this; especially because he absolutely wants to ensure it is interpreted correctly. _Because I can create things with a thought. If I can imagine it, I can design it, and so it loses its sense of-do you understand? What you gave me is one of a kind. It cannot be replicated. Even if it could be somehow by a master artist, it will never hold the same feelings that yours does. It will never have the same sensations, it will never be a thing that you created. And part of that comes from the amount of time you spend with it._ This is not the overall point he's trying to make, it's just background information; and he hopes that he's making sense. He thinks he might be, given that Charles can literally feel and sense and utilize his mutation, he believes so.  
  
Charles is listening, always listening, but he's also staring in awe. The rose is cupped in his hands as if it is a fragile, breakable thing, as if it is too precious to be held too firmly, though he knows in a moment Erik could recreate it and fix it if he were somehow to damage it. He doesn't think it's any less beautiful or worthwhile as a result. Erik's ability to create is utterly fascinating and wonderful to him, his favorite of what are functionally endless applications of his mutation. He's promised on multiple occasions, and it will always stand, that he will never allow those hands to do anything but care and create again. No more blood, no more pain. But he nods, because he does understand, holding the rose closely and stroking it gently, a soft, adoring smile on his lips, projecting grateful contentment as he waits for Erik to continue.  
  
That reaction really does make Erik smile on the inside, as though someone's massaged a hard knot out of his heart and the sensation melts into him like butter. He trails his own fingers over Charles's, adoring him adoring his gift; this is one aspect of his mutation that he's never lost touch with, and he could not be more grateful to his former self for anything in his life, ever. _I am so pleased that you like it,_ he whispers, taking a brief segue from what has essentially become a lecture on the nuances of his mutation; well, he's Bonded to _Professor X_ , so it's probably not all that remiss.  
  
 _What I mean to say, is not to disparage myself, either,_ Erik replies, still-soft. _Merely that I can always tell the difference between that which is formed, such as your wonderful book, and that which is created, such as this rose. When something is formed, its molecules are less precise, it holds an imprint of fingers and hands and the person that comes with. But with this, it is like a tracing, it is exact, even though it looks unique, and it is unique in that it did not exist prior to this moment, I could make you a hundred of them and they would all be exactly alike_. It's obvious that he prefers the part of the equation that includes people in it; but people usually take their own capabilities for granted.  
  
 _I want this to symbolize to you that I will always have-_ he laughs a bit. _So very much inspiration, for as long as I am alive, to create for you. I will never stop creating for you. I hope that you like them-_ and already Charles has amassed a collection of trinkets; some modified from bits like the belt buckle and some conjured out of nothing more than a metal flake that's fallen off a chair, but all the same. Each singing for him, a poem, a phrase, something that Erik's encountered that reminds him of Charles, a bracelet or a watch to wear for the day, necklaces; all sorts of things. His own ring is the best of both worlds, a strip of Erik's creation right down the center melded with its original metals and blended with a platinum sheen-both for aesthetic purposes and for durability.  
  
 _I know I can go a bit overboard sometimes, and I don't want you to wind up like Ariel from The Little Mermaid in a sea of useless coffee mugs, but-you are-my muse. You are the gift to me, in this instance._ Oops, he got cheesy again.  
  
Charles doesn't know what Erik thought might be silly about this. In fact, he's more than touched, and it shows all over his face, bleeds out through their Bond and projects into the room around them in that humming, psionic feedback loop. There are tears in his eyes again, though they don't fall, and he sniffles, rubbing his cheek against Erik's leg as he swallows around a new lump in his throat. He doesn't have words right now, isn't quite sure where they've gone off to, but he tries to properly convey his reaction regardless, in bursts of _gratitude/awe/pleased, pretty,_ clinging sensations and concepts that he wraps around Erik's body as much as he imprints them in his mind. He will never tire of receiving these gifts. When they are old and grey, when he has been bestowed thousands upon thousands, he will still stare in awe and wonder, still be filled with near childlike glee. He will keep them and he will love them and he will cherish them, treasure them, touch them gently and let them remind him of their creator's love and care. They're gorgeous to him and there is nothing to disparage. He is so incredibly humbled and honored to inspire them, and he hopes to do so for the rest of his life. He kisses the rose in his palm, and then nuzzles into Erik. He sends _thank you/thank you/thank you_ , more the feeling, warm and bone-deep, than any words, humming with it.  
  
"Oh," Erik gasps aloud, still firmly entrenched in that space that's just-them (by now Raven and Hank have guided their guests into some party games and gently led Erik and Charles into a far-away corner where they can just Pairbond it out, Warren's flabbergasted at the entire thing and Hank's assuring him this is normal-and Raven's laughing, completely delighted about it), deeply touched by the curls of sensation blooming beneath his skin and his eyes flutter at it, brain wrapped in a big warm blanket. _I will never, ever tire of this_ , he rumbles lowly, stroking a fingernail along Charles's temple for reference. _Your gorgeous mind. Feeling it. The privilege I have to feel it. You are incredible.  
_

* * *

Charles blooms under the praise, unfolding in an intricate, subtle map of feelings and images, Erik privy to all of them on top of his glowing smile. He's practically purring now, rubbing his cheek against Erik's jeans, his hands, the cool metal of the rose; it shouldn't be at all foreign for Erik, because Charles this deep into subspace is built on sensations, sensual and soft, is always nuzzling and kissing and seeking touch. He becomes agitated and anxious when he isn't, actually, but he's perfectly content to be on his knees here. Right now he's looking up at Erik with more devotion than most will ever feel, reaches up with one hand to touch and press another question, a silent _?_ This time the intent is more clear, not so much a specific at all as a request for Erik to guide. He has a present too, he remembers, but he'll wait patiently and he also doesn't want to get up and get it, so there's that, too.  
  
 _Mm hm,_ Erik agrees, and when it comes to the arena of touch and senses, he and Charles are perfectly in sync. Erik is always finding some excuse, or simply none at all, to touch him. His face, his hair, his neck, his shoulders and back and even his ass in public, kissing and stroking and pressing himself up close, some of it sensual and some of it sensory and some of it rather blatant, but all the same end goal. Connection, especially when they're in an area that he can't talk-it's how he makes his presence known, really a form of primary language for him as well, having learned early on in his captivity that it was the form of communication least likely to result in black eyes and screaming fists, and the most likely to result in food and water, but he hasn't yet made that connection in the real, content to nuzzle and pet Charles to his heart's content-and then comes up with an ingenious plan. _Where?_ he gestures with a flick of his fingers around the apartment, indicating that he'll obtain it from its location and bring it to them-that way neither of them need to leave. Unless they must? In which case-Erik's curiosity might well win the day.  
  
Not for this one. Charles bites his lip, and then he ducks his head, lowers his eyes, makes a soft, vaguely distressed noise although there's no real upset here. He shakes his head, folds himself over and buries himself in Erik's leg. No, he's changed his mind. Besides, Erik put up two fingers before - _why? Is there more?_ He's curious, too, and eager, and it pings all around them, bouncing off the walls.  
  
Erik tilts his head and then sends an impression of _bedroom/home/safe_ with a little blink, relying on concepts and flashes of imagery instead of words, and it's a good deal faster that way, too. Usually he just lets himself float around in Charles's presence and hopes he can glean whatever he is thinking and feeling at the moment; well, positive that's the case since Charles is always listening and responding to him; and he feels like he does the same in return-but there's something interesting about directing it, too, and he's curious-if they can create a verbal language, have they created a mental one? And that's the kicker, Erik's mind goes off in hundreds of directions at once; not the whirring and processing of Charles but rather he starts in one place and ends up in several others, each with their own distinct tracks, nothing relevant or in some cases even in response to the thing that was impressed upon him previously. So many directing it could be of some help? Wait, this isn't where they started. He grins sheepishly. Telepathy is wonderful.  
  
Charles' brain is meant to process everything all at once, to glean information in non-linear, scattered patterns, so he doesn't need the direction, can usually always tell where it is Erik is coming from and follow the threads in a way no one else would be able to, but the direction helps. Both of them, really, since his mind is always off doing about a million tasks at once, rapidly processing data and leaving it to be interpreted at later dates and recalled at will. If you took Charles' brain and used it as a power source, it could probably light up the globe just by the sheer amount of work it does on the daily, but that's definitely a tangent. He glances, briefly, at the guests still gathered here, bites down harder on his lip. He'll follow Erik's lead. He is still fretting, though, anxious little bubbles springing up that he attempts to pop, still hidden in Erik's legs.  
  
Erik shakes his head, touching Charles's face. _Show me,_ he whispers. _Is it the guests? Gone. Lehitra'ot._  
  
Charles shakes his head at that, but doesn't offer more. He's just worked himself up into another minor tizzy, that's all. It's silly for him to be worried. Blinking up at Erik, he presses the question from before into their shared consciousness, still pinging eager curiosity.  
  
Erik shakes his head again, that's obviously not going to fly. _Har'e li,_ he repeats again. Minor or not, Erik is perfectly content to take this detour; to make sure. If it is, then it's merely an added confirmation that things are already OK. If it's not, then he knows and they can deal with it in the moment.  
  
Charles pouts, but he probably should have expected that. He unfolds everything he has to show; he's got two gifts left, still, and he's incredibly nervous about both of them for vastly different reasons. He's uncertain and shy and perhaps even a little anxious. He's not sure Erik will like them, that they'll please him, and he wants desperately to please him. In fact, it's all he needs right now.  
  
 _Oh_ , Erik smiles at him. He is glad he did ask, and he tugs Charles closer to him and rubs his back, letting his utter confidence in the fact that he loves them, currently, already, without even knowing simply because they are a gift, given to him by Charles, something Charles thought of in order to try and please him, there is no possible way it could go badly unless Charles got him a bacon double cheeseburger. He laughs softly. _Well, my gift is upstairs,_ he murmurs, more directed now. _I do not think they will miss us one iota if we make ourselves scarce._ It's a Bonding Ceremony after all; and Erik remembers something about his own culture all the sudden, a distant memory that comes pinging back, and his smile returns once more, slow and growing larger by the moment. It's called _yichud_ , and it occurs in Jewish Bonding Ceremonies right after the couple stand under the _chuppah_ , where they are immediately sequestered away for legitimately mandatory alone time. Not for anything, you know, but usually celebrations go on for a while and hosts are expected to host. The divergence is that in Israel, hosts are expected to vanish, to relish their status as Bonded; to talk, to take a few moments to just breathe and exist in their relationship before returning to the fray. Maybe they'll make their own tradition. Being a Pairbond must factor in.  
  
Charles smiles softly. There's no way for him to deny that, the truth of it, especially because he did not get Erik a double bacon cheeseburger. He takes a breath and nods, still pressed flush against Erik and unwilling to part. He certainly isn't going to complain about them making themselves scarce for a bit, especially if it's in accordance to a tradition Erik remembers, a blending of two and all, and his sweet yes, Erik is the first worded thought he's had in a while. He's fiercely curious, anyway, and it's taken up a large space between them, humming and buzzing and nudging, gentle little _what is it? What is it?_ He's been waiting all day, very patiently, mind you.

* * *

It makes Erik laugh all the way up the stairs, and he realizes only now-listen, Erik can be scatterbrained under the best of circumstances, living with Charles he's not at his top mojo game when he's too busy being distracted by his wonderful, perfect, extraordinary Bonded just walking around, being beautiful and smart and funny. So, he may or may not have forgotten that he can... fly. He can literally fly himself upstairs instead of leaning over and trying to manhandle himself using his left hand cross-side on the wrong end of the railing. He levitates up and does a little shimmy like Elvis Presley and beckons Charles to _'race him'_ to find out. And when he pouts and keeps asking _'what is it? what is it?_ ' just for that, Erik makes him wait even longer, with a tap on his very cute little nose. It is not anything as- well, mostly because Erik likes to create in that arena, and to surprise in the moment, which is why he deliberately waited until the last possible second to even plan a gift so that he couldn't accidentally let it slip; through no fault of Charles's, but he really wanted these to be a surprise. Only when the clock began to run down did he sit down and put in the time, and contrary to what he said about his last gift, this did take time, it took probably the most amount of time Erik's ever taken to create anything that he can remember. He lifts it out of the bureau and holds out a small rectangular box, wrapped neatly in Wile. E. Coyote and the Roadrunner wrapping paper, with Roadrunner mid-fall off a cliff with an anvil hanging over his head and a smug Coyote repeated in cartoonish exaggeration.  
  
Wrapping paper! How had Charles not thought of wrapping paper? He'd just handed his gift over, totally bare, without even considering it. He huffs for only a moment at himself before he's shaking it right off, much more concerned with holding this gift in gentle hands, unwrapping it as delicately and carefully as possible even through his eagerness. Whatever it is, it's already infinitely precious to him and he loves it more than he does most things because it's from Erik, something Erik is giving him. He'd even keep the silly wrapping paper, tape it to the walls and cherish that, too. Erik really could give him a piece of lint and he'd be honored and flustered.  
  
Erik snorts and crumples it up for him, but he is delighted he likes the wrapping paper-the present inside is decidedly less silly, so perhaps something more austere was in order, but he couldn't help himself once he saw it he had to have it. Charles doesn't recognize it immediately because it's in a different shape than the one in the mindscape, but there it is all the same-his collar. The way they once planned during the mindspace, for Erik to create it to his liking. Also, Erik...misled, but it was for a good cause!  
  
He's been planning this for a long time: he used real materials, manipulated with some nifty augmentations by his abilities for a truly original, and handmade project. Design-wise this collar is very simple, no interlocking spirals here. From the outside, it's a single strip of metal with a circle on one end and a bar on the other, purely for aesthetic purposes, that don't close all the way around. It does not stay plain for long. The color from a distance is a sleek, but slightly darker silver. Up-close it gains tones of warm brown, and flecks of pink and blue in trace amounts of osmium he underlaid so they reflected the light in very subtle ways. Barely visible to the human eye yet enough to draw it back again. The underside is a solid black strip of rhodium on the inside of the circle, the top and bottom of the bars, and where the collar doesn't mold into his flesh.  
  
At first glance it seems comprised of solid color, when up close, it's inscriptions and designs interwoven together just like in the mindscape. Much the way Charles had been able to include memories and emotions into his vessel, Erik didn't elect for that with Charles because Charles can remember everything perfectly; so Erik imbued each fleck and mark with music, with poetry, with literature-his favorites, new pieces that Erik collected over the last little while since he'd incepted this-since he'd first created this concept in the mindspace-with art written on the underside of molecules-and these are mostly little doodles. Stick figures and silly animations, a spider chasing a dog chasing a banana with legs and a Mrs. Pac-Man (this was added at the last second) to match Erik's Pac-Man.  
  
Words and phrases, in Hebrew and in English alike. _Psalms 27:3, Ruth 1:16,_ and _Song of Songs 2:16, The Once and Future King_ , the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion, _Breakfast at Tiffany's_ and _Casablanca_ and the parts of the cartoons he and Raven had laughed at the most. The ratios for his perfect cup of tea printed beside a word-for-word debate they'd once held on the merits of tea and coffee. Erik's observations about Charles, Erik's observations about life. Charles's observations when he makes them in Erik's company. The thing about writing your information on molecules? There's a lot of molecules. Charles could spend all day, every day, for the next eighty years going through this and he wouldn't discover it all; and Erik could never write on them all. As long as Charles is near Erik, he is a walking blank canvas and he'll always know where to go if he's itching for something new. He'll form road maps, places he likes to go. Places he likes to hide. Places he doesn't like. Some aren't all that chipper, some are sad, some are grieving, some are heavy. Some aren't even words or images or sounds at all, they're just endless depths of feeling in lithography. what a feeling looks like in harmonics.  
  
It's perfectly calibrated to mold to Charles's skin, fitting into the grooves where it's most comfortable, and melding itself there the way fabric does so it rests on two specific points of flesh. Last but not least is a single, 200-ish micrometer-long (about the size of a human hair) strip on the bottom woven out of a metallic microlattice as its base component which literally strings electroless nickel plating over a polymer that's fed through intersecting light patterns that form a full rainbow, and the thread right above this is etched with _Somewhere Over the Rainbow_ by Judy Garland.  
  
Once it does go on, it will snap itself in place and become virtually indestructible (and demagnetized so it's perfectly safe for an MRI or CAT scan), impossible for anyone but Erik to remove. In a way Erik has essentially created his own element, by altering the density of different areas of the collar to make it so all but a chainsaw couldn't cut through this baby and even then it's looking bad for the chainsaw. Calling it one metal or another is an approximation at best, given how melded together everything is; the best qualities of each.  
  
Erik holds his breath as Charles takes it in, feeling suddenly terrified, well and truly terrified. He should have done something different, something better-oh no-

* * *

There are no words that exist in any known language to properly explain Charles' reaction. None that he could use, none Erik could, that would ever come close to something sufficient.  
  
He's trembling as he holds it. Shaking, head to foot, like a leaf in a breeze, lips parted into a silent little 'o.' There are new tears on his face, but no sound escapes his mouth even as they begin to fall freely, gathering at his chin and slipping right off. He doesn't make any attempt to wipe them. Then he moves. Unlike the all-at-once, shocked fall to his knees earlier, this is different. It is slow, and graceful, and utterly deliberate, every movement displayed slow-motion for Erik's pleasure as he carefully, lovingly folds himself at his feet.  
  
It's a position he's taken before while compelled by his instincts in every direction. That's not why it happens now. Nothing about that experience had been mindless, but to say it had been totally mindful would be a blatant lie; they'd both followed the tug and worked it out from there. This is not that. This is a conscious decision, not dragged out of him before his mind can catch up but wholly agrees with, but first formed in the mind and then acted out by his body. For submissives across culture and language and time, he would wager to say the Posture is fairly ubiquitous. It's deference in stereo, back arched sharply, head all the way to the floor at a Dominant's feet, completely prostrated. It's not a solitary Posture, nor one that is often demanded; instead, this is a submissive's prerogative, an offering more than any other. He's seen it used to beg forgiveness after a wrongdoing, usually in the most extreme of circumstances, but that isn't why he does it now and he truly hopes he never feels the need to, though he certainly would. Mostly, though, it seems to be used for exactly this.  
  
For moments of wholeheartedly unspeakable reverence and gratitude.  
  
Charles doesn't so much say _I am yours_ as his entire being becomes it, mind and body and heart singing it in tandem.  
  
Erik crouches a little to touch his hair, shocked by the gesture, overcome with a deep well of gratitude and love that bubbles over through his fingertips as they card gently through the strands at the back of Charles's neck. For a long moment he simply exists like this, with Charles at his feet, words entirely unnecessary between them before he tilts his chin up with a fingertip, eyes open to a soft smile that hasn't left his features since Charles went down. _Would you like to put it on?_ he asks, a quiet murmur.  
  
Charles' eyes are teary, his lip trembling something fierce, but that smile is mirrored on his own expression, eyes bigger and bluer than usual. _Yes, please, sir_ , he whispers between them, the words winding themselves around Erik's fingers, his legs, his whole body, thrumming energy and a caress of Charles' mind turned physical.  
  
Erik still can't process the fact that Charles has offered such a Posture to him-the few times it's happened equally as stunning and he spends a while just running his hand down Charles's back, basking in the glow of his submission that has tugged Erik as fully into its counterpart as he can ever recall being. "Come here," he whispers, hooking his finger under Charles's current collar to bring him a little closer and sitting himself down completely, crossing one leg so he can take Charles's head into his lap and fuss over him. His current collar melts off and Erik twirls it up in the air like sparkles, letting it lay itself on the night stand. He wants to incorporate that into something else, and he has just the idea; but right now he's completely focused on his new task, and through the opening his head fits perfect, but he'll find he can't take it off the same way. As it's against his skin he feels it hum, unlike in the mindscape, and settle itself softly against him. It is immediate, the way he can feel Erik feeling him through it, the whole thing a sieve for him to experience Charles's shifting movements, and he inhales sharply, the sight of his collar on Charles's throat all too consuming. _I love you-_  
  
It's a bold statement to make, and there was a reason they'd used a placeholder in the first place, but Charles doesn't care; it can never be proved that this collar was crafted from Erik's hands, but everyone will know regardless. Everyone, including Charles, will know intuitively that this is his, that Charles is his. He cries as he listens to it hum, trembling all over again as he nuzzles into Erik's lap and now there are noises, soft, sniffling noises, quiet, hitching sighs to match the beautiful symphony of his collar. Erik's collar. _I love you,_ he murmurs. He hopes it never comes off. He hopes for as long as he lives it never, ever comes off, and when he ends up six feet under, a long, long time from now, let it be buried with him. Let it become dust with him.  
  
"I'm so happy you like it," Erik shivers, tracing his fingers over it. The process was painstaking, with so much available to him in terms of materials and the world essentially at his fingertips, to narrow down something good enough for Charles, he ends up finding the biggest canvas possible in order to do it, a variety of mediums to try and convey the deep satisfaction he feels at being Charles's Dominant, at collaring him to begin with. _You are beautiful._  
  
 _Like_ isn't the term he would use, but he doesn't have an appropriate one to replace it. _Thank you, Erik_ , he whispers instead, and he knows it will never properly express how he feels, his endless gratitude, but it must be said anyway. He goes quiet eventually, still crying but silently, rubbing his cheek against Erik's thigh, and somewhere in there, where he knows he could never hide it, there's hot, prickling shame. Somewhere along the way the tears become less from utter, overwhelming joy and more from fear, and as much as he tries to stifle it, to bite down hard at his lip and muffle the sob, it comes out anyway. He can't hide anything from Erik, even when he tries. He's quick to filter it; it's not the collar, and it's not being collared, of which his reaction was nothing but genuine. It's something else, and he doesn't want to say it because he's worried Erik will be...  
  
That he'll be disappointed in him, and Charles can't handle that right now.  
  
It's not that kind of fear. Charles knows Erik would never harm him or let harm come to him if he could help it, but there's still the very real possibility he could disappoint him.  
  
He sobs loudly as he's touched, curling into it and away from it at the same time as he closes his eyes and that shame works through his entire body. _I don't have cuffs for you,_ he admits, miserable. _I wanted to. I thought of it, trust me when I say I did. I looked everywhere_. He shows flashes, here, lets Erik sift through them. If there was a store in New York that sold Dominant's cuffs, Charles has been to it in the last week, finding a way to worm it into his schedule. He'd known already that he wouldn't find what he was looking for, but he'd gone anyway, touched every piece of leather and metal and plastic and every fabric in between, sighing dejected when none of them were right. He's scoured the Internet. He's looked at commission work, spoken to a few artists, even, discussing the finer points of creation and price points. He hadn't gone through with any of it, because none of it was right. _I could buy you nearly any cuffs imaginable, and we both know it, but I - there was this idea in my head, and... I considered a placeholder, but I couldn't bear it. I can't create like you, I need the time and the space and I just didn't have that. I didn't want to offer you something found in a store or someone else's design. I know you probably can't even wear them, but I wanted more than anything to give them to you today, Erik, and I can't. I don't have them yet_ , he finishes, and even when he's not speaking aloud his throat closes around it, bobbing around his collar as he swallows and keeps his eyes tightly closed. _I'm sorry, sir._  
  
Erik laughs softly and shakes his head. "I completely trust you," he murmurs, truly befuddled by the possibility that he would be disappointed in something like this, although he can see it's meaningful to Charles, how upset he is about it, all that matters to Erik is that he's safe.They'll have all the time in the world to find or make the right things, and he equally wouldn't be interested in wearing a set of cuffs that Charles wasn't excited about, that he didn't love. Metal and leatherworking were highly skilled and periodically dangerous trades; he would be insane to expect something personalized so soon, or, you know, at all. He would be just as content with something from Claire's, but it means a lot to him that Charles is expending all of this effort. Besides, Erik is a very patient person. He doesn't need anything right now that he doesn't already have, and he is happy to wait for what matters.  
  
Charles knows that. He does know that. He still sniffles, worked up about it, and wipes his tears on Erik's shirt, having now all but climbed into his lap. _As much as you'd be happy enough to wear Silly Bandz, I really want..._ He wants them to be special. He wants them to represent him, and them, and he can't do the things Erik can do but he doesn't want that to mean he buys a pair at the store and calls it done. _I didn't want to offer you something I wasn't proud of, because you always - you expect the best of me, and us,_ he mumbles. That had been his reasoning, anyway.  
  
"It means a lot to me that you even entertained the idea of _Silly Bandz_ ," Erik grins at him, running his thumb over the warming metal of his collar. Words can't describe just how proud and pleased he is that Charles genuinely likes it. He knows it's a bit less extravagant than the one he'd become accustomed to in the mindspace, but that would have sacrificed a great deal of comfort and he wasn't willing to do that; cuffs aren't like a collar, you have room to maneuver for elegance where you don't in a piece of equal stature, especially metal at someone's throat. Besides, something ornate and diamond-encrusted just doesn't scream Charles anyway.  
  
 _I love it. More than I can say,_ he murmurs, and smiles up through the tears. He really, truly does, and it's exactly right. This is his collar, Erik's collar; he'd become awfully fond of the one he'd been wearing, but it was always meant to be this. There's lingering anxiety, a pit in his stomach, but he tries to squash it down. He doesn't want to dampen the moment with his own raging insecurities.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "None of that," he runs his fingers over Charles's stomach. "Tell me."  
  
Charles scrunches his nose, because while he appreciates that Erik never lets anything go, far from permissive, it makes it difficult to be properly disparaging of himself. "It's nothing I haven't said," he whispers, and squirms a little when those fingers tickle, always sensitive. "I just feel like I'll never be able to give you something nearly as beautiful, because I can't create like you, and you'll end up - well, with the short end of the stick, to be blunt," he mutters, head ducked.  
  
He shakes his head, thinking of his book. "You have already given me so much," he whispers back, fond. The fact that Charles would even consider it is meaningful enough for him; he is equally not one for flashy displays of extravagance and it isn't what he needs. He just needs Charles, and he knows when he does receive his cuffs, no matter what they look like, they will feel like him, and that is exactly what he wants.  
  
He knew this would be the response. It does ease out the tension in his shoulders, make him nuzzle in closer, but he's still uncertain. "It's not as impressive as you seem to think it is," he laughs, self-deprecating, because Erik could make in seconds what it took him - well. It took longer than this past week. Charles had been working on that book for quite a while, in every spare moment he had, and teaching himself to carve the cover took longer than he'd like to admit. He'd sacrificed a few journals in the process, ugly and rejected. Every word he'd deliberately, painstakingly written out, all the doodles and illustrations and footnotes and - it took a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of (and he'll let Erik see it now) crawling out of bed and keeping Erik lulled in sleep with his mutation so he could work for an hour or two before climbing back under the sheets. And it still isn't anything near what Erik can make. It's a silly attempt at best.  
  
"Well, it seems impressive to me," he smiles, kissing Charles's nose. "None of that is important to me; even if it didn't look nice, which it does, it is still an extraordinary piece of work. The time and energy you put into something matters. It exists for that object, even if you can't see it. I can. It isn't about who is better, Charles. What matters is that we can, in some small way, express ourselves to one another. I just wan't you. I don't care about diamonds and gold. I could make something myself if that's what I really wanted."  
  
Charles huffs, slightly frustrated, but certainly not with Erik. "It's not about being better," he mumbles, because he can be awfully competitive, but that wasn't ever going to be a factor here. He keeps his eyes lowered, lips pursed as he tries to find the right way to express this. "I know you don't care about that, which is why I didn't just buy you the most expensive, extravagant cuffs I could find. I have the money for that. I just..." He wants it to be something worthy of Erik. Everything he is, and everything he gives him. The things Erik makes for him everyday bring him so much joy, inspire so much wonder and awe, and he just wants to give it back. He wants to make him proud.  
  
He smiles faintly and touches Charles's lower lip. _Believe me,_ he tells him, soft. _You do. In a way that is frankly overwhelming at times. What I care about is you. What brings me joy is you. The only proof I have of that is what is in my heart, that I hope you can sense, that I hope you can feel._ He knows Charles doesn't care about competing with him, but he has a hard time genuinely understanding the source of his insecurity if it isn't about form and precision, simply because he takes it for granted that this is all true. There's nothing left to say, for him. What things you ever seek to gift me, their greatest value is that they are formed by your hands. _Of course that is worthy of me._ It's what he'd been trying to explain in the beginning, with Charles's rose. The things that make an object special, Charles grants them by virtue of his existence in proximity. That he chooses to devote a significant portion of his time to shaping anything intended for Erik at all is frankly a marvel.  
  
Charles does know. He can feel it. It's not a rational insecurity, or fear. He shifts back onto his knees so he can settle his head back into Erik's lap, perhaps not in the most comfortable way but in the way that feels most natural right now. Sometimes I still think - It doesn't need to be said, really, and his eyes close, his lip caught between his teeth. Sometimes, despite all of Erik's assurance and his genuine belief in it, he feels as if he isn't nearly good enough to be Erik's submissive. That he simply doesn't deserve it. His gifts fall short because he does.  
  
 _I know,_ Erik rubs his back and scritches the hair at the nape of his neck. *But you do not, and I am so happy that you are here with me. I know I've struggled to learn how to be Dominant myself, but we are learning together, the both of us. I think that is what we deserve. To be happy. To know pleasure and joy. That is the whole reason for this ceremony. I would not be here if you fell short." And logically the inverse is true as well, but he's got his own insecurities. And that's OK. They'll take time and space to heal, but he believes they will, together.  
  
These stolen moments between them have been there from the beginning, and he's incredibly fond of them. Charles smiles from where he's pressed his cheek into Erik's thigh, arching his back further until he's closer to the Posture he'd offered earlier. It had felt right, doing that. It feels right now, wearing this gorgeous, perfect collar, the one that feels like Erik and in turn feels like him. "I liked being like that, down there," he whispers, as if it's a secret. The words are muffled, but he knows Erik will hear them. "I liked... presenting that way. Having everyone know I was yours." It's shy, but painfully honest.  
  
"So did I," Erik whispers back, bending over to kiss him on the top of the head. He's seated on the floor now which makes the action a little easier. That he likes Charles a great deal is not surprising, but being able to demonstrate their dynamic publicly, without hiding anything, with real pride-that has meant the world to him.  
  
Charles hums softly, eyelids heavy, and eventually he succumbs and lets them flutter closed. He isn't at all sleepy, but he is very deep in subspace, and he doesn't think anything could knock him any further out of it; fortunately, he doesn't think Erik wants that. When he speaks again, it isn't words, reverting back to telepathic communication as he sends the image of the party downstairs, overlaying it with a mental question mark. He's wondering if they should go back downstairs or not.  
  
Truthfully all Erik really wants to do is stay here, but there will be plenty of time for that during the rest of their lives. Not only do they have an obligation to uphold, but it is something they both want to do, so he nods, stroking Charles's cheek.  
  
Charles bites his lip, just a bit of concern bubbling up. He has no idea what it is that makes him ask, but he does. _You'll take care of me? It's safe?_ He's never been this deep in subspace in public before, and he doesn't think he can climb out of it anytime soon without separating from Erik and immediately dropping.  
  
 _Absolutely_ , Erik promises, fluttering ghostly fingertip touches under his eyes and across his lips. Right now Erik seems relatively normal but it becomes apparent as soon as they're in public that he's not, he's walking on a cloud, completely oblivious to the world around them. It's not like their Bonding, he doesn't snarl and snap-that's not his personality, but he is smiling. In public, on his face. He's fussing over Charles like a mother hen, arranging food on his plate so it looks nice before giving it to him and smoothing out wrinkles in his shirt and combing his hair.

* * *

Charles, for his part, is much softer and quieter than most of the people in that room are used to. He seems pulled into Erik's orbit completely, smiling dreamily, and when Erik sits down on the couch he folds himself neatly at his feet without a second thought. He's watching the room around them, their friends and family, more than happy to engage in conversation if it's initiated but for the most part resting against Erik's legs. The plate of food is very pretty, but like usual he doesn't much feel like eating, so he purses his lips until something floats an inch or two off the plate and grins up at Erik. It's a new way to play with his food and how could he be scolded for it when it's so impressive? He should be praised for it, really.  
  
It really does feel very different to Erik's abilities, but he can't really say why. For example, their conversation earlier? Erik wonders why Charles couldn't create the exact same way to him? He can't put his finger on it though. It's all molecular, particles and force and momentum, but for Charles it feels more like an invisible hand picking things up and moving them, affecting them within a bubble of psionic energy. He's very curious about it, but also playful and he levitates the carrot up to his lips, tapping at them insistently. Open sesame.  
  
That's exactly the difference. Part of Charles' telepathy has always been intuitively understanding other people's mutations, which is why he knew, immediately, that Erik doesn't simply move metal. Erik is influencing the force that makes up and surrounds the objects, that makes up everything, really, while Charles really is just... moving them with his mind, in the traditional sense of telekinesis. Which he didn't know he had until approximately two days ago. He can't change objects, or alter them, besides maybe bending or reshaping them (he hasn't tried, even moving them is very, very difficult and gets dicey right now). But like always between them, perhaps playing is the way to learn. So he wrinkles up his nose, because carrots are definitely not tasty, focuses, and -  
  
He truly meant to bat it out of the way, playfully defiant. What actually happens is that it shoots across the room and nearly nails Warren in the head where he's talking to Carmen before it bounces off the wall. Charles can't help it. He bursts out laughing.  
  
"Hey! Aw, come on. My hair was perfectly coifed. Now it's only adequately coifed."  
  
Erik snorts loudly.  
  
"You're lucky you're cute," Warren points a finger at him threateningly, still not grasping that it's Charles instead of Erik.  
  
He shakes his head and finally clues the poor man in, levitating it and with a twirl it flourishes into a parsnip.  
  
"Wait-I'm-so-oK, _FIRST_ of all-" Warren squawks.  
  
Erik buries his head in Charles's shoulder to conceal a grin.  
  
"Your telepathy must be jealous of my mojo."  
  
Charles is still lost to giggles, absolutely beside himself now that he's experienced the full force of Warren's reaction and doubled over in Erik's lap. "My telekinesis," which he apparently has now, or always had, and is finally, finally coming into, "has something against vegetables, actually. This is a vegetable protest." And with quite a bit of effort, the rest of the vegetables on his plate begin to hover. He can only make that happen for about a second or two before they drop, and he's got a terrible headache, a piercing screech at his temples for a moment, but it's well worth it.  
  
Kitty suddenly materalizes through the wall separating the kitchen and living room. "Say it louder, Professor X! No vegetables!"  
  
He promptly loses it again, especially when he catches something in Kitty's mind. It's both utterly horrifying and ridiculous enough to be patently hilarious. "Thank you for your very spirited support. Would you like to show the class what you've decided to wear today?"  
  
She's grinning wide now, all gleaming mischief in her eyes as she unzips the sweater she's wearing. Underneath is a t-shirt with both Charles' and Erik's face printed onto it, and the bold words _'I STAND WITH THEM!'_  
  
"Please tell me you made copies of this," Raven whirls into the room, dreadfully thrilled.  
  
Erik shakes his head. Horrifying, he gives a faux-shudder.  
  
"I don't know, they definitely got your eyes." Hank winks at him.  
  
"They just need to replace your nose with a carrot and it'll be all set," Warren grins.  
  
"That picture of me looks like it's from five years ago. Did they just take the first result off a Google search?" he mutters, staring at it scrutinizingly. Definitely not his best, but fortunately for Charles he's fairly photogenic.  
  
"They're being mass produced, actually," Kitty informs them, still grinning. "Kids at school are wearing ones like it. It's kind of scary, a little, because -" She cuts herself off.  
  
Charles catches it. His lips purse, grim. "Kitty," he sighs.  
  
She just brushes it off, waving a hand. "Hey, it's whatever, right? It's not like I'm not used to being bullied for being the weird kid. At least now people are talking about it." The way she glances over at Carmen makes it clear she has not told him about the harassment at school, nor had she planned on it. "It's no big deal. I can phase out when it gets bad, anyway. _See ya later_."  
  
It doesn't make Charles feel any better, and the image he catches of Kitty cornered on her way home from school makes him... he shakes his head, staring down at his knees. Calm, Charles.  
  
Erik grimaces, his head spinning with the multitude of implications from that, but he shakes his head and squeezes her arm, pressing his lips together.  
  
" _Annnnd_ you ruined it," Raven groans, rolling her eyes. "Do people give you crap about shi-uh, _stuff_ ," Raven corrects herself with a wince. "Because of this?"  
  
 _Please feel free to threaten to have your scary alleged-terrorist mutant friend pull a building down on top of them,_ Erik 'suggests' with a twinkle in his eye.  
  
"I definitely stand with him." Raven elbows Erik.  
  
Carmen sighs, because it's been his face on the television front and center stage over the past few weeks as the defense hit back twice as hard and twice as long, and sixteen year olds are vicious no matter what country they're in. He doesn't like it, but he'd be surprised if she didn't receive any unwanted attention. "Now you can tell your mother _I told you so_ about private school," he aims for levity, but the set of his jaw and his crossed arms indicate displeasure to those who know him well.  
  
"It's all just stupid kid stuff," Kitty insists, but the way her arms come around herself and she sniffles makes it more than obvious it's anything but to her. "Name calling, shoving in the hallways, stuff like that. Someone keeps spray painting my locker and shoving weird notes into it."  
  
 _Weird notes_ is apparently teenager-code for targeted, thinly-veiled threats. Charles swallows. "Have you told anyone?"  
  
She sighs, scuffing her feet against the floor. "I mean, yeah, but no one's really doing anything. My teacher basically told me there's nothing she can do. Like I said, no big deal. It doesn't bother me, guys, don't worry."  
  
Charles doesn't think even non-telepaths are fooled by that one.  
  
"Excuse me? That is not cool," Raven glowers at her. "You should have told someone! This stuff can escalate pretty quickly."  
  
Erik's eyebrows raise. _Where do you attend school, Katherine?_  
  
"As your lawyer, I'm going to have to advise against whatever plan you're hatching, Erik," Carmen murmurs. "Rest assured that I'll be encouraging your teachers to take a more proactive stance."  
  
 _I understand if you feel it is not my place,_ he raises his hands.  
  
"Well, they're kids, Erik. You can't just go menace them," Raven winces.  
  
People really be out here assuming Erik is two steps away from psycho murdering people at all times. He gives a little sigh.  
  
Charles rests his cheek against Erik's knee, soothing him. He certainly knows his Bonded has the best intentions. "Please be careful, Kitty," he murmurs. "No one here wants you getting hurt."  
  
"It's not just the kids," Kitty admits, and her arms are tightly around herself now, as if she's holding herself together. Her hands are phasing through her own body, though, an unconscious activation, and it's obvious she's been holding this in for a while. "Like, again, no big deal, but my AP History teacher keeps talking about how the MCA is important and we need it or we'll fall into some bizzaro post-apocalpytic anarchy and everyone always looks right at me, and this kid got suspended last week for defending himself - he's got a strength mutation, but it totally wasn't his fault and he was way outnumbered and those other kids got nothing. There's a new school rule that you're not allowed to use _'mutation-based abilities'_ on school property. It's not really fair," she mutters.  
  
Charles' jaw clenches. "No, it's not," he agrees quietly.  
  
Erik starts laughing, the sound dark and sarcastic. _It sounds like your teacher needs to go back to school._  
  
"I'll talk to them," Carmen promises. "You aren't the only mutant student there, and there are mutants on the faculty as well."  
  
 _It is doubtful they will find your arguments compelling,_ Erik says to Carmen, soft. _But if people are paying attention to these issues, as this would suggest-_ he indicates Kitty's shirt. _Perhaps I can direct their attention to where it belongs. And if they take away from that a little bit of healthy fear, I won't stop them._  
  
Kitty shrugs, now looking distinctly uncomfortable that she'd brought it up. "It's no big deal," she says again.  
  
Charles shakes his head. "It is a big deal, Kitty," he assures her. "Your safety and comfort is important. Schools should make that a priority for their entire student body, and I am very sorry that yours is failing utterly at that." He didn't need anything to bolster his own convictions about a mutant school, but this certainly has regardless. He wishes she could have had that experience instead.  
  
She nods, head bowed now. "Okay. Thanks," she whispers, and she grins, clearly a bit relieved she'd gotten it off her chest. "Can I really tell people my terrorist friend is gonna come beat them up?"  
  
"Maybe we don't do that," Charles snorts, and grins, too.  
  
Erik shakes his head behind Charles's back and gives her a discreet thumbs up, although nothing is hidden from his Bonded either way, he's not making a real effort and it's intended as a joke. _You can feel free to let them know that your safety is of the utmost priority to your terrorist friend, and should it be compromised, said friend will take action to rectify that._  
  
Charles shakes his head, too, because he never expected anything different. "Alright, enough with the word ' _terrorist_ '," he mumbles, because he really does hate it when used in reference to Erik. If he wanted to hear it he'd flip on Fox News. The conversation takes a lighter turn from there, Kitty deciding to show everyone the latest dance moves instead, and that's much more suited for a Bonding ceremony, not that it wasn't an important conversation.

* * *

After a while of simply floating at Erik's feet on his knees and decidedly not eating, encouraging the hands in his hair, something pings in his mind where Erik will catch it. He's got an idea, but he's awfully shy about it. _Erik?_ he murmurs, and he's nibbling on his lip.  
  
His head tilts down and he leans down and kisses him on the forehead. _Yes, neshama?_  
  
Charles hides his face in Erik's knee. _No, it's silly,_ he decides, his belly fluttery. _Never mind it. Do you think it's almost time for dessert?_ That was an appealing idea, despite the fact he hasn't had anything of substance since breakfast. There's definitely a cake waiting to be cut.  
  
He grins. _Tell me,_ he Orders instead, much more interested in Charles.  
  
He huffs loudly, and stays buried in his Dominant's lap, rubbing his cheek there. _Waswonderingifyouwantedtodance_ , he says, all in a jumbled rush of words, in two different languages because it's their internal language and it probably would be completely incoherent to anyone else.  
  
Erik's whole face lights up. _I would love to,_ he whispers back and raises, holding out his hand to help Charles to his feet and tuck his head under his chin. Erik is a good dancer, limited only by his leg, and he's sure Charles is too, but he just holds him close to be near him at first.  
  
Charles likes this. Being tucked under Erik's chin is one of his favorite places to be, actually, and he hums, pleased, resting his head against his chest as they begin to sway. Someone has ramped up the slow, emotional songs which is where the idea had come from in the first place, and Raven and Hank seem to have joined in, so he doesn't feel too shy. Mostly it's just nice, and Erik's Will is coiled up for convenience but Charles pokes at it, wraps it around himself like Erik's arms and sighs happily, eyes fluttering.  
  
Warren is trying to do the tango with his two subfriends at the same time and they keep tripping over each other and laughing, out of beat with the slow tempo of the song on the radio, and Erik smirks over his shoulder, shaking his head at them. It's nice to see Warren genuinely happy. He's cheerful, but he's not very _happy_ and Erik's noticed, mostly through the lens of Charles. _I love you_ , he whispers, letting his Will uncurl enough to wrap Charles up along with his arms.  
  
It is nice. It's incredibly nice, especially because Charles was the one there when he was decidedly least happy, and helping him put those pieces together nearly broke Charles a little, too, but no use going there now. Everyone seems happy, actually. Hank and Raven are twirling around, Gabby and Daniel are sharing what looks like (and is) an intimate, quiet moment, Kitty is tugging her father up to dance with her. He's right where he wants to be, too, moving in perfect step with his Bonded, embraced by arms and Will and following his lead. _I love you, too,_ he whispers, just for them, and feels himself trembling with the force of it. It's nice. It's so very, very nice.  
  
Erik gives him a little twirl when the song picks up, just 'cause. He taps at Charles's collar, plucking up a line of poetry by Phillips from its depths, something this moment reminds him of. _fates, if you want to call them that, that we don’t/so much live with, it seems, as live for now among. If as/close as we’re ever likely to get, you and I, is this—this close—_  
  
Charles shivers at just the reminder that it's there, his whole body thrumming because now all he can feel is Erik in the metal, a thousand different facets all whispering and singing to him at once, telling him who he belongs to and why. He sighs, eyelids heavy again. _If someone told you that you'd be here a few months ago, would you believe them?_ he asks quietly.  
  
 _No_ , he says back, pained. _I didn't know anything back then._ He feels true sorrow for the memories of himself from Before, and honestly finds it hard to believe how he lived each and every day-he wonders if he's starting to become complacent, if he's starting to get used to-to being happy, to existing in this otherworldly realm where everything he could ever want exists in one place, in one moment, in every moment every day. Where he's warm and safe and Bonded, and it's starting to get hard to remember the way things used to be, how he could get up every morning and exist how he did. It was just life, a lot of people had it worse, it was just his normal. But looking back on it, it was so abnormal he thinks, when the lenses align and the vision unblurs for a second-it wasn't normal. It wasn't good, he was tortured. But more than anything that ever happened to him the worst thing, the very worst thing, is that he didn't have Charles. He was alone. Sometimes he still thinks it will be snatched from him, like an elaborate ploy to decimate his spirit; he compulsively wakes up multiple times during the night to check on Charles and ensure he's alive, breathing, safe. Happy. That it's predicated on his own ability to look after someone, is all the more insane.  
  
 _It isn't going away,_ he promises softly, rubbing his cheek against Erik's chest to soothe both of them. Thinking about Erik alone and suffering is enough to make him sick, to make him ache horribly. He turns his head to kiss that broad chest, not skin but as close as they can get in polite company, reassuring himself that Erik is real, too. _I think I knew. How odd is that? But I did. I knew._ Not in any conscious, real way, but he did. He shows Erik what he means: Charles, sprawled out on his couch with his legs tucked underneath him, replaying the clip of Erik's arrest over and over. And over and over and over. It was the only image of Erik he had, and he'd told himself it was to get a better sense of his client and what he was working with before their first session.  
  
But for someone with a memory like Charles', there really was no reason to watch it that excessively, and still he'd missed details until an entire month later. He can hear the thoughts now, not processed yet: _It's him! It's him! It's him!_  
  
Erik smiles down at him. _I knew the moment I met you. I did not even know I was looking for you until I found you. Perhaps that is odd_ , he shrugs. But stranger things have happened. He wishes that the first memory Charles held of him wasn't a video of him being tranquilized on national television, covered in blood and screaming and murdering people, but he is so thankful that it had been Charles to walk through that door. If it hadn't- he shudders. He knows where he'd be.  
  
 _It isn't,_ he reminds, shaking his head, and he isn't talking about Erik's last comment. He's decidedly not responding to that, because it makes him want to retch and that might dampen the mood here. He grins up at Erik instead, all dimples and bright blues. _It's you blatantly ignoring me while I followed you around like a puppy. Rude._  
  
Erik just shakes his own head, silent, clutching onto Charles tightly. It's meant to be a joke, but that's the way Erik feels. He should have heard, he should have listened. In hindsight it's hard to say he wasn't aware on a deep level, in the way he dreamed about things, but he pushed it aside, cut it off. _If I can't hear you, you can't hear me._ He's sorry. He should have known, he should have answered. He wasn't a very smart child.  
  
Charles expression immediately falls, and he shakes his head. _Erik_ , he whispers, fingers bunched in Erik's shirt as his heart clenches. _That's not true. It isn't your fault. Besides, I enjoyed your company regardless. You didn't have to answer me for that. We knew each other, and that's what matters. I talked enough for both of us, and you kept me company, even if it was only in dreams._ Charles at nine was unimaginably lonely, still without Raven. Erik had been there, even if he didn't know it at the time.  
  
 _I left you alone,_ Erik inhales sharply, rubbing at the fabric of his shirt so he doesn't clench and dig into the skin underneath. _I'm glad you stayed. Even though I-didn't hear._  
  
Charles has started to remember more of those dreams, now that he's actively sifting through them. He shows Erik one he's particularly fond of; there's thick mud and Erik seems perfectly insistent on stepping in it instead of around it. Charles is decidedly less impressed. _Hey, stop! You're getting all dirty,_ Charles huffs. _Your boots are muddy now! Wipe them off. Are you listening to me? Hmph. Fine, but don't blame me later. Hey, where are you going? Slow down! No fair, your legs are longer!_ Needless to say, Charles has always been bossy. He grins at Erik again. _See? We did just fine_.  
  
It makes Erik laugh, because he's dreamed that, too. Very recently, and not just because he's picking up on what Charles dreams. Not just because of their Bond, either; they're memories. Long-buried, half-imagined. They live somewhere inside of him, unnamed and uncertain, and he'd thought the particles were just talking to him, like they always do. Shining and sparkly in certain places but not others, ever since he stopped the car falling on _Aba_. Even their mutations manifested at similar times.  
  
 _No, that was me_ , Charles breathes, because it still amazes him. It's worth amazement. He smiles, tugging at Erik's shirt. _Spin me again, please,_ he requests, because he wants to feel Erik pull him back in.  
  
 _The particles could be very bossy_ , Erik recalls, fond. He obliges and spins Charles once, slow as not to make him dizzy, and then dips him, playful.  
  
Charles is breathless from the gesture, heart pounding in his chest, butterflies in his stomach because that's what Erik inspires. _The particles demand to be kissed now_ , he informs Erik.  
  
 _Well, one must respect the particles_. He grins and pulls him closer, leaning down to mold his lips against Charles's, soft and long. He doesn't pull away, just breathes against him.  
  
Charles goes in for another kiss, feeling bold and needy, makes a soft, sweet noise against him, feels the whole world shift and -  
  
"Get a room!" yells Kitty Pryde, her hands cupped over her mouth.  
  
He laughs, cheeks pink as he ducks his head back into Erik's chest.  
  
Erik holds a finger up to his lips, shushing her and then does it again just to be contrary, even slower this time. He rubs his thumb over the mark on Charles's neck, clearly visible as his collar isn't as thick any longer.  
  
Charles shivers full-bodied, bites his tongue to stifle the moan he knows he wants to make. Getting a room sounds like a brilliant idea, actually, but he knows the evening is still young. "Cake?" he asks, red-faced and attempting to hide that he hasn't caught his breath yet.  
  
 _Cake_ , he whispers back, but he doesn't pull away, content to keep kissing him. After another lingering moment he leads Charles over to the table and collects him a slice, an application of power that comes easily to him as breathing, and holds out the plate.  
  
Charles bites his lip, staring down at his feet and clasping his hands in front of him in an unconscious standing Rest instead of taking it. _Could you...?_  
  
 _Mm?_ Erik levitates the plate in mid air and cuts a piece off, holding it up to Charles's lips. What shall I do?  
  
Charles hums happily, leaning forward to take that bite. That's exactly what he wanted, and now he doesn't have to outright ask Erik to feed him. He's still flushed, vaguely embarrassed, but it's hard to be like this. He's too open and happy, too Erik's. The cake is also delicious, and he does moan as he chews, because his sweet tooth truly knows no bounds.  
  
Erik thumbs off the few crumbs that remains on his lip and smiles tenderly. _I am pleased you like it._ He made it, not a traditional cake but rather a variation of _portokalopita_ with _phyllo_ , oranges, yogurt, cinnamon, vanilla and sunflower oil topped with plain ice cream and chopped nuts, the warmth of the pastry contrasting with cold and remaining at an even temperature and freshness despite how long it's been out; just another casual demonstration of power that Erik does without even thinking. Erik can do the flashy things like fly and bring down buildings, but what really makes him Omega-level is how he's constantly at work, adjusting, keeping track, listening to the air. Making things easier for them both, a life of convenience the way Charles deserves. And many things make Erik happy but among the chief has to be when Charles likes something he's made,  
  
It's the same way Charles is always working, too, infinite minute observations and alterations that keep them both comfortable and safe, out of pain and trouble. He smiles at the thought of it, suddenly shy again, and opens his mouth for another bite. He's absolutely delighted when he receives it. _Erik_? he asks, and suddenly his side of the Bond becomes muted, but tinged with playfulness. Not distress, but _Keep-Away_.  
  
Erik startles at it and he chases after automatically, feeling a bit like the door was just closed over his fingertips and soothing himself by stroking along the glass, over the fibers of glowing cord between them and he breathes easier knowing it's still there. _Hi, dear-heart. What is it?_  
  
There's no answer, but Charles' expression is clearly screwed up in concentration, brows furrowed and lips pursed, tongue sticking out just a little. A moment later a bit of ice cream floats up and globs itself onto Erik's nose, and Charles dissolves into giggles, drawing the attention of their guests until they join in, too.  
  
Erik lets out an undignified squeak of surprise and his nose wrinkles up completely, landing a few ice cream lands on his upper lip which he licks away, poking his tongue out at Charles for good nature. He draws his finger through it and draws a big dot on the tip of Charles's nose in retaliation, completely overwhelmed with glittering amusement.  
  
He's so giddy and in love it's ridiculous. Charles is still laughing when he realizes everyone has gathered around as if they've been called, and he lets out a long-suffering sigh. "I can hear you thinking about it, but you really don't need to give speeches, you know," he informs everyone who might need to hear it. They're going to anyway, and if he's honest, he's not going to do anything to stop them. There's chanting for _'Speech! Speech!_ ' now, so it wouldn't work anyway.

* * *

Erik gives a little bow, but he's spoken as much as he's ever physically thought himself capable of before, so he simply stands at Charles's side, twining their fingers together and giving a supportive squeeze. He's assumed that the calls for a speech are for Charles to give one, until Warren salutes his glass. "Charlie, I'm really glad you've found this. You've always been a brother to me, and I've watched you give everything you've got over the years to helping other people. It's only right that you get to take a little happiness for yourself, and you couldn't be a finer guy," he pats Erik on the back.  
  
Okay, that was unfair. Knowing that Warren is his older brother in everything but blood and legality is one thing, and hearing it spoken so plainly is another entirely. There are immediately tears springing to his eyes and more caught in his throat, and he separates from Erik long enough to give his best friend the hug that warranted. "You're supposed to tell embarrassing baby stories, not make me cry, you right bastard," is what he says, but his telepathy breathes something else entirely, radiating gratitude and pure, familial love. "You know you're my brother, too. Always will be. Thank you," he whispers. It goes without saying that Charles will be there thick and thin, because he has been, but it won't stop. To know that he has this approval, that he has Warren's - what, his blessing? It means everything. This means everything, and Charles covers his mouth with a hand as if it might hold back the tears, well and truly touched.  
  
Warren laughs. "Turnabout's fair play," he adds as he folds Charles up in a hug. "If it's any consolation, I once watched the man you see before you, respected academic professor, alum of Oxford University, dial a phone number using the calculator app and wonder why he couldn't get through."  
  
Charles groans loudly. "It was one time and you've never let me forget it," he sighs, leaning back into Erik but facing outward now, arms around his waist and tucked beneath his chin and perfectly content like that, grinning ear to ear. "Alright, no one else is allowed to give a speech. Ask Erik, he speaks to the particles and the particles say you're not allowed to make Charles Xavier cry any more this evening."  
  
"For a talent competition at school he sang _The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles_ from the Broadway production of _Cats_ ," Raven chimes in gleefully. "There were props."  
  
"Right, well, this was a good time, you lot," Charles says, arms spread out dramatically, and his ears are tinted pink. He's two seconds from laughing and it's written all over his face. "Thank you very much for coming, I adore you, don't let the door hit you on the way out," he jokes, and then gets devious. _Unless you live here, then I certainly can't make you, but I won't be responsible for the things you hear,_ he declares gleefully, telepathically so he can target it away from younger ears. It's at the expense of making himself blush and squirm back in Erik's arms, but worth it.  
  
"Spoken like a true Broadway star," Warren smirks.  
  
Erik wiggles his hands on top of his head to mimic cat ears.  
  
"Oh yeah. I'm pretty sure he had a tail, too," Raven doubles down. _If you want to bring it, bring it, mister_.  
  
Charles huffs, deeply offended that he's been betrayed by Erik in this way. He pouts up at him to show it, and then crosses his arms. "I realize this is some sort of ritual because it's my Bonding Day, but I'd like you both to remember that I have more dirt on both of you than anyone else in this world and if I wrote a tell-all you'd be ruined. Favorites include Warren's first serious girlfriend and Raven's first experiments with makeup." It works the other way around, too, but he'd thought he'd mention it so they keep it in mind for the next family function. "And I made an excellent cat, despite being allergic. Me- _ow_."  
  
"Ohhh, Sandy," Warren starts laughing. "I forgot about her." He whistles.

* * *

Erik's fallen silent, and it takes a few moments before Raven realizes, "Eri-are- _Erik_ , are you OK?" her eyebrows come together, and she raises up one hand to hover over his face, where sudden tears have sprung from his eyes.  
  
His response is simply to copy the hand signal Charles taught him for _A-OK_ , clearing his throat and nodding.  
  
Charles immediately turns around in Erik's arms anyway, reaching up to gently brush fingers over his Bonded's face. _Erik?_ he asks, quietly, their Bond humming with concern.  
  
The fact that other people can see it is what's alarming, and Warren's trailed off a story about his highschool sweetheart to watch them, lips pressed together grimly. Erik shakes his head; they both said so themselves. There shouldn't be any pain, here. He doesn't want to ruin it, and he makes himself smile, giving a dismissive wave.  
  
That's never going to work for him. Charles knows forced smiles at parties like the back of his hand, and he refuses to let them happen here. Everyone else disappears in an instant until it's just them and he shakes his head, cupping Erik's cheek. _Please tell me?_ he murmurs softly.  
  
Erik digs his palm into his left eye, burying his head in his hands and inhaling shakily. _I'm so happy they are here._ It's shaky even between their minds.  
  
Charles is, too, but he doubts that's the only thing happening here. He waits patiently, stroking Erik's arm, wrapping him up in that bubble of his and letting it sing for both of them. _Talk to me, darling_ , he whispers, imploring but not demanding.  
  
 _I just-miss-_ Erik wipes the back of his hand over his eyes. _I'm sorry. It is OK. Really_.  
  
He knew it already. They're far too connected for him not to. Charles' heart aches terribly, but there's a place for that, too. _I know,_ he whispers. _I know, and I am so sorry. But you are allowed to feel that, Erik. No one is going to fault you that, least of all me. You are allowed to grieve along with the joy. There's room for that, too. If you'd rather not think about it, I understand. But if you'd like to share it with me, I'm here to listen and carry it with you. I'd like to._ He only wishes he could do more.  
  
 _I keep thinking-how much they would have loved this. You. And-I-_ and they're flying out in two days, and Erik isn't ready, and it's obvious. Erik huffs, making a noise as he swallows. _They would have loved this._  
  
 _I know,_ he whispers again. There's no way for Charles to give Erik back what he's lost, but if there was, he would pay any price for it. What he can do is support him through this, and remind him of what he still has. _I'll be there the entire time,_ and we will work through this as we have everything else. There will be joy in this, too. Sometimes we can't be ready.  
  
His mind is wandering, though. It would be more accurate to say it utterly wipes and derails. Charles himself zones out, blinking rapidly.  
  
Erik sniffles and shoves it all away. _It's OK,_ he whispers. _I'm sorry._  
  
Charles doesn't respond, completely blank outwardly in a way he usually isn't. He's borrowing Erik's default expression. _Blink blink blink_.  
  
Erik finds the bond between them and _yanks_ , hard-mostly a panicked reaction born of instinct. _Charles!_  
  
"Oof." Charles stumbles like he's drunken, dizzy and off-balance and clearly concealing a fair amount of pain. Even still, there's a fierce grin on his face as he presses two fingers to his temple. "Got it," he announces, which might be more triumphant if he didn't then lean over and gag from the nausea.  
  
Erik kneels down beside him, trembling violently and touching his face. His sense of words has evaporated in grief compounded by panic and he pets Charles over and over, rhythmically.

* * *

Charles is alright, though. He hadn't meant to pull away; he's still rather awful at multi-tasking with the more impressive of his abilities, and this is the furthest he's ever actively stretched himself. "It's one in the morning in Israel, so there's distinctly less partying happening over there," he murmurs. "It was hard to find someone, actually, but -" He did, goes without saying. He doesn't know if it will help or hurt, but he thinks if he had to pick one person from that group that Erik would wish to be here it would be this one, perhaps except Kurt, who is fast asleep and dreaming.  
  
They're in Magda Maximoff's mind, looking out. Charles shifts until they're watching her instead, which shouldn't be possible without another vantage point but no use focusing on what should technically be impossible.  
  
"She can't hear or see us," he whispers. "Unless you'd like her to. I just thought, perhaps..." Now he thinks it might have been a terrible idea, and his heart clenches tightly, the nausea returning.  
  
She's sitting outside in a large field, a hand-rolled cigarette held between her fingers as she gazes into the distant lights of the city, a young blonde child asleep at her feet, twitching underneath a big, fluffy blanket. Magda's petting her absently, lost in thought, her own children asleep in the same bedroom as Kurt.  
  
Erik creeps forward, eyes wide and he reaches out to touch her shoulder, which causes her to shift and look back only to see empty air. It's him that did it, altered the air, creating force and pressure; all the way from Charles's living room without bolstering. _Magda_ , he mouths, resting his fingertips over his lips. She-she looks- a bit melancholy, this evening, her eyes fixed big and sad on the night horizon. But, _Healthy_ , he whispers.  
  
It should really come as no surprise. They've done this before, though from a less impressive range. What he's more concerned with is the look on Erik's face. Not such a terrible idea after all, then. His instincts had been right. Erik would want her at their Bonding Ceremony, and Charles can give that to him. There are things he cannot give, but this isn't one of them.  
  
Holding the connection isn't difficult at all now that he has it. There's no strain, no blood. It's like breathing. With another blink, he does what he's uncertain Erik will ask for, but that he knows he does actually want; he makes them visible, and steps to the side.  
  
They deserve a moment, too.  
  
Magda whips around all of a sudden, hand tightening protectively over Tabby before she realizes who it is towering over her and she doesn't pause to consider before throwing her arms around him. "Erik!" she gasps. "When did you get here?" her voice is warm and husky, her accent faintly Italian.  
  
He just smiles and shakes his head, squeezing her shoulder, his eyes crinkled.  
  
"You're not here, are you?" she laughs to herself. "The question is, am I finally going crazy or-well, there's no other question, right?" she rolls her eyes fondly; it's obvious this was a running theme for them. She'd make commentary enough for two, do her best to keep things in good spirits at the lab.   
  
At first Erik is the silent assistant, someone she can't reach, someone who will hurt her who has been too broken to loop in. She fiercely guards her children against him, shouting at him to _back off and leave them be_. It's only gradually she begins to notice that she's being left extra food, extra blankets, trinkets fashioned into makeshift shapes. She realizes after a few weeks that the extra food is what he's put aside from his own meager rations to help her. She's furious at him, jabbing a finger into his chest. _What's going to happen to me if you die, huh?!_ Magda misses her twins every day, but she's gained a new family, here. She isn't sure if she'll stay. She's aimless and adrift, but seeing him again makes a light flare behind her eyes.  
  
He touches the cigarette, eyebrows knit together in concern.  
  
"You always were a nag, Lehnsherr."  
  
In response, Erik braces his fingers over his wrist, then touches his hand to his collar.  
  
"Did you really, _piccolo_?" she smiles gently at him. "What's his name?"  
  
There's no way she expects a real answer here, but Erik puts the flat of his palm over his heart.  
  
"Do I get to meet him?"  
  
Erik raises his eyebrows at Charles.  
  
Charles watches in silent wonder as they interact. That he thinks of her fondly goes entirely without saying because anyone who is loved by Erik - and this woman is certainly loved by Erik - is loved fiercely by him. He still finds himself shy in a way he never usually is in social situations as he's beckoned forward, a soft smile on his lips. He folds himself into Erik's side. "Hi," he greets. "I'm Charles, and proof you aren't going crazy. Today is our Bonding Ceremony, and..." He bites his lip and laughs quietly, so as not to disturb the moment. "I apologize for not sending an invitation in advance, but we've taken the party to you, so I hope you'll forgive the rudeness."  
  
Magda peers at him warily. "You're _Charles_ ," she says, skeptical.  
  
At Charles's back, Erik shakes his head once.  
  
She squints, as if to say, _are you sure?_ It doesn't matter if she's an ocean away. He can tell her, she'll go back to the States herself and stick a knife into his aorta. It's not an aggressive kind of threat-she's known the type of people drawn to Erik in the past and she's protective of him.  
  
 _No, no, no, no._ Erik smiles and kisses Charles on the temple.  
  
Fair enough. More than fair, especially considering - he stares down at the ground, half the living room floor of his sister's and half this field, because Charles has to exist in both. Neither are particularly appealing in the aftermath of the insinuation, and the way her mind echoes with it. He's grateful to her, for caring. For being protective. But she's not the first person to question whether Erik need be protected from him, and with recent developments it doesn't sit well. He smiles anyway, soft and resigned. Erik would probably do better with someone like Magda, wouldn't he? If she were - but that's a silly thought, an errant thought. Erik loves him, even if he shouldn't. "I would never hurt him," he whispers, and it radiates from him, the sincerity of it. It was a barely audible statement, but it seems to shout anyway. He would sooner destroy himself. Give him the knife and he'll plunge it into his own heart, should it ever happen.  
  
Erik shakes his head again and wraps Charles up in a hug, gratitude pouring off of him. He should love Charles, and he does love him. She's seen a lot; she's traumatized, too. It has nothing to do with who Charles is, or his profession, or anything real. She seems to grasp that pretty quickly for her credit, because she steps forward and envelops him in a hug. "I'm Magda."  
  
Charles knows that. He's just projecting, but this isn't about his fears and insecurites and he would never make it so. Instead he beams, hugging her right back. It's strange, but he already loves her, the same way Erik already loved Raven. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Magda," he says, and it's heavy with emotion. He swallows, leaning back against Erik to steady himself. "Erik has told me a lot about you. I'm very grateful you're up in the middle of the night to celebrate with us," he grins softly.  
  
She gives him a feeble squeeze, pulling away to cough into her shoulder. Erik moves to her side immediately and helps her to sit back down, pulling at Tabby's blanket and peeling off an identical one to wrap around her shoulders. She's got terminal cancer as a result of prolonged exposure to radiation, and she's thin as a rake. Erik's worried over it for a long time; she only got her diagnosis when she moved to _Bnai Brak_ , but he knew a while beforehand. He can sense the tumors, black edges of healthy cells. He plucks at them with his ability, a pimple he just can't pop. Even if he could, they'd just grow back somewhere else. Her brain, her pancreas. Someplace worse, someplace without a chance in hell. "I'm afraid I don't sleep much these days," she grins at him wanly and pats the spot beside her on the log. There's a washer drum with a crackling fire in front of her and she puts her hands out to it.  
  
Charles takes a slow, shaky breath. He knew it, too, but seeing it - he shakes his head, all of it caught in his throat and chest, pricking in tears that sting his eyes but won't fall. It isn't fair, not by far, but he imagines dwelling on it and drawing the attention here will do nothing to help. Instead he finds those places that ache and does what little he can do; if this is how it is, he'll make it as painless as possible. She's suffered enough. When he sits beside her, he's still smiling.  
  
There's a crash, dull and far-off, and he startles before realizing it's on his end of the connection. Raven and Warren are rough housing. "Sorry if you heard that. My sister is blue and likes to break things," he sighs, but it's soft and immensely fond. "We've been partying for hours now, but you haven't missed too much, really. I can fill you in." She already knows he's telepathic, because what other explanation would there be, so he plays out the evening for her as if they're watching it on a screen. He lingers, deliberately, on Erik speaking. On them laughing, teasing, kissing and touching and twirling as they danced. Of smearing ice cream on each other's noses. He imagines it isn't an Erik she's seen too much of, and he'd like for her to see more.  
  
She lets out a sigh of pure satisfaction as she melts into Erik's side, eyes fluttering closed. They've got her on a good deal of pain medication now but it's not enough, and the sudden absence of everything is the best she's felt in a long, long time. "Are you doing that?" she cracks one eye up at Charles, but is distracted by the influx of images, which make her giggle into her hands lowly, careful not to wake Tabby up. "You look so happy, _piccolo_. Are you? Happy?"  
  
Erik untangles some of her hair and takes her hand, eyes bright as he nods. _The happiest. I wished to be with my family, and he brought me to you._  
  
"You're submissive," she indicates the collar, thoughtful. She always wondered if Erik _could_ Bond, or if he did, would it be another high-Dom like himself; every other submissive she's known around him wouldn't have been able to consent to a match, and Erik wouldn't have done it. "Thank you," she pats his knee, fondness pouring off of her in waves. She can see from the few images she's shown that Charles is special, someone who can make Erik talk, who can submit to him without losing themselves. He has sad eyes, she thinks. It's good that he found Erik; the man has a singular talent for looking after people. He looked after her, and she was an utter nightmare.  
  
Charles nods to both questions, a wry smile on his lips. "I'm an S1," he explains quietly, not disturbing the peace they've found in the night here, the silent field, the soft breathing of the sleeping child. The lack of pain. This is a moment the two of them should have had sooner, but he'll make certain they have them now. "For most of my life, I presented Dominant. I wasn't affected by Will. And then Erik came along and shook everything up," he chuckles, so fond it hurts a bit where it wells up in his chest and sticks, choking him up. The tears are back in his eyes as he caresses his collar with a finger, featherlight and reverent. "He is good at that, isn't he? But rest assured it goes both ways." He reaches for Erik's other hand. It can't hold his the way his left can, but he merely strokes it, careful and loving. Charles meant his declaration before; he would rather experience the most excruciating of tortures than see Erik suffer even a second more of it.  
  
This is good, Magda thinks. When she goes, he'll have someone. The kids understand, but they're so young. They can't support an adult on the emotional level they need. "You have a lovely voice," she tells Erik, a smile on her lips. She's never heard it until just now, the memory Charles showed her. He can't squeeze back, but he lays his other hand over Charles's, raising it to kiss his knuckles. "That must be so exciting," she adds, to Charles. "I can tell you have a kind heart. You let him be good to you," she wags her finger at Erik. She knows that he thrives when he's in the capacity of caretaker, but it's easy to overlook your own needs. She sees in Charles someone who won't let him get away with it.  
  
Charles laughs so he doesn't have to acknowledge how horribly sad he is at the implications here. The joy with the sorrow. "No, we're good at making sure each other's needs are met, I can promise you that." He needs to be taken care of as much as Erik needs to do the caring, and if he ever fusses it's something they both need, too. They're perfectly matched, and he hopes Magda sees it, even in the short time she's had to process it. He hopes she knows that he will do everything in his power to make Erik happy, to see him smile, to smooth out those hard lines on his face. "Doesn't he have the most beautiful voice you've ever heard?" he grins, because he thinks he should get to fawn over Erik a bit, too. Not that he doesn't always. "It's my favorite sound." He shows Magda more images, tinged with adoration, with complete devotion; Erik singing during services, reciting him poetry. An Order slips in there, an Imperative - _relax_ \- and Charles shivers, even just the recollection making every muscle go slack as he sighs. He's flushing in the aftermath. "Sorry, slipped in there," he explains, head ducked, but the tips of his ears are pink even in only firelight where they peek out from his hair.  
  
"Why apologize?" Magda grins at him, nudging his shoulder but it's barely a blip, weak as she is. There's nothing wrong with receiving Orders, and it's nice to see Erik being- _normal_. Living a life, sharing in the moments that make up love. They didn't know one another for very long, but they were the two adults in close proximity to one another; and Magda was the first decent human being he had the pleasure of being in extended contact with in years and years. She's not much older than him, but she can't help it; her maternal instincts kicked in. "And you sing!" she laughs. During a quiet moment he pointed out Israel to her on an atlas, while she pointed to Italy for herself; so they knew that much fully at least, amidst a language they'd developed out of necessity. Magda's baseline, but she speaks perfectly fluent Erik. Still, it's nice to have telepathic interpretation. "Sing me something?" she puts both her hands on either one of their knees.  
  
Charles raises his head to look at Erik, waiting to see if he will, if he feels he can; he could always recall something, if not. "I sincerely hope you meant Erik," he snorts. "I certainly do not sing, but he's brilliant." He does, actually. He can hold a tune and he has a pleasant, soft voice. He used to sing to Raven, but only when she was already half-asleep. Now he sings in places people won't hear him, usually only under his breath. In the shower after his runs, rinsing off. While he works, and he's forgotten other people might be around. While Erik prays, quiet and only hummed. Even if Erik insists, even if it's only the two of them, he's shy about it, especially if he catches him when he doesn't expect to be caught. But Erik enjoys it, and it's gorgeous, and he doesn't need Charles to join in.  
  
Erik flushes bright red, and hides his head in Charles's shoulder, so that's a no. Magda doesn't begrudge him at all, until he slowly does, first under his breath and obscured by the fabric at Charles's shoulder, but he ducks his head aside so his voice echoes softly through the night. Tabby rustles but only sinks deeper into dreams. " _There is a house built out of stone/wooden floors, walls and window sills/tables and chairs worn by all of the dust/this is a place where I feel at home/out in the garden where we planted the seeds/there is a tree as old as me/by the cracks of the skin I climbed to the top/I climbed the tree to see the world..._ "  
  
Charles closes his eyes, and the tears that hadn't fallen before do now. He thinks, privately, that the sound his heart makes is the sound of Erik singing. There was no one to sing to him before. No one ever had. Erik does, and it calms him when nothing else will. When Charles is hurting, and sad, and scared. When he is happy, too. He smiles, and then, barely audible and only under his breath, he hums along.  
  
Magda's eyes follow suit and her breathing evens out, a smile on her face. When she hums along, though, it is dreadfully out of tune and Erik stifles a giggle. "Shut up! This is all classical talent, baby," she fans her own face, concealing a cough in the back of her wrist. Yeah, this is good. She's been collecting moments these last few months. This one's definitely going in the bank.  
  
Charles only smiles wider. "I think it was beautiful," he tells her, and they're all huddled close. Without Erik to support her, he worries if she'll be comfortable, so he gently scoots her until she's curled up nicely between them, entirely swaddled in the blanket. She needs rest and she hasn't been getting it. "Goodnight, Magda. Thank you," he whispers, and nudges her mind; a good, uninterrupted night's sleep. She'll wake up once she's been through the proper amount of cycles, without pain. His hold slips as her mind does, and by the time she's out, the living room has faded back in. Charles climbs into Erik's lap.  
  
"Yuh welco..." she passes out before she finishes.

* * *

Erik promptly puts his head in Charles's chest and heaves a large shudder, clutching him tightly. Raven and Warren will no longer see his tears fall, but Charles does, and he pets him gently on the lower back. _Thank you-I-there are no words-_  
  
Charles is crying, too, touched and trembling and he doesn't need words. He whines, not particularly caring if anyone can see them as he rubs his cheek against Erik's, needy. "Erik," he whispers, like it's the only word he knows. "Erik, Erik, Erik." He's tugging at his shirt like before, as if he's begging for more attention.  
  
Everyone else has long disappeared for him and he kisses Charles, soft. "I love you," he whispers, sliding his hand up under Charles's shirt to touch skin. "I love you so much. Can we go home now?" _home/bedroom/goodnight stars, goodnight moon/goodnight Warren_ -  
  
Charles shivers, almost violently. He wants Erik alone very badly. He wants Erik to hold him and kiss him and Order him. To take care of him. To take him apart and put him back together better than the way he was before. "Yes," he whispers, but doesn't move because he doesn't want to, nuzzled into Erik and making those soft, encouraging noises as he squirms for more touch and sinks, sinks, sinks.  
  
"Mmhmm," Erik purrs as he lifts Charles up to his feet and presses against him all the way up the stairs, bidding him to tell their guests goodnight-or at least, so long and thanks for all the fish. They can stay, but Charles and Erik aren't available anymore. He bows their foreheads together, crowding him into the wall and stepping into his space, bending down to nose against his neck. Curiosity pings between them.  
  
Charles somehow manages to notice while he's gasping, arching his neck and baring his throat for Erik. This morning it was a sign of trust and desire from Erik, but from Charles it is absolutely overt submission. He's squirming quite insistently, because he knows Erik will hold him tighter if he does, will touch him more to soothe him. "Hmmm?" he asks, when he can make any noise that aren't needy sighs.  
  
Erik's distracted by that and he traces his fingers across the bared expanse of flesh, over his collar, nipping under his ear. _Curiosity!_ sparkles again, bright and joyful, and his hand skitters down to Charles's hip, pulling him close. He holds up two fingers, teeth flashing in a grin.  
  
Charles immediately turns red. It's after. One of them isn't meant for after, but he thinks he's a little too far-down for that. The other makes his belly immediately burst with nerves and fluttering, wriggling butterflies, his pulse racing. He hides in Erik's shoulder. " _Nuh-uh_ ," he whispers, shaking his head again and again. He's embarrassed. Erik won't like it. It was silly to plan it.  
  
That's the one-Erik has been able to sense it all night, among other things and he spreads his fingers out across Charles's ass, squeezing hard before giving him a little slap for encouragement, pinning him to the wall the second he arches into it. " _Mmno_ ," he rumbles lowly. "Mine. Want it."  
  
Charles whines loudly, eyes wide because - oh, he'd almost forgotten. Now he's making more of those needy, soft noises, rocking into Erik's thigh and the wall, but still shaking his head as he tries to find more places to hide in. He settles for Erik's chest. " _Uh-uh_ ," he insists, pouting, because Erik isn't going to like it and he'll die of embarrassment. His heart is pounding in his chest already and he's trembling.  
  
"Show me," he breathes the Order in their conglomerate language, which turns out to have an Imperative, too! So nifty. _Want to see. It's mine. I want it._ Because his strong suspicion is that it relates to Charles and this delicious gift currently pressed inside him that Erik tweaks just so with his abilities so it emits a soft vibration. And Charles is his. And he wants.  
  
He's moaning immediately, eyes near-comically wide in his shock and squirming on his feet, thighs pressed together as he gasps. He nods this time, though, because Erik is right. It's his gift and he should have it if he wants it. "Yes, sir," he whispers, biting on his lip as he holds back another soft moan. "Can you... close your eyes and wait, please?" he asks, unbearably shy and submissive and tingling all over with the nerves and anticipation.  
  
He does, but he can't resist touching Charles's cheek before he moves to do whatever it is he needs to do, knowing instinctively where he is even with his eyes shut as he sits (or in this case stands) pretty.

* * *

Charles is wobbling a little as he scurries off to the closet, his heartbeat practically audible as he attempts not to trip in his haste. Even if it was an Order, he knows if he hesitates he'll only work himself up more and his overactive brain will get in the way, reminding him of all the reasons this was a dreadful idea. He does make a low, vaguely distressed noise as he considers something, but ultimately rushes into the bathroom, assuring Erik through the Bond that it's part of his surprise. Locking the door is useless but he does it anyway, aware Erik can still hear him stalling on the other side of the door, chewing insistently on his lip and cheek.  
  
The first part is nothing, but he's still breathing harshly as he strips and freshens up. He washes his face and then the rest of him, too, whimpering when he moves too much because without his slacks in the way, and with Erik's attention on it, he can feel it. It's not the biggest plug they own (they haven't used most of them, but he knows Erik can make something bigger even if they didn't own it) nor does it vibrate on its own, but it's blue and the stopper is a pretty, deep sapphire jewel, sticking out from between his cheeks. He's shaved in places he usually doesn't, legs included, mostly because it felt like something he wanted to do, and not to entertain any ridiculous notions about how he needed to emasculate himself; he assures himself that looking nice for Erik isn't a crime, and he should take pride in it. It's soft, too, and Erik likes soft.  
  
The thought of turning himself into a pretty gift for his Dominant to unwrap has been working him up since he first conceptualized this.  
  
The main attraction is a piece he's had thoroughly fitted to his body, and that was quite the ordeal but worth it if it will please Erik. Traditional submissivewear is almost never bothered with anymore even on the occasions that would call for it, like, say, Bonding Day. In high-society circles, however, it's much more common. He's worn a corset before, only once, on his sixteenth birthday. The entire ordeal felt humiliating and uncomfortable. Besides, it had been an ugly white thing that did nothing to form to his body and stuck out like a sore thumb underneath the rest of his outfit. It was supposed to be there if, by some fat chance, a Dominant managed to court him. Horrifying implications aside, it clearly hadn't happened, and he'd stripped it off as soon as possible.  
  
Like everything now, he wants to do it right with Erik.  
  
This corset is decidedly not white. It's been custom-made, just the perfect blend of deep, darker blues that Erik loves on him and the tropical, blue-green waters and emerald of his placeholder collar, which he doesn't need to match to because it was always meant to match Erik's eyes in the first place. It's fairly simple, as far as design goes, luxurious silk and cotton backed with steel, clasps in the front but intricate lacing in the back; it probably shouldn't have been possible for him to put it on himself, but fortunately for him he's discovered telekinesis just in time and Erik can always adjust. He'd debated whether or not to keep his bottom half bare (he certainly wasn't going to wear pants or his usual boxer-briefs), and he'd decided... well, if he was going all out. The tight, form-fitting briefs he is wearing are a deep blue, and ostensibly lingerie, silk with a hint of lace, hiding absolutely nothing and clinging to his ass. There are bows on either side as if he truly is a pretty gift.  
  
Charles stares at himself in the mirror. His normally tiny waist is cinched in tight, his cheeks are flushed with nerves and excitement, his lips are swollen from kisses and biting and he looks...  
  
He sucks in a breath, and then a few more, and it takes a while for him to actually leave the bathroom, his belly nothing but a quivering mess.  
  
"Erik?" he breathes out, and he sounds breathless and shaky. "You can, um. You can look now," he mumbles.

* * *

For one very long, absolutely agonizing moment it appears as though Erik's stopped breathing, his mind blissfully blank as his eyes fully register what is happening in front of him. Every part of him is still, lips parted on a frozen exhale and it's not that he's _hiding_ his reaction by any means. If he were cognizant right now he'd say he could _hear_ the point at which his brain _blew a fuse_ , an electric crackle of blue-white roaring through his body. Dandelion puffs wavering on wind-gusts and he can't hear anything over the ringing in his ears.  
  
Movement thunders back in isolated comportment, first his feet independent of neural impulse carrying him forward. And then his hands of their own accord, along the front of the corset, over the rippled slats and soft fabric repetitively. The metal returns, winding around circular spirals and structures, pressed against Charles's warm skin. When he does remember to breathe it's a sound like breaking his head above water amidst panic-drowning. Instead of panic and instead of fire, what slams into him is meters of pure force beyond anything he is capable of categorizing.  
  
There is something long and sleeping beneath his surface a flip-book of human evolution, from creature to upright man, that exists inside of every Dominant one form or another; spinal-patellar reflex arcs and maybe it's just nature-there is a reason this is such a traditional submissive garment, Erik's first coherent thought is that he wonders if it's possible for a Dominant to see their submissive dressed this way and not be dragged down by monster-faced claw-hands out of a cellar door in a horror movie, scratches in wood the deeper-darker they go. Erik might have reacted with linearity if he anticipated this; it's all disjointed but one thing is very clear. He has gone so far beyond anything he's ever classified as Dominion that it's almost as much of a shock to him as the images reflected back in his retinas.  
  
The only thing keeping him from pinning Charles to the nearest available surface and ripping that pretty plug right out of him to replace it with something better is the fact that his instinct to preserve this gorgeous sight is stronger by mere margins. A little easier when indulging such fantasies he didn't even realize he had; gripping on those two laced up fringes like reins to leisurely fuck Charles on his cock while he braces himself against the wall. Keeping that plug instead and bending him over his knee so he can see the interplay of red and sapphire. It is a present he has no intention of unwrapping. Every desire overflowing from him can be made manifest while keeping Charles perfectly in tact. Perfectly beautiful and his.  
  
"All this time?" he croaks, and that is the sound of a dying man who's just found water in the desert. _Don't you dare slip through my fingers, don't you dare be a mirage._  
  
Charles chokes at the reaction when it comes, his own breathing stuttered and shaky, which is perhaps a problem when he's wearing something restrictive. His eyes have hazed over, fidgeting and painfully shy as he tries to cover parts of himself Erik has already seen many, many times with far less barriers. Every time he thinks he might breathe normally or be able to speak Erik's Will slithers over his skin and makes him gasp and wriggle, eyes wide and lips parted. "Yes, sir," he whispers finally, and he already sounds wrecked before anything has happened. "I had to have it fitted. Does it... please you?" All of this was to please his Bonded on the night of their Ceremony. He's Erik's gift.  
  
" _Hmmmmmn_ ," is all Erik feels capable of replying with and he uses that opportunity to bump Charles up against the wall again, fingers curling around his throat as he kisses him hot and wet, slipping his tongue between those parted lips and squeezing at the line of his neck-lightly, he can't restrict his breathing anymore, but the dizzied reaction he gets is purely delicious. He takes Charles's hand in his and slides it between his legs, letting him feel how heavy and hard he is up against the zipper of his jeans. "Feel how you please me? Not just there. In here." He bites a fingernail against Charles's temple. "Mmm. Here." Under his eyes. Over his heart. "All this time you were-" he groans into Charles's mouth. "Preparing yourself for me. How you look for me sweetheart. Such a pretty boy I have. _Mmmnn_. I cannot decide how I should have you." And that means they're going to be here a while and Erik's words have become all the richer for it, dark and promising, heat spreading from his hands and melting into Charles's bones and sparking off of subspace until he feels every shift of air glitter and coast along the atmosphere in streaks of hot desire.  
  
His eyes cross with the praise, with the touch, with the remnants of the kiss, and he can't get enough air into his poor lungs through his kiss-swollen mouth. He's trembling all over, quiet, desperate little whimpers as he tries to rub himself against Erik's thigh, trapped against the wall. Every time his chest heaves in a breath over the corset, he clenches tighter around the plug buried deep inside of him, gets dizzy with the reminder and moans. He wants Erik's fingers around his throat anyway. There's no need to breathe when Erik's praise is the only life-force he knows right this minute, the only thing keeping him woven together. "Can I...?" Charles bites hard on his lip, teary-eyed already as he looks up. "Please, sir."  
  
"Tell me what you want," Erik Orders lowly, rubbing the blue ribbon at his hips between his fingers.  
  
Charles wants to be owned, to be kept and used and shown exactly who he belongs to, but he thinks Erik means what he's begging for in this specific moment. He bites on his lip, shivering like he's got a chill. "May I please undress you, sir?" he asks, eyes hot as burning stars.  
  
"Mhm," Erik smiles at him, bright and pleased. "Regretfully I am nowhere near as fancy as all this, but I make do." His lips purse, amused. He lifts Charles's hand up to his shirt. "Slow," he whispers. He wants to savor every second of this. He wants to never not be doing this.  
  
Charles' fingers are shaking something awful, but he makes do, too. Erik isn't touching him but he makes almost constant noise, sighing and murmuring, shivering with spikes of Will and need. He undoes every button deliberately, just as Erik bid him, even when he shakes enough to fumble, kissing bare skin when it's exposed and staring in wonder and awe and thinly-veiled heat as if he's seeing it for the first time. By the time he's discarding Erik's shirt, throwing it to the side carelessly in a way Erik probably wouldn't approve of, he's shaking like a leaf and all too eager to get to his knees. He goes right for Erik's zipper with his teeth, eyes wide and impossibly blue now when he looks up. With the jeans down far enough, he's utterly distracted; Erik's cock is clearly visible and he nuzzles right into it like it's magnetized, sighing and rubbing his cheek against it as his eyes fall closed and he totally forgets his task in favor of the sensory. He did that. He made his Dominant hard for it, he pleased him.  
  
The sight of Charles on his knees, bound up and nuzzling against his cock threatens to completely undo him and he bares himself completely, and his stomach clenches hard. He can't resist trailing himself along Charles's lower lip, but when he opens up obligingly to take Erik in, he just shakes his head, eyes open hardly a crack and blooming in dilation. He lays the whole palm of his hand across Charles's cheek, rocking forward subtly to drag himself across Charles's mouth, delaying on dipping himself inside. Every moment of this drawn out, hammered steel into wires that spiral outward and wrap Charles up, binding him as fiercely with Will. "You like that? You like seeing what you do to me?"  
  
Charles whines, lips pressed together in half of a pout when Erik slips out of his reach again. He wants desperately to rock forward on his heels and take him inside, but more than that he wants to be obedient, to wait and do as he's told even if it seems especially cruel. His own eyes are heavy-lidded, and he doesn't want to risk using his mouth to speak in case his Dominant decides he'd rather use it for something else. _Yes, sir,_ he says, grateful for his abilities now more than ever as he looks up with hazy eyes. _I like knowing I please you. I always want to please you_ , he murmurs sweetly, earnestly. Every time he thinks he's forgotten about the plug inside he shifts and it grazes silk and he remembers. His eyes roll back with another soft moan. _Please, Erik, can I have your... can I have you?_ he corrects, pink-cheeked.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "Mm-mm," he smiles, pressing his thumb to his own tongue so he can slip it back and forth over Charles's bottom lip, blinking slowly down at him. "Tell me. Use your words." It's no secret that Erik loves hearing him talk. And he can just Order it, he can want something and Order it and it will be obeyed and he doesn't want harm, he doesn't want pain or suffering. Only good things. It is good.  
  
Charles squirms, because he's never quite gotten used to being verbal like this. He's not sure he ever will, but he knows there's not an ounce of shame even as his cheeks flare hot with embarrassment. "I - I want..." He sucks in a slow, shaky breath, and it shudders through his entire body, the corset pulled loose enough that it doesn't hurt but he feels it and it's such a strange, delicious feeling. "I want your cock, please, sir," he admits, barely audible as he lets he lowers his eyes, too shy to look.  
  
Erik tilts up his chin, eyes blazing as he locks them with Charles's. "Do you," he whispers. "And how do you want it, Charles?" his name on Erik's lips is a purr, satisfied and luxuriating.  
  
He shivers with it, trembling in the aftermath. His name has never sounded like that except when Erik says it. "Any way you'd like to give it to me, sir," he gasps, but he knows it's not a totally honest answer and he can't lie now or ever. "But I'd really like it if you... um, fuckedmyface," he bursts out, cheeks so hot they burn. "Please," he adds, as if to soften it, mouth dry.  
  
Erik's hard enough that it honestly looks painful, and he pats Charles's cheek, guiding him to open up with his fingers. He gives Charles what he wants, not in a rough, unrelenting pace but slow, feeding himself inch by inch and no less relentless for it, stroking his jaw and hair and neck, unable to resist telling him how pretty he looks on his knees dressed up for him, how lovely his burning eyes are, how perfect his lips are reddened around his dick. _How beautiful, how sweet. Mine,_ it all drips like honey from him, and he shifts the plug deeper inside, letting it curl upward to nudge against his prostate and vibrate sharply.  
  
He chokes slightly around the dick in his mouth, a muffled wail as he rocks forward and back, but there's no leverage even as he clenches hard around the plug beneath the pretty silk and lace. All he can do is suck at the cock in his mouth and shake in overwhelmed, deep subspace, stay open wide and ready for Erik, words knocked right out of his head and replaced with sounds and a need for touch and direction and praise. When Erik is deeper in his throat and he has to huff desperate breaths through his nose, tears leaking from the corner of his eyes, the restricting embrace of the corset makes him dizzy and it's so distinctly pleasurable that he moans louder. Idly, he hopes Erik will pull it even tighter just to see him gasp. Every passing moment is one he sinks farther down, slipping and slipping even when there doesn't seem to be anywhere further to go, Erik the only thing tethering him to the world.  
  
"Oh, sweetheart," Erik groans and this time gives a good hard thrust forward, making Charles gag and cover him in spit and drool that mixes with pooling precome until it leaks from the corners of his lips, and he does it again and again, withdrawing all the way before shoving himself forward, hand braced on the wall in front of him. "Did you know I can feel it, hm, Charles? Did you know I can feel it every time that sweet, tight hole of yours grips deeper and more and how filthy it feels, did you know you do that to me? I am inside of you, _neshama_. Mmhm, even now. Did you know that?" Erik gives the toy a little twist, extends it so it fills him up bigger and thicker than before. It slips out a bit and fucks back up into him. He's peeled off, layer after layer of Dominion swamping the room in hot sparks.  
  
The sounds Charles is making are patently filthy, absolutely debauched. They're wet and sloppy and garbled and he's forgotten entirely how to be embarrassed about it. He's moaning constantly around the intrusion in his mouth as he begins to cry in earnest, his hips rocking back onto the toy fucking into him. It's still not nearly as big as Erik inside him, but it's good, nudging always against the bundle of nerves his Dominant seems hell-bent on stimulating; he's dizzy and lightheaded and there's spit and precome and tears all over his face but it doesn't stop him from keeping his mouth open wide, not capable of doing much more than being a wet, warm hole for Erik to fuck into. There's a spreading wet spot all over the front of his lingerie, the sight obscene where his own dick is tenting it obviously. Erik has been training him not to come until he's told, until he's been allowed, but he honestly doesn't think he'll manage if he's expected not to now. His mind becomes _please sir please sir please please can I please,_ because he's so hard and aching it hurts and he can barely breathe and he's choking and gagging and it's delicious, it's wonderful, he belongs to Erik -  
  
Erik slowly slips out, shuddering and dripping all over himself and he shakes his head as though he can clear his thoughts but he only ends up deeper, more intense and his eyes roll back with the force. He sits himself down on the bed and pats his outstretched legs. "Not yet, _neshama_. Come here. Come and put yourself over my lap. That's it," he praises fondly, cheeks dotted high with color, the room drenched in his Will.

* * *

Charles whines loudly at the loss, trembling and sniffling with it, but he fumbles to his feet and sways on legs like jelly to do as he's told. He likes being over Erik's lap, very much. In a day he does as much as he can, cheeky and mischievous, to end up exactly here, wiggling as Erik cracks a hand or implement over his ass in reprimand and whispers heated things _like are you going to behave now, sweetheart?_ Now he squirms and whimpers, unable to help rocking into Erik's thigh, rubbing his cheek against the sheets, burning for touch. He's never felt this needy for any kind of attention, and he went through a literal heat cycle when they first Bonded, never felt this deep deep deep and he'd do anything to make Erik pleased with him.  
  
"Let me hear you," Erik murmurs into his hair, trailing his fingertips down his spine and curling his large, warm hand over his ass where it eclipses an entire cheek. When Charles rocks right back into it he can feel Erik's dick twitch against his thigh, a molten strip, alive and pulsing. "Look at yourself. Look," he Orders roughly as he brings his palm down hard, hears the echoing slap like a gunshot. "Look," he whispers again. Pretty in decadent silk, laced up tight, the way the bottom of the corset frames his ass magnificently, how it matches the glittering sapphire of the plug buried deep in him. He doesn't build up at all, spanking him over and over again, each one jostling it dangerously close to pulling him over the edge, but Erik won't let him, he's got a firm lock on it. He's rubbing himself unconsciously, rocking his hips and head thrown back..  
  
Charles is wailing before long, wailing and sobbing and rocking, crying so hard it sticks in his throat and has to fight to breathe. Every time he calms, Erik slaps right against where the plug is sitting and he's worked right up again. He always cries when he's spanked, a response to the pain blending into the pleasure, the rush of hormones, but all he really cares about is Erik's big hand on his ass, blooming it hot and red under his touch. "Th - th- ah!" He's trying so hard to speak around hitchy little cries, around sniffles and his legs are kicking, he's squirming but not to get away. "Thank you, sir," he manages, trembling around it but so sincere, so sweet, "Thank you, thank you, _thankyouthankyou_ -"  
  
For all that Erik is so aroused he thinks he'd make a decent glass cutter, he's taking his sweet time, nowhere near even remotely through. "Thank you for _what_ , hm?" he wonders as he rubs away the sting, scratching in his nails and landing another blow just when Charles starts to calm, having eased off the harsh smacks of earlier, more sensation and touch and feel now.  
  
Charles hiccups loudly, sniffling as he tries to catch his breath. He feels like his ass is on fire, thoroughly spanked and he wants more and Erik doesn't seem like he's done, silk and lace around his knees and he knows the picture he makes. He was told to look so he did and now he can see himself like this, crying and squirming over Erik's lap in his pretty corset with a hot bottom and his dick rubbing and leaking on his Dominant's thigh. "Mmm - for - f -..." He shakes his head, desperate and whimpering, hiccuping again.  
  
"Mhmm, for what, sweetheart?" He wraps his fingers around the plug and slowly, shallowly thrusts it back into him, allowing him to catch his breath in one manner, but simultaneously stealing it from him in another. Never too much, never really too much, rising up completely in tandem with how deep Charles has gone under, meeting him there in its entirety.  
  
His whimper is higher-pitched, then, drawn out longer, and his dick twitches against Erik's thigh when the plug settles firmly against his prostate. Charles squirms harder. "For using me," he cries, fingers tangled up in the sheets, rubbing his tears out in them as he twists to look at Erik. Even among those tears and all that whipped up need, there's glittering, dreamy adoration, complete and utter devotion. "For giving me what I need, taking c-care of me, sir," it all comes out stuttered and sniffly, and his chest is heaving around it. "You always -" It's something Erik's said to him before, and he chews at his lip, smiling tremulously. "Always take care of what b-belongs to you." And Charles belongs to him.  
  
"Always," Erik whispers back, tilting his chin up to kiss him softly, in direct juxtaposition with the obscene manner he has Charles spread out over him. He seems content to alternate between manipulating the plug, sometimes with his hand or his abilities, and delivering faint smacks to his ass, switching it up with rubbing at the welted flesh instead, letting Charles drag himself over and over across Erik's thigh, built up so slowly over minutes, hours, they all blend into one until he finds himself suddenly overcome with it, out of nowhere and Erik still has a firm grip on his release. "You're being so good for me," he tells him, smiling down. "You're doing such a good job taking this, Charles, hm? If I give you back the reins do you think you'll come before I say?"  
  
Charles gives Erik a delighted, watery smile at the praise from where his face is mostly pressed into the sheets, rubbing for sensation. He's been nice and still over Erik's lap, sniffling softly and taking it, but the question makes his breath hitch. Erik is teaching him and he says he's doing very well but he doesn't want to disappoint him now. For a moment there's a spike of anxiety, a quiet whine, before he shakes his head vehemently. It makes him dizzier, but that's alright. "Mm-mm, sir," he confirms, arching his ass into Erik's palm to feel, even though it just slapped him. He likes that attention, too, thanks Erik for that, too. "I'll be good. Promise." He sounds floaty, breathless, but it's determined, too. "Gonna be a good boy for you."

* * *

"Oh, I know you will," Erik murmurs, that firm thread of Will making everything low and glittery. He rubs away the sting of his latest smack, not even anything that could be called such, just a light flick over raw welts. "And if you can't, that's OK, too," he grins. "It just means we'll need more practice." And Erik is not inconvenienced by that in the slightest. "OK, there we go," he slowly relaxes the hold over Charles's body until he's keeping himself contained purely on his own self-control. "How do you feel, hm?" he rocks him a little bit against his thigh, just enough to filter everything back in.  
  
But Charles wants very, very, very much to make Erik proud. He's whimpering, face buried in the sheets to stifle the louder of his gasping, overwhelmed noises, turns his face and hiccups. "F-Feels good, sir," he whispers, which is an understatement and also not wholly true, because he's so hard it hurts but he's not going to come. He focuses on Erik's voice, on his hands alone, needing and seeking constant touch. "Gonna take care of me," he sighs, soft and pliant, more for himself than for Erik, reminding himself that he's owned and cared for, that there's nothing to fret over. He's prone to getting overwhelmed this far down, and he's never been quite this far, he doesn't think, but Erik always knows when it's really too much.  
  
"That's right, _neshama_ ," Erik breathes back, lightly pressing the pads of his fingers into abused, reddened flesh. "Always take care of you. Mine. Love you. So good for me, so proud of you," he whispers into his ear. "Trust me?" He's still quite talkative, but his own words have become laden with intensity, full of too many feelings he can't express, mind a haze of deep, dark Dominance winding around them in curls of humid warmth, satisfying and entitled and sticky.  
  
Charles nods eagerly, no longer crying but still sniffling and hiccupping in the aftermath. He's not calmed down any, and he doesn't think he can; he's too wound up, strung too tight, like a plucked string in Erik's fingers. He keeps remembering that he's wearing what he is, everytime he tries to breathe in deep and can't, and if he squirms too much, kicks out his legs, they get caught in the pretty silky thing he'd been wearing, still bunched at his knees. "Mmhm. Love you, trust you, sir," he murmurs sweetly, wiggling his ass against Erik's palm.  
  
Erik lets that sensation wash over him, groaning softly into his ear entirely without conscious direction. He waits until Charles has calmed down enough that simple movements don't make him writhe, before laying him out on his hands and knees and stretching over him, rubbing his cock along those hot, raised welts and inhaling sharply, gasping at the feeling of it amplified in Charles, reflected back. "'Good? Mhmm?" _Want it?/tell/show/feel-_  
  
That's really all it takes to work him up again. He doesn't know how he won't come immediately if Erik's cock is anywhere near him, sniffling loudly when it drags against the soreness, but he knows he's going to be good. Charles is going to be a good boy. He sends back sensation instead of words, the feelings and need behind _yes sir/good boy/want it need it/please_. Sends hazy, glimmering subspace, the deep-deep-deep down where there's nothing to breathe but his Dominant and he needs him so badly. Would do anything for him, needs to please him like he needs to be. It's hard to keep himself upright, his arms shaking, but he wants to do it for Erik. "Er -..." He wants to say it, but it's so hard to get words out of his mouth like this, too. He shakes his head and tries again, brow furrowed. " _Eriiiiiiik_ ," he whines.  
  
Erik shivers at that, slides down until his nose is level with the plug and slowly pulls it out with a filthy, wet pop and immediately buries his tongue into the space left behind, moaning against him, overcome-understatement, Erik's totally gone, reduced to all the baser, possessive,, needy aspects of his personality-devotion and debauchery side-by-side. " _Mine_ ," he growls into him, placing the flat of his hand against Charles's stomach to pull him closer, pressing kisses along all the raised skin, rubbing it with his thumbs. The fact of the matter is he's been plugged up and stretched so long that Erik doesn't need to prepare him anymore than this-truly this is just because he wants to, because he likes making Charles melt against him-he's been ready all night for this, he's been just like this for the entire night- _mine mine mine mine_ -he's stifling himself in the sheets and Erik shakes his head. " _Nnn_ ," it's more noise than word. "Be good. Let me hear. Mine?"  
  
Charles makes a desperate, strangled noise, clinging to the sheets for purchase as he slowly, obediently lifts his head. Of all the things Erik does to him, this perhaps works him up the most, makes him red-faced and cross-eyed; there's something about Erik's _tongue_ inside that makes him utterly fall apart, nothing but melted, buttery desire, complete putty in capable hands. His hips are are stuttering backwards, aborted, unconscious motions, and he's projecting constantly; anytime Erik makes some kind of contact there's a flash of gratitude and raw, unbridled need, all of his sweet sighs and moans amplified. He sends back _please/empty/needit_ , legs shaking with the effort of keeping him up and not coming. Be good. He's going to be so good. "Yours, yours, yours," he sighs, heaving in greedy breaths around his pretty bindings. There's not a thought in his head - in the conscious, forward-part - that isn't about pleasing and serving Erik, in belonging to him.  
  
And Erik likes doing it, for precisely that reason. There's nothing off limits to him, no way in which Charles does not belong to him, and that it only serves to make Charles needier and less coherent is all the better. At last though Erik can't restrain himself anymore, and he rises up over Charles and wraps the cords of his lace bindings across the palm of his hand, seating himself up in his feet and drawing his hand down Charles's back. _Yes/need/good/mine_ flashes between them and he yanks Charles forward, rubbing against him insistently before sliding inside with one long, steady snap of his hips. He pulls at the same time, using the momentum to drive himself home.  
  
Charles screams, and it takes tensing every muscle he has and clawing at the sheets to keep from coming immediately, which just makes it more (toomuchtoomuchmore). He dribbles against all that pretty silk instead, his own dick slapping against his stomach when he arches, but doesn't come, wailing and gasping, desperate breaths as Erik starts to fuck him. He's been fucked hard before, many times now, but it's never been anything like this; not only does Charles swear he can feel Erik in his throat, all the way up in his belly, he thinks he can feel him in his soul, too, or whatever the equivalent is. He's there, and he's insistent, cleaving more space than he already had and Charles tries to thrust back at first and then loses the ability, unable to keep up with the sharp tugging and snap of hips. He's shoved helplessly against the sheets, welted, sore ass up, keening everytime he's pulled into Erik's cock, whining loudly every time it slips out, and it doesn't take long before he's crying, clenching deliciously and biting his lip bloody because he's good he's good he's Erik's he won't come until his Dominant says, until he has permission -  
  
Erik takes him at a leisurely pace, every thrust forward brutal and loud, the sound of flesh against flesh obscenely echoed between them. Erik pauses every time he thrusts Charles back on his dick, kissing his neck and brushing his hair aside, biting down hard near the line of his throat above his collar. _Do you see?_ he says, mental because it's a press of concepts before words, which he's all but lost. He makes Charles look, to really see himself, to see what Erik sees, how utterly breathtaking he is spread open beneath him. "Fuck yourself on my cock, that's it. Back, show me come on. That's it. Clench down against me. There you go, hmm?" he rubs his thumb along the edge of Charles's hole where it meets him on each hard shove forward, muttering low, against the shell of his ear exactly how he wants Charles to serve him, what to do, what to say, what to feel-but the biggest difference above anything else is that this is Charles. This is entirely Charles. Charles is controlling himself, he is fully under his own self-discipline, and he's being so good because Erik's trained him to, because his body is made to take Erik, in every capacity, and to give up more of those shivery, loud cries just for Erik. It's more than his choice, it's his skill, a work of art honed in.  
  
And Charles is sobbing, nothing but everything Erik needs him to be, his entire being narrowed down to this. He was made to take this. To follow Erik's guidance and direction, to fall open on his cock but not to break until the precise moment he's told to. Until he's granted permission, given the privilege. Every time he shoves his hips back into Erik's thrusts his eyes roll back and his whole body shudders violently, sparks of tingling, prickling pleasure straight up his spine and mirrored-echoed in Erik through the Bond and he can't breathe. He's sucking in harsh, panting breaths but he still can't breathe and it's alright because that doesn't matter as long as he's serving Erik, as long as he's listening to every filthy, firm direction, as long as he's being obedient because he needs to be obedient. It hurts now, his dick is practically purple, leaking constantly because he can't stop that, making such a mess, but he'll hold off because Erik is training him and he wants to be - he wants - "P-Please, sir," he chokes out, followed by another shaky wail when Erik thrusts all the way back in, his belly clenching tight and he's so deep inside, so much bigger than the plug, Charles knows he'll never really come out.  
  
"Just a little more," Erik whispers gentle praise, and slowly wraps him up in his left arm, slipping his hand over the soft lingerie where he's made such a mess and cupping him, firm and sure, rubbing the fabric back and forth over his highly sensitized dick as he raises up on his knees and really lays into him, letting those wailing cries morph into low, animal noises coating Erik's body in gasoline and throwing a match on top. His tone is so soft, so sweet in utter contradiction and yet not at all, it's a perfect representation of the way Erik Dominates him, equal parts everything. "Come for me, come on, _neshama_. Let me see." He wants Charles to come, now, all over this pretty lace bunched inside his fingers-wants- _mine_ , he growls. _Come for me. It's mine and I want it._ He withdraws fully right to the tip before burying himself, every inch relentlessly piercing him.

* * *

Charles has felt, before, that the world whited out when he came. That everything else dissipated and he was left with nothing but the culmination of his pleasure and Erik's careful, controlled Dominance over him, that he dropped far enough into subspace that wading his way back up would be impossible even with Erik's gentle guidance.  
  
He apparently didn't know what he was talking about.  
  
The world doesn't so much go white as it utterly shatters, splintering into millions of shining, reflective pieces as he screams like he's dying and clenches so hard he can feel it in his teeth, scrabbling at the sheets and still not finding purchase. His eyes roll back, and for a long time the problem seems to be that he can't stop coming. He's shuddering and keening through it, struggling to get enough breath into his lungs and not pass out, lips parted on a scream that eventually goes silent but his lips stay parted. Even when he does stop, collapsing boneless beneath Erik, he doesn't calm, he can't seem to; he's shaking and shivering enough that his teeth chatter, crying in silent, hiccuping sobs, red streaks of tears down his face. There are helpless, stuttering little whimpers that turn into sighs, sniffles and violent jolts of aftershocks that seem to wrack his body and shock him with their force. He hiccups and shivers harder every time.  
  
Charles is broken, completely, far enough beneath that cozy cave where he can breathe on his own that he can't fathom it, relying entirely on Erik to put his pieces back together. To breathe. For everything. Usually belongs to Erik is woven into all that he is, an intrinsic part of him that informs and makes up the whole; now, in these moments, it is all he is.  
  
It echoes back in Erik as Charles's body seizes up underneath him, clenching him tight in a velvet vice grip and he gasps loudly, tucking Charles's head under his chin as his body moves to drape over him, aftershocks shivering into electric storms that scatter his molecules through Charles; not only a physical release, filling him enough that it runs down his thighs and collects against lace, but with the full and extended force of his spirit, passing through, changing the spin of neutrons and electrons until the world is upside-down strange and glittering dark matter. He's beyond words, drawing his fingers through the mess Charles made all over himself to dip them in his mouth, rubbing their cheeks together. It's without any conscious direction that he collects up the same that dribbles out of his overused hole and trails a streak over his throat, humming and well-pleased and completely surrounding Charles on every level. _Mine. Mmm, mine. Good, sweet boy. Love you. Did so good._ He pets Charles's hair, soothing and then his jaw, guiding him to relax each muscle group one at a time.  
  
Even as he relaxes, completely and utterly limp where Erik gathers him up, he's shivering enough that it's audible around the constant stream of soft, needy noises, quieting as the moments tick. Every now and then he still jerks like he's been electrified, whimpering in the aftermath and burying himself deeper in Erik. There are no conscious, complicated thoughts in his head. Everything is smoothed out into instincts and a gentler need than before, but no less intense; he's nosing into Erik's skin, rubbing against him to feel, tears still slipping down his cheeks that he presses into flesh. He's radiating, projecting, and the room absolutely vibrates with it. Every object in the room is coated in a psionic hum, not moving or lifting or floating, but joining in his pleased, bone-deep submission, ready to respond to Erik's Will, too. He brings his hand up to Erik's cheek, sighing softly, eyes closed, which he seems wont to do when he's reduced to this form of communication, but the only thing that gets transferred is love and devotion so pure it sings, submission so deep it encompasses him.  
  
Erik rolls over so he can gather Charles up in his arms and he loosens the corset around Charles's waist so he can take a full, deep breath, guiding him to inhale slowly and carefully, and touching his hand over the lingerie so that the discomfort from wetness dissipates into his fingers, leaving him dry and comfy. _Mine. Take care of you. Love you_. His whole body sings with each little action, a bright smile on his face as he fusses over Charles's hair, gently dabs his tears even when they keep coming, listening to every sound like it's music.  
  
Charles curls up into Erik's chest, sniffling and sighing, and he truly did have the corset expertly made, paid quite a pretty penny for it so he could be pretty for his Dominant; it's comfortable as anything now that it's loosened, luxurious and soft rather than stiff and scratchy like the first one he wore, because he knew that was what Erik would prefer. He nuzzles up into a safe, warm place and crumples into a ball for Erik to pet and fuss over, perfectly content to be limp and pliant as he continues to tremble. When he finally seems capable of any directed thought, he does it by patting at Erik's chest imploringly, peeking impossibly blue eyes up. He sends the image of the book he'd made, displayed lovingly, and then a silent, pleading ?  
  
Erik laughs, and it lifts up out of its safe spot in the dresser to land in his good hand, mostly just so he can touch along its spine-its easier to manipulate it with his power and he can use his left to touch at the soft fabric of the corset. When he does select something it's by drawing a fingertip over the handwritten words, evoking the memory as he isn't quite capable of linear speech yet. This one is in Erik's penmanship, traced from muscle-memory although he never touched pen to paper; poetry from his own mind. Some of the book is that; catches of phrases crossed-out and erased and written-over, verbal doodling in the original. _the dream is the endless drift/we are dreaming/i try to illuminate/some places that i've been before/in the middle of the night/you won't be so scared_  
  
Charles had expected him to tell a new story, to give him something to add to the book (he never intends to stop adding, and when he runs out of pages to write in and show Erik, he'll simply make another, until their room is filled with them, a gift he will give for the rest of his life), but this is just as good, just as calming. It's Erik's voice, even if it's only the evoked memory of it, and he lets his eyes flutter, rubs his cheek against Erik's chest, his newly-smooth legs over Erik's. Everything is sensation and lulled submission, and after a while he pats at Erik again, a soft little _notice me!_ pinging through the Bond, a non-verbal call for Erik's attention as he offers a shy, shaky smile from where he's half-hidden, almost playful.  
  
Erik grins back at him. He loves sharing new stories with Charles, but sometimes, certain moments just call for repetition and that-what he'd written there-this is precisely the exact captured brilliance in time he's trying to describe in words. Truly, you can't describe the indescribable. There will never be enough words or enough ink or enough pages for him to fill that will ever adequately highlight the liminal spaces they exist within just beyond, even his abilities don't view the atmosphere the same. It's altered just by their combined presence, and it's so unbelievably comforting he just pauses to bask before arching an eyebrow down at him, touching his face. _Hello, neshama,_ he laughs, soft.  
  
Charles seems surprised he's been given the attention he sought after, a delighted _!!!_ zipping through the Bond, his eyes wide with wonder as he smiles enough for those dimples of his to dot his tear-stained cheeks. He pats at Erik's hand, then prods his leg with a toe, sending that same sensation each time, that shy _Erik! Erik?_ just to see if he'll get another response.  
  
Every time, Erik pokes back with his own (big) big-toes,, or boops him on the nose, kisses him on the chin and twirls his hair and _Charles! Hi there, sweetheart,_ playful and thrilled to offer it. The next time he sings catches of songs. " _Good morning from the sun, good morning everyone/breathe in/exhale/a flood flood flood flood of blood blood blood to the heart heart heart heart..."_  
  
Charles is absolutely floored by it every time, no small amount of joy shooting through his entire body, bright and smiling as he squirms in bliss. When he rolls onto Erik's chest, shy and biting his lip, still not thinking or making words, he reaches up for Erik's face and pats insistently. No images accompany the action, besides sensations of hands in his hair, fingers stroking skin, and his own soft, heavy-limbed submission, but he keeps patting, chewing on his lip as he waits.  
  
Erik's eyebrows raise and his nose wrinkles up when he smiles, eyes creased at the corners. _Show me, neshama. What would you like, hm?_  
  
He wants attention. Lots of attention. He thinks he might fall apart if he's not getting it, actually, needs to be fussed over and praised and owned properly, told what to do because he's so deep, deep, deep, and he shows Erik that, too. Charles grins, crooked and shy, rubs Erik's cheek and then goes back to patting, sending images each time now; he wants to be kissed, and petted, and then there are images of bubbles, because they just bought things for the bath and he's sore and he'd like one very much, _please, sir_. When he goes back to stroking Erik's cheek, he's just pinging like before, gentle, wordless, _Hi! Hi! I'm here and I'm yours, did you know?  
_

* * *

Erik sits up and stands, and helps Charles to do the same before _sweeping_ him off his feet, picking him up bridal-style with mostly a display of his abilities, grinning shyly down at him. _I did, in fact, know,_ Erik's eyes go comically wide. _You have turned me into quite the caveman. Now I must carry you everywhere. Such a beast you've released.  
  
_ Charles squeaks, surprise and then bright-eyed delight, giggling as he kicks his feet and settles against Erik's shoulder. He likes it here. It's higher than he's used to, what a nice view. He's humming, content and floating, touches Erik's arm so he can send out more of those non-verbal, insistent messages, which seem to be of the utmost importance to him. _I belong to you!_ this one says, and he's nothing but properly gleeful about it. He keeps kicking his legs playfully, careful not to kick Erik.  
  
He does a careful twirl with Charles and then slowly and steadily eases him through the threshold of the bathroom, purely enthralled by said messages. He hopes he receives a million more, helplessly devoted to his wonderful Bondmate. When he lets Charles down it's to sit at the lip of the tub, and Erik kneels in between his legs, sliding his fingers up his thigh to peel his clothing away reverently, every strap and lace undone with delicate diligence. _And I to you,_ Erik whispers back, looking up with bright eyes. _Tide out/tide-in/breathe in/exhale..._  
  
Charles is absolutely beside himself everytime Erik touches him or responds, sparks of _!!!_ , giddy and giggling and wriggling about in Erik's arms, which makes it much more difficult to undo a corset but Erik doesn't tell him to stop so he doesn't. He does move when he's bid, though, lifting his arms and legs and staying still when he knows he should. There's not a sharp-edge anywhere on him, all gentled out glee and sensual, sensory need, obedience and playfulness in equal measures. _You're my Dominant!_ he sends next, because he can touch Erik's cheek and send it that way again, and he likes that the most. It's like he's realized it for the first time, his lips parted in surprise. He has a Dominant. Someone who guides him and Orders him and controls him and takes care of him and keeps him.  
  
His nose wrinkles again, fondness and affection pouring off of him in waves. _And you are my beautiful, incredible submissive,_ he returns, soft and won by Charles's eager attention on him. Fortunately he also has an Erik which makes removing the corset as easy as a blink; the only reason he's doing it with his fingers is because he loves to touch it, to watch Charles shift beneath his hands and the material shimmer under the light _. This is magnificent_ , he whispers, kissing him. Charles does have a Dominant, one who adores doting on him and petting him and making him feel good and warm and safe.  
  
Charles gasps into the kiss, eyes wide again. He happily submits right into it, soft and eager to return it, but pliant; he follows Erik's lead, humming into it. When Erik's pulled away and he's breathless, he glances at the corset, touching it and then Erik's cheek again: _dirty?_ He's pouting, just a tinge of upset through the Bond. He likes it and he hopes Erik likes it and he'd very much like to wear it again. Maybe next time Erik will do up the laces. That makes Charles shiver, feet kicking, because he'd like that very much and he'd ask nicely for it. It was almost impossible to do on his own and some of the laces hadn't been done up correctly in the end, twisted up in each other but he'd tried for his Dominant.  
  
A little bit, but Erik cleaned it right up while they were still in bed, and he lays it on the cover of the laundry basket, smoothing it out unconsciously with his hands. For someone who was very detail oriented, it said a lot that Erik hadn't even noticed some of it was cross-tied funny until he removed it just now, and there are a few knots, which he untangles; and one of the strings frayed from being yanked too hard which Erik repairs until it's as perfect as the day he was handed it in the store. _I love it_ , he answers back, utterly genuine. He wore them often at the _Institute_ and disliked them immensely, but that didn't even register on his radar, that's how much different it is between them. But, as a result, he can lace one up in two minutes flat-although he cannot imagine taking so short a time getting Charles ready. He'd want to savor that moment, and he's surprised to realize how much he likes the idea of corsetry on Charles, and he's very titillated by the fact that he'd been so willing to put himself out there and try something like this. Erik loves him deeply and it shouldn't go unsaid. Beautiful. Simply beautiful.  
  
 _Charles_ was surprised by how much he likes the idea of corsetry on Charles. After his sixteenth birthday, he'd completely, outright refused to put another one on. It would have been the appropriate dresswear at those high-society parties he's still dragged into attending, but he hadn't done it, took the scorn and the beatings for it instead. But he'd come up with this idea on his own, separate of that pain, and it's not on his radar now. Erik had bought a corset that day they'd gone to the store together, but it's still sitting, as far as he knows, in the closet back at his apartment. They'd never touched it and Erik hadn't mentioned it. This had been Charles' idea, an attempt to please his Dominant that ended up exciting him, too, even when it had embarrassed him; he fills in the memories Erik has been missing because Charles had redirected around them. Commission work discussions and fittings, because Charles has a slimmer figure than most males and he's shorter, too, and then trying it on in their bathroom, teaching himself, to the best of his ability, how to do it up. He'd liked the way he looked.  
  
Another thing Erik was giving back to him, and taking for himself in turn.  
  
He's beaming at the praise, warm and squirming, leaning forward so he can press himself flush against Erik's body and nuzzle into his shoulder. Words are still beyond him, but when he reaches up to touch Erik's cheek his telepathic message says _I love you!_ and then, shortly after that, images of bubbles, lots of bubbles, and blue bathwater with flecks of glitter. It repeats insistently, like it's stuck on a loop, until Charles peeks up to grin, playful. _Bubbles? Bubbles? Bubbles?_  
  
Erik makes an exaggerated _:O_ face and claps his hands together. A row of glittery pink and yellow, huge, un-poppable bubbles float out of his hands and he holds up a finger, and levitates a bar of soap to balance directly on the bubbles, letting it float around the room until he blinks, it pops, and the soap splashes harmlessly into the water. The resulting spray gets him in the face and he squeaks, batting at his eyes and laughing. The bathwater turns a brilliant blue, glittering-gold (real gold, because he can) and silver flecks swirling around, forming into an approximation of Starry Night before forming a picture of Pac-Man chasing Mrs. Pac-Man chasing, you guessed it, bubbles.  
  
 _Bubbles_! Charles could not be more pleased, lowering himself into the water after Erik to fit comfortably against his chest, exactly where he belongs. He splashes just a little, grinning and dimpled, popping bubbles with his fingers and catching flecks in cupped hands, watching in delight as they filter through. Eventually he gets distracted by Erik again, though, as should be expected, and he turns into him to nose into his neck and cling. The water is warm and it feels amazing and it's pretty and he taps a soapy hand against Erik's cheek, a _!_ again, less shy now that it's worked several times before and Erik seems pleased by it.  
  
Erik gives him an upside down _¡_ in response! They make pleasing crackle noises when he pops them, like bubble wrap but lower, more soothing. He play-chomps at Charles's finger and then catches it in his mouth, pressing his tongue against it with a smirk that's half-obscured by, you know, fingers. Charles being silly with him is one of his absolute favorite parts of existence, he thinks, and he is equally and fiercely protective as he is indulgent.  
  
Charles laughs, bright giggles of it, and then he does splash as he wriggles on Erik's lap, but the water never seems to leave the tub so he doesn't think it matters. He takes his finger back to tap Erik's nose, managing a pout through his glee so he can press another insistent _!_ there. And then a dozen more, for good measure, tapping for every one.  
  
Erik laughs out loud, shoulders shaking as he loses himself to giggles, his nose wrinkled up against each little tap. He then leans over and licks Charles right on the nose.  
  
He's distracted for a moment entirely by Erik's laugh, eyes bright and belly flipping because he'd inspired it in his Dominant, and then with scrunching his own nose, practically cross-eyed as he looks down like he'll be able to see it. Eventually he can sit back and cross his arms over his chest, though, one of those signature Charles Xavier pouts on his face, bottom lip wobbling.  
  
He's the most adorable person Erik has ever known and he just has to kiss that pout away, of course. _Love_ , he broadcasts as brightly as crackling, glittery bubbles that ping up against Charles, and they sound like music when they're burst, violins and cellos and notes floating all around them.  
  
That's fascinating, and Charles gasps into the kiss and then gasps again when he reaches out to touch one and it sings for him, eyes wide and awed, and for a while he's utterly sidetracked, but no one would ever say Charles isn't persistent about getting what he wants. So freshly-kissed and swimming in subspace, still, unable to fathom ever not feeling like this, he reaches up one more time to pat Erik's cheek, lips pursed. This time it'll work, he's sure of it.  
  
Erik raises his eyebrows, expression gentle. T _ell me_ he Orders it, enjoying deeply the way the sensation feels, warmer than any bubble bath and far more luxurious. And he wants to know; if Charles wants something he wants to give it, he wants to know what it is so he can take care of his submissive.  
  
Charles shivers, lips parted in the aftermath, sinking back into Erik's chest. He pouts, though, because it had been incredibly silly, what he'd wanted, but he did want it and Erik Ordered it so he looks up shyly and smiles. _I wanted you to say hi to me_ , he explains, and those are words for the first time in quite a while. He's timid, now, embarrassed, hiding in Erik's shoulder.  
  
 _Ahhh_. Erik rummages around for some words and then they light up, a proud grin on his face. "Hi," he whispers.  
  
Charles lights up, too, like Erik has just given him the greatest gift in the world. He bounces just a bit on Erik's thigh, unable to contain himself, his belly fluttering. "Hi," he whispers right back, voice hoarse from all the noise he'd made earlier. "Hi. Hi, Erik."  
  
"Hi, Charles," Erik beams, sunny. A pinch appears between his brows after a moment and he touches his throat, _worry/concern_ rising up. "Pain?" his voice was so hoarse. Did it hurt?  
  
Charles blinks, confused, and touches his own throat. Then he shakes his head, smiling just as earnestly as before and snuggling into Erik's shoulder, wrapping his legs around him as much as he can in a full-body cling that splashes the water around. "Uh-uh," he assures. It's sore, but he likes it. It reminds him of Erik. He wiggles so he can feel the other place that's sorest, sighing happily. He feels well-used and that's exactly how he wants it. He should always feel like this. "Feels good," he murmurs, dreamy.  
  
"Feels good?" Erik whispers back, curling his palm over the reddened welts emblazoned on his ass still. He loves making Charles feel good. No pain? Sure?  
  
Charles nods eagerly, and it's helped along by the fact that he moans when that palm settles over his ass, rocking into it. "Feels so good," he whispers, a soft little whimper as he kisses the skin closest to his mouth, somewhere between neck and shoulder. He loves when Erik uses him. He wants more. More soon, please. He should be over Erik's lap all the time. Nothing makes him shiver more than being told to put himself there. Was he good tonight? Now Charles' eyes open again, searching Erik's face.  
  
So very, very good. _Habet atah_ , Erik Commands him, rubbing back and forth lightly, bowing their foreheads together. _Tell me what you see._ Himself. A wondrous, perfect submissive who belongs to Erik and always will.  
  
He sighs happily, utterly boneless again as he closes his eyes and looks. Seeing himself through Erik's eyes threatens to have every jangled, tightly-wound insecurity he has melt into nothing, evaporate into thin air. It's impossible to doubt Erik this far into subspace, or at all, really; he nuzzles close instead. "I was a good boy," he whispers, and shivers at his own reminder. He'd done everything Erik had asked of him, even if it was difficult. Knowing he'd pleased his Dominant is all he needs right now. He's bursting with pride, actually, toes curled with genuine pleasure, and he doesn't even notice that the soap is floating. And then the shampoo. And the bottles on the sink...  
  
"Yes, you were," Erik hums, kissing his forehead. He chuckles at everything floating, incredibly content about it. _And you are,_ he adds, kissing him over the bruising mark he'd left on Charles's throat, stroking it with his fingers to ease away the ache. This is what he is meant to do. He is good, too, because Charles is happy and everything is floating and he did that, he took care of Charles. " _Mmmnh_ ," he laughs, rubbing their noses together.  
  
Charles feels incredibly taken care of, and very much Erik's. He's laughing again, hoarse but gleeful, the floating objects setting down quietly before he can even truly notice them. Some other time, he should work on controlling that part of his mutation, should work on actually consciously using it; but they'll get there, and right now isn't the time. Right now he remembers something, eyes wide, and he pats Erik's cheek even though he's worked his way up to words again. He wants to do something. _Please, sir?_  
  
Erik's eyebrows arch and he smiles against Charles's hand, pressing into it. Although their mutations work separately, maybe he could offer some insight into that part, but regardless he is confident that will come with time. What he's figured over the last little while is that people's mutations operate within their own set of internal parameters, their own internal logic that is unique to the person, Charles just needs to learn the rules, become comfortable. And they're together, which makes that more imminent. _What would you like, neshama?_  
  
"Hmmm," Charles hums, brow creased as he considers. He swirls the bathwater around with his fingers, and then presses his hand, soapy bubbles and all, back to Erik's cheek, grinning. The image that follows helps: he's thinking of their bed, of their silky-soft sheets. He can't do it in here. It's not his last gift, but it is a surprise. He lowers his eyes, biting his lip, suddenly nervous again.

* * *

Charles's wish is Erik's command, and he lifts them up out of the tub effortlessly with his own abilities and sets them on their feet, drying them off with a wave and happily tugging him back to the bed, curiosity and fascination rolling off of him in waves.  
  
Now he's shy again. Charles has switched to gnawing insistently on his cheek because his lips are swollen enough that he knows Erik won't allow it, fidgeting on the bed. He reaches over, almost hesitant, to touch Erik's thigh and project another image, this one featuring his Dominant lying down on his stomach. "Please, sir?" he whispers, and his voice shakes. He's not intending anything sexual. "I want - um, to serve you." That's what he always wants, so they're still lacking specifics here.  
  
Erik trusts him, though, and he goes to lie down just as he's requested, folding his hands under his chin and looking back at Charles, as relaxed as he can be (which still means he's tense and wants to curl up, but he won't). He reaches out and touches Charles on the arm, smiling up at him. _Trust/love/go-ahead_.  
  
Charles shivers, fluttering with it before he composes himself and remembers what his intention was. Serving his Dominant, making him feel good, helping him relax. Erik is leagues better lately, but he still carries an immense amount of tension in his body, starting with his shoulders. He takes a breath and finds a comfortable position, which in the end happens to be climbing up onto Erik and putting as little weight on him as possible as he reaches for his shoulders. At first all he does is stroke gently, featherlight, calming touches, and accompanying each caress is a little message - _Hi! It's Charles, your submissive. You love me and I'm here to serve you._ He presses them in softly, lovingly, leaning down to pepper in sweet kisses as he slowly touches firmer. It attacks him more than it slides gracefully in his hand when he reaches for it telekinetically (definitely need to work on that), but he grabs the lotion off the bedside table without climbing off, uncapping it and going back to work. He's clearly been teaching himself how to do this, and though Erik isn't in pain anymore, there's no reason he can't feel good, either.  
\  
Erik's shoulders shift under the attention and he practically melts into the bed, letting out a long, soft exhale and he turns up, offering Charles a smile and blinking slow, eyes closing as he lets his head fall onto the pillow and makes a noise, a hum of pleasure that vibrates out, like a tuning fork rung through the room; his own abilities fanning outward as he begins to relax as he's eased. "Mhmm," he mumbles. " _Zgood_."  
  
 _Mmm_. Charles beams, perfectly chuffed by that and his apparent success, and goes diligently to his task. He's careful around deeper knots, set in over years of tension and trauma; goes at them gently but persistently, refusing to be cowed by them, offsetting the pressure with soft kisses to freckles (and he sends images of those everytime he touches them, happy bursts of freckles! because he loves them so). When Erik is all but melted into the bed, his shoulders as relaxed as he thinks he's ever seen them, he moves down a bit, working at his back. This is perhaps more difficult with all the scar tissue, but Charles isn't bothered, nor is he one to back down. He goes at it with the same gentle, loving touch, coaxing muscles long-tensed into loosening, dotting kisses down his Bonded's spine. He deserves to feel good, to always feel good, and he has Charles now. Charles, his submissive, who's hopelessly devoted to him and wants to serve him in every possible way. No more pain. He only pauses when he reaches Erik's ass, cheeks bright red. Why he's shy about this now, he doesn't know, but he hesitates anyway, squirmy before he puts his embarrassment aside and gets to kneading.  
  
Erik's back is much worse than his chest, with most of it taken up by thick, gnarled hypertrophic scars and raised keloids caused from the very last time he'd been punished by Shaw, still-bloody as he ran out into the street tearing the building down behind him and screaming. There are electrical marks, slices and slashes, some even in patterns as if the person were making designs. Brands, random and deliberate, initials in some cases. Erik doesn't like Charles seeing them, doesn't like to make him sad, but it's impossible not to encounter. The skin is much more sensitive there and he's shivering unconsciously, teeth chattering in his skull. He trusts Charles but he doesn't like people touching his back, and it takes much longer for him to relax and calm down. Charles's comments help, his joy and excitement and love, and very gradually Erik does, tension easing to become boneless against the sheets. When Charles reaches his ass, he wiggles a little and smiles. There's scars there as well, but from injuries much less severe and they aren't painful at all.  
  
Charles stifles a giggle, but just barely, because it slips out anyway. He doesn't linger here too long, but what he does is appreciative, just as diligent and loving, and he's daring enough to press a few kisses to firm, rounded flesh and even between before he moves on to Erik's legs. He starts with the good one first, humming as he works, rubbing out the strain of carrying the other, digging in with careful, clever fingers, thigh and back of the knee and calf and down to the ankle, and then setting to the much more difficult task of the other leg. He's got Erik's pain in a tight grip, but he watches it even as he holds it, cautious but not timid; the last thing he wants is to do more damage, to cause any pain. He kisses this one more than the other, gives it the attention it deserves. He knows Erik mourns this loss more than he'll admit, even as he makes do, even as he compensates. Charles can't heal it or make it all better, but he can love it just as fiercely as any other part of his Dominant's beautiful body. Because the scars and the injuries and the hurts do make Charles sad, but he finds them no less beautiful. This is his Bonded's body and nothing will stop Charles from adoring and serving and worshipping it. He's not done, or even close, but he checks as he's rubbing at Erik's ankle: "Do you feel good, sir?" Despite his gained confidence, he still sounds shy, quiet.  
  
Erik raises up to follow after those lips when Charles pulls away, making an aborted gasp of shock as warmth flares in his belly and he sinks back into the mattress when Charles continues. "Mhmm," Erik mumbles when he asks, unconsciously leaning into every touch. No one has ever done this for him before, but Charles exists in a realm of firsts. "Thank you, Charles," he breathes, touching his own cheek, comfortable in a way he's rarely been-ever. Without pain and muscles relieved of their tension, trusting who is near him without reservation. _Thank you, thank you_ -  
  
Charles lets out a soft, stuttered exhale, his own belly filled with warmth as he watches Erik melted and pleased beneath him. It's exactly what he wanted, and something he hopes he can always give him. No more pain, no more tension. He's got Charles now, his own submissive who loves him dearly, unspeakably, and Charles will make sure of it. He massages down to Erik's foot, rubbing at the arch of it, then moving onto the other, before placing kisses on both. "Can you turn over, please, Erik?" he asks softly, humming and relaxed himself. He loves serving Erik, though it should come at absolutely no surprise. As far as he's concerned, this is a privilege.  
  
Erik does so in an easy movement, reaching out to touch Charles's face, trail his fingers down his arm. Charles is so nice to him, he doesn't know what he's done to deserve it. His feet twitch when Charles touches them, ticklish, and he lets out an undignified giggle and works to ensure he doesn't kick at him or jostle anything. "Hi," he whispers, grinning up at him.  
  
"Everything," Charles whispers, though it had likely only been an idle thought on Erik's part. He drifts back up, hovering over Erik, smiling, lotion bottle in hand because he certainly intends to be thorough. Erik deserves nothing less. "You've given me everything, Erik. You take such good care of me, always. You're my perfect, wonderful Dominant." His head is bowed as he says it, quiet and shy but nothing but utterly sincere. "I'm here for you. I'm your submissive. I belong to you, and I love you, so, so much. _Ani ohev otcha_." He can't resist giving Erik a sweet kiss, fluttering with it, stomach flipping, before he settles back down into his massage, starting at the front of Erik's shoulders, but feathering kisses over his neck, too. He's so deep in subspace, so warm and floating, and he gets to make Erik feel good and the pleasure of it is almost too much. When he gets to Erik's chest, he rubs it appreciatively, humming again. He spends a good deal of his time snuggled up into and against this chest, and he wouldn't have it any other way. "My big, strong Dominant," he grins, but then he flushes, because he means it, too. His big, strong Dominant who protects him and takes care of him.  
  
Erik hums a bit of nonsense under his breath, muscles shifting against the attention, glowing under Charles's words. " _Ohev otcha,_ " he mumbles, smiling and touching Charles's face, stroking down the side of his jaw and neck. "'M glad you like your collar," he says softly, running a fingertip over it. "'S good," he repeats. "Good. Mmhmm." He likes that. That Charles knows he's safe and protected and loved.  
  
Charles loves his collar. He gasps as Erik's fingers brush over it, eyes wide and lips parted, arching into it. Every time he thinks about it he gets a shiver, because he can feel Erik in it and it's the most delicious thing he's ever felt. He's distracted by Erik's chest again, and he really does want to massage this part of him, too, but right now he just wants to kiss all over that big, strong chest, the one he always feels safe burying himself in. He's distracted by Erik's nipples, too, and he bites his lip, peeking up shyly before he kisses and sucks one into his mouth, stroking the other one with his thumb. _Feel good, sir?_  
  
He arches up and rests his fingers in Charles's hair, combing through the strands, nodding wide-eyed. He bites down on any sound that threatens to escape and works his fingers through the back of Charles's head, unconsciously pressing him closer, wrapping a leg around him to achieve his goal. " _Ken_ ," he practically purrs, sensitive and twitching beneath him.  
  
That's definitely encouraging. Charles squirms in Erik's hold, pleased and bursting at the seams with satisfaction. Erik feels good, which means Charles is doing a good job serving him. He's being a good boy. He switches to the other nipple, pulling off the one in his mouth with a 'pop,' and moans softly, eyes threatening to roll back just from Erik's praise and the fingers in his hair. He sucks happily, and then, eyes flicked up to watch, butterflies in his stomach, gives it a little nip for good measure, tugging softly with his teeth.  
  
Erik groans, breathing hard and his fingers tighten where they're perched. "Mhm, good," he rumbles, low and heated. Charles is always good for him, always trying to please him and make him happy and make him feel good. He takes good care of Erik, too, not just the reverse. And Erik loves him very much, it's sometimes all he can think when everything else is melted out of him in clever fingers and soft kisses. He's never thought of his nipples as particularly sensitive, either, but he laughs a bit. Wrong again. When Charles fastens his teeth over Erik growls and grips at his throat, squeezing and thumbing over the bruising mark he'd left. He wants to leave another. A hundred more.  
  
Charles pulls off Erik's chest to whimper, eyes hazy from both the fingers around his throat and the promise of another mark. He wants very much to climb up and let Erik hold him down, squeeze his throat and bite him bruised, then kiss and lick away the sting, but he had a task in mind and he's nothing if not determined. He's still breathing heavy as he goes back to his massage, his belly filled with molten heat and his head swimming with his own submission, with the humming electric of Erik's Will. He rubs his fingers into the muscles of Erik's stomach, biting his lip to hold back the appreciative noises, but they come out anyway, low, needy things as he nuzzles and kisses around his working fingers. And then, because he's giddy and soft and silly, he grins mischievously up at Erik and blows a raspberry right above his belly button, giggling in the aftermath.  
  
His stomach jumps under the ticklish ministration. Erik grins and laughs, more loudly than usual but he can't help it, he's completely lost in Dominion and relaxed-the most relaxed he's felt in years, actual years. Charles is happy and floating and confident, feeling good about himself, and it's so delightful Erik is floating on a cloud, surrounded by sparkling electricity and rumbling thunder and cracked lighting strikes. He swipes away some hair from Charles's forehead and taps him on the nose, playful and warm.  
  
Charles' grin could easily split his face, and he laughs and kicks out against the bed as Erik taps him, nose scrunched and cross-eyed as he looks down to see it. Erik's laugh is beautiful, and he's beautiful, relaxed and grinning and coating the entire room in Will, letting it crackle against Charles' skin. He never wants this moment to end. He kisses Erik's stomach, absolutely covers it in ticklish, sweet kisses, dipping his tongue playfully into his belly button because it's there. Then he goes back to kneading and massaging, paying extra attention to Erik's hips because they were unnaturally pointy when they met, and definitely in those memories he's seen, and now they're not. Maybe a bit too bony, still, but no longer jutting out horrifically, and he rubs into them with his thumbs and kisses them with all the grateful devotion in the world. The next destination should be Erik's legs, but he gets distracted on the way by what's between, eyes wide as if it's the first time he's seeing it. His cheeks are red again, and he bites at his lip as he leans down to kiss the tip of Erik's dick, barely making content, shy all over. "Hi there," he whispers, and bursts into giggles because it's ridiculous but he's just so happy. He wants to play, and laugh, and be. Belong to Erik.  
  
 _Hi there_ , Erik's dick seems to say back to him as it jerks of its own accord, already half-hard without any contact whatsoever, just purely from being in Charles's presence and feeling his hands working over his body. Erik's in no rush to sort it out, lazy and content and he rubs his thumb over Charles's lip, peering at him through half-lidded eyes. "I think I like this part of the massage," Erik smirks down at him, strands of Will flexing and stretching out between them, glittering-gold just like their Bond.  
  
Charles has no idea how this is possible. How he can feel so giddy and hot at the same time, warmth blooming beneath the skin as he moans against Erik's fingers. How he can feel so controlled and tethered and Dominated even when Erik isn't Ordering anything specific at all, allowing him to explore and play like an indulgent, lazy predator content enough to rest for the moment. It's mad, how comfortable he is, how relaxed, wrapped up tight in Erik's Will where he belongs, where he feels safest, because he belongs to Erik. He touches his own collar, sighing, and this time when he grins up at Erik it's playful again, even around the shyness. "I think Little Erik likes it, too," he teases, which just makes him giggle harder, breath fanning against Erik's groin as he loses himself to it. There's nothing remotely _little_ about this part of his Dominant, and he spends a good amount of time gagging on it, actually, and wondering how it could possibly fit inside of him, but that's neither here nor there. He makes up for his silliness by giving it soft, kittenish licks, kisses from head to shaft, nuzzling and breathing against it, lavishing it in affection like any other part of Erik's body. "Do you feel good, sir?" he asks sweetly, and this time it's coy.  
  
"You can't call it _Little Erik_ ," Erik gawps, affronted. "It needs a real _gever gever_ name. _Gustavo. Antoine. Capone_." He's snorting, grinning in that sharklike way that shows off all his teeth, nose scrunched up in complete giddy amusement. Even now he doesn't sway the situation, content to let Charles explore and play to his heart's content, even though Capone looks incredibly interested in the proceedings, firming up beneath Charles's attention, beads of white pearling at the tip and he curls his fingers over Charles's jaw, rubbing himself back and forth over his bottom lip. "Mhm," he lets out a little groan, pupils dilated to eclipse their usual bright green. "Very good," he whispers.  
  
Charles laughs, feeling incredibly light even as he sucks the head of Erik's cock into his mouth and moans, licking away the precome eagerly. He's been in enough heads to know that most people found the taste gross, or were at least indifferent to it, but Charles genuinely can't get enough of it. Of Erik. Maybe that's filthy, and he's blushing again, only furthered by the loud, wet pop Erik's dick makes as it slips out of his mouth. He has a massage to finish, but he doesn't want to leave Erik without something to keep him satisfied; he's a good boy, a thoughtful submissive, his Dominant should be serviced in every way. So he turns himself around as he reaches for the lotion again, smiling shyly over his shoulder as he straddles Erik at just the right position that his cock can rub against his poor, abused ass, which is very happy for the attention. He leans forward and begins to work his fingers and the lotion into Erik's legs all while he rubs himself against Erik, ass in full view for him, cheeks red and hole puffy from being used. It's another way to Present himself for his Dominant, and even as he flushes up to his ears and down to his chest, he's all too pleased to do it. All of him is for Erik. All he should have to do right now is lie back and be serviced.  
  
Erik's breathing stutters and he sits up so he can reach out and return the favor, kneading gentle circles into Charles's ass and his hips jerk upward, letting his cock slip between his cheeks, back and forth and nudging and insistent against him, slick from Charles's mouth and Charles can see from his perspective, hear his thoughts, and if he weren't so completely pliant beneath Charles he'd be turning him over for a second round, but this is nice, too. Slow and languid and easy, watching himself move and he grips himself in hand, spreading Charles's ass with his index finger and thumb to slap against his hole a few times, smirking to himself when Charles arches into it, sounds becoming louder and more desperate, thoughts getting filthier by the second. Yes indeed, Erik likes this part very much. Erik and _not_ -so-Little Erik. "Such a good boy," he whispers, affirming Charles's thoughts, eyes fluttering and gaze darkened. "You always take care of me, look after me, hm? Mhm."

* * *

The problem with this, of course, is that Charles is having more and more difficulty with the massage portion. Those soft, needy noises are slipping right off his lips again even as he bite to hold them back, and he's doing more to rock into Erik's touch than he is working on his tense muscles. He makes a valiant effort, though, whispering "yes, sir" and it's breathless and moaning because he does want to give his Dominant everything he needs. To be what he needs, to be good for him. When he's reached as much of Erik's legs as he can from this angle, he reluctantly sits up, fussing until he can turn around. His own dick is hard and leaking against his belly, predictably, and his breath hitches. "I'd like, um... can I finish serving you, sir? Please?" he asks, and lowers his eyes. "You can just lie back. I'll take care of everything, I promise." And he's never done this before, and he's fluttery and shy even offering it, but he wants it, too. To be Erik's good boy, who makes him feel good and offers himself up for these things.  
  
Erik lays back, only after trailing two fingers over Charles's cock appreciatively, everything in his body heavy and loose-limbed and he nods, settling back into the pillow and lacing his fingers behind his head. "Yes, Charles," he murmurs, low and hot. "Go ahead." He stretches a little and goes still, letting Charles get back to work, a soft smile on his face.  
  
But now he has to follow through. Charles swallows, his belly twisting itself up into jittery little knots of anticipation. He leans over, setting the lotion back on the bedside table and reaching for the lube instead because he doesn't think he needs preparation (if the plug didn't do it, Erik's cock definitely did) but some slick can only help especially because he's sore, and Erik won't like it if it hurts him more than the pleasure-pain of the stretch. He takes a harsh, shaky breath and takes Erik back into his mouth to taste and suck briefly before he coats him, stroking firmly and moaning when it twitches in his hand, the length and thickness of it making his belly flop in on itself again. Definitely not little. Erik has always done this part, even if Charles was on top, always helped in some way; he thrust his hips up or pushed him down, or - he shakes his head to clear it, sucking in hitchy little breaths. He's Erik's and Erik deserves to be serviced like this, like he's a king who need only lie back and have his needs met, letting Charles do all the work. That thought makes him hot all over, and he squirms as he sits up, holding his breath as he lines himself up and holds Erik still with a shaking hand. For some reason, perhaps because they've already gone a round, perhaps because he's doing it himself, the stretch feels like more; Charles gasps and his head falls back, thighs trembling as he slides down the first few inches. By the time he's sitting on Erik's thighs, filled to what feels like absolute bursting, he's trembling all over, chest heaving and belly taut and his skin broken out into prickly gooseflesh, his dick leaking steadily. He doesn't move at first, bringing his hand up to his mouth to bite and stifle the loud, whimpering sounds he's making as he's overwhelmed.  
  
Erik blinks up at him slowly, gaze going from hot to searing and he shakes his head, reaching out to bat Charles's hand away from his mouth, groaning, " _Nno_ -" choked off, eyes wide and locked on him. "Mm- _lo_ , let me hear," he grits the Order out roughly, the apple of his throat bobbing as he swallows, throat desert-dry and tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. " _Eshma, ten li lishmoa atah, ani rotze lishmoa, ahava sheli-_ " he thunks his head back soundlessly on the pillow, able to feel not only Charles clenching around him, well-used and thoroughly red and marked up and hot and buttery against his dick but how he feels, sensitive, stuffed and fluttering over him, watch himself disappear thick and fat against Charles's puffy hole and the burn and stretch of being utterly filled, owned, taken and-it's too much, Erik lets out a soft, raspy moan and curls two fingers across the head of Charles's cock, collecting some of that leaking fluid and sucking it into his mouth, possessive and sensual.  
  
Charles gasps, his eyes suddenly shut so tight it's painful as he takes harsh, panting breaths that all exhale like broken whimpers. Erik seeing him like this is enough to undo him, and he's shaking like a leaf all over again. He can't help clenching; he's taken Erik's cock like this before, but he feels so full, stretched to the absolute limit and tight and oversensitive and Erik is nudged right up against his prostate without any movement necessary and it's too much. It's way too much, but he wants to take it for Erik. For his Dominant. So he sucks in a shaky, slow breath and lifts his hips, rocking experimentally, groaning because he's the one doing it and it's exactly the right angle and Erik is watching with those darkened, beautiful eyes of his and he can't breathe, fights the trembling in his legs to pull up further and then slowly sink all the way back down, moaning the whole way. He knows Erik wants him to look, so he does, cheeks flushed red with exertion and pleasure, lips parted and swollen, eyes hot as stars. He knows the picture he makes, sinking down on Erik's cock inch by thick inch, doing it all himself, and it's whipped up a fever in his belly. "Is -" Charles bites his lip, panting. "Is - is this good, sir?" he asks, breathless, needing the reassurance. The encouragement.  
  
"Ah, _ken, neshama_ ," he murmurs, voice like gravel. Erik traces a fingertip down his dick, humming lowly under his breath when it twitches for him, turns his palm to hold it in his hands, hot and silky against his skin and he doesn't move, except for his thumb slipping back and forth, slow and featherlight and edging everything up higher, a dial turned to maximum spiky output that shivers electricity between exposed circuit-ends. "Always so good for me. Serving me. Right where you belong," he gasps. "Hm? Does that feel nice? You like this-? Filling yourself with me. Taking me. _Yeled metuka sheli-_ come on-more," Erik smiles breathlessly up at him, Orders striking through his nerves. "I know you can give me more. Harder. Come on, sweetheart. Let me see you fuck yourself on me." He can lay back and let Charles do all the work but that doesn't mean he's a passive observer, either-Erik can't help it, whipped up into a near frenzy, holding himself so still, but it all spills out of him in words with equal measures of force.  
  
Charles is nodding eagerly before the question is even finished, and he feels like he's in a corset again for all he can breathe without it hitching or devolving into a breathy moan. Part of him had hoped Erik might flip him over and fuck him himself, but he knows he wanted this more, that this is better. He can do this. He wants, desperately, to do this for Erik. When the Order comes, Charles chokes on it, and immediately he's rising up again on quivering thighs and letting gravity push him back down all at once, wailing with the force of it. His thighs are shaking a bit too much for a consistent rhythm, but he makes up for it with enthusiasm, and soon he's bouncing in earnest on Erik's thighs, head thrown back and every breath coming out a punched out "oh, oh, oh!" that breaks when he's stuffed all the way full again, Erik's dick grinding against his prostate. His own dick is slapping against his stomach, and the room is filled with filthy, desperate noises, flesh on flesh and Charles' increasingly loud moans, hair sticking to his face as he sweats through the delicious strain of it, eyes half-lidded, lip caught between his teeth.  
  
The rhythm is perfect. Charles is perfect, flushed and eager and melted out into hazy, submissive desperation and it soaks into him, ratchets up his Will until Charles can feel it slithering down his throat where air should be like Erik's fingers squeezing steadily. Erik gives his ass a hard slap, pressing his cheeks together against his cock when he drives down. "Yes, sweet boy. My beautiful boy. Spread your legs for me. Wider. That's it," he rumbles low and deep, affected by so much that it barely sounds like Erik and yet it's completely him, more himself than he's ever sounded. "Lick your palm. Mhm. It'll be so much better this way." His grin is boyish, years shed off of his normally weathered features. "Now touch yourself. Slowly. You're not going to come until I say you are, aren't you? You're going to listen to me. Do what I say. You're going to be good, aren't you?"  
  
If Charles ever had any reservations, any misunderstanding that perhaps he would be in charge in this scenario, he was sorely mistaken. In fact, he can't fathom being more controlled than he is right now; he may be the one fucking himself, but Erik has never once let go of the reins, holding firm and tight and binding him with his Will until he chokes on it with every word, every heated look, every slap of palm against already-abused ass. There's something terribly yearning about his submission now, not passive but enthusiastic and eager and fervid, a stirred up need to please set aflame like a spark doused in gasoline in the pit of his belly, radiating throughout his entire body. More than ever he needs to serve, he needs to listen, he needs to obey. He whines as he spreads his legs wide enough to feel the stretch that way, too, licking at his palm exactly as he's told and gasping when he touches himself. It's almost impossible to stroke slowly when his pace is desperate, only restricted by the strain in his thighs, and he's truly bouncing now; lifting himself up and slamming back down, each sound he makes yanked right out of him, shaking as he is.   
  
"Yes, sir, yes," he gasps, and it's cracked and hoarse and needy, "Going to be good, I'm - I'll be so good, I'll do what you say -" Erik doesn't have his abilities wrapped around him at all, no help that way, either, and everything is completely on him. He's doing all the work, listening because he needs to, being good because he's desperate to be. He's Erik's good boy, he listens and he does as he's told and he serves his Dominant. He's going to be so good, even if he feels like he can't possibly not come right now, a broken keen escaping as he bears down at just the right angle that Erik's cock batters his oversensitive prostate and his hand stutters on his own cock, squeezing.  
  
"I know you will," Erik praises him, and he lifts his fingers up to trace Charles's mouth before dipping inside, stroking at his tongue and sinking deep enough to hear those moans reverberated across his skin, bids on him to suck them just like he would his cock, with just as much attention and need and he draws his thumb out, letting it drag across his lips just to see them glisten, a kiss with hands instead, because Erik doesn't want to lean up and miss this, the sight of him bearing down hard, squeezing his own cock so he doesn't spill between them, desperate and needy and every twitch of muscle begging him for more, in control with nothing more than a word, just as wrapped-up tight as if Erik had his ass raised in the air and face pressed to the mattress with a hand at the back of his neck. Charles submits to him in just the same way, whether it's like this, Presenting himself and displaying every part of himself or through a thousand simple acts of service throughout the day, soft and willing for him. Erik drags him down, down right under the ocean and under the floor of the Earth until he is a speck in a vast, dark ocean, thousands of miles of water beating down on him and leaving him without any anchor but Erik's Will.  
  
And Charles clings tightly to that anchor, the only thing tethering him as he sucks the fingers in his mouth, sloppy and wet, and whimpers around them, tears pricking at the corner of his eyes as he slams himself down mercilessly on Erik's cock and strokes himself for Erik's pleasure. His legs are jelly, wobbly and weak but he forces them to move, to serve Erik like the rest of him. "Please, sir, please, please, please please _please_ -!" His cock is dribbling around his hand, messy and twitching and he whines as he clenches, gasping and wrecked when that only stuffs him up further, nowhere to go as he rocks on Erik's dick. He's wide open like this, vulnerable, Erik inside of him and around him and pulsing in the collar around his neck that claims him. He's never felt more owned. Down at the bottom of the ocean, and the only thing he knows is who he belongs to.  
  
Erik's hips have begun to move, small stuttering snaps upward no longer able to be contained as Charles moves above him, trapped beneath the way a fly is caught in amber at the sight of his gorgeous submissive falling apart, exhaling loudly every time Charles brings himself down on top of his thighs, the hard slap of flesh on flesh, of Charles's hand moving over his cock quicker when Erik gives him permission, still holding him at bay, forcing him to take every ounce of sensation as though fucking him from the inside out, his entire nervous system at Erik's mercy, owned by him, possessed by him in every capacity. "Oh, Charles," he mutters darkly. "Charles-" his name rich on Erik's tongue like fine cheesecake, flushed and sweating and more exposed than he's ever been, more raw, his Will beating in his chest and at his wrist, a pulse of blood rushing through his veins, pleasure slacking his jaw and lips parted. Fire stokes in his gut and swirls up, superheated plasma igniting the atmosphere. "Charles- _unh_ -Charles, tell me-tell me what you want, _haged li_ -give you what you want-mine- _atapel atah_ -"  
  
Nothing is ever going to sound as gorgeous as Erik's voice saying his name. Charles is barely held together at the seams, a constant stream of those punched-out, desperate noises, eyes nearly rolled back every time he lets gravity slam him down at the same time Erik thrusts up, the force on that bundle of nerves inside him delicious torture, sore, electrifying pleasure beyond anything he can process. "Please let me - _ah! Ah!_ Erik, Erik - please let me come, let me come for you, please, I'll be so good, I'm yours, I belong to you please let me come for you, _sir_ -" Because that belongs to Erik, too. All of him belongs to Erik, every single, solitary inch of him, head to toe, and he won't come a second before he's told. He won't come even as he shakes violently with the strain not to, lungs burning with the need for more oxygen in this deep-ocean place, thighs aching, cock oversensitive and twitching in his fist with every moan as he clenches, so full with Erik he can feel him in his entire body, far enough inside that he's in his belly and crammed down his throat. In his being itself.  
  
Erik hums beneath him, shaking his head and pressing his fingertip against Charles's lips, his whole being alight in the glow of Dominion. He grips Charles's hip and thrusts up into him, hard, stomach clenching and every muscle tensing where Charles had previously spent precious moments soothing that tightness only moments before; and then he's coming in long, thick pulses inside him, eyes rolling up almost all the way, but not enough to completely obscure his vision because he just can't give up that sight, not for anything in the world, of Charles trembling and spread out open above. He fucks himself up into his own release and finally, only then, does he let Charles do the same, feeding the blazing inferno of his melted out desire through their Bond, a loop crashing into itself with terrifying, brilliant zaps. _Mine, mine, come for me, show me_ \- "Charles," he rasps out. "Show me, let me see- _mmhm_ , sweetheart, my sweet, pretty boy-come on-" he rises up and practically devours Charles's mouth in a hot, needy kiss.

* * *

The feeling of Erik coming inside him is completely indescribable, and for those long, dragging heartbeats, it becomes his entire existence. Being filled, being owned. His mouth is parted but he isn't sure if anything is coming out, and then Erik is kissing him, searing him from the inside out, claiming him, and Charles is certain this is what it feels like to break. The ocean crashes down on him, unbearable pressure and then gasping, breathless release, and everything shatters, his lips parted for Erik, his wail swallowed up, his being consumed by Erik's Will as his ears pop and his vision whites out. Every object in the room thrums, rises, then falls at the same time he does, boneless and heaving and unable to hold himself up, unable to breathe without Erik's help and permission. Down, down, down, and Charles isn't sure if this is the bottom but it's certainly the deep, the dark, glimmering golden bindings the only thing keeping him from drowning.  
  
Erik rolls them over so Charles is lying on his back and he curls up beside him, taking him to his chest and just letting his breathing even out, rubbing his cheek against skin and slipping out so he can rock against Charles's thigh, seeking nothing other than sensation, contact. " _Ohev otcha_ ," he mumbles, eyes shut and petting every available part of Charles's body he can find, a blissed-out smile on his face. Diving down into the deep with him, a tether wrapped around them both and completely relaxed, his bones turned to jelly and muscles liquid. " _Hmm. 'S good. Luvu._ Mine."  
  
Charles is shivering so hard his teeth are clacking together and he can hear it reverberating in his skull. His breathing is hitching in his chest every time he tries to take a full breath, confused, stuttered whimpers falling from his lips. He isn't distressed. He feels wonderful, no pain or hurt besides soreness, but he's shaking and shaking and shaking and it's making him cry. He burrows himself completely in Erik's chest, eyes shut tight to block everything but his Dominant out, nails digging into Erik's arm. It's okay, it's okay. Erik has him. He won't let him drown.  
  
"Shh, shh," Erik soothes him, petting his hair. "Got you. Won't let anything happen to you. Got you, sweetheart. Promise," he whispers, smiling brightly down at him. Wonderful, my lovely, wonderful Charles. He bundles him up in his arms even more, giving him a squeeze and holding him tight.  
  
Charles knows subdrop isn't just something that happens when a submissive is separated from a Dominant while still in subspace, the way it happened that first time. Sometimes it just happens, after moments of intensity; submission is a complicated, heady mix of chemicals and hormones, at its most intense a total surrender, and it can be overwhelming for the body, even if there isn't what's considered a drop. There are real effects it can have, physical ones. He isn't afraid, though. He has Erik. He has his Dominant, his Bonded, and he'll hold him through it and pet him until it's all better. He doesn't need to be afraid when he's taken care of, when he belongs to someone who takes care of him. So he just lets himself cry, rubbing against as much bare skin as he can, keeping his eyes closed as he slowly comes down, or up, or wherever he needs to go. Stay exactly where he is. Wherever Erik guides him. He's still shivering, and he whimpers again, sends cold/owned/make it better?, and trusts with everything he is that Erik will.  
  
"Shh, shhh," Erik murmurs, low and soothing as he drapes the blanket around him and Charles, surrounds him in body heat and warmth and smiles. " _Ani atapel atah_ ," he promises softly. " _Tamid. Atah sheli_." As always in these moments, Erik finds himself anchored by poetry, and he gives Charles some new ones, whispered in the original Hebrew, his voice a quiet lull in the room, warm and gentle. " _Before you the ancient rain/warmth on your back, you stand and think/how few the words/a man needs in life/You think of him who sees all this, and him/whose face is in the wind, and the falling of the leaves, and/rain/tapping the glass/I passed through the sea and in between stones./Soon the almond tree will flower, very soon/Mountains will dance_..."

* * *

There's a reason, that first time Charles dropped, Warren offered to let him take a dive in his mind. Charles has always centered himself internally rather than externally, always found himself comforted by that first form of communication, by telepathy, because it truly is the purest form of his expression. It was a grounding technique, and a way to be out of body; rather than changing the landscape of his own mind, of thoroughly rearranging it, he's sometimes found solace and comfort in the minds of others, always sought the kind of intimacy that so few are comfortable with, that he shied away from out of fear. But he doesn't need to be afraid with Erik. What mind is more comfortable and familiar than Erik's? More grounding? As Charles sinks, he finds himself clinging mentally as well as physically, peeking into the vast expanse that is Erik's inner-world to say hello. It's beautiful here, and he's always thought so; desert and mountains and fields and places to roam and find, and Charles, dreamy and cloying, plops himself right in. It's safe for him here. He's loved here.  
  
Little blobs with arms and legs made of circles whee! wheeoow! by him, jumping up on his shoulders and patting him on the ears with tiny hands, while birds flitter in the distance and grass sways beneath his feet. Everything is cartoon-vivid, where Charles has been instinctively brought to a bright, sunny plain with mountains in the distance and sun shining in the sky, a small wooden hut ahead and trees gnarled and old and stretching up, up, up beyond the atmosphere. There are Eriks here, so many of them hidden amidst the Landscape in tiny plink-plonks and monsters wearing chains, weathered old folks in rocking chairs and chattering praying mantises and jumping, whispering creatures. A warm wind blows past him and an Erik is by his side, holding his hand, smiling down at him. Everything here is soaked in love for Charles, in devotion and protection and adoration. He belongs here, he's part of this Landscape as much as anything else, his molecules are calibrated to fit and sink in as far as he wishes to go.  
  
Charles loves it here. It's safe here, even in the places that cry, even in charred, crackling flesh and leviathan-monsters and dragging chains and knives. Those Eriks love him, too, and they own him, too. It's safe here because all of this is Erik, and he belongs to every single, living, breathing, hurting part of him. He giggles and flops, not one for exploring right this moment when his chest is heavy and he's still a bit cold, still shivering even here. He'll lie on the grass instead, tug this Erik down with him, stare up at the sky and dig his feet into the ground and soak up the sun. Safe here. Warm here. Erik is here, all around him and above him and in him and through him, so there's nothing to be frightened of. He can breathe here because the only thing to breathe is Erik.  
  
Little creatures crawl all over him, thrilled and delighted that he's here. Even the scariest Eriks are eased by him, are startled to realize that they love him. They love him! Their Charles is here and he's happy and safe, and they will fill him up with good things and feed him and touch him and wrap him in warm blankets and pet him and the grass curls around him, its own form of a hug. This Erik was tall at first but now he's small, a mop of red, corkscrew-curly hair falling around his shoulders and eyes bright and vivid, skin dark from spending so much time in the sun. He's strong and hardy and loves to run and play, and he is fierce, protecting everything that matters to him with unparalleled fervor. He flops down beside Charles and grins at him, brimming with emotions plain on his face and he burrows his head in Charles's chest, content. Another Erik sits down cross-legged, pulling Charles's head onto his lap and scritching his fingers through his hair. He looks like Charles's Erik, but he's quieter, all his thoughts a muted hum without words or concepts, dialed too low even for Charles to discern without ripping him open. He talks through touch, on his jaw and over his heart. He's shy, Charles has only seen him once before, in Magda's memories. He's too fragile to peep his head up in the Real, now that there are so many people and sounds, but here it is safe. Charles is safe, and he loves Charles. _Hi,_ say his fingers, and his eyes blink a smile.  
  
Charles loves them all so very much. He's overwhelmed and his own mind isn't working well, hazy and dragged in between, but he knows that he loves and belongs to Erik and that Erik is here, lots of Erik, and hi, hello, I love you! He loves the tiny peeping creatures and the large flying beings, welcomes each of them with a smile. He closes his eyes and the grass is still wrapped around him and there's still dirt between his toes, sun above him, hands in his hair and smiles in eyes and curly red mops that become darker except in unruly, mountain man beards. There are tears on his cheeks. Something is sad. It's not this place, and it's not Erik, but something is very, very sad, and Charles has just remembered. He'd woken up this morning crying and he's just remembered but it's alright, isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it?  
  
Quiet-Erik nods at him, eyes crinkled kindly, and he takes Charles's face in both of his hands, laying the gentlest of kisses on his forehead. This is the part of Erik that touches everything like it's precious, with deliberate, featherlight strokes that are barely felt, weaving spun glass from his fingertips. He kisses Charles's tears, short, buzzed hair pressed against his cheek. He's skinny like a spindly spider, jutting limbs and elbows and knees, shoulders hunched over with the weight of his own height. But Charles spent an hour easing the tension in Outside-Erik and so he's easy for it, muscles loose and languid. When he Orders it's not a word or a concept, not really, it's just something Charles knows as though he's had the thought himself, a warm light glowing inside his chest that says _Tell me_ , and _it's all right. I love you._  
  
Charles only remembers that he's sad, but not, particularly, what he's sad about. But how can you be sad about something when you don't know what it is you're sad about? He bites his lip, eyes fluttering, and the sky is a color here he's never seen it before but he recognizes it. He pulls grass between his fingers. He lies a lot, he thinks, every time he says he remembers everything. There are things he forgets, and he forgets them often. This must be one of the things he's forgotten. But then why would he want to remember it? The mountains seem so far away, but close enough to touch, too. He's never climbed a mountain. He's always wanted to stand at the top of one. He might feel tall for once.  
  
Quiet-Erik doesn't smile, and this is true of Outside-Erik, too, but Charles knows it all the same when he does. It's a gentle expression in the crease of his eyes and pinch of his brows, and wearing all black, that gaze is even more vivid green than usual. It's OK to be sad, and it's OK not to remember everything. It's OK to lie, sometimes, too. Not everybody loves Charles like Erik does, and every Erik will tell him they understand self-preservation. But not here. There is no one or nothing here that will hurt him. The mountains will bend and lower to accommodate. Even the grass caresses him, rays of sunlight seep into his sin and stroke his nerve endings. He bids Charles to rise to his feet and strokes his thumbs over the backs of his palms, tender. _Climb with me,_ they say. _The sun is on top._  
  
But Charles thinks he's ruining this place, just a little, by being here, because he can hear it. Among the chatter of birds and the plink-plonking and the thunder in the distance, there's a great whirring, too. Whir-whir-whir. They're too close together, and some of Charles' brain is seeping in and he's sad about that. This is such a beautiful, whimsical place, it doesn't need mechanical gears and background processes. Charles does, because there's just too much; there's more than Charles in his head. Everyone has a place up there, memories and thoughts that aren't his own stored and remembered, the world through millions of different eyes, but his, too. There's always something going on in Charles' head, always way, way too much. He knows things because he knows he knows them, so he knows he knows this and he doesn't want to know. He doesn't know what to do. He's shivering again. He's not ready. There was an ocean and he was at the bottom of it and he thinks somewhere he's still at the bottom of it and he came here so he could breathe. It's safe here. He belongs to Erik.  
  
His presence subtly alters Erik's mind, but by virtue of being in his mind he is altered as well, with nothing mechanical as much as it is silly and steampunk-gears and foghorn wheel-boats, and Erik loves it because it is Charles. Charles belongs to Erik, and that means all of him. Erik wants him all, he can only ever gain from Charles's presence. He soaks it up, taking it into himself, and squeezes Charles's hands in his as he leads him to the start of the path that leads up to the center of the Earth and into the warmth. There is nothing to do but be beside Erik, that is all he ever has to do. Where he is safe and loved, and where all of him is wanted with grabby little hands. The grass welcomes him, the glittering air tumbles and smiles in molecules around him. _Mine!_ they all say. _Welcome home. You belong to me. This is where you belong._  
  
Charles goes where he's led, quietly and with eager obedience, but his feet drag as if he doesn't remember how to use them. This is where he belongs, with Erik, but as he walks the whirring gets louder, and he knows that it's different here but it feels all the same. The tears are back on his cheeks, and he's shivering even though there's so much warmth, even though the breeze sings and smiles at him, the grass tucks him in so he won't be cold. The sun is warmer than he's ever felt it, but it doesn't scorch his skin. He stops and looks at the sky. _I know you may not understand now, but you will._ Why is he so itchy?  
  
Erik pauses with him and rests his head on his shoulder. This is where he lives, and this is where Charles landed. Tiny-Erik is running around but he's not what Charles needs, and he doesn't know if he is, either, but then, why did he land here? He runs his fingers over his cheek from behind, presses his chest against his back, draping him in sunlike-warmth up close, smoothing away the itchy discomfort with gentle hands. The sky smiles down at him. He exists, _here_. He is loved here. For all that he is.  
  
Charles needs all of it. He's supposed to be here, isn't he? Isn't he? He leans back and stares directly at the sun because it doesn't burn him. It's getting harder to breathe. It's getting harder to walk. Why can't he just stay here? Why does he have to go back to his own head, where everything is loud and there's a constant ache? Why does he have to remember what he's forgotten? He wants to climb to the top of the mountain and see the sun better. Why does he have to be anything that isn't Erik's? _I can't breathe. Erik, I can't breathe._  
  
He can. Erik puts his hand over his back and chest and fills him with air, and his Will is different like this, more subtle, but steady and solid and sure. He is Erik's in every way, no matter what happens. He will stay here for as long as he needs, it is what Erik expects from him and he is good, Erik knows he will listen even if he can't tell him using words. They don't need words. He will breathe and walk and hold Erik's hand, and let the World take care of him.  
  
Charles wants to be good and he wants to listen, which means he wants to breathe and he wants to walk but he wants to cry, too. He doesn't think he can be here when the whirring finishes, because he might belong here but certain things don't. He'll stay, though, because he doesn't want to leave and because Erik doesn't want him to leave, even though everything's getting louder. He'll stay but he can't help crying, and it hurts. The World will take care of him. It's safe here.  
  
Everything belongs here. If Charles knows that he belongs to Erik, if he believes it when he says yours, sir, then he knows that it does. The sun dries his tears on his cheek, tells him he is beautiful and lovely and good. It isn't about what he wants. He needs to breathe and so he will. The sound is transmuted into warm wind, not gone, but changed, easier. Infused with love.  
  
Charles smiles, because the World speaks like Erik and Erik is the World. _Yours, sir._ All of him belongs to Erik which means all of him belongs here, but not all of what's in his head is his. A lot of it isn't. His tears are dried and he can breathe and he'll go where he's guided, because he needs to listen and he needs to obey right now like he needs to breathe. He always will. He follows Quiet-Erik and Tiny-Erik and plink-plonks and the wind and the grass to the top of the mountain, and he sits and he's warm and he's safe. That's where he remembers, and it isn't frightening because there's nothing frightening here.  
  
But he has to go back eventually. It's not a goodbye when he never really leaves, and Charles wonders if there are parts of him he can leave here, too. He'll be back soon, this part of him. He knows he will.

* * *

He's remembered what he's forgotten, but he's remembered how to breathe, too. Not so much how to be anything that isn't Erik's, but he doesn't think that's a problem. The blanket is still covering the both of them and the sheets are still silky and he's still shivering a little. "I'm sorry," he whispers. It's almost too hoarse to sound like words, and it isn't just because of all the noise he made.  
  
The mountain-top is where Charles lives, now, where he keeps Quiet-Erik company when he's been alone for so, so long and he rocks back and forth, his version of tears when he understands he'll never be alone again, that he did good, that he helped and made Charles smile and took care of him. That's all he wanted in the whole universe, and he's given it and have you ever gotten the _one thing_ you've always wanted in the whole world? Have you ever _felt_ that? It's a sensation so rare most human beings never experience it, and this insignificant portion, this thing that can't speak and is too tall and too many limbs and hated and mocked and it got written into his particles and the particles yell at him evil words, but he _got it_.   
  
They're quiet now like him and they love him now because Charles does. Erik opens his eyes and feels himself shifting and clicking into place with this newfound knowledge and he shudders, rubbing his own face a self-soothing mechanism, and then pressing it against Charles, rocking in his hold and surrounded by silk and soft skin. _Never apologize, please never apologize, please. Not for that._ Erik gasps at the sensation, kissing him everywhere, letting him be small and safe and touched. _Love you. Ohev otcha._  
  
Charles didn't want to ruin such a perfect night being sad. He'd already wasted time in the morning on tears. But Erik always makes space for him to cry, every part of Erik, and when he'd needed to be grounded he'd been grounded and when he needed to be warm he was warm, the sun brighter than he's ever seen it outside, and when he needed to breathe there was air. Everything is safe with Erik, so there's nothing to worry about. All he has to do is listen. He lets himself be kissed and held and coddled, lets himself cry, too, because he needs that, wraps their legs up together, Erik's so much longer than his and he loves it. It's okay. It's okay now. Charles belongs to Erik which means he doesn't belong to anyone else.  
  
Erik is glad to receive it, like any other part of Charles, he wants the pain, too. It's Real, and he can help, he knows he can help. He can't make it go away or fix it but he can help, and it's his job, to look after his submissive, to take care of him. Erik is sad a lot, too, but Charles doesn't mind. When it's too much Charles helps him figure out how to put it away so he doesn't hurt him. Nothing ruined, he kisses Charles on the tip of the nose and wraps his legs around him, too, glowing with the knowledge that he helped. He did that.  
  
Erik always helps. Charles thinks he helps Erik, too. Sometimes in helping each other they help themselves, and it's so silly to think that he ever tried to keep anything when Erik is here to help him and guide him. _Erik_? he asks, from somewhere in Erik's chest, and it's the first time he's spoken in a while. Quiet-Erik had met a quieter Charles, too, but it was alright because they hadn't needed words.  
  
 _Hello_ , Erik smiles at him softly. _I'm here_.  
  
Charles sniffles, trying to press closer but there's nowhere closer to go. He settles for what he has, snuggling into bare skin and blanket to offset the shivering he's doing again. _Hi_ , he whispers, shaky. _I don't belong to anyone but you. Right? I'm yours and you'll keep me?_  
  
 _Always_ , Erik murmurs, fierce. _Always mine. No one else may have you_ , he kisses him on the forehead. Just like Erik never will belong to another, but Charles. Erik will always keep him safe. He will always take care of him and hold him and kiss him and help him, make him feel just a little better, that's all Erik cares about and all he ever will. _I love you._  
  
 _Okay. Love you, too._ Charles rubs his tears into Erik, clinging tightly with every limb. I don't want to remember. _Do I have to, Erik?_ If Erik says he doesn't, he doesn't. If he says he should, he will. Charles is going to listen because he doesn't know what to do himself and that's why Erik is here.  
  
Erik rubs his thumb in circles under Charles's eye. _You don't have to want to_ , he replies softly. _But you do, and that is OK. There is nothing to be afraid of, because I am here with you and I will not let anything happen to you._ He knows Charles remembers that, too. He has a lifetime of experience to tell him that trying to bury something only makes it come out stronger, more terrifying, less controlled. Facing it, side by side with the person you love, is the only way he's ever found forward.  
  
Charles leans into Erik's touch, exhaling a low, distressed noise. _You'll be there the whole time?_ he asks, and he's barely peeking out from Erik, from the blankets. _You'll come?_  
  
 _I will never be parted from you,_ Erik lays his hand over Charles's face. _I have never left, and I never will._

* * *

This isn't where he wants to go on the night of their Bonding, but nothing is ruined. He has Erik, and he is safe. He's taken care of. The place they end up isn't Erik's Landscape, and it isn't Charles' mind, either. It's a memory, fraying and shredded, the colors distorted along with the sound. They're standing in his father's laboratory, except it's in use now; nothing is dusty and outdated, lost to time and left to be found years later. It's buzzing, perfectly operational.  
  
A tiny boy is strapped to the examination table, his legs fragile toothpicks easily snapped where they're strapped down several times over, his body covered in sores and hives from a bad reaction, an IV embedded in his skin. His hair is thin and straight, flattened out from its natural curl, unhealthy and falling out in clumps some days. He's writhing, but not to get away. Whatever is entering his bloodstream is making him fuss, tears leaking down his cheeks.  
  
Charles buries himself in Erik's chest, because this is where he keeps getting stuck. There's more to this memory and he keeps getting stuck because he needs Erik. He needs Erik. Every time he comes here it's his memory and he gets frightened and sad, and he needs Erik.  
  
Erik doesn't leave, he didn't lie. He doesn't leave. As soon as he sees this sight his eyes shutter and he wraps his arms around Charles, a solid pillar of pure strength to lean on. "I am here," he says, voice an endless ocean of calm and structure, spires of metal forming architecture in his body, holding his bones in human shapes, a disembodied light. "You are safe. I have you." He tilts Charles's head up so he can meet his eyes, Erik's own unmoving, the surface of a placid lake entirely undisturbed, not even air vibrations. "I am right here with you."  
  
Charles shivers, hiding in Erik's chest because he doesn't need to look to remember.  
  
The door to the lab hisses behind them. He jumps, and so does the boy on the table, his neck craning to see. The man who enters looks little like Charles, a tall, more physically imposing figure, but there's certainly resemblance. In the hair, in some of the face, in the way he holds himself, the creases near his eyes, hidden by thin-framed, round glasses; this is Charles' father, Brian Xavier. At first he doesn't address the boy at all, checking equipment, reading screens. He seems visibly distracted, agitated.  
  
"Father?" the boy asks, and his voice is small and hoarse but wholly trusting, blue eyes too big for his face as he looks up at his father with reverent admiration.  
  
"Quiet, please, Charles. Father is busy, today is an important day. I'm going to put you on another round of this."  
  
"But -"  
  
"Hush, Charles," the man snaps.  
  
The boy trembles, but his mouth closes. Charles stares, trembling himself. This isn't what he remembers of his father. This is wrong. Something is wrong. Someone must have tampered with his memory.  
  
Erik shakes his head. This is not a lie. It is the truth. It is how Erik has always seen the man, whom he has never reserved the title of father to Charles in any way other than biological sperm donor. Erik takes a step in front of Charles anyway, as though shielding him from his own memories, all trace of playful goodness burned entirely out of him. He is a predator. A soldier. _Arrêtez de parler et peut-être vivrez-vous._ Charles recognizes his voice, now. The only one inside of Erik who could withstand this without burning it all down or eviscerating it into pieces or imploding on himself. L'interrogateur.  
  
Charles watches from behind Erik as his father stands over the boy, who begins to fuss and whine and thrash his head as he's injected. When he retches and then vomits, he watches sympathetically, grimacing, but the look in his father's eyes as the boy apologizes is one of pity. As if he is a pathetic, unpleasant creature and not his son strapped to a medical table. His father pats the boy's head, and the boy lights up, smiling and giddy despite the pain and nausea.  
  
"I need you to be a good boy me for today, Charles," his father is saying to the boy, crouching so they're eye-level. "No fidgeting, no fussing, and absolutely no crying. No speaking unless you're spoken to. Do you understand?"  
  
"Yes, Father."  
  
"Why, Charles?"  
  
"To keep me safe," Charles answers, eyes still bright as he smiles sweetly. "To make me better."  
  
"Exactly. Good."  
  
The boy looks happy enough to cry when his father ruffles his hair, and Charles swallows, hiding behind Erik as if he might see him if he doesn't. To keep him safe and make him better. His father loved him, didn't he? He was kind to him.  
  
Erik remains in front of him, watchful and completely silent, not even the tick of thoughts in the background as is usual for a telepath to pick up, different from Quiet-Erik in that his aren't simply turned-down or muted, they are nonexistent. He's a vessel allowing experiences to pass though, wind gusts through an open frame. Erik doesn't relish convincing him of this, but a house of lies has sand foundations. It's why he is here and not any other. The rest would seek to comfort him and protect him from anything that causes him pain. _L'interrogateur_ does not hold these compunctions, and maybe that makes him just as bad as the people who hurt Charles in the first place, but it also makes him the most honest, the least likely to crack from emotional dissolution. The most capable of handling its inevitability. But he is not good at putting things back together. Only taking them apart. _This is not kindness. I would never allow you to treat a child in such a way, nor would you ever wish to._  
  
Charles shakes his head. His father injects him with something that makes the boy bite his lip so hard he starts to bleed, and doesn't seem concerned with it even as the tiny body on the table begins to thrash and writhe and jerk in its bindings. There's no comforting words. No more head patting, or hair ruffling. He monitors the boy's vitals, sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose after he's removed his glasses, and then walks away. The door to the lab clicks again, a mechanical hiss. He's gone but the memory is still playing, distorted and strange, so there's more to see.  
  
He walks to the boy's table, maneuvering around Erik, and crouches, teeth clenched against chattering. The boy is trying so hard not to scream and cry. He's agonized, and his whole body looks like it's reacting. His nose begins to pour blood, muffled cries and whimpers. He's been left alone.  
  
 _To make him better,_ the boy is thinking. _I'm very sick and Father is making me better._  
  
To make him better?

* * *

As soon as the man leaves and Charles moves, Erik moves to his side, touching his face and brushing sweaty hair away from his temples, stroking his cheeks and jaw in familiar motions. He's been here many, many times before. He is not being made better. He is being made sick in the first place. Erik recognizes every instrument in this room, every beeping monitor, every metallic implement echoed in his own body and he gentles the intrusion against Charles with the knowledge, making him warm and rubbing at his sore wrists, words age-old methods to get them by. _It's OK. You are going to be OK. I am here with you._  
  
It seems to go on endlessly like this. Charles kneels by the table's side, sniffling as he watches the boy eventually go limp, his body done fighting except when it twitches uselessly. There are bruises and clean incision cuts on his tiny body, marks from too many needles. Charles leans into Erik for support, and hides in his chest again, unwilling to look but seeing anyway.  
  
The door to the lab hisses again.  
  
Both Charles and the boy flinch, and then smooth out their features, a mirror-echo of each other. There's hope, and then fear, and then guilt for the fear.  
  
 _Please let it not hurt so much,_ the boy is thinking. _Maybe I'll get to play when it's over._  
  
Erik is accustomed to this. He can take endless and torture and suffering, he can watch while the people he loves are shred apart. He can keep them company and never let it show, not ever, his very thoughts themselves swirled to slowing, focused purely upon the person before him. He doesn't move when the door opens, remaining by his side, talking to him and soothing him through. It will be over someday and it will never happen again and he will be so safe, and so loved, and he will get to play whenever he wants.  
  
Three men walk through the door.  
  
One is Charles' father. One is Kurt Marko, for all intents and purposes his assistant, a title which he rails against. The other has no face.  
  
The memory is corrupted, like a stuttering, poorly-wound VHS, static lines straight down the middle. Every time one of the men speaks it comes out a muffled shriek of audio distortion. They move forward and then back unnaturally, as if someone is fast-forwarding and rewinding them.  
  
Charles blinks, but it doesn't focus. He hides in Erik instead, the man with no face a fuzzy, mirage-like blur as he steps toward them and the boy.  
  
He doesn't remember. No, he doesn't remember.

* * *

It's another reason why he is here. If he were another, he would be clutched in fear, backing away from this place. Whisking Charles up and out, But he has no capacity for it now. Not even a day ago Erik would have said there is no use for him, but it's opening up, fields of flower petals unfolding for miles and miles. There is a way to turn the monsters to the path of light. To employ even the hollow shell for a purpose of good, and he takes a step back to put his fingers on Charles's face, shaking his head. _You do. Do not hide anymore. It is time to face it. Together._  
  
The man has a monster's face that smiles, congenial and disarming, and Charles knew all along and pretended he didn't. Perhaps that's unfair, though. It implies that he did anything consciously, and he knows that he did not. He has his own survival tactics, and for someone who knows quite a lot, far too much, the answer is to simply filter it out when he isn't ready for it. To take in the information, and do nothing with it. Not everything known needs to be acknowledged, nor has it been processed or understood. There are parts of Charles that are splintered, too, data he has no access to under normal circumstances.  
  
Charles doesn't forget. He misplaces, compartmentalizes, until he's ready to put it back in the whirring, processing whole, the vast expanse of knowledge that makes up his conscious understanding. If Erik's mind is a Landscape, Charles' is an inexplicably complex, ever-changing, ever-working machine, a computer that files and analyzes and corrupts when necessary, with feeling parts that look like houses and fields and lakes, doors that open and shut and basements where secrets go. His mind is never not working, listening, learning. It protected him, too.  
  
The man smiles at him and the boy smiles back, timid but friendly, polite, trusting. He doesn't know any better.  
  
Charles knows it's too late to tell him he's in a room full of monsters.  
  
Erik doesn't breathe or blink, eyes dull and sightless, petting the smaller version of Charles and shielding him with his body, adjusting his blankets and smoothing out wrinkles in his clothes and fixing his hair, wiping away every tear methodically until his face is dry, rhythmic and repetitive. He gets up and does the same thing on grown Charles, on either side of him, brushing away every speck of dirt he can find, tying his shoelaces tighter, retrieving an eyelash that had fallen onto his cheek.  
  
There are no blankets. There's no way to shield the boy, because he's being stared at, prodded and injected again as he forces himself not to scream and screams anyway, and there are things being said but Charles doesn't catch them. He doesn't know what they are. It's not audio distortion, he just doesn't think he can hear them. If he knows what the men are talking about, he can't reach it now.  
  
Charles lets himself be fussed over, whirring and whirring but he still can't hear. He doesn't know what the man is saying. He just knows he's here, with his father and his eventual stepfather, the three of them discussing something while he screams and writhes, eight years old and strapped several times to a cold metal table.  
  
He opens his eyes and the memory is gone. His younger self might have passed out. He hopes so. He hopes, eventually, he got to play.

* * *

Erik keeps rubbing and petting at him, and when the memory dissipates he doesn't stop, unaware of the change in scenery. In the Real he wraps blankets more firmly around Charles and tucks him close, lips moving silently against the shell of his ear, mind humming without words, without tune. Safe now. It's safe. Love.  
  
Charles is shivering, but there's no way he's cold even as his teeth go back to chattering. It doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense. He was sick and his father was trying to cure him. He was sick and his father took care of him. He was sick and his father protected him and one day you will understand. That's all. It's not a sad memory. There's nothing to be sad about.  
  
Erik objects like he always does, a tape recorded message left that plays on the right trigger, a reminder even when he can't remember how to blink and move. It makes sense. He was trying to cure a disease he caused for his own scientific gains. He was evil. Charles isn't twisted up enough about it that he considers what he just saw acceptable to force on a child. Erik remembers it in perfect detail, the way he remembers every other child he saw get flayed open until screaming death. Charles is alive because of an anomaly, nothing else.  
  
He shakes his head. _No, you're wrong._ His father loved him. His father patted his head and let him read his books and taught him the elements in the Periodic Table and he seemed impressed when Charles could perfectly recite it. He was sick, he was born sick, and his father was making him better. He gave Charles books when he was good and didn't fuss too much. He let him play when he was done. He taught Charles how to play chess. He was a good father. He loved Charles. If he was still alive, he would still love him. He never would have hurt him.  
  
Erik is twitching, enraged and empty and dead, and he just adjusts the blanket, tucking Charles's head under his chin and rubbing his back, soothing him instead. _I love you_.  
  
Charles sniffles. He had a good father. He had a loving father. He had a kind father, a smart father. Deceased. Deceased. Deceased. A vivisected infant. Charles is making progress. His hair falls out in his fingers, thin and brittle, and his mother sighs in disgust. _We'll have to wear a hat then, won't we?_ Kurt Marko knew. He knew the whole time. His father loved him. His father wanted the best for him.  
  
His father -  
  
Charles fusses in Erik's arms until he can roll away, cold and shivering. His legs are shaking horribly, but he thinks he can walk if he forces himself. He doesn't know where he's going to go.  
  
 _No!_ Erik shoots up after him, taking his hand. _No_. Charles doesn't belong to anyone else. He belongs to Erik.  
  
Charles is trembling, but he looks down at Erik's hand and then practically throws himself at him, with all of his limbs and the full force of him. _Please keep me. Please still keep me._  
  
He presses their noses together, then their foreheads, kissing him. _Always keep you. Mine. Don't go._ If Charles gets out of this bed and doesn't let him follow he is pretty confident he will die.  
  
Fortunately for Erik, Charles is fairly certain the same is true for him. He never wanted to get out of the bed. He doesn't know what he wants, actually, but he knows he needs to disappear into Erik's arms and not come out for a long while because he doesn't trust his own ability to exist outside of them right now. _Yours. Yours, sir_. He's not crying anymore but he sniffs loudly, and lets himself be held.  
  
 _Mine_ , he tucks him back where he belongs in his arms and wraps him up again in blankets and fluffs a pillow to snuggle against his other side, keeping him cozy and contained. _No one else can have you. No one. Only mine. Take care of you, OK? I take care of you. Promise. Promise._  
  
That's how Charles falls asleep eventually, curled up in Erik's arms small and safe and owned, exactly as he should on the night of his Bonding Ceremony.


	51. his own:/a flawed star, or hand, though he remembers no hands,/has tried—can't remember . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. we're now in the third arc, _detachment, the soul, obedience;_!  
> ii. tw, mind the tags  
> iii. _the flea_ , john donne  
> iv. _i carry your heart_ , e.e cummings  
> v. _on roads_ , ber grin  
> vi. _magalenha_ , sergio mendes  
> vii. diogenes

The next morning and afternoon feel like they're a blur, and it's likely because Charles isn't much of himself through them. There are meetings to attend, the both of them, to prepare for their trip to Israel. He knows Erik is nervous and on-edge, to say the least, that he hasn't processed what's happening and likely won't until they're already there. It's why he stays quiet, a Quiet-Charles who speaks little except to answer questions, who passively observes, which is so downright strange for someone like Raven that she boldly asks what's wrong with him. He doesn't have a proper answer to give her.  
  
Erik's packed belongings for said trip are pristine and immaculately organized, of course. Charles has been wrangling with the same shirt for the past ten minutes, and in the end his solution is to throw it haphazardly in the suitcase, wrinkles be damned. He huffs at it, and considers re-folding it; Erik is only going to make him do it anyway when he notices. He shakes his head and throws his next shirt in the same way instead. There's something vaguely satisfying about the bunched up mess, and it will consolidate space. Probably.  
  
It says a lot about Erik's state of mind that he doesn't seem to notice, just gives Charles a half-zoned out smile and nod, his own suitcase open and meticulously stocked beside Charles's, and he's been staring at it for the last five minutes, folding over wrinkles in his shirts with his hands in long, even lines from top to hem. He ends up packing thirteen toothbrushes, going back to the bathroom, picking one up from the holder and putting it on top and then returning to the bathroom, finding a toothbrush and taking it out to his suitcase. Amongst his belongings is seven bars of soap, thirty five razors, eleven containers of lipstick and a broken radio.  
  
He's still doing better than Charles' two wrinkled shirts, but they're not batting well here. He sighs, because he hadn't even properly glanced at Erik's suitcase, and a much better alternative to packing any of his own things is fixing Erik's. He'd rather them not get flagged and questioned for their million razors. Charles has always been sloppy about his own packing, but at least he's methodical about removing the items Erik definitely doesn't need. He doesn't remember having this many toothbrushes in the bathroom, and Raven rarely wears lipstick because she can literally shapeshift and most of it doesn't look good with her blue skintone (something she complains about often, and he agrees) so he's not sure exactly where all this came from, but at least the shade range is impressive. There's frustration bubbling up in his stomach, restless and helpless both; he should have noticed, and he should be saying something now. But everything gets caught up in his throat when he tries, so in the end he's standing by Erik's suitcase, not packing, and playing with a tube of coral pink lipstick. He thinks it's maybe not his color.  
  
Erik takes another toothbrush out of his pocket and carefully places it at the bottom of his perfectly aligned row, all in various shades of the rainbow. He straightens them out and leans back to squint before adjusting one a few milimeters to the right. Perfect. He also has somewhere in all of this, found Cactus and put him beside his radio, petting him carefully to avoid the spiky jolt, picking up a small, miniature, incredibly detailed cowboy hat and placing it on top of Cactus's little cactus head. It's sienna with black dashed seams and a cow amidst swaying grass, every tiny part perfect and Erik strokes his fingers over it, pleased. Cactus needed a hat, otherwise he'll get sunburned. He likes Cactus, it reminds him of Charles, whom he also likes a great deal. Some tiny little shirts to go with it, perhaps, and a pair of googly eyes to complete the package.  
  
Charles bites his lip. He's staring down at the lipstick tube, which eventually devolves into him pressing too hard and the lipstick squeezing right out onto the floor. He doesn't make any move to pick it up, but to his credit he does step over it instead of in it. "I don't think we can take Cactus," he mumbles, barely audible, and picks him up and out of the strange assortment of items they should probably rearrange to include more clothing. "He won't make it past security. He can stay here and keep the room safe." Charles likes Cactus, too. He can't quite muster up a smile at his little hat, but his mouth twitches enough that it vaguely resembles it.  
  
This morning Erik poured boiling water all over his own hand without noticing, causing Hank to yelp and jump into action, and he stays up at nights vigilant and picking at a cut on his left hand in a trancelike obsession, but he's been taking care of Charles over the last couple of days. He's been feeding him and making sure he goes through his routine and talking to him and doing his very best to make things easy, to elicit smiles and keep him where he belongs. It's not that he hasn't processed anything so much as he won't. It doesn't belong anywhere. It hurts everyone. He won't collapse and hurt Charles. He'll make sure Charles comes back to himself and stays. He'll be good. The news that he can't take Cactus is the first thing that threatens to break his composure, though, and his eyes water. "OK," he whispers, smiling gently and squeezing Charles's hand. He takes Cactus out, but keeps his hat. "I love you."  
  
Charles' mouth is dry. "Love you, too," he whispers back, and feels like he's been punched in the gut, sick and shaky. His skin is uncomfortably itchy and prickly again, like Cactus is poking into him, and he scratches idly and compulsively at his own skin, drawing up red lines. Nothing comes out of his mouth when he opens it, so he closes it again. He bends down to pick the lipstick up from the floor instead, and decides it's definitely not his color.  
  
Erik stills his hand and shakes his head. " _Atzor, bevakasha_ ," he murmurs, quiet. " _Haged li ma kara_." The cactus and lipstick both lift away from him and settle on the dresser beside one another, the lipstick whole again and Cactus with the zany improvement of his googly eyes, stuck on with adhesive harmless to succulents.  
  
Charles stays crouched on the ground even though he has no reason to be there. The scratching stops for a moment, and then picks back up, this time at his neck. "Nothing," he mumbles, shrugging. When he stands, it's so he doesn't have to look at Erik, returning to his mostly empty suitcase. He picks up one of the shirts he's already balled up and thrown in and fiddles with it, nothing resembling folding.  
  
"No," Erik says. "Stop this," he touches Charles's hands, "and tell me." The Order is soft.  
  
He throws the shirt into the suitcase with a huff, more aggressive than he'd meant to. "I'm frustrated and I don't know what to do and I need to pack, Erik, so please let me," he mutters, quietly and with no heat, and stares into the abyss of empty space. At least Erik has soap covered.  
  
Erik startles at the motion, the barest twitch. "No," he murmurs back again, tilting Charles's head toward him, watching his own hand touch his jaw. "Tell me why," Erik repeats the Order.  
  
He lets out another huff, this time a great deal more helpless and cornered, and doesn't look Erik in the eyes. "Because you're not talking to me and you need me," is what comes out, which is the truth. It's more because Charles knows he could be more proactive about it, but can't bring himself to do it. Every time he tries it gets stuck and he's putting an incredible amount of effort onto functioning in a way that won't upset Erik, either, quiet and unobtrusive so at least he doesn't hurt him while he's being utterly useless. "You go on and on about how I need to come to you when I need you and tell you when I'm hurting and you don't come to me and you lock it all up and I don't know how to fix it or what to say and I'm -" He's not okay, either, and he's finding it difficult to put all of that aside and it's fit to bursting and he doesn't know what to do.  
  
"Don't do that," Erik whispers, shaking his head and pressing his lips together. "You do not need to put yourself aside for my sake. I don't want that." Which is exactly what Charles just said he insists upon, but the situation is more complicated than that by Charles's own admission. Erik stands there for so long it's highly probable he's floated off again but then it bursts out of him in sparks of popping fireworks, brilliant lights in the sky one after the other. Charles isn't OK and all the things that got dredged up lit Erik's brain on fire and he can't-talk to Charles about that because he can't make it worse, he can't eclipse the pain and sorrow he's supposed to care for by having a meltdown when it's not even-when what is important is what Charles experienced. And now the trip is today, in hours they will land in Jerusalem and he will meet his family for the first time and that's as far as he can go with that. The only very brief, momentary lapses he's had-it didn't end well, and he can't-he can't contribute to that, not when Charles isn't even OK to begin with. And he can't. He can't-he can do a good job, he can, he can be a good Dominant he can-make things better-Erik clutches onto his shoulder, gripping hard.  
  
"Being a good Dominant doesn't mean sacrificing your own wellbeing for mine," he whispers. He's back to scratching at himself, because it feels like there are tiny bugs crawling beneath his skin and he'd love it if they stopped. "I'm supposed to help you, too. You don't need to turn everything off to take care of me. That's not how it works. We're supposed to do this together." Charles is staring at the ground, scratching and scratching and scratching. "Your feelings matter, Erik. I know it's all there anyway, so it only makes it worse, honestly," he admits.  
  
"Stop it-stop- _stop_ scratching," Erik calls the Order, a stutter at first before getting firm. The fact that Charles knows it's there is separate from being exposed to it in vivid technicolor, from being hurt by it because Erik lost the grip on his self-control. It's not remotely the same thing, it's not in the same ballpark. It doesn't matter. Erik is hurt like being eviscerated because he's seen Charles get hurt. It's selfish. He can't sleep because he dreams of Charles's broken, tiny body being tossed on top of the pit and incinerated and he left the toaster on too long this morning and Hank finds him in the bathtub cradling his burned hand, under the cold spray fully clothed and unresponsive and-  
  
he can't listen to Charles tell him it means nothing, doesn't he know Erik loves him? He's scared to touch him because he sees his hands around Charles's wrists and thinks how it might be charred instead, slid down a metal table, prior-to-pieces and it's his job and he has to tell them-  
  
"No, no," he whispers, shaking his head. "No-wrong. Not worse. Not worse. OK, OK. Everything OK." It's not though, he already knows it isn't. If he can just put the box deep enough into the molten ground and cover it in chains and burn it, too-everybody will be OK-he won't hurt them-  
  
Charles' arms have snapped to his side, he's uncomfortable and fidgeting, but it's infinitely worse to know Erik is hurting and he's been too bloody useless to do anything about it. "Stop it," he says, and it's so quiet, barely even a whisper, but still manages to be as firm as he can manage. "Please stop it. Talk to me. Please talk to me, Erik. It doesn't hurt me, and if it does that's my hurt to take. You can't -" His lip is trembling, he's staring at his feet. "You can't say that you'll take my pain and that it's yours too and that we do this together and try to bury this at the same time because you think it might hurt me. You need to talk to me, and come to me. I can help." Otherwise what's even the point? What kind of submissive is he, that he's let this go on for as long as he did? Does Erik not think he can handle it? He can. He can handle it. He can make it better, too, he needs to.  
  
He's shivering from head to toe and he jerks his chin in a negative. "I can't, I can't. Handle. I can't." It will kill him and he doesn't want it to kill Charles, too. His knees buckle and he realizes he's hitting the floor too late, throwing his good arm out just in time to brace his fall.

* * *

Charles is there before he hits the ground. It's a reenactment of that day in court; he throws himself beneath him, bodily shields him from the floor, Erik's arm only softening the blow of a body far larger than his. He still ends up underneath him, teary-eyed and shaking himself and his skin is so itchy, it's crawling. He needs to scratch but he has to wait until Erik isn't looking. "Then at least let me help with this," he whispers, because he can't handle this. He can't handle Erik barely touching him, treating him like a pathetic, fragile thing to skirt around. "Please look at me," he begs, and his voice cracks. _Please look at me and don't see a tiny body strapped to a table._  
  
"Stop it-" he presses his face to the floor, not because he can't bear to look at Charles, but because he doesn't deserve to. " _Ani le'olam lo chashavti shavir ve chalash_. Never," he croaks. _You know that. You know me. You know me?_  
  
Charles is below him immediately, bowed down low on his knees, gentle, coaxing fingers in his hair and to his face, his heart sunk into his stomach. "I know you," he whispers, and he does. "I know. But -" But sometimes it's all he can see when he looks in the mirror now and he knows Erik sees it sometimes, too, even if he doesn't see it in the same way. "You have to look at me, Erik. Please? You have to touch me, and feel me." He reaches for Erik's hand, frowning at the burn but bringing it up to his own face, that big palm eclipsing his cheek. He can't stop himself from leaning into it. "I'm here. Please. Let me be here."  
  
He flinches, hard when his hand touches Charles's cheek, flashes of images bombarding him like atomic blasts, mushroom clouds shrieking otherworldly through the inky blackness of space. Stars imploding and annihilating the fabric left behind, sucking up the remnants too quick for anyone to make out. Metal and twisted bones and seared skin stilled blood _non plus ultra_ , submerge, submerge. Wheezing breaths through his nose filling the room. " _Beseder, slicha soleach li,_ " he says, too-loud, calling over the slam of his own heart. "Don't wanna go."  
  
Charles doesn't need to catch the individual images. He knows they're there, and none of them could be hidden from him. He sits up on his knees and gently, carefully pulls Erik into him, stroking that spot behind his ear that instantly relaxes him, fighting the shake in his own voice. "I know, darling," he murmurs quietly. "I know you're afraid. But I'll be there the entire time. I'll be with you. I'll help you. Whatever it is you fear, we can face it together, but you have to let me in. Please let me help you. That's what I'm here for. I love you, and we will deal with all of this together, all the sorrow and joy and fear."  
  
Erik shivers in his hold, twitching and exhaling shudders. "It's you," he gasps. "You were scared you keep dying I cut you up. Your friend gonna kill me. It's OK won't stop him. It's OK. Don't be mad. Don't wanna go sleep. _Bevakasha lo aletz li lalechet. Lo rotze_." Erik presses into his hand all of a sudden and then curls his legs up to his chest, hiding in Charles's lap and covering his face with his shirt, putting his arms over his head to hold it there. " _Ani yode'a lo tov._ " _You were small and hurt. Look what I did to you. Habet ma asiti le'atah_! He doesn't deserve to touch Charles. To look at him. " _Lam'a asiti ze?_ Normal people I saw them. They cry and beg and die. Not me. Why not me. Why am I so bad? Why?"  
  
Charles takes a deep breath, not letting himself be displaced. He wraps his arms as far around Erik as they'll go. The rapid shifting between languages, the broken sentences and half-words don't daunt him anymore, and it doesn't make a difference what language he's speaking in or how thick his accent is, Charles understands perfectly well. It is a sign he's crumbling, though, and this was quite a long time coming, so Charles is there to weather it. " _Shh_ ," he whispers, and carefully rocks them, as much as he can. " _Shh_ , darling. There's nothing bad about you. You didn't hurt me. I'm not hurting. I'm right here, and I have you, and you haven't done anything wrong. Shh. Look at me, Erik. Listen to me. You've done nothing but help me and take care of me. That's all. You aren't bad. You're my perfect, wonderful Dominant, yeah? You take such good care of me."  
  
No, it's not true. It's not true. Erik still picked up the implement. He still did it. He's Little Erik. He's favorite one. _Nein, ich habe dich getötet. Du warst auf dem Tisch. Er legte Metallmedizin hinein. Du hattest keine Haut, nein, nein ... Du bist gestorben, ich habe dich geschnitten, ich habe dich verbrannt. Je ne me souviens pas j'ai brûlé leur famille j'ai besoin de leur dire_ , _don't make me go... Warren ne sait pas. Il va me tuer aussi_ he laugh with us. I saw his-" The only thing awaiting him on the other side of that plane ride is a pit full of his own victims. Maybe he didn't pull the trigger. He still killed them in some way. He is just a corpse and he belongs with them. He is not alive. He had no eyes and no ears and no lungs or mind. He wants to make Charles happy and maybe he can live because he can make Charles happy and nothing else matters but now he's killing Charles over and over, he's cutting off his limbs and making him scream-searing images of desecration replaced with Charles's features, it's him and he has to die first, he has to die first, please. " _Bitte, bitte_ -"  
  
His eyes close and he has to fight not to retch, but he manages. He manages and he rocks Erik in his arms, no matter how awkward the size difference, and he holds him and he bears it. "No, _shh_ , no," he murmurs, and bats away every image, every fear. "You didn't. I'm right here. You didn't do those things, Erik. I know you've gotten it into your head that you have but you haven't. The people who hurt me and them are nothing like you." It sits uncomfortably in his throat, burns in his chest, and he doesn't think he can swallow what it implies, not yet, but this much he knows. "You trust me, don't you? You trust me more than anyone? I need you to trust me, Erik. You haven't hurt me, and you'll never hurt that way again. You helped. You've helped so much. Look at me, darling. Trust me. You've done so much more good than you know, in such awful places. You've always belonged with me, haven't you? You were always meant to help and heal. That's what these hands are for, Erik. Look." And he brings that hand back to his cheek, leans into it and smiles. It's tremulous, but it's real, the first in a while. "Look. No dying."  
  
"No-no," Erik gasps, because Charles doesn't understand, he doesn't understand, he has to understand. He's talking to Charles, a Charles, maybe a Charles in his mind, maybe this is a dream, even in its horrors he hopes he never wakes so he can keep talking to him but-he has to _warn_ him, has to-he's wrong-the whole room is vibrating, every molecule rubbing together in harmonic pitch, one loud, long clang of a tuning fork reverberating endlessly. Erik digs his nails into his eyes hard, really ready to hurt himself-not out of any actual impulse for self-harm, more like he's trying to scratch the very essence of his mind out of his body so he can stop, he can't handle this. He can't go there, he can't be here, he can't be-  
  
Charles swallows thickly around his own panic and nausea and grabs Erik's hands, tugging. "Please stop," he begs, tears in his voice more than his eyes, but they're there, too. "Please stop. Please." He's not strong enough to really stop Erik from doing much, but he's banking on Erik not fighting him. He knows instinctively he won't hurt him. "Please, Erik."  
  
Charles is right, of course; Erik wilts as soon as he's touched and shrinks into his stomach, stuffing his head under his shirt. It could have been Charles. It would have been if Charles were there. It was others. It's who Erik is. He is the monster. Who is he to condemn anyone. He is just as guilty. How can he go on trial and testify when he is just as bad, he is. Why doesn't Charles understand? Why won't he keep himself safe from Erik?  
  
Charles shakes his head. It isn't right. It just isn't, and Charles hates himself for ever, even in ignorance, entertaining the notion for more than a split second. For putting nasty, awful words anywhere near association with Erik because it could not be more far from the truth. "Erik," he whispers. "If you hadn't been there, those children, Magda -" They would be dead. They would be dead, gone, destroyed and vanished to the wind like footprints in sand. "I understand. I know you. I know you hold guilt, and I will hold it with you, but it isn't your guilt. Would you ever hurt me? Look at me, Erik. Look at me and say you could hurt me. I know you can't, and so do you. What place is safer for me than you?" Nowhere. What place or person loves and cares for him more than Erik? His hands, his words, his mind, the vast expanse of the Landscape? Nowhere.  
  
" _Ani le'olam lo mach'iv atah_ ," Erik whispers, but he doesn't believe himself. His mind is filled with vivid, intrusive images of just that. He hasn't slept, he hasn't eaten, he's spent hours by himself in the bathtub while Charles dreamed because he's scared he'll cut him and burn his body while he's still alive, there's an endless pit in his mind with broken bodies of Charles all murdered in horrifically creative ways. Everyone is going to know the second they land that he's the monster who buried their family, some of whom were still screaming as they burned in the pit, fat popping like gunshots in his ears, and he convulses hard, teeth clacking together and what if he does that, makes Charles scream like that, if someone told him to hurt Charles or they'd kill him and he couldn't stop them he would because it's what he always did. So there, that's wrong, he _would_ , it's not safe, it's never safe, he's a liar he can't- "I ca-stop thinkn' bout it. Jus wanna stop. _Ahwahstop_ ," he gasps unintelligibly, voice muffled by fabric and flesh.  
  
Charles just holds him. He holds him, and he doesn't let it break him that the past day and a half has been spent like this, because he hasn't been much better and Erik has been too broken himself to notice it. He doesn't dream. He lies awake and he stares at the wall and he feels how horrifically empty the bed is and he fights not to sob, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. What matters is that Erik understands. "You did what you had to, Erik. You stayed alive. You helped them as much as you could. You came to me. I needed you, and you stayed alive, and you kept them alive, too. You aren't a monster. You aren't." He lets him hide in his shirt, rub tears and snot and spit on it, strokes him just the same and rocks him. "I'm so sorry you were put in that position, but you aren't the monster here, and I need you to keep me safe, and them, too. You aren't a liar. You protect me. Don't you?" He brings that big hand to his collar and holds it there with his own. " _Shh_ , darling. _Shh_. It won't ever happen again. I'm safe. You'll keep me safe. Look at me. Feel me. None of that."  
  
His fingers curl over it instinctively, and he burrows himself even closer, his other hand rubbing over his own face and neck over and over again, and blindly he reaches up to touch his lips, tracing where that ghost of a smile was moments ago, desperate to find it again. Until Charles this was utterly impossible, but once the floodgates opened everything began to spill over, an industrial dam pouring out thousands of pounds of water per second. _Please don't go._ (He's too fargone to talk and he can barely think coherently so it's all smashed together sounds and images.) _Don't go, I'm sorry. Take care of you. Make you smile. Please come back. Please be mine._ It's the only thing he knows to be true.  
  
It isn't too much. It's alright that he can't speak or think. He doesn't need to be sorry, he never needs to be sorry for this. Charles is here, and he hasn't left, and he's absolutely, indisputably Erik's. He keeps Erik's hand curled into his beautiful collar that he wears because he loves Erik and he belongs to him, and he smiles around Erik's hand, no matter how strained and trembling, presses it into the skin and lets him feel that it's there. "I have you, darling. I belong to you," he promises. "I'm yours. No need to fear, I'm safe. You keep me safe. You take care of me. Shh, shh." He'll hold him for as long as he needs, and after that. Charles takes care of his Dominant, too. He won't let him lose himself.

* * *

He strokes his fingers across Charles's lips as if to soothe himself. _Mine_? he whispers soundlessly against Charles's stomach, nuzzling closer. Safe. Loved. Charles belongs to him. He loves him. "Didn't hurt? No pain?" his voice is croaky as though he'd been screaming for hours, but really he's just held back the low, wounded noises threatening the back of his throat, features crumpled in completely silent tears.  
  
"Mm-mm. No pain. I'm yours, Erik," he promises, and kisses Erik's fingers, strokes the back of his head and runs those thick strands of hair between his fingers, gentle and soothing. There's no pain. Nothing hurts. He's Erik's, and he loves Erik, and they're both safe. And Cactus has googly eyes now, so he's probably happy, too. _Thank you, Erik!_ he's probably saying. Charles would know because he speaks plant.  
  
"And hat," he whispers, shivering in his hiding spot, eyes fluttering shut as he arches into those fingers. It was a telltale sign before when that didn't do the trick, but now he's slightly calmer and it helps, immediately, as always.  
  
Charles doesn't mind. He's just glad it works now, and that Erik seems calmer. He'll happily sit on the floor for as long as he has to. "And hat," he agrees, and rubs himself up against Erik, trying not to notice that his skin is still so itchy. "Maybe we'll smuggle a plant the other way. I want a flower named Flower. Or a tree named Tree?" Erik seems willing to indulge him so far.  
  
He smooths out the itch, or tries to, abilities hooking onto it and rubbing futilely, sliding out of his hands like a hundred marbles and he gasps, frustrated and digs in to Charles's chest, shaking his head. No more. more pain. No more.  
  
He soothes him immediately, kisses the top of his head, which he rarely gets to see, scritches behind his ear. "No pain, _shh_. It doesn't hurt, see? It's alright now. Come back, darling. We're alright. We're safe." He hums, sneaking in there to get at Erik's cheek. "You know, I think I need a hat more than Cactus does, but I don't think him and I share the same style. Or size. What a shame."  
  
Erik feathers his fingers up to Charles's head and he feels something shift in his hair, and he realizes he's got a hat-which should not come to any surprise. Even at his least competent Erik will do his best to grant even the hint of a request. It's got cactuses all over it interspersed with desert landscapes and cartoon suns, in garish patterns. It's a velvet bowler hat with a golden band around it, and terribly hideous.  
  
Charles reaches up to see, one hand still in Erik's hair, behind his ear and curling around the nape of his neck. He can't help laughing when he does, maybe the first laugh of the day, his shoulders shaking with it. "Thank you, darling, but I'm not sure this is my style either," he grins, and it's sincere, kissing Erik's cheek again. "I was thinking something a bit more subtle. But really I don't need one, now that I think about it, with you blocking out all the sun," he teases.  
  
Slowly Erik puts his head on the outside of Charles's shirt instead of hidden underneath and he blinks up to meet his eyes, fleeting at first, darting away before coming back. He holds up another toothbrush. "'S too many?" he mumbles.  
  
Charles offers a soft smile, cupping Erik's cheek, rubbing playfully at his nose to see it scrunch. "Too many. Unless you're starting a trend where you brush each tooth with its own toothbrush, in which case not enough," he laughs, and leans forward to press their noses together. "You also need pants. I noticed you haven't packed any pants. Those tend to be necessary."  
  
It feels like a thousand years since Erik felt warm, but he touches Charles's throat, feeling that laugh glowing inside his chest and he shifts closer, tilting his chin up to finally meet Charles's eyes for longer than a millisecond. "Sure?" his lips press together, ducking his head shyly because it's an attempt at humor, drawing out more laughter from Charles, letting it drape around him like a blanket.  
  
Charles has no problem giving Erik exactly what he's angling for, chuckling quietly as he peppers soft, featherlight kisses all over Erik, wherever his lips happen to fall. "Absolutely certain," he promises. "I don't think I actually need to pack, though. I'll just wear all of your clothes instead."  
  
"I'm sorry," Erik shuts his eyes, turning his head away, ashamed. He's sorry he left their bed empty, and he doesn't know how to talk good. He isn't trying to hide intentionally and it isn't about what Charles can handle-he just doesn't know how to share this. He's scared. This is just the surface, Erik is sure if he goes any deeper he'll never come out, his mind will simply collapse. He's scared by going back he'll open the door to catastrophe and he doesn't want to scare Charles. He likes their life, he doesn't want to die. He doesn't want to break open and have nothing left.  
  
" _Shh_ , no need to be sorry, darling," he whispers, and he doesn't mind if Erik has to look away. He can still kiss him like this, and he does, all over his jaw and neck and face, his nose and his forehead and his hair. "I know it's difficult. It's alright to be scared. But you won't frighten me, I promise. Whenever you're ready, I'll be here. You won't die and you won't break open. I won't let you." He smiles, rubbing their cheeks together. Erik is growing a beard again, and he laughs a little, squirming at the ticklish sensation like always. "Besides, I think you talk very good. I can understand you just fine. We have our own language, remember?"  
  
He shakes his head. "What if I do?" he breathes. "Scare you. If I get worse if I-" _break_ , he means. He's come a long way from believing that he'll make Charles scared of him, even if he doesn't trust himself, it's impossible to deny the truth of that. But he doesn't want to worry Charles. He touches his own face, and tries to give a small smile. "Good thing lots of razors."  
  
Charles shakes his head right back. "Even if you do worry me, or frighten me," he allows, because worrying over Erik when he's hurting is inevitable, and he'll grant that, "It's alright. We bring each other back, don't we? I don't mind. That's mine, too." He's here when Erik breaks, too, to help piece him back together. "We're better together, my love. We both know that by now." Whatever it is they need to face, they can do it together. He strokes at Erik's beard, returning his smile with one of his own, soft and encouraging. He loves when Erik smiles at him. "I took some of them out, so we'll have to make do with one or two, I'm afraid. Can you tell me why we have so much lipstick?"  
  
_My love_. Erik shivers again, despite the warmth slowly replacing all the dead, frozen cold. Even at his very worst Charles loves him, doesn't let him forget it. Just like he never lets Charles forget. They belong to each other. No one else, not anyone or anything. They remember the joy, even in the darkest pit. "Ummm," Erik blinks up at him. "Lipstick?"  
  
Charles laughs softly, brushing a bit of hair out of Erik's face so he can kiss there instead. He sends over the image of the tubes, neatly lined up in the suitcase, and the one he'd broken now on the bedside table. "Lipstick," he repeats, nuzzling into Erik's beard again to feel, shivering when it tickles him. He really does like it. "I don't think any of them are in my shade, unfortunately. Pinks would just wash me out, don't you think?" He is dreadfully pale. His lips are already unnaturally red, anyway; he's been teased for wearing something when he isn't. It's just the way they are, especially when they're swollen from his biting. Or kisses. Or other things.  
  
That finally does get Erik to smile for real, a small laugh bubbling up. "I liked the colors," he figures after a few moments. It's the reason for all the toothbrushes, too. Sometimes when he gets lost in his head he is drawn to simple things; colors and shapes and form. "And feels nice." The actual make-up of the substance, less about what it is or represents. He shakes his head at Charles's question and touches his lips with two fingers. He's fairly confident Charles would look nice in anything. Or nothing. You know.  
  
That doesn't actually explain where they all came from, but he'll take it. They are in different colors, and they come in compact metal tubes, so he's not at all confused about what was attractive to Erik. He's surprised there aren't more paper clip creations lying around, or trinkets made from bits of random metal, but it's likely he just hasn't noticed them. "Have you ever been on a plane, Erik?" he asks, stroking his Bonded's hair again, curling it around his fingers and humming. "I get airsick sometimes, you know. I'm sure you can help me with that," he smiles. Or at least pat his back while he hurls into a bag.  
  
Head-shake. "Train," he held up a finger. He's still not speaking in full or fluent sentences, but he looks less ready to evaporate into an event horizon and he's breathing evenly, smiling more, expression warmer. Coming back. Charles has him. There are plenty of odds and ends and trinkets woven into the room and the house, meshed with the environment to enhance and soothe the senses, and plenty of mundane objects gathered in organized collections; lipstick tubes and toothbrushes and razors and medicine, bottle caps, lighters, scissors, bracelets and jewelry, some of which Charles sees through Erik's mind and recognizes as Raven's, some of them are her nicer pieces as well; but they're draped over a small metal line next to a lamp with tools underneath-he's fixing those, not hoarding them. Nails and shoes and tabs from cans. He has a singular fascination with everything, and he likes to sit and dive into their structures and forms, study them and alter them. "To _Tel Aviv_. Don't worry, I will help."  
  
Charles finds Erik's fascination fascinating, and he often sits and simply watches while he studies and works, creates and deconstructs, a book abandoned in his own lap. Feeling objects, particularly metal ones but other materials as well, through Erik is utterly intriguing, and endlessly entertaining for him, and he's never been so appreciative of soda tabs or cans, especially when they bloom into flowers and other little delights. A new way to recycle. "It's a ten hour flight," he murmurs, still idly stroking Erik's hair, kissing all over his face and jaw. "So I'll definitely be sick at some point. Fortunately for us, planes are just giant metal contraptions, so if you could keep it steady, I'd greatly appreciate it." It's meant to be a joke, but it actually would be nice not to be horribly nauseated on a longer flight. It's his least favorite part of travel.  
  
"I will," he promises. He'll look after Charles, but he'll make sure it's safe for everyone, too. Ms. Yorkes will also be flying with them, so there's less of an opportunity for physical privacy than they'd hope for, but she's staying in a hotel rather than with David and Ellie, so that will come. Warren is taking a separate flight and has already landed at Ben Gurion, meeting up with some clients to shoot the breeze. It will be the first time that everyone is in the same room with one another, and it's bound to be emotional, which Erik isn't anticipating positively, still overcome with periodic tremors.  
  
Charles will be there for that, too, come what may. Now he grins, still touching and kissing, and shakes his head. "Sometimes I think you forget that we can find physical privacy everywhere, and have before," he laughs, cheeks only slightly pink at some of the more extreme examples that come to mind. "It's lucky, too, because I'd much rather sleep on your shoulder than get an ache in my neck. You, on the other hand, we might need a neck pillow for." This is the most he's been himself in what feels like years, and it shows all over his face, in the way he moves and speaks, far less subdued. He feels less likely to crack open and break at any moment, too, which felt like a distinct possibility for a while there. "We should actually finish packing, but I'd honestly rather not." Also one of his least favorite parts of travelling. True to form, he might just wait until the last second and cram it all in, inevitably forgetting something important. Like underwear. Or his passport. It's happened. Beyond genius-level intellect, but externally organized? Perhaps not.  
  
Erik actually pouts, looking a bit distressed at that. "Are the planes tiny?" his eyes are wide, the idea of cramming himself into a seat not particularly thrilling, or slouching the whole way to avoid whacking himself on the overhead compartments. He slowly and carefully detangles himself, rubbing his hands over his eyes to wipe off the tears clumping his eyelashes and he tugs Charles over to their luggage, shaking his head at the mess Charles has made with only two shirts. "Mm-mm. Help you," he taps him on the nose and removes them, folding them up right before tending to the rest of his clothes. "Won't forget."

* * *

They have time to be a bit playful, and perhaps they sorely need it, so Charles grabs the shirts Erik has just folded and balls them up to throw them back in, looking very pleased with himself. "Fixed it," he declares, grinning. "It's more space efficient like this." He throws the pants he'd meant to pack at some point right on top, too. This is honestly how he would have packed it for himself. "Now everything else gets plopped on top, and we call it done." The Charles Xavier packing method. Foolproof.  
  
Erik's eyebrows shoot up and he looks like he's popped a gasket in the back of his brain. "Cha- _ma_ -nono _no_ ," he raises his hands, mortified at this. " _Nooo_." Efficient. He tickles him on the sides. _Efficient_?  
  
Charles giggles, both at the tickling and the look on Erik's face. He has a feeling he'll end up refolding everything, but he nods, solemn. "Efficient! Everything fits, everything's in. No fuss." He actually doesn't see a problem, if he's honest, and he throws things, usually balled up, on top just as he'd said. Socks that fold out of their matches. More pants, wrinkled. Underwear. Sunglasses. Wherever there's room to shove them in, sometimes physically, that's where they go. "Ta-da," he announces. "If it closes, it's good to go."  
9 9:20 pm  
by Erik Lehnsherr  
"Nono," Erik huffs, and he lifts his hand, popping the suitcase open so everything can lift, fold itself and settle back in nicely. It leaves plenty of room for much more than what he originally estimated and Erik's eyebrows raise in a silent see? "For more toothbrushes," he takes one out of his pocket and wiggles it in Charles's face before his eyes.  
  
Charles stares down at everything neatly and perfectly folded, humming as if he hadn't thought of doing it that way. Then he pouts. "No, I like my way better," he says, and starts throwing things out of the suitcase, grinning the whole time.  
  
Erik's eyes light up playfully as he gets an idea and suddenly all of his clothes shrink to just the size of thumbnails, perfectly folded in the palm of Charles's hand. "My way."  
  
  
Charles' eyes go wide and he throws them as if they've attacked him, startled, laughing loudly at his own reaction once he catches up. Now they're definitely not folded properly in the suitcase. "My way! I'm in charge now!" he declares, and runs to the other side of the bed where Erik's suitcase is sitting to throw his belongings out, laughing a bit hysterically. It can't be helped.  
  
Erik re-folds them all up and then hovers the suitcases above Charles's head so he has to jump up, just out of reach. Unfortunately for Charles, when he tugs on them, they remain put, and then transform into ribbons that float around the room and swish over him in soft, silky lines. It's like spellwork, completely effortless, universe-warping and Erik doesn't even realize what he's done, how he's fundamentally changed the properties of the object, how dense it is because it's contained every single molecule in tact, just shifted, the material completely authentic. He's in a hazy space now, surrounded by Charles's laughter and love and more open than he's been in days, and his abilities have become totally like breathing, evolving, growing.  
  
Charles is delighted by any application of Erik's mutation, big or small. He watches in complete awe as the ribbons float around, not shocked by the fact that Erik can do it but more than pleased that he has. It does dull his fun a bit, though, so he grins, closes his eyes, and reaches out. Someone tried very hard to take this away from him, but he has it, and the closet door bangs open of its own accord, every article of clothing they own flying off hangers and out of drawers when he reaches for those, too, Charles laughing so hard his stomach hurts at the look on Erik's face. "Oops, what a mess," he giggles, arms around his own middle as if to contain himself as he doubles over. "Whatever will we do? I'm not cleaning up, ever."  
  
They all turn into ribbons. "No clothes for you," he wags his finger in a circle above Charles's nose before tapping it. He doesn't realize that he's not only feeling floaty, but he's actually hovering a few inches off the ground, making him even taller than usual. It's all entirely unconscious, a thought to manifestation and in many ways it's dangerous with all the inhabitants of the Landscape wandering at once, the soil overturned to let out Ground People and the sky in the plants and the trees in the sky and sunlight on the water. It's all mixed in a snowglobe-bowl, swirls of Earth. "I compromise."  
  
Charles is almost positive he could stop him if he needed to, so he isn't too overly concerned. He's still grinning, grabbing for one of the ribbons and shaking his head. "Okay, maybe we actually pack now," he suggests. "And you come down here. You don't need to be any taller than you are, mountain man." Floating doesn't seem to be on his own list of abilities, now and probably ever, but who knows at this point when a few months ago he'd been certain there were no physical applications to his mutation. Everything is evolving, and perhaps it's time he stops holding himself back. Easier said than done when he's terrified, and when he's now certain it's more complicated. The thought settles in slowly and uncomfortably, creeping into his stomach and dropping like lead at the bottom, and he sucks in a breath to hold it back. His smile falls anyway. "Packing," he says, this time quieter, and swallows, scratching at his arms again hard enough for those red lines to pop back up.  
  
Erik wraps him up and tugs those thoughts back into his chest, warming him. Charles realizes he can do that, an evolution he didn't believe possible either, right into the molecular structure and electrical impulses of his mind. Ease. Gentle. It's this way that he receives the Order to stop scratching again, zipping right up his spine powerfully. Instead of coming down, Charles floats up to be level with him and he hugs him. "Together," he whispers. "You and me. Only good things. Promise."

* * *

Charles shakes his head, pursing his lips as his arms end up back at his sides. Orders have come that way before and he obeys them just the same, and he's never taken any issue with Erik altering in any number of ways, with playing around with his molecules, but there are things that can't be eased that way, that his mind is perfectly capable of circumnavigating. He tries to muster up a smile anyway. "I know," he murmurs back, because he does, but he fusses until he can be back on the ground. It doesn't matter, in the end, if it's Erik or him that did it. "Packing," he repeats, like a broken record, and he's noticeably less playful. "We need to pack."  
  
"No, stop it," Erik's face falls. "You said, we don't do that. I won't let you too." Erik can't make him less afraid, just like he can't make Erik less afraid, but it is less scary when they are together, open and aligned. He won't give that up. It's why he spoke and why he makes Charles do the same. Because he knows Charles means it when he says he is Erik's.  
  
"I'm not doing anything," he mumbles, but he's staring at the ground, arms crossed defensively and protectively over his own chest, more like he's worried he might fall apart than an act of petulance. "I don't know what you think I'm doing, Erik, but I'm not. We are together, and I am yours."  
  
He tugs Charles's arms down and takes his hands. "If you fall apart, then you do. Secret?" he brushes Charles's hair out of his face.  
  
Charles shakes his head. "Erik, we really don't have time for this," he mutters. "I'm not falling apart because I don't have time to fall apart. Can you make our clothes clothes again, please?" he asks, so quiet it's barely audible.  
  
"No," he repeats again, the snap of Will fierce. "Not your choice, I am your Dominant, you don't say I can't look after you, stop it. You said I do. I make time. Final." With his mind all stretched out, his Will has become a thick swirl, almost visible curling wisps of smoke sinking deep into Charles's body.

* * *

Charles swallows hard, but he doesn't try to pull away again. He's fairly certain he wouldn't be able to if he tried. "I don't need to be looked after right now," he mumbles, vaguely petulant, but it comes out weak, a feeble protest when his body is wrapped up in Erik's Will. It's more comforting than he'd like to admit right now, the snap of it; it sinks deep into him and eases out some of the horrific itchiness, at least, more than any scratching ever could.  
  
"You don't tell me that. My right," he rumbles lowly, placing both large hands on either side of Charles's face. It's the first time in what feels like forever that he's really flexed his Will, given deliberate Orders, back to himself enough to really be present behind his eyes instead of hidden in a bath tub and he's been denying himself what he needs in his desperate bid to keep the fires and the broken corpses buried under the ground, the ash from falling out of the sky, that he's not been really looking after his submissive at all, and what kind of a Dominant does that make him? He didn't give Charles what he needs because he's too busy crumbling to pieces? Because he keeps forgetting Charles is here, he didn't kill Charles. He didn't practice on Charles. He doesn't hurt Charles. He helps him. Charles makes him remember that he's happy and he reminds Charles, that's it. No more. Together means being together and Charles can no longer take a breath without inhaling sticky tendrils of Will, sugar-sweet on the air. If he breaks and Charles sees a monster well then it is. All those ribbons wind around Charles in the Real, binding him even closer to Erik, holding him in his place. "Mine."  
  
What Charles needs, as it always ends up turning out, is what Erik needs. He swallows around the lump in his throat, fights against the tears in his eyes, and then remembers he doesn't need to fight those things at all. Instead he launches himself at Erik, arms around his middle and head buried in his chest, because he's been aching for this, and he knows Erik has, too. It hurts so badly when it's gone and maybe it's wrong or pathetic but he doesn't know how to breathe right without it, what to do, which way is up and which is down. He's lost and shaky and unmoored, a ship pushed way out to sea and he's forgotten how to sail and there's a storm and he's just wandering aimlessly, giving himself tasks to distract himself the way he did before Erik and he doesn't want to have to go back. It's lonely and awful and he feels so empty and afraid. "I got scared when I woke up and you weren't there," he whispers, eyes shut tight as he trembles with relief. "I stayed up and waited but you didn't come back."  
  
"'M sorry, I'm sorry," he gasps, clutching Charles tightly. "I didn't mean, didn't mean," he buries his hand in Charles's hair, remorse leaking out of him. "Promise. Never push you 'way," the ribbons lightly tie over Charles's wrists and up his arms, around his waist and one line across his throat, leaving room to hold-literally tied to Erik, keeping him fast. "Dr. Haller said it's flashed back," he stutters, rubbing his back. "Got lost you were gone and-need you," he whispers. "Need you."  
  
Charles sniffles, fussing in the bonds just to know they're there, that he's bound and kept and still Erik's. "No, I'm sorry," he whispers, voice cracking, muffled by Erik's shirt and the beginning of tears. "I'm sorry. I made you see it, and I got lost and I got scared and I couldn't help and I knew you needed me and I didn't know what to do because my head was - and every time I close my eyes, I -" His breath hitches, his lips tremble. He's itchy again but it's alright because Erik's Will is wrapped all around him and it can make it better. "I didn't know what to do and I wasn't a good submissive and I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he lets out what's been stuck and clogged up in him since this started.  
  
Erik kisses him, on the forehead, under his eyes, his chin, his lips. His nose. "Glad I saw," he whispers back. "It hurts 'cuz I love you. You want to see me too. Hurts too. But it's good, OK? Did good job. You come get me. Let me have these," he touches under Charles's eyes where tears are just beginning to form. "It's OK. Mine too. Good boy. So proud, you showed me." It's slipped into their conglomerate-language, that language he's been fluent in since before he could speak.  
  
"Okay. Love you," he mumbles, attaching himself back to Erik's chest as he sniffs again. It hurts, sometimes, seeing each other, but it's not a bad thing. It means they can handle it together, much better than they would have separately. It means they can help each other. He hadn't done anything wrong. He hadn't been useless. He hadn't driven Erik away. It feels so inexplicably wonderful to be in Erik's arms like this again, kissed and held and bound, praised, owned. He needs that so badly, and it's so hard to go without it. He's been so untethered and lost, he's gotten himself all twisted up and backwards again and he doesn't like it. "Please stay," he begs, and he knows it's pathetic but he can't help it. It feels like Erik is finally here again.  
  
"Not pathetic," Erik rocks them back and forth, side to side. "Mine. So nice and beautiful. Good to me. So, so sorry," he whispers, pained and hoarse. "I'm stupid." Erik really hadn't _chosen_ to go, driven into the bathroom in a blind terror, thrust way down into a piece that wasn't old enough to understand anything happening around him. "You're so good to me, my submissive, my sweet boy. Love you. So much, so, so much. Not wrong. Never wrong." This isn't wrong. It is consistently the only good, wonderful, right thing that Erik knows. "I stay, I promise, promise. Didn't know better. 'M sorry."  
  
Charles makes a protesting noise, quiet and distressed, shakes his head. Then he shakes it again, and again, and again, tears welling up in his eyes as he wipes them on Erik's shirt. _No. No, no, no, no. No. Take it back._ Erik isn't stupid. He's never stupid. He's smart and gentle and kind and patient and protective and thoughtful and loving and he takes care of him. It hadn't been his fault any more than it had been Charles', there had been no choice involved and it wasn't fair to call him that and Charles doesn't want to hear it, not even from Erik himself. "Take it back," he demands, weak and perhaps meeker than usual, but no less heartfelt.  
  
Erik rubs his cheek against Charles's, draws his fingers down his throat and his collar. "Don't think? But I left," his voice cracks. "If I stay you would help me. Then you wouldn't be sad. I'm so sorry. I did bad. Please forgive me, please." He never wants Charles to feel abandoned, not ever. He never wants to string him along or play with his feelings or make him think he's only wanted when it's convenient, Erik couldn't bear it if he did, and if he were smart he would have known better, he would have seen Charles was right there, his wonderful submissive who he loves so much, made him feel worthless and useless and pathetic. Erik shuts his eyes.  
  
" _Shh, shh, shh_. Not bad, I promise," he whispers, and Charles is crying, too, rubbing against Erik, soaking up comfort and feeding it back in equal measure, bundling himself up in Will. "If I got scared and didn't know what to do, if I was too gone to make a real decision, would you call me stupid, Erik? When I ran away to that bridge because I was hurting and scared did you call me stupid or tell me I did bad?"  
  
"Never," he shakes his head, swaying from side to side. "You did good," he laughs softly against Charles's ear, "n' let me come care for you. You take care of me too. You treat me so nice." Charles petted his hair and held him and called him nice names and laughed and smiled, and told jokes, and wasn't scared, and wasn't mad. And talked with him and told him it isn't his fault, and he kissed all over his face and tickled his beard and let him hide in his shirt and protected him, kept him safe, exactly what Erik was thinking about when he said it using his real voice at their ceremony. Erik is big and strong and Dominant but he needs protecting, too, his heart is fragile and only Charles knows how to look after it. "Best submissive," he insists with a whisper.  
  
Charles rubs the last of his tears on Erik's shirt and peers up at him, offering a small, wet smile. "Best Dominant," he returns, and tugs until Erik is closer to his level, laughing softly as he strokes Erik's beard with ribbons around his wrists. "My mountain man," he whispers, achingly fond. His big, strong Dominant with the gentle heart. Charles will always take care of him, too. He grins as he rubs their jaws together, squirming as it tickles and sends a shiver down his spine.  
  
"It only takes two days," Erik holds up two fingers, and grins back at him, the first one, bright and warm, in a very long time. He rubs back, enjoying the feel of Charles's skin against his, bending over to let Charles touch and stroke at him. "You want to keep it?" he touches his face, eyes crinkled.  
  
"It gets bigger than this," Charles hums, petting at it with eager fingers. He feels like he hasn't touched Erik in ages and that means he needs to be touching him constantly now, rubbing and stroking and tickling. "But I do like it. A lot, actually. I miss it when it's gone at first." But he likes Erik clean-shaven, too, and it always grows back. Then he gets to repeat the process. "It's very ticklish when it's like this," he grins, and then puts both his hands on either side of Erik's face, smushing his cheeks together. Because he can, because it looks silly, because Erik is letting him. Because he's here again and Charles can feel him and his Will and it's so good and overwhelming he keeps shivering with it. He doesn't have to be lost anymore, floating around confused and empty. Everything's going to be alright.  
  
Erik opens and closes his lips, making a funny face. " _Merp, merp, merp, mwap, mrrp,_ " he does his best imitation of a goldfish. "You can put it in a bag. Then you can carry it with you around. Make a necklace out of it." His eyebrows waggle and he laughs, silly. He belongs to Charles, too, which means Charles always has free reign to touch wherever, whenever and however long he wishes. Erik wishes it's all the time. Nothing feels more right and good and nothing feeds his Will higher, stoking the warm fireplace in his chest like Charles's hands on him. It's singing, more vibrations, of love and affection.  
  
It hasn't felt like it, but it does now and that's all that matters. "That's not what goldfish say," he argues, and snuggles back into Erik's chest where it's safe and he belongs, pressing his wrists together and wishing they were bound in some of their pretty rope. He likes that for reasons that are purely non-sexual, likes feeling like Erik has him tightly and he doesn't need to worry. He likes to fuss, too, so Erik can watch him and smile. When his Dominant ties him up, he doesn't get free until he wants him to. "They go ' _glub, glub, glub_ '," and when he looks up, he's making his own ridiculous face, lips puckered up like a fish.  
  
Of course that means Erik has to lean over and kiss him on his fish lips. "Coral pink," he decides, eyes wide and bright. He nuzzles back into him, tucking his head under his chest, a pang in his heart for the fact that he made Charles feel like he didn't even want to be touched, when it's all he ever wants. He'd been denying himself the greatest pleasure of his existence out of a strangled delusion, and he's so sorry. "Touch me," he breathes, kissing the top of Charles's head. "Please. Don't stop OK? Never stop."  
  
Charles has his own insecurities and fears and he's been drowning in them, so it isn't Erik's fault. If anything, he feels like the stupid one, but he knows he won't get away with calling himself that so he doesn't. He kisses Erik's chest instead, pressing his cheek where his heart is to listen and nodding. "My lips aren't coral pink," he protests, flashing images of all the tubes Erik has somehow accumulated. He can't find his own lip color in there, but there are prettier shades. "Definitely not my color." He raises up his wrists, smiling at the loose bindings. He's shivering again. "I belong to you?" he asks, like it's a question, his voice wavering.  
  
"Close your eyes," Erik answers, a soft whisper, brushing his thumb over Charles's cheekbones.  
  
They're closed before Erik is even finished speaking, far too in tune with Erik's Will at the moment to not be hyperaware of anything vaguely resembling an Order and breathlessly eager to obey it. He hums, leaning into the touch, perfectly trusting.  
  
He lifts Charles's hands up at the wrist, able to conceal his intentions easily-beyond what Charles is accustomed to from those trying to hide something and more an effortless shift, long enough so that when he feels the ribbons slide off of his body it's a surprise, but then he senses something else moving over his skin, binding him much more securely, and Erik slips the ends of the knot together. " _Pkach_ ," he breathes, a smile in his voice. When Charles looks, he sees those red strands of jute wound around his skin, stark and bold against pale. "Mine," Erik lifts his arm to kiss the inside of his wrist, scraping his teeth over gently. "You belong to me. Always. Forever. No matter what."  
  
Charles gasps, and when it exhales out, it's a sigh of relief. It's bone-deep and leaves him lightheaded, slumped against Erik and reveling in it, eyes fluttering and body sagging. "Thank you, Erik," he breathes, because it's exactly what he needed, and by the look on Erik's face, what he needed, too. He knew he was Erik's, that's never in question. The extra reminder still leaves him feeling safe and secure, and he gives his wrists a little tug, sighing happily when there's no give at all. "But I can't pack like this," he laughs. Well, he could, if Erik really wanted him to. He's done things bound before, but it wouldn't be easy.  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik shakes his head. "Stay here," he breathes. Let Erik take care of that. It's Charles's job to stay in his arms and be safe and loved. The ribbons slowly unfurl into Charles's clothes and settle themselves crisply folded into his suitcase, with room for several more pairs on top of it. He adds the tube of coral pink lipstick just for giggles resting on top of an orange blouse. Erik's suitcase adds pants and underwear, and subtracts thirty-three razors. Cactus is turned into a soft embroidered plush toy, nestled into the netting on the sides along with his hat and an added suede-esque jacket and snakeskin boots with spurs.  
  
In lieu of a passport Erik has a blue booklet featuring _Teudat Ma'avar bimkom Darkon Leumi_ stamped on the front, and _Travel Document_ in lieu of a national passport in English. The identity photograph has Erik looking more relaxed than he usually does in pictures as Charles invisibly stood beside him in it, arms wrapped around his shoulders.

* * *

A knock on the door comes a long while later, just as everything has been settled and sorted. "Good morning, you two," Raven sing-songs, and Erik huffs into Charles's shoulder.  
  
It's still fascinating, watching Erik move and work, but Charles isn't paying much attention if he's honest. He's grateful he doesn't have to re-pack himself, because it's still one of his least favorite parts of traveling, and that Erik gets to take Cactus in some form while the plant-version watches guard over their bedroom, sitting pretty on the windowsill like he always does, but that's about as much attention the affair gets because the rest of him is focused on doing exactly as Erik said. Being held, and bound, feeling more calm than he has in too long, safe and secure and no longer drifting.  
  
He knows Raven's coming but he still jumps when she opens the door, swallowing around the sudden lump in his throat. "Hey," he greets, too quiet to be normal. It's not embarrassment at being caught with his wrists bound, though it's a bit of that, too; it's mostly just that he's been drowning and she's known it and he's been too in his head to reassure her that he's fine. He isn't, and he can't tell her what's wrong either. It's mostly irrelevant now, anyway, because he's going to have to be. "It's not morning," he points out, as if that's relevant, and moves his arms to scratch at himself and then realizes he can't like this, huffing softly. He remembers what he forgot to pack and reminds himself to slip it in before they head out.  
  
"Mmm," he mutters, noncommital, and tries very hard not to show how he'd instinctively flinched when she'd touched him, how every muscle had tensed up. He could just erase it or hide it, but there's not much reason to when the only people who had seen it are the two he's most comfortable with noticing, and it's just a reminder to himself to smooth it out. Instead of scratching he strokes the cord around his wrist, letting it settle some of the horrible itchiness and the twisting knots in his stomach, the flashes of images he's pushing far back and deliberately keeping out of Erik's reach. "We're almost done here," he tells her, still far too quietly. He'll alter that for everyone else if he has to, rather than actually changing his voice. It's not as if he hasn't done it before. He can't stop touching the bracelet, restless.  
  
Raven gives them both a wave and flounces out, not letting on that she noticed, but it's not particularly relevant that she had and she trusts it will be dealt with, which it is. When she leaves, Erik raises his eyebrows down at Charles, expectant and tugging those images back to the surface.  
  
Charles shakes his head and tugs back harder, not defiant but quietly insistent. "Not now," he whispers, staring at his feet. Because they really don't have the time for it, and Charles can't look at them or think about it and then get on a ten hour flight, then get off the ten hour flight and somehow be okay enough to be there for Erik. He'll file it away, keep it unprocessed like a great deal of things in the last couple months have been, and everyone will be better for it. When he breaks away from Erik, he's not even trembling even though he can't let go of the rope like it's a lifeline, rummaging through their bookshelf to give the illusion that he's looking for something. He isn't. He knows exactly what he wants, even when he comes back with several books along with the one he'd gone for in the first place. At least there's room for them in his suitcase.  
  
"I said no," Erik's Will flares out again, flat and firm, the Order leaving no room for debate. "You don't make that choice, and I know what you have. You don't need to take the rest if you don't want them, but it is not going to be like this. If you think I am going to be better and that will help me cope you are mistaken."  
  
Charles sucks in a breath where he's busy tucking Great Expectations into his suitcase because the thought of leaving it behind makes his skin crawl and the thought of that makes his skin crawl, too, so either way he's damned. "I can't," he shakes his head, digging nails into the bracelet and his own skin, too, because technically that's not scratching. "I really can't, Erik. I need to let it go right now because I don't - I can't."  
  
Erik sighs, and shakes his head. That isn't what he meant, and he has to be heard, here, not merely obeyed in frustration because he gave the Order. "I just need you to be open and real with me." Because when he isn't, Erik can't be open in return, and he doesn't want this trip to result in both of them on opposite sides of a wailing chasm. He doesn't want to fall into consistently berating Charles for the answers because he doesn't know the difference between taking a pause or concealing distress for his benefit. "We don't have to talk every little thing-" Erik knows first hand that he can't do it, either, and being forced into it is not helpful. But it won't do Erik any favors if Charles effaces himself when he does need attention. That is what it means to be together. He squeezes Charles's hand and tucks his finger underneath, disconnecting his nail from his skin. "I love you," he whispers. "And you are mine. Never forget that."  
  
Charles is trembling now, his teeth chattering in his skull, and he shakes his head. "You don't understand," he whispers, and now the quiet is deadly, concealing something far louder.  
  
"So tell me," Erik Orders, equally quiet.  
  
Immediately images and concepts and sensations begin to flash, one after another, none of them lingering but all of them tinged with horror and fear and grief. IVs and metal instruments and examination tables and sheets burdened with rocks sunk down to the botton of the lake and tiny infant corpses and bodies with no eyes and spilling innards meant for him to see on his sofa and Sebastian Shaw's hand in his and eventually he thinks he'd stopped fighting and his mother's smile and files and files and files their names play on constant repeat in his head and every word of that letter he's just packed into a suitcase because sometimes he wakes up in a cold sweat and needs to check that it's there and levitating objects and _Yes Master_ and he was under his thumb before Erik was and Kurt Marko knew, he knew, and so did the man with the fuzzy face the whole time he knew and his sister writhing in pain and bruises over every inch of his body and a business transaction but he's the currency and _stupid slutty subby bitch_ and a collar with jutting metal spikes chained to the bed and how dare he feel sorry for himself and sulfur and the sloshing of whiskey and screaming for his mother and _one day you'll understand why I did what I did_ and excruciating pain and bleeding noses sometimes he's still convinced he's dying that he's been poisoned and it's a fluke and he's eating too much so he's secretly grateful Erik has been too out of it to pay attention to it these past two days and German and Russian and German and he was in a coma for a week and Kurt Marko almost strangled him one night and Charles would have let him and he deliberately took more pills but he still woke up and they would have named her Cassandra Xavier and his mother wishes she'd lived instead.  
  
Every day for twenty-seven years his mother has looked at him and wondered why she wasn't raising a little girl and maybe if she did she could have loved her but she got Charles instead and he was deemed not good enough before he even got the chance to take his first breath and it hasn't stopped being true and how dare he struggle with this when Erik struggles with more. How dare he think like that, too.  
  
"All of that, all the time," he gasps, and his voice is still quiet, but now it's shaking. It all disappears in an instant, receding like the tide. "If I let myself be not okay for a second, that's what happens. So if you want me to be a person that functions, I need to -" He needs to push it down, and down, and down, and hide it from both of them. He needs to be fine because if he isn't the weight of it all might crush him and they just don't have time. They don't have time.  
  
Erik pets the back of his hand and holds him, tucking his head under his chin, keeping him against his chest. "You really think I do not understand those things?" he strokes Charles's face. "I don't want you to be a person that functions. I just want you to be. Let me look after the rest of it. You are not a watch, Charles. It isn't your responsibility to mind the time, it is mine. Stop trying to take it away from me. You belong to me, no one else." And in a way that means Charles, too. Because that's the basis of their contract, which Erik has duplicated in a hidden compartment in his luggage that won't be found by any type of security sweep, translated into a language no person can decipher. "I promise you that it will not crush you. You have to trust me, sweetheart. Where do you think we're going? You're not going to be OK. And that is good. I will never let it take you. You've been letting it take you all this time. I won't let it."  
  
Charles shakes his head, and he can't let himself cry so he just keeps shaking it, curled up defensively in Erik's arms. "I know you understand, but you don't understand that I can't let myself -" He can't be anything but fine because if he is something else will happen and he won't be able to keep up and he'll get stuck and every time he pushes something down there's something else to replace it, a new danger or memory or fear and it's like playing a constant game of Whack-A-Mole and if he doesn't bury it, it will crush him. It will. So he's fine. He's fine. He has to be fine so he can face the next thing and he doesn't have time to dwell. He's not taking it away from Erik. He's taking it away from himself.  
  
"I understand you believe that," Erik says, soft. "And I understand perfectly well how it feels to believe that." The breadth and scope of the Wasteland is often too much for Erik to comprehend. How can he be a good Dominant and do what he loves if his mind is a constant scream, the force of sound knocked out? But Charles is already playing the game, he's just doing it with his eyes closed, so he's never going to hit the target. Erik is steadying his hand. Erik will be beside him to unplug the system. "If you were alone, it might be all of those things, but you are not. I will not let it take you. You're trying to tell me it's your choice to bury yourself, but I will not permit it. I buried my family. I won't bury you. You cannot ask that of me, I promise you you cannot."  
  
He takes a shuddering breath, eyes shut tight. "But -" Charles shakes his head again. He doesn't know what his protest is. He just knows he doesn't know what the alternative is. He doesn't know what to do if he isn't burying everything down and not addressing it. It's how he stayed alive and kept himself in tact, and it's the only thing he knows and they really don't have space for him to handle it any other way. "Okay," he breathes, eventually, but he doesn't know what it amounts to. He's tugging at the rope again to remind himself it's there, that he's bound.  
  
"All you have to do is let me take care of you," Erik kisses the top of his head, the red coiled rope tightening briefly to his touch. "The space is right here." He puts Charles's bound hand against his heart. It amounts to being open, to listening, to obeying and walking together. Not to leave Erik alone. Erik needs Charles, all of him, and maybe it's selfish and awful but forget enduring this, Erik is not sure he will live through this if Charles isn't with him.

* * *

He would never want to leave Erik alone. That's why he'd buried everything down in the first place; if Charles broke apart and shattered, he would be alone. But Erik is right; it isn't his decision to make. If Erik thinks he needs to stop, then he will, even if the thought is patently terrifying and there's enough gunk up in his brain to destroy him under the right circumstances, or at least utterly devastate him. "Okay," he whispers again, and buries himself in deeper, tucks himself neatly under Erik's chin so he can remember how to breathe again. He's going to be out in public soon which means he needs to rearrange everything and switch modes and he's not particularly looking forward to it, but Erik will be with him anyway and he can change the scenery once they're on the plane and make the seat seem less tiny so at least he's mentally comfortable and he'll do what he's told.  
  
"OK," Erik says back, arms tightening around Charles, breathing in slowly and deeply. Surrounding him with love and light, and laughter. Remembered jokes, good sensations and good vibrations. Charles belongs to Erik, and Erik knows he remembers that. He will not be devastated, he will not be destroyed. Erik won't let that happen. He rocks Charles back and forth. "I love you," he whispers softly, kissing his forehead. "You are loved." It's his right hand, so he can't move it much, and it's got stretched, discolored skin and scars but he still lifts it with his arm to brush his thumb over Charles's lip. It absolutely looks worse than it really is; and is only one of a few times Erik's lost track of things only to hurt himself. He's also walked into walls, had Raven tackle him when he nearly put his fingers in a blender, ate paint, you know how it is. Erik laughs a bit, self-deprecating. He lets Charles fuss and fusses over him in turn, kissing and touching and protecting. He is welcome in subspace here, welcome here. Erik loves him.  
  
Charles hasn't been much more functional, so at least they're a match. He's got plenty of bruises from idly bumping into things, but then again, he always has those; he's a bit clumsy, if he's honest, and he gets distracted when his head is clogged up with other things that aren't the world right in front of him. Eating is another obstacle, but he's going to leave that door closed, nuzzling into Erik's chest instead. "We'll miss our flight," he mumbles, and doesn't move. He isn't a clock. Erik said it's his responsibility to keep track of things.  
  
Erik rubs his back and pets him for a long while and doesn't move immediately to lead him out, shielding him from the world for as long as possible before picking up their suitcases, letting Charles exit the room with his hand at his back. He's never been to an airport before. He doesn't know where he's going or what he's doing. There will be so many people and he's shaking, tears blurring his eyes, but he remains solid and upright behind Charles. "OK, let's go," he whispers tenderly, kissing him on the cheek.  
  
Charles can fix that. He can help with that. He lets Erik lead them down the stairs, Charles walking and Erik floating, their suitcases trailing after, and kisses and hugs Raven and Hank on the way out. He'll miss them, but he's sure they'll appreciate Erik and Charles out of their hair and space for a bit, as much as they love each other, especially because Charles' telepathy is harder to leash these days. They'll appreciate the privacy. He lingers in Raven's arms because if he's honest he feels - nervous, being so far away from her especially in the thick of this, but it will be alright. If something happens, he'll know. He reassures himself with that and lets Erik guide him out, calling a car because there are several issues with flying to the airport.  
  
Bags loaded up in a trunk and Charles seemingly buckled up on his side of the backseat but actually mostly in Erik's lap, he takes a deep breath. "I can make everyone else go away except the people that need to be there, if you'd like," he offers quietly, head on Erik's shoulder. He can, too. "They're a bit of a mess, airports. Think the rest of the city but everyone's aggravated and barefoot."  
  
Erik swallows and nods, touching Charles's face. In the back seat of the car, he tucks Charles against his chest, protective and holding tight, as if he can protect him from the whole outside world. What he does know is that they're going to his country with his family and his people where there is, no doubt that he is strongest, if Charles were the safest it would be there. Erik is nauseous, a cramped, visceral nausea stealing his breath, pulse beating hot in his ears. "'K," he mumbles.  
  
It's to be expected. It still makes Charles feel sick, too, head nuzzled into Erik's neck as he feeds off of him. He's rubbing at the coiled rope around his wrist constantly, reassuring himself, grounding himself; he feels untethered and drifting again and he's frightened that Erik will break off and he won't be able to find him. Halfway to the airport through horrific midday traffic he's agitated and practically vibrating with nerves, sunk into subspace with no way to claw himself out and he's frustrated and bristling, scratching at invisible bugs underneath the skin. He'll take care of it. He'll make sure they're both safe. "Do you have -" His mind becomes a checklist. Passport, documentation, suitcase, wallet... passport, documentation, suitcase - missing anything? - wallet, passport... passport? Check.  
  
Erik doesn't break off, though, soothing those nerves and brushing his hands over Charles's arms and face, kissing his forehead and bidding him to stop scratching, reminding him of the Orders embedded in the rope twined around his wrist. He's here, he's not leaving. He doesn't hurt Charles. He helps him. He protects him. He keeps him safe. Charles belongs to him. Not missing anything, Charles did so good helping him remember. He can always find Erik. Always.  
  
Charles spends the rest of the car ride buried as deeply in Erik as he can possibly get barring climbing beneath his skin, unsettled and already a bit motion sick. When they stop on the curb, he startles, holding tight to Erik even as they climb outside, suitcases lifted from the trunk. The inside of JFK is just about as messy and clustered as can be expected, and he quickly fixes that for him and Erik. Suddenly it's quiet, calm, and practically empty, Charles' abilities keeping them from bumping into anyone or anyone bumping into him, his own awareness of the situation separated from the perception he gives Erik; that things are much less chaotic. Meeting with Gertrude Yorkes and being ushered through to security check seems to go by in a rush, and Charles holds onto Erik even when he shouldn't, redirecting and changing the world around them in a thousand minute ways to account for it, to make the process smooth and safe for both of them.  
  
Until it's him that needs to be patted down even though just moments ago he'd circumnavigated it for Erik, bypassed the whole procedure entirely because that was never going to go over well. It seems he's forgotten he has that ability for himself, because the agent very clearly Orders him to raise his arms over his head and Charles' world drops out and his stomach clenches and bile gathers up in his throat and he can hear his heart beating in his chest and his ears are ringing and -  
  
Maybe he's the loose screw here, and he shouldn't be, he should be put together, but he isn't.  
  
There are a lot of ways he could have dealt with this situation, but he decidedly does _not_ choose the correct one. Instead, Erik steps forward and throws out his hand, sending up a wall of force against the agent that knocks him back on his feet, eyes blazing. No one gives Charles Orders but him.  
  
The adrenaline and urgency of having a weapon hefted at them (that's becoming far too familiar) is enough to snap Charles out of it, his own hand flying out even though it doesn't need to. He'd hoped maybe they could get onto the plane without him needing to mind-wipe anyone, but he'd much rather this than them end up in an airport jail. His heart is thundering in his ears and everyone immediately backs off and calms and he makes a bubble for them because he needs to calm down, too, throwing himself at Erik. _Please don't assault government agents with big guns, Erik,_ he requests, shaking all over and clinging hard. _He was just doing his job._ It wasn't his fault Charles keeps getting spooked, that he's so jumpy, that the sound of Orders from anyone but Erik makes him want to scratch all of his skin off even if they do absolutely nothing.  
  
Good, because the second he points a weapon at Charles it vibrates and melts in his hands, dripping onto the floor while Erik takes a step forward. lip curled in rage. The only thing that calms him down is Charles, arms around his neck, head against his chest and he slowly, slowly untenses, jaw clenched and teeth creaking against one another. "'K," he mumbles, glaring at the agent over Charles's shoulder.  
  
Charles isn't doing a whole lot better, even with the situation under control. The concept of being strip searched, being Ordered into it, is enough to make him retch on its own, which was definitely going through the agent's head, and he would feel bad for the man, oblivious to what's happening, if he wasn't a bit thankful Erik decided to be overly-protective. Just enough protective? Big, strong Dominant. His teeth are clacking together, too. Why is he so damn itchy? Why does he keep thinking about scratching? Charles has always been a biter, lips and cheek and nails, he's never compulsively scratched. He needs to stop thinking about being Ordered to bend over by someone who isn't Erik or he's going to vomit the breakfast he didn't eat.  
  
Erik stalks them past the rest of security and through the boarding gate, tossing anyone out of his way that needs tossing, and tucking Charles into the window seat once they reach the plane, sliding into the isle and resting his head on his shoulder, hugging himself and shutting his eyes and rocking back and forth and breathing. Touching Charles, humming under his breath, stroking his neck and arm. Protective. Just enough.  
  
He definitely would never have been capable of doing that without Charles, but fortunately for them they're together and he can make all the shoving about seem less intimidating and threatening and whatever other nonsense adjectives people wanted to saddle Erik with. He doesn't care. It's all instinctive, it's all like breathing especially when he's frightened and worked up; if something needs to be nudged or changed, it is, and they're alone for all anyone notices and that's what he desperately needs and he's crowded between the window and Erik and that's good. That's perfect. Perhaps he should be claustrophobic but all he feels is safe and he's still having trouble breathing but that's fine. He touches Erik's cheek and a question pops up, telepathic communication his default again because it's not in words, just images and concepts - Erik doesn't want the window seat? Is it okay if Charles touches him? He can't let go. He's frightened and he doesn't know why. Not of flying, it isn't like they'd ever be in danger of crashing with Erik around. He's worked up for nothing, he needs to calm down for Erik.  
  
Yes, please touch him. Please don't stop. Erik puts his hand over Charles's, his lips twitching against fingers reassuringly. No, no. Take the window seat. It's nice here. Erik can protect him. He is safe. Erik loves him. Come closer. Rest his head. Breathe. No one will get near Charles who will hurt him, who will make him feel scared. No one will touch him but Erik. He promises that.  
  
Charles leans into Erik, touching and reassuring himself, reassuring both of them, projecting how secure he feels crammed between Erik and the window, and watches idly as they take off. Ten hours is a long time, but fortunately Charles is fairly certain he could spend an eternity with Erik doing nothing and he'd be just fine, entertained plenty between the two of them. Okay, maybe toward the latter part of the eternity he'd start to go absolutely mad, but that's not an issue now. His ears pop as soon as they're in the air and he pulls a face, uncomfortable and a little sick, squeezing Erik's hand in his. He should have brought gum. They'll be alright. Everything's alright.

  
Erik gasps when they take off from the runway, eyes wide as the sensation flows through him. The plane evens out and Erik forms a bubble around them, making it so that they're flying instead of being flown by the plane, which will eliminate the feeling of nausea at least-Erik is much, much more careful and natural than a hunk of vibrating metal in the sky, but he monitors the plane as well, making sure it's safe and touching on its various components, utterly fascinated.  
  
Erik's fascination helps, at least, makes him smile, and it's nice to not be nauseated and grimacing through every bit of turbulence. Normally this is where he would immediately throw himself into something or else be restless and desperately bored, but Charles doesn't feel the need, at least not for right now. Instead he curls himself into Erik as much as the seats will allow, head on his shoulder, nuzzling and kissing and quietly seeking affection. When a violently inapproproate thought comes to mind he snorts and then laughs, silent and shaking with it, and curls in closer. They'll be alright. They're together.  
  
He's spent the entire trip alternating between bestowing varying forms of affection on Charles and curiously wandering about the cabin and jet engines, sensing every piece of metal implement that's here, having never encountered anything like it in the past. Tungsten, molybdenum, niobium, tantalum... fascinating. Then Charles lets a stray thought slip and Erik blinks. _What is a mile high club?_ Erik has to ask, eyebrows arched curiously.  
  
That's exactly the inappropriate, errant thought, and he laughs, this time with sound. He's too lost in giggles to answer at first, because Erik's gaps in understanding are exceptionally cute, and he's very fond of them, face hidden in his shoulder. _It's a very prestigious, very special club. Warren has been a member for years, and he reminds me every time he gets on a plane -_ He pulls a face. _But I think I'd like to join. Would you like to join, too, Erik?_  
  
_I get the distinct impression that I should say no,_ Erik grins back at him, but of course they both know he has zero intention of doing so. He's found some yttrium and it makes him shiver when it ignites, feeling it as if his whole body has ignited and he rubs his cheek against the top of Charles's head, transmitting the sensation with a smile.  
  
Charles gives up the game, giggling the whole time, as he alters the image to feature both of them in the airplane bathroom, Charles with his head between Erik's thighs. There's little wonder as to what he's getting up to. His cheeks are now pink, and he's squirming, because - well. Because.  
  
Erik can't help smirking down at him, and he swipes his thumb across Charles's bottom lip. An airplane bathroom. Erik's shoulders shake. _If I can even fit in there,_ Erik laughs softly.  
  
_You definitely can't, you mountain man,_ he laughs, nuzzling into Erik's side to hide his blush. But considering what we've done in the backseat of a stranger's car in city traffic... Sometimes he forgets how shameless he is when faced with the prospect of sucking Erik off, of serving him with his mouth. He's fairly sure at this point that if he was told to he would eagerly do so literally anywhere. His cheeks are definitely red now.  
  
Erik's eyes lower and go half-lidded, and they don't need to worry about safety. Erik has that covered, so there's no reason why Charles shouldn't be kneeling right now. His eyebrows arch pointedly.  
  
It's not like anyone will see them, either. Charles has that covered. He's still shy, perhaps coy, too, so he makes a noise of protest instead of immediately obeying like he desperately wants to, pressing closer into Erik's side. He shakes his head. Uh-uh, he can't. It would be much more convincing if he didn't peek up, fluttering with the promise of the firm hand he needs.  
  
He just looks completely amused, brushing a strand of Charles's hair aside from his forehead. _I believe you can, in fact_ , Erik murmurs in response, the Order mixing with superheated metal and rare-earth atomic structures, liquid and smooth. _Go on._ He smooths over Charles's shoulders, urging him down where he belongs.  
  
Charles shivers, eyelids heavy as he scrambles off his seat and down to his knees. It's a tight fit with Erik's legs but that's absolutely perfect, and he hums in pleasure, shifting until he's comfortably trapped. It's exactly where he wanted to be, and his eyes flutter closed as he nuzzles Erik's leg, rests his cheek on one of his knees. This is nice. This is his seat now. Charles is comfortable and secure and there's nowhere for him to go and it's wonderful. Thank you, Erik, he breathes, dreamy, and he's definitely down there, not just on the floor of this plane but way, way down. He hadn't done his Postures this morning. Erik had been too dazed to notice. Charles hasn't felt right without them, not at all, and now it's like the world is righting itself.  
  
Erik runs his fingertips through Charles's hair over and over again. He's been finding it difficult to catch his breath, to focus and calm himself, but it becomes easier with his submissive knelt where he should be, tugging Erik down with him and he leans over, embracing Charles and holding him against his leg. This is right. It's where they both should be, together. He'd tried to get Charles through his routine this morning but kept zoning out, and it's not good, he's not been good, and he's still so very sorry. _I love you,_ he whispers between them, smiling softly. Pleased and grateful.  
  
_I love you, too._ Erik doesn't need to be sorry. He should have gone through his routine anyway, but he'd been too upset and out of it himself. They're here now, though, and Charles is safe and kept between his legs and on his knees, nuzzling into his lap, and Erik is safe, too, and here above him, and they'll both be alright. It feels exceptionally good to be kneeling, to be in his place like this, and he sighs quietly, lips parted in bliss as his eyes fall closed. He just wants to float here for a while, Erik's fingers in his hair. Not sleeping, even though he's exhausted, but much more relaxed, content to be pet and to sink further. It's a long way to Israel and he wouldn't mind spending it just like this. He rubs idly at the rope around his wrist, imagines being bound fully and hums. Good. Safe. His mind twines itself around Erik's, because he's shied away from that, too, dives in nice and deep until there's no real way to tell where one of them ends and the other begins.  
  
Erik is content to stay here for the rest of time, let alone the foreseeable future. To pet him and keep him close. Bask in the glow of subspace. There's nowhere but the two of them, minds as close as can be, and Erik is finally able to breathe, to relax with being near his beloved. What lies ahead is going to hurt. Erik doesn't know how he's going to do it, he really doesn't. But there is good, too, there is. He has family, he has a partner, someone who loves him. His case is going well, the kids are all safe and happy and going to school. He's not alone anymore. Erik takes a drink of the coffee the steward left them and makes a face. It's sour. Sour, lukewarm and bitter coffee. Americans cannot figure it out, he snorts to himself. No wonder Charles prefers tea, anyone would.  
  
He's going to do it with Charles, that's how. The same way they've done everything else. Charles who makes a face at the insinuation even from where he's floating between Erik's knees, basking himself. I've had coffee in countries that aren't America, and made by people who are not American, he points out, for what isn't the first time. Coffee is good for dire situations in which a caffeine boost is necessary, and that's about it. Or if you drop chocolate and whipped cream into it. Then it's also acceptable. Otherwise, a waste of a perfectly good cup that could be used for tea. Which he's craving, but he's highly suspicious about airline tea as always.  
  
Erik pats the steward on the arm and transmits, via Charles, _hot water? Thank you,_ with a small smile. The woman, a mutant and someone who recognizes them both, gives a small smile in return. She doesn't notice Charles on his knees, obviously, to her he's still seated professionally in the chair beside, a sleeping mask over his face and head lolled over. "I'll be right back with your water, sir," she murmurs and goes to acquiesce. When she does come back, Erik takes a teabag out of his pocket, surprise-not-surprise it's from Charles's collection at home, and he tears it open neatly and drops it in. _Your tea,_ he smiles.  
  
Charles' eyes widen for only a moment before he beams, soft and grateful. Thank you, Erik, he murmurs, letting the tea steep as he rubs his cheek against Erik's leg. He's not surprised, really, but he still doesn't expect these things; that someone will think of him, take care of him, anticipate his wants or needs. They do that with each other in so many intricate, interconnected ways, and that's how they will get through everything. His cheeks heat as another thought comes to him, playful and vaguely giddy after too long of being lost. It's strange how even a day without this seems like ages now, when it was his life for years. _I could thank you by initiating us into the club, if you'd like,_ he jokes. Half-jokes, really. He'd do it in a heartbeat if Erik asked.  
  
Erik leans down and splays his fingers, warm, over Charles's cheeks, kissing the top of his head. Drink your tea, neshama. We'll see about initiations, he winks, fingers slipping down to run along his collar, to pull out a winding poem, two from the same artist woven together. _All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy./Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,/In that the world's contracted thus./Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be/To warm the world, that's done in warming us./Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;/This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere./Thine's like hot liquid metals newly run/Into clay moulds, or like that to Etna,/Where round bout the grass is burnt away_. Hey, Donne is nothing if not topical. _This flea is you and I, and this/Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;/Just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me,/_ Erik smirks at him. He can be subtle, and then he can be subtle.  
  
Charles does as he's told, but his mind is no longer on tea, shivery and fluttering with promise. It's been barely a day since they've done anything like what's being suggested here, but he finds himself utterly desperate for it, as if it's been years instead. It feels like too long. It's not the sex he misses, and he couldn't care one bit less about getting off, isn't even considering it; it's the intimacy of it, which they certainly don't need to be sexual to achieve, but it's grounding, too. It's safe and familiar and he wants to make Erik feel good, to burn away the traces of fear and pain and replace it, just for now, with Charles and his enthusiastic need to serve. He's making noise after a while, though he doesn't realize it, needy, soft sounds as he noses up into Erik's lap. _Please, Erik?_ he asks, eyes wide and earnest as he looks up, demure only in the way he bites his lip.  
  
_Oh, really?_ Erik's eyebrows arch up and he touches his finger under Charles's jaw, eyes creased playfully. _So you're saying you don't miss the sex at all, hm? Not even a little bit? Not one tiny bit? Hmmm. Are you sure? We could always sip tea and recite poetry. That's intimate. Very grounding, I'd say._ His lips twitch, teasing and the tone of his voice-the tone that has transferred over verbatim into their mental communication-has shifted to one Charles is intimately familiar with, affected and drawn out and slow, words dripping between them like honey.  
  
Charles shakes his head, lips parted in a sigh as Erik touches him. Even the slightest, gentlest touch has him squirming, but there's not much room for it and that's delicious, too, rope still coiled around his wrist. _That's not what I meant,_ he promises, because he definitely misses the sex. He misses the sex two minutes after the sex is over. Two seconds, if he's honest. But what he misses about the sex most isn't the physical gratification; it's this part, it's absolutely this part, the way Erik's voice sounds and how he wants so badly to please him. To feel owned by him. He whines as he curls up into Erik's lap, his nuzzling much more deliberate now. _Please, sir_ , he tries again, and now it's beginning to sound like pleading.  
  
Erik grins down at him, and that rope becomes a binding, his arms coming up beside one another so it can loop his wrists together, also where they belong. Judging by how long, and how intense this part seems to be for Erik, it's definitely the thing that he misses the most of as well. Sometimes he doesn't even remember that he hasn't gotten off yet, too busy basking in the afterglow of Charles, a circumstance that has caused them more than some amusement in the past. _If you can without your hands, neshama, then you can. Deal?_ Because those hands belong to him and he likes the feel of his rope tying them together, sliding against Charles's skin like satin, every molecule keeping him held. He drags a fingertip down Charles's jaw. _Always so pretty when you are on your knees for me, asking of me_. The rope tightens up even more, so that Charles is in no doubt who is in control here.  
  
Charles has forgotten, too, and times when he hasn't been touched at all have been just as satisfying. Moreso, sometimes. This is what he likes most. _Yes, Erik._ He moans quietly as his wrists are bound together, tugging just to feel, eyes heavy with it. He's been drifting awfully these past two days; out of control, confused and wandering, shifted out of place. It's felt empty and wrong and he's chafed against it, restless and agitated. Now there's not a doubt in his mind that Erik is controlling the situation, that he's owned and exactly where he belongs. With the permission he sits up on his knees, leans forward into Erik's lap so he can rub his face there, sighing those quiet, needy sounds until he finds the zipper to Erik's jeans and tugs with his teeth. It's more difficult than he anticipated with Erik sitting the way he is, boxed in, but he's nothing if not determined, and he thrills at it when it's down, grinning in triumph. He looks up at Erik with those big blue eyes of his, hopeful. _Can you help me, please, sir?_ he asks sweetly, because there's no way he's getting at Erik's cock without some assistance, and he desperately wants it.  
  
Erik shifts to offer as much room as he can, but no matter what, he is jammed into this seat to the point of discomfort, head brushing over the bottom of the compartment above, which means he has to sink down a little and lean forward to offer Charles more room, and finally to withdraw himself from his jeans, shifting a little in place and somehow making the movement natural and graceful instead of awkward and jarring. _No more,_ he whispers down, taking Charles's face in both of his hands. _No more. You belong here. Always here. My love. My wonderful submissive. Charles._ He inhales slowly, sharply, already he's more relaxed right now than he has been in the past two days, and it melts out of him in long, thick tendrils of Will.  
  
Charles watches, eager, hot hunger in his eyes as Erik takes himself out, shifting impatiently as every neuron sparks. He isn't in any rush, but he needs this. He needs to be on his knees, wrists bound and Erik above him, serving and belonging. It's been so itchy and offbeat, he's been frightened; he's still so worried Erik will leave him, that he will be lost and Charles will be helpless, won't be what he needs, won't be able to reach him. That someone will take him. He knows there's nothing to it, that it isn't a possibility because he won't let it be, but it's still crept in. This is the physical reminder of that, and he whispers _yes, Erik_ as he leans forward again, moaning happily at what awaits him there. Despite his eagerness, when he's faced with Erik's dick all he does is rub his cheek against it, kiss and mouth and hum. And when he does finally open his mouth, he lets it rest against his tongue, the heavy, thick weight of it, doesn't push himself to take enough to choke on yet, just holds it in his mouth and lets his eyes close. He looks peaceful enough to sleep, the crease in his brow smoothed out, and soft, muffled sighs. This is how he should spend the rest of the flight, really. Now he's exactly where he belongs.

* * *

Erik makes a soft sound of pure, unadulterated satisfaction, not hot and heavy, although he is that, too, and growing rapidly firmer under Charles's quiet, sweet ministrations, even soft he's heftier than average and now he can see the way Charles's lips move to accommodate him even further, and it spreads through him. Luxurious warmth, slow and easy and just what they've both needed for a very long time. He rubs his thumb across Charles's brow, tender. _I love you so much, sweetheart. You are always so good for me. I-_ he's missed this, missed Charles, despite being in one another's proximity as always, he's missed-this. The openness, the joy, Dominion and subspace and taking care of what belongs to him. _I will never leave, not ever,_ he whispers. _I could never._ And Charles always is what he needs, even when he was lost and overwhelmed, Charles got him back. Charles helps him, takes care of him. They belong to one another, in one another's orbits. Beautiful. Charles is beautiful like this, eyes shut and completely bared for him, mind thrown wide like glass windows. Erik is the sunlight streaming in, warming him, loving him. _Perfection_ , he rumbles lowly.  
  
Charles hums, beyond words, but his content is bone-deep, strikingly clear through the Bond. He's relaxed, no tense shoulders or furrowed brow or pursed lips, melted into Erik's lap. He's safe. He's owned. He's exactly where he belongs, and Erik isn't going anywhere, either. He moans as his Dominant hardens for him, lips stretched obscenely as he takes more in, sucking while he makes those quiet, pleased noises with his eyes still closed. Sinking, sinking, sinking. He doesn't hear or feel or know anything else but this, the world around him still processed but not at all relevant, tuned way, way down, people passing in the aisle and sitting across not on his radar at all. His whole world is Erik, the warm, heavy weight in his mouth, the pleasant ache in his jaw, the tugging glimmer of subspace. Finally, Charles is at peace again.  
  
_Look at me_ , Erik commands him quietly, hands big and warm on his face, tilting his chin up so he can see those beautiful eyes. Erik's entirely in control, relaxed and languid. No panic. No fear. For once all he can see is Charles, feel Charles, the sensations shivering up and down his spine and pooling between his legs and extending outward, zipping along their Bond and settling in Charles's gut. The warm, golden threads of Will pulsating with every beat of Erik's heart. Erik can do this. Erik can take care of his submissive, his Bonded. Erik can make him feel like this; calm, content, pleased and safe and wanted. He slips even further into Dominion at the idea, turning the whole cabin into extensions of Will, swamped like the humid center of a jungle with curling, dark things in the soil that grow around Charles, binding him, so he can taste it on the air. Mine, Erik murmurs. "Mine," he says aloud, voice a low, warm rasp.  
  
_Yes, sir._ Charles' eyes blink open obediently, a hazy, edged-out blue, wide with devotion as he takes more of Erik's dick. He's choking slightly and sucking in humid air and Will through his nose and even that is relaxed, slow, warm. Everything is bubbled in tight, only for the two of them; no one but Charles should be privy to this, to the heady, beautiful threads that bind him, that keep him kept and safe. Erik's voice is beautiful and even though he can hear it perfectly well between their minds, he adores it like this, out loud. It will always be his favorite sound. _Please talk to me, Erik?_ he requests, quiet and shy despite the fact that his lips are stretched around cock, swollen and wet. There's never been anything as grounding as Erik's voice.  
  
That his Will is contained within Charles's bubble only makes it reflect, doubled in intensity, pinging around every corner of that bubble until Charles is held fully down, soaked in it at the molecular level. Erik inhales sharply, able to feel how it affects him, how it makes him gasp and his toes curl and the noises come louder, freer against his cock which slips between Charles's lips so eagerly, twitching with renewed, hot desire and Erik shudders, his own eyes locked on Charles-brilliant and otherworldly even in the dim light of the cabin. "You are my favorite person," he whispers softly. "And this is my favorite spot for you, did you know that? Right here. Between my legs. Looking up at me. Open a little more. That's it." He shifts a bit and lets himself sink deeper inside, perfectly controlling everything about this. The angle, the depth, how fast, how slow. His fingers twine in Charles's hair and then he grips, hard enough to edge out pleasure and pain simultaneously, the metal of his ring still very much present on his finger and Charles can feel that, too. "I couldn't dare pick a favorite sight. But this is among them," he murmurs, a slow smile on his features.  
  
Charles keens loudly when his hair is tugged, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes as he stretches his jaw to take more. It's instinctive, now; the first time he had been eager but nervous, too, uncertain and worried, fretting over gagging and his teeth and making Erik proud, but he's moved on from that. Now none of that registers, even while all of his attention is still devoted to serving Erik, making him feel good. It's far more natural now. He lets himself choke, because Erik is huge and it's inevitable, knows to breathe through his nose and use his tongue as much as possible, even when it makes him sloppier, echoes wet, messy noises through their bubble. He keeps his eyes on Erik, too, never forgetting the Order, moaning softly. His Dominant likes looking at him, his eyes teary and hungry, ethereal blue, shimmering azure, wide and framed with thick lashes; this is what he knows pleases, and Charles is impossibly eager to please. Nothing exists outside of this act of service, outside of thrumming, electric Will, hazy, warm Dominion, soaked down into his core. His response is to sink until there's nowhere left, until he's down in the deep, not to the bottom because there is no bottom but where the weight of the ocean threatens to crush and Erik holds him tight and anchors instead, in strands of Will, in the bindings around his wrists, in the cock in his mouth and the hand in his hair and the strength of the legs trapping him in with nowhere to go. He's Erik's. That's all. He's home now, and everything is truly alright.  
  
Erik remembers the first time as well. Terrified-a far more accurate adjective than nervous-that he'd lose it and ruin the tenuous connection they both were careening toward. That he'd let old hurt and panic edge out the truth of things, he'd look at Charles and see something that doesn't belong, but from the moment he dropped to his knees it all evaporated instantly. All he could see was Charles. His eyes an anchor, it's why Erik has a hard time just letting him drift in his own little world, he needs that. He needs Charles, and now he has him, for the rest of his life, he has him. Erik is in no hurry to rush toward release; in fact while he's undeniably hard and leaking against Charles's tongue, what little he can catch, he's not desperate, either. He's still, calm and flying under the sea, eyes half-lidded and a smile on his face, a curl of pleasure winding between them. "Love you," he whispers, voice thick and affected. "Mmm-mine, you know that? You know you are mine?" Maybe he'll keep Charles here the rest of the flight. Maybe he really will. They can both float, untethered but for one another, and just breathe.  
  
Charles never forgets. He always knows. _Yours, all yours_ , he agrees, more in concept, in feeling, than in words. He hums around Erik, his own eyes heavy again as he keeps his mouth wide open, drool and precome gathering on his lips and he couldn't care less. Erik seems to like when he's messy for him, when he's shameless and eager and eased with it. He's calm and floating and so content, now, sighing; please let him stay like this. Let him get off this plane with an ache in his jaw and a sore throat to match his knees and Erik's come still on his tongue. There's nothing he wants more. He doesn't know where they are, exactly, if that's an hour in the future or nine, but either way he's all too willing, projecting nothing but sweet, hazy submission and love.  
  
There's no seem about it, Erik adores it, if the open, unabashed desire written all over his face and entire body is anything to go by. "Mhmm," he agrees softly. "Mine. Keep you here. Just like this for the rest of the flight, hm? Would you like that, _neshama_?" He focuses for a moment and curls some of that heated need coursing through his veins, right down Charles's chest and between his legs, smiling brightly when he shifts with it. Bound and kneeling, servicing Erik and gasping with pleasure-this is what they've missed, this is what is healing, what ties them together, what returns stability and love and light into their universe. Charles isn't going anywhere.  
  
Charles has absolutely no desire to be anywhere else, or doing anything else. He hums his assent, his eager agreement, eyes fluttering as he wiggles as much as he's currently capable of, reeling with the rebound of Erik's pleasure, with the shivery, toe-curling sensation of it. It's not very much. He's warm and trapped, crammed in between Erik and the seat and it's perfect, completely perfect, there's nothing more healing than this. Someone nudges against the edges of their bubble, shifting that he instinctively accounts for, but he doesn't care. He has no attention to spare for anyone else; all that matters is serving his Dominant, mouth open wide, those sloppy, wet noises around his own moans as he sucks, eyes half-lidded. He thinks, idly, that he might not even care if they saw. There's nothing more right than Charles on his knees for his Dominant, servicing him with his mouth like he's meant to. He's the only one who gets the privilege.  
  
"Mmmno," Erik rumbles possessively, a slight growl at the edge of his words. No one else should see Charles this way but him. His submission belongs to Erik. No one else. It's a dark, heady, dangerous sensation rising in tendrils of Will through the ground, through Charles's body, reflected off of the dome surrounding them. "Let me hear you, sweetheart. That's it," he whispers, the snap of an Order reflecting back as well until it's saturating everything, colors intensified, hues bright and vivid. No one else Orders Charles but him. Charles belongs to him. Erik is vibrating with it, possessive need to Claim and have, everything whipped up into a frenzy.  
  
Charles whimpers loudly, eyes wide as he reacts to the change. He's rocking his hips forward, tiny, aborted motions, not because he's seeking friction but because he's nothing but responsive, because everything is humid and hot and he's spinning and dizzy with it, needier now. It always takes effort to get all of Erik in his mouth, and he still gags at first, every time, but he moans as he does, the sound muffled and filthy with as much of Erik in his throat as will fit, and he can't use his hands but he tries his best, drooling and slurping and relishing in the way his jaw protests because it means he's being good, taking Erik in like he's supposed to. He sucks in harsh, desperate puffs of air through his nose, eyes wet with tears from the strain and Erik is right. This is only for him. Charles is only for him. On his knees, moaning and literally gagging for it, wanting desperately to please. He'll only ever be like this for Erik. No one else has ever had Charles down in this deep-dark place and no one ever, ever will.  
  
He grips again, tighter this time, a bite of pain mixing with pure pleasure that feeds itself into the spiral hurricane of Will and submission and Dominion swirling inside of the dome they've created for themselves. A place where they can exist in their purest, simplest forms, nothing hidden or lost or scared. Charles is getting louder and needier and Erik groans lowly, hips jerking upward of their own volition, listening to Charles and watching Charles as he gags around the deeper intrusion, gorgeous lips spread wide against him, wet and shining and covered in Erik, and his head thunks back on the seat rest, eyes in slits as he gazes down at Charles. Erik wraps a leg around him, digging the heel of his foot into Charles's ass and pressing him down closer to the ground, fingers closing around his throat and squeezing. He should've made him wear that corset underneath his clothing, should have plugged him up so he never forgets his place. "Spread your knees for me, Charles," he grits the Order lowly. "Wider. Until you can feel that stretch." Then he does feel the sensation of something, a small, metallic ball that rolls down his crack and slips inside easily, thickening up and filling him out. Slowly, steadily, no rush of pain or ache of stretching, Erik's controlling that, too. Keeping him loose and pliant and prepared to take what he's being given.  
  
Charles whines, desperate and almost entirely through his nose, Erik's cock down his throat and those fingers squeezing above his collar. There's absolutely no leverage with his knees spread this wide, and even without the pain of a stretch he whimpers, squirming as much as he possibly can in this predicament (not even a little, honestly, it's a useless effort and that makes it better) because he wasn't expecting it. He clenches instinctively so he can feel it, moaning pitifully because he likes the stretch, the slight ache everywhere; his jaw, his knees, his hole. He feels stuffed full from every end, his entire being Dominated. Erik takes care of him, but he expects so much of him, too, and he hasn't these past two days. He's barely paid Charles any attention at all, not asked anything of him or held him to any standards, and it's not his fault, he would never claim that, but... he wants to make up for it. He wants to take all of it for him, to make him proud and remind him that Charles can do it. He can be a good submissive, a good boy. He belongs here, Erik is supposed to use him. So he sucks harder at Erik's cock, whimpering and fighting against the strain, the stretch, the slight burn to his muscles and the ache in his jaw and thrills at it because it's delicious and wonderful and it makes him hotter and swallows, bobs his head, uses every technique he's learned under Erik's excellent tutelage to please him, tears in his eyes as he takes all that he's given. It's utterly debauched, the sounds he's making, the way he looks, spit and precome down to his chin, raunchy slurps around his moaning and he still gags when Erik hits the very back of his throat, stretching it visibly but he knows Erik likes that, too, and Charles is here to serve.  
  
He's tried, tried to do his best to care for Charles, to make sure he ate and did his routine, his Postures, made sure he bathed and dressed and say the right things and do the right things, but it's been through a hazy fog, half-separated into so many splintered pieces terrified of hurting Charles, bombarded with images of Charles's destruction at his own hands, all come to a fever pitch with a flashback that sent him tumbling headfirst into the bathtub, crying and whining where he couldn't be heard and too young to understand anything other than that he's bad. He's bad and wrong and he's going to kill Charles just like he did his whole family. He tried so hard, but he wasn't there. He didn't do good, it's his fault. It's his mind. It's his fault. And he wants desperately, so desperately, to make up for it, to show Charles that he brought Erik back, that he helped and that they're together and safe and whole again. This is what is healing, this is what Erik's needed from the beginning and it's all slotting into place, puzzle pieces of brilliant chromium snapped into place. The implement inside Charles thickens right up and is trapped between his pants and the floor, nudged up against his prostate and vibrating with leashed potential, with every Dominion-soaked strand of Will pulsating around them. The pulse of Charles's sounds and the sight of him so far gone. "Mnn, Charles-" Erik whispers, low and needy. "Mine love you so much, good boy-look at you-such a good boy, mm? My good boy? For me? Do such a good job you learn so well, take this so well for me only me-my pretty submissive, so needy, hm? So hungry for it." Erik lets his cock slip out so he can give Charles a good slap across the face with it, dragging spit and precome all over his cheek and Erik dips his fingers into it, smears it all around. "Want it back, sweetheart? Want my cock in your mouth? Going to ask me for it? Hm?" Erik's sunk down deep, every word rich and dark and thick, voice roughened by desire.  
  
Charles hadn't been there, either. It's him who stared at the wall and hadn't heard, who couldn't help because he'd been lost and drowning and gone. But he's here now. He's here and he could cry when Erik takes his cock from him, does, actually, a loud, stricken sob as his eyes immediately well up with tears. He sniffs, bearing down on the stretch inside to make up for it, but it doesn't; he's empty without it, and he is hungry and he's good, he's good, please let him have it back. He's too worked up for words, can't find them anywhere even when he tries, and his swollen lips tremble with the beginning of overwhelmed sobs so he whimpers instead, rubbing his cheek against Erik's leg to soothe himself because he knows better than to take what he isn't given. He needs it. He'll be good, he promises, he swears. He'll be a good boy, he'll listen and do whatever he's told but please let him.  
  
"Mmhmm," Erik murmurs, rubbing his cock over Charles's parted bottom lip. "Open up, there you go. I know you need this," he's muttering things under his breath. How beautiful Charles is, how good he's being, how happy he makes Erik, how proud Erik is to have him kneeling at his feet. He slips back inside slowly, patting his cheek enough to sting, to redden the skin there as it stretches across him. Another vibration of the toy inside him and it thrusts up of its own accord, fucking in even deeper than Charles originally realized it could go. It's the very best application of Erik's abilities, he finds. To be able to use them to take Charles, in every possible way.  
  
Charles finds himself teetering well-past overwhelmed, and he barely notices that he's being fucked deeper, harder, that his prostate is being nudged relentlessly and that he's wild for it, whimpering constantly, because he's crying in relief. His chest is heaving and he sobs as he's fed Erik's cock, radiating and projecting grateful, boneless relief because Erik is back, because he can taste him and smell him and choke on him, because he's not gone and not taken and he's in him and around him and he's here, it's okay. It's okay, he's taking care of him. He's a good boy. Charles leans into the pain, just as thankful for the insistent taps as he is the stretch inside and the cock sliding back down his throat and he's blissful and floating and his thighs are shaking as he fights to keep them spread nicely and _thank you, sir, thank you thank you thank you._  
  
Always, "Always," he repeats aloud, limbs heavy and loose as he sinks back into the chair, twining his fingertips through Charles's hair, soothing and repetitive. "My boy," he moans. "My good boy. I got you. I take care of you. Stay right here, not letting you go. Never let you go," he whispers, soaking up Charles's submission like he's a plant that needs sunlight, and Charles is the good, good sun. "Wearing your collar I made you because you are mine I love you so much, always keep you, mhmm, mine," Erik mumbles, blinking slowly down at him, hips stuttering up of their own accord. He sits up and leans over so he can give Charles's ass a proper, loud smack, driving his cock further down his throat and simultaneously fucking that toy right up into him, using him in every way, making him wild and hot and needy and keeping him afloat, and this is where he belongs, just like this.  
019 5:10 am  
by Charles Xavier  
Charles whines at the slap, tears slipping down his cheeks though he's taken much, much more, gladly would now, sloppy and muffled around the cock down his throat, and he gags on it at the same time that it feels like his prostate is jabbed, then rubbed mercilessly, and it's not as good as having Erik's cock in his ass but it's still him, he's inside him, too, and he's dizzy and grateful and kept. He's cared for, he's loved, he's not drifting with no one to tether him. Erik is here. He keeps his mouth open wide, jaw and throat relaxed even when he chokes, sucks and licks as much as he can and doesn't care how shameless and filthy it is, how he's messy with it. Erik is right, he's hungry for it. He needs to know that he's still good, that he can serve Erik the right way, that he can make him feel good, that he's a good submissive, needs it more than anything, and - he's desperate, worked up, absolutely mad with it, it's all he is. It's vulgar but he knows Erik hears it when, among what has only been wordless sensation and image, he thinks, loud enough to be jarring, _please, sir, come down my throat, make me choke on it so far down I'll taste it for days please I've been good I'll be good I'll be so good for you please let me taste you I'll swallow all of it I promise I'll be a good boy and swallow everything you give me and I'll clean you up and I'll be grateful I promise I'll be so good_ \- And he doesn't seem capable of being embarrassed of it in the moment, either, nothing but breathless, unadulterated need, hazy, deep-deep-deep submission. _Please, sir, please,_ it's all he needs, it's all he wants.  
  
A jolt of hot, heavy fire explodes in Erik's gut and melts outward, centering right in his dick with enough force that it twitches mightily in the wet vice of Charles's mouth and he groans lowly, fingers gripping at his throat, fucking him hard and deep and relentless in every way. He adores it when Charles really loses himself, too far gone to worry about appearances or shame or embarrassment and loses himself to those inner needs, those deep-dark needs, filthy and vulgar and perfect and Erik gasps as his belly flips over and he's shooting warm streaks of come right down Charles's throat, striped against his tongue and slipping out the corner of his mouth, and Erik swipes his thumb over it and makes him take that, too while he's being fucked and owned and taken, while Erik makes him look and look and look. Mine, Erik growls, all that ancient atavistic lust pouring off of him, mixing with need and Will. Reflected back and ratcheted higher and more, perhaps it's been the distance but it's suffocating and relentless and-  
  
Charles does choke on it. He's crying and desperate, swallowing everything he's given, greedy for it as he licks come off Erik's fingers and then cleans it off his dick, too, just like he promised, giving hoarse but needy little cries and moans as he's fucked. He hasn't come and he won't; he belongs to Erik, and so does his pleasure. He isn't being helped along by Erik's abilities, either, he can feel that by now, but he whimpers and doesn't come anyway, licks Erik's softening cock and nuzzles instead. A good boy waits for permission and Charles is a good boy, still tucked away in his trousers with his knees spread too wide to get any friction. He's obedient and he's owned, he's Erik's, tied up pretty with his face a splotchy, tear-stained mess, and it's all for his Dominant. This is what he's needed. This is what he's been needing so, so badly, to know he belongs, and he does. He's in the deep and he can't breathe but Erik will make sure he doesn't drown. All he has to do is be good.  
  
Erik nudges Charles up a little further so he can trail his fingers down his chest and over the hem of his pants, slipping inside to cup at him and grinning when he rocks against his outstretched palm. Erik gives him a rough squeeze just as what's inside of him withdraws and then thrusts back in, hard. Want to come? Hm? Want to? Oh, I can feel it here. This is mine, too. Charles's pleasure is his and he wants it, he needs it, more than anything he can comprehend right now. He can make Charles feel good and take care of him and keep him, hazy and happy and loved and owned. Claimed. Erik's.  
  
This is a dilemma because Charles doesn't have a fully coherent thought in his head, everything knocked right out and replaced with with his Dominant and Will and need, and he sniffles, confused, whipped up pleasure, not certain if he should try to thrust back on whatever's deep inside him or into Erik's palm. He settles for both, as much as he can, nodding vigorously at first because it's all he can manage and then, "Yes, sir, please, may I - ah, hah, oh... may I come for you, please?" And his voice sounds wrecked, raspy, like he's just had his throat fucked thoroughly because he has and that makes him shiver, too, shaking like a leaf as Erik leans over him and owns him completely.  
  
"Mhm," Erik murmurs appreciatively, wrapping as much as he can the fingers of his bad hand against Charles's throat, which is mostly resting the curve of his palm along his neck, applying a bit of pressure through his elbow instead of his hand and he grins down, vibrating that toy deep inside of him as he jerks Charles in earnest, feeling how wet and hard he is against his skin, how he's been this way for so long, _oh, you need relief, hm? Look at this. So much, hmm. Come for me, sweet boy. Come for me. Let me see. I love to see, love having you just like this. Mine, mine. I love you. Love you so much. So good_ -  
  
Charles' eyes roll back when he comes, a ruined, loud groan that melts into a whimper escaping wet, swollen lips. His hips rock forward until he's completely dry, new tears on his cheeks and trembling all over, and immediately he's shivering, curling forward and seeking. He doesn't care that he's just come in his pants because he knows Erik will make it better, doesn't care about anything except burying himself in Erik, eyes closed as he makes soft, wrecked noises, sniffs and nudges himself closer. "Love you, love you, love you," he mumbles, English and Hebrew and neither, everything blended and all of him Erik's.

* * *

Erik tugs him up and wraps his arms around him tightly, still leaving him on his knees so he has to lean forward significantly to do so, but if he doesn't do so he'll fly away. He has to be holding Charles, he has to be touching him, and the first thing that comes to mind is a silly lullaby about sleeping like a lamb and waking up like a little goat and all the city of Alexandria in sugar and Cairo in rice. "Love you, sweetheart," he murmurs softly.  
  
When he calms enough, shivering near violently the aftermath, tears wiped into Erik's lap, Charles is basically purring. They're low, pleased, constant noises, broken only by little hiccups and the hoarseness of his own voice. "Love you," he echoes, croaking it as he snuggles in close. "Love you, love you, Erik. Erik, Erik," and that's a purr, too, a pleased sigh more than a name, eyes still closed as he goes limp and relaxed. He's projecting constantly, too, mind wide, wide open, a feedback of sensation and images, one of them a very silly card for them to carry around because they're now card-holding members of a club and they didn't even have to cram into a bathroom.  
  
_Now you can tell Warren you have one up on him,_ Erik winks down, fond and so terribly affectionate. He especially loves his name said in that dreamy little purr, and he shivers with it, delighted. He tucks Charles's head under his chin, eyes closing as he just soaks this up, basks in it like a cat under a strip of sun. _Mine. Mine forever. Forever and ever_.  
  
Charles feels like it's been ages since he's felt sleepy; he's been exhausted, but not sleepy, and now he is, sleepy and boneless and all his limbs are jelly and he's smiling, dimples and all, still purring. Forever and ever. Erik's. He's nice and owned, on his knees with his wrists still bound, tugging at them so he can sigh happily when the knot doesn't come undone. _Where are we?_ he asks after a long while, wondering if Erik knows. Charles could find out just as easy but he doesn't feel like it, wants everything else to stay tuned out unless it's actually vital, filtered unconsciously for him. They're probably over the ocean. He likes the ocean.  
  
They are over the ocean, and Erik knows their precise location, latitude and longitude and miles from any conceivable shore, an internal radar compass constantly adjusting, a gyroscope with a swinging pin. Maps and Cartesian coordinates superimposed onto one another, the atmosphere telling the Earth telling him. Instrument flight rules, monitors and lines and waves and steady beeps. The short answer is, ocean! It turns out they've been like that quite a lot longer than it felt, and they're nearing well over the halfway mark now.  
  
Charles does the math in an instant, humming. They'd taken off at about three in the afternoon, which means they'd be getting off the plane in Israel at around eight in the morning. Bright and early and a time that shouldn't exist, as far as Charles is concerned; any time before noon is generally wretched and a necessary evil. Especially so if there was no sleeping involved, as there rarely was for Charles before Erik, but he's gotten used to a solid seven hours a night, usually a frighteningly healthy eight, and now he's going on about an hour or two the night before. Realistically, they should probably get a nap in. Charles doesn't want to. He snuggles close instead, ignoring his heavy eyelids to feel Erik petting him, subspace lulling him quiet and pleased. He'd like flights a lot more if they'd always been like this.  
  
Erik lays the full weight of his head over Charles's, his own eyes slipping closed. _Stay with me?_ he whispers, small and soft. He's sleepy, too, but he can't sleep without Charles there. He just can't. He lets them both float in the halfway-stage, resting all on its own merits, restoring with one another so close and open, energy renewed and shared.  
  
Charles hums sleepily in response. After a while he nudges at Erik, less physically and more mentally with an image, shy and soft; it amounts to Charles curled up with his head on Erik's shoulder, properly in his lap, punctuated with a question mark. As much as he loves and needs to be on his knees, it's not doing any wonders for Erik's back, bending all the way over like this, and he can be just as floaty and submissive in Erik's arms. He can't be anything else right now. They have another five hours and Charles intends to spend all of it deep in subspace and being petted, if that's alright with his Dominant.  
  
"Mmmhm," Erik laughs, and he'd been already shifting to do just that when Charles sends the image, and he gently lifts him back up onto the seat, resettling him so his head is on Erik's lap, unobstructed by the armrest which seems to have vanished in the interim. He runs his fingers through Charles's hair, getting a head start on that lovely petting that makes him shift around and sigh happily. Oh, more than all right. Mandatory, in fact. Absolutely mandatory. These are regulated cuddles. There'll be paperwork and everything. Must have cuddles.  
  
This position works, too. It works very well. Charles goes back to those distinctly purr-like noises, arching into every touch, encouraging it with sighs and nuzzling and kisses wherever he can reach. His eyes are closed and he's relaxed, totally and completely, playing idly with the fabric of Erik's shirt, eyes blinking heavy every now and then. _How do you like your first plane ride?_  
  
_So very much,_ Erik rumbles back, resting his head on Charles's shoulder and drawing him in even closer. _No sickness? Feel good_? he does a little check and smooths out any edges he finds, leaving Charles sated and relaxed as can be. Erik will always be here to take care of him, in any number of small ways that all add up, that he hopes will add up. _Love you so much_. He smiles down, sunny and bright.  
  
_No sickness. Love you, too._ By now he'd definitely have vomited, or at least be bent over and close to it, but Erik has avoided that completely. Smoothed out all the edges, and there's nothing but warmth in his belly, no nausea. Charles takes care of him, too. He makes sure there's no pain, tugs at his instinctive hold on those receptors to check, hums when he gets his response. No pain, all good. _They came to serve us food but it looked like we were both sleeping_ , he grins. It took less effort than anything else. No effort at all, but he hadn't wanted to bother getting creative; perception filters are basically breathing at this point, which is strange because when he met Erik complex alterations like this - to make them appear breathing and shifting and even snoring, everything someone would expect - took quite a bit of effort. Now it's so simple he doesn't think about it at all, relegates it to a completely background task, and they're more natural and utterly indistinguishable from reality, fluid to their needs and ever-changing to meet expectations and variables. _You really don't fit in this plane very well, do you, darling? h_ e asks suddenly, trying not to giggle at Erik's plight. His poor mountain man can't sit up without the top of his head colliding with the overhead compartment.  
  
Erik slouches down in his seat, putting on a hefty grown. "I dislike this part," he croaks aloud, lips twitching something fierce. "Short people have all the advantages." He sticks his tongue out. He's mightily relaxed, pain dissolved and he looks like he's melted into his spot, making little noises of unconscious delight about it.  
  
"Tell that to me again when you can reach the top shelf," he grumbles, in good nature but he's always been fairly sensitive about his height. Now he can get things through alternative means with telekinesis, but he's defending all more vertically-challenged people here. Something nervous and overwhelming jolts through him now that he's relaxed and himself again, but he stamps it down, mutes it out, amusing himself by poking at Erik's stomach instead.  
  
Erik loves Charles's height, just like he loves every part of him, and it's the first time he's ever felt secure in his own stooping gait either-because he can shield Charles and stalk around glowery and protective, and it's nice; it appeals to the ancient little monster that lives in his chest and beats its fists and drums over the cave-camp fires and worlds-old etchings on the walls of his vena cava. He jumps and twitches under the attention and smiles, stroking Charles's cheek. "No no," he murmurs, all settled-in Dominion and unleashed Will, nothing he says now can be construed as a request. He lives in Orders, loves them, administers them with adoration and affection. _Tell me. No hiding._

* * *

He bites his lip, searching for the right words, the correct phrasing. "I know this is going to be incredibly difficult for you, Erik. And you know I'll be there with you, every moment." He slides his hand under Erik's shirt, then, pressing his palm warm and present where he'd just poked, mostly just to feel bare skin. "But I'm also..." Here he struggles again, and finally just drops whatever flimsy shielding he'd put up like Erik had Ordered in the first place and lets him see. He's _excited_ , is probably the proper term. He's excited to be somewhere much closer to Erik's home than New York City, surrounded by his language and his culture and his family. He's had opportunities to visit Israel before and he's turned them down, not for lack of interest (there was quite a lot of interest), but because it hadn't felt right. Because he should see it with someone else, because he was waiting. He's felt guilty about anticipating these things; Erik is clearly dreading it, and he has reason to feel that way, and how insensitive is it that Charles has been feeling nerves of a different kind? It's not like this is a leisure trip. But he can't completely rid himself of it, either.  
  
Erik's smile is slow, but real, and he touches his lips to Charles's temple, letting him feel the warmth glowing brightly with every beat of his pulse. "Me, too," he whispers back. Erik had known they were alive, because by that time David moved away from _Sisim_ and to Jerusalem, wanting a more fast-paced life than their small village could offer but not something as intense and bustling as _Tel Aviv_. Erik knew he was alive but Mr. Shaw always told him, always tells him, he killed his family so the ones left, they hate him. The only one who loves him is Mr. Shaw. And he should be grateful for that. And he was. But when his children, his whole world, were in danger he had nowhere else to put them, nowhere else to go so he took a risk. Put them in a place that Mr. Shaw wouldn't want to go back, even if they hate Erik, they will love his kids. They are innocent, they did nothing wrong. He never knew they want to see him, they thought he was dead, they grieved for him. But he can't stop thinking they won't like him, they'll banish him. They'll try to kill him. They should try. There's just-there's the-there's the chance that maybe-because Ms. Yorkes said that David talked to her on Skype and he cried, and he wants to meet him, so he might not-Erik bows his head against Charles, trembling. And if he doesn't, then-the one person he would ever want his family to meet, to know, the one person who would define everything he is and let them know he is OK, is Charles. And even if they hate Erik they will love Charles, he knows that much. And there's so much-so much he's forgotten, that he wants to show, to feel again, to see again. He tucks them all away into his heart, it's too big for the tiny plane, he doesn't want to hurt anybody. " _Gam ani_."  
  
Charles shakes his head. "The only one on this tiny plane right now is you and me," he reminds Erik, because it's true. There's a very firm, very excitable psionic bubble charged with the both of them, looping everything back in, doubling it up, and Erik could never hurt Charles. Whatever he feels and thinks is for Charles, too, so he gently takes those mental fingers that have been pushing everything down and away and he tugs, a shy request. Let me in, let me feel, too. He could take but he won't. "There's more than a chance, Erik," he whispers. "You were just a child. You have always been innocent of this. He needed you to not have a single hope in your head that there was anything out there for you but him," and his voice cracks here, with sorrow but also with rage, cold, icy rage, and he stamps it down, flattens it out, there will be a time for that and it isn't here, "But it's never been true, has it? Because you found me. Because I have always been there, and I've never feared or hated you. You have a family, Erik, and I know it's not as easy as that, I know this will hurt, too, but they are there and they want to meet you." And his children, too, the ones he cared for, the ones he broke out from sixteen years of conditioning to protect. Charles' eyes fill with tears and he buries them in Erik's lap. He's not so sure he'll be liked, but he knows Erik will be loved, that this is a homecoming of sorts, and that is enough.  
  
"'S never true," he mumbles, a soft gasp. Those thoughts that Charles tugs on spill out, marbles sliding under the door and raining over their heads and he tries to collect them up before they fall so they don't hurt Charles but he can't stop them "He never love me," Erik whispers, eyes squeezed shut tight. "He tried make me forget everything. Twist up my head. He hated me. I keep pretending he never hate me. But he hate me, he wanted fix me, I'm wrong. All my language and thoughts and every-everything, he killed us, he gassed us, he _killed_ my family. I didn't kill them. Was I that bad? Was I so bad? Kids can be so bad? If-" he's biting his hand, the real crux of his fear finally coming to surface over the past two weeks and longer. If David hates him his whole family will be gone, they'll all be gone, and he's so desperate to be liked, to be good, it's cleaving him in two. He'll do anything, just like when he was small, anything for them to love him, to hug him, to see him as a person, but no matter how desperate he was, they never did. They just laughed at him and mocked him and hurt him. Nothing he could do made them love him.  
  
Charles' heart stops in his chest. His lip wobbles and then he's shaking, shaking and shivering and his teeth are clenched and then he cries anyway, feels it all spill out and it's not fair to take this space from Erik, to feel anything at all when he's finally opening up but he can't help it and all he can do is nuzzle in close and try to speak around sobs. "You didn't do anything to deserve it," he promises, and it breaks off into a loud sniffle, he brings his still-bound hands in close to soothe himself, rubs his cheek against Erik's thigh. "You were just a - just a child, and he took everything from you and you did nothing. You did nothing, Erik. You were innocent and you were good and you were smart and you were perfect and they - he took you and he tried to make you like him but he never managed because you are everything he isn't. You are good and you are capable and worthy of love and your family is... your family knows that. They will know that, and they will love you just like I do. I love you. You are loved. You are not wrong, you are perfect and no one who loves you would ever -" He can't. He can't, he can't, he's sorry, and he slams down a wall and puts it up firmly.  
  
Erik looks distressed. "Dont go, dont leave me please dont go" he strokes his hands down Charles's cheek and pets him and holds him as close as he can. "Don't go dont go you cant go" the Order bursts out of him, a fireworks explosion of light and love even in the darkest of memories. "You're mine," he whispers. "You love me dont go 'way promise, promised"  
  
He's not going. He's here, and he lifts the wall and it's all seeping out and he sucks it back in, as much as he can, but it spills and he can't help it, he can't help it. "I'm sorry," he gasps, and sobs into Erik's stomach, tears pressed there. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he whispers, broken, over and over.  
  
"Mm-mm. _Atzor_." The Imperative seeps in. "I like it." Not the pain, not the horror, or suffering, but Charles. His whole life he's been told never to cry and to keep it inside but Erik wants it, Erik likes it, he loves it, because it is Charles. "It's mine. I want it. Don't keep. You promised."  
  
"But it will hurt you," he whispers, broken. "I showed you and you - you -" He left. He left and Charles didn't know what to do and he was scared and Erik was scared, too, he had flashbacks so Charles should keep it inside. It's always better like that. Charles is the bad one. He's the poisoned one.  
  
"Don't leave me," Erik shakes his head, touching his face. Most of his hurt he can't share because it poisons everything and everyone. But he shared it and they're OK because he didn't leave. So Charles can't go too. "Stay w'me 'K," he mumbles. "I thought it's me," he trembles, shaking his head over and over. "Not you me. I did to you. Hurt you. No you're mine. Not scared. It's mine. I won't hurt. I won't hurt you. Safe," he strokes Charles's cheek again and again, repetitive and soothing, kisses everywhere he can reach.

* * *

Erik said no. All he has to do is listen, to walk with him and be obedient. Charles curls up small in his lap and he lets Erik feel that he knows, that he's safe, that nothing he's ever done has hurt Charles, that he's not wrong or bad and that Charles loves him and he doesn't want to be anywhere but here. He's safe. He's never been safer than in Erik's arms. He feels a little sick, now, sniffles and doesn't think it's because of turbulence or air pressure and that's okay. That's Erik's, too. Okay. Yes, Erik.  
  
"Mine," Erik whispers and tweaks that hot nausea until it melts into warmth that spreads through his limbs. Nobody gets Charles but Erik and that's final. The snap of Will shears through the room at gale forces, hurricane-strong and he is stripped and laid at his most bare, the core of him, his beating heart that pumps blood and Dominion through the world and into Charles's body and out through the curl of his toes. He belongs to Erik. "It's mine want it. Give me."  
  
It's Erik's. Charles whimpers, and everything unfolds again, everything hurting and broken and everything joyful, too, loving and soft, and he's curled up small and obedient in Erik's lap, shivers but stays. It's all Erik's. He doesn't understand why he was never, not once, loved as a child, why he had a family, still has one, and they don't love him, even after he's pushed himself so hard to be good and smart and successful, still needs to cling to the idea that his father did, but it's okay. Erik loves him now. They can build new families. It's all okay.  
  
"No, no," Erik shushes him, shakes his head more, kisses him and rocks him. "Wrong," he smiles softly. "Not now, not just now. Always. Always did, if I didn't I'd be dead too." Erik learned English because of Charles. Always held a fascination with New York he could never understand, printed out pictures and laid them in his room, taped under his bed. He doesn't understand science but it reminds him of something he loves, so he reads textbooks to himself late at night. He protects and feeds and keeps his kids safe because something makes him good, something makes him love. He broke conditioning because he loves someone. He was loved always and forever. "I know too. Happened, me too. You don't think I'm bad?" It really is OK this time, because they have always had one another, this family, the most precious gift of all.  
  
Charles shakes his head. No, Erik isn't bad. Erik is perfect. He would be gone if it wasn't for Erik, too. He sniffles, squirming until he can reach up with his bound wrists, pouting when he can just barely reach Erik's cheeks to wipe his tears. "You printed out pictures?" he asks, smiling through his own tears, voice terribly raspy. He snuggles up close again, held and bound and safe.  
  
And Erik doesn't think Charles is bad. Erik loves him to the moon and back and around the stars and in all the space dust. "I even had one I keep I didn't know why, I forgot 'til when I looked it up when you were in coma. Your house," Erik laughs softly. "It was newspaper, a big charity, and nice picture of your house. _Greymalkin_ Manor. I thought I want a house like that? But it's not it. It's you. I always love you, always." That's why he kept the picture of it while Charles was in the hospital, it felt like a piece that fit in his pocket, a place for him. For them. Their family, his kids and all the people they will help and love. A place filled with love that will turn pain into joy.  
  
Erik's accent is so much thicker like this, and he's still speaking half in English so it's stunningly obvious and Charles soaks it up silently for a few moments. He loves Erik's voice. Erik's accent. It makes him shiver, pleased, comforted by it as he nuzzles beneath Erik's shirt to press against bare skin. "It's not called that anymore," he protests, even though technically it is. "And it's your house now, too." Even if it was an awful place growing up, they can change it into something better. They have the ability to do that, and everyone they love can be safe there, people they don't love yet but will. A safe, warm place of love and growth and learning and acceptance. Charles' mind wanders and he thinks about the boy he chased around when he was a child, his desert village. _You're getting dirty again! Where are you going now? Wait up!_ He smiles, hiding it in Erik. Bossy, bossy particles, but he'd loved Erik from the start, loved his home, too.  
  
Erik shivers sympathetically and tucks Charles in even closer, bundles him up in his sweater and blanket, because Erik had taken a cozy cashmere blanket with him onto the plane to wrap about his shoulders for protection, a cape of extra-softness he now unbunches from its position stuffed in the pouch of the seat in front of them and drapes it around Charles. It's got cactuses and cowboy hats and squiggly suns and googly eyes and cartoons of Charles and Erik holding hands and running about in deserts and mountains and up trees and tightrope-walking powerlines. Charles's has floppy hair and brilliant blue eyes and Erik's got squiggles for curls and towers over stick-Charles protectively. sticky-Erik's speech bubbles profess ...( _< 3!_ ) and Charles's profess ...( _< 33!!_) right back. It still shocks him that Charles genuinely likes to hear him, listen to him speak, and he mumbles more things under his breath, self-conscious but soft enough, vulnerable enough to sink into the praise like a little glow-worm. " _here is the deepest secret nobody knows/(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud/and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows/higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)/and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart/i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)..._ "  
  
Charles does love listening to him speak. Hearing him. Glow-worm. He nudges his cheek into Erik, sending an image that way because he can't really use his hands, and he wants them tucked in close and secure, still forgets when he's like this that he doesn't need touch. Flying, green-glowing creatures that lit up the sky at night. He loved them as a child, was never allowed to chase them but he did later with Raven, sneaking out at night. Fireflies! He called them glowies when he was too young to know their name, because no one told him. It's silly, one of the few childish things he can remember because when Charles learned to talk he skipped babbling and went straight to full sentences, could read, too, and he flushes admitting it. Once one had gotten stuck in his room and he'd tucked himself under the covers and watched in awe every night, cried when one night it wasn't there anymore. Do they have fireflies in the desert? What are they called? Charles could pull up the Hebrew word if he wanted, but he'd rather have Erik tell him. Lightning bugs. That's a nice name, too. Erik likes lightning.  
  
" _Gach'lilit_!" Erik grins. It reminds him of _Ima_ , of Ber Grin and watching lightning crackle in the distance, as she recites in Yiddish, brushing his hair back from his head while he snoozes in her lap. " _Fireflies come to me, greet me and fade./Like the firebud of youth, of youth./Little houses. Little houses. Dark. Dreamy./Inside are people. Dreams./Trees. Treelets. Green is life./long tall arms reach out to me./And somewhere rushes a rushing spring/Today is a celebration for my eyes and ears,/today draws so much wonder in.._." He doesn't know if they're fireflies, but there are big glowing things with long arms and legs that hug the sky and alight in warmth, during the wet season.  
  
That's a lovely word. Charles knew it already, but he murmurs it under his breath, sighs it into Erik's skin where he's half-hidden in his sweater. He always liked bugs, mostly because people seemed cruel to them. When it rained in the summer, all the worms would crawl their way out of the dirt and wiggle onto the pavement leading up to the Manor, but they would fry in the sun. Charles tried to save them all, gathering them in tiny hands and carrying them to safety. He cried when he couldn't. Mother scolded him for getting his hands filthy. That's not a happy memory, and maybe it's silly that on hot days after a rain he still looks for worms, helps them to the dirt in case they're too slow. Raven calls him a bleeding heart. How did he get here? He blinks, snuggling nicely into Erik.  
  
Erik will save them all from now on, because he actually can now. Fly them all up and into the trees where they can wiggle around until they inevitably die, since they are only bugs after all and wouldn't survive long even allowed to progress through their natural life cycle. But everything deserves a nice life, for as long or as short as it's destined to be. Erik likes bugs, too; creatures and critters always flock to him whenever they're outside, squirrels and pigeons and inchworms and butterflies landing all over him like he's a lightbulb in the night time. They weren't around where he was, being indoors and in a sterile environment-and he would never be permitted a pet, because it would provide him an opportunity to be kind instead of cruel and that was antithetical to his conditioning. Nowadays he always carries some sunflower seeds to share with them (operative word being share because Erik loves them and eats them constantly; since he began to transition into eating real food he's found the best things he keeps down are nuts, which happen to be very healthy, so it's a win/win).  
  
It's how they've spent quite a bit of their time wandering through the parks, talking with each other while Erik creeps about on tip toes fascinated by everything that chirps and glows around them. It's just another reason Erik loves Charles so much, because most people wouldn't have nearly the patience (Raven, for all her virtues, does not and has on more than one occasion been horrified to discover Erik's collection of fruit flies and spiders from a day's cleaning, all climbing over themselves in a sealed container with leaves and sticks dropped in) to entertain him, let alone outright support and participation in aforementioned shenanigans. We'll have lots and lots of animals and creatures, he promises fondly, feeling warm all over again.  
  
Charles wasn't allowed outside much. He wasn't allowed to get dirty. He wasn't allowed to have a pet, especially after his father died and his horse was sold and the stables emptied. He loves how in-tune Erik is with everything, how the Earth loves him and he loves the Earth; it feels like he can connect, too. Perhaps they shouldn't have fruit flies in containers, but he'll certainly feel better knowing there's someone else more likely to shoo the insects out into a place more suited to them, where they can be free, rather than stomp or squish or suffocate them. He is a bleeding heart, but Erik seems more than willing to accomodate for that, too. To preserve it rather than try to squash it out of him. Charles has always been called too sensitive, among the tamer adjectives, but Erik never accuses him of that. Never mocks him for it, never rolls his eyes. He smiles, soft and teary, wriggles about in Erik's lap like the worms he's always been preoccupied with saving. They bring out the best in each other. They can be themselves together. Isn't that what love is? What it should be? He yawns, then pouts in the aftermath, because his eyes are so heavy but he doesn't want to sleep. He wants to hear Erik talk more and be owned.  
  
The great thing about today is that they really can just stay awake and talk, or drift and doze. There's nowhere to be and nothing to do but hours of this, one another's presence. Erik knows Charles hasn't slept good, but he'll correct that, what's important to him is this right here. This is what is most restful, so he doesn't scramble to put Charles to sleep even though he's tired, because he doesn't want to sleep either, he just wants to drift around and hold Charles close and speak poetry to him (" _The scissors longed to be joined at last,/leaving nothing in the way of division—/so that its two might then be one,/to cut through what might come between them_ ," he whispers in the breath between wants, just because he can-out loud, because Charles likes it-and it's enough to make him gasp in pleasure) and remind him over and over how much he loves him, and his heart, and every layer and filter it reflects colorfully through kaleidoscope prisms. He never will mock, he never will roll his eyes. He only says, _show me what's next. Tell me more.  
_

* * *

It's the same for Charles. His eyes are closed, but he's not sleeping, squirming idly in Erik's lap just to feel himself held and settled and kept. He nudges Erik again, mental pokes to get his attention. Do you want to play a game with me, Erik? he asks, and he sounds shy again. In the meantime he wraps himself up in Erik's Will, sighs, eyes heavy as he shivers.  
  
He smiles back down at him and tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. _Of course, neshama. What would you like to play?_  
  
Charles laughs, cheeks pink, because he hadn't thought it all the way through. They could play chess just fine like this, but Charles doesn't think he's up for a match right now, too preoccupied with nuzzling and kissing and snuggling. All the other games that come to mind are silly, childish things, played at the sleepovers and birthday parties Charles never went to. _Truth or Dare. Never Have I Ever._ He shakes his head, grinning as he curls up even closer. _I don't know. You pick. People don't like playing games with me, usually._ But Erik always plays with him.  
  
Erik knows _Truth or Dare_ , but doesn't know what _Never Have I Ever_ is. What little he can glean from Charles doesn't sound incredibly appealing, and _Truth or Dare_ honestly seems a little redundant. Erik isn't particularly bold when out in public. He doesn't know many other ones; his family never went on long trips and the type of playing he's familiar with mostly encompassed the exploring, rough-and-tumble variety. _I love to play games with you_ , he grins back, eyebrows raised. But I don't know what we can play unless you are interested in _I Spy_. He laughs a little self-deprecatingly.  
  
_I am very bad at I Spy,_ he admits, laughing, because he sees things through other people and sometimes it's near impossible to tell when he stretches out what is his and what is not. What he doesn't notice someone else inevitably will. _You're also very bad at the Question Game. You like to make me skip my turn,_ he teases.They'd played it once, in the hospital that looked like Charles' apartment because they were in his mind. It reminds him of the games he used to play as a child, which are all incredibly silly in retrospect but they kept him from going mad with boredom when he was confined to his bed, sickly and lonely, and after, before Raven.  
  
Erik isn't very competitive at all, his favorite part about playing games with Charles is just listening to him talk and making him laugh, the only exception being chess, which he is quite skilled at. He's never been tested but he's good enough to keep up with Charles and their win/loss ratio is equivalent. It'd been part of his education, but before long he realized he was better than his tutor, so he began to deliberately play to a lesser ability as not to antagonize him. With Charles it's like letting his lungs expand to their full capacity and not getting struck in the solar plexus for the effort. "I like to learn about you," Erik laughs sheepishly, kissing his brow.  
  
It's not equivalent. Charles is winning by two, possibly three but the third is dicey because it devolved into something that is decidedly not chess, but he's fairly certain he would have won. He is competitive, and the correction is kneejerk and he laughs in the aftermath, pink-cheeked, especially because it's clear he's feeling shy about something, nudging his way further under Erik's sweater.  
  
"Mm-hm," Erik taps him on the nose fondly. They challenge one another, that's close enough for him. He knows full well that Charles is _better_ and will happily concede that, but it's nice to be able to keep up. It's a reminder that he can offer something cerebral, when most of the time he feels out of his depth. He's just not as smart as Charles, but he's one of the few people Charles has genuinely encountered who isn't threatened by that fact. Even when it comes to chess he's not playing against Charles as much as he's having a conversation with him, meeting him in a place where their minds can stretch and apply themselves, the arena that Charles is comfortable in. It's another way to take care of him, to hopefully be a worthy opponent. He believes he is, only because he gets the impression that having a single victory at all is unprecedented. He'll take that; he's actually proud of it, like it's an achievement that he's made. "What is it, hm?" he sifts his hand through Charles's hair, lifting his chin. "You know I always want to hear what is on your mind."  
  
It is mostly unprecedented. His father beat him once, when Charles was five and learning the game for the first time, when he was deliberately testing the waters and making moves to see what would happen, no telepathy yet (and also five) and never once after that. Erik is more than a worthy opponent, and Charles just doesn't think it's true that he's smarter. They may be intelligent in different ways, but he never feels as if he isn't challenged, as if Erik can't keep up. He doesn't feel like he has to dull himself down for Erik, either, which is most important to him. He can take him full-force, and that's exactly how he seems to want him. "Do you want to play my game?" he asks, quietly. "I've never been able to show anyone. I could never achieve what I wanted most with it, but..." But with Erik he can, and they have a couple hours to burn.  
  
And it is, exactly how Erik wants him, and he couldn't settle for anything less. Erik's grown up under the impression that smart has a specific definition; it's science and accolades and debates and mechanics. He's known that he's intelligent, he's just always had to hold himself back, never rock the boat. Always surpass expectations without threatening anyone, without undermining them or making them feel inferior, and he's convinced himself that means he really is of lesser intellectual capacity; things he deliberately hasn't learned, the way he speaks, even though he understands what people tell him, those who aren't his immediate circle still believe he's not mentally adept, speaking slow and loud at him like he's a child and he endures it patiently because it's what's expected. But with Charles it isn't like that. He's felt freer to dip his toes in, delve into his own mind, and not be punished for it. Charles likes it, encourages it, even. Erik brightens even further at the mention of a new game and smiles brilliantly, leaning down to kiss him soft on the lips. "I would be honored. How do we begin?"  
  
(The easiest way to get on Charles' nerves, by the way? Speak to Erik like he's a small, stupid child in front of him. It never fails to make his blood boil, and he never fails to speak up on Erik's behalf, usually with quite a bit of ice. He's a competent, intelligent, and fully-grown man. He understands English and everyone knows it by now, so that's a shite excuse and borders on insulting. He's also almost definitely smarter than you. Speak to him accordingly or not at all, or else face Charles' wrath, which, when it comes to defending Erik, he's learned can be unusually vicious.)  
  
But they're going to play a game together, and Erik is smiling at him and that melts more unpleasant thoughts away instantly. It'll be good to escape from the tiny plane seats for a bit, so he takes a breath and suddenly they're not on a plane at all. They're in a completely white, void space, floating nowhere and on nothing and Erik would recognize it from his first encounter with Emma Frost, when Charles wiped everything else away. "We start like this," he murmurs, still quiet, almost meek, but with a smile; he's not used to sharing these sorts of things, still, but he's all too eager to do it. The first thing he does is throw himself at Erik, though, because they're drifting in nothingness but at least they're standing and that means he can snuggle into Erik's chest and have his arms wrap around him, which is one of his favorite things. Big, strong Dominant looming over him and wrapping him up. He's kept his wrists bound, and that feels even better, even if he can't wrap his arms around his Dominant's middle.

* * *

Erik is already delighted; this is a game of the mind, another in the infinite applications of Charles's abilities that he's all too eager to explore and play in; it's no secret that Erik adores everything about him and that isn't limited to his mutation in the slightest. And you'd better believe that any time someone has the audacity to vocalize or even think otherwise, Erik is quick to shut them down with a firm glower or outright snarl; they should be so lucky to be graced by it at all, it is not for their small, weak, underdeveloped spirits. Every time Charles peeks up and lets loose on the hold of his capabilities to let Erik in further only brings with it more devotion, adoration and joy, and this is no exception. He's grinning wide, catching Charles mid-air and spinning him a little; not enough to be dizzy, before setting him on his feet and resting his chin in the crook of his shoulder, swaying them back and forth. "Hi," he beams down at his lovely submissive, pressing warm, chapped lips to the underside of his jaw, stooping over to do so.  
  
Charles shrieks and laughs, grinning wide with a belly full of butterflies by the time Erik is back to kissing and petting him. "Hi," he whispers back, breathless, and it's difficult to be shy when Erik is so enthusiatically encouraging. They're both encouraged to breathe in ways they've always been told to hold their breath to the point of suffocating when they're together, and it's completely freeing, utterly exhilarating. "Do you want to start, since you're the new player?" he asks, and he's aware he hasn't shared any rules to the game yet. Maybe Erik will spin him again. He likes that. Big, strong Dominant. Is it obvious Charles loves that Erik towers over him yet? He does. Very much.  
  
Erik chuckles, dipping him and pulling him closer once he's upright, and he can't resist kissing him again, drawing the string down from Charles's wrists just so he can take his hands, enjoying for this brief moment the fact that he's in full use of both arms and legs, and he intends to take full advantage, the room swirling into a bright studio of color and light, dark hardwood floors underneath so he can lead Charles in silly pseudo-samba dance steps. (He actually can do samba, but he's just having fun, spinning Charles around and grinning like a lunatic.) " _Vem Magalenha rojão! Traz a senha pro fogão te te te coração/Hoje é um dia de sol, alegria de xodó, meu dever de verão! Te te te te!_ " he sings in Portuguese, drums and triangles swelling in the background. "How are my moves?" he smirks, eyebrows bouncing. Erik is turning out to be super bad at this game!  
  
Charles is completely delighted, of course, but this does defeat the purpose of the blank slate. He grins, giggling and flushed with pleasure, pressed up against Erik which is exactly where he wants to be. Being dipped and twirled around is fun, and he loves it, but it wasn't his intention and he's stubborn. "Very impressive, but you're ruining my game," he accuses, trying to affect a pout. He manages, barely. Soon the room is white and void again, no music and no sound and nothing, and he tucks himself back under Erik's chin with a satisfied hum. "One thing at a time," he explains, flashing a smile up at him. It's clear he's played this game with himself many, many times. "It can be a big thing, like a ceiling or the sky or the ground or a smell or a sound, or a tiny thing like a single object. They don't necessarily have to fit together, either. But eventually the whole space has to be filled up." This is how Charles coped with the empty rooms, with the empty life. There was nothing, so he made something. Bit by bit, piece by piece, at first because it was easier and then because it was habit. Now he can do it with Erik, and make something together. He can only imagine what they'll come up with, taking turns and making a world, and he'll admit to being excited. It's like painting a picture together, except the picture is real and Charles doesn't need artistic talent. "Unless you think it's too silly," he rushes to add, eyes lowered.  
  
Someone else might not grasp the subtleties or nuances all at once, but Erik does, and needs no further explanation. The Landscape in his own mind is a little like this, except it's the shape of his mind itself, a product of millions of additions throughout his life, spaces he's lived in for a long time, unexplored reaches, a fascination with a pebble in the center of the clearest lake or a fiddlehead frond peeking out of wet mulch. Every blade of grass grown and tended to, a manner of staying sane when faced with mind-bending solitary confinement; a skillset that became imminently useful to him during his captivity at the CIA. Now, though, it's an opportunity for them both to create a space for one another, one that exists between them, not merely inside of each of their separate selves. He twirls Charles one last time and the world dissolves into brilliant particles of endless, fuzzy white, drums and bongos fading away like a distant dream. "Not at all, sweetheart," he whispers, fierce and warm and overjoyed to share this place. He tilts his head and walks around, Charles's hand kept in his.  
  
When Erik creates here, Charles can feel the Earth itself; magnetic poles and airline waves and harmonics and quantum vibrations. From under their feet they feel it in their toes, wet soil and marshlands growing out, rolling fog that sweeps in and the charge of electricity in the air, calling back to those early mornings spent side by side, ghosts to one another as boys but content on opposite corners of the globe, somehow satisfied that they were where they belonged, at one another's sides, seated on rooftops with feet dangling below, warm mugs in hand. Charles's filled with tea. Erik's with coffee. It all dissipates, though, leaving behind a single object, that mug of coffee that never fades, a warm dusty red color with self-made froth on top, inside a chipped mug with flower patterns drawn in shaky-sketched hand. _אריק_ , only this time it adds, _וצ'רלס_ alongside. It's fragrant and the whole space fills with the earthy scent.  
  
Charles smiles brilliantly, bending down to look and taking Erik with him. "Don't think just because you put my name on your cup I agree with your choice of beverage," he huffs, teasing as he sits down in the still-void, fuzzy nothing and considers. Erik went small, but significant, so perhaps he'll alter in a larger way. Lay down some basework. Those early mornings for Erik were actually the middle of the night for Charles, usually, and he's never liked mornings besides. In a blink the world is painted in black, and then in a million, blinking, shining stars, constellations and far-off planets enveloping the white space underneath where there's nothing Earthly to meet it yet. He's only seen it like this a few times, this extraordinary and bright, but he misses it. Light population makes the stars almost impossible to see in the city, and at least in Westchester they were visible. He could flop onto his back and stare, even if they were nothing as brilliant as this. "Do you have a favorite constellation?" he asks, wide-eyed as he presses into Erik's side and looks up in awe. That takes care of the sky, then.  
  
The ground beneath them forms into the bright, burning white endless fields of an extinct star, humming and glowing with life breathed in by their feet as they walk, turning the white edges of the room into warm thrumming star-dust. It begins to separate until they themselves are at the center of a vast network of stars, drawn together by threads and lines overshadowing their shape. At first they are together, _benat na'ash_ or daughters of the bier, Ayish is the Great Bear, Ursa Major, the four stars of the Wain surrounded by three in front, figures of mourning. Then fully, Mezarim including Ursa Minor, narrowing down to a single point, it's brightest light, the yellow supergiant Alpha Ursae Minoris or as it's known popularly, _Polaris_. It's shifting greens and atmospheric storms, brilliant waves of shifting cataclysmic sounds and colors swirled together. Star trails circling around trees with their shining center, perfectly aligned with the Earth's rotational axis above North-motionless as stars whip past, a lodestar, the guiding post.  
  
The constant, as his father used to say, _aei phanes_. Always visible. _"Rule men," he replied. "Do you suppose," asked the other, "that people want to buy masters?”_  
  
It is the place you always know is home, latitude and longitude on the horizon sky. It is what Erik strives to be in his life, for his family, for Charles, for his friends and the people who will come to depend upon him, who do already depend upon him to set an example; to lead. A reminder to be constant, to be always visible and to act with grace. Erik ducks his head, a bit sheepish and shy, even now worried his opinion will be cast off as stupid and insignificant. He knows better, but every time he shares something new of himself it's that cliff's edge before you jump off, the drop of your heart into your stomach as you wonder if this is it, if this is it at last, if you'll finally be seen for what you really are broken open on the rocks below.  
  
It isn't. It never will be. Instead Charles stares, blinking and awestruck, completely captivated. Then he moves. He jumps, knowing instinctively that he will never fall here, that he never could. Right into Erik's arms where he belongs, with no warning. Jumps until his legs are around Erik's waist and his arms are around his neck and he is caught and kept, and he doesn't wait a second longer before he is kissing him, kissing him deep and desperate and bruising, head-spinning heart pounding pulse racing ears ringing and the universe unfolding, the stars shining for them, all whispering of their love. _You are my constant, you are my guide, you are the way home,_ he promises. He always has been, even when Charles didn't know to look for him. In his darkest, starless nights, and his brightest, too.  
  
Erik lets out a little _eep!_ of delighted shock, body moving on total impulse as he catches Charles and kisses him back breathlessly, all the lights in the solar system pouring through his lips and fingertips where they touch. _You like my stars?_ Erik whispers, grinning with it, bordering on overwhelmed. The stars sing his love back, loud and echoing in the inky warmth of space around them, heated by every sun in the universe where they step, soles of their feet laying down strands of silky, golden fire. He is walking on sunshine, the words of his ring inscribed in the very Book of Life, from the moment he screamed air into his lungs and burst forth into the world a born creature. "Tell me your stars," he croaks softly, lips against lips, sweet and pure.  
  
"I love you," Charles whispers instead, and he is overwhelmed, sounds breathless and choked, the words barely audible even as they hum and echo. They're bounced back an infinite number of times until it's written into the fabric of the universe itself. He tries to think of something else, but all that comes out is, "Erik." He squeezes his legs around the Erik in question, kisses his cheek, lets go of his looping grip around his neck to bury a hand in his darling's hair instead because he knows he won't be dropped. Erik would never let him fall. "Erik, Erik, Erik," he breathes into the universe, because it's the most important word he'll ever say, has ever said. His one constant. _What's your name?_ little Charles demanded, frustrated. He already knew then, too. It's been written into him since birth, and if someone took him apart and read every cell, he knows Erik would be there.  
  
Erik keeps him steady, eyes fluttering shut at the hand through his strands of hair, curling behind his ear where he's most sensitive and melty. He won't be dropped, he never will. He could step off the edge of the world and the world would catch him in its embrace. "Charles," he whispers back just to say it, eyes bright and creased, nose wrinkled up in fondness. He will always be a constant, for Charles. He will always be here, he will always come back, he will always do his very best to guide him and walk with him and fill him with love and joy. Charles's attention has him sighing, languid and relaxed as he always is any time Charles focuses upon him, pliant and eager for the contact. "I love you," he kisses him again and again, deep and long and lingering. So much. So, so much.  
  
"We're both wretched at games," he decides when they finally break apart, but it's breathless and murmured against Erik's lips, his eyes heavy and his heart still beating in his ears. He squeezes Erik with his legs just because he can, lets go completely and feels himself held tighter in response. It's perfect. "Don't drop me," he teases.  
  
"I would never," he murmurs back, stroking his hand tenderly down Charles's face. They may be terrible at games, but Erik thinks they've both won, just look at their prize. The Landscape here, even the barest edges of its design, already so full of life and mutual love, significant meaning and soul-deep Bonds that hum a low chord plucked from a bow throughout the spaces in between stars. They will fill it forever, beautiful and whole.  
  
"Can I ask you a question, Erik?" he whispers, resting his head on Erik's shoulder, arms looped back around his neck. He doesn't want his feet to touch the ground ever again. Erik should just carry him everywhere.  
  
"Of course," he sways them side to side, the gentle motion of a rocking tide locked into lunar orbit with itself.  
  
"What did you think, after that first time? When we - when you realized you could talk to me? That we were what we are?" he asks, hushed as if not to disturb the stars. "When I walked out of the room that first time, what were you thinking? Did you know?"  
  
Erik laughs lightly, touching his jaw. "I thought that I finally found you. I wasn't planning on staying for my trial, you know," he confides, though that isn't a secret. "I didn't have any plan afterward, I just knew that I needed to see you again. It was worth the risk." And it still is. "Did you-did you know?" he wonders, curious. He's always wondered what Charles thought of him, that first time.  
  
"Not consciously." But he knew. Of course he knew. He smiles against Erik's neck, biting his lip. "I couldn't focus on anything. You were all I thought about. Also, I forged your labs," he laughs, because it's still amusing to him. Their first conversation had lasted... what, an hour? And by the end of it he'd been willing to put his entire career on the line for Erik, everything he'd worked for and all that he knew. It was worth the risk. It still is.  
  
"I remember the first time I gave you an Order," Erik murmurs softly. It was like breathing. Seeing for the first time. "Coffee," he laughs. "I should have known better, hm?"  
  
"There was no tea available at the CIA, so I think you took care of me just fine," he smiles, because it's true. Even then Erik took care of him. He always did, even before he knew it. "Did you..." All of Erik's memories are his. He could have easily found out by now, but he hasn't. He's always wondered this, though. "The first time, when we were interrupted. When I called you. Did you...?" Did he feel it, too? Was it just as awful, as unbearable?  
  
Erik nods. "I did," he leans over and kisses Charles on the forehead, soft. Still holding him, keeping him steady and safe. "It was easier when I heard your voice."  
  
Charles would happily spend the rest of eternity being held by Erik, legs around his waist and arms around his neck, held safe in strong arms. "It was easier for me, too," he whispers, nuzzling in close. Breathing Erik in. "It was the first time, and I was frightened. I didn't know what to do. But as soon as I heard your voice, everything was okay again."  
  
"It was scary for me as well," Erik whispers back. "I did not know what was happening. It was so painful. When I heard your voice it-everything became right again. I still do not know what happened. It happened once more, I felt that happen. I thought I would die, you know? But you came back and stayed with me."  
  
"I don't ever want it to happen again," he mumbles, rubbing his cheek against all the bare skin he can reach at even the mention. He can't promise it won't, because they can't account for every possible situation, and sometimes subdrops happen spontaneously, besides, but he does know he doesn't want them to be separated like that ever again. He doesn't want to be ripped from Erik like that. It does feel like dying, like drowning, like suffocating. He squeezes harder, whimpering quietly. "It was - hard, without you. Before we figured out how we could be together, at least in part. In our minds. I couldn't sleep, or get anything done. I felt..." Scared. Untethered, unsettled, unsteady. The way he's felt the past two days. He hates it. Is it pathetic, that he needs Erik so much? That when he isn't guiding and steadying and Ordering him he feels completely lost? He did it before. He managed before. But he can't, now. It feels so utterly wrong.  
  
Erik kisses him again, rubbing his back gently. "I know," he whispers. He knows exactly how it feels. He's good at keeping his pain to himself, but being separated from Charles was the hardest part of his experiences at the CIA. The dehumanization, the nasty guards, the rough handling, being hosed down with cold water, being strip searched every time he left his cell. Being constantly watched through glass walls. Being thrown into adseg without any light, cold and dark and alone for hours upon hours on end. Humiliating and frustrating and grief-stricken, but being with Charles made it all worthwhile. When he could see him again. When they could speak and touch. When they finally figured out how to be together in the mind space. Erik never wants to be parted again. He can't function when he's alone. He's cold and destroyed, cut from the warmth that makes him human. "I know. It will never happen again," he does promise, because even if physically it happens, mentally they will always have this.  
  
Charles knows it was much worse for Erik. He grieved for him, too. There was more than one insistent conversation about the conditions there, he did everything he could, and he knew it wasn't enough. But he's here now, and he's free, and he's with Charles and he won't let anything like that happen ever again. Never, ever again. He promises that. "I need you," he croaks, and clings tightly, hides in him. "I need you. I need you, Erik." He finds the strands of glittering gold Will that make up this place, tugs them around himself over and over. "I'm sorry. I know it's -" Weak, and wrong. Codependent. He can't help it. He needs Erik to guide him, even if they're not physically together, or he'll just... he'll get so lost. He's been lost his whole life and now he's been found and he can't be lost again.  
  
"No," Erik whispers. "Stop that. I don't want to hear that," he Orders softly. "I need you, Charles, just as much. It is not wrong, or weak. I am not wrong and I am not weak. We are strong, together." He taps Charles on the nose fondly and kisses his brow. "We won't let ourselves get lost. We have one another now. You will never be alone again. That is what we vowed to one another." Just as much as Charles needs direction, Erik needs to guide. And he can't consider it pathetic and weak. It is beautiful, it is them.  
  
Charles is shivering in the aftermath, nosing into Erik's neck, kissing the skin there as he's calmed instantly. "Again," he demands, because the particles that make up Charles will always be bossy and they will always be Erik's and Erik is right. Not wrong or weak. They're strong together. "Again, please," he says, apparently remembering to ask nicely.  
  
He pulls back and kisses him on the lips, soft and warm. "We will never be alone again," he whispers. "I will always be here for you, and you will always remember this." The Order is a spark. "I will never let you forget, _neshama_. This is our strength." He brushes some hair away from Charles's temples and strokes down his neck over his collar. "This means that you are mine. Forever."  
  
"Mmm," Charles hums, eyelids fluttering as a long, shuddery sigh wracks his whole body, his toes curling where they're around Erik's back. "Yes, sir." He wonders something else, curiosity rising up again as he peeks at Erik, shivering every time his collar is touched. "Does it start to... hm." He was going to say hurt, but that's not necessarily the right word. "When you don't Order me for a while, like these last two days, does it feel strange for you, too? Wrong?" It did for Charles. Uncomfortable and awful. "For a while you didn't do it much. You were holding back. It felt uncomfortable for me, and I wondered if it was like that for you, too." An Order is the quickest way to settle and calm Charles now, no matter what it is. It's immediately grounding, even something as simple as 'please get that for me' or 'sit down.' It doesn't need to be verbal. A thousand different Orders, woven around and into each other through the day along with expectations, ground rules, different applications of Will, and Charles is never out of place unless he deliberately steps out of it. And when he does, Erik is no longer shy about putting him back when they need that, too.  
  
"Yes," he murmurs. "It feels like I am out of my body. Back when I did not really exist. I wanted so badly since the moment I first Ordered you. It frightened me, I thought I will make you do things you don't want. But now it is like breathing. It's the only way I get air." When he'd been too disoriented before it also felt like Erik didn't even exist, walking around confused and sad and terrified. This is where they belong, two perfect mirror reflections of one another. Giving Orders, feeling Charles respond to them, it's the fastest way that Erik knows to center himself. "I am glad you are comfortable now," he whispers softly.  
  
"I'm glad you are, too," he whispers back, and he's sleepy again. Sleepy and comfortable, surrounded by Erik and the stars. "You give them differently sometimes, but it's always what I need. As long as it comes from you, and no one else." He might have bristled a bit at the Orders when they'd gone to explore that vile lab, flipped through those files, but he'd needed that, too. Even if they'd sounded very much like sit and stay. He grins, laughing softly. Whatever the flavor, he'll respond to it, even if he fusses at first. Erik has a way of shutting that right down now, unless there's a legitimate concern. "Can I ask another question?" It's quiet again, tinged with faint nervousness.  
  
Erik touches his face apologetically. He hadn't enjoyed that either, but he knows that it's the only way they managed to remain stable there. Some pieces don't know how to be kind, how to deal with the fact that Charles is in their care, but they always try. All of him always tries. He nods, rubbing his thumb across Charles's jaw. "Anything."  
  
Charles leans into the touch, a plant turning toward the sun. "Did you ever..." Maybe it was just Charles. Maybe it was just something imagined, or a product of telepathy. He bites his lip again. "Sometimes, before we met at the CIA, I'd feel... connected, I think. I didn't know to who. I'd feel sad or angry or -" He'd hurt. Pangs of agony that weren't his, so sharp and inexplicable it winded him, knocked him right over. He can think of one time in particular, but he doesn't exactly want to connect his experience to whatever terrifying memory it coincides with, if he's right. "I always thought it was just me picking up from someone at random, that it was a normal telepathic experience. But I think it was you," he whispers.  
  
Erik shakes his head quietly. "It is possible I did," he grants, "but I tried to stay far away from my mind. What did you experience?" he asks, eyebrows raised. It isn't a request, but it's gentle. He suspects that Charles is right, but the proof is in the pudding. He can at least confirm that Charles is correct, that he isn't crazy. They've always been connected, and if Erik were really present for anything other than as an empty automaton he knows it would be true for himself as well.  
  
It could also be one-way. Charles has spent most of his life behind one way glass, and his telepathy has made him much more in tune with things like this; he'd needed to start the connection for them to have it the way they do, though it's since evolved into something made of both of them. Just another way he's contributed to what's between them, the same as Erik does. He hasn't examined this much, but about a thousand examples immediately spring to mind, clambering all over each other for his attention. He goes with something as soft as he can manage to start, one of his earliest examples.  
  
It's a quieter memory. Charles is fourteen, reading a textbook and curled up in bed. Now-Charles attempts to drown out the circumstances, but there's nothing for it; he's clearly covered in fresh bruises himself, his eye visibly black, his cheek swollen. It's sore and radiating that hot, spiky sort of pain with the rest of his body. He's halfway to the next chapter when he stops, suddenly alert and sat up in bed. When he realizes it's not anyone in the house he's picking up on, though, he blinks, confused. His range is nothing to be impressed by at this age, especially not compared to now, and though sometimes he catches things like he did when he was younger, a radio picking up far-off transmissions, it's not often. It isn't thoughts he hears, but feelings, and those feelings are incredibly sad. There are tears spilling down his cheeks before long, and he touches them, startled and concerned. He doesn't know who he's sending it to, but he projects back calm, and warmth, and comfort, hopes whoever it is hears it. He feels that they're there with him, somehow, so he reads his textbook aloud so they can listen, a makeshift story like the ones he reads Raven, feeling incredibly silly for it later.  
  
Then he's sixteen, going on seventeen. He's bent over the toilet and vomiting, which isn't ever the greatest position to be in, completely past blackout drunk but his body never passes out at this stage. He can never figure out why. There are enough pills in his system to take out a horse or several and he's shaking with it, violently, hot chills all over as he spasms. It feels like someone is there with him again. It's not Raven, who he put fast to sleep and made sure stayed there, the only application of his telepathy he sometimes uses on her. He feels like someone is holding his hair back, even though no one is, of course. Wishful thinking. It lingers, the sensation, and he's grateful for it. He goes to take another sip of vodka and somehow doesn't, ends up in bed instead. In the morning he's confused because he's tucked in and doesn't have a hangover, which is a universal constant for him at that point of his life and only ever solved by more substances.  
  
A dozen more instances, some much more recent, flashing by so Erik can see them. Some of them last a second. He's crossing the street and something hits him like a truck, nearly bowls him over. He puts his hands around his middle and gasps, pain spiking through his entire body. Horns honk at him and the world comes back, he brushes it off. He's sitting down at his desk and going over case files when it feels like someone's angry, but not at him; he instinctively responds with something soothing, absent-minded and half-absorbed in his work. The most recent, then, only months ago, and he knows exactly what it's related to, doesn't need to examine it further or seek confirmation for this one in particular: he's out to lunch with Warren between appointments, laughing about something or other, when he stops dead in his tracks. It feels like the Earth is shifting beneath him. He feels it in his throat, his stomach, his chest. It pops in his ears. He grips the table for support but it doesn't make him feel any less like he's about to fall off, and Warren is speaking but even in the memory it's drowned out, all sound becoming screeching, seething noise that sounds suspiciously like screaming. When it ends, when the room comes back and sound floods back in, Warren is leaned over the table, firmly repeating his name.  
  
He assures him it's nothing. Just a weird glitch, and taps his temple like always with a shaky grin. It isn't a glitch.

* * *

Erik gasps as the memories shift forward like pages from a book and he sets Charles down on his feet just so he can grip him tightly with both arms, burrowing his head into his shoulder. Faced with it, he knows this to be true. He's felt that in the past; he remembers that night, curled up in his threadbare, dirty room with two fat, sweaty businessmen passed out on his bed and one at his feet, all covered politely by their suit jackets, and he's in the corner struggling to breathe and then he's retching up the piteous meal he'd had the day before, and he presses himself back into the wall, smoothing his hands over his knees over and over again as he reaches out of himself and tries to calm down the spiky, shrieking sickness, the pounding headache, taking it into himself and wrapping it up in equally threadbare comfort. He imagines holding it in his hands, patting its back and stroking its hair, this undefinable feeling. The images flash in his mind too quick to hold onto, tending to this person like it's one of those fragmented pieces in his mind. He drapes a blanket over it's shoulder and shushes it in his secret-language and tucks him into bed, drawing up all the residual pain into himself so he'll dream peacefully. "I remember that," he croaks, smiling wetly.  
  
Charles clings tighter, if that's possible, tears welling up in his eyes and he wriggles until he can bury himself in Erik's chest, boxed in by both arms. "I felt you a lot, I think," he whispers, curling his fingers into the fabric of Erik's sweater, afraid to let go. "I tried... but I'm sure it didn't help much," he laughs, self-deprecating and quiet, hollowed out. "I didn't know. If I had known -" He would have, what? He doesn't know. He would have done something.  
  
"It did help," Erik says back almost inaudibly. In the most brutal times, in the most brutal places, he's always been able to find his center. That calm, the burning ember of his core that allowed him to survive, put one foot in the other and keep going, inspired him not to end it all when he was so very, very tempted. His dream was to kill himself for a long time, to get to a place where no one relied on his expertise to live, where he was not responsible for his children, so he could swallow a bullet and be done with everything and float away in peace. But that small light in him, that whispering voice he now knows isn't his own. It didn't let him.

The one memory it's clear enough that he heard, he heard words spoken to him. The incident was brutal. He's young, maybe thirteen. Most of the time, by that point, Erik existed outside of his body but that day Mr. Ivanov was angry, he wasn't being merely punished-the man felt antagonized and he was taking it out on Erik. He doesn't want Charles to see the rest of it, ashamed and humiliated and he fuzzes it out, but he's screaming, an otherworldly sound, a noise no _human_ should ever make, eyes wide and unseeing, body contorted in its restraints as far as they will go.  
  
And he feels someone brushing his hair from his face, touching his cheek, kissing his forehead and he cries and his lungs heave, desperate for air. It almost kills him, and he always thought he was delirious but he heard whispers, warm lips against his ear. _You are going to be OK_ amidst the yelling above him he's too agonized to parse. _You are going to be OK, I've got you, I love you, stay with me_. He'd latched onto that with all his strength, a kindness he must have given himself from the deepest depths.  
  
"I heard you," he whispers.  
  
Charles can't speak. For a while he is silent and still, but not gone; if Erik looked, if he listened, he would be there and he hasn't detached himself or even muted much. He starts to shake. He starts to shake, and then to sob, horrible, wrenching sobs that flow through his entire body, that make him shudder and gasp, and he clings with everything he has. He clings to Erik's sweater as if it's a lifeline, buries himself as far into him as he can possibly go and then goes further, weaving himself into the fabric of Erik's being and tying himself in knots though he knows he already exists there, too.  
  
Erik clings back tightly. "You kept me alive," he says, soft. "Never forget that. Never." The Order is vehement and visceral, softly uttered but woven through every single sparking neuron that Charles has, lit up like the thousands of stars big and bright surrounding them, under their feet, strands of sunshine between their toes.  
  
"I'm sorry," Charles sobs, broken and cracked. He's still shaking, violently so, and there's an awful ache in his chest, it's getting difficult to breathe. He thinks it must be so outside of this place, too, in their bubble in that tiny plane seat. "I'm s-sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry I wasn't - I'm -" He's crying too hard for words. "It should have been me. It should have been me."  
  
Erik shakes his head. "I am thankful every day of my life it was not. I never want to hear you say that," Erik murmurs softly, kissing at his tears. "It will never be you, never." That would destroy Erik beyond any repair, of that he is certain.  
  
Charles shakes his head, still crying, snot down his face and his chest tight as he forces himself to breathe. His eyes are tightly closed. He doesn't say it, but he thinks it. It should have been him. It should have been. Erik could have lived a perfectly happy, normal life, and Charles - what did he have to lose, anyway? It wasn't like anyone had ever loved him. He would have been easy.  
  
"Stop it-stop it," Erik Orders roughly, putting his hand on Charles's chest. "Calm down and breathe. I don't know why it happened the way it did." Erik was undoubtedly healthier, and his DS score factored in, and Shaw simply took a liking to him, enjoyed breaking him in. Stripped him of everything he'd known and loved, a village boy with no one looking for him. "But I am glad that it did, because I couldn't take it if it were you, so don't. Do not ever think it would be easier and perfect for me, Charles Xavier. It would end me."  
  
And where does that leave Charles? Where does that leave Charles, knowing it's happened to Erik? That it happened to Erik and part of him knew and he didn't do a single thing about it? That his father had worked with the man who had taken everything from him, that he had struck a deal, done some dirty work for him in a government lab? Where does that leave him? It's the first time an Order doesn't work immediately, or at least not fully, because while he doesn't hyperventilate like he feels he should be, he's shivering enough that it looks like spasms, anything but calm as he sobs hard enough to hurt, his stomach coiled tight as he chokes on his own spit and tears and snot.  
  
He's shaking his head, stepping back even though there's nowhere to go, arms around himself like it might hold him together.  
  
"It leaves you with me," Erik says flatly, his voice loud enough to drown out the dissent in Charles's mind. He doesn't know exactly what's happening in his internal workings, but he's feeling suddenly adrenalized, big sweeping waves of nervous flashes striking through his body like lightning. "There is no _possible_ universe in which what happened to me is a result of your failing," he whispers, pulling Charles back against him and wrapping him up tight. He's trembling from head to toe, disoriented. It's a natural impulse, he knows. What happened to Erik is so overwhelmingly out of the realm of normal that it feels like an endless avalanche crushing him and breaking him and slashing him up over rocks. Morality was backwards, he lived on the _Planet of Shaw_ and he knows Charles feels the echoes even when Erik does his best to stay stable and happy. It's a natural impulse to want to control that, to have some power over it, but the fact of the matter is that there was nothing either of them could do about it. "You were a baby. There is no _possible_ world in which this would be made better by having happened to you instead," he says. "The only comfort I draw from it is that it did not. You got to live. It wasn't a good life, but you were spared some of it. I will take it for you, always. That is my job, that is my role as your Dominant and your protector. You kept me sane. You kept me alive. It leaves you with me. I know it's not enough," he croaks, raspy and thick, "but it is all I have."  
  
Charles would have killed himself, if he hadn't just died as a result of something done to him. It's not much of a thought experiment when those are the only two end-options and he knows it with as much certainty as he knows anything. His body was not made to be physically strong like Erik's; even under the best circumstances he's slight, small, perhaps fragile, and that's just a fact. His mind is strong, exceptionally so, but his telepathy heightens every experience. He feels it double. There's no way to crawl into his own mind when he's tugged into the minds of others, held there tight to experience his own abuse through their eyes and then relive it in physical sensation in feedback-loop horror. It's what made his own abuse unbearable. If he'd experienced what Erik did, he would more than break. There would be nothing left. Either he died, he managed to off himself, or he became a shell so empty and hollow it no longer resembled a human being, craving death like a worm frying slowly on the concrete. Mindless and writhing, a creature to pity.  
  
Azazel Rasputin didn't need to torture or rape him to nearly break him that night. His thoughts would have done fine, and the acts themselves would have been the cherry on top of the cake. There would have been nothing to save him.  
  
None of the options are particularly pleasant. They are not happy endings.  
  
Charles is still shaking in Erik's arms, still crying, but he's limp otherwise. He doesn't cling back. How dare he talk about his empty life when Erik -  
  
"I was trying to kill myself," he whispers, and he knows Erik might have seen glimpses but this is one thing he has always hidden, unconsciously. "That night you - I was trying to kill myself. How pathetic is that? That you -"  
  
It was right before holiday break at Oxford. He was set to go back home. The thought of spending every night - of...  
  
"I called Warren," he says, and it's choked but flat, hollowed out. "He didn't answer. I left a voicemail." He still doesn't know how that had gone over. They've never talked about it, and he's deliberately filtered out any thoughts concerning it. Edited them right out. Warren had an infant son and a company to run. Charles hadn't expected him to pick up the phone, and he'd been grateful when he didn't. "And then I took a whole bottle of pills."  
  
Erik knew, or at least, he could fathom it. What Charles endured is not on the same level, his abilities being as incomprehensibly vast as they are, how deeply he can go, how closely he lived by it every day. But Emma Frost made sure Erik understood intimately just what it's like to have a telepathic component to pair along. When she was feeling particularly creative she'd leave an open link between him and the twisted ugliness in the other room, which was especially amusing when he'd initially been too young to understand what any of it meant; euphemisms and demands he'd tried to scramble together piecemeal, his fumbling a terrible entertainment for the masses.  
  
It's why he understands exactly how horrific what Charles endured was, if it were even halfway comparable to what Erik felt, he's sure he would have killed himself as well, and damn anyone else who got hurt because of it. He'd be dead, not his problem. But as it was he didn't have a choice, he wanted to, every day, but he'd look at the face of the latest person to be captured and know that their brief existence there-before they were killed, if he were gone-they would know nothing but agony in their last moments, and Erik couldn't do it. He couldn't leave them like that.  
  
"I know, sweetheart," he murmurs back into Charles's hair. "Why do you think I had to come say hello? I wish I figured it out sooner. You would have had a much nicer life, neshama. I would have held you and sung you songs and read you stories. You could have felt how much I loved you every day. But we are both here, now, that is where we are left. With one another. And I will make sure you feel it every day anew."  
  
"I just - I can't -" His hands come up from his sides finally, bunching the fabric of Erik's sweater again and tugging hard as his eyes close tightly enough to be painful. The tears leak right out. "I would say I can't imagine it, but I can. I just don't see how anything I can offer you will ever make up for any of it. I don't have enough to give you, Erik." That's what breaks him more than anything.  
  
"No," Erik shakes his head. "That is enough of that. I won't let you get away with this lazy self-condemnation, Charles," Erik laughs softly. "You know the answer." He taps his temple. "You can see the answer inside of me when you look. You offer me your self, and that is the only thing I've ever wanted. You bring me joy, every day. Look at what we've created together, our Bond, this place, I won't let you say it isn't enough. I will not allow you to disparage that. Everything that has happened to us has lead us here. This is where we heal. I am not broken beyond repair. I thought I was, that I wasn't a human being, but it's not true. I'm not a piteous creature. I'm your Dominant. That is everything."  
  
"'Lazy self-condemnation'," he manages to huff, and then he dissolves into sniffles, shivering occasionally against Erik as he curls in close and burrows into his chest. His thoughts turn significantly darker, and he fuzzes them out, trying to take even breaths as he clings.  
  
"Indeed so," Erik murmurs warmly. "Look in my mind." It's an Order, soft, a far preferable exercise than entertaining the demons that bang on the door of his own. The only thing that Charles can see for all the endless miles, is love and devotion and humor and joy. Life, in all the places that have sprung up in response to Charles, that exist for him. His submission, his care, his emotions toward Erik are as nourishing as food. "This is where you belong. And I know you know that our Bond is beautiful, so don't dare think otherwise."  
  
That was never really in question. It couldn't be. Charles looks anyway, sniffling and still against Erik, and eventually calms. His sobs become quiet, hiccuped things, a slight tremble but nothing quite as violent as before, and the more he's held by his Dominant the more it's eased. That dark, simmering thought stays, rumbling in the background, but he softens up, lets himself relax into Erik's mind, their Bond, their created world. His arms, the only place he's ever felt entirely safe and secure.  
  
"Tell me," Erik Orders once Charles has begun to relax against him more deeply, running his hand over his back and through his hair.  
  
Charles startles, not expecting the Order somehow. He bites his lip and mumbles it into Erik's chest, and it evaporates into the air. Technically he said it. He doesn't often look for loopholes to Erik's Orders, but if he does, the mumbling is his favorite.  
-  
"Tell me, _properly_ ," Erik murmurs, that snap of Will occurring every time Charles tries to circumvent something, a steady hand reminding him fully of his place.  
  
"I was thinking that I hope Sebastian Shaw hangs like the Nazi he is," he says, deceptively soft, and that cold, quiet rage drips from every word. He knows it isn't his prettiest thought, or his most pacifistic. So be it. Erik asked.

* * *

Erik used to worship him. He used to beg him for scraps of attention and transformed himself into everything that he wanted, a perfect soldier in the war against inferior humans. He's ashamed that for most of his youth he believed that doctrine wholeheartedly, that eugenics held any form of merit, that humans deserved to be subjugated because they were primitive and all they did was build atomic bombs and beat each other to death for being gay.  
  
A poisoned mind, desperate for the love of a monster. It's what he hates most about Shaw, how twisted his thoughts are about it, how it feels like he can never, ever untangle them. How complicit he must be when he had to have known, yet still, idolized this butcher, this murderer, how ashamed his mother would be. How ashamed his teachers would be. The answer now comes without hesitation.  
  
"Me, too," Erik whispers back, ducking his head against Charles's. "If you ask me if I believe in the death penalty, I don't, you know. I don't think it's right and there are many more issues involved beyond simply ending a person's life. But some people deserve to die. He is one of them, and it would not aggrieve me if he suffered."  
  
Charles doesn't believe in the dealth penalty, either, which should shock no one. He shakes his head, though. "You're wrong," he whispers.  
  
Erik blinks. "You-I do not understand," he murmurs. He thought they were more or less in agreement here until two seconds ago.  
  
"You said some people deserve to die, and I just don't believe that's true," Charles whispers, and his voice is harder than it ever is, usually, cold as ice. "But I would not classify someone capable of what Shaw has done a person." Perhaps it's semantics. Perhaps it's dangerous and bordering on the escalation he fears, to dehumanize someone like this. He doesn't care. To say Sebastian Shaw is a human being with a heart and anything vaguely resembling a soul any longer, to even imply it, is practically a crime in itself. Charles doesn't believe in the use of what he considers unecessary force, in violence, in retaliation. What he does believe in is protecting the innocent, preservation of life, justice. All furthered by a noose around Shaw's throat.  
  
Charles meant what he said in that courtroom. Shaw truly does not deserve an ounce of his mercy, and he has none of it. To think he ever considered it is laughable. There is no being the bigger man here. There is only evil, and the most effective means of eliminating it. Charles can be pragmatic when it's necessary, and he can concede what he considers his firmest-held belief then and only then.  
  
It is necessary.  
  
Erik still rubs his head, feathering the strands of his hair through his fingers. "I do not know," he replies softly. "Shaw is not a singular entity. So many people behaved that way. I think divorcing them from being human makes it easy for us not to hold one another accountable for our actions. It is part of human nature, an ugly part. We're just animals, we've barely evolved from hurling feces at one another and beating on our chests. We can be ugly and gross. We can be evil. Maybe I don't think he has a soul," Erik concedes with a small smile. "But his actions are _human actions_."  
  
"Then we have different definitions of humanity, because I could not disagree more," Charles mumbles, but that was never really a question, either. He knows he's the idealist, and it's a role he's comfortable playing even in the wake of this. All he's seen, all he's experienced. It's what makes up his core. "There are actions and paths that divorce you entirely from anything resembling what I would call human. Perhaps it's not a distinction for me or anyone else to make. I'll easily concede that. But I think there are places you can go that you can never come back from. If I were a better man, I might pity him for everything he lacks." But he isn't. There's not an ounce of pity or grief in him for Sebastian Shaw. No mercy, and certainly no sympathy. "As it is, death might actually be the biggest act of mercy. I cannot imagine an existence more rotting and miserable."  
  
Erik presses his lips together, abruptly and all at once too stricken to speak and he just nods, rhythmically running his hands down the back of Charles's shirt.  
  
Charles catches them from behind his back, wiggles until he can and holds them in his, both of them, bringing them up to his lips to kiss. "I'm sorry," he sighs. "I didn't mean to..." he trails off, lowering his eyes. "I'm sorry," he repeats.  
  
Erik turns his head away, shame and self-disgust welling up in the cracks. "Do-you-" he clears his throat, voice wobbling. "-I'm human? I did-"  
  
Charles stares for a moment, blinking, as if he doesn't understand. He doesn't. "Erik -" He shakes his head, squeezing the hands in his, drawing Erik back. "Look at me. Look me in the eyes and say to me that anything you've done could even vaguely resemble the horrific, unimaginable atrocities committed by or else orchestrated, overseen, or endorsed by Sebastian Shaw. I know you can't because it's preposterous. You just finished telling me that you know you are a human being, because you are. If you begin to preach the benefits of mass genocide and find human life to be worthless and expendable, perhaps we'll have a chat, but until then I want none of this lazy self-condemnation." He smiles, just slightly, the barest twitch of it. "And that's final, I'm afraid."  
  
Erik swallows, squeezing Charles's hands and burying his head in them, ducking away his eyes. "I try to," he whispers. "You make me feel like I am. But I did, I did. I did those things. _Actions that divorce_ -I did them. You don't think-how do you draw the line? How do you say someone like me has a soul?"  
  
"It's not an easy line and no one should be put into a position where they have to draw it," he sighs, but he's not idealistic enough to think no one ever will be. Not in the world they live in currently. "Let me answer your question with a question. What do you define as a soul, Erik?"  
  
He puts his palm flat out over Charles's heart, peeking up to meet his eyes. He doesn't know how to answer that question, it's something he feels. Inside everyone, he can feel it. It's their life force, their reasoning, their compassion. It's what makes humans feel alive, organic, worthwhile.  
  
Charles nods, expecting it. He reaches up and touches Erik's heart, too. "Do you think I have a soul?" he asks.  
  
Erik nods back, unable to help a small smile. "Beautiful one," he whispers.  
  
He can't help it. He flushes and gets a bit squirmy, because Erik complimenting or praising him always has that effect. It's inevitable. "No, you," he whispers back, perhaps ridiculously, and abruptly forgets the point he was making.  
  
He leans over and brushes his thumb across Charles's jaw, kissing him softly, warm and he trails the pad of his fingers across his bottom lip when he just barely pulls back. "No you," he's grinning, small, but present, eyes crinkled brightly.  
  
Charles pouts, kissing Erik's fingers and huffing. "You," he argues, and now he's totally forgotten anything except that he's stubborn and Erik really does have the most brilliant soul, in whatever conception of a soul he has, that he's ever seen. That he ever will.  
  
"My favorite one," he taps Charles on the nose, drawing his bad hand down his chest, feels the flutter of his heart like a thousand butterfly kisses. "You gave me my soul."  
  
"No, I didn't," he shakes his head. "You always had it, Erik. But mine feels much nicer when it's touching yours like this, so perhaps you're not totally wrong." He smiles again, soft and shy, bites his lip and catches Erik's hand gently to bring it up to kiss again.  
  
"I am never wrong," Erik laughs softly. His eyes flutter shut just for a moment at the sensation, and he steps closer to Charles, bundling him up in a tight hug. He leaves his hand in Charles's, not relinquishing the touch. "I love you so much," he whispers softly. " _Ani ohev otcha me'od._ "  
  
"I love you back," he breathes, and rests against Erik, kissing the hand in his again and again because Erik liked it, because he wants to, because he never wants to stop making him feel good. "Even if you're wrong, because I'm the one who's always right. And that's final," he grins. "You might as well accept it, yeah?"  
  
Erik lays his head down against Charles's shoulder, shaking it once. "You are precious to me," he just says, eyes wet. "My wonderful submissive. My Bonded. _Neshama sheli_. I didn't lose you."  
  
And he never will. They have the rest of their lives to talk and play, and Charles can't wait, but right now he's sleepy and a bit overwhelmed. He breaks away from Erik long enough to lie down on a bed of stars, tugging his Dominant until he follows suit and he can snuggle into his chest. "Hold me, please?" he whispers, and closes his eyes. Not to sleep, but it couldn't hurt to rest up a little, surrounded by each other.  
  
"Always," Erik murmurs back. The stars transform into cartoon depictions of sheep and they float dreamily toward a bright, eclipsing moon brushing treetops and corn fields swaying in the breeze, navy blue sky dotted with star-dust brethren. There's a little barn and a windmill and they nestle into comfy wool and Erik wraps his arms deeper around Charles, holding him tight, keying up those small shifting places in his body that dial down everything and suffuse him with calm. _(Leap of faith)/Only thing to do is jump over the moon!/Last night, I had a dream/I found myself in a desert called... Cyberland./It was hot./My canteen had sprung a leak and I was thirsty./Out of the abyss walked a cow, Elsie./In Cyberland we only drink/Diet Coke (Diet Coke Diet Coke)..._ Although they're riding on sheep, not cows, but, you know... tomato, potato.  
  
Charles drifts in and out of sleep for the next few hours, held safe and kept in his Dominant's arms. The mindscape changes around them as he shifts, splashes of his own color and consciousness. He's a bit too sleepy for anything sweeping and creative, and it's nothing as surreal and dreamy as cartoon sheep, but he gives them soft fields of tall grass and old, leaning willow trees, a burbling creek and stretching blue skies to meet the dark stars, existing all at once in the same space. Perhaps one day they'll play their game more effectively, Charles intends on it, but for now it's perfect.


	52. even to the roughest surf there's a rhythm findable,/which is why we keep coming here, to find it,

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i. [_the music of natura non contristatur_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJDx_-aCY6U&list=PLTiAr7KBNulzPVA-dzAO4V7_sCRSDLiSu&index=1)  
>  ii. both _sisim_ and _ardat sadot_ are fictional  
> iii. tw, mind the tags  
> iv. _song of the sea_ , exodus 15:9-10  
> v. _shoftim_ , deuteronomy 16:18

He's been monitoring the world outside of them, filtering it in only when it's necessary. The announcement that they're preparing for landing pings! into his consciousness like a notification popping up, and he's quick to sit up in Erik's lap and clamber toward the window before he can even fully register the movement. He all but smushes his face there, staring out as the clouds break and he gets his first peek at Israel outside of pictures and memories, telepathic projection, eyes wide.  
  
Erik digs his fingers into his knees, feeling the world sharpen as they circle over the area anticipating touch-down. They can't see anything yet but the runway and the busy port sections of _Ben Gurion_ , and panic screeches up against the glass cage of his mind _no no they can't be here they can't be doing this, calm calm calm_ Erik pulls his legs up to his chest, overstuffed in his chair to rest his chin on his knees, stealing little glances out of the window against everything else; his unconscious brain is edging closer to what it knows to be home.  
  
Charles immediately scoots closer again, blanketing the both of them in gentle, soothing calm, carefully tweaking all of those frayed nerves. He rests his head against Erik, reaching for his hand to hold and squeeze. Technically he's supposed to have his seatbelt on, they both are, but that's what projections are for and he much prefers this. "You're alright, darling," he assures, kissing Erik's knuckles. "Shh. No panic." His own mind is settling into the new place with a vibrating hum, eager and curious, spreading out and over and enveloping and exploring as he bites on his lip. It can't be helped. There are so many minds here he hasn't touched yet except in brief passing the few times he's stretched, so many things he hasn't memorized. He wants to see, but he tries to reel that impulse in, to leash his telepathy like it's an overexcited animal.  
  
"Promise?" he whispers, drawing his chin down his knee to crack one eye open at Charles, nudging closer to him and stroking fingers along all that eager telepathic resonance, gentle and reassuring and encouraging. A reminder it's OK to look, it's OK to be himself, Erik would tell him if he were doing something truly invasive or questionable.  
  
"Promise. I'm here, and we're alright," he whispers. He leans into that encouragement, too, still holding himself back. He can stretch so much further now, see so much more clearly, none of that awful screeching static he'd been plagued with for years. It truly is incredible, and it feels even better, psionic buzzing and charge reenergizing him as he acclimates and bounces slightly in his seat. Charles is just peeking now, peering into minds and staring wide-eyed and awed as they go about their lives, brushing gently and then moving onto the next, every encounter thrilling even when there isn't much to look at or hear. His curiosity is getting the better of him, he's getting ahead of himself; eyes and ears, _Charles_ , he reminds himself, _that's how people see the world, not through patchwork from others. Focus on the here and now, don't get too swept up in the voices._ It's a familiar reprimand for himself, and he presses closer into Erik, humming as he holds his Dominant's hand. Nicely leashed, now.  
  
They really are two halves of the same coin, because Charles's excitement spills over into Erik, who already is quite amped up and charged about it, but now he's got a small, undetectable smile on his face visible only to his Bonded. They're all bid to stand up and exit the plane in an orderly fashion, and Erik and Charles end up in the same line since even though he's a citizen he hasn't been formally registered anywhere for sixteen years. These people are equipped to do their jobs. They just ask questions. No pat downs, no taking off your shoes. It's surprisingly very polite and _very_ repetitive. They have a mutant employed by the metal detector who just touches everyone with the flat of their palm and nods to their superior, and Charles feels a forceful little jolt but nothing else when the same happens to him. Charles gets asked further questions about his extensive travel history but otherwise they make it out the other side unscathed.

* * *

Gertrude Yorkes meets them at the carousel to pick up their luggage, a brilliant grin on her face. "How was your flight? Tired out?" her voice is warm and soothing as ever.  
  
Charles is a bit distracted, if he's honest. If there's a single thing that fuels him besides his idealism, besides the compassion it's driven by, it's absolutely curiosity. He was wrong about having it leashed; his telepathy is its own entity now, touching everyone they pass like a particularly unruly child who can't keep their hands to themselves. Usually he takes everything in but filters it out except in small doses, lets his constantly working, whirring brain do the work in the background to give him the information he needs or might find intriguing, but now it's all flooding forward. Minds feel different in different places; the way they cluster and gather, the way they hum and buzz around him. It's energy, a vibe, perhaps, an atmosphere, and this is new and he's unable to ignore it. That it's Erik's home, that only excites him further.  
  
"Hmmm?" he asks, nearly tripping over said carousel as he shakes himself free of the latest group of minds he'd climbed into. "Oh. Yes, of course," he replies, though he hasn't actually registered the question, smiling politely and then tapping sheepishly at his temple. He flinches at his own touch, the area more than sensitive right now. "Excuse me, planes are a bit contained, so getting off one after hours of being packed in..." He gestures. More minds in the immediate vicinity, and a new place, one that's significant to Erik, and it's all a recipe for very overactive telepathy. He's still holding Erik's hand, though she can't see it, and it's not long before he gets a little !!! over his head and his attention is diverted again, eager and curious. He's buzzing, too, energy coming off him in waves though most would never notice it except in vibrations if they weren't sensitive themselves. He might need help not bumping into things. _Oh! What's that?_  
  
Gert laughs lightly. "I understand. I've made this flight so many times I'm practically immune. Erik," she adopts the calm, firm voice used to deal with her clients, especially when things are about to get a bit tough. "There's some people waiting for you downstairs. Would you like to come say hello?"  
  
He stares, wide-eyed at Charles.  
  
Charles immediately squeezes Erik's hand, his focus and attention snapping to his Bonded like elastic being tugged back into place. _I'll be right here with you. You'll be okay, darling,_ he promises, and he carefully, calmly wraps those glittering golden strands of their Bond around himself, tethering himself so Erik has grounding, too. He knows he'll need it, that this will be more than emotional, but that's alright. Charles will be there the entire time to anchor him through it, and he won't let him fall. _There are people waiting for you, my love._ And if his mental voice cracks some, it can't be helped.

* * *

Erik squeezes back tightly, the only sign that he's outwardly affected at all, and nods his head to Gert, who smiles gently at them both in response. The escalator leads them around the terminal toward the open area where families are waiting for their loved ones, and there's a man and a very blue companion standing next to him, with recognizable Magda beside, and they both break into grins and wave at him.  
  
The man is a bit older with greying hair at his temples, but there's no mistaking he's related to Erik; they could be twins but for his age. He has the same vivid green eyes and he's tall, but not as tall as his nephew. He's holding a sign that says _עסנהרדט/לנשר_ but at this point it's just for show, and wearing a simple submissive-styled suit with a crocheted _kippah_ clipped to his head, a common sight nearly everywhere now that they're closer to the city. When Erik and Charles emerge off the moving platform he hands it to Magda and takes a step forward, bowing his head to them both in a familiar gesture. It seems this family as a whole are fairly deferent. " _Nayim me'od, ani David. Baruchim hashavim habaytah, Erik._ " He holds out his hand to shake. " _Ani yode'a atah lo medaber, ve'ze beseder. Atah mevina?_ "  
  
Erik nods, swallowing roughly and taking his hand in a gentle grip.  
  
"You must be Dr. Xavier," David addresses him.  
  
" _Hallo_ , Erik!" Kurt Wagner chirps, tail swishing from side to side like an eager puppy. " _Schön dich wieder zu sehen! Hallo,_ professor." He bounces on his two-toed feet, shoe-less.  
  
" _Boker tov,_ Charles," Magda simply greets him with a fond smile.  
  
Charles is a bit overwhelmed, and not only because the entire situation calls for it. The rush when the plane first landed hasn't quite worn off yet, and his telepathy is oversensitive and, frankly, twitchy. It's clinging in the spaces between words and gestures, pouring in feedback from all ends, images and emotions and individual thoughts in several different languages, often with plenty to unpack. He takes a breath to steady himself and smiles, but he knows there are tears in his eyes. "Hello," he greets, and something strange happens, something that's never quite happened before. He's not sure what language he said it in, or what exactly he said; it comes out as everything, a catch-all greeting, something appropriate in response to everyone who addressed him. A perception change he's never done before, entirely unconscious, and it continues to spill over. "Charles Xavier. It's a pleasure to meet you." Or meet you in person, in the case of Magda. He realizes he's standing behind Erik, but not to hide. Simply to give him space, pressed into his side for stability and comfort. He ducks his own head, both in deference and to take a breath and keep the tears that threaten to spill for everyone involved off his cheeks. He manages, though he's trembling for it, working on muting everything down at least somewhat.  
  
Magda moves to give Erik a hug, and he leans down to envelop her very carefully in one arm, kissing the top of her head. "I'm glad you're here," she whispers up to him. "We'll give you guys some space, OK? Come on, Kurt."  
  
" _Aber warte-!_ "  
  
" _Im Moment Kurt. Lass uns gehen_ ," Magda snatches him up by the hand and tugs him away while he throws plaintive looks over his shoulder.  
  
Erik spares a small smile for the interaction, looking back down at his uncle, he lays the palm of his hand over the man's heart, meeting his eyes. He can't speak, words caught in his throat just as ever, but it's as effective as any statement he could say.  
  
David tweaks his nose with his thumb, appearing for all intents and purposes composed, but Charles can feel the tears prickling at his eyes. " _Atah dome ima shelcha_ ," he murmurs softly, under his breath-not something he meant to vocalize aloud. " _Toda raba le'ba. Ani mistakel al-hachadashot, hamishpat. Ani-_ " he breaks off, unsure how to continue. " _Ze kashe_."  
  
" _Ken_ ," Erik whispers, barely audible.  
  
Charles takes a step further back, still humming reassurance through the Bond but unwilling to intrude. His eyes are firmly on his feet, but he's watching all the same, and he can feel tears clinging to his eyelashes now. Perhaps they're his own, but he knows it's more likely they belong only in part to him. Sixteen years. His breath keeps getting caught in his throat, and he's got the beginnings of a migraine pounding up in there, but that's the last thing on his own mind as he witnesses this.  
  
Erik extends his hand for Charles to take and tugs him forward a few steps so that he's positioned in front of Erik, Erik's hand at the small of his back. " _Kanu'a sheli_ ," he's speaking through Charles, but it's just as effective. He smiles faintly, visible only to said submissive in question, but it creases his eyes in the Real.  
  
"I wondered," David says with a nod, and he claps Charles once on the shoulder gently. With the exception of Warren, who objected on Charles's behalf alone, there are few people who outright accept the relationship between Charles and Erik without prodding, but David isn't fazed at all. He's pleased, terrified that his nephew was damaged beyond repair, but he isn't. He's forming relationships, becoming more vocal. David has been proud from the sidelines for a while. "Did you make this?" he indicates the collar with a gesture.  
  
Erik nods shyly.  
  
"It's beautiful work."  
  
Charles doesn't have enough time to form a protest before he's being tugged forward, heart in his throat as he's introduced as what he is and not Dr. Xavier. He feels several things all at once, none of which are fully-formed but at the forefront an intense little jolt of pride at being claimed this way by Erik, followed by nerves so strong they flip his stomach over. He keeps his head bowed, though whether in deference or his own shyness, both unusual in a situation like this for him, he doesn't know. Either way his hand comes up to touch his own collar, smiling softly. It's more than beautiful, and having someone compliment it always makes him warm and proud, because he's the one who gets to wear it. That's an afterthought, now, because mostly -  
  
When he lifts his head slightly he knows there are tears in his eyes again, bright blue blinking them away, and his breath is still hitching. This is Erik's family, and Charles is meeting him as he is. He realizes he's projecting his own completely overwhelmed gratitude, his nerves and wonder and he takes a sharp breath, sucking it all back into himself before it leaks any further, dabbing subtly at his eyes. "Excuse me, it's a bit sensitive today," he says, and it comes out a whisper and also in the appropriate language as he gestures to his temple rather than tapping it, mostly because he knows it would explode into pain and that's not what any of them need right now.  
  
David touches his own forehead, fascinated by the sensation and a little delighted. "Telepathy," David murmurs, curious, tapping his own skull. "There is no need to apologize." He's speaking in English, with an accent far thicker than Erik's, but he's perfectly coherent. "I am a mutant also." He taps the small _Circle-M_ (with a stylized _mem_ ) pin attached to his tie; evidently the apple doesn't fall far from the tree there, either.  
  
The reaction makes Erik untense slightly; he'd been prepared to lash out at any perceived slight toward his Bonded, but it would seem that none were forthcoming. He swipes his thumb under Charles's eyes, tucking his head under his chin protectively before pointing at David, curious.  
  
"I see things in slow motion," he explains with a small smile. Like Erik it would seem he's not particularly expressive either. "It helps with my profession; I am a driver."  
  
Charles barely hides an amused smile as that little pin gets pointed out. Raven has started wearing one, too; as much as he disagrees with some of what's being called the mutant separatist movement, he understands it better than most. Besides, a school exclusively for mutants? A separatist organization by nature and he knows it. Ideally he'd like to integrate said school, but that's a conversation for much, much later. The point is, he's very fond of the _Circle-M_ , if not slightly exasperated. It eases him out, too, even as he tucks himself into Erik's arms. It's for both of them, really; he knows having him like this, secured and protected, helps Erik, too.  
  
"I've seen," he murmurs back, still quiet and strangely shy but grinning slightly as he gestures to his temple again. "It's a very interesting ability. Brilliant. I've never seen it before, and I've done research in mutant genetics." Said research is getting more traction than it ever has, but he still never expects anyone to recognize his work in genetics. He fights not to bite at his lip, and in the end utterly fails, because he's raised his eyes enough to meet David's and his breath has just gotten entirely caught in his throat again.  
  
Those absolutely otherworldly eyes run in the family, and he already knew it, but it's strange to see them on someone who isn't Erik and is - well. They really are family, not that there was ever doubt, and Charles never looks much into family resemblance because his own striking resemblance to his mother causes him quite a bit of grief, but this... it's nice. He smiles, just a bit choked up again.  
  
It isn't the first and it absolutely won't be the last _Circle-M_ pin he spots in this country; where some of its inhabitants are old enough to remember the days before its existence, Israeli mutants are uniquely equipped to understand the significance of self-determined organizations and facilities. Many baselines believe that separatists and supremacists are the same thing, but most people, David included, don't believe in anything more extreme than optional separate schooling and living areas; places which by their nature would need to be voluntary, or else that in and of itself would become oppressive.  
  
Erik's belief in pre-emptive mutant self defense is uncommon, but every day events happen that push more and more mutants to the internet, to their televisions, to seek out voices familiar to their own when they watch their families and classmates get harassed and beaten in public. And Erik's voice has become popular. He shows up to as many protests and events as he can, facilitated by Charles, and in a climate where opinions on the matter have become so polarized as to be incendiary-and with many mutants on the air entitled and regurgitating supremacist nonsense-victimized and powerless and looking to lash out (and despite what Fox News says)-Erik is fairly moderate.  
  
He advocates the use of force when standing one's ground is necessary, he advocates for separate educational, occupational and residential legislature and institutions for mutants that protects them as a class, and of course believes that mutants are safest around each other, in numbers. It goes without saying that Erik is completely opposed to integrating the school in any capacity, as he believes that undermines its purpose, but-and in his opinion this only proves his point-it's far too hostile out there to entertain that idea regardless.  
  
David gives him a smile. He's a taxi driver, not someone you'd expect to be well educated, but he grew up in the tradition of _yeshiva_ and study and logic and science. He values knowledge and dedicates a lot of his time to cultivating it in himself and his family, so it's not shocking that he's familiar with the theories. He's accustomed to jargon and complexity, so he's actively read the original papers rather than listened to reports on them. "As is yours," he returns sincerely. "I cannot imagine how you must see the world. It seems remarkable from this perspective."  
  
Erik tucks himself even closer to Charles, proud and glowing. "He is remarkable."  
  
"Are you well, Charles?" David's eyebrows knit together, concerned.  
  
Brushing his hair unconsciously, Erik nods for him. "This is... somewhat overwhelming. For us both."  
  
At that David laughs, a warm sound. "I believe I understand the feeling."  
  
Charles hides a quiet smile. It's strange, or it should be, to be acting this way in what's very clearly public with someone he's just met, regardless of their relation to Erik. In the past, he knows he would have lashed out, writhed against being touched this way and spoken for, but now it's exceptionally comforting. Strange, how that happens, but it's not the time to dwell or think himself up into knots. He leans further back into Erik instead, more than accepting his outward Dominance, especially because he knows his own submission is helping to ground both of them. "I get headaches, too," he offers sheepishly, because it's true and on no sleep and no food it's particularly awful, the oversensitivity starting to get to him. "Too many voices," he grins. "Jetlag never bothers me, but telepathic changes are a bit much, especially if there's a dominant language switch." Even if he's perfectly fluent in it. Just a switch, and a telepathic one is on an entirely different level. "But I'm perfectly alright, thank you. I know we've both been looking forward to -" He trails off mid-sentence, swallowing hard around the sudden lump in his throat.  
  
Erik winces, touching Charles on the cheek apologetically. He doesn't mean to speak for him or behave so possessively in public; he's having a hard time controlling himself and it's the one thing that helps him focus and ground, but he didn't intend to bowl Charles over with it. Even his Will is unfurled further than usual, causing everyone around them to shuffle and stare at their feet awkwardly.  
  
David keeps himself composed entirely on his own fortitude, but as a lower-end submissive, even family member, Erik is jarring. When Charles trails off, he nods and steps forward to take both of their hands in his, squeezing firmly. "As have I. For so many years I thought-" he shakes his head. Of course he thought Erik was dead.  
  
"Thank you for-I know-seeing me," Erik whispers. "Anything I can do to make it easier, please."  
  
David's head tilts, not comprehending. He certainly doesn't understand that Erik blames himself, that Erik assumes David hates him on some existential level; the only thing he's capable of feeling is immense gratitude and relief and love (you know, like a normal person) so it throws him for a loop. " _Lo, lo_. I am very, very happy to see you, Erik. And to meet you," he adds with a blink toward Charles. "I do not believe there is any further pressing business here, if you both would like to return to my home. It's remote; so it may help."  
  
Charles absolutely does not want Erik to apologize for it. There's no reason to control something like that. He wants more of it, actually, especially now, because the reason he stopped wasn't because he'd lost his train of thought or even that he'd been overcome by emotion. He's finding it impossible to speak, and his lip is wobbling, but the time to examine this particular quirk of his telepathy is not now in the middle of an airport, so he tries to reel it back in, to forget he'd seen it. It's there, though, and there are tears in his eyes again and he takes a slow, shaky breath and nods, smiling and keeping himself pressed firmly into Erik's front. Please behave so possessively and Dominant in public, goes without saying. No wincing or feeling guilty for something Charles desperately needs right now, too. And always, actually, but that goes without saying.  
  
Erik rubs his back, and can't help it, doesn't even check if they're hidden from view, he leans over and brushes his lips over the back of his neck, where metal meets warm flesh as his arm tightens minutely around Charles's hip, pulling him closer. There is no question that if Charles weren't here he'd be a silent, unmoving statue, completely inept and locked inside, but he's able to fret over Charles and that soothes him; and it has the benefit of soothing Charles, which feeds the loop and calms them both. All he can do is look up and nod at David, who's gesturing for Magda and Kurt to return, this time with a woman in tow.  
  
" _Shalom_ ," the woman gives a jaunty wave. " _Shmi Ellie, nayim me'od_." She touches her own chest instead of offering a handshake, smiling brightly at them. She's wearing a colorful red and yellow dress with purple flowers on it, a little reminiscent of Raven, with black tights on underneath and sparkly red heels, her hair elegantly wrapped in tri-toned shimmery fabric that falls down her shoulders with fringes hanging delicately along the edges. She pauses by Magda to give her a hug, adjusting her shawl fussily. " _Atem muchan lalechet_?"  
  
Oh. Charles feels like he's been punched in the gut, the way the next wave of whatever this is hits him, and he takes a sharp, slow breath, offering a smile and a tiny wave after he's composed himself enough to manage. Instead of replying, he presses closer into Erik, looks up at him, a bit whoozy and unsteady. One of his hands wanders to his temple, rubbing idly and wincing, screeching feedback immediately grating at his brain. Ow.  
  
One of Ellie's eyebrows creeps up. " _Re'evim? Yacholnu so'adim?_ "  
  
David gives a slight head-shake. " _Lo achshav_."  
  
Erik removes Charles's hand from his temple and kisses it instead, smiling at him. _Ma kara?_ he asks, instinctively forgetting to switch back to English, long-forgotten neural pathways activating to life the more he hears everyone around them speaking.  
  
Erik doesn't need to switch back for his sake anyway, and they spend most of their time together speaking both languages. It isn't like he's not perfectly used to it. Charles only shakes his head, though, focusing on not being too dizzy to stand and mustering up a smile. He's alright. They should probably not all crowd around in an airport. He doesn't speak and his thoughts aren't in words in any language, his other hand coming up to rub his other temple, pure impulse.  
  
Erik draws his other hand away, too, the reaction pure impulse of his own, nothing for it other than little adjustments, Will humming vibrantly between them as he shifts Charles toward him, controls those minor, unconscious movements because Charles is his and he's allowed, and it reminds them both of exactly their respective places. When they're lead out to David's van and all pile in, Ellie in front and Charles and Erik bundled up in the back with Magda and Kurt, Erik brushes his hair from his face. _Haged li ma kara_ , he murmurs in the Imperative, tracing his fingernail down Charles's jaw tenderly.  
  
Charles shakes his head again, but not in defiance, especially because he couldn't resist if he wanted to. He bites his lip and touches Erik's leg and gives his response like that, not in words because he's apparently not thinking in them and for Charles _tell me_ is just the same as _show me_ unless there's a specification. He's just overly-sensitive, and things are piecing together strangely, in a way they've never done before. It's overwhelming, especially considering the content, and a little jarring. He doesn't hide the jangling, sharp pain, either, or the wince when the car moves, and his fingers are back at his temple. He has to rub at them, apparently, even though it's never helped and he's been doing it since he was nine.  
  
Erik doesn't tell him to stop, content to draw his fingers away time and time again, a dance of Will and reassurance. He puts his own hand on Charles's knee and rubs at the inside with his thumb, giving him something better to focus on, something steady and soaked all the way into his bones, Dominance and the tick-tock of Erik's slow, swirling thoughts as if in molasses, wrapped up in cotton batting and calm.  
  
In the background Kurt chatters to him in German, eager and excited, about school and goats (they have _goats_ ) and how goats sound like old men groaning with creaky joint pain, and his job at a video store (he's becoming a budding movie buff, incidentally) and learning Hebrew all the various forms of shenanigans himself and his foster siblings have gotten into over the past few months. He's not afraid of Erik in the slightest, and judging by his tone he actively looks up to him, viewing him as something of a parental figure, which isn't far from the truth.  
  
So many people in the States hate and fear him that it's disorienting to him to remember that these are people who are truly fond of him, who maybe even love him, and they are safe and happy and he had something to do with that. Erik listens and divides his attention between everything, gaze catching out of the window and widening substantially as he realizes they are zipping through traffic at an ungodly rate, blasting through traffic lights and weaving in and out of jammed up lines, and he clutches the seat like this is a bad amusement park ride. Charles can see it perfectly from David's perspective, how everything is moving at a snail's pace, and he gently maneuvers himself in between the spaces of motion.  
  
It's just a bit overwhelming for Charles, who's putting on a very convincing front. He's trying to listen to Kurt, who he's more than fond of already and wants to give his attention, but every time he settles into it he's catching memories and thoughts and sounds and slowed down, blurry vision and languages garbled together and voices he can't make sense of and someone screaming and -He brings his hand up to his face, then ducks it out of the way like it might hide the fact that he's very clearly cupping his nose from Erik. It's probably bad manners to bleed all over your Bonded's family's car, so catching it with his hand is the only option anyway.  
  
Erik moves his fingers out of the way and draws his own through the blood, dissolving it away into particles that float out of the open windows and disappear on the wind, eyebrows knitted together in horror and worry. _Rak nase lehitmaked al'li_ , he directs, maintaining whatever well of deep, rooted calm he's managed to tap into since their arrival.  
  
Charles is fine. Getting rid of the blood doesn't do a whole lot when his nose is still bleeding, gushing rather impressively, and he grunts and lifts his head, still cupping under it with a hand because it's instinct. It's not as bad as it's been before. It's seething but not unbearable and he probably won't throw up, even. Maybe. Jury's still out on that one. He focuses on Erik, and breathing, and ignoring the fact that it feels like someone just dropped his brain into a blender. It's probably expected, he's had rough reactions like this before. It's basically jetlag?  
  
Erik gets rid of it and pinches his nose closed to stem the flow, drawing on an impressively deep reservoir of composure to keep Charles equally calm, talking to him and murmuring little snippets of stories under his breath in Hebrew, doing his best to keep Charles's attention on him and reduce the degree of suffering as much as possible, swaddling up his thoughts in that same worn, warm blanket he's draped over his own, huddling them together inside their Bond.  
  
Charles isn't panicking. If anything he's frustrated; it's been days since the last time something like this happened, and he'd truly thought that it was done with. That was apparently wishful thinking. The pain comes in waves like it usually does during these... whatever they are. Episodes? Everything's jumbled up and screeching for a bit, and then it sorts itself out, rights itself up, and he can breathe and think again. It doesn't make the residual migraine any more pleasant, or him any less nauseated and sensitive, but it's better than someone stabbing him in the temple repeatedly. He squeezes Erik's hand. _I'm okay_ , he promises, in words again. _I'm sorry. I didn't mean to_ , he sighs.  
  
Erik squeezes back, smiling gently. _I know_ , he murmurs, shaking his head. He doesn't mind, he never has and he never will. This is his purpose, to be with Charles and take care of him and help him endure when situations like this arise. In front of them Kurt is still chattering, completely oblivious as Erik nods in all the appropriate places. He ruffles Kurt's hair before turning back to Charles. _I love you._ He pets Charles on the cheek idly, and down his chest, mind open so Charles can continue to just focus on him and keep breathing, Erik's Will curled around him. His own relief is palpable when Charles begins to filter back in, every time these incidents occur Erik does panic on a deep-down level, suppressed below the ocean, because he's completely helpless and he doesn't understand what's really going on, he just has to sit and watch his submissive be in excruciating pain. Even if it is benign, the product of jet lag, Erik dislikes it, because he dislikes anything that hurts Charles in any way.  
  
To be perfectly honest, Charles dislikes it, too, and it's still jarring and frightening. That it was the precursor to losing his telepathy, even for only a few hours, is more deeply terrifying to him than he'd ever admit. There are times he talks as if he would rather it gone, but both he and Erik know the truth; it would be like cutting out a fundamental part of what makes him, distorting the way he interacts with the world completely. Charles would still exist, but in a way so different he can't even comprehend it. As it is, nothing so dramatic. He merely has to close his eyes or else be sick, the moving car not doing much to help with that. This part is less stabbing, more aching and throbbing. He keeps a firm grip on Erik's mind, and slowly peeks out, consciously, fearing the flood of input he's still getting. It's painful, shrieking, but not unbearable. Charles focuses on tiny details. Magda's in pain again. It must be worse, because he basically rewired her pain receptors last time they spoke. He tweaks it now, satisfied with the result. No pain. He moves onto Kurt, searching - pain? Aches, hurts. Old injuries. Ta-da, no more. He does the same for the two in front, melting it away. If he can't get rid of his own pain, he might as well; everyone has pain, but no one needs it in situations like this. Not exactly what they had in mine when they joked about telepathic analgesic, but this works, too.  
  
Kurt has bad joints, and some vision troubles which lead to stabbing headaches, pupils dilated a tad unnaturally behind customized contact lenses, but otherwise he's healthy, has all of his internal organs, and hasn't been maimed, disfigured or significantly disabled; most of the kids are in similar condition thanks to Erik's intervention-although he certainly wouldn't call it that. Every injury they have, every stab of pain they feel, he is personally responsible for; it's the result of a failure on his part to insert himself between them and their perpetrators, but they know from experience that things could have ended a lot worse.  
  
They did with Magda. Erik doesn't focus on those thoughts for long, he's more grateful than anything that they are for the most part healthy and whole, and they do genuinely seem happy. He worries a great deal about Magda, about the future, about the inevitability of losing her. At the very least she can pass with peace, and at this point it's a win. She melts a little into the seat and she turns a soft smile on Charles, patting his knee. "Thank you," she whispers.  
  
It's echoed in Erik, who tucks Charles under his chin and does his best to soothe, to put himself in front of that pain, to reassure that they're all OK, they're all here and Erik won't let anything happen to him. Not ever. He wonders why there's no way for Charles to tweak his own internal perception of the pain, probing and nudging against what he can to facilitate it himself, stroking along the Bond with his own capacity. Charles is always considering other people, always trying to help them, and fondness wells up in Erik. He really is a good boy, and Erik is immensely proud of him, to be with him, to share him with his newly-acquired family.  
  
If it's his telepathy causing the pain in the first place, it doesn't seem logical that he can edit it out with his telepathy. It's a small price to pay, in the grand scheme of things. He's always dealt with awful, sometimes debilitating migraines, and now he just needs to suffer through some sharper pain and a few bloody noses. It's nothing to be frightened about, though he still is. But it's Erik's praise that makes him melt more than the absence of pain, and he curls in tight, floating and singing with it, stomach flipping as he's suddenly shy again. It makes the migraine worth it, and then some. Charles tucks himself into Erik's chest and uses the position to block out some of the sensation, basically hiding in his sweater, and that helps. Erik helps. He always has a tight grip on Erik's pain, a constant, fixed alteration that slides accordingly and leaves him relatively pain-free throughout the day, but he checks on it anyway. No pain. All good. It makes him feel better. The pain's still there, but it's manageable, and through it some of the nerves settle back in. What if he's not liked? What if he's inadequate? What if Erik decides...  
  
Maybe he shouldn't add to the migraine with silly, irrational fretting, but Charles has always been excellent at fretting.  
  
Despite the near-constant numbing of Erik's nociceptive processes, he's experienced a constant deluge of panic-inducing, endless chronic pain for so long that he still feels it when Charles adjusts it periodically, his body still melty and relaxed even now. Some tension has gradually begun to resurface in his shoulders and back from the way he holds himself, from his posture as if he's trying to shrink himself as far as possible, from hypervigilant stops-and-starts, but he runs his fingers through Charles's hair, settling against him. He can't control what other people think about Charles, but the only important thing is Erik's opinion, and people who don't like Charles aren't worth his consideration. That extends to anyone who claims to call him family. Failure to accept Charles is failure to accept him, it's as simple as that. There is no choice to be made, and he lets Charles see that in its entirety, sprawled out along the vast expanse of his mind in perfect, golden-glowing light, a pulse-beat of their shared Bond that's come to define everything good he understands in the world. Besides, Kurt, Magda, David and Ellie are setting a good precedent. They're all clearly fond of him, and pleased with the influence he's had on Erik. They've all seen the video, and some knew him before. There's no comparison, and there's no denying that Charles is responsible for a majority of his progress.  
  
Charles' lips twitch in a tiny, tentative smile, breaking through the dizzying pain. He reminds himself he should give Erik another massage soon, too. _You can't not like people just because they don't like me, Erik,_ he argues, but then thinks about it. People who don't like Erik are not high up on his list of favorite people. He shifts against Erik's chest, considering pulling back, but the resulting stab of agony convinces him that's a bad idea. He bites back a distressed noise and burrows back in, fingers white-knuckled where they're gripping onto his shirt.  
  
 _I absolutely can,_ Erik replies, encouraging Charles to grip as hard as he needs to. He can't imagine that the reverse is true; that Charles would like anyone who doesn't like him. He tends not to like people who just plain condescend to him in ignorance, or people who can't help but be rationally afraid of a person they watched murder ten people. Erik has absolutely zero desire to make nice with those who dislike Charles, because in his opinion, they are undeveloped and small people and that will simply never change.  
  
He snorts, barely audible because making any noise at all is impossible right now. Ideally he would be in a soundless, pitch black box sunk to the bottom of the ocean at this moment, but hidden in Erik's sweater works, too. _A lot of people have actively disliked me, you know. Are they all 'undeveloped and small'? Are you sure it isn't me, and not them?_  
  
 _They are,_ Erik says with utter confidence. _Many people have actively disliked me as well, but I somehow cannot imagine that you are eager to throw them a parade,_ he smiles softly, rubbing Charles's jaw underneath his thumb. _No one who dislikes you is deserving of my time or regard. I don't care who they are. If these people are my family, they will like you. It is that simple. Otherwise I have no interest in a relationship with them beyond the professional._ It's very black and white, in his opinion.  
  
Charles can't argue too much here, since it works similarly for him. He does think it's amusing to hear it spoken so plainly, but it's also something else. Whatever emotion it is that he can't properly sort through at the moment, it's a pleasant one. No one has ever defended him as fiercely as Erik has, and no one ever will. His big, strong Dominant protector. He's smiling again, but when they hit a slight bump in the road he nearly retches, clinging as tightly as possible and whimpering quietly. _I think maybe they'll like me less if I throw up in their car_ , he sighs, miserable. To be fair, he made it through a ten hour flight with no nausea. Maybe this is the world righting itself.  
  
Erik bares his teeth in a snarl at David, more of those protective instincts, but this time directed at the wrong person and he winces once he realizes what's happened; for all that they've discussed David has done nothing to deserve his ire, he seems like a genuinely good person and he likes Charles's telepathy, and likes that he's Erik's submissive, two points absolutely in his favor, but there's nowhere else for Erik's frustration over what's happening-and how little he can do to effect it-to go. _Do not worry about that,_ he just says, soft and feathering his hand over Charles's stomach. _I will ensure it's all taken care of, I promise._

* * *

He hates that this causes Erik grief, but he's learned his lesson about hiding it. Thoroughly. Comparably, it's much worse that way, and at least when he's aware of it happening Erik can hold him while he fights off the urge to vomit, rub his stomach and back and shelter him. It takes quite a while, or maybe just a few minutes, but eventually he lets go of Erik's sweater, his hands actually aching from how hard he'd gripped. He turns slightly and blinks his eyes open, stifling the noise of disgruntled, jumbled pain by biting on his lip. Better. The world is making sense again, at least, and his telepathy seems as eager as before to go exploring. He tries not to be too exasperated with it. Instead he blinks, bleary-eyed, until something hits him and little _!!!!s_ pop up all along his consciousness and the Bond. _Israel!_ He tugs at Erik, mental and physical both. _Israel!_  
  
They've begun to slow down enough that individual houses and people can be spotted as they begin to weave through the heart of _Bnai Brak_ , but it's more accurate to say that David lives on the outskirts, in an offbeat little area called _Arvat Sadot_. Clustered together houses and schools and paved roads and simplistic industrialism give way to wide open swaths of grass and swaying trees, and residences get further and further apart, the black hats and suits of scurrying, dour people getting ready for the coming Friday night swirling into brighter colors and grinning smiles until David pulls up onto a loose gravel driveway that leads out into acres of tended land.  
  
And anyway, Erik is glad that Charles doesn't need to hide anymore, that he trusts Erik to look after him and hold him through it. At the observation, Erik huffs a laugh. _Yes, dearest. Israel._ Erik is excited, too. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't, and he can feel his power, glowing in his hands and rooted into the ground, as if it knows it's back to its source. With Charles by his side. He's never felt this degree of control, the whole world at his fingertips. The universe is brighter for Erik tapping into it, the very air glittering on colorful sparks of consciousness and Will. A galaxy in his fingertips to present to his beloved. The whole solar system.  
  
His eyes widen and he struggles to keep a grip on it, afraid and white-knuckled and trying to keep still, so still, he doesn't know if he breathes wrong will he alter the course of their very orbit, will he send them hurtling into the sun?  
  
Charles laughs at that, shaking his head. _No, of course not. And if you did, I'd stop you,_ he promises quietly, because that's part of his devotion to Erik, too. Never, ever letting him lose himself, or go too far, the same as how Erik has promised to keep him from ever doing the same. They are both incredibly powerful beings, quite possibly the most powerful, if they were to reach full potential. Even without it, honestly. There's not much they could not achieve together, but no need to go spinning orbits or influencing every sentient creature on this Earth. It's strange, but every time he has one of these incidents Charles thinks he's getting more powerful, or already was, that there is more he can reach and do. If he wasn't actively leashing himself up, anyway. As it is, they're probably expected to get out of the car and he certainly attempts it, but then he's spinning and whoozy and the world beneath him is the wrong way up. "Oof," he mutters. But, still: _Israel_!  
  
Erik rights him up before he has the opportunity to fall, brushing his shoulders and smoothing out the wrinkles in his shirt, smiling down at him gently. I have never felt this before. This is... it's terrifying and it's not going away, and at their feet out of the dust and loose rocks, giant sunflower plants begin to rise up and bloom out of nothing and nowhere, curling up around Charles and swaying happily, a light, warm mist falling over the area and cooling them off in the blazing morning sun. Little chirpy birds land on Charles's arms, chittering happiness! Joy! The smell of freshly brewed botz and steaming tea, the salt-ocean air of the boardwalk-the world is opening up all at once, peeling back its layers, memories embedded in the atmosphere and it's got everybody turning their heads and gasping, torn between confusion and delight.  
  
Kurt doesn't exit the car, he just _poofs!_ out of existence and reappears at Charles's side. " _Hallo_!" he waves, grinning sheepishly.  
  
Charles isn't confused, or concerned. He is delighted, though he wishes he felt a lot less likely to hurl all over said opening-up world. Honestly, he's swaying just as much as the sunflowers Erik's conjured up, but he still manages to grin and wave right back at Kurt. " _Hallo. Ich habe viel über dich gehört_ ," he grins, shaky because the whole world is, but terribly pleased because he's been hearing about the blue and spendid German Catholic from the very beginning, and being face to face with him, meeting one of Erik's kids, is important to him. Especially Kurt, who made all of this possible. He knows for a fact he's never met another even vaguely resembling himself, except someone quite repulsive, so he hums. " _Ich liebe die farbe blau. Willst du meine schwester sehen?_ " Charles taps his temple and, even through the migraine, the image unfolds smoothly, in vivid, shocking detail, as if it's happening right in front of them. It's a silly, fun memory, from the Bonding Ceremony; Raven and him are swing-dancing, one of the only times he and Erik were not attached at the hip. At the end she floats back over to Hank, in that rhythmic, unnaturally graceful way of hers, spendid and blue, and Charles laughs softly, showing Hank off, too. " _Das ist ihr Ehemann. Wir sind eine sehr blaue Familie, ja?_ "  
  
Kurt's whole expression lights up and he resumes bouncing on his heels, a bundle of leashed energy waiting to explode in puffs of brilliant curling blue. He couldn't be more different from the man he resembles; and other than Erik he'd been at the facility the longest, yet his spirit is entirely undimmed. He shimmies from side to side in a terrible approximation of the dance, forcing Erik to snort into his elbow. " _Sie ist schön_ ," he wiggles his fingers as he speaks. On his tongue, the German sounds airy and relaxed, so different from the barked, yelling Orders of Shaw that they're practically a different language. " _Deine Kräfte sind sehr großartig! Kann ich mehr sehen?_ " he looks between them for a moment and adopts a more solemn bearing. " _Ich bin froh, dass du Eriks Freund bist_."  
  
Charles is, too. Incredibly so. He smiles at the request, though, humming as he considers. Erik is behind him, and he leans into him because he's still exceptionally dizzy, unsteady on his own feet. The obvious choice here is to demonstrate some form of telekinetic ability, because those, while new and unstable, are most easily demonstrable. There's also the option of simply showing more memories, or projecting something, playing with perception. He decides on something else instead for the moment, mostly because he thinks it might come in handy in the near future. " _Sprichst du Englisch,_ Kurt _?_ " The answer is kind of, sort of. He can mostly understand, but his grip on it isn't particularly nuanced. Charles has never tried this particular ability, but he's almost positive it works. He fiddles for just a moment, brow creased, before he's grinning again. "Alright. How about now? Do you speak English? Hebrew?" The answer should be _yes,_ considering Charles literally just implanted them into the language center of his brain. He'll admit it's a bit nifty.  
  
" _Ken_ ," Ellie answers for him with a proud grin. " _Hu medaber ivrit tov, me'od_." She spreads her hands out, lifting her tote bag from the car to put over her shoulders.  
  
" _Loooo_ ," Kurt sticks his forked, blue tongue out at her, but his eyebrows raise. " _Lo? Eik ze efshari? Ani avodah masretot kanut, avul lamadeti rak kzat ivrit? Lifnei ani zva'ati._ Zis is so cool!" his big yellow eyes grow wide and even brighter, if that's even possible.  
  
" _Yakir_ ," she addresses David. " _Haz'ek Near lehagid hu tzarich lehatziv aruchot boker leorchei shelanu, beseder?_ " she murmurs the Orders and leans up on her tip-toes to kiss his cheek, squeezing his hand in reassurance.  
  
" _Beseder_ ," he dips his head and side-steps them, heading up the pathway to the big house in the distance.  
  
"I can't believe it, I understand everything," Kurt whistles long and appreciative.  
  
Erik wraps an arm around Charles's waist. _Extraordinary, neshama. As you always are._  
  
Charles laughs, ducking his head as his cheeks flush at the praise. It warms him right up, eases out more of the raw, pounding throb in his temples. "I'd hardly call it extraordinary. Useful, perhaps," he grants, because not only can he help Kurt better communicate, he imagines he could use it on a much larger scale. Communication is always possible, but far simpler when there isn't a language barrier. "I speak every language, technically, so if you or anyone else would like a very short, comprehensive course in anything else, I'll be around," he grins. In the meantime he leans back against Erik. It certainly hadn't strained him in any way, or taken any effort at all, but he's still a bit whoozy from before, and when he goes to rub at his nose, there's some blood there. He makes a face, wondering when it got there.  
  
About a second ago, because Erik's been keeping him clean the entire time, dissolving the blood that appears and keeping him in an elevated position to stem the flow of the rest of it as best as he can. Little sunflowers begin to pop up along his collar, twining around it delicately and white orchids manifest in his hair, a flower crown for his Bonded, and Erik grins at it. It's entirely unconscious, air particles themselves multiplying and shifting to create shapes and smells and sounds, a majority of which are centered on Charles, the object of his deep, abiding adoration. Flowers crop up along his wrists in bracelets and tuck behind his ears, explicitly designed with him in mind without triggering any allergies at all. It's all totally unconscious, the world swaying toward him, tree branches creaking as they swivel faintly, blades of grass angled. Erik's levitating a few inches off the ground, completely oblivious and small particles of earth and dust vibrate upwards, transforming before their eyes into intricate colors and designs, a kaleidoscope of sparkling energy enveloping everyone on warm gusts of air; and the temperature is perfect, leaving everyone toasty without sweating in discomfort, bundled up tight with Will and presence. " _Lo, tayer,_ " he rumbles, voice low and rich in satisfaction. He isn't aware he's speaking aloud. " _Nehedar_ ," he tells him again, tilting his face up toward shining strands of sunlight visible in their surroundings to kiss him softly.

* * *

Charles makes a soft noise of protest, turning his head, closing his eyes against the brightness. He doesn't mean to fuss, necessarily, but he feels a bit oversensitive all over, throbbing and uncomfortable and prickling despite the perfect temperature, dizzy and sick. He doesn't want to dampen the excitement, and what's an utterly fascinating, extraordinary display of power, Erik's homecoming after all these years, but he also doesn't want to hide that he feels weak and swaying. He scratches at the flowers around his wrists, then at his arms, scrunching his nose when the itch doesn't go away. _You're brilliant, I'm sorry,_ he mumbles. And he is. Erik is brilliant, what he's capable of is brilliant, and beautiful, and extraordinary, and he appreciates it even when he feels, frankly, wretched. He's very glad they're here. He just also wants to curl up into a ball.  
  
Everything folds itself back up into the air, dissipating with a flutter, and he lands on his feet, still keeping Charles held in his arms and resting his chin on the top of Charles's head, offering a smile. No apologies, he murmurs back, the Order present only because his Will has been steadily unfurling more and more, a natural product of increasing comfort and the familiarity of his home, a place he did not anticipate feeling familiar. He's been certain he'll be the resident alien, the stranger, fumbling along and pitied, but his body remembers this place in perfect clarity and it's slotted into place. A circle peg for a circle, for once.  
  
That should delight Charles, and it does. It absolutely does. It also makes him feel like retching, ashamed and terrified, and the result is fussing in Erik's arms, lip wobbling all over again as he wraps his arms around himself instead and keeps his eyes firmly closed.  
  
 _What is the matter?_ Erik whispers, tucking all the rest of his feelings away instinctively. _Talk with me. Tell me what is wrong._ He tilts Charles's head up, sweeping his thumb over his temple, the Order sparkling like the sunlight beginning to spill out over the horizon before them.  
  
Now he just feels like crying, eyes still closed as he turns his head away again. _I don't feel very good_ , he says, which is the truth and part of it and good enough. _And I thought about something but I really do not want to discuss it, Erik,_ and it's quiet, but terse in that way he is when he's trying to put his own foot down, when there's a silent _'and that's final.'_ It's worked on everyone but Erik, but he still tries. _It's fine. My head hurts_. It does.  
  
It isn't good enough, and Charles knows it as much as he knows anything about Erik. If he measured his Orders based on what Charles wanted to do at any given moment he would have zero control over anything at all; it simply can't be a consideration when push comes to shove, and he's not stupid, Charles is evidently trying to push something away that is accounting for a significant portion of his pain, and he won't let it stand. _I understand. Tell me it regardless,_ the next Order is far firmer, Will igniting like fireworks in inky skies. It's still calm and gentle; Erik doesn't need to raise his voice or act terse to put _his_ foot down.  
  
Charles knows this is what he needs and the way their entire dynamic functions, something they've lovingly and carefully cultivated together. It doesn't mean that in this exact moment he likes it, and his lips purse, the arms around himself folding over his chest defensively. You belong here, he mumbles, and mutes it down so there's nothing attached, fussing until he can move away. We're not having this conversation right now. _Please just drop it._  
  
Erik doesn't let him move away, though. He takes Charles's hands in his, bidding Ellie and Magda and Kurt to go ahead without them in a single glance. As with every time that Charles tries to Order him around, Erik rises up immensely in response, swatting down resistance with an enormous hand, millions of fingers made out of Will methodically and effectively wrapping down every iota of defiance until it dissolves into mist. "Absolutely not, Charles. We had an agreement and I expect you to uphold it. Stop hiding from me," the Order is verbal and all the more intense for it. "We will be having this discussion now, because I will not, nor will I ever, prioritize anything other than caring for my submissive." He squeezes the hands in his lightly. "Tell me what is wrong. All of it."  
  
All of what he's muted immediately jolts forward in shaky, rumbling bursts of pain and discomfort, nausea bundled up with fear and guilt, bristling and pulsing with energy as a bubble forms around them. It's visible, now, a change in the air, blocking everything out but them but trapping everything in, too. "I don't want you to realize I'm holding you back!" he yells, and he winces at his own voice, breaking away from Erik's hold to whimper and hold his own head. "You shouldn't be looking after me. I shouldn't be sick in the first place. You should be spending time with your family, the family who loves you and missed you and desperately wanted to see you, the kids you saved and helped and - instead you're here with me, and..." He refuses to cry. He wants so badly to cry, but he sucks it all in, feeling hot and sick, the stabbing at his temples returned. "And you belong here, Erik! It's so obvious you belong here. This is your family and your home, they speak your language and - and..." _And I'm going to take you away from all of it and make you stay with me in a place where you don't feel comfortable because I'm selfish and awful and you'll never be as happy as you could be_. He sniffles, finally, but he swallows up the tears, trying again to turn away. "Are you happy? Is that what you wanted to hear? I don't feel good, Erik, please just..." He shakes his head, trembling something fierce.

* * *

Erik feels the world swerve when Charles lashes out, and he flinches hard, barely containing himself from dropping right to his knees and covering his head. Instead he holds his ground, stood motionless and vibrating, minute tremors wracking his body. "Don't yell at me," he whispers.  
  
Charles covers his own face, and the tears do come, then. "I didn't yell at you," he protests, barely audible now, because he'd raised his voice but not at Erik and it certainly hadn't been intentional. Now he just feels even more like crawling into a hole and never, ever coming out, frustrated and ashamed and hurting, and he steps away, as far back as he can go before hitting the car behind him. He wraps his arms around himself and fights not to throw up then and there. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean - please just..." He shakes his head, wiping at the tears that managed to squeeze through and holding his head.  
  
"Don't you know me?" Erik shakes his head. "I belong with you." It's nothing but open vulnerability, despite the fact that Charles isn't in a particularly receptive frame of mind. Erik can't be anything other than himself, other than purely honest, without splitting apart into a hundred different facets. "I don't belong with you?" he steps forward and touches Charles's collar, still shaking his head. He can't believe that Charles truly doesn't know him enough to realize that Erik couldn't exist here without Charles. "I like being here, with you," he whispers softly. "Yes, it makes me happy," he adds, putting the flat of his palm against Charles's chest. "Yes, I want to hear it. Yes, I should be here taking care of you. It is my favorite thing to do because you are mine. How can you think I will be happier leaving you on the side of the road? You are my home. I belong with you. It's only place I belong, I won't let you throw me away stop trying to."  
  
Charles curls into himself, sniffling hard and still refusing to cry. He's shaking and everything hurts and it feels like the world is vibrating, like it's literally shaking along with him, pulsing so loud his ears pop. He closes his eyes as tight as he can manage. "This is your home and if I take you away and make you stay with me because I'm selfish, isn't that just as bad?" he whispers, broken. "And I'm - I..." He doesn't know. He's overwhelmed. It hurts.  
  
Erik tugs him closer, a little curl of flower-vines tying his wrist to Erik's, just tightly enough to pull him in. "No, you listen to me," he Orders sternly. "Look at me and you do what I say. Breathe and listen, my voice. My Will. Not yours. You are my home because you are good. You didn't take from me, but this is taking from me. When you hide and forget I love you. You won't kick me out. I won't go. I love you and I belong with you. Nowhere else. I am happy because it is with you. You are mine. I won't give you up. You can't make me. You can't make me stop looking after you." He presses against Charles's heart. "Your place is with me. You will remember it. Let this go," he touches under Charles's eyes. "Stop pushing me away." The Orders are firm, but plaintive, Erik meeting his eyes. In the sunlight of the near-desert Erik's own shine, otherworldly gems. "I have you. I will keep you safe and no one could ever stop me."  
  
Charles crumbles. He pitches forward into Erik's arms, burying himself in his chest where the sun can't reach him, too bright and too much, and neither can anything else, shaking violently as he finally lets go and cries. "Hurts," he sniffles. "Hurts, Erik. I'm sorry. Didn't mean to. Sorry. Wanna be good."  
  
They end up seated on the ground, Erik's back against David's beat up Toyota, Charles drawn into his arms tightly. "I know, sweetheart. You will be. Just listen to what I tell you. I do not lie. This is exactly where I belong," he laughs, eyes wet and he hides that in Charles's hair. "And it is where you belong. You never forget that. You are mine, aren't you? Tell me, Charles."  
  
"I'm yours, Erik," he whispers, whimpering around the horrible ache as he curls up as small as he possibly can. He doesn't feel good at all, and the noises escaping him now are pitiful little whines and hitchy sobs. The nausea is making everything chilled and prickly even in the hot morning sun, but he feels feverish at the same time. "Was bad? Didn't listen. Yelled. Sorry, sir," he sniffles. "Wanna be good for you. M' sorry."  
  
"No, no," Erik kisses him on the forehead. "It's all right, I promise. I forgive you. You were upset. I'd prefer that you didn't make yelling a habit," he scrunches up his nose fondly. But sometimes it's the only way anything will come out, and he understands that. It had just taken him off guard. "You are listening now, hm? Aren't you?"  
  
Charles wants to protest that somehow, but nothing comes out. Yelling isn't in character for him. Even at his most frustrated and hurting, it's much more likely that he'll get quiet and sharp-tongued than raise his voice. It's just that he's in pain, and this is exceptionally frustrating. It isn't the first time his own affliction has kept him from enjoying what he considers to be an otherwise joyful, calm moment, and it terrifies him that it's such a pattern. It always seems like he gets better, and he certainly does, but they always end up here. Using his abilities actively sometimes worsens him, but sometimes it strengthens him. He doesn't understand. Charles sniffles and nods, ducking his head again to be further away from everything else. "We can go inside now," he mumbles, even though he still feels miserable and is now visibly green and hot to the touch, the world pulsing in sick, palpable waves.  
  
All around them, the trees and grass and fence posts have swerved and crumpled where Erik jolted, and he apologetically smooths them out, unravels each twisted up particle until it's whole and happy again. His fingers are firmly entrenched in the world, every shift and twitch of him reflected all around, and Ellie and David are staring out the window wide-eyed at the dark, gloomy sky that's encroached on their otherwise breezy summer day. It's beginning to clear up, though, so they return to their tasks. "We will," he promises, but not right now. He isn't capable of focusing on anything other than Charles at the moment.  
  
That's fine, then. Charles doesn't really want to move, if he's honest, and he also doesn't trust his own ability to stand. He settles for hiding in Erik as much as he possibly can, blocking out the rest of the world. Inside their little bubble, Erik can still shift things around, but his own thrumming, vibrating energy seems to provide some push-back, if it can be called that. He's certainly not trying. It's like a force field. Fascinating. It would be much more fascinating if he didn't lean over to be sick, eyes still closed as he retches onto the gravel of the driveway. Nothing comes out, thankfully, but he's still groaning and off-center when he comes back up. He clings to Erik's sweater, feeling fairly wretched, when a soft grin all of a sudden comes over his lips, even with his eyes still screwed shut. "Ha," he breathes.  
  
Erik brushes the pad of his thumb across that smile, an unconscious mirror appearing on his own lips. "What is it, _neshama_? Hm?" he laughs a little, stroking his hand down Charles's back, soothing. The sun creeps out behind the clouds, removing shadows from the trees and fence-posts, returning glitter and shining joy to the air.  
  
The sun is definitely too bright, even if it isn't. He squirms until he's all but underneath Erik's shirt, some of the pounding at his temples eased. He's going to hide here until it goes away. "We're confusing the children," he whispers in reply, because they're supposedly out front but Charles is actively blocking them out. He directs Erik to one of the windows without relinquishing his hiding place, a mental nudge in the right direction where they're all pointing and arguing with each other.  
  
Erik blinks, watching them fondly. "I don't really understand," he admits with a huff. "What are they arguing about?" He wraps Charles up tight, draping a blanket over his shoulders and tucking it up around his head and neck protectively, warm and soft. Like all of Erik's creations, even the simplest of things are detailed extensively with silly little cartoons and carefully-crafted fabric threads tightly woven.  
  
This requires switching perception around. Charles takes a breath, mostly because he thinks it might make him dizzy, and swaps vantage points for Erik until he's staring out from their collective view. The sky is changing and the fences and trees are bending, but they're completely out of sight, as if they've vanished into thin air. They've been arguing about where they are, or if they're there at all, and then about invisibility. He's not sure if it was an instinct or simply because he didn't want to be seen or watched as he was bent over and sick, but he goes ahead and removes some of the filter.  
  
They all gasp and point and someone says _'I told you they were invisible!'_ in a heavy accent Charles can't place at the moment. The window is angled in such a way that they can see them even with the car technically in the way, and it should definitely be too far for them to hear each other without shouting, but that's the perk of telepathy. Spotting peeping eyes.  
  
Charles puts up the filter again just to hear them all get excited about it, grinning weakly from his bundled up cave.

* * *

Erik laughs softly, brushing Charles's hair out of his face and kissing him. "They seem happy," he whispers, the sensation of hot tears pricking in the backs of his eyes, but he's yet to cry or demonstrate any real emotional reaction yet, and it isn't because he's hiding from Charles or submerging it-this is his response, he can't really comprehend what's happening and it's all naturally muted down as he just takes it in, but watching them point and argue and grin at each other and cajole each other, he turns his head away, discreetly wiping at his eyes.  
  
Charles knows what's there, anyway. Through the muted numbness, he knows Erik better than he knows himself. He nods, a soft if weak smile on his lips as he stays carefully tucked in. Everything is decidedly too loud right now, too much, his skin crawling uncomfortably, but he squeezes Erik's hand after he reaches for it. More children have gathered at the window, and he laughs silently as they gasp again, keeping a passive link so Erik can watch, too. He's definitely messing with perception here, in quiet, silly ways, his eyes still closed as he fights the nausea. Finally he decides to clue them in, sending the telepathic equivalent of _hello, I see you!_  
  
They all shriek, not in fear but in mixed confusion and delight, children caught in a game. Charles chuckles, even though it makes his head screech in protest.  
  
A young boy with chartreuse-colored skin sticks his tongue out at Charles from across the way, forest-colored and very long, and he sticks his fingers in his ears and waggles his hands.  
  
Erik snorts. "That's Tim. Rahne, Sam, Roberto," he points them out. "Irene, Martha, Dani, Angel, Xi'an, Tel and Marie." He knows that Charles is already aware of their names, but he can show him more, too, the individual relationship he'd held with each one, although he largely did the same things and expressed the same sentiments. Silent, watchful protector, consoler, parent, friend.  
  
Irene is an interesting character; she has long red hair and pale eyes, and her hands are wrapped around the windowsill, unseeing but somehow attuned specifically to Charles, a mind meeting a mind. She's far more mature than her age should suggest, with many threads of the world available to her. It's garbled for Charles, though, something even he can't dissect or unravel; it's purely for Irene, and no one else. It's not a telepathic block, or a mental shield. She raises her hand in a meek wave. _Hello, Charles_. Her voice in his mind is soft and amused. _Peekaboo_.  
  
Charles already knows. Despite being in rather excruciating pain, he's met everyone in his own way already, acquainted himself with their mental presence and taken from Erik what he could to fill in blanks. He doesn't need to consciously do it anymore; meeting this way is far more natural than shaking hands and going through introductions for him, and he's started to do it automatically when he isn't aware of it and slapping his own telepathy on the metaphorical wrist. He's tried not to pry, still leashed himself, but he knows them all the same.  
  
His lips twitch at the soft voice. It isn't something that confuses him, though it is absolutely fascinating. Some people see the world in ways that cannot made sense of, even by telepaths. If he presented his own mind as is, in its raw entirety, he knows it wouldn't make sense to anyone else, all a whirring nonsense even for Erik. Hello there, he murmurs back, gentle. Peekaboo. Some little minds have disappeared from the window, impatient with just spying, and Charles laughs quietly, still refusing to open his eyes. "You should go meet them," he urges Erik.

* * *

A man closer to Charles and Erik's age appears next to them and herds them away from the windows and to sit at a long communal table, juggling several plates in his arms as he sets down breakfast for the day, which the kids all dig into voraciously. Many of them are not accustomed to eating regular meals; though they were nowhere near as malnourished as Erik, since he did his best to ensure they were fed his portion, they still eat guardedly and fast, barely pausing to taste it. " _Ah, ha'itu, beseder? Hakol yihyu sham yishtam'u be'atid,_ " Laurie thwaps Kurt lightly on the hand with a butter knife when he tries to stick his whole fist into a bowl of peas. " _Kurt! Ma atah, meshek chaya?_ " he rolls his eyes.  
  
" _Ulay_!" Kurt grins at him with a full mouth, utterly delighted at the fact that he can understand the man's chastisement and respond to it in his own language.  
  
Erik hears the exchange through Charles and covers his face, shoulders shaking in laughter. "He has not changed, I see." He fusses with Charles's blanket, shaking his head. He won't go without him, he can't.  
  
Time to get up, then. Charles feels incredibly sick and unsteady as he gets to his feet, swaying, and he's still refusing to open his eyes. He can see mostly fine without them, anyway, but he takes a breath and finally blinks them open. There's pain, but nothing quite as intense as he expected, especially considering it isn't a result of that sort of feedback. He tries not to cling to Erik, but ends up doing it anyway, stomach lurching as the stabbing sensation in his temples becomes a more manageable throbbing. "Okay," he whispers, not certain whose sake it's for.  
  
Erik picks up his duffel from the trunk of the car and slings it over his shoulder, keeping an arm around Charles as they walk up the path and into the house. As soon as they make it in the door, they're instantly accosted by twelve eager faces and Erik's practically attacked by hugs and competing voices. He drops to one knee and gives each one a one-sided hug, including Marie who's hung back, picking at her gloves. Erik isn't afraid of her, even though the others give her a wide berth as though afraid they'll catch something from her. They aren't far from the truth.  
  
Charles has seen Marie, one of the oldest of the bunch, her Southern drawl and the streak of pure white in her hair. Not just in the window or right in front of him, but in memories, in her mind. Fearful thoughts stick out to him, likely because they're loud by nature. Marie is afraid. Of herself, of hurting others. She sees her mutation as a curse, and often wonders why she was born with what she was when her friends have abilities that don't cause immediate harm. She doesn't see how she could possibly be anything but a plague upon everyone she meets, forced to wear gloves and shy away from touch because she herself is a sickness. They were right about her.  
  
He greets the others, soft smiles and pats on the head and silly handshakes, introducing himself quietly as he tries not to wince at the pain he's still experiencing, but when he gets to her he pauses. It isn't fear, and while the others are distracted with piling on top of Erik, he addresses her. "Would you let me show you something?" he asks her, achingly gentle.  
  
She's wary, but smiles just the same, nodding. Charles reaches for her hand, and now she's frightened, eyes wide as she backs up and shakes her head.  
  
"I promise you won't hurt me, and I won't hurt you," he encourages her, still quiet and calm.  
  
When she finally steps forward again, all he does is take her hand in his. She's confused, he can tell, waiting for something to happen. Charles grins and nods down at their hands. Her glove is rucked up just slightly, and they're touching skin to skin. Her eyes widen comically. "Oh my -"  
  
Charles laughs. "Go on, then. Take it off."  
  
She's hesitant, watching him carefully, eyes narrowed in suspicion, but when she takes her glove off and their hands are still touching, nothing happens. She stares wide-eyed and trembling, confused and overwhelmed, and Charles squeezes her hand in his.  
  
"It's an ability that can be controlled," he tells her, smiling. "Just like any of the others. But for now, if you'd like, we can keep it like this until you're ready to learn." She nods eagerly, and he gestures to the other children, all looking on now because he hasn't made an attempt to shield the interaction. "It's alright. You won't," he promises, ostensibly in response to something thought rather than spoken.  
  
He sits back and watches as she hugs them, her skin touching theirs. High-fives and exclamations and palms pressed together, tears on her cheeks and surprise and shock and boundless joy and wonder.  
  
It's almost enough to rid him of the migraine. It's certainly enough to warm him, dimples peeking out on his cheeks.  
  
Erik watches too, and when she goes to hug him for real, he gives her a kiss on the forehead, squeezing her uncovered hand in his warmly. She may not have liked her gift, thought it a curse, but Erik was always very thankful for it. For the obvious reasons, and because he'd seen what happens when people thought they could be the exception, Mr. Shaw included. She scares herself, and scares the people around her, but he was always standing by to give her a proud nod and a hand on her clothed shoulder; because she's more comfortable that way, but he has touched her in the past, when she was screaming and terrified when she was first captured, he created a barrier on instinct that protected him when he touched her cheek, and that was enough to startle her out of her panic attack. He's as protective of her as any of the others, and always quick to sharply reprimand anyone who spoke negatively of her in cuffs to the head and slaps on the wrist. Seeing her interact with them like this is only the next step in what he's sure will be a bright future for her, for all of them. He lifts his chin to fix Charles with a bright smile, rising to his feet and embracing him gratefully.  
  
Everyone deserves to feel safe in themselves. Charles was never able to give it to himself, but it's incredibly healing to watch it acted out in front of him. She's giggling with her palms pressed against two of the others, still shocked and awed that it isn't sucking the life out of them, that she isn't absorbing parts of them into herself, and he knows it's going to be a long road. He can't mute out her powers for her indefinitely, or be her control, or she'll never grow. But for now she deserves this, and Kurt deserves to know every language on the planet (but maybe not, most brains aren't his and are therefore incapable of that much information), and there are ways he can give that and help.  
  
He leans against Erik, closing his eyes again. For some reason the throbbing hasn't gone away, though he can't figure out why; every incident before this has usually passed by now, or else he'd never have been able to hide it from Erik when he did. Just a particularly bad go of it, then. Charles clenches his teeth together, taking a shaky breath through his nose. There's another wave of it strong enough to knock his knees together, but he bears it silently.  
  
Near approaches them after a few moments and gives Erik a solid shake with his left hand. His mutation, like Erik's, is completely rooted in his body, in his muscles to be exact. He's unconsciously shifting to copy Erik and Charles's body language, a natural product of his abilities. "It's good to meet you," he says in accented English. "And you as well," he adds to Charles. He's dressed in his uniform with a plastic rifle over his shoulder (he's a noncombatant, but everyone gets issued a standard firearm and the punishment for losing it is fairly severe, which is the reason why they're so damn prolific) and a protein bar half-unwrapped in his right. He's headed to _HaKirya_ which means he's most definitely already late for his hour bus ride. "Breakfast is on the table. Please, eat." He pats Erik on the shoulder before ducking past and out the door.  
  
Erik turns to watch him go, scratching the back of his neck, feeling dizzy and hot; a sensation frequent every time he encounters another member of his family. He puts it aside, as he's done since they arrived, and busies himself focusing on Charles instead, doing his best to look after him with reassuring touches. The kids are busy marveling over Marie, so he moves them out of the fray toward the dining area, with the intent to once more provide some distance for Charles to recover, picking over a plate of strawberries idly. He spots a snack package sporting the name _Bamba_ , peanut-butter flavored corn puffs, and lifts it in his hands, the foil crumpling as he stares at it like it's an alien artifact.

* * *

Charles watches him go, too, steadying Erik as much as he can while he's terribly unsteady himself. They have a decent amount of time here, and all the time in the world to work through this emotionally. He fully intends to help Erik through it as much as he needs, but forcing a reaction out of him is never the way to go. When he's ready to talk about it, when he's ready to process it, Charles knows they'll do it together. For now he focuses on staying upright, smiling softly as he watches Erik poke and prod at his surroundings, not with his eyes which he's closed again but through their Bond, sending a little _?_ rather than speaking. Something keeps flashing, and he can't figure out what it is. He brings a hand up to his temple, massaging roughly.  
  
Erik inhales a sharp breath through his nose and shakes his head, but after a few seconds deliberating-nearly slapping the package back on the table and turning away entirely, he opens it instead, fingers hovering over the contents before he snatches one up and pokes it between his lips, prickly and halfway to overwhelmed. Meeting his aunt and uncle, seeing the kids, encountering his cousin and Charles's pain weren't enough to set him off on the inevitable spiral, but somehow this stupid snack is threatening to. Erik's eyes slam shut and he leans against his submissive, putting the treat aside and roughly shoving it all down, laughing shakily. _Kol beseder,_ he murmurs back via the Bond, tugging Charles's hand from his temple and kissing his knuckles instead. _I am so sorry you are hurting. What can I do to help?_  
  
It doesn't have to be inevitable. Not a spiral, anyway. Charles thinks Erik is doing brilliantly, all things considered, and he brushes off any concern for him, fighting the urge to bring his other hand up to prod and rub at an ache that isn't going away. He shakes his head, despite the fact that it nearly causes him to vomit, the flashing making him dizzy all over again. _What is it?_ he asks instead of answering the question, gentle but curious. He could find out for himself, but he'd rather Erik tell him. Batting everything aside isn't going to make processing this any easier. Charles is here, and he squeezes the hand in his to reassure his Dominant of it. And himself, too.  
  
Erik touches his hand to his mouth, watching as the world around them shimmers and heats up in sick, hot waves, the sun a scorching blaze against miles of desert dust. _I ate them when I was a kid_ , he mumbles, and the answer sounds stupid even to his own ears. He doesn't care about his own nonsensical, silly, irrelevant internal machinations. All he cares about is that Charles is hurting, and he can't fix it.  
  
 _It's not stupid at all._ Charles is frowning, but not because he's being stabbed repeatedly in the temple. _Please don't do that,_ he whispers into their Bond, squeezing again at Erik's hand. _It isn't stupid. None of what you think or feel is stupid, irrelevant, or nonsensical. I don't like when you disparage yourself like that anymore than you like it when I do._ Besides, there isn't much that can be done for him. Best to keep both their minds off of it. _Do they taste good?_ he asks, softly.  
  
 _It is stupid,_ he shakes his head again, pressing his lips together so they don't tremble. He feels frustration roiling under his skin, at himself, it is stupid. He doesn't care, he doesn't want to care, he's so tired of himself, of the razors-edge from panic and fear, of the fact that he can smell where Near left the toast too long and lingering charcoal in the air makes him want to vomit his lungs out of his chest, of the drama and constant cycling through memories and ghostly strikes. He's shivering, teeth chattering and he clenches down hard on his jaw to stop it. _I'm sorry_ , he whispers, soft, and holds the packet out to Charles. _Peanut butter_ , he nods, quiet and contrite.  
  
Charles takes a shaky, hitching breath, accepting the packet but only to set it back down. He tugs on Erik instead, waiting until he's down closer to his level so he can cup his cheek and, when he's crouched further down for him, curl a strand of hair behind his ear and stroke there, too. _It isn't stupid. You have to give yourself space to feel, Erik_ , he breathes, and his smile is small but soft. This is overwhelming. _All of this is overwhelming, and you're handling it better than anyone could expect you to. It's okay to falter. It's okay to be emotional. It's okay. I'm right here. It's safe here with me. Don't forget that I love you, and that I'm here for you,_ he whispers. _You care, and that's perfectly alright. I care, too._  
  
Erik's eyes slide shut, less crushed and painful, his body relaxing instantly when Charles slides his hands through his hair, sagging against him and giving a soft moan of relief at the feeling of so much tension suddenly evacuating his being. He rubs his forehead against Charles's like a cat, entirely unconscious. _Don't wanna falter,_ he murmurs. Maybe it's being in proximity to his kids again, on top of everything else. On top of being completely ill equipped to handle his family, the smell of the desert and soil, the sun at this point on the Earth. He can't falter. He has to protect them, he has to be a pillar, he has to be a solid column to lean on, a foundation and a structure to weather a momentous deluge of crushing force.  
  
Charles shakes his head again even though Erik can't see it, relieved he can distract himself from his own pain by caring for Erik. He cards his fingers through his Dominant's hair, scritching at that place just behind his ear. _No, darling,_ he murmurs, soft and quiet still. _You're allowed to now. There's no danger here. There's nothing to protect them from. You've done it already, my love. Now you're allowed to take care of yourself. Or, alternatively, Or let me take care of you. I'm your submissive and your Bonded, and that's what I'm here for. No holding it all in. You're very strong, and you take such good care of everyone, but you're allowed to be taken care of, too. You're allowed to take a moment to let it all sink in. There's nothing to fear here._ He kisses Erik's cheek once he's tugged him down again. _Don't forget that I'm here for you. I'm listening, I'm yours_ , he promises, because he knows that's just as grounding for Erik as it is for him. _Use me. You aren't on your own anymore. You have me now, don't you?_  
  
 _I can't,_ Erik shakes his head back, the motion rubbing it against Charles's temple once more. Not allowed, never allowed. He can't let his guard down, he can't take himself out of the game and break down, he is responsible, he has to take care of everyone and most especially of Charles and how can he do that if he's dissolving? And Charles is in pain, the only thing he needs to focus on is breathing and feeling good, that's all Erik wants him to focus on, if he falls apart he won't ever pick up the pieces and make them whole again. He's never been whole, but he is functional, at least. He is capable, and he doesn't want to lose that. There's always been a barrier against it, even at his absolute worst he has to shut it down, he can't drown because he has to look after his family.  
  
He does his best not to wince, forcing himself steady. _That's not how it works_ , he whispers. _You won't drown. You won't dissolve. But you can't keep everything in like this, Erik. How do you intend to take care of me if you're not okay? You are whole. You are a whole, feeling person, not some emotionless pillar for everyone to lean against. That isn't who I Bonded to, and I won't let you do it._ Perhaps it's a bold statement to make, but it's a firm one, however gentle. _I won't just sit here and let you ignore yourself while you take care of everyone else. You would never let me do that, and I won't let you do it. I just won't. You have me, and you can. If you're not taken care of, neither am I. You can't take care of me without letting me take care of you, too. You never had anyone before, but now you have me. You can't forget that. It's not fair to scold me for it and then do it yourself, you know_ , it's meant to be teasing, but he means it. _If you fall apart, I'll pick up the pieces with you. That's my job. Please let me do it._  
  
Erik could never forget it, but at the same time, he doesn't truly understand what it means, yet. He's spent sixteen years with only himself to rely on. He had to form those fractured facets to cope, the only comfort he ever got originated entirely from his own mind, his own construction even if it felt separate and different; even if those voices inside held him and sang to him, it's all him. There was no one else; even Magda, who feels incredibly protective and maternal over him, never really needed to because he relied on himself first, he comforted her, he still does. How can Erik admit that every second he is here he remembers tilling the Earth with his shovel, and pyres burning?  
  
He had a family, once, he had a home and it was full of love, and spirit, and he had a community and teachers and neighbors and and every moment he is here, every moment he looks to his uncle and his cousin, he is reminded that their family, David's sister and niece, his brother-in-law, Near's aunt and uncle and cousin, their grandparents and friends and the people they grew up with; Erik killed them. It's irrational, there is no interpretation of the course of events that would support that conclusion, but Erik will always, always know the real truth. He took their family. He burned their home to the ground. He became a foot soldier to the men that broke his mother's neck and shot his father and-  
  
and he can't go further, he can't even to hurt himself, even though he wants to hurt himself, he can't think about the rest. A violation of Erik, but he's always felt it was a violation of them, that he did it to them, forced them to see, the lines of living and dead and consciousness blurred in his childlike mind.  
  
How could these people ever love him? He doesn't deserve their love, he doesn't want their love. Charles is wrong. Erik doesn't belong here, and he is not happy. He just wants to go home.

* * *

Charles knows that isn't true at all. He's sorry to anyone who might need this area of the house, but they're going to find it entirely missing from their consciousness. Despite the still-pounding migraine, it's Charles that coaxes them down to the floor now, Charles who leans against the wall and gathers Erik up, who cradles him gently and strokes his hair. _I know you're very scared, and this place and these people brings back terrible memories even if you do not want them to_ , he whispers, because as much as Erik loves those children, it can't be ignored where he met them and under what circumstances he came to love them. _But none of that is true, Erik. None of it. So very, very much was taken from you, and I can't give you any of that back. I wish I could. What I can promise you is that not all of it is gone. This is what's left, and I know it's terrifying, but it's something beautiful and alive and it's yours, too. You were a child. You are not to be held accountable for any of it, and I know how difficult it is to convince yourself of that, but that's what I'm here for. You aren't alone anymore, my love. You are not alone, and when you struggle I'm here. I'm here to listen, and to care for you, and to hold you up. I know you're overwhelmed, but this is your home, too. You do belong here. It's okay to grieve now. It's okay to be frightened. It's okay to let your guard down, especially with me. That's what I'm here for. That's what I will always be here for. Because I'm yours. You know that, but I need you to know it especially right now. I'm yours, and that means I'm here for you. You are not alone in this._  
  
Erik shudders in his hold, hiding his head in Charles's chest as his body is wracked with periodic convulsions, hypnagogic-jerks of wakefulness that seize his muscles and flood his body with stress. It's not his. None of this is his. They're all so happy and healthy and whole and he should just step back and let them be, let his family grieve and move on, or stay so that they know there's someone alive they can see and touch that they can hold accountable for it. He can give that to them at the very least. Charles is right, they are here and whole and beautiful, they have good things that they love and they smile and they have good lives, now. Erik doesn't think he's ever hated himself more than in these moments of witnessing that. He's trying to be good and listen and feel better but it keeps catching and stumbling over fresh injections of sensory flashbulbs, and his soul is crying and shaking but he's still and dry-eyed, twitching every once in a while. " _Atah rotze lihiot sheli?_ " he gasps, a low, wounded noise. Charles didn't think Erik belongs with him, he still thinks that? He wants Erik? He's not alone?  
  
Charles knows Erik belongs with him. He'd gotten caught up and insecure because Erik clearly belongs here, but that doesn't mean that Charles doesn't, too. Charles belongs with Erik, and to Erik. _I'm yours,_ he promises, kissing Erik's cheeks, holding him through the convulsions, stroking his hair and rubbing at those twitching muscles. _I'm always yours. Erik, everyone here is healing and whole, but so are you. Aren't you?_ He reminds Erik in quiet bursts of sensation and image. Their Bonding Ceremony just days ago. Wasn't he happy? Didn't they both feel healed, and together, and safe? They're all moving on now, learning to smile and laugh and grow, and Erik isn't an exception. He belongs here with the people he gave that opportunity to, and he deserves to have that opportunity himself. _They wouldn't have this life without you, darling, but now it's time to let yourself have it, too. This is yours. You deserve good, beautiful things. You deserve peace. You deserve to reconnect with what was taken from you. But you don't have to realize that alone, hm? I'm here, and I'm yours. I belong to you. You will never be alone. Never._ He takes Erik's hand in his and brings it to his collar. _Do you feel that?_  
  
Erik's fingers curl instinctively over Charles's collar, stroking along the edges and engraved inscriptions, letting it sing to him the words he sunk into it, the ones that remind him of Charles and remind him that Charles is right here, that Charles belongs to him, a reminder that will forever remain touching his skin. There are new additions since he presented it to Charles, senses and warmth, glowing canopy lights and swing-dancing and words aloud and metal-carved roses and hand-pressed pages. For as long as he lives Erik will never forget their Bonding, he will never forget how he felt standing across from Charles, listening to his vows. But the truth is that sometimes he just doesn't feel like he deserves any of this, he is guilty and those feelings are amplified a million-fold here. Especially because this isn't the start and end of their visit. He still has to sit at a conference table and detail explicitly what happened for the ICC, knowing that Sebastian Shaw will use it to humiliate him when push comes to shove. These people, his family, will hear everything, nothing left sacred, if these things could ever be called such, and he is-"Scared," he whispers at last.  
  
Charles knows. He holds Erik close, still stroking his hair, still bidding him touch his collar and feel. "I know, darling," he whispers back. "And it's okay. It's okay to be scared. It's alright to feel overwhelmed. I'm here with you. I'm yours, and I will take care of you, too. I promise." Erik will not break apart or dissolve. He has Charles to keep him together, and the last thing he needs to worry about it Sebastian Shaw. That man will never hurt Erik again. "You do deserve this. You do. You've done so much good here. They're safe and happy now, those children, and it's because of you. I'm happy because of you. You're so brilliant and good, Erik. I am so proud to belong to you," and his voice cracks there, but he doesn't try to hide it. "I am so proud to be yours. My perfect Dominant. I'm right here. I am for you."  
  
"Mine," Erik whispers, as if realizing it all over again. In many respects this is true, every morning he wakes up and remembers that he has Charles, his wonderful submissive who loves him; whose love he can feel in the back of his mind every moment. He kisses along Charles's collar, burying his face in his neck, shuddering all over. Somewhere in the distance, the toaster crumples on itself and evaporates from existence, taking along with it every trace of burnt charcoal in the air. Erik apologizes to the particles but doesn't restore them, and burrows deeper into Charles. "Hurts. Hurts." It's all he knows how to say, and it pales in comparison to what Charles is experiencing, he feels stupid for even using the word, but it's the only way he can describe the claws shredding his heart into ribbons.  
  
"I know, my love," Charles whispers back, gentle and soothing, aching with emotion as he strokes Erik's hair and holds him close. It would be overwhelming for anyone, and that Erik is struggling with it should come as no surprise. He isn't alone, though. He has Charles to bear it with him, every second of it, and he certainly will. "Whatever you need from me. I'm here for you." He expects plenty of Orders and Dominance used as a grounding technique, and if he's honest, he couldn't think of anything more steadying for both of them. Perhaps he'll chafe a bit at some of them, but Erik finds that steadying, too, navigating that, just as Charles does. They'll be alright. They have this now, and they can rely on it. On each other. Erik isn't lost, and he won't be. "I can't make it not hurt, unfortunately, not without harming you in the process, but I can promise that you will not break. I won't allow it."  
  
"Don't leave me," is the Order Erik does give, shaking. "Don't leave. You can be mad and-anything, please don't leave me. If you-space, it's OK, please come back-please-" He wants to take the words and shove them back into his mouth when he hears what he's said, bordering on outright desperate and begging, not the tone a Dominant would ever be caught dead using. He strokes his fingers over Charles's collar still, rubbing his cheek against it to feel the cool metal on his face.  
  
Who says? All that matters to Charles is his Dominant, and he couldn't possibly care less about anyone else in this particular moment. He kisses the top of Erik's head, feathering his hands through all those thick strands of hair. "I won't, Erik," he promises, quiet and solemn and honest. "I won't. I'll always come back to you, just as you'll always come back to me. It's where I belong. By you and to you. You know that, it's written right here," and he strokes his own fingers over his collar, where Erik isn't currently touching and rubbing against. "Shh. It's alright, darling. I'm not going anywhere. I'm yours. You know that, don't you? That I belong to you? That I'm yours? That I love you so very, very much?"  
  
"Love you," he whispers back, eyes fluttering shut as Charles digs the pads of his fingers into Erik's scalp, leaning more heavily against him. This is the point at which he would let himself become calm again, tuck everything back away and let himself be reassured and return to stability, but Charles said he shouldn't do that, he shouldn't bury it all, but it's such an overwhelming instinct that Erik nestles closer and follows it, content with the reassurance. It helps that knowing Charles is his, remembering it and hearing Charles say it, makes the world of difference to every crisis he has. "Feel nice," he murmurs quietly.  
  
It's not that Erik can't be calm and reassured. It's that he shouldn't force himself to be because he feels like he needs to carry everyone else on his shoulders, when it just isn't true. Charles is perfectly capable of bearing some of it, too. He nuzzles into Erik's hair, eyes closed to edge off his own pain, scratching lightly and idly playing with curls between his fingers. "You need another massage soon," he murmurs, grinning softly as he presses a kiss to the top of his Dominant's head. "You've tensed yourself up again, but that's alright. I'm here to serve, yeah? I'll fix you right up."  
  
"Mmmhh?" Erik mumbles, batting his head into Charles's clever fingers very much like a cat, practically purring, too. It also helps that this is one of the fastest ways to calm him down, leaning into physical affection like wrapping a blanket around himself under a sun-warmed window. "You will?" One eye cracks open slightly, and he noses up against Charles's neck, kissing under his ear.  
  
Charles smiles, fond and amused as he arches into the kisses, tilting his head so Erik has all the access to his neck and throat as he'd like. That it's a gesture of overt submission isn't lost on him, either, and he's more than happy to offer it. Erik being calmer and more relaxed helps him, too; his migraine is still throbbing at his temples, oversensitive and achy, but this makes it bearable. He lowers one hand from Erik's hair to his shoulder, carefully kneading once he slips his hand under the sweater. "Mmhm," he hums. "Of course. Perhaps we should make it part of our routine. You have so much tension here, darling, but I can make it better. That's my job, isn't it? To serve you?" He can help ground Erik like this, too, give him the reminders he needs. It never stops, it never goes away. Neither of them have to be lost or drifting. "Soon you won't have these awful knots. I'll make sure of it." And he's nothing if not determined.  
  
Erik shifts under both points of contact, shoulders rolling up into his hands and Erik rumbles non-words, a panicked beast slowly beginning to soothe. "Make it better," he agrees, because Charles does. Charles makes everything better, it's why he can't leave. Erik is struggling now but he would be absolutely decimated if he were here alone. He returns the favor unconsciously, pressing his thumb into Charles's neck, gentle and tracing a line on that shivery feeling he gets whenever Erik responds to his submissive behaviors. "Don't stop?" he whispers, barely audible against Charles's skin. " _Ze nayim_."  
  
"I won't," he promises, kissing Erik's head again as he squirms under the attention, resettling himself more comfortably and taking Erik with him. "We can stay here as long as you like. I'm here for you, darling, whatever you need," he reminds, because it's the truth. It also means he doesn't have to try being up and active with a migraine, so like always taking care of one of them takes care of the other, too. He does his best to massage some of the tension out of his Dominant's shoulders, gentle and persistent, working out knotted muscles. "See? You have me to make everything better. I'm going to be so good for you." And it makes him feel better, promising it, because sometimes he feels rotten about not being enough for Erik. Every time he is it settles a jagged piece of his heart, smooths it right out. He needs to be able to help, and despite often feeling rather helpless and useless, times like these remind him it isn't the case. He's what Erik needs, too.  
  
"Mhmm, good," he murmurs lowly, pressing up against Charles in luxurious contentment; real contentment this time as his body slowly unwinds the heavy, gnarled ropes of coiled muscle in his shoulders and neck. It's perfect, it's exactly what he needs. It's not grating and pushy and bleating conflict and defensiveness and arguments and heightened, shrieky emotions. No one is forcing him to drag everything up from the bottom of the world, no one is pressuring him into shredding open his flesh to every horrible scrap of feeling. He has space and time and comfort and it feels good, and promises that they'll let it happen when it happens, that Erik is in control, that he won't be cajoled and provoked into admissions he isn't ready for. Charles always knows what he needs and Erik is blessed with it.  
  
Charles doesn't always know what Erik needs. Sometimes he messes up. Sometimes he gets overwhelmed, when he's in pain or he's frightened or he's frustrated and he raises his voice when he doesn't mean to, or he pushes too far or buries things inside himself where Erik can't see. Sometimes he's wrong, he doesn't listen or do what he's told. But he always wants, at the end of the day, to be good for Erik. He never wants to do harm, and when he does he'll always take responsibility for it, even if that takes coaxing of its own. He'll always allow Erik the space for justice, for discipline and growth and forgiveness, because that's what they both need, the dynamic that heals and helps most, something they both benefit incredibly from. There's no need for that now, though. There's only what he knows his Dominant needs, which is space to breathe, and support, and quiet comfort, a bubble outside of the world for him to regroup and recharge, a place for him to process. There's no need for arguing or shrieking or prodding, not any more than he already has. Erik is in control. So much of this is reminding Erik that he has control now, a great amount of control, and letting him heal for it. "I'm yours," he repeats quietly, nuzzling in close as he continues his kneading. "I'm yours, Erik. I'm here and I'm yours." Erik can lean on him, and depend on him, and use him. That's what he's here for. He does have control, if over nothing else than at least over Charles, because he's so very willingly and eagerly given it. This will always be his. The past two days he's gotten lost, both of them have, but they should both stay right here. They need this, and that's alright. They have it. "I'm going to be good for you. I promise."  
  
Erik scritches his fingers through Charles's hair, a silent little suggestion, his nose wrinkling up in self-deprecating amusement. He hasn't realized until now that he really likes that, and he lays his head on Charles's shoulder, listening to the tick-tocking of his thoughts, feeling his chest swell and constrict in rising crescendo at the emotions wafting off of him. It's pure, simple submission and it's everything that Erik's always wanted, before he even understood that he needed it. "Mine," he murmurs fondly, stroking the side of Charles's jaw. "You be good, OK?" He kisses his temple. He'll make sure of it. He can take care of Charles, too. It doesn't matter how far off the path they stray, they always end up here, and it's where they both belong. It's every vow they've made manifest in consistent actions, day in and day out.  
  
Charles doesn't need to be told twice, smiling softly as he buries his fingers back in Erik's hair. It feels good to be touched like this, and to touch, too, to comfort and submit and be what his Dominant needs. The migraine is an afterthought, now, still making everything hazy and pulsing, his stomach tangled up with nausea, but it feels so much less when Erik is with him like this. "I will," he promises, still quiet as he nuzzles up close. "But you have to help me, okay? Make me be good?" He's tried so hard not to bring it up or think too hard about it, else make Erik guilty when he doesn't need to be, but the past two days have been difficult. He'd forgotten what it was to be free-floating and alone, to not have the guidance he so desperately craves, and he doesn't want to go back. He doesn't want to be untethered and drifting and uncertain. It doesn't take any effort at all to wrap himself up in Erik's Will, sighing in satisfaction as his own eyes flutter.

* * *

For the most part Erik has decided to stop feeling guilty about what happened for now, because he's already being crushed and he needs to start shedding a few things or he's going to suffocate. He tried his very best, he always tries his best. He always prioritizes Charles even when he's too out of it to see two feet in front of himself. He remembers trying, and he has to let that count for something or this combined grief is going to kill him. Sometimes he falters and messes up, too, but just as he knows that Charles does not intend malice, he has to believe that Charles knows the same is true of Erik. What matters is that they are both trying, and the evidence of effort's value is manifest in their every interaction. "Always," Erik says. Charles always says he sometimes isn't, but even when he does falter, Erik corrects him, and he always comes back. He returns, just like that first time. And so does Erik.  
  
If Erik is letting go of his guilt, Charles is going to let go of his, too. There's no reason for it. There's proof right in front of him that he's very much capable of being enough for Erik, of bringing him back when he wanders away, unmoored and twisting off. There's no reason for either of them to carry guilt when it's so stunningly obvious they're both capable of being what the other needs, even when they aren't always certain how best to get there. This is the inevitable end result. "You're not being crushed," he whispers, kissing Erik's forehead, still stroking his hair, scratching lightly with his nails. "I won't let any of it crush you. I'm going to help you carry it. I can do that, I promise. You'll let me help and show me how to be good for you, right? You'll let me?" he asks, and his voice breaks. He knows Erik didn't push him away, but it was frightening, not being able to reach him. Now that Erik's here, he can help. He can be what he needs, and bear this with him. That's his place.  
  
Erik nods, drawing his fingertips down the sides of Charles's temples and under his eyes. He's distracted for a long moment when Charles begins digging his nails into his scalp, melting against him and for a long moment incapable of any thought other than _hmmmmmmmmmmmn_. "Need you," he replies softly, nodding. "I will, OK? Promise." He needs Charles, he won't just let him. He kisses Charles's face along different points, all along each of his favorite spots.  
  
Charles tries very hard not to wince when his temples are touched, even grazed, but he can't help it. He flinches away unconsciously when Erik's lips get too close, whimpering quietly even as he bites down on his lip. He really hadn't expected the pain to last this long, but he isn't going to hide it from Erik, either. He knows better than that. "Sensitive," he explains, ashamed, but he leans forward to kiss Erik's cheek instead, offering a small smile. "It's okay. Just hurts a bit." He brings his own free hand up to rub, which doesn't do anything to help, just makes him grimace at the soreness. They'll be okay. They can take care of each other.  
  
Erik flinches himself, barely a twitch and just shakes his head, expression open and vulnerable, stripped of its usual default equanimity. It's a startling enough contrast even to Charles, who sees more of him than any human alive, that just goes to show how much he disregards on a daily basis. He lays a kiss at the center of Charles's forehead, clasping Charles's hand in his and kissing his knuckles, one at a time. Each one reminding Charles that he is good and Erik loves him, and please stay, don't go.  
  
Even when it isn't written on his face, Charles knows it's there. He always knows. Still, he's more than grateful that he's the one who gets to see this. To have the privilege. To keep safe this part of Erik, vulnerable and open, everything clear as day. He takes Erik's hand and kisses his knuckles, too, slow and one at a time. "I won't go anywhere. You told me not to go, and I'm good, aren't I? I always try to listen. I'll stay. I promise." He kisses Erik's palm, and then reaches for his other hand, too, gentle as he kisses each knuckle all over again. "May I ask you a question, Erik?" It's soft, but there's a twitch to his lips and a gleam in his eyes, something playful there despite everything.  
  
Erik nods, wide-eyed and curious. He presses Charles's fingertips to his lips next, unable to help a twitch of amusement in return. "OK Charles," he mumbles, his mind giant feet bumbling over themselves as it creeps up close to his Bonded's, crouching down and peering like a studious praying mantis.  
  
Charles grins, small and soft against Erik's fingers, kissing them. "Are you warm here?" he asks, genuinely curious. Erik has a habit of always being cold, a feat Charles finds incredible now that they're creeping into summer and sometimes exasperating, when it comes to their blanket ratio and thermostat controls. Erik's been manipulating the temperature to suit the both of them, but it's amusing to him that if Erik's shivering and feels the need to bundle, Charles probably feels perfectly comfortable; if Erik's warm and toasty, Charles is likely overheated and sweaty. He's also learned that if he puts his cold feet on Erik's legs and rubs them there, he can get a very satisfying squeak out of him, and he sends that image now, laughing quietly.  
  
Erik laughs, startled, and nods quickly. "Warm," he says mid-grin, tugging on the blanket draped over Charles's shoulders for good measure. Too warm? He's been doing the same thing, now, attempting to strike a good temperature for Charles that combines with the comfort of soft, cartoonishly-decorated cashmere. The bonus of this of course is that when Charles does press his cold limbs up against Erik, he's liable to encounter a living human space heater. Erik likes to absorb sunlight when he's happy, entirely unconscious, and it makes him run hotter than average.  
  
Charles likes it. It's very comforting, and just another thing he's come to associate with his Dominant. He is a little hot now, but he thinks it might have something to do with his internal temperature rather than his response to anything external. He's been running a fever during the worst of these episodes, less absorbed sunshine and comfort and more sweaty, uncomfortable heat with chills that accompany the nausea. "It's okay," he says, because he's certainly not cold enough for a blanket but it feels good to have Erik bundle him regardless. He takes it from around his own shoulders and wraps it around Erik instead, that soft, quiet grin back. "Yours now," he declares.  
  
Charles feels the response in Erik's mind like several tiny blob-like creatures jumping up onto his shoulder with little _wheeo!_ noises of pleasure. His head isn't exactly fully linear at the moment and in being less shut down than normal the Landscape has come to feature several hundred different entities that have come out of hiding. He tugs the blanket further over himself like a shawl, cozying up and resting his head on Charles's shoulder. "Soo nice to me," he sighs, tapping along Charles's knee and smoothing out his hand over his leg. A concerned _?!_ crops up next and he lays the back of his hand over Charles's forehead, able to gauge his exact body temperature with a touch.  
  
Charles loves those little blobs as much as he loves any part of Erik, which is an absolutely extraordinary amount. He smiles as he checks his temperature, small and weak but reassuring all the same. He definitely has a fever, but there's not much to be done for it, so he takes Erik's hand and kisses it instead. "It's alright," he promises, even though it definitely hurts, alternating between stabbing jolts and low, constant throbbing. It's making it a bit difficult for him to think, too. "Don't worry, okay?" Instead he goes back to petting Erik's hair, because it makes Charles feel a little better, too, or at least less likely to curl up into a ball and vomit from the pain.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "Can't stop," he murmurs, concerned, of course. Of course he is. How can Charles know it's OK? How does he know there's nothing to worry about? Erik squeezes his eyes shut, turning his head in closer to Charles's neck and shoulder.  
  
He doesn't, and that part's always frightening, but fretting won't help either of them. Charles kisses the top of Erik's head instead, scratching at that place just behind his ear. "It's alright," he promises again. "We can stay here until we both feel a bit better. I erased this dining room from existence, so we should be okay on that front," he laughs quietly, because he might have overdone it in an effort to keep Erik safe and whole.  
  
Charles can't promise that; and it barely registers to Erik at all as a result. He'll continue to fret and worry, on his own time, quietly in the background so as not to disturb anything. Erik is hypervigilant by nature, pair that with high-Dom instincts and it's just a fact of life for him. He's always watchful, always on guard, always analyzing and protecting and planning. When Charles mentions his latest perceptual masterpiece, though, Erik peers at him, wide-eyed and a little delighted if he's honest.  
  
Charles knows that. He sighs, doing his best not to huff, because he can't tell Erik not to follow his instincts anymore than Erik can or should tell him not to. He does grin sheepishly at those wide eyes, though, because he'll be honest and say he loves getting those sorts of reactions from his Doninant. It never ceases to thrill him. "There are a lot of children to account for and it was faster than any alternative," he explains, snorting. "Longterm I imagine it would cause quite a bit of confusion, but short term it seems to be working just fine." Even with this awful migraine raging at his temples, he seems more than capable. He's been monitoring, too, keeping an eye on everyone and spreading out even further, exploring his surroundings and - he tries not to get carried away, but his telepathy is just as overactive as it was fresh off the plane, apparently not stifled by the pain it's causing. It's oversensitive to everything, and if he wasn't so focused on Erik he would absolutely be following every ping! it gives him when it finds someone or something of interest.  
  
"Thank you," Erik whispers softly. He loves his kids and he's trying to do better but even he has limits, he absolutely refuses to let them see him like this. He's still partially shivering, even tucked under his blanket and curled up in Charles's arms, sympathetic nerves firing on all cylinders. He knows they're perfectly capable of handling the truth, and that they've been exposed to far worse in the past, but that's his job. They should be treated like children, they should be respected and protected and loved, and people should be making sure that what they take in is wholesome and good. He trails along after Charles, his own mind wandering as they catch onto Ellie and David and branch out to Near reading his book on the bus. _They look like me_ , he comments off-hand, completely unawares. _They look like her. They have her eyes._ It's eerie, is what it is.  
  
Charles doesn't find it eerie at all, and he doesn't think Erik does, either, underneath the layers of his reaction, but he's not going to correct him. He's not going to push him in any particular direction, or demand he admit to something he's not capable of yet. They'll get there when they get there, on Erik's terms. He's in control of this situation, and Charles will filter things out accordingly to assure that control, because the last thing he needs is to be overwhelmed by what his telepathy picks up on. He's kept the link to that deliberately muted. Not closed entirely, because he doesn't want to hide anything from Erik, but enough that it won't filter in through the Bond passively. He switches it up for Erik instead, showing him some of the younger kids outside. They've all found a lizard and are gathered around it, poking and prodding. Charles hides a smile in Erik's hair, still stroking and rubbing and petting, his own eyes closed as he rides out the rest of his own pain.  
  
 _Hey!_ Erik attunes his attention entirely to those kids, glowering. Roberto is just about to poke it again when Erik's projection appears and he jumps, startled, his head catching on fire. He reappears a few moments later scratching his singed hair sheepishly. Erik picks up the lizard and demonstrates his point by stroking it gently, then holds it out to them. No poking and prodding, that's a living being, not a toy.  
  
They were getting around to that, but Erik turning this into an active teaching moment warms him right up. So to speak, because with a fever more warmth isn't technically what he needs. He watches fondly, a soft smile on his lips as they take turns gently petting the lizard now, until said lizard scurries off, apparently having lost its patience for the entire thing. "I don't think we can use telepathy to watch the children every moment of the day," he points out, teasing but completely adoring as he nuzzles into Erik. Though he knows he will use it to make sure everyone is safe and relatively happy, so perhaps that's a moot point. Charles hides a grin in Erik, then reaches out to poke him. And continue doing it, providing the mental sound effect of _poke poke poke_. He's likely getting delirious, but so be it.  
  
"We can certainly try," Erik smiles at him, twitching under the pokes and finally capturing Charles's hand so he can pepper it with kisses, settling back down in his blanket once he's confident the children have learned their lesson. Even a little lizard deserves kindness and respect. None of his kids are cruel, they're just, well, kids. They can be thoughtless, but once they're put on a better path they smarten up pretty quickly and in being nicer to the creature they got to experience it crawling all over them happily before sauntering off. A better world or everyone involved. It's only a small thing, but that's what the fabric of a good foundation is comprised of. Erik firmly believes that, care in a thousand different insignificant touches adds up to a vibrant whole.  
  
Charles has experienced this firsthand, and he certainly agrees, but he chuckles quietly. "We can, but I don't know that we should," he murmurs, but he's not truly arguing. He'd never advocate for a passive approach to teaching or parenting, because it helped him none. He agrees that the little things count, especially to children, and that they shouldn't go unaddressed. It's just that children need room to make their own mistakes, too, without being constantly monitored and loomed over, and it's not an application of his telepathy he's at all comfortable with except in passive monitoring and scanning, though he certainly could watch every single one of them actively and constantly like they're being broadcast on rows of television screens. That, he thinks, is invasive. Something in the middle, though he's not advocating they stand back and let them wreak havoc. But kids will be kids, and even held to a high standard they should be allowed the space to be kids. "Feel free to control me that way, however," he snorts, and pokes Erik with his toe instead.  
  
Erik snorts a laugh. Honestly he wasn't even really paying attention to the conversation before now, too busy being poked and watching after the kids, but he turns the laser microscope focus of his regard back to Charles when he really does delve into it and he agrees. After all, his primary concern is their safety, not the minutiae of their lives. Erik can be a grueling taskmaster and stern disciplinarian, but he has a high tolerance threshold, and he doesn't lose his head over inconsequential issues. It's a delicately balanced juxtaposition, but Charles knows first hand that it works, and he thinks there they both have the same priorities. Between the two of them they will be equipped to handle anything that comes their way. "Worry not," he smirks. "I shall endeavor to do so."  
  
Charles is definitely a bit more lax, and his teaching style is wholly different than Erik's, but children need some of that, too. It's all about striking a balance, and as always, where one of them perhaps lacks, the other more than makes up for. They truly are two halves of a Pair, and anyone who has ever seen them in action would agree. "I don't mind you taking out your grueling taskmaster tendencies on me," he grins, and he doesn't. It helps keep him organized and steady, a thousand and more smaller tasks and Orders throughout the day, and when and if he chafes, it's ultimately good for both of them, in line with what they both need. He doesn't often question whether their dynamic is fulfilling or satisfying for Erik anymore, because the answer is often right in front of him. They thrive when they settle into it. Charles has now taken to poking Erik with both fingers and toes, biting down on his lip to stifle the laughter that threatens to bubble up. "You're my Dominant," he reminds both of them, because he knows it grounds Erik, and it does the same for him in little shivers up his spine far more pleasant than the chills from the fever. Erik can lean on this. Always.  
  
Erik catches his foot and tickles the bottom, yanking off his sock to kiss his big toe with a playful gleam in his eyes. He hasn't gotten around to outright grinning yet, still raw and over-exposed, but he's stable again. The silt is stilling at the bottom of the ocean where it belongs, undisturbed. The grief has returned to the atmosphere and lifted fog from the ground. "Yes," he murmurs softly. The more they settle into it the less prone Erik is of questioning his own instincts as well, which has worked out well for them as he gets more comfortable exerting his Dominance and reaffirming it whenever he gets a chance. "I am."  
  
Charles squirms immediately, laughing in quiet, stifled giggles as he tries not to kick Erik in the face. Light even in the dark. It always comes back around, and he imagines they'd find moments like this even in the darkest of places and circumstances. They have in the past and they will should they ever need to in the future. "No tickling," he declares, affecting that bossy tone as he moves his foot out of the way and goes for a poke straight to Erik's stomach, hiding his grin the best he can. "You're not allowed," he says, matter of fact. They'll get through this together. Erik can lean on him, and his Dominance over him, use it to ground and steady himself, and he should. No apologizing like in the airport. Charles wants it and needs it, too. They take care of each other.  
  
"I think I am allowed," Erik returns, injecting a mock-serious jolt of Will into the words and using the opportunity when Charles stops trying to bat his hands away to scoot down and lift up the hem of Charles's shirt, tickling his belly and blowing a raspberry at his navel, eyes flicked to meet Charles's in mischievous emerald. He ends up laying his head on his stomach and bunching the blanket around his neck, nice and tucked in safe, sound, bundled away from the outside world.  
  
Charles laughs, wriggling as much as he can with Erik on top of him before he settles down. He's shivering again, but he can't tell exactly what it's from. There's still pain, but not nearly as unbearable as before, and the waves of more intense stabbing seem to have stopped, if nothing else. Maybe it's Erik's Will, which seems to be unfolding again, humming around them and coaxing them back where they belong. He sinks into it gratefully. "We haven't slept in a very long time," he points out, which hasn't done any favors for their ability to handle what would be overwhelming under normal circumstances. He also hasn't eaten, but he doesn't intend to. His ribs are starting to stick out when he's shirtless again, but there's nothing to be done for it. It's not like he hasn't always been a bit frail.

* * *

The thing about that is Erik has been around the block over the years and he's seen pretty much the gamut of human responses and experiences to adversity, and while he hasn't ever verbalized anything or explicitly even formulated any real thoughts on the matter, he's not unfamiliar with what's happening there and he knows that Charles is well-trained enough not to be oblivious, either. It's part of the reason why he is vigilant about Charles eating healthily and regularly, and because he is a D5 and it is a very clear and very Dominance-laced expectation, Charles has responded well to his routine without the need to rip it open into a seeping, infected wound. He also understands that there are other factors at play including somatic stress and illness, so he can be lenient, but Charles hasn't eaten today so he just smiles. "We haven't," he agrees, and it's something he plans on remedying soon, but there is a routine to be had and it is morning, so he slowly rises to his feet and holds out his hand. "Let's see about getting a shower and some breakfast, and then we'll start your Postures, OK?" The Order is delivered mildly, but Charles is right-Erik does need to lean on his Will right now, so it comes out strong, a vibrant pulse of Command sparking an organic pulse in the air.  
  
"Yes, Erik," he murmurs quietly, shivering at that as the Order shoots up his spine and sparks electricity all the way down to his toes. Being on his feet immediately makes him dizzy, though, and he grips tight to Erik's shirt, the whole room spinning as he closes his eyes tight and tries very hard not to be sick. He'd thought he was better, that the worst of it had passed, but he's sucking in harsh, uneven breaths, the entire world topsy-turvy and uncomfortably loud.  
  
Erik waits until he's steady before leading them to the bathroom, having raised him to his feet carefully. He's never been in this house before but he automatically knows where it is, just like he knows where everything else. The house tells him, the walls breathe little pointy arrows in the right direction and lead them like pulling on a chain between the two places. When they're inside he shuts the door and dims the lights from harsh fluorescent, and he undresses him slowly.  
  
Charles is definitely going to be sick. He breaks away from Erik about halfway through the process to kneel in front of the toilet. There's not a whole lot in his stomach, so what comes out is an awful mix of fluid and bile, his throat and stomach constricting with it. This is not how he'd intended to be spending their first day in Israel, but his skin is broken out in dots of prickling flesh and raised hair, cold sweat and he's projecting his own misery in heady, dizzying waves. "Sorry," he gasps.  
  
Erik can help here and he gives Charles's nervous system a little tweak, letting the physical process come smoothly and minus the cramping and acidic burn, aftertaste and difficulty catching one's breath. He's knelt down beside and rubs Charles's back, brushing his hair out of his face and sweeping a wave of warmth through his body that dissolves the matted sweat and gooseflesh. "I've got you, you are all right," he murmurs softly.  
  
Charles bends over, still unable to catch his breath. Everything feels like it's shaking, and he realizes after a second that it's because it is shaking. The whole room is. He groans, another hot flash enveloping his body that follows the chills, and even Erik's influence doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot here. "M'sorry," he repeats, small and below a whisper, hardly spoken at all.  
  
Erik raises his hand and the room stops, particles not so much shoved around by external energy as reconfigured for stillness, whispered instructions on behavior down to electrons and protons. "Do not apologize for this," he murmurs, the Order gentle. "It is all right. I'm right here."  
  
Charles leans forward and retches again, grunting as everything gets blurry and garbled with feedback flooding in all the wrong ways. "Gonna cut you off a little, okay?" He doesn't want Erik to panic when he does, but he also can't hurt him with this. Not when he's so vulnerable.  
  
"No," he murmurs, the Command strong. "I don't need you to," he smiles, eyes crinkled. "You won't hurt me. I promise." And he isn't. Erik is built to withstand, like a skyscraper with reinforced scaffolding and metal roots sinking into the solid earth so it won't bend or twist in raging hurricanes. He would be far worse off if Charles disappeared now. He's already helpless and immobile and incapable, he can't be unaware.

* * *

But Charles doesn't want him to have to endure because of him. He's been through enough, he's dealing with enough. Tears of frustration well up in his eyes as he coughs out nothing but spit and acid, spinning and guilty and helpless, too. His mind is a jagged, dangerous place, misfired signals and voices that jumble together and images that sear and burn when they flash. He can still see Erik's family and the children and Warren somewhere relatively close by and even Raven, more than five thousand miles away, her mind a blur of dreams and quiet, in vivid, stunning clarity, but that feedback overlaid with the rest is incredibly overwhelming. It doesn't help that he's aware of and connected to minds that he does not want to touch, but here they are and he's inside of them and somehow he feels as if he's violated, skin crawling for it. Charles does the logical thing and slams his head against porcelain, grunting. "Ow," he mumbles.  
  
Erik isn't afraid, and all those misfired signals bounce harmlessly off of him as he navigates, finding Charles's brilliant, glowing light within the mess and stroking his fingers along the pulsating golden thread of their Bond. He would go through even more if it were gone from him, and he's made himself very clear that he does not want that. When Charles bangs his head off of the toilet Erik moves immediately to restrain him, a spark of shock lighting up the room. " _Atzor_!" he Orders firmly. "Stop. Do not do that again. Close the door on them," he Orders, commanding and in control. "Focus on me, on my mind." It is where Charles belongs, it's the most familiar place to him, and it draws him in every time he comes near, places curved to fit his shape.  
  
Charles moans in pain but does as he's told, squirming in Erik's arms for only a moment or two before he calms. He already was focused on Erik, but now he wraps himself up in his mind and his Will, and the rest smarts a whole lot less when he's tethered up and not free floating. He rubs himself against whatever part of Erik he can reach, overwhelmed tears in his eyes as he breathes through it. Eventually the most agonizing wave of it passes and he's left limp and whimpering pitifully. "Bad?" he asks.  
  
Erik only tightens his hold around Charles further, locking him in place until he calms, rubbing at his back when he finally does. "Of course not," he whispers, shaking his head. Just focus on him and breathe. That's all Charles needs to do, and he's doing wonderfully. They will get through this. Erik is strong even now, in spirit and body, able to easily handle the brunt of Charles's mental explosion outward and siphon it off until he begins to whimper and go still in his arms, Erik's Will flexing and shimmering outward in satisfaction when Charles yields.  
  
It's not that Charles isn't strong. He is, in more than a few ways. He's also fairly certain that if anyone had to experience this particular brand of agony in its entirety, this jumbled up cacophony of sound and image and chaotic input, they would have crumbled already. It's not that Erik isn't strong of mind, because he certainly is. But he wasn't built for this. There are parts of Charles' brain that are naturally accessible only to him, the way Charles can't feel the Earth the same way as Erik even if he tried. It's more than human brains are meant to experience and process, and it hurts, and he's shaking and whimpering in Erik's arms and there are tears in his eyes and he nods, miserable but trusting. "Not bad," he repeats, because he needs to, taking shaky, slow breaths as the brunt of it passes and leaves him thoroughly, impossibly exhausted. "Hurts. Ow." Perhaps not his most eloquent in the aftermath.  
  
If there is anyone who isn't Charles that can handle it, it's absolutely Erik, in precisely the same way that Charles knows he could prevent Erik from melting down the world if he had to. Erik's lived a lifetime enduring experiences that human brains aren't _meant_ to process, and thus far he hasn't cracked. He is completely confident that it won't happen, not unless Charles deliberately tried to hurt him, and that's just not possible. Even at their very worst, they bend for one another and make way, unconsciously keeping each other from harm. Charles can step in front of Erik mid-episode and know that he won't be hit, and Erik knows the same is true in reverse. They'll never have the same perceptions and experiences as one another, but there is no part of either that cannot be faced together. He was built for Charles. Charles's abilities aren't an otherworldly entity, they're part of Charles, they are Charles. And Charles is meant for Erik. He will never walk alone again. "I know, sweetheart, I know," he murmurs, kissing his cheek. "Not bad. Mine."  
  
Enduring it with him is not the same as taking on the brunt of it the way Charles does, and the only way to keep Erik out of harm is to keep it from crushing him. He does, and he will, but it doesn't mean he has to hide, or that Erik can't be there to weather it from the other side and keep him tethered to him. "I won't let you," he whispers, almost as if he hasn't spoken at all. "I won't. So please don't ever try." He doesn't want to defy Erik like this, but he will. It's a firm boundary, and he gives it right now in Erik's arms, still trembling with tears in his eyes. He doesn't think Erik even can, but he wants to make it very clear.  
  
Charles is right that Erik can't take the input of seven billion people all at once, but withstanding doesn't always mean exposure. Erik's mind is exceptionally proficient at shutting things out and down, letting things pass over and through him. Charles doesn't have to hide, and he doesn't have to shut it out. Erik can modulate that from his end, and that's exactly what they're doing right now. They're both OK. They're both still here. Charles probably is the only person alive who can deal with that in any capacity, but Erik is his Dominant. If Erik couldn't handle proximity to Charles's mind, there's no way he could be. If Charles had to shut himself away every time something like this happened; it wouldn't be sustainable, Erik would always be locked out, never able to really care for him how he needs and Erik refuses to accept that as a possibility. "Charles, that simply isn't your decision. You trust me, yes?" he wipes away those tears with his thumb. He won't let himself be hurt. He knows where the line is and what to do to ensure he doesn't lose himself in the cacophony of violent, insanity-inducing shredded knives. He won't let himself be hurt because he does need to be here, to take care of Charles, but he needs to be here. And he is here. "So let me be very clear in turn. You do not need to shut it away and hide. I am your Dominant. You are for me. All of you. It will hurt me far greater to be shut off entirely, so do not try."  
  
Charles squirms against Erik's hold and shakes his head, trembling harder because he doesn't want to be defiant but he doesn't know any other way. He isn't hiding or shutting anything down, but he is shielding. Not consciously, and he's not even sure he could stop if he wanted to, because there are parts that are Charles that belong to Erik but that Erik simply can't experience in the same way; what comes off as whirring for Erik is actually a constant, changing mechanism that works similarly to how Erik knows the world in push and pulls and particles. Charles can see it happening and understand how it does, can even feel it inside of him and through him and around him, but it won't ever be possible for him in the same way. "Won't hide," he promises, croaked, shaking. "I'm not. I won't. But you can't..." He can't try to take it from him. Maybe pain won't always be necessary, and Erik can help him bear it. He'll accept that, because it's terrifying to do it alone, and Charles has been alone, too. Because he belongs to Erik, and he promised to let his Dominant care for him. "But no pain because of me. Please." Charles doesn't think Erik could. He doesn't think Charles, in any capacity and any state, would let him. But the thought is terrifying, and he's spent his whole life thinking of his telepathy as an awful, wayward thing that violates and harms and he's just starting to think differently.  
  
"I haven't, have I?" Erik reminds him, tapping his nose. And Charles has no conception of just how much that wrecks Erik, because he doesn't let it manifest even in his mind, firmly spread out over the atmosphere and available only through wrenching and clawing harshly. He's always known it's a possibility available to him, and he's consciously allowed Charles to continue to deal with it naturally; what essentially comes down to just _letting_ his submissive suffer and be in pain. But more than anyone else, Erik is uniquely equipped to handle scenarios like that, too. The world is so often in black and white for him. It's agonizing to let Charles suffer, for them both, but if Erik were to take that from him Charles would suffer worse. Erik's lived his entire life ensuring that everyone around him experienced the least amount of pain, and he always will. In a way Erik has taken the pain, just not physically, and he knows from experience that sometimes the easiest thing to endure is harm done in the name of protecting a person you love. Charles always says he would rather be tortured than let Erik come to harm, and the same is true in reverse, because that's just how humans are wired. Charles may feel bad, but he isn't alone, and he is safe and he is getting-there to happy. He also believes that this is what amounts to a type of growing pain. Charles has conceptualized his telepathy as wrong and awful for so long that he's never allowed it to develop, and now that he's met Erik it's begun to do so of its own accord. Charles is chafing against it and resisting which only makes it worse and feeds into a sustained loop, but that's gradually righting itself, too. "It will get better," he whispers with a smile. "I know it will. And I will be right here with you."  
  
Charles doesn't think it would work, he doesn't think it can, and he is infinitely grateful that Erik isn't going to try. It doesn't matter that he doesn't have access to the particular thoughts themselves, Charles knows Erik and he knows how he works. There's no reality where he would be pleased about letting his submissive suffer, but Charles firmly believes it is the lesser of evils here. He slumps in relief, sniffling quietly, the aftermath pounding at his temples sensitive and hot and spiky, but no longer unbearable or nausea-inducing. "I'm not going to hide how awful it is," he whispers, and he's sweating and everything is decidely too much, everything except Erik, because this is what Erik can do. What he always does. "It's terrible. I'd like it if it got better yesterday. But I know it will." He won't allow for anything else. The more this goes on, the more he hurts Erik. That it's excruciating torture, enough that he's screaming and writhing on the inside at any given moment, that's not nearly as important to him. Charles can withstand and endure, too.  
  
It's the only important thing to Erik. Whatever he can do to mitigate it, he does, offering comfort mentally and physically. Erik is good at helping people cope with pain, a skill developed over sixteen years of handling panic and freak outs and torture and excruciating agonies one after the other. He was raised on that, screams and writhing instead of milk and cookies, and just as familiar. Usually he does it without emotional affect, and even now he's become less expressive, calmer and in control, but it's Charles. It's his submissive, which rends him into pieces, but Erik is good at holding himself together under the very worst of conditions and as long as it means he can be here for Charles to lean on, that is what matters. Being useless and incompetent entirely would just destroy him. So he does it with love, rocking him gently and singing him the Song of the Sea. ( _The enemy boasted,/‘I will pursue, I will overtake them./I will divide the spoils;/I will gorge myself on them./I will draw my sword/and my hand will destroy them.’/But you blew with your breath,/and the sea covered them..._ )  
  
It's likely how Charles feels when they end up in similar situations in reverse. Whatever he can bear, he will. He wasn't exactly raised on milk and cookies either, but thinking of that for too long isn't going to help either of them because there's quite a bit of muck there now. When the song is over and he's still being held, and doing the holding, too, clinging tightly, he nuzzles into Erik's chest and lets the rest of the pain slither out of him, big, deep breaths that exhale some of those jagged edges, everything starting to smooth out. "Are you going to hold me tighter everytime now so I don't bang my head off things?" he asks quietly, and he can find humor in it but he's sure Erik didn't in the moment.  
  
"Every time," Erik replies softly. In many ways it's been good for him to look after Charles because it means he doesn't have to face going back inside and interacting with his family, and when Charles breathes out the last of it, there's nowhere left to go but into the fire. A little while longer, at least, because they do have a routine to get to and Erik helps him to his feet to shed him of the rest of his clothes. "Shower," he adds with a huff. There's no rail or seat in this tub so Erik decides to turn it into a bath, and a nice balm for aching muscles aside.

* * *

At least his suffering is useful. In all seriousness, Charles wants to help as much as he possibly can, and if Erik needs breaks between exposure, they're more than capable of taking those. Perhaps without the agony next time. Charles is limp and exhausted and still hurting as they climb into the tub, barely managing to lift his head from Erik's shoulder. He does reach up to brush under Erik's eyes, frowning. The circles there were getting better and now they're worse again and it's probably the same for him. He swipes an eyelash onto his thumb while he's there, presenting it. "Make a wish," he mumbles, and the words are practically slurred.  
  
The lines on Erik's face have returned as well, the grey hair at his temples somehow more prominent, as though he's been able to filter out his own perception of himself without even realizing it, or maybe he's simply looked more youthful and vibrant because he felt more youthful and vibrant and Charles can see past it all. It's not so now; he's calm and rooted, a tree growing slowly, and just as weathered. He leans over and blows it off with a mischievous twinkle to his eyes; that's the downside to having long lashes. They shed directly into your scleras at all times. "I wish for you to feel good and be happy," he says, unaware he's not supposed to tell what his wish is.  
  
Charles will smooth it all out again. Except laugh lines. Those can stay. He grins quietly, closing his eyes against the dizzy aftermath of it all, and the exhaustion, too. "That's my wish, except I want it for you," he murmurs instead of pointing out the wish rules. They're silly, anyway, and he can make his come true without a wayward eyelash. "I'm not happy unless you are, so you can help." He knows they'll be alright through this. Erik is going to lean on him. He's going to take care of his Dominant. "Does it really help?" he asks quietly, and sleepy and drifting and boneless as a result of significantly less pain, he isn't totally specific at first. He elaborates after a moment or two, trying to pinpoint what he'd meant. "Being my Dominant. Giving me Orders and keeping me in place and the lot. Having me submit to you." He hopes so. He thinks so. In the airport when he seemed positive he'd spin off and crash, he'd kept together by keeping Charles tightly in hand.  
  
And there are more of those now than there ever were, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes in smiles that don't typically appear on his lips. He rubs his cheek against Charles's and kisses him, adjusting to wrap arms tightly around him amidst floating, technicolor bubbles. "It really does," he replies, soft. And consistently it's been the only thing that has. "Does it help you?" Erik hopes it does. He thinks it does. Charles always responds well to it, no matter what's happening, the firmer, daresay more strict Erik becomes the more stable Charles is.  
  
Charles squirms, laughing quietly both at the question and because Erik's beard is tickling him again, and that always delights him. "Just a little," he whispers, a soft smile on his lips as he's readjusted, going easy and pliant and all too willing against his Dominant's chest. He means more than anything, joking aside, because he honestly can't think of anything more grounding. "Are you going to be strict with me on this trip, then? Treat me with a nice, firm hand?" he teases. He's too shy to say it, but he certainly wouldn't mind. He hopes so.  
  
"Would that bother you?" Erik asks, and he's not quite there to tease back, his tone sincere and a little imploring. He's already unconsciously drawing his hands down Charles's chest, petting him and soothing his overworked muscles.  
  
Charles shakes his head, twisting just a bit to hide in Erik's shoulder. "No," he whispers, completely sincere, but painfully shy about it. "Would that... be good for you? Do you think you'd feel better if you did?" That's what matters to Charles right now, more than anything.  
  
Erik tilts his jaw up and kisses him, soft. "Yes," he whispers back. He's already started to, not only in Orders but in crowded touches as well, just toeing the edge of overbearing, with nothing more intentional than a reassurance to them both that Erik has him under control and that he belongs by his side.  
  
Charles shivers into the kiss, mostly limp as he sinks into it, but it feels nice anyway. "Can I ask for something?" he murmurs, and it's soft, quieter than usual, not only because his head still aches but because he feels that way, too, especially after the incident earlier; softer-edged and submissive, eager to respond to Erik's Dominance.  
  
"Always," Erik nods solemnly. Of course it makes him more stable and calm to Order Charles and reaffirm their Bond, to establish himself in millions of tiny repetitions that he is Charles's Dominant, but he is always happy to do just about anything that Charles asks, give him anything he needs, so long as it's safe and healthy.  
  
This one is going to be difficult for him. Charles bites his lip and sits back, readjusting himself in Erik's lap. "You have to promise you'll really consider it before I ask," he whispers. "Do you promise?"  
  
Erik nods, head tilted curiously. He always tries to consider everything that Charles tells him or asks of him, no matter what it is. "Of course. I promise," he assures warmly.  
  
"Put yourself first." Charles expects it might earn him a reaction immediately, so he continues, meeting Erik's gaze as he does. "You can take care of me and make sure I'm alright, I'm not asking you to do otherwise. This isn't self-sacrifice. But I want to give you this. I want you to use me, Erik, and I don't mean," he gestures between them vaguely, cheeks slightly pink as he shakes his head. "I mean that I'm your submissive, and I'm here to serve you like this when you need it. You don't have to completely disregard how I think and feel, of course not, but prioritize yourself for once. Please. Follow your instincts. Order me because you want to. Expect things of me, and correct me when I don't meet them. Be as strict as you'd like, and do those things I know you hold yourself back from if it feels natural. You apologize for it so often, and I don't want you to be apologetic for it, at least not for this trip. You don't need to be. It's what I'm here for. It's what I was meant for, isn't that what we've decided?" he grins, head ducked finally as his face heats. "This is all going to be so difficult for you, Erik, and this is a way I can help. I can be here for you. I can be good for you." And now he's definitely regretting pulling away from Erik's chest, because he has nowhere to hide.  
  
Erik listens to it all the way through without reacting either verbally or via his expression, but what Charles sense from him when he finishes isn't dissent or defiance or argumentativeness at all; mostly because Erik's never really heard it phrased like this-he doesn't view himself as not putting himself first, his primary desire is almost always to look after Charles and keep his submissive happy because that's what makes him feel good. He has absolutely no idea what it would mean to pursue something for purely his own sake, outside of very specific situations and that wasn't what Charles meant. (And even that is more or less an expression of overt Dominance that Charles needs, so it's all going to the same place.) Erik bites his lip, eyebrows knit together. "I don't know how," he admits quietly at last. "Would you help me?"  
  
Charles smiles, soft and still just a tad flustered as he nods, eyes lowered. "I think you do," he whispers, very quietly. "I'll make it easier and tell you that what I need is what you need, so you won't be ignoring those things. Usually by doing one we end up doing the other, but I want you to think about you. I know you're capable of it because you've done it before. You've Ordered things because you wanted them, or because it felt right, or because you didn't care about any particular whim I had in the moment," he grins sheepishly, still not looking directly at Erik. He has a habit of wheedling to get his way, and pushing buttons if he doesn't get it. "If I get uncomfortable, if I'm truly upset or frightened or I need it to stop, we have a pause-word. I know it's not just for when we're in bed together. I'll use it, you know I will. Besides that, I want this to be about you. What you want, and feel like, and need from me. There are things you've wanted to do or ask of me that you haven't because you're worried about me, aren't there?" It's rhetorical. Charles knows. "Do them. Please. Be my Dominant, and use me as I'm meant to be used." He's flustered himself again, but it's sincere, too. Imploring.  
  
Erik has a hard time thinking like this. He's sure Charles is right; he's unconsciously done so because he's felt more comfortable or because specific situations arose, but presented with the challenge now it feels like his head is entirely empty. All he can think is that he just wants Charles to be happy, and he knows that this is something that would make him happy, so Erik isn't trying to dismiss it. He's just failing, another in what's sure to become an endless array of knots on the string holding him back from engaging with what they both need. "I will try," he whispers solemnly. "I promise."  
  
Charles bites his lip again, inching forward until he's perched on Erik's lap properly and smoothing his hands over his chest. "I want you to be happy," he whispers, quiet and shy still. "You can't fail at this. There's no way to fail. I just want..." He shrugs, frustrated at his own lack of the proper words for this. "It feels good, doesn't it? When I... you know. Yield to you?" Now he's barely audible. He knows it makes Erik feel good. That it makes him happy, and more confident, more stable, and overall more himself. He wants that for him, especially here.  
  
Erik nods, tapping Charles's lip in warning, an eyebrow raised expectantly. They're literally in the middle of this discussion, and this is one of those things he Orders for himself more than Charles's benefit-the lips heal easily and other than a bit of swelling there's not much damage than can be done there, but Erik is the only one who should be leaving marks on Charles's body. No one else, not even Charles. "Let it heal," he murmurs, before answering sheepishly, "Yes. It does."  
  
Charles pouts, and for a moment it's wholly genuine. If he's honest, he might always have the habit, as ingrained as it is, and Erik tapping his lips or tapping his own lips in reminder, if he can't do the other for some reason, while usually immediately grounding and steadying, is also clearly not his favorite reminder of Erik's Dominance. He's bad at remembering it. It's like Erik correcting his posturing during the day. It's certainly not for him. He stops biting and tries to remember what he'd meant to say before, and then changes his mind, deliberately pulling his lip between his teeth instead, stripping the unusually full, red lips momentarily white where they dig in. "I like biting them," he says.  
  
"Mhm," Erik's own purse, amused, and he kisses Charles just because he can. "That must be nice for you," he huffs softly. "Let them heal, Charles." The Order is like a jolt of electricity mixed with colorful bathwater, sparks flying through floating bubbles. "Tell me what you wished to say." As usual, the more Erik's Orders compound one another, the hotter and brighter his Will shines around the room, focused collectively on Charles like a laser.  
  
When he shivers this time, it's head to toe and he sighs with it, practically melting into the bubbles, the water, and Erik. "Um," he mumbles intelligently, searching for what he'd been meaning to say. "Something about how I need it, too, so you being all strict and expecting me to yield isn't exactly not for me." He knows that might help Erik let go. "Can we skip Postures?" he asks suddenly.  
  
Erik's eyebrows fly up, but he pushes down his immediate instinct (certainly not,) to instead stroke along his jaw with a fingertip. "Why do you ask?"  
  
Charles is momentarily distracted by that touch, humming as he leans all the way into it like a seeking, needy creature. Then he shrugs, and manages to stamp down a smile. "Because it sounds like something I don't want to do right now," he says, which actually might be true because they require things like focus and grace and he'd rather flop onto the nearest surface and stay there. Even if he doesn't feel like it, though, he knows instinctively he'd be all out of sorts if he didn't, maybe even, dare he say it, slightly cranky. "I also petition that you eat my breakfast for me." That one is a bit more grounded in actual protest. "While I'm making requests, of course," and here he smiles sweetly, the picture of innocence.  
  
"Mmhmm," Erik smirks at him. "Well, I've _considered_ your requests and you will absolutely be doing your Postures _and_ eating breakfast, I'm afraid to say." And those are Orders, too, because once he gets in the habit it's difficult for him to stop. One overlays the next until every breath he exhales is twined permanently in golden-platinum liquid strands of Dominion. He bops Charles on the nose and gives it a kiss on the tip for good measure.  
  
That just makes him shiver and squirm around, already dropped far into subspace just as a result of the situation. His head is still pounding, though the pain is muted, and he's exhausted and loose-limbed with relief and submission as he drops his head back on Erik's shoulder and whimpers, eyelids heavy. "Yes, Erik." He chews at the inside of his cheek, and now there's a small, shy but satisfied grin curling his lips. "You like being strict," he accuses. "Do you think I'll be good for you?"  
  
"You have discovered my secret," Erik whispers back, warm. He traces that grin with the fingertips of both hands, gentle and delicate, drawing them down Charles's face and neck, curling over his collar. Erik can never quite seem to stop touching him, regardless of the situation, but Charles sinking deeper into subspace has tugged Erik down further with him and every touch leaves behind a sparkle of Will-infused energy. "I do believe you will," he murmurs lowly. Not only does he think Charles will, but he knows that he'll enjoy making him so.  
  
Charles is a shivery mess in seconds, sighing softly at every touch and spark of Will. Somehow he still manages to wriggle like he wants out when he wants anything but. "Uh-uh," he whispers, and that's apparently all he can get out, sloshing water around as he makes himself dizzy again.  
  
"Be still," Erik gives his next Order softly, massaging his fingertips through Charles's hair. He kisses Charles again, over his eyebrow, nose scrunching up when he smiles, faint but genuine. "I happen to know your secret as well," he hums. "You like when I am strict."  
  
Charles pouts as he's forced to still in Erik's arms, settling down against him even though that's awfully dull. "No," he says, just to be contrary, but then he's smiling because Erik is, delighted and warm inside, deep down in subspace whether he'll admit it or not and very much enjoying the idea of Erik being stricter with him as he rubs their noses together. He's already responding beautifully, everything calmed and soothed, his pain much more of an afterthought even as it lingers.  
  
Erik lathers up some soap in his hands, drawing them down Charles's body in languid, easy swipes. He's deliberate and meticulous, finding every little speck of dirt that's stuck itself to Charles's skin during their ten hour flight and scrubbing it out with infinite gentleness, patterns designed to soothe and catch onto the hooks of subspace, swirl up more shivery, electric pulses in tune with his heart. "Careful," Erik teases. "I may think you are serious, and then I'll become a hippie. We can play _hacky-sack_."  
  
For some reason he's very ticklish on top of shivery, and Charles gasps and laughs softly, held securely in Erik's arms even as he tries to wriggle away. He blinks at the statement, unable to hold back another giggle even as he bites at his cheek to stifle it. "I don't have the foggiest what that means, Erik," he admits, grinning in full now, sighing in content as he returns to his spot on Erik's shoulder and lets his eyes drift closed. "But I'm very good at hacky-sack." He's not. "Give the soap here," he demands, bossy and still with his eyes closed, so he doesn't seem very prepared to actually have it.  
  
"Won't happen," Erik kisses him again, on the lips this time, lingering longer than a cursory touch of reassurance and he wraps his legs around Charles's body, too, holding him fast in every way like a human-sized octopus. "I take care of you," he murmurs against Charles's mouth. "You are mine. I look after what is mine."  
  
He's still a bit too limp to be an active participant, but he submits to it eagerly all the same and now he has to fight not to moan, because Erik restraining him in any way is one of his favorite things and he happens to know Erik likes it, too. He hasn't been quite bold enough to bring up that he'd like very much to be restrained outside of the bedroom more (and inside, too, please), at Erik's leisure, but he's sure Erik knows. There's little that makes him feel safer. Charles still manages a pout, though. "I wanted to wash you," he protests. "Please?" He's apparently remembered his manners.  
  
"Mhm," Erik says casually, continuing in his task without stopping to pause. "You will," he does assure, and Charles can hear the shift in his voice when he sinks past that certain point of Dominion where the world is bright and soft at the edges and Charles is vivid in contrast-exposure, every line and angle sharpened, and every word is rasped deeper and honeyed, where even their breathing and heartbeats align and in some rare (but increasing on the trajectory path of healing) instances this is even where Erik revels in it for nothing other than his own sake, follows his whims and instincts; most of which are to care for Charles of course, but it's odds and ends, fussy stuff. Nothing that Charles needs to be healthy, he's clean already but Erik's fastidious about it, grooming him by tracing light streaks of touch over every perceived fleck. It's an excuse to touch and hold, to fret over, to Dominate. And Charles just has to sit there and endure, a constant reminder of his place.  
  
Charles thinks it's becoming more common than Erik realizes it is. The lines gets blurred a lot, to be fair; it's a bit difficult to tell exactly where their own wants and needs start and the other's end, when so often they coincide perfectly or directly feed into each other. There are things Erik likes, that he tends towards, instincts that he's finally letting himself listen to without hesitance, expectations he's letting himself have, and Charles is more than enthusiastic about encouraging it, if not in the moment than in the aftermath. Once, Erik told him that he believed the well of his own Dominance was bottomless and endless, and Charles certainly hopes so. He hums softly and doesn't fuss too much as Erik continues his methodical washing, skin oversensitive enough that he whimpers and jolts every now and then, but besides that he's obediently still and submissive. It doesn't take long at all before he's far, far beneath the ocean of subspace, especially after the extended agony of earlier. He's making soft, quiet noises before long, mouthing idly at Erik's neck, rubbing his cheek there. "Erik," he sighs.  
  
Erik runs his fingers up and down Charles's spine, curling over his hip to press him even closer, restrain him more fully against Erik's body. When he's finally satisfied that he's done, and Charles is purring with his eyes closed and floating far off into the atmosphere, Erik twines a cord of Will along his mind and tugs him back, a buoy bobbing along the ocean underneath, tethered to Erik and when Charles looks up, brilliant azure peeking out, Erik smiles at him warmly, eyes crinkled and nose scrunched up, pleased and he trails his knuckles over Charles's temple, barely a graze. "Your turn," he plucks up a bit of bubbles from around them and taps Charles on the nose, leaving behind a foamy dot.  
  
Charles shudders down to his toes, whimpering loudly at even the barest graze to his temple, shivering violently in the aftermath as pure energy sparks and vibrates all the way through him. It hadn't hurt, really, but it had jolted, enough to wind him so that he's blinking wide-eyed and slightly disoriented in the aftermath. "Yes, Erik," he murmurs, and it's maybe a bit slurred, eyes half-lidded as he takes the soap and lathers. He's much less methodical than Erik is, essentially just rubbing, making constant, soft noise the way he seems to when he's this deep. His eyes are big and incredibly blue even in the dim light, lips pulled up into a mirrored, earnest smile that brings out his dimples as he searches for approval. He doesn't think there's anything he would do right now without seeking it, sunk down-down-down even with Erik tethering him. If Erik told him to do basically anything now, even if it wasn't an Order, he'd trust him and do what he's told, eager to please even limp with the sleepy exhaustion that followed splitting pain.  
  
Erik is way oversensitized, muscles jumping under Charles's fingertips where he applies them, tension pooled up everywhere all over again and leeching back out, a push-pull painful in its own way. The longer Charles goes on, though, the more relaxed he becomes, his eyes becoming half-lidded. He continues touching in return, idle and self-soothing. Everything that Erik does at this point, and everything he says, comes attached with wisp-smoke curls of Command, and where Charles seeks approval he is given it, in taps to his dimples and calm smiles. Erik arches up underneath him like a cat seeking sunlight, touch-starved even though he almost never stops touching Charles; as though his body realizes it has years and years to make up for and it's finally found the place where it can receive affection and it's safe and warm and lovely.  
  
Charles is the same way. He smiles in utter delight at the silent approval, like Erik lit up the sun inside of him and it's radiating outward, those dimples deeper and his eyes creased. When he washes it's almost idle, sighing and murmuring softly, eyes nearly closed they're so hooded. He tries to actively ease some of the tension there, in rubs and kneading and kisses sometimes, too, everything sensual and seeking and soft, completely drenched in Erik's Will and exceptionally willing, content submission. "I love you," he whispers, and he's somewhere near Erik's neck again, peppering wet, slightly sloppy kisses there, nuzzling in with those purring sounds. "Love you. I love you, Erik. Love you, sir," he sighs, and he doesn't seem aware that he's repeated himself, too busy trying to get closer, one hand still washing because he's been given a task and he doesn't want to not complete it, even if he's been rather bad at it in comparison.  
  
Erik twitches under the attention of Charles's lips, keeping him firmly pressed against his chest. "I love you, too, sweetheart," he whispers back, voice full of deep, abiding warmth. He's not particularly aware that Charles has repeated himself because he's been entirely soaked in similar emotions, and he drags his fingertips over Charles's exposed skin lightly, tipping his chin up to expose the line of his neck for easier access and unable to keep the slow smile from settling for good over his features. "I love you so much, _neshama_ ," he laughs, quiet and sincere. He's not focused at all on whether or not Charles is proficient at it, mostly he just enjoys being touched and held, his real motivations easily parsed. "You are wonderful," he murmurs, strands of affection peeking out of glimmering Will.  
  
Immediately Charles is sighing happily, eyes fluttering with the praise and affection as he fully bares his neck to Erik. He truly never thought he'd be the type of submissive to whine and offer his exposed throat to a Dominant, but there's absolutely no shame in it when it's Erik, when it's his Dominant; there's nothing more natural in the world, trembling and open, the flesh already marked and covered partially by Erik's collar and he's humming with contentment and adoration, vibrating it all around them. He's stopped washing in favor of curling as close as possible. "All clean," he announces, smiling softly.  
  
Erik lets out a low noise of pleasure and curls his fingers along Charles's throat, inhaling deeply at the juncture of his shoulder where it meets his neck. He's overcome, wrapped up fully in thick, dark cords of braided Will leaching out velvety Dominion the longer they're here together, the further down Charles goes and at last he gives in to the instinct roaring in his veins, baring his teeth to nip him sharply just above his collar.  
  
Charles' lips part on a gasp, eyes flung wide open as he trembles in Erik's arms. He lets out a high, airy moan in the aftermath, bound tightly in Will and calming, needy subspace, his toes curled beneath the water and his body entirely boneless, floating in subspace and still-warm water but mostly Erik's Will, pain evaporated in the wake of it. He doesn't pull away in the slightest, sighing instead and tilting his head that much further as if he's begging more. He is.  
  
"Mine,," Erik rumbles low in his chest, a growl of purring satisfaction vibrating under his skin and resonating between those cords like harmonics from a tuning fork pitched to every molecule on the Earth itself. He soothes the bite with his tongue, scraping his teeth over unmarked skin as if it's an affront to him, to be so unblemished and pale. It should be covered with him, it should be visible for everyone to see. The water slowly shuts off and Erik lifts the stopper out of the drain so that the colorful swirls begin to dissipate, and he leads Charles to his feet, collecting a towel to dry him off fastidiously even though he could do it with a flick of his hand, it's another way he can look after his submissive, surrounding him with warm, soft fabric and bundling him up tight.  
  
Charles is barely holding himself up at this point. He's limp and vibrating to Erik's frequency, perfectly in tune with his Will even as his legs shake with the effort of keeping him up. He's perfectly used to functioning on no food or sleep, but after the episode he's just had it's more of a struggle even after years of conditioning. Every time his temples graze contact when he rubs his face against Erik, seeking attention and praise, he whimpers, a spark of sensitized connection shooting through his body. He can hear everything clearer than before, amplified, not necessarily painful but certainly loud, and when he picks up on something resembling conflict he frowns, clawing at Erik because his temples pound with it, less agonizing and more like someone is yelling directly into his ear, painful in its own way, the emotional feedback jolting through him with an intensity he's never experienced for something like this before. Everything is more.  
  
Shut the door on it, Erik bids him gently, directing his focus firmly away with a tug that any psi-null should be entirely unable to do. He's able to curl mental fingertips around Charles and bring him into the moment where he belongs, with Erik, saturated in his Will and his voice and his Command, and it isn't just because of the Bond, either. Erik doesn't even realize he's done it, and is completely unaware of the implications, but just like Charles's telekinetic development, Erik has slowly and steadily become more competent at what could only be described as telepathic maneuvering. The way people shift for him, how easily read they are now in comparison to before (and that's saying something; Erik's always been exceptional at anticipating others), how comfortable and confident he is in the sphere of the mind-it's more than just strength of consciousness. He's getting deliberate, able to back up his Order with a gentle click of the lock that turns in place as he guides Charles to settle back against his chest.  
  
Charles swallows and gasps and immediately his eyes well up with tears, but he does as he's told, as much as he's capable. He's fidgety and uncomfortable, lips trembling, but he doesn't protest because he doesn't know how to in this moment. Instead he clings to Erik, soothing himself by bundling up in strands of Will more than the towel.  
  
Erik brushes his hair, untangling each individual strand from each other. "Tell me what has distressed you so," he murmurs aloud, no longer capable of speaking without Ordering. At this point it's like air. He doesn't backtrack on his prior Command because he felt it-it's too much, people screaming in his head and detracting his focus and intruding on them. There is no benefit to it that Erik can see, but as always he will listen and take his submissive's concerns into consideration.  
  
He knows it's an Order. He can feel it shining through all those strands he's just wrapped himself up in, electric current down his spine. He still shakes his head, mumbling something incoherent, tears clinging to his eyelashes as he projects. The telepathic part of their Bond did originate with him, but this is always more than that; it's physical, outward sensation, an outpouring with a presence not unlike how Erik's Will can be felt if not seen. It jangles mixed content and eager obedience, desire to please, with uncomfortable, stifled sensation, like hands over the ears or a blindfold wrapped around the eyes and then Erik feels it, too, as real as if it's happening to him, invisible hands and the sensation of cloth, the room darker and hearing muffled, and Charles has never projected quite like this. Even for Erik it would be nearly impossible to tell the difference, if it weren't presented in the way it is.  
  
Erik blinks, eyes wide. "Someone is blocking you?" he tries to parse together that jumble of sensation, still completely in the dark about its origins altogether, or that it's even happening until Charles projected it to him. As with all of Charles's mental contact despite the unpleasantness Erik isn't afraid or even startled, he's purely focused on Charles, on the issue at hand, on making it better and making him feel good.  
  
Charles shakes his head, and the projection stops immediately, leaving behind quiet frustration. He fidgets and shakes his head again, sniffling, and then just clings tighter, burying himself in Erik's chest.  
  
"Calm," Erik Orders softly. "Just relax, breathe. Focus on me. You need to tell me what is happening. I cannot understand."  
  
"Can't," he gasps, but not only was it an Order, he wants desperately to obey. He sucks in a breath and let its out slowly, even as tears gather in his eyes again, leaking against Erik's skin. The problem is, he doesn't have words for it, and showing Erik doesn't seem to be working either. "You said no leashing, so I tried," he manages, mumbled and small and nearly dissolved into his Dominant's chest.  
  
"Oh," Erik gasps and shakes his head. "No, no," he pets Charles's hair, brushing it back from his face. "You do not need to," he rescinds that Order instantly. "I am-so sorry. I didn't know. Please forgive me," he whispers, distressed in his own right, hands smoothing over every available inch of skin they can find in an attempt to soothe himself.  
  
Charles takes a breath and it comes out shaky. Immediately he's rubbing himself against Erik, his cheek against bare skin, his mind around his in a low, relieved hum. He can't create a warm blanket out of thin air, but he can wrap the projection of one around his Dominant, apparently, the feeling of being bundled, the memory-sensation of softness against skin, their blankets from their bed, and so he does, not even realizing. This is definitely new, and he bites his lip, slightly frightened as he peeks up with big, teary azure. "Bad? Wanna be good," he whispers, entirely earnest. He's far down.  
  
"Oh, I know," Erik laughs, gentle, tapping his thumb against Charles's lip and replacing it with his own instead, warm and long and deep. The towel in his hands shifts and spins into pure bright yellow silk, the same as the one lining their bed-Erik selected the color, of course. "Very good. Always good." Even when Erik is displeased about something, he's never once considered that Charles was bad. He's never given an Order intended to correct badness. Most of his Orders, and this one included, are his attempt to look after his Bonded and keep him safe. "I'm so sorry. My fault," he murmurs against Charles's lips, not quite breaking contact. " _Ohev otcha_ , me'od."

* * *

Charles smiles, tremulous but genuine against Erik's lips as he catches his breath. He's still a bit too loose-limbed and hazy to do much more than submit to the kiss, but he'd liked that, if he's honest; letting Erik have him how he wants while he gives in, soft and sweet and with slightly more swollen lips and he can taste Erik, just a little, and he definitely wants more but he'll wait until it's offered. Now he just shakes his head, dimples poking out from his cheeks as if he's the sun's turned back on inside, silent but what he doesn't say gets felt; he doesn't think Erik has to be sorry, he was being a good Dominant, a perfect Dominant. He didn't know. Charles is supposed to help him take care of him, and he'd checked in and made sure. He's grateful and calm and when he makes to pull away, even slightly Charles makes a noise, whimpering. There's always a new deeper down, apparently. He's found it in this moment, and it's opened everything up, vulnerable and raw and new, facets of Charles that had been buried before Erik coaxed them out.  
  
And Erik loves each one with unrelenting passion, eager and thrilled to carefully separate each new piece from its shiny plastic packaging and cradle it close, a prized and beautiful belonging he will keep in pristine condition forever and ever, as best and as long as he can. As far down as Charles goes, Erik follows, window-blinds that filter out sunlight shifting and changing, exposing brand new areas of the Landscape unexplored, where facets roam they've never encountered, and it's at the bottom of the ocean where angler-fish swim with lightbulbs on their heads, a vast, brilliant unknown. Erik doesn't pull away any further than to speak, and then he's kissing Charles again, deeper and wetter, molding their tongues together and backing him up so he bumps against the wall lightly, embracing both of his cheeks with his hands. The thumb of his good hand caresses under his eyes affectionately, foreheads bowed together.  
  
Charles squirms and gasps, not even considering getting away as his lips part for Erik, letting him in with all the eagerness in the world. He tries to keep up, but he's pliant and slightly sloppy, seeking and needy but with absolutely no finesse left. When it's not muffled by Erik's tongue he's moaning softly, eyes barely open as he shakes with it. Sometimes during their more heated kisses he'll playfully try to lead, and depending on his mood and the situation Erik will indulge or immediately Dominate, but now he's utterly submissive, and it's good. It's good to have Erik's tongue taking, devouring, and he offers it all up until he's breathless and dizzy and clinging desperately. His hand comes up from where he's been grasping Erik's arm, and the moment it touches Erik's cheek the room around them bursts into color. They're not in a mindscape, still firmly grounded in the Real, but there's absolutely no way to differentiate; for all intents and purposes, the room has burst into shimmering, endless color, rainbow kaleidoscope dreams, their eyes picking up on it the same way they would any other visual stimulus.  
  
Erik's smile is just as bright, kaleidoscope colors mixed with shimmering flecks of platinum-gold, becoming Real as they land on their skin like snowflakes and melt into harmless glitter, a perfect combination of their abilities meshing into one. The whole world at their fingertips, but for Erik the whole world is in his arms, against his lips, yielding and gasping into his ears. "Beautiful," he whispers warmly, eyes crinkled and soft, regarding him with pure and open adoration. "It is beautiful, you are beautiful. I am so, so blessed. You are-" he loses his train of thought into kisses, melting against Charles's body, pressing himself all the way flush as he delves back into Charles's mouth, tasting him from the inside out.  
  
It takes no time at all before Charles is panting and moaning, Erik's tongue Dominating his every sense and certainly his mouth as he submits and offers and gives, shaking all over as he shyly reciprocates. He's greedy for more but fortunately Erik keeps giving, keeps taking, and his whole world is color and submission and platninum-gold Will reflecting it all as he yields as much of himself as he's currently capable of. He's whimpering for more when something _pings!_ at his consciousness again, even louder than before, and he blinks, confused, tugs on Erik. He waits, and listens, though, lips thoroughly swollen and cherry red and eyes blown wide and a new, purpling mark on his neck shivers down his spine, so far down he can't fathom not having Erik to guide him. It might actually shatter him, but fortunately Erik needs to guide him, Command and control him, just as much. He can feel that. It feels absolutely right.  
  
"Go 'way," Erik mumbles, snorting under his breath as he swats the air, but he separates from Charles enough so that they can catch their breath, brows still pressed together and he touches Charles' s face. "What is it, hm?"  
  
"Mmmmmm," is Charles' response, rubbing against Erik just to feel skin on skin, distracted when he shifts and Erik's beard tickles against his cheek. He grins in delight, nuzzling to feel more of that, and apparently he's forgotten they were interrupted at all. "Kiss, please?" he asks, pouting about Erik's tongue no longer being in his mouth.  
  
"Mhm," Erik murmurs, settling back up against Charles's body, molding their lips together once more; simply unable to resist and easily tugged way down back into the depths. His hand trails down Charles's chest and he circles his thumb over a peaked nipple, eyes dark and half-lidded. Seeking sensation, response, for once with no destination in mind, just a bright, shining desire for more of this.  
  
Charles moans right into it, pleased and grateful, squirming because he knows by now that his nipples terribly, awfully sensitive, and he's already oversensitive to begin with. Erik might as well have shocked him by the way that he jolts and whimpers, arching for more. His eyes suddenly fly open, though, and he pulls away with a hiss, confused and wide-eyed. "Ow?" he asks, like it's a question.  
  
Erik backs off instantly, a jolt of fear striking through him like a lightning bolt and he finds his head empty of any thoughts for several long moments, completely emptied, a cracked-glass water jog with liquid spilled all over the floor. Struggles to breathe and hovers his hand over Charles's face, not touching, terrified. "Charles-"  
  
"No! No, no, no," he whimpers, lip wobbling as he throws himself into Erik to stop that train of terror before it ever fully reaches the station, shaking his head violently back and forth enough that it should probably be rattling things around in there. "Not you, not you, not you," he promises, rubbing his cheek against his Dominant to comfort both of them, kissing whenever he turns his head. "Not you. Never."  
  
He nudges himself back against Charles after a long wave of horror finishes crashing over him and dissipates into the shore. "Not me?"   
  
"Not you. You never hurt me," unless it was intended and controlled and not like this. He clings, soothed and calmed himself when Erik is back against him, still nuzzling into him and touching wherever he can, distressed that his Dominant was frightened. He needs to make it better and be good for him.  
  
Erik sags and presses himself fully back up against Charles, burying his head in Charles's shoulder. "Never?" he repeats, curving each letter of that word into his brain. "Never, never-" his heart rate slowly begins to calm and he starts laying little kisses along Charles's jaw. "Who hurt? Who?" he growls, arm tightening over Charles's hip protectively.  
  
"Ummm," he hums, blinking confused and hazy, unwilling to turn his focus from Erik and his kisses and his still shimmering Will, soaking up every corner of this room. Charles squirms in the firm hold, pleased when he doesn't get anywhere at all. "I 'unno," he decides, more preoccupied with touching Erik's chest.  
  
Erik tilts Charles's chin up, shaking his head. "Tell me," he says, redirecting his focus onto Erik's voice alone. "Something is happening. Hurting you."  
  
"Hmmmm," Charles offers, lips pursed both because he isn't being kissed and touched like before and because Erik sounds serious, and he wants to do what he's told. "Someone pushed me?" he offers. Which doesn't make any sense, of course, because Erik was the only one here and he definitely didn't push him. "And I fell." That also didn't happen. He blinks up at Erik, eyes wide, and he's clearly not lying. He did experience that.  
  
Erik tilts his head. "You, or kids?" His eyebrows arch. Despite his seriousness he doesn't stop touching Charles, but it's grounding this time, not sensual. He is serious; insofar as he wants to protect his submissive, all of his instincts heightened beyond anything he can consciously recall outside their Bonding nights.  
  
Charles eyebrows pull together, creasing his forehead. "Um?" is his intelligent response to that, head swimming. The last time he mistook something telepathic as happening to him, the last time he honestly couldn't tell the difference, he was a child and everything was still new and terrifying and blurring together.  
  
Erik smiles, shaking his head. "Growing," he whispers, because he felt it before, too. Pleased and proud. "Growing, mhm."  
  
He blinks at that, but sighs happily, too, rubbing up against Erik because his Dominant is proud of him. He must be a good boy. "Growing?" he asks, muffled because he's trying to wiggle his way closer again.  
  
He grins. "Growing, mhm." The colorful swirls are still snowing from above, and he plucks one out of the air, tapping Charles on the nose with it and leaving behind a little rainbow trail of glitter. "Painful," he sighs, he doesn't like Charles in pain. Painful, but he's growing. He's getting stronger. It's new and it hurts and he's not used to it, but Erik thinks there may not be anything to fear. That it may not be terror and awful attacks, it's growing pains.  
  
Charles pouts, both because he's been painted with glitter and because of the implication itself. "Hurts, Erik," he protests. And it's frightening. It feels like his brain is melting and exploding and slicing itself open. Like knives and cheese graters and burning and shrieking screams. He hides in Erik's chest. He doesn't want it.  
  
"I know," Erik agrees. He doesn't want anything that hurts Charles, either. He is seeing evidence that it's not going to kill him, though, and that is significantly a better alternative, because Erik's always concerned about that on some level or another, even if he doesn't morbidly discuss or think about it at any given time. It's not good to obsess, it doesn't help, it makes everyone afraid. But he worries, he can't help it. Charles is his, his wonderful, good boy and he doesn't want anything bad to happen to him. Erik will protect him no matter what. He will stand in front of him, he will keep him safe.  
  
He curls into Erik's chest at that, sighing again as his eyelids flutter. "Good boy?" he repeats Erik's thoughts, hopeful. Nothing else really matters too much besides that right now, if he's honest.  
  
"Always," Erik whispers back, smiling gently. "My favorite person." Charles's face has little glitter streaks on it from where Erik keeps tracing his fingers.  
  
At least they're pretty. Erik likes when he's pretty. Charles pouts, though, patting Erik's chest insistently, looking up at him with incredibly blue, pleading eyes.  
  
It helps that the colorful flecks are made of reflected metals and minerals, platinum and rhodium and diamond shavings that glitter in the dimmed fluorescent lights. Erik's smiling unconsciously, drawing patterns along him, swirling up the flakes into intricate designs that paint his skin. At the insistent touches, he leans over and kisses Charles, pressing that smile into him. "Mm? What would you like, sweetheart?" he murmurs lowly.  
  
Charles just keeps patting, nudging, pouting harder and more insistently. "Please," he adds, sweetly, because Erik likes when he's polite and asks for what he wants nicely.  
  
Erik laughs quietly, dragging his fingertips across Charles's throat, leaving trails of glimmering color behind. "Tell me what you want, _neshama_ ," he Orders.  
  
He's distracted by that momentarily, mostly because Erik's touching his throat and near his collar, which he tilts instinctively toward his Dominant. "Say it? Please?" he begs.  
  
Erik could not be more doting than he is right now, nothing and no one else in the world commands his attention aside from Charles, and his smile is effervescent when he finally does tell him. "Mm, is that what you would like?" he kisses just over his collar, where metal meets flesh, letting the precious liquids soak up his affection as much as he soaks it into Charles's skin. "I love saying it," he confides conspiratorially, nose wrinkling up in teasing amusement. "Did you know?" another little nip, this one sharper than before, intended to sting just a little as he drags his right hand down Charles's chest, leaving trails down his skin that shift of their own accord into glowing patterns and lines. "My beautiful boy," he tweaks one of Charles's nipples again, this one a real pinch soothed by warm fingertips. When Charles arches up into him, Erik pins him to the wall, smiling against his lips. "Beautiful. _Nehedar na'ar sheli_."

* * *

Charles is the equivalent of melted goo, twitching and shivering under Erik's touch as his eyes slide closed of their own accord. He's a little too exhausted to be aroused, but he doesn't want Erik to stop touching him, moaning soft and needy as he arches and twists everywhere Erik's fingers and lips go, desperate to meet them. Everything feels hot and sensitive and twitchy in general, and he's breathing heavy as he slumps between the wall and his Dominant, sighing and wiggling every now and then just to be closer. He's completely willing to do what he's told, and if Erik has ever fully Dominated him mind, body, soul (and he certainly has), it's all culminated to this. He needs more control now, and Charles needs to offer it. And he has, resulting in the loose-limbed, sighing creature against the wall, open in ways he's never been before, radiating love and contentment and willing, devoted submission.  
  
Erik is on the same wavelength-he's too worked up, too on the edge of panic and grief and horror to indulge in where this would usually go-he doesn't stop, but he doesn't take it much further, periodically ghosting his fingernails over Charles's nipples and down his sternum, seeking sensation rather than arousal, and has nothing in mind other than more of this-touching, kissing, heightened awareness, shivery subspace broke out in goosebumps over his skin, noises of sensual pleasure and enjoyment. The end result is that Charles is adorned entirely in glitter-designs, a human canvas. He's pretty and alluring, and it draws Erik's fascination again and again, his joy in materials and particles manifest on his submissive before him. Where Erik's lips follow his hands, little bits sparkle off of him as well, a result and not the intention, but they reflect brilliantly in his eyes.  
  
By the end of it Charles is a whimpering, oversensitized puddle beneath Erik, following every touch with bursts of colors of his own, sense-memory and projected devotion and sensuality, lips constantly parted and eyes mostly drooped closed. He's entirely limp against the wall except in those little twitches, hitched breaths that lead to as much squirming as he can while he's held in place. Fortunately, too, because he's shaking in the legs and he's not positive he'd be able to hold himself up. When his eyes blink open there's nothing but adoration there, devotion so deep it's bottomless. He's going to be very good for Erik, and make sure he's taken care of and served properly.  
  
"Hi," Erik whispers down at him, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear. He grabs Charles's carefully-folded clothes and begins to dress him, using the opportunity to remain as close as possible, sneaking touches here and there with a look of pure satisfaction written on his face. He waves his hand and collects up all the glitter trails, swirling them into the air and into a single, large ball which he rolls around over the back of his palm before it disappears. Little traces remain over Charles's nose and cheeks, like colorful freckles.  
  
Charles hums, buried back in Erik's chest as soon as he can be like he's glued there. He touches Erik's arm, stroking gently, and the image of Erik dressed is punctuated by a question mark. Not that that he moves, because he's far too busy nuzzling, sighing softly and waiting to be told. His mind is cycling through some of what it picked up on earlier, and he frowns unconsciously, otherwise just letting himself belong to Erik completely.  
  
Erik huffs gently, pressing his hands along Charles's chest to be rid of the wrinkles that have popped up before nodding, encouraging Charles to follow up with the same on his part, grabbing the pile of his clothes and handing them off with a grin. He's watching the background, ensuring that no one is falling or hurting one another in the distance through the Bond open to him, he can see the kids and everyone else through that line and he assures that nothing is happening there either.  
  
Most of it is far, far too fast to process. None of it is blocked off from Erik, necessarily, but it is much more buzzing and incomprehensible than usual, what mostly amounts to blurred images and voices all mangled together, though that's not what Charles is seeing. But even Charles seems to be having some difficulty now that he's looking, if his distraction is anything to go by. He knelt down to put Erik's pants on, and if he's honest he's just grateful to be on his knees, but he's gotten sidetracked. Eyes wide and lips parted, he clings to Erik's leg instead. "Hmm," he gasps.  
  
Erik laughs a little and runs his fingers through Charles's hair. "What do you see, hm?" he asks, one leg half in his pants, and he leans against the counter to avoid awkwardly balancing on his bad one.  
  
So much. It's not painful, like he noted before, but he's certainly not used to it, and it's incredibly loud and disorienting, vivid and detailed and clear, enough that he feels it more than he ever has. It's no wonder he mistook pain for his own. He gasps, flinching visibly when it comes again, blinking and confused, anchoring himself with Erik's Will and the feeling of his own subspace to differentiate. In the end he's rubbing up against his Dominant's leg like a particularly needy cat, as far down as he's ever been.  
  
Erik pulls on his other pant leg so he can stop awkwardly bracing against the counter and crouches down to Charles's level, brushing his hands in broad strokes along Charles's hair and the back of his neck, eyebrows raised in concern. _Tell me,_ he murmurs between them, his own voice within their minds as sonorous and commanding as any image of pain could be, but it's Erik. There's no pain, only bright love and adoration.  
  
Charles sighs in delight and nuzzles into him immediately, seeking attention and comfort and praise, basking in all that open adoration. He's not sure he knows how to explain what he's feeling right now, but he wants to try for his Dominant, a bit sheepish Erik needed to pull up his pants by himself. That had been his job. "It's just more," he whispers, awed by it, clinging with everything he has to stay tethered. "There were was arguing before, and..." He bites his lip. Normally he'd feel and see bits and pieces of it, scattered impressions of the event, enough to gather the thoughts together and draw his own conclusion without delving too deep. He felt it, understood it, but never as his own, not since he was a teenager. Erik has seen what that looks like. What he shows of what's only a minute or two interaction is instead a full picture in devastating clarity, like adding sound and color to a silent film. Every emotion and sensation from both sides, and Charles sees both at once but he cuts it up and feeds it back slower for the sake of not giving Erik a headache. When the fall happens, there's blossoming pain as there would be if they'd taken it themselves, but exactly as it was felt; the sting of skinned knees and hands that braced for impact, the whipped up emotion that accompanied it. Nothing intense, nothing a band-aid can't handle, but it's how Real it is. Felt, and experienced, every detail catalogued. "It's not usually so..." He trails off, pressing closer.  
  
Erik smiles, eyes crinkled and he leans over, kissing Charles's forehead. "Growing," he whispers fondly, trailing his fingernail down Charles's cheek. He runs the flat of his palm over Charles's shoulder and down his back soothingly, letting him cling as long and as tightly as he needs. That's what Erik's here for, a tether and a lifeline. "I'm so very proud of you, you know," he adds-it's something he says frequently and does so as often as he can remember, the fact that Charles enjoys hearing it notwithstanding, Erik is-watching him come into his abilities, as he begins to accept and appreciate them as much as Erik does.  
  
Charles wouldn't go that far. He's trying, though; when Erik had asked what had distressed him earlier, that had been the real cause of it. He's terrified of it, well and truly frightened, but he's trying because Erik keeps telling him that it's safe, that it's okay, that he'll make sure nothing happens. Beyond all else, Charles believes that, so he nuzzles in closer and purrs, not certain if he deserves the praise but more than warmed by it, greedy for it, grateful for it. "Shirt," he murmurs finally, because he hadn't finished dressing Erik. He can't get to the shirt on his knees, though, and he wants to stay for just a little longer, so he touches the bare skin of Erik's stomach instead, openly appreciative and fascinated by the muscle beneath his fingers. He's biting on his lip again, though, shy and small when he looks up through his lashes and whispers, "You're really proud of me?"  
  
"I really am," Erik whispers back, and he holds out his hand, letting the fabric of his white button-down slide off the counter and into his outstretched palm, where he presses it into Charles's arms. Erik believes that there is plenty to be proud of, and to Erik, that is all that matters. He taps his thumb across Charles's bottom lip, shaking his head in warning. "And I love you very much," he adds, nose wrinkling up in fondness.  
  
"I love you, too," Charles breathes, shuddering with it. He wants to always be Erik's good, beautiful boy, to make him proud that Charles belongs to him. As deep under as he is, it's all he can possibly think about as he sets to his task, desperate to serve and please in even the smallest of ways, smoothing out the fabric and buttoning eaching button carefully and lovingly, dropping sweet little kisses. It means Erik's chest and stomach is covered up, and that's a shame because Charles likes the feel and comfort of his bare skin, but he's satisfied to have done it. To have obeyed, to have done something his Dominant asked of him. He meant what he said in the bath. He wants to be for Erik, to be used accordingly.

* * *

Erik tugs him up to his feet when he's finished, touching him with gentle fingertips over his face and neck and where his skin meets his collar, eyes bright and lips quirked up in an ever-present smile. He's followed Charles all the way down into the oblivion of dynamic expression, the entire world blurred out and sharpened only on his submissive, and he settles his hands around Charles's hips possessively, walking behind him as they pad barefoot out of the bathroom and into the hall, the world shimmering and sparkling around them. The walls breathe, the wood from the staircase swirls and moves where they touch it, the sun risen in the sky paints the house in golden rays as magnificent as the cord between their minds. Erik leads him into the kitchen, resting his head on Charles's shoulder as he bids him to collect some breakfast, swaying back and forth and touching his lips and cheeks invitingly, feeding him every individual bite of fruit like a kiss.  
  
Charles isn't hungry, but he eats anyway, opening his mouth obediently when Erik feeds him and not fussing too much, even when leftover nausea makes everything sit uncomfortably tight in his empty stomach. He mirrors all of Erik's movements unconsciously, always anticipating the next touch, the next tap, the next silent Command, bright and open and everything's shimmering and vivid and vulnerable, senses overloaded and he keeps reaching for Erik's Will even though it couldn't possibly be more entwined with him, tugging just to feel and languish. When he reaches up to touch Erik's face, though, he's frowning. "Sad," he sighs.  
  
Erik feeds him slowly and carefully, mindful of the nausea as he always is, and gently tweaking his nervous system to bend and accept without acidic regurgitation. He sneaks a few bites himself with a playful bounce of his brows, having not eaten himself in two days other than a packet of sunflower seeds in the plane. When Charles touches him his eyebrows knit under those fingers and a curious expression flits over his features. "Who?" he whispers back.  
  
Charles bites his lip. He doesn't have an immediate answer, but while he considers it he takes a piece of fruit and presses it against Erik's lips, a gentle request there accompanied by a small, hopeful smile, a silent _please?_ Erik needs to eat, too, and Charles needs to make sure he gets everything he needs. "Sad," he repeats quietly, and reluctantly lets it unfold for just a moment: it's overwhelmingly poignant, twisting in his belly in a gnarled, thick pit and a tear slips down his cheek. It's not linked to any one person, though there's that, too, and it was what had drawn his attention in the first place. Images of a woman staring silently into nothing, a girl curled into himself as she cries. When he was a child, he felt what everyone else did without separation, and it made him melancholy and reserved. As an adult he's learned to dull it down, to feel it but not take it into himself else he break under the weight of it. To feel their pain but not let it crush him, either. What made him despondent as a child has made him compassionate and understanding as an adult, but it's a bit more difficult to do right this moment. He's feeling everything so strongly, so closely, so much. This was a part leashed for self-preservation purposes, but it's all leaking out now, and it's been doing; he's been incredibly sensitive since he woke from his coma, picking up on things he normally wouldn't, taking people into himself. It was a natural part of coming into his telepathy, but Charles is beginning wonder if perhaps he ever came fully into it at all. If when it manifested, it was only a fraction, and the rest - well. This is the rest, finally breaking through. Maybe Erik is right.  
  
The piece of fruit disappears acquiescently between Erik's lips and he pokes his tongue out over Charles's fingertips with a wrinkle of his nose, the light span of freckles over his bridge and under his eyes shifting with the movement, brighter and visible under the desert sun. Not an hour into landing feet on the ground and Erik's pallor has dissipated, no longer pale and withdrawn and legs-curled up to chest in dark, soulless rooms without windows or door-frames. He slips his hand over Charles's wrist, rubbing gently and keeping his hand where it belongs, touching Erik's skin as he takes in everything he's given, not an iota of fear or discomfort to be found. These things belong with Erik, too. No longer does Charles exist in an endless chasm alone, empty minds with no window-sills. Erik will decorate them with flowing flowers and silly cactuses and curled yellow wallpaper cartoon prints. Charles is coming fully into his power as Erik is, levitated a few inches off the ground once more in wonder as it all filters through, taking Charles up with him and he wraps his arms around him, burying a smile in his shoulder. Much of that sadness he feels emanates from Erik, too, underneath Dominion and lining his organs and shielding his neural-synapse-zaps. He doesn't even realize how much he's buried, how naturally it comes to him to shelter it up and keep it beneath the ground where it belongs, more concerned with protecting and caring for and loving his submissive than permitting it leeway. But Charles is growing, getting stronger, and Erik's internal microscope-filament echo-carbon copy clone redirect landscapes within the Landscape-the sadness has begun to proliferate, seep out of him in air particles, and Erik desperately wants to breathe them back in and keep them, keep Charles safe, surround him in joy and peace instead. "I love you," he says, voice a weak rasp. _Remember that I love you._  
  
Charles could never forget that, but he shakes his head. That wasn't what he'd been feeling. He knows Erik is sad; his Dominant can mute it down and bury it in hidden places all he likes, but Charles will always find it and feel it because it's his to feel, and he doesn't need to be as sensitive as he is to do so. It certainly helps that he is, but Erik's sadness doesn't need to be regulated or drained out to keep himself sane, filtered down and out like he'd done so Erik could process it. He's meant to have it full force, too. He's still smiling, soft and small, reaching for another piece of fruit to offer because it worked the first time and Erik deserves to be looked after, cared for, and he will be. He has Charles now, and Charles is going to serve him properly, to ground him in steady, firm Dominion and coax out everything he's pushed down at the same time, treat it with just the same loving devotion. That's his place. "Please?" he whispers. "Let me see. Let me help. I'm yours, Erik, it's what I'm meant to do."  
  
Erik accepts it again, truly not paying much attention, more concerned with everything that he's sensing and feeling from his Bonded. He didn't mean to direct any attention to his own sadness, Charles wasn't even focused on that-it was everyone else, a whole world of it, and Erik has just added to it. Erik can't gather it all up and distribute it the way Charles wants, it's sunk so far into every molecule of the Landscape that he barely knows where any of it starts or ends, if he's just constructed out of it. If he gives it away will he be nothing more than a swaying shell of wood and sticks and dust. The thing is that Charles already knows all the reasons for his sadness; the reasons why this place has reached ripping saw-blade claws into him and shredded open his chest like a rib-spreader, cracked bones and flesh exposed to the World. He doesn't know how to let him see more, he doesn't know where more is; how can there be more than burning and fire and broken bodies and years and years and years-? How can there be more? How can there be more under his feet on this ground where only miles away their burned-souls are sprinkled into aspen-tree roots linking cities and perhaps they're here, too-how can there be more than David and Ellie's crying holding one another together shocked in horror how _could this happen where is my sister, did he see her, did she suffer, please can you tell us_ (but you can't tell us, we can't ask that of you) and Near and those-others, the others Charles can feel spread out like those roots in the cities and the towns with their families but they belong to Erik, too, they have his blood and his name. Erik twitches in Charles's arms, rubbing his own face over and over again repetitive self-soothing, touching his own lips and under his eyes and warming his neck and hugging himself. _I'm sorry you weren't feeling this I'll put it away,_  
  
Charles was feeling it, it just hadn't startled him because he'd neved stopped and never started. It was always there. He doesn't need Erik to drag his grief out from the baseboards and present it like a gift, dig it up from the dirt and the ash, but he does need him to stop burying it down into the Earth anew when Charles knows perfectly well it's at his expense and exactly what ground they're standing on in the first place. Gently, slowly, he takes Erik's hands, both of them even if one can't be held properly, and worms his way in close. He's hesitant, almost frightened, and then he soothes; a warm, comforting sensation, an emanating calm that relieves none of the sadness because that's Erik's to feel but eases some of the jangled, horrific panic, bundling it up as he kisses Erik's freckles. A balm for those jagged edges, Charles working his way into the Landscape and spreading out in blues to match Erik's greens and yellows, in azure skies and warm neutrals, worn leather and the smell of turned pages. " _Shh_ , you can't hurt me with it," he promises quietly, solemn and gentle. "You can't because it's mine, too. You don't have to drag it out until you're ready, but please don't drag it back in. I want it. I want to carry it with you." He already is, but the more Erik lets himself feel it, the closer he'll come to eventually healing. Charles kisses under his eyes, his nose, his lips, just a brush, still sticky from the fruit. Nothing but steadying submission, devotion, love.  
  
Pieces inside of him are awakening under Charles's touch, appearing from under the rocks and over the mountains and inside the cherry-wood huts, black-inky blobs with arms and legs that make childish _wheeoo!_ noises as they jump out of the horizon, curiously wandering toward the warmth and safety of Charles's lips against his cracked skin. A waking-up that leaves him vulnerable and open, and he unconsciously lists forward when Charles pulls away even an inch, seeking contact. He's too far down to rein it all back in, monsters in chains dragging metal axes scrape along the ground, ragged robes dripping off their bodies and faces melting and charred, hands loosing their grip on deadly weapons, rags replaced by warm, worn leather and soft cashmere blankets. Erik's bad hand twitches in his, desperately wanting to squeeze but unable, a meager brush of fingers as his good one clasps hard. Erik is vibrating under Charles's hands, all of his neurons electrified. He's not supposed to be like this, how can he be so far into Dominion and yet fall apart and need to be cared for? That's not right; it's not right, is it? It's supposed to be the other way. Were they right, he's not really like this, he's just playing at Dominant, he doesn't know how.  
  
Charles stays steady, firmly grounded and soft and receptive, welcoming all those new pieces with open arms and warm, chapped lips. He lets Erik squeeze, lets him hold tight and radiates that soothing calm, unwavering devotion and the focused hum of subspace, which they both know is tethered perfectly by Erik's Dominance, by Dominion. Not a play-act, but their dynamic, tethered and true and tried and he knows Erik isn't actually doubting it, not at the core of him, so he doesn't let it shake him in the slightest. "I vowed to serve you, to care for you," he reminds him softly, just a whisper, smiling against Erik's lips. "This is my place, too. I belong to you, and that means I'm meant to look after you. To meet your needs, physical and emotional. You take such good care of me, Erik, but I need to take care of you, too. Isn't that what you want? Doesn't that feel right and natural? It's what I was meant for. There's nothing to be sorry for. Don't you feel it? Don't you know I belong to you, that you're Dominating me just perfectly?" And he lets Erik feel that, too, projects back in feedback sensation every glimmering, way-down shard of subspace, vibrant and beating inside of him like their synced up heartbeats. It isn't possible without Erik. They couldn't have been more wrong, all of them. This is exactly how they are. "Don't you want me to serve you?" he whispers, imploring.  
  
Erik's eyes darken, and he steps even closer, bumping Charles up against the counter and plastering himself along the curves and lines of his body, the hands that Charles holds pinned to the marble-topped oak behind him and Erik nuzzles his cheek, his jaw, inhaling at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. His body is opening up inside, spilling out long, thick tendrils of Will; some dark and endless vortex black hole down down down into the inky ether. Some light and playful and pokey, _look at me! Hello! I love you_! some warm and amused and shocked, blown over by the intensity of love. "Mhm," Erik murmurs, fingers squeezing what they've trapped. Perfectly? He's doing perfectly? Charles likes him? He's glowing with it, eyes half-lidded. Charles is supposed to take care of him. Charles serves him. Feathers are sweeping up all of the atoms in his body and dispersing them away in floating dandelion-puffs. Feels right. Feels good. Charles is his. He's not doing anything other than petting him and nuzzling against him, a great big jaguar grooming its mate in capture. Charles has calmed the raging beast like a soothing lute to Cerberus; all of Erik's many faces lulled to slow repetitions of touch feel taste mine. "You take care of me?" he rasps, rubbing his palm over Charles's chest, bunching up the fabric and feeling it flutter in his grasp.  
  
Charles is all too pleased to be trapped by his purring predator of a Dominant, to be loomed over and drowned in Will. He's gasping and breathless, shivering and responsive, subspace and devotion and love, letting himself be pet and groomed. Erik should use him to calm himself, to soothe, should lean on him exactly like this. Every single part of him, tiny to massive and dragging and gnarled and aching, from the blobs to the weapon-carrying charred flesh beings to the quiet one at the top of the mountain, should know that Charles is wholly and completely his, and that this is exactly how it should be. He's allowed to fall apart if he needs to, now, because he has a submissive who can put every part carefully back together, care for every shrieking wound that grief tears open, interlaced with parts of himself. "I take care of you," he promises, smiling softly. "I belong to you. I'll take care of you. I'll be so good, I promise. I'm here for you, aren't I?"  
  
Erik lays his head on Charles's shoulder, nodding silently and wrapping his arms around him, having no verbal response but Charles can feel his relief and gratitude before anything else. Every being and atom inside of him is turned toward Charles. No more endless vortex, he's managed to climb out of the agony, afraid, but every twitch of Charles toward him, woven inside of him is a balm to raging rivers. He's clutched onto Charles like a rock embedded amongst rapids, fingernails dug-in just this side of painful. "Here," he mumbles, tracing a pattern on Charles's chest, breathing heavily in the aftermath.  
  
The relief and gratitude Charles feels is palpable. He's more than certain this place, the kids and Magda, remind Erik of his need to sacrifice for others, to put himself in front and protect at all costs, even his own wellbeing. But now he has someone here for him. Charles will always be that person. He's been that person from the beginning. The clinging doesn't bother him in the slightest, and if anything the edge of pain is grounding; Erik is here, and he isn't about to drift away where Charles can't reach him. He'll always be able to reach him, because there's nowhere he could possibly go where Charles couldn't follow. Once Erik is calmed slightly, he gently coaxes him over to sit, mostly so he can perch on his lap and feed Erik for a change, letting Erik hold him tight and close and trapped. He's very preocuppied with making certain Charles eats, and Charles appreciates it when he isn't railing against it, but Erik needs to be fed, too. He's seen Erik skeleton and sunken in too many minds today, and it soothes him, too, to feed him like this, to know that he has someone to make sure he's fed. Charles is going to take care of him. There's also something deeply satisfying about holding food to Erik's lips like an offering and having him accept it, a soft, adoring smile on his lips as he serves his Dominant.  
  
Erik follows where he's led, dropping onto the crouch so Charles can loom over him, and he presses him as close as he can get along his lap, fingernails dug into Charles's hips and back as though terrified he will disappear at any moment. As soon as anything is offered he leans forward and snatches it from Charles's fingertips, moving in slow motion, then darting out like he's afraid he'll be caught, disallowed, bad-wrong. He's not supposed to take their offerings, that's not what he is for. But Charles says it's OK. He offers it without condition, and Erik can't resist taking it. Charles is for him, and that means he's-he doesn't know. It's too much, too hard to follow. "Love you," he mumbles, because that's all he knows anymore.  
\  
No conditions, absolutely none. All Erik has to know is that Charles loves him and belongs to him, and he couldn't possible question it with Charles pressing it into him constantly, feeding it back. "Love you, too," he whispers back, still feeding him with all the devotion in the world until the plate is empty and then Charles smiles, eased and deeply satisfied. He is what Erik needs. Even in Erik's lap he's almost laughably smaller, but he sits up on his knees so he can rub their noses together, kissing freckles and then lips, soft and chaste except when he licks off some of the juice from the fruit he'd fed him. "Got me," he reminds Erik. "You've got me."  
  
Erik has to smile when he notices Charles eclipsed entirely by his knees and legs, and he manages to work his hands without guidance from horrific monster things, touching at Charles's hair and cheeks and face, as if making sure he is still there. Am I alive? Did I bury myself here? Still present. Still his submissive; like he's relearning everything all at once, and he leans over and gently kisses him. He can, it's all right. It's acceptable. It's his right. He gives Charles a small smile, shaking a little underneath his hands.  
  
No burying, still alive. They're both above ground, though debatable when Charles is firmly below, anchored perfectly in a steadier subspace than he knew before this. He nuzzles his cheek against Erik's, a quiet laugh escaping when he feels the rub of his beard again, and gently guides Erik's fingers to his lips. "Swollen," he murmurs, grinning softly. It's no wonder how that happened, between their time on the plane and the kissing they've just done in the bathroom, but he knows Erik likes it when he sees evidence. Grounding, especially in Dominion, and he seems to need reminders. Charles tilts his head and exposes his throat to show off his new marks, too, shivering at the reminder himself. "All yours. You can use me for whatever you need." It's more than acceptable.  
  
Erik spreads his fingers and presses them against Charles's lips, every strand of Will inside him vibrating as they float up to the surface and slithering up Charles's throat to connect at the point between Erik's hands and Charles's skin. The reminders help; every time Erik lays eyes upon them he shivers a little and moves closer, molding their bodies together at every angle. "Mine," he grins at last, touching down at those marks and nosing along them, scratching where his cheek meets flesh, kissing sweetly where sharp bruises and bite marks bloom over pale expanse. He remembers with each reminder, embalmed in every threaded cord. Charles is always good for him, his good boy who responds to him, eager and wanting. Erik hums lowly under his breath, touching in repetitive motion.  
  
Charles smiles back, soothed himself as Erik touches and takes and grounds himself. This is exactly what he's meant to be doing. It's not possible for them to stay in the little bubble-world Charles has created for them indefinitely, untouched and unknown to everyone else, but he thinks that will be okay, too; the more Erik feels, the more he doesn't bury, the more Charles can help. "What do you need now?" he asks quietly, letting Erik decide. Giving him the control he's never had before.  
  
He doesn't know. What he wants is to go home, to stay here with Charles unaffected and without expectation from the outside to be anything other than Charles's Dominant, to live a life that doesn't require shoring himself up to talk to his family like a human being. He needs to be human, to be here, and he doesn't know how to do that, even with Charles giving him everything he could ever want without being told. He needs to be stable, to be able to rely on his internal constructs, to be reminded that he is a person and he has value and purpose. As much as they've tried no one could take that from him. As long as Charles is here, he has it. "You," he mumbles, because he doesn't know how to put any of it into words other than that.  
  
Fortunately for both of them, Charles rarely needs words. He sighs quietly, nuzzling back in to rest their foreheads together, to run a hand through Erik's hair. "I know. I'm here," he whispers, but he knows Erik needs this, too, no matter how much it feels like it's tearing him up from the inside. He is a human, he's always been human, and everything he's feeling now proves that. This is home, too, but he doesn't have to face any of it alone. "I keep peeking," he admits after a pause, lips quirked into a shy little grin.  
  
Erik peeks up, too, cracking an eye open to take Charles in and breathing a sigh of relief that he's still there, that Erik can gaze upon him and take his features in. Charles is as beautiful now as the day Erik first laid eyes on him, and he can't help touch every part of him, from under his eyes to sweeping over his nose and along his lips and jaw. It's not a physical attraction; although that definitely plays a role, as much as Erik can see Charles through his body. His body is a conduit to him and Erik can touch it and in return touch Charles as deeply as he is down in the netherworld, stroke along his soul and the glowing threads that Bind them together. And it is, indeed, grounding. Erik breathes easier and rubs his cheek along Charles's hair, humming softly to himself. "Peeking?" he whispers back, eyebrows raised where they can't be seen.

* * *

"Mmmm," Charles hums back, still grinning softly as he tucks himself under Erik's chin. He lets images float outwards from where he's been storing them since they got off the plane, eager wanderings courtesy of his excitable, oversensitive telepathy as it screeched to a settle: roads and the city and beyond the city and the people, so many people, quieted down so as not to overwhelm but bustling and murmuring and talking and thinking, all amounting to a place he's never seen before, rampant curiosity he hasn't been able to stomp out even through the pain and terror. That it's Erik's home, where he comes from, has only made that urge to explore and spread out and experience stronger, but he's tried to quell it. Now it explodes outward in brilliant, vivid color and sound and his own enthusiastic, unquenchable need to know, brushing over minds like a child might touch every object in a new place, feeling his way through the world. "Peeking," he repeats, sheepish, and shows Erik a cactus he'd found. Well, someone else had found it miles away from them, looked at it, and then Charles had seen it through them, but it's all the same when his telepathy is overshooting like this. A cactus! In Israel! Groovy.  
  
Erik can't help it. After a few seconds Charles realizes he's laughing, short, soft huffs that burst from his chest and he sheepishly ducks his head, settling Charles more firmly against him as his mind hangs on for the ride, trailing contentedly after. "Groovy," he snorts, tracing mindful fingers over the image of that cactus and the person holding it jumps in wonder as it sprouts a cowboy hat and sheriff badge. He also sees David and Ellie getting ready for synagogue, and Erik shrinks back a bit, trying to quell his own curiosity, his own urge to follow every thread from Charles's exploration to full fruition.  
  
"Why do you give them all cowboy hats? Not all cacti are cowboys, Erik," he giggles, joining in on the laughter because it's certainly welcome. He's been careful with what filters through, partially because it would be a headache at best for anyone but Charles, incomprensible and shrieking, but also because he doesn't want to overwhelm his Dominant with the content, either. He lingers on that image, though, because he's been watching everyone in the house, apparently incapable of not doing so. He lets Erik take it if he wants to, peek in if he decides to, a link he makes abundantly clear is open but doesn't force on him. "It's beautiful here," he whispers. And his telepathy is so incredibly sensitive that he's seeing more of it than he ever would have before, in detail and scope previously unimaginable. "Your kids are lovely, too. Though they have been squabbling," he snorts. But they're children, and they're acting like children. Charles is incomprehensibly grateful they're getting that opportunity. To be children.

* * *

Erik sighs contentedly, snuggling up closer. "I love them," he murmurs back, and every part of him sings in response to fluttering over their squabbling, playful forms. The older ones have taken the younger ones under their wing, just as Erik did during their captivity; and much of their smallest behavioral actions attest to Erik's care of them. They protect one another, they comfort one another, just as was done for them in their darkest moments. They've learned love through action, ensuring one another are fed and clothed and herding one another along to care for themselves. Erik watches it from the sidelines, from Charles's memories, and has to resist the hot prick of tears that sting at his eyes. They're safe, they're happy, and as far as they can both tell, the kids are well-adjusted. Which is more than Erik could have ever hoped-some of them have nightmares and triggers, but they're all largely healthy and unencumbered by horrors. It's enough to tug Erik's heart into a million different directions. "I didn't know they were OK," he murmurs, relief a waterfall pouring out of him. "I thought they might be-"   
  
Charles had worried, too, if he's honest about it. Not only because he has his own childhood trauma and knows perfectly well the effects it has on a psyche, but because he's a psychiatrist, and until very recently he was practicing. He knows how these things generally work, though he's never quite lost hope that it could be otherwise, and certainly has never once given up on someone in his life. But sometimes the universe is merciful. Sometimes there is reason for idealistic hope, and in presenting Erik the opportunity to save these children, there is reason. "They're absolutely brilliant," he agrees softly. Charles loves them, too. Just as Erik immediately loved Raven, Charles loves them, has already accepted them into his heart where they have more than their fair share of space. He strokes Erik's hair, kisses his cheek, encouraging everything out. "They're safe, and happy, and they'll live extraordinary lives now. You gave them that. They're more than okay, Erik." Currently arguing, and it's very loud with his telepathy how it is currently, but that's quite alright.  
  
Erik doesn't remember that, though. He remembers something much different, and he struggles to really comprehend how they view him as any kind of mentor or positive influence, when he'd been the one to harm them. He hurt them. He hit them. He punished them. He did worse. He's rapidly devolving into a hurricane-spiral down into a deep-dark that he won't surface out of, so he clambers to grip it all in hand and bury it as far down under the surface as it will go. Bury it under molten magma until it burns away, until there's no trace of it left. He musters up a smile instead, framing Charles's face in his hands. "They love you, too," he whispers, eyes crinkled. His whole expression is warm and inviting, not a trace of agony. It's a hard habit to break; especially when the reality is too complex, too much to bear openly.  
  
There's a balance here. He can't push too far, but he can't let Erik bury everything, either, not if he wants to say he'd taken care of him. Charles bites his lip, worrying it enough that his teeth catch on a particularly sore spot and it bleeds, but he hardly notices. Instead he focuses, drawing out, weaving together, creating in his own way. What washes through their Bond is a wave of overwhelming comfort, safety, gratitude, and respect. Admiration and love. It's crouched figures in the dark, weeping and scared, soothed and calmed. It's empty bellies filled and trust and friends in the darkest of places, anxiety balmed the moment that tall, looming figure appears. It's words like _savior_. "This is what they remember," he whispers. "This is what they know of you. You are not the monster under their beds, Erik. You're the one who saved them from it." They remember the rest, too. They aren't misremembering. But they also understand, even the youngest of them, and what they understand most is the truth.  
  
Erik shudders at the images, at the feelings that accompany. He draws his thumb over the spot of blood that's appeared, eyebrows knit together, twitching and trying to control himself so he doesn't dissolve into a melted puddle of plasma and vitreous fluid. "No more," he whispers the Order softly. "Heal." He puts his head on Charles's shoulder, rocking back and forth unconsciously. "Everything I did-I just want them live," he mumbles. "I violated-every law-you don't- _pikuach nefesh_ doesn't-wanted to live. I said, anything. _Anything_. So I do everything. I thought if they can't handle it, they kill themselves, OK? They have-choice. My soul is gone now. It's OK." He knows it's not fair to weep over this, to break over this, to put Charles in the position to logic away beliefs that he doesn't conform to; but it's impossible to ignore that it's a significant component of his grief. He shakes his head and puts it all away, letting the magma singe everything away. How could they possibly view him as good and decent? How could anyone-? How could he possibly be expected to manage a school? What parent would possibly allow him near their child? "Gotta let it heal, OK? No more," he Orders again, over and over again, Orders building up over themselves, a rising tsunami as he worries his teeth over marks left, darkening those bruises up. "Wanna go home. Home, home."  
  
Charles attempts to stay steady, to keep his head above the waves and weather the storm but his lip is wobbling now and he can't bite it. He digs his fingers into his own flesh instead, nails forming crescent moons out of palm. "It's not," he whispers. "It's not, at least not - Erik, I know you see how yourself how they wanted you to, but you have to look," he urges, and he thinks maybe he was told not to push, but he's going to anyway. He's going to. "Remember on the plane? Remember what you asked me? You know how I feel. Anything you did in that place you had no choice in, whether you want to believe that or not. You didn't, and you still helped, and protected, and loved. You did everything you could, and you saved them, and then you saved me," and here his voice cracks, tears welling up in his eyes. "And you're my Dominant, and you've only done good. So much good. You helped these children, and you'll help so many more, and I am so very sorry you lost what you did, but nothing is gone. Nothing is ruined, certainly not your soul. I don't know if I have the authority to make this call," and here his lips twitch, just slightly, tears rolling down his cheeks, "But I know you. And what I know is that you are good, that if any of us have souls, you have the most beautiful one I have ever seen. You are not what they sought to make you. You are my Erik, my Dominant and Bonded, and I love you with all that I have. Everything I am. There is no world, no reality, where I accept that you aren't saved, too. You are home. You're home, Erik. They tried to take this, too, but they haven't. It's here and it's yours, just as I am. Look at me. Look around you. All of this is yours, and nothing is gone. Nothing."  
  
"Yours?" Erik whispers back to him after so, so long. "Want me? No, no," he smooths his hands over Charles's, tugging fingernails away from flesh. " _Lo, lo_ ," he soothes. Sometimes he forgets; even as way thrust down into Dominion as he is, not only does Charles belong to him, but Erik belongs to Charles. Charles is possessive over him. Charles loves him. He is loved. Loved? His head lifts so he can rub his cheek against those tears, drying them on the fur along his jaw. He's sorry, so sorry, didn't mean to let this slip out. Charles told him not to bury, to show, but this is impossible for anyone to deal with, even secondarily, and he didn't mean to. He doesn't ever mean to, never means to.  
  
Charles shakes his head firmly, rubbing their cheeks together. "No," he whispers, but he means it, and he wants Erik to know. To feel it. "That's not true. I can handle it. I was meant for you, Erik. I was meant to take care of you, to love you. I can deal with it." It's a promise, and once, what seems like a lifetime ago, Erik warned him not to make promises that he could not keep. This is a promise he knows he can. There is nothing inside of Erik that he cannot handle, and more than that, that he cannot love. "Don't apologize for this. I can take care of you. I'm supposed to, yeah? I'm for you. I love you so much, darling. It's alright. You're doing perfectly, remember? You're my wonderful, perfect Dominant."  
  
These things exist on two levels. The first is in perfect, vivid memory with every second a crushing fist to the solar plexus. Erik's mind is designed this way, experiences locked-in and stored, looming like a threat. And the second is the disconnected, fuzzy haze of normal life, with everything hovering and dispersed in charged particles high above the atmosphere. This is where Erik exists most of the time, feeling impossibly dissociated from his own life, unable to comprehend his own recall. And Erik is getting dangerously close to the Earth, diving down out of the atmosphere into his body down below, the Interrogator where he's trapped inside that laboratory, watching someone he loves scream and cry with a gun pressed to their temple. The Interrogator doesn't love. He does what is necessary to preserve the Operation in binary sequence. Live or die. As long as you're alive you can heal from a traumatic experience. When you're dead there are no more options. The solution is simple. The execution is perfect. They never stop screaming and crying. Erik shakes his head. Pull up, pull up. They're back in the Land, where the Interrogator will need to come out and detail every second; a post-mission brief from down deep in _Sheol_. Erik is going to die. It's that simple. He's going to die. There are no more alternatives. No more options. Death is his only recourse. An ordinary human being couldn't do what he did. The children would be dead, and so would he, and maybe the world would be better.

* * *

There are tears on his cheeks again, but Charles pays them absolutely no mind. All that matters is Erik, and clinging as tight as he possibly can, nails digging in. "No," he gasps, and his chest is tight, too, but he breathes right through it. "No, no, no, no, no. No, you can't," he croaks. "I won't let you. I won't let you, so you can't." Call him selfish. Call him needy. If Erik ever left him like that, he'd follow right after and yank him back or die trying himself, and then they'd both be dead and it wouldn't matter anyway. The world would not be better off. Charles holds the whole world in his hands, every single mind attached to a beating heart on this planet and maybe even beyond it, if there are sentient beings out there to reach, and he would be devastated. Destroyed, as nothing else could. He would be hopeless, and if Charles Xavier ever loses hope the world will tremble with it. There is nothing that could help them then.

* * *

Erik drags his fingertips over Charles's face over and over again, brushing away all those tears as soon as they crop up and drip down. He doesn't want to die. He doesn't want to leave Charles, but if he doesn't veer off course into the grassy fields and tall trees and little huts, he is sure he'll burn up in the atmosphere before he reaches the ground near that laboratory. Being here, there's no off-course. There's only straight down into that body, those events, the darkest things that break him apart again and again in the fuzzy static, his only safety a brilliantly crafted net of cognitive dissonance. It's crumbling, shuddering under the future. He'll have to testify. He'll have to explain this to the court. The children will have to detail it. "Can't breathe," he wheezes.  
  
Erik can breathe. Erik can breathe because Charles will breathe for him if he has to, will whisper air into him from his own lungs. "You can," he gasps, and he hates that he's crying, that there are tears on his cheeks still, that they keep leaking like someone is squeezing them. "You won't die. You won't. I won't let you, and if you have to do this I'll do every second with you." Erik isn't alone. He's survived for so long, but now he has Charles who will make sure that for the rest of his life, there's more than just survival. "I'm here. Breathe with me, darling. It's alright. I've got you," he promises. No dying.  
  
Erik takes in gasping, wheezing breaths, ribs crushed beneath Charles's mind, complying with inevitable compressions manifest between the two of them, Bond glowing hotly in their consciousnesses. "I'm not-" he covers his mouth, voice stolen as his throat constricts around silent, invisible sobs. " _Lo kmohem_ ," he mumbles stuttered-haltingly. " _Yemalel ani kmohem_. They li-" he chokes. "Liked it. They're- _yuh_ -uh-you know," he grips into Charles's shirt, digging fingernails into his chest and then rubbing at his sternum instead, over and over in patterns. "I'm not, I'm _not_. He'll say I _am_ and I'll die." He's come this far, he's endured the trial against him and now he's come here and he's labored under the assumption that it will occur around him, without him, but that's impossible. He's the primary witness. Sebastian Shaw ruined him in every way and he didn't die, but this is too much. It's another aggression, another offense, for Charles to hear about it in ruinous detail. To hear Shaw accuse him of deviancy and disgust. To force him to tell. Shaw knows he's going to lose. He has to know. So he's going to do as much damage to Erik as he can, his prodigal son who betrayed him and his precious submissive, acting out his Will of destruction. He'll lash at Charles, he'll force Erik into breaking so he can't help and he'll detonate that atom bomb in his mind until there's nothing left of them.  
  
Charles shakes his head. He shakes his head and he keeps on shaking it, holding Erik just as tightly, nails digging into the skin, too, grasping at his shirt and refusing to let go. "No," he whispers. "That won't happen, because Shaw made a terrible mistake. Do you know what that mistake is, Erik?" And his voice is level, now, shaking but with that hint of ice.  
  
Erik shakes his head, because he can't fathom a world where his imagination isn't the fruition of the future. Even now it's hard for him to fathom Mr. Shaw making mistakes, everything he does is calculated and the reason he's sitting in a detention cell is because Charles is simply more powerful than him, but Charles is a good person, a good soul and he won't crush Mr. Shaw into a drooling mess, so he can still talk and he will open his mouth and use it to inflict as much worldly damage as he possibly can. And all the things that Erik has done, all the evidence that's being collected from the decimated pit of Shaw Industries; the evidence that's been disseminated over the years-there is no doubt in Erik's mind that the defense team will use every trick they can to present Erik as a perpetrator, and it isn't difficult because he was. Erik shakes his head again and again. " _Lo yode'a,_ " he whispers.  
  
"He left me alive," he answers, quiet, but with enough force to freeze. "He could have taken me as a child. He could have killed me himself. He had every opportunity, but he decided to play games instead. It was the worst mistake he ever made, and he will spend the rest of his wretched, miserable life regretting it. Every single second until the day he hangs he will know that in keeping me alive, he's brought about his own destruction." Because Charles may be a good person, but he vowed to never let that monster hurt his Dominant again, and he'd meant it. "He's not going to destroy us. Nothing could, but him least of all."  
  
Erik shivers, stroking at Charles's chest, down his face and arms. Erik knows deep down why Shaw wanted him, because he could hurt Erik the most, and as only Charles can be aware of, because quite simply, Shaw was genuinely fond of him, regarding him much like a father would a son, if such descriptors could ever be applied to anything Shaw ever did for him. Shaw found him attractive and easily pliable, molded into the perfect soldier able to inflict atrocities upon the world, leaving his mind a sanctuary of its own, free and clear of interference. Erik could only influence the world, which meant Shaw was safe from his sentry. Erik _bought into the brainwashing_ , hook line and sinker. Charles _never_ would, and Shaw knew it. And beyond that Erik is a D5, a prize beyond prizes. Trained up and Shaw could make people do whatever he wanted, and Erik complied dutifully, silently. It's going to hurt. He's going to hurt him, there's no way around it. "I have the audacity to be-s- _sorry_ ," he stutters, pressing his palms into his eyes. Force against vivid greens and veined whites, maybe he'll pop them like balloons so he doesn't have to see himself in cinematic motion, mirror-image videos torn to shreds on live TV. This court room is just another violation, just another way to strip him and tape him and display him. What you can't see isn't real. If your eye offends you, _pluck it out_. " _Ma_ -maybe It should destroy me. I deserve it." Erik moans lowly, weak and pained. So sorry.  
  
There is a way around it. It doesn't matter what Shaw's reasoning was, the sum total of it is that he made a grevious mistake and he's going to pay dearly for it. "Shh," he whispers, and nuzzles in close, kisses Erik's neck, buries a hand in his hair and strokes, scratches right behind his ear in a soothing, repetitive motion. "There's no reason to be sorry. None at all, darling. You do not deserve that. Do you trust me, Erik?"  
  
He settles his whole body up against Charles's, seeking those fingers in his hair without conscious direction at all. The tension building and building unravels rope by rope, separated strands containing untapped Will that flare up once exposed to the elements. "Trust you," he mumbles, putting his cheek against Charles's cheek. "Trust."  
  
"Listen to me, then, please," he whispers, and rubs their cheeks together, feeling the scratch of Erik's beard, letting it ground him. Tugging on all those strands of Will that bind him now, that Shaw could never tame because they were always meant for Charles and Charles alone. "I will not let this break you. I won't. Do you trust me to protect you, Erik? You've protected everyone here so well, me included. Do you trust me to protect you? To take care of you? That's what I'm meant for, isn't it?"  
  
Erik nods, scratching up against Charles's cheek as he does, and he turns to lay little kisses against exposed skin. "Protect me," he whispers, giving a small, faint smile. "You protect me," he nods again. "Keep me safe. Love you." Those strands of Will tighten and shimmer, wrapping all around Charles, glowing and bright beyond any light, soaked in rich Command and overwhelming love. "All mine? For me? Mhm."  
  
"All for you," he murmurs back, bound in Will, around ankles and wrists and wrapped around his throat, his mind, too, but it's wandering. He could solve all of this now. Here. From right where they are in the blink of an eye. Why shouldn't he? Why shouldn't he?  
  
Erik finds himself shaking his head. As horrible as it is, as much as he's confident he'll break and turn into ash and dust, there's something about that which he cannot sanction. And he cannot explain why, not really, other than a verse that crops up in the back of his mind, one that Charles has heard in Carmen's a thousand times before. _Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof_. Erik is a great deal more learned than Carmen in regards to scripture, let's just say, so his mind wheels down and opens up like flower petals into commentaries and commandments- _You shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates, which I am giving you.-You shall provide out of all the people, able men, men of truth, disdaining unjust gain, and place them over [the people]-_ and why? Erik's mind is peeking up, becoming less fearful and more curious, engaging and he has to smile up at Charles, his submissive, has to touch his hand to his cheek because he's himself again. Charles always makes him himself. They aren't judges. They aren't qualified. The legal system is necessary, for everyone involved. For every _victim_ , for every iota of suffering.   
  
Charles will protect him? Charles will keep him safe, keep everyone safe. So that this trial can be conducted in accordance with modern law, so that justice can be served for everyone impacted. So that punishment can be given justly, once it is determined that Shaw is guilty. Erik would never have entertained such a notion before now, he was so consumed with killing Shaw, but things changed. His abilities are rendered useless, so he is no longer a physical threat or danger. And in that Erik's begun to return to himself, to the things he learned as a child, before Shaw. The things that matter, that are important. Shaw can't take that away from them. They are civilized. They have established courts of logic and rationality, and he will be tried and he will be found guilty and all those that he has harmed, will get their opportunity to express their grievances and that is right. It is right, and good.   
  
And Charles is for Erik. Erik trusts him. He trusts Charles.  
  
Charles couldn't have killed Shaw, in body or mind. Not without killing a good chunk of himself along with him, and Erik would never allow that to happen. He had every opportunity to do so in that courtroom; he'd had Shaw on his knees and more vulnerable than he's likely ever been in his life, but he hadn't and he wouldn't and he will not. It would never be an option. He stripped him of what he deemed most precious in himself, what he based his entire worth on, but that is not the same and he feels no remorse. For everything he did in that courtroom, not an ounce.  
  
But he shakes his head, hiding himself in Erik's shoulders. "I wouldn't argue that," he mumbles. "But -" But he has to protect Erik. He has to. He won't do nothing. He won't sit still and let this happen.  
  
"It has to happen," Erik whispers softly. It's what he's feared for a long time finally coming to manifest truth. It has to happen. Erik has to face him. He has to face him down, and confront him, and be strong and hold his own and show the world who Sebastian Shaw really is, what a monster really looks like. He once more has to put himself in front of those kids, to make sure their stories are told, too. And in a small way, in a place deep, deep down, Erik _wants_ to do it. He wants to participate in this process, he wants Sebastian Shaw to receive proper justice. And in his wildest dreams he imagines throwing down with Shaw and coming out victorious, and has since he was a child. Imagining the time when it was him with the upper hand, when it was him who could throw it back in Shaw's face, head on and no mercy. And a very visceral, dark, infant part of Erik that's existed since age eleven years old, from the first time he was pressed into that ground and his dead mother watching him suffer the first way, the first time. That hatred and rage. One day, one day he'll find his strength and he'll be able to stand up and he won't prostrate himself at Shaw's feet. Erik shivers. He wants so desperately for that to happen, it's like a fantasy. But his biggest fear is that it won't, is that Shaw will once again silence him and force everyone to see him as he's been seen for so long.  
  
That's what Charles is here for. Charles shivers, too, and he knows this is exactly how he will not sit still. He won't weaken Shaw, not any more than he already has (a significant amount, he's sure the blow has been absolutely devastating and he hopes, in his own darkened place, that he feels that loss everyday), though he has questions of his own and he intends to get answers before all is said and done. He won't weaken Shaw, but he will bolster Erik. Erik has found his strength, and it is not something Shaw ever could have accounted for. "He should have killed me," Charles repeats from before, still pressed into Erik's neck, the words muffled. If he was ever going to win this, Charles Xavier would need to be dead. But he isn't. He's very much alive, and so is Erik, and justice there shall be.  
  
"You protect me," Erik whispers again, soft. "Keep me safe." And to him that means just this. That Charles will help him be strong. Charles always helps him. Always keeps him whole and himself. "Trust you." He brushes hands over his hair and down his chest. "Trust. Love. Mine, 'k? Mine."  
  
"Yours," he whispers back, and doesn't come out from hiding, placing soft little kisses there instead. "I'll keep you safe. You've got me now." He might be guilty for the rest of his life that he was not there sooner, but he knows it's a fruitless wondering. Either way they end up here, and Charles will make sure Erik enacts the justice he and every other life touched by Sebastian Shaw is owed.  
  
Erik turns his hand over and reveals a butterfly, with cactus and desert sun designs painted on its wings, and it climbs up to bat them along Charles's cheeks, which makes Erik huff in amusement. Better to let everything go now, instead of wasting away under grief and sadness. And that is exactly what he's ended up threatening to do, to melt and blow away like ash. He's supposed to be here, he's supposed to look after Charles, not the other way around. It shouldn't be like this. He'll cast it away like a wish, an eyelash flown on a butterfly's wing into the darkening void. "Love you," he mumbles from his perch on Charles's shoulder, rubbing his hand over his chest.  
  
"No," Charles breathes, raspy and soft but firm just the same, and he doesn't spare a moment for the magnificent creature, nothing more than a passing glance, because as beautiful as it is he can't abide it. "This is how it should be. If you want to care for me, you need to let me care for you." Perhaps in his refusal it could be assumed he'd floated to that cave, that spot where he can breathe without Erik, where every action isn't tethered to and informed by Will, where he isn't so far under, but that simply isn't the case. Charles is as deep as he's ever been, every limb Bound by invisible, tugging strands, his entire being submerged. "You would never waste away. I would never let you."  
  
Erik's whole body is warmed from the inside out without any prior warning, and his eyes widen as the sensation settles over him. He can't help smiling, the essence of all Charles is, his protection, his loyalty, his trust and duty to care, to serve. His love. "I know," Erik whispers. He touches Charles's face, the butterfly landing over the back of his hand, exquisitely crafted. "You are mine-and I am yours. I know." He kisses Charles's forehead.  
  
The only thing he has eyes for is that smile. Charles shifts until he can touch it, feel it, trace Erik's lips with a finger and know that it's there, that it's real, that he managed to coax it back out. "Thank you," he whispers. "For trusting me. I promise I'll be good." He'll take care of Erik, no matter what.


	53. We dive in and the swimming/feels like that swimming/the mind does in the wake/of transgression, I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. tw, mind the tags  
> ii. _the song of achilles_ , madeline miller  
> iii. _tenebrae_ , paul celan

And they are both good to one another as they settle in, and the day passes with leisure largely in mind. They play with the kids and introduce one another to their victories and hardships, and Erik remains stalwart by Charles's side, and he at Erik's. But all good things must come to an end, the hardship must begin anew as the second day rolls around and breakfast is served. Erik and Charles wake and must dress in fine clothes, for they've a meeting this morning with Gertrude Yorkes and Dominikos Petrakis, the de facto Prosecutor, and one of three judges. Carmen Pryde is also a fact-finder and spends most of his time at the Hague now that jury deliberations are in session on Erik's trial in the states. The kids are all dressed up as well by the time Erik and Charles head downstairs, Erik's face a palette of white and green as he struggles not to retch. He clings onto Charles's arm every step they take.  
  
If Charles is honest he's had one of the least restful nights of his life and he's quite close to retching himself, the entire world whipped up into sound and noise and color that bleeds in strangely, everything blurry at the edges like mirages but the thing that matters most, above all else, is keeping Erik safe and together. He stays obediently close, letting his Dominant use him as the lifeline he is. "Everyone looks very spiffy," he says instead of anything else, fussing with one of Erik's sleeves. That's what he's been doing, mostly. Fussing, and Erik seems to be encouraging it, or at least indulging it.  
  
Erik doesn't remember getting dressed-Charles did that for him. Charles is serving him, just as he said he would. He fusses and straightens out every wrinkle in Erik's suit, right down to polishing his shoes, and Erik Orders it with pulsating Will, a way to ground his submissive and remind him of his place, to wrap him up in those strands and let him know they still exist. They'll never disappear. Not ever. He's around too many people right now and his voice is gone, too throat-clutched by vice-like fingers to even contemplate communication, but he does nod at Charles's proclamation. They are spiffy, they are very nice. Charles helps with that, showing Erik what good clothing looks like, while Erik spins it from a spire out of air.  
  
Even with the wrinkles straightened out, even with Erik's shoes so shiny he can see himself in them, he still fusses. He runs his fingers over the fabric again and again, adjusts cuffs and pants and huffs at nonexistent flecks of dirt. If Erik needs something, he's darting for it before he can conceptualize the need in the first place, if he Orders something he's twice as fast. There is not a single part of him that does not scream dutiful, doting submissive, except perhaps the parts that are whoozy and sick and seeing double or triple, but those part are serving, too. "We're alright," he says, to Erik and everyone in the room, offering them all a smile. Then he fusses with one of the kid's ties, too, sucking in a harsh breath when he sees what's not there. They're alright, it's alright. Charles will take care of them, the whole lot.  
  
And Erik will take care of Charles. He ensures the sick, woozy parts are cared for and that Charles can feel safe and comfortable with Erik at his side. He follows a silent specter, standing behind him, fixing what's been neglected; ensuring the children are all well dressed and fixed up as well. He leans into Charles, concerned and questioning. Hurts. _Don't know if I can go. Maybe just them._ But it has to be Erik. It has to be. They're counting on him to go. They're the ones grabbing his hands without relinquishing their hold.  
  
It will be Erik. Charles will take all the parts that hurt and question and soothe them, keep them safe and cared for, mental fingers stroking as much as his actual ones as they brush over his mind in gentle, firm passes that care for every fragment. He assures that Erik need not worry too much about the children, either, soothing them, too, calming any fears or anxieties, giving them fun little images to cling to, getting them giggling and smiling and ushered over to the table where they eat. He feeds Erik before himself, but eats, too, reassuring him he gets his share. This is Charles in his element, strands of Will nearly visible they're wrapped so tightly around him, and the dizzying, disorienting blurring is more of an afterthought. "See? Alright," he promises Erik, humming as he touches his beard. It seems much more wild than it did last time only four days in. "Mountain man," he accuses, in full earshot of the children, who snicker.  
  
Erik rubs his hands over the tops of the children's heads, and not one of them flinch or shy away even though Erik touches them as if they will, hesitant. They can't seem to stop touching him and crowding around him, even the older ones, who boast that they don't really need protection but secretly crave it. Erik allows everything, resting his head against Charles's chest and closing his eyes. "Mountain goat," he returns, tickling his fingers down Charles's nose.  
  
Irene's laugh is soft, and she sits down on Charles's other side. "We're going to be all right," she soothes in her strange, half-mental voice with the image of birds shrieking at the sky, watchful and eerie. She brushes her fingertips over Erik's face. "You've grown new wrinkles," she smiles, gentle. "And I spy a gray hair."  
  
However can she spy such things is another matter, but he's learned not to doubt Irene. "Thank you, dear," he murmurs back, patting her hands. "You know how I fret about my image."  
  
He's lost new wrinkles, too, is the thing. The Erik he remembers first meeting at the CIA, beyond any strange warping because that meeting was highly anticipated and not for weeks but years, is leagues different than this one. In ways beyond the obvious, too, though he'd like to keep the obvious obvious and he coaxes Erik into another bite of food. "Hmmm," Charles is humming, still grooming Erik's beard, running his fingers over and through the scruff of it. It's not the wildest he's ever seen it, certainly. "Grey hair is very distinguished," he comments, though he'd like if they could dodge stress to both body and mind enough that Erik's full head of hair isn't white by the time they're thirty. He continues to fuss as the children eat, and they don't need any nudging in that department but he keeps them all wrapped up and safe in neat little bubbles of comfort, and he truly is humming, eventually. Quietly, perhaps shyly, half-mumbled into Erik.  
  
"What are you feeding us?" Mortimer makes a face, even as he stuffs more food off of his plate into it.  
  
"Shut up," Tabby smacks him harshly. "Be nice."  
  
"I am being nice! Ow! She hit me!"  
  
Erik snorts into the back of his arm, struggling not to laugh. "No hitting one another," he chides, raising a hand pointedly. "We've come a long way for peace. Let's try and live in it."  
  
"Yes, Erik," they all mumble in different degrees of acceptance.  
  
He looks up at Charles, catching his hand to kiss the center of his palm. "Are you saying I should shave?" his lips purse.  
  
Charles snorts, too, because there's nudging going on at the end of the table but no one is shoving each other into the ground or smacking so he'll take it. He shakes his head at the question, rubbing his cheek briefly against Erik's jaw to feel the scratch. "No, it's perfectly fine like this," he murmurs. "Besides, my beard is much more impressive," he grins softly, stroking his own stubble. He hasn't shaved properly in days but there's truly not much there to speak of, just some vague, light fuzz.  
  
Tel huffs at them both, reaching out for some vegetable sticks (they're better than they sound, and fun-shaped _loooong_ cubes) and plain _Lays_ that have been set out on the table. She's a little skeptical of the whole thing, but dressed nicely in a black dress and jean half-cut jacket, make-up done to perfection. "This isn't going to go like _Law and Order SVU_ or something, is it?"  
  
"Not like that," Erik whispers back to her, patting her arm.  
  
"And Professor Xavier, you definitely need a shave," Tel adds dryly.  
  
Fetching, Erik mouths, shaking his head. "We just talk. If you can't then you can't, say what you can say."  
  
"Are you-" Tel grimaces. "You know, all of us-we'll say what we-"  
  
"No. The truth." He taps his own chest, jabbing with fingertips, hard enough to bruise. "Truth."  
  
Charles isn't a fan of the jabbing. He frowns immediately, taking Erik's hand in his and smoothing over each finger, even if his chest was the poor recipient. He's far too in-tune with Erik to tolerate even the slightest pain or inconvenience unless it's expressly Ordered that he must, and he soothes himself by urging more food. "Perhaps think less _Law and Order,_ more -" He trails off from whatever cultural reference he intended to make, staring at the end of the table.  
  
" _Crossing Lines_ ," Martha smirks, wearing a blue button-down and some faded jeans and not particularly concerned about this. "Dr. Kovacs, _sooo_ dreamy-" she's in the middle of fake-swooning, clutching her hands together when she turns, abrupt, sharp and stops all at once. "Professor, are you all right?"  
  
"He's all right," Irene murmurs in her deep, calm tones. She distracts the children with a knowing glance at Erik.  
  
Erik doesn't do anything spectacular, because he never really does; everyone in this house is waiting for him, expecting him to explode in an insane fireworks-popping off form of extravagance that just isn't him. He doesn't Dominate that way, and most of anything he does is in casual redirects, touches here, a firm word there, and they've just come to deal with the fact that the televised perception of D5 Will is wrong, even while the entire roam is soaked in Erik's Will, everyone primed around him. He trails fingertips down Charles's face, doing his best to breathe and not hurt himself, letting Charles take his hand and using it to touch him instead. _OK?_ he whispers, eyes crinkled, trying not to cry and lose control at this stupid table.  
  
Charles swallows but nods, blinking until he's seeing what's there, what's actually there, and plastering on a soft smile. "Okay," he whispers back, but he's clearly a bit out of it and he squeezes Erik's hand, his free one wandering up to his collar to idly rub at it like he does when he's grounding himself. He'll keep them all together, including himself. Nothing to be worried over. His hand is trembling in Erik's.  
  
Erik shakes his head, unconvinced and afraid. Like he'd ever just not worry over something. Erik's bad hand rubs against his chest, upset and seeking to scratch and dig in. _I'm here,_ he whispers softly, brushing Charles's hair, hand shaking against the strands. It's the kind of gentle touch that the kids aren't accustomed to seeing from him, and they all watch curiously even though the moment is intended obvious privacy.  
  
That was the opposite of what Charles wanted. He bites the inside of his cheek hard, reaching for Erik's other hand to soothe that one, too, even if he can't hold it properly. His fingers stroke instead, gentle and reassuring. _It's okay,_ he promises. _I'm just seeing things. It's disorienting, but there's no reason to be afraid._ It sounds more like he's telling himself that than Erik, but it all amounts to the same thing. _We're okay. I'm yours,_ he promises, and reminds himself, too, clinging to Erik's Will, wrapping it around ankles and wrists and his collar and his waist, pulsing golden strands he can keep himself tethered to reality by.  
  
Erik shakes his head, his fingers working harsh and uncomfortably, bending like metal inside a plane crashing and sending jolts of pain up his arm, but he can hold Charles more, with both hands, and that's reason enough. His Will flashes and shimmers strongly, clutching back with every iota of Dominion until Charles is entirely wrapped up. _Seeing what?_ he asks, without anywhere for dismissiveness to go.  
  
Charles really doesn't want to tell him. His stomach drops, because he also doesn't want to be defiant; he wants to be good and obedient, and the end result is squirming and a barely audible, discomforted whine, teeth gnawing on as much of the inside of his mouth as he can catch. _Things I shouldn't see,_ he admits. _It's okay. They're gone now_. That's a lie and Charles immediately ducks his head in shame, lip trembling. _Sort of,_ he amends, smaller.  
  
It's OK, Erik murmurs, brushing his hands over Charles's chest and neck, touching his collar and letting it tighten slightly in reminder. Still mine. He leans forward and kisses Charles's brow, tugging him even closer than he already is, if such a thing were possible. What do you see? he asks, the Order evident.  
  
For just a split second, Charles rewinds everything so Erik can see it in blurring, nauseating color and sound, too fast to make heads or tails. Then he snaps it back, shaking his head and curling in on himself. _Please_ , he begs, lip trembling where he's gnawing at it. _Don't make me. I don't want to._ But he does, at the same time, especially because he wants to do what he's told and he doesn't know what to do, stomach sick as he squirms about in Erik's lap, unsettled.  
  
 _No, stop. Show me properly_ , Erik Commands, eyebrows knit together.

* * *

Charles closes his eyes and whines again, barely a noise at all when he's biting down so hard on his lip. He's wriggling about even more as he finally lets everything flow out, colors uncomfortably bright or muted or strange, sounds distorted, people where they shouldn't be, thoughts taking shape in the Real and bleeding out. A blonde boy at the end of the table with wings that Charles knows does not belong there. It makes tears well up in his eyes immediately, a lump in his throat, and he covers his face with his hands. He hadn't wanted to.  
  
Erik's fingertips come up to cover his mouth and it takes a few moments for his brain to catch up with his eyes, mental and seeing before they are unseeing and the metal of the chair he's sitting on scrapes against linoleum floors as he ends up on his knees, the world spinning endlessly as he's thrown off of it like a child tossed from an amusement park ride. There's no conscious Will or direction here, it's pure biological instinct and he's heaving up every scrap Charles made him eat just moments before, as the children gasp and distance themselves from the sight, looking to Charles, looking at Erik-who they've made to be a pillar of strength this entire time, having literally never seen him this way before. Erik holds up a hand behind him, trying to reassure, pressing himself up against Charles.  
  
It's exactly what he did not want to happen. He sucks in a harsh, hitching breath and tries very hard not to follow suit, blanketing the children up and bubbling them away where they don't need to see this. At least not the majority of it, but he doesn't want to panic them by cutting them off completely; instead he soothes them with a bundling, pervasive calm, a steady hum that unfortunately does not work for him as he falls to his knees besides Erik. There's thick, heavy panic and horror and shame so deep it aches inside of him, hollow and sick, but he forces it all down, trembling as he fights tears and lets Erik lean on him. He wants to say he's sorry, but the words don't even come, so he just trembles with it and holds Erik, holds him together and swallows everything down.  
  
Erik shudders, trying to make himself calm down, but it doesn't work very well. He hadn't expected this, he doesn't understand why it's come up, he's afraid it's because Charles knows the truth and the truth is that he is less than a human being, less than anything worth the time of day or any kind of effort at all. The truth that Erik was the one to commit that little boy to his horrific fate and Warren, of course, is going to be at this meeting and Erik will have to detail everything to him, and then they'll all know, and Erik shouldn't be on the defendant's side of the table, they've all suspected it but now they'll know and it's breaking his heart-heart-break, he didn't think he had one, how surprising.  
  
It's nearly enough to make Charles retch. He shakes his head and everything around them seems to stop, completely silent, muted out and softer, and he smothers Erik with calm, something he's never done before, grabs the panic and the horror and yanks it right back out of him just as he has his pain in the past. _Please don't do that_ , he whispers, and he's so close to tears but he bites down harder on his poor lip, and forget letting it heal. _Please. It isn't true. You did everything you could. He wasn't alone because of you, alone and scared and..._ He can't. _No one will know anything because it isn't the truth, so please, please, please stop. Please._ This is his fault. He'd promised to be good and he couldn't even manage this much. _Please, I'm sorry._  
  
Erik tugs Charles's hands away from himself and presses them against his chest, rocking back and forth. Why, why now, why is this, he didn't prepare, he hasn't prepared for anything. That's the point, he hasn't prepared for any of this and this is only the first. This is only one second of what has to come out, what Erik has to testify to. And he can't do it, he's on the floor throwing up. However did he think he could do this, because he can't. He switches to covering his eyes. He can't handle a second of his own history, of his own actions, his own behavior. How is he expected to do this, who does he think he is. He knows Charles is upset and it's his job to stop this, to protect him, to fix it, but he can't fix it. That's always been the problem, he can't fix it.  
  
Charles has to fix it. Charles has to fix it, but he doesn't know how. He doesn't know how to make it better. His brain is overloading and everything is creeping in and out, everything is exploding, his ears are popping and if he could just reset things and work from there - He realizes he's quite literally reset the situation only after it's too late. After it's done. Grabbed Erik seeing that little boy and taken it, shredded it into nothing until it hadn't happened at all. A memory crumpled up and discarded. The horror sets in a second after that, his eyes wide and his entire world breaking and he does the only thing he can think to do. He gets up and runs.

* * *

He is able to get far enough from the situation so that he can find a space of his own to just breathe and exist before someone does intrude, a mind he recognizes. Irene touches his arm, letting out a little huff. She navigates the area with ease despite being blind, a product of her mutation, or simple awareness from experience, it's hard to say. She touches walls and tables and chairs where they've always been and then she's touching him, calm and quiet. "Hi," she just says, as though this has played out for her a thousand times already. It has.  
  
That space happens to be crammed tightly in one of the darker corners of the house with as little outside stimulus as possible, as small as he can possibly make himself, which, without his mountain man to trap him, turns out to be not nearly enough. His knees are curled up to his chest and he's taking slow breaths, swallowing tears past the wretched lump in his throat. "Hi," he croaks, attempting a soft smile more for his sake than hers, quieting down all of the rattling, invading noise and imagery, terrified it could leak out. He scoots over, giving her plenty of room to sit if she'd like.  
  
Even if it does leak out, it doesn't begin to touch Irene, who lives in space that no one can possibly touch or have access to. She offers him a smile in return, genuine, and touches his face. "Thank you for staying with us," is what she says; not demanding-she can't demand in the way a Dominant could, anyway, but Irene doesn't have to. She can make herself heard in only a word, or a touch. A product of her abilities, undoubtedly.  
  
Charles is more concerned with everything else. Besides, there are minds that seem delicate and untouchable, unique, resistant, but prod enough and eventually they bend and shatter. He never would, but the possibility that he could is enough to shatter him. He shivers, closing his eyes to block everything out, and attempts another smile. He's grateful it's her all the same, because the world is a searing distortion around him, and he doesn't know how to fix it just now. "Thank you having for me," he whispers in return, genuine if strained.  
  
Irene laughs. "Of course we would." She lays her hand on his arm. "Every one of us has broken and lain in the place where we don't know how to move on. You aren't alone. You have one another," she smiles. "And us. It's a silly family, but it's ours. And yours."  
  
Charles leans over from the safe, crowded place of his knees to kiss the top of her head. "I don't think it's silly at all," he murmurs. He thinks it's brilliant. He doesn't think he's particularly deserving of it, not at all, but that's another story entirely. Something occurs to him, and he casts the whole place in the darkness; it doesn't make a difference to Irene, and it feels less jarring. No colors to blend all over each other. He doesn't bother bubbling it up, so from the outside it looks a bit like the Void has opened up inside of this room, his perception changes more Real than they've ever been.  
  
Irene seems to glow a little at the kiss, and she laughs, as though nothing in the world nor the Void itself could touch her and extinguish that light. It's familiar in a way that's hard to describe; like a woman in white and brilliant green eyes existing on the edge of the universe. "Erik wants us to tell the truth," she murmurs, settling back against Charles, nothing affected. "I think... sometimes, the questions are hard, but the answers are simple. All of the choices that we made were false choices. That is the truth." She touches her fingertips under her eyes. "My sight, or my life. That's a simple enough answer for me. And I am here. So are you. Those are your choices. And his." She leans forward and kisses his cheek. "Come back to your family, OK? That is what I see. You come back, and you are loved."  
  
He never left. He never would. Family is a strange word for Charles, and it aches and it hurts, but he knows well enough by now that sometimes it's not all as complicated as it seems. "I know," he whispers, because he does. But there are parts of him he cannot fathom loving, and perhaps that's as simple as anything else. He loves every part of Erik, simply and whole-heartedly, with all of the same devotion as any other part. Panicked now that it's caught up to him, he finds that golden strand that keeps them constantly connected and tugs, overwhelmed with relief when it's still there. When it hasn't snapped. Charles buries his face in his knees and takes a harsh, shaky breath, and then another when that one gets caught in his throat. His chest feels tight, and he wants to weep, unsteady and frightened, unable to move from this dark place, but he's not alone. None of them are. "I know. Thank you," he whispers.

* * *

Erik is there as soon as he's called, and he crouches down and takes Charles's cheeks in his hands, smiling down at him. All of those parts of Charles that he cannot fathom loving are loved by Erik, and reflected back to him in brilliant light, multicolored glitter particles that spark when eyes flash over them.  
  
Irene leans forward and brushes her hand along his forehead, meeting Charles's eyes with a nod. Returning what was taken, because no help can be given in the darkness of the Void. The only way to move forward is by illumination, and she's already been one to whom light has been taken. When she can give it in return an opportunity never goes wasted.  
  
For Erik's part, he's already known it's gone, and when it comes back, he only inhales sharply once and leans in to wrap Charles up big and strong in his arms, tucking his head under his chin. No love lost, never lost. "Love you, sweetheart," he whispers croakily, his smile audible even to Irene. " _Kol beseder. Eshmor atah_."  
  
It's what Charles wanted more than anything, and tears finally leak from his eyes. They're closed because perhaps it was dark but it had been helpful, even if he wants desperately to see Erik, but he doesn't need his vision to do that, anyway, and a soft, helpless whimper escapes him. He's limp in Erik's arms, not fighting but not reaching, either, chest still tight and heart still heavy but at least he can breathe again; Bound so firmly by Erik's Will, even being a few steps away felt like suffocating, like drowning, untethered and uncomfortable and entirely out of place. Out of step, out of line. He dropped before he realized he did, and now it's catching up, hitched gasps that he can't gather enough air from. "I'm sorry," he croaks back.  
  
Erik envelops Irene in a grateful embrace as well, kissing the top of her forehead. " _Lechi ve izri naki arucha boker shulchan, beseder?_ "  
  
"Be good," she whispers back with a grin, squeezing Charles's arm before breaking away from the Void and returning back to the other children, who have become worried in her absence. Irene's become somewhat of a _de facto_ leader to them, despite being a low-level submissive who walks lightly and speaks softly, she nevertheless retains a graceful presence that commands attention; a product of her abilities that exist outside of Dynamic.  
  
" _Ani eshmor_ ," Erik just says to Charles, laughing wetly into his hair. " _You're OK. Ani mavtiach_."  
  
Charles shakes his head, sucking in needy breaths, but he doesn't much feel like arguing. He is anyway, he supposes; it isn't okay, and he feels helpless and uncomfortably torn, now, because as much as he wants to destroy himself, he wants to wrap himself back up in Will and comfort both of them, too, and it's instinct that eventually wins out because he won't be able to breathe otherwise and neither of them will be done any good if they both suffocate. He still feels like he's suffocating, like his insides are tying themselves up into knots. They weren't in a closet but they are now, old dark wooden door with tiny filterings of light that never would have existed here but does now. "I'm sorry," he repeats, and then he reaches, grabs at the back of Erik's shirt and holds on for dear life. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he gasps. He still can't get a full breath in, and it hurts.  
  
"I know," Erik huffs, kissing his temple gently. It isn't up to him either way, whether or not he gets to bow to one particular impulse or another. Neither is it up to him to decide Erik's response, if Erik is the wronged party here, that is and always will be his decision. He is the Dominant, a position he has never once shirked and certainly won't start now. "Breathe," he whispers the Order, soft. "Forgiven."  
  
It hadn't been a conscious choice, anyway. Something he had chosen to do, to take, or hide. Perhaps he would argue if it had been, but it hadn't, and that's even more frightening than the alternative. Charles takes a sharp breath when he's told and exhales it slowly, takes another and finally they start to even, fingers still tangled up in Erik's shirt and twisting up the fabric but it can be smoothed out later. "I didn't mean to," he whispers, and that's the truth. If he hadn't panicked, it wouldn't even have registered for either of them; it would have been back before it was gone. "I wanted to be good." Enough to hold them both together. "It's not okay," he adds, weakly.  
  
" _Shh, shh_ ," Erik tucks him closer, leaving no room for him to squirm or wriggle about, holding him tight. "I know you did not mean to," he says softly. It's not Charles's job to hold them together, he is not the Dominant. That is Erik's job, and Erik is the one who has failed; the sole reason for this occurrence is because Erik couldn't control himself. Whenever he fails to do so this is what happens, people fall apart, the foundation breaks down. And there is absolutely no room in Erik's mind to alter that fact, which is as rooted as any part of him that Charles knows and loves. "Let go of it," he Orders gently, authoritative, swooping down and gathering up all responsibility as is his right, as he has been meant to do this entire time. He's steadier for it, recalling his own place and reinforcing it now. "Let go. It's mine."  
  
It’s an Order, and perhaps if Charles were anyone else in the world there would be no room to argue. Perhaps coming off a drop he would nod and acquiesce, curl closer to his Dominant and seek the comfort of being in place that he desperately needs, like air he still can’t seem to suck down enough of. But he isn’t anyone else in the world, he’s Charles, so he sniffles and shakes his head. “That’s not right,” he whispers, barely audible.  
  
Erik does tuck Charles closer to him, though, and perhaps that is a result of overstimulated neurophysiology that demands acquiescence to the Bond, to their respective Dynamics, and he uses his shirt to bring Charles into his side, capturing him there where he can't leave. A reassurance to himself equally as to Charles. "Yes," he whispers back, kissing Charles's forehead. It's right, because he's decided it's so, because it's the basis of any functional relationship; it has to be. Erik has to be responsible, because he is here for Charles, he is here for his kids, for his family, and he cannot lose control again. He will not. "I've got you," he smiles gently. "I've got you, it's all right. I love you so much. Do you know?" he brushes Charles's hair from his temples, tucking it behind his ear affectionately.  
  
Perhaps he can’t squirm or wriggle away, but he can certainly fuss, and he does, stomach unsettled and lips trembling as he swallows back more tears. “No,” he insists, and it aches to do it like this, when all he wants to do is crawl into Erik’s arms and make himself small and safe in this quiet, dark place where the world can’t reach him and distort and crumble under the weight of too many warped expectations of it. His throat constricts, and for a moment he can’t breathe or speak but he fights past it, forces out the words as much as the breath, however weak. “No. I’m not going to - no,” he shakes his head. “I won’t let you.” It isn’t healthy, or sane, or right. It isn’t okay. It isn’t the way things are supposed to be. And it hurts, to be defiant like this, when Erik has kept a firm grip on him and he’s more than encouraged it, when subspace presses down on him, when all he wants to do is obey, but there are things he can’t abide and this is one of them. If he wants to be a good submissive in any real way, this is one of them. He has to be Erik's, and that means doing right by Erik and himself, too.  
  
Erik's eyes crush shut and he ducks his head, overcome with a fresh wave of grief and fear. Why _not_? Why can't he do what he's supposed to do and look after his family? Why does he have to end up on the floor when he should take it in hand and find his strength, that's what he's always been told to do, that's what will let them survive this. Because this isn't even the beginning, and he's already bending the universe apart, it may be by Charles's abilities but it's Erik's twisting, warped horror. If Erik were strong, he could easily deflect everything that's happened so far. He could keep Charles safe and warm and he could make his kids laugh and no one would have to worry about telling the truth because it wouldn't hurt them, because Erik won't let it hurt them, he won't let this hurt anyone else. It can't keep hurting them, Sebastian Shaw can't keep torturing them from his cell where he's supposedly kept down. Erik will stand in front of his family for an eternity if it means they come out of this unscathed.  
  
Charles shakes his head again, his breath hitching under the weight of Erik’s grief, but that’s his weight to bear. Erik collapsed in that courtroom and Charles moved faster than he should have been able to get underneath him, to break his fall and bear his burden and hold him steady. He’s trembling as he nudges himself into Erik’s shoulder, finding it difficult to breathe, but that’s alright. “We make each other strong,” he whispers, and it’s broken and clinging to the dryness of his throat, raspy, but it’s there, and it’s firm even when it’s soft. “You are strong. You do protect us, and you do such a brilliant job of it. You’ve done so much, but you can’t do this by yourself, and you can’t do it if you don’t let yourself grieve, too. You have me now. It hurts, Erik. It’s going to hurt. I’m so sorry, darling, but it is,” and his voice cracks again, because he would do anything to take that from him but he knows he can’t. “But I can help. You are not your strongest on your own. You simply aren’t,” and he only knows that because he knows without a single doubt that the same is true for him, “So please don’t crush yourself under a burden that’s not entirely yours. It doesn't make you weak, it makes you human. Let me have some, too. Don’t make me let go of it. You told me yesterday that I am to take care of you, and how can you possibly expect me to do that if you don’t allow me? Please, Erik. We’ll get through this. But you have to let me stand by you, not push me aside. I know you don’t find me weak, so don’t imply it. I can protect you, too. It is my job."  
  
Erik lets out a pained noise, clutching Charles even tighter than before. He's so sorry. He would do anything to spare Charles this, anything. But he knows that Charles is right, deep down, and he trembles under the weight of the truth. How could he possibly endure listening to his kids detail the specifics of their abuse, of which Erik was a tool in many cases; listening to himself, his own actions, his own behavior-how could he possibly bear this? There's only one answer, and he knows it. "I don't want to make you sad," he gasps, and it's childish and silly but it's all he can think over and over again.  
  
It will make Charles sad. He can’t possibly lie and say it won’t, that it won’t ache and tear and hurt him, too, but it will keep Erik from shattering, him bearing it with him, and that is the only version of this he could possibly accept. He lifts his head from Erik’s shoulder to rub his cheek against his Dominant’s, sitting up on his knees to do it, collecting those tears to his own cheeks so they mingle with his own. “I didn’t Bond with you for only the happy moments,” he whispers, and it’s something Erik said to him, something that pulls up the corner of his lips, the barest hint of a smile as he rubs against the scratch of Erik’s beard. “And I don’t submit to you only when it is easy. Isn’t that what this is about?” It is, and they both know it. If Erik is not a fairweather Dominant, then the same goes for him in reverse. Charles might be the submissive, and his submission and the control it allows Erik to regain will play no small role in this just as they’d discussed the day before, but they are partners. They are two halves of a whole, of a Pair, and that means they both hold the responsibility in different ways. “I am strong, too,” he reminds Erik, though he knows he does not need the reminder. “I’ve survived, too. I won’t break from this. Would you let me apologize for needing you, Erik? Would you expect me to be sorry for hurting and relying on you?"  
  
"No," he whispers back, eyes fluttering shut against Charles's cheek. "Never." He turns to press a kiss to his submissive's jaw. Erik isn't very good at relying on people, this much is certain, least of all relying on Charles-and it is in no way due to his belief that Charles is weaker. It's quite simply because Charles is the very person he wishes to protect, to keep safe. He wants Charles to have good things, to have a good life, to be happy, to smile. It's his favorite sight. But Charles is right, once more. He isn't a fairweather Dominant, and he doesn't disdain Charles's sadness for its own sake, he believes that Charles has already experienced more sadness than he's ever been due, and that it's his job to ensure that his future is filled with light and life and love. "I know you're strong," he murmurs softly, voice hoarse. He will have to rely on Charles, he knows it, and he knows Charles is strong enough to take it, but it shouldn't be that way. He should be able to take care of himself, and take care of his Bonded as well. The tight fist crushing over his grief begins to loosen almost of its own accord, tendrils leaking out as overwhelmingly as his Will. "Don't wanna hurt you," he whispers again, shaking his head. "Won't hurt?"  
  
Charles shakes his head again, swallowing as he nuzzles back into Erik’s neck and climbs more fully into his lap. He’s more relieved than he could possibly express that he no longer needs to struggle, and he sinks into it, letting his stuttered breathing start to even. They’re still sitting in the dark where there shouldn’t be dark, a tight, closed in space, a shut door, because Charles isn’t quite ready to filter the outside yet, but they’d had time and no one will begrudge them a few moments. “It won’t hurt me,” he promises. “You won’t hurt me. It should be this way. I’m supposed to take care of you. I am. This is what makes me happy, Erik.” Not this particular situation, perhaps, and certainly not the pain itself, but helping Erik, caring for Erik, keeping him safe and loved, serving him this way just as he does every other way. What Erik feels about protecting him from danger and hurt and sadness can be found just as easily and strongly in him; Erik has seen and felt enough pain in his life, and if he could shelter him from it, if he could take it away and into himself instead he’d do it in a heartbeat. He would. His chest still hurts and his ears are still ringing, but he’s calming, too, everything quieting down now that he can soak Erik in, inhale his scent, bundle himself back up in his Will. “We take care of each other. You’re not alone, you shouldn’t be,” he repeats, to reassure himself just as much as Erik.  
  
Erik tugs Charles fully onto his lap and wraps his arms around him, burying his head in his neck where it's safe and warm and comforting. "Not alone," he whispers. He isn't alone, and neither is Charles. They are in the dark together, and for it, there is light. Erik can see it as if it's a physical presence, illuminating the world around them; it looks like Will, golden and shimmering liquid precious-metals. No more struggle, no more push-pull. Charles is Erik's submissive, and Erik is his Dominant, and that is as it should be. "Take care of you," he brushes his fingers through Charles's hair. "You take care of me?" he says, like it's a question, like he's only just realized that he's entitled to that. It's not the first time they've had this conversation but somehow every time is like the first, the point at which Erik realizes he's allowed to be cared-for not something that's ever truly sunk in yet.  
  
“I’ll take care of you,” he whispers back. Charles doesn’t mind repeating that as many times as he needs to until it sinks in, and he definitely doesn’t mind demonstrating the point. He’s been taking care of Erik since they met, and his only regret is that he wasn’t there sooner to do so. All he can do now is make up for lost time and hope that somehow, even if only in the smallest of ways, it evens out. “You’re more than allowed. This is your right, too, Erik.” And it is. He’s been trying to prove that for quite a while, but during this trip particularly; it isn’t backwards or wrong, that Erik be cared for. “It wasn’t your fault, earlier. I need you to know that. You didn’t fail because you couldn’t handle something. Alright? I only panicked because -” Because a lot of reasons. Because he’s been working through his own tangled mess, but now isn’t the time to address it. He shakes his head. “I’ll take care of you,” he repeats again instead, nudging in closer like he wants to climb into Erik’s skin. They’re far too clothed for his liking, but he’s not about to suggest they strip just so he can feel bare skin, his own neurophysiology insistent and rather unignorable. He always feels like he needs to submit to Erik in a million different ways that amount to a whole throughout the day, nothing more natural than their Dynamic, but it hasn’t been this… biological, perhaps, since their Bonding. He hadn’t realized he was in pain until now, when it’s finally easing some.  
  
As though motivated by the exact same impulse, at the exact same time, and it's certainly not shocking because they've been in synchronicity within every other aspect of their Dynamic, and this is no exception-Erik slides his fingers underneath Charles's shirt to feel bare skin, lifting it slightly along with his own so he can press up even closer. " _Lo, lo,_ " he says, heartbroken. " _Ashmat sheli_ ," he insists, bordering on a promise. " _Ani shalit._ My fault, it's OK," he smiles, tears springing to his eyes once more. Charles as always is the only one who sees them, the only one who sees any real part of Erik other than the twelve children within David's custody, the ones he held through the horrors, and he can't bear to cause them pain-to let them see his grief, to let one iota of pain touch them that originates from him. Not only does he need to keep it from Charles, but he needs to keep it from them, to present a strong, solid presence for them. No matter how many times this conversation turns and turns, it cannot be denied that these children owe him nothing, they should never be expected to care for him, not ever.  
  
Children shouldn’t be put into situations where they need to care for adults. They can certainly care, and they can help, too, but in that much Charles can agree; it’s not their place or their obligation to handle grief and pain that they struggle with themselves, but that doesn’t mean Erik needs to be infallible. Charles isn’t a child, and he knows plenty about shielding more innocent eyes, even if they’ve seen far too much already. “It isn’t your fault,” he insists quietly, because he doesn’t want that reassurance. He leans into the touch, sighing as he relaxes against it and lets himself feel it, lets Erik’s touch and his skin calm him even as he squirms in discomfort, not able to get close enough, to wrap Erik’s Will around him tight enough, his skin crawling in the aftermath. “It isn’t, and I don’t want you to blame yourself. You are allowed. You don't need to keep it from me. I’ll take care of you,” and that is a promise. “I’ll be strong for us. I’ll be good. I promise.” He’s frightened, still. He’s terrified, actually, and even the thought of stepping back into the light makes him queasy and unsteady, but he means it. “I promise,” he whispers, and his breath hitches again as he nuzzles as close as he possibly can, seeking.

* * *

" _Shh_ ," Erik shakes his head. "No, no." Of course Charles will be good; but panic and terror and missteps into grief and pain of his own don't constitute being bad. Erik will never, ever see it that way. He never has and he never will, and that is a promise. Charles is his, and he is good, always. Even when he's defiant, even when he's catty and resistant and lost to the swirling Void of endless screaming. He is Erik's good boy, he always will be. Erik is incapable of thinking that Charles is bad. Simply incapable. He's already said once before that he doesn't believe in unconditional love, but maybe that's for plebs, he has to huff. Because he cannot think of a circumstance that would alter his opinion, if Charles were to pull out a knife and plunge it into his heart. He unbuttons the first few rows of Charles's shirt and presses up against his chest, just as needy and seeking-out. "I won't keep, OK?" he strokes his hand down Charles's body, rhythmic and soothing. "Tell you something?" he asks, his voice barely above a whisper, terrified in his own right.  
  
Charles trembles, something caught in his throat. His fingers are shaking as he unbuttons Erik’s shirt, too, and he spent a decent amount of time this morning doing every button up carefully and smoothing out every wrinkle but he can do that again in a few minutes. Right now he needs to touch Erik’s chest, to rub his cheek against it and breathe his Dominant in and remember how to breathe again, soothing himself, repeating Erik’s thoughts for himself; he’s Erik’s good boy. He is. “Mmhm, yes, Erik,” he hums, shaky but earnest. He wants to hear. He wants to listen.  
  
He is, and Erik's a bit distracted for a moment as he just takes the time to feel Charles against him, hear his heartbeat. To know that he's there, that he's not going to disappear. Erik can always find him, right at the end of that golden thread between their minds, so solid that nothing can break it. Erik will never allow anything to break it; Charles's voice affecting his in a silly falsetto, Fear me, I'm Erik Lehnsherr, Master of Magnetism! and he is the master of magnetism, and every other Earthly element, and they will always be magnetized toward one another because of it. He takes a breath, and then another, and speaks softly, pained and broken-up, a halfway point between many different facets that aren't altogether fluent in the language; mish-mash or no. "Don't know," he whispers. "Don't know if I can, not strong enough. Don't know if I can, _neshama_." And he should be able to. These children deserve that, to have their voices heard, and Erik feels like a monster because he doesn't know if he can sit there and listen to it.  
  
“You are. You can. I know,” he murmurs, and in that he’s utterly confident. Even if Erik isn’t strong enough on his own, Charles will lend him his own strength to make the difference. Where one of them falters, the other will be there to pick up the rest of the slack. What Erik can’t manipulate or reach or change, and as formidable as he is, as deserving of silly titles, there are things he never will be able to - Charles can, in nearly every case. He’s trying to take slow, easy breaths, shivering slightly as he rubs his cheek against Erik’s chest, turns his face to breathe in deeper, to kiss and touch, tucked up in his Dominant’s lap where both of them need him to be. “You aren’t doing it alone, so you can," he reminds. There’s an ache, still, and he can’t seem to get rid of it even when he presses insistently closer. A wretched pulling in his belly, tugging at him, but he attempts to settle, not to wriggle about too much.  
  
Erik's shaking his head. He tries to push it into his mind as far as it can possibly go. He covers his mouth. "Charles, can't. No strength." No matter how strong they are, it's not going to be enough, it's simply not about measures of force.. Even now, thinking about it-it's murky, outer edges in the back of his consciousness and not true-formed words or images, because he just can't. His worst things. "Don't wanna. Please go home?" He'll have to be rotten, this time. He'll have to be evil and monstrous, he'll have to deny them their opportunity because the closer it comes to manifesting reality, the more his soul cracks apart. And he knows that Charles is suffering his own tangled mess and he's meant to help, he's meant to tug it out and delicately, carefully wrap it up and piece it together like an ancient jigsaw and he can do that, if he's not dead. Only if he's here and not gone into the wind.  
  
But Charles does understand, because he hadn’t meant measure of force, either. There are different ways to be strong, and this is one of them. “You can, Erik,” he whispers, and it’s getting caught up again, his chest is so heavy, but he’ll fight right through it for both of them. He keeps his head on Erik’s chest, ear right over his beating heart. “You won’t break. I won’t let you. I won’t ever let you.” If Erik is the Master of Magnetism, keeping them stuck together like two opposing ends meant to meet, then Charles must be something equivalent in the realm of the mind. Erik’s is fragile now, and it’s been unwinding, but he will never let it break. There is no reality where he breaks off or dies, because Charles is uniquely qualified to keep him together, the only one who possibly could. He can do this. “You trust me. You trust me, don’t you?” He peeks up, blinking his eyes open, just enough light, always enough light, to see his Dominant's face.  
  
"Charles-" Erik lets out a noise suspiciously close to a sob, stuck in his throat like two fingers jammed into his carotid. It's like Irene said, it's like Dr. Haller continues to try and tell him. These were false choices. There was no way to win, there was no way to win in these grotesque scenarios devised by sadists for amusement to watch Erik shriek and flail against it. But for the rest of his life he will consider himself the harbinger of those children's trauma, the instrument, the sickening axe. He doesn't want Charles to sit there and hear it, it doesn't matter that he already knows, conceptually, but to be exposed to it, to live in it, to discuss it and know that it'll most likely be ground into the Earth by Shaw on cross-examination. There's no universe Erik can conceive of where he survives it. He hurt those kids and those memories will kill him if he ever permits them to surface, if he ever descends below the atmosphere and through the clouds and lands his feet in the soil-these soiled parts, these disgusting, desolate parts. He could have taken any pain, any torture, any action against himself. But Shaw knew that, and he found a better way. Long after Shaw is gone Erik will be killed over and over again by these places. "Trust," he nods weakly, rocking back and forth."  
  
It just isn't true. "I need you to trust me," he gasps, and his eyes are closed tightly again, his arms are around Erik, nails dug into the skin because he can't possibly help it. "I won't let this kill you. Not in any way. I need you to believe that, Erik. This won't kill you because I won't let it. We'll survive this. You do know a universe where you survive, and Shaw knows it, too, and you're living in it. It's the one where you're with me," he promises, broken but fierce all the same, clinging with everything he has. "It's the one we both survive. The one where we're together. Don't you believe in that, Erik?" There are things Charles thinks will kill him, too, his own messy insides that bend and threaten to shatter, but not once has he broken unless it was by Erik's careful hands and with the intention of putting him lovingly back together. Charles won't let him break. He just won't. "Don't you?"  
  
"I'm sorry," Erik strokes his face over and over, shaking like a leaf. "I sorry you're hurting, sorry, so sorry," he presses himself even closer into those digging nails, relishing it on the simple basis that it's Charles, eager and willing to take any part of him that's given even in clenched fingers and vice-like gripping claws. He is the cliff, the mountain, the jagged rocks from which Charles will be pulled up onto flat land. "Believe you. Love you," he whispers and it's almost sweet, completely without guile, a product of pieces of him that have risen to the surface; the rarest parts that never see the light of day except here in these dark corners. The spoken component of inky black blobs with circle-arms and tiny toes, and still, they know that Charles is theirs, belongs to them. He has something, he has it and it's his and it's precious and he holds it in reverently-cupped tiny-hands.  
  
Charles sniffs and shakes his head, easing his grip because he doesn't want to hurt Erik, not even a little, not even if he says it's okay. "I'm not hurting," he breathes, and it doesn't feel like a lie when he snuggles up closer and listens to Erik's heart beat and reminds himself that it won't stop, that he'll keep him safe and strong. "Don't be sorry, darling. It's alright. We're alright. Love you, too," it's hardly even a mumble, but the feeling is there as it always is, fills the cramped darkness of this place with tiny, creeping bits of light from underneath the door. "I'm yours," he whispers, because it's important and he wants to, and he takes Erik's hand and he wraps it around his collar to remind every peeking fragment of what belongs to them now. "See?"  
  
s around that collar and his eyes go big, a quick grin flashing over his features shedding years from his face all at once. At darling, warmth bubbles up inside of him and he gasps again, this time in humbled surprise. "Mine?" he breathes, leaning forward to kiss at the thin metal strip laid against Charles's skin. "Mine," he murmurs, laying more sweet little kisses along it. "Take care of you, OK? Promise. Love you."  
  
"I'll take care of you, too," Charles says, but it comes out a soft little gasp as he squirms, shivering and delighted at those kisses. At the attention, at the affirmation. He wishes they had more time; more time to press against each other, to steady everything out, for him to feel bare skin and satisfy that aching, instinctive part of him that wants to be reminded of these things. Of who he belongs to. He settles for this, and finally some of himself begins to pour out, peeking and nervous like those parts of Erik that don't usually see the light. He's terrified to hurt, and harm, and take. To violate. His mind is always wound firmly around Erik's, but now he nudges deliberately, seeking with this part of him, too. The part Erik promises is okay. It's a hesitant brush, a quiet _hello_ , and he curls smaller into Erik's chest in the aftermath.  
  
"No, no," Erik shakes his head, mid-kiss, peeking up and trailing his fingertips so gently over Charles's face. Come inside, come closer, his whole being reverberates with it. Always welcome. This is home. Erik loves this part of Charles so much, is always so delighted and pleased whenever he is honored with its presence, his mind unfolded like shivering flower petals at the slightest brush of contact, blown-open swirling all around, fragrant and full of wonder. He drags his fingers back down to Charles's collar and smiles against it, brilliant and out-of-place, yet-not. "Mine," he hums, satisfied. "It's mine. Made it and it's mine, for you, you're mine," he realizes it over and over, glowing. It tells him that it belongs to Charles, and Charles belongs to him. It holds every pain and every joy, brighter than the sun itself.

* * *

When Charles was nine and everything hurt, harsh and shrieking and scary, when the voices tormented and shouted and cried like his mother, said blurry, slurring things, this is where he hid. In this closet, alone and weeping, curled into his knees. Now he curls into Erik instead and continues to unfold, still hesitant and peeking and brushing, then retreating, brushing, then retreating, unspeakably pleased when he doesn't hurt, when Erik doesn't flinch away. "This is where we met," he realizes all at once, though of course it isn't, because this isn't his overlarge closet in Westchester. He smiles anyway, slow and small, and looks up, letting more light creep in so he can see more of his Dominant. The door is starting to creak, more of the world allowed to filter in. "I fell asleep here, and then I dreamed of you." A little boy, tiny and frail and sickly. He peeks in, too, because this is where his friend had gone and he doesn't need to wake up alone and frightened in the dark anymore. When he needs to hide, there's someone to hide with him.  
  
Erik laughs lightly, encouraging Charles to nestle even closer in both mind and body. "Happy," he breathes softly, touching Charles's face and kissing him wherever he can, warm and gentle. "What dreams?" he asks, because sometimes when they talk about this he almost thinks he can remember. He's so sad, and so regretful that he pushed Charles away all those years ago. If he had known he would have burned that facility down much sooner, he would have been different, he wouldn't have hurt anyone and he would have saved Charles. He thought he was saving Charles. Turning him away from hell, keeping his voice pure. He didn't know. Sometimes he remembers that voice, though, in times of great distress and loneliness, and he hopes that Charles heard him in return.  
  
He did. But in these first dreams, there was no hell to turn him away from. No agony on Erik's end, no distress or turmoil; just a child, curly red hair and muddy boots and and rough and tumble skinned knees, and Charles wonders if perhaps Erik had been kept safe from him. It was Charles who had lost, who cried and feared and screamed, who held his hands over his ears and sobbed himself to sleep. He didn't in these dreams, though. He got to hop and skip and try to keep up with Erik's much longer legs, sweating and dragging heavy lungs as he traversed the desert he had never seen in the Real. He barely remembers these dreams at all, except he's been getting them back in his dreams now. Erik is sad about something, something a child is sad about, an ordinary, everyday sadness, and Charles reaches out to make it better. Erik smiles, not at him because Charles doesn't think he can see him, but he smiles, teeth and scrunched nose and all, and it lights up his world and makes everything better for him, too. Erik is running and jumping and in the Real, Charles is still sick, he can't leave his bed much, especially now that he hears the voices, and Mother forgets to check on him so he's dreadfully, horrifically lonely, and too overstimulated all at once, but here he can play, too, and there's no screeching. He can laugh and follow and explore, have a break from the agony and the fear and the horrid, jagged sadness. "Happy," he whispers. Two years he had those dreams, at first nearly every night. "You were my friend." Even if Erik didn't know how to reach back. Charles had him. "But you didn't like to listen to my advice," he grins, rubbing his cheek against Erik's jaw because he does love his beard. Sometimes, it really had seemed like Erik saw him. It was always good enough for him.  
  
"Always," Erik grins back, unable to help it as he watches those memories float by. As a child Erik had been gregarious and domineering, always commanding his little group of friends on some adventure or another, transforming sticks on the ground into great swords of the Ages or phasers capable of razing trees with a single energy blast. Turning them from ordinary children into knights or pirates, or into lieutenants aboard starships landing on the desert of an uninhabited alien world-or so they thought. The plots always elaborate, the games always long, Erik took Charles on escapades that usually resulted in scrapes and bruises, and breathless wheezing and bright grins.  
  
And Charles was there when Erik manifested his abilities, horror that snapped Charles's consciousness right to Erik's when he saw the blocks holding up the car Iakov was working on crumble and the vehicle to collapse its entire weight onto him. Out of the Void, out of the raging darkness of his entire life spanned in front of his eyes absent his father's quiet kindness, a voice. _Find your strength. Mabit lehanur! Do it! Erik, you can do this. Just listen to me for once-_ and his hand is outstretched and the car lifts _fully_ into the air, and his mother sees a car _levitating_ through the kitchen window and her coffee mug slips out of her hand and shatters on the floor, the sound of her shock and awe. Of course Iakov is stunned and he's just laying there underneath this floating monstrosity of metal, so Edith has to run out and pull him off the plinth before the miracle ends. As soon as his feet leave the area the car smashes back down onto the ground, blowing the glass out of the windshield and spedometer.  
  
Erik watches that memory with a new fascination, realizing now where that mental nudge had originated.  
  
Charles' smile is hidden by Erik's neck, all clinging limbs and a soft kiss and he takes a deep breath, his lungs finally filling all the way. "I'm glad I was able to reach you," he whispers, eyes closed again. Being awake was a nightmare, pain and empty, aching grief, but adventures and quiet moments alike with Erik were enough to make up for it. He'd forgotten it all eventually, written it off as silly dreams and an imaginary companion, a far off place he'd never been. But he'd held it with him all those years even so, locked away but treasured, and it's led him here. It's led him to the only place his life has ever truly led him: Erik. "We took care of each other, hm? All this time, we've made each other stronger and taken care of each other. I can't imagine my dreams would have been very pleasant if I didn't find you in them, but you were there, and so was I." His lips twitch, and he places another gentle kiss to Erik's skin. "Don't let the bossy particles fool you, I was very happy to follow you around." And he thinks that Erik had cared for him even then, even when he didn't know.  
\  
And Erik was happy to have him, even if he didn't consciously know it back then, he'd always felt a need to conduct himself a certain way even in private, and being aware of it now many things became clear, pieces slotted into a place he didn't realize needed placing. "Happy," he whispers again, tapping Charles on the nose with a small, but warm smile. Happy that Charles found him, happy that he had followed. For at least two years Erik provided him with an escape, and it had been enough. Charles felt it the day that Erik cut him off, an action taken without any awareness at all; for he hadn't been aware of their burgeoning bond to begin with, but somewhere in his soul he couldn't expose Charles to whatever happened; those memories are tinged with pain. Footsteps in the dust, and then there's copper and metal in the air, Erik's fine-tuned senses picking it up and brow furrowing before the hills open out to splintered-wood houses smashed to pieces and death everywhere, and then abrupt silence. For years, and years, and years, until Charles convinced himself he dreamed it all up, right up until that moment before he entered Erik's cell. But that didn't mean they were completely cut off; periodically bursts of color and light intruded on both of them during particularly tough times. They took care of each other, outside the purview of recognized cognizance, but no less meaningful. "Me, too."  
\  
Charles' eyes widen all of a sudden, and he can't help but laugh, soft and pleased and awed, a single tear squeezed from his shut-tight eyes, wetting Erik's neck where he's still nestled as close as he can get. "Oh," he breathes. " _Gam ani_." _I would have wanted a life with you. Only if in a dream._ Now they're living it. Charles' nails dig in again, a sharp spike of fear that he tries desperately to stamp down. "Please don't cut me off again," he begs.  
  
Erik shakes his head, lifting Charles's head to lay his hands across both of his cheeks, his own eyes wide. "No, won't. Promise." He couldn't imagine it, voluntarily choosing to live a life without Charles, it's simply not possible. Charles is responsible for every good thing in his life. The only thing he wants to do now is ensure that he's worth it, that he can make Charles feel good and surround him with joy. "You too," he warns, wagging a finger at him. "Don't cut me, OK?" he presses his lips together, a sharp, high emotion flashing through their Bond. Fear of his own.

* * *

Charles knows this is a moment of solemn promises, of reassurance. It must be everything catching up to him, a bout of hysteria, perhaps, because his reaction is a bubbled up giggle, then a hand clamped over his own mouth before he ducks himself into Erik's shoulder, shaking with it. "Sorry, s- " But he's lost to giggles again, curled up in Erik's lap. "Never. Promise," he barely manages.  
  
Erik's lips twitch, too, and he nudges his head over top of Charles's, not particularly offended over it. Charles is more prone to giggling than him, whereas Erik prefers to simply listen to the sound of his laughter (without necessarily joining in; Charles is more privy to Erik's expressions than anyone else, but he is still not as likely to laugh freely or _giggle_ , thank-you-very-much), which continues to be possibly his favorite thing in existence. "Mhm," he bounces his eyebrows, nevertheless playful.  
  
Charles begs to differ. He wriggles around in his Dominant's lap until he can poke him in the stomach, peeking up with that mischievous grin of his. "I have a question. Very important," he announces.  
  
He twitches away from it, huffing a little and his nose wrinkles fondly. "Question," he grins, giving a little bow. " _Very_ important," he agrees, indicating for Charles to go ahead with his very official, very important question.  
  
Something about that delights him enough that his mind sparks with it, and he's been hesitant this whole time, withdrawn in a way Erik isn't used to; he's terrified to let his telepathy roam, to let it be as free as it has been under Erik's guidance, but it grins with him and buzzes happily as he pokes his Dominant again for good measure. Floats around them in tiny flickers of light, green and flashing, fireflies in the dark and he doesn't notice. "If I ran off to Canada right now, would you follow me?"  
  
Erik's eyes follow along with the little sparks, distracted momentarily and smiling to himself as he watches them form a dancing conga line over Charles's head. Gach'liliyot be'ashashiyt neyarot, floating up into the sky on top of the ceiling, and he blinks and looks back down at Charles after a second, running the question through his mind one more time. "Yes," he murmurs fondly. Even if-"So cold."  
  
Charles pouts, poking insistently, and the resulting sparks illuminate the dark not-closet almost completely. "What if I ran off to Antarctica?" he tries next, grinning. "Penguins." When he wraps his arms around Erik's neck to nuzzle back into him, bare skin pressed together, Erik's mind is filled with images of waddling creatures as if he's watching them right in front of him, everything about Charles' abilities seemingly enhanced. "We'll live in an igloo?"  
  
An image of Charles and Erik with great big penguin feet waddling on snow-covered tundras pops up instead, and Erik does laugh this time, head ducking to the side as if to hide it. "Igloos... warm," he agrees, petting Charles along the back of his head, wrapping him up in long arms and legs like a big octopus.  
  
Then they're in an igloo, but not in their minds at all; this is the outside world, shaped exactly to what Charles needs it to be at any given time, rooted firmly. Perhaps if they moved they would bump into the actual features of the room, but like this it's wholly indistinguishable. It's, for all intents and purposes, Real. "Okay?" he asks quietly, and there's that spark of fear again, stronger this time, chilly like a draft into their hypothetical igloo-home. He wiggles until he can be small in Erik's chest. "Not bad?"  
  
It's a good thing that Erik has absolutely no desire to move at all, content to stay here and live in their little igloo forever. Of course, being as close to Charles's mind as Erik is, his own interpretations permeate the area as well. A flatscreen television embedded in snow (Erik loves soap operas and silly cartoons), sudden splashes of color over white cubes like abstract art, floor rugs and potted plants. "OK," he whispers back, smiling gently. "Not bad." Never bad.  
  
Those are Charles', too. It's not so much Erik changing or morphing as it is Charles knowing and accomodating, his mind touching Erik's, wrapping around it and finding all the things that would please both of them, already included before Erik can think to desire them. There are bookshelves and a working desk and an easel and a mini piano, too, two cups filled with respective hot beverages, old worn leather couch and antique furniture with hand-painted detail. "I don't think they'd do very well in Antarctica," he whispers, indicating the plants not so much with a gesture as with a mental nudge. When he blinks, it's all gone. They're in the room they're actually in, crammed into the corner Charles had crawled off to, the light and color dimmed down for his sake. He makes a quiet noise of protest though he's entirely in control of this, burrowing further into Erik. _Can I.._. Charles shakes his head. He probably knows the answer.  
  
" _Can_ you?" Erik mimics the tone of a middle school English teacher; some things were apparently universal, but his expression is amused. He watches the world of color fade away and renews his hold around Charles, keeping him held tightly. They should be heading to the legal office in _Givat Ram_ -located in the Supreme Court house, given the case's international implications and high-profile nature, they'll be using a conference room in the building itself but not actually within the court. But Erik shows no signs of moving until he's told and since no one tells Erik anything he'll just sit here forever, it's a foolproof plan. "What can you do?"  
  
Charles shakes his head, because he doesn't actually want it and it doesn't make sense to ask for it when he knows Erik would say no. Besides, he's not certain it's feasible; his abilities seem to break through even his own internal leashing and shielding, leaking out in nearly every instance. He's more sensitive than he's ever been, and blocking it out is just as uncomfortable as experiencing it in full. Instead he pulls away slightly, fingers wandering Erik's chest, touching and feeling and grounding before he gets to work on his shirt buttons. At least he gets to fuss again, smoothing out every wrinkle with that concentrated crease in his brow, wrapping himself up in Erik's Will and letting him feel that, too. He's going to take care of Erik, serve him properly just like this. They'll both come out of this alive. There's no other option.  
  
Erik breathes in and out slowly, a light sheen of sweat plastering his too-long hair to his head for the first time that Charles can actually recall due to the heat and humidity, but even in this hot, dusty closet Erik has no intention of relinquishing Charles right up until the very moment he needs to, and he snatches up Charles's fingers once they're done so he can press kisses to each of their tips. "Love you," he whispers affectionately. Gratitude wells up between them, because if there's any way he can survive it's going to be like this, with Charles by his side, with opportunities to take the time to reorient themselves privately in this way.  
  
They're not in a closet anymore, fortunately, because even the mental closed-in space was making him sweat, too, however comforting. His own hair is damp and holding curls more dramatically, all twisting up at the nape of his neck and around his temples. They both need a trim, but not now. He smiles weakly as he buttons up his own shirt, taking a breath and finally letting the light and color filter back in, only wincing slightly. "I love you, too," he whispers. He kisses Erik's cheek, lips twitching. "Hot," he complains, nose scrunched up.

* * *

"Hot," Erik grins widely. "Finally," he taps Charles's scrunched up nose fondly. They're in the corner of the dining room and Irene has engaged the kids in a rousing preliminary round of _Mafia_ , disseminating pre-made role cards and encouraging people to debate and lie with alacrity. So far it looks like everyone's being swayed by Tel, who's got everybody on a bandwagon to vote Mortimer off the Island; a more sensitive version of the typical nomenclature of the game. "Tel is officially confirmed scum," Erik clears his throat and throws her under the bus as soon as they're to their feet.  
  
"Erik can officially _eat me_ ," she jams her arm into her elbow and sticks out her tongue.  
  
Charles snorts quietly, everything far too bright and dizzying now that they're in the room with other people and unfiltered surroundings, but it's managable if he grounds himself in Erik's Will, wraps it tighter around himself and remembers to breathe at least somewhat normally. "I always cheat during these sorts of games," he admits, though it's never quite intentional. He finds the nearest child to fuss over, straightening out cuffs, and then turns his attention back to Erik. "We should be going," he murmurs, huffing at a persistent wrinkle. It's getting in the way of his fussing, and it's the only thing he can do for Erik right now so it feels rather imperative. "Time to film an episode of... what was it? _Crossing Boundaries?_ " he grins. He's settled himself behind Erik, radiating relief when his Dominant's hand rests on his hip, reaching back with his mind to feel it. His abilities seem to be doing things like that all on their own, like now when they wrap all the children up in an invisible, vibrating bubble. "Raven would be furious if I starred on a daytime TV show before her, which means I should have thought of it sooner." Not that he isn't being broadcast all over every American news station constantly these days, that or someone quotes him, but that clearly doesn't count.  
  
" _Crossing Lines_ ," Magda smirks, adjusting a brightly-colored knit shawl over her shoulders. Even in the oppressive heat of the daytime sun here, she's still more often than not cold.  
  
" _Goran, you're so dreamy,_ " Martha clasps her hands together in an exaggerated motion, batting her eyelashes.  
  
Erik eschews his usual jacket, picking up his tote bag by the door instead as he helps herd twelve unruly children out the door and into one of two cars, Near's-he left it there for this express purpose, and David's, which is where Charles and Erik end up stuffing themselves with Ellie up front, Tabby on her lap.  
  
Charles's phone dings once they're within range of a Wi-Fi hotspot and David pulls over long enough for Charles to connect, but it's just a message from Warren asking if he's nearby yet.  
  
After he's sent his confirmation David pulls them back on the road and gets going again.  
  
It's also email notifications, though those get ignored even more often than they ever did and he's turned off the sound for them. He regrets terribly making his email public knowledge.  
  
Being squished into the window is usually nice, or at least bearable, but now it's hot and he doesn't get carsick but every time he's around more people he has a migraine lately, and even worse now when he hasn't fully acclimated. He closes his eyes and tries to ward off the worst of the queasy feeling and the building tension, trying not to project. It's a shame, because it's the second time he can't look eagerly out the window like he wants to. At least it gives him an excuse to rest his head on Erik's shoulder, and he silently takes his hand, too, holding it in his and stroking at the ring he's always wearing. _I lost this in the ocean once, you know,_ he tells Erik, as if he's just remembered it, but he's sure the metal has already told him. It's not and never was a particularly showy ring, he really shouldn't have found it once it slipped into the dark waters of the Atlantic, but he did. And now it's Erik's and Charles is, too.  
  
Erik starts laughing, a small huff from his corner of the car where Mortimer and Rahne are smushed up against him on his other side. The Atlantic ocean; there's no way it should have been rescued, but so many things that shouldn't be possible are when it comes to them, he's found. _It was meant for me,_ he figures, lifting his hand to let the light reflect off of the window and illuminate its rays with a prism-explosion of colors. He gives Charles a kiss on his forehead, rubbing his neck soothingly. The ride takes a little while but eventually both Ellie and David are pulling up into the parking lot of the large building and Erik's helping Magda and the four kids stashed inside with them out into the hot sun, where they immediately find relief inside the air-conditioned government areas.

* * *

Gertrude is already there with Warren and she waves them all over to the elevator. "It's good to see you all, oh, wow, and who's this?" she kneels down to Tabby's level, poking her stuffed animal which she clutches to her side in a bruising grip, never without.  
  
"It's my giraffe Erik made him for me I love him hi," Tabby explodes outward and holds up her patchwork thing that is definitely _not_ a giraffe, with mismatched googly eyes plastered onto the area someone might kindly refer to as its head.  
  
"Oh, wow," Gertrude stifles a laugh. "Does he have a name?"  
  
"Ya, say hi Jerry." She waves its 'arm'.  
  
Erik could make a full brand new article for her but he knows she's attached to that one. He scraped it together out of materials around the lab when they were holed up together after a particularly bad session when Tabby was hiding under a table, shaking and terrified. It gave her a sense of normalcy, and she's clung to it. Still, he kneels down in front of her and gives it a tap, and her a wink. Different colored spots abruptly pop up all over it and she shrieks in delight. _Jerry the Giraffe_ , Erik laughs.  
  
Charles takes a deep, slow breath, both to steady himself and to keep tears out of his eyes. It's quite impossible to express exactly how much he's come to adore these children in only the short amount of time he's known them, because it truly defies reason. They're all still in their bubbles, but he wraps them up tighter, checking his hold twice just to be sure. Nothing will happen, but if they become frightened or distressed or both he'll feel it as if it's his, now, and he can help to calm it. There's a child pressed into his side and he idly runs a hand through their sweaty hair; it's Roberto, who tends to overheat anyway after he's been in the sun, still manifesting, and he sweeps the sensation of cool and calm on top of the air conditioning subconsciously. It's when he turns toward Warren that everything briefly falls apart, the forming smile on his lips wiped right off as he stares like he's seen a ghost. He takes a harsh breath and shakes it off, swallows thickly, and he certainly can't talk but he forces a smile that anyone who knows him would spot as more his mother's than his in an instant. It's the only way to not look heartbroken.  
  
Warren closes the distance between them anyway and gives Charles a genuine hug, clapping him on the shoulder when they break apart. "I'm glad you're here," he returns the smile with one of his own, sincere. "Mr. Lehnsherr, good to see you," he holds out his left hand for a shake, mindful of decorum despite the fact that they're both well-acquainted.  
  
Erik ducks his head-silent now that they're outside the real bubble of David's farmhouse-and takes Warren's hand gently, lips pressed together around an attempt to suck in oxygen, feeling as though he's taking air through a thin straw. Warren still doesn't know the full story, of just how entwined their lives really are, of just how small the universe has ended up being, but he'll learn about it today and it's enough to suffocate.  
  
"Why don't we get situated upstairs," Gertrude nods at them all, shaking Warren's hand herself and greeting him with a warm grin. "I'm Gertrude Yorkes, I'll be representing you all for the duration of the trial."  
  
"Ms. Yorkes, it's a pleasure," says Warren.  
  
"Of course." Charles wishes he could hug back, that he didn't go limp in the hold. He truly is happy to see Warren, as much as he always is to see his best friend. He's far too focused on something else entirely, but he keeps that smile plastered on his face and tries to let what's genuine touch Warren anyway, if not outwardly than in a much more instinctive way, a gentle brush of the mind. It's difficult when he's shielding, too, though from who he doesn't know - is it not Warren? Who else? Or perhaps he simply doesn't realize. It isn't at all strange, but this isn't a memory. He wouldn't make room in an elevator for a memory, but he's completely unwilling to not. His throat is tight and he can't swallow around this no matter how hard he tries, and there really isn't room for him not to squeeze in but he leaves a significant gap anyway. A child-sized gap.  
  
Warren's reply is a mental nudge back, as well as a physical one once they enter the lift and Gertrude punches in the floor.  
  
Erik wraps his arms around himself, and it becomes clear as they head up in the silence punctuated by children whispering to themselves that he's begun to hyperventilate, wheezing quietly and pressing close to Charles even though they technically should be separated by this point. When the doors open and they're lead to the conference room he shakes his head and takes several steps away, putting his back to the wall. _Sorry_ , he mouths, shaking his head and raising a hand, before placing it against his mouth.  
  
Tabby toddles up to him and presses Jerry into his arms, hugging his leg. She's taken Charles by the hand and pulled him over-kids were observant, and even though they weren't explicitly open about things at the farmhouse in their view, she could still tell. "Make him better," she insists.  
  
Charles is working very hard not to be sick himself. He's stayed close to Erik, kept his mind wrapped firmly around his, but his eyes are wandering. His eyes are wandering because there's a little boy following him around that wasn't there on the drive here and he simply can't let anyone else see or know, but he's there and he's got Warren's eyes and grin and he takes a shaky, sucking breath and smiles down at Tabby with as much as he has to give at the moment without breaking. "Don't you worry, poppet," he whispers to her, squeezing her hand. He's already bubbled them off, anything that would be inconvenient for anyone to see automatically filtered off. It's not a conscious effort anymore. Charles reaches for Erik's hand, now holding Tabby's not-giraffe. _Look at me, darling. We're alright. Even if you can't, we can together. Just stay with me._ He projects slow, gentling calm, envelopes his Dominant in it. _Use me. You can._  
  
Erik's eyes are slammed shut because he saw, he knows and his mind is exploding outward, shards of glass and splintered wood and burning flesh and metal tables creaking under their own weight, the sound of a car-crash in perpetual motion. He sinks to the ground, pressing himself into the corner created by two walls meeting and burying his head in his knees.

* * *

Gertrude takes a step forward, but Warren touches her on the shoulder and shakes his head, moving to survey the situation himself. "Everything all right?" he murmurs down into Charles's ear, ruffling the hair on one of the children's heads as she peers up at him curiously.  
  
Charles takes in a harsh, desperate breath, slamming out with his abilities. He can move the children and Gertrude out of the way, and he does, bundling them up safe and away, whether for their sake or Erik's. He can't do anything about Warren now, though, because as much as his instinct is to nudge him away for just the moment what comes out of his mouth when he looks at him is a wounded noise of his own. _No, no, no._ He can handle Erik's grief, and he can handle Warren's, but right here, right away -He gets down to his knees to care for Erik, eyes squeezed closed for just a second because he knows it's leaking. He knows he's leaking. He knows that little boy is standing over them, older than he ever got to be, wings fluttering for everyone in this bubble to see. "We're alright," he croaks, and all he can do is bundle them both up and hold their minds through this. He grabs for Erik's, gathering up all that twisting, screeching panic and horror and separating it, gently and carefully, bearing and sorting it. They can take it. If they can't, Charles can. He was built for this.  
  
He can't keep the children away for long, though, and all twelve of them crowd around and bundle up close to Erik, hugging him and Charles both. "It's OK," Tabby whispers, petting Erik's hair. "Love you. Jerry loves you, too."  
  
"Still not as dreamy as Goran," Martha sticks her tongue out at them.  
  
"Shut up, bird brain," Tel rolls her eyes. "She's right, though, for the record."  
  
"Life is just better if you assume I'm correct at all times," Martha flips her hair.  
  
Erik hugs Tabby in return and rubs her back, pressing his cheek to her hair and brushing his hands through it, separating the tangles gently. _They don't know any better,_ he whispers inside his own mind, and everyone looks shocked and horrified to see him crying. It's always a tough break when kids see adults do so, and in the society we live in it's even less common for male role models to do so, but Erik's been unable to control his emotions twice within the span of a few hours, and Charles can feel how worried they all are.  
  
Charles can, actually, as easily as he can breathe, which happens to be not as easy as it sounds in this particular moment, but he's terrified to push it, especially if this is going to calm their distress. He's terrified to do anything, because he could do everything and the world is starting to warp again and he absolutely can't put them through another episode like back at the house. He takes a breath and spreads out calm again, this time near suffocating in its force, unavoidable, as strong as any of Erik's Orders. Stronger. Calm, ease. It doesn't quite work on him, and there's suddenly far too much and the world is splitting itself open and he shakes his head. He shakes his head and now it's Charles who has to stuff everything in a box even if it won't fit, and that boy is still watching him, he has Warren's eyes and he's -  
  
He takes a breath and when he exhales, he's quieted down. There's so much less to him, the rest shoved behind carefully locked doors. No one could possibly unlock them, not right this moment, not even Erik.  
  
And it doesn't make Erik calm down an iota, because he can't feel Charles, which just makes everything ramp up even higher. What Charles should ordinarily have been able to effect has instead become an impenetrable swirling hurricane throwing out any attempts to soothe it, and Tabby puts her hand on his knee, and finds herself thrown backwards, caught in the safety net of Erik's deep subconscious as the rest of the children follow suit, flung away only to be gently set down before impact on their feet. _Don't-_ "Don't." _Don't touch me. You shouldn't touch me._  
  
Charles is still there. He hasn't gone, and he won't, he promised. He bundles up the children again and this time he pushes only because Erik seems to be insisting it's alright now, keeping them safe and away and building a force field, everyone calm and unaware and then he touches, climbs into the corner with Erik and reaches out. "You can feel me," he whispers, and tugs on the strand that ties them, that always ties them, that could never be broken. Reaches out to hold Erik's face in his hands. Don't cut me, Erik said, and he's not. He can influence this, even as a swirling hurricane, because it's his to influence. Because the hurricane doesn't frighten him. He takes all of that shrieking panic into himself and he smooths it out as dutifully as he did Erik's shirt earlier. " _Shh_. It's alright. I'm keeping us safe," he breathes. "Come back, darling. We're alright."  
  
Tabby's full-on crying now, wiping her dripping nose on her sleeves and rubbing splotchy cheeks, even though she hasn't been harmed she's still frightened, because Erik's never used his power against her like that and she's dropping little balls of microscopic detonators that explode upon hitting the ground with a sound like popcorn.  
  
Magda takes her under her blanket, shushing her softly. "It's all right," she hums, swaying her gently from side to side. "We're going to be OK, I promise."  
  
"He doesn't like me anymore," she croaks. "Well I don't like him either!" her nose scrunches up in a fit of sudden temper. "You're mean!"  
  
Charles is starting to shake. Then the floor is shaking, too, and the walls. Everything is beginning to float. The doors are rattling. The actual doors of this place are, too, opening shut and then slamming, and every bit of him is reaching out, tendrils that he has to grab and tug back into himself else they grab every mind and squeeze.  
  
He grabs at his own hair. No, not now. Not now. Not now, not now, not now. Absolutely not now. Tabby stops crying. Magda stops talking. Everyone abruptly stops, and he keeps them there, overwhelmed and vibrating, eyes shut so firmly it hurts. "Not now," he gasps. "Not now, not now, not now." Doors. Doors, doors, doors.

* * *

Erik is still mobile, but he doesn't notice that everyone else isn't, trapped inside a hell of his own design that he can't escape from. At least a tendril of this fresh horror of today is due to the fact that he should be there for Charles, but all he can see is broken bodies and tears and screaming from the same children now frozen before them. His heart thuds in his chest and he drags his fingernails down the inside of his opposite wrist, pulling droplets of blood out of the thin flesh over his veins until it drips onto the floor, pain completely unregistered.  
  
Absolutely not. Charles' head whips up immediately, the world still shaking and seething but now he reaches for Erik, and he can't find it in him to freeze him completely even out of his own mind but he does know to keep him from hurting himself, and if he has to do more he will. He's done it before. He sucks in a breath and then he launches himself into Erik's arms, grabs that bloodied wrist and kisses it, and everything is chaos and every door is slamming and the world is loud and he's utterly terrified but he knows to hold Erik, he knows to be there for Erik, and he takes all those bodies and the screaming and the rain made from ash and he bears it, he bears it and he smooths it out and he's insistent. He's insistent and he's determined and there's not a damn thing in this world or the next that could stop him, not even Erik himself, even as fresh tears slip down his cheeks and he clings and makes new wrinkles in the shirt he'd fussed so much over. There's no pain to register and there's no hell, because if there is Charles is there and he knows Erik could never look at a place with Charles and think of it as such.  
  
He knows because that's how it is for him. Simply impossible. He takes all of those horror-filled places, all the metal tables and the dug up Earth and the screaming and he fills it with him instead.

* * *

Erik struggles in Charles's hold, totally sightless and trying to press his palms into his eyes and claw his skin off of his body but he's limp instead, unable to chance harming Charles even though he isn't consciously aware of where he is and his shirt is stained with blood of his own making and that's the only calm part about him now; not enough-his hands aren't damaged enough, he wants to cut them off, he wants to smash them under cement blocks until they're useless broken twigs. Every door that Charles closes for Erik another one slams open on the sound of metal hacking flesh and he doesn't deserve arms or legs, he should just be a starfish devoid of limbs entirely and drowned in the ocean. He tries to shred the images instead of his wrists, Charles shouldn't be here he shouldn't be here it's him, it's his body hurting them, and he bangs his head off the wall because there aren't other avenues available to him and if he does it hard enough maybe he'll pass out, a rousing chorus of agonies long died down, _please dear G-d let me pass out-_  
  
Charles takes a breath that comes out a broken sob, closes his eyes so the tears leak out, and then he grabs Erik's mind and tugs.  
  
And then Erik stops, too. No struggling, no banging against the wall. No more pain. He cradles Erik's head, holds his hand, and refuses to let go, body or mind. Wraps himself around him and around him and around him, nudges with more force than he's ever used, and Erik is able to influence his inner world, to stop the doors from shaking and find the broken places, to fill the Void with endless stars, but Charles can do the same with Erik's. The Landscape is his, too. Erik is his, too. He fights every resistance, breaks down every wall, weathers every raging, whistling wind of the hurricane and stands right in front of it with his arms wide open. He's afraid, but not discouraged. He holds Erik in his grip and he fills and fills and fills, tugs on that golden strand, feeds images of love and light and care and safety, of homes of igloos and apartments and deserts and cities and lakes and old weeping willows and castle-like mansions turned cozy, not yet but soon.  
  
When Erik holds him through these things, it seems to go through him, the pain and agony. To pass right by for the moment so he can be the pillar Charles needs. Charles can't do that. He feels every second of it, every scream, every sob, every drop of blood spilled. And he bears it.  
  
This is what he was made for.  
  
Erik rocks back and forth in Charles's grasp, burying himself as deep as he can get in his arms, trying to focus on the sounds and images of love but he can't hang on for more than a few seconds before they slip away, dissolving into noodled spirals and he's grabbing at them with dissolved fingers and hands, but he's stopped trying to hurt himself and scratch at himself, making low, wounded noises as the situation presses him down on all sides, the shape and suffocating weight of men bearing him down into that disgusting mattress. The Landscape is in uproar, the sky is black with dirty rain and the forest is humid with sweat and fear, the tiny plink-plonks are running scared and the butcher drags his axe across the mountain-tops and snarls at anyone coming close. The houses are blown down. It's 1800 degrees Fahrenheit and everyone is burning up in the atmosphere. Those fragments that all bear the faces of his kids are huddled together in fear while the butcher finds them and tears them apart one by one, leaving body parts over charred grass. He's trying to put himself back together so he can continue to be that pillar Charles needs but his features are frozen too, in a pained distortion and it's ugly; snot drips onto his lip and mixes with spit and tears, and blood and he mashes his face into it against Charles's shoulder, rubbing his back as though some part of him can't help but try to comfort.  
  
Charles doesn't need to be comforted now. Doors are slamming open and closed, open and closed, objects are floating, the world is frozen and minds are held tightly in his grip, Erik's no exception because if he wanted to stop him he could, but he doesn't need a pillar. He's here for these ugly, terrified, horrific parts, too. The storm will pass. He was made to weather it for Erik, so he isn't destroyed by it. So neither of them are, so no one is. He lets the rain pelt him and the atmosphere burn him and he reassembles all the tortured, chopped up fragments, puts them back together limb by limb, nurtures the charred grass and covers up the dug up land, tugs the sun back into the sky brighter than before, two of them just to be sure and because it's silly and Erik is always cold with just one, gathers up the frightened, running blobs in his arms and rocks them, sings the songs he whispered to himself at night when he was scared and it didn't feel like his fear, the ones he sang to Raven later, too, _Over the Rainbow_ and _Here Comes the Sun_ , _doo-doo-doo-doo_ , then stands in front of the Butcher because he can growl and grump all he likes but Charles has never once feared him. He does it one at a time and all at once, lovingly and carefully, strokes every melting face and pats tiny heads and coaxes spider-limbs out from the dark and belongs to them all the same. He rebuilds the hut from the ground up, even though he's terrible at making things, has never truly been crafty. He made the book inside and he'll remake the house it exists in if he has to.  
  
There's nothing to be sorry for. This is what Charles can do. This is what Charles should do. This is how he belongs to Erik, too. It's alright.  
  
The Butcher is so shocked the kindness that he drops his overlarge knife onto the ground, and he suddenly seems less than twenty feet tall, standing across from Charles just a man instead of a monster, Erik's features but darker and more severe, older and grey-haired wearing rags and when the blade reaches his feet it turns out to be made of silver, cutlery instead of terrifying forge. It's carted off by tiny blobs who approach with sounds of muted terror before jumping back on top of Charles, as though he's their own personal Landscape. The children inside are all terrified of him, but it's a perception generated by Erik and not reality, even when the Butcher was forward-facing he never lifted a hand that wasn't forced, and every strike is branded on his flesh in return. "You aren't scared," he whispers, because everyone is scared of him, especially Erik. He's the one those children will be talking about today.  
  
Charles has never seen him as a monster. Grumpy and prone to telling him to _sit_ like a dog, but after the fact he finds that endearing, too, and certainly wouldn't mind obeying again. He pets the blobs on his shoulders and shakes his head, fragments of him all around taking care of things, a Little Charles to play with Little Erik and follow him around while the rest of him cleans up and works on rebuilding. No need for Erik to do it himself. "Of course not," he whispers back. "You're not very scary at all, I'm afraid," and his lips twitch with it, because there's joy here, too. There's love and kindness. He'll absorb all the horror and give back tenfold.  
  
No one has ever smiled at him before; when he's around there are very few smiles to be held after all, and he can't help but reach out and touch that expression, eyes wide. Of course Charles knows that he didn't intend to treat him disrespectfully, he doesn't have any proper standards of human interaction though and it's telling. "Yes, I am," he replies, matter-of-fact. A veritable flipbook of fear and horrified faces runs itself through, with some Charles is familiar with and many he isn't. If the scenario called for it he knows he would add Charles to those pages just as easily. It's all he knows how to do.  
Perhaps he chafed a bit at being patted more like an animal than a human, but he wouldn't call it disrespect, even unintentionally. Charles is Erik's, which makes him his, too. That gives him the right, and he understands. He doesn't flinch or pull away as he's touched, nor at the images, his smile soft instead. His dimples peek out, despite the situation. "To me you aren't," he returns with nothing but confidence. "And it isn't. You know how to care for me now, too. You protected me. You Ordered me. You made me smile." Not then, but now. Right this moment. That certainly counts.  
  
He tries to smile back, but it's more _creepy_ instead of _heartwarming_ , displaying all of his teeth with his eyes looking dead and haunted. He spreads his hand over Charles's face, pressing his thumb against those dimples in utter fascination. "You're mine," he touches his chest with his opposing hand, blinking like he doesn't quite understand. He doesn't have anything but his knife, its jagged serrated edges the only thing he was ever created to love. But this might be better.  
  
Charles finds it sweet anyway. He quite likes when Erik grins with all his teeth, bordering on feral, and perhaps this is no exception. They all make up a whole, and he loves them all wholly. "Yes, I am," he confirms, letting that huge hand engulf his face without an ounce of fear. "Perhaps we could switch the knife out? You could carry a feather duster." He's sure the mountains need dusting, occasionally. It's silly, it's nonsense, but this is how he'll soothe. By restoring everything, by taking every dark sky and dragging the sun back where it belongs. "If not, that's alright. But just know it isn't very frightening anymore." It won't ever be useful, unless he wants to swing it around to menace, to protect. He won't begrudge that, because Charles belongs to him. "I'm yours, and I don't fear you."  
  
He looks down at his feet only to notice that knife isn't there anymore and he blinks in owlish confusion, only to realize the inky black blobs have shrunk it down to scale and carted it off over Charles's shoulder. A few hop up onto him and run up his long arms, letting out _"heehoo!"_ s like the Pillsbury Dough Boy until he _growls_ sharply at them, a sound otherworldly, alien and horrible and they _scatter!_ back over to Charles with a chorus of squeaky, terrified _eep!_ s instead. "Feather... duster." The world is much brighter with Charles's presence, both suns squinting down at the Land and evidence of Order restored, doing a tango in the sky and giving him a wink when he looks up. Erik in his arms in the Real trembles still, hiding in his chest.  
  
Charles pets him and the blobs all the same, hushing them with little hums, _doo-doo-doo-doo!_ , kissing Erik's matted, damp hair in the Real, patting these tinies here. The world is still vibrating with the amount of psionic energy he's putting out there, but the doors aren't slamming even as things float about and the world stays frozen and held back. He produces a simple yellow feather duster out of nowhere, presenting it with a flourish. "He's for cleaning," Charles provides helpfully, grinning despite himself. He thinks perhaps adding another sun was excessive, but Erik prefers it warm and now the first sun has a friend. No losses here.  
  
The Butcher's face shifts imperceptibly, well, imperceptibly to anyone except Charles, a very faint smile of his own in return and his nose wrinkles up all-too familiar, doing nothing for the unflattering appellation that's become his name. When one of those tinies hops back onto him daringly, he feather-dusts the infernal creature right back over to Charles. It might do all right after all. " _Whheeeewww_ ," the tiny blinks rapidly, crestfallen. " _Gromp, gromp_ ," he makes a show of stamping his circle-feet, detached from his blob-body.  
  
No need to despair. He gathers up more of those blobs, because they seem to have surrounded him, jumping out of the newly-restored, swaying grass, peeping excitedly at his feet. Charles whispers to them. _He isn't scary at all, see? He only wants to play. Go on, now, poppets._ And when they do jump onto him, strength in numbers, Charles has to hide his giggle in his hand, and even then it spills out. "So much for being frightening," he accuses, watching with no small amount of satisfaction as he's hopped all over. As it should be.

* * *

Charles is changing the Landscape permanently, altering the dynamics of the inhabitants inside as the Butcher's mysterious and violent nature begins to shed with nothing more simple than positive attention. His scowl remains ever present, though, as the tinies roam around his head and pull on his hair while he keeps his arm crossed and his features set in a stern glower. He fluffs the feather duster at one particularly courageous fellow trying to swing on his eyelashes and the chap slides down his nose instead, careening off into the great beyond of Charles's forearm. They're delighted, overjoyed by this new interloper minus the axe, while other fragments with newly-patched body-parts watched from a huddled distance. He's terrorized this Landscape for as long as any of them can remember, stalking about with the scrape of that knife dragging behind him, swinging it at any who dare get close, enacting every torture upon them as Erik faced in the Real any many distrust and fear him even now.  
  
That's alright. There's no need to force anything, but there's a natural conclusion here, something that's already happened long ago out there. Those parts need tending, too, so he grabs - well. The Butcher is such a gauche name, really, but they'll work on it. Either way he grabs his arm, fearing nothing and giggling when those tiny blobs he's stopped swiping at use the connection as a bridge, inviting them along for the ride, too. "Come," he grins, because he's sure he's never been bossed about before, and Charles has always liked pushing boundaries. His particles are spread all around this place, and they're very bossy. Good, obedient, usually, belonging to every fragment here, but very bossy sometimes.  
  
It really is, but Erik dreamed up most of these parts as a child and as such most of them hold rather childish names. They're not whole personalities, separate and distinct from Erik-not entirely dissociated identities as much as they are recognizable pieces of Erik's entire personality whittled down to very basic attributes, what was needed to complete the incredible things demanded of him over the years. Some of them are like the Butcher, or Paragon, with easily identifiable purpose and usefulness while others like the tiny blobs appeared out of sheer loneliness and boredom, the need for a child to be a child at least in some dark corner of the universe. Of course, the entity before Charles lacks the self-awareness to really understand any of this, nor to even grasp that he's being bossed around at all, although it is shocking, because people simply don't interact with him this way, and he trods along compliantly after him.  
  
Charles understands all of this intuitively, better than anyone could ever hope to for more than one reason, and in the end it's all Erik. It's all a whole, cohesive person that he loves more dearly than words are capable of expressing. But once Erik found a crying child in a closet in Charles' mind and didn't understand why Charles insisted it was too late to comfort him, and now he knows it isn't. It certainly isn't for these parts, either, created out of necessity. To nourish the whole, he needs to protect the parts; it's the same for everyone, but Erik has a more expansive inner-world than most, that's all. He drags this fragment in particular to those hiding fragments, and lets more gather all around, drawn naturally to wherever he is - it's just the nature of it. He'll take care of them all. Sing them songs and give them silly new objects to mess about with and smile at them and weather any storms, hanging the suns back in the sky himself. Charles kisses Erik's forehead in the Real, tucking a strand behind his ear, scratching lightly. "I love you," he breathes, and it spreads out through all the Land and the world, too, where the walls still vibrate and there are still far more floating objects than he'd like.

* * *

In the Real, Erik is trembling, a sweaty pile of human hidden as deeply in Charles as he can possibly get, and he nuzzles in even closer at the whispered affection. " _Anovtcha_ ," he mumbles into his shirt, shuddering as if chilled despite the scorching desert heat around them and the two suns within him. He wants to go home. He can't face what he's done. He doesn't deserve those songs, or the suns, or the warmth or the joy. He should be put in jail where he belongs, right beside Sebastian Shaw.  
  
Fortunately for him, Charles would never allow that. He kisses relentlessly, persistently, at whatever parts of Erik he can reach, hot and itchy himself but that's alright. "You do deserve it, and you have it," he whispers. "We're alright. You can face this. I take care of you. Don't I?" He does. He can do this without breaking, and it doesn't hurt him. Charles isn't afraid.  
  
Erik shivers, letting out a sleepy little noise and settling further. "Made him a friend," he croaks back, raspy. His new sun, bending colors around the waters of an ocean carving up the mountains in the horizon, and he cradles it with reverence, another gift he's been given. He knows he's barely on the cusp of stable, any stray wind of what lies ahead enough to knock him off course and descend into the spiral, and he's biting on his hand, teeth sharp and unforgiving, a counter to the balm of Charles's soothing kisses. "'Znice."  
  
Charles will make him stable. He made a friend for the sun and replaced large, scraping axes with feather dusters, and no matter what comes next, he can face this. He can feel it and bear it, take it into himself without breaking. With a slow, steadying breath for both of them he takes Erik's hand and kisses it, too, holds it in his. "I'm yours," he reminds, and he takes another breath and closes his eyes. The objects fall to the ground, some clattering loud enough to startle him, echoing in his ringing ears, but mostly nothing's broken. He unfreezes everyone, too, but keeps them in his hold, nudging them gently for calm, to make them particularly oblivious to what's happened here, and then he tends to Erik, wiping his cheeks with hands and lips, sorting out his hair, smoothing down those wrinkles one more time. Kissing him, achingly soft. "I think we can return Jerry now," he whispers, nodding to the lovely creature that's fallen into Erik's lap. "I'll take care of you. I will."  
  
If anything is broken, it's picked up and repaired as quick as it happens. Erik and Charles work as one, even in the darkest of places. He shakes his head, though, at the mention of Wiggly and hides himself anew. "Made her sad. Scared of me. Didn't mean it."  
  
"I know, love," Charles whispers, and coaxes him back out again. "But she isn't scared of you, she was just a bit startled. It's alright now." Truthfully, she likely doesn't even remember it. She's been frozen for a bit and her little child-mind is sleepy and disoriented after a full pause, like waking up after a long, long nap. Children don't often remember upsets like this for long. He nudges said child forward, holding her hand and kissing her cheek. "Hi, duckling," he greets Tabby. "Erik is a bit sad. Do you think you could give him a hug?"  
  
As if right on cue, Tabby yawns in that long, loud exaggerated way children do complete with throwing her hands above her head and stretching up to her tip-toes, expelling it all out in a huff as if to say _that's showbiz, kid_ like she should be chain smoking and looking forward to the 20 year reunion of the cast from _Hairspray_. That little girl is definitely going somewhere. "Wah-wait," her face scrunches up. "Jerry? Hey, my timebombs! Oh no. I sleep-sploded again, didn't I? Um, did I just sleep standing up?"  
  
Charles laughs quietly, giving her little cheek another kiss. His heart is constantly tugged by these children, and they aren't only Erik's kids anymore. He loves them too completely for only a day spent together, but that's how it goes. "You're alright, dear," he assures her. "We all just had a quick nap, that's all. Look, Erik has Jerry." Jerry is now floating around Erik, actually, doing a jerky little dance because Charles is still working on that whole control thing when it comes to his telekinetic abilities. "Go say hi. Go on, poppet."  
  
"Wow, Erik's really sad," she frowns sympathetically. "He never makes stuff move that bad." She flounces over after sucking up all her undetonated spheres, each rising in a neat row before flattening to pancakes in her palm and disappearing into her body-it's a fine level of control for a seven-year-old, and Charles knows immediately it's due to Erik's tutelage-and throws her arms around him, squeezing with all her might. "It's gonna be OK," she says confidently. "Pinky-promise. We're gonna tell the truth. You won't get in trouble." She doesn't know what to do with the fact that he's trembling and she throws Charles a _help me!_ look over her shoulder.  
  
Charles snorts and takes that one with a grain of salt, because a few weeks ago the _moving stuff_ portion of his mutation was entirely locked away from him and they haven't exactly had a spare moment to stop and explore it. He scoots forward and wraps his arms around both of them, choked up himself as he guides Jerry back where he belongs. "Erik's alright," he promises her, and Erik, too. "Sometimes we all get a bit sad, yeah? But he loves you very much." That Charles knows with all of his heart. He leans forward and wipes the rest of Erik's tears, reaching into his pocket for the handkerchief he always keeps, swiping anything else and the blood, too, though Tabby doesn't see that part. No need for it. "Much better," he declares, and wraps himself up in it. He's taking care of Erik just fine. He's being good.  
  
It says quite a lot about Erik's mental state that when he looks up-eyes red-he brushes the back of his hand over Tabby's face and whispers, "Not scared?"  
  
She blinks at him. "Um, of _you_?" her eyebrows climb to astronomical heights. It's not like it's even an unusual question-Charles knows from experience as a clinician that it doesn't take much for children not to trust adults, and even though Erik was violated just as deeply as the children they didn't have the benefit of adult development-but she seems to find it almost amusing. She sobers up though and shakes her head. "No, I'm not _stupid_ , 'k? You never did anything. It's that stupid man on TV-" evidently unworthy of even being named, in her book, "-and I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind." She puts her hands on her hips-it sounds like something her mother might've said to her one time, affected with all the same theatrics.  
  
Erik, like, blue-screens for a second before bursting into laughter. He might be hysterical. Who can say!

* * *

Charles can say. Everyone needs some hysterics sometimes. He brushes Erik's mind lovingly, gentle but just as clearly as if he'd stroked his hand through his hair. He's not taking emotions or thoughts away, but he is nudging them about, drawing peace and love to the surface and sinking the rest down, winding his Will back up and tethering both of them. "You're very smart, did you know that?" he asks Tabby, with not a hint of patronization that children so often experience and true, genuine pride and affection. He kisses the top of her head. When he leans down, it's to cup his hand over his mouth and whisper into her ear. "I need your help with something," he tells her. "It's a secret mission." Erik can hear every word, of course. "Will you help me?"  
  
Erik blinks up at him skittishly, pressing his face up against Charles's like a cat once he comes close enough and curling his fingers in his shirt; it's embarrassing and humiliating and if he had the presence of mind he'd be appropriately both but right now it's all he can do to hold a coherent thought in his head at all, there aren't any mature parts of him on the surface and when they finally do he'll want to bury his head in the Earth with the cactuses for it.  
  
Tabby springs his curls around her fingertip and nods at Charles. "Super secret," she swears solemnly. "I'm a good spy!" said every child ever, when they decidedly were not.  
  
Erik does hear that and he whines in protest, but between Tabby and Charles (and, OK, Warren helps because Tabby definitely can't pull her weight when it comes to six foot one hundred giant pants over there). Erik leans heavily into Charles as they finally make it into the conference room which is one long table and many chairs on either side, but all of the kids have bunched up on the same, chairs rolled over right on top of each other for comfort. A hand here, a foot there, a head laying on a shoulder; they're all in some form of contact.  
  
Tel breaks free in a smooth motion and stands to her feet when they get inside. "So, Dr. Xavier, can we talk for a moment?" she asks, attempting to sound professional if only because there are two lawyers and a court stenographer present and if this isn't official then nothing else will be. "Outside?"

* * *

Charles' only concern is Erik, who's close to stable but not quite. He was going to do some clever perception work, and he still is. If he presses their minds close enough, though, it shouldn't make much of a difference, and perhaps it's Charles who's feeling the anxiety; being away from his Dominant for more than a moment like this aches terribly. He smiles regardless, as professional as he can be. "Of course," he murmurs, and guides them outside, taking care of everything inside just the same, keeping himself plastered to Erik's side. The world is still distorting, but apparently it allows him to see both places at once with stunning, uncomfortable clarity, so he'll take it. "What do you need to talk to me about?" he asks quietly, earnestly.  
  
Now that they are outside Tel looks a lot less confident and she presses her lips together. "So," she starts-not a rousing call to action, but it's getting somewhere, maybe. "So, like, there's twelve of us, as you know. Me, Kurt, Marie and Martha are all over fifteen, but everyone else isn't, and if we're supposed to talk about everything that happened, I think it makes sense to have it start from the youngest to the oldest, right? That way when they finish giving their testimony they can leave."  
  
A strategy meeting, then. Charles feels his heart unclench, and he lets out an audible sigh of relief, because while he'd certainly love to help with anything any of these children could ask for, he'd prefer it not to be pressing in at exactly right this moment. "Yes, I agree. I can shield them from..." From. They both know, though her thankfully far less, so no need to put it into words. "But I'd rather them be out of the room." Off playing silly games and being children, especially the youngest of the bunch. He resists the urge to reach out telepathically, because he's still finding himself extraordinarily hesitant to interact like that, even if it's natural as speaking. He places a hand on her shoulder instead. "If you need a break, or something happens, nudge me." He taps his temple, and hides his wince at the burst of jagged pain. "You can do whatever you'd like, I'll hear it," he grins. He doesn't need the nudge, but to give them control when they've had so little thus far couldn't hurt.  
  
Tel's always been a little on the sarcastic end of things, but now she smiles shyly. "You think it's a good idea? Because I have a couple more, too, but you might have to talk to the lawyers and shi-uh, stuff. Sir." Wince. She's a freaking Dominant. Go figure.  
  
Charles smiles back. "I think it's a brilliant idea, so let me hear the rest," he encourages, and then looks around them as if someone could be listening in (they won't be, they couldn't possibly), he gives her a little wink. "I'll talk to the lawyers and shit if you promise never to call me _sir_ again, yeah?"  
  
Tel grimaces. "Yeah, uh, sorry." She resists the urge again-old habits are tough to break, but she shores up. "Well, OK. Tabby is the youngest, she's 7. Mortimer's 10, and Rahne and Sammy are 12. I think everyone else can probably get lumped together, but especially like, Tabby and Tim-" she ducks her head, rocking back on her heels as she considers how to put it. It's clear she's put a lot of thought into this. "I think maybe the youngest of us should be questioned one on one. Tabby's pretty artsy, you know what I mean? And Tim's like, incredibly shy. I know you guys probably know all of this, but-" but she wants to make sure they're taken care of. She's the oldest high-Dom of the bunch, it's difficult not to feel responsible.  
  
Charles does know, but he appreciates this all the same. He squeezes her shoulder gently, and then he does give her the tiniest, softest mental nudge, something to reassure, to let her know he's listening and understands. "That's very smart. I'll make sure everyone is safe," he promises her quietly. "And that everyone gets to say what they need to. I know you may not trust me quite yet," she's only known him a day, after all, her track record with adults is less than fantastic, and he smiles to let her know that's more than okay, "But I will see everyone through this, and not just for Erik's sake." They're his family now, too. And Charles will always protect his family.

* * *

"Um," Tel gets distracted from what she's about to say, though, by the sensation in her brain and her eyes widen into saucers. "What was that. Was that- _what_."  
  
He grimaces immediately. "I'm sorry," he whispers, and the words get caught up in his throat. He gestures up to his general temple area, because the tapping is very efficient when he's not so sensitive up there that even grazing it feels like enough to make him cry. "I shouldn't have. Forgive me." Leash it up, Charles.  
  
"That was so cool-" Tel says at the same time, tapping her own temple like, _is this thing on?_ "Oh-that was you! Oh, you're telepathic! Oh, _duh_ -"  
  
Well, okay. Not quite what he'd expected. Charles can't help but grin, small and hesitant, as if he's shy in front of this teenager. When he speaks next, it's in her mind, soft and careful even though he's been in there plenty, just not to communicate like this. Can you hear me? he teases. Did you have more to discuss? he prods gently.  
  
 _What number am I thinking of?_ she thinks instead, because, listen, she's still fifteen. She huffs, though, not really expecting an answer. "Yeah," she says out loud, because she's unaccustomed to mental contact and the difference is suddenly jarring-the way that other people interact with Charles, even the most plainly accepting, and the way Erik interacts with him are very different and it's starting to become apparent that it's not just because Erik loves and accepts him so much. Human beings have natural mental defenses, they think in specific, rigid ways and they can't really operate inside their own heads or direct his attention around, mostly flinging a loud blare of everything! all at once on top volume in his direction. "Um," because this part's harder and her smile evaporates. "I know you're Erik's doctor, and-I don't want to sound gross like the kids at my school but I think you guys are, like, _close_ -" she brings her hands together. This isn't her eventual point, but it's a necessary bridge.  
  
He already knew that. There's very likely no one who understands the human mind as well as Charles does, or as intimately. It's a little of everything, the fact that he and Erik were meant to be connected from the beginning, that he has some more telepathic tendencies of his own. There are ways to communicate like this, to bridge the gap, to express himself more efficiently and in a way that's far more natural, that feels normal and not stifled; he's used to navigating defenses, to taking in the everything! that gets thrown at him. But he still isn't convinced that means he should. That it isn't invasive, and harmful, the way he instinctively wants to communicate and experience. It's a battle for another day. Small doses, and he's still shy with Erik sometimes.  
  
Charles grimaces at her choice of words. Honestly, they couldn't have been more obvious if they tried at this point, at least when they aren't in public. Technically, and we are, he confirms, because there's no reason to hide it around her and he knows she understands the situation here. He winces after a moment, shaking his head. "We are," he corrects, out loud this time. "Also, you aren't thinking a number. Hardly anyone thinks a number after asking that." He can't help it.  
  
She nods, because she wasn't really looking for confirmation on something she also already knows, but-"Well, it's hard to explain this stuff to anyone," she lets out a slow exhale. "Hey, I was tortured for four years of my life? Not really the party story you think it is. But some things are more. You can say you were raped, or you were beaten, and people usually know what you're talking about. I like my life. I like _not_ being shot in the head. Those people were sadistic, they just liked to invent _Saw 2_ mind games to fuck with us." She can't help it. She's protective of her family, too.  
  
This is a difficult topic to broach without getting into uncomfortable specifics about his own experiences she doesn't need to know, but he shakes his head. "Everything he's going to say in there I already know, in more agonizing detail than he'll ever get into," he assures her, because it's the truth. He's sure Erik wishes it weren't, but that's neither here nor there. "I've felt it along with him, and I'll do it again today. I understand, and not just because of all this," he gestures toward his own brain again, lips pursed slightly as he takes a breath. "I know. It won't change a thing. You needn't fret over that much," he promises.  
  
Tel nods. "OK, thanks," she whispers. "I'm sorry, it's just-I mean, it's just A Lot." She wishes she could articulate it any better but she's honestly not sure it's even possible anyway, so she doesn't fret too much about that at least. "Are you sure you'll be OK? You can ping me anytime, too, you know. Kurt and I are usually pretty on top of things, but sometimes he gets a little withdrawn. Today's feeling like a withdrawn day."  
  
Charles shakes his head. "I'll be absolutely fine. I'm going to tell you something, and I really would like you to consider it, alright?" He doesn't wait for the go-ahead, hand on her shoulder again. "You're doing a very good job of taking care of everyone, but that's not your job. Before you say anything," he chuckles, because he knows it might sound like perhaps he's talking down to her, and he is not, "Just know that I know what it's like. I've been there. I'd never suggest you're incapable. But you don't have to. At the very least, don't worry about me or Erik. I'll make sure we're both alright. If you need help, you can always ask. That's what we're here for." That's what adults should be there for. "I understand. All of this, the lot of it, I understand. And I'm much stronger than I seem, trust me," he jokes.  
  
"You seem pretty tough, so," Tel smiles. "Should we-?" she gestures to the door. "Sorry, by the way, I didn't mean to take up more of this time, I guess you know how it is. And besides," she gives a shrug. "Erik saved us. I'm always going to worry about him." Tel isn't very good at delegating the whole caretaking business, it seems she takes after a certain giant they both know after all. And in many ways that might be deliberate-Erik taught by example, by always putting himself in front of them, by checking up on them and tending to their wounds and giving them his food. Tel is a natural leader, although she's been knocked off course by what happened, those are the qualities she values.  
  
"Don't apologize, there's no need. Thank you for talking to me," he smiles. Charles has always been more than a good judge of character, and he knows these things, but every good leader and caretaker needs to be looked after, too. Children shouldn't have the weight of the world on their shoulders. These are things he knows, too, and he'll look after her and that giant accordingly. "Let's go, then, poppet," and he ushers her back inside. There's very obviously a seat for him, and to most people in the room, it looks like he goes right for it and sits down smoothly. There are no cameras in this room, though, thankfully, so he actually heads for Erik's seat instead, sitting at the edge of it and winding himself even tighter around his Dominant, soaking up all that leashed Will. _Mind if I stay here?_ he teases, quiet. It's a miracle he hasn't climbed in Erik's lap already.

* * *

Erik tugs him closer automatically without even thinking about it, shrinking back away as Gertrude begins talking and outlining her role with the ICC. Tabby has eschewed her ordinarily fiery demeanor for something a bit more subdued, nervously plucking at a loose string on her jeans. Of them all, Tel actually does look the most composed, mentally and physically, with Magda a close second. Kurt is playing with a butterfly knife, Roberto is sitting by Erik's feet on his phone, but his mind is a riot of stormy weather. Rahne does not want to be there, she's embarrassed and horrified at the thought of sharing this with a stranger, and feels disgusting and miserable about herself on a regular basis enough as it is. The rest are more or less a mixture of that combination, with Erik zoned all the way out entirely. He jolts when only via his awareness of Charles does he recognize that Ms. Yorkes is addressing him.  
  
This is not going to be easy for anyone. The sooner they get through this, the absolute better. It's important for them to be doing this, but he'd much, much rather they didn't all have to. As it is, he wraps every mind up in a humming calm, and directs Erik's attention to him so he can direct it out. _Erik_ , he whispers, tapping on his mind like you'd tap on a window or a door, soft but firm, smiling gently. _Come back? I'm right here. Let me take care of you._  
  
Erik peeks out like a hermit pulling back the blinds to see who's there, and is extremely tempted to pull Charles back in with him instead, back where they can dance in the light of two suns and chop zebrawood (as in, zebra _striped_ , black and white wood) that tastes like bananas to rebuild his tiny huts along the coast where they're still blown over. _OK_ , he whispers frightfully instead, and this is definitely only one of many times that Charles will be needing to do this today.  
  
"We're just having everyone say or confirm their name for the record," Gertrude smiles kindly at them. "We know this isn't going to be an easy process. What you should all be aware of right now is that this is entirely a _voluntary_ process. Unlike in a criminal court, you _cannot_ be compelled to testify either for or against the Defense. This is all totally on your terms, and if you decide you don't want to do this, any of you-" she adds, gesturing to the children, "then you can leave, totally strings free."  
  
 _Strings free,_ Erik mouths to himself, imagining himself made out of silly string, and then a silly-string Charles naturally evolves and he sets about wondering how to build a castle made out of it on the mountain top for his new feather duster friend by the time she's talking about something else. You win some, you lose some.  
  
It's not really a loss. If Erik needs to get through it like this, then so be it. Charles will sit on his lap (and across the room, too, where he's very professional and unruffled next to Warren, legs crossed), will play with his hair and nudge him when he needs to, will take care of him in every way possible. Nothing lost. No one gone. He's learned that if he tugs, he can find strands of Erik's Will and wind it around himself enough that he can see it, so he busies himself with that to stay grounded, winding a golden ribbon around and around and around his wrist, hoping Erik will be pleased with his work when he's aware enough to notice it, though he's not nearly as good with knots. Very pretty anyway. The thing is, he's finding he can be in many, many places at once, and there are parts of him inside, too, to help and nudge from there. Benefits to having a superbrain, he supposes. The downside is the wretched headache that's forming, and the strange warping all around him, but that's completely ignorable like this. Mostly.  
  
Erik does notice the string after a while, far prettier than silly-string, glowing a beautiful liquid platinum around Charles's wrist and his eyebrows pinch together and he touches Charles's forehead, struggling to fix himself because Charles cannot cause himself pain for Erik's benefit. If he won't allow it for Erik, Erik certainly won't allow it for him and even the tiniest, most useless parts of him know enough to stop that in its tracks. _Love you. Don't hurt,_ he Orders unconsciously and his eyes get big as though shocked at himself and he strokes over the sensation inside their Bond. _And hug me,_ he adds for good measure, grinning.  
  
After Gertrude's speech no one gets up and leaves, so she takes that as the affirmative. This is a situation that is unprecedented in the careers of everyone present, so there's no clear solution to them on how to conduct things-it turns out that all of Tel's thinking didn't go for naught. Before Warren can start-in his mind it seems simplest for him to jump in, he's already been through it a thousand times anyway, Tel shakes her head.  
  
Erik's smaller, more fragile parts realizing they have a submissive to Order about is one of his favorite things, he'll admit it. It's comforting him, too, but he isn't hurting himself intentionally, and he doubts any of what he's doing would make a difference; it hurts either way, so best to milk it. He nuzzles in close as he's bid, kissing Erik's jaw, and then refocuses his attention. Projecting his voice through a projection used to be disorienting, but now it's completely normal, and Projected-Charles, seen by everyone except Erik because the children are children and he doesn't want them to accidentally look the wrong way and give up the game, leans forward in his seat and folds his hands on the table. "If I may? I think it might be best if we let the younger ones speak first," he murmurs calmly, eyeing Tel and offering a soft smile of reassurance. "Perhaps one on one, so no one is overwhelmed, and they don't have to stay for the full session. In my professional opinion, it would make this much less stressful for everyone." Psychologically speaking, no one is going to argue that a seven-year-old sitting through hours of this needlessly is beneficial in any way.  
  
"That's a really great idea," Gertrude nods. "I'm not sure how feasible one-on-one is right now because this is the only room we've got, but I think we can make do," Gertrude thinks on it for a moment and then stands. "Would you be able to help us, Erik? Maybe break apart this table," she pats the metal frame-wiring. "We can grab those chairs and if you guys don't mind waiting we can get started with you, Tabby?"  
  
"Yesplease," she hops to her feet instantly.  
  
 _I think this might be easier if you're here, too,_ Gertrude adds mentally to Charles. _She seems to trust you and you're a trained clinician. I'm just a lawyer. I can cut with a wide sword sometimes._  
  
Charles didn't intend to go anywhere, even if she suggested otherwise. His eyes widen slightly, both Real and projected because he isn't watching for the reaction. People have thought things at him before when they knew he was listening (notably Raven's _get out, Charles!_ or something pointed from Warren) but it's rare they're very good or deliberate about it unless he helps them; he supposes that's a product of her psionic abilities, however different. Either way he nods, and the projected version of him stands, which actually is carrying a part of his consciousness, like a fractured off part of him, and how odd is that, but also very handy. Mostly because he doesn't want to leave Erik's lap in actuality, and he nestles closer. _I can stay with you?_ he checks. He's still idly winding that Binding around and around and around, comforting self-bondage. They're all going to get through this, and he's going to see it happen.  
  
In response, Erik squeezes him tight, unwilling to let him go even for a moment, but he creeps from his chair-Charles firmly in tow-toward Tabby when she moves, unsure what's happening or where she's going and too overly-nervous for such a sudden movement. _Stay OK? Everybody OK?_ he touches the back of his bad hand against Tabby's neck, smoothing away the straight, blonde strands feathering there. He still hasn't fixed the table, completely unaware of Ms. Yorkes's request and only half-aware that he's even a person.  
  
Charles sucks in a slow breath, because there are endless variables in this room right now and he can handle it, but actually moving isn't so good for the whole world-distorting, burgeoning migraine thing that's happening. He nudges Erik's mind again, soft, gentle brushes to refocus, to coax him back up. _Can you fix the table, please, darling?_ he asks quietly, and sends an image to help along that process, because even mostly out of his mind Erik always seems to listen to his requests if they're feasible. _Everyone's alright. We're staying safe,_ he promises. He could probably do it for Erik, actually, if he tapped in and manipulated that way, but he'd rather not. _Taking care of you,_ he whispers, reminding himself, too.

* * *

And Erik does accommodate as quickly as he's shown, separating the table into two even halves, shrinking one down to child's size and elongating the remainder for the adults and teenagers in the room. Sprouts and swirls of intricate metalwork design manifest as the finished product becomes something far less resembling a table than a work of art, inlaid with glass and hollow chrome. Tabby gets situated on a chair Erik makes just for her, tapping her on the knee just so her leg will kick out and giving her a faint flicker of a smile. He sits cross-legged on the floor and holds Charles in his lap, resting beside Tabby while Getrude carts her files over and lays out some pencils and paper. Erik touches them and they flourish into colored ink fountain pens instead, bending to Tabby's mental imagery instead of her unsteady hand, but she's encouraged just to doodle if she wants to. Getrude starts simple, asking her where she was born and what her parent's names were, but she doesn't remember. She just remember her mom had yellow hair like her and wore smokey-eye make-up and chain smoked, and her dad wasn't around. _Young_ , Erik tells Charles softly, petting her.  
  
He wishes he didn't already know that. Charles sighs, petting Erik as he pets Tabby, soft, chaste kisses to center and ground. Projected-Charles is sitting on his own chair, leaned in close and decidedly not buried in Erik's neck, but that part of his consciousness is perfectly fine running on autopilot. This part focuses on keeping everyone steady, including himself, closing his eyes to reorient even though everything is still there. Tabby's mind is buzzing close to his because he's listening particularly carefully, on high alert for distress or confusion, or any indication she needs help nudging things around in there. He's got that strand of Will so firmly around his wrist he's not sure he'll ever untangle it, but now that it's an almost-Real presence he can't stop fussing with it, winding it over and over and over in calming repetitions to remind himself it's there.  
  
The reason for said fussing becomes imminently obvious when Erik gives it a sharp tug of his own, letting it slither off of Charles's wrist easily to wrap him up completely in thick, winding strands. For all that Charles can do, he can't exert Erik's Will over himself with purposeful intent-but Erik can, and it's as natural as breathing and ever-intricate, delicate loops spread out over his exposed skin and squeezing his body almost physically. Tabby is starting to get disoriented as the questions lead to their inevitable conclusion-the circumstances around her abduction, what she remembers of her living arrangement.  
  
Much better. Honestly, it was what he'd been looking for the entire time. It wasn't exacting as much as it was sinking into what was already there, the way he does deep-down, tugging in the right direction until Erik either obliges or doesn't; the strands were his own projection of it, a recall to the day before and the physical rope. It's nice to wrap up in, sometimes bindings (usually those, fortunately, because Charles hasn't quite admitted how much he likes being bound yet), or a blanket, other times a protective shield. Sometimes both, or neither. Many applications, and Charles is in a form of subspace he's never quite experienced before (not that he has extensive experience, but after spending the last few months in subspace of varying intensity and type and preparing to spend the rest of his life there, he thinks he's allowed to comment). It's sharper, but softer, too, narrowing everything down. He's focused, and determined, and devoted, and he spreads that calm outward. When Tabby falters, he nestles further into Erik, kissing and scratching lightly at his favorite spot, and he nudges. Slowly, with aching, gentle care, precision he's honed and what he hopes is a steady hand. A scalpel where everyone else, not just Emma Frost, would use a hatchet just by sheer lack. Those memories rise to the surface but he dulls them down, strips them of terror but doesn't sacrifice clarity, a contradiction only possible with some fine-tuned manipulation but he highly doubts anyone will protest. They're hazy and vague, the way a child's are, but he doesn't sharpen them anymore than he has to for her to answer. He knows enough about hazy memories. He has plenty. Perhaps it's best to keep them like that, sometimes.  
  
"Oh!" Tabby seems to recall it fairly well after that, eyes wide because she didn't think too hard about these things and she wasn't aware she even knew the answers at all. She's from Ceder Rapids, her mom's name is Eileen and she didn't care too deeply about anyone or anything which made it easy for Sebastian Shaw to ingratiate himself to her once he recognized what she was. She recalls meeting Erik first, silent and predatory and when she couldn't produce her powers at will, they did what they could to scare her into order. When that didn't work, Erik was told to punish her. He didn't, though, he taught her how to use her powers better so she wouldn't get hurt as much but when it became clear they began to care for one another that bond had to be broken by any means necessary. Tabby's memories become distorted and start skipping sequences here. Erik busies himself fussing over Charles, but Tabby hugs him all of a sudden and touches his face. "Um, then, you know, whatever, and voila. Rescued." Yep, nailed it.  
  
Charles closes his eyes. He doesn't want to. Besides his own personal experience with skipping, glitching memories, plenty of which he hasn't even begun to untangle and doesn't know if he can, he knows what's there. With a shaky breath, he envelopes Tabby in warmth, in comfort, in love, shows images of Jerry dancing much better than his budding telekinesis can approximate, of running in the yard with the other children. Hugs when she's frightened and waking up in Magda's lap, fingers in her hair. Then he untangles it all. It's a painful process for him, and he thinks perhaps he's sparing her from it; his teeth clench and a tear that he's not sure belongs entirely to him slips down his cheek, followed by more just the same, and this time it's only Erik who sees him crying, his projection calm even as he leans forward. It's alright. If the truth comes out now, there's less of a chance of it coming back up to hurt them later and Tabby wants to give the stupid man a piece of her mind. This is how he'll do it. For all twelve of them if he has to. Help them find their voice. Bear it without breaking. Erik asked him once why pain and this is why.  
  
Yeah it definitely turns out that Tabby did in fact remember it but she was trying to spare them the details. In an attempt to compromise she just gets up and walks over to Getrude's side of the table, standing on her tiptoes to whisper in her ear the rest.  
  
Gertrude, to her credit, just nods and writes while Tabby talks. Given her profession it's not the first time she's heard this type of thing-there's not a lot she hasn't dealt with during her short tenure prosecuting _literal war criminals_ but it's always one of the most painful aspects of a person's trauma. What is surprising is that someone who's essentially been indoctrinated to act on behalf of an abuser didn't end up adopting a similar moral compass, which she's more familiar with-children hopped up on cocaine and toting around guns and believing they didn't have to deal with any consequences to their behavior were tough enough to deprogram, an adult was surely a lost cause, but what she's encountered thus far has been entirely the opposite. She's hopeful that everyone involved here is on a trajectory of genuine healing, as difficult as it is, their ethical and personal foundations are in tact and that is the real middle finger to this guy more than anything else.  
  
Erik wraps his arms around himself and rocks faintly, hiding his head in his knees.  
  
It doesn't matter how it comes out, in the end. People don't usually forget trauma, which is rather the point; it isn't like what someone ate for breakfast, inconsequential in the grand scheme. Quite the contrary, it's so beyond what should be everyday normal that it gets processed differently, if at all. Coping mechanisms, dissociation, perceived dark, vague spots in what is an entirely infallible memory. The brain does what it can to protect, the self and others, too, and unwinding it all is an uncomfortable, bordering on deeply violating process but it's the only way they're going to get through this in one piece, in a quick, efficient way that does the absolute least harm. Why they don't hire telepaths to do all of these things is beyond him (no, actually, he knows, and it's not to do with the fact that even out of a small pool of mutants, telepathic abilities are rare and tend to get shoved under the bus when they're present). When she's hopped back to her seat and they're closing things off, he tucks all those memories where he found them, blankets them gently, folds them up. He doesn't take them but he certainly doesn't keep them near the surface where he dragged them, and he wraps Tabby back up in a blanket, the Real, physical sensation of it. It's chilly enough in here that he's shivering, anyway. Erik's arms around himself displaces Charles from his lap, but he worms his way back in, giving comfort and taking it, too, tears drying on his cheeks. _We're alright_ , he whispers. _We're alright._

* * *

Tabby didn't manage to hide anything from Erik after all because they're his experiences, too, and every child says more or less the same thing. Erik was the instrument, at first they were afraid of him but then it became clear he was doing his best to protect them. Then they trusted him, and that trust was severely tested when the best option became the worst one in a myriad of ways, all horrible. Sometimes they were pitted against one another, made to choose in false games where everybody except their captors lost. Sometimes Erik sneaked them drugs to help them fall asleep so they wouldn't feel so bad anymore. It was about survival, the darkest parts of survival that turned you away from yourself and made you feral. There's a lot of truth to the fact that Erik is sometimes feral, because he wasn't afforded the opportunity to act like an enlightened person most of the time. But it's clear he did find moments. And he made sure that they did, too, and he'll make sure that Charles does. He hates this because he's the central figure in all of their testimonies, and he remembers every single detail compounded-  
  
why Charles has to sit and listen to it again and again is beyond him and he's starting to get mad by the time the fifth kid goes and he kicks over his chair petulantly.  
  
It's all what he's seen and heard before, but it's important. Necessary pain. Charles knows survival. His survival was dressed up pretty with shiny white smiles and high society but it's all the same. He knows Erik like he knows himself, and it doesn't make a difference. He listens and holds it close to him, takes the pain and meters it out and bears it and encourages and prods and makes something of it. He forces his own memories down, ignores the way the world shifts and fractures, his own tears, the clenching in his stomach, any remnant of his own trauma because it doesn't matter when he's a vessel to help with theirs. At Erik's outburst he startles but stays tethered and calm. _Shh, it's alright,_ he breathes, touches his face, buries a hand in his hair. _It's alright, Erik. Look at me? It's alright._  
  
" _Hmrnnnn_ ," Erik growls unhappily. Charles may be ignoring it but Erik isn't and while he's working on helping everyone else Erik focuses on him, but that doesn't mean he can't be super unhappy about everything that's happening at the same time. It's not all right. Nothing about this is all right. He stomps about furiously but no one's that afraid of him except for the lawyer who doesn't know him who keeps backing up into the wall every time Erik approaches like a caged animal pacing round and round.  
  
It's a bit difficult to manage because he's got many balls in the air at the moment, everyone held firmly and safely in his grip and letting even one drop could be catastrophic for both this meeting and their collective, fragile psyches, but luckily Erik is the easiest ball to manage. Perhaps for no one else, to whom he's sure he seems erratic, but for Charles there isn't even an ounce of doubt and certainly no fear. He doesn't worry about doing things out in the open anymore; if something needs to be redirected, it will, so he gently stands in front of Erik as he makes to go stomping again, wrapping his arms around his middle. _It is,_ he promises. _It's okay. We're all okay. Take a deep breath, please? For me?_  
  
Erik's whole face is scrunched up in a glower but he reluctantly does as he's asked, scratching the back of his neck and ducking his head to the side, skittish and jittery and irritated. 'Kay, he grumps with a dramatic exhale, scratching his jaw and his arms and worrying his fingernail back over the deep claw marks on his wrist. He tucks Charles under his chin and tries to relax, but completely fails. He wants to be home. He snaps out all of a sudden and kisses Charles on the nose, glaring at him.  
  
Charles frowns down at said wrist, because it's not going to cause any lasting damage but they really should disinfect it and he doesn't like that it's there at all. He leans down to kiss it, offering Erik a shaky but genuine smile in return for the glare, hopeful because he hates this, too. For extremely obvious reasons, but also because it's working Erik up and Charles is his submissive, he's hard-wired to feel anxious and uncomfortable in situations where Erik is displeased, and that he's half of a Pairbond just makes it all the more obvious. It hurts in a way unique from the migraine he's now definitely sporting, pounding away at his temples and making everything hot and achy, but he's fighting right through it. Please don't be mad, he whispers, and then his mental voice does break, stomach twisting and he's staring down instead of at Erik, trying to gather everything back together again. The tears gathering up in his eyes now are definitely his.  
  
 _Not mad,_ he mumbles, eyebrows pinched moodily. _Little mad._ He fixes a wrinkle on Charles's shirt. _Not mad_ , he decides. He's not mad, he's just hot and miserable and irritated and he hates this, he's not angry at anyone except maybe the lawyers, but no one's forcing them to be there. No one's compelling this, they're electing to do it, to put the Hellfire Club away for a long time and pursue justice for every victim they can find. He's angry at himself. He spends a lot of time doing his best to forget just how much he hates himself but it's all coming back to the forefront. He hates having a body, he hates having fingers and arms and legs and everything feels too small, he's a giant in a small, narrow world and he sticks out and everything is ugly and twisted up. "Sorry," he whispers. Bad. He's bad, he's angry and bad and why don't they just broadcast that on television, oh wait, they _have_ and they will. Because the media are vultures and he hates them, too.  
  
Charles shakes his head. Not bad, he argues, biting down hard on his lip. If he doesn't he's going to start scratching at himself because everything is itchy and he's got the chills and Erik doesn't like that. He lifts Erik's hand, shielding it from the rest of the room, places it on his own cheek, another tentative, shy smile. He's got tears on his cheeks and he's shivering and none of it matters. _If you didn't have hands or fingers you couldn't touch me and then I'd be sad. I like being touched by you. I love you. Can you hate something that makes me the happiest?_  
  
Erik wants to kiss him again but he shuffles on his feet, then he realizes he can and ends up smiling faintly back. His fingers curl over Charles's jaw and darts forward to do just that, incredibly gentle like he's afraid by simply being in Charles's proximity he'll hurt him somehow or break him or snap his bones and burn him alive. _Happy?_ he whispers, amazed.  
  
Something in Charles' stomach that had coiled up relaxes, and he takes another shaky breath at Erik's faint smile. _Happy_ , he confirms, though not quite at this moment and that's not what Erik is asking. He wraps his arms more fully around him and refuses to let go unless he's told, head in Erik's chest. _You're doing perfectly. You make me happier than I've ever been. I'd be sad without you. I'd be lost. You can't hate yourself because you love anything that makes me happy, that makes me feel good and safe, and that's you most of all._  
  
 _Not lost. I'll find you._ He taps Charles on the nose and rocks him back and forth.

* * *

Roberto's having a hard time next to Gertrude and he starts crying after a while, leading her to try and hug him but he only skitters away and he comes in between Charles and Erik to sandwich himself there.  
  
Erik wraps him up in his arms too, smoothing down his abundance of curls. "It's OK," he whispers. "Promise."  
  
Charles wraps Roberto up immediately in soothing, gentle calm, in warmth entirely unrelated to the heat outside. He's very sensitive to the sun and its placement, almost definitely because of his mutation, so he projects beams of it onto his skin, only for him because it would be far, far too bright for anyone else and Charles would like very much to be sitting in the dark, on the contrary. Charles' projection is still sitting there professionally, but the Real version hugs the boy tightly, kisses the top of his head. _We're alright,_ he promises, too, and bears the pain for him, hiding his grimace, the nauseating bend of the world around him, the horrible screeching that he only lets himself feel for a second. _Go on, dear one. You're doing so brilliantly. Just a bit more,_ he encourages. He'll hold him especially careful through these last questions, keep him steady and strong and safe, absorb all of the negative, jangling fear and horror into himself. Bear it without breaking. He might bend a bit, but that's alright.  
  
It's not all right with Erik and he tugs Charles down to the ground with them both, laying his head in his chest and keeping Roberto nestled in between them.  
  
Roberto shakes his head. "The end!" he shouts loudly, and Charles can feel the beginning of a meltdown starting to brew in the back of his mind.  
  
"Hey!" Tel rolls her eyes. "Don't yell at people, it's rude."  
  
"You don't yell at your face," he throws his shoe at her.  
  
The shoe doesn't go anywhere. The shoe hovers mid-air and then stays there because he's fairly decent (he wouldn't say good) at making things float, but rather awful at sticking the landing and he's not going to risk nailing someone in the face with it in his attempt to help. What he does do is move, and there's no difference between the projection and the Real now as he kneels in front of Roberto, brushing a hand over his temple beneath all of those wild curls. The resulting calm is immediate, and it makes him sigh in relief, because there's barely any difference between what anyone in this room is feeling at any given moment and what he is. "I know this is difficult," he whispers, and the tears in his eyes are more than proof of that. "I know, and I'm very sorry. But you're being incredibly brave. Do you think you could tell me the rest? We could do it somewhere nicer." The stuffy, air-conditioned room becomes a white-sand beach, hot, hot sun and the sound and smell of the ocean as if they're right there. If either of them wanted, they could touch and feel the sand. It's from a bright, far corner of the boy's memory, something he uses to soothe himself when he remembers. There's a ball to kick around not far off. "Just a bit more. Erik and I are right here."  
  
In the Real, the shoe transforms into a nice bouquet of sunflowers and each of them float out and settle themselves in the lawyers' hair, as well as Gertrude's, the children's and some petals rain down for good measures. Tel snorts under her breath, wondering who's responsible for that shenanigans and her guess isn't close off. It's got Erik's playful touch written all over it.  
  
Within their corner of the universe, though, Roberto's eyes widen into saucers and he picks up the ball, tossing it experimentally in his hands. "I dunno," he mumbles. "It's gross. I'm not gunna tell anyone in court. On TV? No way." There's stuff that Erik doesn't know, too, and he's guilty for keeping it from him but resolutely ashamed and dedicated to his own silence. He smashes his hands into his eyes, sniffling and trying to hide the fact that he's crying like a baby. They'd made fun of him for that, but up until his capture he lived a nice life and he'd been completely caught off guard and broken by it. Everyone tells him it's not his fault but if he hadn't been so stupid and went right home like his mom told him none of this would've happened.  
  
"No," Erik whispers. "Only me," he touches his own chest. "Not you. Just here. It will be OK, I promise."  
  
"It's not OK! _You_ did it," Roberto jabs a hand at him. "Maybe everyone else is fine with it but _you're_ gross too. This is stupid! I just want to go home." He doesn't really feel like that, it's pretty clear, but he's upset and hurting and he wants to lash out, and Erik is an easy target.  
  
"I know," he says hoarsely, taking a few steps back. He has no apologies to offer this child. He _should_ have none.  
  
Charles wraps Erik up in calm, in gentle, loving reminder, because people lash out. It doesn't mean they feel that way, or that it's what they actually want. He's done his own fair share of it, and it's never truly been taken to heart. The same applies here, and he can show Erik just as easily a thousand instances of the contrary, where Roberto has felt safe and protected and loving toward Erik, his excitement when he learned he was coming to visit. _No, no. You stay, please. He needs you_ , he whispers, only to Erik, and reorients Roberto toward him. They're still on that beach and everything is humid and warm, enough to get them sweating, and his clothes are sticking to him. Roberto's skin is starting to darken the way it does when he's absorbing direct sunlight, which is fascinating because technically they aren't in it. There's a lively city behind them and Charles knows intuitively that this is home, and he aches for it just as Roberto does.  
  
"I know it's gross," he sighs. "You don't have to do this if you really don't want to. I certainly won't force you, and I'll have a word with anyone who does," he grins, but it's fierce because he means it. " _Mas eu acho que você quer. Por favor, um pouco mais. Quando terminarmos, você pode me mostrar como jogar,_ " he indicates the ball, giving it a little kick and watching it roll on the sand, smiling softly. "You'll feel better if you let it out, I think. And if you need to stop, you can. I promise." There's no way to doubt Charles like this, with his sincerity dripping out into the world around them, his earnest need to help and heal. To be these children's voice, their vessel. To take this hurt for them and handle it.  
  
Home turns out to be a moderately sized city along Brazil's coastline called _Santos_ , with periwinkle-colored seas and tinged by memories of flaky cheese pastéis from street carts and playing volleyball and soccer on the beach with his friends. Once he tried to learn how to surf but wound up inside a rip current, which very nearly ended badly but thanks for the intervention of a spry lifeguard. He's an active kid even now and his mutation lets him absorb solar radiation and convert it to a tireless amount of energy. He's made his school's basketball, volleyball and soccer teams already, and Charles can tell he's begun pushing himself into achievement to focus his burgeoning anxiety and distract himself from what's really going on in his head. " _Muitas pessoas nos feriram,_ " he mumbles, letting himself be tugged back over to Erik and pressing into his side apologetically. _Us_ -it's something the kids do and it's not conscious, speaking as a homogeneous entity instead of personally, a way to distance things.  
  
Usually Erik is pretty good about being rational, but when it comes to this, he's really not. It's hard not to take it personally, not to take it at face value and believe it really is true, because it's what he already believes, but the proof is in the pudding. Roberto doesn't even flinch and lets Erik pet his hair and fix his clothes and tie his shoes.  
  
" _Eles nos atingiram. Meu pai me disciplinou às vezes, mas isso era pior_." Roberto says that into Erik's kneecap. " _Eles nos fizeram ferir um ao outro. Se não, eles ameaçaram nos matar._ " He shrugs; he knows Charles already heard that from the other kids, and probably Erik too. " _O Sr. Shaw disse que eu poderia trazer muito dinheiro. Todos os outros foram para os laboratórios. Eu não_."  
  
Charles already knew all of it. It hurts to hear it anyway, simply because it hurts Roberto, but he bears that, and keeps his smile gentle. The government conference room has almost entirely melted away except to Charles, but he keeps the lawyers who need to hear this looped in, translates for them, too, so there needn't be another step in the process. Being in two places at once - more than that - isn't doing much to help with the migraine, but he'll bear that, too. He walks forward on his knees, keeping Roberto sandwiched safely even though he's hot and itchy, scratching idly at his arm. " _Por que não_?" he asks quietly. This isn't technically the way this was meant to go, but as long as they hear it, it doesn't matter. There's a human component here, a very fragile one, and he's simply the most equipped.  
  
" _O Sr. Wyngarde me queria_ ," Roberto scrubs at his face, scratching his temple.  
  
Erik alternates between attending to Charles and to his kid-he's not very verbal right now but he doesn't have to be to help. He can keep the peace, and the calm and let himself be relied upon, and it serves to help him be more stable as he reminds himself of his role, of his Dominance most especially. He rubs Charles's back and lets a crab walk up his arm and turns it rainbow for amusement, letting Roberto play with it to catch his breath.  
  
" _Apenas doeu no começo. Erik me deu drogas engraçadas que ajudaram,_ " he nudges his companion pointedly. "He snuck in and tried to help me. _Uma vez que o Sr. Wyngarde o pegou e ele apenas o fez ficar. Eu fiquei doente quando cheguei aqui porque eu não tinha mais comprimidos._ I know you just helped."  
  
"Not kill," Erik whispers back, stroking his forehead affectionately. "So sorry."  
  
"Dude, is he broken?" Roberto's eyebrows arch. He definitely thought Erik could speak better English than that.  
  
Charles shakes his head and closes his eyes. It hurts. It's dizzying and everything is so strongly felt, every inflicted transgression played out on his body because he's absorbing it just like Roberto absorbs sun rays. The screaming hurts his ears even though it feels like he's the one screaming, his throat scratchy and dry. His skin is crawling. The experiences aren't his, but they are. They are, and he can feel his own, too, laid over top regardless of how desperately he claws them down inside of himself. He's scratching more insistently at his arm, swallowing hard, digging his nails into the skin. When he notices, he attempts to hide it, moving it to his hand instead, streaks of blood where he scrapes his nails over the back. "He's alright," Charles rasps, and then evens everything out, an encouraging, gentle smile when he opens his eyes. "We're alright. Words can be difficult, hm?" Carefully, he urges Roberto on.  
  
"Stop-stop," Erik gasps, clapping his hand over Charles's and the snap of Command in the words is like frost underfoot, reverberating through the entire mindscape and writing itself into individual grains of sand. It drowns out the sights and sounds inexorably as though Erik had shouted, even though he barely rose his voice. "Stop, please stop," he whispers to his own feet.

* * *

Immediately he freezes. The world sorts itself out, not wavering, perfectly stable except where it distorts horrifically, clashing static noise and holes in the fabric of it, but only Charles can see that. He swallows hard and dips his head, trying desperately not to cry. His lip is wobbling, and he swallows, and swallows, and swallows, fingers shaking where they're no longer digging into skin. He bites his lip instead and takes slow breaths, soothing himself.  
  
Except it isn't only Charles that can see it, it's Erik, too. Because he's still Charles's Dominant even if he's doing a poor job of it. He brushes his fingers over the back of Charles's hand gently, not only a physical sensation but a mental one as well, as if reaching out and enveloping his mind in a blanket and that is definitely new. "Stop," he whispers again, and Charles sees the image of blood and realizes what Erik reacted so strongly to. "I love you."  
  
It's not new, really. He's been doing it for quite a while now, even if it was only brushing back when Charles reached out first. Normally it's more than welcome and it still is now, but he grimaces, too. Because he doesn't want to hide, but there are things up there he just can't share. He can't. The extent of this terrible off-center, disorienting mess is part of it, because there's no possible way for Erik to process even half of any of it in the state he's in now, if at all. He shakes his head again, head still ducked, and he doesn't need to actively shield because it's already being done. _Sorry_ , he whispers, less words and more trembling, twisting up, but he forces himself to steady. Bear it, bear it, bear it. Bend but don't break.  
  
Erik will bear it with him, and he does, standing beside him before the howling chasm. "No sorry," he shakes his head. "Don't hurt." The one thing he absolutely can't deal with right now is the sight of Charles's blood. He's finding it difficult to relinquish his paused hold on the situation-the fact that everyone knows everything about him in the entire world is quickly becoming unbearable and he finds a blanket in the sand to wrap them all up in, shaking.  
  
Roberto looks between them, having taken Erik's initial demands to mean _he_ should stop, and he shrinks into himself.  
  
Charles is finding it difficult to breathe, sick and worried, now, terribly worried about hurting Erik, but he fights past that. He fights past the tears in his eyes and the churning in his stomach and the horrible aching, and the dropping hot-cold, too, the wretched dread of displeasing his Dominant on top, everything pressing down on him and he's beginning to wonder if maybe it is too much. If anyone, even the most powerful brain there is (and he's not saying his is it, but certainly it must be in the running) is meant to bear this. If Erik worried about reorienting the planet, sending it flying off into the sun, Charles is terrified of the repercussions of this, but he takes slow, shaky breaths and he shakes it off and he smiles. He smiles with all the softness he can muster, and he runs a hand through Roberto's curls. "We're alright," he promises, and he's close to becoming a broken record but it needs repeating. "It's alright, poppet. Go on. It's alright."

* * *

One thing that is happening in the Real is the evidence of many things hovering in the air and vibrating, the sound reverberating through like a tuning fork echo. It's making the lawyers nervous. He's not displeased with anyone, but he is anxious and overwhelmed and struggling not to think or exist too loudly and it's affecting the beach and churning the waters, cold wind slicing over their faces. They're sitting on a log and Erik drags his fingernails rhythmically over his wrist, relishing the bite of pain and letting it focus him while Roberto continues. He puts his hand over Charles's heart. _Breathe_ , the world Orders gently.  
  
No cold wind. Charles fixes it, and breathes at the same time, and everything is as it should be. He spreads himself thinner because he can, because either way there's going to be pain and distortion and this way he can keep a better grip, lock everything down. Erik certainly can influence the mindscape, but not if Charles is bearing down on it, because he simply isn't the stronger force in this realm; Roberto doesn't need to see churning waters where it's meant to be safe and warm, and he calms the lawyers, too, blinding them to anything but Roberto's testimony, in English even when Charles coaxes him with quiet Portuguese and he responds likewise. Not in any one place, he's watching everything at once, something no one else would be capable of. He doesn't have a need for constant control like Erik, but everything in this situation is in his hands and it makes it easier to breathe, makes the migraine feel less like it's destroying him from the inside out, makes the screeching noises and static seem more bearable. But he leans on Erik. He leans on Erik, because he can pull them through but not without this. Not without reaching for him, seeking and overwhelmed in his own right but determined and devoted, too.  
  
Erik rocks back and forth, taking the weight of Charles easily even like this. The lawyers are asking clarifying questions and one of them asks whether or not Roberto was in receipt of any funds from the _Hellfire Club_ and for some reason that just grates at Erik and he launches himself out of the chair in the Real and grips him by the lapels, metal scraping across the floor as the lawyer flounders in Erik's hold and Erik shoves him up against the wall like he's a paper doll, and _now_ he's displeased. The lawyer is stammering and trying to explain himself but Erik's looking right through him and then he drops the insolent little man right on his ass, while Gertrude watches with her fingertips spread over her lips. Roberto looks a little amused.  
  
Charles doesn't usually feel good about taking memories, but this is one of those damage control situations. While he agrees with the sentiment behind the action, the last thing they need is for this to come back to bite them later so he smooths everything out, taking shaky, hitched breaths. He's shaking violently but he can hide that from everyone but his Dominant. "Erik," he whispers, staring at the floor in both deference and because there are tears in his eyes again and he doesn't want them to be seen. Or to acknowledge them.  
  
His nostrils flare and his lips press together. _Get out,_ he points at the man. _Get him out get out._ He puts himself right in front of the man any everyone else, arms crossed and features pulled into a glower. This man is a threat. He's insulted Erik's family, which unbeknownst to him has put him perilously close to harm's way. Only Charles standing next to Erik has saved him from the consequences of his own behavior.  
  
Charles rubs his hand hard into his eye, and works very hard not to scratch himself anymore, but he's biting hard enough on the inside of his cheek that he'll definitely taste blood soon. "Erik," he says again, with a higher note of desperation, and he's shaking worse than a leaf, everything in the room vibrating and he forces it to stop but that just means he has to vibrate more to compensate, and everything is suddenly crushing him.  
  
Erik's attention leaves the lawyer and he drops out of Erik's sphere of interest as soon as his eyes land on Charles. He tugs Charles's hand away from his eye, shaking his head and stroking at his cheek, nudging him to stop that as well. He gathers Charles up entirely into his arms, tucking his head under his chin and holding him still.  
  
Charles immediately folds himself up in Erik's arms, tucking himself in small. He's breathing harshly and everything is spinning, but he keeps a firm grip on everything, redirecting, changing, fixing; it's about time for a break anyway, and there's absolutely no reason why the kids shouldn't have a few minutes to stretch their legs and breathe. Mostly it's for them, but no one is going to notice except Erik, and they certainly won't argue. "Erik," he croaks again, bubbling them up safely, and tries desperately to stop shaking. His eyes squeeze so tightly shut it's painful and he's scratching again.  
  
Everything that's hovering around them begins to glow and things change, turning from old papers to flower petals and sparkling lights. He silently directs Charles to stop scratching once again, the sharp, clear tones of the Order resonating between frequencies around them, visible. _Charles_ , he murmurs back. _Love you,_ he strokes Charles's cheek gently,  
  
The room around them empties, the children hopping off chairs and huddling together to make the most of the break they've been given, to get water and talk amongst themselves, the lawyer disoriented but completely oblivious that there'd be any sort of incident. He keeps them in his field of vision, their minds always within reach, watching for distress or any sort of ping!, but with the room momentarily empty he lets out a shaky, choked breath. Suddenly everything is black, Void and silent, color and light drained out completely. It helps, even if it's only a little, and he can't speak, or perhaps he's simply decided he'd rather not while he has the option. Either way he tries to breathe more evenly, rubbing his cheek against Erik's chest for comfort. It's heavy, and it hurts. He just needs a few moments to breathe, and he lets himself reach out, seeking and tentative.  
  
Well that lawyer had better find himself far away because Erik hates him and will probably punch him if he comes back. As soon as he reaches out to Erik he finds Erik reaching back and he's tugged firmly into his Dominant's orbit, the black, inky void filled with stars and Erik's impression of interstellar dust trails and giant molecular clouds. The exhalation of oxygen turns into billows of colorful plumes, engulfing them both in warm streams of air. Erik watches it all curiously, realizing only a few moments later that it's his own contribution, and giving a huff of laughter. "Hi," he whispers, tangling his fingers in Charles's hair and separating the strands carefully.

* * *

It all goes black again with a low whine and an insistent tug, the sensation of a door snapping shut. No color, no light, no sound. Charles doesn't want any of it, not any more than he has to handle to watch the kids in the hall and manipulate things from here, disgruntled and distinctly uncomfortable and irritated in his own right. None. Nothing. Nothing except Erik, and he takes his Dominant in greedily, inhaling deep and trembling. It hurts and he's hot and itchy and he just needs to breathe and reset. When he pats at Erik's arm, it's accompanied by stomach-twisting guilt, shame. An apology.  
  
Erik kisses him on the forehead, holding him tightly. The world goes completely dark and silent, and he gets rid of all the silly nonsense generated by his head and replaces it with calming nothingness, space as it really is, complete negative skies and dark blankets of tightly woven vertical tubes and chemical vapor depositions trapping light and deflecting it continually. Total darkness, complete black, celestial emptiness. No need to apologize. Just relax and breathe. Erik is devoted to making whatever kind of space Charles needs, at any given point.  
  
It's not the space. Charles can make the space himself, trick his mind into seeing darkness and void even where there isn't, and he'd rather not have to turn everyone away from an actual void, because he's overwhelmed. He's overwhelmed and overstimulated and he's done more than just feel or hear, he's taken into himself. He's absorbed and become and experienced and it's a lot, it's more than one person, it's a sum total and it's uncomfortable and it's achy and it hurts and the world keeps ripping itself open in ways he's unused to but uniquely equipped to experience, in ways that make him sick and dizzy and it's almost absolutely too much. He pats more insistently, biting his lip again to hold back tears. No, he's sorry. He's not meant to be so shaky. He's not doing a good enough job.  
  
Erik smiles down at him, shaking his head. No apologies. No sorry. Erik thinks he is doing a wonderful job, especially because Erik isn't being very helpful, so he knows Charles is doing a lot of this on his own. Erik is the one who is sorry, he's supposed to be looking after Charles but all he can do is menace people and curl up in a ball, both of which are not particularly useful right now. He rubs Charles's back, digging fingertips into his spine gently and kneading between his shoulderblades. "I love you," he whispers softly.  
  
His response isn't in words, or even in images. It's a slow, intricate unfolding, a caress of the mind, Charles' entire being wrapped around Erik's in a way that's just as delicate as Erik's creations. Not a flower blossoming out of a metal from scrap but feelings and thoughts woven into something nearly physical, brushing over every inch of Erik's body and inside of him, too, twisting in low, explosive bursts that rely on every sense, from tingling where their bodies connect to smell, the strange combination of scents that lured them both together during their Bonding. It's different than anything he's done before, wordless and unlike any other form of communication, something uniquely Charles and it's completely all-encompassing. _It's alright,_ he says without saying. Please don't let him go just yet. He can do this, but right now he needs his Dominant.  
  
Erik feels it like a thousand tiny tendrils unfurling under his skin and his eyes pop open, fascinated and drawn completely to Charles like a moth to a flame. There's no possible way Erik could let him go, before this and most assuredly afterwards; his brain primed completely toward his submissive, his Will completely unfolded throughout the area and bundling Charles up in surrounded intricate patterns. For Erik, this is far better than any twisted metal contraption he could design, and he smiles to himself.  
  
Charles whimpers, squirming and then nestling into the sensation of Erik's Will Dominating his every sense, filling him wholly from the inside out, wrapping him up tight and safe and kept. It hurt something awful to be without it, even if it was there all the same; this is what he's been used to, and anything less feels like a lack. He presses a question between them, still not in words: okay? Angry? He doesn't like it when Erik is angry. Not because he's frightened, because he isn't, but because he doesn't like when Erik is displeased in any way. He's supposed to make sure he isn't, especially now. Is he mad at Charles?  
  
Erik shakes his head, because of course not. He definitely was irritated momentarily before, but Charles made it better, not worse. "OK," he whispers back. Erik doesn't like being angry, it unsettles him and calls back to the aggression he has worked hard to sublimate over the years. Everyone absolutely encouraged it over the years, but it only served to make Erik feel small and feral. Less of a person. Especially since it resulted in, literally, wanting to hurt someone and the implications of that make him want to hide all over again. They're right, he's just violent and mean. "I'm sorry," he mumbles into Charles's shoulder.  
  
Charles shakes his head immediately, unsettled himself. Erik isn't mean and he certainly isn't necessarily violent. "Protecting us," he whispers, forcing out the words even though they feel a bit strange and he's not sure they're in English. He doesn't need to assault everyone who vaguely challenges them, perhaps, but the instinct isn't a bad one. Charles will help him moderate it like he always does. They have each other to do that. It's alright. Besides - he squirms a bit, because Erik's outward aggression, when it's for a purpose like this, makes him feel safe, not fearful. Concerned, at times, maybe exasperated, but never afraid or upset. Big, strong Dominant who takes care of what's his.  
  
For some reason that makes Erik feel glowy inside and he rededicates himself to petting Charles. "Protect," he murmurs warmly, nose wrinkled in affection. The thing is, Erik spent a lot of time and energy being an angry rage-a-holic as a teenager, encouraged by his captors into it, but this feels different. He's protecting his family, and Charles feels safe because of it, not afraid. And he definitely absolutely does need to assault everyone who challenges them. _> :c_ "Mine," he tucks Charles's hair behind his ear, wrapping an arm around his waist to ensure he doesn't go anywhere.  
  
Charles certainly never intended to go anywhere, so he has no problem staying obediently still in Erik's arms, letting himself be pet and held. It feels good, and safe, and warm, but not uncomfortably so; the air conditioner was nice when they first walked in, but with all the static and pain it'd just started to give him chills, especially after grounding them on a beach that was functionally real. This is a nice, comfortable alternative, and he lets that near-overwhelming flood of the senses blanket them both up, but Erik especially, touching him in every possible way. There's sound, now, but it's their sound; faint, pleased laughter, their Vows whispered somewhere close, and then Charles' actual voice, humming shyly under his breath. He's nauseated and overwhelmed and uncomfortable, but this is a reprieve. "Yours?" he asks after a while, barely a whisper.  
  
Erik kisses him along the temple, inhaling slowly around the sensation of electric Dominion buzzing under his skin. There's sound, and now there's feeling, Erik's mind churning away to envelop them in the center of a giant gaseous nebula manifest around-the feeling of every gust of stardust passing over their exposed skin, comet-trails of Will, rainbow-glittered on the end of sparkling asteroids. And smells, the kitchen in Raven and Hank's house, filled with home-cooked meals-more the idea than the actual smell since Charles is nauseous,and embroiled in a migraine-the area is still pitch-black but if nebulae and food and if candles had a feeling, wrapping Charles up completely in Dominance. "Mine," he murmurs. "Mine, always."  
  
They do have a feeling. It's something Charles is more than capable of approximating, and he fixes it for both of them, changes it to make it far more Real than Erik could alone; his mind can do incredible things, but Charles' new abilities go beyond that. It's more than a mind brushing a mind, pushing memories and thoughts to the surface like Erik is more than capable of doing in a way others just aren't. But Charles is creating, his version of petals burst from paper, unique to him. It's his mind carving out an entirely different Reality, pressing in and out and surrounding, molding, weaving together in ways he's never managed before, in ways that are new and extraordinary; Erik's every sense is utterly enveloped, surrounded by Charles' mind until the entire world ceases to exist beyond it. Until every breath he takes inhales bound leather, the flowers on their windowsill, Charles' light cologne and the scent of their sheets, until he can hear the hum of their fan and the clicking of keys and the light scraping of forming metal, taste Charles' tongue without their lips touching, feel fingers on his skin where there aren't any. Until the world bursts into explosive, kaleidoscope colors, not an illusion or a trick or a projection like Erik's but for all intents and purposes a Reality, a truth in this space as much as a conference room with table and chairs. This is the full application of Charles' abilities. It's not a feeling, or a thought, it's a lived experience. He peeks up shyly to watch Erik's expression, fear tumbling over in his stomach. This is how Charles fully expresses himself. This is how he experiences the world, through woven together, entirely Real experiences that exist outside ordinary perception, that others besides him just are not capable of experiencing, of seeing or understanding without his help. This is Charles, astonishing in its intricate power. But he can share it with Erik. He thinks it's safe to at least begin to try.  
  
And all he can see from Erik is a delighted smile, eyes wide in wonder as he takes everything in, presses closer to Charles when those sensory memories turn intimate and electric, gasping as if it were really happening but aware that it isn't-except that it is, there's simply no distinction, and his Will utterly rises up in turn, not strands or cords like normal but molecules themselves, what is inhaled is shivery bursts of stars that melt into Charles's chest and fill him head to toe with Dominion. There is no doubting that Charles belongs to Erik, nor that Erik belongs to Charles. They protect one another, they take care of one another, no matter what state of mind either is in. They do this for themselves; they find time and space to be and exist and remember. Remember what is good. What is pure. That they make each other happy. Erik's smiling, anyway, boyish and young and hopeful and brilliant all at once. Everything he always should've been. Taken and twisted but not lost. Charles untangles him rope by rope, every day. And it's more than safe. It's Charles's right. It's how he should express himself. It's how Erik wants him to express himself, and there is no fear or discomfort there is only _more? When? How much more? Show me more?_ mixed with every iota of love that exists inside of him for his submissive.  
  
It makes Charles gasp, tears touching his cheeks as he presses himself as close as he can possibly be, and then closer still, tugging and twisting at their minds, winding them round and round each other in an intimate, brilliant dance. It feels shivery and strange and unlike anything else he's ever experienced, like he's finally feeling with every sense that he has, like nothing is cut off or excluded. In some ways, for Charles it's like touching for the first time. He laughs quietly, overwhelmed and shaky, clinging with every limb as he tries to swallow down his tears. _I can show you more? You're not..._ Afraid, or overwhelmed, or confused. It's almost too much, but it isn't quite. He lets himself sink, and sink, and sink, into the sensation, into Erik, into subspace, relieved and dizzy with it. Perhaps if the final product of his mutation is that it makes Erik smile like that, it's worth all the trouble. He ducks his head shyly, sniffing, and returns the smile, soft and dimpled. _I'm frightened,_ he admits. It's quiet, less an immediate feeling and more of an ache he can't fully rid himself of. But he wants to share that with Erik, too, because they're stronger when neither of them hide. It's how they'll get through everything.  
  
 _More_ , Erik whispers back, effervescent and amazed. _More, please._ Not afraid, not overwhelmed, not confused. For the first time since they landed here he feels real joy again; he's forgotten what it's like, it's been shadowed by ear and panic and torture and guilt and pain, and since heading to this office it's been ramped up to a level completely impossible to withstand and Erik has withstood it, his mind a playground of fractured facets and storms and dismay, everything ran wild. The surface overturned. But right now he's just plain happy, next to Charles and watching his mutation unfold for him, for Erik. Another thing that belongs to him. Another beautiful, incredible facet of his submissive that he is privy to.  
  
Charles bites his lip to stifle another round of giggles, embarrassed and delighted and terribly pleased despite himself, hiding in Erik's chest. No more! he protests, though he knows he can, that there is. More than even he knows. He's shy about it, incredibly so, so he shakes his head but raises his hand, patting Erik on the chest with it, imploring. _Fix?_ he asks, quietly, and his cheeks are dusted pink, visible even in this dark-place as he attempts to hide it. But Erik always knows, and there's not an inch of this space that isn't coated in Erik's Will. He hopes maybe he can inhale enough of it that it will still be in his lungs when this break he's afforded them ends.

* * *

 _Fix?_ Erik brushes two fingers over Charles's cheek, relishing the color bloomed across it.  
  
 _Fix!_ he insists, and now he's grinning softly, because he knows very well that he isn't being clear enough, that he has every ability to get across what he wants but he's playing a bit. Playing because they have the right to, because they have the space to, because even in dark places and government buildings where horrors peek out of every corner and crevice, there's room for this. Charles will always make certain there's room for this, that Erik is never lost, and neither is he. _Fix, fix, fix,_ he demands, intentionally using his bossiest tone, patting at Erik's chest, sending insistent little nudges each time.  
  
 _Fix this?_ he pokes Charles in the side. _Fix, fix, fix! poke, poke, poke!_ and he tickles under Charles's chin for good measure. This is what Charles deserves, Erik thinks. Not sadness and uncertainty and terror, just this. And as it's turning out, even at Erik's least stable, he can take the time to give it. And that means something, it gives him the confidence to think that maybe they can get through this, maybe he can be what he needs to be, no matter how he is. After all, every part of him instinctively knows that Charles belongs to him. This is where he belongs.  
  
This is what Erik deserves, too. Charles squirms and laughs, wiggling as much as he's able when he's held tightly in Erik's arms, which is exactly where he's supposed to be. Exactly where he belongs, in the arms of who he belongs to. He shakes his head and lifts his hand up, then takes Erik's in his other, wrapping it around his wrist. The golden strands he'd fussed with before are there, the ones he'd wrapped over and over to get it right, to find Erik's Will and bind himself properly, but he just couldn't. He needs Erik for that, because as much as he can approximate, that much would be an illusion. That's not his to dictate or control, and it hadn't felt entirely right to bind himself with anything else, either, because that's also not his decision. It's Erik's. Always Erik's. _Fix?_ he asks, biting his lip, cheeks splotched redder as he squirms about. If he can dodge admitting how grounded and safe being bound in any way makes him feel, he will, because that's embarrassing. _Please?_  
  
The strands unravel and immediately refasten all the way up Charles's arm, then over his shoulders, down his neck, down his other arm and his torso until his whole body is wrapped up safe and sound, the sensation of electricity where the bindings touch any available surface of skin and buzzing under his clothes. _Fix_ , he grins, and everything tightens up all at once, leaving Charles helpless in his arms, tightly bound. This is where he belongs, where there is no denying who he belongs to.  
  
Charles sighs in immediate relief, squirming for only a moment more to test out how much give he has (not much at all) and then relaxing completely in Erik's arms, soft and purring. It's exactly what he'd been aiming for and Erik had given him without him needing to ask, but he rather thinks it's what he wanted, too. He smiles, cheeks still heated as he tucks himself into Erik's chest where he belongs. "Is this what you'd like, then?" he teases. "Have me go about all bound for you? Wearing a corset, tied up underneath my clothes?" His own words make him shiver, because - well. He doesn't think he'd complain much. Unless he was feeling particularly stroppy, and that'd be all the more reason for Erik to do it. And he's definitely wanted, but that doesn't mean he's been capable of suggesting, let alone asking for it outright.  
  
" _Ken_ ," Erik grins back, not even remotely embarrassed about it. "You should always be dressed that way. It would make these meetings much more interesting." Erik winks at him, lips pursed to hide the amused laugh threatening to bubble over. He feels light, for some reason, like he's floating-and they are-they're both floating a few inches off the floor, with Charles held tightly in Erik's arms and balanced right on his feet.  
  
"You'd like that," he accuses, and shivers again, because he would, too, and they both know it by the look in his eyes, the way he burrows closer and sighs, electricity sparking all the way to his toes. There's still so much more, new ways to belong and submit, and every time he thinks perhaps they'll have reached the end of it, he's tugged further under, finds something new to desire and wonder at. In the grand scheme, they've really only scratched the surface of everything. This isn't the ending. It's hardly even the beginning. "Hmm," he whispers, and blinks. "Erik?"  
  
"Yes, _neshama_?" Erik's eyebrows creep up.  
  
"English," he murmurs, and knows Erik will know what he means because they're so intertwined they may as well be one being. He raises his own eyebrow, lips pursed curiously. "Why?" He'd started speaking almost entirely in Hebrew the day before, but now he's defaulting again. There's nothing wrong with it, obviously, but... Charles misses the sound of it a little, if he's honest. He smiles shyly, ducking back into Erik's chest. It's comforting, hearing it. It sounds nice. He likes it.

* * *

Erik smiles, and shrugs. Unless he's specifically asked he usually does speak English, but since Charles had begun speaking Hebrew he'd followed suit-but now that Charles spoke English again, Erik changed with him. He doesn't know the answer consciously, but it's easy enough to figure out. Erik still isn't completely confident in speaking automatically, even in Israel he'll usually speak in English unless someone addresses him in Hebrew first, and this is the first time he's been made aware of that habit and he presses his lips together, shaking his head. " _Ani yachol medaber ivrit, rak le'atah,_ " he corrects this oversight promptly.  
  
Charles lights up immediately, peeking from his spot in Erik's chest to beam. He can't put words to exactly why, but he loves when Erik speaks the language that, even after all those years of being conditioned otherwise, comes most naturally to him. It's because of that, partly. It's also because it falls off his tongue beautifully, and though he adores the way words sound when his Dominant speaks English, especially when his accent becomes heavier because he lets it slip, too deeply affected, this is its own unique, delightful thrill. Knowing he understands, that he's learned and continues to study even outside of his internal translator makes it even better. He loves Erik's language because it's a part of him, and so Charles sighs happily, bound and relaxed. _More, please._ Erik's voice is his absolute favorite sound and he's greedy for it.  
  
And Erik gives him more, reciting some poetry he remembers and singing folk tunes. They float up even higher, heads brushing the ceiling, and Erik gives him a sheepish look when he realizes it and they begin to lower. The fact that him speaking his native language is pleasurable for Charles sparks a deep, burning ember in the center of his chest and he kisses Charles along the jaw, right near his latest mark just under Charles's collar. " _Ani ohev otcha me'od_ ," he murmurs fondly. "My favorite thing to say."

* * *

Everyone else has begun to filter back into the room, with the glaring exception of that one lawyer who has proven to be utterly useless to this meeting and has instead found himself in the midst of a family emergency. How unfortunate. Charles tries very hard not to cry as Erik speaks to the children as they file back in, a hand over his mouth as he takes slow, even breaths. The older children are going to be speaking soon, and he's sure that will come with its own difficulties and challenges, but they can manage it. The children, but him and Erik, too, helping as they should. Everyone has gotten a break, fortunately; they've breathed, had water, chatted among themselves, reconvened. The youngest of them are off and free, no longer stuffed into this awful room. He catches Tel's gaze, gesturing to his oversore temples with a tiny grin. _Ping me,_ he's saying, and he makes it known to all of them, wrapping them all up in affection entirely unconsciously, the mental equivalent of Erik's squeezes. No one is going to leave this room today anything but in tact. He's going to make sure of it.  
  
Tel grins back, shaking her head. She won't need it-at least, that's what she's told herself, but it's likely she may recant that at a later time once the spotlight turns to her. So far so good, though. She floats between kids, straightening them up and making sure everyone's doing all right, interfacing between them and the adults around them seamlessly.  
  
Ellie has taken over care of the youngest ones who are now gone and they'll head somewhere where they can put this day out of their minds. The rest, the day is just beginning. And all of this is only the beginning, the Prosecutor wants to meet with Erik specifically at the Hague along with Carmen to go over the bulk of his testimony so Gertrude has no real plans to get into details with him here, although she does have some baseline facts to get sorted and given that everyone's looking to him she decides to start there. "So, it looks like you're pretty central to a lot of this," she gives him a small smile.  
  
He nods and folds himself even closer to Charles as she begins to ask some preliminary questions of him.  
  
"And you were there when everyone arrived, then," she writes in her notebook. "You were affiliated with the _Hellfire Club_ from a young age. Now, part of my job here is to determine the level of damages caused by a given perpetrators actions, so I'm going to ask a few questions that might be hard to hear. Do you think you're up for it?"  
  
No. He nods, but no.  
  
Perhaps he doesn't feel up to it, but Charles highly doubts there would ever be a time he is. He's taken up residence in his lap, projected-Charles watching from across the table but actual Charles is wrapped all around him, body and mind, still intricately, tightly bound in Will, strands that have become very much Real with their combined effort. Though actual rope has its advantages, what he's finding about this is that if he tugs at it to feel, to remind himself of his place, Erik feels it every time, it tugs right at him, too, and it's very convenient and more than comforting. _I'm right here, darling,_ he reminds, giving a particularly spirited tug at his wrists. There's no real give at all, and he smiles into Erik's neck despite the dread in his own stomach. _I'm here and I belong to you._  
  
"During your testimony at your own trial where you're being still indicted for aggravated self-defense, you testified that you'd been subjected to long-term, repetitive abuse. Everything we have on our end, every report, every expert witness, would attest that is true. The hard part comes in trying to quantify howmuch was done. Over the course of sixteen years, would you be able to give an estimate figure as to how many times you were involved in non-consensual sexual activity?"  
  
Erik blinks and shakes his head. _I don't_ \- he clears his throat. _Maybe ten times?_ Judging by everyone's reaction, which encompasses varying degrees of disbelief and skepticism, that is obviously not the correct answer. Erik twitches and burrows closer to Charles. Don't understand question.  
  
Charles tries very hard not to tremble, his throat bobbing with the awful lump in it, but he won't cry. Not now when Erik needs him to be strong, so he brushes his mind, carefully and gently, stroking his hair at the same time. He knows the answer. The question is almost fundamentally flawed, but he's heard it in situations just like this, enough to know where the problem might be, even on top of knowing Erik better than anyone in this room. "How many times do you think you engaged in sexual activity of any kind in the last sixteen years?" he asks quietly, clearing his throat. He obviously doesn't mean recently, and it's a lead up question, veiled with professionalism.  
  
Erik tilts his head and tries to do the math. This he can answer, because math and physics come very easily to him and Charles watches his brain plug in all the numbers. On average anywhere from three to ten times per day, often more and often for multiple days at a time-but giving a base estimate... that gives 3650, which ends up with about... _Fifty eight thousand times?_ That doesn't seem right. The lawyers and Gertrude both are doing their best to maintain professionalism, while the kids don't look particularly shocked, Tel and Kurt press closer to him in the Real next to Charles, offering comfort of their own.  
  
Close to his estimate. Charles has never been more thankful for his telepathy than now, when he can safely duck into Erik and remind himself to breathe. In the projection, he gives Gertrude a silent, gentle look. He might not be a lawyer, but this isn't a courtroom, and they can ask their follow up questions. They can try, anyway, with Charles fiercely protective. "Just for clarity," he whispers, though his projected voice is louder, still hushed but not shaking, "What age did that make you when you first engaged?"  
  
Erik mumbles his answer even in their minds, hidden in Charles's chest. _I just turned eleven._ He wraps himself up underneath Charles's shirt, finding a blanket tucked away in the Real and bundling himself up into it. He cracks an eye up at Gertrude. _People always pay attention to me_. Hank has postulated that D5s have a certain kind of magnetism that draws people to them, that lowers their inhibitions. More than once it's happened that Charles has had to step in front of an overeager reporter making a pass at his Dominant. _If their inhibitions were lowered they could have done things they wouldn't have ordinarily done, and I initiated a lot of it. I don't think it's fair to say that. It's not fair.  
_  
Charles does. Charles thinks it's very fair, and his eyes well up with tears before he can stop them. He strokes Erik's hair, his back, amplifies the sensation of warmth and comfort from the blanket with a mental one, far more enveloping than fabric could ever hope to be. "How many times that you initiated," he says, and his voice cracks but he edits it out of everyone's minds except Erik's, who will hear it regardless, "Did you feel pressured or otherwise coerced in any way, and fear consequence if you did not? How many times did you feel it necessary to gain essentials like food, clothing, positive attention? How many times were you, yourself, under the influence of a substance of any kind?"  
  
 _I dunno_ , he mumbles back, shaking his head. Not every time. It wasn't every time. It wasn't. "Mm-mm. No, it's OK, it's OK," whispers to himself. That's just normal. It's fine, it was fine.   
  
It's not fine. It's not normal. Charles takes Erik's hand in his, petting him instead, and there's a wretched pit in his stomach that's worked its way up to his brain, churned up something violent, but it won't spill now. Not when Erik needs him. Either way the words don't come out of his throat, even when he pushes them, even when he focuses on his professional counterpart, the one who -How many times has Erik had sex with him because he thought it would make things better? Because Charles is a nasty, manipulative slut who wanted it enough that it overrode whatever sense of consent he still has? The chair screeches when he abruptly ejects himself from Erik's lap, but he doesn't run. He doesn't have anywhere to go, so he just stands there and trembles, trying not to be sick.

* * *

Erik curls right up into the corner of the wall, suddenly barren of any safety and he pulls his blanket up over his head, breathing hard and jamming his fingernails into his eyes as hard as he can because that's not the right question. No, it's not the same. They never hurt each other. It didn't feel like those other times. Maybe he doesn't have a healthy grasp of what consent means but he knows how he feels. He knows he felt safe and loved. He never felt like that at the _Hellfire Club._ He just felt humiliated and zoned out. After a while he got over the humiliation and he just forgot it existed at all.  
  
Submissives can rape Dominants. It's very rarely discussed, likely a matter of pride and humiliation, but it happens. He's positive it's happened to Erik, at some point. His own experience - but he doesn't want to think about that. It's not about him. It's not. He whimpers, ashamed and dizzy and he shouldn't be falling apart, absolutely not. He's supposed to be strong for Erik. But...It's enough to wreck him, everytime he thinks about it. That what he and Erik have is anything but healing for both of them. He can take everything else, but this always shatters him to pieces everytime it comes up. Charles squirms, wriggling even though through this he's still held safe in those strands of Will, still bound, but he starts to scratch at his arm anyway. What if he really is just a dirty - rotten -  
  
"No, stop, no," Erik says out loud, the Order reverberating through the room. He splays his fingers over Charles's face. No. He doesn't want to hear it. He never wants to hear it again. He can't scratch and he can't squirm because every strand of Will that exists has redoubled its efforts keeping him safe and where he belongs, next to Erik.  
  
Charles' lip trembles. He's worked so hard to keep this from spilling out, to shove it down and down and down but all this time he really thinks Erik has had it backwards. He's the bad one. Even his father knew it. Why wouldn't he hurt Erik? His very existence hurts people. His mind is deadly and wrong, a horrible disease, and every day - every second - everyone who has ever hurt him, they were right, they were fundamentally right, whereas Erik...He sucks in a breath and shakes his head, trying to shove it down. He's sorry. He's sorry, and he should be. This isn't about him, it was never about him, and he's sorry and he'll be better.  
  
He brushes Charles's cheek with his fingertips over and over. Charles doesn't hurt Erik. He is kind, he keeps Erik safe, he helps and serves and makes Erik happy. His abilities and his mind bring him unparalleled delight, and Erik would shatter into a million pieces of he had to exist on his own, without Charles. They do not hurt each other. They only love each other, and help. Erik doesn't know a lot of things, but he does know that.  
  
Tears finally slip down Charles' cheek and he chokes on them, a low, pathetic noise through his teeth as he fights to gain control back. He needs to do better, but how can he when -What if you only think that because I made you? he asks, smaller than he's ever been. What if I'm even worse?  
  
Erik shakes his head and leans up to kiss Charles's cheek and feather fingertips over his collar. _Lo yachol, neshama. You didn't. I know the difference._  
  
Charles shakes his head, closing his eyes as tightly as he possibly can even though it squeezes more tears out. _Do you?_  
  
Erik nods. He knows what it feels like to be telepathically interfered with, to lose large chunks of time being made to say and think things that aren't how he really feels, what it's like when your own feelings are mixed together with other people's so that you can't untangle which is which, the disorientation and terror that comes from being locked inside your own consciousness. And even if Charles could do all of that, implant thoughts and make him into a completely separate person, if he values Erik in any way, he couldn't do that without leaving tidbits of Erik's consciousness behind, and that means that he would exist, in very small spaces, as himself and that overall sensation, that feeling of wrongness, would be here. It's not. And besides, neither of them know the full extent of Erik's telepathic aptitude anyway. But one thing Charles does know is that Erik would, at the very least, be capable of repelling a telepathic intrusion especially from Charles. But Charles isn't an intrusion, he is a joy, and Erik knows the difference. _Short of changing me into a completely different person, you can't completely eliminate someone's consciousness without making them a vegetable. You know in the small spaces. You know, neshama._  
  
Charles is fairly positive he can, actually, because that just isn't true. He's even sure he could do it to Erik, telepathic aptitude and nulling abilities or not, if he eliminated Erik entirely, changed him so completely he no longer existed as the same person. They would not be having this conversation if that were the case. But he shakes his head, miserable, because that's not what he meant.  
  
Erik taps him on the nose. _What you mean? Tell me._ The Order makes all the bindings shiver and contract in joy.  
  
But Charles' face screws up in agony, sick and spinning, and he does his absolute best to squirm out of Erik's grip, out of the bindings, out of his own body and especially the mind attached to it, filthy and wrong. _You defend him sometimes, too. When you were - when you were young, you said..._ That he loved him. Of course that wasn't real. It's not jealousy Charles is feeling, that would be just as ridiculous as it is revolting. It's terror. _What if you've convinced yourself it's different when it isn't? What if every time we -_ He shakes his head, choking again.

* * *

Erik shakes his head. _I thought I loved him for a long time. He treated me special, I thought he cared about me. But it_ \- it was just survival. It was just survival. He didn't love Shaw. He didn't love fucking those men. He did it because it was expected of him, because he was supposed to be submissive, and sometimes people were nice to him and he didn't mind those people so much. Charles never made him beg. Charles never put a gun to his head. He never made Erik feel scared. He never pinned Erik down and fucked him until he couldn't walk. He always stops any time Erik floats a little far away. And he touches and grounds him and they talk. It's love. Erik never wants to hear any part of their relationship relegated to rape again. Maybe Erik can't write an academic dissertation on the subject but he knows the difference. He knows that Charles has never once coerced him or made him feel humiliated or terrified, he's never felt wrong and bad afterward. He's felt life, and light, and joy. And he-and Charles-Charles-he isn't just-Erik isn't forcing him? Erik isn't making him too? He lowered the _Hellfire Club_ inhibitions.  
  
What if he made Charles. Ordered Charles into it. What if Charles is his victim, just like all those children. Erik's face wobbles and-some memories are like being struck, blow after blow to the face, to the gut-Mr. Ivanov yelling at him, feet stalking down the corridor, spitting vulgarities he can't comprehend, bringing up-her eyes, lifeless, watching. Insults, disgusting- _she already knows_ -sick, sick-he's on his knees, hands behind his back at Hellfire's version of Rest. He folds up into a prostrated version with his head touching the floor, curled into a little ball.  
  
He doesn't manage not to sob. He can't help it, but he does get on his knees right beside Erik, he does wiggle his way into his orbit, he does rub himself up against him, nuzzle in close, making soft, quiet noises he wants to be comforting. It's not manipulation when he tugs Erik's mind closer to his and wraps it up in himself, when he covers him with Charles instead, head to toe, sight and smell and sound, with their laughter and how it feels when their limbs are tangled up together, how they hold each other, touch and kiss, how Erik tells him stories, makes him feel safe and grounded and loved, how it doesn't matter how or when or where - never wrong, or nasty, or terrifying. Never mindless, or empty. Not for either of them, and Charles knows, too. For years and years he convinced himself he didn't but he does, because he was a submissive and he was treated as such. "You don't hurt me," he gasps, and tugs and tugs and tugs at his bindings so Erik can feel them, because he'd asked for them and not because Erik coerced him. Reaches for Erik's hand and brings it up to his collar, because he'd asked for that, too. Got down just like this and not because he'd been asked and not because he had to and not because Erik made him. Because he wanted it. Because he needed it. Because it's right with the two of them. Erik isn't with any of those men. He's with Charles and Charles loves him. He does.  
  
All the children come in for a pile-on of cuddles as well, each bringing blankets from every corner of the room they can find that's hidden by Erik but they can find his secret-blankets and everybody wraps him up, even when everything inside of him is loud and messy and gross. "It's OK kill me, please kill me, please, I deserve to die-"  
  
"We have those tapes," Gertrude murmurs softly. "These are going to be played during the trial for the Prosecution, however I've negotiated that only those who need to see them will be present, in private chambers. That's you," she points at Charles. "Erik, me, the Prosecutor and the Defense lawyer. We managed to seize a great number of _Hellfire_ assets before they were summarily destroyed, and we've got those tapes. Every last one of them. He didn't get to them in time. Now, Janos and Carmen and the other ten judges will be present in this in camera chamber at the _Hague_. No one else needs to see them and no one ever will. But I promise you, Erik, that what is on those tapes is _not_ consensual. To you, to them, to any participant."  
  
She's pointing in the wrong place, of course, and the world is topsy-turvy enough that he's disoriented by it, because he's not seeing what he should be. Everyone else is, but the world isn't settling and everything hurts something awful, his head is - he shakes it to clear it, but it doesn't work. He shuts his eyes and still feels dizzy. Charles has already lived every moment of those tapes so it doesn't matter what's on them but he doesn't want Erik to - he's supposed to be strong, to keep everyone together. What is wrong with him? His breathing is harsh and shaky but he stays stuck to Erik, utterly useless.  
  
Erik shakes his head, too, and issues a correction that both of them will absolutely not be in that room or he'll erase all of it and they can have a great trial without it. Maybe he'll erase it all from here, now. That sounds like a much better idea and he stretches out his senses, slithering them along the cables under the ocean toward the Netherlands with startling alacrity.

* * *

There's something in the Netherlands he'd much rather erase. Unwind, unravel, utterly destroy, and it's not a very Charles-like instinct. The one that follows is. He taps Erik's hand, just a gentle, single tap, no words but a plea for attention and acknowledgment all the same. It's a tap in every sense, but especially the mind, a little notice me! that subtly, softly redirects Erik's every thought in a single motion.  
  
Erik blinks and looks up at him, still tucked away safe where he'd forced himself in to nuzzle and nothing nowhere could possibly prevent him from staying right here in his spot where he belongs with Charles tied up in his Will, and he pets Charles's chest, smoothing out wrinkles gently and carefully and finding some bare skin under his shirt to comfort himself with. He's still got a blanket over his ears and it's over his head, so he peaks out from under it like a hat.  
  
Someone is talking again. It sounds like garbled, complete nonsense, like it's coming through several underwater tunnels and then screeched into a faulty microphone and Charles winces, unsettled and uncomfortable and covering his ears with his hands even though that's not the problem. But he has Erik's attention, and he's still bound up in his Will, and nothing's being destroyed so he bites his lip hard and tries to wiggle closer. He tugs at Erik's blanket, but not to pull it away, just to get underneath, too, like a secret fort. Probably wildly inappropriate, but he honestly doesn't think he could care less and no one can see anyway. Very secret. Let Projected-Charles be prim and professional. Actual Charles is too busy giving Erik another tentative tap, shaky and seeking, more of a question than a demand, a tiny _look at me?_  
  
Erik does, his features still twisted up in frustration that these things exist outside of them and while the rest of his attention is completely on Charles, on petting him and keeping him company and comforting him and being comforted by him, the rest is sinking under the Atlantic ocean, looking for its target on autopilot. _Hi_ , Erik whispers to his secret-companion, letting him look under the ocean, too. It's safe and dark and calm here.  
  
Charles gives him another tap, frowning. He makes it darker under the blanket, just a little bit, quieter and less jagged, and it really does sound like they're at the bottom of the ocean, everything else gurgled and strange even if part of Charles is listening. He shakes his head. _No, no targets. Only me. Tap, tap, tap._  
  
It's out there. It's threatening them. Threatening him. Doesn't want it to exist. Everybody should just go home and forget this exists. Forget, forget. Erik can destroy everyone and everything and then they can go live in Canada in an igloo. He burrows closer, embarrassed and disgusted by his own weakness. No more, no more. No more tapes, no more trial, no more people. Just them.  
  
It would be simpler. But Charles shakes his head, heart heavy as he strokes Erik's cheeks, wipes away each of those tears and kisses them, tasting salt and absorbing agony. Erik doesn't actually want that, and Charles would never be able to live with it. He'd never be happy, they'd never have peace. It hurts, and it's not going to hurt, but they'll hold each other through it. Find dark, warm spots in the universe. When he pats at Erik's cheek, tears clinging to his own eyelashes, it's insistent this time. Come back, please? Come back? Erik isn't weak. He's brilliant, and Charles will take care of him. Trust me?  
  
 _Sorry made things bad, ruined stuff, ughh_ , the last bit comes out a low, pained groan under his breath muted by the blanket they're sharing. _Sorry, everything's hard,_ he murmurs, shuffling to press his head against Charles's chest. _Love you_.  
  
Charles just nuzzles in closer, shifting as much as he can to accommodate. He strokes Erik's hair to calm himself, sniffling and fussing with the curls. Maybe he'll learn how to cut hair. Then he can cut Erik's hair, too, and he'll be pleased with Charles like he is when he helps him shave. He tugs on those bindings, self-soothing. _I know, darling,_ he whispers back. _You didn't make things bad. We're okay. Ohev otcha. Stay with me, yeah? Nothing's ruined_. It's still difficult to hear anything without it distorting terribly, screeching in his brain in blaring, uncomfortably loud echoes, but he can manage that if Erik is with him.  
  
Erik is ignoring everything that's happening outside their little bubble, despite Gertrude and the lawyers trying to ask him questions, he just shakes his head and hides. He's definitely not doing very well. They eventually move onto the kids who all do very well, and they were the ones that Erik was initially concerned about, but it turns out that even a few questions to him has everything derailed and he sighs. How are they supposed to conduct this trial when he can't even handle Ms. Yorkes asking him something simple, how could he possibly face Mr. Shaw on the other side of the stand? It's not going to work out. This isn't going to end well, and Erik is going to let everyone down.  
  
Charles shakes his head, nudging at Erik both mentally and physically, insistent but gentle. He wraps himself entirely around his Dominant, sniffling quietly. _It wasn't you,_ he whispers, and suddenly it's sweltering hot underneath their blanket, uncomfortable and sickening because he's ashamed and the world is shifting to his perception. _It was me. You were doing wonderfully, and I - it was me._ It's always him, as it turns out. He'd wanted to help and all he'd done was make more trouble. Some submissive.  
  
Headshake, headshake. Erik's still lying on the floor, but his hands have come up around Charles's hips and he's resting his head in his lap, curled up with Charles's feet wrapped around him and arms over his back, hidden by a blanket and doing his best to breathe and forget he exists. The kids are in alternate states of concern and horror, because it's honestly the first time they've ever seen him crack like that and they don't know what to do when he's not the one responsible for them, an impenetrable shield in front of them.  
  
 _No, stop,_ he whispers, rubbing his hand under Charles's shirt to feel skin. It glows warmth under his touch, tendrils of Will seeping out of him and binding Charles up even closer. _I don't know what happened,_ Erik admits, his memories hazy. The next thing he knew he was on the ground, and nothing Charles could have done would have prevented it. It's inevitable. Erik's broken, he's fundamentally broken and he'll always be broken.  
  
Charles shakes his head, wriggling in his hold immediately. _No_ , he says, and it's firm and adamant and he's very close to breaking off, too, but he's going to keep it together. He's going to keep it together even though it feels like his head is exploding and his skin is crawling and melting off and his eyes are stubbornly closed. If he opens them, he'll vomit. _It was my fault. I did it. I made it worse. You were fine and I made it worse and I won't let you say you're broken because you're not. You're not so please stop saying it,_ he begs.  
  
That is most certainly not how Erik remembers it, nor will he permit Charles to take responsibility for his actions. _No, you were right,_ he croaks for the first time in a while, a fully coherent sentence like a fresh leaf sprig from tilled soil. _I don't know why I defend him._ The man took everything from him, but he was a demon with a congenial smile and he interchanged cruelty with kindness in unpredictable ways. Disobedience was punished, but nothing was worse than lack of fidelity, of loyalty. Erik had to be loyal because he had to operate without supervision. _I don't know. Sometimes I hate him and then I think I'm just ungrateful. I should go turn myself in and be punished properly and go back to where I belong. I don't fit in here sometimes. I fit in there._  
  
It's a tangled mess and Charles is right, what if Erik doesn't know the difference? What if he really can't love, and Charles is being held back by him because he's not even a real Dominant anyway, he should be serving the _Hellfire Club_ instead of trying to start a school; what _parent_ in their right mind would let their _kids_ be around him? The word's always in his mind, an unformed epithet from the darkest corners of his soul that hate themselves like knives, intrusive thoughts a thousand glass shards. Because Sebastian Shaw was cruel and sadistic and wanted to advance his own agenda, his own goal for the universe backed by his scientific experiments. He could punish, he could hit, he could torture, but why did he fuck Erik, too? That's one question that's never wrapped itself around Erik's consciousness all the way, the one thing that really puts a wrench in the brainwashing. He could've accomplished all of his goals without it, but he didn't. He didn't, neither did any of the _Hellfire_ members.  
  
And there's a word that describes people like that. And at the end of the day Erik's been infected by it, he's twisted up and he doesn't know right from wrong. He shudders in Charles's hold and tries to tuck everything back up where it belongs. _I'm sorry I don't act like I'm supposed to._

* * *

That thought process absolutely devastates him, and Charles curls in on himself, nails scratching at his skin, searching for what's crawling inside so he can dig it out. _No_ , he breathes, thankful he doesn't have to speak because his chest is tight and he's not breathing correctly. _No, I was wrong. You know. You know the difference. It's different,_ he insists, shaking his head. Over and over and over. _It's different. This is right. This is right, and that was wrong, and you know. You know. It's different. It's different because it's right, because we're right. It's -_ It's Charles who isn't acting the way he's supposed to. It's Charles who's broken. It's Charles who can't breathe, who's projecting shrieking, gnarled panic, pressing _DIFFERENT DIFFERENT DIFFERENT_ in like it's the only thing he knows. Erik doesn't belong here? Charles doesn't belong? Where could Charles possibly - doesn't belong to Erik - they don't belong? He can't go back. He can't go back. He can't go back. He _CAN'T GO BACK_ -  
  
Erik just slithers up further and captures his hands, keeping them next to his chest. Erik doesn't know if he knows the difference but he does know that he's happy, and he was never happy before. There was always an edge of fear, there were never any safe places to relax and let the tension leave. He always had to put on a show, to smile and nod in the right places, to act the gracious host and excel at every task given. His thoughts were no refuge, under constant barrage from foreign intruders, he wore his body like a mangy rag, flesh over pointed sticks of bone. He had no voice, no purpose other than what was demanded from him, taken from him systematically like arches and scaffolding to a collapsed building.  
  
And Charles knows, too, he's heard the thoughts of monsters and tried to appease them to no avail and he tries to defend them, too, because when you're that young your brain can't conceptualize an adult telling you that you are _bad_ , that you are at fault. When every avenue of control is taken from you the only thing you can do is assume responsibility for the world itself. Erik doesn't fit in with this world, but the one place he's ever belonged is with Charles. He cannot imagine existing without Charles, he cannot imagine ever being happy alone. What is broken they'll put together again, or they'll make something new to fill in the space. Erik is happy, and he loves Charles, and he won't let anything get in the way of that. Charles belongs to him. There is one brilliant, glorious light in the universe and it's his, words like good and bad and weak and strong are meaningless, Erik doesn't care about any of it. Charles is his, and he is good for Erik, and that's all that matters.  
  
Charles flails, and he pushes out but he can't hurt Erik, no part of him would ever allow for that, but his mind is - it's too much, it's too much, a chair slams backwards and the part of the table separated off from the rest screeches as it hurls itself toward the wall, jerking and unsteady and screeching, and everyone startles because he can't, he can't, he can't breathe he can't go back he'd rather die he'd rather stop breathing he can't breathe, he can't - _CAN'T GO BACK_ \- the world is vibrating and splitting and half now and half then and half there and half here and he can't breathe, _I can't breathe am I dying? Am I dying? Is this it? Did it work?_  
  
 _Stop it stop this now stop it_ Erik's rising to his feet in a fluid motion and trapping Charles at his side. Everything that hovers and moves at all abruptly slams back down, locked in place for the world is his domain and he rules over it accordingly. This is _finished_ and they are _leaving_ and Erik is never coming back, this whole thing is _over with_ right now. He grabs Charles by the hand and abruptly stalks out of the room with his submissive in tow, leaving behind twelve very confused children and their lawyers.  
  
As soon as they're outside Erik launches them into the air and they soar away, to many on the ground that gawp and point at the sky where they hurtle toward the sun.

* * *

 _No! No no no no no -_ Charles tries to twist but there's no give, he tries to struggle, there are tears in his eyes and something is wrong, he's - screeching, grinding, crushing - _did you miss me?_ He knows not to hurt Erik, but his body flails anyway, he screams and shoves out with his mind, everything hot and crawling and distinctly painful, shrieking, disintegrating agony, every line of his body a hard, firm no. _No! No, no, no, I can't - go back -_  
  
It doesn't matter because there's nowhere to go, and Erik locks him down so that he doesn't hurt himself. "Stop it," Erik Orders, features pulled into a glower. He's agitated beyond all comprehension and he's two seconds away from tearing down another building, his mind a spitting, cursing kiln firing off sparks at a thousand degrees Celsius. He isn't angry with Charles, but he is frustrated at this entire fucking debacle and sick and tired of his life being on display for lawyers to pick and poke and prod and look at like they're entitled to it, he is sick of dragging out every inch of his miserable fucking existence that only rakes Charles over the coals more and more for it and so he's decided as of right now that he is absolutely finished with it; and the more firestorm anger brims under his surface the louder, more electric his Will becomes unsettling every hair in Charles's body, Orders delivered like lighting strikes that fizzle down into the Earth's molten core. "Settle down. You aren't going anywhere."  
  
Charles couldn't possibly be more unsettled than he already is, and he stops struggling but sobs instead, not pushing or flailing or screaming but twisting, squirming, shaking his head. "No, no, let go, let go, let go, let go, let - no, no, no, no, no," he whimpers, reaching up to tug at his hair. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no..."  
  
It turns out he can't! All of those strands of Will that have him bound tighten up entirely, trapping his hands at his sides. There's nowhere to go and nowhere to run because Charles belongs to Erik and that's the end of it. Charles thinks Erik doesn't know the difference, well he does. Charles has his pause-word and Erik abides by it and Erik looks after him, and the insinuation that Charles is making a mockery of Erik's consent in return is so ridiculous Erik is struggling not to be genuinely offended by it. So they keep flying and keep soaring and keep moving until Charles's squirmy defiance burns off into the atmosphere, because there is nowhere to go and it's certainly not back anywhere that Erik doesn't exist.  
  
Charles doesn't calm. Maybe he goes limp in Erik's arms, maybe he settles, but he doesn't calm. He doesn't squirm or struggle and he breathes but only around trembling sobs, only around whimpers of genuine agony, and the world shifts every few moments, unsettled like the rest of him is, dizzying and disorienting and it's not a conscious decision, not a choice, so there's no way Erik could Order him to stop any more than he could Order his heart to stop beating. "N-No," he hiccups, and even Erik couldn't make this less nauseating.  
  
They soar for what feels like forever, with Erik struggling to get his raging mind under control, desperate and lonely and afraid but at the very least Charles is with him. He won't let anyone take him. They're Bonded. "Mine," he just keeps whispering, trying to block the blows of memory after memory that rain down on him like hail. "Mine, you're mine, you belong to me. No one else. Mine."  
  
That's true, but Charles shakes his head, his cheeks splotched red from crying, his eyes still shut as tight as possible, pained, and he can't quite catch his breath, choking on it. "No, no, p-please," he croaks.  
  
The buildings and apartments and the shore itself recede into the far distance and when they finally set down it's in the dust, miles and miles of desert stretching out in every direction and Erik swallows, looking at him. He doesn't want to belong to Erik? Maybe it's true and all of his worst fears have come to life and Charles has finally realized exactly what kind of monster Erik really is. Is that why he's fighting so hard to get away? Erik's still got Charles's hand gripped in his but instead of letting go he just tugs harder.  
  
Charles shakes his head even harder at that, and that hurts, and he sobs enough to wrack his entire body, sputtering and choking on his own spit and they're not really anywhere. It doesn't matter where Erik takes them, Charles' mind is exploding outward and everything is sick and trembling with him, vibrating and shrieking and crying, everything sounds wrong, distorted and strange and nauseatingly bright, or frighteningly dark, or too loud or too quiet or - he shakes his head as hard as he can, sending jangling, unsettled sensation, but he belongs to Erik. His collar and Erik's ring and ropes and Vows, a flurry of it, bursting out and in all at once. "N-Nooo," he hiccups again, desperate.  
  
It doesn't matter where they are as long as they aren't in that room because Erik was about fifty seconds away from disintegrating it and everyone inside of it. His mind begins to shore itself up the longer they're away and somewhere along the line Erik's pocketed a pack of cigarettes and he withdraws one, sticking it between his lips unlit as they walk down the sandy dunes. It's been years since he's had one but today feels like the day. All of Charles's battered thoughts ram into him at full speed and like always, Erik takes it, not flinching. Out, over, through the tips of his toes into the sand, and Erik works to feel less like a scared child and more tall, strong and implacable as he takes all of Charles's pain into himself and smooths it out the best he can, his own brain like a wrinkled up paper.

* * *

It's not going away. Erik isn't listening, and the world is crumbling and everything is wrong and there's no way to touch it or smooth it out and he plants his feet into the ground and refuses to move and Erik can Order him to walk or drag him but he's not moving himself. He can't breathe. He can't think. In a fit of desperation, of fear and pain and defiance, too, overwhelmed and angry, now, he focuses every single ounce of telekinetic control he's harnessed and flings the cigarette out of Erik's mouth. It falls harmlessly and it doesn't make him feel any better, just clenches his stomach when he sobs again.  
  
Erik plucks it out of the air before it hits the ground and ignites it with a snap of his fingers, surly. He clamps his hand on Charles's shoulder, a silent command to keep moving out of nothing more than that motionlessness threatens to shred him entirely apart. _Tell me_ , he Orders brusquely, an attempt to be calm against the raging waters. _I can't listen if you don't tell me._  
  
The motion is making Charles feel sicker, so there lies the problem. Part of the problem. He can't articulate the rest of it outside of no, outside of horrible screeching noises that sound suspiciously like slamming doors and bed springs and fear and raging, bursting agony, and he certainly can't talk around the gasping, desperate noises. Charles is the inconsolable one for once. He's the one breaking. He knows there's no way he'll win a battle of telekinetic-like abilities with Erik, just as ridiculous as the notion that Erik could out manuever him in telepathic ability, but he vibrates energy around the cigarette anyway, tugging just as uselessly as his struggling from before. Digging his heels in another way, petulant.  
  
Erik leads them to a tree that definitely isn't native to this landscape, a shaded area and he sits down, pulling Charles into his lap and letting him rest his head against his shoulder, taking a long dragging inhale on the smoke and letting the exhaled cloud form little shapes in the air. He bundles up the smell and carts it off before it can reach Charles; lest he disturb anyone else with his bad habit. He works on letting all of his own thoughts and feelings disappear, making room inside himself for Charles instead, working on tidying everything that's been blown over by storms to wrap him up in wide open spaces and a balm for the pain. All outward sounds disappear into the vacuum, no more slams and screeching and bangs. There's a river nearby that hums.  
  
It doesn't calm him. More than that, it doesn't work. He squirms instead, or at least he tries even when he can't, moves and vibrates and cries and slams mental doors, pulls them open just to bang them closed, and even if his physical body is held, there are Real, outward sensations of struggle and the river is clogged with bloody sheets.  
  
Erik shoves down every part of himself that has thinking, conscious direction and moves with Charles, as far as he has to go. It's never mattered how inconsolable or reactive Charles has gotten, Erik always follows him without hesitation, without blinking regardless of his own state. _I'm here. I've got you. I love you._  
  
Charles makes a low, absolutely agonized noise, more a gurgle than a sob, and shakes his head even though it does nothing but dizzy him. Then he grabs at all those thoughts and feelings, everything buried, every bit of folded, wrinkled paper, and he tugs. And tugs, and pulls, insistent, much, much more effective than telekinetic efforts, because if Erik won't listen then he'll fix it himself. He doesn't want to be dutifully comforted, held and cooed at while Erik sinks further away. He doesn't want to be followed. No, he gasps. No, no, no -  
  
 _Stop it,_ Erik swats his mental fingers away reproachfully, tightening his free arm around his knees as every one of those threads leads back to the underworld because he can't be a person and he's tired of drowning and he can't swim and Charles is hurting and he can't stop suffocating and what kind of human being does that make him, what kind of a person. It's not duty, it's his soul, it's being cried out to and he can't ignore it anymore than he can stop breathing himself but he can't be a person until he buries everything that needs burying. So he can be an adult, so he can be a proper Dominant instead of twisting himself into a disgusting spiral like he's been this entire time, if he weren't neglecting his submissive maybe Charles wouldn't be so unstable right now, it was true two days ago and it's true now. Every unraveled strand is his mind's voice screaming at him, contorted limbs and thick-veined hands over his mouth and the first time he thinks he remembers he heard Charles tell him I love you-in a place where it never should've been-stop it, "Stop it," he rasps aloud, too weak to be an Order. _Let me be here, just let me be here._  
  
Charles curls into himself, trembling and crying, struggles and squirms and ends up in his own knees, taking harsh, stuttered breaths, but he doesn't stop. He keeps pulling, and tugging, and unraveling, because he can't do anything else. Because he's useless, and all he's ever going to do is hurt. He never should have listened to Erik tell him he was good, that he could be a good submissive. He never should have believed him. Now it hurts more. Now it's ripping him to shreds. It was the one thing he was never very hopeful about and now he remembers why and he shakes his head, over and over. Erik's acting the way he's supposed to. It's Charles who's mucking everything up. It's Charles who completely, utterly failed, and he won't let Erik comfort him in the aftermath. He doesn't want it.  
  
His own meager capacity is like a child's fumbling hand in comparison, struggling to bat Charles away with no avail and he ends up in the fetal position, as wave after wave of sensory memory pummels into him. Someone is screaming and he thinks it might be him, an inhuman howl wrenched from deep within his chest entirely without volition and it burns, and he's struggling and he can't escape and his body is a monument to pain, but someone's touching his face from the other side of the world. Bodies aren't meant for this. The lights are too bright. Everyone knows he's going to die. _I love you, you're going to be OK. Who are you? Just stay with me. I love you. Don't leave me._ If it were a conscious application of ability Erik could never have done it, but his mind is aflame and he can't be alone again, he won't survive. He grasps back into Charles's tugging mental fingers and yanks as hard as he can, unraveling every shred that threatens to undo him and replacing it with a new weave. Brighter, from inside Erik's soul, from all the places that pain couldn't touch because Charles was there. It's never about what Charles wants, it never has been. It's what they both need, and it isn't up to Charles to determine if he's good for Erik. Erik is the Dominant, not the other way around, even like this. Even if he can't do anything more than this. Even if it will never be enough.  
  
Charles hadn't exactly been doing anything targeted or intricate anyway, helpless and desperate to at least do something. Erik might have telepathic abilities of his own, but they're meager in comparison, this is his domain; but Charles is the submissive, and in the end he yields, even in this. He's still lost in his knees, moaning in agony, but he scoots closer despite himself, burying his head in Erik's knee instead. He isn't good. He's bad. He was supposed to take care of Erik and he didn't. Erik should tell him he's bad and that he doesn't want him anymore and take his collar away. It's all ruined anyway. Charles couldn't make everything okay.  
  
Erik grapples onto him with everything he has, crying and terrified and weak and stripped away of every adult part of himself-all that shredding and ripping and rending Charles did took away every other piece until all that's left is that child in the dirty room playing with metal balls that weave over and under themselves along the floor. _Please don't go, he put the electricity inside me I think I died but you loved me back to life please don't go you're supposed to be mine I kept your house under my bed I didn't want you to see 'cuz they made videos too and I know you're hurting and I should have come save you but I'm stuck here they put them on the table and I cut and I'm not a human and you touched my face. I won't hurt you. I promise._

* * *

Charles hadn't ripped or shredded, he just hadn't let this part be buried. Even at its most unstable, even when it hurts and aches like the rest of him, his telepathy could never hurt Erik because Erik is right. It's not a foreign entity; it's Charles, and Charles loves Erik, and he belongs to Erik, and - he's not particularly adult now, either, if he's completely honest. He's not where he should be. He'd been bad and he'd gotten lost but it doesn't mean he wants to leave, he would never want to leave Erik. He just - he was supposed to - but he's crying, too, sniffling and small and pulled in tight and what he can do is be close, crawl into Erik's lap and bundle him up, everything about his mind blanketing and soft now even as he breaks, even as he sobs so loudly it burns in his lungs, wet and uncomfortable and he knows it's not comforting, he knows it's not good or strong and that Erik deserves better but he doesn't want him to decide he's not good enough. He doesn't want him to take his collar from him or make him go back. He doesn't want him to get rid of him. He wants to be kept, if not in a cage then in pretty rope and with his pretty collar and in Erik's arms. He's Erik's. Maybe neither of them are adult, maybe he's back in his own version of hell and the sheets are bloody and he's shaking head to toe, but he can be good. He can be good, he can. Please don't make him go back please don't get rid of him please just keep him he can't be alone either. He was all alone. He'll die. He'll do it for real this time. Please don't throw me away. _I'm sorry I was bad. I'm sorry I was bad, I'll be better I promise.  
_  
It's comforting to Erik because it's Charles, because their minds are in orbit and because it doesn't matter how broken or shattered or far away they go, they always come back here and whatever hell Charles is in Erik will follow him, he will, because he is Charles's Dominant because he loves Charles. He's always been real and he's always been good and Erik has always loved him. If Charles likes his collar it's because it is Charles, it's the only way he could think to express Charles and Charles loves it which means he has to love some part of himself because everything Erik makes for him and everything Erik does that Charles loves, is a product of how Erik sees Charles, they have to love some parts of one another or they could never love at all. And Erik loves himself for trying to be good to Charles. They're simple thoughts but he's right back down to mantras in the war zone while mortars fly overhead and people scream into the abyss. Erik loves his hands because they can touch Charles. And they don't hurt him because Erik is so, so, so careful, he's so careful he touches like touching a baby hummingbird, gentle strokes leaving no scratches or rough tugs or anything. He's careful, he can be careful. He can love Charles, he can, he'll do it so much Charles won't ever forget it. He'll never be able to doubt it. It doesn't matter about all of this stuff. Even if Charles was bad Erik would still love him and think he was good. Even if Charles ate people Erik would just politely decline. They could run away like Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter. But together. Together, please together. They're no good alone.  
  
Charles whimpers and shakes his head, but he doesn't try to get away. He wasn't really trying before, either. He doesn't need to be touched carefully, Erik can hold him firm and strong and handle him roughly and he'll love that, too. He needs it a lot of the time to keep him together and so he doesn't fall apart. He doesn't want to be bad, though. He doesn't want to be bad. He wants to be good. He wants to be good. He wants to be good. No one ever tells him he's any good and the only one who's ever made him feel like all of him, every single part, is good, like he can be good, and pleasing and belong is Erik. He wants to be good for him. Please just make him good. Please just help him be good. It's all he wants. He tried and he'd messed up and he's sorry please just make him good again. "Please," he croaks, and tries to get in closer, closer, closer, worming his way against Erik and crying harder when there's nowhere closer to go, pressing and pressing and pressing with his mind.  
  
Erik pets him nicely anyway, because he can't fathom being rough right now. All he wants is every part of Charles, and being without any piece of him feels like death. It's dying, it's every memory he's ever had of his body strung out on tuning-forks of electric agony and no one to put their hand on his face and tell him he is loved. It's every memory alone, it's retroactive erasure of every goodness he's ever known, woven throughout his life unknowingly by Charles until it culminated in this, in these twin orbits. Erik makes Charles feel good because he is good, because he is good for Erik and that's the only thing on this universal plane that he cares about, so call him selfish. He stays and he tries to keep his mind soft for Erik who is all shards and screaming, even like this, Charles is good and all Erik wants is to be good back. A good person, a good Dominant to Charles. It's the only reason he has to exist at all. Charles is the only one who has ever seen these evil, twisted pieces of him without instant recoil. And sometimes he does good and he helps and he takes care of Charles and that is the only good thing he conceivably knows at all.  
  
He is good. He's perfect. The best Dominant, his Dominant. He makes Charles good and takes care of him and stays with him so he's not alone. He exists for way more than Charles, but he helps Charles be good and keeps him and loves him and gives him someone to belong to and with and he's selfish, too, because he couldn't live without that. Not after having it right in front of him. Charles whines, loud and wounded and distressed, because he can't get closer no matter how hard he tries, because he's rubbing and nudging and there's nowhere closer to go and his mind has wrapped its way around and around and around Erik's, soft and accepting, taking all those sharp memories and gentling them out but he wants more. He pats helplessly at Erik's face, touching him, hot and achy and sick and he can't settle. "Erik," he sniffles.  
  
Erik shudders, and he winds up sliding his hands up Charles's shirt to feel bare skin because that's the only thing that makes him feel like he can even take a breath. "Don't go 'way," he croaks, hoarse as though he'd been screaming at the top of his lungs, a stark contrast to what feels like moments ago when he was laid out face first on the floor desperate for everyone to go away-geh weg bitte hör auf over and over hands clapped against his ears, an impulse he never remembers having until it tugs him under like a tidal wave. Erik is bad because he wanted it because he doesn't know the difference doesn't know doesn't know-but he did, he tried to run and he tried to fight and they made him drown without drowning and burned his insides and he was going to die, _why didn't I just die? Why did I do it?_ because someone touched his face and said _I love you, you're going to be OK._ And if that's gone, if Charles leaves, if he was alone then he is already dead and he can't be dead, he wants to live for the sound of that voice. "Don't go," he gasps.  
  
Charles wants to live, too. Someone's petting his hair and it feels nice and he thinks he'll stay alive, there are people he loves. He loves whoever is stroking his hair more than anyone in the world, and he listens when he tells him to be easy, to breathe, to get some sleep. He sniffles harder, his face a red, splotchy mess, covered in tears and snot and tries to fumble under Erik's shirt, needing the contact just as much. His hands are shaking too much and he feels like he's going to break if he doesn't - if Erik doesn't - he doesn't know, really. It feels like their Bonding, except different, not that kind of need but maybe the same, a bit? All he knows is that he's frustrated when he can't get the buttons open, lips trembling like he's going to burst into tears again. It's pathetic and he doesn't care, rubbing against Erik like an overeager, exceptionally needy creature. "Not going anywhere," he mumbles. "Promise. Please don't - don't... please keep me?" He'll be good. He promises.  
  
The buttons come undone easily as soon as Charles begins to struggle, Erik responding unconsciously to any perceived necessity. They're outside in the hot sun and he has Charles tugged close to him, and the tree and the shade aren't real and they fluctuate, parting to the Real as his shirt falls off of his shoulders and he wraps Charles up in his arms, empowered by the sun, by the desert and his natural habitat. His abilities feel the iron in the soil under their feet and the dust moves in vibration, and with a twitch Erik could rend open the Earth. Charles can feel the power level surging through him like nothing he's ever felt, and he's completely oblivious to it. Everything sways toward them, electricity sparkles in the atmosphere. "Keep you," he drops a kiss onto Charles's neck, over his collar, exhaling in relief when it's still there. He can still hear it sing.  
  
Everything Erik is safe and beautiful. He remembers, once, a long time ago and in a dream made hazy, that he'd watched in awe at all that power drawn up from this place, feeling it even when it wasn't Real. It's still absolutely brilliant, but all he can focus on is burying himself in Erik's skin, distressed and hurting, whining like some wounded animal. He's shaking like a leaf, but the skin-to-skin contact calms him, soothes him like sedation pumped straight into his veins. He rubs his cheek over and over Erik's chest, sniffling, listening to the Earth with Erik because that calms him, too. "We have to go back," he whispers, somehow shivering in the desert heat.  
  
"No, no," Erik whispers, creeping forward on his feet again like a predator. Finished. He's finished, it's done, he's never going back. He's going to fly away into the atmosphere with Charles at his side and they'll go found a new planet in the Landscape where no one will bother them and they can paint all the walls yellow and put plants in the windowsill and Erik will make him things every day and he will eat nice food and wear nice clothes and everyone else will disappear and leave them in peace, because they deserve peace and he doesn't want to go back there. He doesn't want to go back there and hear about how they're going to play those tapes in court for other human beings to see, to watch his kids cry and feel Charles crumble. He's done, they're leaving, the end.  
  
Charles sniffles, because at precisely this moment, shivering and needy, it doesn't sound like the worst idea in the world. He shakes his head anyway. "No," he rasps. "We have to go back, Erik." Running won't bring either of them peace.  
  
Erik grips him tighter, shaking his head. "Why?" he croaks softly.  
  
"Because we have a future together, an extraordinary one," he whispers, and he doesn't fight Erik's grip, completely unable to even fathom it. He rubs against him instead, soothing both of them, inhaling. "But not if we don't go back."  
  
"Don't wanna," Erik mumbles into Charles's hair. He thought his own trial for innocence was bad enough, but this is too much.

* * *

Charles knows. He kisses Erik's chest, nuzzles as close as he can possibly get, which still isn't close enough. At least it's better like this. "Not too much," he promises. "I'll be good for you, okay?" It's barely above a whisper. If they have each other, they can get through this. Anything, really.  
  
"Please don't go 'way," Erik finally looks around, and there's something familiar about the way the weeds sway in the desert's humid breeze, how the sand shifts slowly to gravel and as they walk further on, they begin to notice that there's sections blocked off by yellow tape, abandoned excavation pits and hollowed out housing foundations and the way the sun scatters rays through the sky.  
  
Charles already knew. Intuition, or through Erik, it doesn't matter. It hurts to open his eyes for more than a moment, but he stays pressed close to his Dominant, smoothing out his own reaction, not burying it but muting it way down. He'll be good. "I won't," he promises quietly. The world will wait for them. Back at that government building, time has stood still. They're not exactly frozen, but they might as well be, held so firmly in Charles' grip. Right now all that matters consciously is Erik, and he tries to swallow the rest of his tears. "Love you," he whispers, and twines it around Erik's entire being, wraps him in it like a blanket and softens his every thought with it, leaving room for Erik to feel but gentling it out. This land has seen enough violence, and they don't need to tear themselves apart here, too.  
  
Erik didn't know, is the thing, and the realization forces him forward, his feet moving on their own power before he has time to consciously understand what his body has determined before his consciousness did and he tugs Charles along after him, his long legs eating up the distance between where they were and where he's headed; a place at random. There are a few workers in light parkas with yellow Hebrew letters emblazoned on the back, and they try to stop Erik from entering the large area, but Erik ignores them completely and they find themselves unable to penetrate a large bubble shielding them, bouncing right off. Erik levitates over the crime scene tape and lands softly in the dirt, dropping to his knees and digging his fingers into it.  
  
It doesn't matter because Charles fixes it anyway without even looking at them, touching their minds with hardly any effort at all even through the wretched pain. Better that they don't notice these things. He follows and tries not to trip over his own legs, or throw up all over himself, dropping ungracefully to his knees beside Erik and keeping him blanketed up in love, in peace, in Charles. It's just as much for him as it is for his Dominant, and he keeps his eyes closed, shivering and staying by his side, silent and solemn.  
  
For the briefest of moments Erik likens himself to Achilles after the death of Patroclus, seized by the sudden urge to grip clumps of dirt and sunken ash from the earth and smear it over his skin. By the urge to drag up every obliterated bone and scream at it, admonish it for burning. _Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free./If you have to go, I will go with you/The memories come, and come. That is my mother's lyre,' I almost said. The words were in my mouth, and behind them others crowded close. 'That is my lyre.'_ Erik just smooths his hands over the ground, again and again, features cracked from stone.

* * *

Charles doesn't move. He doesn't hide or bury, because enough has been buried and burned and hidden here. He rests his head against Erik's arm, bowed down and silent, and keeps himself open instead. Not a Void for everything to pass in and through, but a gentle, quiet place for it to exist, to absorb it, enough space for every shrieking, screaming thought, for the crushing weight of grief, too big for a child's body. He won't let it crush him, and he certainly won't let it crush Erik. It's only after a few moments that he realizes something, and he takes a shaky, slow breath, softly nudging Erik's arm, and his mind, too. _Erik_ , he breathes, as if afraid to speak out loud.  
  
The ground under Erik's hands is familiar, he remembers it and it remembers his body, cheek smashed into the dirt, hands trapped over his head. This is where he is buried, the innocent part of his spirit crushed by the boot on his back and a sickening voice in his ear. Erik's shaking violently, pressed as close to Charles as he can possibly get and there are no thoughts in his mind. There is no shrieking or screaming; Erik is empty. He is stone, hollowed out. _Pray, L-rd/pray to us/we are near./Handled already, L-rd,/clawed and clawing as though/the body of each of us were/your body, L-rd./It was blood, it was/what you shed, L-rd./Das Blut und das Bild, das im Blut war, Herr./Bete, Herr./Wir sind nah._ Erik blinks down at Charles calmly. "Charles," he whispers back aloud. In this silent place his voice echoes a hundred and twenty voices, each one a light blown out.  
  
He isn't stone. He isn't hollow or empty. He certainly isn't buried. Perhaps something of him changed here and it can never be the same, but even that innocent part of his spirit didn't die. Innocence of evil, Charles is willing to concede, but nothing more. Even with Erik pushing him away he knew to help him stay alive, to protect all the parts of him he thought could no longer exist, and there are screaming and shrieking parts of him among the empty, hollowed out ones. Both of them are safe with Charles. All of him is safe. He takes another hitched breath. _I see..._ He sees. He doesn't think he can say it.  
  
Erik buries his head into Charles's shoulder, teeth clacking together in his head and he clenches his jaw hard to stop them grinding together, but it only jerks out into his limbs in sporadic convulsions. Most of the time Erik insists and prods and pokes, but right now he's not sure he wants to know what Charles sees, he's not sure he can handle having any thoughts at all much less specific thoughts about this place, these people, this time. Please don't tell him she's here. Please don't. Please. Please don't be here.  
  
Charles is trembling, too, but his mind stays open and welcoming, warm and gentle. He gets into the dirt with Erik in this place where he followed him around as a child and pouted when Erik got dirty, holds him and stays close. He doesn't say it, because he doesn't need to. He's starting to think there's something to it, something he doesn't understand and certainly can't explain, something linked to the way he experiences and sees and hears the world; but those things, those ponderings, they don't matter right now. What matters is his Dominant, and staying by his side. So Charles says nothing, quiet and Erik's, wholly Erik's, and gives him the space he didn't know he had. There are things buried in this ground, but Erik is not one of them. Charles has always been here to dig him back up. He'll stay here on his knees and protect him, whispering in the other ear when that repulsive voice barks to him. _I've got you, Erik. I love you._  
  
And Erik can't help whatever primal, feral urge has been bubbling up for the past several moments and he does lift his hand to his own cheek, touching streaks of dirt and gravel over his skin as if trying to conjure up a single last sensory-memory of something Real, trying to hold onto the sensation of her hand on his face, but he can hardly remember it at all. "I can't," he finally chokes out of his closed-up throat, and he staggers to his feet, shirtless and dirty and crushes his eyes shut. He wanted to go home. This entire time he wanted to go home. "Ah-can't," he begs for a nameless entity. For relief from this tidal force. " _Guh_ -gotta go," he stutters over a painful reversion to silence, trying to speak into the ether if only to grasp onto the tether of Charles beside him. This is where his world ended, with the sound of bones snapping like a gunshot echoed up into the sky along with death rains. It was sunny and then it rained, he remembers. Thick and black sludge. He didn't know. He didn't understand. He had a good life, he was so lucky, he was happy and loved and he didn't know. _Yesli by tol'ko ona mogla videt' tebya seychas_ , the repulsive voice licks at the shell of his ear. " _Lo habet ahavat sheli_ ," he gasps back, his voice and hers melding intertwined.

* * *

Charles takes a breath and he bears it. It hurts something awful to open his eyes but he does anyway, stumbles to his feet, dirty and dusty and equally shirtless, not caring one bit. All that matters is Erik, and his hand is shaking when he stands on his toes to touch Erik's face, streaking dirt there but he knows his Dominant won't care either. You can, he promises, still not speaking out loud, terrified to open his mouth and try, but there's no silence. This place is filled with sound and not screaming or snapping bones, and when he blinks, there's no dug up dirt or crime scene tape, no boots on backs or fire and ash raining from the sky. There are houses and voices and sun, laughter and comfort and family and community and there are tears in Charles' eyes as everything becomes what it should be, what it is, as it unfolds and suddenly there's no migraine. There's no awful, horrific pain. This is what Charles has been seeing the entire time, and now he shows Erik, too, that beautiful woman with his eyes standing right there dressed in flowing, ethereal white, her mind lingering. Erik doesn't need to remember her, even though Charles knows he's never forgotten; she hasn't forgotten him, either. This place still knows you, Erik. And it still loves you. You did not die here.  
  
Erik's lips part and his eyes widen and he creeps forward slowly, drawn to the image, a firefly fluttering toward brilliant light. "Charles," he gasps softly, hand outstretched toward her, toward their home, toward Iakov's half-restored, rusty Corvette sitting in the driveway on cinder blocks. He tries to touch, tears streaming down his face even while his expression remains placid and unmoving. " _Habet, bayit sheli_ ," he whispers, pressing his hand against the sun-warmed peeling wood. He can hear wind-chimes in the distance, and Ruthie's heavy footsteps as she clunks through the back yard. This place is a village-there's some modern amenities, but a lot of the houses look like they're lucky to have electricity. Erik's house is off-white, old and lived-in, and he presses his hand against the mezuzah angled at the threshold, and then instead of kissing his fingertips, leans over and brushes his lips over it reverently, stroking the mahogany-styled door beside it. He bows his forehead against it, sinking to the ground. " _Habayit sheli,_ " he sobs, grasping at his throat in a desperate attempt to breathe.  
  
Charles was wrong, earlier, or perhaps simply didn't understand the scope. This is an application of his abilities at full force, when he is not leashing them, when they are not screeching and protesting their use, railing against limitations placed upon them. This village is alive and well, more than an image or a memory, more than an illusion, completely indistinguishable and not because they are trapped in their minds; when Erik touches, there's absolutely nothing to indicate it isn't Real, that it isn't wood, down to the way the molecules feel when they respond to Erik's own mutation. It even smells as it did, not like lingering ash and the tools used to dig it up, not like sulfur and horror. There's none of that here. Charles winces slightly as he falls to his knees besides Erik, nuzzles into him and takes even breaths himself. _I have you_ , he promises, taking Erik's hand in his, clutching his mind instead and helping him breathe. And his home does, too. This is what Charles had seen, because underneath the charred remains and snapped bones, this is what is here. This is what did not die, what was not blown out no matter how successful Sebastian Shaw believed himself to be.  
  
Erik stretches out every ounce of his abilities and sinks right into each particle that Charles has painstakingly crafted out of his mind, particles of dust floating in the air that he didn't even know he remembered piercing through him like knives. The sharp stab of agony that slowly melts into warmth and it's one of those dreams where your loved ones are alive and you're wrapped up safe, and your whole mind and body yearns toward it without any recognition of reality and that's where he is right now. He's pushing open the door and crawling through into the kitchen, unrelenting on his grip of Charles's hand. Pressing his face to the linoleum, petting the sink and the soft leaves dangling over the windowsill and the cups hanging above the stove-chipped with Erik's messy scrawl and silly cartoon birds and trees. " _Ze bayit sheli, ani kan bayit_ ," he's nearly swooning with it, blood rushed up to his head and he's unsteady on his feet, eyes peeled back to absorb every sight and sound. Something's happening to him and he can't stop it, he's tugging Charles through the house and cradling picture frames. _Look! This is me. This is my homework. I did this before. This is my stuff! Those are-_ there's a row of yellow rubber boots, arranged in order from tallest to smallest, with Erik's being smallest and he lingers over those, clamboring through the house chasing the smells of his family.  
  
Charles is terribly whoozy by the end of the tour. It's nothing like the unsteady, flickering projections he'd first created for them in the CIA, so much so that the difference is utterly startling even to him.This is an absolutely flawless snapshot, a living recreation, a Reality played out, sight and sound and smell, his fingers touching every surface, skimming over drawings clipped to the fridge and clothes in the closet he can't imagine Erik ever fitting into. The light reflects off each object, they cast shadows. The only hitch is that Charles can see both, existing in the space in between, but he deliberately hides it, buries it down and down and down and there's no conceivable way for Erik to touch it, to wretch like he does when he smells lingering ash instead of whatever's wafting from the kitchen. He stares down at a picture he'd picked up without conscious direction, lips parted as tears gather up in his eyes and spill down his cheeks, making trails through the dirt smeared there. Erik still smiles like this for him. It's the one where all his teeth show, boyish and brilliant, chest puffed out with the force of his joy as if it's too big for his (proportionately giant) body, the one that draws all of his attention. He'd do anything for that smile. All of their eyes are warm; Erik's sister - and he tries so hard not to think that, sometimes. So hard, because when he thinks of - when he even begins to imagine -  
  
She has her arm around him. His mother is looking over fondly, not at the camera, an imperfect picture that ended up here on the table anyway except he rather thinks it is perfect. It never would have made a spot at the Manor. It looks like they're laughing, mid-conversation. It certainly isn't taken with a professional camera or by a professional photographer.  
  
 _Sit up, Charles. Really, how many times are we going to have to take this? Back straight. Honestly._  
  
The portraits still on the Manor walls are all stiff and posed. There's one taken on the day of his father's funeral. He smiles for it regardless, he and his mother the spitting image of each other dressed in black and not touching. It's heinous and it's still over the stairs.  
  
He knows he can't take this picture with him. He knows it doesn't exist anymore, or he would have seen it already. But he holds it close and he lets himself cry, because enough has been buried and hidden here and he won't let it be either of them on top. There's so much love here, and he'll take that with him. It's inside of Erik, never, not once blown out, and Charles will make certain it never is. He'll protect it.  
  
For so long Erik's convinced himself that he cannot love, that it has been burned out of him and ripped up soil and broken; and Charles has always insisted upon the opposite. Because Charles has felt this love every day from the moment he met Erik, the full force of this house and these people imprinted upon every thread of his soul, directed solely at him. Charles's childhood is filled with sterile photographs and white rooms and needles pressed into veins and blank, empty stairs and empty albums and Stepford-smiles, and Erik's wasn't-when Erik first began to give detailed testimony about what happened to him, Charles couldn't understand how Erik possibly thought they were on the same level, how Erik possibly related to him in any way when he was so comparatively privileged, but what Erik lacked in material wealth was made up for in this home.  
  
He had an entire world of brilliant love and positive role models and a solid interpersonal foundation and it is the difference between them, but not how Charles believes-Erik suffered at the hands of a failed institution, at the hands of ideology and new world order, but Charles suffered at the hands of the people who were entrusted to care for him from the time he was an infant. Erik wants to break the system because the system is broken, but Charles believes that if he can change the minds of individuals, that he can change the system. It is Erik who was privileged, but he forgot. Mr. Shaw took it from him, Mr. Ivanov took it from him, every man who came into his room took it from him. Ms. Frost took it from him, smoothing over those memories until Erik had nothing and no one but the _Hellfire Club_ , but his purpose in the grand scheme of things.  
  
And that is why he sometimes doesn't know the difference, only Charles has unpeeled back the obscured layers and returned to him what was stolen, and he can't stop shaking and crying because he forgot all of this, he forgot it all and reduced them to the point of agony at which he could not return, reduced them to instruments of torture and self-erasure. He forgot this picture, he forgot his mother used to read him Millions of Cats every night before he went to sleep-but they existed. They existed because Erik loves Charles, and he was taught to love by them, so it is impossible not to feel loved by them in turn. Erik doesn't have a real home that can welcome Charles in, these pictures are stardust floating in outer space by now. All he can do is love Charles as deeply as he can, and be there when those fissures and cracks emerge to fill them with warmth and joy and toothy grins and indomitable Will. Charles will forever exist as the centerpiece to the hearth of Erik's heart.

* * *

Charles doesn't have a home, either. He never did. He has an impossibly big, empty house filled with memories that threaten to tear him to shreds every time he steps through the door. That was his place of torture. Not an institution, not a cell. His screams are built into the walls. His _it hurts! Father, it hurts, please stop_ and his _Mother! Mother, please!_ are part of that place, inseparable from moments of reprieve, from his tiny, shaking hand petting the horse his mother had put down and running in the gardens with Raven, secret clubhouses with dartboards.  
  
But they can build something from both. From Charles' empty space and all the beautiful, singing, loving memories he's helped Erik cradle all these years. Emma Frost never stood a single chance. Sebastian Shaw has failed utterly. Charles trembles as he wraps his arms around Erik's middle, curling into his chest where he belongs, weeping along with him. I love you, he whispers, not in words but in an echo, in everything that's here, in images and sounds and hopes for the future. They can make a home together. They have to go back, but not without taking this with them.  
  
Erik's free hand is clasped over his mouth, as if attempting to keep in noises that threaten to spill out from deep within his chest around his fingertips. This is the most beautiful dream he's ever had, and he can't bring himself to wake up, trying to wrap this place around himself, a blanket of warmth where he can still hear Ruthie's laughter and off-tune tenor-saxophone notes-Edith accidentally picked the wrong instrument for her band class and it resulted in her lugging around a thirty pound accouterment that she absolutely could not play for the life of her, and she's the first one who ever told him _Be careful, your words have real power._ She would have grown up to manage a herd of children of her own, but it's Erik who's left with the littered pieces of his found-family, his kids that he has to go back to and make sure they get through this, too, and he doesn't think he could ever give them up for anything, but it was always Ruthie who should have had it. When they leave it will disappear and Erik can't-he can't go back to the way it was before, to the barren land and ruined pits where all the earthly potential of his kin was snuffed out. The land that remembers a screaming-Erik, an Erik that remembers every cruel command to _ubey sebya!_ "Wanna stay," he gasps aloud, heartbroken. "Gonna stay. Stay," he presses the framed picture to his cheek.  
  
It breaks Charles' heart, but not completely. Erik would never allow it to shatter, and neither will Charles allow Erik's to. He's learned well enough by now that should haves only hurt; there are many things that should have been, but simply were and are not. But Erik loves his gaggle of children, and he will love more after that. There will be years of children running down once-empty halls, screaming with laughter and not terror, and who is to say Erik is not meant to have that? Perhaps - one day, quite a while in the future, but one day, if he'd like - there will be children of their own. He takes the picture gently, sets it down and reaches up to touch Erik's face, redirecting his attention. "We'll take it with us," he promises, and he doesn't mean the picture. "In here." Charles touches his free hand to Erik's heart, feels it beat beneath his fingers. "Okay? Promise."  
  
"Promise?" Erik's devastated, stricken expression-far too young for his features-crumple them up pitifully. Charles gave him this. Charles gave Erik himself. His devotion, his servitude, following him across the globe, his equanimity in the face of Erik's utter meltdown despite struggling so much himself with hearing Erik's pain, but then he does this, he makes spaces where they can share their pain together and then, and then, what happens? The ash is still in the air. Achilles and Patroclus, one of the first recorded S1/D5 pairings in history, stories his father used to read to him. And the dynamics between all Pair-bonds are similar. _Aba_ called it _aspída erastís_. _Shield-mates._

* * *

More tears spring to Charles' eyes immediately and he sniffles as he buries himself completely in Erik, in his arms, in his chest. That warm, deep voice guides him back home always, regardless of where they are on a map or a spun globe. Guides him gently, firmly, with soft words or stern ones, it doesn't matter because it's all the same, it's all the same loving Dominance. Giving him a home, giving him a place. Keeping him even when he squirms. All Charles wants to do is right by him; to take all those hurting, shrieking parts and heal them, love them, serve them. "Good boy?" he asks quietly, small and frightened, because he was so scared. Scared that he'd ruined or hurt. That he'd made worse. That he'd been bad like he's always been told. Charles wants to be a good boy, but the thing is, he wants to be Erik's good boy. What he needs, to not only make it through the long battles, but to be worth coming home to when they're finished.  
  
Erik looks out at the empty fields, no longer filled with laughter and family but solemn workers and yellow tape. He wraps Charles up and feels his mind starting to come back online, whirring like a computer fan after a long sleep, and it takes him a few extra seconds to figure out how to put his hand over his heart and recall what Charles had shown him, but Charles is right-it's there. Erik can't give that to Charles-he can't show him memories that don't exist, but he can make them, from his own self, he will do his best to make up for it. "Always," he kisses the top of Charles's head. They have to go back, but he has Charles, and his memory, and it will have to be enough.  
  
It hurts again. There's something incredibly disorienting about seeing both, something sick and achy, but he's sure it will even out. They have the rest of their lives to learn to navigate it. He has the rest of his life to wrap up in Erik's arms and remember to breathe, or else be Ordered to. His lips twitch, the beginning of a smile, and he tugs at his Dominant's hand, because they could certainly leave from here but he wants to walk somewhere. The world will wait, fortunately. "Erik?" he whispers, still hushed as he steps under tape. He has to let go of Erik's hand for a moment, because he's sure over is the better option for mountain men.  
  
Erik is about to jet off from the ground entirely, but Charles gives him pause and he turns, but Charles is already ducking under and so Erik does levitate, landing right beside Charles once more and once again wrapping him up in his arms, having detested being parted from him for even a second. "Charles," he whispers back, brushing his hair from his face and kissing his temple.  
  
Charles does smile slightly at that, pleased and beyond relieved, before he tugs gently at Erik's hand. Five more minutes, and then they can fly off. He wants to see one more thing. The Earth doesn't speak to him the way it does Erik, but fortunately he has a fantastic memory, and there's something he wants to show him. Walk with me, please? he begs quietly, everything about him imploring.  
  
Of course Erik follows him; he would follow Charles wherever he wanted to go, even if it is here. Even if his house doesn't exist anymore and his eyes can't help but track the workers carefully digging up the sealed off pit with brushes and collecting what they can in black bags for analysis. Erik knows what they'll find, because he put each one of those people in there, and he shudders at the recollection. "OK," he nods, gripping Charles's hand hard as he falls into step beside him.  
  
It doesn't take any effort at all to blind Erik to that, though it does throb awfully in his temples for a moment. Fortunately he can still feel Erik's kiss there, pleasant even when it's woefully oversensitive and he wouldn't think he'd like to be touched there at all. There are very, very rare occasions where he doesn't want to be touched by Erik, though. He reaches up to rub at them at the reminder, then frowns when he sees his own arm. He squeezes his Dominant's hand to get his attention, though he likely already has it, a distraction as he leads them and rubs hard into the sorest spot. _Ow. Fix?_ he asks, shy now. He's not talking about the ache; maybe Erik can't fix that, but the things he can do help immensely.  
  
Sudden strands of Will roll all the way up Charles's arm and squeeze him tightly, and Erik gives a small smile of his own; the sensation of which transfers all the way into Charles's skin where those golden-glowing threads of Will touch. "Fix," he whispers, petting him softly while they walk. He can't help but touch Charles, no matter what's going on or where they're headed, or how disastrous his mind is-touching Charles is what grounds him, and now is no exception.  
  
It's very hot. Charles would be fussy and uncomfortable under any other circumstance, and the truth is he feels it; he still feels terribly sick, and the throbbing is back, awful and disorienting. It's alright, though. He's leagues better now that he's properly tied up again, Erik's hands all over his skin and his Will holding him tight. "Almost there," he promises quietly, wincing slightly at the sound of his own voice. "When we're alone..." He bites his lip, peeking up another tiny smile. The truth is he wants it now so he feels a bit less like he's going to float off at any moment, more like he's properly tethered and where he belongs, but he can wait. Even if his skin is crawling and the only thing he wants to do is be Erik's, he can be good and wait if he has to. "I'm yours, okay?" he whispers, like he fears that's in question.  
  
"Mine," Erik murmurs back, stroking Charles's cheek against the palm of his hand just to feel the soft skin there. Not only when they're alone. Charles belongs to him regardless of where they are. He is Erik's no matter where they are, no waiting necessary, the only difference is what exactly they can do in public, but it doesn't stop being true. And besides, with Charles's abilities, the things they can do have greatly increased depending on where they are and what kind of technology is available, and most of their friends and family are aware anyway. Lately it's felt much less like hiding, because the more distressed Erik is, the less he's cared about it; and it hasn't seem to be to their detriment yet. Charles takes care of that, too. "Mine," Erik smiles in return.  
  
Charles laughs quietly, the sound a bit strained but only because his throat feels raw and his migraine is coming back. He hadn't meant that later he'll be Erik's; he would never, under any circumstances, suggest that he belonged any less to Erik at any point in time, whether they're in front of a crowd or alone in their bedroom. There never was an off-switch, but there certainly isn't now, the idea of this being a bedroom-only arrangement laughable and offensive. But he'd been asking for something he's been awfully shy about, and now seems like as good a time as any. So he stops walking and lifts his hands, together at the wrists, as if in offering. It is. "Strict," he whispers, biting harder on his lip, grounding them both before he finishes their walk.  
  
The bonds tying his wrists together tighten even more, but not enough to hurt him. Erik lifts his hands and kisses each one of his knuckles, plastered to his side. Erik is strict, and that isn't really something that needs asking for, either. The more unsettled he is, the stricter he gets, and right now he's more on edge than he's ever been, which results in Charles being pinned next to him, thick tendrils of Command wafting from Erik and sinking down into his molecular structure, weaving him from the inside out in Erik's Will. "Yes," he whispers back, tapping Charles's lip in reminder.  
  
Charles had been asking to be bound, not so much the strictness; though he'd find a way to ask for that, too, because immediately he feels less like he's going to break off or cry, even the pain muted some in the wake of it. Perhaps some real rope, later, because he knows Erik knows plenty of ways to tie a knot, which is what he'd intended to ask for but is now decidedly too shy to bring up, but this is more than enough for now and he feels steadier for it. Calmer, easier. His eyes flutter and then he's shivering in the middle of the desert again. When he swallows, he bites at his cheek instead, because, after a few more steps, "Here," he announces, breathless. "Right here. I'm sure of it."  
  
Erik looks around. He knows every inch of this place. It's never left him, not in dreams or in waking nightmares, but he doesn't know what Charles is talking about and his eyebrows inch up. "Where?" he asks softly, swallowing and his eyes are slits, as if afraid to be fully open, afraid to fully see what's before them.  
  
But Charles smiles, small and fond. "A little to the left," he whispers, and when Erik obliges, the world shifts again. There's not much to change. They're out by a dirt road but there are obviously no cars now, and there weren't then, not in this particular instance. Just a road, some dust and sand and - when Erik blinks, instead of a projected image, Charles himself looks like he did when he was nine. When he was nine, first coming into his tampered-with abilities and hiding in his closet with no clue how to control anything yet, which means he's beyond frail and wearing his nightclothes. His mind is still Charles', much older, and amused despite himself, but this is what happened all those years ago. This is what younger Erik did not see, and now he can have even this memory back in its entirety. Charles tilts his head exactly as he did then, a show of curiosity his older-self still exhibits, and reaches his hand out despite the fact that they're Bound in actuality and he'd like to keep them there. _"Hello,"_ he murmurs, hushed and reverent in a way his younger self was not because he didn't know to be. There's some of the shyness, though; even then, his soul must have known who it had come into contact with. _"I'm Charles Xavier. Who are you?"_  
  
Even as a child, Erik was much taller than him, reaching his mother's shoulder by the time he'd turned eleven and shooting up past her only a few short months later, although she wasn't there to see it. It might be Charles's perception or it might simply be Erik meeting him there, but when he looks back, Erik is still towering over him, but his hair is a more vivid auburn, still dark, but falling in corkscrew curls around his face and down his shoulders. His skin is several shades darker, and there are a good deal more freckles spread out over his nose and under his eyes-a product of hours spent in the hot sun-and it makes his eyes look even more vivid. He's wearing basketball shorts and a Clash T-shirt that reaches scuffed up knees, and his sneakers were new but they've already got holes worn in them and the whites are grey from dirt and dust. It's not a memory, and it's not reality, it's somewhere in-between and Erik's mind adjusts accordingly, plucked up from deep in the recesses of his soul where he thought he lost this part of himself. Only now he can see Charles, he can hear him. And much like his adult self, he isn't afraid at all when he sees someone pop out of the ether and introduce themselves casually. He just says, as he would have so long ago, _"I'm Erik. Wanna play?"_ He's hopeful and bright, and he hasn't learned to rein himself in and the whole universe seems to bend around him, sparkling glimmers of Will reflecting sunlight.  
  
It sparks something up in him, too. Something he's forgotten until very recently, and still hasn't fully recovered. Charles, by contrast, is almost unnaturally pale, even lighter than his exceptionally lily-white skin when he's older; he's never tanned once in his life, he doesn't think, but at this age he rarely saw the sun, and his skin is appropriately pasty. He's thin as a rail, even thinner, and a particularly spirited breeze could knock him over; Erik could snap his limbs like twigs, and bruise them just as easily. He bruises like a peach, then especially, and there are examples all over his body, scars and markings, too, though some of those are just from clumsy attempts at getting out of bed. Some are not. Curls twist around his ears, just a touch lighter than they are later in life, though for the most part they've already darkened; if they're given any length, they still wave and twist just like this, much to his mother's complete disdain. His pajamas are blue silk to match the bright, intelligent azure of eyes, and too big for him, making him look even smaller, and he's trusting, sweet, shy, biting on his lip and ducking his head, raising it to flash a brilliant, too-big smile and dimples that take over most of his doll-like face. _"Okay. Yes, please,"_ he agrees easily, because no one plays with him. For the most part, Charles is utterly alone, and more lonely than he has the words for. _"But I mustn't get dirty,"_ he adds, huffing as he looks Erik over.  
  
Erik could still snap Charles like a twig, but he never would. He's a little more rough-and-tumble now, clumsier than he is as an adult, but there's no violence in him at all and certainly not toward Charles, who at the moment looks like a lost baby deer and it makes Erik want to protect him and keep him safe, peering at those bruises curiously. He hasn't been exposed to much in the way of cruelty, so he doesn't immediately put together their origin, but at the imploring not to get dirty, Erik's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. _"But that's half the fun,"_ he grins, and while the words are easily understood, they're not in fully coherent English-his language skills are pretty rusty, possessing only a third grader's vocabulary (probably less, Erik doesn't pay a whole lot of attention in school) and it's mostly in Hebrew. _"How come you talk like that? Where you from?"_ he wonders as he tugs on Charles's arm (as gently as he can), pulling him toward a nest of lizards crowded around a rock.  
  
This is the Charles that's been crying inside of him ever since - ever since, curled up into a ball in the closet, frightened and confused. Devastated and in firm, childlike denial. Now he smiles shyly, letting Erik tug him around and glowing inside at the attention. "I'll be in trouble if I get dirty," he whispers, swallowing around the dread that drops itself down like a weight in his stomach. He shakes it off. _"I'm from Westchester, New York, and I talk perfectly fine, thank you very much,_ " he adds, though he's more amused than offended, more haughty than upset. It doesn't stop him from gasping at those lizards as if he's never seen a living creature in his life, crouching down slightly to see better. " _Wow,"_ he breathes, mystified in the way only a child who rarely sees outside of sterilized walls is.  
  
Erik lets one crawl up onto his hand and holds it out to Charles with a big grin, his whole face lit up. _"It's a letah,"_ he explains as it creeps up his fingers and across his arm. _"Hey, wanna see something cool?"_ he shoves his free hand into his pockets and produces a penny, holding it up. _"Watch,"_ he whispers, and from the center of his palm, it levitates and spins in the air. After a few seconds it sputters, though, and shoots off into the air. _"Uh-oh,"_ Erik mumbles, turning bright red. _"'M not very good yet. I lifted a car once!"_ He looks a little proud at that, standing up straighter.  
  
The sequence of events isn't perfect, but the thing is, it doesn't need to be. It doesn't need to be anything but what it is, it doesn't matter if Charles saw that car lifted himself, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter; what matters is this. Charles throws his arms around Erik, hard and squeezing, perhaps a bit too tight, and he sniffles loudly, tears springing to his eyes. He balls his hands - tiny now and still tiny compared to Erik's when he's grown, he always feels so small next to his Dominant, it makes him feel safe - into Erik's shirt and he cries, dry because they're out in the middle of the desert and even this younger version has run out of tears. Whatever he mumbles into Erik, it's completely incoherent, too quiet to make out around sniffles.  
  
Erik immediately bundles him up, his childlike form shocked at the sudden influx of emotion but nonetheless he instinctively wraps Charles in his arms-regardless of what he looks like or how mature his mind is, he knows that Charles is his, and it's his job to do his best to make Charles feel better. _"I'm sorry,"_ he whispers, petting the top of his head. He didn't mean to make Charles sad. He's not very good at all this feelings stuff, that's more Ruthie's domain. _"Please don't cry, it's OK, promise."_  
  
Charles shakes his head, trying to catch his breath around the hitching, painful sobs that threaten to overwhelm him. _"Not sad,"_ he promises, even if he is, a bit. He's not sad because of Erik. He mumbles something else into his shirt, and then pulls away to wipe at his own snot and tears, because apparently he did manage to squeeze something out. It's hard to stop crying, and his tiny chest is still heaving with it, body quivering. _"Please don't go away,"_ he begs, rubbing his fist into his eye.

* * *

This version of Erik does go away, though, the careless, carefree, hyperactive bulldozer he'd been as a child stamped out ruthlessly and replaced by the meeker, silent Erik that Charles is more familiar with-but even now, Charles can see traces of this boy in his Dominant, in the way he smiles, in his curiosity, in how he tries to hold himself up as a pillar for Charles to lean against. He'd been possessed of so much joy as a kid and he's forgotten that, either because it's too painful or due to the subtle interference of Emma Frost or likely a combination of both, but Charles is the only one who's ever had the capacity to unlock it, to see it for himself, and to help Erik express it again. As an adult Erik barely laughs out loud, but there are so many moments stitched together where he's done so until his sides hurt, filled him up from head to curled toes and wrapped in love. _"Ani lo, mavtiach, beseder?"_ he pulls down his sleeve and wipes away Charles's tears, dabbing as gently as he can.  
  
There are parts of Charles he'd thought stamped away, too. Parts that were beaten out of him, or weren't, but he'd learned to be ashamed and disgusted by. He'd been taught to. But all those parts have space to breathe with Erik, and these parts of Erik do, too; nothing lost, nothing snuffed out. Charles throws his arms around Erik and grabs at his shirt again, refusing to let go, the force nearly knocking them both over despite his lack of strength. _"Promise?"_ he whispers. _"Cross your heart?_ " He'd liked that, when he was little. Picked it up somewhere and used it with Raven later. "But no needles," he adds, sniffing loudly.  
  
 _"Promise,"_ Erik repeats in English, giving his nose a little tap, his own wrinkling up as he smiles. _"What's across my heart?"_ he blinks, the phrase unknown to him. He absolutely wouldn't be sticking a needle in Charles's heart. He didn't even own any needles. _"I won't let no one hurt you,"_ he vows, serious and solemn and fierce. _"You're safe, 'K?"_  
  
Charles giggles, wet and quiet. _"Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye,"_ he says, pulling away to tug at his own eye, red-rimmed and puffy from tears but still that bright, impossible blue. _"But you don't have to put one in if you break it,"_ Charles promises quietly. _"I don't like needles."_ He wraps his own arms around himself, staring down at the ground.  
  
Erik gasps. _"No! I won't do that,"_ he shakes his head vigorously. _"You're my friend."_ It's apparently very easy for young Erik to make friends, and as Charles recalls, he was often surrounded by groups of people following him around, listening to his commands, and he'd been growing into himself even them; practicing Orders, a trendsetter amongst his peers, leading them in grand adventures-but he was never snobbish, and he always tried to help those who were smaller than himself. Mostly because his mama would kill him if he didn't, but that's neither here nor there. The point is it didn't take much for Erik to consider Charles his friend, and he had a loyal and faithful protector at his side once Erik did. _"I don't like 'em either,"_ he nudges Charles with his elbow. _"But they're all metal so I can make them fly away!"_  
  
Erik has completely missed the point of the phrase, and Charles giggles again, rubbing at his arm where it's been nudged. Not because it hurts, but because it's strange to be touched like that. "I'm like you," he whispers, but he doesn't sound particularly happy about it. _"But I'm sick."_ Erik doesn't look sick. In fact, he looks more healthy than anyone he's ever seen. _"So I need needles. They're not so bad after a while."_  
  
 _"Nuhhh,"_ Erik tells him with that air of authority that still remains with him to this day. _"No more. You look fine to me."_ He doesn't, actually, but Erik politely doesn't tell him so. He looks pale and withdrawn and hurt, but Erik will take him home and Ima will know what to do and he'll nurse him back to health, and then he can come play with Erik and no one will stick any more needles into his heart. And if anyone needs to like a hospital or doctor Erik will do it instead because he can make it painless. _"You're like me? Really?"_ he grins. _"Are you reading my thoughts?"_  
  
Charles stares down at his feet and shakes his head, shoulders slumped and he trembles like he might start to cry again. _"I 'unno,"_ he mumbles, and at this age it's true. _"They come in and out. The voices."_ It's frightening and uncomfortable and it makes him feel sicker. He throws up all the time and the needles at this point are just to keep him from dying, not to stick in his heart. _"I can never tell if something's happening to me or not, or if people are talking to me. I don't like it. I want it to just go away,"_ and his voice cracks then, his fist back to rubbing at his eye, the other kneading at his temple. They always hurt.  
  
Erik thwaps his hand lightly, a silent Order to drop it and stop rubbing at himself and making it worse. _"I like it,"_ he declares with all the blustering bravado and confidence a nine-year-old can muster up. _"'Cuz you're here. I can see you, and you're talking to me, that's cool. If anyone's got a problem with it they gotta go through me,"_ he puffs his chest up. _"Don't worry. Everyone's nice here. Sometimes people are scared of me but that's 'cuz I make things fly around when I get mad, and I'm a D7, so I'm s'posed to join the army when I get older, and everybody thinks I'm gonna make them jump off a bridge or something but I won't, don't worry."_  
  
Charles huffs and brings his hand right back up, rubbing insistently, because even at nine he has the instinct. _"The scale only goes up to 5,"_ he points out, matter-of-fact, one hand on his hip like the know-it-all he was meant to be. _"So you can't be a D7. You're a D5, and I'm an S1, and that means..."_ He bites his lip, and then looks incredibly embarrassed. The rest gets mumbled, because he doesn't like not knowing things and he doesn't, actually, know what it means. Yet. _"But you're not scary,"_ he points out, because Erik isn't. Now or ever. Not to Charles.  
  
Erik turns bright red. Listen, he may or may not have been going around telling people he was some kind of _super Dom_ just to scare them off and make them stop bugging him, but this is the first time he's ever been called out on his blatant lie. _"Well, I meant D5,"_ he mumbles, crossing his arms, but he peeks up after a moment, a slow smile spreading out over his face. _"You're an S1? Really? Well we're s'posed to be friends, then, so there,"_ he nudges Charles's elbow with his own, slinging his arm over his shoulder.  
  
Charles laughs again, his giggling a little louder this time and he bumps against Erik when he wraps his arm over him. _"Your face is red,"_ he points out, sing-song, and reaches way up to poke Erik's cheek. He's never had a friend. Not a real one, not someone his age. Never in his life. Charles takes a breath and then he hugs Erik again, tight and squeezing. _"I Order you to stay, then, super Dom,"_ he mumbles, just to be smart. _"You have to, alright?"_  
  
 _"Your_ face is red _,"_ Erik sticks his tongue out and licks Charles's finger. _"You can't Order me, I Order everyone!"_ he squawks in protest, but it's all for show as he hugs Charles back just as tightly. Charles really wants him to stay? Despite his popularity, most of his peers do regard him with a certain kind of suspicion, and he knows it's only going to get worse as time goes on, as he gets older and his Will begins to really manifest itself. He's already having trouble at school; once he got suspended for Ordering a teacher to let him out of detention. He's not perfect, that kind of power is hard for a child to resist, but he learned his lesson well enough.  
  
Maybe it's some of older Charles slipping back in, but he nods with all the fierceness in the world, gripping as tightly as he can. _"Forever and ever,"_ he decides, and wiggles his way into a nice, safe spot in Erik's arms. Some things are constant. _"And I can Order you. I just did,"_ he grins into Erik's shirt, pushing buttons even then. _"Plus, I'm older. That means I'm in charge."_   
  
_"You are not older!"_ Erik squawks indignantly. _"Only by two months."_ He grins back, eyebrows bouncing playfully. Some things never change, indeed. Erik isn't offended by Charles's daring; even now he's a Dominant completely secure in himself, although over the years that's been twisted up and coiled and spit out, but there was once a time that Erik was completely confident in his own Dominance, where he had a vision of his life that maybe wasn't what he truly desired, but that was filled with goodness. He had hope, he had a sense of himself, and the contrast is truly stunning.

* * *

It's not so stunning, if Charles looks closely. All of those attributes are in Erik when he's older, and for Charles it's not so much of a contrast as perhaps it is for most; Erik has a sense of himself now, too, and more goodness than anyone he's ever known. This isn't a dream and it isn't a memory, and if he wasn't still there inside of Erik none of this would be possible. The little boy inside of Charles isn't calmed or soothed, but this isn't the time, and he knows there will be; time for both of them to breathe and heal. When Charles no longer looks like he's nine, he's smiling and those dimples still seem to take over his face. He tucks himself into Erik's chest, rubbing his cheek there and tugging at his wrists, because they're Bound again as they should be, his collar is right where it belongs, and they're alright. They grow up and things aren't easy and they aren't, perhaps, as they should be, but they end up together, and that will make everything alright. Tugging gently at Erik's mind as he fusses with his bindings, Charles grins. "Fix," he demands, because he'll always be bossy and Erik will always be the only one who could possibly handle him, the only one capable of Dominating him. And he does it so, so perfectly. Whatever confidence he's lost, Charles likes to think he's giving it back.  
  
Erik presses the edge of his good thumb into the dimple on his right cheek-another difference, as a child he'd been extraordinarily crafty, always making things, learning instruments-he doesn't complain about the physical losses he's endured, but Charles has piles and piles of memories from Erik where he's running at full speed, climbing, building-and Charles is the only one who's ever seen the side of him that grieves for it. Charles is the only one who could give it to him back, who could let them exist in these moments even for a second, and Erik buries his head in Charles's hair, taking a deep, sniffling inhale. "Fix," he breathes soundlessly, and those bonds unfurl to spiral all the way up Charles's arms and across his neck, slicing through his collar and down his chest all the way to his tips of his toes. "I'm good?" he doesn't realize he's said it until it's too late and he flushes a little red now, too, rubbing his face against the top of Charles's head. Charles thinks he's perfect, that he's a good Dominant, and he might possibly be the only person on Earth who does. And he's the only person whose opinion matters. Their trajectory of healing increases upwards on an axis directly proportional to their proximity. Erik isn't that confident, but he's more confident than he's ever been since that red-headed child ran freely through the desert, allowed to unfold the true extent of his Will as far and wide as it can possibly extend and they still haven't even breached the surface layer of what that entails-but it will be all right.  
  
Charles will spend the rest of his days making spaces for Erik to run and climb, but he'll help him heal and learn to function with what he has, too, because Charles loves him as he is. He does. His Dominant is still extraordinarily good at making and learning, and they have a lifetime to explore together. "You're perfect. My perfect Dominant," he breathes, nuzzling in as close as he can possibly get, and then fussing more with the bindings because he can, pulling and pouting when he doesn't work his way out of them or even begin to unravel them. "Fix," he huffs, because he's a bit unsteady, too, and they can ground each other before they go back. They can do that. Erik can pull him back into place, and find his own in the process. Because Erik thinks he's good, too, and Charles is learning to believe him.  
  
There is nothing else on this Earth that makes Erik happier than the knowledge that Charles is beginning to trust Erik's perception of him, or at the very least trust that Erik's perception of him is the only thing that matters to Erik. Certainly living a life defined by outward appearances makes it even more difficult to comprehend how a person can simply not care what others think of them, but when it comes to Charles, Erik couldn't care less. There is no such thing as a flawless person, as far as Erik is concerned Charles is a perfect submissive. Does he nudge out of place and act defiantly at times? Of course, so does any human being, and certainly someone with a D5 as a Dominant partner will feel that strain more acutely, but that doesn't bother Erik, either. Because it just gives him an opportunity to be Dominant, gives him space to react the way that he should have learned how to react many years ago, the space he should have had to express this part of himself healthily. And there've been missteps and miscommunications, but at the end of the day they're both reasonably healthy and happy, and they have space to grow and learn, which means that Erik might not be doing such a bad job after all. It feels far away, now, that part of himself that is big and strong and indomitable and infallible and without any cracks in his emotional veneer, but they're still breathing and hearts are still beating and they're still OK, so he must be doing something right, right? But he knows that Charles has been essentially picking up his slack and he's not very happy about that-that's not perfect Dominance, he never wants Charles to feel stressed out or like he isn't being taken care of just because Erik is falling apart. That's something Erik still doesn't really believe in yet, but all they can do is put one foot in front of the other, and there's nobody else he'd rather walk beside. "Fix," he boops Charles on the nose and a little curl of Will zings right off its tip, wrapping playfully around the end of his nose before dissolving up into the air. Erik might be scowly and strict, but he can be playful every now and again.  
  
Charles goes cross-eyed, then gives a good, impressive pout, even if his eyes are bright and there's relief radiating off him in waves, even if he's smiling on the inside and Erik can feel that, too. He doesn't think he's a perfect submissive, and he's not sure he ever will. But perhaps he's not the worst, either, or as rotten as he'd first thought, if Erik responds to him like this. If he's capable of inspiring the things he does, if Erik says so; in the end, it's not his decision, is it? It will never be his decision, and Charles takes a slow, easy breath. He can trust Erik with this, too. "Are you encouraging me to be defiant?" he asks quietly, that mischievous little glint in his eyes now. He knows Erik certainly is not, but he can tease, too, and he continues to fuss with his bindings, tug and pull and wriggle about. He doesn't mind picking up slack, and he never will. But if he said he didn't feel a little needy in the aftermath, that he didn't want to be reminded of where he belongs before they go back to battle, he'd be lying.  
  
"Certainly not," Erik smiles back, sinking into this small moment of reprieve easily; yet another gift that Charles has given him throughout this battle, the battle that they've been fighting since the moment they locked eyes in that detention cell. Erik doesn't possess an eidetic memory like Charles, but these cherished periods that Charles reaches into him and pieces him back together are things he will never forget. He's started to wonder if perhaps he'll lose track of just how much Charles has done for him, because at any given time it seems that Charles just adds to that repertoire, but Erik is committed to ensuring that he never does; that Charles will always be aware of how grateful Erik is for his existence, of how much better Charles has made his life. He was taught to view interactions as intangible exchanges (and often tangible ones), and even within that context, giving all of himself in return for this is no price at all to pay. "I love you, _neshama_ ," he whispers softly, leaning over to kiss him, a gentle action accompanied by the nuanced tug of Will surrounding them.  
  
"I love you, too." Charles does smile against Erik's lips then, squirming for a different reason now and with the hopes of getting more of those firm, grounding tugs, more indomitable Will among the soft touches. The battle is worth it when the end result is this, when even the fighting is accompanied with this; if he's honest, he forgets it's much of a fight at all. There's something to fight for now, and he'll fight fiercely for every moment. When he ducks his head under Erik's chin again, rubbing greedily against bare skin, his lips twitch. "Erik?" he mumbles.  
  
"Mmm? Erik asks, taking another, easier deep breath and letting it fill his lungs all the way up. With it he slips from English, body relaxing against Charles's from only this slightest exertion of Dominance, feeling himself fast being pulled into Dominion where the world is safe and Charles belongs to him and nothing else could possibly compete with his attention.  
  
That fills Charles' lungs all the way up, too, and he melts completely against Erik in response, sinking fast into subspace. Exactly where he belongs, all Bound and owned as much as he can be at the moment. "First you have to promise you'll find it very amusing, and not upsetting at all," he snorts, still muffled by Erik's chest, which isn't, perhaps, the best lead-up. He's clearly close to giggling himself, biting down as hard on his cheek as he can to stifle it.  
  
"A tall Order," Erik murmurs back, but his smile has slowly softened into a real grin, the first in what feels like forever in his right mind. He holds his hand up to his own forehead, eyes creased and nose wrinkled up. It's a very good thing that Erik is very tall indeed, it just might be enough to fulfill his silent promise as he nods.  
  
And Charles loves that Erik is so tall. He's slightly distracted by it at first, relaxed for the first time in hours and able to breathe enough that it doesn't feel like it's caught in his throat. His Dominant has him; he's holding him, he's got him all wrapped up in Will and pressed against his body, looming over him like usual, and perhaps sometime soon he really will tie him up all pretty (and tight, please) so Charles feels safe and kept. Now isn't the time, so he shakes it off with a shiver, sunk deeper down. Now he grins, still ducked under Erik's chin as he shows him what he's only recently noticed, not with words but with a redirection of attention; Charles' poor shoulders are turning a bright, cherry red, and the rest of him isn't faring much better. "It was inevitable," he laughs. Standing out mostly shirtless in the middle of the desert with no sunscreen at all is not one of his brightest ideas, but the situation called for it.  
  
Erik's eyes light up, though, and he takes a small step back just so he can smooth his hands over Charles's shoulders and his skin ripples in a faint, though reminiscent way to Raven's when she shifts forms before he feels a soothing balm settle over the places that were once torn up by sun. It won't last forever, though, he'll burn through it again; and Erik blinks as he realizes exactly what it is he's done. He's known he can affect Charles's neurophysiology for a while, but normally he can only access those abilities during more intimate moments. Even when Charles has been in pain he's been unable to affect it, but he moves completely unconsciously, as if suddenly aware of a new limb he can move and grasp and flex.  
  
Charles is much less surprised, though he is thoroughly delighted. It's a shift of molecules, a rearrangement as intricate and beautiful as anything else Erik can do. Most of Charles' pain is unfortunately untouchable, but even when bruises covered the majority of his body Erik could help, even if he didn't notice his efforts; he doubts he'll be healing any broken wrists anytime soon, but the relief is more than welcome and fortunately for both of them he has no serious injuries to speak of. This makes every difference, though, another way his Dominant cares for him. Immediately Charles is closing even the tiniest gap between them, overcome with adoration and need, his breath hitching in his throat all over again as he nestles as close as possible. "Brilliant," he breathes. "Thank you, Erik. You're perfect." He means it.  
  
Erik hums low in his chest and those tethers of Will wrapping Charles up rearrange themselves with the beat of his heart, a breathing organism themselves as they shimmer and glow, reflecting a kaleidoscope of colors from sunlight and he presses himself up fully against him, spreading a large, warm hand over his back and across his hip. He kisses Charles again, air particles glittering-floating down gently, harmless snowflakes from the undisturbed snowglobe of their respite. Charles's praise and being close to him and teetering right on the edge of a vast vortex of instability his mind and body latch onto Dominion instead, electrifying his skin. "Pretty," Erik murmurs into his mouth, and he fully intends on tying Charles up as intricately and expertly as he can, as soon as humanly possible. There should never be any doubt in his submissive's mind where he belongs, nor who he belongs to.  
  
He's shivering even in the smoldering heat of the desert sun, eyes heavy as he's held exactly where he belongs. Erik's thoughts have his belly twisted up in anticipation despite everything else, and it's impossible not to sink deeper down into subspace where everything is safe and calm, where the only thing that matters is serving his Dominant properly. "We should go back," he whispers, because while he could keep everything in stasis indefinitely, he'd much rather they handle it now. It doesn't mean Erik has to veer off into the abyss, though, and Charles presses even closer at the thought, nuzzling and kissing at whatever skin he can find. "Use me," he begs.  
  
It might be a little silly, and Erik doesn't fully realize it himself-having not exactly put this together, but it's been true every other time they've had to do this, too-when Charles has been able to guide his attention away and reorient him toward touch and taste and smell, of Dominance, really-and the possibility of being able to touch Charles and kiss him and tie him up in Will and keep him makes Erik feel like he can do this, his focus narrowed entirely down to Charles and the anxieties, fears and horrifying memories seem far away, beyond the bubble of Dominion that now surrounds them. "Yes, Charles," he murmurs lowly, an order he is more than happy to acquiesce. They're already lifting into the air, levitating mere centimeters off the ground as has become more common the more content Erik feels.  
  
Charles snuggles in close for the ride, sinking helplessly and very happily down the more they go. He needs this to get through, too; he needs Erik's firm, guiding hand, he needs to be in his place, he needs to know he has one, and he still hasn't come to terms with quite how much but he's learning not to be ashamed, either. There's nothing shameful about this. There's nothing at all wrong about belonging to Erik. He hums, and ducks a coy smile. "I'm thinking of doing something very defiant," he admits, quiet and playful. "Are you feeling particularly lenient?" He's going to guess that one's a definite no, but worth asking. He usually doesn't ask before misbehaving, so perhaps it will earn him some sort of advantage.  
  
"Mmmno," Erik rumbles back, quite predictably, and while there's certainly no advantage to be held, Erik does tilt his head curiously and he kisses Charles along the temple, infinitely tender, imploring him to stay right where he is; don't leave, please don't leave. His poor heart probably couldn't take it at this juncture.  
  
Good thing Charles has absolutely no intention of going anywhere, even if the kiss to his very oversensitive temple makes him shiver and squirm. This is exactly where he belongs, and he's all Bound up anyway; he lets Erik see that, directing his attention to every strand of Will wrapping him up perfect and steady. It doesn't stop him from reaching into Erik's pocket and pulling out the cigarettes he'd manifested from somewhere earlier, waving them around. "Not happening," he declares, and then gleefully throws them into the abyss now that they're high up enough that there's more dramatic flair.  
  
" _Hey_!" Erik squeaks, watching his prize burn up in the atmosphere and pouting. "Black is my favorite color," he sticks his tongue out. It's an awful habit, one he picked up off of Sebastian Shaw, which probably wouldn't ingratiate Charles any further to it. He wavers between finding the smell offensive and nauseating and comforting, and usually when he's at his most upset and twisted up is when he craves them the most.  
  
It doesn't make him like it any more, in fact, and just to prove a point he shows off the loose one he'd grabbed before hurling the rest into the world below. "Light me up," he demands, putting it between his lips and raising an eyebrow expectantly. Despite some other nasty habits, Charles has never smoked a cigarette in his life. Perhaps he'll start. Maybe he'll get into chain smoking to replace the rampant alcoholism.  
  
Erik flicks it right out of his lips, frowning even deeper at the obvious statement Charles is trying to make. He already knows one person with lung cancer. He simply can't fathom the idea of Charles exposing himself to that kind of risk, and of course Erik holds a double standard when it comes to his own health, but that's different somehow. _Scowl_.  
  
"Do you know why cigarette smoke makes me feel sick?" Besides the fact that it's utterly nauseating to begin with. His voice is quieter, and he takes up his spot in Erik's arms again, rubbing his cheek against his chest to soothe away that frown.  
  
Erik wraps him right back up, tucking his head under his chin. "How come?" he whispers back. It wasn't a real frown. He knows that he's wrong, but he also can't help the way he's drawn to it in moments where he is most weak.  
  
Charles can help with that. He'd never try to make decisions for Erik, because it simply isn't his place, but part of serving is making sure his Dominant is at his best, and preferably that means his lungs are normal-colored and healthy. He curls closer to Erik in response, fussing at all those strands of Will in the hopes of getting them tighter again, a self-soothing tactic as he flashes images of his mother, leaned against the kitchen counter and smoking. Both Markos, too, but those go by nearly too fast to process, because Charles can't handle them at the moment. "Also a very handsy colleague during med school, he always reaked of it. Awful business," he adds, and perhaps the image of having his arse grabbed on the way to clinicals isn't the best one to give a slightly unstable, very growl-prone Erik, but it slips before he can stop it. Bad associations galore, is the point. He doesn't fancy kissing Erik when he tastes like smoke.  
  
Erik squeezes him even tighter, scowling heavily at that image. It doesn't have very healthy associations for Erik, either, _hey, you want one, too?_ after hours of forgetting he's a person, not the best look for an object. But it meant it was over, it made him feel like an adult-claps on the back after he'd choked and coughed up a lung, _there, you got it_. Erik winces, tossing those images away because he's always grappled with the dichotomy of it, but the one thing that really makes him want to stop entirely is that Charles doesn't like it-it makes him unhappy and reminds him of awful business. Because part of Charles's job is to give Erik the tools to take care of him, and that is his place. "'K," he whispers, tucking Charles's head under his chin and glowering at a passing bird. It came too close to them. **_GROWL_**. "'M quit," he promises, stroking Charles's cheek.  
  
Charles will admit that, barring the fact that Erik at his most possessive is often distressed or hopped up on Bonding hormones, he's just a bit fond of Growly Erik. Sometimes he comes out during the most mundane times, rearing his head when someone stares at Charles a second too long while they're passing the street and he ends up pulled into his Dominant's chest, that big hand over his hip, and - he shivers, nuzzling into Erik's neck, planting sweet little kisses there. "Thank you, darling," he murmurs, pleased, because his Dominant is so good to him. Always taking care of him, always keeping him safe and making sure he listens even when he's scared. "Were you worried the bird was going to grab my arse?" he teases, peeking up with a mischievous grin on his lips. Sometimes, he admits, he stokes the fire a little. He likes to be reminded of exactly who he belongs to, and they're about to walk straight back into something incredibly difficult. He might as well play while he can.  
  
"Lecherous birds," Erik whispers back, huffing even as he doesn't relinquish his tight hold over Charles in any way, not in strong arms around him nor in Will spiraled throughout. The truth of the matter is that as possessive as Erik is capable of being, and it's a lot, he tries to be reasonable. He isn't jealous, he doesn't ruminate over Charles straying from him, he has never accused him of anything and never would, but he does not like when people mistreat Charles and that includes objectifying him or making snide comments or feeling entitled to touch him and grab at him. Charles is a person first and foremost, and he is Erik's, for as long as he will have Erik, hopefully forever. And Erik will keep him safe, and he will make sure that people treat him good.  
  
Charles laughs, kissing all over Erik's neck, his shoulder, his chest, affectionate and sweet. Sometimes being a bit unreasonable is alright, too, if he's honest. He likes that Erik's possessive. He likes that he wants to keep him, that he wants everyone, including Charles, to know that he's his, because Charles is. Erik was worried about being too outwardly Dominating the other day, but if Charles is honest about that, he'd been more comforted by it than he even knew how to admit. More pleased by it. He needs it more now than usual especially after the upset earlier, greedy for it, and if he can coax it out he absolutely will. "Are you going to let me forget I'm yours?" he whispers, smiling against Erik's throat, giving it another soft peck. "That I belong to you?"  
  
Erik practically purrs under the attention, tangling his fingers in Charles's hair and massaging his scalp gently. They're high up in the atmosphere now, protected by Erik's heat shield and the sun sparkles off of invisible bent-light waves, surrounding them in a hazy glow of rainbow refraction. "Never," he murmurs back, trailing his hand over Charles's collar and down his spine. "Mine now," he rumbles. "Keep safe. Promise."  
  
Charles only has eyes for Erik. The world is still hazy to begin with for him, tinged with the awful migraine from before, but his Dominant's fingers in his hair make everything alright. He presses a kiss right over his heart. "Remember to use me," he breathes, because it's what he needs, too. "I know it's awful, Erik. Not feeling like you have any control over any of this. But you have control over me, hm?" Charles' lips quirk, and he peeks up again. "If you ask anyone who's ever tried to get me to behave, that's quite a feat. But I'm yours, not theirs. Right?"  
  
He shudders and shakes his head. Charles is his and he is decidedly not theirs, but there's something else-and he should've said this before, he should've made it clear but he hasn't been right. He doesn't want to use Charles and hurt him, and especially if these people want to go over that evidence-the children's interviews by now are likely over which just leaves Erik, and he can't. Can't. "Don't listen, 'k? Don't look. Promise?"

* * *

The children's interviews are done. Charles took care of that, because in no reality would Erik busting out of that place with Charles in tow be considered acceptable. Fortunately for both of them, he's become exceptional at damage control, and there's not a whole lot going on in that room now in the aftermath, but it certainly looks like Erik and Charles never left. But Charles shakes his head, hiding in Erik's chest. "I can't promise that, Erik," he whispers. "You know I can't."  
  
"Why not?" his voice cracks, desperate and childlike. "You can. Already know. No more. Please, no more, no more."  
  
Charles does his best to soothe, kissing Erik's shoulder, his neck, nuzzling close and reaching up to scratch behind Erik's ear. "Shh, darling. I can help. Please let me help. Didn't you call us shield-mates? Don't go into battle without me. Use me. Please."  
  
He immediately softens against Charles, sagging into him and ducking his head where Charles's fingers scritch his hair, eyes fluttering as the tension that had begun to build slowly starts to seep away, the beast of fear soothed by Charles's touch like the notes of a lyre lulling Cerberus's giant, growling heads to sleep at the gates. "Run away?" he tries, half-hearted. "Canada."  
  
"We both know you wouldn't last through a Canadian winter, my love," he sighs, and kisses Erik's cheek. His fingers continue to pet and scritch, exactly how his Dominant likes it. "Use me. Please. Who do I belong to, Erik?"  
  
"Mmm. Me," Erik shivers, partly from the idea of freezing in a so-called Canadian winter and partially because he's quite sure that Charles would do just fine keeping him nice and warm. "Don't want to hurt, 'K? Don't hurt. Stop if it hurts," he whispers, stroking Charles's jaw and kissing him softly, letting out little noises of contentment under the ministrations in his hair and behind his ears.  
  
Charles soaks up the attention too, needing it just as much. He can't even stifle the little whine he gives as he rubs against Erik, greedy and insistent, soothing them both. He tugs on all those pretty strands of Will, just so Erik will tighten them up. "Shield-mates," he reminds quietly, a soft smile on his lips as he kisses Erik's nose, only possible when he gets up on his Dominant's feet. "We'll take care of each other. You have control. Alright? Make me good for you."  
  
Erik's nose wrinkles up fondly when it's kissed and he smooths his hands across Charles's back, swaying back and forth as he balances on Erik's feet. "Always good," he whispers, suppressing another shiver. "Take care of me?" he peers down at Charles, eyes wide and incredibly touched that he has a submissive who is so caring and devoted to him. It's been months now and he's still not over it, unsure if he'll ever really become accustomed to it, especially when they're walking back into a room dedicated to unveiling every violent strike and snarled word of hatred perpetrated onto him by people who couldn't care less. "Love you," he taps Charles across the nose with his thumb.  
  
Charles uses his new height to rub their noses together, delighting in the wonder in Erik's eyes when he looks at him as if he's some unimaginable treasure. It makes him shiver, because the feeling is mutual; he doesn't think he'll ever become accostomed to Erik being his Dominant, to having someone so perfect for him. "I'll take care of you. Ani ohev otcha." He gives Erik's beautiful nose another kiss before stepping off his feet, wrapping back up in his arms. "Let's go back and finish this, darling, so you can tie me up pretty," he whispers, managing a tiny grin.  
  
"Promise?" Erik murmurs back, giving him a long and lingering kiss as they slowly lower to the ground and set down just outside the office. Erik doesn't want to leave their bubble, the safety that comes with every moment stolen alone that they can find. The kids have been let go, and Ellie is driving them back while David sits outside in his car, and he gives them a little wave, wide-eyed at Erik's obvious display of power. He's a mutant too, but he's never encountered anything like what Charles and Erik can do, and when it comes to flashes and bangs, Erik's got the market cornered. He gives a grin in Charles's neck. "Together?" he whispers, trying not to shudder.  
  
"Together," Charles promises, and grabs for Erik's hand, holding it tightly in his as they walk into the office. Charles' abilities generally have a bit less flashes and bangs, but they're certainly intricate; when they walk into that room no one even turns their head, as if they'd never left in the first place. They haven't, as far as anyone here is concerned. They're sitting as if they've been posed there, and Charles only lowers that shield to grin at Warren before he turns to Erik, resetting himself with a projected version that's a nice, professional distance away. Actual Charles wraps his arms around his Dominant. "How do you want me?" he asks quietly, a soft, encouraging smile and deference that borders on shy, eyes lowered as he bites his lip. He'd be fine with anything. In Erik's lap. By his side. On his knees between his legs. As long as he can touch, as long as he can comfort and be Erik's through this, that's all that matters. He's going to take care of his Dominant, his Bonded, his beloved. His Erik.  
  
Erik immediately taps his foot on the ground once he lowers into the chair, a silent invocation to kneel and when Charles does he closes his legs over Charles's shoulders and draws his knee around Charles's, back, leaning forward to wrap him up in his arms and kiss his forehead.

* * *

Warren huffs into his hand, eyes catching on actual Charles and flashing him a grin in return, and seamlessly turning his attention to Gertrude to finish what he'd been in the middle of saying. "My foundation tracked Shaw's corporation to a remote location in _Bangkok_ , a warehouse that had been emptied upon our arrival. Our team collected what we could and flew it back to Worthington Industries, where we identified my son and several other unknown individuals."  
  
"Identified-how?"  
  
"My son had a very specific mutation. He had wings. Composite of the remains at the scene were within range of carbon dating to his approximate age."  
  
"Did you contact the police?"  
  
"Law enforcement were notified, but they were unable to determine the relationship between that facility and Mr. Shaw, and his lawyers filed an injunction to prevent me from discussing the incident and to prevent publication." Warren is cool and confident, exactly as he'll be on the stand, and it's immediately apparent that he'll be an asset to their case once they enter that courtroom.  
  
"Can we get access to those records? Anything you've got," Gertrude asks gently. "The defense is going to want to poke holes in your credibility, to say that you have no real proof of identity-"  
  
"Yes, he does," Erik whispers.  
  
"I'm afraid not," Gertrude whispers. "Approximate age and evidence of a mutation aren't concrete proof, it's what's known as circumstantial evidence. I understand that Warren is certain, but the defense will try and convince the jury that he's a grieving parent whose judgment is compromised."  
  
"He has concrete proof," Erik swallows and straightens.  
  
"-Erik? How do you mean?" Warren rests his elbows on his legs, reaching out to touch Erik's knee.  
  
No-he thought he could do this he was wrong-  
  
This is why Charles is here. This is why Charles is between Erik's legs, on his knees where he belongs. He redirects Erik's attention with a gentle nudge, rubbing his cheek against his Dominant's knee. You can do this, he promises, kissing softly and reverently. _I know it isn't easy, darling. I know you're frightened. But you can do this, and I'm here. I'm here every moment. Please, give him the truth_. Charles will be here to blanket him up in calm and love the entire time, to shield him from the awful thoughts that threaten to break him. He wouldn't ever let them take Erik from him.  
  
Erik folds up his hands between his knees protectively, leaning forward to brace his arms around his stomach and rest his head on top of Charles's, eyes shut tight. "Angel," he whispers softly. "So tiny."  
  
Warren takes a slow, steadying breath. "You knew him." He reaches out again, a hand on Erik's shoulder.  
  
Erik flinches back, scraping his chair against the floor loudly. His body is fully convinced that Warren will lash out in anger and attack, but all Charles can feel is waves of concern and mild alarm. "Yes," Erik croaks. "Knew him."  
  
  
Gertrude scrawls something quickly. "Did you see Angel, Erik? Did you interact with him?"  
  
"Yes. _Millions of Cats_."  
  
"Pardon me?" Gertrude blinks at that random-ass statement.  
  
Warren sits up. "That was his favorite book."  
  
"I read him, and fed him, and take care of him," Erik says into his knees, huddled up with Charles's head resting now on his thigh, cradled where his legs have bunched up to his chest and he's rocking faintly, suppressing unsuccessfully a whine of distress. "It's my fault he died. I'm sorry, so sorry. So, so sorry," he says to himself over and over.  
  
Warren glances at Gertrude, and then Charles, pressing his lips together. He doesn't really know what to do with all this-he's not good with emotions and he's not good at comforting, and all of this is so next level he feels like he's a little bit on autopilot, a robot with moving arms and legs going through the motions. "No," he mutters. Hell, Erik dotes on a freaking _bird_ , on a _plant_. He's always following those kids around and herding them and nudging them and looking out for them. "Shaw is a psychopath. If you-I'm sure you took wonderful care of him."  
  
"No," Erik shakes his head. "Killed him." Charles knows that Erik didn't kill him at all, but that's Erik-speak for what really happened; flashes of flesh and bone and metal and-blood, plasma, insides. Flares of fire, dials up. Metal into fire, scraping.  
  
"I beg your pardon?" Warren's eyebrows draw together.  
  
"Nn."  
  
Charles rubs soothingly at Erik's thigh with his cheek, reaching for his hand to hold. When he speaks, it comes from two places - where he actually is for Erik, and from his chair for everyone else. "You didn't kill him, Erik," he murmurs softly, and he knows Erik won't be able to say it without a little nudge. He was hardly able to explain it to Charles, and they'd had the distinct advantage of a telepathic link. Perhaps it won't fly as actual testimony, but Warren is his best friend. He's agonized about the hows and whens (and whys, but they both know the answer to that) of this for years and Charles has had to watch, and to know and not share it - because it isn't his to share - has worn on him more than he'd been willing to admit. He lets what Erik has already explained unfold for everyone in this room, slowly and vividly because he knows for Warren especially it will be painful, but also poignant; Erik, hulking and emaciated, sharing his food with a little blonde boy, staying with him silently as he eats. Erik holding that same little boy, bundled up in a ratty blanket, reading to him and stroking at those beautiful, feathery wings. Erik kissing the boy's head and rocking him as he shakes and cries, big, fat tears sliding down his tiny, rosy cheeks. Holding him until he settles. Giving him comfort in the wretched place he'd found himself in.  
  
And then the end of it. What was forced on him, what both their captors - because that's the reality of it - acted out on them. What Erik was made to do to wrench out those inconvenient human parts that Shaw had never been able to take from him. But Charles lingers on the rest. Erik loved that little boy, the one he thought of as the baby. "You took care of him," Charles whispers, and his voice breaks because he'd loved that little boy. He'd wanted to see him grow up, to watch Warren struggle and then find his footing, to figure out how to navigate fatherhood and Angel's specific needs. He'll never get the chance. But at least he wasn't alone. At least Warren knows he wasn't alone. Charles forces himself not to cry, rubbing his cheek over and over on Erik's thigh to soothe both of them. Erik did everything he could. He made what would have been a miserable, lonely, terrifying end somewhat bearable. None of it was his fault.  
  
Warren watches with wide eyes, unseeing the room around them but pinned on the images that are being shown one after the other, lips parted in shock. "Oh my G-d," he mumbles, and all of a sudden it's hard to breathe, and the world is swerving and he's on a never ending bus crash, windows blown out, twisted metal crushing him. The lights above have exploded. Glass sprinkles the air, swirling in slow-motion. Upside down, loose change and bits of gravel hovering past.   
  
Erik wilts back into his chair when Warren rises, throwing his arms over his head and staying perfectly still otherwise, struggling not to cry or make a sound because it's not fair for him to hurt over it when Angel's father is standing before him, and Erik doesn't blame Warren an iota for wanting vengeance against him because what kind of person could do what he did, anyway? He knows what kind, he's known all this time. "It's OK," he murmurs into his knees.  
  
The other man tugs Erik's hands down and Erik moves with him compliantly, eyes fluttering in anticipation of expected blows, but they don't come as Warren helps him up to his feet, and he has to dislodge Charles gently to do so, tangling his hands in Charles's hair for self-soothing comfort that he doesn't deserve but he goes as he's bid and stands in wait of the inevitable. It doesn't come, though, Warren just pulls him into a hug. "Thank you," he murmurs, clapping Erik on the back and taking the opportunity to hide his face from everyone else in the room.  
  
"'Sokay," Erik pets him softly, like a big praying mantis huddled over its nest and Charles folded in the middle.  
  
Charles feels every second of it. Every blown out window, every shattered piece of glass, every screeching inch of metal. He feels the tears on his cheeks before he realizes they've come, and he takes hitching, sniffling breaths, pressed between the two of them. He stays on his knees, clinging to Erik's leg between the two of them to stay steady, wrapping both of them up in slow, calm comfort, keeping the two of them from shaking apart. His mutation doesn't include seeing the future, but he knows and loves both of these people currently trapping him between and he knew this was the only possible ending. They both deserved closure. It's Charles' job to give it to them, to hold them through it, and he sniffles and buries his face in Erik's knee, leans back on Warren, and he mourns, too.  
  
Warren puts his hand on Charles's shoulder, steadying as well, while Erik gasps and struggles to breathe. "Sorry," he keeps whispering. "So sorry. He died, my fault. Teach me a lesson, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I tried-" but Warren just shakes his head and takes both of Erik's hands in his. He isn't like Charles, he can't communicate telepathically, but he's hoping just as Charles showed him what happened from Erik's perspective that he can show Erik how he feels. He blames the person responsible, the people who invented a scenario where a toddler had to pay with his life in the first place. None of those kids had a choice and neither did Erik, whatever choices they made were engineered by madmen. Charles is right-he's just grateful that someone was there with Angel in his final moments, that he didn't know a never-ending brigade of fear and misery and torture. That is a gift he can never repay. "Thank you," he replies instead. To Erik and to Charles as well; Charles has been with him from the moment he found out what happened and in all the ensuing moments since. Warren knows it wasn't easy, he isn't the easiest person and he wasn't easy when he was in the throes of grief, but Charles stuck with him and he is sure he owes his sanity to that.  
  
There was nowhere else Charles would rather be. It wasn't any more a hardship than anything he put Warren through while dealing with the aftermath of grief and abuse and addiction, with some of his more frightening, most hopeless thoughts. This is all he's ever wanted: closure for Warren, when so much of it was unknown. For both the people he loves, actually, resting between them as he wipes his tears on Erik's pants and sniffles, wrapping them all up in comfort. The link he establishes is effortless, but the feedback from it is intense to the point that he's having trouble breathing, letting Erik feel everything Warren is trying to convey, all of the relief and gratitude and none of the anger or blame he's expecting, and letting Warren feel all of the grief and genuine care Erik had for that beautiful little boy in turn. It hurts to bear, it feels like too much to hold inside of himself, but he gladly meters it out for them, holds the excess and helps Erik breathe, helps Warren deal with the overwhelming emotion of it. "It wasn't your fault. Either of you," he whispers, because he knows at different points for both of them that was a crushing, horrifying reality. Thinking they were responsible. "It wasn't your fault. And he was so very loved." By Warren, by Erik. By Charles. It doesn't make it hurt less. It doesn't make it less of a devastating tragedy. But it makes a difference. It makes every difference.  
  
This is the first time that Erik's ever encountered the parent of someone he's put to rest, and it stretches out in front of him that every person he's ever seen whose light left their eyes had a family just like Angel, someone who missed them, someone who has always wondered and Erik's put it out of his mind, unable to truly consider them as separate human beings with their own worlds because it's too much, and now it's going to crush him all over again. The weight is unbearable on his chest; so much of this will be about detailing what happened to him and it's difficult to even think about-so much of it he just doesn't understand the way a well-adjusted adult would, and it feels impossible to say it in front of Charles and cause him even more pain, but what wrecks Erik the most isn't what was done to him, it's all the times he's had to make the choice to hurt someone and degrade them and be the instrument that strips more of their humanity away that does it, it's the fact that he hasn't really considered them people at all, which is just like how Mr. Shaw saw them. The separation between himself and his captors is wobbly at best, but during moments like this it wavers until it's nonexistent and Erik puts his head in his hands, unable to hear above the roar in his ears what Ms. Yorkes is asking him. He hides himself in Charles, lowering to the floor alongside him and lifting up his shirt to put his head under it and rest his cheek on Charles's bare stomach.  
  
But Charles knows. Instantly he wraps Erik up, kissing the top of his head, running his hands through his hair, making soft, shushing hums as he rocks them back and forth. "It wasn't a choice, darling," he reminds Erik quietly, moving his shirt out of the way so he can calm and fuss, scratch behind Erik's ear and kiss his forehead. "You didn't have any choice. You did everything you could. You tried so very hard with what you had. No one blames you. Not Warren, and certainly not me. _Shh_. It's alright. You aren't anything like them. You aren't. Don't you know how much I love you?" And he lets Erik feel that, too, a physical sensation that warms the skin, that settles underneath it, that hums and sings and soothes just like the rest of Charles does. "I love you so much, Erik. I love you so much. It's alright. I'm here, and I'm yours, and I'll remind you. Use me. That's it."  
  
Erik's eyes flutter shut and he pushes his head up against Charles's fingers like a needy cat, slowly beginning to relax mostly due to the feeling of being surrounded by Charles, face hidden under his jacket and legs curled up in his lap. Ms. Yorkes is talking to him again, asking him more in-depth questions about the identities of the people he was responsible for disposing of, of what information he has that could help the authorities to track down their relatives, but he can't hear her. She sounds like she's talking underwater and he just shrinks deeper into Charles's chest, shaking his head. _Too hard. Wanna go home._ When she asks if he ever actively took a role in someone's death, he shrivels into himself and throws Charles's jacket over his whole body, shuddering. "Go 'way," he mumbles instead of answering.  
  
Charles kisses the top of Erik's head, rubbing soothingly at his scalp, at the nape of his neck. "I need you to try and answer, Erik," he breathes, as much as he'd like to be doing anything else but this too. He's going to get his Dominant through this just like he promised. "For me. Please? Just for me. Then we can get out of here. I'll be all yours. Just a bit more, darling. I promise." And if he's thinking of being on his knees and pretty rope and Presenting to get himself through this, to ground Erik a bit more, then so be it. "Just a bit more."  
  
Erik ends up stroking his hands down Charles's chest and stomach, feeling his muscles twitch underneath his fingertips and latching onto those thoughts with everything he has. "Yes," he gasps an answer at last, head shaking with it. "Scientists," he adds, referring to what he's currently on trial for, but Gertrude jerks her chin in dissent. She means during his captivity, when he was forced to harm other people, was he ever forced to kill anyone. "No," he whispers. "Wouldn't. They make me do everything else." If they'd made him kill someone it's unlikely they would've had his cooperation for as long as they did, even though people ended up dying all the same, it gave Erik the illusion that he had some choice in the matter and when they honored the 'game' it gave them the opportunity to establish elaborate scenarios for maximum damage. Erik ended up being a perfect, obedient soldier and he is sure he did lure people to be murdered eventually; he remembers specifically times when they went overseas and he was used to draw parents away from their children so they could be abducted and vivisected-Erik turns his head to the side and retches. "Can't," he pleads. He doesn't know how to use Charles or else he would, he doesn't know how-"Help," he clutches at his chest, feeling his heart shatter under his palm. Is he dying? Is he having a heart attack?  
  
Charles will help with that, just like he promised. Immediately a wave of suffocating, thick calm swaddles Erik and Charles replaces Erik's hands with his own, stroking his chest, kneeling down and wrapping him up in his arms as much as his mind. " _Shh_ , you're okay," he promises, rocking them again, moving Erik's shirt aside to touch and kiss and ground. "We're alright, darling. There we go. Breathe with me. That's it. See? Breathing." He places his hand right over Erik's heart so they can both feel it beating, feel his chest moving. If Charles has to manually take every breath for Erik, he will. If he has to carry him through every horrific, shuddering memory, bear each one, he will. "I know. I know. You're doing so well. See? Using me. Perfect. Doing perfect, love."  
  
"Can't," Erik insists, petting Charles's chest and kissing what skin he can find once he's shoved his shirt out of the way. "Can't testify, can't. He's gonna be there." Erik can barely get through this and these people are his family and the lawyer lady is very nice, there's no way on Earth he can possibly envision himself on the stand, trying to defend against the accusations the opposition will undoubtedly hurl his way. He's poor at standing up for himself during the best of circumstances. This is a bad idea, this is bad, everyone is being dragged through the ringer on the expectation that Erik will take the stand and bring the case home but he can't, short of Charles maneuvering him like a puppet-he doesn't deserve to be on the victim participant's list, he's caused so many people to die and suffer, how could he possibly think he had any right to this. It should be Warren, it should be his kids. He doesn't belong here. "Don't belong, I don't-" And it's going to be more of this, more of the same, he can't put Charles through this, he can't put these people through this-"I'm-quit. Quit."  
  
Charles shakes his head, cupping both of Erik's cheeks. When he redirects his attention, it's firm but gentle and he knows he can't possibly manuever him like a puppet (he could, but he won't) but he can do this. He can get them both through this. "Look at me, Erik. Look at me. You don't actually want to quit. I know you don't. I know you. You can do this. I know it's going to hurt. It's going to be incredibly difficult. But I am going to get you through this, alright? Together." He leans forward to kiss Erik's nose, nuzzling in, rubbing theirs together in that familiar, comforting way. "You're going to do this for you and everyone who has ever been hurt by that sorry excuse for a man, and you are going to use me to do it. You're doing just perfectly. For me. For us, darling. You can do this. Don't you trust me? I'll take care of you. I will."  
  
Erik bows their foreheads together, brushing their noses before kissing him, burrowing in as close as he can get. "Mine?" he whispers, drawing his hands over Charles's skin a little desperately. "Mine?" he draws his finger down Charles's cheek and lays his hand over it entirely, eclipsing the whole of Charles's head within his palm. He works on shutting out the rest of the world, including Gertrude and her questions, perhaps a little counterintuitively, but it's the only way he can think of not to fall completely apart. "Take care of you," he ends up smiling a little, firmly bundled up in his own mind with Charles beside.  
  
"Yours," Charles promises, a little breathlessly because if he's honest there's not a whole lot more he wants at the moment than to slip further under, to let Erik direct them both away from all of this and Order him about. He's on edge, too, beneath the calm and determination to see this through for his Dominant; vibrating with it awfully, the migraine from before clattering around in his head, close and pressing closer by the second. It feels like there's too much clanging around inside of him, too much emotion, too much energy, like he really has absorbed for himself and his teeth clack together because of it. But he's going to be good, and that means sheltering them through this. "After, sir," and he can't possibly help the way his mouth goes dry as he switches to the title, the way need tugs at his belly, flipping it over, the way his eyes flutter for just a moment, "I promise you can focus on just me. I'll be very good for you. You can teach me new things, and be very strict about it," Charles grins just slightly, nuzzling against Erik's huge hand, turning his head to kiss it. He knows there are still many, many things to learn, ways Erik would like to be served and simply hasn't asked for yet, easing them both in, and that there's very little Erik likes more than teaching him. "But we need to get through this first. Just a little more, I promise. And you do know how to use me," he reminds Erik, that soft grin still there, however strained. "Put me where you'd like me. Order me. Touch me. Whatever you need, and I'll take care of the rest. Let me serve you," he begs, and if he sounds particularly needy as he does, if this day is wearing on him, too, it can't be helped. It will have the same effect.  
  
And Erik does just that, trailing his fingertips ever so gently over Charles's cheekbones and jaw, pressing the pad of his thumb against Charles's bottom lip, leaning over to replace fingers with kisses instead, warm and soft and lingering and thousands of electrified tendrils of Will sway under Charles's skin, standing his hairs on end and rippling gooseflesh that Erik chases with touch. Static heat swirls up and pools in his belly, swirling up around his temples and melting into his chest. "Mnn. Mine," Erik rumbles, a purr deep in his chest. "Pretty," he whispers, and Charles can see himself from Erik's perspective, his skin alive with flecks of shimmering-golden glitter reflecting all that Dominion-soaked Will and eyes brilliant azure. Erik's never been very good at resisting his own impulses and right now they're pounding in his ribcage with every heartbeat.


	54. We dive in and the swimming/feels like that swimming/the mind does in the wake/of transgression, II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _the symposium_ , plato  
> ii. tw, mind the tags

It's very difficult to remember why this isn't the best idea, but being cognizant of a few lawyers too many being in the room is a good way to do it. Charles whimpers, because what he wants to do most is shiver and submit, go limp in Erik's arms and let him touch and Command and use him however he pleases, he's desperate for it, actually, every part of him dreadfully oversensitive and aching to be soothed. He manages to wriggle out of Erik's insistent touching and kisses instead, temples pounding and a full pout on his lips because he doesn't really want to be the sensible one. "Erik," he sighs, and his eyes are closed because he's sinking fast. "Erik, please. For me?"  
  
Erik frowns, deep and wrinkled and pokes Charles's nose indignantly. "Gotta?" he shakes his head, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. Charles is so pretty and his and he wants to take him home and be done with this day. " _Ani rotze shamar l'atah,_ " he says softly, insensibly, and he knows it's wrong. He could and it's so tempting, and his mind is scattered to the farthest corners of the universe and it's drawn to light and smell and touch like a baser animal, to the pretty, glittering strands of Will that respond so beautifully to his tugging and pulling tighter and he wants a nice rope, his rope, the one he brought with him painted brilliant red that would look exquisite wrapped around Charles, and that's *so much* a better alternative than what's before them now, and it's his job to take care of his submissive and make him feel good and he just *wants* good things-the way Charles bundled him up in that cashmere blanket deep in the recesses of his hell, and how his whole being shuddered and sighed in relief at such a soothing balm and the tears are dripping down his jaw. He bashes them unhelpfully with his fists. "'Kay," he gasps. "Sorry. Please don't hate me. Didn't mean it."  
  
Charles takes Erik's hands to kiss those tears away instead, and perhaps he can't conjure up a blanket out of nowhere in the Real but he can certainly wrap him up in the sensation of it until there's functionally no difference, and his blanket is softer than a real blanket and it fits both of them and he can scoot closer again until he's bundled up in Erik where Erik can touch and feel, gathering up all those scattered, far-away thoughts, tugging them back gently but insistently. "You're doing perfectly," he promises, managing a tiny smile before he hides in his Dominant's neck, because he's tired and irritated, too, his head hurts, and he can admit the only thing he wants is to be Erik's, too. He draws up those other voices instead, raising the volume so they're no longer isolated at the bottom of the ocean, so Erik can answer their questions and this can be done with, at least for today. "Almost done," he whispers, uncertain if he's talking to himself or Erik, and he takes Erik's hand and wraps it around his wrist, just a bit huffy, because when he fusses and tries to make himself feel kept it never works properly and he wants pretty rope and Orders very, very badly. Just a bit more. Maybe Erik really will teach him something new. Maybe he'll be very strict and Charles will feel less unsteady and huffy and uncomfortable. All Charles knows is that he needs to stay focused, he needs to keep Erik together, and that Erik's fingers look very nice wrapped around him and they'd look even better - he shakes his head, sighing loudly, and directs them both back to this awful room. Just a bit more.  
  
Erik's ears twitch and he bows their foreheads together, rubbing playfully. Those voices begin to filter back in and it's Gertrude asking him if he can write down a list of names of all the people other than his kids that he remembers being taken by the lab. Erik's slid over a pad of paper and a pencil-of course, it's his projection, but he extends his Real hand and it floats over. He snuggles in tighter as he begins to write with a wave of his fingers, the pencil hovering of its own accord. His penmanship now is neat and flowing, artistic the way Charles would expect it to be if he could write with his dominant hand. He must write for an hour, needing to stop periodically to sink into Charles, to _use_ him just as he's been encouraged to this whole time. There are so many. Children, workers, business associates who knew too much, doctors in remote places when Erik was hurt bad enough to near kill him, a trail of bodies left in his wake-all just more _Casualties of Erik_. But he doesn't let himself be distracted anymore-because he doesn't want to displease Charles-and he resolutely keeps writing until his brain hurts from concentrating so much on the flowing movement of the pencil and his scrawl begins to mimic his real writing. But after pages and pages are filled up and Erik's still writing, obsessively now, not just names but locations, his observations, note-side margins and silly things that don't need to be there but they _need_ to be there. Dr. Srisuk liked butterflies and had a small collection of them and he let one land on Erik's nose, and his smile lit up his face. They span multiple languages but eventually default to German, the harsh slant of letters as Mr. Shaw taught him. Gertrude is trying to tell him that it's _OK_ , that it's _enough_ , but he doesn't stop.  
  
He feels every single one of those names along with Erik, bundled up as close as possible as he holds Erik through it. Feels them and sees them and there's one that isn't on that list but should be and it hurts to breathe, but he shakes his head and reaches for Erik, gently grabbing the hand that's doing the manipulating and grasping onto his mind, too, to stop it all in its tracks completely. He wraps Erik's hand back around his wrist instead, needing it to see it there, to know and feel and he rubs insistently against his Dominant at the same time that he sends that paper toward Gertrude. "Fix?" he whispers to ground both of them before the next round of whatever is coming, wincing a bit because he's woozy and his temples are throbbing and Erik being put through this is irritating for him, too, and there's only so much he can do. But Erik is using him and leaning on him and at the moment, that's all he could ask for.  
  
And this is the part that Charles knew was coming and that Erik should have suspected but somehow he doesn't and it feels like he's been punched in the solar plexus when Gertrude retrieves a stack of cassette tapes from her bag, placing them on the table and folding her hands over them neatly. "These are the tapes we recovered from the _Shaw Institute_ ," she speaks softly, tapping the yellow legal-pad paper that Charles settled before her. "These names, some of them are likely to match faces, while others may have yet to be recorded but are still possible for you to identify. The rooms, the equipment, the EXIF data on the images, we're doing our very best to track it all down so that it won't be necessary for you to watch these, but at some point, whether now or in the court itself, we'll need you to, Erik. As painful and horrific as this is-and believe me, I do _not_ want to be asking this of you-we've already asked so much," she gives them a watery smile. "But there are a lot of people who are still missing, who haven't returned home, and you're the only hope those families have of any closure or reconciliation. If any of them are out there, we need to start gathering that information now."  
  
"No- _no_ ," Erik Commands loudly and the Order is like buildings-shaking from the force of an explosive blast, windows blown were out of Warren and now every shard of glass-underwriting on every molecule in this room is shattered into pieces. Erik rocks upward and shoots to his feet, Charles's arm gripped tightly in his fingers and he begins to levitate once more, firmly intent on leaving because now they're done, _now_ they're done. "Can't help, _yallabye_." If he were a good person, a strong person, he would do this. He knows he is obligated to do it, for any potential chance they have at saving a single soul, but he cannot. He cannot, and the alternative-having Charles dig through his memories as they play before his eyes, speaking on his behalf, is even more reprehensible to him and that means they are finished.  
  
Charles is having a difficult time getting air into his lungs at the moment, whether he saw it coming a mile away or not. It feels suspiciously like crouching to the floor and sorting through file after file after file and he has to close his eyes to keep everything together, to not hear and see and think about secret labs in the basement and injections and blood and hair and twins, but there's nothing to be done for it. There are tears leaking from his closed eyes anyway, and trembling in all of his limbs. He shakes his head, takes a shuddering, painful breath, and buries his face in Erik's chest. "I'll do it," he whispers. "We have to do it, Erik. Let me do it."  
  
" _ **No**_ ," Erik growls, eyes blazing. If anything were final, if there were ever a moment in time at which he's put his foot down, it is right now. "You will not," he Orders darkly, glaring at Gertrude. "Finished."  
  
It makes Charles tremble harder and the tears spill down his cheeks, his stomach twisting over itself, but he sniffles hard and tries to get enough air to speak. He can't look at Erik, so he keeps his eyes closed, head lowered, and he has to swallow several times before he can even open his mouth, his lip trembling, too. "Erik," he tries, the best protest he has at the moment. "Please."  
  
"No," Erik jerks his head in the negative.  
  
"I understand," Gertrude murmurs softly. "We have a little bit of time before the trial is set to start, but everything we've got is available for discovery which means the Defense has access to it, so the best chance we have of success is to move quickly."  
  
Charles stares down at the floor, eyes open and tears streaming down his cheeks, scrubbing at his face uselessly with the back of his arm. When he reaches for Erik's mind, it's more of a yank than a gentle tug, all of that panic stolen in a single breath and replaced with the foggy calm from before. He doesn't say anything, and his mind doesn't, either, his body shaking violently, his arms wrapped around himself.  
  
"No, no stop, stop please stop," Erik moans, voice higher and more desperate than Charles has ever heard it. His eyes squeeze shut and he slams the palms of his hands against them-his mind scrabbles against the intrusion of calm-banging against his plastic prison, vibrating and his abilities reach out with no conscious direction, brushing over every object in the room until it's thrumming in equal frequency to his entire body, a loud, shrieking whine repeating over and over again in his mind. " _Lo aletz li_ -"  
  
Charles lets go like he's been slapped, nails digging into his arms as he trembles harder and doesn't quite manage to hold back a sob. He closes his eyes tightly again and doesn't say a word, shaking all over and focused on keeping his own energy to himself, leashed as tight to his own body and mind as possible. It's dizzying and uncomfortable and incredibly painful but at least nothing is lifting off the ground or distorting, and he sniffles, silent except for the pitiful noises he's making.  
  
Charles is wrong. Erik doesn't want to do this. Whatever desire he has for justice is replaced slowly and steadily by encroaching fear and screamed self-loathing, he's not cooperating, he's making it worse for Charles but he can't rein himself in, he can't stop he can't let it go, he can't let it in, he cannot sit in this room with these people and watch this nevermind that it's his own life-and someone's tapping on the fish bowl of his consciousness and it's someone for whom calm is a natural default. It's his own life, he should be able to watch it. It wasn't that bad, and whatever he's seeking to shield Charles from-his submissive is already keenly aware of it.   
  
But Erik knows what's on those tapes, and he's been exposed to enough of Charles's standards of normalcy to comprehend that Charles will find it disgusting. He's not even certain why their team is using them as part of their arguments in the first place, because most of them will show what the Defense is claiming to be true. Charles likes him. Loves him. Finds him attractive. Wants to be his. Even if he intellectually knows, he's sure he hasn't _focused_ on it anymore than what has gotten through Erik's shields-Erik isn't a normal mind, either, with memories fractured and splintered over thousands of fragments, it's not easy to put it linearly together and Charles hasn't focused a lot of time doing so.   
  
This will be different. Charles won't let him do it by himself, and he doesn't know if he could anyway. It's his life. He should be able to watch his own life. But even if all of this were fine, it's already reminding Charles of pain, and they haven't even begun. It would be foolish and irresponsible for Erik to allow this. He's frozen, immobile and indecisive and frozen, eyes wide and unseeing, Charles still held tightly in his arms and they're still hovering a few inches off the ground.  
  
Charles isn't doing so well with being held at the moment. He's squirming every which way, as much as he possibly can, and Erik is wrong. It's more than intellectually understanding what Erik has been through, and it doesn't matter if the memories are linear or not when his own brain and conception of thoughts and memories doesn't work like that in the first place. If anyone understands minds that aren't normal, it's Charles, and if he's ever understood anyone else in their entirety, it's Erik. He's done more than read his mind. He's Bonded to him in every possible way, and perhaps that means there are still things to learn, still things he isn't consciously aware of, that he hasn't processed or focused on the same as Erik with him, but he knows and he's seen. It's impossible for Charles to Bond to someone the way he has with Erik without understanding every fractured, broken off piece, and if there was ever going to be disgust, it certainly wouldn't be with Erik. But he doesn't know how to say that, and he can't possibly show it, either, not when he's trying so desperately to keep everything in, so he goes on wriggling and fussing, feeling pathetic and utterly worthless.  
  
"I'm not _gonna_ " Erik growls, frustrated at himself. "Not going to!" his voice sweeps out, that otherworldly clip of Command edging his words. It's not like Charles isn't going to feel worse if he just said _fine, let's watch The Erik Show_ on top of things. And Erik cannot sanction it. He is frustrated and disgusted with *himself* and objects hover in the air and a chair bends unnaturally and slams into the wall, dissolving into a billion particles that bounce harmlessly off the floor and invert in on themselves. "If you want me to then myself, just me." If it will make Charles feel better he'll do it. He'll do anything, even this. "I'll do it. Just me."  
  
It won't make Charles feel better. It won't make him feel better at all and he closes his eyes as tightly as he can, until it hurts and the world spins and turns nauseating colors and tears itself apart and he doesn't retch, just shakes his head back and forth. "Shield-mates," he whimpers, and he is pathetic, and he is useless, and if Erik didn't think he was weak then he wouldn't be doing this. He can't even use Charles properly because Charles isn't even worth using.  
  
"No," Erik stills him, putting his hands over his cheeks. He brushes his thumbs over his eyes and silently Orders them open, looking down at him with furrowed brows, a crumpled, half-wild look on his face. He's struggling to maintain a real grip on his head. It isn't him, or maybe it is him, maybe Charles won't be able to see the difference, maybe he'll realize that Mr. Shaw was right all along and that Erik doesn't belong here, he belongs on his knees, where he knows he acted so incredibly grateful to be. Charles already thinks he made Erik do this, what if he really does think that Erik is just acting and that he really doesn't want any of this and he doesn't belong here, doesn't belong- stop it, stop it _stop it_ -Erik bashes the edge of his fist against his head before the swimming urge to actually get on the ground threatens to make him vomit all over Charles's shiny shoes. He's wheezing harshly through his nose as he tries to speak calmly. "Know you can."  
  
Charles' shoes aren't shiny after their long walk in the desert and neither are Erik's and for some reason that works him up even more until his chest is heaving with it, makes his lip wobble because he'd spent a very substantial amount of time this morning on his knees making sure they were absolutely spotless, buffing out every hint of a scuff or speck of dirt because Erik is his Dominant and that's what he does. He serves. He obeys and he listens and he serves and he wouldn't do it for anyone else, just Erik, only Erik, because Erik is his Dominant and that's the way it was always meant to be and Sebastian Shaw might have thought he'd ruined that, that he'd twisted and distorted it but he hadn't, he couldn't. Nothing could. Because Erik is his Dominant and that's how it is, that's how it should be, and Charles' knees are weak and then they're bending because he wants them to, and he's down by Erik's not-shiny shoes, grabbing onto his legs and he can't talk or breathe but he needs him to know. He bows his head and the tears still come because Charles is very certain that he's broken, that he's utterly defective but with Erik he feels like he has a place. Like he's finally doing what's right, that he can breathe, that he's not utterly inadequate. And Erik can't doubt that, can't doubt that Charles is his, that he belongs to him, because Charles won't be able to live with it and he'll stop and that will be it because he's pathetic. He's pathetic and he wasn't good enough but Erik makes him feel like he's good enough, and please. Please, please don't take that from him. He bends all the way down, exactly how he did when he first got his collar, crying and desperate and Erik's. Incredibly grateful to be there, but not because he was brainwashed or forced or manipulated. Because he is. Because he's supposed to be. Because this is how it really is, and please see it please don't take it away from me.  
  
He can live without shiny shoes-and it gives Charles purpose and it makes him happy and it reinforces his place so it does make Erik happy-but on its own, they're just shoes. It's born of the same instincts that Charles has in every other aspect of their life and he's expressed it a thousand different ways since then, and it's the only thing forcing Erik's lungs and heart to pump blood and oxygen through his body. He isn't defective, he isn't broken, because Erik doesn't like broken people. Kurt is broken, Cain was broken, Sharon is broken. Charles is injured, and there is a difference, because they've proven time and time again that it is possible to heal, together-by every definition of the word, as far as Erik is concerned, they are shield-mates, _for if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their beloved, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonor, and emulating one another in honor; and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world_. And sometimes it feels like that is the nature of their obstacle, the world itself, but there is never any doubt in each other. Erik crouches down and gathers Charles up in his arms, rocking him slightly from side to side. "It's yours," he whispers. It's Charles's and it will never be taken from him because Erik guards it with every fiber of his being, and that is why he couldn't stand it if Charles watched these tapes play out and wondered if Erik was just acting with him. If he wondered all over again if he was just forcing Erik into it, if he wondered again if Erik doesn't really want to be here, because there are a lot of things that Erik doesn't know the difference between, but he knows this. "Don't want you think of me like that," he says. "Please don't forget."  
  
Charles sniffles and shakes his head, staying bowed all the way down not because he's hiding but because he wants to, clinging to Erik's legs not because he's pathetic but because he belongs here, because he belongs to Erik, because this is the way it is. "I'm sorry," he sobs, trying to catch his own breath enough to make better words but he can't and his own thoughts are suffocating, twisting and hurting but Erik makes them hurt less and he doesn't want this taken from him. He doesn't want to forget and he won't. "I'm - sorry, I'm sorry, all I've been today is bad -" And he honestly believes that because he can't see a world where it's any different, but he still wants to be good, and he wants to be Erik's, and he knows. Erik isn't pretending. They can't make-believe this, and Charles never could have forced it. He won't think any different when he sees those tapes because it couldn't possibly be any different. And he cares about Erik's shoes because Erik had wanted him to serve, he'd been strict and expectant and perfect and he'd relied on Charles and he just - he has to - he rubs his cheek against one of Erik's shoes, not caring about the dirt or the dust or the sand. Please let him still belong to Erik. Let him stay on his knees and polish his shoes and be good for him. It's the only time he's ever, ever felt like he might not be broken after all. Please don't make him leave. Please don't send him back.  
  
"No," Erik crouches down to kiss his forehead and brush his hair from his face. "Good and mine and-perfect," he murmurs, soothing and tugging off his opposite shoe to poke Charles with a toe-an out-of-place playfulness that always manages to creep its way into their existence no matter the heavy weight pressing them down. He wraps Charles up with his legs, too, swaying side to side. "Breathe, 'kay?" he Orders, soft. "Don't go," he whispers, because when he really thinks about it, the idea of sending Charles away so he can do this on his own is just as intolerable as having him stay to begin with, moreso because Charles will be gone and he will be alone and he can't-he doesn't want to be alone anymore. Charles is his. He gets that. He gets to have Charles, and use Charles and he couldn't bear to send him away.   
  
He's still crying and it hurts, his chest too tight and his head too heavy and full, but he breathes because Erik tells him to and he can be a good boy. Maybe it's silly and pathetic but he rubs his cheek over Erik's foot, self-soothing and calming while he catches his breath, clinging to Erik's legs with everything he has. "Not sending me back?" he gasps, through a painful sob and backed-up snot. His mind flashes white rooms and belt buckles and bloody sheets, bloody back and scars and screaming, unconscious and almost too quick to catch, and then he's whimpering. "Please don't. I'll be good, promise, I'll be good, I'll be a good boy, don't send me back," he begs, distressed and beside himself. "Don't give me away. I'll be good. Don't give me away."  
  
Erik shudders, growling at those memories and shoving himself in front of Charles to shrink them into submission, too. There is nowhere for Charles to go but here. No one will ever get him again, Erik will protect him from any further harm, from any danger. He is safe and good and he is never going back there again. Erik could no more give Charles away than he could hold his breath until he rolled over and died.  
  
Charles is still shaking, but he's breathing because Erik told him to and he's hanging on with everything he has, rubbing his face back and forth and back over Erik's foot and smearing dust and dirt onto his ruddy, tear-stained cheeks and he peeks up hopefully, red-rimmed azure big and wet. "Not sending me away?" he checks, and he sounds younger than he is, smaller than he is, like he's the one who's gotten lost, who's forgotten how to be who he is. "Keeping me?"  
  
Erik realizes what Charles is doing after a few seconds and pulls him up, tugging off his shirt so he can use it to wipe Charles's face, gentle and brushing away flakes of sand and dirt with his fingers before settling him back against his chest. "Always," he smiles against his heart thundering in his chest, suppressing a gasp when he feels it flutter and skip a beat, putting his chin over Charles's head and keeping him pinned safe. "Never send you away. I love you."  
  
That makes him whine loudly, sniffling unhappily because he didn't mind getting dirty if it meant he could be on his knees and Erik's shoes could be clean. He wants them to be clean. He wants to be good and take care of Erik and that means his shoes have to be clean and he's crying again, breathing hitched as he tries to get himself under control, to be what his Dominant needs but he can't and he doesn't know why and he's frustrated and squirming and Erik's shoes are dirty. "Bad," he croaks, broken. "Bad. Bad boy."  
  
"No, no-stop," Erik says firmly. He doesn't need that, he needs Charles to stay right here and just breathe. He's the one that that keeps Charles under control, and that's exactly what he'll do. "Calm," he Orders, petting Charles's clean cheek. It's his responsibility to make sure Charles is clean and kept and loved, and him on the floor with his head rubbed in the dirt is not letting Erik do his job, and it's Charles's job to help Erik, and that's exactly what he does, because he is good. "Love. Promise."  
  
Even when he stops gasping for breath and sobbing so hard his stomach contracts, even when he stops struggling in Erik's arms, he doesn't feel particularly calm. He breathes and stops crying, but he doesn't settle, uncomfortable and worked up. He's in pain and he's overwhelmed and he hates that he's so stupid and useless and that he couldn't even - he wanted - he winces, trying not to cry anymore, limp against Erik's chest. "Wanted to be good," he mumbles. "I wanted to be a good boy."  
  
Erik keeps stroking his face and kisses him along the jaw and temples gently. "No-stop," he repeats himself. "Don't want to hear." He doesn't want to hear Charles referring to himself as any of those things, because they aren't true. "Good for me." He does what Erik says, and makes Erik feel better. That's what matters. "Good boy. My boy. Love you."  
  
Even the gentlest touch there makes him grimace and squirm, beyond oversensitive and settling into bursts of excruciating pain territory, flashes of him bent over and touching his toes as he cries out in pain and hot, horrid humiliation. "Not bad?" he whispers. He loves Erik. He wants to be good for Erik. He wants to be Erik's. Don't take it from him. Please don't take it from him. "Yours? Use me?"  
  
"Yes," Erik whispers, chasing those off too, waving a big broom and brandishing it at them with a glower. It has no place here, certainly not with Erik. "Mine," he overpowers any dissent, kissing every ounce of skin he can find and transforming the pain and humiliation that live there into what belongs, only love. Only Erik's Will, and the things that Erik deem appropriate. Never cruelty, never abandonment. That's what their contract states, and he flashes that instead. Words they've written together, a document living as a testament to Erik's expectations, not the unreasonable, unattainable standards he keeps judging himself against. He is good, and he is good for Erik.  
  
Except it's all still there. It's still there, crawling beneath his flesh, sunk into his body and his mind like some festering disease he can't possibly extract, twined into his DNA like another mutation and Erik is not what they made him but Charles is what they hated and sought to control or else destroy in the process. Another mutation that is destructive, that is wrong, that is sick. It's hot shame and burning, disgraceful jealousy, it's wretched, pent-up frustrations and devastation he couldn't process as a child, ripped straight from the womb and already he was something reviled. His memories are fractured, too. They're stored in a thousand different databases, not spread into the dirt and the sand and the mountains but hidden among encrypted data and doors that hiss and click with DNA recognition and then sorted and normalized because Charles had to be normal, he had to go to school and social functions and smile at the correct times but nothing was ever normal. Except to him it was.  
  
Charles is no stranger to compartmentalizing. No stranger to split, torn off pieces and alienated traits. There are parts of Charles' trauma that he has not spoken and perhaps never will, that showed up in a file and Cain Marko's mind but that he's forced himself to forget or else stop functioning, and he was already struggling with that. Perhaps he's more well-adjusted than Erik, but that was part of his conditioning; to be a member of society, to be elite, to be an heir. Another type of weapon and it always felt rather like the gun was pointed at his own head, not outward. Charles has buried and ignored and hidden these twisted, shredded parts of himself his entire life, but they're there and they shriek and scream and cry all the same. His doors are no less childlike than Erik's cartoon fields. If I just stare at the door hard enough, if I will it closed, he couldn't possibly come in -  
  
But he did. And he does in his memories, over and over and over and over and the door doesn't stay closed and it never had a lock to begin with. For as long as Charles can remember, his bedroom door had no lock.  
  
But Erik looked at him and his fancy suits and his fancy watch and his fancy face and thought there is nothing you could possibly understand about me and that's exactly what everyone thinks. Even now, even in this stupid fucking room he looks composed and professional and academic, in a suit that isn't dusty with his demurely crossed legs and that expensive watch he never takes off. It was a gift from his mother. She gave it to him for his twenty-fifth birthday. In March.  
  
Charles was born in July. He was so grateful to receive it he nearly cried, and completely forgot the pain and humiliation of the rest of the evening. And Erik doesn't know that, because it hadn't even occurred to him until exactly this moment that perhaps there is something wrong with it.  
  
But the point is. He shakes his head against Erik's chest, everything about him still firmly leashed to his own body because he's terrified of it spilling out, tears still fresh on his cheeks as he looks up at Erik. "You can't save me from it," he whispers. He can't shield him or shelter him or close his eyes to it. It's already there. In every crevice of Charles' life there is pain, and now there is healing. There's love and there's light and there's renewed, restored hope. There's promise and there are dreams and there is happiness. Those are things Erik gave him.  
  
But the way to keep that is not to banish him whenever there is something difficult to look at. "Stay," he mumbles, cheek smushed against Erik's chest. "I'll take care of you. I'll be good. Just let me stay." What hurts more isn't seeing it and hurting from it. It's being pushed away from it, like he couldn't understand. Like he isn't strong enough or brave enough or good enough to handle it. Charles can, and he will. Sometimes his own mess gets in the way, but they sort through it together. "Don't cut me," he begs.  
  
Erik's eyes are closed and he rocks Charles back and forth, partly to soothe him but a great deal to soothe himself, too, so that he doesn't fly off the handle and try to swing at shadows. When Charles looks, though, he shakes his head and rubs his cheek under his thumb. "Not fair," he whispers, smiling gently. He doesn't mean it's not fair that Charles brought it up; Erik knows he made an assumption based on appearances, but he doesn't think that way anymore and it's not fair for Charles to put himself down on that basis. Erik never wanted him to understand, he has never held that position in some kind of esteem, suffering doesn't bring character development it just brings suffering and he doesn't want that for anybody. If he can reduce Charles's suffering in any way, that is what matters, and it has nothing to do with who is weak or strong or capable of dealing with it in the first place, because they both know Charles can and has. But he shouldn't have, and he shouldn't, and Erik has a hard time understanding why that is a bad thing. His eyes flutter, though, and his bearing straightens, an impenetrable calm sweeping down over the Landscape in a thick, cloying fog as thousands of tiny, shrieking blobs scatter over the hills and into the huts. "Stay," he nods once, eyes dark and unreadable.  
  
Charles has a difficult time understanding why Erik has to suffer any more than the pain he already has, pain anyone else would find literally insurmountable, but if they have to suffer in the first place then it's much better they suffer through it together. It has been from the beginning. Perhaps that's the only reason it hasn't destroyed them, if not in body than in mind, the only reason Charles was able to earn six degrees at the most prestigious university in the world while battling addiction (of several different kinds, but no use dragging that up now) and spending his holidays and increasing not-holidays in hell, how he still wakes up in the morning and believes in ideals like there is good to be found in dark places and minds can always be changed and even when someone loses their way... Why he thought of a school, how he was able to raise Raven, to anchor Warren through devastating grief, to help patients through their own suffering and agony and not cave to his own. To care and hope and love with the capacity he does. The same applies to Erik. They never lost themselves, even when it seemed like they did, and in every dark corner there has always been this. "Together," he whispers, and hides in Erik's chest so that when he bats Erik's hazy fog away to replace it with something much more lasting, something warm and coaxing, something built from what has gotten them through every moment just like this, comfort and love and not alone, never alone woven into the very fabric of Erik's mind, every stitch carefully sewn by hand, every instance of touch and whisper, every peek in, every hummed song, every moment of respite pulled together, melted down and painted into the sky of Erik's Landscape, he doesn't have to watch if he pushes him away.  
  
Erik doesn't disappear, though, and he doesn't banish Charles away. Gertrude asks them again-well, Erik, and it's all he can do to stare at the wall with dull, dead eyes as he nods, straightening to appear at least somewhat dignified even if that illusion will be shortly shattered. He doesn't bother asking for anyone else to leave, Charles was the only one he's worried about and he doesn't understand that he's entitled to privacy otherwise. It's not that bad. They're going to be disappointed to discover that the person on whom their case hinges was a willing participant in a good majority of what happened; but Erik's been trying to tell them that this entire time. He hasn't lied. If he can help them find any of the people who didn't go where most of them went, maybe it will be worth having Charles disgusted with him. "OK," he mumbles.  
  
Charles shakes his head, whimpering in protest as he tugs hard at both Erik's mind and his shirt. "No," he insists, stubborn and unsettled. He won't be disgusted. He does know the difference. Erik wasn't a willing participant in anything that happened in that forsaken place, and maybe Charles can't convince him of that right this instant but he can certainly try because he hasn't lied about anything either. "Love you. My perfect Dominant. Stay, please." And he's not asking Erik to let him stay, he's begging Erik to stay with him, weaving together everything that will hold them through this, constantly constructing so nothing falls apart. Hiding in case Erik does decide it's unwanted or bad, preparing for that possibility. He doesn't bother extracting himself from his Dominant when no one will see him here anyway, clinging harder instead.  
  
It would be easier if this were just something he had to endure, he could hide himself in Charles and maybe it wouldn't be so bad. They wouldn't have to pay attention to anything, but that isn't the case, because they're expecting him to make notes which means he can't tune it out. He has no alternative but to stay. Gertrude does insist that the other lawyers leave, and Warren as well, and asks if he wants Charles to remain in the room. Erik gives a stiff nod, letting his back hit the wall while Gertrude gets her laptop connected to the adapter that will play the files. Erik takes short, audible breaths in through his nose, leaning against Charles both mentally and physically. "OK, we're all set up, over here. There's a few that I've selected because they involve other people, but obviously these are pretty difficult to watch. You let me know at any time if you want to pause or stop altogether and we will. I've turned the audio off in the embed," she adds, lips pressed together as she shores up armor of her own. "And I've edited the contrast and tried to enhance the visual quality as best as I can, since some of these are quite old. When you see someone you recognize, we'll pause so you can write down that information. Just let me know whenever you're ready." Charles should decide. He can't do it. He's not ready and he never will be.  
  
Charles steadies himself as much as he possibly can, closing his eyes to filter everything out with sharp, painful breaths. It's going to whip up memories no matter what, and those are necessary for this particular exercise; if he can help sort through them and get this done as efficiently and painlessly as possible, weave through and between and coax the right ones to the surface, that's his only goal besides holding Erik through the shuddering agony of it. It doesn't matter how old the video is when Charles can see the exact same moments in devastatingly vivid detail. He doesn't take his own seat in the Real, he just hovers near Erik, uncertain and batting down every sick, nauseating bit of sensation. "Erik," he breathes, bowing his head, biting hard at his lip. "It's not my choice. You do have control here. I know you didn't in these tapes, but you do now. Over this, and especially over me. Use me. Don't forget. You can do this, you have me. Okay?"

* * *

Erik makes an unhappy noise, but gestures for Gertrude to press play, resting his head on Charles's shoulder with the pad poised on his lap, eyes locked on the grainy resolution as it clears. There is nothing revelatory about it, nothing that Charles couldn't have guessed or expected, but Erik has his eyebrows knit together as he watches, frozen over the paper even though he's supposed to be writing. He remembers this, it was the night the _Hellfire Club_ merged with a mutant supremacist group in _Cartagena_ , so everyone was celebrating. He always recalled it with everything else in a big lump, just another party where he was featured entertainment along with some of the local population, scared mutant children who didn't know what was happening and he tried to direct as much of their attention onto himself as he could which meant being charming and seductive, and he was good at it.   
  
It's a while before Erik appears but when he does, it's from a room off to the side. He's about fourteen, and looks like a strong wind would blow him over, wearing a torn shirt and a wire collar with inverted prongs. Remembering an event and seeing an event like this are two very different experiences and Erik stares, unable to look away. He watches himself spill a drink he's been bidden to pour and get kicked to the ground, dragged by the scruff of his collar to a plush chair where the agitator sits and gestures to his belt expectantly. Erik doesn't anticipate the shaking anger he feels until it's too late, crashing over him in pulsing, molten waves and a large crack splits down the center of the table in front of them. He wants to scream at that child to get out of there, he doesn't belong there. It's not even Erik, it's just some _kid_ -  
  
Charles takes a deep, shuddering breath, knees threatening to lock together and bend and he regrets not taking a seat like his much more composed projection. The most important part is locking away anything from his side of the Bond, anything jangling or vaguely resembling one of his own memories, experiences, or thoughts, or any of the glitching, startling pain still lingering; not hiding, but muting it all down and away, keeping it from interfering. He rewinds the memory for Erik instead of the tape, because the tape can't be tampered with, can't be blurred out and softened, overlaid with that painted-sky calm, love, care. Gently he puts the pen in Erik's hand. That boy doesn't belong there. He never did. But if Charles thinks about how he wasn't there to take him away from all of this, he'll go mad and do more than crack a table, so this is where they stand. "Names and descriptions and details, darling," he whispers, right into Erik's ear. "I'm right here. Use me." He makes that extraordinarily easy by plucking said names and descriptions right out of Erik's thoughts, stirring them up and pressing them forward. As painlessly and efficiently as possible. That's all he can hope for.  
  
Erik begins to write, guiding Charles to kneel instead, and pausing every so often to run his fingers through his hair and kiss his forehead. He's upright and doing his duty and composed and that's all he can ask for. This is his life, this is what happened, it's fine. It's OK. He's still alive. He identifies some of the clients and the other children, watching himself be handled like a doll instead of a person. The audio on the file is muted but in his memories it isn't, and he can hear himself flattering the man operating the video camera, the other on the chair, he can hear the exaggerated sounds coming from himself, the comments from them-it's all the same, he's zoned out-Erik wonders when he stopped fighting, when he stopped trying to get away, when he resigned himself to being what they wanted instead, and he's in the middle of wondering that when the tape takes a turn for the worse and then he is _watching_ himself fight-  
  
one is letting the liquor get to him and he's choking Erik too hard and his nervous system is reacting without conscious direction even though his thoughts are _screaming_ at himself to _stop_ and calm down, _just calm down or you're going to get killed_ but he can't stop trying to push him away and he can't stop crying-it's not emotional, it's hard to take a punch and walk away dry-eyed but the effect is the same-and ornaments are flying off the walls and in his mind Shaw's voice, _These people are important and I'm not going to let you ruin this for me-_ and on the screen Erik's got blood running down his temples from where he's been hit with a long metal implement, and he doesn't remember it like this. He remembers _calm down!_ and berating himself for failing, for egging them on, for not being skilled enough to take it. He's woozy and struggling to crawl away, but that's only encouraging them. The cameraman follows them into the bedroom where another individual has trapped someone they can't see off-screen under him, but Erik knows who it is because it made him fight harder-someone he's supposed to take care of, but she's a local, he should've known she wouldn't make it out of there alive.   
  
Erik's watching expressionlessly, and he jerks into motion a few seconds later and writes down _Felicia Salvadore_.  
  
Charles doesn't flinch, or grimace, or react outwardly at all. His eyes are closed for some of it and he's leaned into Erik's leg, arching toward those stroking fingers like a needy pet to keep both of them grounded, but it doesn't make any sort of difference if they're shut or not. Erik's memories once he's beckoned them forward are exponentially more vivid than these tapes are and they don't rely on awkward angles and obscured views. There's no shakiness and every single thought and emotion is parsed through as if being sifted, Charles separating and analyzing and feeding the important bits back to Erik to write down. He doesn't say a word, mouth a thin, drawn line, his entire bottom lip sucked into his mouth and white from his teeth. All that matters is getting through this. He rests his cheek on Erik's knee and opens his eyes, a hitch to his breath one of the only signs he's seeing besides the fact that his every muscle is tense.  
  
It's got to go on for hours, but Gertrude has truncated the tapes only to include scenes that feature other people, Charles is the only one who can see the event in its entirety, the many people who drag Erik away from the common sphere for a more private setting. They don't see when Azazel shows up and that turn becomes a swerve into the sadistic, with guns and instruments of torture brought to play. The things they say are humiliating and horrible to any outsider, but when it's accompanied by a less brutal touch, Erik actively gravitates toward it and encourages it silently. Compared to Azazel it's like being held by a parent, and one takes pity on him, shushing him while he cries and tending to his wounds. But he still fucks him. Erik remembered that man fondly, always thought he was nice, but that isn't nice. Erik wouldn't do that. He wouldn't choose to do that. (It has to be clarified, because they do see Azazel wanting a show with others involved and Erik's too weak to move, and the person they've brought in to pick up his slack is terrified and screaming.)  
  
This room is way too hot and sweat sprouts up at his temples and across the bridge of his nose, contributing to the uncomfortable, prickly humidity pressing down on his chest and he massages every muscle he can find under his hands to try and soothe it into relaxing, swiping at his own forehead and pinching the bridge of his nose, concealing his eyes with his hand so he doesn't have to see everybody looking at him, trying desperately not to see what's in front of them.  
  
"And that's Azazel Rasputin," Gertrude is saying. "And who's this man-? The one in the coat."  
  
"Jason Wyngarde," Erik says evenly. "Victor Creed," he points to a man towering over Erik's prone form on the bed who drags him down by his foot and brandishes his fist, only for bone claws to slice through his knuckle joints and the video truncates again after that. There's a woman wearing all white with her legs crossed, thigh-high boots glinting off of dimmed light sitting beside Shaw, and now Erik and two other people are actively participating, while everyone stands around and watches in a circle like vultures, curious and fascinated. "And Emma Frost. She never touched us." She just did something much worse. In Erik's memories he fought and raged against the prison of his mind, watching his body clamor forward to hurt someone much smaller than himself on pure evil whim, but he can't break free. He can't move a muscle, he can't even blink or breathe on his own.  
  
Charles' nails dig into his own thighs, scratching at the fabric of his slacks uselessly. He's putting valiant effort into not biting his lip or cheek hard enough to bleed, because the last thing Erik needs to see is blood outside of these horrid memories, outside of these tapes. He traps everything inside his own mind in, walls it up and locks it tightly, comforting himself with small reminders. Erik will never experience any of this ever again, and every single person responsible will know justice, even if Charles has to enact it himself. Some of the people featured have already suffered losses he's positive are utterly catastrophic, not to mention distinctly humiliating - he's positive Emma Frost feels helpless and trapped and impotent, stuck inside her own mind and cut off from everything she's ever known, the way she intuitively experiences the world, not to mention foggy and blurred from the suppressants that work on her. How weak she must feel, and to know she was bested by someone leagues stronger in the process. He feels not an ounce - not a single modicum - of sympathy, and even less for Shaw who he's much more personally responsible for. He wonders, briefly, idly, at the specifics of it. How is being cut off from all that energy serving him? Does he feel the lack? Does it hurt?  
  
Charles would never call himself sadistic. Perhaps he still doesn't need to, despite the fact that part of him hopes so.  
  
He doesn't linger on thoughts of Azazel, not even in that private, walled-off place.  
  
All he can do is think never again. This will never, ever happen again. No one will lay a hand on Erik, body or mind, or they will find themselves regretting that decision dearly. He promised Emma Frost that once, and now he'll follow through. If there's one single regret Sebastian Shaw has in his life, it will be Charles Xavier.  
  
Perhaps if he was a better man he wouldn't take pride in that. He does.  
  
He bows his head against Erik's thigh, takes another shuddering breath, and goes back to moderating Erik's memories, nudging and muting and prodding, all with a softer, gentler touch than Frost could ever imagine. With love, and care, and devotion, wrapping them all up in something distinctly Charles, flooding Erik's mind with the constant reminder that he's here, that he isn't alone, that this isn't his life anymore and that Charles belongs to him. He doesn't alter anything, though he could. He doesn't take anything away, though he could. Erik would never know the difference, not even with his extraordinary mind. Even if something seemed off.  
  
But he doesn't, and he won't. All he does is touch them with loving fingers, mending and aiding and giving these dark moments what they never had.  
  
Erik shivers even still, running his fingers through Charles's hair over and over again, rhythmic and soothing, a repetition outside of Charles on his inside. There is still a great deal more to get through-some of it featuring Erik and some not, but Charles can see that he tries to ingratiate himself to everyone, to deflect as much attention onto himself as possible which means he's in a lot of the frames, and by the end he's covered in bruises and blood, without clothing and left to huddle in a corner where the film has stopped, camera laid down on a table at an angle and everyone else has had their fill of drink, heads lolled onto their shoulders. Erik writes in stop-starts, encouraged mostly by Charles to focus, and when it seems like it's finally over, Erik's still writing, eyes locked on the yellow pad.  
  
Painlessly and efficiently. Painlessly and efficiently. Charles' fingers have dug into his thigh with enough force that even through fabric there's a sting, but he doesn't feel it and if he's honest he wishes it stung a bit more. Breathe, sort and redirect, wall the rest off. It becomes a mantra after a while, a task to complete, and Charles is exceptionally good at completing tasks. It doesn't stop him from arching into those stroking fingers, the hand that isn't scratching at his thigh grasping tight at Erik's leg like a lifeline for both of them, biting back pitiful noises when his Dominant stops the petting for even a moment like it might be the end of the world. He lets him write, nudging here and there, pointing out things in his memory that seem relevant, encouraging him when he falters, head bowed into his lap.  
  
He twists and twines his fingers into Charles's hair, tugging a little just to focus on Charles's reaction, and when he's finally finished, lagging behind by about twenty minutes, he slams the metal rungs of the clipboard against the plastic table and rises to his feet, tugging Charles up with him. He doesn't say anything to the lawyers still gathered around, but they can hear it nonetheless. He's finished and they're going home. Before anyone has the opportunity to stop him, Charles included, he stalks out and wraps his arms around his submissive, shooting high into the air as soon as they exit the legal building.  
  
Charles could probably stop it all if he put enough effort into it, but he simply doesn't have the energy. He edits memories instead, idle and vaguely frustrated, appalled at how quick he is to do it when just months ago he'd never dare. He said something to Raven about memories being delicate, about one lost or tampered with piece potentially rending the whole corrupted - he wasn't wrong. He's just far too careful and skilled for it to happen. There's not even an inkling left behind that something is wrong, that something was changed in the first place, like Erik insinuated. If he wanted to take something and leave behind no trace, it would be taken. The difference between a hacksaw and incredibly efficient scalpel. As it is, it's a fast, mindlessly simple job even with his mind a swirling mass of mucked up pain and absorbed emotion, and with nothing left to do he scratches at his hand, digs in crescents and for once is the one scowling, eyes closed.


	55. what did they wish they could see, that they used to see;/to mean no harm/what would they wish not to see, could they stop seeing . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _great expectations_ , charles dickens  
> ii. _henry sugar/short stories_ , roald dahl

The sound barrier explodes with a loud, sonic _boom!_ as Erik reaches a high enough altitude, both of them protected from the noise and the elements by his shield. They head home with startling alacrity, Erik keeping a tight hold on him and stopping him from hurting himself, batting his hand away and bundling it up along with his arms. He didn't realize how far away all of those memories seemed until he had to watch them, how different things were now, and it's like being thrust right back into it; like nothing's changed, he's still the same-no, no. No, he isn't. He has a family, now. He has Charles. Friends. People who love him and care about him. They're safe. He tells himself that over and over again, trying to calm himself down, reduce his own heart rate.  
  
Even through his own irritation (it's not at Erik, and even if some of it was, it was fleeting and impossible to hold onto), Charles helps. He sorts through these thoughts, too, replacing them with the reality; memories of bleeding and torture and wretched parties becoming early mornings tangled up in their sheets, afternoons at their favorite bookstore, feeding pigeons in Central Park. Their Bonding Ceremony, surrounded by friends and family. Charles leaned against Erik's legs on his knees in front of the couch while they watch some horrid made-for-TV movie with Raven and Hank. Everything has changed for both of them. Some of it lingers, ghostly remnants they'll be finding there for the rest of their lives, but that's all they are. Ghosts. Remnants. Charles doesn't say a word, but he doesn't struggle, either, even if he shifts from scratching to biting again, keeping his eyes firmly closed and surrounding them both with a different kind of memory recall. This one he doesn't mute down, and he replaces Erik's stuttering, shaky calm with the painted-skies from before.  
  
Erik wilts a little when he feels the result of Charles's irritation, knowing that at least some of it is due to him. "Sorry," he whispers, cupping Charles's jaw. They set down on the grass outside David and Ellie's house, just barely disturbing the blades and Erik smooths them out once they got on the sidewalk, fixing any damage their tromping feet may have caused.  
  
But Charles shakes his head, because it isn't Erik's fault. None of it, absolutely none, and especially not his soured mood. He knows his own habits. He knows to fix this he'd normally withdraw into himself, bundle it all up and find a way to stamp it back down. He'd get reticent and snippy and push until he was left alone. The thing is, he's positive that will happen again. But right now, this time, Charles wraps his arms tighter around Erik's middle instead, still silent but seeking, too. Afraid to speak, to ask, to need in the first place, but this is a start.  
  
Honestly, Erik is relieved, glad to be able to _give_ in the first place, and he smiles a little, brushing his hands down Charles's back and sliding his arm around his waist, kissing the top of his head. "Home?" he asks, soft. This isn't *home*, but in a way, it's the closest thing either of them have. Maybe some day they'll spend more time here, unmarred by their obligations and the hell that's come with them-most of which Erik does blame himself for, feeling a lot like Mr. Shaw and everything that's happened as a result of him is his responsibility. But now Erik just wants to be alone with Charles, to help reorient himself and all the pieces that know his submissive is here.  
  
It's home, in a way. Technically they're displaced in New York, too; Charles would consider Raven's place to be a home, and as the place he's settled in with Erik, it is. But it isn't permanent, or theirs, and as much as he loves his sister (it's an inordinate amount), he finds himself chafing against the lack of a private space. It's mutual. Either way, Charles nods, still clung to Erik but refusing to open his eyes. Instead of the usual strop or tizzy he'd work himself into when irritated or in pain or stressed, he's quiet. His mind, too, unusually so, at least as much as Erik can see of it, thoughts still bubbled off, not to hide or play Keep-Away but so they don't hurt him. He reaches out, but not with any real intent. Just to pull Erik's mind closer to his. He doesn't know what he needs, or how to help, or how to ask for it. But he doesn't pull away, and he trusts Erik, and that's enough.  
  
Maybe it's because he can feel how close Erik is to exploding the sound barrier himself, his chest buzzing with anxiety that only seems to be soothed the closer he is to Charles. Even still, he's shaking from it-Erik's always been more mild when it comes to being upset, conditioned not to cause a scene or inconvenience others, Erik losing his temper usually results in something dire and catastrophic and he's long learned to associate it as such, so he's just standing there, clutching onto Charles and trying to keep every speck of his power reined in so it doesn't leak out and destroy how it wants to. "Love you," he mumbles, breathing heavily, keeping his hand on his own chest as if to hold himself in place.  
  
Charles would never let that happen, though. Even now he's smoothing things out, taking those jagged, vibrating edges and calming them, soothing them underneath gentle mental fingers. His answer doesn't come verbally but in a wave of mirrored feeling, every bit of love and affection he has enveloping them both, and he tugs at Erik, peeking up with a request he can't properly articulate. His eyes are shiny with what he's refusing to let be the beginning of tears, and for just a moment he lets all that jangling desperation and need spill out, bottom lip sucked into his mouth to stop it wobbling pathetically.  
  
Erik shakes his head and runs his thumb under Charles's eye. "It's OK," he whispers, leaning forward to kiss him gently. "Not going anywhere, I promise," he touches Charles's chest instead with his open palm, from his good hand. The one that's permanently curled rests against his cheek, and Erik can't help but be grateful that Charles isn't horrified by it. Erik is sorry, so sorry that he can't help but want to touch, to be close, even though he knows it must be scary for Charles-to have seen Erik the way he really is, to have watched him hurt someone-Erik wipes his hand on his pants and hugs himself, waves of apology pouring off of him. He wants to reach out, but he can't bear to be pushed away.  
  
Charles shakes his head, vehement and suddenly distressed. He isn't scared. This is how Erik really is. Holding him, and touching him, and - he bites his lip, wiggling forward to hide in Erik's chest because he can't get the words out and now he's hot with shame, too. Frustrated, he tugs harder at both Erik's shirt and his mind, an insistent, pitiful noise from the back of his throat as he hides his face. It's the opposite of pulling away. It's that same request, that same desperate need, but he can't ask. Maybe Erik will push him away instead, because Charles is stupid and pathetic and needy. He's scared of that. He's terrified.  
  
Erik touches his jaw again and his shirt falls apart in Charles's hands, and he takes them in his and holds them over his heart, shaking his head. Not pathetic, not stupid. Erik couldn't be more grateful for the fact that Charles still wants him, still needs him because he'd been quite scared of the opposite-that if Charles weren't disgusted and horrified with him, he'd pity him and think he's not capable of being his Dominant-that he doesn't really belong here, which would be infinitely worse. He tugs Charles's shirt off, too, and wraps him up warmly.  
  
That's the opposite of what Charles thinks. There are a lot of things he feels after watching those tapes and, more importantly, running through Erik's memories, but pity is not one of them, and disgust at Erik couldn't be farther from the reality. He tries to be soft and still in Erik's arms, to just let himself be held, but it doesn't last long before he's squirming around, closing his eyes again and biting hard on his lip. He doesn't want to fuss, but he's restless and uncomfortable and he just - he needs - Charles lets out a loud huff. He's not trying to get away, though, and if anything he burrows closer, twisting this way and that in his Dominant's arms like he's trying to get comfortable. It isn't working, and it should be because if he wasn't so difficult - he scowls again, hiding it and sniffing, hands idle and twisting as he tries to find someplace to put them.  
  
He doesn't need to find anywhere to put them. Erik tugs him up to the guest room where they're staying, and holds out his hand, letting the rope hiding in their things in the closet slither out of the luggage and snap into Erik's palm. He snatches up Charles's hands and wraps the red length around his wrists, tugging it tightly into position. It wraps and winds all the way up his arms and slithers playfully over his collar, and Erik holds him in place, inhaling deeply. There will be time for more finesse, for something more complicated, but right now he just wants to hold Charles and keep him and never let him go.  
  
Charles tugs at his wrists, exhaling a loud, shaky breath. It's better. It feels less like he's on a collision course hurtling toward the sun and breaking off into the atmosphere, and it helps that they're inside where the light isn't quite so bright. While he'd like to bask in the sun with Erik, perhaps now when he's fending off what he knows would be the worst migraine of his life (for Charles, an extraordinary feat) isn't the best time. Another tug, this one stronger, and his bottom lip trembles before he tugs it back into his mouth, gnawing at it. It isn't coming undone, at least. He bows his head, staring down at his restless, shifting feet, and lets himself be held, limp and vibrating. Perhaps if he tunes out completely. Perhaps he can read: _and it was not until I began to think, that I began fully to know how wrecked I was, and how the ship in which I had sailed was gone to pieces..._  
  
The rope winds down to his feet too, and Erik picks him right up off the ground, carting him over to the bed so that he isn't hopping around uncomfortably. As soon as they're settled the rope fully winds around Charles in interlocking, intricate knots, keeping him fully bound and Erik keeps him in his arms, petting him as much to soothe him as it is to soothe himself. There will be no burning up in orbit, there is only the warmth of their Bond and the strength of their connection, and Erik has every intention of basking in that for as long as he can. It absolutely is _not_ coming undone, and Charles can tug against it all he likes, but Erik has him fast.  
  
It should be enough. It's exactly what he's been vying for all day, and it's irrefutable that it helps. He's calmer for it, less restless wriggling about, though there's definitely less room for it now, too. Whatever other twitchy, unsettled parts of him exist don't matter as long as Erik is soothed. So he goes quiet again, mutes it down, and twists until he can hide the curve of his lips. It's impossible to smooth out the tenseness of his shoulders, how stiff he is, but if he reads enough - there are certainly benefits to an eidetic memory - they'll likely sort themselves out. Charles is used to this. Not with Erik, but he's used to it. It's not unpleasant, anyway. The fingers in his hair feel nice. The rope is nice. It helps. He tugs uselessly, frowning harder for just a moment, and goes back to Dickens.  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik whispers in his ear, touching his fingers to Charles's lips gently. It matters to him and it always will. Erik never wants his own issues to make Charles feel like he has to push himself down or act invisible, or like his existence doesn't matter. His existence is the only bright spot in a litany of repetitive darkness, so Erik very much wishes him to stick around, thank-you-very-much. Erik is just sorry that his existence is causing so much strife; if it weren't for him things would be peaceful, they would be home and indulging in all of those memories that Charles has worked to pull to the surface instead of unsettled and upset. "Let it heal," he Orders, and although it's mild and ordinary, his Will shimmers and snaps across, an icy, electric fire that sends thrills of static heat through the room.  
  
Charles shivers head to toe at that one single snap, momentarily calmed, then immediately frowns in the aftermath when it doesn't last. He won't be selfish, or too much. He refuses. It's not true. It's not Erik that's unsettling him, and even if they were home, wherever that is, across an ocean or anywhere - but it really doesn't matter. He tries to shift again until he can hide his face in the pillow, exhaling out a sigh. Like usual, Charles is the problem. He'd rather not be more of one. He tries to remember what page he was on, silent and stiff, back turned to Erik as he closes his eyes and tries not to break off. He managed all those years alone. He'll live.  
  
"No, stop that," Erik admonishes him lightly, tapping his nose. He could live, but he isn't alone, and he'll never be alone again. Erik is still his Dominant, right? That didn't change? So Charles should lean on him. "Tell me," he Orders gently, eyebrows raised. Charles will never be a problem, he never has been and he never will be. Erik likes that Charles needs him, that he's comforted by being close, that he wants to be kept and taken care of. And of everything that could occur as the result of what they just saw, Charles feeling unable to lean on Erik because he's too much is too much. Erik can take care of him. He can and he will.  
  
His lips purse and he curls up further into himself, as much as he can when he's thoroughly bound head to foot. It helps that his eyes are closed, and that he manages to roll himself over, mind a quieted down, walled-off place. This isn't the time for him to be leaning on Erik who never asked to be given the most difficult submissive on the planet, and certainly not at precisely this moment, like some useless, selfish, needy - he lets out a frustrated puff of air, mumbling nonsense into the pillow. His mind gives a clear, firm no. He doesn't want to. He doesn't need to. _Leave it,_ it says, without words. Just leave it. It would pass on its own.  
  
" _Atzor_ ," he Commands much more firmly this time, pulling him right back where he belongs, head tucked into Erik's chest. "I certainly did ask for you, but I am not asking for your opinion now. What I want and what I need is up to me, not you. You promised you would not disappear and I expect you to honor that. Talk to me," he murmurs. "Tell me what is wrong." This time the Order isn't gentle and it sweeps through every particle of Charles's body as if rearranging their spin to orient toward Erik, to fall into his orbit.  
  
Charles' toes curl around his bindings and he takes a sharp, ragged breath, a soft, unconscious noise pulled right from his lips that he tries to stifle. His shoulders untense some. It's an answer in itself, but Erik's Order was clear, even as he tries to muffle everything with Erik's chest while he pulls and tugs at the rope around his wrists. He knows the term for this. It feels far too stupid, though, and he's flushed with shame and frustration, unable to speak it. He settles for images, opening up his mind: Charles on his knees that very first time, the way the world had shattered out and all of the outside became irrelevant, all the jangled buzzing melted away. Focused completely, not restless or wandering for the first time in - ever. Given a place, given a purpose. It isn't necessarily the act of being on his knees he focuses on as much as it is the first experience of what he's sorely, desperately craving right now, and he doesn't know why it hasn't happened already but he knows that sometimes - but he won't ask for it. He's heard and seen so many other submissives ask for it, but Charles can't. He can't. "That," he mumbles instead. He doesn't need it. _Please leave it. Please forget it._  
  
"Of course you can," Erik murmurs warmly, kissing the top of his head. If he were a better Dominant he would already know, but he has gaps in his education and everything he did learn was inverted, the evidence of which they just clearly witnessed firsthand, and much of Erik's success has come from doing the exact opposite of what was acted out on him, the rest he just feels like he's flying by the seat of his pants, and if he were better at this it wouldn't be necessary, Charles wouldn't feel so lost and wouldn't have to tell him, he would just know because it would be part of his vocabulary. But it isn't, and he doesn't, so he has to rely on this. "You are mine." And that means giving Charles what he needs, and sometimes what he wants, too, but not so much in this instance. "All I want is to take care of you, and there is nothing wrong with that. So tell me, sweetheart," he speaks the Order lowly into Charles's ear, his voice a deep rumble.  
  
Charles struggles more, railing against the Order, railing against the bondage, because he wants it and he doesn't and it's not fair. Erik is an incredible Dominant and Charles doesn't know much more anyway, because he might as well have plugged his ears to all of it and stuffed it in a trunk, locked it, then sunk it to the depths. But Charles reads minds, and he's not capable of being culturally blind even if he wants to be. This isn't the time for this. It's asking too much, and what if it doesn't work this time? What if all the other times were flukes, even if he's partially there and that's ridiculous? What if Charles is the broken one? It should already have happened. It should be enough. Stupid, wrong. He closes his eyes tight enough to ache and clenches his teeth. "Put me down," he gets out, barely even a mumble, hot all over with embarrassment in the aftermath.  
  
Erik blinks at him for a second, and it has nothing to do with the request as much as Erik at first misunderstands him, thinking that he isn't holding Charles up to begin with, and then he figures it's a form of defiance, but he'd Ordered it-and then it hits him and he has to laugh a little, and he squeezes Charles in his arms gently. There's certainly nothing embarrassing about it-Erik is the only one embarrassing himself here, taking so long to figure it out in the first place-and neither is it asking too much-it's the foundation of any Dynamic that a Dominant should be able to put down a submissive, but he does feel a little stupid in the aftermath, because he should have done that to begin with. He's doing this all wrong, and Charles is getting all twisted up because Erik isn't knowledgeable enough to figure out the most basic element of Dominance to begin with. That is what's stupid and silly in this scenario-and if it were any other time he would set those feelings aside with no problems, but right now it's all he can think-to doubt his own abilities, to question whether or not _Herr_ Shaw has been correct all along, and he hates that the man still has such a powerful hold over him that it's affecting his entire life, his entire future with Charles. "No more shame," he breathes the Order quietly, but no less potent than all the rest. "It does not belong here." He doesn't want Charles's submission locked in a box and buried under the ocean, he wants it, has always wanted it. The rope unravels easily and rewinds itself all the way around Charles's wrists and through his fingers, held in front of him, and Erik sits up, tugging Charles to his knees. He bows their foreheads together. "Do not tell me you have forgotten what it is to be mine?" he murmurs, laying the palm of his hand over Charles's cheek and gazing into his eyes. Already his tone of voice has shifted into the honeyed, thick rasp that accompanies Dominion.  
  
To Charles, it sometimes seemed that submissives were always talking about it. Being put down, and how utterly grounding and calming and exhilarating and pivotal it was. Mileage varied depending on the scale, of course, but if he had a penny for everytime he heard _he_ _puts me down so nicely, it's incredible_ or _she can't put me down like so-and-so could, I'm not sure it will work_ he'd be - well, richer, by a good amount. Out of all of it, it was the most frustrating for Charles, irritating and devastating and humiliating, because the fact of the matter is that he isn't an anomaly. Not in this particular sense, anyway. He craves and needs it just as much as any other submissive, perhaps more. Definitely more, he'd wager. And until Erik it had been completely impossible, something desired and needed and permanently out of reach. When he really needed it - like now, exactly like now - it was never particularly fun for anyone. He got restless, and worked up, twisted around, irritated, and no one knew how to handle it. There wasn't a solution except riding it out. Until Erik. Still, Charles fusses in Erik's grip, shaking his head but refusing to look him in the eyes despite the lurch in his stomach, the call that's uniquely Erik's that he was made to answer. His skin is heated, and all those bunched up, messy places threaten to straighten right out if he could just let go, but he tenses up instead, lips pressed together. "You don't have to. I don't need it," he huffs, and Ordering away shame is a bit more difficult than the rest. He tugs hard at his wrists, making a low, strangled noise when there's no give at all, and hating that he shivers in delight.  
  
Erik puts his finger up to Charles's lips, silently hushing him. "Look at me," he Orders, Will slithering up under Charles's skin like a livewire circuit drawing every nerve ending up and out. "When I ask you a question, I expect a proper answer." His eyebrows arch pointedly. Whoever else didn't find it enjoyable, well, more's the loss for them. Erik certainly doesn't mourn it, because he's got it all to himself, and he considers himself the luckiest person in the world for it. And he can handle it, he does more than handle it, he enjoys it. He seeks it out, he wants it and what he wants, he should have. That's what Charles is here for, to give him what he wants. Is that not what they vowed to one another? To give this? That is what belongs here. "And I certainly do not recall asking you if you need it. You are mine. I decide what you need. You do not tell me what I have to do. Now you will let all of this embarrassment leave you." He draws his hand down Charles's chest, the snap of his Order following his fingers. He can feel it under Charles's skin, rising up uncoiling and ready to meet his palm, he can feel the edges and grooves ready and poised to respond to him and his eyes grow half-lidded, breaths evening out. He can feel it there to take in his grip and mold it to what it needs to be, to melt out every iota of dissent into pure unbridled subspace, and he could do it right now, no fuss and simplistic, but this space here-the liminal space in-between, is sweet on its own merits, too. Erik doesn't rush into these things, preferring to draw them out just like that hazy loam threatening to take over, to draw all of Charles's attention where it belongs. The rope tightens up even more against Charles's testing. "Now tell me. Have you forgotten, Charles? Hm?"  
  
Looking at Erik is practically asking to go under when he's feeling this way. Charles gasps the moment their eyes meet again, squirming around on his knees except he's tied so tightly it's near impossible to get any real purchase. There's no reason at all to fight this. It is what he needs, and Erik is the only one who could give it to him. He's safe with his Dominant, and if he puts him down he'll take such good care of him. Charles knows these things with his whole heart, and he'd never dare forget. It's all trembling in his fingers around the rope, in his belly, winding up and around and he knows how sweet it is to give in. To submit. To go under, to obey, to surrender. But something makes him struggle even now, and he tries to scowl, still restless and unsettled, the result much more like a harmless pout. "I guess not," he huffs, petulant and fairly pleased with himself for his haughty little workaround. Appropriately catty, but not a lie or omission. He knows Erik can handle it, but he is feeling difficult. Ornery and difficult and unsettled, and he'd warned him. It's his own fault if Charles is defiant, really.  
  
"Mhm," Erik huffs back, but it's soft, amused. His hand travels down to rest against Charles's stomach, where all those fluttery nerves have settled, and the sensation melts like a bubble being burst, filling his limbs with easy warmth. He strokes his fingertips down the frown lines embedded in Charles's cheek , his own eyes creased fondly. At last he leans forward and brushes their lips together, soft and sweet. "Let go, Charles," he Orders once they pull away, just barely enough to share the same puff of air. "You belong here. I will never let you fall. No matter what." Because regardless of how twisted up either of them get about their places, this is where they always end up. He curls his hand against Charles's throat, thumbing the metal of his collar lovingly. "I adore you. I can care for you." He doesn't know everything and he's not good but he can take care of Charles, there is no one on this Earth more devoted to caring for Charles than Erik, and that much he knows. He is Dominant, Mr. Shaw was wrong. He will learn to be good because nothing is more important to him. "Be mine," he can't help but Order it, unconscious beams of sunlight heating through. "You are mine, and you will be mine," he repeats from the very first time he told Charles he wanted him to wear his collar.  
  
Charles' stomach clenches, his eyes flutter, and he feels himself start to break the surface with a low, shuddering gasp. He already was under in a way other submissives simply don't seem to have the vocabulary for, even those lowest on the scale. Always plucked and primed for it, for his Dominant and serving him accordingly in whatever fashion, but this is different. This is the beginning of that warm, sinking, vulnerable place where the world melts out, burns up instead of him, and only Erik and what Erik deems appropriate remains. It's not mindless, and none of him is ever lost, unlike the blank, glassy-eyed expressions he's seen on other submissives when Erik has accidentally dropped them (nothing as deliberate as this, this is for Charles), but it is a change. No off-on, but there is a difference. There are varying degrees, stages of depth and intensity, and sometimes he goes under quite a lot in the grocery store for no reason at all other than Erik asked him to fetch the milk and he thrummed with an all-out desperate need to obey and please him. Erik doesn't seem to mind that, and he takes perfect care of him. But now they're in bed, alone, and even as he lets go Charles feels stuck. Of course he wants and needs to be Erik's. There's not a single speck or molecule that doesn't, and he already is, whether he's in that cave or very, very deep (not the bottom, if there is one he knows intuitively he hasn't reached it yet), always devoted and always owned.  
  
It doesn't make sense that he's struggling now, that his whole body is heated with Erik's Orders and he's relaxing and humming with Will and he still can't quite go down where he knows he needs to be, treading water. It's because he's the broken one. It's because Charles isn't a good submissive, because the past few months have been some kind of mistake, a honeymoon period - he's only going to burden Erik in the end. He's going to be too much. He's going to make everything more difficult. There's no way to fix him. Charles makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a whine, then bites his tongue to choke it off, hanging his head and fussing in Erik's arms. He shouldn't have asked. He should have found some way to disobey. Erik wants a submissive who goes right under. This is stupid. He's stupid. What a useless, rotten excuse for submission. He's the one who's no good, and now that he's deeper under it hurts to be so inadequate for his Dominant who's always so good to him, and ridiculous, frustrated tears form at the corner of his eyes even as he fights them.  
  
" _Atzor ze achshav_ ," Erik's voice cuts through the rising cacophony of spewed out hate and slams it down and out, because it does not belong and if there is one thing that Charles cannot do it is dictate what Erik wants, and what he does not want is to listen to a litany of Charles calling himself names, and so those thoughts are encouraged like snowflakes to melt against the metal-heated iron of Erik's Will. The problem isn't Charles, anyway. The problem is that Erik is still teetering on the edge of a meltdown and he isn't being what Charles needs, he isn't rising to the occasion, he isn't Dominating properly because his head is a mess and it's just making everybody frustrated and miserable. "Stop," he whispers again. "What I want is you. And you are here," he rubs his thumb across Charles's cheek, keeping it in place and staring down at him endlessly. The more Charles fights against him the further untethered from reality he becomes and the deeper into Dominion he slides, inch by inch, all the fractured fragments realigning slowly like crushed-glass slides beneath a microscope. "When I tell you to do something, you will do it," he murmurs, every word infused with unconsciously-directed Command. "And you do. You obey me. You listen to me. You help me. Our Bond is good. So let go, Charles Xavier. You belong nowhere else but at my side and I refuse to entertain any silly thoughts otherwise. I will never let you go. Do you understand."  
  
Charles gasps again, and this time when his eyes flutter, when his eyelids grow heavy, they don't reopen for quite some time. His belly is full of molten heat and his skin is prickling, from the top of his head to the very tips of his toes, and he's Bound up perfectly in both Erik's rope, specifically picked out and brought with them for this purpose, and his Will, twined together strands of red and gold that stand out starkly against his skin in this half-projected place because Charles' telepathy is still overactive and needy, too, his skin pale as snow again. When he tugs for reassurance, there's still not an inch of give, and he takes another stuttering breath, trembling with it. Finally brilliant, damp azure peeks out from hooded lids, darker like they always are the deeper he goes but certainly not unfocused or hazy; no, now he's calm. His breathing is hitchy and his chest is heaving, but he's settling, responding the way he was meant to when his Dominant puts him down. All those swirling, painful thoughts clang somewhere close, but Charles loses access to them when he starts to sink, his teeth sunk into plump lips. Erik asked a question, and it's delayed but he nods, a shaky bob of his head that sometimes doesn't satisfy Erik when he wants to be properly addressed, and maybe a part of him hopes so. He wants more. More Orders, more direction. Strict control and a firm but gentle hand and Erik, because Erik is all of those things and they've both been so off-kilter today by necessity and he needed - but what if it's not what Erik needs, too - he closes his eyes again and whimpers, but he couldn't displace himself this time if he tried. He's in Erik's hands now. He always is.  
  
Erik lets in a deep breath of his own, as if inhaling up all of that submission like water after years of wandering in a nuclear wasteland-scratch desert. He swipes his thumb tenderly under Charles's eye, brows still pressed together, and shifts closer, soaking up his presence. "Mm-mm," he murmurs lowly, tapping Charles's lip as well, replacing teeth with a kiss. Already the relief is pouring through him, chasing those doubts and insecurities far behind the mountains, because they don't belong here, either. Nothing else matters except for his submissive before him and keeping him in hand. "I asked you a question, Charles. I would like a proper answer. Do you understand that you are mine? Hm?"  
  
The way that Order slithers deep beneath his skin and zaps him is fiercely electric, and sometimes Charles wonders idly if Erik's Will is uniquely Erik's. If it's built into his mutation, or the other way around, if that's why it sends static electricity shooting right up his spine, standing up every hair whenever he's particularly firm or deliberate. He knows for a fact it's rarely experienced that way. This isn't the time for cerebral wondering, though, and so instead he gasps again, squirming as much as he can on his knees without tipping himself over all tied up. His Dominant wouldn't allow it anyway. "Yes," he mumbles, deliberately under his breath, deliberately improper. He's safe here. He needs more, and Erik can take him in hand. Put them both back into place. He's already sinking so nicely, and he can trust that all of his restless, frustrated energy will be soothed right out of him. If he puts up a fight, if he needs to, Erik is the only one on this Earth that could possibly match him, and Charles is the only one who could handle him doing the matching. This is how it is.  
  
"That is pleasing to hear," Erik rumbles back, keeping Charles fully upright against him. "But I said a proper answer, Charles." When he's all twisted up and out of shape it's hard to access this part of himself at times, insecurities and doubts chasing away what he knows intellectually are perfectly normal Dominant impulses, and today of all days that distinction has been tested-but right now, in his tone and his bearing, there is nothing but exuded Command melting buttery shocks of electric heat through Charles's veins with every insistent tug on those strands of Will that tie him up just as pretty as those winded rope knots around his wrists. "Yes what?"  
  
Charles' lips part on a soft, helpless murmur, eyes half-lidded again as he shivers and feels every inch of his body respond. He's been twisted up, too. Not just today but for quite a while, out of sorts and in his head and wound up in all the wrong ways, running on anxiety and suppressed memories, thoughts he hasn't sorted through or made sense of yet. He yanks at his wrists but the rope doesn't unravel at all, whining quietly because he'd wanted to cover his face; he turns it away instead, lips trembling lightly like the rest of him. "Mmmyessir," slips out, and a sharp breath follows, wracking through his entire body. He needs this. He needs this so desperately, and he - but that's not for him to decide. Besides, doesn't Erik need it too?  
  
"Good," Erik purrs back, finally satisfied and it hums effervescently in the center of his chest, a streak of flame igniting gas lines that run through all his veins and nerves. He splays all his fingers out across Charles's cheek, turning his face so that he can look upon it and revel in his capture. "Your Dominant. No one else. I take care of you." The beast that lives inside him flexes and coils, assuaged by Charles's compliance but never too far from the surface. "I can," he whispers, aggrieved. "I can do it."  
  
Of course he can. Charles lets out another tiny noise, biting on his cheek to try and stifle it even as it slips. His Dominant is pleased, even if it's only at something so small, and he wants more of it. He needs - but he doesn't know what to do, or how to ask, or what any of it means. It's new to Charles, too, even after the months they've spent together, and strange and odd and sometimes uncomfortable, how much he needs to be Dominated. The ways he needs to be. How waiting at the door and fetching coffee and letting Erik decide what he wears for the day is essential, now, how it makes him feel safe and stable and - he huffs out a breath, squirming again, discomforted. Leaning too much? Asking too much? He tries to turn his head away from Erik's hand so he doesn't have to look but it's too big and firm and it's comforting and he can't, so he closes his eyes instead.

* * *

Erik encourages him to open again, and when he does, it's to the site of his Dominant shaking his head, a small smile on his lips. Never too much. Never enough, it feels like. Sometimes he worries that he won't be able to handle things, that he's failing to accommodate Charles's needs as a Dominant, but when push comes to shove there is no limit, no end to how far off the deep end Erik sinks into. It is as essential to Erik to choose, to decide, to be served although that last one is the most challenging-of all the people Charles could get saddled with it has to be someone who isn't even comfortable asking for a drink of water let alone to be waited on hand and foot, and he knows that's the kind of thing Charles would respond to-and he's broken so many terms of his conditioning already but that's the hardest to shed-the fact that he's worth something, that he should take up space, that he should ask for things just because he can, because he knows he deserves it, because he's entitled to it. "No," he rasps softly. "Look at me. Want you." What he wants is hard to ask for, hard to even define in the first place, and he ducks his head a little shyly.  
  
Charles hates that Erik thinks he's been saddled when the truth is, he couldn't be more fortunate. Erik can more than handle him and any need he might have (and he has many, more than he's admitted to and more than he can) and no one else could ever manage. He isn't so good at every aspect of this, either, even when he responds. Even when he lets go. He gets worked up, stuck in his own head, ashamed and frustrated. He's taught himself that he needs to be self-sufficient and fiercely independent in every way, embedded it into naturally stubborn tendencies and let it fester into a complex and a maladaptive coping skill. But he doesn't want that now, he never really does, and Erik - he bites his lip, scooting forward on his knees. "Please tell me?" he asks quietly, swallowing like he's afraid to be denied, and Erik is right. He does deserve this. Charles' love, and his devotion, and his servitude, and he wants - he needs - he takes a shaky breath, chest stuttering with it again. "Please tell me what you want, sir," and it slips right out before he can stop it, cheeks dusted pink as he squirms. That's it.  
  
And that causes Erik to inhale sharply, pupils rapidly dilating where they meet Charles's and he hums under his breath, taking hold of Charles's hands and pressing his open palms against his chest. Trying mightily to rein himself in and not push too much, need too much, be too inappropriate (which, of course-of course he is-and he can't let it spill out, it is too much) but he can't stop himself from seeking touch, the further Charles goes the more Erik follows and the more he can't stand to be separated by even skin. Tension's made a home along the line of his shoulders and he's vibrating underneath Charles's hands, and if he were normal he'd know-it feels like those brief lucid moments before their Bonding when it's all he can do to hold on in the flux of raging biology only there's no clear-cut impulse here, he just needs to be closer, he needs to be Dominant and he wants-"Touch," he mumbles.  
  
He gasps, eyelids heavy and fluttering again as he does exactly that. It's different with his hands bound like this but he's positive if the rope came undone he'd cry, unsteadied; there's less range of motion, but he touches just the same, breath hitching harder as he lets his hands roam Erik's chest. It's so big and firm and there's more definition than there was when they first met, more muscle and it's impossible to deny the size difference between them, how laughably massive Erik is in comparison even with his leaner figure. He towers and looms over nearly everyone but Charles has never listed tall or built on his lists of achievements and it makes him feel - safe, and protected, in some silly, primal way that wouldn't matter if it didn't exist except that it does. It does, and Erik is warm to the touch and tan from the sun and Charles bites back a whimper, squirming again. "Tell me what to do," he begs, and swallows around it, eyes wet with desperation when he looks up at Erik. "Please. Tell me how to please you, sir, tell me what you want from me, I need -" He breaks off, shaking his head because he doesn't know the words. He just knows he needs to be Dominated. He's restless and he's been so worked up and frustrated and he just needs to know - he needs to be guided. Taken in hand, more than usual. Maybe too much. Maybe - he swallows again, trying to force those thoughts back down.  
  
It appears to Erik in a flash, solidified from rolling around in the back of his mind all day and Erik straightens up, touching Charles's cheek curiously, pressing a nonverbal question at him. Erik wants to teach him, wants to show him something new, but it's more intense than anything they've done so far, more focused on skill and form and working together and being completely in touch with one another on every level. It requires cooperation and trust, but Erik won't if Charles isn't ready or is scared. "Want to show you," he whispers back, because right now, at this moment, nothing feels more logical or natural.  
  
If Charles wanted, he could press forward and find what it is Erik's suggesting, soothe some of the immediate worries that clang around in his chest, in his heart; what if he can't? What if he isn't good enough? What if Erik isn't pleased with him, and he decides - but those are quieter than the need to be Erik's, to be wholly and completely Erik's right now, and he doesn't want to know without asking and if Erik wants him to learn, he's more than eager to be taught. Desperate for it, in fact. "Please," he whispers, breathless, pitched forward and needy, vibrating with it. "Yes, sir, please. Teach me. Show me." If he gets frightened, Erik will stop, anyway. He always stops. He's safe. He's very, very safe and Erik takes care of what belongs to him. Charles belongs to him most of all.  
  
Erik guides Charles up to his feet, raising his hand and slowly the furniture in the room begins to adjust and rearrange itself, the bed dispersing, everything gradually growing smaller until instead of the guest bedroom there just appears to be an empty space, everything condensed into small spherical objects lined neatly on a shelf out of the way. Already Erik's mind is following his body-which has been part of the problem and part of the reason why it's felt up until now like the gears in the machine have stalled-but now he's running through his internal checklist, something Charles has come to associate with more specific kinds of scenes and he feels the temperature in the room automatically adjust to what is comfortable for him. He does an inventory of Charles's physical wellbeing, checks on those healed-up injuries and nudges a little (easier when Charles is further under) to ensure that Charles feels physically relaxed, and that he's properly hydrated and fed. Even amidst the chaos of this morning he never forgets their routine, which results in Charles being relatively stable and ergo in more of a position for Erik to attempt this. "OK," Erik finally says, smiling down at him. "Hold up your hands?" the rope unravels and comes apart, and weaves up until Erik can set it down on the shelf so he can focus back on Charles.  
  
There are things Erik can't check up on without Charles' help that could definitely get in the way of whatever this is, but Charles does that for him, anticipating the need. All those horrid, jangly parts of his brain are appropriately walled off for the moment, trapped in a convenient little bubble that he's positive will burst later but he'd rather not dwell on it now - if the pain is inevitable, he'd like to delay the inevitability until he has the ability to handle it in the first place. He's sure a splitting migraine might put a damper on things. As he waits, though, he starts to fidget, nerves twisting over his belly. What if he really can't do this, whatever it is? How could he possibly deal with Erik being disappointed in him now? His eyes end up on the floor, lip caught between his teeth again, shifting restlessly. He isn't afraid, but he is nervous.  
  
He knows that Charles is nervous, and he meets it with an unending well of calm and warmth. Charles knows what Erik expects from him, and it almost never has to do with actions. If they need to pause, or stop, they will and Erik will just be glad that Charles is safe. What he does not approve of, is Charles pushing himself just for Erik's sake beyond a scenario that he is comfortable with, but Erik doesn't do this kind of thing without being fully checked-in in the first place, and now is no different. There's a reason he's waited this long to bring it up, because by now he knows Charles, he knows how he reacts, he knows Charles's body and how he responds to stimulus (he's a bit of a thrasher, he's wriggly and squirmy at times, all extremely vital to consider), and all of that is necessary experience. A lot of the things that are running through Erik's mind right now are things that, quite frankly, may not be all that relevant to them specifically, because of the nature of Erik's abilities. Velocity mechanics, acceleration, inertia, compression and expansion-but if Charles _were_ to fall, Erik knows instinctively that he would catch him and keep him safe. Like pretty much every other time they've involved some degree of impact or intensity, Erik doesn't deviate from his training, even though in the event of an emergency he is sure his abilities would kick in. What he shows Charles next absolutely is relevant, so he wraps his hand around Charles's and places his index finger against Charles's palm. "Squeeze as hard as you can?" he murmurs, his thoughts a whirring tick-tock of evaluation-analysis-control and his whole bearing has shifted, everything clear and bright and shiny all at once.  
  
 _A bit of a thrasher._ That's one way to say that Charles has an inability to be still at any given time. For the most part he attempts to keep himself out of the specifics of Erik's thoughts, not because he's been Ordered to or because he thinks it's expected but because it's not doing much to help with the nerves, anticipating, and he has an awful tendency to get far ahead of himself. Instead he focuses on what's asked of him right this moment, swallowing as he fights the trembling in his fingers long enough to squeeze as he's bid. He has a decent grip, at least. He doesn't need to overthink this. He doesn't need to be in control. Erik will handle that. Erik is his Dominant, his wonderful, perfect Dominant, and he's safe. Charles only needs to listen, and learn, and obey. He makes that a bit of a mantra for himself as he tries to even out his breathing, the pounding of his heart, sinking down further the more he believes it. Just be Erik's. Erik expects the best of him always, never less, but never more than he can give or is capable of. He can be good for him. Right? Right.  
  
"Right," Erik whispers back, smiling. This was always the part that Erik liked, one of the few things he actually remembers enjoying learning about, because it is highly technical and involves a number of different proficiencies combined in tandem and that appeals to Erik's perfectionistic nature. And of course he has no intention of throwing Charles off the deep end-it will become clear in time, but Erik usually likes to get the preliminaries out of the way, first. Anticipation isn't a bad thing, and he feeds that energy lightly, transforming it from fearful grimacing into a dispersed haze infused with his own Will. "Good," he adds when Charles complies, giving a nod. His hand is still spread out over Charles's, and he adds, "I want you to push your fingers back against my hand as hard as possible."  
  
It's an easy task, a simple instruction. This is exactly what Charles needed. It's what he's wanted all day, regardless of whether he knows the form. But for some reason he's trembling anyway, heart stuck in his throat, chest clenched where it's heaving again, and his fingers don't move. None of him does. He's closed his eyes again.  
  
Erik touches his cheek and tilts it upward, silently compelling him to refocus his attention back on Erik, and to open his eyes once more. If Charles is too nervous or doesn't feel comfortable with it, Erik will understand, but the only thing that's important now is that Charles communicates with him. "Tell me what is wrong," he murmurs the Order quietly.  
  
His tongue feels like it's stuck to the roof of his mouth. His chest is still too tight, and he wants to squirm under Erik's attention, to look back at the floor, but he doesn't currently have that option so he settles for sucking in a breath and letting it out in a shaky huff. "I don't know," he admits quietly. His cheeks warm, shame bundled up in his stomach. "I'm sorry, sir," he whispers, and his mind flashes failing/useless/stupid among what he's mostly kept to himself, churning his stomach right up even as he shoves it aside again where Erik doesn't hear it. He doesn't like to hear it.  
  
He shakes his head, kissing Charles's forehead. "You needn't apologize," he replies softly. Nor should he concern himself with failure-Erik doesn't establish situations like that, where he expects too much from Charles and only wants to see him fail. The only failure that Erik is concerned with is the failure to communicate, with shutting down and hiding away, because he can't operate efficiently if he doesn't understand what's going on. "All that you need to do is focus on me," he says, Commanding because he can't be anything else. "On what I say, and on listening to my instructions. I won't let you fail. I never do. Even if we do nothing, the most important thing to me is that you are safe and happy."  
  
Charles knows that, but he has quite a bit of his own mess to work through in that overactive, brilliant brain of his, and knowing intellectually, as much as he hates it, doesn't always mean he can listen to reason. But Erik's Ordered it now, and it was already there to begin with. This is what he needs, and Erik's decided that too. He needs to get out of his own head. He needs to listen to his Dominant. He needs to be obedient, and do what he's told. Those are the things that will make him feel steady and safe, and he focuses on them as he takes slower, calming breaths. "Yes, sir," he breathes, and when he can breathe easy, when Erik resets, this time he does exactly as he's meant to. He obeys, pushing against Erik's hand, the anticipation wound up in his belly much less like festering anxiety. Just be Erik's. Erik's boy.  
  
"Good," he murmurs again, filing both reactions away in the back of his mind. He's still watchful, observant and he crouches, taking both of Charles's feet in his after tugging off his shoes and socks, guiding him to press against both palms and curl his toes. He also tests his spinal reflexes, and even takes his pulse, storing the data away as baseline. More than that, it gives Charles time to adjust to this new mindset rather than dropping him into something new and unfamiliar right after a period of uncertainty and tension, and it gives him more Orders to follow, more ways in which to be reminded that what he needs to do right now is listen and obey, and he's doing a very good job of both. Erik doesn't switch to anything else until he's fully convinced that Charles is relaxed, breathing even, focused entirely on him and dropped firmly below the surface. Rather than the jute that he'd bound Charles's wrists in, he opts for his rigging bag-the synthetic polypropylene he bought specifically for this purpose a long time ago, divided into lengthy rope sets that includes support and body components as well as several well-rated metal strips that will be molded into what Erik needs for the moment. Erik likes rope a lot, it's probably one of the few things he's actively pursued on his own, although there is certainly more that he's displayed interest in and will undoubtedly continue to in the future-which means they've done a bit with rope bondage already, on the ground. "Have you ever done any type of suspension work before?" he arches an eyebrow, rising to his feet.  
  
A bit. Sometimes it feels like they haven't done nearly enough of anything, that they've barely tried anything, but Charles thinks that has everything to do with the way every new thing makes him crave more, curious and wanting. Especially if it means Charles gets to be tied up. He shakes his head, though, and murmurs a quiet "no, sir" for proper clarity and because it's proper. Though Erik seems to think he's the one behind, Charles is woefully inexperienced, something he's only too eager to remedy. Listen and obey. There's a lurch in his stomach, but it's a humming, gentle thing in comparison, far from panic as he waits, sunk down and focused on his Dominant and anticipating instructions. _Please tell me what to do,_ he'd begged, and it's what he needs more than anything he's ever needed in his life right in this moment. He'll simply fall apart without it.  
  
"One more, OK?" He takes Charles's hand in his and folds his thumb under his two forefingers. "Push up," he guides, and then directs him to fully extend his fingers and thumb. "This is called a self-check," he instructs simply. "What this does is tests for radial nerve function and numbness or tingling in the outer extremities. You can do this at any point to make sure everything is comfortable." Of course this is all assuming that Erik won't be totally plugged-in to Charles every step of the way, easily able to detect when something is off-but it also means that it's of the utmost important that Charles talks to him and tells him what he's feeling when he asks. "I am experienced in this type of activity, and I believe my abilities are capable of preventing you from coming to harm, but there is still a degree of risk involved any time you leave the ground. This means you need to listen to everything I tell you, _when_ I tell it to you, and you need to listen to your body. If you start to feel numb anywhere, at any time, you need to let me know, OK?" Chances are he'll already know, but Erik is careful enough to build redundancies into every system he makes, because he won't gamble with Charles's safety.  
  
Charles' lips twitch into a soft smile, and for just a moment he ducks his head. With a telepathic link, he's fairly certain they have the advantage in these types of situations, completely ignoring the fact that Erik is the most naturally observant person he's ever met. The only way distress goes under the radar is when Charles is deliberately hiding it or muting it down, editing it out, something he knows from experience makes Erik upset; but that won't happen now. "Yes, sir," he whispers, still smiling because regardless of what they're doing or how they're doing it, Erik is going to take care of him. All Charles has to do is listen and give him the proper tools to do that. He's absolutely perfect. "I love you," he adds quietly, because he'd like to, almost shy about it despite the fact that he's said it upwards of a trillion times by now, several times a day. But he gets wriggly anyway, softer and shyer the way he is the further he starts to sink into subspace.  
  
Erik's smile back is purely unconscious, more a self-conscious grin than anything else. Charles could say it every minute of every day and Erik wouldn't tire of it, and he leans forward to brush his lips over Charles's, unbelievably pleased and so proud to be his Dominant, to be able to show him this, and a little nervous himself if he's honest-it's more like butterflies than real anxiety-he's fully in control, and confident in his abilities, even prior to learning how to utilize his powers to ensure maximum safety he could still rig with expertise and he lifts his hands, watching the metal strips levitate into the air and slowly begin to sort themselves into a frame, with the hardpoint centered in the middle and he guides Charles over to inspect it, bringing his hand down in a swift motion to suddenly bear a great deal of force down on the entire structure, watching for any deformities or buckling. It's all sleek chrome, and when Charles looks closer, he notes that all the metal pieces are inscribed with engraved designs, even this temporary piece is a work of art in Erik's eyes.  
  
There's no part of Charles that expected anything less. Everything Erik makes is a masterpiece to him, starting from that first metal rose (and the duplicate he was given at their Bonding Ceremony, which he's not ashamed to admit he sometimes picks up and holds, touches and keeps close, because he can and he's fond of it beyond words) to this. He'll admit that this brings him quite a different form of butterflies, though; not fear, but heavy anticipation, that nervous fluttering in his belly, and he turns into Erik and taps gently at his arm, telepathy finally peeking out from where he's held it tightly to himself with a tap on Erik's mind, too, his silent little request for attention. It's shy like the rest of him, accompanied by some of those flutters, images too fast to parse out but none of them frightening.  
  
He lets out a soft huff, amused and warm, turning to take Charles into his arms and kiss the top of his head, his version of paying attention, mental ears cocked and poised to receive whatever it is that Charles wishes to make him aware of. His mind, as always, rises up to meet Charles's as soon as he feels the touch of his telepathy, wanting to bring it closer, wanting more. "What is it, _neshama_? Hm?" he asks, his voice gentle.  
  
Just this. Sometimes he just wants to be paid more attention; it's silly, perhaps, but it helps him calm, and he immediately relaxes some of his more fidgety habits, no more restless shifting about, no longer shaking in the fingers where they roam Erik's skin wherever they happen to land. Something to steady him, to remind him it's Erik he's doing this with. He wouldn't forget in the first place, but a reminder never hurts. Erik will tell him what to do? He needs that desperately right now, he needs to be told. Erik won't leave him? He can soak that all up from his Dominant's skin, from the mind pressed closer to his. Charles hums, soothed and smiling again, brushing Erik's mind in a way that's infinitely pleasurable and uniquely Charles, shivery and gentle and mostly unconscious. Edged with that shyness, that soft timidity that comes with subspace, and giving Erik that, too. He put him down so nicely. He'll take care of him when he goes farther, because Charles knows he always does.  
  
Erik gives him a soft smile, reassurance returning to Charles in easy waves, and he strokes Charles's cheek, encouraging him to raise his arms over his head to remove his undershirt and sliding the belt holding his pants up through the loops with his abilities-as close as Charles is to Erik's mind now he can feel Erik's power thrumming and touching every particle of clothing on him, every inch of his skin alive and electrified underneath it. "Always," he whispers. He will always tell Charles what to do. He will always be here, he will never leave him. When Charles is completely unclothed (while Erik is just shirtless and doesn't rectify that anytime soon), Erik bids him to kneel at Rest, crouching down to sort out his kit, finding small moments to touch and ground Charles in the here and now. The room is dim, but not fully dark, little colorful patterns and swirls dancing light-play along the walls and ceiling. "I'm going to bind you from here," he murmurs, "and we'll start on the ground before lifting off. Arms behind your back," he directs the variant with a tap to Charles's elbow.  
  
Something about being naked while Erik is clothed always makes him feel small and vulnerable regardless of the situation, and never in a distressing way. At first it felt embarrassing, and it still does, if he's honest, but - not in a particularly unpleasant way. He likes it, if he'll admit it to himself. It's another layer of separation, of control and power, and it puts him right into the headspace they both want him in, the one he needs to be in, heart pounding in his chest and Erik has seen him bare many times now but his cheeks still flush with color, he still squirms on his knees at first when he's put there. He tries not to shiver. When he's bid, his arms immediately snap behind him, graceful even still, every inch of him thrumming under Erik's control and all too eager to obey, soaking up instructions and whims like water and sunlight. He couldn't possibly survive without them in this moment. "Yes, sir," he whispers, both to acknowledge it and because he likes the way it feels on his tongue, because it settles him right down, an unconscious little hum following.  
  
Erik comes behind him, stroking at his arms and down his thighs idly, pausing for just a moment to admire Charles in his natural element-where he really belongs is here, just like this, and as always Erik's eyes trail over him as he moves, unable to help the natural sequence of his thoughts-that Charles is beautiful, graceful and soft and Erik loves him so very much, even as deep down as he is in Dominion he finds space for affection and he drops a kiss to the back of Charles's neck as he begins to fashion the rope over his arms in long white strips, stark even now as Charles is a good deal paler than the fibers. The knots are intricate and layered and use three strips, and then he nudges Charles up to his feet, wrapping long strands around his hips and across his thighs to create something of a harness that connects to a central chest piece, leaving his nipples free between two columns that intersect his torso. Erik stops at this point to admire his work, a small grin on his face. The loop left at his core and behind his back gets attached to the hanging circle overhead in three interlocking, thick support lines. "Mm," Erik murmurs to himself. "OK, are you ready?" he whispers into Charles's ear, drawing his hand down his chest.  
  
As Erik works, Charles begins to sink deeper. Not out of focus, not into a thoughtless haze like he'd always feared, but into it. He can feel every touch, every breath, every thought with stunning clarity, tuned right into Erik and his own body like he's been asked and absolutely nothing else. It's utterly freeing, and calming, and there are still fluttery, excitable butterflies flapping around in his belly, skin prickling with the addition of every new knot. If there's one thing Charles has learned he needs that he originally doubted, it's being restrained. Little else soothes him faster except for Orders or directions themselves, and he hasn't gotten around to saying it but he imagines Erik is fast figuring it out. These ties are different, but have the same effect; his Dominant put them there, and he'll use them to use Charles how he pleases. How he pleases. He's needed desperately to be taken in hand all day, and even through the nerves he can't fathom not being ready. "Yes, sir," he breathes, and this time it does make him shiver, straight down his spine as he looks up with eyes vividly blue even in the dim, wider than usual with a heady mix of trust, anticipation, and endless devotion.  
  
Erik grins at him, nose wrinkling up fondly and he connects the loops to the hardpoint and with three support lines in his hand he easily lifts Charles's weight so that he rises off of the floor, legs unencumbered at first, most of that weight centered on the makeshift harness keeping him suspended at an angle at first until Erik gets him several feet off of the ground, and then he winds the support line through the beam and secures it with his abilities, keeping a firm hold of him while he adjusts Charles's body mid-air, starting with one leg, he runs his hands all the way up Charles's calves and inner thighs, spreading his knees before bending the leg backward to slowly tie his leg to the back of his thigh. He works methodically, producing intricate, strong knots that not only function well to keep Charles suspended more evenly but look exactly like the work of art he's picturing Charles to be. In his mind is all form and structure, the deeply technical interspersed with jolts of pure electric desire, thoughts snapped off into the wind and replaced by electrical impulses, shifts of Will that respond to Charles's every twitch like air rushing over him, thick, hot shudders rolling over his body with every moment that his hands are on Charles's skin. When the first leg is tied, Erik steps back and leaves him there, completely at the mercy of his restraint, with Erik's vivid eyes locked on him. " _Nehedar_ ," he murmurs, voice heavy and affected.  
  
The slight tremor all throughout Charles' body is completely uncontrollable. There's no denying that he's physically vulnerable here, and there are knots twisted deep inside of his stomach, too, writhing over themselves and pooling liquid heat as he tries to breathe normally and feel out the sensation of it, strange and new but not wholly uncomfortable because it's where he's put. He's at Erik's mercy more than these restraints, and there's absolutely no place he'd rather be, even as it steals his breath and sends his pulse racing. His Dominant likes structure. He likes Order, and form, and he likes when things are pretty. All of those things are reflected in the way he looks at Charles now, and something overcomes him, not distress as much as - he's simply overwhelmed, those tears from before pricking at his eyes but he swallows them back. Focus on Erik. Listen, be obedient, be his. That's all Charles has to know right now, and all he's wanted all day is to feel owned and steady and now he does, vulnerable and deconstructed for Erik's pleasure. That's it. Charles wants to be, right now, whatever Erik wants him to be, molded exactly to his liking.  
  
"Mine," Erik breathes against Charles's ear, shivering himself. Erik has always been more or less a headspace guy, which gives them a large repertoire of things to do and try because what matters, what's important, is how they make Charles feel and that is what really sends him under. And like this, it is more obvious than ever before that the two of them are a Pairbond. For every movement Charles makes, Erik adjusts, and for every adjustment Erik makes, Charles must move to accommodate and like everything they embark upon together, their natural tendency to model after one another just proves how connected they really are, and Erik needs to be needed, he needs to be wanted, he needs to be giving Charles pleasure and support and love and tenderness, happiness and joy, but-this is one of the few things that he also is very _into_ , and the compounding of both is threatening to send him to a space he's never been and it pours off of him like honey and citrus, sharp and sweet and soft all at once. It's a kind of sensory deprivation, being unable to move, being suspended in animation and Erik touches him gently at first before he moves onto any other ties, hands down Charles's back and shoulders, his neck and jaw. "I love you so much," he whispers, pressing his head against Charles's. "You're being so good, sweetheart. Hm? My good boy. Aren't you? I know-" he draws his hand over those tears, wiping them away gently. "You've needed this for a while. I'm going to take care of you, I promise. I take care of what belongs to me."  
  
The more Erik touches and rearranges him, the more he slips into that new facet of Dominion, the deeper and deeper Charles tumbles. For a moment it's stark and terrifying, something falling out from beneath him - and how fitting that he's suspended now - that he hadn't known was there until it dropped out of the way, and he's helpless to it. Helpless and dangling but safe, too, and that anxiety slips from him as soon as it came, replaced by Erik's voice, honeyed and snapping him to attention, warming his flesh and inspiring a shivery gasp. His eyes close for a brief second, and when they flutter back open, they're blown wide and something's reset inside of him. This is how his submission should have been coaxed out of him in the first place, the way it was always meant to be. This is Charles' natural inclination, all of that messy hurt that chased him away from it still inside but burned away for the moment, completely unreachable, and it shows. This is Charles soft, impossibly trusting, aching to please with every fiber of his being, needy and desperate for it. There's something innocent about it, something unraveled and uncovered that's hidden, in closets and under beds and behind masks and raised chins and Dominant-styled suits, that still shies from even Erik because the people he was supposed to trust most never earned it. But Erik has, and it's his, and it's there, lips parted and mind open and - good? He's a good boy? He does need this. He leans into Erik's voice, whimpering softly, greedy for it and words seem far-off but if he's asked he'll use them. He'll do anything to please Erik right now. Charles has never been so vulnerable.  
  
Erik runs his hands down Charles's other, un-tied leg, his whole body sensitized to every shift in the atmosphere, every pitch of sound and twitch from Charles as he goes under, far beneath the surface and contained inside that little cave of oxygen where Erik keeps him safe and held steady. "Mhm," he murmurs lowly, grazing Charles's skin with his nails, giving him a little pinch along his inner thigh just to watch him shudder. " _Tov me'od_ , _tayer_ ," he purrs, eyes in slits, vivid emerald peeking from lowered lids. Even against his body Erik's hands are large, and warm, and he's drawn to touching like a magnet, humming under his breath while Charles arches up against him. He finally moves to complete the first series, binding his left leg to his thigh, leaving him slowly rotating to untwist the support lines running through hardpoint, open and Presented and completely, utterly at Erik's mercy, but there are no thoughts of cruelty or violence or humiliation within him. There is only joy and wonder and delight, intertwined like a rope itself made of Will with dark, luxurious desire as he impresses the image of himself into Charles's mind, how very beautiful he looks just like this, exactly where he is meant to be. "How do you feel, Charles?" he whispers, his submissive's name low and soft on his tongue. He kisses the back of his neck, gives him a little nip above his collar for good measure.  
  
Charles' response is another low, breathy whimper, the only thing that seems to want to come out of his mouth at the moment. He doesn't have a clear answer, not even when he blinks and his chest stutters with the breaths he's reminding himself to take, only because Erik wouldn't like it if he stopped breathing. There are tears threatening to gather in his eyes again because he's completely overwhelmed, because he's never felt so - he doesn't know. Helpless, and exposed and vulnerable, and reveling in it. He doesn't want the control, or the power, or the decisions; his Dominant can have all of that, even over his own body, and he'll so willingly surrender it. There's no fear or muddled up thoughts in him, no jagged lines of stress or pain, it's been drained away, and Erik is right. He's needed this, or something like it, needed to give it all up and let himself go and then the tears do come and he whines when they slip because he hadn't meant to, but he isn't upset. He's just finally able to breathe, even around the hitching his chest keeps doing. He wants to give a proper answer. Erik asked for it. "Good, sir," he gasps, because it's all he can manage, but it's true.  
  
"Shh," Erik whispers, not to silence him but a hushing comfort, and the beast that stalks along the floor of his heart is in full reign, but it doesn't rip and roar and destroy. It's eager and satisfied with its capture, a raging predator soothed by its only source of ease and in the aftermath it's become tender, longing to express itself for eons-trapped and terrified and snarling but now, finally able to reflect the desperate, lonely desires it's held for a companion onto the single person who's managed to climb down into this cave with him. "So pretty," he rumbles low in his chest, taken to petting Charles and stroking his hair and scratching fingers down his back. "Beautiful boy." Erik's hand curves over Charles's ass and he gives him a light rap with the back of his palm, just enough for sensation. "How does that feel, hm? Does that feel good?" There is nowhere for Charles to go, there's nowhere for him to wriggle or worm or arch and he's locked in place, unable to swing from side to side, and Erik does it again, a little harder this time, enough to redden his skin beneath his hand and it's gorgeous and Erik's nostrils flare as though able to smell Charles's reaction, petrichor after a roaring tropical storm.  
  
And normally Charles would wriggle. He's been awfully embarrassed (and ashamed, too) to admit how much pain settles him when he's worked up, how sometimes he needs it desperately to feel like - he doesn't know. It's an effective form of discipline, when used for that purpose, not that it's been used that way formally since the first time (but he knows it instinctively anyway, if his reaction everytime he sees the cane in the closet means anything, not fear but certainly, certainly not excitement) but outside of that context it just... it's arousing, in some cases, and in others it just makes him feel in hand. The few times Erik has put him over his lap Charles has taken to wriggling and squirming, especially if it's accompanied by Erik talking him through it. But now there's no room for that, and his breath hitches and his pulse races again, he shudders and lets out a breathy cry, even if it's nowhere near the intensity he's experienced before. "Yes, sir," he whispers, and swallows, because - he'll take anything, absolutely anything he's given right now and he'll be infinitely grateful for it. He just wants to be owned, and he doesn't want to be anywhere but his place. He's been so out of it. He's been so - he needs - "Please, sir," he begs, and his voice hardly sounds like his, high and needier than he's ever heard it.  
  
Erik can't help the soft laugh that escapes him, not at Charles but more a culmination of the swirled up, lightning impulses setting off inside of him, a way to release the tension and because Charles is bound and helpless before him and desperate with need and Erik did that. Charles was tumbling headfirst into a meltdown and Erik put him down and kept him there and now they're here and Charles is so responsive to every minute shift around them and every press of Command emanating out of him and his own meltdown has long evaporated, replaced by hot, humming Dominion that feels as though the very blood in his veins is coated in gasoline-ignition. "Mm," he murmurs, more a sound than anything else, and at last brings his hand down hard over Charles's ass, the resulting smack echoing through the room loudly, a deafening strike that reverberates through Erik just as strong. "Is this what you want?" he scrapes his teeth under Charles's ear, his tone becoming firmer, just the barest edge of a growl vibrating in his chest where it's pressed up to Charles's back. "Tell me, Charles, use your words."  
  
Charles cries out louder, whimpering in the aftermath less because it hurts terribly and more because it's exactly what he needs and he can't even pretend he wants to wriggle away from it. Not because he's being punished, not because he's been disobedient or needs to be corrected, but because - because it gets out all of those nasty, twisted up things, focuses both of them, makes him feel so utterly owned. It's a surrender more for Charles than it is for most and he's so completely willing to give it, to let Erik take him in hand but part of him still hates that he needs - he really wants - it's so much. Would it frighten Erik if he knew? It's hard to breathe for a second, and Charles squeezes his eyes closed. "Yes, sir," he gasps quietly, and hopes that's enough.  
  
"Mmno," Erik does growl this time, long fingers splaying over Charles's throat, warming the metal there. He plucks out one of those embedded little poems, hidden in particles He drew a circle that shut me out./Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout-/but Love and I had the wit to win:/he drew a circle that took me in. "Tell me, Charles, now." He accompanies the Order with another none-so-gentle smack, and there is absolutely nowhere to go-not physically and not mentally, nowhere but Erik's Will and there is not a shred of fear-if Charles only knew how far-gone Erik really is, how much he needs and how not all of that need is gentle and abiding and tender-and the razor's edge of it is creeping along the outer darkness, firm and Commanding and dark and Dominant, it wants to take Charles and put him down and never let him back up.  
  
A gasp tumbles out of Charles' lips again, followed by a reedy whine and he has nowhere to squirm. He can't wiggle his way out from underneath Erik's punishing hand, playfully or otherwise, suspended splayed open and Presented for Erik to do with what he pleases. "I need -" It was an Order, and one that's raising all the hair on his body and creeping beneath his skin and he couldn't possibly hide if he wanted to, so it comes out. "I need you to make me c-cry," is what does, the last word shaky as he trembles with it, because - sometimes, perhaps even most times outside of discipline, a swat on the ass is more than enough to refocus him. A pinch, or a tug of his hair. But Charles has been so backwards, so wound up, has absorbed and internalized, there's screaming and distorting, raging, torture all jumbled up into nonsense in his head and Erik can get rid of it. Charles could be red and crying and limp and all of it could be gone but what if - what if - they haven't done much of it. Erik hasn't even used more than his hand besides that single discipline session that Charles doesn't count as the same, not that he'd need him to, but he knows it could be a sore spot and what if he's - from underneath everything else the shame swirls around in his belly and Charles keeps his eyes closed, biting on his cheek.  
  
The words send an absolute shudder through Erik's entire frame, a bolt of supercharged plasma ignited in the stratosphere leaking burned trails of oil down into the sky, dark thick lines and reflected-colors from the sun in rainbow swirls amidst inky black streaks. It's the first time Charles has ever verbalized this particular facet of himself, but if Erik is honest, it is not the first time he's thought about it, when he's alone-trapped in that lifeless, lightless room with his thoughts and his dreams and in the corners of the Landscape where no one goes. Erik isn't a sadist-he isn't, but then there's this-this need to fully subject Charles to him, to make him cry and plead and beg and hurt him and it bubbled up briefly during their Bonding and Erik ruthlessly quashed it because Charles has been hurt enough and Charles asked him once if he ever thought of Mr. Shaw during these moments and he'd answered yes because he never wants to be like him, like those people who pinned him down and shoved things inside of him and burned him and drowned him and killed him over and over, black-boxed at the edge of a gun and their razor-smiles and taunting jeers, who relished his screaming and begging and ravaged his small body until it was nothing but sallow skin stretched over jutting bones and he isn't a sadist he _isn't-  
  
_ but those words have stood all the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck on end, finally tapping into the part of him that has to be-that is-that wants-and he breathes in deeply, slow, stuttering inhales through his nose audible in the silence of the aftermath and he takes a step forward, molding his body to Charles. "Is that so," he murmurs and it's dark, not punishing, not disciplinary, for its own sake. Because he's always, on some level, wanted this and he does grab Charles's hair, then, in a tight vice grip, silky strands gathered in his fist and he yanks hard, so that Charles can almost see Erik behind him. "And how you would look," he rasps, a mish-mash of languages that's become their own. He spreads his other hand over Charles's stomach. "No shame," he growls roughly. "What belongs here is my Will. Do you understand, _neshama_?" Erik punctuates it with a jerk of Charles's head and then he lets go, allowing it to drop back into position but not before giving him another harsh slap, the harshest he's ever given and with all the force of his power behind it Charles's body jerks like a livewire, completely trapped in its bindings.  
  
This is what Charles had really meant when he'd asked Erik to put him down, what he couldn't possibly articulate. He'd meant - and he doesn't need to be forced, not in any actuality because he's all too willing to submit to it, but he does need this. He needs to be handled roughly, to be given no slack, no leniency, no room to wiggle his way right out of it short of a pause-word. He's sure that afterwards he will need to be pet and coddled and held, to be whispered to and handled gently, but now it is resolutely not what he needs, and why he hadn't sunk under in the first place, why he'd been unsettled and fussy. Because he needed this. Because he's needed this for quite a while. Charles screams at the slap, breathing harshly and shaking in his restraints but not crying and he needs to. He needs to. It's not a sweet impulse, it's not light or playful but all the shame melts right out of him and becomes thick, knotting anticipation in his belly, not an ounce of fear even as his heart rate kicks. "Yes," he breathes, and the word shudders like the rest of him, barely audible. This time he hopes it's not enough. This time he hopes Erik doesn't allow it. "Please -" He doesn't even know what he's begging for. He just knows he needs, and that Erik can take care of him like this, too.  
  
Erik doesn't respond right away, instead holding up his hand so that the bag he'd packed their things in levitates over, still in-tact as the only remnant of this room's original purpose and his mind has flared into life, a brilliant miasma of colors and sound and every inch of his power is extended now, slithering down Charles's body, into his mouth and nose, down his throat and into his belly where everything has kicked up and tweaking just-so it ratchets up more, a flurry of disturbed dandelion puffs melting into the sun and dragging sticky-molasses trails of heat under his nerves. Erik likes pain, but he also likes pleasure, and he especially likes melding the two-because as close as their minds are it is impossible for him not to feel how absolutely turned on Erik is right now, hard enough to hurt pressed up against his jeans and he wants Charles to know, he wants Charles to feel that because that is what Charles is here for-where Erik put him, because Erik is going to take care of him and Erik is going to take him apart. But Charles should absolutely not mistake that for leniency of any kind because Erik is all whirling, raging hurricanes and thunder and fire and earth, hands dug into wet soil and green things cropped up from the darkest corners of his psyche. This is the thing that he has always needed. The one thing he has never, ever let himself explore and he's shaking, vibrating like protons and electrons revolving around one another, supercharged.   
  
They used to make him hurt people and those people were terrified of him, they were scared and they didn't want it they wanted it to stop they begged him to stop and he didn't because he had to take care of them he had to make sure they lived and it got all twisted up, and he's so scared to reenact that onto Charles, to become the violent abuser he's been in the past, except-Charles needs it. Charles wants it, Charles is pleading with him for it, his voice high and little hitchy whines at the edges of his words and his mouth dropped open and his beautiful, brilliant eyes a haze and he needs Erik. He needs the thing that only Erik can give him, only Erik can be trusted with, because no matter how dark and down and out Erik goes, he will never harm Charles. Never. Not even now. That scream, a month ago Erik would have been horrified to hear it, horrified at himself for eliciting it but the animal, baser part of him, all those Dominant parts slotted into place howl with victory instead. He kneels and retrieves an implement from the bag, sorting out its tasseled ends and untangling any knots, taking care of his belongings. Just like he's going to take such good care of Charles. It's a small cat-o-nine tails, a sleek leather implement with many thin, shimmery strands at the end and even this is pretty-Erik picked it, Erik altered it and it fits into his hand perfectly.  
  
Not for punishment, no. And he is firm, he is harsh, but his mind is bright and alive, not shuttered away. He drags it down Charles's shoulders and back, letting him feel the soft tails. "I asked you a question, Charles," and his voice is a hoarse croak, not from distress but from pure energy. "When you address me, you will address me properly. Do you understand?"  
  
There is nothing about this that resembles a discipline session. There's no transgression to be atoned for here, nothing he needs to take responsibility for, to own up to and let Erik enact justice as is his right. No churning, sinking dread, no guilt twisting up his insides, no horrible pit in his stomach where the realization that he'd truly disappointed Erik lives. That is what makes the difference, and it isn't here. Instead he's buzzing, humming, trembling for an entirely different reason, his own energy leaking right out of him but none of it is the chaotic, painful throb of earlier. He shudders head to toe, lip trembling, overwhelmed by Erik pressed up tight to his back and he'd thought that perhaps - but none of those thoughts even have a place here. No bearing. They're all so far away, and even in this there's healing. His skin is prickling, he's whimpering, and he knows he's naked and vulnerable and displayed for Erik, that he's not at all disinterested like he is during punishment, where nothing at all is pleasurable. There's a difference, there's a line, and -

He shivers as that implement brushes against his skin, soft and nearly innocent now, because it's blurred a little, too. Because they've discussed that sometimes he needs to be disciplined to get it all out, and the same urge is inside of him now but it's different, too, and he doesn't know exactly how. He just knows he wants Erik to put him down. He knows he can. He's never once doubted it, he already has. But there's something about it that he needs, something about - to know, to feel it. To be given absolutely no leeway, no mercy. To be made to scream and cry. Those first times he'd pushed, pushed, pushed, this is what he'd wanted. He hadn't gotten it, and that was okay, because neither of them were ready for it. But they are now, and Erik had asked why he needed to fight and he didn't know then and he doesn't know now except to know that he does. He's still under, he's way under, but he wants Erik to make him - to make him - so he shakes his head. It's difficult, but Erik isn't gripping his hair and he can do it and his entire body tenses with anticipation as he gasps out, "No." It's not no, please stop. It's not no, I'm frightened. It's certainly not in place of a pause-word. It's no, stubborn and haughty even breathless, and he keeps Erik's title out of his mouth even though it's so close on his tongue, and he waits.  
  
For some reason-one that becomes obvious rather quickly, but at first it's a little out of place-that thick, rich loam of Dominion envelopes him entirely like a blanket, and he can feel every neuron-pulse in his own body-and he has never been like this. He has never felt more in control, more Dominant than right now and it all clicks-full of insecurities and doubts and uncertainties-you're not Dominant, Erik. You were just born that way. It happens sometimes. Don't worry, we'll fix it. But they didn't fix it because it isn't broken, all of those Dominant urges remained-submerged and wrenched out like a rag twisted water-droplets hitting the floor-he isn't broken. And the moment that Charles defies him, denies him, every single response that he could possibly have plays out behind his eyes and it's opportunity, there is so much he can do, there are so many ways he can make his Will known and it is intoxicating and Charles is strung up for him, Presented for him, a product of his skill and his Will and suspended on a sunbeam inside the dimmed light of this room, Erik pauses to let it wash over him, gasping at it like an overly hormonal teenager first discovering they can put a sub down into headspace. He's pressed up against Charles still and he can't help it, he can't help peppering the back of his neck with little kisses, and those are gentle and soft until he steps away and draws his hand down Charles's back. "No? Hm? No?" Erik laughs, and it isn't cruel, it's delighted. It's not a normal Dominant reaction, maybe, but Erik wouldn't be a normal Dominant even if his village remained standing to this day. He's a D5. There is nothing and no one on this Earth that can intimidate him out of his Will. "I think you do," he whispers, and Charles can hear the whistle of his implement before he feels it, as Erik brings it down in a swift, long strike against his shoulderblades and every tassel strikes him at different moments-if he thought the cane was bad this is dredged right out of hell-thin cords that immediately sear into his flesh and light up his whole body in abrupt, fresh agony. "Do you understand, sweetheart? Hm? Do you understand that you are mine?" Erik touches the marks left behind, kisses them, laves his tongue over them because Charles has nowhere to go in the wake.  
  
He's having trouble breathing, but it isn't panic. Erik is everywhere, even where his lips and voice aren't, his Will filling him up in ways he never has; plugging up his nose, slithering down his throat, working his way deep inside of his belly and touching every limb like ghosting electric sparks. It's like nothing he's ever felt before, and he's absolutely positive that if he were anyone else in the world he would be a mindless, drooling lump of flesh to be manipulated like a puppet on strings, but he isn't. He's Erik's submissive. The truth is, he's felt this kind of pain before; he knows what to expect even before it comes, but when it does, it isn't how he remembered. It does smart something awful, that part was correct. He lets out a loud, broken gasp, shuddering, and he would have flailed if his limbs weren't tightly restrained, but it isn't - without the terror, without the dissociation, it's nothing like it. He craves it. He's not crying yet, and he refuses to, sucking in panting, stolen breaths, and he whines because - he nods, jerky and slightly dizzying, and then follows it with a deliberate shake of his head, as much as he can manage in Erik's grip. His lips are trembling, but stubbornly, defiantly closed.  
  
"Hmm," Erik huffs, and the next strike is brought down over his ass, over those red marks already imprinted upon his flesh in neat rows of vertical lines that redden and puff up the moment he brings the whip down, and this time it's a damn good wallop, infused not only with Erik's natural, hale and hardy strength but with a good deal of power that hums and vibrates right through Charles, ricocheting off of his molecules and dispersing all around them, raining down in bright sparkles of Will that taunt and tease across his whole body. Erik doesn't pause before he repeats the action again, on the other cheek this time, and then a third right along his crack, the sound of leather against skin pounding up into his ears, the whistle of the whip as it rears back before the harsh impact, the way Erik twitches himself, overloaded on Dominion and amped up beyond anything he's ever conceived and he kneels, soothing the shaking, pulsating agony with his lips and fingers, giving him a little smack and spreading his cheeks so he can press a kiss against his most sensitive area. He lays his head against Charles then, taking the time to touch and taste and breathe, eyes nearly closed, lips parted as heavy streaks of desire pulsate through him and he knows that by now Charles would be thrashing, strung out on opposing ends of the spectrum, sensation bleating through his brain that he can't categorize until the next strike, until the next kiss, until Erik soothes him and spanks him all at once, and he is only just beginning. When he rocks himself back to his feet, it's with the momentum that gives his next lash a pounding impact, rocking Charles from where he's hung and spinning him a little into the hardpoint. "And now?" he whispers, dragging his nails down Charles's spine.  
  
And now - and now - Charles is panting, unable to catch his breath even when Erik allows him a moment to catch it. He's twitching, gasping, whimpering, hot and aching and overwhelmed, completely strung out for Erik, and there are tears on his cheeks. He isn't crying; not the steady, hitching sobs he knows Erik can bring him to, but he's having trouble holding back pitiful little sniffles around his louder, shaky cries, the muffled scream he offers when Erik rears back up and everything goes white with sharp, startling pain for a moment, stinging terribly. He's biting on his lip, because he wants to beg and he knows he will but he isn't yet and he doesn't know what to beg for except more. More, more, more. He needs it. He didn't even realize how much he needs it but he needs it. "Mmhhh," is his response, and it's decidedly not the proper one, because he doesn't even know if he could at the moment. All he knows is that even Erik's nails feel soothing in contrast as they make him shiver, and if he wasn't so tied up he'd arch back into it. He whines.  
  
Erik's head tips back in sympathy, eyes half-lidded as he stalls Charles from swinging back and forth with a quick application of his hand to the bundle of ropes making up the primary support line and he crosses over to his other side, face to face, cupping his cheek and kissing him messy and deep and he swings the whip around to slash against his ass again, trailing up to give him a jolt over his shoulder just so he can hear Charles squeak into his mouth and Erik is totally something else right now, it's an expression Charles has never seen, utter confidence and joy and ramped-up heat and his eyes are bright and shining, almost glowing in the darkness for how vivid they are pinned on Charles, roving over his body, pausing on his cock where it lays hard and heavy against his stomach and Erik grins darkly, predatory because this is-Charles whimpering and screaming and crying and begging and hot for it-is something dredged right out of his filthiest fantasies, the things he has never let himself linger on and now he is and he is so completely in his element it is impossible to escape-not that it's possible anyway. "No, Charles, I want an answer. You are mine-oh, look at you, so eager for me because you are mine and I will be addressed-" he pushes against Charles's chest to give him a little momentum and then brings the whip down hard against his torso, over his nipple where he knows that will smart and ache and he surges forward to envelop it in his mouth without pause before bringing the whip down again in the same spot over that spit-slicked bud, a low growl building up in the back of his throat completely unconsciously. "-for what I am. Your Dominant."  
  
It's completely unlike anything he's ever felt. He's utterly, completely helpless, and not a single part of him is afraid but he is breathless, gasping, reeling, his head spinning and his lips swollen obscenely red from the kiss and his own teeth. This time he doesn't bite his lip in time; when Erik strikes his chest the second time, damp with his spit and already smarting, he screams louder than before, a startled wail of a cry as he tries desperately to wriggle. But he can't. There's nowhere to go. He's swinging lightly but it's all in Erik's control, all exactly where he wants him, how he pleases. Charles feels more tears gather on his cheeks and spill from his wide-eyes, cling to his eyelashes and he wants - needs - "N-No," he stutters, and it comes out shaking as if he's questioning it this time, teary and followed by a sniff he couldn't hide if he wanted to. There's nowhere to hide. "Sir," he adds, and he meant it to be stubborn, to be defiant, but it comes out heaved and wrecked and he has to swallow around it, throat bobbing.  
  
Erik doesn't pause this time, bringing the implement down again and again over Charles's chest until it's heaving and stuttering and he's unable to help those noises from escaping him, and periodically Erik will stop and suck one of his nipples into his mouth, bite with his teeth, and when he does stop it's to kneel down and retrieve something from his bag, and Charles recognizes the glint of familiar-steel from those clover clamps he'd used before their trip in their guest bedroom at Raven and Hank's. "That is correct," he rumbles lowly. "Say it again." This time it's an Order and it slams into Charles like a freight train, and Erik doesn't give him time to adjust before he's snapping those clamps on where they belong, and he gives them a firm jolt with his hands as soon as they are.  
  
"H- aah!" is what comes out of his mouth first around a noisy wail, his chest heaving frantically and his nipples ache, a deep, impossible ache and they're more sensitive than he's ever felt them and his whole body is smarting and there are tears in his eyes again and - "Sir," he gasps, exactly like he was Ordered, but then his lips part again and he tastes salt on his tongue and, "Sir, sir, sir -" Erik is Charles' Dominant and he deserves to be addressed with respect and he's - Charles is - "T-Thank you, sir," he whimpers, because his Dominant expects him to have manners and Charles should be grateful for this treatment, for the time Erik is taking to put him back in line, and he is, he is, he is -  
  
Always, Erik's mind rises up in response, warm and shivery and delighted and he has no intention of stopping because he is riding on the coat tails of that freight train and every coiled up, leashed strand of Will wrapped around his palms has unspooled and this room is not big enough to contain it, this Earth is not big enough to contain it and it winds and unravels all around itself in billions of overlapping wire circuitry, glowing bright and liquid-platinum just like their Bond, and when Charles does break and address him properly he glows, too, proud and pleased. He drags the ends of those tassels up Charles's chest, gives him a light rap over the clamps, enough to jostle (and Charles knows that he will do it much harder very shortly) and then his fingers are curled over Charles's throat, and then he's kissing him and touching him. Oh, he has zero intention of stopping, but obedience does deserve a reward. Just a little. Erik trails his fingers all the way down to between Charles's legs, drawing up some of the wetness pooled against his stomach and touches them to Charles's lips, eyes dark and heady. "This is what you need, isn't it, hm? My pretty submissive, all tied up and nowhere to go." He smirks, the words accented roughly as is typical when Erik's deeply affected.  
  
Charles soaks it all right up, needy and sponge-like, whimpering softly. Erik's Will was made for him; not to be contained, but to be wielded, and his body responds accordingly, thrumming and eager and never broken, or crushed, or suffocated. When Erik's fingers press against his lips he parts them immediately, sucking them inside and greedy for it, moaning and murmuring happily around them even though it's his own mess he's tasting. It doesn't matter, because it's his Dominant and he's being given attention and he needs - he needs this more than anything, Erik is right. He needs a firm hand and to be kept in line and Erik is the only one who can do it. Yes, sir, he whispers in Erik's mind, because his mouth is busy suckling, chasing after sensation, eyes hooded and this time it's sweet, earnest because Erik is proud of him and he needs that, too. He can be good, he promises. He was all twisted up and he needed to be put down but he can be good and take it.  
  
Erik presses his fingers forward just a speck before finally withdrawing them and shaking his head, gripping Charles's chin in hand, tilting it up to bore into his eyes. It's sweet and Erik adores him beyond all reason-and none of that pride is diminished, but it's not what he's looking for and Charles knows it, so Erik strokes his cheek tenderly before giving it a stinging slap, pressing their brows together, leaving wet streaks across his face and not wiping them off. "Words," he whispers. "Mine. Do you know? Hm?"  
  
Charles whines loudly at the slap even as he leans into it as readily as if he'd been kissed or caressed, one more little tear slipping down his cheek to join the spit Erik's spread there. His cheek burns, and he's grateful for it, would happily thank Erik for it if he wanted. Even though his Dominant demanded words he nods, too, shaky and eager, eyes glassy with tears he won't shed yet. "Yes, sir. I'm yours, I know, I belong to you," he promises, breathy and heated and desperate to let Erik know he can be good, that he will be good. It's that nearly innocent, helplessly earnest part of him, coaxed right back out, pulled from inside and he'd do anything at all to prove it. To earn Erik's praise. He knows he needs to be put back in his place, and he'll do anything, take anything. Whatever his Dominant decides. He needs this. Erik knows he needs this, he's so good and generous and Charles is so grateful to be taken in hand.  
  
"That's it," Erik murmurs, the praise coming swiftly and easily when Charles obliges. "You are doing wonderfully, do you know that? Hm? You take this so well-I never could have dreamed-" Erik says it like a confession, a half-whispered unconscious admission from deep, deep under the ocean and all at once Charles filters into his own perception, the way he looks, the way he sounds, the way every part of Erik is primed to respond to him and how much Erik has needed this-for months, for years of his life, he has needed this. This is how it should have been. This is how he should have been, a place he's never known, only drummed up in his fantasies as dark and twisted and wrong and he couldn't have been further from the truth because Charles is magnificent and all for Erik, just for Erik. He gives Charles a sweet kiss of his own and another light smack over the face, licking up those tracks of tears that fall but there is more for Charles to give him, there is so much more for Charles to give him and this is nowhere near enough, so Erik leans out, color high in his face and grinning brilliantly even as he lifts the whip high in an overhead strike, bringing it down over those clamps on Charles's nipples and letting the tails lash out over his chest. Even now, Erik is careful, on the right and not the left, fully hooked up to every reaction of Charles's oversensitized body.  
  
Charles is smiling sweetly even as Erik slaps him again, leaning into the sting and craving it just the same, swimming with the notion that he was able to give Erik what he needed and that it's what Charles has always needed, too. When the next lash comes he isn't expecting it even though he should be, even though everything points to it and Charles is very good at predicting, crying out in a sharp yelp that turns into a gasp, and he can't wriggle but he tries and he doesn't cry, not yet, not yet, but it stings and aches and his nipples are so sensitive and - "Hurts, sir," he whimpers, eyes shiny with unshed tears and impossibly blue even in the dark and it's what he needs and Erik is giving it to him. "Thank you," he adds, lip wobbling but no less sweet. Erik is going to take care of him. He knows what his boy needs.  
  
Good, Erik thinks, trailing the tasseled ends of the whip down Charles's chest in the wake, tracing over hitching sighs and trembling muscles. This is the kind of hurt he was made to give. No more torture and fear, only this. "Oh, I know," Erik says back, low and soft. Already the places on Charles's skin where Erik has struck have reddened, painting large swathes of his chest and back a deep burgundy hue, but Erik isn't finished and he brushes the soft ends of the whip along Charles's inner thighs before bringing it down hard against the sensitive, thin skin inside, not pausing as he delivers several hard jolts one after the other, leaving rows of perfect lines all along Charles's right leg, and then repeats the same for the left.  
  
Somehow, despite knowing exactly what's coming, he's lulled right into complacency when those strands stroke against his thigh, murmuring softly because after harsh tugs and the throbbing of his poor nipples, it feels kind. It makes him cry out louder when Erik does inevitably strike, eyes blown wide again as he shudders and tries uselessly to squirm away from it, except there's nowhere to go but Erik and he's whimpering again. Hot tears slide down his cheeks and he bites on his lip to stifle the sounds of them, throat bobbing as he tries to swallow them back. It's a valiant effort, but it's not working well, and he's trembling all over, low, shaky noises escaping as he looks teary-eyed and vulnerable and trusting up at Erik, absolutely adoring, and it's impossible to doubt because it all spills out through the Bond, too. "S-Sir," he breathes, trembling there, too, but he's not asking for anything in particular. He just wants to say it. Please, let him take it. He can be such a good boy.  
  
And he has more to give to Erik, although Erik absorbs the tears that Charles does give up gently, pressing them against his cheeks, his lips, a currency he's known how to elicit since he could wield an implement at all and only now in this very moment has he ever felt like his life, and all of the dismal tortures he's known, has been for a good purpose. There is no fear here, and no pain beyond what is given strictly in the context of what they both need, what is good-and up until now he's never realized that there is a good application of the skills he learned under duress. " _Ken, neshama_ ," he murmurs back, a softness abruptly at odds with his harsh treatment, but this too is different to anything either of them have known. He reaches out then, running his hands down Charles's arms until he can check Charles's grip, just as he taught him earlier.  
  
Charles is sniffling quietly more than crying, some part of him still needing to be coaxed out, wrenched from the depths where he knows Erik can take him. There's not an ounce of defiance left in him, though, no restless, irritated energy, even if there's so much more he can give. More he can take, if his Dominant would like him to. He'd never imagined that these things could be good, that perhaps Erik would need them, too, so worked up and ashamed about needing them himself that beyond the few offhand times he'd mentioned it, shown Erik a glimpse of a fantasy, he'd never thought to properly express it. It wasn't worth frightening Erik with. He actively seeks out the soft touches, rubbing his cheek against Erik's lips and fingers if he can manage, whining pitifully when he pulls away but obediently letting Erik check in on him. He's sore and throbbing what seems like all over, and it does hurt, but it's not distressing, and nothing is tingling or numb. He doesn't feel the way he does during discipline, where he might do anything to end it, to have it be over. Instead he looks at Erik with those rain-dampened azure skies, seeming larger and darker now, his mind reaching out curiously, seeking and shy. Are they done? Is Erik going to hold him now? Charles bites his lip. Does he still want words? He murmurs "sir" again, a soft, trembling breath of it, because he likes saying that word for his Dominant.  
  
"Oh no," Erik replies lowly, laughing warm and gentle. He completes the same maneuver on the other hand, recalling his grip strength while they were still on the ground, but it's clear once Erik steps away again that he has absolutely no intention of ending anytime soon. Charles is sniffling and crying a little, and Erik is being tender with him now, but it exists in tandem with everything else; not as a segue into completion. There is pain and there are tears, and surely there will be screams and shouts, but there is also love, and that is the difference. Love and trust, and there is nothing shameful about it. Erik's worked himself up too over the years, about what kind of person he could be that he enjoys this on some level, and he'll undoubtedly work himself up about it later on, but right now it's all so clear. He gives Charles a quick jolt with his open hand against those clamps still holding him fast, watches him flex against the bonds circling him and inhales, chin tipped back to absorb every twitch of reaction. It isn't over. It hasn't even begun. Erik's been easing into it, even while it seems like he's raining a hailstorm of blows down on Charles with no respite; for Erik that is only the tip of the iceberg and every Dominant part of him howls to discover the rest.  
  
Charles cries out against the yank of the clamps, whimpering again in the aftermath as tears threaten to gather in his eyes all over again, not spilling but clinging stubbornly to his eyelashes. His chest heaves, body overwhelmed and overloaded and he knows this is where Erik would usually stop, if he didn't stop before this. Maybe not if it was discipline, but he doesn't have the experience to say; that first time is all he has, and it hadn't even been Real. This is where he'd soothe and fuss and let him down, especially if it seemed Charles was struggling before this, and in the moment he couldn't say it was disappointing. Maybe it was what he wanted, even if it wasn't what he needed. He isn't at all frightened at the prospect of taking more, the jolt of excitement in his belly hot and undisguised, but he does bite and worry at his lip, body tensing like he'd be wriggling if it was possible. Will it hurt very much? Will he cry? Will Erik keep going if - he closes his eyes, taking harsh, uneven breaths. What is he going to do? It's not fear that washes over him, but deep-seated, overwhelming anticipation.  
  
"Yes," Erik says the answer aloud, a single word confirming every wayward thought running through Charles's mind. Yes. It will hurt. Charles will cry and much, much more because he'd told Erik he needs him to make him cry but that isn't everything that Erik needs and he doesn't know if he can venture into every dark, dark impulse today but it's a start. A foot wedged into the door of the abyss previously rendered uninhabitable and horrific. He runs his hands slowly up Charles's legs and then begins to unfasten them from one another in preparation for the next position; using the hardpoint Erik works methodically to invert the support lines and once Charles is seated along the rope harness right-side up, Erik flips the bolt from Charles's chest to his back, transitioning him carefully into an inversion-arms still tied behind his back, but now he's face down at an angle, giving him enough leeway to look up at Erik and remain comfortable. He brings Charles's legs together and begins to re-tie, suspending them from the main support line in essentially a partial hog-tie-esque situation. When he's finished he runs his hands through Charles's hair fondly. "Stable?" he murmurs.  
  
And Charles does need it. He needs it desperately, because even though he no longer feels like he's seconds away from bursting into seething agony and twisted up thoughts, there's still a horrid, unsettled knot there and he knows Erik can work it out. He's already taking such good care of him. It's not fear that spikes down his spine suddenly, but it is unsettled, and Charles whines at it, everything blending together but Erik needs him to talk and be honest. "Yes, sir," he whispers, because he knows his own body enough to know nothing is cut off, that he isn't dizzy or physically under any real duress besides the delicious ache of being kept where Erik wants him. He isn't frightened, either, not even close, but - Charles bites down on his lip, trying to stamp it down. It's silly. His cheeks heat and he can't exactly turn his head away, but he does close his eyes, making another discontent little noise.  
  
Erik responds to this as instinctively as everything else, angling him upward with a gentle tug and splaying his hand out over Charles's cheek, silently urging him to open his eyes with a simple nonverbal Command-a facet of his Dominance that he's becoming better at as they grow closer together, and now, as close as they are-as close as they've almost ever *been*, it's effortless. "Not silly," he rumbles, shaking his head. "Tell me." The Order is soft, and Erik grips his chin in hand to keep his gaze, tight and unrelenting.  
  
It is silly. Charles bites down harder on his lip and his cheeks heat further, splotchy pink that spreads up to his ears. His answer is telepathic at first, an image, a sensation unfolding rather than words; Erik's lips on his, the gentle, warm press of them, a large hand cradling his cheek just like this. He sighs at even the recollection, eyes fluttering but not closing, lips parted. It's true that what he needs right now is a very firm hand, more than he could possibly admit to, but - he wants this desperately, too, to hold onto. "Please, sir?" he mumbles, embarrassed but needy just the same, his mind brushing shyly against Erik's in the aftermath.  
  
"Not silly," Erik whispers back, and it's mostly against Charles's lips as he leans forward and presses their mouths together gently, his hand spreading out over Charles's jaw to stroke back and forth with his thumb. "I love you," he breathes, warm and steadying. It exists in tandem, and there is nothing silly about it-Erik doesn't know how to describe the way he feels now, a juxtaposed combination of tender and harsh all at the same time, the balance completely natural. His other hand comes up to frame Charles's opposing cheek, and he bows their heads together. "Beautiful," he adds, his own mind arching into that mental caress.  
  
Charles sighs right into it, a soft, pleased noise as Erik surrounds him completely, those large hands framing his face while he's kept immobile and Presented. If there was any true anxiety bubbling up, any distress, it melts away as smooth as anything, banished by Erik's soft kiss, reflected back in the way his mind hums love and trust. It was all he needed, and he's very grateful to receive it. There's a bit of a sting from where Erik slapped him just minutes ago and it makes him shiver, eyes so heavy they nearly close. He isn't afraid, but his belly absolutely flips itself over at the reminder, mind flashing images of hands around his throat, of harsh smacks, of all the things he's needed but hasn't been able to even consider asking for - did Erik pack more implements? Had he anticipated this? Tying Charles up, making him - would he really - he swallows, whining again and it's clear he'd be squirming if he could, coiled up anticipation winding up tighter. He's really going to? They really aren't done? Will Erik make him take it? If Charles decided he didn't feel like more, would... he stops those thoughts there because he's positive those are too much, forcing a shaky breath.  
  
Erik huffs, kissing his forehead before drawing back and settling him into the position that he'd been setting up earlier. He tugs on the ropes binding him to tighten them up, enough so that he feels secure and locked-in but not enough to hurt him, or infringe on his sensation. Everything Erik's done thus far is methodical and this is no exception, and soon enough Charles realizes that Erik hadn't constructed his rigging back, nor did he create these implements; he'd brought them with him, mostly as a source of comfort, and he's immensely grateful to his past self for being incapable of separation from these things; their things, because it's the only thing thus far that's made Erik feel whole again-and he knows that it's the same for Charles. Erik kneels to retrieve a new instrument, a sleek leather crop, and small, thin swirling designs of metal emerge along its seams, and it's too thin to impact Charles's skin, but stenciled enough that when Erik draws it down Charles's back before delivering a swift smack to his ass, the patterns swirl into his skin, white over the red that's already there. This one's thinner, sleeker, and packs more of a punch than the whip as a result. If Charles didn't feel like more, that would just be too bad for him, because quite frankly that is not what Erik wants, and as he's gradually becoming more comfortable with realizing-he should be entitled to what he wants.  
  
He should be entitled to Charles most of all. His lips part on a surprised cry, because as much as he'd been expecting a blow, even as he'd known exactly where Erik was, he's still somehow startled. On top of the heat from earlier it stings something nasty and he stifles another whimper, a useless gesture when he knows he'll be making plenty more noise if Erik has anything to say about it. There's nowhere to go, to wriggle off to, and it ramps up all of that pooling anticipation, makes it hotter and thicker until he's sure he'll drown in it. "No more," he tries, voice quivering, because it's all he has left, because some part of him needs to, to see if Erik will listen. If he'll back off just because Charles says. It doesn't matter if it's what he actually needs.  
  
The first time Charles ever brought up something like this (and OK, the second and third times, too) Erik shied away from it, believing himself totally incapable of not paying attention to _no_ , but perhaps the situation might've resolved itself better if one analyzed what Erik _does_ rather than, at times, what he says, because Charles has said no in the past and Erik absolutely hasn't entertained it without a single problem, but it doesn't feel the same as this feels. Everything hot inside of him flares into life, an oil fire expunged by water, deadly and bright and drenched in Will. He draws the soft leather end of the crop down Charles's cheek, gazing down at him as though in pity. Poor Charles, Erik doesn't feel like being nice. He gives him a little rap on the cheek (only enough to lightly sting, since that could cause some real damage otherwise) and before he even deigns to answer, he's bringing it down over Charles's shoulders, in that sensitive spot that sends a fresh jangle of sharp, cutting pain down his spine. "More," he whispers affectionately. "Oh, yes. More. You'll take what I give you, and you will thank me for it." That's punctuated by a sharp jolt to the bottom of Charles's foot. But Erik's careful, and when Charles has his full faculties again he'll note, as he did when Erik disciplined him that first time, that there are only specific areas he uses full force on, while everything else stings Erik's adjusted each time and kept a finger on his pulse, on his internal reactions-it really is nothing like anything he's ever been subjected to. Erik isn't angry. Erik isn't punishing him. He isn't distant or out of control or fuming. He just wants to, because Charles reacts so beautifully to it and because it's about him. It's not about Erik, although it is-Erik's attention is focused completely on him, he isn't taking something out on Charles. He's slowly and steadily built up this scenario to where the pauses between pains has gradually diminished, the sensations altered and varied, the positions he's arranged into exposing him to Erik helplessly, for him to be able to access all different parts of Charles's body with his assortment of devices, leaving patterned, artistic red marks interspersed with intricate knots and ties.  
  
The thing is, he doesn't need to have all of his faculties to know instinctively that this is different. Charles can tell. If Erik had been vicious and angry, or acting out punishment for something they hadn't discussed, something that Charles didn't understand he needed to atone for in the first place - something they're both all too familiar with - he would have immediately pause-worded. He would have known, even deep in subspace, because he knows the opposite end of the spectrum just as intimately as Erik does. And while he knows he needs Erik to deny him sometimes, to choose not to heed his protests and whims, there is no time he would ever want or suggest that Erik ignore a pause-word. But Charles isn't even considering that, because he doesn't need to. Even as he yelps and squeals and cries out, attempts to jerk and only manages weak, helpless trembles, even as the pain begins to settle deep under the skin and heat every single inch of him up, seemingly everywhere at once, he doesn't even briefly entertain the idea. It isn't long before Charles is doing exactly what he'd asked Erik to make him do. He tries to resist at first, sucking the tears back in, biting on his lip and cheek, swallowing to hold them at bay, but none of it works. Before long he's crying in earnest, loud, wet sobs as his body tenses in an attempt to wriggle or squirm his way out from the agony of Erik's consistent, merciless blows, smarting all over and no longer able to predict where the next one will fall, not because he's gotten any less adept at doing so but because he's stopped focusing the energy. He's utterly, completely helpless to Erik's whims, to Erik's needs and desires, and it's more freeing than he could possibly admit, everything dragged right out of him as he takes heaving breaths. "H-hurts, sir," he sniffles, a repetition of before, but now it's through a sob, and he sounds exactly how he is. Strung out and impossibly deep under, right where Erik put him.  
  
And it looks different, too. The punishments Charles has received in the past, the pain and torture, Erik has seen a good deal of it and so has Charles, stood hollowly in front of a mirror under fluorescent lighting as deep, ugly bruises permeate pale skin; welts flecked with blood and indiscriminate lacerations, careless in their application and all the more brutal for it. While his body certainly is alight in pain-Erik hasn't spared him this-the marks are neat, placed carefully, and almost artistic in their design, stenciled in by the raised edges inscribed along his chosen instruments. He's become a canvas for Erik to enact his Will upon, a painting of submission in living, trembling breaths and color. When Charles speaks, Erik laughs tenderly, low and completely snapped-off from any incarnation of his Dominance that Charles has ever encountered before. He's switched to a reedy cane reminiscent of the one used in that first session, for delivering quick swathes of zingy sensation overlaid amidst flowers and trees, but he just strokes it along Charles's spine, not jolting him yet. "I know," he whispers, drawing his hand down Charles's chest, pressing a kiss at its center. Erik moves sluggishly, his veins all heated molasses, striking with gentle kisses this time instead of the cane.  
  
Charles takes hitchy, whimpering breaths as he cries, unable to ever fully catch his breath. When he realizes he can't arch into his Dominant's kisses any more than he can writhe away from his blows he whines loudly, low and pitiful, more tears slipping down his cheeks as he trembles with it. His mind wraps around Erik's instead, desperately clinging how the rest of him can't, latching and needy and completely dependent the way the rest of him is. There's nothing holding him together but Erik, exactly the person who's deconstructing him with no lack of skill. Are they done? Will there be more? He tries to get his breathing under control but it comes out as another shaky sob. "Sir," is all he manages to get out loud, and it's just a quiet rasp of a thing. Is he being a good boy? He wants to be good. It's the only thing he wants to be. He kept asking for help, he kept trying to be good, he just - he wants it so bad. His sobs get louder, less because of the pain, and more because - because -  
  
"Very good," Erik returns, caressing him with hands and mind in tandem, splaying his fingers out over Charles's chest to feel it rise and fall underneath his palms, not disconnecting from him in the slightest, always keeping a firm pulse on him via touch and unable to even consider breaking that link. "Shh, shh," he soothes, pressing his lips warmly to Charles's forehead, and stepping closer, enveloping him in strong arms so he can bridge their lips together and kiss him deeper, his whole consciousness an inky black expanse lit up by brilliant pyrotechnics that pop and shiver with every touch. They will never be done. Not ever. It will never be over. This scene will bridge to a natural conclusion, but Charles will always belong to Erik, he will always be Erik's wonderful submissive, his perfect, beautiful boy. Charles's body is covered in marks, twitching and heaving in his arms, and to go longer and harder now would be dangerous, so Erik doesn't strike him again, but he does draw his nails gently overtop, amidst long, lingering kisses that pour all of Erik's ignited desire right down Charles's throat, loosening his limbs and relaxing his muscles.  
  
Someday, maybe they will go farther, increasing intensity and parameters without sacrificing the safety of the situation, which he knows Erik would never do. Deeper into those desires he knows Erik has, that Charles knows he has. When they're ready for it, when it's what both of them need. Perhaps this really was a foot in the door, and exactly at the right time to jam that particular door open. Right now it feels like a floodgate, every messy, fragmented, broken ache spilling out at once, every ounce of restless, horrid energy, every modicum of defiance, every fearful thought and insecurity and the harsh words he'd lashed out at himself with. Every moment of jagged pain and bleeding noses and distorted reality and worry over his own rotten attempts at service. It all spills out of him, and Charles can't calm, can't breathe, can't do anything but sob as Erik holds him, too loud and too heavy to return the kisses, moving his head to nuzzle and seek as much as he possibly can, mind wrapped round and round in that clinging, latched-on grip. It all leaves, and he's so relieved and grateful he can't do anything but cry, wailing, face covered in fat tears and snot, and he can't be embarrassed about it, can't be anything but what he is - Erik's, Erik's boy, nothing left but this. Erik stripped everything else away.  
  
Erik's relief is palpable, too, because up until this very moment he didn't realize that he could be like this-that he could give this to Charles, that he could take pleasure from it, but it thrums through his heart and mind in warm, thick bellows of air. He grips onto Charles just as tightly, smoothing his hands over the criss-crossed, swirling designs marked into the flesh of Charles's back and down his shoulders and hips. He pushes his face up against Charles's, a soft smile embedded on his features, eyes bright and softened as he looks down at his submissive. He peppers kisses along Charles's cheeks and delicately over both temples, and his neck, giving him a little playful nip for good measure. Charles doesn't need to be anything else, doesn't need to do anything else. Erik has him, Erik always will, he will always take care of him, in whatever way he needs. No more worries, no more fear and anxiety and twisting vines amidst harsh, unmoving brick. "I have you, sweetheart," he murmurs, petting Charles's hair and twining it under his fingers.

* * *

Charles can't stop crying. Everytime he thinks he might stop, sniffling and catching his breath, he starts up again. But it's nothing like the inconsolable, frustrated tears from earlier. These are a release, letting everything go, everything out, every tensed up muscle and coiled-up thought, every bit of absorbed agony he'd taken into himself and let seep under his skin. He leans into every touch as much as he can when he's still tied up, gasping at the attention to his temples because it's sensitive, so sensitive, but it doesn't hurt. He's more than grateful to replace that pain with the throb and soreness and sting all over his body, a reminder of who he belongs to. That he's owned. That if he gets lost, his Dominant will take him in hand and bring him back, put him down. His mind brushes against Erik's where it's twined up, telepathy curled around him like a creature of its own; is Erik better, too? Did Charles help? Was he really good for him? His eyes are red from the tears but impossibly bright, too, earnest, that untouched, unmarred submission that no one has ever seen, that has never been anyone else's, reflected in them as he looks up at Erik like he's his everything. The only thing in existence. Right now, he is.  
  
Erik kisses his temple again, reveling in the shivery, oversensitized sparks that emanate right out of Charles and into him. That look of pure trust and dependence twinges something deep inside of Erik and he shudders where he's held fast to Charles, squeezing him tighter to weather the waves. Erik keeps him suspended for a while longer, just hugging and petting him, soothing over those marks and periodically scratching along them, not hard enough to hurt even further, before he unravels all the rope in an easy spool, lowering Charles to the ground against Erik's body, his arms still bound behind him, and Erik unravels that rope eventually, too, to take him into his lap, press their chests together and inhale Charles's skin. "Help me," he whispers, reverent. Charles always helps him. He always takes care of Erik, and he did so good today, Erik is so proud to be his Dominant and it sings out of him. "Take care of me," he murmurs lowly, singing something nonsensical under his breath and swaying Charles gently from side to side, draping him in a soft, silky shift that slides over his poor marks like a soothing balm. "Love so much, so much- _ohev otcha me'od_ -"  
  
Charles lets himself be moved, limp and pliant and still crying. He settles against Erik's chest and lets out more of those trembling, full-body sobs, trusting Erik to hold him through it, to pet him and rock him and sing to him, to take care of him, soaking in all of the praise, the affection, the tenderness. He starts to whimper after a while, tugging at Erik's mind, soft and questioning, but there's no image attached, no thought. He just wriggles in his Dominant's lap, sniffling and rubbing his cheek against whatever skin he can find, needy and sensual.  
  
Erik huffs a laugh, his lips pressed against Charles's neck giving a little vibration with the sound, for no reason other than the pure joy he feels can't be contained and leaks out of him just like this, where he's peppering kisses over and over again, needy himself-this time between them, the part most people call aftercare but that to Erik is how it should always be is just as necessary and vital for him as it is for Charles, and at that questioning ?! in his mind he peeks up, vivid green eyes visible even in the dim light. "Hello, _neshama_ ," he breathes, running his fingers through the curled ends of Charles's hair plastered against his neck.  
  
It's difficult to break it down into pieces when Erik is right. There is never an over, or an off, never a time or place where their Dynamic ends and begins. There are times he needs this more than others, though, where he needs much more aftercare than usual, and now is one of them. Charles only whimpers louder somewhere against Erik's shoulder, wetting Erik's skin with his tears when he rubs his face harder there. He's far, far beneath, nowhere near that cave where he can breathe on his own, and when he has Erik's attention he tugs again, more insistently, hiccupping as he tries to tell him what he needs. Even on the ground, in this moment he's particularly helpless, held together only by Erik's hands.  
  
"Shh, hi there," Erik whispers back, as if the whole world whispers it too, every molecule surrounding them alive with pleasure and joy, and he kisses Charles gently, and under his eyes where those tears are tracking. "Tell me what you need, sweetheart," he encourages, soft.  
  
A quiet, confused noise escapes him, because at first he doesn't know. When he squirms on Erik's lap he sniffles harder, welts rubbing against his Dominant's thighs, and his poor, abused nipples, still clamped against his chest, but he settles back down, making those soft little whimpers again. Words seem like a particularly far-off concept now, but his mind stays tightly wrapped around Erik's, not tugging but still insistent, still just as needy. He's vulnerable and dependent and wholly Erik's, curled up in his lap, mind projecting soft sheets and Erik's voice singing to him and rest, quiet, sleep, strong arms around him, imploring and hopeful and soft, everything stripped out of him except for this.  
  
"Mmhmm," Erik rumbles, slowly massaging his fingertips underneath those clamps in preparation for removing them, and he adjusts Charles's body so that when they do come off, it's only a mild ache that blends into everything else rather than sharp and abrupt, and he gives each one a kiss as its freed, rubbing his cheek against Charles's heart. "Mine, hmm? My beautiful boy who I love so much," he laughs again, a gentle sound, giving Charles's nipple one last pat before drawing him back into his lap, adjusting the blanket over his shoulders as the room slowly begins to shift back to normal, everything putting itself away all around them, an effortless flex of power that ends only when everything is as it was, and Erik guides him up, leading him to the bed to settle in against him.  
  
Charles goes murmuring and sighing, still sniffling quietly, immediately plastering himself to Erik's chest as soon as they're on the bed. He snuggles in as close as possible despite the way it rubs all those sore, aching places, tangles their legs up together and makes himself small in his Dominant's arms, folded up and protected and exactly as he should be. When his mind brushes Erik's this time, it's shy again, but no less insistent - can they take a nap? Just a short one? Will Erik read him to sleep?  
  
Erik swathes him up in their big comforter after running his hands down those marks, inspecting with fingertips every lash and line, and spreading a light, invisible balm over them to ease things-not to be rid of the pain entirely, because somehow even now, Erik likes it-he likes that Charles has these marks, that he's reminded of his place every time they shift and twinge, but this part is just as much his job, to make sure Charles is safe and comfortable. "Nap time," he boops Charles on the nose, grinning brightly down at him and kissing the top of his head, wrapping him up in legs and arms. He racks his brain for a moment before settling on one of his old favorites: _It said there would be jugglers and conjurers and acrobats and sword-swallowers and fire-eaters and snakecharmers and a one-act play entitled The Rajah and the Tiger Lady. But above all this and in far the largest letters, it said IMHRAT KHAN, THE MIRACLE MAN WHO SEES WITHOUT HIS EYES..._

* * *

Comfortable is relative. Charles fusses about for a good while, whining softly every time his skin touches fabric or Erik, but he knows his Dominant enjoys that, too (he couldn't possibly fool Charles). When he does settle, safe and small again in Erik's arms, he doesn't even make it to the end of the story before he's drifting, eyelids too heavy to keep from blinking closed, every muscle relaxed as he yawns and lets go like this, too.  
  
When he wakes, presumably hours later, it's not to the sound of little feet running in the hall, peeking around the shield he put up instinctively to keep young, curious minds from seeing what they shouldn't, or said minds busy and buzzing, recovering themselves from the day they've had, but to his phone ringing. He regrets paying for an international plan years ago, because suddenly it's very inconvenient. "Throw it out the window," he grumps, only semi-coherently as he buries himself back in Erik's skin with a string of soft, pained noises when he remembers exactly what they did before their nap. They should probably get up and spend more time with Erik's family, but Charles isn't going to be the one to admit it after he slept well for the first time in ages. If all he needed was a very thorough spanking for that, he should have begged for it much sooner. Maybe next time - no, not the time.  
  
Erik is dozing when it goes off and his eyes pop open, alert instantly and rather than answer it, he keys it off with a wave of his hand. He checks to see if it's Raven, knowing how she frets, and sends her a text message anyway letting her know they're all right (in his typically terse 'internet speak' which sounds like he's about a hundred years old and using Facebook to ask the Google page to search 'e-mail' for him). Charles's thoughts whiz through the back of his mind and he twitches bodily at the idea of them getting out of this bed at all, and instead his hand curls protectively around Charles's ass, tugging him closer amidst pillows of soft blankets (they're definitely not the ones that came with this bed; Erik's adjusted them for comfort as unconsciously as breathing). "Mrmp," he replies coherently.  
  
Charles feels much the same, and he gives a hearty wriggle as that hand curls around his poor, smarting ass, but he still reaches for his phone. If it's important and he misses it, he'll work himself up about it for ages. His eyes are only half-open as he blinks at the too-bright screen, but his stomach still drops anyway, coiling up in dread when he notes the missed call. There goes his after-nap glow. At least afterwards he has no complaints about letting himself be gathered back against Erik's chest, this time with renewed grumpiness and mild guilt, squirmier than before which does nothing to discourage those whimpers when he rubs against his oversensitive skin.  
  
Blinking, Erik finally cracks his eyes open, feathering out with his powers to see who exactly it was that dared to interrupt them, while he readjusts the blanket around Charles and himself, having abandoned his pants somewhere along the way he's grateful to be able to press skin to skin, even amidst the most challenging of days, being able to touch Charles is an instant balm.  
  
Part of him really wishes in this moment that Erik couldn't do that. He's not going to recognize the number and there's no message, so Charles gives a heaving sigh before he wastes energy doing something like trace the signal across the ocean, hiding himself entirely in Erik's side and the covers. "Mother," he mumbles out, even less coherent than before. "Told her I was going to be overseas." Not that he'd expected her to remember. His mother's selective memory is quite a feat, a marvel that should really be considered a mutation of its own. The last Erik had heard of the situation he'd still been dodging her sometimes insistent calls, not that she didn't have reason; he tries not to drown in guilt when he thinks of that particular mess, but for now the implication is that he finally had answered. It wasn't that he'd hidden it, either. He'd fully intended to talk to Erik about it and discuss what she'd discussed with him, but Erik hadn't been much for talking at the time. It's not really something Charles wants to get into at the moment, either, but it is a reminder. Right now he's much more concerned with finding exactly the right spot to be comfortable, wriggling this way and that and whimpering when he can't find it.  
  
Erik bristles instantly, eyebrows drawing together as he parses out the jumble of information that Charles pulses over to him, in words and images. He's still a bit groggy, having not yet come down from their session prior, and his sense of growly overprotectiveness kicks in, immediate and tense. "Talk about?" he whispers, and whether it's intentional or not, Erik isn't happy that he wasn't aware. It doesn't matter if he seems like he's up for talking, he is always Charles's Dominant and it is always his job to look after him and help him and know what's going on. How can he keep Charles safe if he isn't in the loop? It's one of the reasons why he doesn't enjoy being open about his struggles, because Charles feels obligated not to burden him as a result, and he doesn't like it. His grip tightens even further, clutching Charles to him almost desperately.  
  
It had very little to do with burdening, in this case. The motives and circumstance behind this and the intentional hiding of his telepathic - migraines, if they could be called that, could not be more different. Charles lets Erik see, wanting him to know he'd taken that discipline to heart, that he was honestly trying never to hide anything from Erik; he'd gone to tell him, but Erik hadn't seemed to process a word of it, a bit too busy staring at the wall and sitting in the bathtub. It's absolutely not Erik's fault, but he hadn't known what to do, and if the situation had been dire or of greater importance, if Charles hadn't been falling apart at the seams, too, he would have pushed until Erik knew. He hadn't made a conscious decision to hide anything here, to conceal or brush away, and in the stress of everything else he'd honestly forgotten himself. "Can it wait?" he asks, quiet and small, still muffled by his Dominant's chest. It's not going to be a fun conversation. There's a hint that Charles thinks it might even be a fight, and he doesn't want to. He's not come down (up?) from earlier either, and he doesn't want to. He really, really doesn't.  
  
Even if Erik wished to oblige, they both know that he's not going to be able to put it out of his mind. He's not imminently able to wait and hold things off, disliking when matters are unresolved, but he understands the impulse. His peace is hard-won and fragile, and all he really wants to do is hold Charles and kiss him and pet him and talk to him and put away everything sharp and spiky that threatens to encroach, but as a telepath Charles can feel that Erik's worrying over it, gnawing on it in the back of his thoughts like a dog with a bone, and he shrinks a little, shoulders hunching in apology. Sometimes he wants to-to be easy, to choose to set things aside for a while and focus on comfort and joy, and he doesn't begrudge Charles's request in the slightest-but-"'M sorry," he whispers.  
  
It wasn't fair to ask. If he's honest, he didn't even want Erik to oblige him. Charles has a rotten habit of burying things down and putting them off, of denying what's happening until it inevitably bursts, until he snaps or else collapses underneath it. Charles asked, but he's willing to defer, and it feels good. "Don't be, your decision," he sighs, and nuzzles as close to Erik as he possibly can, his face in his Dominant's neck now as he inhales, rubbing against him because the ache makes him feel safe. He doesn't want to forget. "I'm yours?" he whispers, needing the reminder first for both of them, still deeper in subspace than he can ever remember being, craving the touch, the attention, Erik's control over him. Maybe he still needs a firmer hand than he thought, and he'll try not to be ashamed of it.  
  
"Always," Erik murmurs back fiercely, and he is certainly not stifled in any way by Charles's need, nor does he view shame as a necessary response. Truth be told, he knows he needs to provide a firmer hand, moreso than he is already, but with both of their tandem issues regarding it, it's been slow-going but gradually they're beginning to settle, to be honest and the more open they are with it, the easier it is to oblige and the more whole and healthy Erik genuinely feels. "Mine," he rumbles, pleased that Charles knows now, and he gives him a kiss on the forehead before venturing, "Tell me?"  
  
Talking about his mother - and, by proxy, her husband - isn't on his list of pleasant conversations under the best of circumstances, and he grimaces despite himself, nestling back into Erik's chest and clinging with every limb. "It's nothing too serious," he sighs, even though it's been in the back of his mind somewhere this whole time, another thing to fret and work himself up over. "I... missed Cain's funeral. Obviously." He was in a coma, fortunately, which gave him quite a nice excuse. He'd gotten better at making those up over the years, but the guilt usually brought him back regardless. "She wants me to go to - some sort of party. In his memory, supposedly, but I doubt there'll be much for it." He can't imagine there's much to memorialize, when it comes to the life of Cain Marko. Unfortunate, depressing, but likely true. "There's almost certainly an ulterior motive, but that's to be expected. I told her I'd see." Which means he intends to go, dutiful as ever.  
  
Erik inhales slowly, shaking his head unconsciously before he even begins to formulate an answer to that, but the intention is as clear as spring rain. There's absolutely no way he's going to sanction that. "I see," is what he does say at last, perfectly neutral.  
  
Charles sucks in a breath. "Erik," he sighs, muffled into his Dominant's chest. It's much less neutral, and he thinks the meaning is rather clear.  
  
He just raises an eyebrow, because to him it rather isn't clear. "Charles," he says back simply, still petting and stroking at any available skin he can find.  
  
He huffs, frowning where he's still buried in Erik's skin and unwilling to come out. All of the petting makes him shiver, completely oversensitive and equally as needy. "I have to attend," he says simply back, though he certainly doesn't sound pleased about it. That's generally how it goes.  
  
"No," Erik tells him, "you do not. There is no logical reason for you to do so, and I won't permit you to harm yourself any more than you would allow me to attend some soiree put on by Mr. Shaw. You must know that I object to this on every rational level." It seems that firmer hand is coming sooner than Charles thinks after all.  
  
Charles mumbles something incoherent, frowning and squirming in Erik's arms. Eventually he manages to shake his head. "It's different," he argues. He knew this was going to lead here eventually, but he'd wanted to prepare himself for it. "And there is a logical reason. You were never meant to - I am, Erik. That's part of my life. You can't not permit me to perform duties I'm entitled to."  
  
"I can, actually," Erik huffs, but it's dry, not acidic. "It is not different, and you know it is not different. There is no benefit to your attending this function and there will only be harm that results from it. I made that mistake once before and I have no intention of repeating it again. That is not the definition of entitlement."  
  
Charles shakes his head again. "We shouldn't have left that day," he mumbles, but he doesn't want to question that particular decision. He'd already accepted it for what it was, and conceded that at the time it was the best course of action. When he does sit up a bit, his lips are pursed. "This is my life, Erik. I've attended these functions for as long as I can remember. It's going to be a single night, and there are potential benefits. Most of the people in attendance will be dull and witless, but the rest are useful. On top of the fact that you were wrong last time. Besides the fact that she's my _mother_ ," and to Charles, that apparently still means something, "I do need her for something. You do, too."  
  
"I was certainly not wrong," Erik says, eyebrows arched. His decision to leave that day, and his decision now to ensure such a day never has cause to occur again, are two things he is completely clear about in an existence fraught with doubt and confusion. A possible potential benefit-something Erik is sure Charles is telling himself as a justification to attend in the first place-versus a guaranteed negative outcome is not a particularly reassuring probability. "Your mother wishes you to bond with someone else-a scenario I am not particularly keen to entertain-and Kurt Marko wants you to sign the rights to your over inheritance to him. They are remarkably transparent, for people who spent the better part of our last visit lamenting that they did not _murder you sooner_." And that is acid, but not toward his submissive. "Charles, you owe them absolutely nothing. If they want to get to you, they will have to go through me."  
  
Charles sighs again, this time frustrated. "You're being unreasonable," he huffs, arms crossed over his chest. "I'll concede that my stepfather -" He has to swallow around that, because it's always been difficult to say. It's always been difficult to even consider, and they both know there are things that Charles has not been able to speak, horrors and traumas he hasn't addressed, and a good chunk of them start with that man. "Does not have my best interests in mind. We hardly interact at these sorts of evenings, unless - I'll make sure we don't come into contact. But I owe this to my mother, and I'm very good at handling her. If you'd like to open a school with me, you'll have to agree anyway," he states, eyebrow raised.  
  
"No, Charles," Erik murmurs gently. "I am being very reasonable." And the fact of the matter is that Erik isn't looking for Charles's concession, he's quite plainly already made up his mind. He promised to protect Charles, it's something Charles himself has asked of him, and there are times that Charles doesn't understand that he is free to choose a different option than unnecessary obligations born from guilt and intimidation. It would be different if Charles were nurtured by these events, and enjoyed them, but even he cannot claim that. "The resources we require are yours, not your mother's and certainly not Kurt's. You do not need their permission, and you do not owe anyone your suffering. I won't allow it."  
  
"I do, actually," he says, evenly, and frankly he doesn't care if Erik isn't looking for it, because he's not going to give this up. Every stubborn instinct has kicked in. "I can't do a thing to the Manor without her signing it over. It isn't only in my name, Erik. It's in hers too. So I do, in fact, need her permission. Besides, not everything in my life can be enjoyable. There are things that must be done, and this is one of them. You can't protect me from every inconvenience."  
  
"Then we'll build something else," Erik doesn't relent an iota. If this were merely an inconvenience Erik wouldn't be as hard-headed about it and Charles does know that. "If she won't relent without the necessity of you jumping through hoops and performing circus tricks for her. I do not insist that everything in your life be enjoyable, but I do expect that the people you associate yourself with treat you respectfully and if that is not possible for them, then they are not entitled to your presence."  
  
"She's my mother," he sighs, and now he's upset and just as worked up as he'd anticipated, scowling and on edge. "She can be... as she is, yes, but she is my mother, Erik. You can't force her out of my life. It's a high-society party, she's not asking me to walk on hot coals. Unless you're concerned with my being bored to death, I doubt there are real concerns here."  
  
"I do not have to force her out of your life," Erik says, "and surely you know I have no intention of doing so, but I believe I am justified in insisting that you meet with her on terms that are safe and free of extraneous emotional and dare I say _physical abuse_ , because I am certain that were I not present last time, your stepfather would have escalated matters to that level. You cannot expect me to be all right with that." And that's notwithstanding if she would relent at all. If her permission is necessary, their school is as good as dead in the water anyway. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine Sharon Xavier-Marko's opinions on mutation, and Erik can't fathom how she'd allow her household to be used for such a capacity.  
  
"Well I don't intend to tell her what it's for, Erik," he huffs, as if he's just had his intelligence insulted. "She doesn't give a damn about that house. She will care if I care, and she'll insist I attend some parties and rub some elbows and then she'll sign it over as long as she believes she's getting something out of it, and we're free to do as we please. But I can prevent - all of that. I only need to attend, and if we intend to have consistent funding and backing for our school, it would be more than beneficial for me to be who I am, and that requires me to actually act as such. There's no danger, and plenty of opportunities."  
  
Erik shakes his head. "I disagree," he says. "I am not convinced you will be able to prevent all of that, and I expect that _who you are_ may take a blow if I were to pop Kurt Marko's head off of his body like a Ken doll in a public forum."  
  
"Why aren't you sure of that? Do you suddenly doubt my abilities?" That's snippier than he intended it to be, but he doesn't appreciate being underestimated by the one person who has never seemed to. "And you wouldn't be in that public forum, anyway, so there wouldn't be the possibility. At least not this one."  
  
Erik just gives him a flat expression. "Then I believe we are finished with this discussion."  
  
Charles gapes at him, eyes narrowed. "We are absolutely not finished," he counters. "You can't just - that's _completely_ unfair. It's a party, and you're forbidding me on the grounds that I can't take proper care of myself? It isn't like you wouldn't be involved."  
  
" _Life_ is unfair," Erik returns evenly. "You know me well enough to know the answer to your own question."  
  
"No, I don't, and you're being -" He cuts himself off before he can say something he'll regret, but it's all lingering there anyway, exasperation rolling off of him in waves. "So, that's it? I'm forbidden from engaging in an entire aspect of my life because you've deemed it potentially dangerous? I'm forbidden from engaging with my mother? Do you realize how absolutely ridiculous this is?"  
  
"That place is not potentially dangerous. It is demonstrably unsafe and the fact that you refuse to acknowledge this is proof positive of my assertion that you will not be safe attending." And the fact that Charles thought the best way to argue his point was to loudly announce that oh, Erik _just wouldn't be there_ -well, maybe he doesn't know Erik as well as Erik thought he did.  
  
Charles huffs. "That's not what I meant, and don't -" Now his eyes are filling with tears, and he hates it. He turns his head. "Don't think that. I meant you wouldn't be there physically. There are cameras at these things. Perhaps you don't know me well enough." And his lip trembles as he says it.  
  
Erik presses his lips together, reaching to brush the back of his hand over Charles's cheek, shaking his head. An abrupt twinge of emotion pangs through him, stealing his ability to talk without keeping composure, so he just bows their foreheads together, taking a long, shuddering breath.  
  
Charles turns his head away, hurt and still terribly worked up. "I can't believe -" He cuts himself off, lips pursed to keep from giving into his own emotion. But even still, he doesn't completely move away, letting Erik touch him even as he stews in it.  
  
"You are upset with me." And resultingly, not wanting Erik to go with him would be a reasonable response to that upset. The fact of the matter is it was within the realm of possibility before Charles said that-but letting him go alone, without Erik? Without any support at all? Into that place? Erik failed to protect everyone he ever loved, a reality he has to face and live with daily, a reality that has already come to pass with Charles. He will not fail Charles again, even if he gets mad at him for it.  
  
He shakes his head, that hurt jangling around awfully. "I wouldn't have cut you off. But there are always cameras, and there's no possibility they won't all be pointed at me considering the circumstances." It wasn't emotional, it was pragmatic. It wasn't that he didn't want Erik there. Perhaps he really doesn't know him, then, if he thinks Charles so childish and exceedingly petty and inconsiderate. It's what everyone else thinks, why not Erik?  
  
But Erik doesn't understand. "You said I wouldn't be there, you said I wouldn't be able to hurt him."  
  
"I forgot you can hurt people from a distance momentarily," he huffs, and alright, maybe that statement is a bit funny. He refuses to let his lips twitch, or to look at Erik. He's being cross at the moment. "I don't think you need to suffer every moment of what is going to be an extraordinarily dull affair, but do you really think I would cut you off and force you to guess at what was happening in a situation like this? Of course you'd be here," he gestures to his temple. "And if I was ever really distressed, you'd know." And direct him right away from it, he imagines.  
  
Erik nods, lips still firmly pressed together, and he scratches his neck in a twitchy little movement. "I'm sorry," he whispers, inhaling slowly so that he doesn't audibly sniffle. "Too sensitive." It's this day, it's his instincts ramped into overdrive, it's marks still fresh over Charles's skin and that howling beast inside of him called-up and needing more, desperate to submerge dredged up experiences and be good, but he's not altogether all there yet, either. Somewhere deep down where he's not mature enough to tell the difference he's still scared Charles doesn't want him anymore. "Sorry." He didn't mean to hurt. He's been holding back tears but they slip out anyway.

* * *

Immediately any resolve to be cross is gone, and Charles climbs right into Erik's lap, burying his face in his Dominant's neck and whimpering, both because all those marks are rubbing against strong, warm thighs and because he doesn't want to fight. "No, please," he breathes, desperate, placing kisses everywhere his lips happen to fall, needing to soothe and be touched himself, dropped right back into that bottomless ocean. "It's okay. I want you to -" He bites his lip, uncertain how to phrase this. "I want you to," he finishes eventually, and it isn't Erik's fault he'd misinterpreted something Charles hadn't phrased well or made clear at all. He'd just been hurt that Erik thought he didn't know him. Charles does know him, doesn't he? Doesn't he? He nuzzles into Erik's neck, needy as before.  
  
"Just want to be safe," Erik finally breaks away from the cold, detached demeanor of earlier, sagging against Charles. He didn't even mean it, Charles is the only person alive who does know him. He was responding to something he made up in his own head-the idea that Charles thought Erik would let him go alone-Charles is never alone, never again, Erik just wants him to know that-because despite his bravado when it comes to them, he's hiding a deep insecurity of his own-that he's not good enough, that Charles will figure it out soon and it would kill him. "'M sorry," he gives Charles's jaw a gentle kiss, steadying himself.  
  
Charles knows that insecurity is there, too. He does everything he possibly can to soothe it, to prove to Erik that there's simply no grounding for it and there never will be, and he'll continue to do so. "Don't be sorry," he whispers, and then he nestles back into the crook of Erik's shoulder, smiling softly into his skin. "Do you want to know a secret?" he asks quietly.  
  
He bundles Charles back up in his blanket and wraps him tightly in long limbs, legs and arms and kisses everywhere he can reach comfortably, terribly worked up himself and trying to keep his cool all this time, but Charles is here. He's safe, Erik will keep him safe. "OK," he whispers back, stroking a finger down his jaw. "Secret?"  
  
Charles' lips do twitch now and he kisses Erik's neck. He thinks he can steady him some more. "I like it when you're protective. And when you're strict with me, even when I argue with you," he whispers, like it truly is some kind of secret and not stunningly obvious. He thinks, perhaps, Erik needs to hear it right now. That it needs to be said out loud, because he's been avoiding it, skirting around it. "I'm always going to want to argue a little, Erik. I'm very stubborn." As if it somehow escaped notice. "I'm going to want to fight you, and make you see my way. And I know sometimes it won't work, and you'll make a decision I'm not completely happy with in the moment - I'm not saying it's this time," he adds, because technically now that they've cleared up the misunderstanding he hasn't gotten a firm no, "But it will happen. And I like that, do you know that?" Now his cheeks are a bit pink, but fortunately he's buried in Erik's neck. "I want you to have that control. I want to give that to you, because you deserve it. Because I trust you with it. I really do need you to take me in hand, and you're extraordinarily good at doing it. All those parts you think are beastly and ancient? I need them, Erik. I like them very much. Don't you like them, too? Don't you need more?" And just to get his point across, he takes Erik's hand and drags it down to his ass, encouraging, all those smarting welts crying out at once and he loves that, too. He doesn't want them to lose progress. He doesn't want Erik to think he needs less. The truth is, he just doesn't. If anything, he needs much, much more.  
  
Erik's hand immediately curls where it's put and he brings his other down for good measure, tugging Charles snug against him and letting out a soft growl of appreciation, one that is reflected down into all of those beastly, ancient parts. He's been holding himself along the edge for a long time now, and it may be longer still, but when he replies, "Yes," into Charles's ear it's low and soft and completely unrelenting. Warmth heats his chest and spreads a flush up to his cheeks, and he's been in desperate need of assurance all this time, keeping it carefully at bay-but it's no secret that he's needed this-to be Dominant, to exert his Will, to remind Charles exactly where he belongs. And there hasn't been a firm no, but it's also not a firm yes, either-though it's far more likely that Erik knows he can accompany Charles, but he still doesn't like it. He won't let them hurt his submissive. He won't let them take away Charles's progress. He won't let them blind Charles to how much Erik loves him, and how deserving of that love and more he is. "You like it?" Erik practically purrs, giving Charles's ass a good squeeze with his left hand, and pawing him (somewhat less dexterously) closer with his right. Erik likes it, too, Charles is right. Erik likes it very much, in fact.  
  
Charles shivers, a low, desperate noise slipping from his lips as he wriggles about in Erik's firm hold, only managing to brush his poor nipples against the firmness of Erik's chest. The thing is, Charles has no desire to be stifled. To be made to mindlessly follow Orders, to never have himself heard. That isn't what he's suggesting, and he knows it isn't what Erik desires either. But if at the end of it - after he's heard, after Erik's considered, after they've discussed or debated - Erik makes a final call that Charles disagrees with (assuming he's not fundamentally against it, that it's not something he absolutely can't abide), he'll defer. Because Erik gets to make those decisions, and there's something absolutely freeing about giving that power up, about knowing his Dominant has it. That he'll listen, and compromise, and hear Charles out, but that ultimately it isn't his decision to make. "I like it," he confirms, quietly now, shyer, hiding in Erik's neck. "Do you know - all the things I - you want it, don't you? To be stricter? Firmer? Keep me in line? You hold yourself back, and you let things go, you think of things to ask of me but you don't do them, but I need it, Erik. That's the secret."  
  
"Yes," Erik murmurs back, as though that's a big secret of his own (it isn't). He tilts Charles's head up and kisses him, using his good hand to frame his face, his other still settled against those marks, rubbing back and forth with his thumb. "If we go," he whispers at last, "you will listen? Be good?" he smiles against Charles's cheek. If they were to go, Erik needs to know that they can leave, that Charles will abide that decision if he makes it in the moment, much as he had done the first time they encountered Charles's family.  
  
That thumb turns out to be very distracting. The thought of Erik treating him with a firmer hand, of all the things he could do and ask of Charles that he's held himself back from, turns out to be even more distracting. He makes another soft noise, rubbing his cheek against Erik's jaw to feel the rough, ticklish scratch of his beard. He manages a grin. "Does that mean you're saying yes?" he asks, instead of answering the question.  
  
Erik kisses him again, instead of answering that question, at least at first. "Conditionally," he murmurs. "But my priority is to keep you safe. If something threatens that, I will make sure it's dealt with. Understood?" he gives Charles's ass a smack for good measure.  
  
Charles yelps, breathing harder as he squirms all about Erik's lap. "Understood, sir," he breathes, obedient and heavy-lidded as he mouths at Erik's shoulder, seeking sensation, radiating gratitude that Erik had listened to him and considered. "It really will be dull, you know. They always are." Charles doesn't enjoy them, but at least he'll know Erik is there if he needs him. If the boredom or the dread or the memories get to be too much, if he starts to lose his footing. "Erik?"  
  
" _Ken, tayer?_ " Erik says, amused and he holds Charles still, giving him no room to squirm or find purchase, nowhere to go except for Erik's arms. Exactly as it should be.  
  
"Mm-mm," Charles mumbles, shivering as he hides in Erik's neck. "I forgot," he lies, cheeks pink.  
  
"Nuh uh," Erik smirks at him, trailing his index finger under his chin and tilting it up to look at him. "Tell me," he says, and it's accompanied by a fresh, electric snap of Will.  
  
That earns a full body shudder. Charles bites his lip, nowhere else to hide and no chance of squirming now that Erik's holding him tighter. "Do you really...?" he whispers, and he replays what he'd asked earlier, what Erik had rather enthusiastically agreed to. Had Charles been right?  
  
"Really," Erik returns, drawing his fingertips down Charles's chest and feathering them over his still-sensitive nipples, giving them a tweak because he can, because this is Charles's body and it is meant for him-and sometimes he really believes that, that Charles was crafted by something otherworldly solely for him, because there's not a thing about him that Erik doesn't positively love. "It's hard sometimes," he whispers softly. "Want a lot, but-" but he's embarrassed, honestly, of how much he does, of how much more there really is, of the desire that almost constantly pours through him-some of it innocuous and much of it not.  
  
Charles jerks in Erik's arms at the touch to his nipples, a startled moan escaping half out of over-sensitized pain and the other out of pure sensation, thrumming with it in the aftermath. His whole body feels too sensitive, overwhelmed and overplucked, entirely Erik's. He buries himself back in Erik's neck, inhaling. "Tell me some? Please?" he begs, biting his lip. He wants to know. He wants to hear, to see if it's anything like the embarrassing thoughts Charles has throughout the day. They can start small. "Just one thing."  
  
"I like making those decisions," Erik whispers, soft and low as though telling a secret that no one could possibly ever guess (spoiler, they could). "I like telling you what to wear and cooking for you and-" other things that were a little more embarrassing-like grooming him, cutting his hair, those liminal spaces where they get to pause and breathe and Charles has to sit still while Erik applies the straight razor to his jaw. "I like making you kneel. Even in public." He doesn't, but the intention is clear-if he felt confident, more comfortable, if he felt like it were acceptable, he absolutely would and he has succumbed to that desire on more than one occasion. "I like that you ask my permission for things. I like walking behind you so that I can lead you forward. I like touching you," he punctuates that by smoothing his thumb once more over Charles's nipple, now fully perked up and red from the clamps before.  
  
He squirms harder in Erik's arms, not to get away but because he can't help it. His nipples in particular are so sensitive he could cry, sparking sensation through the rest of his overwhelmed nerves, and he gives another pitiful whimper in the aftermath. But if Erik told him to sit still and take it, he would. Not because he couldn't resist, either. "What if I said I needed all of that and more?" he mumbles, still ducking his head near Erik's shoulder. "I can tell, you know. When you want to correct something, or Order something, or be stricter with me, put your foot down, and you don't. But -" As much as he'd take the mile from the inch in the moment and think himself content, it isn't what he needs. It never has been, and it leads to frustration, and frustration for Charles leads to - well. They both know that. It isn't a perfect science yet. They're only just beginning, and he's sure there will be plenty of hiccups. But no use denying themselves what's demonstrably good for them.  
  
Erik nods slowly, and continues to touch Charles, gentle and delicate and mindful of sensitivity but still having zero intention to stop. "I know," he whispers. "I'm sorry. I don't want to-make you uncomfortable, or-feel stifled. I want-more," he says, gasping slightly when Charles twitches against him again, and he's distracted momentarily, dedicating time to touch him more, keep him grounded in belonging and love. "I always want more." And he doesn't mean to simply exist this way, without trying, without experimenting-he has been slowly and certainly feeling the boundaries, setting limits, and the more Charles responds to it, the more confident Erik becomes. And today that's culminated, and he's entered a very low register of Dominion they've both never encountered before, and this is more in line with Erik's natural expression. He knows he's Dominant, but everything that happened made him doubt himself, made him go harder and longer and deeper than he ever has before to try and regain himself again, and it feels more whole than ever before. Charles reacted beautifully, reverently; he wasn't scared or irritated. "I will get there," he promises. "I will." He just needs patience. He's still learning and there is so much more he has to uncover, but he hopes that Charles won't become unsettled and disgusted with him in the meantime.  
  
Charles shakes his head immediately, shifting in Erik's lap until he can wrap himself tighter around him, clinging with his legs and arms and mind and nuzzling into that spot between neck and shoulder that he likes best, that makes him feel safe and surrounded. "I need to learn, too," he reminds Erik, because he thinks sometimes his Dominant forgets. That Charles doesn't have the experience, either, that he hasn't exactly been living according to his own natural expression. That sometimes he falters, that he reverts back because it's so ingrained - a lot of the time, actually, and that's not to do with Erik, it's to do with his own hang ups. "But I want more, too," he admits, and tries very hard not to be ashamed at how much. "I need more. I don't want you to hold yourself back for my sake, because trust me..." He trails off, laughing breathlessly, breath fanning over Erik's skin. When he peeks up, there's just a hint of mischief in that azure. "Are you sure you're up for the challenge? It's really more than a full-time job, keeping me in line. I'm not sure your hand is firm enough." That's definitely goading.  
  
Erik lets out a little laugh, smoothing Charles's hair back from his face. "I anticipate it with great relish," he says, because of everything he's yet to learn, the one thing that remains constant is his utter conviction in himself when it comes to keeping Charles in line. He's fully undaunted by Charles's somewhat defiant nature, even finding it rather adorable most of the time, in stark opposition to how many Dominants view submissives who seemingly can't behave. Erik finds Charles is very well behaved, because quite frankly he often doesn't have a choice. Erik decides that, too. It helps that Erik is naturally a very lenient person-not many things bother him, and he likes it when Charles expresses himself. But when it comes down to the things that matter, that are important, he is as immutable as stone and just as solid. "Sometimes I think maybe it is not just for your sake, but mine as well-I frighten myself, at times. I worry that the things I think about, that what I've fantasized or dreamed about in fleeting moments-it might not be acceptable." It might be abusive, he might have absorbed via osmosis the kind of things that the _Hellfire Club_ expected from him.  
  
Those thoughts stir up something in Charles, and not for the reasons that might be expected. For a moment or two he's silent, keeping his own thoughts firmly to himself, hidden in Erik's neck again. "If anything is ever too much, I'll tell you," he reminds Erik, and it clearly wasn't that part that had struck a chord with him, because he doesn't worry about Erik being abusive. If something is truly stifling or unfair to him - not because he's having a strop, but because he honestly feels that way - he's certainly not going to be shy about questioning it, and then they can have a discussion. Erik has never asked for mindless obedience; he's always made space for Charles to voice his concerns, and taken them into account when he made final decisions. Their Dynamic could not be more different from anything the _Hellfire Club_ would have encouraged. That he has utter confidence in. There's something else he's much less sure about, and he doesn't say a word on that, chewing at his lip as he fidgets, a tell-tale sign something is bothering him.  
  
Erik touches his lips to Charles's brow, struggling not to worry in his more fragile state. "Tell me?" he says, and it's a question but it's also an Order, directed like cool water over smooth stones and bonsai trees growing agelessly, endlessly, a little captive snowglobe of Dominion that Erik's worked hard to keep safe and stable even if the storm rages on fiercely outside the glass.  
  
Charles makes a disgruntled noise, his mind squirming as much as the rest of him does when he's prompted. "I don't know how to talk about it," he mumbles, halfway muffled into Erik's skin and then half covered by the blanket he's grabbed to continue fidgeting with, pulling at the fabric between his fingers. It's the truth, and as much as he's felt unsettled by it from the very beginning, he doesn't have the words for it, and he doesn't know how to convey it properly without them. The result is frustration, and sometimes misunderstanding, but Charles doesn't know how to bridge the gap so he scowls down at the blanket he's fussing with instead, rather determined to pick at a piece of fluff.  
  
"Try," Erik insists, holding Charles motionlessly in place to redirect his concentration to Erik's Will. No secrets. He can't take care of Charles unless he understands what's happening. Even if it's something negative about Erik, he would rather know and address it now.  
  
It's not. It's technically two separate issues, though, one far more difficult for him to parse out or even understand, so he starts with the easier one, huffing out a sigh and staring down instead of at Erik. "I don't want to be well-behaved just because you make me," he mumbles, quiet, his lips pursed. "I like when you Order me. Very much. I like that I don't have a choice when you do, and I like following those Orders. But..." He doesn't know what the difference is, or why it even matters to him. It's not that he feels forced, or stifled, because he doesn't. He's always anticipating the next time Erik will give him an Order, and if too long passes without one he gets antsy. But there's something else there, something eating away at him, and it's twisting him up. "But - " He shakes his head, frustrated, gnawing on his lip in the absence of movement.  
  
Erik's eyebrows raise. "You aren't," he murmurs, wondering where he got that impression from. "Most of the time you are simply because it brings you pleasure. I find you extraordinarily easy to interact with, and you always try and treat me with respect, which I appreciate. You listen to me and try to anticipate what I would like. And when you are not well-behaved, which isn't very often, as we both know, I step in."  
  
"You thought - because I don't have a choice," he sighs, not entirely soothed because there's quite a lot going on in his mind at the moment and Erik wants him to try, so he will. "I just - sometimes I like when you give me the chance to be disobedient," he admits, hardly even a whisper, but he doesn't think it's much of a secret. It's one thing if Erik Orders him to clean up after himself, something he does very much enjoy, because it's a quick way to steady him, a completed task. It's another if Erik expects him to and he does - or doesn't - because he made the active decision to be good, to do as he's told. Or not. Both exist, and he doesn't want there to be a time when it doesn't, where he doesn't have the choice to misbehave, to disobey, not only because - that's another thought, one he shoves down for the moment - not only because of that, but because it does matter to him. It matters that he's behaved for Erik because he wants to be, not only because he's compelled to be.  
  
"Of course, _neshama_ ," Erik smiles down at him, tucking a strand of his chestnut hair behind his ear. "I too find it more meaningful that you do make the choice, though there are-" he looks off to the side, shifting a little himself. "Though I-enjoy giving you Commands a great deal." He laughs sheepishly. That is no secret to anybody. "-you have likely noticed I tend not to Order you to behave, I merely respond when you do not. Barring certain circumstances, I try always to give you that choice." Mostly the only time Erik overrides him is when one of them is extremely distressed, but he doesn't really consider that misbehaving either way. He's found despite Charles's insistence that he's difficult that instances of real disobedience born of willful defiance aren't very common. Erik always finds ways to bring him back to himself.  
  
Charles likes Orders, too, though that should also come as absolutely no surprise. Sometimes he deliberately waits for the Order, or can't settle until it is an Order. He's certainly not suggesting less of them, and if anything he'd argue for significantly more. But he'd never want blanket Orders on his behavior. Expectations and rules for his behavior, absolutely, though. Things expected of him throughout the day, things Erik asks of him or wants him to abstain from. Things he has to ask permission for. Not less control - the theme of the day seems to be more, and he wholly agrees with it. All of it is important, and he'd be lost without Erik's Commands, without the snap and comfort of them. But at the end of the day, he wants Erik to know he was good because he chose to be. Or not. Which - "Mmmm," he grunts, chewing more insistently at his lip as he finds a way to wriggle again, despite the fact that it rubs all of those still-smarting welts.  
  
Erik locks him down tighter, and then seems to get a bright idea, letting Charles go entirely to lay him out on his side before crawling over him, capturing both of his hands inside his larger palm, pressing him down with the weight of his body to keep him still in that way instead, nuzzling at his jaw and neck and humming with satisfaction.  
  
Charles huffs, frowning as he's held down. He kicks his feet instead, perhaps petulantly, insistent on making a hole in his lip by the time this conversation is through. "Can we get up?" he mumbles.  
  
Erik taps him on the nose. "No," he decides, curling up behind him, and smooths his thumb out over Charles's bottom lip. "Stop that."  
  
That earns a deeper scowl, and Charles sighs louder as he stares down at the blankets, stiff as a board. Truth be told, he's not much better at letting things go than Erik is once he's got them on his mind, and he's more worked up than he'd like to be. But now he's here, and he can't get back to that safe, comfortable place and he's frustrated. "I don't want to just lie here, Erik," he protests, and he sounds appropriately put out. "Just let me up."  
  
"Stop," Erik murmurs quietly and shakes his head, gazing down at Charles. "Tell me what you are upset about." The Order is firm, but like most of the things he says (in Charles's perception but certainly not anyone else's-Erik's tone to most everyone else sounds frighteningly neutral, a simmering, cold rage underneath the surface)-it's infused with concern and tenderness.  
  
"I'm upset that you won't let me up," he mumbles, because Charles is upset with himself and this stupid funk he's dropped himself into when he was perfectly content to float deeper in subspace than he'd ever been, and that means he's feeling petty. "I told you, I don't know how to talk about it," he mutters next, and that's the truth, especially now that his mind is bleeding over a bit. It's fumbling over itself, but so far no luck actually sorting anything out, and Erik can certainly get the impression that this has been bothering Charles for a while. "Can I get up now?"  
  
On the tail of what's been a pretty awful week, the fact that Charles wants to get up just makes him cling tighter. He doesn't want to let go, he doesn't want to be lenient and permissive and allow everything to fade into disjointed upset. It isn't fair and he won't do it. "No," he says, but not in answer to Charles. They are together and they are safe and they can certainly handle this, and it does not hold power over Erik. "Stop," he says, and this is an Order. "Take a breath and relax this tension. You are with me, now. We will deal with this."  
  
The truth is, Charles doesn't want to get up. If he got up, the only thing he'd do is be restless and unsettled and they both know it, and if Erik let him get up in the first place he'd been even more frustrated. The last thing he needs right now is leniency. He takes a breath and slowly all the tension does leave him, no longer fighting Erik's hold. Instead he goes slack and calms, leaning back instead, both into Erik's chest and his Will. "I don't want to talk about it," he whispers, finally.  
  
Erik pets him in long, even strokes, settling himself over top and tucking Charles into his side, dotting his shoulders with kisses and pressing as much abiding ease as he can through their Bond. "We're going to talk about it," he says, but it's not a threat or a clash of Wills, although it is Commanding; Erik's in a mood and it's hard for him to pull it back-but it's just a statement of fact, an entreaty to trust him and believe him that they can take care of it, that it isn't worth festering and marring the peace that Erik is determined to give them today. Peace from denial isn't peace. He knows, he's more-or-less in the same boat, but if Charles wants to talk about his meltdown later on, then they will. But right now his attention is completely focused on his submissive, and for once he feels calm, every opportunity for Dominance another small ripple forward in the placid, dark lake of his mind.  
  
Charles is more than grateful for that mood. He hopes that mood lingers, that it isn't much of a mood at all, because Erik's steady Dominance, firmer than he's ever felt it, is what's keeping him together. He wriggles, but only enough that he can press his cheek against skin, needy again, those soft, half-pained noises parting his lips. Then he stills, not because he's being held down but because Erik seems to want him to. Subspace makes his thoughts less jagged and sharp, and he succumbs to it, pulled right back under and humming with it for a few moments. "It's not that I don't want to," he corrects quietly after a long pause, curling up smaller. "I really don't know how. I don't understand it. And I don't want to sort through it right now, because I don't think I can." That's complete honesty.  
  
"I know that you can. This has been bothering you for a long time, and it will not go away just because I choose not to address it. Our life is not meant to be subject to the mercy of an incomprehensible Eldritch being twisting up our thought. I won't let it happen. You are safe with me." He stretches out entirely overtop of Charles, pushing his hair from his face and kissing his neck, over his collar. He rests his fingertips against the metal. "That is what this means."  
  
Charles knows that. He knows all of that, and he whimpers, shifting again until his face is completely buried in Erik's side for comfort. "It's been such a long day," he protests, weakly, muffled. They could spend the rest of it doing something much more relevant than sorting through Charles' mixed-up thoughts, and in the grand scheme of things, it isn't such a big deal. They should be making good of their time here. "When we get home?" he offers, hopeful.  
  
"We are making good of our time," he says back, warm. It's very predictably Erik-never has Charles claimed something to be not a big deal and Erik simply agreed with him. Of course, maybe some things weren't (let's face it, Erik's fairly neurotic for no small reason), but Erik has no frame of reference, so he treats everything with equal amounts of seriousness. It feels just as important as everything else, because it's something that is happening to Charles. That is a big deal to Erik. "We are listening to one another. We are communicating. We are working on making things coherent. We are lounging in this particularly comfortable bed-" he adds, eyes crinkled. "We will be all right, but I won't wait for days beforehand. Do you understand?"  
  
Charles' response is muffled entirely, but it's predictably disgruntled. Perhaps it's a good use of their time in general, but not this time. Who knows the next time they'll be in Israel, considering the fragile state of things in the States? Why are they spending the little time they do have to reconnect with Erik's family and the children and Magda - who, realistically, may have little time in general, and that clenches his heart, too - cooped up in a spare bedroom? He doesn't see the point of dredging up his own trauma when Erik's was already so nicely aired for them (and several lawyers) today. "Please," he tries, one last time, and it's small and trembling now. Perhaps it isn't such a big deal, but it's connected to things that are rather a big deal, and he'd like to not think about them.  
  
It's Erik's fault that it's happening, he's sure, but it's going to be there whether or not they face it head on and Erik is tired of yielding to fear and disgust and denial, he is done with that for today. He's certainly not going to be leaving this bedroom to face his family after the catastrophe of what happened. He's too frustrated and pissed off and angry to contemplate interacting with them; he's barely holding himself together now and he's isolated with the safest person in the world. The fact of the matter is they had been spending their time together and attempting to put things aside but it still came up, and that says everything that needs saying. Erik won't hold himself at its mercy, and he won't let it drag Charles down, either. It has to go through him.  
  
He turns his head away to sniffle, lip trembling harder than before. Erik was feeling better, and so was Charles, and he'd let himself get worked up like he always does over something small and insignificant. It wasn't Erik's fault. It's rarely Erik's fault. Certainly nothing that happened all day was. That Charles is the problem is so starkly obvious to him and has been this entire time, and he closes his eyes and tries not to let the shame leak out where it can hurt Erik, too. "Okay," he whispers finally, mumbled and barely-there, but that's it.  
  
"What brought this on?" Erik asks softly, and he turns Charles's head back towards himself, jerking his own chin in the negatory. "No. We love one another and we are good to one another." He has not, nor will he ever, consider Charles as though he is a problem. One only has to look a few inches inside of his mind to see how actively he rails against even the suggestion-sometimes he's so overprotective it even spills out towards Charles's self, and he ducks his head a little sheepishly because it's a bit ridiculous.  
  
Charles finds it incredibly endearing, even when it's exasperating. He curls into Erik instead, tugging him down further until he covers every inch of Charles' body, until he feels small and safe, then tugs on his Will, too, hoping it unspools like it did earlier. He wants all of it, he needs all of it, and if he's ever needed a firmer hand it's right now. If what happened earlier was a session, it was a start, not a conclusion. When he's buried back in Erik's neck where he belongs, he sighs, settled and calmer, because he'd never actually fallen out of place. "Sometimes I think I need things that are bad, too," he admits, shame rolling off of him in waves despite his efforts to keep it back, his voice cracked. "You aren't the only one. Holding back, I mean." It's all he can get out. It occurs to him that he needs Erik to coax it out, to push him through it, and he hopes - but that might be too much, too, so he wipes the thought away.  
  
Erik knows, and it's why they are here, now. Because he's not willing to let things fall into the ether, even when he is at what feels like his worst, he can always find his way back to looking after Charles and taking care of him, because it's the one good thing he is destined to do with his existence. At that small little insistent tug, a big, swooping sensation envelopes Charles as if great leathery wings have unfurled to wrap him up, the beating heart of Erik himself called out to his rightful place, where he belongs, holding Charles firmly down and keeping him there. "We both struggle with this," he whispers softly, encouraging. "Have I ever asked you to-have you ever been uncomfortable, with me?"  
  
That's patently false, and Charles always hates when Erik thinks that way. When he tells himself the only good thing he's meant for is Charles, because it's just not true - but he forgets any protest he has a moment later when Erik's Will wraps him up tight, a soft, needy sigh puffed into Erik's skin. He goes mostly boneless, all of that squirming, disjointed energy flooded back out like it's supposed to be, his eyelids heavy with the new wave of relief. At the question, he shakes his head, not offering anymore than that, not bothering with a proper answer. He's felt uncomfortable with the circumstances, and sometimes in the moment he's felt uncomfortable with Erik's decisions, but like he noted earlier, he's always had the ability to voice his concerns. He's never felt uncomfortable with Erik. But he doesn't see how that's relevant, really, not that he says it - he thinks it, which is enough considering how deep he is, how close they are.  
  
He tugs up the blanket around them, casting it over Charles's shoulders to further tend to this new form of binding, with his own limbs instead of a rope, and with long, thick strands of Will that sink below Charles's skin and slither all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes. "No," he agrees. Because when something happens that they're unfamiliar with, when they enter new territory, they do so with respect, and with love. They take care of each other, and that's exactly what Erik will do now and continue to do for as long as he draws breath. Being able to do this for Charles is one of the most immediate ways he can feel good, and worthy, so whether or not it is the whole truth, it results in him feeling less liable to dissolve into a billion pieces. "Likewise, Charles," he whispers softly. They've both encountered scenarios where they've had to push themselves a little, but not for its own sake. They do not hurt one another. "We fit together," he laughs gently. Because for all that he is scared of himself, he's starting to realize that every time the bottom drops out and they go further and deeper into things, not only is it better, but they both encounter a kindred spirit on the other side, the other half of a whole that's spent a lifetime yearning for its match. "Tell me about them," he murmurs the Order, petting at Charles's hair idly while he talks.  
  
That freezes Charles right up. He goes tense in Erik's arms, in his hold, whimpering and letting his eyes close all the way. His mind bursts outward with thoughts clambering over and into each other, messy patchwork he can't make sense of, and it was an Order so it all flashes and spills incoherent and loud. Then he takes a sharp breath and pulls it back in. "I can't," he insists, face scrunched up like it's causing him physical pain. Not being able to properly follow one of Erik's Orders does hurt right now, or at the very least it feels exceptionally awful, his stomach churning with it.  
  
"Mmn, no, no," Erik soothes, tucking Charles's head under his chin. "Now stop that. Take a breath and slow down. You can, because you are mine. There will be nothing of you that is forbidden to me. The things that you want, that you need, they belong to me. All of them. Not that way." He taps Charles's temple. Not in a blurry flash that's as good as a non-answer, because Erik didn't ask for that. "Slow it down."  
  
He winces at the tap, sensitive and achy, sensation bleeding out at the touch the way it always seems to. The problem is, he doesn't know how to slow it down. He doesn't know how to show any of this, much less how to speak it. It's all jumbled up in there, good and stuck and repressed, not any easier to access than any other shoved-down part of him. "Why can't you just let it go?" he demands, lips pursed, snippy and frustrated. It makes people back off. It's made Erik back off before. His stomach turns over for it, twisted and unsettled, and he doesn't want to talk to his Dominant that way, but in the moment he's sure he won't be called on it. That's how these things go.  
  
Erik doesn't even think before he responds, and he hardly recognizes the person who flares out of him, who's walked through the open door of shrieking need left open by their earlier session, a tap on the barest edge of an iceberg for them both. "You are mine and I am entitled to know. Caring for you is why I exist, it is what I love more than anything else on this Earth, and if you continue to labor under the assumption that you can bully me out of my decision to do so, we will continue this conversation following Child's Pose. So take a breath. Don't look at the wall-eyes here-" he gives Charles a firm rap on the hand over his fingers. The Order zings across his body in a similar jolt; not painful but certainly brisk. "Take a breath. Release this tension." The Orders compound over themselves, trailing along where Erik lays the palm of his hand against Charles's chest. "I am not going anywhere. We are going to discuss this calmly and rationally, together, and when we are finished, I will still be here, because I am your Dominant and I said so. Am I understood?"  
  
Charles couldn't possibly explain what comes over him, except that it's exactly why they're having this conversation in the first place. Erik doesn't want him to hold back? He doesn't want him to hide, he wants to know? Fine. Even as the tension drains out of his shoulders, even as he breathes exactly as he's told, even as his lip starts to wobble again with even the thought of it, Charles juts his chin out underneath Erik and sneers. "No, we're not, actually," he answers, haughty and posh, accent more affected like it always is when he's feeling particularly snobbish. "I told you I can't. Kindly get off of me, Erik. I don't want to have this discussion right now, so we're not having it."  
  
Erik gets off of him! At first it seems that maybe the jig is up after all, except for the fact that Erik hasn't shrunk back in the slightest. He slowly untangles himself, and when he's in a seated position he smoothes out the wrinkles of his shirt. There's no awkward flinching-he's just fixing himself up, and practically ignoring Charles beside him. It's only when Charles goes to speak again that Erik holds up his hand, bidding him to stay silent with an Order of equal magnitude. "Go to the closet and retrieve my bag." It's not an Order, but the message is clear: Charles definitely does not want to make Erik Order him right now.  
  
At first, Charles flinches, because being without Erik against him, skin to skin, is a bit like being slapped. He hadn't actually wanted him to get off, but - he huffs, because in the end he'd gotten what he'd asked for anyway. Like always. He makes sure to roll his eyes before he stomps off to the closet, grabbing Erik's bag and dragging it over before unceremoniously dumping it on the ground. He opens his mouth, and finds that nothing comes out when he sees Erik - his Dominant - sitting there, so he just crosses his arms and scowls at the floor.  
  
"I know you have an exceptionally good memory," Erik says as he raises his hand, snapping the leather luggage carrier into his palm. He sets it beside him on the bed and opens it to reveal several newly-formed implements that were not there when this bag first entered the closet-and some that were. Charles recognizes the cane he'd purchased what seems like eons ago, but hadn't yet used, among other less benign looking objects. "So you know that I do not make idle statements."  
  
That cane does not look benign to him at all, and it never has. He swallows, not around fear - he simply isn't afraid of Erik - but certainly around a healthy dose of dread, especially considering he's sore enough to begin with. His immediate reaction is to take a step back, lips pursed again as he looks anywhere but Erik. "This is ridiculous," he huffs. "We're not doing this right now. I told you to just let it go."  
  
"And I told you that is unacceptable, as I do not take Orders from you," Erik says back, infuriatingly calm. "Neither did I come here to be smarted off at and undermined. Now, I told you that if you weren't able to hold a conducive conversation with me we would migrate elsewhere. Evidently you believe I am not capable of keeping you in line. I assure you that you are wrong. Approach me and kneel." The difference between Charles's huffy defiance and Erik delivering a stern Order of his own is like night and day, especially because it is obvious that Erik is not playing around, nor does he believe any part of this situation is ridiculous. He has a full calculation of every mark on Charles's body and while they hurt, there is absolutely no danger from them; most are beginning to fade already.  
  
Charles glares as he does what he's told, dropping as ungracefully to his knees as possible. There is certainly something to be said about digging a deeper hole, because he curls his lip and throws a withering look at Erik's feet, mumbling something very unflattering under his breath.  
  
"Speak up," Erik says, and his mind abruptly shutters closed with even the sound of a door latching shut echoing through the room as hard as the words he's spoken. "As it will be your last opportunity to do so, I hope you have something worthwhile to say. Go on." The Order hangs in the air, and Charles has been here once before, but never like this. Never in the Real. When Erik rises to his feet it's as an otherworldly creature, a blazing inferno of Dominion obscuring his features, molding him out of fire and icy hurricanes.  
  
That door slamming shut startles him, even though he should have expected it. Immediately he falters, eyes wide and uncertain, anxiety fluttering in his stomach because there's so rarely a time when he's without it now. Sometimes it's farther away, or muted down, but never closed off. He knows if he really became distressed, or if he grabbed for it with enough intent, he could get it back. There would be nothing Erik could do to stop it. But even now he respects him far too much to even consider it, and too much still to make a mockery of his pause-word, so all he does is frown down at the ground, unsettled but unwilling to let go of that fiery, inexplicable part that needs. That needs, and doesn't know what to make of it. "I called you a wanker," he mutters, louder than before, and then even though it's a bit like staring into the sun, he raises his chin, lips pulled into a smug little grin.  
  
He just gazes back at Charles, but somewhere within him Charles can hear the roar of indignation pounding against that door, scrambling to get out and put him down into his place for his insolence but Erik just stays still, breathing through his nose. Marshaling himself to relax before he ever takes any action against Charles; he isn't angry or irritated but he feels-challenged, hostile, ready to drag Charles under the ocean and submerge him forever, back in that cave where they never need to encounter modern civilization again. "I do not want to hear you speak unless you are spoken to," he grips Charles's jaw in his hand, jerking his chin up for real and pinning him with narrowed emerald eyes. The Order is a howl, dark and deep and endless and Charles finds there's little place else for him to escape. "When you address me, you will address me properly or I will repeat this lesson as _many_ times as is necessary." He lays down several different instruments in front of Charles, all canes and switches of varying degrees and all entwined with Erik's signature of creation, knotted and thick and primed to deliver by Erik's own hands. "Pick one."  
  
Part of Charles withers back, swallowing heavy as the weight of this settles in his stomach. Erik isn't backing down. He isn't going to let Charles to get away with this, to raise his hands in surrender and stomp off, leaving him vindicated, victorious, if not utterly frustrated and unfulfilled. There's no excitement or thrill as he stares down at those implements, because - he takes a harsh breath, trembling on the exhale as the dread floods back in. None of them look particularly appealing, and he's willing to bet all of them will hurt. The noise he makes is hitched, and he shakes his head, looking up at Erik with helpless desperation. Surely he won't.  
  
Erik crouches down, trailing his fingertip across Charles's cheek. " _Pick. one._ " Each word is breathed out low and soft, with all of Erik's perpetually leashed-up strength behind it. With every last ounce of the things he's kept buried and secret for so long; and maybe Charles goading him and behaving this way is a catalyst but since they arrived home he's been on edge, torn between what he's always viewed as his horrifying nature-this abusive, terrible creature that dwells in his heart pacing along the floors, rattling its chains and smashing up against the cage. The seconds tick idly by and each one sheds another layer with it. "Now."  
  
Another quiet noise slips from him when he realizes that Erik truly will. His stomach knots itself up spectacularly and his breathing gets faster, apprehension sticky and difficult to swallow around the renewed spike of dread as he looks at those implements. All of them will hurt, and none of them are a better choice, he's certainly intelligent enough to know that. Calculating it in his head won't bring him any advantage. In the end his hands touch one of the canes, the one that's been sitting in their closet back at home resting against the wall, seemingly innocent. It's never desire that makes him shiver every time he catches a glimpse of it, and it isn't now. He knows he was going to be drawn to it regardless. It's been on his mind since they bought it. "Erik -" His mouth clamps shut immediately after it comes out, his eyes wide and suddenly fastened on the floor. Erik will let it slide. He's sure of it.  
  
That Charles spoke out of turn at all raises his hackles, so there are plenty of ways to prolong this experience at his fingertips and Erik isn't perturbed by it in the slightest, in fact-and it was like this earlier, too. That Charles pushes and defies him-it makes his blood sing, a perfect opportunity to swiftly and ruthlessly and exactingly rise up in turn. He would be lying if he said he wasn't scared, if he wasn't wondering how this is OK; keeping a tight grip on all those strands of thoughts that desperately try to leak out. He is. But his Will is shining brighter than Charles has ever encountered it before today, and he's got a breathless, determined pinch to his eyebrows as he stares Charles down, nearly eager for it. "Correct yourself." Erik's low whisper curls right up into Charles's ears, and he juts the cane right under his jaw, forcing his gaze upwards. It isn't an Order. Charles has a choice, he always has a choice-but the correct option is very glaringly obvious right now.  
  
There is a part of Charles that's afraid, too, but not of Erik. Not of anything that's currently happening, certainly not of Erik's Will or his Dominance, and not the cane currently underneath his chin, either. He can't say he's particularly fond of it, or that he wants to spend any time becoming acquainted with it, but it's wielded by Erik and that means there's nothing to truly fear. Plenty to dread, however, because while his Dominant would never harm him, he knows there's the potential for hurt, and this situation doesn't promise it will be enjoyable. Charles closes his eyes, throat bobbing as he takes a shuddering breath and then, finally, shakes his head.  
  
And that potential never leaves. Erik hasn't done this in the Real, but as Charles is soon going to discover, it has nothing to do with a lack of desire. He's had to push himself to this level, but it is not because he hasn't wanted to. Like most other facets of his Dominance it has been because of fear, because there is too much there, and right now he isn't pushing anything. He's leaning into it, and Charles railing against him only further elucidates its necessity. Erik's eyebrows arch and he waits, but when nothing is forthcoming, he lifts the cane and delivers a sharp jolt across Charles's cheek. To Charles it hurts, it smarts and he can feel the welt already rising up, a red streak down his jaw, but Erik's careful and calculated. The implement in his hands is reedy and swishy, meaning it can deliver a lot of pain with very little force. Even now Erik is prepared, with Charles's best interests meaning the most to him despite his insolence. "Correct yourself," he repeats, and this time it's an Order, harsh and brutal.  
  
This is what he hasn't been able to discuss, and so in a way he supposes he's doing as Erik asked. It certainly isn't a calm, rational discussion, and he's fairly positive that one way or another they will be having that discussion regardless of how he behaves beforehand, but the fact of the matter is that this is part of it. Part of the ineffable need that Charles knows lives inside of him, spitting and raging just as viciously as that beast in Erik's heart, never soothed, never handled, except instead of wishing to be released his wishes to be tamed. Right now it's all bared teeth, then a startled, delayed gasp as the cane hisses and strikes. Immediately his hand is on his cheek though it certainly does nothing for the sting, eyes wide, a shudder wracking the entirety of his body. "Sir," he gasps out, and this is where, as he has in nearly every other encounter, he would back down. He would lower his head until Erik raised it for him, would wait until his Dominant gave him permission to apologize. It would be earnest, too. But there's something fierce in him, something he's never been able to understand, something yearning and equally as ancient as those beastly parts in Erik, and this time he doesn't hold it back. His lip curls and he glares, naked and on his knees and with that smarting, forming welt on his cheek. There's not an ounce of real, true resistance in him - not a single thought of his pause-word - but there is hot, bubbled up defiance, pure and seething. "Piss off, sir," he adds, and his eyes gleam with it, clearly proud of himself.  
  
"I am certain you would like that," Erik murmurs, rising to his feet. "But this is not about what you want. Get into Child's Pose." He leaves no room for Charles to disobey, the Order swishing and stinging upon impact as much as any strike from the cane. "Hands behind your back." Normally they're above the head, but Erik modifies it at the last second, pressing his foot into Charles's back to grind his face fully into the floor, right on top of that mark blooming over the skin there. He brings the cane over the back of Charles's palms once they cross at the base of his spine, unable to resist the compulsion of Command. "You will take as many of these as I deem necessary, and you will count each one and thank me for it when you receive it. If you do not, I will add another for insolence." Another strike, swift and uncompromising. "Those two don't count."  
  
Every time he's put into this Posture, he seems to forget how much he well and truly hates it. There's simply not an ounce of pleasure to be gained from it. It's purely psychological, but he's nearly convinced there's something more to it, because the moment he's pressed into the floor - and that mark really does smart, he's finding - the shame hits him with the force of a particularly large truck, coiling up in his belly hot and undeniable. It doesn't help that, if anything, he'd underestimated how much the cane hurts, because while it's bearable and even pleasurable outside of this context, within it - there's something different, and wholly unpleasant about it, and he yelps like a wounded creature both times. His Dominant hasn't even given him a number to focus on this time, a threshold to cross and bear until then, and he bites on his lip, unable to stifle the whimper that escapes, all of that defiance finally wavering in the face of the reality. For all that he'd earned it, he finds he isn't looking forward to the consequences, because - Erik is really going to make him face them, isn't he? It's such a heady realization that he almost chokes on it, trembling as he waits.  
  
Erik doesn't give him any time to adjust before he's bringing it down again over Charles's shoulder, across the back of his arms. "I see you can say _piss off, sir_ but we will stay right here until I hear _thank you, sir._ Let's try again." Another, the third in quick succession and much harder for falling across the smarted welts over Charles's ass. " _Thank you, sir_. Hm, no? We'll keep trying." He doesn't lift his foot, either, keeping Charles fully pressed down against the ground.  
  
Charles hates that they've hardly started at all and already there are tears pricking at his eyes insistently. It hurts something awful, worse than he imagines it would under any other circumstance, and the shame certainly isn't doing anything to soothe the ache. He gasps, giving a broken, stuttered cry in the aftermath, cheek smushed into the ground as he takes harsh breaths. When he opens his mouth, something mumbled spills out, but even to him it doesn't sound like what his Dominant is asking for. Perhaps it's good enough. He certainly wants it to be good enough. Maybe he'll let him up?  
  
"Speak up," Erik says, but before he can even do that, Erik doesn't give him the opportunity before another strike swiftly impacts him across the soles of his feet, rending fire all the way through his nerves and up into his brain. "I told you to speak when you are spoken to, and I am speaking to you. If you aren't ready to follow my Orders, I have nowhere else to be."  
  
His toes curl, but it does absolutely nothing to stave off the fresh pain that shoots straight up his spine, stinging and jagged and continuing to spark long after Erik's finished striking. Charles isn't quite focused enough to hold back the rush of thoughts, either, the internal struggle between the horrible shame of needing discipline and the shrieking beast who's clawed its way to the forefront, cowed but still - still what? He sucks in a shaky breath, eyes squeezed shut. "Please," he croaks, and it's not what his Dominant wants or asked for, but he's willing to switch tactics. Please let him up. "Be good," he promises, even while knowing he has no intention of doing so if he manages to wiggle his way out.  
  
"If you were ready to be good, you would begin by acquiescing to what _I have told you to do_. As that is unforthcoming, I have no choice but to assume the exact opposite." Which is quite all right with him, because he has nowhere to be and he's perfectly content to spend this time bringing Charles completely in hand. His statement is punctuated by another lash, and Erik's intentions are blazingly clear. This isn't even the beginning. Until Charles bends to what he has said, he will feel every brand of pain, and only after that will Erik actually deliver his punishment.  
  
This isn't how it's supposed to be. Charles lets out a low, wounded noise from the back of his throat, struggling weakly for a moment except there isn't anywhere to go. Erik isn't yielding. He isn't giving up. He projects the next wave of pain, all of the radiating, terrible heat of it, not so Erik feels it (he wouldn't, ever) but so he knows it's there, and when that doesn't work, either, he gives a hearty sniff he refuses to believe is the beginning of tears. "Thank you, sir," he mumbles, much more coherently than before. At least now it can be over.  
  
It's a start, and Erik lets him know that, but it also isn't fully what he'd said. He doesn't relent even when Charles projects, and in fact that only seems to make him respond by doing it again, delivering even strokes along Charles's shoulders and down his forearms, the thin skin covering bones there making that pain even worse than the blows to his ass. "Try again," Erik adds. Unyielding and uncompromising, he will not permit Charles to get away with anything less than total compliance with his demands. If that means they're here all day, so be it.  
  
For a moment, Charles doesn't even remember what was asked. He's too busy crying out as he's struck again, feeling rather like the pain is completely indistinguishable at this point, striking everywhere at once and leaving everything on fire. Count. He has no clue how many it's been and he's willing to bet Erik wouldn't let those count anyway, so he starts at one, which is a horrifically small number and he's hoping that after everything, he's only going to have to count to three. Maybe four. How much else could he possibly take? He sniffs again, and this time the tears squeeze right past his closed eyelids, hot and shameful on his cheeks. "Thank you, sir," he whispers again, thoroughly miserable. Surely he hasn't earned this.  
  
"Ah, so your ears do work." Erik regards him with a hard expression, his words dry and almost sarcastic in and of themselves, his mind a shutter closed as he works to slowly, carefully and methodically strip Charles of every last ounce of defiance. He certainly has earned it. Erik does tolerate a lot, and you know what, Charles should be grateful for that, but he absolutely refuses to endure disrespect from his submissive. He tries his best, at all times, even when he is struggling himself and-"and you would do well to appreciate that. I do not ask you for very much, I am very lenient and I give you a good deal of room to maneuver and express yourself, but there is a line, Charles, and you have crossed it. Do you understand?"  
  
Charles shrinks at the tone Erik's using, because even now he'd expected his Dominant to pull back regardless of what either of them need. Tears spring to his eyes despite there being no new blows, because his ears certainly do work and the shame of it is almost worse than being caned. He doesn't say that maybe some of it is the problem, sometimes, or that part of him still doubts it - is Erik really going to punish him everytime he gets out of line, mouthy and defiant, or is it much more plausible he'll let the same thing go because it's simply easier to let Charles get his way? Nicer? He doesn't say those things, a muffled "yes, sir" instead because he's certainly not liable to complain about a lack of punishment now. He'd just like this one over.  
  
Fortunately for Charles, perhaps, this is really among the first few times that Erik has been given to enforce the things he's stated that he expects, and evidently he is not keen on letting such occurrences go. It isn't easier, and it isn't nicer, because that will just send the message that Erik is permissive as well as lenient, which is certainly is not. There aren't a lot of rules that he needs to be followed, and he isn't an authoritarian, but when he does exert his authority he expects it to be followed. "You will receive ten more of these. If you fail to give the appropriate response after each one, I will add another." He demonstrates by giving Charles a solid smack with the cane over his left shoulder.  
  
Ten strokes in the Real by Erik's hand, with an actual cane and a body that's already primed and wholly oversensitive, turns out to be far more than he bargained for, which he supposes is rather the point. It's certainly nowhere near the worst pain he's ever felt, or anywhere near his actual threshold (which, predictably, is far higher than Erik would ever take things), but it damn near feels like it. He's already sniffling before the first stroke, and by five he's outright crying again, attempting not to tense or jerk and make the whole thing worse. He manages not to move, mostly because he thinks Erik would correct him - he's very precise about Postures, always - but he does nearly everything else to make the ache dissipate, and none of it works. By seven he feels like his skin is quite literally on fire, and he whimpers particularly loud, low and hurt and - he doesn't know what comes over him but he shakes his head instead of counting, choking out a sob instead. He doesn't speak, but it's basically a loophole because all the battered out projection is basically that. It's enough, isn't it? He's learned his lesson. He'll be good, he'll be so good. He'll be the best. He'll absolutely shock Erik with how perfectly well-behaved he is, just please let him up - and there's hope there, too. Seven is very close to ten.  
  
And even then, even now, Erik doesn't yield. The raging, gasping creature in his chest is mollified by Charles's obedience but it remembers the insolence, the flagrant flouting of his Command and it is not satisfied yet and rather than take pity on Charles-rather than be soothed by this attempt to get out of what he had earned for his behavior, Erik responds by doing exactly what he said he'd do if Charles wasn't compliant, giving him an extra jolt along the back of his thigh before crossing over and kneeling down in front of him, meeting his eyes and gripping his hair in hand. "Seven. I can't hear you. _Seven_. Isn't that _right_?"  
  
At first, Charles wants to protest. It isn't fair - it hurts so badly, and surely he's taken enough? Surely he's made up for it? But those thoughts melt away quickly as he sniffles, as the sting of that last stroke works its way through his entire body and his Dominant appears in front of him. Why should he get out of a punishment that he'd earned? What good would that do, what lesson would it teach him? Why should he be able to wriggle his way out from under the consequences? It's perfectly fair. It's exceedingly fair, actually, the most fair - and perhaps it hadn't sunk in until exactly this moment that he really won't get away with it, and that unsatisfied, ancient creature finally met its match. "S-Seven," he repeats, eyes full of tears when his hair is yanked, another pitiful whimper. "Thank you, sir," he adds, and even through his chest heaving with the beginnings of another sob, he means it this time.  
  
Erik's eyes gleam as Charles capitulates, long, thick tendrils of Will exploding out of him and keeping Charles exactly where he belongs in this instant of time. Erik gives him a few moments to adjust, and that is very generous of him, he thinks, before he continues just as unflinchingly and uncompromisingly as he has been, making sure Charles speaks up when he mumbles too lowly or doesn't enunciate clearly, making sure his Posture is perfect and straight by jutting the cane into his muscles lightly in correction.  
  
By the time they reach ten, Charles is hardly breathing around ragged, desperate sobs. They're almost entirely dry even though his face is drenched in tears and snot, having thoroughly cried himself out. Every noise he makes is hurt and rather pathetic, but he doesn't hold them back; not the high, wailing cries, the throaty whimpers, or the scream as his Dominant strikes him what seems like harder than he ever has, his body shaking violently with the force of it. "Ten," he gasps when he's calmed enough to even open his mouth, keening in pain again as the sting really sets in, throbbing horrifically. "T-Th- " He chokes on it, lip trembling like the rest of him as he fights to stay perfectly in position. "T-Thank you, sir," he finally manages, sobbing so loud it nearly startles him.


	56. the sea moves uneasily,/like a man who suspects what the room reels with/as he rises into it is violation— I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _no one mourns the wicked_ , wicked  
> ii. _changeling_ , j. michael straczynski

Erik 's head tips back and he inhales sharply once Charles finally cracks under the weight of his completed punishment. Erik doesn't give him an extra lash for taking too long, he just patiently remains crouched and waits until Charles gets it all out, and nods to himself, satisfied at it. He sits down in front of Charles once he is finished, setting the cane aside and taking Charles's head into his lap, scritching his fingertips against his scalp and remaining silent and calm for the moment, not Ordering anything specific right now but allowing Charles time to acclimate and take a breath, to know that he is safe and kept and that Erik will punish him when he steps out of line but he will never abandon Charles, and when it is over, it is over.  
  
Charles soaks it up like a particularly wrung-out sponge, gasping for air around heavy, sobbing breaths that stick in his chest and hurt. He stays in position because Erik hasn't told him otherwise but rubs his cheek against his Dominant's thigh, slowly, gradually able to breathe without feeling like he'll break apart, more than the ramped up pain affecting him. He feels well and truly disciplined, more than he ever has, but not distressed, not afraid, certainly, absolutely not abused, and in fact - but he can't sort that out just yet, except to know that it feels like more of a relief than he can explain at the moment, like a weight lifted right off long-burdened shoulders. He whimpers instead, breath hitching all over again as his mind seeks out Erik's, timid. It's over? He can be Erik's good boy again? All done?  
  
He slowly gathers Charles up into his lap, completely surrounding him in both mind and body, loosely draping a blanket around him and settling him against his chest, scooting back into the wall. As soon as Charles reaches out with a thought he finds himself swept up in Erik's bubble, keeping him still and held fast. It's all done. Erik touches his cheek, kissing him along the forehead. _Kol beseder._ Charles is back where he belongs, not out of line, not out of balance. Erik couldn't describe how he felt even if he had access to as many languages as Charles. Like he is gathered in sparkles, a snowglobe shook up and glitter raining down in warm strokes, undisturbed. Completely surrounded by Will, completely given over to Dominion. He's known he could do this, because he's done it, but not like this. "Come here, sweetheart," he tugs Charles right up against him, bowing their foreheads together and running his hands through his hair. Erik has him. He will be OK. He always will be good, because Erik will make sure that he is, just as he'd said.  
  
 _Kol beseder._ All done. Charles whines as he's lifted and moved, sniffling at the awful drag of welts against skin, but he certainly doesn't protest being coddled. Shifting hurts terribly but he does anyway until he can properly settle into Erik's arms, small and kept and curled in a way that upsets his smarting everything the least. There's not really a position that manages that with any success, but he supposes that's the point - a reminder to be good. It's not long before he's making noises that strongly resemble purrs along with his hiccupping whimpers, the pain still radiating off his skin hot and fresh and overwhelming but Erik's fingers in his hair are exceptionally soothing, and he's back. Right back where he belongs, and further down into it than he can even fathom. Does Erik know how well-behaved he's going to be now? He's going to be so good, he promises. He'll be such a good boy.  
  
Slowly but surely, that closed door slips open, letting in rays of sunshine that gently swaddle Charles up along with Erik's arms, a soothing balm against the reddened angry marks along his skin. "I've got you," he murmurs, his tone warm as he rocks Charles back and forth, his mind reaching back to curl around Charles's. Oh, he knows. He's always known. If Charles ever had a doubt that Erik wouldn't keep him in line-the answer is as evident as life itself. Erik couldn't bear that, because it isn't what Charles needs, and it isn't what he needs, and he's always known that.  
  
Charles starts to drift as Erik rocks him, rubbing against his jaw to feel the scratch of his beard even when it startles him at first, the burn - he'd forgotten the mark on his own cheek, but he decides even that's pleasant right now - and nestle into his shoulder, his neck, inhaling deeply. It's not sleep he's drifting into, but he has no real concept of what else it might be, and no space to properly contemplate, so he simply lets it happen. When he taps on Erik's mind gently, nudging into his neck at the same time with a quiet sigh, he's recalling their conversation (or lack thereof) from before, replaying it in a dreamlike rewind. What followed is part of it. Does Erik understand? Does he understand why Charles was frightened, why he still is? He clings tighter unconsciously.  
  
He does understand; he grasped it as soon as Charles began to rail against him, which undoubtedly was part of why he reacted so strongly, so swiftly to shut it down. If Charles needs to be tamed, Erik needs to temper him, and he knows exactly what that is like from the opposing end. The struggle, the fear of being too much-it's very real and Erik understands why Charles felt overwhelmed by it at first, why he's so frightened of it, but he hopes that now Charles realizes that Erik is perfectly capable of rising to meet every single aspect of his submission, regardless of how intense it may be. Does Charles understand? Does he know how deep Erik's Dominance goes? How this has really only scratched the surface, he's sure, for them both?  
  
If he doesn't, he's certainly beginning to. But he has questions, and he knows some of them can't be answered now, that they're situational, that there's no way to know before they cross those particular bridges. Charles can't help it, though. It's far less anxious, his curiosity, though there's still a quiet undercurrent of fear; what kind of person, what kind of submissive does it make Charles, that he can't always simply obey? That he needs to be made to, to be tamed and put down? Won't Erik become tired of fighting for this, won't he get sick of it like everyone else? It's natural for a submissive to seek out comfort in the form of Dominance from those prominent in their lives - platonic Dominance from parents, from other family, from friends, even, until they find a partner (and after, too, depending on the person and their scale) or if they choose not to have said partners. But no one has ever been able to handle Charles. No one had even begun to understand what he needs, and the assumption had been that whatever it was, it was impossible. He touches Erik's cheek, momentarily distracted by how small his hand looks in comparison to Erik's on his, how it takes up his entire face, frames it perfectly - shakes that thought off, and sends about a thousand questions at once, brow furrowed and eyes still wet from crying.  
  
Erik leans forward and gives Charles's nose a kiss, lips tugging upward in amusement as the barrage of questions pelt at him and he lifts his other hand to the opposite side of Charles's cheek, laying it gently against his skin. The only thing that Erik sees from him is that he belongs to Erik. There is absolutely nothing about Charles that Erik is regretful of, certainly not his submission. It's not impossible, it's not unnatural, to Erik it just seems normal, because as he's discovering himself, as much as he'd stated in the past that he's not comfortable making people do things-this doesn't fall under that prerequisite. It would be different if Charles expected him to ignore genuine concerns or ignore real fear and real anxiety, or to generate situations that rely on lack of consent or disregarding pause-words, but that isn't what's happening. Erik doesn't think there is anything at all here worth being sick of, nor even to truly fight for. Erik will always fight for Charles, but this is just... it's a natural component of his own Dominance, is what it is.  
  
Charles' nose scrunches and he offers up a shy, sweet smile, tilting his head into Erik's palm like a very contented, purring creature. It's a very nice sentiment, and one he wants very much to believe whole-heartedly (and he's beginning to, astonishingly), but it doesn't answer even half of his questions. He bites his lip and pats at Erik's cheek, not demanding or fussy; it's an earnest request, and he accompanies it with a quiet please, sir? though it's not in English, or in any language, really, floating around with deference and respect. It hasn't occurred to him yet that Erik, as brilliant and intelligent as he is, isn't capable of parsing through a million questions at once, because the more Erik encourages him to be himself - and the farther he slips into subspace - the more he forgets things like this. That human beings without his particular brand of mutation don't have supercomputers for brains, something he's always been conscious of in every other aspect of his life. As it is, he waits patiently, trying to subtly shift off his burning thighs.  
  
Erik laughs, placing his own much larger hand over Charles's and his eyebrows knit together as he tries his best to parse everything to little avail. He shakes his head briefly, not out of denial but because quite frankly he simply can't keep up with it. That doesn't bother him, though, because he knows he can determine exactly what needs to be uncovered, and he presses that up against Charles's mind instead-slow down. Tell me each-thing. It's important and he wishes to know, and so he shall.  
  
He blinks for a moment, confused and owlish, before it sinks in and he grins, sheepish. Slow down. Charles can do that, especially if Erik wants him to do that. He's shy and in some vague corner still ashamed and afraid, but there's not an ounce of resistance left in his body, so he takes his questions and he slowly feeds them back, this time much more coherently. Some of these questions he's wanted to ask for quite a while, but he hadn't been able to muster them up - they hadn't been relevant, because he'd been determined to mostly repress this part. How does Erik feel? Is he mad that he had to punish Charles after he'd said he was well-behaved? Disappointed, even worse? That's one of the worst parts of punishment, and he whimpers at even the reminder, curling closer into Erik's touch. Is he upset that Charles needs to not be well-behaved sometimes? Was he frightened? Is Erik always going to punish him if he steps out of line? Then a barrage of what-ifs, his mind insistent and curious - what if they're in public? What if they're in front of other people? What if he does more than mouth off a bit? What if - and he knows the answer to this in general, but what if he pause-words? He wouldn't ever do it to get out of a punishment, but he can't promise, in a certain state of mind, he wouldn't need to. What happens then? Do they drop the issue? He chews on his lip, another wave of sheepish apology washing over them. Erik had asked for each thing, and this isn't even all of it. Maybe he'd meant one at a time, he's realizing, a bit belatedly.  
  
Erik grins back at him, having fully expected most of these questions to crop up at some point or another, but he's pleased that they are, now. As each one appears, Erik's answer takes a little time to formulate, because he likes to consider every aspect of things-and there is a large degree of situational dependency that they both know is relevant. Erik can't promise a one-size-fits-all response to every situation, but he does know what it is to be afraid and uncertain, so he considers as many angles as he can before finally the answers start to ping back. The first few questions are easy: Erik feels gratified and relieved. He is not angry. He doesn't believe that anything Charles has done is in contradiction to the things he's said in the past. He did experience fear at first because he worried that his own feelings and the harshness of his response would frighten Charles, but that assuaged itself when it became clear that wouldn't be an issue. Erik will always punish him if he steps out of line, and that has been his intention from the beginning. Erik isn't sure if he'll do it publicly or not. If Charles publicly disrespects or in other ways steps out of order, Erik thinks that his response will be proportionate-and that goes for what in particular Charles does do, whether it's mouthing off a bit or worse. And if it happens that Charles does pause-word, Erik will do exactly as he'd said, and he will pause things, and he will determine the reasoning behind the occurrence and if it turns out to merely be to get out of a punishment, then he certainly won't abide by it. But if it is because of a genuine issue, a genuine upset, they will deal with that and resolve it before moving on, but whatever happened will still be handled. It may not be handled immediately but that doesn't mean otherwise.  
  
Charles hums quietly, shifting a bit in Erik's lap - o _w!_ \- to settle his head on his Dominant's shoulder again, reaching for Erik's hand to play idly with his fingers, twining theirs together and thrilling at how ridiculously small his looks in comparison. He considers Erik's answers carefully, and it's clear he's running them through his head, mulling them over, even as he's calm and soft and quieted down, floating pleasantly in a subspace he's never experienced before. These are things that hadn't come up in their Negotiation, but probably should have, but they'll have check-ins like this for the rest of their lives, as far as Charles is concerned, and a bit overdue means nothing in the grand scheme. Will Erik always punish him like this, or will he adjust? He thinks, briefly, of what happened after that week of hiding - equally awful, but in different ways, and he doesn't want a repeat of either anytime soon. Almost definitely the point. What if Erik isn't in the headspace to handle things? What if he's the one distressed when Charles does something worthy of discipline? And then - Charles hides his face, grimacing. There's another, but he saves it.  
  
Erik weaves his fingers in and out of Charles's, feeling-at ease, probably for the first time in days, like he can handle things. He has this. He's got it. It's room to breathe, to relax, that he hasn't felt in eons. Certainly, though, he knows the first answer like breath, too. Adjustment, always, always adjustment. Erik's keyword crops up again, that the punishment will be directly proportional to the crime. In some cases that means corporally and in others it will mean exactly what's happened in the past. Being left alone. Erik's imaginative, there is no shortage of ways he can drive the point home if need be. _An eye for an eye_ never meant to pluck a person's eye from their skull in retaliation. If you harm someone's eye, then you should pay for their medical treatment to fix it. If you kill someone's servant then you might be employed in their place. Obviously in this day and age civil law supersedes _Mishpatim_ , but Erik's always more or less been governed by a set of clear ethics.   
  
It's why Charles mouthing off to Erik doesn't warrant being beaten senseless (nor would any behaviors on Charles's part, since that action is unethical in every instance, but you get the picture). Charles's concerns certainly aren't out of the ordinary, but they're also things that Erik has had to consider for himself the entire time they've been together. He's grateful it hasn't yet arisen, although-maybe it has. He's been distressed before and still managed to get himself together and react in a necessary way, to accept that for what it is involves a level of self-trust that Erik simply isn't at yet, so he doesn't allow that to remain his primary answer, even if it might very well satisfy things. The only thing he can promise is that he won't allow situations to go unresolved and unmentioned. If that means he needs time to cool down before he addresses it, then he will give himself that time, just as he'd done after Charles hid himself from Erik. He made Charles wait until he wasn't angry anymore, because he needs to keep his promises as well. But they still dealt with it. And Charles absolutely did learn his lesson. Erik taps back. More?  
  
That brings up follow-up questions, but he has a feeling Erik will sense he's stalling if he doesn't ask what he'd meant to, so he takes a breath and he asks, obedient if ashamed. This one isn't flattering to him, but Charles can be self-aware. He's brilliant at talking his way out of things, at manipulating situations. He can't promise he'll never try; it's certainly one of his less desirable coping skills, learned personality traits (but it definitely has served him well, because what Charles wants he so very often gets). Even without his telepathy, but especially with it, he can play people like carefully plucked instruments, sure as anything. Is there really nothing he can do to wiggle out from underneath consequences? What if he really begs? What if he insists he did nothing wrong? What if he - the possibilities here are rather endless, and he can't promise he won't use them. Erik really won't back down? It won't frighten him if he tries?  
  
Erik laughs, his nose wrinkling up fondly. He's perfectly aware of all of that, and he can safely say that under no circumstances will Charles be able to just _weasel his way ou_ t of things. He wasn't this time, he hasn't yet, and he won't in the future. He _was_ a little nervous to fully give in to himself, but at no point was he ever afraid of Charles, and eventually Erik found himself perfectly comfortable acquiescing to his own instincts. He imagines that will only become easier with time, not harder.  
  
He bites harder on his lip until it's bleached properly white where his teeth dig in, still hidden in Erik's neck. Part of him isn't convinced, and he knows he should be, but - Charles can be convincing, especially if he's feeling riled up and defiant. Even if he's not convincing, he can certainly wear people down. What if he doesn't hold back? What if, when he feels that urge to be properly disobedient, rebellious, difficult, he is? Eventually, Erik will tire of that. Sometimes Charles gets in moods, and he's not certain Erik's seen it yet - really, in the grand scheme of things, they haven't had much time to live normal, uninterrupted life together, but they will - but they're practically infamous, and rather spectacular. People have learned to just let them pass. Why wouldn't Erik? It would be easier. Let Charles have his way, brush him off, and let him work off the steam until eventually the mounted frustration reaches a head. Charles would be unsatisfied as he's been his entire life, but at least Erik wouldn't be bothered.  
  
Erik touches his cheek, shaking his head. Does he feel like that's what is happening right now? Has Erik ever just let something pass without addressing it? He shrugs. Maybe there will come a time when Charles presses a few buttons too many and Erik can't handle it in the moment, and he's willing to admit to that, it's happened before. But taking a time out for his own sanity isn't the same thing as-he hopes-brushing Charles off, because his intention always is to return and make certain what's happened is put to rest. Erik won't tire of it simply because he doesn't appreciate having things up in the air, and that has always been Erik's primary motivator. It will always bother him more to encourage the opposite. Charles isn't the only one who can get into moods, and in some respects, Erik does trust himself to be able to cope with them.  
  
That's true, and fair. If anyone could handle him, it's Erik, and he knows it. He's about to circle back to something when he blinks, coming to an entirely separate realization and laughing, a quiet, raspy thing because he's cried himself hoarse, arching into the hand on his cheek. He presses a finger to Erik's lips, peeking up with eyes gleaming and obviously tickled.  
  
"Mhm?" Erik's lips break out into a smile against his fingertip, and he gives a little kiss against the pad pressed to his skin for good measure. And then a lick. Just because. Erik's nose wrinkles, amused and entirely too fond.  
  
After what was a rather intense punishment session, Charles leans right into it, needy and delighted and incredibly clingy, taking his hand away from Erik's mouth to wrap both arms around his neck instead, the movement making him hiss but at the very least he can cling with all his limbs and nuzzle into him. They aren't using words, they aren't speaking, and when they are it's that familiar, strange jumble of languages that would make no sense to anyone else. A private, special language for the two of them. It feels safe, and secret, whispers in the dark that no one else could ever hope to understand - and they couldn't. What they're building is utterly unique. Perhaps they'll make history - he's sure they will, actually, they already are - but history will never come close to fathoming what they are, and Charles is quite pleased with that. There's so much more. So, so much more. They've barely started uncovering anything. He has more questions, but for the moment he just revels.  
  
Erik knows exactly what Charles is talking about, and his grin widens even further, and he shifts a bit himself to ensure that Charles is comfortable where he's seated. The punishment session was intense, but now it is over, and Charles deserves relief. The pain is there as a reminder, and Erik doesn't think about removing it, but he does offer a bit of ease so that Charles isn't seriously struggling. He can be nice that way. For the moment, he lets them both revel a little, surprised at how much calmer and more in control he feels as a result. He isn't sure he's ever really felt this way before, and it's-liberating.  
  
There isn't really a position that's comfortable right now - shifting even a little makes him gasp, as if remembering all over again the hiss of the cane - but it is nice to settle, to keep himself wrapped wholly around Erik and know he's exactly in his place. Sitting down isn't going to be fun for the next couple of days, but he earned that, too. He gives his Dominant another little mental tap as he kisses shyly just below his ear. When they were talking things out, forming their contract, Erik said he wasn't scared anymore. Is that still true? He's really not worried that everytime they seem to hit the bottom, it drops out and they go deeper? It doesn't frighten him that the intensity could ramp right up? Sometimes it scares Charles. He's ashamed to admit it, but it does. Not because of Erik, but - what if, eventually, it really is too much? What if it reminds Erik of - he gets rid of that thought quickly, closing his eyes. He knows it couldn't be more different, doesn't he? Charles needs him to know.  
  
Erik can't promise that he will always be stable and never slide into worries, or never see a situation as reminiscent of his past, but thus far it hasn't happened. In reality, Erik wonders if maybe his-reservations are based in nothing more than what he thinks might occur, because every time those reservations have been challenged it turns out like this. He can't predict the future, but if that happens, they'll work through it together, too. There are ways in which this simply cannot resemble the things he's endured. Charles isn't scared of him. If he doesn't want something, really doesn't, Erik can feel that. He can see, and feel the difference, how Charles is responding, what he actually needs versus what he says he wants. He's not afraid for his life. He's not begging Erik to stop, for real. And there is-a component of that which Erik can't verbalize, where Erik can't just say as long as XYZ isn't done or is done, it will be fine because quite frankly, every scenario is different, every situation is different and Erik just doesn't know what it's going to be like, but he does trust them both, to be able to navigate it properly when it does come up.  
  
Charles bites his lip again, humming against Erik's skin. "Can you promise me something?" he whispers, using his voice for the first time since the end of his punishment, since he's been allowed to, serious and quiet and soft.  
  
Erik looks down at him, brushing his hair out of his face. "Tell me?"  
  
He looks up at Erik, taking a slow breath. "If you start to think of it - really think of it, any of it," he clarifies, because he knows enough about intrusive thoughts from both clinical training and his own to know that sometimes they crop up and pass just as quickly, he'd be lying if he said he never thought of Kurt for a fleeting, passing moment when he didn't mean to, "You'll stop it. Whatever we're doing. I know you already said you would, but - promise?" The last thing he wants is to Erik to push through because he thinks he needs to. He doesn't. Never, ever with Charles.  
  
He kisses in-between Charles's eyebrows, smiling slightly against his skin. "I don't-" he doesn't know how to verbalize what he wants to say is what he doesn't, but he tries valiantly all the same. "I do not want you to ever feel guilty, or ashamed, or to blame yourself if that happens."  
  
Charles shakes his head, offering a small smile of his own. "I understand it won't be my fault," he says, as diplomatically as possible. Depending on the situation, he can't promise he won't have an emotional reaction, but what he can promise is that they can talk through it afterward, and that he certainly understands it on every rational level. "I wouldn't want you to feel that way if I had to. If it happens, we'll talk. But please promise. What I would feel guilty for is knowing you were thinking of something horrible while you -" Did anything with Charles, really. He doesn't care if it's punishment or something far less intense. "Earlier, and before, I -" He looks down, and goes silent, shame curling up in his stomach.  
  
Erik swallows, making himself breathe and be calm. "Yes?"  
  
Charles has no idea how to approach this. He takes a deep, heaving breath, and hides back in Erik's shoulder. "I have a habit of stripping you of autonomy without meaning to," he whispers, and the shame drips off every word. "When I assume that -" That Erik is only doing things because Charles is forcing him to. That he's, essentially, no better than any of his captors, except with a prettier wrapping. In every truly rational and feeling part of him there is, he knows that isn't true, and Erik knows that Charles doesn't think that. But - "And I'm sorry for that. I truly am, I don't mean to think that way, that's my own mess making a muck of things," his voice cracks. "But when I ask you this question, I need you to be totally honest with me, please: if I wanted something and you didn't, would you do it anyway?" He doesn't say it, but he's thinking about sex. He doesn't want to, but he is.  
  
There are a lot of ways that Erik is wise, that Erik understands the world and conducts himself in a reasonable manner. There are ways that he handles Charles that maybe even seem more tuned in than him, at times, when he's overrun with irrational thoughts, often Erik is the one who brings him back in line. But, sadly, there are a lot of ways in which Erik just doesn't understand the world and regrettably, that question is one of those ways because Erik just blinks at Charles in complete and total uncomprehending confusion. He tries to consider it in a few different ways, but clarity doesn't come. "Why wouldn't I want it?"  
  
Charles' stomach sinks a little at that, and he blinks, too, taking a shaky breath. "Are you asking me why you might not want to -" Have sex. He can't say it right now, the words stuck on his tongue. " - be intimate with me?" he asks instead.  
  
Erik presses his lips together, sensing-"I said something wrong."  
  
He shakes his head. "You didn't say anything wrong," he whispers. "You can't say anything wrong in a discussion like this. I asked you to be honest." It's concerning honesty, but honesty nonetheless.  
  
Raising his hand, he touches Charles's cheek. "I do not think that will ever happen," he tries. "I will always want to be intimate with you." Yeah, uh, he is definitely not getting this at all, sorry Charles.  
  
Charles tries not to let that show on his face, pushing through. His voice is barely a whisper now. "What if you're tired? Sick? Not in the mood? What if you're thinking of something -" Something related to the years of compounded, sexual trauma he has. "What then?"  
  
Erik feels something tug at his chest, as if to say _danger! Warning! Don't go there!_ but he can't figure out why. "I'll be OK," he whispers back, in what he thinks is a reassuring tone, his eyebrows knitting together in concern for Charles. "That will not happen, I promise. Even if it does, I will be perfectly able to set it aside."  
  
That's incredibly concerning. Charles pulls back - not far, but far enough to see Erik properly, despite the grimace he has to give when he shifts around on those welts - to blink. "Set it aside?"  
  
"Of course. Charles, you never have to worry about that. It-I-" He doesn't know what's really being asked of him and Charles keeps-what he's saying isn't right, he isn't being normal. "I have never had to-set anything aside, with you."  
  
"Have you ever thought about any of that while we were -" He can't say it. He closes his eyes tightly.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "No. Um. Well we talked about stuff. Like during our Bonding. But-but it was OK. It's OK," he can't figure out why his eyes are hot and why his chest is tight and he presses the palm of his hand against his heart, taking in slow, methodical breaths. "I wouldn't treat you like that." Charles told him if he ever thought about it that he should stop, and he remembered that, it's been his guiding post. He hasn't broken his word. Charles isn't just-a-client.  
  
Immediately Charles is soothing Erik, taking both of his hands - one with twined fingers, one palm to palm - wrapping their minds up tightly, a wave of calming, soft sensation. "That's not what I'm worried about, Erik," he whispers, and bows their heads together, helping Erik breathe. "But you have to know to know that you can say no. With me, you can say no. Anytime you want, for any reason. Do you know that?"  
  
He shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut all the way against the sudden barrage of tears threatening to spill over, and it's from out of nowhere and he doesn't understand why-"I don't need to," he promises, breathing in deeply and letting it go so he can offer Charles a smile instead, squeezing his hand gently. "I don't have to. I would not want to."  
  
Charles closes his eyes again. "Erik," he breathes. "You can't promise me that. Do you know you can?" he insists.  
  
"If-I think about anything-" he nods. "I can pause. It's OK. I've done that."  
  
"You've -" He closes his eyes, and suddenly he feels very sick, the room spinning awfully. Of course he has. Why wouldn't he, when - Charles takes a calming breath. "No," he decides, quiet. "If you think of anything, we stop. Full-stop. Please. Promise me," he begs.  
  
"I promise," Erik whispers back, eyes wide and alarmed. "I'm sorry. Please tell me what is wrong."  
  
Charles bites his lip, eyes still closed. "Can I ask you a question instead?" he asks quietly.  
  
Erik nods. "Of course."  
  
The question he wants to ask makes him feel like retching for an entirely different reason, but he can't think of any other way to express the sentiment. "If we were being intimate, and I thought of -" He's never vocalized this. He doesn't think he can, but one day he imagines he'll have to. In a flash of bloody sheets and meaty fingers, as quickly as possible, he gets the point across before locking it back in the basement, letting it rattle and burst another day. "If I thought of that, and I didn't tell you, how would you feel?" he whispers.  
  
Erik immediately starts shaking his head. He presses his hands against his eyes, wheezing in through his nose audibly and resting his forehead against Charles's. "You can't-you-you _can't_ do that, you have to-stop-you can't _make me_ promise and then-" because that is exactly-Erik shudders, feeling his brain dropping marbles faster than he can pick them up. "Please-it's OK, I'm-" he doesn't really know what he's saying anymore, to be honest.  
  
Charles lowers his head, taking a hitchy, stuck breath, exhaling it as evenly as possible. "It's exactly what?" he asks, and he knows his voice is shaking. "Please, talk to me? Please?"  
  
Erik plasters his hand right up into his eye, losing the ability to talk all of a sudden and it all rushes out of him in disjointed, harsh-light thoughts. Because if Charles thought about that and didn't tell Erik he would be making Erik hurt him and Erik's already hurt too many people and it's too close and too much and he can't do it to Charles, too, he can't-  
  
He lets out a breath. "I would never do that," he promises, and he lets Erik see that, too. He's already promised, but he'll promise again, as many times as he has to. "I wouldn't. I promise. If I think of that, I'll pause-word. Okay?"  
  
"'Kay," Erik slowly peeks up, shaking a little and he bundles Charles back into his arms, and he knows what comes next and he doesn't want to, he doesn't-it's not the same, it's not the same and Charles is going to hate him and he's going to have ruined everything before it ever really even began because he doesn't know anything he's so stupid, he doesn't know the difference, does he? How come everybody knows this shit except for him! He's the one with all the experience, he should know more than anybody! Erik smacks the back of his head off the wall, angry and guilty.  
  
Panic spikes straight up his spine and he grabs for the back of Erik's head, frightened and worried, cradling it. "Shh, darling, no," he hushes, trying to get his heart to stop beating out of his chest. "You're not. I would never hate you. Nothing is ruined. Please just talk to me, please don't hurt yourself," he pleads, eyes shining with tears he doesn't think he has in him. "It's okay not to know. We can talk it out. Please don't hurt yourself," he repeats, because that scares him.  
  
"I didn't know-you wanted me-because-I don't know-" because he'd made a promise that he didn't understand how to keep. Because it's impossible to go through a day without being reminded of something, or someone, or thinking about something, or someone-but it doesn't upset him-he just-his mind just flips over it like a book, he doesn't need to shove it into the recesses-it doesn't hurt him. Everything he's learned, everything he knows, it all has an origin and of course that _comes up_. If he's doing something _specific_ -but he didn't know he was supposed to-Charles is right, there's too many years of-of-compounded-and he doesn't even know what does and doesn't count, if yesterday is anything to go by. How is he supposed to know when he should stop? When is he supposed to stop? Someone just _tell him what to do_ and he'll do it. He doesn't want to hurt people anymore.  
  
It makes sense. There are things Charles thinks about that he brushes off, because it's just normal to him, it's nothing out of the ordinary, and it works even moreso for Erik. It's all he's known for sixteen years, his only point of reference. He takes a quiet breath. "You won't hurt anyone," he promises quietly. "I - I know it's hard, Erik. I know you're going to think about it, I know you can't help it. But I -" He doesn't want it there. It's a selfish, sick little thought, and maybe it's unreasonable. But the thought of Erik thinking about - their first time, their Bonding night - he shakes his head. "It can be harmful, even if you're not sad. It's you I'm worried about," he explains.  
  
Erik tucks Charles's head under his chin again, finally bringing his hands down to smooth them over Charles's shoulders, deftly avoiding those marks and moving gently when he encounters them. His eyes flutter closed again. He's thinking about it, not just reacting from confusion or frustration. Any time there's been a real issue he's brought it up, and they've dealt with it. And more than that. There is a difference. He pulls back slightly and places his hand over Charles's cheek, smiling at him. "Not harmful," he whispers. He doesn't know how to explain what he's thinking, so he leans over and kisses Charles softly, just a brush. Being with Charles feels good. It doesn't feel like sickness and emptiness and duty. He can say _sex_ , so he does, pressing the concept lightly between them. There are a lot of things he doesn't know, a lot of things he still has to learn, but he's never been afraid. He's never had to force himself. Being with Charles is the first time he's ever experienced real arousal. He's never had to fake it, or pretend that Charles was the best thing since sliced bread-he huffs a little. There's no pretending about that one. It's good. As far as he can tell it is good. If Charles feels good, too, then that is what is important to him, and if they struggle at any point, well-"I'm not-good at-saying no," he admits, voice rough. The idea scares him if he's honest. "But-I will-try, OK? I will. I won't let you hurt me. I promise."  
  
That's all he could possibly ask for. Charles wriggles a bit in Erik's lap, sighing softly at the pain - but it's grounding, now, it reminds him of what they are and what they have - and nestles back into Erik's shoulder. "Okay," he breathes. "But you _can_ say no. To anything, at anytime. You have before," he reminds gently. "With me, you have control. Don't forget that, yeah?" Giving Erik that back is one of his favorite things he's ever done, and he'll remind him of it as many times as he has to. As many times as he can. There's something else rattling around in his brain, but Charles swallows it down, content to drift again instead.  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik taps him on the nose, playful and more grounded now, and it's just like he said before. He doesn't like leaving things unaddressed, and if Charles knows him well enough by now, he knows he won't just allow that to keep rattling around in a metal box, echoing for all eternity, either. "Tell me," he breathes.

Maybe not all eternity. Charles bites his lip, and quickly finds that squirming on Erik's lap is a much less viable option when the squirming means his ass and thighs throb something awful in the aftermath. He nearly pouts, hiding it back in Erik's neck, which is how he answers, muffled. "If I think about it, I don't want you to think it's because I'm disgusted, or - it's not," he mumbles. Because there are times Charles has, and it's - there are certain things he finds himself sometimes tripping over, and - it's not what he wants. He knows he'll get over it. But to pretend it isn't there is doing both of them a disservice when Erik expects honesty. "It's not you. Okay? Please don't ever think I'd be disgusted or even remotely upset at you for what happened, or the things you think as a result." But he can't help reacting to it sometimes, either, especially the things that match memories he hasn't unlocked yet. Those can stay rattling around in the box for eternity.

"Of course not," Erik tells him, stroking his face. "I know if you-it's just because-I didn't know and, I would want to know. I don't care about anything else, OK?" he whispers, brushing Charles's hair behind his ears. He knows the same will inevitably be true of him, too. That's what Gabrielle said. The more he works on things, the more he'll come to realize what really happened in terms of normal, baseline experiences and the more reactive he might get. He just can't fathom that right now because he views it so practically. "Never feel like you can't tell me. I won't react bad. We'll handle it together, OK?"

Charles' lips twitch, a soft, vaguely amused little smile as he curls himself properly against Erik's chest. "Even if you do react, we'll handle it," he whispers, because all things considered they're doing extraordinarily well on the meltdown front. They find new ways to cope each and every day, it seems, and it all starts here. Which brings him to something else. "Erik?" he whispers.

He blinks up, calm and expectant. "Yes, _neshama_?"

Unfortunately Charles is a bit distracted, humming as he winds his fingers up in Erik's hair, twisting the curls around and playing idly. Will Erik let him cut his hair? He's good at following instructions, and if he sees something done he can perfectly replicate it. Charles needs a haircut, too; it's always grown fast, and it's already creeping down to his shoulders again. Whatever he'd wanted to say, he's dropped it in favor of petting Erik's head, drifting and soft again.

Erik starts laughing, almost giggling even, terribly amused and delighted by all the wayward turns of Charles's thoughts and he settles into a grin. "Of course," he whispers back, and kisses him right on the nose for his trouble. Erik's never thought about it for himself, but he definitely does need a haircut. It's all flippy and coiled up these days, tumbling down his shoulders like he's in a shampoo commercial. Carmen got him one before his court date but it's grown back fast, and he doesn't even remember that because he'd been spending all of his time projected toward Charles. It might be nice for Charles to do it for him, but he doesn't really have instructions. Not too short. He doesn't like buzzed hair.

Charles doesn't like it, either, but he artfully hides his grimace, curling one particular strand round and round his finger. "I was thinking I'd watch a YouTube tutorial, actually," he laughs, giggling himself as he tries to remember that squirming isn't particularly optimal at the moment. "Of course, I watched one before the Christmas roast..." It's a true wonder, really, because Charles is at least decent - usually extraordinary, just as a side effect, no need to be humble - at nearly everything he applies himself at after a certain point, a mix of genius intellect and stubbornness both, except that one particular area. He's not even below average, he's abysmal. "Let's hope this isn't the other exception, or you may be bald," he teases, and then giggles harder.

"A _YouTube_ tutorial!" Erik snorts, tossing his head (and subsequently, hair) back as if to say ' _hmph_!' He instead puts his whole head up against Charles's cheek, rubbing like a cat. Charles has found that spot that makes him all jello-y and he lets out a little rumble of approval, eyes crinkled as he looks up at Charles. "What did you want to tell me, hm?" his eyebrows arch. See? Erik. Not very good at letting things go.

Here Charles sighs, still stroking and playing with Erik's hair, but eventually his hand drops and he sits back on his Dominant's lap, wincing in the process but still smiling, however slight. "We really don't know when we'll be back in Israel, Erik," he whispers, and the message there is clear.

....."Is the message clear to _me_?" Erik laughs a little, head tilted to the side.

Charles snorts, ducking his head to hide the amused twitch to his lips. "I mean we probably shouldn't spend all of the time we have here in this bedroom," he says, which is what he'd said before, but now it's not tinged with frustration and unsatisfied need. Now it's concern over Erik, and how he'll feel once time has passed. "We did also spend some time in the desert. And crying," he points out, not that his ruddy cheeks and red-rimmed eyes don't make that apparent. "So unless we plan to dehydrate..." Yes, Erik can levitate some water to them. He's hoping he forgets that.

Erik doesn't even need to levitate water to them. He holds up his hand and a small puddle forms in the center, perfectly aligned and without spilling over the edges, and he grins brilliantly. He thinks about it a little and his smile turns bittersweet. He doesn't really know where they should go, or what they should do. Everything that once was familiar to him is gone, isn't it?

That puddle is very impressive, but considering the science behind it - Erik isn't magic, he's just manipulating a fundamental force, which is basically magic, depending on who you ask, and he does have questions about where he's been getting all his materials from, but that curiosity and awe can wait for later - not sustainable. They need to leave this room, but Charles doesn't think it needs to be wholly sad. "You have family here," he reminds Erik quietly. "Who very much want to get to know you. You have children who missed you, and a friend who loves you. And maybe what you're specifically familiar with is gone," he allows, because if he doesn't he wouldn't be honest, "But this is still your home. They speak your language here. There are people very much like the people you remember, who were raised and taught the same things in the same way, or at least share likeness. I know you can feel it, Erik. I know it's frightening, too, but you shouldn't deny yourself it. This is where you started. We should celebrate that."  


* * *

He's been wavering about that, truth be told. Between feeling the grief, and feeling the warmth. Of feeling like he is home, and remembering there is no home. Forgetting that he's here, with his family. Does that make him a bad person? For so long they didn't exist, and when they did Erik was certain they wouldn't want anything to do with him. A hot second passes, and Erik does think of something after a moment and his grin returns full force. "OK, but it's a secret," he presses a finger against Charles's lips. "You can't peek."

Charles kisses Erik's finger, enthused by that. "What kind of secret?" he asks immediately, because he's nothing if not curious, and then proceeds to tap gently at Erik's mind. Not peeking, but nudging, little tell me! tell me! as he smiles.

"A _secret_ secret," Erik whispers back conspiratorially. "Somewhere-I want to take you. If you wish to come."

It goes without saying. "Will I need clothes?" is his question, a sheepish, soft grin, because putting on clothes over his poor, welted body sounds particularly rough at the moment. He'd earned it, but still. Technically the answer is no, anyway. He can make anyone see whatever he'd like them to, but just because he can doesn't mean he's going to. It does bring up another concern, and this one he bites his lip for, ready to mentally prepare. "Will there be a lot of people?"

Erik thinks about that for a moment, but at the end of the day it only matters how comfortable Charles is. If isn't good with walking about naked even when other people technically can't see it-well, Erik doesn't blame him. (Well, OK, Erik pretty much goes around naked 24/7, but... potato, tomato.) Point being, he leaves the clothing equation up to Charles. They will be in public, but there won't be many people. Erik has already made sure of that.

"You're coming around to clothes," he comments, grinning to himself, because Erik is even getting picky about them. He's clothed much more often than not now, at least part way. He has favorites. He's developing his own style, which is very Dominant and sometimes sends shivers up his spine. He likes to pick out Charles' clothes in the morning, and sometimes takes a while debating. It makes him think - "I have to wear clothes," he decides, because he actually isn't a fan of parading around naked, even if no one will see it and they can do pretty much whatever they please. But. He hides in Erik's neck, and forgets his own squirming rule, cheeks pink with more than just the leftover from his sobbing earlier.

"You like my clothes," Erik grins, the one that shows off every tooth in his head like a baby shark and makes his nose wrinkle up. He can't help it, especially now that he's thinking about how he quite likes it when Charles decides against clothes, thank-you-very-much. Charles is right, though, he's slowly but steadily becoming more accustomed to it, drawn unconsciously to the clean lines and bold colors of Dominant-styled wear, but unlike Charles he definitely settled on the more casual range of items, more often than not showing up in jeans and a leather jacket rather than a suit. "Mm-mm," Erik huffs, even if he knows what the question is going to be, he still wants to hear it. "Tell me," he whispers, letting the Order zip right up Charles's spine and settle in the base of his skull.

Charles does shiver at that, toes curling with it, and he makes a low whine as he's practically forced to wriggle again. "Yourclothes," he mumbles in one breath, somewhere in Erik's chest. "Please," he adds, because he's a good boy.

"Of course, _neshama_ ," Erik whispers back, and he holds out his hand, drawing a soft white long-sleeved shirt (Erik doesn't actually own any T-shirts, disliking displaying his arms and their myriad of scars and that tattoo for anybody else) from his luggage that Charles knows is among one of his favorites, and a pair of worn, faded jeans that are his most comfortable (but also are definitely too long for Charles, and much too big-Erik's been gaining pretty steadily since his release, although 140 on him looks pretty much the same as 106 on Charles) but abilities make it work and by the time Charles lifts them up they fit perfectly, a little flippy at the ends to envelop sock feet in tiny denim hugs. "Arms up," he says as he slides the shirt down over Charles's shoulders and then gives him a tap and a whistle.

Charles likes it very much when Erik dresses him. Not only when he picks his clothes out (as he does pretty much every day now, and Charles waits dutifully for it, eagerly), but when he takes even this simple act from him, does it exactly as he pleases and to his liking. That it's Erik's clothes only makes it better in this instance, and immediately he's clung back to Erik. It's achy and sore, but it's a good reminder, and it reminds him to be clingy, never quite leaving the headspace Erik put him in. "Thank you," he breathes, and now that they're standing he can properly rest on Erik's chest, rub his cheek there. The shirt is swimming on him, which is nice, considering his poor chest and back and shoulders, but - it reminds him of something, too. For just a second he tenses, and then it's gone in an instant. "You next?" he asks instead, hopeful. He won't pick out Erik's clothes, obviously, but maybe he can dress him. He likes that, too.

"Nono," Erik shakes his head. He chases after that tension, not wanting Charles to leave with any unpleasant reminders, especially if they have anything to do with Erik's clothes. He presses the palm of his hand against Charles's chest, over his heart. There are no marks, there, the ones on his chest are on the right side milder than the others. "Tell me?"

Charles sighs. Sometimes, he forgets how very in-tune Erik is, but he hadn't done anything to deliberately hide it, either. He drops his gaze, and uncomfortable, coiling shame pools in his belly. "I don't - it's -" He doesn't want Erik to think it's defiance, his reluctance. It certainly isn't. He couldn't be more determined to be well-behaved, to be perfect for Erik. It's something else. "It's hard, and also stupid," he mumbles. "And it's not relevant at the moment."

Erik touches his fingertips to Charles's lips, and bends down to kiss his forehead, twining his hands through Charles's hair. "It is relevant to me," he whispers, firm. He wraps Charles up in warmth, banishing away that shame for good like scurrying rats when the light is brought out. "Not stupid."

That shame is still there. It's been there for more than a decade now, and scraping it out is a bit like scraping something long-dried and stained from the carpet. Sometimes it never comes out, and it's certainly never entirely clean again. "The party," he mutters, barely audible. "This is usually when I'd... start." Including the very last one he'd attended, only two months before he'd stepped into the CIA building. Not exactly a kicked habit yet.  


* * *

Erik feels something caught in his throat and he coughs loudly, amidst trying to say the word " _what_ " and it all gets muddled together in a choking fit. "What?" he tries again, hoarse, the clear _buzz!_ of electric, jolting panic making it pretty clear that he interpreted that a very specific way.

He's fairly sure they're not thinking the same thing, but he doesn't exactly want to elaborate on what he does mean, so he settles for soothing Erik, peeking up at him. "Probably not what you're thinking," he whispers, and prods gently to see what Erik is thinking.

"Uh-huh," Erik gives his head a shake, imagining that he's loosening up some extra marbles that got stuck in his glial cells. Plink plonk. He quickly shuts down the garage door of those thoughts, putting his hands over Charles's face on either side instead, giving him a small smile. "Probably not," he grants, dry. "So tell me." He makes it an Order, if only to feel the familiar balm of Dominance to assuage the fireworks of panic still yet to be soothed.

He can't say it, so he shows it, at least the part he was thinking about, flashes of pieced together memories that float above them and in more vivid detail than he's comfortable with, but now that he's thinking about it there they are. It's tinged with a mix of horrible shame and sick pride, wrapped up together in a heady cocktail that he can never resist swallowing. He stops eating first. Depending on how much time he has, how much advanced notice, he sometimes starts slow; cutting calories, counting them more deliberately and noticeably than usual. Breakfast goes first (he rarely has it anyway, before Erik), then lunch (he works through it anyway), and finally dinner. He drinks enough water to drown his organs in, flushing everything out. He used to drink more heavily, both in preparation and because it makes him vomit, but he's been mostly sober lately so that stopped being an option. He pushes himself harder when he exercises. When he goes to his at-least-once-a-week lunch with Raven, he plays old tricks - push the food around the plate so no one notices you aren't eating, so it looks like you're making progress, swish the food to the side of your mouth and chew for an exceptionally long time. Sometimes he finds a way to make himself sick, anyway. He checks the scale constantly. He takes his measurements obsessively, sucking in his stomach in the mirror, pinching his cheeks and sighing in exasperation. It's a ritual. It almost always works. "Stupid," he sighs, in the now, and those images evaporate like smoke, whisked back away. Stupid, but he's contemplating how he can do it this time.

Erik lifts his chin, and bows their heads together, letting it wash over him. There's no horror or shock-it turns out that even this is something Erik's already known, or felt along the edges of the invisible concepts he can't quite name or comprehend-a lifetime living in the exact opposite mindstate makes it very difficult-but he's a smart person, and he's seen the gamut of coping mechanisms over the years enough for it not to completely be out of the ballpark, but he's been aware of it. It's part of the reason he is strict about Charles's routine, why he keeps an eye on it and doesn't allow for any opportunities to slide back. "I know," he murmurs, wrapping Charles up in a gentle hug, rocking him lightly from side to side. "Not stupid, OK? And not this time. I won't let that happen. You are too important to me."

It's not that he thought Erik didn't know - they've skirted this before. It's that seeing it, admitting it, is wholly different from conceptually knowing something or even seeing glimpses, and today has been an exercise in it. He doesn't say anything, swallowing as Erik rocks him. Part of him thinks otherwise, that he will find a way, and he's sure Erik sees it because he tries not to hide even the most incriminating of thoughts in times like this, but they don't need to address that now. He forces a smile instead. "Can I dress you?" he asks.

He curls his fingers over Charles's jaw, tugging him away from self-effacing denial. No more forced smiles. Maybe Erik isn't omnipotent, and maybe if Charles really wanted to he can force Erik not to notice and alter things so that he isn't aware, but just like that week when he hid, Erik knows that Charles wants to be good, and eventually Erik will know. There isn't a whole lot he can do to stop it if Charles really puts his mind to wanting to hide, they both know that, it will be up to Charles to loop him in. And Erik knows it will be hard, and that he might falter and mess up, but he also trusts Charles, and they will get through that, too. The only thing that Erik has ever cared about is his health and safety. It doesn't help that he's already got a complex about it that would exist even if Charles didn't have that particular hang-up, either. He's seen too many people wither away into nothing and die, he refuses to let that happen to Charles. He knows he can't fix it, just like Charles can't magically make him understand the nuances of his earlier questions, but for being together they are both moving forward. They aren't moving back. "You are beautiful, and I love you, OK? I will always do my best to protect you. Always."

It makes Charles guilty, too. Erik has literally been in danger of starving to death, and Charles - what? It's true that for most of his childhood (and now, too), he couldn't eat without being sick, but it's developed since then. Another charming inheritance from his mother. He sighs, staring down at his feet. "I know," he murmurs. "It really isn't that unhealthy. I've always been perfectly fine afterwards. You don't need to fret, I promise. It doesn't even need discussing," he promises, and his smile is more sincere than before, if faltering.

"I know you know I do not believe that," Erik taps him on the nose. If he thought he could convince Erik, he's sorely mistaken. Erik knows only too well how fast a person can slide into cardiac problems and imbalances. It's happened to him and to many of those children out there, and he won't let it happen to Charles, either. "I haven't pushed, and I won't now," Erik murmurs. "But you need to know that I take this extremely seriously. I take your _health_ , and your _wellbeing_ , and your _happiness_ seriously."

"Too late," he mumbles, because Erik has seen him at sixteen. He's very thin now, it's true, underweight still even despite Erik's efforts. As a teenager, he might as well have been a living toothpick, snapped as easily as a breeze. His biggest source of calories was booze, and even then he was careful. It's impossible to live like that without complications. "But I'm careful now. You don't need to keep an eye on it," he mutters, staring at his feet again. "It's not an issue."

"You do not tell me what I do and do not need to keep an eye on," Erik murmurs back, swiping a fingertip over that mark on his cheek in reminder, lifting Charles's chin to meet his eyes. "You are mine. I will always keep an eye on you, in all matters."

Charles isn't going to argue that. He knows it is an issue, anyway, despite his best attempts at denial. He does understand these things, even if he ignores every sign in himself, even if he'd much rather turn his head to it. "Okay," he agrees quietly, lip white again where his teeth are dug into it. "Secret?" he prompts. And clothes. Maybe Erik will let him shine his shoes again. Charles is oddly fixated on that today.

"Secret-secret," Erik whispers back, fond. A matching white cable-knit sweater floats out, along with another pair of jeans, and they land neatly folded in Charles's outstretched arms. He gives a little laugh at the image of his shoes being shined again. Considering how dirty those ones are, a new pair makes its way over, already fairly... shiny.

Not shiny enough! But shoes go last, and Charles diligently gets to work, having to stand up on his toes and ask nicely for Erik to bend down to get the sweater on like always, but he likes that part. Almost as much as he likes getting on his knees to button and zip Erik's jeans, and then put a shoe on both feet after his socks (after giving them each a kiss). And then he does shine them, as a matter of fact, because he likes being on his knees for Erik, and he likes serving Erik, and because he's proud when they're very shiny. He's going to be so well-behaved. Erik's good boy. It makes him shiver, thinking that way, and he doesn't want to get up at first, kneeling at Erik's feet, sinking further as he does. He likes it down here.

"You know, if you keep thinking like that, you might never find out this very secret-secret," Erik purrs, tangling his fingers gently in Charles's hair and pulling him so his head rests against Erik's knee. He scritches lightly, sending warm tingles from the back of Charles's head all the way to the tips of his feet, ticklish little waves of electricity that break out gooseflesh over his skin and swirl Erik's Will all throughout the room.

"Mmmm," is Charles' very astute response to that, eyes half-lidded and he purrs himself and soaks up every ounce of Will and affection, shivering and soft for it. He's certainly not going to get up until he's bid. He made a very good case for spending their time here well so Erik doesn't regret it, but now that he's on his knees and sinking, he'd be perfectly content to be pet and owned for a good, solid forever. Which is definitely more of those thoughts Erik was talking about.

"Mhm," Erik grins down at him and carefully tugs him up to his feet. "Come along, _tayer_. We have a very special secret to get to. Are you ready?" he drapes a soft blanket over Charles's shoulders, just for a moment before it dissolves into the air, so he isn't too warm before they head outside. It's early morning by now, the sun just beginning to raise over the horizon as Erik leads them out, creeping along as not to disturb all the pattering feet of children on the floor. Everyone's laying in a big pile in the living room, huddled up together and hugging one another, and Erik kneels down to pet them and arrange their sheets, a soft smile on his face.

Early morning? He supposes it was late afternoon when they'd settled down for that nap, but he hadn't thought to check the time since then. He doesn't mention that they're very much not following a schedule - he can count on one hand and not even all of those fingers how many times they've collectively eaten in the past four or five days, not to mention lack of sleep, and now he's concerned for Erik - but he doesn't mention it, because he doesn't exactly want to turn the conversation back there. He's not sure where they're going considering the time, either, but he smiles softly as they step out of the living room, brushing each mind carefully, some of them still sleeping, ease and comfort and a balm for heavier thoughts. Whatever it is, he's curious and eager to know, and he stays plastered close to Erik, completely unwilling to be separated at the moment, but wholly willing to follow obediently.

Ellie is smack dab in the middle of the pile with plenty of kids strewn over her and Erik touches her shoulder, watching as she stirs mid-sleep but Charles manages to keep everyone under and nudge anyone who's awoken past that point back into dreamless slumber by the time they're out the door. Erik takes a few moments to orient to where he is before they're lifting up in the air, while the plants are still dewy from morning condensation and birds chirp and insects twizzle all around. It's hot even now, but Erik regulates the temperature in their little bubble so Charles is comfortable by the time they set down. The early morning means no one is around yet, and the streets have turned to cobblestone, a little alleyway tucked in the middle of nowhere.

It's still extremely warm for Charles, but he's finding he rather likes it if only because it's comfortable for Erik, and he hasn't shivered once from the chill this entire trip. He's willing to sweat a bit for that, if only because it's a nice change. Even with the area empty he can hear voices, but he's much more capable of muting them down than he has been; it's louder, but he's more in control now, the worst of that particular episode over with. He clings to Erik's side, curious and seeking but not prodding too hard, waiting to be shown and taught. Whatever Erik wants to show him, he wants to see, so he waits as patiently as he's capable of, his own mind buzzing and soft, still dipped far into subspace.  


* * *

Erik's own mind reaches out, touching every available surface until he finds what he's looking for and he tugs Charles forward with a secretive little laugh. "---here!" he declares at last, and they skid to a stop just outside of a small cafe tucked in between two bakeries. It's closed, and only the sound of a garbage truck up ahead pulling away from the curb shows any sign of human activity at all around here, and Erik lifts his hand to open the door and let them in, turning the lights on. There's plants in the windowsills, draped all around, art-deco wallpaper on the inside and menus written in chalkboards above baked goods leftover from the night before. It's familiar-Charles recognizes it from one of Erik's very early memories, red coffee and fried donuts in the winter sunlight and being too tiny to comprehend the vast world around, this small section of the old quarter much larger than anything he'd known before.

It's a bit difficult to hide a secret from Charles, and he knew just about when they rounded the corner, instinctively watching where Erik's mind went. He's always fascinated by the way he intuitively knows where and what things are, how he understands them, so different from how Charles gleans information. There are people around, actually, but none of them are going to see, and it is extremely quiet, peaceful - he's always liked this particular memory. Erik's showed it to him more than once, and he can't help the too-big smile on his face, still glued to Erik but taking everything in. "It's lovely," he breathes, and then there's a much younger Erik standing in front of them, taking it in just as they are - an exact replication, the past pulled forward, the room suddenly filled and bustling with activity, sounds and smells and talking, chatting and ordering, everything fresh and Real as if it were happening in the moment. Everything is exactly as it was, exactly as it is. When it vanishes, leaving the residue behind, the wonder and the smell of fresh coffee, Charles is reeling with it. "Brilliant," he murmurs.

Younger-Erik is accosted by a frazzled Edie, and he's trying to climb up the counters and she yanks him off and cuffs him in the back of the head, which makes him wilt sheepishly. He's got a _sufganiyah_ tucked under his shirt and the crumbs trickle down onto the floor. When she looks away he stuffs it into his face. "Erik!" she scolds and he blinks up at her, mouth too full to even talk, the picture of innocence, batting way-too long eyelashes and rocking back and forth on his heels. " _Hu hizdakek avodah l'ze, ken?_ " the ghostly-proprietor gives Edie a grin. As they fade away, Erik can't help but laugh, chuckling into the back of his hand. Sometimes when Charles pulls up memories like this, it's as if he's watching another child, one he doesn't know, and he can't help but feel amusement and fondness.

None of it is ghostly until it's gone. It still lingers for Charles, images that burst and play out, sped up or slowed down and rewound, time and place distorted in the process. He takes a slow, even breath and closes his eyes until he can properly see what's in front of him, but that this place was touched by Erik, that his mind knows it doesn't escape his notice; when he walks forward and touches the counter, it's all there again as if it's happening in this very moment. He lets himself absorb these particular memories readily because they're light, soft and airy and tinged by the smell of baked goods and freshly-brewed coffee, by sunshine and sun-kissed freckles and a woman's deep voice. It isn't anything he's ever properly experienced, but it feels familiar to him, the way Erik chats excitedly to a mother who listens, who looks at him as if he's more than a nuisance she's found herself unfortunately saddled with. He smiles softly, throat clogged with emotion when he leans back against Erik, knowing instinctively that he'll be there to lean against, not bothering to check beforehand. "It's all still here, Erik," he whispers, because this sort of thing doesn't get destroyed easily. It stays.

Erik is drawn to a small pin clasped to the front register, a reddish-golden _מ_ within a circle slanted to the side-familiar but one of the many international takes on the organization and one which has come to ubiquitously represent support of Erik's court case. "Come," Erik whispers, leading Charles gently back behind the counter (after leaving some money in the till).

It's almost amusing, Erik's propensity to go behind counters. It's true that the first couple times no one else could see him, and that no one will this time, either, but Charles has had that ability for nearly his entire life and somehow managed otherwise. He laughs and obeys anyway, following along after running his own fingers over that pin. "Alternatively," he grins, head ducked as he crowds into his Dominant again. "We could have waited for this place to open, and then come in. That's generally how these things work, you see."

Erik grins at him. "Mmno, much better like this," he insists, having absolutely caught Charles as soon as he began to list forward and now had him tucked safely in his arms. He leads them back to a large array of bronze-painted machines with many complicated levers and buttons, and he lifts his hand, levitating two small cups on china plates. He holds up two fingers to shush Charles's inevitable protest, his eyebrows arched up and lips pursed, eyes wide as he flicks fingers at Charles before Erik goes straight for a short-handled _finjan_ , and he has one of these at home (the longer-handled Turkish _cezve_ ) but it's not made as well-it will be now that he's familiarizing himself with this one. "I remember coming here every Hanukkah," he laughs, nudging into Charles's side. "We took this enormous train to get here, it was always such a big event. We'd go see all the little shops and the _Shuk_ , I don't know if you've seen that yet. It's really popular." Erik's chattering a little like a magpie at this point, pulling out spices from the rack, a little pepper, a sugar cube, cardamom ( _"it will completely change your perspective!_ " Erik insists) and powdered sugar.

It certainly smells nice, if nothing else, but Charles isn't going to mention that he's tried many a different coffee and not been made a convert. No need to be hushed again. It's something Erik clearly enjoys doing, something he wants to share with him, and that means much more than a debate over his loyalty to a proper cup of tea. Instead he watches and listens as Erik works, and while he adores the way he manipulates his mutation, creating and forming and tinkering, there's something to be said about his hands, too; watching them work, familiarize, how lovingly and carefully they touch everything, how objects respond as if formed uniquely to his grip by virtue of being held by him. It's not just objects, though. Charles is certain he was made to be touched by Erik, and he rests against his side, eyes bright and filled with unbridled adoration as he listens, quiet for once. Erik's switched languages, a completely unconscious mental flip, and Charles listens with all the rapt attention in the world, hanging on to every word, thrilling in the sounds of each syllable. He pulls up memories as Erik speaks, plucking them from those far corners, letting them breathe and speak, too.

Of course, Erik knows deep down that he'll never really convert Charles away from tea, but he is confident Charles has never had real, genuine _botz_ before and there is something to be said for the whole experience. Every time Erik makes his morning coffee back home he's transported here, and now that those tastes-refined from real, local products and equipment-are matching up with the background, Erik can't help but putter around with an totally unconscious grin on his face. Apparently Erik's fascination with behind counters started at an early age, because by the time he was one and crawling on his feet he'd try to come back and poke around, much to the owner's dismay. Back then he was a younger old-man, but these days he walks stooped-over with a cane, mostly only coming to check on his grandsons who inherited the place, which had been a staple hang out in the Eisenhardt clan for generations before their move from Old _Yishuv_. The walls breathe not only memories of Erik and Edie, but Edie and Ruth (the first), and Max as well.

Charles makes sure they live and breathe appropriately, until the entire place is filled with more than echoes; there's nothing quite like it, nothing to compare it to except perhaps the experience of going back in time, true and proper. Even memories that should be dulled and foggy and vague from Erik's perspective, if he retained them at all, are bright and impossibly vivid, full-color and sound and smell, conversations long faded by time renewed and revisited and slipping into every pause in the conversation now. There's laughter and love and there are quiet moments, too, seriousness that never diminishes the rest of it. There are faces that look so very much like Erik's (because Erik's looks like theirs). He brings them all to life, lets them tell their stories and Erik's, too, Reality shifting to accommodate each one, morning and afternoon and winter and summer, the shape of the wood and the décor and the slight peeling of the wallpaper. Charles grips the cup he's been handed tightly, finding he's rather out of tears but it certainly doesn't ease the clenching in his heart, the lump that's formed in his throat. "Thank you," he breathes.

_"_ Chag sameach! _" Ruth muscles in through the door, arms cradling several brown paper bags with electrical tape and hammers and wood spilling overtop. The windows are blown out, large sheets of glass smashed onto the ground and Akiva, the owner, is stood outside in a pink apron sweeping them up in long even strokes from a tattered broom-_

_"What do you mean, Athens? Oh, so he's a-"- "Say it and you won't be getting any customers from_ Sisim _this year, Kive," Edith warns, pointing a finger at him. "It's bad enough I have to hear my parents kvetch about it, I won't take it from you."- "And I suppose you'll-" - "That's right! I_ will _," she sticks her tongue out at him. "Trust me, the cholent's a lot better."_

_Sirens blare loudly overhead. "Down in the basement-in the basement-Erik, Ruthie-" an older girl with dark hair that falls down her shoulders in a cascade, and Iakov's dark eyes whips around to glare, "-stop playing around-" Edith grabs him by the shirt collar and pulls him toward her, and huddles down with all the other patrons beneath_ Matokafe _-_

_"You make sure the water is cold, now, you don't want to have lukewarm or boiling water, then you won't get any foam!" Kive's standing over Iakov's shoulder, and Iakov is mumbling something completely unintelligible that Charles recognizes, but Kive clearly does not, because he throws his hands up. "Oh, he doesn't understand a word I'm saying! Edith!" - "Just speak slowly!" - "Get him a dictionary for his-" "Not one more word!" - "_ Sketos _," Iakov grins over at him, eyebrows arched, and he holds out the two lumps of sugar. "_ Metrios, glykos, vary glykos _-" - "He's-wait, yes!" Kive animates suddenly at understanding him and hurries off to compare notes on coffee sweetness-_

_"Kiv, when are you going to fix these miserable windows?" Max strong-arms the door open, dragging a cart of fresh produce behind him. "We're doing well, I brought leftovers." - "When are you going to quit that ridiculous fantasy and make Ruth a proper wife?" Akiva returns archly. - "Ah_ hafsek, hafsek _," he mutters a curse under his breath. "I'll do it when people stop feeling the urge to slash my tires-" - "Max!-" Ruth grins brightly at him, completely halting whatever it is he was planning on ranting about. "Don't be a nag, Kive. Let me help you with those-"_

Voices overlap with people as they appear and disappear, and Erik's eyes trail around the room, eager to absorb every word and every sound of laughter and every barking word of anger and frustration, arguments and songs and prayers and joy that lives in this place, from its patrons to its regulars to the people ingratiated as family and that means every year Erik sure enough crops up, until one year he doesn't, and that year things are quieter. Solemn. Erik gasps as they slowly dissipate, and he has in his hands a small plate of _baklava_ and perfectly made _botz_ for both of them, holding one out for Charles with a smile on his face, moving to swipe at his eyes once they're free.

They dissipate, and then they don't. Not for him. Charles is realizing that perhaps his natural way of experiencing the world includes all of it, and that perhaps when that particular facet is uninhibited, that's where the problem lies; it's more than one human being was ever meant to process, too many memories and voices and whispers, too many Realities and none of them any more real than the next, the past and the present and the in between blending to make a whole, full picture that only he has complete access to. It brings back the headache, but he'd take a thousand for this. But he can share it in part, in pieces, and he takes the cup from Erik's hands and sets it down, throwing his arms around him instead, reaching up on his toes to wipe those tears, tugging on his sweater until he bends slightly and he can kiss them instead. And then his cheeks, his nose, the corner of his lips, his chin, his jaw, rubbing against his beard. "Do you think -" But it's a silly, fanciful question, and he regrets thinking it a moment later. He shakes his head and buries himself in Erik instead.

Erik melts against him, cupping the back of his neck and bowing their heads together, immediately gaining comfort from being so close to Charles in this way. There's a small table and a leather couch in the back next to a window that's still broken seventy years later-and while Charles can see the memories of the past and present converge Erik's abilities sink right into the foundation staked into the earth below, knowing instinctively that the wood paneling on the walls is still original, that the furniture has been restored but for all intents and purposes remains in vintage style, that the wallpaper and art has changed over the years but the guts of the building, of its structure, call back to a point in history of growth and independence. Erik leads them to it and sits, drawing Charles onto his lap and letting the plates and cups float over to the table beside them. "Do I think-?" he whispers back, eyebrows arched.

Charles shakes his head, twisting on Erik's lap (and hissing with the effort, he keeps forgetting how damn sore he is) and playing with the fabric of his sweater, bunching it between his fingers, running the softness of the knit over his skin to keep himself busy. "Passing thought," he whispers, and focuses on the here-and-now, reducing the rest to quiet background noise that occasionally slips through, mixing with the rest of the voices. It's not buzzing anymore, not really, but he can't say that it's pleasant, the ache settling firmly behind his temples as he listens. It's worth it, and when something particularly strong bursts out, he passes it along to Erik, letting them both be its audience. "Thank you," he repeats from earlier, quiet and so sincere his voice cracks under the weight of it.

Erik shakes his head. It's not him that should be thanked, and he wants Charles to be firmly aware of this. Many of these experiences he has no recollection of himself, and many of them don't even involve Erik. Charles is the one responsible for this and Erik knows it, and he brushes Charles's hair back and tucks it behind his ear, smiling wetly at him in return. "I never had any of this," he croaks, touching his own chest. "I didn't know. Thank you."

It's all inside of Erik, whether he knew it or not. It's all exactly where Charles said it would be, and he folds his hand over his Bonded's. Right over his heart. "Thank you for sharing it with me," he clarifies, because he couldn't possibly say what it means to him that Erik has. That they're experiencing it together. He rests his head on Erik's shoulder and lets a particularly warm memory play out, transforming the space effortlessly again; there's some sort of game going on at one of the tables, the lights dimmed and the conversation heated. Erik is here, too, though he truly can't be older than a year, and he toddles around on unsteady, much chubbier legs, a full head of curly red hair, his speech mostly gibberish. He seems very intent on touching everything, which is very Erik-like. "You were adorable," he grins, peeking up at his Erik. "Look at you go. So determined. Your little face is all scrunched up."

He can't help the laughter, burying his head in Charles's neck as it bubbles over and he squints one eye open to watch the baby version of himself struggle to put one foot in front of the other, eyebrows knit together and nose wrinkled up as he sticks his arms straight out in front of himself like a little zombie. The adults are arguing about something, but it's faded in the background and to Erik, the world is still full of magic-(it's still full of magic, it still sparkles and draws him to its creaky passages and winding crevices buried in places most people walk past without a second glance, even after sixteen years of being forced to look at every ugly, peeling-fat plasma-leaked internal organ-failure, it's still there, and he still tries to show it to Charles as much as he can)-and unfortunately the adults are too caught up and Erik's too wandery and nosy and he falls right over, but before he can smash into the ground (he tips over like a bundled up crate of logs instead of falling like a normal person, so it might even be intentional), he stops a nose's-breadth away from the floor. His nose twitches and he lets out a big grin, and then he rolls onto his back, when finally Edith notices him and swoops him right up into the air. " _Ma atah ose shem lemata, hm? Ma atah ose!_ " she scrunches up her face and gives him a huge, smacking kiss on the forehead.

Erik points at the scene. "Did-did you see that?" his eyes are wide as saucers. "Look what I did!"

Charles laughs, a dimpled grin on his face as he shakes his head and ducks it into Erik's shoulder. "I saw," he confirms, impossibly fond. It honestly feels like it might burst in this very moment, that perhaps there's simply not enough room for all that he's feeling. It certainly isn't uncommon for a mutation to peek itself out during early development before full manifestation, and that Erik was keeping himself from faceplanting as a toddler doesn't surprise him in the least. "You've always been brilliant, Erik," he whispers, and the scene changes again. He blinks with it, settling into Erik to watch; Erik is older now, but not by much. Four, maybe five. A girl that Charles recognizes as his sister (that always clenches awfully in his heart and stomach, but he swallows it down) is crouched down and playing with him, but something catches Charles' eye. The lighting in this memory is much better, full daylight as well as the artificial. His eyebrows pull together and he looks between tiny Erik and - well, giant Erik, laughing again when he draws his conclusion. "Apparently you did not always catch yourself," he comments, brushing his finger over a barely noticeable, long-faded scar on Erik's lip. As a rule, Charles doesn't question and certainly doesn't ask after Erik's scars; if he touches and lingers, sometimes memories crop up on their own, but he doesn't press anymore than Erik does now that he can see Charles'. This one, he's assuming, was earned much less horrifically than so many of the others. "I hope it was a worthy adventure," he teases. He's suddenly much fonder of that little white line, running his thumb over it.

Erik pokes out his tongue and licks Charles's finger, a stark reminder that he can be just as playful and silly as his five-year-old self from time to time and he nods, a soft smile on his face. The memory isn't from _Matokafe_ , but he shares it anyway, the dirt roads of _Sisim_ unfolding behind his mind's eye. Indications begin to make themselves apparent even in early childhood, and it was clear by the time Erik turned two that he'd be Dominant, but it's customary in Erik's village not to run panels until kids are a bit older, letting them develop naturally among their friend-groups until they hit five or six, so Erik's still pre-test and entirely without the stigma or hardship of fretting over the future-most-likely resulting from his D5 score. He's a bossy, demanding child but manages to draw people to him like magnets, the ones he's always been so drawn to even before his abilities properly flourished. Ruthie's decided to teach him how to ride a bicycle and he gets it almost immediately, but much like a lot of high-Dom children he gets too cocky too quickly and goes sailing down a hill before he can cope, losing his grip and crashing in the grass. Ruthie's running after him in shock, but by the time she gets there he's just sitting on the ground with his hair all stuck up from his helmet, blood pouring down his face-he's quiet, sitting in shock because it's honestly the worst injury he'd ever experienced up until now-which startles a shriek out of Ruthie. Erik laughs at it in retrospect. "She was... it frightened her something badly."

It gives Charles a fright, too, and he's seen Erik go through significantly worse. He doesn't like to see his Dominant hurt, though, so he kisses that tiny scar and then pecks Erik on the lips for good measure, settling back into his shoulder. "Do you think eventually they would have liked me?" he asks, and this time the question slips out before Charles can even begin to stop it. The cafe still isn't empty, as if it exists in an in between space itself for the moment, and Charles watches from his hidden spot.

He smooths a few wrinkles from Charles's shirt away, kissing him along the temple gently, sending a little shiver of electric Will in-between. "I know that they would have loved you instantly," he whispers back, completely and totally assured. He doesn't have to think about it or wonder. But his deepest regret is that Charles will never experience it for himself, not first-hand. The only comfort Erik can take is that it was them who taught him how to love at all, and them who kept it with him even in the darkest of places. Making sure he didn't forget.

Charles isn't so certain. His mind flutters out at the kiss to his temple, unraveling and sparking for a moment, but he refuses to let it go where it wants to. He refuses even more to let it touch Erik in this moment, to taint even a second of it. "You still have family, Erik," he whispers instead. "I'd like very much to make a home with you, but you still have a home here, too. I'd like to think this won't be our only trip to Israel." He'll insist it isn't, actually. "I know it's frightening, but it's wonderful, too. You have -" He takes an even breath, refusing to be choked up. "I know this has been difficult, to make an understatement, but I'm very glad we're here right now."

"Me, too," Erik ducks his head, doing his best to avoid having tears spill over. "They like you, too," he taps Charles on the nose. "I forget, sometimes, you know-that they're here, and-" and Erik keeps hoping it doesn't make him a terrible person-he hasn't spent much time with them, he's nervous, and it all sort of spills out, all those marbles lodged up in there bouncing off the floor at last. "I hope-" they don't think Erik doesn't like them, because it isn't true, he very much does, but that makes it all the more difficult. They've all seen the footage, too. He shakes his head, pressing into Charles's side, apologetic.

"I know, darling," Charles sighs, and sits up on Erik's lap so he can press their foreheads together again. He strokes his hand over Erik's cheek, and then through his hair, smiling softly, reassuringly. "They don't think that, though. They understand. You've gone so long without, it's only natural. But they do want to know you," he murmurs, because even in the short amount of time they'd interacted, Charles had seen that most of all. "It's alright to be nervous. I'll be there, too, hm? But I want you to have this. There are people who missed you, very much, and all of -" He gestures, vague and dismissive. "It's truly horrid, of course it is, but it couldn't possibly get in the way of what matters. You're alive, and so are they, and they - they love you, Erik."

There's something deeper lurking there, though, and it's not just nervousness and it's not just, as Charles has thought, because of Charles that they've spent most of their time together here sequestered away. It's more than that, like dangling feet amidst a dark, endless ocean waiting for a circling predator to smell the blood trickling down and annihilate. He isn't quite sure how to cast any light on it without coming across as stupid and foolish, so he just treads water, hoping a shark doesn't think of him as a particularly tasty treat.

He doesn't have any illusions that it's just him, as much as he likes to blame himself. It's not at all surprising to him when it's been lingering for quite some time. "Talk to me, please," he begs, soft and imploring, the opposite of even Erik's gentlest Orders. He could reach forward and take it, but he won't, and he never has; he wants Erik to be able to tell him, too, to show him, to help him understand so he can help. "It isn't foolish, whatever it is. Please."

He levitates the china plates and cups over, settling the _baklava_ on Charles's knee and holding out the still-fresh coffee, giving a wink and steam once again begins to curl from the lip of the mug, heated to a perfect temperature from where it'd cooled off earlier. He takes a sip of his own before straightening up, struggling to regain his bearings. "I'm afraid," he murmurs, equally soft.

Charles is fairly sure the indication there is drink, but he waits anyway, holding it in his hands and feeling the steam, his eyes on Erik instead as he nudges closer. "I know," he whispers. "Can you tell me why?"

Erik has been struggling to talk about this for months, a peculiar facet of his conditioning that's buried it under the vast ocean of silence since he'd brought that building down, despite every fiber of his being screaming for light and justice to be thrown onto the perpetrators responsible for everything that happened to him, to the kids, to countless, hundreds of others-and guilt, because he should've been more vocal about this, he should have found a way to overcome it and he still doesn't know if he can. "I-" he swallows around a huge lump, croaking like the frog that's suddenly jumped into his trachea.

"It's alright if you can't right now," Charles reassures him, gentle and encouraging, and Warren and Raven like to call it his therapist voice which is rather fitting considering where they started off, but it's also just his voice. It's how he feels, and no one on this Earth has made him feel more empathetic or compassionate than Erik, which for Charles is quite the feat considering he has worked fourteen hour days so complete strangers, often accused of violent crimes, wouldn't need to feel the weight of it all on their shoulders. "If you can show me without speaking, that would work too. I want to help, that's all. I want to know so I can help you heal." He's set the cup back down - telekinetically!, which means it's spilled a bit, but he's getting there - in favor of running his fingers through Erik's hair. "You deserve to heal, darling. We're good at doing that together, hm?"

He leans into the fingers and closes his eyes, bringing up a miniature atlas in his mind and it's dark, but pinpoints of light begin to flash one after the other. America, Israel, Guatemala, Colombia, Brazil, Thailand, France, Germany, Italy, Argentina, Russia, Vietnam, India, China... All over the world, and then they gradually diminish until only one is left in the Netherlands, at the Hague. But they flicker intermittently, too. Those lights are still out there. The Hellfire Club is still out there. Decentralized and without a leader, waiting on Shaw's orders, and as a detainee in the ICC he has privileges that many prisoners don't get. He can use a computer, he can contact the outside world. If Erik lets his family in, if Erik disintegrates the protective barrier he's raised to shield them from who he really is and what's really happened-what if they-what if the same thing happens to them, that happened to-

Charles shakes his head immediately, and he turns his head to hide the way his eyes flash. "It's not a possibility," he promises. He understands the fear, and he can't even imagine shouldering it, but on this he's positive.

"It is," Erik whispers, pressing his hands into his thighs as hard as possible to stop himself from trembling. There are so many of them out there. If they find out that Erik has family, David and Ellie and his kids-the same kids who are testifying against the _Hellfire Club_ will be at insurmountable risk. Erik knows he is powerful but his power never stopped them before. He couldn't protect them before.

He shakes his head again. "It isn't," he repeats, and this time it's icy, not toward Erik, but that same cold, dangerous tone he used that day in the courtroom.

Erik nods, his throat bobbing as he swallows around that lump and tries to force it back down, acquiescent. "OK," he mumbles, rubbing rhythmically at his jeans.

Charles closes his eyes. "I can feel him," he whispers, and he knows he should have said this sooner, but he thinks that was impossible. If he knew, he didn't realize. If he recognized it, it didn't fully process. Not until exactly this moment.

"No," Erik gasps, petting Charles's cheek over and over again. "No-"

That's exactly what he feared. He keeps his eyes closed. "It's alright," he promises, quiet. "It's not - it's good. Do you remember a conversation we had a while ago, Erik?"

"Not good," Erik rasps back, shaking his head. He has a good memory, but he can't think-he doesn't want Charles anywhere near Shaw, not in body or in mind-

It's far too late for that. "We don't have a choice," he whispers, and he certainly doesn't like being aware of it, but there's no use agonizing over it. He stares down at Erik's lap.

"We absolutely have a choice," Erik returns fiercely, gripping Charles's hand in his. "I do not want you near him."

"Erik, we don't," he sighs, and trust him, he'd find another way if he could. It's not because he's particularly tickled by the concept. "Unless you want many people to die, we don't. It's alright. I don't - it's not something I think about." And perhaps that has something to do with all his malfunctioning, but _c'est la vie_. Sacrifices are made.

"No," Erik growls, eyes blazing and when his temper rises it's pure fire, elements melted together to their purest forms and every particle accelerated into a supernova. " _Fuck_ that. I will kill him myself if that is the only option."

Charles just shakes his head, still staring down between them. "Please, Erik," he whispers. "I don't feel it. I hardly notice it. It's not a bad option. I don't like knowing -" That they're connected, in any way, under any circumstances. "But I want to do this. It's important to me. In that conversation, I told you that you can't - you can't shove me away from this. I need to fight, too. Please let me."

Something about Charles's phrasing makes his anger just flare deeper, darker, ignited in that office and never extinguished, and he pushes himself off of the couch, clenching his fist, nails dug into his palms hard enough to draw little crescents of blood down his wrist by his side and staring out of the small window. It's not at Charles. No, it's very clearly self-directed, a fiery loathing none could hope to match.

Except Charles can't especially tell the difference at the moment. He huddles into himself tightly, knees pulled up to his head and arms over top. He's not frightened, but he is newly sick with guilt, tears that he knows won't fall pricking at his eyes. No matter what he does, he can't be good today.

Rather than explode or raise his voice, Erik just drags his fingernails down his wrist until he feels the familiar sting of a cut opening into droplets of blood that slide down his bad hand, and he leans forward against the windowpane, eyes shut, taking in deep breaths until the storm rages itself out and he can tuck it all back where it belongs, ensuring it doesn't touch Charles or anyone else. He quietly migrates back to Charles's side and gathers him up, stroking his hair. "It's OK. I'm sorry."

Charles stays still and tense, and there's the distinct taste of copper in his mouth from where he's bitten his lip hard enough to bleed, perfectly aware that Erik has harmed himself and he didn't do anything to make it better. He's the reason it happened in the first place. Everything was perfectly fine until he opened his mouth. It's not fine. He's sorry. He's not good. He should stop letting himself believe that he can be good when he obviously can't.

Erik silently puts a stop to that lip-biting, his mind a swirl of brightly-tempered steel as it rises up to carefully cradle all of those thoughts up and sift through them, shaking his head. It is OK, because Erik says it is OK. Because the only opinion of Charles's goodness that has ever mattered to Erik is his own, and that opinion has not once wavered. Even when Charles does act out, it doesn't alter Erik's perception of him and he kisses the top of Charles's head, fighting to stay still and not tremble and make things even worse than they already are. "I'm sorry," he whispers again. "It's OK. I promise, I promise."

Charles is trembling a little, but he uncurls from his bundled up half-fetal position, leaning on Erik instead and shaking his head. "Please don't be sorry," he croaks, and reaches for Erik's arm, frowning deeply at the cut there. It isn't deep, but he wishes it wasn't there anyway. He wishes Erik didn't feel like he had to hurt himself, but he knows the impulse. Instead he leans down to kiss it - unfortunately healing kisses aren't part of his mutation - head bowed, unbothered by a trickle of blood that touches his lips. "I'm sorry," he whispers, shame still bouncing around in his head.

"No," he murmurs, soft. He swipes it away with his sleeve, uncaring that blood now stains it and knowing that he can remove it himself when the time comes, but right now it doesn't matter. "You said fight, too but I'm _not_ fighting. I haven't fought. I haven't _done_ anything," he says it like a confession even though he knows Charles must know that. Charles shouldn't be fighting at all. No one should. He presses his own lips together, digging his nails into the back of his own neck over a smattering of scars not obtained from his idyllic youth. "I just-" he just hates himself for it. That's not Charles's fault. Charles is the one picking up the pieces of his mess. He hasn't done anything wrong.

He gently reaches for Erik's hands, pressing their palms together. He can't help but note the difference in size again, and it even inspires a tiny smile, lips pulled up unconsciously as he scoots closer on the couch, crowded onto Erik's lap again. "You're fighting everyday," he reminds Erik, shaking his head. "You've been fighting for too long. Today was a fight. The rest of this case, that will be a fight. You don't need fists and powers to be fighting, Erik, and you can help with my part, too, just as I can help with yours. Remember what you said this afternoon? What you called me? Us?" The replay is unnecessary, but he shows it to Erik anyway: shield-mates. Two halves of a Pairbond. He offers a soft grin, squeezing Erik's fingers. "You're mistaking not fighting alone with not fighting at all. It's much easier when there's two of us, if you ask me," he teases quietly.

Erik shakes his head. "That isn't true," he sniffs, brushing his nose against the back of his bad hand, trying to hide it, to be in control. Erik remembers it much differently. His mind can't help but flash images of that day in court, and images of every single time he's ever had the opportunity to stand up to Shaw face-to-face. Even if Erik were limited to the metal of his childhood, of his adolescence, he shouldn't have had any problem putting Shaw down. When Shaw attacked him in the courtroom he should've been able to obliterate him at a subatomic level but he just threw himself on the floor like he was eleven years old again. When, when did Erik ever fight? At _Sisim_? At the _Institute_? _When_?

Perhaps Charles is a bit overprotective, too, in his own right and his own way, because hearing Erik disparage himself never fails to flare something fierce up inside of him. Immediately he redirects Erik's attention, drenching his mind in something other than memories; it's the sound and sight of several little minds stirring from their heap on the floor, yawning and stretching and, in Kurt's case, flicking his tail about lazily. "Do you hear that?" he asks, and it's clearly rhetorical because Charles isn't giving him much of a choice. "Those are the children you gave a chance, Erik. Before you say it, I know," he whispers, and his throat gets stopped again, too, his chest tight with sympathy and sorrow he's shared with his Bonded. "I know there were more you couldn't. But these are the children you saved, and they have a chance now. They're going to school. They have a family in each other. Do you not understand the significance of that? You don't need to disintegrate Shaw. What you're doing now, what you've already done, what you put into motion -" He shakes his head, completely amazed. "Look at me, darling. Please. You were conditioned for sixteen years. You were traumatized for sixteen years. You are more than that, and you have always been, but that doesn't fade overnight. But what you're doing now -" He shows Erik another day in that courtroom. Charles speaking for him, but it was Erik's voice, chin up even when he wavered, the entire world - and Shaw - watching. "You are fighting. You are fighting, and in ways he never considered. You are ruining everything he built, inch by rotten inch, and he's been made to watch. It's rather one-sided, really, but fortunately I don't give a damn. I've put my Catholic roots well behind me," he grins here, because he knows it will seem quite off-topic, "But I rather hope I was just a tad too hasty on some, and fiery pits of eternal damnation is accurate so he can watch from there, too. But either way, don't tell me you aren't fighting. You are fighting in ways he never conceived of, and I won't let him tell you that you aren't when he isn't even around to speak it. You listen to me instead, Erik Lehnsherr," he demands, and there's that bossy, steadfastly determined Charles, but with the sweet smile on his face, it isn't much of a demand at all, eyes gleaming clear-water azure in early morning light.

Erik finally does flick his eyes up when Charles compels him to and he closes his hand over Charles's, his other resting over his mouth to hide his expression which is ready to crumple at any moment. "I'm not the only one who thinks so, you know? Neither is Shaw. I read the computer, I know what people think about me. _Why didn't he do anything, isn't he Omega-level. Isn't he a D5_. Why didn't I do anything? I knew, everything me and Magda found out, I knew, I've always _known_. You can't spend that much time with someone and not know." Listen, Erik's read plenty of very unfortunate comparisons over the last little while, ones he's always known would come but that have hit home in a way he didn't anticipate when paired with the very real fact that Shaw is on that wavelength and Erik, by not acting, must have tacitly supported that. There are quite frankly so many people who think that Erik's moderate views are a _front_ for something more sinister, that security and safety really mean _supremacy_. "I'm stronger than Shaw in every way and I let him hurt me for years, I let him do all of that to me, to everyone else. I _let_ him. The only reason he is where he is now is because of you, and you cannot know how grateful I am for your intervention, but you are the one that has put yourself in front of me this entire time. I am not trying to stop you from fighting, _too_. You shouldn't be- _alone_ -"

"The Internet isn't being very kind to me at the moment, either, so I would take all of that with a grain of salt." He needs to tease for the moment, to take a breath, but it doesn't at all diminish the look in his eyes as he squeezes Erik's hands again, leans forward to press their faces together. "You were a child, Erik, and by the time you weren't he'd already gotten into your head. You're fighting that now. You're throwing it off. But you can't blame yourself for what he did to you. You were never at fault for what he took from you." Charles shakes his head, kisses Erik's cheek. "Don't you think I could have stopped -" His eyes close. "I can get into people's heads. I don't need to disintegrate or rearrange particles, I can make anyone do exactly as I please. If I don't want someone to touch me, they will not. But I have marks on my body, too. Sometimes it's not all about who's stronger, or he never would have tried in the first place. Perhaps I put him in his very comfortable," here his teeth grit, jaw clenched just slightly, "cage, but you are the one who is going to end this. And only you could. All of this nonsense about not fighting back, about being weak in the face of it, about letting him - that's all him. He needed you to believe that. But you never truly did, did you?" He flashes images. Candles under the bed, printed out houses, books and poetry and softness and finally acted-out justice. Plans for escape. "Fighting isn't always spectacular, my darling. It's not always such a bang. But you are the strongest fighter I have ever known, and I do not want you to doubt that. For the first time, truly, I am not alone in this. I've found my shield-mate. Are you so quick to take yourself out?"

"Not alone," Erik whispers back, still petting Charles's face over and over, and he puts his forehead resting against the crook of Charles's neck, doing his very best to keep himself in control and not melt down into a pile of disintegrated particles himself. He's spent so much time being told the opposite that he doesn't know what to do with this when it crops up, when Charles tells him the difference and he conceals another sniffle, but it's not difficult to tell he's affected. "Do you think I'm like him?" Erik asks softly, hidden in Charles's shoulder. Because Shaw did get into his head, and he remembers reiterating and regurgitating plenty of those talking points for himself, believing himself to be somehow separate from those judgments when deep down he knew in Shaw's perfect world, some mutants were better than others and he was _not_ amongst the highest class. He was still loved, he was still special and that counted for something. He was in charge, he was given responsibility, he was Shaw's loyal soldier, and that mattered more than things he couldn't control. He was a mutant first. These days he's less quick to jump to that even if he does consider mutants and humans fundamentally different, he's trying to regain the parts of himself that flourished in places like _Matokafe_.

Charles knows the appropriate response here is not to _laugh_ , and to be fair, he doesn't. His lips do twitch where he's rested his head against Erik's, however, because the spike of amusement he feels, regardless of how out of place, is a bit too sudden and strong. "Erik," he says quietly, slowly, "You honestly could not be more different, and I'm assuming you're not talking about in personality or demeanor. Think back to every debate we've ever had regarding mutant politics." There are many of them to choose from, and Charles provides a few for reference. There will be many, many, many more over the years, he's sure, whether over games of chess or in slightly more nasty arguments, but the end result is always respect and compromise. They work together, not apart, even when some of their views seem directly opposed. They usually never are, and if the middle ground isn't immediately clear, they pave it themselves. "Do you think, for even a second, Sebastian Shaw would speak the words you have? That he would dedicate himself to the same future, that he would work, associate, and Bond with - let me make the assumption now that he's not the biggest fan of the integrationist movement." Which Charles practically started, and he'll take some credit for it, thank you very much. "You have your own thoughts. Your own goals. Your own ideas. I find some of them exasperating," he's teasing again, letting Erik see his grin without needing to see it, the image of it seared into his mind, "But they are yours. He's utterly lost with you, I'm afraid."

Frankly the things Erik had exposure to as a child, and the things Shaw told him were the real truth, the brainwashing went so deep and so far into Erik's psyche he never had a chance to distinguish it for himself. A new world, with no opportunity for those indoctrinated to be exposed to anything other than Shaw's historical truth, made all the smoother by careful applications from Emma Frost's telepathy, smudges to the mind that cleaned away any resistance-any awareness that these didn't align with what he thought he knew, resulting in a patchwork of cultural exposure that often times made no sense-things Erik is familiar with but with adjustments-or culminating in total ignorance in other cases. Somewhere, deep down, Erik has always known the difference between truth and lies. Between fantasy and reality. It's what led him to bringing that building down. "I don't want him to win," Erik gasps, digging his fingers into Charles's shirt, stroking over his heart. "He was never going to make things better. I thought he was for so long, I believed everything he said for so long. He doesn't get to win. He doesn't."

"Fortunate, then," Charles murmurs, pulling back to coax Erik to look at him, cupping his cheek (or part of it, without giant hands), "That there's no chance in hell he can. He's not just losing, Erik, he's lost, and he knows it." A very comfortable, elaborate cage, but the walls are caving in and he's still running around like a trapped rodent, except there's nowhere to scurry off to this time. No reinventing and starting over, no changing names and continuing where he left off. There's only one place to go, and not only has he lost there, he's lost here. If Erik was his protégé, his loyal little soldier, what a horrible thing it must be to realize he never actually had him at all. "You're going to face him, Erik. And I know you've said an awful lot about how you can't, but I know that you can. And this will end. All I'm doing is keeping him in place until that happens."  


* * *

Erik just doesn't want Charles to be exposed to all of the horrific shit floating around in Shaw's head, which Erik is more familiar with than just about anybody on this planet other than Charles who has an all-access pass to that pure unadulterated hellscape. If there is anyone who should be standing in the way of that it's Erik. Erik's spent all of his life under that particular brand of crazy, he's the one who deserves to deal with it now. Not Charles. "Carmen wants him executed," Erik whispers. That's the only place Erik has ever wanted him to go, but it's still not easy to think about, and Erik is positive that makes him-not a very good person. To be conflicted about that. But if it means that no one else ever has to be exposed to him again, least of all Charles, Erik will do it himself.

They've talked about this before, and the rather complex emotions associated. Charles, who considers himself a proper, true pacifist, something Erik is not, has found himself in favor of Shaw being swiftly wiped from the Earth he's been nothing but a plague on, spreading sickness and death. That Erik is conflicted doesn't surprise him, nor does it make him a bad person. Not by any means. There's too much there for it to be that simple. He's going to put Erik's mind at ease about all of this, but there's something to be said first. "The next time you see him, he won't look anything like you remember," Charles says, and if there's something dark there, something twisted inside of him that's satisfied, then he'll come to terms with it at a later date. For now it's a statement of fact.

In Erik's mind, Shaw is a specter looming over him, with eyes like two hard stones of ice, nothing like the warmth of Charles's or even the clear haze of Sharon. Shaw is a monster fully constructed, taller than Erik (he's not, anymore, actually, that was all his mutation) and with that congenial mask hiding the deep-sea creature beneath, the one that's been circling all this time. Perfunctory, pleasant expressions twisted into frightful decay, the sound of snapping bones and hands at his throat and pure force rippling through his body. Erik remembers him as he was. A smiling demon with skin stretched over a grotesque face that only Erik could see, while he charmed and shmoozed with everybody else until it was too late and they too found themselves encountering the evil under his skin. Erik doesn't know what Charles means, though, and he blinks. _???_

"He's dying," Charles says simply, which is why, in the end, it doesn't matter if he's put to death or left to rot. It won't take very long at all if he's right about the way things are going, and he has a pretty good guess going. There's something underneath there, something that terrifies Charles, but it isn't Shaw. "Slowly. Painfully. He's dying, and he looks like he's dying."

Erik stares at Charles for a long while, unsure exactly how to process that news. There's some young, undeveloped part of him that shrieks against it, and wants to run to his side and try to fix it, some still-loyal piece of him he can't extinguish and the tears he's been holding back spring forth unbidden, and Erik roughly swipes them away, angry at himself. Good, the rest of him says. Good. "Oh," he croaks, soft.

"His mutation has nothing to do with slowed or modified aging. His cells aren't base coded for it," Charles goes on, smoothly and calmly, and he's no longer looking at Erik. His jaw is clenched. Emma Frost is another story, and what a long life she has ahead of her, sitting pretty in a cell loaded to incoherence with suppressors, cut off from everything she's ever known in horrid, trapped agony. He almost pities her, except he doesn't. "He's been absorbing energy for years, regenerating and rejuvenating cells - least of all from you, might I add - but now it's stopped. He's cut off. His cells are scrambling, killing themselves off. Truthfully, and I've never personally experienced either but I have it on good authority, hanging him would be the mercy as opposed to, oh, his bones deteriorating, his internal organs failing, his body cannibalizing itself for fuel -" Point made. It won't be pretty. It isn't now. Shaw is dying, and aging, and soon he'll be frail, and sick, weak and even more helpless. It must be hell.

Shaw's taken quite a bit more from Erik over the years, his cells, his life-force, his energy, it's part of the reason he was so starved and frail himself under Shaw's captivity, not only was he fed less often than anyone should be but what he did eat, the energy he did manage to conserve got sucked away under Shaw's immense power. He wasn't _born_ Omega-level. He reached into Erik with metal and instruments and pulled it right out of him, taking for himself what never really belonged to him. And it's starting to show, not just because his cells aren't primed for aging but because they've never been primed for how much energy they inevitably stored while they were active all that time, and now his very DNA is unraveling like a long spiraled noodle, a radiation-poisoning of his own design that has always been inevitable. "Oh," Erik whispers again, nodding a few times too many.

It's about as much reaction as he could have expected. It was good to have warned him, so he wasn't blindsided. And now seems like a terrible time to bring this up, but if he doesn't say it now it will only end up being a problem later. "I want to talk to him," Charles says. "Alone."

Erik presses his hands into his face, into his eyes, wondering if maybe he'll just pop his eyeballs right out of his socket. "Why?" he says, to his credit not immediately melting into a puddle of his own genetic goo, despite how very close he feels to doing just that.

Charles isn't going to let that happen. He takes Erik's hands again, gently, putting them on Charles' face instead. He won't be rough (right this moment) with Charles, and it grounds him, too, feeling entirely surrounded. "I have questions," he whispers. "And I'd like them answered before it's no longer a possibility."

"Why alone?" Erik shakes his head, brushing his fingertips lightly over Charles's skin, feeling slow. Molasses. His blood replaced with high-fructose corn syrup. A hidden cancerous gem, budding from the moment of his birth and exploding into unfurled flower-petals and he's not sure where that imagery came from but it's rotten corpse-orchids and the air smells like rotten meat, sweet and pungent and sickly and buzzing flies. The buzzing is getting so loud Erik can barely hear Charles's answer, but he listens, he'll always listen. The sound isn't the voice of the enemy.

He's always been hesitant about this, but as easily as Erik redirects his thoughts, Orders them away or utilizes the connection between them, Charles snatches that sensation like breathing, wiping it away and replacing it with only the sound of Charles' voice. Clear as a bell, amplified, the world around them hazy save for Charles' face, his smell, his presence, no buzzing or rotting or flies. "I'm more likely to get answers that way," he answers simply, because he doesn't want to say he will use you against me and it will work.

But Erik knows that Shaw will use him against Charles whether he's in the room or not. Shaw is good that way. He hones in on a person's weaknesses, grips them in his hands and twists until there's nothing left and Erik can't let that happen, he cannot let Shaw get into Charles's head and-more than that, plant those seeds of doubt. In Erik, in himself, just because Shaw doesn't have his powers, just because he's frail and dying and poses no threat to anyone in the physical realm doesn't mean he isn't dangerous and Erik cannot let Charles underestimate him. "He won't give you what you seek," Erik whispers. "Not without doing something for him. I will not let him make that exchange. I won't let him hurt you."

Perhaps that's true. Perhaps all of that is true, and Shaw truly is the most cunning person on this planet - Charles does doubt that, and not because he's underestimating him. "Then I'll take it," he whispers, quiet but determined. "If he won't give it to me, I will take it, Erik. But I'd like him to give it to me before I have to, to surrender it like he has everything else, and I'd like you not to underestimate me. I am very good at getting what I want." Exceptionally good, and with more intelligence in his pinky finger than Shaw has in his entire body, least of all which is cunning and manipulative. He has played the game, too.

Erik bounces his good leg off the floor, his shoe smacking against concrete over and over again and he swallows, feeling trapped behind glass. Too slow, everything's too slow. His hands slip from Charles's face and return to digging nails into his own skin, too-sharp to be natural and the pain helps to ground him. He doesn't want Charles to be denied the information he seeks but he is not happy about him being exposed to Shaw any more than strictly necessary and like every part of his life that Shaw has infected he feels completely out of control, like being slammed over and over again into the earth by rising tides.

Charles takes a deep breath, and he doesn't let it slide this time. He takes Erik's hands all over again, nudging his mind to let it happen, to ease him into it, and squeezes. "Will you feel better if you're there? Do you think that will help you?" The fact of the matter is, Charles won't do this without Erik's permission. He won't even consider it. There is control here, and Charles will make sure he has it, just as he always has.

If he's there, chances are Charles is right, if Shaw can see him, he will focus on that, on turning everything around and wedging himself into the cracks of Charles's psyche and Charles is right, he will pit them against one another-never as enemies, but playing on their concern? Their love? Their mutual moral outrage? That will work, and Charles will walk away with nothing. But Erik can still be there. He doesn't need to be seen. He doesn't know, the choices aren't coming to him very well. Which isn't helping anyone. "Maybe," he whispers.

Charles thinks it's helping just fine. There's certainly no shame in it, and he stays calm through it, weathering it, absorbing it, kissing Erik's cheeks and under his eyes where those tears begin to spill. "I wasn't going to lock you out, but if you'd like to be up here the entire time," he taps his temple, then winces, because it is terribly sensitive, "Then that's what we'll do. I know this is difficult, Erik, but we're going to do it together. Alright? Look at me. We're okay, darling. Focus on me for right now." He tugs almost playfully at Erik's Will, just to remind him that it's always binding him, that he's still in control.

That Will does shine and pulsate at Charles's insistence, tightening against him while Erik leans shoulder-to-shoulder, hands squeezing Charles's in his, one immobile and one much-too strong. He tries to focus, to breathe, to calm. It doesn't work so well, and Erik trembles in Charles's hold. It isn't clear to Erik why this is happening-what is happening, only that he can't stop shaking, his heart feels like it's been seized by a vice grip. "Thank you," he gasps, laying his cheek against the top of Charles's head.

Charles can think of more than a few reasons. It doesn't particularly matter to him why, but he does wrap himself much more firmly around Erik, and in the process tip them both over, mostly because there's no way to balance like that and Erik isn't capable of paying much attention. He can't really help laughing despite himself, startled, ending up horizontal and on top of Erik, and his poor Dominant doesn't quite fit on the couch but he imagines that's a problem he has often. He works with what he has, scooting up Erik's body to kiss at those tears, to nuzzle into him, to wiggle properly into his arms. "I imagine if someone walked in on this, there would be a few questions," he mutters somewhere into Erik's neck, because even during the worst of meltdowns there's room for this. No one will walk in, it's simply not possible, but still. "I have you," he whispers, an echo of Erik earlier. They have each other.

Erik's legs mostly dangle over the edge of the couch and he shifts up to prop himself against the cushion, and his arms come up against Charles, keeping him safe from falling. Erik will always catch him, no matter what. "No questions," he mumbles, shaking his head. Charles belongs to Erik, no questions necessary. Perfectly self-evident. His eyes flutter shut and he tries to relax back into Charles's arms, to rest his head on his submissive's shoulder (OK, it's a very awkward position because by this point most of him is about ready to slide right off the couch entirely) and that makes his lips twitch a little in a smile.

For some reason it makes Charles laugh, loud and likely hysteric, but how much could he possibly have slept in the last five days? Perhaps he's just teetering into delirium, but either way he manages to giggle his way out of Erik's arms and even excellent reflexes don't stop the momentum once he's sliding to the floor. It's noticeably less of a thump (and thank goodness for his poor, sore bottom) and much more of a glide, and he imagines he has Erik to thank for that. He just can't stop giggling once he's started, either, full and hiccup-y, and when he does speak it comes out like _"no questions -"_ and then he's resting his head against Erik's belly, up on his knees as he shakes with it.

Erik slithers off of the couch, too, onto the ground beside Charles to gather him up in his arms once more. He lets Charles laugh, floating in a haze that he's finding thickens with every passing moment, and he lets himself get lost in it because it's easier than thinking and feeling and Charles's laughter sounds much better than the insistent buzzing in his head, hidden behind layers but still batting at his ears and filling his eyes and clenching his chest. Much better. "Love you," he whispers into Charles's hair, swaying from side to side with him.

Except the hysteria is bound to end sometime, and it does, his laughter quieting into little hiccups, his head somewhere on Erik's shoulder and somehow they always end up on the ground, why is that? They should work on that. He pulls back to cup Erik's cheek again, his mind insistent and nudging. "I love you, too. Please don't," he begs.

He blinks over at Charles, eyes squinting a little as his brain foggily tries to catch up and determine what it is he's please not supposed to be doing. His expression crinkles up fondly and he trails his fingers over Charles's lips, smiling faintly up at him. Whether they're on the ground or the couch, Charles belongs to him. No questions necessary. Maybe they can work on not falling, though.

"Yes, but the floor is hard and I'm sore," Charles huffs, as if he wasn't the one to fall and the one who earned himself a rather thorough caning. He's whinging just to whinge, to coax Erik back, a firm, insistent grip on his mind, something far stronger than any haze could ever manage. He shouldn't have let Erik drift in the first place. He never wants to experience that again, though he's sure he will - but he certainly won't wander around helpless and wringing his hands next time, because he can make a difference. He tugs again at all that Will, shivering at his own reminder of it, daring Erik to let it unravel, to focus it back where it belongs. "Stay with me," he whispers, straddling Erik properly, stroking his cheek. "Talk to me. Share with me. Please."

Erik ducks into Charles's hand, nuzzling against it. It isn't that he doesn't want to share with Charles or talk to him or tell him but quite frankly he doesn't know. "Feel bad," he manages, swallowing roughly but managing to put on a smile. It's OK, because he's here, and that is what matters more than anything else he can conceive of. It's so much nicer to focus on those strands of his Will enveloping Charles and he follows them down, brushing his power against every inch of Charles's skin he can find.

It's a bit inevitable that he does, really, and Charles knew that much. None of this has been easy, nor has there been a break from it. Not a real, substantial one. He leans forward to kiss Erik's nose, then rubs his against it. "What can I do?" he asks quietly, not because he thinks there's a surefire answer, but because he wants to give Erik the option to tell him what to do. Pushing and prodding will only get him so far, and as much as he could reach into Erik's mind and extract whatever's happening like it's nothing, they both know he won't. Not unless it's strictly necessary.

"Donno," Erik mumbles, squinting up at him, nose wrinkling as he ends up smiling anyway, as real as it could possibly be. "It's OK," he decides, giving a shrug, because it's purposeless and he doesn't know what's wrong with him and it's a good thing, what's happening; what's going to happen. It's good. Shaw will be gone. They will be free. It's what Erik's always wanted. It's a good thing. It's good. He's happy. Happy! See, happy. Is he not doing cartwheels? "Stay here, don't go away, 'k? Promise?" his eyes are wide and fixed on Charles's, still enveloped by a haze, but still him. He's still there.

Charles sighs, but musters up a soft, encouraging smile of his own. "I promise. I'm not going anywhere," he promises, and presses that firmly into Erik's mind so there's no panic when he shifts from his position perched on Erik's knees, reaching up to grab Erik's abandoned coffee and hand it off to him. It's warm and it smells very nice, and sometimes it helps, having something sensory and familiar. The rest Charles can help with, and he strokes along Erik's chest, drawing idle patterns. "It's alright, you know. To feel what you're feeling. I -" It's not right, to turn the conversation toward him like this, but sometimes it helps. He shakes his head instead, cutting off the thought. "It's alright, Erik. It doesn't make you anything but human."

Erik looks down at the coffee cradled between his fingers and he taps the rim, allowing steam to rise once again from the heated liquid. He touches Charles's cheek, shaking his head. He always wants to hear, and it is always right, if Charles wishes to bring up himself-Erik loves Charles, so of course he wants to hear about him, he laughs softly. As for Erik, though-he shakes his head. Every logical, rational, reasonable impulse is telling him to be grateful, to be glad ( _good news! let us be glad/let us be grateful/let us rejoicify that goodness could subdue-_ ) that this is the outcome. This is the outcome everybody wants. It's Erik-it's always Erik who can't seem to adjust, lost in a world he only has the barest comprehension of, and the only person on Earth who makes perfect, total, complete sense to him is... will be gone. The person who-took care of him. If you can call it that. Who put his hands on his shoulders and told him to find his strength and who, for better or worse, was the inspiration (if not the culmination) of all of Erik's values. And he should be grateful. Erik blinks up at Charles, shaking his head. Charles can see in his eyes that he's lost, hands slipping over the reins and falling further into the abyss, the warming abyss of studious loyalty and duty and-"I should be there," slips out. He can practically see the words as they leave, desperate to put them back in.

Charles is determined not to show how his heart drops right into his stomach, or how, for the moment he allows it, he feels a sharp, horrible pang of hurt. That isn't rational, and it certainly isn't fair, and he sucks it all up before Erik can even begin to process it, files it away somewhere unreachable and tugs Erik back to him. Back to him. "No, you shouldn't," he whispers, calm as anything. "You absolutely should not. You should be right here, and you are. With me."

Erik focuses on his coffee, on letting the steam rise and curl up around him, inhaled through his nose as a steadying marker back to the Now. But Erik is observant. He pays attention and for the briefest flicker he can sense that conflict, that pushing-back and it's what brings him forward-a rising inside of him mired in Will reminiscent of the smoke and steam, curling up around Charles instead. "Here," he croaks, soft, and raises a hand to Charles's cheek. "Don't go too. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm no good," he whispers roughly. "I'm sorry." For this he does want Shaw dead. For making him grieve. For making him hurt Charles with his horrific, unnatural, twisted grief. How dare he.

Charles shakes his head and leans into that hand instead of away. It had only been a flicker, and he should have been more carefully watching it, but he never does anymore. He certainly used to, but ever since that incident - he sighs, because it doesn't matter. Unless he was deliberate about it, he should expect Erik to pick up on it. "Please don't say that about yourself," he requests, but he knows this is one his Dominant will have an awfully hard time fulfilling. They can work on that, it's much more pressing than their tendency to end up on the floor. "I understand, Erik. I wasn't going anywhere. I never will." He is now, unconsciously, behind a wall that he has little access to but this one out of choice. He should extract the answers he needs and - no. Instead he takes a breath, and focuses on Erik, on turning his head to kiss his fingers. "I know. Trust me when I say I know. This is all normal, but we can work through it."

Despite being on the floor Erik manages to lean back against the couch and tug Charles into his lap fully, mindful of all of those marks and trailing his hand down one in particular on Charles's hip. He presses their foreheads together, trying to touch, to reach-"I'm sorry," he repeats, his voice so soft it's more a whisper of a thought than spoken word. It's not right. He is not right, and he knows that. "I come back, 'k?" Don't like it. He doesn't like it-grief-why? Why, it doesn't make sense-maybe he can gather it all up like a wound tangled string and put it all away, put it in the box and put the box in the ground ( _you put them in the ground/you can dig them back up_ )-and he knows, knows Charles is struggling and thinking and separating and he runs around in circles trying to capture it all, to soothe it down, to make it right. "So sorry," he whispers again unnecessarily. Unnecessary. It is.

It slips before he can stop it. Charles, nearly nine but not quite, sobbing so hard his tiny chest constricts with it, rising up and down in aching, heaving breaths that don't seem to take in any oxygen at all. He watched his father be placed in a box in the ground that day. He's never going to crawl back out. He's never going to give Charles books to read from his private library, or bring him out to ride Red, or pat his head. Who will fix Charles? Who will play chess with him? Who will teach him? Who will take care of Mother? Charles is too weak. He can't do this alone. _Please, Father, come back. Please don't leave me. You said you would fix me, please come back. One day you will realize why I did what I did. I hope that when that time comes you will understand that I had only the best intentions for you and for our family -_ Realize what? Realize that he'd chosen to involve himself in something that -

Charles swallows. "There's nothing to be sorry for, Erik," he whispers. "Sometimes we grieve for those -" He can't say it. He shakes his head and closes his eyes. "I understand. We can sort through it together, but you can't bury it. I'm here. I love you. And if you grieve, I'll hold you through that, too."

Erik pets his cheek, shaking his own head. _Don't hide away. Please. I know._ It's not bad. He understands-for Charles, he understands, it makes perfect sense. For himself? It does not. Mr. Shaw didn't read to him, nor did he play chess or let him ride horses. Periodically he would give Erik a pat on the head, a _good job, my boy. You did it._ Because he was getting stronger. Because Erik cooperated and now Shaw can do more than he ever could and Erik is responsible. _Find your strength,_ and Erik did, and electromangetism turned swiftly to subatomic particles, electrons that sing to him and spin in little circles that he can see, and push and pull and touch-and then more, and more-power, it's what Erik has, and that is thanks to Mr. Shaw. Erik simply can't deny that there are parts of him that exist, that he uses to this day, and they are a direct result of Mr. Shaw's intervention. The world that makes sense to him-? Mr. Shaw's invention. Erik just didn't realize-that he would grieve that when it's gone. The chance to return to the things that make sense to him, gone. But Charles-that makes sense, too. And it's so, so much better. This world that does not expect-Erik runs his fingertips down Charles's face. He does love Charles, more than anything, more than any world, more than any life. The one thing he knows above all else is that this is where he belongs.

It's different. It's wholly, entirely different, and Charles knows it, and he certainly isn't going to dwell on it. It doesn't matter that he hasn't had time to process, that this whole bloody thing has been clanging around and turning itself over and over in his head, memories held fond - the only fond ones he has from his childhood that don't involve caring for Raven, and he detests that this place, those precious memories from earlier knocked it all back to the surface when his own miserable upbringing should have no place here - turned bitter and strange and foreign in the aftermath. Brian Xavier didn't read to his son. He gave him books to read while he was gone, and seemed pleased when Charles had finished them by the time he returned. And so he read more. Dickens and Tolstoy and Twain by the time he was five, words and stories and then scientific journals and dictionaries and - he didn't want Charles to be sick and broken, he wanted that extracted as swiftly and efficiently as possible, but he certainly wanted him to be intelligent.

And intelligent he is. Intelligent, manipulative, cunning, determined, cerebral, scientifically-inclined, ambitious. An Xavier. And it's not something twisted onto him, forced into a mold not made for it. He was born like this. It's practically written into his genetic code.

It doesn't matter. None of it matters. Charles shakes it until it falls right back where it belongs, into the mess of thoughts he hasn't the time for, and focuses on Erik's fingers on his cheek, leaning into them. "You do," he whispers, and manages a small smile. "You never belonged there, Erik. There's so much more for you here. I distinctly remember someone saying to me once in a dream that there are so many paths for us -" And for a very long time, Charles simply didn't see those options, either. He never could have fathomed what they are already building. "There are. We make sense. More than any of that ever could." That Charles knows, more entirely than he's ever known anything.

He's so sorry. It's not fair to Charles that he's the one suffering, he's the one dealing with all of these memories and Erik barely has made any space for them-if he were more rational he'd know that isn't true-that it's a more delicate process than simply forcing Charles to bring it up and talk about it before he's ready and they both know a thing about that, it's why they aren't hearing a dissertation from Erik about the horrible _fucking_ shit they just watched-but it doesn't matter, because that's how Erik feels right now. Charles keeps saying it doesn't matter because Erik never gave him any space, because Erik is to full of his own _shit_ , so of course they're going to crop up and come out and Erik doesn't begrudge that for a second, this is where it belongs, it's where it should be free. They're still huddled together and Erik rocks them gently, sniffling and hiding his face in Charles's hair. "Is it wrong, that I want to go back sometimes?" Erik swipes at his face, raw from where his hands have been plastered against his eyes this entire time.

It it healthy? Is it rational? No. Is it heartbreaking? Yes. But Charles knows the answer to that question better than most. "No," he says simply, and unconsciously floats the poor, abandoned cup of coffee back to its twin so Charles can focus on Erik and not on spilling hot liquid all over Erik, dangerously close to where they're both teetering around. It's perhaps the best application of his new abilities yet, and it figures it's when he's not paying a lick of attention, his mind only on his Dominant. He takes Erik's hands again, certainly not minding holding them while this all runs its course, and kisses Erik's wet face gently, his tears, his cheeks, underneath his eyes. "It was all you knew. Things made sense there, even though they absolutely did not." He kisses Erik's cheek again. "I know how this feels, Erik. I know it's been frightening. The world is big, and it's open now, and that's all terrifying on its own. But you aren't alone in it, and not just because of me. You have an extraordinary collection of brilliant, lovely people who care about and support you. You have ideas, and plans, and goals, and trust me when I say that none of this school business would be possible without your help -" He shakes his head, anticipating a bit of protest there, but there isn't a valid one to make. It was just an idle thought before Erik, and he can't say that it ever would have been anything more. "And you do have me. I belong to you, and I have always belonged to you, and I truly hope you're not beginning to question that. If I remember correctly, you were quite adamant about it just a while ago," he teases, wincing half-playfully when he shifts. "You never belonged there. Not ever. But this is all new, darling. It's all strange. Give it time, and be patient with yourself. Lean on me. That's what I'm here for, yeah?"

"No," Erik whispers. He certainly isn't questioning that fact-even amidst every indiscriminate desire to return to the things he's always known, a railing-at this disparate new life, one thing he could never hope to protest is Charles and the fact that Charles belongs to him. Mind, body and soul and he belongs to Charles just as much. He doesn't know why he sometimes flouts this new world, maybe because things here really don't make too much sense to him despite his origins making zero sense to anybody rational. Because he's desperate to exist well, to be good and he simply doesn't have the prerequisites necessary here. He doesn't know anything. It's all new and scary. He strokes Charles's face all the same, his own attention flicking over to the abandoned coffee cup, a small smile on his features. "Growing," he repeats the word from earlier, from when they'd just-landed and Charles was overcome by this new land.

Charles shakes his head, but not to any particular statement Erik's made. "You're operating on a false assumption here, my love," he laughs quietly, nuzzling their noses together, his eyes gleaming with out of place mirth. Or not so out of place, considering. "No one has any a clue of how this all works. I certainly don't. It's difficult to reconcile -" Pain, suffering, fear, panic, the rules of abusive situations with the rest of the wide-open world. Charles knows that much from experience, and he hardly coped well. Wandering around lost and unfulfilled and drowning in studies and work hardly a full, good life made. "But we get to figure it out together. Don't you realize how exceptionally well you're doing? Don't you enjoy what we've figured out only so far?" He knows Erik sees a future outside of his past and outside of anything either of them could have conceptualized prior, because he's seen it. Felt it. Imagined it himself, too. "You're doing perfect, Erik. And I wouldn't call lifting a coffee cup onto a table growing," he scoffs, while he's at it, because he's still not so convinced.

"Yes," Erik smiles up at him, his nose wrinkling fondly. "Growing." He taps Charles on the tip of his own. Don't be so quick to dismiss yourself. Because Erik won't. He never will, and as long as he has anything to say about it Charles will never go underappreciated and underestimated again. Because he doesn't underestimate him, even if Charles might think so. It's his own fear. His own horror. It's the fact that he forgets that Shaw is a fallible person, not a mythical monster, that Charles's abilities don't even register when he's really into the deep-darkness. He forgets. He believes he's right back where he's started, No hope, no help, just Shaw. But that's not true anymore. Now Shaw is dying and frail and stripped of anything he once had. And if nothing else it means that he won't be a danger. Erik hopes, because Shaw also spent a considerable amount of time studying telepathy with a telepath at his side. What if he's found a way to render it obsolete? What if he's found a way to protect himself?

"He hasn't," Charles promises, because that's something he knows for a fact, and even if some of it is false and projected, he does have some confidence. Quite a bit of it, when he's feeling cocky and in his element. That it's technically another underestimation doesn't bother him in the slightest; Erik is imagining Shaw as larger than he is, as larger than life, and perhaps there was some kind of approximation at one point, especially to a child, but it just isn't the truth anymore. What's left now is really rather pathetic, not that Charles has any pity to spare on him. "He knows his way around tricks, Erik. He's figured out where the coin goes when it's no longer in the hand, or at least the basics of it." Now you see it, now you don't. It's good, for Emma Frost. "But I don't just do tricks anymore, unfortunately for him. You do need your mind to ponder these things." And he has it, mercifully. Sometimes. When Charles decides it's appropriate. "Trust me when I say he could not be more helpless at the moment. Trust me."

Erik doesn't realize he's crying, tears dripping down his jaw and onto the collar of his soft white sweater, darkening the cable-knit fabric there. He moves a little to tighten his arms around Charles's middle, embracing him in a strong, firm hold against the solid mass of his body; one that's growing every day, filling into itself, moving further and further away from Shaw's life of depletion and chaotic, universe-bending rules. It feels quite like standing before an angry lion that's been caged. You think the cage will protect you, but they can bash open the bars if they rear up hard enough. "He's going to die," Erik rasps, eyes fluttering closed. It's a sick, sick twist of psychological misdirection and brainwashing that Erik almost considers Shaw a father figure.

But Shaw murdered his father. He doesn't have that right. " _Fuck him_ , let him die." It's not as strong, or as confident, as Erik would like.  


* * *

That's where it starts, anyway. He doesn't have to believe it at first, but they'll get there eventually, as sure as anything. A little everyday, every hour, every second. "Growing," Charles murmurs fondly, lips quirked as he kisses at the poor tears that have escaped into Erik's beard, then that cute nose of his. "Now, what do you say we get up off the floor, hm? Also, has anyone ever told you that you don't curse well, darling?" he teases.

The same nose which wrinkles up this time in distaste, Erik's lips pulling to the side in tandem. "I do so," he protests, but a small smile is forming nonetheless. He realizes what's happening and swipes in broad strokes over his own cheeks, and when he feels the hair there he has to laugh a little. "OK, maybe I need a real shave," he huffs, and somehow it all floats to the ether, away from his heart and easing the tension gripping his soul. They're two otters holding hands in a vast, incomprehensible ocean and the monsters lurking underneath have zipped off to Elsewhere, deterred by a mutual outpouring of love.  


* * *

"It's only a few days old, though!" he protests, and because they're still very much on the ground, rubs his cheek against Erik's jaw, laughing softly and shivering at the pleasant, scratchy tickle. "Let's let it grow. Perhaps it will become sentient if we give it more time." He adores Erik's beard, really, and he knows it's fairly obvious how attractive he finds it, not that his Dominant isn't equally as appealing bare-faced. There's just something about it. Either way he makes the leap, grin still firmly on his lips as he wobbles to his own feet and takes Erik's hands, tugging as if he could actually pull him up if he tried. He couldn't, in all likelihood. His eyes wander to their abandoned coffee, the abandoned plate, the couch, and Charles bites his lip. "What is that couch made of, Erik?" he asks suddenly, entirely aware it's out of the blue.

Erik's eyes widen slightly at the question, eyebrows bouncing in equal tandem up to his hairline, but dutifully he extends his power and feels along the edges of it as naturally as anything. "Leather," he starts softly, still petting Charles's arm, moving to his chest and nestling in closer on a footstep-forward. "Plastics," he adds, equations marching behind his eyelids as he considers. "Wooden frames, fabrics." The specifics come immediately as soon as he says them. Lime, calcium carbonate, chromium (III), polychromium to boot, collagen, glycine, proline, hydroxyproline, ionized carboxyl groups, oxo-hydroxide clusters singing to him, sodium, dimethyl amine... "Why do you ask?"

  
"Hmmm," is all Charles says in response to that, pleased and fascinated, which is an answer as good as any, he thinks. He looks up at Erik with a soft smile, eyes entirely on his Dominant even as he nods toward the couch. "Do you think it could spare some material, then?" Erik already has a habit of swiping excess material and repurposing without compromising the structure of the original. There are always miscellaneous metal pieces ready to be made into something, and they more often than not come from household objects, if Charles thinks to ask. A bit from the cutlery, some from the chair, spare paperclips, old jewelry. Recycling, really. "Just a tiny bit."

That, he can do (and does so quite often, by Charles's calculations, not only removing the excess but at times altering its foundation entirely, digging deep into its molecular structure and tweaking until it resembles nothing like the original), and he lifts his hand, extending it palm-up as slowly but surely a round metal sphere begins to form, and it levitates for a moment before snapping to his palm almost magnetically. "For you," he huffs. His least impressive gift yet. The wondrous, mysterious, round metal ball.

"Hmmmm," Charles mumbles again, but this time his brow's furrowed as he takes the ball in question. It makes sense; Erik likes his metallic spheres, he's always grabbing them from somewhere, and it isn't like Charles was particularly specific. He stares down at it, lips pursed not in distaste but in thought, the way he does when he's working something out, a pen behind his ear (and ink on various places on his body, usually, he always forgets his mind works much, much faster than his fingers) or in front of their chess set. Now he's mumbling to himself, deliberately under his breath.

Erik watches him with a curious expression slowly making its way known over his features, replacing the horrors and confusion with mild-mannered fondness. He swipes away in broad strokes using the forearm of his bad hand the rest of the tears that have begun to dry on his face, no fresh ones thus far as the woes and worries gradually fade into the background. Still available at a moment's notice, but quelled satisfactorily. "What is it you're doing, _neshama_ , hm?" he wonders, unable to help a smile.

"Hmmmmmmmmm," Charles hums, staring very intently at the little metal sphere in his hands, rolling it over and over in his palm. When he looks up at Erik, he's blinking, owlish and startled, as if he's just been snuck up on. "Sorry," he apologizes, sheepish and half-grinning, the way he always is when he's caught decidedly not paying attention. Give Charles a book or a puzzle or something particularly fascinating to ponder and it's rather in one ear, out the other. "I was just looking at this piece of metal, that's all. It's a very nice piece of metal, don't you think?" Not suspicious at all. "Anyway, shall we finish these drinks before we get back? I feel awful breaking into somewhere and then wasting resources."

That piece of metal unfurls delicately into several slices like a chocolate orange minus the, you know, chocolate and orange aspects, I'm fucking exhausted bare with me here. You know those Terry's chocolate oranges? Like that, and when Erik gently smacks his palm over it the whole structure melts apart into a perfectly-formed flower, reminiscent of a small tulip and he grins to himself. "Indeed," Erik murmurs, eyebrows raised suspiciously. "And what is so interesting about it, hm?" he huffs as he floats over their abandoned cups and plates, handing one set off to Charles as steam begins to rise out of his mug once more. Erik lifts his own up to his lips, taking a long drink, the smell of cardamom and dark roast flitting through the air.

Charles huffs down at it, because he'd just been about to pocket it and while he quite likes his collection of metal flowers - not as much as the faux-original, but he'll never say no to lining them up like real plants, placing them delicately around windowsills, on bookcases, on his bedside table - it's a bit more complicated and beautiful than a sphere. He takes a sip of coffee to cover it up, nose scrunching the way it always does at the taste and, sorry, Erik, it looks like you haven't quite made a convert of him yet. "Nothing, nothing," he sighs, and brushes it away, smiling softly as he steps the inch or two forward to wiggle his way back into Erik's arms against the firmness of his chest. Then something strikes him, because they'd come here well before dawn, when the world was still entirely dark, and now - "Can you get us to the roof?" he asks, that mischievous little gleam in his eyes.

"Charles," Erik laughs a little, ruffling Charles's hair and leaning down to kiss the top of his head, stroking at his chest and down his arms, caught by a sudden and intensive rush of affection that often overcame him when Charles did something silly and spontaneous, watching his azure eyes gleam with excitement over his latest project. Only this time the subject of said project was eluding Erik. He holds out his hand to lead them to the front door, letting Charles step on his feet (it's not necessary, but he likes flying close) before they lift off, rising easily up to the roof of the building. "Shall I ever be enlightened as to the _Occurrence of the Metal Spheres_?"

Charles just laughs as he dangles his feet over the side of said roof, full and terribly pleased, knowing instinctively that he'd never be in danger of falling. Even if he did somehow manage to slip, he'd stop before he ever hit the ground. He scoots as close as he can possibly get to Erik, nestling into his side, encouraging his arm around him as he looks up and out into the sunrise, smiling with his nose scrunched and his cheeks thoroughly dimpled, still cradling the warm cup in his hand. He even takes another sip, finding that maybe it isn't the worst. His Dominant did make it for him. "Do you love me, Erik?" he asks quietly instead.

Erik's head cocks to the side at the question, a little left-field but he recovers quickly and uses his finger to tilt Charles's head toward him, placing his (overly large) hand over Charles's cheek. "Beyond all measure, Charles," he murmurs. He truly hopes beyond all measure that Charles can feel that, because it's one of the few things in the cosmic miasma of pure bullshit rattling around his brain that rings true and sweet every time he thinks of it, a warm glow that surrounds them and sparkles sunlight off of particles even now. He leans forward and gently presses his lips to Charles's, just the softest brush. "I love you, _neshama_. I do love you. It is the only real thing in my head, sometimes."

That earns a sweet, pleased hum, a shy but absolutely blinding smile as he scoots himself even closer, wincing only slightly when all those sore places rub. And that's a reminder, too. He leans forward for another kiss, impossibly soft and nearly chaste, and then buries himself back into Erik's side, only peeking at the sky he'd wanted to see from up here. "And tomorrow? The day after? You'll love me then?"

Erik laughs gently. "And tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after *that*, too," he taps Charles on the nose playfully. "And all the days thereafter. I will always love you, Charles. No matter where I am, or where you are. Forever," he whispers, nestling in close and wrapping Charles up in a blanket he pulls from the ground, earthen-particles reshaped to form an endlessly soft garment.

It's silly and comforting both to hear it. It should be more than enough, when he already knows well and truly that Erik does love him. When he's felt it so surely that he could never even begin to doubt it, not even at his most insecure and lost. But it doesn't stop the next question, or the way his heart beats in his throat as he speaks it, trembling on it: "Why?" As soon as it leaves his lips, he finds himself regretting it. He stares down, shrugging off the blanket (but not Erik's arms) because it's awfully warm out here even in early morning, his skin already damp with sweat, his feet kicking idly as he swallows.

But Erik doesn't even flinch, nor does he hesitate in his answer, settling Charles up against him, not allowing him to move away even an inch. "Do you remember when we first met?" he wonders, but doesn't wait for an answer, because they both know Charles remembers everything he's ever experienced. "Well, near to it. I told you I didn't believe in unconditional love; that all love has conditions. I know exactly the reasons why I love you, Charles," he whispers, his smile remaining bright and clear. "Because of your kindness. Your compassion. Your dedication. Your determination. Your mind, your thoughts, your heart. Your ability to-" he doesn't know how to say this part properly and fears it will come out all jumbled and messy, so he transmits it mentally instead. Charles's ability to recognize the truth of situations; his ability to accept Erik, despite all of the evil caused by his own hands. To see Erik as simply a tool and not a perpetrator. Because he loves Erik. It's not a reason that most people would accept as legitimate, but feeling loved is a potent indicator of affection. Erik feels loved. He feels accepted. He feels safe. Charles gives that to him. Charles gives him everything that he has, and he lets Erik take it. He lets Erik have him. He lets himself belong to Erik, where he has always belonged, where Erik will always make space for him to belong. They are the only two people on this Earth, he thinks, that can give that to one another. Owning and owned.

Charles exhales slowly, still staring at his dangling feet even as he makes no move to wriggle away. If anything he cuddles closer, under Erik's arm and into his chest. It's a response he should have expected, and it is, and it should warm him right up to his core, and it does; it's exactly what he wanted to hear, but more than that it's the truth. He's always known the difference between lip service and sincerity, and always been terribly afraid to check, but he wouldn't need his telepathy to know the difference here. "It still doesn't feel real sometimes," he admits, voice muffled by Erik's sweater. "Us, that feels incredibly real, it has from that first moment, completely undeniable, but -" That he gets to live it. That they get to live it, and figure it out, and build a life together. "I know out of the two of us - but I wasn't terribly happy, Erik," he laughs, like it's some sort of secret. Like everyone in his life didn't already know. "I know you tend to think that I've given you everything, but not only is that not true, it - " His voice is cracking, and he takes a breath and then lets it. "It ignores everything you've given me, which is more than I could possibly express to you. Sometimes I'm very afraid that -" But it's not rational, and it's not fair, so he shakes his head and quells it.

Erik shakes his head. "I could give a shit about intelligence," he says, and it seems out-of-place, the phrase including Erik's monumental lack of ability to curse outside of specific situations ( _wink-wonk_ , since Erik's more-than proven he has a filthy mouth on several occasions), and more heavily-accented than usual for it. "Or accomplishments," he continues. "Or degrees or status. They all pale in comparison to what is in here," he lays his hand over Charles's heart. "What is in here is what gave me everything." Charles has given him a home, his freedom, his life-their life, that he will do his utmost, for the rest of his own, to ensure that they get to live. "It is the truth. I know you can feel that. I do not know what I could give you in return, but everything I have, it is yours. I would give it a million times over. You deserve it, and you will have it. I will make sure that you have it."

He laughs, near-silent and a bit wet, though he isn't crying and doesn't think he has a single tear left in him. His shoulders are shaking with it, besides, perhaps a bit out of place, too, but these past few days have been rife with that. "I care quite a bit about intelligence, thank you very much," he teases, because in the end the degrees and accomplishments have amounted to little except pride and distraction but his brain is what kept him alive all this time (and tortured him in equal measure, but he's willing to put that aside). He needs that to love Erik, too. It's fortunate that every single part of him does, and that he finds himself incapable of fathoming anything else. "I'm afraid," he continues the thought from before, "That eventually you'll realize - there's quite a lot out there, Erik. I don't want you to realize you've wasted it on me." His freedom, his choices. Charles' eyes wander to the cup he's still clutching, now with white knuckles. "I don't want - I'm not the only viable option," he mumbles, and feels sick even saying it.

"My choices," Erik murmurs back. " _My life. My choice_." He strokes Charles's cheek gently. "You are the only viable option for me. I do not want to hear you speak like this about yourself, nor about me, nor about us. I know that you can feel my regard for you, and it is perfectly stark against all the things out there, of which I am plainly aware. How would you feel if I told you that you would be better off finding some other D5, because I am not the only viable option? Because it is true, you know. You could. If you are just staying with me because I can put you down." Erik's eyebrows raise pointedly. They both know Charles absolutely is not, as Erik is trying to show Charles that he isn't simply staying because he knows nothing better. He knows a great deal, thank-you, the practical gamut of human interaction, has witnessed it and been offered it plenty of times. Plenty. It does little more than to irritate him, like a mosquito buzzing at his ear.

"But -" Charles sighs, shifting uneasily and earning himself nothing but soreness for it. He finally wraps himself back under Erik's arm, swirling his cup around to watch the liquid dance, glancing out at the sky, now painted with color. "First of all, I wouldn't. Find another D5. The statistical probability is slim to none, and you finding another S1 is even less likely. But you could - people go without." It might be the very worst thing Charles ever experienced, after going with it. Perhaps not for some people, but for him, when everything is so - much. When he needs so distinctly. It's certainly, absolutely not the only thing tying him to Erik, but it is part of it, and denying that would be a useless endeavor. It's so wrapped up in who they are, in what they are, not ignoring individual chunks and scraping off bits and pieces that don't mesh and never could. It all fits. He's making Erik's point now and knows it, so he huffs quietly. "I had that time. I wasn't - I mean, I was. But I was free to go and do as I pleased, mostly. Doesn't part of you want that time?" he mumbles. It got Charles nowhere, really, as far as genuine happiness and lasting fulfillment went, but perhaps Erik could fare better.

"I do have that time," Erik murmurs back, gentle. "By the very fact that you are telling me this, you see?" another little tap to Charles's nose. Charles even offering it is proof positive that if Erik really wished to go his own way, he had that opportunity; but the truth is clear in his mind for all within range to see, if only they held the correct prerequisites. And Charles does. Erik is free, he is not chained. "Having nothing, compared to having everything? It is not a real choice. There's always been only one option for me. That is you. It will always be you. Because I love you. I never wish for you to doubt that, Charles. I am happy, here." He touches Charles's chest, over his heart. "Right here. If-if you-want me." He gives a tentative smile.

Charles bows his head into Erik's chest, into his warmth, into the cradle of his arms, effectively scooted right onto his lap where he always tends to end up. He's certainly not complaining. Instead he settles properly against Erik's chest, practically purring when strong arms come around him. "If you think I actually wanted you to take that offer for even a second, I may actually need to declare you insane, Erik," he laughs, soft and breathless, watching all those pretty colors in the sky but none of them compare to the man he's being held by, and so he looks up instead. "You do know it's mutual? That there is simply no other option for me? That -" He's not sure why this still makes him shy, sometimes, but his cheeks dust pink, his smile soft and just as tentative as Erik's was. "That I belong to you, surrender all of myself to you, I choose that very happily?"

Erik brushes Charles's hair from his face, bowing their foreheads together. His eyes are closed for a moment but flutter open to meet Charles's, reflecting sunlight as it begins to rise in that sky. "I could not be more grateful for this," he murmurs. "For you." It's a declaration as much as it is an Order, for Charles not to _forget_ to whom he belongs, not to forget his position at Erik's side, before him to be guided with as much strength and dignity as Erik can muster-because that is what Charles deserves. "I would keep you for all time. You are *mine*, and that is my choice. You cannot escape me so easily, you know." His lips quirk up, warm.  


* * *

"I'm not trying, darling. Keep me," he begs, a ghost of a whisper as he kisses Erik's cheek before relaxing against him, secure and safe in his arms, the coffee he'd carried up here still cradled in his hands. He sips, silent and smiling as he drifts in his Dominant's arms, if not into sleep than into a deep, peaceful calm that he hasn't felt for days, mind open and warm and aching to be embraced just as much as his body. Even the first rays of sunlight are warmer than he's used to this time of year, and there's already a thin layer of sweat on his skin, sticking Erik's shirt to his body. That's comforting, too, and it's comfortable, besides, inviting and lazy and Charles feels - he couldn't possibly describe it. When he starts to laugh, he turns his head into Erik's chest to muffle it, shaking his head. "It's nothing," he insists, but it comes through peals of laughter, and this time it's much less hysteric.

"Mm, is it?" Erik can't help but huff sympathetically, besotted as much now as he was the very first time he heard Charles's laughter. It's his favorite sound, and he tucks Charles even closer to himself in response. "Tell me what is so amusing, hm?" he insists, unable to help the zing of Order at the edge of his words, a humid warmth trickling from head-to-toe. Heat blooms all around them as sunrise finally blazes up, but Erik's only-toasty, and his limbs are relaxed, all the scattered pieces of his mind basking like contented cats, like giant sleeping predators coveting what is theirs.

Charles is squirming from the Order almost immediately, pleased and kept, except his shoulders are still shaking with mirth, his face scrunched up with it as he bites his lip to control himself. "It's wildly inappropriate," he insists, except it's all through giggles, and he's laughing enough that it's becoming hard to breathe, stomach clenching with it as he grabs a fistful of Erik's sweater with his free hand as if he needs something to hold onto. "It's just - those first sessions, even now -" Under any other circumstances, this would be completely horrifying to him, not amusing. It certainly has been in the past, and was to nearly everyone he explained the situation to. He buries his face in Erik's neck, puffing out more breathless laughter against his skin. "Sorry, I'm sorry, it's just - I was paid for those sessions, and quite the pretty penny. Thousands of dollars, and -" He flashes one of their first sessions, the first time Erik had put him down, shivering with it in the aftermath. "I'm quite sure that's not what the CIA meant by ' _assess the situation_.'" But it was certainly enlightening.

Erik can't help it, as soon as Charles finishes explaining he's overcome with laughter of his own accord, and he hides his face in Charles's shoulder, patting him on the arm (like knee-slappingly funny only Erik just gently pets him, ya know how it is). "Perhaps not, but you cannot deny that you did indeed receive an _accurate_ assessment of the situation," he squeaks out amidst what essentially amounts to giggles coming from a six-foot-six grown man. "I would venture to say that you received many accurate assessments of the situation," Erik's eyebrows waggle after his head lifts up, borderline-euphemistic.

Now Charles outright loses it, completely consumed by giggles so intense his stomach aches and clutching Erik's sweater like a lifeline. It's absolutely absurd, and perhaps until this very moment he hadn't stopped to consider how much. "The United States government paid me to -" Well, there's no polite way to say what he's currently thinking, but it involves his mouth and not in the way they likely expected him to use it. He truly can't breathe, but he wheezes as he muffles it all in Erik again, shaking his head. "I suppose there are - there are worse uses of government funds," he manages. Technically, he's done his job. Consider Erik assessed.

"There are indeed," Erik murmurs back, fond, but a little more serious, a little more meaningful, because in all honesty, the fact that the government appropriated funds to pay Charles to use his mouth is only one interpretation of the events, humorous though it is-what Erik sees is that it brought them together in the first place, and that is nothing to sneeze at. He holds no gratitude for the government as he certainly knows they held no intention of giving Charles to him, of repairing his heart and soul at all; in fact they'd be quite a bit more comfy locking him in a box with a black bag over his head, but yes. There are indeed much worse uses of government funds, uses Erik knows only too well. "If I had my choice, I'd pick that one every time," he lets his soft smile turn into a wolfish little smirk.

It sobers Charles right up, too. Of course he's gone through it more times than he can count, the inevitability of the whole thing. No chance in hell Erik would speak to anyone else that first day, verbally or otherwise. The labs would go in, one way or another, and that would be the end of that - without Charles to lie and then vouch for him, his fate was as good as sealed. Erik wouldn't submit to it quietly. Whatever followed would be varying degrees of messy and unpleasant, and none of the outcomes were ever appealing. "Me too," he whispers, but by now it's not amusement his voice is dripping with. There's some of that still lingering, though, and Erik's smirk helps, the hand that had been bunched in his shirt reaching up to trace it before he can stop himself, and somehow it still makes his stomach flutter. "I usually don't keep it," he mentions offhand, distracted by - well, Erik, lowering his head to hide the shy smile there. "The money. I use it to pay rent and utilities and food, and then donate the rest. I need it far less than most, and I make - well, a lot," he laughs, because no use skirting that. "I did, anyway. I suppose I earned it this time. Besides a school, I'm donating my funds to the _Erik Lehnsherr Sweater Fund_ this year," he snorts. Erik does like his sweaters, and Charles likes making sure his Dominant is well-dressed. Everyone wins, especially because now he can look at Erik wearing them. Infinitely better than a prison uniform.

"As chair of the _Erik Lehnsherr Sweater Fund_ , I wholeheartedly support this gracious, charitable decision," Erik's nose wrinkles up and he leans over to deliver a new kiss onto Charles's lips, because it's been too long between kisses and while Erik can't exactly rectify the difference between a prison uniform or a wardrobe full of sweaters, he can rectify that particular situation. To Erik, this situation wasn't inevitable. What was inevitable was relegation to a dark, dusty corner of the universe and subsequently railing and screaming against the newest cage. He wouldn't have meant it, but he's sure he would have hurt more people in the long run, desperate to escape, the government afraid and provoking him all the further. He would have dedicated his life to vengeance and pain, to hunting down and killing all those who got away instead of proper justice. He wouldn't have been a person, not really, not the person he wants to be. He doesn't know what brought Charles to him that day, what interplay of circumstances resulted in what happened instead, but for that he really is grateful. Charles did give him that, and that is everything.

There's no possible way he can take all the credit, but fortunately he doesn't have to. He thinks that's rather the point of being a Pairbond, even one that hadn't quite formed yet. Charles sets his cup down on the flattest part of the roof he can find and knows instinctively that it won't crash and fall - Erik? Him? It doesn't matter. What does matter is that he properly straddles his Dominant as the sun streaks golden, warm light over them both, arms around Erik's neck as he kisses him good and proper, overwhelmed completely by the spark of emotion currently setting off fireworks inside of him. Their kisses have mostly been soft, chaste things, and it's ridiculous that he feels shy and squirmy inside when he parts his lips obligingly and Erik's tongue slips in, but he's certainly not complaining, pulse racing and cheeks pink as he makes a muffled, wanting noise that sounds far too much like a moan.

There's no way to doubt that Charles wants, too, and that he wants rather desperately. That every part of him is responding, from his heart beating double-timed in his chest to his soft panting and flushed cheeks to other parts of him beginning to stir just from this, noises pulled from his throat as Erik Dominates the kiss effortlessly. Perhaps it's silly to even note it, but besides their tryst on the plane it's been days - and that's such a strange thing, isn't it, that he feels the lack so distinctly? They really should do more studies on Pairbond libidos. But that's decidedly not what he thinks about as he pulls away with a quiet moan, blush darkening at the loud 'pop' that makes, lips swollen and mind fuzzy except - except - it's not all excitement and need fluttering around in his belly, and he lets Erik feel that, too, because he could never imagine hiding it. There's fear, too, not of Erik, but bottled up and uncertain and festering all the same. "Should we get back?" he whispers, eyes lowered.

"No, no," Erik doesn't let Charles pull away, but he rests their foreheads together instead. A different kind of intimacy, one that returns to soft and sweet instead of zapping, electric heat; but make no mistake that it's hovering just under the surface. But for right now everything inside of Erik always responds to Charles, and when Charles is afraid or nervous, Erik's Domination shows up in different ways. More subtle, no less distinct. "Talk with me. Tell me what this is, hm?" he touches Charles's stomach, where that fear has settled, the Order soft.


	57. the sea moves uneasily,/like a man who suspects what the room reels with/as he rises into it is violation— II

His stomach flips over with it, clenching where Erik's hand has settled. Those kiss-swollen lips are promptly pulled between his own teeth and he closes his eyes so Erik doesn't need to see what's behind them, but he doubts it hides much of anything. "I don't want to upset you," he mumbles quietly, because this morning has been soft, for the most part. Unsteady, as anyone would expect it to be, but calmer, sweeter, gentler, evened out and balanced properly after they'd both drifted. There's been good here. "I don't want you to think it's you," he adds, eyes clenched tighter closed.  
  
Erik rubs his thumb over the fabric of his own shirt, much better suited for Charles if he's honest. "Is it me?" he whispers, eyes creasing up as he tilts Charles's chin forward to look at him properly. "Have I done something wrong? It is OK if I have." He can learn, he can do better. He won't dissolve over that. It wouldn't be fair. But if he's done something to incite this fear, this disruptive upset and alarm-that, he couldn't abide continuing.  
  
Charles shakes his head immediately, vehemently, and finally opens his eyes, still worrying his lip. "No, no, not at all - actually, you were doing everything right," he laughs, soft and vaguely shy, his cheeks heated like before because it's nothing but the truth. He'd wanted, and wants, Erik more desperately than he could probably say. It's still beating right under his skin, that need, to submit and be touched and taken and - but he shakes his head again, something caught awfully in his throat. "It's just - it's still up there. All of it. I've seen all of it, and it doesn't change anything, Erik, you have to know that, but -" But he hadn't ever been forced to feel it like that. To watch it and experience it, every agonizing, horrific second, every twinge of pain, every moment of panic, every twisted acted-out torture. And he had, yesterday. He'd had to watch it in that grainy picture and then be there, too, and it had seeped in. "It's... fresh, still. And in there. And I don't want -" He doesn't want to look at Erik, to be with him, and see something else. "I want to. I want to, so badly. It's not you," he whispers, and looks down again, ashamed and sick.  
  
"I know," Erik gasps, because Charles had told him time and time again that he already knew, that he'd already seen but in his heart Erik has always known it was going to be different to endure it like that and it's why he railed so, so hard against it. He never wanted Charles to be exposed like that. "I'm sorry, I'm-I should have, I should have fought harder. I should have put my feet down." He should have said no. Because now Charles doubts, he doubts that Erik-he doubts-and-"It's not true," he shuts his eyes, overcome suddenly, abruptly. "It is not true. You are-it is so much-you have to feel it, you have to know-"  
  
Charles doesn't regret it. Erik needed him there, and so he was. He needed him to bear it, and so he did. That he's struggling a bit with it is on him. He reaches up to cup Erik's cheeks, not even close to framing his face but at least redirecting him, his mind nudging, too, soft and insistent. "I don't doubt anything," he promises. "Whatever you need me to know, I know it. What do I have to know, darling? I promise I already do." He's not confused. He's not disgusted. But it wouldn't be right, would it? To know he's still thinking of those things and - he couldn't. He just couldn't.  
  
Regrettably Erik really doesn't understand that too much-doesn't really understand what the difference is, but he does know that Charles is telling the truth, so he resigns himself to just not being able to bridge whatever gap crops up in-between that truth and his reality; it's a scenario he's familiar with. When things get hazy, when the world doesn't always make sense. He tucks his feet up under him and nestles in closely, brushing Charles's hair from his face and kissing his temple. "It's OK," he whispers back, smiling.  
  
Except it isn't. Charles frowns, uneasy and wincing instinctively at the touch to his temple, except it doesn't hurt and he leans into it a moment later, chasing after the spark despite the sensitivity. "Please talk to me," he pleads, quiet and imploring, shifting back in Erik's lap so he can see him better, prodding gently with his mind. "Tell me? So I can help." Then Charles can work through it, too. They'd promised each other there would be no brushing aside.  
  
"It is," Erik insists, and it is, but he just-"I just do not understand," he murmurs, bowing his head down. Why it isn't right, why it matters, and really-in the end, of course, why it isn't simply normal for people to take what they want, to have what they want, regardless of its effect on Erik. The only thing that matters to him is that Charles isn't afraid, isn't upset, so of course he will acquiesce, will wait as long as necessary, will make sure that there is no fear, no horror, as best as he can.  
  
"You don't - understand?" Charles repeats it as if he doesn't understand, and the truth is that he doesn't. In fact he's reeling with it, eyes wide and throat dry, but he's trying very hard not to show it. Not to pull away in shock. "What - exactly - don't you understand, Erik? That you shouldn't have been -" Now Charles is well and truly horrified, and he knows it's pulsing clear as anything between them, as hard as he tries to choke it back down.  
  
"I-" Erik grimaces. He's been-he knows that it's not- _regular_ , that it's not-and that he doesn't- _prefer_ it, but that isn't exactly what he means. It's more that he doesn't know why-the knowledge in and of itself has-made Charles feel like he can't-be with Erik, why it matters, why it matters how he's seen, why it matters that he shouldn't or should be seen that way. The only explanation is that Charles is-turned away, by it. Maybe he never really wanted to be in that situation, but he does want to be with Charles. He does want to make Charles happy. So, in a way, the answer to Charles's question is yes. He doesn't really know, deep down, why he shouldn't have. After all, he can only think of less than a dozen times that he well and truly didn't consent, the rest of it is just... par for the course. Distasteful, maybe. He does get that. Because it's distasteful. That makes sense. Charles has been trying to make it clear that he isn't disgusted, isn't horrified, but who wouldn't be? Who wouldn't-"It is OK," he swallows, and smiles again. What he doesn't know is how he can reclaim what they had before Charles really know the depth of everything.  
  
 _Par for the course._ Charles is grateful he didn't eat anything this morning, or recently at all, because at least if he retches it will be mostly dry, the coffee sloshing around in his empty stomach. He covers his mouth and closes his eyes, aware his fingers are shaking and that perhaps the rest of him is, too. "I'm not disgusted or horrified with you," he whispers, as calmly as he possibly can, and there's not a hint of a lie there. Of that, Charles is absolutely sure, completely honest about. "Do you... are you intimate with me because it makes me happy?" he asks, and it sticks so awfully in his throat his voice cracks.  
  
Erik's eyebrows pinch in the center and he shakes his head, lips parting. Of course it does make Charles happy, which makes Erik happy, but-no. He knows the question really being asked. "Is that what you feel from me?" he whispers, swallowing down his own sickly-sweet nausea. The idea that Charles could ever remotely resemble any of what happened to him in that footage is as preposterous as it is horrifying.  
  
Charles shakes his head immediately, but he still feels sick, too. He still feels unsteady and unbalanced and horrified and he doesn't want this to make him doubt. "No," he gasps, and replays it for himself, skipping details, and - "It's not... you don't feel like you have to?" Like an obligation. Par for the course. His eyes are still closed, as if he's scared to see the reaction. It doesn't feel like it. It's never felt like it. It felt real, and good, and something they both wanted and needed -  
  
"No," Erik silently encourages (Orders, more or less, but it's not conscious) him to open his eyes. "But you are horrified. You are disgusted." Erik just doesn't realize that the disgust isn't because of him. To Erik, if Charles weren't horrified, then he would have no problem putting it out of his mind. But he can't. Erik can see that. He can't put it out of his mind. It's wormed its way in there. "You need to see me," he croaks. "I didn't-" want it? Choose it? That's not right, either, is it. "I wouldn't-it didn't make me happy," he settled on. "You do."  
  
When he opens his eyes, he takes a shaky, stuttering breath, digging his fingers into his palm as hard as he can to offset the jangling panic he doesn't want either of them to feel. Erik was right the first time. He didn't have the ability to consent to any of the situations he was put into. He wasn't given a choice, he wasn't given a chance to say no. No reasonable person would ever, under any circumstances, call that consent. But with Charles - he bites his lip, too, tries to breathe evenly through his nose. "I do see you," he mumbles, and he does. He always has. "But what if -" He can't. It hurts too much to think about. "It makes you happy?" he asks, and his voice is small, uncertain. Frightened. There's a difference. There's a difference, and he's felt it, there's a difference.  
  
"Happy," Erik whispers back, and this time his smile is perfectly genuine, a brightness to match the sun in his own eyes that look back. "With you," he finishes that thought. "I do. You give me that. I won't always know how to use that gift. But I do know that I have never been more happy than when I am with you, in every way. Like this," he taps Charles on the nose, and then kisses him. "Like this. I am not afraid. I am not disgusted. I am not obligated. The difference is love."  
  
Charles swallows, hands still shaking slightly as he reaches out to touch Erik's face. Erik is telling the truth, that much he knows without a shadow of a doubt - has always known - and it isn't the false, forced truths of the places they both came from. This is real. "You never - not once?" he asks, and closes his eyes tightly again, despite knowing Erik might just Order them back open. He's asked this before. He knows this. But he's scared, and he needs to hear it again. "You - before, you..." Anyone can say he wanted it. Eventually you start to believe it. But that's not what it was. That's not what it is. That deep need, that steady, electric Dominance -  
  
"You never told me I wanted it," Erik whispers, and indeed he does, and when Charles's eyes fly open once more, Erik swipes underneath them, pressing their foreheads together firmly. "You let me choose." And he had chosen, and he had wanted it, and does still. "Not once," he murmurs, firm. Firm and solid. "Not once."  
  
It's true, and Charles knows it. If anyone was in a position to know, to be fully aware of the difference, it's him. Even when Erik can't fully understand it, even when he can't make sense of the hazy in-betweens, Charles can clearly see where things are wholly not the same. Where they never could be. He takes a sharp breath and nods, biting down hard on his cheek again. "You promise you like it?" he whispers, which is a question he's asked before, too, uncertain and nervous and shy, but - Charles wants it to be different in every single way, and maybe it's his own hang-ups, but he needs it to be. "You... sometimes..." He's never cared for it, before Erik. Never sought it out, for many reasons, some not unlike Erik's. But now - it's different. He wants it, desperately, and sometimes it feels rather like he needs it, even outside of their Bonding. Not because he has to, or is being forced to, but... sometimes it's overwhelming for him, completely, and for Erik - it's okay? It really is okay? It's good for him, too?  
  
Erik shakes his head, backtracking. "I sometimes-?" Cared for it? Sought it out? It's exactly what Charles watched him do on those tapes. "But not-it never-made me happy," his lips press together in grief. "Not like you. I want you. I need it, just as much. It is good, between us. We are good. I promise. Surely you must feel. In here." He touches Charles's hand to Erik's heart.  
  
Charles makes a distressed, quiet noise, shaking his head back and forth. It wasn't a complete thought, he'd been talking about himself but apparently words were apparently failing him and there's a crease in his brow now, pained and uncomfortable. "You didn't - seeking something out because it's the best option available to you, because it's expected, because you're pressured or otherwise coerced, because it can be used as a distraction or a bartering tool, or because you think it will please the other person, especially if not earning that favor results in pain, for you or others - that doesn't amount to wanting it. It doesn't amount to consent. That is the definition of consent." He takes another slow breath, and feels Erik's heart underneath his hand. "None of that is true with us. You promise," he breathes, just as much a statement as a question.  
  
"None of it is true," Erik returns, soft. "I promise. I promise. I know you can feel this is true," Erik smiles slightly, this-one genuine. "Hm? Between us. What is real. This is real. Promise me you know that. That we belong together. That you belong with me, to me. I could never-everything else, it all means nothing. Not when what we have is so much more."  
  
"I promise I know that," he whispers, and it's nothing but sincere. Charles knows that with everything he has, with his heart and his mind and his body, too, with everything. It's the one thing he doesn't think he's capable of doubting, even at his most insecure. That this, right now, is real. That Erik loves him, and that it isn't fabricated, it isn't forced, it isn't because he feels like he should. He looks down, that lump still bobbing in his throat, clogging it up, nails digging into his palm again. "I don't want this to change us," he mumbles. No part of them, including their - why is he skirting it? Their _sex life_ , which - if you asked Charles, was very healthy before now. He thinks it was, anyway. He certainly felt like it was.  
  
"But it disgusts you," Erik repeats his earlier whisper, this-time barely audible. "I'm sorry," he gasps. "I wish I could-I wish I could take it all back. Choose differently. I'm sorry."  
  
"No," he shakes his head, reaching for Erik's cheek again, stroking it gently as he sits more closely on his lap, unwilling to put space between them again. "They disgust me, Erik. You never have and never will. I need you to understand that. I don't want -" He swallows, looking for the right way to phrase this. "It's not anything you did that disgusts me. It was just in my head, and I don't want even the opportunity to think of those things while we're together. That's all. Because they don't - they don't have a place here. Not during - I don't want them to," he whispers, head bowed because he's ashamed. He shouldn't have said anything. He shouldn't have stopped things. This is his fault.  
  
Erik's head tilts. "You think they should have a place here?" he murmurs, unsure how to interpret Charles's sudden shift in ideology. He swallows, grimacing against Charles's palm. "I do not want you to be-conflicted," he murmurs. "If you are, then it was right for you to stop things. I just want for you to see me. To think of me. I wouldn't want you to think of them, either," he huffs a gentle laugh. He thinks he might understand. The first and only time he'd used his pause-word it had been similar. He'd encountered Charles as a child, and to go from that to being intimate was too much to bear. It was too close to the things that had hurt him. "But I see you," Erik whispers. "See me. Feel me. I am right here. I am not going anywhere. Those people don't get place with us."  
  
Charles huffs a quiet, frustrated laugh, because words are not serving him well today. He's disjointed, stuttering, falling over himself, and it's especially ridiculous because he's trying not to be misunderstood here. "They should not have a place," he corrects, because he would never suggest otherwise. "I do see you, Erik. Earlier, I was seeing you. It's just - it's close to the same situation, you're right," he sighs, relieved that Erik seems to be understanding where he was coming from in the first place. What had frightened him. "It's just... rolling around in there at the moment, and trust me when I say I do not want it to. But I couldn't bear - it would have hurt both of us." He bites on his lip. "But... I want to. With you. Actually, it's -" It's ridiculous, so he doesn't say it, chuckling under his breath.  
  
"Tell me," Erik murmurs, nose wrinkling up in fondness. "Tell me, hm?" his lips quirk up, amused. "I want to," he whispers. "With you. I always want to. Every time we are together-I am overcome-did you know? By my want for you. It is...beyond anything I have ever known prior. Being with you is-it is happiness, it is joy, it is peace, and prosperity and love. For us both. And I know that it would have detracted from all that meaning if we had done so while you were still thinking of them. So tell me, yeah?" the Order is gentle. Bright and true and soft.  
  
Charles never actually expected to get away with that one. He huffs again, this time in embarrassment, cheeks red all over again as he scoots close enough to bury his face in Erik's neck, hiding in a way that Erik usually finds acceptable. "It just feels like it's been ages," he mumbles, flustered, because he knows it hasn't been. But it feels like it, even still, like - some itch, some need, and it's certainly not for lack of desire. Sometimes he's a bit surprised they end up doing anything else, as much as he enjoys and needs all of that, too, when - "It's so much," he admits. Just like everything else between them. He needs to be... it's primal, and ridiculous, but Claimed. Owned. Taken. He does. And Erik - wants that, too? Doesn't he?

* * *

"Eons," Erik murmurs softly. "Ages. Eons. Millennia. I've missed you so much. Being with you. Claiming you. Taking you." It is all of those equally-ancient parts in Erik roaring to life once more as he regards his Bonded, his submissive. "You are mine, sweetheart. They cannot take you from me. They cannot take me from you." It is a primal want, within him, and as close as Charles is inside of his lap, that is exactly where Charles belongs. With him. Close to him. To be kissed by him and taken by him and owned by him. Erik makes a low noise and he presses a chaste kiss to Charles's lips, one with fire-stokes just beneath. "But I would never wish to-" to make him uncomfortable.  
  
Those images and sensations and lived-through experiences are still there, and the truth of it is, they won't ever leave. They're burned into his memory permanently, and he knows, as those sorts of things are wont to do, occasionally they'll drift toward the surface. But what better way to banish them than with the one thing they could never stand a chance against? And there's not a single part of him that doubts that he wants - needs, even, as if, even outside of... whatever occurred the night of their Bonding, he simply can't go too long without Erik's touch. His claim. It's those thoughts that make him bold, and he swallows before he leans forward and kisses Erik again, nothing about it chaste. It's desperate and wet and filthy, instead, needy and he moans right into it, dropping fast enough to make his head spin. It's that same boldness that has him roll his hips very deliberately in his Dominant's lap, legs wrapped firmly around him as he pulls away, cheeks flushed and lips newly-swollen and slick. "If - if it's too much -" They'll stop. He knows they'll stop.  
  
"No, oh no," Erik grins against Charles's mouth. "Not too much. Never too much. Come here, _neshama_ , hm? Come here, I've got you, I've-" Erik cuts himself off to press his lips firmly against his submissive's, tongue delving into Charles's mouth just-as desperate, just as filthy in return and _he_ lets out a soft groan, all that belayed electric-heat returning in full as it shoots and sparks down Erik's chest and into his gut in a whipped-up fury and he extends it out in a sweep of hot Will, Will that has up until now been denied its claim, its stake in Charles, and feeling Charles's hips move against his-Erik's eyes flutter and he grasps at Charles's ass, pulling him even closer so Charles can feel just how different it all really is. How aroused he feels because before now-he didn't feel arousal, didn't feel heat and now it's-"Mine," Erik growls lowly, a rumble deep in his chest. "Mine, _sheli, ahava sheli_ ,*" he whispers weakly, affected.  
  
Charles shivers head to toe, panting against Erik's lips in hot, needy puffs, and already his heart is racing again, already he's worked up and sunk down and he whines, grinding his hips helplessly against - against, somehow shy again even in his own thoughts despite how very familiar this is by now. It's not fear that makes him come up for air this time, eyes wide and outdoing clear morning sky, sweat stuck to his skin and he wants Erik to take his shirt off so he can touch and then he wants Erik to take his shirt off, too, so - Charles shakes his head to clear it, gasping as he tries to remember why he isn't begging to be on his knees right about now. "Roof," he finally manages, and he claws at Erik's back at the same time, as if he needs to hold on for purchase. Somehow it doesn't stop him from grinding down again, either, and moaning full with desperation. He's learned he's quite willing to be adventurous with Erik, more than he'd ever think himself capable of, and there are many, many things he's willing to try, but on the roof of this café is perhaps not one of them.  
  
Erik lifts a finger and what erupts from him is a shield that extends across the whole rooftop. To them it's translucent, but to the passers-by it shows nothing, light-bent in perfect synergy so that they see nothing. Like one of Charles's filters, or illusions, only it's a trick with light instead. An illusion born of Erik's abilities, this time. "We shall not be seen," he hums lowly, grinding his own hips up against-hm, "against what, hm? Hm? What can you feel there, Charles, hmm?" the Command in his voice is layered and honeyed, accent thickened as deeper as he falls into desire and need.  
  
Very impressive, except Charles already knew they wouldn't be seen. He'd had that covered, and he could have provided the same effect and quite a bit more, because light is all perception for humans anyway - but it's tempting, and he squirms on Erik's lap, mumbling a flustered, incomprehensible answer, burying his face in Erik's neck again and then biting, too, his pulse racing as he realizes what he's done in the aftermath. "Roof," he insists, huffy, because there's no way, light or not, he's - it's not happening, is it? Sure, there was that time in the back of the stranger's car, and the airplane, perfectly out in the open, but - he wants quite a bit more than that. Quite a bit. They're quickly approaching bathroom floor here (Charles would have got on his knees and taken it then if Erik had asked and wanted it, too, and that's wholly beside the point). The longer he goes without - he shakes his head, another helpless, desperate noise escaping.  
  
Too bad, Charles. It's bathroom-floor levels of desire for Erik and if no one can see, then, you know what, Erik quite simply doesn't have an issue with it. "Tempting, hm? Just tempting-" and then Charles bites him and he suddenly finds himself on all fours right now, thank-you-very much with Erik's hot breath in his ear. Because he's decided that yes, thank-you, he rather wouldn't wait to fly all the way back home when they've a perfectly viable solution right here. You can huff and you can puff, but Erik's the Dominant here. "Quite a bit more-than having my cock down your throat?" and all of a sudden Erik's very _good_ at cursing, like magic, really, the words rolling off his tongue filthy and natural as anything. "Tell me what you want quite a bit more of, _neshama_ ," Eriks hand splays out over his throat before yanking him back by the hair, nearly meeting their gazes together for the rough little twist he gives. "And use your words. They did after all get you into this spot of trouble," he traces his fingernail across that mark on Charles's cheek. But now they'll be used how Erik wants. For his purposes. In obeyance of his Command.  
  
Charles whines loudly, both at the delicious tug of pain as he's manhandled and yanked and Dominated - he needs this, too, he needs this - and at the predicament he's gotten himself into and suddenly has absolutely no willpower to get himself out of. It occurs to him that unless there was some extreme circumstances, he would get on his knees just about anywhere, all fours like this (it's not a Presentation but if Erik asked it could be and -) or to do exactly what Erik brought up and he hadn't gotten enough of it on the plane, really, not even by half. He's finding he's exceptionally greedy when it comes to - another low, embarrassed whine and he bites his lip hard. "I want you," he tries, already red to his ears and he's not sure why he's so squirmy and shy, now, why it feels like the first time again and he's red-faced and practically virginal when they both know he's anything but. Like it really has been ages. "I want you so terribly bad, Erik, please," he breathes, and they're certainly words. They're pretty words, too, and he means them, and maybe Erik will take mercy and then take him.  
  
Erik trails his fingers up Charles's shirt and then rips it right off of him, shredding it into a pile and when his pants come up next-because they're in his way and those two come off with a yank that tears them into long pieces that neatly pile themselves in the corner, as though Erik's ripping the clothes from him with his bare hands and maybe he is; the effect's all the same, and when he finally tugs Charles up and over, it's to place his hands on Erik's own chest. "Undress me," he growls lowly, deep and dark and so full of promise. Of all the things he is going to do to his submissive right here because he wants and what he wants, he shall take and this-yes, Erik can't help but laugh, joyous. This is good. Beautiful. Wondrous.  
  
He hasn’t caught his breath by the time Erik is yanking him up, completely naked before he even has a second to process it. What comes out of his mouth is a quiet, acquiescent whimper, and not because he’s afraid; quite the contrary. His fingers are trembling as he works on tugging Erik’s sweater off, fumbling because he’s shaking with want, every inch of him, because his throat is dry and his head is fuzzy but entirely clear, too, because he’s deep-deep-deep down and every time he moves he can feel those marks from his earlier punishment shift and he wants to obey, immediately and perfectly and exactly to Erik’s liking. It takes him a few tries to get the zip of Erik’s jeans because he’s got himself so worked up, and he would be utterly mortified if he wasn’t so - this, and by the time those are off and Erik is bare he’s breathless and then he’s looking and - of course he’s seen Erik naked before. He’s watched, over time, as the muscles of his chest and stomach became more defined, as he filled out, but he was always naturally handsome and beautiful and the most devastatingly attractive person Charles has ever seen, whether he’s biased or not. He’s certainly seen below the belt, and has found himself intimately familiar with those parts of Erik’s body. But it doesn’t stop his eyes from catching and his breath catching with it, eyes wide and blown with desire and something near-startled, because his Dominant is certainly, definitely aroused and it isn’t like anyone would expect any part of Erik to be small but now he’s staring, he’s wondering how even part of it could possibly fit inside him - and now he’s turning scarlet, mouth dry, licking at his lips, squirming on his knees, and there’s absolutely no way he can ever go this long again. It’s too much. He’ll burst. He needs, does Erik know that? Likely, because he’s projecting louder than he normally ever does, every thought practically in stereo, every sensation feedback-looped right back in.  
  
Erik's eyes go half-lidded as the swirl of thoughts pelt against him and he can't help but smile at the turn they've taken, humming to himself as Charles peels away his clothing from him and even though no one can see them, they can see as the sun begins to blaze in the sky and a light wind ruffles over the rooftop and Erik can't help it, he's laughing as he lays down a soft blanket, pinning Charles to the ground overtop so that the marks along his shoulders and ass drag along cashmere instead of concrete, and Erik shoves a knee in between his thighs, trapping both of his hands above his head. "Ah, now I've got you where I want you," he grins wolfishly down at his prey. For the moment he just wants to play, to touch and kiss and mark, scraping his teeth over the thin skin against Charles's jaw and nipping under his ear, tweaking his nipples where they're still incredibly sensitive from being clamped earlier on. Erik smirks when Charles jumps and arches up. He's been without-it feels-it's been, like, a day, and it feels like it's been a month. It's ridiculous, surely, but that heat in his veins is threatening to whip up into a roaring forest fire, razing everything down, and Charles isn't helping with his thoughts of Presenting and how those thoughts paint his cheeks a brilliant red, possibly Erik's favorite shade of red in existence.  
  
It's entirely too much, and like usual, entirely not enough. His body is incredibly sensitive, head to toe trembling with it, every mark dragging against skin and fabric, his chest heaving as he tries to keep up between sensations. Everywhere Erik touches seems to spark, electric and heat up his spine and he's panting and moaning even at the softest brushes, trying to squirm in Erik's hold - away? Closer? His heart is so loud he can hear it beat in his ears and he closes his eyes, something worming its way into his stomach but he's not sure what it is. Nerves? It's certainly not the first time Erik's taken him - maybe on a roof, but somehow he suspects the list of places he's taken will only increase - but he feels completely overwhelmed this time, strung out and exposed and helpless and it doesn't help that he's gotten his fair share of lashes today, that his body is so oversensitive even grazing it is so much he wants to cry. Somehow it all only makes him need more, and that's too much, too, and - he reaches out for Erik, not with body but with mind, wrapping around him and seeking and letting go, letting Erik guide him. Out of his head, out of everything, narrowed down until the only thing that matters is Erik, obeying and pleasing and Presenting himself for use - oh, that's... Charles moans despite himself, eyes still closed as he chews a new hole in his lip.  
  
"Mhmm, show me," Erik rasps into Charles's ear, and it's difficult to quantify his expression when his hand trails all the way down to cup Charles between his legs, fingers calloused and warm and real and when Charles bucks up against him his nostrils flare in sympathy, chin lifted as if to inhale every last speck of Charles's desire into himself, and more than anything else it's been too long since that. Since he's seen this, felt this, heard those sounds in specific symphony. "You want to Present for me, hm? Present for me." It's almost a snarl, a snap of Order that throws a lit match onto all those heated streaks of oil slowly sliding down under Charles's skin.  
  
Charles knows, vaguely, of Presentation postures. The bulk of them he's learned from the minds of others, not from Erik, which is really a horrible shame. The ones he has learned from his Dominant are hazed over by desire and burning, indescribable need, the majority blended right in with their Bonding - he still remembers them perfectly, and could likely replicate if Erik Ordered, but he hadn't. He'd given Charles the initiative, told him to Present himself and now he's breathing harshly all over again, dripping over Erik's fingers as he forces himself away with a pitiful little whimper at the loss. Those nerves are still fluttering in his stomach and he's shaking like a leaf as he raises himself up and then turns around, and he knows he could get away, probably, with something like this - hands and knees is a vulnerable enough position. Instead he lowers himself all the way down onto his elbows with his poor, reddened arse sticking straight up, spreads his knees until they burn and everything is there for Erik to see. It also means he has absolutely no leverage, and he swallows, vulnerable and open and - his Dominant has him. He'll take care of him. His mind clings to Erik's, needy and way down, Presented just as much as his body is. Does Erik like it -? Is he being good?  
  
"Beautiful," Erik whispers, it's to himself, under his breath, breath-taking-he thinks he must mean, and he presses his mouth to those reddened, angry marks along Charles's ass, soothing them with lips an tongue and Erik hums, a pleased sound against Charles's skin and his eyes flutter shut, an attempt to quieten the utter, raging electricity threatening to burn itself out, burn him out until he is nothing but rutting, mindless need and it feels like that now, like he is burning as hot as the streaks of sunlight above them. Solar flares. He sets himself back on his haunches and gives Charles's hole a nice slap, eyes like slits as he gazes upon his submissive. Oh, yes. "You're being very good, _neshama_." Such a filthy boy he has before him, and he knows that Charles can see what he can, feel what he can and he wets two fingers and abruptly twists them inside of Charles, until he can feel Charles desperately begin to thrust back against him, against those jolts to his prostate, but he swiftly retracts just as soon as it starts to deliver another echoing slap, filthy and loud in the open air. "Mine, hm? Do you know it now?"  
  
There's nowhere to thrust back like this, really. Nowhere to go. His legs are spread far too wide to wriggle too much without losing his balance, and even if Erik would keep him from toppling over, he wants to hold position. The whine Erik pulling back elicits is loud and mournful and he nearly sobs with it, without long fingers to clench against, the burn of being stretched, head bowed all the way down and he feels - he couldn't describe it, and his head is too full of need and helpless, desperate submission to even begin to try, subspace tugged down over his mind like a thick, hazy fog that smothers everything else even as he yelps at the slap. "Yours," he whispers, and it dawns on him that all those needy, pleading noises are his, that he's making them. "I'm yours, I belong to you. You own me. Please, I need -" He needs. His cheeks are red again and his voice cracks and he's Presented out in the open and he needs, he needs or surely he'll burst. It almost hurts, it aches, not having - "Please," he begs again, and this time he manages to wiggle just slightly, spreading his legs even wider.  
  
"Oh, sweetheart, what do you need, hm?" Erik murmurs, and this time instead of his fingers he spreads Charles even further apart to bury his tongue instead, and the response that gets only inflames him more. "What do you need, hm?" Erik growls right up inside him, the vibrations of his voice warm and his breath hot, and the vibrations of his laughter cause even more sensation. "Words, Charles. Now you tell me what you need properly." He gives his ass a smack for good measure, leaning back on his haunches to rub himself against those marks, taking his time. There's nowhere in the world to go but here, baked in the sun that warms him up just as much as those needy, pitiful moans coming from his submissive.  
  
The sun. They're outside, and even without the trick of light that keeps them hidden he knows his own shields are in place, because sounds and the like aren't at all changed by those sorts of things, and he knows no one would see them or have any clue what they're up to. But it's that reminder combined with the filthy noises from behind him, the sensations, Erik's voice, the hot sun on his skin making everything damp and sweaty and overwhelming, his hair curled at the nape and stuck to his cheeks - Charles whines louder than before, full and reedy and gasping, a dry sob pulled from his lips because now it does hurt. Not the marks, though certainly that, too - he was well-punished, and for some reason that adds to it, the thought of being disciplined and then used, all those applications of Dominance and Erik is capable of all of them, of always keeping him in line, of properly caring for his submissive, like some primal part of him seeking a worthy mate to satisfy ever ancient, deep-seated need and how utterly ridiculous and - it aches. It aches and he needs and his cheeks are so warm and not because they're out in the sunlight and he can't breathe for it, but he has to obey or he'll break apart and shatter. "I need - " Another whine, low and embarrassed and shy despite everything, and hiding in his own arms does nothing to make it better. "I need you to take me," he settles on, panting on it. "Please. Please, sir, please." _Make me feel it make me sore make me beg for it prove I'm yours that no one else could ever have me that we're meant for this that we're different that we're more -_  
  
"Good boy," Erik praises him, his voice warm and honeyed, sweet and sticky and he rubs his cock right over Charles's crack, smacks it again and again over his still-clenching hole, watching as his hole flutters against nothing. "So desperate to be filled, my filthy boy, hm? Shall I take you slow? Gentle. Loving. Shall I make love to you?" and then he climbs all the way up to drape his body chest-to-Charles's back. "Or do you want me to *fuck* you, Charles? Hm?"  
  
Charles shivers so hard he nearly knocks himself out of position, breath hitching both at the tease of Erik's - of him being so close and those absolutely debauched things slipping from his lips, all of the dark promises and honeyed praise, and Erik has to know. He has to know that it aches, that he's practically choking on how horribly he needs his Dominant inside of him right now - and the filthier, shameless things he's thinking, how he's hardly prepared at all and he hopes that makes it hurt in that delicious way, that it stretches and burns so he feels every inch as Erik feeds it to him, that he's sore later for more than one reason, that - he shakes his head but it does nothing to clear, head swimming and shaking with it all coiled up tight. "Yes, sir," he manages, broken, and it wasn't a yes or no question but he's hardly holding onto anything coherent here. "Hurts - please, inside, please," he gasps, and tries to thrust back, but it does nothing at all and he gives another dry sob, clenching and dripping between his own legs. He could come right now. Would Erik just take him right through it?  
  
"And I-said- _beg_ me for it," Erik growls, and this smack is entirely unforgiving. Erik reaches down and grabs a thick grouping of strands in his fingertips and _yanks_ , hard, a fresh jangle of pain accompanying Erik's fiery, electric Orders.  
  
It says something that along with the gasp of pain, Charles moans long and low as his hair is pulled, hole still clenching and smarting in the aftermath of the slap. It's not quite the same as their Bonding, but it certainly feels close; the more he's made to wait, the more it rages beneath the skin, burning and hissing and then hurting, too, empty and horrid and he tries to force words around his own desperate panting, not able to get enough air into his lungs and shaking all over. "Take me, sir, please, I - it hurts -" And it does, and he can't cry but he thinks he would be, it feels like he is, hips rocking entirely of their own accord. He knows what Erik's looking to hear and he finally whimpers, caught and kept and surrendering, even as his whole body burns with it. "Fuck me, please, fuck me, sir, I need it, it hurts, please make it better, please," he gets out all at once, trembling hard enough that he worries about keeping himself Presented. But if Erik wants it, he'll stay. He has to be good or he'll - Erik has to think he's good, he has to want to keep him -  
  
"Mine. _This_ is mine," he gives Charles's ass a solid wallop. "Every part of this body. This mind. Belongs to me." And for a single moment Charles had put himself out of place of that and forgot it and had been swiftly taken back in hand, and now he's being put back in his place, Presented as he always should be for Erik, giving himself over to it and more-it's been sick, being alone has been a sickness and Erik feels it shuddering through him. No more sickness. No more darkness. Just the light and the sun and Charles begging to be taken, and it all slots back where it should've been before this wretched day began. Erik wastes little time preparing him, getting him ready, making him wait for it but they both know Erik's just as affected, he needs it just as much and he's shaking from the force of keeping himself together. It of course shouldn't be any real wonder where Erik could possibly conjure lube in a place like this, but when he finally does press inside, slow and then dragging Charles's hips back to snap forward on a thrust, well-it's Erik. He seems to have slew of magic tricks at his disposal if nothing else. He wraps Charles's hair around his palm, draping himself down over his back and nipping at his throat. "Mine," he repeats for good measure.  
  
The sound that comes from him is really more of a gurgle than anything, helpless, ragged pants as his face is pressed into the ground and his hair is tugged and pulled. There is a stretch, a delicious burn (to be fair, there always is, there would be even if Erik opened him up on his fingers for ages, his Dominant is huge in every respect), and Erik made him take it nearly all at once after days of going without. In the aftermath he can't catch his breath, overwhelmed between the pulsing, brilliant relief of being filled and the pleasure-pain of being cleaved in two, oversensitive and aching from it. But the low, distressed noises he's making now aren't a result of it, he doesn't think, in as much as he can think at the moment, outside of obeying; it's because between his legs, entirely untouched, he's throbbing and leaking and his Dominant has been training him not to come without permission and he's taken to it dutifully, eagerly, but - he's very close just from having Erik inside him, just from being taken, from being stretched to bursting and he sucks in desperate breaths, the corners of his eyes leaking impossible tears as he wraps Erik up in his mind, projects loudly and openly in equal parts gratitude and need. He's supposed to ask properly, but how could he even consider it when he's so completely, absolutely overcome by this? It's such a relief, it already feels so much better, his Dominant takes such good care of him, Charles belongs to him, he's owned by him -  
  
Erik bows his head low against Charles's, unable to stop a gasp of his own from ripping through the area and rather than allow Charles to find any purchase resting against his arms he grips both of them in his good hand, holding them tightly over his head and leaning into him so that he feels the stretch everywhere in his body, and the resulting sensation ripples back to himself through their Bond, searing in his chest and forcing his hips to snap forward, hard, hooking his foot under Charles's ankle to spread him apart even further, completely splayed open and helpless to Erik's mercy; if he should choose to be merciful. Which he doesn't. Charles belongs to him and how dare there be anything that cast this into doubt, anything that exists that says Erik doesn't want this, need this as much as-he can't sanction that, he cannot let it survive, no more flames of doubt fanned here, and with every thrust Charles's cock drags against the blanket and slaps up onto his stomach and Erik gives him no purchase, nowhere to go, nowhere to find relief but him. "If you want to come," he growls, "then come. I won't stop you." And neither will he stop, either, because it's not about Charles's release or even his pleasure for once-for once, it's because he belongs to Erik and Erik is entitled to him, to taking what he wants, Charles wanted to be taken, not just fucked and that's exactly what he'll get.  
  
Charles doesn't think it's a _for once._ He'd certainly like it not to be. Erik is entitled, and he should take, and - he really had gotten it mixed up, hadn't he? Wormed all those awful things into his head and started to doubt what he never should have doubted? It gets knocked right out of him with every snap of Erik's hips, every punched out, helpless gasp and whimper and he has no purchase, he has no balance except he knows he has stay upright and Presented for Erik to - to fuck, to claim, to take, and - it's drawn out of him with a long, loud moan that breaks into a pitiful whine, cock spurting and he seems to come forever but it doesn't stop. It doesn't stop even as he clenches to keep Erik inside, even as he sobs with it, even as he trembles and shakes in the aftermath, more oversensitive than he could ever imagine being. It hurts and it doesn't, it's soothing, too, being used properly and he needs it and his Dominant does, too, and - "Yours," he cries, and wraps Erik up in the sensation of it, of utter surrender, of his submission and all the devotion and love that comes with it, of being happily owned.  
  
"That's right," Erik whispers, "mine," it turns into a low growl as his hips thrust forward, burying himself even further into Charles's warm, welcoming hole, exactly where he belongs, deep inside of his submissive. "You are mine. Do you remember, hm?" he laughs warmly, incredibly pleased and soothed by their positions, by Charles's hands trapped in his, by Charles's hips moving back against his like he can't get enough of Erik and that, that is soothing, the beast that howls inside of him for Domination finally, finally eased. "Mine, mine-" he gasps, withdrawing fully before fucking himself back inside, deep and hard and fast, rubbing Charles's cock right into that wet spot of his release. "Mine," a whisper. Again. Erik loves Charles so much, so much-owning and taking and Dominating at last, right where they both belong. In each of their respective places.  
  
Charles thinks that at the moment nothing exists for him but this. There's nothing for him to do but be taken, soothed and filled and made sore and aching in the best possible way, the only way that could possibly make him feel whole right now. He clenches and whines and gasps and keens, but there's nowhere to go and nothing to do but be owned, and even thrusting back becomes impossible when his Dominant starts to snap his hips in that brutal, primal pace. All he can do is sob and take it, his own release already well past. It's ancient, really, the way he feels properly claimed, the sequence of things - punished and then taken until he can't breathe, stuffed full and sensitive until his hole is as sore and red as his punished ass and kiss-swollen lips. The way it's meant to be. Not a sick perversion, not the messy tangle he'd made it into. As simple as it is complex, as easy to understand as anything: he belongs to Erik, Erik's keeping him, Erik is the only one who can handle and care for him. Nothing wrong, or dirty, or sick. Perhaps not always so simple, but for right now there's nothing to doubt or fret. He clings to Erik with his mind where he can't his body, greedy and needy and entirely consumed by subspace, put down just as he'd asked to be. Does Erik know how grateful he is to be taken like this, to be kept and owned like this? How much he loves him? How much he needs? He has to. He has to, and Charles projects it all back, makes the air sing with it, more feeling than heat from the sun.  
  
"Mine," Erik says back. Does Charles know that every time he says it, what he means is this-to own, to keep, to love, as clear as the brightest bell ringing in his mind and his hands clench over Charles's within his, fingers gripping tightly, eyes fluttered shut, head bowed back against Charles's and Charles said it was wrong to think about those things right now but of course, sometimes it's inevitable and all he can think is how foolish they were, how stupid every one of those clients was, and maybe that's legal and ethical and moral but it's also basic. How broken they had to have been, to think that what they did could on any level compete with this. With being half of a whole, with being loved. There is no power on Earth greater than that of love and yet they convinced themselves they had it all. Networking, intrigue, it means nothing. It is blown down by primal fire, that is what Erik knows and they were both silly to think anything otherwise and he laughs, soft and true, tugging Charles back against him, releasing his hands so he can spank his ass and drive right back into him in the aftermath of the sting, head dropping as Charles convulses and clenches against him.  
  
“Hhhnnn,” is just about all Charles can get out verbally outside of those soft whimpers, his gasp and then low, pitched whine as his sore, swollen ass is spanked and new, fresh pain bursts tantalizing and sharp through his body, melting in with the overwhelming, overstimulating pleasure until he’s sobbing again. It’s dry save for a few rogue tears that manage to slip down his flushed cheeks, salty on his tongue as he pants open-mouthed and doesn’t even consider biting on his lip to stifle noises. Those are Erik’s, and he is Erik’s, and that means Erik is his, too, not in the way they tried to make him or in the same way Charles is but in the sense that they belong with each other - his Dominant needs him, too. A Pairbond takes two. Two halves perfectly complemented to make a complete, fulfilling whole, and they work at it everyday. Perhaps he’ll get twisted up again, but everything has been unraveled now, everything they’ve done today straightening out what creased and bent. He knows this is the point where he should be wrung out entirely, where he should be in much more pain than pleasure, but it’s simply not the case; instead he’s calm as much as he is needy, soft and open and part of him hopes Erik never finishes, that he takes him and takes him and takes him and keeps him stuffed and they stay here, just like this, Charles Presented and offered up and Erik taking his due. His right. Something incomprehensible gets mumbled into the blanket he’s currently rubbing his face against, sensual and greedy and down, but the meaning is clear as anything where Charles’ mind curls and seeks Erik’s; he understands now, not that he didn’t before. There’s a nudge of something seeking and wanting and needy there, too, but he quiets it down, content to just be used. All day, if Erik wants, though eventually his knees might give out.  
  
"I would hold you up," Erik rasps into his ear, chuckling lowly. As if true to his word, he shifts Charles up and rises behind him, barring his arm around his throat and stroking at the side of his face with his lesser hand, kissing his cheek and licking at those tears that slip out from the corners of his eyes, letting gravity bring Charles down even harder onto his cock, dragging his fingers down to his stomach and lifting his jaw. Chasing after that seeking, wanting, needing thing that he tries to quieten down because that belongs to him, too. There is no part of Charles that doesn't and it's no Bonding, they won't be here all day but Erik's stamina will certainly be sufficient enough to draw this out, to make it last, to make every hour they weren't doing this condense into one long moment that he strings Charles out on and threads him through. Beautiful. He is beautiful, it is beauty and that is the difference, up until he met Charles there's never been meaning or reason or something sacred, something worthy to protect and cherish, about such an act. Charles was always so worried about being mindless, about becoming mindless, but Erik already has been. Mindless and empty and nothing, devoid of pleasure, devoid of anything resembling humanity, cold and dead and alone. It's not just the sun, but yet it is, too. The sun and the smell of cardamom in the air and softness and warmth, life. It's life. Their life. What their life should be, what Erik will work a thousandfold to ensure remains.  
  
He murmurs soft and moaning at the shift, bearing against that strong hand around his throat just to feel it squeeze, rolling back against Erik's cock and keening when it rubs and nudges and abuses his poor, overstimulated prostate. There's no red-hot, insatiable need like their Bonding - there was something about a cycle there, so perhaps there will be, but not now. It doesn't hurt anymore, except in that sore, delicious way he hopes he feels for days and days (and he hopes Erik takes him again while it's still there, with his hole still well-used, because he's allowed). Erik is taking perfect care of him. But that seeking part just wanted this; he nuzzles against the hand on his cheek, sweet and sluggish as he pants and whimpers, and perhaps it should be out of place considering the rough fucking he's receiving but it isn't. Not at all. He just wanted to be touched, to be talked to and through it when he's so far down and - it's shy, hesitant - praised as he's taken, called sweetheart and good, pretty boy because Charles needs that, too, and sometimes he needs it all at the same time. His cock has stirred between his legs, twitching and wet but he hasn't noticed, doesn't care. He's here for Erik. Even if he got absolutely no pleasure from it, he would anyway, he has - he wants to please, desperately. He wants to be good, to give good, to make up for all the wretched and broken. He wants Erik to feel this for the rest of his life.  
  
Erik's laughing against him, too, not a tease or at his expense but out of simple, pure joy and it isn't out of place. There is room for rough and hard and sweet and soft. As someone who does know his way around the kitchen Erik's learned that most good things are complex, intertwined nuances of all of these components, that diametrically opposed flavors, when combined, produce a whole greater than the sum of its parts. "That's what you need, hm?" Erik's hand follows those pulses of desire as they coalesce right down between Charles's legs and Erik spreads his knees further apart, taking him in hand, in time, murmuring low against the shell of his ear. "Can you see? How beautiful you are to me, _nehedar kanu'a sheli_? How much I love you? How you belong to me? I would keep you right here for all time because you are mine, because you are my good boy who I love so very much, and you know it, hm? Don't you? Don't worry. I am here to give you exactly-" he punctuates every word with a snap upward of his hips "-what you need."  
  
Charles whimpers louder, though at the words or the touch or the way Erik fills him so insistently and completely, how he's hitting that bundle inside of him on every harsh thrust, he doesn't know. His hips stutter like he doesn't know which way to go and tears gather in his eyes again, trembling so hard his Dominant is the only thing keeping him up because it's all so sensitive, it hurts but it would ache so badly if he wasn't being used, if Erik wasn't taking. He'll take as much as he's given and he'll be grateful, he'll be so grateful. Is he giving Erik what he needs? Does he? Is it good for him, too? Charles certainly doesn't want it to end, but he wants Erik to feel good more than he's ever wanted his own release. Will he come inside of him? Fill him up? He whines, and his lips part on the beginning of words but he can't quite make them, it sounds like nonsense - he presses them into Erik instead where his mind is needy and clinging, still seeking and seeking and seeking, so deep into subspace everything is utterly consumed by it, sweet and soft and obedient and fluttering open. His Dominant always gives him what he needs, even when Charles doesn't know he needs it. Even when he makes it seem like he doesn't, even when he's scared. Does he know that? Does he know how happy he makes Charles? How good he is for him? How much he loves him? How much he loves this? He does need this. He needs it so, so badly, does Erik know?  
  
"Yes," Erik growls, an answer to every question asked and every question that would be asked now and in the future. Charles finds himself on his back again only moments later, or maybe a lifetime, every moment suspended and he grins down, framing Charles's cheeks in his hands and bowing their foreheads together. "Yes," he whispers again, and it doesn't take any longer than that before he finds his own release, and for some reason that just makes him laugh, the reason obscured in his mind mostly because there probably isn't one, because he's grateful and pleased and he hopes above all else that Charles does know that in return. He will always try to be what Charles needs, even if he doesn't always know what that is himself, even if he's locked inside a cycle of his own torment. They find one another in the hardest places and make things soft. That is what he does know. And it will be the same now or in eighty years, or in a hundred and twenty years. Maybe mutants live longer. Everything Erik's done, everything he's gained and accomplished over the past few months has been in thanks to Charles, whether or not Charles chooses to acknowledge that. Erik knows.  
  
Charles could say the same of Erik. He closes his eyes and moans in pure, unbridled joy as his Dominant finishes inside of him, full and sated and he's come again himself, gentled out and leaking softly against his belly and between them but it doesn't matter much at all. What matters is that he'd taken care of Erik; that he was taken and reminded of his place, that everything was perfectly righted again. He's making soft, hiccupping sounds in the aftermath, still as far down as he's ever been, still quite incapable of using his mouth to speak when his mind is so closely wound up in Erik's anyway. He wraps his legs around his Bonded's waist and clings even as he shakes, nuzzling into his neck, mouthing and kissing, idle and sensual and chasing sensation. This roof isn't the most comfortable place for this, but he won't complain as long as Erik holds him; his mind nudges gently, that same shy, fluttering sensation from before. He wants to be held and talked to and pet, satisfied and needy and sleepy and he doesn't know when he'll come back up, if he ever does, but Erik will take care of him until then, and after, too.  
  
More blankets materialize and Erik rolls off of him in order to tuck him into his side, everything evened out. It must be biology, some kind of biology because with their distance, even physically if not mentally instability increases, and for the first time since he'd sat down in that room Erik feels like the vice grip over his lungs and heart has unclenched. He does just that, kissing and stroking at Charles's exposed skin, his cheeks and his shoulders and neck, not covering him with the blanket since it's far too hot but making another little nest, definitely something instinctual, and murmuring little nothings-well, maybe little, but not nothing. Not to him. Everything.  
  
Charles is everything. To him, but not just him. There are hundreds more like them out there. Thousands more. Millions more, perhaps, of evolution has a say. Charles always did rail against Erik's use of our people, but it's less about viewing mutants and humans as separate-it's less now about what Shaw taught him and more about what he was taught, as a child. To be part of a people, a human people. There may not be an us and them, yet, but Erik sometimes wonders, when he really considers the scope of what they're doing, if there ever will be an us or them. If it could really be us and them. He's by no-means convinced, not when he's seen what was done to his people, humans he called his friends and family, but for right now, in this moment, Charles has given him what he's always given everyone who crosses his path. Hope, for a better way. The trial. Facing Shaw. And their school. For a start.  
  
"I love you so much," he whispers at long last, a condensed version of all that Charles knows of his mind.


	58. Somewhere between what it feels like, to be at one with the sea,

It's hot, and that makes things even stickier, his hair entirely matted and curled even when Erik runs his fingers through it, straightening out the knots, but Charles couldn't stand not being attached to Erik right now. It doesn't matter if it should be uncomfortable or if he wouldn't bear it during normal circumstances, their skin pressed together like this, because even if it is he doesn't care. He finds he doesn't care about much of anything right now that isn't Erik, and he won't move until Erik moves him, simple as that, nuzzling into him regardless, nosing and mouthing at every bit of exposed skin he finds. He's purring, and that would be embarrassing, too, except it isn't, low and contented and entirely reliant on his Dominant, mind a hum of projected emotion and soft submission. Comfortable despite the heat, despite everything, sleepy and drifting and pleased. He could nap right here, on top of this roof, curled up in Erik's arms.  
  
Erik lets him drift and sleep as much as he wants and needs, which just about matches Charles's wants and needs. "I've got you, sweetheart, hm?" he curls up alongside Charles, smiling. "I've got you. I love you very much." He feels like himself. For the first time, perhaps since they landed in this country. But Charles gives him this, too. _Himself_. The version of himself that he likes most. "Want to stay here with you forever, hmm?" Erik laughs softly. No more videos, no more testimonies, no more fear. Just this. Just like this.  
  
If there's anything stopping him from being lulled right off to sleep, none of it registers now. He's still purring as he curls properly on Erik's chest, nudging under his arm where he's slightly sheltered from the sun and certainly paying no mind to the way that makes everything sweatier. Maybe when he wakes up he'll fuss about the heat, but right now he's perfectly, spectacularly content, and his mind is consistently projecting it, clinging to Erik's deep voice like it's a lifeline. It's not long before he's softly snoring, quiet little murmurs as he finally lets mind and body properly rest.  
  
Erik contributes a little more to their blanket-nest before tucking Charles's head under his chin, letting him drift off safely in the brilliant morning sun. He traces his fingernails down Charles's back, soothing away the heat and leaving behind coolness and comfort. He doesn't follow into the deep of dreams, instead satisfied to watch over Charles and their nest, ensuring his submissive is kept safe and sound as he dozes and dreams of only _good_ things.

* * *

When Charles blinks his eyes open, it's bleary and unfocused, like a haze has settled right over him. The sun is beating down on him and he's sweaty even despite the coolness of Erik's skin against his, inevitable in this kind of sunlight. He mumbles nonsense and shifts closer to his Dominant, whining loudly when everything sticks together, sleepy and slightly disoriented and wholly unwilling to open his eyes again, especially considering how bright it is. "Hot," he complains, voice raspy, and presses his rather impressive pout into Erik's chest, rubbing his cheek there like a needy cat.  
  
Erik laughs and his smile turns soft, adoring. While Charles was asleep Erik's gotten them dressed, and he strokes his fingertips down Charles's cheek. With it comes a fresh wave of coolness, like a breeze from some invisible air conditioning blowing away all that sticky discomfort. " _Boker tov, cholamni_ ," his eyebrows bounce playfully. "Did you sleep well?"  
  
Charles only pouts harder, though he does sigh happily at the coolness. It's still sticky and too-warm for him, but at least it's a bit less suffocating now. He tugs at Erik's sweater with mostly-limp fingers, too sleepy for coherency, his mind telling the rest. He wants to go back to sleep. He wants Erik to go back to sleep with him. Then they can dream about Canada together for a little while, where it's much, much less hot, he's assuming. Then he doesn't have to go without Erik. He was lonely, all by himself. Cue more pouting.  
  
Erik just laughs again, soft and adoring, and kisses Charles's forehead. "But I like watching you sleep, _cholamni_. You pout in your sleep, too, did you know that? Very cute."  
  
That earns a very distinct nose scrunch and he huffs out an indignant breath, except despite the heat he's clinging with all his limbs and nuzzling insistently for more touch. His Dominant hasn't been sleeping, and that worries him; they haven't been eating or drinking much, either, and that's a bit of a problem considering their current climate. The eating he could do without, but Erik can't. He doesn't really have the ability to fret too much, though, except to tug on Erik again. "Sleep," he sighs but it's more pleading than bossy. Comfortable. Safe. "Hot," he repeats, pouting all over again.  
  
He just shakes his head, gently guiding Charles's attention away from those facts, from his sleeplessness (a problem for most of the time that Charles has known him, to be fair) and Erik's own complicated relationship with food (though for far different reasons). Right now, he's content, but Charles is right about one thing. Erik floats over one of their abandoned mugs, lifting it to Charles's lips. "Drink," he whispers, pressing chapped lips to Charles's forehead, the Order soft. The liquid inside has changed, cooling water instead of hot coffee.  
  
Charles is right about more than one thing. He frowns, groggy and sunk down, and obediently takes a sip when it's offered to him. It settles cool and soothing in his throat but he melts right back into Erik after he's swallowed, trying to nestle back in. "I'll drink more if you let me take care of you," he offers even if it's not up to him, really, stubborn and finally blinking his eyes open, however stuck closed they feel. "Can't take care of me if you don't," he reminds quietly, because he figures that's much more convincing of an argument than Erik's intrinsic worth, the same way making eating and sleeping part of Charles' routine works. He's only gotten an hour or two each in these naps, he reckons - next time he won't sleep without Erik, and he won't be guided away from it, even if he's sleepy now.  
  
"I can too," Erik pokes his tongue out, deflecting just as well as Charles can when push comes to shove, and it's not something they've discussed at any length yet-Erik's sleeplessness, his restlessness, the way he guards sentry over Charles whenever his submissive closes his eyes. The way he eats mechanically enough to survive, to put on weight and keep himself at a stable level when things get really bad, but it's force, it's not pleasure and right now-things are-bad. He's content for the moment, but it's lurking and this is how he keeps it at bay. "Shh, shh. Drink now," he murmurs fondly, still petting Charles's hair.  
  
Except Charles knows. They have similar patterns, if not for drastically different reasons, and the idea of putting anything in his mouth that isn't water is among the least appealing to him at the moment. He doesn't drink, sitting up instead and trying to shake off the haze, biting on his lip to hold back a whimper at the soreness. "You haven't slept in days," he whispers, as if just realizing it - Charles hasn't, either, except in small, mostly restless increments, or lulled by the drop of subspace. He blinks, looking up at Erik with concern now dripping off of him, slowly melting away the sleepiness. "It's still morning. You can take a nap. For me?" They still have time here. Erik needs to be coherent for it, or there's no chance of keeping anything at bay. Charles should have helped earlier. He should have done something.  
  
"It's OK," Erik whispers back, shaking his head. "I'm not sleepy, unlike a certain _cholamni_ I know," he smiles softly. He's pushing back, resisting when usually it doesn't take much prompting for him to listen to Charles, and it doesn't really seem like he's even aware of it. He just knows he has to stay awake. He has to stay alert, he has to stay on watch, he cannot let his guard down. He has to keep Charles safe. He has to keep them all safe. No matter the cost. It's a program running on idle on the undercurrents of his brain, sleeping parts inside awoken just as alert. Humans sleep. Humans worry. Humans die. He doesn't have that luxury. But he can give it to others.  
  
Sometimes it takes a lot, but this isn't for the same reasons. Charles knows this, too. He shakes his head, sitting up on his knees and reaching for Erik's face, stroking his cheek with his thumb. "You're a human being, Erik. You need to sleep. Inevitably you'll crash, and it won't be when you choose to." That's what bodies do, even the strongest ones. They break down eventually. Even the ones built to endure like Erik's. He doesn't have to endure it now. "I can handle this for an hour or two, don't you think? If I need you, I'll wake you up right away. I promise I will. But I need you to sleep, please," he murmurs, and he's begging now, imploring, not demanding or being bossy but appealing to a different aspect of Erik's Dominance entirely. "We'll have to go back, though, and build ourselves a new fort, because I'm not sure I can handle the sun without you," he teases softly, but he isn't budging. A particularly determined Charles is practically a sentence. Come hell or high water, and even his Dominant.  
  
"I won't crash," Erik whispers back. His experience tells him a much different tale. His body knows how to drop into REM sleep almost immediately, and how to awaken with the slightest twitch. Ten minutes, a half an hour can propel him days and he knows how to hear in his dreams, the conscious world melding with the mindscape and he knows how, he can do this, he'll be fine. "Trust me," he murmurs. "I can protect you, 'kay? Keep you safe. Love you." He smiles back, nose wrinkling fondly. "'K, _holchim bayit_ ," he kisses Charles again on the cheek. " _Yeled misken_ , you don't tan at all, do you?"  
  
"I'm English, Erik, of course I don't," he sighs, but that's not going to distract him for long. It hasn't left his mind, and it won't. They can discuss his appalling reaction to sun exposure at a later date, when Erik's slept. "I'm not letting this go," he informs his Dominant plainly, and Erik could possibly Order him to stop talking about it, to drop it, but it wouldn't really be dropped. It would be there, because Charles is stubborn and has much more control over his own mind than Erik could ever hope to influence. "Just an hour, darling. Please. For me. You won't notice it's gone by. Won't you do it for me?" Perhaps that's playing dirty, but Charles is willing to pull out the stops here. He's not willing to let Erik teeter like this when they could spend the rest of their time making something good of this.  
  
Erik shakes his head, blinking away the sudden, hot prick of tears that threaten his eyes but don't fall. "I'll notice," he rasps softly, the first real response he's had to Charles's insistence since it started as opposed to brushing it away, not that he doesn't keep trying. "Let's get you out of the heat, hm?"  
  
Charles isn't going to argue that when he's soaked up his back with sweat despite Erik's best efforts, hair he'd left to grow curled quite dramatically, especially where it's all bunched up at the nape. He will argue the first part. "You won't," he promises quietly. "I could help. Won't you let me help? Please?"  
  
All of Erik's thoughts start running together, a little mushy because of the amount of time he's already been awake, a clawed panic of no-won't notice-can't protect-can't sleep screaming in his subconscious, but he swallows, not intending to be difficult. "I don't know why," he finally whispers, shrugging his shoulder, head ducking to the side in shame. Why he's fighting so hard. Why he can't just let Charles look after him, too, just like always.  
  
It's not difficult. Even if it is, Erik is well within his right to be that way. Charles just climbs right into his lap, because he suspects Erik could fly them home regardless of what position they're in anyway, and touches his cheek again, gentle and soft, his mind touching Erik's at the same moment and enveloping him in calm and love and peace. "I'll take care of it. All of it, I promise, and if I need you - if anyone needs you - I'll wake you right up. I swear. But you need sleep to be at your best, my love. To be at your strongest. Don't you want to take care of me the best you can?" His lips twitch up, because he imagines that's enticing. "We're safe. Me, all of us, we're safe, and we need you to be at your best. I can hold the fort, hm? Don't you think?" He doesn't think Erik doubts that, not rationally. He doesn't underestimate Charles. "Let me take my turn, and when you wake up, I'll be right there."  
  
"What if you aren't-" bursts out of him before he can really stop and think about what he's saying. All those bad memories, all that running on fumes and running and surviving and fighting and starving and struggling and then, the lights, all of them, all of their lights. Things change when you're asleep. When you wake up you never know who will be gone, who will be altered, who will be dying and suffering and bleeding and horrified. And it's not just a distant memory, either. It's happened with Charles, too. When Erik sleeps, the evil gets in. He won't let it.  
  
"Shh," Charles whispers, and leans up to kiss just under Erik's eye, the way he's done so many times with him. All that tanned skin, beautifully darkened from the sun, all those freckles, and those dark circles are still in the way. They don't make him any less attractive, but they do worry Charles, and for a while they seemed to be disappearing. Or lessening, if nothing else. He wants to see them gone entirely. "I will be. I promise. You trust me, don't you? If I need you, the second I do, I'll wake you up. You can Order it if you like, if it will make you feel better. I'll stay awake and I'll keep everyone safe. I'll make sure your Will is followed," he smiles at that, teasing but not, too. That's Charles' job. "We'll be alright while you recharge, and when you're awake, you can do a full inspection." That's teasing, but also maybe not. Erik is quite thorough.

* * *

Well, it doesn't seem like Erik has much of a choice after all because he stumbles a little as they get to their feet, leaning heavily on Charles as his eyes flutter closed. "Mkay, promise?" he murmurs as they lift up into the air, his abilities hooked completely into his subconscious now. Erik smiles a little and tucks Charles in close. "Sleep 'p here. 'Znicer. Pretty." The city has begun to awaken and unfortunately Erik's subconscious doesn't see fit to hide them, so people are pointing and whispering, but Charles doesn't detect any fear the way he would undoubtedly in Manhattan. Things are a little different here. At the airport, they actively employed a mutant to use their abilities in full view, whereas in the States a _Circle-M_ sigil was rare, it's downright common here. He's met more separatists _per capita,_ even amongst baselines, here. Of course there are hardliners, but they're not out and about this early. Instead it's just little kids on their bikes and businessmen staring in fascination. Erik's weight staggers against Charles as his body finally takes the choice away from him and he sags, and Charles feels that familiar sphere all around them, the floor where they can sit, colors reflecting off, temperature regulated. It's working in Erik's sleep.  
  
It's not particularly surprising when Charles' telepathy works while he sleeps, too, keeping up processes even while he's out; sometimes he wonders if it's each other, because it's never worked that way before, or just a new application like so many others. As much as the fascination is much easier to swallow than fear, Charles hides them from view anyway, because he hardly wants to be gawked at, especially with Erik so vulnerable, especially considering they're recognizable even here. He picks up the slack just like he promised, keeping them safe and concealed, letting out a quiet 'oof' and wincing as he takes the brunt of Erik's weight and eventually settles his Dominant's head in his lap, Charles' fingers in his hair as he strokes through messy, thick curls. He wraps Erik's mind firmly up in his hold, anchoring it in sleep, keeping it from waking, settled down in the proper cycle where he can rest and restore - dreamless, completely unconscious sleep, no activity at all except those resets and recoveries. He'll wake him if he needs him, but he won't - Charles settles down and lets his own mind wander, flipping through pages of a book and working silently on a paper of his in the meantime, letting Erik's body do its work and playing with his hair while it does.  
  
They float along home in the interim and Erik's body seems to know, better than his mind, that it's safe. At first he's stiff and tense, a tension Charles is well-familiar with, that knots up all the muscles in his back and arms and takes hours to soothe away, wreaks havoc on his posture especially given his height. But Charles has put in that time before, because Charles looks after him, too. Slowly he begins to relax, body going limp as he finally enters real sleep for the first time in-a long, long time. Charles normally doesn't interfere with his mind like this, but right now it's necessary because, as he can now tell when really examining Erik up close, he's been about ready to drop for at least a half a day, his brain is frayed and it's making things that much more difficult to settle. Real rest, which is restorative, and not half-caught moments mired in terror. He still shifts about, totally unconscious, unable to truly settle even as out as he is, mumbling incoherence under his breath in German.  
  
Charles knows. He wouldn't, for all intents and purposes, induce a coma in his Dominant if it wasn't strictly, absolutely necessary, but as it is - well. It turns out he wasn't lying about enforcing Erik's Will while he slept, either, because while he's not quite sure he could manipulate Erik to use his mutation with quite as much effectiveness as he does when he drags Erik through the house and up to their guest bedroom, he somehow manages it now without dropping Erik straight onto the floor (there was no chance Charles would be able to manually haul Erik up the stairs). He takes it as a joint effort, the parts of Erik's mind that are always attuned to him helping him out. He immediately tucks Erik in, settling in close to stroke at his hair again, to kiss his forehead and cheeks, to rub out knotted muscles, to generally fuss in a way he wouldn't ever be able to normally when Erik is such an incredibly, horribly light sleeper. It's nice, actually. Soft, and sweet, and gentle, and a way that he can care for him, love him, serve him. When Erik stirs even a little he settles him right back down, his grip on his mind unwavering, keeping him firmly unconscious and batting down anything that might threaten it with careful, calculated ease. No German, no nightmares, no vigilance. Just rest while Charles looks after him.  
  
It's easily creeping toward late afternoon, early evening when Erik's body finishes the process Charles was determined to see through, and it's true that some things have changed as Charles lets his mind ease from his grasp. For one, there are several more people in the bed, all of them smaller, all of them crowded, but none of them terrified or bleeding. In fact, some of them are snoozing themselves, the rest of them cuddled close while Charles watches over them and Erik, too, playing silent games with them, all of them starring his telepathy, of course. Their voices wouldn't wake Erik up before he was ready, but it's the principle of the thing, really, and they seem to be enjoying the novel of it. When Erik stirs, Charles smiles down at him, wondering if he should resist being incredibly mushy when they have a bed full of children, but in the end he kisses his forehead anyway. Good morning, sleepyhead, he presses right into Erik's mind, stroking his cheek with his thumb. We've been waiting for you.

* * *

The kids also seemed to be enjoying the novelty of a sleeping Erik, taking this opportunity to climb all over him and nudge against him and crawl into his arms and poke his cheeks, and generally get up to shenanigans. It's hard to keep the days straight at this point but for them it's been much the same, the difficulty of their own testimonies a plague in their minds keeping them from real rest and relaxation just as much, but with Charles and Erik home and safe they've begun to even out. Just like Erik predicted, of course, especially the younger ones have taken to Charles, and the older ones like Tel (who isn't actually in the bed with them, ya know, but she is sleeping on a chair nearby) have begun to address him like he's family. Erik looks after them, but they see that he needs looking after, too, and they've begun to trust that Charles will fill that role. As soon as Erik's mind floats to the surface, he bolts upright, eyes open and immediately assessing his environment. Tabby smushes his cheeks together. " _Hiiiiiiiiiii_ ," she blows a raspberry. " _Hiiiii_ ," Erik whispers back, realizing where they are after a long moment and-they're safe. And... he can't help laughing. And surrounded. It seems you've been accosted once more by a plethora of octopus-limbed children, and he sounds so much more like himself that it's plainly apparent his prior instability had much to do with his lack of sleep.  
  
Charles could have told him that, and he should have been more on top of it. He'll do better now, like his Dominant deserves from him. This is another way he can help, another way he can care for and serve and offer, and he's all too happy to do it. I wouldn't say accosted, since I invited them all in, he laughs, shifting around another dozing child so he can lean against Erik, trying not to do anything too embarrassing in front of the children. You've been out for hours now, darling. We've had plenty of time to get here. And they have. It's the first time Charles has gotten to actually spend time with these children, and to say he's fallen in love, that he absolutely, utterly adores them with all of his heart - it may yet be an understatement. Charles' capacity to love and love truly and deeply has never been in question, it's practically built into his DNA. But that he wouldn't immediately be enchanted by them was proposterous to consider in the first place. "I kept them from drawing on your face, don't fret," he teases, and then he's laughing himself, content and so very relieved. You look very good fresh from sleep, he adds, just for Erik, and that one is accompanied by a soft, shyer smile.  
  
Tabby clamors between them so she can throw her arms around Charles's neck. "No, _he_ wanted to draw all over your face but I said no, and I was really responsible," she chatters (nonsensically, of course) and Erik's eyebrows raise. "Is that so?" he replies both to Tabby and to Charles's silent observation. He brushes the pad of his thumb over Charles's bottom lip, over his chin. Hours-he can't remember the last time he's had hours of sleep. He's never had hours of sleep, unless surgery or being unconscious counted (they did not). It's completely shifted him, in mind and body, and he stretches and yawns and laughs again. "Well, I think we ought to retaliate," Erik pokes Charles in the sides and then Tim and Tabby are both tickling him.  
  
This is the only moment he regrets inviting the children into bed. Charles squeaks in both indignation and the beginnings of helpless laughter, squirming under the touch of tiny hands and his Dominant's much larger one and trying very hard not to kick. As it is, he laughs hard enough that it surprises even him, delighted as much as he is put out because he does not appreciate tickling, thank you very much. "Mercy, mercy," he insists, but there's a grin on his lips that lights up his entire face, eyes wide and dimples accentuating everything, boyish and soft. "I'm putting you back to sleep, you menace," he huffs, pouting at Erik and poking him in the side, and then the stomach. And then all over. "I won't stop poking you until you give me what I want," he sing-songs, which is very childish, but fortunately he's in a room of children. He hasn't said what he wants, exactly, but he's sure Erik will agree to it.  
  
"And wha- _ah_!" he squeaks, his muscles jerking and jumping under the touch ticklishly. "And what pray tell would that be, hm? A thousand kisses."  
  
" _Ewwwww_ ," Tabby huffs.  
  
"A _million_ kisses."  
  
"Grosssss."  
  
Erik makes a smoochy noise at Charles, and Tabby puts her whole hand over his mouth. " _Mmffhfmrgmhm_ ," he says.  
  
Close, actually. "A gazillion kisses, and I'm afraid they're no longer going to you, since you betrayed me so terribly," he sighs, and then plops one right on Tabby's cheek. Then her forehead, and the top of her head, and then when she expects another and before she can protest he's tickling her, laughing as she flails between him and Erik. "I would watch out, they do know me as the Tickle Monster in three countries," he warns, and he attempts to feign seriousness but unfortunately he grins right through it. "However, I can be convinced into an alliance," he mock-whispers to her. He side-eyes Erik, quite dramatically considering he's in full earshot. "I believe we can take him."  
  
Erik's nose scrunches up fondly. "Ah, but if you do, then you might not get delicious waffles for breakfast," he can barter quite well for himself thank you very much Charles, you little traitor.  
  
Tabby shrieks. "With whipped cream?"  
  
"We'll see," he laughs, lifting her up and wrapping his arms around her, giving her a tight squeeze. He looks at Charles over her shoulder, eyes drifting closed for a moment and against all odds, he's crying, a few tears dropping down his cheek and dripping down his jaw and not just in Charles's perception, either. He's still smiling, though, burying his hands in her hair and giving the top of her head a kiss before letting her tromp back over to Charles's side of the bed.  
  
It gets Charles very close to crying, too, watching it. At the very least it gets caught in his throat and he has to swallow several times around it, and then he's leaning forward and up to kiss Erik's cheek, tasting one of those tears. He'll always be here to kiss them away, to make space for them, exactly as Erik does for him. He wipes the rest away lovingly with his sleeve, which happens to be Erik's sleeve; he's changed, but into another one of Erik's shirts, this one not resized properly so it absolutely swallows him. His hands, especially, and it sits a bit like a very short dress, but it's also very comfortable. "I can make you waffles just as well, you know," he tells the children still in bed with them, because they don't yet know of his kitchen disasters. "In fact, I'm the best cook there is," he grins, head resting on Erik's shoulder, eyes gleaming as he looks up at him. "Isn't that right, darling?"  
  
"Oh, you have not lived until you've had _toasted roast_ ," Erik waggles his eyebrows, sniffling wetly and rubbing the fabric of his shirt between his fingers, eyes crinkled up as he recognizes it. Tim rolls over and a fly buzzes in through the window, and mid-sleep, his tongue lashes out and zaps it out of the air, prompting Tabby to smack him round the head. Blearily he shuffles and then squeaks, blindly struggling away before the world rights itself and he ends up halfway into Charles's lap. Erik starts laughing again. "She hates when he does that. Personally I find it very convenient." He yanks on Tabby's ear before she can hit him again. "No hitting. We talked about this, hm?" Roberto is the next to wake, wrapping his arms around Charles's side silently and hiding his head in a nest of blankets.  
  
Charles watches with all the fondness in the world, petting the sleepy children who have gathered all around and on top of him. He can't help a yawn himself, covering his mouth with his hand. He'd promised to hold the fort while Erik was out, and he'd had to keep him under, beside; there was no time for another nap of his own, though he hasn't slept much more than Erik lately. He's been perfectly relaxed and resting, enjoying the company, and hasn't left this bed, but now he sags a bit himself, nuzzling idly into Erik's shoulder without dislodging any of the cuddlebugs. "No one let me fall asleep," he tells all of them sternly. "I'm just resting my eyes a moment." It's the truth, but he grins, humming as he lets himself relax.  
  
Erik raises his finger to his lips, shaking his head. _Let him sleep_ he mouths, even though Charles can _hear_ his thoughts just as easily as if he'd spoken them out loud. He can't soothe Charles into dreams the same way, but he still bears the marks of subspace and Erik can tell he's exhausted, so it's nothing to make the world a comfort, the temperature perfect, the fabrics against his skin soft and welcoming and to gather him up in limbs belonging to all manner of octopi-like creatures, to surround him in love and light and tenderness just like he deserves. He takes care of Erik, so that Erik can take care of him in return.  
  
To be fair, Charles always bears the mark of subspace, but Erik isn't wrong. It takes nothing at all to drop into it, after all that they'd worked on together, and because it's where he is safest, where both of them have slipped out of and where he desperately wants to be, and it comes like breathing now at the simplest, lightest brush of Will. He wasn't lying when he said there were times he needed more, and now is one. Considering things, it might stay that way for a while (he'll worry about that, he's sure, how needy and dependent he feels, how he needs, needs, needs). Still, he mumbles a weak protest, gripping tight to Erik's shirt and shaking his head. "Don't wanna," he sighs, which is very adult, and he tugs at the fabric of Erik's sweater like it might keep him awake. Stay up/yours/serve you/need me? are what his thoughts provide when they touch Erik, soft and clinging and very sleepy.  
  
" _Kol tamid, tayer_ ," Erik returns honestly, because he always has and always will even when he didn't know and even when he doesn't realize, but he needs more than anything for Charles to be whole and healthy and happy, and that means well-rested, so he does nothing to dissuade those sleepy little tendrils from manifesting fully, guiding the children up into his arms and pressing against him too. Erik murmurs to them in Hebrew, cradling Charles in his arms and using his chest itself as a pillow for his head, now much more able to act in the role that he was born for than at any other point in time these past few days. More whole. More confident and capable. "Rest now, _cholamni_ ," Erik whispers into his ear.  
  
But Charles still fusses, this time when he's quite nearly drifted off, a quiet, distressed noise escaping parted lips and fingers balling back up in Erik's shirt. He shakes his head, even as he doesn't lift it, chestnut curls wound up messier from the heat earlier and never matted back down. What he mumbles into Erik's chest is incoherent, and for once his thoughts don't provide much clarity, his telepathy slipping into rest as he does and flashing blurry, disconnected images. He really is exhausted. More than his body that needs the break, his mind does. Right now he's thinking of the ambiguous metal sphere from earlier, though, pressing it over and over into Erik's mind.  
  
It appears, rolled over Erik's palm and manifesting between them, hovering just in front of Charles's closed eyes. Tell me about it? he wonders, because he's been curious from the outset, but he's willing to let Charles have his secrets, as long as he can assure Erik that it's not damaging or harmful-that's what he really cares about. He doesn't like having things hidden, but he also knows what it's like to need a line, a box for some things to stay inside until they can be handled with love and care instead of screaming fear. Whatever one this chooses to be, light or dark, Erik will be there to unfurl all the metal spheres in his mind into beautiful flowers for an eternity.  
  
Charles makes a low, quiet hum, the edges of sleep still tugging him down and down and down, just like subspace, which he's very firmly in. He nuzzles into Erik's chest, which happens to be his pillow, trying not to squirm too much else disturb the children nestled all around him. His mind is all hazy, and there are no shields up, no Keep-Away - he doesn't know how to use the sphere. He doesn't know how to make it pretty like Erik. He has to figure it out.  
  
 _Why is that, hm?_ Erik wonders, because this is the one thing he can give to Charles, that Charles can't-he doesn't know how to make his thoughts clear. He likes being able to do something for Charles, to give him something that he can't manipulate on his own-and that's nice. But of course, all of Erik's abilities-they're for Charles, too. He will give it to him, of course. His gift to Charles, at last, something he can teach him. I'll show you how, he breathes in that liminal space between dreams-and-wakefulness. They'll get there. Charles will learn and he will learn from Charles and it is good. They are two halves of a Pairbond. _All of me, for all of you. All of you, for all of me. Hm?_ Erik kisses the top of his forehead.  
  
That sounds nice, but it isn't what Charles meant. He likes that there are things the other can't do, too. Ways they are opposites. If he's honest, he really doesn't think Erik can teach him, at least not the way he's suggesting - it's not Erik's mutation he'll ever be learning, it's how to more effectively mind-control him into doing things for Charles himself, and Charles doesn't like that. It makes him uncomfortable, and frightened, even if Erik says it's okay. Even if it's a skill he can hone. Likewise, he knows there are things of the mind that Erik will never have access to, that he'll never be able to do, and that doesn't mean he doesn't have all of Charles. All he has to do is ask for it (or Order it, even), and it's his, too. He'd like very much if Erik could help with his telekinesis, once they have the time, and Charles will be more than happy to help with Erik's more mental capabilities - but he doesn't want, and would never suggest... he likes it the way it is. Erik is body and he is mind and they make a whole. There are things they just can't do without each other, places they can't reach. Mind and body need to work together, after all. But Charles has been fretting, and - he rubs his cheek against Erik's shirt, embarrassed as much as sleepy now, another distressed noise slipping right out. He's so sleepy. He's thinking of his collar, feeding the image to Erik on loop now.  
  
*No more fretting today, my love. You are mine, and I am yours.* He trails his own fingers over that collar. _Sleep now,_ he Orders softly, where they are surrounded by the children they love and the calming, soothing blankets and this is right. Charles's conclusions, and their respective spaces and roles. One of which is Erik's role as *his* Dominant. "Sleep now, _tayer,_ " he whispers, giving Charles a kiss. It'll be his turn, now, to hold down the fort. And he knows he can do a good job, because Charles took care of him first. Just as he always does and always will.  
  
No more fretting. Charles doesn't think Erik quite understood his concern over the metal sphere, nor his curiosity with it, but that's quite alright. The connection was tenuous and strained to begin with. They can discuss it later, when he isn't so close to nodding off completely. Unlike Erik whose body began to sag, Charles goes down with his mind, not a trained-body resistance but a case of his thoughts never shutting off properly. They do now as he buries himself in Erik's chest and wraps himself fully around him, very much a clinging creature himself, hazy at the edges and falling off. The whirring comes to a stop, slowly but surely. "Love you," he mumbles right before he's gone, mind soft and unburdened, sweet with lingering subspace and ever-present love.  
  
"I love you, sweetheart," Erik whispers back, and Tabby and Tim make little kissy faces at him while Erik keeps him huddled and sleepy for as long as he can, and he draws them close, too, murmuring stories about love. His story. When they knew him before his stories, the ones he told from the heart, were about only conquering and fighting and surviving. Defeating the dragon, winning the war. But now they have a whole family here, who love them very much, and this is Erik's submissive whom he loves very much. Tabby wants to know if he can really make waffles (he cannot). Roberto climbs over Charles gently and gives Erik a hug. He isn't telepathic, but he is sorry. He hopes Erik knows that. Erik crushes him into a big hug, murmuring I know into his thick head of curls, and carefully arranges everybody to cuddle against Charles and himself without poking limbs and bones.

* * *

Despite best efforts, children are children. When Charles stirs it's partially because his mind has rebooted and partially because a child has elbowed him in the stomach, and he mumbles a vague protest, shifting about sleepily. The thing about having such an overactive, extraordinary mind - better than any supercomputer, really, certainly stronger - is that it takes quite a while to come back online, as it were, and waking is easily one of Charles' least favorite activities. " _Mmmmmph_ ," is what comes out of his mouth, neither coherent nor particularly conscious, and he pats Erik's chest like he's fluffing down a pillow, eyes still firmly shut. His mind is mostly shut down, too, except for blurry, vague images which have never projected before but now are, everyone in the room filled with thoughts of pancakes and comfort and a low, whooshing noise that's not immediately recognizable.  
  
It was afternoon and now it's evening which means breakfast for dinner, and Erik whispers that in a hush, and just like always Erik soothes him into wakefulness too, and several sets of bleary eyes slowly follow suit. They stay like that for a long time until that big whirring brain of Charles's begins to whoosh back online, while the children are enticed by maple syrup and whipped cream and Erik slowly, gently whisks them up and away, one child to each arm and one over his shoulders before he nudges Charles up, too, wrapping him in a blanket and somehow managing to keep him pressed into Erik's chest, cocooned by children and arms and blankets. Tel has almost slid to the floor and Erik catches her, setting her upright on her feet as she startles awake. "Whoa!" she laughs. "Come along my _cholamnim_. Breakfast time," Erik tweaks her nose.  
  
It's taking a very long for Charles to wake up today, and it might have something to do with the on-off of his sleeping pattern, the immense amount of stress he's been under, especially mentally (the only reason that entire situation didn't entirely dissolve yesterday was Charles and his telepathy, not that he'd admit it), or the fact that he's apparently woken up as in subspace as he went to sleep, which is strange and surprising and a bit embarrassing when it means clinging to Erik like a leech, attached by mind and body and unwilling and unable to be unraveled. Entirely dependent. His eyes are still mostly closed and he grumbles as he's forced to move, arms as around Erik's waist as he can manage, hands covered by overlarge sleeves. His mind is flashing constant images of food, too, mostly of the sweet variety, unconscious and for now unburdened by his own hang-ups; it's been a very long time since he last ate. "Back to sleep?" he mutters into Erik's sweater and the blanket and the children. "Sleep forever. 'S good." Now there are images of many, many, many pillows and blankets. Nest.  
  
"Oh no, dreamy," Erik whispers, soft and gentle and and he combats those blankets with food. Piles of Belgian waffles with whipped cream and baklava made with fresh phyllo and orange and rosewater and honey and chopped nuts, and powdered fried donut holes and when they get downstairs... the table is set! With an array of every breakfast food they could think of. It's all kosher, since David's family eat kosher, confections from Greece and Jerusalem alike, from Erik's childhood and from these children's childhood, _arroz doce_ and _pudim_ with _paçoca_ coconut and cocoa for Roberto. For Kurt, _Germknödel_ , a fluffy steamed dumpling filled with spiced plum jam and vanilla cream sauce.  
  
For Tabby and Tim there are big Belgian waffles topped with whipped cream and fruit, with one set aside for Charles, but for Charles he's made pancakes, fluffy and light and coated in gooey maple syrup mixed with a touch of molasses drapped over whipped cream on top, blueberries and strawberries adorning the sides. And for Tel, Erik's prepared a traditional Palestinian dessert called _kanafeh_ made with semolina dough layered with _Nabulski_ , sweet-sugar syrup, clotted cream and nuts. Her look of surprise is evident-she didn't realize that Erik _knew_ she was Palestinian. Nor that he's been working tirelessly, on his own accord, to get her back to her Arabic family here in Israel. From what he does understand, they're Israeli citizens, so at least she'd be safe here.  
  
But that's neither here nor there. On the table, there's more than enough for everyone to share amongst themselves, a cultural exchange in breakfast and for himself, Erik makes _halvah,_ made from tahini, sugar, vanilla, and soapwort served in a single pastry, on a plate he's set aside from himself. He gives a small smile as everyone rushes to try all the dishes that they didn't realize they could still eat here, could still have access to pieces of their culture they thought they'd lost. Erik may or may not have slipped away while Charles slept amidst piles of children and worked with David and Ellie to help prepare this meal; sharing little silent spaces with them, soft words, curious, tentative offerings. Love.  
  
He'd wanted this to be a surprise for Charles, and for the kids, and so masterfully sneaked right back into bed before guiding them all downstairs. "I love you," he whispers to Charles fondly.

* * *

It's exactly what he'd expect from Erik, something he's done on more than one occasion, and he should have realized it would be something he'd do now. He would have, if his brain had been functioning properly, but it's - even if it's expected, even if he knows it's so distinctly Erik, it doesn't stop being brilliant. It doesn't stop the tears from forming in his eyes, but also not the tugging in his stomach where he absolutely doesn't want it to be. Everyone is talking and laughing, sharing food and talking and reaching over each other and it's loud, not just in volume but in thoughts, in emotion, and Charles -  
  
He bolts. It's not something he wants, because being separated from Erik feels like hell at the moment, unsteady and frightening, but he bolts nonetheless, unable to breathe. He doesn't go far, but he does hide his tracks - except for Erik, who he very much does not want to hide from. His hand is over his mouth and he's trying to suck in air, but he won't get far without him at the moment.  
  
Erik follows after him, putting a hand on his shoulder to stop him in his tracks. "Breathe, Charles," he Orders softly, stepping outside the dining area and closing the door. "And tell me what's wrong, hm?" He gives a small smile down, tucking Charles's hair behind his ears. He's been completely unstable these last few days and even a few hours of sleep have done him a world of good, and he wants to give that back, to the people that have welcomed him into their home, to his children for all of their difficulties and to Charles, who has taken such good care of him. "Let me take care of you," he whispers. "That is what I'm here for. I always will be."  
  
Charles is immediately attached to Erik, hardly a blink between him following after and Charles working his way into his arms, breathless and inhaling his Dominant in like he's the only oxygen he can properly take in. He shakes his head, but not to deny the statement, and not to disobey, either; he just can't get himself to speak at the moment, and he's buried himself so firmly in Erik's chest he doubts he'd sound anything but muffled if he used his mouth anyway. It's embarrassing, really, the force of this, his inexplicable need, the way he's clinging desperately, but he can't manage anything else. "Go back, s'okay," he mumbles finally, and it's understandably muffled, suffocated by Erik's sweater. He can breathe now, and Erik's family is waiting on him. He belongs in there, not out here.  
  
Erik takes a step back, but it's only to smooth his hands over Charles's shoulders. "Come along," he murmurs, a light thrum of Command as he guides Charles by a hand at the small of his back, his presence immediate and surrounding both physically and mentally. Charles belongs in there, too. It's Charles's family, too. Just as Charles and Raven welcomed him, these people who want to know him just as eagerly share that desire toward Charles, and Erik bids him to open his mind to it, to sense that the affection for him in this house is real. He isn't an outsider, here. He belongs, and he belongs as Erik's submissive.  
  
But Charles digs his feet in even as he walks as he's bid, pushing back against Erik's mind in a way he rarely does. His shoulders tense and his breathing's picked up and everything in him has shut down into a clear, hard, blaring no. It's panic fresh and bursting in his chest and he shakes his head, the sound that escapes his throat practically animal in its fear, and maybe Charles is the one more primal for once, more instinctive than logical.  
  
"Stop," Erik Orders firmly, and he digs his fingers into Charles's shoulder to halt him in his tracks. "Turn around and tell me what is going on, now." And that is nowhere near the soft, gentle Orders he usually gives, instead racing underneath Charles's skin and zipping up right into his brain with a loud, electric crackle.  
  
He turns around immediately, breathlessly obedient, but another one of those quiet, discomfited noises slips out before any words do, and his mind is a scramble of fear and panic and Erik is too far away and he can't breathe and he shakes his head rapidly, back and forth and back, like he's rattling around his brain. Curls of chestnut fall in front of his face. "Don't know," he gasps, admitting it, and stares down at his feet. "Please don't make me," he begs, and his voice is - small. Tiny, really.  
  
Erik places his hands on either side of Charles's face to stop the movements and shakes his head. "Stop, Charles. Take a breath and look at me. Calm yourself. Tell me what is wrong." There is no room for anything else except for Erik's Will now, for all that it's been present before, with added stability comes a vast increase of Command and Erik's Orders slip into Charles's lungs like oxygen.  
  
Charles sucks on it greedily, taking shaky, slowing breaths as Erik touches his face and leaning into it like a plant toward sunlight, grasping and desperate. "I don't know," he repeats, face twisted in calmer, more collected fear, but the truth is that he doesn't - Erik can't Order him into explaining something he has no concept of, can't sort out the horrid jumbling of his thoughts, shrieking and running into each other. "Please don't make me, please, please," he whispers, and there are tears at the corner of his eyes, he's pleading, fingers gripping tightly to Erik's sweater now.  
  
"No," Erik shakes his head, unwilling to accept that. "Stop. Yes you can," he brushes Charles's hair back from his face in slow, rhythmic movements. "Slow down your thoughts. Focus on my voice. My Will. That is the only thing that matters. You are safe, and I won't let anything happen to you. Slow it down and focus. And tell me. I know you can."  
  
There are times that Charles needs very much to be pushed. He needs to be - forced isn't the word, but he certainly needs a firm, strict hand, and they both know it by now. He wouldn't say it isn't true now, because the fact of the matter is that if Erik let him, if he eased up, Charles would fly off. He's in a deeper, more pervasive subspace than he's ever known. But at Erik's insistence, he only bursts into tears, hot, wretched humiliation heating up his cheeks at how utterly ridiculous it is, but he can't help it. Erik is asking him to do something and he can't do it. He doesn't know how to do it. He wants to obey but he doesn't know how. It's not that his thoughts are just scrambled, it's that they don't make sense. He doesn't know what's happening. He doesn't know why he's shaking, why he's crying. "Don't make me, don't make me, don't make me, don't, please, I'll do anything please don't -" And that's terror, pure and simple.  
  
" _Atzor_ , Charles." It's not the crying or begging or anything in particular that Erik has any issue with, when he says stop it doesn't mean stop crying or stop being upset-but it does mean, very literally, to stop. To breathe. To think. It's that Charles is dissolving into a terrified panic attack and that is something he can handle, so he gathers up all of the very mild attenuations of the air that he can feel around people's thoughts themselves, more reflective the closer he casts those nets to his submissive and pushes it inside of him, like breaking free from ice water, a slow-motion, glittering wave that impacts him like a gust of wind, like force beating back the neural electric uprising. It's beyond anything Erik's ever done before, beyond the physical, a completed directed psionic outpour totally independent of thought or reason. Maybe it's Erik, maybe it's being a Pairbond, maybe it's some facet of neutrinos storing information passing through tangible matter that science can't define, but more probably it's just the desperation of a Dominant faced with an inconsolable submissive and somehow breaking the barrier to do it.  
  
Whatever it is, Charles responds to it. He remembers how to breathe again, if absolutely nothing else. He stops, and focuses, not on his own thoughts because they're hidden and foreign even to him at the moment but on Erik, on his Dominant, and in the next breath he's clung to him again, wiggling right up into his arms and begging silently for him to let him stay there. He curls up immediately, small and safe, and his breathing evens out, his heart no longer racing. "Scared," he whispers. "Sorry.'  
  
He envelopes Charles in his arms, dropping a kiss onto his forehead. "There is no need to be afraid. I won't make you do anything you aren't comfortable with, but I need to know what you do not wish for me to make you do, hm? I can't help if we don't figure it out." His eyes crinkle and his nose scrunches up, fondly and he instead merely materializes Charles's plate for him out here. There's a couch and a coffee table in the living area that aren't being used and Erik directs them over there instead, setting the items aside and encouraging him to sit, tucking him close once they do.  
  
Keeping Erik from normal, healing experiences like family dinners because he's being irrational isn't on his list of things he feels particularly great about, but he finds he has no mind to argue as they sit. He immediately forgoes the actual couch to worm his way onto Erik's lap, pressing them as close as they can possibly get, nudging his face between Erik's neck and shoulder and inhaling again, soothing himself. "M' not hungry," he mumbles, which may very well be true considering that right now he's anxious and confused and still a bit worked up, a lot frustrated with himself. His mind asks the next question: where's Erik's plate? He needs to eat. It's important.  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik raises his eyebrows, the Order plainly apparent as a nudge toward Charles to eat his breakfast, rubbing his back and playing with his hair soothingly as he does. Truthfully Erik gained a lot from _making_ dinner (well, breakfast-for-dinner, thank you very much, Tabby) but he's still not confident in spending much time amongst his family, least of all alone. He can't speak to anyone, he would just be sitting there either way. It's a much better application of his time to look after his submissive instead of drowning in his own silence.  
  
Silence isn't always so suffocating, and Erik seems to be doing a brilliant job of navigating it the best he can, depending on what he's capable of - besides, Charles being in the room doesn't always seem to make much of a difference. He takes a tiny, well-chewed bite to satisfy his Dominant, barely enough to taste, and spends the rest of the time scraping his fork around whipped cream and syrup. "Please eat," he murmurs, and it's out loud but in Erik's mind, too, as he brings his hand up to touch his cheek. Sleep is important, incredibly so, but food is fuel, too. It's not a suggestion besides in the literal, traditional sense, but it is a plea, Charles biting on his lip.  
  
Unfortunately for Charles, or in Erik's perception fortunately, it takes more than that to fool him and he taps Charles's hand to get him to stop playing and actually eat, but it's a bit of a do as I say not as I do situation because the _halvah_ on his own plate is untouched, even though he did make it for himself and obviously had intended to eat it, the concept of actually doing so now is physically repulsive in a way people aren't used to seeing from him. Food is food, and the dominant reflex is to eat, so he dutifully shovels a large bite of it into his mouth, working past the roiling nausea and disgust churning in his stomach until it's all gone and then he gets wide-eyed and green as if it's about to make an unpleasant reappearance. Only his most primal of instincts, _don't starve_ , forces him to keep it down and he takes soft, short breaths in through his nose.  
  
Fortunately Erik is a long way from starving anymore (if he closes his eyes he can see hips jutting out and absolutely nothing but thin-stretched skin or the gaunt, sunken in cheeks from even that first visit but he won't, he refuses to) and the progress is almost inexplicable, something he's heard from several doctors now (put a picture side-by-side and even he'll admit Erik looks almost unrecognizable, healthier and younger and more like Charles has always seen him), but that doesn't make it easier. Charles knows that doesn't make it easier, though his aversion is wildly different in nature. He looks down at his own plate, still barely touched despite Command, what would absolutely be appetizing if he weren't - he takes a breath and sets it down. Instead he turns in Erik's lap and touches his cheeks, stroking with both thumbs. _Help?_ is what his mind provides, soft and gentle but insistent. There's fear there, too, and he doesn't - he doesn't know why, again.  
  
 _Help_ , Erik murmurs back, fond and he draws his finger through the swirl of whipped cream, swiping a dollop playfully over Charles's nose. He can be so helpful, see? He tugs Charles forward and kisses his brow, and gently encourages Charles to finish it-there isn't a lot, but Erik knows how to pack a lot into a little and with Charles's constitution in this climate it's necessary if he doesn't want to suffer ill effects. Erik can't always help, but he can make sure that Charles is physically safe and stable and sometimes it's all he knows how to do. Just keep going, keep breathing, keep living otherwise the rest is meaningless. Fear is one of the most powerful instincts of the human race, but Erik happens to know at least one thing that is stronger. Both of them, together.  
  
But Charles doesn't eat, at least not yet. It wasn't what he'd meant - he wants to help Erik. He eats another small, barely substantial bite, deciding perhaps not chewing is his best option this time. It goes down hard and uncomfortable and he makes a face, the feeling of something in his stomach not at all a pleasant one at the moment. Then he lifts Erik's fork, pressing it to his lips imploringly. Trust me, his mind says, not certain why he's leaning on telepathy instead of speech. Said telepathy is wrapped around Erik, his influence immediately noticeable - it can be completely undetectable, but he always lets his Dominant know if he intends to tweak something, even just slightly, to let him know it's him. He intends for this bite to go down much easier.  
  
The trouble is Erik's never had this particular problem in proximity to Charles before; honestly it's not often he does, it's so uncommon that he doesn't really understand it himself only that his body feels like it's shimmering, like his neurons are detached from his skin and every movement is repeating itself in infinite dimensional landscapes, like it's not his. He's breathing more shallowly even as his lips part obediently, otherwise still and motionless and compliant like always.  
  
Charles frowns and shakes his head, because he could do it this way, but he'd much rather not. He moves the fork away and kisses Erik's cheek instead, rubbing against him, horrifically needy still and he can't explain why. It feels like the morning after their Bonding, a bit. Like if he separates from Erik, if he stops being touched and guided, he'll stop existing. He'll die. _I could....?_ He doesn't want to do anything extreme without Erik's permission first, but he wants to help. Erik needs food, too. Charles needs to take care of him. He's fairly sure he could convince anyone of anything at this point, which is terrifying but also handy.  
  
Erik shakes his head, and sudden, hot shame overcomes him and he turns away, tears tracking down his face. It's stupid trigger, one he rarely has ever faced and he doesn't even understand how it's connected what the problem is with him and now it's his turn. "I'm so sorry, I don't know what-come over me-"


	59. and to understand the sea as mere context for the boat whose engine refuses

Charles isn't a child. He's certainly not an infant. He's a well-educated, perfectly functional adult, and he's lived competently and independently for - a very long time, honestly. There's absolutely no logical reason for him to burst into tears at something like this, but he does anyway, his chest constricted again and his throat tight and his mind dunked back down where everything is frightening and confusing and he shakes his head, because he doesn't want to eat, either. He doesn't want to eat ever again. He definitely doesn't want to eat after he made Erik upset with him, after he started crying like a child, but he can't help it and his chest heaves with it and he wipes at his eyes, mind pulled all the way back like he's been slapped away.  
  
Erik gasps aloud like he's drowning. His memories of what just happened aren't linear and for some reason they don't play back properly skipping-and-repeating- _I'm sorry I can fix it I'll be good I'm sorry please don't go-_  
  
But Charles is confused, too. A loud, distressed whine escapes from his lips as he hitches out another sob (like a fucking baby, why is he crying, he's not a child, he's not) but he instantly drops the plate on the table and throws his arms around Erik's neck, clinging with arms and legs and then, tentatively, his mind, too, stifling sniffles into his Dominant's neck. Erik isn't mad at him? Not disgusted? Maybe he's got everything mixed up, too. All he knows is that he needs to be close, he needs Erik, and he doesn't want to let go or have Erik let go but he's afraid. "Stay," he mumbles, not sure if he means him or Erik but in the end it doesn't matter. Charles will be better so Erik isn't so disappointed in him. He won't be so stupid next time.  
  
 _Of course I'll stay,_ he whispers back, defaulting to telepathy himself. _I love you._ Erik will always love him. Not disgusted at Charles. Never. And he knows Charles can feel that, and when he reaches out tentatively with his mind Erik does the equivalent of tucking it back safe and sound where it belongs, too, entangled with Erik's like the warmest security blanket and only then does Erik begin to calm.  
  
It's not Erik's fault Charles ruined a perfectly good evening because he was scared - scared of what? There's nothing to be frightened about, and still he feels unsettled by it, tears wiped against Erik's neck when he rubs his cheek there and breathes him in as much as he can. "Don't make me," he whispers, and it's broken and unconscious and he doesn't know why it keeps coming out in the first place but he's calmed down, too, clinging to Erik with everything he has. Please don't let go, he begs next, because suddenly it feels very much like the morning after their Bonding. It's silly and dramatic but he's honestly not sure how to be without Erik at the moment. He can't fathom it, like some horrid leech latched onto prey and sucking dry.  
  
Erik draws a blanket up from the couch and wraps it around them both, and he doesn't imagine it anything near a horrid leech. That would imply that Erik doesn't want the exact same thing. They are two tulips, in blazing color, wrapped endlessly around one another in such a concrete weave, a wonderful mesh that fills their minds with stability and purpose and joy but only if they stay right here, just like this, and help each other. No more shame and fear and shame of fear. It's OK to be scared. It's OK to not understand things. Erik doesn't know most of what goes on inside his own mind half the time. Make you? Erik whispers, petting him. Make you do what, hm?"  
  
Charles likes to think he understands the way his own mind works, but as time goes on it becomes increasingly obvious he knows next to nothing. There are things he doesn't remember, not in any way he's familiar with. There are abilities he doesn't understand or know how to control, and thoughts he has no idea how to handle because he's never allowed himself the time or space to properly consider them. There are needs he has, instinctual and ancient, that he's never been in touch with. And now there's this, and he hides further in Erik's neck, no longer crying but still unsettled and desperate, squeezing his Dominant tightly and genuinely frightened to let go or be let go of. He shakes his head. Then he mutters something that sounds distinctly like _Christmas_ , despite the fact that it's June and they're not quite in a place to be celebrating it.  
  
Erik leans back, just enough so that he can gaze at Charles and bow their foreheads together. "Never again," he murmurs back softly. Never again. No more facades. No more emptiness. No more pretend. There is a real family here, and Charles is included in that family. Erik can't belong with these people without Charles. He can't fit in without Charles. There isn't a universe where he belongs anywhere alone. He just can't. He knows Charles has been scared to be included and enveloped into the fold, but all of that love he remembers is there for him, too. Why does he think Erik is out here, and not in there? Because this matters most. Because Erik can't be alone, and even surrounded by all of his family and loved ones, without Charles, he is. "I'll never make you," he murmurs, kissing his forehead softly.  
  
It's close, but Charles doesn't think it's exactly right. He doesn't know what is, though, so he fusses until he can be in Erik's shoulder again, mostly because it's where he feels safe. He isn't afraid of being included, and he doesn't have any doubts that he is; that's something real and tangible, at least for Charles, whom thoughts and emotions have always been part of the physical world and lived experience. He isn't afraid of it being anything like what he grew up with, either, and the atmosphere in that room compared to the last time he had a formal sit-down meal with his mother and Kurt - Christmas, predictably - could not have been more different. But it had frightened him, for some reason, at the same time that it delighted him, and he doesn't understand exactly why. He just knows he didn't and couldn't sit down there, that the panic had settled in and being forced through it would have frightened him more. But it isn't fair Erik had to be out here. He can belong places without Charles, and he does and has. Charles can handle himself now. He can breathe now, he thinks. They're all still in there. Erik should go join them.  
  
"No," Erik murmurs, firm. "Never." It's like Charles said. Sometimes Erik knows that he needs to be pushed, to be taken beyond the boundaries of what he says he wants or needs and through the line of what he really wants or needs. Not forced, not even really pushed because that implies force-with-letting-go. But guided, with a firm hand, across the threshold and other times Erik knows when to ease up, when to keep him close and safe and to know when genuine fear and terror are taking precedence over faulty logical processes. It's how he thinks that maybe he is different from Shaw after all. If it were Shaw, he would've bodily pushed Charles into the room, disregarding his feelings as inconvenient. But he didn't. He takes care of Charles. He doesn't hurt him. And whether or not Charles can handle himself or breathe or function all on his very own, Erik can't. He can't go in there alone. And if Charles can't go in there, then they'll just have breakfast out here. Apart, separate in their own little world. Erik is happy because it's the only world he really needs.  
  
Charles shakes his head. It's hard because it dislodges him slightly from his spot, but he rubs his cheek there to make up for it, breathing in Erik, soothing himself. He's so down he honestly isn't sure when he'll come up, and he wonders, idly, whether he should still be ashamed of it. "Not true," he mumbles, and it might be insistent if he didn't sound so quiet. Erik needs more than him, and there's nothing wrong with that. He does need this. It doesn't mean he doesn't need Charles - it certainly doesn't mean Charles doesn't need Erik, especially if his current situation says anything - but it does mean there are needs outside of them. Maybe Erik doesn't see Charles' outburst as inconvenient now, but what about when he realizes the time he's stolen because he couldn't properly control himself? Because he was being needy and impossible? Because he can't get out of this stupid, cloying headspace, where Erik's firm guidance is the only thing he can understand and trust? Erik sometimes feels as if he's taking from Charles, and that's utterly ridiculous, but this - this seems just as bad. Worse, even.  
  
"Because you are important to me, _neshama_. The most important thing. They understand that." Besides, he's never prioritized Charles above the children anyway, he always manages to do both at the same time, to look after them and keep them healthy and happy and also make space for Charles. The rest of it is just background decoration. They have all the time in the world. And this-this isn't going to be representative of Erik spending real time with his family anyway, not when it's punctuated by constant VPRS meetings and a follow-up visit to The _Hague_ itself directly after. No, what will really matter is keeping themselves all together for the whole duration, and for picking up the pieces in the aftermath. They have time. This won't be his first visit to Israel. It won't be his last. And it's not impossible. Erik is right here and they are OK. No shame. Erik loves that he's down, that he needs Erik, that he likes Erik. It's his favorite thing. Charles is his favorite thing.  
  
For Charles that seems to make it even worse. They have such limited time here that isn't plagued by the festering disease that is Sebastian Shaw and those who associate with him, shouldn't Erik take every opportunity? Charles will have plenty of time to fall apart when they use that small window of reprieve to spend time with his family, if it it can be called that at all. But wallowing in shame isn't doing anything to make him feel more prepared to enter that dining room, and Erik won't go in without him, so there's nothing to be done for it. And if he's honest, he doesn't particularly want to leave subspace; it's safe, and grounding for both of them, and he doesn't think he could if he tried anyway. Even thinking about it makes him feel like panicking. He sniffles and presses closer instead, but eventually perks up, eyes wide in that way they are when he's just had a realization. He tugs on Erik's sleeve (and his mind, too), imploring.  
  
Erik huffs softly, amused and fond as he always is whenever Charles pokes at him and tugs at him mentally, and he strokes back, soothing and calming like a balm against oversensitized nerves. _Ragu'a_ , it says. Be easy. One of his very first Commands, and one he cherishes because of how it taps right into all the parts of Charles that remember he is Erik's. "What is it, hm? _Ma ze, tayer? Haged li_."  
  
Every part of Charles remembers that he's Erik's, always, but especially right now. It's extremely obvious, how far under he is, how he doesn't show any signs of resurfacing anytime soon; from the way he's clinging to the way he responds to his Dominant, perfectly attuned, responsive, eager to obey and listen and heed. He tugs on Erik's sleeve again though it's entirely unnecessary, still curled up on his lap and into his neck and then his mind gives his answer, wandering to Charles' plate which is still somewhat full. _More?_ he asks, because he knows Erik can handle that without them needing to be in the dining room. It's clear it's not for him, because Charles doesn't get seconds even on days he wants to (and he also has no intention of finishing his firsts), not even of cake or ice cream, but it's also clear it's certainly not going to waste.  
  
Erik doesn't exactly know what he means, but he takes the opportunity to misunderstand him (the alternative is _Not Remotely Appealing_ and he kept the _halvah_ down but he's quite confident he won't keep anything else), as he collects a forkful of pancakes and holds it out for Charles to eat, stroking his face gently as he silently encourages (read, Commands, more or less) him to take the bite. "Not bad, _be'emet_?" he laughs a little. "You know, I first made these for Tabby a long time ago, but she saw me use pepper and she couldn't understand, she thought it would be gross. It's not, though." It's a dumb little story, so much of Erik's sensory memories from before are rooted in food. His associations with his family, with his parents (Edith always over-peppered the dough, so his pancakes tend to have more bite than normal, but it's... her, it's woven through), his sibling, his house, there's food woven throughout. If he can't eat then he's cooking.  
  
They're certainly not bad, and the story makes him smile softly, but Charles didn't mean either of the obvious choices here. On an empty stomach, he's not going to keep down much more either unless Erik wants him to feel sloshy and uncomfortable and anxious about it, of which he already does; he takes part of the offered bite, which is hardly anything at all, lets it dissolve mostly in his mouth so he doesn't have to feel as if he swallowed much. They're being lost on him, really. Charles isn't in much of a position to taste the food he's eating besides knowing it in calories - he's tracked it in his head, assumed ingredients, tallied it. It's not something that runs on the surface, a background process that he sometimes pays much more attention to, and he doesn't draw attention to it now. Instead he crawls out of Erik's lap (and makes a noise at the loss, despite the fact that he'd done it, frowning immediately) and tugs on his arm again, silent but clearly coaxing, imploring, his mind much more clear: _follow me?_  
  
Of course Erik does follow him, pressing up close behind him as though he too can't bear to be separated and that much is fact. They're both dressed and Erik's abilities are running in the background, too, keeping things cozy for both of them (which involves Charles's perception being cooler and Erik's being more or less reminiscent of their climate) but he's amused as he realizes just how enormous his shirt is on Charles, lacking Erik's usual tailored flourish and he doesn't correct it now, but the fabric tugs a little anyway in an unconscious hug, mimicking Erik's arms which do much the same. He's got pancake batter and flour on his jeans, and in the light there's little smudges in his hair and over his cheek from where the kids had climbed all over him and made a big mess of things in their attempt to 'help' make dinner.

* * *

It takes a while to get where they're going, but not because it's particularly far. It's because Charles has to stop every few moments to feel Erik behind him, to seek him out, to wrap himself up in embrace and mind; it's silly, and terribly needy, but it's the only way he knows how to be at the moment. Eventually they make it toward the back of the house where Charles has noted there are windows perfect for sun-basking with a book (although perhaps this sun would need to be taken in small doses for him, even from within doors, he notes sheepishly), but now the sun has mostly left them, leaving behind a woman sitting on her own. He's had Erik hover along the plate for them so it wouldn't get in the way (he hadn't asked, but Erik had known and likely had the same exact idea), but he reaches for it now. It's vaguely reminiscent of their Bonding Ceremony when he'd first met her, and he stays folded up in Erik's arms even as he offers the plate over.   
  
_Hello_ , he greets, and then winces; there's some kind of correlation there, between subspace and reliance on telepathy, though he does it more often now regardless. An unintentional slip he's still uncomfortable with. "I thought you might appreciate being brought something before there's nothing left to bring," he murmurs, out loud now, but quieter than usual. The point gets across anyway, a soft, genuine smile on his lips. If he can't currently stomach (ha) a family dinner like this, he can at least deliver part of it to a straggler.  
  
"Oh, Magda," Erik whispers softly, and it's hard to fathom how less than a month ago he'd never cried in the Real because tears spring to his eyes once more, and she turns, a gasp until Charles realizes he hadn't translated that for Erik. The barrier between what is trapped inside of him, the boundary which Charles helps to erase has slowly begun to depreciate, soft loams in the plastic shield that he can press his hands against and then-a whisper, winds that whisper his intent, the softest voice from below that is his own. And this time, she's heard him, turning around with her fingertips over her lips, a brilliant smile on her face as she beckons them both forward and embraces each one in turn.   
  
"Look what he's made me," she laughs softly, because Erik hadn't floated over Charles's plate. He'd switched them out-the one he specifically made for Magda, he'd intended to go get her but then Charles-and Charles knew, of course he did, and Magda must have known, too, for she didn't come in. She's just been waiting here, for them both. "I taught him how to make this, you know?" her deep, husky voice is amused. "His people call it _dolmas de pazi_ , hm? But we call it _sarma_. There's cinnamon, spice, nuts, sugar and _iç pilav,_ my _nine_ called it, she was from _sulukule_ , and cooked in _nar ekşisi_. Mashed pomegranates. Food connects us all, eh _piccolo_?" She pats the seat next to her on the bench. "Come sit," she whispers to Charles.  
  
It's not surprising to him, actually. Not any of it. It's always been difficult to get anything by Charles, but now it's exceptionally so. It occurs to Erik that this is what he'd intended from the beginning. It isn't the first time Erik has spoken with his Real, physical voice around others, the sound called up from his vocal chords and not Charles' telepathy. He doesn't mention it, as he hasn't before, not in the moment it happens even as pride swells up at who he belongs to. Instead he goes to sit with that same soft, warm smile, dimples and all, still grasping tight to Erik because it would hurt to be - and then he stops, and gasps, and tenses. His hand goes limp where it was grasping at Erik's. His eyes roll back, but he doesn't lose consciousness, even as his knees give out and he falls suddenly and ungracefully to his knees.  
  
Erik moves immediately to catch him in his arms, to lower him gently and crouch over him, petting his hair, terror and fear making its way up and out of his throat and he breathes in short, sharp breaths while Magda carefully comes down beside him, helping as best as she can.  
  
" _Hhhn_ -" It's difficult to reassure Erik when everything has gone black, the world blown out and horrific pain he's come to recognize as familiar suffocating everything else, but this feels different. Triggered, somehow, because there was nothing to suggest it was coming the way there usually is - no distortion, no headache beyond the usual. He does fall against Erik, limp and shaking but still there, images flashing and repeating and rapidly switching behind his eyes, still rolled all the way back. There's too much keeping him tense and trapped to cling - it doesn't feel like he's in control, not of body or mind, which is far more terrifying - but he trusts Erik to hold him anyway, to anchor him through it. "Magda," he gasps, weak and confused, but it's all he can manage before he's back to moaning in pain, trying desperately to get closer to Erik. It's one of the only things that ever helps.  
  
He shuffles Charles up onto his lap, holding him in cradled blankets as Magda slowly, stiffly, painstakingly crouches before him, getting to her knees so she can put both of her hands on either side of Charles's face. "I'm here, _caro_. What do you need me to do? How can I help?"  
  
Charles doesn't know the answer to that. He can't reach out, curled up and trembling in Erik's lap, unwilling to let go of the weak grip he has on his Dominant, so he focuses on Magda's touch on him; the first thing he does is adjust again, seeking out pain and flattening it even in the throes of whatever this episode is. It's permanent, but he likes to check, to reassure, to fuss with - he does the same thing with Erik, often without even realizing. Then he hesitates, even now, terrified and small and sometimes he doesn't even ask this of Erik when he's feeling insecure, so how could he possibly ask it of Magda? It's not as if his fears are unfounded. His telepathy is an invasion, and always has been. Far more trouble than its worth, and here it's only tricking him. Besides, when it's volatile like this, who knows if it won't hurt her? He shakes his head and hides in Erik. "Okay," he whispers, and it's not much of a reassurance at all, especially when his eyes still haven't opened, when it's more than obvious he's in pain.  
  
She seems to understand, though. It's not a mutation, exactly, but a gift of her own. The ability to see inside of people, the microexpressions, to intuit their needs and wants. It's what makes her a good caretaker. It's how her and Erik communicated for so long without exchanging a single word. "Show me," she whispers instead, touching Charles's temple. "In here." There's no fear, no alarm. Only acceptance.  
  
He flinches away at the touch, gasping loudly and gathering all the tendrils that burst out quickly before they escape. Then he shakes his head again. It's not that he wants to show her anything, of which he's been much more forthcoming with, though still hesitant, shy, afraid; it's that he wants to take. To see. There's a reason for it besides curiosity or entitlement to it, like he's seen in other telepaths - Emma Frost, namely - and his taking is much gentler, likely because he nearly always asks first, but also just because he's far, far stronger, even when he's unsteady. Because he never intends to hurt. It doesn't leave a trace at all, usually, besides something uniquely Charles, friendly and warm and often apologetic. But the memories he thinks he needs are tainted by pain and tragedy and grief and trauma - it's quite a lot to ask. "Okay," he repeats, eyes still firmly closed (but moving behind his eyelids, responding) and tries to fight it off, fists white-knuckled in Erik's sweater. It's just some strange glitch. It isn't the first time his telepathy has failed him, that it hurt as a result.  
  
Erik loves him, Erik trusts him and she's seen the evidence for herself that Charles is good for Erik, that he takes care of Erik and if she can do anything to help, give anything to spare, she will do it because it will help Charles, but it will also help Erik, who is currently stuck and helpless and afraid. They're her family, because they're one another's family, and when she is gone, Charles will be the one to keep looking after Erik when she can't. "Ah," she understands, her eyes fluttering shut for an instant and then she nods, letting Erik adjust the blanket over her shoulder from where he's still holding Charles stable in his lap. "Go ahead, _caro_. Take what you need. See what you must. I'm not afraid."  
  
For a long few moments, Charles is entirely silent and still as anything. He breathes shallowly, tucked into Erik's shoulder, and the only signs that he's doing what he asked permission for are the eventual changes in his body; his fist clenched tighter, a slight tremble. Magda feels nothing, sees nothing, relives nothing. His presence in Erik's mind is much more obvious, both because he's more attuned and because he's more attuned to Charles; a nudge here and there, soft and gentle, are what tips him off to the fact that Charles is rooting around in his Dominant's mind, too, though he also sees none of what he's actually looking for. When his eyes snap open, he looks thoroughly disturbed, his whole face scrunched up with it. "Something is wrong," he announces quietly.  
  
"Wrong?" Erik whispers, well-he intends to whisper but his voice is trapped in his throat and comes out a hoarse, inaudible croak. Fear buzzes under his skin. _What's wrong? Tell me what's wrong. Please_. He's asking _please_ as if his ratcheted up anxiety don't make it an Order out of pure instinct, and he's rocking Charles back and forth slowly, imperceptibly, adjusting the blanket and adjusting the bubble that keeps him comfortable and working to calm himself down and breathe so he doesn't rip the house apart.  
  
Charles doesn't understand it. It could just be a hunch, except he trusts himself enough to know that his instincts are at least fairly good, and when he ignores them is when they most find themselves in trouble. Something is wrong here, and he knows it. He can finally move, so he tucks himself closer to Erik, attempting to soothe them both, allowing himself to be rocked, but his own creeping anxiety is beginning to overwhelm him. "It - something doesn't make sense," he whispers, eyes closed again, his expression pained, brows furrowed in confusion and frustration. "Your memories -" His and Magda's, he means. "There's something wrong with them. They're wrong. Corrupted, or..." Tampered with. He's known it from when Erik first mentioned Magda, and he replays it for the three of them - Erik's hurt, his assumption that Charles didn't believe him, but he did. He knew Erik was telling the truth. It just wasn't correct. Not entirely correct? He doesn't know. He can't be sure, and it could all be some horrible misjudgment on his part. But he doesn't think so. He really doesn't think so.  
  
Magda is angry, her reaction flaring in her mind before she speaks like a righteous fury. Who would do this to her-who would take her memories? Who would change them? What did they take? What did they change? What's been real or unreal this entire time? But Erik isn't. Erik knows the answer and he's very calm, no anger, no fear, even. Simple resignation, simple fact. "Emma," he murmurs. "You said it had to do with Pietro and Wanda. Can we fix my memories?" Magda starts, but he holds up a hand. Magda's too close to it, she's too reactive, too emotional. And it's about her children. She wasn't there. She didn't see them be murdered. It's better if Erik's restored first, and then he can help her make sense of the truth.  
  
It's the easiest solution to the problem. Emma, either in the moment or retroactively, tampered with both of their memories regarding Magda's children (and more, obviously, and he tries not to feel his own quiet fury at that). But slowly, as if uncertain - and he is - he shakes his head. "I won't say she had nothing to do with this," he breathes, because he knows Emma's signature by now. "But there's something else, too. Something I've never seen." He's still attached to Erik's shoulders, but the words are clear even as they're muffled. "I can try to fix it," he answers Erik's question, but clings tighter in the aftermath. He's never done that before. Erik's memories are fragile things, sometimes, touched by careless hands, and these ones are particularly broken in ways he doesn't fully understand. What if he breaks them more? What if he hurts him? And he's still down, and frightened, and he makes a quiet, anxious whimper. He'll mess up. He'll cause harm, and then he won't be able to undo it. What if Erik is never the same again, and he loses him? What if Charles breaks him?  
  
The decision comes with a sense of calm that has been lacking in Erik from the moment Charles collapsed to the ground and he sits up, guiding Charles to kneel across from him and shakes his head. Magda deserves to know what happened to her children. She deserves to know, and she's done so much for him, this is how he can give back. He can help her know the truth before she goes, he can ease her into it. He has perfect, full confidence in Charles. He trusts Charles. Charles takes care of him. They're his memories, too. He wants them back. He won't let Emma Frost or whoever else or whatever else (and that answer likely does lie within this well) keep taking from him. Charles won't mess up. Erik will be with him the whole time. Charles's mind, his spirit, his body are attuned to Erik. They love Erik. They know what fits and what doesn't. They will always recognize one another. "You will not break me," he murmurs, bowing their foreheads together. "I need you to try."  
  
Around the lump in his throat Charles finds it difficult to breathe let alone speak, but he nods. He knows Erik is right. There's no universe in which he could let this sit, let Magda wonder until the day she dies what happened to her children, whether everything she knew of them was fabricated. They both deserve to have their memories restored. He's nervous and uncertain, still, but he lets Erik ground him, inches closer and takes slower breaths. This is his Dominant, and Charles knows his mind better than he knows any other. If he needs to be steadied or guided, he's right here. He expects Charles to try, and Charles wants to try, so he calms himself down and reaches with shaking fingers for Erik's hands, placing them on top of his own over his temples. Focus, guidance, strength. He can lean on Erik, and he can manage this. Charles closes his eyes.

* * *

It takes a few minutes, at least, but for Charles it feels like hours. It's a strange process, finding everything that is decidedly not Erik, not his own perception, that might possibly be corrupted and slowly, carefully stripping it out, focusing on what's underneath. Some of the memories are fogged by unrelated tampering, by dissociation, by the non-linear way Erik mind thinks when he's there but not - but eventually, outside of specifics - Charles' eyes snap open and one of his hands slips out from under Erik's to cover his mouth. It will be clear to Erik now, as clear as it is to Charles: whoever those children were, they were not Pietro and Wanda Maximoff. They were not Magda's children.  
  
Erik's eyes open slowly. He pulls Charles's hand back into his own, larger palm eclipsing Charles's as he considers everything that's floated to the surface since Charles pulled out all of the distorted pieces. _It must be why they murdered them,_ Erik reasons after a few moments, the trilling echo of pain clangs around in a brilliant hummed reverb, like birds in a forest inside his chest and wind through the leaves of trees. A ringing in one's ears, the outside world swathed in cotton batting. The echo. _Because I knew the truth. That must mean I know more. Maybe where her children are. Maybe what happened to them. We need to keep going._  
  
It becomes more difficult from there. Charles closes his eyes obligingly, obediently, but his face crumples this time not far into it. Everywhere he nudges there's resistance, and he doesn't understand it; if this were Emma Frost, he would have absolutely no problem shedding her influence with a bit more work, with careful, patient fingers. She's certainly not doing anything at the moment. He's sure it's not Erik, either - he knows when his Dominant is redirecting by now, when he's holding close or even unintentionally shielding. There's nothing to suggest that. Perhaps they're hidden, buried, the way fragments of Charles' are? He clenches his teeth and gets slightly more forceful, squeezing Erik's hand in apology despite knowing it won't hurt, per se.   
  
Something from Emma Frost. She was taunting him, giving him information she intended to take, and Charles can unravel it, can see what it was she was showing him - twins, Magda's, but just where the image should be there's nothing. It doesn't make sense. Even a wiped memory should be uncoverable, lodged somewhere. Emma is not as skilled as she would like to believe. Where is it? He bites his lip until it bleeds, and finally opens his eyes again. That wasn't long ago, though. Wherever they were then, months before the end of that and the beginning of all this, before he met Erik in that cell, Pietro and Wanda were alive. He doesn't know if that's still the truth now. He doesn't know if - he doesn't know. There are gaps, and he's never encountered anything like them before. I'm trying, he assures Erik, and it's clear he's stricken, shaken, beyond frustrated.  
  
Essex, Erik whispers, because Essex is-Erik's mind lights up like fireworks. Because Essex is on trial, Nathaniel Mulbury he's been-he's been Sebastian Shaw's co-conspirator from the start and Erik doesn't remember him, Erik doesn't remember ever encountering him and he dissociated, memories peeled back and away and he looks again and something, something he'd skipped right over, just out of the corner of the frame, just beyond the border a single image, a man-proof that Essex knew Erik back then and that Erik didn't recognize him beyond the fact that Essex is being prosecuted for crimes against Erik-but together, together Essex and Frost both-they must have-in tandem-a greater assault, the greatest violation, or maybe something else-something they can't define but there's more, too, there's more. There are gaps. Erik is positive those gaps aren't all due to an interloper.   
  
_Get out,_ whispers the void. Get out-get out-and they're thrown into the darkness, and Erik is gone. In his place there's a young boy with bright red curls, and a Pink Floyd T-shirt and muddy, scuffed shoes and bright eyes, not the boy in the room, but the boy in the desert.   
  
They aren't in the Landscape. They aren't in any part of Erik's mind that Charles recognizes.


	60. finally to turn over: yeah, I know the place—

Gaps. There are gaps, large, gaping ones but Charles can mend them. There must be a way, and he is the only one who could ever hope to manage it. Whatever damage has been done, by Frost and Essex and anything or anyone else, he'll undo it. Even if it's Erik himself. It will not take minutes, but fortunately they have longer than that. The darkness doesn't startle him, nor does the change; whatever part of Erik's mind, it's familiar to him, even if he's never seen or touched it before. He knows it like his own. It takes a moment or two to not feel panicky, frightened, alone, but he forces it away and out; Erik hasn't left him, and he certainly hasn't abandoned him. When he's worked on steadying himself, he approaches that boy from the desert, slowly and carefully. "Erik?" he asks quietly.  
  
"Charles," the boy responds, his voice warm and alive in this dark place and the sound echoes until it becomes synapses and harmonics, each one a whispering flute that illuminates the area, illuminates the vast, infinite void ahead. "You found me. I knew you would." He tromps over, just as eager and bull-like as those childhood memories of him running through the desert-roads, dusty and brilliant. He comes to a stop right in front of Charles and looks up, his green eyes glowing. All around there's a mesh of electrical impulses that fire off in random intervals, that spark when Charles moves his feet and crackle like Roman candles.  
  
Charles laughs, and even if the sound is uncertain and strange here, smothered by his anxiety, it's warm just the same; Erik is barely shorter than him as a child, and he knows from memories that by thirteen he's essentially the same height. He takes advantage of the difference to ruffle the boy's hair, to pull him tight and protectively against him. "Of course I did," he breathes, because regardless of whether he knew to look or the circumstances surrounding it, Charles will always find Erik. Across time and space and continents and language and and worlds, too, if he must. Certainly through trauma and fear and gaps. "Can you tell me what's happening, Erik?" he asks next, still quiet and gentle even through his own fear.  
  
He takes Charles's hands in his, looking so much older than his small years right then and there. "This is the Dark Place," he says, a whisper that reverberates loud as raised word. "What you're looking for is here, somewhere. Will you help me find it?" For her. For them. For him. "I can help you, too. I'm supposed to guide you when you come. Everything is... fractured. This is where they put everything, but they didn't know that I protect it." The spaces in-between heartbeats. Between raindrops. Between electrical impulses.  
  
His lips twitch upwards, because for some reason he feels as if he'd already known that. Not because he had, but because he knows Erik. It calms him further, if nothing else, to know that this is him, that he's here in every corner and electrical crackle, and that's important because Charles knows this his presence here is for more than a visit. Erik trusts him not to hurt or break or split further, and that means he needs to tread carefully, to be mindful and attentive and mend what's been ripped apart. "Of course," he whispers again, and squeezes the boy's hand, his smile genuine and reassuring. "Why don't you lead the way, then, dear-heart? Let's get looking."  
  
Erik falls into step beside him, still holding his hand, and the lights under their feet illuminate a pathway that spans the great void, a footbridge navigating them through the dark like a yellow-brick-road of synaptic neurons-firing. There are shapes writhing in the distance and Charles knows immediately that they're representative-actions of bodies locked-in, a shadow-fighting itself within, suppressed and held down and buried as his conscious will and actions are gripped in the hand of the Intruder. There are half-formed memories here, things that slipped past, things that Erik's stored from brief glimpses into cognition, held and stored safe but many of them are meaningless, phrases and sights and sounds without context. The pathway beneath their feet grows fainter the deeper they go. "I'm scared," Erik whispers as they approach the edge of an invisible threshold. "I don't know what's beyond here."  
  
Charles doesn't either, if he's honest. "So am I," he admits softly, because there's no use lying in this place that has already suffered enough from lies and twisted consciousness. He squeezes Erik's hand, uses his other to run his fingers through those unruly curls again. "But we'll face it together, hm? Whatever is there, it is nothing we can't handle." There is nothing of Erik that he is not uniquely suited to, even the things that were stolen from him. "Together?" he asks, and smiles even in this darkened, writhing place. Charles will fix it, just as he'd promised.  
  
The hand Erik's holding gets a squeeze, tightly-gripped and the Erik-apparition nods, swallowing roughly. "Together," he says in his deep-down whisper, igniting another spark of electricity that disappears beyond the border zone. He takes a step forward, and then another, into the Void, the abyss-of-nothing where what they seek has been thrown into abandonment, and with every step forward Erik grows more confident, less afraid as the person beside him, the person he knows he loves, who is here to protect him as he protects this place, remains next to him. They disappear into the ether, lights fading away behind them. Charles hears a slow-ringing sound up ahead, something he knows instinctively that Erik doesn't hear.  
  
Charles reminds himself to take slow, even breaths as they walk, to keep himself calm but no less alert. Nothing here will harm him, of that he's certain, but he's much more worried about harming Erik, even accidentally, when everything is understandably fragile; he keeps a firm, watchful eye on the version of Erik beside him, lets him guide as he'd promised but still holds him carefully against him. Whatever the ringing is, he walks toward it, slow and cautious, eyes peeled for anything he might be looking for. Everything here can be recovered, though he isn't sure all of it should be; but then, couldn't the same be said of Charles' Dark Place, unnamed and shredded by his own hand? Whatever lurks here, Erik deserves to know it. It's that resolve that has the lingering uncertainty shedding off of him, a quiet determination slotting into its place. He'll help Erik, exactly as he's meant to. He'll return it all, but first they'll start with this. Whatever's ahead, he'll fix it.

* * *

At first there is nothing, just monotonous, loaming dark but as they get closer Charles hears it, a piercing shriek of sound, tightly-clustered together strands of notes that shake and vibrate and twist the closer he gets to those in-between spaces, the gaps he couldn't uncover with Erik's mind completely conscious and open before him. In the Dark Place, it's different. Time moves differently, thoughts move differently, captured in slow-moving onyx and struggling to break free, kept in prisons by people who held no right to be here. The sounds are-"Frequencies," Erik says, although he can't hear them, he knows they're there. "You can use them to break apart the cages in the Dark." You can. Erik can't. He's tried, but he can't hear. He can't see, he can't navigate. He's not strong, not like Charles.  
  
Erik is incredibly strong, but for all his natural inclinations, his abilities, this is something he was not and could never be suited for. That he managed to protect this much, to preserve this much - that is a testament to his strength, and the rest Charles will take care of. Two halves of a whole. This is a world that Charles knows instinctively, wrapped up in Erik's understanding and perception, but it is something he knows. This is a mind, and it is Erik's mind. He crouches down besides this Erik, taking both of his hands in his. "I am going to fix this," he promises, barely audible but in this place it doesn't matter. "But I need your help with something, and it is very serious. Can you help me, Erik?"  
  
" _Haged li ma ani tzarich ose_ ," Erik whispers, looking up with bright eyes, the only lights in this empty, terrifying ether. He squeezes Charles's hands, both of his strong and hardy, not mangled by time and scars and intruders, intruders that marred this place and his outsides, but thoughts aren't the only thing preserved. The Guardian stands before him, chin tipped up, determination creasing his brow. "I will always help you."  
  
"This place is fragile, Erik. The people here before me were not careful," and if his lip curls with the beginnings of that cold, quiet rage, he smooths it out, because it won't help him here. If he loses his focus for even a moment, his resolve, the results could be catastrophic. He knows it only too well, has always been aware of it, and it is one of the reasons he railed so hard against his own growing abilities. They could be used for exactly this purpose. "Minds are fragile. What's been done here -" He can feel it. Charles takes a shaky, calming breath. "It might be too much. If that's the case, tampering with them further would hurt you. Terribly. It might even -" He won't allow himself to consider it. He continues instead. "If anything begins to collapse, I need you to push me out. Do you understand? Do not hesitate. Do not treat me any differently than you would one of them. Push me out. Protect this place, even from me. Please promise me."  
  
Erik's head tilts, though, thoughtful. "If it begins to collapse, we should fix it. We should put it back together. Heal it. You aren't one of them. Can't you see everything here was waiting for you? I was waiting for you. You're supposed to help me fix it. We're restoring it. Not tampering with it." Tears drip down his cheeks, but he continues on, resolute. "I won't push you out. Not when you're our only hope. I'll be here with you. I'll protect this place, I always have, I always will. You won't collapse it. I won't let you."  
  
It doesn't stop the fear from gripping him tight, but seeing those tears on any Erik's cheeks is enough for his own throat to tighten. It doesn't matter if they're real, if this is all a representation of what was taken, stolen, corrupted - he wipes them away with his thumb, tucks one of those curls out of Erik's face. "I will fix it. I promised you that, Erik, and I wouldn't make that lightly." He kisses the boy's forehead and takes his other hand again. "But I can't - I can't hurt you," he breathes, and now his own voice is cracking, his heart aching in his chest. "I can't lose you because of this. Please don't ask me to. There's so much damage here, I -" He is stronger than both the telepaths responsible, combined. That he knows objectively. But what if it isn't enough? What if... The image of Erik, his Erik, glassy-eyed and blank, staring unseeing at him, unthinking -  
  
"No," Erik says, his voice ringing strong with Command. "I won't let that happen. That's why I'm here. To help you. You won't let it happen too. We trust you. You love us." Erik presses his free hand against Charles's chest, breaking apart that fear gripping his chest with invisible harmonic-frequencies, not needing to reach up high at all to do it. "You'll give us back what we lost. You always have and you always will."  
  
Charles is still afraid. There's no use in stamping it down when it's there, strong and beating, and it just might keep him steady. Erik is right. He absolutely refuses to let that happen, and there is no reality where he would allow himself to ever even begin to do that sort of harm. Not to Erik. Never to Erik. He lets every ounce of determination and resolve and love he has fill him as he stands shakily to his feet, Erik's hand still in his as he faces the shrieking noise of the frequency he'd pointed out. "Alright," he whispers, and closes his eyes, one hand wandering up to his temple. "I'll fix this. I promise." And then he begins, humming with a frequency of his own, lips parted on a gasp at the horrible screeching but he bears it. He is stronger than it, and especially so with Erik. Restore, not tamper. Heal, not hurt.  
  
Once he's exactly in tune, he seems to realize he can aim the frequency where he chooses, but it's difficult to see in the dark. All at once, though, he knows when it hits one of those onyx blocks because it shatters and something spills out of it, filling up the Void and Erik's eyes go wide, hand tight in Charles's as his heart stutters into action. He can't make out what it is, it's all distorted and grainy and the sounds are out of sequence. But Charles can. He can see it.

* * *

It takes even Charles time to decipher it, to unravel and make sense of it. It's wound up so tightly and impossibly and very clearly meant to disappear, to no longer exist, that it stutters and resists, out of order and strangely distorted, the sound and visual of it knocking in and out in a way that at first makes him dizzy. When he focuses, though, when he persists - It's clear as a bell. The children in this memory are slightly older than the children Erik remembers, the ones Magda still believes are her children. They look nothing like them, but every bit like Magda in a way the blurry faces (for Charles, who always suspected they looked quite different) of the children they were replaced with never did. The boy, Pietro, is white-haired and frightened; the girl, Wanda, looks undaunted even as tiny as she is, brown hair that matches her mother and an attitude that matches, too. They hold hands as someone approaches them, looms over them. They're powerful; there have been others.   
  
Magda is more than a control, she's a full-blown experiment of her own. A non-mutant who bears the mutant gene, who will pass it on to offspring. She's been an experiment for a very long time. She hasn't always been a successful one. Charles heart drops into his stomach at the implications, and the truth is - The answer is far too close to home. He knows where this started.  
  
Erik's eyes are narrowed as Charles slowly untangles it, brows knit together to form a deep crease in the center of his forehead. "Why was this erased from me?" he demands of the abyss, because this is something that doesn't make sense to any version of Erik, but least of all the Guardian. Erik was perfectly compliant. A soldier trained from birth, who knew of countless deaths and countless experiments and did nothing to stop them. But Pietro and Wanda broke that conditioning, something about them, whether it was the children he knew (if they even existed at all)-but these are his memories, he knows of Pietro and Wanda the Real, and Magda-why did he fight? Why did he resist?   
  
_Think, Charles, think about it._ _Think about everything you heard and everything you saw in that room today._   
  
"I didn't fight. I was brainwashed. I was in the inner circle, I knew everything. I never would have called the police. I never would have disobeyed him. But he took this from me and then I did. Why? Why can't I know about this?" There are more spheres. More dark cages to shriek open.  
  
There are tears on Charles' cheeks, because he already knows. Perhaps he's known from the beginning, even before he came here. To the mind of Sebastian Shaw, it would only make sense. What was it about those children that broke years of conditioning, of brainwashing, that even those children in the dining room never did? Even the versions that were not the same, that were fabricated and stand-in, had struck a chord. Had finally broken through. None of the deaths, none of the tragedies, none of the horrific, sick violations he'd been subject to. Not Angel, tiny and sweet, each feather of his wings plucked out and spread bloody across the concrete. Charles knows. He knows. "Please," he begs, but he isn't sure who he's begging. Even in this place, he's on his knees.  
  
Erik's face is a mirror, deep tears reflecting back and he lowers down to the ground, an easy, fluid motion that he can't do in the Real but that comes naturally to his tinier form; Erik always was meant to be athletic, a master of his body even before adolescence. He puts his hand on Charles's knee, shaking his head. "Please don't keep it from me. Please don't." So much of this space is built in violation, it exists because of violation itself, everything preserved in twisted film-reels crumpled and nonsensical to him, but Charles can flatten them out, smooth the edges, read the negatives. "He shouldn't have taken it from us. Please."  
  
Charles would never. He could never. Still, it aches so horrifically he thinks his heart must be shattering as he presses his fingers to his temples, forcing himself to be delicate, to be careful, to be gentle and focused; when this box spills, it causes physical pain, a rebound that has him winded and close to retching, somewhere his physical form gagging where he's gone limp in Erik's arms except when he twitches or writhes. But this belongs to Erik, and it should never, ever have been taken. Charles is the only one who can give it back.   
  
This memory is older than the other when it begins to straighten out. They're watching - Erik is watching - as a baby coos in his arms, fresh and pink, her eyes closed. She begins to fuss, and then she's rocked. She settles. It's the overwhelming emotion of it, bursting and breaking forth, suppressed and dampened, what they'd attempted to take because they learned it was dangerous - Wanda is a pretty baby. She looks very much like her mother. But she looks like her father, too.  
  
Erik's always loved babies. Even to the Guardian it makes sense that-well it doesn't-no, it stops-stutters-a baby. Not a child, not a toddler, like he'd known them. An infant, with the scrunched-up ham-fisted face of a day-old, a month-old. All around the frequencies ring and cages break and memories spill out like glass shards that melt harmlessly off their skin out-of-sequence-Magda's pregnant, she's pregnant and they put her in a cage and turned the radiation up to make her children strong, to activate those latent genes and combine them with unlimited Omega-potential-crash-a box breaks   
  
_("Oh, Kleiner Erik. We've been here before. You'll do what you're told or I'll toss her into that oven before killing her first." / "I won't hurt her. I won't do that to her." / "Don't be crude, boy. There's a sample cup in the closet. Be grateful I'm giving you the option. There's a market for everything.")_  
  
The frequency screams. The glass smashes.  
  
 _("Do you understand how powerful these children will be, Erik? How powerful you'll make them? You're the strongest mutant I've ever encountered and with Magda's genetic variation these children could be the key to Earth itself.")_  
  
Erik can't hear over the ringing in his ears but he can see when Wanda blinks up, her dark head of curls fully-formed since birth tossed sleepily aside and she meets Erik's gaze, a big grin on her face and her eyes, vivid green, wide and curious. The ringing gets louder and louder and Erik drops Charles's hands, goes completely limp.

* * *

Charles holds it all together, anchors them both through it and does not let it collapse. The boxes break, and he dutifully scoops up what spills and feeds it back out, cradles it, unravels and unwinds and restores it until it breathes and speaks in full color and sound. The shattering and shrieking, the distortion of memories entirely taken, thrown under and trampled and destroyed - except they weren't. And Shaw clearly did not know Erik even slightly, because if he had even an inkling - even a clue, even a hunch, even a lingering doubt - When he gasps for air, the Dark Place is gone. Those broken, shredded memories still need unraveling, but Charles knows instinctively that there's nothing there that will answer the questions Erik has, nothing that can be recovered right now. Any more and Erik will suffer for it, his mind overloaded and overwhelmed. Too much at once. For now he seeks his Bonded out, desperate and frightened, touches his face, scoots forward until they touch. "Erik," he whispers, and there are tears on his cheeks here, too. "Erik, come back. Look at me, please."  
  
When Erik returns to the Real, though, it's _violent_ and he _roars_ up out of Charles's grasp, only the instinctive nature of his very soul protecting Charles and Magda from being hurt as he explodes in a flurry of sound and color and force and everything around them flies backwards and slams into walls and breaks over floors and Magda tries to restrain him, to help Charles keep him down but he's just screaming _"EIFO HEM?! EIFO HEM?!"_   
  
and Magda's wide-eyed and the doors to the dining area open and Laurie and David run over, and David expertly dodges everything that's kicked up around and Laurie twists and turns easily, agile as they toss themselves into the fray. "Charles, what happened?!" David shouts over the commotion, that tuning-fork noise is loud enough for everyone to hear it, and the kids have pressed themselves under the table, terrified and Erik isn't conscious, isn't _cognizant_ , whatever happened in the Dark Place having it returned to him is like waking from a nightmare at maximum agitation, maximum velocity, he doesn't know where he is or who he is, all he knows is rage and justice and the shackles that contained him broke and now it's all snapped back through space and time to make sense and he'll rip this house down if he keeps it up-  
  
But Charles isn't terrified. He isn't frightened, or concerned for his safety; Erik, even at his most unstable, even at his most volatile and dangerous, full of rage and fury and seeking justice as Charles knows is as sunk into his core as anything else that makes him Erik, could never hurt him. There is no possibility for it. What he does do is shove everyone back, and it isn't merely a suggestion, he doesn't wait for their minds to process - when he throws his hand out, they move, and the force field he puts between them and the scene in front of them is physical, pulsing, impenetrable. It's adrenaline that makes it possible, but pure trust and love that has him moving right into the eye of the shrieking, rending storm, calmly and without a shred of fear.   
  
"Erik," he says, slowly, and holds his hands out as if in offering, his mind inching forward just as his body is. Closer and then closer still, until they're nearly touching again, unconcerned about the pieces of house being whipped up around him. "Erik. Listen to me. They're alive, darling. Wanda and Pietro - they're alive." His voice cracks on it, the tears gather again, and he knows Magda heard it too even over the noise, even through the boundary he'd put up. They're alive.  
  
Magda heard, but she doesn't understand. She doesn't have the pieces, yet. But right now Erik's the one who needs his pieces put back together so that he can do the same for her, eventually, and it's not really Erik, it's a product of his mind snapping back memories that had been destroyed and stamped on and trampled and violated and twisted; it's not really Erik because Erik could come at this with equanimity, he could be solid and stable and oriented even at his most shocked, but there are no feelings. There's no logic, there's no order, there is just pure baser animal reptilian response and he's levitating off the ground with it. Piles of glass surround him like a tornado funnel, whipping off shards that zip past the occupants still near the room and just-barely missing them.   
  
_"MA HU OSE IMAM HEM?!"_ he cries out, and the roof crumples above them as though contained in Erik's fist as his fingers curl toward his palm and Ellie shrieks in shock.  
  
Charles still isn't afraid. He's a bit concerned that the house will crumble in the meantime, but he isn't afraid; he reinforces that force field between Erik and the others, keeping them back and keeping them safe, and he uses Erik's mutation to help. That he can and that he does is all the confirmation he needs - he finds Erik's mind and tugs, and he does exactly what he started in that Dark Place, what needs to be finished out here. He restores. All of that violation, all of that fear, all of that bursting, horrified, righteous fury they tried to trample down and destroy; he takes it, soothes it, acknowledges it, and then he does what he's been doing only these past few days and he absorbs it. He makes it his own, takes it into himself where it can be safe, where it can breathe but not ruin. And with Erik's mind still firmly in his, he yanks and suddenly Erik is on his feet, the most Charles has ever manipulated like that, but he knows - Erik trusts him. Erik would want him to bring him back. "Erik," he breathes, and even around the screeching frequencies he knows his voice will be the loudest thing in the room. He pitches forward until his arms are around his Bonded, and he doesn't let go. "Come back, darling. Come back to me," he pleads. "It's time to come back now."  
  
It's like Erik is a vortex, his mind kicked up in a swirl that tosses Charles out just as he'd commanded the Guardian to do. It takes a few tries before Charles is able to break through the spinning, screaming onslaught and dial Erik down.  
  
When he finally opens his eyes, everything that's floating around stops and they watch as Ellie walks into the room in slow motion, only for a large shard of glass to directly impale her on a downswing. Except that it doesn't. It rips her shirt and bounces harmlessly off of her, and she catches it in her hand. "Someone want to tell me what's going on _achshav! Beseder?_ " her eyebrows fly up, stern and displeased.  
  
David wilts a little sheepishly from where he's been pushed into the corner. "Just some adjustment issues, I expect. How are the kids?"  
  
"They're terrified." She kneels down and checks David over, moving her fingertips over his face and jaw and turning his head this way and that to check for any signs of injury. " _Yeled behatzlacha_ ," she mutters up at Erik. " _Achshav haged li_ ," she points at Magda and Charles. "My _house_! Look at my house!"  
  
Magda's caught Erik in her arms, and she smooths his hair back from his temples, her mind reeling. "I don't-I don't know," she whispers softly. " _Soleach li, bevakasha, slicha_."  
  
Charles is utterly confused when he makes a low, warning noise that sounds surprisingly like some kind of hiss, tugging Erik away from everyone else with strength that he knows is absolutely not his own. Not frightened of his Dominant is one thing, but on edge is entirely another, and his heart is pounding right out of his chest, his entire world spun on its axis as he cradles Erik to him. In the next moment his eyes close and everything in the room begins to right itself. It's not telekinesis. This is Erik's mutation channeled directly through Charles, and he's practically pulsing with the pure, incredible power he's got running through him, tip of the iceberg and not even begun to be tapped into fully, crisis and adrenaline ramping everything up to the point where he doesn't even question it. This is nothing like splicing two paperclips together, and he knows that means it falls much more into the mind-control territory, but Erik would do much the same. This is damage control, Charles working for both of them, acting for both of them, restoring for both of them. The roof begins to patch itself back together and Charles touches Erik's face, desperate and now frightened. What if he did break him? What if he'll never be the same? What if when he looks at him, he doesn't recognize him? 

* * *

Charles swallows, tears all the way down to his neck, caught on his lip, his face red with them. "Erik?" he whispers.  
  
Erik's blinking very slowly, his body a motionless island in the midst of crisis and chaos and yelling and screaming and tears and fear and glass and moving pieces and splintered wood and it takes several long, impossible minutes before he finally drags his eyes up to meet Charles's and he animates like a statue breathed to life, placing his hands on Charles's cheeks, brushing away those tears as his eyes crease with recognition, and he sniffs softly, a pained grimace wracking his face before it smooths out and that's the Erik Charles remembers, that's the response he'd expect from his Dominant, but Erik doesn't realize what's happened until he notices his power is being used and everyone's talking in slow-motion, demanding and afraid and he raises his hand, bringing it down in one swift movement that abruptly rights everything all at once, not a hair out of place but for an abrupt gust of wind that blows back strands of hair.   
  
"Charles," he whispers, using his sleeve to collect the tears on his face and neck. "It's OK. I'm here. I'm here."  
  
The sob that follows wracks his entire body. Charles' arms are immediately around Erik's neck, bowling them both back over and he doesn't care to hide anything from the others in the room as he kisses him, wet and salty, presses his face into his neck, bawls and wraps his mind around and around and around the familiar hum of his Bonded's. "Thought you were gone, thought I broke you - love you, love you, _ohev otcha_ , please don't leave me alone, please," he begs, and he knows it's irrational but he's so earnestly relieved. Is everything still okay? Charles checks, his telepathy pressing and nudging and caressing, needy and frightened still. Does Erik remember everything? That Charles is his? That they're Bonded? That they love each other? What if he's forgotten, what if Charles made him forget?  
  
" _Lo, lo_ ," Erik hushes, kissing him back gently, softly and rubbing his back and taking long, deep breaths through his whole body, in through his mouth and out through the tips of his toes that curl into the carpet and he remembers everything, in perfect, stunning clarity but he could never forget that, although he does seem to be having some trouble with English as his brain reboots itself and comes back online properly restored, so he murmurs encouragements in a mash of others instead. " _Ich liebe dich, du bist mein, ani lo shocheach, ikh zag tsu, ikh bin zikher. Du hast es getun. Efcharistó gia apokatástasi tou ti aníkei se eména_." He lifts Magda to her feet and touches her face, his own crumpled up just like the splintered wood around them. "Magda," he gasps, shaking his head.  
  
Charles does his best to stop crying, fully aware that there is quite a lot to process and work through at the moment and that he should hardly spend it sobbing and clinging to Erik. At the very least the house is no longer falling apart, back to good as new, and that seems to have calmed and soothed some of the understandably frightened, concerned parties. Now Charles' heart is heavy again, his throat clogged, and he turns to Magda, too, even as he continues to leech onto Erik, completely incapable of letting go. He could have broken him. What if he'd broken him? He's still not fully convinced he isn't, his mind touching again and again and again, sweeping out for memories, checking to see that they're in tact. "Magda," he whispers, echoing Erik, and he knows she deserves her memories, too. She deserves to know. They're her - they're Erik's - he closes his eyes, heart audible in his ears.  
  
Erik is trying really hard not to break down right here and right now, and he covers his mouth with his hand, taking in clearly audible breaths against his palm, while Magda looks between them in confusion and she collects her blanket from the ground, in perfect condition and not tattered ruins like it once was. She shrugs it over her shoulders and nudges them all to sit down on the couch instead of the floor. Charles is on one side of him and Magda's on the other, and he curls up between them both, struggling to pull himself together because he's not the only person affected here, and just like back there, in that cage, in that prison, he needs to be the strong one. He doesn't get any time to grieve and freak out, and so he draws his hands away and sits up, placing a hand on either of their knees.   
  
"They took something from you," he whispers softly. "From us both." His voice is steady. Clear.  
  
That's not going to be acceptable to Charles. He does get time to process, to grieve, to make sense of. He can feel and hear Erik reeling, as close as their minds are at the moment, and he won't let him bury everything down where it can't see the light of day. Charles is always going to want to give those emotions and feelings and thoughts space, air to breathe, where they won't be trampled or destroyed. But right now, Magda deserves to be in the know. Even still he curls up into Erik, unwilling to be apart and frustrated by even this distance, even as he reaches over for Magda's hand. "Magda," he whispers, and his voice wavers. "There's something you need to know about your children." He flashes the images of the ones Magda believes belonged to her. They're not illusions. These are real children, and they belonged to someone. They did not, however, belong to Magda. He doesn't even know their names, and neither does Erik. "I know this is going to come as a shock," to make a horrible understatement, and he steadies himself with a deep, slow breath, "But these are not the children you gave birth to."  
  
Magda bursts out laughing. "What are you talking about? Of course I gave _birth_ to them. I think I'd know if I've given _birth_." It's just-she's not trying to be cruel, she just can't help it-it's so silly and this whole day and Erik looks so full of grief and they're all suffering and she shouldn't be chuckling lowly under her breath, it isn't funny-it isn't-"Those were my children. Erik watched them be murdered. Are you telling me that's not real? That you- _lied_ to me?" she's hurt, gazing at Erik, willing herself to understand but she doesn't, she just doesn't have the scope.  
  
Charles closes his eyes and feels the tears slip out, burrowing closer to Erik on instinct, squeezing Magda's hand. "He didn't lie to you, Magda. That's what Erik knew, too. But it wasn't the truth." Magda's memories are not as thoroughly, completely tromped on as Erik's were. They didn't need to be. Now that he knows what to look for and his own strength in finding them, they pull almost too-easily to the surface. He doesn't want to overwhelm her, so he shows her what even she had doubted, what she remembered but couldn't piece together. A hatchet job, but he expects no more from Emma Frost.   
  
In the memory Magda sweats and screams, in the throes of labor, but she isn't alone like she remembers. Erik is by her side, wiping her brow, holding her hand, encouraging her. It would be almost - something, if they weren't being watched. If Shaw wasn't already calculating. But this is undoubtedly the truth, and it does not match up to anything Magda knows - in her memories, she'd met Erik only six months prior, after her twins were long born. Erik had testified to it. He was telling the truth. He just didn't have the correct truth to tell.  
  
"Oh my dear G-d," Magda gasps, lips parted, fingertips brushing over her slackjawed mouth as it feels ready to hit the floor. "Erik," she whispers. "You were-"   
  
(" _Questa è colpa tua, demone!"_ she screams in the throes at Shaw, Erik doesn't speak but he shushes her, hushing noises, humming noises-and then a bright, brilliant shriek of joy! and there's a moment filled with silence and then it isn't, Erik's huddled close and he whispers softly, the only time she's ever heard his voice in this place, a song-" _Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad_ "-)   
  
on the other side of the glass Shaw is watching, but he leaves them be. For now. Until he can figure out exactly how these children fit into the master plan. "You were there," she cries, burying her head in his shoulder. "My babies-" she looks up at Erik. She's seen it in those memories, too. Wanda's brilliant green eyes. "Our-?"

* * *

Charles' eyes are still closed, but he feeds her more of what she's lost, what she's missing, what was stolen; Wanda with her beautiful green eyes, vivid like emerald ocean waters. Her hair is all dark, ringlet curls but there's red there, too, undertones of it here and there and little wonder where that came from. Pietro isn't at all immune to the resemblance; his white hair is unique and not inherited, but even with his darker eyes his face looks more like Erik's than Magda's now that he's looking, down to bone structure and features even when it's still difficult to tell. He shows them both another early memory: Magda holding Wanda while Erik holds Pietro, the swap of what had triggered Erik's memories to surface; Magda talks in her deep, husky voice and Erik hums, not with words or even with sound but the baby boy in his arms responds just the same, tiny fist curled around Erik's giant finger. Despite the circumstances, they're perfectly healthy babies. He tries not to sob, but he knows he's trembling.   
  
"They're alive," he whispers again, repeating what he'd said yesterday. Erik had no way of knowing that, but Charles says it with certainty. "They're -" With the weight of both of their emotions on top of his own, it's almost too much.  
  
"I'm going there," Erik says coldly. An icy rage that Charles himself is well-familiar with, cold and cracking-frost and determination that no one could stop. "Right now I'm going there _right now_ I'm going to get them back."


	61. stumbled into it myself, once; twice, almost. All around and in between the two trees that grow there,

The twins can't be older than four. By best estimate, by piecing memories together and carefully examining them - and he has, in the background this entire time - they're somewhere closer to two or three, just like the children they were swapped with. They're toddlers, and they certainly can't fend for themselves. They're alive; Charles knows that with absolute certainty, as well as he knows anything. But that doesn't mean he knows where they are, or who they're with. He does know that if he finds their little minds like beacons, Erik can do the rest. "This could be an incredibly bad idea," he points out, but that's all. That's it. He's not going to stop Erik. He's going to go with Erik, and he's going to help Erik. That part is non-negotiable.  
  
"There is no other option," Erik says, and Charles has never seen him move with purpose for a mission before but now he does, rising fluidly to his feet. "Look after the kids while we are gone, OK, _cara_? I'll bring them back to you. I promise." He kisses her on the forehead and ushers her away, stalking upstairs to retrieve his leather jacket and an arsenal of metallic shrapnel fastened into its sleeves and down that will make useful weapons should push come to shove. "Are you sure you want to come with me?" Erik asks Charles softly, stealing a moment of softness amidst the grim determination of his trajectory.  
  
Charles spares him a look that says everything he needs to, withering and dry. Instead of responding properly he pushes up on his toes and tugs Erik down to him, kissing him full on the mouth. It tastes of salt, and he knows he's trembling slightly still, but there's nothing but resolve in his eyes when he pulls away. "Would you like to ask me that again?" he murmurs, and his lips quirk just slightly, because despite what looms ahead - whatever looms ahead - he is Erik's, and he belongs with his Dominant. There is no other option for him, either.  
  
"I love you," Erik whispers. " _Ani ohev otcha, atah yode'a? Hm? Atah yode'a eikh me'od ani ohev otcha?_ " he steals kisses between the words, like moments between the spaces, but they have a mission to do and he can feel Charles's resolve echo through himself and bolster him. Giving him strength. Giving him conviction and purpose and power. "Hold onto me," Erik says. "Do not let go. No matter what. Are you ready?"  
  
"I'll never let go," Charles promises, despite knowing Erik meant something a bit less metaphorical. He steps into Erik's arms and holds on tight regardless, silently bracing himself for whatever comes next. They'll face it together. When he nods, all of the uncertainty has drained out of him, replaced by fierce determination - he will see Erik through this. There's very little in the world that could stop one of them, but both? He would pity them, but even he doesn't have enough compassion for that. Not in this.  
  
They raise up into the air as soon as they leave the house, nightfall upon them as they rise up, and the shield begins to form around them, but Erik doesn't let go of Charles at all, holding him firmly in place. "We will be traveling faster than the speed of sound," Erik murmurs. "Much, much faster. You will hear the sonic booms. You will see things that might not make sense. Hear things that warp all around us. But as long as you hold onto me and we remain in this bubble, you will be safe. I will ensure it. Let us begin." They rise up-up-up all the way into the atmosphere, where a crowd of children-and-Magda have gathered to watch, David and Ellie holding one another, arms slung over shoulders with kids pressed in. "We'll be back," Erik whispers to them down below. Knowing they can't hear. "Three, two, one-" _**BOOM!**_

* * *

They accelerate forward instantly, and while Charles is safe from the gravimetric forces at play, it is still a total shock to the system and it pins him to Erik, with difficulty in moving before Erik adjusts the sphere protecting them to accommodate. It takes some tweaking, most of his energy is spent going fast and far, but they manage to sit on the floor wrapped up in one another and that doesn't need much movement either way. Erik makes sure Charles's head is supported and he buries his own in Charles's shoulder. Boom, _boom_ indeed.  
  
All of Charles' energy is spent not being sick. Even with Erik's tweaking there's no way to account for it, and he decides the best way to handle it is simply to close his eyes, to stay as still as possible, to cling to his Dominant with everything he has. Tuning out the deafening noise helps, and he's never been more grateful for his ability to tweak and tamper with perception. This is decidedly not his favorite method of travel, but he can't knock its efficiency. By the time he thinks he might actually be sick they're already where they need to be, infinitely closer to those two shining beacons, and he takes a breath. _Erik_ , he sends, directing his Bonded's attention. _Please promise me you'll remember_. And he doesn't mean it in a strictly literal sense.  
  
Erik looks down at him, one eyebrow raised curiously. _Remember, neshama?_  
  
Charles nods, fending off the nausea and the sudden spike of fear, tempering them both with that steady resolve from before. _Don't forget who you are. Who you really are. You forget, sometimes, in places like this, and I need you to remember. You are so strong and so loved, darling, and I know you want justice -_ He wants justice, too. There's no way around it when that icy chill of anger is shared between them. _But don't sacrifice yourself to do it. Stay with me. Let me help, and don't cut me off. We will do this together. We will get them back. But I need you to remember everything that got us here. You are not a prisoner in a cage anymore, Erik. There is another way. Whatever happens, we face it together._ But Charles is reasonable. He's aware that sometimes there is no other way, and he lets Erik see that, too. He won't let Erik lose anyone else. No more of his family's blood will be spilled.  
  
Erik can't identify where those children are, so his mind leads him to the one logical place where he can get some answers and they set down in a colorful city that Charles immediately recognizes as The Hague. At only an hour behind IDT, it's still quite late at night and the harbor twinkles with reflections from quaint buildings. For a moment they're outside the Peace Palace, but Erik's ears perk up and then they're in the air again. That's not right, that's the court. They need the prison. "I won't forget," he mutters darkly, "but I won't let him hurt my children. Never again. _Never_ again."  
  
"Erik -" For just a moment, Charles considers simply reaching out and finding the children for himself. When they're both so intimately linked to Erik and possess strong mutant genes, of which he's always been extraordinarily sensitive to, he's positive he can find them just as he had originally intended. It would take quite a lot of energy and perhaps some time, but he could do it, and from there the rest would be fairly simple. But Erik's instincts here are right. They need more information than he can get without exerting himself before they ever step foot into wherever those children are being held, and the clearest, simplest source is the source. The root of the problem and the evil and the horrific violation in the first place. They'll know exactly what they're walking into. When they touch down, this time in the correct place, they're obviously already hidden, utterly invisible to anyone around them. "We need to do this together," he whispers, though there's no need for it. Either one of them could manage on their own, but that isn't how this works.  
  
Erik's expression is positively feral, a twisted-up snarl familiar to Charles only because he'd watched that damn video so many times of Erik bringing down the _Shaw Institute_. "I believe as the expression goes," he mutters, as he raises his hand and the gates completely crumple in on themselves and explode backwards, yielding to their invisible path as workers scurry to determine the problem, cameras already fuzzed out and looping serenity, "you can play _good cop_."  
  
Charles truly hopes Erik isn't counting on that, because as it turns out, his good _cop potential_ tends to end with Sebastian Shaw. As it is, no one would ever say Erik doesn't possess a flair for the dramatic, and he sighs quietly as he plays damage control - they don't need alarms going off in the middle of this. He calms everyone down, reaches out and sets them into place so by the time they make it to where they need to be there's already someone waiting to let them in, and Charles nudges more aggressively than usual so they're particularly quick about it. Much better than destroying property they'll need to waste time putting back together on the way out. Let Erik save all of his destructive, fury-filled energy for - Well. For the man in his outrageously well-fitted cell, awake and sitting up as if he was expecting them. Charles' lip curls and his entire body fills with that cold, frosty rage, but he stands back. He'll play good cop for now.

* * *

The panache. The performance. The drama. It's all right here, folks, only Erik isn't putting on a show, not for anyone, it's all fury and energy begging to get out and for once he's stood across from Sebastian Shaw, isolated in his own little glass prison and there's not an ounce of fear in him. He lifts his hand and the glass crumbles, hitting the floor in light sprinkles that reflect fluorescent-lights above. There are no guards. There's no judge. There's no jury. There's just Erik.  
  
" _Kleiner_ Erik, and Dr. Xavier, too. I must say this is a surprise."  
  
Yeah, no. Shaw _immediately_ finds himself lifted and slammed into the wall. " _Where are they!_ " Erik growls, tightening his fingers into his fist and lifting Shaw higher and higher, listening to him choke and gasp for air. Relishing the sound of his suffering.  
  
"You'll-need-to-be-more-specific-my- _dear-boy_ -"  
  
As a general rule, Charles doesn't condone violence, nor can he think of very many situations at all where it would ever be necessary. He doesn't let it stand. His principles rely on a certain element of be the better person with a healthy dose of turn the other cheek, lead by example; force escalates situations almost always, and brutish gestures do nothing but agitate both parties. Nearly every conflict can be solved peacefully, diplomatically, strategically without the need for raised fists and weapons. People can be shown a better path, and if they can't, there are peaceful ways to handle that, too.He's finding exceptions to nearly all of these principles in Sebastian Shaw. Let it never be said Charles cannot be flexible.  
  
He finds a seat on one of Shaw's plush, comfortable chairs, crosses his legs and does nothing to stop Erik. Yet. He doesn't actually want to kill Shaw, but it's not because he's being merciful. "If I might make a suggestion? Don't play coy. Erik's methods will seem tame in comparison if I need to step in, too." It's as much a warning as it is a threat, the biting cold of it destroying any pretense of polite formality. Charles' telepathy is focused, steady, gentle, kind, a reflection of himself. For Shaw he'll make another exception.  
  
"I'm afraid I'm not the telepath in this room," Shaw chuckles, smug and oozing confidence even while he's choking and gasping for breath, and Erik squeezes, cutting off his oxygen, his ability to speak like Shaw did for him age fourteen speak when spoken to, never initiate, obey at all costs, do not give Orders-Erik lets out a feral yell and Shaw slams into the ground, and he launches himself at him (" _You want to hit me? Hit me"_ -but it absorbs and then Shaw hits him and every bone cracks-) and rears back his fist, slamming it into Shaw's face over and over and over and **_over and over and over_ **again-  
  
That's where he steps in. Charles crosses the room slower than he probably should have, reaching for Erik's arm as it goes for the next swing. He holds it in his, touching Erik's back as his mind wraps firmly around his Dominant's, dampening some of that raw, primal fury with calm instead. He doesn't take all of it, and he doesn't show fear; he just won't let this escalate to the point where there's no turning back. "He won't be able to tell us where they are if he's unconscious, darling," he whispers, because Shaw is quite a bit weaker than Erik remembers. Good cop, indeed.  
  
 _"I don't care!"_ Erik's knees buckle and he sags against Charles, his arm going limp as soon as Charles touches him, and Shaw just cocks an eyebrow, amused at this pathetic display of feeling.   
  
"Who is it you're looking for, precisely? Maybe I can help. I do only want what's best for you after all, Erik."   
  
Erik surges forward again, stopped only by Charles but barely. "You should be dead. You should've died a long time ago. I should've killed you! You took them from me you had _no right!_ You're going to die and it's going to be slow and painful and everyone is going to know, _Klaus Schmidt_ , everyone is going to know you're a fucking _Nazi pedophile_ who deserves to rot in hell. My _mother_ -" he breaks free of Charles's hold here and with a twist of his wrist Shaw's arm snaps and he cries out in agony as the bone juts forward and Erik just kneels down and presses and presses and **_presses_** until the pain is enough to swerve Shaw's consciousness fade-in-fade-out "-told me hell doesn't exist but she's wrong I'm going to _personally send you there! **Tell me where they are!**_ "

* * *

Charles' concern in this moment isn't Shaw. He couldn't possibly care less if that man feels a bit of pain after the agony and torture he's put everyone he ever came into contact with through, and perhaps that makes him a terrible person, a rotten hypocrite, but he doesn't care. What he does care about is Erik, and this is not the way either of them want this to go. He knows because he knows his Bonded better than he knows himself. So with a tug he pulls Erik back, wrapping both of his arms around his Dominant's waist, an embrace more than a restraint but it works both ways. "You do care," he whispers. "Don't let him into your head, my love. He does not belong there."

When his eyes fall on Shaw, any gentleness is gone, any softness evaporated into thin air. He makes certain the man stays conscious. "Wanda. Pietro. Tell us where they are. I suggest you do it now, because I'm losing my patience."  
  
Shaw starts chuckling, huffing guffaws amidst nerve-rending electric agony that zips through his arm and shifts his whole body in place where it's held. As always whenever Erik is feeling particularly _violent-tango-y_ when Charles touches him he sags, as if every part of his own self knows exactly the line that needs toeing before his submissive gets hurt. That's more consideration than he'll ever give to Shaw.   
  
"Wanda and Pietro are dead, my dear doctor. Or did Erik not share that fascinating little tidbit with you?"  
  
He's finding it difficult to fathom a noise more grating and agitating than Sebastian Shaw's laugh. Truly, it puts nails on a chalkboard to shame, and he finds that one nauseating. This makes his nostrils flare, his eyes narrow, his lips purse into that thin little line that resembles his mother's even though his are much fuller, and he comes around Erik (still touching, still soothing) to stare at him as coolly as possible. "If you aren't going to say anything useful, I'm going to take it, and I promise it will not be gentle or pleasant. Do you remember that day in the courtroom?" He lets Shaw see for himself; helpless, begging, on his knees. "One more time. If Erik has to ask again, you'll like it even less," he promises, and it would be calm if he wasn't seething, the room vibrating with barely-contained psionic energy. "They aren't dead. I know that for a fact. So where are they?"  
  
"I know you believe you are _threatening_ me, my dear doctor, but I've always believed that if you want something, you should _work_ for it." Shaw's mask of congeniality slips for a moment and his lip curls on the edges of a snarl, but his amusement-no, that never leaves. He's not ashamed of himself. He's not embarrassed. And if one thing makes Dr. Shaw _special_ , it is that. Charles knows first-hand, from so much experience as a forensic psychiatrist, that most perpetrators have _shame_. They know that what they've done is wrong, a sin, disgusting-they touched children, they killed their parents, they committed _wrong_ , they perpetrated _wrongdoing_. But Shaw? Not an ounce. Not an iota of remorse, or shame, or fear of discovery. He taps his temple. "You want to know? Pry it from my cold, gnarled fingers. Go on, doctor. _Violate_ me."  
  
This time it's Charles' turn to laugh. It's sudden and strangled and perhaps wildly inappropriate, but he can't help it. It isn't hysteric, nor is it strictly amused; it's just the realization that Shaw well and truly repulses him. There is no room for other emotion or consideration, no search for redeeming qualities. He understands Sebastian Shaw as he does most people, but there is nothing there worth salvaging. If he is a human being, it is only by classification. He bears more resemblance to the monsters that lurk under beds and in closets than he does to living, breathing people, but Charles isn't afraid of this particular monster, stripped of its claws and teeth. "Do you think I won't?" he asks, eyebrow arched. "Do you think I'll spare you that, that I will show you kindness? Let me make myself very clear so there are no further misunderstandings." He doesn't get closer than he is, but his telepathy flares outward, striking Shaw's mind with the same force as a whip. "I have no reservations about taking from you. It was a _warning_ , not a threat." And when he enters Shaw's mind, it is far less pleasant than the courtroom. Unlike physical pain, it will not end when Shaw passes out. Charles doesn't intend to let him.  
  
Shaw's eyebrow raises. "Let me make _myself_ very clear, Dr. Charles Xavier. Do you think that you are _better_ than me? Hm? That you're noble? While you were in the womb-ah, yes, black though it was," he laughs himself. "I was advancing our kind. And so was Erik. You've done nothing. You reap the benefits of being _Omega_ without any of the work. Just ask your lovely Dominant. Well, if you can call him that." Shaw doesn't need telepathy to strike back. "Go ahead. Take from me. Torture me. Flay me open. And then close your eyes at night, believing you are better. The only difference is, I did what I had to do for the _advancement_ of our people. You're doing it because it _feels good_. Not that I don't know a little about that."  
  
For a moment Charles is still and silent. He says nothing and does nothing, his telepathy still firmly wrapped around Shaw, but he doesn't press. When he speaks again, his voice is so icy it cuts, his lip curled into what he will not let become a snarl. "You've brought ruin and destruction to everything you have ever touched," he says, and he does not let his voice waver. "You have killed and tortured mutants, innocent children -" _Black womb_ , indeed. He doesn't need to talk. Right now, without any need for the torture (and would it _feel good?_ What does that make him, what kind of horrid person, that he is angry and hurting and he doesn't know that it wouldn't?), he could pull the information they need from Shaw's mind, shred resistance in his way like tissue paper. But this is it. This is, he's sure of it now, the only chance he will have to get his answers. If he doesn't want to completely shred Shaw's mind in the process, this is it. He grabs for Erik's hand. He'll get the information and they'll go. It doesn't matter. Let it die in that lab, for all he cares. He cares.  
  
"Don't be so certain of that, my dear doctor," Sebastian murmurs, cradling his arm. "Deny it all you like, but I gave you _power_. Everything you are, everything you have achieved, is because I did not settle for anything less than _excellence_. I made you strong. They listen to you, why do you think that is, hm? They hang onto your every word. You are shaping the world to your Will and that, my boy, is because I gave it to you. You would do well not to forget that." Whatever it is that propelled Erik here wavers for a moment and he shrinks back, inhaling sharply and squeezing Charles's hand like a lifeline.   
  
"As for you," Shaw rolls his eyes up at Charles. "You're here merely because Erik's deemed you worthy. Nothing more. You are an _insect_ in the presence of _gods_. So desperate to be loved, to be needed, but we both know you are an _indulgence_. I freed you from your prison, but you still can't resist it, can you? You need it. You want to know where they are? Go on, take it." He laughs. "You can't. You're weak. At least Erik knows when to act. He'll see you for what you are soon enough. When the time comes for us all to choose a side. You won't be on the same one."

* * *

Charles goes still again. His hand goes slack in Erik's, and his mind becomes a whirlwind of too much at once and no possible way to discern it all, of labs and injections and screaming and blood and vomiting and letters and Kurt Marko and the sound of breaking bones and burning flesh and -  
  
"Is that what you decided?" he asks, and his voice is steely but quiet, his jaw clenched tightly. "That I was too weak? So, you'd, what - take from me instead? Wither me away to nothing and see how that went? Have my own father do it for you? What did he say to you to convince you of that? What kind of deal did you strike? When did you decide to kill him? But here's the thing, Sebastian." He strips the man of any title, rolls the name around his tongue like it tastes awful, and the truth is it does. The truth is -  
  
Every object in the room lifts at once. It's not the vibrating, shaky, uncontrolled hovering he's been doing lately, the only thing he seems capable of doing with any consistency - it's deliberate, targeted, smooth. And then some of the larger shards of glass Erik left behind lift and, with deadly accuracy, embed themselves into the wall right above Shaw's head. Perhaps Erik is rubbing off on him. It's more than likely a fluke, and it takes quite a lot more energy than he would like, but Shaw doesn't need to know that.  
  
Charles smiles. "I'm stronger than you could ever have known, and not because I can do that. I don't need to do that, do I? Because I'm not the one in a glass cage I can't even work my way out of. I wouldn't throw stones, Shaw. If there ever comes a time to pick a side, I'm afraid you won't be there to see the one Erik and I choose." He tilts his head. "And your telepath really must be lacking if you think I don't already know exactly where those children are. Did she teach you anything of mental shields, or are you just that inept? It seems you really chose wrong. Pity."  
  
Just for a moment, his lip uncurls. "I'm afraid, though, that you'll never understand what it means to be strong. Do you know the things Erik can do now? Things you never even considered? It's not because of me. Well, a bit." He laughs, and it's almost genuine. "But it certainly isn't because of anything you did or taught him. He was strong regardless. He was brilliant regardless. And even after everything you tried to break him with, you _lost_. You _lost_ , and he's nothing like you. He thinks nothing like you. He _loves_ nothing like you. He's strong and it has nothing to do with you. In fact, he's stronger without you. I imagine that must sting. I do hope you can live with it." For however long you have left, goes without saying. It's practically said, and Charles lets it be.  
  
His eyes fall on Erik, and the warmth returns even as his jaw stays clenched, his eyes somehow icier blue than usual. The lighting, perhaps. He squeezes his Dominant's hand. "We can go now if you'd like, darling," he murmurs, and doesn't spare much of a glance for Shaw.

* * *

"That's not true, is it?" Shaw shouts at their retreating backs, unable to resist one last opportunity to dig underneath the skin. "I know you know it. Think about that, won't you, until we meet again."   
  
Charles can feel it, though, the truth of the matter in brilliant composition. He wasn't chosen for one very specific reason, because he could never have been controlled, not the way Erik was. Only, Shaw didn't anticipate the one thing that would undo all of his efforts. That Erik still felt, that Erik was still human, that he hadn't been stripped entirely of himself. He wanted to rule the world, and he was so sure Erik would rule it beside him. He never dared to account for the possibility that Erik could love anything more than he loved Sebastian Shaw. And he can feel something else, something ominous and sinister that he can't put his finger on.   
  
As though Shaw is playing a role, the feeble old man who's been bested, who has nothing but words and barbs to throw. Let him be underestimated. Let him be destroyed. Ruined. Condemned.  
  
But Erik doesn't turn around, nor acknowledge it at all. The glass picks itself up behind them and weaves together, leaving Shaw crippled and broken in the aftermath. "OK," he whispers to Charles instead. Because even now, Shaw is wrong. He's trying to entice Erik into getting his vengeance. But he doesn't need revenge, more than he needs to be at Charles's side. And Shaw can't understand that because he could never comprehend what it means to _really_ love anybody, and Erik feels _sorry_ for him.   
  
"You know where they are? Sure?" he pets Charles's temple with two fingertips, a gentle caress that completely and utterly ignores Shaw's presence, and only Charles is aware of just how much that grates against him. The one person he's always thought of as his successor, his inheritor, his progeny, barely paying more than a cursory glance in his direction. Distracted by his poor imitation of Dominance, and underneath all of the congenial pleasantries, Charles can feel Shaw's _rage_ at that.  
  
When Charles smiles this time, it's small but sincere and it reaches his eyes. It's not for show at all when he leans into Erik's touch, connection bursting outward, his telepathy whirring and buzzing and active, seeking that imitation Dominance - _ha_ , as if that man could ever understand what true Dominance is, what it's meant to be - as much as any other part of him. "I'm positive," he whispers, and squeezes Erik's hand again. "Let's go get them back." He doesn't spare Shaw a glance either as he waits for Erik to guide them out the door and back out of this prison, leaving behind a glass wall. There will be time for more answers, he realizes. Tonight was for something else. His mind reaches Erik's, curls itself around it, whispers: _I love you_. And he does, and he is so proud to belong to him. He's bursting with it, in fact.  
  
Erik does, never letting go of Charles's hand as the window in the hall opens and he steps out, leading Charles with him and lifting off, leaving Shaw and his piteous, trifling concerns of superiority far in the rearview mirror. Erik doesn't want any part of it anymore. He never did. He'll never be able to escape the full impact of Shaw on his life. He is and forever will be imprinted by the gravitational forces that link them together, but he can get his family back, he can make them whole again and that is what matters. His mind feels soaked in gasoline and ignited, burning up thoughts in the atmosphere. There's no time for thoughts, to consider every angle, to consider that his life will never again be the same from this moment forward, propelled forward only by one singular goal electrified in his synapses, to get to them and bring them home and worry about everything else later.   
  
He presses a chaotic whirlwind of love and Will back, fingers flexing in Charles's hold as he lets his power be lead by Charles's perception, by the lighthouse-beacon of their minds in the darkness.


	62. tree of compassion and—much taller—

Charles holds on tight and tries exceptionally hard not to be sick the second time around. Truthfully, he doesn't spare much thought, either, even as his mind whirls itself in circles, because there simply isn't time. He doesn't stop to consider the crushing doubt that begins to work its way in that has absolutely nothing to do with Shaw, the consideration that perhaps this will change things enough that Erik will - it doesn't matter. What matters first and foremost is finding and reuniting Erik's family, and he would never for even a second consider otherwise. When they touch down somewhere in America - they're all over the place, Charles' head is spinning, perhaps he should have given the closest coordinate to relative location first - it's in front of a perfectly innocuous suburban, in a quaint little neighborhood, and this is where Charles stops Erik with a hand on his arm. "The twins are split up," he explains, because he hadn't wanted to waste the time on it while they were traveling (he also found it difficult to do anything but focus on this single point, something about sonic booms still incredibly nauseating). He tugs Erik over to a window where it isn't yet as late as on the other side of the world, into little Pietro's (he's called _Peter_ here, how nice) bedroom. There's a woman rocking him, singing to him, smiling down at him. Her husband is neck-deep in wretched, horrid business. But this woman -  
  
"She doesn't know," Charles whispers, and his heart breaks. It's exactly the kind of cruelty he would expect from Shaw.  
  
Erik doesn't realize they've landed in DC until several moments later, when his mind catches up to his body, and feels his breath catch in his throat as this stranger-these strangers, everything is too-and then Pietro sneezes and like a bolt jumps out of his-mother's-his-who-Erik feels his thoughts clang and stop and start and jump over one another like a pinball trapped in a machine, but Pietro whirls about the room like a little cyclone and he has to cover his mouth to avoid laughing out loud, because-of course, he would be a mutant-even if he weren't, it wouldn't matter, but of course he is-and Erik can't-"What am I supposed to do?" he gasps, eyes wide and locked on the image in front of them. It seemed so simple only moments before. Get them back. Bring them back. But this is someone's _child_. He can't rip Pietro away from the only family he's ever known, to-what-what could Erik offer a child? Erik can't even _speak_. He'll get mad and hit them, hurt them, Order them around, he'll be the same as Shaw. But Magda-what-what is he supposed to do?  
  
Immediately Charles is redirecting Erik back to him, pulling his eyes (however impossibly) away from the window, where Pietro is back in that woman's arms. She's been trying to put him down for a nap for at least an hour now, and he just doesn't have the patience for it. "Look at me," he murmurs, even though it's unnecessary, taking both Erik's hands in his. "You are nothing like him. Nothing. There is so much that you offer, so much that he could never fathom. That woman - she doesn't know, Erik. She hasn't a clue. Don't you think she deserves to? He is your son," and his voice cracks on the word, because he hasn't said it yet, but there it is. That boy is Erik's son, and he deserves to know his father. His mother, while he still can. But that doubt begins to build, thick and clawing at his chest, dropping down into his stomach. What if Shaw was right, at least in part? If this is what shows Erik that he does not need Charles? Erik has - and Charles, what could he possibly... what if he decides - It doesn't matter. It doesn't. Even if it's true, he will make sure Erik knows these children. They are his children. It doesn't matter if Charles has no part in it.  
  
Erik's left hand squeezes back tightly while his right twitches, and would close over Charles's fingers warmly if it could. A steady assurance even amidst the reeling shock of everything that's happened in the past few hours, the one thing that's been constant and true. His love for Charles. Shaw is wrong. For so long Erik couldn't even think those words, a secret, innate terror that lightning would strike, a blasphemy deeper and darker than any religious observance. Shaw is wrong. Charles is not his pet, he is not an indulgence, he is half of Erik's heart and soul. He is Erik's family, and Erik will always choose him.  
  
This-this is a _lot_. Charles is young, and despite-despite their goal, a goal that Erik still very fervently believes in-it's too-it's different-being a _parent_ is different. To Erik, it's not scary on its own merits because he's been in a parental role for so much of his life that it comes surprisingly naturally to him, and he's always imagined having children at some point, a far-off, you know, _point_. But it's a conversation born of organic nuance, of two people's world views and values and circumstances and it's a conversation-and they've never had it, not yet, it's been months at minimum, of course they haven't but now-well, here it is. What's going to happen if Erik ends up in custody of those children? Will Charles want to be a parent with him? Will he stay? Is he as overwhelmed and terrified as Erik is right now, because it's a lot.

"He looks like Magda," Erik whispers, but what he really means is that he can see them both in Pietro's face. In his child's face.  
  
Nothing between the two of them seems to be conventional. Of course Charles would have wanted more time, more time to figure out - everything, really, to sort through the mess of it, to come to terms with what it would mean to be a parent when he's never had - but he knows he's wanted it, too. That he's thought of it, quiet and mind wandering, watching Erik interact with children, watching Erik in general. That he'd always known what the eventual decision would be, because he'd seen Erik's eyes light up when he'd slipped, when he'd said our children, felt his own heart leap - "He looks like you," Charles whispers, finishing the thought. His lip wobbles slightly and he covers his mouth to hide it, ducks his head. Would Erik want him to - why would he? Perhaps he's qualified to be a professor, perhaps Erik trusts him with that, but his children? Why would he want to parent with him? Charles would never blame him for leaving for this. For his children. He isn't suitable. Erik has learned he's a parent, and that means sacrifices need to be made. Charles was - he could be - There won't be time for so much indulgence, will there be?  
  
Erik slowly rubs his fingers back and forth over Charles's palm, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight in the bedroom window and feeling his heart clench in his chest as he watches this woman, this stranger, take care of-of his son. He has a son, and a daughter, and-and Shaw took them from him. As good as killed them. Made him-watch, as he murdered their images-stole their memories, ripped apart their family and-it hadn't been a real family to begin with, as forced as anything else in Erik's life but of course he loved them. If anything-if anything could break through the barrier, if anything could demonstrate how little Mr. Shaw truly knew him, considered him, believed him human-it's this. If there were ever any doubt that Erik should be at his side, it has been obliterated in this moment. "I can't do this alone," Erik gasps, shaking his head. "Please don't go. I can't-"  
  
Where would Charles go? Where would he go, when the only place he's ever wanted to be, the only place he's ever been sure he's meant to end up, is with Erik? His arms come around Erik's waist and it's so terribly selfish but he sobs, tears he's been holding back since they'd started this slipping down his cheeks and he wipes them into Erik's sweater, clings to the familiar distressed fabric of his jacket. There's no time for this, there's no time at all, but Charles is weak, he's horribly weak, and he - "I know this will change everything, Erik. It already has," he breathes, and he doesn't want that to be terrifying, but of course it is. He's just barely gotten used to his life as it is now, and sometimes it still makes his head spin. "But I promised you that we are in this together, and I meant it. Tell me you still want me to belong to you, and I will, and we will do this together. All of it. But I can't -" Charles is selfish. Selfish and wretched and horrid, and he can't do this if Erik wants - if he wants to keep this separate, if he doesn't want Charles to - If he doesn't want a family with Charles. The rest they can figure out. The rest they can make work, as they have everything else. But Charles needs to know that it will - that Erik will... Will he still want to keep him? Really, truly?  
  
"Of course I do," Erik breathes into Charles's hair, huffing a laugh. He's always wanted a family with Charles. Whether that looks traditional or not, and as with most things in their life they're headed off the beaten path already, but Erik is OK with their little cluster of misfits, their misshapen odds and ends and in all variety of colors and shapes-and if it didn't sound like apologetics but he means it literally, like, we have actual blue and purple people in our family-go ahead and laugh, it's daunting and scary but Erik has always been OK with that reality, that they're destined to watch over and protect this miasma of peopledom, what he can't fathom-what he can't go back to, is being alone. Erik loves Magda, and he doesn't discount her presence in the slightest, but it's just not the same. Neither of them had a choice in this matter, if they had, they wouldn't be in this situation, but they are and that means their lives are irrevocably tied together-for as long as she has left, and that there was no choice in the matter doesn't erase the fact that he is already looking at Pietro with stunned affection, but it's different than choosing to have children with a partner that you're in love with, that you're Bonded to, that you share a Dynamic with. And Erik can't fathom Charles not being here for it, not being part of it, not being with him in every way. "I don't-Charles-I don't know what to do," he admits, shaking his head, sparing a glance toward that window again. Does he swoop in and snatch Pietro out of this woman's arms and fly him home and-does he kidnap this child from his family? What-does he knock on the door and say _Hi, I'm Erik Lehnsherr, alleged mutant terrorist, oh yeah and-_  
  
Charles can fret later. Now he hastily wipes his tears, his resolve returned to him, because - that boy is his family, too. Perhaps not in blood, but that would never have been an option in the first place, and that is Erik's child and that means - that means - He takes a slow, even breath, but he can't convince himself to wiggle out of Erik's arms quite yet, depending on his Dominant to steady him. That's what he does. Erik is going to keep him, he still belongs to him, and he uses that to anchor himself, wrapping all that Will around himself like a tether. For both of them. "We need to talk to her," he whispers, finally. "Erik, she deserves to know. No one deserves to live a lie, however pleasant it may be." He flashes an image of the woman's husband, someone Shaw trusted. "Do you recognize him at all?" He doubts it's anyone particularly dangerous - they're all rounded up by now - but any willful association with Shaw is too much, if you ask Charles. She may be innocent, but he is not, and some instinctive part of Charles writhes against even the idea of a passive influence on his - on Erik's - on Pietro's life.  
  
Erik's reaction to that is as telling as any words could be, a sharp inhale and his heart rabbits in his chest, stuck and stuttering. He swallows down his instinct, to storm that house immediately and swiftly retrieve Pietro from any association with-and something about the way Charles perceives him-it just-it's not that Charles thought it, but it's the man's perception of himself-Shaw's perception of him, tainting that split-second image of he'd never hurt his own child-oh, well isn't that quaint. He pushes down that anger, too, because it doesn't matter, one way or another that man will never lay a finger on Pietro ever again he will never lay eyes on him again if Erik has breath left in him, an ounce of motion, it will be used to prevent any harm to these children. All of that-the resolve, the fury, it has no place here, not right now, so he ruthlessly partitions it and he inclines his head-the formal, oriented response of a driver thinking with his head, not his heart. "His name is Mr. McReary. He was an officer, he worked under Ms. Frost. He was... bland. Easy to deal with." As easy as things ever got for Erik. "I suppose if any of the officers got custody of them, he'd be an all right choice. He wasn't a rough person." The closest thing any _Hellfire_ officer could consider paternal.  
  
An all right choice. Charles' lips purse because even the phrasing makes his hair stand on end. He doesn't want Pietro anywhere near - it's strange, to already feel so attached, so aggressively protective, but he doesn't even begin to dwell on it. All he does is worm his way closer into Erik's arms, nudging him gently. "He isn't home," he says, quietly, though he imagines Erik already knows that. He has a tendency to check these things, especially when he's on edge. "We could talk with her." It's likely not going to go well, but Charles can be prepared for that.  
  
Erik nods again, but he presses forward and kisses Charles across his brow anyway, as much a comfort to his submissive as it is for him and he smooths out every wrinkle he can find in his shirt, a fall-back to grooming behaviors that help soothe those higher on the scale. "To him, she's mom," Erik whispers. "I can't forget that. She's his mother. No matter what happens, I have to respect that. But-she should know the truth and-and Pietro should know Magda, and Wanda, and-and-me-" he can't help it, his voice cracks here, wavers, the logical driver faltering at the wheel.  
  
All at once Charles feels his heart clench so heavily in his chest that he forgets how to breathe. He's still wearing Erik's shirt, though somewhere along the line it's been hemmed for something more practical, and he uses the still too-large sleeve to dab at his own tears again. "He's two and a half, Erik," he whispers. "But it hasn't been very long - children form memories -" He closes his eyes and taps into them instead of explaining, little Pietro sitting awake and bored in his crib because he has such a difficult time settling down. They're vague, sensory memories, nothing like an adult's, nothing worth taking the time to wipe, but they're there; his sister, her curly hair, holding her hand, babbling to each other in words they both knew. A flash of screaming, panic, kicking legs - where is she? Why is she going? The concept of loss, of missing, even in someone so young. Magda. Her smell, her voice, the way she smiled. Safety, warmth, familiarity. And - And there's Erik, too. Barely there, barely, but it's there. Someone holding him, keeping him warm, rocking him. Erik's face. Charles hates that he's shaking. He wraps his arms around himself instead of leaning into Erik's, and - "We should go, then," he manages around the lump in his throat. "Talk to her, I mean."  
  
"Two and-" Erik's eyes widen, because-"Seven months-" that's at least three years, he's known Magda for years and he can't-no, not right now, there's no time for any of this right now, there will be later on but-Erik nods, smooths it out, just like those wrinkles, and watches as those memories, vague and shifting like sand dunes and Erik hates that these children know such fear and horror, even though it will ease with time, and they won't consciously recall it-not worth wiping-those kinds of experiences-there are certain experiences that stay with you and of this Erik is certain because, being a parent has to be one of them-knowing you-made someone-seeing yourself in another human being, teaching them, touching them-there's so much Erik would have wanted-so many-experiences he would have wanted to give them, stories to tell them, gifts to fashion for them. He tweaks his nose with his thumb to keep himself composed, a silly little action that Charles has seen repeated in David and even Near, like a quirk of genetics through gestures passed down-the Eisenhardt clan through-and-through, hale and hardy and healthy, the lot of them, built to last and it makes sense to him that Pietro's mutation is physical, action-oriented, that the briefest glimpse into his life shows a child just as eager to explore and play and run head-first into the world as Erik had been at that age. "OK," he whispers back, brushing his hands over Charles's shoulders, gently curling his fingers under his arms to pry that grip away, to place his hand over Charles's heart instead. I've got you. I've always got you. You will always be mine.  
  
He can't be selfish. He can't be. He has to be strong, and composed, and calm. Erik needs him for this. His telepathy is going to make this entire interaction much smoother than it would be without it, and possibly get them out of starting a national crisis because they are both decidedly not where they are supposed to be and DC is perhaps the worst place for them to be instead. There are about a thousand factors to take into account. If he falters, if he - He shakes his head, takes a step back. "Okay," he repeats, but he doesn't move, finds he's completely incapable, and his chest is so tight it feels as if his lungs are collapsing, his muscles so tense they ache. "Okay."  
  
Erik stays with him, doesn't take any step out of his sphere, all of his attention on Charles as it has been from the very beginning. They will get through this. They will figure it out, together, but Erik can't do it on his own. He doesn't need Charles to pretend to be fine, he just needs Charles to be with him, to stand beside him, just as he always has. He takes Charles's hand and presses it to his own chest. "Just be," he whispers softly. "I won't let you fall. I will never let you fall." Erik couldn't have anticipated this, there are so many things they should've spoken aloud to one another before ever encountering a scenario resembling this, but the time is right now and there's not a whole lot of doing for it; but if Charles ever thought that Erik didn't need him he is sorely mistaken, because he'd venture to say that he's never needed Charles more than in this moment and it isn't because he's a telepath. "We're going to be OK," he tucks some of Charles's hair behind his ear. "I'm going to make sure we are OK, I promise."  
  
It's sick, how utterly horrible Charles is. How completely unsuited for this he must be. Because now, standing outside of this building, he is struck with so much fear and panic that he cannot swallow, his throat stuck around it as he gasps and gapes like a fish out of water. Flopping around pathetically. There are tears on his cheeks and part of him, irrationally, wants to run, not from Erik but from - not from the children, even, from - "We won't be the same," he croaks, and it's such a stupid, unnecessary thing to say, to think about, but it's all he can say. "We've spent - it's taken so much work, I'm finally starting to -" To get used to it, to wrap his head around it, to be happy. To settle into their Dynamic. And he can't help fearing that it will be gone, now. Erik won't find the need for any of those things, and he shouldn't. Eventually Charles knows he won't be needed anymore. Eventually Charles knows Shaw will be right, and everything he's had, everything they've built up from the ground, their Bonding, their contract - Why would he want that with Charles when - Wanda, Pietro, Magda, Erik's family - why would he want needy, useless, weak Charles, more trouble than he's ever been worth, why would he care about any of the silly things they've established -Charles crushes it in an instant, takes it all in a tight fist and crumples it like paper. "No, I'm sorry," he whispers. "Come on. We need to - we should go. We should go."  
  
"Because you are my family," Erik whispers back, fierce and vehement and a little stricken, that Charles could ever doubt his regard, and then a little panicked that maybe he's done something to-to make it so, so easy for Charles to forget his regard, to forget how much he loves him, that anything, let alone the prospect of adding to their family, could erase how much Erik cares for him and needs him and wants him. "I know it's-I know, I know it's so much to ask-" the thing is, and Erik's tried to keep this reined in a little because it is so much, but the thing is-by blood or not is irrelevant. Charles belongs to Erik and he was always going to be Erik's partner, Erik's co-parent, whether they did this ten or even twenty years down the line, but the time is now and-blood is meaningless, Shaw cared about blood, and race and genetics and purity and a whole other heap of bullshit that Erik would prefer rot in that cell alongside him. Wanda and Pietro are Charles's, too. There is no separation. There will never be a separation. Erik doesn't even know if he'll be granted permission to see his children, let alone parent them and live with them, but if that is the case, Charles has just as much of a say as Erik does, as Magda undoubtedly will-their strange little trio. If he wants to. If he wants to stay, if he doesn't-if he wants this family. It's his. It's always been his. " _Lo, atzor_ ," Erik Commands, his voice ringing loudly like the clearest bell, the Order to listen and obey like a livewire under Charles's skin. " You listen to me. You will never listen to him. Shaw is wrong and evil and he stole my children from me. He will not take you, too. I refuse."  
  
The Order shivers right through him, and the effect is immediate. It nearly always is, but especially in moments like this. Charles calms, breathes, starts to relax, melts into his Dominant instead of away; it's exactly what he needed, and suddenly everything is clear again, even as he sniffles and wipes his tears on Erik's shirt instead of his own. Not that they're both not Erik's. They are. Not that he's not Erik's. He is. "Of course I want this," he whispers, and when he says it, it becomes real. Of course he wants a family with Erik. Of course he wants to parent with Erik. It's sooner than he thought it might be, but - there's time, still, there's - he shakes his head and reaches for Erik's hand, bringing it up to his heart, and then to his collar. "Still yours?" he asks quietly. He can't lose everything now. Everything they're building together, everything they're still figuring out, their Dynamic. He doesn't want to be alone again, either. He can't be.  
  
Erik's fingers tighten reflexively about Charles's throat, just enough for him to feel that presence. "You will never be alone again," he murmurs softly in return. "You will always be mine and I will never allow anything to take you from me. You cannot possibly relegate everything we've built as some trifling silliness. I won't let you. You are my Bonded. Everything that I vowed to you remains true. Everything we have Negotiated and written is still here." He trails his hand down Charles's chest. "It just is... more expansive, now." But, really, they've always had children. Maybe not in their house, yet, but that was always forthcoming, too. Who did Charles think was going to populate their school? They've got this. They can do this. They'll learn, together, and Magda is no slouch either. What they don't know, she'll be able to teach them.  
  
Charles knows that. Reasonably, logically, he knows that. He knows all of this. He's sure there'll be some kind of learning curve, but fortunately they're both quick learners. They've learned from experience. Charles did everything in his power to give Raven the life she deserved, and he made his fair share of mistakes, but he was much younger then. Unprepared, alone, terrified. He floundered and then made up for it. It's not as if they don't have a terrific support system, either - they do. There's something about children and the villages needed to raise them, and they do have quite a colorful village. He knows they shouldn't delay this much longer, but he wraps himself fully around Erik for just this moment, soaking himself up in his Will. "I'm just frightened," he admits, so quiet and muffled by Erik's chest it hardly makes sound. "I don't want to lose -" Them. What they're slowly becoming, carving out together, discovering. Discovering everyday, it seems, what they need, what makes them steady and whole. What they'd spent the previous day working through and out, and how safe and at peace he was afterward. And he doesn't want to go back because they aren't - because - but it's not silliness. It's not fleeting. Erik is right. They'll be okay. Maybe he should listen to his Dominant.  
  
"Yes, you should," Erik taps him on the nose fondly. "I am scared, too," he whispers back, an admission-for him, Erik doesn't like admitting weakness of any form, and especially not now, but for Charles he makes the exception-he always has and always will. "I don't know anything about being a-father-" he still-it's too much, he struggles to keep his voice even, to find that strength Mr. Shaw spent sixteen years attempting to cultivate, and shores himself up because that isn't why he'd started this. "But one thing I am not afraid of is losing us. This foundation is not made of straw. I know you know that. We will face this and much more, together. I can't do this by myself. I need you by my side."  
  
The thing is, Charles doesn't think anyone knows how to do it before they - well, do. He knows how not to be a father, or at the very least what kind of father he doesn't have any interest being. More than one example, actually. Erik has memories of parents who loved him dearly. But as long as they can work it out together, surely it will be okay. The foundation is not straw, and a strong foundation will certainly help. Research shows parents with strong, set Dynamics create structure and security for children, regardless of where they fall on the scale (really, Charles, we're citing research now?). They're working on building that everyday. "Is that an Order?" he teases, but the way he looks up hopefully gives him right away. He needs that stability to get through this. He needs to shore himself up, to wipe the rest of his tears and handle this. And he needs - he needs his Dominant to do that, just as much as his Dominant needs him.  
  
"Always," Erik murmurs back, brushing his lips against Charles's forehead and that Order creeps under his skin, too, a little _zing!_ at the base of his spine all the way up to his skull. That does bring up a new question, though-their Indication. Homogenous pairings between men and women (that is, Dominant/Dominant or submissive/submissive) are not common and often viewed as deviant by more conservatively-minded folks (there's even quite a bit of religious drivel about it that unfortunately mirrors other, toxic concepts but the base is the same, people who feel they have the right to legislate who and how people love one another), but there is scientific data that shows homogenous pairings almost exclusively produce children aligned with their parents on the scale, meaning it's more than likely Pietro and Wanda are very high-Doms indeed (undoubtedly another reason for Shaw's selection process). "We take care of each other," he adds, and that at least is confident. "Always."  
  
Just a moment. Just a moment to bask, to linger, to let Erik's Will slip beneath his skin and steady him the same way his reaction to it will steady Erik. The woman in the house won't come to the door right away anyway, it's practically strategic. They have a few minutes, and that's what he needs. His lips quirk up at Erik's inner monologue, his line of questioning, and he curls into his chest, tugging at Erik's sweater with a clear goal in mind, a quiet, mental please? before he gets to it. "Do you want to know?" Their Indications, he means. Of course Shaw had them tested, and Charles knows these things instinctively besides. It won't matter much for years anyway, they'll develop naturally if given the space. Start to show signs, developmental differences. But Charles knows, and if Erik wants to know, he'll tell. He's clearly tickled by it, too, hiding it Erik's warmth (suddenly DC feels surprisingly chilly, don't tell his Dominant).  
  
Erik's arms come up around Charles to hold him in place, completely unconscious and entirely attuned to his every request, implied and voiced and strands of Will curl up and down Charles's exposed skin, remaining even when they must separate to approach the door, but Erik's still behind him, a steadying hand at his back, doing his utmost to gather himself, to let himself rely on Charles, to do this right. At Charles's question, he gives a silent nod, lips pressed together. "Please," he whispers. There's so much he doesn't know. So much he has to learn.  
  
Just as he predicted, there's rustling around in the house but no answer immediately when he reaches out to ring the bell. She isn't ready for them. Charles leans back into Erik, into all of that Will, leashed at the moment because it must be, and lets it calm and focus Erik, too. How could he call it silly, how could he even dare, when it's so obviously what they both need, when it's so fiercely biological? All of it, all the time, when it will be a part of how they parent? He shakes his head and focuses on the question instead. "Wanda is a D4.8," he answers, and his lips are upturned, just that slight hint of mischief. That's shocking on its own, really. He deliberately leaves Pietro out. For now.  
  
Erik's eyebrows shoot up, and he can't help a startled little laugh. "Oh," he's already imagining it. High-Dom kids are a special breed, strutting around bossy and entitled, Erik knows from experience, but somehow he can't fathom Wanda being anything other than a veritable handful and it's fond in all the right places, an aching tug at his heart. And the fact that-well, it is part of-part of being a high-Dom himself, that you want to teach your children what you've learned, how to conduct themselves, how to be responsible and moral and good. Erik didn't receive those lessons when he needed them, he didn't receive any valuable lessons at all going into puberty and as a teenager and young adult, when people need guidance he had none, and he knows Charles lived much the same. It's different now, with the kids, the ones he's always thought of as his kids, but this-this is something else, something special. "-Pietro?"  
  
"Pietro is a genetic marvel," Charles laughs like he's sharing a private joke, and ducks his head, staring down at his feet. It's not at all a common fluke, not by a long, long shot, but when it happens - well, it's almost always a fluke. Perfectly average scores, entirely opposite scores, close scores. It apparently doesn't seem to matter. A strange quirk of genetics, like a mutation of its own. He's read enough about it to know it's always a shock, that retests are nearly always demanded, that the child, if not tested until adolescence - some parents prefer it, some cultures - is almost always mistyped beforehand. Both ways, depending on the child. "Pietro," he says, and shakes his head, as if he can't believe it himself, and truthfully he can't (he'd ask what the odds are, but he knows), "Has absolutely no Dominant allele variants. Not a one."  
  
Erik blinks, and Charles can feel that a slight breeze might knock him over, the Butcher wielding his new-found feather-duster, because he is absolutely floored by this revelation because every single variant that has gone into Pietro and Wanda, a homogenous pairing, a D5 father-as likely as it is that they are mutants, it should follow that they're Dominant, but of course-he has to laugh, and that reaction isn't very familiar. There's no demand of a retest, although that will undoubtedly happen anyway once Pietro reaches school age-and it's not hysterical, either, it's frankly fond. Because of course he's an S1. And that, right there, is proof positive that they're meant to be in these children's lives, that Charles is meant to be in their lives, too. He doesn't often consider his religious beliefs, Judaism is always more about action than about belief and plenty of atheists regularly go to Synagogue, but at this very moment he can't help but think that G-d's winking down at him from above. Of course Erik's like any other parent, though, worried-he knows first-hand how challenging Pietro's life is going to be, homogenous parents, mutation, submission. It's a tough basket to carry, but-that's why he's here. He's always been meant to help carry it and he didn't know, but he does now, and he has to try.

* * *

Charles is smiling, soft and calmer than he'd imagine possible as he leans into Erik's arms, and it's at precisely that moment when the door opens. The woman who answers looks, frankly, exhausted, and he imagines it has something to do with the child she's currently raising - she doesn't know how to handle him. She does, however, gasp when she realizes exactly who's shown up on her doorstep, but Charles interrupts before she can even open her mouth. "Charles Xavier, and this is Erik Lehnsherr," he introduces, swift and formal. "Perhaps you'd like to let us in, Mrs. McReary?"  
  
This nice suburban neighborhood isn't exactly the place for the conversation they're going to have. She does, without question (Charles, obviously) but watches them warily, confused and clearly frightened (not Charles). Charles sighs. "We don't mean you any harm, I promise," he assures her, and his smile here is genuine, kind. She's a victim in this, too. "Actually, we wanted to talk about... well, your son."  
  
Her eyes widen. "Peter? What - how do you know Peter?" Charles bites his lip, and looks to Erik.  
  
Erik's voice is stuck in his throat, and he tries to push it out and he's supposed to be better he's been better, it feels like he's made progress but it all slips away in one single, repeating instant and his expression says it all, open and vulnerable in a way he often isn't before strangers, and terribly earnest. He presses the palm of his hand against his own chest, and mimics the action on her, touching her gently just above her heart. Pietro, he forms the word on his lips but can't bring sound, apologetic.  
  
Charles reaches for Erik's other hand, squeezing it in his. His eyes close. "Do you remember how Pietro was born?" he asks quietly. He knows the answer before it comes.  
  
The woman stumbles, flustered and now afraid, her eyes wide as saucers. "Peter - he's -" She doesn't remember. It's written all over her face. A blurry, hazy stand-in for real memories, a patchwork, hatchet job. "How..."  
  
He swallows, because the room is suddenly heavier. "Would you like to sit down?" he asks her, gently. "This might be better if you sat down."  
  
"No, I don't want to sit down! I - " She's beginning to panic, now, frantic and fiercely confused. He nudges her mind until she sits, anyway. "I don't understand. Peter is my child. I gave birth to him. I remember that. How could I forget that? Why would I forget that?"  
  
Charles looks toward the floor, and knows there's only Shaw to blame. It doesn't help the lump in his throat. "I'm very sorry," he whispers. There's nothing fair, normal, or right about this situation. Nothing at all.  
  
Erik crouches beside her, taking her hand and squeezing it gently. Words are hard. Words are fuzzy and concepts, too, and he has to break free of it, he has to figure out a way to communicate because this is important and this time, when he speaks it's all in concepts, the closest approximation something Charles can translate for him into speech, but it's not words. Not really. Erik wants her to know that they aren't here to take Pietro away. They aren't here to hurt her, or cause her pain. That was already done to her, by Alan McReary, complicit in his own wife's mental violation-and Sebastian Shaw. They're here to help make things right. To make things better. To share the truth. What happened isn't fair, but they are fair. They can handle this fairly, they can handle it respectfully, they can give everyone the space needed to heal and grow, but that starts with what is real.  
  
Her eyes are full of tears. They drip down her face and into her blouse and she wipes them away, disoriented, confused, uncertain. It's the first time she's questioned her own memories. "His name," she whispers, quiet and breaking, "It's... Pietro?"  
  
"Pietro," Charles confirms, equally as quiet, and comes to sit at her other side. "And he's the biological son of Erik and a woman named Magda. He has a twin sister, Wanda. He was taken from them, and brought to you."  
  
"Brought -" Her lips tremble as she repeats it, and she shakes her head, once and then again, crying in earnest now. "I'm not his mother?"  
  
Charles takes a breath. "You have been his mother, and you have done a wonderful job. But if you are asking if you gave birth to him, if what you believe to be true, what you were made to believe, is true - no. I'm afraid it's not."  
  
She hangs her head, and Charles feels it in his own chest when her breath hitches. Feels everything. "You're his father?" she asks Erik, and she trembles all over as she says it. "You're - he's your son?" Her words are hard, now, almost challenging, as if she's looking for him to deny it. To tell her this is all a cruel, horrid joke.  
  
"Yes," Erik whispers aloud, and when she looks at him, really looks at him, it's nearly impossible for anyone to deny that truth. The fact that Pietro's got a full head of white hair is also a bit curious-Erik's got vague wisps along his temples that any clinician who's ever examined him has chalked up to stress despite the fact there is no scientific evidence that hair can lose pigmentation as a result of trauma, and he'll likely go grey early even though his own parents and grandparents didn't at all; but genetics is funny that way. Erik touches his fingers over his own temple, attempting to convey that she isn't the only one in this room whose mind has been traversed through carelessly. He didn't know. There's so much he doesn't know, but he does know a little, and he wants to share that. Magda Maximoff, their mother, their family in Italy and her musical, lively siblings and hushed conversations in Turkish and Italian. They have a whole history, a whole story woven together that is the sum of Magda and Erik both, their heritage, their origins, and Erik can give her that. All the little pieces that made no sense, that didn't fit, slotted into place.  
  
Charles helps. Slowly, carefully, so as not to completely overwhelm her, so as not to hurt her, he repairs. He takes what is wrong, what is fake and fabricated and hazy, what is lazily and brutishly strung together, and he replaces it with the truth. He leaves out details, harsh realities that it is not his to reveal to her, that her husband will need to explain - and she is doubting and angry and betrayed, she is hurt beyond words - but he shows her what is real. Erik and Magda, cradling newborn babies in the horrific place in which they were born. Their lives, some of their circumstances. He shows her Erik, laughing and vibrant, his eyes creased and his nose scrunched. He shows her Magda, laughing in that hoarse voice, singing against that tree on the night he met her. How they love the kids they saved, how they care and play with them. How Erik does not know his children, not really, but he loves them. She is sobbing by the end of it. Charles is crying, too, though he hides it, swallows it down and away and wipes at his tears where he hopes neither will see. Finally, so quiet even he almost misses it, she whispers: "Would you like to see him? Would you like to see Pete - Pietro?"  
  
He can't hide his tears from Erik, though, and even now Erik migrates over to him, a buffer between them both, doing his best to soothe and ease every wrinkled up crack in their paper tapestries. He is so very sorry for her, and he's faced many harsh realities over his existence but this is not something he's encountered before-that the men who came to him had families of their own, that they had ordinary spouses and children who likely held no knowledge of their activities, that so many hundreds of people were affected by Shaw and his Institute and those effects keep rippling and rippling out and he wonders if this is going to be his life, if he's destined to seal up those cracks when they appear and mend what has been shredded, and he's amidst this when she speaks, when she offers, really-a gift Erik has no conception of, could never have conceived for himself, and he reaches up with his sleeve to gently wipe away the tears that escaped her own bashing hands and drip onto her shirt collar, swallowing and clearing his throat. Words are stuck again, but-a nod. He would like that very much.  
  
Charles knows Pietro isn't in his bedroom even before they're led there. He soothes her panic before it comes; Pietro didn't hear, but he is far too busy for a nap. Something like a laugh escapes him, even choked as it is, as he points down the hall. There's a back door that leads to the garden and that's where the boy's wandered off to. The door had been left ajar to let the air in. He'd been running, but he's so very young, his mutation hasn't fully manifested yet, he has no control. He's exhausted and flattened out on his back, chest heaving big, heavy breaths, quite dramatically for a two year old, and Charles can't help but note it must run in the family. His grin, too. He watches as Mrs. McReary fights the urge to run to him, to scoop him up in her arms, fighting more tears instead. It doesn't take long before she's sobbing. Charles puts a hand on her shoulder. Pietro seems to hear, to notice - he doesn't run, but he does sit up, toddling over instead. "Mama? What wrong? Sad?" His voice is faster, too, the words childlike but in quick succession, as if his mouth can't move fast enough.   
  
"Why sad? Better? Flowers?" He's got a bunch of weeds in his chubby fist and he raises them up in offering, then whips his head around to look at the people who are not his mother.   
  
"There's someone I want you to meet, Pete - there's someone I want you to meet," she repeats, catching herself, and Charles lets himself fade into the background, to step back and bite his lip until the tears don't come, as curious, dark wide eyes look up at Erik.   
  
Pietro offers up his weeds, grinning Erik's grin.  
  
Erik drops to one knee immediately, brushing the back of two fingers across Pietro's chubby cheeks and he simply can't help but to smile back, and his eyes widen comically and he gently takes those flowers in hand, and blows on them, and they transform into sparkling, glittery metal inlaid with gemstones and shapes and colors that would fascinate any child-it's completely unconscious, an expression of all the feeling inside of him he can't seem to express like a tennis ball lodged in his trachea. His hair is wavy, already reaching down to his shoulders and Erik fixes it out of his face, huffing softly. " _Shalom, tayer_. My name is Erik. This is Charles," he glances back up at his Bonded, and both of them peering up at him in stereo is just a little much. A mini-Erik indeed.  
  
Pietro is fascinated, his eyes wider than they were before and he stares, his tiny lips parted on a gasp. Charles can tell that he doesn't recognize Erik, not consciously, but there's no way for him to. He was so exceptionally small the last time he saw him, when they were ripped away from each other, and then soon after his sister. He tucks the thought away, and the heartache that comes with it. "Hi!" is Pietro's response, in that quick, fast-forward speech. He waves.  
  
"Hello there," Charles greets, and his heart is caught all the way up in his throat as he bends down, too. This isn't his place, he should have stayed back, but - but... But Pietro is bending down and rooting his way around in the grass, and this time he picks up dirt with the weeds, grinning and proud of himself. He shoves them in Charles' hands and then looks up at him expectantly, before shoving them at Erik, too, his whole face lit up.  
  
"More! 'Gain?" Charles laughs, then covers his mouth as it comes out broken again. The one not covered in dirt, anyway.  
  
"I think I like these the way they are, poppet," he manages, though he knows his voice cracks. "Very pretty. Thank you." Pietro beams and he knows that's the moment it's over for him. There's simply no coming back.  
  
"Welcome," he smiles, sweet and much more shy, now, and Charles - Charles knows he loves him, too.  
  
Erik is covered in dirt and grime and flowers and he can't help but laugh, delight sprinkling off of him in a palpable mist-and it's no secret that he's completely charmed, bowled over by an infinite Landscape of dancing feather-dusters and suns in twin-tango. He lifts his good hand and out from the smattering of dirt sunflowers bloom, with smiling faces and cowboy hats and arms and legs and they twine around Pietro playfully, spinning and jumping. This is the world that Shaw wanted-a world where they were ripped apart, a world of form and function without substance and this more than anything is what really makes Erik realize how desolate and empty and purposeless it was, and it comes as no shock to him that it's what forced him out of his head, to see things as they really are, to act and tear down that place of hell, that Planet of Shaw until it stood in a ruinous pile of rubble. He was always going to end up here, precious memories stored in the Dark Place, waiting for liberation, protected from itself, from burning up in the atmosphere along with every other moral boundary erased in his head. And there's nothing Shaw ever could've done to stop it. He sowed the seeds of his own destruction the moment he Ordered Erik to make him something he was never, ever entitled to. He ends up sitting, bad leg stretched out and he taps his knee, bidding Pietro to come closer. He's so small, so unformed, so without guile, Erik has no clue how to proceed, here. He's not the psychiatrist. He doesn't have the requisite skills, all he can do is-this, moments.  
  
"I'm part of your family," is what he ends up saying, giving him a smile that only-barely manages not to be watery and transient. "And I'm very glad to meet you."  
  
Charles has sat down, too, small and tucked out of the way, a hand over his mouth as he watches. It's almost too much, and for a moment - a second - he considers - but that won't do him any good, thinking that way. Instead he folds his legs quietly and watches, and it can't be helped that there are tears on his cheeks again. Pietro is enchanted. It's written all over his little face even as the sunflowers stop swaying in the wind, and when he's beckoned forward he goes without a single question, bright-eyed and trusting. He plops himself right down on Erik's good knee, and then, in a blurry, fast movement - he can't control when that happens, not even a little, and it happens most when he's excited - he slaps his tiny hands on Erik's cheeks when he bends down, grinning wide and smushing them together. "Fam'ly?" he asks, because he understands the concept, but of course not the nuance of what Erik is telling him. "Like meeting you, too! Uhhh - not talkin' to strangers!" That's directed at the woman still standing behind them. Pietro is a genuinely happy, chatterbox of a toddler, and he likes making friends with everyone. Leave him alone for a second and he's wandering right off, impatient for the next thing. Which brings them to the present. "Car! Wanna see? Vroom!" Of course Pietro likes anything fast.  
  
 _You're going to have to do all the chasing, neshama,_ Erik huffs to Charles, nudging him with an elbow even as he hauls himself up to his feet, careful not to dislodge Pietro too badly. He puckers his lips out like a goldfish when Pietro smooshes his cheeks and sticks out his tongue, setting his hand on Pietro's shoulder and giving a gentle squeeze that also serves to function as a sweep, an unconscious extension of his own power-it's obvious to him that this woman who has raised him for the past two years loves him, but her husband is another story and Erik's normal, Erik's _'I guess he's all right'_ isn't good enough and he knows that much. He can excuse a lot when it comes to his own integrity, but the idea that either of his children could be exposed to a particulate fraction-they're dangerous thoughts, an implanted atomic bomb in his own mind that he didn't know existed before Shaw mashed the nuke button and it's-  
  
intrusive, and ugly, and Erik is trying desperately to shove it away not out of anything other than that he doesn't want it here, it doesn't belong here, but of course the river runs deep and fierce and Erik's consciousness is twisted over the rocks, and it's happening all at once in perpetual motion (fast, fast! sonic **_BOOM_** ) and in slow-motion frozen droplets. He could never put it into words but Charles is right, something has shifted in him, something that will never be the same, because what you really learn when you become a parent is whether or not what happened to you is acceptable to happen to your children. And when the answer to that is no, you've got a fucking problem. Your world changes. The definitions you've used your whole life are backwards and wrong and they're all you know, and Erik can't help but think, a tiny shriek in the Dark Place, _don't leave me alone with him don't do it, don't do it, this won't end well, I need to leave this place in peace **NOW** -_ and Pietro is spinning fast, fast and Erik is-frozen, still, trapped-

* * *

But Pietro hasn't gone anywhere. He's all tuckered out from his earlier running - he can't sustain it for very long, he gets tired quick, and then he does need a nap, finally exhausted for an hour before he's off again - and he looks up at Erik before Charles can even think of stepping in, and curls his tiny fingers around two of Erik's and holds tight. Squeezes and shoots that familiar grin up. "Fam'ly!" he repeats, and perhaps he's just spitting out what he's heard, but there's something else there, too. Something that maybe would mean nothing if it didn't mean anything. When he lets go, it's only to wander off (at a normal speed, except it's still awfully fast for a child his age) to the edge of the patio, to grab the car he'd mentioned and bring it back. With that big smile, he offers it up, shoving and jabbing it to get his point across. "Yours! Share!" It's the blue racecar with the worn-out yellow lightning bolt on the side. Charles is still on the ground, still staring at the weeds he'd been gifted earlier and the tears that have fallen there, but he doesn't need to look to know, and he lets Erik know, too: it's Pietro's absolute favorite toy. He won't sleep without it. There have been attempts to get him attached to something stuffed, something he's less likely to hurt himself on if he rolls over, but no-go. Pietro stares up at Erik, still shoving. "Yours!" He makes the noise from before, a childish, silly approximation of an engine. "Vroom, vroom."  
  
Erik hovers a little behind him, worried-listen, fast is one thing, but-what if he falls, can his body maintain that velocity-would his bones shatter on impact? Curiously he thinks about David, and his ability, almost a reverse of Pietro's, but David doesn't go fast, he goes slow and he just appears to be going fast. Pietro can literally propel himself forward in acceleration, which is fascinating and also terrifying, and it's like Erik's thoughts are splintering off into a thousand different directions until Pietro squeezes his fingers and his attention is dragged back to the moment. He gently closes his hand around it, squeezing Pietro's tiny fingers in his larger one warmly. The tension and agony rending inside of him shatter for a moment and then he's moving-acting, completely natural, what Charles has seen glimpses of and knows is central to Erik's core, and he crouches down to Pietro's height once more, brushing a kiss over the top of his head and patting his back. "You're very kind, _tayer_. We'll share, OK?" By itself, the racecar animates, spinning in a little circle in the air before landing neatly back in the center of his palm.  
  
Pietro seems delighted by that. Usually he makes the racecar go fast, but he's worn himself out for the day. He's still so little, his body is still adapting, still changing, still activating. Instead he pushes the car all over Erik's body, on his hand and up his arms and over his middle, making those enthusiastic "vroom, vroom!" noises, then passing it back for Erik to try. To move and play with. He'd be quite content to do this for hours, it's very obvious. Charles hasn't moved. He's still as a statue except where his fingers pluck at the grass, but he feeds off information, things he knows, things to put Erik at ease. He's always intuitively understood others' mutations, for one reason or another, even without them knowing. Pietro's entire body is made for speed. His joints are stronger, his tendons like steel, his bones braced for impact that would shatter a normal human. His body breaks down energy more efficiently, and doesn't process fatigue the same way. He's built to withstand wind and force. As he gets older, he'll likely gain more stamina. He'll probably go faster. It's brilliant, really. He keeps everything else deliberately at bay, and watches through Erik's mind as he and his son play, processing it through like a TV left on in the other room.  
  
It's a good fit, because Erik doesn't seem to mind in the slightest, content to pay little Pietro as much attention as he would like, to listen and encourage him to share what he knows of the world, what makes him comfortable and safe and happy and he-seems adjusted, and that's everything Erik could have possibly hoped for, but it's still far, far too much to handle by himself so in the end they migrate back to Charles and Erik sits beside him, nudging Pietro to share with him as well, because there's no part of him that can ignore when his submissive is obviously distressed even if he's managed so far to cast off the worst of the intrusions that threaten his semblance of reality, warped and twisted and incomprehensible as it is. Every second in this space is tenuous, a moment as fragile as thread he could snap in his hands if he isn't careful, and it's the last thing he wants; it's the only thing he's ever wanted, for his family to be whole and healthy, to take care of them and look after them and protect them and that he's been given this opportunity is something beyond measure, something he could never express to Charles in terms of meaning but that he wants Charles to know he is so very grateful for it.  
  
Charles is good at this. When Raven was young and wanted played with and he was out of his own mind, drawn outside of it until everything was processes and whirring and whatever was eating him away, he could always fake it better than the best of them. He knows cold, formal smiles, but he knows warmth, too, not so much feigned as it is detached, something felt but not - there, quite. Not all of him, because Charles can be many places at once. His mind is big and it's easy to get lost, and before Erik it happened daily. Hourly. He loved Raven beyond all measure (he still does, of course), and there's no denying he loves this little boy, Erik's - the point is, it's impossible to tell the difference. "Do you go to school yet, poppet?" he asks as he pushes the car around at Pietro's instructions, and he is interested. Enraptured. He's just - missing, slightly.  
  
"Uhh... uh-uh!" is Pietro's response. He gets impatient and helps Charles push, a little faster, and Charles laughs. It's almost all there.  
  
"What's your favorite color?"  
  
"Blue!"  
  
"Favorite food?"  
  
"Chocolate!"  
  
Charles grins. "Me, too," he whispers, as if it's a secret. The Bond is silent except for a faint, far-off buzzing, a steady stream of information as he reads Pietro and streams it through. He's watching himself, but he'll be back later.

* * *

Whereas Raven couldn't tell the difference-no one really can, but Erik isn't no one and he knows. He can always tell, and he'll have to get a little better at this-at dividing his attention, at being fully present in more than one place, which is something he can do and did for years, with fractured facets and pieces that weren't fully developed on their own where the differences were negligible between them, but neither does that belong here. He listens as Charles and Pietro chatter, interjecting sparsely (and to insist that Charles's real favorite food is actually salad, yum-yum) but he strokes the back of Charles's hand and doesn't, now or ever, let him disappear, following firmly after. It's not a rational response, it would be incredibly selfish for him to demand that Charles just cope and deal with everything all at once when he himself certainly can't, but it's a little desperate, too-leaning a bit heavily on Dominance when he's halfway to overwhelmed desensitized floating. Even if it's raw and unformed it's still there and it's not Charles's responsibility to pack everything away from Erik, this situation doesn't change their Dynamic and at no point would Erik stand for that.  
  
There's a fleeting - something, then. Doubt, or fear, or both, grief, even, but it's gone as soon as it comes, and in the next instance he's asking Pietro if he likes to be read to (he doesn't, he says "slow!" and Charles thinks that if he was going to - if this was going to be - he'd work on that). He asks if he has any more cars, if he likes to race them, which of course he does, but the blue car is his favorite. Pietro then attempts to tell the story of the time he fell off a wall, which nearly gives Charles a heart attack, even half-present, but he moves on fast and a good search of his little mind tells Charles nothing was broken. Then he starts to yawn. Quietly at first, and then loudly, rubbing his eyes, scrunching up his nose, and Charles smiles. "Sleepy?" he asks. Pietro shakes his head, stubborn. "Uh-uh. No nap!" Charles laughs. "How about a bit of a lie down, then? Just for a few minutes, so you can race me when you wake up." That perks him right up. "'K! Uddles?" Charles' throat nearly closes. Everything comes back online, then, and the force of his - everything, it's nearly nauseating. He forces it right down. "Do you know who needs those?" Pietro yawns again, rapt with attention. Charles nods to Erik. "He loves them." It's clear that uddles means cuddles, and Pietro climbs happily into Erik's lap to receive them as he'd been told, rubbing his eyes with tiny fists, yawning once more, and then closing his eyes. He's fast asleep just as fast as he can do anything else. Charles bites his fist to hold back a sob, and pulls his knees up to his chest, a watery smile on his lips. He should commit it to memory. He will, of course.  
  
"Oh-" Erik swerves to catch all of Pietro's tiny body weight as he suddenly and abruptly sags against him, cradling him in his arms protectively and even knowing he can't just whisk Pietro off right now-the idea of giving him back is-piercing, crushing all at the same time, overlaid with those black-box memories of rocking him in his arms, back to the wall, white floors and glass observation windows where colors stood out in start, vivid contrast and he rhythmically brushes Pietro's hair away from his face, watches his chest rise and fall (it's faster than normal, his whole metabolic system increased along similar lines to Raven's, but more intensive and he's needed supplemental nutrition for most of his life and likely always will but he's still healthy-) and Erik isn't unique at all, they're thoughts he's seen in the minds of just about every reasonably human parent, watching their kids sleep and marveling at how perfectly formed they are, how brilliantly alive they are, how beautiful they are. Erik didn't think there was any more space for feeling inside of him but it's all pressing against his organs and shifting them out of the way to accommodate and he wants to crush his eyes shut against it but he can't bear not watching him, so he just sits and stares and rocks and pets, resting his weight on Charles's shoulder.  
  
It's too much. It's all incredibly too much, and all at once it bursts. But if he runs, will Erik not just chase him? Like some stupid, selfish child instead of the grown adult he's meant to be, the - how could he even say the word parent? What could Charles possibly even begin to fathom of that? It's a wretched decision, the one he makes. It will hurt Erik when he finds out. He'll be upset, Charles has absolutely no doubt of it. To make it willingly is wrong, especially after what they've just endured. But if he stays here a second longer he'll suffocate, and if he makes Erik leave a second too soon he'll never even begin to forgive himself. He'd rather stab himself through. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. Charles focuses all of Erik's mind on Pietro, which is astoundingly easy to do at the moment, and creates a projection of himself. He leaves them there, and nothing is changed, really. Erik's fascination and love and awe is all his own. Charles isn't much but a prop, which is how it should be. Nothing lost. He won't be long. 

* * *

The Bond seems to know distance. Fortunately, Charles doesn't go far. He couldn't if he wanted to. He walks through the house and down the road, down the block until the house is just barely visible, and he watches Erik as he does. It's not as if he's not there. He is. He's dialing Warren's number before he even fully recognizes it, and then curses. But who else? Raven would try to understand, but - and Warren - He's shaking and close to hyperventilating, which is certainly a way he's called Warren before. At least this time he's not piss drunk. "I can't do this," he gasps into the phone before Warren even gets a word in. "I can't - do this -" Maybe he misheard and it went to voicemail. Maybe Charles will be alone here, about to have a panic attack in this perfectly picturesque suburban neighborhood in DC while Erik - while Erik...He can't do this. He also can't breathe.  
  
He feels Warren blinking and rapidly piecing together what's happening-where on Earth is Charles calling from-he's heard about what happened at the house to some extent but doesn't really know the details, nor about the kids, but his friend's got a sharp mind and it doesn't take very long before he's replying. He's at his hotel room, sleeves rolled up and tie loosened in front of his laptop but the white light has been drilling into his eyes for the last several minutes so it's an almost welcome reprieve. Warren and Erik are very different people and they both deal with Charles in very different ways. Where Erik tends to be softer and more nurturing, Warren's blunt, and where Erik can get overwhelmed Warren isn't easily fazed, but there's no judgment in him and the difference itself is enough to be grounding. "All right, just slow down. Can't do what?" he drawls into the receiver, leaning back in his chair. "Do you need me to come pick you up?"  
  
It's exactly why he called. Because if there is anyone who could deal with him now who isn't Erik, it's Warren, and he knows it. Charles slides down against the wall he's found, cradling the phone against his shoulder as he tries to breathe, head resting on his knees like he always does when he's absolutely losing it. "I'm in Washington - as in Washington, DC, yes - so I doubt that's a possibility." The words come out shaky instead of the usual snarky he takes on with Warren, shaky and breathless and he really can't breathe, can he? His chest is bloody well caving in. His next breaths come out like ragged sobs, but dry and painful and he coughs on them. "I can't be a parent, War. Have you seen my parents? Have you seen the way I raised Raven? I'm not cut out for it, teaching is - there's a difference, and I wasn't ready, I had a plan, I was going to prepare for this, I was going to be sure, I was going to make sure we talked - we always do things, then talk, which usually works out brilliantly but somehow I thought this might be the exception - and he's going to - and he just fell right into it, of course he did, but what if I can't - I can't -" He's reached hyperventilation.  
  
Warren holds up a hand on the other end even if Charles can't see it, he can sense it. "Just take a breath. Shut up and breathe for a second. You can wait for a _minute_. Breathe." Blunt, of course, but at least his tone is calm, Warren's version of gentle. "Yes, I have seen Raven, and she's just fine. Her movies are a little hacky, but you can't have it all. I promise you that you didn't irreparably damage her because of a few fuck-ups. You did the best you could with the limited resources you had available to you. What's this about? Are you saying Erik's got kids?" He doesn't sound that shocked, given the circumstances of Erik's background and Shaw's obsession with genetic engineering and mutant supremacy he'd honestly be _more_ surprised if Erik didn't have biological offspring somewhere-somewhere six feet under, logically speaking, but-that's a whole different ballpark to actual human kids in his life.  
  
It's not nearly as good as an Order (well, it might be an Order, actually, but it's not Erik's Order and that's really all that counts), not even close, but at least it gets him to suck in a few breaths. He's rolled up Erik's sleeves, overheated, and he realizes he's scratching rather viciously, but there's no one to physically stop him and it makes it easier to calm, the red lines it draws up from his nails, the tiny pricks of blood. "Twins," he whispers into the phone. "He has twins. They're - absolutely beautiful, Warren. They look like him. One of them was... you can imagine the story is long, considering, but he's here, Erik is with him right now, and he's -" Charles fell completely in love with him. But that's not the point. It doesn't make a difference. He buries his face further in his knees, and somehow manages to balance his cell, too. "I can't be a parent," he repeats, and now he sniffles. "I can't be. Especially not to these children. What right do I have? Especially when I'm out here, feeling bloody sorry for myself while he's doing everything right." Because he is a parent. And Charles - he isn't. Simple as, isn't it?  
  
"Oh, _bullshit_ ," Warren huffs, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, Erik might like petting fruit flies a little too much and he's the warm and fuzzy one-so what? The world takes all kinds. There is no perfect personality suited for parenting, Charles. It's work, every day, all day. You know what I'm going to tell you, yeah?" he murmurs, spinning a little in the rolly chair. "The only way you can fail here is by failing to show up. That's what kids need at the end of the day. Neither of you are perfect. You're not going to do perfectly, he is not going to do everything right and you've both got serious, pervasive psychological trauma that will inevitably affect the outcome, but kids bond to the people who show up consistently for them. The right you have is written on that contract on your wall. Give him the benefit of the doubt that he's not a total _idiot_ for picking you. He doesn't want you to do everything right, he just wants you to show the fuck up." How's that for simple?  
  
Charles sighs, still scratching red lines all along his arm, digging his nails in until he feels less like he might break apart and scream, or suffocate, or both. "I hate when you make sense," he mumbles, but it's basically an admission that it was exactly what he needed to hear, more or less. "I just - I wasn't ready. I know, fine, no one is ever ready for this, life happens, but..." And here's the part he's been beating himself up for. The reason he's currently making marks on himself. "I'd just figured it out. For the first time, I felt like things were going right. Everything's changed, Warren, I've finally wrapped my head around it, I finally feel - we were figuring it out. There's so much to figure out, in a Pairbond Dynamic. We've barely scratched the surface. How could we possibly - there's just too much, and his children need to come first. Why would I ever begrudge him that? He's not going to want me when he realizes I'm feeling like this. Like I can't do it. Like part of me doesn't want things to change." It would be self-pitying, if he didn't honestly feel, to his core, that it was true. That he's properly inadequate, that the only reason Erik was able to handle him at all was because he'd given himself tunnel vision. Here was the end of the tunnel. "Parenting is about sacrifice, isn't it?" he mutters, and it's clear he thinks he's the eventual sacrifice. The unnecessary baggage.  
  
"Yeah, it is," Warren returns archly. "But it's also about compromise, and talking, and you're both pretty damn good at that. You both have a pretty good rulebook to throw out, too. I hate to break this to you, but in all the ways you are special, bud, this isn't one of them." He's laughing softly. " _No one_ is equipped to deal with a kid the first go around. You didn't plan for this; however much affection he has for those kids, they weren't part of the plan. I guarantee you he is having the same meltdown in the minuscule portion of his brain that isn't on maximum autopilot right now. You are going to be OK. I was there when you two Bonded. You have a solid foundation and you won't let each other get away with shit, but you aren't going to progress until you stop thinking of yourself as separate from his family. That's obliterating any credit at all and it's not fair to him, or to you, or to those kids." Warren gives a shrug. "And besides, you aren't alone. You don't exist in a vacuum. You have friends. You have people who care about you. We've got your back. I've got your back."  
  
For a long while, Charles is silent. He's still breathing too harshly, short little gasps that constrict his chest and make everything too tight and he knows Warren can hear it, but when he does speak it's so quiet he wonders if it will even pick up. "You think I can do it, then?" he whispers, and his throat closes around it, his eyes shut tight, too, his fingers drawing up more blood. "Be - be a... father?" Because that's what he'd be, isn't it? Theoretically, it wouldn't make a difference which one of them had blood in the mix. It never would have, if they'd gone a route like that. They'd both be parents, and that meant Charles would be - just as much as Erik. The word terrifies him, if he's honest, and then - in the same breath... He wants it so desperately. For it to be true.  
  
"Of course I do, _dumb ass_. I know you didn't ask for my advice but I'm going to give it anyway," Warren starts, barreling onward before Charles can object. "Don't keep this to yourself. You need to be open and real about what's happening with you or you're already in trouble. Don't do what I did. I cut Jenna off and it killed us. I couldn't process anything, I couldn't deal with anything and I thought I was doing her a favor by pretending to be fine. I wasn't. You've got two whole, healthy kids there. Don't throw that away. I promise you won't regret it."  
  
Charles watched it happen, helpless to do much of anything. It was wretched, and messy, and awful. Back then he was on the receiving end of calls from Warren in all manner of states, often drunk and barely coherent, but he'd never begrudged it. But that divorce - the thought of even coming close with Erik chills him to his very core, makes his stomach churn a thousand times over. He's not even sure he'd make it. How would he manage, lost and untethered and grieving, how did Achilles even begin to bear - It won't happen. "I guess you're ready to be an uncle, then," is what he says into the phone, head still tucked into his knees. There's a quirk of a smile there, and he knows Warren sees it even without long-range telepathy. "Thanks, War," he whispers. He means it. He always does, but in this moment he means it. Still having trouble breathing, and now his arm looks a bit like it was attacked by some sort of creature, but he means it.

* * *

Well, the thing is-not to be all OP, but Erik wouldn't be a very good Dominant if he couldn't tell the difference between a projection and actual-Charles, or maybe the Bond has finally caught up, that distance as minimal as it is tugging until Erik's awareness swivels and catches Charles in the act, so to speak, but Charles is wrong. Pietro's settled into the deep of dreams and he's managed to settle him back into Lana's arms (the woman-the stranger-no longer a stranger, not anymore). He's not hurt, he's not upset, he's not betrayed. He knows if Charles really wanted to he wouldn't even be aware of this, but he is-and that's good enough.   
  
There is no need for punishment here, not from Erik or from Charles, and he crouches down in front of him, tugging his arms away from his knees and pressing a cool cloth to the raw scratches marring his skin. _Thank-you,_ he mouths at the phone, giving Charles's nose a little tap. He knows it gets transferred over, too.   
  
"Yeah, yeah, no problem. Just try not to commit any international offenses while you're out there," War barks back dryly.  
  
Charles expected it. It wasn't going to last, especially not with more than half his attention focused on things like not having a full-blown panic attack, and he hadn't done a whole lot to make the illusion convincing, if he's honest. He could have, but he didn't. The equivalent of putting a doll in his place, at the end of it. He hangs up the phone and sets it down, shrivels back up and hides his face in the arm that's not scratched up, hisses as the other one is touched. It is definitely raw, and apparently his fingernails are sharp. It feels exceptionally hard to breathe again, everything crashing down at once and clumping up in his throat where he can't get the words out, so instead he just sobs, dry and aching.  
  
Erik draws his own fingers across them, leaving trails of soothing balm behind, at least that much he can do. He lifts Charles's chin, a small and genuine smile gracing his features. "Hi," he whispers, peeling a large bandage from paper and laying it over the remaining marks. A projection was never going to be enough for Erik, anyway. It never has been and never will be. He would much prefer to be here, facing what comes.  
  
It would be nice if he could breathe properly. It would be nice if it didn't feel like his heart was caught in the pit of his stomach, worked over by acid, even after calming himself down. He is calmer, because at least he isn't about to make himself pass out, but it doesn't stop him from shifting in Erik's grip, and every part of him wants to smile back, but - he twists until he can hide back in his knees instead. "Hi," he mumbles, not even a word, really, and he feels small and silly and everything he can't be but is. He feels like he wishes the ground would swallow him, hot and ashamed, fingers digging into his legs.  
  
"Talk with me," Erik Orders softly, unwilling to let him remain buried and tilting his chin up to meet his eyes once more, resting his hand over Charles's jaw. "Don't hide from me. You don't have to. I'm right here."  
  
Charles closes his eyes instead, swallowing, but it doesn't loosen up his throat. It doesn't make it easier to say the things he can't even make full sense of himself. "Don't do that," he whispers, but there's no heat because he doesn't mean it. He never does. He especially doesn't mean it now. "I can't - Erik, do you realize how much has changed? I was finally catching up. Slightly." Barely. It's enough to make his head spin when he goes back and thinks about it, and now it's going to change again, and what if he's not ready for it? What if he honestly, truly isn't? Not hours ago he nearly lost it because of a family dinner and he's going to try and raise children of his own? Everything will change. All of it. And it's not that - it's not that he doesn't want a family, because to say that would be a horrible lie on his part, and display a lack of self-awareness he's not even capable of on his worst days. But it's - he shakes his head.  
  
He strokes the back of his hand over Charles's cheek, his own eyes fluttering shut. But there simply isn't a choice. He can't abandon his children, and he won't abandon Charles, so if they want to stick this through they're going to have to learn. Erik's doing a good job of holding himself together because he doesn't have a choice. And it's not fair but that's life, sometimes, and right now the only thing keeping him afloat is knowing that Charles is still here beside him. If he stops for even a minute, a second, it will crush him, and where would that leave everyone? "Of course I realize," he murmurs, shaking his head, voice warm. "Do you really think I don't know?"  
  
Those particular thoughts just make Charles more ashamed, because who is he to break down? Erik needs him, and he's here on the ground throwing a fit because things are changing. Because part of him is terrified that - what? That Erik will realize he's dead weight, that he has not a clue what real, functional family structure looks like, that he's too much of a burden on top of twins? He's already thinking up ways to spread himself thin, and Charles is the reason. Their Dynamic itself is work, sometimes. It's constant, and it can be consuming, and more than he's ever fathomed and there are aspects that are still frankly terrifying to Charles when he thinks on them too hard, and why on Earth would he want to maintain that when there's an awful lot more to be concerned with? Charles is already providing more stress than he's worth, and the truth is he isn't worth much. It was what Erik needed yesterday, but now yesterday is over. It's self-deprecating and pathetic and he feels it eating him alive, but there's nothing to be done for it. He'll get used to it. He'll acclimate. He'll stop being selfish, and he'll suck everything up. Charles takes the opportunity to pull up his knees again. "Did you discuss anything with her? I wasn't listening," he whispers, and it's too smooth and too even and too formal but it's what he can manage.  
  
"Charles," Erik says firmly, "stop it. I know you don't think so little of me as to presume I'm merely dragging you around for some twisted sense of amusement. There is no use denying your own reaction, but you are right-I need your help. I need you to trust me, and listen to me. Of course things aren't going to be the same. I can't promise that. I'm sorry. I can't. I don't have a choice," he whispers. "But you do, because I can't Order you to accept this. And if you really think yourself so separate to me-" and that's what hurts, but he doesn't dwell on it. He can't dwell on anything. What could he possibly do if Charles decides he can't handle this and doesn't-want it, how is he supposed to choose-but that's-he can't help it, he can't help laughing because isn't that just typical, yet another scenario comprised of impossible decisions and OK, he's not perfect either, it's more than a little self-deprecating but fuck. "There is not one moment that passes where I consider any way forward that doesn't include you. We will do the work. We will handle the stress. But I can't bear it all alone, you told me that."  
  
For a moment, Charles considers snapping. It's a defense mechanism, it's ingrained, it's the way he knows how to handle this because it will push Erik away in this instance, he knows it will. It will sting and it will hurt and then Charles can wallow appropriately. But he doesn't. He bites his tongue, and he curls up closer to his knees, and he shakes his head. "I would never make you choose. You have to know that much, at least," he mutters, because Charles can't fathom it either. There is no impossible choice to be made here, there's only a choice that has already been made. He can't fathom leaving Erik alone, and he can't even fathom - they're not separate. They've never been separate, not one single moment of their lives. Not since the beginning, not even in the long, stretching, agonizing middle. Erik's children are - they're not just his, not when Charles is - The rest doesn't matter. He bites it all back, forces it all down, and that's that. He wipes his tears on his sleeve and that's that.  
  
Erik winces. It's not like him to-well, snap himself, really. But to say he isn't stressed would be a massive lie, and as a rule he doesn't. And he's a person, he's fallible, he doesn't always take the high road. He's not just afraid of being a father, but of losing his family entirely, of going back to how it was before, and he's burning up. If he had made this decision they would have talked about this, lived together, not just in Raven and Hank's apartment. Been in a relationship that wasn't based on a large-scale deception of the world in general. The trial would be over, they would be more healed, more grown. Not running on fear and adrenaline. But that's not how it worked out. "I know," he whispers back, whatever ire and fight drained out of him. "They're yours, too," he shuts his eyes again, letting his forehead drift against Charles's lightly. "I know you already love him, too. And you know I love you. You aren't a consolation prize because I never had my children before now. I love you."  
  
It's completely suffocating, and that's the last thing he ever wanted this to be. He doesn't want to think about it. He doesn't want to think about all of the things - it doesn't matter. None of it matters. None of it can matter. Nothing worked out the way it should have. Nothing is going to be talked about, because there's no time to talk about it in a reasonable, sensible matter. There's no option to slow it all down, to pause it, to draw it out. And Charles had hoped that perhaps it would slow down. That there would be time to - but there isn't, and it's not, and here they are. Everything else has become irrelevant. Erik is right. He loves Erik, and he already loves those children, and that's what it is. That's where they stand. He keeps his head buried in his knees, because he can't - but he has to, doesn't he? He needs to stop crying, so he forces himself to. It's not something he thought himself capable of, but apparently he is. He reaches right in and turns it off, like some silly flipped switch, and suddenly they're gone. He lifts his head and nods. "Alright," he whispers, and that's that. That's all. "Alright."  
  
Erik kisses him across the brow. "Everything we've built, everything we have, we haven't lost anything. It's just grown. It will be OK. It's-normal, I think, to be afraid and uncertain. We're going to be OK. I will not settle for anything less. I never have and I never will and that isn't going to change."  
  
Charles turns his head, but there's no expression on his face to hide. There are no more tears, and there's no more tightness in his chest, and there's no more anything. There's no time for anything, Erik is right. "Okay," he whispers, and moves to stand to his feet, wiping at the last of his tears, the ones he hadn't caught. His legs are a bit shaky, but he fixes that, too, not with his telepathy but with sheer force of will because he's managed it before. He straightens out his clothes. He stares at the ground, and lets his mind become coordinates and numbers and considerations, check-lists and timelines. Alright, he thinks, over and over. Alright.  
  
Erik's there, though, and he catches Charles and steadies him, tugs his hands down to swipe away the rest of those tears gently and fixes his sleeves. Maybe his version of love borders on suffocating but he can't help it. The more Charles disappears the tighter Erik tries to clutch, but for the moment he relaxes his grip. He touches his own throat. An answer to his earlier question. He couldn't talk to Lana, not really. A few words. Yes and no. Not enough to have a real conversation about what to do, but he's been considering it. Magda certainly isn't well enough to travel, but at the very least he'd like them to meet, too. He doesn't know how much she knows about her husband, he's not even certain that she still wishes to raise this child she's been made to believe is her own-but blood isn't anything special. She's been there for every skinned knee and sniffle and nightmare, she loves him. And Pietro obviously loves her. He doesn't want to rip that apart, either. He hasn't been thinking beyond two seconds into the future if he's perfectly honest.

* * *

It's what he needs, it's what he's always needed, it's what brings him back and keeps him whole and together and not lost but if he clings back, if he lets himself, he'll - they can't do that right now. He can't let himself do that right now. His mouth stays closed, but he fills in without words, information: she doesn't know much of anything. She's about to. She's in shock. She's frightened. She loves that little boy but she's sickened at the idea of what he represents, of what her husband did to her - to other people? Right now she's thinking about it. Piecing things together. Thinking about where he's gone, the business trips he's taken, why he's never home. What he might have been doing. It's going to eat her alive. It always eats you alive. She won't stay with him. She has no income. The house isn't in her name. She has a sister in California, and part of her is considering taking Pietro and running. She won't. The rest of her options look bleak. She saw the way they played and talked with him, held him, and she knows in her heart she can't keep them from him. He deserves to know the truth, too. She's terrified of letting him go, but she wants to do right by him. Her husband already did so much wrong. Anger, confusion, grief, more anger, more grief. It all passes through like Charles is the medium, and he is. In the end he's still staring at the ground. She'll agree to meet Magda. She'll agree to bring Pietro. It's about as far ahead as they can get. Charles wraps his arms around himself. What now? Wanda? He tightens his hand over where the bandage is and squeezes. He starts to walk, even though there's no way to walk to her.  
  
Erik keeps him close though, physically, tugging his arm to halt him in his trajectory to nowhere and just taking a moment. Charles can lean on him. Erik is strong, he is capable, he is Charles's Dominant and that's not going to change. He can take the weight of them both, he is good in a crisis and he isn't falling apart but he just might if he's left here alone in his own mind, their Bond a suffocating, deafening silence. He just doesn't want to be alone for it. Charles is right, though, they need to make a plan, they need to make a plan with Lana, and they need to make sure that she's safe, that Alan won't reach out to another contact who might have ideas of how to handle her even if he himself couldn't stomach the inevitable. Can Charles do that? Can he keep her hidden? Give her some time to get to California? They can find her again, they can establish a dialogue at least. And once that's settled they need to find Wanda, to make sure she's safe, too. And-and that's as far as Erik can get, so that's that.  
  
Charles doesn't lean into him. He wants to, he aches to, he's practically vibrating with it, but he can't do it. He can't do it, but he doesn't go, he stays put and he stays limp and he doesn't cut Erik off. He doesn't reach for his Will as he would any other time, he doesn't look for that guidance, he can't have it, he can't - he nods his head. He can keep her hidden, he can keep her safe. He can get her a plane ticket. Now, even. She doesn't want to stay. She's terrified of him coming home. They're an hour from the airport. He can give her the cash and she can get on the next flight and take Pietro with her. It would be for the best. It would be the safest option. They'll be safe and they can work from there.  
  
Erik shakes his head. When he hears it put like that, it's not really an option. "Come on," he murmurs, like everything else that happens in Erik's head he doesn't know what he's going to do until he's doing it, and at the same time, whether or not Charles is looking for it or seeking it out, Erik's Will flexes out of him and wraps Charles up, sliding underneath those spiky defenses entirely unconsciously, the right answer materializing itself out of a bunch of skeleton-twisted metal structures. When Erik makes decisions, they reverberate in the air, in the atmosphere. California isn't a real option, either. Too easily found. They can kill a few birds with one stone, here. For now. He leads Charles back up to her house, eyes darting about as he stretches out his power and packs a bag for her, pressing it into her fingers and encouraging her to add anything else she thinks she might need to it, for herself and Pietro.  
  
Charles stands, still as anything, as the house flurries into motion. She's flustered and terrified; he reaches out and tweaks it, calms her down, slows her down, lets her catch her breath and sort out her thoughts. He floats relevant ones to the top, sinks the rest down, and she's resolved now as she darts from room to room, grabbing things and shoving them into the bag. While she's busy, while Erik's busy - it's funny how just a day or two ago he'd fussed over wrapping those strands around himself like rope, binding himself up with them, safe and secure. Now he - well, fighting wouldn't be the right word when he's not doing much fighting. It's more like passive resistance. He keeps himself firmly above, like he always has when someone exerted Will. It's never worked with Erik. It might now. He can't. Coordinates, checklists, numbers. Pietro's still sleeping. Charles tucks his little mind away from nightmares, brushes him softly.  
  
When everything is in order, Erik nudges Pietro awake gently, setting him on his feet and steadying him, fixing his hair and his clothes unconsciously. "Want to see something cool?" he whispers, eyebrows arched. He holds out his hand, and extends his other toward Lana and Charles, beckoning them to enter the circle. An SR-71 can make the flight from New York to London in under seven minutes. Erik is faster. Pietro will like this one.  
  
He will like this one. He's sleepy, rubbing at his eyes, exhausted and fatigued because he doesn't sleep except when he's absolutely tired himself out, he's going, going, going until he stops and drops and then he's dead to the world and he'll get cranky later for this, overtired (not unlike Charles, really, and his heart aches and pulls and tugs), but he's excited nonetheless and grasping Erik's hand. Lana is terrified at the prospect of where this is going, reasonably torn on whether or not she should even trust these strangers - Charles dampens that a bit, and protects her mind, too, because this makes him sick and he's prepared for it. At least Pietro will never get motion sick. He closes his eyes and tunes out, except for the watchful eye he keeps on Pietro, and Lana, too.  
  
Erik almost doesn't even know where he's going until the decision's made, wavering between two crazy alternatives (he very seriously considers Raven and Hank's, but it's better right now, he thinks, to give them both a lifeline to something they know-to at least two people who are dedicated to keeping them safe, who they're familiar with, and it's a better alternative than Erik and Charles simply taking Pietro, too-Lana isn't being cast aside or ignored, her needs are being considered, too-and maybe yeah this is insane and six thousand miles away but-Erik's logical, rational, strategic mind can't come up with a better one) before his natural compass points him-home. To David and Ellie's house, with Magda and a whole slew of mutants quite capable of keeping them safe. Of course it's not always good to wake a sleeping child, but-Erik knows this is something Pietro wouldn't want to miss, and he thinks maybe Charles can help nudge him to sleep before they figure out their next task besides. It's not a solution they can always rely upon, but desperate times and desperate measures and all of that.  
  
They'll figure it out.


	63. tree of pity, its bark more bronze, the snow/settled as if an openness of any kind meant, as well,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _dangerous world of comedy_ , larry charles

Truthfully, Charles already knows where they're going and he doesn't need to check. He knew from the moment Erik changed his mind. He keeps his eyes closed and focuses on exactly how cool Pietro thinks this whole experience is, at how his tiny, overactive mind is reeling and delighting, how he's overwhelmed because it's the first time things haven't felt slow, it's too fast for him and that's exciting, his brain processes differently, he sees everything in what, for him, feels like slow-motion - and ignores his own sickness, the migraine, anything else. It's not there, and Charles isn't there, but he's smiling by the time they're on the ground. He takes care of Lana, smoothing her out and dampening the sickness and the confusion and her headache, because that's simple enough, and it's degrees removed, it's half-there, but he's so charmed by Pietro running in (normal-paced, he's still so tuckered out) circles around them, and then he trips, and Charles is closer than Erik so he reaches down before he can even consider it, holds the boy in his arms and attaches him to his hip to check for a bruise while Pietro says, "Vroom! Vroom!" Fortunately, he's incapable of tears. Charles retreats further, but his hands still fuss.  
  
"He's a little Mazda commercial," David says, and they both regard each other very curiously across the room. David ducks his head to the side and Pietro follows, quick, and everyone can tell that he's equally surprised that David can keep up.  
  
"You're like me. No-you're the inverse, hm?" he's already talked to Magda and gotten the low-down of what's happening and what's likely to occur, which means more children, his house-Lana's unexpected, but he moves between them easily, welcoming and hosting with a natural flair. Of course by the time Pietro fell Erik's hand is already shooting out, his own power would have never let him fall but his heart thuds in his chest anyway as he watches everything happen in slow-motion himself, but Charles steps in at the last second and he just stares around like he's lost and disoriented and doesn't know where he himself has taken everyone, and then Magda's running out of the kitchen, through the back door where they've gathered and stops, stunned-  
  
Pietro is still in Charles' arms. He can't explain what happens. He doesn't know what it is. It's a moment, he thinks. It's a moment and he's stopped his own tears, made it impossible for him to cry, but Pietro's hand comes up to smush his face and Charles - he holds him. He brings him up to his chest and he hugs him, tight even though he's shaking, laughs breathlessly when Pietro squirms and tries to climb onto his shoulders. "You won't get much height from up there, I'm afraid," and then he walks toward Magda and watches as Pietro waves, friendly and trusting and now thoroughly overexcited, and he - he should put Pietro down. He should hand him over. He doesn't, not yet. "Pietro, this is someone who's been waiting to meet you for a long time," he whispers, voice broken. Pietro is still waving. "Hi!" he chirps, and then he's fussing in Charles' arms and Charles forces a steady breath and finally puts him down. He puts him down and his heart - his heart - He's shaking so badly it's visible. Charles hides it, cuts it off from perception, and steps back to give Magda the space she deserves, walks backwards and closes his eyes until he hits something, impossibly, grabbing at his arm and squeezing, squeezing, squeezing.  
  
"Oh, hi-" Magda laughs, breathless herself and she immediately embraces him, the only one perhaps of the entire group who has no sense of real boundaries because in her mind she sees Erik stoically standing before her dead children, they were dead-Pietro was dead-he doesn't look like she remembers but he's still-and look at all that hair-she buries her nose in it, inhaling. He still smells like she remembers. Whoever those kids were, they weren't hers, and this boy-she's never really known him, but memory hacking and mind-brutality are funny things because to her there's a seamless transition, a kind of transposition that would make her feel awful if she really paused to consider it-those children are dead and they belonged to someone just like Pietro belongs to her, but she can't think about that right now. " _Luce dei miei occhi_ ," she grins at him. " _Passerroto_ , huh? One day you'll be running on the wind."  
  
And inevitably it's Erik, and it's Erik who squeezes back hard enough to dig and he gasps, eyes wide and dry and thoughts stuck in his retinas and with a great roaring upheaval of rubble he sheds it all and shores himself up stronger than before, reaching in and digging out spaces in himself he didn't know he had, and this is how New Ones are formed, right before Charles's eyes a brand new birth, Erik's played and played and played with this concept for years and he's never been successful. Never managed to blend empathy with pragmatism, came close with Paragon but Paragon's moral duty and ethics and logic, he doesn't care about your suffering. He can't hold you and comfort you and love you. He will do what is right, but he's a poor support. Erik's insides are shining and the mountains are awake and he emerges from the brush, little pieces of each in just the right increments and tall and steady. He squeezes back, wrapping Charles up in his arms completely, twining his hands into the hair feathering over the back of his neck. _I've got you,_ whispers the newcomer. _I've got you, dear-heart._  
  
No. No, no, no. Panic clenches in Charles' chest so sudden and heavy he's sure his lungs have collapsed. He refuses to ruin this moment, he refuses to stand in the way of it, and Magda is holding her child and Pietro doesn't understand all the words but he's playing with Magda's hair, not pulling, just touching, and he's making car noises again because he's two and he likes them and Charles - Please don't, and he tries to sound abrupt, to push, but all he sounds is desperate and he won't lean into it, he won't, he will not. If he goes limp enough, if he stays above, if he keeps his head above water, Erik will let go. He'll stop trying. That it hasn't happened yet has been a fluke, but the fluke is done with. And Charles will stay, and he will love, and he will be what he needs to be, what he always should have been, and that is that is that is that. He makes all his muscles tense and he nudges Erik's attention toward Magda, toward Pietro. You should be with them, he says, and it isn't unkind, and it isn't unreasonable, and Charles will stay as Charles should have been from the beginning.  
  
It's not a fluke, and Erik doesn't let go. He never has and he never will. Charles has spent his whole life impervious to Will, taking care of himself, relying on no one, but Erik doesn't accept that. It is the definition of indomitable, and he remains, a solid pillar of light that Charles can try to fight if he wants, but Erik knows the truth and has from the moment Charles walked through the threshold of his detention cell. That this is the person who belongs to him and so much of the beginning was Charles trying to Negotiate his way out of it-don't Order me unless I ask for it, don't do this, don't do that-and the push-pull of sometimes I need to be made-the truth, that which Erik knows, and Charles cannot direct his attention outside of what he Wills, it is not his place to decide what Erik should or shouldn't prioritize, how Erik should take care of his family. He might not always be successful. But he will never stop trying. Erik doesn't want what Charles thinks he should be. He needs what Charles is, what Charles knows to be true, too. That they are not separate. He still has every moment between them, a vault in his mind that could never be erased no matter who attempted it, every moment of love and light and hope and it pours out of him in response in an unrelenting wave, an Order of simple existence. _Remember that I love you. Use me._  
  
Charles knows how to take care of himself. He has to take care of himself, and if he can take care of himself, he can care properly for others. He doesn't always do the best job, he gets lost, he gets stuck, he gets mucked up - but that's alright. He can live with that, he always has. He gets frightened, directionless, confused, he gets - lonely, he gets backwards, he gets frustrated. He gets into his head and he doesn't always find his way out easily. All part of the package. He needs, but needs don't mean much of anything. They can be ignored. Food, hydration, sleep - all needs, all ignorable to a certain point. Structure, stability, guidance, form, discipline, punishment, correction, service, a very firm hand along with a gentled, patient one - ignorable. Totally and completely. It's how he knows how to be. Sixteen and on his own, a young girl in his care, and he knew the one thing he could not be was weak. Weak, sniveling, helpless, needy. Cut it out. If it aches, dig deeper. Head up, back straight, eye contact, two steps ahead, do not ask for help, do not fold, do not break, do not give an inch. Bend yourself backwards, out of place and out of self and out of instinct, and if you break bend harder. They don't need to be separate. Charles loves Erik with all that he is. But he can't be weak. It was a fun experiment. It was nice while it lasted. The tear almost falls, but it doesn't, because Charles has control of that, too. But he can feel himself slipping, he can feel the water rising, and he won't let it. Not this time. _Please let go of me,_ he whispers, because he needs to get this out of his system, to burn it out, and he has memories far, far too recent for that. He'll figure it out soon. It won't hurt soon.  
  
And it's all true, when Charles had no one. That is not the case now. Erik should have heard him years ago but he wasn't a person and he'll always blame himself for that, for not coming sooner, but he is here now. And he has never once wavered, thought Charles weak, begrudged him any backwards frustration because Erik follows him wherever it goes and brings him back and straightens him out because that's what he's here for. And now, now he is well and truly angry, maybe it's stress and the culmination of every aspect of this situation pressing in on him from all sides but how dare Charles relegate their relationship to a fun experiment, how dare he lie and say he loves him with all that he is and yet insist that he cut out his most beautiful parts. How dare he imply that it's over, that it's something he needs to burn out of his system, absolutely not. If Charles doesn't want Erik, fine. He's always known that there might come a day when Charles learns too fucking much about Erik Lehnsherr and cannot deal with the moral consequences of staying, but if he belongs to Erik then he belongs to Erik. There is no separation, there is no dividing line, there is no point at which Charles gets to decide which parts to excise and which parts to show and which parts to control and Dominate because Charles isn't the Dominant here. And that is not weakness, it is strength. So Erik raises the tides and dives under and grabs onto him and absolutely does not let go, damn him.  
  
At first he struggles. He realizes just as quickly as he did the very first time, wide-eyed and breathless, that it has never and will never do him any good. Not against Erik. Not against his Dominant, the man he belongs to, the one he was always meant to belong to. It's less like a ship at sea and more like Charles has a plank that he cannot get a grip on, and Erik is a tsunami with tides he never could have weathered. He drowns. Inevitably he drowns, and drowning feels - it feels wonderful, it feels safe, it feels like home even as his lungs fill up with it and his throat constricts and his belly clenches, even as his eyes close against the force of it. _It's good, hm?_ Erik asked in some Far-Away place, and it's good, of course it's good, it's natural and it's right but Charles - If he's weak, how will he take care of their children? How will he love them? How will he protect them? Provide for them? The water reaches his mind, pulls under, under, under, and - _be easy_ \- no, how will he be strong for them? Charles should take charge, he should be in control, he should... He's still, he thinks, in the Real, or at least he feels still, but there are tears on his cheeks. How can he have both? Doesn't he have to give one up? Doesn't he have to? Shouldn't he? Isn't that what they both need?  
  
No, he shouldn't. He should do as he's told and the firmness and Command of that is as pervasive as the sea itself and just as relentless, but it is not, nor has it ever been without mercy. What he's told isn't be mindless, be still, be perfect, it is simply to be. To lean on Erik, to let Erik take care of him, and he knows how to do a good job, doesn't he? Charles trusts him, doesn't he? Erik won't be careless with him. Erik won't let him collapse, he won't let him break. They will be stronger together. How can Charles love his children, protect his children, take care of them and provide for them if he is not there? If he runs away from the parts of himself that need a partner, if he tries to go it alone, that isn't being a family, that isn't being a parent with Erik, it's just being a parent in Erik's proximity and one day those kids will grow up and they will know that Charles has held himself apart the entire time and that they've known nothing of the extraordinary soul within, and that will destroy them, just like it destroyed Charles. Maybe he'll be more attentive, put on the right smiles, play the right games, and that is more than what he was given but children know when they're being lied to, just like Erik does. It is not weak to need his partner, his Dominant, it is natural, and Erik will not let him run away and give that up, not if he really desires this. Because that's what this is. That's what this means. Erik will not do things in half-measures. And it is good.  
  
Charles has lived this way the majority of his life. Perhaps it was stifling, perhaps it was wrong, perhaps it was backwards and suffocating and not enough and he always needed, he always knew, he always longed for and Erik saw that in him from the very first moment, knew, even then, even if they haven't even scratched the top of the surface yet, not even now, how much, how very, very much, but - But he's been told his entire life how weak it is. And even now, even this exact moment, it hurts. It's a horrible twinge, something strange and foreign until recently, something he's finding is part of their Bond. He knows what he needs. He knows denying himself that is cutting out a good chunk of himself, and utterly butchering what he has with Erik. It would leave crumbs behind. It would leave ruin. Neither of them would have what they needed, and then how could they give the children what they need? But he's frightened, he's scared, he doesn't understand how he's gotten this twisted up, his head hurts, he's confused, he wants to be - strong, he wants to be - he doesn't know what to do. He's still fighting. Underneath and treading water, because if he lets himself go, what will happen? Will he be able to fight it off again? What if it goes away, what if he loses it, what will he do? How will he cope? How will he cut it out then? Maybe he can have part. Don't Order me unless I say, don't tell me what to do unless I say, don't punish me unless it's on my terms - he could be in control of it, they could compromise. He could live with that, couldn't he? Eventually? He could stop needing so much. He could go back to how he was. He doesn't know what to do. He's frightened, he's lost, he doesn't know what to do.  
  
"I disagree," Erik whispers into his ear, and they're alone somewhere, dark and quiet, and Erik's got his arms around him and he's wrapped up in that soft cashmere blanket, and it is all right. No one is dying, no one is horrified that they needed a break for a fucking _second_. There are people around to help pick up the slack, and as Erik is realizing, he's pretty sure that means he doesn't have to choose, because he's built-they've all built, all of them, this... tribe, really, of people, this group, this cohesive unit bound together by a common cause and common experiences and common loves, and they're both going to need that, too. But Erik isn't confused, and he isn't afraid. Not of this. It's not a compromise. Erik didn't acquiesce to that because he envisioned their Dynamic as such, he did it because Charles didn't know him and was only barely learning to trust him, and they built from that, one step at a time. They're going forwards, not backwards. That's not enough and Charles has told him that himself, it's not enough, not for either of them. As if Charles could pretend that-even if he could pretend that it was, Erik couldn't. He'd always be-what, resentful? Hateful? That Erik needs more than what he wants to give? No, because it's an illusion. A lie, a trick and Erik banishes it. Charles is submissive, end of discussion. No amount of self-flagellation and angst will ever make him a Dominant, will ever change his intrinsic needs any more than Erik could. He is submissive, and in this relationship he isn't the one in control. Does he really want to be? Does he really want to be in control right now? Does he really want to be ruled and Dominated by fear and horror and disgust and fear and pain and sickness and death and fear-? There is no eventually. He is not lost. He is right where he belongs. Charles knows what to do, because Erik has made it simple for him. "Let go," he Orders roughly.  
  
He doesn't remember moving, but he's had his eyes closed. He's been in his head this entire time, hearing echoes of voices that aren't Erik's, voices that he doesn't want to listen to but has, and he might not have noticed if a meteor struck the Earth. But when Erik Orders it, when it comes, and he knew it would, he does. His muscles untense all at once, his head quiets down, still pounding but no longer swallowing him up, and he stops fighting. He goes under. All the way under, down and down and there's no more clinging to planks or treading water and Charles makes a noise, a helpless, relieved little noise and he's still got his eyes closed but he's breathing again, he's here again, back in his body and back with Erik and he's still frightened. He is. He's frightened, and he's confused, but Erik made it simple. He unclenches the fist he's made and he wants to reach for Erik instead but - how will he let go if he does? He didn't mean it. It isn't a fun experiment. It's something he needs to be himself, to be Charles, it's what he needs all the time, in shockingly large quantities that he still hasn't figured out, reached the bottom of, it's part of who he is and how he functions, how he breathes, what keeps him sane and happy and thriving, what he wants - isn't he supposed to be without it? It's what kept him alive before. It's what kept him safe. It's what let him take care of Raven. What if it goes away and he can't take care of himself anymore? Weak, like - an insect -  
  
Is he supposed to be unhappy and stunted and removed from himself? " _Lo, neshama_. Never." He doesn't deny the fact that Charles did a good job with the tools he had, that he did look after himself and Raven to the best of his ability, and that there was nothing wrong with how he chose to cope, but those mechanisms are depreciated now. Because they existed in solitude and isolation and Charles doesn't live there anymore. It kept him alive, but he wasn't taking care of himself. Maybe that is something he can only truly get in a committed Dynamic, but it's not something he can't ever accomplish on his own because Erik's expectations are always going to exist, he is always going to have the ability to choose to obey, he isn't just good because Erik Orders him to and doesn't give him any room to decide and grow-but you know, so what? That's taking care of himself, too, trusting his instincts, acknowledging his needs, letting them be met. That is strength, and Charles is learning it all the time. He isn't supposed to be without it, and Erik won't let him be without it. He's breathing again, and he's here again, and he's whole again. And he can feel in turn how that affects Erik, like a physical process, lowering his heart rate and blood pressure and clearing out all the adrenaline coursing through his veins and electrifying his neurons.  
  
Charles can feel it, too, not just in Erik but in himself. He can feel it more every second he lets himself go, lets himself stop fighting to the surface that he's had a difficult time reaching since the moment they met - and maybe, maybe it's why should he? Why should he tread water and struggle up there when he's much comfortable, relaxed, happy, himself down here? There's one thing he's definitely uncertain about, however: it's not a committed Dynamic he needs. It's Erik, it's his Dominant. The other half of the Pairbond. Their Dynamic is what he needs, what he doesn't think he could go without. What they've built, what they're building, and to get himself so backwards that he convinced himself he could topple it right over, that it was better off that way? Now he shifts, moves consciously, finds without opening his eyes Erik's neck and nuzzles into it, seeking but apologetic, too. He didn't mean to suggest it was trivial, fleeting, over. He doesn't want it to be. He wouldn't last long like that. He's still frightened, and - "Tell me what to do," he whispers, quiet, low, and it's not bossy, not challenging, not backwards. It's earnest, and desperate, and scared.  
  
Erik kisses the top of his head, his arms tightening around Charles's middle gratefully, and he pulls back only to frame Charles's face in his hands, good and bad alike, a lopsided familiarity and he smiles, soft. When he does respond it's not exactly in words, but a fierce uprising of confident, Commanding sensations. They're going to get back the rest of their family, they're going to ensure that everyone is safe and whole, and Charles is going to lean on Erik and use him and rely on him just like he always has, and they're going to do it together. He's not going to hide and cut himself off, even if it's hard, even if he thinks it's weak-Erik doesn't care, that's what Charles is going to do and he's going to remain whole, and himself and Erik is going to take care of him and keep him sane and prevent any more misery and horror from ever being inflicted on a member of his family again.  
  
Charles nods, his yes, Erik silent but there, obedient and soft and there are tears in his eyes again because he's a bit awful at preventing them, not falling but sticking in his throat and he needs to curl back into Erik's shoulder again, just for a moment. "Are you angry with me?" he asks, because he'd felt it before, sharp and painful, and he sounds small again, not frightened but - he wants it to make sense again. It made so much sense not long ago at all. He'd felt better about it than he ever had. What if that's gone? He doesn't want it to be gone. How does he fix it? Will Erik fix it?  
  
He shakes his head, eyebrows creasing together faintly in the middle. He rubs his thumb under Charles's eyes, gentle. It wasn't real anger; it was hurt and stress and fear and frustration, and a never-ending compound of events that just keeps coming and coming, hacking away at Erik's sanity and stability and leaving his consciousness in a great, roaring, raging whirlwinded hurricane sucking itself into a black-hole oblivion. And fierceness, and protectiveness, too, of them, he won't let their Bond be trivialized, not by anyone. It's right here. Bright and liquid-platinum pulsating between them, a thread of precious metals and brilliant gold. Not gone. Never gone. Erik will always find him and he will always fix it or damn well die trying.  
  
It still puts shame in Charles' stomach, because he should have been defending it, too. He should have known, and not gotten so confused. But there's so much that - he's been thinking about his family. His biological family, and the people who married into it. It's inevitable, really, not only because he intends to see them soon (now he knows he needs to, just as quickly as possible, because - there's clearly no room at Hank and Raven's, nor at his old apartment, perhaps it's jumping the gun but all that property is just sitting there, soaked in agony, he could make it new, he could give them a place - Pietro would have plenty of place to run, Charles always liked doing laps -) but because it's natural for it to come up now. It's been wearing on him for days anyway, and then Shaw, the questions he still has. It's enough to drive him a bit mad. Even so, he didn't mean it. He never would have meant it. It's tentative and that shy, fluttering softness, but he kisses Erik's shoulder, his neck, peppers them all over. What can he do to make it better? What can he do to make Erik better before they go back out there? Then, and they're only fleeting thoughts, but it's so quiet, perhaps he doesn't even mean for Erik to hear: he still wants Charles to be his submissive after that? Even after all this? He wants to keep him collared? He wants to - it's not going away?  
  
"Always," Erik murmurs, muscles untensing with every touch, melting into the point of contact between himself and Charles. It's not going away. It will never go away. He's so sorry Charles ever had to see Shaw let alone talk to him, be exposed to his infected, blackened mind and he knows it's all been wearing on Charles, and he doesn't blame him for getting a little mixed up. But he also won't let that stand, because Charles belongs by his side, as himself. He runs his fingertips over that collar, smiling softly. Just don't go. Please don't go. Don't cut him off. Don't leave him alone. Don't insist that it's all been fun while it lasted. That hurts. It's a physical pain, a vice grip, nails digging into his heart. He can do whatever needs to be done but he can't do it without Charles. He never could, where would he even be without him? Dead, most likely. The idea of being alone is like dying in repetition, drowning only it isn't relief, it's sucking, gasping agony over and over again.  
  
It hurt Charles, too. To say it, to think it. Physical, rending agony, a lie even he couldn't have swallowed and he's very good at lying to himself when the situation calls for it. He didn't mean it. He's sorry. His lip quivers as he pulls back and covers Erik's hand on his collar with his own, frightened again. "Keep me?" he asks quietly, this time out loud. And then his eyes wander, and for a moment his lips quirk, too, and then he smiles almost all the way, dimples just peeking as he lifts Erik's hand and kisses the palm and then his wrist. "Spheres," he whispers, like a private joke.  
  
"Keep you," Erik murmurs back fondly. He certainly didn't want to make Charles feel pain and shame, he just wants him to know that it does hurt-not for guilt, but because Erik cares about him, Erik loves him, and this is not trivial. When he smiles up at Erik though, he huffs a laugh, pressing his fingers gently against Charles's lips even as a dozen metal spheres abruptly levitate and hover in front of his eyes, dancing and swaying like an abacus.

* * *

Still a mystery. Charles almost wants to keep it one, but in the midst of all this it almost seems silly. It's not, though; not to him. It actually feels increasingly important, so he kisses Erik's fingers and then silently opens up his mind: he's been studying. When he'd asked for part of the couch, for some reason - which is silly in retrospect, of course Erik had given him metal, he loves metal, it sings to him more than anything else - he'd expected leather, because it was the most noticeable material. But Erik can make sculptures out of paperclips, so he wasn't all that shocked. He doesn't know how and never will know how to subatomically alter particles without making Erik do it for him, which seems counterintuitive - and he doesn't like the make part, still, not at all, unless it's directly in line with Erik's Will - but he can use his hands, his mind, his heart. He'd hoped maybe he'd figure out some more here, and he does check everywhere he goes, especially Erik's mind. He knows about materials best of anyone. He kisses Erik's wrist again, where cuffs will go, someday, someday soon, and smiles. "I hope you know it drives me mad there's nothing here now," he laughs, because Charles - it's anything but trivial. It means everything to him. It's how he stays alive now, how he doesn't get lost. His eyes flutter, and he lets himself - he just lets himself. Lets himself be under, just for a second, where Erik will tether him. It's okay if it's just a second, isn't it?  
  
Erik can't help it, he smiles, brightly, the one with all of his teeth like a baby shark and his nose wrinkles up and his eyes crease. "You never have to make me, sweetheart. It's all yours. All of it. Everything." He promised Charles he would give him the world if he only could and now he can and of course-of course, of course he could. He didn't know back then when he made that promise, it was only theoretical and now it's not and when confronted he got a little shy, a little nervous because what if that means-what if that means Charles doesn't need him anymore? If he can do everything himself, why would he ever need Erik? But that doubt lasts only a second because he promised, he swore and this is the world and it's in his hand and he can give it and of course he must, it doesn't matter what he can do. This matters. Charles will never have this without Erik. Not this. Because he would twist himself all up and he wouldn't be happy, not really, Erik knows that. That's what he can give. That's what matters. The world? Not so much. Not even a little. "There should be," he gasps. "I don't want-I don't want it empty anymore." He taps his wrists. "You have to pick them for me. Really soon, OK? Promise?" he was so strong and stable before but now he's crying. Now he is, of course.  
  
It makes Charles teary-eyed, too, and he bows his head, not to hide it but because he's overcome, and he kisses Erik's wrist again and again like perhaps it will make cuffs appear, but of course they don't. Soon. "I promise," he whispers, but then shakes his head. He's said this before. Multiple times, he's said it, but he wants to say it again. "I don't - I know you're offering it, that I can -" He wiggles his fingers, because it's much less terrifying than saying mind-control you. But it still makes his throat stick, it still makes him tremble, and he falls into Erik again, wraps his arms around him and breathes harshly into his neck. He can do it, and likely will stunning accuracy if he put his mind to learning, but he doesn't want to any more than Erik wants to realign the planets. There's no need for it. No desire. "But I don't want to. Okay? I don't want to. Not unless you ask me, or I absolutely have to, or - I don't want to. I don't like even thinking about it, and not just because I don't actually like telling you what to do," he huffs, but that's true, too. He doesn't. It makes him uncomfortable, it makes him twisted. "But that's yours. It's beautiful and I love it, so very much, but it's all that mattered to him, your mutation and controlling it, and it isn't what matters to me. I don't need it. I don't need to control you. I don't want to control you." He bites his lip, and perhaps they're reaching that point, because he has to muffle something not unlike a giggle into Erik's neck. "Please feel free to control me, though. That's how it should be," he teases. Two halves, equally important and strong, but with opposite roles. Charles isn't meant to subatomically alter particles. He isn't meant to control and Order and take charge. And that's okay, isn't it? That's right, isn't it? He's biting his lip again, hiding in Erik's neck again. Is that okay? That he wants - that he needs... it's okay. It's right, it's okay.  
  
"Yes," Erik whispers. Yes, it is OK. It is right. Charles isn't meant to take control. He isn't meant to take charge. Erik is. And it's OK if Charles doesn't feel like he can, yet. Or ever. Erik would never make him because Erik is here and Erik can. It's Erik's place. Equally important and equally strong and that is what they are, right now. Equally important and equally strong no matter where they come from and that is what Pietro and Wanda need. Equally important. Equally strong. Erik can't stop trying. How could Charles ever think he wasn't equally important and equally strong because Erik oh G-d he could never, not ever not without him, not without you, never without you and it's going to be horrifying and it's going to be so much and please please please please don't leave him-please don't leave him, please, [;ease-Erik knows it's so selfish-so selfish please-"I'm so sorry-" he gasps. "I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I know-" he can't-he can't-his lips take themselves in and it's-he's sobbing-it's trapped in his heart in his chest-

* * *

Charles knew it was coming, and now he's prepared for it. Immediately he's kissing Erik's cheeks, all of those tears he's kept inside himself, curled up against his chest, in his lap, soothing and stroking his hair, rocking with him in that motion that always seems to calm Erik slightly. Scratching his fingers right behind his ear where he's sensitive, where he knows his Dominant responds best to, kissing his nose and catching a tear that rolls down it. "I won't go," he promises quietly, solemnly, a Vow as strong as any of his others, still so true, still written in their contract and he knows Erik packed it and it's right upstairs, nothing in it false or changed. "I'll stay. I'll be yours. I'll listen, and obey you, and love you. And I'll love them." His voice cracks, his own tears spill down his cheeks and he does nothing to stop it. His heart is beating right out of his chest, and - "Of course I'll love them. Of course I'll love our children." It's the first time he's said it, the first time he's even thought it, and Charles sobs, clinging to Erik with all that he has. He doesn't need to be anything but what he is, and belonging to Erik, being owned by Erik, being Commanded by Erik - that has never made him weak. It's going to make him strong, and they can still have it. Still learn it, still discover it. Two pillars of strength in different, natural ways, two halves of a fully-formed, fully realized, fully committed Dynamic. A Pairbond in every sense of the world. How could he have questioned it for even a second?  
  
"I know you will," Erik coughs, splaying his hands across Charles's face. Of course he will. Erik never had any doubt of that, nor of anything-no part of Charles, there's never been any part of him that's been in doubt. It was a momentary lapse, but Erik's eyes dry and he inhales, bowing his head to Charles's. "It's going to be OK," he whispers. It's going to be OK. As long as they aren't torn apart, as long as they're together. And of that Erik has no doubt.  
  
They're going to be okay. Charles knows it, too, because he has his Dominant, and they have their family, and there is no amount of twisting he can do that Erik can't fix. He leans against him, smiling softly and still stroking his hair, still down but not fussed over it, not desperate to stay above water, relying on Erik's Will and then - And then a piercing wail erupts in the middle of their safe, dark place and Charles is positive that his heart stops. He flashes Erik a frantic, terrified look, and then he moves, and he knows Erik comes with him, or maybe they go together, one singular being, and...It's Pietro. He knew it was, but when he sees him and the scene he's made he lets out a breath he'd been holding, his chest no longer clenched so impossibly tight, his heart stuttering back to life. He's screaming and crying, pounding tiny fists and legs against the ground in rapid, blurry motions, while Lana explains over the ruckus that sometimes he just does this, she doesn't know what to do or how to get him to stop - Charles does. Something happens again. He acts, swooping in with mind and body, reaching for him, and all of a sudden the crying stops. Pietro's tan face is splotchy and tear-stained and he hiccups loudly, but Charles just rocks him, coos to him, kisses the top of all that white-grey hair. "Shh, you're very tuckered out, aren't you? Shh, that's it. Sleep now, there's a love." And it sounds nothing, absolutely nothing, like his mother, looks not a thing like it as he cradles Pietro in his shoulder and lulls him off to peaceful, much-needed sleep. "There's a love," he whispers again, and just one more tear slips down his cheek.  
  
Erik rubs his under ears, lips parted as that wail hits a _shrieky_ note, eyebrows bunched up near to his hairline and he can't help laughing. "That is-a-that is a sound," he gasps, while Magda laughs at him, chuckling under her breath in her raspy voice. "At least some things are universal," she smirks. He kneels and runs his fingers through Pietro's hair. "He has your spirit," he grins at Magda.  
  
"He does not." She elbows him in the side. "Maybe _yours_ ," Erik tweaks Charles on the nose, his own scrunching up.  
  
Charles rolls his eyes but smiles, still stroking Pietro's back and murmuring nonsense into his ear despite the fact the boy is well and truly asleep, his mind nudged far off into dreams. Usually this goes on for hours - he throws seemingly random tantrums, loud and wailing and inconsolable, but it all boils down to this. Just a bit overtired. He can't quite keep up with his body yet, and probably won't for many years to come. But that's alright. Pietro mumbles in his sleep, his mind hazy visions of cars and _Boom! Vroom!_ noises and the new faces he's seen, and when Charles pops up - yes, this is alright. More than.  
  
And Erik's taken a moment out of time to just watch it, delight pouring off of him and solid assurance, because he never doubted that Charles was capable of this, but he is grateful that Charles can connect with it, feel it for himself, see it for himself. Erik lifts Pietro up off of the floor, shifting him into Magda's arms and parting from him slowly. They still have work to do. They have to deal with Alan, and find Wanda-the former a step newly introduced because every moment they don't deal with Alan is time Alan puts into contacting law enforcement and searching for his wife, despite the fact that Erik would be well and truly comfortable to never see him again. His memories are hazy and distorted, there honestly isn't a single stand-out thing about this guy, the only reason Erik even recalled him is because Charles encouraged it. He's just a face in a sea of a thousand faces, but Erik knows what he is. And Pietro is his child. Funny how that puts things into perspective. Things Erik once accepted as simple facts of nature, perfectly all right.  
  
"The other one?" Magda whispers to them, brushing Pietro's hair and combing it through her fingers.  
  
"We'll get her," Erik murmurs back, kissing Pietro one last time, reluctant to leave him. But there's work to be done. They can't rest yet.

* * *

Charles almost protests when Pietro is taken out of his arms, his heart clenching tightly at the loss, but Erik is right. There's still work to be done. How could they possibly leave out Wanda, when she belongs here just as much? When he knows Erik, Magda - he aches to hold her just as much? He steels himself against Erik's side, and this time he does reach for his Will, for his strength, not because he has none himself but because it bolsters him, steadies him. He needs it. He knows it's the same in reverse for Erik, and that calms him. "Now?" he asks quietly, looking up at Erik for the answer. The decision. He won't let himself get twisted up again - but more than that, Erik won't.  
  
All things considered, this went well, and Erik might be foolish for hoping it goes just as smoothly with Wanda but something is just telling him it won't be so simple. He rises to his feet in a swift movement and puts his hand on Charles's shoulder, drawing him close to kiss his forehead, too, giving him a nod. "Now," he agrees, soft, letting his Will pour out and wrap Charles up just as tightly as his arms. "Is it possible to deal with Alan remotely or should we track him down first-hand?" The more time they wasted on that was less time spent finding Wanda.  
  
Charles doesn't want to be the bearer of bad news, but he has a feeling Erik is right, and his hunch is a much more educated guess. There is one thing he knows for certain, though. "No, I can handle it from here," he assures, and there's something - not dark, perhaps, but close enough. Certainly close enough. There are many things he could do at far-range to one of Shaw's officers, but only a few he'd ultimately forgive himself for, that he wouldn't be saddled with unnecessary guilt in the aftermath. He's guessing that's the one he should go for, as much as instincts he didn't even know he had are pushing for another option. "He won't be a problem," he promises, and there's confidence in that, at least.  
  
Erik squeezes his hand, giving a nod. There's no way he would sanction Charles giving into those urges because he wouldn't be able to live with it, not really, and that's Erik's job. To protect Charles, to keep him in tact, that's what he said he'd do and that's exactly what he's going to do. That's effort which doesn't need to be expended for Alan, anyway. Alan's a pawn, getting revenge on him won't make a lick of difference and Erik would prefer to spend his active time searching for Wanda. He leads them out of the house and they lift up into the air, and Erik turns the wide scope of his perception on the night sky, letting Charles guide him toward that secondary beacon.

* * *

Charles’ mind is a bit scattered, torn between taking care of Alan - tiny tweaks, imperceptible tweaks, nothing like the horrific hacksaw job Emma did on his wife, pulling out chunks and bits and leaving holes and gaping wounds behind - and guiding Erik to exactly where Wanda is. It’s nothing he hasn’t managed before, being split between two places, two or more tasks, but it makes him zoned-out, clinging to Erik idly, squeezing his arm and still closing his eyes against the nausea. Apparently he’s always going to be a bit airsick when it comes to these speeds. When they set down again, he almost doesn’t realize where they are. Somewhere in Eastern Europe, he’d gathered that much already, but - It’s not the quaint, upper-class suburban home outside of DC that Pietro knew. It’s a dark, boarded-up building with shattered windows, falling apart and built into the side of an alley.  
  
It’s an orphanage. One peek at the minds inside, at the children inside - dark, cold, frightened. Underfed. Sick, and the winters make it worse. No schooling, no resources, no hope of finding families of their own. This is a place for the lost and abandoned, and they don't often make it out. “Oh,” he whispers, and covers his mouth.  
  
Erik grimaces to himself as they set down, being fed the imagery through Charles, leeching off just automatically and it's not good, but-it's doable, it's fixable and no one has to die, and right now that's the top tier standard for situations that can be handled without melting into noodled spirals of DNA, so he'll take it. It's cold, so Erik warms it up with a wave of his hand, a soft gust of wind that rustles sleeping minds from their beds. The only issue is, how is Erik only supposed to take Wanda out of here? Charles knew the second they landed that Erik simply can't leave them here to suffer, but it's not exactly realistic to abduct twenty or thirty children and fly them halfway across the globe. At the very least he will leave this place better than he found it, if there is no hope he will make hope. At least some good can come from Shaw sticking his fingers into Erik's neurons and turning them all the way up. The door flies open to admit them and Erik stalks in, leaving trails of light behind him, heading for the most densely concentrated sensation of thought.  
  
“Erik -” Someone steps right in between them just as he knew they would, and Charles takes a breath and tries not to startle. She’s not a very intimidating woman, not that anyone is in front of Erik; she’s thin and bony herself, short (comically so next to Erik), her severe features softened by sleep, dressed in a nightgown with a flashlight in one hand that she gladly shines in both their faces.  
  
“What are you doing?!” is more or less what she shouts at them, and whatever language she’s speaking it translates right out, Charles too frazzled to properly recognize it as anything else.  
  
“We’re looking for someone,” he answers simply, calmly, and watches her raise a stern eyebrow, still clearly terrified underneath it. “A girl. Wanda.”  
  
Immediately the woman startles, then sneers, all of her features twisted up in disgust. “The witch? Why would you want to see the witch? _Bah_!” she screams, and crosses her arms. “You made a mistake. Not that girl.” Charles stares, heart beating in his chest.  
  
“Excuse me?” he asks, voice sharp. The woman huffs. “You don’t want to see her. That girl is evil as they come. She’s cursed.”

* * *

Erik's whole face changes and he raises his hand, slamming the woman into a wall. A _witch_. Absolutely not. Erik practically snarls at her as he lifts her along the wall and squeezes. " _Nie wiesz zła_ ,-" and obviously this is the time when Charles steps in so that Erik isn't literally menacing an old lady, but look. " _Poprowadzisz tam_ ," he growls and lets her go, letting her hit the ground hard. He is not messing around, but she finds that she's not hurt-she's just frazzled and scared and windswept, he's kept her from the impact. For now. That can change.  
  
It won’t change, if Charles has anything to say about it, because throwing this old lady against walls is not going to help them care for Wanda. As soon as the woman is lowered, shaking and curled into a ball, Charles takes Erik’s hand, squeezing it tightly and wrapping himself around him. “Peace, darling,” he whispers, as close to Erik’s ear as he can get up on his tip-toes, and presses it into his mind, too. It’s not that he isn’t affected, that the words didn’t curl anger deep into the pit of his stomach; it’s that one of them needs to be calm, to be rational, and what matters most is Wanda. He tugs gently at Erik’s arm and leads him up the stairs and into one of the rooms, where a little girl sits up in her bed, shivering even after the warmth from earlier with a tattered blanket wrapped around her.  
  
She’s separated from the other children, who are all huddled together on the other side of the room - as if they’re frightened of her. As if they’re terrified. She watches them as they walk closer, trembling already, and Charles feels his heart break. He kneels down in front of her. _Hello_ , he murmurs, the concept of gentle greeting directly into her mind, because she doesn’t speak. She wasn’t taught to. No one speaks to her unless to shout. Wanda looks up at them, her green eyes vibrant even in the dark. She isn’t telepathic, and so of course she doesn’t press back consciously, but she’s smart. She smiles, uncertain but bright, and Charles - his heart soars, shatters, drops, all in a fraction of a second. He loves her without question.  
  
Erik distracts the other children with the promise of food, materials repurposed into thick bread and fruit and vegetables that they gather around and tear into, because it's not their fault they're scared of her. They were taught that, by a real witch. When he crouches down before her, he touches that blanket and transforms it immediately, pressing his hand to her cheek, and taking her hand in his good one, letting her lay her palm against his chest. She's going home. She's going to her family. She wasn't abandoned. She wasn't left here to rot. And she never will be again. If anyone in this room knows intimately what it is to be feared and hated, it's Erik. Up until Charles everyone, even Shaw, was terrified of him. He was a villain. A bad guy. He did things worth being afraid of. But not her. She has lots to learn, and they're going to show her. He smiles back. She's beautiful, and brilliant, and he will tear this place to the ground before he lets her spend a single night longer here.  
  
Charles’ heart aches as he watches the two of them, listening closely to Wanda’s thoughts. Most two year olds think in concepts and images rather than words, anyway, still getting a grasp of whatever languages it is they’re still learning. She isn’t dreadfully behind at all, and there’s more than enough time to learn. She understands, besides; she’s picked up, sharp-minded and observant, quiet. Most of all she’s wary but not afraid, and when Erik embraces her, she embraces back, still smiling and holding Charles’ opposite hand. She’s brilliant, Charles confirms, just to Erik, leaned against his shoulder as he holds his daughter for the first time. Their daughter. As they hold their daughter. He shows an image of an object moving, grabbed by a beautiful, scarlet-colored force, and brought closer to Wanda. It’s shaky and falls abruptly, but she can’t be expected to have any control. She can’t use it often, either, or consciously. She has… some kind of telekinesis. It’s much more like mine than - well, yours isn’t telekinesis, but you get the point, but hers is lovely. And - This is the part he’s not entirely sure of. What frightens them most about her, the unpredictability of it. It clearly delights him instead. He smiles softly, amused and charmed. She influences probability in some way. There’s always a chance that something could spontaneously combust at any time, or the Earth could split open, or - well, you get the picture. Extremely unlikely, but possible. She changes that.  
  
It doesn't frighten Erik one bit. It does astonish him-because quite frankly he can't believe these two children came from him, but here they are, proof in living color. He thinks off-hand at least his children will know a colorful variety of languages. He was raised with three, in varying degrees, and that's something he'd like to pass on to his kids, but for now he chatters to her in the language that she's heard for most of her life, just silly things. Just to talk to her. She deserves that. Stories and songs and poems. She's got a full head of dark hair in thick cascading sheets down her shoulders, the color of Magda's with auburn highlights, but other than that, and the eyes, she looks like her brother, her features fine and classical. " _Ma shem kan?_ " Erik whispers to Charles, switching to Hebrew under his breath. They changed Pietro's name. He can't imagine Wanda's is in tact. She certainly wouldn't be Maximoff or Lehnsherr.  
  
Charles shakes his head, listening to Erik’s chatter and stories and poems just as closely, but mostly to Wanda’s mind soaking it all in. She’s listening, absorbing, understanding, and even when she doesn’t she leans into Erik’s voice, the soft but deep quality of it. When something doesn’t quite stick, Charles fills her mind with images instead, with beautiful colors and concepts until she gasps with delight and reaches for them as if she can hold them in her palm. Charles makes that possible, bringing them to life for her enjoyment. He thinks that perhaps there are tears in his eyes, but he hasn’t let them fall and doesn’t intend to let them. She doesn’t have one, he says back, mentally instead of out loud, as if he doesn’t trust his own voice. He doesn’t. _They call her Wanda, or… Scarlet Witch_. It’s unflattering, often spat in her face. _The Scarlet Witch again._ His teeth clench and he grips Erik’s arm tightly, trying not to dig his nails in. He doesn't manage.

* * *

Erik snarls under his breath again. It's more than _unflattering_. It's a product of deep, regional prejudice-travelers, circus freaks, caravans and shysters and magic potions and fortune telling-the fact that Wanda is a mutant doesn't help, and the fact that it's adults perpetrating it on a _child_ and encouraging other children to participate, well, let's just say Erik feels a little stabby and hearing that old _bitch_ spit it at his _daughter_ almost resulted in a broken neck, so it's a good thing Charles is here, after all, isn't it. It's easy to give in to hate, but watching her laugh and coo and giggle, Erik's attention melts away from hard-heartedness and transfixes on Wanda instead, and he tickles under her chin, laughing softly to himself.  
  
"Let's get you out of here, OK?" he whispers into her hair, petting it in long, even strokes.  
  
It makes him flinch. It's a strange reaction and he couldn't pinpoint it if he tried, but what matters is Wanda. He knows Erik will want to tie up ends here before they go - he always does, and Charles wouldn't feel comfortable leaving things as they are either, not in a million years - so he silently presses the question his way, quiet and subdued and winding one of Wanda's curls around his own fingers, smiling when she reaches up for his hand to pat it. She's never gotten so much attention and it's clear as anything that she's utterly overwhelmed and overjoyed by it. Her mind is already reaching toward his, seeking the pretty images and colors and sounds, though it's clumsy and unconscious - he gives them to her without hesitation, playing her a song from an antique box he bought Raven when she was a child, lets her watch the ballerina dance until she's reaching for it herself. He doesn't want her here a second longer, either.  
  
Erik lifts her into his arms, settling her over his shoulder and holding her in place with his good hand, using his other to stroke along the back of Charles's neck soothingly. Apologetic. One of Erik's worst qualities is undoubtedly his spirit of vengeance, and sometimes it manifests in ugly thoughts. Black thoughts. He doesn't want that; he doesn't want this moment tainted by ugliness. These people already put too much of it into the world. Erik will do what he can to smooth it away. When they find the woman again Erik hefts her to her feet, glowering down at her. She has a duty. A responsibility to these children and she's not upholding it. They're hungry and cold and defenseless and it is her role to protect them. And Erik will know if she fails. He will be back here. He will check up on this place. He will make sure these children get out whole, too.  
  
Charles will play his own part in this. Quietly, he resolves himself to it; he remembers the first time Warren told him, bluntly, that he couldn't save everyone. It's something that's been said to him more times than he could count since then. Unfortunately, it's never once sunk in. Even if he can't, he doesn't have it in him not to try. It's practically written into his genetic code. He catalogues this place silently as they walk out of it, taking stock, taking note, committing to memory. He stays close to Erik's side, tempering and calming him, still silent and muted down. In his own head.  
  
He bids her to hold out her hand and within it several gold coins emerge from between her fingers. Use it. Fix this place. Erik is only going to give her one chance. It's warmer and brighter than when they first got there, and the minds inside are no longer howling with desperation and loneliness, and that's a start. The rest will come in time. It's all he can do, for now. Erik tugs on their Bond, a reminder and a promise. He is still here, and Charles needn't go back to that twisted-up place. That is not where he belongs. It's not where anyone belongs any longer. The images in Wanda's mind materialize in life, light and sound and color that she can weave with her hands, something to keep her occupied for the trip back home.  
  
Charles watches idly as the woman is paid, and something awful and wretched tugs at his heart that he couldn't put into words if he tried. After that time spent putting him back into place, why is he wavering now? Why is he drifting? But he drifts anyway, even as he nods, even as he stays close to Erik's side, watching images he put into Wanda's mind come to life. It's sorrow, deep as anything, tugging and tugging and tugging and he tries to cling to Erik instead, their Bond, his Will, but nothing does the trick. Let it run its course. It happens. It will happen. He couldn't have expected it not to. When Wanda reaches for him over Erik's shoulder, he lets her wrap little fingers around his and his lips turn up into a smile even if it doesn't reach all the way inside him, and that's enough.

* * *

 _It's OK,_ Erik whispers back, shaking his head. He doesn't need Charles to not experience sorrow. Anyone would. Anybody human, at least. He keeps Charles close to him, touched and tethered by Wanda and Erik both. _I'm sorry,_ he whispers mentally, swallowing. He doesn't waver otherwise. He hasn't wavered yet, locked in place, absorbing the impact of force upon force upon force upon force, a shield network of neurons running underneath his skin. _I didn't mean to hurt you._  
  
It's not - like that. It is, but it isn't, and Charles especially knows what it isn't, so he shakes his head even as he stares down at nothing. _You didn't hurt me_ , he promises, because Erik didn't. The last thing he wants is for Erik to be guilty for something that was in no way his fault, especially not when he's holding everything else on his shoulders. Charles should be helping with the weight, not adding more. Never adding more. That shores him up, and the sorrow disappears, practically as if it didn't exist at all. Charles disappears a bit, too, but it's a necessary evil, and he'll come back eventually. There's nothing to be done for it.  
  
Except that doesn't take the weight, it never has, it's just more degrees of force against Erik's soul the further away Charles goes. He's pretty certain it is his fault anyway. He knows his mind isn't always the most flattering place to be, especially when he perceives a threat against his family. He doesn't care about any of it. He just wants to make sure all of them are safe and healthy. If he thinks about anything more he'll start cracking and he can't, that shield holding them up will disappear and they'll plummet to the Earth below and Erik simply can't let that happen. _I'm sorry,_ he shakes his head, because he's nothing if not accountable for himself.  
  
Charles huffs out a breath. It wasn't Erik, but why would he believe him when he's being thoroughly self-deprecating? Why would he listen to Charles, who's thoroughly useless and incapable of helping or contributing in any meaningful, lasting way? When he keeps messing up, and they're only a few hours into this? Charles, who is always, no matter what, no matter how hard he tries, going to be an outsider in this? They're sharp, bitter thoughts, gone as soon as they came but he knows they were there, that Erik heard them, that he knows he's stewing in them and the only thing he can do is not be. He doesn't know how to stay here. He keeps drifting. He keeps zoning. His mind keeps wandering and he keeps realizing how incredibly worthless he is and he was triggered by, what? A word? One stupid, simple word? He bites it all back, throws it all inside a particularly well-locked door and lets it be. Erik wouldn't want Charles now, anyway. It's a wonder he wants him at all, but now it's better if he has Half-Charles, who's at least capable of functioning. Autopilot Charles.  
  
"Charles, stop," Erik whispers the Order softly, exhaling slow and steady. It's hard not to be hurt, not to be insulted, not to be frustrated, but Erik manages it along with everything else. It's hard, but he does it, because he told Charles to rely on him and if this is what he's experiencing, then it is. "I don't want to hear these lies and you're going to stop telling yourself them." That he's an outsider, that Erik doesn't want him-Erik won't listen to it, he won't give it any room. He didn't earlier and he certainly won't now. The only reason they're here is because of Charles. Charles found them, he smoothed the way. There's no possibility where Erik enters this situation and everybody comes out in tact. In comparison he's a brute, a savage soldier with no boundaries. He ruthlessly cuts off that train of thought and submerges it under the ocean where it belongs, extending his shields more to absorb the impact. "It's not better. I told you to lean on me and that's exactly what you're going to do."  
  
But Charles is irritated. Agitated, frustrated, and hurting, too. He's been absorbing just as much, if not more. From everyone. Keeping them together, keeping them whole, filling in gaps and cracks and making sure everything and everyone comes out in tact and it's utterly, completely exhausting. He hasn't even realized he's doing it, the sheer amount of what he's done. Mending and piecing together and fixing and maintaining, taking into himself. The migraine is there, horrid and pounding, and he's been ignoring it, he's been - "Could you not, for once, let it be, Erik?" he snaps, and he doesn't mean it, not nearly as combative, but it's what comes out of his mouth.  
  
All Erik does is press his fingertip against Charles's lips, shaking his head and jerking his chin down at Wanda. "You know that I can't," is his reply, infinitely softer.  
  
That works up the shame again, the helplessness, his own resolve to spiral until he spins himself out of orbit. Instead of responding, he looks down again, not at Erik, not at anything, and says nothing. It doesn't matter anyway. He puts up his own shields. There's nothing to let be. There's no problem. Charles is just overreacting, again. He's being unreasonable, again. He's being useless, again. Nothing is new. Focus on Wanda. Focus on Erik's daughter.  
  
It matters to Erik, who keeps him firmly locked in place, no way to fly into the sun and burn up on impact. "It matters to me," he whispers, brushing Charles's hair from his face. "And I told you not to lie to me, so tell me what is wrong, _neshama_. Now. I won't ask again." He keeps his voice low and steady, no way for the lull to break but that doesn't mean the Order isn't as powerful as any other. Maybe moreso because Erik's consciousness is in total overdrive.

* * *

Charles' agitation hits a peak, but there's nothing for him to do. He refuses to yell in front of Wanda, to become even visibly upset - he won't let it happen. What he does do is attempt to squirm out of Erik's hold, his fingers grasping at his legs where Wanda can't see them, where she would never notice where she's drifting against Erik's shoulder. Doesn't Erik get it? They aren't equal in this. They never will be. Wanda and Pietro - they are Erik's children. They will love him, they already do, and their mother. Their homogenous parents. _My daughter, my son._ And that's how it will be. And Charles will be pushed out, and out, and out, like he always is, off to the fringe and he'll have to be alright with that, he'll need to live with it and he will but it will hurt. He will be Charles, their father's submissive and that's what it will be. Like an extra, sewed on limb. Useless. What can he offer? Money, except Erik can pull that out of thin air, so what good does it do? A big, fancy house, except with the money Erik has he could get his own anyway. One without blood down in the basement. No tradition, no culture, no songs, no familial love. Empty, empty, empty. Charles has nothing. He doesn't know the first thing about family. He's too much like his mother. There must be some of his father in him, too, and what good that will do him. Charles is so stupid for thinking - for believing - _are you happy? There._ _That is what I am upset about,_ he informs Erik, and glares at the ground except there is no ground, trying very hard not to be pathetic and cry again. _Now drop it. Please_. _It doesn't matter. I don't mind. Let it go._  
  
"For believing _me_ ," Erik finishes, and it comes out like a low croak, and he wants to put the words back in as soon as they materialize but there is only so much force one person can take before they bend, before they break. Erik just didn't expect it to come from Charles. His arms are too occupied for him to wipe his own eyes, so he just drips tears into Wanda's hair and he discreetly attempts to be rid of them.  
  
Charles' heart clenches and shrivels right up into his throat. He shakes his head, his own breathing harsh and awful, and reaches his hand up to squeeze at the scratches he'd made on his arm before. "No," he whispers, and he hardly hears it himself. "I believe you. I don't believe -" In himself. In his ability to do this. In his ability to not be everything his parents were, like some sick tradition passed down that he's the heir to. He doesn't trust himself. He doesn't know why it would be any other way, and it wouldn't be Erik's fault. It's not Erik he doubts. It's not Erik he doesn't believe. In fact, Erik is the only thing he wants to believe in, but - the tears slip down his nose, there before he notices or can stop them. "Please," he begs. "I didn't mean to - I'm sorry -" But this is exactly it, isn't it? Erik isn't the one hurting him. He's the one hurting Erik.  
  
Erik doesn't really respond to anything Charles has said or done, though, he just sways Wanda back and forth, focusing on reinforcing the sphere that contains them so they don't go flying off into a separate dimension. "They love you," he whispers instead, through a wet smile. "And I can see how much you love them, too. I believe in you, but I can't Order you to believe in me," he says, low and soft and even, but his voice shakes and he has to swallow against it. "All I can do is remind you that you have in the past, and it's still true now. They already have parts of you. And they will need you, they both will. If you need specifics, I have those, too. There is so much that you can offer our daughter and our son that I already see. We will make our own traditions." It's one of the first things Erik ever told him, and it's been true thus far. "We always have."  
  
Maybe he just needed to hear it. To hear it said so plainly, so obviously, even though he knows it’s an incredibly silly thing to need. It’s the first time Erik has said our. Our daughter, our son. Our children. It doesn’t mean anything more than what he’s said before this, it doesn’t make any of it more significant - but in the moment, it feels like it does. The tears slip down his cheeks faster now and he catches them on his sleeve - on Erik’s sleeve, he hasn’t changed, it’s still Erik’s sleeve - and his heart feels like it starts to beat again, his lungs no longer constricted. “I believe you,” he breathes, and the truth is that he does. There’s little else in this world he believes in more than Erik. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s…” But he does. He does know what’s gotten into him. He’s terrified, plain and simple. He’s unraveling, and he know it isn’t fair to Erik, but there’s so much crammed into his mind that even his brain is having a difficult time making sense of it. He inches closer to Erik, and hopes beyond hope that he’ll pull him in, that he’ll have him, that he’ll wrap him up in arms and Will and keep him, even though he’s so horrifically thick. He doesn’t mean to be. He’s just overwhelmed. He’s just scared, and even the smaller things are throwing him off. “Thank you for not letting it go,” he mumbles, biting his lip.  
  
Erik can't help but laugh, shifting Wanda over to Charles a little bit so he can dab at his eyes with his good hand. It's a gesture of total trust, he doesn't even bother asking first, knowing instinctively that Charles will take her weight. She shifts a little in her sleep; that's one thing she doesn't share in common with Pietro (who's almost as horrifically light a sleeper as Erik) that's for sure. "I never would," he taps Charles's lip, silently encouraging him to let it heal. Erik supposed he didn't realize that he'd never said it, because he's never had to adjust his thoughts. From the moment he heard about this that's how he's considered them. And Charles, being a telepath-he's sorry, he can't help but chuckle. "I know how easy it is to listen to that voice inside of you that whispers all these dark, twisted lies, believe me. Don't. Listen to me instead. Look at me. Hear _me_. Because you will never find them in here." He touches his own temple.  
  
And Charles does take her weight, easily and without question, noting worriedly that she’s a bit light - not horrifically so, or he might need to go back and have a word with that woman, but she certainly could stand to gain. All in time. Fortunately he has two hands and a perfectly good shoulder, so he scoots her onto it and uses the other to wipe the tears Erik missed, biting on his cheek now less because of compulsion and more to be - well, a bit cheeky. He’s smiling a watery smile of his own, leaned fully now into Erik’s chest. “Sometimes even telepaths need to hear it spoken,” he reminds, because he’d known Erik had loved him before he’d ever opened his mouth but hearing it - that was an entirely different experience. “I’m sorry,” he whispers again, and he’s grateful to have a spot to hide in again, because the shame it curls into his stomach is inevitable. He’s making this a thousand times more difficult than it already is. Erik needing to take the time to sort his hopeless, rotten submissive out every five seconds isn’t exactly ideal.  
  
"It's ideal to me," Erik says back, shaking his head. He would do it every millisecond, that's what he's here for. Charles will always have a place here, in his arms, with their children between them. He's still petting Wanda, unable to fully let her go, not yet, and lamenting that there is just so much to make up for, that they should've been here sooner, that Erik should have known about it sooner, should have remembered it sooner, was she going to grow up thinking that she wasn't wanted? Would she have even grown up at all? Probably not. Erik fuzzes out all the rest of those thoughts, because they lead to places he can't go now. All that matters is taking care of them now. And that includes getting them both in to see a doctor and figure out what to feed them and they also need clothes and toys and whatever else kids need.

* * *

That, all things considered, is going to be the simple part. Charles has more than enough money to provide for the children, and they don’t need Erik to waste any energy creating gold out of other materials when there’s never been anything he’s wanted to spend his own money on more (besides, he’s fairly sure that might cause a problem somewhere down the line). The children will never want for anything, that much he can assure. But it does lead to other questions, more logistical questions, ones that have been weighing on his mind since this entire thing began - and they’re pressing, and they’re real, and they need to sit down and discuss them. Charles doesn’t want to be the one to bring them up. Instead he clings to Erik, and he clings to Wanda, and he presses kisses to her hair and lets her rest and lets himself do as Erik Ordered and leans on him, fussing to find his Will exactly as he did days ago in that meeting room.  
  
Like, you know, do they even have birth certificates, there's no way Erik would ever be given custody of children, yep he is there. Also he just kidnapped this baby from a Slovakian orphanage fuck his life. Honestly he sincerely doubts Wanda will be missed, they're probably all relieved she's gone, but there are still considerations. It can't be ignored that Erik is going to have two tiny children living with him, and considering he's still literally wearing an ankle monitor-he's not in the running for Father of the Year over here. All of that melts to the wayside for now as they touch down once more outside of David's farmhouse, and he remembers that this is the part where they get to give Magda something, too. A gift she's been denied too long. Her child, too. " _Ze beseder, mm? Ani mavtiach_ ," he murmurs, keeping Charles tucked in close.  
  
Surprisingly not the logistical questions Charles is at all worried about, because those are rather easily worked around, too - perhaps not entirely legally, but everything they’ve done thus far has been fairly extralegal, so they’d just be following status quo there. Either way he sets it all aside as he stays plastered to Erik, bringing the second twin into David’s home. No one comes running out to greet them this time, but he thinks it has everything to do with the fact that they’re inside waiting (not patiently, but Charles hardly blames them, Magda especially), and Pietro is still fast asleep in Magda’s lap. Wanda stirs at the commotion, blinking sleepily from Charles’ shoulder, and Charles bites his lip again as he carefully sets her down, keeping hold of her hand just in case. She takes that opportunity to hide between his leg and Erik’s, startled and wary. He doesn’t push, though he does coax her away from panic, from fear; there’s nothing to be afraid of here, and everyone in this room will prove that to her.  
  
Erik crouches down in front of her and takes her tiny hands in his larger, good one, raising them up and giving each of her fingers a kiss. " _Lo lefached_ ," he whispers, touching her cheek and lingering over her heart. " _Ani lo marshe kol echad lehach'iv at, mevina_?" No, of course she doesn't, but that's OK. It's mostly the tone of his voice that's soothing, a press of concepts through touch, and he leaves her with a gift, a handful of blooming, sparkly sunflowers in brilliant red glitter, just like hers.  
  
Actually. Charles blinks, and realizes all at once that she does understand, her mind grasping onto the words just as much as Erik’s voice. It’s a strange thing to realize, because before when Magda had spoken to Pietro, he’d almost certainly comprehended, though Charles had expected - oh. He laughs softly to himself, covering his own mouth with the shock of it. Of course his telepathy would fill in the gaps for them, too, would help them learn, too, just as it had taught Charles to understand his Dominant in the language closest to his heart. He never would have needed to willfully, consciously do something so instinctual, not when it’s his children involved. Either way Wanda is soothed, and Charles gives her only the gentlest, softest of nudges as he kneels beside her and kisses her cheek, too, directing her to where she needs to go. Wanda is toddling over to Magda and her sleeping twin before another word needs to be spoken, and then - Charles has to close his eyes, because in Wanda’s mind, clear as anything, is - It’s not in any language. It’s not even a fully-formed concept. But Wanda’s mind, her heart, murmurs brother when she looks down at Pietro, and when Pietro stirs a second time, reacting to the difference in the air or else the noise, it’s in his, too. They stare at each other for a long, impenetrable minute, one in which everyone in the room seems to hold their breath. And then they put their little hands together, one against the other, and giggle. They know each other. Somehow, despite the impossibility, they remember.  
  
Erik's face breaks out in a grin and he ducks his head, unable to tear his eyes away from the vision of his family, whole and reunited and of course they recognize one another, how could they not. How could their individual minds not shine out as brightly as anything you've ever seen. Oh no. Erik knows it as soon as they laugh secretively that this is what they're in for. A whole lot of trouble. Just you wait. It's miraculous, how much they've both held onto happiness and joy, despite everything, but that's the nature of a child's brain, so very pliable. Children hold on to hope long after it could ever conceivably manifest, and Erik vows then and there to do whatever it takes to make sure it always does. "We did this," he whispers to Charles. "Look. They're happy."

* * *

They are happy. Wanda has found her way up onto the couch Magda was sitting on with Pietro, speaking to Wanda who, just as Charles predicted, understands her, too. Pietro and Wanda can’t seem to stop getting into each other’s bubbles, either, which Magda clearly doesn’t mind one bit - how could she, when these are her children, finally reunited? How could she even fathom it? The two of them are communicating, though it’s mostly Pietro shouting words out a mile a minute and Wanda trying to form her little lips around them, to mimic, which it turns out she’s very good at. It won’t take her long at all to learn to talk at the same level as Pietro, he reckons, and the rest they can quickly bring her up to speed on (ha). They also seem to like poking each other, then squealing out in laughter, which turns out to make Charles laugh every time, too, his heart bursting with it. But he’s fretting. He’s fretting and he knows it, because there are so many variables here. There are so many things that must be done that get in the way of this, that threaten to press in and break this moment and he doesn’t want to think of them, but unfortunately he doesn’t have the luxury with his brain currently functioning the way it is. There are so many things to consider. When will they? When will they sit down and talk, discuss this like it needs to be discussed? And - he does the math here. It’s the middle of the night, and the next day they have more meetings. They can’t miss those. They can’t avoid their flight home. They can’t avoid the trial, either one of them. What will they do? How will they cope with it? His heart is heavy and his brain is clogged again, clogged and stuffed and he’s all of a sudden having trouble breathing again, worked himself into a tizzy again, got himself wound up again. There’s no way around it.  
  
"We'll figure it out," Erik murmurs to him, strong and confident. There's no way around that conversation, either, it's happening sooner rather than later. Erik levitates some plates of food in for the kids and Magda and leans over to kiss her on the top of the head, smiling down at her gently. The kids will be occupied with their mother and one another for quite a while, not to mention the promise of waffles and new friends and so much more. They have time. They'll make more time. Erik's brain skips over the trial entirely, failing to address it which isn't like him.  
  
Except they need to address it. They need to discuss it, all of it, and there's no possible way around it. There's a big, glaring issue here, and he doesn't want to be the one to bring it up. He doesn't want to shine a light on it. He doesn't want Erik to have to consider it, but the fact of the matter is that they do, and now he's well and truly worked himself up, his chest heaving with panicked breaths that he shields off from the children and from Magda and he would do the same for Erik if he could even fathom it but he can't. He'll just notice later anyway. What Charles knows is that watching those two beautiful children - his children? His children? - and knowing what's inevitably coming is bringing on the panic attack he'd narrowly evaded hours before, and it's coming on stronger than ever, a current he absolutely cannot swim against.  
  
He doesn't have to swim. There's-a lot of glaring issues, before they can even consider the possibility of raising these kids like a family, and one in particular Erik's mind naturally swerves away from, a bat shrieking against the light except the beating wings are in his heart, but he puts it down and focuses on the problem in front of him. One thing at a time. Whatever is coming, they'll face it, but Charles is right. He has to talk to Erik and tell him what's happening, so Erik tugs him up the stairs and into their bedroom, sitting him on the bed to take his hands. "What are you thinking about?" he murmurs, keeping calm and in control. A buoy against the waves.  
  
Except Charles is crashing up against the rocks at this point. He's currently incapable of properly articulating anything except that he absolutely, positively cannot breathe, that his heart is clanging around in his chest in an attempt to escape and his throat is so tight he might be drowning, his lungs filled with sludge instead of air. He squeezes Erik's hands in his, his harsh, shaky breaths completely unsteady, and then he's hyperventilating completely, tears squeezed out of his eyes out of his control as his body starts to shake. This is Charles out of it entirely, a Charles very few people have ever seen. "Everything," he gasps, and then he's letting go of one Erik's hands to claw at his own chest, at his throat, as if it might afford him more air. It doesn't.  
  
Erik doesn't let that stand, Ordering Charles to slow down and breathe deeply and calmly, resting the palm of his hand over his heart and letting his chest expand against Erik's palm, holding him steady. "I've got you," he hangs on tight. "You're OK. I've got you. Just breathe and focus on the sound of my voice. I'm right here."  
  
Charles shakes his head, still gasping desperately for air, still unable to get enough in no matter what he does, but eventually, as it always does, it works. He listens to his Dominant, as he knows he should. He calms, even if it's only slightly. He catches his breath enough to lean against Erik, tears still streaked down his face, even as his breath hitches as he tries not to overwhelm himself again. His head hurts terribly, and he's been fighting it off for hours now. He ignores all of that and clings to Erik. "What are we going to do," he moans, and buries his face in Erik's chest, fingers gripping tight to the back of his sweater. "Erik, what are we going to do. We can't - we'll - oh," and then he's almost gone again, his chest clenching all over again.  
  
"We will figure it out," Erik says, firm and in control. "We'll make a plan. It's two children, not the apocalypse. We have the support, we have the resources, we don't have to worry about a lot of things that many parents do." But they certainly have to worry about many things that most parents don't, but Erik doesn't draw attention to that. There are a lot of positives, here. "They are happy, and whole, and we will keep them like that."  
  
It sounds simple enough when it's said like that, but Charles knows it's an oversimplification. Nothing about their lives has ever been simple. Not before and certainly not now. He wipes his face on Erik's shirt, and the next words are muffled into the fabric. "We have to leave them," he whispers, and he can hear his own heart break as he does. "You know we have to leave them. They can't come with us, not right now. And Magda -" For however long she has left, she deserves to spend as much time as she possibly can with her children. It would be nothing short of cruel to separate her from them now.  
  
"This will likely be their home for a little while," Erik nods, and that had factored in his decision to bring them here as well, but it seems less daunting when Erik can make the trip in under seven minutes. They don't have to spend days or weeks separated. They can be here. They will find the time and make the time to be here. "I wanted them to be close to her, too," he whispers, dabbing at Charles's tears. There's nothing simple about their lives, but it makes things simpler to condense, to focus on the problem in front of them, to come up with tangible, practical solutions. That's all Erik can do, that's all anyone can do.  
  
Maybe that's the case. Maybe they can travel quickly between both continents, but not with as much on their plates as there is. Not when they have responsibilities and commitments - Erik's most notably, since they're court-mandated - not when they have trials looming over their head. It was enough to be overwhelming in the first place, and now they're factoring in children. Now everything seems sped up, kicked into overdrive and Charles feels like - when will they settle? They've barely had time to live their own lives, to understand or comprehend what those lives are. They've been officially Bonded hardly more than a week. Erik has just barely tasted freedom. He rubs his palm harder into his eye, chasing away the tears, chasing away the migraine, but this time it doesn't work. How can Erik promise they won't fall apart under the weight of this? How can he promise they'll still even - he's panicking again, but he can't help it. He's so fucking overwhelmed, and the longer it goes on the more it feels like his brain is going supernova, about to explode into that inevitable, horrifying agony.  
  
"I don't know," he answers honestly. "All I know is that it is true." Erik really, really can't handle thinking about the trial right now, not his trial, mind-you. They never really went into a lot of it-if you can count Carmen's five page testimony and coroner results and excavations and collapsing on live television as not a lot, but compared to Shaw's trial it's going to be nothing. Erik isn't even sure he can promise that he won't be deemed a danger to those kids and forced to relinquish them to the state, let alone that everything will be all right, but that's the only thing propelling him forward right now like a mantra, when everything and everyone around him started to go into a nuclear meltdown and he was the thing keeping it together, the worker inside the factory; it's going to be OK. They're going to get through this. They will succeed.  
  
That Charles can promise, because he would never let it happen. Fake birth certificates, fake IDs - those are really all too easy to come by if one has the proper contacts and the money, and if they're necessary, they're necessary. But if none of this can be legal, it won't be. Erik has already conceded on more than one occasion - and Charles, too, willingly - that aspects of their lives, their school in particular, where these children will grow up, will exist outside of the law. He's prepared for that. He's more than prepared for that, if he's honest, and he's already proved his own willingness to wiggle inside of the boundaries. It's the rest that terrifies him, and he doesn't know where to start. All he knows is that he clings as hard as he can to Erik, seconds away from falling right back into a panic attack, or an attack of a different sort, and he's not sure he'll come out. "Okay," he breathes, terribly unconvincingly, and tries to swallow everything back down. It's not fair that Erik has to hold everything up.

* * *

The problem of course is that Erik isn't so sure that it should be circumvented. And that's the horrible, selfish truth that he's been shoving down this entire time but it's not fair to Charles, for him to fall in love with those children and prepare to raise them only to realize that-that he's signing their death warrants, that they're going to die. Which obviously is not the cure for a panic attack so Erik keeps that little bundle of joy firmly locked up in the Landscape where it belongs, and he just repeats the same thing he's repeated since this started. It will be OK. They will do their very best, they will give their kids the best chance they can. It might not be easy and it might not be perfect but they'll handle it.  
  
It doesn't work. It's a two-way street, really, and the thing is - when Erik said he will always find out when Charles is hiding, when he's lying, Charles is sure he knew it worked in the opposite. Charles knows when something is being hidden from him, and he's especially sensitive in this particular instance, on edge to begin with and his telepathy kicked into full-gear, oversensitive and overwrought like the rest of him. "Don't do that," he begs, and pulls back, because if Charles needs to be here - all of Charles - then so does Erik. He can't do this otherwise. This is more likely to send him into another panic attack, this lifeless mantra. It doesn't comfort him any. He needs his Dominant. All of him.  
  
No _no_ not now, absolutely not now not now not now Erik can't afford this. It's going to come out sooner or later and Erik has been trying so hard for it to be later, and for once it's not easy to calm him down, his mind firmly resists because it's dark and evil and twisted and he is-and no one needs this part. No one needs this. Certainly not Charles. This isn't going to help. Turn back now. It's just going to make you realize what an absolutely colossal mistake you ever made trusting Erik Lehnsherr. "Not now," he gasps. "Please." Charles doesn't need this. No one does. They creep in when he doesn't expect them to. Images. Sounds. Split-seconds. There's the word, of course, a form of self-harm more efficient than a razor opening up his vein along a straight trajectory. Oddly enough, Erik can't stop thinking about this one Netflix documentary he watched a while back, _Dangerous World of Comedy_ , you know? And the guy goes to Liberia, which, that's always a fun time, and this ex war-lord is just hanging out talking about how Jesus saved him and he's got kids now-you know? And people are like _did he change, did he change_. Did he change from cutting out the hearts of infants and eating them to gain strength or what the fuck _ever_ shit went on-obviously the guy was a cannibal, what was that guy's name-so that's what in Erik's head.  
  
It all hits Charles at once, like a freight train, screaming thoughts and emotions and images too big for one body, and then - he doesn't panic. Perhaps they're taking turns today, because even as more tears well up in his eyes, even as his fingers shake, he puts his hands on Erik's face and he takes a deep, slow breath. And he holds him there. He holds him, and he looks at him, and he doesn't see whatever it is Erik sees when he looks in the mirror - nothing, a blur, sometimes, Charles knows because he watches him every morning, sometimes from his knees while he does Postures - but he sees Erik. He sees his Bonded, he sees his other half, he sees his Dominant. He sees him and then he sends it back, all of the beautiful, wholly brilliant things, all of the ways he loves him - too many, far too many, but if asked he'll name them, all of them, he will - and he doesn't let him look away. He can't make Erik do anything, but he hangs on with everything he has. Begs him not to. "Look at me, Erik," he whispers. "You were never what you imagine yourself to be in those dark places. All of those ugly, twisted lies you've told yourself? The lies they told you? All those things you hate yourself for. You stop listening to them right now, and you listen to me instead. Please. There is no one - no one in the world - those kids are safer with than you. There is no one who could possibly love them more. You are not the monster you've created of yourself to make sense of what was done to you. You are the man I love, and you are my Dominant, and if you can't believe yourself, believe me. You promised you believe me, so believe me."  
  
(Yeah and the-Erik blinks, wait, what? [Wait, was there-?] _General Butt Naked!_ That was his name. Erik snorts under his breath- _Jesus Saves_ , I guess-tap tap-wait, what? Who's there-) Erik clutches onto his chest, digging his fingernails into the skin separating his heart from the outside world, taking in short, sharp breaths through his nose. His eyes slowly flutter and blink up, meeting Charles's for an instant before looking away, unable to bear it. No, he has to get control of this now, there will never be a time for this, to indulge this, it's too big, it's too much, he did it to Warren's child and all of their children, so many of them, so many people, so many bodies, do you know-do you even know-do you even know what Erik notices first in people? You know, eyes, hair, smile. Yeah, no, Erik notices-no, no-  
  
Now it’s Charles turn to not have it. And perhaps he isn’t the Dominant - he isn’t, and he knows it, he’s quite happy in that assertion, to be honest - but this is something he can’t let slide. He can’t let it be. Because for all that Charles hates himself, deep-seated and wrenching, and he certainly does, for all that he thinks one day Erik might leave him when it becomes, as it must have been from the beginning, entirely too much - this is something that has been there from the very beginning. This is something gnarled and ugly that lives inside Erik, and there is time, and there is space, and Charles refuses to let it eat him alive. He refuses to lose his Dominant to it. So he redirects again, this time a much firmer suggestion, and he holds his face in his hands, as much of it as he can fit - his hands will never be as big, and that’s alright, Erik’s make him feel safe and Charles fit in his perfectly - and he shakes his head, tears on his cheeks. “Please,” he begs, and now he’s begging. Pleading, well and truly, and if it gets to the point he’ll get on his knees but he’d do that anyway and after the day they’ve had it’s something he’d aim for. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that Charles is here, and he knows, and he loves him just the same, and he needs Erik to see that. He needs that. “Look at me. Look at me and talk to me. Please. Please, Erik. You can’t keep this inside of you. You can’t. You have to let me see it, and you have to let me love it, too. I already do. You have to believe me."  
  
"I'm a bad guy," Erik gasps back, shaking his head over and over again. The first thing he notices about people is how much metal they have in their bodies. The place where ordinary people have the most metal is in their mouths. It's a habit he's never dropped, it's a habit Charles has noticed and just assumed was the product of his mutation. It isn't. Maybe it would've been, if he'd grown up here in _Sisim_ , but not like this. Not obsessive. "I'm the bad guy," he hits himself in the chest with the back of his hand hard as he speaks, punctuating each word. "It's not safe. I'm-hurt them." He doesn't understand what's happening or how he's gotten here or why it's all cracked and leaking out but he's so sorry, he didn't mean it, he didn't mean to let it out. Not like this. "I'm-sorry-"  
  
Charles' breath gets punched out of his chest when Erik hits himself and he thinks for a second that perhaps he felt it, too, winded by it. He doesn't have time to consider that. Instead he takes Erik's hands in his instead, both of them, scoots closer until he can rest on top of him, hover in his lap, one of the places he most feels like he belongs. "But you aren't," he whispers, and he's crying, too, but it isn't because of anything Erik did. It's because he aches for him, because he feels every ounce of it, and he would do anything to make it hurt less. "You aren't, darling. They made you think like that. They taught you. But you didn't notice it first with me, did you? Think back. Go ahead, think back." He's gone over their first meeting from both their perspectives hundreds upon thousands of times. He knows exactly what Erik first noticed, and it wasn't the metal in his mouth. "And Pietro? Wanda? Go ahead. Think." Not the metal. He knows that for a fact, too. "You aren't who they wanted you to be. That's why we're here. You never were. Think of all we've done together, love, all we've accomplished, all that we share - could we have that if you were a bad guy? Do you really think me that naïve? I know you, Erik Lehnsherr. I know your mind, your body, your heart and your soul. You can fool yourself, but you cannot fool me. You are anything but a bad guy, and you would never - never, do you understand me? - hurt those children, just as you would never hurt me. Look me in the eyes, speak from your heart, and tell me otherwise." Charles knows he can't. Those twisted, dark places might, but Erik - he knows. His heart, his soul? It knows.

* * *

One day, if by some miracle Erik doesn't destroy their spirits, if he somehow manages to exist outside of himself and not taint their memories with this G-dforsaken intrusive hellscape, they're going to grow up and they're going to read about this trial, and they're going to know who their father was. They're going to know Erik Lehnsherr is a monster, a murderer, a-because that's what happens when you're a bad guy. That's how your children suffer. If they can cope, let along if their peers can. His eyes flutter shut and he inhales in short ,wheezing gasps. What if he doesn't know the difference? What if he doesn't realize what's wrong, what the boundaries are, what if he's too much or too distant because he's too scared of being too much-what if he can never stop associating loving his own kids with-with-"I'm-so-scared-I'm scared," he says, touching his hand over Charles's heart in turn. "I'm scared too. I'm-sorry-I tried not to be-want to be-" he wanted to be strong, for Charles, to be confident that everything would be OK but he's not, he's abjectly terrified, too.  
  
And doesn't Erik realize that he needed this, too? He needed - Erik. He needed his Dominant, pure and simple, without hiding behind a pillar of strength. Sometimes that's how it needs to be, and Charles understands that, but - he knew this was there. The whole time, he knew, and he's been reaching for it, because they can't do it the other way forever. Not either of them. They need to be together. They need to sort through it together, both their fears and concerns. And Charles is selfishly relieved, so relieved, because - because - Because Erik feels more like Erik, not the slightly colder, crisis-handling, mantra-repeating version that Charles sometimes feels he cannot reach, cannot hold, and now he chokes back a sob, arms around him fully as everything is let go. "We'll explain it to them. We'll figure it out. We'll handle it together. All of it, together, Erik. And it's okay to be scared. That's what I need from you - I need you to be scared with me," he admits, and pulls back teary-eyed and breathless and, despite everything, laughing. "It's terrifying. It is. For both of us. But you are going to be - you are going to be such a good father," he chokes out, and he knows Erik knows he means it with every fiber of his being. "And that is what they will care about. Not the trial, not what anyone else says. But how you love them, and care for them. And you're going to do such a brilliant job, darling." Charles isn't so sure about himself, but maybe - maybe. He wants to try.  
  
Erik squeezes him back tightly, burying his head in Charles's shoulder. He's shivering, little twitching convulsions periodically seizing his muscles, but when Charles is finished and he pulls back, he shakes his head and lays his hand over Charles's cheek. "I am so sure," he whispers. He's already sure. Charles is going to be incredible. He already is. Erik couldn't be prouder of him, there isn't a single person on this planet that Erik would rather be a parent with. There's so much he doesn't want them to see, doesn't want them to know. And if Erik isn't the one to hurt them, others surely will. Others who will seek to put them in the ground. Burn them. Bury them. There's so much he's desperate to protect them from, so much of himself he is desperate to shield from them, it hurts to breathe and if Charles needs him to be scared, don't worry. Erik huffs a laugh back, running his fingertips down Charles's face. His eyes are wet and tears track down, unnoticed. "And she-" and when he first saw her Charles is right, the first thing he noticed is how much like Ruthie she looked. It's heart-stopping. He can see them, in Pietro and Wanda. Not just himself and Magda, but them. Erik's face threatens to crumple and he barely holds it together. "You really think-" he whispers, wide-eyed.  
  
“I really think,” he whispers back, and rears up on Erik’s lap to catch all those tears on his lips, to kiss them away and catch the ones he can’t with his thumb. The truth is, there are things he wants to hide from them as well. Parts of him that he does not want them to know, parts he wants to shield them from, and perhaps it isn’t as intense a desire as Erik’s, but it’s surely there - and doesn’t every parent want to shield their children from what they perceive to be their darkest parts? From the darkest parts of the world? They’ll find a balance. They’ll find a way to talk about it, to make sense of it, to share themselves with their children but in ways they can comprehend, in ways that help them grow and understand, when they are ready, and when their children are ready. They will protect them from everything the world throws their way, and they will build a safe, beautiful, loving space to do so. A school with the defenses of a fortress, exactly as Erik envisioned. As they both did. “Look at me, Erik,” he breathes, and coaxes Erik with a thumb stroking the hollow of his cheek, a soft, teary smile on his lips again. “I would not do this with anyone but you. Regardless of current circumstances, I would not want to be a parent at all if it wasn’t - if it wasn’t with you. You -” He takes a breath, closes his eyes, and shakes his head. “We’re going to be incredible. Because we’re together. Okay?” he asks, and this time - yes, this time he means it.

* * *

It's not the first time since this started that Erik can't help but think of his grandfather. Back then you ran away and joined a _kibbutz_ and never talked about anything, but that's not really an option for them, is it? He huffs. He's not sure why his thoughts roll around to that, maybe because on many levels he's realizing how challenging it must've been for Edie, to grow up under all that weight, but also because he never, ever sugarcoated it. He never lied.  
  
Erik doesn't know if that's the best route to take. He'd been very young, he had literal nightmares for a while, you know-? It turns out they were somewhat prophetic, but that's besides the point. He's hoping there's ways of making some of this stuff accessible to children that isn't also completely overwhelming, but-he also knows that kids are a lot more resilient and durable than many people give them credit for, and they're also a lot smarter and understand incredibly nuanced topics even if they can't name them. It's just going to be a fact of life for their kids. They're going to have to take some weight, but-looking at Charles beside him, Erik thinks there aren't two people better suited for the task of shoring them up, than them.  
  
"We'll look after each other, too," he whispers softly. "Make sure-" make sure they stay true. To themselves, to their values. Make sure they don't go astray. "I guess we should-" he chuckles a little. "Talk a bit about it." Erik does know where to begin, but so does Charles. He raised Raven from a young age, and he's a college professor. He knows what kids need, developmentally. Erik doesn't know a lot of the science behind it, he just knows what worked for the kids he took care of. In a lot of ways he thinks it's a little similar to their Negotiations stage; the types of things they find acceptable, or unacceptable, their values, their cultures, the languages they'll learn, their education. Some of that is too far off right now, but they can establish something, can't they?  
  
They can establish something. He'd like to, and even if this a conversation he'd planned to have well into the future, at least they can have it now. It's happening now. Charles has plenty of things he could say here, and all of them would be important, but for some reason - it's not right to even mention it, he doesn't think. It's not right to wonder about it. It's selfish, extraordinarily so, and he's even convinced it makes him a horrible parent before they even have the chance to start. So he locks that thought inside, pretends it doesn't ache, and shakes his head. "Where do you want to start?" he asks, quiet, head bowed so he's staring between them.  
  
Erik tilts his chin up. "No hiding," is what he says, an answer as well. "Tell me what you're thinking about?" it's a question, but it's also an Order, and for once it feels-not the indomitable, force of nature that Erik had become over the course of the night-a person Charles really couldn't reach, a construct born in the Landscape and filled only with what Erik thought was needed to be strong, but it feels like petrichor, Earth and wind and electricity and warmth.  
  
It feels like his Dominant. The Order feels familiar, and warm, spreads deep inside of him where he needs it most and that aches, too, aches terribly, and then there are tears again on his cheeks, or perhaps they were always there. “I’m thinking about us,” he whispers, and closes his eyes, unwilling to jerk his chin out of Erik’s grip but even more unwilling to look him in the eyes at the moment. “It’s just - we’ve only really had months, Erik. I know we’re a special case. I know things are different. But we haven’t even - we haven’t even lived alone with each other yet,” he gasps, and saying it makes it real, makes his voice stricken with it, his hands fidgeting in his own lap as he tries to fight off the guilt that this is what’s weighing on his mind. “We’re still a secret. We’ve been Bonded for a few weeks. We’re still Negotiating, there’s so much we don’t have figured out about our Dynamic, about what works, what we need, and -” And he was enjoying it. He was falling into it, beginning to be more open about it. Becoming used to it. To routine, and structure, and Erik’s Dominance over him. To the way their Dynamic worked, the boundaries and their contract. And what about now? Would all of that still stand? Could it, with so much more to consider? With children in the mix? A few days without and he felt like he was suffocating, and now what? He shakes his head, lip trembling. “I’ve been in people’s minds, Erik. I know what happens when people have children too early, before they even figure themselves out, they -” They get lost. They lose each other.  
  
And this time, Erik's answer is a lot more honest, too. Instead of a stalwart assurance that come what may they'd take care of it, he rubs his thumbs over the back of Charles's palm. "Here's what I know. I know I don't want that to happen. I don't want to lose us. I don't want you and I to submerge all of our pain just so we can look at them, either. I want us to find the version of our life, of our Bond, that is natural and easy and good, just like we've been doing, and I know I will never stop looking for that and working for it and trying. What I also know is that-the things which make us-special," he strokes Charles's temple. "Those things are important, and we can't discount them. I didn't plan for this. And it wasn't an accident, either." That reality is rough to say, but Erik needs to say it. "The only person who ever had a plan for those children-" he whispers, shaking his head. "And I don't want that to stand. They're going to learn from us. How to be, how to exist, how to love. I won't sacrifice our relationship for their sake. That would not help them or us."  
  
This time, it turns out to be exactly what Charles needs to hear. He takes a shaky, hitching breath and leans into Erik’s hands, his temple throbbing to the touch but somehow soothed all the same, the migraine still raging calmed even if it’s only slightly. “I want -” It’s difficult to articulate this, but he knows he needs to. He closes his eyes and steadies himself, leaning on his Dominant to do it. “I want them to be raised by us. I want them to see us and know that we love them, but that we also love each other -” He has to cover his mouth to keep from sobbing, for some reason, and he takes another stuttered breath, the next words coming out muffled. “To know that we’re stronger together. That we’re part of a healthy, thriving Dynamic. That it’s possible, if that’s what they decide will work best for them, that it works wonderfully for us. I didn’t have that, I didn’t get to see that, I grew up thinking -” That his submission was weak. That it was wrong. That it was something to be taken advantage of, to be mocked, to be abused for. And while only Pietro is submissive, he thinks it’s just as important that Wanda see a healthy Dynamic, too. That she sees Erik’s role, and Charles’ in response. “And I definitely don’t want this to be the end of us learning together, Erik, because I love what we have, and I know it will change, I know there are more things to consider now, but I…” He’s looking down again, lip wobbling all over again. He just doesn’t want to give it up. He’s not ready to give it up. Learning them, learning their Dynamic, his own submission, feeling like he has a place, like he is finally doing what’s natural, falling more in love everyday. Every hour. Every second. He’s not ready.  
  
Erik tugs his hands down to he can press their foreheads together, rubbing at the back of Charles's neck, where his skin meets the metal of his collar. "I know that I will never give it up. Give us up." Even now, it isn't happening, is it? They're both scared. They both have no idea what the future holds. But they're here. Talking it through. Relying on one another. They have a good foundation and as long as Erik draws breath he will never stop exploring that, adding to it, learning about it with Charles. "And that is exactly what they will see, because it's one of the most important things we can give them." Erik had it. Every family has their problems, but ultimately, Erik had it. And that, more than anything, is responsible for who he is as a person, for how he Dominates, for what limited understanding of boundaries he does have. He didn't know it at the time, he didn't know how valuable it was, how important it was. He took it for granted. Not now. Never again. "I know I'm not submissive, but I hope-" he hopes he can do his part, too, and that's something Charles will have to help him with. To teach Pietro that submission isn't equal to weakness, that he is under no obligation to express his submission in any other way than what he is personally comfortable with, that it is not right for him to be mistreated because of it, and for Wanda to learn that her words have power, and never to take advantage of that, nor to view it as something that makes her superior. And for them both to know that Dominance and submission are not markers of who is cut out to be a leader, to set an example, to be strong. That real strength comes from love, and vulnerability, and acceptance. Not fists and shouting.  
  
Charles already knows Erik can, because he’s done that for Charles. He’s in the process, right now, of teaching him that - that his submission doesn’t make him weak, or lesser, or wrong. It can be something so incredibly empowering, beautiful, good. It can be something worth celebrating, cultivating, nourishing. They will lead by example, and teach their children through that example that it’s possible, that it can be right, but only if it’s done properly - perhaps they won’t have a Dynamic that looks much like theirs at all (not many people do, or could, for that matter), but they will see an example nonetheless. A healthy, loving one, built on mutual trust and respect, and the rest they’ll be given the space to figure out themselves. Charles lets out another shaky breath, melting into the touch at his collar, arching into it unconsciously. “You promise it won’t stop? That -” That it won’t go away? Get lost? Because Charles doesn’t even know if he can handle it, and he isn’t convinced that doesn’t make him weak. A day or two without Erik - well, Dominating him, and he feels like he’s quite close to falling right off the ledge, diving into the deep where there’s nothing to tether him. Getting lost. All the things they’ve discussed, all the progress they’ve made, some not even days ago. He still needs those things. He doesn’t know if that’s selfish, or wrong, or horrid, he just know that he does. He knows he probably needs more, that there’s so much that’s natural and necessary that they just haven’t uncovered yet, and - he wants that, too. He just needs the assurance that they won't get lost in the process of this. That they won't fall off.  
  
"Not weak," Erik murmurs back. Maybe it is a weakness-not in character but quite frankly in functioning, because Erik knows if anything ever happened to Charles it would devastate him beyond all capacity to conceive-but if it is, it's one he shares, and he shares it happily. Being alone? That's not strength, either. Being hardened and impervious and without anyone at your side, that's not strength. And certainly not selfish, or wrong, or horrid. They need each other. They'll always need each other. Erik hopes they never stop needing each other."I promise, neshama. It won't. I won't let it, and I know you won't let it, either, will you?"  
  
Charles bites his lip, but shakes his head. He doesn’t think he could. Even a few days of distance made him feel like all of him was spilling over, like he was lost and stranded and wandering, and he can’t even imagine attempting to go more than that. To not be Dominated by Erik. He doesn’t want to. Why would raising children ever change that? Of course there are things they’ll need to be discreet about, things unsuitable for children to be exposed to, but why on Earth would that mean they stopped? In the aftermath it all seems rather silly, but his heart is no longer clenched so tightly and Erik always gives him space to feel whatever it is he does. He reaches down for one of Erik’s wrists, a tiny little smile peeking up. “I’m just going mad because you’re still not cuffed,” he teases, laughing quietly. “At this rate we’ll be forty before I’m done, too. Everyone will think you’re Unbonded.”  
  
"I could always get some _Silly Bandz_ ," Erik wiggles his fingers in Charles's grip, pronouncing the Z in exaggeration. "Hot pink is my color." He grins back, his nose scrunching up fondly. It's not silly. It's something Erik's always known, but that Charles needed to take the time to work through it isn't silly at all. Erik is here for that, too.

* * *

His face falls a bit, though, and - "I want to wait to get married," is what rushes out of his mouth, all at once. "A while. Maybe even years. If that's -" Charles swallows, looking down again, his grip gone slack on Erik's wrist. "If you'll wait that long."  
  
Erik's brain crashes over itself as he struggles to connect those two concepts together-wait until marriage before he wears cuffs-? But no, it all starts up again in a second. Sometimes Erik parses English a little oddly and this is one of those times, but he just smiles and shakes his head. "I think that's very reasonable." He also doesn't think there's a court in the world that would grant them a marriage license either way, so-there's that. Marriage would change some things, but it wouldn't change the most important things. Erik isn't pining after it. "Tell me your thought process?" another Order, with the same warmth as before.  
  
They were loosely connected in the first place. Charles worries at his lip, wringing his fingers together as he works up an explanation. "Everything has been fast. And good, and right, don't misunderstand me," he smiles, because he would take absolutely none of it back. He would do it all again in a heartbeat. Everything they've been through, every triumph and sorrow and loss and gain, least of all their Bonding, he would do it all again in a single blink of an eye exactly as how they did. He would never wish for different, not even now. Nothing between them has ever been particularly conventional. "I don't even want to wait a day for you to wear cuffs, Erik. We've already Bound ourselves together forever, and I would never take that back. Believe me. But I just -" He shakes his head. He wants one thing that's slow. That is, perhaps, a bit more conventional. That they work up to, and prepare for, and have all the time in the world to get to. Something not shrouded in secrecy, something their children can attend, something they can do when they have more than stable footing. When they're settled. He just wants to wait. It's inevitable, and he knows he wants it, but he wants to wait.  
  
Erik nods as Charles explains, because that's always been how he's imagined it, too. That they'd get married when they can get married. When they don't have to hide. Not because they've commandeered it or manipulated it or fuzzed it out a bit in the appropriate minds, but because everyone knows it to be true. When they can be honest and let the world know that this is right; isn't that the point of marriage? To be open, to celebrate. "I agree," he whispers, tapping Charles's collar. "What matters to me is that you know to whom you belong. Where you belong."  
  
It sends a buzz right up Charles' spine, and maybe it's inappropriate since they're meant to be discussing important things, deeply important things, but he can't help the shiver, and he can't help - "Again," he demands, breathless, leaning into Erik's fingers. Say it again, he wants to hear it again. He needs it after today.  
  
Erik tugs him right into his lap, wrapping him up in limbs-legs and arms and his fingers tighten where they're resting, just enough so Charles can feel it and Erik leans forward to brush his lips there instead, just under his ear and it sends a jolt through his chest and he laughs, amused, because really, Charles? You think they'll lose this? "You are mine," he purrs, pressing his smile into Charles's skin. That will never change. There is no force on Earth that could possibly try.  
  
In theory, that should be enough. Charles had thought it would be. Just enough to settle him down, to get him nicely under but not too far so they can have the serious, probably lengthy discussion they're gearing toward. Enough to calm him and do something for the awful migraine, because for some reason it does. It doesn't feel like it is. Charles sighs, squirming in Erik's lap, arching now against his lips. "Again," he breathes, equally as demanding, grinning because it sounds bossy to his own ears and if Erik was in a mood he'd call him out for it. "Again. Once more. Who do I belong to?"  
  
"It will never be enough," Erik murmurs lowly into his ear. There will never be an end to how often Erik likes to remind him, but more than that-"Mm-mm, no," he tuts, and this time gives him a little nip of reproach. "Now let me hear you say it." That Order shoots up the base of his spine and crackles behind his eyelids, and Erik smirks privately.  
  
Charles gasps with it, lips parted as he gives another pleased, needy sigh and looks for a place to nestle, to hide, his cheeks somehow pink despite how clearly he knows this. How many times before he's said it, in all manners and all situations, from soft and sweet to very much not. "I'm yours," he whispers, and somehow every time it holds the same weight. His eyelids flutter, and he grips tight to Erik, rocking in his lap for no purpose other than to feel, to be held and anchored. "I'm yours, Erik. I belong to you."  
  
"Good," Erik whispers back, having pulled away to look at him, breathing it against his lips. It holds the same weight for him, too, and he will never let Charles forget it. Not allowing him to hide away, because he almost never does, fingertips tracing that flush over his cheekbones. Charles will always belong to him, in every incarnation, in every way-he will always be good, to Erik, his good boy, his dear-heart. Every aspect of their Dynamic exists within each moment they express it, and Erik looks forward to a lifetime of reminding him. "I am so pleased you remember," he grins.  
  
Now Charles is thoroughly breathless with it. Being reminded is one of his favorite things, and being praised by his Dominant among them, too. It should come as no surprise, and he knows it doesn't, but his cheeks still dust further, he still wriggles about until he can nose into Erik's neck, placing soft, idle kisses there. Of course he remembers. There is not a single point, even at his most twisted up, that he could possibly forget. Charles knows whom he belongs to. Always. "Talk," he manages, laughing quietly, because if they continue this line of talk any further he'll drop much farther into subspace than is probably appropriate for this particular conversation. "We should talk." There are plenty things to talk about, and considering he already raised a concern, he lets Erik lead, though he's inclined toward that at the moment anyway. It also means he can find a comfortable place to rest his head, his favorite place between neck and shoulder, soft and soothed.  
  
Erik scoots back so he can lean against the wall, tugging Charles gently along with him, and settling him right back into his favorite spot-and personally, Erik's favorite spot for him. In his arms. Erik supposes it's a little easier to show than to talk. Erik has no really-defined things, so he just starts... thinking about it. When it comes to their beliefs and their values, they tend to either be aligned or at least in proximity enough to be respectful, though they certainly have their arguments (mostly over politics and that'll be fun), Erik doubts it will sincerely interfere with child-rearing. What he always focused on when dealing with the kids back in Arad and the Shaw Institute was morality, and ethics, and comfort, and physical safety. Things like bedtime or punishment or-you know, they didn't factor into it at all, and truthfully Erik wasn't a very responsible caregiver in that regard. But Charles knows it first-hand, the little things don't bother Erik. He doesn't really care if they wear matching socks or not, as long as they brush their teeth and bathe, and everything's clean.  
  
And-well, he doesn't want to Order them. That's probably the big one. In other high-Dom households Dominants do give Orders, but it's different because Erik's Orders are compulsory. Even Wanda's, at full development, would only be highly suggestive. Sufficiently strong resistance can break that. Erik doesn't know how to explain his reticence for it, but he doesn't want his children to feel like they're being-controlled, forced, into doing things. If that makes things harder, then it does, but imagine if-every time there was a disagreement, Erik just Ordered them to do whatever it is-they'd grow up without individuality, without consent, not really. Without personhood. The exception obviously-in times of urgency, or risk, or-you know, Erik's not completely naive, sometimes they'll try and play in traffic and he's not about to let that happen, but-go to bed now is a different story. It's the difference between what he and Charles have and what parenting should be. Is that crazy? Is it wrong? Should he be doing it? Submissive kids generally like structure and Orders, but again, Erik is different. Pietro should theoretically get enough of that from his sister, but-  
  
There's a bit there that Charles thinks they should probably discuss, but he goes for what Erik is clearly agonizing over first, humming to himself the way he does when he's thinking. Their Dynamic and the one they'll have with their children are, obviously, wholly different things. While Charles consented to it, agreed to it, the children will not have. But there's something - he's not sure, really. He bites his lip, trying to untangle it in his head. "Just because you aren't making direct Orders doesn't mean you aren't asserting Dominance, which many children do need," he points out, mostly submissive children, but Wanda would need examples, too. High-Doms without good role models tend to - well. There's usually some sort of an entitlement problem there. There's the fact that he'll inevitably Order Charles around them, too, and that would be its own form of structure and example. "But your Orders aren't - yes, they're compulsory, and perhaps I don't suggest you make them for things like make the bed with the children," he grins slightly, mostly because he knows he's perfectly fine with that being used on him. At least he'll never get rusty. "But they're not something to fear, Erik. You know when it's appropriate to use an Order with me and when it's not, hm? When you'd rather have me obey on my own and when you need to step in? Outside of - well, you know. Because you feel like it, but that's with me. They're going to be your children. You'll know them better as they grow. What they need, what they respond to. I don't suggest we rule them with an iron fist and never let them choose and decide, but that's never how you've used Orders, is it?" Or how any D5 was supposed to, he thinks. Erik figured it out all on his own, even after years of being torn away from it. He has no doubts at all that he'd find a reasonable, healthy balance with their children, just as he has with everyone else. Perhaps that means he doesn't Order except outside of emergencies. Perhaps that means only one of them, or both. But it's something he thinks Erik needs to not fear. Which brings him to something else entirely, and something so terrifying it nearly chokes him, but he settles it right back down.  
  
And of course, Erik doesn't want to inadvertently show them that Dominance is something to be scared of, but intellectually knowing that and emotionally feeling it are two different things and he's sure Charles knows what he means; that he would never want them to equate submission with what he was taught, but it will mean shedding that for himself. But, well, here they are, doing it. He said that Erik was showing him, well he certainly isn't going to stop. And he knows Charles won't stop nudging him along the right path, either, just like he is now. He just hums, nodding, the rest of his thoughts a big muddy swirl because there's so much he doesn't know, so much he couldn't possibly account for, but that Charles can think of something else bolsters him. "Tell me," he says, and then winks, because of course it's an Order. Look. It's been a stressful day.  
  
Charles will take as many of those as he can get, terribly greedy for it. This one unsettles him, but only because of the content. He closes his eyes and hides his face in Erik's shoulder, sighing. "He's an S1," he mumbles, and for a while that's it, as if that explains it all. For Charles, it does. On the one hand, it stands to reason that as an S1 himself, he's uniquely qualified to know what Pietro needs, to understand his experiences better than anyone else could hope to. To know that he isn't Other at all, but instead feels submission at perhaps a higher degree, and still craves what other submissive children do. Likely even moreso. On the other, he knows the things that are going to make it difficult, and he's fairly sure no parent wants their child to repeat the difficulties they themselves experienced. Even with the most balanced, healthy of upbringings, he's going to be - well, an outlier. Different. However he chooses to express his own submission, it almost certainly will not match with his peers, and forcing that will make the gap even more obvious. What could he possibly do to help, besides assure him that he's normal, and that his natural is just as natural as anyone else's? What could he say to make some of that inevitable loneliness better? What about later on, when everyone is putting each other down for the fun of it and experimenting and he realizes he's... not broken, he's not broken, but - It's been clanging around in his head since he learned of Pietro's Indication.  
  
"But it will be," Erik whispers, stroking at Charles's cheek. "Different," he adds quickly, not broken-absolutely not, but different? Oh, yes. Erik huffs under his breath. If there is one thing these children were never destined for, it's normal. Even if Pietro wasn't an S1, he would know what it's like to be an outlier. "I don't think we can settle for telling them they're normal, because they're not. I think we should be telling them that it's _OK_ to be different. That being different is part of what makes them special and interesting, not freaks." And they can't avoid the fact that at some point that experience isn't going to be a positive one, but what they can do is give Pietro what he needs to be equipped with to handle it, not to break, not to lose sight of himself. And Pietro will have something that Charles didn't. He'll have an example. A living, breathing example that he can be happy and fulfilled just by being who he is.  
  
Charles supposes that much is true. If he hadn't been raised the way he was, to hate and fear his own submission the way he did, to be disgusted by it, would it have been so difficult? Would he have navigated better? Adjusted better? Almost certainly. That much he can give Pietro, and Erik by association. It does lead him to another thought, and he chuckles quietly, kissing Erik's shoulder. "D4.8 is very high," he points out, entirely unnecessarily. She'll be hard-pressed to come by anyone higher besides her own father, that's for sure. "That girl is going to have the whole world wrapped around her pinky finger."  
  
Erik grins, and it really is the same one that flashes over Pietro's features whenever he's particularly pleased in himself. It isn't just her Indication, either. Erik knows he's already in trouble because both of the little critters already have him firmly coiled up around their tiny fingers. So much for being a Big Bad D5. "I don't want her to be scared of it," he whispers softly. For all that Charles is worried about Pietro having the same experiences as him, Erik feels the same-about Wanda, and about Pietro, too-he doesn't know it as intimately as Charles, but he does worry, of course he does. They're valid concerns. But he is familiar with the fear. Of himself. Of the people around him. And Wanda already knows it, and he hates that she knows it. "I only ever started to behave better, you know, when someone believed that I could. You told me I wasn't frightening. It isn't who I am. If she'd stayed there, I know what would have happened to her." She would have believed them and she would have become someone to fear, just like Erik did. People do better when they're expected to do better.  
  
Probably. It's psychologically sound, and Charles knows it; it can go both ways, but it was a stark possibility. "She isn't there, though," he points out, and shifts in Erik's lap to stroke his face, to curl a stray hair around his finger and then tuck it behind his ear, to kiss his cheek. "She's with us now. I'm sure part of her will remember it, but she's only two, Erik. By the time she's older, that will only be the most distant of memories." Like a dream. No less frightening or horrid, but just a dream. A nightmare. He knows Erik wishes he had been there sooner, but they got there in time. She's going to be perfectly fine, and any lasting effects they'll handle as they pop up. "You're going to help teach her not to be afraid. That her Dominance isn't anything to fear, just as much a part of her as any other." And Charles would teach Pietro that his submission wasn't a weakness, something to cut out and discard or else be abused. As they learn more themselves, they'll have more to teach. "You're very much not frightening, but I can think of some things you are," he teases, and then giggles against Erik's neck. It feels like he can breathe again.  
  
"Oh _really_ ," Erik pokes him in the sides, relishing in how he twitches. He bows his head against Charles's hand, nudging into his fingers, eyes closing unconsciously. He knows that Charles is right, that he's worried for nothing-possibly, but-this isn't the only time Wanda's going to be faced with this, either. Her Indication, her brilliant abilities, they're not intuitive and people won't understand. It won't be a distant memory. If one thing could cement Erik's views on the mutant rights movement it's-this, it's having children. "We won't let any of that happen," he says vehemently. He won't let them be raised to hate and fear themselves, not for any reason.  
  
Perhaps it’s naive to think that they won’t be faced with fear and distrust for who they are. For what they can do, for their differences in general. He’s certainly faced his fair share, and continues to. But Charles likes to think that if there’s anything that could have convinced him to create a better world, it’s having children. Fortunately he was already very convinced. “Do you still want -” He’d seen it in Erik’s mind earlier, so he isn’t sure why he’s suddenly so uncertain about it now. Charles curls into Erik’s shoulder, into his lap, biting hard on his lip. “Our school? Do you still believe in it? I was thinking - well, it would be a good environment for them to grow up in,” he comments, attempting to sound mild when he’s anything but. If anything, this has only made him more resolved than ever, but it’s not something he can or wants to do without Erik. It’s not something he’d even consider at this point. It is well and truly their project. Their school.  
  
Erik's nose wrinkles up and he silently nudges Charles to quit biting. "It will be a wonderful environment," he whispers, because that part of the equation was never in doubt. Erik's feelings about the school have only become stronger, not lessened. "More than ever, it's needed. We'll make it a home, for all of the kids, not just ours." In Erik's mind they're all their kids, anyway, they always will be. They'll make different choices and their lives will spiral off into different directions but they'll always have a family in one another.  
  
That’s how Charles feels, too. That’s how he’s always felt, when he’s thought about having children of their own, and the truth is that he always had, always knew he’d want to from even before that first slip; that they would grow up in their school, in a loving, nurturing environment, surrounded by children who could help them learn and grow, too. It does bring up some unfortunate necessities - like attending what’s absolutely going to be a dreadful party right on the tail-end of all this - but it will all have been worth it in the end. They can set things in motion. They can start to make a difference. Perhaps it’s Charles’ raging optimism talking, but he can’t help grinning, barely hiding it in Erik’s skin, where he’s nosed back into his neck to press sweet kisses against the bare skin. “A few more points, then,” he sighs, because his own brain is beginning to derail and if he’s honest, part of him just wants - his cheeks pink, and he chases those particular thoughts down, looking for the more relevant ones in the mess of his brain. “I know you’ve said we can make tradition, and I know we can. I’d like that. But I’d like them… well, I’d like them to have yours, too. And Magda’s, of course.” That, he imagined, went entirely without saying, but Charles wants to say it. He wants the children to speak their languages. To know their cultures. To know where they come from. Charles might not have much to offer on that front - he certainly isn’t going to suggest they’re baptized Roman Catholic - but he does have some things, and the rest, Erik’s right, they can work on together. It might be somewhat of a mish-mosh, and they’re going to have a decent amount of holidays to celebrate, but what was wrong with that, really?  
  
Erik laughs. "You know, that's something I never thought about," he realizes. If Magda thinks they're her kids, she might think they already are. Her whole family are, and it's clear she has a hard time separating what's hers from what's real. Hell, she might think-she might _have_ a husband back in Italy who could try to make some kind of claim on them. There's other things involved, too, obviously-other things that make their identities even more complicated, because it's not as simple as a one to three split, technicality plays a role, so they'll have to cope with that, too. On their own terms, but in the interim, Erik agrees. He wants to expose them to everything that makes them them, and of course that will include Charles. The things that he grew up with, that are familiar to him, his culture and society, it's distinct from both Magda and Erik's and as the dominant region where they live, it will be more than just sentimental, it will be practical knowledge. And it's not just-there's issues on all fronts, really. "Magda's family-they're very traditional," he murmurs. "They might not accept Pietro and Wanda, and if they don't, then-that avenue won't be open to them once-" once she dies. Erik thinks it, but he can't say it, the words caught in his throat. "Regrettably I don't know that much about it, and I won't be taught."  
  
Charles doesn’t like to think it, either, much less say it, but fortunately it doesn’t need said. “If that’s the case, then we’ll do the best we can,” is what he offers, because it’s all he can offer. It’s all they can offer. Admittedly he doesn’t like the idea of them being cut off from what makes up an entire part of them, but the most they can possibly do is make certain that they know their mother, and that, when the time comes - he swallows, too, closing his eyes. When the time comes, they have things to remember her by. Language, and song, and stories. She’s already offering them that, that he knows for sure, and the rest they can reinforce. “We’ll figure out a way to make it all work. I just don’t want them to be without it.” He knew it was never going to be a possibility, really - it was always assumed on his part that when they had children, Erik would teach them what he himself learned as a child. His culture, and traditions, his language, his story. The story of his family, which they’re of course a part of. Something passed on and lived on. It’s important to him, and he’s sure it’s important to Erik, and - he laughs, ducking back into his Dominant. “I’m sure we’ll run up against logistical problems more pressing than where _Hanukkah_ and Christmas fall on a calendar year,” he snorts, “But we’ll figure it out. I’ll always be willing to make it work.” Charles has always tried to make as much space for that for Erik as he could, to learn as much as he could, and he wants it to extend to their children. He hopes that much was obvious.  
  
Erik starts laughing. "We had this big book of the calendar, no one ever knew when anything was, I assure you. Now we have Google. Much better." Charles pretty much has Erik's understanding of it, anyway. A lunisolar calendar means that every holiday falls within a specific period of time, a specific season. So, _Hanukkah_ would never be in the summer, _Pesach_ would never be in the winter, etc. "They won't be," he curls his fingers around Charles's cheek. "As much as possible, they won't be." Admittedly, Erik is not a telepath so he doesn't have that same access; and he is definitely not that familiar with Charles's customs. He knows that Christmas and Easter exist, but not really what they're about ( _Presents_? he asked one time. Not exactly. _Isn't the rabbit a symbol of fertility_ \- shush, Erik.) but Charles will teach them, too, he'll pass on the meanings that are important to him, if nothing else. Generosity and family and joy, those are things they both share, it's what unites them both no matter how separate their origins might be. And they'll adopt what they're comfortable with. It won't look like Erik's childhood or like Charles's, or like Magda's or Lana's. It'll be unique, and as special as they are.  
  
Now he snorts out another laugh, giggling into Erik’s neck and clinging around him with arms and legs both, somehow feeling - giddy, maybe? It’s strange, after the day they’ve had, but perhaps not. Perhaps not. “I suppose you can celebrate Easter secularly,” he murmurs, now that he’s thinking about it. It’s a springtime holiday, on its own, which is reason enough to celebrate. He never has, but that’s mostly because the secular way to celebrate is mostly for children, of which he is not, and he never actually did it that way when he was a child. He had formal brunches, which was basically another excuse for Mother to get drunker than usual and - well, needless to say he’s quite alright with his children’s lives not looking much like his did. “Egg hunts do sound like fun, I’ll admit. I’m sure you can think of creative places to put them.” At the very least they won’t run out of ways to have fun. To be together, to be joyful, to be a family. He might be a bit overcome with it, actually, because he kisses Erik’s neck, all the way up to his jaw, his cheek, his nose, feathering kisses everywhere his lips happen to touch.  
  
"What is an egg hunt-" Erik starts, but he's promptly cut off by a kiss and he grins against Charles's lips. Maybe they can make scrambled eggs after? Or mix it up and throw in some pashtidot for good measure. They can make little rabbit-shaped omelets. Definitely not anywhere near a formal brunch, that much he knows. He's laughing, delighted, and he passes his hand over Charles's ear, removing an egg from his hair and presenting it to him. It's got designs painted all over, a cartoon Charles and Erik, this time surrounded by tiny cartoons made of mostly arms and legs. "I found one."  
  
It’s really quite incredible, how he does that. Charles never finds himself less in awe, less delighted. “You’re getting the hang of the egg painting tradition, too, but perhaps we don’t show off so much. You’re supposed to dip-dye them, anyway,” he grins, and then promptly sets the egg aside because it’s thoroughly in his way. Perhaps it’s an inappropriate time to properly straddle Erik’s lap, to wrap his arms around his neck and kiss him full on the mouth, but he doesn’t intend to get carried away. It’s just that he’s overwhelmed and oversensitive and there’s still a migraine pounding at the back of his head and he’d just like - “Tell me, tell me again,” he begs, and he is begging this time, lips inches away from Erik’s as he breathes it out. “Tell me, Order me, please.” Just enough to get him through the rest of today, the rest of tomorrow. Then they’ll get back to the States, he’ll - go to one of his mother’s parties - all of it makes him groan, eyes closing as he tries not to fly off and start to tremble. He won’t ask for more than this, but just a second. Just a moment.  
  
He can ask for more. He can ask for everything. He need only ask and Erik will do whatever is in his power to provide it, but fortunately for him this is one arena they are both quite aligned in. Erik decides not to sprout a bushel of eggs from Charles's nose for that showing off comment, but he does give him a playful tap, arms coming up to hold Charles firmly in place. "Tell you, hm? Hm?" he laughs, soft, eyes bright as he looks up. He places his hand over Charles's heart. " _Sheli, neshama, tamid. Besum ofen lo tishkach ze_." The imperative form zips up through Charles's fingertips and into his chest with far more punch than an English Order. It won't be their last moment. Erik will be with him every step of the way, and even if it doesn't feel like it, they will get through it.  
  
Charles knows that. He isn’t counting down moments as if they’re in finite quantity, because he knows that, despite everything, they always make time. They always will make time, and they have from the beginning when their time happened to be in very limited quantities. They found a way around it. But now he feels - he isn’t sure, exactly. Like he’s starved for it. All he knows is that the Order makes him shiver, that the words make him shiver, that they sink deep underneath the skin until he no longer feels like he’s coming apart at all of his seams. Like his brain isn’t splitting itself in half. “Again,” he whispers, and dips his head near Erik’s, smiling because it’s silly, it’s so silly. “Tell me again. Order me again.” Make it last. Let him carry it around with him. Even if they have more to talk about, they can talk about it like this. It’s not a request, it’s an Order on its own, and he hopes - he hopes Erik does something about that, too, stomach already clenched with the anticipation of it.  
  
Erik did say ask. Certainly not demand. He tuts in amusement. "Again? Mm-mn. _Bakesh li nechmad,_ " he whispers back, smirking because Charles has no choice but to be very nice indeed, because Erik hasn't given him one, because it's his right. It's their Dynamic, what makes them them, what they need, that they haven't begun to scratch the surface of but if there's one thing Erik isn't afraid of, it's that. Not anymore. He used to be afraid to even give an Order at all, but now it's one of the first things that stabilizes him.  
  
Charles used to be afraid, too. If he ever still is, it's certainly not of Erik. Now Orders make him stable, make him calm, make him feel safe above all else, and this one is no exception. He trembles slightly in Erik's arms this time, already so on edge that his toes curl just from this, that his entire body shivers just from this. He was so afraid that it would disappear. That it would be lost, that Erik wouldn't find a reason for it anymore. He settles in Erik's lap and nestles into his Dominant, into his shoulder, into his neck, still being held firmly, still wearing his clothes. His collar. He bites his lip. "Please?" he tries, and this time there's not a hint of demand, not a hint of defiance; there wasn't to begin with, but there's no trace of it now, soft and sweet. "Please. I want -" He doesn't know, really. He just wants to be Erik's. He got so mixed up before, he was so scared, he thought he had to let it go to be strong, but that's not true. That's not true. This is okay. Needing this is okay. Erik still needs it too, doesn't he?  
  
"A reason-" Erik gasps, shaking his head. "The reason is-" the reason is that he couldn't function. He couldn't breathe. "I love you," he whispers, pressing his lips to Charles's gently. "I will never let you go." Anymore than he hopes that Charles would never let him go, either. That was what scared him the most. That Charles didn't want him, that he thought it would be too hard, that he thought Erik didn't-didn't love him. That Erik could go off and raise a whole family without Charles, that sentence doesn't even make rational sense. "And I will always bring you back," he finishes softly. For as long as Charles truly wishes to be kept. Forever, hopefully.  
  
Charles couldn't imagine ever not wanting to be kept. Ever not wanting to belong to Erik. "Forever," he echoes Erik's thought, his voice breaking on it, and he adjusts himself in Erik's lap until he can properly lie against his chest, head resting on his shoulder. Held and kept and loved. He knows they should get up. As much as they talk of making time, the time they have left in Israel is horribly limited, and there are certain restrictions. They need to be on the plane back. They need to at least look like they've settled back in at New York. They need to travel not long after to The _Hague_ , and in between Charles has a commitment of his own, which he's tried very hard not to even consider because it's so ridiculous in the midst of all this (and still it's taking up brain space, eating at him just a little). They should talk to Magda. She needs to be part of the discussion to begin with. She deserves to be in the know. They should establish some kind of tentative plan. But Charles will take this with him, through all of it, Erik will be there, guiding and Dominating and loving, and that will make it okay.

* * *

She does, and she will be. It's quite frankly silly to think otherwise, but they needed this first. To regroup, to talk over some things, to get accustomed to the idea. It will make that conversation easier if they have a unified vision of their own instead of three fractured parts. "Did you-" Erik blinks as he realizes something, and pulls back to look at Charles, eyes widening. "Did you hear me?" he touches his own mouth, inhaling audibly. "I talked to them."  
  
Charles just smiles softly, reaching up to touch Erik's mouth himself, tracing over it with a finger before he nods. "I heard you," he whispers, and his heart sings with it, pride and pleasure pulsing through their Bond strong as anything. "Loud and clear, darling." Little by little, Erik is breaking out of everything that was conditioned into him. Sometimes it will be more difficult, even impossible, and he knows that. But that doesn't make him any less proud of how far he's come, how brilliantly he's done. "Do you know it? That I'm proud of you?" he asks quietly, because he thinks, perhaps, he doesn't say it enough. How absolutely extraordinary he thinks Erik is. How brilliant, and strong, and resilient. How beautiful.  
  
Erik tugs Charles's hand closer and kisses each one of his fingers, just like he did for Wanda, ducking his head to hide his sheepish little grin. A bit red. This is what he's going to take with him-to The _Hague_ , back to New York. Out there into that living room. The knowledge that Charles is confident in him and is pleased with him and proud of him, the fact that he did-he did break it, he did talk to them, he has more in his life than anything that was ever envisioned for him by the old masters. He lowers Charles's hand down his throat and rests it against his heart, where it beats strongly into his palm. "Thank you," he whispers. He has no doubt that none of it would be possible without Charles. None of it at all.  
  
He would beg to differ, but the problem with that is that he’d then have a difficult time asserting that Erik has given him his entire world, too. Some of the elements already existed, of course - Charles had convinced himself he lived a perfectly well-functioning, relatively normal existence - but the truth of the matter is, it never would have led to this. There’s been an awful lot of grief and stress in the past few months, but what he’s gained in the process is completely worth every second of it. In a heartbeat, he’d do it all again. None of those things are possible with Erik. None of the person he’s become is possible without Erik, and that person is undeniably happier, stronger, better adjusted. It’s just fact. Being touched this way doesn’t make him want to get off Erik’s lap anymore than he did two seconds ago (unless it’s to get on his knees, and isn’t that a thought, but a thought for later, much later), however, but that’s something else he’s willing to sacrifice. “Let’s get back downstairs,” he whispers, because they need to. There are decisions to be made, and things to discuss, and like always, they’re stronger now that they’ve come back together.  
  
He slowly rises to his feet, unfolding himself and seamlessly pulling Charles after him, moving fluid and graceful together. He isn't so sure his voice is going to follow him downstairs-even with the kids, it's not been reliable, but-but it's something. It's their family. He tucks a strand of Charles's hair behind his ear and materializes the egg in his hand, and then another egg, and another. They stack on top of one another and Erik tosses them up and they disappear with a chirpy whistle. "Egg hunt," he laughs, nudging Charles with his elbow as he leads them downstairs, hand-in-hand.


	64. a woundedness that, by filling it, the snow might heal.

Charles will have to spend some time in the future going over what an egg hunt actually entails and that pulling the eggs out of seemingly thin air defeats the purpose, but considering he’s never had one himself, he supposes it’s a good effort. Either way he’s smiling as they walk down the stairs, and he waits for Erik to walk behind him, content to hold his hand in front but needing that bit of extra guidance. He thinks it might be mutual, too. The living room has entirely cleared out by now except for Magda - it is the middle of the night, it’s more than expected - and the twins, who are sat beside her and playing with each other and one of Pietro’s cars. He seems intent on showing her the right way to play with said car, too, and Wanda is endlessly patient, repeating motions after he shows her, mimicking the sounds he makes with her own mouth. They have a language of their own, he notes, entirely outside of the ones they now share - touch and movement and shared looks between them, as if they haven’t been separated a moment of their lives. “You look tired,” he murmurs to Magda, soft and barely above a whisper. And she does. Exhausted, really. He gives her mind a much-needed boost, manually resetting some things, rewiring, rejuvenating, things that sleep naturally helps with; he hasn’t even realized he’s done it. It isn’t a real fix, but it will help. The lack of pain helps, too, he's sure.  
  
Magda looks up only to see Erik juggling a bunch of eggs which vanish into the ceiling and she snorts a laugh into her elbow. "What is your father doing, hm?" she rocks Wanda back and forth in her arms, which are draped loosely over her shoulders. Pietro isn't one to be kept and held still, funnily enough, but Wanda loves it, her patience extending to her overtaxed mother, too.   
  
"Eggs!" Pietro comments astutely.   
  
"It is Easter in June," Erik manages, and Charles does end up translating that one, but it's seamless enough that no one notices and Erik gives him a smile, tucking him into his good arm.   
  
"Charles," Magda murmurs up at him hoarsely, pressing her fingers into his gratefully. "Are you two doing OK? This is so much."  
  
A loaded question if there ever was one, but it has a simple enough answer if he doesn’t dwell too much. “We’re doing alright, all things considered,” he assures, smiling despite his own exhaustion, and suddenly he’s very grateful that they both decided (or, their bodies did, anyway) to take extended naps today - the day before? It’s well past midnight at this point, so that’s likely accurate. And since when is it June? Time flies. “How are you?” he asks, even though he knows. It’s a telepath’s burden, really. He leans down to run a hand through Pietro’s hair, who leans into it and then shoves a car into his hand, and Charles laughs. “Vroom, vroom,” he indulges fondly, and even attempts to move it without his hand once he gets to the end of his reach, lifting it into the air, which works fantastically for about a minute and then wobbles pathetically like his usual attempts at telekinesis when he’s not under duress. He really needs those lessons soon. Wanda seems to find it impressive anyway, her eyes wide as she points, and then there’s a gorgeous scarlet force pushing it along with quite a similar amount of control, her little arms out in front of her. It disappears faster, likely because she’s tired, too, and drops more abruptly, causing him to catch it, but Charles snorts. “I really need to work on that, or this will become embarrassing fast,” he comments, but he truly doesn’t mind. Some practice is definitely in order nonetheless, but he hasn't even gotten a moment to breathe since he discovered it, let alone sit down and actively work at it. Erik does keep offering, though.  
  
Erik laughs under his breath. "Don't worry," he murmurs fondly. "I will teach you both." He raises his hand and the car slowly lifts up, in a single, easy line and swirls, reflecting the light above into a brilliant miasma of technicolor.   
  
Of course, Magda's answer is predictable. "I'm tired, and shocked, and-so happy," she huffs. "I don't know how I can ever thank you. Do we have any-do they have any family? What's the plan, here?"  
  
Charles imagines those lessons will be wildly different, and he looks forward to Erik’s methods for both. For now he just lets Erik handle the lifting part, working instead on shifting Reality a bit for their pleasure, to keep them busy while they talk; this he can do with practiced, incredible ease, and it’s really quite brilliant what he’s capable of, transforming the living room into an entirely different space but only for the twins. Pietro gasps in absolute delight and he knows it’s because that car has transformed itself into an entire speedway for him, the sounds and revved engines and the smoke, the speed and the things he’s only seen on TV right in front of him in a way only Charles could manage.   
  
Wanda holds onto her brother’s arm but sees something entirely different, something much more subdued, a field filled with flowers and light and music, bubbling rivers and creatures she imagines when she’s alone, to keep her company, to keep her safe, and they share amongst each other, babbling excitedly. He watches and smiles, pleased with himself before he turns back to Magda, leaning back against Erik.   
  
“Wanda doesn’t,” he answers simply. “Pietro is a bit more complicated.” His mind wanders to Lana, searching for her mind and finding her awake and fretting on a couch in the other room. Charles gives Magda that explanation quickly and efficiently, basically moving it from his mind to hers, and it’s strange how open he’s being with his telepathy. He doesn’t seem to notice. “We came to discuss a plan, actually, but right now it seems that they’ll stay here. With you, of course.” And Erik’s family and the children. They certainly won’t be lacking playmates.  
  
Magda nods. "But she's-here," her eyebrows arch. "Is she OK with this?" Erik touches his own chest. He brought her. She wasn't safe, and it didn't seem right to separate them. It would make things smoother for Pietro, too, instead of immediately ripping him away from the only environment he's ever known, and his caretaker, his parent. "That makes sense," she says in response, when Charles tells her. "A plan sounds good," she laughs.  
  
“A plan,” Charles confirms, and suddenly he’s nervous again. He can’t quite pinpoint what it is he has to be nervous about (besides everything, he means), because everything he and Erik discussed upstairs is still true, but it’s dropped into his stomach again and there’s little hope of getting it out. He fidgets with Erik’s good hand that was wrapped around his middle, playing with his fingers, biting down on his lip. “Do you - have you thought about it?” He wants to know her thoughts. Erik and him have had time to regroup and discuss, but she wasn’t included in that. It seems only fair to give her the floor first. To let her raise her concerns.  
  
Erik squeezes back, assuring. Magda shook her head. "No," she admits, quiet. "I guess I haven't. Listen, I-" she takes both of their hands. "You two can't worry about me. I'm just so happy to be able to see them again, to know that they'll be loved and looked after. That they're all right." She doesn't have a whole lot of time. It's not fair for her to make demands or infringe, all she wants is to see them and talk to them and touch them and Erik and Charles have given her that opportunity. "I just want to know that they'll be-happy."  
  
It all gets caught up in Charles’ throat. This woman - this incredibly strong, intelligent, independent woman, she’s been Erik’s friend for years. They might not remember it all, the bits and ends and specifics, still tangled up where he wasn’t given the time to properly unravel them, but their hearts do. They know. They have a child together, and while Charles is infinitely, unspeakably grateful to get the chance to call them his children, too, Pietro and Wanda come from both of them. They should have more time. There should be more time. Charles hardly knows her at all, and it strikes him as one of those things in life that is distinctly unfair. The only thing he can give her is this. “We’re going to start a school together,” he whispers, and despite the lump in his throat he tries to smile, because it’s one of the things he’s most proud of. It doesn’t exist yet, but it will, and he’ll do everything in his power to fight for it. “Erik and I. A school for mutant children, to learn, to grow - a safe space. We’d like to raise them there.” He gives her the image of it, though it isn’t nearly finished, the plans, the actual construction not even started, and he and Erik still squabble over some of the details, strangely one of his favorite activities: he shows her the Manor, the sign out front, the lively, bright classrooms they’ve envisioned. The grounds, the space to run, to explore, to play. To challenge themselves, to learn themselves. “They’ll be safe. They’ll be very loved.” He looks down, and takes a deep, stuttering breath. “I can promise you, most of all, that they’ll be very loved.”  
  
It makes Magda smile. "A school, instead of a laboratory. I like that," she whispers in her deep voice. "'You'll make wonderful teachers, and parents. I know it." If there were anyone she'd entrust her children to, it would be Erik and his partner; she doesn't know Charles very well, but she can tell he's got a good heart, and he's responsible for this. She trusts him, too."This-school," she looks at Erik skeptically. "For mutants." It's not reticence or fear of the concept itself. Magda has no fear of mutants, but what she is scared of, is that Erik might be missing what he once had in his life, a sense of purpose, a sense of-a sense of war, and fighting, and she doesn't want him to get lost in that again, in vengeance and anger and us versus them. She doesn't want her children to be taught that all humans are bad.  
  
Charles snorts, and then hides it in his free hand, because it really is out of place. He shouldn’t be laughing at what he imagines could be a perfectly logical, fair concern. “I’m not sure how much you know about me,” he says, except he does, because he can tell it’s not much at all. He imagines there wasn’t exactly time for her to Google him, but if she did she’d see plenty. “But I’m, much to Erik’s occasional dismay, an integrationist, and an exceptionally optimistic one. Even if he did start to veer off, and he wouldn’t in the first place -” That he knows, because sometimes Erik’s mind does categorize that way, but never in the all humans are bad variety. All humans fear what they don’t understand, and therefore are prone to reaction, eventually there will be a fight, eventually there will be a conflict, yes, he’s heard that one, but they’re not even close to the same thing. Perhaps Erik will always be preparing for war, for a fight, on the defensive. Charles can’t blame him for that. He can certainly try to convince him that it isn’t necessary, and he has from the start, to varying degrees of success. “I wouldn’t allow it. Your children won’t be learning anything of the sort.” They’ll be subject to differing views, but Charles doesn’t think that’s a bad thing. It takes all sorts, and neither he nor Erik are extremists. They'll find balance, and hash it out in the meantime. They have so far.  
  
Erik sticks his tongue out. "Occasional," he grins. He shakes his head, though. He was never a supremacist, not like Shaw. He never desired to see humans come to harm. Even at his most indoctrinated and youthful and naive, he thought humans should be ruled by mutants because humans have proven that when they're in charge, they destroy. He never wanted to subjugate anyone, his vision always more-or-less looked like reality, except with mutants in positions of power, who would keep things equivalent and balanced. But of course Shaw, well, didn't approve of that hot take, so Erik kept it to himself and toed the party line. His actions now, the only motivation he has is to ensure that mutants have some way to defend themselves, some way to protect themselves, to preserve themselves and exist. He doesn't think it's a bad thing, it's probably the only thing that's going to keep their idea alive, to be honest. If they make their school an integrationist or separatist institute, they'll be alienating large swathes of the population and drawing a line between mutants that they can't afford. Every mutant needs to be welcome, regardless of what they believe, as long as they keep the peace. All they can do is teach how to think, how to think critically, how to research, how to examine the facts, how to figure out what's important. What that is, is up to each individual.  
  
Magda runs her fingers through Wanda's thick hair, separating the strands carefully. "I didn't mean to imply-" she shakes her head. "I don't really know what's real or unreal, to be honest. You get so many people saying you say this or you say that, you know," she elbows Erik. "And the same is true for you, too." She doesn't need Google, she's seen the television since she's been here. "This-this _thing_ , this, this Mutant Control Act. Don't do it. Don't. _Promise_ me you won't put my children on that list."  
  
The mention of the MCA makes him go pale, because he hasn’t been keeping up nearly as well as he should. There just hasn’t been the time to spare for it, and there isn’t much they could do, besides - but the reminder sends that sick feeling right through him all over again. Last he checked, there was nearly an even split. For, against. As if taking freedoms away from a portion of the population was something to even debate, as if it shouldn’t be exceedingly obvious what the right decision is - and he doesn’t know what they’ll do if it passes, now or in the future. He doesn’t know what the move to make from there is. Charles believes whole-heartedly that everyone involved can be shown a better way. That they can be made to understand that everyone, regardless of a single mutated gene, deserves the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities. “It won’t get to that point,” he says, except he knows he can’t promise it. He’d like to think he could, but he can’t. “They won’t end up on a registry, Magda. None of us will. They’ll be safe.” That much, at least, he can be sure of. They’ll be safe. Charles refuses to let his family be in danger, and he can be realistic. Starting a school will get them noticed more than they already are. They’ll be careful. Erik wouldn’t ever dream of anything less. They’ll be protected.  
  
That's the point at which Charles can tell he's lost her-that blind faith that no one will, that everyone will be safe born of a complete and total inability to comprehend how someone could do that to you, how someone could force you out of your home and take away everything you've ever known and treat you like a non-entity, a non-person-and this time when she talks she's looking right at Erik. "You promise me."   
  
He touches his hand to her cheek. "We won't let it happen to them. I promise. If they come, we'll be prepared. We have allies. We'll do what needs to be done. They won't live like that." And as much as Erik believes himself to be right, you know, like most people, that's also the point at which he has to concede that Charles, that the integrationist movement, has a point.   
  
Separatism is reactive, it's pragmatic, and that Erik believes in it is due to those reasons alone. It's realistic. But you can't hope to live in a society that accepts you, that teaches about you in a positive light, until you can develop a dialogue that is meaningful and coherent and mutually intelligible. And they may have to fight to get there, just like everybody else. You fight, you struggle, you die, and then you look at the carnage and realize there has to be something better than that. Because if there's one thing Erik does believe about all humans, _homo sapiens superior_ included, it's that they don't learn from their mistakes.  
  
Charles sighs. There are obviously things he disagrees with here, fundamentally and idealistically, but he isn’t going to argue the point. There’s no reason Erik can’t promise that. There’s no reason he can’t prepare for what he believes to be an inevitable, realistic future, even if Charles believes it never need come to pass. That there are other ways to navigate it, and that he will do everything in his power to see that it’s done. That there’s no need for separation. If the time comes to fight, though, he has to know that Charles will be fighting alongside him, and he’s positive that he does. His optimism doesn’t mean that he’s utterly naive, and he believes he’s proved that point on more than one occasion. “ _Homo sapiens superior_ ,” he repeats, mouth twisted up in distaste, that furrow to his brow as he sighs. “It doesn’t even make a lick of logical, scientific sense, it’s completely -” He’s digressing. Charles bites his tongue, shakes his head. “Magda, your children will be safe, and they’ll live the life they deserve. I’d like to see a force on this Earth try otherwise,” he snorts, because that much is a certainty. Between he and Erik, those children - all the children in their custody - will be safe. That’s not blind optimism. That’s resolve, determination, and he really does pity anyone who tries to stand opposite of it.  
  
"It does not make a lick of scientific sense that a mutant's entire body can be adjusted to accommodate their mutation?" Listen, Erik just can't help himself. "Look at Roberto-" Magda holds up her hand and claps it over his mouth, inserting her face between them. "I can see what you mean about occasionally." Erik's muffled, " _buh iz abowt wah zey zink of us not shience!_ "-eyebrows completely raised, Magda can't help it, she starts giggling.  
  
"That's not the entire body accomodating the mutation, that's the mutation itself allowing for the necessary change according to environmental factors that still has - scientifically speaking, the X-gene makes no - " Okay, okay, this isn't the time. He stops himself in his tracks, too, and can't help but laughing himself, both at Magda's reaction and Erik's muffled protests. They can have this debate some other time, and he's sure they will, many times, but the bottom line is this: the children will be safe. They'll be safe, too. That's something their ideals will never compromise. "We'll be alright, Magda," he tells her, and of that he has utmost confidence. He leans back into Erik, wiggling to encourage his Dominant to put his arms back around him. "Even if my Dominant is unfortunately a mutant separatist," he teases. "We'll be alright."  
  
" _Mwwwp_ -" is Erik's brilliant retort, when Magda smushes her hand even further into his face. Erik puffs out his cheeks like a blowfish and when she's satisfied that they're no longer debating, she lets him go so he can wrap Charles back up nice and cozy.   
  
  
"I know you two have different opinions about it," she says softly. "But I just want to know that you won't sit back and let something bad happen. That you won't just trust a system of law enforcement for its own sake. Sometimes the law can be unjust. I know they'll never know me, but I want them to know-I wanted the best for them. For all of them."  
  
Charles shakes his head. He's never been committed to the law, not for its own sake. He doesn't see any problem at all with circumnavigating it, when it is unfair, when it is unjust. It's not concepts he believes it. It's people. People can be wrong, and they can make mistakes. It doesn't matter, in the end, what his ideals are. They'll inform his decisions, of course they will, the way he thinks and acts, but in the end he'll do what he has to. He won't allow his family to suffer, not for an idea. "They'll know you, Magda," he whispers, and glances at the children, still playing in their own little worlds, the ones he's created for them, oblivious to this conversation. "Of course they'll know you. We wouldn't have it otherwise."  
  
Erik crouches in front of her, taking her hands in his. The fact that she can see the tears in his eyes is more telling than anything else. Her memories-the recent ones, the ones she thinks are her own-tell her that occurrence is uncommon. He's always felt responsible for what happened to her. Because he can't fix it. He's tried. He has all this power. He can make things appear out of thin air. He can-change reality itself, but he can't heal her. He can't remember how they really met, but she's from Italy. Chances are he was there. Chances are he lured her, chances are he followed his orders. If Shaw were so inclined, chances are he probably operated the equipment that caused her affliction. All of this is because he was asleep, because she was just another face. Because she wasn't a real person. Because he is a bad guy. And he's sorry. He's not trying to guilt-trip them into comforting him. There is a point at which you need to be accountable for the decisions you've made, and he was an adult when he made them. His worldview was completely shaped by a lunatic who threatened his life on a daily basis and maybe that makes him less responsible, but-there are no guidebooks to that, to how you're supposed to feel about being a casualty of that. He doesn't blame her if she's mad, if she's pissed. He just wants her to know that he is so sorry, and he can't make up for it. All he can do is try, forever.   
  
Magda squeezes his hand. She knows all of that is true, but she chooses to remember the good. Erik has limitless potential, he should have the chance to do good with it, to choose good. To teach their children to choose good. Like Charles, Magda wants to believe that people can be shown a better way. If nothing else, Erik is living proof of that.  
  
Erik can't change reality, not really. If he could, perhaps things would be different, but he can't. He can alter the world to his liking, he can change particles and spin electrons and gravitational fields and the rotation of the Earth, but there are limitations. Limitless potential, and still limitations, and Charles wishes that it weren't so. That he could do something, even. But as much as he can alter Reality itself, split the fabric and make the entire world believe they're living something entirely different, twist the universe to his liking and shape an entirely new one from scratch, until no one even remembered the original - this? That's something he can't touch. He can take her pain, he can take her agony, he can take her weariness, he could even take her awareness that she was sick at all - but not this. Not the sickness. It seems entirely, outrageously unfair, but there's nothing to be done. Nothing to be done but this, and he takes her free hand, holds it in his. "Thank you," he breathes, and his voice cracks. "For letting me be a part of this. For trusting me with this. I promise, Magda, that they will remember you." Charles will remember her. Such a short amount of time he can know her, and she's had such an incredible impact. He won't forget this moment, not as long as he lives, and not because he remembers everything.  
  
"Oh, no," she laughs softly, reaching for his hand and giving it a feeble squeeze. "I'm not letting you do anything, _caro_. You were always going to be part of it. You just win, and make sure they grow up good. That's the only thanks I require." She knows it's not easy. She never could have dreamed it up, she always thought she wanted to have children. And she wishes it were easier, that it wasn't a source of such stress and fear and pain, because they don't deserve that. She believes in time it won't be like that. They'll learn what they need to learn and realize what they need to realize and it will be. Good. She only wishes she had a little more time, to help make things a tad simpler.  
  
He wishes, too. But there is one thing he can offer her, and something that Erik needs also. Charles takes both of their hands, one in each, and manages a small, hopeful smile. And despite how confident he'd just been with his telepathy, now he's hesitant again, shy. "May I?" he asks, and flexes his mind toward hers, toward Erik's, asking for permission. "There's something I'd like to give you, and it may be overwhelming." He pauses, laughs gently. "On top of everything else, I mean."  
  
The hand of Erik's is his right, so it only twitches against his palm, leaving his other free to rest against Charles's knee. Erik's leaned up along the couch, half-sat on the floor, but he rises up to reclaim his seat on Magda's opposing side. His mind curls warmly around Charles's as soon as he reaches out, encouraging and delighted, and Magda just smiles. "I would be honored," she replies, unable to do the same but her voice imbued with just as much warmth.  
  
Charles, for his part, stays kneeling in front of them and holding their hands, bowing his head low and taking a slow breath. If he's not careful, this could overwhelm, especially Magda; Erik does his best to keep up with his mind, with what he shows him, and the majority of the time he manages to keep up. If he doesn't, it mostly seems to bounce right off, and Charles only needs to feed it in slower, calmer. _Show me properly_ , Erik Orders. He's always been very open to Charles' telepathy, but Magda isn't used to this. He reminds himself of that as he begins to project to both of them, slowly, carefully, as vividly and sharply as if it's happening right in front of them. There's nothing to prove it isn't, that they aren't experiencing it all for themselves right now. The room fades out, and Charles takes them somewhere else - different places, entirely different, but it's clear after a few moments what he's showing them. Every moment. Every moment they missed, every moment they don't remember, from insignificant to monumental. From birth until now. Firsts, seconds, thirds. First steps. First word - Pietro's was "go!" The first time Wanda used her powers. The first time Pietro sneezed and zipped across the room. Some of them are bleak, Wanda cold and lonely and confused, some of them terrifying, the time Pietro nearly ran himself off a cliff, but they're theirs all the same, and Charles gives them back. He gives them everything. It takes the span of minutes, but it's years worth of information, of memories and thoughts and images, and somehow none of it feels condensed. It's as if they lived it, too. As if they were there, too. Charles opens his eyes, biting his lip, and waits.  
  
By the time Charles is done, Erik has collected up both children and wrapped his arms around them, tightly and protectively, hiding his face between their tiny bodies so no one can see him crack and all around, they become aware of things floating, hovering inches above where they should be, the couch itself separated from the floor, as if gravity has been turned off and readjusted. He keeps up, mentally. Emotionally is another story, but if there's one thing Erik is good at it's containing nuanced emotions and zipping back and forth between dichotomous reactions; he manages. He copes, his mind protects itself as it's always done, and it feels like he's experienced years' worth of feelings in the span of a few moments and he's shaking when it's over, soothing himself by whispering under his breath to them. Magda has a little more trouble even understanding all of the input-her mind isn't built to withstand psionics at all, but when it fades away, her gasp is the first sound, and then she's laughing, gentle. She hasn't failed to find the joy. It wasn't so long ago this would be considered miraculous, and despite knowing the science behind it, that's the only word that comes to Magda's mind.  
  
"Beautiful," she places her hand on Charles's cheek. She's not just talking about the children. It's his gift. His heart. What he can give to people, what he can do, the expression of his emotions into the minds of others.  
  
Charles is shaking a bit, too. He manages a slightly watery smile up at Magda, relieved that she managed to take it in, that he held her through it as he'd hoped he could. He's worried, still, that perhaps it was too much, that he's done harm in some way, that perhaps it was unwanted; he's concerned he's overwhelmed, exactly as he'd feared. With a nudge of their little minds, Charles moves the children to their mother, their minds still awfully preoccupied, and scoots until he's kneeling right in front of Erik, fretting as he rests on his knee. _I'm sorry_ , he thinks, telepathic rather than verbal, though he doesn't notice. _I should have warned you, I didn't mean - I'm sorry, darling._  
  
Erik shivers, bending forward to embrace Charles instead, resting his chin over the top of his head. No apologies are necessary, he isn't afraid or overwhelmed and it wasn't too much. It's-everything. It's every moment he's ever missed, it's these two lives, there's so much packed into so little time, they're whole beings with their own internal worlds and he never could have imagined how incredible that is. _Don't apologize_ , he returns easily, twisting his hand in Charles's hair, feeling the soft strands between his fingers.  
  
Charles' head stays bowed into Erik's knee, part of him still worried even as he allows himself to feel Erik's full reaction. He knows he doesn't experience the world like everyone else. He never has, but sharing that with others can be tricky, difficult, sometimes even dangerous. Sometimes Charles looks at something and sees everything, all at once, experiences packed into a moment, a second, less - but he doesn't always know if it's something he can share. This he wanted to more than anything. To give them both what they missed, everything they should have had. To let them experience it, too, to know their children. _It was okay?_ he checks, still tentative, still nervous. Erik isn't upset?  
  
"Beautiful," Erik whispers aloud, repeating Magda's word of choice with a smile that gets lost in Charles's forehead. He likes it when Charles shares these things with him, but he understands that perhaps not everyone could handle it. But Erik doesn't view the world like everyone else, either. His mind doesn't work the same; a product of many years living with a telepath that had mental fingers sunk into him at all times. It's a Landscape familiar to him. It's a lot, but if Charles wanted to show him every time it happened throughout the day, he would be grateful, not afraid. It's how he sees the world, it's part of him, and Erik loves it. It's nothing like the people he grew up with. Every time Charles reaches out for his mind he feels it soothe the cracks inside of him, like a glowing white light. "Thank you for showing us this," he breathes.  
  
Charles does need to slow it down, but that’s not any fault of Erik’s. It’s incredible, really, to finally have someone to share it with, even so; someone who isn’t afraid, who doesn’t naturally shy away, who seeks it out instead of instinctively pulling back. It’s not anyone else’s fault that they do, either. It’s just that Charles has learned that if he isn’t exceptionally careful, the way he thinks and sees and feels and experiences is far too much for most minds, even other telepaths. He’s seen the way they think, the way they process, and it just isn’t the same. It isn’t compatible. That Erik’s is, even if it needs to be sorted through a bit first, that he’s always eager to see more of it - that’s a gift for him, too, and one he’ll never tire of receiving. But sharing this with both of them, with him and Magda both, meant more to him than he could possibly explain, and he smiles softly as he curls into Erik’s leg, still somewhat shy in the aftermath. “Thank you for letting me,” he whispers in return, muffled slightly. It’s been a difficult, long night, but he thinks - yes, he really does think they’ll be alright.  
  
Magda's drawn her legs up to scooch closer to Charles and hug him, too. Not only is she still processing the events of what happened, but also her own reactions, her own sorrow and joy; for the way Wanda was raised, for the way Pietro can give you a heart attack in less than a second flat, for every smile and scrunched up face. "Don't keep this from them," she says at last, soft. "Make sure they see it, too. How you see the world is too important to keep to yourself. They should have this, too."  
  
That makes Charles blink. It’s not often he’s slow on the uptake, but his eyes wander to the children, still playing amongst themselves, babbling and occupied with the Reality he’s given them, outside of the adult conversation they don’t need to be privy to. He leans into both of them, into Erik’s hand still stroking at his hair and his knee, into Magda’s hug, soaking up the affection, unconsciously projecting warmth and comfort. “Have what?” He’s never had anyone tell him that before, not besides Erik, and while he believes his Dominant, he’s still incredibly hesitant. He’s nervous, worried, sometimes even terrified. He keeps his telepathy to himself even now, except for when he forgets himself.  
  
"This," she presses her fingers to his forehead. "Your mind. Your thoughts. What you see and hear and feel. Don't keep that from them. I want them to have that, too. You should know how healing it is. Your power, it's like condensed kindness." That's why, Magda believes, people are scared of it. People are scared of being vulnerable, and she doesn't want her children to grow up the same way. She wants them to know this. "Don't deprive them of that."  
  
“Oh.” It’s clear it takes him completely aback. That he’s reeling with it, wide-eyed, a flush on his cheeks that’s entirely unexpected. It’s almost too much, really, and he ducks into Erik’s knee, hiding there, letting his hair fall in front of his face, burrowing where he can’t be seen. Outside of Erik, he’s never heard it described like that. He’s never had someone - and it’s strange, and new, and he’s not entirely sure what to do with it. He’s already been using his telepathy with the children, but the fact is they’re two young to tell much of a difference. They’re susceptible to it, their minds young and malleable, and it’s the easiest way to communicate. But when they’re older? What if they are frightened? What if they do see it as an intrusion? It’s not as if it isn’t. It’s not as if Charles’ way of experiencing doesn’t encroach on others’, and he still firmly believes that. That it’s wrong, somehow. That it’s something to be kept to himself, and perhaps shared with Erik when he decides to let him. But the way Magda’s talking about it, the way she says she experienced it - and after everything that was taken from her, all of the horrible things she’s had done at the hands of another telepath, however different they are - Charles is fluttering with it, entirely speechless, entirely floored, and currently trying to crawl into Erik’s legs and become a part of them.  
  
Erik envelopes him with both legs and arms, too, a giant octopus with many limbs available for holding. "They won't be," he answers those questions aloud. They'll have grown up with it, it will be normal. They'll know that there's just that one person in the world they can't hide things from. As long as Charles doesn't take a leaf out of Erik's book-doesn't constantly call them out-they won't resent him. Erik, who generally doesn't let things go, stray thoughts and twitches and words. That's the difference between Charles and Emma. Charles will preserve their autonomy, their sense of personhood. Emma never cared about that. And it's exactly what Erik meant when he said he wants Charles to be himself and exist. It's what he's encouraged from the beginning and he's so incredibly pleased that Magda feels the same way; not surprised at all, but pleased.  
  
It’s still difficult to consider. There’s so much that’s entirely natural to Charles that he hasn’t even shared with Erik, parts of his own expression that he just hasn’t let himself be open with, and it’s not all conscious. It’s deep-seated, fear and self-denial and concern. It’s part of the reason it took him so long to get to where he is. Perhaps he’ll get there. Perhaps, with encouragement like this, it will come sooner rather than later, he’ll start to be more open, more himself, more how he is; but it will be a process, and he knows there are people to help him along it. Either way his heart feels full to burst, he’s fluttering and shy, and he shakes his head from between Erik’s legs, buried somewhere between where everything is muffled but it’s all getting projected anyway, not that he’s noticed. This isn’t supposed to be about me, he points out, deflecting but amused, and he hasn’t realized that’s not out loud, either. It still somehow manages to be mumbled.  
  
"But it isn't," Magda smiles. "Not all the way, at least." She gives a shrug. Maybe it's because she's dying, but life seems so simple these days. She's just glad for the chance to let them know what she wants to pass on before she goes, and despite Charles's shock, having witnessed it, having experienced it, she knows that counts. Erik knows better than anyone what it's like to be afraid of yourself, though, it's why he doesn't push. That just makes the fear stronger. But he's never been afraid, just like Charles has never been afraid of him. "Are you going to tell them the truth?" she wonders, after several moments have passed during which Charles can catch his breath.

* * *

That's another loaded question. He peeks up from Erik's leg (but continues to cling, it can't really be helped at the moment) to look at his Dominant, obviously looking for his answer, too, but he knows one thing for certain. "I'd like to be as honest with them as possible," he whispers, which won't always be the easiest of options. Some things will have to wait until they're older, too. It depends on exactly what she's referring to. What he does know is that he doesn't want them to ever have to live a lie. That would never be fair to them, and any comfort they gained from ignorance would be empty.  
  
"The other component is that it isn't a conversation we'll be having once," Erik adds, soft. "It won't just be a matter of gathering all the relevant parties and disclosing it in spare terminology, but about creating a simple, easily understandable, easily referenced narrative that is suitable for a diverse age group." In other words, they were going to be repeating it, a lot, and not just to their own children. A boarding school full of computer-savvy teenagers? Not to be underestimated. "While Pietro and Wanda will be entitled to more details, the premise remains."   
  
It's honestly the most that Magda has ever heard Erik speak, and this isn't the conversation but she sort of blinks at him, stunned, because she didn't expect this, for some reason? This Spock-like, logical analysis, the mild-mannered articulation-it's drastically different from what Magda's perceived over the years. Charles really is changing him, or perhaps just uncovering what was already there. "That sounds really reasonable," she responds, nodding. "I can't even imagine." And she has been. Worried about it, about how tough it's going to be living in the enormous shadow caused by Shaw.  
  
It's not surprising to Charles at all, but he imagines that's because he's seen more of Erik than perhaps anyone else ever has. It's going to be difficult and he knows it, and not just for Erik. Not just for their children. There is a shadow, whether he wants there to be or not, and it's wide and reaching, touching places he's sure they haven't even seen yet, but there's more than that. There's healing, now, and ways to cast light. It could just be Charles' optimism talking again, but children are much more understanding and perceptive than they're ever given credit for. They have the chance to build something as Shaw's entire empire crumbles. Some of it is daunting, some of it frightening, but the rest of it he's more than ready for. There will be difficulties and challenges along the way, days where the shadow casts a wider range, but they will manage. They will have each other. He turns his head to properly rest it against Erik's knee, and the truth is that behind all of the optimism he's scared. He knows Erik is, too. But there's little they haven't managed together, little they haven't worked themselves through despite everything, and that means something.  
  
Erik bends forward to kiss his forehead, safe and secure. It won't be easy, but they can do their best to make sure it's fair, to give everyone the tools they'll need to properly digest and understand everything that's happening to them. They can't run away from life. They can't avoid it, they can't lie. It won't do any good. All they can do is provide that strong foundation. Magda touches both of their faces in turn. It's not as simple as good guys and bad guys. Kids know that, too. They'll have to contend with the fact that Erik did do some bad things-or at least some hard to digest things, but no one is ever one thing. She taught him that. Sure, there are many, many people out there who claim Erik and Charles are a menace to society, to proper law and order, that mutants should be controlled before people like Erik walk down the street and murder you in your house with your family; but there are an infinite number of reasonable people, too, who won't begrudge what happened. Who agree there needs to be a better way. "I think a little fear is healthy," she laughs gently. But she believes in both of them.  
  
Charles blinks, and for a moment he thinks that perhaps she merely assumed - it wouldn’t be an incorrect assumption, but it also wouldn’t be an absurd one to make. There are plenty of things frightening about what stands in front of them right now. A second later he realizes he was projecting, though, that she was hearing him loud and clear, and it makes him laugh at the same time it embarrasses him, brings back that strange shyness that he’s not entirely used to around other people. It’s leaking out, and he supposes there’s nothing to be done for it. “You should get some sleep, Magda,” he murmurs to her, out loud this time, and looks toward the children. Pietro’s rhythm is entirely off balance and he likely won’t go down without more help from Charles, but Wanda is clearly sleepy, yawning into tiny fists even as she and her brother play their games. Charles feels utterly exhausted himself, but not tired, per se. Wide awake, actually. The idea of leaving Israel, which looms closer every second, every minute - he knows it won’t be long. He knows if they need to be back here for any reason, they can do that incredibly efficiently. It’s just that it aches, tugs at his heart, leaves a lump in his throat. He feels like they’ve hardly spent any time here at all, like it’s been a blink, and also like it’s been ages. Like there's so much more to be done, to see, and like they've seen and done more than could possibly be comprehended in such a short time. Strange, that.  
  
Erik tucks them both into his side; there's no way he's going to sleep, and it's unlikely Magda will, either. Even though she's listing forward, head drooping, eyes closing. Erik nestles her in close, too, along with Charles. Surrounded by his family, it's a good feeling. He doesn't think he's ever been this-full, before, fulfilled. Happy? Terrified? (Harrified with a Boston accent?) This isn't an ending, that much he's clear on. Having this, Erik can't let it go. He won't let it go. He'll protect this little cluster with everything he's got. "Mm-mm," she mumbles blearily. "Nah'sleep."


	65. You know what I think? I think if we’re lost, you should know exactly where, by now; I

Charles stays on his knees. It's just - it's where he feels most comfortable at the moment, and there's not much room on the couch, besides. His knees can take it. He's found a cozy place for his head between Erik and Magda, where Erik will pet him and the kids are lying, Wanda drifting off and her brother, despite his usual restless nature, slumping against her, like he's protecting her, the two of them bunched up in the middle. He can reach over and touch them, and Wanda ends up using him to lean on, which he has absolutely no qualms with. He doesn't sleep. He nudges Magda closer, because her body needs it. He might drift, but not for long, his mind overactive, fretting, running itself in circles, but it always comes back to Erik, and that helps. That soothes. When the sun rises again, when the other minds in the house begin to rise, too, Charles is looking up at Erik, at their sleeping children, and he's not sure even his mind is big enough to hold all that he feels inside of it.  
  
Erik has dozed off a little but every time he delves just a little too far he jerks wide awake and opens his eyes and compulsively checks the kids, then Charles, then Magda before the cycle happens all over again, and when the sunlight finally begins to peel through the curtains and he feels Charles rustling about, he tugs him off of his knees because as much as that's Erik's favorite position for him, it's been-hours, at least, so he tucks him beside and rubs them with his thumb and smiles down at him. The kids are still sleeping, which is a miracle, and Magda has completely passed out, drooling on one of the pillows. Erik laughs. "She was tired," he whispers fondly.  
  
There's a muffled, disgruntled protest as he's pulled up, but it only lasts a second. His knees are a bit sore, now that he's focusing on it. And Erik's fingers feel good on any part of him, so in the end he doesn't mind too much, sagging against him and finding a comfortable spot against his chest. It's been days since he's done Postures, even with everything else, and his overdone mind wonders if maybe that's why he'd felt like he needed it so bad - it could also just be that it's comfortable, that it feels safe. Grounding. "Mmm," is Charles' eloquent verbal response, and he nestles up closer, looking for a hint of bare skin, instincts apparently taking over this morning. He's tired, too. He can probably hold out another day, and then he could sleep on the plane. His mind becomes a detailed check-list from there, but it's messy and crowded and things keep popping up that don't belong.  
  
"Mmm _hmmm_ ," Erik returns warmly, combing his fingers through his hair. He waits for Charles to wake up a little more before Erik finally cracks his eyes open and begins to herd him into the shower, pressing up behind him and nudging and petting him. Not another day, not if Erik has anything to say about it, and he does. They have a meeting today, one Erik isn't looking forward to. Not at all. Janos is here, and he's working with Carmen and they're still collecting evidence, which means more that Erik has to sift through to gain as much information as possible. More about their structure, their victims, their records, their plans. Erik's mind starts to buzz as he shifts into alertness, too and he grumbles under his breath, unhappy. Have to leave the kids for this-grumble, grumble.  
  
It is unfair. Charles isn't sure he is fully awake even under the spray, his mind not lagging behind so much as it's stuttering ahead. Meeting today, back to New York tomorrow. There doesn't feel like there's enough time for anything, like he's existing outside of time and body completely, trying to catch up and make sense. It's like there's something caught in the big whirring mechanism that's his brain, and it keeps sticking. It happens occasionally. He's far from grounded, even settled against Erik's chest, blinking and automatic, and if left to his own devices he'd been fine - he'd wash, he'd dress, he probably wouldn't eat but that one always gets neglected - and he'd get everything done, but he's wandering again. It's not a bad thing. Inevitable, really. His mind is flashing incomprehensibly fast, going and going and going.  
  
Erik tugs him back. They can worry about the future in the future. Right now they need to focus on the problem in front of them. And right now the problem is that it dropped about fourteen degrees overnight (from an absolutely searing 41 degrees, which is more in line with what Erik grew up with in the _Negev_ and rather rarer in the cooler, drier climate of Jerusalem) but now it's boomeranged back to normal and Erik's still shivering, where Charles is probably comfortable, so the shower is a little hotter than usual to compensate. Erik's a morning person, he wakes up with the sun almost as soon as the sky begins to lighten for _shacharit_ , which he also hasn't indulged in a little while-much like Charles, he has his own routine, and it's been thrown off kilter lately. Not today, what they need more than anything right now is stability. And Charles isn't left to his own devices. Maybe it's the stress of the previous day but Erik's much more in his space than usual (which is still a lot), herding him like a goat. _Za'ir tayish_ , Erik's tumbly brain provides. Goats jumping over two suns in the sky.  
  
Charles isn't doing so well on that front, the tug startling him until he falls back in, body moving according to Erik's herding and Command instinctually but his mind resistant. Raven has a term for it, the times he gets stuck up there, but in the mess of his brain he's forgotten it. It doesn't happen often with Erik, or at least it hasn't yet. His Dominant has a way of grounding him like no one else ever has - routine, Dominance, that firm hand they've been discussing, it's all been enough to keep Charles in place, in body, the way others haven't, and how frustrating it was for Gabby when she lost him like this, how often they fought over it - but this morning the wrench is really stuck. Well and truly. His mind is elsewhere, everywhere, Nowhere, and this morning it has nothing to do with the fact that he's anything but a morning person. He wouldn't notice the water temperature if it was scalding, and on more than one occasion he's come out of his morning shower with reddened skin, as if trying to pull himself from the haze. It doesn't work. He's perfectly functional, at least, and when Erik moves him he goes, there but not. He even smiles.  
  
He's not frustrated, and he doesn't fight. He doesn't have to. Charles belongs to him. For right now he just makes a simple breakfast and ensures that Charles eats it after getting dressed, and checking on Magda and the kids again. They're awake-kids usually are, and she's happily, though still tired, playing with them and chatting with Ellie who's helping her feed them fruit slices. He guides Charles up the stairs and back to their room, and to Rest, putting his hands on either one of Charles's knees. _Come back, neshama. Come back to me_ , he whispers to the wrench, not a traditional tug, not a traditional keeping in place, the Order soft.  
  
It's not like when Erik goes missing. Charles has always been able to live like this. He checks, too, he acts, too, it's not quite like being gone - when Erik feeds him, he makes sure Erik eats, too. When they check on the children and Magda, he cares for them, too, checking on their little minds, soothing and delighting them, helping Magda with some of the weariness again, stealing it silently. He greets and smiles. But he's not there, either, and when the Order comes, he blinks, confused, as if he's been stirred from something. As if he's been woken from some kind of daze, and in a way he has been. He doesn't stay present for long, and his smile doesn't reach up to his eyes, but for most it wouldn't even be noticeable. "I'm here," he says, because he is. He's physically here. Not all of him, not nearly as much as he usually offers Erik, but he's here enough. He'll go through the motions.  
  
"No," Erik whispers, framing both sides of his face. "Here. With me. Where you belong." Not physically, not going through the motions, that's not why they do this. That's not why they're here, and he leaves no room for misunderstandings. To Erik, it's just the same. Charles isn't there, not all of him, and Erik feels and senses the missing pieces terribly, he misses them when they're gone. He wants them back. They belong to him. This day is going to suck, again, and honestly Erik has found that he doesn't care as much as he cares about getting back to spend time with his family. But he can't go through another day in that room alone. As much as he wants to. As much as he'd almost be grateful if Charles didn't go with him. He knows he wouldn't emerge, and he doesn't know if Charles could get him back like he always does.  
  
He could, almost definitely, but he shouldn't need to. Charles should be there to make sure he doesn't leave in the first place. It's not that Charles wants to be gone, or that he's intentionally gone off wandering; he does do that sometimes, retreating to cope, he did the day before, but that's not the case this morning. He's just gotten right stuck, and he doesn't know how to get out. Nothing has ever worked in the past, besides some sort of upset, besides Erik - usually it just happens, he'll snap back suddenly and that's that. Something will click. But Erik's face is blurry and his mind is working oddly, strangely, everything half-there like he's spread out everywhere at once, hearing and seeing everything at once, and - he bites his lip, looking down. He can't focus. He can't do it.  
  
Erik shakes his head, rubbing his thumb under Charles's eyes. Yes, he can. Erik knows him. None of this is unfamiliar to him, and not just because he knows Charles, but because he knows exactly what it's like. "You can," he breathes softly. He gathers up all of those dispersed tendrils, cupping them in his hands, putting them back in place. "Focus," the Orders seep through his skin, amplified. "Look at me. Listen to me. Listen to my voice. I love you. Come back to me, _neshama_."  
  
It helps. It helps quite a lot, actually, Erik's Order, pulling him back, reeling him in, and Charles takes a breath. Things are sharper now. The world looks clearer, his eyes are working again; he's seeing just one thing, though that threatens to change, seeing just Erik. His mind is still messy and scattered and busy, but he certainly tries to center it, to keep it here. With Erik. That first time, that very first time when Erik put him on his knees, the first time he ever felt like he was exactly where he was, focused on exactly that moment - his Dominant can give that to him again, can't he? He reaches for it, desperate, bites down harder on his lip. "Please," he begs, but he doesn't know precisely what he's begging for.  
  
"I have you," Erik whispers back, and he's stroking at every grain of sand, every wisp blown across the atmosphere one at a time, carefully piecing it back into place. Not a sudden jolt back to reality but reality cultivated and woven back in, soaked-through in Will. "I've got you, sweetheart. See me. That's exactly where you are." Before him, on his knees, where he belongs. Not scattered into the wind. "You're going to come back to me and I'm going to keep you right here," he says, the Command ringing true. "I promise."  
  
Where he belongs. Charles follows Erik's voice, follows his Will, follows his face, all those strong features he knows as well as his own, those eyes he'd first gotten lost in, everything around him slowly snapping back. It's disorienting at first, it always is. It's a switch, it feels sudden even when it isn't, even when his Dominant is easing him into it, letting him take his time; it's uncomfortable, it's even a bit frightening, as if he's seeing too much of one thing, the world bright and vivid where it was once blurred, where everything was previously smashed together, his mind slowing. Seemingly slowing. His mind clings to Erik's, clings to his Command, his Will, biting and biting on his lip until the skin finally breaks, until finally he can see and feel properly. Until he's where he belongs, with who he belongs to. He nuzzles into Erik's hand, needy and blinking as if he's just woken up, as if he's seeing for the first time, and in a way it feels like it. "Keep me?" he asks, worried. No one can ever keep him. He always slips back away, drifting and distracted. He doesn't mean to.  
  
"Always," Erik murmurs back, smiling and bowing their heads together. He holds Charles through it, keeping their minds close together. Keeping him. " _Boker tov_ ," he laughs, when Charles finally blinks awake for real this time. "I love you," he says again, and he slowly guides Charles to continue to the next series of his Postures, raising up with him, touching him, steadying him. His own mind is a blur in and of itself, thoughts closer to the now in clearer contrast while the future remains clouded and fuzzy, the only way he can keep himself calm, focusing on right now. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time.  
  
“Love you,” he whispers back, eyelids heavy and fluttering but he stays focused. His Postures have been grounding from the first time Erik showed them to him, taught them to him as if for the first time, so different from the frustrating, restless experience of learning them in school, of other experiences with them. In a way, he had; Erik’s standards are different from anything he’d learned, and his body knows them as if breathing now, how to meet them, how to form his body to them. It’s not rote, though, it’s not dull, it’s not boring; it’s calming in the truest sense, stability and structure and routine that he craves, that he’s never had, and he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed them. How strange it was to wake up (or not wake up, in this case, but it is still morning) and not do them, not be guided to them after their shower. He knows them by heart, knows exactly how to present them to Erik’s liking, but sometimes - sometimes he slips on purpose, just slightly, even now. Just a bit, just a touch out of place, but Erik notices if he’s watching, and Charles always waits until he does. Shifts a hand out of position, or slouches as he does now. Anticipating the correction, the playful chiding, the firmer hand Erik understands he needs that morning, and - yes, he’d missed this. He’s missed this terribly, and he thinks he’s never needed it more.  
  
And if Erik is a little more exacting than usual today, well, so be it. They move in tandem, something Erik doesn't do often-like Charles, he too has uncomfortable and humiliating experiences surrounding it and he isn't often spurred to tandem, but today he is. Mirrored Postures are a little different than regular ones because they're meant to put one completely in sync with their Dominant, to match one another, anticipate one another. It's often a sign of compatibility when people can move together, and usually how people complete them is a sign of their mental state. At first Erik is jerky and uncoordinated (very much unlike himself), but he forces his way past it until they are fluid. Two halves of the same whole. He can't be separated, not even now. His whole being insists upon it, and they end up pressed close, both hands together, Erik periodically adjusting something or another just to do it, not really because Charles had gotten anything out-of-place, although he's much quicker to react when he does.

* * *

It’s frighteningly easy to fall into subspace like this, after days without. At first he frets over it, feeling himself slipping deeper, feeling himself sinking - should he knock himself out of it? Should he stay above water, tread for now, because there are things they need to do? Those thoughts don’t last long when it’s as inevitable as the tide coming in, when every movement and acting out of Will eases him farther down. He’s breathless with it by the time they’re pressed together, and he wiggles his fingers just slightly, moves them an inch out of the way, waiting for Erik to correct him because he hasn’t guided him out yet and he doesn’t move out of Postures until he’s told. And he does. Erik corrects him, and it’s exactly what he needs. If he’d felt the other day like he needed Erik to be stricter, it’s nothing compared to what he feels now. Like he’ll simply break off if he doesn’t have it, like he’ll float off and not come back down, like he’ll get lost in the maze and stuttering mess that’s an overwhelmed, overloaded and oversensitive mind. It’s inconvenient, he’s sure it’s inconvenient, but - he can’t help it, can he? He can’t make it go away? When he bites at his lip it’s still broken from before, he can taste the blood, and he looks up at Erik for the answer. He defers to Erik for the answer.  
  
Erik crooks Charles's finger right back into place, and raises his sleeve to dab the edge of Charles's lip, and slowly, the chapped skin there weaves itself back together just like Erik's weaved them back together. Not inconvenient. Wonderful. No one, no one can make it go away. "Beautiful," he whispers, swiping his thumb over Charles's lip, smiling softly. There's such relief there, such wonder and delight that this is his life, this is his family, this is his submissive and he has it. Everything else seems so far away. So meaningless. This is what is important. These moments; Erik will never let them go, no matter what happens. He will make the time, because Charles isn't the only one who needs it. Erik needs it, too. He needs to be here, to be strict, to keep Charles in line. Erik doesn't let him move away just yet, merely reveling in the seconds as they pass, eyes crinkled up and meeting Charles's brightly.  
  
As the seconds tick by, Charles feels himself falling further, being slowly but surely put down, though it’s much different from when he’d asked the last time. It’s not that Erik is doing anything, really. It’s just being held in place, held by Will, being kept; it’s almost too much. There’s always a point right before he hits that deeper end of subspace if he isn’t immediately plunged where he gets shy, where he gets fluttery and starts to fidget, where he sometimes gets uncertain, as if he’s still unsure if he can. If he’s allowed. He can, and he does. He always does. But now he bites at his lip all over, lowers his head because Erik’s eyes are suddenly too intense. If he looks at them much longer he won’t be able to come back up, and he needs to. Whatever he mumbles, it’s unintelligible, and he shifts on his knees, but never too far out of position. They have to get up, don’t they? They have to go downstairs, don’t they? Charles doesn't have time to float around in subspace on his knees.  
  
All that Charles has to do is what he's told. That what he has time for is exactly this, exactly now. That tide only raises up even more, engulfing Charles completely. Erik nudges him into the following Posture, because he's not finished, because he's not in place, yet, either. "Look at me," he murmurs the Order quietly, tightening his fingers over Charles's face. He has to have time. They have to have time because Erik can't function without making Charles stay on his knees right now, even though they have to be sore from last night-Erik rubs them in his hands, apologetic. "Speak clearly," he Commands lowly.  
  
They are sore, but it isn’t unpleasant, actually. Not at all. It’s soothing, if he’s honest, it feels nice, sometimes Charles needs pain to focus him and this is sharp when he shifts on them but not uncomfortably so, certainly not unbearable. It feels good. He’d spend all day on his knees if Erik bid him. All of it feels good, and he gasps as his head lifts, as Erik’s Orders and the change of Posture flows right through him, down to his neurons, sorting everything out. He certainly isn’t supposed to fidget in this Posture, but he does anyway, his teeth relinquishing his lip but only because he’d be muffled otherwise. “Shouldn’t do it,” he says, and he hates that he can’t mumble it, his chin threatening to dip back down because that's certainly not his decision, but he has to say it anyway. Put him down, he means. Charles doesn’t trust himself to come back up. It’s one of those days. It’s more of one of those days than he can ever remember.  
  
"I do not recall asking your permission," Erik rumbles, and this time the shift in Posture is firm, Erik's fingers curling over Charles's limbs and trailing down his throat, keeping his chin lifted. A lot of Dominants don't like that; they prefer submissives, you know, _submit_. Yield, bow their heads, look at their feet. As if they're afraid to face a real person. And many submissives seem to prefer doing so; because it's a way of hiding, but Erik doesn't tolerate it, ever. Charles doesn't have to trust himself. "Trust me," Erik whispers.  
  
One of the very first things Erik Ordered was to look at him, and he's never once stopped. Charles doesn't bow his head out of natural submissive tendency (it feels much more yielding to look Erik in the eyes, to see that look and anticipate what's coming, or just to be made to look in general) so much as exactly what Erik suggested, an urge to hide. From Erik, but mostly from himself, and Erik usually doesn't let him for very long. Most Postures he'd learned in school call for a bowed head, actually, but Erik has always required the opposite, swift to correct Charles when he faltered. Now he's put exactly where his Dominant wants him, posed precisely to his liking, and the calming, soothing nature of it is practically immediate. It's not much of a fight when he knows he's fighting against himself more than he ever would be Erik, his own needs and desires, but he bites down harder on his lip anyway, because if he does go down any further, if he stops thinking properly - "But..." It's last-ditch. Charles is there already, slipping and slipping.  
  
Erik used to be afraid of it, too, of putting Charles down, of putting anyone down, of the fact that as he'd grown older everybody seemed to lose all sense of themselves around him, hanging onto his every word. Every twitch of his temper, of his ire, wilting them back into themselves and watching adults scurry away from him when he was just a child-it's a fear that started long before Shaw, Shaw just capitalized on it. But Charles is different. He doesn't lose anything, he just gains. He becomes more himself. For a while Erik didn't trust it, either, worried he was making Charles do it-but-after these months, after it's become clear that's not the case-Erik's finally begun to admit that he needs it, too. "No more," the Order is breathless, and firm, and directional all at once, a mental manifestation as much as a physical one. "Let go, _neshama_. Come back to me."

* * *

It’s effortless, after that. Like floating more than sinking, less like a sudden fall, the world dropping out underneath him like the first time and more like a flutter. He’s weightless all of a sudden, weightless and everything sheds right off, every bit of mixed-up thoughts running into each other, everything threatening to break in and have him - other voices, other places, memories and sounds and it isn’t buzzing anymore, it hasn’t been for a while, but he still hears it, always hears it, except like this. Except when everything narrows down, when the whole world focuses. He doesn’t become mindless. He doesn’t lose himself, become someone else entirely, like he’d always thought; glazed-over in the eyes and helplessly obedient like in Erik’s mind, brains dripped out of their skulls until they’re puppets for Erik’s Will. He becomes something else. Something him. It’s written all over his face; softer, calmer, and his eyes; wider, searching, brighter; his body, untensed and poised perfectly in Posture, exactly where Erik put him. He breathes easier. He feels easier. Sometimes he slips in and out without noticing, he’s always somewhere close if Erik is around to Command, dipping in and out throughout the day, subspace a natural place for him in a way it doesn’t seem to be for other submissives (and how funny that is), following Orders and conducting himself to his Dominant’s Will, but this - this is more like the first time, where everything was new, and strange, and bright and clear, where everything floated and sung, and Charles’ entire body and mind are reeling with it, open to Erik, tipped toward Erik, dependent and seeking his Will.  
  
As soon as it happens, from that very first weightless lift-off, Erik's body seems to follow suit, his own chin lifting, inhaling deeply and eyes going half-lidded, a zap of electricity crackling from his chest to his distal extremities, and he bows their foreheads together, relief loosening his limbs and easing his heart. His Will flexes outward, wrapping Charles up, encouraging him into the next series, running his fingertips over Charles's exposed skin, over his cheeks and down his arms and his hands, under the hem of his shirt and digging into his spine, pressing him up straighter. He's not a puppet, and he's not mindless. Erik would never want that. If he did want it he wouldn't even bother bringing Charles back, because that's mindless. When Charles does dip into subspace, and as he is now, the equivalent space opens up inside of Erik to embrace him, and everything seems to shine, to glitter with potential. Erik's absorbing sunlight again through the window and it warms his skin, giving him a glow on the outside that's manifest on the inside. "Hi," he whispers, grinning.  
  
Charles is trembling a little, but he hardly notices it. It’s not fear, and it’s not discomfort or anxiety; it’s something else entirely, something that happened those first few times, too. When he needed Erik to guide and talk him through it, to settle him, and subspace is certainly nothing new at this point, nothing strange or foreign when he spends a good majority of his time half-there, ready to dip at any moment, constantly seeking Erik’s Command as he’s learned is perhaps his natural inclination (more, please, always more), but it feels like it in this moment. It feels like the first time on his knees, heart pounding out of his chest, breathless and wide-eyed with no idea what comes next, and he doesn’t have any conception as to why. He doesn’t feel the need or have the capacity to dwell on it, either. Instead his entire mind leans toward Erik’s voice, waiting for an Order, for a Command, seeking and seeking and seeking, a plant and Erik is the sun but the water, too, is everything, and he’s - “Erik,” he breathes, like it’s the only word he remembers how to say, and maybe it is right at this exact moment. Erik will take care of him. He straightens out the Posture without being told, desperate to please. Eager and dizzy for it.  
  
"Charles," Erik murmurs back, soft. He strokes his fingers over Charles's heart, soothing it. Calming it, as his own heart is calmed in kind. It is good, isn't it? For both of them. For the first time since all of this started Erik feels stable and capable, not because he's locked all of his fears up and repeated hollow mantras but because he has his family, because Charles is here before him, belonging to him, moving in tandem with him. His body knew better than his mind and there's no longer any discomfort, any jerky, uneven movements. They're coordinated and easy and simple and where Charles goes, Erik follows and vice versa. What comes next is this. Being together. Taking the time to channel themselves, to return to baseline. To Order. "Take care of you. Mine."  
  
“Yours,” Charles murmurs right back, and his eyelids grow heavy, slip closed, not because he’s hiding but because he’s overwhelmed by it. His mind is warm and humming and bright, honed in, and he’s still shaking, heart still pounding like a hummingbird caught in a cage despite Erik’s soothing. It’s not unpleasant. He’s nothing but willing, now, nothing but malleable and soft, arching toward Erik’s every touch, every word, strung up tightly with need and purpose. “Can I -” But he bites his lip, because he doesn’t know what he means to ask for. He wants to please and serve and listen and obey and it’s all so incredibly sharp, new even when it isn’t, as if everything else has been burned out and perhaps it’s just that his head has been so full. So mucked up. Now that Erik’s pulled him back to this, to this place, it feels like almost too much. Like that first time, when he was sure he’d never feel anything more intense, but soft, too.  
  
"Did you really think that we would lose this?" Erik whispers, running the back of his bad hand over Charles's face, using his good to nudge Charles into the next position. He lifts Charles's head and kisses him, unable to help it once he's settled in proper form. He remembers the first time he ever felt this, too, that sudden and abrupt drop into Dominion and he didn't know what it was, he didn't fear it because he didn't even know it existed, he'd never heard of it. Dominants don't talk about it. Every twitch, every movement of Charles's body he feels in himself, under his own skin, alive like a jungle of curling plants, swaying in humid heat.  
  
No. Of course he didn't really think that, because this is such a part of them, so integral that he doesn't think it could ever be extracted and leave them whole again. But he'd been frightened, worried, and part of him still is. Twisted up into knots about it, because he doesn't know how he can function without anymore. Not now, though. Now he gasps into Erik's mouth, sighing at the loss when he pulls away but not protesting, not moving an inch out of position. Willing to take what he's given. Already he's anticipating the next Command, the next touch, so eager he's breathless still, so needy he's shaking now, worse than before, but he straightens it out as best he can because he doesn't want it to ruin his Postures. He wants them to be perfect. He needs Erik to be proud, to tell him he's done well. "Please -" It bubbles up before he can stop it, and he tries to swallow it back down. Please show him. Please show him how he can serve, how he can please, he needs it so badly.  
  
Erik leans forward and captures his lips once more in a kiss and this time he doesn't pull away, instead he presses closer, bright and joyful. And he does show Charles. Not to stop it, not to swallow it back down. To let it out. To let Erik take it. As he's meant to. He leads him through the last of the Postures until he's back at Rest, never separating for more than an instant. While Charles is dressed in loose-fitting clothes, Erik isn't, because let's face it, he still doesn't like clothes that much. They're supposed to be getting ready, going downstairs, facing the day, but Erik keeps them there for many moments longer. They will make the time. He knows his duties, he knows what he has to do, and he will do it. With Charles by his side. He lifts Charles to his feet, and traipses over to the closet. "Help me get dressed," he whispers, but rather than really move, he just presses Charles's hands to his chest.  
  
Charles is delighted by that Order. He’s absolutely floating in subspace, but grounded, too, not breaking off into millions of fragmented pieces, mind too over-busy and preoccupied to stay in one place. This is something he can do. This is a way he can serve, and he’s only too eager to do it. He doesn’t like the idea of not being touched, because Erik touched him all the way through his Postures, touched and corrected and praised without words, but he’s not exactly giving it up. He knows by now the kind of clothing Erik prefers even over the others in his wardrobe, and his Will guides him anyway; something not too casual, something appropriate for the weather, something Charles can button because he likes taking time on each and every one. He does take his time, too, attentive and reverent and touching, shy at first and then less so, sunk into his task. By the time he’s down at Erik’s feet and back on his knees he’s so completely down he can’t imagine finding his way back up anytime soon, kissing the soles before he puts on Erik’s socks, ties his shoes, buffs them out until they’re shiny and good as new. When he looks up, that open submission is written all over his face, softened features and azure eyes blown with adoration and devotion both, heart beating fast in his chest again. Did he do a good job? Is his Dominant pleased with him?  
  
It turns out, like most of Erik's clothes, to be simple. He favors simple, Dominant-styled colors (other than a few sweaters that he can't get on without Charles's help at all, most of his shirts have buttons), but with Charles's help they're much more high-end, the fabric thick and soft under Charles's hands. Erik grins down at him, crooking his finger under Charles's chin and using it to lift him to his feet. His muscles shift under Charles's care, still entirely unused to this, to being-served, looked after. "A wonderful job," he breathes, eyes opening to meet Charles's, straightening the wrinkles out of his clothes. Pleasure wafts off of him, curling in the air like smoke that brushes over Charles's skin. His thoughts turn to their children, to Magda. He misses them already, too. He wants to go and say good morning, with Charles, this time.  
  
Charles was there the first time, just a bit absent. For some reason this time it sends a spark of - fear? It must be, because he has no other word for it, but it's not because of the children themselves. He can't imagine going long at all without missing them, either, and he knows parting from them is going to tug at everything he has. But it's there anyway, until he stomps it back down, nodding at Erik instead. He clings to his Dominant like he always tends to this far down, careful not to cause wrinkles in the fabric he just meticulously dressed him in. It's okay if Erik says it is. Charles trusts him.  
  
Erik knows why, and he just bows their foreheads together. He withdraws that ember of fear from Charles's heart and tucks it close to his own. Protecting him, as he always must. This is right. It's good, and normal, and perfect. It's OK for their family to see him as he is. After all, they can't really be a family of Charles is hiding away the best parts of himself. "Trust me," he repeats in a soft whisper. He won't let anything happen to Charles, to their children, to any of their family. Only light, and love, and joy. Only this.  
  
It's still there, of course. It runs deep, and most days Charles doesn't even understand it or why it persists, but he doesn't need to right this second. Psychologically speaking, that tends to be how these things work. They aren't rational. What he does need to do is trust his Dominant, and the truth of that is that he does. So he smiles softly and nestles closer, whispers, "Yes, Erik," and that feels wonderful, too. It feels more than wonderful, and his eyes flutter with it. There's nothing wrong with subspace, or being in it. Natural, normal, right. He waits for Erik to guide him downstairs, eased, riding on his pleasure with him from earlier. It's alright for him to need this, and it's alright for their children to see that.

* * *

Erik's smile is bright, and there's no other word for it-he's excited. It's infectious, glittering off of the air and warming his skin to the touch just like all that sunlight from earlier. He makes quick work of the stairs, levitating down them and leading Charles to where Magda is still perched on the couch with the twins, and he bundles them up in his arms, lifting them in the air and spinning them around. Before he puts each one down, he hands them to Charles in a maneuver more akin to a dance. " _Ani hitga'agati atah_ ," he laughs, and one thing Charles notices is that he reverts to Hebrew more around the kids, even within the last twelve hours.  
  
It tugs at his heart now, to see Erik like this. He takes each child as they're offered to him, his smile soft and sweet as he kisses the top of their heads, holds their tiny hands, says hello in his own way, telepathic rather than verbal like he's prone to do the further down he goes. They understand the Hebrew, too, as if they've heard it spoken to them all their lives; he's more than grateful he can give that to Erik, to their children, and they have quite the range of languages floating around in their developing brains. Wanda's fingers are still sticky from fruit and he laughs quietly as he wipes them off on the square of cloth he always carries around with him, something he thinks will be very handy now. He stays pressed close to Erik as he plays with her curls, offers a quiet, nonverbal hello to Magda, too, a soft smile. Wanda tugs at him and he checks her mind instinctively, looking for what she needs; when he finds floating objects in her mind he ducks his head, delighted curiosity, childlike associations of like me, he gently gives her an image of Erik instead, redirecting her. He's not good enough for showing off to the children yet.  
  
Erik huffs, because he thinks Wanda understands better than anyone-Charles is more like her than not, certainly more than Erik, and he thinks that Charles will be instrumental in helping her learn to control her abilities-that they both will, he supposes, because it doesn't hurt if she understands how things are put together, how each material reacts to force and action-but he obliges nonetheless, crafting an intricate swirl of glinting lights and colors and shining precious metals drawn from his palm, his fingers twisting to produce a cloud of kaleidoscopic foam.  
  
"Good morning," Magda beams up at them, rousing from where she'd been 'resting her eyes' moments before.  
  
Ellie makes another pass through and feathers her fingers across Magda's neck. " _Boker tov_ ," she waves with a scrunch of her nose. She's a bit apologetic-listen, last night was hectic and she didn't mean to lose her temper.  
  
Charles had meant for Erik to float some objects like she had floating around in her head, because he’s more than capable of doing that, too - much more than Charles is at the moment, though the process is different - but this works, too, and the reaction is immediate. Wanda is mystified, reaching for the pretty ball in Erik’s hands, and he smiles as he passes her over so she can be closer. That naturally means Pietro wants to see, too, so he picks the boy up more than obligingly and lifts him toward Erik, where he can stare wide-eyed and poke with his sister. It also means he gets to plaster himself to Erik, and, still very much in subspace, that suits him perfectly well. When Ellie joins their circle he offers her a gentle smile, too; he can’t imagine anyone would react particularly well to their house being ripped apart, and he means to offer her a verbal good morning, but it’s telepathic anyway. He doesn’t seem to notice, in that space where the two blend almost too well, where he relies on his most natural form of communication.  
  
Ellie's brain gives a little _!!!_ s, like it always does when he's communicated with them telepathically before, but there's no fear or repulsion in this house. When Pietro and Wanda press their hands against the cloud it pillows under their fingers, like buoyant cotton candy they can tug apart. Erik plucks off a piece and pops it into his mouth, eyebrows raising mischievously as the children realize they can do the same thing. The thing about it is that children, well, they love whimsy and strangeness and fantastical realms, and Charles and Erik can both give that to them in different ways, an endless supply of Wonderland and Chocolate Factories for their developing minds to stretch out and explore. He rubs Charles's shoulders once everyone has settled down, periodically reaching out to touch everyone, not particularly verbal himself today but-it's OK. It's all right.  
  
Some more children run in after a while, Tabby fixing her dress and Tim chasing after her trying to pull on her braid. "Stop it!" she growls, swatting at him. He sticks his tongue out at her, green and waving.  
  
It’s more than alright. As long as he’s there, as long as Charles knows it, as long as he can feel him and watch and listen for Orders, which Erik has always been able to give nonverbally with him - there’s something strangely nervous still in the pit of his stomach, something he can’t quite shake, but he tries to pop it as he laughs quietly, staring down at his feet. What a strange, beautiful little family. It makes him long for the rest of it, and - oh, Raven’s going to have a fit, he hasn’t been updating her well at all, has he? Well, all in good time. She’ll be a brilliant aunt. The children will love her. One of said children is currently squirming rather intensely in his arms, and he smiles fondly as he sets him down, letting Pietro run off toward the other children, curious and chatty. That means Wanda wants down, too, even though she’s much more reserved, so he takes her from Erik and plops her down to run after her brother. She seems to be hiding behind him at first, cautious and wary, but it doesn’t last for long. Charles leans against Erik to watch, biting his lip.  
  
The thoughts of Raven make Erik grin. He can only imagine her voice will reach a new pitch undetectable by ordinary human ears, and it will be worth it. Erik rubs his fingers over Charles's stomach, as if he can break all that nervousness up like an ultrasound, but he knows why it's there and he slowly reaches out to soothe it, the best way he knows how, by giving an Order-something simple, a way Charles can serve them and himself. While everything has been going on Erik's been making coffee and tea in the kitchen, could he please go and get it? When he returns, a child in one arm and cups floating after him, Erik beams at him. It pierces Erik's heart to watch her waver, but Pietro takes her hand and tugs her gently toward the group. He's looking after her, and once she realizes she isn't being rebuffed, she begins to animate and Erik watches with a hand pressed to his chest, as if he's experiencing genuine pain.  
  
Roberto traipses in, holding a piece of toast mid-yawn, wearing striped pajamas and a floppy sleeping hat that trails down his shoulder and his eyes widen as he sets them on the new arrivals. He kneels and tickles under Wanda's chin. He grew up with five little sisters, so he's pretty good with babies. " _Bom dia,_ " he waves at everyone, giving each a little touch on the arm except for Ellie, pressing his hand to his chest instead like he'd been taught. "Tim quit it," he thwaks the green-faced teenager on the back of the head.  
  
"Hey!" Tim squawks in protest.  
  
The Order is more than appreciated, and Charles takes to it with gratitude and relief, practically humming with it. It’s funny how Erik ever worried that he was making Charles take Orders, that he was making him respond when he absolutely blossoms under them, especially like this. He takes his time handing out the cups, too, knowing instinctively which is which, who prefers what, and when he’s left with his own cup of tea, made exactly how he likes it, he smiles down into it, still fluttering some and watching the children over the rim. They’ll have to leave soon - not just for the meeting, which guarantees being unpleasant just by nature, but the country - but he doesn’t have a doubt that everyone will be in good hands. Watching the twins interact with the older children, especially Wanda who seems to come alive more every second, helps put some of the nerves at ease, helps settle him into soft contentment, projected throughout the room without his notice. The nerves are still there, but he’s wiggled his way back into Erik’s arms, and he knows he’s well taken care of, too.  
  
Everyone has a variety of different drinks, made to the best of Erik's ability-Magda has hot chocolate with whipped cream, David and Ellie have long espresso, Charles has his favorite tea, Erik has his red-frothy contraption that he allows to settle so he doesn't get a mouthful of coffee grounds. The only good thing about today is that none of the kids are expected to come with them. The ones Erik rescued, the ones they have access to, were used as experiments, not as combatants and today's meeting will be about determining the structure of the _Hellfire Club_ itself, about the qualification of its organization and while most of the fighting under Shaw's direct control is either dispersed or its proponents disappeared, dead or involved in their own individual cells, provoking mutant supremacist sentiment across the globe, Erik is the first and best person to come forward and detail it explicitly. Shaw wanted a war, and his actions in that context make things complicated. Even less than the prior gathering, he is unsettled about exposing Charles to this part of his past and has done a good deal of work to shield the specifics from Charles's conscious awareness. Unfortunately being unprivileged presents its own set of issues, and although he was not detained alongside the rest of the _Hellfire Club_ , his actions are still being prosecuted by domestic law in the United States, which will present challenges for the team on Shaw's trial, and Erik's credibility will be a subject brought up by the Defense. He's grown quiet as the clock gradually ticks forward and his mind begins to withdraw the closer they get to that meeting.

* * *

Charles notices. It starts to panic him a bit, too, not that he wants to admit it, and he slowly turns himself in Erik's arms, tea still in hand to look up at him. His mind wraps around his Dominant's, soft and imploring, tugging gently the way it always does when he's asking for attention like this. _Stay_? he asks quietly, and he knows it's an awful lot to ask but if Erik checks out then he will, too. Charles will take care of him if he stays. He'll be good to him, and for him. He promises. Nothing is going to frighten him, or disgust him, or turn him away. It never has before.  
  
He forces himself to drink his coffee, his own mind curling back and he swallows, and he shoves it all away, watching Pietro and Wanda laugh and play instead, offering a smile that tries to acquiesce, tries to be here, tries to stay. "OK," he whispers, pressing a kiss into Charles's hair. He inhales deeply, letting the smell displace the pang of anxiety rattling around inside of him like blaring klaxons in a metal cage. It's not going to be like last time. He won't lose control. He won't.  
  
It's not always as easy as saying it. Charles knows that. He curls himself up into Erik's chest, peeking up at him and sending calm and ease through the Bond, not to suffocate but to gently encourage, using his own state of mind - still floating nicely, albeit with those nerves from before - to anchor him. It's okay if you do, he promises, even though he knows it's not ideal. It's more than a lot to process, and Carmen is involved, which means things are going to be excruciatingly thorough. It will be for all their benefit, but he knows Erik is dreading it. Dreading Charles hearing it, too. _I'll be there. You can use me, remember? You're supposed to use me_. Silently, Charles hopes he does. Often.  
  
Erik just wants it to be over so he can come home to this, to his family, to the images he's working to tuck close to his heart so he doesn't forget them. All the rest of his thoughts struggle to the surface only to be submerged by the strong, thick-veined hand of the Butcher, suffocating them before they have a chance to whisper their destruction. The knowledge, the remorse, the discomfort of the truth. He tries to rally himself with the fact that everyone here is happy, he's taken care of them, he'll continue to take care of them. His family. His hands are shaking hard enough that his fingers let go of the cup in his hands and it smashes to the floor before he can stop it and he jumps, tensing into Charles as the kids' heads swivel over to see what's happened. Erik lowers to the ground and starts blindly gathering the pieces. Use Charles. He doesn't remember how. He's trying not to lose control again. To be weak. He has to protect his family.  
  
Sometimes being strong means relying on others. Charles is there on the floor before Erik can even lower, moving his hands out of the way gently so he can gather them up instead. He might not be able to piece them back together the way Erik can without feeding through his mutation, but the thought is there. This time when his mind touches Erik’s, it’s firmer, less hesitant, more confident in its seeking. He won’t let Erik get lost. He won’t let him lose control past the point where he can’t come back to him. He never has before, and he won’t now. Whatever it is he fears, whatever it is that he’s done, it’s Charles’ to bear, too, and he’ll more than bear it. He’ll soothe it. The Butcher doesn’t intimidate him, not with his feather duster. “Use me,” he whispers, and this time it’s out loud, but only for Erik to hear, crouched on the floor with the children directed elsewhere again. They’ve gone back to playing as if there hasn’t been a disturbance at all. “Order me. If you feel like you’re losing control, lean on me. Control me. I’m going to get you through this like everything else, you can trust me,” he promises, soft and still just as eager as he was upstairs.  
  
"This is different," Erik whispers back, shaking his head. He lifts his hand to repair the cup but the shards just disintegrate into dust and he flinches. There are things that belong firmly in the Dark Place, ways that Erik acted, that Erik chose, that he can't separate from being coerced or being controlled; feelings he remembers having, experiences-following orders. It's bad. It's not going to be like the other times. And it's not Charles's to bear. It's not anyone's to bear except for Erik, and Shaw. Erik and Shaw, side by side, striking fear and terror into the hearts of innocent people by fire and torture. "I'll be confessing, not testifying. I don't want you to hear about it," he touches Charles's cheek, expression pained. "You won't think of me the same." Why can't Charles stay here, with the kids, surrounded by love and light and joy-wouldn't that be better? Erik can endure this. After all, it's his history. He did it. He should be able to face it. Maybe that's the best way he can take care of everyone.  
  
It's not. It won't be better, because Charles won't be doing what he's supposed to be doing. What he's supposed to be doing is serving Erik, taking care of Erik, loving Erik, because he belongs to Erik. So it is his to bear. All of it, everything inside of him, is his to bear. Even the darkest, most unpleasant corners, even the parts that he hates most of all, that he's ashamed and terrified of. He leans into the hand on his cheek, nuzzles against it. "There's nothing you could have said or done that would make me love you any less than I do now, or want to belong to you any less," he whispers, and he meets Erik's eyes as he says it, biting on his lip. "Do you trust me, Erik?" Because it's the truth, and he knows it to be with absolute certainty.  
  
The thing about it is that Erik knows, but he doesn't know. So many of these memories are twisted up, played-backwards, negatives in reverse and blurry and in many cases it's by his own hand, not anything or anyone else. What he knows is intellectual, and he's existed for sixteen years under cognitive dissonance, by forcing it away and ignoring himself and telling himself-to look at the problem in front of him. To never focus on the past or the future, to only exist in each moment, never to think-because if he thinks, they'll know, if he plots, they'll know, and they'll hurt him and he's falling back on those exact patterns now, and it's not a coincidence. Spending too much time with all of this under the microscope is going to shatter the tenuous balance in his head. All those onyx cages split open. There's a reason why Erik's deepest fears relate to harming other people. Charles knows what Erik does, the intellectual, the very brief glimpses-but there's so, so much more. There's no way that Charles won't be horrified by it. Everything he believes, everything he stands for, Erik spent years existing as its total antithesis. "I trust you," he gasps. "I don't want you-and them-to see me like that," he grips his hand in the glass, completely unconscious. Shards digging into his palm. Trying not to crack. He won't be like Shaw. He won't justify it by pretending he didn't know any better or that he was just following orders. He was a coward, plain and simple, and people suffered because of it. But it's more than that. Things he absolutely can't admit to himself, things he never wants Charles to learn about. It would shatter Charles's trust in him, and he isn't sure he could live with that. "I'm sorry," he whispers, and this time he's successful at shoving it all down. When he smiles it's gentle. "Thank you. Take care of me. I know. It's OK. I'm OK. Gonna be OK. All gonna be OK."  
  
Charles knows what lurks in that Dark Place. He heard the whispers. He felt the trembling. He knows what Erik is, the person he loves, the person he belongs to. He’s not naïve enough to think that everything Erik ever did in that place was coerced, that it was forced upon him, that it was done kicking and screaming. He knows for a fact, has evidence to the contrary, that it was not. It doesn’t make a difference. To Charles, it doesn’t make a difference. There was no real choice. Even if there was, the Erik before him now, the one whose collar he wears around his neck, the one he Bonded himself to, that Erik is most decidedly not those things. There’s always a chance. No one is ever really lost. Those are things Charles believes, so deep in his core that they could never be etched out. He takes those shards of shredded glass and he pulls them away with his own fingers, not caring at all when they cut his own skin. Then he lifts Erik’s hand, brings it up to his lips to kiss, blood and all. “It’s okay if you aren’t,” he promises, because it is. “But you have to use me, okay? I’m yours. Even in this, I’m yours. Nothing will change. At the end of today, I'll still be yours. Please let me be, Erik.”  
  
Erik flinches and waves his hand over the shards, which immediately melt into a puddle and water slides over Charles's skin instead, mixing with blood, and his eyes are transfixed on it, wide and unseeing. He presses his shirt into it, trying to wipe it away in frantic, stilted motions. Charles is hurt. He's bleeding. For Erik. He makes a low, distressed sound that causes Ellie to look over, having heard it, and presses himself into Charles's side, hiding himself in his neck. It isn't supposed to happen like this but it's overcome, the trembling brought to the surface. The whispers carried along gusts of air and smoke.  
  
Dr. Haller told him this would happen, too. The more he reintegrated, the more disparate he would find the world he lives in now versus the world he used to live in and it would cause this-the absolute shift from what he thought was right to what is right-hence his recent obsession with being a villain-it's a bit child-like, because it's based on references he held from before. Good guys and bad guys. Good and evil. Heroes and villains. He clutches onto Charles's arm, curled into him and into himself even though he's far too large to really be contained by Charles's slighter frame. Erik soothes himself by petting Charles's collar, listening to it tell him about Charles's skin underneath. "OK," he nods after a while. Belongs to him. Charles belongs to him. Still belongs to him. "Mine? Promise?"  
  
Charles can hold him through it. He might not be big enough to wrap up Erik completely in his arms, but he can shield him from the rest of the world and he can hold him through it. He can stay, even when it’s difficult. He can arch his neck in offering and submission and let Erik touch and stroke all he pleases, because that’s his collar; Erik made it for him, and he wears it with pride everyday, even when he always told himself he never would. “I’m yours. I promise,” he swears, and then chews on the inside of his cheek, looking down and fidgeting the way he does when he’s shy or uncertain about something. “Can you find me some sort of string or ribbon, Erik?” he asks suddenly, aware that it’s an odd request, but it’s one he knows Erik can accomplish. “Please?”  
  
Erik acquiesces instantly, of course, holding out Charles's hand and stroking a finger down the center of his palm. A soft, cashmere-colored string emerges, inscribed with elegant designs in suspended liquid platinum and he holds it up, eyes wide and curious. It never takes more than a moment for him to provide when Charles asks, no matter how odd the request may be.  
  
This time Erik doesn’t have to wait long for his curiosity to be sated. Charles’ eyes light up at the string as if it’s the greatest gift he’s ever received, the same way they do whenever Erik gifts him with anything, even the simplest of offerings. He catches his Dominant’s gaze, still biting down on his lip as he takes the string and hesitantly reaches for Erik’s hand, and then his wrist. He ties it around, slowly and carefully, knotting it with a nice little bow and then looks up, seeking approval. “Cuff,” he explains quietly, cheeks pinked because he knows how silly it is.  
  
It's a golden thread, and the edges neatly curb themselves and it sticks to Erik's skin as if it belongs there, which it does. He lifts his hand to survey and smiles, fond, his nose wrinkling up and the dimple on the right side of his cheek appearing. " _Ohev_ ," he says back-of the ribbon, the same color as their glowing Bond in his mind, and of Charles. He could transform it into something made of metal or some other jewel, but he doesn't-he likes this, it's soft and silly and it reminds him of Charles and he loves it. His eyes lift across the room where the children are playing and the world swerves out of focus for a moment. He breathes in slowly and deeply, eyes drawn to his wrist every time it threatens to catch in his throat. Focus on the moment in front of you. There is no past or future. Let the thread lead you to now. It works to keep the impending panic attack at bay.  
  
It’s certainly not permanent, but it will do for now. That Erik finds it endearing and not exceedingly silly immediately soothes him, not that he thought he would; his Dominant nearly always indulges him with things like this, and it calms him, too, seeing it. Knowing it’s there, a placeholder for when Charles figures out something more suitable. What matters now is steadying Erik. He reaches for Erik’s hand again, gentle, brings it up to touch his collar, and though he can’t pull string from nowhere, his mind does the work without him making the conscious decision to, linking his collar with pretty golden string to Erik’s wrist, as good as real. It looks almost like - and of course he’s seen things like it - his cheeks darken, but he doesn’t will it away, just stares, mesmerized, at where they’re connected. “Yours,” he promises again, soft. “Okay?”  
  
Erik's gaze snaps to it as soon as it appears-stunned and more fascinated than he'd ever estimate-but why not; it's as overt a symbol of submission as prostration, and he feels it feather light fingers inside of himself, breaking apart the tension and hitting all of those places that crave to make Charles yield, to put him down and keep him there, and he brings his hand to his chest, tugging Charles forward on invisible string so he can kiss him softly, inhale deeply, touch him and fill his senses with him and drown out the screaming in his ears and the blood in his vision. "'Kay," he rasps hoarsely.  
  
It does something to Charles, too. His breathing picks up with his heartbeat, that fluttering hummingbird in the cage, pulled forward by the thread he’d attached by his own hands. Submission is so often depicted as something that’s taken, and it surely is, because he finds there’s few limits to exactly how much he wants Erik to take; but it’s also something that’s given, in every healthy circumstance. Something that’s given freely, continuously, deliberately, and Charles always wants to give even at his most defiant. To offer up to be taken. There’s absolutely no exception now. He’s breathless by the time the kiss is done, eyes blown wide in startled pleasure, and it isn’t the time to have this particular realization but he nestles close regardless, lets Erik touch and breathe and have. Gives, and gives, and gives, still yielding, still down. “See?” he murmurs, and despite the hitch to his breath he’s grinning. “You remember how to use me just fine.”  
  
Goodbye, outside world. From their position on the floor from where Erik dropped the cup, Charles ends up pressed back into the couch with a lapful of half-delirious Erik, but all he does is touch his cheek and neck and kiss his forehead like he's reassuring himself. It's singularly the most effective way to calm him down when he's like this that Charles has found. He doesn't always remember, though, but like this-when Charles offers, when he gives, Erik's whole body instinctively knows what to do, draws closer, grounding himself in touch. "Remember," he mumbles, rubbing their noses together. He gives Charles another little tug for good measure.  
  
It reassures Charles, too. It feels good. Unfortunately he has an eye on the time, and they’re swiftly running out of it; no one would be able to find them like this even when they’re technically in full view of everyone, but he knows they can’t hide. The longer they prolong this, the inevitable, the worse it’s going to be. Fortunately, there’s always space for moments like this thanks to Charles’ telepathy, and they’ve gotten increasingly good at utilizing them. He bites his lip as Erik looms over him, his pulse still racing as he considers something, nuzzling into Erik’s jaw, kissing and nosing there, inhaling, letting Erik feel him. “Do you want…” He trails right off, his cheeks that dark pink again, and when it spreads up to his ears he shakes his head.  
  
Erik interrupts that thought to kiss him again, long and drawn out and Dominating, with that invisible thread wound around his palm to keep Charles close, fingers tracing over the alluring bloom of color across Charles's cheeks. He barely separates in order to ask, "Want?" and it's a question as much as it is a Command, that fills up all the space that Charles has made for them and presses up against him just as boldly as Erik himself.  
  
Charles forgets what his question was in the first place when Erik pulls away, panting against his lips and biting down hard on his own, his heart absolutely kicking now. The Command recenters him, redirects him, and he squirms against the back of the couch even though there’s nowhere to go; Erik is leaned right over him, holding him fast and still and keeping him just like he’d promised. “Hold onto this,” he mumbles, the flush deepening even further if it’s possible, and nods to the thread attaching them. No one will see it, of course, but Charles and his Dominant will know that it’s there, and exactly what it looks like, which is something he’s not currently willing to even mentally verbalize. He did say he needed extra guidance today, and that Erik needed to give it.  
  
"Yes," Erik murmurs back lowly against his mouth, eyes opening to pin Charles's like a dart on a corkboard. He's bright and full and the whole world has faded out of view and all the screaming has dialed down and everything is fuzzy except for Charles, the sound of his voice, the feel of the wound up threads in his hand and he never wants to give up this moment, hidden away from prying eyes, stolen out of time so he can draw more of those pretty gasps out of his submissive. Probably not the place or the time but what can you do. David's ready to go and to everyone else they're just huddled on the couch, watching their family, but when he calls out Erik's name he totally ignores it.  
  
Definitely not the time or place, and this time for a variety of reasons. Charles has half a mind to completely cloak them anyway, to make them invisible, to have the world forget them for just an hour or two, lost to it entirely. Nonexistent. He could do it. He doesn't, though, because it wouldn't be serving Erik really, because it isn't in his Dominant's best interests, and Charles needs to do as he's meant to. He needs to please him, too, so he wriggles more noticeably against the couch, drawing Erik's attention to David, but also to the golden thread. "Guide me?" he asks, breathless, still blushing with it. It's definitely an offering, and he hopes Erik takes it. That he uses it thoroughly.  
  
Erik looks over and glowers, irate at the interruption, but Charles's internal thought process soothes him and he rises to his feet, tugging Charles up by the link between them, bowing their heads together. Always. To guide and to walk. "Time to go?" he whispers mournfully, and he does just that, guiding Charles over to pet the children on the head and hug them. Erik wants to say I love you and I'll miss you but the words get stuck in his throat and he touches his mouth apologetically. His mind realizes it's in public again and his voice is stolen away.

* * *

Charles helps with that, too. Even when Erik can't talk directly with his telepathy, quieted for the moment even that way, Charles can be his voice. He can follow out his Will. He kisses both children and sends them the message from both of them, accompanying it with a warm, comforting feeling, blankets and hugs and safety, letting it linger long after he straightens up. He waits for Erik to lead them after David out to the car, and he wonders if this will be a problem because he really can't stop staring at that thread and how it leads straight to Erik's hand. It's of Charles' design, not Erik's (he offered this), and he continues to remind himself that no one can see it, there's no chance of it - but what if they could? Would it still be there? Would everyone see him - it's not embarrassment, really, though it's partially that, that has his cheeks heating up again. He folds himself close to Erik, and everytime it tugs his heart leaps, breath hitching in his throat. This might be a problem.  
  
The only thing that helps at this moment, the only thing tethering him to reality is that rope, is that glowing-golden string of Charles's design (and Erik loves it and wants it and will never take it off, not until he gets what Charles intends for him-so many gifts, he can't-) and he stays pressed up close against Charles's back, stroking his fingers along that cord. It's not a problem. Charles belongs to him. The second there is tension, the second Charles wanders a bit too far, Erik pulls him back, a stark reminder pulsating between them.  
  
There's something brewing in the back of Erik's mind, something that's been growing and growing since all of this started. It's not about the children, not really. The closer they get to the justice building, the more intense it becomes, a reverberating echo from out of that Dark Place, a whistling frequency giving rise to bright, golden sparks of light that continue in an endless ray through the abyss. Reaching nothing, because Erik can't make it work, but the realization is getting louder and louder.

* * *

By the time they arrive in front of the justice building Erik is screaming it down, staring through a sightless Void. By the time they enter the conference room with Carmen and Janos, Erik is gone. He walks in, propelled by autonomous motion, taking care to ensure Charles isn't yanked uncomfortably, drops into a chair like a mannequin with broken legs and looks right through everyone.  
  
"Good morning," Carmen rises and shakes their hands (Erik flinches when his own is touched and wilts into Charles's side), giving Charles a clap on the back. "Good to see you." He's been back for a couple of days, and already he looks more relaxed than Charles has ever seen him, accent a touch less impeccable than usual. It's easy to forget that this is Carmen's domain, too, but all at once it's like he never left. He's at ease, dressed in something locally fashionable like a master chameleon with home advantage.  
  
And all at once, everything in this room is much more organized and oriented than last time. While Gertrude is certainly a compassionate and gifted lawyer, her role is clear-she's here to collect testimony and liaise with victims, she isn't here to litigate, and in that arena already the room has a different aura over it, of professionalism and determination and focus that wasn't present last time.  
  
It's Carmen and Janos, and a skinny, dark-skinned man in his mid-40s who looks like he could be broken in half by a windy day that Carmen introduces as Izzy Cohen (Charles recognizes his name-Carmen spoke with him on the phone briefly in _Buenos Aires_ ), an experienced social worker and obviously someone Carmen has been intending to get a hold of since this process began. Izzy has a bubbly, cheerful disposition and smiles brightly, giving a wave in greeting.  
  
Charles watches himself interact, friendly and professional. He watches himself fold casually into a chair, cross his legs and straighten out his clothing, a polite smile on his lips that shows none of the weariness or stress of the past few days. There would be no way to tell that every second that ticks by he begins to panic, staring at the end of that rope that connects to his collar and fretting over how far Erik's gone. That in actuality he's slid his chair as close to his Dominant's as possible, part of him considering just jumping ship entirely. There's never been anywhere he's gone off to that Charles can't find him; never been anywhere, no Dark Place or Landscape, that he couldn't follow. He doesn't think there could be, but he's worried, not of what this meeting will reveal, but of losing Erik in the process. The best he can do is tug and pull at that thread, remind Erik that he's here, that he's his. The best he can do is lean over and touch his arm, his hand, attempt to keep the clattering of his own fear out of the way. He'll come back to him. He always does. Charles hopes it's soon, because pathetic or otherwise, he needs him. He needs him.  
  
Conversely Erik looks hollow, despite the sleep Charles made him undergo, he has deep, dark circles under his eyes in the fluorescent lighting of the conference room and his features are gaunt, completely without hope. When Izzy introduces himself he gives a half-hearted wave back, trying to smile. When Charles tugs on him he slowly, sluggishly snaps his eyes up, as if drugged, and lifts his hand to touch Charles's face, tilting his head curiously. Everything is blurry. All he can see is the brilliant glow of their Bond, of the thread linking them together. He is swimming in an endless ocean of thick, black oil made of grain particulates slowly sinking him under the sea, filling his mouth and lungs and eyes and ears and the weight is pressing down on him, cracking his ribs and crushing his heart. Cognitive dissonance. The words Dr. Haller used, etched on every particle of sludge.  
  
Oblivious to this internal monologue between them, and of course the thread, Carmen waits until everybody is properly settled before jumping in-and that he's Dominant is instantly apparent versus Gertrude's lighter touch; focused on harmony and cooperation; Carmen is a laser, exacting and precise and firm. "Thank you both for coming here today," he murmurs in his rasping cadence. "I trust you're familiar with Janos Quested?" he indicates the man beside him.  
  
Erik nods blankly.  
  
"I know you've already gone through quite a bit of testimony with Ms. Yorkes, so for today we're going to do something a little different." He has a stack of files in front of him and he picks them up, shuffling them and straightening them by letting them hit the table from within his hands. He withdraws one in particular, and its copy, handing them out to Izzy, Janos, Charles and finally Erik. It's a questionnaire, with the first part-Erik's personal information-already filled in with Carmen's lazy law-school-scrawl. "We're going to go through this together, and then that will be it for today, all right?"  
  
Nod, nod.  
  
It's terrifying to Charles after the night they've had. He knows why it's happening; practically speaking, he has more than enough experience with this and not all of it is clinical. It doesn't ease his heart any, it doesn't stop his own ribs from feeling as if they're about to be crushed, but none of that particularly matters. What matters is being there for Erik. For helping him through this, easing the way as much as possible, and the rest he can work on in the aftermath. He's never been more grateful for Carmen's professional efficiency as he is now. Get through this as painlessly as possible, and Charles can work throughout to keep the pieces together. To keep his Dominant together. He reaches for Erik's hand, the one that he can't fully hold, and he holds it, rubs his thumb over it in soothing, repetitive circles, just as much for Erik as it is for himself, shifting purposefully to pull on the thread between them. I love you, he thinks, whether or not Erik can hear it just now, whether he needs to think it at all, and steels himself.  
  
Briefly, for a moment, Erik's hand twitches back-(a secret-secret I love you, too from the Underneath-Dark-Place) somewhat lifelessly, whether or not it's because Erik is lifeless (he is, sorry to say) or it's just a range-of-motion error itself remains to be seen, but he slowly hunches forward and slaps the fingertips of his unoccupied hand over the paper, sliding it across the table. His brain isn't functioning right. The letters are making sounds he can't remember. It's the wrong way, unintelligible, fuzzy.  
  
"Many of these questions are a simple yes-or-no," Carmen assures. "You don't have to go into any detail, just nod or shake your head if you must. If you don't know the answer to something that's all right, too." He lets out a slow breath and grimaces slightly before straightening and clicking the papers against the table again. "All right. Can you tell me the name of the organization that Shaw ran while you were under his leadership?" Carmen starts, remaining calm and completely in control.  
  
Erik nods yes and writes _Hellfire Club_. _Hei lamed fei yod raysh_ \- no, that's not right. _Hellfire_ , he corrects. _Hellfire Club_. The _Shaw Institute_ , a legitimate organization dedicated to scientific research in the area of genetic development and advancement.  
  
"Did you operate out of a central location?" Two. _Arad_ , Israel. _Heiligtum_ , Israel. " _Heiligtum_ -Sanctuary? Located where?" _Negev._ Overtaken village. "Were there ranks?" Yes. Officers, Soldiers and Specialists. "Did you have a rank?" Yes. "Can you tell me what your rank was?" _Spezialist_ -Specialist. "What was your specialty?" His hand twitches again. Pain shoots from his fingers up his arm. Charles is on the other end of the pain and he needs to get to Charles so he squeezes back as hard as he can, cracking his fingers forward unnaturally out of shape- _Speziellegruppe. Entsorgung und Konditionierung_. "Did you ever personally witness armed conflict?" Yes. "Have you ever taken part in armed conflict?"  
  
Nothing.  
  
Charles winces at the pain as if he's felt it himself, and the truth is he has. Erik needs his other hand to write, but he won't allow there to be pain on top of hollowness, he couldn't possibly accept it - what's the alternative? He gets out of his seat, and it makes an exceptionally loud, jarring noise but it doesn't exist at all to anyone but him and Erik anyway. Charles plops himself on the edge of Erik's chair, balanced precariously (at least he's light) but able to touch him now, to run fingers through his hair, to kiss him, to ground him. "Erik?" he whispers, and brushes their noses together, a secret movement that he's not sure Erik can see or feel in this moment but that he gives anyway, plucking at the thread that hangs from his collar to calm himself. Fussing with it. "It's alright. Can you answer the question?" Charles knows the answer, anyway. Whatever else he learns, it won't matter. He'll still belong to Erik.  
  
Erik has taken to jamming that good hand into his eyes, forming a fist that he smashes into his head over and over. "I lied," he croaks softly, barely above a whisper and only audible to Charles. Punishing himself, because he lied, because it's the only way he can conceptualize the Realization, he told a falsehood because it's false, that must make him a liar. Erik's eyes finally flick up to meet Charles's, and he takes a deep, shuddering breath, his expression devoid and calm as he says, "He erased it. Didn't he. He erased it."  
  
Well, that's not doing anything for his migraine. He doesn't want to frighten Erik with the knowledge that he can literally feel everything, that he's so deeply caught up in Erik, terrified of him slipping too far away that he's sunk telepathic fingers in much more deeply than usual, but he's sure he can tell by his wince. He takes that hand in his, now, careful not to tip the chair over, and in the end he's just straddling Erik anyway. "What do you think you lied about?" he asks, gentle, soft, stroking Erik's cheek with the back of his free hand. "It's alright. It's alright, love. What did he take? Help me understand. Show me, please."  
  
Erik winces at the flash of pain across Charles's features and jerkily moves closer, uncoordinated, dead in his body. He too is tugging on the string. Around and around his palm, then looping down into a pretty spiral, then right back up. Apologetic. From the Deep-Down. Sorrow. Sorry. Sorry. There is no other reason for the things that he knows, the discrepancy of what he knows and what he's said he's done-he can put several grown men down on the ground with his bare hands, he can dismantle a G36 or a G3 perfectly on sight, identify stun, flash and lethal grenades ( _DM51_ , his mind supplies instantly) anti-personnel mines and handguns and which way to hold a knife-how to fortify a structure-and Charles has seen it, especially in Erik's contributions to their school project, pages and pages of security measures and necessary skills-skills he'd asked Erik to teach him because he'd wanted to know-when Erik says it out loud, the Hollow has taken over, a dull husk. " _Mevakshim im ratzachti kol echad._ I said no."


	66. You know what I think? I think if we’re lost, you should know exactly where, by now; II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _4.48 psychosis_ , sarah kane  
> ii. _on tortures_ , wisława szymborska

Charles knew. In his heart, and in the logical part of his brain both, he knew. Not only because he's a telepath, not only because he's seen, even into those Deep-Dark places, but because he knows how to pull information together. It's how his brain naturally works. There was no reason for that information if it wasn't applied. There was no reason for Erik to have it, to know it so intimately. He's seen it in action. The instincts, the way he reacts to perceived threats, to danger. On edge, constantly, ready for a fight, ready for a conflict. There's a place that sort of conflict leads. Charles sucks in a breath and lets it out, framing Erik's face in both his hands, rubbing their noses together again. "I know, darling," he whispers, and he aches, aches horribly for him, but he loves much more than that. "You were mixed up. It's alright. Nothing has changed. I still belong to you." To demonstrate, he tugs on that string, tugs away so Erik pulls him back. "I still belong to you," he repeats, quiet.  
  
Erik's mind stutters, like those wrenches in Charles's gears, only he can't cope with it, he can't drift away, he just stalls. He's meeting Charles's eyes vacantly. Somehow in all of this, he missed it. But he didn't, did he? He had to have known, somewhere. Deep down in the Deep-Dark.He's shaking, fingers cramping in the paper in front of him. "I-" he makes some kind of choked off noise. "Don't remember. Stole it from me. He stole it." He desperately looks at Carmen, and then Izzy, who's already in motion, rising from his chair to sit beside Erik on his other side.  
  
"Erik," he says, a voice calm and soothing, not out of intention but simply because it's what lives in his throat. "This isn't about what you've done. It's about what he has done. There's a good reason you aren't sitting beside those officers."  
  
Erik, wide-eyed, shakes his head and clutches to Charles like a lifeline. "I don't know," he gasps, broken. He's broken. What has he done? What has he done? Mixed up. Mixed up, mixed up, mixed up. The Landscape is in darkness. The suns have set the brilliant-green grass ablaze. Erik stares.  
  
He's not broken. Erik is not broken. Charles refuses to let the panic of it enter his chest, squeezing back just as tightly when Erik clutches at him, encouraging it with every breath. They can wade through this together. They can make sense of this together. If he has to put out every fire in the Landscape himself, he will. If he has to go to every corner and repair it with his own two hands, he will. "Erik," he breathes, and his voice breaks but he repairs that, too, takes a slow breath until it goes back to normal. "Look at me. Whatever it is, I love you. I love you and I belong to you. We don't have to untangle it all now. Okay? But whatever it is, whatever he took, whatever you don't remember, it doesn't change this. I love you. I belong to you. I know you."  
  
He was mixed up so he killed people. Erik inhales sharply and gives a single, short nod to Carmen. An answer to his question. "I think. I don't remember." The things he remembers doing are bad enough. What did Shaw take from him? He sat across from Carmen what feels like decades ago and told him that Shaw knew he couldn't make Erik kill because Erik wouldn't do his bidding. It was how he controlled Erik all that time. Save their lives. Save life. _Pikuach nefesh_ regardless of if it doesn't apply. He's already lost, if they're alive they can heal. It's the only thing that makes any of it even remotely bearable. But Erik has always thought of himself as a soldier, hasn't he? Killing comes naturally to him. "Ms. Frost took my memories," he croaks. "I'm sorry. I'm so-sorry-" oh no no no he can't come back now, but his soul has abruptly returned to his body in a violent cacophony, a swirling hurricane of Death risen up from the Underworld. The chair ends up tipping over, Charles protected from the landing by Erik and gathered up fully into his arms as he finds a corner of the wall to press himself against. He can't even talk, windpipe stuck together a quivering reflex, can't get air-  
  
It’s an incredibly sick violation, and Charles knows exactly how and why it was done. He doesn’t think about that now. He doesn’t have the time to grieve. As the chair tips over and Erik crowds himself against the wall, sobbing and struggling to breathe, Charles takes care of him instead. He crawls into his lap, takes breaths for him and fills Erik’s lungs with them, sympathetic tandem-motion through the Bond, holds him through every shudder, every tear, stroking the thread between them and tugging it so Erik can feel it wrapped tightly around his hand. “Breathe with me,” he whispers, and his voice cracks again but he lets it this time, because Erik doesn’t need him to be unfailingly strong, he doesn’t need autopilot Charles, he just needs him to be here. “That’s it. Take some deep breaths with me, darling, you’re doing wonderfully. I’m right here. I’m right here, I belong to you. I love you. I know. I know,” he repeats, because it’s the only thing he can say.  
  
And Erik, who worries so much about killing things-a deep-rooted fear from the Deep-Dark place indeed. They could take his memories, but his body remembers. His baser brain remembers, interconnected aspen-trees of synapse-firing isolate yourself, the whispers croon into his ear. You're dangerous. You're a killer. He's dragging their bodies out of the building, he's folding their arms over their chest and wrapping them in sheets and laying them neatly in rows, a special job for a special boy, _do you know how special you are?_ How many of them did he kill? Did he kill Angel? Did he kill them all? Is that why he's so afraid of himself? ( _I killed, I gassed, I fucked, I ruined/don't look at me/4.48, I'm awake_ ) The memories he does have. Hands wrapped around lightweight plastic. Dismantled, cleaned, protected. This weapon is your best friend, you treat it with respect. His fingers are pale against the ribbed black. They're always going somewhere. Erik isn't breathing, he's wheezing, and Izzy comes over and sits down cross-legged beside him.  
  
Charles realizes rather abruptly, startlingly, that Izzy can see the Real, not the projection. But he says nothing. There is no priority in his mind to Charles's predicament with the thread, nor to the obvious fact that they are involved. No surprise, no shock, just acceptance and moving forward. He simply sits. He wants Erik to know that he isn't alone. What he's struggling with now-the combined knowledge of sixteen years condensed into a single moment of recognition, but Izzy-? Well, those moments stayed with him in linear sequence. He thinks it's very unlikely that they will find evidence that Erik Lehnsherr knowingly and willingly participated in any crime of aggression. He hasn't known them long, but it's his mutation. He sees the Truth. And it's not legal, and it's not a questionnaire and it's not an affidavit or spoken testimony, it's just a person who gets it sitting beside another person.  
  
Erik trembles in Charles's arms, and he reaches up to touch his face. No autopilot Charles. _Please don't go away please_ , it's the first thought that crops up, and Erik's fresh tears are certainly due to gratitude, to relief, to love. But there's a more pressing concern.. Erik will kill him, Erik will kill him he will-he shifts in Charles's hold, a pitiful protest. Protect the babies, they-Erik was right, he was right they have to go somewhere else, they can't-please let him fall through to the Underside and curl in on himself until he implodes and returns to the Dark Place, where he's always belonged. But even amidst that, Erik can't help fumbling with that cord between them, rubbing it and tugging on it compulsively. He knows what he has to do. "Put me in jail," he gasps between throat-constricting sobs, dry and silent and oxygen-deprived. He doesn't have his memories. He can deal with the monster inside of him without putting anybody else in danger.  
  
Charles doesn't pay any of it mind but Erik. There's a fierce, irrational part of him that wants to push back, perhaps even viciously when there's no need for it, when that isn't a natural instinct for him - that wants to create a wall, an impenetrable shield, to lock everyone else out and keep his Dominant safe. Keep them both out of the way of the others. It isn't for anyone else's eyes, and certainly not a stranger. What he does is the equivalent of pulling a curtain, abrupt and effortless, but completely impossible to circumvent. He needs to keep them safe. He needs to keep Erik safe, even from himself. Charles coaxes him to continue touching that cord, over and over, tugging it himself to see it pulled back. It always leads to his collar. "You won't," he promises, and strokes Erik's cheek, rubs his thumb to gather up those tears and then leans forward to kiss them away. "And you don't belong in jail. You belong with me. Who will keep me safe if you don't? Who will keep me from getting lost? Who will take care of me? Who will love me?" Then his voice really does break, and he trembles with it, trembles right in Erik's arms until tears slip down his own cheeks. "You belong with me, Erik. Right here with me. You take care of me. You take care of all of us. I know it's frightening, darling, and I know it hurts, but the things you did, anything you did - that wasn't you. This is you. Right here." He tugs on the lead, gently takes Erik's hand to bring it to his collar. "This is you. You guide, and love, and protect. You take such good care of me. Don't you? Don't you, Erik?"  
  
It's all mixed up. He's mixed up. "It was me," he finally gasps aloud, gripping Charles on the shoulder, hard. "It was me you can't say that you can't say that," he shakes his head viciously. He can't keep running away from the truth. He wants a life. He wants this-this thread wrapped around his hand, that he can't help but tug on just to feel the tension. To know that Charles is close. Erik is shivering, his teeth chattering in his skull and he swipes his hand over his head as if he can break those memories apart himself and float them to the surface and he can't. If Shaw-made him-if people-how could-how could Charles ever love him? Murder is wrong, it's wrong in all circumstances, isn't it? There's always a better way. That's what Charles is trying to teach him but he'll never learn. Erik is a murderer. He's been a murderer from the moment Charles met him and now he's not, _aggravated self-defense_ but they're dead, and they deserved it, and Shaw made him-they didn't-and he-he always knew he always knew he had to have _known_ , so that means he lied. He shakes his head again. "Want take care of you," he mumbles. "Want make you happy." His whole face is crumpled up in pain, a twisted expression flash-frozen on his features. "What did I do? I can't go on, I-" he has to know, he's trying to claw it out of his temple but he can't, he can't-  
  
This is the part that Charles struggles with. This is the part that Charles has always struggled with. He doesn't think Erik a murderer. There's nothing in cold blood about what happened to those scientists, not a single thing. There was Erik backed into a corner, backed against the wall. There was the death of two children who he did not have the tools to separate from his own, and in the end were two innocent toddlers regardless. There were children who were going to die, children he loved and cared for and considered under his protection. Murder is wrong and never permissible is something he firmly believes in, but that - certainly it deserves its own category, something wildly outside of it, and so he'd given it that. Perhaps a cop-out for rearranging his own ideas, but when he testified to Erik's innocence he'd meant it. Erik had asked him once, _so you don't believe anyone should be killed regardless of circumstance_? _So you don't believe that's the only solution sometimes, the only fitting punishment for a crime_? And he'd said _no_ , he doesn't, but that has changed. It's evolved. Because the day he sees Shaw hanged for his crimes is a day too soon. He doesn't weep for those scientists. Perhaps he wouldn't have killed them himself, but there's no way to tell. He doesn't like conflict. He doesn't like fighting, or violence, or what he deems unnecessary force. That will never change. Erik might always lean toward it, naturally more aggressive, naturally more willing to engage. But it doesn't mean he's bad. No good guys and bad guys here. There's Shaw, and those who willingly follow him, and in the wake of that - He shakes his head. He shakes his head and leans his forward against Erik's, tears dripping from his nose onto his Dominant's shirt. He could unravel it. He could fix it, and he knows it. But what if this is what breaks him? What if Charles never gets him back? What if Erik leaves him, alone in this room, comes back hollowed out and empty and Charles never sees him again? Never gets to be held, or touched, or loved? Guided? What will he do? Where will he go? He's frightened. He's frightened and it will hurt Erik and he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to.  
  
Erik clutches onto him, and they're together, blanketed by an invisible curtain; but it's not invisible anymore. It's bright and glowing and dark and secret. "I'm broke now," he croaks, desperate and ashamed and curled in on himself in Charles's arms. "Broken now," he repeats softly, voice wavering and unsteady. Maybe he's begging. Hollow and empty and scared, terrified of himself. He can't stay in this Dark Place. The Place of Unknowing. His actions his decisions his weaponry his reign of terror, villages razed to the ground and scared groups huddled in themselves, he can't. In the Place of Unknowing he will never return, its grasp is too tantalizing, too powerful, gnarled fingers clutched into his mind and shredding his soul. He gasps, unable to form anything Real. He's sorry. So sorry. How could he ever return? Please don't make him stay here, in the Deep Dark. He shakes his head. He could never leave Charles alone. That's why he needs to know. If he stays here, he won't return.  
  
It's his to know, and Charles doesn't have the right to keep it from him any more than they had the right to take it in the first place. It would be a violation. To know he could fix this, untangle all of the things they twisted up and bent out of shape and not do it, to even refuse - that would be a violation. He knows it, but he's still crying because it will hurt. He knows it will hurt. He rubs his cheek into Erik's for comfort, their noses brushing together as he pools his focus and takes sharp, steadying breaths. "Okay," he whispers. He needs Erik to come back, and that means he needs Erik to be whole. He has to trust that he'll come back. "Okay," he repeats, and closes his eyes. Then, softly, gently, he reaches in, more skilled than they ever could be, more careful, more loving, and starts to undo what's been done. He starts to give back, breaking all of those whispering, trembling places just like before. This is Erik's, these memories, however painful, belong to Erik, and Charles will give it back.

* * *

If Charles were the one to take it in the first place, it wouldn't be like this. It wouldn't be so-secretly preserved in this place that Erik can't access himself, a defense by his growing mind he could never control, burying it down down down in the hopes that someday, someday it could be unraveled again. Laid clear. The boxes break. Bodies fall out, villages and shouting and yelling and Erik stands across from them, kneeling to collect every one and bring it to himself. He kisses each one, spreads them over a fabric that he drapes over his head like a _tallit_ before collecting all the fabric up and pushing it into his chest. Everything glows and dissipates, every unlocked moment that Charles drops out of those hanging boxes in the abyss. Carmen and Izzy both figure that there's something telepathic happening, so they're patiently waiting, talking amongst themselves. It takes a long time, longer than originally slated for the meeting, but they push back everything and wait for Erik to emerge. And he does. It's not like last time, screaming and violent. His eyes open slowly, dry except for what's already leaked out onto his cheeks, and he gives Charles a small, genuine smile. "OK," he whispers, breathing deeply and heavily. _OK_. His eyes flutter shut again and he inhales sharply through his nose, but that's it.  
  
"Okay," Charles echoes, and his voice is small, wavering, broken. There are tears on his cheeks, fresh tears, and his eyes are wet. Nothing has changed. The way he sees Erik, the way he knows Erik, the way he belongs to Erik; none of it, absolutely none of it, changed or altered in any way. But his throat is tight and his heart is clenched, even as Erik comes back to him. It's an overwhelming process, a frightening one, and he's grieved. Grieved, felt, absorbed. He fusses with the golden thread between them as if he's just remembered it's there, fidgets with it like he fidgets on Erik's lap. "I love you," he whispers, because it needs saying, and because he's momentarily forgotten how to say anything else.  
  
 _Nothing has changed/only there are more people_ \- a poem more apt than Erik realizes. With the cages freed, not only memories made their way back into Erik's mind, but others have joined the Landscape, creeping predators hidden in newly-formed bushes, foraging and scavenging and hunting along the outer perimeter. Erik doesn't grieve. He doesn't cry. He doesn't tremble even when those whispering, trembling things are taken into him. He doesn't do anything. He just sits, arms wrapped tightly around himself, pulling on that string between them, staring down at it hopelessly. He has been carved out. The whispers fill him up. _Charles_ -"I love you," his voice stalls, sticks in his throat, and he more mouths the words than says them.  
  
And Charles is terrified. He's deeply, horrifically terrified, because what if he helped with nothing? What if, by giving back, he only hollowed Erik out further? This still, quiet Erik frightens him more than the raging, violent one ever could, and he finds he'd almost prefer it in the aftermath. Charles is restless, moving, tugging, afraid and completely unaware of anyone else in the room, about as unaware as they are of what's happening, the veil dutifully covering them. He bows his head into Erik and sucks in a shaking breath of his own. "Don't leave me," he begs, and it's broken and selfish and all he can say. "Don't. You promised you wouldn't leave me alone, please don't leave me. I can't - I don't know how to do it on my own anymore, please don't leave me, Erik," he gasps.  
  
Erik shakes his head, as if he can shake loose everything that's been restored, but he can't. He bows into Charles, resting his brow against the top of Charles's head, brushing his hair in his fingers just to feel the feathery-soft strands. As big as the Landscape is, as comprehensive as it is-"I have no space," he manages to croak out, and he ends up clutching his heart instead, digging his fingernails in and in and in, maybe he could rip it out, maybe he could shake loose every black spot inside of it. "I-gotta-strong-for-you." Each word is dragged out, clawed up, stilted and forced, Erik the Real against Erik the Red. Their names-amidst guffawing laughter-waved guns in the air-liquor on their breath-not his. He's drowning in the oily sludge, pushing his hands down to break the surface. He's trying to escape, to get out, to breathe-"I'm-here-"  
  
He knows what it is. To have no space. It's a natural function of his brain, to make space, to store, and still sometimes he finds himself running out. The doors begin to rattle, too much stuffed behind them and Charles needs to reorganize. It's not helping Erik any, his terror. It's not easing the process. Still, he can't quite rid himself of it as he grips onto Erik, reaches for his hands with shaking fingers so he won't tear at his own chest, and not because he still has them so connected that it feels like his own is raw. "We'll make space," he promises, and he knows they will. Perhaps not all at once, perhaps not easily, but they will. Erik doesn't need to be anything but what he is. He's here, and he isn't leaving. These parts belong to him, too, and Charles will help him find a place to put them just as Erik is beginning to help him. "Stay with me. Don't leave. We'll make space." The Landscape has room, just as there's always another door, however inefficient and flawed his childhood analogy to begin with. Charles will love the new parts, too, just as he loves the others. He'll find homes for them. He'll give them feather dusters, though it might make the Butcher jealous.  
  
"We _gah_ -gotta-meeting-" Erik grinds out, twitching rapidly, muscles spasming and contracting as if he can't contain it inside his body let alone his head, his skin glowing and cracking open and spilling out all the light and the dark in great sweeping strands, letting loose the horrors onto the entire world. Only Erik keeps it contained, flat and affectless, rocking back and forth slowly, drawing his hand up to produce three metal balls that swirl in the air over and over.  
  
Charles doesn't want to. He doesn't want to let anyone see them, he doesn't want to let anyone in. He wants to keep them both inside of the curtain, protected and outside of all of it, but he knows Erik is right. It's been long enough as it is. They should finish this. It's slow, the way he shifts Reality until they appear again, carefully filtering it in as if nothing at all has happened. As if they were sitting there the entire time. He rocks with Erik, rubs their faces together, their noses, closes his eyes. He whispers what's mostly nonsense, and only to Erik, that much hidden and secret _; I love you_ in a language of their own, _darling_ and yours. Short, soothing things, all while he plays with the thread, stroking where it meets his collar. Reminding him.  
  
The new memories-the ones of Wanda and Pietro, of cooing over them and petting them and singing to them-having been returned to him, they reside in his heart, where he knows they belong. These ones-it's as if he's watching someone else. A dead-eyed, completely vacant version of himself using his abilities as a weapon (and many weapons besides), frightening people and-beating them and-killing them. Humans who were of no consequence to Shaw. Humans who were coming up with ways to hurt them and they were obligated to put a stop to it, to crush their resistance before it could ever gain traction. It was for the good of their people. Strung out on so many drugs that his young body shook and tremored even when he was still, huddled over his service weapon protectively. He watches himself be commanded to strike out, to discipline, to hurt and murder and watches as he obeys without question, Emma Frost standing beside Shaw in her trademark white corset and leather boots, arms crossed over her shoulder as she regards the situation coolly with an expression of distaste on her features. When he pauses, when he hesitates, when he finds a trapped bird injured and afraid and cups it in his hands, he watches himself crush it at Shaw's behest, remembers screaming inside of himself- _no_ -! and then the screams disappear and he feels calm, at peace-calm and at peace, calm and at peace-

* * *

Carmen has shifted to his feet and he comes to sit across from them, legs lotus-style and hands resting casually on his knees. "How are we doing?" he murmurs to Charles, calm as well as in-control, while Izzy remains at the table, going through the documentation he's brought of his own. He grimaces momentarily, apologetic. He hopes that they both know it's not his intention to cause this degree of stress. He just wants justice. He knows perfectly well the kinds of things that Erik was likely trained and taught and brainwashed to do; this isn't the first time he's encountered this. There's a reason he wanted Izzy here today; because as well as being one of his oldest friends, he's also a person who at one point owed Carmen a great debt, for bringing him out of a situation remarkably similar. "Erik, it's all right if the answer to my question is _yes_. _Beseder_? We're not here to prosecute you."  
  
"'Kay," he whispers, and then nods, dull green eyes flicking briefly up to Carmen even while he keeps himself hidden in Charles's arms, inhaling his scent, touching his skin. "Yes. Remember." He remembers the events, but he also remembers Charles-something he doesn't believe could ever be taken from him. But he must have thought that about their children as well, and they were-they were, what if Emma takes Charles away from him again? His whole mind is ravaged. What else doesn't he know? What else is broken and shoved carelessly back in place, manufactured and rotten and wrong.  
  
Charles just shakes his head at Carmen, not bothering to hide that he's rocking his mountain man in his arms, kissing his cheeks and stroking his hair and perched in his lap. There's no reason for a projection when he's seen the Real, anyway, though part of him still feels protective even now, fierce and scared through no fault of Carmen's or his acceptance of the man into their strange little family. "This is never going to happen again, Erik," he promises quietly, tucking a lock of hair behind his Dominant's ear, scratching at that perfect spot while his other hand draws more attention to his collar, to that thread they're both fascinated by. "Never. Alright? Your mind is your own now. I'm going to help. Anything that's mixed up, I'll fix it. You will never have to worry about this again. I'm here now. I'm here." It's a vow as much as any of the others. The Erik in the Dark Place told him that they'd waited for him to come, to break open the boxes and put the pieces back together, and that's exactly what he's going to do.  
  
Erik wilts into Charles's hold, scared and child-like, an expression of pure grief frozen on his face. "We waited for you," he gasps, a soft whisper barely-audible. He's been waiting for Charles his entire life. Ever since the moment of their first-meeting, the one that Erik didn't remember, much like these experiences, but Charles gave that back to him, too. Ever since they tromped around the desert in total abandon, a place Erik well and truly misses. That place is gone, its only remnants in the Dark Place where Little-Eriks roam. His mind hasn't been his own for sixteen years, and still-beyond. He has never been his own. He wants to protect and love, and it's been burned out of him. He likes holding Naomi and petting her tiny head with his finger, listening to her chirrup gleefully and chatter up a storm. He likes collecting fruit flies in his jar to release them into the winds, insignificant creatures without a chance; just like him. How could he ever think-think that he could-could love, could bring joy, when all he has ever been conditioned to do is-he shudders, hiding in Charles's neck. "'Kay," he whispers again, voice cracking.  
  
"Because you've done it, you beautiful man," he whispers, and all of a sudden there are tears in his eyes again. He kisses Erik's nose, rubs his own against his and wipes some of his tears there, too, but somehow he doesn't think Erik minds. His mind is full of images and they speak as loudly as any of his words; Erik, caring and loving Erik, who takes such exceptional care of him every single day. "You love me so exceptionally, my darling. You bring me so much joy. You were violated, and I'll do everything I can to correct it, but you've always been your own in the places he couldn't ever hope to touch. You've always been my Erik. You've been here the entire time." He touches his hand to Erik's heart, his voice cracking on emotion. "I've waited for you, too. I've waited so long, and here you are."  
  
He gradually looks up, drawing his hand over those tears and wiping them away so gently, watching his own hand move as if it doesn't belong to him. What if it doesn't? What if it turns on him, grips Charles in its gnarled fingers and squeezes until there's nothing left? All those dreams that keep him from sleep make terrible sense now. Charles on the table, Charles in his sights, hunting him and killing him-mixed up Reality from the intrusive-mind that he can't separate-did he kill Charles? Did he hurt him? He touches him over and over, as if to confirm he's there. He's right there. Erik didn't hurt him. He didn't. Did he? "Am I the same?" he creaks like a door opening, all the doors in his mind slammed wide against the walls, all the boxes smashed open. The ones that he didn't know he had.

* * *

Carmen watches them, not interrupting, not commenting. It's a situation that's difficult-uncomfortable for unlookers, the outpouring of emotion and the horror and the terror and the inhuman nature of things, but he endures it silently and without complaint, leaned forward slightly toward it, letting them both know he's there and he isn't going anywhere, a silent solidarity that serves as its own intrusion, he's sure. But there's not much else he can do, he refuses to push it, to insist upon it, the folder in his lap abandoned for the moment.  
  
It never has. It never will. Charles' mind gently envelopes Erik's, projecting different images but ones recently uncovered, too. Charles, sick and weak and agonized, bent over and vomiting, crying and alone. From halfway across the world Erik stays with him, comforts him, whispers to him, strokes his hair and puts him to bed, tucks him in, safe and alive and loved even then. Even then. Even in the darkest places, even in the Dark Places, there has always been room for this. There has always been that. Them. Erik has always been himself, even when he was twisted and bent and made to be someone he wasn't. "He never broke you, my love," Charles whispers, pitched forward in Erik's lap to rock with him, to press their foreheads together. "He tried. He tried very hard, but I'm afraid it never would have worked. I never would have let it. I'm here, Erik. Don't believe him and what he tried to make you. Believe me." He strokes Erik's cheek, a tear rolling down his own. "Believe me. I know you."  
  
There's no space. The more time passes, the more Erik sits with this, the worse it gets, rising up inside of him like an inevitable wave, a riptide waiting to pull him underneath the surface and drag him down to the bottom of an ocean he doesn't want to be in; there are nicer oceans. The oceans he visits with Charles, deep-down and inside caves where they can breathe and only know one another. The one thing that he took with him and held inside of him; that no matter what happened he didn't kill (because if he did, if they made him, he wouldn't cooperate) It's false. It's fake, an implant obscuring the Real-Erik. He did kill, and he was wrong. He killed and he cooperated. He can't even voice the words. He can't even think them. He can't look at the images. Their faces are blurry. They're all in the Landscape, now, dozens of them. Some who were working against mutants, who were developing weapons to use against mutants. Some innocent. Some who simply got in the way of Shaw's hunt for power. Like the people in Erik's village. Kill them or else- Or else he'll torture them to death. He'll make their end a living hell. He'll make it last for days. Sometimes it wasn't Emma at all. _You put a bullet in their head or I'll make them beg you to do it-_  
  
It's not something that can be processed like this. Not in this meeting room. Not in minutes, not in hours. There's too much, and Charles knows it. He understands the way minds work more intimately than anyone, but more than that he understands Erik. He strokes his Dominant's cheek, takes slow, even breaths, and waits for him to look. "I know," he murmurs, soft and breaking, but there's no reason to hide here. There's no room to hide here. "I know, Erik. But you don't have to make space for it all now. We will make space, though. You are the same, do you understand that? There was no choice. There was no option. Why do you think he took it from you? Over and over, why do you think he erased it?" Because Erik was right, not wrong. He rubs under Erik's eye, where one of those tears from earlier still lingers, and presses his lips there soon after. "We'll make space for this. I will help you with this. Stay with me," he begs, and tugs hard on the thread from his collar, right to Erik's hand. "Right now, stay with me."  
  
"It changes-it changes-" Erik gasps, and he finally lifts his head, looking at Carmen. His testimony, his-everything-everything he's said, it's based on-and how is that going to affect things? How can he stay and face it? He knows, he has no right not to face it. It's the coward's way out, and he's not a coward. He's not. He promised to stay. He doesn't give up his word, not ever-(another lie, whispers the Insidious Voice-) not when he can help it. He won't leave. But he doesn't know how to stay with this. It's growing inside of him at a rapid rate and he wonders if it will puff him up like a big balloon as it tries to escape, a grotesque version of himself just expanding and expanding until he pops and deflates into a mash of disfigured features. "Stay, OK," he whispers, and his fingers move of their own accord, touching over Charles's collar. He inhales sharply, glancing to Carmen again. "Meeting," he manages again, soft. Please let it end soon, so they can go home and he can take care of Charles and fill himself with that instead.

* * *

Meeting. Charles needs to get out of this room, he needs to get Erik out of this room. Unfortunately his flair for the dramatic doesn't quite include storming out to the middle of the desert yet, so he takes a breath and holds it together. He holds it together because that's what Erik needs, and he needs to be what Erik needs. He desperately needs that at the moment. His gaze finally wanders to Carmen and he doesn't bother climbing out of Erik's lap, because there's no need to when he's perfectly aware of what just happened, and Charles has done nothing to hide it. "If we could speed this up, perhaps?" he manages with a half-hearted smile and eyes still wet, and he's aware of the situation, of what they just displayed, most of it unhidden, but it was to be expected. Charles doesn't allow himself to be ashamed at the moment, not with Erik's hand on his collar the only thing grounding him, reminding him that Erik won't drift off and leave him. That they will weather this, too. That Charles will see it happen.  
  
Carmen nods brusquely. "I'll do my best," he promises, quiet, giving a small encouraging smile in return. The rest of the questionnaire is just as brutal and difficult; questions about specific actions, about the structure and order of Shaw's organization, and about the things that Erik was made to do. He sits back in his chair and reads from it softly, switching to Hebrew for both of their comfort. Has he ever killed. Yes. Has he ever been raped or sexually assaulted. Yes. Has he ever witnessed rape or sexual assault. Yes. Has he ever witnessed murder. Yes. Has he ever been induced to rape others. Yes. Has he ever lured or kidnap others for their cause, yes, were members ever forced to carry children or raise children not their own-Erik stutters out a "yes" there that threatens to undo him, but he shores himself up, dragging himself out of the abyss fuzzily-did their organization attempt to capture or annex territories, yes, did their organization ever attempt to move people or goods across national or international borders, yes, were people ever subjected to unnecessary medical procedures, yes-"Yuh-uh- _yes_ ," Erik grimaces-were people ever subjected to drugs or use drugs, yes, did Shaw operate based on a particular doctrine, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Each one is like a nail, and Erik's voice is the hammer drilling it into his own skull, and he's started to drift away for real by the time Carmen reaches the end, dully responding "yes," to each question. His body has gone limp, eyes fixed and unseeing.   
  
"Yes," he says again even when Carmen hasn't asked a question.  
  
It drives those nails right into Charles' heart, too. Each one aches. Each one sticks awfully in his throat, in his stomach, in his brain, rolling itself around with memories and thoughts he's seen far too much of. He fights every urge to flinch, staying in Erik's lap, cupping his cheek and stroking his hair. He can feel him slipping away. The panic claws fierce and vicious in his chest, clenching his heart and refusing to let go. He's holding on with everything he has and he can still feel Erik slipping away. And is it unfair to expect him to stay? After everything, after all of this, how could he ask that? But he grasps onto Erik's shirt anyway, knuckles turned white with the force. "Please don't leave me," he pleads, and he knows how pitiful it sounds. For once he doesn't care.  
  
Erik lived through everything. He can certainly live through a meager questionnaire. He sits up straight, clutching Charles to him, rubbing his back, inhaling sharply and audibly and nodding. He's here. He is. "What else," he murmurs up at Carmen, straight and proper and present. Everything is going to be OK. He's right here. Of course there's more. There's always more, and it's even worse than the first part. Carmen's eyes actually widen as he reads the rest of it to himself first, and he clears his throat, picking up a glass of water and drinking it to disguise his reaction. "OK," he says, addressing Erik with the same calm as earlier. He keeps rereading it, though, and eventually he folds it up and shakes his head, eyebrows knit together. No, there has to be a better way of doing this. He looks to Charles, sharing a glance over Erik's shoulder.  
  
The purpose of the next section is obvious. As someone who participated, willingly or not, it's additionally up to the ICC to determine whether or not Erik should be held liable for any crimes of aggression committed by Shaw; and if such crimes are classified as committed in pursuit of a war (a distinction that isn't always clear, even if the Hellfire Club is a violent non-state party); well, that extends to Erik, too. But Carmen doesn't think-based on what he's just witnessed, that it would be appropriate or acceptable for him to just read off this list of criminal actions-and furthermore, he has to interject, here, because as Erik's lawyer he's not very certain that Erik should comply with it. It's his natural instinct instead to tell Erik to shut the hell up, but this isn't American law, and as he's learning there is a world of difference between the two. If they want to get Shaw, if they want to make him pay, does that mean Erik has to potentially-

* * *

Carmen shakes his head again. For once, uncertain of the way forward, and he looks at Izzy, standing from his chair to stretch his legs. He raises his hand to them and confers with his friend back at the table, muttering lowly under his breath. Izzy nods after a while and withdraws his own folder from his tote, unrelated to the questionnaire, and Carmen consults it thoughtfully. "Alright," he finally says ."That's what I thought. Fucking complicated, Christ." He rolls his eyes. "OK, alright," he finally comes to some kind of decision and he returns, crouching down in front of them instead of sitting on the chair. "I need to be pretty blunt with you both right now, are you good to listen to this?" he's eyeing Charles.  
  
Charles bites down his natural reaction to that. He bites down any reaction, just like he'd shut down his obvious ability to see this well before it's coming, because - why? Because there's still a part of him that needs to be professional? It's not like he's managed that, on Erik's lap with his heart in his throat. It's not as if any of this fits into the category, or that he even cares to try. All he knows is that he's not moving an inch from where he is, and there's not a single force on Earth that could possibly move him. "Please," he sighs, and it's all the answer he can give, the migraine working steadily behind his temples building and building and he's still clutching Erik's shirt like a lifeline, balling it up in his fist and making wrinkles where he'd so carefully straightened them out this morning.  
  
"So, as you know, the law-international or not-is mostly concerned with a concept called _mens rea_ , or guilty mind. Basically, intention. Whether or not you _intended_ to do any of the things that you did," he explains simply. "That's the foundation of your current trial, and it will be the foundation of this trial as well. The difference," he starts, grimacing, "is that the judgment of your actions here is predicated on whether or not Shaw is determined to be guilty. If he isn't," Carmen says, taking on a tone much like a doctor to a patient at their bedside, "then you might be held liable for anything that you state yes to on this part of the questionnaire, and most especially for actions that were committed after you reached the age of majority. If that were to happen, you could face prosecution here."  
  
One might expect Erik to lose it at this point, but he doesn't. He's sitting straight and calm. "OK," he whispers. His gaze is determined. "Understood. Continue," he gestures to the folded up paper in Carmen's file folder. If that happens, so be it. He might not have been old enough to understand what he was doing while he was doing it, but he knows now, and he already knows he is guilty. If that means he ends up on the same side of the box as Shaw, it's no less than he deserves.  
  
Carmen looks at Charles, motionless, certainly not continuing.  
  
There is something, though. "If it was taken from me-" he stutters, there, his throat raw as though he's screamed for hours, but he's barely said a word in the Real. The statement is clear. Erik could say no, but that might be a lie. Just like everything else. It's hard to breathe. He's trying to be-to be strong, but it's not working-his hand closed over Charles's, and he isn't breathing, his chest isn't moving up and down, he's not taking in breaths because he can't-he's frozen, completely frozen, drowning in his own mind and Charles, a lifeboat, a lifeline, his fingers weakly clutch back-the world swims out of focus. He's very well going to pass out and he's-sorry-this isn't-it isn't fair, the last remnants of thoughts as the world starts to go black-it isn't fair to Charles, he promised and he can't-the world is in a whirl, pounding at his chest. His duties, his responsibilities, his promises all breaking down the door.


	67. You know what I think? I think if we’re lost, you should know exactly where, by now; III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _here comes the sun_ , the beatles

He already knew it was coming. There's no way, as on edge as he is, as oversensitive as his telepathy is at the moment, that he wouldn't have known it was coming. He knew exactly what Carmen was going to say well before he said it. He knew the laws. He knew the complications. Everything seems like it goes in one ear and out the other, and it seems as if he doesn't react at all as Erik slips right through his fingertips. He does, of course, but there's no option for him to stop breathing, too. There's no hope for it. When he moves it's slowly and sluggishly as he gathers Erik's head in his lap and resettles him as comfortably as possible, stroking mindlessly at his hair as he stares straight ahead. Not at Carmen, not at anything. He just stares, his jaw clenched, his heart heavy, and clings uselessly to what lingers of Erik through the Bond even in unconsciousness. It doesn't soothe him any. It's not nearly enough. No, it isn't fair. It truly isn't.  
  
Erik's mind is quiet in unconsciousness, but not dead; not completely closed to Charles, and he finds when he turns his attention to Erik that he can hear the whispers underneath, follow them down into the Landscape; the part not overrun by intruders, newcomers, people kept in boxes now roaming free. The grass is charred, the forest is black. The suns are asleep. Everything is dark and twisted and upside-down. The Bond is a current protected always, great electric blooms in the ground where his feet touch, sparks of Will blooming up in puffs of smoke like dandelion pollen in the air. Tiny blobs gather around Charles, shaking and scared. They pet him, so sorry, don't know how to fix it, how to fix anything, how to soothe anything. In the Real, though, obviously it looks like Erik suddenly went unconscious, and Carmen's moving immediately to take his pulse, consulting his watch to do so.   
  
"Erik- _Erik_ ," he mutters, and drives two fingers into his sternum, rubbing harshly. "C'mon, bud, wake up-come on," he says, and it's not desperate as much as it's steady, the tone of someone accustomed to sudden emergency situations. He doesn't stir, but the blobs surrounding Charles hiss in pain and shriek back, hiding in any nook and cranny they can find of his shirt.  
  
Charles shakes his head. He gently urges Carmen away, because he knew from the moment Erik's eyes rolled back that it wasn't an issue of medical emergency, even if it's been that in the past. Erik is perfectly safe in his arms, and he would have felt if there was something else to fret. His fingers keep stroking at his hair, repetitive and automatic, and he's in two places at once. It's natural for him, not a strain, not a stretch as it would be for anyone else. He stares ahead in the Real even as he pets the blobs in the Landscape, coaxing them out from their hiding places. He's restored this place before, and even charred and burning it's as much his home as his own mind. He knows it better than his own, actually. Even numb he heals what he can, even the smallest amount, getting down to his knees to urge the grass to green and sway with his fingers dug into the dirt like that very first time he explored here. Even if it's only in this one spot, even if it soothes nothing. Even if it's useless, even if he is.  
  
Carmen scowls, though, eyebrows drawn together and he lets himself be bidden to the side, but certainly not out of sight. He keeps a sharp eye on them both, but doesn't intrude as far as he understands Erik isn't actively harmed or injured or otherwise requiring medical intervention. 

* * *

In the Landscape, under Charles's fingers the blades of grass slowly turn green as if from an invisible power extending from his very skin, turning soft and pliant under his touch. The tinies slowly coaxed back out take refuge on his arms and up his shoulders and into his hair and neck. There's no one else here except for them, the first of their kind, when this place was first created from the very first moments that Erik remembers being shoved into that blank, empty room with the dirty mattress and ratty sheets spread over it, passing the time inside his own mind. The razing is complete, the radioactivity pervasive. Everybody else is melted into the atmosphere, leaving only the plink-plonks, thousands of shivering black blobs with circular arms and legs detached from their amoeba-like bodies, expressions ranging from worried to terrified. They pet him back, scared. They don't know much, but Charles belongs here, so he must belong to them, too. Each one of them has a tether to him, invisible at first, but after a while he can see it. Brilliant-gold, a thread just like the one linking them together.  
  
One blade of grass at a time. The razing is clearly not complete, because even now Charles knows they aren't alone even as it seems such, that this place is as alive as when he first saw it. In the Real he strokes Erik's face, brushes feather light touch over his closed eyes, his long lashes, reassuring Carmen without words. In the Landscape he gets his hands dirty, and this time he doesn't begin by moving mountains and creating suns. He doesn't replace weapons with feather dusters, at least not yet. He just stays on his knees and he digs, plants, grows, coaxing life from his fingertips. It's silly, perhaps, meaningless work when there's a bigger picture, but he does it anyway, determined and dutiful and loving, coaxing the tiny ones to help. He's always been exceptionally fond of them, and there's no reason to be frightened. Charles is here. He'll dig his hands in and fix it, even if it takes him years. Decades. Until then he has them to keep him company, and he doesn't mind in the least when they climb all over him as he gets to work.  
  
Some of them try to help, their circular limbs a little useless in the tilling, but it's the thought that counts, perhaps. Some of them like to swing off of Charles's hair or slide down his arms, still-playful even this place. Some hide in the wrinkles of his clothing, gasping and afraid, hunched in on themselves and hurt. One by one, each blade of grass he tends to curls toward him, as if he himself is the sun that needs replacing, a burned-out bulb in the sky, a hollowed orb translucent and sick. But Charles isn't. He is one of the few Alive-Things here. Erik's eyes flutter under Charles's touch in the Real, an autonomic response, but perhaps not. Perhaps each blade of grass that gets restored brings him closer to the surface. His breaths aren't even, the way someone's would be if they were completely unconscious; they're wheezing and labored, enough to worry Carmen even through Charles's assurance.   
  
A dozen tinies run up Charles's nose and settle in his eyebrows, putting their hands over his temples. They're sorry, so sorry he's hurting, too. When people hurt and suffer they are powerless to stop it, they always have been, they can only run and jump and play and explore the vast Landscape before them. But Charles can see-of course he can see. The stirring movement in the trees and mountains and sky. The one that finally emerges, pushing himself off of the ground, covered in dirt and mud in streaks across his face, eyes limp and cold and he moves toward Charles slowly, crawling through the grass. Not the Butcher. The Butcher isn't really a Butcher at all. They both know that, but no one knows this. It's something else. Something bad. For all that Charles has felt one hundred percent safe around any part of Erik, if ever that certainty were to waver, it's now. Danger lurks here. Danger, get out. The tinies tug on him. Hide, hide, hide.  
  
Charles doesn't hide. He doesn't move at all. He has a job to do, a task to complete, and he certainly doesn't intend to shy away from it. His hands are deep in the dirt, encouraging and coaxing and healing, and if there's opposition to that, he's more than willing to face it. Nothing that exists here could hurt him, that he knows better than he knows anything else. There's no chance of his certainty wavering. Even if he feels danger, he doesn't run; even if he's afraid, he stays right on his knees, tilling and determined, dirty from the work. The tinies can hide, but if they don't, he'll protect them, too. He pats them absentmindedly like he touches Erik in the Real, and he doesn't move an inch.  
  
Whatever this is, this piece; it's furious at Charles for that, for his unwavering devotion, for his dedication to healing. How dare he feel entitled to heal him, how dare he determine himself the one who restores green to the grass, when this-one exists only in the Wasteland. Charles is killing him. He's bringing the water and the sunlight and he will cease to exist. He is a threat and threats must be eliminated. With an otherworldly scream, it launches itself at Charles, scratching wildly.  
  
The logical thing to do in this situation would be to run, to struggle, to fight off. To feel fear, deep and clawing, and let it take over. Fight or flight, and Charles is many things but holding his own in a physical fight against any piece of Erik would always lead to one inevitable conclusion. It's a simple matter of fact. Instead he goes still, unflinching, wide-eyed but unafraid, unblinking. He doesn't scream. He doesn't struggle, or squirm, or do a single thing to break away, even as he's scratched and screeched at. He digs his feet into the ground, now green with the swaying grass, and he refuses to move. Come, then. Scratch and scream and fight. Charles won't go anywhere. He won't.  
  
It makes him angrier, even more aggressive. He howls in rage, knocking Charles flat on his back and rearing to strike him, to hit him, but he's not fighting back he's not fighting he's not, he's not-he-h-"Stop it!" he shrieks furiously. "Stop it _fight back!_ " He hits Charles in the chest with his elbow, a testing strike without much force (but still quite enough to startle and wind him), cajoling him to act.

* * *

It does wind him. This isn't the physical world, and pain doesn't register in nearly the same way, especially for someone like Charles, but it still has an effect. He doesn't rise to it. He doesn't flinch, or wince, or grimace; he doesn't pull away or struggle, doesn't look hurt or upset or angry. He smiles. Charles looks up and he smiles, brilliant as the sun that's blown out even as his chest aches with the blow, even as he coughs with it. "I'm afraid not," he whispers instead, and lifts his chin, as if daring to strike again. It won't change a thing. Charles is going nowhere, but he won't fight in the way this part wants him to. This is acting. He's staying.  
  
The thing growls, barely recognizable as any form of Erik, truly. His hair is covered in dirt and sticks and mud, his face is decorated in black soot, his eyes are cold and hungry and set deep into his orbital sockets, sunken and hard to see amidst the cover. His clothes are tattered, and he's holding a serrated hunting knife, which he presses into Charles's neck, the blade sharp and it stings all at once. "Fight _back_ ," it's snarled, bitter and twisted. " ** _Fight back!_** " It's not-it's not _fair_ -he has to fight back. He has to defend himself. He's staring at Charles, wide-eyed and his lip trembles, and he firmly bites down on it hard enough to bleed to make it stop, teeth chattering. It's apparent now that he's just a pile of lanky limbs, those unnatural angles present throughout, bones visible through translucent skin. And as he sticks his face close to Charles's to yell at him again, it's apparent that he's only small, barely older than those tinies swinging from his nose. "You fight back or else! Don't change anything **_stop changing it!_** " He doesn't want the green grass. He wants the radiation to soak him through. To make him strong. To turn the dial up and up and up.  
  
Charles just doesn't think that's true at all. He thinks this Erik is perfectly recognizable, just as clear to him as any of the others. He doesn't frighten him, not with his overgrown limbs or noises. Melting flesh or weapons or charred skin or distorted features, Charles knows his Bonded when he sees him. Even with a knife to his throat. He's smart enough not to move, then, but he's still smiling; not patronizing, not daring, but soft and warm, and when he reaches up his own hand doesn't tremble as he cleans some mud from the boy's cheek fondly with his own dirty fingers. "Or else what, dear-heart?" he asks, but he already has the answer. "Go ahead if you'd like. It won't stop me from growing the grass. I'm always going to come back for this, so I'm afraid it's either you or me." It's clear who he thinks will win out in those options, and it isn't the one with the hunting knife. "I'm not going to fight you, but you're welcome to stay."  
  
"Stop it-stop it," Feral-Erik rages at him, eyes ablaze all at once, cold-ice turned to fire. "Stop it," he whispers, broken, and he turns his head, furiously swiping at them, trembling in all the places that Charles doesn't. Wet tears mix with dirt and soil. Who does this intruder think he is, why won't he fight back? Why does he keep smiling like that? When his fingers touch his cheek he flinches, hard, and the knife presses in a little further, not enough to draw blood-but enough. "Stop it!" and it's not spat as much as it's cried out, desperate. " _Du sollst dich wehren! Warum nicht_?" and his voice cracks. Why doesn't anybody ever fight back. Why won't anybody protect themselves. They're supposed to protect themselves. They should have protected themselves. " _Warum nicht, warum nicht-_ " he draws back, and the weapon too, hugging his arms around himself.  
  
Even with a knife inches from slicing him open, seconds from it, Charles doesn't feel a lick of fear. When Erik rolls off of him, he counts a few seconds before he sits up after him, grunting a bit because he had been knocked straight on his back. No matter. It doesn't stop him from sitting as close to Erik as he can get and rubbing a careful hand over his arm, pulling a stick from what little hair he has. "I won't fight you because I love you," he says quietly, which is not the answer this Erik is looking for, but it is his. It is the truth. "I don't much like fighting, but I do like you. And I think I'll take up gardening, now." Only Landscape gardening and upkeep, though, because any garden in the Real would be seen by Real Erik and he just won't live that down, considering. He can't imagine he's much of a natural green thumb out there. He does like watering the plants and humming, swinging his hips when his Dominant isn't watching (or does he watch?). It's a completely inane trail of thought, but then again, maybe it isn't. "Do you want your stick back?" he asks, which perhaps isn't the question to ask someone who just had a knife to your throat, but it's a piece of Erik and he can't help smiling.  
  
Immediately he snatches it back, giving Charles the almightiest glower to ever glower. "Stick, _mine_ , don't touch." But Charles knows the end of that statement. Because you'll make it better. And this thing, this piece, doesn't want it to be better. He's rocking back and forth, fiddling with the stick and drawing patterns in the sand-the sand made out of the charred grass and burnt leaves from trees above. When Charles touches him on the arm he flinches horribly, but this person, this facet, doesn't act like the other; he doesn't fawn and submit. He fights. All at once it's apparent why Shaw took this from him, not just to ensure compliance-his Will rages out of him in an explosive blast raising all the hairs of Charles's body on end and he scrambles backward, clutching the knife again. Parallel to the forearm, an expert's hold. There's no recognition in his eyes. He doesn't want to recognize. He can't recognize. The being before him isn't a person. He's just a target. An enemy. Enemies have no faces and no hope and no love, the kind of love he knows-he stutters, turning bright red in shame. " _Don't touch!_ "  
  
Charles isn't at all offended or alarmed even as he's snapped and lashed out at, even with the knife pointing outward. He's smiling again instead, brighter than he has any right to be, hands raised in surrender and submission, palms up where this Erik can clearly see them. He scoots back on his knees until he's a safe distance. "I liked the stick better," he comments, almost idle except for how his eyes gleam, how his lips are quirked. He doesn't pull another stick from the boy's hair, reaching for his own and finding it, then doodling his own patterns near Erik's. Except where he touches, there's life, just as when he pulled the grass up from the roots; the tree leaves aren't dead anymore, the grass isn't charred. Tiny little bugs wriggle around and go about their business, pleased to have their home back, too. "I promise not to touch. I'm sorry if I frightened you."

* * *

His eyes slowly draw down to the ground where Charles is drawing his designs and slowly, he moves a little closer, entranced by the bugs and green things, and one hops on his hand, causing him to flinch again, but he doesn't shake it off or slap it. It's a little ladybug with a myriad of white spots, and a glowing yellow shell. "I'm not scared," he mutters, glaring at Charles again. "You should be scared. I'll kill you. I'll kill everyone here." He hasn't let go of his knife, but now he has a problem, because it's his knife-hand where the ladybug is perched, and he's torn between threatening Charles and preserving the insect's comfort.  
  
It takes quite a bit of effort not to laugh, but he doesn't want to startle this tiny Erik (not so tiny, really, but in comparison) or seem as if he's patronizing or mocking him, so he merely digs his hand back into the dirt and watches satisfied as the soil begins to right itself, to heal the very ground and foundation of this place and spread, bringing green and life where it does. He pulls out a worm, too, wriggling on his finger, and offers it to Erik with a grin. It's bizarre, but all of this is, and in the Real he's got Erik's head in his lap, he's humming softly so he's humming here, too. "Would you like to trade?" he teases, letting the little thing inch its way around. His sleeves are pulled up but still filthy, Erik dressed him in white and light colors again this morning to help with the heat, even cooler as it was. It's rolled over to here. "If you put down the knife, I could get you something to dig with instead. I think you'd be better at growing than killing, personally."  
  
"You don't know me!" He roars, shaking in his spot, and he's so close to giving in and jamming this knife all the way into Charles's neck, he's vibrating with it but something keeps tugging at him. The way he smiles and hums and sings, the way he touches the earth so gently. That's what makes him so mad. Tears escape his eyes again and he can't wipe them away, now that he's got a worm on one hand and a ladybug on the other, and a knife in-between. "I'm a killer. I love it and I'm great at it and you can't change things. I'm gonna kill you too." It's-well, it sounds like a threat, but it isn't, it's not a threat.  
  
Charles just smiles, patient and sunny, and goes back to his current task. There's not much left to cultivate in this particular spot, so he moves onto the next patch of scorched land, patting at the Earth and singing to it under his breath. Someone very wise told him that someone very wise told him that singing to plants helped them grow, so when no one is looking Charles makes sure he gets a few songs in there, too. It couldn't hurt any. _Here comes the sun, here comes the sun_ \- And he likes the part in between, the part that could be _doo-doo-doo_ or some equivalent because it was always Raven's favorite, the part after he stroked her beautiful red hair back (she was never hiding when he tucked her in, not unless she felt particularly awful that day) and kissed her forehead. He sings it on repeat as if he's jammed the record as this new grass begins to grow, as he finds new worms to let wriggle on his fingers, buried down in the soil up to his elbows to heal and heal and heal, to let the rest of the Land know there's restoring going on, slow but steady. It's calming, soothing, as much as repetitive fingers in Erik's hair in the Real. Caring for his Dominant. And all this time he's had his back half turned to that tiny Erik, with plentiful opportunity to plunge that knife right into his back. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to try?" he asks, mild, and looks over his shoulder. "It really is quite fun. At least put Worm back in the ground, hm? Little darling, it's been a long, cold, lonely winter..." No more of that, though. Time for the sun to wake up. The suns, actually. Charles gave him a friend last time, after all.  
  
Feral-Erik clutches the worm and the bug to his chest protectively, and in the process the knife drops to the ground with a clatter, bringing up dust from where it smacks into the dirt. He doesn't speak a reply-he goes to try, but his throat closes up over it. He can't speak. Not unless it's to threaten and hurt. And whatever he wants to say, perhaps it isn't bullying after all. He slowly, hesitantly moves to Charles's side, looking down at the ground where it's growing. Drawn in, by the sound of Charles's voice and life. Instead of death. There's no knife in Charles's back. There never could be and they both know it.  
  
They do, but he wanted that realization to come on its own. He smiles brilliantly as he's joined, dimples and flecks of dirt, and continues his digging, his humming, his quiet, half-embarrassed singing. He always stops if Erik catches him, goes red in the face. It's just habit, but he doesn't stop now. "Like this," he demonstrates, and works his fingers into a new patch until it begins to soften and sing for him, green and beautiful and alive. "See? Much better than before. Give it a go, if you'd like." His hands are much less circular than the plink-plonks, so he'll be much more helpful. Not that he'd begrudge them that, of course.  
  
He shakes his head. If he touches it, the green things will die. He only knows how to kill. He leans forward though, and puts a finger on Charles's throat, eyebrows knit together. What is it? Why is he here, why he is he singing to the ground, why isn't he scared? Why isn't he scared of Erik? Why won't he fight back. No one fights back. But no one stays with him, either. He's wary and scowling, because Charles promised not to touch him but no one keeps that promise, it's always a ruse and he's not going to fall for it, he's not, he's not. Even when he ends up side-by-side, arms almost touching, crouched down to look at Charles's work with an almost-reverence. Slowly, he reaches his hands down to deposit the bugs back into the earth and he puts his fingers into the soil as he's shown, his body trembling.  
  
Charles can be patient. There's a lot of restoring to be done, after all; the Landscape is wide and vast, and though quiet now, he knows it won't stay that way. They need grass and flowers and trees to run around with, to climb and jump and explore and use. In the Real he's taken to petting Erik's face again, stroking his nose, his mouth, and so gently his eyelids, not desperate or frightened but coaxing. Time to wake up soon, my love. Please wake up soon. But he's diligent and he's patient and he doesn't touch, he sings quietly and softly and whispers I love you to the ground, and when this Erik reaches down he beams. "You're doing a wonderful job," he encourages. "See? You do know how." The grass and the plants and the bugs don't wilt where he touches. Wildflowers sprout up instead, brilliant and colorful and such a relief, and he leans down all the way to smell and comes up with a face of pollen, nose twitching on a sneeze the way it does in the Real, too.  
  
In the Real Erik doesn't stir-his conscious mind is tied to the Landscape, and when the Landscape is in turmoil and destruction, so too is Erik's body but with Charles's gentle touch and his careful ministrations inside, his eyelids flutter underneath his thumb, as if to say don't worry, I'm here. The Erik Charles knows isn't, not yet, but this new Erik tentatively digs in, and when the wildflowers sprout up (and there's so many of different kinds) he gasps in shock, stroking them carefully, feeling the fuzzy leaves of the common _ballota_ shift under his fingers. All around there's sage-leaved rock rose, Steven's meadow-saffron, downwards thornapples, field marigolds, common capers, wormwood and spiny hawthorns spreading out as far as the eye can see. But they must be cautious, and Erik knows why. He looks up, shoulder-to-shoulder with Charles at this point, unknowing.   
  
"They need a sun," he croaks, his voice shallow and raspy. He's not used to talking. These are flowers that grow all over his home. What used to be his home. That's the way of the world. Your home is ripped from you. So you take it from everyone else. He doesn't know how. He wants to rip them apart in his hands, but he can't-he's being weak. When Charles goes to sneeze, Erik huffs and suddenly grabs his nose between his thumb and index finger. It's a strange, playful urge and he lets go moments later. It rises up in his chest, all the fear and anxiety and disgust and he climbs to his feet, picking up his gun from the sandy earth and slinging it over his shoulders. It's time to find every last remaining inhabitant and force them away from the places they belong, because they don't belong here anymore. No one does. It's his job to annihilate them and he will do it. Damn this intruder and his-and his-no, don't be sucked in by this. Don't want this. Get a grip on yourself.  
  
Charles doesn't stand immediately. He isn't worried, and he isn't afraid, not even at the sight of that gun. Erik could press it to his temple with his hand on the trigger right now and he wouldn't flinch. Not now, not in this place, and not because it isn't Real. Charles knows there's danger, that there would be consequences to something like that the way others would not understand or comprehend. He just doesn't fear it, and he doesn't see it as danger at all. "Are you certain?" he asks softly, and he's smiling down at the newly-tilled ground, finally pushing up and standing, covered completely in dirt and sand. Absolutely filthy with it. He doesn't mind. "I think you'd prefer a new job. And until then, you could always help me," he offers, as casual as can be. Then he starts to walk, humming under his breath, bending down to stroke at wildflowers, to touch the new grass, tall and strong, to coax and sing and heal as he goes.  
  
"Stop it!" Erik Commands, and it bursts out of him like an Order, the first one he's ever given from a facet like this. He doesn't mean it, and when it happens he immediately drops to the ground on his knees, head bowed, body bent in half. Hands braced over the back of his neck, gun abandoned beside him. He's sorry, so sorry. He didn't mean it. He'll do whatever Charles says. He'll help. He'll be better. (It doesn't matter that it's true. Any job would be better than the one he has now.) "I'll help," he gasps. "'M sorry."  
  
It feels like all his muscles freeze at once, and they don't unlock for a while after, shaking and knocking together in the aftermath. Even when it's clear it's not an Order that needs to be followed, Charles has a difficult time breathing or moving around it, eyes closed. He isn't afraid, though. He searches the grass for those familiar, electric bursts of Will to steady himself and then he folds down on the ground again, down by where this Erik crumpled. He doesn't touch, and he doesn't get too close. "There's nothing to apologize for," he whispers, gentle, and he's still smiling even now. "You're confused, and you're afraid, and there isn't space for you yet. But there will be. I don't suppose you'd want a feather duster?" he jokes, lips quirked on it, but he knows that isn't right for this part. There's a place for him, a job for him. Charles could never fear him, so he loves him instead, fully and completely even if this one piece doesn't know how to love him back. "You don't have to do what I say. I just thought you might like some help, too."  
  
It's never been more clear that this Erik is a child, that Erik's comprehension of everything related to these memories and impulses is child-like, and rather than lash out or pull away, he inches a little closer when Charles kneels down against him. "What's feather duster," he whispers, slowly drawing his hands down to his knees, eyes flicking up to look at Charles from his bowed position. How could Charles possibly help him? How could anyone? He doesn't need the help, they do. There are wisps, shadows all through the Landscape in varying forms of twisted death. That's what he's brought here.

* * *

They don't frighten Charles, either, those wisps, the way they wander and whisper and wail here, echoes of memories and fears. They will have a place, too, just as anything else, but it will take time. Charles knows plenty from the locked doors in the basement of his own mind, rattling and shaking at the hinges constantly. Crammed shut. There's been no time to take a breath and address it, and so he hasn't, but he will. There's room. There's space. And they belong here, too. He smiles gently as Erik inches closer, staying still and resisting every urge to reach out and touch, to comfort, to hold; it's natural with any version of Erik, any facet, but this one needs something different and Charles accepts that. He puts his hand behind his back for a moment and comes back with a particularly silly looking duster, this one bright, neon pink, and holds it out, the edges just barely grazing Erik's knees. "Feather duster," he explains, eyes crinkled with it, smudges of dirt still stark against his cheeks. "But I think you're perfectly fine with what you have. We just need to find a new purpose for it."  
  
Erik swishes it a little when it's held out to him, eyebrows knitted together. "I did that to them," he whispers, and he hears the rattling, the doors, his head cocked toward it; but they aren't materialized here. He nudges himself a little closer unconsciously, and it's completely out of the blue, completely off the path when he lays his head on Charles's shoulder, his whole body tense and terrified. He wants a new purpose. He wants a new meaning, a new life, but as long as those shadows roam, he will always be reminded of the kind of person he is. A killer. A warrior. He doesn't belong in regular society. He never will. He could never love anybody. Charles loves him but it's a fantasy. He'll only die at Erik's hand and be torn into pieces and burned alive.  
  
He almost laughs at the cock of Erik's head; even these facets are intuitive, even they know how to listen to Charles. It isn't surprising. But he quietly, firmly closes the door on those aspects of his own mind, because it had only been idle thoughts. Perhaps they'll end up in a long hallway with endless doors someday soon, when they have the time for all that, but for now they're here. They're here and this Erik is tense and trembling, leaned vulnerable against his shoulder, and it takes everything Charles has not to pull him in closer and kiss his head. He settles for wrapping him in the sensation of warmth in this place with a dead sun, cold but not lifeless, the wildflowers swaying around them. "We can't get rid of them," he whispers, because they don't belong in boxes or cages. They shouldn't be at all, but they do, and shoving them back inside does nothing. Charles needs to learn that, too, and how fitting that he can learn this way. "But we can help them. Will you help them with me?" It's not as simple as it sounds, but it's a good start. When he shifts slightly to make Erik more comfortable, he realizes he's still holding the duster, and he swishes it against Erik's leg, barely a graze. That almost makes him laugh, too. Even in the Dark Places.  
  
He flinches again, but slowly returns to baseline, which is still as tense and guarded as can be. "How can we help them?" How could anybody help them? They're lost. They're dead souls, escaped from the Underground. The warmth that surrounds him makes him gasp, and he touches his own face, rubbing at the skin there, and behind his neck. "We should kill them," he mutters, resolved.  
  
Charles doesn't point out the obvious here. He simply shakes his head, careful not to dislodge Erik any and startle him, keeping very still and quiet. "No, I'm afraid it's not as simple as that," he sighs, because he knows to this Erik it makes the most sense. It's what he was determined to do in the first place. "Killing certainly isn't going to help the person who needs saving here, dear one. No, I think it's time we let them go. They've been stuck around here long enough, don't you think?"  
  
The more still and quiet Charles is, the closer Erik ends up to him, until he's halfway into Charles's lap. He's almost as tall as Charles now, so it's not particularly effective, but what can you do. "OK," he whispers back, wrapping his arms around himself as if to keep in all of that warmth and trap it. He scrambles to his feet after a long while and points to the nearest cluster of shadows, wailing like ghosts, their faces distorted and otherworldly. The closer they get, the more the world distorts, sound becomes uneven. They're each places, people, memories, figures and souls all held inside of Erik's mind, all held inside of those boxes until they broke free. Erik shivers as the air freezes, wilting into Charles's side. They're screaming, holding one another, thudding into the ground, a hail of gunfire above.  
  
Charles closes his eyes for a moment. There are things he could do that would make this infinitely less horrific for Erik, but none of them would be longterm solutions. None of them would honestly, truly heal. He fights back every instinct to hold Erik to him and takes a breath instead, wrapping him up in that bubble of warmth and light and comfort, tugging it loosely over him like a blanket and letting Erik lean on him. "They're not ghosts," he whispers, barely audible over the noises they make, and he carefully, slowly sheds some of the distortion. Sheds it until they look less like ghouls and more like people. "They're just people. They need you to look at them, and listen to them, and then let them go. I know how difficult it is, and you shouldn't have to bear it. It was never yours to bear. This was never yours to bear. But I know you can do it, and I won't leave you while you do. I'll stay here the entire time. But you have to let them free." This time his voice finally cracks, his eyes wet, but he swallows it down as well as he can, ignoring the rattling in his own head.  
  
Erik turns away into Charles's shoulder, shaking his head, his body shaking in tandem. He slips his hand into Charles's unconsciously, wide-eyed and afraid, and where the color had begun to return to his dead-eyed gaze, it recedes as he sets them on the figures in front. He doesn't want to see them. Not as people. He can't. He moans, desperate for Charles to hear him, to take him away from this place where his victims roam. He never expected to face them. They were never people. And now they are. Some completely innocent. That's what he is, that's what he was made to be. Everything Charles has ever learned about him-about the people who wander in the sky and can't come down, the person in his lap in the Real-"Wrong," he gasps. "All wrong."  
  
That's not true at all. Charles grasps tightly to Erik's hand now that he's got it, shifting to accommodate, letting him hide in his shoulder and all but crawl into his lap. It's a bit less of a problem than in the Real, where his Dominant is always a bit too large to manage, though he always tries his best to hold him like he needs. He doesn't do any of that now, not wanting to overstep, not wanting to push more than he already is. "Nothing I know is wrong," he assures, because even now it isn't. Even with this fragment of Erik, it isn't. He closes his eyes and the tears come again, and he can't help rocking them just slightly, his hand squeezing. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault, it wasn't and isn't who you are or what you were made for. There is so much more to you, so much more than they could ever have fathomed. You are so much more, and I can't save them, I wish I could say I could but I can't -" His throat catches on it, he clings to that hand with everything he has. "But I can save you from this. All of it is still true. All that you are. It doesn't change that, and I will help you heal from this. We will find you a new purpose, I promise. I promise this is not what you were meant for."  
  
He knows he's supposed to be brave. He knows, he feels that he has something to go back to. Something beyond the facing, beyond the victims and suffering. It's associated right here, with the hand in his. It's so easy to kill. Everything else is hard. If he can't face them, he can try to soothe the man next to him. "Don't cry," he mutters, and reaches his hand up to wipe away those tears. Don't cry. Don't cry. Voices echo. Somewhere in all the fray he's found his gun again and it's slung over his opposite shoulder like a grotesque security blanket, every part and piece in working order. These days, the application of power toward harm is not something common to Erik. He prefers playing with Naomi and collecting colorful lipstick tubes and fixing jewelry. If Shaw could see him now, how disappointed he would be. At some point Erik was desperate for his approval. At this point, he was. Thirteen and thrust into mayhem and chaos, Ivanov screaming in his ear, Frost standing coolly aside. Adjusting and accommodating just-slightly in his mind. Don't cry. None of them matter. Erik looks up at Charles and shakes his head, and amends. "I'm sorry you're sad," is what he whispers instead. He gazes out into the razed horizon, the shadows that are slowly becoming people, and shivers like a leaf. It is who he is. Ask any one of them. There is no forgiveness, here. Not for him, or anyone else. He's on the wrong side of the box and he knows it, deep down where all his facets lie.  
  
The thing is, Charles knows this part well. His smile is sad when he manages it, and he resists every urge to lean forward into Erik's hand, almost laughing again at how he's being comforted now. Him, when Erik is shaking head to toe and hiding himself completely in his lap. It's exactly what he'd expect, and exactly how he knew the scratching and hissing meant nothing. This is Erik, just as any other facet is Erik, and Charles knows the core of him. He knows the sum total, head resting in his lap, eyelids still fluttering for him when he touches to soothe himself. He pulls the warmth he'd wrapped Erik up in tighter around him, a different kind of security blanket, this one woven by love carefully and slowly and with all the devotion he has inside of him, hands in the dirt to help do the work here. "I wish I could say otherwise," he whispers, and his eyes are closed again, another stubborn tear slipping down his cheek. "But I couldn't. I don't think it's fair to lie to you. I couldn't tell you they forgive you, that they understand that none of it could have been your fault. That under the circumstances, the terms you're applying here simply don't apply. It wasn't ever mine to forgive, and I didn't forgive as much as I understood. I can't give that to you with them. I don't know them. I could find them if I looked, go back -" He's done it before, however impossible it should be. Felt lingering presence of minds he's never met, signatures left behind. "But it wouldn't help you. This isn't about them forgiving you, poppet. It's about you forgiving yourself." He squeezes Erik's hand again, softer this time. "You're the one being saved here, don't you see? It doesn't have to be right now, or next month or next year. But that is the work you need to do. You need to be brave, which you certainly are, and you need to find it in that beautiful, compassionate soul of yours to forgive the one person here who needs it most."

* * *

But if he does, if he does forgive, it will be tantamount to saying that he accepts it, that he accepts what he did, that what he did was OK. This version of Erik isn't out of time, he can't be, because he knows too much, he's evolved too much. If this really were the Erik from back then they wouldn't be hand-in-hand, Charles would be dead. It wouldn't matter what Charles said. Erik would have killed him if he were so commanded and never listened, not ever. This version of himself existed in isolation, erased when they returned to the complex so that Erik could instead serve in another way, and remain loyal. The dichotomy is stark, what Erik's always thought he knew about himself thrown in complete disarray. So he reaches up and swipes away that tear, too, and he doesn't know how he knows to do those things, but he is grateful he does. He swallows and steps forward, dropping the gun to the ground and raising his hands to the shadows, eyes big and determined, and collects them all up in a swirling, writhing mass before making a gesture in a large swoop down to the ground. They sprinkle into the earth like pollen, and large sunflowers emerge instead. He can't forgive himself. And he can't face those demons, but he can turn this Landscape back to what it should be. He can take these interlopers and create something else, instead. He has other things to do. He has to let the one Outside return to his family. He can do that, instead of killing.  
  
"Forgiveness and acceptance are not the same thing," he whispers quietly, shaking his head as he watches. Guilt twists and it writhes and it destroys as much as rage or pain or malice, though it isn't as simple as all that. As saying it, as conceptualizing it. Charles knows that perfectly well himself; there are things he's done, things he feels, things he knows that he has no idea how to forgive himself for and certainly no intention of loving. There is no compassion for those parts of himself, but there always will be for these parts of Erik. If Erik can't feel it in this moment, not this part or the one with his head in his lap, if the dissonance is too great, Charles will feel it for him. His smile is sad still as he watches those flowers rise from the ground, new tears on his cheeks here but not the Real, and something aches so horribly inside him, something he has no words for. Something that, perhaps, there are no words for. "I think that's a lovely start," he murmurs, because it is, and wills his heart out of his throat. "I did tell you that you're a natural at the growing bit, didn't I?"

* * *

Erik's eyelids slowly blink open in the Real and he shifts to touch his hand to Charles's face, as the world begins to filter back in. The Landscape is still charred, the dissonance is still, and may always will be, too great-but the green that Charles instilled will soon spread, dust floating in the air to re-plant itself throughout the mountains. "You did," he rasps lowly, giving a huff and a small smile. His cheeks are wet, but he's here, and he's here for Real.


	68. I’ve watched you stare long and hard enough at the map already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _bluebird_ , charles bukowski

Charles finds he was wrong about his tears. They're in the Real, too, wetting his own cheeks and dripping down his nose onto Erik, and he feels embarrassed for the second he has to capacity to before he's covering Erik's hand with his own, heart thudding in his chest for some reason as he tries to smile, too. It's not his best attempt, but it's something, and when he leans down he notices the thread between them that never once broke, still wrapped around Erik's wrist and leading to the singing metal of his collar. He still has a hand buried in his Dominant's hair, stroking gently. "Welcome back," he whispers, almost too quiet to make noise at all, his voice thick with it.  
  
Erik tugs him forward by the thread and kisses his forehead, dabbing at his cheeks with his sleeve gently. "I could never remain parted from you," he says, giving a small laugh. It's apologetic. He never intended for any of this to happen. If he had known, if he could have anticipated it-the only solace he can take is that they are handling it, together, just as they said they would.  
  
"I did stop breathing on you once, so I believe it's fair," he teases weakly. And as far as unconsciousness goes, Charles has gone longer, too. Time works differently in places like the Landscape, but if it had been any longer he imagines Carmen would have wanted to take more action than watching Charles hold Erik still and tend to his mind. His gorgeous mind, the one he isn't stuck in because Charles couldn't bear it. He couldn't bear it. His head is throbbing awfully but he ignores it as he bends down over Erik, afraid to stop looking, to stop touching, afraid something will break and this time he won't be able to heal or mend it. Afraid to breathe too harshly, else upset the balance. "Please don't leave me," he begs again, and it's so pitiful but he can't help it, tears gathered up in his eyes again.  
  
"Never," Erik murmurs up at him, touching over his lips and cheeks, down his jaw and to where the metal of his collar rests against his neck. His mind, here only because Charles plunged deep within him, right after him without even a second blink at the consequences, faced the terrors with him, as he always has. Erik couldn't be more grateful, more honored-and in his opinion, less deserving of it, but he certainly would never spurn it. "I will always be with you," he whispers, smiling wetly. Thankful, always thankful. Forever. "I'm so sorry," he gasps. "I did not mean to get lost."  
  
Charles shakes his head, holding back the rest of his tears and leaning into every touch greedily. When that big, warm hand touches his collar he sighs and arches his throat, that overt expression of trust and submission he'd only ever let himself fall into recently. "You came back," he breathes, because that's all that matters. They can get lost, as long as they come back to each other. "Also, we have an audience," he reminds Erik, and huffs out a breathless laugh. He's shielded the last few moments because he's selfish and wanted them to be private, but while he could redirect Carmen, sitting nearby and waiting, indefinitely, he doesn't think it would be the kindest of him. It doesn't mean he pulls away, because right at this moment he couldn't fathom it.  
  
"Do we?" Erik laughs back, feeling for some reason-light, maybe. Not at peace, because in this place-in this room, it simply isn't possible, but-here. He continues stroking at Charles's collar, kissing gently under his eyes and slowly rousing to a seated position, back resting against the wall so he can instead tug Charles into his arms, running his hands down them, as if to remind himself he is here. And so is Charles. And, you know, so is Carmen, who gives them a curious, skeptical look as if to say he's uncertain that Erik is stable, let alone capable of finishing what they've started.  
  
This is incredibly unprofessional on every level imaginable and even as his cheeks heat up, he finds he doesn't care. No one else in the room can see them but Carmen, anyway, and the man was at their Bonding. He doesn't care because if Erik stops touching him right now he'll lose his mind, he'll break apart into screaming, horrific agony, the migraine he's been nursing for days and his own fears eating him right up. So all he does is curl into Erik's neck, clutching to his shirt and refusing, absolutely refusing, to let go, throat still bared for his Dominant despite the fact that doing it in front of someone else makes him want to burst into flames, flushing hotly. "If we could really speed this up," he mumbles, because he doesn't want to be in this room. His mind supplies a few much better alternatives, all too fast to parse for even Erik, and he huffs.

* * *

Carmen doesn't much seem to mind, to his credit, and he gives a curt nod. This next part won't be easy, but none of this has been. It's much the same. He begins to read from the list softly, translating where necessary.   
  
It's attempting to discern what types of actions Erik undertook while in the custody of Shaw; killing, pillaging, occupying, harming to various degrees. There's, surprisingly, a lot there that Erik does answer no to, but there are a great many that he answers yes, features dark and flat, the emptiness threatening at every turn. Those swaying flowers of shadows in the Landscape threaten to break off, whistling horribly in the winds of a storm brewing in the mountains, but he never lets up. He never lets it gain purchase, drawing on Charles's presence instead for strength. Did he ever kill civilians. Did he ever desecrate a corpse, did he ever offer a perfidy (-shockingly, no. Shaw never even labored under the assumption that they weren't superior. There were no truces, there was no mercy, false or otherwise.) Did he ever take hostages. Did he ever destroy civilian property. Did he ever engage in the use of forced labor.   
  
And on and on. At the end he's small, tucked into Charles's side, shaking in the Real just as he had in the Landscape. "I didn't want to," he whispers to Charles, petting him, guilt twisting the fabric of reality around them. He just wants his submissive to know that. He didn't want to. However horrible he is, however guilty he is, he didn't want this.  
  
Charles bears it all, too. By the end of it he thinks he might have stopped listening even though he hasn't, everything blending together and sounding like words more than anything else, meaningless, his comprehension of them blurred by the throbbing in his temples. His eyes have closed, but he opens them when Erik speaks, nodding against his neck. Peeking up at him. "I know, darling," he sighs, reassuring, as soft as he can manage. "I know. You didn't want to. You don't need to convince me of that, I know you." He never would have thought otherwise. His head is swimming and he feels a bit lightheaded, but he shifts to kiss Erik's cheek even as he turns toward Carmen, something awful clenching in his stomach. "What's the likelihood Erik is prosecuted for any of this?" he asks quietly, because it needs to be asked.  
  
"So, I've actually spoken with the lead Prosecutor here about that," Carmen murmurs softly. "Janos is also working on Erik's current criminal trial, due to the extenuating circumstances involved in that. He's told me that in all his tenure with the ICC he has never seen a child soldier prosecuted for crimes of aggression. Unfortunately, Erik was an adult when he perpetrated some of this, which makes the case more complicated. There are precedents," he adds, flipping through his folder. "Ongwen, for example, shares a fairly similar case, and he is currently undergoing ICC prosecution for the crimes he committed as an indoctrinated soldier of the LRA. Like Erik, those activities continued well past the age of majority. What I will say is that much of this will be predicated on Shaw's trial. If Shaw is determined to be guilty, it will be established that everything we're alleging as the Defense is true-including all charges of telepathic assault and manipulation-which will turn Erik over to the purview of the ICC for deliberations and another fact-finding session. This will also be focused on identifying other inductees of Shaw's personal forces, since as of now only Erik has been detained."  
  
Possible, is the answer. Possible, though he'd wager, with every optimistic bone he has in his body, with every ounce of faith he has in people and the judicial system as a concept, unlikely, and this is going to make history one way or the other. It certainly has its eyes on them. "Shaw will be found guilty," is what he says, simply, and it doesn't take the ability to read the future for him to have full confidence in that. He refuses to accept even the possibility of something else. Shaw will be found guilty and the entire world will watch, and that's a fact as much as he knows anything else. The thought of Shaw makes everything icy and sick like it always does, his head flashing with things not his, and then - and then he laughs. Sudden and sputtering and definitely hysteric, he claps his hand over his mouth, eyes wide as if the sound startled him. "Sorry, I - sorry -"

* * *

Carmen's eyebrows raise, and then lower together, knitting in the center of his forehead. "Are you all right, Charles?" he asks, hoping this passing-out thing isn't contagious, because he really isn't trained for this. Erik pets his head, shivering as Carmen lays out the reality of his situation. No matter what happens, he will invariably be associated with Shaw for the rest of his life. And the things he's done, forced and otherwise, will be a matter of public record and scrutiny for the rest of his life. It's overwhelming, it's enough to steal his breath away, but he can't-he can't get lost again. He forces himself to breathe, to just fucking _cope_ even though there's no one left in the Landscape to help him, he's all alone and his mind is splintering apart at the seams, and Charles is laughing, well it's kind of funny, isn't it-Erik doesn't really know what's going on right now, but he just strokes Charles's hair and rocks him back and forth and smiles with him.  
  
There's not a single thing funny about it. It's horrible, is what it is, but Charles thinks good can come from it because he has to. They'll make a place where none of this is possible, so directly opposite the Shaw Institute; a place of healing, and safety, and hope, and Erik will be associated with that, too, as he already is. From the ashes a new world, though it will take time and it will take struggle. A cause for them both. He'll bear the burden with Erik. He won't leave him alone, not for a second of it, and if the Landscape is collapsing he'll spend every waking moment there to keep it up on his own shoulders even as every door slams open-shut, open-shut in his own mind. He'll dig in the dirt, he'll do the work, and he'll see them both through this, just like Erik will with him. There's no need for him to cope, at least not alone. But he's shaking his head, and shaking in general. "When was the last time you saw Shaw?" he asks Carmen. "Have you seen him at all?"  
  
"I processed him into _Scheveningen_ ," Carmen murmurs with a nod. "He's been given a room in the UNDU, which largely resembles a hospital room. Thus far he's been compliant and cooperative, but he is exceptionally manipulative. A guard had to be removed from his care after he nearly convinced them to leave the unit maglocks disabled. She was a mutant, and evidently susceptible to Shaw's doctrine."  
  
That bit of information is vaguely terrifying, and Charles will have to increase his own security measures - he's Shaw's real guard, isn't he? Shaw is compliant and cooperative because there is simply no other choice, but the moment he has his mutation all of that will change. Fortunately, Charles would never let that be the case. "He's dying," Charles sighs, letting go of where he's grasped desperately to Erik's shirt to rub at his own temples, which throb awfully at the touch. "Faster, now, because he's injured. Depending on the length of all this, he might not even see the end of it." Could Charles fix that, and still keep his hold? Is that something he wants to do - play with another's life like that, even Shaw's? Keep him alive to make him face what he's done? He's the only one who could.  
  
Carmen sighs, and nods. "Unfortunately such circumstances are not uncommon. Very few people who should truly be within the ICC's purview end up duly prosecuted by them." It's euphemistic; most of them flee, or commit suicide. Shaw is an anomaly, an outlier to face himself and the wrath of the world. But Shaw isn't the only one in that facility. Someone will face these crimes, whether they want to or not. "How long does he have?" Carmen asks, soft. Erik tugs his hands away from his temples and replaces them with his own fingers instead, steady and soothing. So much has occurred in the span of a few days, so much has been uncovered. Shaw's death, their children, his involvement as Shaw's real right hand. It threatens to shake him apart, but he won't let it.  
  
He closes his eyes, wincing at first at Erik's touch and then leaning into it, his mind quiet for a moment. It's clear why, where he's gone and what he's doing, but it only lasts a second. "Not very long," he mutters, and he doesn't know how to feel about it. It's not complicated for the same reasons as Erik, but it is complicated. "He's deteriorating remarkably fast, and there's excruciating pain. I can't imagine he'll keep his wits about him toward the end, either." And Charles could fix that. The notion that he is killing Shaw - truly, actively killing him, passively or otherwise - hasn't been lost on him, and it churns his stomach so completely. But there's no other option. There is, but why should he? Why should he keep Shaw alive when he doesn't deserve it? There's another sick, twisted part of him, opportunistic and manipulative just like Shaw that thinks - and Charles shakes that right away, ashamed and reeling in the aftermath. It doesn't completely leave. "Not long," he repeats, quietly.  
  
Erik touches his cheek. He won't tell him whether or not Shaw deserves to die. He can't tell him that. Erik isn't the only one affected by Shaw's insidious, evil experiments and his horrific worldview. Erik truly believes that some people deserves to die, and that Shaw is one of those people. But it won't be Charles who kills him, if and when he goes, it will be at Erik's hand, or at the hand of the government. It's Erik's job to protect Charles, and killing is not something you can ever come back from easily. So keep him alive. Let him face what he's done, and in the end, he will perish. Whether that is by edict of the state or by Erik's calm, calculated gaze, remains to be seen. But Erik will not allow Charles to go down that path. That is his the purpose of the one inside of him who still lives on, who transforms writhing ghosts into wildflowers, who asks _what is my purpose, if not for killing?_ It is this. To protect Charles, even in his way.   
  
"It's not possible for us to speed things up any faster than they're going," Carmen says, "but if it's the case that he dies in custody prior to his trial, it will still continue without him. This is bigger than one person, though I have to say I'd like to see him serve his punishment. Death is the easy way out. It's why you rarely see criminals of this stature make it to the box."  
  
Death is the easy way out. Charles goes quiet, his throat clogged and the migraine overwhelming, his eyes closed and braced against it. The nausea that always accompanies it doesn't help, and he ignores the roiling in his stomach, swallows the urge to retch. There's nothing left he can say about this without flaying himself open, so he doesn't. He says something else instead, his mind close to overload, and nothing is linear. 

* * *

"Were you terrified?" he asks. It's meant for Carmen, not Erik, but it's not related to anything they've been discussing. It's something else entirely.  
  
Carmen's head tilts, one eyebrow cocking curiously. Regrettably, he isn't telepathic in any measure of the word. Intuitive, yes, smart-hell yes, but telepathic? No. He can only guess what Charles means, and he doesn't want to guess. Not right now. "Terrified?"  
  
"Terrified," he repeats with his eyes still closed, and pulls up an image from Carmen's mind, private and cherished, the projection tinged with apology because he hadn't meant to find it. He has a difficult time not finding like this. Kitty is tiny in this memory, swaddled and yawning, her face scrunched up as she wiggles in her father's arms. She's a few days old at most, and she smells fresh and new, looks wrinkled and bright and beautiful. "Were you?"  
  
He huffs a little, because that had been his guess. "No," he says softly. Kitty was a happy accident, but Carmen was 37 years old and just finishing the trials and tribulations of immigrating to the States, on the tail end of recovery from conflicts no one had any business being in. He drank too much, spoke too little and spent too much time in front of the slot machines, and then Teri told him she was pregnant and he supposes he should've been afraid, but-it was the opposite, really. The fear dissolved, the fear he'd been living in all his life prior to that. All the silence melted away. He gazes over at Charles knowingly. He doesn't need to ask _are you?_ because Charles can hear it in his mind, gentle.  
  
There's no way for Carmen to know, and he's certain the guess here is incorrect, but the question closes up his throat anyway. Is he terrified? Warren was terrified. He remembers the day Angel was born clear as anything, and the discussions following. He remembers every day of it, the time Angel was in their lives, every second. Every second following, too, an ache that never heals, that he's nursed ever since, and he knows how much worse it is for his friend. Charles doesn't quite have the luxury of easing into it, of nine months of preparation, of preparation at all. He's not sure he's fully processed anything, and now when they leave in just a day there will be enough new things to focus on and process that he can't fathom how he'll get around to it. What if he doesn't? The pounding in his head is becoming unbearable, less of that numbed pain and more like sharp, stabbing agony. "Yes, I think so," is his answer, and when he opens his eyes the room is more than one room, distorted and slotted together. He hisses and closes them again. "Is she alright? Kitty?" he asks, but the way he asks and the frown on his lips makes it clear he already knows, likely more immediately than he does. That he's getting telepathic input without attempting, without meaning to, from across an ocean, however much he was thinking of her, isn't entirely lost on him. More sensitive by the day, and he's not sure it's a good thing.  
  
"The last time I checked, she was," Carmen nods, but his eyebrows scrunch together again. "She is, right?" because if there's one thing he's learned not to doubt, it's Charles's capabilities. Erik touches over Charles's eyelids, so gently, a mirror image of how Charles touched him only moments before, wincing in sympathy at the pain. If there is one thing he still desires to kill, it is that. "Even when we found out she was a mutant," Carmen laughs softly. "I was delighted. The terror came much later. I think fear is as much part of being a parent as love. You want your kids to succeed, to do well, to live a good life. Not to be afraid, not to be hurt." And that's exactly what the MCA aims to do, in his opinion. G-d forbid people like his own daughter be herded up and officials in government war rooms asking so, what do we do with them? Because the answer to that question, the question, is as self-evident as the sun in the sky, and Carmen refuses. He might only be a baseline, but he still has power and he intends to use every stretch of it whether legal or otherwise to ensure his daughter lives the life she deserves, so that all mutant children can. "Having a place to go, like your school-you don't know how much of a relief you're affording people."  
  
That's the idea. Charles winces, this time in pain but something else, too, because he tries not to pry. It's part of his abilities, sometimes, it happens without the conscious decision to let it, but he knows lying here isn't going to get him far. He could tweak Carmen's mind to hide it, but he's in no shape to do it himself, wilted into Erik as the migraine settled all the way in. "She's having a bit of a rough morning, but she'll - she'll be alright." Charles worries for her, too. He worries for mutant children in general, he worries - for his children, and saying that even in the comfort of his own mind is strange, fills him with equal parts utter bewilderment and terror and already fierce, unconditional love. He doesn't know if he's made sense of it yet, but that much he understands. "A safe place," he whispers, and thinks of every child without one. Kitty has accepting, brilliant parents who fight for her, who appreciate how extraordinary she is rather than fear it, but even Kitty - his lips purse.   
  
Phasing through lockers, books forgotten in the hall, tears she won't shed in her eyes and panic banging around in her chest. _"Leave me alone! Let go!"_ Someone's hand goes right through her. It gets projected outward, clanging and loud. Kitty slumped on the bathroom floor, half-phased through her arms.   
  
"I would say I can't imagine it, but -" But he can. It slipped, his own mutation, even when he didn't want to let it. Fear and distrust and disgust, Other, outside, more than he already was. He'd wager it's something every mutant child has experienced at some point. Lonely, alienating, frightening, even under the best of circumstances.  
  
Erik's arms tighten around him gently. There's no need to hide, anyway. Carmen's accustomed to it by now, whether or not it's an accurate perception of what Charles is capable of, Carmen pretty much figures that Charles knows everything about him and merely chooses to maintain an illusion of privacy, an illusion that he's grateful for since much of what exists in his mind is highly classified and could get him into serious trouble, the kind that spells treason, if Charles went around blabbing about it. And yeah, it was jarring and scary at first because everybody's got secrets, government-mandated or otherwise, and there's a lot that Carmen would like no one else in the world to be aware of, but what are you going to do? You know? What are you going to do, it's not like Charles can help it, that's just the reality of his existence.   
  
Maybe Carmen has it easier than others, though, because he's already forgiven himself, he doesn't care if people judge him, but Charles isn't a judgmental sort anyway. You couldn't be, in his profession. It wouldn't get you far. Erik and Carmen both listen to him, with Carmen's jaw tightening at those images; not because Charles slipped and showed them to him but because they're there at all. There's a rage that lives in his chest and it's trying to get out, but he won't let it ( _/I say, stay in there, I'm not going to let anybody see you/stay down/do you want to mess me up..._ ) and Charles is right, of course. Even Erik, who not only had brilliant, accepting parents but also had teachers toughened up by the day and age who certainly weren't scared of a little boy who could move metal (they were more afraid of his Indication to be perfectly honest) and a community generally fairly accepting of mutants in general, had his own experiences as a child. Baselines who simply couldn't understand that the things they said applied to Erik, too. When they said _maybe unchecked mutations can be dangerous_ , Erik heard _maybe I'm dangerous._  
  
The range with mutation makes it even more difficult, and while Charles finds it beautiful, fascinating, extraordinary, he knows it's why others find it dangerous. Why they feel the need to contain and restrict and even eradicate. A child like Erik is different from a child like Kitty, just because of the variation there - and a child like Charles is another story entirely, but Charles still finds it in him to hate his own mutation, on the days he remembers vividly what it cost him ( _"stay out of my head, Charles! Get out!"_ ).   
  
When Kitty manifested at thirteen, she sometimes got stuck. Pietro overexhausts his tiny body with his earlier manifestation, and can only go quick bursts that short out. The potential for danger there is obvious. Wanda, when she's not just moving things an inch or two with her pretty scarlet light, can potentially make things very improbable very probable, a hundred percent, which has more than a few potential dangers. She hasn't come into it yet, but she will. There's so much to consider, and they need help. All of them, especially with no support system, especially alienated and scared and alone. Charles doesn't have any illusions that he can help every mutant child on the planet, but surely he can help some. Many. Surely he can give the rest hope. "She's working up to asking you," Charles whispers, his eyes still closed, but through the pain there's a quirk to his lips. "I thought it fair to give you a warning."  
  
"There's a difference between _danger_ and _dangerous_ ," Carmen murmurs, because it's something many baselines fail to understand. Can mutation present danger? Yes. Are mutants _dangerous_ ; are they _inherently_ dangerous, are they _willfully_ dangerous? That's something else, because we all know it's the latter that they mean. His head tilts, though, and his eyebrows raise. "Asking me?"  
  
The snorting noise Charles makes is going to have to work as a laugh, because even that makes him wince, temples throbbing as he rests his head against Erik’s shoulder and takes comfort from where he can. “Kitty understands advanced particle physics better than I do,” he says, which is a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much at all. In a conversation about it, their collective minds worked so fast that they stopped finishing sentences. Facilitated by Charles’ mutation, by the end they were two very fast computers processing at speeds unimaginable to most humans, and Kitty only lagged slightly. Charles knows there’s not a mind in this world that can work like his, but she came fairly close once he helped her get started. Challenged her like she hadn’t been before, in ways she didn’t think she could be. “Her knowledge of computer science rivals the greatest minds in the field. She does mental math in moments for problems that most couldn’t solve in their lifetimes. She’s not going to be challenged sitting through eleventh grade classes.” He pauses, and sighs. “And she’s scared, of course.” That one is the more difficult of the two problems. Kitty doesn’t want to go back to school next year, and while part of it is that she isn’t being challenged, the other part is that she doesn’t feel wholly safe.  
  
Charles isn't telling Carmen anything he doesn't already know, though. It's always been in the back of his mind, that Kitty is going to need more specialized instruction than she could ever get at her local highschool; and he doesn't begrudge her that. He kept her with her peers because he thought it would give her a place of stability, a normal life, a friend group she could rely upon, but it's not turning out like that. She's bored and frustrated and afraid, and that isn't what he wants for her. "So what is it she's working up to ask me, exactly?"  
  
"An alternative." What exactly that alternative is, Kitty hasn't worked out herself yet. She's gone through options, but Charles can't blame her for being uncertain what would work best, what she should ask for; by sixteen he was finishing up a first university degree at Harvard, gearing up toward Oxford, but that was his path. He couldn't say it would be the same if things had been different for him. If he wasn't most interested in grabbing Raven and getting out, as far away and as fast as he could. It didn't work, of course, but that had been his intention. His dream. Kitty's situation isn't the same. "But she doesn't want to go back to school next year. She's decided that much." And Kitty is as stubborn as her father is, once she puts her mind to something.  
  
Carmen nods, because it's something he's suspected for a while, now. "The only trouble is," he sighs, "I don't know where to put her." Would she be happier in a university-level environment? Would she just experience the same things but from older minds, a more insidious form of bullying? At the very least she'd be in a place where she can stretch herself out, but she'd also be amongst people quite a bit older than her, who could take advantage of that. Being smart doesn't mean you're mature, and Kitty still has to learn that lesson. He doesn't want her to end up in scenarios that will fill her with regret later on.  
  
Charles sighs, too, because that is the problem. He's leaned up fully in Erik's arms now, resting slumped against his shoulder, but he braces himself to open his eyes. The dizziness and disorientation and pain is immediate, but he dulls it out the best he can, draining light from his own perception like he's only recently learned he can do. It helps some. "It does seem like there is no place, doesn't there," is what he says, because as much as he'd like to say university would be a better environment for her, he can't guarantee it. The coursework would be more challenging, absolutely, and she would find herself with more opportunities at any of the schools she's bound to be accepted by - Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, perhaps even abroad if she fancied - but Carmen identified problems correctly. And then there's the fact that Kitty's powers seem to be growing, her unsteady control of them, unpredictable phasing - it's a lot for a sixteen year old to handle on top of everything else a sixteen year old needs to handle. "It won't be an easy answer, whatever it is. If I can help, you know I will," he murmurs softly.  
  
Erik's wrapped his arms fully around Charles in return, taking this moment-a break in the drudgery of horror and agony, to re-center himself, so that when he does contribute it's quiet, calm. "Your daughter will always have a place at our school," he whispers, giving Carmen a small smile. "In the interim, perhaps she might benefit from being homeschooled for a while. You could hire tutors that can teach her at her level, perhaps she can attend some university courses and gain credit from those. Perhaps she might be inspired to join some mutant student groups, with people her own age who are also struggling with similar circumstances. There is always a solution. We just need to look, hm?" he tweaks Charles's ear fondly.

* * *

Charles shakes his head, shifting restlessly and frowning at the touch, flinching away from it, which isn't at all usual for him when it's Erik touching. He doesn't move from his arms, but he's tensed up, and he hides that, covering it up a moment after as if it hadn't happened at all. He doesn't think Erik will have missed it, but he blows past it. "I didn't say there was no solution, I said it would be a difficult choice to make," he mumbles, quiet and less irritated than - something else. "Finding tutors who are on Kitty's level will be difficult. She's going to run circles around them either way," he huffs, fond amusement masking whatever the rest is. Pain, some of it. It's becoming worse pain by the second, too, but he swallows it down.  
  
Erik wasn't particularly speaking to Charles when he said that, and he makes him aware of that, eyebrows knit together. In this moment and in this tenuous space, though, the push-back, the mere implication of irritation steals his voice away and he just shakes his head. The choices will be difficult either way; but perhaps allowing Kitty a more individualized education program will give her more freedom, let her study what she wants, not in an 8-hour-a-day environment surrounded by bullies whether her own age or otherwise. It's just his opinion, though, he knows it's not particularly valuable. Right now there's not a whole lot about the universe that feels like he belongs, like he is worth belonging, the only place he can find is here, with Charles in his arms, but Charles flinching away from him makes him tense, alarmed and sad and very-much blown-over. "'Kay," he whispers, hiding his head in Charles's shoulder, brushing his lips over his collar as if in reminder. To them both. A small tug of his wrist where that invisible-golden chain leads them to one another.  
  
It wasn't a matter of what he'd said. In fact, Charles absolutely agrees; she should have a much more personalized education experience. She needs it, actually, he'd argue. Erik is right. Charles wasn't arguing the point, even if what he'd said was true. It would do her much more good than harm, and Erik's opinion is absolutely valuable. Charles respects his opinion more than anyone else's, and these things will need to be discussed for their school. It wasn't irritation, it wasn't even agitation. It's ridiculous and pathetic but tears spring to his eyes and he immediately shifts until he's wrapped up in Erik's arms, burying his face in his neck and shivering with both pain and the sick feeling that's settled in his stomach. He'd reacted to something and he hadn't meant to and he's sorry. He's sorry, please don't leave or be upset. He hadn't meant to.  
  
Erik shakes his head, brushing his good hand across Charles's hair, petting down to his neck, over and over again. Apologetic. He's the one who's sorry. He didn't intend to cause guilt. When Charles shifts into his arms Erik holds on tight, all the people in the Landscape have gone to sleep or disappeared into the sky and he's scared, and he's sorry, and on top of everything else there's the probability that he'll be prosecuted for the things he's done and he knows he deserves it but it hurts, it hurts in a way he can't even begin to describe. It's a hollow void scooping out his soul on a serrated blade. It hurts to stay, every second he is here his heart shrieks in his chest and collapses in on itself like a dying star, and it's a physical sensation, a clawing in his ribcage making it impossible to breathe around. And he's sorry. He's trying. He didn't mean to upset Charles or force him to react that way. It doesn't matter how painful it is, he'll stay. Just tell him what's wrong so he can try to fix it, so he can try to make Charles happy. It's the only thing he has any value for, it's the only reason he's still alive.  
  
That pierces Charles' heart worse than anything else, hollowing him out and forcing those tears out against Erik's neck. He can feel it. He can feel it and he can't make it better and instead he's making it worse, reacting over nothing, his brain melting down, throbbing horribly and making him sick and it hurts but he doesn't have any right to feel it, any of it, any of this. It's not true. Erik isn't only here to make him happy, there's so much more and he must think that because Charles probably made him think that and he's being selfish, he's feeling sorry for himself, his head hurts and he doesn't know what to do. He needs to make it better but his head hurts and the doors are shaking and rattling and he's sorry, it's his fault, he didn't do enough to fix it. He's sorry. He should be a better submissive and he's sorry.  
  
No. Charles did everything. He's a wonderful submissive, Erik's submissive, and only Erik's opinion in that matter counts. He made the Wasteland green again, and walked hand-in-hand with a part of himself he never knew he had; not consciously, even when that feral version of himself tried to attack Charles and yell at him. Remorse and sorrow; Erik didn't mean it. He just didn't know any better. It's not a good excuse. But under no circumstances did Charles ever force him to think anything. It's the truth. The only purpose that Erik has now is to ensure that his family is happy. Everything else that may come is merely a product of that. He can't think any further into the future, he can't think beyond putting one foot in front of the other or he'll collapse into a trillion pieces, a silent-implosion of particles like a planet bursting out of existence. If he does, Charles will be alone, and Erik can't sanction that. He will always have a right to his feelings. Erik will make that space, and that time, just as he always does. The only thing Charles needs to do is show up. That's all. Just be here. Don't go away. The only ground beneath those feet in front of one another is knowing that Charles is next to him.  
  
Carmen, oblivious to their internal struggle, continues reading from his file. "All the information we've gathered here today suggests that Sebastian Shaw operated a violent non-state party known as the _Hellfire Club_ which engaged in extralegal militant combat against the recognized governments of Israel, Colombia, Brazil, Russia, Slovakia, Poland, Germany, Nigeria, Liberia-" he keeps reading; a stunning degree of international latitude, "-and the United States. I'm not Janos, so I can't qualify this explicitly, but I'll be professionally recommending that Mr. Shaw and his officers be tried for crimes of aggression against all afflicted parties. There is very little to suggest that he'll be found innocent of those crimes, with the exception of his death in custody."  
  
It's not enough. Whatever he did, it's not enough. There's no time for this, no space, Erik is wrong. It's selfish to be in pain with all of this going on. It's selfish to be hurting when Erik is hurting more. He's shivering and his brain is getting close to that horrid place where it stops functioning and starts exploding, agonized screeching from all sides and splitting, unbearable pain, so he shakes his head and bites back the whimper when that jostles everything, eyes tightly shut. "He won't die in custody," Charles promises, because he can do that much. He can assure that much.  
  
"Nonsense," Erik laughs softly, pressing a kiss to the underside of his jaw, and where his hand has collected itself behind Charles's back his nails sink into his skin, containing the full-body convulsion that jolt of electric vice-grip crushing inside of him threatens to erupt on the outside. All pain has a reason. It isn't in competition. If it isn't expressed natively, it will express itself in other ways. It cannot be contained, it cannot be controlled. Erik is trying, too, because Charles keeps asking him to stay. And if he lets go he'll fly off, a depressurized airlock tossing him out into space with no suit. Floating for all eternity. He's sorry that Charles feels like this, that because of his pain, Charles feels like he can't express his own, he can't be his own self. It's the one thing he has never wanted to be used for, a metric for Charles to measure himself against, a tool of self-hatred. How could it possibly exist, when the only thing Erik knows for him is love? It must be because he isn't controlling himself enough, he isn't doing something enough, he isn't being enough, and he's not. He's a Dominant. He's supposed to have this and he doesn't have it. Charles wanted him to be scared, he is scared, and helpless, against that screeching agony he can't reach even though he spends most of his time trying to, but it isn't enough.

* * *

The noise those particular thoughts elicit from him is wounded, low and distressed and overwhelmed, and he tries to burrow himself closer into Erik as everything becomes decidedly too much. There's no input that isn't shrieking, everything dizzying and nauseating and strange even with his eyes squeezed shut to the point of pain. Erik is always blaming himself for Charles' inadequacies and insecurities and it isn't fair, but he doesn't have the proper words to say as much at the moment. He doesn't have the tools to say anything. It's not that he's competing, it's that Erik should matter more, he should be able to work through it without it getting in the way, this one in particular should be simple if he wasn't so weak - an insect - his mind flashes something for the briefest of moments, tinged with desperation, then goes black. Vibrating, overdone, frightened. Hurting. It hurts.  
  
But there is never going to be a circumstance where benefit is reached by Erik deciding that he matters more than Charles. Nor where he acts by insisting that Charles matters more than him. That line of thinking is repugnant to him, despite actively engaging in it many times himself, when really considered what it reminds him of is Shaw. That some people matter more than others. Erik doesn't like it, and he doesn't want any part of it to infect their relationship. He won't allow Charles to submerge himself simply because Erik is in pain. That only makes it impossible for Erik to feel pain at all. "Do you understand?" he whispers, only for Charles's ears. It has the ring of Command to it, something he thought he'd lost along with all the fisherman and the carpenters and the people in the Landscape who make things run. But it's the most basic part of him. It zaps between blades of grass like electricity between synapses. "Show me. Properly." And that is an Order, and Erik's head tips back, inhaling with it. Almost forgotten what it felt like, but he won't let Shaw take that from him, either. He won't. He's taken too much. It's too much.  
  
Intellectually, Charles understands. Neither of them is worth more than the other, and he wouldn't want it that way. He'd made it clear earlier that he knows what they should be, what they are: equal partners with opposite, equally important roles. That matters to him. The problem is that he doesn't often believe it. He wasn't taught to, and learning it proves difficult regardless of how patient Erik is while he's taught. He especially doesn't believe it now, and the sound he makes is a cut off whimper, the entire world spiraled down into suffering. The only thing that makes sense is Erik's voice, everything else blaring and disorienting and painful, shaking and throbbing agony that consumes everything. There's blood on his face, and it's getting rubbed into Erik's skin. He doesn't want to show him. He doesn't even know if he can, if he can focus enough, if anything up there is under his control or if it's all reached critical mass again and all he can do is wait for it to pass. But it flashes anyway, because it was an Order and Charles knows instinctively to follow those, more than he knows anything else right now. It's not conscious, he might not even notice. The syringes in the Manor's basement. Then it goes black again, and Charles whimpers through it, fingers twisted in the fabric of Erik's shirt.  
  
It doesn't have to be conscious, and it doesn't rely on whether or not he thinks he can; Erik's Orders permeate into Charles's very neurochemistry, an S1 perfectly matched to his Dominant. Charles once posited that he didn't think he could respond to anyone else but Erik, and all of that is channeled now, alive and swaying in the dust of cognizance and sentient being. He understands those syringes, too, better than most. Better than anyone else could, but it's not what he came for. In a fluid movement he rocks back and propels them both to their feet, bidding Izzy and Carmen a silent farewell before rearranging the bricks to let them leave, and levitating up and out into the sky, a much cleaner exit than those that came before. They're floating in the middle of nowhere, protected by his shield instinctively, while he sends himself down into those memories, into those places, into that door thrust open. Show him. Everything. No more hiding. And that will be obeyed. He will not allow for anything less.


	69. I’m beginning to think I may never not be undecided, about all sorts of things:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _king lear_ , shakespeare

There are limitations. There are limitations because right at this moment, Charles isn't much more besides pain. He can't stand, he can't breathe. The only thing keeping him from utterly collapsing is Erik, limp and weak and trembling against him, hot to the touch with this episode put off as long as he could possibly manage it, the pain behind his temples ignored for as long as possible. It hurts worse than it ever has, save for that time in the courtroom, more intense than he can remember it being. He's letting out pitiful, low noises, animal sounds of agony, whimpers, knees knocking together even as he leans on his Dominant with everything he has. His nose is bleeding obviously now, more than a trickle, stark against Erik's shirt where he's ended up in his chest. There's nothing resembling Charles in his mind, nothing conscious and aware at all. There is a hallway, and there are doors. The long, endless corridor. Some of them are locked. Some of them are open, left ajar. Some of them slam, open-shut, open-shut. There are noises from the basement. But Charles isn't there.  
  
In a blind panic, Erik finds what he didn't know he had-the ability to dive in. He will go to that place and he will bring Charles back. He lands on an indeterminate ground with a loud _oof!_ and scrambles to his feet. _Charles-! Where are you-?_ Erik whips around, a hand tapping his shoulder- _I'm here. Al tira. I am with you_. Erik gasps, the sound echoing across the infinite emptiness of the corridor, and he whirls around only to encounter himself. Older, features lightened with grace and experience. Wrinkles dissipated. His hair is grayer, too. He's wearing a white robe that shuffles around his arms, and two cuffs-those playful ones, the ones along his wrists. Those weren't there before, but maybe Erik just never noticed them. "I'm not sure you're in a position to issue such Commands," Erik remarks dryly. There is an equally infinite relief on his own features, haggard and harried and worn out with all that he has learned. Paragon. He's never seen him face-to-face like this before. Perhaps not. There is no other recourse than for you to obey. We have work to do. " _Adonai li v'lo ira_ ," Erik huffs _. "But you're not G-d."_ Perhaps not. Paragon holds a hand out to him, gesturing to the Beyond. They have work to do. Erik stalks through the first open door.

* * *

It's Charles' childhood bedroom, though in the Manor it isn't in the right place. It doesn't matter in this corridor, especially not for an open door. They're always swapping themselves around, and sometimes where the kitchen should be leads to the library, if Charles' mind is scrambled enough. Stairs that go nowhere, the moon hung in the sky midday. In the middle of the absurdly large bed is Charles, though it isn't Charles. He's younger, swaddled up in a sweatshirt that swallows him up entirely, head bent into a book. Humming to himself, quiet and mumbled, his hair falling into his face. Every now and then he'll huff in frustration and try to blow it out of the way, but it never works. There's an open chocolate bar beside him, books and papers spread out in a mess of disorganized organization, and he flits between them, scribbling in margins, biting on his pen, swinging his legs behind him. He doesn't look up. It seems, for all intents and purposes, to be perfectly normal. An undisturbed moment of time, ordinary. Average. A memory in a sea of others. Perhaps it is. There's a collar around this Charles' neck. It isn't Erik's.  
  
Erik is about to charge head-first into the room, but Paragon holds him back, giving a silent shake of his head. A bid to be careful, to touch this place delicately. Whatever this is, it's no longer occurring. Erik needn't rush in and rip apart the world, it would only cause a great catastrophe. He must take care. He must not allow instability to reign over. _Ani yode'a,_ Erik gripes, rolling his eyes and shouldering Paragon out of the way, appearing through the threshold of the door and approaching calmly. "Charles," he whispers, crossing over to stand at the edge of the bed.  
  
The Charles on the bed startles briefly regardless of how calm Erik was, eyes lifted from his books to stare wide-eyed and fearful at Erik, pen resting behind his ear uncapped and staining the skin there. He quickly relaxes, recognition in his eyes as he calms, and then, as if no one walked in at all, turns his attention back to his work. "Hi," he says simply, as if Erik is disturbing him, distracted and quiet. His feet go back to idly swinging, and he's clearly searching for the pen behind his ear, a habit Charles still has.  
  
Erik huffs a small laugh under his breath, and he raises his hand, lifting the pen (and the wayward ink on his skin) away from his ear, so it swirls in the air slowly in front of him. He comes to rest at the edge of the bed, and plucks the pen out of the air, holding it out. "You know me?" he whispers, ducking his head to catch Charles's eyes.  
  
Charles doesn't meet them, and it's deliberate this time, his eyebrows drawn together as he attempts to look especially busy. He takes the pen without comment, scribbling something in his book, underlining a phrase. "Of course," he mutters finally, and then huffs, apparently giving up on his attempt to look distracted and unbothered. He crosses his arms over his chest instead, a stance that's always been more defensive and protective than aggressive on him. "You shouldn't be here. I'd like you to leave, please," he says plainly, chin lifted though he still isn't meeting Erik's eyes.  
  
"Look at me, please," Erik whispers, and as far as Orders go it's one of his lightest. It's a little tug, something stabilizing. "That isn't going to happen," he continues murmurs softly. "If you know me, then you know this to be true. I've come here for you. To find you. To help you."  
  
It raises every hair on this Charles' neck even so, teeth clenched and body tensed, everything on edge. When he looks up to follow the Order, because he has to, it's a withering stare, eyes fiercely narrowed and lips pursed. "I don't recall asking for your help," he snarls, cutting and icy, and quickly turns back to his books. "If you're going to root around in our mind giving Orders, at least go where you're wanted. I don't need you." That the door was open doesn't matter. That he was led here first, doesn't matter. This Charles wants nothing to do with it, clearly, and he haughtily slams one of his books, opening another. "I'm busy, thanks much. Go find another door, and don't blame me when you don't like it."  
  
"It matters to me," Erik says, giving a small smile, refusing to show anything else. "And you never have to ask." The book he goes to slam next doesn't take, opening quietly to the correct page. He's not like Charles. He doesn't know how to heal these places. He doesn't know how to make green things grow. All he knows how to do is be here, to weather the ice and cold and sharp, cutting edges. Charles could cut him a thousand times on them and he'll still be here.  
  
It seems like it agitates this younger Charles more. The calm, the patience. It isn't fair and he didn't ask for it. He doesn't want it and he certainly doesn't need it. He takes the book and throws it abruptly off the bed, not at Erik (off to the side, deliberately, so it won't hit him) but in a clear fit, sitting up and glaring with everything he has. "I didn't want a Dominant!" he yells, and his voice cracks on it, young and desperate and upset. He shakes his head, arms wrapped tightly around himself to keep it all in, refusing to look at Erik again. "I didn't need one. We didn't need one. You should have left us alone, we were fine. Everything was fine. You ruined everything!"  
  
He just continues to smile, soft, and the book hovers mid-air before it reaches the wall, setting down easily on the floor. He ducks his head to the side so that Charles can't see his eyes wet, but when he talks, his voice remains even. "I didn't think I needed it, either." Gunfire, wisps screaming into the endless dark. "I didn't think I was capable of loving anyone. But you showed up. You helped me. You keep helping me." He doesn't say I know, but Charles knows it, anyway. He knows what he's ruined. He doesn't need this young one to tell him that. "I love you. That will never change."  
  
It quiets him. He isn't satisfied, and he isn't calm, and he isn't pleased, but whatever venom he meant to spit next gets stuck in his throat, caught in his chest where it burns heavy and awful. It doesn't matter if he's being fair. He's not the Charles Erik loves anyway, not even close, and he never will be. He's stubborn and angry and confused and hurting he doesn't understand and he doesn't want to. There are a million things he could say, cold and cutting, things to make Erik leave him alone, but he doesn't say any of them. He just stares at the wall where the book should have hit, teeth clenched again. "Fine. But you don't need to stay here. There's nothing you can fix here," he mumbles. "I told you, go find another door. Whatever you're looking for, it's not here."  
  
He shakes his head. "I'm not trying to fix anything," he whispers. "I'm just here." Charles is wrong. Erik does love him, even like this, even at his most stubborn and angry and confused, and he certainly hasn't shed those parts in their relationship. They still exist. And Erik still loves them. Erik doesn't need him to be fair. He just needs him to be there. And it's OK if he's mad. It's OK if he hates Erik. It doesn't change a thing.  
  
Charles turns his head completely, looking incredibly young and fragile as he hides in his sweatshirt. It's about five sizes too large, and it hides everything as he swims in it, which is distinctly appealing to him. "I don't hate you," he mutters, because he doesn't. He isn't even really mad. He isn't even sure he meant the things he said, but he can't apologize because he hasn't gotten there yet. These parts exist in Charles still, but not like this. As mature as Charles was, he was still just a child. "But you can't just stay here. When you leave, can you close the door on the way out? I don't like it open."  
  
Erik doesn't answer that, because they both know the answer. What he does do is wave his hand, and the sweatshirt that Charles is wearing begins to alter, fabric rippling until it resembles the large white cable-knit sweater that is a favorite of Erik's, warm and soft and cozy, big even on him, and positively silly on Charles. He hopes Charles remembers this. It's Charles's favorite, too, because it's Erik's favorite. When he's sad or overwhelmed, or the day is long and rough, he can be found in Hank's office wrapped up in it over a mug of tea.  
  
Of course Charles remembers it. His Charles, the one who wears his collar and not this itchy, buckled contraption. He wears it even when he isn't sad, because it's comfortable and it smells like his Dominant and it makes him feel owned, and considering the short amount of time they've had together in any Real capacity in the grand scheme, he's likely worn it just as much as Erik has. There's a warmth to the room where there's usually a bit of a draft, wrapping Erik up like a gentle, grateful embrace, a sign that he's there and he understands. But this younger version doesn't. He rips it off his head as if it's burned him, throws it to the side, shivering because it's winter here and cradling himself in his own arms. Pale skin is covered in fresh scars, vicious bruising. There's a large handprint clear as anything on his hip where it's now exposed. He's horribly thin, ribs visible, everything fragile and slight and bony and even more now as he shakes. "Please go," he whispers, and there are tears in his eyes, ashamed and sick. "Please."  
  
"Never," Erik whispers back. He picks up the shirt and moves, and it transforms into a blanket, made of the same material that he uses to wrap Charles up, to set against those scars. He hugs Charles to him, too, gentle and careful. When he tries to wriggle out and escape, Erik's arms only tighten, a nonverbal Command to be still, to be calm, to take a breath, to be easy. "I'm here," he breathes. "I'm right here. It does not matter what door I go through. Whether this one or another, whether you or another. I'm right here." Erik loves him. It's the only thing he knows how to do. The only positive thing he's ever given to the universe. When the rest of his actions merit only pain and suffering, actions that result in-in sitting in that box right next to Shaw. "I love you," he whispers, and he shuts his eyes against any emotion that threatens.

* * *

The room goes black. It's not dark, it's total, complete nothingness. There's quiet. Silence, until there isn't. Echoes of pain somewhere far away, of gasps and whimpers and the shivering of the Real, a fever and chills and his face is covered in blood, his hands are still bunched up in Erik's shirt. When the corridor comes back, it's different. Longer than it ever was, and there's no light. Every door is locked. Tightly, firmly locked, in a way even Erik couldn't hope to manipulate. There are voices, loud, shouting voices, some of them familiar and some of them not. But the corridor is empty, endless, void. At the end of it there's a man, his back turned. It isn't Charles.  
  
Well, Erik certainly isn't afraid of him. He strides down the corridor, an endless journey of infinite repetitions until he reaches the end, grabbing the man by the shoulder and hauling him around to see his face; but he doesn't need to see his face to know who it is in his bones, every hair on end, waiting for a threat and preparing to neutralize it. Even if it's only inside the mind sphere, Erik knows how important that space is, how vital and necessary it is. He won't let this intruder walk around free.  
  
Up close, like this, the man looks extraordinarily like Charles, though in life he'd assumed there were only a few features passed down by genetics; Charles has always looked more like his mother, just softer and less angled. Gentler, kinder. Now it's easy to see that perhaps he underestimated their similarities, that his own perception was warped and in this place there's more truth. In the face shape, the general features. The hair, curling at the ends though the man's is cropped shorter than Charles ever fancies, and it's abundantly obvious who he is, even if Erik had never seen him before. His long lab coat spells it out: Dr. Brian Xavier. He tilts his head the way Charles does, waiting. Down the hall, a door slams shut, screeching at the hinges.  
  
It matters little to Erik, he doesn't nor will he ever see similarities between Charles and his parents. "You do not belong here," he says, and his voices echoes with ringing authority, the coldness of Paragon straightening his shoulders with righteous fury. Erik will rip out his heart and crush it to dust, and watch him keel over and disappear in a bundle of curling smoke. "Do not think I won't. Leave."  
  
When the man smiles, when this ghost smiles, it's calm and almost kind. Pitying, perhaps, though Charles still has trouble remembering it as such. There's little warmth, only a play at gentleness, and something much more calculated underneath. "I belong here as much as you do," he murmurs, and his posh, Oxford accent is even more prominent than Charles', but it's clear where his came from. Where he learned it. "I wouldn't be here otherwise. I've done nothing but help my son. Can you say the same?"  
  
When Erik moves, it's fast, his arm rocketing forward like a freight train to slam his palm into the man's chest and dig his fingernails in, shredding that neat lab coat and holding him in place. He leans in close to snarl, "You experimented on your child and labor under the illusion of good doctor, but Charles wasn't sick. He was special and you made him believe otherwise. You made him think of his gift as a burden and he suffers because of it. How many others did you strap down to shove the needle in? How many other children did you torture? You forget who you are talking to, _mein Freund_."  
  
Brian Xavier laughs, and it sounds like Charles’ when it’s hollowed out, when the laughter doesn’t reach his eyes. Even as he winces, he doesn’t lose his calm, that calculated look about him; if anything his lips tug up further, amused, dark eyes full of distaste. “My son was born sick and it was my duty to cure him. Can you begrudge me that? Any unfortunate means were justified by the ends. I did important work. I don’t expect you to understand,” he sighs, pitying and patronizing both, his head still tilted. “Why don’t you ask Charles?” As he speaks, a door opens. Creaks, as if by accident. A boy stands there now, small and fragile and sickly, peeking out from the opening with wide eyes. “Come, Charles,” he says, no warmth and all Command. This tiny, timid Charles creeps forward, clearly terrified, clearly weak, clearly sick. “Yes, Father,” he whispers, and bows his head, trembling head to toe. He’s not afraid of his father. He’s afraid of Erik, shrinking into Brian as if he’ll protect him.

* * *

Erik flinches, not from anything Brian Xavier could possibly say to him or do to him-no, it's the one positive aspect of his training, he's only afraid of Sebastian Shaw. There's no fear left in him for anybody else, certainly not this grotesque imitation of a parental figure. But because Charles is scared of him, and that cuts deep, and he's sure Brian must have known that; he's a fragment inside of Charles. In life he might not've, but here? Erik shakes it off, eyebrows narrowing. "We'll have this conversation alone, my dear doctor, not with you hiding behind the terrified obedience of a _four year old._ "  
  
Dr. Xavier shakes his head, his lips quirked again. “Charles, how old are you?” he asks, and it’s clear as anything that he expects an immediate answer, his eyes holding no warmth as they look upon his trembling son. “Six, Father,” Charles mumbles, looking down at his feet still. He steals a glance up at Erik, frightened and confused. “Are you frightened of what my son will say? That perhaps, as his father, I know him better than you?” he asks, an eyebrow raised as he looks up at Erik, several inches shorter both in life and here. “Charles deserves to hear how little you care for him. What have you done to make him better? Isn’t he sick at exactly this moment? Charles, it’s time for your medicine,” he says, as if offhand. The effect is immediate there, too. Charles begins to shake more than tremble, worse than a leaf, hunched in on his already tiny body.  
  
"It is not," Erik growls, exploding into action and forcing Xavier into the wall, barring an arm over his throat. "I make him better by listening to him. By taking care of him. By following him into whatever darkness takes over. Am I frightened of what lies you've fed him? Absolutely not, because I know the truth. You are a pitiful monster. You are weak and scared, not me. You are the one frightened of him, you are the one who could not imagine allowing Charles to develop the way he was intended to, you are the one who made him sick. The only medicine he needs is right here." Erik places his good hand over his own heart. "But you don't have one of those. So you wouldn't know, would you?" he laughs, hollow and disgusted. **_"Get out of here,_** " he Orders harshly. "Before I disintegrate you into atoms."  
  
And he does. Brian Xavier disappears, because he was never there to begin with. He’s been dead for over a decade, dead and buried and gone, but he lingers even now. Even without his ghost wandering this corridor, he lingers. In the Charles left behind most noticeably, still frightened, still shaking, arms wrapped tightly around himself and given back memories that he’d taken from himself, a telepathic manipulation entirely different from what Erik experienced, but perhaps similar, too. “Father?” he whispers, staring wide-eyed where his father was moments ago. He sounds broken, the way he was when Brian died just a few years later. He sounds lost. Who will give him his medicine? Who will make him better? He looks up at Erik, as if expecting the answer is him.  
  
He kneels down to Charles's height and wraps him up in a blanket, touching his face gently. "Your father is where he's supposed to be," he whispers back, an infinite warmth he didn't know he was capable of anymore. "I'm going to take care of you, _neshama_. OK? I promise. You're going to be all right. You're going to get better, I'll make certain of it."  
  
But Charles’ eyes fill with tears, scared and hurting, even as he doesn’t wiggle away. He doesn’t have the strength to even try, and one look at him is enough to tell that he’s indeed sick; if things had continued as they were, perhaps it would have killed him. “I want my father,” he protests, crying, big, fat tears sliding down his cheeks. He coughs with it, the force wracking his weak body. “I want my father! Bring him back. He has to make me better, it - it hurts,” he gasps, his lip wobbling, hiccupping around sobs.  
  
"I know," Erik whispers, wrapping his arms around him, and in this place, he can do something, he finds. He can, because it's not the Real. He presses a kiss to the top of Charles's head, runs his fingers through his hair and spreads a miasma of warmth through him, melting away every bit of sickness until he feels calm and sleepy, limbs loosened with comfort instead of tense in pain.  
  
Even at the relief, which he’d never felt then, which he doesn’t feel now, Charles still cries. He sobs until he runs out of breath, until he’s hiccupping and coughing and sputtering, childlike grief, distraught and perhaps even inconsolable. “I want my father,” he keeps repeating, over and over, the words he’d thought every day following Dr. Xavier’s death. No one had consoled him then. “Bring him back. He promised he’d bring me more books, he has to give me my medicine - bring him back, bring him back,” he insists.  
  
Erik just rocks him through it, murmuring nonsense, petting his hair. This isn't then. Erik is here, now, and he will console him. For as long as necessary. "I know," he just repeats softly, setting them back against the wall so he can cradle him in his lap, wrapped up warm and safe in that soft cashmere blanket. "You're going to be all right. You're going to get better, I promise."  
  
Charles shakes his head back and forth, swaddled completely in blankets and Erik's arms. No matter how hard he tries, he can't stop crying even though Mother would be angry with him for it, rocked back and forth as he weeps. "M' sick," he says, sniffling loudly, gasping around more of those harsh sobs that steal what little breath he has. "Sick. You can't make me better, I'm sick, I'm bad, I'm sick," he sobs. "I need - I need -" He can't even get it out. He just dissolves into more crying. One of the doors down the hall slams. Then they all do, loudly and repeatedly.  
  
"I know you are," he huffs fondly. "But you feel better now, hm? It's OK. Let it out. I'm right here." He takes a breath and quietly recites something; a passage from one of his favorites, mostly to soothe and lull, the sound of a voice in the dark. " _Come, let's away to prison;/We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:/When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,/And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,/And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh/At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues/Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,/Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out; —/And take upon's the mystery of things,/As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,/In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones/that ebb and flow by the moon..."_

* * *

It doesn't work. Charles just cries harder, confused and scared and unable to process, completely unable to process, too young and too distressed. He cries himself into a fit of coughing again, until he's red in the face and choking on his own spit and snot. When a door creaks open this time, the Charles from earlier walks out, still collared. He isn't the Charles he knows Erik wants to see, to reach, to find, but he sits down anyway, something that's never been done in the corridor before. It doesn't work like the Landscape. Everyone stays where they're supposed to, no one talks. Compartmentalized and sorted. "I told you, you can't fix it," he mutters quietly. "Just leave the doors closed."  
  
Erik extends his arm and brings this new-Charles in, too, one arm around each, holding them both. "I'm not here to fix it," he laughs, but it's soft. Gentle. "And maybe you're right. Maybe I can't fix it. Maybe not ever. Some things aren't mine to fix. But I can help you fix it. I can be here. I won't ever leave. You will always have me. You can always find me. I know I'm not what you want, not yet. But someday, I will be. And I need you to trust that, if you can't trust me." He presses another kiss to the crying-Charles's head.  
  
Teenage-Charles shakes his head, not fussing nearly as much as he did earlier. He still tenses when he's touched, bristling, unwilling to be coddled like the distraught child in Erik's arms. "I'll never need a Dominant," he mutters, because he's stubborn and hurting and it's easier like this. "I don't need anyone to take care of me." But then he goes quiet, pulls his legs up to his chest, vulnerable and guarded. "You weren't here when I needed you. No one came to save me. I got through it myself. Why should I trust you? Why do you think you get to walk in here and make everything better? I hurt, too. I was alone -" His voice cracks, wavers, and he shakes his head, hiding it in his knees. "It's not fair."  
  
Erik pulls the blanket up around this Charles's shoulders, too, tucking him in. "I know," he whispers. Maybe if things had been different. If Shaw hadn't stormed into his village. If that day-feet trudging in the gravel, walking home obliviously from school, backpack still on his shoulders, until the smell filters in. It's the first thing he noticed. Smoke in the sky. Splintered houses. If that day hadn't happened. He would've become more receptive to Charles. He would've known sooner. He would've come sooner. But-Charles is right. He could've listened. He could've tried. He could've-kept that link open. Even when it meant that the person on the other end would see. (-on his back-shoved into the ground- no, this can't be-happening, it's not happening-close the rift like an event horizon swallowing up space around it until it's empty-) Feel and experience. His own mind couldn't process it. He shut down everything. If he hadn't, maybe he would've left sooner. Burned down that _Institute_ and made his way to where his submissive was still in pain. "I'm sorry. I know. The blame is mine."  
  
That just makes this Charles shake his head, an agitated little noise from the back of his throat. He shoulders off the blanket because it's the only thing he can do, because he has to resist somehow. Because it's the only way he knows how to cope, by pushing back against everything except what he's never felt he had any control over. Tiny Charles sobs still in Erik's arms, hiccupping loudly. "That doesn't help, you blaming yourself. I didn't say that," he mumbles, mostly muffled by his knees. "I didn't say it was your fault. I just said you weren't there. You weren't. You don't know what it was like. I know you -" He doesn't have words for it. There are no words for it. "But I hurt, too," he whispers, and it hardly makes sound at all. "And no one was there for me either. No one cared. So I did it by myself, and you don't get to take that away. It's not fair."  
  
Erik tucks the blanket back around Charles's shoulders. "Charles, I'm not here to take that away. I wish I could have been. I should have been. I'm sorry I wasn't." He has to smile, though. "You deserve a monumental credit for what you've done. For how you got through this, for how you coped. You did a wonderful job. I could never hope to take that from you, and I have no desire to do so. I can't change what happened. I can only be here. And I am here. And so are you. You're not alone anymore. You will never be alone again."  
  
No one would ever accuse any version of Charles of not being stubborn. He pushes the blanket off again, huffing, and sits up to cross his arms over his chest, chin rested up on his knees. "Do you know what this is?" he asks, and he reaches up to tug at the hideous collar he's wearing.  
  
"Yes, I do," Erik murmurs back, quiet. It's far less appealing than the one he wears now, he notes dryly to himself, but he keeps those observations submerged. It hardly matters. Erik's known what it was since the moment he saw it, and he's suppressed every reaction to it. It isn't the place for that. Nor is it something that will push him away, as this Charles inevitably believes. He knows exactly what it is. It has no place, either. Not anymore.  
  
Charles' lips twist up, but it isn't a smile. He hides everything in his knees again, and then he's the one shaking, though he'd never admit to it. "Are you sure?" he asks, quiet, and it's biting, too, but he knows that venom doesn't belong aimed at Erik. It isn't, really. It never was and it never could be. "Do you know it's a dog collar? That it's not even made for humans?" he asks, and his voice shakes with it. "Do you know I put it on myself when he said to because I thought it would - " That breaks off with a sharp breath, and he's silent for a few minutes, clearly worked up with it. "You don't know. You have no idea."

* * *

"Yes, I do," Erik repeats quietly, and meets his eyes. There's no trace of anger in return, and certainly not the violence he's accustomed to for that level of vehemence, despite the only living beings in Erik's Landscape at the moment. For whom violence is a way of life, the only thing they know, but not here. Never here. "You should never have been Commanded to wear such a thing. Such an experience is deeply dehumanizing, and I'm very sorry that you endured this. What did you think it would do?" he asks softly, head tilting in turn.  
  
It makes him huff again, breathing out as if everything's been drained from him. Deeply dehumanizing. It's not wrong, but in the grand scheme the collar was just a symbol. "Make him stop hurting me," he mutters, and covers himself up entirely, hidden in his legs and protected by his own arms. "It didn't work, but I had to try. I had to for Raven -" He swallows audibly, closes his eyes. "He broke my leg and I couldn't hide it. It scared her. I promised I wouldn't get hurt anymore, but it was a lie. It doesn't matter what I do. It doesn't matter if I wear a collar and bark like a dog, get on my knees and beg. He hurts me anyway. It doesn't matter." It never will. Charles isn't crying, because he refuses to cry, but the sound he makes sounds suspiciously like a sniffle. "I have to wear it because he might hurt me more if I take it off, and then how do I take care of her? I have to take care of myself. You weren't here. You can't act like you were here, like you know. You don't. How do you know what I need? How is your collar any different?" he demands, but it's not nearly as vicious. It's just tired. Scared.  
  
Erik silently encourages him to unfold himself, and he puts his hand on Charles's cheek. Even when he flinches away, Erik just moves with him, silently asking for his attention, for his time, even if he is angry, even if he doesn't want to give it. "You could never have done anything to please him," he whispers softly. "And it was never your responsibility. That belongs to him. Not to you. And he cannot hurt you anymore. I know what it is like to feel that form of humiliation, and I deeply, deeply regret that you ever had to experience it. Because I wasn't there. You had to take care of yourself, but that isn't true anymore. No one thrives alone. I'm here to help you thrive. To be happy. I know you don't think it's possible right now, but it is. That is the difference. He never cared about your happiness."  
  
Charles, for just a moment, looks as if he's going to lean into Erik's touch. To nuzzle into his palm the way he would in the Real, nestle closer and take the comfort offered. He doesn't, at the last second. He pulls away instead, uncomfortable and confused, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand. "He forgets about me, but I'm here. Just because we made ourselves forget doesn't mean I'm not here," he says, lips pursed, because this part might always live inside of him. Hurting and angry and defiant, resisting everything and everyone because there was never an option before. Because being obedient and soft and submissive never worked. If anything, it only meant he hurt more. "I like taking care of myself," he insists, but it sounds like a lie even to him. It's exhausting. It's lonely.  
  
"Even if that is so," Erik murmurs, fond, "I very much like taking care of you. Not because I gain any pleasure out of making you do things that are humiliating and painful, but because I enjoy seeing you healthy, and happy. I know you are here. I've always known you are here. I could never forget that." He wraps his hand around Charles's, tugging it away from his eyes to rub his thumb over the back of his palm. He rests his other hand motionlessly, because it doesn't work, or else it would move in tandem.  
  
This time Charles wriggles his way out completely, because he doesn't want to be touched. Not by Erik, not like this and not now. He's made that clear, and finally he feels like it's time to stand up, to wrap his arms around himself for that extra safety. "I can't stay here," he declares, and it's probably the truth. The doors are starting to slam again. The little boy in Erik's arms has stopped crying, but only because he's fallen asleep, or at least gone limp with the exhaustion of it all. "This is lasting a long time. I reckon you want to hurry up, if you don't want our brain to explode," he suggests, and there's almost a grin there. "What are you going to do?"

* * *

Erik picks him up and settles him over his shoulder, standing as well, gazing around at everything. "I don't know," he whispers, and it's the honest truth. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to heal the mind. All he can do is follow where he's lead, and try to touch each place with gentleness. To give back what was stolen. "Will you help me? Help me make this better."  
  
Charles seems to consider that, and while his immediate response is to refuse, he knows that isn't fair. He doesn't hate Erik. No part of Charles could ever hate Erik, not even the parts that are most stubborn, that hurt and lash out the most. "There's no way you can go through every door. You haven't the time," he points out, not unkindly. It's just a fact. There are too many doors, and too many things behind them. Not all of them are bedrooms. Not all of them are rooms at all. "I suppose you could try searching for where you need to be most. I don't think I can help with that. I have to go back to my room," he shrugs. "You have to leave him, too, yeah? I don't know where he goes. Probably the basement."  
  
Erik shifts him so that he's in this-Charles's arms instead. "Take care of him," he nudges, eyebrows raised. Paragon strides down the hall, and when he sees this, he separates them, setting the tiny-Charles down in a corner where he can lean against the wall. "They must stay where they belong," Paragon says, because of anyone he knows that Erik's instincts are to carry everyone with him, to take them out of their boxes of suffering, but he can't. It will only collapse the framework. "We must go where we belong," he says, and this too is not unkind. He puts his hand on Charles's shoulder. "We have come here before, and we will again. You are not alone here. But we must go where we're needed." To do what they do best. Take care of him. "Let's go." He grips Erik by the shoulder and encourages him forward.  
  
The problem is that there are many places that need them at the moment. All the doors start slamming at once again, demanding attention, acknowledgement. Open-shut, open-shut. When one finally opens and stays there, it doesn't lead to anywhere in the Manor. It's storming and dark and at first it's difficult to even see Charles pacing, back and forth and back, to recognize this at the flat in Oxford he shares with Raven, the one Erik has seen in memories. This Charles is mumbling to himself, speaking under his breath, wearing holes into the carpet. He doesn't even seem to notice Erik's presence at all, even as he strides right past him, his eyes wide and panicked.  
  
He reaches out and gently halts him in place, getting him to sit on the couch instead, and wherever Erik goes, that blanket follows and he settles it over Charles's legs, a point of warmth as he touches a hand to his shoulder, encouraging him to calm and breathe. He sits down beside, shoulder-to-shoulder, ears perked up to listen for what is really happening. He knows this place. He's felt this place. He's been here before.   
  
To him, it was a dream. Two businessmen passed out. One on the bed, one on the floor. He's got his arms wrapped around his legs nestled into a corner, forehead resting on his knees, telling himself-something. _Live in this moment. No one's around. You're alone. Just breathe. Just live in this moment-_ and then he's wrenched out of himself like a hand grabbing his soul and pulling it from his body, to here. To this point. Charles crumpled in half over the toilet, vomiting up whatever he'd taken, half-unconscious. Erik remembers making him vomit, covering him up, putting him to bed, watching over him hawkishly to ensure he didn't aspirate.   
  
It was a dream. A dream. But it wasn't a dream.  
  
It wasn't a dream. This isn't that night, though. Charles is shaking at the fingers and shivering and clearly intoxicated, but the thing about this particular period is that he's never not. Technically, in comparison, tonight he's fairly sober. There's a glass in his hands and he pays Erik no mind as he drinks from it again, the burn soothing, holding it comforting, warming him up more than the blanket as he stares at the wall and pulls his legs up. Thunder crashes somewhere close, and he counts seconds between lightning unconsciously. "I'm going to lose her," he gasps, eyes wide, streaked red and when the lightning flashes he looks almost dead himself, skin too pale and stretched too tightly over his face, cheeks hollowed all the way in. He hasn't eaten. He hasn't slept. He doesn't see Erik, too utterly consumed by terror and panic.  
  
He plucks the glass from Charles's hands and it disappears in his own, and he wraps Charles up in the feeling of warmth instead, tucking him close. "You wont," he whispers, introducing calm instead of utter blinding fear. "I won't let that happen, and neither will you. Just breathe." The Order is firm. He doesn't do anything more but this, and he'll spend as much time necessary walking through those doors and giving these pieces the care and attention they deserve, for as long as they need it. Forever, if it's required.  
  
Just like the earlier Charles said, it isn't feasible. It's clear why Erik was brought here, though, even briefly, why this door burst open; even with the wave of calm, even while being grounded and cared for, this Charles is still terrified. He's been up for days, and he's beginning to lose control over himself - unconsciously, he's shifting around his own mind, keeping himself awake, keeping himself functioning. The only thing he's put in his mouth is alcohol and pills and he's starting to look more than worse for wear, though he's hidden that from everyone. "She's sick," he whispers, desperate, and stares straight ahead instead of at Erik, guilt clawing at his throat. He reaches for a drink that's not there, shaking for it. "She's sick." Did he make her sick? Is he not taking proper care of her? He's not fit to be her guardian, but there's no one else and he loves her so very, very much. Her fever won't break. He checks on her constantly, takes her temperature, wipes her brow and makes sure she drinks and sings to her and rocks her and tries to keep her comfortable. He took her to the hospital but they didn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to take care of her, he's wretched at it, and now he's going to lose the only person in the world who loves him because he's incompetent, he doesn't know how to fix it like Father did, Mother never took care of him when he was ill -  
  
It doesn't matter if it's feasible or not. Erik is just as stubborn, if not moreso than any Charles could be, and he will face each and every one of them, and all of their prickly claws and hold them through each of their contained hells until this place in its entirety knows a measure of peace. Erik leans back against the couch and tucks Charles into his arms, letting him curl up where he's bidden to go, too out of it to resist. "I know," he pets Charles's hair in long, even strokes. "She's going to get better. I promise you. She's a wonderful woman. I know her very well, and she's healthy, now. I promise you this."  
  
This Charles doesn’t cry, too exhausted, completely limp in Erik’s arms except where he shakes. He’s sick to his stomach himself, but there’s nothing to be done for it. If he lets himself give in to the weakness, he’ll be useless when it comes to helping her, and he can’t sleep because what if she needs him? What if she calls out for him and he doesn’t hear? His chest is heaving with it eventually but he curls into Erik, lost somewhere in his side. “I can’t,” he croaks, and it’s desperate and scared. This particular door has been rattling awfully these past few days. “I’m not fit for it. I’m not good enough. I don’t know what to do, I never know what to do -” He’s sixteen, now, this Charles is sixteen, but he’s never forgiven himself for it, the Charles out there. He’s never stopped blaming himself for it.  
  
"You know just what to do," Erik whispers, brushing his hair out of his face and encouraging to rest in his lap, feathering it behind his ears and stroking his neck. "You always have. You've taken such wonderful care of her. You still do. She forgives you for it. You're only a child, _neshama_. These are big things. An adult should've been here to protect you both." But he is here now, and he will. It's something he should've heard, himself, a long time ago. He was a child, taking care of children, and when he wasn't he only possessed a child's understanding of what to do. He was never cut out for it, but what was he going to do? Not stand in the way? No. They both deserve forgiveness, here. Even if it's difficult. Even if it takes years.

* * *

Charles doesn't believe that, but he can't in this moment. This isn't a part of Charles, an instance of Charles, that's made for that. He's starting to fade, though, soothed by Erik's voice, by his touch, by being comforted at all. By, for once, not being alone. Him against the world, fending for him and Raven, fighting every second. It's the most relief he's ever gotten, and he's exhausted and weak himself, drifting every second against Erik's shoulder. "Waiting for you," he mumbles, and his eyes are closed and he's only half-conscious.  
  
"I know," Erik whispers back, petting his hair and stroking down his arms and back. "Rest, _tayer_. I'm right here. You can rest. I won't let anything happen. I promise." By this point it would've just been Charles against the world, but it isn't anymore. These versions of Charles simply can't exist anymore, because Erik is here. None of them are alone, no matter how dark the void seems now.  
  
When the lightning strikes next, the room goes dark instead of light. The Corridor comes back, longer than even before. The more it's walked, the farther it stretches. Down and down and down, endless, repetitive. Except it's different now. There's only one door at the very end of the hallway. It feels like Charles, how he feels through the Bond, what's been quieted and missing this entire time. It whispers like Charles. He's waiting.  
  
Erik crosses down this hallway just as carefully and calmly as he has prior, and he pushes open that door leading into what he feels is the Charles who knows him best, slipping inside quietly to regard whatever situation may unfold before him, and not expecting anything. Even if it isn't the Charles who knows he belongs to Erik, all of them still very much do, and he will not forget that. "Charles," he whispers, soft.  
  
The room is pitch black. There is a room, not a Void, but it's impossible to see, and Erik learns quickly that this is completely unchangeable, fixed, set. Anything else at the moment would break Charles apart, would rend him to pieces of agony. There's no sound, either, everything completely silent, not even footsteps making noise though there's clearly ground beneath Erik's feet. There's furniture, too, which makes it a bit of a hazard, but fortunately Erik is in a better position to deal with it than anyone. "Erik," he whispers from the dark, and he knows his Dominant will find him. It's Erik's Charles, though they all are. He knows exactly who he belongs to, even with the room bathed in silence and dark and writhing pain.  
  
It doesn't bother him. He finds Charles immediately, weaving in-between every obstacle as though he's always known it's there, and he has, kneeling down to gather him up in his arms. "I'm here," he says back, laughing lightly. "I am right here. I have you. You're OK," he just says over and over. He doesn't need to fix anything, he just needs to be here. And that's exactly what he's been doing.  
  
They're slumped against something, or Charles was, at least, but he doesn't actually know what it is. The room is too dark for him to see, and there's no one to filter in perception from; he's been trapped here, frightened and alone and truly blind, but the dark and the silence is preferable to the outside. To the screeching everywhere else, incomprehensible, clanging noise. As soon as Erik touches him he's folding himself into his arms, grateful and relieved and desperate, nosing into him until he finds that spot he likes best in his Dominant's neck, on his lap, and inhales. He can't see him, but he can feel him, and that's enough. It's more than enough. "You found me," he croaks, still trembling with the pain, still feverish and weak even here, but as long as he isn't alone it's alright. "You found me," he gasps.  
  
"Of course I found you, sweetheart," Erik huffs, unable to help smiling even if no one will see it, Charles can feel it. He leans back against the wall and takes Charles fully into his arms, embracing him with both legs, too, for good measure. "You took good care of me while you were gone, you know," Erik murmurs, infinitely fond. Erik's been here for so long, his own perception isn't going to be any more helpful, but he doesn't need to see. He just needs this. It's all he'll ever need. "I will always find you."  
  
Erik's voice is exactly what he needs to anchor himself, and the fear, at least, begins to melt away. It's still scary, if he's perfectly honest, but far less so when he's surrounded by Erik, when his Dominant is holding him tight and there's nowhere to slip off to. When it feels less like he'll disintegrate, held together by the one person who will never let him slip. "Hurts, Erik," he whispers, though he knows Erik knows; it's why they're here, why there's no light or sound besides their voices, why the walls and floor tremble and gasp with him. "M' sorry for -" He thinks of his teenage self, prickly and defiant and too-stubborn, nuzzling closer as he does. Closer, he just needs to be closer, it's not enough. It hurts. "Not true. Belong to you."  
  
"I know," Erik laughs, gentle. "And so does he. Deep down." He touches Charles's heart, flattens his palm out across his chest, able to find it instantly. "At least he didn't try and kill me," Erik's attempts at levity aren't always the best, but it's sincere at least. "I won't let you go, _neshama_. I never will. Whoever needs to face me, and rage against me, I will be here. I love you. That is what I am here for."

* * *

He can't promise there won't be more one day. There are absolutely endless doors, and all of them rattle sometimes. There are so many things he's never processed, that he's never been able to heal from. But if Erik is there to open the doors, if he isn't afraid to handle what's behind each one, Charles feels much less frightened by it. Less overwhelmed, too. The pain is his main concern now, and he lets himself slump entirely against Erik, worn out and hurting but held, too. Kept and cared for. "I'm sorry," he mumbles, and it's too dark to see but he still hides in Erik as he does, a force of habit. Rubs his cheek against his neck, needing to feel. "It hurts too much to go back." But they only have so little time here, out there, where they are. With their family. Charles is wasting it again. He's making them sit in the dark. For just the briefest of moments, there's a flash of those syringes again.  
  
Erik doesn't need him to process that. He just needs him to be here, with him, with their family, and he is. He's protected himself against pain. But he's still here. He isn't fuzzy and blank and bland. He's here. Erik would always prefer sitting in the dark with him, than out there, with someone fake and empty. "I know," he whispers back. "It's OK. We can stay right here. There's all the time in the world. Our family is being taken well care of. We have the time." Those syringes can just fuck off. Erik is here, and he will make sure that Charles is all right.  
  
Except there's something on his mind here, something present in those slamming doors that disappeared earlier. He swallows before he speaks, wrapping himself up entirely in Erik first, because he thinks he knows what the reaction to this might be. "This party my mother is planning will likely be held at the Manor, if she has something to say about it. I suppose it won't hurt for Mother to have one last night there before I alter it forever," he says, mildly. He's leading up to something, and even here, even plunged in darkness and pain, he's being diplomatic about it. Gearing up to potentially get his way, or at least be heard.  
  
"Tell me," Erik murmurs softly, because he's always been a rip-the-band-aid-off kind of person, and he'd rather deal with whatever it is face-to-face (or, in the darkness, hand-to-hand?) than allow something to go unaddressed. Whatever his reaction he'd prefer to have it, than sit in the dark, so to speak.  
  
Charles was getting around to it, but he was trying to frame it properly. He huffs, though he can't be put out here when he's far too relieved, clinging to Erik with all his limbs and still rubbing against him like a particularly needy cat. "They're still down there," he mutters, and has a feeling Erik will know what he means.  
  
"We'll put it right," Erik tells him, and his certainty is only matched by his commitment to hold Charles as close as possible. Anything that could stand in their way, they will put right. That much he knows if nothing else. He won't let anything hurt Charles. Not anymore. "I love you," he whispers, kissing the top of Charles's head.  
  
But that's not actually what he meant. Charles bites hard on his lip, grateful Erik can't see. "Love you too," he mumbles, and it's true, it's always true, but he's clearly lost his nerve, shifting in his Dominant's lap. Maybe it's better not to bring it up at all. There's still a part that wants to, hurting and determined to at least have Erik consider it. The Charles from earlier would have convinced him, why can't he?  
  
"No," Erik whispers, warm and fond. "Tell me," he Orders, because he wants to know the full scope of this.  
  
Charles chews on his lip for as long as he can, not resisting the Order as much as he's dragging his feet a bit. He kisses Erik's neck before he speaks, as if he's trying to soften what comes after. Soften Erik up to the idea of it, even. "In theory, whatever formula he came up with, it can still be used," he mutters. On me, goes without saying.  
  
"It will not be," Erik says, firm. Absolutely nothing can soften him to that, even as he is grateful for the contact between them, muscles shifting idly under Charles's touch. "I will never allow that to happen," he whispers, even as he knows in his heart what Charles really means. It doesn't matter. It won't happen.  
  
That was expected. But perhaps he can negotiate. Erik always listens to him, even on matters he's put his foot down on, at least until he entirely makes up his mind. He could still reconsider. "It could help," he argues quietly, and in this place he's especially desperate, driven into the dark and the silence by pain he can't even be present for. Pain so excruciating it pulls him inside. "I'd only use it when I absolutely needed it. That's fair, isn't it?"  
  
"No," Erik says, and it is vehement. He touches Charles's face. "I know you are hurting," he whispers, pained. "I know it hurts. I know it is horrific. Don't you know I know?" he can't help laughing, but it's agonized. Of course Charles experiences it, and it's horrendous, but Erik is the one who has to sit back and watch. "It isn't natural. It is not what will help you. Trust me when I say this. It was never developed for your best interests. I won't let it happen."  
  
Charles nearly gives up at Erik's tone and offers up his willing surrender, his deference, but something keeps him pushing. A tiny, tugging, nagging voice, and he twists uncomfortably in Erik's lap, trying to get comfortable again. "I know it wasn't," he whispers, but there's something there that suggests he still doesn't. That he might not be able to for some time yet, that it hasn't quite sunk in. "But why shouldn't I use it for that now? I could take a low dose. It's not fair to keep it from me," he accuses, but he doesn't really mean it. "What if it makes it stop? You wouldn't have to watch, then." It's playing dirty, but Charles is desperate. He's been desperate for a while now.  
  
"It will not make it stop," Erik says, and there is absolutely no part of him willing to compromise on this. "You are hurting because of an organic issue." Because of his experiences, because his mind is constantly pushing and pulling between them. Because he has yet to fully accept, and thus fully control, his mutation. Not because his mutation is inherently dangerous. Not because he is sick. Those are lies. "It will not be solved by injecting yourself full of garbage. I absolutely **_forbid_** it." The Order there is intense.  
  
It makes Charles shiver, the force and finality of it, and for a while words get stuck in his throat. Not because he's afraid to speak, not because he's incapable, but because he knows there's no reason to argue. It's Erik's right to make these kinds of decisions, and Charles knows there's a time to stop pushing. He has, really, sighing against Erik's chest, not an ounce of spiky defiance in his body. He understands. Even still. "You don't know that for certain," he points out, quiet. It's what frightens him the most. "It's just a theory, but he had his own. He studied me. He could -" Charles doesn't want to say he could know more than you here, because that terrifies him more than anything.  
  
Erik tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. "The fact that he studied you at all would appear to put that statement at odds," he points out in return. Erik knows Charles through love. Brian Xavier only knew Charles through science and machinery. The two were not even remotely equivalent. "We will find the answers we seek. I promise you this. But it will not be because of him. He did not even know the right question to ask."

* * *

Charles doesn't know if he believes that. For a few dragging moments the room is entirely silent, everything drained right out except the sound of Erik's breathing; Charles is leaving it in. He fumbles on Erik's lap in the dark until he can find his face, trace his fingers over it like he's worried his Dominant isn't truly there. Or that it isn't him. "I could at least read it more carefully," he whispers. "The file. He could have found something." He knows, in all likelihood, there's nothing good that came from his father's research. Perhaps he understood something about developing mutations, about childhood and early adolescent manifestation, but Charles has achieved nearly the same means without - and if he thinks too hard on it, the word Deceased threatens to utterly unravel him, to break him apart to atoms like Erik promised his father earlier. But shouldn't it be his responsibility to - shouldn't there be something? Something in the wake of the horror and the pain. There has to be.  
  
"No," Erik shakes his head. "That research serves no positive purpose. I will never allow it to be used, and certainly not against you. You know just as much about it as he did, arguably more, and the ends certainly do not justify the means. What will be in the wake of that horror and pain is that it will be eliminated, so that it will never again be used against our kind."  
  
Charles learned all he needed from a cursory glance, anyway. His mind is more than capable of that. His father was, toward the end of his life, finding success. Success to his main concern, his primary curiosity, and why the government funded and ran the program in the first place, why Brian Xavier found his hands soaked in the blood of mutant children and their mothers - can I cure mutation? Can I fix my son? He seemed to believe he could. Perhaps it would have killed Charles, if he'd tried, but perhaps it wouldn't have. Perhaps it would have done its job. Perhaps he would be, in his father's eyes, cured. It certainly had some kind of effect on him, the earlier stages, delaying and interfering with development, though not nearly enough - Charles is very much a mutant, and Omega-class. He's more powerful than his father and Sebastian Shaw ever anticipated. Could whatever his father was still perfecting have changed it? Could it change it now? He swallows. "You think we should destroy it," he says, throat dry, and he's completely still in Erik's arms.  
  
"That is correct," Erik murmurs back, firm. "He was determining how to cure mutation. That kind of knowledge will only ever be weaponized against us. As long as it exists, you are not the only one in danger of using it. If it were found by the government, it would begin an institutionalized program of curing us in the name of control. I won't take that risk. I won't let you do it to yourself, so you can quit attempting to convince me otherwise while you are ahead." He puts his hand over Charles's, over his face. "We will find the answer. And it isn't there. I promise you this."  
  
He's not even sure he is trying to convince Erik of anything. If he was, he's doing an awful job of it. Charles goes silent again, letting his hand drop from Erik's face, but it's only so he can tuck himself closer. It still doesn't feel close enough. Nothing feels like enough, and the pain still echoes horribly here. He tries to count how many minutes it's been out there, how long he's been shaking and sweating and bleeding, but he wasn't keeping track. There's no way to from in here. "If I'd known it was down there, I would have taken it," he says, and if they weren't in this place, it would be too quiet to hear. As a teenager, but after that, too. If Erik didn't make the decision for him, if he wasn't firm on it, if he didn't forbid it - would he take it? Just a small dose, or more than that? If he was desperate, if he was scared, if he hated himself more than usual? His hands clench in Erik's shirt.  
  
"I know," Erik whispers back. And he can understand the impetus. Charles was desperate, and still remains so at times, for relief. But that kind of solution is just a band-aid, it masks the real problem, and the real solution. Not only that but it is a tacit, implicit acceptance of those kinds of tools, and Erik knows that Charles doesn't want that for himself. His values and ideals are too important, and he would not sacrifice them for it.  
  
He shakes his head. The truth is, if he had taken it, if that was the decision he'd made, if a moment of weakness or desperation or self-hatred ruled him, he would have regretted it for more than one reason. If it was up to him, if his Dominant wasn't here to make these kinds of decisions, that temptation would always be there, whether it's wrong or not. If it didn't kill him, that regret would. His telepathy often terrifies him, and he doesn't look upon it with the fondness Erik does always, but he doesn't know how to exist without it. There's no clear separation. The way his mind works, the way he experiences, the way he feels and thinks and sees - all of those things are tied to his mutation. There would be a Charles left without it, but he's not sure he would be immediately recognizable. He's not sure he would like that person. "But I could keep it, in case - I could -" He trails off. He doesn't need to see Erik's face to know he's probably not ahead here.  
  
"No, _neshama_." It's just-as firm. Erik knows each and every one of those thoughts as if they were his own, but he also knows giving them any leeway will only invite danger, and not just to Charles, but to mutantkind as a whole. If such measures needed to be taken, if a mutant were born with disabling or agonizing abilities, that technology should be developed by mutants, for mutants, not cobbled together from Brian Xavier's shop of horrors. And they both know that Charles doesn't really feel that way. If he did, he wouldn't be bothering to develop a school for mutants. He wouldn't be invested in the lives of mutants. As a telepath, his emotions and experiences are tied to his mind, which is tied to his body. That is the real cause of this, and dampening it would only divorce him from himself. Erik was there when his telepathy was gone. He was there when Charles cried in relief at its return. It is as much a part of him as his limbs. Erik won't let him hack it off.  
  
But Charles shakes his head. "I would never argue that -" He can't say it, now. He isn't ready to say it. He doesn't think he needs to, fortunately. He would never argue that his father's methods were correct or just, or that the research that resulted from them is sound and helpful. It isn't. If it were Shaw, if it were anyone else, he would have said it a thousand times over. But there are facts here, too. "But the formula - it targets the gene, it's incomplete and imperfect but it -" It does what it was intended to do. It's never been used, and Charles doubts anyone knows of its existence. Perhaps Shaw. "I wouldn't develop it much differently. It doesn't matter if we destroy it or keep it. It's in my head." He could recreate it. He'd change it, because there are more than a few issues with pain, accuracy, efficiency, and some of the science is flawed fundamentally, his father's understanding of the gene itself isn't as nuanced as his, but if and when - there's no way to throw it out completely.   
  
If it's necessary, the science is necessary, too, and he could erase his father's knowledge and find it on his own, likely, but what purpose does it serve? Most of it was tested on him. This cure, this formula particularly, it was designed for him. There are memories he still can't touch, stored behind doors he can't enter, but he knows the sounds of his own screams. He remembers, vaguely, what it's like to have fire injected into his veins. He knows spitting up blood and crying, crying, crying, strapped to a table as something worked its way through his system. He knows there was more. There was blood and there was tissue and there was sickness so deep under the skin it still comes out. That was the cost of success for his father, but in the end, it was close to a success. Charles can't erase that part. If and when, he'll be piggybacking. It's inevitable. And maybe, if he could just keep some of it, if he could modify it, if he could just - it hurts. It hurts, and it still hurts, and sometimes the medicine made him feel better before it made him feel worse. He never got to reap the benefits of his own suffering. His father never got that far. "You won't even consider it?" he asks, because it hurts. Not just physically.  
  
"No," Erik repeats himself, and Charles gets the distinct impression it will be the last time he does so, if the edge of Command to his tone is anything to go by. "The purpose it serves is that this research is evil, and it was used for evil means, and conducted by evil methods. This is not up for debate. I won't let it happen. You are not the only one who was strapped to a table and forced to endure agony in the name of scientific advancement. The only difference is what lies were told to us. Surely you do not believe I should repurpose Shaw's work in order to improve the abilities of our population and alleviate their suffering." His eyebrows raise. Because Charles should know better, and Erik knows he does. It's the same argument that gets tossed around by people who don't know any better. If it weren't for medical experimentation we wouldn't have _X, Y and Z_ , but that's nonsense. A way would have been found, without needless death and torment. It was not necessary. The ends did not justify the means. If it meant that they had to start again, then they should have _started again_. Erik will never, ever believe otherwise and he will never capitulate to that.  
  
That wasn't what he was arguing. That was never what he was arguing, and he would never dare claim otherwise. That it was necessary, that it was justified. That the ends were worth the means, all of which boil down to suffering and death. It wasn't. It doesn't matter how difficult a time he's having processing his own past, how mangled and confused it is, that much he knows. But something twists in his stomach, hurt and frustration, and he climbs off Erik's lap, fumbles in the dark to inch away. Suddenly he doesn't want to be held, though it rips him to pieces not to be, the pain encroaching more than before, finding him even here. He ignores it, and Erik can't see him, but the sound he makes is decidedly close to a sniffle. He touches the floor, the wall, steadying himself to stand up on shaky legs.

* * *

Erik rises to his feet fluidly and finds Charles's shoulder, without even trying, easily in the dark as if he knows right where to go, and he does. "I love you. I will never allow you to cut out the best parts of yourself. The parts that make you who you are. I am sorry if it is not evident to you now, but you must know that the decisions I make are due to love. Not fear. I am not afraid of anything your father has created. I love you more than to let yourself become a slave to it."  
  
Charles frowns even if Erik can't see it, because he hadn't taken issue with that. He'd been more than willing to defer to Erik's decision, and he hadn't even put up much of a fight at all. They both know he can do better when he's determined, stubborn, or defiant enough. Or all three. This is one of those situations where he knows his Dominant has his best interests in mind, where he appreciates and needs the decision to be made for him, perhaps more than he usually does. He doesn't usually contest that, unlike the younger self Erik had met earlier - when he does, they handle it, and he likes that Erik makes the final call, as an understatement. But that's not the problem here. "Fine," he says, simply, and moves around Erik, feeling against the wall. There's no sound to help him, there's nothing except touch, but he isn't going to ask for Erik's help.  
  
Erik stops him with a hand to his shoulder, shaking his head even if it can't be seen in the dark. His earnestness is apparent. "I know you do not believe any of those things, _neshama_. I never would suggest this." But it's the reason Erik won't consider it and he has to be honest about that. It's too close. It's too much.  
  
He had, though. Doesn't he think it's too close to Charles, too? Doesn't he understand that it's the point of all this, that he can't erase that research even if they burn every copy of it, even if they destroy syringes and test tubes and the vials of his contaminated blood still sitting preserved? It's going to stay there, clogged up in his brain, his burden to bear. The knowledge of it. He could have figured it out on his own without hurting a single soul, but he doesn't have that chance. He knows how to do it now because his father did it before him, because he forged the way in blood. It wasn't justified, it wasn't worth it and whoever would claim that, Charles would have trouble not reducing to atoms himself. But it is done, and Charles knows now. He can't forget it any more than Erik can any knowledge he learned from Shaw, however poisoned it is. He isn't suggesting he pick up where his father left off. He'd certainly never suggest Erik start where Shaw left off but with better methods, and the implication is insulting and hurtful. But what he knows about this, where he learned it from if it ever becomes relevant - that started here. He can't erase that.   
  
Even if he started from scratch, and Erik is right here, it doesn't wipe the slate clean. Someone else knew before him and they knew because - because... And part of Charles, the part that is defiant, that is desperate, that is traumatized, too, still wants to use that for himself. Still feels like he needs to be cured, that this sickness should be cut right out. Because that's what he was taught. _You aren't the only one_ \- No, he isn't, but he was. And not by a stranger, not by a man with a menacing smile that looks like Evil, by his father. By his father, who gave him books to read and patted his head and gave Charles the only affection he's ever received from an adult figure in his life while he was a child. Ever. It's not the same except for the lies. It just isn't. He tenses under Erik's touch and puts his hands out in front of him, wandering the dark. "I need to find the door," he mumbles, because he can't stay in this room a second longer even if the outside will destroy him.  
  
Once more, Erik tugs him back. "Charles," he whispers, pained. He would never insinuate such a thing. Charles might believe it, but Erik certainly does not. The point isn't that Erik suffered worse, so he must know what he's talking about. The point is that Erik wants him to see that if he really believes that Erik suffered in the first place, it is a blip in comparison to what happened to him, by the hand of his own parent. Just because it was his father does not mean it was correct. Nor does it bear any statement on Charles's character. Perhaps it is his burden to bear, but that was never by inherent design, it was always by the evil methods of those around him. And Erik will not let those evil methods into their home. "You do not need to be cured, _tayer_. Any more than Marie does, or Tim does. I am so sorry that you were born into a society that did not teach you how beautiful your gifts are. It is all I want-" his voice cracks, and he wilts away himself, wrapping his arms around himself. He keeps misstepping, he keeps doing the wrong thing. Of course he does. He was never meant for this, was he? He's just hurting Charles, isn't he? "I'm sorry," he gasps. "I didn't-" he cuts himself off. It isn't fair. It isn't right. He rigidly, swiftly shuts down whatever emotional reaction is bubbling up in his chest because they do not belong here, this is not his place.  
  
It's Charles who chases it down, who tugs on it, because that's wrong. This is Charles' mind, and that means it is absolutely, certainly Erik's place. He has all the space he needs here. He nearly fumbles and trips himself in the process, but when it's Erik who pulls away, he can't possibly bear it. He doesn't want to. The sound that escapes him is whimpered and desperate and he reaches for his Dominant, grabbing onto his shirt and all but flinging himself into him, shaking. Trembling, because without Erik everything is worse, the pain of it starts to seep in, the sickness. He doesn't know how to explain himself. It's not that he truly thinks Erik believes that of him, it's that - he isn't kind to himself when the Corridor is organized like this. Erik has seen that himself. To think that even a fraction is echoed in his Dominant would break him. "You were the only one who could do this," he reminds Erik, and his own voice breaks, too. "I need you. You do perfectly. I'm sorry. Everything's a mess right now, I was being too sensitive, I'm sorry, please don't go," he begs, and he sounds much younger than he is in that moment.  
  
"Never," Erik frames both sides of his face, pressing their heads together, sagging into him as soon as he comes back. "Not one fraction. I'm sorry, I said the wrong thing. You must see into my mind and know the truth," he whispers, because that is the scary part. What has he done? How has he helped? Does he really know Charles? Words of a man long-dead, preserved by Charles himself, flung at Erik, and in the moment they bounced off but now they seep in. All that he has ever wanted for Charles is kindness, and peace, and light and love. And he's a killer, and a poor excuse for a Dominant, and trained in all the wrong ways and he knows he's not the best person and-he tries not to falter, you know, he tries not to falter and say he's bad and wrong because he knows more than anything that Charles belongs to him and that he is good for Charles but given that two seconds ago the Landscape was razed into dust, it's hard not to-not to fall into that trap. "I love you," he breathes, because that's what he knows more than anything else. "I'm sorry you're hurting. I'm sorry I hurt you. I-sorry-"  
  
Sometimes people say the wrong thing. Sometimes it’s even the right thing, at the wrong time - sometimes the other person isn’t ready to hear it, or can’t hear it the way it was intended, the way it was meant. Sometimes things hurt and it isn’t either of their fault. Charles lets out a shaky breath, dizzy again with relief now that they’re touching, twisting his fingers in Erik’s shirt and then slipping them underneath, aware that they’re freezing despite the fact that his Real, physical body is still feverish and overheated. He needs to feel. He just needs to feel now. It frustrates him that he can’t see Erik, that he can’t look up at him, but he will take what he can get. “You are my Dominant,” he whispers, and runs his hands up Erik’s chest, just to touch. “You are the only one who could be my Dominant, and you’re brilliant at it. More than. You are good for me. You take care of me, and you love me, and that’s all I need. I love you, too. It hurts less when you’re here. You can’t think like that, because I belong to you, and all I want is to belong to you, and you take care of me -” Erik found him here. In the dark, in the hidden door, where he’d locked himself away. There were so many doors and he found this one, and before he did, he found others that needed him, too. He didn’t seem put out by it. Charles would spend days and years and decades and forever tending to the Landscape, and he thinks maybe Erik might spend it going through countless doors, one after the other, and together they can heal. They can start to. “You promised you’d take care of me, that you’d Dominate me, even if I was difficult,” he mumbles, muffled by Erik’s chest, because he still frets over it. That younger, angry Charles that’s still inside him, still waiting in those rooms, might want to chase him away with bite and venom and ice, but Charles is terrified that it will work one day. That he’ll give in.  
  
"Never," Erik huffs, drawing his hands down Charles's chest in tandem, just like their Postures this morning, until he can touch skin-to-skin, too. "I won't let you. Always come back." Every door, any door that needs tending and care, Erik will be here to care for the people inside; the ones who need caring for. He strokes back up to Charles's face, petting it fondly. "You say I am the only one. I will always be the one. I will always come back for you. I will never let you suffer here. Not ever." He will never be put out by it. He likes it. He likes seeing all these different pieces of Charles, even if they aren't always thrilled to see him. That's OK. They don't have to be. He isn't here for that. He is simply here.  
  
Charles can’t promise he’ll always like what’s behind those doors, but that doesn’t seem to be Erik’s concern, either. It isn’t Charles’ when someone in the Landscape needs him, when he cares for all those parts, even the parts that scratch and yell. Right now all that matters to him is being touched, is being held, is being kept. He imagines it’s been a while in the Real, though; if he stays here too long, there’s always the risk of getting stuck. He won’t do that to Erik, even if he could keep him here indefinitely. “Help me find the door?” he asks, and there’s fear there, but it’s far less when he’s in Erik’s arms. They’ll find their way through the dark together. Erik will lead him, will guide him, just like he always does.  
  
"Of course," Erik whispers back, and he doesn't even need to search. He never did. He found Charles instantly in this dark place and he navigated the furniture without even a bump, swishing to the side to avoid any impact and now he leads them to it, putting his hand right on the doorknob. "Here," he breathes, kissing the top of Charles's head, holding him close. There is no need to be afraid, here. He will not let anything happen. Not to either of them. They will not be stuck. Erik will always be here to help them find a way out.  
  
When he braces himself, leaning against Erik body and mind before he turns the knob and opens the door, he fully expects to be thrown back into the Real. For them both to be, because he knows he’s keeping Erik here; tethering him, anchoring him, holding onto him because he’s needed even as Erik sinks into it. That isn’t what happens. But what they walk into isn’t the Corridor with its long, stretching hallway, its doors and changing walls. What they walk into is a burning building. Immediately Charles is coughing, smoke coating his lungs and stinging his eyes, heat licking at his skin even though it isn’t Real. With a mind like Charles’, it is. For all intents and purposes, it is, and the door is gone, melted behind them, the structures are all crumbling, the sound of explosions is deafening. Panic claws at his chest and so he claws at Erik, holding onto him, looking for the way out but everything is burning and someone is screaming, there are noises of something smashing - he doesn’t understand, that was supposed to be the way out -  
  
But Erik is there, and instantly he's throwing his hand up, creating a shield around them that allows the superheated material to fall all around them instead of on top of them, smoke curling away from them in spherical plumes. It's an immediate reaction, even as Erik turns his body toward the flames, keeping Charles in his arms to protect him. "Charles, it is OK," Erik tells him, squeezing his hand, touching his face. "We're safe. I promise. I won't let anything happen to you."  
  
Except Charles knows exactly where they are. It's his mind. It's his mind and he is a telepath and he should be in control of what he sees, of where they go, of what happens to them. He should be in charge of that and yet they're here and this building is melting, burning to the ground, the smoke somehow suffocating even with Erik's shield. It's burning from all directions. There are explosions still happening. Even if they're safe, even if there's nothing that can hurt him, his chest - Charles closes his eyes and the man down the hall shouts again, coughing and sputtering. It sounds like Charles. "I don't want to be here," he rasps, eyes closed tightly shut though it changes nothing. Something falls nearby and the sound reverberates through him, shaking him up until he feels that he's screaming, too, throat raw with it though he makes no sound.

* * *

"It appears that might not be relevant," Erik says kindly, shooting up from the ground and hurtling toward the individual down the hall. "Tell me where we are," he whispers, the Order grounding as it always is. He emerges in a plume of smoke, eyes darting around for any survivors. It's a past event, but Erik can't help acting. It's who he is.  
  
Nowhere Charles has been, but he's seen it. However much he's hidden it from himself, he's seen it. When he walks through the flames he can still feel the heat, the horrible taste of soot and chemical and burning metal stuck to the back of his throat, the roof of his mouth. It's as if his flesh is melting off, too, he's flayed raw, he whispers the answer but he's not certain it makes any noise because the answer is right in front of them. This room, this lab, the desert outside the window and everything crumbling around them.   
  
_"Kurt! Kurt, please!"_ the man is begging when they reach him, dark eyes wide and wild like he knows he's dying, crushed beneath something too heavy to slither out from. His legs made a horrific crunching sound. He won't be able to walk even if he manages. The room is slowly filling with smoke, the flames fanned and growing. Kurt Marko freezes, his arms on his closest friend, his partner, his superior, hesitating. Charles has seen this moment too many times, but after the first he learned to block it out. It doesn't exist. Except it does.   
  
"I'm sorry," he says, voice thick with inhaled smoke, tongue laced with it. And then he turns and runs through the one exit not blocked. He'll wriggle out one of the windows. He'll come out with superficial injuries, a burn here and some light smoke inhalation there. Charles stares at his father, helpless and dying and alone, and wonders what he's wondered for the last nineteen years. The ceiling is starting to collapse. Charles is, too.  
  
"No," Erik whispers, holding him safe. He will not collapse. Erik won't let him. There's no way for Erik to save all parties, here, as much as his predilection toward helping would have him do, even if he wouldn't consider Brian Xavier or Kurt Marko amongst those who needed saving, he knows that this scenario is something that haunts Charles, deep down. And it's not-so-deep anymore. "I'm right here, _neshama_. I won't let it hurt you." He pulls Charles aside, feeling against the wall until the edges of a door make themselves apparent and he slams his arm against it, allowing it to open. "It's OK. I promise. You're safe."  
  
Charles is, perhaps. His father isn't. Erik can't go back and rescue him, even if Charles begged him to. He only knows this memory from one perspective. He only knows the lingering glance Kurt Marko took over his shoulder before he fled, and how impossibly small his father looked, how betrayed and desperate and terrified, how he knew he was dying and there was nothing that could be done for it. He's always wondered how it happened. If he died quickly, from the collapsing building, perhaps, blunt force, immediate death, if he was crushed - or if he burned there, slowly, alone, with everything he'd worked for destroyed around him. He knows it differently now, but that part is the same. This is where his father died. There was nothing left for the casket they put in the ground a week later. They buried it empty. Charles' knee gives out and his father screams in agony, the last thing Kurt heard of him. He didn't turn back. He left him to die and he did.

* * *

Erik knows. For everything that Charles knows, Erik has guessed, and he is very regretful that this guess has turned out to be true. It doesn't matter what his opinion of both of these people really is, what matters is Charles, and how it has affected him, and for that Erik is truly sorry. But he's going to do whatever he can to make sure that Charles gets through this in-tact. He tightens his arms around Charles, petting his hair, whispering into his ear. One thing that doesn't exist here, in this real experience, is him. And he is here, and that might not be-he might not be the best, he might not be the most equipped, but he will never leave. As long as he is here, Charles is safe.  
  
The burning building fades. Blurs out and melts at the edges and collapses and doesn't take them with it. There's solid ground beneath them now, dirt and grass, and Charles knows they're at his father's grave without needing to lift his head. It's where many of his ancestors are buried, large, ornate, towering gravestones. His mother must have paid a small fortune for it, or perhaps it was already prepared, his father's will exact and detailed. Kurt Marko should have read it first, but it wasn't as if he didn't benefit. He's only come here a few times. By the time he was old enough to visit himself, he couldn't much bear the thought of it. The flowers he brought then are wilted here, lifeless and browned and curling, petals fallen off, and Charles doesn't lift his head. He stares at them. "Do you know what my fondest memory of him is?" he asks, and his voice is heavy, thick, like his throat and chest are still filled with smoke.  
  
"Tell me," Erik whispers, and it's not demanding, but soft, encouraging, even as it is laced with Command, because he can't help it, because it's in his nature to rise up and wrap his whole being around Charles to keep him protected, even from his own self, his own mind. Erik doesn't have a place like this; and he tries not to-not to think about that, not to compare them, because there is no comparison. But he can't help but be grateful, even as Charles shies away from it, that it exists for him, that he can come to a place where all of his ancestors are lined row by row and know that they are there, no matter how horrible the past is, how horrid the memories are. It exists, and Erik is grateful, and maybe it makes him awful, but some day-maybe Charles will be grateful, too. And even if he isn't, that is all right. He doesn't have to be. Erik would never expect that of him.  
  
The memory flashes too quickly to make any sense, and Charles doesn't parse it out. He's too busy looking up, and he wonders, idly, if it's this large and grand in the Real or if that's only his perception. If he never stopped seeing his father as larger-than-life, as a being incongruent and above the rest of the world. He catches Erik's thoughts, and they churn his stomach. Is he going to end up buried here, too, lined up in the row of people before him who left a legacy he's never wanted to be a part of? It's in his blood. Charles is the heir to it, and he carries that with him. Does it make him wretched that he doesn't want it? It would be better to not know where he came from than to know it's soaked in blood, in suffering. Was there ever laughter within the walls of that Manor? Did they ever use the dining room for more than formal dinners and parties, the couches and chairs in the sitting rooms for anything more than fancy decoration? Did they dance? Has anyone who grew up in that house ever been truly loved? Did they know what it was like to have a mother who wanted them, a father who was proud of them - or did they only know empty rooms and collected things? He doesn't know the answer, but he would have traded it in a heartbeat for a taste of something different.   
  
Twenty-seven years old and not once has his mother told him he was loved. Not once, not a single time, but she was always quick to tell him when he was lacking, when he gained a pound - He doesn't have memories to hold close. He doesn't have stories worth telling. He doesn't have any of it. This ground has nothing for him. It's as empty as the house he grew up in, the people buried in it strangers with cold faces and hollow eyes in portraits lined up on walls. He isn't grateful for it. They're no comfort to him. Charles gets to his feet, brushing off his pants. There'll be time for this when he goes to that party, but now isn't it. "I want to leave," he whispers, and his voice is hard, empty. There's a way out. He's going to find it now.  
  
Erik still has an arm wrapped around him and he tugs Charles forward to kiss the top of his head. If there wasn't laughter, they will make it. They will fill that place with all the laughter and dancing and music and love that was lacking. Erik knows it's not fair to make any kind of comparison, and he doesn't, not really, but one day this place will be filled with warmth, with what they make of it, and at the end of the line if resting here is not what interests him Erik will see to it that his final home is reflective of what he wants and who he is. There's just something hard to shake about the stark contrast, and it makes Erik curious about David and Ellie, about who they are and their history, if it exists beyond _Sisim_. "OK," he whispers back, soft. "Let's find the way out."  
  
But Charles hasn't moved. He's still staring, standing now, something bitter and ugly gripping tight to his insides and wrenching. All these years he'd held to the idea that if his father had just lived, he would have had a better life. He wouldn't have suffered, and if Raven had come to him at the same time, he would have been better prepared for her. He would have help, even, a kind, warm figure to look after her when he was still only a child, when he could barely make sense of the world himself. Was any of it true? His mother is cold and distant, perhaps, she'd clearly never wanted him, might even resent and blame him for all her misfortune but at least she didn't...   
  
There's no comparison. He thinks about that old, worn leather couch, about the café, about laughter and memories and shared moments, Erik's mother scooping him up to kiss and coo at him, and in comparison, in stark, back to back comparison - There's nothing here. There's hollow, empty names on stone. There's a man Charles never knew, dead and buried, and the legacy he left behind. The sickness he left behind. And Charles still wants to believe - maybe he was right, maybe he was helping - Because if he doesn't, what's left? How is he meant to be grateful for - Erik met Evil when he was eleven years old, and he took him from everything good and wonderful and loving. Charles was born into it. Charles was raised by a man who smiled and made deals with that man. Who perhaps killed infants. And he's meant to be grateful for the opportunity? That he knows it? He'd sooner it all burn to the fucking ground. Charles is shaking. The world is shaking.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "I'm not claiming to understand," he whispers quietly. He doesn't, not really, but he feels what he's lost every single moment of the day, especially now that he has more to measure it against, against what is normal. Against the memories stolen right out of his head. He doesn't expect Charles to be grateful for the evil in his life, far from it, for if any one of those people were stood in front of them Erik would have no problem putting their insides on the outside. That's what he was trained to do after all. It's not about Charles at all. Erik doesn't see hollowness when he looks at this place, not because Charles's life wasn't filled with hollowness but because all he can smell is ash. Erik can't comfort him, there's no way he could. All that he's experiencing is valid and expected, and in some ways Erik is glad for the anger because it's another step toward Charles knowing exactly what he was deprived of, and if he can only admit it in anger to Erik, that is perfectly acceptable to him. He doesn't say anything. It's not fair to bring his own pain to this place.  
  
It's already here. It spreads out and out and out and Charles hold himself responsible for it, every second of every day, and it's been eating him alive this entire trip. How dare he grieve or hurt or struggle when his father - it should have been him. What good does it do for him to stand here, acting like he's changed anything, suffered anything, when all he's ever done is profit from the life his father passed down to him? How much money in his inheritance, billions of fucking dollars, was the result of other people's suffering? Dead children, dead mothers, broken apart families, and he knows it didn't start with Brian Xavier. The land the Manor sits on wasn't theirs to take but they sure as hell took it. So what if Charles wasn't loved? If he wasn't coddled? If he was beaten? If he was - does any of it matter? He went to Harvard and Oxford. He followed in his father's footsteps. It's in his blood. All the pain he thinks he's gone through, all the self-pitying and loneliness and alienation, all the idealistic dreaming of a better world, none of that - none of it - He was deprived of nothing. He was given exactly the life expected of him. Of course Erik doesn't understand. Of course he never could. There's bile in his mouth. He opens his eyes and the world is Real again and every door is locked as it should be. The walls are stark white again. Empty, and hollow, and normal. Charles is grateful.  
  
They're still hovering in the air and Erik is clutching to him tightly, tucking Charles's head under his chin. He knows he's brought it here. It would suffocate him there were space for him to suffocate at all, but there isn't, he won't allow there to be, because the only important thing is making sure his family is OK. And that is something Charles belongs to that isn't built on evil. It never could be. Erik can't force him to feel things, and he doesn't try, but Charles is wrong that he isn't entitled to suffer. Erik doesn't want that. He doesn't want his pain to seep in and displace things and for Charles to turn it as a weapon against himself, he never has, and he's just sorry that so much of his existence is mired in it now that it can't be avoided. It's poor care. He squeezes him gently. It matters to him. He will love and protect Charles as fiercely as he deserves, as much as he can, it won't make up for anything but it will be what his life should have been.


	70. whether snow really does resemble the broken laughter

Charles shakes his head, wriggling until he displaces himself from Erik's arms. Backwards. Everything is backwards, everything is wrong, everything is too loud and there's blood all over his face and down his front and at least it's his and not Erik's this time. He feels weak, and sick, and the pounding in his temples isn't gone, but it never really is anymore. It's always just building, tension and pressure, inevitable meltdown. "Can you bring us down, please," he asks quietly, too politely, too collected, except his own voice screeches in his ears and everything bangs around, clatters, makes him wince and it doesn't matter.  
  
Erik doesn't want to come down, not really. He wipes his hand over Charles's cheek and down his chest, collecting up the blood and dissipating it, tracing the back of his knuckles across his temple gently before obliging, because he always would, whatever Charles asked of him he would travel to ends unknown to see it through, and they begin to lower through the atmosphere, humming something under his breath as they slice through wisps of clouds.  
  
And that's - Charles feels that bile rise up again, his head spins with it, a tear he can't choke back before it slides down his cheek where Erik touched him. The second they're on the ground again he's walking, except he doesn't know where he is or where he's going, nothing is particularly familiar even if it is, he could be in Manhattan and wandering lost, and the entire world is muted, uncomfortably silent, fuzzed out, his nose might even still bleeding and it doesn't matter. Let it come from his eyes and his mouth and everywhere else, too. His legs are shaking so let him collapse. There are people and minds and Charles has no awareness of them, as if they've just shut off and brilliant, let it be gone. He doesn't want any of it. He didn't ask for any of it. His ears are ringing. Someone is screaming and he thinks it might be him, from somewhere that isn't his mouth. He keeps walking.  
  
Erik won't let him collapse, and he won't let him be lost. He follows behind, a hand on his shoulder to pull him back and rein him in, from that twine of string around his wrist to the collar around his neck. He walks behind, a silent specter, protecting him from the world and warding him from the screaming like a talisman. Ordinarily when moments like this happen Erik handles them with equanimity because that's just who he is, and if he wasn't that person before he is now, but maybe it's a blessing that Charles is tuning him out so that he can't see him swipe angrily at his eyes, a hot wind blowing the remnants into gusts of dust. He manages to make the movement look natural, just a tic, before pulling Charles back a little to squeeze his hand in his good one.  
  
Charles doesn't know how to block Erik out anymore, not really. He catches it and he wishes he hadn't because it's just another thing he's - it's all building up inside of him, it's all too much. It's all too much and he nearly forgot about the thread and now it hurts to look at it but he doesn't want to be the one to break it, even as his hand is loose and limp in Erik's. It's all right there, all right behind his temples and if he so much as breathes wrong it'll break and there's nothing anyone could do about it. "Just go back," he gasps, and he can't hear his own voice. His lips move and he thinks he made sound but he can't hear his own voice. He lifts a hand to his ear, but it's not bleeding. It's still there. He forces his legs to walk again.  
  
"No," Erik whispers back vehemently. Of course not. Charles can't really expect Erik to just leave him out here to deal with this alone. He must know Erik better than that by now. "I won't leave you. I love you." He makes his voice sound strong and not shake like it threatens to, and he touches instead, smiles instead, shores himself up. "Please trust me." Even if it's hard. Even if he can't, after what he knows now. All Erik knows how to be is Charles's Dominant. "I won't let you break open."  
  
"Why not?" Charles touches his own throat as he says it, tries to shout it, biting down the terror because he can feel it vibrate but there's no sound and everything is a horrific, indistinguishable blur. Is it him not making noise, or is he just not hearing it? Has he shouted? Is any of it Real? He turns to face Erik, and all at once he's overcome, trying not to sob at what he sees. He covers his eyes, tries to cover his ears, too, anything to stop the ringing. "Why would you love me? What could you possibly love about me? Do you love me because - because I..." He shakes his head, and the thought hurts him so badly and makes him so sick that the world gets sick, too, the colors blending and rushing around them even though he can't see them, fixed and dizzying. "I'm not a good submissive, that's for bloody certain. I'm not - I'm not -" This should be Erik's place. There's no room for this, there's never any space and it's bursting out. He doesn't know what to do. Run, and not let Erik get caught in the undertow? Where will he go? He could get a plane back. He could stay in that miserable house as it is for the rest of his days and do fuck-all, just sit there and drink until his liver gives out or his brain explodes. Perhaps he'll breed like his mother seems keen on. Have a son he pays no mind to except when it's convenient, that knows nothing at all about him and still worships him because he's the only thing he has, and pass it on. Pass it on and on and on and on.  
  
"You already have a son," Erik whispers back, touching his face, tugging down his hand to take it in both of his own, good and bad. Good and evil. The right-and-left hand paths. Silly superstition, but Erik can't begrudge some people their fallacies; after all, he's not exactly not superstitious, himself. "And you pay him a great deal of mind. There will be nothing of that passed on, but plenty of good, all the same. Do I love you because of what, hm? If you're going to accuse me of something, then accuse me of it. I'll hardly play guessing games with you about it. As Carmen says, let's not prevaricate." His eyebrow arches, dry.  
  
Charles shakes his head and tugs but doesn't pull away, even when everything is closing in on him. Part of him wants to, but the larger part of him couldn't possibly bear it. It's not Erik he wants to lash out at, it rarely ever is, but the last thing he wants in this exact moment is to do more harm than he already has. "I wasn't accusing you of anything," he mumbles, and that comes out a garbled, distorted mess, his ears and temples throbbing with it. Pulsating, ringing, shrieking. Erik's voice even sounds far away, through a tunnel, underwater, worse. If this kills him, if he's weak enough to let it, he supposes his father was right after all. He was never wrong about Charles. It's Charles who was wrong about Charles.  
  
"I am not wrong about you," Erik says, his nose wrinkling up fondly, eyes creasing and he tucks a strand of hair behind Charles's ear. In many ways Charles is wrong about Charles, because most of his opinions and beliefs about himself are tinged with undeserved hatred. But Erik sees him clearly. He will love him even when he can't love himself, even when he doesn't understand how he possibly could. It has not once wavered and never will. "I won't let it kill you. I won't let it." He frames both sides of Charles's face, meets his eyes, strong and steady across from him.  
  
It doesn't make much of a difference when everything is oddly distorted, when he can barely see Erik's face to begin with, like a fading mirage. The more he tries to focus the more it breaks away, and it's difficult to focus on anything in the first place when he keeps hearing things. The last time the world looked like this, Emma Frost was playing around up there. Now there's no one to blame but himself, and perhaps there never was. She didn't do such a stellar job, flicked away like an insect. His stomach clenches again, and he thinks he might laugh if he wasn't so dizzy, if everything didn't start to rapidly spin. Erik doesn't see him clearly at all. If he did, he'd realize - if he did, he wouldn't be wearing this collar. He shouldn't be wearing it now.  
  
"Yes, well," Erik gives a little shrug. "If you saw me the way I see myself, you would never have asked to wear it, but that is the benefit of perspective, hm?" he murmurs, unwilling to allow Charles to distance himself from him. It doesn't help, it never does, it certainly won't help Erik. For Charles, Emma is an insect, but she did a wonderful job on him. His mind isn't programmed to cope with an assault of that level. He is grateful that Charles could handle her, that she could never hope to approach his level of finesse. That she could never hope to mangle him up the way she did Erik. "Focus on me, _neshama_. I'm not going anywhere. Focus on my voice. I know you can." The Order is strong, calm and even.  
  
Charles is beginning to think it's the one Order he won't be able to follow, even if he makes the effort. He barely hears it over the roaring in his ears, actually, and he thinks he's blinked for a long while but it's really just that everything else has. It comes back in a gasping, heaving mess, then goes again, comes back and goes. None of the sounds make any sense. None of the sensations. There's horrible, shooting pain in his leg all of a sudden, then his back, and then he can't feel anything - seething, seizing, something is - where is he? Who is he? He stumbles, but he doesn't know if he was standing to begin with. Where is he? Who is he? Someone is screaming and this time he thinks it has to be him, except he's a bit foggy on who that is. Father! Father, help, please - In and out. When? When he was nine, he locked himself in a closet and Mother didn't find him for a good five days. He didn't remember who he was. He didn't know which voice in his head was his.  
  
Erik isn't them. They didn't help him. Erik will. Erik can find him. He always can. That's what it means to belong to one another. Even if Charles can't remember that voice, Erik could never forget it, could pick it out of billions of screaming incoherent minds all pressing in. As soon as he stumbles, Erik catches him, keeps him upright, keeps him steady. "You can," Erik whispers, not shouting, a pulse from the thread between them that never dissipates. "Trust me. Lean on me. I've got you."  
  
Everything is black at the corners. Everything is spinning. There's pain and sensation and noise, his eyes aren't his eyes and his body isn't his body and he's worried that if he opens his mouth words that aren't his will spill out because he hasn't got the difference straight at the moment. He doesn't know if there is a difference. He can hear Erik's voice but it feels like it's miles and miles away, worlds between them, and he's forgotten how to reach it. How to wade through the impossible distance between them. He doesn't know how he can have him when there doesn't feel like there's anything to have. How can Charles belong to him if Charles doesn't exist? Everything all at once is pressing in, and in, and in, and in, and Charles is going to be crushed. The pain is exceptional, but he's so out of body that he barely feels it. There's no room in the Corridor with everyone else crowding it, no doors to disappear to because they've all locked themselves and he doesn't know how to open them. It's not his anymore. His eyes aren't open anymore.

* * *

The Corridor is long and white and gleaming, and there are far, far too many people there, the walls are going to collapse if any more appear. And then they begin to fling away, to dissolve into wisps. It's not Erik doing it, though. The figure is uncertain, but wielding a large, flaming sword that slices through them and turns them into ash, snapping them back to themselves and clearing a path, a circle for Charles to exist in. One spot in the entire universe full of space for him to breathe. " _Hitrachaku_!" she Commands calmly, putting herself between Charles and the voices from without. A place that Erik can't follow, maybe, not through them all, but she can.  
  
Charles thinks he's forgotten how to exist. It's not that people are invading, and he's not sure the voices themselves were ever the problem; he's meant to have space for all of them, some place for them to go, to listen and understand them, though not there, admittedly, the place that's always been his. The space is still too narrow, and he's not sure he's conscious, or that there's enough of him that it matters. That little corner isn't nearly big enough to fit everything. The whole thing wasn't. Everything is still fuzzy, the pain still unbearable, his skin still burning to the touch, and he can't stay there and he can't stay out here and he wonders if he'd break the universe if he was given enough time. If he'd rework everything, if it's him seeing the world in distortions and dizzying lights and sounds and colors or the rest of the world, too. If they'll all be trapped here, if he'd be exactly the destructive, dangerous force his father pegged him as. He hopes he fades before that. He hopes Erik forgives him for it. He couldn't even obey the last Order he was given, and it isn't - it isn't fair, he wanted to be good -  
  
"Stop it," she gripes at him, rolling her eyes and throwing a hand down to haul him to his feet. "No more guilt. Time to fight instead, _tayer_. You aren't dead, yet." Her bright green eyes crinkle at the corners, just like his do. Charles's mother never found him in the closet for five days, but she's not Sharon, and this boy is part of her family. It's clear she doesn't exactly know how she's here, and in this space, she's less ethereal, more rooted and Real, and short. So short, with freckles across her face and frizzy hair. She's a little sharper, too, like she was in life. Weathered, but sturdy. "He needs you, and you need him, so you're going to help me fight this."  
  
Charles blinks, and nothing is solid. His own mind doesn't look like anything he recognizes, and the sound of her voice might as well be coming through a tunnel farther down than Erik's was. There's pain he couldn't possibly describe in words, soul-rending and wrenching at the deepest parts of him, but he doesn't have a body to feel anything that belongs to him. He does know he can't look at her, that she can't be here. It's disgusting and cowardly and awful, but he'd rather anything else happen. He'd rather burn up. He can't say words, so he says nothing. He turns and he walks away, as much as he can walk, and considers just tearing the place apart. It would hurt less to go that way than to be stuck here while everything collapses in on itself. He wants to be out there, with Erik, so at least - he doesn't know how to do that, but he'll figure it out. If it gets him even a second more, he'll figure it out.  
  
"No," she whispers, and it's his whisper. "I know it's painful for me to be here. I'm sorry, _tayer_. I wish there was another way. He can't find you like I can. He's good, but he doesn't know how. Not yet. He'll learn, and I'll leave you in peace. In time. Now, I won't let you burn up. And I won't let you face it alone. We'll figure it out, together. _Beseder_?" She fixes him with a baleful glare that absolutely does not allow room for disagreement.  
  
It sounds too much like him. It sounds too much like him, but it aches because of that, and he already hurts enough. He doesn't feel like he has a body but if he did he thinks he would be on edge, everything tensed, locked up, clenched. Charles doesn't feel like he has a face to glare back at her from or eyes to cry tears, and even if he did she wouldn't deserve it. She certainly shouldn't inspire it. "You can't be here," he says, and it isn't biting or cold, it's desperate and pained, and it comes from everywhere. It hurts to say and it hurts to think and it hurts to be anything at all, everything hurts. "Please. I'm begging you to leave. You can't stay." Whatever he has to endure to get back to Erik, he will. He'll jiggle every door until he finds one that unlocks, he'll find his way to the basement, he'll crawl out the window and climb down to the gardens and out that way, everything breaking and burning in the process but he can't - he can't, doesn't she understand that? Does she have any idea? She can't. The walls are closing in. Everything is getting smaller and on the outside he's screaming and he can't leave Erik like that, no matter how rotten of a submissive he is, how much he doesn't deserve to go back.  
  
"Nonsense," she tells him kindly. "I know you want me to leave because it hurts, but you're going to have to get over it. I won't let you lose each other. This is what you have to endure. If you want to endure it, then endure it. _Atah mevina_?" her eyebrows raise, reproachful.  
  
Reproachful. As if he can see her in the first place, as if she’s - it makes his blood boil, not that it isn’t already, it makes everything ramp up, and all he wants to do is make her leave. He could. If it was the last thing he did, he could make this entire place go black. He doesn’t. He doesn’t, because how could he? She’s done nothing but welcome and help and love him, and he hates that it’s the problem. But he doesn’t look at her, not that he has eyes to look, and he doesn’t speak to her, because if he was there in the flesh, if any of this was Real, he wouldn’t be able to. He just looks around this collapsing place, desperate and in more pain than he could imagine being in, for something. There’s nothing but he looks for something, anything but empty hallway, white wall, locked door. Anything outside of the agony and the voices and sounds and feelings that aren’t his, wading through them like sludge and they all stick to him, threaten to pull him in and down. She won’t leave and he won’t make her. He’ll endure it. Things are flipping upside down here, too. Warping strangely, disappearing entirely, phasing in and out. It’s breaking. It’s broken. He doesn’t have a clue on how to fix it, and he doesn’t remember, half the time, who he is and why he needs to.  
  
"Yes, well," she huffs, fond. It's easy to see where Erik gets his casual dismissiveness from, if nothing else. If he were to have eyes. "We all have things we hate, _za'ir tayish_." They walk on the ceiling, on the stars reflected in linoleum, with her great flaming broadsword striking a path before them. "How are you liking _be'Eretz_?" she asks conversationally, resting her arm on the blade of her sword across her back. It doesn't seem to burn her.  
  
He doesn’t want to have this conversation. There’s no way to have the conversation, even, with his head currently exploding and everything floating its way out in bits and pieces, with his consciousness going in and out as it is. There’s no walking; there’s no ceiling, and there’s no floor, and there are no stars. There’s everything he’s ever seen and everything he’s ever felt and everything he hasn’t, and there are things he doesn’t understand and things he understands too much of and there are still locked doors, and there’s a man at the end of the Corridor and there isn’t, and there’s a closet and there’s a boy and no one is going to find him and he doesn’t remember what his name is. Charles is going to forget what his name is. There’s screaming on the outside, loud, agonized screaming, and it’s coming from his own throat and it hurts because Erik - he remembers Erik, he hasn’t forgotten Erik - has to hear everything, and he doesn’t know the way out. If he gets to the basement, if there is a basement, he can find the lab, and he can find the cure, and he can end this. It doesn’t matter if Erik Ordered him not to. Erik Ordered him not to die, once, too, and he thinks that takes priority, so he walks in a direction and he wills it but he’s forgotten what it’s supposed to look like. His father used to carry him. Charles was always too weak to use his own legs.  
  
"There's no curing this, _tayer_. You can't cure your own mind. All you can do is live in it." Edith's voice fazes out and then back in, sharp and piercing and Real. The thing about it is, she has a mind. She isn't a fantasy that Charles invented, unless she is, but her experiences live here, too. And not just from the time that she should have been alive. The time after, too. She remembers the time after. In this screaming place, where Charles can't understand the world and understands too much of it, he hears it. An echo. He sees it. Echoes. His mind splintering open is what it takes for him to see them, layers of a single soul like microscopic filaments split apart. Through space. Through time. Edith died at _Sisim_. But the further away from something you are in space, the further away from it you are in time. A Faraday cage of her own design, with a single, fixed Constant. "You're not going to die. Not today. We're going home."

* * *

Charles already knew that. His mind has been splitting apart for quite a while now, or perhaps it's been splitting open, but he understood from the second time he came into contact with her in a way no one else could, the same way he knows there are things he understands that he shouldn't but does - out of time, out of place, out of Reality, his mind is tethered to more than the physical world and always has been. He can't rearrange molecules but he isn't limited to it like Erik is, grounded in it, and he was never meant to be. Still, he's moving, and he isn't listening to her. There's a lab somewhere and it looks like more than one lab, and it isn't set up like his father's but it doesn't need to be. There's a syringe and he knows what's in it and he knows what will happen if he injects it into his veins, into his mind. All of this will end. All of it. It's in his hands before he moves and he closes his eyes, if he has eyes, if he has a body, if he has a self, and he lines it up. He'll hit a vein because it doesn't matter if he doesn't. Do it, Charles, someone whispers. Go ahead. Do it. The world trembles, not just in his mind but out there, too, and not even Erik could fix it, a psionic event that the world will feel. Do it, Charles. Do it. Go on, son.  
  
A hand slaps over his wrist with a hard smack, keeping it in a vice grip where he has the syringe clasped. A hard blow to the back of his palm sees it drop out of his hand entirely. "Charles, stop," the voice is from without, and then it's from within, too. The woman in white is gone, or maybe she was never there. "Stop, please stop."  
  
Everything is trembling. There's so much pain he can't make sense of any of it, so much seething and shaking he loses his vision and everything threatens to white out completely. To go supernova, flashes of brilliant color and he'll be the dying start that wipes it all out. _No! Grab it! You'll kill him, is that what you want? You'll kill everyone!_ He's on hands and knees, but he can't figure out which way is the right way, he can't find the needle but he knows it's here, he's searching blindly for it, uncertain if he'll be able to take it if he does. He can't listen this time. He was always a wretched submissive, anyway, he never would have been good enough. _Listen to me. I know you better than anyone, Charles. I taught you and I fixed you. You should be grateful. Do what's right, son._ It hurts. It hurts so badly he can't fathom it, he's screaming in here, too, he has to find it - he has to - Finish what he started. What he started? Whose voice is that? It doesn't matter. It's there, it's just there. If he can just get it in his hand, this can be over. For everyone, over.  
  
"No." A hand picks him up off the ground and sets him on his feet. "I taught you." The first time was in a dark, cold cell at the bottom of the Earth. Do you know your Postures? And he did, of course. Jarring, unpleasant things. But even there, he was graceful. And then they were in the light. There's sun, and hardwood floors, and calligraphy over peeling parchment and bells chiming above as a door opens and it's in Times Square, and tropical fishes dance along the walls and they're in Starbucks and someone's balancing a coffee cup upside-down on his nose because he can, behind the counter (always behind) and stashed-away books and smiley faces and notes in the margins (it's good to be a little chaotic, he should probably stop alphabetizing the book shop) and there is a hand on his face, because he has a face, and eyes, and lungs, and a heartbeat. _Don't go. Fight for me. I know it's hard. I'm sorry, but I'll walk with you. I will guide and I will walk._  
  
If he has lungs, they're not breathing properly. They aren't filling with enough air and the world is shaking because of it. The sound that he makes is wounded and terrified and his fingers grasp at nothing, he's trying to wrench it all back to where those needles are because he needs them. If he doesn't take them, everyone will hurt and die. He can't close his mind after this, he'll never be able to again, and he doesn't know what means. He doesn't know what comes next, and it hurts so much. _That's right, Charles. You're sick. Please, take your medicine. Be good now._ But hasn't he been taught to be good? By someone else, by someone he couldn't possibly forget. By the one person who was there, when his father wasn't, when no one was, and perhaps he would have reached out sooner if he hadn't been - but, no, no - _Charles. Don't make me ask you again. You know why we do this._ Does he? What about - his fingers don't feel like fingers still, they don't feel like his, but he grabs at his neck and gasps at what he finds. Even here. Even now. Doesn't he belong to someone? He hated doing Postures, but he doesn't anymore. _Why? Because. He doesn't know what's good for you. He doesn't know what you need._ Doesn't he? Doesn't he? Charles belongs to him, doesn't he?  
  
A hand fits over his, and there's a body, too, a solid chest to lay his head upon if he can stretch up on his tip-toes (too tall, Dominants shouldn't be so tall) and it used to be sunken-in and stretched-over skin across ribs and now it's not, the body is strong and sturdy and growing more every day. Charles tends to him and sings to him like a flower in the sunlight and he grows stronger for it, and that's what Charles does. He is good, and there are new rules, now. Better rules. Rules for health and love and hope and recovery. The sickness lives inside the syringe. This person won't let him take it back in. If his mind opens up, they'll be there to stand sentry against invaders. He has a family, now. A family. Red sparkles and streaks of zooming white and spherical metal discs and blue skin. They're a very blue tribe. _You took the sickness because he was scared. That's why you do this. But we don't do this anymore. You aren't sick. You are beautiful. Come home to me. Don't forget me. I love you._ He has green eyes.  
  
 _Charles, don’t do this. Do not listen to this. Charles!_ But Charles is a body again. He’s coughing on something that might be blood and might just be his own spit, his own breath, might just be the horrible wrenching feeling, the screeching sounds, like claws shredding at his insides. Seething, seizing, he’s never shaken this much in his life but he gasps and clenches his fist, the fist he has now and the world stops trembling with him, he puts it right except with just a thought, the same way he put it wrong unconsciously but he still can’t see anything. He can’t see anything but him, but Erik, his Dominant, and he can’t hold himself up and he’s collapsing and it - it feels like sickness, it feels like a terrible disease, but he trusts Erik more than he could ever trust - he does. He belongs to him. It hurts more than anything has ever hurt, it hurts it hurts it hurts he can’t imagine anything hurting more than this, but he belongs to Erik and he can’t forget that. _I forbid it_ , and Charles listens. He loves him, too, and he belongs - to him - right?

* * *

He's caught before he can collapse, he always is. _To me_ , Erik's voice whispers back, and he hears the smile. A real one, that wrinkles his face up when they're in the light, and his arms come around Charles's body and hold him steady. He rests his palm against Charles's chest, guides him through breathing. Properly, clear and fresh and bright. Erik loves him more than anything in the world and he will do anything to get him back, to have him whole and healthy. Erik only knew how to kill and torture before Charles, but he has a second chance, now. He loves him with his whole soul, he puts his whole being into Dominance and keeping, into caring and compassion, because Charles showed him the way. He was lost in the Wasteland but Charles found him anyway, and wasn't afraid even when threatened. It isn't a disease. It's beautiful, it found their family, it protects them and keeps them safe. He sways them back and forth, protective. _I love you. Don't leave me, please._  
  
It hurts. He tries to make sound, but the only thing that comes out are those wounded, pained noises, pitiful little gasps and the hand on his chest helps but his lungs don’t seem to be working. Something has changed, and he doesn’t know what it is or if he can ever go back, but he supposes it’s as good as anything because it wasn’t working the way it was. Charles is coming back, but coming back means being in body, and it hurts and he can’t imagine getting through this except he knows he will if Erik is here because there is no other option - he can’t leave him alone. He can’t leave him alone any more than Erik could, and for that there’s nothing he wouldn’t endure. He tries to cling but everything is too weak, everything is splitting itself apart and he can’t do anything except let it happen. Erik, he thinks, like he’s reminding himself, and he is. Erik, Erik, Erik, Erik. He belongs to someone and he has to stay, he has to be, he has to exist. He hated Postures and then he didn’t. Charles knows quite a lot, he might even know everything if he stretched himself to think about it, but his favorite things to learn are the things Erik teaches him. He hated them and then he didn’t. He was never going to wear a collar and then he did and he does. Is it still there?  
  
Fingers curl over his and they're drawn up to the intricate metal around his neck, its curves and slopes, and it sings and chimes when his skin passes over the grooves, poetry and particles in perfect symphony. It's still there. It will never leave him, not ever. Erik sings him a silly song, strokes his hair and rubs his back and rocks him through the pain, endures every electric jolt of agony with him, passing from one body to another, a pain halved, and gladly so. Erik's favorite thing in the world is teaching Charles, and it always fascinates him how he finds something new to teach him every day, how big his own mind must be that he could, all the little secrets stored up in there, but the one thing he wants to impart at this very moment is that Charles will get through this. Erik will help him. He will be here. They will get through it. Together. Charles, whispers back every time. A call-response. Charles, Charles. _I'm here. I've got you._  
  
Charles is grateful that most of it is a pain Erik wasn’t designed to feel, that the aftershocks are just aftershocks, that there are places that he wasn’t meant to go and perhaps that is selfish, perhaps it is wrong, but it’s the only thing that gets him through this. He takes comfort in that, that at least if it’s unbearable, if it’s built inside of him, if he’s self-destructing, he won’t take Erik with him; he couldn’t. It’s not a pain he wants to share. If all he feels is agony, if all he ever feels is agony, if he carries this with him behind his temples for the rest of his life, at least Erik can be without. At least he can take it from the body that experienced far too much of it. It doesn’t stop. There doesn’t seem to be an end, and Charles knows there’s a limit to how much he can feasibly endure. He’s not quite conscious. He can’t imagine he’ll be even not quite for much longer. He clings on anyway, because he doesn’t want to leave Erik alone, and he’s afraid if he fades for even a moment he’ll forget. He’ll forget who he is, and who he belongs to, and he’ll wake up and there won’t be a collar and he won’t have been taught his Postures properly. He’ll wake up somewhere different, somewhere changed. Somewhere broken.  
  
Erik will never let that happen. Not ever. And he will never let it be that the only thing Charles feels is agony. It isn't possible. It just isn't. It can't be. It's not a physical kind of experiencing, but in a way, it is, humming through Erik's mind and ripping through his heart and shredding his organs all the same, but he has strength. He was built for this and it doesn't break him, and he doesn't even wince against it. Erik bolsters him, keeps him tethered, feeds him memories and songs and spaces where they found one another, over and over again, moments of peace and laughter and inside-jokes and warmth. He won't let him forget. He'll remind him for the rest of his life, for forever. Until they're old and gray. Well, in Erik's case that might come sooner rather than later, but you get the drift. He will never be broken and he will never be alone. Never again.  
  
He’s fading anyway. Charles was built for this kind of experience, perhaps, something Erik could never feel, pain he could never fathom - and good, Charles will make certain he never does, that it stays far, far away from him, that whatever he experiences is dulled in comparison, that as much as it hurts him to watch he will never have to know, not that he could live through it, not that anyone but Charles could possibly live through it - but there’s only so much he can take. He’s listening, but the words stop making sense, and whatever is tearing itself to shreds inside of him, it continues on, and on, and on, and he endures it, he endures it because that’s all he can do, but eventually it’s too much. If his eyes were open, they close. His body goes still. The lights go out, and Charles lets them, but only because he knows they’ll go back on.


	71. of the long-abandoned when what left comes back big-time;

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _we are made one with what we touch and see_ , oscar wilde  
> ii. _mad girl's love song_ , sylvia plath

He takes Charles back home, gathers up their children in his arms and settles them on the bed, too, reads them stories and chases Pietro around, and he was right-Charles will have to do all the chasing. He's exhausted, and sore, from the kind of pain that just can't be burned out no matter if he had no nerves at all; things creak and ache now with the shifting tides. David and Ellie fret, but he silently smiles at them and touches their shoulders, the best assurance he knows how to give. He curls up beside with a mug of coffee and finally lets himself zone out for a while, absently petting the kids and Magda and the horde of other children that traipse in soon after. He clears away dead branches in the Wasteland, potters around and powers down, an old shawl wrapped over his shoulders as he comes as close to sleep as he could possibly get while still awake. He takes care of things, and he's good at it, meandering between people and insuring their needs are met. He takes care of Charles, does his best to keep him comfortable and settled.  
  
There’s still pain, even in unconsciousness. Even if there’s nothing in him to reach and nothing in him to feel it, it’s still there, and his body shivers with it, then sweats with it, then shakes with it; in cycles, and then out of order, and then all at once. He convulses periodically, or cries out though there’s no part of him that Erik can feel. The afternoon becomes the evening becomes the night becomes morning, their last morning, and when consciousness comes it doesn’t come easy. There’s pressure and there’s sharp, stinging soreness, more overwhelming than any migraine, his temples visibly throbbing with it. He turns over to retch, though nothing comes out, then shivers with the constant fever, and he’s awake. There are parts of him that are awake, though not all of them belong to Charles. He doesn’t open his eyes. It’s not done. Whatever is happening, it's not done. He was hoping it might be.  
  
Erik is there, and he's still tending to him, and still continues to do so. For him, Charles's slow journey to wakefulness is not a sudden shift but a subtle maneuver; he's been like this for a while, and Erik has fallen into a routine of caring for him. Erik's brushing his hair from his face when his eyes flicker behind closed lids and he smiles to himself. "Shalom, sleepyhead." It's warm, and fond. Charles is warm, too, wrapped up in blankets and kept dry and as comfortable as he can.  
  
He’s not sure if what he was doing counts as sleeping, but he doesn’t make the comment. He doesn’t make any comment, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and the pain steals the rest of it. For a moment, he forgets who he is, and where he is, and when he is; in and out, it comes in and out, the world strange and unfamiliar and agonizing, time distorted, thoughts corrupted, but he remembers because Erik’s voice is a constant through it, and he tries to curl closer, to seek out Erik’s hand with his eyes still closed. Does he still like doing his Postures? Does he remember how to do them? He thinks so. Not every morning, always, something else answers, something that gets pulled to the surface from the blackness, the Void that’s forming something new. Sometimes he’s grumpy. Erik still makes him do them. He likes it by the end of them, but he doesn’t like to say so. Erik knows anyway.

* * *

"Yes, I do," he murmurs back, huffing at the comment. He's tried to keep his humor and not collapse, because that wouldn't be very good for anybody, but if anyone knows what Charles has been doing, it's Erik who has kept vigil over him like a worried raven. And who indeed warded off a worried Raven. "And so do you," he smiles gently and helps ease Charles into a seated position. A straw is poked through his lips. "Drink," he Orders softly, because it's been a while.  
  
As much as he can, anyway. Charles doesn’t even know what he’s been doing, besides breaking in and out of consciousness and experiencing more varied, persistent pain than he can ever remember. Some of it is exactly what he’s come to expect from this, indescribable and unreachable to anyone else, entirely unbearable even when he bears it. Some of it is just old pain revisited, some of it isn’t his at all. Some of it is Erik’s, though he doesn’t want to say so, and he keeps it firmly to himself. Things he’s felt before, that he can barely register as someone else’s, and only knows to differentiate because they’re Erik’s. They hadn’t been as connected then, but the stomp of a foot, a crushing heel against a damaged hand - he’s felt that now. He’s felt a lot of things. When he’s sat up he makes a low, hurting noise, the world tipped over again, flipped upside down, the nausea comes up but he opens his mouth obediently, takes a sip and then turns his head. He can’t hold himself up, and he sags right back down.  
  
Erik dips the mattress under his own weight and tucks Charles against him instead, letting him lean against his chest so he can drink more, murmuring nonsense into his hair and kissing his forehead. On some level he knows that Charles knows his experiences this intimately anyway, and it hurts him fiercely that it's so. For all the ways Charles can keep his own pain away from Erik's perception, Erik can't do the same in return; not really, not forever. There's a lot that is fuzzy and damaged and would require work and sacrifice to uncover, but it's not a never. He's good at obfuscating and hiding and strength and that wards away some of it, but it's always going to be there right at Charles's fingertips, and he could never hope to fight it; he's a poor fighter, anyway, the irony of it truly is. He doesn't want to fight, and least of all his submissive. Charles need only ask and Erik would offer it.   
  
A fingertip lingering over a scar often imparts the sound-sensory memory of its acquisition anyway, Erik is frightfully an open book and he wishes it weren't so. If he could do the same, a hundred times in return, he would. There are some things that human beings aren't meant to experience. By experiencing them you become something less than human. Things Erik does not ever want Charles to even think about, let alone experience in vivid detail. But that's not fair, either. The world doesn't only exist on one side of the spectrum. He can't keep Charles locked in a gilded cage, like a captor instead of a Dominant, struggling futilely to prevent him from ever hearing or seeing anything bad. He's not thinking about any of that, now, though. His hand twinges as if it secretly knows, and maybe it does, but he uses it to touch Charles's face anyway, just to touch. Grateful that he's conscious, his mind familiar as it curls around, that pulsating thread alive between them. Erik missed him, like an ache, burrowing deep into his ribcage, an endless drop of water wearing away stone.  
  
Charles doesn’t feel familiar. Beyond the pain, which is constant and awful, there’s change, too, though he doesn’t know exactly what it is. Not anything quite as drastic as he’d feared, not Reality-altering, yet, anyway, but enough that he doesn’t recognize his own mind, something torn open and irreversibly altered. He’s not sure if Erik can feel that yet, though; it’s something even he can’t reach. Mostly he feels horrendously, pathetically weak, not in strength as a concept (perhaps that, too) but in body and, despite Erik’s protests, sick. Some things are lost on him - everything feels far away, nothing feels solid. He has no clue what time it is, which must be important. There are things he’s worried he’s forgotten. What if he really has forgotten his Postures? What if he doesn’t know how to be Erik’s anymore? What if too much has changed, what if things were lost?  
  
"Then I will teach you again," Erik whispers back, but his eyes crinkle. He's not worried. It's morning, it's early, and Pietro and Wanda are fast asleep in Magda's arms in a pile of cushions against the back wall of the room; the only people permitted to enter once Charles got settled and started to appear sicker and sicker. The time isn't important. What's important is that Charles is safe. They've both been altered, torn open in ways that can never be changed, in different ways, but whatever the metaphor, apt or otherwise, they've taken footsteps forward into unknown areas. Erik isn't the same Erik that landed in Israel. He's been altered, in some ways better and others worse. But he knows (he hopes, but he won't admit that) Charles will remain by his side. He fought for him. He came back. And Erik will always do the same.  
  
Isn't it? Charles knows there's no time for illness, but before long he's shivering violently again with the fever, and conscious this time to feel it. Despite blankets and Erik and temperature control, the weather outside, he's freezing but blistering to the touch. His eyes haven't opened once despite being aware, but he doesn't think he can try. Everything hurts far too much. Mother, I feel ill. What would you like me to do about that, Charles? He needs to call her? Vaguely, he remembers needing to, but memories of her are so close that they ache fresh and he'll need to remember how to dull it. Charles is going to stay, but he doesn't want to forget. There are things he doesn't want to forget, and things he doesn't want to change. It's frightening, and painful, and what if the parts that are different are parts Erik doesn't like? What if he forgets important bits? He can't forget those things. Please don't let him forget those things. He likes being Erik's and what if he forgets, because for so long he didn't think he wanted to be anyone's and he changed and what if he goes back -  
  
Erik puts his fingertip over Charles's lips, even though he's not talking, but it's not in annoyance. "Do you want to be mine? That is what matters most. It seems you still do, hm? I won't let you forget anything, _neshama_. Be easy. I'm right here, and so are you." And he's allowed to be ill. Erik will tend to him, as it always should have been. "I won't let you. You're safe with me." And he'll be right here to remind him, no matter if Charles finds it irksome or not. He hopes not, though, but he truly isn't worried. Charles knows he is Erik's the way even the most primitive parts of Erik know that Charles belongs to them. It may not always be surface, but it's present. He does his best to make Charles comfortable now that he can intuit when Charles leans in or pulls away, if he shivers or sweats, making a thousand microadjustments to compensate every second. "Drink some more, that's it," he murmurs softly.  
  
Charles turns his head again, not wanting to swallow. It panics him but he can't explain why, and then the nausea is back though it never left, thick and wretched on top of the pain and he retches dry, stomach clenching with it. He can't tell if he's hot or cold anymore. When will Erik rest? When will he sleep? It took a thought to right the world after he ruined it, it would take less than that to make him nod off. Charles should do it, though he doesn't know if that's right; planes? Something about planes. He always gets sick on them, so will he feel worse? He can't even open his eyes. There's excruciating pain in his back, though he can't tell where it's coming from or why. Someone is touching him and he's too weak to squirm away, a helpless, frightened noise parting his lips. Where is Erik? Why isn't he here?  
  
It doesn't matter. They'll go when they go, and as Erik has demonstrated, they don't need a plane to get there. "I'm right here," he whispers, running his hand over Charles's forehead and transmitting a sensation of coolness without the discomfort of being wet, like a washcloth, stroking his cheek and neck, lingering over his collar. It wouldn't be right. Erik doesn't want it, and he's firm on that. He won't be sleeping any time soon. Not in any real meaningful way. He dropped into REM for about five minutes before jerking himself awake because Pietro nearly zoomed into a wall, catching him in the nick of time with his power.  
  
That's not right, either, and they do need a plane, don't they, if they're going to not put Erik behind bars again? It matters. Charles can't think straight and he's being touched and everything hurts and he knows it matters and he knows Erik needs to sleep and no one ever lets him sleep and now Charles is keeping him awake. He leans over and retches again, and it hurts and it's early, flights, times, he doesn't - he doesn't remember, but if he forces himself he could find out and he could put Erik to sleep for an hour or two first. That sounds right. He knows that's right, but not how. He's barely conscious anyway, it should be enough time to figure out how to open his eyes and then he can sit still for ten hours and his brain can tear itself apart more. What if he's forgotten - no, he hasn't. He hasn't.  
  
"Be easy," Erik murmurs the Order instead, hushing his frantic worries. They'll manage it. Erik will take care of him, and he will get him to where he needs to go. He doesn't need to remember all of the times and figure anything out, Erik's pretty smart, too. He's got this. All he has to do is sit back and enjoy the ride, so to speak. As much enjoyment as one can get vomiting their brain out of their eyeballs. " _Misken_ , it's OK. I've got you, easy." He fashions a bucket out of a cloth and holds it up for him to use if he has to, encouraging him to get it all out.  
  
There's nothing in his stomach to vomit but bile, and he's too weak to really get it out anyway. It's not like he's much use around the seizing and pain, but it's too long for Erik to be awake and vigilant and he needs it to be over now. He doesn't know how to go about doing that, and if the Order worked, it didn't work for long because he's trying to sit up, trying to open his eyes, and the horrible pain that causes is almost enough to convince him to never try that again. He would have hurt less if someone had stabbed him through the skull and he's left reeling with it, chest heaving and those low, pained whimpers. If he puts Erik to sleep now, will he be able to get them to the airport? Can he walk? He can't even speak, he hasn't yet since he woke up, and that thought is terrifying - children... he squeezes his eyes shut tighter. Did they see him sick? What if - oh, it hurts. It hurts and now he is vomiting bile. This is his fault. This is all his fault. Charles, you should have listened. He should have.  
  
"You are not putting me to sleep," Erik says, and that Order is firm. "You're not feeling well. It happens. It's OK. You will be OK, but I won't have you driving yourself crazy on top of it. Now take a breath and calm down. Let me handle it, and let me take care of you, which is exactly what I am supposed to be doing and where I am supposed to be." Those Orders are, too.  
  
Perhaps if he had a cold or the flu, but he doesn't. But not only is he not in a place to argue, he doesn't have the tools. In and out and in, everything fades and fogs and if he isn't in excruciating pain, which isn't often, he's disoriented and mindless with something he doesn't understand. Idly, he thinks he could work around an Order if he tried, but that might be - would that be wrong? Would Erik be angry? Would it matter? His ears are ringing again, louder than before, and he can't bring his hands up to his own ears to block it out because he can't move his arms at all. You're pathetic, truly. He is. He retches again.  
  
It would be, and he would be, not only because it would involve a great deal of mental restructuring, the likes of which he's had plenty of for a lifetime, but it would undermine the entire structure of their Dynamic entirely. "Trust me," he murmurs, rubbing Charles's back through his shirt and kissing his forehead. He knows how to look after him. He'll do a good job. He won't let anything break. This is what he's here for.

* * *

But who's going to make sure that Erik doesn't break? That's what Charles is supposed to be here for. How is he supposed to do that when he can hardly remember his own name between rounds of this? Everything is breaking anyway. Everything is hurting anyway. He rolls away from Erik's hand with the last bit of his strength because it feels like something else and when he gets sick again, when he starts to shake and convulse, it feels like something else, too, and he forgets and in, out, in, it hurts so badly that there are tears leaking out of his eyes and he has a good, hearty tolerance, actually. He's no stranger to pain. I'm never going to feel like that again. Orders don't work on him anyway, he's going to become Dominant - wrong? In. Out. In. It's cold. It's so cold, it's so cold, it's so cold. He tries to sit up and he can't feel anything. He can't feel anything, it must be gone.  
  
Erik touches his chest and a sensation of warmth cocoons him up, and he doesn't let him roll very far. Erik will make sure that Erik doesn't break, and so will Charles, because he always has, even now he's trying to ensure it, but Erik will simply not allow him to hurt himself over it. "Wrong," Erik confirms for him, soft, making certain he doesn't physically hurt himself, either, able to hold him still with his abilities more than anything. He doesn't get elbowed or jostled, at least.  
  
Charles can't move much anyway. Everything is weak and if it's not hurting, if it's not scorching or throbbing in time with the pain centered up by his temples, which alternates between almost-bearable and completely debilitating, he can't feel it. Too exhausted, too limp. He's not exceptionally coherent, either, most of his thoughts don't make any sense if Erik hears them at all, if they're comprehensible at all. When he tries to sit up, delirious and only half-there, he's so dizzy he throws up again, stomach clenching around nothing, everything tilting all over. Better. He needs to get better. _You should have taken it._ He doesn't know where it is anymore. He doesn't know how to get to it. Everything's gone and different now. There's a reason he's not supposed to, but he forgets what it is. Erik? Planes. He always gets sick on planes. He doesn't remember how to do Postures. He doesn't know how to open his eyes. He doesn't have to follow Orders.  
  
Erik holds him through it, answers all of his half-coherent ramblings and buoys him with Orders he very much can follow, once they're understood, but it's more of the same. Command for its own sake, grounding tugs on that thread tying them together. Erik will teach him again, and he'll teach him that, too. He'll get better. Erik will make sure he doesn't get sick on the plane; at least, not from the plane. He shouldn't have, and he won't. Erik loves him. He lowers his body temperature a little after touching his forehead again, fretting a bit and adjusting his blankets, too.  
  
If he's not burning up, he's freezing cold. If he's not shaking or shivering, he's convulsing, random parts of his body twitching. It goes on, and on, and on, and Charles slips in and out, sometimes coherent and sometimes much less so, and he doesn't see how he could possibly endure much more of this. If he lets Erik know how bad it is, he'll only fret more, so he tries to hold that in. He doesn't know how long it's been or where he is when he starts to outright struggle, weak and confused, when he kicks Erik right in the stomach before he can be held still, when he twists this way and that. Hold still, Charles. Be good. It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts - Charles is screaming, right at the top of his lungs -

* * *

Erik's reflexes are still top notch, though, and he catches Charles's foot mid-air, restraining him quickly and carefully to prevent him from doing any harm to himself. He pets him and shushes him, rocking him back and forth. He ushers Magda and the kids out and shuts the door with a wave of his hand, tucking Charles's head under his chin and keeping him contained fully, this time, with his abilities. "It's OK," he whispers, exuding calm confidence. "It's OK. You're all right. I've got you. You're OK."  
  
Trapped. He's trapped. Strapped to a table. Locked in the closet. The bed. Everything's dark but it's not just a room, the rest of it doesn't exist and there's no furniture and this whole time it's just been destroying itself, crumbling. It hurts and he's trapped and he doesn't know where he is and the world makes no sense and too much sense and he shivers, and shivers, and shivers, and quiets down. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. In, out, in. He's dangerously hot. It burns, it always burns, he doesn't like it. Why are you making him? Why? You promised you'd never hurt me. You promised.  
  
Erik is very glad that Charles can't really tell what's happening on the outside, for the record, but he keeps himself composed and hushes him gently. "I know, I know, _neshama_. It's OK," he encourages him to breathe, in tandem, keeping a pulse on his struggling and letting him have slack as soon as he stops fighting. His mind reaches out, too, following Charles's thoughts just as much as his body. "Just listen to my voice. I'm right here."  
  
His feet kick uselessly, more flailing than struggling, and he'd screamed himself hoarse before but now he just whimpers, those same pained, quiet sounds from earlier. When he goes limp again, he's crying, exhausted and hurting and it starts all over again, everything agony and shredding and darkness. It's never going to end. It's never going to end, and he's going to get sicker, and sicker, and sicker. He gets sicker on planes. Erik isn't right there. He's so far away. He's so far away and he'll get farther and farther.  
  
"It will," Erik murmurs, bundling him up in more blankets. It will end. He's processing things that are very difficult and painful and likely kept separated for that very reason, because he knows that he is safe, and he is. Erik won't go anywhere, and he is not far away. He's right here. He will always be here. That's what being a Pairbond means. They make each other strong. They will get through this. _We are resolved into the supreme air,/we are made one with what we touch and see,/we shall be notes in that great Symphony/whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres_...

* * *

Charles goes through a fit where he kicks all the blankets off and becomes so hot he's sure he'll burst into flames, then shivers so much the blankets and Erik's adjustments do nothing. He vomits nothing but bile after that, and it feels like it never stops, either, mouth foaming and throat closing as he coughs and sputters through it, the acid taste not alleviated even when it's gone. Am I ready to die? He's not, he wasn't then and he isn't now but there's not a whole lot he wouldn't do to get this over with. He tries to pull at his own hair at one point, and then he cries so violently he makes himself sick again, curled in on himself and unwilling to let Erik touch him, an invisible shield between them that even he couldn't penetrate. He rolls back over eventually. Then he goes still. Still and quiet. There's not a sound from inside, not a thought, not a feeling. It's just silence.  
  
Erik isn't doing so hot, either, Charles's limp body clutched protectively in his arms to shield him from the outside world, and he sluggishly moves to check his pulse, his internal systems, to make sure he's alive, his heart clanging around in his chest like a blaring battle klaxon trapped inside a shrieking metal cage. His abilities are going haywire, to the point that Magda braves entering, but he just snarls and she's buffeted back on skidding feet, intruded on and primitively fallen back on old habits. It's funny how quickly he remembered how to do it.  
  
He's breathing. Shallowly, but he's breathing. Utterly still, except for when he occasionally twitches, shakes from the fever he's been running for far too long. But then Erik notices something: there is something of Charles, but it isn't coming from Charles, necessarily, where everything has gone dark and silent. A strange thing to notice, but the truth nonetheless. There's something of Charles in Erik's mind, instead, something much more like his submissive than he's seen for the last however-long, fretting and bent over with his hands dirty up to his elbows again. He's found a patch of land that's still barren and browning and he couldn't allow that, so he stopped here first and he's not very good at gardening, really, but he seems to be doing a decent enough job here. He looks worn, too pale and weak and sickly, even in this space, but he's there, fussing over the soil and sand.  
  
There's only one Erik left here, the one in the Real and the one in this space, and he bounds up to Charles, covered in dirt and grime, wearing overalls with a tweed hat and a piece of straw sticking out of his mouth. He's still got his gun, but there's more work done here. The Wasteland is vast, untended for miles, but there's an oasis here of wild sunflowers looming big and large around them, swaying in desolate wind. He smiles shyly when he sees it's Charles, relaxing his grip on his weapon and shrugging it back over his shoulder. This isn't an intruder.  
  
Technically he is, but he isn't doing much intruding unless gardening counts. His smile is tired but fond, a tiny quirk of the lips that he hasn't managed in the Real for what feels like an eternity, and he goes back to his task. He can't be helping much in the grand scheme of things, but it can't hurt, either, because the grass keeps growing where he touches and flowers that shouldn't be native here keep popping up, yellow roses like the ones Erik put by his bedside weeks ago. There's a lot of yellow here, so next time he'll have to try for something different. "I didn't have anywhere to go," he explains quietly, and he's still in pain even outside of himself, even displaced. It's obvious in the way he carries himself, the hunch to him, the wincing. It's better here, though, and it's better than disappearing while the renovating goes on. He doesn't want to frighten Erik, and if he's in here, he'll know he's not gone.  
  
His hair is longer now, too, not the hasty razored edges that Shaw preferred, falling around his ears in loose spirals, and he blows a strand of it out of his face determinedly. He touches Charles's lips, and his neck, and tucks into his side. "You get a place to go," he croaks, voice hoarse from disuse. It's been hours in the Real, but judging by his changes, it's been quite a bit longer here. He's been alone for a while, and it's been nice, but it's also been hard. There are demons here, now, from outside the universe that threaten to break down the barrier at any moment. Erik hasn't stopped fighting, hasn't put his arms down, scared that if he does they'll overrun the Wasteland entirely and his mind will disappear forever. " _Ich bitte dich um Verzeihung_ ," he looks up with big eyes, like a little bug, jaw clenched to keep from any expression. _"Ich wollte dich nicht verletzen_."

* * *

It's hard to fight alone. Exhausting. Charles has been fighting, too, but he's known the whole time he's had help even if it wasn't directly. He'd like to think this Erik did, also, but now he can assure it, and he kisses the top of his head, pulls him in closer since he seems to be allowing it now. "You don't need to ask my forgiveness for anything, but you have it anyway," he murmurs, and he's tired and he's worn and he's hurting but that's entirely sincere. "Why don't you take a break, yeah? I'll take some of it from here. It's better than what's going on in my neck of the woods," he teases, and it's edged with that horrid pain, but at least he's managed it at all. At least there's a part of him managing it.  
  
He's rigid and tense, completely unaware of what to expect, mind unconsciously tracking Charles's movements and remembering where he's buried weapons in the earth. Expressing weakness of any kind is completely forbidden, and apologizing counts, which leaves him stressed and expecting retribution. "'Kay," he whispers, and he tugs a pouch out of his pocket, holding it up. " _Ze terufah_ -uh, medicine." It's crushed plants that he's found from all over the place in little vials.  
  
Not with Charles it isn't. The vials do make him tense, some part of him small and hurting and confused, too, all of him here at once though he certainly looks older, and crushed plants don't syringes make, but he shakes his head anyway. "Thank you," he whispers, and kisses Erik's head again because he can't help it before he goes back to his gardening. Gardening and protecting, really, watching over this place the way Erik is looking after him in the Real, but the longer he stays the more it tugs at him, and he knows he needs to go back. He doesn't remember how time works out there, really, but he knows enough to know they're running out of it. The more he thinks of it, the sicker he gets in here, coughing and dry retching, sweating, but he never stops planting. His Dominant needs green grass and fields and mountains, and he'll nourish them. His sickness never seems to sicken this place, and for that he's grateful. It heals him, too.  
  
Emboldened, Erik chatters a little, mostly under his breath, his voice soft and almost inaudible. He tugs him up, though, shaking his head. "I got a house too. I found it on the mountain. I like the book in it." It's Charles's book, the one he gifted Erik for their Bonding ceremony, still perfectly in-tact, a little rough around the edges from fire, but completely legible and restored. He leads Charles to his home. The house is splintered around it, and Erik's repurposed broad beams of cherry to construct a hut, with thatched-leaf rooftops and a firepot and odds and ends he's collected from the other inhabitants. He has a blanket next to the dimmed firepot and he wraps it around Charles's shoulders and tucks back into his side. He's trying to take care of Charles, too, in his own way.  
  
He's doing a good job. A brilliant one, really, and it isn't his fault Charles is fading, that everything's catching up to him here, too. He tries to stay, even so, because he thinks maybe just being here will help somehow, will make the work easier, will bring everything back to life. It's quiet, but it's never looked dead or hopeless to Charles. He scoots over to the table with the book, runs his fingers over the familiar cover, the one he etched with his own hands, smiles even if it takes more energy than he has to extend even here. "Do you know the stories in this book?" he asks quietly, almost teasing. He opens to a page, traces his own handwriting, perfect replica though he expected nothing else.  
  
Erik gives a shrug. He knows some of them more than others, legends and fairy tales and poetry. He's fiercely protective of it, though, and reads it whenever he has a spare moment. He flips the pages over to Mad Girl's Love Song, a fluttering of paper taped-up under his bed in a flickering, dirty room that Erik doesn't know how to piece together, his memories don't exist in continuous linearity, often switched from one extreme to the other without warning without any consideration on what it would do to his developing mind, how he would fracture so completely. _"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead./I open them and all is reborn again/I think I made you up inside my head/the stars go waltzing out in blue and red/while arbitrary blackness gallops in-_ " he whispers softly. He knows this one the best, even though he never remembers learning it.  
  
Charles likes it, too. Very much. It's actually in there twice, a repetition because not only had Erik repeated it, he'd repeated it with a different tone, and Charles felt that was worth recording. It's tacked onto another poem the second time, but no less significant, the words spoken worth speaking and remembering. They're all memories as much as they are words, feelings and the heady floating of subspace and the pull of Dominion more often than not, but here it's quieter than even those quiet, achingly intimate moments, and that's alright, too. Those memories don't belong to this version of Erik, but they do belong, and so they're here. Charles can feel them. "This is my handwriting," he whispers, and rubs his thumb into one of the words he'd smudged while writing. He's never claimed his handwriting is the most elegant, but he'd been careful, meticulous, loving about it all the same. Even when he isn't here, he'll be here. "I'm surprised you can read it," he almost-grins, because he's said the same thing to another Erik more than once.  
  
Erik almost-grins back. It makes him look years younger, delighted and a bit self-conscious. "You wrote me a gift?" his eyebrows shoot up into his hairline and he traces over that smudge fondly. Unlike in the Real-while Erik certainly has read it many times, he is inordinately neat and tidy-this book is lived-in, the pages curled, little water spots here and there or a crumb from where Erik was eating something while bent over it. It's not in the best condition anyway, charred at the edges where it was amidst the house's destruction, but he's taken care of it with a child's devotion, somehow knowing that it was here for him. "It's easy to read." He's said the same thing to Charles more than once. "What's your favorite one?"  
  
Charles shakes his head. “I don’t have one,” he answers, but perhaps that’s a cop-out. He flips the book to the beginning while he shivers, closing his eyes for a moment as the pain becomes him, courses through him, and then fades back out. He can’t stay here much longer, and the alternative is frightening, but at least he had a place to go. At least he wasn’t lost. “But I like the start.” He smiles as he says it, touches the story of the _Ziz_ , the very first story he was ever told, written in a language that, at the time he had been told it, he had only just learned. He knows it much more intimately than that now. He wouldn’t have known how to write it then, but it’s written here in this book, in his handwriting, preserved. He obscures some of the details, but there’s warmth, comfort, awe, there are things he’d never experienced before and still doesn’t completely understand now. Every day they'll work on it, he was promised, and he thinks he believes it. There’s belonging and there’s trust and there’s so much wonder. “It tells another story, too.” He looks down at the table, at the book, and then he bites his lip. “Would you like to hear it?” he asks, barely audible himself.

* * *

He nods sagely, and puts his fingertips next to Charles's; not touching, not yet, but close. He likes the _Ziz_ , too, he always did. This story in particular is written in Yiddish rather than Hebrew, and Erik swallows around the memory of first hearing this story. It's been given to someone else, now, as all good stories should be. " _Ja, Herr_ ," he whispers in return, defaulting to the usual language he used around adults, especially when he didn't know exactly what expectations they held of him, couldn't parse out their motivations and when they were kind to him, it was often an omen of something far worse to come. He's more polite than last time, more in line with how Charles knew him in the room of the conditioning complex, but any moment could rear up the aggressive soldier lurking underneath the surface. Now, the moment is softer, and he blinks up, attention focused on Charles with a singular interest. Belonging and trust and warmth. They're foreign to him, too, but he thinks he might like to find out what that means for himself.  
  
Charles attempts not to flinch at the words, but he hides it, his own head ducked. There’s pain and there’s tugging, but he can stay a little while longer. Time passes differently in here, besides, and he’d like to leave this Erik with something. But it’s always been Erik whose told the stories. When Charles reads he often reads aloud, if Erik isn’t doing something of his own, even sometimes when he is, but it’s not quite the same thing - still, it shouldn’t be too terribly difficult, even if he finds himself nervous about it, the blanket half-off his shoulders as he shivers. He tells the stories of two boys, one of them three months older (there’s no one to correct him here, and he’s allowed his creative liberties), both of them separated by vast, sprawling land and ocean, seemingly worlds apart. But they were made for each other and the ocean, vast as it was, could never keep them from each other, nor language and time, even as one made home in the desert and the other most comfortable in snowy, frigid winters. The boy in the desert didn’t know it, but every day the boy from across the ocean would come to play with him, would follow him around and go on adventures, even while he was trapped and lonely in a castle far too big for a boy. He was the boy’s first friend. But then one day, the boy from the desert disappeared. There was searching, and searching, and searching, but all to no avail. He never found that part of the desert again, no matter how much he searched in his dreams. “And in time, the boy in the castle forgot. He’d lost his other half, though they didn’t know it yet, and the weight of it was too much to bear,” Charles whispers, and his voice cracks with it. But it isn’t the end of the story. It’s hardly even the beginning.  
  
Erik's eyes are wide as dinnerplates, completely enraptured, somehow knowing in the way that most children did, with a storyteller's intuition of his own, that these words are true words, and if they sound familiar to him, it must be because people always look to find the pieces of themselves they see in the stories around them. Even as he swallows down the urge to defend the desert boy, the maybe he just didn't know, because even now, he doesn't want the story to have a sad ending. How could they lose each other? It couldn't be over. This is, Charles said, the story of this book, and Charles wrote it. That must mean something. "What happened?" he prods, almost demands, eyes narrowed as if the force of his temper could make the universe right again. "They had to find one another."  
  
Charles laughs even though it hurts, and he nods his head, more than allowing it. He would be on the edge of his seat, too, if he didn't have privileged knowledge. "They did," he grants, though there's sadness there, too, pain that leaks out differently from the rest, and he's wearier for it. "In dark, frightening places where they didn't fully recognize each other, when they needed each other most. And then, one day, many years later -" He smiles, because he hadn't a clue when it happened that this was the beginning of the tale, a story worthy of books. "They met again. It was cold and dark, there, cut off from the rest of the world, locked away, but they looked at each other and though they were strangers now, grown and changed and lonely, they knew. Their souls knew, despite everything that had ever tried to rip them apart." His voice sticks on it, because it still seems fantastical even to him. Something impossible in Reality, except that it was. "And the desert boy finally answered, after so long of being silent."  
  
Erik leans forward, perched on the balls of his feet crouched down, in the perfect position to spring up again and defend himself if necessary, but now he leans all the way up so that their noses are almost touching. "What did he say? Where were they? Did they escape? How come he ignored?" he pelted Charles one after the other with questions.  
  
That almost pulls another laugh from him, and when he smiles he looks far less pained, far less weary, far less old, his eyes crinkled a little and his dimples just beginning to peek out. "A prison, actually, one that was made especially for the desert boy by the people who feared him, but they found their way out. I'm not sure I would call it an escape, but they made it out of the dark and cold because they promised that no matter what, they'd be together. He didn't ignore him, he just didn't know. He didn't know to listen, and then when he did, he was afraid." His eyes gleam behind the pain, and his lips quirk again. "What do you think he said? After years of being separated, lost, lonely, of the boy in the castle trying to speak to him, what do you think the desert boy said?"  
  
His green eyes blink curiously. He didn't know, did he? Hi. That's his grand, educated guess, but a flash of something else pokes through and those eyes widen a little. He touches Charles's temple, gentle, as if he knows. He likes this smile best, he thinks. The one without pain. He won't let anyone know that, though, until he realizes-"You're a telepath, aren't you?"  
  
Charles doesn't think he's capable of smiling any wider here, especially not with the World pressing back in, but he smiles nonetheless, flinching and still leaning into that touch exactly as he does for the Erik out there when it's oversensitive. Of course, it's never been quite this oversensitive. "I am," he confirms, quietly, and he can't quite reach out with it without the clanging, screeching sounds, so he doesn't try. Erik has felt it before anyway, even this one. "But you knew that. And you know where the story ends up, because you're living it, too. You're helping to write it right now."  
  
"It's our story," he whispers, running his fingertips reverently over the book. "You knew me. Before he came to my village. I remember. I thought it was just a silly dream. That's why he went quiet. He didn't want you to see what happened." It's a warbling croak, and Erik's fingers go to his throat as he speaks, forcing himself to make the words audible. His eyes close.  
  
It is their story, and Charles knows. He searched for that desert boy, he was lonely and frightened without him, but he understands why it happened. He doesn't blame him in the slightest, and they never would have been apart for long. It wasn't ignoring. "We found each other," he whispers, and then there's extraordinary pain, enough that even this place shakes with it. It's all right there, all right behind his temples and he reaches up to grab, biting hard on his lip to stifle the awful scream. "I think - I can't stay -" But he doesn't want to go. Out there it hurts.  
  
Please don't go, _neshama_ -"Don't go, I'm all alone." Erik holds his hand, scrambling up to his feet, jumping easily to just like his posture indicated moments before. "I'll protect you here. I can keep you safe. But-" he looks at Charles. "You belong out there, don't you. With him."  
  
Charles belongs wherever Erik needs him, whatever part of Erik needs him. He doesn't know if it's safe out there, or if he can stay here. It hurts, everything is hurting again, and he can see himself as if it's through someone else's eyes. His body is starting to seize again, struggling in Erik's arms, noises of absolute agony slipping out from his mouth. Why won't it stop? Why won't it end? He doesn't want to go, either. He doesn't want to be in his body, and there's nowhere in his own mind, everything's gone, disappeared, destroyed, rebuilding but it hurts - it's so dark, he doesn't want to be alone either -  
  
"I won't let you go!" Erik says, and he grabs onto Charles's hand fiercely. "You stay!" it's an Order. "Don't go! Help me fix it. Help me. Tell me what happened after the boy told him those words. Tell me." Erik bites on his cheek, hard, enough to bleed, to prevent himself from sounding emotional.  
  
It knocks the wind out of him, not that it already isn't, because he isn't expecting it. Still, it works, and and the fuzziness stays at the edges but doesn't tug him back, the pain creeping in here instead. He doesn't want to hurt this place, infect it, especially when it's only just beginning to heal. He squeezes Erik's hand, the other pulling at his own hair, breathing through the pain. He can hear himself making noise, but he isn't making it here. "The - I -" Another breath, and he forces his lungs to work, tries to stop the shaking. "The boy from the castle, he recognized him, even if he didn't know it. He knew he had to do anything to help the boy escape from his special prison, even things that he wouldn't do before, even things that frightened him. Because -" Because he belonged to him. Because their souls matched.  
  
"But now the boy from the castle is in a prison," Erik croaks. A prison encroaching second by second. "You're in a prison. Let me help you. I can help you get out. I'm good at escaping from prisons. I've always been in one."  
  
Charles' lips quirk, even as his vision gets strange, his grasp on things foggy, vibrating and loud. There's burning in his veins, like those needles. Did it hurt like this? How did he bear it, when he was small? He shakes his head, still jamming fingers into his temple. It does no good. The ache gets worse, growing, growing, growing. "Not always," he reminds, a croak of his own. "I don't know if you can help me, dear-one."  
  
"How do I help? I don't want you to go. He needs you. I need you." Erik swipes viciously at his eyes.  
  
The last thing in the world he wants is to make Erik cry, any version of Erik, but perhaps even especially this young, fragile one, the one he only recently found in the Darkest of places. It clenches at his heart so horribly he chokes on it, and he's careful and slow but he pulls the boy into a hug, eyes closed tight as his ears ring with noises that don't belong here. "Shh, I won't go," he promises, even as everything heats up and swirls with pain. "I won't leave you. I won't." Even if it's agony to stay, he will.  
  
"I'm sorry, you're hurting and-" ah, everything is shimmering and changing. Erik feels young and desperate and weak all at once, no longer a soldier but just that boy, sitting on a dirty mattress trying to do his best to please this new Master. "And it's my fault ah-can't make it better. I'm sorry. You saved me but I can't save you. I can't help you. You're hurting and I can't help you. I'm sah- _sorry_ -"  
  
It breaks Charles' heart, and he should be able to stop himself from crying here, should be in perfect control of how he's seen and what he does, but the tears come anyway and then he's holding Erik close, shaking his head. "You're helping, you're helping," he promises, quiet and weak himself, because Erik gave him a place to go. He's stranded, he's alone, and he gave him a place to go. His own mind is dark, it's nothing but pain and emptiness, terrifying, horrifying Void, everything he's ever known swept away. Erik brought him here, to this house, to this book, he let him tell their story. "Shh. Shh. It's alright, it's alright," he promises, and needs to believe it himself.  
  
"Promise?" Erik whispers, touching his face. "It's meant for you. You're s'pose to be here. You got a place to go. When the razing came down it left all your stuff, see?" Erik swipes away his tears. "You helped me so much. You're home here. You always come home." He winces. "I wish it didn't hurt."  
  
Charles wishes that, too, but he especially wishes that because it's hurting Erik to watch it, and while he can endure and he will, he certainly doesn't want to make him suffer as a result. He squeezes the boy gently, breathing through his nose, trying to will it all away. "Promise. Thank you for giving me a home." It's a lovely home, too, and he's grateful that it's here. "You're doing such a wonderful job here. But maybe I should -" His teeth clench as the next wave comes, and this time it's searing. Enough to lock up all his muscles, to ripple through everything, though he locks the pain into himself stubbornly; this place has seen enough burning, it doesn't need his. The ringing isn't just in his ears, anymore, it's everywhere, violent and terribly loud, it's outside of himself, projected, and he covers his own ears and then, as if reconsidering, covers Erik's instead, apologetic and sick with it. The last thing he wants is for it to spill out. To hurt. He should have disappeared instead, but it had been so dark and cold, he'd found his way here without trying, without thinking -  
  
Erik climbs up into his lap and covers his ears, too, pressing their foreheads together. It's violent and it's loud but they're huddled together, face-to-face. He puts his hand on Charles's chest. _"Just look me in the eyes. Just keep looking at me in the eyes!"_ Charles's hand over his ears, and his over Charles's, because of course they move in tandem. They exist in tandem. They live. They love in tandem. No matter what facet shows up today.

* * *

It's a Command, and perhaps he's not used to receiving them from a facet like this, but it's all Erik, and Charles is hardwired to obey. It's all he knows how to do in that moment, shaking with the force of it, his teeth chattering as he presses trembling fingers to Erik's ears to protect him from the fallout. He can't stay here. He knows he can't stay here, because it isn't just this place that's being affected. It's out there, too, and tears slip down Charles' cheeks, afraid and so sick. He doesn't want to scream anymore. He doesn't want Erik to suffer because he's broken. He doesn't want the world to suffer, to spread his sickness like a plague. Everything feels like it's fading in and out, and looking at this Erik is getting more difficult. How is he supposed to escape the prison if he is the prison? There aren't any plastic and glass walls. There's just him. Everything's going to be gone, if he stays here he'll just consume this, too.  
  
"No, you won't! Trust me! I won't separate from you! I won't let you go! I won't let you go I forbid you to go! You never told me the end of the story!" Erik isn't yelling at him, but he's shouting over the vast cacophony of winds circling around them as though they're in the center of a tornado, but Erik isn't scared. He's calm. He's fought demons by himself for months. He can deal with this.  
  
These aren't demons. This is Charles, and there are tears on his cheeks but he tries to nod, to hold onto Erik as if it's the only thing keeping him in existence. It feels like it is. He has to protect him, to keep him safe from himself. There is no end to the story, but this can't be it. It's selfish but it can't be it, because there is so much left to do. The end of the story hasn't been written yet, and Charles wants to know it, too. He wants to know. But how could he possibly - how could he - Charles closes his eyes, and for a moment, everything is silent. Then he screams, absolutely ear-splitting, piercing, wrenching, a sound only born from the greatest agonies, something that will linger in shared consciousness. Burst up from his soul and flooded out, pulsing and sick and spreading. Then it goes silent again. Still.  
  
"Charles-Charles! Charles!" the Wasteland in silence, and still in Erik's arms, and he shakes him repeatedly. "Charles! I'm supposed to bring you back to him! Charles!" his voice cracks, a little higher-pitched than it would sound as an adult.  
  
Charles promised to stay, and in a way he did. Some part of him is left behind, stays right there with that facet of Erik, except he isn't a body anymore. He's everywhere. The book on the table opens up to pages that weren't there before, that aren't in the Real, all written in Charles' sprawling, curvy, but nonetheless meticulous handwriting, new illustrations, however crude, of the desert boy and the boy from the castle. He would never leave him alone, and somewhere close there's the sound of laughter. If Erik looks, he'll find someone is waiting for him, and all he needs to do is find him. He won't make it too difficult. He isn't alone, and he won't ever be. But Charles opens his eyes. There are objects scattered around the room, hovering, thrumming at frequencies and shielded by energy that even Erik couldn't touch, entirely psionic in nature and unlike anything that he's ever seen. There are echoes of that scream written into the walls and the floor and the air. He's slumped, weak, breathing shallowly and sometimes not breathing at all, but his eyes are open. Erik, he whispers, and in that moment the World hears it, stands at attention, feels that something has shifted, though they won't make sense of it. It's only for his Dominant.

* * *

In the Real, they are completely eclipsed by a tornado of their own, in the center of it, surrounded by a sphere that protects them, with Charles slumped in Erik's arms, but he hears that voice like a beacon in the most chaotic dark and his eyes snap open, too. "Charles," he whispers, and things begin to slow. "Charles, _neshama_ -" he brushes his hands over Charles's cheeks and face again and again, his eyes eclipsed by tears, features crumpled in terror and self-disgust.  
  
Charles doesn't have the energy to smile, but Erik doesn't need him to. He can feel it, see it even though it isn't there, and promptly and abruptly everything in the room falls to the ground. It doesn't crash, it doesn't bang, it doesn't make any sound at all; it all finds its spot, still absolutely drenched in energy, humming and vibrating but no longer moving. There are parts of him still screaming, echoed and echoed and echoed a million, billion times over, absorbed into everything in the room like they've sucked up radiation from nuclear fallout, the closest place to the blast. It's still exploding inside him. Everyone was protected, but it was impossible not to feel, a phenomenon just as unignorable. _Erik_ , he repeats, and his lips don't move, they can't, but they don't need to. His heart is stuttering in his chest. His breathing is still shallow. His skin is so pale it's ghostly, and there's blood all over him again. But he won't leave him.  
  
It's impossible for Erik not to feel, either, because he can feel all of the particles and all of the energy, psionic or otherwise, humming through the room and reverberating with every last echo, how objects talk to him, how Charles himself did, and he keeps every response locked inside of himself, the only thing Charles can see are the tears he can't control, streaming down his cheeks and dripping off of his chin, but otherwise he is calm and in control and here and he's got this. "I love you," he whispers, reverent and with a smile. "I love you so much. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I love you."  
  
Charles doesn't understand. He's here, though weak and still sick, barely able to keep his eyes open, to move, to think, to breathe; he forgets, or his body does, chest constricting and pulse strangely slow, like when he stopped breathing in the hospital all that time ago. He doesn't want to stop completely now, because he thinks that frightened Erik last time. Why does Erik think he's hurt him? He's done nothing but save him, help him, keep him alive. He brought him out of his prison, though some of him - perhaps a lot of him - is still trapped. His hand is slow to move, sluggish and still shaking, his heart stutters again, but he touches Erik's cheek and wipes some of his tears, or at least touches them. It's okay to be frightened. It's okay to be sad. He's loved, too. He's safe with Charles. Charles won't leave him. Charles belongs to him.  
  
Erik promised he'd never hurt him but he lied. And Charles came back anyway and still loves him, and-sorry, so sorry. He made Charles scream and writhe in agony because that's what happens to people he cares about, he hurts them and kills them and-and Charles is here, touching him, still here, can't-breathe-no, _no_ -Erik gathers it all up and ruthlessly shoves it back, shoves it far, far away. It doesn't belong. Not here. "I love you," he whispers, smiling. "Love you so much. You came back to me."  
  
It does belong here. Doesn't Erik see that? Doesn't he see what saved him? That scared boy, with the gun and the dirty mattress, both, the one who had screamed and scratched at him. How he'd held Charles' ears so they wouldn't bleed from the sound, how he kept him there even when he faltered, even when he was poisoned and wanted to cure himself just so everyone else could be, too. He'd shaken him through it, shown him a home again, let him tell their story. Doesn't he see? Doesn't he see that the part that - it saved him, Erik saved him. Charles is still screaming, somewhere, this room is caked in agony like mud and sludge and gunk, blood leftover and still on his face, it's hard to breathe, he keeps stopping, his chest hurts, like he's forgotten how to be alive, and it's all still right there, it could burst at any moment, another explosion, his mind is still silent, but - _Erik_ , he says again, and slumps against his Dominant, trembling, like it's all he can consciously make himself say. The only thing he knows. _Did I frighten you terribly, darling?_ he asks, apologetic and still frightened himself.  
  
Erik cleans Charles up, dries him off, until his clothes are fresh and warm and his face is unobstructed by blood; if Erik never has to see Charles bleed again it will be too soon. "I'm just pleased you are still here," he gasps, hoarse whisper that warbles with all the unsteadiness in his throat. It's Erik for _yes_. "It turns out," he whispers softly, "that the boy in the castle was also in a prison, too. And now that they've found each other, the boy in the desert will make certain that neither of them are ever held captive again. He will always follow the boy in the castle, even when he gets lost inside a castle of his own making. Even when everything seems too much and too horrific to go on. These two boys always find one another. And because they're all grown up now," he taps Charles on the nose. "The desert man gets to kiss his snow-comforted love, just like so." He kisses Charles softly on the lips. "And it's not the end at all. It's just the beginning. And what a beginning we have." Erik's eyes are wet by the end.  
  
Truth be told, he's too weak to truly even feel the kiss, his entire body numbed but sore and aching and thrumming and throbbing all the same. The noise he makes might be one of agreement, of contentment, even, as content as he can be when he's still very ill, for lack of better term, breathing those shallow, difficult breaths against Erik's shoulder. It feels like any second he might stop, but he simply won't let himself. This isn't the end of the story, it couldn't possibly be. Only just the beginning. Pages and pages to fill. Years and years. It's not fixed, and it does need fixing, but it's a start. He's grateful for the reprieve, if anything, even though everything is terrifying and he doesn't want to admit it. There's pain, but nothing quite as earth-shattering, Reality-altering, nothing the world will feel; just Charles, his slowed pulse, his pale, clammy skin, his shivering in Erik's arms as he holds the weight of it. Fortunately, he has someone to help him. To guide him. To love him, and teach him, and care for him. His hand tugs weakly at Erik's sweater. Fix, he prompts, pleading. He's not talking about his brain, at the moment.  
  
Good, because it's deeply unlikely that Erik's qualified to fix Charles's brain, try though he might when it gets as bad as it did before. He's breathing harshly, still not convinced that the worst is over, still on guard for any new attack whether from within or without, but he does know immediately what Charles means and as if it never left, the twine of string on his wrist (that remains perfectly in tact despite) glows and right from it erupts a platinum-liquid thread that envelops Charles from head to tie, tightening around him and keeping him still. "I've got you, neshama. You're all right. You're safe. You're home." Erik will tend to him for as long as necessary, for forever, and be grateful to do so.  
  
He meant the thread leading to his collar, actually, which Erik actually can't fix, but this is better. The thread he fixes himself, after he takes a moment to realize he can, hums in exhausted, half-delirious delight and watches as it connects to Erik's hand. They might need to discuss that, because he really is fascinated. But he would never complain about more, as it's turning out, at least not in these circumstances. Not that he can do much squirming now anyway, but he much prefers this to being held down while his body seizes and struggles, confused and tortured. It's safe, and comforting, and for just a moment makes him shiver with something besides the fever he's still running. The worst feels over for now. It still hurts terribly to breathe, and he's not doing such a good job of it, and he certainly doesn't look or feel his best - rather the worst, actually - but he's not anticipating screaming anytime soon. He presses his face against Erik's neck weakly, not certain if he's looking for coolness or warmth but it's all comforting. He's sorry. He's very sorry.  
  
"No, no," Erik shushes him. "You never need to apologize. Not ever. I've got you. I love you. I love caring for you. It's my job and my privilege. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me and I do not know what I would do-" his voice starts to crack again and he takes a few breaths. "-if something happened to you-"

* * *

That's why Charles is so sorry. He doesn't need Erik to answer his earlier question, he knows how frightened he was. How frightened he is. He tries to open his mouth and speak, but all that comes out is a quiet whimpering sound, so he rubs his cheek against Erik instead, even if it's sluggish. Frightened. Is everyone alright? What time is it? Has he ruined everything? He didn't mean to. He tried to hold it off, he's still trying. He didn't want this to happen here, and he's - sad, he's so terribly sad, all of a sudden, and the air tastes and feels like it, clings to it. He's taken from Erik.  
  
"Everything is quite all right," Erik whispers. Magda's gotten everyone ready for the flight, and they still have hours before departure (the TLV guidelines recommend showing up at least three hours early, for security checks, so they have plenty of time and Erik's speed will get them there with much to spare.) "Everything is packed and ready to go, _neshama_. Nothing is ruined. I took care of it, just like I promised I would."  
  
That's not what he meant, and he's also going to need to figure out how to walk by then, which he doubts his own capability for. Everything feels shaky and he's still sick, perhaps even more so now that he's not overwhelmed by pain, the throbbing at his temples dull and sore and completely awful but no longer completely unbearable. Perhaps Erik won't end up behind bars for breaking every rule they have this trip because he'll follow at least a few, but he's wasted precious time. He's always concerned with that, but especially now. Charles attempts to sit up without leaning on Erik's chest, but not only does the thread holding him tight tug at him, he's so dizzy the world swirls and spins, vision fogged out and breathing slowing again. He disappears for a moment, as if he's been wiped from existence, and then comes back. Like he'd gone offline and rebooted.  
  
"It's OK," Erik insists, arms coming around him. "You've ruined nothing, sweetheart. I told you we would face this together, hm? Come back to me, come on," he brushes Charles's hair from his face, a tight pang of panic bolting through his chest. "Please come back, please, please-"  
  
When Erik touches him this time it's inside, as well as out. I won't leave you alone. Not in mind, nor in body. He helps Charles get into a seated position, those threads adjusting and accommodating, for the position. A hand on his shoulder, from within and without. "I won't leave you in the dark," he whispers. "I won't."  
  
There's no way to be inside, though. None, not even for Erik, and that's apparent when he doesn't get far, running not so much into a shield as into the End. He touches the outside, Charles mind as he recognizes it, but not the grasping, gaping Void that's opened further in. It would completely swallow Erik up, tear him to shreds until there's nothing left that even resembles the beautiful mind so close to his, and he absolutely refuses to allow that as a possibility. It's not just dark, it's hungry, confused, powerful. Changing, tearing itself apart over and over. That doesn't mean he's alone; there are places he can go, where he can rest. Erik has proved that, and if he needs to be there, he will be. For now he slumps, wanting to stand, to move, but finding himself incapable, frustrated and weak against his Dominant. He doesn't want the children to see him like this, but he can't imagine not saying goodbye. Helpless, he feels helpless, like a frightened little boy locked in a castle, and he's frankly sick of it. He refuses to let himself cry because of it, biting on his lip, waiting to taste blood.  
  
Erik shakes his head. They'll understand, and he'll keep them safe. They couldn't bear for Charles to leave so quickly, without saying goodbye; it would crush them both, the children and Charles, of that Erik knows. "I'll make sure they're OK, hm?" he taps Charles's lip before that can happen, an Order so familiar as let it heal.  
  
Letting it heal seems relatively impossible. In perhaps what's his most familiar act of defiance, he bites the inside of his cheek instead. He feels like he did as a child, and it isn't far off with everything swirling around, close and far, eating itself up. Weak, and sick, every movement hurting, difficult, his breathing constantly caught in his chest. He doesn't want the children to worry, especially not right before he leaves them; children are intelligent, more than anyone gives credit for, they understand when people are sick or in pain. But Erik is right. How could he possibly get on a plane and leave without seeing them, holding them? When everything seems far away, confused, muddled, he knows that. He bites down harder.   
  
He won't let himself cry, Father always said not to cry.


	72. This place sounds daily more like a theater of war, each time I listen to it—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _O królewiczu Niespodzianku_  
>  i. _the scorpion and the frog_

_You do not follow his Orders, neshama,_ Erik kisses the top of his head. _You follow mine. And it is perfectly acceptable to do so._ G-d only knows he won't be able to resist doing so, even if the tiny Erik running around in his head would tell him what Shaw says about that, neither does he follow those Orders anymore. It isn't weak. It is love. And theirs, not only for one another but for their children is the strongest thing in existence. He slowly opens the door and beckons Magda to come in, and cautions the babies with a finger to his lips. He lifts them up, settling them gently along the bed, and they seem to understand the grave significance. " _Deyn tateshi iz nisht gefil gezunt, gut? Azoy, mir viln tsu zeyn zeyer shtil aun zeyer royk, aun zogn goodbye for now, beseder?_ " he pets each of them as he talks, whispering slowly, softly. " _Mala, mala_ ," he laughs gently. "Come say _bye tateshi_ ," he waves their little fingers at Charles, his nose wrinkled fondly. They wouldn't know what that words means, not yet, but they will. In time.  
  
Charles finds himself crying immediately, hardly able to hold himself up, shaking still with the fever and the weakness and then shivering with the chills, terrified of the Void touching them, of projecting something they should not be privy to, but mostly he cries because even with so much forgotten he loves them. He knows few things right now, with everything destroyed, but he knows that; he knows he belongs to Erik, and he knows these are their children. They crawl up to him on the bed, Pietro staying still (perhaps it's good he tired himself out earlier) for once, both of them held close and he cries because there's nowhere to hold this memory, nowhere to store it, nowhere for it to go and he needs to hold onto it. He's desperate to keep it, though it won't be the least, and he kisses the nearest head to him, strokes a weak, shaky hand through Wanda's curls. He finds he can't speak, and he's scared to spill out, to hurt, but he whispers I love you, I love you, I love you very much to them and needs them to know it. He can't fathom saying goodbye.  
  
Erik will hold onto it. That's exactly where it goes, and when Charles needs it, that's where he will find it. He will never let Charles lose these moments. He will keep it for him, safe and sound, just like he kept the bad for so long, so too will he keep the good, and they nourish the Wasteland, too, in the form of rain against a barren desert, and it's good for the plants, at the very least. They're whispering, back, too. Erik can hear it. Not in words as much as love, mutual love, as though they really do understand the scope of their connection. It's hard to miss. "We love you so much, did you know that? Yes, we do. I love you very, very much," Erik whispers too, voice croaky and affected. "Remember aba loves you so much, OK? Promise me?"  
  
The kids are squirmy, because they're toddlers, especially Pietro, but they huddle close and let themselves be kissed and coddled and cooed to and Charles knows that even though they don't know what's happening exactly, they understand a great deal. They know this is important, that they're loved, and that Charles and Erik are leaving, and that's enough to make him cry in earnest. It makes him feel weaker, sicker, but he doesn't mind, he couldn't possibly. Wanda pats at his face, and he can feel her worry, her concern, but he only kisses her tiny hand, all her tiny fingers. He'll get better, he'll be okay, and he'll be back, they both will be. Pietro joins in on the patting once he finishes trying to climb Erik for a hug (it's a long, challenging climb), and he doesn't even mind the increasing soreness, trying not to sob. It's not goodbye for long. It isn't end, it's a beginning. Erik will keep all these memories safe for when they're away, and Charles won't forget them even with the Void pressing in.  
  
Erik loves Charles so much like this, too, and he can't help a watery smile watching him interact with them, helping Pietro settle off the back of his shoulders and into his arms for a genuine hug and a creaky _oof!_ that's more fondness than pain. He murmurs to each of them, stories in Hebrew and Yiddish (that climbing _Ziz_ in his palace above the clouds, seers and kings and travelers of Israel) and Polish for Wanda ("- _and when it was cut, two doves flew out, and one of them begged the other to not abandon it, as the prince had abandoned the maiden. The prince got up at once, found her, found his horse, and rode off with her to his father's kingdom_ "-) and English for Pietro ("- _The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung, to which the scorpion replies "I couldn't help it. It's in my nature-"_ ) until they're both soothed and settled and storied-up for the day. Erik will come back every day for more stories. He'll have to, or he'll go positively silly from missing them. They'll be back. Erik will tuck this safe and sound for Charles, too, so he'll always have it. Always.

* * *

Charles dedicates himself to memorizing them the best he can, the first time he's ever needed to put effort into the task. He runs his hand through every one of Wanda's red-tinted curls, even with his shaking hands, holds Pietro close and lets him pat at him none-too-gently, but he certainly appreciates the effort at comforting him. They both know he's sick, but he'll keep the extent from them. He won't let them be frightened. The Void presses in, and in, and in, gaping and wide and ravenous, but he doesn't let it touch them, any of them, and he tries not to let it show (even to Erik) when he becomes weaker, hiding his shivering for them, the spike in temperature, the nausea that creeps in. "Goodbye," he whispers, the first word he's spoken aloud in quite a long time, and it's barely audible, mumbled into Pietro's hair. Pietro's _"bye-bye!"_ makes the tears slip down his cheeks again, terror clinging to him for a moment, thick and horrid, before he banishes it. He doesn't trust he can keep it to himself like this, and he won't give it to them.  
  
Magda lifts them off with Erik's help and a lingering hug, they've spent quite a while holed up in here with the children just whispering goodbyes and hellos and goodbyes again amidst hugs and pets, but they're sleepy and groggy and it's nowhere near breakfast-time so Magda shushes them and takes them back to the pile of blankets in their cribs (low to the floor, both for Pietro and Magda) so they can wake at a proper time for breakfast. Erik pets Charles's face. "I love you. Love you so much. _Ohev otcha, tayer,_ " he whispers softly.  
  
Charles is fading, but not into sleep. From existence, really, but he won't let himself be gone. He won't let it swallow him. He feels incredibly miserable, for lack of a better word, slumped entirely against Erik now and they really are going to have trouble getting him through the airport because he feels like he might keel over any second. He's gone slightly green in the interim, but mostly still that sickly pale, and he's cold to the touch again, freezing, as if his heart has stopped but it hasn't. It's still beating, and he's still breathing, even if he's shivering, even if he can barely hold his own head up, even if every inch of him aches. He loves Erik, too. Words are difficult, and he doesn't have them, but he rests against him, trusting and quiet.  
  
Erik just hopes that some day Charles won't resent him, for causing him such agony and making him endure this, but the solution-Erik just couldn't do it, he couldn't. He isn't like that man. He doesn't give up when things get tough, he faces them, and handles them with love and acceptance and family, and he creates spaces in himself for Charles to go when his own mind is too howling for contact, but they are facing a real problem, here. He'll be unlikely to cast any convincing projections, and there is absolutely zero possibility that the Israeli officials will let him on a plane looking like that, so it's quite possible they'll be here for another day or even two or three or a month or a year or however long this lasts, regardless. It's no one's fault, and they're not breaking any laws, so David's already in contact with the airport to question their policies along with Gertrude and Betsy.  
  
There's no time for that. If something happens, if this leads somewhere unfortunate - there's no time for them to be stuck here, and the likely solution is not that they're both stuck here in the first place. It's that Erik is made to go without him. Charles isn't essential to this operation, even if his involvement makes everything run smoother and everyone is thoroughly aware of it. It's not his testimony that's necessary, it's not his cooperation that they need. It's not him wearing the (useless) temple suppressor and the (useless) ankle device. He isn't on trial for anything, and though he's privy to information they aren't, though his presence turns out to be very essential to acquiring Erik's testimony, when push comes to shove - he doesn't need to be there. Besides, Erik is wrong. It's not his fault that he doesn't understand, because the fact of the matter is, Charles barely does. But despite barely being able to sit up, despite being dreadfully ill and the Void encroaching every second, dark and threatening, it's not like what happened in the hospital. It's the opposite, and that's what frightens him most. Charles closes his eyes and the phone David is holding snaps into his hand. It's not perfect, but he does it effortlessly. They'll be getting on the plane. He won't have trouble making realistic projections. He wouldn't have trouble doing anything he pleased, anything at all, right now. Except make himself not suffer. Perhaps it's a small price to pay.  
  
Any pain at all is too big a price to pay for Erik. And besides, that's wrong. Without Charles Erik is completely lost, not just as a human being but also as a functional one. He can speak, preliminarily, to Carmen and Raven but Gabby and Hank are hit-and-miss, he couldn't find his way out of a paper bag if it weren't for Charles. Erik needs Charles, personally as well as professionally if you could call it that. They weren't getting very far before Charles awoke from his coma and it would've only gotten further from that. He takes the phone from Charles's hands and it dials off, and he levitates it back to David with a small shake of his head. A better solution, in his mind, would be for Erik to take them directly back to New York City. It's not like they don't know he's an Omega-level mutant. Maybe it's time he show them what that really means.  
  
No. Absolutely not. Charles shakes his head, and he refuses to do it like this. Not now, on top of everything else. He doesn't like that they're playing it like this, either, but it's strategic. He's already been covering up Erik bursting through walls and leaving in the middle of meetings and generally not complying, which is fine, he certainly doesn't mind bending the rules when it suits, but sometimes it makes sense to play by the rules. To play the game. Sometimes dressing up and going to the party is necessary, or boarding the plane. It's not time. Charles refuses to be more of a spectacle than they already are, to tilt their hand this early on. Not everything needs to be quite so dramatic. Not everything needs to be a show. He doesn't want it to be. He'll be fine. He is fine. Besides, maybe he can get Erik to sleep this way.  
  
Erik crosses his arms. It is hardly a show when Charles can barely stand up straight. It would take them seven minutes as opposed to ten hours. He could be home, in his bed, resting and away from prying eyes. And it gives them ten hours of being alone, in privacy, to deal with this instead of moving from one thing to another. Erik doesn't care if Charles thinks it's _dramatic_ , if he can do anything he'll hide them from view, then. Erik isn't taking chances with his health and stability, he just isn't and Charles will have to deal with that because it's his final word on the matter.

* * *

Charles knows to pick his battles, when to push a decision like this and when not to. It's not his preferred method of travel in this case - or any case, really, it's even worse than planes because it was never the nausea that was the problem, but it is convenient, he'll give it that - and it's going to require much more mind-nudging than the alternative, but he doesn't have the energy to argue. He doesn't even have the words. Fine. Fine, he'll make it seem like they were on the flight and no one will ever question otherwise, fine, he'll hide them from view, fine, he'll admit that sitting in a cramped airplane seat for ten hours doesn't sound particularly pleasant right now. He'll ignore the fact that the last time they made this trip it hurt him, actually, because the last thing he wants is Erik's misplaced guilt. He doesn't even have the energy to sigh properly; everything hurts, everything's dark, minute to minute things get swallowed and destroyed and rearranged, so fine. He'll clean up the mess, make it so none of it ever happened, he has from day one and it doesn't matter how against that he is, apparently. He can't stand up, this isn't the time to make issue with it. Fine.  
  
It won't hurt him this time. Erik knows how to handle it now or he wouldn't have suggested it, because he very much is aware, but something about the flurry of concepts that gets thrust in his direction makes him wilt and flinch and he swallows against it. "OK," he mutters hoarsely, shoving it down, swallowing and looking away.  
  
It's not Erik handling it, it doesn't matter what he does or doesn't do. It's Charles' handling it. It's Charles' brain completely tearing itself to shreds, and normally he would flinch, too, he would immediately backtrack unless he was in a particularly foul mood, because hurting Erik, that hurts him - and it does, and it makes him sick, but he's already sick, and he's already weak, and it just makes him feel more frustrated and helpless and now guiltier, which makes everything else worse. Fine. He can't handle it right now. If that's the response he gets, fine. If Erik can't handle him, which he's mentioned on multiple occasions is completely inevitable, fine. He shuts down his mind, gets rid of the spiky, shaking thoughts that are leftover while the rest get eaten and shredded and burned.  
  
"Stop," he Orders, quiet. He doesn't want Charles's mind shut down. That's the entire-that's everything. He holds out his hand and two small discs land palm-up, and he carefully arranges Charles to lift over his shoulder. The best he can do is offer refuge in his own mind, as burned-down and disastrous as it is, and he tucks the discs in his pocket. He's already said goodbye to Magda and the other children, but they gather round nonetheless when they exit the room and Erik pats them on the head all the same, lets them touch Charles and say goodbye as well and then he's leaving the house, still walking with Charles in his arms, lifted effortlessly.  
  
Fine. Charles' mind opens again because he was Ordered not to keep it away, because there's nowhere else to go, and even now he won't overstep that boundary, he won't violate Erik like that, he won't undermine their Dynamic. He doesn't want to take refuge in Erik's mind, so he doesn't. He stays here, sick and uncomfortable, weak, helpless, and even if he doesn't disappear he checks out. Checks out so he doesn't have to listen to the ringing in his ears, or feel the shivers, or deal with the increasing pressure behind his temples. The guilt, or the frustration, or the sadness. Fine. So be it. He doesn't have the capacity right now.

* * *

It doesn't matter what he wants, at the end of the day. Erik pulls him in, anyway, until the world outside disappears, and only the Wasteland and its few salt marshes and fields of wildflowers remain. He can't offer anything better. He can't make anything better. He can't fix anything. He can't keep from making messes that Charles has to clean up, so he won't. He'll do what he thinks is best because it's all he can do. He'll get them home and safe in one piece in far less time than a ten hour hellride ought to accomplish and fine that is that. Erik's thoughts burn off on impact until there are no thoughts left of him at all, none that Charles recognizes anyways, until he hears only the tilling in the background, the steady drive of metal into soil over and over and over and over again.  
  
That's not even what he meant, but of course Erik took it that way. The seething self-hatred sets in, bolstered by how horribly awful he feels, how miserable, how alone, even with Erik technically right here, but he's burning himself up even after forcing Charles not to and fine, then. Fine. It doesn't matter what he wants, but he wants to stop wreaking havoc, he wants this to be over, he wants to not be here. He could leave if he wanted to, and there isn't a damn thing Erik could do about it. He doesn't. He stays, and he creates his own place, somewhere decidedly not a part of Erik's normal mindscape, someplace quiet and bubbled off and he doesn't help with the tilling this time, because he wants to but if Erik is going to go off and leave him, if he's going to hide again and again after demanding Charles not, that he always be honest and open and tell-all, fine. He'll wall himself off.  
  
Except that someone flicks him in the forehead a short while later. It's no one that Charles recognizes. Not really. His hair is long and red and braided down his back, skin tanned dark and freckles all throughout and he's wearing shorts and no shoes, a bow and arrow over his shoulders and he moves silently, like a shadow, until he's right up in Charles's space and when he looks up, he grins.  
  
Really, he could prevent that. Even here. He should have. He considers it, briefly, but he knows it's just everything else building up inside of him talking. Instead of blocking it out, forcing it away, isolating himself, he doesn't say anything. He barely looks up. He doesn't make a noise, and there's barely anything recognizable about him, either. He's barely Charles at all.  
  
He can't hide in here. Not from this one. He can travel every realm in the Landscape, even the dark, dark places. That's his birthplace, after all. He touches his throat. He's not good at talking. But he knows that Charles can understand him, anyway. They read stories together. Their story. He's mad, the little one whispers. And he doesn't want Charles to know that he's angry. At him, of course not. But angry, he's mad. He doesn't want Charles to feel that. Because he knows Charles might not be able to tell the difference.  
  
It only makes what's left of Charles, what's around, more frustrated. He can hide here. He can hide wherever he pleases. He could make new pockets that never existed before and never will again, he could do anything and he won't. But he won't talk, either. He doesn't want to. There's nowhere for him to disappear off to, nowhere to hole up, not if he wants to keep everything, and doesn't Erik realize how difficult and painful and impossible that is? Fine. He's mad, too. He doesn't look and he barely exists, especially not as Erik knows him best, as his entire consciousness, the rest separated off into the bubble, clinging for dear life, and that's the most anyone is going to get from him.  
  
Of course he realizes, whisper the trees. He's inching back, slowly, but he still doesn't exist here and it isn't by his own making. He realizes. of course he does. It's his responsibility. It's his choice, it's his decision. Of course he realizes. Even if he could show up, the trees wilt away like he did in the Real, unsure of their own welcome. The facet before him just tilts his head. He doesn't want to talk, either, so they don't have to. He plops himself down beside instead. It's only after a long, long while that he pipes up. "You love him. The desert boy."  
  
Of course he does. There's really nowhere to plop down; Charles doesn't have a body. There's no way to make sense of one, fractured off and scattered into the air like he is, everything displaced, so it doesn't exist. But even split into pieces, even angry, of course he loves Erik. He's never not loved Erik. There's no part of him that doesn't or could ever feel otherwise. Even like this that's a constant. But he doesn't have the ability to express that properly, and he is mad. He is. He's frustrated and he's hurt and he's mad and it isn't fair, but he doesn't even know how long he'll feel that. Everything keeps disappearing and it's so hard to hold onto it and he's mad, he's bitter, he's that teenager who wanted to be left alone, who saw absolutely no need for a Dominant. He doesn't want to talk. He doesn't want to exist. It's difficult to be conscious. It's hard to be everything he's ever been and ever known at once. Impossible.

* * *

The apparition's nose twitches as if to ward off tears, but he smiles all the same. He knows what it's like not to want to exist, too. To feel all the realms and universes clawing in until you simply can't exist, splintered in the wind. He's sorry Charles is mad. He doesn't know how to help. How to make anything better. How can anybody inside of him, himself included, oblige Charles's wishes? How can he say that Charles shouldn't exist? How could he exist? He couldn't. None of them could. He read him stories and helped him plant flowers and went after him in the Dark Place. He stands beside him. He got him out of that plastic box buried deep in hell. "I'm sorry," he whispers.  
  
That just makes it worse. Charles doesn't need him to be sorry. He didn't ask him to be sorry, and it's angry and it's bitter and it's not aimed at Erik at all and there's a swirl of something, of Charles scattered and there's the sensation of tears pricking at the corner of eyes, of clenched jaws but he doesn't know what to look like and so he looks like nothing. He wants to exist, it's just extraordinarily difficult to do so when everything he is - when it's all collapsing, destroying itself, shredding, ripping, scrapping, rebuilding, starting all over again - when out there he's so sick he can't think, when in here he's so fractured he can't be. What is he expected to do? There's a banging sound, muffled and far off, there's a scream, there's frustration and seething and younger Charles throwing a glass at the wall, just a flash of it, and then there's nothing. Some of him is still there, but it's not here.  
  
"Well I don't know how to make it better!" the younger-Erik yells back at the wall. At the person who was supposed to be his only friend. "I don't know how to get you back! Don't you be mad at me! I'm trying my best! I love you and I'm trying my best! And you won't even let me! You don't even want me!" he shouts, tears streaming down his face.  
  
Charles is trying his best too! It's Erik who left him. He got angry so he left, and he left Charles alone and he put him in this place where he could hurt everyone and he didn't even think about it and he's his Dominant, he's supposed to stay for these things but he keeps leaving and he promised, he swore that he could handle Charles, that he wouldn't back off but he did, he didn't even talk to him, he's always demanding Charles talk but he never talks back, and it hurts and Charles is breaking apart, _don't you get it! Don't you get it!_ It's loud and it's storm-like and the bubble bursts and Charles goes everywhere, confused and hurting and riled up and he can be angry if he likes, he can, he gets to be! and he was right, he was right about having a Dominant and he's scared, he's scared where's Father and please don't come in please don't come in not tonight not tonight and bad bad bad bad bad he'll never ever be good, what's the point -  
  
"I certainly did not leave," Erik's voice is sonorous and Commanding over the din. He's sitting cross-legged in the distance. "Nor did I break a single one of my promises. I have been here this entire time. I have not left once no matter that it hurts me to stay. _It hurts me to stay, too!_ " he shouts, probably for the first time ever, across the great sucking Void. "Did you realize that, Charles, when you Bonded to me? Did you realize you're condemning our children to be raised by a-" he swallows it back, the Butcher's knife. "Don't come in, don't come in, _good_ you _finally_ get it! _You finally get it,_ " Erik screams and the Wasteland quakes with the force of it and the feral-Erik cowers in fear. "You were right about me, but don't you ever say I broke my promise to you because I certainly did not." It's less of a scream than a piteous warble, and he crawls somewhere to be in the dark.  
  
It goes quiet, in the aftermath. There's no response, but it isn't because he's left. There was no real part of him there in the first place, and not because he'd fought to keep Erik out. Because he honestly, truly, does not have the capacity to exist here. He doesn't have the ability. There are varied responses, all of them strange and muffled and distorted, all of them heartbroken and confused and hurting and guilty and part of him doesn't think that's right, that Erik shut him down like that, that he minimize Charles' feelings and tell him what it is they are when he's made it perfectly, abundantly clear - but that doesn't stay.   
  
It's gone in an instant. What's left isn't quite Charles, because that boy is still crying and holding his own head, the glasses are still being thrown, everything exists at once and doesn't exist at all but what is there, however muddled, it finds Erik. He doesn't know, apparently, because he finds himself surrounded by Charles, which is frankly overwhelming at the moment when Charles is more a force than he is a person, but he's there and he's always been there, too. It's not a body or the man he's holding in his arms in the Real, but it is Charles that tugs at him, that embraces him, that wipes away his tears.

* * *

Erik, the real Erik this time, has his hands over his ears and he's shaking, trembling, absolutely horrified at himself and ashamed at his outburst. He cannot believe he let himself burst out like that. It doesn't matter. He's so sorry for what he's done. For how he's failed, for how he's failed to be a Dominant, a good Dominant- _you don't know how to take care of him_ -no, shut up-better than him, better than all of them-he has to, he has to. He won't let their care be the only thing that exists in Charles's head. He will right himself and fix himself and do his duty and take care of his submissive-has to-stop crying, pull yourself-together-  
  
The response to that is immediate and firm: he did absolutely nothing of the sort. People have outbursts sometimes. They get overwhelmed and they get scared and they get angry, and they're allowed. Charles has yelled, too. He hasn't meant to and it wasn't right but he has and Erik has understood, even when he took issue with it, even when it was wrong and he punished him for it because that's his right and his responsibility and his prerogative, in the end he understood and he found out why and he loved him through it. That's what they do. They love each other through it, through everything. Even when one of them falters, even when they aren't at their best. Erik doesn't need to pull himself together. Charles quite literally can't pull himself together. Erik can cry all he likes. Dominants are allowed to cry, and be scared, and be hurt. He's supposed to tell Charles when that happens, doesn't he understand that? So that Charles can help. Charles is sorry. He's very sorry, and he never wanted him to feel unwanted, of course he wants him, he needs him, more than anything - he doesn't exist in the proper way now, everything is all together and all at once and he's never felt so helpless, so completely, utterly helpless, and he's sorry. All of him is sorry and all of him loves Erik and he - they? - he wipes his tears and holds him, holds him, holds him, wraps him up in everything he has, and loves him through it. Through all of it. He hasn't failed as a Dominant. Not even close. Charles is sorry. He felt - abandoned, for just that moment, sometimes Erik closes off and shuts him out but doesn't allow the same for Charles and it's scary and he doesn't know what to do and it felt like Charles had - like he'd been right, his own insecurities, too much, like he was the burden on top of everything else, he feels like that sometimes, like Erik - and he's not a very good submissive, not at all, but Erik does the best with what he has. It's not very much, it's not ideal. He knows that. He does know that. His younger self - his self now? Do they all exist at once? He knows.  
  
"I just don't want to hurt you-" Erik creaks, and it almost sounds like a squeak, forced out of his throat, out of a sob, a tone he didn't think his voice could take as he wraps himself up in Charles, so relieved beyond measure that he didn't drive the only person in his life who is worth living for away. He would never abandon Charles. Not ever. Not ever. But he doesn't want to hurt Charles with his pain. Doesn't want Charles to feel inferior because he's upset while Erik is hurting. He doesn't want that. He doesn't want Charles to use his pain as a way to hurt himself more, he can't take it, so sometimes he shuts down and it's all building up and the Wasteland is encroaching and he just can't there's no space and now Charles is splintering apart and he's totally useless and he loves him and he just wants him back, and whole, and not to feel pain anymore, that's all he wants, it's all he prays for, and he doesn't realize he's doing it now, singing under his breath. _Mi sheberach avoteinu avraham yitzhak, v'yaakov, v'imoteinu: sarah, rivka, rachel v'leah hu yivarech virapei et hacholeh kanu'a sheli hakadosh baruch hu yimalei rachamim alav l'hachalimo u-l'rap'oto l'hachaziko u-l'chai oto v'yishlach r'fuah shlemah r'fuat hafenesh ur fu'at haguf..._  
  
There's really no way to hold him like this, but he doesn't leave, all of him right here with Erik, as much of him as can possibly be contained. There are parts that can't be. What slips through fingers like smoke, what scatters off into the wind. Those parts he'll worry about later, he'll find them later. He stays, and he certainly, absolutely does not think Erik is anything like them. But the thing is, he can share it, and there's no way to spare Charles from it. Because he already knows, whether he believes it or not. In more intimate detail than perhaps Erik himself has even processed, he knows. Every horrific, terrifying second, every agony, every violation. And he's here. He's right here, in Erik's mind, the safest - the only - place for him to be. Erik has never scared him, even when he's meant to. His pain is enormous, it's seemingly impossible to comprehend, but Charles comprehends it. He's the only one in the world who could, and he does. He Knows. More now than he ever has, more a force than he's ever been, he knows and he loves and he accepts and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that Erik shouldn't share with him. Nothing they shouldn't face together. Some things must be fought and fixed alone, but they can help each other. Charles can do the tilling and Erik can keep him from getting swallowed, opening the doors to his mind when Charles has collapsed. But Erik needs to see that first. If he believes Charles loves him - and he does - if he trusts him, then can't he trust him with these parts, too? If he has to shout, he will shout. Charles will love him through that, he'll understand much more than him closing off. His mind was built on locked doors. It didn't work. It didn't work for a reason. Don't close this one.  
  
"Yes," Erik whispers back between lips pressed together. He can trust Charles. And Charles has to trust him, too. He can't spare Charles from his pain, but Charles can't spare him, either. And he's learning. He's always trusted Charles. He always has and he always will, and there they are at the end of the world holding on to one another and he has to laugh, and shudder, unable to get ahold of himself, not able to get a hold of himself, maybe because it's not a Landscape anymore, it's a Wasteland, and no matter how much they till the soil and tend the plants-pain has desolated this place and carved it full of radiation and the creeping Dark Place loams in the sky where demons seek to break in, and storms howl at night and the world whispers horrible things and he keeps Charles here with him, safe, the safest patch they can find, in either of their minds, shielded from the howling Void without by a shield that no one could breach, nothing alive, a pure beacon of love and protection.  
  
Charles mind doesn't exist. It can't stay like that, or it will absolutely devour him and perhaps take everyone with it. Almost definitely, he should think. But this place, Erik's mind - he's utterly wrong about that, and right now, right here, as a force and not a person, as a presence and not a body, as something outside of his own mind and being, he Understands. He knows. The Wasteland won't stay a Wasteland, and it does matter that they tend to the soil and plant the flowers and nourish them with rain, even if they're only tears. The suns will come back. The people of the Land will return, if they're needed, if Erik wishes for it. This place isn't poisoned, and it isn't desolate, and it's never once been empty. Not once and not ever. The demons aren't so frightening, and the charred earth isn't so hopeless, and the grass still sways when Charles turns his attention to it. There is space, there is more space than Erik could possibly fathom, and everything that was here before is still here. Every part of this place, of Erik, Dark Place and what he perceives as Void - what isn't, because Charles knows Void, and it does not exist in Erik - is safe, and it is loved, and it will flourish. Charles will help, because Erik trusts him, and this isn't the end of the world. It's the beginning of a new one. Doesn't Erik see that? Look through Charles. That's all it is.  
  
Maybe it's just the end of their separate worlds. Because here they are, the boy banging on the wall, the Void at the edges, the universe and beyond, formless and formed and corridors beyond that. It's their world. Their minds. Together. Maybe that's how they move forward. By combining everything inside of themselves to combat what lies beyond. What one cannot handle, the other can pick up the slack. That's what being a Pairbond is, isn't it? That's what Hank talked about. They enhance one another's natural abilities, one another's minds. Viewing the Bond as a little thread between them that lets them hear one another's thoughts has been well and good, but there's still so much separation, so much distance, they need to use their minds to come together to create a space, that is them. Not one or the other. Not one subsuming the other, either, distinct, and yet-not.  
  
No. Charles recoils at that, shies away, finds himself pulling back, not consciously but frightened. Completely terrified. No. The Void isn't here, it's in Charles, and he's here because there's nowhere else to be, but that won't work. No. Their worlds are melded, or being melded, they're coming together, they work on it everyday, the Bond isn't just a link or a thread, and they do enhance each other, but - no. They can make a bridge, they can make as many bridges as they need or want, they can come and go between them, but not now and not - there can be separation. It can be healthy. It can be good. No, Charles can't do that. Charles doesn't work like that, Charles can't - no, no, no. No. No. There's so much panic that everything shakes with it and he pulls away, pulls back, scared and shaking. It's not the same for Erik as it is for Charles. No.

* * *

Erik shakes his head, though. The best parts of themselves exist inside them. How can they be the best, how can they be the best, how can they help each other the best, when they aren't relying on one another in the best possible way? Is there another solution? Is there something he is missing? Does Charles not trust Erik to be able to withstand the Void? Does Charles think that there is a point at which the single person in this galaxy meant for him has to stop and say I can't go any further than this? That there are places in Charles's mind that Erik can never go? That there are places he could never withstand, sensations he could never withstand? How can they truly be a Pairbond, if that's the case? How can they truly be matched, if that's the case? If Erik can't handle it? If Erik can't handle it-does Charles really think he can't? Does he really trust that Erik will melt into obliteration?  
  
No. No, no, no, no. Charles recoils further, the whole of him receding like the tide. He trusts Erik. He trusts Erik with everything he is, and that should never be in doubt. He trusts that Erik is the only person in this universe who could potentially handle the full-force of Charles' mind, because they're matched, because there has to be a way, and he's proven it before. It's possible. It's possible he won't be swallowed up and destroyed, turned to nothing. But he can't. He isn't ready, he doesn't even want to try. It's asking too much of Charles. No. He won't do it. He won't. He refuses. He doesn't know anything but panic now, scattered into the atmosphere. Erik is welcome in his mind, he always is, but not like this and not like he's suggesting. He won't. He can't.  
  
If he trusts Erik with everything he is, doesn't that mean he has to trust Erik with everything that he is? Not just to display it in a screaming glass gift box for Erik to look at, but for him to actually have it, and hold it, and take care of it? Erik wasn't ready for this trip. Erik wasn't ready for the Landscape to get razed down and Erik isn't ready to lose Charles into the mindless, ceaseless, ending nothing that threatens to keep taking him away short of throwing himself in a chamber and setting the radiation settings to maximum like he had to do for Magda, he is not ready to jam that needle into Charles's arm and he's not ready to say he's sick and he's not ready to let him say he's sick and if Charles doesn't want Erik to hide from him, then he can't hide from Erik, that's how it goes. The alternative is that Erik, what? Has to spend the rest of eternity like this, or else Charles numb himself off completely from who he is? An empty robotic existence in the real. Erik can't do it. Erik isn't ready.  
  
He’ll fix it. Somehow he’ll mend it. If Erik wants him to endure, he’s willing to admit that perhaps it’s for the best. That if he’s sick and broken, he should suffer through the sickness to get better rather than look for the magic cure, the needle to pump into his veins. It’s his own weakness, it’s his own destruction. He’ll take the pain, and the agony, he’ll take the Void, he’ll walk through the gaping, hungry storm, he’ll withstand it so Erik doesn’t have to watch but he can’t - Erik has all of him. He does. Charles has given everything, he’ll continue to give everything, but don’t ask him to give this. Don’t make him give something that will tear him apart even if it does not tear Erik to shreds first. No, he won’t. He can’t. It isn’t hiding, it’s - something else, it’s something else, it’s a boundary, it’s a boundary and he can’t cross it. He can’t. He can’t do that. Don’t ask him to. Don’t hate him because he can’t.  
  
But that's not true. Erik doesn't have all of him. This exists. It always will exist. Charles asked for Erik to take him to the Wasteland and the Dark Place and he did, he asked for Erik to give him his pain and he did, and now he has to sit like the world's tallest potted fern while Charles weathers all of this by himself? Erik refuses to believe that. Charles shouldn't take the pain and the insanity and the Void any more than Erik should shield him from his pain. Charles's weakness and destruction belong to Erik, too. The only way it's going to get better is if he lets Erik have it. It's been like this since they've met, hasn't it? Isn't it because his mind has found its match? What else can Erik do? He doesn't want to force this from Charles because he doesn't think Charles would ever forgive him, but tell him-tell him why. This wasn't ever supposed to just exist on Charles's terms. They are in this together. It will never end unless Charles crosses that boundary, of this Erik is certain. They will end up here. Again and again. And Erik loves him, and Erik loves them, their Bond, their family. He wants to fight for it. He trusts it. He trusts Charles. Does Charles truly trust him? He'll take care of him. He'll protect him. He will endure. He is Charles's match. In every way. That's what a shield-mate is, that's what it means, and it doesn't mean that if Charles won't let Erik go into battle with him.  
Then they’ll end up here again.   
  
Let them end up here again, and Charles will weather it then, too, he’ll let the Void tear everything apart again and again and then he’ll rebuild it, he’ll take the brunt of it, he’ll suffer through it. Just don’t ask him for this. He doesn’t know why, he doesn’t have an answer, he can’t possibly explain it but it terrifies him, it terrifies him more than anything else ever has, and Erik insinuating that he hasn’t truly given himself because there is something, because there is one thing that he cannot share, because he’s frightened, because he’s horrified, because he’s incapable - there are things Erik has kept from him. There are places he hasn’t gone. There are things he cannot do, things that Charles has never begrudged him. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that he can’t. Erik doesn’t know anything about this because Charles doesn’t and he should know.   
  
No. No, and he’ll scream it if he has to, he’ll dissolve himself if he has to, he’ll disappear if he has to - no. Please don’t ask this. Please don’t take this from him. Please don’t do this. It’s not fair - to suggest that Charles doesn’t trust Erik because he can’t do this? That’s not fair. That’s not fair, it’s not, it’s not, he doesn’t understand, he doesn’t know, he couldn’t possibly, and Charles tears further away, hurting and confused. He trusts Erik. He trusts Erik, but he doesn’t trust himself, and he doesn’t trust his curse, and he doesn’t trust the Void, and he won’t risk it. Why does Erik get to protect him and Charles has to accept it, but Charles can’t protect him? It’s not fair. It’s wrong. It hurts. Why is he doing this? Why is he asking for this? It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair, he can’t do it, it won’t even work it will ruin everything and then he’ll die, he'll have nothing left and he'll die and is that Erik wants? Why is he asking for that?  
  
If he trusts Erik, then he has to trust all of Erik. And Erik trusts Charles. There is no part of Charles that will destroy Erik. It isn't possible. Erik doesn't know anything about this because Charles doesn't because he doesn't go there, because he's terrified, and of course he should be terrified, because he should never go in there alone and that is why Erik will never let him go alone. He is meant to go with Erik. If Charles wants all those things in return Erik will give them gladly. Every shrieking, dark horror, his for the taking. But he is not holding a curse, and he is not holding a Void in his head he is holding pain. And it hurts him and it hurts him every day and it is not one thing and Erik won't let him hold it alone anymore because he is not ready for that to be their life. He will not let Charles spend every second of his existence building what this thing tears down over and over and suffer through it just so no one else ever has to bear it. Erik knows what that's like. And he's sorry, he's done it too. He's a hypocrite. But it's not about fair anymore. They're not children anymore. It's about trust. And love. Does Charles really think that Erik is asking for Charles to die? No. _If you're going to trust me, sweetheart, you have to trust me._  
  
Trust doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t work like that, it isn’t all or nothing, immediate, right now, it doesn’t culminate in grand gestures or prove it or you don’t, and how dare he, and perhaps Charles should be able to offer every single part of himself unquestionably, perhaps that is what it means to be in this type of relationship, to be a Pairbond - but he’s warned Erik consistently, repeatedly, a thousand times over that he’s not a good submissive, hasn’t he? That eventually he will fail Erik, he will be exactly what he’s said he’s going to be, rotten at this? Not made for it. Defunct. Finally you get it. Erik has no idea what he’s holding in his head. Erik has absolutely no idea what he’s capable of. It doesn’t matter if he’s not asking for it, it’s what’s going to happen. It’s the inevitable end. The longer this goes on, the more Charles shreds apart, the farther out he goes, the more he disperses. If he can’t bear to watch it, then Charles will disappear so he doesn’t have to.  
  
Erik shakes his head again. He's speaking only truth. If Charles trusts Erik, he must trust him. This is a point at which Erik is asking Charles to trust him, and Charles can't say _yes_ and demonstrate _no_ at the same time. So the real answer to the question must be clear; Charles doesn't trust Erik. He doesn't trust that Erik knows what he's capable of. He doesn't trust that Erik knows who he is, he doesn't trust that Erik is prepared to handle everything and anything that comes their way, he doesn't. He doesn't trust Erik's words when he speaks, when he says I love you. When he says you are my perfect submissive. When he says _you are not defunct._   
  
The grand gesture isn't for Charles to offer everything of himself or else he doesn't trust Erik. The fact of the matter is that Charles is splitting apart at the atomic, neuronal level, the psionic level, and will continue to do so for the rest of his life unless he trusts Erik to match him and stand with him, because that just so happens to be the way they work. It's why they're matched. It's why they're here. It's why they're Bonded. Erik wouldn't be asking if it wasn't life or death. Charles has spent so long trying to save everybody else. Raven sometimes used to ask him _("so who's going to save you?")_ and Erik will be damned if Charles stops him from giving it his all, because it's the one thing he was put on this Earth to do. Charles has promised he would save Erik so many times over it's easy to lose count; Erik never has, but by G-d he will save Charles Xavier if it's the last thing he does.  
  
No. It's not fact. Erik doesn't know that. He has absolutely no way of knowing that. Charles has reached it. The end of the world, and he's got his back to it, he's hovering right over it. He could grab Erik's hand and pull him with him, or he could jump, step back, and only let it consume him. If he does this right, perhaps the world won't be consumed, too. Perhaps he'll save everyone, like Raven always said he couldn't. He's always begged to differ. It doesn't work like that. Charles would rather die than let Erik suffer. If he can only save one person, it's going to be Erik, even if it's from him. He's wrong. He doesn't only exist for this. He has children. He has family. He has a future, Charles fought for that. He can find a better submissive. A much better submissive, someone who didn't fail like Charles did - There hasn't been a sadness quite like this, an aching quite like this, he doesn't think. Not in all of history. Achilles at the loss of his Patroclus, perhaps, but his Achilles, his Erik will be strong just the same.   
  
He's thinking of Erik's hand on his cheek, of their lips touching, of the first time they spoke, of stories and deserts and castles. He lets go, and steps into the Void.


	73. loss, surprise, victory, being only three of the countless/fates, if you want to call them that, that we don’t

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _the seer's tower_ , sufjan stevens  
> ii. _millions of cats_ , wanda gág  
> iii. _war of the foxes_ , richard siken  
> iv. _small hands, small heart_ , amanda palmer

Maybe that's why Charles is the scientist and Erik isn't. Because some things that are fact to him are just faith to others. And if Charles doesn't want him to hide away his rage he most certainly will not, then, because how dare Charles presume that he can just find someone else? Someone to replace him? How dare-that story, the one Erik told to himself when he knelt at the ashen graves of _Sisim_ , when he drew those ashes over his own cheeks and how dare Charles expect him to do that for his ashes? Erik isn't sad. He is enraged, a furious shriek that echoes through the Wasteland and lights it up, suns blazing in the sky to scorch superheated desert and fiery tendrils that light up his entire body as he barrels through the Void right after him, and catches his wrist before he's lost forever to it. Because he has a family. He has a future. He has children. And Charles fought for that. And the fight _fucking well isn't over._ Surely Charles has to know that by now. Wherever he goes, Erik will follow, inscribed right on the ring that he hasn't taken off since it was gifted to him. If it's into oblivion, they will map out the stars together. The last thought he has is the first thought he has, when he opens his eyes and before he closes them. Ani ohev otcha, Charles.  
  
There's nothing, for a very long time. For eternities, here, and no telling how long out there. Seconds, hours, or weeks. Months or years. No time at all. For Erik, there's nothing. No way to think, no way to be. No way to exist, and yet at the same time existing all at once. The Void knows everything, and it takes everything. There is no gentleness. There is no Charles. There's only emptiness, nothingness, a cold, vicious hunger, a need to consume and consume and consume, to hold everything within itself and take it and keep it and store it and destroy it, rip it up, swallow it whole to keep itself satisfied, pain and joy and everything between -  
  
For the first time since the forming of their Bond, Charles and Erik are separated. Well and truly. Ironic that bearing this is what will keep them together. That Erik's hand on Charles' wrist is all that kept them both from burning out like distant stars. When there's something, it's not much of anything. Complete darkness, but there's something there. Invisible, unreachable, unfathomable, but it exists. "You have to leave," a voice says. It's Charles' voice, and it isn't. "I warned you not to come."  
  
A light in some distant corner of a fathomless universe that contains his thoughts, spread out like ions through a vast cosmos and slowly perled back together on a wire. He's not afraid. Everything in his life has lead him up until this moment. All of his training, all of his internal structural organization, all of his experiences, all of his dreams and memories and silly hopes dropped him right into the endless expanse, and he manages to keep his wits about him even while working the exceeding abstract. "I don't take Orders from you, _neshama_ ," Erik finds a way to communicate back. It's warmth all the same.  
  
It’s not exactly Charles, or perhaps it is. It must be, because the Void started with him, but it’s been poisoned since then. It’s consumed since then. It’s taken since then, and it’s become since then. It doesn’t feel like Charles when it emerges from the cold and the dark and the Nothing, the expanse, and it doesn’t look like him either. It doesn’t wear his face. It’s Shaw’s cordial smile that greets Erik, that steps forward and tilts its head. It’s something Charles does, it’s a mannerism that doesn’t belong to Shaw, but this isn’t Charles, either; a blending, a mix that should have never have been possible. That should not exist. Frankenstein’s monster, with all the wrong, sickened pieces glued together. “Don’t you?” it asks, he asks, and when he smiles Shaw’s white teeth are pointed and sharp.  
  
Erik swallows, because the force of that slams something hard into his gut like a stone, but he grits his teeth, and the residual pain there, in all of his body as its been reformed, neurons sparking as they should be only reminds him, furthers him in his resolve. His head ducks automatically, but his eyes flick up, green and defiant. He steps forward, too, and his voice is still soft. " _Lo, neshama. Lo min atah._ "  
  
There’s little to recognize here, at least not of Charles. There’s no flicker of warmth, there’s not an ounce of softness. There’s no familiarity and certainly no love. The monster with Shaw’s face steps closer and the Void steps with him, descending and ravenous, then laughs, a cold, darkened laugh, as if he finds the mere concept of this amusing. His eyes are not Charles’. His voice is not Charles’, either, not any longer. It’s too low for that, too deep. “But you don’t seem so certain.” He circles around Erik, stops behind him. Shaw is not taller in the Real, especially not now. He is here, where he towers above, rests a hand that isn’t Charles’ against Erik’s back and leans to whisper into his ear. “ _Sei nicht albern, Kleiner. Sie können ihm nicht geben, was er braucht. Er wird sterben, ja? Genau wie jeder, den du jemals geliebt hast_.” The monster clicks its tongue. “Poor, poor boy. If only you had listened. It’s not too late."  
  
The Void absorbed Shaw, but it's an imitation. It's something only a person who's spent an inordinate amount of time with a person like Shaw could possibly pick up on, it's something you could only pick up on if you were him. Erik sees Shaw, but that little reminder bolsters him, the smallest influence that this is an illusion despite the hand at his back that puts every one of his muscles tense. Where he would normally drop to fawning German he only speaks clearly, quietly, in his own language. " _Ani ohev oto ve lo govea ka'asher ani chay_. I will protect him."  
  
That’s because it’s not entirely Shaw. It certainly isn’t all or perhaps even any Charles, but it’s not entirely Shaw, either. It still looks like him as that hand tightens, and suddenly he’s in front of Erik, above Erik, around Erik, sharp teeth and the same smile he’s worn through this entire ordeal, colder somehow here, hungrier somehow here, Evil given form. “You don’t know how to protect anything,” he accuses, and it isn’t in any particular language, German and English and everything else indistinguishable, and he’s amused by this too. His hand comes to rest on Erik’s neck, and it’s the coldest thing that Erik has ever felt. It creeps beneath the skin, down to his bones, freezes his blood. “You only know how to take Orders. If you wanted to protect him, surely you would have done a better job than this, _Kleiner_. Is this what you’ve become?”  
  
"Yes," he replies without shame. "I know how to love. Sebastian Shaw tried to take that from me, but he failed." He smiles softly to himself, closing his eyes, lifting his chin against that hand. "I will face any evil to get him back. Even you." It's ironic that the person before him could not have prepared him better. Even when a sliver of fear slides down his throat and tightens against Shaw's fingers, he doesn't move a single muscle out of line, not even a twitch. A firm rein on his thoughts, as not to give the Darkness ideas.  
  
The hand tightens. The fingers become claws, and then fingers again, nails trimmed but somehow sharp, too, the cold seeping in and in and in. The Darkness has many ideas, and none of Erik's thoughts are concealed here. It knows everything. It's absorbed him, too. "He doesn't want you here. Does that not occur to you? You're displeasing your Master, _Kleiner Erik_. I taught you better." It isn't talking about Shaw, but the implication only lingers for moment before those fingers are squeezing again. "You won't save him. You won't save the ones he'll take with him, either. How tragic, to make a murderer of our dear doctor. But we all knew you would, didn't we?"  
  
"I am stronger than you can comprehend," Erik whispers back, softness in this place of hard edges and snarls. "And so is he. There won't be any murder happening here. I will ensure it. Take me to him. _Take me to him, now!_ " and that Order lights an explosion above Erik like a lightbulb undergoing fission, sudden and immense before trailing off into the inky black expanse.

* * *

There's no light here, not for long. There is no heat, there are no atoms. Orders will get him nowhere, because this is not Charles. Shaw laughs, and it echoes and echoes and echoes until it doesn't. The Darkness creeps back in, and everything is cold, consuming, endless. It's like drowning, but colder, slower, much more empty. Eternities pass. Stars die, galaxies collapse, new ones are born, expanding and then swallowed. Erik is utterly, completely alone. Until he isn't. It's silent and Dark and the cold is unbearable, there's nothing to see, but something else - someone else, perhaps - is there. It doesn't speak.  
  
Erik wafts toward it, quite like lying on one's back on a lake only there's no up or down or left or right, and his lungs have obliterated and he's moved past writhing into having no limbs at all, and it's really been quite fascinating looking at all the nothing, he invents friends that talk to him in gibberish and he watches the Earth move through its million-year life cycle from a telescope on Pluto and the dinosaurs are still walking around because distance and time, and echoes, and then _blonk-_ he bumps right off of that thing and he reorients, feels out tenderly. "Charles?"  
  
It isn't Charles. Perhaps at one point it was Charles, like everything here, but it isn't Charles now. It's someone or something absorbed, from the Real or from somewhere outside of it, a fragment or a memory or something else entirely. Something else entirely, because physical has never once held Charles captive until now, never limited him and never will like it does Erik, and there is so much he was meant to have and see and know and learn but not like this. Not like the great, sucking Void, threatening to destroy all it comes into contact with, to wipe it out and redo it. This Something is a boy, not a young child but perhaps not quite a teen, sandy blonde hair and sharp features. It's the wings that have always stood out about him, white and feathery and perhaps, if you asked the right person, angelic. They're trapped at the moment, clipped even, held tight to his body and just barely poking out from his shirt.   
  
"Hey," he says, casual as can be, and he sounds every bit like his father.  
  
"Hello," Erik looks at him and knows who it is immediately, but what he can't understand is how-and he gawks for a little too long-probably, as the boy believes, in derision and surely not wonder. He's seen this boy hacked to pieces by his own hand, slapped onto a metal table and rolled into an incinerator for ashes and it was always hot in that unbearable room and the heat rises inside the nothing until Erik's sweating again just like he used to back then, shirt plastered to his skin, sweating and dusty. He gasps out through the memories as they blaze through him, a wet smile on his face. "Why cover them? They're beautiful."  
  
The answer to that question is immediate. The boy's wings unfold, slowly but surely, cramped. Broken, bird-like bones snapped and crushed, one of his wings sagging horribly while the other spreads out much farther than they did as a young child. It doesn't make sense in regards to what happened in life, but this is how he presents himself, this is what he is now, this is the person he grew into. Grew into, as if that is possible. But he's a Someone in this place, and he exists, and this is not Charles. Charles made it possible, brought him here, but he isn't Charles. "They're broken," he explains, and shrugs, blunt and to the point. "It doesn't hurt that bad."  
  
Erik's features crumple, because he's seen that damage himself, on a much smaller body. He should have grown. He should have become so much more than he was, and it's his fault, and he knows that. "Come here," he whispers, beckoning the boy forward. Something is filling him up from the tips of his newly-reconstituted toes walking across the inky-black water of space to the tips of his fingers and he lays them on the boy's chest, and he begins to glow. In a great, shimmering ripple, the wings where once were broken, begin to knit together, great and whole and strong.   
  
" _In the tower above the earth/we built it for Immanuel/in the powers of the earth, we wait until it rips and rips/in the tower above the earth/we built it for Immanuel.._." His words harmonize just like in the Dark Place and from his mouth a flowing golden thread weaves the boy's wings back, until they are strong and hale and hardy and stretch out into infinite nights. " _Oh my mother, she betrayed us/but my father loved and bathed us," he sang softly. "Still I go to the deepest grave/where I go to sleep alone..._ "  
  
But the boy only smiles, smirks, really, and in that moment he looks so much like his father it's heartbreaking. The Void knows it, feeds on it, but it doesn't touch him because he belongs beyond it, exists beyond it, and his wings unfurl completely and then clip again. They curl up into his back, up his shirt, and he sits down, resting his head casually on his knees. Sitting in the Void, not consumed or affected by it, but he's just another thing that became homeless when Charles' mind collapsed. There are so many people and things that belong to it, and now Erik can see even part of the full scope. What Charles is capable of, what he truly does for people, for the World. What he's attracted to him, gathered, and kept safe. "It wasn't your fault," he says, simply. "I don't blame you. He doesn't, either."  
  
Erik has knitting needles in his hands and he works, very fine work, knitting wings of light as he whispers, rocking back and forth working on his tapestry that flows from his lap, glowing to the furrowed up wings bunched in the boy's back. " _Once upon a time there was a very old man and a very old woman. They lived in a nice clean house which had flowers all around it, except where the door was. But they couldn’t be happy because they were so very lonely. If only we had a cat! sighed the very old woman./A cat? asked the very old man./Yes, a sweet little fluffy cat, said the very old woman./I will get you a cat, my dear, said the very old man./So it happened that every time the very old man looked up, he saw another/cat which was so pretty he could not bear to leave it, and before he knew it, he had chosen them all..._ "

* * *

The needles don't exist, and the Void eats them here, anyway, allowing nothing. Giving nothing and taking everything, swallowing the words hungrily and dragging them down and down and down. There are no wings for this boy. This is how he looks, this is how he might always look; and he wears it, he wears it willingly, as easily as the tattoos on his father's arms. He isn't a vision capable of fixing, he's - perhaps not quite a person, but he isn't physical, and he decides how he appears. He's been given more choice than he's ever had in life, more opportunity, more chance, and his wings stay clasped to his back. He can still fly, in the places that exist for him. That's all he cares about. "I could've fixed them myself," he states matter of fact, still leaned on his knees. "I was supposed to have a second one. A mutation. I know that because he does, even though he's not supposed to." Charles knows many things he's not supposed to. Things that no one else could or does. "If he gets swallowed, I'll die again," he says, and then he sounds frightened. Much more like the child he is, even if it's technically not correct.  
  
"I won't let you die. I won't let him die," Erik whispers softly. This child-person, he just doesn't know. Erik sorrows for him because he doesn't know, of all the things that Charles could know, how silly that Erik's responsibilities fly entirely under the radar. But there is no radar, and there is no sound- _you are a translator/yes/and the sound is the voice of the enemy/yes_ -and there is no up or down, and it doesn't matter if he fixes these wings at all, because they'll never be fixed, because Erik broke them and you don't remember the future, only the past, that's why you don't remember shattered cups getting back up on the tables again because chaos always increases with entropy and he won't, he won't let himself fly off into the oblivion, into his own suffering, he won't. "I'll find him. I swear to you."  
  
This boy knows plenty, but not much. He has limitations. He doesn't only exist because of Charles, but Charles took care of him just the same, nurtured and nourished and absorbed him when he asked, without even knowing that he was asked. The Void has sucked him up and it will devour him if it has its way. He tries not to be afraid, because he knows he's dead, unlike most ghosts; but he is, still. It was scary to die. "I don't blame you, you know," he says again, and it isn't a useless sentiment. It means something, even if Erik can't accept it now. "But you have to save him. He saved my dad. He saved me, too. He saves everyone. There are people in here he doesn't even know. He saved them, too." A lot of them, actually. "But you won't find him easy. He's far away."  
  
"I will," Erik nods, solemn. He doesn't know what's in store for him on his task, but he is prepared for it. He will go to any means, fight any battle, traverse any distance to find his beloved again. The thread that ties them together is not broken yet. It isn't. Erik rises to his feet. "I've got a long way to go," he gives the boy a smile, and tips his hat, wrinkling his nose. He's wearing different clothes now, a plaid shirt and jeans and a tote over his shoulder, stubborn auburn curls stuffed under a newsboy-style cap. There's a long journey ahead, and he sets off into the Darkness. " _Let's fill our glasses up, but only halfway up, let's hear it for the band, at least what's left of them, half of them had to go, they had another show, we've got some records and we've got the radio..._ "

* * *

When the Darkness comes this time, it's vicious. It tears and it bites and it shreds apart, it finds the parts of Erik that are weak and vulnerable and it feeds on them. It takes from him. It swallows up and gorges itself, eternities and dying stars, and for a very long time it seems like there is Nothing. No memories, and no thoughts, and no hope. Cold, dark expanse, with nothing and no one, no time, no sense. Endless, lulled wandering, drowning. Perhaps he will be consumed entirely, perhaps this is it. The End of the world, or at least of Self, but that will bring about the other. The Void has grown too hungry. But then there's something. It's getting farther away. Whatever it is, it doesn't want to be found.  
  
Erik gives it all, every part, without even flinching. Every raze and bite and bark and growl and rend of flesh and tearing of thought he offers, without a twitch and he moves forward, and forward, and forward until his senses, what's left of them begin to hone in on that something and he's careening toward it at freight train speed, all strength gathered up and a supernova in his chest where he's kept it tucked close just-for-emergencies-you-sees until he slams right into it.  
  
This something skitters away, as if it's being chased. A frightened rabbit that's caught scent of the hound. It doesn't want to be caught, and it certainly doesn't want to be kept, and it doesn't make itself known like the monster and the boy, appearing out of Darkness and taking form; it stays as it is, a shadow in a shadow, unformed and elusive. _Don't come near me. Don't touch me. Go away._  
  
And hound is an apt term. Erik is a well-honed hunter, with keen instincts and sharp reflexes and intuition and he darts out of the way, up and over and inside-out until he begins to anticipate its movements and counteract them, and he lets it all unravel into a trap that leads the shadow into the center where he has no choice but to face Erik. " _Ze beseder, neshama_ ," he whispers. " _Ze li, rak li. Ani kan._ "  
  
 _No! No!_ It's Charles but it's not, not the Charles who threw himself into the Void and Erik jumped in after, but much more Charles than many of the other things swallowed up. This is a piece that split off, and now it's absorbed other things and other people and it's trapped and clearly unhappy with it, refusing to take proper form. "Go away!" he yells, and there's struggling, against Erik, against the Void, he's been torn up and mangled and confused and now he's thrashing again. "Let me go! You - you bastard!" It's weak but he'll shout and insult and use his sharp tongue in place of a body, mentally kicking and squirming. "You bloody well let me go right this instant!" He isn't the Charles Erik is looking for, anyway. He's separate now, the Void is going to eat him soon anyway. Just let him be.  
  
" _Ragu'a, tayer, ragu'a._ Be easy, I've got you," Erik shows it just as much kindness as the rest, taking it into himself and using it to mold and craft his existential form, like all of his experiences here, a suit of armor without arms, a security blanket with no thread, a place to belong when one's conscious existence is nothing but confused, twisted distortion.  
  
This piece doesn't want to be taken in. It screeches and kicks and protests, bites though it has no face and no teeth, and eventually it emerges. It looks like the teenager from the Corridor, perhaps slightly older, but there is no Corridor anymore. There isn't a Charles anymore, at least not here, but this is an echo. Something splintered off and left behind, something that belongs to the whole. He's scared, he was on his way to disappearing, but he doesn't need help. "Stop it! I didn't ask for your help! Just leave me alone, what don't you understand about that simple concept? Go away. None of us want a Dominant. We don't need someone to take care of us, or save us, or - I don't need you, so just keep going! You'll never make it anyway. You haven't a clue where you're bloody going."  
  
"I know," Erik whispers, pained. "But I love you. I need you. I'm sorry, I wish I could say the magic words that could make you understand, I wish-" all his defenses are gone, he doesn't even seem to understand he's only talking to a fragment, a child-like one at that. "I wish you knew how much I loved you. If you knew. You wouldn't be doing this, you'd come home to me. You'd come home-" Erik swallows. "But it's OK, because I'm here. And I'll tell you every day until you know."  
  
Less than a fragment. He's less than a fragment, less than a part, just an echo of an echo and breaking off by the second. Disappearing right in front of Erik's eyes, possibly forever, a part of Charles that will cease to exist. But Charles needs this echo. He needs him to be whole. He used to tell Raven that he didn't play with memories because every part of a human being was essential, every experience, no matter how inconsequential it seemed. He's gotten careful, he's learned finesse, he can make up for the missing parts, work around the whole, he's done it for Erik, mending, fixing, but there's no one to do that for him. When he loses pieces, they'll be cleaved out and they'll leave a gaping wound. This part can't be lost, but he's close to it. The Void is creeping up on him, black swirls covering his legs, crawling up his body. "If you loved us you wouldn't have let this happen! You're lying, you're just like everyone else!" he screams, and it's terror and not rage, there are tears on his cheeks. "You took our ring and you gave us a collar but you didn't keep us safe. You're just like every other Dom, but you act like you're not. Like you know better, like you know what's good for us, like you can handle it, but no one can. I'm fine and well on my own, thanks, so fuck you, just - piss off! Piss right off!"  
  
And that's why Erik is here, because he won't let that happen, because it doesn't matter if he rages and screams, Erik can see the features of the man he loves, he can see Charles's mannerisms and his insides and his mind and his precious thoughts and he doesn't care, let him rage and scream, Erik will save him, he will and he grabs hold and he doesn't let go, not ever and nothing, no Void or Otherness could ever break that, and he will explode the Void into a thousand colors exploding off of prisms until they all wind down into strands of Will that wrap him up, because Charles is right. He shouldn't have let this happen, he shouldn't have ever let this happen, from the first moment he ever got an inkling of this whether he understood it or not, he should never have abided it, and if Charles wants him to be responsible for that, too, he will, he can take it, he can take anything this world and this Void has to throw at him because that's what he was built for, that's who he is and not by Sebastian Shaw. That strength, that hardiness, that stock that drew Shaw to him wasn't instilled, it's his family. It's Edith and Iakov and Max and Ruth and his sister, all of them imprinting their hands on his heart and living inside the buried recesses of his brain, reminding him be careful, you can withstand the Void. Be careful, he loves you.  
  
This isn't Charles, but it belongs to him. It is a part of him, a nasty, angry, hurting part, but it belongs to him and he needs it. The Void wants it, too, unfortunately. It tugs when Erik pulls, and the trouble is that this almost-Charles goes toward the Darkness even as it terrifies him, even as it threatens to swallow and shred, because he can't simply be grabbed or pulled to safety. It isn't quite that simple, not when he's a scattered, broken off piece of Charles' mind. He'll let himself be eaten, the threat clear in his eyes as it mixes with the fear. "Let us free and I'll stay," he offers, his lip pursed but wobbling like Charles' does when he's too affected. "You're going to make us need you and we shouldn't need you. Let us go. I don't need a Dominant, he doesn't need a Dominant. Give us back our ring and take off the collar and I'll help you find him. You'd do it if you loved m - him."  
  
"No," Erik whispers, shaking his head. "Never. I made you a promise and I keep my promises. You gave this to me, and I gifted this to you." He strokes his fingers along the edge of that collar, so different on this Charles's form. "I love you. I won't lose you. I won't let you go. I know you do not think I can handle you, not really, but I am here, Charles. I am right here." And he knows he is not easy to handle. He knows he's not a good Dominant. That there is an ideal person out there that could be and do and say all the right things that Charles needs, and that Erik can't do. He's too stubborn and narrow-minded and simplistic and savage, a killer and G-d knows what else, but Charles said he loved him, too. Charles said that.   
  
Somewhere, he said that.

* * *

Everywhere, he said that. This Charles slaps Erik's hand away, fierce and vicious, and for a moment he has a face of a monster, not Shaw but something much more terrifying, and then it's gone. He doesn't wear a collar. He will never wear a collar. "To save him you need to save me," he tells Erik, though he isn't sure with the Void swallowing him, creeping up and up. He's waist-deep in Nothing. "I'll fight you. I'll keep fighting you. And you'll give up," he promises, his lips that thin line that Charles only wears when he's hurting the most.  
  
"I never will," Erik says, not flinching once when Charles's face flickers, and his hand captures Charles's again, presses it to his chest. "And I never have, _neshama_. You need to trust me, dear-heart. If you want to survive, you have to trust me. I'm not strong enough to beat this on my own. I need your help. I need you."  
  
This Charles scowls at him, grabs his hand back even as he's consumed. It hurts, to be eaten here. It hurts to be driven out of existence. He knows Erik is probably right, but this echo doesn't know anything except fighting, and fighting, and fighting, not the same as Erik knows but just as tireless and formidable. "I'm not yours," he insists, though it aches to say it. It makes the Darkness crawl up faster, until he's in to his neck, treading against the Void and nearly swallowed whole. He can't breathe. Soon, he won't be. "I swore I would never be anyone's. I don't want to survive if I have to -" But it's impossible to say it, because it isn't true. "You can't handle it. You won't. Just go away," he begs.  
  
"Never. Not ever." It isn't true. It's never been true. Erik has always tried his best. It's not always been good enough, but it's been pure, it's been true, it's been good. He has tried to be good to Charles and he will keep trying and keep doing it and keep going as long as he exists, in any form, in any dimension and in any dimension that he can find Charles he will be good to those, too. He puts both his hands on Charles's face and kisses his forehead, presses their brows together, digs in deep with every ounce and shred of strength he possesses, in all of the finding that his masters once had him do. He doesn't have a master anymore, contrary to the monster's implication. He is free. He chooses to exist here.  
  
This Charles is just as not-Charles as the monster, in a way. Even as the Darkness pulls away, confused and hungry but for some reason unable to feed, Charles pushes him away, angry and turbulent. He is not Erik's Charles. Perhaps he belongs inside of him, but he is not like a fragment in Erik's Land or a Charles behind a door in the Corridor that no longer exists. "Don't touch me!" he shouts, and it's filled with terror, heartbreakingly like Charles. "I tell you not to touch me, so you don't touch me. If I tell you to leave, you leave. That's what it means to be free." He steps back, and away, the frightened rabbit again that does not want to be caught. "I'm leaving," he announces, chin raised. "You won't find him. I promise you that. Even if you do, I'll be there, and I'll never, ever stop fighting you. I'll make you leave, I swear it."  
  
"I don't take Orders from you, _neshama_ ," Erik just smiles at him, and puts his hand on his shoulder, and he finds that wherever he goes, Erik is with him. "I don't need you to stop fighting to love you. I promise you that. Now you will help me put this right. You will help me repair this place, and find what needs finding, and if necessary guide whatever needs guiding back to where it belongs. You will come back to me, and our children. You will come home. There is no alternative, there is no choice. You are _not_ free. You are mine. That is an Order, do you understand?"  
  
Charles’ teeth are sharp when he smiles, pointed, because they aren’t his. Because he has no children, and he has no home besides the one he ran far away from. The castle he was imprisoned in. Even those aren’t memories he holds well, even this face isn’t entirely his; he wasn’t consumed, but Erik can’t hold him because he is not meant to exist like this. Outside of Charles. There isn’t enough of him here to do as Erik says, and so he won’t. “I don’t take Orders from you, either,” he snarls, lip curled and chin lifted, and then he disappears. Not into Darkness, not into Nothing, but into the Void. A piece to collect, scattered to the wind. Something Charles needs if he’s going to exist, and so good that Erik saved it, but not enough of him. 

* * *

He’s alone again. He’s alone for a very long time, or perhaps no time at all, because the Void speaks to Charles, and Charles has become the Void. Because he has never disobeyed a single Order even if he could, because he has never truly tried, even when he dragged his feet, even when he fought. Because he will not start now. A golden thread appears, linked to Erik’s wrist. It glows and it sings in this place of silence and Nothing, in this place of destruction and creation, and it leads to the center of the Void.   
  
It leads to the Deepest, Darkest of places, a long, long way, and there are monsters and strangers and Nothing all along the path. It leads to Charles.


	74. so much live with, it seems, as live for now among. If as

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _love love love_ , the mountain goats

Erik doesn't hesitate as it appears, as soon as it does, he is tugging on it and following its path back down. No monster can stand in his way, he cuts them down and moves as he was taught, as comes natural to his body as aches and creaks and pain and with each blow sending an iron strike of oak-cracking through his bones, they cower before him, a true D5 with every blazing tendril of Will unfurled and extended out into this place, this one place that can contain the devastating power of a hyper-Dominant, Omega-level mutant with an axe to grind. They aren't hurt. They don't die. He can't kill anything in this place, but they will obey. All of Charles, the Darkness and the formless and the Void, will obey him. Come back to me. Remember that I love you. We're going home.  
  
At the center of the Void is a prison. It is the coldest, emptiest place to exist, built of every prison that has ever inspired fear and loneliness, terror and helplessness, that has ever stolen hope. It isn’t plastic and it has no bars, but it isn’t a castle with antique furniture, white walls, empty rooms either. It isn’t anything in particular, but somehow it is everything at once. In the middle of it Charles sits, silently and still, knees pulled up to his chest. There are parts of him missing. There are chunks of him missing. Even still, he knows his Dominant, the same way he knew him when he walked into a cell that, for an instant, looks exactly like this. His head raises, and this time he is the one who says no words. Who waits to be found.  
  
In an instant the doors melt away and the plastic walls disintegrate and the bars vanish, and there is only Erik at the threshold and he crosses over, coming to kneel in front of him, touching him, examining him, unable to help smiling softly when he finds plenty that he does recognize still there; and all the rest they will gather up and find. His faith in that has never wavered. _"You understand me, don't you?"_ he whispers, touching Charles's face. For an instant, it's exactly the same, because they've never needed words to understand one another. _Modeh ani, it's time to greet the day. Hello, sunshine, my only sunshine..._  
  
They were never there to begin with. The Void isn’t like a mindscape, it can’t be formed and changed as Erik is used to, it can’t be manipulated, it isn’t the Corridor or the Landscape and it does not do anything it is directed; not by anyone but Charles, but Charles has found that Erik was right. For whatever reason, though he is the only one who could harness it, though he is where it originated, he can’t manage it alone. He’s tried, the entire time Erik wandered to find him. He’s been here, in the center of the Void, in a prison that is every prison, that is every cell, that is every horror, and he’s tried to change it. To rebuild it, to fix it, and to restore it into something resembling what it was, or create it into something it could be. He’s the only one who can, and he knows Erik can’t, but he hasn’t been able to. It’s been decades and centuries and eternities and stars have blown out, galaxies have expanded and collapsed and the Earth has been created and destroyed and rebuilt, a thousand times over, a million, and Charles has begun to lose what is perhaps the most important piece of him. When he looks up at Erik, there’s a dullness in his eyes that has never been there before. He understands, or he wouldn’t have led Erik here, but he’s not the Charles Erik grabbed as he fell. This Charles is exhausted. He doesn’t have the words to speak it. There are none.  
  
Erik has been in places like this before. One might argue the semantics, the logistics, the reality and capacity, or claim that he's oversimplifying something too complicated for his single-minded brain to truly grasp, but he recognizes this place innately.   
  
It's the point at which you begin to wonder what the purpose is for forward motion, watching the same people make the same mistakes over and over again, when all suffering begins to blend together into one endless, shapeless Void that doesn't distinguish from itself. Fuck, rape, kill, burn, treason, treachery, piracy, war, guilt, scream, torture, suffocate, drown, cut-it's all down to nerves firing, and the nerves start to dull out after so very, very long, and you start to think there's no hope, no reason, no warmth, and all of it is just a lie that humans tell one another to comfort themselves at the edge of an abyss they'll never grasp until they go careening over obliviously into Nowhere. Personhood and self and being and ideology and concepts are weaker, here, there's no dignity or honor or duty or family, there is nothing of any value or meaning beyond the next sensory moment until all senses cease, too. And then there's just emptiness. Erik can't describe the point at which Charles walked into that detention cell and illuminated the Landscape into daytime, kickstarted his soul, an existential CPR he's never learned. But it doesn't scare him.   
  
"Lean on me," he whispers, pulling Charles closer, letting him rest his weary head. "Lean on me. It's OK. I've got you. I will carry it with you. You have a home. You have friends. You have a family. We're waiting for you. We love you. This isn't the end."

* * *

It wouldn’t be correct to say that he’s forgotten, though in some cases he has. The problem is that Charles has been built to hold much more than himself, and at the moment he certainly is. The Void is not just Charles, though it ate away at him quite thoroughly. When Charles loses hope, everything he holds, all the pain he carries that is not his, all of the Somethings and the Someones that exist inside of him, that he gives a home, and a place, that he takes inside of himself to fix, that he understands, that he connects to, that he saves without conscious thought - they lose hope, too. They lose everything. To bear that without breaking, to bear human suffering on a level that cannot be conceived of, to feel it and experience and to Know it, and then to be compassionate, to be kind with it, to heal - that is a weight that seems completely unbearable. That will crush, inevitably. Erik has experienced more pain and suffering, seen more of it than any human being should have to, but even he hasn’t felt all of it. Experienced all of it. Known all of it. He wasn’t built to, and Charles is starting to believe that perhaps he was. The Void has swallowed it up, hungry and gaping, because Charles doesn’t want it. Doesn’t he have enough of his own pain? Hasn’t he suffered enough without all of theirs, too? It’s exhausting, to bear it. It’s exhausting, to feel it. What he’s been given, it’s utterly, completely exhausting, and Erik is sturdy and he is strong and he is built to hone forces that others could only dream of, and not even then, but Charles - It’s asking too much. He doesn’t want it. He can’t possibly do it. Why would anyone ask him to? It’s cruel.  
  
And Erik is a lot of things, and cruel he can be, though there's almost nothing of Charles familiar with that aspect of himself, kept carefully concealed and twisted and distorted through time that not even he can consciously access, all trapped inside the Dark Place of his own making. Life can either be very simple or very complicated, and Erik has a habit of erring on the side of simplicity. People make things complicated. It's why he forgot all their faces, because it all blurs into one long, monotonous drone buzzing around in his amygdala, pieces hacked off that he doesn't need, either. It's why he picked broad, basic things to care about, because the nuances and minutiae get swallowed up by the roaring chasm of time. This equation is simple, to him. It's always going to be too much for Charles to bear alone. He was never, nor can he ever, going to manage it. Erik is here. He is experiencing it. He is standing beside Charles. He is bearing it with him. Erik can't force him to make that choice, because the second he has room to maneuver he will just end up back here, alone and isolated, believing he's the only one worthy of the burden. All Erik can do is follow him back, and remind him to let go. Erik won't be crushed by it. He won't be. Charles needs to trust him, and he was always going to be cruel enough to demand it.  
  
Charles shakes his head. There are things he’s come to understand while he’s been in this place, and one of them is that he was right. Erik is right about a great many things, more intuitive and intelligent than anyone has ever given him credit for, but Charles finally understands what has been his all along. What he was alienated from before he was ever given the chance to experience, what he was taught to fear and hate before he could ever be curious and inviting and open. Erik grew strong because he was encouraged, because he was forced, he was coaxed, and Charles grew weak because for him it was the opposite. For him the needles served a different purpose. There are things that belong only to him. They belong to Erik because all of him belongs to Erik, but his telepathy is not Erik’s. It cannot be used by him. It cannot be honed by him. It cannot work for him in the same way Charles could make Erik do many things with his abilities, but never fully, and to take it into himself, to harness that kind of physical power would completely destroy him. He wasn’t built for it, pure and simple, the way he wasn’t built to be a Dominant.   
  
And Erik was not built for this. It isn’t his burden to bear. It just isn’t. It is Charles’, because it is Charles’ power. It is Charles’ right. It is Charles’ responsibility, the same way not reversing the Earth’s orbit is Erik’s and not Charles’. He refuses to be told otherwise. He refuses to be told what he is, because that is his decision to make. He isn’t free, and he’s chosen that. He’s chosen, willingly, consciously, to be Erik’s. But he draws a line there. This was taken from him. It was stolen from him, it was ripped from him, it was twisted for him. He won’t let even his Dominant do that. Charles is going to be the one to fix this. He’s going to be the one to bear this. He’s going to be the one to face this. Erik isn’t bearing it now, and he won’t bear it ever. He never needed Erik to do anything but be there. In some ways, he supposes Erik is right. He can’t do it alone, but not in the way Erik seems to think. Erik needs to trust Charles now, too. The problem is that Charles doesn't trust himself.  
  
Charles can draw as many lines as he likes, and usually Erik heeds him, and when he takes the time to explain himself usually Erik listens, and this time is no different. Because this is always what Erik has wanted for him, for him to be happy and adjusted and accepting of himself, things that grow in soil instead of twisted screaming and fire, even when it looks the same, it's not. Charles belongs to Erik, and whether or not Erik experiences the minutiae, it is his right and responsibility to look after it, after all of this, to give it what it needs to grow and become and flourish and not wither and rot, and whether that's a grand gesture or an insignificant whisper he will be here, right here, to provide it. There's a reason that Erik is Charles's partner, and why Charles didn't fare so well in all those years alone, despite the knowledge and the power and the privilege that he had, because there are things that Erik can give him that he cannot get anywhere else, and those are the things that he brings with him to this place, all of him, for all of Charles. It is an unflinching, unequivocal trust, one that Erik places fondly in him as with a hand over his heart.   
  
"You will never be alone again," he murmurs, and draws his hand down Charles's face. If Charles can't trust himself, he can trust that.

* * *

He isn’t that. If he’s honest, being in this place has only made him hate his own abilities more. He’s had ages to grow resentful, here, to grow increasingly frightened of himself, to bask in his own insecurities. The truth is that he doesn’t fare well on his own, and he never truly has, regardless of what fragments and echoes of him might believe. Despite what he might have believed wholeheartedly in the past, and still falls into the trap of occasionally now. It isn’t about drawing lines that Erik can’t cross, of building up boundaries and walls to hide and keep him out. It was, in the beginning. It isn’t now. There should be a space for both of them, and they’d already started building it. On the plane, before they’d consciously realized it, a place that wasn’t quite Charles and wasn’t quite Erik, a game that they never finished and certainly need to. Sometimes it starts with a game. But some things they can’t fix for each other. There is some fighting that cannot be done for each other. Charles would like to make a correction; shield-mates make each other stronger, and they go to battle together, but the battles are not always the same. That doesn’t mean they’re alone. It doesn’t mean they cannot gather strength from each other first, and go to each other afterwards. It doesn’t mean Erik shouldn’t be here as the battle is fought. I trust you, Charles promises, not with a mouth but with his entire being, as much of it is here and beyond that, too, outside of this prison that he still finds himself lingering in. He does. He always did. He’ll try to listen. That echo of him was wrong. He doesn’t want to be free, and he never knew what to do with it. Being untethered, being alone. He’d much prefer being Erik’s.  
  
Erik would much prefer it, too, he laughs gently, eyes wrinkled in fondness. He's not sure they've ever stopped playing that game, as much as he can no longer recognize his own mind but for the vulgar fragments that remain, shrieking themselves in demand to be heard, to be pushed away, to be reviled in obscenity, but beyond that there is a place that exists within him that never would without Charles. Despite his hardheaded stubbornness he does intuitively know when to push and when to support, and there will always be aspects of Charles's experiences that he cannot grasp simply because he cannot wield psionics in that same capacity, his brain isn't physically capable of conceptualizing some things, even in the Void he's imagined or envisioned things that weren't really happening, because the mind can't exist in isolated nothingness. He's spent a long time at the bottom of quite a few prisons to know that eventually the black walls begin to dance and sing, a chorus of shadows. He's never believed that Charles is broken, but where there are gashes and tears on his person Erik will be here to help him mend. Erik thought he was going to die. He thought Charles wanted to die, to leave him, that he was through. His heart is still frozen in his chest, unconvinced it's all right to fire up again.  
  
They’re still here. Charles knows what he needs to do now, but he’s not sure it will be quite the solution Erik hopes it is, the fix that assures he will never be in pain again; it might be much slower than all that. It might take time. More than that, he thinks it might hurt an awful lot, though he doesn’t have the experience to know that for sure. What he does know is that he’s scared. What he does know is that not all of him is here, and the parts that are missing he’s worried he might never get back. What he does know is that the Void is always, constantly pressing in, and he worries not only for them but for the world outside of them, for the minds sucked into his orbit. He also knows that he is Erik’s. He also knows that he would never leave him, that all he wanted was to keep him safe, was to protect him, was to - he’d been scared. There’s still a possibility this won’t work. Charles is still weary, exhausted, and before Erik got here he was feeling rather like there wasn’t any hope. He leans against him, and there are more than gashes. There are wounds, not physical but just as obvious. There are chunks cut out, that he had to sacrifice if he wanted to stay alive long enough for Erik to get here. He’s worried he might not be the same when this is done. He’s worried he won’t be recognizable. He’s worried he won’t be Erik’s. He really doesn't want it, you know. He doesn't want to be set free. He does need Erik, but he thinks he's supposed to.  
  
It's OK to change. It's OK not to be the same person you were before. Erik isn't the same. He has the presence of mind to know that by the time Shaw's sentence is handed down he won't be the same again. But even here they both know the truth, what matters the most, what is the most themselves at the bottom of the ocean, inside the caves where they can breathe. He takes Charles's weight easily, figurative as well as literal, running his hand over the back of his head, gathering his hair in his fingertips. He doesn't need a guarantee. He never has. All he wants is for them to brave it together. No more shoving one behind the other. No more hiding and covering. Sometimes Erik thinks maybe all his courage is just stupidity, that Charles must be in possession of some great big secret universal knowledge that he isn't privy to, but it's here all the same, shimmering around them. Faith and trust and hope. They're off to see the wizard, so they're going to need it.  
  
But doesn't Erik see that he doesn't want to change? He doesn't want to lose the fundamental parts of himself, the parts that Erik fell in love with, the parts that he owns completely and Charles finds himself at least coming to terms with because if they belong to Erik, there must be something good in them. He doesn't want to lose the parts that belong to Erik, to stop being - and it's silly, to think of it now, to think of being Erik's boy, but sometimes that's all he wants to be. The world is resting right on his shoulders, the Void is pressing in, and it's all he wants to be, universal secrets and knowledge and responsibility be damned.  
  
"I won't let you lose yourself, _tayer_ ," he whispers back, soothing him softly, head shaking. Not the things he needs, not the things that are good for him. Erik won't let it happen. That's why he's here. He takes care of his belongings, and he does not find it silly. There are no parts of Charles that Erik fell in love with. Even the ones that rage and snarl at him, Erik loves those, too, because they all contain an ember of the Whole. And it is good, in whatever form it manifests. If Charles forgets, Erik will remind him. If he changes, Erik will keep him steady, he will make sure he doesn't lose the things that are essential to him, to them. Right here, right now, it's all Charles has to be.  
  
It isn't, though. He wishes it was. Wishing does nothing, it changes nothing, and Charles is only prolonging this and putting them both in danger in the process, but he's afraid. Not of the pain, but of the aftermath. Of hurting Erik with it, but of the consequences, too. And he's exhausted, and he's beyond overwhelmed, he doesn't even have all of himself at the moment and what's ahead of him is unfathomable and - it is silly, it must be. To be here, to have this in front of him, and all he wants to do is crawl into Erik's lap. To be Erik's boy, Erik's belonging. That echo that taunted Erik would be appalled. He would be disgusted. In that moment Charles is disgusted with himself, too, as if he's remembered to be.  
  
Well, Erik doesn't take Orders from echoes, and he taps Charles on the nose fondly with his index finger. Erik won't let him say those things, either. It isn't disgusting. It isn't wrong. It isn't twisted. As unlikely as it's possible to be, they've forged something healthy and that remains even still. His eyes flutter closed for a moment and he breathes carefully through his nose, fingers crawling up his spine and smothering themselves over his mouth and down his throat and he clears it abruptly, swallowing down every last inch of panic that threatens. They can't stay here. They can't exist like this. They have to move forward. That's all they can do, is move forward. He tilts Charles's chin up to meet his eyes, firm and in control. That has no place here.  
  
It doesn't go away. It doesn't go away because Charles is still afraid, and he's still exhausted, and he's still resentful, and he doesn't want to do this. He doesn't want to try. Erik will die if he stays here, though. He hasn't yet, but Charles can't hold him here and expect him not to get swallowed. Charles can't protect him forever from the Void, or anyone else, for that matter, including himself. But it's too much. It's too much, and Charles is the only one who can handle it but that doesn't mean he wants to. It is disgusting, that he's become this. It is disgusting that - he ducks his head, shifting it out of Erik's grip. It might not matter, when this is over.  
  
Erik can't tell him what will or won't matter, but he ruthlessly and effectively shuts down that line of thinking. There is nothing disgusting about him. He is still as beautiful as the first time Erik ever laid eyes upon him, and he refuses to leave him twist his own tail about it, he refuses not to let him see. His grip remains strong and unbroken, but it gentles before his fingers clasp firmly. Erik sees him. Erik loves him. He belongs to Erik and he always will, and Erik will never allow him to hack away those parts.  
  
Charles doesn't know what's going to happen to him. He doesn't know if everything that's here now will still be here in a few moments. For all that he does know and understand, there are things he doesn't, and how this will affect him is one of them. He won't ever see himself the way Erik does, but he does allow himself to crawl into Erik's lap all the same, to swallow hard around the fear as he rests against his shoulder, small and tucked in. If this is the last time, he can enjoy it. If this is the last time he gets to - to be Erik's, Erik's submissive, Erik's belonging, Erik's - he won't think it this time, he won't let himself go there. He'll take this, though. If this is the last time he'll take this.  
  
"Never the last," Erik tells him, in the way he says things that Charles never quite believes but is so full of utter confidence and certainty that it's hard not to. It's easy to see why people naturally heed Erik's words, why he naturally falls into leading (while sometimes failing to grasp the nuance of the situation before him, undoubtedly, but-) because he believes them with every fiber of his being and it's hard to fake that kind of sincerity. And if Charles is going to be his, then he will be his. All of him. He won't let him shy away. "I love you very much, sweetheart. _Yeled nehedar sheli_ , we're going to make it through this. You're going to come home to me, because you are mine. I swear it to you." For the first time in what feels like a million eons, he sags slightly, as if his body remembers having his submissive in his arms, right where he belongs, and it's good. No matter what's happening in the background. One foot in front of the other. They can do this.

* * *

Charles' eyes close. He goes completely still. Eons pass, millions of them, more time than any human being has experienced, but nothing seems to be changing. It is. Undoubtedly, it is, though Erik can't see exactly what it is. Charles stays in his arms, and he doesn't scream, or shake, or retch. In some place, in some way, perhaps he is. What he's doing is more immense than even he can comprehend, and it would shred someone like Emma Frost to pieces. When his eyes open, they're filled with the Void, black not like the sky but like the Nothing that came before everything.  
  
Erik looks, and looks and looks and brushes his fingers under those eyes and cradles his body and sings him some songs and tells him all the stories he's filled up with, every last particle of his collar vibrating in the Real with every tale he's ever wanted to tell, every note of harmony that's ever echoed off of every wall, rocks him back and forth and keeps him perfectly-still in tandem, and Erik can't see and he can't hear and he doesn't know but he stays and he rocks and he sings and he speaks and he pets and touches and loves and gives and gives and gives, and gives, and glows, as much as he can. Light and bright and joy and beauty. Existence. Time. Love.  
  
Something is changing again, though perhaps in this place it takes years what might only truly be seconds. In the Real, they haven't even finished their journey, Erik's body hovering them over the ocean. But it hasn't yet been long enough. Not a full seven minutes, not out there, and if they'd been on a plane it would have ended in disaster. Death. Charles' Dominant doesn't need to know the Void to know how to best protect him, what to forbid. His skin begins to crack open. The Void peeks out, and through, but it isn't quite like the Darkness swallowing the echo before. It's something different. He stands, slowly, and turns to face the Void, except this time he isn't fighting the Void. He's becoming it. More spots pop up, crack, become, his clothing gone to make room for the transformation. When he turns, he's more Void than Charles, except when he smiles one of his dimples still stands out against cracked cheek.   
  
This isn't his Charles anymore, not here, but he is. He's never made a facet before. He's never needed to. To separate, to create a part of himself to do a job. Perhaps this isn't the same thing, because this Charles who stands here at the center of the Void is all Charles is and was, all that he may ever be, and he Knows. But Void-Charles, even the Charles with answers and knowledge no one person should ever have, even having consumed the Void, wears Erik's collar. The only thing he wears.  
  
Erik grins back at him, laying his hand over that cracked cheek, flesh against the blackened-bright mysterious-galaxy and he recognizes Charles, his-Charles, Void-Charles, in any form in any space in any conception. He loves, and loves, and loves. _"The things you do for love are going to come back to you one by one..."_ his finger trails over that dimple. Over his collar. Delicate and gentle and reverent and entitled and owning and leashing and being. Charles, his mind, every facet and quirk and tick, is his favorite person in the universe. He is honored to be here, to be the one that this entity, this being, this gorgeous person has chosen to bind himself to, and he doesn't always know how he's going to do it, he doesn't always know if he's going to be enough, but right now, he is. He grins back, and rests his hand upon his cheek, and welcomes him home into the Beyond.

* * *

It isn't perfect, but it is a start much more efficient than a locked door or a barrier. There will be pain, and bloody noses might be the least of it. In the Real, Charles is so hot his body is burning, sweating with the fever, shaking over Erik's shoulder and wracked by it, and he isn't sick, perhaps, not in any traditional way, not in a way medicine can heal, but he is changing. Change can be painful. Exceptionally so. He isn't dying but being reborn isn't such easy work, either. But Void-Charles understands, now, and there's no more fighting it. The Charles out there might be afraid, but there is something Inside that knows, and he will let Erik know, too, how to best care for his beloved. Because he knows that Erik is the best for them. Charles' responsibilities may not belong to him, but Charles does. Even this being of the Void. He steps back, not to hide away or put distance, but to create. He lifts his hand and the Void closes up, closes his eyes and shivers once as he swallows up the rest of it. Those gaping parts of his skin spread and pulsate visibly.   
  
_Would you like to help?_ the Void asks, but he looks so much like Charles that it's no longer quite as cold. He can teach Erik, too. Teach me how to care for you, Erik has asked of Charles before. Charles obeys here, too.  
  
He nods, and it's not easy work but it is good work and he keeps his eyes peeled for every ounce, and when the being offers his gift to Erik he takes it eagerly, because it is a gift, the gift of help and choice and joy and wonder, and he puts his hands gently over the Void's, petting him so carefully, as if he might break even though Erik knows he won't, because he is here to care for Charles, in whatever capacity that may be, it is what he has sworn to do and what he will dedicate himself to doing for the rest of his days with pleasure. He's never found it cold. Not ever. And it's never been a distanced thing, it is as familiar to Erik as any other part of Charles, something he's always known was inside. And he loves wholly and without reservation. "Tell me how," he whispers back, rubbing his thumb over the cracked skin of his hand.  
  
The Void smiles though part of his mouth is gone, or perhaps just filled with the stuff of the universe. It’s still hungry, and perhaps it can be destructive, but it doesn’t want to hurt; when it took those people and places and things inside of it, its intention was to help them. It got twisted somewhere along the way, confused and distorted, but Charles has fixed it, and now this being exists. Out of everything. He steps back again but keeps their fingers touching, stretched out over the distance, and tilts his head, Charles’ hair falling in front of its eyes, at first looking black as anything but they’re not empty.   
  
There are galaxies inside of them. He doesn’t have anywhere to go, it explains, because it can live here, and it will, taking care of the knowledge and the answers and the raw, incomprehensible power, giving Charles the access he was always meant to have when he wishes it (and sometimes when he doesn’t, but the Void knows that what Charles wants is not always what he needs, and he knows Erik will help with that, too), but Charles needs somewhere that is his, too. Somewhere he can exist without the incredible weight of the universe, where its voices and knowledge don’t reach him. The Void blinks, as much as it can blink, and there is no longer emptiness or Darkness. There is fresh snow on the ground and there is a castle that no longer seems so cold and looming, even despite the chill of winter here, with doors that lock but rooms that don’t seem as empty and a Corridor that is not quite as long and barren. It stops, eventually, outside of the castle. It could be endless. There is room for endless, for roaming land and mountains, for fields and fields -   
  
_Perhaps some landscaping is in order_ , the Void suggests, and its not-lips quirk. Charles is in him, too, just like he will always be in Charles.  
  
Erik laughs softly, and gazes about this new Landscape, and the snow begins to twin into strands of sand that spill from the sky in sprinkles of mist, and flowers form out of the loaming earth below their feet, crawling up the walls and enveloping the stones just as Erik's arms hold Charles in the Real. There's always been a place for Charles inside the vast cosmos of Erik's own mind, and here is where he brings it, a place where Charles can rest his weary head, where he can rest his weight, where he can be-not free, because he was never free, not from the moment that Erik entered the world, but expansive. Expressive. Safe. Happy, healthy. The snow is warm, and fresh, and makes tracks beneath their boots and Erik tugs Charles along by the hand, as if they're two young boys again, the Void and Erik the Red, trudging through the courtyard mucking up their clothes and where they tread, sunflowers and sparkling rainbows trail just behind.  
  
It’s for Erik, too. What they’ve done here will change everything, and it will take time, unlike the blink of first Creation - breaking down the boundary perhaps seem effortless, but the Void knows that despite the Bond, despite the way their minds have always made space and room for each other, welcomed the other in even when they didn’t - Charles was frightened and confused, and he pulled Erik in, that very first time, he grabbed him and asked for his help before any of it - there are places where the melding won’t be as seamless. Where the snow and the sand will make a distinct line, and the doors will lock in the castle and the people that once lived in the Landscape might have trouble acclimating, just like the parts of Charles will need to learn to share their Corridors, but that’s what being Bonded is. This place is fairly deserted, now, the parts of Charles that belong here and the parts of Erik not settled in, but they will be. They have the tools, and at the end of it, perhaps they will just play a game. The Void lets itself be led, and then it lets go. It can’t stay here. Its job is almost done, though there is endless work to do.   
  
_There are parts still missing, or in the wrong places,_ the Void whispers, and though it is everything and nothing, though it meant no harm, it is sorry for that. _He’ll need you. He won't always know it._  
  
And Erik jumped with both feet, without even looking, without even thinking or blinking because Charles had asked and of course there was no other recourse but to oblige, and when the Void whispers to him he just smiles back, gentle and fond and he stops where Charles has stopped, stroking his hand over the edges of his collar. He's always known that Charles needed him but to hear it stated so plainly when all Charles has ever done is rail against it threatens to break his composure, but he just keeps smiling, and wipes the back of his hand over his nose discreetly. "He'll have me. You'll have me. I won't be going anywhere. Not ever."  
  
That’s not entirely true, now is it? Charles has done much more than rail against it. He’s made it perfectly clear in the past, and he’ll make it perfectly clear in the future, but there are parts of him that do rail, and they belong to Erik just the same. The Void knows, and it smiles accordingly. This was Erik’s idea in the first place, and Charles was the one who protested - but final decisions get made regardless of what he thinks is best for himself, because he’s never been free (except, debatably, for two or three months) and Erik has always been more than enough. He’s been exactly right. He needs you now, the Void says, simply, because there are things for him to do but he is strong enough to do them. He swallowed the universe and lived, and now Charles - the Charles out there, the Charles still feverish and shaking - he needs the attention. He’ll be the one adjusting, and the changes will be difficult. The work isn’t done. It’s time to get started.  
  
"I love you," he whispers, touching his cheek fondly. Don't ever forget that. If he knows everything, he must Know this. In the Real Erik rocks him, soothes him, motions as natural to him as any fierce fighting could be. For this to be what he needs, Erik was built to give it, affection pouring from him the same way that the Universe poured from the cracks of the Void's skin. He isn't afraid. He's never been afraid, not of change, not of Charles, only that he wouldn't be enough, that he couldn't do enough, that Charles wouldn't come back to him, in any form, that he'd killed Charles just as he predicted he'd do so many times before and how could he bear that, how could he-but he didn't, he doesn't have to, he was right. He kept the faith, he never wavered, and he never will. His resolve only tightens, strengthens.   
  
They're going home. Over the sea, and into the hearth.


	75. close as we’re ever likely to get, you and I, is this—this close—

The Void has disappeared, though it lives inside of Charles as much as any other part, and it’s doing its work much more efficiently now that it hasn’t been chased off or warded behind doors and barriers, locked in basements and threatened with needles. The whirring sounds much less mechanic now, because supercomputer was never a particularly apt description of what Charles is capable of; he would break those machines if put up against them, in an instant, in a blink. He still needs to boot up, however, to process the rush of it, and he isn’t anywhere close. He might not be for a long while, and waking up is going to be even more of a horrid process, so good luck getting him into the shower and into his Postures, Erik. Charles hasn’t been sleeping, but he is still shivering with it, his skin hot in places and cold in others, his eyes closed though they move rapidly behind his eyelids. When he opens them, bleary and dizzy against Erik’s shoulder, they’re blue, blue as anything, bluer than they’ve ever been. “ _Hh_ ,” is his intelligent attempt at words, slurred by pain and exhaustion and delirium, but it sounds like, _Thank you. I love you. I need you, so please don’t go. Don't let me be free._  
  
That's what Erik is here for, too, to nudge him into every place that he has to go, the physical and the mental both. When he needs his Postures he'll get them, when he needs to sleep Erik will whisper him a song to lull him off, he will feed him and groom him and take care of him, things that were always taught to him as the actions of a submissive, ironically they're as natural as breathing and they don't feel anywhere close. He brushes his fingertips under Charles's eyes, smiling down at him. " _Shalom, neshama_ ," he huffs, encouraging him to lie still and relax. They're still over the ocean, and in another burst of light and speed the city skyline rushes up into view over the horizon, dizzying. Never free, but it's a choice he's made, and watching him make it again warms him from the inside out even as the chill of New York begins to creep back in.  
  
Some of them are a submissive’s duty, too. Many of them are, actually, though it’s less about nudging and Commanding and more about offering and servicing and he really just thinks Erik was taught one way and not the other, the complementary opposite. Even still in pain, even burning and freezing, aching and distinctly uncomfortable, he’s aware that Erik hasn’t slept. That he hasn’t eaten, though that one is more difficult and Charles can’t imagine eating anytime soon, either. Dizzy and reeling and hurting, he can’t imagine standing much let alone getting out of bed, so it seems a perfect time for both of them to rest. Erik will rest with him, won’t he? He’ll sleep? Charles still has the ability to be stubborn even as he is now, and he doesn’t think he’ll be sleeping as much as he’s working this off. He can lull him off, too. He'll plead if he has to. At the moment he's rather pathetic, so it might work in his advantage.  
  
They both will rest, Erik assures him with a nod. He can't promise to sleep. He's too keyed up, too overwhelmed and fractured and distressed and scared and agonized and panicky and a million, trillion other adjectives of disoriented, confused pain racing in arcs between his neurons, but he will rest, and he will restore, he will restore them both, he will tend to them both and make sure that they recover and get strong again and they won't wither away, they'll be happy and warm and safe-it's a mantra, with images of blankets and hot water and tea and coffee and bread and bed and trinkets and arms wrapped up in one another, it's all Erik can focus on, the utter simplicity of existence with his submissive, the whole world fallen away.  
  
Resting includes sleep, and the proof is in the pudding if the other day is anything to go by. It worries him, how little Erik has gotten. It worries him that he’s still thinking of tending, even if Charles is the one who appears to need it more at the moment, his body going through the process of whatever it is that’s happening. He doesn’t know, exactly, and that’s frightening, but there is a part of him that does and he’ll have to simply trust that he isn’t dying. It will work itself out, like a sickness that needs to be expelled, and if he has to be uncomfortable while it happens than so be it. But he could tend to Erik, too. That’s what he’s meant to do. It’s part of being not free, of being - he stops that train of thought, because it’s the last one he can remember having before everything cracked open, before the Void was consumed and then created, all at once, and it’s embarrassing to him now. If he wasn’t pale as a ghost, slightly grey, he might flush. Let him fix it. Please let him fix it. “Please,” he croaks, out loud now, and his voice is hoarse enough that it barely sounds like him at all, but it’s his voice, and he is pleading.

* * *

They finally land on solid ground, Erik's feet touching wet cement and he can't help but shiver; he's still wearing summer clothes, and it doesn't feel like summer, here, even though it's fast approaching and it's raining and grey and Erik blinks long hair out of his face, a stunned little motion like a wet cat and he erupts in little giggles, raising his hands to the sky. It warms, then, reflecting brilliant colors without a sun to guide them, scattering on the pavement. They're home. They're going to fix it. Erik will let him fix it, Erik will give him purpose and security and anything he needs, anything at all, there is no more resistance left in him after today, his defenses are completely lowered and he just nods, Charles carried sturdily in his arms past the threshold of Raven and Hank's.  
  
Charles’ first response, seeing as they don’t exactly have a home of their own - they will, soon, he thinks, they will - is that he should want to see Raven immediately. He doesn’t. He’s worn, and he’s exhausted, and all of his defenses are down, too. He’s sick and he’s hurting and now he’s hot but he was hot to begin with so it doesn’t exactly matter, he’s running a ridiculous fever, and he rather feels like he might throw up again, though the jury’s out on that one. He looks like he’s half-dead, though that will change, too. She’s going to fuss, and she’s going to worry, and maybe it isn’t fair but he covers it up, hides the front door opening, because it’s still night here and he’s not going to wake her up when he can’t handle interacting with anyone who isn’t Erik. Upstairs. They’ll go upstairs, to the bed that’s currently theirs, and Charles will help Erik sleep and he won’t have to be upright anymore. That sounds nice. He thinks he still wants exactly what he wanted when he was in that place, that he just wants to be - he cuts it off again, but it’s still there. He still wants. It’s all he wants. Parts of him are scattered and missing but the ones he has all want that.  
  
Erik certainly doesn't argue, ferrying them up the stairs and into their room and laying Charles out on the bed, adjusting the temperature to try and accommodate as best as he can, wrapping him up in blankets that soothe and cool instead of the toasty comfort that Erik craves at the moment, and he wraps Charles up tight, kissing his forehead and his jaw and his cheeks, and his lips, too, gently. Just touching him, a touchstone and a reminder both. "And you are," he whispers, fond, firm and certain. It's all Erik wants, too. It's all he's ever wanted, and the great howling creature that lives in his heart is pacified only slightly, but it's been awakened by the edges of Charles's thoughts and it doesn't like the turn they take away-no, not away. Not away from him. _Tell me_ , the Order manifests like a bloom of liquid light under Charles's skin. Tell me what you want to be.  
  
Now he's a bit cold, but it's really not worth mentioning. He can't imagine being comfortable right now, but he lets Erik fuss and settle him, leaning limp into the kisses but radiating pleasure and adoration and devotion all the same. The Order inspires something different, besides a shiver that doesn't have to do with the cold, and he whines, quiet and cracked, turning his head into the pillow. He's remembered how to be embarrassed through this, at least, and some things feel brand new though they aren't. As if he's doing them all over again, and perhaps all his worrying about losing was related to something inside, too. " _Mmmbhh_ ," is his response, muffled by the pillow, his eyes closing. He's sick, so surely that's enough. He's done his best. Truly.  
  
He laughs, his voice hoarse and cracked, and it's the first time he's heard it out of his own throat in quite a while, and it sounds foreign to him, but he just chuckles. "Tell me properly," he rasps, the first words in English he's spoken in a long time and his accent's suffered for it. "I want to hear. Tell me, sweetheart." That's an Order, too, with a zap like an electric crackle inside of Charles's nerves. It's like new and it's not all the same, because they fall into it as easily as the walls melt away between them, because they were always destined to end up right back here, the only home Erik has ever known. His long fingers curl over Charles's jaw and turn it toward him, pinning his eyes at once.  
  
It doesn't sound foreign to Charles. Actually, it sounds like the most familiar thing in the world, and he arches slightly towards it even before Erik moves him, as if seeking it out. The Orders, too, and he whines again, louder this time, but there's pleasure there, too, contentment, neediness, even with his eyes still bleary and everything overwhelming and still painful. "Yours," he mumbles, as quietly as he can, lips pursed into a soft little pout even as he tries to roll closer, because he wants to be called sweetheart again in that deep, roughly accented, warm voice, even raspy from disuse, he wants to be held, he wants exactly what he's about to say despite the embarrassment that wafts between them, and maybe there is a bit of a flush to his cheeks that isn't entirely from the fever. "Belong to you. Your boy," he finally manages, and he's too exhausted to squirm from it but the sentiment is still there.  
  
It makes Erik grin brilliantly and he can't help but kiss Charles again, and now he's satisfied, almost purring with it, more relaxed than he's felt in a thousand years, and it's been a thousand years. He's lived a thousand years, a million years, an eternity, carrying tension and grief and it all melts out of him in a single moment as time kickstarts, and there must've been a point at which he himself had forgotten what it felt like to be content, to be loved and safe and happy, a cruel trick of his own devising to soften the blow of an eternity of its loss. He will never complain, he will never falter, he will never bring it up because he knows that what he's experienced was only a fraction of what Charles had to endure and he would happily do so again and again for the rest of his existence, but that kind of loneliness is transformative, and he is only human, and he did forget for a moment he forgot what it felt like to have Charles look up at him and smile at him and tell him what he wants to hear, and now it's here, and it threatens to be too much all at once so Erik just kisses him again and settles down, the beast soothed a while longer. His. His precious, beautiful submissive. His beloved. His Bonded. Home now.  
  
Charles is soothed, too, even though he knows. He knows Erik endured for him, and he knows there will be guilt, but there isn't now. There is hazy, muddled contentment and there is exhaustion and there is Erik, there is subspace - he forgot he could feel that, he forgot what it was like, it's strange and not-quite because he is not-quite there, but he feels it and he responds and he wants to feel it again, he wants it, he wants to be Erik's again after so long - and there is being loved, and owned. There will be time. Now he fusses, curls up into Erik's arms, into his chest, too limp and sick to kiss back but he echoes with them, pleased to have received them. Grateful. His lips are quirked as much as he can manage. "Sleep?" he asks, hopeful. He means Erik, but he might go, too. They could sleep together for once, wrapped up. Charles knows how to fix it so Erik can. He'll be good - oh, that's nice. He hopes he doesn't forget that he wants that while he's sleeping.  
  
Erik is grateful, too, and grateful that Charles doesn't feel guilt right now, or ever, honestly. Erik would take that emotion from him if he could, especially when it concerns himself, because he is worth everything, and maybe Erik can't understand everything that happened but the fact that he emerged with his cognitive abilities in tact, that he remembers Charles at all, is a testament to just how powerful their Bond really is, because he's forgotten other things, too. All of it seemed so far away after a time, until his mind shrank in on itself and ceased to exist in conscious form, Shaw and _Sisim_ and Azazel and the _Hellfire Club_ , melted into an endless expanse.  
  
Just another in a long line of tyrants and pillagers and murderers on planet Earth, and it was good to forget, but now his mind is beginning to reorient, to restructure-to recover, too, rebounding at a rapid rate in part to something he doesn't understand. It starts with subspace and ends with belonging and his collar and his ring and his silly cuffs and their contract, and it doesn't end, not ever, not as long as he could ever help it. Not as long as any impulse exists inside of him.   
  
"Sleep," he agrees, but he taps Charles on the nose. "Sleep too." He doesn't sleep, though, he just lolls, attention obliterated for anything other than the man in his arms.


	76. If there is a way to find you I will find you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _song of myself_ , walt whitman

Charles helps him sleep. He eases him into it, soothes him into it, not a Command but a soft, gentle offering, and when Erik takes it he sings. It doesn’t take long at all for him to drift off, too.  
  
If he’s honest, he doesn’t remember waking up. Everything blurs for a long while after that, in and out of consciousness, out of sleep, out of the Real. There’s rebuilding to be done, there’s restructuring to be done, there’s endless work, but not much of it actually happens because there’s recovery that must come before it. They can’t work on the mindspace they now share until Charles can reach it, and he hasn’t truly been able to. The Void inside of him expands and works to feed back what it swallowed, to return what it stole when it wasn’t Charles but something else, or at least when it was too twisted to resemble him, but that makes Charles more confused. Sometimes he comes to with memories that aren’t his own, and he’s uncertain where he is. Sometimes the memories that are his aren’t properly in sequence. When he first sees Raven, he doesn’t recognize her - he knows her as a little girl, and now she’s a grown woman, and the two don’t reconcile properly in his head. He’d cried with it, shaken, and hugged her tightly while she stared at Erik, patting at him and bewildered and concerned herself. He forgets things that are important. He forgets things that are insignificant. He knows things that he shouldn’t, things he never wanted to know, and the knowledge pops up at inopportune times, surprising and horrifying him. He’s ill, too, sometimes vomiting, sometimes feverish, sometimes so weak he can’t get out of bed.  
  
But it gets better. They manage it together. When he can’t walk, Erik seems perfectly willing to carry him, and what Erik lost Charles fixes, much more capable of it than he is with himself. They have the time to recuperate before they’re expected on another plane, besides - Charles might advocate for the plane in that case - and until then, there’s something almost calming about this. About having the time to heal. He’s not sure he can take the trip back to Israel even with Erik’s powers, because it does muddle things up, but they see the children regardless. His powers, even as the Void works to fix them, work for him effortlessly. No short-circuiting, hardly any effort at all. Sometimes he thinks he’s forgotten them, that he doesn’t know them at all, but when he sees their faces…  
  
There are things that can’t be forgotten.  
  
They’re lying in bed, and time sometimes has less meaning than it used to, but Charles knows what day it is. Early morning, two days since they returned to New York, and he supposes he could write it off as jetlag. It makes his lips pull up where he’s resting against Erik’s chest, stronger than he’s felt in a while but unwilling to get up, and Erik fortunately seems to be feeling similar. They drift in and out, bubbled up together, the sun beginning to streak through the windows and onto the soft yellow sheets Erik had insisted on. Charles is wearing one of Erik’s shirts. He’s been awake for a while now, but he hasn’t said anything, not wanting to disturb the moment. Except there’s something on his mind, and sometimes when there’s something on his mind now it doesn’t stay there. Even so, he doesn’t want to ruin the moment. They feel fleeting, lately. He always worries he’ll forget them, minute to minute.  
  
Erik has gentled out, which Charles has always known is the natural conclusion to the way his mind works, to the way his thoughts roll around and the flavor of them that is uniquely his own, shedding what isn't needed to make room for the infinite pleasures of being at home with his Bonded. It's not all-ease and the world slips back in, the minutiae increasing minute to minute, things he'd forgotten to care about creeping back in like filtering sunlight, but he's gentled, all the time pressing in on him like a blade without the sting of a cut helpful in the way that time is healing, dulling, calming, adrift in an endless sea. Erik isn't accustomed to water yet, and maybe it's just because all the layers of his mind haven't properly peeled back in over the atmosphere, but he's a boat in the open, rocking along the waves harmlessly, a lighthouse-buoy experiencing the glitters of life for the first time, new knowledge grasped from the filter of being loved, of being with his submissive. And it's a consequence that as Erik recovers more of what was lost, he does become more familiar.  
  
More combative, more aggressive, his body tensing back up with ingrained fear he doesn't recall the cause for, until someone says or does something he doesn't like and his instinct is to lash out and hit and snarl, a reaction that before-now was always buried underneath the Earth but is stripped away clear. His pieces don't come back linearly and so all of his coping mechanisms aren't in perfect order, which results in some... mishaps, but Charles is there and even sick, he can smooth things over. Clean up the pieces Erik can't help leaving behind, regretful and guilty when he recognizes what he's done. This morning, though, he's fast asleep while Charles studies him, his features slack, but he stirs and his eyes crack open and he smiles, chest rising and falling in expanding breaths of wakefulness.  
  
" _Boker tov,_ " he draws his hand down Charles's face, eyebrows knit together while he works out how to be conscious again.  
  
What’s on his mind can wait, Charles decides. Erik has been sleeping in the past few days, mostly due to Charles’ influence, but regardless of the why or how it’s more of a relief than he knows how to properly express. He remembers what Erik looked like when they first met, for the second (or third, or fourth, or fifth, they never really stopped meeting until they met again - ) time, how dark and deep the circles under his eyes were. They’re still there, but here, in this soft morning light, they’re much less pronounced. Charles feels better than he has in days, and he wiggles until he’s even closer, wound up in Erik’s arms, nuzzling below his chin and into his chest. “Morning,” he sighs, eyelids fluttering closed again. It’s peaceful, like this. He doesn’t want Erik to stop holding him. He can wake up as slowly as he pleases.  
  
Erik grins up at him, the one completely without guile that's a little sharklike, just because he's happy; to be awake, to be here; and by now he's promptly shed all of his clothes because he still doesn't like them, covered in only the yellow blanket so Charles touches skin and it's nice, and he hasn't shaved in a few days so he's a little scratchy when he gives a sleepy kiss to Charles's forehead and his arms tighten more. He picks up that there's something to Discuss and Talk About, but they have time, they have peace, and he lets himself rouse slowly for a change instead of springing immediately into action and full alertness. This is the only spot in the universe he's truly safe, right here, and he fully intends on maximizing it. He checks on Charles, too, instinctive. Did he rest? How is he feeling? How is his temperature? Erik's hand is cool against his brow, and he adjusts unconsciously as he goes about his examination.  
  
Charles hums quietly, sleepy and pliant, letting himself be touched and fussed over and checked on, because Erik’s been doing this often and he couldn’t possibly lie and say he minds the attention. He’s still a bit warm - a lot warm, actually, but considering how hot he was before (Hank had been more than a little alarmed), it’s an improvement. He doesn’t feel nearly as weak, or lightheaded, or nauseous, and the pain at his temples feels more like a headache and less like he has an icepick stuck through one side of his head and fire raging at the other, so they’re doing brilliant on that front. He’s only been awake for an hour or so, maybe less. He drifts in and out. He provides this information easily, obediently, languidly, all but climbs on top of his Dominant when he’s through checking his temperature to nuzzle further, seeking more contact. “Sleep well?” he asks, muffled by Erik’s chest.  
  
Erik's arms and legs both envelop him and keep him trapped and close, and he nods, but of course Charles knows that; he practically ensured it. " _Toda raba_ ," he laughs, pleased that the horrifying, screeching cacophony of symptoms have begun to ease their grip on Charles at least this much, and despite Hank's terror Erik is perfectly aware of the improvement and exceedingly grateful, thank-you-very-much. Like every morning, his thoughts drift to the children, wondering where they are, how they're doing, and Charles helps him check on them, too, and then on everyone else as his mind gradually boots up. Making sure they're safe and cared for, Raven and Hank and Warren and David and Ellie and the kids, all of them, and Magda, too, his mind flaring out before receding once more into the comfort of their bedroom nest.  
  
Charles checks, too, but of course he does, since he’s the one connected to them. Sometimes it takes a few moments for him to get everything straight, to remember things like this, but he does. It’s coming easier now. Erik was affected by the Void (he does feel guilty now, exceedingly so, when he thinks too hard on it, when he has the space for it), but Charles was entirely reconstructed. Torn to pieces, to shreds, to Nothing, and then built from the ground up. It’s been difficult; it’s been confusing, it’s been terrifying, sometimes, but this morning he woke up and he knew who he was, and he knew that he was in Erik’s shirt and Erik’s arms and wearing Erik’s collar and that he was in much less pain than he has been in, that he felt capable of much more, and that’s made all the difference. He rubs his cheek against Erik’s chest, the sensation more than comforting, the warmth more than comforting even as he runs a fever. Hold him tighter, please. He doesn’t want to get up, and he thinks he’s forgotten what needed to be discussed, what had knocked around his brain. It doesn’t matter, it mustn’t. He likes their nest. He likes being Erik's.  
  
"I like you," Erik beams at him, and of course, he obliges, his arms tightening just enough to be conceptualized but not to injure before relaxing into a more comforting grasp. Erik's memories aren't linear, either, they come back in waves and riptides, in random droplets and insignificant factoids ( _riptide!_ Once he went surfing, no he didn't, he got caught in a riptide-no he didn't, who was it? They're kicking the ball in _Santos_ , periwinkle skies and seas...) but what he does know, what never left, he shares as much as he can and Charles does the same in return. They're reconstituting one another, leaning on one another, and as hard and difficult as it is there's a form of relief there that Erik doesn't know how to quantify, he's so glad that Charles is letting him take care and indulge his instincts and seeking him and coming closer instead of away, and he's more relaxed for it. _"Mmrrm,"_ he decides, blinking up, eyes barely able to hold themselves open, a little red-rimmed and bright even in the dim morning light. "Tell me?" his eyebrows raise.  
  
Charles bites his lip and, just a bit, he tests that. It's a request and not an Order, but it's likely to become an Order if he doesn't oblige. He could try to distract Erik from that, so he does, kissing at his chest, raising his head to do the same to his jaw, light, airy kisses. "Later," he insists, though there's the possibility that by later he'll have forgotten. He rearranges some of Erik's memories, idly, but no less carefully, as he's been doing unconsciously this entire time. There's no one to do that for him, but fortunately being around Erik seems to make it easier for him to do it for himself. He does seek him out. He does need him. And he's occasionally embarrassed by it, by his own submissiveness, by thoughts of only needing to be Erik's boy, but he brushes it off now. Even though it's true, and especially this morning.  
  
"Mm-mmm," Erik shakes his head, nose scrunching up. He is torn, now, though, thoughts like marbles skittering away because on one hand yes, good, good for Charles to remember where he belongs, to whom he belongs, who he is, what he really wants, what he knows only Erik can give him and call him egotistical but he likes that, he likes that Charles needs him, that Charles wants him, that Charles wants to be his-that he likes being loved and fussed over and treated exactly like what he is, like Erik's good, wonderful boy who he loves very, very much and it all rises up in his chest like a candle lit from a match as Charles's thoughts swirl against his. But, also, there's the actual component of taking care, which doesn't always involve chasing his impulses around in a circle, so he shakes his head again. "Tell me," he croaks the Order softly, predictably.  
  
There was only a small chance of it working, he supposes. Charles frowns nonetheless, a quiet, sad little noise slipping from his throat because he'd been hoping they could bask a while longer, and Erik's thoughts are as enticing as they are embarrassing and now he has to remember what it was he was thinking. What he needed to discuss. It's a switch in his brain when everything is so fragmented and torn, still, when all the parts haven't fully come together, and nothing is as seamless as it usually is. "My mother's party," he whispers, and then sits up a bit on his elbows, still against Erik's chest. "It's tonight. I'm going." He could ask for permission like he really ought to, put it up for discussion, but for some reason that's how it comes out, and some of those soft, lazy edges become spikier, determination and stubbornness.

* * *

"I don't like it," Erik says, and even though Erik is usually honest and expressive, he's not usually so blunt with how he feels, and he almost never presents his feelings as they are without a solution or an answer or a promise or some kind of action, but there they are, just floating there. He doesn't like it, he doesn't want it, it makes him unhappy, he's afraid. Charles will be hurt and it's his purpose to prevent that. Nothing so necessary should involve seeking those people out. They can all rot. They were never entitled to him.  
  
Charles knows that much. He's always been particularly good at reading between the lines, anyway, especially Erik's. He drops his head back down to Erik's chest, nodding. "I know," he breathes. Truth be told, he doesn't like it much either. He does know he likes it better than the alternative. He also knows that even if it hurts him, it might be helpful, too. There are pieces he needs to put back together. For one reason or another, this party, dreadful as it's going to be, continues to pop up. "But you'll let me go?" he asks, quiet.  
  
"If they hurt you I'll kill them," Erik says back, and it's as much of an answer as he's capable of giving. It says more than one thing; that he's learned from his previous experiences that didn't adjust for his own gut reactions, where he submerged his instincts instead of doing what he wanted, retrospect, and that he fully intends on being there with Charles, maybe not in body but certainly with him. It would be completely, utterly out of the question for Charles to go by himself, without Erik's presence behind him, call it overly controlling.  
  
It isn't overly controlling, and the threat doesn't bother him. He smiles, actually, because - it's probably embarrassing, but in the past few days especially he's needed Erik. There isn't much he's done, breathing seemingly included, that he hasn't asked permission for, guidance in, Orders about. It's the only thing keeping him steady. It's what's kept him sane, or as sane as he can be with the universe inside him. He's just wanted to be Erik's boy, and that's it. It gets him through. He went eternities alone in the middle of the Void, being hacked to pieces, destroyed, rebuilt and dissolved again, and all of that was without his Dominant. His cheeks heat slightly, and he kisses Erik's chest again, featherlight. "I'll be good," he promises. "Okay?"  
  
"Always good," Erik strokes the edges of his knuckles over Charles's flushed cheek, pleased and mollified. But it's not Charles being good that Erik is worried about, it almost never is, and if something happens that requires Erik's intervention he is one hundred percent certain it will not originate from Charles. His thoughts are a little more hostile than normal with regards to that, to those people, Erik simply doesn't like them, and he's not in much of a position to be graceful or nuanced about it. They mistreated Charles and hurt him, and they are lucky to still be living.  
  
Charles steers him away from those thoughts gently, back to Charles. Back to the things Charles can control. "You said if you decided I have to leave, I leave," he reminds, because he's just remembered himself, nuzzling under Erik's chin again, rubbing his bare leg against Erik's. It makes him shiver, the contact, and - no, that's wrong. "I'll be good and listen. That makes it better, hm?" As much as Charles has needed Erik, he's come to realize that creature that lives in Erik's chest has been very active. He's been anything but lenient, and while he usually gives Charles quite a lot of room, he hasn't. That's suited Charles perfectly well. It's reminded him. Grounded him. Made him happy, too. Safe.  
  
Erik's leg shifts under his, though, and his chin tilts up, eyes wide and curious. "Wrong?" he whispers, unable to fathom that anything between them could be. Especially not now, when Charles can barely move or think or breathe without running into Erik, and the longer they unfurl and relax into one another the more sensual and surfaced that creature becomes, but now the gears stall because-wrong? Did Erik do something wrong? Did he hurt? Is he-  
  
But Charles just whines, ducking his head into Erik's chest. He's flushed up to his ears now, and it's not the fever. He didn't mean wrong. Not bad, not - Erik certainly did nothing wrong, he didn't hurt him. The opposite, actually. Sometimes his memories get pushed up to the surface, and he gets lost in them, he becomes them for a little while, that's all. Nothing bad. He just didn't want to get lost in that particular one. "Good," he assures, mumbled, and Erik's voice somewhere says good boy, Charles and he squirms, another half-wounded noise. Back to what he was saying. He'll listen, he'll be good - that doesn't help, does it?  
  
It most certainly does help, it's been the one thing throughout this entire homecoming that has held Erik together and in turn allowed Erik to knit as much of Charles back together as he's capable of doing with his limited mental fortitude, but unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) for Charles, Erik isn't at all focused on that at the moment, his mind chasing that errant thought, twining it around a strand of Will and tugging it tight. He's been thinking an awful lot about it, hasn't he? He's been remembering what it feels like, to belong to Erik, completely. To be at his mercy. To listen to his expectations, to obey his Commands, and it's not just his voice far off in memories saying it, either, but warm and raspy and Real, low into his ear, keeping him pressed down into his chest. "Good," he repeats.

* * *

That's not doing much to help with the shivery heat or sparks that shoot up his spine, and Charles squirms again, more wriggly this time, suddenly aware all over again that his bare leg is touching Erik's. Trapped, actually. He shakes his head, makes another soft noise and he considers rolling off, but he doesn't really want to do that and Erik didn't say he could. He wants to do what he's told. That thought doesn't help, either, as it turns out, and he squeezes his eyes shut tighter. "Erik," he breathes, uncertain.  
  
"Charles," Erik breathes back, lips nearly touching his, but he makes no movement, no course of action, not yet, maybe not for a long time, an uncertainty of his own blooming in his chest, because there's some things he has forgotten, like the confidence he's gained over months of repeated reassurance that who he is, what he is, is OK, but he knows it's supposed to be there and he doesn't want to be going backwards, so he smiles against Charles's cheek. "Thoughts?" he pulls his fingertips from Charles's ear to produce a stack of pennies. An Order, if a playful one.  
  
"Mmm," he mumbles, lips almost quirking up except he's biting them, and it won't come out but he still has to obey. Erik seems confident enough to him, the way he's been letting that beast that lives in his chest do as it pleases, leaning on instincts as if he's forgotten not to. Charles has never been more grateful for it, more desperate for it to continue. If Erik is worried about being overly controlling, and he doesn't think he is, really, Charles is worried about being extraordinarily needy, more than he's ever been. He wouldn't know what to do otherwise. It's confusing, and it's frightening, and he jumped into that Void without Erik and for so long, for longer than even Erik, who wandered in search of him, could fathom - he held back the Void, he - But he's not thinking of that now, it isn't what Erik asked for. He's thinking of _good boy, Charles_ , whispered into his ear, and Erik's hands, warm and large. He's thinking of bare skin and how Erik's chest feels, strong and sturdy, about how Erik has carried him nearly everywhere lately, even when he could walk. How that made him feel safe, protected, kept. About Orders, expectations, obedience and ownership, and - being owned, and being claimed, and - he shakes his head, wriggling again until he's back beneath Erik's chin, in his chest. No more, no more. Embarrassing.  
  
 _No. More._ Those thoughts are transformed effortlessly as Erik's gaze darkens, emerald eclipsed by inky black and his hand curls over Charles's hip, bringing him impossibly closer, blinking slowly like a huge cat that's caught its prey. For too long, not as long as Charles can fathom but longer than any human being could comprehend if they weren't forged out of the very thing that's held Charles and Erik together, he was alone and cold and now he is warm and it seeps into his limbs, sluggish and hazy. Some of the memories that have come back to him out-of-order, without the moment and the time and the processing left him reeling and stunned and disgusted, but these memories, these ones, they never left. They were never-not there. "More," he whispers the Order, shaking his head. Charles could need Erik to twitch and breathe and blink and it wouldn't be too much. "Tell me more." Erik is thinking about how soft his hair is and how peaceful he looks in the light and the way he smiles and looks up to him with devotion and service shining in his beautiful eyes, and it's always been there, always, and Erik wants more, he's been wandering in search of more since he could conceptualize anything at all.  
  
The hand on his hip certainly doesn't help. The noise Charles makes now is a whimper even as he tries to bite it off. He has a million more of these thoughts, some of them that he's never shared with Erik, that he never knew were there at all and some of them that he absolutely has, and they all swirl and overwhelm him, flush his skin and heat him up outside of the fever. He feels feverish for a different reason now, actually. He's thinking about service, now, about doing as he's told when he's told to because he wants to please his Dominant, about the eager need of it, about being praised; about those big hands wandering down further, about bare skin and how he's only wearing Erik's shirt and it's not heavy, it's one of the lightweight ones because he's been waking up sweating and burning but he wanted to wear it, about insatiable, impossible need, their Bonding, about - _yes, sir,_ about hands pulling his hair, a burst of startling, delicious pain, Erik's hand striking his cheek and he whimpers then, too, about how - after he was taught his Postures for the first time, and he hasn't done them, he's worried about forgetting them, he thinks he might have, but after the first time, Erik said _one more thing_ and he tied up his hands and he liked it, he liked it so much, and he put his own hand around - _oh_. Charles shakes his head, because it's too much. Too overwhelming. "Erik," he whispers, hiding in his chest. Erik has to help him. It's too much.  
  
"Oh, Charles," Erik gasps back, his hands and body moving completely without conscious direction in response to those delicious thoughts and he wasn't quite sure what he was bargaining for by asking for them, but whether he's gotten more than he could've anticipated those spaces open up effortlessly within him and fill with fiery, liquid Dominion that spills out, out from every inch of their skin touching down, down and his fingers follow, twisting in Charles's hair, curving against his ass, trailing down his chest to bite the edge of his thumb nail against the pink budded nipple now firmly stood at attention and he grins quickly, rich heat suffusing its way down to the pit of Erik's belly and he jerks Charles's head up, eyes flashing hotly; and it's so silly at the moment to think there could ever have been a time that this wasn't genuine between them. Erik's graceless coordination the first time Charles truly touched him, for all of his skill and training, couldn't have been anything more than utterly sincere, stunned at the sensation like a blushing virgin; and it really had been the first time. And he is so good, and so magnificent-in his element, unashamed, his submissive-that Erik is having a hard time breathing around it, just like that first time. "I won't let you-" he won't let him forget. Not ever. Ever, all of it.  
  
It's too much sensation after the past few days. He feels like a virgin again, though he wasn't before Erik, and he certainly isn't now; it's just that everything feels different even when it's the same. His Dominant slides into Dominion and he finds himself gasping as he slips further into subspace, as if he's forgotten all over again that he can. He stays there all throughout the day, can't seem to exist outside of it but any minute shift, any particular Order causes the same reaction every time, trembling awe. As if it's that first time and his knees are giving out at the Order, nothing graceful about the way he rushes to put them on that hard, cold floor. Erik touched him then, too, though not like this, spoke to him in that thick, heavy voice, and the world dropped out and back in. It's not defiance when he whines again and struggles just enough to bury his head back into Erik's chest, his heart beating out of his own, his throat constricted. He's just completely and utterly overwhelmed and one morning when Erik's voice was still raspy and rough with sleep he - another startled, helpless noise, he shakes his head. His toes are curled and Erik hasn't even touched him. It's too much right now. He can't bear it, it's too much.  
  
"Mmm _yes_ ," Erik murmurs, rolling them all of a sudden-even now, careful and gentle and laying Charles on his back and looming over him, bright-eyed and grinning and touching-he's allowed to touch, he gets this-"Yes you can," he rumbles lowly, no room for defiance, no room for struggling, no room for looking away. Charles can bear it because he's awoken the beast, for real this time, and Erik wants him to bear it. His thoughts crash over them like waves of warmth, superheated and glittering, wrapped up in Will and Command. How beautiful Charles is, does he know? Does he know Erik dreams about the sounds he makes when he can't help himself? Erik loves watching him want, it's possibly his favorite thing on Earth, Charles couldn't possibly know-"Tell me what," he nearly growls, fingers slipping below Charles's stomach, the twitching muscles there to skitter along the inside of his thighs, not-yet, not-yet. Almost. Erik noses into his throat and gives him a sharp nip under his jaw, where another mark is faded, and Erik doesn't want them to fade, he will make sure they don't. "Tell me what I did, sweet boy. Tell me what I did that you're thinking about."  
  
Charles cries out at the nip, at the sting that feels much more pronounced than it ever has, a burst of pain that isn't the agony he's been drowning in the past few days. He shivers, and it isn't because he's got the chills again. Underneath Erik he feels small and vulnerable and far too exposed, and he's still wearing Erik's shirt, it's white and button up and rumpled and it goes just to the middle of his thighs, hardly enough for modesty and it's not adequate protection, really, especially because he's wearing nothing underneath it. He squirms even though he knows he's trapped, because he knows the beast Erik keeps referencing, he remembers even when he's forgotten. He swallows, shaking his head at first, hair fanned out against the pillows, but the memory slips out anyway, rocked back to the surface. Erik had pushed him under the covers and had him service him just like that, lying against a throne of pillows and talking, in that sleep-hoarse, accented voice, praising him, calling him sweet, pretty names until Charles' jaw ached and then after, too, and he tries not to think of specifics but it's really no use and he closes his eyes but he's still thinking of it, his own thighs locked together, his toes curled into the bed. It really is too much, and his mouth's gone dry and he's forgotten how, he's forgotten, he couldn't possibly.  
  
Erik rocks against him entirely unconsciously, and there is no denying exactly how affected he is, petting him and curling his fingers into the top of his shirt before very suddenly and effectively ripping it open to expose more skin, bowing their foreheads together. And now he's completely bared and his thoughts don't stop, and Erik nudges a knee in-between his, breathing roughened and he reminds himself, struggles really, to be good and go slow and be easy. Charles is plugged right into him and there's nothing slow or gentle about the sparking sensations that roll over him, out from his fingers and right into Charles in return. "So soft," slips out of him before he really knows what he's saying-Charles's skin is so soft, Erik loves touching him, practically luxuriates in it and his hands big and warm against Charles's face, his neck and roaming across the expanse of pale skin now revealed to him and dotted with a rising flush of red. He's keeping himself from making a sound, teeth sunk into his bottom lip even as he shudders.  
  
Charles shudders, too, but there’s something rising in him that isn’t pleasure or anticipation or submission, something quite like panic that he doesn’t understand. He has all these memories, though they’re scattered in places, and sometimes they feel like they don’t belong to him, like he’ll never reach them again, or just like everything is new, like he’s never experienced them himself at all - but there was never fear, he knows that. He remembers that. There isn’t now, either, it’s not fear but it’s something that clangs around in his chest uncomfortably, making it difficult to breathe, making him wriggle beneath his Dominant and try to close his legs, arching into touch and then away in the same instant, skittish movements. He’s biting his lip, too, and he’s closed his eyes again. The first time, he thinks there was trepidation, but that was in a holding cell, and now they’re in their bed, they’re Bonded, they’ve done this dozens of times all to, what he hopes, is wonderful success but he’s - he turns his head on the pillow to swallow.

* * *

Erik stares at him for a second and blinks, and blinks again, completely motionless, utterly stopped, not resisting when Charles pulls away, even though somewhere inside of him he knows how to do this, what to do, what will help, what will make it right, he's looking at Charles's face but it's a configuration of features and he's watching his own hand like a dead limb over Charles's skin and it moves, but he doesn't feel it move, he doesn't feel his body at all, except for his heart which pounds a steady pace of war drums in his ribcage and he swallows, too, and he touches Charles's face, swallowing it down, making his lips smile, turning his jaw to look at him with what he hopes is calm. "It's OK," he tries to say, but it comes out mouthed, without sound. _It's OK. I'm right here. I got you. I won't hurt you._  
  
Charles knows that, he knows that with every fiber of his being. It isn’t fear. If it was fear, he would have pause-worded - he does remember that, sometimes he reminds himself just to remind himself, he’s been doing that with things lately, and he’s never had to but right now it feels like he does - and his eyes are screwed shut and he refuses to look, but Erik can’t hide from him. The Void consumed him entirely, every last bit of him, put him back together and that’s inside of Charles now. Their mindscapes aren’t just bridged, they’re one, though right now they’re more smushed together than anything and there’s work to be done. What matters is, he knows he’s ruined it, and he hates that tears are gathering behind his eyes, pricking at them, he squeezes them harder but that just makes one slip, hot and humiliating, and he turns his head the other way.  
  
"Please," Erik whispers, hiding in Charles's neck, still idly touching him, soothing now, gentling a spooked horse and he reaches to brush away those tears, because nothing is ruined, nothing is destroyed. The Void couldn't destroy them and this certainly won't and Erik breathes, and lives, and touches and calms himself down-it's slower, these days, more like a regular person instead of the ruthlessly efficient machine of Erik's mental processing. "Please talk with me, 'k?" he murmurs the Order softly, rubbing their cheeks together. "It's OK."  
  
When the Void put Erik back together, Charles thinks it changed things, too. Rearranged them. Not like Emma Frost, who tore out chunks and then pieced things together in a horrible hack-job, leaving gaping wounds and missing parts and Dark Places, but delicately and carefully and with all the knowledge in the universe. The Void consumed him and he consumed the Void, then became the Void, and then the Void reconstructed him outside of itself so that he could exist as he was, too - it’s all a bit confusing, if he’s honest, but the point is, the Void knew Erik and where things went, and it fixed them when they weren’t in the right places. It hasn’t all settled yet, and perhaps it won’t for a while, but he can see the differences. Subtle, sometimes, and painfully obvious other times. He can see them in himself, too, because becoming that - enduring what he did, and living - it’s mixed things up, more than it even has Erik. Much more. Sometimes how he should respond to things, how he thinks he will, isn’t how he does. He bites his lip until it bleeds and spooked horse is an apt metaphor, here, another tear slips onto his cheek and he rubs against Erik, too, slowly, shy or hesitant or both. “Don’t know,” he mumbles, and it’s the truth, really. He doesn’t. He wasn’t afraid, he was just - nervous, or confused, or - something. He was just something.  
  
When Erik smiles this time it's warmer, more lifelike, maybe because Charles is touching him back and that makes things better. He stops Charles from biting his lip before it bleeds, giving him a warning tap and a glower that works effectively as an Order. "Still mine," he rumbles contentedly, and this is one such difference, the emotional lability, the abrupt switch from one to another to another that's not as seamless as before, how he speaks and holds himself varying wildly along a spectrum that's sometimes-subtle and other-times incredibly distinct, as if he's got all his pieces but none of the glue, but what was terrified melts away when Charles reaches back. He doesn't want to hurt. Never hurt. He doesn't want to force. Just to love, that's all. It doesn't need to be any particular way. Charles is his no matter what, and Erik will make him comfortable and happy.  
  
But - Charles switches to the inside of his cheek, an old trick that never actually works for more than a minute or two if Erik is paying him any attention, and he generally always is. He sighs, more a breath than anything, and shakes off whatever it is he’s feeling now, underneath the almost-panic from before, his heart slowing in his chest but somehow sinking. Disappointment, maybe, but it’ll go away quick. He gives himself whiplash, too, from one moment to the other. He rolls back over and closes his eyes, covering himself up with the sheets.  
  
Erik shakes his head and tugs the sheet back down, touching his skin where it's bared, apologetic. He's sorry, he didn't do the right thing, he got scared, he got lost. Please don't be disappointed in him. He'll fix it, he'll make it better. "Please tell me, tell me how to take care of you," he whispers, following Charles's movement, not letting him escape so easily this time.  
  
Charles isn’t disappointed in Erik. He bites harder on his cheek, his head turned where he thinks Erik might not see, all twisted up himself. He doesn’t know the answer to these things. He used to, he thinks, but he doesn’t anymore. He doesn’t know and he’s guilty that he made Erik feel poorly about something like that when it’s Charles’ fault for being more fractured, he’s the one who needs to put himself back together - his head hurts more, it always does when he’s sorting through these things, it always gets better when - but he shakes his head, crossing his arms over himself in lieu of the sheet. “I don’t know,” he mumbles again, ashamed. “It’s okay. My fault. We can go back to sleep?” They spend a lot of time sleeping, lately. It’s nice. He has to go out tonight and he’ll be apart from Erik, at least physically, and - that makes him panic a little, and then a lot, until he shuts it down, and then he’s okay again. He’s not disappointed. His head hurts, though, and he feels a little like someone’s pushed him out to sea and he’s forgotten how to swim, but he’s okay, see?  
  
But Erik, strange as it is, just laughs softly. "No, no, no," he figured it out. "I wanted to touch you. You're so pretty, and mine, and nice. You had nice thoughts and I like them and I just wanted-but you got scared and I did too, I thought I made you-made you. I'm sorry. No shame, 'k? Promise? No one's fault. It's good and nice. You are." Erik will be a boat, he'll be a life jacket, he'll be a canoe and a beach and he'll keep Charles from drowning, and he runs his fingers down Charles's arms, adoring.  
  
It’s not conscious, but Charles hugs himself tighter, fingers digging into his own flesh as he bites and bites at his cheek, then his lip, because that Order never lasts long and it probably has everything to do with the fact that Erik likes to repeat it. He’s still a little ashamed (maybe a lot, it’s swirling around in his stomach), and he’s still a little confused, but he knows he wasn’t scared. He’s not scared of Erik, and he never feels - not about that. Sometimes Erik pushes him through things because he needs that, but it’s never while he’s frightened. He knows that. He remembers that. Not in any of those jumbled up memories, not once. Nervous, maybe. Maybe that’s what he was feeling, nervous, nerves, anxious little butterflies in his stomach and it froze him up and made him squirmy but he didn’t want - he didn’t want Erik to stop. He was overwhelmed but he didn’t want Erik to stop because of that. He needs - being owned completely, belonging completely, and Erik called him sweet boy and he likes that, he likes it a lot, he couldn’t stop thinking about being under the covers while Erik stretched out lazy and languid and Dominant and praised him. He wants, all the time, especially now, always now, to serve him. In every way. He just got nervous. And now he’s embarrassed, so he tries to turn over onto his stomach where he can hide in the pillows and the sheets, a low, half-distressed noise.

* * *

"Mm-mm," Erik shakes his head, keeping him exactly where he is, grinning down at him. It's OK to be nervous. Erik will take care of him, won't he? Does Charles know how much Erik loves him? How Erik will do anything and everything he needs, he'll chase the warmth and the sun and the flowers in their minds and weave them around strands of Will until they all bundle Charles up, nice and tight, and not a hair out of place, because this is where he belongs. In Erik's bed, in his arms, in his mind, in his soul, singing and soft and beautiful. "I love touching you," he breathes into Charles's skin, pressing a kiss over his nipple, and under. "So nice and sweet and mine, all mine, I'll never let you go, never ever," he huffs, gentle. Erik calls it a beast, but it's more apt to be called a gentle giant, at least for now, and how fitting that Charles fits perfectly against him, small and kept and safe.  
  
Charles is squirming again. He’s not sure if it’s the nerves, but his stomach is squirming, too, turning over on itself, and so he fidgets until he can turn at least a little, covering himself the best he can and whining. It doesn’t make sense, he’s barely even being touched at all, and he doesn’t actually want to get away, and he certainly doesn’t want it to stop, if the sinking disappointment had anything to say about it, but he can’t stay still. He can’t stay still and he can’t - he doesn’t know what to do, so he goes on twisting this way and that in Erik’s arms, making those soft, unconscious noises. Everything feels too sensitive and too much and he keeps thinking those thoughts from before, so he has to do this, and he tries to wriggle back under the covers. He feels vulnerable, and open, and bare, and that's - a lot, it's a lot, he's biting through his lip again.  
  
It makes Erik grin, brilliant and bright and he settles back down, chasing after those thoughts to the sound of pennies dropping under foot. "Want you, want to touch you, you are mine," he breathes the words into Charles's chest, and presses them against his belly and the soft skin of his thighs, throwing off the blanket entirely, sitting back to run his fingertips over Charles's kneecaps, playful and curious and eager. Not scared? Not afraid of Erik? Can he touch? He wants to. Charles belongs to him. He wears his collar. It's good. He gets to touch, yes he does. He kisses the inside of his knee, nose scrunching up fondly.  
  
He’s trembling under Erik’s touch, but he isn’t afraid. He certainly isn’t afraid of Erik. He still has to fight to keep from kicking out, against the urge to close his legs or wriggle enough to turn over, and he doesn’t manage not to fidget, but he doesn’t want to get away. It’s not why he’s doing it, and Erik doesn’t need to be afraid that he’s afraid. He feels - overwhelmed, and nervous, and there are butterflies and everything feels too sensitive, and he’s forgotten how to use words unless Erik Orders him to, and he wants more of that voice. He wants more Orders, he wants more of - whatever Erik wants, whatever he decides, but his mind is full of service and please him and he wants that most of all, he wants to be owned and he wants Erik to do whatever he pleases with him because that’s his right and he wants him to remember that but what if he doesn’t know how? He closes his eyes again, heart beating loudly in his chest, unable to keep still or control his breathing.  
  
"Show you how," Erik smiles at him, big and sunny. He chases butterflies with his fingers and sets them atwitter, long little legs up and down his stomach and his chest and his arms and legs, sensitizing his skin over and over again and he knows how, his body knows how, his body arches toward Erik and reaches out for him and it knows, and so does Charles, and so does Erik-and he rolls them over, so that Erik is laying back against the pillows, propped up, Charles in his lap shifted out of blankets and wrapped up in his arms and legs, and he tangles their fingers together, draws Charles's hand down to his stomach, bids him to touch and kiss and be and exist and want and tell. More, more of everything.  
  
Except Charles' hand is shaking and his heart is stuttering in his chest and this is ridiculous, they've done this, they've done this many times, he knows they have and he even has the memories - that one in particular from before won't stop playing, that happens now, things get stuck - but he can't get himself to calm down. He can't get himself to stop squirming, which rubs bare skin up against his and makes everything even more overwhelming and trembly, and he hides in Erik's shoulder, swallowing hard around the lump in his throat. What's wrong with him? Why is he acting like this? He doesn't know what to do, he really does feel like he can't breathe or twitch without guidance right now and Erik is smiling and bright and he's ruining it, he's messing it up, he wants to touch and make him feel good but his hand is shaking so badly. He tries anyway, not looking, breath hitching at the feel of firm muscles underneath his fingertips. It feels like the first time. It feels newer than the first time.  
  
The first time-Charles is beautiful, Erik's thoughts roll away like marbles and his eyes crinkle up, head shaking. "Shh, shh, no, no," he puts his hand over Charles's, Orders him still and watch and look and see, touch, just like this. There is no messing up, there is no ruining, there is no destruction, there is only what Erik wants and what Charles wants and heat and pleasure. "Just slow, see?" he whispers, mirroring the action on Charles's stomach, rubbing his thumb against his navel, beaming up at him. There is no wrong. No right. Just them.  
  
Charles' hand is still trembling but he does what he's told because he wants to do that, he wants to be good and Erik said that's what kept him together through this, Charles being good and listening but he can't think of that too much or he'll think of Erik's voice, deep, raspy, the way he says - his stomach jumps under Erik's touch and he lets himself start to slip deeper toward subspace, because that helps, that calms him, that feels new, too, but familiar, and it makes him feel good. If Erik puts him under just a little more it'll feel even better. It makes him feel like he's not floating alone in the Void, untethered and alone and frightened and not-belonging, not-Erik's, whenever he even thinks of it he stops breathing so he doesn't. He rests his head on Erik's shoulder and he does what he's told, he watches, biting on his lip as his fingers touch Erik's stomach, all that hard muscle and tanned skin, it's still so tan from Israel, scars, but he knows them and he doesn't let the memories touch, he's better at that now, and then farther down. Erik's hip, Erik's thigh, and - he closes his eyes, whimpers.  
  
"Always mine, hmmn," Erik laughs, and he can't help arching up when Charles's fingers pass over the inside of his leg, and he curls it around Charles's hip and drags him closer, and when he closes his hand over Charles's this time, he guides it right to where he's full and hard, and wraps his fingers around, looking up at him, adoring and he tilts Charles's chin up, Orders look at me and Charles does, and his eyes are bluer than any sky in his dream and shining so brightly, so beautifully and he knows there's nerves and discomfort and he says no, none of that. No shame, no fear, no pain. Just love and service and submission and joy. Charles belongs to him, he is his good, beautiful boy and Erik will never let him go and he is here for this, to feel good, to make Erik feel good, and everything else will be burned away by Erik's Command, in a haze of glittering pleasure-simple, maybe. Simple and primal, but pure.  
  
There are still nerves, because even as he goes under, even as Erik puts him under, even as he flutters with it, his belly is full of butterflies and he can't get rid of them, he's shy and uncertain and his hand is around Erik's - and he's swallowing, squirming in his lap but the absolute last thing he wants to do is get away. He looks up at Erik instead, exactly like he was told, eyes big and wide and somehow bluer than they've ever been, he has light little freckles from the sun that are barely visible against his pale skin and he's biting his lip, uncertain but there's devotion there, too, there's want, there's all of that newness that should be gone but isn't. It isn't, and Erik is so - he's - he makes another noise, another unconscious, needier noise, high in his throat. His fingers are so small in comparison to Erik's, they barely fit, and that does something to him, too, makes him shudder. "Tell me, please," he breathes, and that's needy, too, because he wants to be under, under, under, he wants Erik to tell him what to do, to teach him all over again, to show him how to be his boy so he doesn't have to be anything else for a little while.  
  
He will never be anything else, not ever, not if Erik has anything to say about it and he does he has so much to say and he can't help saying it, babbling little nonsensical things in Charles's ear and laughing and smiling and he can't help it, he's too full of joy and it's bursting out of him, and he's arching up into Charles's hand and-"No hiding," he murmurs, encouraging Charles's thighs to part so Erik can grasp him fully, too, suddenly, and he's not soft there-so soft everywhere else and that is magnificent, too. "Thinking about being mine-" he strokes him slowly, so slowly, wants to feel him leak against his fingers while he can't help thinking of belonging to Erik, servicing Erik, obeying Erik, being owned-being Claimed-"More. Look. Look, see-" see what he's doing to Erik, how he's affecting him, how he's pleasing him, and he draws his thumb over Charles's bottom lip, eyes half-lidded, his own thoughts roiling around where Charles's left off.  
  
Charles gasps and whines high and reedy as he’s touched, not hiding but squirming on Erik’s lap, his own hand stuttering in the shy, uncertain rhythm he’d set now that Erik isn’t guiding him. He feels overwhelmed, completely and utterly overwhelmed, but he knows they’ve done much more than this, that he wants much more than this. It doesn’t feel frightening, though, he doesn’t feel distressed, and he’s starting to slip far enough under that he gets hazy, where things drop out that aren’t Erik’s Orders and his Will and pleasing him, and he wants more of that most of all. He wants Erik to put him down, and down, and down, because he’d forgotten what it was like and it’s wondrous and strange and completely consuming all over again, not that it ever wasn’t. It’s what feels safest, what he knows best. When that thumb touches his lips, he sucks it in immediately, his own eyes fluttering and eyelids heavy and he only keeps them open because Erik told him to watch and he wants to be good, but his mind is stuck on that image, of early morning sunshine and Erik’s fingers in his hair under the covers and his lips stretched and he sucks harder, moans quietly and is grateful that it’s muffled around long fingers, wriggling about as he tries to bring Erik pleasure, but he keeps noticing how big he is, and how hot, and hard, and - he’s owned, isn’t he? There are parts inside that sometimes want to break out, but Charles delights in it, thrills in it. He’s owned, isn’t he? How many ways can Erik demonstrate that? How many that he hasn't even thought of?  
  
So many ways he doesn't even know, he can't even remember, because everything he learned was wrong, but this is right-everything he learns here, with Charles, is right-and it is good. Charles feels safe? He feels nice? That's what Erik wants, more than anything in the entire world, but there's something else rising up in him, too-early morning, and sunlight, and Charles and he breaks off, framing Charles's face in his hands, and drawing his leg slowly over the back of Charles's shoulders, and he ends up with Charles's cheek pressed to his stomach, and then lower, his fingers tangling in Charles's hair. He doesn't want Charles to show him his thoughts anymore, or tell him, he wants Charles to demonstrate, completely, and he grins at that; it appears there is a way after all. His eyes flutter closed because the image of Charles between his legs is almost too much to bear, but he doesn't stop, either. "Mine. All mine," he laughs, and there is no denying he is pleased.  
  
He's far gone by the time Erik rearranges him, deep-down and exceptionally pliant and following Erik's touch and Command as easy as breathing. Seeking it out greedily. By the time he realizes where he is, where he's been put he's gasping, eyes wide as saucers as he looks up at Erik like he's startled. He feels safe, he feels good, but - he's done this, he knows he's done this, but things are different now. He's different now. What if he's forgotten how? The first time he didn't know but Erik said open up and he did, he did because he wanted more than anything to please him, to service him and he still does but what if - he's nervous, again, eyes closed and heart pounding and he tentatively nuzzles between Erik's legs, gasping at the heat, the weight of it against his cheek, the size and how did he ever get it down his throat? It feels good to do this, though, Erik is leaking against his cheek and it's a Claim he'll happily wear and he bites his lip and he knows he likes this, he liked this an awful, awful lot. An embarrassing amount, actually. But -  
  
Erik touches his face the whole time, his hair, under his eyes and against his cheek and jaw, sitting back so he can properly look down at Charles, pinning his gaze with a wide-eyed, stunned expression of his own. It's OK if he's forgotten how, Erik can't help but think, because he'd forgotten this, too, even if it occupied a good deal of his dreams, it's often mixed with garbage but right now all he can think is how right this is, how pure and innocent and good and he doesn't have a lot of finesse himself, he's got all the feelings and none of the background processes which is better and worse in different ways. It's OK if he's forgotten how, they can learn again, together. He brushes himself against Charles's lip and coughs into his hand to stifle the rather ungainly urge to shove forward, letting Charles seek him out instead, all on his own, laughing at himself a little because he can't help feeling a little graceless and silly and new, letting Charles settle over him and nuzzle for himself, holding still, a creature in repose letting his submissive explore. "This way," he whispers, tapping his thumb against Charles's mouth, a silent Order, a mirror of those thoughts and memories bubbling up. Urging him to open, to take Erik in, slow and easy.  
  
Charles' lips part immediately, obedient but also incredibly eager, it's right there in his belly with the nerves, flipping itself over and over again as Erik watches him, framed by beams of first sunlight and their pillows, propped up like - it twists at something inside of him and he moans quietly, no longer muffled by his lip-biting, squirms between Erik's legs where he's trapped. There's nowhere to go, and he wouldn't want to anyway, not when his Dominant expects to be served properly. He only takes Erik in an inch or two, licks at what's leaked with a curious tongue, and there seems like there's so much more to go and his mouth is already stretched, there's weight and heat and he sucks, tentative but eager, so eager, licks and moans again because of what he's doing, because he's - his eyes are blown impossibly wide and filled with all of it when he looks up at his Dominant, but pure, utter devotion and adoration and awe most of all. He hasn't forgotten that he loves this. Erik will help him? He'll teach him? He'll tell him what to do? He wants to hear it, he wants to hear it so badly, he'd do anything for it, anything to please his Dominant, he's so far under and it feels like he's going farther, how is that possible? Should he be frightened? He doesn't feel frightened.  
  
Erik's eyes watch him from slits, legs falling open a little more to tighten his fingers in Charles's hair, just a little more forceful, a little more Commanding as he opens up not only in body but in mind, falling away and down and shedding all sense of restraint and sinking eagerly onto him, and he can't help smiling, a tenderness juxtaposed with everything else. Little jolts of electricity shoot from his chest to his cock, to the tips of his toes where they curl into the tangled up sheets at the bottom of the bed. "No fear," he whispers. "Never afraid. I'll take care of you, hm? I'll show you. Be good for me, that's it." He gives Charles's cheek a light smack, encouraging him to take even more. He can't help saying it, voice hitching slightly. "Love you so much, so beautiful. My pretty boy, you never forgot this, hm?" he grins. No, he certainly didn't, because look how much he likes this, how much he likes pleasing Erik-and it should be an old thought but the realization is brand new all over again, and a great wonder takes flight in his heart, tightening all the muscles in his stomach.  
  
Charles is moaning, loud even when his mouth is very much occupied, uncertain at first if it's the words - he doesn't want Erik to be able to help it, he's greedy but he wants him to keep talking, and talking, and talking, guiding him and Ordering him and praising him - or the slap, which feels new again, too, his eyes widen even further like the first time, startled and helplessly aroused and his hips move on their own, or the hands in his hair or the cock in his mouth but it has to be all of it. He takes more in, he wants to be good, perfectly well-behaved, his Dominant deserves that because he takes such good care of him but Erik is big and he's forgotten, in this moment, all the tricks he's learned and been taught and the finesse, forgotten everything except that he likes this very, very much. It's inevitable that he gags, that he chokes a bit and sputters, surprised (to be fair, even with everything as it was he still chokes, it's just a bit more graceful and less wide-eyed), and it makes him panic for only a second before he breathes through his nose, remembers, looks up at Erik with tears in the corner of his eyes but fierce determination that never actually burned out and so much wonder and love and desperate, wanting submission. Charles has the universe inside of him and looks up at Erik like he's it, still, he always will. He tries to make it good even when he doesn't remember exactly how, tries to take as much as he can, and his lips are stretched obscenely and it's overwhelming but not frightening, never afraid, Erik will teach him how to be good. Will he please? It's all Charles wants. If he forgot everything else for a bit, everything except this, he thinks it would be okay.  
  
It's so incredibly humbling, Erik's eyes shine with a few unshed tears of their own, branded from the inside out by Charles, by his unswerving dedication and the way he thinks about Erik, which was new even before and now threatens to crumble him, but he remembers, too, he remembers exactly how much he likes hearing Charles choke on him, waits until that panic dies down, though-because he's patient and because Charles is his and he takes such good care of his belongings, he does, he tries to, he will-and Charles is so nice, he's so nice for wanting this, for needing this, Erik finally does give a good, hard thrust forward and into his throat, his fingers tightening across Charles's neck, over his collar, putting him in his place-"You like this so much, don't you, sweetheart? Let me hear how much you do," he nearly growls, eyes black with it, and endless and wide. He gives him no time to recover before he smacks him again, harder, gives him more, Orders him to spread his legs and rock himself against the mattress and all of that helpless arousal, Erik spools up into his fingertips and shoots right down into his gut, but he forbids Charles to find any release, any relief, not yet-  
  
The tears slip right down Charles’ cheeks, overwhelmed and squeezed out and he’s choking again, trying so hard to take what he’s given, to do as he’s told, to be good, all of that eagerness and dedication making up for any lack of finesse, anything he’s forgotten the specifics of, he hopes. His cheek smarts with the smack and he’s whimpering with it, maybe even a little wild with it because he likes that, he likes that so much, hips rutting against the mattress and it feels filthy and it feels - not humiliating, that’s not right at all, Erik doesn’t degrade him or make him feel like he’s less than what he is, but there’s something there, something to being Erik’s belonging, here for him, his body at his Dominant’s mercy. To being owned and knowing it. He remembers liking that, too. If he feels lately like he needs Erik to tell him how to breathe, he certainly needs him to tell him when to come, and he won’t before then, even if Erik does nothing about it, he promises, because he can be a good boy. He can be Erik’s boy, and that’s, for the moment, all he needs to be. That’s it. He breathes harshly through his nose, desperate, needy noises spilling out around Erik’s cock, and it’s messy, there’s spit and precome and tears and he wants more, he wants more, he wants to make his Dominant feel as good as possible even as he chokes and his jaw aches and it feels like he’s not getting enough air, and _I love it, sir, please_ , he’s leaking against the bed and the room is sticky with it all, with want, with devotion, with pure, unbridled love and adoration and please, please, please, it’s so new and he wants to do this forever, he wants to be kept just like this with his mouth stretched wide -  
  
Erik's thoughts start to deteriorate, unspiraling from tightly-coiled screws into long sine waves, because he remembers, too, he remembers what it's like for Charles to be in his lap, hands spread out across his ass, spanking him until he's red and raw and crying and so overwhelmed he can't stand it and he remembers being buried inside of him, taking him, and he wants to know if Charles remembers that, too-because this is good, it is but there is something even better in Erik's view and that's making Charles completely overcome with pleasure, touching him and holding him close and tasting and smelling and breathing-not less, never less, always more always brilliant and beautiful and precious, Erik's beautiful boy, at Erik's mercy but also under his care, and his joy, and his unswerving love.

* * *

Sometimes Charles finds that his thoughts don't make perfect sense anymore. What's logical doesn't always follow, sometimes he connects thoughts strangely now, there's a strange disconnect as the Void tries to make it possible for him to exist and he remembers, he remembers and he wants that, too, but - but he starts to cry, and it isn't from pleasure or being overwhelmed, it's different and the panic finds its way back to his stomach and coils tight and he must have done something wrong. He must have done something wrong, and the shame is so thick and tight that he can't take it, because he was trying and he knows he's not the same but he needs Erik and he tried to make him feel good and - he tries not to let Erik's cock slip from his mouth because he wants - his chest is heaving and he doesn't think he's distressed but he's getting there, something rising up from under the pleasurable, calm haze.  
  
Erik could do a lot of things, he could-endure, get through it, push down his own reaction, but Charles told him once that would hurt him, that if-if something-happened-he should, he should, but if he does, Charles will blame himself and it will make it worse and he'll ruin it, he will ruin things, but-it would be worse, wouldn't it, and Charles is distressed and crying and panicking and sucking his cock, and Erik feels his whole soul rise completely out of his body and float up to the ceiling as his thoughts blindly struggle to marshal themselves, he could do a lot of things, he could endure, and he does, but he grips it all in Command before the situation runs away from him, lets himself slip out to rub against Charles's cheek, touches his hair and his face and blinks away tears of his own. He did something wrong, he's sorry-he didn't mean to, he's too-greedy, too much, it isn't-he doesn't-expect anything, Charles isn't doing anything wrong. It isn't possible. It's not possible if it were possible, if it were possible for him to do this wrong, Erik would be obliterated, really, it would mean he-he was-that, cold, empty, dead, you're doing it _wrong_ -he couldn't-be like that, he isn't like that. Does Charles know he's not like that? Does he know? Erik feels good just because he's here. He wants Charles to feel good, to feel-safe, he's sorry, this isn't helping, he's sure it's not helping. Charles should be-able to have a simple reaction without Erik-without him losing it like this, damn it.  
  
But Charles somehow calms when Erik touches him, when he thinks those things, the tears still falling but the panic slipping out and away and he nuzzles against Erik's thigh, his cheek is wet and he didn't mean to upset him, he's sorry, he's sorry, he doesn't know what happened or why he reacted that way but he knows. He knows, he knows, he knows. He likes when Erik is greedy, when he's entitled with him, when he knows it's his right, when he takes more and more and more because he wants it, he remembers and knows those things but his mind had - what if he thought those things because Charles wasn't making him feel good enough? Why didn't he like it? Charles really liked it, he wants more than anything right now to make Erik feel good and it had felt nice and Erik said there were better things and it had broken up and detached strange in his brain, he's sorry. Please come back, let him fix it, he's sorry. He ruined it again. Please don't make him stop serving Erik because he messed up, because his head got confused. He just wants to be Erik's boy, that's all. That's all, that's all, that's all. He rubs his cheek and his tears against Erik's thigh over and over, soothing himself.  
  
"No, no," Erik whispers, bending forward a little so he can take Charles's face in both of his hands, trail his fingers along his throat. It's just-something hardwired into his body, into his mind, he has a hard time-sitting back, sometimes, and enjoying himself, but he very much was enjoying himself, enjoying Charles, and maybe it's a leftover disbelief that, that it's OK, that it's all right, that he doesn't have to do anything or, act or be anything other than what he is, existing, but also because sometimes it's so hard to just watch and not touch, and not reach back, and not want Charles even closer, but-no, no. "Never, ever doubt-never-" he gasps. Never doubt that Charles is the most wondrous person he's ever laid eyes upon, never doubt that until now Erik forgot-he forgot it was like this, he forgot how-how much he desired, how it affects every neuron in his body, primal and physical and totally unprecedented until Charles.  
  
It wasn’t because Charles was bad at it? It wasn’t because it didn’t feel good? He looks up with shining eyes, with Erik still smeared on his cheek, and there’s a special kind of trust there, of dependence, of worship, because he’d forgotten, too. He’d forgotten what it felt like to get lost in this, and the physical pleasure is one thing, entirely overwhelming on its own and he wouldn’t need to spread his legs and rub his own cock against anything to feel it, he feels it just from - from serving Erik, and - and Erik likes that, too? Charles was doing a good job? He was discovering it all over again and it felt nice and he just wanted to make his Dominant pleased, and he wouldn’t have had to do anything, he could have just reclined against the pillows and let his submissive take care of him because - because that’s his right, it is, Charles belongs to him. He can touch as much as he likes and he can do whatever he wants but he deserves this, too. Charles really liked giving it to him, discovering it again, it felt - well, there wasn’t much friction on the bed, not nearly enough, but he’d been leaking and moaning up a storm, and now his cheeks heat because he’s thought about it. And there's still a faint mark from Erik's hand and that makes him bite on his lips, which are swollen and more cherry-red than usual from Erik's cock, and -  
  
" _Yes_ -" he whispers, fierce and affected, rubbing his thumb over Charles's bottom lip, listening-listening to his thoughts, to his body, to his truth, and it's OK, isn't it? There's been a lifetime of-*pain*. It's written all over his skin, it's in his muscles and fear-soaked meat on his bones, it's in his limbs and everywhere, an insect stumbling away from the light, from a burning element, an instinct as old as time-to flinch away from agony, but there's no more pain. Not anymore. Charles gave that to him and beyond, beyond pain, it's warm and languid and hot and loosening everything, and his gaze darkens, because it's more about what he deserves, it's about what they deserve, both of them-together, and it's _OK_ to want this, to want-to just want, and be. He can't help the small smile that appears, drawing two knuckles down Charles's face. "I didn't tell you to stop, did I? Hm?" he laughs gently. It's not exactly demanding, but it *is* Commanding.  
  
Sometimes it is about what Erik deserves, because Charles thinks - Charles knows - that he has a difficult time realizing, and now remembering, that Charles is here for him. He can be selfish. He can be greedy. He takes such good, perfect care of Charles, he chases after him into the Void, he keeps him safe and loves him, why shouldn't he Claim what he's entitled to? Why shouldn't he lie back against the pillows and have Charles serve him, pull his hair and tell him how he'd like it? It's exactly his right. He doesn't say a word about how technically Erik did tell him to stop, rubbing up against those knuckles and then nuzzling against Erik's cock, still hard and wet from his mouth, still leaking. He has much more interesting things to do with his mouth, and suddenly he's awed and curious again, as if he's never seen - he swallows and licks up the length of Erik's cock, slow, exploratory, just little kitten licks, to taste and feel and see like Erik told him to, and part of him hopes Erik will let him play and the other part hopes that he won't. That he'll slap him again, tell him - Order him, and Charles would moan at that, too -  
  
Liquid heat pools in Erik's stomach and he groans lowly, his fingers tightening completely over Charles's throat, and his other hand comes around the back of Charles's head, brushing against his hair, and tugging him exactly back to where he belongs, no more playing, but that doesn't mean it's any less rewarding. Erik is well and truly using him, now, fucking him, not just a physical action, his mind alight with Will that extends all throughout the room and wraps Charles up tighter than any bindings could, forcing his hands behind his back and interlocking them in invisible-golden twine, and when he looks away even for a moment Erik's fingers leave a red imprint over Charles's face, but he isn't displeased, he's grinning-it's not a punishment, it's a reminder, even if it stings, feel those noises against his cock and his hand, vibrating along his fingertips, sinking into his veins. "Straighten your shoulders, Charles," he murmurs, dark and deep, always so concerned with his posture even now, even bent over his lap, edging his thighs apart into the proper position. "Look up. Look at me. Do not look away. I want to see you-"  
  
When Charles whines it's muffled by choking, by the sounds of Erik quite literally fucking his throat, and the tears that slip down his cheeks this time aren't from panic or worry. They're overwhelmed and wrenched right out of him as he's used properly, unable to support himself with his hands tied pretty behind his back, unable to touch, unable to look away and his cheek stings and it's delicious, it's exactly as it should be. He's moaning again before long, whimpering, filthy, wet noises, choking but reminding himself to breathe through his nose, to take what he's given, to be a good boy. He's Erik's to use, doesn't he see that? Isn't it wonderful, that he belongs entirely to him, that he can use him like this whenever he likes? Charles wants to make him feel good, wants to please him and Erik was worried about making him feel nice, but this feels nice for him, too. There's nothing to touch his own dick and it doesn't matter because he's being put in his place, put to use, rough, long fingers in his hair tugging him where he needs to be and a mark on his cheek and it's utterly perfect. His eyes shine with tears and that same adoring, devoted submission, but bliss, too. He had the universe weighing on his shoulders for centuries. Eons. Eternities. He remembers that. The Void couldn't take all of it from him. Here, right here? He's just Erik's. He's down, and he doesn't want to come up. Keep him here, please. Let him do this forever.  
  
An eon or an eternity of this wouldn't be so bad, Erik thinks, and he gentles out a little bit just because he wants to touch Charles's face and pet him and talk to him, and this is a much nicer Forever, so much nicer, he never wants this to end, he never wants to stop touching Charles or Ordering him or using him, and he almost regrets that he feels his stomach begin to clench and he has to look away because if he does he'll come and he doesn't want to he needs more, he needs this, does Charles know how much he needs this, does he really know what he's doing for Erik, how healing it is? How wonderful, yes-wonderful. "Love you, love you so much, sweetheart. No more pain, no more-mine-just mine, just mine-"  
  
Charles loves him, too, so very, very much, but the truth is now that it's happening he doesn't mind that Erik's close to finishing. Not at all. He can always do this whenever he wants again, anyway (Charles might have a terribly sore throat, but he'll live happily with that pain) and Charles finds he's greedy to see it. To see Erik come because of something Charles is doing. To know he pleased his Dominant, that he made him feel good. He wants to taste it, to be forced to swallow and don't miss a drop or I'll turn you over my lap, understood? and, oh - or maybe he'll come on his face? Mark him, make him wear it until he decides it's time for a shower? He's shivering with it, trembling with the anticipation, and he sucks harder, takes more in one go than he really should even with Erik's rough thrusting before, chokes but then swallows and licks as much as he can and looks up with tear-filled eyes, bluer than skies, moans. He just wants to please Erik. Just his.  
  
And isn't that novel-it doesn't have to last forever, because Erik can do this whenever he wants, too, can't he? He could. Every morning. Every day. Forever. That's good, too, but that thought doesn't do anything for holding him back and with an abrupt, aborted sound muffled in the back of his fist, he seizes Charles's jaw in his hand, glaring at him with unrestrained desire as if to tell him in no uncertain terms that it doesn't matter whether he swallows every drop because he's going to end up over Erik's lap regardless, and he wants Charles to taste it, he wants both-greedy, of course he is, but he can be. He slips out right before he's fully finished, drawing his cock over Charles's cheek and warmed by how pretty and marked and red he is, and before Charles can even think Erik hauls him up, rocks him against his stomach, nuzzles into his throat and bites at him and smacks his ass, and that's exactly how he wants Charles to come, too, dragged against Erik's belly in the aftermath of being spanked raw, wearing his Claim.  
  
It's almost enough to make him come right then and there, Erik still on his tongue, his throat sore and his jaw aching, crying out as that big hand smacks against his poor ass. It's really only been days, less than a week, and he's taken much more than this, but tears spring to his eyes anew and it feels like the first time. The sting, the submission of it, the surrender. He bares his throat and gives that up, too, begs his Dominant to see it for what it is, the gesture it is, the one he thinks he remembers mocking in the past but absolutely cannot now. It's too much. He bites his lip and whines, arching up against Erik's stomach without thinking, all that hard, firm muscle, his cock leaking and red and twitching and it's too much. "Please, sir, may I -" Polite, nice, asking nicely, but he can't get it out because he's moaning, too loudly, it feels too good and he could have come just from Erik's cock in his mouth if he'd been asked to, he's sure of it. But he won't until he's told. He's a good boy.  
  
Erik tugs his head back, still not allowing his arms to move from behind his back, still not giving him any room or purchase, spreading his legs even wider so Erik can feed into those shivery jolts that zip between them over and over again, bites him sharply, drags his fingernails down Charles's shoulder and it's nothing specific, just an amalgamation of desires Erik has had since the moment he laid eyes on Charles, for the first time and all other times-to own him, to ensure that he knows where his place is, every time he jars a little off-kilter to know this is where he belongs. Serving Erik, at his mercy, and as much as he wants to bring Charles pleasure he can't help but grin when he cuts himself off, not quite so merciful after all. "No," he gives him a hard slap on one side and then the other, and along his face for good measure, right over those streaks still drying there. "Ask me properly."  
  
It's too much, but it's also not enough. How did he live through more, when this is so completely overwhelming? He's so down, he's so under, everything feels sluggish and languid and sped up at the same time, it's incredible. When Erik bites him he gasps so loudly it echoes in his own ears, cries out, breaks into another broken whimper and rocks against all that hard muscle. He has to tense up not to come when he's slapped again, dick still rubbing against Erik's skin. His face stings, his ass stings, and if Erik decided he wanted to spank him raw even after he'd come, oversensitive and overwhelmed, he knows he would take it. He would take anything, and he pants, squirming in Erik's lap and trying to find words to do what he's told. "Please, may I - may I come, sir?" he asks, and he sounds hoarse and broken even to his own ears, there are tears blurring his vision but he looks up hopefully anyway, earnest and needy. "Please? I'll be good," he promises, breathless, voice cracking on it.  
  
"That's right," Erik whispers, gentle in comparison with his rough treatment, soft and rich and still terribly, terribly full of desire and want even now, and only after Charles is squirming and crying and gasping and begging does he finally relent, drawing his hand down to Charles's cock just as he goes over the edge, to feel his release wet against his fingers and he draws it down Charles's stomach, holds him through it and keeps him still. "That's it, that's it-" he soothes, smiling.  
  
He still squirms and wriggles as he comes down, crying until he shakes, but he isn't upset. He's anything but. He's just so far down, and after forgetting what it felt like, what it could be, how absolutely intense it is, it's quite a lot and his body reacts appropriately. Charles clings to Erik desperately, gasping for breath, whimpering and hiccupping out hitchy little noises, rubbing into his chest with his cheeks still marked by Erik's hand and come. He needs Erik. He needs Erik so, so much. Please don't go away. Don't leave him alone in the Void, he needs his Dominant.  
  
"Never," Erik breathes, rocking him, taking him in his lap and wrapping him up in his arms and the blanket and little drops of sunlight float out of him, right out of him, the Wasteland has a sun now and it's bright and shining and there are some beautiful things in the desert, and the Landscape is changing and all the ecosystems are awake, delighted and satisfied and never. Erik will never leave him in the Void. Wherever Charles goes, he goes, Erik will follow him in and to the end of the galaxies and dimensions and beyond, to bring him back, to keep him safe, to make sure he comes home.  
  
Of course the Landscape is changing. In a way, from a certain perspective, it doesn't exist anymore. There's something new forming in its place, though it's a bit difficult to tell because it hasn't quite formed yet. There's just a mishmash where something will be, where snow and sand get confused with each other, a hard line drawn where there should be much more coherence. There will be, soon. They'll reconstruct, create a space that is most certainly theirs. Perhaps it will take time, perhaps it will be difficult, but Charles isn't concerned with it at the moment. He definitely doesn't need to now, but he taps at Erik at the same time that he nudges at his mind to get his attention, nuzzles into his neck, sniffling and so far down. He's thinking of that book on a table in a place that no longer really exists, soft and insistent and pleading.  
  
Erik laughs, because he still has that book, but it doesn't need to be a reconstruction this time. This time, he lifts his hand and it floats right out of the bedside table where it rests safe and sound, always, Erik's most prized possession and he wonders, an old story or a new one? And instead of a story his mind wanders around the Pyrenean ibex and other mountain goats, hopping around and they started dying out in the 16th century-and then he's chattering about that, a little nonsensically-(but then in the modern era one was brought back to life, de-extinction via cloning! although sadly it only lived for seven minutes)-and naturally his mind weaves it into a story-a legend he'd heard from some book or another about red-painted mountain goats who tried to teach people not to kill animals anymore, and carved totems on the faces of mountain tops, too, " _I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,/And what I assume you shall assume,/For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you..._"


	77. you don't have to be afraid of the pain inside you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _this is the last time_ , the national

If he's completely, totally honest, Charles doesn't think it matters much what the story is. He just likes being told them, grounded in Erik's voice, rocked in his lap, and of course he listens, of course he's curious and eager to hear, the book is the most precious proof of that, but in the end the content isn't what soothes him most. He files this one away, clinging to it desperately, begging his scattered, confused mind to store it so he can write it down. The book is a work in progress. He'll add to it, and when it fills, when all the pages are used up, he'll make a new one, just as he'd promised when he'd gifted it. They'll fill a library with them, just these handmade journals, as long as Erik continues to tell him stories. It takes a long while for Charles to calm even though he knows this isn't nearly as intense as some of the things they've done, but he's overwhelmed as if they haven't, inhaling Erik, placing absent, needy kisses at his shoulder and neck and jaw, just to feel more. "Your boy?" he mumbles somewhere into Erik's skin, dripping tears there. Right now, right this instant, he's never felt needier. Perhaps when that riled, confused part inside of him resurfaces he won't be, but right now he is, and he doesn't feel particularly ashamed. He's too under for that. Too vulnerable, too Erik's.  
  
"Yes, sweetheart," Erik rumbles, rubbing his face against Charles's cheek, and it's interesting that people term submission as needy, really, when Erik can't think of a thing he is less than needy, needful, of Charles, of Charles's presence, of his mind and his thoughts and his touch and opinions and his smiles and laughter, his pleasure, his comfort and joy and the deeper he goes, the more Erik needs it until it all coils around in a big feedback loop of pulsing, golden Will. "My boy. Always so good for me. Always take care of me, always make me happy. Love you so much," he whispers into Charles's ears, sweet nothings, but it isn't nothing to him. It's everything. In English and Hebrew and every other language he knows, just because he can.  
  
Charles settles, drifts, not into sleep but deeper and deeper into subspace, soft and sweet against Erik's shoulder and his chest, in his lap and against him where he belongs. Usually he surfaces a bit after these grounding sessions, after Erik murmurs stories to him and strokes his hair and whispers to him, but today he goes farther under, lets himself submerge until everything else fades out. His thoughts have been quieter; not unreachable, not purposefully hidden, but it's sometimes difficult to follow or catch them while everything's piecing back together slowly. He's rolling something around up there, repetitive and maybe even slightly embarrassed, or perhaps just shy, but whatever it is makes him rub his cheek over and over against Erik, makes him whine softly and duck into his neck.  
  
And he's safe to do it, he's safe to be as deeply under as he needs to be, as he wants to be, and Erik will always rise up to meet him. He plucks at those thoughts like a chord on an instrument, the flavor of Charles's embarrassment making crinkles at the corners of his eyes and he thumbs Charles's bottom lip, tilting his jaw up, shaking his head. "Tell me," he murmurs the Order into a kiss against Charles's mouth, tender and sweet. Don't hide away up here. Let me know. Let me take care of you.  
  
Another whine, and even a shake of his head, but it's more for show than anything. More of the sake of it, because he knows he's going to do what he's told and that he wants to, especially now. He sighs happily into the kiss, but rearranges himself back into the crook of Erik's shoulder. "Party," he mumbles, but that on its own doesn't explain much of anything because dread is generally how he feels about it. Dread and determination, but still. He flashes some images, enough to satisfy his Dominant, then shakes his head again.  
  
"No, Charles. Properly. Tell me properly," he murmurs lowly, very much unsatisfied and his eyebrow raises pointedly, as he strokes Charles's cheek and down his back, soothing the deep red marks his nails left unconsciously with fluttery circular motions of his fingertips.  
  
That feels nice. Even the places that sting a little still feel nice, maybe especially, soothed by gentle fingertips and Erik's Will. He doesn't really want to say this, but he wants to obey, and even if there wasn't an Order that would win out now. He's too far into subspace, and that feels nice, too. Very nice. "If you were coming - really coming - it'd be different," he breathes into Erik's neck, squirming on his lap. "They're all for show, and I hate that, but -" But.  
  
"I am really coming," Erik murmurs softly. He's been introduced as Charles's Dominant, and most of what he told Kurt and Sharon already is truth-adjacent. He will be there, in all but body, to ensure that his Will is obeyed and that everyone there respects Charles and his boundaries, whether or not he would ever enforce them himself or merely go along to get along, it no longer matters. Because Erik will be there. He might not be Erik Lehnsherr, but that's a trivial detail, really.  
  
Charles blinks, once, then twice, and then shakes his head, staring up from Erik's shoulder. "What do you mean? No one can see you," he murmurs, confused. There's no reason to drag Erik along for the ordeal, anyway, and bringing along a Dominant - it would just complicate things, as much as part of him desires it and is embarrassed about that. It would also make the evening almost pointless, and there's too much at risk. Charles doesn't want to have to play with a mansion full of people's memories. It's just too much right now, regardless of how effortless it would be.  
  
"Why not?" Erik wonders, eyebrows raised. It's up to Charles, of course, but if he wants people to see him, then they should see him. He's certainly not going to sanction Sharon parading around a troupe of eligible bachelors to marry her son off to, whether or not he can be seen, he can still make his wishes known. He can still act, and he will, so maybe it would be better if they knew exactly where Charles stood from the get-go. He's collared. He belongs to Erik. There is no playing. It is reality.  
  
It would be simpler if things weren't as they are, better, infinitely so, but even mixed up and horribly confused Charles knows this reality. He'll be good and listen to Erik, but having him there - where other people can see him, where they can interact with him - there's much more potential for it to hurt them. It would all be a lie, even if it somehow didn't. Too much of one. It would be playing, and Charles just doesn't want that more than he already has to. He'll wear his collar. He'll make it clear that he has no intention of being married off. He'll obey Erik's Orders, because he doesn't need to be there physically for that. But pretending at a Dominant, making one up - it's asking for trouble here. It's a lie he'll get caught in, in an environment like this. These people are more than nosy, and they like playing with other people's lives. Charles will go seemingly on his own, and he doesn't like it, but he'll know Erik is there. He'll be good, he promises. He's nuzzling into Erik's neck again, frowning.  
  
Erik isn't sure it will be that simple-if they're as nosy as Charles says they are, it's likely he will have to make up a Dominant either way, especially since Sharon and Kurt already know of Erik's existence. He understands, though, and he doesn't force the issue. Erik listens to Charles, too, and he won't make him more uncomfortable than he already is. "I will be there," he whispers, softly. No matter whether he can be seen, he will be there, and he knows it's not much of a consolation, but he will protect Charles. He won't let anybody hurt him, he won't let anybody disrespect him, he will not. Any more than Charles could sanction it happening to Erik.  
  
It is that simple. Kurt and Sharon won't say a word of it because they don't want it to exist, and so in Sharon's world it does not. Charles has avoided questions and skillfully maneuvered these sorts of things his entire life, and even with all the memories scattered and muddled and out of order, he imagines it still comes natural. Perhaps more naturally than it did before, with many things closer. He sighs, though, makes a soft whining noise, frowning because it's hard to put it together. He doesn't want to leave subspace to be that Charles, and it's strange and discomforting to have to. But there's a difference, he thinks? Between being in danger and being hurt and - many things at these parties are naturally uncomfortable. People will have things to say. He doesn't think he can avoid that and get through the evening successfully. He doesn't think he wants Erik to protect him from that. There's something fierce attached to that, something he knows is from a shattered off piece of him, something that demands independence and declares its own capabilities, rails against anything else, and Charles doesn't want it to surface but it's there and then it does and he's reeling and confused and his head hurts.  
  
"Don't care," Erik grumbles, glowering at him-not really him, but the phantom-imagery of anybody who dared hurt him, dared say a single bad thing about him. He can handle himself and he's certainly capable of doing so, but he doesn't have to anymore, because he has Erik, and that will never change, Erik will never stop protecting him and that is fierce, too. In his mind there isn't a difference, and maybe at one point there was, but not right now, not when he's too fractured to know the difference. They've been sheltered in their cocoon for a while and Erik doesn't want it to end, doesn't want to re-emerge into the world, but they have to and-he won't let anybody even look at Charles wrong, or they will find their eyes plucked out of their heads, and that isn't an exaggeration, he can do that, he has done that, he's a monster and he'll be a monster. _Growl_.

* * *

Charles is confused, now. He gets confused like this. He forgets things, he doesn't know where one piece of him ends, where another one starts. He's still down, and he was happily so, but now - he starts to get restless in Erik's lap, quiet little noises, but his chest is heaving and it's hard to breathe. Something is wrong with him. It hurts, his chest. He can't get a deep enough breath. His thoughts are slipping away from him. Keep pace, Charles. Easy, easy, be calm. Phone against his shoulder, _what's your favorite color?_ Something's wrong, what's happening? He has to be able to protect himself sometimes, he wants to, Erik can't take that from him, he can't do that this is his thing how dare he how dare he and - no, no, he wants to be good, he wants Erik - his chest hurts so badly, what's happening to him? What's happening? There are new tears on his cheeks and Charles is shaking like a leaf.  
  
Erik's arm bands around his back and he holds him tightly, shaking his head. It isn't his thing. It's not. He can't be Erik's and shove Erik in a closet whenever his life pops up. That isn't fair. Any more than Shaw is Erik's thing. He won't let it happen, he won't. He already protected himself and he did it alone and Erik won't let him be alone anymore, he will not stay in the shadows in the closet and only come out when someone threatens his life, he will make sure that everybody knows what is and isn't acceptable because Charles won't, he knows he won't, he'll accept it and agree with it and Erik can't sanction that, he won't. He's shaking too, furious and spitting, how dare anyone feel entitled to cause Charles pain.  
  
Charles knows it doesn't make sense, and he isn't frightened of Erik, but something's happening to him, something bad, and Erik is angry and all of a sudden he's sobbing, he can't breathe at all, the room is blurring and he doesn't feel good, what's happening? What's happening? He's angry, too, but mostly he just feels scared, like - hyperventilating somewhere, dialing the phone with shaking fingers - he's sorry, he's sorry. He's sorry. Should be better than this. Mindless whore.  
  
"Nonono," Erik shushes him, his anger melting away immediately. It was never for Charles. It never could be, not like that. He's stupid and he gets lost in things and it's not really about Charles, but about every person he had to sit idly by and watch as they were tormented and abused and do nothing, say nothing, and to have it happen to his submissive, that's the worst thing he can think of. The worst thing. Please don't make him do that, he couldn't bear it. Charles is his. "Mine, my boy," he whispers, against his ear, low and soothing. He brushes his hands over Charles's chest, Orders him to breathe with his fingertips, he knows what's wrong, he knows, and it's his fault and he's so sorry. It's OK. Charles is right where he should be. Nothing bad is happening, nothing is wrong, it's all going to be OK. Erik will take care of him. Just like Charles took care of him, and does such a good job, all the time. "Just listen to my voice, 'k? It's OK."  
  
The problem with this is that Charles is finding it hard to settle when there are pieces of him dragged up that don’t want to be soothed. He closes his eyes and attempts to listen to Erik’s voice anyway, hides in his neck and doesn’t understand why he’s crying ( _like a baby, like a little bitch_ ), why it still feels like his breathing is hitching with every inhale, why he’s hiccupping out sobs and shaking. He’s never felt like this before, has he? Has he? But he did, when he got home one day. Someone drove him and then he went to his apartment before he went to Warren’s and he cried, he wrapped himself up in blankets with his shoes still on and his suit mussed and he cried and he didn’t know why, he just cried and shook and felt like he needed something he wasn’t getting but now it’s different and he clings to Erik and he doesn’t know what to do, he wants to be good but there are things - he could talk about it, but he was in subspace and it felt so nice…  
  
"And you will still be there. Still be here," Erik whispers softly. "Still be mine." And Erik will give him whatever he needs, whenever he needs it, he will. But he has to know, first, Charles has to tell him how to take care of him, sometimes. He isn't the best in the world, sometimes he just doesn't know, and-and he should, he knows he should, but that's OK because Charles will be good and tell him, right? Talk to him? Let him take care. It's all he wants. It's OK to cry. It's OK to be Erik's. He will take care of Charles. He will.  
  
It’s not okay. It is okay? It’s not okay. Why is he still shaking? How did he get over it last time? He got up and he dealt with it. He made himself food he didn’t eat and coffee he didn’t drink and then Warren called him and he went over and - why does he feel like this, Erik is still holding him. Shouldn’t he feel better? Why doesn’t he feel better? His head hurts and he has to think about what he’s going to wear to this party and he had been thinking about something embarrassing but nice, but now he isn’t and he’s restless in Erik’s arms again, restless and silent, trying to stop crying, shifting this way and that and sniffling and something in him says pathetic, you’re pathetic and he agrees and then he doesn’t and he shakes his head and makes another noise, distressed, scared. He's right? He's wrong? He doesn't know. Head hurts.  
  
"No should and shouldn't," Erik murmurs, rocking him back and forth. "Just be." He's right. He belongs right here. In the snow of their fortress, shielded by all that surrounds, rustling trees and the Great Expanse. Warbling bricks and icy sheaths. That's what lies ahead. They'll need to fight for it, they will, but it will be filled with beautiful things and love and song and story and justice, and Erik will fight for it. He will. Not pathetic. Beautiful. "Light of my life," he laughs softly.  
  
He's shaking his head. It still hurts to breathe, and his head still hurts, and he's hiccupping loudly against Erik's shoulder, completely unsure of what he's thinking or how to articulate it. He knows he should. He knows he has to be good and help Erik take care of him. But he's so worked up, and it's ridiculous, pathetic, mindless, stupid whore -  
  
"No, no," he breathes again, quiet. "None of that. Tell me. Tell me, sweetheart," he Orders into Charles's ear, rubbing strands of his hair in his fingers gently.  
  
For some stupid reason, he can't stop crying. His temples are throbbing and he's all mixed up and confused again, uncertain of what to think or who he is or how he should be. He doesn't know what to tell Erik, because there's more than one thing he wants to say and they don't mean the same thing. He sniffles and isn't sure whether he wants to nestle closer or continue his restless shifting, but he goes for the restlessness because he is unsettled, because he can't calm down. "Why don't you trust me?" is what comes out of his mouth, and it sounds as broken and confused as he feels, trying to wipe at his eyes and stop the tears, pushing hard. "You said you'd let me choose, let me be good. You said."  
  
Erik gawps for a long moment, and he shudders, still petting Charles over and over again, still keeping him against his chest, a flurry of bats taking flight in his heart, their leathery wings fluttering panic inside of him. How could he be so wrong? How could he hurt Charles so much? How can he fix it? "How come you think I won't? Of course I do. Always do. I said so."  
  
Erik's panic affects him more than usual, though. Charles feels it like his own and it works him up again, sobbing into Erik's shoulder. He's so confused. He doesn't know the answer. Everything's rolling away from him, out of grasp, out of reach, the Void isn't helping and he doesn't know any of the rooms anymore. He doesn't want Erik to be upset. He doesn't want to be bad. Charles shakes his head, again and again, trying to think around the suddenly sharp pain, the blur all his thoughts have become. Why did it have to stop feeling nice? He didn't want it to be over.  
  
"Tell me, please," Erik Orders, petting his hair. "Why I don't trust you? I do. More than anything." Does Charles really think he doesn't? That he would go back on his word? Erik doesn't like making promises, though, because he knows he could. If he were forced to. If it meant Charles would live. He would. He would break every rule. But that hasn't happened; Erik has no intention of doing so now. "I'm sorry, _neshama_ ," he shivers, pressing a kiss to Charles's temple. He never meant to hurt. never.

* * *

Charles doesn’t believe much of anything right this second. He’s all mixed up and he doesn’t know anything with perfect clarity, scattered, dislodged parts of him all shouting at once and for once it isn’t outside voices giving him a horrible migraine. It hasn’t been, really, for the past few days, since Void-Charles swallowed the universe and lived. “I know you trust me,” he mumbles, somewhere into Erik’s skin but his eyes are closed so tightly and he’s so disoriented right this moment that he can’t tell. He’s shivering, too, and - dropping? That’s what it’s called, isn’t it? He doesn’t like it. He wants to go back to floating, to being under where everything feels warm and safe. “But - won’t let me go alone?” he asks, and it’s a question for Erik as much as a question for him, like he doesn’t know which part of him wants to ask it or why.  
  
"No," Erik says back, gentle, pressing kisses along Charles's cheek and neck. "You're mine. Never alone." Erik kisses underneath both of his eyes, and across his eyelids, too. Not because he doesn't trust Charles, that has nothing to do with it. But it is his job, and his duty, and his honor and privilege and pleasure to care for Charles, and that means being there. Charles won't let him face Shaw alone, either. And Charles trusts Erik, doesn't he? Erik hopes. They should stay together. They should help each other and protect each other and safeguard one another's souls, because that's what it means to belong. Being together doesn't mean there is no trust, does it? Erik doesn't know anymore, either. He just knows he did something wrong and made Charles sad and he's sorry-  
  
He whimpers against Erik, muffled again, because that’s not right. He’s not sad. He’s confused, and he doesn’t know what’s right or wrong and his head hurts an awful lot, he thinks he might have more of a fever, it comes and goes when these episodes happen, but he isn’t sad. There’s just a part of him that doesn’t understand, and he tries to make sense of it, to tell Erik like he was Ordered. “But I know how.” And he doesn’t know where it comes from, he just knows it spills out. “I know how, and - I’d be good,” he offers. “We can’t always be together. Don’t you trust me to be good on my own?”  
  
"Of course I do," he whispers back. That isn't the reason he doesn't want Charles to go alone. That place isn't safe. It is not safe. Erik will never view it as safe. He will never view it as an acceptable place for Charles to be by himself. And-he can't help but be a little-he doesn't know exactly. Charles doesn't want him there? He wants to cut this off from Erik?  
  
That inspires a response, too. Immediately there are conflicting images, some of them directly contradicting each other, and Charles whines. This time he pulls closer instead of away, nuzzling into that spot that he likes best, wriggling in Erik’s lap as if he can get in closer. He has chills, and he isn’t sure if it’s from the fever or from this. From dropping. He must still be dropping, it feels like he is. He wants to stop that, but it’s supposed to get better around Erik so all he can do is get closer. “I’ll be good,” is all he says, sniffling, perhaps the only thing that makes sense.  
  
"I know you will," Erik's arms tighten up around him, and he kisses Charles on the forehead and then on the lips, tilting his head up a little to do so, smiling down at him. "And I trust that you will. Always." Even when it's hard and scary, Charles always comes back to him. Erik asked him not to leave and he jumped into the Void, but Erik jumped in after him and he came back, he did.  
  
Charles is still sorry for that. Incredibly guilty. Erik told him not to, and he did anyway, but eventually he stayed. He let Erik help him, even when he was the Void. He promised to be good and he wore his collar even when he wasn't much of himself at all. He's still not much of himself sometimes, perhaps all the time, but Erik stays with him until he feels like more of it. He nestles back into him. There might be more he's thinking about, but he has no way of reaching it like this, too unsettled and confused. "Could you -" He bites his lip, and finishes without his voice. Settle him down again. Down, in particular. He doesn't know how that works, really, just that this dropping part is frightening, and that for some reason he needs it more than usual. Much more. If he's going to the party, maybe he can spend at least the rest of the day feeling nice, feeling safe, feeling Erik's.  
  
"Always," Erik smiles down at him, kissing him right on the tip of his nose. He slowly encourages Charles to relax, to let go of all the tension and restlessness and return to Erik, just like he did before, just like he always does. "Return to me, _neshama_ ," he whispers, his voice thrumming with Command. "Come back to me. Let go. I've got you. I'm going to take care of you, hm? Just like you do for me." He continues softly in Charles's ear, whispering little nothings and rocking him, petting him, settling him right back where he belongs. In Erik's arms, Claimed by Erik, marked by Erik, a song of submission that sweetly croons to him, settles Erik down more, too, the more Charles slips under.  
  
And Charles is soothed. He does slip back under, gentled and sweet against Erik's chest, curled up close and small in his lap and planting idle, needy kisses against his neck, just to feel, just to have his skin against him. "I was thinking about wearing -" But he cuts himself off, bites his lip, and it's mumbled and barely whispered anyway so maybe Erik didn't hear it.  
  
"Mm? Wearing?" Erik scrunches his nose up, amused and warm. "You had best tell me, so I can decide." He grins, and there's no mistaking the undercurrent snap of Will there. Erik wraps him up in the blanket, warm and toasty, making sure he's comfortable and not sweltering as he listens for Charles to obey his Command.  
  
Well, he wasn't thinking about wearing it tonight, actually, it was just a thought. Charles doesn't know how he feels about it, except it makes him feel warm and squirmy and when he'd been thinking about Erik being there at this party - physically, actually being there, as Erik Lehnsherr, his Dominant - it had come up. More than once. He buries his face in Erik's neck and continues chewing on his lip, flashing images instead. The pretty blue-green corset he'd worn on their Bonding night, and then the much more standard ones worn for these occasions. It's typical, expected submissive attire, especially for a formal society party. Charles has just refused to wear it after a certain point, railing to the point that even his mother dropped the issue eventually. He'd considered it a small victory. But...  
  
Erik considers that for a bit, and nuzzles the back of Charles's head with his cheek, letting the thoughts and images wash over him. He hasn't forgotten that corset, but something inside of him does rail a little at the idea of Charles in expected submissivewear, maybe because it's so very ordinary, and Charles is not. Erik would much prefer him to wear something befitting of him, something that deserves to be worn by Charles, if that makes any degree of sense (Erik's thoughts are much less linear than they used to be these days). And he thinks he can understand the source of Charles's additional aversion, too, the idea that he's showing up and allowing his mother to dress him up like a doll and display him around. Erik rails against that, too. But showing up, sending a clear message that he belongs to Erik, well, that's quite a different matter, isn't it? Erik smiles to himself, warm. That would be a victory of its own. None of them own Charles. Charles is Erik's.  
  
Thoughts clang around in his head and at first they make no sense because they're entirely contradictory, and that railing, screeching part is still very much inside of him, much less dormant than usual. But something about Erik's thought process makes him frown, makes him hide his face further in his Dominant's neck to hide it. For years he felt - well, quite honestly superior in some ways to other submissives, for not following the norms. For not dressing or acting submissive, for appearing, perhaps to those who didn't know, Dominant. It's an unfair, ingrained thing, ugly, learned from trauma. He knows Erik's been trying to teach him otherwise. That he'd like to teach their children otherwise. That's right, isn't it? It isn't bad to want to present submissive, is it? It's expected that he be collared, too. Should he not wear one? Would that be a loss, a surrender, a failure on his part? That railing part would say so. But he doesn't think so - and he'd been thinking, maybe it wouldn't be so terrible if Erik was there. To present submissive even in public, to kneel like submissives do at these sorts of things, to play the role he's finding he needs to and loves and thrives in, even if he sometimes forgets that. To do things he's seen submissives do for their Dominants in those settings. But now - maybe it would be? Maybe it would be shameful? He's confused again, and he's just settled, so he rubs his cheek against Erik's skin, whining loudly despite himself.  
  
"No, _neshama_ ," Erik whispers back, shaking his head and tilting Charles's chin up to gaze at him, all fierce warmth and pride. It's what Erik wants, he knows Charles knows that. Erik wants to be there, he wants to be seen, he wants everyone there to know that Charles belongs to him, it doesn't matter if it's only a half-truth. It's the half that matters. And if anything should arise, he knows Charles is strong enough to shed it from them like a bad dream, melt it away, but it's no less than what would happen if he were asked who collared him in the first place. It's the opposite of shame. Erik is proud of him, Erik loves him, he wants everyone to know that Charles belongs to him. Not a loss, not a failure, not a surrender. He is Erik's. There is nothing lost by that, only gained, Erik will make sure of it.  
  
It's a what-if, really. Charles can't do the things submissives are expected to do at these sorts of things, because Erik won't be there. He can't kneel and fetch them drinks and just - well, serve him. Like maybe he wants to, not that he's capable of admitting it right this second. He still doesn't think Erik should be seen. It is more. It's much more. And - if he's honest, he was thinking maybe... but Erik doesn't want him to hide his collar and that he has a Dominant, does he? But at least trust him on this. He buries his head back into Erik's shoulder.  
  
"No," Erik tells him and that is firm, a snap of Will heating up the room. He will certainly not hide. He will not hide his collar, nor that he has a Dominant, but Erik tilts his head, thoughtful himself. What was Charles thinking, hm? He wants to know. Maybe he can't serve Erik at this party, not in the way he is imagining, but he will serve Erik all the same. He will obey him and be good, he promised, and Erik trusts him, has faith in him. He always has.  
  
This is turning out to be difficult, because as it turns out, Charles wants nothing more than to stay in subspace, needs it more than anything right now, actually, but there's - something is creeping up, a part that hasn't joined the others yet, that sulks around in the new castle and slams doors. It was thinking that Charles should hide his collar, and more than that, he should take it off for this - but the rest of him, soothed and nuzzled into Erik, settled nicely on his lap, this Charles was lost in fantasy. A pretty corset that Erik would bid him wear, would - well. He hasn't worn a corset since that night, but there wasn't time. Erik dresses him every morning, and he'd be lying if he said he doesn't have thoughts of it. That he hadn't thought of kneeling for Erik in front of others, others that aren't their family, and not with the help of Charles' telepathy to mask it. Of Erik asking for service in front of other people. That other part hates the idea, but that's alright. Confusing, but alright. He doesn't want to take his collar off.  
  
Erik warms even further at those thoughts, even as the howling, ancient thing inside of him snarls and snaps in warning at the idea of Charles taking his collar off-ever. And at once soothed when Charles settles back into his lap and begins to drift again, to much more pleasant musings. Erik very much enjoys those thoughts, more than he initially thought he would-sometimes when he's worked up and, well, triggered, he convinces himself that he's a poor Dominant and if anybody knew-if Charles knew what he was really like, he'd-mock him, or-be disgusted by him, or-other people would, it's all a little confusing, concepts that aren't necessarily tied to experiences yet, concepts that he wouldn't think if they were. But now, all he wants, is to do more than indulge that fantasy. For Charles to be visibly, completely his. "Don't take it off," is what floods out of his mouth, and it's a little needy, a little desperate. He can't help the Command in his voice, either. "Please don't. Please."  
  
The truth is, Charles would never dare take his collar off. He's twisted himself out of place before and he's positive he will again, that he'll be defiant and disobedient, but he would never take off his collar. Even the Void didn't. He kisses at Erik's neck, soft and sweet, soothing that ancient howling thing, brushing up against it, properly down and where he belongs. "Would you want to?" he whispers, eyes closed, uncertain and shy. "Will you, when we can?" They'll inevitably have some silly party to go to. Rubbing elbows is sometimes necessary.  
  
"Yes," Erik whispers back, lifting his chin so Charles can access more of his throat, a gesture of trust that apparently comes natural to him, beyond all experience. Yes, he wants to. And yes, he quite expects he will. He already does, in small ways, with strangers-a hand on Charles's back, a soft word in his ear, or in his mind. And amongst their family, quite a bit more. Orders for the sake of Orders, because he can, because he wants to. Because it makes him happy. He looks at Charles, though, and blinks. "Why would I rub my elbows?"  
  
For a moment, Charles blinks, too. Then he laughs, soft and giggly, squirms around in Erik's lap because he loves when these sorts of things come up, honestly. He could answer earnestly. He will if Erik asks. But what he does instead comes from some ancient part of him, too, some part that wants Erik to do those things he says make him happy, to - assert more Dominance? It makes his cheeks heat, but he does like provoking him sometimes. Goading. Charles presses another sweet little kiss to Erik's neck, and then he bites. None too gently, too.  
  
Letting out a rather ferocious growl, Erik abruptly turns Charles over so that his back bounces against the mattress and looms above him, fingertips spreading against his throat and tipping his head back, biting at his ear and jaw. "Put your hands above your head," he Orders lowly, giving him a sharp nip above his collar, right along the worrying bruise from before.  
  
That thrills that ancient, primal part of Charles, and it's purring by the time he's pinned to the bed, even as he cries out and whimpers when he's bitten right over that sore, already marked place. Still, even as down as he is, that part is still there - and it wants to push, and maybe, just maybe, it wants to play. He wriggles underneath Erik even as he obeys, even as he raises his hands over his head, kicking his feet. "Uh-uh," he mumbles, barely able to hide his grin, turning his head away. He wondered, once, what seems like ages and ages ago, what Erik would do if he misbehaved in public. And that's a strange thought, until - Charles whines, trying to flip himself over just so he doesn't have to see Erik staring down at him, piercing and Dominating.  
  
"No, no," Erik murmurs, jerking his head to the side once and he stills Charles's wriggling with a silent Command to obey, to look at him, and he draws his hand above Charles's head, keeping his firmly clasped in one, while a soft silken thread unravels from wherever he's made it and winds itself neatly around Charles's wrists over and over again, pulling tight and fastening him right where Erik wants him. "I would respond proportionately," he hums, drawing a nail down Charles's throat. "Because you are mine, hm? Say it. Tell me who you belong to, Charles," he Orders in a low rumble.  
  
Charles tries to bite off the moan he gives when Erik takes control of him like that, when he's bound and Commanded in that low, deep rumble, the one that spreads heat throughout his entire body. There's something split about him, now. There's shyness, the way his eyelids flutter, the way he bites on his lip, and then - he tugs hard at the restraints, and he can't squirm but he narrows his eyes up at Erik, still so deeply in subspace but that part, that one part - "Yours," he gasps, out of breath somehow. "If you can handle it," he adds, and then he grins, rueful. All those people, and Erik, if he were physically there - would he really? Probably not. Charles likes to get away with things (he doesn't, actually, but in theory, and this surfacing part thinks he does).  
  
It's a fine line, one that Erik never considered before Charles brought it up, either worrying he'd end up on the wrong side of it or afraid that even considering it at all would put him on the wrong side of it, but by the way his whole body warms at the thought of disciplining Charles in front of someone else, maybe that's not the case. It's a fine line, though. Between a proportionate response and abject humiliation, and Erik would never dream of crossing it, because even when Charles needs to be punished, Erik takes care of him still. But he can imagine it. How unruly Charles would be, how much he'd chafe against it, thoughts churning with the belief that somehow Erik wouldn't want other people to see, to know what his place is, where he belongs. But he does. He always has. And he knows regardless that he wouldn't let such a thing go unanswered, and he doesn't now. He would. It's not an uncommon practice, exactly, but it is exceptionally traditional and typically only high-Doms engage in it; most people's dynamics start and end in one place, Orders occurring outside the bedroom for stability and comfort rather than true Dominion, but Erik and Charles don't have most people's dynamic. Still, it would likely be a surprise to anyone in the area, were Charles to mouth off at Erik and find himself abruptly put on his knees and caned. If he thinks Erik is incapable of that, he's sorely mistaken. "Trust me. I can handle it." His eyebrows raise, lips hooking up in a teasing smirk.

* * *

Charles' breath hitches. These parties always seemed, besides a way for rich people to brag about their money and petty affairs, lavish lifestyles, a way for Dominants to parade around their own power. The kneeling, the posturing, the public displays of service, the fancy party collars. All a part of it. It's difficult not to consider it. Not to consider how absolutely silly they look in comparison to Erik, and then - being punished has never been arousing or pleasant for Charles, and it shouldn't be. It isn't the idea of the punishment that's making him tremble with the need to squirm, tugging on his bindings again. It's the thought that Erik would do it. That his Dominant is that concerned with keeping him in line, that their Dynamic truly doesn't turn off when Charles deems it inconvenient, when other people are around to see it. He bites his lip. "You wouldn't dare," is what he says, and even his eyes widen at it, like he's startled it came out of his own mouth.  
  
Erik's been to a few high society parties, in Europe and South America, once in France. The kind that portrayed plenty of horror dressed up in finery, by people who wanted to pretend they were better than animals. It's perhaps this that gives him such an aversion to the idea of Charles attending at all, his conception of a party is very narrow-even the word itself immediately associates to something unpleasant, even when Charles mentioned their Bonding party at Columbia Erik's initial response was a jolt of fear in his chest, soothed by trust and repetition. Thus far Charles hasn't given any indication that anything, anything untoward might happen. Erik will be watching, hawkishly, looming invisibly over all to ensure his Will is followed. He gives Charles's lip a sharp, reproachful tap, and pats his cheek, nuzzling against his jaw and throat and inhaling deeply. When Charles tugs again, Erik's hand closes over his, keeping him pinned down with deceptive strength, while using his lesser hand to stroke down Charles's chest, featherlight and rhythmic, almost ticklish. "I recommend not testing me, dear-heart. You will find I dare anything when putting you in your place."  
  
Nothing untoward, at least not where it can be seen. Charles has been attending these parties since he was a child, and while they're unpleasant, they're also incredibly mundane and boring. Posturing for the rich and famous. Expensive formal wear and diamond-encrusted collars and submissives there to hang on arms and little else, but they aren't mindless; they know what they want, too, and how to play the game and get it, in many cases. It's all very tiring after a while. But Charles isn't really thinking of it, because he's stuck between impulses. The impulse to submit wholly, to lean into Erik's touch, to ask nicely for more of it, and the other. "You'd like to think so, wouldn't you?" slips out, and he's surprised again in the aftermath, confused, even, as if it hasn't come from him. It has. "It's fun to test you," he adds, and there's that wicked little grin.  
  
"Is it," Erik huffs, wry. His gaze is nearly hypnotic, shimmering with Will as he captures Charles's eyes with his own as easily as his bound hands, forbids him from looking away. "Surely you must know by now I shall never surrender you, not to anything. I am your Dominant and you are my submissive and I promise you that if you forget this, no matter where we are, no matter who is there, I will remind you accordingly. Unless you'd rather enjoy being put over my lap in public, I recommend reconsidering your definition of fun." His eyebrows bounce, Dominance rolling off of him in confident, lazy waves, rich and luxurious and sinking all the way into Charles's bones themselves, setting them alight.  
  
That changes his tone. When he swallows, the lump in his throat is visible, the full body shudder even more so. It's not fear that rolls off of him, but it certainly isn't amusement, either. "You'd really...?" he breathes, eyes wide, like a deer caught in the headlights. Captured and helpless.  
  
"If you are not prepared to accept the consequences for disobeying me in public, I suggest not doing so," Erik murmurs back, eyes ablaze. The real answer, Charles can see, and Erik doesn't hide it. He would. He absolutely would. If it was right, if he was certain Charles could handle it, if he wasn't significantly distressed by it. Erik absolutely would, and it's a bit surprising to him, too, how vehement and sure that answer is for him. He never would have thought it, and maybe that's why Charles didn't, either, but his instincts know better.  
  
Charles swallows again, shivers, not squirming under Erik now but staring wide-eyed up at him, and his own response is shocking, too. He isn't horrified by it, not even slightly. He isn't frightened. He does want to avoid it, at all costs, really, but - that part inside of him rails, but that's Erik's right. That's how it should be. He needs that, too, and Erik must know it. "Well, you couldn't do it tonight if you wanted to," he feels the need to point out, but his voice has cracked. "So technically it's free game." That part is going to get him into trouble. Perhaps he should muzzle it. He wants to be good, he promised to be good tonight, but pushing doesn't hurt, right? Just a little?  
  
"I assure you it is not. If you feel the need to test me, tonight, I will make my wishes known, and regardless of your opinion on the matter, everyone there will know that I am your Dominant." In other words, Erik will not allow Charles to trap him into actionlessness in order to get away with flagrant disregard for his Commands. If such a situation were to arise, Erik would rise in response, and Charles would have to deal with the aftermath. People would see him. People would know him. He doesn't care about that, either. Charles knows he doesn't, Charles knows that he wants that anyway and he's not forcing the issue out of respect for his submissive, but if Charles saw fit to use it to undermine Erik's authority.... well. That will not go unanswered.  
  
That has him shuddering again. Charles bites his lip, hard, and has to swallow and breathe for a few moments before he responds. In the end, he doesn't exactly respond, either. "So you don't like me in corsets?" he asks, and it's breathless, but maybe a little disappointed, too. It's at least a change of subject.  
  
The change of subject, and the response in general has Erik blinking. He tilts his head, stroking Charles's cheek tenderly. "I like you in them very much, _neshama_. Why would you assume otherwise?" Erik's reaction to his Bonding gift had been proof positive of that. But he would not want Charles to wear anything chosen for him by anyone else but Erik. He supposes his objection was purely egotistical, he has to laugh.  
  
Charles finds he quite likes when Erik is egotistical, especially, as it turns out, when it comes to him. He chews his lip, and he can't shrug when he's been Ordered still, but he gives the mental equivalent, suddenly shy. "You said something like - they don't suit me, so..." He'd wondered if maybe, with everything mixed up, he'd misinterpreted Erik's response to his Bonding gift. It was possible. "So you would want to see me in one again?" he checks, barely above a whisper now.  
  
"Very, very much," Erik confirms softly. The sight of Charles wearing it had been one of the most beautiful things he can ever recall seeing, and he never wants Charles to doubt that again. All of it, not just the corset, but every part. He'd be beautiful in a paper bag, but this is decidedly more. Charles is gorgeous, a vision, made entirely manifest for Erik, just because he thought it would please him, and it did. Beyond words.  
  
Now his throat is clogged for a different reason, and he worries even more at his lip, wriggling just slightly below his Dominant. His cheeks are pink, and this time it really isn't because he's still running a bit of a fever. "You could ask," he whispers, but what he really means is Order. Charles plans to give him many more gifts, but that's definitely absolutely an enticing thought. He already likes it very much when Erik decides what cardigan he's going to wear that day.  
  
"Mm. And what shall I ask for?" Erik smirks down at him, and although it's phrased as a question, it very much is not. He wants Charles to tell him exactly what he's thinking about, what he wants, the desires that Erik's had since the first moment he saw Charles wearing that corset. To make him wear something like it (perhaps not that exact one, that one's special. It's private. It's for Erik's eyes alone, but something-) in full view of everyone else, so everyone else will not only know to whom Charles belongs, but they will see how right, how good it is, how much Charles likes it, how magnificent his submission to Erik is.  
  
That wasn’t even quite what he’d meant, but it does make him shiver when he picks up on Erik’s thoughts. Could he wear one in public? He could. Like he’d noted before, it’s expected of him, even. It’s the appropriate form of dress for an event like this. He sticks out a bit like a sore thumb when he doesn’t, though he usually dresses less Dominant-leaning than he did when he was much younger, and while that has its draw, there’s something to not sticking out for once. To accepting his own submission and not throwing it off. “You could tell me to wear it,” he breathes, and he doesn’t say ask, because if Erik asked, he could say no. He would, he thinks. But if Erik told him to, if he Ordered it, even, that would be a different story. A different story entirely.  
  
"Yes, I could," Erik murmurs. Erik's never begrudged Charles's style, either, although Charles has noticed that he tends to wear more submissive-tailored things when Erik picks out his clothing than not, in a subtle kind of way. He doesn't need flash and pomp and circumstance, even his collar is simplistic-Erik's never relied on posturing and puffing out his chest to assert his Dominance, but he can't deny there is an appeal to seeing Charles in something highly traditional in public, and he can't deny that he hasn't been thinking about it since Charles brought it up, hasn't been mulling over whether to ask it, hasn't been toeing the lines in his head; and maybe he wouldn't have brought it up on his own, because he's not perfect-he's back to his initial hesitance in some respects, but as soon as he realizes that Charles would be OK with it-that it wouldn't offend him, or frighten him, Erik seems to glow with it, practically purring atop him. Erik thinks he'd like to make something, this time. Something for Charles, specifically, something special and unique and flattering.

* * *

Charles, for his part, has gone back to squirming. There’s a part of him railing, and a part of him that’s purring with delight and anticipation, and both of them are him though far less coherently melded. It’s confusing, and it makes his heart beat faster, all of it flashing in his eyes as he idly tries to wriggle out from beneath his Dominant. Mostly so he’ll pull him back. “Will you, then?” he asks, and maybe he’d meant it as a challenge, but it’s still far too breathless for that.  
  
And he does pull him back. Keeps him still and safe and held. Kept in Erik's arms, bound up. All parts of Charles belong to Erik, no matter how much they may chafe against it. "Yes," he whispers roughly. "You will wear what I make you." He does mean make, as in, fashion it from raw materials, but also means make, as in Order, which is exactly what it is.  
  
Apparently there’s a lot of chafing going on today, even as he rubs up against his Dominant, arches against him, skin on skin and it feels wonderful and he moans with it, eyes fluttering closed. “What if I say no?” he asks, and apparently he hasn’t redefined what he finds fun, either, because he’s absolutely testing there. “I know what’s appropriate to these things. I should pick my own outfit.” He doesn't want to. That's irrelevant.  
  
"You should do as I instruct you," Erik murmurs back warmly instead, giving each of Charles's closed eyelids a gentle brush of his lips. "And you will, because it is not optional. Am I understood?"  
  
There's conflict there again. Charles sighs against it, and the truth is the majority of him is more than pleased to do whatever it is Erik asks of him, barring something he needs a pause-word for. He's floating happily in subspace. He wants his outfit picked out by Erik. But he ends up grinning again, that smug twitch to his lips. "No, I don't think I do. Could you rephrase?" he asks, and it's the tone he takes, the one that oozes arrogance. "Perhaps in another language?"  
  
" _Tetzayet pkudot sheli ve uvan be'kol safa ani medaber_ ," Erik replies glibly, but there is no underestimating how much more powerful that undercurrent of Will is in his native tongue, the almost otherworldly curl at the edge of his words like smoke rising from a superheated element, absolutely soaking the room with it, misting down on Charles's exposed skin. "You will wear what I tell you to wear, and that is final, else I have you thank me for the privilege." He scrapes his teeth against Charles's jaw in warning.  
  
It does affect him. There’s no possible way for it not to affect him, and though it does everyone, it was made for Charles. Meant for Charles. It sinks right into his skin and puts him further down, sinks him underneath where he has no hope of reaching the surface. Unfortunately, Charles has never been particularly good at heeding warnings, and he blinks his eyes open, meeting Erik’s with that grin still on his lips. “That’s not a particularly compelling ‘or else’,” he murmurs. “I had an outfit planned. I’ll wear mine, thank you.” A little pushing is acceptable, isn’t it?  
  
"A very, very little," Erik cautions, but they both know he has no intention of even giving Charles enough rope to hang himself with, this time. His intentions are very clear. Because Charles is right. He doesn't need to ask. He doesn't mind making his Will known amidst Charles's objections, but he can't help but hope that Charles will like what he has slowly forming in his mind, too. He obscures it, though, he wants it to be a surprise. Something nice, something regal, befitting of him. Not ill-fitted and in garish (or alternately, muddy and boring) colors like the ones he'd refused to put on in his memories. Erik favors high detailing and quality craftsmanship and good fabric, things that are soft and warm. "You see, I do not need to be compelling." He tweaks Charles's nose with a fond grin back. "I'm going to make it for you, and you will wear it." The Order is affectionate, but no less firm or strong than any of his others.  
  
Charles knows he wants it, too, and there's no fighting it. Perhaps he'll say something more when it actually comes time for it, not to snub Erik because he knows whatever he comes up with will be gorgeous, and there is a part of him that already know it is, but because - it's a statement, and making it changes things. This evening in particular. For now he shivers again, restless beneath his Dominant. "Will you untie me now?" he asks instead, pulling again at his wrists, except there really isn't any give. It's tight. He hopes the answer is no, secretly. That Erik keeps him here all day until this evening. He's earned it, after all; there's a nice bruise forming on Erik's neck, and it makes him smile, lips twitching.  
  
"Perhaps I shall never untie you," Erik rumbles back, and as soon as Charles pulls at his wrists, Erik's hand snaps up around his, holding him firmly down. "You should always be here. Right here. Hm? Would you like that? From morning until night, bound by me. Because you are, whether you can feel it or not," he tightens that rope just a little more. He laughs at Charles's musings. "Oh, that pleases you, hm?"  
  
The way his heart picks up and his breath hitches are proof enough that he does, indeed, like the idea of it. It would take some of the fun and novelty (would that be new, too? Like the first time?) out of Erik tying him up in intricate knots and pretty rope, but perhaps not. Besides, he's had more than one fantasy of - where are those coming from? Are those his? Charles swallows, shakes it off, and then he's laughing, too, quiet and just a bit embarrassed. "It would please me more if you had another one, or it was darker," he murmurs, and it would be bold if his cheeks didn't heat, if he didn't try to squirm again. Brand new. All of it.  
  
Erik doesn't think it will ever stop being novel, even after eighty years, longer with Charles than without him, longer healing than being damaged, he'll still be amazed and humbled and awed that this is his life; that Charles is his life, that he can do all the things he's only dreamed about in half-whispers. Erik's nose scrunches up fondly. "It would please me for you to finish that earlier thought," he purrs in response, touching that lovely red splashing Charles's cheeks. It's almost amusing how Erik genuinely used to think he had no imagination, that he wasn't creative, that he didn't want. Maybe they're Charles's fantasies, or maybe they're Erik's, they all blend into one in Erik's mind, more and new and interesting ways for him to make Charles beg and shiver in pleasure, in harmony, in peace. He's certainly not embarrassed.  
  
Charles is fairly certain that it’s his fantasy that’s rolling around up there. He hasn’t a clue where it came from because he can’t remember ever consciously thinking it - but there are many things that he can’t remember thinking or feeling and now does, as if he always had. A benefit, perhaps, of having one’s mind completely rearranged. Things shoved to the back crop up. His cheeks get redder and that flush spreads down his neck and up to his ears. “I’ll tell you if you let me bite you again,” he hedges, hopeful, but it’s mostly a distraction.  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik laughs. "You will tell me, because I have told you to do so." He gives Charles a sharp nip in reproach, the Orders rolling off of his tongue like honey, following as the flush spreads lower along his neck and shoulders. Not that Erik minds Charles marking him, but just as Charles can be contrary, Erik doesn't see fit to grant that particular request until his Orders are obeyed. "Call me a poor negotiator," he huffs.

* * *

After he’s done crying out as he’s bitten, moaning softly when that sting settles in, he huffs, too. It’s breathless and there’s nothing behind it because the fact of the matter is, Charles likes when Erik demands like this. When he denies him unless he’s properly behaved, unless he does what he’s told, unless he’s good. He’s quickly slipping further down than he already was and it’s completely intoxicating, eyes fluttered closed, teeth worrying at swollen cherry lips again, his mind spilling out slightly disjointed images that clearly mean to show Erik what he’d been thinking of. Their bed, and Charles very clearly tied to it. Nothing particularly wild there - although to Charles, this Charles, it is, it feels it and he shivers at just that, because even being between Erik’s legs was enough to completely undo him, to shove him into a deep, deep subspace - and it’s not filthy, either. It could be. There are many ways it could be. But Erik had said from morning until night, and it had jogged whatever this is. Erik could keep him there in his bed all day long. Come and go as he pleased, perhaps on a day he had somewhere to be. He’d take care of Charles, of course - they’re connected, if something were wrong, if he needed it to stop, if he just needed reassurance - but to spend a day like that, even a few hours like that, helpless and waiting for Erik, nothing to do but be his? And Erik is creative. He could have Charles thinking of him. He’d be dependent on him. He already is, but that kind of surrender… and Charles thinks that, in theory, he could untie himself now if it weren’t a direct Order. But he wouldn’t, not unless he asked first, and in that case Erik would likely just do it for him. He shivers again. It wouldn’t be because he was afraid. It would be because it was exactly what he wanted, and isn’t that something?  
  
Erik laughs, full and bright, eyes like glittering gemstones in the morning light that streams in through the slats of their windows, where plants curl up over the edges, and light catches the dust-motes of the air and reflects a brilliant prism of rainbow-gold; it's a pure expression of Erik's feelings, his happiness, his contentedness and yes, says his being, to Charles's musings. Yes, yes. He'll keep him right here in his nest, bound up nice and tight in Will and rope, he'll feed him and pet him and pleasure him, until he's so down and floating the world slips away and only Erik's design remains. Charles is for him, he'll wait for him he'll wait right here, for Erik's whims and wishes, but all he wishes is joy and sensual laziness, luxury and wealth; they're silly things. But for a lifetime of pain and deprivation to Erik it's music, and he'll sing those songs to Charles for the rest of his life. He won't. He won't untie himself. He'll remain right here in Erik's purview until Erik deems otherwise. "Love you," he murmurs against Charles's chest, mouthing over his nipple and giving it a teasing little bite. "Mine, all mine. Think of me? Tied up and waiting for me? Think about me?" he kisses the center of Charles's chest.  
  
It would be impossible for him not to think of him. Charles whines too loudly when his nipple is given attention, squirming as much as he can, and with Erik's head bent he can hide in that place he loves, and maybe it's something weird and primal and biological, but it's calming. It also means that after taking a few breaths, floating on the images and the possibilities, the fantasy of it, he can bite down on Erik's neck again. It's not a gentle little nip, and he grins in the aftermath, triumphant.  
  
That makes Erik shudder against him and he immediately moves lower, lower, not to get away or in offense but because he wants, he growls against Charles's inner thigh and pushes his legs apart and returns the favor hard, biting at the inside of that sensitive skin, with nowhere to go but Erik's Will. His hand strokes down Charles's belly, through the soft thatch of curls lining his lower abdomen, trails his finger lightly across Charles's cock, nuzzles his cheek into it and glances up with a playful, bright expression blazing in his eyes, challenging and Dominating and confident all at once in a great swirl of Will, glittering and focused. "You are mine," he rumbles, nearly glowering with it as he moves to the opposite thigh to make a corresponding mark, Charles spread open before him because he Commanded it, because he wants it, to touch and feel and mark and take and own-  
  
It earns the reaction he's sure Erik wanted. He yelps at the first bite, gasps and cries out at the second, shuddering and squirming and sinking. But his eyes close, and his heart is beating faster and his legs are trembling, spread out because Erik wants them like that but shaking horribly and there's no way to cover his eyes with his hands so he settles for this. There's panic in chest again, stuttered and trapped, and he tries to breathe it out because it doesn't make sense when he knows how perfectly safe he is. When he's in subspace, when he meant for exactly this to happen, for Erik the be riled up. When he wants desperately, too, when he needs to be Claimed more than anything. But for some reason it's still there, and he's tugging at the rope again, except now it's too tight to make much of a difference.  
  
Erik gentles, as he always does, pressing his cheek to Charles's inner thigh and looking up at him, petting his stomach and skittering fingers over his chest as he moves forward a little to press a kiss into his navel. "It's OK-dear-heart, it's OK. Promise. Never hurt you, never ever. Tell me? Hm?" Another kiss, soft and sweet, this one right against his ribcage, the Order rich and calm on his tongue. "Scared of me?" he whispers, eyes wide.  
  
"Mm-mm," Charles mumbles immediately, shaking his head, trembling and wriggling under the kisses, tensing underneath but not because he's afraid. Not because he doesn't want, either, because his breath keeps hitching with anything but fear. He's not afraid of Erik at all, and he knows his Dominant would never hurt him. He doesn't know why he keeps reacting like this, it's silly and he doesn't know where it's coming from. He doesn't want Erik to stop, and he doesn't even want him to gentle. "I don't know," he whispers, frustrated. "Not scared of you. Promise."  
  
"Look at me," Erik Commands, voice soft. He waits until Charles complies, settling into his abdomen, still touching and kissing. Not stopping. "Look at me. I know, 'k? I know, I know," he punctuates each one with a press of his lips, speaking into Charles's skin, into his body and soul. "Don't wanna stop," he whispers. "I love you, you are mine, I will have you as I wish-" he murmurs lowly. "But not hurt. Never hurt, never-you panic, scared, I don't-and it's OK, 'k? It's OK. You can-" he can panic, he can be scared, he can be. Erik can handle that. Erik gets scared and distant, too. "It's OK. Look at me. Listen to my words. You are safe. You are mine. mm? You remember? My boy. Tell me. Tell me, sweetheart. It's mine, too. No hiding. No, no."  
  
No hiding. Charles opens his eyes and that panic is still there, still clamoring around in his chest, but Erik soothes it. His voice soothes it, his touch soothes it, and soon he's squirming to get closer, instead of the way he'd been trying to inch up the bed unconsciously, trying to be easy. That was one of Erik's first Orders, he thinks, once he was down. Be easy. He bites his lip, then takes a shaky breath, nodding tentatively even as he looks down at his Dominant and manages a slow, shy smile. "Yours," he whispers, barely audible, his cheeks pink again. "Your boy. I'm safe." He is and he knows it. He's safe. This is Erik, not anyone else. Erik would never, ever let anyone else touch him. He wouldn't. Right? No, he wouldn't.  
  
"Never," Erik gasps, that thought instantly repugnant to him, flashing a cold fire through his whole body like a bucket of ice water. He will never let another soul touch Charles ever again, it doesn't matter what happens. He made a mistake once. He thought it was for the best. He thought it would hurt him more if he killed that sick fuck where he stood, but Erik was wrong. He was wrong, and that man should have died. Anyone who even thinks of hurting him that way again will suffer. Erik doesn't care how many people he has to hack through. They will not stand a chance. Erik would raze down the world before it happened. The only person who matters is Charles, and their family, they're the only people in the universe that matter. Maybe Erik is a murderer, maybe he's evil, maybe he's a monster, fine. But he belongs to Charles. He will always stand in front of him, before him, at the ready, to defend what is his.  
  
Those thoughts should probably be incredibly worrying, and at another time they might be, but for some reason right now they just reassure him. Settle him down. "And..." Charles bites at his lip, wriggling beneath his Dominant again. "And you won't touch anyone besides me either? Ever? Just me?" he asks quietly. Hopefully.  
  
For some reason, tears spring to Erik's eyes at that and he hides his head in Charles's stomach, body trembling and he shakes his head, sniffing, squeezing his eyes shut around them to stop them, to hold it at bay, whatever melancholic chord has suddenly been struck in his chest and he shudders again, little tremors from where he's keeping himself totally silent. Not a sound, not a peep, everything contained and he croaks, "Never. Just you. Just you. Not if I-" he chokes. All at once it drips out of him, falls out like all the marbles scattered on the floor. Somewhere inside he's still scared that this isn't Real, that it's a reprieve from-but that he isn't-isn't safe, he isn't safe, they're still out there. They still want him. They're still going to come for him and rip him away and send him back to that cold, sterile place and back to the rooms and the beds and back and he is supposed to belong there but he doesn't want to-he exists here, this is where he exists. "Choose, not if I-choose, just you."  
  
Immediately, Charles is crying too. He feels everything too strongly not to, and he's ashamed and guilty and it all floods horribly through him, coming out in sobs enough for both of them. He can't move his arms to hold Erik, but he whimpers, quiet, sympathetic things, tries to arch closer, provide more contact, wrap him up even if it's not physical. He does, covering his Dominant with it, sniffling himself. "You have a choice. I promise, never again," he whispers, mortified that he'd even asked. But he'd been - he'd been thinking - "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he mumbles, and this is why Erik shouldn't want him. This is why he should give him away to someone.  
  
"No," Erik almost snarls it, and he ends up looming over Charles again, covering him with his whole body, skin-to-skin and unconsciously rubbing his knee between Charles's thighs, petting his throat and keeping himself completely contained, only the sound of his uneven, rough breathing which betrays him. "Never again?" he whispers, not daring to look up, his mind a sieve and all of his secret-secret feelings spilling through the micro-mesh nets, a pour-over boiling water into jugs that can't contain, spill spill spill. "No one else, never want anyone else. Never let anyone touch you. Never again, never again." Never again for Erik? No one will-because it's all mixed up, what he did and what he chose, and Charles doesn't-he doesn't think Erik is-he cuts that off before it forms because it's-pathetic, it's pathetic and self-pitying and, and he doesn't want Charles to know how fragile he really is inside, was he always so fragile? Always?  
  
But Charles knows, he knows all of it, and he's still crying a bit and Erik thinks he's pathetic? That he's fragile? Charles is the bad one. He doesn't think that. He would never, ever think that, and he rocks himself against Erik, seeking sensation, seeking reassurance, still making soft whimpering noises and he can't get much of anything else out of his throat. Never again for either of them. Just each other. It's Erik here and no one else, it will never be anyone else, and Erik is just for him, too, and they're safe and he doesn't have to worry. He doesn't have to be scared. He just has to be Erik's. He can just be Erik's boy and that's okay and no one at the party will touch him and if they do Erik will be angry with them. Not Charles, though. He doesn't get angry with Charles often, not unless he's earned it. And when he does, he's still safe. Still cared for. Erik's boy.  
  
"Hmmmn," Erik rumbles warmly at the turn of Charles's thoughts, the ice-grip on his heart slowly melting into satisfied, rich Dominion. No one at that party will touch Charles because if they do, Erik will cut their hands off and slice their faces from their bodies and crush them into the Earth. But not Charles. Never Charles. Erik loves him and he will always be nice and gentle and sweet or not, sometimes he can be rough and unrelenting but never hurt, never more than his boy can handle, Erik always knows, he does. He protects and keeps safe and he makes nice nests and makes sure Charles is taking care of himself and it's good, Charles never has to worry again, Erik is purely devoted to him.

* * *

Erik sliding into Dominion has him utterly plunged into subspace, and for a moment his eyes go hazy with it, his breathing picked up as he tries to reorient himself. Down, down, down. Nothing but Erik, and he squirms and wriggles and fusses, trying to incite more touch, whining as he rocks again and again where Erik's leg is still wedged between his, firm and strong. If someone tried to touch him, Erik would stop them? What if they said things to Charles? People always say things like that at parties like these. That Charles would be good in their bed, that they know how to treat submissives, that he should be a good boy and come home with them. Drunk, almost always. Would Erik like that? Probably not. Because Charles is his. His belonging. His submissive. His boy. His pet, even, but not in a demeaning way, not in a humiliating way - collared, leashed, left in bed to wait... he moans, and his cock is hard against Erik's leg and he's embarrassed, but he can't stop. Not unless Erik tells him not to. Then he'll be good.  
  
Erik bites his lip, eyes fluttering shut again, tears drying on his cheeks but this time it's not sadness, not when Charles is shifting up against him and he can feel the hard warmth of him against his inner thigh and he has to stifle himself from groaning out loud, and he can't help it this time, his hand tracing from Charles's chest to cup him between his legs, rubbing a thumb lazily over the head of his dick, smearing where he leaks all over himself and no-no, no, no-no one will ever speak to him that way again-it's the same as touch. They're touching him with their disgusting words, their entitled sickness and Erik will never tolerate it, he'll cut their tongues out so they can't spit their vile sludge at him ever again. Only Erik knows how. Only Erik knows how to treat his good boy, only Erik knows how to make him whine and fuss and beg-he only thinks about Erik-never about them, never-please, never, they don't belong. Not here. When he's tied up and waiting and lonely and desperate, his sweet boy, his pretty pet all bound in intricate knots, " _Yeled misken_ ," Erik rumbles, English slipping away. " _Rak chashov odot li._ " Never humiliating. Never demeaning. Charles is beautiful, and Erik is so incredibly humbled by it, a wonder, he can't believe-  
  
For just a moment, just a fleeting, frightening moment, Charles is panicked again. He calms before it really settles in, focusing on Erik's voice, on his Will, on his touch, on his smell. On their Bond, on his thoughts. Erik is here, and only Erik. It's his Dominant touching him, the man who owns him, who knows exactly how to treat and handle and love him. He's allowed to touch. He's supposed to touch. Be easy, be easy. He's whining, though, loud even to his own ears, crying for some reason as he bucks helplessly into Erik's hand. Erik is above him, and Charles tries to rub against him, to feel him. Is Erik - he's hard too, isn't he? He wants Charles? Just Charles. Erik knows how to take care of his boy, and Charles is going to be good for him. All he has to do is listen. No one else is going to touch him, just his Dominant. That's all. It's okay.  
  
Oh, and he is-and he spreads Charles's legs further so he can slide up and rub his hardened cock against Charles's, lets him feel exactly how much he affects Erik, and at the twinge of panic Erik gentles again, moving up so he can kiss Charles instead, a Claim of its own, Dominating and wet and slow so Charles can feel that he has nowhere to go, nothing to do but take what Erik gives him, what Erik gives him. There will be no one else. There will never be anyone else, not for either of them. They are the only two people in the world, the only people who matter. Erik would kill for him. He would lie for him. He would die for him. He belongs wholly to Charles, just as Charles does to him. " _Royk_ ," he breathes, a verbalization of that Command-be easy, be easy. Erik has him. He'll take care of him. He promises. And everyone there will know he belongs to Erik, too, he's collared and he'll be wearing what Erik makes for him-what Erik makes him, and maybe he'll tie a twine of that threaded Will between them, linking them from cuff to collar just like before, never separated, never-  
  
It's so silly. It's so silly, so ridiculous, so much of a bloody turn-off, but somewhere between moaning and squirming for more of that delicious, wonderful friction, gasping into Erik's mouth, panting, his lips completely obscene with how swollen they are, he starts to cry again. In earnest, hitchy little sobs of it, his chest heaving and he doesn't understand. It's not fair. He wants this so badly, why is he reacting this way? He felt like it was the first time with Erik when they did things for the actual first time, and he didn't cry like this. Fuss like this. Something must be wrong with him, because he's still hard and leaking and wanting, his body is still moving, and he doesn't even feel - he sniffles, trying to wiggle enough that he can hide in Erik's neck. That always calms him. His Dominant must think he's such a baby. Pathetic.  
  
Erik doesn't mind, though, and there's not an ounce of frustration in him. He's perfectly attuned to Charles, he always has been. Moves where he moves, eases when he needs it, goes deeper and darker when Charles's insides howl for it; and right now all he does is still, completely unconscious, he's not forcing himself to stop or go lighter, it's just an automatic response to Charles's panic. He's not turned off (he's not turned on by it, either, not by itself, not when it's because Charles is afraid of him-but he isn't turned away, and his body doesn't differentiate), he's just calm and in control, Dominion in every way saturating the room. "Shh, shh," is all he says, touching Charles's chest, and he can feel the conflicting urges within him, so he doesn't stop, exactly, but it's-contained, a simple touch, a simple point of contact, and it's safe, see? It's safe. Erik won't let anything happen to him. "I won't," he whispers. "I take care of you. Trust me? So beautiful. I love you so much." It's OK, he promises. Charles can cry if he needs to, and if he fusses Erik will settle him down, because Erik can take care of him. "Talk to me, 'k? Tell me what's happening," he Orders gently.  
  
Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. Charles sniffles into Erik's neck and he knows it's safe, it's his Dominant so of course it's safe, but for some reason he keeps getting stuck. Spooked, panicked, but not afraid. Not of Erik, never of Erik, not even once, not even when he wanted to frighten him. It feels like too much, and his heart keeps racing and his throat keeps feeling like it's closing and he doesn't know why, he has no idea why. "I don't know. Mixed up," he mumbles, miserable and ashamed because he really, truly does want Erik to Claim him. He doesn't think he could consciously want many things more than that. Everything he's done has felt wonderful, so nice, and he's not chafing against Erik's Will, it's not defiance - he's so nicely down, completely reliant on Erik to guide and Command him. He doesn't know what it is, or how to find it to stop it. Does Erik know? Can Erik help him? He just wants it to go away so his Dominant can touch him, so Charles can please him. He thinks of his lips stretched around Erik's cock before and whimpers, and it's not from distress.  
  
He does know, or at least he can guess, intuitive as he is, but also intuitive to Charles in particular, and to this in particular. It hasn't happened with Erik yet. It might never happen, he hasn't broached the subject with Gabrielle yet, but he knows it's going to be an eventuality. If he's going to get better, he's going to have to get through it, too. He understands, he does, and it isn't pathetic at all. It's normal and in some ways, Erik thinks it's because of the restructuring, because Charles's mind is still weaving itself together, all of his defenses have to be built up again, but Erik doesn't want them built up. He will teach Charles's body as well as his mind that it is safe, and when Charles starts to flutter and panic, Erik will soothe him down and settle him and talk to him and pet him, and when he whimpers and moans in pleasure Erik will keep touching him, keep rubbing them together, grasped in one hand that still strokes him slowly, gently. He belongs with Erik. His body belongs to Erik and Erik will make him feel good, and he will make Erik feel good, and he will listen to Erik and follow his Orders and float on a sea of glowing Will. It doesn't need to be stopped. It needs to be acknowledged and comforted, and Erik is for that. That's what he's for. That's why he exists.  
  
The problem is it seems to be happening at the same time. He gasps, he moans, he bucks against Erik's hand and squirms to rub them closer together, to feel Erik against him, hot and hard and demanding, warm against his belly, but he's crying. He's crying and he's shaking horribly and his head starts to hurt again and he doesn't know what to do. It's alright, Erik promised. _Royk, royk_. He's safe. He's safe and his Dominant is covering him completely, nothing bad can happen to him. But his heart is in his throat and he starts to fuss again, to squeeze his eyes shut. He can't, something in his head says. He can't come, he can't, if Erik keeps touching him he will and he can't. But he wants to be touched, he's Erik's - Charles is making those pitiful whining sounds again, tears streaked down his cheeks.  
  
Maybe Erik was wrong, earlier, in his supposition that it hasn't happened yet, because it does, sometimes-but not in the same way. Not in his body, that's ingrained beyond reckoning. But-when Charles pulls away or feels fear, a bolt of panic releases inside of his chest that he has to smooth away, because it's not important, but the roll of Charles's thoughts has his hand stutter still and he just remains there, still touching, still pressed against one another, eyes closed as he breathes in and out slowly. This isn't the same, it's not the same, he's not-( _you are_ , though, whispers the Insidious Voice)-it's weakness and he's sorry. He does better, he sucks it all back up and focuses, focuses. It's OK. Erik's still touching him, and he won't come, not until Erik tells him to, because that belongs to Erik, too. Charles wants, right? He wants? He trusts? Erik isn't-(he isn't-) and maybe he's wrong again, because-no, no-Erik growls to himself and shakes it off. "Nothing bad," he whispers.   
  
Charles wants. He wants, he wants, he wants, and he trusts. He trusts with his entire being, he gave that all to Erik. But it's all getting mixed up, Erik's suppressed panic and fear and disgust touching him, and his own - no, he can't, he can't come ever he can't he can't he can't - and his head is suddenly bursting with pain and everything is screeching and his body doesn't feel like his and he can't breathe and he's sobbing and - " _Afor afor aforaforafor_ ," he gasps, the word blending together as he repeats it.

* * *

Before Charles even said it, he's wrapping him up in his arms instead, and he unties the rope so that Charles can hug him in return, and exactly as Erik told him-he stopped, he rolls off so that they aren't touching so intimately, but still Erik can't help but hold him, touch his face, ruthlessly shoving down every blinding, screaming echo in his own mind, down, down, get down, get out, get out, it's fine, it's good, it's fine, for the first time ever Erik wishes Charles couldn't-didn't know, he wishes Charles didn't know so he wouldn't-so it wouldn't hurt him even more because that's what Erik does-no, get out. "I know, I know," he whispers, touching Erik's chest, Ordering him to take deep, slow breaths.  
  
It's Charles' fault, it's his fault, it's all his fault. He breathes but he sobs, too, harsh, dry, heaving sobs, and his face is covered in tears and he's choking on it and it's his fault. He hurt Erik and made him feel and think horrible things and remember what shouldn't be remembered, he dragged it into something good and nice and wonderful, he tainted it and now they'll never, ever do that again and Charles is bad, he's bad, he's awful and rotten and useless and worthless and he's not even good at what someone told him he was good for, stupid, stupid whore stupid slut stupid bitch, he's a terrible submissive. Terrible, bad, awful, Erik should never touch him again as punishment and it would be the only punishment that he'd ever need because it would hurt him, it would kill him, and good, that's what he deserves for being such a bitch -  
  
" _Atzor_ ," the Command is fierce. "You will never call yourself that again, stop it right now." And Erik usually doesn't speak to him that way, it's not anger, but it's a flex of Will he normally doesn't use, complete and overpowering. His own breathing is labored, barely-audible little wheezes through his nose as his teeth grind together. "I got you," he whispers over and over again. "I got you. Breathe. I love you," he just repeats himself, drowning out those thoughts. "Of course we'll do it again," he laughs softly. Charles is good. He's perfect. He's good right now, just like this. He doesn't need a punishment. He used his pause-word just like Erik told him to and he's letting Erik take care of him and that's all Erik wants.  
  
His chest hurts. More than that, his head hurts. He feels sweaty and sticky and uncomfortable and he sobs, letting Erik hold him, limp in his arms and he still thinks he's bad. He thinks he's awful, that he ruined something good and nice and perfect. Erik won't want to touch him again. "Why not?" is what he sniffles, hardly audible at all, miserable as he tries to keep himself from nuzzling more into his Dominant, but he does anyway. He needs to be held or he'll break off.  
  
"Because you are mine," Erik whispers into his ear, encouraging him to bury his face in his neck and rubbing his back, shifting their positions so Charles is on top of him in his lap, so he can wrap both arms around him. Because Charles belongs to Erik, and Erik does not think of him that way. Does he think Erik thinks of him that way-? And he won't tolerate it, not from anyone, not even from Charles himself. He said he wouldn't tolerate it and he meant it. It's OK if Charles feels what he feels, but he won't sanction the name-calling. He can't begin to describe how it hurts, like a punch into his heart every single time and he knows, he does know, he thinks some pretty awful things about himself, too, and they've slipped out once or twice. It slipped out in the back of his mind just now, even, an unformed word that he wouldn't allow to the surface. But they don't belong here. They are good to one another. This is good, no matter how it happens, as long as they are together, they are good.  
  
"But -" It comes out around a sob, because he hasn't calmed. He hasn't settled. His chest is still heaving and he keeps forgetting how to breathe, choking on his own spit and snot. When he pulls back from Erik's neck, it's only to wipe it away with the back of his hand before he buries himself back where he belongs. Where he needs to be. "But it's true," he says, and it's muffled but it's still clear and his voice breaks with it. It's true. Charles is - he's that. He's those things, those words. That's why Erik should never touch him again.  
  
"No," Erik murmurs. "Not true. You are mine. Beautiful and perfect and I love you, so much. That is what I think of you, and if anyone says differently they will have to deal with me," he nearly growls it. "You are mine. You belong to me. And I will always want to touch you and make you feel good, always. Nothing is ruined, sweetheart. I'm right here. Just breathe."  
  
That's what Charles does. For a long time he just breathes, and he sniffles out the last of his tears, quite a bit concerned that his eyes will still look like he cried them out tonight but he still looks sick anyway, and fortunately he can hide that. After the past few days this is exhausting and that throbbing behind his temples is back, insistent and nasty, he feels feverish and drifting but what keeps him grounded is Erik. Still in subspace, still held, that hand on his back and his cheek rubbing against his neck, inhaling. It's safe here. He's safe here. "Sorry," he mutters finally, and the room fills with sorrow, with shame. He'd thought he was better.  
  
"No," Erik says again, shaking his head. "Never apologize to me for that. I love you, _neshama_. I'm always going to be here." He runs his fingers through Charles's hair, separating the strands lovingly and untangling where they drag a little bit, an unconscious motion, tender. He strokes his fingertip along Charles's temple, featherlight. "I will always take care of you. You know that, hm? I am here for you. That is why I exist."  
  
His hair is far too long now for one of these parties, speaking of. He would say he didn't care, but he's going to have his mother mentioning it every time she sees him as if it's the first time she's noticing, and it promises to be grating. All he really cares about right now is that his Dominant keeps playing with it, though. Either way Charles frowns, making himself smaller in Erik's lap. "I don't like it when you say that," he whispers.  
  
Erik will cut it for him, when they're getting ready, should Charles wish. He did a nice job last time, but right now he likes that it's long because he can card his fingers through it, in broad, even strokes. "Say what?" he whispers, kissing Charles's forehead.  
  
"That you only exist for me. I don't like it," he sniffles, and he pulls back again so he can wipe his tears off on his arm and not Erik's neck even though he's been doing that this whole time. It makes him dizzy, and the room spins and blurs and he makes a quiet, confused noise, things spinning inside too until he settles back down. He's nearly forgotten what he was talking about, and his temples throb in agreement.  
  
It's the truth. At least it's Erik's truth. Everything in his life before Charles-he doesn't want to exist for that. His life is here, with Charles and with his family. He has devoted his whole being, his whole existence, to the task. It's unlikely that he'll ever be convinced otherwise, but he nods. "OK, dear-heart. I won't anymore." He pets Charles's cheek, strokes the apple with his thumb soothingly, back and forth.  
  
It just makes Charles frown, even through the muddy confusion. "That's not -" He doesn't like that, either. That Erik agreed not to say something just because he didn't like it, and that it was only so he'd be mollified. It's something he's brought up before, and he never particularly likes where the conversation goes. But he supposes he understands, too. If Erik was gone, he doesn't think he'd be able to exist. He knows he wouldn't. Isn't it the same thing? Doesn't it amount to it?  
  
"I don't know," Erik whispers, more honest than usual. It's not that he lies, but without his barriers and shields and defensive systems he's much more-willing to let his emotions hang in the air, without solutions or actions. He doesn't want Charles to think like that, either, maybe. Because-if something happened-he would want Charles to live, to grow, to let all the things they've learned together warm his heart and propel him forward and he knows that's too much to ask, it is. They're a Pairbond. Two halves of a whole. How can you go on when your arms and legs and eyes and ears and skin are disintegrated? When your heart is crushed?  
  
For Charles, it might be a bit more, too. Erik told him to trust him wholly, and he did; he trusted him in the most intimate way he possibly could. When the Void swallowed everything and Charles swallowed the Void, he did more than combine their mindscapes, although they're not very well-meshed at the moment. The foundation of Charles' mind is reliant on Erik's. Void-Charles asked Erik to do landscaping for the castle, all the while knowing it was entirely backwards. He's clever, after all. He's the universe. The castle - Charles, as an entity that exists on his own, his memories, his thoughts, his personality - rests on top of the Landscape, on a foundation of Erik's creation, though he didn't know it. If that were gone, if Erik were gone, what would be left? What would happen? Everything would crumble. He doesn't know what would still exist. Perhaps something, but nothing substantial. He swallows. "How long did Achilles live without Patroclus?" he asks, quiet as anything, hoarse from crying, though he knows there's no real answer. How long would Erik have lived if the Void had taken more of him than could be recovered?  
  
"He died climbing the gates of Troy," Erik whispers. "He was hit with a poison arrow, and his bones were mingled with Patroclus, so they would be together forever," he says, and his voice takes on the tone it usually does when he's telling a story. "He went to the underworld and conversed with the _sheydim_ , who told him he was blessed in life, blessed in death, but he said he would rather be a slave to the worst of masters, than be king of all the dead. All he wanted was to rest with his beloved." The answer is there, in the lines. Erik wouldn't have survived. It wouldn't be something. He would have been a husk, a heart-beating until it gave out by pure lack of Will. The Landscape has been forever altered by Charles's presence. His mind has been altered, and Charles may think in some places that it's bad, that it's wrong, but it's not true. It's been shaped. By his love. By his attention and adoration. By his joy. He gave the Butcher a feather duster and the sun a friend and the killer a purpose, a ladybug crawling over his knife-hand. Erik doesn't want to be bones, but it's what he would become, if Charles had been taken by the Void permanently. And the Void must have known it, Erik thinks. He must have. He wore Erik's collar.

* * *

The Void knew. Inside of Charles, somewhere unreachable for now, it still knows. It's Charles, too, and even with the universe at its fingertips it belongs to Erik. Even with its skin cracked and showing knowledge unimaginable, unable to be contained by Charles' form, its eyes black except for the exploding stars, it belongs to Erik. Charles swallowed the Void and lived for him, and the pounding at his temples is worth it if it means he gets to stay. The fevers are worth it. Any pain, any trial, all worth it. Fortunately, he has the strongest shield-mate, and the battles seem less daunting with that in mind. "Don't you dare die before me," he whispers, his voice muffled by Erik's skin and the pain. Things are rattling around in there, but they'll settle. There's just still so much to do. "Okay? You can't. Wait for me, and we can die in our sleep together, completely uneventfully. That's all I'll accept." Anything more would kill him, physically or otherwise. He knows it. A Pairbond simply wasn't meant to be apart, not in any real capacity, not by death, certainly, and they've spent far too much of their lives separated already. Far, far too much.  
  
Erik gives him a smile, kissing the top of his head. It's just another way to take care of his submissive, he realizes, because he's nodding before he can fully comprehend his own response. He will not die before Charles, because it's his duty to care for Charles, and that means living for Charles's entire life, to take care of him, and if Charles dies Erik will suffer and implode and it will be misery but-but he will handle it because that's his task, that's his job, that's his role. It's why he exists, even if Charles doesn't like him saying that. "I will always wait for you," he whispers. He will never let anything part them, not as long as he draws breath. "I will keep you, always, Charles. Always. I love you so much and I know I-I say it so often, I cannot help it, you know," he laughs softly. It just bursts out of him, every minute of every day, unable to be contained, the words are so silly compared to what he feels-"You belong to me. All of you. Every part." And he is so humbled, he still is, that Void-part, all the knowledge in the galaxies beyond, and still-Erik's collar.  
  
Charles smiles, too, even through the pain, even through the awful clanging around his head is doing, the shrieking just behind his temples that radiates through the rest of his body. "I love you, too," he mumbles, but it's perfectly coherent because the feeling that accompanies it is what matters, and that feeling clings to the walls of this room, to every object in it, to Erik himself, wrapping him up as much as Charles clings and nuzzles into him. That feeling is wholly overwhelming, all-consuming, completely unable to be contained by words but he'll say them anyway. "I belong to you. Of course I do. I always did." Even when Erik didn't know it. Even when Charles didn't. He won't die before Erik, either, because it's his job, his duty to serve Erik, to take care of him, too, to belong to him. It seems they'll just have to figure that out, but he doesn't intend for it to be for a very, very long time. The migraine gets worse and Charles starts to shiver with it, but he's still so down it doesn't seem as bad, dependent and floating against Erik's shoulder. "Erik?" he whispers, even as he winces at his own voice.  
  
Erik pets him and sings to him (" _oh when i lift you up/you feel like a hundred times yourself/i wish everybody knew/what's so great about you/you're the only thing i want/this is the last time/we were so under the brine/we were so vacant and kind..._ ") and tries to ward away that pain, through all the places he can now access within their castle-loaming Landscape. "Yes?" he whispers back.

* * *

Unfortunately the majority of the pain exists beyond it. Charles finds it's not nearly as terrifying now than it was before, now that he feels strong enough to withstand it, now that it's swallowed up inside of him. Still frightened, sometimes, because he doesn't know what the Void does, and the pain is difficult, but it's worth it. He can endure it for them, and he will. He was torn to shreds beyond any comprehension, he was utterly destroyed, but he stayed together for Erik. Every second of it was worth it. "Tonight," he breathes, and shivers. "If I forget. If I -" He shakes his head. "There are things I made myself forget." And he's worried he might remember them.  
  
"Shh, shh," Erik shakes his head. "I will be there. I will not let you forget. I will not." And he won't. Not ever. Charles will be wearing his collar and his design, his clothing, his marks-Erik might not even let him cover them up all the way; it's not unheard-of for a submissive to walk around with a mark, after-all. "You won't forget, sweetheart. I promise you this." Erik's voice is a deep, honeyed rumble.  
  
Charles isn't so sure. There's very little he doesn't forget, on and off, on and off, blinking like a faulty bulb. Forgetting, remembering, mixing up. He keeps that to himself even though Erik might know anyway, flushing. "If you'd like me to live through the night, please let me cover them," he mutters, dry, because his mother will surely murder him otherwise, but he doesn't think he'd fight too hard if Erik decided he can't.  
  
Erik laughs. "I may," he grants. Or he may not. There's one above Charles's collar that would be rather difficult to cover up and he didn't do that on purpose, but-and _B_ _aruch HaShem_ so to speak for past-Erik-who clearly has present-Erik's back, he thinks to himself in almost-amusement. Maybe he'll allow Charles to cover up all of the marks but that one, half-obscured by the collar anyway, it's perfectly tasteful. But it still exists. And that, more than anything, pleases Erik to his very core.  
  
It does make Charles bite his lip, though, something unsettled and half-frightened dropping in his stomach. "I don't - I'd really prefer if I could cover them." It's not him being defiant or fussy, it's based in real fear, a real concern, and he knows Erik always takes that seriously. He keeps his head buried in Erik's neck, taking slow breaths but clinging tighter. "Please." He'd rather not say why. He'd rather not say anything, his eyes closed, his head pounding horribly. He's starting to feel sick again, and he needs it to go away before this evening.  
  
Tugging down the collar a little, Erik presses a kiss to that mark and nods. "I understand," he whispers. "Tell me why?" it's a question, but it's unequivocally an Order as well.  
  
He knew it was coming, but he still tenses up, his lip chewed through by now as he drifts, stays tethered to Erik and reminds himself that he's perfectly safe. "You won't be there. Physically. And there's - I've seen..." It's perfectly acceptable, really, to wear a Dominant's mark or two. But the people who attend these sorts of things are rich, entitled, and bored. The way they react to things, especially while drunk, isn't always reasonable. And Charles has always been something unattainable for them; the way Erik draws people to him like a moth to a flame doesn't work the same with Charles (that's more a product of his personality, when it happens), but it does nonetheless. Dominants have always seen him as a challenge. Something to handle, something to conquer. They've never managed, but he knows they try.  
  
"You think they would try to harm you if you displayed a visible mark?" Erik murmurs, soft, still petting Charles's hair, taps his lip to encourage (read: Command) him to quit biting, and a tap to the cheek for the same reason, a smile on his face. It doesn't matter if he isn't there physically. He will not let anyone hurt Charles regardless, but he doesn't wish for Charles to feel unsafe, either, nor gawked at like a piece of meat. That party will end with quite a few more murders than planned.  
  
It's not that he thinks Erik would let him be harmed. He knows he wouldn't, and that he could manage that perfectly fine from any distance. It's just that Charles is nervous enough about so many voices clustered in one room, of what that might do to him when they've changed; when everything is loud and pressing in and he's still very much recovering, when he hasn't learned quite how to put up his own barriers again yet. He'd rather not draw the attention, not in that way. He knows these people. He knows what they see as a challenge, and they've always, to some degree, seen him as a piece of meat. Charles is good at playing a room. A role. At being charming and engaging and social. At getting himself in and out of situations. But he'd rather not, tonight, inspire more of the thoughts. Not when Erik isn't there, physically, to shut them down. Some day, but not tonight. Some day when Erik can glare and guide him away and have him kneel, show them that he's only one worth Charles' submission. That Charles belongs to one person and one person only, and it certainly isn't them. The idea warms him more than he expects it to, and then he's squirming with it.  
  
Erik glowers at those thoughts. Charles as a piece of meat. It makes him want to carve them all up this instant. "I understand," he whispers into Charles's ear. Erik takes care of him. He won't let him be uncomfortable, he won't let him get into a situation that precipitates a loss of himself. "You belong to me." He wishes he could be seen. He wishes it more than anything. He knows Charles won't abide it, but he can't help but wish for it. So that he could stand behind Charles, a hand at the small of his back, ensuring that everybody understood who Charles belonged to.  
  
In many ways, Charles wishes it too, but he keeps that firmly to himself. The sooner they get this all over and done with, the sooner Erik can have him back home, and then he won't have to be anything but his. Erik's boy. Just that, and happily so. He nuzzles further Erik's neck, rubs his cheek there again for comfort. Kisses one of the rather vicious bite marks, flushing because he'd given them. "You can't murder anyone for thinking about me, okay? Promise?" Thinking, talking. Maybe not even smacking his arse when he passes and no one is looking. That's par for the course at these events, really. Good fun.  
  
"No," Erik rumbles. "I will give them a choice. Cease their behavior or die. That is perfectly reasonable." That is good fun, in Erik's opinion. Erik twitches when Charles's lips press against his neck and he practically purrs under the attention, a great big beast soothed by the one individual in the universe who possibly could.

* * *

It soothes Charles, too, and he's in quite a lot of discomfort now, fading slightly with the sickness, so he busies himself with it. Peppers those marks with soft, light kisses, and then parts his lips to suck, too, eyelids heavy because it's nice to make Erik feel nice. To serve him. To soothe them both, to be close. He's going to miss it tonight. Truly. "Why can you smack my arse whenever you want, then?" he asks, hoarse but teasing. He knows the answer. He doesn't mind hearing it. But it's bound to happen, and perhaps they shouldn't make a scene, part of Charles thinks. It's nothing he isn't used to.  
  
"Because you are mine," Erik murmurs, and he gives Charles's ass a proper smack just because he can, but if Charles thinks he would ever sanction another doing so, he is sorely mistaken. Anyone who laid a single hand on Charles would lose that hand, for starters. Erik's got a bit of a scorched-Earth policy, but besides that, his barriers are completely down, which makes him a good deal more volatile. It will not be par for the course. As long as Erik is there.


	78. my wrists are weak, but if I could, I'd lift your body-

As the day goes on, Charles find himself more nervous. When he isn't getting sick, anyway; there's a bit in the middle where he runs a higher fever, where it all becomes more muddled and he forgets things, or gets them scrambled, where all he wants and can do is lie against Erik's chest and drift and fade, soothed by gentle touches and honeyed Dominion. When that passes, and it does pass, thankfully - for now - he's still sweating with the fever, shivering, even after his shower, but his head feels clearer, and he's wrapped up in a fluffy towel and Erik's arms which helps. He should probably do something about his hair, but finds he doesn't particularly want to; if his mother feels the need to throw a strop over it, so be it, really. He'll leave that up to Erik. He'll leave mostly everything up to Erik, because he's fallen firmly, deeply into subspace and he knows it'll be jarring when he has to leave Erik, even just physically, when he has to exist outside that space, but he can't help it. For right now, he needs it. "Next time you'll come?" he asks quietly, and he knows Erik is coming, but next time, next time - the next time he has to attend one of these dreadful things, he hopes there's no hiding. Besides, even being without Erik physically aches. He's not sure how they did it in the beginning, because for all that it was wonderful when there was no other option, it isn't the same. It just isn't, even for all of Charles' power. It's just a few hours, really, but those few hours will be difficult, of that he has no doubt.  
  
"Oh, yes, I will," Erik whispers back. No hiding, no shame, no eager tasteless Dominants all vying for a piece of his submissive, like he's a prized stallion and not a person. It disgusts Erik. It always has and it always will. Erik guides him through his Postures, dropping that fluffy towel to the floor so he can kneel across from Erik. Still-touching, still right there, and Erik mirrors them lightly, in-tandem and when Charles slips out of place for even a second Erik taps him reproachfully and raises an eyebrow, expectant and warm. It's a few hours, but that doesn't register for Erik. To him it's walking Charles back into the gates of hell, back to the underworld where Achilles so desperately begged not to be king, but he is here. And he will make certain that Charles is safe. And if they have to leave, if it's too much, they will leave.  
  
Charles doesn't know, exactly, how he'll react to all this. He does know that he's grateful there's a way Erik can be there at least in part, but the closer they get, the more all of it starts to wear at him. Even a few hours will seem endless. It's a different Charles, who goes to these sorts of events. He isn't sure he remembers quite how to be that Charles, but he does know how to be Erik's, so the moment his Postures are done he flings himself into Erik's arms, nuzzling into him. "I'll miss you," he whispers, and doesn't care in that moment if it's pitiful.  
  
Erik doesn't think it's pitiful at all, because he's quite in the same boat. "I will miss you beyond words," he returns in a quiet rumble, wrapping his arms tightly around Charles and relishing the skin-to-skin contact. It'll be a change from their recent cocoon for Charles to be wearing clothes at all, really, but Erik still relishes the fact that Charles will be wearing what he designs. There's at least one good thing about all of this. "I'll be right beside you," he promises, smoothing down Charles's hair. He doesn't think he'll cut it (Erik tends to like Charles's hair lengthier anyway, it seems), but he can comb it so it's neater.  
  
His mother will definitely throw a fit, but Charles finds he doesn't particularly care. His Dominant likes it, prefers it, even. He's making the decision for him and that warms him right up. When he laughs unexpectantly it's while he's rubbing his cheek against Erik's jaw for comfort, for sensation, and he certainly gets it; it's been days since Erik last shaved, more than a week now, and it's stunningly obvious. "Mountain man," he breathes fondly, and if Erik were going he'd certainly need a shave, but Charles needs one too. Not nearly as bad, mind, and now he's thinking of the scratch from earlier when Erik was a bit farther down, how beneath the anxiety there was the tickle of it, how sensitive it makes him - he shakes his head, a tiny cut off whine. Is it going to hurt, dropping out of subspace this deep? Make him disoriented and scared like it has before? He truly hopes not.  
  
After about a week of not-shaving, Erik absolutely looks the part of Angry Mountain Man, with far more than just scruff lining his jaw, his face is completely obscured by a quite impressive auburn-tinted beard that curls a little when fingers are ran through it, and he presses his cheek back, enjoying the sensation with a smile curving his somewhat-hidden lips. And if Charles's mother throws a fit over how he looks, well, Erik finds he doesn't care in the slightest. Charles doesn't belong to her or her people. Not anymore. If Erik can help it, and he can, Charles will never be beholden to them again. "No. You will be mine." He traces his fingertips over Charles's own jaw, and the fuzz that now lines it. Erik will shave this, just because he enjoys doing it, not because it's expected. "Mine, hm?" he grins. Charles doesn't need to drop. Erik will take care of him. He'll hold him and talk to him and be right behind him, always. Erik will not let it hurt him. Erik won't let anything hurt him. Never again.  
  
Charles honestly wishes that were the case. He does, but he doesn't think it is, and not because he doesn't trust Erik. It's just that there are things he can't prevent, and this happens to be one of them. When he steps into that mansion, he won't just be Erik's boy anymore and he knows it. Erik won't be there physically, either, and that makes it worse. The evening won't be pleasant, but some things aren't. Erik can't protect him from that and maybe he wouldn't want him to. His head is already hurting as if in anticipation, though, and it makes him frown, settling down onto Erik's shoulder just to feel skin against skin for a while longer, reaching up to pet at his beard, curling his fingers in it, touching just to touch. "May I?" he whispers, to think of something else besides the inevitable drop, enjoying this while it lasts. "Please?" He likes Erik's beard, very much, but it grows back fast and he likes serving him that way, too. The intense way his Dominant watches him, expectant and entitled and fond. There's time even if it's unnecessary. Charles just wants to.  
  
Erik smiles again, warmed by the turn of Charles's thoughts. The latter, moreso than the former-things that he can't prevent-but that's the whole point, isn't it? Erik must prevent them. He must be able to control the outcome. He can control every substance on Earth. He can throw whole planets out of orbit. He can certainly prevent someone from harming Charles, he can, this time. He's not a brainwashed soldier or a scared little boy any longer. He is Erik Lehnsherr, _Master of Magnetism_ , destroyer of buildings and de-facto face of the anti-MCA campaign. He can certainly put some uppity Dominant in their place. But, he decides to let that slip away for now, because it only serves to rile him up further. Instead, his tone takes on a soft rumble. "I would like that very much, _tayer_."  
  
Unfortunately power doesn't always work that way. There is more power living inside Charles than he has the current ability to understand, more knowledge and wisdom than he can fathom. But that doesn't mean much tonight, and he frowns again at Erik's thoughts even as they fade, staring down between them. It - unsettles him again, for some reason. Threatens to barge in on the space he's made for himself while the hours tick down, and he doesn't think it's fair. He doesn't want to leave this place. It's comforting, and it's safe. "Okay," he mumbles, and drops his hand, fidgeting with it in his own lap.  
  
Touching Charles's face with the back of his knuckles, the lesser hand as his good one is busy rubbing soothing patterns into Charles's upper thigh, he directs him to look, to breathe and simply soak in the presence of his Dominant. None of those things matter, not now or ever. Erik will still be with him, and it might not be Real, but they've braved this before, and been better for it each time. It was Erik's lifeline at the CIA, and he will be Charles's lifeline now. "Let's get up," he murmurs, and rises in a fluid motion, placing Charles's feet on the ground and pressing up against his back. He pulls them into the bathroom and sits on the edge of the tub, encouraging Charles to gather his implements.  
  
That isn't what threatens to press in now. Charles does as he's bid, but then he stands there, uncertain and confused, pulled in two directions with his eyes on the floor and the shaving kit in his hands. It's not the dizziness or the headache that makes him falter. "I'm not weak," he whispers, biting his lip. "Or helpless. I'm not."  
  
Erik rises to his feet, now towering over Charles where they're stood. He lifts a hand to cup his cheek, rubbing his thumb over his bottom lip fondly. "Do you think I'm unaware?" he murmurs, low.  
  
Charles refuses to look, his lip trembling against Erik's thumb, his shoulders slumped. Terrible posture. "No," he mumbles, but his stomach turns over because this deep in subspace, he's terribly aware of Erik's rules and one of them is definitely not lying. "Sometimes," he corrects, in less than a whisper. "Now, maybe."  
  
Immediately Erik's correcting it, with a tap to his shoulders as firm as an Order, his back and hips. "Why now?" he asks, and his Command is clear. Look up at me.  
  
When he straightens, it's with a pout even as he does it immediately, his eyes on Erik but as shifty as they can be, his lip stuck between his teeth again. "Because," he mutters. It's an answer, technically. Because he does. He knows it's incredibly childish, but he doesn't want to. He wants to drop it.  
  
And it's too bad for him, because Erik rarely drops anything, ever and this is no exception. "Why not, Charles. Tell me, properly." His gaze is narrowed as Charles shifts and fusses in his arms, brows narrowed pointedly. The Order is soft, but it echoes off the linoleum floors and fluorescent lights.  
  
"Because I can keep myself safe," he mumbles, and shifts restlessly again, switching weight foot to foot. "I'm not helpless. I know how to do it. I'm strong, too." If a Dominant is bothering him, he can get himself out of the situation. If Erik doesn't want to tolerate it, he'll not tolerate it, the things he would normally let slide but he doesn't need to coddle him. Doesn't he know Charles is competent? That he doesn't just roll over and take it, either? He's capable.  
  
"Of course I know that," Erik murmurs, lips twitching upward. "I know you. You've done this all of your life. I fully expect that you will handle yourself with composure and dignity, as you've always done. You're the most capable person I know, but I won't tolerate it. Maybe that is about me." He shrugs a shoulder.  
  
It makes him frown harder, breaking eye contact to stare at the tub behind Erik, the shaving kit in his hands still, anywhere that isn't his Dominant. His shoulders hunch again. "Why won't you trust me to handle it?" It will require less effort on both their parts, really. Charles won't have to go cleaning things up or protecting people's hands from Erik's wrath. "You can Order me, or direct me, but - why don't you think I can do this? You don't have to protect me all the time. I want to protect myself, too." To take care of himself, too. He isn't incapable. And he very, very much likes being dependent on Erik, relying on Erik, falling back on Erik, deferring to Erik, and he can and he will - but Charles likes independence, too. He just does, especially as separated off as he is now. Some parts of him demand it.  
  
Erik shoves that tangential association down, shaking his head like he's shaking it off. "I will not allow it. While I'm certain you could handle it, I will make it plainly clear to those who seek to try that they're playing with their lives." Erik's expression under the harsh lights above is bittersweet, lips pulled into a grim line, eyes distant. "I know you can. But I don't know if I can-" he cuts himself off. It's exactly the kind of thing Charles doesn't like, that Erik's tried to restrain himself from doing, the parts of himself that are too much, that he's always known are too much, that he's always kept under wraps and contained, spilling out freely with the decimation of his mental barriers. "I'm sorry. I-" he glances down.  
  
Charles' heart immediately sinks into his stomach and he can't handle that right now, he can't handle Erik being upset with him. There's no way to differentiate. Immediately he's trying to worm his way into his Dominant's arms, nuzzling into his chest, looking up at him as he finally tastes blood from his poor swollen lip. "It's not too much," he whispers, and he means it, too. It's comforting, that his Dominant is there to defend and protect him. He's not used to it, but it isn't unpleasant. "But... sometimes you won't be there. And I need you to know that -" That he can hold his own. That he isn't helpless or weak, that he can fend for himself. That he can follow Erik's Orders when he's not there, do as he's told when he isn't being watched. Charles has been scared and overly conscious his entire life that being submissive made him weak, has done everything he possibly could shy of scrambling around his DNA to rid himself of it. He doesn't want it to be true. He wants Erik to take care of him, to - be protective, possessive, he likes that, but to have him think - to see Charles as incapable, when he's fought so hard - but right now he's just concerned with Erik being upset with him, and that threatens to undo him, so he presses closer, rubs his cheek again and again against him in hopes that it might soothe him. Both of them.  
  
The only thing he wants more than taking his next breath is to make Charles happy, to see him whole and healthy and laughing, pink-cheeked and rosy and full of joy and mirth, satisfied and strong, and there's nothing, nothing in Erik that believes Charles is weak. Every desire he has to protect his submissive is ingrained in him, a baser, animal thing that howls when its mate is threatened. And he knows it's unsavory. He knows it's not good. He knows he needs to give Charles the control to act on his own agency, and Erik doesn't want to put him in a cage. He doesn't want to be the _Ziz_. But how can he? How can he let someone disparage his beloved? How could he possibly? How could he possibly give Charles what he wants, when Erik is the one-the one responsible for his unhappiness and discontent?   
  
It very nearly makes Charles cry. They're too close like this (not close enough, not nearly close enough, some part of him protests, maybe all of him, he thinks all of him), he's come to realize that anything Erik feels is felt double for him than it ever has, he's so keyed into his Dominant, every thought and twitch of emotion and he doesn't want Erik to be upset with him. He can't be upset with him, and in this mindset, Charles can't fathom it not being because he did something wrong. "It's not," he promises quietly, because he likes those ingrained parts of Erik. The beast that howls and protects him, that thrills at his submission and keeps him down and in his place. He does. He loves it, in fact, and it answers something primal and deeply ingrained in him. It's just that there's another part of him that wants Erik to know that he can be good. That he can take care of himself, too, the way his Dominant would, that he can follow his instructions and navigate these sorts of things even when Erik isn't there. When he can't be, for whatever reason. "I don't want you to not - to not," he assures, biting his lip harder, licking the blood off, burrowing into Erik's chest. "I just - I just -" He doesn't know. He doesn't feel caged when Erik acts on those instincts. He doesn't. He just wants to be trusted to act on his own, too, to follow Erik's Will, to be good even when his Dominant isn't intervening at every turn. When Erik gave him his first rules and told him he expected him to take care of himself, that if he didn't there would be consequences - Charles took that to heart. He made positive changes for himself because Erik asked it of him. Doesn't he think he can do that here, too?  
  
Erik knows. "I know, I know," he croaks, petting at Charles's face, bowing their foreheads together with his eyes closed. Charles did nothing wrong, he did not. Erik is just-he's just-he's damaged. He's damaged, his Dominance-is it damaged? Is it bad? Is he too much? Too controlling? Too stifling? He knows Charles will behave on his own, he knows Charles can and he's seen Charles do it plenty of times while they were separated, but is it the same? Is it the same as someone intruding and disparaging him and saying awful things and touching him-how can Erik stand by? How could he stand by? Would Charles stand by? Is Erik just broken? Does it mean he really doesn't think Charles is capable and self-sufficient?   
  
It must be Charles'. He's not being good, because Erik is upset and crying and that's his fault, isn't it? Charles made him upset. It's a different kind of thinking but he's stuck into it, and he doesn't want to climb out of subspace. The truth is, the real truth is, Charles can't exist without Erik, either. He really couldn't, now that he knows, he barely could before. That wasn't thriving. He does belong to Erik, wholly and completely and never, ever anyone else. Never. It's not an ugly instinct. Charles loves it. He'll gladly say he loves it, that it warms him in more than one way. But they're never really without each other, doesn't Erik understand what he's saying? When Erik isn't there, Charles will act out his Will. He will. He wants to be good. And if he doesn't, Erik will make sure there are consequences because that's how this works. That's how it's meant to be. He just wants Erik to know he doesn't have to watch him every second to know that he'll be good, that he'll keep safe, that he'll make sure others know he's owned and kept and collared. That's all.  
  
Erik sags a little; somehow those thoughts comfort him, ameliorate the raging, howling beast that wants to proclaim, to Claim, to have and hold and cherish and ensure. Ensure that Charles has everything, that he is loved and cared for. "You promise?" he whispers, eyes opening so he can look down into Charles's, swiping his thumb under his eyelids to catch those tears. He's being good. He didn't make Erik upset. Erik is just terrified that he can't be-that he isn't enough, that he isn't being good. "You'll-my Will? Promise?" He'll let everyone know he is owned, that he belongs to Erik? That they can't talk to him badly or touch him or even think-  
  
Immediately Charles nods, burying his face back into Erik's chest, rubbing the tears there. "Promise," he says, and he does mean it. He always wants to be good, does Erik know that? Even when he doesn't do as he's told, even when he's defiant, Charles at his core wants to be good. He wants to belong to Erik. He wants to be owned. He wants to follow his Will and he  
wanted it and he tries for him. He really, really does. Doesn't he know that? That he's always Erik's? He wouldn't let himself be disrespected or hurt because he's Erik's and Erik doesn't like when his belongings are treated that way. Even if he were somehow willing to allow it himself - and he isn't, usually, though perhaps he has a higher threshold for it - he knows better.  
  
Erik kisses the top of Charles's head, and then his cheeks and jaw and shifts him up to pepper them along his neck, too. Of course he knows. He's always known, and always will. He'll be good, too. He'll try to be good. "I won't kill nobody, 'kay?" he says, because that's... about the best he has to offer right now, still incredibly amped up, but he'll try. He trusts Charles. He'll try not to cause a fuss. He'll let Charles handle himself. He'll try to. He doesn't let the Dark Thoughts devolve anymore. There are some things he just doesn't think he could abide, if his last meeting with Charles's family is anything to go by.  
  
That's okay. Erik doesn't have to abide it, because Charles is his. He's always a good Dominant, always, so good to him and for him. Perfect. Charles is beaming and he can't help it, because Erik listens to him; he tries to understand, he takes his feelings into account before he makes final decisions, he does what's best for Charles. Always. He tries, and he takes Charles belonging to him seriously. It makes his heart pound in his chest, it dips him further and further under, and he doesn't care about dropping because it's nice now. It's so nice, his eyelids are heavy with it, he kisses wherever he can reach and whines, tries to pull Erik down gently, tugging at his arm in silent request, to kiss his neck and jaw and face too. "I love you," he murmurs softly. Adoringly. "Thank you. I love you."  
  
Erik beams, the praise warming him right up from the tips of his toes to the top of his head and he nearly levitates with it, magnetic-fields-humming in pleasure and joy. _My submissive likes me! I'm good! I take care of what is mine._ Little pings in the atmosphere, making Erik shiver in delight. They really are attuned to one another, every emotional shift garnering a reaction. "Always. I'll always listen. Always consider. You are my precious boy. I love you so much." He kisses Charles right on the tip of his nose, affectionate.  
  
Charles more than likes him. He loves him so much. So very, very much. Erik does take care of what's his, what belongs to him, and Charles does. He never meant to insinuate that he didn't, he would never want to. Erik is never too much. Charles only ever wants more, even when he's in a strop; Erik always knows what he needs and how to give it, and if he doesn't for whatever reason - no one is truly perfect, that's not why they love each other - Charles can be good and help him. That was an Order, too, and Erik gave it to him in the first place because he takes care of him. All of it sinks him down and down and down until he's heavy-lidded and biting at his torn lip, fidgeting again as he gives another soft whine. "Please?" he asks, staring up at Erik with slightly hazy eyes, subspace completely consuming him. Forget the drop. Erik can bring him down nicely by the time he gets to the party, right? Because he loves him. He takes care of his belongings. He trusts Charles to be a good boy.

* * *

He can't help but kiss Charles fully, mouth-to-mouth, soul-to-soul. It's soft and wet and warm, not chaste by any means, fully Dominating and possessive, but not filthy, either. Erik lingers for a long while afterward, tracing his fingertips down Charles's arms to tap the implements in his hand. "Did you forget your task?" he whispers, but it's not displeased; in fact it's somehow-very pleased, because he loves Charles so much, and he especially loves him like this, hazy and adoring and soft, sweet even, looking up at him so beautifully Erik's heart almost can't take it, but it does and does and does and opens more and more, letting in the love, and the light and sending it outward in turn. Charles doesn't have to worry. Not ever. Erik will take care of him. He'll make sure that Charles is stable and easy, even for the party. He won't let him drop. He never will. Never again.  
  
It doesn't matter if it's unrealistic, or a promise Erik can't really make. Charles doesn't doubt anything, doesn't think of anything except Erik lingering on his lips, except how swollen and kiss-plump they feel, about how he's floating and sinking at the same time and everything else has disappeared. Truthfully he hadn't forgotten at all; it's what he'd been asking for, for his Dominant to let him serve him properly, to do as he's meant to because it's all Charles wants to do right now. He's pleased and adoring and sweet and grateful, his knees feel like they might buckle with the need to bend themselves for Erik, to show him how much. He's nearly panting with it, and he wants to do as he's told but Erik needs to sit or he can't reach and more than that he's looking up at him with the narrowed-in devotion he always displays when he's this far under, lip bitten again to hide a soft, shy smile. He tugs gently on Erik's arm. "Kiss first?" he whispers. "Another? Please, sir?" The title slips naturally, and he wonders what it might be to use it in public. To let everyone know, one day, everyone, that he does these things for Erik, that he goes down for Erik, with all the willingness and pleasure in the world. He shivers at just the idea.  
  
"Hmmm," Erik makes a show of hemming and hawing, but they both know it's the only thing he wants right now, and he grins down at Charles, drawing his fingertips down Charles's face, tilting it up to kiss him once more, open and perfect, slipping his tongue between Charles's lips, tasting him and marveling at how he shivers and sighs. He pulls away reluctantly, giving him an affectionate tap on the nose. And then, he takes another step back and sits at the edge of the tub, gesturing for Charles to take his spot between Erik's legs so he can bend to his task, tilting his chin up trustingly.  
  
Apparently he's awfully greedy today because he makes a noise of protest when Erik pulls away again, his lips bright red and pouting even as he settles himself between his Dominant's legs. He's still shivering and he seeks out more contact first, nuzzling and touching, sensual and needy even as he sets the kit down and gets to work. He does like this. He likes this quite a lot, because not only does he get to serve Erik, it means Erik trusts him, and that just delights him more than words can express, more than usual, even. Erik trusts him to be good. He is, too, careful and gentle and steady with the razor, focused on his task, swollen lip pulled between teeth like it always is when he concentrates. By the end he's flushed and heavy-lidded again, wiping Erik clean and shifting restlessly between his thighs, nuzzling into his jaw, and it's a different feeling but he likes it, too, it's Erik and it's all he wants and forget preparation, he's just Erik's boy. "Did I do well, sir?" he asks, breathless, almost entirely just to hear it. He needs to hear it, before all this.  
  
He looks a good deal less like a mountain man now, although he still towers even in a seated position, his cheeks have become less gaunt and sunken-in over the past four months, although dark circles still persist under his eyes and deep wrinkles are manifest along his jaw, an evidence of stress written across his face. His hair is rapidly growing toward his shoulders, and starting to take on that familiar corkscrew-curl pattern of his youth, frizzy at the ends and a little wild, and he rakes his fingers through it, giving his head a shake before patting his own cheek, enjoying the feel of stubble under his fingertips. "Very good, sweetheart," he whispers, warm and fond. Watching Charles work so diligently just in service of him does quite a lot for his own constitution, sinking him faster and further into Dominion that spreads out across his chest in rich waves. He's never liked shaving. He could do it quite easily with his abilities, but he prefers not to spend extended periods of time standing in front of a mirror besides. This is a much better option, in his opinion. He gets to feel Charles's hands against him, settle him between his legs and watch him work with rapt attention. Far more pleasurable.  
  
It's why Charles offered the first time, and he knows he'll never tire of it. He's a bit distracted with touching all over his Dominant's face now that the razor is set down, high on the praise and Erik's plunge into Dominion, vibrating with it even as he's calm and soft. It feels good, the stubble, and Erik's cheeks are filled out now and that feels good, too, and his strong jaw and his sharp cheekbones and his nose, which Charles rubs his own against because he loves it, and his eyes - he frowns at those circles, but they're less than they were, and he'll work on them. He'll make sure his Dominant is healthy and properly serviced. They're young, still, incredibly so, really, and Erik already looks so much younger. Either way Erik is the most handsome, beautiful person he's ever met and will ever meet and his breath hitches with it, his cheeks heat more noticeably, he starts to fidget even as he seeks out more. He's making noise without meaning to, those soft, breathy sighs, needy whines, rubbing against Erik's legs for more contact.  
  
Those eyes which are currently holding Charles's with a rapt attention of their own, tracing all over his face, down his neck and shoulders, his hands sweeping along not-far after, because it's his task, too. To make sure that Charles is happy, and healthy, and whole. And he flushes a little at the turn of Charles's thoughts, ducking his head almost shyly, a silly contrast to how very far down into the dark-depths of Dominion he's managed to fall-backwards upside-down, through the floor, through the ceiling and up into the starry expanse of space itself. He lifts Charles up; not really, his fingers under Charles's arms direct him to his feet, and then to sit down, and Erik has to crouch before him so they're on the same wavelength and he laughs, brushing their noses together again, running his fingertips through Charles's hair, fluffing it a bit as he lifts up the razor and with a flick of it into the air, it divests itself of water and accumulated muck, until it's a shining-clean blade once more. He doesn't need shaving cream, though, and he lifts Charles's jaw up, practically purring in satisfaction. "Your turn, hm?" he rumbles.  
  
Charles looks a bit worse for wear and there's not much that can be done for it. He planned to hide it, actually, but plan is a strong word when it's entirely unconscious. He's paler than usual, ghostly and clammy, and hot to the touch still; for some reason the fever never seems to break, hasn't yet, just drop him into cold chills and teeth-chattering, then burning heat that demands he kick off the blankets and whine. He looks exhausted and sickly and thinner than he should, because eating is a skill he's lost entirely these past few days, drinking only possible with Erik's coaxing. He wasn't doing wonderfully before then on that front. Today is the first day he feels even slightly better, but he's still dizzy, disoriented, hurting, his temples hazed over with pain he barely recognizes unless it's splitting, and sometimes it's splitting. He certainly doesn't notice it now, all the sickness momentarily forgotten in the wake of this, and his heart is pounding away and his pulse is racing and he isn't afraid, not in the least, but he is pouting. "Kiss first?" he whispers, hopefully. "Please?"  
  
Even still, Erik finds him beautiful, and it seeps through in every pore of his skin that touches Charles's, in the way his eyes lock with his submissive, how reverently his hands touch. He wants to heal, to rid Charles of this fever, to see him refreshed and joyful, but still-he is beautiful to Erik, and he always will be. Erik kisses him again, pours every ounce of Dominion-fueled adoration from his lips to Charles's, smiling against him. "Always," he murmurs, hands splayed against Charles's chest. If all he can do is make Charles forget, that's all he'll do. He'll devote himself to it, for this day and the rest of his days. "I love you," he whispers, achingly sincere and earnest.  
  
Right now, Charles really doesn't know anything else but Erik. He really can't fathom being anything but Erik's boy, and his eyes are so heavy with it, his limbs, his whole body, rather than disoriented and detached and confused he just feels - Erik's. He's not sure he's ever been this far under, but he's here now and he whimpers as he tries to squirm closer to Erik. "Love you. Yours," he mumbles, and Erik sat him down so he doesn't get up but he wants to be closer, to touch and be touched more, to serve him somehow. "I'll be good for you tonight. I will." And if he isn't, Erik said he'd take care of it. He'll make sure Charles doesn't break off. "Okay? Trust me, sir."  
  
Erik slowly draws the blade over Charles's skin, so carefully, so delicately, the fingers of his left hand wrapped around the metal while his lesser hand, the right one that's curled in on itself a little, full of the metal that he can feel and bent all out of order, but they can still touch Charles, so he doesn't despair too greatly over it, even if he does grieve in a secret-secret place; the same place as his leg and the sinews and muscle of his body that haven't-yet developed and may not, a permanent damage done by evil Masters written on his skin, visible harshly in the fluorescent-light. He doesn't think of that right now, though. All he thinks is that he's so grateful he can be here, that he can do this for Charles, moving the blade down across his jaw to catch swaying hair-follicles and wiping them away gently. "I trust you," he whispers back. "I'll always trust you. I do. You're mine. My good boy. I love you so much," he murmurs reassurances almost unconsciously as he works, moving across to his upper lip, then his right side. "Feel good?" he checks in, and even without shaving cream there's not an ounce of irritation or redness left in the wake.  
  
By the time Erik is done, Charles is panting and wide-eyed again, biting on his lip when his Dominant pulls away and sets down the razor. "Mm-hmm," he whispers, and it's so breathy he almost doesn't recognize it, his eyelids fluttering, leaning into Erik's hands, his touch, his warmth. There's no emerging from beneath the ocean, from that dark-deep place, not any time soon. If he did, it would be a crash more than a drop, a total devastation; he's too vulnerable now, too dependent, too much. It's so much, but it feels so nice. He feels so good. "Yes, sir."  
  
"Very good," Erik whispers back, breathes it into him with a fond smile, sweeping his hands down Charles's cheeks in broad strokes just to touch him. He can depend on Erik, and the deeper down he goes the more Erik follows him, eyes half-lidded as he gazes upon his beloved. "There," he says as he finishes up, and he brushes away any excess stray hairs, folding up the razor and setting it aside. "Beautiful," Erik laughs gently, grinning the smile that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners and his nose scrunch up. "My perfect boy. You've done so well, hm? Do you know that? Do you know how good you are for me?"  
  
Charles absolutely lights up at the praise, the air humming with his pleasure as he smiles back like someone has turned the sun on inside of him, his dimples peeking right up at his Dominant. Erik has, really. He's practically purring now, arching into Erik's hands, trying to get closer. Anything for more touch, more attention, more praise. "I'm good?" he asks, breathy still, whispered, because he never feels good at these parties. He feels awful and wrong. He wants to soak this up, to be Erik's perfect boy while he can. Right this moment, he doesn't think he could live without it. Without his Dominant's voice, touch, Will.  
  
Which is good, because Erik couldn't bear to give him anything less than everything. He taps his thumb into one of those dimples, grinning. "Very good," he whispers, his own dimple flashing in turn. "Did you know? That I love everything about you?" Erik tucks a strand of Charles's hair behind his ears. And he does, and it's impossible to ignore right now. He loves the way Charles smiles at him, his brilliant, fierce mind and the way he smiles up at Erik completely in devotion, how far under he goes, how he trusts Erik to keep him safe, to take care of him. His compassion. How nicely he takes care of Erik. How he promises that he'll take care of himself, and follow Erik's Will, even when Erik isn't there to enforce it, because he knows how much it matters to Erik.  
  
Charles really does want what he asked for. He wants Erik to trust him enough to behave for him even when he isn't watching hawkishly, to let him decide and choose and know that he'll always be Erik's, even through separation. Tonight is as good a night as ever to test it. But right now the thought is slightly terrifying, just right this moment, so he stands up from the tub and clings with everything he has, rubbing his cheek into Erik's skin, gripping at his arm. "Miss you already," he whispers, barely audible, because even if he can run off to some corner and find Erik there, it won't be the same. It won't be Real. It will smell and feel and sound and even taste like Erik, but he'll know the difference and it will ache. He's been spoiled, really.  
  
"I will spoil you forever," Erik smiles down at him, rubbing their noses together, bending down a little once Charles and he are stood up. "How about I show you what I've made?" because Erik's a talented multitasker, while he was shaving Charles he was also working on-and he's a little shy, now, because he really hopes Charles likes it, and he knows Charles might not-might have some difficulties, but he really does hope. It's tasteful. It's subtle, too, for Charles's benefit. A fashion item blended with art, trendy and efficient at the same time.  
  
Erik made it for him, so he’s already decided he loves it. Him getting dressed means that Erik won’t be touching him skin to skin anymore, though, and that’s what makes him pout, even as curiosity and delight pings between them (and around them, all over them, he’s going to need to work on that but not here, right?) at the mention of a gift from his Dominant; he doesn’t want to give it up quite yet. He doesn’t particularly want to give it up ever, but especially not right this moment, and he grips harder instead, nails digging in before he’s aware of it. When he is he gasps and immediately kisses where they did, apologetic and sweet, before nuzzling into Erik’s chest. He doesn’t seem to want to come out anytime soon, and he’s never felt this - this. “Okay,” he mumbles.  
  
"OK," Erik breathes, kissing him softly. He doesn't even wince when Charles's nails dig in. He'd take a thousand pains for any kind of touch from his beloved, but he relaxes when Charles kisses it instead, much preferring that. "Thank you very much," he smiles, and leads them to the bedroom where the corset is laid on the bed, along with a pair of jet black dress pants and a matching blazer where the corset will go over. It's hand-made leather, dark burgundy with metal inlets, all around the spine, and the edges, with black lace see-through along the sides, just a touch for decorative effect. It's soft and pliable, but sturdy and strong, the knot work where the ties come through (also black, with gold-red filaments all throughout), and engravings along the metal pieces, brilliant shoots of red and yellow move when the corset moves, flaring out of the dark leather and reflecting off of the light like fire, but disappearing when the piece is still. When Charles looks closer he can see patterns etched all throughout the leather. "Do you like it?" he whispers.  
  
It's beautiful. Gorgeous, honestly, exactly like he expected it to be. It's also very Erik and not something Charles would have picked for himself at all even if he were to dress himself this way, which - is the point, he thinks. It's the point. His cheeks heat at the reminder, though, and then his whole body flushes and he hides in Erik's chest, fluttering with it. When he nods it's silent at first, small, and then, "Yes, sir," so tiny it's almost impossible to catch. Actually, he's not sure it made any noise.  
  
"Yeah?" Erik lights up. grinning that grin that shows all his teeth, eyes emerald and bright. "I'm so happy you do," he whispers, glowing with it, like a weight lifted off his chest. He helps Charles get dressed at first, kneels to help him step into his pants, undershirt and then blazer, smoothing his fingers down Charles's arms and buttoning it up. Then he lifts the corset. "Turn around, tayer. Let's get this on you, hm?"  
  
But Charles is frowning and unsettled through the entire process, and when Erik bids him turn around, he clings tighter instead, nestling into him, whimpering because Erik isn't dressed, which means there's bare skin which is nice, comforting, but no shirt to grab onto, to twist in his fingers and get some purchase. As if he'll be pulled away. He shakes his head, just a tiny, nearly imperceptible movement. It's not the corset itself he's objecting to. He really does like it. He loves it.  
  
Erik frames his face. "Tell me," he Orders, soft. "Tell me what's the matter."  
  
It makes his frown deeper, pressing against Erik’s hands, rubbing his cheek against them, trying to squirm closer as if there’s anywhere closer to go. “Miss you,” he explains quietly, just as quiet as before, and his eyelids are heavy again, closing without his permission. He’s far, far, far under the surface.  
  
"I know," Erik's eyes crinkle and he swipes his thumb under Charles's eye. "I'll be with you the whole time, OK?" he tucks a strand of his hair out of the way to kiss his temple, punctuating the statement as gently as possible. "Turn around now," he murmurs tenderly, a thin thread of Command infused into the words.  
  
It’s absolutely ridiculous that turning around with Erik still touching him should make him feel achy and shivery, but it does, even as he obeys. He turns around and closes his eyes, trembling slightly, trying not to move because he knows he can’t plaster himself to Erik or getting the corset on would be just as difficult as facing the other way. He takes big, sucking breaths, and part of him knows this isn’t good, it can’t be good, there’s panic somewhere beneath everything that he can’t reach - but mostly he just feels sad, genuinely so, pouting as he tries to cling onto Erik’s Will now that he can’t cling to his arms and nestle into his chest. It doesn't feel like enough. Nothing really does.  
  
Erik works methodically and slowly, wrapping the garment around him as though giving him an embrace, only this time of leather and metal, all perfectly formed and fitted to Charles's body. Not too suffocating, not too loose, but Erik suddenly and rapidly tightens it all up just to the point where Charles gasps in surprise, not choking him but very firm, letting him know that Erik is right behind him, that Erik is still very much in control of him. Erik is pressed up right against him, only parted enough to work the laces, quickly and efficiently tying them in a cross-pattern one after the other, tightening it up every few rows so that Charles has to straighten his posture and his shoulders to feel comfortable. "Good?" Erik sounds affected, his voice low and honeyed, accent thicker as he watches Charles's reactions, eyes half-lidded. He rests his head over Charles's shoulder, breathing right into his ear. "Just breathe. Relax. I'm right here. I'm not leaving you. I never will. Not ever." Charles can feel Erik inside the corset, hugged right to his body as Erik's hands are on his skin, leaving their imprint.  
  
It does feel good. It feels very good, actually, even better than it did the last time he wore something pretty for Erik because Erik is the one who put him in it, who laced it up, who made it, created it for Charles so that Charles would look how he wanted, so he would please him. Charles wants desperately to please him. Erik is always correcting his posture, and won't this help, too? Isn't it nice to look exactly how his Dominant wants him to, dressed in something of his design, gorgeous and intricate? It might be the corset that's hitching every other breath, that's making his chest feel tight, but there's a possibility that it isn't. He's trying to do as he's told, to relax, to breathe, but even with Erik touching him all over he feels - he doesn't know, exactly. "I'll miss you, sir," he repeats, quiet and small, and he know it sounds pitiful but it's all he can think to say. He knows Erik won't leave him, and that he isn't leaving Erik. That if he needs him, he'll be there. That he's wearing his collar and this corset, both which were made for him by Erik. But it's just that - he feels almost exactly like he did on the morning of their Bonding, and it's nearly unbearable.  
  
"I know," Erik whispers, pressing his lips to Charles's forehead once he turns around. "You do not need to go, you know this, right? The only Orders you ever need to follow are mine. If you need to speak to your mother you can always do it in a more controlled environment, on your terms." Charles can tell it's not a huge secret that Erik would prefer that, that he's only going along with this because it's important to Charles, but Charles could just decide not to do it, if it would seriously distress him, if it would seriously hurt him and Erik would step in then, if it is hurting him. Erik will step in. If it's too much, if he can't cope, they'll leave. Charles promised that. Either way, they'll handle it. Whatever happens, Erik will take care of him.  
  
It seems like it takes a very long time for there to be any response at all. Charles goes quiet, clung to Erik tightly, and not just on the outside; the inside seems to have gone silent, too, the way it has been for a while now whenever something gets stuck, a wrench thrown into the machine again. A skipping record. He's still there, though his temples hurt more, still incredibly under, still rubbing his cheek against Erik's chest for comfort. It's clear what he's decided, and what he always knew he would decide. "You'll miss me, too?" he checks again, still small and soft, hushed.  
  
"More than you could possibly imagine," Erik whispers back, with ferocious sincerity that threatens to ache. and not just threatens, it does ache, a twinge that echoes all through Erik's body and into Charles. For all that he will be there and he will be Real because he is Real, he's been Real in projections and he knows, he knows it will be OK, he will ensure that it is. But he won't be there. His body will be here, in this apartment, pottering around. Cleaning and cooking and fussing over Hank and Raven and it will be good, it will be, because not only does Charles need to demonstrate that he can uphold Erik's Will without Erik's presence, Erik has to learn how to survive without Charles.   
  
Because here's the thing. He meant what he said when he met that teenaged version of Charles, the one who held Raven and puked his brains out in reflective porcelain while thunder raged outside, the one who held his head up, who squared his shoulders, who managed to obtain six degrees before the age of thirty. Now, he wasn't living, he wasn't really living, but he could take care of himself. He survived, he pushed his body through it and survived, he got clean, because he has-such a solid, furtive desire for survival, because he knew someday Erik would come and alleviate the burdens rested on his weary shoulders. But Erik. Erik didn't do that. Erik didn't take care of himself. He didn't push himself through. He was harnessed and led and forced and beat, and it wasn't better-or-worse, that's not what he'd ever think, but he doesn't know how. He doesn't know how to survive on his own. He lasted a week and he nearly-and Charles doesn't know, Erik never told him-he never would, it's not Charles's fault. He was healing and Erik would do it all over again, he'd Order it all over again. But he almost didn't survive. Hank had to force him, too. Herd him and goad him and push him into what he needed, because he just couldn't. And he's scared, he's so scared he'll falter while Charles is gone, he'll trip over a wire and land face first on the stove because he isn't paying attention, because Charles is gone-Erik sniffs, realizing how out of sorts his thoughts have gone. If Charles thinks Erik won't miss him-he is one hundred percent wrong.

* * *

Charles doesn’t feel it’s fair to compare those two scenarios, but he knows. He knew from when he first woke up in Hank’s clinic, and he certainly knows now, and not because Erik is currently sharing it. Perhaps not the particulars, perhaps not all of the ache, but he’s known. He sniffles himself with the rebound, nestles himself underneath Erik’s arms and closer into his chest. “I didn’t do it by myself,” he points out, and it doesn’t need to be audible because his Dominant will still hear it. He didn’t even do it for himself. If that had been the case, Charles doesn’t know where he’d be. If he’d be. If Erik hadn’t reached out for him that night, would that have been the end of it? Likely, but maybe not. What matters is that he got clean for Raven, and for Erik who he hadn’t truly met yet, and he pushed himself through because there were people depending on him. Because Raven was a child who needed his care, because Warren was falling apart at the seams. He had goals, he had passions, and he clung to those, but on their own they wouldn’t have been nearly enough. Not nearly. And Erik has those, too, plenty of them, but more than that - Charles isn’t gone, and he won’t be. They peek in on each other even when they’re just down the street, in other rooms of the house - little _hellos!_ And they know they’re not alone. Raven and Hank are here, and they love him, too. They can help. How can Erik take care of Charles if he doesn’t take of himself, too? It will take time. It will take patience, and work. It will take healing. But this can be a step, and Charles knows he needs to go, which means something else needs to happen. “Erik?” he whispers, and it drips with a terrible new ache, with fear, hidden as well as he can.  
  
Erik knows it's not fair-and he's not trying to compare, not really .He just-sometimes he really thinks he would not be able to take another breath if Charles were absence from his existence, but he knows-he knows Charles won't really be gone. He won't trip and fall. Charles will be there to catch him. He will be, just as he's always been. _Hello!_ he says, and Erik smiles, every time, lifted-up and overjoyed. "Yes?" he whispers, tucking Charles's hair behind his ears.  
  
If it’s any consolation, Charles knows - they both know - that he wouldn’t make it without Erik now, either, and in a very real, very physical way. But Erik is right. Charles won’t really be gone, and separating for a time, working independently, doesn’t mean they’re alone. Charles still belongs to Erik, and that’s what he said, isn’t it? When they were first discussing things, when they were both still frightened by it all? _If you are mine, you are mine, and not in some dark corner of the universe_. There is nowhere he could go that he wouldn’t belong to Erik, and therefore nowhere Erik could be where he didn’t have him. Owned, kept, beloved. But now there’s this, tonight, and Charles sniffles again, heavy with it. “I -...” If he goes to this party and he crashes, they won’t learn anything. They won’t achieve anything. But he doesn’t want to ask, he doesn’t want - he shakes his head and he’s gripping so tightly, trying not to dig his nails in and hurt. He hurts with the thought of it.  
  
If he goes to this party and crashes, Erik will catch him, and Erik will take care of it, and they'll try again-they'll try something else, they'll learn what they can't do, what's too much. And Erik would never begrudge Charles not attending at all, in the first place, and that has nothing to do with weakness and everything to do with self-care, in his opinion. He doesn't expect Charles to prove himself in an environment rife with disrespect and anguish and fear, that's not what independence means, either. He can crash. Erik will catch him. He will. "Ask me," Erik Orders softly and he gently loosens Charles's grip on his arm, taking his hand instead, holding it in his bad while he rubs his good thumb over the back of Charles's palm in a soothing pattern.  
  
That's not exactly what he meant by crash, because he knows that much instinctively. He knows if something happens and he gets too upset, too distressed, Erik will take care of it and Order him home and they'll go from there. What he doesn't want to ask is something that should happen before he even steps foot through the doors, and he bites his lip hard and whines, still trying to bury himself in Erik's chest, careful not to grip Erik's hand too hard now. His instinct is to clutch. "Drop," he mumbles, and it's not a full thought but he thinks his Dominant will understand. When Charles told Warren about how he'd dropped awfully that first time, about how it hurt and ached, he'd asked he didn't know how to bring you down? Charles doesn't know how it works, actually. But he knows if he steps into that party this far down, this deep in subspace - and he's deep - he won't stand a chance. But he's never asked Erik for less, and he doesn't want to, but - it isn't, is it? And when he comes home, Erik can put him back down and take care of him? It won't be forever. It doesn't need to be forever.  
  
Erik flinches, not for any real reason, just because the idea of Charles not being in subspace is just as unsettling for him as it is for Charles, and that internal beast pacing around in his chest howls in indignation, but Erik shushes it, because this is how he can take care of Charles. "I know, I know," he pats Charles's hand, raising it to his lips and kissing over his knuckles. Honestly, he really doesn't know how to do this, it's all instinct, it's all diving down under the ocean into that cave, taking Charles's hand and leading him to the surface, head breaking over the waves to inhale fresh air and feel glittering sunlight on his face. It's as slow and easy as he can make it. No hurting, no aching, Erik won't sanction that, because whether or not Charles is dropped so far under the ocean he's turned the universe upside down and entered pitch-black space, flying amidst the stars and galaxies, Erik is still his Dominant and he will still take care of his submissive. That doesn't stop. Ever.  
  
Charles really doesn't like it, he decides. He's always had time to adjust with Erik, to come up slowly and gradually and sometimes not at all, and Erik has always encouraged that. He's always encouraged Charles being in some state of subspace, not always submerged like he'd just been but never completely outside of it, always just seconds away from slipping, and now he sniffles. He knows he's the one who asked for it, and that it's in no way an indication that his Dominant is kicking him out or anything equally as ridiculous, but - he shakes his head, taking a breath, a long, shaky breath, and forcing himself out of Erik's chest. "I suppose I should go grab a car," he whispers, but it's the very last thing he wants. Some part of him screams please, put me back, put me down but he shoves it out of the way, regrets that he knows Erik heard it. He must feel it, too. And now to have to leave, to feel as he gets farther and farther away - the party might not be the biggest obstacle of the night, in the wake of this.  
  
That makes Erik nearly growl in displeasure. His submissive thinks he's leaving him and he can't, he cannot-Erik is only so strong. He's endured countless tortures and experienced millions of years in solitude and didn't break, he didn't break he didn't turn into a gibbering mess, he didn't accede to his baser urges, even during the Bonding process every instinct Erik tempered, he didn't hurt Charles, he kept his cool. He kept his calm, somewhere within himself, he was calm and this is what threatens to undo him, the desire to submerge Charles right back under and never let him out, not ever, not ever again and keep him and pet him and tell him stories and sing him songs because he wants to, not because he needs to surface, and-he can't, he's not supposed to, and he crouches, putting his hands over his eyes.  
  
It's not fair, really. It's not fair and Charles wants desperately to be sunk right back under, to stay here in Erik's arms where he knows he belongs. Where he knows he's safe, where nothing hurts or confuses him, and if it does, Erik is always there to help him find the answers. He would never claim that Erik did not suffer in the Void because he knows he did and that has threatened to eat him alive, the guilt of it, but Charles - Charles took the brunt of it, sparing Erik even then, caring for him even then, and he'd do it again in a heartbeat. All over again, though the suffering was unimaginable, in a heartbeat. But he did it alone. Until Erik found him and gave him the courage, he did it alone. He did it alone, for what feels like longer than anyone has ever been alone, and leaving Erik for even hours seems - he shakes his head and steps back into Erik's arms, gently prying his hands away to let them touch Charles. A few minutes more. "I'll be back soon," he says, and his voice cracks so awfully. He doesn't know who he's convincing. "And you can - you can... you will, right? You'll put me down again?"  
  
His hands uncurl and slide into Charles's instead, tears sliding down his cheeks. "I will," he whispers, his own voice cracking. "I will, I always will." A few hours. Just a few hours. And he'll be there. He'll be there, as much as he can. He wipes his eyes on the palm of his hands and rocks to his feet, lifting Charles up as well. He's so sorry, too. He's sorry Charles suffered that. He's sorry he left Charles alone for so long. He tried so, so hard to get to him, to get to his beloved. He didn't fail, but he took a long time and he's sorry, he wants Charles to know that. He wants Charles to know that he grieves for how very much his beautiful submissive suffered in that Void, and beyond, and he just wants to take it all away, all of it. And he can't, and that kills him. But he has to keep his calm. "Always. Put you down again. As soon as you come home. Forever, forever," he huffs.  
  
It isn't Erik's fault. Sometimes, most of the time, Charles doesn't remember the suffering. He doesn't have to. The Void took most of that from him, the one that lives inside of him now, and what it didn't he can't quite reach, at least not yet; maybe one day Erik will need to hold him through that, but now it's not on his own. Charles just knows that more than he ever has, he knows the ache of loneliness. Of hopelessness. This won't be that. He'll miss Erik terribly, so horribly it will likely hurt by the end of the night, palpable and physical, but it won't be like that. It won't. "Forever. As soon as I come home," he breathes, and closes his eyes, squeezes Erik's hands, hates that he can't ask Erik to put him down right now. He does need it, but he can wait. He'll be good even when he isn't. "Can you... walk me downstairs?" Wait for him until the car comes. Hold him until it does. It's small, quiet, he doesn't want to come off as needy; but he is. He is. He'll miss Erik dearly.  
  
Erik nods and swallows, not trusting himself to speak just yet. If Charles is needy, he can only imagine what he's classified as. Desperate, maybe. He hasn't gotten dressed yet, so he tosses on a pair of pajama bottoms and forgoes the shirt while they head downstairs, keeping Charles tucked close against his chest, tucked under his chin while they wait. It's going to be OK. He doesn't know if he's assuring himself or Charles at this point, but it's vehement either way. It will be, because he'll ensure that it is.  
  
Charles thinks he might be sniffling just a bit when the car pulls up. He's trembling a bit, too, and the first thing he does is cling tighter on instinct. "I love you," he whispers, because he really wants to say he'll miss Erik again but it won't do either of them good. "I'll be good, okay?" For some reason, this seems more difficult than any of the times they've parted before, and some of those have been under truly awful conditions. He doesn't know why, but he checks that their Bond is working, that they're still connected, that he can hear and feel his Dominant - he can. They'll be okay. They can say hello! all night. It's just a few hours.


	79. The Outer Darkness

Erik kisses him gently, tilting his jaw up to gaze into his eyes. "I know you'll be good. I love you very much. I'll be right here with you," he gives a smile, and opens the door, leading Charles down the steps with a hand at his back, opening the car door and helping him into the seat, lingering with touches to his cheek and neck. He's already saying _hello!_ even when the car pulls away, his projection settling into the seat across from Charles, still-shirtless.  
  
It almost hurts more to see the projection, and he knows it isn’t fair, he knows it’s silly, but Charles feels exceptionally like crying as he presses himself into the door of the car, swallows, and stares determinedly out the window. If he’s honest, he doesn’t feel much like talking, and even if he did it wouldn’t do him any good; he knows exactly what he’s getting into here, and exactly how to prepare himself for it. None of that involves talking, but it does involve shifts he isn’t sure he knows how to make, that he needs to remind himself how to do. There are parts of his personality that fit neatly into parties like this, and parts that very clearly do not. He works to clear those out, not permanently, not even truly, just shifted enough to the left that they won’t become a problem at inopportune times, won’t rise to the surface at any point. It’s a type of shielding, really. Rearranging what’s already rearranging, nudging it around. Keeping it safe the way he’s learned to do. It’s strange to think so when he’s quite a bit more social and friendly, but it’s the truth that until Erik, no one knew him in his entirety.   
  
Bits and pieces, fractured off, safe chunks. It’s still the case. He just wears it differently. It does hurt, like this. Everything’s already so confused and muddled that it’s bound to, but he doesn’t entirely mind the headache, the budding migraine. At least it’s something to focus on that isn’t the Manor pulling into view though it only feels like minutes, seconds - time is strange for him now, drawn out or compacted, nothing makes exact sense. Everything is pristine as he expected it to be, the front gardens entirely transformed, the pathway fixed up, the entrance seeming grander than usual, and he knows that’s just because his mother would have gone mad over making it presentable for guests. Perhaps this will be the last party of the sort the Manor will ever see. Perhaps one day the sight of it it won’t clench his heart like a closed, meaty fist, won’t steal his breath in quite the same way. Won’t drop dread into his stomach like sinking lead. He certainly hopes so, but he tucks that hope away, because it doesn’t entirely belong here. The Charles that steps out of the car and walks, shoulders straight and smile plastered on his lips, is not the same Charles who stepped into the car at his sister’s. It couldn’t be. The difference is more stark than it's ever been.  
  
Ordinarily Erik resists it when Charles accesses these parts, these less-than Real parts, although he knows that they're attached to something Real the same way that his own are, but this time he just supports, he just acknowledges and stays steady, with that steadying hand at Charles's back, looming over the situation like a ghostly specter, doing his best to soothe and redirect and comfort and stabilize all at the same time, because he can do that, he can. It's exactly what he's made to do, to care for his submissive in any way imaginable and that includes this. Charles doesn't have to be the same. Erik certainly isn't, his features pulled in a dour, flat calm as he surveys everyone around them, and if anyone could see him, if looks could kill, they would stay far away.  
  
Unfortunately (or fortunately, perhaps), no one can see him. To a certain extent, even Charles can’t. If he registers that hand on his back, if he takes a moment to consider that Erik is here, that he’s watching this - he’ll break, and he knows it. He’ll spin off. It was what he’d been trying to tell Erik in the bathroom, and now he finally has words for it. It isn’t that this Charles, this less-Real, fractured piece is any less Erik’s. It isn’t, plain and simple. He isn’t. He knows, even now, even focused and broken off, that he should obey his Dominant, that he should act out on his Will. He’ll try to be just as good as he promised. But there are things - there are limits, there are differences, there’s a certain distance and the parts inside ache for Erik terribly, but… But everyone in this room can see him, and Charles has to close his eyes for a moment to force himself to process and filter it out. He still hears all of it. No more buzzing, just every single mind in this room, many of them focused exactly on him, and he keeps those all to himself and takes a breath. He’d almost forgotten the burden, except how could he? How could he ever, and now it’s strikingly worse -   
  
It feels like he’s just opened his eyes when his mother appears, her timing impeccable. “Charles, darling,” she greets him, and her smile seeps coldness instead of warmth but he hugs her lightly and kisses both of her cheeks regardless. They hold each other arm’s length. Her lips don’t touch his own cheeks. She’s wearing bright red lipstick. “I was beginning to worry you weren’t coming. What is it you’re wearing?”   
  
His smile doesn’t show dimples, and it doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s cold, calculated, a perfect mirror. “Just something special. You look lovely as always,” he says, though she looks horrifically thin and the white of her dress washes her right out like it always has. He’s always avoided white, himself. “The Manor looks wonderful, Mother. You’ve truly outdone yourself.”   
  
His mother smiles, and he wonders if there’s any real pleasure in it. He’ll never check. “Thank you, Charles. Now, we’ll catch up later and discuss that awful hair of yours, but I need to go find your stepfather - you know how he is,” she sighs, as if he’s gone off and done something frustratingly endearing. As if he isn’t Kurt Marko. “Be a dear and entertain for me, won’t you?”   
  
He will. He always does. “Of course, Mother.” There’s a drink in her hand and it isn’t her first, but she isn’t gone yet, and that’s quite the miracle. There are bruises all up her arm and along her throat that she’s attempted to hide with makeup and Charles would have to be blind not to see them, but he’s turned off the part that aches for that. The young, vulnerable part of him that still grieves horribly for his mother, that tucks her into bed each night and cleans the kitchen floor of glass shards, not for him but so she doesn’t step on it when she wakes. This Charles walks toward the crowd of people with a smile on his lips, and he remembers how to fake laughter. How to fake enjoyment. How to talk without saying a single thing. It’s natural, really.

* * *

There's nothing for Erik to do but observe, and he does, and he doesn't understand because he never has. He no more approves of being here than Charles would approve of Erik attending a soiree of Shaw's and the _Hellfire Club_ 's, but he doesn't interfere, at least not yet. He notices Sharon's injuries and breaks off while Charles goes to entertain, one part swiveled and focused on Charles while another gently, and imperceptibly traces those bruises, soothing them until they've gentled and begun to fade. He's never going to be a fan of Sharon's, but she doesn't deserve that. He also taps the rim of her glass and lowers the alcohol content of her drink, before migrating back to Charles's side.  
  
It won't matter. She'll get a new drink. She'll get two new drinks. The next time he runs into her, she'll be smashed. But Charles says nothing, he does nothing except for dulling the thoughts of those around him so Erik doesn't need to hear them, too. Some of them are less than appropriate, and Erik doesn't need to know it, so he doesn't. He smiles and schmoozes his way through the crowd, he gets them to laugh and dodges off-color comments, he ignores the way they stare and forgets to bristle when they linger too long and then he finds a corner to recharge, the way he always does, to square his shoulders and breathe and perhaps he'll get through the evening without speaking more than a few words to Kurt. If he's exceptionally lucky, he won't be anywhere near his mother when he finds her again. He's thinking like he did then. He's thinking like an heir.  
  
It will matter, because Erik can do a lot more than affect a single drink, and he does. He works behind the scenes, even if Charles thinks he doesn't know the specifics, he knows, he can see it it in their eyes. He can see it in their expressions, and he creates a shield that buffets them back from touching, that herds them away to face someone else. It's what he can do, and he finds Kurt Marko well before Kurt finds them, keeping track of where he is. He sits beside Charles and lays a hand on his shoulder, finds Charles's fingers and squeezes gently. _You've got this. You're doing wonderfully. I'm right here._  
  
Charles pulls his hand away, turns his head. It's not - right, it's not the way this is meant to go, and Erik doesn't know, besides. He has absolutely no idea, didn't even think to ask, and he won't, and does he really think he'll stop his mother from getting drunk by playing party games with her drink? Does he really think that's going to do a damn thing when she's spent his entire life coming up with new, inventive ways to keep herself blissfully intoxicated? When she'd passed it down to Charles, who knows every trick in the book? They practically wrote the book, the Xaviers. His mother sober is, by far, worse than his mother drunk. He knows how to handle her drunk, but sober she's another variable he can't always account for, that sometimes slips right through his defenses even on his best nights. But Erik doesn't know that, because he's never met this Charles and Charles wanted to keep it that way. He knew where Kurt Marko was and he doesn't need someone keeping tabs, because one way or another they will collide tonight. He'd had it figured out. He has this whole Manor figured out, top to bottom, and he was handling it fine. Charles huffs and stands to his feet, bristling and on edge and he unclenches his teeth and smiles. It's not for Erik.  
  
Erik sits there, dragging his fingers through his hair instead. He doesn't say anything, just stares past Charles into the wall. His thoughts are completely obscured, his responses completely obscured, like a haze that could be broken through if Charles wanted, but it's doubtful he would want to, so it functions just as effectively. It's Charles who doesn't know. He has no idea. He claims to, he believes he does, but he doesn't. He is not Erik. He does not know. If he did, if he knew, this wouldn't be happening.   
  
It makes it - worse, it makes it worse, it makes everything about this worse and Charles doesn't have the capacity right now. He doesn't have the ability. He can't stop and look and address this because if he does he will break, and he told Erik he didn't want him to be here for this very reason. This is why. Because it's ugly, and it's shriveled, and it's habit, it's learned behavior and it's his form of survival mode but that doesn't matter, does it? That this is all that survives in this house? The only part of him that can breathe, manipulative and calculated and closed off? All the living, breathing parts suffocated like someone has a fist around his throat because he's here and - ( _I can't breathe I can't breathe please let it be over please just let it be over don't cry don't cry don't -_ ). His teeth are clenched around his smile, his shoulders are tensed, when he laughs it sounds especially hollow. Erik doesn't know, either. He doesn't know and fine, maybe he won't. Charles blurs his own thoughts, and this Erik can't break through, obscures them with the Void and throws them in with the rest and when he sees Kurt Marko across the room, he takes one of the drinks offered to him on a silver platter, doesn't even glance at it before he tips his head back and drinks the whole thing. The guests around him laugh, one of them pats him on the back. He flashes them a grin and forgets who he is.  
  
Erik bats it away before Charles can raise it to his lips, and it hurtles to the floor and levitates just before it smashes into smithereens, and places itself back on the tray. Charles told him that he wanted to come here so he could show that he can follow Erik's Will independently, and it does not include any of this, and Charles knows it. If he didn't want Erik to be here so he could follow Sharon into oblivion, he's smart enough to know that Erik would never approve of that, and he's smart enough to know that Erik would never permit it, which is exactly why he is here.  
  
Does he? Besides, Erik isn't letting him do much of anything independently, is he? It raises Charles' already flared up temper, sets him right on edge and does Erik realize he's here because Charles is letting him be? This is Charles' power, not Erik's. Perhaps he can stretch if he tries, but Charles would be faster. He could obscure Erik completely. Why shouldn't he? Why shouldn't he? It's a distinctly defiant thought, perhaps the most fiercely defiant he's ever been, and his chest is puffed with it, his lips are pursed. He grabs another drink, and he doesn't put it to his lips but he could and he could prevent Erik from even knowing, from stopping him. Kurt Marko is walking across the room and Charles feels the panic and the sickness and the pounding of his heart but he shoves it down, feels the indignant anger instead. How dare Erik? He's smart enough to do this on his own. He's smart enough.  
  
He's stuck in some corner somewhere with a lighter in his hands, head empty while he traipses along silently after Charles. _No power/no input_. He said he trusted Charles and he still does, he remembers it even if Charles doesn't, so he relaxes the vice grip he's held on the situation the entire time and allows Charles to just be-lock it down, obscure, get rid of it. Charles doesn't need this, he said it himself. There's no room for Erik.   
  
Charles' teeth clench harder and he absolutely cannot handle this at the moment. There's no part of him that's capable. Kurt Marko has seen him and he's walking towards him and every inside part of him is screaming, every voice in his head screeching, his body is locked down and his limbs are tight and unmoving and he remembers, he remembers belt buckles and snarled voice in his ear and worthless boy and hand at his throat and the feeling of blood down his back, pooling and then drying and he's not allowed to move and it all comes at once and then it disappears because Charles bolts. They're close to the stairs and he makes Kurt forget he ever saw him, mindless and quick and messy, and Charles is breathing heavy as he wanders through a hallway he doesn't recognize, doors and rooms and there's bile in his throat and he pushes back. He pushes back because he doesn't want Erik to see this, to see the fear and the anger and the weakness, the sickness, obscures all of it because he can't do this sober. Mother is almost certainly on her third or fourth or fifth drink and Charles is behind and he does what he should have done from the moment he walked into this place, the missing piece, there's a drink in his hand and he shoves Erik back long enough to drink it. Why shouldn't he when it keeps him alive? When there's nothing else keeping him together? If he's going to face Kurt Marko, it's going to be like this. This is the only way.  
  
If Charles didn't know, Erik would be gone. He knows. _I love you_ , he whispers, soft and underneath. Turning that worthless boy into shadows and dust, disperse. _I love you. You are loved. You are good._  
  
It sets Charles entirely off the edge and the only thing stopping him from getting piss drunk is that he doesn't have another drink on hand. He should have gone for something stronger, whatever he just shoved down his throat didn't burn nearly enough. It isn't enough and he's angry and he's worked up and he wants to just shut it off, he can't handle it right now, doesn't everyone understand that? He doesn't want to be good. What good did that ever do him? How did it ever help? He doesn't care about that, he cares about getting through the night and maybe Erik was wrong, maybe he doesn't know how to behave and maybe he was wrong and maybe he doesn't care, maybe he doesn't care, there are tears in his eyes and he wipes them away angrily and straightens out his shoulders and steels himself to walk back downstairs. He's not listening to Erik. He's certainly not touching. Forget being good. He was always terrible at it. His hands touch the corset around his waist and he takes a breath, chest tightening. His fingers tremble on the laces. He can't go down there wearing this. He's not going to. He doesn't look at Erik as he fumbles.  
  
Erik catches him, puts his hands over Charles's and shakes his head. Erik knows. He knows Charles does care. He knows Charles is good. And he will be here to remind Charles of that in perpetuity. He tilts Charles's head up to look at him, a Command through touch. "Remember why you're here," he whispers. "I know you remember." His Will suffuses every word. " I know you remember to listen to my voice." And he's steps back, and he gives Charles the choice. To listen. To be good. Because Erik trusts him. He does. 

* * *

Perhaps if he was more himself, perhaps if this place didn't whip up every old instinct and hurt, every bruise and scar, if it didn't remind him of blood and his own screams, if he wasn't standing so close to his old bedroom, perhaps. If he wasn't a drink in after months of being sober, years before that, and it was a mixed drink but his head informs whiskey and wasn't that like the first time he poured himself something from Mother's cabinet? Charles scoffs. When his hands pull away from the lacing, it's not because Erik told him to, it's because it would be too much trouble and Mother has already seen what he's wearing. There's no room for good in this house and he shoves Erik farther away, until he's buzzing, background noise, refuses to entirely obscure everything, to forcefully close the door on him, but he certainly only leaves a crack. He wants another drink. That's his choice. If Erik gets in his way, he'll work his way around him like he works his way around everyone downstairs. Simple as that.  
  
 _No_ , Erik returns, and this is an Order. You will not do that. You will remember my Will and you will abide it. There's a difference between giving Charles the choice and actively allowing him to spiral into oblivion and drunkenness, and Erik will not abide the latter, he does interfere, then. Because Charles is his, even here, even this part that Charles didn't want Erik to see, of course he's seen. Of course he knows these parts that hate him, that hate everything he stands for, that grew up under the oppressive, thick-veined hand of Kurt Marko. Those parts are his, too, and he will take care of them when it's necessary. _You will not become inebriated_ , Erik says, features flat and stony, an Order piercing through the crack.  
  
Charles doesn't hate him, no part of him could ever hate him, but the rush of indignant, defiant anger that rises right to the surface is vicious anyway, his lip curled and he stops halfway on the stairs to bristle with it. Take care of him. Like Erik has any idea what that means, when it's very clear to him what he needs in this instance. He's always acting like he knows, like he understands, and frankly Charles is sick of it. I didn't ask for your input, he hisses, the first time he's spoken to Erik directly since he got into the car and his jaw is clenched. He could fight it if he wanted to, he's sure of it. Orders have never meant anything to him before Erik. The Void is inside of him now. What's an Order? It makes part of him wither, it unsettles him, but he doesn't care. He wants to drink and that's his bloody decision. _Take it back or I'll do it myself_ , he threatens. _You clearly don't care about this, but I do._  
  
 _Absolutely not_ , Erik returns sternly. _You will not, and you will absolutely not tamper with my decisions._ That Order is intense, enough to shake the foundation of the Manor, to make everybody glance around and it's not just Charles, Erik is here in a sense, on his own power, in his own way, he can reach this place and it has nothing to do with projection, his Will wraps up the entire city, straight on a string back to Charles where it coils up all the way around him and tightens. _I do not care what you are sick of. I allowed you to come here because you promised me that you were capable of following my wishes, and we will leave if you continue to demonstrate this total inability to do so. I am not a party trick. I am your Dominant and you have been disrespectful to me this entire night. Now you will take a breath and fix your posture and we will go downstairs and endure this ridiculous event_. It's sharp, it's reprimanding, it's fierce and laced with utter disappointment, but at the same time: calm. An utter foundation of power.  
  
And it makes Charles shudder, but he tries, uselessly, to keep his chin lifted even as his lip wobbles, even as part of him cries out on the inside at the sound of his Dominant's voice. Now Charles clenches his teeth harder and glares at the floor, at his feet, refusing to be chastised. He wishes he'd just grabbed more than one drink while he'd the chance because there's nothing more he'd like now than to be plastered. His mother had the right idea, drinking before the event even started. _Or you could let me go alone like I should have been anyway, and stay out of it_ , he grunts, and if he really wanted to, he knows he could hide here. He could hide anywhere. He won't. He knows it. _You can't make me go home like I'm some petulant child. I can do as I please_. And he will. In a moment, when he's feeling less terrified of the man at the bottom of the stairs through his anger.  
  
 _I recommend you not test me_ , Erik returns, just-as sharp. _If you do not want to be treated as a petulant child, then I suggest you cease behaving as such. Now breathe_ , he Orders firmly. _We'll handle this together. You are not alone. You are my submissive, and that means you will never be alone again. It is not up to you to determine that I stay out of anything._ Because he is being chastised. He is being warned, quite sternly, that he is skewing out of place, and Erik is the one who will put him right back where he belongs. It doesn't matter where they are.  
  
Charles sees the warning for what it is. It doesn't stop him from rolling his eyes before he breathes as he's told, because he doesn't want to handle this together. Erik has no idea how to handle it, and he clearly doesn't care to learn. He wisely keeps his mouth shut, but it certainly doesn't mean he's not bristling, even as his stomach lurches at the thought of going back downstairs. He knows exactly where Kurt Marko is in the room, and his thoughts race somewhere he can't quite reach them, memories and whipped up panic and he pushes it down, unbearably dizzy in that moment. Perhaps the drink he did manage to steal is doing something. He takes it as a small victory even as it gives him a headache, closing his eyes to steel himself. He can still handle this. He's always been able to handle this, and he doesn't need the slightest bit of help. That thought he makes pointed even in his own thoughts, shoulders squared off and tense as he makes to walk down the stairs, grateful they've always been long.  
  
Erik walks behind him, and he doesn't engage with the barrage of thoughts slamming up against him like knives. They're meant to cut. And they do, but Erik absolutely does not show any sign of being affected.   
  
Charles feels it anyway. It's a lot like getting his own head smashed against the wall and he grits his teeth mostly down the stairs, hunches his shoulders and tries not to snap. He should have dug his feet in when they discussed this. He should have never let Erik come anywhere near this place like this, but he did because he's an idiot and now his - Erik is harder to ignore. He tries anyway because the alternative is unbearable, but Erik apparently doesn't understand - he cuts that thought off, but in that moment it's not really for his Dominant's sake. It's because he's reached the bottom of the stairs and everyone is staring, including his mother, and he forces a smile onto his lips that very well might be his best work, considering how little he feels like it. His mother catches him by the arm lightly and he's grateful for it, if only because it throws him back into instinct, because it's a Real touch.   
  
"Darling, could I ask you the biggest favor?" she starts, which is never a good beginning. She's noticeably more drunk and he finds himself incredibly envious.  
  
He smiles through it, ever dutiful. "Of course, Mother."  
  
"Could you go gather your stepfather for me? I think he's in that old office of his." Charles' father's, she means, but she won't say it. Could never. "I was just about to say some words, but you know it wouldn't be right without him. Be a love for me?" She hiccups on the last word. He doesn't flinch even as his mind sears buckles and worthless, good for nothing - "Absolutely, Mother." That's accommodating, anyway. Agreeable. Obedient. Erik won't see an ounce more of that tonight.  
  
Erik traipses along behind Charles, silent and without thought, teeth ground into one another to avoid the shivering in his jaw that threatens to break his composure. He can deal with Sharon, especially when she's in public and she's saving face and being polite. Kurt is another story. He watches through dulled eyes, taking a step closer to Charles, where his body heat could be felt if he were there in the Real.  
  
It's going to break his composure. Charles gets as far as the other room before it starts to wear on him, before the dread and the fact that Erik's watching sets in and he glares at nothing, hides it from blissfully ignorant socialites who are halfway gone to begin with on the way to his father's - to the study. It's likely they don't know why they're here but every time Charles remembers he feels the bile come back up. _Don't look, I can handle this_ , he huffs, and just needs it to work. If he can't get drunk enough that he won't comprehend the pain of it, it's the least Erik can offer him.  
  
There's no way that he can't, though, and Charles must know this. _You cannot ask that of me._  
  
Charles is decidedly not looking at Erik, like he's refused this entire time. He grinds his own teeth together and scowls at the ground, clenches his fists, too. _Well, I'm asking. You said you trusted me and you haven't trusted me once, and you're being -_ He cuts off adjectives there. It's all restless, misplaced irritation. It's all blown smoke. Part of him knows it. Part of him wants a rise because - because. He shakes his head and he knows it's fear that's churning his stomach, it's bone-deep dread and memories he can't sort through all at once. _I don't want you in there with me. Just leave off._  
  
 _This has nothing to do with you,_ Erik returns calmly. _Nor with my trust in you. Which, I'll point out, you've decidedly stomped on this evening, even when given the choice to do otherwise._ And yeah, maybe that was a bit of a rise, but it's still delivered in that cool, calm, unaffected tone. Erik's not in the front seat anymore. _He is a dangerous individual and I won't let you go in there alone._  
  
 _It has everything to do with me!_ he protests, and he's grateful, just a bit, that this is a telepathic conversation, because it means he's free to bite on his lip as hard as he pleases, shaking with it. Stomped on his trust. As if he'd even been given the chance in the first place, as if there was ever going to be a choice. Charles truly doesn't remember being the person he was in Erik's arms not even hours earlier, but he doesn't exist, so, unfortunately, Erik is stuck with this. With him like this. With these memories, with this attitude, and Charles doesn't want to play at anything else. Stomped on his trust? Fine. Forget it, then. It has everything to do with me, and nothing at all to do with you. _I know how to handle him and you don't. You don't get to tell me that I can't, so just -_ Leave him alone. Piss right off. Charles is just stomping on it all anyway, and he doesn't - he doesn't - feel sorry. Forget being good. Charles isn't interested.  
  
Unfortunately for Charles, Erik isn't interested in his protests, either. I am not telling you that you can't. I am telling you that you won't be doing so alone. That's all he has to say on the matter. He doesn't piss off, and he doesn't go, and he doesn't do any of the things that Charles rages at him to do, because it would be unconscionable. He can deal with the attitude and the memories and the defiance, and he'll deal with it a thousand more times before he ever allows Charles to dictate the terms of their relationship. Because Charles doesn't get to just throw Erik away whenever he doesn't want him anymore, because Charles isn't free. He isn't independent. He has agency and he has self-hood and he has choice, within a degree, but he is Erik's. He belongs to Erik, he belongs by Erik's side, and that's exactly where he'll remain. So he just stands there, calm and silent. _No power/no input._  
  
This Charles, this part that very clearly is part of the whole but hasn't found its way to it yet, that believes wholeheartedly that this is something he can get away with and should, must, doesn't take well to that. The noise that comes from his throat is strangled and desperate and he finally looks at Erik to glare, and the thing is, it's Charles. It's Charles and it's not a memory, not a representation of a younger self, it's something inside of Charles, something that might always be there, but now he looks frantic and more fierce than ever. It isn't a play at boundaries now, or simple frustration. It isn't pushing to see how far he can go, to fill a need for both of them. It's true, vicious defiance. _Won't I?_ he tries, and then he's walking down the corridor toward the study and the closer he gets, the more he considers just pushing Erik away. Shoving at him until he goes. He'll deal we the consequences later, if there are any. _I'm going in there_ , he says, telling and certainly not asking, but he stops at the door. He stops and he swallows and he stares and it's enough terror to run his blood cold. He can't defy that.  
  
They didn't come here so that Charles could get away with anything. They didn't come here for that. If Charles doesn't remember, Erik does, and one way or another his Command will be followed and they will emerge from this situation in tact, because that is his responsibility. Erik is right beside him, and he puts a hand on Charles's shoulder, draws it down his arm to take his fingers inside his larger palm. _You are_ , he whispers back. _And so am I._ It's an Order, delivered softly. A rising of Will in silk and cashmere that's more effective than any blade.  
  
Charles shies away from the touch, pulls his hand out from Erik's and tenses every muscle. He doesn't want it, and he glares at the door and feels like it's infinitely larger than he last saw it. The dread is all the way set in now, and there's no way to breathe around it and he doesn't want softness. It doesn't exist here. He isn't soothed by it. The silk and cashmere is suffocating him and he refuses to stop writhing. Fine. Erik wants to watch? He wants to see him humiliated? Fine. What does it matter what he feels or thinks? What does it matter? Charles doesn't care even as it sticks in his throat. He pulls the door open and Kurt Marko is there, exactly as he expected, rummaging in his father's desk for something. He doesn't look up, like Charles isn't even there, and Charles knows that doesn't mean speak. He steps inside and fixes his posture, gets into Posture, a stiff standing Rest and waits.  
  
It's all Erik has to give. He can't cut. He can't fight. He can't rage. Not against Charles. So he just stands there and endures every last biting thought, every razor wire and gnashed tooth and snarled disgust, because he is a pillar and that's what pillars do. Charles wouldn't have to dig very far into Erik's mind to glean the truth, but he doesn't, because he knows what the real answers are, why Erik is really here. It's not to see him humiliated and suffering, any more than it was when Gertrude plugged in that cassette adapter and Charles helped him write. Because they help one another. Because they are better, together. Because this is tough, and scary, and dangerous, and whatever primal part of Erik he can't turn off, whatever makes them a Pairbond that howls and screams inside of him to protect his mate, Erik needs to be here with him.  
  
It doesn't make a difference. It makes it worse while he waits here, feeling less and less like Erik's and more like a boy, feeling frightened and outraged and confused, feeling farther away, and he stands there, stiff and straight as a board, until Kurt Marko finally deems him worth looking at. "Third, boy," is all he says, and he's still sorting through things that were not originally his. He's found a way to open the drawer that never opened. Kurt had an efficient system. Naming Postures like this was far easier. His body knows the stretch automatically, and he bends down despite how uncomfortable it is like this, despite how humiliating, shutting off so it doesn't matter. There's no reason for it. Kurt just wants to prove that it still works. That he still has this power. It does. He does, especially like this. For parts of Charles - this part of Charles - not a day has passed. It doesn't matter, in the end. He's forgotten Erik is in the room at all.  
  
No, that doesn't happen. Erik intervenes immediately, crouching to nudge Charles back into standing, because it doesn't work anymore. Kurt Marko will never Command a Posture from him again, nor will he refer to Charles so utterly disrespectfully. If he thinks he holds the power in this room, he'd better think again.  
  
Charles stares at the floor anyway, silently. There's no satisfaction from this. He isn't listening for Kurt's reaction, because he never did. He kept everything as quiet as possible. He tried to block it out. It never worked, and that it's working now is the only thing reminding him that perhaps he isn't still living in this house, that at the end of this party he won't be sent to his room still bleeding but he doesn't quite remember that either. He takes his first Posture like he's just been reset, like he's stuck on something. There's a bang on the desk, loud and startling, and he only jumps for a moment. His eyes are closed. He'd never decided if it was better to know when and how it was coming or not. Most of the time he decided on not. Reading Kurt's mind and seeing his fist never stopped it from happening, and he'd never actually done any of the things that could have stopped it. Not even when he was an adult. Not really.  
  
The second Kurt's fist impacts the desk he finds both of his hands trapped behind his back, and his body flung into the chair behind it. There will be no violence in this house today. Charles doesn't live here. He didn't know the molecules in this room tell him where everything and everyone is, that he can sense and perceive Kurt all on his own from miles and miles away-he didn't know he could keep that promise, but he can. He can, and he will.  
  
It's not really a promise he can keep, though. He's wrong. And Charles doesn't realize he's thinking it because he's not thinking of the present at all. It doesn't matter how powerful Erik is, and that's such - it doesn't even make sense here. It doesn't even fit together. All of it is absurd and jumbled and wrong, and he stares at the floor and stares at the floor and stares at the floor and Kurt Marko, at the end of the day, is a coward, and what he doesn't understand he fears, and there's no confrontation. The door to the study slams eventually and Charles doesn't even look up to see him leave, just tenses up every muscle when he passes. He holds position.  
  
Erik touches his arms and slowly Commands him to relax his muscles, to return to a more natural position. That they are together is the most natural thing in the world. Be easy, dear-heart. Be easy. Breathe. I've got you. There's no confrontation. There won't be. There will never be again. Never again. Not ever.  
  
He straightens up, he opens his eyes, but he doesn't really see. He doesn't want to. There's no release of tension, there's no relief, there's no calm. There's everything bundled up and suspended in time, and there's the anger from before, and Erik really thinks he can Order it away, doesn't he? That it works like that? All better, all fixed, because he took care of it for him like Charles was an incompetent, silly child who needed saving. It's indignant and it's hurting and it's pricking tears in his eyes and then Charles is brushing right past Erik as if he isn't there, slamming the door behind him though it makes no difference. He wishes it did. He goes the opposite direction of the main party, but he goes, trembling and vibrating with all of it and he truly doesn't get it, does he? Charles doesn't want to be had right now.  
  
Erik doesn't follow, this time. It's an odd dichotomy, being able to manipulate both his projection as well as his physical body, and he occupies himself by flexing his right hand and wiggling his fingers and marveling at the sensation.  
  
There's really no need for that projection. Charles had done everything not to see it - Erik - anyway, but he kept it up because there are things he couldn't bear not doing even like this. But now he does deliberately obscure things, blur them out, cuts things out into black, Void spaces because he's powerful, too. Exceptionally so. Powerful enough to fool Erik, though he doesn't hide the action of doing it, to match Erik. Because he can find his way into a room that doesn't exist for Erik and close the door, lock it though it doesn't matter, and stay there as long as he pleases. Curled up in the corner though it's huge, head buried in his knees, bubbling up and over with everything all at once. Somewhere he can't be followed or seen or reached. He doesn't cut things entirely - even if he could, he never would. It's there, it's always there. But Charles doesn't touch it. He fumes and sulks instead.  
  
Charles knows that Erik keeps an eye on their Bond if nothing else, stroking at it where it's buried humming under the grass that the lone-Erik in the Wasteland planted. Erik doesn't sulk, but he's hurt. He knows where they are, what Charles is dealing with, and he isn't trying to take away from Charles's experiences by having his own reactions to things, but it is what it is. It's obscured in its own way, so it disappears, flung into far-off galaxies of its own until he's left calm and meditating, eyes closed, wandering around looking at all the things that Charles planted for him.  
  
It never helps. It just makes things worse, it just works this angry, confused Charles up more, he just resists and resists and resists and he's hurt, too. He doesn't come out. There's a party and he thinks he probably should, but it won't matter much. His mother is too drunk to speak to, likely, the plan was always to win favor and approach her afterwards with her defenses down. He doesn't really remember it, if he's honest. He can still hear everyone downstairs, and he lets himself get lost in other minds, idle and brooding and hidden, pointedly ignoring anything through the Bond, prickling every time he's touched even non-physically. There's pain again. It's worse, after a while, and he drifts in and out, forgetting, not existing, riled up and then not. He'll go downstairs before the party ends, probably. That's what he's meant to do.  
  
Well, then it doesn't help. Erik isn't doing it for Charles's benefit at this point. He isn't trying, he isn't pushing back, he isn't-he isn't anything. And maybe that helps more than anything else, because it's what Charles has been screaming at him for since this began, so he finally isn't. What matters is that Charles is safe, and everything else is secondary. 

* * *

Fine, then. He's angry and he's bunched up and coiled up into knots but he can't turn off the Bond. He can't stop feeling it. Everything Erik feels is tenfold more than it ever was, fed right back into him and he refuses to let Erik see any of what's happening on his end but he can't help touching, either. Even as he is he can't help it, to soothe because he can't let Erik hurt and ignore it. He can't. It doesn't matter, he can't. So he does, touching and feeling along the Bond, tentative and still prickly, even as he gets up from his corner and brushes himself off and stares at himself in a mirror. He looks wretched and it won't matter. His head hurts horribly and he doesn't care. He does care about Erik. Even like this he can't just... he can't, even if he can't.  
  
Erik shies away from that touch, because when Charles does finally reach out it's to Erik covering his eyes, and he doesn't want this-he doesn't, want it, he doesn't want to be seen like this, for Charles to know that when he was hurting and angry and upset and handling an incredibly complicated and distressing situation-with that miserable motherfucker giving him repulsive Orders-Erik was just-stuck here, like this-so Erik flinches, cocooning himself deeper even as he leans into the contact, because he can't help that. He's always been desperate for affection of any kind.  
  
Charles watches his own face contort in the mirror, and it's strange to realize he doesn't recognize himself. His head pounds. The problem with all of this is that he's too close to Erik for it to work; if Erik is powerful, if he can sense every molecule without Charles' help, Charles' reach and awareness is extraordinary even when he doesn't try and there's nothing he knows more than his Dominant. He knew the whole time and it irritates him, makes him sulkier and restless, but at the same time - at the same time, he doesn't stop touching, coaxing, even as he scowls at himself, fusses with the bindings of the corset he's half-undone, his own fingers shaking. He doesn't say anything, because the things he has to say are surprisingly unpleasant now, balled up and spiky, tumbling around with the migraine and that one drink he'd managed to down and he's mad it didn't seem to do much, last time it did, but he also can't ignore his Dominant if he's distressed. Instinct, whatever it is. He can't. Not in any form.  
  
It doesn't do a whole lot to help Erik, either. Anger and frustration wrapped in comfort and softness, and it just makes him shudder and bury deeper, bury more, until his whole body goes still and his mind floats up out of it and disperses. Separates until he's just the spaces between pulsating atoms. He pets back mindlessly. It's OK, it's all OK. He's OK. Charles doesn't have to fuss over him. He can go back to his regularly scheduled fury. Erik would do anything to make it better, but-it's OK. He's floating, now. Peaceful.  
  
It wasn't - it isn't - but it doesn't matter, and Charles obscures everything as he wipes at his own eyes, aggressive and frustrated, rubs them until they look particularly red in the mirror and then swaps his own perception until they're no longer puffy, until he doesn't look as sickly as he feels again. Uselessworthlessgoodfornothing. It is what it is. Tears keep leaking anyway and he stands there and watches until he can get them to stop, until he can force them to stop, mantras repeated that he'd thought he'd forgotten but he hasn't and now it's practically all he remembers. This is practically all he remembers. He loosens the corset, very nearly takes it off in a fit of incomprehensible sadness, aching, frustration, but he doesn't and he tells himself it's just because it would be too much trouble. It isn't, it is, it doesn't matter, he's alone again like he wanted and he straightens his shoulders and fixes his hair and adjusts, and by the time he walks down the stairs he's hollowed out and smiling again.  
  
He's not really alone, but the difference is negligible at this point, to his perception at least. Erik could no more voluntarily leave him than he could cease breathing, and that remains true even now, but there's no space for the things rising up in him. There's no room for it, here. There will never be any room for it. It's childish and weak, and he's never succumbed to it before but his mind isn't exactly completely online and it's hard to resist, like a siren's call, the allure of Mr. Shaw and Mr. Ivanov- _you want to take care of it? He's looking down at the creature, piteously flapping its broken wing. It's all right. We'll bring it home. Did you really think we'd let you? You aren't meant to take care of things. You're meant to crush them. Now crush it! You can't take care of anything. Do you really think you know what he needs? All you're good for is following Orders_ \- enough. Enough, enough. He isn't paying so much attention to the party, but strokes over the corset lovingly. Grateful Charles didn't take it off. 

* * *

It leaves that awful, sickly taste in his mouth and Charles bats it away, bats away the touch because he shouldn't be - but there are things to take care of, so he forces himself to be cold and empty while the rest of the world sees him as friendly, as charming, as charismatic, talks his way into circles and around socialites and rich businessmen and scientists, wonders how many of them know what happened in this house and how many care and then stops wondering. It's different now, more like he knows it. He avoids situations skillfully, talks his way out of them, mostly everyone is intoxicated in some way and he stares longingly at drinks every time they come by, and he succumbs, too, and it works. It works and he laughs as he talks mutant legislature with some politician who comprehends little of it, in this place that - but those thoughts don't belong here, so he cuts them out, uses words like weapons and twists them up and around and he's good at it, truly a sight to behold and people listen if they stop ogling and underestimating long enough for it and it would be brilliant if he wasn't here. If he wasn't in this place. He repeats "unfortunately, my Dominant just couldn't make it tonight," until it feels less like a knife to the chest, and when he finds his mother half-collapsed on one of the couches and with some noticeable new bruises, he does what he's always done. He hefts her up, hating how easy it is even after days of sickness, even after losing weight himself, and carries her up the stairs. He used to wait until the party was over for this, but now he can do it much more discretely. Just another duty.  
  
Erik follows him, a disembodied mind rather than the projection of his body from earlier, only because Sharon's hurt again and when Charles lays her down Erik smooths over those bruises until they fade into nothing, leaving her with a sensation of warmth that won't result in a crippling hangover in the morning, the lightest of touches that barely leaves any imprint on the room at all because it doesn't matter what is going on, he can't leave people to suffer. He can't do it and everyone will just have to deal with it. He evaporates, looking at the mansion and the forced-posed pictures and the fake smiles and there won't be any entertainment at this party, right? No, no, there won't be. The cameras are just there for the news, Erik floats. He listens to Charles talk because he is brilliant regardless, and he's inwardly warmed when he dodges out of those scenarios like he said he would, of course he can, he doesn't need Erik to protect him. He doesn't need. He couldn't make it. He doesn't need it. And anyway they're all stupid, Erik listens to them, too, when they talk and they say a whole lot of nothing, empty heads. It's all empty-headedness.  
  
Warren shows up after a while, because he's expected here, too. He gives Kurt a slap on the back and a hearty guffaw at whatever stupid joke he's told and separates from the throng with an indecipherable eyeroll-the only person who hates Kurt Marko more than Charles and Erik would be Warren, in close fourth after Raven-pilfering a glass of champagne from a tray and leaning against a wall to survey the quote-unquote damage when Charles comes down the stairs at last. "What a turn-out, eh Charlie? Masterful. Just like the good old days." War snorts and gives Charles a one-armed hug, perfunctory, well into his own established routines like a worn leather jacket. "Speaking of, how's dear old mum? And-whew," he whistles at the corset, eyebrows bouncing playfully. Three guesses who made that, but he doesn't comment.  
  
Just like the good old days. He tucked his mother into her old bed and tried to ignore the silence and the horrific, growing sickness, and there's something opening up in his chest, like a smaller Void, and he hopes it swallows him. There's no reaction through the Bond. She'll wake up with a hangover regardless because she'll drink the first thing she wakes up, pop Xanax like candy and there's no changing that. He left her alone and there's no changing that. Everyone says he's so hopeful, so optimistic, but here? Here? But it doesn't matter. None of it bloody matters and he ignores all of it, because it's so distinctly hurtful but forget that. He forces a smile for Warren, laughs a laugh that sounds like nothing, nothing like his actual laughter, and pretends not to recoil at the touch. At being touched at all, bristling, especially from a Dominant. Even Warren. Here, even Warren, even his best friend because Charles remembers what this was. He is what this was. What it is.  
He pretends not to feel sick at the mention of what he's wearing, fights the urge to run to the nearest bathroom and rip it right off, because it doesn't belong here.   
  
"Mother always did throw a good party, eh? I certainly can't take credit. She was feeling a bit unwell so she's retired for the evening. I'm sorry you've missed her," he says, pleasant and formal and prefunctory. As if everyone here doesn't know. "I see you've already got yourself a drink. If you'll excuse me? I need to check on something. We'll catch up!" We'll catch up. And around and around and Charles darts into one of the nearest empty rooms and backs himself against the door and breathes and breathes and closes his eyes and breathes and where's Kurt - what room is he in, how drunk is he - and breathes... and he remembers this, remembers panic attacks behind closed doors and then straightening himself out and he takes a harsh breath and his trembling fingers work on this stupid, insanely gorgeous corset because he should never have agreed to wear it. Never. When he sobs, it comes out mostly silent, because even though he could hide it even then - even now? - he would never give them the satisfaction. Five minutes. That's all. Breathe, Charles.

* * *

And there was never any purpose to this, was there? Erik knows he was right all along. There's no purpose to this, and he's tired and done. Of course there was never any purpose to this. He was always right. What was the purpose, really? Can Charles tell him? Can Charles tell him honestly what it is he wanted out of this evening? To prove that he could? To re-traumatize himself just because he can? What is the purpose, if someone could illuminate Erik to that he'd be really grateful. Because right now it just looks like he's sanctioning this for nothing, because Charles always knew he'd never talk to his mother and get her to sign a document at this ridiculous soiree, not when he's screaming at Erik that nothing will ever change or ever get better or ever be any different, so it's always been this way, so he's always known, so there's never been a fucking purpose to this beyond Erik getting manipulated into allowing it, and falling for it like an idiot. So give him a reason because otherwise he's done, and they're finished, and Sharon's in bed, and they're going home.  
  
It makes Charles flinch. It makes him flinch and then it makes him crumple, and he's spent all evening not crumpling but it makes him crumple and he feels his back hit the door and he buries his head in his knees, taking those big, sucking breaths. He doesn't give an argument. He has one, he probably has twenty, but right now he can't breathe so he doesn't give any of them, he just sobs as quietly as he can and he tries not to show how affected he is, tries to keep it together. Home. Go home. This is - there's no point in leaving now. Someone needs to take care of it. Someone needs to see everyone out. Someone needs to host in the absence of his mother and Kurt is truly awful at doing it, so it should be him and it will be and he thinks words like connections and duties but really he's thinking about his mother upstairs and he can't breathe. It was just a party. He's done this a hundred, thousand times, and he swipes angrily at his eyes and tries to force enough oxygen into his lungs. The plan had never been talk to his mother, make her sign a document, that would never have happened, that's not how these things work. That's not how being an Xavier works, and it doesn't matter how much Erik wants to change it, he can't. This is who he is, too.  
  
Right, and that's what Charles told him, and it was a lie and that's not a reason anymore. The end. Kurt will do it or Warren will do it or someone will do it and it won't be Charles because they're leaving and it's done. A hole opens up in the ceiling and Erik, Real-Erik, drops outs of it, landing right in front of Charles. Wherever he's been this whole time. Home, doing nothing, being nothing. And now he's not nothing anymore, and he picks Charles up off of the floor and Orders him to breathe and be still because that still works, apparently, look at that. Amazing. Erik puts an arm under his and they're lifting off, out, and away, and too bad, it's all too bad, because there's another variable here that just doesn't resemble the good old days, as much as Charles wants to pretend it doesn't exist, there's a new element and it's one won't let itself be ignored and that is Erik's Will which has been frightfully lacking these past hours.   
  
But no longer. Erik's the stupidest person on the planet Earth, he is an absolute idiot, of course he is. Compared to Charles he's a preschooler, he's a toddler playing with lego blocks in his mind. He's a fucking moron. A complete idiot.  
  
Charles tenses up every muscle and goes stiff as a board, just like in the study earlier, and that's how this always goes, isn't it? Isn't it? He closes his eyes and refuses to look, unless Erik decides to make him because Charles wouldn't rearrange Orders even without the Order not to, but apparently he's a liar and manipulative so who could say? Who could say? He doesn't want this, but that apparently doesn't matter. Anything that existed before Erik, any life he had, any context, that apparently doesn't matter. Especially considering, but there's no considering. There's theatrics. Charles will accept everything of Erik but when it comes to him if it's inconvenient or unpleasant, it's good as discarded. If Erik says he can't, he can't and that's final but if Charles does, if he gets stuck, if he gets - forget it. He goes still and he ignores all of it and he can still hear his mother from here anyway. Let Erik think he's been played a fool, that's fine. Erik can't Order his mind around, can't force him to feel things, and perhaps he's not gasping for breath but he's anything but calm and on the inside he is, panicked bursts that he shoves right back in. And the pain and the nausea and the screeching, that too. He hopes the Void opens up and swallows him right now, it would be wonderfully appropriate.

* * *

Charles wants Erik to consider his feelings and his input, well consider them considered. They'll be considered for a long time to come, a long time. Charles can lose his temper and throw a tantrum and hate him all he wants, he wants Erik to put his foot down? He wants Erik to show him that he's the Dominant, that he's in control? Good, because that's what he's got. Erik is positively furious. It's not the spitting defiance, spat epithets and resistance and cutting ice of Charles Xavier. It is a supernova in the back of Erik's mind waiting to explode and completely annihilate him, crack his skin open and spill out prime-fire into the universe until it melts back into an amoeba-blob of strange quarks in the wake of collision, but it's all carefully concealed and boxed-up and he doesn't let an ounce of that light shine through. Because he is in control. Because he'll spare the theatrics and rage is unpleasant and inconvenient, and what was the other stuff? He can't think to ask. It's not like it isn't playing in his mind on full volume, but it isn't. It's soundless. It's formless. They land at home and Erik opens the door with his power and it doesn't slam. He doesn't affect anything more than necessary. He guides Charles inside and bids Raven and Hank a nod of acknowledgment and guides him up the stairs and into their bedroom and then goes downstairs to get them dinner, proper dinner this time. Raven's concerned and Erik lightly diverts her attention. He's got it, it's under control. Everything is under control. Stifling. Suppressing. Suffocating. _Suffocator, suffocator_.  
  
Charles isn't hungry and he doesn't want to be in this bedroom, he doesn't want to be in this apartment that isn't even his with his sister downstairs, it doesn't feel comfortable or familiar, it makes everything strange and there's a splitting migraine now and tears on his cheeks and maybe he didn't withstand it at all. Maybe it's still in there. Let it swallow him right now, it would be better than this. When Erik is back upstairs Charles is rummaging in the closet, pacing, there's not enough space in this room for all of this and he is suffocating. When he gives up on the first idea he has, mostly because he isn't certain he can walk like it requires and maybe that one drink did do something or he's just still sick, he settles for the second. He walks into the bathroom and slams the door behind him, locks it even though locks do nothing, but surely he's allowed privacy? A locked door to a normal person is a locked door and Charles bends over the sink, scrubs at his face over and over and over.  
  
Erik doesn't come back upstairs. He needs to take a step back or he's going to lose his temper at Charles, a feat that's never before been accomplished and it scares him he is scared to shaking, and it wouldn't be productive and it wouldn't be meaningful although it seems to be for Charles. He must've known Erik's secret urges to watch him be humiliated and panicking and miserable and drunk and empty-that must be it. He's a sadistic torturer from _Sheol_ itself, Charles could never avoid that. He could never swoop in and save the day and make it rain unicorns and puppy-dogs, he was always going to be a micromanaging basket-case-why is he still thinking. Why is he still letting his thoughts be heard. The door snaps closed, similar to before Charles gets disciplined. There's that light, that thread leading between them, like always, but Erik's feelings and thoughts become suddenly faint and then foggy, hard and lifeless.  
  
It's so distinctly awful that he forgets that he doesn't want to sob loudly, and he does. He rips off the corset unceremoniously because it's suffocating him and he'd had thoughts of Erik taking it off for him, nice thoughts, honest intentions, but apparently he's just - forget it. Forget it, forget all of it. He hurts too much. The migraine is too much, the world is too blurry, he can still see his mother's dreams and he doesn't grasp desperately at Erik's thoughts like part of him wants to and could, he just keeps the door locked and climbs into the bathtub, the same one he sat on earlier while they got ready and Erik really thinks that was all... fine. He shuts the curtain though it's entirely useless and pulls his knees up and sobs, and sobs, and gasps, and eventually the sickness takes over and when he leans over to vomit it really is like old times. He didn't even need the drinks.  
  
Because the alternative is worse. Erik begging to be let in, Charles screaming against him, and he can't do it again, he can't listen to Charles shrieking against him and telling him he doesn't know and he could never understand and he doesn't care, and he just thinks this and that; it's too much. That's why Charles didn't want him there, isn't it? Because it's not his world. He's downstairs, he's outside, he's stumbling around sightlessly clutching at his chest, making the wrong choice again. Everything is wrong. He just wants to go back to where they were, cocooned in bed talking and touching. Sitting on the rim of the bathtub getting ready... and then it dims, as if Erik's lost consciousness, dims and fades. 

* * *

The bathroom door opens, the knob twisting clean off, and it's Raven's form who enters, who climbs into the tub with him and holds him while he vomits, and brushes his hair back and sways them side to side.  
  
Charles truly thinks he loses it, then. He hits absolute total breaking point, and fine, let Erik think all the things he promised never to think, Charles can hear him, does he really think he can't? Does he really think he doesn't feel it? Does he really think - but all of it must have been lip service, all that rot about accepting that there are parts of Charles that aren't pretty, that are difficult, all those promises because he can handle it - forget it. Forget it, forget it, forget it, forget it. Charles doesn't want to be touched by anyone. He doesn't want to be looked at or seen. But it hurts too much to do anything, there's too much startling pain and mess, so he just lets it be. He just sobs and forget it. Forget it, forget it. He shouldn't have tried. He knew it. He knew it. He told Erik, he told him in that place that doesn't exist anymore. He should have listened. He'd try to help but apparently that's just worse, isn't it? Isn't it? This always happens. It always happens. It feels like he's bleeding. He is, really.  
  
It cuts more than anything, splicing through the remnants of Erik's consciousness like a thousand shards of glass, and let it. He's just rotten. He's just rot. Lipservice. Stupid. Can't handle it. Forget him. Forget him? Please don't forget him. He told Charles he trusted him to make the right choice because sometimes Erik makes the wrong one. Sometimes he needs Charles to tell him how to take care of him because everything he chooses is wrong. He begged for a million years, for a hundred million years, and he'll keep doing so. But he can't breathe. He's walking and he can't breathe. Please try. Please don't leave him alone. Please don't cut him, please stop cutting him, he's sorry. Please just stop-he looses his footing and careens toward the wet pavement, not even self-aware enough to break his own fall, curled up into a brick wall against his back. It's the only Order he can think to give. He doesn't really think anything. He never has. Please stop cutting him, he's sorry. He's sorry, he's miserable and stupid and sorry. If he could be punished, he would be, he would take it, he is taking it. He can handle it. He's not good at handling it, but he can.  
  
Erik left him! Erik left him! and it's not fair. He's been here. He's been here, even as he pushed, he had a million opportunities to push Erik away and close the door fully and he didn't. Not once. He could have separated him from that party and he wouldn't have even known if he'd really, truly wanted to, but he didn't. He didn't slam the door like Erik did. A lock wouldn't have made any difference, and his mind has been wide open. And he can't breathe either, and it hurts, it hurts so bad and he hasn't shut anything off, he hasn't cut anything of course he'd never forget and - he hates this. He hates this, he hates this, and he wants to scream so he does, and he needs to vomit and so he does, and he causes himself pain, directs it all at himself because if Erik won't take care of it, won't take care of him, if he's going to stumble off and then act like Charles made him when he can't even stand, he'll take care of this himself. He'll scratch at his own skin until it bleeds and force Raven away and let the Void swallow it up. Because he's - because he's - but he can't. He can't, he absolutely cannot, everything was only just reconnecting, rebuilding, reorganizing, and now it's all just crumbling.  
  
He has to hate Erik, if he really thinks that Erik believes all that poison, he has to hate him. He has to hate being Erik's submissive. And it hurts, he is hurt by it, sometimes he is not a perfect paragon of strength and indomitable columns, sometimes he takes things personally, sometimes they dig inside and it can't be relegated to lip service when something sticks, when deep inside the Void a part that looked like Shaw but wasn't, it wasn't Shaw, it was Charles, _go back to your Master_. It was Charles you can't care for anything-forget-Charles can't keep cutting him and then tell him he's breaking a promise to love every part when sometimes something splits into his heart. Because it still keeps being true, regardless. Erik still loves every part. There's not a promise broken. He isn't gone. He hasn't left. He's curled up in a rainy, muddy, desolate corner but he's still here, he still knows, he's still tapping against the Bond and stroking at it and curling around Charles desperately for some form of connection. Don't hurt yourself. Don't cut yourself, either. _If you want to burn yourself/remember that I love you/and if you want to cut yourself remember that I love you..._

* * *

somewhere he ends up pressed against the other side of the bathroom door, wet and trembling. There's no won't about it. No other thoughts matter. Erik has always just wanted to be inside rubbing Charles's back and holding him close.  
  
Charles is hurt, too. And he can't think, he can't fathom, it digs into his heart into his soul into his being and he doesn't listen because why should he? Why should he? Why should he bother when apparently it doesn't matter, according to Erik? He apparently hates - he apparently - he sobs and it comes out as more coughing, as gasping, gasping, he keeps scratching and bangs his head against the wall just like Erik did before and it's hard porcelain and the door is open, it's been open since he forced Raven to walk through it without even thinking that through and he's gone. He's gone, and he's wet, too, because at some point he turned the shower on by accident.  
  
Whatever-whatever crazy, messed up disaster is exploding in Erik's head; the only thing that matters is taking care of his submissive, and he doesn't care what he has to get through in order to do it. He crawls into the bathroom and takes Charles in his arms, wet and all, and doesn't dare let him push away. No more banging his head on the wall. No more scratching, no more cutting, no more pain. No more.  
  
Charles flails in his arms, and then he stills. He wasn't bleeding. He didn't get very far, but there are red scratches on his arms through his shirt and it's sticking to him and he goes limp, he goes absolutely still, leans over and throws up again, still coughing. Wheezing, shivering, because he's got a fever again, a high fever, and the water was freezing cold. It wasn't Charles. It wasn't. Why would he think that? Why would he think that? Charles sobs, but he doesn't fight for the moment, he doesn't push away, he'd never meant to cut Erik how could he think that? He's tense and stiff and he still doesn't want - but he's exhausted, too, and he hurts. It hurts. At least that's one way he isn't listening still. He doesn't want to be good ever, ever again. He doesn't want to.  
  
Erik warms him up, turns the water off, helps him get clean after he vomits again and draws him back into his chest, tucked up against the wall where he can run his fingers through Charles's hair, encourage him to breathe and take big, deep breaths and slow down.   
  
His legs are flailing again, and he isn't kicking out at Erik, he's too exhausted to even fight, really, but he's dry sobbing and he feels so sick, he's so tired of vomiting and he feels sick. He won't. He's decided. He's never going to be good again. He'll never try. He won't and Erik won't make him, never again, he won't. It isn't worth trying. It just leads here. It just leads here and Erik thinks he's - he shakes his head but he can't be sure if he really did it, the whole world is Void again, sucking, swallowing Void, rearranging backwards. The Universe inside of Charles howls, busy with containing it.  
  
Erik endures it, endures everything, Charles is wrong. He can handle it, and he does, and Charles knows him. He knows Erik, he knows him enough to give him the benefit of the doubt, here, so Erik doesn't offer any thoughts in reply, just a steady stream of Hebrew murmured softly. Charles belongs to Erik. Has he stopped wanting that? Because Erik is so stupid and wrong, Charles doesn't want to be his anymore? They're here, OK, they're here. They're still here. It doesn't matter what Charles has decided, the only Will in this room belongs to Erik. His world swerves in and out, crumbled and dead and piercing fluorescent lights and porcelain. _No power, no input._  
  
He's always enduring Charles, isn't he? He thinks Charles is wretched and manipulative, that he's malicious and cutting and a liar, that he pushes him away that he took the form of Shaw - he thinks that was Charles? He thinks that was Charles? So why should he want him anyway? Why should he keep him if he thinks Charles is horrible? And he's always blaming himself, he's always - and Charles can't. He can't hear that. He can't bear it. Of course Charles belongs to Erik, he always will. But he won't be good. He won't. The world comes back to that resolve, and he's shivering again, shivering and shivering and he won't. He won't listen, he won't obey, and that will make it easier. They're never going to end up back here again. Charles will never let himself - no, never again. It's this part of Charles that gets stuck. There's nothing left right now.  
  
" _Tish ma, shma li_. I do not think you are horrible," Erik whispers, still rubbing his back, rocking them to and fro, petting his hair. He's blaming himself because it's his responsibility, and he is the one that failed. "Not wretched, or malicious, or manipulative or anything else. Now stop this," he Commands calmly. Why would Erik be here if he thought any of those things? He doesn't, and he's here.  
  
He sure seems like it. Charles doesn't say anything but he thinks it, pointedly and loudly, and Erik is going to leave, anyway. Charles warned him and he didn't take the warning and Charles will be difficult and he'll leave, and he doesn't want to be rocked, held, he's sick and he doesn't like it and he thinks - he'll think all those things, and if Erik Orders him not to he'll think something else and he won't be soft and he won't be good and he struggles, he kicks and sniffles and he has to be sick again or he'd get up. He'd get up and lock another door. He's just horrible and - and worthless, useless, why should he try? No one can handle him. He's never going to believe it again.

* * *

No obedience, no more being good-because Erik doesn't deserve it because it's all true and it probably is-Erik doesn't think Charles is horrible. He thinks Charles wants to leave him. Because he-because he's not relationship material-grew up with Shaw-only knows-it's all true, all of it is true, he's a monster, he is evil, he has evil twisted disgusting thoughts and they're all true, how could he ever apologize, how could he ever begin to make amends,  
  
Stop it! Stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it! Stop it! Charles might as well have screamed it, but he doesn't, he makes no sound and even like this it's not yelling, he just flails in Erik's arms until he's all limbs and wet from the bath again and so dizzy he has to fight back the urge to vomit again, there's nothing to vomit and he can't stand the taste of bile. Charles doesn't think any of those things, why - why - if Erik would just - he doesn't know what to do! He doesn't know what to do! Charles is the bad one! Erik was supposed to be angry at him, but he doesn't let himself be and it's annoying and Charles doesn't the capacity right now, he's not going to - he can't. He tries to climb out of the tub, away from Erik, his chest is going to burst open, the Universe is wailing - He doesn't want to leave Erik, he'd die but he can't, and Erik won't, he never does, and Charles is vile and always pushing! Pushing and cutting and ruining!  
  
Erik has no idea, doesn't think to ask, just tricks, doesn't think he can handle anything, he can't take care of him, he doesn't have any idea what it means acting like he knows-never helps, just makes things worse-sick of Erik? Sick of his input? Sick of his Orders. Empty promises and rot and lip-service-he shouldn't be anywhere near Charles's life, he doesn't care what Charles feels or thinks-it's all true. It's all true, all of it is true, he's twisted, he's broken and he's evil, he's gunfire and murder and ashes and screaming, how could he ever have hoped-look what he did-he did-sick of Erik, Erik is sick of Erik, sick of Erik, he's bad. He's abusive, he's bad, nothing is soft anymore it's all hard and spiky and he's holding it in his hands and he's crushing it broken wings, dead, dead bird, bad bird, he doesn't know anything-he's not angry, he's not angry, it's not Charles's fault. He could never be angry. He was wrong to be mad, he was wrong, he just wanted to hurt Charles he just wants to hurt him, and break him and beat him and humiliate him-he-he's-if he would just-if he would just what if he would just what he'll do it, he'll do it, he'll be it, he will-he should be melting into nothing but he can't-his arms tighten further, he can't let Charles go, he's possessive and controlling and suffocating and Charles is going to die, Charles is going to die, Erik is going to suffocate him to death he is going to, he doesn't listen, he won't listen when Charles says stop please stop please stop let me go, you're killing me-Erik slurs something incoherent, pupils dilated to the extreme as he looks up at the ceiling, it's pretty-cracks and colors-cracks, cracked-  
  
Charles sobs when it washes over him, and it makes him so sick he does lean over and vomit again. He stops fighting. He goes still in Erik's arms and it breaks him and he doesn't know how to soothe it, Erik was right, he was right and Charles was backwards and he'd had it right and he - but Charles doesn't know how to admit that, he's still - and this part really just hurts Erik, doesn't it? When he reacts this way, when he is this way, Erik falls right apart, he can't, can he? He was right. He was right. It's not Erik, it's him, and he hates it, he hates it and he hates it and he hates it and he hates himself, hates himself so much it's vicious and fierce and burning and painful and he won't leave Erik, he never could, but he's - he's the problem. He's always been the fucking problem, and Erik saw it tonight and it broke him. He realized it tonight and it broke him and he decided he couldn't do anything about it and so he didn't. Charles won and he lost, he lost everything, it's never, ever going to be okay again. He finally did it. He resisted and resisted and fought and fought and he won. Erik gave up and he made him think - but Charles - he sobs and closes off and he doesn't fight because he doesn't have to anymore. He won and Erik let him like everyone does.  
  
Erik scrambles up and takes Charles with them, leaves this miserable bathtub and takes them back to bed under blankets and warmth and dry instead of wet, and cocoons them up in softness because he can't stand the dark and the harsh and the sharp anymore, he won't stand it anymore, he doesn't have to anymore. Charles is right. Erik saw it and Charles wanted to cut him and wanted to hurt him and he did because he's only a person and maybe if he were whole and healed and he had a mind that he could wrap a single thought around, that wasn't digesting trillions of eons in a Void, that would've been the end of it. Charles has no one because he doesn't think Erik could ever come back from that, could ever come back and love him. Charles is right he just thinks he knows everything and he tries to tell everyone what's right and wrong but he doesn't, when Charles is screaming and raging at him to go away, and threatening to tamper with his mind and his Orders so that he can, and obscuring everything-  
  
They're not decompressing. Charles doesn't feel any better under blankets than he did soaking wet in the bathtub, and it doesn't make any sort of difference. It's not Erik, it's Charles. It's Charles and he's done. He's Void-swallowed and he's done and he's never doing it again, he's not. No more, never again, he's never coming back. He took off Erik's corset. He curls into himself and hiccups and there's nowhere safe to retch now so he has to keep it all in, fading in and out of pain and Void and resolve, knees pulled up to his chest. It feels like he drank too much. Remnants, stuck, repetition. He'll have a hangover tomorrow morning because he thinks he should. If Erik had left him alone, he would. That's what he does. It's what should have happened. He almost won that, too.  
  
Erik clutches tighter, shivering so bad his teeth are clacking together. He's not mad, he isn't mad, he won't lose his temper, won't. He's evil, a _Ziz_ wrapped around its treasure baring claws and teeth and if he gets mad he'll raze the place down in fire, he'll burn the flesh off of bones and leave nothing but ruin, he's not mad he's not mad, he's not mad. He won't fight knife to the throat fight back! he is not mad because Charles would lose everything, because it's his fault look what he did. It will never be OK again because he's a monster. You shouldn't love a monster. They don't know how. He doesn't know how. Doesn't know anything. He took everything away. Everything, everything, ev-  
  
 _No!_ It comes up fierce and jangled and upset, but Erik won't hear it because he's already ruined it. Charles is the monster. Charles is the one who fucked everything up, who turned it sideways and he doesn't have any way of fixing it. He doesn't know what to do. He's not even a whole person. It's his fault. Erik promised, he promised it wasn't too much, that he wasn't, but look at it now. He can't ask and he can't take so he won't get, doesn't even know what he needs, still wants to scream and lash out and Erik won't fight, so what can he do? What can he do except curl farther into himself and sob and be sick? Nothing. He won't ever let them get like this again. At least his heart and soul is getting cut out now and not later when this Void-part really got comfortable, got thinking he could ever have a Dominant. He broke it. He broke it. He's just bad. He's always just been bad, and he made Erik think he was bad and he shouldn't even exist. Stupid, worthless boy. And it won't even matter. He won again. He broke it. Erik promised he wouldn't let him break it but Charles always finds a way to get what he wants, and he'd wanted - and now he has it, but it's never what he needed. He squirms to the end of the bed. He got it. He told Erik he would.  
  
He won't get mad, he won't, how dare Charles try to cut out his heart in front of him and then tell him it's because he's no good, he's good! He tries! He tries every minute of every day even when every single person in his life is pressing in on his skull and telling him he's not worth it, he's not good enough, he'll never do it, he's only good at following Orders-well it's a lie. He's good at taking care of Charles. He is he is he is. How dare he say it doesn't matter when he's holding the knife up to Erik's throat. Go ahead and cut him then. Go ahead because he trusts Charles. He said he did and he does. Charles said he'd take care of Erik too. It is not broken. It's not broken. He's just hurting. Isn't he allowed to hurt? Isn't he allowed now? How dare. How-no, no, no-no, no he's not, he's not he's not  
  
Charles sniffles, and he quiets. He curls all the way in on himself and he goes quiet, completely silent, he didn't want to cut him he was trying to - he was trying to - but Charles doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know. He goes silent and Erik is allowed to hurt, he is, but Charles is hurting too, at the same time, he's hurting and he was hurting and he didn't - quiet. Quiet. He goes quiet. He wishes Erik would just - but he won't, he never does. Quiet!

* * *

Does Charles really think Erik doesn't know he is hurting? That he wouldn't try every possible method at alleviating it? That he still wouldn't? That's the whole point. Erik was stupid and once again, surprise surprise, he didn't listen to his own instincts. It's not fair. It's not fair that he's so damaged he doesn't know how to listen to himself, it's not fair that he got this damaged. It's not fair that this is what Charles is left with. He knows that, doesn't Charles think he knows that? "Just what-?" Erik croaks. "Just stop it-just tell me what," he Orders, roughly.  
  
It's not fair Charles is this damaged either, but he is! It comes out spikier than he intended, more pointed than it should but he can't right now. He inches closer to the edge of the bed and farther away from Erik even though it hurts, tucking his head all the way into his knees and hoping it hides his miserable sniffling. "Just be my Dominant, if -" If that's what he wants. If he wants to talk about handling Charles and making decisions, taking care of him even when he's difficult, then make them. He can't double down and then back away without telling him first, leave him alone to crumble, he can't keep - especially right now, Charles can't handle it. If he wants to keep blaming himself and feeling sorry for nothing, fine, but if that's the case then Charles wants a drink. Charles can't always reassure him, sometimes he can't, sometimes he's like this, especially now, he doesn't remember it's not a good thing. Doesn't he trust Charles? Doesn't he think Charles is capable of knowing his own - why does he think he didn't shut him out completely when he knows, he knows he could have, and Erik couldn't have done a damn thing about it? Why didn't he take off the corset? Because he's horrible and Charles doesn't want him anymore? No. The opposite.  
  
"Well I was pissed off!" Erik grouches. He had to cool off! And he did, and he came back, but maybe he didn't as good as he thought. If Charles really wants him to play no-holds-barred Dominant, they never would have went to this party in the first place. He would have put his foot down when it counted. And he knows Charles could just cut him off and do whatever he wants, does Charles really need to keep throwing it in his face! That Erik is only his Dominant because he's decided not to completely rewire his mind for the day?   
  
"No, you left me in the bathroom crying and you didn't - you didn't tell me -!" Charles' voice cracks, and then he sits up abruptly, nearly falling over because everything is spinning and he's so dizzy, because he still feels sick. He should forget this and just go to sleep. It isn't like Erik is willing to hash it out anyway or act like a Dominant. It isn't like they'll get anywhere, and the second he gets pissed he backs right off. Besides, shouldn't it be good that he's choosing? That he keeps choosing, that he'll always choose, that he'll never, ever do it? Doesn't Erik know he wouldn't? Apparently not. Apparently it's better if Charles doesn't have a choice, but he does make a choice, even like this. He makes it over and over and over again. But Erik doesn't see that, apparently!  
  
"Stop it!" Erik growls, grabbing Charles and keeping him seated with a firm hand on his shoulder. "Stop it you don't get to talk to me that way! Like when I make a mistake or struggle I'm less of your Dominant or like what we aren't doing right now is dealing with it. I don't talk to you like that! When I get angry I handle it the best way I know how." And of course it's not better if he doesn't have a choice, but is that all he does? Fantasize about-about leaving? Is Erik really doing that terrible of a job? "And you won't push me into it Charles Xavier I will not let you! I won't let you do it! Everybody else did that and what good did it do!" he doesn't realize he's yelling, loud enough that Hank knocks on the door and pokes his head in.  
  
Oh, but when Erik thinks horrible, accusatory things about him that's fine? Bullshit he doesn't! Like he's not doing it right now. Like it doesn't make tears spring to his eyes, like it doesn't make him tremble. And he clearly wasn't fantasizing about it, he was reminding Erik who seems to have forgotten and he was reminding them both, right now, right now - but forget it. It apparently only matters when it's Erik with trauma, and forget Charles' responses! Hank peeks in and Charles fiercely pushes him out, and the door slams after him and then Charles turns himself away from Erik again, squirming against that hand on his shoulder. Trying to shrug it off. It's not fair. It's not fair that he gets to imply more than once tonight that Charles is like - that he's - it makes him sick, it makes him absolutely sick to his stomach, he brings his hand up to his mouth and tries so hard not to vomit. It's not fair.  
  
"It's not all right," Erik whispers. "It's not fine. I'm sorry. I-" Erik loses his fire just as fast as he found it. He pulls Charles to him instead, still doesn't let him go. What he said and what he meant were very different things, and it was never about accusing Charles of anything. Because of course it made sense at the time, that's why this happened at all. It made sense at the time, and it made sense to Charles exactly like that at the time. It wasn't about manipulation. That isn't even rational. Erik was just-furious, he was just furious, and his thoughts became twisted and dark and unkind, and that's why he doesn't like getting angry. It was never Charles's responsibility. This situation happened because he didn't listen to his instincts, again. "I'm sorry," he whispers.  
  
Charles tenses up, stubborn and proud and still prickly, still sick, trying to scoot away even as part of him leans into it. "Let go," he mumbles, and it's childish and contrary for the sake of being so, if he had a real problem, if he'd ever in this entire interaction had a real, serious problem, a hard no, distress at Erik's actions, he wouldn't have used his telepathy. He wouldn't have and they both know it. He would have pause-worded and he didn't. Now he just scowls, stays still and walled off. Guarded. Erik had a reason to be angry and Charles isn't going to admit it out loud, and he isn't going to apologize, because - he's not. He's just not.  
  
"I did have a reason to be angry," Erik murmurs, because that doesn't stop being true just because he can apologize for his own role in things. He doesn't let go, because that is not a fight Charles will ever win. He leans back against the wall and draws Charles into his chest, pulls his legs up, too, embracing him on all sides.  
  
Charles fusses anyway, fights the urge to kick out or flail or struggle, because he knows it isn't a fair or good one, he doesn't want to accidentally hurt Erik - hurt his... he can't - not even now. He doesn't. He glares instead, locks up and squirms and nudges mentally instead, because at least he knows he can do that. "Let go," he tries again, and it's supposed to be firmer but it comes out quieter, cracked.  
  
"No. You let go," he Orders, firm. "You belong to me. You do not stop belonging to me just because things aren't easy. I love you. I love you. I know I'm not perfect, and I'm trying to fix it. I'm trying. My feelings were hurt and I got mad and I'm sorry. I'm just a person. I don't know everything. I don't claim to. But I do know that you are mine. You are mine."  
  
It's one of those Orders that Charles follows instinctively, but it's really not long before he's tensed up again, scowling at the bedsheets, everything dizzy and hazy and uncomfortable and - "Fine. I just want to go to bed," he mumbles, because he's exhausted and because his head hurts (he had a drink, he would have had more -) and because he'd thought about sleeping in the Manor and it's not a relief to be here but it is a relief to be not there even as he wishes he was there for an entirely different reason, and all of it is close and he just doesn't want to deal with this. Fine. It's over, the night's over, Erik made sure of that. No use talking about it, and Charles can't anyway. The part that's been around all night might belong to Erik too, it does, but he's irritable and resistant and touchy and clearly neither of them can handle it. So fine. He's ending it.  
  
That isn't how it works, though. It's not over, because this doesn't end. Erik absolutely did make certain that they got home, and now they're here, and they'll stay here, and they'll deal with this until it is resolved, and that just isn't Charles's decision. "You'll go to bed when I say you do, and not a moment sooner," Erik murmurs lowly. It isn't Charles that Erik can't handle, it never has been. Erik can't handle being mad, he can't handle himself, and that's an entirely different demon, Erik's trauma and his responses and his inability-it's what he's always struggled with. His inability to just be vulnerable and open, it's just-it's not any part of Charles that Erik can't handle. It isn't. He absolutely can, and he will, and he is.  
  
This part of Charles, this part that's flared up, come close and stayed until his brain is filled with it - this is Charles' trauma, or what became of it. The way he coped, the way he learned to understand the world in the aftermath. It's not a fragment, or a teenager behind a door, it's something that's inside of him, always, but tonight it's nearly all of him, what the Void spat out, what's left. It's all of him, too, the whole. Charles' Erik. What he knows. So Charles glares harder, he rolls his eyes, making sure Erik sees it. "I'm going to bed. I don't feel well," he insists, and the truth is he doesn't. He's broken apart tonight. Always, he has been, but tonight it's - tonight this is what he knows. And Erik can't handle it, can he? So. Bed. It is how it works, as far as Charles is concerned.  
  
"You are not," Erik Orders calmly, and in this Charles doesn't have a choice, not physically or any other way, since Erik is holding him too tightly anyway. He knows Charles doesn't feel well, and that's his responsibility, too. So he'll take care of it. He will. He can handle it. He's always been able to handle it, and they're still here.  
  
Not feeling well means he squirms even harder, resists even harder, defiance thick and fierce. A cornered animal, and he grits his teeth, certainly not wanting to be held. Even if Erik could make it better, could take the sickness right out of him, he doesn't want it. "Let go," he huffs again. "You can't make me stay awake, you can't force me to talk. We're done. You're the one who left, who wanted it to be over, so it's over. You can't suddenly be -" Be like this. Just leave it be. Leave him alone, let Charles win and suffer for it. It's what he wants.  
  
"I did not want anything to be over and you know it. Now be still." That Order isn't so soft, but it isn't snapped, either. "I'm not suddenly being like anything. I am your Dominant and I absolutely can force you to talk. Starting with why it seems that you want me to get mad at you."  
  
Charles grinds his teeth together, clenches his fists, makes sure he rolls his eyes again and Erik knows it. "I don't want you to be mad at me," he hisses through those clenched teeth, and his mind is squirming in place of his body, nudging unsettled and restless against Erik's, like a physical thing, sickened and hurting. "It wouldn't work anyway, would it? You'll just convince yourself you aren't." This whole thing is pointless.  
  
"So what if I do?" Erik returns archly. "So what if I do? Why does it even matter if I don't? Don't you prefer that way? I don't raise my voice at you, I don't yell at you, I don't hit you. I don't throw things. How would it be any better if I got mad at you, huh?" his eyebrows raise, accent more pronounced with emotion.  
  
Being mad, being upset, doesn't mean yelling and hitting and throwing things. Of course he prefers not being abused, is Erik really asking that? After tonight, knowing what he does, how dare he ask that? Erik is allowed to feel angry without - but it doesn't matter. Fine. "Whatever," he sighs, angry himself, irritated himself, which isn't a terribly mature response, but he doesn't care. "Are we done?" he demands.  
  
"No!" Erik huffs, eyebrows shooting up. He swallows and throws out a hand, exhaling from his nose loudly. "That's what being angry is! That's what I know how to do!"  
  
"Then you're not doing it right!" he huffs right back, and by now he's able to wriggle around a little in Erik's arms, still pushing and pushing and pushing with his mind. "You were allowed -" To be angry at Charles earlier. To be angry now. Not that he'll admit that, now or ever. It doesn't matter if he breaks rules if the rules don't matter in the first place. "Honestly, let me go. I'm going to change, and then I'm going to bed. This is bloody ridiculous."  
  
"You just want to keep digging a big hole for yourself, don't you! What, the rules don't matter now. Respecting me doesn't matter now?! Stop telling me what you're going to do," he barks the Command roughly. "You stop it. We aren't done," he bites out fiercely, "so you just quit and listen to me I don't care what you think is ridiculous. What you want me to be angry at you well I am angry at you! I am pissed off! The second something got hard you just forgot every single thing that ever mattered with us and then blame me for it and when I ask for help from you because you said _I trust you, I don't trust you_ , this and that, well I ask for help and you just _didn't_! You didn't make the right choice! You want me to see you can follow my instruction when you're alone well I don't see it! And I don't want to hear it! I don't want to hear your little argument back at me about how I didn't do and whatever, _you_ were rude! _You_ were disrespectful! _You_ made the choice to do that! I gave you the choice and you chose that! and I said sorry for what I did and you don't care about that! So no I don't want to hear it!"  
  
Charles quiets. He goes silent, completely, shivering but still, stares anywhere but Erik but he isn't glaring anymore. He doesn't roll his eyes. He doesn't try to pull away from Erik, or push back at him. He just goes still and he goes silent and he stares, and he doesn't give any sort of response at all.  
  
Erik just shrugs and stares up at the ceiling and blinks away the tears in his eyes, sniffing, a little louder than normal in the silence. At least Charles isn't pushing back at him anymore so he just rests his chin on top of Charles's head, because there, because yeah, he is pissed off, but what does that really matter? He can't do it right.  
  
It makes Charles' teeth clench again and he wrenches out from Erik's head, from being held like that right now while Erik is thinking things like that. "Oh, come off it," he snarls, and his own lip is wobbling, there are tears in his own eyes and he doesn't - he won't - he closes his eyes and the world rushes in, out, the Void screams and howls and he clenches his fists and steels himself but it does nothing. Charles just needs to get out. He needs to get up, he needs to get out. Erik was right. He's just like - all he does is - this is what's going to happen? This? When Charles - fine. What does it really matter?  
  
"No you don't get to do that!" Erik roars, and he brings Charles back with a firm hand on his shoulder. "You don't get to keep saying this doesn't matter! So you tell me, then! When you what! What do you think I'm going to say, huh? What that you're just like what?! Go ahead and put words in my mouth then! You come off it! I am trying! You would run away if I let you if I gave up one second you would run away and then you have the nerve to be mad at me for _one second_ needing room to breathe! When you just if I let up one instant you would be _gone_! No you don't get to say it doesn't matter and I don't matter!"  
  
Immediately there are tears in his eyes and he closes them as hard as he possibly can, hard enough for it to hurt. There's shrieking, and shrieking, and shrieking. It's not true, and why is Erik allowed to put words into his mouth? Into his mind? It's not true. It's not even close to true, it's the opposite. He's not preparing to run. He's preparing to be left, and he's been proven right over, and over, and over again. When Charles is broken, when he's more trauma than person, when he's vicious and angry and scared. He's just exactly like them, because Erik thinks it was him - and does he know how much that hurts? Does he?   
  
It's not Erik that doesn't matter. It's Charles. He's the one who's bad, who learned bad, and it wasn't because someone taught him it was because he taught himself so he could be safe so no one would hurt him anymore because he tried to be good and it didn't work, he tried so hard to be good and it didn't matter and no one, no one can - no one. Why does Erik think he can count on one hand how many people are close to him, how many people stuck around and it's only because they give up, they let him get what he wants because they know eventually he will anyway, tell Charles to sit and he'll always stand, so just don't tell him to sit anymore - Erik goes on and on and on about how he's broken, but look at Charles. Look at him. And Charles said over and over and over and over and over again that sometimes this is all he is, sometimes this is all he can be. Sometimes it's literal and the Void took the rest. Sometimes, at his mother's party, he only remembers these parts. And Erik said he could handle it, he said he'd handle it, he said he would and he said he'd teach him differently and help him be good even when he fought, he said I'll always fight you and Erik had said that was okay and he'd believed him and - he sniffles, he gives a hard mental shove, he wriggles and flails and then he says, weakly, "Fuck you."  
  
"No _fuck you!_ " Erik rolls his eyes. "Don't you curse at me. So I tell you to _sit_ and you sit because you do. I do teach you and I do help you and I will keep doing it. I said it was OK because I am still here. When you try to be good it works. With me. It works with me. It always works with me but you don't _trust me!_ So you are _so_ sad that I didn't know if it was you when _you!_ are the one who said the same thing! You said the same thing, you said it! That was not a Void or a, an _illusion_ or what! That was _you_. That I am not _acting_ like a Dominant, that I don't know what you _need_ , that I don't _care_ , that was you."  
  
So when Erik flinches when it's Charles, when he moves away or gets scared it's because he doesn't trust him? It doesn't work like that, it doesn't work like that and he's trying, too, he thought he could do it and he couldn't, he couldn't, is that what Erik wants to hear? He keeps flailing, wriggling, and he can't curse but he wants to and he makes that clear. "Because I was trying to get you to go away like everyone else and you did! It worked!" Maybe it was wrong. He made the wrong choice, maybe, but Charles - he bites his lip so hard he bleeds but maybe it was the right choice, it's always been the right choice. That's what he taught himself.  
  
"Well _oh!_ So it worked, so what! So you said something that made me mad and I went away for _two seconds_. Yes you are right maybe you made the wrong choice to _piss me off_ and provoke me into getting mad at you. _Everyone else_ is not your Dominant. Yes maybe I want to hear why you dragged me to that party why you thought _you knew_ better than I did about what would happen and where we would end up, huh? No because you _don't_. Because I do. Because I know. Yes I am the Nobel prize winner of Charles Xavier. I know what happens, I know what to do, I know how to take care of you but you think you have it all, what am I just some kind of-liver? Come on don't act like I'm stupid. And no you are wrong, don't you bullshit me, I _don't_ talk to you that way. I don't say this or the other thing is because you don't act like a real submissive. I don't say that to you. So you know maybe when you say something that cuts to me maybe I'll _go away_ for a second! _Bullshit_!"  
  
No, he didn’t say that. He didn’t say that but he said other things, other things that hurt and stung and made him feel sick and inadequate and awful, and maybe he apologized for them and Charles - Charles hasn’t, but why should he? Why should he when he doesn’t even think he said them in the first place, when he’s so righteous and he thinks he knows exactly, exactly how to take care of Charles when sometimes he doesn’t? Charles tried to tell him! Multiple times, he tried to tell him, and he did know and it was important to him and Erik just - what? Should have ignored him? But no, it was Charles’ big scheme, he was manipulative and awful and he played Erik like a fool and he dragged him out there, he was so malicious and horrid and when he got stuck - it worked and it scared him. It worked and it hurt. That’s what so what and maybe Charles’ feelings don’t matter but it scared him, he got scared and he thought he was being left again, given up on, that’s what. That’s what. And Charles never said those things, anyway, not the way Erik is saying he did, not any more than Erik said those things about him so maybe what he said and what he meant were different but he’s just a person, too! He’s traumatized, too! The Void ate things up and spat them out and they’re out of order now and he spent forever, literal forevers, sitting in the dark alone, entirely, completely, utterly and totally alone and this is all there was, just this, over and over and over and over and over and over and fucking over, and he didn’t know Erik was coming or where he was he couldn’t reach him or hear him or see him he didn’t have a mission he didn’t have a purpose he didn’t have anything he didn’t have ANYTHING and he was scared he was so scared and he knew everything, everything, he saw and knew everything and somehow it always came back to things like that. He didn’t know. He didn’t know, it wasn’t on purpose and fine he made a choice, whatever he made a choice and maybe it wasn’t right but he doesn’t care! He doesn’t care! (He does. He does, he does, he does, he still wants to be good -) “Just leave me alone! Screw you! Piss off! Fuck off! Go away!” Because what is Erik going to do about it? About all of this? Nothing! There's nothing to do so let's just go to sleep he's tired it's been eons! He's tired!  
  
"Well I don't know why should you," Erik sighs. Because Erik is sorry, and maybe Charles isn't, because he's probably right. And if Erik is many things, righteous isn't one of them because it takes two seconds before he's ready to implode again. But he doesn't because damn it _screw that_. "Fine, you don't care. You don't care, not about me or about you or about us or about any of it, _good for you!_ Well I care, so that's too bad for you and you're gonna stop cursing at me _immediately_ , " he growls the Order. "The thing is that you know. You know because you can see." He taps his own temple. "You can see so you can just scream at me all you want but you know I'm gonna be here but _I don't know_. So maybe _I'm sorry_ might be nice for a change!" he rolls his eyes so hard he's surprised he doesn't roll his whole body. Erik jams his own palms into his eyes.  
  
Erik doesn’t know that? He doesn’t already know that? For a change. For a change. The tears are spilling down his cheeks before he can stop them and then he’s sobbing again and his body is moving but not for the same kind of flailing, but because he wants to curl right into himself. He doesn’t know. He didn’t know. And Erik is still doing it. Still - and he can’t - his chest is going to explode and he can’t breathe again and his eyes are closed and everything is spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning and he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know, and he can’t say it he can’t say it he cares of course he cares but he can’t - he told him he was bad. Over and over again he told him he was bad and that he would be bad and that he would hurt him and chase him away and Erik said no you’re good and no you behave for me and he started to believe it but it’s just a lie it’s not how it works he doesn’t know how to do that or be safe like that that’s how he got hurt in the first place and he will he’s going to he’s going to he knows it and Erik keeps getting scared that he’ll leave but he has it backwards it’s not Charles who’s going to leave it’s Erik and he doesn’t know how to stop it he doesn’t know how to be good all he knows is how to be bad and it’s all he wants to be he wants to fight and scream and he wants to curse and he will he’ll wait it out, he’ll say nasty things and he’ll be manipulative and he’ll lie and be rotten and Erik already knows. He already knows, he keeps getting there, he keeps realizing and it’s why - it’s why - he’s just bad. He’s just as bad as Shaw. It must have been him. It must have all been him. He’s just bad. He’s just bad. What can he say? He can’t say he’s sorry he can’t stop fighting he can’t like this he’s just bad. He said it, everyone said it, he told Raven she was skeptical and she was worried and this is why, because everyone knew except Erik and he kept trying to tell him that he couldn’t it’s not Erik who can’t be a Dominant it’s Charles who can’t be a submissive who won’t let himself be. Just leave him. Just go. Just go just go just go just go just please go. Leave me alone.  
  
"No," Erik whispers back, pulling Charles close to him again. Being mad i how Erik got hurt in the first place. For as rough a time as Charles has had trying to believe any of this and failing to, Erik has had trying to get over that enough to come back and do it, but he did. He came back, he got over himself. Because this matters to him. "I'm not going anywhere, _neshama_. I never was." Whether it's ten minutes or ten million years, whether or not only one of those was Erik's choice. He's not leaving Charles behind. He's not anything like Shaw. But yes, it hurts sometimes, to hear-that he doesn't know how to take care of his own submissive. It hurts. It-feels like he's going to die. "So you can say _I'm sorry_. If you are. That is your choice, too."  
  
He didn’t say that! He didn’t say that. He said things that might have implied that but he didn’t say that because he doesn’t think that, not even like this when he can’t even think and Erik is wrong. He’s wrong. He’s just wrong and he keeps telling Charles things and expecting it to be the case but it isn’t. If Charles said you should be able to talk to everyone! it wouldn’t make it true and saying if you cared you’d do it! isn’t fair! It isn’t fair! It’s not! Because that’s how it is. That’s how it is and when he isn’t sick when he isn’t like this when he isn’t more this than everything else, he can. He can and he does it’s not for a change but he can’t now. He can’t. He doesn’t know how he can’t be good and he doesn’t want Erik to hold him! He squirms again, and the sobs are vicious now, they’re painful and they hurt and he’s wrong. He’s going to leave when he realizes that Charles was always the more broken one. That there are things he needs that Erik just can’t give him, that Charles doesn’t even understand and can’t even ask for and that’s not his fault it’s just how it is! He just is. He’s just bad. He wraps his arms around himself.  
  
The difference between them both is so negligible as to not exist, because it's what Erik heard and even with Charles telling him he didn't say that it's still what he heard and it's still what he hears. No, that's wrong. Charles told him he didn't know what it means to take care of him, that he didn't have any idea how to take care of him, that he wouldn't take care of him so he'll just do it himself. He absolutely did say those things but Erik did not say that if he cared he should say or do anything. Charles asked what he should say and Erik told him. But on the other hand, Erik stalls up, because the first part of that thought finally gets through, and Erik completely freezes.  
  
Because that's all he knows! It's all he knows. It's all he believes it's all he can think it's not Erik it's everything, it's how he kept his own heart beating by thinking I can do it myself no one can take care of me but me I'm alone and I can do it myself and he doesn't know how to stop it now. And it's what he heard, it's what it sounded like. But maybe he said something horrible and manipulative again, maybe it worked. He's sobbing too hard to really tell the difference except that Erik's gone slack and he can finally wiggle right away, panicking and shivering and miserable.  
  
Erik blinks and shakes his head, shaking away whatever thoughts popped up like a wet dog shakes off water droplets. It's not-he opens his mouth to say it aloud, but the words die on his lips and he ends up mouthing them instead. _It's not true. It's not tr_ -Charles doesn't think--?  
  
Charles doesn't understand. It's confusing and it hurts and he wraps his arms around his legs and buries himself in them and rocks. It hurts. It hurts and he doesn't understand and he doesn't know what he thinks and he's sick, he's sick and if this is what makes Erik leave? Whatever it is he said that's bad and wrong and sick. Whatever it is, whatever he can't back down from. Maybe he won. Maybe he can just go to sleep.  
  
He swallows, making a harsh sound and fumbles at his own throat, but-sorry, he's-he is. Even if Charles isn't. He's sorry. He touches Charles's shoulder, drawing him back into his arms once more. He wipes the tears from Charles's cheek and dabs under his eyes. Erik can take care of him. He doesn't know how all the time, but he tries, all the time. And he will keep trying, forever. Charles isn't alone anymore.  
  
Right now he wants to be, or at least he's convinced himself. He tenses up in Erik's arms again, he turns his head, he cries harder. It's not fair and it's not good but it's what he does, and he tries to scoot away again. This will go on forever, doesn't he get that? It will go on forever. It already has. "Stop touching me," he insists, and it's more pitiful than it is defiant, but it's that too. "Just stop. Stop it."  
  
Then it will go on forever. Erik will be here, forever. He shakes his head, again. He won't. That isn't Charles's decision to make. "Stop fighting me," he whispers the Order hoarsely, his voice scratchy and stuck in his throat, warbled and forced-through, but there.  
  
But he can't Order that. Not really. Charles stops fighting physically, he goes limp, but he's still crying. He's still gasping and sick. And inside, he's still fighting. He is. So what is Erik going to do about it? What could he even do? Charles sobs louder and his chest gets tighter and he just wants to go to bed. He just wants to go to bed and when they wake up, Erik will let it go and Charles will - he doesn't know. He'll let the Void eat him more so it doesn't feel empty, so it doesn't hurt. He doesn't need these parts. The Universe can take them. The cracks in the Void's skin can swallow them up.  
  
Too bad, because that isn't what's happening, and besides, Charles has met Erik. Letting things go isn't exactly his strong suit and he's not about to start this time. And he's wrong, too, if he thinks that Erik doesn't want these parts or any parts of him, because it's not true. He won't let the Void take them, because they belong to Erik, too. But he can't just Order Charles into forgetting all of his pain, but in the time that Charles stops fighting him physically, Erik does trap his arms against his chest, keeping him fully restrained back against him, keeping him. Keeping him. Because this is where he belongs and Erik hasn't forgotten that, even if Charles has. "Now breathe. Take a deep breath."  
  
It will happen. But he has to, so he does, but he's still crying. There are tears and snot all over his face and his mouth still tastes like sick, and he hasn't forgotten and Erik is still thinking those things and he hates it. He hates it. "What do you think I said?" he demands, and it comes out on a hiccup, then another sob, but he tries to make it an Order anyway, the way he taught himself. The way he knows. The way he learned. Fine. He won't let go of things, either. He can't. "Let go of me," he adds again, for good measure. Eventually it's going to work.  
  
Erik only tightens up, rather than lets go, because he doesn't take Orders from Charles. He cleans up Charles's face, keeping him contained with both legs, too, bracing the arm of his bad hand over his shoulder, while using his good to keep Charles's hands immobile. "What you-said?" he blinks.  
  
He tries to fuss. It doesn't get him far. Erik freezing, Erik's confusion, Erik's _it's not true_ , it plays back in the space of an instant but with the full range of thought and emotion and time and he sniffles, tries to turn his face away, to kick out, even, but only because he knows it won't work. "Let go," he says again, more defiant now, catching a second or third or fourth wind. "Stop being - stop it," and it's the lame, the way he finishes, but he's exhausted too. He's sick, too. He's still got a migraine, a fever. He tries to pull his hands away and it's not his best effort.  
  
Oh. Erik meant that it wasn't true, what Charles was thinking. That he was alone and that he had to only rely on himself, and that he's horrible and manipulative. He doesn't grace Charles's protests with a reply, but he doesn't let up, either. Even with only one good hand, Erik is still a great deal physically stronger than him, and Charles doesn't get far at all.  
  
It doesn’t stop him from struggling, even exhausted. It doesn’t stop him from trying. That’s what made Erik freeze up? He’s been thinking that the whole time. Erik thought that, before. That he was - that he’d… and he hadn’t, done that. But it doesn’t seem to matter to Erik. What’s the point of this? They’re not getting anywhere. They can’t do anything. Charles is going to pass out eventually anyway, he’s too sick and too tired to stay up, the fever’s going to catch up. So there’s no point. There’s just no point. “You can’t do this,” he huffs.  
  
Of course it matters to him. And he hadn't thought that, ever. He's never once thought that Charles was horrible, or bad, or any other thing. Charles insisted that there was no way they were ever going to sign any kind of document or go through their original purpose for attending that party and in a fit of fury that had been building for a while beforehand Erik reasoned it meant that Charles had always known because he knew that there was no way Erik would ever agree to it, and Erik's already apologized for it. The point is that Charles belongs to him and he wants it so that's the end of that. He can do it and he will do it.  
  
There. Right then and there, is what he’d meant. For the record. He knows he’s not talking but he doesn’t actually think he can with the lump in his throat except in weak protests, and he tries kicking again but it really doesn’t get him anywhere. So what’s Erik’s plan? Is he just going to hold him like this indefinitely? He really can’t. It’s stupid and it’s pointless and - “Just let me go to bed, I’m sick you can’t make me stay up,” he protests, because that might work and it’s also true. Usually when he's in a mood he fights sleep. He probably won't actually sleep, but he'd like the chance to lie there and not do whatever this is.  
  
"And I would like the chance to fart unicorns, which might be possible for me, but you still aren't going anywhere," Erik whispers, kissing the top of his head. Charles has no intention of sleeping, so no, it won't work. And yes, maybe he will hold Charles like this indefinitely. Because that's also his prerogative, because he is the Dominant in this scenario, not the other way around.  
  
Charles rolls his eyes again, sniffles again, tries to move his head away. It doesn’t really matter if he intends to or not, he needs to, and he is sick, so he is going to go somewhere. Is Erik really going to make him wait it out? To struggle this whole time? He doesn’t want to be held and kissed and touched, it’s the absolute last thing he wants. And if he has to sit here and endure it, maybe he’ll just - if Charles really told him to stop, he would. Right? So maybe that’s the answer, because the more time passes, the more agitated he gets, the more restless, the more uncomfortable. The more the Void presses in with things that cropped up hours before.  
  
Erik doesn't dignify that with a response, and he also doesn't withdraw. He just sings a song instead, hums under his breath. _Well the comedown here was easy/like the arrival of a new day/but a dream like this gets wasted/lying on a field/dancing in the rain/hiding in the back/loosening my grip/wading in the water..._  
  
He doesn't want it. He can't. It's not calming or soothing or nice or sweet, it's irritating, it's chafing at his skin and then he's close to crying again and he especially hates that. It's not going away. It's just not. He doesn't want to say it, but it's there on his tongue and he's close and Erik has really never seen this, has he? Not like this. The Void swept it up and now it's stuck and he's going to have to. It's not fair. It's just not fair. He starts to cry again and that just makes his stomach lurch, and Erik is going to have to let him go because he'll either vomit on him or pause-word. It's one or the other. Maybe whichever comes first.  
  
So then he does, and Erik will pause, and they'll be exactly where they already are, because he's not going anywhere. Whether or not Charles is in his arms or across the room, they'll be having this conversation, and Charles will belong to him. Charles wanted him to just be his Dominant well here he is, like it or not. "Calm yourself down. Relax your body and listen to me," he Orders firmly, tucking his head under his chin. "I've seen it. I've seen it, and I'll continue to see it, and I'll keep being here. So tell me what is precipitating this, now."  
  
He hasn't, though. There are things Erik really doesn't know, and Charles doesn't blame him when he's not like this but now it makes him fussier, and he has to relax but it doesn't mean his mind does, loud and discordant. He shakes his head and cries harder, and that makes him feel worse, restless and uncomfortable and distressed, and it's not that he's disobeyed an Order. He can't, like that. There was no choice. It's just his answer. He doesn't want to be held, and he doesn't know, and he's just going to shut down completely if this keeps going.

* * *

Instead, Charles goes completely silent and utterly still. Empty. He doesn't know. He doesn't have any way of articulating, of making sense of it, of answering. He doesn't have the capacity, maybe now, maybe ever. He doesn't know how to put the fight into words. The room gets noticeably colder, and it's not something Erik can change, which is strange, and Charles' eyes close and they don't open back up, even when Erik Orders them to. But there's something, still. Something inside, outside, and all at once everywhere. **_Erik_** , it says, and it's quiet and familiar but strange all the same.  
  
Erik is so stressed that when Charles all but passes out on him he can't breathe, he can't get enough oxygen into his lungs and he can't hear, and there's a gash that's dripping from the top of his head down onto his shoulders that he hasn't noticed until now and everything just starts to close in, the world and the walls and the room and he pushes it all back, it doesn't matter. He can handle it. He checks Charles's pulse and makes sure he's stable and he swallows, sniffing when he hears that voice, drawing his hand down his cheek. "Yuh-uh- _Ken_?" he blinks up, as if that's where it's come from, even though that's silly. "Charles-?" He swallows back the thudding of his heart.  
  
A figure steps out from nowhere. It isn't a projection exactly, or at least not one Erik or anyone has ever seen, but it isn't Charles' body either, still as stone and barely breathing in Erik's arms. Erik has seen it before. It looks strikingly like Charles, but with eyes open to the Universe, cracks like galaxies seeping out from its skin as it walks slowly toward him, still wearing Erik's collar despite everything, fluid and ethereal and otherworldly. It touches Erik's cheek when it gets close enough, and the gash is gone. It isn't an illusion. It isn't something Charles can do. The cracked lips quirk, and it will let Erik figure it out, playful like Charles can be, tilting its head just like him. It is him. It isn't, too. _**Hello**_ , it greets, in no language and every language, and leans against the bed. There's calm, here. Unlike Charles, prickly and agitated and distressed, he exudes it.  
  
Erik rests his hand over the entity's, holding it against his cheek for a moment and closing his eyes, taking what feels like the first real deep breath in hours. "Hello," he whispers back, as evenly as possible, still holding Charles in his other arm, compulsively checking his vitals as if afraid his body will just vanish out of existence entirely.  
  
 ** _It won't_**. The Void smiles, one of its dimples swallowed by the Everything, and he looks worse for wear, almost, if that's possible; more of his skin is cracking, his eyes are blacker than before. He's been busy. He gently lets go, folds himself on the bed in front of Erik cross-legged. He's not in danger, don't worry. He just can't contain me yet, he explains, casual, soft. They can't exist at once, so Charles, as Erik knows him and for the moment, has ceased. But he's still there. The Void has promised to keep him safe (to keep himself safe, his own existence and personhood?), though perhaps not as in tact as he once was. Anyone else would have perished, swallowing the Universe. That Charles have difficulties and not demise is extraordinary, to make an understatement. _**I thought you might need my help, so I came. Do you**_? he asks, gently, as if he doesn't know.  
  
Would that just make Charles right? Erik doesn't know what to do, he's just the same as everyone else. Everything he's ever said about being able to take care of him and able to deal with it just a bunch of lies and-he presses the back of his hand against his eyes, throat bobbing painfully around a lump that makes it impossible to speak. He nods a few times, after a long moment.  
  
But the Void is Charles, in a way. In more than a way. It feels like Charles when it wraps around him, when the room is soaked in it, and he leans forward to touch Erik's throat, taking away that horrible knot. _**He's scared, you know,**_ the Void says simply, and traces galaxies over Erik's skin, cupping his cheek. _**Terribly. But he needs you, and he knows that, too. And so do you, don't you? You know he needs you. You know you're the only one who can give him what he needs. But you're frightened, too. Why?**_  
  
He knows, he knows Charles is scared. He's not so sure that Charles-needs him, how could he-Erik doesn't even know what to do. He doesn't know what to do. How can he admit that, when it would just make everything-even worse, when it would just make another in a series-he is scared, all the time, all the time, of everything. It all blends into one electric, crackling arc that doesn't discern itself anymore and he doesn't know why he's scared, he doesn't know. That he'll make the worst choice and wind up with a dead Charles in his arms for real. And he lost his temper and he said-stupid, horrible things and-how could Charles possibly need that. And his mind is spiraling out and he can't- spiral out, he can't. He huffs a laugh, croaky and harsh. "I don't know," is what he ends up saying aloud, lamely.   
  
The Void tilts its head again, and then he smiles. _**Do you know he was close to dying? When you found him. He had all but given up, Erik. And then you found him. You found him, and he swallowed the Universe and lived. That doesn't sound so horrible to me.**_ But it's likely not what Erik is thinking of. He leans back and hums, and it sounds like every song ever sang, instruments all in harmony. _**You are allowed to be upset. Disappointed. Angry.** **That certainly doesn't make you horrible. He's not all of himself right now, and sometimes he's too much of it. He needs you to teach him. To guide him. In some ways, he's entirely new and in others exactly the same. Surely you know how to do that, don't you? You've done a wonderful job so far. He's told you so, hasn't he?** _And he has. The Void shows him just hours earlier, Charles curled sweetly in Erik's arms. His perfect Dominant, he thinks, his wonderful Dominant. It hasn't changed, trust me. He needs you, Erik.  
  
Erik touches his hand over the Void's once more, bowing his head against it. It hurts to hear how close to death Charles really was, but he hears it, because he didn't know, but it makes sense. He came close himself, or hell, he probably went way beyond close but Charles just prevented him from doing it, however he could, given that time moved quite linearly in the Real. Erik's mind isn't built to process that kind of information, which is something Charles told him once but that he'd dismissed without really understanding it-because he can cope with a lot of information a lot of crazy, psychotic information that most minds aren't capable of processing, but not-that. At that point it's not even fair to call it suicide, as much as implosion. And he'd blame himself for it, for failing to show up sooner than the point at which Charles was about to kick the bucket (about to _die_ , sooner than he was about to be _dead_ , less gallows humor, more _my Bondmate almost was dead_ -Erik's going to have a seizure, in like, a minute probably, or maybe he's already having one and that's why he feels like laughing uncontrollably)   
  
the point is, the point is it makes sense and it hurts and if he could have made any choice at all that resulted in showing up sooner he would have made it, Charles has to know that he has to, and it kills him to think Charles doesn't know that. That on some level he's always known and that's why he's so fucking scared because he's always just one choice that he doesn't know he can make, away from it being over away from Charles being dead and if he had known he would've made it and Charles would be alive-and the Void is wrong, he's so wrong-Erik isn't allowed, he is not allowed whatever nonsense Erik spouted about being allowed to be hurt, bullshit, complete _shit_ , and Charles knew it. Erik isn't allowed, never, not ever, not ever but now isn't the time to go into his existential crisis, he is already failing his submissive, as a Dominant, because he succumbed to his internal pity party for even a second longer than he should have. His hand tightens over the Void's, unwilling to let go. He's a touchy person, he didn't realize it until this second, just how much he needs touch until it's-until-he just needs it, and-Erik inhales slowly, starts counting backwards in his head in serial sevens like Dr. Haller told him to. _100, 93, 86, 79..._

* * *

The Void isn't Charles, in some ways, too. It doesn't feel the need to keep information to itself, not if it can be handled. This can. Erik is exceptionally, brilliantly powerful in his own right, but not in this. Not for this. Why does he think he lived? Why does he think his brain isn't mush, that he doesn't really remember, that the time passed the way it did, as quickly and harmlessly as possible? That he floated along and rarely met danger, when the Void assures him there is danger? Why does he think, besides the fact that Charles was very clearly at the eye of the storm, he's much less affected? And he is, really. All things considered, he's abnormally well. It's Charles. Charles would have ceased to exist if it meant Erik could live. He did it without thinking. He did it while he was being consumed and shredded and utterly, totally destroyed. Erik saved Charles, and there should be no denying it. But Charles protected Erik, too, even as he suffered greater than most beings can imagine. Charles can't even, not yet. He isn't ready to remember most of it. The point is...   
  
Calm spreads over Erik, calm and peace, gentleness, and the Void strokes his cheek, not quite Charles, chill instead of warmth, his eyes blackened and endless, but it's close. **_You are. You should. He needs that from you, too. Go back. Think. What unsettles him most, Erik?_ **And if he does go back - and here the Void helps him, of course, gives him every instance in less than a second and expands his mind to process it, embeds it in not even a blink, as if it was always there in that moment - he'll see it himself. Erik shutting off is much more likely to cause a reaction. To distress his submissive. To get push-back. Erik asked why Charles wanted him to be mad at him. The Void smiles again. ** _I think you know the answer. Don't you? Your feelings won't hurt him. You know that, too. You have to feel them to take care of him. You need to let them guide you. Why were you upset with him? And do you really think you should let that go? Is that what he needs? Will it help him to learn? To grow? To heal? And what about you?_**  
  
Erik lets everything replay, as its shown, and sure enough, the point at which everything clearly goes to hell is-directly after Erik totally shut down, that very first time. It-it made everything worse, and that exacerbated the very behavior that caused him to shut down, which created even further distance. Every time it happens, every time Erik goes away, and every time he goes just a little bit further away. He swallows, uncomfortable, and shakes his head. He couldn't put it into words before now, even though he nearly did to Charles a while back, it was lost amidst him apologizing for-existing, pretty much. But when the words finally come he has to snort, because it's-childish, really. It's silly, no, it's stupid, and he's a grown man and he shouldn't give a single solitary fuck about something so-so asinine. And if Charles knew about it-he cannot imagine the person he's been talking to, this whole time, taking it at all seriously. He'd just laugh, or worse, that he wouldn't just think Erik is a hypocrite, and when did he get so damn fragile anyway that being _laughed at_ is the worst thing he can come up with, the most humiliating thing? The Void doesn't seem liable to do either, but maybe it would, too.  
  
When has Charles ever laughed at him? When have they ever laughed at each other? And if they did, if something was unknown to them, don't they always come to an understanding? The Void understands already, but there are things he is here to help Erik understand, so he simply smiles, serene. _**What is it?** _he asks, gently, because perhaps he will need to tell Charles, but he can start here. The Void is all of Charles, after all. The part that Erik is struggling with is inside of him, too, even as he's in that body, shallowly breathing, burning up. They'll need to make haste, but they have time yet.  
  
Erik scratches at the back of his neck, and tweaks his nose with his thumb. He's already starting to lose himself again, feels it pulling at his eyes, threatening to take them away, make them dull and lifeless and he rhythmically strokes Charles's hair, in clumsy movements with his bad hand, more pawing at him than actually sifting through the strands. His heart rate picks up and his blood pressure skyrockets and he's clammy and cold and hot at the same time and he can hear his pulse in his ears like a water fall and his chest hurts, and it hurts- "He can j-" his voice dies in his throat. Is it hot in here? Is he having some kind of allergic reaction? His throat's closing up. They need to make haste. Make haste.   
  
The Void shakes its head, and just like Erik does for Charles, the tension lessens. The pain fades. The room eases. Calm settles, not suffocating but soft, an embrace, and he leans forward to press their foreheads together, bent over Charles' body. _**No. He needs you. Remember that. You can't possibly take care of him if you don't address these things first. Or do you fancy ending up where you were?** _It's not harsh or pointed or accusatory. The Void doesn't place blame, but especially not on Erik. Charles doesn't, either, in actuality. _ **I came to help you. He needs this, and so do you.**_  
  
He knows it's because he's hurting and he knows it's because he doesn't want to be vulnerable and he's trying to push Erik away and he knows-he knows-he knows Charles doesn't mean it and he doesn't-he knows-and Erik forgives him, he lets it go, he doesn't push-when he does it's absent any soul-rending upset, it's usually over something mild, something he can frame as disrespect which doesn't even mean anything-Erik doesn't exactly lose sleep over being called names, but-it's so-he knows-"He can just be mean," Erik gasps, words running together like two freight trains slamming into one another at top velocity and the laugh threatening from before finally spills out and he claps his hands over his mouth, staring at the Void with wild eyes.  
  
But the Void just smiles. The Void just smiles, and sits back. It isn't going to correct Erik, and it certainly isn't going to laugh. There's nothing mocking or cruel or bothered in that smile. It's just as calm as before. It's just a hum of acknowledgement. There's a cracking noise, from somewhere. A horrible, sickening crack, but the Charles in Erik's arms hasn't moved, and the Void doesn't blink. It doesn't even have the eyes to do it. The cracking noise gets louder, becomes a horrific screech, and then a scream, but it's over just as quickly. _**Is that it? What do you think you should do about it?**_ the Void asks, quiet and calm and strange, just as before.  
  
Erik shakes his head. What was that? What was that? It's not OK, Charles is getting worse, he's-this was stupid, this was stupid and he's wrong, he's wrong, he's wrong-"I don't know, I-" What could he possibly do about it? He could never tell Charles that. He's wrong, his perception is wrong. He knows that now. He's done worse, he's said worse. This isn't-this isn't going to help. This isn't going to help it's going to make it worse, Charles will think Erik believes he's horrible and he doesn't he's just too sensitive, he's too, hypocritical. He knocks his head back against the wall, wishing he didn't exist right now, that the Earth could swallow him up and he could take it back and disappear. Stupid, have you ever heard anything so stupid. And he's screaming, and he's, sick and he's just had to deal with being in the same room as-of course he's going to be testy. Erik wants to die, he _literally_ wants to die.  
  
For a second, all that makes sound in this room is that cracking, screeching. Wailing. Then it's gone, and the Void leans forward again, cradles Erik, soothes any pain. Takes it away, gentles it out, softens it. _**Shh. Don't worry,**_ it soothes, and perhaps it's not as comforting as Charles but it's certainly close. It is, in a way. It's all, and Erik needs to remember that. _**Do you think you denying how you feel or think is going to help him? Has it ever, Erik? Do you think that's how you'll care for him? Is that how you want to Dominate him? Is that how he needs to be Dominated? Think for me. Shh.**_  
  
It helps, though. Even without the Void here to take away the pain, it would help. He doesn't draw away. The quickest way of getting him to calm down has always been touch, and it's still true. It still feels like there is an elephant on his chest when he breathes, like his body stop-starts and forgets and then has to be soothed all over again, making his breathing labored and he leans forward, a hand pressed to his own chest as he wheezes. "No," he says, but it's inaudible, and he shakes his head.  
  
The Void takes care of that, too. It gives him back his air, breathes for him, soft and slow. _**No?**_ it asks, but it's not questioning. It's prompting.  
  
No. It isn't what Charles needs. But Erik doesn't know how to, how to fix this part of himself that's broken. It is the deepest rooted part of himself, all the way back to that burning village. All the way back to the incomprehensible events thereafter. The knowledge that if he feels what he feels, if he feels those feelings, he will literally die, and it's not figurative. If he remembers, if he feels, he will die. If he-but it's all jumbled, now. If he puts himself first, everyone else will die. But they did die. So it's all backwards. Someone's dying, is the point. And he doesn't want that person to be Charles. He can't-he can't let it be Charles. And he is terrified.  
  
But hasn't he done it before? Haven't they been here before? The Void is still smiling, and it doesn't help to stir up the specific memories this time. Erik can do that himself. Doesn't he remember the inverse, too? When he has expressed anger, upset, disappointment. And doesn't he remember Charles pushing then, too? Why does he think that is? He asked Charles why he wanted him to be mad at him. Why does he think that is? What has he said? And when it happened, did Charles die? Does Erik really think he'll die now? The Void strokes Erik's cheek. What do you think you should do? it asks again, and it doesn't push in any particular direction. It will be here to help Erik when he needs it. But it would much rather Erik help himself, because he knows. He does know, and what he doesn't - and Charles was right, there are things - he can learn.  
  
He said that it wouldn't matter because Erik wouldn't get mad anyway, and just convince himself it's not real. But it is real. It's not going to go away, it's probably not going to get better. Erik tries over and over again to make it be better, to devote his energy where it does matter because he finds anger threatening all on its own, even if it wasn't associated with something incredibly visceral for him. But how could honesty be what Charles needs from him? Erik still isn't convinced. He still doesn't know, and that's real. "But it will hurt him," Erik whispers. "It will hurt him. I don't want to-I don't want to. He has to know I don't-want to-I never meant to-"  
  
The Void shakes its head again, patient, calm, understanding. _**It will not,**_ he promises, and it's not a platitude. It's the absolute truth. It knows Charles because it is Charles, even what Charles doesn't understand himself. _**He doesn't need the things you're afraid of doing to him, the things you promised not to. That would hurt him, and he knows it too. But there are healthy expressions, and you already know them. I know you do because I've seen it. He needs it from you.** _And Erik needs it, too, as these things tend to go. An outlet, an expression. When he's let himself, hasn't it made him feel better? Stronger? Brought them back closer together? It's sometimes more complicated than that. It is now. But the Void is tilting its head again. ** _Think for me, Erik. Listen to your instincts. Listen to him and to yourself. What do you think he needs right now?_**  
  
Erik would happily face it a thousand times over, but he doesn't want unkindness to go unchallenged, no matter where it originates. He doesn't want a hallmark of his Dominance to be permissiveness. He wants to expect the best of Charles and hold him to those standards, that's what Charles deserves. He's had the thought on more than one occasion but it's felt out of place, off-kilter, unbalanced. No matter the origin Charles has been out of line, and if Erik doesn't enforce his own rules he's just giving Charles permission to keep doing it, and they keep coming back here. But this is different. It's different. Isn't it? He shivers, pressing his teeth together.  
  
The Void hums again. It could be agreement, or it could be something else entirely, but it's hard to tell. Somewhere deep and close, something snaps again. **_Is it? How?_** it asks, calm but insistent.  
  
Because, because he's worse. Far worse. There's no one to speak up on Charles's behalf. There's no one to keep Erik in line anymore.  
  
The Void laughs, softly, gently, but it isn't at Erik. It's not even close. It's as kind as the Universe can be, and he curls his fingers over Erik's cheek. _**Have you considered that by holding him to those standards, you hold yourself to them? And when you let them go, when you are permissive, you endorse them? I would consider that a part of Dominance. And perhaps when he says something is hurtful, unfair... you should listen. Surely you can discuss these things. Surely you wouldn't punish him without doing so. Can he not speak for himself? Will you not listen when he does?** _The Void hums again, and there's that awful snapping, crushing, screeching sound. _**This is what you've agreed to. This is how you thrive. Do you really think that means you are not accountable for your own actions? Have you decided it doesn't work, the contract you've written? Because there are parts of him that fear that, Erik. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with hurt. What message do you want to send him? What do you want to teach him, the parts that hurt most? That he's right? That his fears are founded on even a sliver of truth? What do you want to teach yourself?**_  
  
He can be mean, too. And he can be hurtful and unfair. He's not a victim. But he doesn't avoid accountability for his behavior, and he shouldn't let Charles either. The more he lets things go, the easier it is to let it go in himself. That isn't what he wants to teach. It's not. Those parts aren't right. He's let himself be led by Charles instead of acting, let himself be convinced that every impulse he's had is wrong and twisted but that's not true, either.  
  
 _ **No, it isn't**_. The Void smiles and presses their foreheads together again, still cupping one of Erik's cheeks. _**Do you think he's avoiding accountability? Or asking you to hold him accountable?**_ Begging, really, though Erik's taken the signals wrong, and that isn't his fault. He can't always do the right thing. Sometimes he won't know, and that's okay, too. It doesn't mean he can't care for Charles, that he isn't a good Dominant, that he'll never know. Most of the time he will. He has the instincts, if he'll listen to them. They're good instincts, they're instincts directly in line with Charles'. For him. But sometimes he'll need help, and the Void can help.  
  
Erik nods, covering his eyes with his hand for a long moment, still unable to help leaning into the contact. "Thank you," he croaks, inhaling shakily. "Helping me take care of you." He lays his fingers over the Void's, but he doesn't really think of him as a Void. He recognizes Charles, at least how it matters.  
  
It is Charles, of course. The Void isn't all Charles, but all of Charles is certainly in the Void, and when he smiles this time he looks so completely like Erik's, wearing his collar and with blue somewhere in his eyes among the galaxies. Whenever you need it, Erik, it whispers, and it's quite a statement for the Universe to make, but the man who holds the Universe belongs to Erik. It's a responsibility, perhaps, and one he's capable of. They'll speak again, and likely soon. There's no need for goodbyes. The Void is gone before Erik can blink. In Erik's arms, Charles gasps, shivering violently and running dangerously hot.

* * *

Erik fixes that with a swipe of his thumb over Charles's forehead, lowering his body temperature to something approaching stable and he moves, laying Charles down into the blankets and adjusting them over him comfortably. "Go to sleep, _neshama_ ," he Orders softly. "I'll address what happened tonight in the morning."  
  
He does, too. No fuss, no fight, too sickened by the Void's presence to react at all and not wholly there yet. He vomits, first, loudly and violently, falls into shivers and shaking, but it passes. It passes and he falls into dreamless sleep, sweating off a fever still that Erik can't touch. He breathes shallow, but he breathes, the Void returning him just as it promised. One day it won't hurt as much or make him so sick, but for now he sleeps and he recovers and he lives.


	80. Everything Is Illuminated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _lebanon_ , khalil hawi

Erik doesn't sleep, which is nothing out of the ordinary for him. He listens to the kids babble to him on the phone and does his best to regain his sense of equilibrium. The Void can't fix the deep, deep shame he has in himself that makes it hard to raise his voice above a whisper when he lets Hank and Raven know that everything will be dealt with and is OK. But it shouldn't be fixed anyway. When Charles does wake up, Erik is on the other end of the bed with his feet curled up reading a book, head lolled into the wall and he jerks suddenly, animating with a stretch. "Hi," he murmurs, patting down the blankets underneath him.  
  
Charles is groggy, blinking, and it's hard to shake off the sickness. The confusion. Even though he slept for hours, it's like he slept none, and the truth is he's in no better shape (well, he's worse) than Erik, who at least slept tons in the days before with Charles. His body is working strangely, unnaturally; it runs hot or cold and Erik can't change it, needs more sleep or less (he'd slept less than Erik in the night before!), hasn't been taking well to food. To put it lightly. Like a mutation in progress, an equilibrium he hasn't reached yet, the Void seeping through. He's recovered in his sleep, but the haze is hard to shake off. Erik's voice registers, eventually, his touch, but Charles burrows further into the covers instead of responding, eyes closed again as if he's pretending to sleep.  
  
Erik pats him on the face, firmly enough to rouse him. "Sit up for me," he Orders and helps guide him into position. "Take these, and drink all of it." He folds two aspirin into Charles's palm and wraps his fingers around a glass of water.  
  
He was really hoping that was going to work, unconsciously, but apparently not. Charles stares down at the aspirin in his palm and shakes his head, still too topsy-turvy for speech; he does have a headache, but he's not going to avoid one. It's always there, and not as bad as it could be right now. Aspirin has never helped, like he told Erik ages ago, but it does sometimes work strangely on him. He would have popped them by the handful happily if this was just a few years ago, but this isn't just a few years ago. It's not difficulty or defiance, he's just - it won't do any good, and Erik should know. He's told him this before, shown him this before, and maybe - but that's the confusion talking, the lingering whatever, because it's still there. Still lingering. The Void didn't take it or replace it and he's staring down at his hands, not drinking either. There's no reason not to do that, as far as he can tell - food he'll just throw back up - but he doesn't do it, just staring.  
  
"That was not a suggestion," Erik murmurs the Order, undaunted. He tosses the aspirin over his shoulder and they disappear. Charles is continuing down a road he really doesn't want to be continuing down. "Drink. Now."  
  
It makes him bristle, unfortunately, prickly beneath the haze that makes him frown. He'd been helping; he could have just taken them, but he didn't because telling Erik these things is one of his rules. He takes a sip of water, and it feels good, cool and soothing after days of vomiting, the last liquid down his throat was straight whiskey, but no more than that. It's a way around an Order, deliberate even as it's quiet, even as he stays silent as opposed to last night. Erik said drink. He drank. He stares down into the glass, lips pursed.  
  
"I said drink all of it," Erik repeats himself firmly. Charles is right, and Erik has no problem with being reminded. He'll let Charles figure out what part doesn't work for him. Not today, not anymore. Once he's finished, Erik guides him into a seated position and helps him to the bathroom. "You're going to take a shower and then we'll do an easy version of your Postures. When you're done we're going to resolve what happened yesterday, am I understood?" He leaves no room for Charles to misunderstand, and hasn't ceased giving him calm, unrelenting Orders since he first woke up. Erik waits for him to undress, and flips the shower on with a wave of his hand.

* * *

Charles nods, biting hard on his lip, and doesn't say a word. It isn't because he's incapable, but it's not entirely defiance, either; he's still fuzzy, and the water makes him shiver, his skin too hot or cold no matter what, leaving him freezing or sweltering in equal measure. He emerges further the longer he stays under the spray, and the idea to just stay occurs to him, staring at the shower wall, dizzy and cold. Once he climbed out of his third story window to avoid his mother at seventeen (it was horribly childish, and also ended up with him spraining his ankle) and for some reason the thought occurs to him, too, though he's hardly to climb out the bathroom window to avoid his Dominant. Maybe, though, because he gets fussier the longer he stays, uncomfortable in a different way, restless. He was sure this would blow off. What if he never finishes, though? He apparently spent forever in the Void so he can spend forever in this shower, shivering, his teeth chattering. He isn't sick the way he's been, the way he was last night, but maybe he can convince Erik that he is. That's manipulative, but it's also not hidden, unconscious or not.  
  
That doesn't happen, though, because of course it doesn't. Erik doesn't enter with him, already dressed for the day, but he washes Charles's hair and under his fingernails in simple and efficient touches, hardly clinical but not lingering, either. He helps Charles step out when he's finished and dries him with a wave of his hand, and isn't convinced. "Postures," he says once they're settled back into the bedroom. "Start at Rest, and we'll cycle through _trigésima sétima variante_ ," he picks an overwhelmingly simplistic modification. "And I don't want to see any slouching or laziness, understood?"  
  
Slouching or laziness. Charles scowls, but he does as he's told, lowering himself into Rest. He doesn't particularly want to do his Postures, but he doesn't think it matters. Maybe there's still convincing to be done; maybe if he's lazy enough, Erik will realize he's not fit for this. That he's too sick to resolve things. It's not technically untrue. But mostly he just wants to avoid it, or at least put it off for as long as possible. And he does slouch even at Rest, because - well, because. It feels like there's a weight on his shoulders, and he can't get rid of it.  
  
"I asked you a question and I expect a verbal answer, and I expect that answer to be yes." There's no option, not like this, his Orders undeniable. Not for laziness or stubbornness or anything else, and certainly not for avoidance. "Am I understood, Charles?" Erik's eyebrows raise, gaze pinned to his unwaveringly.  
  
Charles squirms underneath it, biting hard at the inside of his cheek. "Yeah," he mumbles, as under his breath as he can, and he knows he should quit it. He knows he should accept that Erik isn't going to let it go, that he isn't going to wiggle his way out of it. That there isn't room for that. But some part of him still can't, restless and shifting even on his knees like this.  
  
"Wrong answer," Erik gives him a sharp rap across the knuckles with an implement that Charles wasn't even aware he'd produced until it was too late, right where they're resting palm down over his thighs. "Try again."  
  
It makes him cry out, less in actual pain and more in surprise, his hands curling away from the touch instinctively and at least it's a reason to break position. "Yes," he corrects, lips pulled down into a frown that's coming close to a glare. "Fine." It's silly to call him out over a word, he did what Erik wanted. He's sick, doesn't Erik see that? It's a brilliant excuse.  
  
"Not fine, now return to the proper position. That means shoulders straight. Chin up." He extends the implement to jut under Charles's jaw, lifting his head correctly. "Fall out of line again and you'll get another." Evidently Erik doesn't see. This can go as smoothly as Charles wants. Erik is perfectly happy to exactingly guide him through every expected iteration.  
  
Until he gets bored of it. Charles is fairly sure he can outlast him if he puts his mind to it, or at least this part is. He stays in position anyway, but not without rolling his eyes first, huffing and puffing the entire time he does. "Can we just skip this part," he mumbles, and there's a hint of - anxiety there, maybe? The same urge to stay indefinitely in the shower or climb out the window. Crawl back into bed. Erik will let him if he stalls enough, if he just acts sick enough. He has a fever, which is actually the truth.  
  
He gets another rap over the knuckles for his trouble, sharper this time. "When I am ready to hear your opinion, you will be asked for it. In the interim, complete the next set. Absent the smart comments and rolled eyes, or we will start right back from Rest, and I assure you that I do not get bored of enforcing my Will. Next set," he insists with another punctuated lash, this time over Charles's knee.  
  
For now. Charles makes a face and this time he's more prepared for the lashes, biting his cheek as hard as possible to keep from crying out again. If he tastes blood, it's worth the trouble. He reluctantly folds into the next set, but it isn't exactly quietly. He knows a bluff when he sees one. "My head hurts," he insists, which is true, technically. It feels shockingly like a hangover and he thinks it's less a result of alcohol consumption and more something else. It isn't an issue and it isn't even close to enough to pause-word appropriately, or even really to tell Erik, but it's worth a shot.  
  
"Rest. Now," Erik Orders sternly. He's aware of Charles's pain. He's extremely aware of every shift of Charles's physical state, and since it is once more an unsolicited comment, they're taking it from the top.  
  
It's not physical, technically. Also, technically -"You didn't tell me I couldn't speak," he points out, pursing his lips and nearly rolling his eyes again as he gets back into Rest, but he'd much prefer not being struck. His knuckles are already smarting a little. "Can I have aspirin, at least?" he asks, and that's just him being a smartarse, because he can't help it. It masks some of the anxiety that's slowly creeping in.  
  
He says it just as he's shifting into the second position, and Erik gives him another sharp rap. "Rest." It should come to no surprise to Charles that Erik isn't interested in technicalities. That may work with everyone else, but not him. "I have nowhere to be today, and so it would seem, neither do you. Start again."  
  
Charles is tiring of this fast, and maybe under normal circumstances he would have more than surrendered by now. Not today. He sighs as he falls back into Rest. "I'm hungry," he tries next, partially because he's running out of excuses but also because he knows Erik has been trying to get him to eat for days. He's not hungry, but more than that he knows he can't eat without it coming right back up. A white lie never hurt.  
  
Well, it'll hurt for Charles. Erik certainly doesn't let it slide. "Rest. Again, and I don't want to hear any further excuses." Those are both Orders.

* * *

Charles seems to get the hint. At least they're just Postures, even if they're a modification and he doesn't like that, but Erik isn't looking for input, apparently. He wisely stays silent and completes the next set, finally, without reset, and he even manages to do it without rolling his eyes. He's fairly proud of that one.  
  
Good. Erik guides him through the next one, and the next one, too, making sure that he completes them perfectly, not just through the motions and correcting his posture when he slacks off with a tap to the shoulders and spine here and there.  
  
When he's done, when he's actually gone through them, he hates that he feels less... groggy, confused, hazy. That it knocks something out of him; not all of it, but enough that it's noticeable, that something horribly off-center screeches as it tries to bend itself back into shape. He keeps it bent, stubborn and incapable, broken or convincingly so, and his body is in perfect Posture, back at Rest but there's still that wildness, that messy rebellion in his eyes.  
  
It doesn't intimidate Erik any and he isn't convinced about anything. He waits until Charles is back at Rest before continuing, but he doesn't immediately, he just breathes. "Yesterday, you said a lot of things-" Erik presses his lips together, but it's evident by his clear-eyed expression that he's not angry anymore. "And I wasn't ready to listen."  
  
Charles looks away, looks at the wall, the floor, anywhere but Erik and purses his own lips. He doesn't say a word, and his head quiets down, but there's still the distance sound of things banging and clanging around in there. The noises the Void made, briefly. He doesn't want to have this conversation. The very last thing in the world he wants to do is have this conversation. He'll stay stubbornly silent.  
  
And Erik isn't giving him a choice. "Look at me," he Orders quietly. "You said that I hurt you, and that I wasn't being fair to you. So tell me about it." Those are Orders, too.  
  
Charles scowls, and looks, but it clearly unsettles him. Even with the Order he has a difficult time keeping eye contact, and he starts that restless shifting again, out of the position he was left in and into one where he can cover himself with his arms. "You said hurtful things, and you didn't even -" He shakes his head. "You just did," he finishes, and if he makes this like pulling teeth, Erik will get frustrated and cut it off. Only a matter of time.  
  
"I didn't even what?" Erik insists, and if he has to Order every single iota of Charles's compliance here he will do it. He doesn't need to argue and pull teeth, and he has zero expectation of doing so.  
  
Then he's not going to get very far, because if Erik wants manipulative he'll get manipulative, selfish and unyielding, and it's clear that's struck a chord that the Void and sleep didn't burn out. "You left and you didn't say anything and then you didn't listen," he mutters, and he has to keep looking but that doesn't mean he has to see. What's to stop Charles from looking right through him? From avoiding this every way he knows how?  
  
"Look at me. Not at the wall or anywhere else." Erik is to stop him. "And tell me what I didn't listen to."  
  
"Do you want a list?" he huffs, frustrated, and he is looking at Erik, but that doesn't mean he has to see him. That he can't fuzz out his own mind and dull the effect. "You kept telling me what I said and what I meant and I said - I told you that I couldn't and you didn't listen! You always want me to be honest, tell you the truth, be open tell you what I need and then I do and you don't listen and when you say you can't do something or you're - " Flashbacks, trauma, muddled up pain, when Erik is curled up in the bathtub and it's not really a coincidence that it's where Charles went, too, but he doesn't say get over it. He doesn't say if you cared you'd get over it, or yell at him for - But Erik doesn't talk to him like that, apparently. Over and over he said that, like Charles was awful and wrong, like he'd gotten so upset over nothing and how many times has he questioned that?  
  
"No," Erik agrees softly. He doesn't argue or apologize or dissolve into a shame spiral, and he doesn't know if that's the right or wrong thing to do, but he's listening. "You don't say that to me. You've always been very patient with me. I wasn't. I didn't hear you telling me what you needed. You weren't upset about nothing, and you weren't awful and you weren't wrong. You were trying your best, you were trying to follow my wishes."  
  
It makes Charles go cold. He opens his mouth, then he closes it again, and then his eyes close, too, tightly, but it's not defiance this time and when they don't get Ordered open again he thinks Erik must know that, that he just needs a second, and he does. There's something warring in him that Erik can't see, something in the clenched line of his jaw or the way he's grinding his teeth and then he opens his eyes but can't meet Erik's, bows his head. "No, I wasn't," he mumbles, and it's not even really audible, but it doesn't matter. He was upset. He was dealing with flashbacks. He was scared. But he absolutely was not trying to follow Erik's wishes.  
  
"Tell me what you were trying to do," Erik Orders him, and when his eyes do open Erik snaps them up again with his own gaze, not allowing him to look away. He touches Charles's cheek, silently Commanding him to loosen up, to stop grinding and hurting himself, to just be present and answer the question as it's asked.  
  
It makes him want to jerk away again, and he does, like Erik slapped him instead of simply touching, and it's not because he's scared but because - he doesn't know, really. He fidgets when he can't be tense, not relaxed or calm and not even totally present, but Erik can't Order that, really. "I don't know," he admits, still too-quiet but testy again, this time, all of that frustration bubbling back up. He wanted to get through the night, and then he wanted Erik to go away - right? That's what he wanted? Then he tried to tell him what was happening, and he didn't hear it. That made him want to follow his wishes even less, made him scared, cornered. Defiant. If Erik said go right, he'd want to go left. And he would have done - still would do, maybe, right now, maybe not right this instant but right now, this morning - anything to get left. Not anything, but a lot of things. A lot of maybe not so great things. So Erik was right, in the end. He is manipulative and he is a liar and he is awful and he is exactly like everyone Erik hates, everyone who ever hurt him, so what's the point of this? Why are they doing this when it's obvious where it leads? Charles closes his eyes again and does not want to cry. He does not, under any circumstances, want to cry.  
  
"The point is that I should have heard you, and I didn't, and if you weren't clear I should have clarified it. So I am clarifying it. And we're going to sit here, and we're going to do this, and you are not going to go left. You're going to obey my instructions." He puts his other hand over Charles's cheek. "So stop, and be still, and look at me. I do not hate you, and I don't think you are anything like the people who hurt me. Do you really think that's what I believe? That you're awful? Tell me the truth. Were you really trying to get me to listen to you, or were you trying to make me leave?"  
  
The sound that comes from Charles' lips is distressed, but he - isn't? He is, though, and he doesn't want to stay still and he doesn't want to look and he doesn't want to follow instructions. He doesn't want to discuss this. "No," he mumbles, to the first question, because Erik said tell the truth and he can't lie about that. But it still hurt when it seemed like he did, when he made the comparison or at least that's what it felt like to Charles. It hurt more than anything. It felt like he was going to die, or was already dead, or at least that his whole entire heart had been ripped out of his chest. "Both," he answers to the second, terse and clipped. That's the truth, too. The two aren't mutually exclusive and it was part of the telling, really, the pushing. But he doesn't want to admit that.  
  
"So tell me, Charles," Erik murmurs. "Why you would say those things to me?"  
  
He doesn't know what Erik means, exactly, but he can guess. It all has the same answer anyway. Because he was scared. Because he was hurt. Because he didn't know how to say what he really needed to say and so he said those things instead. Because he wanted to go left and Erik kept forcing him right without addressing it first, without addressing how seriously he'd already pulled that way. Because he wanted Erik to go away. Because there's this horrid beast inside of him when he's like this, and he's never been like this for Erik, not really, and he wants to be defiant (needs to be, the same way Erik bows his head in front of strangers, goes silent and accommodating) and sometimes it's just for the sake of it, the habit and the backwards instinct and the never again, never ever ever again, the way avoid further pain and hurt and disappointment and no one has ever proved him wrong or taught him why it wasn't a good strategy in the first place. They tried. They failed. Because he was honestly feeling a little vindictive. Which answer does Erik want? All of them put him right back on edge.  
  
Erik shakes his head. He shouldn't have taken it so personally. He knows why it happened. He's been unstable since Israel. He's been irrational and off-kilter. He hasn't been able to communicate properly. Charles telling him all the things he already thinks, if he really believed those things-and everything crashed in his head. "I shouldn't have said what I did, any of it. You were just scared. I wanted you to see-" he shakes his head again. This isn't why they're here. "I was hurt and mad. And I wasn't kind. You didn't deserve that. I didn't handle any of this properly. You do not need to get over any of what happened to you. I don't want you to. "  
  
It's much harder to be locked up and guarded and defiant when Erik talks like this. It hasn't stopped him before. It really, truly hasn't, and there's a reason he - but this is Erik, and even Void-scrambled, even more of a part than a whole, even now, he knows that. He knows it's Erik and not anyone else and that none of the the things he thought were true or ever could be and that makes it hard, it makes it hard, but he closes his eyes again and he locks up and he doesn't say anything.  
  
"I should have told you that I needed a moment. But you didn't push me away. I'm still here, and we didn't avoid pain and hurt. You didn't listen to my wishes. You didn't tell me what was wrong, you immediately went for my throat and I think you know that wasn't fair, either. And you know that if you had been up front with me I would have, without question, done whatever I could to address what you needed. Do you really not believe that? Do you really think I don't know how to take care of you? That I don't want to?"  
  
But - Charles keeps his eyes closed as tightly as he can, and he shakes the thought off, and then he shakes his head. No, he doesn't think that, regardless of anything else. Of course he doesn't think that, and he didn't last night either, not any more than Erik really thinks he's constantly fantasizing about running away. He doesn't think that. He just thinks that maybe - maybe there are things he needs or does because of the things that happened to him that - he shakes his head again. Tenses up every muscle. They talked, Erik asked, they're done. He's done. No more.  
  
"Open your eyes, and look at me. I didn't say we were done, and we most certainly are not. Now tell me what you mean," he Orders. "Specifically. Things that what?"  
  
"Things that you hate! Things that you can't deal with!" He raises his voice into a snap and something immediately plummets inside of him, but he swallows around it, opens his eyes and all of that muddiness is in there, all of that fear and bared-teeth rebellion. "Not because you're a bad Dominant, alright, just because -" Just because they're mean. They're mean and they're nasty and they're hurting, sometimes they're modeled after the people that hurt him and he hates - he's never admitted that, but those people never got hurt! They never got taken advantage of! Kurt and Cain and sometimes even Warren, people like him that swarmed those kinds of parties, confident and ruthless and dedicated to their own self-interest, who never took no for an answer, who never took less, who never had to go right because they were told. And it's different. It's different, it's completely different, Charles isn't Dominant and he doesn't thrive like that and he does feel better when - when Erik says go right and he goes right because that's a choice and he gets to choose it, because it's fulfilling and consenting and wonderful and not harmful because submission doesn't just mean bleeding and screaming and cruelty he didn't earn, it doesn't mean going right and still getting beaten because the Order to go right didn't actually mean anything! He loses no matter what! He knows that. He knows that. But it's - and maybe it's not a good coping mechanism. Maybe it really, truly isn't, all of that bunched up defiance, all of this. But it's there. It's there and he feels it and he still needs it, he still reacts like this, gets stuck like this, comes back to this the same way Erik still flinches and bows his head because this is how he taught himself to survive it, the same way Erik tunes out and ends up in the bathtub or walking into doors because he's only semi-present, the same way, but his is - it's bad! It's not nice! It's sometimes exactly what Erik hates! It makes him think he's just like Shaw. And Charles - Charles - don't you dare cry, Charles Xavier! This is over. He's done with this. Charles wants to get up now and no one is going to tell him otherwise, they won't.  
  
Erik keeps him right there, with a hand firmly on his shoulder. "I don't like it when you are mean, and I'm not going to pretend I do in order to prove to you that I can handle you just fine. I am still here, I am not going anywhere and I am not going to allow you to get away with trying to force me out by playing to the pieces of myself I am not good at dealing with, because you're my submissive, and that isn't how we do things. I don't hate you. I don't hate anything about you, but you're right. I won't let you lash out at me like this when you know better because that is exactly what I've taught you. I know I am not a bad Dominant. I need you to know that, I need you to know that I've got your best interests at heart. That I am not Kurt or Cain or Warren or Shaw or anyone else. I've been through it, too. I don't know what it was like to live your life, you're right. Sometimes I try to make things better and it just proves I don't get it, but that doesn't make me evil, it makes me human. It doesn't mean I'm going to punish you for a false choice. When have I ever done that, Charles? When? When have I ever hurt you like that? And if I have, then you need to tell me, so that I won't do it again. Because it matters to me, so tell me."  
  
"I wasn't saying that," he snaps, because Erik is clearly not listening again. He said, he said clearly this time, that he knows it's different with Erik. That Erik himself is different. Intellectually, he knows! Rationally, he knows! He knows submission isn't a trap, that a collar isn't a sentence, that submitting isn't the same as giving in, that it doesn't mean he isn't strong, that it doesn't mean he's going to be hurt. It doesn't mean any of that. What he has with Erik is consensual and it's safe and it's what he needs. Exactly, entirely what he needs, and without it he'd die. He'd be totally, utterly lost. He knows! But that doesn't always mean that he doesn't get - that it doesn't happen, that this doesn't happen, and - "Let go of me, Erik," he hisses.  
  
"I know you weren't, and no. I'm not letting you go. You know, you are not listening to me, either. I know that you know these things. But you said it yourself. You think I can't deal with it, with-with what, hm? With defiance and disobedience? You think I can't put you in your place, that I don't know where you belong? You really think I don't know that? That I can't handle that? Tell me what you think I can't handle and that is not a request."  
  
"You can't! Not like this! It makes you -" It makes Erik feel badly, makes him think awful things that Charles never, ever wants him to think are true, makes him doubt everything makes him apologize for things that aren't his fault makes him need space makes him guilty, he pulls back he leaves Charles even if it's only for a few minutes he freezes up and he doesn't like it. Of course Charles doesn't like Erik getting up out of bed in the middle of the night to sit in the bathtub and sometimes he doesn't know how to deal with it but he can sit with him and be patient and bring him back and stroke his hair and Charles doesn't need that like this! Cuddling and kissing and singing to him like this makes him agitated, he doesn't settle or calm and he knows he should. But he doesn't. He just doesn't. Erik can be violent and volatile and angry and there are parts of his trauma that aren't pretty, at all, fine, but they aren't... they don't make Charles cry. And Charles can't promise he'll never - it was naïve, to think that he could go that party and not get stuck here. Erik always questions his instincts when he brushes by this side of Charles. He always gets twisted up. So how else is he supposed to take it? It's not Erik's fault.  
  
"Because I don't let it!" Erik rolls his eyes. "Because I cut it off, because I go away." Erik doesn't go down that road, he won't, but Charles is wrong if he thinks he's the only one who ever wants to lash out. Even the worst parts of Erik in his mind, preserved like this, they're different, they're mitigated. Charles doesn't really know and Erik will never let him see. "And I am not some paragon of virtue. I hurt you, I mess up, I left you alone and made you cry. So what, so I feel bad, that isn't your responsibility to deal with, it is mine. It is not up to you to say I can't handle it. But you know what, we are still here, I am still here. It didn't kill me. It didn't make me love you less. You are not responsible for my feelings, you are not responsible for my trauma. So you don't need any of that stuff, then tell me what you need. Tell me."  
  
That's not even true - Charles knows that, of course he knows, and he's been lashed out at before last night. He's been hurt by Erik before. He wasn't saying that, but that's not - he clenches his teeth again and closes his eyes and it's not the same, it's not the same because the Dynamic is different, the defense mechanism itself is different and there's no healthy way to express this and he tried to leave, then he tried to get Erik to leave - neither worked! So what, he's bad because he can't ignore it? Because he can't get rid of it, because he still needs it and he doesn't know where trauma ends and he starts, where instincts and circumstance collide? So he's not supposed to get over it but he is supposed to somehow not let it happen? Besides, if Erik thinks he doesn't know there are darker, less controlled, less gentle parts to him - besides the point, but not letting him see it is never going to be an option and is part of the problem in the first place. He shakes his head. No. No, he doesn't know, and he isn't going to dig and find an answer and get them both hurt more in the process. One day it will make Erik love him less or leave him or realize he doesn't want to be around when Charles is like this, at the very least, and he'd like it to be that one and not the first so he's going to do what he can. "Let me up now," he demands. "I don't feel good."  
  
"Well that's tough," Erik returns sharply. "And that's not an answer to my question and-" he shrugs. Of course it's not the same. Charles doesn't get, which is a stupid word for it, to see those parts of Erik because Erik promised not to show them to him and it's written in their contract, and he's right, it is different, because Erik has no desire to break Charles's trust in him and because Erik is the Dominant and because that's his job. And that's right, it didn't work, because Erik isn't going anywhere and neither is Charles, and if that's unfair, so be it. "Open your eyes and look at me and answer my question," he Orders, and it's accompanied by a sharp jolt across Charles's knuckles. "Yes you do know and you'll answer it immediately when I ask you and the next time you demand something from me we'll be finishing this discussion in Child's Pose, am I understood."  
  
Immediately it makes tears spring to his eyes, the same tears he's been holding back this entire time and it churns up all the same things. The untamed, defiant, hurting things. "No!" he gasps, and it's fierce and practically growled in its own right. He can't actually disobey, though he tries, but when his eyes open and things spill out, they shove right back in and Charles smothers it, buries it under the ocean and good luck finding it. He doesn't know! Too bad! He doesn't know what he needs and even if he did he doesn't know how to ask Erik for it because he's just going to do it by himself like he wanted to in the first place. He refuses, too, then.  
  
"No, tell me properly," Erik Orders from him again, entirely unrelenting.  
  
That inspires a rather intense reaction, tears down his cheeks but all that riled up defiance and rebellion bursting out at once, his face twisting as he does everything to keep his lips firmly sealed. But it does nothing. It's absolutely no use. "I need -" He needs Erik to do what he's doing right now. To not permit it. To be anything but permissive, and to make it safe while he isn't. Not frightening, not traumatizing, by virtue of what's different - choice, consent, love, compatibility. Maybe he already knows, but he needs to be taught. But Erik froze up when he gave him signs he needed that, didn't he? And he promised he'd do it, almost threatened it, and he didn't. Charles took the cues from him. But it doesn't matter now, the night's over and he doesn't know how to untangle the rest of this thought process, to even begin to articulate it. "Are you happy? Can we please be done," he says, and it sounds more desperate than anything. Faking sick, climbing out bathroom windows. It sounds good right about now.  
  
"No, we cannot," Erik tells him, staring hard. "I did not tell you to give me signs, I did not tell you to give me hints, I told you to tell me what you needed and you didn't do that. I gave you the choice to make the right decision, the choice you claimed to want to have, and you didn't make it. You promised me that you would uphold the integrity of my Will and you didn't do that. Do you think, Charles, that I just tell you what to do because I want a power trip, because I want you to feel bad while I feel good Ordering you around? No, because that would be wrong. Why do you think, then, hm? Tell me. Tell me why you think I'm your Dominant." He doesn't give Charles the opportunity to make a wrong call, this time. The Order is clear.  
  
But there's no easy answer to that question, not one Charles can give at exactly this moment. There are many reasons that, on a normal day, he chooses to submit to Erik, and even like this he thinks he knows and can remember them. All of them amount to mutual fulfillment, happiness, stability. It's good and natural and safe. It's the only thing that feels right, the only way he feels grounded, the only way he isn't lost and twisted up. Erik does get a power trip from Orders, and Charles knows it, and he likes it, thrills at it, but that's not the main motivation; he would never Order or expect something harmful to Charles, or not his best interest. He takes care of him and in return Charles... well, he gives himself. He's owned, he surrenders his freedom willingly. He submits and serves. Somewhere that feels very far away, somewhere he's never been, he said something about being two equally important, opposite roles. He never feels bad because Erik - but that's not the point, that's not ever why he gets like this, it's not why he's defiant in the first place it's not because he thinks Erik is trying to hurt him - not rationally. He does know. He knows, but it's - and he can't just tell him. He can't. He honestly, truly can't, because it's not really his to tell, and he did say what he shouldn't do, what wouldn't work and Erik didn't listen, so honestly, what does he want? For Charles to just turn it off? He can't. He can't do it. He walked into that party and this - he... and he's still stuck, and what does Erik want from him? He has no better answer. He doesn't know. "I don't know!" he yells. It was the right choice. It was the safe one. It was, wasn't it? It was. Erik warned him and then didn't even - so it didn't matter, he let him anyway. It's over now. Why are they talking about it? Charles doesn't want to.  
  
"I warned you what? Tell me what it is you're stuck on, here, and if you raise your voice like that at me again we will be finished, at least in this position so I recommend you think very carefully about how you choose to address me right now, but you will address me and you know what, you'll do it properly, too, because you seem to think you can say and do what you like and there won't be consequences, but that is not how we work. Now, I warned you what?" he Orders pointedly.  
  
"There won't be!" He was just warned about raising his voice, but it comes out louder anyway, fierce, and he didn't even mean to yell, really, but there it is. There it is. "You warned me, all that about how you'd take care of it and put me back in line no matter where we were - you didn't. And good, that's good -" It's not. It is? He grinds his teeth together and shakes his head. "I'm not stuck on anything. I just don't want to be talking about this." He is stuck, but not on a concept. He's stuck in himself. In this mindset, in this - in this. He's stuck. He didn't know it would happen when he promised Erik he would be good but it did and he hasn't been able to get out. It doesn't feel good. It feels sick, actually, but he's not going to admit that.  
  
"Child's Pose, now," Erik Orders, his Will extending out through the room and wrapping around Charles and through him, suffused into oxygen until there's nothing left to do but breathe it entirely, sitting back to give Charles room to comply, with zero room for the alternative.  
  
It lurches in his stomach, that Order, especially given how it is, and Charles tries to hide his flinch as he puts himself into the position. It's vulnerable and he hates it, well and truly, but he tries to convince himself that he doesn't care. That it doesn't matter. Erik will Order him out of it. It doesn't bother him. (Except it does, it absolutely does, and the shame that always radiates from him when he's Ordered here isn't missing and he hates that, too.) At least he can glare as he does it, but even when he tries to open his mouth, to make some kind of comment, it gets stuck in his throat. It is harder like this. It just is.  
  
Erik rises to his feet, and the implement in his hands extends, allowing him to thwap it over Charles's shoulders where they hunch in on themselves and gently, at least, over the back of his neck where his head is still up to glare. None of that. "Child's Pose, properly. Now, you asked me once what would happen if the way that you behaved upset me to the point that I couldn't discipline you effectively. Do you remember that?"  
  
It's a direct question and he knows he should answer it, but Charles swallows it instead just like the cry of surprise he'd held back at the tap from whatever is in Erik's hands, locks it up in the back of his throat. He can't really shake his head like this - it wouldn't be an honest answer anyway, he thinks he remembers, or at least some part of him does, but it all gets scrambled and he doesn't care to go looking for it. So no, really, but he doesn't say that. He says nothing.  
  
"I told you that I might not be capable of resolving the issue in the moment, but I assured you that it would get resolved once I was capable of doing so. Do you remember, Charles? I asked you a question and I expect a verbal answer, now." The Order is accompanied by another jolt over his back where it had bent out of position.  
  
He does now. It feels like he didn't live it at all, but he knows he did. He knows it's his, that memory, that when he isn't stuck it's easier, that it doesn't feel so far away. "Okay, yeah," he mumbles. It is a response, and he hunches again without meaning to, closing his eyes and tensing up.  
  
"Not _OK, yeah_. Try again. Yes _what_. I told you to address me properly and you will, if you want any hope of leaving this position any time today."  
  
In Charles' opinion, his ability to get out of this unfortunate situation is being horrifically underestimated and has been for a while. Besides, isn't being particularly frustrating how he avoided this in the first place? In his head, this all makes sense now, despite the awful dread and drop to his stomach. "Yes, sir," he mumbles, except the eye-roll is practically audible. "Happy, Erik?"  
  
"No, Charles, I'm not, so how about we try this again until I am happy." This time when the jolt comes, it's far more than just surprising and leaves a visible mark along his arm. "Minus the tone and the eyerolling, and the mumbling. Try it again. Yes what?"  
  
Charles still gasps in surprise, then whimpers a second later, reeling with it as if he couldn't possibly have expected it. It feels exceptionally awful right now, he feels the sting deeply and he remembers wondering, early on and maybe even recently (is anything recently?) how he'd make the distinction, how his brain would, between... punishment, and - well. Turns out the answer is easily and he definitely doesn't want to endure any of it now. It's starting to dawn on him that it's happening. "Wait, I -" The panic clangs around in his chest, he swallows around it, lifts his head to shake it. "You can't do this right now," he insists, and it's not what Erik asked for because he can't give that, he can't say it, it's not happening. It doesn't matter if large parts of him need it so bad it's a physical sickness. That doesn't matter.  
  
Erik ends up huffing to himself. "Oh, Charles. I am not punishing you. We are not finished discussing this yet. And that is not the answer to the question I have asked you so I suggest you try it again." He gives him a firm thwak on the back of the neck, and it feels reedier, now, more swishy and able to deliver a great deal of pain with none of the force. "I asked if you remember the discussion we had regarding this scenario, yes, what?"  
  
It makes Charles' toes curl, jolts him, and not in a pleasant way. There are tears forming in his eyes and he won't let them fall, he won't, he absolutely will not. It can't happen. This can't happen. "I can't," he hisses through clenched teeth, closes his eyes and locks up every muscle in his body.  
  
Those feet get a hard jolt to the sole, that feels a lot more painful than it actually is. When Charles refuses a second and third time, Erik doesn't relent at all. He seems to have a knack for finding the most sensitive areas on his body and lighting them afire with pain, an expert's mastery of the trade. Nothing like and, well. Comparing the two is farcical, even when Charles's nerves are exploding. "Unacceptable. Try again."  
  
Holding back those tears is taking absolutely everything he has and it's not looking good. It hurts, it smarts, but more than that there's the beginning of real panic. The Void warned Charles about him like this, or he tried to. There are things Charles knew before he was swallowed and then swallowed, things he knows now, but not always - and what makes it different? He knows. Erik said this isn't a punishment but that's what he's implying will happen, isn't he? All that talk of consequence? And Charles - he knows this. He does. But what if - what if? He's not truly, horribly afraid, and part of him hates that, and it happens to be the part that has a firm grip on his consciousness right now, splintered off from the rest (and a part that still loves Erik, with every fiber, and that's unfair if you ask him). But doesn't this part get ignored? Hasn't it been taken for granted sometimes? Because he's all better, he's clean! All good! Charles has always been pushing for - but he doesn't - and if he did it, would it really work? Or would it be like - Has he ever tried? Why not? Shouldn't he have anyway? He takes a shaky, harsh breath, and then he says, " _Afor_."

* * *

Erik stops and crouches down. "Look at me and tell me why you used your pause-word," he Orders in a quiet murmur.  
  
Charles has tears in his eyes and he didn't want to look at Erik, but what choice does he have now? He's not going to let them slide down his cheeks. He isn't, and he bites his lip hard and shakes his head. "I -" His breath hitches, gets stuck in his chest and lumps in his throat. "I wanted it to stop," he settles on, but there's maybe something else, something he can't quite articulate.  
  
"Indeed," Erik replies, dry but not unkind. His own expression remains calm. In control. Decisive. "Why did you want it to stop? Tell me, or show me. Specifically and honestly." Those are Orders, too.  
  
He closes his eyes and feels the tears slip, just a little, hot on his cheeks and tasting awful when they reach his lips and he can't say it, but Erik said he could show it so he does. He wanted to know if Erik would. If he would stop, when - if it was safe. He was testing. This part remembers things much more immediately than integrated, pre-Void Charles, and he's never been able to stop things before. He wanted to see if it worked.  
  
Erik touches his cheek. "Of course it works." The point is not fear. It never was. It's the reason why Charles has never seen the really twisted parts of Erik, because he doesn't want to break Charles's trust in him, he doesn't think he could live with it if Charles were afraid of him like that. "I told you that we would pause. That we would take a breath, and talk about what is happening. Do you know why I didn't keep you in line last night?"  
  
Charles has never been afraid of Erik. He isn't now. Those twisted things don't even scare him. When that big hand touches his cheek, his first instinct is to jerk away, to bite and snarl like he truly is a cornered animal, to keep it up, but he doesn't. For some reason after he jerks he leans right into it and his eyes flutter closed, he nuzzles into Erik's palm and he can't help it, he can't. He might not need to be kissed and coddled right now, but this - this he'll accept. He shakes his head, not because he doesn't have an idea, but because he doesn't think he can answer.  
  
He strokes his thumb over the apple of Charles's cheek. Nothing happens. He doesn't break open. Erik doesn't think he's weak. He expected Charles to pull away and he's just relieved when he doesn't. "It isn't because I don't value our contract, it is because I do. I was angry with you, and I don't discipline you when I'm upset. I wasn't in control of myself, and I can't expect to be in control of you properly until that happens. That's why everything devolved so fast. But I am in control, now, and I am not angry with you. I am disappointed. I won't always be in control of myself and I won't always be physically with you. That is why you asked for independence in the first place. And there are consequences to the choices you have made."  
  
For some reason that drops right into Charles' stomach, turns him cold and uncomfortable and he nearly cries, but he just won't let it happen. He's already given an inch, and he can't bring himself not to keep nuzzling Erik's hand even as he tenses, like a particularly prickly kitten. "But -" he tries, but it gets caught in his throat. He has a but, he thinks. He has twenty. "You're disappointed?" is, for some reason, what he whispers instead.  
  
Erik keeps stroking at his cheek, and nods. "I can't trust losing control of myself for a second because I'm scared my Will might go straight out the window. Maybe it's not fair, maybe you were dealing with too much, maybe I shouldn't need help, but I needed it and I asked for it and you refused. And it was for you. It wasn't for me. I was trying for you. How can I trust you to ever attend an event like this again? How am I supposed to say yes?"  
  
It makes Charles puff up again, hurt and anger and something else he won't name warring and he considers pulling away, ripping himself away, snapping while he's at it, but all he does is lower his head and scowl, locking himself down so he doesn't cry. Absolutely not. "That's not fair," he mumbles. "It's not fair. That's -" He cuts himself off, because what he was going to say was maybe rude, but just barely. It all clangs around in his head anyway. "I don't get to struggle ever? One time where nothing even happened and you know - you know," his voice cracks, he shakes his head and then he does pull away, glaring, because the next part hurts more than any of the blows. "And you stop trusting me? That's not fair. That's not fair."  
  
"How many drinks would you have had if I wasn't there? Tell me honestly," Erik Orders, firm and sharp.  
  
Charles glares harder, biting his lip to put it off but he knows what's going to come out. "Enough to get drunk," he mutters, which just means enough to get plastered, which just means a lot. "But -" He shakes his head, keeping it in, vibrating with all that rebellious energy again instead.  
  
"I don't want to hear _but_ anything. You did a lot more than just refuse to tell me what you needed. We are _way_ beyond fair. I am your Dominant, I do not need abide by your definition of fair. I gave you more than enough leeway to demonstrate that you could be trusted to struggle without disrespecting me and violating our contract. So yes, I am disappointed."  
  
He might not want to hear it, but Charles is going to tell him, because the word disappointed hits a chord all over again and he'd rather be riled than whatever the alternative is. That sick, horrible sinking. "So I'm only allowed to make choices when you think they're the right ones? Now you won't ever let me try again, you won't trust me because I -" He cuts himself off here, refusing to say it. Refusing to admit it. One bad night, a night where he spiraled and lost himself and everything was too close, stirred up into a frenzy, and that was it? That's really all it takes. "That's bullshit and you know it. You said you'd let me and you didn't! Maybe you're the one who didn't hold up your end of the bargain."  
  
"And you know what would have been a very easy resolution to that, Charles? Asking me, nicely, instead of insulting me and disobeying me. There were a great deal of options open to you and you took none of them. So get back into position, because I didn't tell you that you could move." He gives him another thwak on the shoulder for punctuation.  
  
Charles swallows around the lump that forms at that, and then he swallows again because it doesn't go down and now he's smarting again, he barely managed to bite his cheek hard enough not to cry out. "But - I thought..." He didn't mean it to come out, actually, but it does, and he doesn't want to get back into that position. He doesn't. He wants Erik to touch him again (but not too much, he's not ready, there's - he can't), he wants this to be over. He wants him to not be disappointed anymore. That's the truth of it.  
  
"You thought what?" Erik's eyebrows raise.  
  
"I thought it was over," he whispers, and it's smaller than he meant it to be, and he shoves that back inside, all that vulnerability, tries to be spiky and defiant again. He thought it would be done.  
  
"You thought incorrectly." Another thwak, until Charles obeys him this time. "How could this possibly be over, when you have yet to follow a single instruction I've given you outside of being forced to? How could this possibly be over when you barely recall that you are beholden to my instructions at all? How can this possibly be over when you have still refused to even address me properly? How can it be over when you have yet to even understand the reasons why you are here in the first place?"  
  
All of the things Erik says now feel like blows, one after the other, and Charles is winded by the end of it, reeling, his heart dropped down into his stomach. He doesn't say but this time. If he's completely honest, he knows there isn't one. But he doesn't say anything else, either, bites on his tongue so he doesn't, and he's not supposed to speak unless spoken to anyway, is he? That's one instruction he's followed. He just - why can't they let it go now? Fine, Charles will do better. Fine. But Erik can't be disappointed in him. He can't. Can't they just let it go?  
  
Erik crouches again, dragging his own hands down his face, through his own hair, the first expression of real emotion since they woke up. He just sighs and breathes and doesn't say anything, but he's decidedly not letting it go. A bland promise to do better, that doesn't mean anything. And Erik doesn't think he was bad, anyway. The Void told him he should be honest about his feelings, but that kind of vulnerability is-not appropriate right now. "I know you were scared," he murmurs instead, swallowing everything else down. "And you still are. You don't need to act tough with me. I'm not going to take advantage of your vulnerability. I never will, not ever. When you are struggling, you need to ask for help. And I will help you. I will."  
  
If he doesn't think that, then why are they doing this? If he doesn't think that, then why? The words sink into him and make him feel sick again, suddenly and horrifically, and he still doesn't think Erik understands. He couldn't ask for help and he can't now. He really couldn't. Erik clearly doesn't want to do this either, so this should just end now. Charles pause-worded. It's over now, it's done, it's the next morning and his mother is probably up with a hangover and nursing it with pills. Time to move on. He keeps his head down and finds that, for once, he's grateful the position means the default isn't looking at Erik.  
  
Erik gives him another whack with the implement, enough to re-focus his attention. Charles doesn't dictate Erik's actions. He pause-worded, and they paused, and if they need to pause again, they will, but it is not finished. Erik understands perfectly well that Charles had a choice, he can speak, he can use words, he can ask. He can tell Erik what he needs in a way that Erik will understand. What he cannot do is-Erik cuts that off, redirects. There's a reason that they're here. There's a reason that Erik was upset with him. And it's simple, and it's not about whether Charles could have asked for help or not, not really. Even saying that he couldn't, would be different than what happened. Even agreeing that he didn't know would have been different. If Erik doesn't understand the person responsible for that is Charles. The person responsible for lashing out at Erik instead of working with him, is Charles. The person responsible for slamming back shots of whiskey, is Charles. Charles wanted Erik to go away and then was hurt when Erik did go away, they both know that wasn't the answer and it's still not. Charles is out of line and twisted up and off the rails, and even at his most aggravated, Erik just wants to put him back on track. And they're going to stay here until an understanding is reached, and that is not Charles's choice. "Cease. I did not ask you for a running commentary of my motivations. You don't think I get it, so tell me," he Orders, "and I suggest you address me in the proper manner when you do so."  
  
He's off the rails. Would he have spun so far away if he wasn't? Forget how Erik handled it, and how Charles still felt hurt, still doesn't think it was fair. He addressed that and there's a part of Charles that's awfully good at holding grudges when it counts, this part, actually, but right now it's beside the point and he can't make himself angry again. Not about that. It's not the same like this. It's just not. There are things he really feels like he can't do, and he's been trying and trying and trying to tell Erik and it doesn't feel like it's working. What else can he do? He asks for help and he doesn't get it. Can Erik always ask for help when he's spinning? Shouldn't Erik just know? He knows maybe that's not fair, fine, Erik will tell him it's not fair. He's still spinning, though. He's so far off the rails he's in a different universe, and he doesn't know how to bring himself back. He just doesn't. He feels like he broke off. Like he snapped. Remember when the Landscape was empty and it freaked Erik out? Charles feels like this, right here, this - it's the only thing left in there. And he doesn't know what he needs like this. He thought it was being left alone, but it wasn't. That just scared him more. But he's not speaking, and he can feel tears building up again and he can't, won't, doesn't want to. He won't. He won't and he won't and he won't and Erik will just get worn down and then they can be done with this. He can stop being disappointed (it hurts, that hurts, why? Why does it make him feel so sick?).  
  
It doesn't happen, though. Erik doesn't wear down, he doesn't stop, he doesn't back off. Something different happens, something that hasn't happened before. Something rises up in Erik, fierce and Dominant and sudden and Charles isn't in a different universe. There is no universe that he belongs to that doesn't include belonging to Erik and he tangles his fingers in Charles's hair, making him look up and meet his eyes, his grip firm and unrelenting. All of the defiance and anger and frustration and twisted rebelliousness slams up against an impenetrable steel fortress that bends only to grasp it in turn. The Landscape has been empty for a while. There is no sun. There is only encroaching darkness, but it wilts in the face of Dominion. Charles is Erik's. And he doesn't have to bring himself back because Erik will bring him back, every time. "You are mine," he murmurs lowly, not allowing Charles's gaze to drop. "You belong to me and if I don't know it is your obligation to tell me. So that I can take care of you. Who am I? Tell me. Who am I, Charles?"  
  
The Landscape doesn’t even exist anymore, but even if he did Charles wouldn’t recognize it. There is no Corridor, there is an unfamiliar castle and snowy fields that meet desert mountains and he is fractured, he is more fractured than he’s ever been, he’s broken up and chopped into pieces and not all of them were put back the right way and they haven’t done the work yet. The Void tried to tell him. To warn him. It will be difficult, it will be messy; it will come to help, but it is trying to keep him regulated, keep him alive, keep him himself, and the rest is in his hands. They only have so much time to talk. But Charles responds to this, bites his lip until it’s bloody and the tears finally do spill down his cheeks, and he tries to shake his head but there’s no give. He tries to shake it off but it’s electric and it’s snapping and it’s impossible to ignore, to brush off, to hide from, like that very first time in that cell except now it’s different, now it scares him even more than it did then. “I don’t know,” he gasps, but he does. Of course he does. He does, but don’t make him say it. He does but don’t make him look at it. He does but don’t make him face it. This part survives, it survives and it adapts and he will not submit! He won’t, you can’t make him! So what if he misbehaved, so what? So what if he didn’t listen, so what? Who is Erik to tell him that and hold him accountable? Who is Erik to take care of him, who gave him the right, Charles took care of himself last night, that's what Erik wanted, isn't it, for him to take care of himself when he's not there well he did and he has his whole life he has, who is Erik, who is Erik -  
  
No he did not take care of himself, he would have drank himself into a stupor but he didn't because Erik was there. Do not dare look away, Erik won't permit it. His whole aura has ignited, gaze burning and electric and warm all at the same time, he will not be hidden away from. He will not be denied. Does Charles think that he belongs to himself? That Erik is just an afterthought, that his input is worthless that he knows nothing that he would just hit and hurt and yell and rage himself out, that Charles can just wear him down and frustrate him until he disappears, how dare Charles! Who is Charles! Who gave him the right to uncover Erik's soul and leave it exposed like a raw wound and forget everything-Erik won't let him. Charles knows who he is. He knows who Erik is. So what if he misbehaved and didn't listen, he will face the consequences. He will look at it and admit it and see the difference, Erik will make him, look at it!   
  
This part wants to survive on its own, really? Well look at the Landscape without Erik. Without his Dominant. A devoid castle with no sand, no mountains, no sun. _We were walls facing walls/It was painful to talk/It was painful to feel the distance/Choked by the tragedy/It was painful to talk_ \- Does Charles know that he didn't just misbehave? That he didn't just not listen? Does he even know? 

* * *

"Tell me who I am," Erik whispers it but it resonates like a roar of wind and Will, until every grain of sand comes alive, until every air molecule vibrates in synchronous orbit, until the soil under his feet rises up and encapsulates him. Erik grabs hold of every one of those errand wayward twisted strands and bends them in his hands until they go down, until they are so far under the Earth they are warmed by its molten core, who is he?  
  
The tears slip now, make his cheeks hot and red and he doesn’t know what it is that’s doing it, what’s making it so hard to breathe but it’s like Erik pricked all of the air out of the room and the only thing left is this, is what he’s choking on, is Will he’s tried to brush off and push right through him and around him and it doesn’t work now. It doesn’t work now and he’s trembling with it, he’s looking and he doesn’t want to be crying but there’s absolutely nothing to be done for it. There’s no use struggling against the tide when the tide is a metal fortress, stiff and firm and immovable. He’s forgetting why he wanted to. Or he’s remembering? He’s remembering? It hurts either way, there’s not enough of it in his lungs. “My Dominant,” he gasps out, and the tears fall harder and he gasps and gasps and gasps as if he’s just made the realization, as if it hasn’t been true this entire time, and he wouldn’t try to look away even if he could. His Dominant. Is he wearing a collar? Is he? Is it his Dominant that's disappointed in him? No, that can't be right, it's not, he - no...  
  
It doesn't matter where he struggles to, Erik is there. The entire universe is made out of Erik, no matter where he goes, no matter where he tries to splinter off into, it's into metal and fortitude and Dominion. Erik's fingers slip down to Charles's throat, and wrap around his collar. "Tell me who you are," Erik's voice murmurs and it's low and soft and lulling and the world growls it, harsh and guttural and completely unavoidable.  
  
He tries not to cry, but he can hear himself breathing, harsh, ragged breaths that turn into sobs and he tries to stay tense and not let it out but it does anyway, and maybe there aren’t tears but there will be. There will be because Erik is ripping it all back open, taking this wild-eyed, contorted, twisted-up Charles, this part that couldn’t find its place with the rest of the whole and - and this is what he’s been begging for, but he couldn’t find the words, couldn’t make them come out. He’s been spinning out since last night and it feels like Erik’s finally pumping the breaks, taking his hand off the wheel. He’s been white-knuckling it but it wasn’t doing any good. “Yours,” he breathes, and then sobs, dry and painful, and his chest is so tight but it’s not that he’s suffocating. It’s like he’s getting air back in after he spent too long holding it. He wants to say sir, he wants to say it so badly, but he bites on those red lips of his and there’s blood and he can’t? He can’t? He’s gasping so loudly. “Your - your submissive.”  
  
"That's right," the world growls softly, pleasure zinging off of the air particles that glow and glitter around him and surround him up, hands off the wheel, flying through the air entirely unencumbered by a vehicle itself, by Erik alone. Erik's fingers trace over his lips and dab away the blood, and Command him no more of that. "You are not alone anymore. You are mine. You belong to me. You belong here. Now you look at me and address me properly,' the world demands, the Order like a puzzle fitting pieces together, and he frames both sides of Charles's face in his hands, which practically eclipse his entire head.  
  
It feels impossible to breathe, but he knows it isn’t. He doesn’t think he’s panicking. He does think he’s close to crying and the longer it goes, the harder it is to hold it back, to be in control of himself, to fight. He’s forgetting why he wanted and needed to, and maybe some part of him still does but he’s not sure he can win anymore. He’s also not sure if that wouldn’t just be losing, he feels like that’s all he’s done. “Sir,” he whispers, finally, and it’s just barely a whisper, it gets swallowed by the gasping breaths he’s taking, the hitchy sobbing noises, but it’s there. It’s out there, it left his mouth, and he should have said it ages ago, shouldn’t he have? Wasn’t that - but… and maybe Erik made him say it, but Erik said if he needed help he'd help him and Charles had needed help. He'd needed help. He wants to make the choice, doesn't he, he does, he thinks maybe he does, but - but. But, but, but.  
  
Erik captures those tears on his fingernails, brushes them away, touches him gently and he has nowhere to go but to take it, to take what he is given because he is in his place because he is Erik's submissive and Erik loves him. And he cannot win that fight, he cannot wear Erik down and force him away because his love is a solid fortress of steel that permeates the atmosphere, no matter where the Landscape is now, no matter how fractured he is now, his love is undeniable. All of those aching, desperate parts of Charles inside of him, Erik cradles them in his hands, every shard, endures every cut as he puts them down and in their place. "And who do you belong to, _neshama_? Tell me." He gives Charles a pat on the cheek, not a slap but to direct his attention. "Who takes care of you. Who loves you. Tell me who I am."  
  
But he's still fighting. He knows he shouldn't, he knows there's no point to it, no use to it, that every second his grip on it loosens but he can't help it, not right now, not after he's worked himself this far into a spin. He tries to turn his head and there's nowhere to go, nothing to do but gasp again and blink out more tears and there's so much pressure, so much he didn't know was there and it's painful, it's utterly crushing, he doesn't know how he's stayed alive like this. "Y-You," he manages, just a little croak of the word, and he bites back the rest of it. But why? Why is he doing that? He knows, he does. It's safe to do this. To say this. It is. But it's so stuck, it's stuck so badly and - "Sir," he adds, and he has to close his eyes, they're blurry from tears anyway and he's shaking so hard he's out of position.  
  
No more buts. No out of position. Erik corrects him with a sharp rap of the reed. Posture straight. Erik stares and stares and stares at him and doesn't let him fight an inch, doesn't let him gain an inch. His hand is over Charles's neck, keeping him submerged, keeping him under. Under the Earth. Under the water. The only air is submission. "Now you disobeyed me last night, didn't you?"  
  
Any other submissive, even Charles in most other circumstances, and he would be practically mindless with subspace. Completely under, where Erik keeps pushing him, leading him, guiding him. But Charles keeps skimming, keeps trying to tread water, and it's not working. It really isn't. But he's trying not to cry, anyway, trying to shift himself, trying to breathe and there's only one answer to that question. He tries to bite back the noise he wants to make at it being phrased that way, but he thinks it might come out anyway. There's a short bob of his head and no words. How could he say it? How could he admit to it? But he knows the answer. He does. He did. Erik said right and he went left, and then left, and then left, sometimes just because - deliberately, he did it, he knows that. It's the only honest answer.  
  
"No, Charles, tell me. Use your words, tell me what you did. What you did as my submissive. What you did in the face of my Dominance." One after the other the Orders come, like waves crashing and crashing over Charles's head until he's pulled under then, too. Erik's hands haven't moved, but they slip down to his collar, and he doesn't break gaze for a second.  
  
Charles doesn't - he shakes his head, and then he gasps again, feels the tears building up behind his eyes, the tension there, this horrible pressure and it's all hitting him, over and over, he doesn't want to say it. His lips part and he does. "I - I disobeyed you," he whispers, cracked and small, and his cheeks are red again and it's anything but pleasure, it spreads down to his chest and up to his ears and he blinks and more tears fall. Not the rest, no more. He's under, he's down, no more.  
  
"You disobeyed me, what?" Erik whispers, the world whispers, and he brushes aside those tears, a soft touch against the harsh spikes. Charles disobeyed him. He didn't let Erik in. But now he has no choice, Erik has stormed the barricades and dissolved the castles until Charles is floating in the air suspended on a sunbeam, on Will itself. And he-well, that's what's deeply hidden. Deeply, deeply hidden underneath the depths. It's not a grudge, Erik doesn't hold those. Quick to anger, quick to let go, but this is something else. The source of his disappointment. "You are my submissive. Address me as such," he Orders softly.  
  
"Sir. I disobeyed you, sir," he gasps, and it's even worse the second time, if that's possible at all. He closes his eyes and hopes against hope that maybe the pressure will lessen, that he'll stop crying, that whatever it is that's wormed its way into his belly and congealed there will leave, but it doesn't. What is hidden? What? Why is Erik hiding it? Is it - he's disappointed in Charles. Charles disappointed him? He disappointed his Dominant?  
  
"The things you said," Erik whispers, gazing at him. It's warm and sad and bittersweet and gentle and fierce all at the same time, a melancholic chord plucked from right out of his chest. "What you said to me. What did you say to me?" he Commands Charles to tell him, an otherwordly entity of his own, his voice alight in the Universe, Will shimmering all around, reflected-stars.  
  
Charles blinks out more tears, and the noise he makes now is low and pathetic and he gasps into it but he doesn't know the answer to this. Not the one Erik is looking for. He knows he said things, and that many of them were unkind. He knows he implied things. But he didn't - it's not even that he didn't mean them, it's just that - they weren't for him. Doesn't he realize that? Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe it doesn't. "That - you couldn't take care of me," he whispers, but he doesn't think Erik understands how it happened. Does it matter? He wasn't asked that, so he doesn't offer it.  
  
"No, you tell me," the World whispers the Order at him, and roars at him and shouts and speaks as quiet as a mouse, and nothing at all, rippling energy in its stead.  
  
It wasn't aimed at Erik. It wasn't Charles thinking straight, it wasn't Charles thinking like Charles, not a full, whole Charles, a Charles who made the decision to wear Erik's collar. He knows he still was. He knows he thought it, even still, and that it hurt - it hurt Erik, he knows that. Maybe there are consequences, maybe there should be. But he wasn't in the same - it wasn't... things were out of sync. He wants Erik to know that. Things work differently now, wrong now, sometimes. Most of the time. The Void is trying its best but there's so much, and some of it is still gone or missing or corrupted. They haven't righted themselves yet. Sometimes when he thinks of Raven he thinks of her as a tiny, young girl, dependent on him, someone he must rock and sing to sleep and protect at all costs from the Markos. Sometimes he forgets, and last night he forgot, and he didn't mean to. He didn't mean to. He didn't expect it. He got lost. He got totally lost, the second he walked into that house, and he didn't know how to tell Erik because the Charles that lived in that house, that lived in that mind, he never learned. He was never taught. And maybe he needs to be, maybe he needs to be taught again, maybe he needs - but the point is, it was Charles, but he didn't have the right things. He didn't have the right tools, the memories in the right places. But even then, even there, he didn't take that corset off until the very end. He did let Erik in, as much as he could, he didn't push him out of his mind or his space, he didn't make him leave and he didn't point that out so Erik would feel bad, he meant it to mean I'm trying I don't know what else to do I want you to fix it but he wasn't clear. He disobeyed, he was defiant, he was rude and disrespectful and he had a choice. He had flashbacks and the wrong parts and he was afraid but he had a choice and he - he knows that. But he doesn't - didn't? Know some other things. The Void said it, too. Is that what you want to teach him? In some ways, Charles is new, and that's what he thinks Erik might not understand. In some ways, this Charles was just made. And the Void, it asked. It asked, at the end and beginning of the Universe, would you like to help me? It didn't just mean the mindscape.  
  
And Erik knows. He does know. He knows that Charles was scared. He knows that Charles splintered off, he knows that it wasn't malicious. Never, in any of Erik's being, was there even the possibility of a thought entertained that Charles was bad because he isn't. He's hurting. And it's Erik's job to right him. He said so himself. When Charles got home he would put him under. He belongs here, underneath the World itself. Erik doesn't blame him for his reactions. Erik doesn't think of him as awful or horrible. He's just human. He's just Erik's. Because Erik always has his back, always. Erik will always be there. Even if he's crazy and wild and stupid and makes the wrong choices, he is there and he is trying. Charles is Erik's boy, he always will be. And right now he is, submerged under the thick-veined hand of Dominion. Even now. And he knows that, too, that's why he never took the corset off until the last moment.   
  
Erik doesn't want to think about what really happened, what really nicked the part of his head that stalled because it isn't fair to Charles, to expose that hurt, when all it is, is insecurity. He's insecure in his own Dominance sometimes, and that won out, and sometimes it will win out. Erik ducks his head and defers to strangers and doesn't speak and hides in the bathtub and he's dramatic, he doesn't mean to be he doesn't want to be, he doesn't want to scare Charles or make him think that Erik only cares-only cares about his own trauma. Sometimes it will win out, he isn't healed, yet. There is so, so, so much left to do that they haven't even breached the surface of. But that doesn't mean his Will should not be followed. In that house, in this house, Charles belongs to Erik. And it isn't a consequence as much as it is a reminder of where Charles belongs. Of who he should have reached out to.  
  
But he does need consequences. He does need - he does need, and he was frightened about that, too, he always has been. He never stopped being that, whether it be for himself or for Erik, the fear that it would be... wrong. That he would be wrong. That he'd be told as much, that this was one of those twisted things Erik thinks he can hide from him but can't. Because Charles isn't healed, either, and even less so now. Charles is more broken, strictly speaking, than he's ever been. But he knows instincts, even under the bent ones. He does know that not all of it is backwards, not all of it is trauma. Some of it was meant to be there, but healthy instead of sick. And he's always hated it, when he's thought of it. He's always wondered how is needing this any different than the things that hurt me? Because sometimes he doesn't need gentle. Sometimes he doesn't need Erik to stroke his hair and kiss his forehead or sing to him, not right then, not the way Erik does, not yet, and what does that mean? What does it really mean, and the truth is, he still feels - thick-veined and suffocating as it is, wholly unignorable, he's still not there. He's still not. He doesn't feel like Erik's boy even if he is. He feels - He doesn't know. He does, and he doesn't. This is the first time, really, that this has happened. Charles has been disciplined before, but it isn't the same, he doesn't think, and he's new, anyway, and it's never been quite like this, if that's where this is leading. Child's Pose is bad enough. He's never - and he thinks he will again, it's inevitable, he will. He'll have choices, always, and he'll make the wrong ones. He'll be defiant, disobedient, disrespectful, he might even forget. But what if he promises he won't? What if he promises that, then does he really need to learn? To be taught? The Void thinks so but it could be wrong. That lump in his throat is back, his heart is beating too fast, there are tears back in his eyes that haven't fallen. "Are we... can we be done?" he asks, out of turn, but it's quiet and so small.  
  
"No, _neshama_ ," Erik brushes a strand of hair out of his face. He might forget, he might do it again, and Erik will still be here, because there are consequences to his behavior. And the reason for those consequences is to teach him a better way, to teach them both a better way. He can't promise he won't do it again. It's a setup for failure and Erik doesn't condone that, he doesn't hold Charles to unreasonable expectations, he doesn't say Charles can never act out or be defiant, but when it does happen he will bring Charles back in line exactly as he is, where he belongs. "Now I haven't told you to get out of position, so straighten your shoulders," he Orders. "We are not finished. What happened last night, that was not acceptable, and you know it, don't you? You know that you are supposed to lean on me. You know that you are supposed to anticipate my Will and you know the ways in which you are supposed to address me." And he does need to learn. And Erik will teach him. When he makes the wrong choices, Erik will be there to correct him. And despite how chaotic and miserable last night was, Charles is safe. Erik kept him safe. He still has choices. He still has the choice to be good. Erik will help him find it.  
  
Charles swallows, but this time, this time, he does as he's told. He straightens out even though the last thing he wants is to be in this position, and he tries to breathe and hear around his own heartbeat. What if he says he's sorry? What if he really doesn't do it again? There are still things to talk about. They could get up and talk about them. He'll let Erik touch him, even if it makes him restless. He swallows again, bites back another noise. "I - please let me up," he whispers, and it's not the answer to Erik's question and it doesn't address him properly and besides that it sounds too close to begging, all of that vulnerability this broken part, this piece of new-Charles has kept guarded this whole time starting to spill out. What if he pause-words again? Will it work then, too?  
  
"It will work," Erik tells him, "but it will not mitigate the consequences to your behavior. Now, I am your Dominant. That means you address me as what?" he gives him a little rap on the fingers, enough to sting and curl them inward to ensure he's paying attention.  
  
He's paying attention. "Sir," he whispers, and there's no room for attitude now, really, but there is apprehension. It won't? But if he gets them to pause for long enough, it might be enough. He gets sick now and if he's sick Erik can't do anything and then time will pass and he'll forget there was anything to do. He could say he's sick now. He's sure he has a fever. And maybe his headache is worse? He did drink yesterday, though he quickly throws that thought out because he's not sure if Erik is counting that as some kind of offense (it is in their contract, it's written as one of the few concrete, spelled-out rules they have that don't fall under the umbrella of be obedient, respectful, defer, but maybe Erik forgot that?). Or he could make the talking last longer. He has more to say, doesn't he?  
  
Erik absolutely did not forget, but he doesn't react, either. He has a perfect handle on Charles's physical state, and his own history gives him excellent insight into the human body and its capacity for handling pain. "And neither will any of what you are thinking about. You're going to stop entertaining ways in which to avoid this," he Orders quietly. "Do you have more to say, Charles? Be honest with me." That's an Order, too.  
  
Erik can't really make him stop thinking something, not really, but it does freeze him up. It's for more than one reason, and he knows he should give a verbal response, but he tenses instead, closes his eyes tightly, and gives the tiniest nod. Barely a twitch, easy to miss with his head bowed in this position.  
  
"Untense yourself and open your eyes. Tell me what it is you'd like to say," Erik delivers the stream of Orders calmly, and when Charles opens his eyes Erik doesn't allow him to look away.  
  
Charles' eyes are wet, but more than that, they're clouded over like he's not really seeing, and he starts to tremble head to toe, locking up again so he doesn't pull completely out of position. When he does speak, it's too quiet to hear, and considering Erik's hearing and how close he is crouched down like this, there's some obvious tampering happening. He can't. His chest hurts and his stomach hurts and his head hurts and he can't -  
  
"None of that. You are mine. You will tell me, Charles. You are the one who wished to speak further, now tell me what you would like to say. I am your Dominant, and you are my submissive. Now you will obey me and calm yourself and tell me."  
  
It still takes some time. Charles takes shaky, gasping breaths and he doesn't know why this is so difficult, except he does. He does know and it might not be exceptionally pleasant, but it is what it is. He's broken and new but he can make this choice. He can decide to do it even if Erik helped with it, even if he would have asked for it anyway and this is how - this is how it should have been, maybe. Maybe he can admit that. He's fidgeting because he has to do something, crosses his legs at the ankles and puts his head back down and mumbles it, "Sorry." Not proper, maybe, but he says it and he means it. He does. He has this whole time.  
  
Erik frames Charles's face again, tapping at his legs to put them back into position and then focusing on him, vivid emerald to azure. "What are you sorry for, _neshama_?" he whispers, and for the first time in what feels like days, he smiles for real, a flash, crinkling his eyes up in the corners.  
  
It makes it harder and it makes him want to smile back, too, even though he doesn't want to, at the same time, doesn't think he can, even as everything stays so completely wrong. He's not saying it so Erik will drop this, but it gets stuck in his throat, it hurts in his chest, and he shakes his head and fights two instincts, two urges, a bit fussy again despite himself, a low noise from between his teeth as he tries to decide whether he wants to buck Erik off or lean into his touch, a confused animal, vibrating with it. "For... being disobedient. Disrespectful. Not asking. Saying those things. I didn't mean them," he mumbles, and he doesn't say but. For the first time since this started, he doesn't say but, and it doesn't mean he's ready to accept the consequences because he really does - maybe he still can wiggle out? But he says it, he said it. Erik deserves to hear it, maybe.  
  
Erik's been telling himself that this whole time, he's been trying to tell himself that, but hearing it releases a tension from his chest he didn't know he was carrying and his expression softens. Affection seeps through. Erik loves him, always. "You're forgiven. Always," he whispers back. And part of that process is accepting the consequences, and Erik doesn't intend to skip any part of this. There is no wiggling out. There is no convincing or wheedling. There is only Erik and his indomitable Will. "Now, straighten out your arms and legs and lean into Child's Pose. You may keep your eyes open or closed. I'm going to strike you with this implement thirteen times. You will count each one, sir. If you fail to do so, I will add another." Everything he says is imbued with Command, with Orders and structure and he matches Charles's gaze. "Am I understood?"  
  
But Charles shakes his head. He shakes his head and he shakes his head and tears spring to his eyes and he reaches out of position and grabs Erik's leg, twists his fingers into the fabric of his pants because of course Erik is fully dressed, he almost always has been when Charles was disciplined and it nearly makes his throat close, the thought of it, he clutches tightly. "No," he gasps, and looks up with those wet, wild eyes, darkened, the blue edged out.  
  
"Remove your hand from my person, now," Erik Orders calmly. "And return to proper position."  
  
He knows this is a choice, too. He knows that. If he ever decided, truly and honestly, that this wasn't something he needed - he won't, because it is and he hates it and he knows it, especially new, for some reason, when it feels as if he's never had a healthy version of it, when he's fractured off - Erik would stop immediately. He would. He doesn't do it angry, or because he hates Charles and wants to see him suffer for the sake of suffering. Because he wants him to be humiliated. He'll never beat him until he can't stand, until bones break, until he passes out just for the hell of it or even at all, no matter what he does. Never. He knows, he knows, he knows. He also knows he needs this, or he won't ever feel better. He won't come back and the ache won't go away, it just won't. He wouldn't ever ask Erik to stop punishing him when he needs to be punished because he does - well, need. New and old, but maybe especially new. But the panic rises up in his chest and it's real and for a second it's fear, genuine fear, and he gets into position and that gets right back out, jerks up and he's never used his pause-word this close together (to be fair, he hasn't used it much at all), but he thinks it loudly and closes his eyes. From somewhere there's a sound of screeching.  
  
Erik waits for it to pass, waits for him to calm, and Orders him right back into position when he falters. He knows that Charles knows these things, but he also knows that he needs to be taught, as well. Charles doesn't say his pause-word, but Erik still pauses, still takes stock-it's a pause-word not a stop-word and sometimes, as Erik has told him, Erik will decide to keep going if that's what's necessary and this is. He gentles the tide that sweeps over Charles, of glittering Will and Dominion before he delivers the first stroke over Charles's shoulder. The implement he's chosen is reedy and swishy and thin, and it packs a wallop, but Charles can tell from Erik's mind that it's different. He's not looking for pain. He's not looking for humiliation. He's monitoring Charles's responses and selecting places where there won't be any damage. There won't even be any lasting marks. He avoids the spine, the chest, the neck, and it leaves a neat stripe behind on his skin. And because he is exceedingly generous, he reminds, "Number-?"  
  
But it's not a number that comes out of his mouth. Erik is looking for pain, because it hurts, and he remembers and has taken and endured much more, his pain tolerance is high but for some reason it's worse now, worse than it's ever been, it hurts more, it stings and there are immediately tears in his eyes again and they've not even started. Charles shakes his head. "I - please, I said I'm sorry," he croaks, and hunches his shoulders in. Erik forgave him, didn't he? Didn't he? So why is he doing this?  
  
He doesn't give Charles any opportunity to recover before he delivers another strike, this one less harsh, on the sole of his foot. _"Number,_ Charles. You know why we are doing this. I will not ask you again."  
  
It still makes him jerk, a cry escaping that he tries his best to bite back, to swallow, tears in his eyes he tries not to let fall but they do anyway. What if he doesn’t? If Erik doesn’t ask again, does that mean he doesn’t have to? He could say he lost track of the numbers. He could say a lot of things, and he said he was sorry. He did. But he whimpers out, “Two,” because technically it was, because Erik doesn’t have to add another, he doesn’t have to add any more at all. He’s learned his lesson. He’s better now. He curls his fingers, considers reaching out for Erik again, grabbing onto him and begging. He will if he has to. This is it, this is the surrender. This is where he would be good and take his punishment and Charles even knows it but he can’t, he can’t, and he doesn’t need any more, he’s learned, doesn’t Erik see that?  
  
"One," Erik Orders the correction sharply, "sir. Try it again or I'll be adding yet another." Erik is completely indomitable, his expression calm and calculated and assessing, green eyes clearer than they've been in days, his mind swirling and alive and electric with Dominion and sweeping outward. He can be merciful. He can be just. But he will deliver what he has promised.  
  
No. No, no, no. Erik is behind him and there’s nothing to grab without turning around, and to do that he’d have to break position and there’s no way he can do that without Erik putting him back. But he can’t do this, can he? He can’t submit to this? He thought he’d learned, but maybe he hasn’t. Maybe he doesn’t know. What makes it different? What really, truly makes it different? He knows. He knows, he knows, he knows - but isn’t it wrong to need it? Especially the way he needs it? Shouldn’t he fight harder? He never fought then, so shouldn’t he fight now? But he doesn’t want to. But he does? Tears spring to his eyes and he knows he’s about two seconds from getting another lash, and he’s desperate. He’s desperate, and he reaches out with his mind instead, because all those years and he never did that, he saved all his fight for after and even when he went back home, even when he went back to that house - and Charles wasn’t as powerful as he is now, but he was strong, and their minds were weak, and - his heart stutters in his chest when he realizes he’s done it to Erik, and he’s not even sure if he went through with it or just nudged in that general direction and he sucks in a shaky, harsh breath. “I didn’t mean to,” he whispers, and crumples in position. He didn’t mean to, but one time he told Erik he might do anything to wriggle his way out and what will Erik do if he tries? He waits for the inevitable. For Erik to pull back, to be horrified, to be angry, to be disgusted, but will he have won? Is there winning in this? Why can’t he just be good - is it because… but he wants it to stop, doesn’t he? He doesn’t want any more? He doesn’t need it?  
  
What he encounters, though, is that same metal fortress. Charles has never really tried to use his abilities against Erik before, and honestly Erik's always assumed that he could and that he was just existing by Charles's good graces, but that turns out decidedly not to be the case because it's more-than a nudge, from an Omega-level telepath, and Erik absolutely shuts him down. As if an invisible hand has come out of the sky and batted Charles's mind away, he ends up scattered on the opposite side of the World, both of them dissolved and when they re-form Erik is still behind him, still completely in-control and he brings the cane down hard against Charles's ass, where the maximal amount of impact can be dispersed accordingly and that means it hurts. A lot. "That's sixteen, and you have a second to count it right before I make it seventeen." Erik's voice is hard, and completely unforgiving.  
  
But he has used his abilities on Erik before, more than once, actually, and it has worked, though the effect was lessened significantly because Charles has never been particularly conscious about it, and he wasn’t this time either. Erik is not immune to them. He’s not invulnerable. That Charles knows, and it seems exceptionally important to him at exactly this moment though it never has before, and power has never, not once, been one of his main motivators in life except to survive, except to simulate it, except to keep the people he loved and himself safe. He’s never cared before what he can and can’t do, especially not when it applies to Erik, but for some reason, right now, it matters. It matters and it matters that he’s right. He could do it again. If he did more than nudge, would it work? He’s positive it would. Absolutely certain. Erik is wrong in this, and the Void is right, but that would mean utterly rearranging things, it would mean actively reaching out, and it would mean actually pushing, and it would mean that he did mean it. It would mean doing exactly what he assured Erik he would never, ever do, and for some reason even as he cries out at the cane hitting him, even as tears slip down his cheeks, it’s panic that hits harder, sends him into a gasping, coughing fit, the wind knocked right out of his chest and he can’t count and he can’t - breathe -  
  
"Take a breath," Erik Orders. Maybe he's right and maybe he's wrong but in the moment he's in control and that is what matters to him. "And cease this line of inquiry. Unless you plan on turning me into a vegetable, you are going to endure your discipline because it is what you have earned, and because our relationship and our contract is built on the acknowledgment that you be held accountable for your actions. Now, _one_ ," he demands, the Order harsh and unrelenting.  
  
Charles feels exceptionally stupid all of a sudden. His brain is spinning again, it’s crashing into walls and bouncing off cement, his thoughts are colliding full-force and he breathes but then he loses it again, there’s panic and blaring, red-alarm fear and he doesn’t have any clue where it’s coming from but it’s deep-seated and he’s not afraid of Erik and he - agrees, he must, he does - it’s just that before he’d been trying to get out of it and now he’s genuinely, seriously spinning and he’s already used his pause-word twice so why would Erik listen to him now? But he opens his mind and plays it on full blast, screeches it out so Erik can hear, there’s the sound of cracking and twisting from the Void the night before and panic so loud and crushing it’s pushing down on his ribs and he meant to wiggle his way out but he’s not now, he promises he’s not, just - he can’t breathe, he’s sorry, he can’t breathe, it’s not Erik it’s not to avoid consequences he just can’t breathe and Erik said to tell him to ask for help to always tell him if something was hurting him and he isn't it's just that he can't breathe -  
  
Erik kneels down in front of him, and touches his face, reorienting him to the world, to his touch, to his hand. "You can breathe," he whispers, and so does the World inside of him, every particle that is Erik's embracing every particle of Charles even if they're upside-down backwards-quarks. "Look at me. Look. Take a breath," he Orders it again, his tone stern, Commanding and demanding every ounce of attention Charles has to give.  
  
He gasps and sputters and leans right into that hand, right into that touch, breathing exactly as he’s directed and he doesn’t know why there’s that awful tightness in his chest but it’s lessening, it’s lessening, it feels less like someone is sitting on his chest now and he can breathe, Erik is right, his Dominant is right, of course he is, he can breathe. He can breathe. He promises he didn’t mean to his pause-word again, he didn’t do it to get out of it, suddenly that matters to him, he doesn’t want Erik to think he doesn’t take it seriously he does he’s sorry, please don’t be disappointed, he’s sorry, he’s taking hitching breaths that shake him right to the core, trembling all over, he doesn’t know why, help him? Erik will help him?  
  
"Always," Erik whispers. He knows. He knows Charles didn't do it just to get out of a punishment, he knows. "Just breathe. I told you if we needed to pause, we would, _tayer_. I am right here. Tell me. Tell me what has you so worked up." The Order is soft, but no less demanding than any other time.  
  
But he doesn’t know why. If he did, it would make more sense, he doesn’t want Erik to think he’s just making something out of nothing, that he did this just so he could have more time to wriggle out of things. Honestly, it’s the last thing on his mind now, he promises. “I don’t know, I swear I don’t know,” he sniffles, and then his chest is heaving up and down again and it doesn’t make sense to him. It was something about something, about power or telepathy or minds or Voids, none of it seems important or reachable now, he just knows that he’s still worked up. “Can… you hold me? Just for a second,” he promises, and looks down, closes his eyes, because part of him expects Erik to say no. It’s exactly what he’s been saying he doesn’t need and it’s vulnerable and it’s small and it’s scared and he doesn’t need it for long, he doesn’t think he’d be able to accept it for long, but right now he’s asking for it. He’s asking for it and if Erik says no, he says no, but he told him he could always ask for what he might need.  
  
Erik moves before he even asks, even verbalizes it out loud, tugging him up from Child's Pose and into his arms, feathering his hair between his fingers and wrapping his arms around tight, tucking Charles's head under his chin and gathering him in his lap. He'll give Charles anything. Anything he asks for, if it's respectful, if it's rational. He is different. He is not like Kurt or Cain. Maybe the intention was to cause pain, but Erik cares about his wellbeing. He cares about his submissive. "I've got you," he whispers. "I've always got you. Always."  
  
Charles whimpers as he settles in Erik’s lap, because honestly that last blow hurt something horrid and he hadn’t even fully registered over the panic, and it’s a reminder. It’s a reminder, because it smarts and there’s no comfortable position, he squirms now that he can, tries to find the spot he likes in Erik’s chest as he calms his breathing, but it isn’t a frightening reminder. It’s a shockingly soothing one. Erik takes care of him. He does, doesn’t he? He knew that already. He knew that already, he knew the entire time, but now it’s happening and he is being taught. Erik was hurting him - his ass is definitely reminding him of that right now - but he wasn’t hurting him, and he won’t. He makes sure Charles is safe, that he’s okay. He used his pause-word seriously and Erik helped him breathe, didn’t push him through it, didn’t force him, didn’t mock him. He’s holding him, and for the first time since this all started, even as he’s restless and panicky, Charles doesn’t feel as… loud? It’s different, here’s the evidence. He already knew but he’s new and he’s learning again and here he is, being taught. He presses his hand to Erik’s chest, slips it under his shirt with trembling fingers, feels his heart so he can try to match it with his and get his breathing evened. “I got scared,” he whispers, and he does what Erik said he could do before that Charles couldn’t do. He lets himself be vulnerable. He lets himself say it. He can’t do it all the way, he can’t yet, he can’t let go, something is still stuck, but it’s not as jammed. He’s safe, isn’t he? This is safe? This is okay?  
  
It's OK. And it's safe. Erik promises. He rubs Charles's back and his hair, puts his hand over Charles's and holds it up to his own heart, matches it to his breathing. "It's OK," he whispers, stroking Charles's cheek and smiling down at him. "I'm right here. I won't let anything happen to you." Charles is allowed to be scared. He's allowed to need help, to ask for help, he's more than allowed. He's expected to. Erik can cause pain, but he's not angry, and he's not violent. Not against Charles. He waits until he is in control, he doesn't take it out on him like that. And he never will. He doesn't like panic, he doesn't relish suffering and humiliation, whether it's in the middle of discipline or not. Charles can always lean on Erik, and Erik will be there to hold him through it.  
  
Charles starts to calm. Slow-going and ragged, hitched in some places where he clings tighter to Erik for the first time in a long while, unaware that he's doing it at all, but surely. His breathing starts to match Erik's, his heart stops crashing against his chest and pounding in his ears. He thinks maybe what upset him so horribly will be important later, but it isn't important now. He can't reach it and he's not sure why it caused that reaction in the first place, but now probably isn't the time for a longer, unrelated discussion. And as the seconds tick on, Charles bites his lip and realizes - "Are you still...?" He clings tighter, rubs his cheek against Erik's chest, and this is a Charles Erik hasn't seen in what honestly could be a forever. Just a second, just one more second, hold him for one more second? He takes a breath. "Do I have to take seventeen?" he whispers, quiet and small. He used his pause-word instead of counting. Even sixteen is a big number. It's going to hurt, isn't it?  
  
When the time comes, they will have that discussion, because it is important to Erik, but it's also important to him that they get through this. That Charles gets through this, that he is put right back into line where he belongs. Erik won't count pause-wording as failing to count, though, so he doesn't have to take another one. Sixteen, for now. Erik might be lenient if Charles is good, if he obeys, he might not earn searing pain with every one, but yes. It will hurt. But he won't be injured. He won't be harmed. Erik still cares about him, still loves him. That's why they're here. If he didn't, he'd just let Charles do and say whatever he wanted with no regard, and maybe that's why Charles gets so out of line when Erik doesn't immediately address the situation, and Erik can't promise that won't happen again, because he's committed to ensuring that Charles is only disciplined when he is in complete control of himself. But it will happen. Always. He still rubs Charles's back, not rushing him, letting him stay for as long as he needs to even out.  
  
And after all the wriggling around he did to get out of it, all of it he still wants to do - because Charles knows. He knows that if they don't do this, he'll completely spin off. He just knows that even now he still feels wrong, bent out of shape and contorted and that Erik petting his back and telling him he doesn't have to take anything might make him feel better in the instant it happens, but not for long after. That he'll get prickly and upset and defiant, that he won't want to be held or touched. Even broken he knows where that leads. For some reason, it matters to him, though, that he make the choice to take it even if it's not his choice at all, even if Erik would absolutely make him whether he liked it or not. He did that already, and Charles knows he still will. He swallows and for some reason this feels important to him, and he buries himself further in Erik's neck. He's not stalling, he's not looking for ways to avoid this. "Do I still have to count?" he whispers, into Erik's neck. Will Erik still add more if he doesn't?  
  
"Yes, you do, and yes, I will," he murmurs into Charles's ear. Erik isn't interested in a momentary relief, and it would never happen regardless. Charles belongs to him. This is where he belongs. And the Void was right about something else, too, something Erik isn't capable of admitting, yet. Because Charles isn't the only one who needs to be taught the difference. Erik is still uncomfortable with acknowledging how much he gets out of this, too. Making Charles cry and scream out in pain is-and despite it, he is using skills-and it's hard to know the difference, but he's learning, too. He needs it just as much.  
  
The Void tends to be right, but Charles and the Void are separate even as they're together. Erik's turn of thought makes him panic again, briefly, because - because there's one thing that bothered him more than anything in all of this, and he hasn't been vulnerable or unguarded enough to admit it. He takes strangled, confused breaths, grabs onto Erik's shirt. "Uncomfortable...?" It's only a part of the thought, not even the complete, contextualized one, which is a brilliant marker of where Charles is right now. He's not afraid, though. He isn't. But he's learning and he's changing, he's brand-new and what happens now will shape the way his mind forms from here. What do you want to teach him? the Void asked. Erik has more responsibility than any other Dominant has ever had; he's quite literally helping to shape the Universe.  
  
And prior to Israel, he'd been learning, too. He'd been getting more comfortable and it's started to backslide a bit. But they're paused. Erik can bow his head against Charles's and let out a long, shaky breath. He's a little new, too. But he can handle the responsibility. If anyone could, he can. He can't say it out loud, but he opens his mind a little more. So Charles can see. Uncomfortable admitting how much he needs it, too. It's not just about being like Shaw, it's about being like himself. About being the way he was with Shaw. Killing and hurting people. Relishing pain. Charles isn't scared of him? Promise? He doesn't want to teach Charles fear. He wants to teach him consistency and reliance and structure and security. He wants to teach him that when he needs Erik, Erik will be there for him, in whatever way necessary, even if he doesn't always agree with it or like it, even if it's not always soothing and comforting. Erik likes holding him and petting him and singing to him, but that isn't the only way Erik knows how to be there for him.  
  
Charles squirms in Erik's lap because he's forgotten why he wasn't, and that makes him gasp, whimper quietly, but somehow that soothes him. It takes him a long time to do it, and he doesn't know if he likes it like this, still all bent-up, but he opens up, too. He completely hides in Erik and he opens up, though it's scrambled in there, some things don't make much sense and some of them are still loud and defiant and want to push Erik out. They say things like let me go and I don't need this! Even they're not afraid of him. Charles isn't afraid of him. But he does get scared, he is scared, that maybe he should be afraid of himself, of the thoughts he has, the same way Erik does. Because sometimes he can't tell the difference, between needing things and his - he can't say the word, but what happened to him. It's not that he doesn't know. But sometimes he doesn't need gentle. Sometimes he needs firm and strict and unyielding. Maybe a lot of the time, even. And isn't that just making Erik - you won't make me, Charles Xavier, I won't let you! Isn't that part of why Erik got so mad? Because Charles needed something bad? Haven't they been fighting about this since the beginning, if Charles thinks and thinks about it and tries to remember?  
  
But there's nothing bad about it. And even if Charles never got bent out of shape and never asked for it, it would still exist for Erik. He's afraid of being aggressive and losing control and breaking Charles's trust in him. He's afraid of causing real pain, and he probably always will be, but that's what makes him careful, too. It's what makes him pause when Charles needs it, but it's also what makes him push forward when he needs it, too. He got mad because his feelings were hurt. It wasn't a mature reaction, and he's still pretty ashamed of it. There isn't anything that Charles needs, for real, that isn't compatible with Erik, too. Charles doesn't have to be scared of that. There is a difference, for both of them. Erik is far stricter and more unyielding than he lets on, and Charles knows it, it's why he's always searching for it. Until Erik can accept that part of himself there will always be conflict, and that isn't Charles's fault. Erik needs to learn, too. Charles is teaching him, too.  
  
But - there's a but again, but it's not loud and explosive and defensive and defiant, it's just quiet, it's just frightened, it's just uncertain. There's shame in Charles, too, and he's absolutely refused to acknowledge it until this point, because it's not just shame, it's guilt. It won't go away until - but what matters is, it's there, and it makes him curl up smaller, it makes him swallow loudly, he grips even tighter to Erik's shirt with both hands and winds the fabric up in his fingers. He shakes his head.  
  
Erik puts his hands over Charles's and squeezes with his left, tilting his chin up. "Tell me," he Orders softly.  
  
It's just that there's always something that seems to upset Erik, and Charles knows that it must be bad. Because Erik said nothing is incompatible? But it almost always makes him upset. So Charles is doing something wrong? He's being horrible? His mind is working strangely now, almost simplistically, and he shakes it again like it might rattle it out. It's being new and it's processing, but it's still jammed. They don't need to talk about this now, right? Charles starts to move again, starts to get restless.  
  
He strokes Charles's jaw and stills him with a hand on his shoulder. "You're here because of me," he whispers. "Because I want you to be here." Because this is what he needs, too. It's not bad. It's not horrible. It's just normal. And Erik isn't upset about this. He's not upset. It's not always easy for him to admit that he needs this as much as he does, but he's admitted it. Charles is exactly where he is supposed to be.  
  
But Charles didn't mean that. He shakes his head, and he makes one of those fussy sighing noises, trying to move against the tide again because if Erik touches his shoulder and wants him to stay he knows he's not going go be able to get far. He struggles anyway, and that just reminds him of why they're here, and that he already hurts, and that he still has to be punished but he isn't afraid and he isn't even thinking about the dread of it, right this second, he's thinking - Erik said he knows exactly why he's going to be disciplined, and he does. He said it. He was willfully and deliberately disobedient and disrespectful and he said things that were hurtful, he thought he could get away with them. That was a choice. He had other options. But is he being punished for this, too? Does it make Erik mad? Should Charles feel guilty about it?  
  
Absolutely not. It's part of Charles's submission, and there is no part of that Erik would ever want him to feel guilty about. He isn't mad about it, he never has been. And he can't get far, because Erik is right there, the tide entirely immutable. Charles is right where he belongs, and there is no reason for him to feel guilty over that. He's being disciplined for his choices, for not adhering to Erik's expectations, but Erik has always expected him to submit. He will never be punished for that.  
  
But that's still not what he means, and that's Charles' fault because he's not saying it. Maybe it's a part of it. He thinks maybe it's a part of it, his submission, because he thinks maybe it's a part of him. But is it trauma or is it him? Does it make a difference? Is it part, hurting and fragile, or is it whole, is it there when he's healed? If it isn't, should he - will Erik try to get rid of it now? But it seems like such a stupid thing to fret about, but every time, including last night, every time it upsets Erik. He thinks it's mean and spiteful and it's not. It can be defiant. It can be vicious. It can be a sign. It can be surrounded by the mean, spiteful things, and those things he knows Erik wants to hold him accountable for, and that makes sense. But is it the same thing? Does Erik think it's bad? He can't say it, it's so stupid, he can't say it, and now he's really flailing in Erik's arms, his leg kicks out and he even - he pushes against Erik's chest, like he's pushing him away -  
  
Erik grabs his arm and traps it against his own chest, gazing at him sharply. "Stop it. Be still and tell me what you mean, Charles. Now."  
  
For some reason that calms Charles down a bit instead of upsetting him more like it has every other time, and he bites his cheek and closes his eyes. "No touching," he mumbles.  
  
"Stop," Erik murmurs again, Ordering it. "There is no part of you that I want to be rid of, nor that I think is bad. I am not going to try, but when you step out of line, I will be here to correct you. Now tell me," he Orders sternly.  
  
Charles is confused for a second, blinking, and then he realizes that Erik didn't understand that he was actually obeying. He's pretty sure it was an Order the first time, even. He shakes his head. "No touching," he repeats, and he shrinks into Erik, keeping his mind firmly to himself.  
  
"Explain," Erik murmurs, and he's not certain if Charles is telling him to stop touching him, but he's leaning into him, so he doesn't yet. He keeps still, though. He tugs on those threads, too, until they have no choice but to unravel and obey Erik's Command.  
  
He's not. That would make hiding in Erik difficult, which he's absolutely doing right now. It's just that Erik has made it clear that touch settles him, it calms him more than anything, he always wants to be touching Charles, and Charles, the majority of the time, needs the same thing like he needs to breathe. He clings and he buries himself in Erik, practically lives in that one spot against his chest and in his neck, crawls into his lap constantly, likes to touch Erik's hair and play with it and be kissed and kiss back, touch back even though he still gets shy sometimes, might especially now, and he likes being trapped underneath Erik in any position, by arms and legs and strength. He likes when Erik touches his back and hips and even his ass when they're in public. He feels loved and owned and happy. If he's in subspace and Erik's not touching him, if he's deep enough, he's been known to cry. It's distressing and even downright frightening. He likes - well, he likes being touched in general. Except when he doesn't. It's always when he's upset, it's always when he needs something that's not gentle, when he's frustrated or scared or hurting or defiant or all of the above. He turns his head away from kisses. He doesn't settle in Erik's lap. He tries to walk away, or makes faces when he's pulled in for a hug, mumbles in protest when Erik plays with his hair. He struggles or goes completely limp. And Erik is always so hurt by it, but Charles - so there are parts of him that are bad, aren't there? That are wrong? Because he shows Erik, it's not something he chooses. He can choose his words even when he's angry, he knows he should be able to, but this is a feeling. This is being uncomfortable or upset. It's bad, isn't it? And it's been upsetting Erik forever - somewhere he doesn't recognize, a long, long, long time ago, he shoulders Erik's hand off his shoulder and Erik goes cold and Charles - will Erik fix it?  
  
Erik shakes his head. That wasn't why his feelings were hurt. It's not bad. Charles is allowed to be uncomfortable or upset, he doesn't need to accept being touched if he doesn't want it. Erik tries to honor that, most of the time. He was just upset, and he was trying to calm himself down so that he could be what Charles needed. He's not always good at self-soothing. But it's not wrong, and Charles isn't being punished for that. Erik only cares about his choices, about his decisions. That's not Charles's problem, it's Erik's. There is nothing that needs to be fixed. Erik can be there for him in the ways he actually needs, and that's important for both of them.  
  
But - it makes Erik upset? It isn't why he got his feelings hurt, but it made him upset? Charles can think of other times too, if he tries really hard to root around in there and make sense of them. Does Erik think Charles wants to make him upset? He doesn't. He swears he doesn't. And he wants to be what Erik needs, too, and Erik needs touch so shouldn't Charles need touch? Why is he broken sometimes? And it's not like he wants Erik to leave him alone, he doesn't ever actually want that, maybe sometimes he does actually need space and independence but most of the time what he actually needs is just a different kind of touch than what Erik is giving him, and that's... Erik can fix him if he wants. He doesn't want to hurt Erik. He doesn't, doesn't Erik know that?  
  
Erik doesn't want. Charles isn't broken. "I know, _neshama_ ," he whispers, rubbing his back. He never thought that Charles was malicious or bad. He did think that maybe he meant it. Because Erik's always making mistakes and never doing the right thing. He said Erik doesn't know how to take care of him and never thinks to ask, he said Erik always acts like he's-better than Charles, or knows more-and that wasn't something someone says in the heat of the moment, was it? Erik doesn't want to hurt Charles, either. Never. He doesn't think he's righteous or morally superior. He thinks that he always cares about Charles's interests, even when Charles can't, sometimes. What Erik needs, more than anything else, is submission, and that is fully within his power regardless of if it's gentle or not.  
  
But Charles shakes his head again. He didn't mean it, and this is something he would have said after but he can say it now, think it now, while Erik is holding him and things are paused. He really didn't. He was just stuck, and he didn't remember all of it. He was projecting and he was hurting and he didn't do the right thing. People have always assumed they know what Charles needs, and the fact is they usually don't. But Erik does. Sometimes Charles understands, and sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he does and Erik doesn't, and that's okay, but Erik made that an expectation. A rule. If he doesn't know, Charles has to tell him. He has to let him know, so Erik can ask, or can be told, so he can know. So he'll try. And Erik won't think it's bad when Charles doesn't need to be kissed and spoken softly to, when he needs other things instead, even if he needs those things a lot? It won't make him feel bad?  
  
Erik shakes his head. He still struggles with the fact that he-that he likes this part of Charles's submission just as much as every other part, that he likes disciplining him and putting him back in place, that he likes being strict and unyielding, because-those are the same impulses that made him-made him hurt people, really hurt people. And he doesn't want to hurt Charles. But he's not going to. It's different. And he does like it. It doesn't make him feel bad that Charles needs it. Never.

* * *

Charles thinks, far off and hazy, that maybe there's a longer discussion that needs to happen, about last night, about what comes after, but he also thinks he can't have it right now. Not calmly and not with the kind of care it needs, and not the way they should have it. He does calm in Erik's arms at those thoughts, feeling less spiky and worked up again, almost letting himself go except he can't, yet, and he knows why, and it makes him tense and bite his lip and peek up at Erik. "Do you still have to...?" Maybe Erik changed his mind?  
  
Erik's lips twitch. "Yes, I do. And I know that you're going to do a good job and take your discipline without fuss, so get back onto position, OK?"  
  
Charles swallows visibly, and he pulls back from his spot hiding in Erik's chest, but doesn't immediately move into Child's Pose. He nods, and he will, he doesn't want Erik to have to specifically Order this, to make him, he will. He can make that choice now. It isn't easy and part of him very much wants to argue, to make the fuss, but he doesn't. He just bows his head and keeps biting at his lip, stomach twisting itself around and around. _Can you say it first?_ he asks, and it's not even out loud, like he can't, his face red with it. _Please... sir?_ he adds, even though it's hard like this.  
  
He touches Charles's cheek, guiding him to opening his eyes and looking at Erik. He knows what Charles wants him to say, but he won't let him skirt and shy away from that, either. "Tell me. Tell me what you want me to say, hm?" he Orders warmly, tapping at his bottom lip to get him to release it from between his teeth.  
  
He considers just going to his cheek, biting there instead, but something stops him, the same way it did last night from taking off that corset. Because Erik is being soft, warm, and part of him wants to squirm but the other part, the bigger part right this second leans into it, nuzzles into Erik's hand. "Love me," he whispers, under his breath but it's still out there. He still said it even if it was difficult.  
  
Erik leans forward and brushes his lips over Charles's brow. "I love you," he whispers, fond. Charles knows that, right? He knows Erik loves him? That Erik is devoted to him, that him and their children are Erik's top priority? He knows Charles has difficulty sometimes, but that will never, ever, make Erik stop loving him. Even if he's vicious or mean. Erik will still be here. He will be here to put Charles back into place, where he belongs. Whether that's gently or sternly, or both at the same time.  
  
Some part of that is confusing for Charles, but he knows even through the haze. He knows, as deeply and wholeheartedly and intimately as he knows anything, the same way Erik must know he loves him, too. He knows, doesn't he? That Charles really meant that he's sorry? That he really didn't mean those things, that he doesn't want to leave or have Erik leave? But now he does have a chance to prove it. Because it's not just about him, is it? They talk about it like it's just about him, but it's not. It's for Erik, too. Right? Isn't it? It's important for Erik, too. Erik was - is - disappointed, he was disappointed, and he was upset and he was hurt because he expects better. That stings, and it churns his stomach, and it nearly makes him tear up, but that's the reality of it. So Charles takes a big, shaky breath and lets it out slowly, and then he climbs out of Erik's lap without being told. He puts himself in Child's Pose without being Ordered.

* * *

Erik knows, but the biggest indicator that he does know is that Charles is willing to take his punishment without fighting, because the biggest thing has always been that Charles understand the reasons behind Erik's actions, that he knows why he's being disciplined, otherwise it isn't an effective tool. And he's right. It isn't just about Charles. Erik has been off-kilter for a long time, too. He's promised not to take it out on Charles, but that doesn't mean it doesn't erupt and boil over in other ways. He needs to put himself back into place, too, to be Charles's Dominant, so when he rises to his feet, and the cane extends in his hands again, it's with renewed purpose. "You will start at one," Erik tells him, and the warmth from before has melted into strict firmness.  
  
Charles closes his eyes tightly, grateful that Erik said he could, but there isn't much to see with his head down anyway. It just makes him feel better. That being said, nothing is really making him feel better, because he understands, he does, and he's willing to accept the discipline Erik deems necessary, to take it, but he's not at all looking forward to it. High pain tolerance or not, he's exceptionally sensitive right now, the last blow still hurts and if Erik lays another on top of that? But it's not fear, it's not terror, it's not this isn't fair! like it was. It is dread. It's also acceptance, and it's guilt and it's shame and it's the reminder that it's part of why this is different. He'll feel better when it's over, won't he? He'll be where he belongs when this is over, but he has to endure it. So he tries to breathe evenly, he tries not to tense up because that never helps, and he says, "Yes, sir," quiet but audible.  
  
Erik doesn't lay the first one over the last one, but when it does strike down, it isn't light, either. He brings the cane down swiftly over Charles's shoulder, his arm snapping with a good deal of strength behind it and laying a strip neatly under the others there. And he waits, for Charles to count, and for him to address Erik properly on top of it. Unyielding. It's what's needed, and it's what he is. It's what he needs to be.  
  
And Charles does, after he's finished whimpering. "One, sir," he whispers, and he can already feel tears beginning to form, he can already feel them squeezing out through firmly closed lids. It takes him until three to start sniffling, and five to let the tears fall in earnest, and by ten he's crying out loudly at each one, shaking even though he's trying not to, and every stripe on his body seems to have blended together into hot, terrible, inescapable agony. It seems as if Erik has struck him everywhere, and he's renewed his resolve that he well and truly does hate the cane, because new like this it feels as if they're being freshly acquainted and they are decidedly not friends. It hurts. It hurts, exactly as Erik promised, and he has absolutely no idea how he'll take six more. He stutters through a high-pitched, gasping cry that turns into another whimper, snot and tears all over his bowed face and he manages, "E-Eleven," when it comes, except it's followed quickly by, "Please, it hurts, it - I'll be good, I promise, I'll be respectful and I won't - I won't -" They are promises he wants to keep, or there would be no point to this. But the point is to make sure he learns his lesson, isn't it? He's learned, he promises. It hurts, he can't imagine it not hurting ever again, even though that's ridiculous. It just hurts.  
  
The marks on Charles's body are along his arms, legs, shoulders and his ass and a few on his feet, spread out in neat rows. "I know you will be good, because I am ensuring that you face the consequences of your behavior. Now, back into position," he Commands sternly, giving him an extra jolt for failing to address him correctly.  
  
At thirteen, he screams even though he can't make sense of why it was worse than any of the others, and when he hiccups out the count and his sir, it almost sounds like a gargle. He's sobbing so loudly and violently it's difficult to breathe, coughing through it. By fourteen, he's begging again, saying please I'll be good I promise I'll be good I'll listen I'll do what you tell me and at fifteen he nearly doesn't get out his count around the long, drawn out whimper. He squirmed somewhere in the middle, not defiance, just a response, but Erik put a stop to that and now he's limp and compliant and there's no fighting. Absolutely none. He doesn't remember how many he was supposed to get? It has to be over soon, it has to be, right? It hurts. It's all he can think, besides I'll be good I'll be good I'll be good. It hurts, it hurts so bad, he's sorry -  
  
Erik brings the cane down a final time, right over his ass. The marks that Charles has are neat, layered in rows, over areas that absorb the impact well but they're also aesthetic, too. They're arranged and oriented, they aren't splashed against his skin carelessly, and Erik doesn't respond to begging and pleading, he doesn't. He is a wall, a fortress, impenetrable. But when he delivers the final strike, that's it. It's over. Charles took his punishment. He took the consequences. Erik crouches down, frames his face, tells him to sit up, sweetheart. I've got you. You're mine. I love you.  
  
Charles hasn't a clue where the marks are, really, because all he knows is that it hurts. What feels like all over. It hurts and he knows it's supposed to and it does and he's completely let go, there's nothing held back, there's no guarding. He lets Erik gather him up and falls limply and totally vulnerable in his arms, sobbing still, whimpering because the contact smarts but he needs it, now, the way he denied it before, needs it so badly and crying and crying and crying all those tears he wasn't letting himself before and gasping for breath and he's under. There's no existing without Erik, no breathing without Erik, and he's babbling and he can't see through the tears and his limbs feel useless but he's gasping, "M' sorry, m' sorry, sir, be good, gonna be good, be so good, sorry, promise, be good, love you yours -" It all jumbles together, around sobs.  
  
Erik rocks him through it, wraps him up and feathers a soothing blanket over his body and guides him to lay back on the mattress, in Erik's arms, because Erik has him. "I know, I know," he whispers. "You're my good boy. I know you're going to be good for me. I know, I know," he rumbles into Charles's ear, drawing his fingertips down the marks on his shoulders and easing their rawness. Erik is metal-breathing, great, looming structures coming to life for Charles, underneath his touch, his perception, and he rises up and handles it when Charles begins to cry, one breath at a time. In and then out.  
  
Charles keeps crying. He keeps crying, and crying, and crying, and he keeps promising the same things, that he'll be good and he'll listen and he'll be respectful and he's sorry, until the words just dissolve into more sobs. It hurts, it hurts but he isn't afraid and he doesn't feel bad, he isn't humiliated or ashamed or guilty or defiant or rebellious or twisted up, he feels like finally, after far too long of pressure and tension, it's finally broken. Maybe, new like this, he's never known anything else and all of a sudden he does. He does. Whatever was stuck inside of him is gone, it's melted right out It's such a relief that he honestly can't handle it, like he's been taught how to breathe after years of suffocating. Eternities. It's too much. It all comes out and out and out until Charles can't cry anymore, until the only thing that comes out are tiny, pitiful little whimpers, hiccups, and he clings and clings and clings. If Erik let go he'd die, he'd just die, will Erik keep holding him, please, please, please sir? Will he keep teaching him how to breathe and be good?  
  
Erik rocks him back and forth, pets his hair and sings to him and reads him poetry from inside the molecules of his collar-(Who can say what the world is? The world is in flux, therefore unreadable, the winds shifting, the great plates invisibly shifting and changing–Dirt. Fragments of blistered rock. On which the exposed heart constructs a house, memory: the gardens manageable, small in scale, the beds damp at the sea’s edge–As one takes in an enemy, through these windows one takes in the world: here is the kitchen, here is the darkened study. Meaning: I am master here. When you fall in love, my sister said, it’s like being struck by lightning-) always, always teaching him. Always keeping him. Charles belongs here. Erik is settled. He's finally settled. His shoulders are down, his muscles are relaxed. He's settled. The howling beast has been assuaged. "I've got you," he murmurs lowly. "That's it. I know you'll be good. My good boy. I've got you."


	81. Everything is Darkness and Light I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _civil war correspondent_ , PJ harvey

Erik has him. Charles is calming, and then he's floating, still hiccupping, still covered in his own tears, but he's so calm. Not bursting, not fussing, not raging, not out of place. It feels so exceptionally good even as the pain lingers and smarts, and Erik has him, he's holding him and he's not disappointed, he's forgiven him and it's over and all done and Charles is so under, floating so wonderfully. He noses into Erik's chest, finds the safest, warmest place, and he's wondering - Erik, too? He touches, plays with the buttons of Erik's shirt idly, touches his chest underneath and rubs his cheek against him, and now he's purring. Purring and floating and curious, and so very Erik's. Erik's boy. All done.  
  
"Me too? Hm? Me too?" Erik's nose scrunches up and his eyes wrinkle, and he laughs, the buttons of his shirt parting easily under Charles's touch to reveal skin. There are some scratches on his neck and shoulders, mud and dirt that didn't get washed away in the rain last night, but he doesn't even know they're there. He's at peace, he's finally at peace, they both are. They're back in line, back where they belong, two halves of the same coin. " _Gam ani?_ " he grins and pokes Charles in the side, tickles under his chin.  
  
But something strange happens, when Charles rubs against him, when his tears drip onto his chest, when he touches because he needs to touch, mostly fumbling. The scratches go away. Charles doesn't do it consciously, or knowingly, he's purring and trying to get closer, eyes closed, floating and floating under; but from inside, somewhere Erik can see, the Void winks. Charles can't, could never, but it can, though it won't tell how. A gift, because Erik knew exactly what to do, and did he really need the help at all? But he's here to help, even though now it's only Charles, giggling helplessly as he squirms and nuzzles into bare skin, only whimpering when those marks rub against sheets, but it doesn't unsettle him. He's just wondering if - but is it okay to ask? He's shy, not hiding but curious, open and vulnerable and so weightless, wriggling as he tries to get closer, closer, closer.  
  
Erik gasps and touches his neck, staring at Charles. This happened before, too. A gift. He isn't sure that Charles knows what just happened, but he rolls with it, hooking onto other thoughts instead like a big amoeba floating in a giant vat. "Of course it's OK. Ask me," he huffs, beaming as he rolls over to better situate Charles in his lap. "You gotta ask?"  
  
Charles doesn't. In this he's totally oblivious, and to anything but curling right into Erik's chest, murmuring happily as Erik's arms come around him more fully. He nuzzles in and inhales. Will Erik pet him more, please? But he tries to remember what it is he wanted to ask, kissing at his Dominant's chest because it's skin and he wants to feel, and touch, and feel, still clumsy but sweet. "Good, too?" he whispers. Erik said he needed this, too. Does he feel better, too? All better? Does he know how nice Charles feels now? Erik always says that touching is healing and nice, and it is, but - discipline heals, too? Because Erik didn't hurt Charles, not really. It does hurt - he whimpers, nuzzles closer, thinks hurts - but he feels better now. All done. He's not uncomfortable anymore? Erik said uncomfortable. Charles wants him to not be uncomfortable.  
  
Erik strokes down his skin, careful to avoid the marks, soothing over them with gentle fingertips when he passes by and kissing his jaw, tucks his hair behind his ears and tilts his head up to kiss him, smiling against his lips. "Very good, dear-heart," he whispers back. The more this happens, the more Erik learns, too. That this is good. That he didn't hurt. That he didn't harm. He makes sure to check, even still. It's all done, all better, _kol beseder_ and all of the tension that's been resting in his muscles since last night has seeped out and away, leaving him quite jelly-limbed. "Feel good, hm?" he taps Charles on the nose, affectionate.  
  
Charles is jelly, too, flopped bonelessly against Erik and nuzzling and kissing into his chest, fingers tangled up in the material of his shirt just so he can hold on to something, so he can tug between his fingers and touch underneath and around. Just touch, grazing, idle patterns, like he’s fascinated, like he’s never done this before. Maybe he hasn’t. He shivers when Erik touches all of those places the cane did, but arches into them instead of away, knowing instinctively that his fingers will soothe, that it’s over, that it’s meant to hurt and he’ll have the reminder but there’s no more. All better, much better, all of the nasty things expelled out of him and the only thing left is this, soft and sweet and purring in Erik’s arms, impossibly under the surface. “Yes, sir,” he murmurs, beaming up at his Dominant, and he leans up to hide himself in his neck, to kiss there. Sensual, seeking, needy. Something occurs to him and he frowns against Erik’s skin, rocking to soothe himself. “Don’t make me,” he whispers.  
  
Erik's eyebrows raise and he pulls back, to look at Charles fully, bowing their foreheads together. He's soothed down by this, too, by Charles touching him and kissing him when all those scars under Charles's fingertips seem to flash brighter than usual with how disjointed his mind has been since their return to the States, but right now all Erik cares about is having his submissive in his arms, and he presses a kiss to Charles's forehead. "Don't make you what, _tayer_?"  
  
It isn’t fussing, but he does whine when he’s asked the question, ducking back into Erik’s neck, nuzzling in there for a long moment before he can speak again. “Go up,” he mumbles. He knows it wasn’t the reason everything crashed. There were a thousand more factors than that. He knows it’s not practical to be in subspace sometimes, that it won’t be the only time Erik has to gently force him out of it, coax him back up to the surface. But he doesn’t want to right now. Is that okay? Erik won’t make him go back up right now? He can stay here? He’ll be good, he promises.  
  
"Right here," Erik whispers back, smiling down at him gently. It's perfectly OK. This is exactly where Erik wants him to be, and that's not going to change anytime soon. "No, no," he promises, murmuring it into Charles's ear. "Staying right here, with me," he runs his fingertips down Charles's spine, brushing his nose against Charles's neck, kissing just above his collar.  
  
Charles calms at that, purring again as he’s touched, shivering into Erik’s kisses. It’s nice, and it feels good, and he doesn’t want to leave. He does have another question, something Erik said before, and it’s hazy and it takes a little concentration but he finds it again, shyly plays with Erik’s shirt as he stays nudged into his neck, where it’s safe, and it’s warm, and it smells like home. “Did you mean it?” he asks, small and sad. “That you can’t trust me anymore?” He doesn’t want that to be true, but he understands if it is. He promises that he can be good, though. Erik taught him better. He learns. He does.  
  
Erik does trust him, but it would be a lie if he said that he wouldn't react differently to the same situation knowing now what he does about how Charles will react, promises or otherwise. He doesn't know if he can say with certainty that he believes Charles will be able to speak up for himself when necessary, that he will tell Erik what he needs in the future, but they'll handle that situation when it comes, and Erik isn't going to _never_ let him try again. Of course he is. He always will.  
  
Oh. For some reason, even though he already knew it was true, it comes like a kick to the gut, winding him terribly. He goes still against Erik's chest, his lip starts to wobble, and he's only just stopped crying but he has no defenses against it now. He knows it's fair. He just hoped maybe it was different. "Okay," he whispers, and closes his eyes, batting it away. But he can't hide anything like this, and there's sadness, there, lingering around them. He takes his hand from Erik's chest and folds it in his own lap.  
  
Erik picks his hand up, though, and raises it to his lips, kissing over each one of his knuckles. If Charles tells him something, Erik will trust him. He will still listen, he will still consider. That hasn't been broken. Erik isn't going to be doubting him or second-guessing him. Charles doesn't deserve that. But if this happens in the future, it's likely the situation won't devolve like this again. Erik will trust himself. He'll listen to his own instincts the first time around.  
  
But he doesn't think Charles can do it? It's sad, not angry, not rebellious or huffy; why would he, when Charles didn't? But he doesn't want Erik to doubt him, not in anything. How can he promise he'll always be good when he knows sometimes he won't be, that he can't be? Will Erik always not trust him after that? Will he not let him be on his own? He doesn't want to be alone now, the thought panics him and then he clings again even as tears gather in his eyes, he twists his fingers back in Erik's shirt, but he knows he will. Maybe soon. If Charles messes up, will Erik think he can never do it? Will he not want to let Charles choose because he sometimes chooses wrong? He knows he doesn't deserve to be trusted, right, it's okay. He just wishes Erik did. He really can be good. He really does learn. But why would Erik believe him when he promises?  
  
"I believe you, _neshama_ ," Erik whispers back, pressing the palm of his hand to Charles's chest. Erik doesn't think he can never do it. Erik knows that he can, and that he has in the past, and that he absolutely will in the future. And when he doesn't, Erik will be there to correct him back into his place. He doesn't need to promise to always be good. He just needs to be here, with Erik. "And I trust you. You will always have the choice," he assures softly. Erik could make him, but it's meaningful when Charles can choose it for himself, too, and Erik wouldn't deny him that.  
  
The choice, as it turns out, and having it, being given it, is one of the things most important to Charles. Being trusted by Erik, and Erik believing in his ability to uphold his Will, even after he fails to, matters even more. It had nearly broken him when he wondered if he should. But he does, and Charles wants to do better next time. Not just to prove himself, but because he knows Erik has rules for a reason, just like he'd said. And he isn't free and independent. That was a choice, too. He smiles as all of this crashes through him, settles firmly back in place with him. They're simple concepts that he never stopped believing in, but now New-Charles is learning them, integrating them into himself. It feels like healing, physically even when he moves again and all those marks smart terribly and he gives out a little cry, holding onto Erik's shoulder while he steadies himself. Does the beast inside Erik...? Charles isn't scared of him, or disgusted by him, or anything Erik might have wondered. He does move his hand back down to Erik's chest, wide-eyed and blinking as he watches his fingers trail against tan skin. He peeks up at Erik, biting his lip, still red from crying but flushed from this underneath. It's permission he's seeking, or maybe reassurance, but he doesn't use words yet.  
  
Erik smiles down at him, shivering a little under the touch. He strokes his fingertips gently down Charles's face, memorizing every pore and wrinkle, ghosting past those dimples that peak out when he skitters on past. Not scared? Not afraid of Erik? It still worries him, on an existential level. Maybe more than ever. Now that's he's aware of exactly what he's capable of. He's still terrified of it. He was supposed to know better, but he didn't. He's sorry. He's learning again. He won't forget. If it's permission Charles wants, he has it. To touch, to climb all over if he prefers. Erik belongs to him just as much. Healing.  
  
Not afraid. Why would he be afraid? Why is Erik afraid? He took good care of him, even when Charles made it difficult. He got some help, maybe, but he's supposed to have it. Charles loves that beast that lives inside of Erik's chest. He likes the way it purrs at him, growls happily when he submits, when he's this far down. He thinks Erik should let it out more, honestly. Why shouldn't he? Why not? Why doesn't he? Curious, floating little thoughts, and he's skittish and shy as he touches Erik's chest, drawing circles, watching fascinated and with wide, still wet blue eyes, tears from before clinging to long lashes. He's allowed to touch? He can really touch? It's okay? He looks up at Erik for confirmation, still worrying at his lip.  
  
Please touch. Erik rumbles happily, features breaking out into a pleased grin. Charles thinks he took good care of him? He really doesn't mind that howling little thing that lives under his skin? Because it's here, rising up more and more the longer Charles touches and explores and looks up at him through deep-down under. "Mine," he whispers, tilting Charles's jaw up to kiss him again, this time long and lingering and humming against his lips. All Erik's. Erik can touch, too. He can pet and kiss and it's good. Charles is beautiful like this, always beautiful, but like this, where he knows he should be-hmmnn. Yes, good.  
  
Charles' eyes are blown even wider when they part, lips swollen and obscenely red, bitten and kissed. He likes being kissed, thinking it like he's just learned it. Has he? Is he all new again? He feels dazed now, his ears ringing with it and his heart pounding. He loves the howling. Can Erik let it out more? Can he, please? He's always trying to keep it inside and he doesn't need to, because Charles doesn't need to hide the beast inside of him, instinctive and primal that just wants to be caught by it, does he? Charles wants more of it, he wants to be owned more. He's really allowed to touch? Even shy and tentative, he gets just that bit bolder, lips parted as he touches down to Erik's stomach, swallowing and squirming like he's never seen it before. He hasn't? Is this okay? Does it feel okay? Does the beast like it? It feels good under his fingertips. Erik is so handsome, so strong.  
  
The muscles of Erik's stomach jump under Charles's fingers and he twitches, laughing. He likes it very much. He likes Charles. He especially likes that Charles likes him, and his leg comes up around Charles's hip, pinning him right against Erik, keeping him still and safe. He gives Charles's neck a sharp nip of approval, right above his collar, worrying a new mark into his skin that isn't from discipline or punishment, but just because he can, because he likes Charles wearing his marks very much, is satisfied with how nice they look and how whenever Charles shifts against him they throb in reminder, neatly laid against his ass and shoulders, and Erik draws his thumb against them, totally fascinated by that.  
  
It makes Charles wriggle against Erik's hold, but it isn't struggling or fighting, it isn't to get away; a soft whimper escapes right out of him before he can bite on his lip, and it's pain, it's definitely pain, but he isn't upset. How could he be, when Erik did exactly as he had the right to? When he took care of Charles, who had gotten completely out of hand and took him in hand? It was Charles who earned it. But he bites his lip now, continues to stroke at Erik's stomach, all of the firm, rolling muscle, and ducks his head. He's wondering again. It was punishment and Charles didn't like it, he never does and he thinks he's not supposed to, but... did Erik? It's okay if he did. If he liked it. He should like putting Charles back in place. He gets to do that, because he's Charles' Dominant. If he'd wanted to bend Charles over and cane him last night (a shiver, here, full-body, it doesn't frighten him but it does make him feel strangely), if he'd been in the place to do that, he could have. Would he really have...? Will he? And does he like that it hurts Charles? He pets with loving fingers, as if soothing and coaxing out that great beast at once. "Hurts, sir," he whispers, still biting hard on his lip so it comes out mumbled, and he wonders if Erik likes that. Wonders, wonders, floats.  
  
It doesn't upset Charles? That Erik does. He's never been particularly comfortable with that part of himself, any more than Charles is with the part of himself that needs it in the first place, but Charles isn't wrong. It's not unpleasant for Erik. He doesn't know what that makes him, that he can like making Charles cry and beg and hurt-even now, it hurts and Erik just preens with it, warmth spreading through his chest because he did that, he put Charles right back where he belongs, Charles is in his arms and floating and shivering and touching-and if Erik had been a little more comfortable with it, with himself, things would've resolved a lot sooner. Charles picked up on it, picked up on the fact that from the first second Charles slid out of place all Erik really wanted to do was to drag him back and submerge him, but he second-guessed himself and fell out of place himself. He does like it. He always has.  
  
Why shouldn't he? Charles doesn't see why it shouldn't, and it makes him smile, wriggle around happily, sigh with it, that Erik likes it. That it doesn't harm him, that - that what? That he gets satisfaction out of it? Because he should get that. If Charles disobeys and disrespects him, if he doesn't act the way his Dominant expects him to, Erik should get to do this. It's absolutely his right, written into their contract. Charles needs it, needs it so much it scares him, but why shouldn't Erik need it, too? Charles shifts until he's all but straddling Erik's stomach, whines again when his ass touches bare skin and muscle, and Erik likes that, doesn't he? Next time he doesn't have to second-guess, he shouldn't. Would he really? Would he like that, too? And - Charles stares down at Erik, and his cheeks are red from more than crying but his eyes are puffy, he's grateful Erik didn't cut his hair because it falls a bit into his face. "Do you like..." It's maybe a bad question. He doesn't want the upset Erik, but he might make him ask anyway. Charles ducks his head all the way and rushes out, "When I cry for you, sir?" He's curious this morning, now that all the nastiness is drained out of him. Learning.  
  
Erik reaches up and brushes his hair away from his face, and drags his nails down Charles's chest, enough to leave little scratches behind, but not enough to hurt him. He curls his fingers over Charles's hip, humming lowly under his breath. He's not sure he can answer that question out loud, and his throat bobs as he swallows dryly, but he nods. Sometimes. He doesn't like it all the time. If Charles is sad, if he's scared; Erik doesn't like that. But during discipline. During sessions. Yes. Is it different? Does that make him a monster?  
  
Charles wonders as he whimpers again if it's bad that he wishes Erik would hurt him, just a little, dig his nails in and treat him a little roughly even though the punishment is done. Be strict, be demanding, let that howling beast out to play. He doesn't think he'd want to be caned more - actually, he doesn't think he ever really wants to be caned, knows he doesn't, even when he needs it, because it's not frightening or scary but, as previously decided, they aren't friends. It disciplines him and he's grateful for that but it isn't for... well. Play. Charles' cheeks go redder, and he shakes the thought off, but the point is he doesn't want more of that because Erik said all better, all done, no more, he took all sixteen (like a good boy?), but he likes this. He likes that Erik likes it? And - he bows his head again and the hair goes right back in front of his face, his poor lip is getting all torn up, plump beneath his teeth. He needs to cry for Erik. Does he know that? Does he? He never feels better until he cries, when he's being disciplined. Ever. So Erik should like it, shouldn't he? Charles asked him make me cry once, a forever ago, didn't he? And Erik liked it. And Charles needed it, and he liked it. Erik's not a monster, he's exactly right, he's Charles' perfect Dominant, and he soothes more with his fingers, rubbing back and forth, exploring, still fascinated. Charles cried a lot for him today, and did it satisfy Erik? Did he like it? It's okay. It's okay, does he know it?  
  
"Mnn-not bad," Erik murmurs, brushing his hair out from his face again and his nails tighten against Charles's chest, drag across his nipple and dig into the abused flesh of his ass, giving him a solid smack when he tries to shift and wriggle out of place again. "Heal," he murmurs, voice rich and low, the Order unconscious and he taps Charles's lip in reminder. His muscles flex under Charles's fingers, like a looming predator keeping itself still, letting itself be explored and played with even if it could bat down an intruder in a second. But Charles isn't an intruder. He belongs here. Erik's eyes are dark, locked-on Charles, while all those thoughts roll around in his mind. He gives under his ear another little nip. "I like it," he admits, inhaling deeply. "I like you. I like when you are good for me, and take what I give you, and submit."  
  
Charles gives a high, gasping cry at the sensations, at that slap right where he's hurting and sore, and tears immediately spring to his eyes. He does wriggle, then, even as he's kept in place, keening when Erik bites that spot behind his ear, letting the tears slip down his cheeks because there's no hiding them from Erik anymore. Erik really likes it? When he shifts, trying to have more room to play, he gasps again. "Hurts, sir, it hurts," he tells Erik unconsciously, because he was thoroughly disciplined. He was good? He's being good now? He pets lower down on Erik's stomach, wet azure completely riveted as he watches all those muscles tense and relax, fingers light and still shy. He can still touch? He can explore? Learn? Erik will teach him this, too? He wants to be good and only taken what he's given and submit and show Erik that he's his boy. He took his discipline and now he's all better, see? See what Erik does?  
  
Erik purrs in satisfaction. He was very good, Erik's good boy who always tries his best and he listened and took his discipline and now he's touching Erik nicely and making pretty noises and there was, there used to be, a point at which Erik would back off, back away and soothe and to a certain degree he does; interspersing harsh nails and slaps with warm hands and kisses instead, but he doesn't stop this time, either. "Very good, mine," he growls lowly, doing it again, another smack even when Charles doesn't move out of place, because-because Charles belongs to him, because he can-and it's not discipline, it's different, he doesn't know how it's different when it's pain but it is, because Charles is being good, because Erik's mind is warm and alive and unfurled all around them and not closed away, his Will seeping through Charles's skin. Touch. Explore. Play. Learn. Erik will teach him, and he will learn in tandem.  
  
Erik's Will feels so good. He was pushing it away for so long and it made him sick and sad, agitated and distressed even if he couldn't admit it. It was awful and now it's not, and he rocks from where he's straddling Erik, crying out and letting more tears fall down his cheeks, whining loudly. Hurts, it hurts, but Erik likes it, doesn't he? He likes seeing? Charles wants to take what he's given. Erik's right, because he's Erik's belonging. That's nice, isn't it? Really nice. He hiccups out another soft noise, and he lets his fingers wander, make pretty patterns. There's so much skin and he's learning it, exploring it and Erik's letting him and it's nice. He reaches Erik's hips, the edge of his jeans, and Charles bites his lip. He's skittish, shy; he almost asks for permission, before he wanders back up instead. He likes Erik's stomach. Strong, handsome. He loves his Dominant so much.  
  
"Nice?" Erik whispers, cupping Charles's jaw. Charles likes that Erik likes it; he's not scared, he doesn't think Erik is a monster. He touches Charles's cheek, though, feeling those tears against his fingers and inhales sharply, heart pounding in his chest. It's OK? It's OK. It's OK. Erik lets out a noise in the back of his throat, pressing his cheek to Charles's. He likes it. He likes Charles being hurt. He likes-pain. Bad. Humiliation. He-Erik stares at him, eyes wide. It's OK. He puts his hand over Charles's, squeezing hard. "'Snice. Nice?"  
  
Charles blinks, confused, and then he frowns and sniffles. He freezes right up, his hands still in Erik's. Bad? Did Charles do something bad? It is nice. It's nice, isn't it? He likes being owned. He likes Erik owning him, and he likes that Erik likes it. That he likes when Charles cries for him. He hurts but it's good, isn't it, because he's back in his place and the beast likes it and Erik likes it? Erik's not a monster. He's his Dominant, and Charles loves him more than anything. Did Charles do something bad? Did he touch wrong? He promises to be good. He wants Erik to teach him. He scoots up on Erik's stomach, whimpering as he does, as he rubs all those marks and also his oversensitive skin, biting his lip all over again. "Bad?" he whispers. "Teach me, sir?" It's okay. It's nice. He wants that howling beast to come out, to take control, to own him. Doesn't Erik?  
  
"Not bad? Not bad," Erik shakes his head. Charles isn't bad. Charles never was. Erik never thought he was bad. In fact Erik thinks he's very pretty, and nice, and lovely, and Erik doesn't want him to go away, now or ever. He wants to not be wearing these clothes-he wants to touch Charles's skin, so he takes Charles's hands and puts them against the buttons of his shirt, which is still halfway on. It's hard to panic when Charles's thoughts are surrounding him, and they're nice-Erik didn't do wrong? He isn't bad. Charles likes it. He likes him. It's different. He shifts against Charles, because he likes that sound he makes when he rubs against him, he likes how clear and open his eyes look pinned to him wetly and how his skin is still hot from being caned and Erik's chest is warm, and it spreads out further and further. Charles is his. He belongs to Erik. This is right.  
  
Charles calms at the reassurance, at Erik's thoughts, a shaky, relieved sigh as he smiles. He's under. He doesn't think he can remember plunging quite like this, but he doesn't remember much of anything except this moment, except knowing that he belongs entirely to Erik. Everything else is new, is to be explored. He bites and bites and bites at his lip again as Erik places his hands, and they tremble and he stares before he undoes the buttons the rest of the way, carefully slips it off Erik when he's through. Good? He only wants to be good, to follow Erik's Will. Every time he shifts he makes those little noises, crying out and sniffling, it really does ache and hurt but he likes it, he likes it because it means he was good and took his discipline, and Erik likes it and he touches his stomach again, still utterly fascinated by it. Strong. Beautiful. He can really touch? He's allowed? Those wet eyes are focused right on Erik, earnest and eager and so hopelessly devoted, darkened by the pure submission he's dropped into. Help, sir. He's not sure. That's what Erik said? Always ask, always try to tell. He's going to learn and be so good. Tell him? They don't have to be Orders, his mind feels inclined to add. He'll listen even if they're not, he'll do exactly as he's told. Erik likes that?  
  
"You want to touch?" Erik whispers, and he can't help smiling, relieved because Charles is here, with him. Charles can touch. He can explore. He taps Charles's lip again. "Heal," he insists, bright-eyed, and leans up to kiss again. Charles likes him. He likes belonging to Erik. He rubs his cheek against Charles's again, eyes closing as he sinks back into the pillows, trapping Charles against him once more. Where Charles's fingers touch him more warmth emanates, zipping right to the tips of his toes. Charles thinks such nice thoughts about him, and on one hand it makes him shy, a little self-conscious, but on the other it's-he likes it, he likes being-liked, he likes being attractive to Charles, he likes being wanted-and it's not-he huffs, swallowing away those thoughts that don't belong. Charles's thoughts about him are-pure. They're not-twisted, or sick, or humiliating. Charles wants to be his, so much, and Erik wants to hear more- he drags his nails against Charles's ass, right over those long lines emblazoned on his skin and grins against his lips when he gasps again. "Touch," he insists. Charles can.  
  
More of those tears slide down Charles' cheeks and he whines, high and reedy, wriggling atop Erik even though it just makes him more sore, makes the hurt worse. Better? Because it's for Erik, it's all for his Dominant, and he's right. He wants to be Erik's so badly. He wants to be his boy, and he does want to touch. He's nervous, though, shy, uncertain and skittish; he makes small little patterns again, exploring, rubbing at muscle and soothing at scars he knows don't hurt anymore but he wants to fill them with this. With - love, and devotion, and submission, his, given and given and given freely. "Show me, sir?" he begs, looking back up at Erik with those wide, impossibly blue eyes, and forces himself not to bite his lip because Erik told him not to, and he wants to obey even the smallest whim. Does Erik see that? How obedient he is, how much he wants to? Erik can teach him how to be good for him, how to touch and serve and he'll listen, he will. He needs it.  
  
"Undress," Erik murmurs, putting Charles's fingers around the hem of his pants, annoyed with them already. He doesn't want anything to be a barrier between them, even though it works in some respects-during discipline, for one, but that's finished. Over with. All done. Charles doesn't need to be shy, or nervous. He's allowed. Erik is his, too. He shivers and twitches a little when Charles runs his fingers over a jagged slash near his ribs, but Charles always knows how to tamp the memories down and away. He makes Erik feel good, and Erik wants to reward him. He curls his fingers against Charles's collar, tapping at his throat. He sees. He knows. He's holding himself still, so that he doesn't do anything completely unwarranted like trap Charles underneath him on his stomach so he can restrain him and pet him and touch him and mark him more-oops, those thoughts slip right out of him.  
  
Why would that be unwarranted? Charles tries so hard not to bite on his lip, his eyes fluttering closed as he trembles with Erik’s thoughts, his heart beating and beating in his chest. It would only be Erik’s right. All of this is Erik’s right, doesn’t he know that? Doesn’t he know that Charles wants to coax out that howling beast and submit to it, too? And submit, and submit, and submit, he needs it so badly he’s close to crying again. And Charles is shy, he is nervous; he doesn’t know why, but his fingers are shaking as they rest on Erik’s jeans. He isn’t afraid. But he’s fluttering with it all anyway, wiggling atop Erik as he fumbles with the zip and he almost can’t look. He’s seen before, of course he has, but it feels like he hasn’t, and he can hear his pulse racing and he has to swallow before he undoes it, starts to tug them down. When they’re off, when he can touch Erik’s hips without anything in the way, Charles - startles? It’s silly, he’s not sure why his belly is twisting itself into knots, but he whines with it and looks to Erik, fingers frozen again. For direction, for instructions, for guidance. For everything. He’s learned. Charles learned, see? He can be good, look. He’s trying, he wants to be. Does Erik like it? Is it too much? Is he too under? Will he make him go back up? That's enough to make him want to cry, for certain.  
  
"No," Erik growls at that, and his hands tighten over Charles's hip, while he tries to get himself under control. He always wants to take cues from Charles, he doesn't want to-scare him, to startle him, but he keeps-he keeps prodding and poking and it's not wrong, but he doesn't know-Erik doesn't normally indulge himself, he doesn't want to upset the precarious balance they've found, but then Charles thinks Erik wants him to stop submitting to him? Stop being his? No. He finds himself flipped over as quickly as anything, and Erik nuzzles into the back of his neck, pinning his hands above him. "Mine-"  
  
That’s not what Charles thought. He just wondered if maybe it was too much, if maybe Erik wouldn’t like it, if he’d - maybe it’s not good? Maybe too needy, maybe the things he needs right now aren’t something Erik can give or wants to give, maybe he’ll scare him? But he isn’t scared as he’s flipped over, not even as he’s startled, not even as those tears do come to his eyes because all of his marks are rubbing against Erik now and it hurts, he whimpers with it, gasps, but he’s not afraid. He’s just as eager, making low, needy noises, rubbing back against his Dominant as much as he can even as it inspires more hurt little sounds. “Don’t know?” he asks, breathless, quiet. “Teach me?” What doesn’t he know? He wants to know. He wants Erik to show him. He can indulge as much as he wants, whatever he wants, Charles is his. He gives the barest little tug at his wrists, but not to get away, just because he wants to feel how strong Erik is, how he keeps him and Dominates him; he can touch later, if Erik says it’s okay again. He likes this, too. A lot. He’ll take exactly what he’s given. "Yours," he promises. Erik's boy, see? Look.  
  
Don't know how much Erik wants him, all the things Erik wants-and when Charles tugs at his wrists Erik firmly pins him to the bed, purring right into his ear, kneeing his legs apart so Erik can rub against him, against those marks he left, smiling against his skin when he whines in response. He's thinking about the last time he disciplined Charles, about how Charles liked being used afterward, being taken, being owned-but he doesn't want to-push, to-but he wants to touch, to have-Charles is his? He can touch? What does Charles need? "Tell me," he whispers, petting Charles's hair. "Tell me."  
  
Charles is his. He’s really, completely, entirely his, and that’s, at the heart of it, what he needs right now. To be his. To be owned, totally. To let himself be owned. To just be Erik’s boy, and absolutely nothing else. Erik’s thoughts have him squirming underneath him, and he cries out again, tears absorbed into the sheets now but he’s not struggling. He’s not distressed. It’s just that his belly is all twisted up again and he’s trembling and he’s nervous, and it’s like right before the party and he doesn’t know why that is. He doesn’t know why he’s so skittish and shy even as he’s eager and needy. Because it’s new? Because he’s new? He can’t reach back for Erik but he wraps his mind around him, curls up in Erik’s in that near-physical way, unconscious and seeking and trembling like the rest of him. “Teach me?” he whispers, and closes his eyes just for a second. “Please, sir?” Teach him how. Teach him how Erik owns him so he can learn. That’s what he needs. Erik can show him, can’t he? He can show him what to do and how to serve him and how to be good? But, once Erik said - a long time ago - and Charles starts to squirm, this time because he is upset. Bad? Bad, he’ll be upset, he’ll scare Erik? Harmful? Awful? Manipulative? It's all so close, it's all so much, he's fragile like this, maybe, so deep, so completely, incredibly far from the surface, and it takes nothing at all to have him sniffling again.  
  
Erik pets him and soothes him, shushes those awful thoughts because they're not true. Not bad, not awful, not manipulative. Erik's boy. He loves Charles. "What did I say?" he asks, Orders, can't help but Order. Not harmful. It's not harmful. Erik won't be upset, he won't-no, no. "Tell me."  
  
But it is, isn't it? Charles sniffles loudly, but he's calmed so noticeably by the Order. Erik said he never wanted to push Charles through something like this. But what if Charles needs that? It's not that he's saying no, or that he's - it's not Erik he's scared of, he's just all stuck like this, too. And Erik helped him and made it better, he disciplined him even though Charles told him he didn't want it and kicked and screamed at him, begged and pleaded and tried to get him not to, but - it's different, it's different, he promises he doesn't want Erik to force him it's just that maybe he needs to be taught firmly here, too? His body is just new and it doesn't remember the right things, that's all. It's confused. But that's his fault, isn't it? He's going to make Erik upset? He leans back into the petting, still squirming.  
  
Erik couldn't force him-he couldn't- but that's not the same thing-as being firm. As being in control. He stills Charles underneath him, pressing his lips into a cluster of marks over his shoulder and leans back all of a sudden, drawing the blanket away and running his hands down Charles's legs, over the marks along his ass. There is no fault. Erik isn't upset. Erik wants to touch. He wants to take. He wants-and it rises inside of him and he whispers, the Imperative zipping up along Charles's spine, settling him into a Presentation posture simply because Erik wants it.

* * *

The moment Erik pulls away, Charles is crying harder. The second he gets the Order, the Imperative crackling through his entire body, he whimpers for an entirely different reason. He settles, like he's being soothed, and he is. It's soothing, even as he trembles all over, still - what? Frightened? Is he really frightened? But not of Erik, never of Erik. He can teach him, can't he? That he's safe, just like he did when they paused in his discipline? He can show him, and if Charles needs to pause they can pause. He's safe. It's okay. He's Erik's boy, all nicely Presented. Erik likes it, doesn't he? This is what he needs. To be taught, and really, truly owned. Erik can do that? It won't hurt him, be too much?  
  
Erik hums and kisses Charles's shoulder, along his spine, down and down. Not too much. Never too much. Charles doesn't know. He doesn't. He's safe. He's safe. Erik won't hurt him. Erik won't humiliate him or beat him or make him cry in fear and panic, he won't because he knows how to take care of his boy. "Don't be scared," he whispers, drawing his fingertips down Charles's back. "Don't be scared. I got you. I take care of you. Always. Always." Erik will teach him. And he'll learn, too.  
  
Charles shivers as he's touched, especially over those raw, sore places, those marks Erik drew up all over him. But it's not scary, it's not frightening, it doesn't make him feel humiliated or ashamed or bad. It doesn't, he wants to make sure Erik knows that, too. He isn't panicking. He's just - a little jittery, a little fluttery. He's easily spooked, but what he needs to calm isn't necessarily all gentleness, isn't Erik backing off. He needs the firmness, the control, the strictness. He needs it. He needs to know he's safe with all those howling parts of Erik, too. Erik takes cares of what belongs to him, no matter what. "Please, sir?" he whispers, and his voice trembles, too. Erik said to ask.  
  
"Hmn. Please what? What do you need?" Erik gives him a kiss, and then a sudden slap right over the raw welts lining his ass, the ones that smart and hurt the most because that's exactly where Erik delivered the most force, and he rubs his cheek into the sing, hums against him and sits back, letting Charles feel how satisfied he is, and it's starting to unfurl, slowly. Everything inside of him. He's not frantic and molten with need, Erik wants to play, too. He wants to explore and learn for himself, he wants Charles to be Presented for him just like this for the rest of the day so he can learn all the different types of sounds he can make.  
  
But he doesn't know. He leans tentatively into the kiss and yelps at the slap, whimpering in the aftermath, feeling more tears slip down his cheeks. He's still trembling, his legs shaking, but he tries to hold position, to stay exactly where Erik wants him. To stay Presented, nicely, needing to be obedient more than he currently needs how to breathe. But the question still throws him, and he sniffles as he tries to come up with an answer, still shy and full of fluttering. "I - teach me? How to please you, sir," he whispers, and it's barely audible, his cheeks and the rest of hin heated with it. He needs to be taught. He needs to please Erik, more than anything, he needs to be good and obedient. Everything is too much, he's so oversensitive; he's making so many of those noises his Dominant likes so much, almost constantly. "Hurts, sir," he says again, quiet, blinking out more tears.  
  
Erik touches him, fames both sides of his face while he's draped over Charles's body and it's in space, it's a new Universe and it's Erik's responsibility. Erik's rubbing himself against them-he wants-Charles is his-loves Charles so, so much he loves loves loves-is it OK? did he-did he scare Charles away?  
  
Charles is gasping, he's gasping and crying and trying to stay still, to do exactly what Erik told him to and stay still, but he's shaking so much and it's hard. He's not afraid, he's not scared off, he promises he isn't. He isn't, he isn't, he isn't. But he's startling again because he wants that so badly and - and... he's whimpering loudly, low, distressed, cut-off noises, biting on his lip and cheek and tongue and he can't hold the position, he's trembling too much, his legs are coming together on their own. "S-Sorry, sorry, I'm - help, sir," he begs, because Erik said if he needed help, if he struggled, he needed to tell him. He learned, he promised, he's trying so hard to be good.  
  
"Tell me, _neshama_. Tell me. What do you need help with? I'm right here. I've got you. I won't let *anything* happen to you."  
  
He whines again, loud and drawn out, sniffling harder as he rubs back against Erik, seeking and seeking and needing so badly. He trusts Erik. He believes him, he does. Nothing bad will ever happen with Erik here, he isn't afraid of his Dominant, and certainly not of that growling, primal creature that lives beneath his skin. He isn't afraid of his promises, of the things he wants or needs. It's just - what is it? What is it? Charles isn't sure. He's frustrated, he's confused, but he won't get mad or twist up, not right now. Not when he's so firmly in his place. Now he just relies on Erik completely, and he wonders if Erik knows it. That he's never been as deep as he is now, as vulnerable as he is now. There are no shields up. None at all, and it all spills out, all of it. "Hold me...?" he asks, and closes his eyes tight, ashamed by it. Embarrassed, pink up to his ears. It's silly, because he likes being Presented like this, he really, truly does. But - just for a minute? Just a minute, can Erik hold him again? He thinks of his eyes, and then of his chest, being cradled in it. Can he talk to him more? Can he? Talk like this, remind him of where he is, of who he is. Of who he belongs to. Erik's boy. Please?  
  
Erik just grins, and tugs him up in an easy motion, so that his back is lying against the sheets, and Erik stretches out alongside of him to take him into his arms. Nothing shameful, nothing embarrassing. He strokes his cheek, pressing theirs together, kisses his forehead and jaw. Erik knows he is too much, and he didn't mean to let it all out without warning. He should have tempered it, as he always does whenever his ancient instincts well up. "I love you," he whispers, tucking his hair behind his ear. "I love you so much. I've got you. I won't let anything happen. You are mine, and I take care of my belongings, yeah?"  
  
But Charles is shaking his head, back and forth and back, even as he climbs on top of Erik and nuzzles right into him, needing the contact, needing skin against skin, needing Erik's arms holding him tightly. "Nonono," he protests, and it's accompanied by a sniffle, but it's not in response to anything Erik said. It's just that he's wrong, and Erik said he could correct him respectfully, so he does. Erik isn't too much. He's never too much. Charles doesn't want it to be tempered, he didn't get scared. It wasn't that. Charles wants more, more primal instincts, his own are flaring right up and he's purring around the tears as he rubs his cheek against Erik's neck. "More? Talk more?" he whispers, eyes closed again because it's shy, it's still embarrassed, but he wants to hear it. He wants to hear it, he wants to be held while Erik talks about it, while he calms and settles. He knows he's safe. He's sorry he's so jumpy, he's learning. Be more? More howling? Own him. He's Erik's belonging. He loves it, and loves Erik.  
  
"You are mine, mine," Erik murmurs. Does he really want Erik to push him through this? To be unrelenting and firm and strict-because he doesn't want to-hurt. He doesn't want to-and his desires really didn't scare Charles?  
  
No. They made him feel safe, they made him want, because Charles knows he belongs to that howling beast. That there are instincts inside of him, primal and ancient, too, just like Erik's, complementary to and made for Erik's, that need desperately, desperately to submit to it. To be its prey, its belonging, its pet. He just got startled, he's just not used to it, and he's itchy with need now, doesn't Erik feel it? How much he needs this, how he's so close to crying without it, how his skin is heated how his heart is pounding how needy he is? He's greedy for it. He's gasping and squirming atop of his Dominant and he wants more, more, more. Talk more, tell him more, please. He loves when Erik talks like this, it's settling him down. But - he bites his lip even though Erik said not to, not because he's defiant but because he's forgotten again, looks up with those wet eyes. "Can I? Please, sir?" Maybe it's not clear what he wants, but he wants. He wants permission. Not without permission, nothing, he wants to be good, to obey and obey and obey and serve and follow only Erik's Will. But he can ask, Erik said he could always ask, he could be polite and good and ask and his cheeks are hot but it feels good, to do what he's told what's expected of him. He's learning, he wants to learn. Is he doing a good job? Okay?  
  
"Can you please what? Don't forget, you need to ask for what you want and I might just give it to you," Erik laughs gently. "I love having you in my arms like this. I love being able to touch you and Present you and stroke over these beautiful marks on your skin, and how beautiful you sound when they hurt just a little What is it you'd like to do? Go on, tell your Dominant. You're doing a wonderful job, sweet boy. Tell me what you want permission for," Erik kisses him under the eyelids, then gently over each one.  
  
Said eyelids flutter along with his belly, butterflies and squirming, and he's so completely and totally Erik's. But he's shy again when he peeks up, wriggles down until he can nudge into Erik's neck, inhaling and then kissing, shivering. Erik can make it hurt more than a little, if he wants. Does he really know Charles isn't scared? He isn't. He wants Erik to keep talking. He wants the beast to come out. "Can I touch, please, sir?" he whispers, muffled by Erik. He knows he got to before, but he wants to try again now. Will Erik let him try again? Erik said he could have a reward, because he was good. Can he have this?

* * *

Erik rolls over on his back so that he can situate Charles in his lap. "Please teach me. I love when you do, did you know that? I always love when you touch me," he whispers and he puts his hand over Charles's, places it along his stomach, but he doesn't give him any instructions for touching. Charles can touch however he likes. Erik belongs to him, too, and now he's stretched amidst the pillows, hands behind his head, stretched out before Charles, for him to explore as much as he'd like.  
  
It makes his belly tumble over on itself again, and he bites hard on his lip, staring down at his hand on Erik's stomach, at his shaking fingers. It's exactly what he asked for. It is, and he does want it. But he freezes up, and then he shakes his head, bows it. There are tears in his eyes again. He's starting to tremble.  
  
Erik puts his hands over Charles's and presses them against his chest. "Touch. I'm right here. Touch me. Take this blanket from me and run your hands down my chest. Kiss, too. Kiss me. This skin is yours to explore. I want you to familiarize yourself with it. I want you to know that you belong to me and that means you get to touch me and learn-and learn all the things-" the things Erik likes, the things he still doesn't really know-but they'll learn, together. He slips his fingers into Charles's hair and makes him look up. "You are mine," he murmurs, gripping a little firmly. "You belong here."  
  
Charles wishes it was firmer, that he pulled, and he thinks maybe that makes him bad. He doesn't know. What he does know is that he wants to cry again, because he wants - more than anything, he wants to learn so he can please Erik. So he can serve him properly, so he can be good. But he doesn't know what to do, he's all frozen up, he's staring down at his hand still and then he touches, just gently, just barely, before he spooks himself again. Gets all shaken up. "Can't, sir," he whispers, ashamed and embarrassed and squirming, and he wants to hide but he's not on Erik's chest anymore so he just closes his eyes. Maybe he's not good. Maybe he can't be taught.  
  
"Wrong." Erik murmurs. Erik-just lets it out. He just lets it out, he just stops suppressing it. And he rolls them so Charles is on his lap, and he looks up at Charles. "You belong to me, don't you? You want me to tell you what to do? Is that it? Teach you how to touch me?' he smiles up at Charles. No shame, here.  
  
That makes him shiver, and there's so much heat coiling up in his belly and for once it's not uncomfortable, it's not nausea or a fever. It's pure, electric want, it's desire and it's need and it's submission and response, that ancient part responding to its mate. He nods, lip still caught between his teeth, lowers his eyes and he's shaking but not for the same reason. "Yes, sir," he gasps. That's exactly it.  
  
Erik tilts his head up, locks eyes with him. "You are mine-do you know how much i need you? All the time? You want, hm? Explore," the Order comes warmly.  
  
He's still nervous. He's still shy. Part of it unsettles him, and he squirms, confused, distressed, but he - he wants, he wants, he wants. He wants to be good and he wants to listen and he wants to learn. More than anything, more than he's ever wanted anything, he thinks, right this moment. He doesn't know what to do, and he's - still fluttery, and skittish, and hesitant, but he touches. He drags his hand down to the muscles of Erik's stomach and he strokes them gently, and he whimpers but he leans forward and kisses Erik's chest, too, because it's warm and it's strong and it's beautiful and it's kept him safe, and he wants to - worship, he does. He's still trembling, he's still uncertain, but he doesn't freeze, even as his breath hitches and stutters, even as every twitch of Erik underneath him startles him a little. It's okay. Erik's going to teach him how. It feels nice to give sweet, shy little kisses, to cover the skin. Worshipping his Dominant. He deserves it, Charles is so devoted and adoring and his.  
  
Erik purrs underneath those ministrations, laying back against the throne of pillows made for him and allowing Charles to go ahead and learn. He's a little new, too, and it's not because of the Void but quite frankly it is because he's never really learned a lot about his own body, about the things he likes, before Charles. He likes being touched by Charles and does it count if he says he likes all of Charles's touches? Because he does, but mostly he focuses on Charles. He lets himself lie back, though, and lets his submissive dote over him and learn him all anew. He twitches a little when Charles kisses over a nipple and laughs, warm and amused. He shivers when Charles draws his hand down his stomach, and hums in pleasure when Charles kisses his hip, and he warms. It's safe here. Charles is safe. He will always be safe.  
  
It's safe, it is and he knows it, but Charles is still having a difficult time settling. He jumps when Erik's hips shift at his touch, startled and wide-eyed and freezing up for the moment, swallowing hard. He isn't afraid, he isn't. He's just a little wound up, and he's squirming with it, making soft, conflicted whines because he wants - needs? Needs. He needs to do what Erik told him, to give him what he wants and expects from him, wants to service him and worship him but he keeps getting stuck. He doesn't know what to do. There are things he might even be scared to do, but not scared, too? Eager, needy, but. It's too much when he's so under like this, it's all too much, and he ends up resting his head on Erik's stomach and trembling, his fingers still rubbing at those firm muscles as he rubs his cheek there to soothe himself. He's sorry, he wants - he takes another hitchy little breath and tries not to cry again. "Sir," he whispers, and this time he doesn't know what he's begging for, but it's something.  
  
Erik forces his jaw to tilt upwards. "Tell me. Scared to do?" He needs Charles to be open with him, to share with him. It's so much-does he need Erik to help push him through it? Does he need Erik to help him see that what he's scared to do is all right? Does he need that or is-Erik just- _wrong_ for thinking about it? He's getting stuck because Erik is backing away again, at the first indication-that Charles is afraid, or nervous or jittery and Erik should put him back in his place, make him Present and take what Erik gives him and direct him how to service and pleasure and explore and there should be no doubt no doubt that Charles belongs to Erik and all this nervous fluttery shyness doesn't belong because all he has to do is follow Erik's Orders but Erik's doing it again Erik is taking cues from him again, he's not following his instincts, he's going to-it's going to be the same thing and-Erik covers his eyes with his hands all of a sudden. He's been broken since Israel, too, he's been broken, too-

* * *

It makes Charles gasp, makes his eyes go wide, makes tears he's been holding back slip down his cheeks. Immediately he's climbing up Erik's body to nuzzle into him, murmuring soft noises, peppering kisses all over Erik's face, over his neck and shoulders. "Not broken, not broken," he promises, because he knows what broken is and Erik certainly isn't. He's his perfect, wonderful, beautiful Dominant. Charles loves him and wants desperately to serve him. See how good he takes care of Charles? He's so deep, he's so under, and Erik did that. Erik put him down. He put him back into his place. He knows how to take care of his boy, no one else does. Just Erik. He's teaching him so well, it's Charles' fault for being a slow learner in this, for being scared. It's Charles' fault, but he's trying. He's following Erik's Will, he's doing what he's told. Erik is helping him. He just needs - Charles bites his lip, reaches down to pat at Erik's chest. Okay? It's okay. Erik doesn't need to be afraid, either. Okay? Please, sir.  
  
Erik doesn't know what happens next, or why, but all of a sudden he just can't talk, hiding into Charles's neck and jamming his hands into his eyes-if he admits how much he likes pain and how much he likes hurt and how much he likes discipline and control and firmness and strictness and harshness he'll be like himself, just like himself, _crush it! Crush it!_ Just like himself, just like himself, like himself, like-  
  
 _No!_ No, no, no. He doesn't mean to be defiant, but Erik is wrong. He's all wrong. Erik is a brilliant Dominant, the best Dominant, he's absolutely perfect for Charles. He was made to own him, and Charles was made to belong to him. How could he say that? How could he say that when he takes such good care of him? When he's so good at keeping him in his place? He made everything better, doesn't he remember? With those marks, by being exactly what Charles needed. Making sure he came back, that he took his discipline, handled him with a firm hand. And he needs it now. He should have said it. He never says it, he always wants to, but he gets frightened, too. That Erik will think it's too much. "Don't be scared," he whispers, strained and croaked, nuzzling over and over into Erik, kissing everywhere he touches, everywhere he can reach. "You don't need to be scared. I need it. I - I need it, sir, you don't have to be scared, I promise. You take such good care of me, you're perfect, I love you and I need it. Okay? You can say it. You can admit it. I want to hear it, please? Take care of me, own me, tell me? Please, sir?"  
  
Erik shudders, unable to stop himself from this reaction, unable to reel it in or dial it back, and he's sorry, he doesn't know what's happening-he can admit it, he did admit it-he admitted, but he can't stop-but he lets himself be pet and fussed over by Charles, tries to control his breathing and clench his teeth together to stop them from chattering, lock his muscles to stop them from convulsing, and he's sorry, he's so sorry. "Zok," he gasps, or tries to. "Need it-too-" it doesn't seem to stop the reaction, but Charles-  
  
Charles doesn't realize that the quiet, high whining noises are coming from him. Erik doesn't need to be sorry. He didn't do anything wrong, why is he apologizing? And Charles is so down, deep-dark down that it panics him horribly, not that Erik is distressed or panicked but that he doesn't seem to be helping. That he can't soothe it, calm it, heal it. He's trembling all over as he kisses and touches and nuzzles, curls as closely as possible and wriggles all over, and something shifts. Something inside of him, something palpable and maybe even audible, a click in place, sliding parts, but he doesn't notice and he's exactly the same except he's taking all of Erik's panic and easing it, the same way his Dominant does for him, taking his breaths and steadying them, slowing down his body's reaction. Charles will take care of him, too. He'll serve him and calm him and soothe him and ease him. Because Charles loves him, yeah? See? Loves him so much, needs him so much. Feel it? Don't be upset. Don't be sad. Don't be scared. "I'm here, sir," he promises, and kisses Erik's tears. Tell him, he'll make it better, too. Charles will make it better, he'll be so good.  
  
It's all been so much. It's all been so much. There's no space, when he found that out in the room with Isadore and Carmen and he's had no space since then, the Landscape is gone, melded into the Castle where the snow meets the sand. And his instincts have taken a hit for it. He doesn't trust them, the work they've done-trusting them-all the shadowy wisps of all of the people that he's ever killed. Does Charles know that? Does he know that Erik is a killer? Does he know how Erik made people scream and cry and beg and plead for him to stop, stop, _please stop_ \- does he know that he stood at the foot of burning villages while Emma Frost-he was thirteen. He was thirteen years old. Does Charles knows that he's dangerous? And they've got kids now and he loves pain? He loves pain? He loves hurting Charles?   
  
Charles is - it all hits him at once, and it isn't fair that Erik hasn't had space, that the Void took everything from him, too. That it made him take care of Charles, that it ruined everything he had and tore apart his Landscape, plopped it right in a broken, unstable place that they haven't had the time to fix because Charles is barely here. Charles should have been helping him heal, but he hasn't been. He's been selfish, he's been awful, he's been completely horrid, hasn't he? What kind of submissive is he, that he let this happen? What kind of person? And he forced Erik, he forced him to admit that he likes something that's - what's wrong with him? What's wrong with him, that he made Erik do it? That he begged for it? How sick is he? Is all he doing traumatizing him, making him think - he's bad. He's bad, he's bad, he's so bad and he can't fix it, Erik is dissolving into him and he's not helping. He's too much. He's just too much. Gentle and permissive isn't enough for him? What's wrong with him? He's too far beneath, and there's nowhere to go, he can't breathe like this. He can't, he's too - he shakes his head and whines again, and then he starts to slip. Out of his own mind. Out of existence. It's okay, he'll make himself less. He promises. He'll fix it. He'll fix it, he promises.  
  
"Stop," Erik croaks, shaking his head. Please stop. He isn't too much. There's nothing wrong with him. He didn't make Erik do anything. He's just having trouble-adjusting. Falling back on the things he learned. He got damaged. He got damaged by those memories, by that revelation. And he's been trying so hard to keep it inside and be fine, and be good, but it's all coming out, and he yelled at Charles-he raised his voice, he never would have done that-Erik didn't want to ever let it out. It's not his place. He just needs to take care of Charles and-forget everything else, forget, forget. He's the Dominant. He's in charge. Charles is upset and he still can't stop and he's sorry and he doesn't want Charles to be less and he doesn't want him to go away-but he can't be upset, not if it means hurting Charles, and with a swipe at his cheeks he folds it all back up inside, swallowing it down. "It's OK," he croaks, smiling gently. "I'll learn again." He needs it, too. It isn't just for Charles's benefit.

* * *

Those thoughts have always cut at Charles, the notion that Erik feels that he can't feel, can't be upset, can't exist because it might upset him. Because he's too sensitive and fragile and weak for anything else. See, some previously soothed part of him whispers, confused and peeking out from the depths of the Void, see? See what happens! It's him. It has to be him. Shh, it's okay. Just give him a second, he'll come back less and he'll help Erik, he will, he'll pull it all out and soothe it and he'll love it and it will be okay. No more deep-dark, no more neediness, no more weakness. He won't need those things. No more, it is for Charles' benefit, it's okay. It's working, just give him a second. He's loading. "It's okay," he whispers, and it's a raspy croak. It doesn't sound entirely like him. "I'm here. I'll fix it." There's the sound of snapping, and screeching, and churning. High, whining sounds, and they aren't coming from Charles' mouth. Charles can change himself now, isn't that nice? He doesn't need Erik to learn, he can adapt. Look.  
  
"Stop it!" Erik Growls the Order harshly. It can't be fixed. It's Erik's-it's Erik's problem. It can't just be fixed. If Charles changes an essential part of who he is, that's not fixing _Erik_. It's only making Erik worse, and Erik won't let him. Erik likes all these parts of Charles, he loves them, and he wants them, and he won't let them be destroyed. And it wouldn't matter, anyway. Erik would still be broken. He would still need all of those things himself. He would still need pain and, and cruelty, and abuse and violence. Charles doesn't know he has no idea he thinks he needs so much, he doesn't.  
  
It makes him gasp like he's been punched, like there was a physical blow, and he reels in the aftermath. He has to reboot, but he doesn't know what to be. He was so beneath the surface. He was so dependent on Erik, he needed - it wasn't cruelty or abuse, he needed it, but does it make Erik sad and upset and scared to give it to him? Does it hurt him? Charles does need. He needs so much, he needs too much, he's always known that and it's always been the biggest source of shame, of guilt, of self-hatred, of loneliness. Because no one could give it to him. Why won't Erik let him fix it? And that part is a little indignant, a little bent out of shape now. Why not? He wants to make it better. He's supposed to. He has to take care of Erik too, Erik said. But now he's just confused, and everything's spinning and he doesn't know what he's supposed to do, and he's still in Erik's lap so he leans forward and nuzzles again, helpless and spat back out exactly where he was. If he drops out of subspace, it'll hurt, he won't be able to breathe and it'll hurt, it already hurts but he can't stay because then Erik will think he needs to just take care of him and he doesn't? But how does he make it better? He's supposed to ask for Erik's help when he's this deep and he doesn't know but he can't ask Erik's help to help Erik so he just sniffles, and whipped up parts of him peek out and look and get scared, too. They were right? He shouldn't let himself fall like this? Be vulnerable? Too much.  
  
"I need it. I need you." Erik pets his head. He wants Charles firmly submerged because that's where he belongs. He should let him fall. Be vulnerable. Too much. It's not too much for Erik. That's hot what this is about. What it's about is that Erik is scared of all the deep, dark instincts inside of him. What it's about is that he's a monster and a murderer and he hasn't had any time to-to deal with it there's no space and he-it's not about Charles or Erik or who's too much or too little. It's about Erik finally finding out that he's a monster, for real. He's a monster and he killed people and how can that make him a good Dominant? What if he kills Charles? What if-Charles hates him because he was so-he was so bad-he was so bad, he was so bad-he committed war crimes, didn't he? That's why the ICC wants to prosecute him-he-they want to-how could-how could Charles _ever_ love him-it's all jumbled up and spit out and there hasn't been any room for him to _stop_ and just-and the pressure valve is exploding and he just-he needs Charles please don't go away please.  
  
But Charles can't - not from down here, can he? He can't? He doesn't know what to do. Why can't he just fix it? Why can't he just make it go away? He whimpers and shakes his head and he nuzzles in tighter and closer instead, and he couldn't possibly leave. He would die. He would suffocate. He would be utterly destroyed, consumed, ripped to shreds. But like this, like this especially? It hurts, it hurts so terribly and he wants to climb up underneath Erik's skin, this isn't close enough but it has to do and he rubs his cheek into him over and over, grips tightly and can't let go. He doesn't hate him. He could never, ever even begin to fathom it. Charles loves Erik, doesn't he know that? He loves him so, so, so much. And he knows. He knows, and he loves him, and that's not going to change. It's not going to go away. Erik isn't a monster. Erik is his Dominant, his perfect, brilliant, extraordinary Dominant, and he takes care of him and loves him and Charles loves the beast that lives in his chest, too. He needs it more than he could possibly admit or say. Not a monster. Not bad. Charles belongs to all the damaged, hurting parts, too. He loves them. Let Charles love them? Look, see. He loves them. He'll be good, he'll do such a good job, just let him. Maybe he can't make perfect sense of it all now, but he knows and he won't leave, he'll never leave, please don't make him. Don't make him? It hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it's all achy.

* * *

Erik slowly begins to settle down, and it'll be back, and a lot worse, but he lets himself be calmed by Charles. He'll never make Charles leave. Never. He's sorry, he didn't mean-he didn't mean to make Charles sad. He didn't mean to succumb to this, incomprehensible wreck, for no reason. There really wasn't a reason beyond-it was safe and Charles was OK and he was sunk down under and Erik-just-his brain just went _well, now it's a good time to utterly break down!_ and did, and it's stupid and he's sorry and he can't-nothing makes sense, he can't stop-his thoughts aren't making any sense but-he can't lose Charles, that just makes it worse, please don't disappear into nothingness, please don't go, please-  
  
Charles wishes, more than anything, that he was something more whole. He doesn't think he was even before the Void, but he especially isn't now. He isn't whole enough to promise that no matter what, no matter what the circumstances, he'll never disappear. He won't forever, because the Void knows how awfully that hurt Erik and it healed him, it took some of the hurt and ironed it out and made sure there was enough of Charles left to recognize, that he came back but he might - what if he's broken for good, now? Too broken to take care of Erik? It's not fair to ask Erik to take care of New Charles, who barely remembers moment to moment who he is, where he's been, what they've done. Who shies away from touch and startles too easily and needs things like firmness and strictness in equal measures with patience. It isn't fair, and it's all he can think about as he holds Erik, trying to keep it in, and in, and in. He can't climb back up and out of subspace, and he slips every time he even thinks of trying, only gets more ache for his efforts. He can't stop needing Erik like breath unless he does what Erik Ordered him not to. How can he possibly help when he's so incomprehensibly wrong? When he needs so much help? It's not fair, but he can't fix himself and the Void is trying but some damage can't be fixed overnight and sometimes not at all so he just cries, and he presses close, and something is happening, there's something pressing up against the desperation, his skin is starting to heat and glow and then it stops, and he hasn't noticed. He hasn't noticed and he holds Erik and promises over and over that he won't leave, that he's here, that he'll stay that he belongs to him that he loves him and he feels so - he's never going to be good, is he? Maybe Erik can handle the responsibility of the Universe, but it isn't fair that Charles is going to make him. It's too much. Too much.  
  
It's fair to ask because Erik demands it, because Erik can take care of him, he can. He needs Erik. That's who he needs. Erik, not this shell, not this shadow from the Dark Place harmonic-black-box shattered fragment, Charles needs Erik, he needs his Dominant, he needs-but Erik won't let him emerge, Erik won't let him disappear even as upset as he is. He's always going to be good. He's always going to be what Erik needs. This is damage that can't be fixed, probably ever. This damage. Erik's damage. What he's done. And it doesn't deserve to be fixed, Erik deserves to live with the weight of it. All he can do is make sure that he doesn't hurt Charles in the interim. Erik buries his head in Charles's chest and struggles to take in oxygen, and he's stopped seeing what's in front of him and all that echoes is- _I can feel his heart-wired/heart like gunfire./Gunfire. Gunfire. Gunfire._  
  
"N-No -" He gasps, and it hurts so badly. Erik does deserve to heal. He deserves to not be crushed underneath the weight of this, no matter what he thinks. He doesn't deserve it any more than Charles deserves to be consumed entirely by the Void, crushed underneath the weight of the Universe constantly on his shoulders. He reaches out again, hurting and shaky and terrified, unsettled and unable to fix it, unwilling to cling harder or ask like he's apparently supposed to - wrong? Learn it the other way, was it wrong? It just hurts. It hurts, deep inside of him, a rending ache and he remembers this, he remembers what it felt like what it was but not why it happened. Either way, he reaches out, he takes all of that horrible panic and pain and makes it his own, he breathes for Erik, even as his own chest collapses, even as he takes harsh, uneven breaths, and he starts to glow again. Fix, he can fix, he'll fix it, he can fix it, he'll - he has to, he has to be good, he promised, what good is he if he can't take care of his Dominant? What good? He can take care of him, too, look, he's going to, and now Erik can breathe. No more panic. Charles is here. See?  
  
Erik shudders, wheezing and choking and struggling to get himself under control. "You're good," he whispers, smiling and petting Charles's face. He's the best thing that's ever happened to Erik. He's saved Erik's life more times than Erik can count. He's good. Erik can start to breathe again, but Charles isn't bad because he can't fix this any more than Erik is bad because Erik can't fix the places of Charles's mind he can't reach. Charles could take away Erik's pain, but Erik wouldn't be Erik anymore. He can't take Erik's pain from him, because Erik forbids it, he does. Erik doesn't know why it's coming up now, why it's coming up here, maybe just because he hasn't taken a moment for himself until now. And that's why Charles spiraled out of control and spun into oblivion and that's why Erik struggled so much and needed so much help because he hasn't dealt with any of this, he can't deal with any of it. Now isn't the place and time to deal with it, not with Charles reliant on him to be a good Dominant. For Charles to take responsibility for being bad because Erik's struggling, Erik cannot accept that. "You take care of me," Erik whispers again, hiding in Charles's chest. Charles staying with him, talking to him, it's helping. It's helping. He just needs to find his center and reorient so he can be a person instead of-being bombarded by memories that have no place. Instead of being triggered by natural parts of his own Dominance and making everything worse for his submissive instead of having Charles blame himself and think he's bad and he's not. Erik won't let him learn that. He'll learn that he's the balm that Erik needs.  
  
And Erik-it's not Charles being bad for needing it. It's Erik, being triggered for needing it. Erik needs it. Erik needs it and there's nothing Charles can hack off inside himself to make that go away. Erik needs pain and brutality and harshness and, and he always has, since he was a child-- _You aren't a Dominant. You were just born that way. You want to Dominate, fine then. This is how. Crush it! You pick that up and you shoot her in the head or I'll tear her skin from her body-no, too good for you, how many people do I need to shoot before you torch-_

* * *

But - Charles doesn't know. He's new and he's confused and mixed-up and he doesn't know and that's going to hurt Erik, isn't it? It's not fair. Too much to ask, he's too much. He's too dependent now, too reliant, he still can't climb up. Erik's not letting him climb up, not letting him drop or even making him like before the party? Why? It's Charles' fault, because - because he makes Erik think it's bad, maybe if he didn't need it so badly... he doesn't know what to do. Something is still happening, he's still crying and holding and touching, and he just doesn't know. Erik feels like he can't hurt because Charles is needy and that's the most unfair. It's not Erik's fault. It's Charles'? Isn't it? Charles loves him so much, but he's not good enough to make it better? He's learning this, too. He's never done this. He's scared. Raven has a fever and he can't do anything for her, nothing, she's going to die. Tell him how to help, what to do, he loves Erik so much he always will - Needs him. Needs him so much, he's sorry. This is his fault.  
  
Erik shakes his head. Just be here. Just hold him. Just pet him and touch him, and rock him. That's all he needs. He doesn't need anything else. He just needs Charles to stay with him, and be with him, and love him. Erik doesn't want him to climb up and away and he doesn't want him to hack off pieces of himself, he just wants Charles, he just wants Charles, that's all. And Charles is here, and Erik is breathing, and it's no one's fault. Erik isn't infallible, he isn't superhuman, sometimes he's going to be upset and that's OK. It doesn't mean Charles is bad or wrong, it does mean that sometimes he just needs a second to orient himself. "I was a bad person," he warbles in a shaky voice, petting Charles's hair. Charles trusts him, depends on him-and he was-"A bad person-" and Charles still-loves him-because he doesn't-know-  
  
Charles shakes his head, but it's shakier and more desperate, it's jerky and his eyes are still closed and he doesn't - he should be better at this, maybe he was, but he's not now. His fault. He's too deep into subspace and it's making him scared, it's hurting, like this, and that's absolutely not Erik's fault so he tries not to think it. He's drunk and he can't see straight and - no, he's not. He's not. But it feels impossible to stop crying, and he's coughing through it. "Not bad," he whispers, even if he knows Erik will argue. He does know. He knows. He knows, even if he doesn't know right now. He doesn't forget completely. But even if Erik did bad things, even if he was forced to, it doesn't mean he was a bad person. He was always Charles' Dominant, even when he wasn't, his mate, he was always perfect for him and meant for him. Charles knows and he loves him anyway. He'll always love him. He loves him more than the Void could destroy. "S-Sorry," he gasps, and he's shaking so violently his teeth are clattering, it hurts, is Erik sure he can't climb up? He can't fix it, cut it out? He can do that now. He can be better for him, let him try?  
  
No, no. Charles is perfect the way he is, and Erik loves him very much. He's not sure what exactly inspired his sudden meltdown, but it dissipates fairly quickly, and he presses kisses to Charles's jaw, under his ears, scritches down his chest. "It doesn't bother you?" Erik stutters out, because he's not too proud to admit that sometimes he does need reassurance. And sometimes it's not just reassurance, because sometimes he really doesn't know and-it doesn't bother Charles? It really doesn't? That Erik needs it? That he-likes it? That he wants it? It's different? Charles isn't scared of him? He doesn't know what he would do if Charles got scared of him. The thought is like a vice grip over his throat.  
  
Charles shakes his head so fast and so vehemently that he's sure his poor brain is getting rattled, but he needs Erik to know. He's still crying as he clings to Erik with everything he has, legs wrapped around him and fingers looking for anything to grasp onto. "No, no, uh-uh," he gasps, and it's a whisper but he makes it louder so Erik knows. So that he hears. Charles isn't scared of him, not at all. He's scared of himself and he's scared of - terrified of - not being good for him, not being right, but he isn't scared of Erik. How could he be? It's his Dominant and he always takes care of him. Always. He's safe. "I - I like it," he mumbles, and wonders if he should be ashamed. He knows parts of him still are. "I like it." He likes that Erik needs it. He was just... scared, but not of Erik. He actually needed - was that bad? Should he not have?  
  
"-scared?" Erik murmurs, touching his nose to Charles's hair, smoothing away the strands. "You-need? Tell me?" It isn't bad and it isn't shameful. Erik never wants him to feel ashamed, or bad, or wrong. Nothing that Charles wants or needs upsets Erik, and it's never been about that, not really. Erik's thoughts get intrusive and he sees himself hurting people and he gets it all twisted up. Sees himself hurting Charles, sees Charles begging him to stop, pleading for his life-harming him, torturing him, killing him. It's what he dreams about when he falls asleep and what he sees when his eyes are open and it's why he ends up in the bathtub more often than not these days, and-but it's different. It's different. He didn't hurt Charles. He doesn't hurt him. Experimentally he scratches along the marks still vivid against Charles's skin, tilts his ear and listens to the sound Charles makes. It's different. He should know. "'S different," Erik whispers. People don't sound like that when they're scared.  
  
It's different. Charles was never scared of Erik. He doesn't want him to end up in the bathtub again, at least not so much, and he knows the Void scrambled things up a bit but it tried to help, too, to heal, and it did and can't Charles try that, too? Show Erik that it's different and it always will be and always has been? That it's okay, so they can both learn? He sniffles quietly and buries himself further in Erik's neck, wiping tears there and hoping they'll wipe away the rest of it, too, but he's still hesitant, still unsure, still nervous and confused about what's right and what isn't. Ashamed of it even as he does what he's told, settling a little at the request even so because it sounds like an Order and he's so deep and for some reason he can't figure out he seems be going down every second, not up. "Needed you to be strict," he whispers, adds sir in his head but doesn't say it because - he's scared, a little, he hates it but he is, there's still that hitch inside of him and he needed Erik to push him through it. He did. "Hurts," he mumbles, sniffling again, and he's not talking only about the marks as he tries to find new ways to climb closer to Erik, squirming all over him because he still can't settle.  
  
And he really is exceptionally under, and it's palpable, humming, visible thing, and being on his back where all those marks smart certainly does nothing to help, but for some reason it makes him squirm harder, brings fresh tears to his eyes and it's not disobedience, he promises it's not (that thought makes him physically uncomfortable, makes his skin itch), but he doesn't move onto his knees. He curls up instead, closes his eyes tightly, and he knows it's going to scare Erik, so instead he crawls back into Erik's lap. It's okay. No, it's okay. He can't even talk, but he's sorry. He's sorry, it's okay. He clings as much as he possibly can, grips Erik's arm with probably too-much strength, like he's afraid he'll be physically ripped away.  
  
But Erik doesn't rip him away. Erik just moves to his knees too, helping Charles up to assume the position. "Charles," he says firmly. "I didn't give you an Order that time, but I did expect to be obeyed. Open your eyes," he does Order. "Tell me what's wrong. Are you afraid? Do you think you cannot be close to me like this? Following my Will?"  
  
Charles is afraid, but he's afraid to admit it. He starts to tremble and grabs tighter to Erik, whining when he can't climb right back into his Dominant's lap. He's sorry, he's so sorry. He wants to obey, he promises, he really does. It's what he wants more than anything right now, and he honestly can't remember wanting anything more. Not right this second. "I - I don't want..." And there are tears again, his lip is trembling with the rest of him, he closes his eyes again without thinking and shakes his head. No, it's okay. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. Not afraid.  
  
"Tell me," Erik Orders him, touching his face. He sits back against the wall and draws Charles to him, back into his lap and tries not to think, to just let the moment be and not be lost in sickening self-pity. "Tell me what you do not want. I'm right here."  
  
It's silly. It doesn't even make any sense, it's stupid and it's just going to make Erik upset again, but it was an Order and even if it wasn't, he wants to obey. He wants to be obedient. Good. He sucks in another breath, gives another pathetic sniffle and finds that safe, warm spot in Erik's neck. "Can't see you," he whispers, miserable. It had scared him before, too. It won't always, and maybe Erik will have to teach him and he'll learn but right now it honestly feels like too much-too much. It's stupid, see? He knows. He can feel Erik, he can see him even when he's not right in front of him, why does it make a difference? He hadn't been able to see him while he was being disciplined and it hadn't scared him, but this feels different. It feels different and he'd wanted so badly to be able to - he'd ruined it, though. He'd messed it all up, he'd been bad. It's his fault. It all is. He isn't being good for Erik. It's completely devastating, that. Thinking that, knowing that. He's not sure he has many tears left, but he'll cry them all out if he dwells on this any longer, because it truly does feel, in this instance, that it's ripping him apart. It's well and truly painful.  
  
Erik looks down at him, brushing a lock of hair out of his face. "Can't see me?" Now? "I'm right here, Charles. I won't go anywhere. Not if you don't want me to. Because I'm here to take care of you. Not stupid" He won't scare Charles. He won't leave him alone. And nothing is ruined. Absolutely nothing. He's being very good for Erik, he's following his instructions, and telling him when things are hurting or upsetting him so that Erik can make it better. He wants to make it better, that's all he ever wants.  
  
Charles shakes his head, calmed by Erik’s thoughts more than he could possibly explain, a shaky breath that finally doesn’t get caught up in his throat. He’s being good? It’s okay that he’s scared, Erik isn’t going to be upset? He just doesn’t want Erik to be upset. He wants him to know that he needs it, that he likes it, that Erik was right. He needs him to be firm and strict and - he needs it, he does. He’s just a little scared, and of this especially, but Erik can make it better. His Dominant can make it better, he knows he can. He trusts him, and right now, this far down, he relies on him. For every breath, for everything. Is that okay? Too much? Too much. “When - on my knees…” Erik is behind him, and he knows, he knows it’s him. He does. It wouldn’t ever be anyone else, because he’s owned now, he belongs to Erik and Erik would never let it be anyone else. Ever. He promised. He promised and he swore and Charles believes him. But it’s frightening right now, for some reason. It’s frightening, and he calmed down a little when Erik let him - let him… he didn’t ruin it, even though he got hesitant and scared of that, too? Erik doesn’t think he was bad? Does Erik know how good he wants to be? Can he possibly?  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik murmurs. Charles didn't ruin it, but also, that wasn't Erik's plan. He knows how good Charles wants to be and he knows exactly how good Charles can be, and that's what he wants right now. "Come here," he shifts, and pats the spot in front of him. This way, he's facing Erik, which is the way he'd have faced before, but Erik is glad to know the source of his hesitation now so he can modify and adjust. When Charles sits across from him, Erik taps his knee and cups his face. "On your knees, for me, _neshama_. You are mine, and you belong to me, and there is no room for anything else. Understood?" His words are gentle, but delivered in that stern, no-nonsense tone he sometimes adopts without realizing it, even when they're together like this, relaxed and calm. It's just a byproduct of Dominion, of which he's thoroughly in.  
  
He isn’t exactly relaxed and calm, or even close, but the tone does calm him. Incredibly so, actually, as if it’s exactly what he’s needed, and it is. It calms him more than anything else has, and so does being on his knees like this; it settles him right back down, and he starts to take more even breaths, no longer gasping for air, the tears on his cheeks hot but no longer building up and falling. Charles squirms and fidgets and wants to reach out, there’s still that horrible ache and it hurts, but he doesn’t. He keeps his hands twisting in his own lap and worries on his lip but Erik has every single ounce of his attention, every ounce of devotion, of pure, raw need. To submit. To do as he’s told, to be good. “Yes, sir,” he whispers, and it’s mumbled but only because he’s still uncertain, still frightened, but trying not to be. Erik’s going to take care of him, isn’t he? He’s going to make sure he’s better, that Charles is good for him? And if he doesn’t know how he’ll teach him. It’s safe. It’s okay, just like he said before. He's never been deeper down than this, and he keeps falling. And falling, and falling, and falling. It's scary, but Erik is here, so he - he doesn't need to be?  
  
"Don't need to be," Erik hums lowly, eyes fluttering closed for a moment as tendrils of liquid warmth wind down his body, starting at his chest and reaching the tips of his fingers and toes. The further down Charles falls, the more he follows, and when his eyes open again his pupils are blown, black eclipsing vivid emerald and he doesn't even do much of anything at all, just touches Charles's face, and gives it a little smack when Charles tries to bite his lip again. "None of that," he purrs. "Cross your hands at the wrist." Like this, it's impossible for him not to be speaking in Orders, it's not a conscious decision. Every exhale is wrapped in Will and envelopes Charles's body, keeping him still and poised.

* * *

Charles doesn’t know what’s happening. Everything is hazy and heated and way-down, his belly pooling with it, his eyes wide with it, his heart racing with it, but there’s still something stuck. It’s stuck, and he knows it, he knows it’s in the hitch of his breath and the way he squirms and tries not to bite his lip but wants to anyway, the way he trembles. He tries to focus on Erik, on just his Dominant, arching into his every touch, leaning into his words, crying out at the smack, whimpering in the aftermath. He tries to just feel, to just be Erik’s, to just be good. Nothing but his boy, he doesn’t have to do anything but obey, isn’t that right? He tries to soothe himself but it’s hard and he’s so vulnerable, so beneath, it’s frightening. It’s frightening but Erik hasn’t even finished the Order before he’s obeying, eager and breathless and needy, practically falling over himself to do it and shaking as he does, eyes still wet. Erik will teach him, Erik will help him. His Dominant will help him. His hands are shaking so hard that holding them out and keeping them still is difficult, and he whines again, closes his eyes. He's trying. He's trying, he's trying, he's trying, please help him?  
  
"Eyes open," Erik rumbles lowly, and it's not just his voice that breathes it out, but the world itself, atoms smashing together and releasing Command as their byproduct. Be still. Be calm. Breathe. Focus. He slips the rope against Charles's skin and tightens it slowly but surely, running his fingertips up and down Charles's arms, culminating in a lengthy, complicated knot. The deeper down Charles goes, the more it tugs at Erik, pooling hot in his gut and he breathes it all out, not letting himself lose control, not letting himself push, just letting Charles adjust because he's careful and he's committed and he won't hurt his boy. He won't. But he settles back into the bed and tugs Charles up onto his lap, wrapping him up in his arms and legs, tucking his hair behind his ear and kissing him slowly, running his hand all the way down his spine, cupping his ass warmly and rubbing Charles against him a little, before moving back up once more, settling Charles deeper down underneath the ocean, inside that cave of air where only Erik's Will breathes.  
  
He’s trying. He’s trying, he’s trying, he’s trying. He wants to be good. He wants to be so good, he wants to be still he wants to breathe he wants to be calm, just like Erik is telling him to be. Coaxing him into. But even as he arches into Erik’s hands, into his lips, into his Will, he’s trembling. He’s trembling and then he’s crying and he’s tugging at the rope despite not wanting to, not thinking about it and it’s all so much. It’s all so much and Charles is whimpering, constant, needy and distressed little sounds from the back of his throat and he’s crying and he’s shaking so horribly even as he stops squirming and there’s something in his belly that doesn’t belong but how does he possibly get rid of it? And he needs Erik, he needs Erik, he needs his Dominant more than he needs to breathe, there’s not even a question of it, he’s vulnerable and he’s wide-open and he’s owned completely but - “Hurts,” he rasps, and the tears are hot on his cheeks again and he keeps his eyes open because Erik said so and they’re wide and darker than they’ve ever been but bluer, too, and there’s desperate, confused fear there, and there’s startled heat and there’s trust and there’s submission. Forget the cave. Charles has sunk underneath it. “Hurts, sir, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, please -” Help him. Help him, help him please help him?  
  
"Tell me," Erik whispers, scratching lightly down his back. "Tell me what hurts. Tell me how to help, sweetheart. Tell me what you need." The Orders are low and rough, and his voice doesn't even sound like it belongs to him, and the more Charles shifts out of place the more it rises up in Erik, wants to put him down, wants to make him serve, wants to keep him in his place-but he's careful. He won't listen to it. He won't just do whatever he wants with no regard for the consequences, he isn't an animal. He listens to his submissive. Especially when Charles is afraid and unsettled and hurting and not in a good way.


	82. Everything is Darkness and Light II

Charles whimpers again, shivers at that tone, at Erik's thoughts, presses back into the hand at his back and makes more little sounds when that means all those marks rub against it. They still hurt, too, and Erik must know it, but it isn't what he's talking about. He doesn't know. He doesn't know, but it hurts so terribly and he just wants to be Erik's boy. Does Erik know that? Does he see it, does he feel it? He tugs at his wrists again, unconscious, sniffling a little harder. "Just hurts, sir," he whispers, and tries to pitch forward to be closer, but part of him answers differently at the same time, too. He needs it. He needs it so badly. Will Erik talk to him? Settle him down? Anchor him. He needs to be down, he needs to serve. He doesn't know how, but Erik can teach him? Show him? It's bad, he knows it's bad. He's so much needier than usual, he needs so much more, more help and more everything, he's sorry. But Erik will still help him? He wants to be good. He's trying, does his Dominant see? It hurts. "Help, sir," he begs.  
  
"Mm-mm. Stop that," Erik murmurs, gripping Charles's hair in his fingers and tugging his head back to gaze at him, nostrils flared. It's not bad. It's exactly where and what he's supposed to be. "Don't be sorry, _neshama_. I don't want that. I want you right here in my arms, exactly where you belong. I won't let it hurt. You're not going to focus on anything except for me. My Will. My voice. My mind. My body. Do you understand me, _tayer_?"  
  
Erik won't let it hurt. He won't let it hurt? Charles just needs to focus. He just needs to focus on Erik, on his Dominant and nothing else. He just needs to be good for him. But what if he can't? What if he can't. What if he gets scared? He makes another quiet, confused noise, tries to wiggle closer so he can nuzzle into Erik's hand. "Yes, sir," he gasps. "You - you won't let it hurt?" he asks, and it's small, it's scared, but it's trusting. He believes Erik. "It hurts. It hurts, you'll make it better?" And the way he says it makes it clear he believes Erik can, that he doesn't doubt for a second. He's the only one who can. Charles is dependent on him. He needs him so desperately. Is it okay? It's okay?  
  
"If you get scared, sweetheart, I'll make sure that you're safe. I won't let anything hurt you, here. I'm going to make it better. I'm going to make sure that you serve me so well. Would you like that?" he brushes his thumb over Charles's bottom lip, kisses him, heated and soft and sweet and long and good. Dominating. Because he is Dominant. Because he knows what Charles needs. He's always known. "And I know that you can be very good for me, and do everything I say, won't you? Because you are mine and you belong to me and you are meant to serve me, aren't you? My good boy. Because you are supposed to need me. My very good boy," his voice is rich and honeyed and accented with rough emotion, deep-down into Dominion.  
  
Charles is panting after the kiss, wide-eyed and trembling for an entirely different reason, hanging on Erik's every word as he nods breathlessly. It's exactly what he needed to hear. It's Erik talking him through it, it's what he needed and he's practically drunk on it, hazy and warm with it. "Yes, sir," he murmurs, because he does. He wants to serve Erik, he wants to be good for him, he wants absolutely nothing more than that. And Erik will make sure he does, that he is? He'll show him? He's going to make it all better. He'll talk him through it? Charles never wants Erik to stop talking to him like this, he needs to hear it. It's chasing all that unruly, uncertain fear away, and he still hurts so badly but Erik is going to make it better so it's okay. "Yes, sir, yes," he croaks, and he reaches out without thinking, trying to grab on, whining when he can't. Sorry, sorry, it hurts and he's so eager. He's a good boy, he promises. Erik will tell him what to do? Please? He needs it. He needs it, he needs it, he needs it.  
  
"You like that, hm? You like it when I kiss you like this?" Erik hums and does it again and again, and none-too-chaste, thoroughly Dominating and warm and soft and hot-no more pain, no more fear and uncertainty, just this. Just Charles serving his Dominant exactly how he's supposed to and Erik makes a low noise in the back of his throat, right into Charles's mouth, tugs him even closer, traps him with his leg against his thigh. "I've got you, dear-heart, hm? I've got you. I'm going to take such good care of you, listen to you, hm? Eager and hazy and warm. Feels good, sweetheart? Feels good? Serving me? Mm?" Erik gives his ass a sharp slap, grips his hair in hand so he can make Charles look at him. "So beautiful, my precious boy. So beautiful submitting to me-" and Erik wants him so badly in this moment it almost hurts him, almost causes him physical pain to suppress the parts of himself that want to settle Charles between his knees and use his mouth for something else than kissing and he doesn't-and that's not right-it's not good-selfish, isn't it selfish-he's not an animal-not-his thoughts skitter away and he buries a noise in Charles's throat, breathing deep and shallow. Control yourself, Erik. Control yourself. Control that howling beast that wants to take and take-  
  
Feels good. Charles' noises have taken a different tone, have turned to whimpers that sound much more like moans. Soft little murmurs as he tries not to chase after Erik's mouth, to only take what he's given, lips parted and swollen and eyes still wide and teary. "Feels good, sir," he pants, and it's obedient and so breathless, and the fear is gone and replaced with astonished pleasure, with confused want, with so much heady submission he's drowning in it. Deep, deep, deep under. And why is Erik holding back? Why is he holding back when it's his right to take, when Charles is only here to serve him? When that howling beast owns him? Charles is his boy, too. His submissive, his pet. He whines and tries to wriggle closer, tugs on his wrists again because it always makes Erik react, makes him stricter and firmer and he needs it. He needs it. Anything Erik wants, anything, Charles is here to give him. "Please, sir, please," he pleads, and it sounds as desperate as it is. Tell him what to do. Use him properly. Can't Erik see how much he's aching for it? How much it hurts that he isn't getting it? Make it better. Make it better, please. He won't be scared if Erik shows him. He has to teach him, that's all. He just has to teach him.  
  
Erik growls when Charles tries to free himself again, tugs on his wrists again, oh no. He doesn't want Erik to hold back? Doesn't he know-how dangerous that is, how-scary that is? And Erik doesn't want to scare him but the more Charles prods at that howling creature the more it rises up-how it hurts that he's not getting it, he'll get -Erik growls again, until his eyes lock onto Charles, and his hand wraps around Charles's throat, squeezing just enough to make him gasp and metal meeting flesh, collar against Erik's fingers. "Feels good, hm? As good as you sound begging me like this? So pretty and eager for me? My sweet boy. Kneel between my legs," he rasps the Order lowly, and Charles is small enough to fit in his lap so Erik can still reach his ass and give it another proper slap once he's settled, and he can still touch two fingers to his cheek and gaze at him with pure, blazing heat and Dominion, an inferno rising up in a spire-tower of liquid Will that shoots right from him into Charles like bolts of electricity.  
  
Charles is breathing so heavily he can hear it, harsh, hitching panting around choked-off little moans, whimpers, gasps, and he’s a shivering mess by the time he settles between Erik’s legs, crying out at the slap and shuddering head to toe. His feet curl and he can feel the welts there, too, whines at the soreness, shifts and stares up at Erik with his eyes wet and he is, he’s eager, he’s so horribly eager and he’s begging for it and he’s hurting without it, surely Erik must see it? His Dominant has to know, he has to know how it feels like the only air in his lungs is coming from Erik’s Command, from his voice from his Orders from his expectations from the reassurance that he’s owned and he’s good, it’s all he cares about, all he knows all he can fathom. Erik promised to take care of him and this is what he needs more than he’s ever needed anything else in his life. Doesn’t Erik hear it? Hear those thoughts at the back of his head, how they’re all scattered and unsure but fierce and needy? Doesn’t he hear yours I’m yours I belong to you I’m your _belonging I’m your boy I’m your pet take me choke me touch me own me claim me show me teach me teach me how to be yours teach me how to be good for you_? He doesn’t need to hold back. Charles is a little uncertain, a little frightened, a lot new, but that’s why he needs it. He needs Erik to show him, he needs more howling. What does the beast like? What does it desire? How can Charles serve him? He needs to be owned properly and shown how it should be, that’s all. He just needs to be shown. Show him, please? Help him? Charles nuzzles into Erik’s thigh, rubs his cheek there, shaking with need, looking up with nothing but pure adoration, with utter trust, with all of that hazy, dreamy submission. “H-Hurts, sir,” he whispers, but he’s smiling, sweet and hopeful, because Erik will care for him. He knows he will. Erik is his Dominant and his Dominant takes care of his boy. He knows how. He knows what Charles needs, it’s okay, he doesn’t have to worry.  
  
Erik runs his fingers through Charles's hair, swipes his thumb over his lip and Commands him to open up, he's going to show Charles exactly how to serve him and those thoughts fuel the spire higher and higher until it's cracking out of the center of the universe and into the great Beyond, illuminating Erik's Claim upon him throughout the Void and farther still. Charles did a very good job, or the Void did, there's not a lot of separation for Erik, to be honest-putting his mind back together but he's still a little uncertain himself, less finessed, and he wants nothing of humiliation and everything of desire that Charles has to give and every crackling neuron under his skin is telling him, there's more to this, there's more to this than debasement, there's more to this than fear and pain and he knows it where he knows how to breathe and blink and sleep because-because Charles is his, because Charles wants it. Wants to serve him. Wants to please him. He never has to worry. Erik is going to be so good and so careful and he'll make sure that Charles feels good and that his trust has a place to fan out and meet only softness and pleasure, that's all he deserves. That doesn't necessarily mean gentle, though. Not if Charles has any inclination of meeting that creature. "Open your eyes, look at me," Erik croons to him and when his lips part, he slowly draws himself across the cherry-red of his mouth. Erik's pupils dilate instantly, but he doesn't move, doesn't force, just lets Charles acclimate. See? He's careful. He can be careful. He can be nice. He won't hurt.  
  
For a moment, for just a moment, Charles startles again. He's new and it's a little scary and he jerks lile he's going to pull away, but there's nowhere to go and then he whines, wild-eyed, and settles. Like he's a creature, too, like he needs to be coaxed and he does. He does and if that creature inside Erik comes out to play, surely it knows to handle his? Even if it's skittish, confused, nervous. The nerves drain right out, are replaced with electricity and heat and curiosity, need, and he flutters, heaving breaths and wonders if he can, if he should, but if he shouldn't Erik will correct him. He's so safe here. Erik is so - he's so strong and big, he's so big, and that beast could - he will, won't he? Charles needs. Needs, needs, needs. Coax him out, his Dominant needs to know it's okay. Poke, prod. Charles can help, too. So he makes another soft, questioning noise and sticks his tongue out from ruby-red lips, licks at the head of Erik's cock and what's gathered there and moans. He's starting to tremble again, but not because he's afraid. Memories of this are closer but even if they weren't, even if the Void swallowed them, Charles knows he loves this. And Erik will show him how to do it? How to please him, how to serve him exactly right? Charles is new and Erik can teach him all over again, isn't that pretty and nice? He wasn't asked to but he gives those soft little kitten licks, experimental, eager, testing the waters, looks up at Erik because he was told to and his eyes are hotter than any stars in the Universe, filled with explosive, undeniable need. Tell him, please. Show him. He just needs a little more help this time, but he needs it from - he has to learn how to please that part that Erik thinks of as a creature, too, doesn't he?  
  
Erik gasps, a bare, halted-off noise and those fingers in Charles's hair tighten just a bit, and his eyes darken impossibly further and he pats Charles's cheek, grits out, " _Pe'ar_ , sweetheart, that's it. Mine. Open for me. Look at me. Take me in, neshama-that's right-" he whispers, voice unrecognizable. His hips stutter up for a brief moment and then he's inside, and his eyes lock on the sight of Charles over him, Charles wants to know-Erik holds him still, commands him open commands him more and he's gorgeous, his submissive is gorgeous on his knees bound up and Erik smacks at his cheek again, none too gentle this time. Not all at once-he doesn't want Charles to choke. Not yet. Not yet, but he will. And how pretty would his submissive look then, all a mess and begging for it. Erik's stomach flips over and he bites down hard on his knuckles to stop himself from making any noise because that's-bad, he remembers that-  
  
Charles' jaw already aches and there's so much left, so much not inside, and his moan is muffled by the cock in his mouth (Erik's, it's his Dominant he's servicing him) but it's loud even still, wild and startled and completely obscene. How must he look, on his knees like this, his lips parted and swollen from kisses, his eyes dark and hazy? Is it nice for Erik to look at, does he like it? He gasps at the slap, feels tears form in his eyes and all it does is make him needier, more determined to please his Dominant, to do exactly what he's told to suck harder, eager and sloppy and desperate, the sounds he's making messy and wet and his cheeks are hot with it but he doesn't feel humiliated. There's no room for shame, and maybe he's lost some of the finesse but he's always made up for it with eagerness, with devotion, and it's completely impossible to deny that there's pleasure in this for him, that he's greedy for it. There's nothing more right than this, is there? And why won't Erik make noises? Why shouldn't he? He shouldn't hold back. Not anything. He doesn't need to, because Charles is here and Charles is going to serve him perfectly, he promises, and Erik is safe too. He can be as loud as he wants. The beast can howl and Charles won't be upset or frightened, he'll ask for more. He'll beg for it. Please, can he have more? More, sir? He needs it. It hurts, more, please? It hurts, Erik will make it better, won't he?  
  
The rope around Charles's hands suddenly comes undone and just when Charles is about to wonder what's going on his arms are repositioned behind his back, forcing his posture straight as Erik veritably launches up on the balls of his feet and hooks a finger under Charles's collar, keeping him down on his knees while Erik looms over him, petting his face and his hair and drawing a finger down his cheek where a drop of precome smears and Erik puts it to Charles's lips where it belongs, and he doesn't know how much more there is how much more Erik wants to do to him, how much more he can serve Erik and it never ends, not ever, there is a monster inside of him that wants to fuck and take and own and possess in every possible way, in every iteration in every position in every concept of the word but right now all it's thinking is that it wants his cock jammed down Charles's throat until Charles chokes against him, until the only air he breathes is air Erik gives him and his cheeks are nice and red now, not just from exertion but because Erik alternates between pulling at his hair and dipping out of his mouth and smacking him and curling his fingers around his throat, and sometimes he kisses instead, brushes his hair behind his ears, his whole bearing a dark aura of affection in soft smiles and hungry eyes. "You want more? Hm? You want more? Tell me how much more. Tell me about it, _ah_ -" he raises his finger when Charles tries to reach up and puts him back down on his knees. "Tell me or you won't get it, and I know you want it. To please me. To service me. To be mine. Tell me." He's bright and grinning, as if he's just realized it's OK. It's beautiful. It's perfection. Charles is perfect. He gets this.  
  
If there is indeed a monster inside of Erik then Charles wants to offer himself to it. He wants it to own him, too, he wants it to possess him, he wants it to make him his and perhaps he’s been waiting for it this whole time, since the day they met, and Erik has never quite let it. If there is a primal, ancient part of Erik that he is scared to acknowledge, there is one in Charles who belongs to it, who desperately seeks the attention of his mate. Why shouldn’t it, when he belongs to every other part of Erik? When every part of Charles, even Void-changed, belongs to Erik? Charles is mostly unaware that the loud, pitiful whimpering noises are coming from him, that there are tears back in his eyes that he hasn’t shed even as he’s slapped and his hair is tugged, that he’s trying so hard not to squirm on his knees but it’s nearly impossible not to. “I need it,” he protests, and he doesn’t sound like himself, either, not this down, not at the very bottom of the ocean, gasping, his chest heaving. He won’t take what he isn’t given because he’s good but he wants to, because Erik’s cock is right there, leaking and wet with his spit and he’s desperate for it. He really, truly is. “It - it hurts, sir, it hurts so bad. Please let me? Please? I want it, I want to - I want you to…” And his cheeks are already red, but if they weren’t they would be now, and Charles squirms harder on his knees and bites his lip and takes a shaky, startled breath, shy again. But he’s not afraid, because Erik is here now and he’ll take care of him. “I want you to choke me, make me take all of it and - and h-hurt me, and - make me cry, teach me exactly how you like it and how to serve you so I know and I’m good and I need - it hurts…” Without it, going without it right now, it hurts. He needs his mate. He needs that ancient being that lives inside of Erik, doesn’t he see how badly Charles needs him? And if this was trapped inside of Charles, too, the Void fixed that. It’s here now and it needs its Bonded. He'll hurt if he doesn't get it, he'll hurt. Erik can make it all better. There's only Erik.  
  
Erik does let out a sound at that, a soft groan that bites itself off when he cups Charles's cheek in his hand and grits out the Order to open, again, and then he's shoving himself forward, making Charles take all of him, and does Charles know? Does he know how pretty he looks on his knees desperate and begging and owned by Erik, does he know how good he takes it for Erik and how much-Erik has to learn, too, what he likes, what he needs and Charles gives it to him with every shift of thought and movement and Erik thrusts forward harshly, listens to him whine and gag, lets his Will shimmer and flex around the room until it focuses fully back into Charles and wraps him up and squeezes like invisible fingers around his body, around his throat, and the second he tries to squirm Erik's there, keeping him in place pulling his hair, slapping him, staring down at him, hurting him-those tears are for him and they're good-not suffering, not harm, Erik won't let him but he will take every last one of those noises vibrated into himself and he makes Charles sit up straight, no slouching-and he's hard and he wants-more, he wants more but he can't decide how, he wonders if Charles wants it, wants Erik to come all over his face or down his throat or pull him off and take him over his lap, come inside of him while he spanks his ass raw, until he can't even move without remembering that he belongs to Erik-  
  
Why does he have to choose? Why should he have to? Erik can come all over his face and then come inside him, too, he can do whatever he likes with Charles and Charles wants to beg, wants to plead to ask if he can swallow it so he can taste it or for Erik to come on him so he can be marked or inside so he can be filled up and he can't decide what he needs more, what he'd rather beg for so why not all of it? Why not all of it? But that should be impossible and at first it seems a little frightening, he's crying, choking on Erik's cock, sputtering and gagging and still needing more, opening up and taking and taking and taking and trying to make it good. Trying so hard for his Dominant. He's messy and ruined and whining and moaning, still, hard and leaking against his own belly, so swollen it hurts but it doesn't hurt as much as the rest. It really does hurt. Charles starts to squirm in earnest even as he's held down and down and down, crying and red-faced and so desperate, mouth stretched wide and jaw aching and greedy for it, because he needs. Does Erik see how much he needs? How much it's burning him up inside, how much he needs? He takes desperate, heavy breaths through his nose and sobs with Erik down his throat, but it's not that he doesn't want it, it's that he does and it's working him up in all kinds of ways. It's that he needs and he needs - Erik can really take care of him, even when it's this much? He'll make it all better? Charles wants to serve him, it's all he wants to do and he's burning up, he's so hot, it hurts. He's whining around Erik's cock, high, keening whines, and it's all coaxing, isn't it? Prodding? Trying to get his Dominant's attention. Look how much, does Erik see how much, does he see how much Charles needs it? What will he do?  
  
If it's Erik's attention he wants, it's Erik's attention he gets and Erik slips himself out from between Charles's lips, glaring down at him and then he's lifting Charles again, strong even with only one functional arm, even without his abilities, and gets him right to his feet. "On the bed," he murmurs lowly, into Charles's ear, a note that shivers all the way down his spine and into his curling toes dipped amongst carpet. He Orders Charles to Present himself again, but this time Erik remains in front of him, folding himself neatly before Charles's face so he can keep going, loosing the rope so that he can follow the rest of Erik's demands. On his hands and knees, and Erik didn't say stop so he grips a fistful of Charles's hair and slips his cock right back inside. "Wet your fingers," he growls, stroking Charles's cheek. He can figure out how, because he daren't not stop again. "Now spread your legs for me. Wider," Erik slaps him across the face when he doesn't adhere the very first time, but maybe that's on purpose, maybe Erik just likes slapping him. Maybe he'll do it again just because he wants to, just to hear him whine against his dick.  
  
If that's what Erik wants, it's absolutely what he gets. Charles can't stop whining, constant, keening noises, choking around Erik's cock and he's crying in earnest now. Tears slipping down his cheeks and making everything messier, maybe more intense because he knows he's crying for Erik again and it's overwhelming, it's all so completely overwhelming but he wants to be good, and his Dominant knows, doesn't he? He sees how desperately he wants to obey, to do exactly, exactly as he's told and to Erik's liking? He thrills at another firm tug at his hair, at Erik shoving further down his throat, and he gags but tries to follow directions, Command, while he's treated exactly how he should be. This is what he needs, and the beast knows it, and Charles' beast preens at the attention, begs for more. He's still breathing harsh and desperate through his nose when Erik pulls out a bit, and he takes the time to shove his fingers in his mouth beside Erik's cock, his mouth impossibly stretched, to gather up some of his tears, a mess of them and spit and precome and that makes him whimper because it's wasted he wants to taste it but Erik said so he gets his fingers wet. See? Does Erik see? He can be such a good boy, he'll be so good. Erik will be so proud of him, he sucks harder, tries to take more of his Dominant down on his throat on his own.  
  
Erik practically purrs with it as Charles scrambles to obey his demands, his instructions that are breathed out as Orders because he can no longer contain himself from speaking them into existence as such. "Now," he murmurs, low and affected and gripping Charles's face in his hand, making him look while Erik tells him exactly what to do, exactly what he wants him to do. "You're going to prepare yourself for me, you're going to prepare yourself to be fucked because I want to take you, and you want to please me, hm? I know you do, and you are not-" he punctuates this with a firm smack, "going to stop sucking my cock because if you do I'll be very unforgiving, and you know what happens when I'm uncharitable, hm?" He trails down and wraps his fingers around Charles's cock, giving it a firm tug. "You don't get to come, no matter how prettily you beg. Now show me how much you want me inside this pretty little hole of yours." He gives it a sharp slap right over where it's exposed how Charles is Presented and stuffs himself even further into Charles's mouth while he does.  
  
And he does want Erik inside. He wants to be taken and Claimed and fucked, just like Erik promised, just like he'd said earlier he would. He never wants it to stop. It hurts, it hurts so terribly, not having all of it at once, it feels like he's burning from the inside and he thinks he remembers this, but he can't focus on anything but Erik, his Dominant, his Orders. He's gasping and choking again on Erik's cock when he reaches behind himself, and even without real lube, even with the angle not perfect, he's over-eager and needy and the stretch burns, but not as much as it should. He adds another finger before he's really ready for it because he needs it, and he's crying harder. Crying and whining loudly, squirming even though he knows he shouldn't. Getting unsettled but instead of spiraling he reaches for Erik instead, reaches for him and relies on him, totally and completely and even at the first signs of startled panic he doesn't worry because his Dominant is here, and he thinks sir sir sir because he knows whatever it is, whatever it is, Erik will make it better. He always takes care of his boy. This is how it should be, isn't it? Exactly as it should be?  
  
Erik makes him wait until he can take three fingers before he finally shifts Charles forward on his lap, removing his cock from Charles's mouth with a loud pop that makes Erik grin, and he settles him right between his legs, and something slaps into his hand and it's lubricant and he passes it to Charles. "Get me ready, sweetheart," he whispers, stroking Charles's face and uncapping the bottle so some spreads over Charles's fingers, which he guides to his cock. "Get me ready, that's it, you're being such a good boy for me. This is exactly how it should be, you take such good care of me and I'm going to take such good care of my sweet boy, hm? Come on, that's it-" he gives Charles's ass another smack as he drizzles the liquid all over Erik's already swollen and leaking dick.

* * *

But Charles is crying too hard to breathe, whining even louder, low and panicked now that Erik's not using his mouth and shaking for reasons that aren't just overwhelmed pleasure and his hand freezes on Erik and he closes his eyes. He closes his eyes and he starts to sob and it's not - it's not - "S-Sir," he gasps again, and this time it's a different plea and he doesn't know what to do, he doesn't know what to do so he doesn't do anything, he just waits for Erik to make it better. It hurts and he's frightened and Erik will make it better. "Help, sir, please," he begs, his voice is wrecked and he tries to breathe through the hitches in his chest, the lump in his throat, he just wants to be good. He just wants to be good, he's sorry. He's trying so hard to be a good boy.  
  
Erik wraps Charles's hands into his own, and uses his lesser hand to frame his cheek, bowing their foreheads together. "Here's what to do," he whispers, and shows him, slow and steady and easy. See? Here's what to do. He wraps Charles's fingers around himself and helps him. No need for fear. Erik won't hurt him. He won't. Erik only wants to take care of him and Dominate him and give him exactly what he needs, what they both need, what that howling beast inside of Charles has been begging for this whole time, the respondent creature inside of Erik risen up to accommodate, but that doesn't mean pain. Not fear. Not panic. Erik is right here.  
  
Charles doesn’t mean to be frightened. He doesn’t mean to be scared, and he knows he shouldn’t be. He knows there’s nothing to be scared of, not with Erik here, he knows that. But his chest feels all tight and he’s still crying, still shivering and his eyes open to stare startled and wide-eyed at Erik’s big hand coaxing his to curl around Erik’s cock, and it makes him burn, makes the creature cry out with need but - he takes another shaky, gasping breath, squirms between Erik’s legs. “I - h-hurts,” he whimpers, and swallows, biting on his lip and wishing idly that there was something still in his mouth to keep it from happening, they’re sore and swollen but mostly he’s thinking that - that something must be wrong, and it hurts, it hurts, hurts, sir, please, and maybe he’s sick? Maybe he’s sick again? He doesn’t know. He just knows he needs to be good and he needs to be Erik’s and he needs that creature Erik keeps mentioning, please make it better, it hurts. He promises he’s trying to be a good boy, does Erik know? Does the beast inside of him know? "Hurts, sir," he repeats, hitched and so trusting. It's all in his eyes, filled with tears but complete submission. An offering, it's an offering, it's been an offering this whole time.  
  
"I know, I know, sweetheart," Erik whispers, brushing his hair from his face. "Come here, _tayer_. Come up here. No need to be afraid, I've got you-" Erik knows he's not sick. The howling creature in his heart knows that what Charles has isn't a sickness at all. It's because he isn't right where he needs to be, and he tugs Charles up right onto his lap, and draws his hand down Charles's stomach, and then between his legs, replacing Charles's fingers with his own, cupping his face in his lesser hand. "Better? Is that better? Hm?" He rubs his slicked up cock against Charles's, against his belly, almost-but-not-quite, eclipsed emerald to azure as he watches for Charles's reaction-not hurt. Not pain, please no pain please no more he'll make it better, he'll soothe it away he'll bring Charles right back to where he belongs, taken and owned and used and Erik's-  
  
Immediately Charles settles some, sniffling, nuzzling into Erik's hand like a needy, distressed creature. He is, but he's being soothed so nicely and he whines again as their cocks rub together, as Erik ruts gently against his belly, smearing lube and precome. Not sick? The creature knows he's not sick? It knows what he needs to feel better? He pitches himself closer, pants against Erik's shoulder and calms, but it still hurts. It still hurts deep inside of him and he doesn't know why, it's been hurting this entire time and he doesn't know why and it's scary when he doesn't know. Does Erik know? He rocks in his lap, soft, keening noises, biting at his lip but it hurts and not just the soreness from his earlier punishment. It hurts in his belly and his chest and everywhere. "Make it better, sir," he pleads, and pokes at that beast, because if it's Charles' mate it has to know? It has to know, if it's not the Void, it has to know what's wrong with him?  
  
"Mm, make it better," Erik rumbles, affected and raspy, and soon he removes his fingers so he can settle Charles right over his cock and slowly sink him down inch by inch, looking up at him with an expression of enraptured adoration. " _Sheli_ ," he growls into Charles's ear, giving his ass a nice little smack once he's settled, grinning up at him and giving a good hard thrust right inside to that spot he's always known is there, he didn't know so many things, it's all new but this he remembers on instinct, right there-  
  
It's all entirely too much. Charles' eyes are wider than he thinks they've ever been, he's shaking all over, there are tears on his cheeks and he tries to wriggle, not to get away but because he has to, but he's pinned. In Erik's arms, on Erik's cock. It burns and it stretches and it's overwhelming, too sensitive and he's crying but he isn't afraid, he's just astonished. He's awed and overstimulated and he screams when Erik nudges against that spot, all the way inside where he's stuffed too full (how does he fit, how could his body possibly -) and he doesn't mean to but something snaps and he comes, and comes, and comes, it doesn't seem to stop and his vision goes white. He knows he's supposed to ask permission so he cries at that, too, but he can't help it. He couldn't help it, he's sorry, Erik can teach him better? He can teach him better for next time? But he's still rocking his hips with Erik inside of him, like he needs to feel it, his hole clenching tightly around the stretch and he's gasping and keening. Was Erik always this much? Was it always this much, this big, this full? It's been ages and ages and ages and forevers since, and he's new, he's never - and Charles rubs up against Erik, hazy and panting harshly against his Dominant's neck, gasping every time Erik shifts inside him, squirming and caught. He's sorry, he meant to be good. He wants to be good, he's been trying so hard, help him. Teach him, okay? Make it all better.  
  
Erik just groans with it, though, delighted and utterly overcome and he fucks himself up even harder just to hear Charles whine and scream and he draws his fingers through all that mess Charles has made all over himself and draws it down his chest, down his face, marked by his own come that Erik made him give, that Erik inspired and he's laughing, and it's joyful and good and Charles is so sweet and precious in his arms and clenching so nicely against his cock and he gasps, dips his fingers in Charles's mouth, makes him taste himself-see what Erik did to him? See how Erik filled him up and now it's not hurting anymore because Erik's giving him what he needs-it's OK-he didn't have to help it. Erik didn't tell him he had to wait, he knew it would be so much and it was and it is and is and is-and Erik can't seem to catch his breath, he's falling farther and farther into Dominion beyond the floor and he can't breathe, it's all fire and molten, platinum heat exploding out of him and he traps Charles's hands behind his back so he can use the momentum of gravity and lay into him, and it's so good and he-and Erik bows their foreheads together, panting, biting at his jaw and neck, scratching at his shoulders, at his ass, his own lips parted in astonishment.  
It still hurts a little - and it's sore, it stretches and aches but that's so delicious, it feels so good, how does it feel so good?  
  
Charles actually cries when Erik's fingers slip from his mouth, when he doesn't have something to suck on, messy and nothing but hazed, breathless need. He latches onto Erik's shoulder instead, desperate. He's being stuffed, his hole clenching and tight and it doesn't seem like it's big enough, like there should be nearly enough room, but of course there is. He was meant to take this, to take Erik, to take his cock. He's sniffling and helpless and trembling atop Erik's lap, whining loudly every time Erik nudges and rubs against that oversensitive spot inside of him, and it feels like he always does. There's no escaping it, no matter how much Charles squirms, but why would he want to? He should take it and take it and take it. Every time Erik slips out even a little he's whimpering in protest, crying out, horrified at the notion that he won't be full, that he'll be left empty - but Erik won't, will he? He won't? He'll keep him nice and full, that's what the beast was promising this whole time, what Charles needed what he'd offered and his cock is rubbing against Erik's firm stomach and it's hard again and he whimpers, what's happening? What's happening? But all he can think is to try to clench tightly enough that Erik will stay inside, gasping. "Sir, sir, sir, please," he begs, and he doesn't know what he's begging for but his Dominant knows, right? He knows? He cries out a sharp bite to his neck, arches it and offers it right up, nothing but heady, total submission. He offered himself up to that creature in Erik's chest, so he'll take care of him now, won't he? He'll stay and take care of Charles and let him serve him, keep showing him how?  
  
With a loud, choked-off groan Erik fucks up into Charles again only to realize that he's already come, that he's already inside that he's fucking into his own come and he drags his cock out all the way to the tip and uses Charles's momentum and the snap of his own hips-still canting to the right a little, that minute imperfection that reminds Charles that it's _Erik_ fucking him, Erik taking him, his Dominant filling him up and he can't-he can't stop if he slips out for even a second he wants to pin Charles to the mattress by his neck and spread him apart- _hachrea_!-the Command is so intense he might even be doing it, pinning him like an animal, like two animals who have finally met one another and recognized their perfect match, so that Erik can sink his teeth into the back of Charles's neck and keep him down and rub him into his own mess, smeared all over his stomach and the blankets and Erik's still thrusting into him, slow, steady pumps of his hips like he could spend all day here, with Charles in his nest, leisurely taking him forever, feeding him nothing but Erik's release for all the days to come because Charles belongs to him and this is his home, in Erik's bed, underneath his body, his cheek pressed to Charles's face so Charles can turn and see his eyes, half-lidded and hazy and he's at just the right angle to kiss him so he does, because he can, absorb all those moans and whines right into his own mouth-  
  
Charles squirms and wriggles on his belly, whines into Erik's mouth and cries but he isn't too distressed, he can't be with Erik's come inside of him, with Erik's cock inside of him. It's soothing and it's perfect and it melts away some of the heat, some of the hurt, some of the ache, even as he feels like his skin is still on fire. Did he come again? Did he ever stop coming? He doesn't know but his dick rubs against the sheets still hard and leaking and he whimpers with it, so sensitive, everything is too sensitive and he can barely kiss back he's so hazy and overwhelmed, his lips parted and everything sloppy and too-needy. "Sir," he begs again, and it's hoarse and wrecked and Erik won't leave him empty, he promises? He promises? Charles couldn't bear it right now, he'd die, does Erik know that? He has to be full or he'll die. What's happening? Is it okay? Is it safe? His noises take on something more unsettled, something dipping into panic, but he just nuzzles into Erik, clenches harder around the cock inside of him. Has he ever been this down? Will he ever be again? Will he ever come up? It's okay, it's safe, what's happening?  
  
Mmmm. Erik can think a little clearer now that Charles is underneath him, subdued where he belongs and when he squirms and wriggles Erik just holds him down more and that soothes him, too and he blinks lazily, pets his pretty boy down the back and snaps his hips forward again just so he can stay inside and he remembers, in a far off land, he remembers they needed this once before. When they Bonded, and it hurt to be apart, does Charles remember? And they stayed inside for a long time and they just did this and it was good and _mmnnh_ , Erik doesn't realize he's making low, rumbling noises of satisfaction from deep in his chest when Charles pushes back against him, clenches around him, begs him over and _over-"Mnnh, lo, tayer sheli, yeled nehedar sheli, ani lo e'ezov, mavtiach, hm_?" he soothes, soft and sweet compared to the rough treatment of his hands and teeth and nails.  
  
Charles doesn't think he remembers, is that okay? He doesn't think he remembers much of anything and that's frightening, but if Erik says it's okay than it must be. If his Dominant says it's okay then it must be. This is the creature that lives inside of Erik, the primal, ancient being that beats inside with his heart, isn't it? It's all Erik, but that's who's holding him now, isn't it, who's soothing him? And Charles has never been safer. He knows that. But then why is he struggling, wriggling like a fish on a hook? Why is he kicking and making such loud noises? Why is he trying to crawl away on his belly where Erik put him, why are his fists bunched up in the sheets that he's tearing away from the bed? It's not because he wants to get away, because the second Erik slips out of him he screeches in horrified agony, starts to sob. It's all hazy and confusing and somewhere, somewhere, someone said something about what this might be like, about cycles and biology but right now all that makes sense is trusting his Dominant. Charles doesn't know or remember but if he can just remember Erik, if that's the only thing in the Universe that he knows even with a brain that is the Universe, he'll be okay? He'll be safe. Let Erik take care of him, let the creature do what it was meant to. Let Erik learn, something deep, deep, deep inside of him says.  
  
That's alll that Erik wants him to remember, that's all he wants. Is he Erik? Is he a creature? He doesn't know anymore, either, his thoughts melt and blur together, but when Charles even thinks of trying to escape, to pull away, Erik pins him right down and lays into him even harder, bites him and a little memory pings out at that and he laughs, a low, hoarse noise. He remembers the last time this happened, he couldn't bite. Now he can. Much better. So much better. Erik hums and spends time peppering his neck and shoulders with marks, so much so that they turn into patterns, bruises that spill out over Charles's pale skin beautifully, and then Erik soothes them, and starts all over again. He can kick and he can whine and scream and fight, he belongs here. It's not an Erik that Charles is familiar with, one who so brazenly acts without his regard, without checking and testing, when he's thrashing and fighting so hard, but it's an Erik he's always known exists. An Erik that knows the difference, that knows what its mate sounds like and knows that Charles isn't afraid, that he isn't trying to escape, that he wants to be caught, that he's challenging Erik to catch him. Erik is good at challenges. He will never let Charles go.

* * *

For a long time that could be an eternity, Charles settles at that. He calms and murmurs, quieter whining noises, purring from his own chest and soft, startled little cries when Erik bites him, when he rubs insistently against that spot inside of him, hot and hard and still too-much, too-big, but perfect, too. His Dominant, his mate. He thinks he might come again like that, just a little, wet against the sheets and still needy and hard, but for a while he's utterly calm, maybe even drifting. In and out of sleep, and Erik is, too, his mind is softer against him and he's still inside and it's soothing. And then he's decidedly not calm. Something clearly distresses him and it's not a rational response to whatever it is, and for a moment he's afraid, because Charles is - rational, isn't he? He thinks rationally? And he has to worry, he has to - but let Erik learn, let yourself learn, something says again, and he's kicking and thrashing and scratching with his nails, and he's much smaller and weaker physically but with a push from his mind he can slip off the bed, off Erik's cock, and that hurts, it hurts and it hurts and it aches and he backs up against the wall and what, what is happening? What's happening, what is he doing, did he do this last time? Did he do this last time, did he back himself against the door and push out and shiver and it's painful, is he really not sick? His eyes are blown incomprehensibly wide, darker than they've ever been outside the Void, and wild. Who said something about this? Touched his shoulder, said it might be difficult - his chest is heaving and he touches it with one of his own hands, feels his heart pound. Let Erik learn?  
  
Erik is up off of the bed in an instant and he stalks toward Charles, utterly picks him up and throws him right back on the mattress, pins him right back where he belongs and doesn't let him move an inch not even in his mind Erik is lockdown he is a metal fortress of steel and Charles cannot penetrate it Erik will not let him get away he will not, he will not, he growls and shudders and slips himself right back inside-  
  
It's the greatest relief Charles has ever felt, or at least in this moment it feels like it, Erik being back inside. He's sick without him, he's hurting, he's going to die and Erik must know it? And every part of him, every single part wants to back down and submit, every rational, hazy part, but something else is happening instead. Charles is trying desperately to flail. He's scratching at Erik's back and tugging at his hair and biting and screeching and howling like a wild thing, like an animal, hips bucking like he isn't sure if he wants to throw Erik off or get him deeper and it's - what's happening? There's panic somewhere outside of his body, raw and terrified, what if he hurts Erik? What's wrong with him? He wants to be good and Erik's boy why is he - is something wrong, is something wrong -  
  
Nothing is wrong, the World comes to Charles with Erik's voice, an Order of its own. He won't hurt Erik. Erik won't let him. And furthermore, Erik likes it. Can't he see that? Can he see? Erik will earn his submission, he wants to earn his submission and he will and there's nothing that Charles can do about it and he will stay in place, " _You will stay_!" Erik growls the Order with Charles's hands pinned above his head. " _Fuck yourself back on my cock because you are mine and you will obey me_!" he snarls that Order harshly right into Charles's ear in an inhuman voice, something he's never heard burst from himself before and Charles is his and his mate is trying to escape and Erik will not allow it, he will not, Charles belongs to him-  
  
Nothing is wrong? How is nothing wrong? But he believes it, even still. He believes it because it's Erik, because it's the World and because it's his mate, and the sound that comes out of his mouth is a strangled scream as he does what he's told and rocks himself back on Erik's cock and for some reason it feels like more, bigger and it's tighter and stretching him and he gasps, and gasps, and gasps, he can't catch his breath and all those wild, animal noises are coming from him. He's still trying to thrash in Erik's arms even though he can't, pinned by Order and strength and cock, caught, so he makes louder noises instead, snaps his teeth and tries to bite, new, hot tears on his cheeks and he's impossibly, undeniably worked up. " _Let me! Let me! Let me!"_ he howls, and it feels like he's burning again, there's some strange instinct warring inside of him against rationality, against his own desires - because what does he want more than Erik's cock? Nothing, there will never be anything he needs more than that right now. Than being filled. But Erik - has to learn? Has to learn? What is he learning, what is Charles learning? Nothing's wrong, Erik said so.  
  
" _No_!" Erik snarls right back, and once Charles has settled and obeyed his Orders Erik pins him again, petting his hair. He's caught, unable to thrash and writhe and full of Erik, and Erik's heart howls in satisfaction, and when Charles tries to bite him Erik snaps his hand over Charles's neck, too, keeping his head still, keeping him. What does he have to learn? That Charles belongs to him? Because he knows. He knows it. In his deepest, darkest places this is what he knows, more than any rational thought that's been burned right out of him.  
  
Charles does. He does, he does belong to Erik, but there’s something else, isn’t there? And there’s no rational thought, there’s animal instinct and there’s full-body shaking, leashed up potential and whatever this is - leashed, leashed, isn’t that nice? But there’s something else, and Charles is clenching tight, needy and full but glaring, teeth still bared, still vibrating with it all. ” _Let me! Let me! Let me_!” he demands, and his own creature is howling and snarling and on edge, everything besides this burned out. Let him so he can show him.  
  
Erik's head tilts down at Charles and he blinks. Show him? Charles doesn't want to be here anymore? Wants to leave? Doesn't want-is Erik-he freezes, all breath stolen out of his body.  
  
No! No! No, that’s not right. Charles just needed - it’s all instinct, it’s all animal, and something is wrong, isn’t it? He’s wrong? But he can’t help it, he doesn’t know how to do anything else now, and when Erik lets him go he pitches forward and bites, hard, at Erik’s neck, which isn’t what he’d wanted but it is the only way he can think to jolt him out of it. No, he doesn’t, he doesn’t, he’s Erik’s, it’s just something is wrong, can’t Erik tell? Something must be wrong. He’s sorry, he’s sorry, he needed to -  
  
He shudders, tears dripping down his cheeks as he reanimates and he shakes his head. Wrong? What's wrong? Show him what's wrong. "Show me," he rasps, Ordering it almost inaudibly. His arms wrap around Charles again because he doesn't want him to go anywhere but he's- _huh_ -something wrong, he didn't know-  
  
Is something wrong? The World said nothing was wrong but now he's confused, now he's scared and worked up, is it wrong? Is he feeling things wrong? He whines loudly, swipes at Erik's tears, clenches down hard around his cock and rocks, soothing himself, soothing his Dominant. "It - beast..." he whimpers, and he doesn't know how else to say it, he doesn't know how to explain it. He doesn't want to leave, not really, he just - he's shaking, vibrating, are his instincts wrong? Bad? Erik doesn't like it? Help him? He's being bad?  
  
Erik remains still for a while before he's convinced that Charles is still here, still wants to be here, and slowly he moves again, stretching himself over Charles's body so he can thrust up into him again, after withdrawing nearly all the way out, petting Charles's hair and shivering in the aftermath. He didn't force Charles? He didn't make him? Charles isn't bad. Erik is bad. Erik's always been the bad one. He's always been the bad one. Charles isn't feeling anything wrong, he's exactly right, he's always been right, his instincts have always been right and it's Erik that's wrong, he's the wrong one-he ducks his head, tears feathering into Charles's hair.  
  
Why is Erik saying that? It’s not true. It’s not true. Erik didn’t force him, Erik didn’t do anything wrong, he was entirely right. He was following his instincts and he was right, that purring, howling creature inside of Erik knows its mate and knew exactly what he needed and how to give it to him. Charles was the one who got confused, he must be the wrong one. Something is wrong? Or - it’s not wrong? They’re both right? He’s confused, worked up still, whining high in his throat as he rubs his cheek against Erik’s tears, rocking hard against him, tense and wound up. His instincts must be bad, they made Erik upset, they made him stop - but Erik wasn’t wrong. He was perfect. Come back, come back, more.  
  
More? More? But he-but he didn't know-but Charles-but Erik couldn't let him go he couldn't he can't let him go, he can't. He can't let him. He belongs to Erik, and the creature that lives inside of him, can't let him go even if that means-that means he's bad and he's sorry, he's sorry he doesn't want to be evil. Charles has to promise Erik isn't forcing him, isn't-he has to, he has to he doesn't understand, he doesn't understand Erik makes a low, distressed whine in the back of his throat. He can never understand, Erik won't ever let him understand, but he has to promise, he has to promise.  
  
Charles promises. He promises, he promises, he promises. Erik isn’t bad, he isn’t evil, he isn’t wrong. He’s not. His instincts were exactly correct, and Charles didn’t want to actually leave, Erik had it right. Didn’t he think that? Didn’t he say that? His instincts were right, the beast was right, he is right. He’s Charles’ mate and nothing he ever does is forcing him, ever, Charles isn’t being forced. He’s being treated exactly how he should be, and he whines harder, thrusts back and back and back, rolling his hips as much as he can, needing to feel himself filled. But he didn’t want to leave, doesn’t Erik know? He didn’t want to escape, he wanted to be caught, and it’s different. It’s different, it’s different, he’d never want to actually leave. If he runs, he wants Erik to catch him, doesn’t he know? He wants to be caught. That’s all. That’s all. Charles wasn’t upset because he wanted to leave, he wanted - he wanted to be chased - what’s wrong with him? What’s wrong with him? That’s wrong, what’s happening, what’s wrong with him -  
  
Erik thought he knew that, Erik thought he knew that, Erik-Erik knew that didn't he? He caught Charles. He caught his mate and didn't let him leave and-and Charles wasn't hurt and Charles is still here and he didn't force him and he caught him and kept him and he chased him and it was OK? It was OK? It was good? His instincts are good? He didn't rape Charles? He didn't force him? Charles wanted-and Erik did it because Erik knows just what his mate wants, Erik knows, that creature knows, he knows-and all of a sudden he's purring again, because he did it-he did good, he did right, he knew and he takes care of his mate and his submissive and he keeps him and he's so pretty and he's back in his place with Erik's cock buried inside of him and he groans lowly, still afraid to really let himself-let himself express, still-blocked in that regard but it's OK, he doesn't have to, Charles can hear it inside of him, the howl of victory and the molten, shivering heat of pleasure and he loves Charles so much, every part, even his most animalistic, ancient parts, loves him so much- _nothing wrong, nothing wrong sweetheart,_ Charles is perfect-perfect boy, his perfect boy-  
  
Nothing wrong? Erik promises there’s nothing wrong, he doesn’t need to be scared? He really doesn’t? He likes Charles the way he is, even if he wants to be chased, even if his instincts say he needs - he needs - that’s okay? What if he does it again? What if he needs that, what if he needs to scratch and bite and run and have Erik chase after him and catch him? He’s sniffling now, too, rolling his hips back into Erik’s cock, rocking to soothe himself still, whimpering louder and louder each time he does. Trying to climb on top of him, to get him deeper and deeper and deeper. Erik is such a good mate, he’s such a good Dominant, there’s no forcing. There’s never any forcing, he always knows what to do. But it’s okay if he’s - if he can’t be rational again? It’s hot, and it hurts, and Charles feels all hazy and instinctive and that’s really okay? It’s safe? It won’t scare Erik?  
  
Erik kisses his forehead, brushes his hair aside, and he lets Charles climb atop, lets him because that's his choice. He can let him. He can let him and this position is so much nicer because he can stay inside so much longer and he can thrust up inside of him over and over again and it's good and he's not forcing him and he's not-Charles promises? He doesn't have to be rational. Erik will take care of him. Erik promises that, too. If he needs to scratch and bite Erik wants it, Erik will bite him harder he'll put him down if he runs Erik will catch him he will, if he needs anything Erik will rise up and give it to him because that's his job that's his role that's his purpose, his love, what he loves-Dominating Charles, being his Dominant-it's the greatest thing he's ever known and it makes him smile, amidst all the howling ancient instincts in him that still rage and roar, he can't help but smile. Charles. He loves Charles. Loves him. 


	83. Everything is Darkness and Light III

But that’s the problem - is it a problem? Charles needs so much. He needs so much more than he’s ever needed, he needs so terribly, he needs and the longer this goes on, the more it ramps up. It’s not dampening, not lessening, not even a little. The longer this goes on, the more he starts to lose and forget those rational, cerebral parts of him, the more this ancient being takes over and demands its mate’s attention. The more he feels himself need, the more it hurts and burns and aches inside of him and if he doesn’t get it satisfied, if the creature the animal the beast inside of doesn’t get what he needs, what will happen? Will he die, will he spiral, will it hurt more than it did when the Void nearly swallowed everything? Erik really isn’t afraid of this? Charles promises it’s not forcing, it’s Charles who needs so much. It’s Charles who can’t control himself. He’s straddling Erik and then he’s fucking himself on Erik’s cock, bouncing up and down and crying while he does, and he wants - he needs - Erik will really chase him? He’ll indulge this animal part of him, he won’t be disgusted and scared? Charles loves him, too, needs him so much. His Dominant, his mate. He won't hurt him if he lets go? He won't?  
  
"Show me," Erik growls the Order roughly, his hands digging crescents into the already-abused flesh of Charles's ass and he smacks him hard, slaps his face and bites at his neck and holds him up by the throat and glares at him, vivid green eclipsed so black they're nearly Void-like themselves, because Erik wants it. He wants that animal part of Charles just as much as Charles wants it of him, he wants to take and Charles wants-it's the same, it's the same. They're compatible. Their ancient spirits, their primal selves, are the only two in existence who are one another's match and Erik dares it to defy his Will. Not disgusted. Not scared. Exhilarated.  
  
They're compatible? They're a match, Erik wants it? He's Ordering Charles to show him which means he has to and he doesn't realize that all of those low, wounded noises are coming from him, that he's snarling again around the startled noises of pain as he's slapped and choked, Erik's cock still thick and hard inside him as he straddles him. He's daring him? He's asking him to challenge it, that creature that wants to (does) own him? Charles lets out a gasping noise and then he's lurching back, whimpering in agony the second he's empty (oh, it's horrible, it hurts so bad, it burns, he's so empty empty empty -) but only letting it pause him for a moment before he jumps off the bed. This time he doesn't stop at the door, and there's no one else in the house (but if they were they'd be a threat, this part of him adds, which is concerning but something for later) but he stumbles anyway, for a moment remembering how ridiculous this is, remembering to be rational, before he's dashing down the stairs and fully expecting Erik to follow him. Will he? Chase him like an animal, coax him back onto his cock like he's nothing but prey? Charles' heart is pounding in his ears as he looks for somewhere - to what? To hide? Will Erik play?

* * *

There's a reason why most nations in the developed world compulsorily conscript D5s.  
  
Of all the types of people on planet Earth, they are most oriented toward hunting, they are the closest evolved equivalent of a predator in modern human history and for most D5s, this is just background information. They might be more aggressive and controlling than their peers, but they learn to hone themselves, they learn to channel it and if they're lucky they find a high-level Dominant to match up with but the point is, most don't give in to those instincts. Some do. Azazel, who was as good as an animal for how little impulse control he held, how much he enjoyed hurting people and abusing them without rational thought, and Erik isn't like that, either. He isn't mindless like that, but there is, and Charles has seen evidence of this for almost the entire time he's known Erik, a fiercely primitive part of his brain that vies for control whenever his submissive is involved. It's the part that's been lurking this entire time, not just now, but before the Void entirely.  
  
Wild and angry, pushed and prodded and poked by its captors because that's all it's good for, is hurting and killing, but now his submissive wants him? He wants it? He isn't scared? And then Charles leaps off the bed and Erik's whole brain swivels toward him and focuses like a laser before he lands on the floor neatly behind him. Even with one bad leg and one bad hand, Erik is someone to be reckoned with on a purely physical level and he doesn't run after Charles, he stalks after him, calculating and confident with an unconscious smile on his features. He emerges into the living room and he can hear Charles breathing, he can hear his heartbeat and it shouldn't be possible, but it is, and he heads right for him without even checking anywhere else. Charles is his, surely he doesn't think he can hide from his Dominant, hm?  
  
Something is happening inside of Charles, too, something he must have always known was there but certainly never acknowledged. All of that knowledge, that big, powerful brain that no one else could possibly compete with, all of his books and his studies and his evolution, where was there room for this? In fear and survival but even then he ignored it, shut it off, because it wasn't right. S1s are not meant to be prey in general, because they have quite a bit of advantage over the rest of the world, then and now. All those who hunted him before, on this primitive, ancient level, he knew - how could they possibly be worthy of him? Charles has always tried to curb his own elitism, his sense of superiority and arrogance, but this is just fact. No could handle him, he's said it and meant it and felt it dozens of times?  
  
They do have a match. And what mating rituals don't involve a bit of - well, a bit of this?  
  
There's no fear in him. Not a drop, not an ounce, not a taste, even as his pulse races, his heart audible in his ears. There's only adrenaline, only thrill. If he ran, there's not a doubt in his mind he could outrun Erik as long as he played fair (and Charles didn't), but where would he go? The apartment is only so big, and there's no way he can go outside. Not because he's naked, not because he's wild and dripping with arousal and come, his skin burning with need and the pain near unbearable, but because there are other submissives and he won't let Erik consider them! If he was really, truly looking to avoid Erik he could be smart, clever, use his every advantage, but he isn't. He isn't and he ends up biting his lip to cut off the high, whining noises of a cornered animal as he ducks and crouches behind the couch, angling it like it might act as some kind of barrier. Somewhere to hide. Cornered, no matter where he goes he's cornered but he could still - if he... because this isn't about brute force. This isn't about being grabbed and taken, though there will certainly be time for that. Charles has had that before, and it satisfied nothing. But Erik knows, doesn't he? It's why he let him run in the first place. Why he doesn't just Order him back.  
  
He knows what his mate needs. Charles is shaking head to toe with anticipation.  
  
"Found you," Erik breathes as he pops up from behind Charles, from where he'd circled slowly and crept quietly until all of a sudden he's right behind his submissive and he springs up into a crouch, trailing his fingertips over Charles's face with a bright grin on his face and he leans forward to kiss him, to press him back into the wall behind the couch and take what is rightfully his, a kiss, passionate and wet and filthy and then Erik stands to his feet, lets Charles rise as well. "You shall have to do better if you wish to evade me."  
  
Even as he's panting from the kiss, breathless and hot (burning, he's burning up) with need more fierce and painful than he's ever experienced, horrifically empty and painfully aware of it, hole clenching around nothing and leaking Erik's come down his thighs, he jerks up and throws himself over the couch, puts it between them and watches Erik with narrowed eyes. Then he's whining, loud and low and it's not a warning off, it's a call to, really; Charles' mate must know he's hurting, that he's aching, but he can't just - "I'll run," he threatens, and even his voice shakes as he slides the coffee table in between them, too.  
  
"I will catch you," Erik grins wildly, his hair stuck up at all angles, and tumbling down his shoulders in lengthy curls, naked as the day he was born, covered in scratches and bruises and marks and the coffee table slides back into its spot. The couch slides into its regular spot, too. "Try to run, _tzipor za'ir_ ," he smirks. "Try and see. You are mine." As soon as Charles begins to dart, Erik is after him, propelled by long legs and his abilities to even the score. If Charles won't play fair, Erik certainly won't.  
  
Charles is fast, though, and he is clever, skittering where he knows he can stop short and using it to his advantage, directing Erik the wrong way with a tiny little shove of his abilities, because Erik might have control over him but Charles is powerful and Erik is not immune in nearly every case. He could use his abilities to twist him around his pinky finger if he so chooses, and that he doesn't means something different than even Erik assumed. He should thrill at it. He's strong, Erik's mate, stronger than anyone could imagine, stronger than he knows or can fathom. He's perfectly capable of independence, should he need it. Should he never find a mate. It isn't optimal, ideal, and now that he's found one it simply isn't possible, but that's what this is, isn't it? A D5 can have everything they could possibly want, could hunt down even the most skilled of prey. It's getting the most powerful, matched prey to agree - to let themselves be caught, because everyone always thinks it's the Dominant with all the power and it is, but how do they get it? What gives them that? S1s were not created weak and helpless. To surrender, to offer up, exactly as he'd thought before. Offer himself up to the beast. That's something other D5s will never understand, and their hunts will never be fulfilling. Charles would pity them, perhaps, but he's solely focused on his Dominant, on Erik, on putting the island counter between them. "I'll keep running," he insists, teeth bared and eyes still narrowed, heart still racing, and it hurts, it hurts hurts hurts he's so empty! Empty! But he needs this, too -  
  
Erik vaults over the island counter and lands beside Charles, spinning him around so that his hands are trapped against the marble and his legs are kicked apart so that Erik can thrust his cock right back where it belongs with a harsh snap of his hips, burying himself all the way back inside, and he gives him a harsh bite on the back of the neck (over the last one) for good measure and a loud slap against the raised welts of his ass just to be sure it sinks in. "Caught you," he rumbles against Charles's ear.  
  
Charles howls, and it's so loud, so primitive and foreign to him that he doesn't even recognize its his own mouth making it, but then he's thrashing. Thrashing and snarling and trying to throw Erik off, bucking, and he cries in complete and utter devastation when Erik's cock slips some of the way out, whining and crying over it even though he's the one who did it. No! No! No! It's not forcing, Erik will never force him he's not scared and he's not protesting that he needs this but he tries to kick back anyway, tensing up every muscle until he's just too tight for Erik to easily get back in. "Make me," he gasps, and he doesn't mean make me. He doesn't mean force me. He means coax, he means hunt in a different way - make that animal part of Charles Present itself to be taken, he'll give Erik the answer if it means he'll stop hurting, and he knows it's dirty and he shouldn't, but he thinks _please make it stop hurting!_ and Erik's cock is the answer but Charles can't - does Erik see? Does he see? It has to come from Charles - this is what he's always wanted to see, to know, to learn, that Charles will submit to even the most primitive parts of him that he wants it but now he just has to learn, please hurry, hurry! Hurry! He's hurting and he needs his mate -  
  
It turns out that Erik doesn't need the answer this time, though, because as soon as Charles bucks him off and he slips out he's pinning his hands behind his back and forcing his legs open once more and growling in his ear, "Present yourself to me, now!" _Hachrea_! his mind snarls. Revelation. Reveal yourself. He's caught his prey, and now it's time to take his prey.  
  
But it isn't an Order, is it? Even like this, even here and now, it isn't an Order. There's absolutely no compulsion to obey except what's there, what's built into his cells by now. This is his mate. Charles is in terrible, horrific pain, and there's only one person who could make it go away. Who could help him. Get him through it, take care of him. It isn't weakness that makes Charles get to his hands and knees and Present himself, it's strength and it's understanding and it's partly animal instinct but it all comes from somewhere and he's learning. He's learning but mostly he's burning up, burning from the inside and does Erik feel how horrible it is? He can't bear it, he can't bear another second of it, something is missing! Erik is missing! Empty. Emptyemptyempty. Make it better please make it better make it stop make it better it hurts sir it hurts and he's whining, whining and gasping and it sounds like there's a wounded, desperate animal right here in this kitchen, Presented and ready to be Claimed and he's prey, there's no denying it, but he's willing prey. Erik didn't catch him. Charles offered himself up to be caught. And now, this? This is an offering. Does the beast in Erik know what to do, what it means?  
  
He does he certainly does he always has, deep inside, he's just been afraid all this time and he's not scared anymore, he's not scared, and he stretches his whole body over Charles's, practically mounting him like an animal to boot, and shoves in one long, slow, drawn out thrust-Charles is pinned down completely. By Erik's arms and legs and his cock and his mind and his Will that suffuses the room, he'll make it better. He'll take care of his mate. His Charles. He'll protect him and take care of him and do his best to make him happy and full and loved and that's all Erik's ever wanted, right here, he finally understands-Charles is willing-Erik isn't forcing him. He isn't forcing him. He never was. He wants to be caught and tamed and owned and Erik is the only one on Earth who could possibly hope to do it because he's right, his mate is strong, and Erik is strong, too. They are worthy of each other. Erik murmurs into his ear, soothes in Hebrew and their mish-mash language alike. _I've got you. I'll make it feel good. I'll make it better. I'll make it all better. You're mine. Take care of you now._ He's not empty anymore. He never will be again.

* * *

The change is completely immediate. Charles stops fighting, because there's nothing to fight. He's surrendered, he's offered up, and Erik's accepted. Accepted his submission, and he's still more animal than anything else, still more instinct and impossible need, but that's okay, isn't it? His mate is here, and he should know instinctively how to see his submissive through this. Charles sags and starts to sob, so relieved he can't even breathe, can't even hold his own weight, panting and he wants to thrust back but it feels like all he can do is take it, like everything's been drained right out of him but that's nice, isn't it? Erik will just take care of him. "Hurts, hurts, sir, hurts," he whimpers, and he's crying louder, overwhelmed by it, but Erik will make it better. It'll feel good soon? Erik promises? The pain will stop, it won't hurt anymore? He wanted to show Erik he was a strong mate and he had to know even though he knew that Erik could take care of him, that he was strong and capable and compatible, he's sorry, should he be sorry? But it still hurts, Erik promises to make it better, he knows what to do? He'll take good care of Charles?  
  
It's very nice and Erik drapes over him, pulls him back onto his cock and groans into his ear, and Charles ran away and Erik had come inside of him but it leaked out and it makes something snap in him and he has to fill Charles up again, has to plug him up and make him keep it and fill him and take him and be inside of him, inside of his body and his mind and his soul, and Erik accepts all of him. His submission and his pleasure and his joy and his fears, every emotion, every instinct, Erik was made to take care of it and cradle it and keep it safe and he will, and he rubs their cheeks together, draws his hand down Charles's stomach where he's still messy and trails it down so he can wrap his large hand, warm and calloused around Charles's cock, too, wants to feel its weight and make him come again strung out on Erik, covered in his own mess and filled with Erik's, too, and this is right and good and he'll take care of him, he promises, he'll take such good care, he won't let Charles hurt anymore-  
  
It's so much. It's too much again, too much and he whimpers and sobs but it's pleasure now, too, just like Erik promised, it feels good, too, and he doesn't even notice when he comes again, twitching and crying and still hard and bobbing in Erik's hand, so much because he's too busy rocking back desperately against Erik inside him, making all of that noise, and he knows he should be ashamed or bothered that they're mating like animals on his sister's kitchen floor but he doesn't even notice. He doesn't even know. Maybe when some of the pain and heat is gone, maybe between rounds but not now, not after offering himself and knowing that it was accepted, that the primitive part of Erik isn't hiding that it likes him, think he's a proper mate. He doesn't know anything except this, except that it still aches, whining so his mate knows it, so he knows he has to make it better. "P-Please!" he screams, begs, and it's in that wild voice again, and he can't get the words out as he pants for air but it means come inside please come inside mark me Claim me fill me up I'm empty, I'm so empty, make it better. And Erik will, won't he?  
  
He will. And he does, again and again, and he doesn't let Charles up even when his body doesn't have the energy to keep going, he just lays on top of Charles and dozes a little before ramping back up, until Charles is dripping with it, covered in it, in slashes across the welts of his ass and over his back and even smeared against his cheek, he's covered in every conceivable way, his body a constellation of marks and bruises and bites and Erik's no better off, but he seems immune to pain when he pushes his hand against the floor, wanting to loom above Charles and flip him over onto his back-in a fit of complete forgetfulness-doesn't remember anything at all except Charles and this and taking him on the floor, again and again-and drops hard on top of Charles when it gives way under his weight (which is not-insignificant at this point, despite being very underweight for his height, he's still heavy) and Erik wilts apologetically, rolls off immediately petting and kissing where he landed into Charles's spine. He doesn't mind giving pain when it's intentional, but his body has limits and he forgot about them and did he injure Charles? Is he OK? His own body, his own reaction is totally a blank, he's flooded with adrenaline and hormones, some name he can't remember in the back of his mind, the Greek for coming-together (how apt) so he doesn't notice that he's completely wrecked his wrist or that the pins and screws holding it together have warped and now it's bent at an odd, horrifying angle until he goes to pet Charles again and blinks hard at it in confusion. "Hurts?" he mumbles, like he doesn't know the answer, and he's been away from Charles for even that split-second too long that he just rolls back over and slides inside, intending fully to forget about it.  
  
But Charles doesn't. He doesn't, because inside is the Void even as this creature out here whimpers, crying out and fussing when it's empty, needing more and more and more. The kitchen floor probably isn't the place to do it but he still hasn't noticed, and it's not nearly enough. It just isn't. The heat is still there, the instinct is still there, but the Void is outside of it all and it will help. It promised to always help. He lets out a soft little _oof_ when Erik falls on him, but it isn't so bad. Erik is covering him, why would it be so bad? He's heavy and getting heavier by the day, not even so underweight anymore (strong! His Dominant is so strong!), but Charles doesn't mind. So when Charles looks up, hazy and not-sated but satisfied and adoring and endlessly needy and smiles, dreamy, the Void takes a moment to come forward. He won't hurt Charles this time, not when this primitive-wanting Charles is taking up so much space, and little things like this mean little for the Void. Charles hasn't noticed Erik's predicament, but he reaches out to touch, to rock back onto Erik at the same time, whining, and then it's all better. He doesn't seem to notice, certainly doesn't register he's done it, but it's all better, see? No more pain, no more. It's still quite a bit off, still weaker and bent, but Charles holds it anyway, doesn't seem to notice that he did that. That he's doing more as he touches, healing aches and pains even as he blocks Erik off from feeling it, things that hurt and ached for years. When he does, he's only fascinated by it. He thinks it's Erik doing it, and he watches, awed and pleased. His mate should never hurt.  
  
Erik gasps and touches him, and shakes his head, because it's not him. He can't do that. He can't make his own pain go away, he never could. "You take care of me," he whispers, amazed, and grateful and humbled all at once and the feelings spring up inside of him like tiny geysers unable to be capped, sprinkle out into the World, into Charles as a warm mist of affection. His submissive is so precious to him, so wondrous to him, he doesn't know what he's done to deserve it and he isn't in his right enough mind to question it, but there are tears in his eyes, overwhelmed and pleased and he lets himself sag against Charles again, more careful this time, cradling him in his arms, back to chest as he lazily rocks into him. He smiles back and kisses him, more gentle than before, because he's not mindless. He's home.  
  
They were never mindless, not even at their most primitive, and they aren't like this and they won't be later when the heat flares up again, because it will. It's not over, not by a long shot, but there's time for rest. Erik needs rest, he needs sleep, so he can give him what he needs. So he can take care of Charles. He still doesn't register what he's done, only that his Dominant is pleased with him, and that he's crying, and that makes Charles let out quiet, soft noises, trying to soothe him, soothe his mate, worried that he's upset even though he can feel that he isn't. He peppers tiny, sweet little kisses where he can reach, but then he's fussing. It's not the pain, and it's certainly not rebellion or even the need for the chase from before, but something is missing and he squirms with it, prods at Erik's mind and his body, rubs against him insistently. Make it better?  
  
Missing? Hm? Missing? Erik grins and gives him a little affectionate nip under his ear, and rolls him over onto his belly once more, no longer frantically rutting against him but the angle like this is much nicer, and he's still hard and if he were one hundred percent rational that might be concerning but now he's just satisfied, and he runs his hands down Charles's back, is more careful with him when he rests his weight against him this time, covering him completely and snapping his hips forward to drive him against the floor, slow and steady and constant and he hums, all the Will inside of him spilling out in long, lazy strands that wrap Charles up.  
  
Charles purrs with it, eyes fluttering, and that's nice, he does need more of that, he will for a very long time, it seems like, this isn't done but that's not what he meant. He struggles to remember what he did with Erik thrusting with more intent inside of him, and he whimpers in distress every time he pulls out, distracted by it but eventually he starts to wriggle on his belly, and his noises take on a different tone. He wants his mate's attention, he needs it, something's wrong. Missing. He tries to reach back and tug on Erik, to make him see and notice and tend to him. Make it better, please.  
  
Erik noses into his cheek, turns his head to the side so he can gaze into his eyes, his own warm and bright under the afternoon glow of the kitchen reflecting all around them. Something's wrong? How can he fix it? What's the matter? Erik strokes his cheek, not quite able to work his voice, but the Command under his touch is clear. Tell him? Show him. Show him how to make it better, he will, he'll make it better, he promises.  
  
At first he doesn't know. He sniffles quietly, confused and fussy, and then images slowly begin to drift in, to settle between them. He doesn't like it here, he's decided. It's not right. They can't rest here and be safe, they need - somewhere? Pillows and blankets and fortress, they need somewhere safe and warm and comfortable. Nest. They need a nest, Erik needs to help him build a nest. It's silly and primitive but he needs it, Erik will help? Fix it? Make it better? Prod, prod, prod.

* * *

Erik leaps up to his feet in an agile motion more akin to a lurking predator than a person, but that's to be expected-and he picks Charles up easily, his hand still broken and off-kilter, but Charles is petting it and soothing it and all the pain is melting away and Charles is taking such good care of him, his mate, his beloved-he's going to make sure Charles wants for nothing ever again, the slightest whim Erik is moving toward it; and they're upstairs in a flash, in an instant, and Erik lays him down on the bed and arranges the blankets and settles him in, and he's already started nesting-perhaps that was a good indicator while Charles slept the night before, that something was awry, because Erik's already got trinkets and gifts and shinies buried in the cracks and crevices. He trails some glitter over Charles's cheek and grins down at him, playful. Is Charles hungry? Erik twirls a strawberry out of silk and presses it to Charles's lips.  
  
Erik is always anticipating these things, always gathering materials and supplies by the time Charles can think to want for them. Strawberries can't come out of nowhere, can't be spun out of air so his Dominant thought to grab them from somewhere, to gather them for his mate, knew that he might need them and he should offer them and Charles' heart soars with it. He's overwhelmed by it. He has such a good mate, such a strong, handsome, compatible mate, someone to care and provide for him. Charles has never needed to be provided for, and indeed he's technically provided for Erik, but this is different, isn't it? This is different, and like this, Charles wants it. He needs it. He shakes his head at the offer, though, a quiet "mm-mm" and he sniffles because - it hurts again, it feels uncomfortable and wrong and he climbs onto Erik's lap, rocks down against him. Make it better, sir? And he touches Erik's hand because he wants it on his hip, wants his arm around him and the Void peeks out again, and his hand isn't bent any worse than usual. He can't fix years of damage without this Charles, this outside Charles being conscious of it, but he can fix it like this. The damage done earlier, gone. No pain, absolutely none, and he'll never feel it again. No injuries, no hurt. His eyes wander Erik's chest and then he frowns, his lip wobbling at something, upset clanging and uncomfortable as it courses through the Bond all at once. He'd been smiling, hazy and soft and floating, wanting Erik back inside so they could rest before the next flare-up, but now, with every emotion heightened and influenced by hormones, he looks about ready to break down and sob. He's - sad? Angry? Devastated? And right now, it's too much.  
  
It's all new to Erik. It feels like years, a millennia, and the Void had a lot to do with that because inside of it Erik really did pass eons and eons, with Charles in his heart and he's known his mate for millions of years and yet it's only been four months. Four months since Charles walked into that holding cell in the CIA and said, _I've heard quite a lot about you_ , and _I also know that you can understand every word I'm saying_. Four months since Erik lived and breathed in Shaw's shadow, a meek-plaything, a twisted-experiment, Frankenstein's monster turning the dials and knobs. Four months since he's known a single kindness. And Charles's thoughts about him make his heart glow; he's never had this perspective before, he's never-been loved quite like this before, so much of his mind was shut off and empty and blank that even his kids and Magda, their affections while he was silent and looming-Charles made him alive, made him a whole being. His brilliant, compassionate, beautiful mate that fills him with such joy of pure existence he sometimes can't breathe, even when he got mad ,even when they fight and argue, it fills up his lungs and expands his whole soul. " _Neshama_ ," he croons softly, stroking Charles's cheek, his features crumpled as he realizes that Charles is-upset, so upset. No more, no more. He can fix it. " _Haged li,_ " he implores. Tell him, let him help.  
  
Charles doesn't remember anything but this. He really, truly doesn't, and right now all he knows is that he's so full of sadness and hurt and confusion, too much to process or understand like this; after the Void, Charles has difficulty existing as all of himself, as too much at once, and Erik is patient with him but now he's utterly overwhelmed by the force of this, by emotion on top of hormones. It put Erik back together but Charles is still in so many scattered pieces. He squirms and buries himself in Erik's shoulder, his own shoulders shake with sobs but there are no tears. He's - so sad, and it takes up all the space inside him, besides the need. He rocks in Erik's lap, empty and hurting again. "Sad," he whimpers. And empty, he's empty. Erik can make it better?  
  
He will, he'll try to make it better until the end of the Earth itself, and he can fill Charles up with his body and hold him tight against his lap and rock into him and surround him, arms holding him in place, and his mind and Will swirling up the rest. He's so sorry, he never meant to make Charles sad, please don't be sad. It's OK. He can be, Erik will be here, he'll take it into himself and hear it and see it and soothe it, and he tries, he's always trying, and they sway back and forth nestled into blankets and pillows and gifts of gold and platinum and silver and precious metals, precious metals for his beloved, he'll adorn him in sapphire and elysium; he touches Charles's collar and lets it sing to him, fills the room with it, fills Charles up-no emptiness, no emptiness, just them. Just them, together. "It's 'kay," he whispers back, kissing Charles's jaw. "Promise it's 'k."  
  
It's so much better, with Erik inside. It feels so much better, he's calmed and soothed by it so much right now, unsettled when he isn't, it should be concerning or humiliating or something but it's just a fact, nothing he can be ashamed of. He needs it, he can't be empty right now, is that okay? He just needs it. Erik didn't make him sad. His mate didn't make him sad. He peeks his head up from Erik's chest, rocks himself against him, just in circling motions of his hips, self-soothing, and touches a hand to Erik's chest. "Sad," he repeats, so quietly. He's better now that he's less empty. Erik makes it all better.  
  
Erik runs his fingertips down Charles's chest, settles them over his hips and back, brushing his head against Charles's cheek and letting him rustle and fuss until he starts to ease, and there's nothing humiliating about it at all. It's just an action, it's just biology, but they're still warm. It's warmth and light and bright and safe and good, and that isn't wrong at all. Erik isn't concerned, he's exactly where he's meant to be, with Charles seated in his lap, that's his place, his submissive's place filled up with him. "Tell me?" he whispers, and he can't help but Order it because he can't help it, he's so far into Dominion every move and breath he takes exudes Command and power and purpose, even now. His mate is sad. He has to help, he has to make it better.

* * *

The Order helps, too. More than he thought it could, even. He needs that, too, so much. It fills him up and calms him until he's swimming in it, his eyelids heavy. They need to rest but they will, but right now Erik gave him an Order and he needs to follow it. Follow Erik's Orders, be a good submissive, a good mate, it's all he wants, and he traces his fingers over Erik's chest and frowns, all of that overwhelming sadness feathering out again, spreading through the Bond. Charles is sure he's noticed it before, but he doesn't remember, and besides the scars that don't belong there, that never should have been given to his mate, to his Dominant, there's a brand. Someone else's initials. He doesn't even remember whose they are. They don't belong there, and it makes him so sad. He understands why they're there, how they got there, even like this. "Fix?" he whispers, his lip trembling on the word.  
  
Erik swallows roughly and nuzzles his cheek into Charles's, shaking his head and shutting his eyes tight. ** _A.R_** , jagged and slashed above his hip. For a very long time Erik didn't know who it belonged to, either, he barely remembers it being done to him but for flashes of red and smoke and struggling against superior strength, a struggle that took place only in his mind while his body laid prone and motionless, just accepting what was given to him. He remembers that like a dream, in a long litany of dreams. A mind turned-off. Vacant and silent, only the sounds and motions of a baser brain under attack, that human survival instinct buried deep in the pons sending signals to deadened nerve-endings. He was property. But he's not anymore. He's a person now. He has a mate who loves him and tends to him and massages his hand when it hurts and takes away the pain, and he belongs to Charles, and Charles belongs to him and he helps Charles, too, and they're happy. Things are hard sometimes but they're together and safe, and no one will ever lay a mark like that on either one of them ever again as long as Erik draws breath, he promises. He's so sorry. He wishes it wasn't there. He wishes Charles didn't have to see it, but it's not the only one. His body itself is a canvas, a gruesome litany of dreams written on his skin, gnarled and lightning-struck down his back and thighs. They're ugly and unsightly and draw over so much that he can't exercise proper range of motion. He knows they're ugly. They represent ugliness and they make Charles sad and he wishes they were gone, and he's so sorry. If ever he were to bear a mark it would be Charles's. No one else. Never again.  
  
The Void knows things that Charles doesn't. That he can't, not now and perhaps not ever. Erik doesn't think of them as separate, and perhaps they aren't. Perhaps not. But literally, functionally, there is a difference. The Void has made new barriers inside of Charles to keep him from being swallowed after he did the swallowing. It knows things that only the Universe could know, that it cannot tell Erik but has trusted him with regardless, by wearing his collar. The responsibility of the Universe, the ultimate trust. It knows how to fix. It knows how to take a psyche that has been ravaged and destroyed, ripped to shreds and preserve it, though there is still so much to be done. It put Erik back together, whole and existing and himself, more pieced together than he was before, actually. But this? Charles is confused, and he's uncertain, and he's crying. He doesn't want Erik think that he's broken, that he needs to be fixed, to hurt him. To make him sad. To take from him, to swallow, the way the Void does. He hides in Erik's neck, wriggles in his lap with Erik inside, still trying to soothe himself. To calm himself. He doesn't know the answer. It's hard. It hurts. Everything is too much.  
  
Erik is sorry. He doesn't mean to be too much, he really doesn't. It can be simple. It can be just the two of them and no more bad things, no more bad people, no more bad memories. Just Charles and Erik together and he won't be sad, and he won't make Charles sad, he promises. If Charles wants to help, Erik will let him. If Charles wants to leave him be, that's OK too. Erik knows it's hard, and it's so much, there's not enough space in his own mind for it, and he's been put back together but-he was never really whole to begin with. He had the start of a world, a fully formed, healthy foundation and that protected him from mind-death, from becoming comatose and useless, but it also had the inverse effect; having a solid foundation and then losing it so abruptly, with nothing to anchor onto-the whole pieces of Erik are fragile and young, remnants of a time before fire and burning, and his mental defenses have been stripped away and he's learning and he's healing and he's growing but he's raw and all instinct, all conflicting instincts and nerve-firing reactions that have no origins-but despite all of that, Erik has no fear of Charles, nor of the Void, nor of the way his mind has been so drastically altered. Charles is his mate. Charles loves him, and he loves Charles, and he trusts him. "You can," he whispers. "You can fix. If you want. It's OK."  
  
Is there anything to fix? And if he does fix it and it’s a mistake, if it shouldn’t have been fixed in the first place, can he put it back? Charles doesn’t know. He’s new, too. He’s fragmented and he’s new and he isn’t sure he was whole before all of this, either. He isn’t sure if he was a whole lot better, though he walked and talked and acted like he was, though he held his head high and published important papers and took on important cases and smiled for important people, lived on his own and supposedly by his own design. But did he really? Was that Charles whole? What’s left is scattered, besides. It’s newer than even Erik is because it’s older than even Erik is, exposed to more of the Void, destroyed by the Void in a way the Void itself protected Erik from, and there are parts he’s never known. There are parts still lost. There’s so much, and it’s not Erik. It’s not Erik, it’s everything. Charles doesn’t know. There’s so much he just doesn’t know anymore, and his entire life he’s always known - he’s thought, at least, that he’s known. That he has the knowledge, or at the very least can find it. But he doesn’t know himself anymore. He doesn’t know much of anything. It’s frightening, and it’s shattering, and he’s reliant on Erik but how can he turn to Erik in this? How can he ask him when he doesn’t even know what he’s offering? He’s scared and he’s touching that brand over and over, and over and over, and then it’s happening.  
  
It’s glowing, something is glowing, and he turns his head out of Erik’s shoulder and shifts on top of his Dominant, needing the comfort, and he watches. He watches as under his fingers Erik’s skin becomes smooth, tan flesh and freckles and not a hint of other blemish or mark, lips parted in shock. How -? He looks up at Erik for the answer. Erik made it better? He made it go away? He didn't have to, he was beautiful to begin with, he was beautiful even though it was sad, but - Charles rubs at the new flesh, awed. Erik has little freckles everywhere, little birthmarks and freckles. Was there one there before, hiding underneath? It's pretty.

* * *

Erik's eyes fly open wide and he gasps, lips parted in utter shock, fingers touching his own lips as he watches the brand disappear and the small nicks and cuts beside it begin to vanish, too and he lurches forward in Charles's arms all of a sudden, completely unable to verbalize or communicate or explain what's happening only that he's completely and utterly overwhelmed and he's crying and it's the kind of crying where you can't talk, sobs stuck in your throat, you can't make a sound, he just hangs onto Charles and strokes his hair and shakes; shudders really. It's not sadness but it's-he's borne that brand for so long and it's indescribable, really, to have someone's initials carved into you; the constant reminder that your body is not your own, a constant reminder that you were beaten down and forced and ravaged and destroyed and defeated, that you were weak and pathetic and-it makes you ugly, even though the brand isn't nearly the most unsightly of Erik's scars, it's ugly because it's an imprint on his body not only of pain, but of ownership and declaration and he's never really felt all those feelings before, he's just accepted it for what it was, accepted it and moved on and never gave it a second thought and now that it's gone; he can't-breathe-it's gone. It's gone and he doesn't-he doesn't belong to-"Ch-" he tries to get out, voice warbled. "You made go away, you took it," he croaks, amazed, and touches his hand over it, too. He's still got tears streaming down his face, but he can't help but look down in wonder. "You made go away, you fixed it."  
  
Like this, it startles Charles. It scares him, actually, and he cries when Erik does, clings to him desperately and rocks in those same self-soothing motions, frightened that he's done something wrong. So frightened that he's done something wrong, something terrible and irreversible, that Erik is upset with him. He doesn't understand, and he can't fathom that he did anything to make the brand go away at all, the same way he can't understand that he did anything to fix Erik's hand, couldn't even notice it. He just nuzzles into his Dominant, soft, needy, confused little noises, touching and rubbing wherever he can, clenching down to reassure himself that Erik is still there, still inside, that he's still his. "Sad?" he whispers, touching Erik's tears with trembling fingers. What can he do to make his mate pleased again? Pleased with him?  
  
But Erik just laughs softly and touches his face back and kisses him, leaving little trails of tears on his face but he can't help it. "Not sad," he rasps, throaty and affected. "Not sad, sweetheart," he croaks another laugh and wraps his arms tightly around his submissive, his wonderful beloved. "You... gave me a gift, you- _ani ohev otcha me'od_ ," he whispers, again and again. "A gift, _neshama_. Look what you did-" he touches the smooth skin again, incredulous and awed.  
  
Charles touches it, too, because Erik is, but when he blinks it's clear he doesn't understand. He heard Erik say it, but he doesn't process it. He can't make sense of it. All he knows is that he needs to please his Dominant, and he thinks he has, though he isn't quite sure how. All he knows is that he wants to nuzzle closer, to gently kiss some of Erik's tears away, to inhale his scent (hormones, there's so much, Erik smells different like this) and breathe him in and, "Not sad?" he checks, his voice shaky. "Pleased?" With Charles? Charles was good?  
  
"Not sad," Erik laughs again, kissing Charles over and over, and he can't stop-the tears keep coming. He was branded and now he's not, and it's entirely a shock to his system. Erik can't make sense of it either, but so many things happen to him, around him, in his life that he can't comprehend or process that he's learned to just accept it. "Very good," he murmurs against Charles's lips, rocking up into him. "Very good. Very pleased. My good boy. Mnm," he hums unconsciously, tugging Charles flush against him.  
  
But so many of those things, Charles does know, are horrific. They're tragedies or transgressions or terrifying, sickening revelations, but this isn't? Whatever Charles did to make Erik cry, it wasn't a bad thing, and that's what makes him laugh, too, a soft, raspy sound, pleased and surprised and satisfied. Whatever he did, it was the right thing, and even if it was only the Void, it did it for his Dominant. It did it to help Erik, and it worked, even if it made these tears. Charles can heal and make it better, too. He lets his head rest on Erik's shoulder, still rocking his hips slightly, all of a sudden sleepy. Sleepy and hazy and submissive, and he shares it with Erik, wraps him around in it unconsciously so he feels it, too. Can they rest now? Does Erik promise to rest? The nest isn't done yet, it doesn't feel done and he wants to find more pillows and add his own things, to help, but he's yawning and his eyelids are heavy, even as he clings to consciousness. "Love you," he whispers, sweet and fading. Erik stays inside, so it doesn't hurt, and he sleeps and rests? He loves Charles, too, and he's pleased with him?

* * *

" _Cholamni_ ," Erik beams at him, boyish and bright and trails his finger under Charles's chin, kissing him again and humming deeply into his mouth, sleepy and satisfied and fiercely, piercingly, achingly affectionate and pleased, in a way he can't describe. Not because Charles specifically fixed that specific scar, but because Charles loves him, and wants to help, and cares and because Charles wants to know if he did good-and he did so good, he took a piece of Erik that was crumpled and smoothed it out and he doesn't realize he did good-and it makes Erik want to kiss him all over again, wrapped up in all that submissive devotion Charles surrounds him with like a blanket. Charles is right, though. They need more things, but Erik's so sleepy, and warm and Charles is so sweet and his own eyelids droop, but he stirs before his head drops completely. Gotta protect Charles? Protect him. Charles sleeps, Erik watches. Erik loves him. Erik will keep him safe. He'll keep anyone from hurting him and kill them if they try.  
  
Charles fights desperately to keep his own eyes open, but it’s a losing battle. Still, he holds on, tugs onto his own consciousness between tightly grasped fingers, whines quietly as he rouses himself and wriggles about in Erik’s lap (and soft moans, there, Erik is still inside, feels good, soothing more than fiercely, overwhelmingly pleasurable like before, but still good) to stir himself. “Rest,” he begs Erik, rubbing his cheek against skin, mouthing at that place just between neck and shoulder just for the sensation of Erik’s skin against his swollen lips. Erik built a nest, so they’re safe, see? Safe and warm? They’ll gather more things when they wake up, but it’s time to rest now. Otherwise Erik won’t be able to take care of him, and then Charles will hurt, and it’s not meant to be manipulative, just fact, just something he thinks he knows - Erik has to sleep, too, or they’ll both hurt, and Erik promised to make it better. So he has to sleep, close his eyes, but stay inside, please. Okay? _Please, sir?_ Charles will need him when he wakes up, and if something goes wrong before that, they'll both know. It's a safe nest, and they're strong and Erik will protect him even if he's sleeping. He's a strong, powerful Dominant, such a good mate. His mind devolves into similar thoughts, praise and warmth and adoration, devotion so deep and thick it becomes the air: strong, beautiful, smart, kind, caring, takes such good care of Charles, always keeps him safe...  
  
Erik mumbles a bit of nonsense under his breath, but his eyes slowly close, coaxed into sleep by the only person in the world who truly holds any sway over him, the kind that matters, not force and bent metal shapes but asking and sweetness and gentleness and politeness and love, his submissive is so healing and gentle and devoted and sunk deep-deep into the ocean and it's glittering with sparkling-potentials, and Erik loves him so much, and he's dozing before long, resting against the corner of the wall where the bed is so he can keep Charles upright against him, inside, right where they both belong. He dreams of the _Ziz_ , of a monster who falls in love with its captive and sets them free, only for them to return and show the monster that it's not a monster at all, it just had to learn, and the captive never wanted to be free again as long as the creature loved it and took care of it, and that's not how the story really goes, and the palace in the sky looks more like their nest, full of baubles and treasures piled as high as the mountains...

* * *

When Charles wakes, it might be hours later. Or days, or decades, for as aware as he is at first, groggy and confused and still drifting, and there’s heat, liquid flame coursing through his veins and burning him up and hurting, but that’s not what catches his attention first. It’s loud. It’s too loud, and he gasps, covers his ears with his hands but it’s not coming from his ears. At least not actually. He doesn’t understand what’s happening at first, because he knows that he hears but why is it so loud - and then he realizes it must be a warning. It must be a warning, because someone is too close to the nest and his instincts are rearing up, and his heart starts to beat louder in his chest and the alarm sets in and he prods at Erik, panicked and primitive again and - should know better? Should know better? But he doesn’t, and his mate said protect and Charles thinks he can protect himself, them both, too, but he wants to be protected now, he wants his mate to wake up so he can fix it, fix the problem, make it all better.  
  
Erik is on his feet immediately, stalking toward the intruder without even pausing to fully transition into wakefulness, his hand outstretched at his side as he prowls toward the door and it opens to Erik standing there, fully naked and covered in scratches and marks, and he tilts his head at whoever has dared to approach, palm extended outward as if prepared to toss them back down the stairs, eyes narrowed without much recognition. The only thing he remembers anymore is Charles, and their nest, and everybody else is an intruder who doesn't belong. Doesn't belong here. Only for them. Their nest.  
  
Charles doesn't know anyone but Erik, either. He doesn't remember anyone but Erik, he doesn't remember anything but this. He just knows the Voices are other, they're strange, they're outsiders; foreign and intrusive and a threat, and Charles wants whoever it is to go away. This is where their nest is, it doesn't belong to them and they don't belong anywhere near it and they made Charles' Dominant leave him. It's painful and awful and frightening and he's thrashing about in the blankets and on the pillows, agonized and empty and hot, burning and burning and burning, how dare they? How dare they interrupt and take his mate from him? He's furious and frightened and hurting all at once, whimpering loudly to draw his mate back to him quickly, utterly consumed by all those ancient instincts, completely beside himself. He tries to calm himself, to remind himself his Dominant is protecting him, taking care of him, it's okay but he's empty empty empty and alone and scared and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, how dare they take Erik away, draw him out of the nest - what if they hurt him? What if he doesn't come back?  
  
It turns out to be a woman's voice, a blue woman, a little blue girl Charles used to rock to sleep and stroke her brilliant red hair, but these days it's lilac blonde to match her dusty purple skin, and she's concerned, but after a few seconds of talking (she talks, Erik growls and snarls at her), the door is closing and Erik is climbing back into the bed to take Charles into his arms. All better. All better, Erik made them go away, they won't hurt anyone, Erik won't let them. He'll protect Charles and keep them both safe, because that's his job and he's very good at it, and he didn't even kill anyone, so maybe Charles will be proud of him? He grins sheepishly.  
  
But Charles doesn't remember any of that. He doesn't remember blue skin and brilliant red hair, the pretty markings of her skin, her natural appearance that he always makes a point to tell her he loves, he prefers, you're beautiful just as is, darling. He doesn't remember and he doesn't know, not at all, he doesn't recognize her voice or her mind, doesn't think sister (he thinks threat) and he isn't calmed when the door closes, not even really when Erik climbs back into bed. It still hurts, it hurts so terribly, so intensely and overwhelmingly and they're still too close. They can't be here, this nest can't be safe when it's so close - he's thrashing, still, gasping for breath and wriggling in Erik's arms. It hurts and he doesn't remember anything, he barely remembers - he barely remembers - who is he? Where are they? What's happening? It hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it isn't safe, his teeth are chattering and it's burning hot, he's set aflame and it hurts!  
  
No, no, no, " _Atzor_ ," Erik whispers. " _Atzor, royk ragu'a, ani amagen atah, ani mavtiach, beseder?_ Shh, shh," he rocks Charles in his arms and puts his hand on his chest, makes him look at him in the eyes and grips his chin in his fingers, commanding him to be still and relax, and breathe, they're safe. She's gone. She's never getting in and she'll never hurt them and Erik will keep Charles safe, he promises. They're safe. They're safe. Erik is here and he is Charles's Dominant and Charles is his submissive and they're together and Erik tugs Charles back onto his lap, rubs against him to prove that point. He's not empty anymore, Erik settles him right back down and rubs his back and brushes his hair.  
  
Safe? How are they safe? Charles is shivering violently, calmed some by being settled in Erik's lap but still sobbing without tears, breathing in harsh, shaky heaving. He's scared, why doesn't he remember anything? All of it is out of his head, nothing left but this, and Erik will be upset because he doesn't like mindless, why did he forget? How is it safe if there are people near the nest, if he doesn't know anyone but Erik and all of them will hurt them? They'll take Erik from him and Erik is all he knows. He tries to stay still but he can't stay still for long, it hurts, how will Erik make it better? He's scared, why is he so scared? Why does it hurt so badly? Does Erik know how badly it hurts?  
  
Erik knows, but it's going to be OK. He'll protect Charles. They won't take Erik away. Erik won't let them. He doesn't have to be scared and he doesn't need to remember anything but his Dominant right now. Erik will take care of everything. They need each other, it hurts to be apart, but they're not apart anymore. They're safe and sound and touching and it's all OK, and Erik's even found some new things for their nest, colorful toothbrushes and soda tabs and glittering golden chains and oil paints and fruit and chocolate. There's no one near the nest anymore. Erik banished them. They won't come back or Erik will destroy them. All Charles has to do is trust his Dominant. Trust him. It's OK. And he's not mindless, Erik pets his cheek fondly. He's Charles, and he's beautiful and he belongs to Erik.  
  
But Charles feels mindless. He feels scared. Why doesn't he remember anything? Where did it all go? Is it gone, will he ever get it back, is it swallowed? He doesn't know where he is except nest, but Erik really promises it's safe? No one's going to take Erik away from him? If they did, he wouldn't know what he'd do. He'd die. It still hurts, and he tries to breathe through it, shifting restlessly in Erik's lap. He wants to - he needs to - is that bad? Mindless? Mindless whore? He's whining again, confused and still frightened and trying not to be. Trust Erik? Trust his Dominant? Erik will take care of him even if he forgets everything, he won't let it hurt? He won't let anyone else into the nest, he promises? He won't look for a different mate?  
  
" _Atzor ze_ ," Erik interrupts his thought process as soon as he devolves into mindless whore and gives his hand a sharp, stinging smack of reproach. It's not, perhaps, the best way to deal with that, but all Erik knows is that his soul wrenches when he hears it and he won't let Charles say it about himself, not ever. Not true. Erik won't let anything or anyone hurt, not even Charles's thoughts. He'll take care of Charles and he won't let anybody else in. He doesn't want anybody else. Just Charles. Erik doesn't know why he doesn't remember just yet, but he knows it will be OK. They'll be OK. He doesn't know a whole lot, either, and he thinks it's because the world outside of themselves doesn't matter right now. Their bodies and minds need to be close and everything else is secondary. He thinks it might be natural, normal, for Pairbonds. Like them. Not bad. Perfect.  
  
It's almost amusing, how quickly that sharp smack catches his attention. Charles whimpers loudly, rubs it even though the welts Erik left earlier should still smart and ache much more. It's a reproach, though, a correction and it makes him frown, kiss Erik's neck in apology and to soothe himself. It's still not enough, but Erik really thinks it's okay? If his Dominant thinks so, it has to be, doesn't it? He thinks it's normal. He thinks it's natural, that it's supposed to happen, and he isn't scared. So Charles shouldn't be, either? His instincts tell him to listen to his mate, to heed him, to trust and obey him, and they're right, aren't they? So he takes a slow, painful breath and nuzzles into his Dominant, another low, animal noise. It still hurts. "Can I...?" He mumbles it, because Erik knows. He knows. Right? He knows what Charles needs, and he needs so much right now. His head is full of it, the things his instincts are demanding. Does Erik really know what he needs, when Charles doesn't even really understand? He has instincts, too? What does he need? Charles wants to give it to him. To please him. Please let him.

* * *

Erik's whole body is superheated, liquid electricity spilling out from his temples to his toes that only intensifies the more he touches Charles, and he takes a great, gasping inhale, shuddering to control himself. He needs, he needs in a way he's never felt before, never, and he stares up at Charles with wide, dark eyes, the force of his own desire consuming and shocking. "Tell me," he Orders darkly, barely able to hear himself over the rushing of blood in his ears and the pounding of his pulse through his veins, and they've been close this whole time, sleepy and soft and holding one another and still very much connected, Erik's cock buried deeply within him almost constantly, still insistent and long and hard even after all this time, or at least it's felt that way until he inexplicably-until it's more, until it's more intense, until he's overloaded with it and Charles is about two seconds from being completely consumed in its wake, but Erik keeps himself still and calm and tries to breathe so he doesn't hurt his submissive.  
  
Erik doesn't need to be calm. He doesn't need to be still. He doesn't need to worry about hurting Charles, and he certainly doesn't need to be gentle, because with every passing moment the ache gets worse. Having Erik inside of him isn't enough, it just isn't enough, and he's burning up from the inside. Doesn't Erik know it? Doesn't he know how utterly unbearable it is? He can hear himself whining again, pitiful and near-frightened by the force of it, fussing and squirming in Erik's lap, on top of his cock. "Hurts," he gasps, and there are tears on his cheeks. His own heart is racing, and there's a roaring in his ears that won't go away. He's anything but sleepy now. There are images, images that implant themselves right in Erik's mind, as good as his own thoughts, as good as happening but they're Charles' answer; Charles, bouncing in Erik's lap, Erik Ordering him, being firm with him, being - the creature from earlier, the predator, Dominating him the way it's meant to even as Charles takes what he needs. But he's not asking to take, really, is he? Because it's all about what Erik gives, what he allows, Charles can't fathom doing anything without permission right now, his Dominant needs to care for him to provide to tell him to take full and complete control, Charles is - does he see? Does he see? "Please, sir, please," he begs.  
  
Erik groans deep in his chest, eyes fluttering as those images sear into his mind, behind his eyelids and a flash flood spills over him like a cold arc of water, the dam breaking and breaking and breaking open, splintering stones and razing down the trees and eating up the sky until all that's left is Dominion, wild and living and fierce. Charles wants to take? He wants to take? No, he takes what he is given, he obeys Erik. He slaps him harshly, grips his cheek in long fingers and withdraws almost all the way out of Charles before snapping his hips up, pulling Charles back onto his cock hard and hot inside him, jamming right up against his prostate, curling his hand over Charles's throat, over his collar, growling lowly for Charles to show him, then. Show him how much he wants, Erik's going to be so generous and let him fuck himself on his cock, and he's going to make it good for Erik, too, he's going to be so good and clench down around him and make him feel good because he is Erik's submissive and he serves Erik.  
  
Charles wails as Erik fucks up into him, howling and wild with it, tears slipping down his cheeks and blurring out his vision and his Dominant is so generous, he's giving Charles the chance to serve him exactly as he needs, he's treating Charles exactly as he should be treated, his cheek stinging from the slap. It's what he needs. Immediately he's clenching around Erik's dick inside of him, hot and hard and huge, it feels so impossibly big like this and he chokes on a startled, awed moan when he raises his hips and lets himself fall back down, gasping and wide-eyed with it. He's full, Erik makes him so full, he fills him right up and Charles is moving, then, desperate and a little clumsy with it, a little fumbling, a lot needy, whining and crying and clenching. He can't seem to find the right angle, hands on Erik's shoulders to steady himself, and he whimpers with it even as his cock spurts between them, trapped between Erik's belly and dribbling come because he's come so much and how many more times will he come before the heat goes away? Before it stops hurting? How many more times will Erik make him? That thought has him biting on his poor, swollen lip and he cries harder as he bounces, babbling, "Thank you, sir, thank you, thank you -" And Erik will show him? He'll tell him what to do, he'll own him completely? Charles wants all of it. He needs all of it. All of the things Erik has always thought of, all of the instincts he's always had but never followed through on, he needs it. Does Erik see? Will he help, make it better, give him what he needs so it doesn't hurt?  
  
He will. He always will. But he was right before, too. They aren't mindless. What he needs more than anything is to own Charles, to Dominate him completely, and that doesn't extend to simply letting him tire himself out and Erik wants to hear him, to see him, to listen to him beg and whine and scream because he belongs to Erik and only Erik can give it to him, can give him what he needs, can keep him completely suspended on the edge of the Universe narrowed down to a single point and he makes Charles slow down, drawing him out, exquisite and excruciating and smacking him again, reddening his skin everywhere he can reach and controlling every twitch, every movement, blending pain and pleasure until Charles gives up exactly what Erik wants, the room drowned in precursors of Will that float in the air like heat waves. He'll come as many times as Erik wants. He'll stay right here for as long as Erik wants, and he wants. And he's allowed to want.  
  
He'll do exactly as he's told. He'll be so, so obedient, and at the heart of it that's what he needs more than anything. To be filled, to be filled and filled and filled but also to be owned. Charles doesn't think anyone has ever needed anything as much as he needs that right now, and he's whimpering, thighs trembling, whole body flushed as he cries and continues to fuck himself on Erik's cock because that's what his Dominant wants. And even if their bodies are capable of things now they shouldn't be, it's still a strain; it's still an ache, it's still tiring, but Charles doesn't care. He needs it, too desperate and greedy for it, and he's so grateful. His Dominant is so good for him. His mate provides so well for him, fills him up so nicely and makes sure he isn't empty. Charles pauses just to pant and sob, overwhelmed, into Erik's neck and he's coming again, leaking between them and sitting all the way on Erik's cock and he's making so much noise but he still tries to speak. "P-Please -" He still needs more, how is that even possible? That it's not enough, that he's so greedy? And Erik said that Charles didn't know, didn't know how much, but Erik must not know either. He can't know. Charles doesn't even know what he's begging for, only that Erik will take care of it.  
  
He can be greedy. He can need more, he can need as much as the world itself needs and churns the cogs in a giant wheel that chews up and spits out everything and everyone it comes into contact with. Erik can rise to it, he has never been more sure of anything in his life, and Erik lets him go on like that for a long time, slowly until he's falling apart, and then he can't stand it anymore, he can't be still anymore and Charles ends up on his hands and knees, on his stomach, trapped under Erik's body and his Will and his mind, bright and pure surrounding him. Erik loves him so much, so much, and most of the time he wants to be so gentle and nice and make Charles feel good and be soft; there are many parts of Erik but he's always been soft by nature, the earliest, most expressive pieces of him are a little clumsy and boisterous and over-eager, but not ruthless, not calculated. He always liked collecting lizards and stroking the leaves on trees and when he hurt people, it was usually by accident, blinded by enthusiasm or excitement or passion and rarely out of vindictiveness, but there are other parts, too.  
  
Ones he always thought were created by Shaw, lurking monsters behind his eyes, but they've always been there, too. The need for control, the need for precision and excellence and perfection that he always associated with _Herr_ Shaw, drilled into him repetitively until he absorbed it as a personality trait, but it's not true. It's his nature, too. And he's not sadistic, but he's not gentle anymore, either. Pain is just as effective a tool as pleasure when used properly and Charles needs it just as much, Erik has been teaching him and training him and conditioning him, expecting him to be the best version of himself, and now he breaks it all down, all the barriers, all the fear, all the hurt until there is nothing left but Erik's Dominion over him. And he takes it so well. He's the only one who ever could, he's the only one who could ever hope to match. He's strong and vivid and magnificent and Erik loves him.  
  
Something lingers. Somewhere beneath Erik, something in Charles starts to panic. It's loud and it's disjointed, it's uncertain and it's needy and it hurts and he doesn't know why, it hurts and it doesn't make sense because Erik is inside of him and he's still getting exactly what he should need, but somehow it just isn't enough. It hurts, and not because Erik slapped or spanked him (but that, too, it's sore and achy and he'd take more, if Erik told him to bend over his knee right now he'd take more, even if it was just because even if he just felt like it, Charles would take it) but just because it hurts, from deep, deep inside of him, a horrible, wrenching pain he can't get rid of. And he doesn't know what to ask for, or how to say it, how to tell his Dominant when he's this far under and this far gone, so all he does is cry, and he wonders if maybe his mate won't notice. What more could Charles possibly need? What more could Erik possibly give him? And Erik is sure of it, but it's Charles who feels like he doesn't know, even completely overwhelmed by it, even trusting Erik to breathe for him, trusting Erik with everything. Because Erik is - what if there are things Charles needs that aren't meant to be given? Charles is learning but what if he's learning the wrong things, what if he's still sick? He doesn't remember enough, and all that's left is this and it hurts, it hurts so badly and what if Erik can't fix it? He doesn't thrash, completely limp under Erik, and then quiet, biting hard on his lip and closing his eyes as tightly as he can manage, and after all the sounds he's been making it's a stark contrast.

* * *

Of course he does, though, from the moment it begins and Erik pets his cheek and drapes himself over Charles and kisses the back of his neck, draws him into his arms and mumbles nonsensical syllables under his breath, humming more than anything. Erik can't know everything and he can't do everything, but if it's within his power, he will do it. If he knows about it, he will do it. The only limitation is possibility, and they've already proven that's tenuous at best. There are things inside of Erik that he needs, too, that can't be given, because they aren't right. They aren't healthy. And in every other aspect of their lives those things don't crop up, but in these cycles, they've been known to, and they're handled. Erik learned all the wrong things, but Charles helps him, even if he can't take it all away. Erik can't take all the pain away, or he would in an instant, but he won't let wrong things be all that exist for Charles. He'll teach him the right way, he'll help. He'll be here. He'll help.  
  
Erik needs things that can't be given? That Charles can't give? Just the thought of it is enough to stop everything short, and then he shatters. It's nothing dramatic, and it looks like nothing much at all, actually; he stays frozen and still beneath Erik, but all of a sudden there's no air to breathe. It hurts, and this pain, Charles knows, is wholly unbearable. There are things he can't give Erik? Erik can't make it better and take away the pain? He's confused and he's devastated and he's sobbing, and the pain is so unspeakable, so indescribable, it's like it's rending at his soul - he doesn't know enough, he doesn't know, and he doesn't know what to ask or what to do and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts and it hurts to it burns and he can't give Erik what he needs -  
  
Erik strokes his hair and Orders him to breathe, the air into his lungs, to slow down his mind and his thoughts and focus on his Dominant, because that's all that matters. Calm. Be easy. Charles gives Erik everything he needs. There are always going to be unhealthy, twisted, backwards, wrong parts of himself that shouldn't be indulged, though. What he wants isn't always what he needs. And Charles knows that first-hand because it's the rule he always uses. Erik cares very much about the things that Charles wants and how he feels, but what he gives him is what he needs, what will make him better and whole. Which is exactly why Charles will tell him, and show him, what's happening, what he wants, what he desires, and Erik will make that decision just as he always has.  
  
Charles doesn't understand, and he's still panicked with it even as he's Ordered to calm, sobbing quietly into the sheets and not comprehending anything except the pain he's in, and finally his lip slips from between his teeth and he gasps with it, whimpers. Erik said need. What does he want that Charles doesn't give him? Why is it wrong? Why can't Charles give it? He wants to give it. He wants to be good. He doesn't understand, and it hurts, everything hurts and it's a deep, inexplicable ache. He doesn't know what's happening. He doesn't know what he wants. He just knows it hurts, and he doesn't remember and he doesn't understand but Erik is telling him there are things he wants that Charles isn't allowed or able to give him and he's hurting, he's hurting and he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what to do, he needs something and he doesn't know what it is, if he does he doesn't know how to ask for it and there are things Erik won't give him, either? Because they're bad and wrong? Charles tries to curl in on himself, but all that does is make it hurt more and he lets out a helpless, miserable little noise.  
  
There are some things that Erik won't give him, but not because they're wrong. Just because he wants to act in Charles's best interest. He won't cause Charles harm. He won't let him do things that are bad for him, that will hurt him. Sometimes that's as simple as not letting him eat ice cream for dinner, and sometimes it's complicated and overwhelming, but there's nothing bad about Charles. Erik's well of affection for him only grows deeper with every moment, and he unconsciously sinks deep into Charles's body, into his nerves and chemicals, doing his best to soothe away the pain because it doesn't belong. Charles is where he should be, he knows what he should know, that he is Erik's, that he is loved, that he will always be given what he needs. Erik will keep him safe and do his very best to make Charles happy, always.  
  
But the pain isn't meant to go away, and it's not something that Erik can soothe like that. But if he can't, then what can? What isn't he getting that he's supposed to be getting, if Erik said this was natural and normal? Why does it still hurt? And he's crying so hard it hurts, speaking of, his throat is constricting around it and he can't make himself stop, and does he know all those things? He does, he knows he does but there are things he doesn't understand or remember that he thinks he's supposed to and everything is hazy and overwhelming and Erik didn't answer him, what can't he give him? Why can't he give it? Charles isn't good enough, why isn't it good enough, why does he need more and what does he need? Why are there things he can't give Erik, why does Erik think he can't give them? It hurts! It burns, it's achy and it burns and he's convulsing, scratching at his skin, his arms and his legs and his stomach and all over, trying to chase it away but if Erik can't soothe it then - then - Charles doesn't understand! He doesn't remember! He's scared and it hurts please make it better!  
  
A little bolt of panic shivers through Erik's heart and he just presses a kiss to Charles's forehead. Charles knew it once before but Erik doesn't want him to learn it again. It's not normal and it's not healthy and it's not relevant to their lives. Charles will just have to trust that because that's the decision he's made. When he tries to scratch at himself though Erik growls _stop it_ , and pins his hands, giving him a harsh nip along his jaw in warning. He doesn't know what's wrong or how to fix it, but Charles doesn't get to just thrash wildly out of control anymore because he's not free to. Everywhere he turns in his mind he comes up against that unbreakable metal wall, a vast structural entity that envelopes him completely. Stop it and be easy. Erik is here. He's not going anywhere. Charles is good, and safe, and under his control and that's what matters.  
  
But why? Why can't he know? Why does Erik think it's unhealthy and not normal, and if he needs it why can't Charles give it, he's supposed to Erik said none of the things they needed were bad and he's trying to learn? Why? Why does it hurt, why does it hurt he's trying to do what he's told and he's trying to trust his Dominant but if he's being good then why does it hurt? Why? He doesn't understand and he can't stop crying and he wants to scream because what could he possibly need, what is it, why isn't Erik giving it to him? He's being good, he promises he's being good, what's happening, what's wrong? Why? He doesn't understand, he doesn't understand, please help it feels like his skin is peeling off and his throat is closing and he's kicking his legs but only because it feels - because - why can't he know! What is he doing wrong! Please help! It hurts!  
  
Erik just shudders and holds him through it, because he doesn't know what else to do. It isn't because Charles isn't good, it's because he's a failure as a Dominant, he always fails. He never knows what to do and he always acts wrong and doesn't make things any better. He can't soothe it or help it because he's inept, and he's sorry, Charles shouldn't have to experience this because of Erik's lack of competence. His own cheeks are wet but he hides it in Charles's hair, determined to be strong instead of weak. Charles is being good, Erik promises. He's doing so good.  
  
But - no, why? That isn't true, this isn't right. His Dominant knows exactly what he needs, he knows exactly what to do, he has exactly the right instincts. That's the truth. Erik said he knew better than he knew anything that he could take care of Charles now, that he could give him everything he needed, why not now and why not this? No, please. It has to be him. Charles whimpers louder, cries harder, tries to get his mate's attention the best he knows how, because Erik knows how he made everything better he always does he knows what to do, he takes perfect care of Charles, Charles just doesn't understand he just doesn't know, please? Please? Please? Erik said ask for help, Erik said trust him, Erik said ask, please? He doesn't know anything except that Erik is the only one who can give him what he needs, please. Tell him, tell him, tell him, and all the squirming and the fussing dislodges Erik, disconnects them, and Charles sobs and howls and claws at the sheets, please, tell him, please -  
  
Because he doesn't know, because sometimes Charles has to tell him what's wrong. He knows Charles is being good, and asking him for help, but Erik isn't making a difference, because he doesn't know. If he could be closer, if he could be stricter, if he could be better in any way he would do it, has tried doing it-so what can it mean other than that he's unworthy? Erik doesn't let him get very far, though. He makes Charles stop, putting a finger to his nose, his eyes narrowed. Tell him what? What does he need to hear? What will make it better? Charles needs to stop, because this isn't getting them anywhere. He needs to stop, and slow down, and tell Erik what he needs. That's just as much part of their dynamic as Erik spontaneously arriving at the right answer, but no more fumbling around in the dark.  
  
It's not that Charles doesn't know that. It's just that right now he's - it was frightening, when he first woke up, but Erik reassured him that it was okay, that he didn't need to worry, that Erik would take care of all of it and that it was alright, normal that Charles can't even fathom breathing without Erik there to tell him to, that he's pleased with Charles for doing it, and isn't that too much? But he doesn't have any real reference for that, he just knows it doesn't feel like enough, and he's sorry, he's sorry, he's not trying to panic, he's not trying to flail around, he just doesn't know any better right now. It's all he can think to do, and he know it's not helpful and he's sorry, he's grateful for Erik correcting him (thank you, thank you, sir, and it's so telling, he's not disobedient or defiant he's just -) but he's sorry and he tries to climb closer, to rub against him in apology, rocking himself back because it's so much better than being empty.  
  
Erik is worthy, Erik is the only one worthy, doesn't he remember that? Doesn't he remember that Charles chose him, Presented himself to him and decided he was the only one who could get him through this? Through everything, but through this. He sniffles and tries to slow down, to breathe, to listen, but, "Hurts, I don't know, it hurts," he whispers, and he sounds as confused and scared as he feels. It's overwhelming, ever since he woke up it's been overwhelming, even more than when they fell asleep and it doesn't feel like it's ending, or even close to and there's a great yawning need inside of him and he just doesn't know. He's sorry, he knows it's bad. He's bad and there are things he can't give Erik (he's stuck on it, it's so _devastating_ it makes him feel so completely useless) and he's not pleasing his Dominant and he's trying, he's breathing, see? He's trying to breathe, he's trying to tell, he's hiccupping and clinging on and trying to get Erik deeper, he promises he's trying. And it helped. It helped, Charles isn't crying so hard he coughs anymore, it's better like this, he'll try. He'll try to talk, he'll do what he's told, please don't think he's not being good. He needs to be corrected, he does, swiftly and firmly and decisively, he needs to be trained and taught, desperately, but he's trying so hard to be good, does Erik see?  
  
"I see, _neshama_ ," Erik murmurs into his ear, and he wraps his hand around Charles's hip and swiftly does correct the imbalance here, the overwhelming emptiness that claws at him from the inside, thrusting forward to bury himself back where he belongs. He curls fingers around those thoughts and encourages Charles to let them go. He doesn't need to worry about what Erik needs, because Erik will tell him. Erik will make sure that Charles pleases him and makes him happy, he will. Those thoughts aren't about happiness, they're all trauma and reassociation. He won't expose Charles to that. It's never been that Charles needs, Erik tells him, and it's sincere and honest and completely truthful, but this-this undirected screaming without coherence, Erik can't solve that, he can't make sense of that, so Charles has to do what he is told and slow down and breathe, and focus on his Dominant. Calm his heart beat. To listen. To obey Erik and trust him, that Erik won't let anything bad happen to him, that as long as he is here they are both safe. Erik is strong, he is powerful, there isn't anyone or anything alive that could get between him and his mate. "Tell me why it hurts," he Orders, and before Charles can think to dissolve again Erik is gripping his jaw tightly in hand, that finger still raised in warning. Careful. Easy.  
  
It becomes abundantly clear that it might be more of the same when Charles does calm like Erik bids him, when he takes admittedly shaky but slower breaths, when he tries to slow his heart rate down to match his Dominant’s, when he focuses on doing what he’s told and his thoughts stop screeching so violently. It does still hurt, it is still near unbearable, but if he rolls his hips back into Erik the way he can’t help but do, it feels better. It feels a little better, just like his Dominant promised it would. He does trust Erik, he promises. He does trust his mate, the only thing he can do right now is trust and obey his mate, he didn’t mean to fall off the edge he just got scared and he just needs to learn. It’s frightening like this, not knowing anything but this, but need and reliance, when he’s not sure where everything else went off to or when it’s going to come back, and hearing that Erik needed things he couldn’t give - he said needed, he said needed, he said it came up during cycles, and does that mean there are ancient, natural parts of his Dominant that he isn’t built for? Because he promised that creature that’s just Erik that he could satisfy it, that he would submit to it and offer up all of himself to it, and he’s not enough? He needs to be, he promised and he is and he needs to be, it just hurts. It’s just jumbled, but Erik doesn’t want him to fly off so he breathes, and breathes, and breathes, hitched but not hyperventilating, and - “Needed more,” he mumbles, and he closes his eyes in shame because it made Erik think he wasn’t worthy but the truth is, the truth is what he needs isn’t an abstract concept, it isn’t. It’s Erik, it’s exactly Erik, so it has to be something he can provide, it has to be something he can give but Charles just doesn’t know, and he’s sorry but he’ll be calm and he’ll tell and he’ll talk, he’ll answer and he’ll listen and Erik holding him firm like this, Erik expecting like this, it’s good. It’s safe. He doesn’t remember why, but this is scary for him, everything feels overwhelming and too-much and he’s sorry, and he’s going to listen.  
  
It's not natural. It's not even ancient. It doesn't belong and Erik doesn't want to think about it, he doesn't want to, the only reason it shows up at all is because his defenses are completely gone and evidently even when he can't remember much about the outside world his body and his neurology still carry it within his cells. There are two warring parts of him, the things that are natural and intrinsic and the things that have been conditioned into him, and it's subversive and damaging and its only purpose is to hurt him, to hurt his connections with everyone around him, a dark, winding path inside of him that craves defeat and death and pain and suffering and punishment, it longs for the way it used to be when he understood his place in the world, but he wants to teach Charles better than that, to give in to destructive urges of self-harm, so he won't listen to it. His focus isn't on that. It's on Charles, on his submissive, on nature instead of despair. The only place in the world that matters right now is the one where he can look after his mate. And if Erik can provide it, it will be given, if it is at all within his power, but Charles needs to tell him. Erik won't let him come to harm. He knows it's scary, but it's going to be OK. He promises.  
  
That calms Charles even more, unravels something coiled up inside and releases it. Teach him better? Teach them both better. There are things in Charles like that, too, and Erik is trying to teach them out of him, not to change Charles, but because his Dominant wants him to heal, to be the best, healthiest, happiest version of himself possible. Because he can train him to be good for Erik, and good for himself, to meet his Dominant's expectations and standards and that's his right. It's his responsibility, to shape Charles and the Universe. Charles helps in a different way. He understands that, even now. He understands now. What he doesn't understand is what he needs or how to ask for it, or why it still hurts. It's still so frightening, even with Erik holding him like this, even with some of the emptiness chased away as he clenches and gasps and clings with his whole body, still crying quietly. "I - I -" It comes out croaked and stuttered and he tries to shake his head, but Erik is still holding him and he whines, but it helps. It helps that he hasn't let go, that he refuses to let Charles spiral. "I need more, I'm sorry," he whispers, and his eyes are still closed. He's sorry he doesn't know what that is, he's sorry he's so greedy, but please? It's just that Charles really isn't capable of being on his own now. He's relying completely and totally, utterly on Erik, and it's scary for him, but he's trying to let himself. To trust Erik to do what he's meant to do, to provide for his mate. He's still worried about things, he's still scared, he still needs more of - of... but he doesn't know how to put any of it into words. He's sorry, and it radiates from him, fills him up with shame that adds to the pain, the heat, the discomfort. He's trying to be good but he doesn't know. He's not trying to be unhelpful. Will Erik help him? Talk to him? Tell him. He needs him so much, it's scary, does he feel it?  
  
Sometimes this happens, too. Sometimes out of absolutely nowhere Erik's mind clicks into place, when he isn't trying, when he isn't concentrating so hard the room vibrates, when he isn't disparaging himself and berating himself for not knowing better or fixing a problem immediately and maybe it won't work, maybe it's not what's needed, egotistical and narcissistic but it comes, out of nowhere, when Charles gentles just a little against him and the panic unclenches its fist from around Erik's heart and physically, behaviorally, there isn't much more Erik could or should be doing, Charles is utterly trapped beneath him and held entirely captive within his Will, the whole Universe radiates Erik's Command, but it's not enough, Charles said it, it's not enough.   
  
There's nothing wrong with Charles. There's nothing shameful about it, Erik just didn't know what he meant and maybe he still doesn't and he'll probably be embarrassed if he's wrong, but in the split-second that it happens Erik isn't thinking about any of that, he's just doing. He's just existing, fallen back on that ancient and deep and primal part of himself that responds exclusively to his submissive, and hi mind opens up instead. Slats in the walls unfurling, wooden flower petals carved down into the floor to unveil; not just Command, not just Orders, not just Postures and positions, but himself, spilling over into Charles like molten molasses, filling up the cracks and sealing all the joints. Snowdrifts merging into endless sands, a new twin-sun in the sky, rustling in the trees. Charles recognizes the last facet he encountered, his long red hair braided behind his back, decorated in scars like paintings across his cheeks and neck and arms, eyes darkened with pigment drawn across the bridge of his nose, clothing indiscriminate from the forest. But there are others, the ones that disappeared. Blobs and giants and monsters and demons and Butchers with feather-dusters and a thousand different reflections blinking at once, for one single moment looking at Charles through one unified gaze, and despite all of their differences and disparate experiences and memories, they all have one thing in common. Charles belongs to them. They belong to him. They belong here, in his mind, in their mind. They've been hidden for a long time.  
  
It's not wrong. It's not wrong, but it is overwhelming, too much for Charles to process all at once or at all and he whimpers again, tries to squirm just a bit so he can hide even though there's nowhere to hide from what's inside. He doesn't think he's ready for it yet, or the Void isn't, putting everything back together. Building. He doesn't think he's ready, and he hopes that's okay, but it fills him up and it calms him anyway, it soothes him, having all of Erik, and now that he has it and Erik is confident and acting, now it's easier to breathe. He still needs, and it still hurts, but Erik is going to make sure he has what he needs, isn't he? All of him. He's sorry he can't be whole right now, he's sorry there's only one part and it's not a whole, full part, it's just this primitive, ancient, needy thing, and that's what he was asking for. He needs Erik to - he just needs - it's not about being held down, though that's very nice, it's not about... but he doesn't have words, and he still doesn't know how to ask except that he needs Erik to be. Everything he's never thought he could or should be, Charles needs that now. All of that too-much, all of that worry over suffocating and hurting, he needs those things. To get through this, he needs those things. Those parts he thinks are bad, that made him cry earlier. And he especially needs Erik to - to... he shakes his head, and he's shaking again, because why is this so scary? Why is he so scared, when all of Erik is here to take care of him?  
  
It only lasts a second, just a blink and Erik's eyes clear, a reassurance that all of him is here to care for Charles, and Charles doesn't ever need to apologize for it. He rubs at his own face self-soothingly, presses their cheeks together, hides his expression in Charles's hair. Those parts that Erik thinks are bad, they are bad. They're bad. He promised Charles he would protect him. He promised. He can't break that. "Need me to what?" he encourages, though (it's an Order, not really an encouragement, but potato, tomato), he'll find a way. He'll figure it out. He won't hurt Charles, he won't let them hurt Charles.  
  
They're not bad. They're Erik, they're his mate, and they know how to take care of him too. The heat is getting to be entirely too much and Charles cries with it, doesn't want to take but words are difficult, they're so hard and admitting that he's so - that he's so entirely helpless, that he's vulnerable that he's useless (and that word comes from deep inside, a hang-up that's decidedly not swallowed despite him not having the context), it's scary. It's scary to admit he needs Erik for everything right now. He isn't exaggerating, if Erik decided it wasn't right for Charles to breathe, that he didn't have permission, he would stop. He would trust that his Dominant would know what was best, that he would take care of him. But Erik is always worried about being too much, about asking too much about expecting too much about micro-managing, being too strict, not giving Charles enough room to breathe, but right now even less than an inch is suffocating. It hurts, it's too much freedom. It isn't to say he won't fuss or think for himself, that he won't want or be but - everything is, and his whole being is telling him - and it's frightening. And he needs things so badly, so why doesn't that make him - Erik said not to say it, so he makes the thought hushed and hopes maybe he won't hear but it's still there, mindless whore slut useless bitch can't do anything without this, can you, you need this don't you - where's it coming from? Who is it? Charles just knows he's scared of it. This might be natural, normal, but it's scary for him.  
  
"No," Erik Commands lowly. The rest of his thoughts turn off like a leaky water faucet, abrupt and squealing and sudden. At least they try, but they drip out of him anyway, for all his lack of barriers. The difference isn't Charles, it's the people who believed they were entitled to abuse him. Charles is allowed to need things, he always has been. It's Erik's responsibility to treat him with respect and kindness, how he should have been treated. Erik doesn't believe that Charles was a mindless whore, and he'd know. He was. He very much wanted and encouraged and insisted upon, and received money for, a great deal of what happened to him. Which is why he knows without a doubt that there's nothing that Charles could have wanted, or said, or did, or any part of his personality that would have made what happened acceptable. And he knows it's scary. It's allowed to be scary, he's allowed to be scared and sad and overwhelmed, Erik will still be here to take care of him. Erik has a hard time trusting himself, believing himself worthy of the responsibility, he takes it very seriously, reverently, he would not casually toss it away or crumple it up. Charles might depend on Erik for breath itself, but Erik will always give it to him, he will never lord it over him, he will never intentionally make Charles feel bad about himself or put him down or insult him, or relish his humiliation, or frame his wants and needs derisively. Charles can trust Erik. He does trust him, doesn't he? He needs Erik to breathe and move and exist, so he should trust him. Trust him to do just that.  
  
Charles starts to fuss and bristle at the insult to his Dominant, not quite understanding that it's Erik thinking it; it just isn't true. It doesn't make sense, it doesn't work that way. It's just as irrational and traumatized as his own fear right now, as the panic still gripping in his stomach, that he keeps swallowing and choking on. He does trust Erik, or it would be inconceivably worse. He does trust Erik, and he is, but does Erik understand how much it is? The things he feels like he needs right now? It's more than just firmness. It's more than being a bit more strict, things he needs and would love to argue for in his right mind. This is - and Charles feels the shame again, hot and burning with the rest of it, eating away at his insides. It's so much, and none of it is rational. All of it is instinct and pure, raw need to submit, to offer, to be owned, and no one - it's so much more than he's ever considered, more than he would normally need, or want, which isn't to say he doesn't want it now or that he doesn't want so much outside of whatever this is, but right now, right now - does Erik understand? Could he possibly, is there something happening to him, too? Charles clings, and he hurts, and he clenches just to remind himself that he's not empty and he's shaking with the need to stay still because Erik didn't say he could. Does Erik realize how much power he has? Does he know how much control Charles wants him to have, needs him to have? That's what he needs. For Erik to take it. He's gotten himself all unsteady again, and he just needs his mate. And there are so many other things, so many thoughts, Charles doesn't know what to do with them.  
  
He's supposed to give them to Erik, and Erik demands them from him. Maybe Erik doesn't realize how much power he has, because he's never sought it, even at his most wild, he's always been timid with his Dominance but it's only because, because he's struggled as much with accepting those parts of himself and asking for them, for their own sake, just as much as Charles struggles with how much he really needs to submit, but that doesn't mean that Erik couldn't handle it. He can. He doesn't even truly know what to ask for, sometimes, fumbling in the dark like a teenager and it's embarrassing and he's sorry, Charles deserves better than that, he deserves to know that what he offers will be matched, will be exceeded, will be taken and of course he doesn't know, how would he? All Erik knows is that whenever Charles moves, whenever he breathes, whenever he blinks or has a single thought he is there to match it, to mirror it, to assess and calculate and control and analyze and Charles can't get himself out of place, he can't maneuver himself out of place because Erik is there, his body and mind restraining Charles down, keeping him still and steady. He's supposed to give them to Erik. "Give them to me," he murmurs lowly.  
  
But he has so many. How does he tell his Dominant that he needs him to tell him how and when to do things, even the simplest things, even if he fusses? That he needs him to demand things just to demand them, for the sake of them, so Charles can obey? That he wants him to be that way, that he wants him to own him completely, in every possible way? How does he explain that he has this deep, aching urge to rearrange the nest, that the concept of nesting is so incredibly important to him now, and how silly and primal that is? That he almost hopes someone comes close to their nest so Erik will growl at them, will show them that Charles is Claimed and owned and cared for, and they are to leave them alone? That he's mated? It's so much, so many thoughts twisting together, and it's embarrassing, isn't it? It's getting worse and it's embarrassing, and he tries to hide in Erik again.

* * *

Erik doesn't let him, though, and he just smiles, drawing his hand down Charles's cheek. Not embarrassing, Erik likes them, he wants more of them, he wants all of them. These thoughts belong to him, just like every other part of Charles. Charles wants to re-arrange the nest? He covers his hand and places it over a neat pile of gold trinkets. Every single thing Charles has said is true, he is mated, he is Claimed and owned and cared for and no one will take that away from them, no one will intrude on them or Erik will take care of it. He lifts up a strawberry and presses it to Charles's lips. Eat, he Commands with a grin, tapping Charles's bottom lip so he'll open up.  
  
Erik really likes it? He really does? Does he think Charles is being good, is he pleased? When he's offered the strawberry this time he opens his mouth obediently, even though he isn't hungry in that way, even though his stomach has been sick and eating has been impossible. Erik will take care of him if he does get sick, but if he thinks Charles should eat, he will. Will Erik eat, too? Will he if Charles begs, if he asks nicely, if he feeds him? Charles will do whatever he's told, he really will, but - it aches now, could Erik please fix it? It's soft, and sweet, and shy again, he sucks Erik's fingers into his mouth when he's finished with the fruit, eyes fluttering as he moans. It hurts and he's still a bit frightened, but it's nice, too? Erik will tell him what to do, he promises? He'll make sure Charles always knows, that he's always controlled, that he knows how to please and serve and be obedient? That's all he wants. Sucking Erik's fingers is nice, too, though, and it'd be nicer if Erik could fill him up more, but he won't take before he's given. Look, see? He learns. Does Erik know Charles can be a good boy?  
  
He does think Charles should eat, and it isn't impossible anymore, because Erik Wills it, and it's nice like this, too, because he can use the opportunity to touch more of his face and dip his fingertips between Charles's parted lips and it's less eating, really, than it is just another way that Charles can serve him. He promises, his own lips twitching warmly. He likes it, and he'll surround Charles in it and make certain he always knows. There's plenty more where that came from, appearing from somewhere-out-of-nowhere, among everything else in their nest that Erik's fashioned for them, so that they'll never need to leave again, they'll never want for anything because he'll ensure that Charles is provided for. And him, too, if Charles wants. He can feed Erik, he huffs, nose wrinkling up fondly. He plops another strawberry into Charles's outstretched palm. He sees. Charles never has to worry again, Erik is dedicated to giving him only-nice things, to keeping him safe and controlled and owned, completely obedient. He doesn't have to be afraid any longer.  
  
Charles is still a little afraid, and his stomach aches a bit, churns, some lightheaded nausea because he truly hasn't been eating and his body still isn't sure of it, kicked far out of regulation and working oddly, but he swallows obediently anyway, licks the juices off his Dominant's fingers and doesn't fuss or even consider complaining. He's settling so nicely, but he whines softly for his mate's attention as he shyly takes the strawberry he was given and offers it to Erik, presses it imploringly to his lips and thinks, please, sir? He wants permission because the hurt and heat and ache is getting worse, but he isn't sure if he should ask, so he doesn't. He endures it and does what he's told, and - Erik will keep telling him? He'll talk to him, Order him? Talk him through it so he doesn't get scared? When he knows what to do, how to be good, when he knows Erik is pleased, it's less frightening. That's what he needed to tell Erik earlier but couldn't. He's sorry he's so needy now, that he needs constantly. He knows it's a lot. Erik will get tired of it, won't he? Of not being able to give even an inch without Charles fussing? He's sorry. He doesn't know how else to be right now.  
  
"Mm, no," Erik rumbles, content and he gives Charles's nose a little tap, shaking his head. No more sorries. Erik is Charles's Dominant and he will never get tired of that. He wants Charles to ask, the Order popping up between them like an electric current. Charles should ask for permission. He always should. It's one of Erik's favorite sounds. It means he gets to decide. He likes that. The more Charles settles, the more Erik settles, great plumes of warmth spreading through his limbs and into Charles's body, from every point that they're connected. It's nothing to be afraid of. Erik isn't afraid of Charles's submission. He isn't daunted by it, he isn't nervous. Sometimes he's afraid of himself. Of those bad parts. His head gets mixed up and he can't separate the bad, bad parts from the proper ones but it hasn't happened yet. He won't let it happen, he won't let Charles be hurt. And the more Charles eases, the easier it is for Erik to slip down with him, the whole world gone except for the atoms barely separating their bodies, sparks in-between. Charles belongs to Erik. Erik will keep telling him. He'll make sure he knows what to do.  
  
Erik likes to decide. He likes the power, the responsibility, it doesn't scare or frustrate or exhaust him. Charles shivers, trying to learn. There's nothing scary about this? There's some hurt, some ache, but if he's good Charles thinks Erik will get rid of it, will make certain that it goes away. Even if he isn't Erik will only give him enough pain to teach him. He'll never hurt him, even if he hurts him, and Charles likes that, too. He does. Another shiver, another sharp breath. Even with more power over him than Charles - full, whole Charles - would ever have considered giving up before this, even to Erik, even after they Bonded, he knows what to do. He takes it seriously, he doesn't take advantage. His mate, his Dominant, he's wonderful and he's strong and he's considerate, he's kind and he's loving and he won't ever do him harm. Charles can learn that now, and there's curiosity now, there's dipped toes in the water, his mind folding outward as he slowly begins to unclench the fist he has around his anxiety, his fear, his shame. "Sir, may I... move?" he asks, and it's still embarrassed, still quiet and shy, and he gives an image, too, just a flicker of it. He's in Erik's lap again, can he squirm and move his hips while he's fed, can he satisfy some more of the ache? Erik said he'd feed him - and he goes hot, again, goes flushed, and there's something else. Erik said ask, Erik said listen, he said give them. "Outside?" he asks, and he doesn't even know what he means, but he looks at Erik with those wide blue eyes, blown with startled desire and submission and need, eager to hear, to listen, to be told and taught. And it's not just a cycle, though perhaps it would have happened anyway. The Universe is listening. What will Erik say now?  
  
Erik beams at him, adoring that outward stretch of curiosity, and drawing a finger down his cheek affectionately, rolling over so that he can relax against the headboard and pull Charles flush against his lap, giving a nod. "You can move," he whispers, warm. As Charles's mind reaches out to touch his, his own folds it up in an embrace like still waters over a rippling lake envelope a stone, smooth and seamless and gentle. He loves Charles's mind, he loves listening to him and deciding for him. He presses another strawberry to Charles's lips. "Open," he Orders, petting his face. "Outside? Hm? Tell me about that, _nehedar sheli,_ hm?" another Order, Erik pressing his hand to Charles's heart. "Come on outside. Don't hide away."  
  
He has permission. Charles gasps with it, his eyes even wider as if he's shocked Erik allowed it, that he indulged it, breathless and smiling so big his cheeks ache where his Dominant touches them, dimples denting them both. He's grateful and giddy and still-curious, still awed, trying to let more of that crinkled fear and worry melt away so he can learn, so he can let Erik train and teach and restructure just like the Void told him he could help with. Erik will keep telling him? He'll keep deciding for him? Charles doesn't want to make decisions now, he's not sure he can. But he can ask for permission, he can reach out like that? He remembers, vaguely, so vaguely, needing this outside of the haze of this, some days, on bad days, scary days, unsettled days, and being too embarrassed to even consider it. Being too scared. So he didn't. But learning, maybe Erik will teach him, he wants to be trained but not in the way either of them were before. When Erik Orders his mouth open, he wiggles eagerly, obeying like air and life and comfort, and he moans then, too, even as Erik feeds him, juices dripping down swollen, obscenely red lips. There's still come on his cheek. It's sticky and flaking and he wants to cry when he thinks of cleaning it off. "Leave the nest?" he whispers after he's swallowed, and he waited for Erik's go-ahead to do that, too, even the simplest action, does Erik see? Does he like it? But he blinks at his own words, confused and startled. He wants to leave? Why? But - Erik can gather everything for their nest right here, but he wants to leave? He wants to gather, too? The little ancient part of him wants to... what? He doesn't know, but maybe Erik will help. They can talk about it, he can decide, and now he really, truly is looking at Erik as if he is the World. There has never been a more powerful Dominant because right here, right now, the Universe is right in his hands, he could literally leash it. What will he do? those curious parts ask, and especially the winking Void. What does he want to teach? What does he want them to learn?  
  
Erik leans over and kisses him, completely entranced by the sight of Charles's lips closing against his fingers and trails his hand down Charles's throat, guiding him, guiding him to breathe and swallow and accept nourishment and Erik's chest buzzes with desire, eyes half-lidded. His submissive is so pretty and alluring and Erik loves him, and he likes him, too, they're similar states but the love is deep and abiding and the like is playful, almost sweet. Charles wants to leave the nest? Go outside? Will there be others? Will Erik hurt them? He will, he'll protect them. Charles wants to play? Let everybody know he belongs to Erik? Wants to let the World know that he's safe with Erik. He is. He's safe. Erik wants to teach him that. He's safe and it's nice and they can play and learn together, and they'll have everything they need, they'll help one another.  
  
Charles' eyelids go heavier as he's kissed, a whine from deep in his throat. Erik said it was okay to move so he rocks in his Dominant's lap, tentative, but he has permission (he likes that, he likes it so much, Erik decides) and he nudges inside of him perfectly, stays rubbed and pressed right against that spot and Charles clenches so his mate feels good. That's what matters. He's pleasing Erik? Erik thinks he's pretty, does he think he's a good boy? He said he could feed Erik, too, but he's hesitant and shy still as he reaches for a strawberry, watching Erik the whole time for direction and wriggling instead of putting it to his Dominant's lips because he's still a little uncertain, a little overwhelmed by it all, and he needs to be told. If they go outside, Erik will take care of him? He'll protect him and tell him exactly what to do? It's the opposite of going out the night before, and maybe that's the point, but Charles isn't thinking it. It's more instinct instead, but he's frightened again when he thinks about it. He'll have to be empty again? It'll hurt? And what if Charles - what if he gets confused again, like last night? He makes circling motions with his hips to soothe himself, looking up at Erik for answer, for guidance. He's safe? Charles loves Erik so much, and right now he's so hopelessly, endlessly devoted, adoration and deference so fierce it hums and surrounds everything. But Erik likes the power?  
  
If Charles disobeys him Erik will put him back in line. Maybe up until this moment it wasn't imminently clear, because Erik doesn't ordinarily enjoy thinking about such things; about his desire to do so, but when the world has fallen away except for Charles Erik likes thinking about it. Charles doesn't need to worry about getting confused like last night. Erik will take care of him even if it means disciplining him. He wraps his fingers around Charles's wrist and lifts his hand to his lips, kissing the inside where his pulse beats against his skin. "Hmmmn," he murmurs, pleased and a little distracted by swiping his tongue across a line of juice that's leaked down between Charles's knuckles, eyes bright. Erik isn't so sure he wants Charles to be empty, either. But he's drawn to the idea of everyone knowing exactly who Charles belongs to, and a little frightened that he might hurt someone who got too close. Would Charles make sure he doesn't?  
  
Charles is distracted, too, eyes blown with fascination, with desire, as Erik kisses his pulse point. It jumps, his hand trembles slightly, even as he's calmed and ironed out by Erik's thoughts. Erik will take care of him, he doesn't need to worry. In front of everyone? Erik likes that, he enjoys thinking about it? Charles sighs with it, sweet and hopeful as he offers the fruit to Erik's lips, watching avidly as he waits for Erik to perhaps accept it. His offering, without an ounce of demand. He doesn't want to be empty, he's frightened of it, but if Erik thinks he can or should be he'll endure it, and then maybe he'll fill him back up soon? It doesn't feel like this is going to end soon, it doesn't feel like it's meant to; he thinks maybe he would worry about that, ordinarily, but he doesn't now, just clenches hard around Erik inside him and frets, sad about him leaving. "I'll help," he offers up eagerly, though, at Erik's turn of thought, earnest and eager and needing Erik to believe it. He'll be good, whatever Erik needs, he promises. He would tell Erik, because that's good, too. But Erik decides, okay? Right? Charles doesn't decide. Not now. Learning? Offering? Okay?  
  
Very OK. Beautiful. Charles is beautiful. Erik snatches up the strawberry and swallows, accepting Charles's offering without question, his submissive serving him. It's right. It's perfect. And some part of Erik wants him to endure it, but not to endure. Not to suffer. He couldn't bear Charles suffering. So Charles won't suffer. They can play, and explore, and when things start to hurt a little bit Erik will take him back and fill him up and make him feel good, just as good as Charles makes Erik feel. "Help? Promise?" he whispers. They still have so much to learn, to explore, to offer one another. They don't have to worry about it ending. Erik will protect them. As long as Charles helps him, makes sure he doesn't-makes sure Erik doesn't turn bad.  
  
Erik could never be bad, he won't be, something fierce and adamant in Charles declares, because he's his perfect mate, his strong, brilliant Dominant, he always takes such extraordinary care of him. There's nothing bad there, Charles loves him and needs him and he's so grateful and he trusts him so much. More than he's ever trusted in anything, right now. "I'll help, I promise, sir," he whispers, and he hums with it, swears it and begs Erik to believe how seriously he means it, how much he wants to serve Erik. Erik accepted his offering and his whole body thrums with the satisfaction of it, the joy, the pleasure, and so immediately he wants to offer another, something curious and prodding there needing to know if he'll get the same reaction. Another strawberry? Will Erik eat this one, too, if Charles asks nicely? Learning and testing. The problem is that even a few moments empty now hurts, more than a little bit, but - he can endure it, he promises. He won't suffer. But Erik can decide for him? When his boy hurts too much? What hurt he gets? He'll take whatever Erik wants to give him. Is that good? Charles trusts him. But what if Charles - he doesn't remember, he doesn't, everything's - for just a moment the panic spikes again, and then he reaches for Erik, turning immediately to him. Exactly as he was taught.  
  
"Mhmm, you should try," Erik grins at him. He should try asking nicely, the Order hums through the air. It's no secret that Erik will accept another one, but he just wants to hear Charles ask, because he can. Another way he can decide, just like he'll decide how much Charles will endure, and how long they'll venture outside for, and what they'll do and what they'll see and he believes Charles, he trusts Charles, he knows as long as Charles is near he won't-he won't be bad, he won't-Charles never lets him, he always takes care of things, he always makes sure Erik doesn't hurt nobody, he's always so good and Erik seems to glow with praise, appreciation. Maybe he'll reward Charles later on. As long as he obeys, of course.  
  
Charles perks right up at the mention of a reward, curious and shy and eager, the intensity of it pinging all through the Bond, but he’s much more concerned with being good. Good for the sake of being good, good because it means he gets to be Erik’s boy, because Erik calls him things like pretty and sweet and gives him kisses even while he hurts him a little, lets Charles clench around him and rock in his lap. “Can I feed you another one, sir? Please?” he asks, and it’s sweet as anything, laced with nothing but sincerity because he wants to feed his Dominant, to serve him like this, to make sure he’s well-rested and well-fed and taken care of, too. In every single way. He holds the strawberry there patiently, obediently, eyes full of such immeasurable adoration, bluer than usual as he rises in Erik’s lap just a bit so he can settle himself back down, bite his lip to stifle what would have been a long, helpless moan. The ancient thing inside wants to go out and play, just like Erik said, just like he asked, but he doesn’t want to be empty. He’s going to be sad about it.  
  
"Mhm," Erik murmurs lowly, snatching it right out of Charles's fingertips and trapping them against his lips, wanting to taste much more than just the fruit. "No," he growls when Charles tries to stifle himself, glaring at him in warning. Those noises belong to Erik. They should never be contained. Charles should give him more, he should give him all of it, every last drop, and Erik's eyes flutter as his head drops back against the wall because Charles is perfect around him, hot and warm and soft he's not sure how long they can be outside before Erik's pinning him down again but that's OK, isn't it? Charles belongs to Erik? He shouldn't be empty. He won't be empty. Erik will fill him up inside, inside his mind, inside his soul, inside every thought and motion. He can't be sad. Erik won't let him, he won't.  
  
But it will still hurt a little, it will still ache, and Charles thinks he will still mourn it. He’s sorry he’s so greedy, he’s really sorry (is it bad? Is it bad, should he try to stop?), but it’s so nice and he’ll miss it so much. He nuzzles into Erik’s neck and offers up a new strawberry, presses it to Erik’s lips and absolutely swims in satisfaction and pleasure when Erik accepts it, when he bites and swallows and he’s doing good, he truly is? He’s being a good boy, he’s doing the right things? Tentatively, with all of that shy curiosity, he lifts up again, shifts and wriggles and drops himself back down and this time he wails with it, closes his eyes against the onslaught and shakes all over from the oversensitivity, from the fullness, and he remembers once, he thinks he remembers - but he couldn’t ask for that, so he whimpers, embarrassed and fidgety, goes back to rocking his hips in tiny, pleasant motions. It feels so good. Erik feels so good, he’s going to miss it so much. He’s going to cry, but Erik says it isn’t weak, that it’s okay if he does, and that he likes it when Charles cries a little, when he endures something because Erik says, so he won’t hide it. He’ll be good. See? Erik’s boy, he promises.  
  
Erik snatches up those thoughts, though, too, just like another piece of fruit between his teeth and unspools them, because sometimes it's nice when Charles is shy and fluttery and embarrassed too, but he must remember that all the things he wants, they belong to Erik, too. So he will ask, because it isn't Charles's decision whether or not something happens. It's Erik's. He feathers his fingers underneath Charles's eyes, smiling down at him gently. Not weak. Erik likes that, too, it's another way he can care for his sweet, wonderful boy. He can miss it a little. Erik might not mind that, either, because he misses Erik and that means he likes Erik, and Erik will be there to decide that he gets it again. And he will, Charles will never be without, not truly.  
  
Charles will miss it a lot. He misses it already and Erik is still inside of him, still hard and sometimes throbbing, still rubbing insistently against that oversensitive, pleasurably sore place inside of him. It isn’t too much. He can’t imagine it will be too much for a very long time, even as his hole leaks come, red as his lips and puffy from use. His body is accommodating for him being greedy. “Will you - could you…” Charles fidgets again and that just makes things worse, really, just reminds him of the predicament, of being literally caught on Erik’s dick, and he nestles in closer to his Dominant to hide. “Keep me full, please,” he whispers, barely audible, and he lets Erik know what he means with fast, trembling images, gone as soon as they’ve come but recognizable, tinged with so much embarrassment; the plug from the night of their Bonding, or something like it, pretty metal that Erik can feel but mostly, if he’d just - if he came one more time, if he made Charles keep it so that even when he washed the rest off, he’d still have it - and wouldn’t it make it so much nicer, so much easier, when he could fuck right back into it when he’s decided Charles deserves it again? So he could miss it a little less? But only if he thinks Charles deserves it. Only if he thinks he deserves a nice reward, because it would be, a privilege, he'd be so grateful and he'd - it's a rush of thoughts all at once, of that endless new well of submission, and Charles flutters with it, trying to cut some of it off. It's so much.  
  
That grin turns into a wolfish smirk, because Charles's thoughts almost directly align with his own internal musings, but it's also making it much harder for him to entertain the possibility of leaving right now because Charles wants it so much and he's so desperate and needy and pretty and covered in Erik and wrecked for him and Erik shakes his head, growling in warning when Charles tries to dissolve those images as soon as they pop up, capturing them instead, stretching them out along livewires so he can see. He lifts Charles up as it all surrounds him and snaps forward, withdrawing almost all the way before plunging deep inside of him, his fingertips curling over Charles's throat. No hiding. No cutting it off. Give it to him, give him everything. No more shame. He doesn't want it. He wants Charles. All of him, all of his secret-wishes. "Yes," he mutters, digging his nails into Charles's skin unconsciously.  
  
That growl makes Charles shudder, head to toe and right down to where he’s clenched tight around Erik’s cock, a long, drawn-out whine slipping from his throat when Erik pulls out even slightly and a wail when he hits that spot inside, his eyes crossing and his vision going white for a moment as he spurts weakly against Erik’s stomach. How many times has he come? How many more can he before this is over, before they go back to normal, before he doesn’t need Erik inside of him like he needs to eat and sleep and breathe? But his Dominant said this was normal, that it is, and he gasps and shifts in Erik’s lap, because - Erik said he could move, but Charles didn’t ask if he could move like this, but can he? Please, can he? He can’t find his voice to ask the words, but he means it nicely, he promises, will Erik - One more time? and it’s shy and desperate and needy, just like Erik noted, will Erik please fill him up just one more time before they go? So he doesn’t have to cry so much, so it isn’t so empty?  
  
Erik's hand clasps right over Erik's cock, a completely unconscious movement as liquid flame spills inside of himself in tandem, spreads across his gut and makes his lips part and his head tip back; his lovely boy's come all over his hands and he lifts his finger to his own mouth to taste and the world swerves out of existence entirely, everything is dark and rich and dangerous and glowing and endless inside of him and Charles squeezes all around him and practically pulls it right out of him, and Erik gasps, desire darkening his cheeks and his gaze and he is, of course he is, plugging Charles with it, and they're supposed to be-and he finally pulls Charles off of him with a wet pop, filthy and audible and his hands draw something up from the blankets and then the metal is pressed in his place, all at once larger and hot and cold and electric at the same time, sliding inside of Charles relentlessly as Erik keeps Charles's eyes locked with his own. This is a good normal. The best normal. He should always need it, Erik always wants to give it to him, he has no idea.


	84. It's high-time I mean it's high-tide AKA a fine-line-inside

In the aftermath Charles is a whimpering, widely incoherent mess, and it’s difficult to look at Erik like he’s being Commanded when his eyes are insistent on closing, his eyelids heavy, when his throat is still thick with the wail he gave as he came just that bit more, as Erik came inside of him and now he’s all plugged up and the metal is warm and cold at the same time, he’s squirming and gasping and there’s no way to thrash like this, but he’s shaking worse than a leaf anyway. Just like he promised, there are tears, too, and he clenches tight around the plug, gives quiet, mournful little whimpers as he clings to Erik perhaps a bit too hard, face pressed to his Dominant’s neck to soothe himself. “Not as good as you,” he whines, and it’s true, and he’s so grateful he isn’t empty, that Erik let him keep his come inside, that he’s generous enough to fill him up at all while they go out, but it’s still true. He misses it. He's sad.  
  
Erik tucks a strand of his hair behind Charles's ear and hops to his feet, tugging Charles up as well. He's pressed up fully against him, even now, unable to separate more than a few centimeters without hurting himself. Not as good as Erik? Does Charles promise? Maybe he should be alarmed that Charles is enduring something that is less than Erik, but somehow Erik likes it, too, that there is nothing-really nothing? Nothing as good as Erik? Charles doesn't want another Dominant? No other Dominants. Erik will raze them all down. He keeps Charles behind him, though, because he must protect his submissive. "Go outside?" he grins at him, tilting his chin up. More things for their nest. Exploring. Learning. Erik loves him so much.  
  
Charles keeps clinging, tightly, fussing enough to bury himself back in Erik's chest and sniffle quietly. Much, much less. He keeps clenching around the plug to feel, to remind himself that he's not empty and Erik filled him up but it still doesn't feel like enough, and when he squirms against Erik he has half the mind to beg and plead with his Dominant to push back inside of him. He does want outside, though, so he nods, perhaps just a bit miserable. He's sticky and sweaty, though, will they take a shower first? Will Erik allow it? He doesn't like that he'll be washing Erik off, but he'll let him keep what's inside, he promises? Charles will be good, he'll try to deserve it, because to him it's a reward. He's thinking that it's a gift; it's his mate, after all. No one would ever be able to satisfy Charles, ever. Just his Dominant. They're really going to go outside? Erik promises it's safe? He'll make sure Charles knows what to do, that he stays good?  
  
"Mmmmnnnn. No," Erik rumbles, dragging his fingertips through Charles's sweaty hair. No shower, no. But his submissive is uncomfortable, and Erik can't abide that, either, so he twirls those strands between his knuckles and slowly the sweat and grime begin to fade away, leaving Charles-well, as close to clean as he's going to get right now. Still very much covered in Erik, in his scratches and his come and Erik can't, he can't-the only thing keeping him steady right now is that Charles is visibly his. He couldn't dare let him out of the nest otherwise. He's sorry? Is that bad? No, not bad. His decision. He decides. When they return maybe. Then Erik can press him back into their bed and mark him all over again. They're gonna go outside. It's safe. Erik will protect him.  
  
No, not bad. Charles doesn’t argue it, doesn’t even consider it, because Erik made the choice and he was just asking permission. Erik’s allowed to say no. Maybe he’ll feel differently when he’s outside, but if he does Erik will steer him in the right direction, won’t he? That’s part of keeping Charles safe like this, when he just doesn’t know. He rubs his cheek against Erik’s chest, frowning again because - “Clothes?” Charles doesn’t remember much, there are stretching gaps and deep pits in his memory, but he knows that it would make sense. That it would be kinder to other people. It will hurt more, he thinks, it will ache more, if he can’t touch skin, but he can endure it for Erik, and then when they come back Erik will make it better, right? So it’s alright. He takes the time to completely envelop himself in his Dominant while he can, though, rubbing up fully against him, purring at the sensation of warm skin and being surrounded. If Charles gets scared outside, will Erik hold him like this so Charles is small and safe?  
  
"No?" Erik whines in the back of his throat. Clothes. A terrible affliction. But he doesn't think he could let Charles out like this, either. Everyone would want his submissive and then Erik will have to kill everybody and that's not good, is it? Maybe some clothes. Erik's clothes. Erik can dress him and touch him and bury his nose into the crook of his neck and inhale his scent, and that's good, too. Charles ends up wearing a cream colored sweater and soft jeans, and Erik doesn't get dressed at all. Should he, too? Charles can help him decide, and tell him what's kind, so he doesn't forget. He presses his cheek to Charles's. Erik won't let him be scared. He'll hold him and touch him and talk to him and kiss him and feed him little strawberries. And some tea. And some coffee. Erik's stomach growls.  
  
Charles doesn’t really know, either, but he tries to remember for Erik, and - he should wear clothes, too. He doesn’t want him to, and he whines with it, but clothes are a good idea, especially because only - only Charles gets to see Erik like this? It’s shy, uncertain, but it feels fierce, too, something he wants desperately to be true. He knows there’s nothing sacred about, well, not wearing clothes - but… he wants it for him, and Erik looks nice when he wears the clothes that make him look imposing and Dominant and maybe a little dangerous, when he’s casual but styled and comfortable in his own skin and that’s nice, too, that makes his chest glow with pride that he gets to submit to him and be owned by him and if - if he wants it, Charles will undress him later? And he’ll dress him now, he’ll even shine Erik’s shoes, he likes that. He likes it. He remembers that he likes it very much. He needs things like that more than he ever has, he needs Erik to tell him to do them, to expect him to do them. They need more than strawberries, even if Charles isn’t hungry, they need supplies they need things for the nest they need - but Charles is getting scared again, and instead of anything else he grasps even tighter to Erik, looks for purchase, hides entirely in his chest and big, strong arms. Is Erik sure it’s okay? Is he sure? He promises to tell him what to do, he promises? Maybe -  
  
Erik is sure. He promises. After a few moments he presses a black button-down and dark slacks into Charles's hands, the expectation zapping through the air between them. Charles should get him dressed. He'll be careful? He always treats Erik carefully and makes sure he doesn't hurt. Erik's not sure he wants to wear shoes, though-his foot doesn't cooperate much of the time, and the weight of shoes makes it harder to walk-something he's never actually admitted aloud before, but he's not exactly filtered right now, whoops-but maybe Charles will help him with them, and he can kneel and that would be nice. "Dress," he murmurs the Order fondly. He likes being what Charles likes, it's hard to deny the warmth in his chest.

* * *

Charles knows, though, even when he doesn't. He tries to know, to be constantly aware of his Dominant and what he needs and what will make things easier, better, how he can serve and accomodate and he's still a little frightened, a little worried because - but he takes to his task with all the devotion and care inside of him, works slowly and methodically to steady himself and show Erik that he wants to do everything perfectly for his Dominant, that if he's told to do something he'll do it well and that he needs it. He needs it, he's so greedy for it, it hurts already without Erik inside and this helps so much, it keeps him from crying or panicking, it's the only thing and he needs it. When he does end up on his knees he rubs Erik's feet first, bends down to kiss them, the Void peeks out and tries to help, too, the smallest adjustments and Charles hasn't noticed, not at all, couldn't put it to words but there are things missing on Erik's body, little scars and hurts gathered over years that the Void swallowed on the way down because Erik told his submissive he could, that he could heal and fix so the Void took it to heart. But Charles - he's just worshipping, lost entirely to submission and love and adoration, kissing and nuzzling at Erik's feet before he sighs and puts his shoes on, makes sure there's no pain, absolutely none, no hurts and aches, and then works to shine his shoes until Charles can see himself in them.  
  
As much as Charles serves Erik, Charles must know that Erik is just as devoted to him, to making sure he's happy and safe and that he feels good and that he knows he is loved and adored, the second Charles shifts out of place Erik is right there with a hand on his shoulder to put him back, an Order to catch his attention and reorient himself, an expectation-for Charles to rely on him, to look to him, to lean on him and to steady himself with Erik. To obey him and any little thing that Erik can think of, he's not terribly good at it, mind you, it's silly things sometimes-Erik's not accustomed to-well, to the way that Charles wants to treat him, to the fact that it's what Charles needs, all these little luxuries he's never encountered, never would have thought himself to care about, but now he wants them, he wants to see Charles accommodate and listen and smooth out the wrinkles on his clothes and shine his shoes and Charles is right, it is nice, it's so nice, he's being served, does Charles know how much Erik loves him? How much he likes him? His shoes are practically glowing by now, but he likes seeing Charles on his knees, so he doesn't move to tug him up just yet.  
  
Charles knows. It's what makes him whine and bend himself all the way down, the way he did when Erik first presented him with his collar, all the way down until his spine arches and he's resting his cheek against Erik's feet again, because it feels good. Sometimes he worries that Erik doesn't like it, or he did before the Void, he just wasn't always sure. He worried that him needing these things, needing Erik to - ask for things, expect things, just because, wasn't something his Dominant felt the same need for. Sometimes it made him not do it, work himself up about wanting it. He's so happy when he does, when Erik is pleased with it, it makes him feel so good. It makes him shiver when it's all expected of him, and once, a long time ago, Erik thought that he'd never expect these things from Charles, that he somehow wasn't traditional that way but - he should, shouldn't he? Why not? Erik has never had these things, but he should. Charles wants to give them, he's offering them. Will Erik accept them, please? Demand them? Ask for things. It's what he asked for some time ago, he thinks, and Erik said he didn't know how but now he's learning. Ask for things, demand things, Charles needs it more than he could possibly express right now. It can be silly, it can be tiny, but please give him things to do, ways to serve, tell him what to do. It's what he needed before, and now he has the words for it. Put him to good use. That makes him shudder, right there at Erik's feet, and it's nice, does - does Erik think so?  
  
No more. Charles should always want it, he should always need it. And maybe that means it's OK if Erik does, too, and he does. If Charles keeps thinking like this, though, they're never going to leave because Erik will keep them here forever and ever and find much more creative uses for him, and it makes him smile, because it is nice. He crooks his finger under Charles's chin and guides him to his feet, reaches down to envelop his hand with Erik's larger one. He's happy. He has such a wonderful submissive who is so good to him and sweet and pretty and nice and Erik can look after him and decide things for him and touch him and make him and of course he accepts, of course he does. His stomach growls again, though, and he laughs. Hungry. He might not ask Charles to cook him food, though, just saying. Erik can look after him. He'll make food and feed them both and he grins and nips Charles's jaw playfully before tugging him forward, creeping out the door and into the hall, glaring all around for signs of threat.  
  
Even though he's the one who brought it up, the one who asked for it, Charles gets scared the moment they step outside what's become their bedroom, away from the nest. Erik is usually behind him but now he isn't, just like the first time this happened, because being behind to guide and lead is an instinct but scoping things out like this seems to be, too, but the bottom line is that Charles stops, he digs his feet into the carpet and whimpers, low and pitiful and animal, grabs at the shirt he just smoothed out and tugs at the sleeve to get his mate's attention. No, he can't. He can't. Erik needs to eat, he looks so healthy and strong and he needs to eat but Charles can't do it and he shakes his head. No, no, no. They can eat in the nest. They can stay in the nest. Okay?  
  
No, Erik won't let him forget. Charles belongs to Erik. He trusts Erik. Erik won't let anything happen to him. He can, because Erik wants him to, because Erik expects him to. But he doesn't have to worry. Erik won't let anything hurt him. Warmth and Dominion sweep through the area. This is just like a breath. Charles trusts him to do that. He'll trust him outside, too. Erik would never ask him to do anything he couldn't do. Does Charles know that? Does he believe in Erik? Does he trust his mate? Trust him. Erik will look after him.  
  
Just like a breath. Charles shudders, creeping forward to tentatively wrap himself up in Erik's arms instead of bolting, though he still trembles a bit with fear. He trusts Erik to breathe, to tell him when and how, so he trusts his Dominant for this, too. "Yes, sir," he whispers out loud, mostly just because saying it steadies him, reminds him, feels good, even if it's mumbled into the soft, silky material of Erik's shirt. He clenches around the plug inside of him, and it hurts but he can endure that for Erik, he doesn't mind if it pleases him. He can trust him. He trusts him. Okay. Yes, sir. But Erik has to show him and tell him so Charles knows, so he doesn't get too scared or confused.  
  
He gives Charles's ass a little smack, and folds him back up in his arms where he belongs. And then, Erik crouches and sweeps him off the floor completely, guiding him to wrap his arms around Erik's neck and his legs around Erik's waist, so that Erik can literally carry him around, and that's much nicer. They're going to go to the kitchen and get some food, and Charles will help Erik and Erik will help Charles, and it won't be scary. If it is scary Erik will fix it, he'll make it better, he'll protect.

* * *

Charles gasps in surprise as he's lifted, but his heart soars with it, his belly flips, pleased and delighted and he can press his face into Erik's neck and kiss there and his Dominant is right, it is nice. He always tries not to be embarrassed by how much he likes being picked up by Erik, being carried around as if he weighs nothing at all, tries not admit it, but the truth is he loves it. He especially loves it now, purring softly and apparently forgetting most of his worries as he clings tight. This is nice. His Dominant decides, he can take them anywhere. Charles stays just like this, nosing into Erik's collar and breathing him in and planting soft, sweet little kisses. His Dominant is so strong, carrying him. So powerful. He's going to protect Charles so well.  
  
And Erik loves carrying him, he always has, grinning to himself as he levitates up in the air and descends downstairs, landing neatly on the floor and nudging back against Charles. Enjoying the feeling of his submissive kissing his exposed skin as he walks, eyes locked in front of them for any twitch out of the ordinary. They should always travel like this, and Charles can kiss him and stroke his hair, that spot behind his ears that makes him melt in pleasure and rub against him and feel protected, he should always feel that way, always.  
  
Charles has his arms locked tightly around Erik, and he keeps his head bowed into his neck, hidden and angled into him, his hair doing the rest of the work so he doesn't have to see or be seen by anyone, content to just kiss and mouth at him, to inhale his scent and let himself be calmed. There's someone else in the kitchen and he knows it; his telepathy doesn't turn off, ever, certainly not post-Void, but it works differently now. No buzzing (but worse migraines, the Void is trying), and it's harder to filter things. He knows things without any effort, and he knows this, but he still doesn't remember. He doesn't know anyone but Erik, doesn't recognize them and he knows that makes him sad and scared but not why. He also knows he thinks threat, too, and he whines and starts to fidget, to fuss, shifting restlessly in his Dominant's arms as they cross the threshold.  
  
It's a blue monster man and Erik lets out a gasp when he turns around, grinning toothily at them. "Go 'way!" Erik growls, raising a hand and slamming him into the back wall.   
  
"Whoa-whoa! Easy, Erik. It's me. It's Hank." He looks between them both, confusion in his yellow eyes.   
  
" _Hitchafef_!" Erik lets him drop and he hits the floor, hard, grunting as he scrambles to his feet. A knife flies into Erik's outstretched palm and separates into thousands of microfilaments, sharpened metal leveled at the intruder.  
  
Charles whimpers into Erik's neck, though, sniffles as he prods at his mate's mind, gently tugging and pulling at his shirt, too, legs squeezing tighter around his waist. He doesn't know who it is, he doesn't recognize his voice or know why he's here but he does know that he doesn't mean to hurt them, and he's submissive, too, which - makes it easier, a little, just a little, because Erik might like him and decide he's better than Charles, but at least Charles won't be taken away? No other Dominants, Erik said. But he promised Erik he'd be good and help and he's scared, but he does, just tugging and tugging, seeking his Dominant's attention. It's okay, it's okay. No killing, see? Erik can keep him safe without it. He reaches tentatively for that spot behind Erik's ear, kisses right over his pulse, still making soft, distressed little noises.  
  
Erik certainly doesn't like him more than Charles, if the roiling anger is anything to go by. It's not the blue monster's fault, Erik knows that, on some level he must know that, on the level of Charles behind him soothing him and encouraging him not to kill, but he wants to so badly, it trembles in all of his muscles. Intruder. Threat. Interloper. "Go 'way," he whispers, tears threatening to fall. He's going to kill him. He's going to. The metal wobbles in the air. He doesn't want to kill anybody else. Not in front of Charles. He can't, not again, not again...  
  
But then the metal falls, all at once, clangs onto the floor and then slowly begins to resemble a single knife again, mostly harmless and meant for cooking and not for killing, and flies back to the counter. Because Erik told Charles to help, he Ordered him to, he made him promise, and so he does and he did. The Void does, too, because Charles didn't know how, it's okay if it peeks out and helps, Erik said so. He doesn't want to be disobedient now, he doesn't want to be. He's still whining and fussing in Erik's arms, tugging at him, tugging at his hair, now, which he knows is bad but he wants his mate's attention, he wants to know he did good that he's safe that Erik won't leave him. He doesn't really know what happened, what he did, what's going on, only that he's scared and he wanted to help. Erik said he'd teach him how and tell him what to do? Is he bad, is he bad? Is it safe? He wanted everyone to see. The blue man can see, can't he? Erik can show him. That's better, isn't it?  
  
It snaps Erik out of it and he lifts the blue monster man to his feet, pointing at the door. He's sorry. He didn't mean to. Hank? Hank. That's his name. Hank just traipses out, stumbling a little, and shutting the door behind him. It's going to be OK. Charles did so well. He helped Erik. He did OK, he did so good, he's not mad at Erik? He's not scared? Erik's head tilts up into Charles's fingers even if he's tugging, it's all right. It's Charles. He has Erik's attention, now. It's safe. He's safe. Erik kept him safe and he never killed anybody, and Charles kept his promise and it's OK, it's OK.

* * *

He has his Dominant’s attention now, it’s okay. Charles whines louder and unwinds his fingers from Erik’s hair, tangling them up in Erik’s shirt instead (he’s sorry, did he hurt, did he hurt his Dominant, he’s so sorry), fussing still and incapable of making any sort of words at right this moment as he clings and clings and clings, rubs his face against Erik’s neck over and over. He’s scared, but not of Erik. He’s not mad, why would he be mad? Erik protected him. But he was good? He did okay? It’s just that he doesn’t know what to do without Erik right now, and he didn’t like that Erik looked at that other submissive and not at him, why did he do that? Did he like him more? Did he want to leave Charles? Charles feels himself start to cry and tries not to feel humiliated by it, but he’s shaking in Erik’s arms.  
  
No. Charles must never think that, Erik won't let him. Charles isn't allowed. Erik will never leave him and he doesn't want anyone else more. It's impossible. Charles was good, he is good. Erik sets him on the counter and turns around so he can press their foreheads together. Erik steps in-between his legs and kisses him deeply, curling his fingers into the material of Charles's shirt and dragging him close, humming lowly into his mouth. "Mine," he growls, and then smooths his hand over Charles's chest possessively.  
  
Charles sighs right into that kiss, melts into it, submits to it, still making those noises that he knows catch his mate’s attention, that he doesn’t want him to hide or be ashamed of. He wraps his legs around Erik’s waist, instinctive, but hesitant, too, looking up with those teary eyes for permission, encouragement. He really doesn’t want anyone else? Charles is really a good boy? There’s someone else outside, Charles is hyper-aware and knows it, but it’s going to be okay even if they come in, because Charles belongs to Erik? And he’ll keep him safe and protect him and show him what to do, and show everyone that he belongs to him? That he’s owned so completely, so beautifully? And Erik will give him attention? That part embarrasses him, he whines with it again, tries to hide in Erik’s neck, to wiggle closer. He’s just so needy right now, he can’t bear it. Erik has to make sure he knows what to do, how to obey him.  
  
Erik kisses those noises right out of him, and the plug inside of him twists a little and shifts, just enough up against that spot inside of him that makes him squeak, and Erik smirks down at him. He'll make sure. Charles doesn't have to worry about that. Erik is going to take care of everything, and whoever that person is, they're going to know exactly who Charles belongs to. They're going to know they owe Charles their life, because Erik would strike them down where they stood for even breathing in the same room as his mate, but Charles doesn't like violence and suffering, so Erik takes care of him that way, too. But he will. If he has to. He will.  
  
Charles is still being loud, and he's flushed, now, squirming and just a bit confused. Tangled up. Is it okay to sound like this with other people around, like he's some kind of creature, wounded and helpless and needy? Is it okay to whine and whimper and try to draw Erik's attention to him, greedy for it, lost without it? It hurts again. It aches, and the plug is big and he can feel all of Erik's come inside, still held there, and it's nice, so nice, and he wishes there was more but it's not as big as Erik, as thick or as warm or as insistent, not as good. How much does his Dominant want him to endure? It's only been a few minutes but already he wants to whine enough that maybe he'll get carried back upstairs. But food for Erik? Things for the nest? He shifts restlessly on the counter, whining more at the soreness, at the plug jostling. "Help, sir," he rasps, and then gasps when the door opens, hiding in Erik's chest, ducking into him. Scared?  
  
The door instantly slams shut again before the intruder can enter, and Charles can hear low voices outside. The blue man is telling the blue lady to let it go, but she's angry. Angry at Erik, indignant and furious that he attacked her submissive, and it's not animalistic or primal but it is real and stinging, and she wants to get in there and yell at him to mind his manners, that they live in her house and he can't just go around assaulting people. But Hank tells her to leave it be, it's too volatile, just give them space. " _Ein siba lefached,_ " he mumbles into Charles's ear, putting his hand just above Charles's knee and making him be still. He can make as much noise as he wants. He belongs to Erik and those noises belong to him, too, and Erik wants them and he doesn't care who hears.  
  
It's not just the voices Charles hears. Immediately his eyes snap shut and he starts to tremble, even against Erik's Command, tears springing to his eyes and stinging as they slip out and down his cheeks. He's - what is he? Scared, and shaken, and angry but sad, too, worried, confused, and he doesn't know where they are or who those people are but he knows he should, and he starts to fuss all over again, starts to thrash a little, and he can hear but he can feel, too, his telepathy never turns off but now that he's on edge it's loud, it's so loud, and he reaches up and pulls at Erik's hair, even though he thinks maybe he shouldn't because it got his attention last time and all that's coming out of his mouth are those pitiful whines -  
  
" _Lo, atzor_ ," Erik Orders him sharply. No more fussing, no more thrashing, no more. No one can hurt them and no one can make Charles feel bad or Erik will kill them, and the voices eventually disappear, and so do the feelings. Charles senses them leave the house. The blue man, he knows what's happening, too. He knows about their cycles. He's not angry. Erik puts his hands over Charles's, against his hair, easing up his cramped fingers a little. It does hurt, but he doesn't care, it's OK. He just wants Charles to calm down so he takes his hands instead and puts them against his own chest. Calm. It's OK, see? They're OK.  
  
But they're still there, Charles can still hear and he can still feel and - he wrenches his hands away from Erik (no! part of him screams, mortified and devastated that he did something defiant like this, horrified) so he can bring them up over his ears and cry harder, confused and worked up. They were supposed to go outside but Charles is supposed to know them and he doesn't, why doesn't he know? Why did he forget? Why did it go away? He's scared and he's sad and he doesn't know why and their voices are still in his head and he whimpers louder, because he did want to go out, he did, he wanted them to know and he wanted everyone to see how Claimed he was and what a good boy he could be for Erik, he still wants to, needs it, he wants to prove it but he's scared and it's loud, what does he do? What does he do?  
  
It doesn't matter if they're still there. That is not what Erik wants him to focus on. Charles does not belong to them, his focus should not be on on them. He pulls Charles's hands down from his ears. All he has to do to prove it is listen to Erik now, and obey him. That's all he has to do, period. Erik promised that nothing would happen to him and he will keep his word.  
  
Nothing will happen. Nothing is wrong. He feels uncertain again, he feels scared again, he feels like he's sliding into panic again, but he sucks in a breath and tries for his mate. Obey him? Obey him and everything will be okay? He'll be safe, he'll be protected. Nothing for Charles to worry about. "Please tell me," he begs, and he's still crying a little but he looks up at Erik, still trusting, still eager, still needy. Tell him what to do, tell him how to be good, tell him it's safe, please tell him. What does he need to learn to make this better? "Help, sir," he repeats, more desperate this time.

* * *

Erik tugs him to his feet. He wants Charles to go and get some ingredients from the fridge and help him, they came to collect what they needed so that's what they're going to do. and Erik is going to keep him safe the entire time. They'll go back to their nest afterward and Erik will look after him and make sure, make sure he's comfy and happy and cared for. Erik loves him so much, that is what he must know, and Erik knows it must seem a little silly, but he'll spend the rest of time making sure that's all he knows. He'll help. The pantry opens and some things float out and pieces of wood strip off of the table and fashion themselves into a basket that he places over Charles's arm. Collect? Anything he wants. If they can't find it Erik will make it for him. He loves him.  
  
What’s silly is that Charles is still so scared, still so shaky, still so unsure, still so unsettled. It hurts inside now, there’s that horrid aching in his belly that spreads in waves of unpleasant heat and it would be much more manageable, perhaps, if the rest of him wasn’t so uncomfortable, if he didn’t keep glancing in the direction of the door, hiccupping out little noises. He goes to the fridge because Erik said he wants that, because he knows what he needs more than anything is to be good, but all he does is stare, stand in front of it frozen and he doesn’t know what to do, he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know. It’s pathetic and he doesn’t know and he shakes his head, vision blurred by more tears.  
  
Charles doesn't have to know. All he has to do is listen to Erik, because Erik knows what to do, he will tell Charles what to do. Erik puts his hands over Charles's shoulders and squeezes, pressing up against him. Erik is sure. His purpose is to settle Charles, and he will. It's safe, here. "Say it," Erik murmurs into his ear. Charles belongs to Erik. Charles has to listen to Erik. Charles is Erik's submissive. "Tell me what you know, _neshama_." He knows. He knows because Erik tells him. Erik will always tell him.  
  
Charles shivers, leaning back fully into Erik, into his Dominant. His voice helps more than he can express. Charles feels guilty that he needs to hear it, that he desperately needs to be talked through this, to be meticulously and firmly led. Why doesn’t he remember anything? He knows he told Erik, he already said it, but he really doesn’t feel like he can do anything right now without Erik telling him how, directing him, without instructions and guidance, without a hand at his back and the promise of correction if he falters and he doesn’t know if that’s okay, still, even as he tries to convince himself it is, that Erik won’t mind, that he won’t find it exhausting or frightening himself. “I’m yours,” he whispers, and closes his eyes so the last few of his tears slip, cling to his nose. “I belong to you. You own me, and - I’m your submissive, and your mate, and you love me and you’ll take care of me, sir,” he offers, croaked, his voice hoarse from all the use and the crying, but he does know that. He knows it. It's all he knows. Charles knows he should know so much, Everything, but right now this is all he knows. That's it.  
  
Good. Right now that's all Erik needs him to know. It's OK if he knows other things, but those are the things that Charles needs to know. Erik dabs the rest of his tears with his sleeve. "Very good," he whispers back. It's OK. If he falters, Erik will be here to set him straight and correct him and put him right back in line. Now, they need things, don't they? Things that smell nice and taste nice and feel nice. Charles has a bit of a sweet tooth, so Erik finds some chocolate along with more fresh strawberries to put in the basket. What else do they need? Erik isn't very practical. Charles can help with this. He'll help Erik, won't he?  
  
Help Erik? Charles wants to, he wants to serve Erik more than anything, and he takes a shaky breath, closes his eyes and tries to focus on the task, calmed by the praise. Tethered by the praise, trying to let it soak into his bones, underneath his skin, to soothe some of the ache. To clear his head, to settle down the fear. Will Erik talk to him more, could he, please? Are they going to go outside? Air might be nice, but there are people out there. Are they staying in this house? That’s Erik’s decision, Charles doesn’t fret about it; it’s not his place. He tries to think, to remember. They need food with more nutrition, don’t they? So Erik can be strong? They need - other things, his head is all clogged up right now, he’s sorry, could Erik clear it? Help him clear it? They need more food, something with protein, probably - right? Other things, he thinks, and the nest isn’t safe? No, it’s safe, right? Erik will make it safe. Could he make it safe?  
  
Erik will make it safe, but he isn't so sure he'll do very good outside. There's too many people and they'll all want Charles and try to take him away and Erik will kill them all and that won't be a good day for anybody. Air might be nice, though. Erik looks up at the ceiling and the tap to the sink switches on all of a sudden, and the water that sprinkles out levitates way up until warm particles of snow fall down around them, and Erik grins. He can make the outside here. He tugs an egg out of Charles's hair and presents it to him. Protein! Some celery, and lettuce, and tomatoes. A pot. Erik can cook without a stove. "No fear," he whispers, right into Charles's ear. "I got you. I keep you safe. Promise. You're mine. I'll keep you. Keep you, and touch you, and hold you and feed you and make everything warm and good. _Ani mavtiach._ You know you are mine, hm?"  
  
Except eggs don’t come out of nowhere, they don’t produce out of thin air even if the particles rearrange themselves around them (how does he barely remember anything about who he is, where he is, what’s happening but he understands particle physics?) and one isn’t enough, probably, so Charles reaches for the carton where it came from and peers inside, finally moving, biting on his lip. There’s one more. Is that enough? Maybe not. Celery and lettuce and tomatoes aren’t the best for this, he doesn’t think. But he doesn’t know, either. He doesn’t really know, and he’s not hungry and his belly makes a noise of protest as if it agrees, he’s been entirely out of sync but he has lost more weight, too, he can see it in the mirror so maybe when Erik carries him he really does weigh nothing now, and - he shakes his head. He shakes his head, and it’s not really to Erik’s question but he only whines in answer, closes his eyes more tightly. There’s still fear. There’s still fear and there’s so much he doesn’t know, there’s so much empty space (he clenches at the reminder, whimpers) and it wasn’t as frightening until they came down here, and - and he doesn’t know what to do, and their nest isn’t safe, it’s not theirs and he doesn't remember how to breathe right, he doesn't know how to think right, he wanted to go outside but he doesn't remember why and he's going to start crying again -  
  
Too bad. Erik will make sure he eats, because it's Erik's responsibility to look after him, and more than that, it's his Will. "It's safe," Erik assures him roughly. It's their nest. It will be safe as long as Erik is here, and he is here. He's not going anywhere. Charles has helped him, too. He's been too out of sorts to really look after himself, but Charles has been taking care of him. He's made sure that Erik's eaten and dresses properly and doesn't hurt. He's still doing that. He's caring for his Dominant. That's what matters. Charles understands it on a scientific level, in a way that Erik doesn't, but Erik understands how it feels, how everything fits together and how it moves and works in perfect harmony, like a warm trickle at the back of his mind and he lets Charles feel that, too, because it feels nice. Charles has a lot of power, but Erik has it, too. He has enough to keep them protected, now. And he won't hesitate. He Orders Charles to be calm, to focus on him. To focus on what Erik has told him to do. Erik fills him up with it, with Will and Orders and Command, he'll never be empty again. Not ever.  
  
Charles knows that, too. Erik’s inability to produce an egg out of thin air (or his hair, as it were) means nothing when the fact of the matter is, once he has that egg, and he’s proven himself incredibly resourceful, he could do nearly anything he pleased with it. He could completely alter the structure of it until it really no longer resembled an egg at all, and Charles knows it. He’s more than powerful, he’s incredible. He’s absolutely extraordinary, practically unstoppable to anyone but Charles, and he knows it. He has a fundamental force at his fingertips, and he can imagine some of the things Erik could do to threats. His Dominant is strong, his mate is more than capable of protecting their nest. But Charles is still unsteady, and he twists around until he can bury himself in Erik’s chest, egg carton still in hand, whimpers loudly. He doesn’t want to eat. He thinks there’s something about going outside that was important, but he doesn’t remember. He’s still scared. What did Erik tell him to do? Can he tell him again? Talk more, talk to him, please. He doesn't want to be scared anymore. Erik promised he'd make sure Charles knew what to do.  
  
The egg in the egg carton lifts up and splits into ten tiny eggs, which then radically transform into pieces of chocolate. Erik grins and they float down into the basket. He could turn any threat utterly inside-out, but he likes this, too. Playfulness and exploration. "We're gonna get our things and go back to the nest and it's gonna be OK," Erik murmurs, he cards his fingers through Charles's hair. There's nothing to be scared of. Charles doesn't need to stop Erik. Anything that Charles wants, anything that he can conceive of, Erik will do it for him. "We need more things," Erik smiles, soft, eyes crinkled down at him. Erik wants Charles to pick some things he wants, too, not just that Erik wants, what kind of things does Charles like? Erik draws a soft blanket from Charles's shoulders and holds it up. It's decorated in cactuses wearing sombreros. "Don't need to be afraid," he whispers. "I'll keep you safe. Trust me?"  
  
There’s no reason to mention that the science behind that is going to make the chemical makeup very unappetizing, and that they’re much better off with the chocolate that was originally chocolate, that some things can’t just be made like that, that Erik can’t provide anything he can conceive of and maybe he shouldn’t (where is that coming from, where on Earth is that coming from) because it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t matter, and he doesn’t want to think it and Charles closes his eyes and suddenly it’s all entirely too overwhelming, entirely too much. Suddenly he’s shaking, nodding his head and then shaking it, the words trapped in his throat, sunk like hot coals into his stomach, still turned over with the unbearable heat and the emptiness. He trusts Erik. He trusts Erik, but he doesn’t know, why isn’t Erik understanding that, is he not saying it clear enough? He’s trying, he’s trying to help, but is it not clear enough? He doesn’t know, and it is frightening. It’s terrifying. It’s utterly, completely horrifying, and there are tears back in his eyes and he gasps through it, tries to breathe through it but he’s forgotten how to breathe and Erik isn’t - and why should he expect him to? Charles swallows around the new lump that’s settled through, and he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. It's not right, see? Charles was trying to tell him, but he reassured him and told him it was, but it's not right, see?  
  
Erik's Command for Charles to stop comes like time itself pauses, everything in the room slowing down until their eyes meet and yes, Charles can breathe, and he can think, and it is right. They are right. Everything else is just peripheral. There's nowhere for Charles to fly off to because he's completely surrounded by an impenetrable force, by Erik. What he knows or doesn't know isn't relevant. What he needs to know is what Erik tells him. What he needs to do is what his Dominant tells him to do. That is what is right. He'll swallow, and breathe, and relax himself, and stop twisting himself into knots over things that have no bearing, things that aren't connected to what is expected of him. If Charles needs something that Erik doesn't understand he will tell Erik, now, or they will go back right now and Erik will remind him exactly what his place is, exactly what he should know. "You are mine. That is right."  
  
It has no bearing? Charles doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t want to fight Erik’s Claim on him, his Order or his Dominance, he doesn’t. That’s not his goal right now, though at times it has been. Last night it certainly was, though he barely remembers it, might not remember it at all. It’s the opposite now. It’s the opposite. He’s not being defiant, he’s not trying to be, and there are tears now because he wants to be good, but how can he be? He breathes because he’s told to, he swallows because he’s told to, and that feels good, that feels less awful, that feels less like he’s going to break into pieces, but, “Not right,” he insists, tears welling up in his eyes again. It can’t be? And Erik isn’t telling him, he’s not telling him, but see, this? This is better, and he tries to breathe, to listen, but Erik can’t Order away fear. He can’t Order away uncertainty. He can teach him, but Charles isn’t sure he can learn. Not like this. And why would Erik want him now, like this? Why would he bother giving him what he needs when it’s no good for him, when it’s not satisfying? When he’s nothing but a needy slut? Of course he wouldn't know how to treat him, how to give him what he needs, he doesn't want that and that's what Charles is right now. Charles gasps, his eyes widening as if he wasn’t the one to think it. Do what Erik tells him to do? But he’s not telling him to do anything, and - and -  
  
"Yes, it is right," Erik's fingers spread out over Charles's face. Charles is following Erik's Orders. That is right. "You do not get to decide. Not what I want, or what I need, that is not your choice. I make the decision, you tell me and I decide. If I don't already know. That is right." Charles doesn't think that Erik knows what he needs-does he really think that? He keeps saying it. And it isn't true. It's not true. It's not true. Charles can learn because Erik expects him to learn. Is Erik wrong? Charles keeps saying he's wrong, he doesn't know. Erik isn't good enough? When Charles's thoughts devolve further into name-calling Erik gives him a sharp smack, enough to get his attention, grip tightening. "I told you no." He is telling Charles to focus. To stop and calm himself down. To look at Erik and focus on what they need to do out here, before they go back home. Back to their nest. There's lots of food and trinkets in their basket now, though. All Erik wants to do is to take Charles back upstairs, and he can do that, because he wants it, and Charles is supposed to follow his Will, isn't he? Maybe he doesn't want to anymore. Maybe Erik is just hurting him.  
  
That’s not what Charles said, not this time. It’s not what he said, or what he thought. The moment Erik slaps him he gasps and shudders, head to toe, and he does come back, he does refocus and then he’s rapidly shaking his head, tears down his cheeks again as he tries to burrow into Erik’s chest, as he grabs at his shirt and his fingers shake with the force of it. Erik said no, so he calms down and he breathes and he doesn’t call himself names, even if he believes them (Erik teaches him, he’ll correct him, he thinks it’s wrong?) and he focuses. He focuses. It’s not that Erik can’t take care of him, that he doesn’t know how, he does, of course he does. It’s just that Erik knows how to take care of Charles, not - he’s not supposed to use the word? He can’t call himself a slut or a whore, Erik says no? So he edits it out, but it’s clear that it’s there (dumb bitch, his brain adds, and maybe Erik didn’t hear so he won’t get in trouble for it), the point is, he doesn’t feel like he’s much of himself, he’s all worked up about it, and he doesn’t think Erik should have to take care of him like this, when he needs so much more. When he keeps devolving the second Erik gives him any sort of leeway. It’s not that he can’t. It’s not that he’s not enough. It’s just that - but Charles doesn’t get to decide? He doesn’t get to decide, Erik decides for him? But he really did want to come down here, he really did want to be outside, too, he felt like he needed it and he thinks he still does and he knows Erik said they’d go back upstairs if he couldn’t handle it, just like he said they’d leave the party somewhere else, somewhere Charles can’t remember, but - if Charles tries, if he talks about this, can they stay? Can they go out? He breathes, he breathes, he’s breathing but he’s crying, too, and he twists his fingers harder in Erik’s shirt. “S-Sir,” he whispers. Of course Charles still wants it. Of course he's supposed to. That's the point. It's hurting because he needs it, not because he doesn't.  
  
He earns himself another, sharper smack for that, and Erik jerks his chin in the negative once, glaring at him in warning. It is wrong. Those names are wrong. Erik won't hear them, not from anyone. Every part of Charles belongs to Erik. Every part, no matter what, no matter what he needs, no matter how badly he needs it, and he's wrong, besides. Charles always needs like this, Erik thinks. He just doesn't let himself. And Erik doesn't often let himself control Charles to this extent. But maybe Charles would be happier, would be more stable, if he did. Maybe he's learning, too, that it's OK. Charles doesn't get to decide. Erik decides. He doesn't want to give Charles leeway. Charles doesn't get leeway. He isn't free. Erik listens, though, too. He tells Charles to tell him, and he listens to what Charles says. He cares. He tilts Charles's chin up. "Look at me," he murmurs. Breathe, deeply and slowly. "Tell me about it," he Orders, and Charles can feel that Erik is proud of him. Because he wants to try, he wants to talk about it, to tell Erik. He's being very good.  
  
Charles is being good? His eyes go wide, practically pop out of his head with the pleased shock of it, and then suddenly breathing like Erik directs him to goes much smoother. Nice and slow. It feels like something that was tensed up and stuck releases and it’s such a relief that he goes slack with it, slumps against his Dominant even as his cheek smarts with the sharper smack. It’s grounding, even if it hurts, it reminds him, even if it stings. He looks up at him anyway, just as he was told, even as his knees go a bit weak, depending on Erik, trusting him, to hold him up. This is good? He’s being good? He takes a big, slow breath before he does as he’s told, before he talks and tells Erik like he’s supposed to. He does want to try, he really does. He doesn’t know exactly what Erik means, but he talks. “I’m scared of it,” he admits, though it’s obvious, though he’s sniffling with the aftermath. “I don’t - I need so much, I don’t remember, I need so much,” and it’s worth emphasizing, because even if Erik is right, even if he does need this, always, he’s certainly never admitted it to himself. Never realized. Never let himself. He knows that much. “I need you to tell me everything. I need to be told or I feel like I can't breathe, like I'll break. And I don’t want to be a -” He snaps his mouth closed because it would have turned into another name, but he thinks useless, subby bitch anyway. Charles hides, sheepish, wondering if Erik will say something. If he’ll allow it. He told him twice, and plenty before that, but Charles still did it, but he didn't mean it.  
  
Erik certainly doesn't let him get away with it. "What I told you before, hm?" he murmurs, raising up a finger, touching Charles's nose. "You won't talk like that, I won't let you. Not one more time. Or we will go right back up there." His eyes lift to the ceiling, upstairs, he means. "It's OK to be scared, but I won't let anything happen. I like it. I like you. You should need it. You should need it, and I should be the one to give it to you." So he will breathe, and Erik strokes over the mark he's just left on Charles's cheek. "Do you understand?" His grip tightens again.  
  
Erik is giving him a choice, here. He’s giving him a chance. This morning, when this all started, when the heat was building underneath his skin but he didn’t know it yet, when things were shifting about, Erik said he’d been given a choice and he made the wrong one. He made the wrong decision, he proved to Erik that he couldn’t handle it and that’s why his Dominant had to come and take him home. Charles’ heart pounds, loud and insistent, and he takes another deep breath, leans right into Erik’s hand even though it stings. “Yes, sir,” he breathes, just like he’s told, and he offers a tiny, hesitant smile, even as the fear lingers. He won’t say the words anymore. But his mouth open again, then closes, then opens, and Charles fidgets, tangles a hand back in Erik’s shirt. “But what if - I don’t…” He bites his lip, sighing as he tries to figure out what he means, and the words to say it. “How do I tell you?” Tell him that he needs more, that he’s starting to get restless, that he needs a firmer hand than he’s getting, that he doesn’t know and needs Erik to tell him, that he needs to be put to use in some way, any way, that he needs Erik to direct him or he’ll wander off. He’s not just asking for now. He’s always wondered. The answer before this has always been act out, and he’s sure, he’s positive - and he’s sorry, he is - that it will be the answer again. That his response to that restlessness will be to get defiant, to mouth off, to slide deliberately out of place. But is there a better one? Will Erik teach him a better one? He doesn’t know how to say it, or ask for it. He doesn’t know how to tell Erik that he needs more without making it sound like he’s not enough, and Charles knows he is. But sometimes - does Erik get scared, too? Charles does. And embarrassed. He gets embarrassed.  
  
Erik can't help but smile back, his nose scrunching up fondly. Charles doesn't need to act out. Erik will give him what he needs without it. He's telling Erik right now. He's being good and talking about it, and there's nothing to be ashamed about, there's no part of it that horrifies or disgusts Erik, or that is too much for him. He does get scared, sometimes. A lot of the time, mostly of himself. He's scared of how much he needs to put Charles in place, all the time, scared that it makes him a monster, that he-that he wants to take Charles's choice away, that he wants to hurt Charles, when he can't understand the difference between Dominance and abuse, especially when Charles can't, either. But they're here, now, they're both OK, they're not hurting one another. Sometimes he gets embarrassed, too; a lot of his Dominant impulses are-well-he ducks his head, sheepish. A little embarrassing. He's sorry. He didn't mean for Charles to feel-for him to feel inadequate, for him to feel inadequately cared for. But nothing of what he needs is wrong. Erik loves it, and he loves him. There is a better way, Erik is teaching it to him right now.  
  
Charles can’t promise he’ll always take it, the better way, because it wouldn’t be truthful, and one of Erik’s biggest rules is not to lie to him. He knows he won’t. He knows sometimes he needs to act out, that sometimes it’s the only way, that sometimes he doesn’t even recognize that he needs anything before it’s too late. And sometimes he just does it because he wants to, and Erik never takes well to that. But Erik promised him that he can handle that, and Charles knows he can. If it happens now, he’ll correct Charles? Even if it’s only a little bit, he won’t let it slide, he won’t let it go? He needs that, too, more than ever. Charles always wants to be good, at the heart of it. He does. He wants Erik to be proud of him, and he wants to learn. “You gave me a choice,” he points out quietly, and smiles shyly up at his Dominant until his dimples peek out at him, too. Erik gave him a choice right now and - did he pick the right one this time? He wanted to. He wanted Erik to be pleased, to be proud, to think he’s a good boy. Charles makes a choice every day, every second, to surrender his freedom. To give up the choices. It’s willing, and it’s different, and it’s not abuse. Erik gives him choices, gives him options, gives him chances, and he gets to choose what he does and how he acts, and Erik should treat him accordingly. That’s how it works. But Erik really isn’t disgusted, isn’t put out? Does he know what Charles is asking for, really? How much it is? Speaking of - Charles tugs gently on Erik’s sleeve to get his attention even though they’re talking right now, bites his lip.  
  
He isn't disgusted. He isn't put out. He likes it. And it's OK if Charles can't always promise that, because Erik promises he will always put him back into place. He won't let it slide, he won't let it go. He will make sure that Charles acts correctly, whether he chooses it or needs to be reminded of it. Erik wants to give him the choice. Sometimes. Submission without choice is meaningless. "You made the right choice," he smiles back down at him, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. He's very pleased and proud of his boy. When Charles tugs on his sleeve he laughs softly. "What is it, hm? What would you like to tell me? Let's hear it," he murmurs the Order, affectionate.  
  
His Dominant is proud of him. Charles sings with it, beams, purrs and nestles his way into Erik’s chest even as he flushes. It means he’s hidden, too, and that helps with some of the embarrassment, because - it’s starting to hurt, again. It’s starting to ache more than before, deep inside of him, and he clenches around the plug and that helps, it does, because he’s still all wet and full because Erik took care of him before they came down here, but Erik told him to tell him when he hurts. It’s not unbearable, he can endure it, but Erik said to tell him so he did. That’s what he’s supposed to do (right?). “Outside?” he asks, looking up at Erik hopefully, still chewing on his lip, plump and swollen and unnaturally red. “Please?”


	85. Sit tight I know what you are/mad bright but you ain't no star

Erik isn't sure. He's uncertain about it, not only for Charles but for himself, too. He'll need Charles's word that he'll be on his best behavior. He won't run away. He won't find some new, better Dominant to give him what he needs. He'll listen and do everything Erik says, because Erik is going to keep him safe and take care of him and-and-how come he wants to go outside? He should tell Erik, too. Does he want to run away? Erik's hold on him tightens a little bit. He's sorry. He knows it's not rational.  
  
Charles’ eyes widen and immediately he’s shaking his head, clinging right back. Absolutely not. The opposite, it’s the opposite, he wants to be caught and held and kept. Even if he did run, it wouldn’t be running; remember before? Remember when Charles ran, and Erik chased him and he caught him, hunted him, and then Charles offered himself right up? But that’s not why he wants to go outside. He doesn’t know why, really, just that he feels like he needs to, like it’s important - to leave the nest, to venture out, to gather, then to come back. To be outside, really outside, where the other people are, the people who don’t have what they have and never will. Maybe because there will be other people, and even if they can’t see them as how they are, the primal part of Charles doesn’t think it makes much of a difference. He wants them to know he’s owned. “I promise to be good,” he says, but his head bows when he realizes he’s said that before. But it was different, then. “But - if…” He swallows, and finishes the rest in his head. If he isn’t, Erik can take him in hand right there. As soon as it’s a problem, as soon as he starts to slip, right there. He promises? Even if he does something on accident, even if it’s just a little slip, right there. Even if he’s on his best behavior, Erik doesn’t have to let any infraction slide, he doesn’t have to let Charles get away with anything. Because he needs to learn that, too. That it can happen. Charles will be on his best behavior, he promises, but if he makes a mistake Erik can fix it. And everyone can see?  
  
Yes he will. Warmth spreads out across Erik's chest and he smiles unconsciously. Charles really wants that? It wouldn't scare him? It wouldn't make him feel-it wouldn't be wrong? Erik wants it. He's always wanted it, his instincts have always screamed for that, but he's kept himself in check, he's always kept himself in check because he's scared it might mean he's-and if it's in public, if it's really in public, that's different, isn't it? Because other people aren't part of their Dynamic, they won't want to be exposed to it. That doesn't mean it's not incredibly difficult for Erik to suppress. And especially now that Charles is outright-is saying that's what he wants? What he really wants? It doesn't frighten him?  
  
It doesn't frighten him. It frightens him a little that he's always needed it, that he's always wondered at it, that he's always wanted Erik to not keep himself in check, but it doesn't frighten him. If Erik thought he needed it, it's what he wants. And the thing is - public is subjective with them, isn't it? If Erik needs to divert attention, to blur things out, he can Order that and Charles will do it. Charles' telepathy is Erik's, too. They don't need to expose people who don't want to see or know, who wouldn't understand, and they're necessarily hidden in public anyway. So, if Erik thought he needed it, that it couldn't wait, if they were out and - Charles hides in his chest, whines.  
  
"Hmmm," Erik murmurs back, tilting Charles's head to the side so he can give him a nice sharp bite right above his collar. "Mine," he huffs, tracing his fingers down Charles's chest. There's no reason why they can't go outside. Erik knows that he will keep Charles safe, and even if he tries to run away, Erik will always find him and catch him and keep him, and even if he promises to be on his best behavior, if he shifts out of place Erik-he will address it. Immediately. Charles belongs to him. Everyone should know about it.  
  
"Yours," Charles murmurs back, breathless, peeking up another dimpled smile after he's done gasping at the bite, wiggling about in the wake of it. It hurts now, more than it did, so they might not have long. He doesn't know where they'll go, but that's up to Erik. Charles asked to go outside, that's all. "Can we go now?" he asks, only slightly impatient as he tugs on Erik's sleeve again. It's not the nicest way to ask, but he's eager, he's nervous but he's eager and he wants it. Everyone should know. Erik can show everyone what a perfect mate he is, how well and truly he owns Charles. He could do anything, ask for anything, and Charles would want to obey, to be good and listen and behave for him. He's going to be a good boy, okay? Don't worry.  
  
Erik grins at him, and kisses his cheek right over one of those dimples he likes so much. "Want to go? Hm? OK, but you promise, 'k? Best behavior. Or else," Erik rumbles, nosing up against the mark he's just made. First they'll go back to the nest and deposit all of their newfound collectables, and then Erik wraps him up in a jacket and shoulders on his own, taking his hand and laughing a little as they finally make their way outside, the sun shining brightly above them. Is Charles OK? Is he scared? Erik will protect him. There are people milling about on the sidewalk and Erik's standing behind Charles, back where Charles is accustomed to him being. He'll keep them all away, if they even look at his submissive Erik snarls at them.  
  
Charles is already doing his best to behave, and it shows. Normally he'd fuss and argue the merits of a coat in summer, remind Erik that he didn't grow up in the desert and even a light coat like this is prone to make him uncomfortably warm, but he doesn't make a peep. He obediently holds his arms out when Erik puts it on for him, smiles sweetly and preens at the little touches he gets, flutters with nerves as they step outside. He is a bit scared. He knows he should but he doesn't recognize anything, everything looks new and strange and there are people and voices and he flinches back into Erik when someone gets a tad too close, plasters himself against his front. Will Erik tell him where to go? Steer him? He swallows. If he relies on Erik, if he trusts Erik, if he listens to Erik, he'll be okay. Erik knows that he needs now, so he'll get. Charles' eyes wander and he takes it in as if he's seeing it for the first time, rapidly switching between people like he's flicking television channels. None of them are dangerous, none of them want to take him away or entice Erik to them, but he feels prickly anyway, frowns when a submissive crosses the street in front of them. Erik doesn't want her? What about that man? Those two around the corner? He doesn't want them?  
  
He gives a little growl at that, a snap of otherworldly Will curling up the edges of his voice, and all of a sudden Charles is swept off of his feet and put right back against Erik, arms wrapped around his neck and legs around his waist, and Erik looks up and grins at him, giving him a nip of approval right along his jaw, which is already covered in plenty of past marks and now bruises. They're the only marks Erik ever wants to see on Charles's skin, proof of his belonging. Not pain, not misery, not sadness and terror. Erik looks when Charles bids and he scoffs. Not her (to be fair, Erik isn't much interested in women in general; Magda couldn't be classified so far as an ex, but their relationship is still an exception-one forced onto them in the first place-not a rule). Not him. And to be fair, Erik's interest in pretty much anyone is highly peculiar. Charles is the exception, not the rule. Before meeting his submissive he'd never really felt desire, not his own, which he now knows is incredibly, wondrously different than what he was made to feel by Ms. Frost. His eyes don't wander, he doesn't really notice other people, his attention is purely fixated on his mate. Maybe it's a Pairbond thing, or a D5 thing, or a trauma thing. Erik doesn't know, but he's grateful for the extraordinary privilege of Bonding with his beloved.  
  
Charles would be willing to bet something significant that it is, indeed, a Pairbond thing, because even with absolutely no context for it, even with no memories to back it up, he knows for a fact that what he felt for others is nothing like what he experiences with and for Erik, so much so that it’s laughable. His eyes couldn’t possibly wander. There are other Dominants around them and the best he feels is threat, that they’re here to take him away; he gasps into Erik’s neck, startled when he’s picked up, clings for a moment and rubs his cheek there. But then he’s wriggling, this way and that, whining into Erik’s ear as he tries to get himself down. It’s not that he doesn’t like being in his mate’s arms, strong and capable, because he certainly, absolutely does, but he wants to see. He wants to walk. He knows if he wants something he should ask, but all of a sudden he’s not sure how, and he could just unwind his legs and climb off, but he wants to obey, too, so - he tugs on Erik’s shirt, projects _put down/walk/no_ , the last bit of it tinged with just a hint of the indigence from last night, except like this it’s different. He’s watching this, too, peeking out from inside - what do you want to teach him, the Void keeps whispering, over and over. What are you teaching him, what are you learning.  
  
Erik's eyebrows fly up and Charles stays put, trapped by Erik's Will and ability; not because he wants to go against Charles's wishes, but because-and he smirks at this. "No, no, _neshama_ ," he murmurs, his voice low and thick and honeyed with Dominion. "Ask me nicely." The Order is apparent and the plug inside of Charles twists in tandem, punctuating Erik's point. Charles belongs to him. He will take care of Charles, but he stresses the importance of respect. Erik doesn't respond to demands or Orders from his submissive. He decides.  
  
The shudder he gives at that, at Erik’s voice, at the shift inside of him - it hurts, he’s full but it’s not what it should be, it’s not his Dominant, achy - is full-bodied, and he stifles his cry with Erik’s neck. For a few moments he’s quiet, both from his mouth and his mind, not because he’s afraid or because he’s upset or even because he’s defiant, but because he’s thinking. There are thoughts there, but Erik can’t quite reach them, they’re far off and flittering. There’s absolutely no doubt that Charles is far into subspace. The farthest, definitively, that he’s ever been. But he’s learning, and processing, and perhaps he was wrong when he said he wasn’t ready to reconstruct, to piece things together. It’s just a process. It’s not all at once. Erik is doing more than helping, he's guiding the entire thing, step by step by step. He pulls away from Erik’s shoulder, lifts his head to look at the people passing them, and his abilities have snapped around them but they can still see them, even if they aren’t exactly as they are. A Bonded pair passes, and Charles peeks into their minds and gasps. They turn their heads and look. It makes his cheeks go pink, even still red from Erik’s attention earlier, bite his lip, project, no/put down again, waiting.  
  
"Ask .me. nicely," Erik rumbles the Order again and it zaps through Charles's body like electricity. Bonded or not, they have nothing on Charles and Erik. Absolutely nothing. It's insignificant in comparison. Erik knows what he wants to teach, and he is. Charles wants something, and he knows that Erik will provide it, if he asks nicely, if he is calm and composed and rational, his Dominant will listen and abide. But demands, screaming, tantrums, defiance will garner no such response. Erik is practically glowing, almost levitating off the ground in his own pleasure. He's pleased, he has his submissive right where he wants him. He's teaching him and they're growing and it spreads out across Erik's body like brackish water.  
  
Demands don’t get him what he wants? Charles blinks, his telepathy still attached to that couple as they walk, following them down the sidewalk, because they’re still thinking about him and Erik. Thinking things that make him squirm harder, that make his cheeks an extraordinary shade of red even around the splotchy place where his Dominant slapped him earlier because he didn’t listen (is he listening now, is he being good?). Erik will always give him what he wants, is that what he’s saying? He’ll give Charles whatever he fancies? The thing is, it’s nearly always worked, he thinks. He doesn’t know for sure, but he thinks. Before Erik for certain, but after him, too. Charles wants, Charles gets, always. Someone he doesn’t know, someone he doesn’t remember says practically his second mutation, isn’t it? Erik’s been scared, too, he didn’t know, too? Or is Charles just - ?  
  
He shakes the thought off, and it was an Order, and he knows Erik probably wants him to use his mouth, but he doesn’t. He just sends put down!, increasingly persistent, smashes it together with the concept of please, then tentatively turns his head to watch Erik, eyes wide and curious. There’s no real defiance. There’s insistence, and a projected sense of entitlement ( _Charles wants, Charles gets!_ ), but there’s nothing harsh or angry or screaming, nothing like the night before. He’s just testing. Dipping his toes in. If the creature Erik has been so frightened of is peeking out, what happens if Charles gently pokes now? What is Erik going to teach now? What is he going to do, what is he going to say? The Universe is oriented entirely in his direction, waiting with held breath, and the people on the street turn to look and stare, drawn without knowing why. When the Universe shifts, people tend to feel it. It doesn't always happen with quite as much drama as one would expect.

* * *

Erik just smirks at him, and all of a sudden Charles is down, feet touching the ground, but Erik's Order is a silent be still. Do not leave, do not run, do not look. Not at them. Look at Erik. The Order zaps, again. And the next one that comes may be unexpected, because Charles may believe he's getting what he wants, that Erik has capitulated and now he's free to act as he wishes, but such is not the case. "Kneel, now." It's sharp and pointed and snapping, like electric frost, but not angry. Not upset. Erik is the one completely entitled, completely confident. When Charles gets to his knees, Erik peers down at him. "Hands behind your back, interlocked. Straighten your posture." Charles feels the sting of something swishy and reedy against his cheek, leaving a red stripe across his pale flesh as Erik Commands him.  
  
Charles shivers so hard it’s violent, and Erik told him not to look at anyone but him but he can still feel them around. He thinks, outside of all of this, that they’re not seeing what’s actually there, that Erik Willed it that way and so it is, perhaps not something he’s as easily capable of but once Charles told him that his telepathy belonged to Erik, too, that his abilities were at his fingertips and the reminder makes him shudder, because he gave that control, he offered it, but that’s not what’s truly going through his mind. It’s not fear, either. It’s just that there are people around. They’re there, and they’re going to see Charles be disciplined? The surface he’s kneeling on isn’t the floor of a locked, private space, behind closed doors where Erik has always kept discipline before. He thinks, far off again, that his Dominant has said things like behave, Charles, or when we return - but he never meant it.  
  
Charles thinks that he tested it. If he wanted to act out more, he could. The chances of him being dragged home and disciplined while they were out and about were slim, and so it just wasn’t an option. And Erik doesn’t usually - he thinks, again, the thinking, the attempts to contextualize, he thinks that his Dominant has told him before that he’s going to end up over his knee for more minor infractions, that he’s given him a tap or two in warning, but it usually never happens. He has gotten his way quite a lot. Charles knows he’s tried things before just to try them, to push and see if it worked, and he thinks it did. Before this, it did. So now his eyes are wide as saucers because even without remembering, even with only these far-off, hazy thoughts, he knows, and the Universe is holding its breath while Charles’ heart beats out of control in his chest. “Sir?” he whispers, and the sound trembles, breaks, but it’s not fear. He’s never been more safe. He's just learning, and shocked because of it.  
  
Erik smiles down at him. It is discipline, and it's not. It's not cold and harsh. It's not private and behind-closed-doors. It's right here, a correction, a putting back in place that's separate from discipline but holds the same tenets. "I said ask me nicely, Charles. Are you aware of what that entails? I should like to see you do so. Ask me. Nicely. If you wish to be let down. Do not insist. Do not demand. Ask me. And do so properly." He gives Charles another _thwak_ over the cheek with his implement, completely unaware of the people around, those who would be unaware of this, of Erik causing his submissive to kneel in public, to take his correction in public-an instinct Erik has always held and yet never fulfilled, as Charles wholly knows. When we return may be minutes or hours later. This is not.  
  
It’s right here, right in public. Not something worthy of discipline, but if it wasn’t before this, Erik has tended to let it slide. To let the correction go. But he isn’t now? When the implement strikes again he cries out, more startled than anything but it stings, too, it redirects him exactly as it was meant to, it’s a correction. And even if they can’t see, Charles wonders if they know, if there is a part of this that hasn’t been hidden. He shivers again at just the thought of it, at the thought that Erik has wanted to do this, and how much else has he thought about or felt inclined toward that he hasn’t done? How much? He bites his lip, overwhelmed, and his heart feels and sounds like it’s trying to escape his chest, but he swallows, still looking up at his Dominant with wide eyes and his cheek smarting. “Yes, sir,” he gasps. “I - may I walk, please?” he asks, and it is nice, it is sweet, earnest and sincere, because right now he doesn’t want to be defiant. He just wants to learn, and Erik is teaching him. Should he ask permission for everything? Should he turn to Erik for everything? The truth is, he wants to. The truth is, right now he needs to. But is that - okay? It’s okay? They've never been like this in public before. They've never really been like this in general before, and it's everything Charles needs and that's scary. It's frightening, should it be?  
  
"Good boy," Erik rumbles lowly and crouches down slightly to cup Charles's cheek, right over that new mark. "You know all you must do is ask nicely and if it is within my power, and it is not harmful, I shall do what is in my power to grant your request, hm, _neshama_?" Erik's smile is slight and Charles is still on his knees, the pavement digging into his jeans, and Erik rubs them under his hands soothingly. "Rise," he whispers softly. He should. Charles should ask for permission. For everything. And Erik will grant it, or deny it because he has that power. He should have that power. Charles should lean on him. Always. That is what he will teach.  
  
This time when Charles shivers it’s with delight, with pleasure, and he absolutely can’t help it. Erik thinks he’s a good boy? He made the right choice, he did the right thing, he’s being good. He had a choice, Erik told him what he had to be a good boy and he did it and his heart absolutely sings with it, his belly is warm with it even around the ache, and there’s a smile like the sun on his lips as he practically throws himself at Erik now that he can, now that he’s been told he can get back up. Nestles right into the firmness of his chest. Rubs against him and seeks more reassurance, more praise, more stability and firm, confident Dominance, soaks it up like a particularly absorbent sponge and it’s healing.

“Everything?” he asks, muffled by Erik’s jacket, and he’s asking two questions at once, really. He should really ask permission for everything, Erik thinks that’s okay? That it’s good, he doesn’t mind that Charles needs that right now, he’ll make sure he knows and he listens and he’s being used properly? He can control Charles that way? And then he’s asking - if he asks nicely, will he really get everything? Whatever he wants? He’s thinking again. Sometimes he thinks he asks and Erik says no but Charles wasn’t really asking, he knows he can get it and if he asks again Erik says yes. No one ever really says no to Charles.  
  
Erik can be among those people, certainly. He prefers to say yes, he likes giving Charles what he wants. There's no denying that, and he won't. But it's inaccurate to say that Erik will give him anything he wishes. Sometimes the things that Charles wants are dangerous and harmful and scary and devolving and flying-off and defiant and raging and Erik doesn't permit those things. He wants Charles to be happy and healthy and content and aware that he has someone who has his back, who has his best interest at heart and that person is Erik. It is Erik and he will teach Charles that until he can no longer draw breath. If he asks nicely, if Charles asks nicely, if it's for Charles's good, Erik will undoubtedly say yes. But sometimes he'll say no. If he doesn't want to, just because he can, that's nice, too. Erik doesn't mind that. It is still for Charles's benefit. So Charles knows who is in charge. to whom he belongs. Dominion sweeps out around Charles and envelops him like a hug, like Erik's arms wrapped around him. "Everything," Erik murmurs back, tucking some strands of Charles's hair behind his ear. "But you must ask nicely. And I might not say yes, but that is my prerogative, hm?"  
  
Charles wilts against Erik a bit, and it's much more mental than physical. His thoughts are far off and twining together again, not necessarily screeching or twisting but certainly tangling up in each other like knotted, unruly vines, and he’s all of a sudden embarrassed and uncertain. But he nods, worries at his poor swollen lip some more. “Yes, sir,” he agrees, still muffled by Erik’s chest, and it’s clear he is agreeing.  
  
That won't do. Erik pulls back and frames Charles's face. "No more of this. Tell me what is wrong, _neshama_ ," he Orders quietly, and-"And do not mumble. When you speak to me you will address me clearly. Am I understood?"  
  
There’s a quiet huff at that, not defiant but certainly protesting, and he’s pouting when he pulls away from Erik’s chest so he doesn’t mumble, full lips that obscene cherry-red. He nods again, but his eyes wander to the ground, staring at Erik’s beautifully shined shoes. “I like it sometimes and it’s awful,” he says in a rush, and there are no helpful thoughts to accompany it for once, still properly tangled and floating somewhere Erik can’t quite reach. “Outside now?” he asks, quiet and hopeful, because really they haven’t made it far from the apartment. Without memories, without context, without much of anything besides this things are spilling out that he never wanted to, that he would have held back for ages and ages and Erik isn't in the same place, exactly, and he knows enough to be embarrassed and ashamed and uncomfortable. Frightened by it. He's still so frightened, underneath it.  
  
"No," Erik murmurs back. See? Charles asks, and Erik decides. He lifts Charles's chin, making him look. Really look. Into Erik's eyes, shining and bright from the sun outside, nearly otherworldly green. He taps Charles's lip in warning and he won't say it again, let it heal. If Charles truly wishes to be disciplined in public, make no mistake that Erik will accommodate that, too. So permissive, this one. "What is it you like that you think is awful? My Dominion over you?" That is accompanied by a thick cloud of Will, turning the air to molasses, the smell of firewood and curling smoke tendrils and a burning warmth inside. "Tell me." The Order makes all those tendrils flash and writhe, gently fanning out over Charles's body.  
  
It calms Charles exactly like it should, swathes him up nice and tight and comforting and he shivers again, quick to shake his head and careful not to bite his lip. He goes for his cheek and then stops himself, sheepish and apologetic, a soft, nonverbal sorry. He just forgets. “You saying no,” and that is mumbled again, not on purpose because he’s properly embarrassed and he has no idea how to explain it. His mind tentatively folds outwards without prompting, without Erik needing to ask, all of that confusion and embarrassment and fear layered on top. It’s not that he wants Erik to say no to everything, or to deny him things that he feels he needs or is entitled to. It’s not that he wants him to say no on principle to anything important, anything that matters to him and that he wants Erik to listen to and consider, even if he’s agreed and wants to defer if that’s Erik’s final decision. It’s just that sometimes it’s - but he doesn’t understand it, he just knows he feels it. And Erik says the word reward sometimes, but it’s not much of a reward if he can get it just as well by not behaving, is it? Be on your best behavior, but they both know he’ll get it anyway. And Charles doesn’t need anyone to give him anything, he never has. He can just take. He’s always tried not to, to earn first, but - well. Who’s going to stop him? Who ever did?  
  
Another sharp thwak to Charles's other cheek, this time. "No mumbling, tayer," Erik reminds him pointedly, voice low and measured. He frames Charles's face in both of his hands, seeking his eyes that he's Commanded to look upon him. "This is nothing to be embarrassed about, dear-heart. This is how it should be. This is how it must be." And if he's not on his best behavior, well, he certainly will not be getting what he desires. Erik has all but decreed that. "It is my Will and my right to say no, neshama. And I will. When I choose to. Do you understand?"  
  
And look he does. Out in the light his eyes are bluer than they've ever been, it seems, especially after the black of the Void, blown so wide and startled but calmed, too. Settled back down, and he nods, then decides Erik probably wants a verbal answer. He wants to be good, even though he's still embarrassed, even though he's still frightened, even though there are so many things he doesn't know. He grabs at Erik's coat, clings to it tightly like he's worried about being pulled away. "Yes, sir," he whispers, and tries not to mumble, though he does grab his lip between his teeth, entirely unconscious. Is he sure? Erik doesn't think Charles wants things that are bad?  
  
" _Lo_ , _tayer_ ," Erik whispers down at him, and taps his lip to cause a refrain from that biting he is insistent upon correcting. He knows Charles is scared and frightened but the Void asks, and keeps asking, what will you teach him? and this is it. The fear is for something wonderful. To Erik, at least. Erik likes it. Erik wants it. It is Erik's right. Not one of those things is bad. Charles is a good boy. He is, even when he falters and makes mistakes and flies off into defiance. At his heart, he is good, and Erik sees it every minute of every day.  
  
Charles wants desperately for that to be true. That even when he doesn’t remember, even when he doesn’t understand, he is good for Erik. It’s all that matters like this. More than that, though, he’s preoccupied with something else, with a certain aspect of it; will Erik please make sure that he is? That he corrects everything, so that he can learn? He doesn’t want permissive. Especially now, when he needs more help, when he feels like he needs more in general, when he doesn’t know? It’s starting to hurt again, it’s starting to ache horribly and Charles grabs tighter, but he doesn’t want to go inside yet, if that’s okay. He doesn’t want to go back to the nest. He wants Erik to teach him out here so he knows for next time, while this is all he’s focused on. He wants to learn, he’s so eager to learn. “Outside, please?” he whispers, and he offers a soft, hopeful smile. He asked nicely this time, does Erik see? Is he watching? He wants more choices so he can show what a good boy he is, and he's - embarrassed about it, it's embarrassing, isn't it? But he can't help it.

* * *

Erik smiles down at him and embraces him in a one-armed hug, tucking Charles closely into his side even while they walk, a little behind him so Charles can feel Erik's body up against him. Even now he can't allow Charles to stray far, it's an anathema to his very existence. He listens to Charles's thoughts ping off of his fishbowl-consciousness and huffs softly. He doesn't have to worry about any of that, not a single thing. Erik will take care of it. He will make certain that Charles follows his Command, that he remains as good as Erik knows he wishes to be. Erik will keep him in place. Outside and beyond. He lifts his chin up toward the expanse of people and pavement and traffic before them, kissing the top of Charles's head affectionately. Charles will learn. Erik will ensure it.  
  
Especially now, Charles couldn't possibly handle being separated. He grabs at Erik's hand as they walk because he needs the contact or the growing heat might consume him, clings to it, flinches against him at sounds and voices that become too loud or encroach on their space, and it's amusing, really, the switch between them from not long ago at all, but Charles isn't thinking it because he doesn't know. Everything looks new and strange and foreign to him, this city he's lived in for years. He recognizes none of it, stares startled and overwhelmed at all of it. He doesn't know where they're going, but he trusts Erik to lead him. It's just that when he catches something from across the street he stops short, gasps, and stares, his feet no longer moving. There are tears in his eyes, words caught up in his throat. He squeezes Erik's hand, perhaps too-hard.  
  
Erik guards him against those sounds, against those people pressing in just a little too close, they find themselves buffeted back gently by an invisible barrier, and it's not conscious. Erik just can't conscience it. When his hand is squeezed too-hard, he looks; squeezing back for good measure and pulling Charles even closer to him. " _Haged li,_ " he murmurs the imperative, all of his hackles raised, his posture switching to offensive rather than protective, his free hand lingering over something in his pocket (though it's the bad one, so it's untold how much damage he could possibly do with the implement anyhow, but he isn't thinking of that).  
  
And there is fear in Charles, but it isn't anything Erik can fight against with whatever is in his pocket. Mostly it's an overwhelming, consuming sadness that clenches and grips at him, and his answer is to direct Erik's attention to exactly what he's looking at. Across the street are the blue couple from earlier, the ones who got close to their nest. They're sitting at a cafe and talking, bent close to each other. The blue man hardy fits in the chair. He can hear them perfectly from right where he's standing, but he can't make sense of a word they're saying. All he knows is that there are tears in his eyes, and they fall down his cheeks as he's holding his Dominant's hand as tightly as he can, nails digging in. His throat feels like it's closing. "Sad," he whispers.  
  
His fingers relax against his weapon and instead go to Charles's neck, stroking over his collar in soothing, rhythmic motions. They're safe, they're safe, he whispers softly. They're friends. From over here, they're friends, Erik remembers. The blue man helped him and saved him. The blue woman stood up for him. He remembers, and he shares the feelings with Charles. They know. They're not mad, they're just worried. Worried about Charles. Worried about Erik. (Erik is surrpised by this a good deal, eyebrows lifting near to his hairline.) "I know, sweetheart," Erik whispers, pressing his lips to Charles's temple. "Would you like to talk to them? They love you very much." They love him, but they don't want to take him away. They know he is Erik's submissive. And if they forget for a second, Erik will remind them. With his fists, with his blade, with his fury.  
  
But that's just the thing. They know and remember, but Charles doesn't. He doesn't, and he knows he should. The woman, the - girl? There's something about her, something so important, something that makes him want to sob when he thinks about how he's forgotten, and her hair is flowing and red now and he thinks it might spark something, it feels familiar but there's nothing there. It's starting to hurt more, but it's better when he turns to bury himself in Erik. Erik won't leave him now, will he? He touches Erik's hand all over, because it's the only exposed skin he has, and nods, just once, small and miserable and frightened, every muscle locked up. He wants to talk to them, please.  
  
Rather than clasp over his blade, he lets his hand turn in Charles's grasp and weakly his fingers stroke back, mostly moved by his arm rather than individually, quite clumsy and inept, but it's the best attempt at comfort he can give with the limb Charles has chosen to seek. Erik won't leave. He never will. He'll be there the whole time and make certain that nothing untoward occurs, and he gently leads Charles forward, his good hand resting on Charles's shoulder. They approach from the side, causing both blue people to look up and smile at them. The larger one, the man, gives a toothy grin. "How're you two feeling?" he murmurs in a voice far unsuited for his size, mild-mannered and calm.  
  
Charles is mostly hidden in Erik's side, but he peeks out as much with his mind as with his eyes. Curious but with that deep, lingering sadness, his telepathy sweeps outward, more a physical force than it's ever been and perhaps a bit too strongly. Familiar, safe, but he doesn't remember. "Hi," he whispers, because it's the only thing he can get out with his mouth, still frightened, still on edge, the hand not gripping Erik's clasping tightly to his jacket. It's not an answer, but his mind offers _scared/confused/sad/need mate/hurts_ all at once, and he winces before they do because he knows that isn't right. No telepathy, especially not that strongly. No projecting. Right? He hides even further in Erik, wrapping around his mind, seeking help the way he was told to. Being good?  
  
The red-haired blue-woman rises from her chair in a fluid movement, every muscle and tendon shimmering in the sunlight as she moves, agile like a cat and strong; strong enough to put Hank in his place despite his size and build. A strength of her own, but she rarely relies on it. She likes to sneak and disguise and pilfer, espionage is in her nature, secretive and calculating and mimicking.   
  
She just gives them both a smile and touches Charles's shoulder. "Hi," she whispers back, eyes crinkled. She doesn't flinch at the telepathy this time. She used to. She doesn't now.   
  
Erik bares his teeth at her, not-quite recalling enough not to consider her a threat, she's too close and she's buffeted back a little. Invisible shields. Erik clutches Charles closer. Good. He's being so good. And he can project all he likes. His ability is beautiful and anyone who has an issue with it, has an issue with Erik. And Erik handles such issues accordingly.  
  
Charles' lips part in awe as he watches her, his mind supplying beautiful before he fully processes or can catch up. There's something there that he can't quite reach, and he knows how important she is, he knows, but she's so wildly unfamiliar at the same time. It's all too much. Charles is crying before he can hold it back, sniffling into the leather of Erik's jacket, crowded into him. He doesn't remember, and he's so sorry. He's so sorry. He pulls it all back, tucks it into himself because even though his Dominant said it was alright there's a part of him deep, deep inside that knows it isn't, that hasn't learned better. That's not what matters now, truly. Now he's distraught, because this beautiful girl, this extraordinary girl - she's just a stranger to him, and Charles knows she shouldn't be. It's such a profound loss he can't breathe for it.  
  
No, Erik Orders roughly. No. The Universe wants him to teach, and so he will. Charles will not hide himself away. There is nothing wrong with him or what he can do. Erik refuses to allow him to hide himself away. He wants guidance and direction in all things, Erik starts right there, smooths out the edges and his hard, grim-faced expression, lips thin and drawn together, eyes harsh and calculating, let Charles know that he has no room to disobey him. He doesn't have to shower the whole plaza in grief and suffering, but neither does he have to tuck every part of it away. He's hurting. They know him. They can feel it, too. It's allowed.   
  
The woman moves a bit closer, apparently not cowed by Erik's invisibility bubble, and he relaxes it enough for her to put her hand on Charles's arm. "I'm your sister," she whispers, and there's not grief there, exactly, but hope, a natural abundance of hope, and Charles knows instinctively without knowing anything at all, in the darkest, farthest reaches of himself that he's responsible for putting it there.  
  
But it's bad. Charles knows it's bad, doesn't he? From somewhere deep and lingering and instinctive (but not instinctive, not like the howling beast that needs to be tamed, something else), he knows that he shouldn't. It hurts and it causes discomfort and fear and distrust, people don't like it. That's as true for him as knowing he needs to breathe to live, not forgotten with everything else. Still, he lets it unfurl just slightly, tentative, lets it graze against them like a shy brush of hand because Erik is trying to teach, but his mind is racing with something else. Sister. Sister, sister, sister. He rolls the word around his brain like he's playing with it on his tongue, and when her hand touches his, sliding down his arm where he's clinging to Erik, he thinks there's a brief flash of something. A feeling, a sensation, not a memory. But nothing else. There's nothing else, and he looks up to meet her eyes, a pretty shimmering amber that he knows he should recognize but barely does. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he gasps, and he sobs with the force of it, because how could he forget her? How could he, why did he?  
  
It isn't bad, though. It's just a part of him, like anything else. People are afraid because they have secrets, they prefer to lie. That's their problem. If they were decent they would simply understand that some things in this universe, in the Universe itself, that cannot be explained. There are some methods of communication, some beings, who just communicate like that. A funny memory pops up in Erik's mind, late-night television reruns of campy sci-fi shows. _Infinite diversity in infinite combinations_. Then again, it wasn't a mistake that the late Leonard Nimoy decided to use the first part of the _birkat kohanim_ for his alien's salute. If there is intelligent life out there, what if some of them only communicate via telepathy? Will all humans necessarily deem them bad and fight to suppress their natural inclinations? Maybe they would, but that's humanity's fault. Not Charles's. Raven, completly unaware of their mental conversation but not so unaware that she doesn't realize they're having one, gives his hand a gentle squeeze. "I know," she touches his cheek. "It's OK. You'll remember soon. I know you will. In the meantime, it's nice to meet you."  
  
Charles isn’t much having the conversation anyway, though he’s perfectly capable of carrying it on at the same time that he interacts with Raven, because some of it is necessarily flawed, outdated, he hasn’t quite worked around a new argument yet and doesn’t remember the old one, just that there’s shame and fear and it hasn’t been taught out of him yet, that it’s stuck like other things have stuck, and besides he’s much more preoccupied with this. With the shaking he’s doing, with the fat tears rolling down his cheeks that he wouldn’t think himself capable of, with the wide-eyed stare at the blue-eyed wonder who called herself his sister. It’s nice to meet you. But how could he forget? How could he, even through the Void, forget? What else does he remember? And it’s not much at all, is the answer. It’s not very much at all. Now he squeezes her hand, but as much as he could rearrange her entire mind now without breaking a sweat, absorb it all in less than an instant, he knows it wouldn’t be his. It wouldn’t give his back. _I don’t remember_ , he whispers, and he doesn’t realize it’s not out loud, or that everyone in the cafe hears, too, and they touch their heads, their ears, confused and frightened because there is something inside of their heads and they are anything but used to it. _I don’t remember. I don’t remember, I’m so sorry, I should remember you -_ It hurts again, it hurts, and it’s the same hurt from before flaring up but he also feels like he can’t breathe. He knows he can’t breathe, from outside his own body, that everything is starting to vibrate. Literally.  
  
He can breathe, though. Because Erik Commands him to, and there is not a force in the world or Universe itself that will prevent Erik from seeing his Commands realized. And Erik knows without a doubt that the Void did not erase these things out of malice, or even out of permanence. The Void did it because Charles needs to learn, without all of the extra baggage, what it means to be a brother, to have a sister. And Raven doesn't fault him, she doesn't demand from him, or scream at him to remember in a terrorized grief. She just bows their foreheads together and strokes Charles's face, both sides. "It's OK," she says, softly. And she's not a soft person, not by nature. But she has to learn, sometime, too. When she speaks again, it's warm. She can do warm. Sometimes. "It's OK. You don't have to be scared. I won't hurt you. I know you don't remember, but I love you."  
  
Did it? Sometimes the Void reassures him, it tells him when things are out of place, or it winks at Erik from the inside, but there’s none of that now. There’s just Charles staring with those wide, unknowing eyes filled with tears, there’s the way he shakes in Raven’s arms. How could he say it back when he doesn’t remember her? Without baggage, what does that mean, why would that happen she’s his sister and he’s forgotten her! She’s just a stranger now, but she’s supposed to be important. How can he get his mouth to make any sort of noise now, and what is he going to do about the crawling, horrible heat inside of him, swallowing him back up? He’s empty, in more ways than one. He’s empty and he’s frightened and he wrenches his hand out of hers to cover his own head, to dig both hands into his temples, and then all of a sudden the cafe erupts into noise, into yelps and screams of shock and fear and pain, everyone holding their heads at once, the snapping, screeching noises from inside Charles’ head in all of theirs, too. Full volume.  
  
Erik breaks the link instantly. "Charles stop it. You need to reel it back, right now." Charles feels the familiar zing of pain, an unseen implement by anyone else in the room, known only to them, not out of punishment but as a way to refocus him. What matters is that Charles is here, and he is healthy, and and he's Erik's. He might not remember Raven right now, but he will. Erik is confident of that. Charles just needs to trust Erik. Just as he has. Erik has gotten him this far, Erik has taken care of him this far, and he'll continue to do so.  
  
But he hardly remembers Erik. All of those memories are precious, they’re important, they’re cherished and they’re theirs and Charles can hardly remember from moment to moment any of them, can’t string them together, and does he understand - he’s not healthy, how could he even think that? How could he think he’s healthy when Charles doesn’t know his own sister? And it’s not a link, and the whining only stops for a second before it picks back up, before there’s snapping and crunching and terrible shrieking and people are staring, they're gasping and pointing and they’re noticing and for once he's the public spectacle, and Charles could make them stop could make them go away! and so he does, and chairs tip themselves over as they get up and there’s fear, there’s so much fear, and he’s digging nails into his temples and he wants to scream, too, how could he forget her? How could he forget her? How could it let him forget her? And here’s the thing about the Universe, and the fact that it’s inside of Charles. That in some ways, it is Charles. When it’s upset, when it’s disrupted, the whole world shakes with it. It knows. It hurts again. It hurts and his mind screams mate mate mate, a blaring cry for help, an attempt to be good like he's promised but the people who got up to run at his suggestion find themselves frozen as he overcorrects.

* * *

He's safe. That is what is important. Charles remembers Erik. He remembers his mate. And his mate is the one who tells Charles to stop. To stop, to breathe, to look at him. The people who matter most to him, still love him. There are still memories to be made. He will know again. Erik knows it. "Now stop. Quiet. Quiet your mind. Slow your heartbeat. Breathe. You are OK. You are safe. I am with you. I love you. Breathe." They're Orders, as sure as breathing itself.  
  
For just the briefest moment, Charles looks at Erik like he might not recognize him either, eyes as wide as dinner plates and thoroughly shaken, thoroughly devastated, other people’s terror pounding in his veins. But deep-inside, in a place that could never be taken from him, in a place that the Void couldn’t swallow, in a place where it still wears his collar and where the boy in the castle still waited, he knows. He knows his mate, and he does as he’s told. He breathes. He tries to quiet down the shrieking, but the shrieking is coming from inside, and it makes it difficult, it makes everything hurt, and there’s heat, too, there’s such wretched heat and he feels like he’s burning again and he needs his mate. He needs his mate. He reaches forward to grab for him, to bury himself in him again, and he does but someone is getting close to them and it isn’t the blue-woman who he knows now is his sister, who he can feel loves him and won’t take his mate away. It’s someone else, a real stranger, and Charles trembles. There are still people frozen around them, that Charles hasn’t let go.   
  
They’ve drawn a crowd. The man is an officer, badge and all, and he looks terrified himself. “Is there a problem here?” he asks, and his voice shakes slightly. Charles is shaking, too. He clings tightly to Erik’s jacket, and he’s well and truly terrified, burning up from the inside, every ancient, primal instinct screaming danger danger danger and mate mate mate in equal measure. People grab their heads again, cry out in agony. He can’t let them take his mate from him. He can’t let them. It hurts and he's grieving and it's not safe, it's not safe, it's not safe -  
  
Erik blasts the man back, an invisible wall of force that sends him spiraling off of his feet, head hitting the floor. Erik makes sure he doesn't get injured, some baser, primal part of himself working overtime, but that doesn't mean he'll allow any threat to stand. It's Erik's hand that's outstretched, it's Erik's face and his obvious, eminent power that they see, so of course the officer naturally looks at him to be the culprit and that's fine. Meanwhile he Orders Charles to stop and let go. Memories or not, Erik is still a D5 and he will be obeyed. He is the mate that Charles seeks. He always will be.  
  
They don’t, though, is the thing. They don’t think he’s the culprit. Erik looks like no one here, albeit a very imposing no one who just assaulted a police officer with what appears to be his mind, because he always does when he is in public with Charles in this way, but it’s Charles everyone is staring at this time. It’s Charles who can feel that everyone is afraid of him, who knows with no doubt that everyone is looking at him, because he’s always kept his face the same and the truth of the matter is, the truth is, he has a power of his own and right now they can feel it. He has a power of his own and right now it is a wild, untamed force, right now it stops at Erik’s Command but lashes back out a moment later, shrieking and infuriated because the man has a partner and the partner is reaching for a weapon and Charles can feel and see and hear and know everything even while he knows nothing of himself, and he gasps and grips at his head and those officers with those guns scream, scream at the top of their lungs and grab at their own heads, then freeze entirely, and Charles doesn’t like to hurt, he doesn’t like to cause pain he doesn’t like violence he doesn’t like force but they’re looking at his mate, they’re going to hurt his mate and he has power, too, don’t underestimate him! He has to protect, too, doesn’t he? Doesn’t he? He can’t let them take his mate he can’t he’ll die, he’s all Charles understands, all that’s left is this wild, ancient part and it can’t exist without its mate, don’t they understand that -  
  
Erik Commands Charles to kneel, immediately, but it's only so that he can feel the floor under his knees and Erik crouches too, taking his face in both hands and Commanding him to breathe. Not only a moment later to start again, but to breathe, and stop, and slow, and calm. Those officers don't need to suffer and scream. Erik can take care of them, and he does, buffeting them all the way out of the cafe until they land on their asses, on the streets, their weapons a pile of dust in their hands. Charles can protect, Erik knows he can, but nobody needs to scream, today. Not those officers, not Raven, not Erik, not Charles. Erik won't let this be how it goes. Maybe he's more inclined to violence than Charles, but maybe it's Charles's influence that makes him reconsider. To choose another path. One that spares Charles from the inevitable outcome.  
  
It’s not about the screaming. He didn’t mean for that to happen, it wasn’t what he wanted to happen, it’s just that everything is so much more than what he’s used to and he doesn’t know what to do with it, how to control it, and right now he doesn’t feel like he’s in control. Kneeling helps, but not enough because they’re still here. The screeching was just what was in his own mind. Something snapped and spiraled again, and his breath still hitches even as he tries to follow Erik’s Order, to breathe and calm and slow, but he can still hear them. All of them. They’re still outside, people are still staring, and he thinks forget! as loud as he can and that’s all, that’s all it takes, it’s gone. All of it, what would have previously been a complex, delicate process, gone. In an instant, but too much. He took too much, he overcorrected again and he should have asked for his mate’s permission but he didn’t, he didn’t do it because he’s terrified, he’s so scared, he has to keep his mate and he can’t stop his heart (he could, probably, he could stop anyone’s heart) and is this what he is now? Is this all he is? Is this what swallowing the Void did to him? And he’s frightened and he’s on edge and he’s hot, he’s hot all over, he’s burning and - mate mate mate mate mate mate mate -  
  
Erik lifts him to his feet. Nobody stops them, now, as they exit the cafe and Erik wraps Charles up in his arms, because he said this too. If it was too much, and it is too much, that they would go home. They're going home. They're going back to their nest. They're going to be safe. Erik will make certain of it. They land outside the apartment and Erik brings them back inside, back upstairs, back into their room and onto the bed where there are so many things that they've collected and it's OK. There doesn't need to be any screaming. Charles has his mate. See. Erik is right here. He kisses Charles's lips softly. "It's OK. I'm right here. I love you, _neshama_ , hm? Look at me. I'm right here."  
  
But Charles isn’t breathing correctly and being lifted and moved just makes him more terrified, more panicked, his head turns toward the window and away from the kiss like he’s going to crawl right out of it. He took too much, he corrected too much, he has to fix it what if they saw what about that blue-woman what about - his chest hurts, his head hurts, but he’s hurting and he’s empty, too, and the calm from being safe and near the nest isn’t enough to cancel out all the rest of it, the absolute terror. He has no way of knowing how, but he thinks this might be one of his greatest fears. He thinks it might be several of his greatest fears, actually, coming true all at once, and Charles is gasping and breathless with it, tugging at his own hair, staring at Erik like he doesn’t recognize him at all even as he screams _**MATE MATE MATE**_ at full, blaring volume, and he doesn’t know this room he doesn’t know this bed and it’s all shaking, please let him fix it, where are they -  
  
"You need to stop." The Order is given aloud sharply, and accompanied by yet another sting of pain. No good will come from this, it never does, and Erik won't permit it to continue. Charles needs to stop this, the incoherent screaming, the thrashing about, it needs to end. And it will end, because Erik deems it so. Fear or not, they will handle it together, they will handle it peacefully, they will see that everything is restored to its original form. Charles is settled back on his knees, back inside their nest, and Erik snaps his hands away from his head and folds them behind his back with a glower. It is right. Charles will fix them, he will find whatever he took and fix it, he will find those people and return to them what was taken; the things that weren't meant to be taken. "Do it now," Erik Commands.  
  
Stop panicking? Stop being afraid? There are things Erik can't quite Order out of him, that he never has been able to, and one of those things is the sheer amount of terror and distress currently pinging off the walls, or the screeching, snapping, grinding noises coming from inside him, or the wild, frantic look in his eyes even as he tries to stay still. But his chest is heaving, a bodily response that Erik hasn't quite rid him of, and his ears are ringing and there are tears in his eyes and he tries to do as he's told, closing them to block out the pain and the unfamiliarity and focus. It doesn't take much, and he doesn't even think it's him. It wouldn't have been possible before but it is now. It doesn't calm him, the hands behind his back digging into the flesh, nails making red lines. It makes it worse.  
  
Erik Orders him to relax those nails, to stop marking himself, crouching down before his submissive and placing his hands on Charles's chest, making him take deep breaths as Ordered, sinking right into his bodily neurons. He endures the screeching and snapping right up until it's mitigated, until it eases and eases. _Be easy_. One of his first Orders, one that is primal and basic as blinking and moving. His mind is a storm, a hurricane, a whirlwind of reaction that doesn't make any coherent sense itself. All he knows is his mate is hurting and he has to fix it, he has to ease it and make it better, so he does everything he can think of, everything he remembers, even if it isn't much .He has never been able to. Never able to. He remembers that. Never-  
  
To Order it out of him. Erik has never been able to simply Order it out of him, the fear, the panic, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t eased it. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t made it better. It doesn’t mean the Orders he does give, the instruction and direction and guidance hasn’t made every difference, that it isn’t exactly what he needs, that it isn’t everything. That it doesn’t now, because it does, now that Erik is touching him, now that he’s actively Ordering breath, Ordering calm, Ordering attention. He is hurting, in more ways than one; in this horrid, devastating grief, in the heat building underneath his skin, burning away at him like flame, but there’s a reason that he was screaming for his mate and it wasn’t incoherent, it wasn’t senseless. There’s a reason it’s still going now, quieter, terrified but _mate/mate?/mate_? on loop, desperate and frightened, that there is one thing in this room that Charles recognizes, still barely recognizes, and it is Erik. Remember that, the Void reminds him. What does he need, wide-eyed and fearful, what does he need, not able to breathe without help? His mate knows. And who is Erik? The Void is apologetic, it is sorry, but go on, it whispers. Erik has always been able to, now go on. Charles doesn't think any of it, for once cut off from a conversation, but he's still calling out. _Mate? Mate? Mate_? he asks.  
  
What's inside of him is still inside, and Erik lifts his hand, pulls until it's outside, brushing his jacket off of his shoulders, ripping off the buttons of his shirt until they can touch skin-to-skin, until Erik can push him down onto the floor and brace his body overtop, touching body-to-body. Mate. Erik is his mate. Erik knows what to do. Breathe. Reveal. Reveal love, and hope, and tenderness-yes, that still eixsts. Even in just brief moments. But more than that. Reveal belonging, and submission, and ownership. Charles belongs to his mate. To Erik above him. He needs not be afraid. Erik is here. Erik will take care of him, and he has, he has. Everything that was lost to those others has been restored. He's done that. This isn't the place for fear any longer, Erik forbids it. Reveal love. Reveal joy. Charles is in his place, where he has always belonged. "Mine," he rumbles, touching Charles's face. "You are mine."  
  
But sometimes fear is irrational, and it lingers, and it sticks, and Charles is sorry, he is sorry, but he’s frightened. He’s frightened, and he doesn’t know. His mate touching him like this helps, it eases, the heat was getting to be unbearable and it calms his breathing and it clears away some of the screeching-snapping-breaking, but it’s still there and he’s sorry, but mate? Mate? He’s the only one Charles knows, even if he doesn’t completely, the only one he trusts, the only thing that doesn’t look unfamiliar and terrifying and heartbreaking, and he wants to listen. He still wants to be good, but he doesn't know how. “Mate?” and now it’s out loud, and Charles is squirming beneath him just to be held still. He’s sorry he wasn’t good outside. He didn’t want that to happen. Will Erik still talk to him, will he help? Will he please help, Charles is scared, he’s so scared. He knows it’s forbidden but it won’t go away and it hurts, it - “It hurts, it hurts,” he gasps.  
  
He doesn't have to know how. Erik will teach him, all he has to do is obey, and he does, beautifully. "I know," Erik mutters, because Charles isn't the only one in pain. He hasn't been this entire time. The burning, searing, agonizing, electric need for his submissive is merciless and it wrings out Erik's soul, but he bears it and bears it so he can take care of what is his, and he does. He does. "I'll make it better, _neshama_. Make it better, 'kay?" Erik snaps his arms up over his head, holds him down strongly and Erik gives him a sharp bite along his jawline as he murmurs into Charles's ear lowly for him to Present, so Erik can enter him in one long, relentless thrust and fully press all the way up against him, touching legs and thighs and back-to-chest, and Erik rubs their cheeks together. Once he's settled Erik is content to pet Charles's hair and talk to him softly, a stark contrast to their positions. He's allowed to be gentle, sometimes. He's not a mindless creature. He's not scary. He's just Erik, just Charles's mate. He won't let anything happen to Charles. He'll keep Charles safe, just as he always does. Charles was good. Erik doesn't blame him for anything, but Erik will keep him in place, in line, so he doesn't spiral off into screaming oblivion.  
  
It's not Erik Charles was scared of. It's not Erik, and some of the hurt is immediately satisfied when Erik settles back inside him, some of the gnawing emptiness, but some of it isn't. Some of it isn't and the truth is he doesn't understand, he doesn't understand and it's too much for him, it's overwhelming, he's crying quietly and there's no way he was good? He doesn't even know where he is, so how can he stay in place? The screaming is still there inside of him, he's still scared, is the thing, even though it hurts less, but even that searing is still there and he's not supposed to panic so Charles - don't bite his lip? Don't cry? What is he supposed to be doing? He didn't make the right choice but he doesn't know what the right one is, or if he even made the wrong one? And he can't see Erik and he's not supposed to have trouble breathing, Erik said to breathe and - breathe, and, "mate," is all Charles can seem to say, helpless and whimpering. "Mate? Mate?"  
  
Erik shows him again. How to breathe, how to be properly in position, and he's allowed to have feelings. Erik doesn't wish to take those from him, but he will ameliorate their devastating effects on Charles and the World around; he will make sure that it doesn't annihilate Charles from the inside out. Charles didn't make the wrong choice. Erik decided. He made the choice, and now they are home, back in nest, safe and sound. "Yes, _tayer_ , right here," Erik rubs their cheeks together again, his own already lined with stubble despite the shave Charles gave him a day prior. He repositions Charles so he can gaze into his eyes, put his hand on his chest, guide him to breathe better, hips snapping up and into him. "Right here, sweetheart. Keep you safe." He focuses all on imagery of safety and home. They're safe. They're home. Back in the nest with all of their nice things. He was good. He abided by Erik's decision. There was nothing less that he could do. Erik made sure he was good. Erik promised, and that remains true.  
  
Charles gasps and makes a sound not unlike a sob, hiccuping and moaning in the aftermath and it is soothing, it does feel good, he's startled by it, but he doesn't know. It doesn't feel like home. Nothing is familiar except for Erik, and even some of him is frighteningly new and strange, and he just wants to understand. Is he allowed to touch? He still needs - he digs his nails in, tries to get him closer, squirms underneath and hopes Erik will correct him again, he forgets. He's forgotten so much. How does he touch, what does he do? What's good and what isn't? They were trying to take Erik away from him and he needs Erik, wasn't Erik upset, too? Charles needs him to breathe. And - "Talk?" he asks, quiet and uncertain, tears still in his eyes, some of the hope from before, all of the eager obedience. When Charles is upset Erik says tell me, but is he supposed to now? Erik said stop. He said quiet. Charles isn't sure and he's still not breathing properly, he doesn't think, can Erik keep teaching him? Does he realize the extent of this? How could he possibly need it, too?  
  
Charles has no idea. Erik's whole body is electrified in burning need, eviscerating everything but the feel of their bodies aligned together and his fingers come up over Charles's face, eyes hooded and dark. Charles doesn't need to be quiet. All of his sounds and noises belong to Erik and he wants them, he wants more of them and so he does it again, harder this time, making Charles feel every centimeter and does he remember, does he remember he's full of Erik? That Erik kept him full and plugged up while he was outside and he stayed close and he knows, he knows they were dangerous and mean and they had guns and Charles was just trying to protect him, and it makes Erik's chest warm when he thinks about it and when he thinks about anything else he is enraged. Not merely upset. A terrifying anger, how dare they intrude on their private space, into their family, into their life-and Erik would have obliterated them on the atomic level, but Charles was good. He helped, and then they went home and it's OK now. It's OK now. Erik loosens Charles's nails away from his skin and pins his hands again, better this time. "Yes, _neshama_ ," Erik breathes into his ear. "Tell me. Everything. Tell me everything, always. You are mine. You will never stop being mine. All there is to learn, all that I know, it is yours. It will be yours, I will teach you. You will be good for me, hm? Won't you. You do what I say. You stay where I put you. Want to touch?" he strokes Charles's hands and lets them go, but gives him a warning rap across his knuckles that smarts. "No nails, none of that, pretty boy. So pretty. Pretty and mine and I have you, hm? I have you, don't I? There is nothing else more important than that. You can touch. How do you want to touch, hm?" Erik purrs against him, his whole being vibrating with it.  
  
The gasping noise he makes is strangled this time, more of a high, keening whine that doesn’t seem to stop, and Charles clenches right up so he feels it more, makes startled, hitched noises in the wake of it, because he is full but he’s still horribly greedy. His mate was so generous and nice, keeping him full while he took him outside like he asked, but it wasn’t enough, is that okay? Is that right? It wasn’t enough and it still hurt, it’s still practically unbearable now, because it wasn’t as good as having Erik inside of him. He was empty and yearning and hurting and it was too much and he got frightened, and he’s frightened now, but he helped? He was good and he helped? Charles gasps again as Erik gives him that sharp whack to the knuckles, but it does what it’s intended to, it steadies him, it teaches him. No nails. _Pretty boy_. It warms him up again, it makes everything ease, and he still needs Erik to breathe but it feels like less of a struggle now, his chest hurts less, he stares up with those wide, devoted eyes, and his fingers just barely graze Erik’s chest, he’s still wearing a shirt. Charles doesn’t like it, even though he put it on and it was good then because he was serving but he wasn’t told to take it off so he doesn’t. Is that okay? Obedient, good, he's trying. Look, he's trying, but he still wriggles underneath because he needs that, too. “I’m scared,” he admits, because he still is, and Erik said to tell him so he will. He’ll tell him more if he asks, he’ll tell him anything, but it has to be Erik who has no idea. How could he want Charles like this? How could he need it? And what if they come back, what if they try to take Erik away from him?  
  
Erik curls his hand over Charles's and brings it up to touch against his own cheek, nuzzling into it before he drags Charles's fingers down to the top button of his shirt, silently Commanding him to take it off of him. Slowly, carefully. He has to be careful, and he always is. He always touches so gently and softly; and sometimes he doesn't and that's good too but for this, it needs care, Erik's still injured, his arm and hand still struggle against the confines of regular clothing. It's OK. He's doing exactly what is expected of him, which is to let Erik guide. Let him lead, let him walk beside. _I will lead and I will follow_. "I know, dear-heart," Erik murmurs back, his voice pitched low. "It's OK. You did so good, you kept us safe. But I can keep us safe, too, hm? No one will ever take us away from one another. We will always be together, always." Erik withdraws himself almost to the tip before sliding back in, slowly this time, making Charles just take it because that's what he's meant for, too, for this. To be full and kept and petted and spoken to gently. "I want you, hm? Did you know that. Just like this. Want you. Want me? Not scared of me? I won't hurt you. Never hurt. Never."  
  
What that does to him is entirely indescribable. Charles’ eyes are so wide and shocked as he’s filled again, so full of startled, confused pleasure as Erik holds him still and makes him take every inch, bit by bit, from horrifically empty and hurting to stuffed full, and he clenches and clenches and gasps, taking exactly what he’s given. Does Erik know how overwhelming it is? How full he is? His fingers are shaking when he works on the buttons of Erik’s shirt, slow and gentle and careful, and he nods at his mate’s question because he does but he wants to talk, too. He wants to tell. Erik talking is the only thing keeping him steady, Erik leading him is the only thing keeping him together, and it’s not about wanting. It’s far beyond that. “I didn’t mean to,” is what comes out, what he whispers, and his eyes are full of tears again, his voice cracks, but he doesn’t look away. He looks right at Erik, seeking out his response, his reaction, his guidance. Like he was told to. He’s careful when he slides the shirt off his Dominant’s shoulders, when he discards it, and he doesn’t do more than that. He waits, and he thinks that's good.“They - they looked -” He can’t say it. His lip is trembling, he grips it with his teeth, he closes his eyes, and he forgets, just for a second. He forgets because he’s scared and his nails dig into Erik’s bare skin, because there’s no more shirt to grab onto.  
  
Charles earns a quick rap over his knuckles again for that, smarting and sharp, and Erik's Command relaxes his fingers against his skin, brushing instead of digging-in. "Tell me, _neshama_ ," Erik rumbles, his own fingers tracing Charles's cheek, under his eyes, over his jaw and against his ears. "It belongs to me, and I want it. You will tell," he Orders roughly. Like this, without a good reference, without the years of training and conditioning and obedience beaten into him, his accent is much more evident and he switches rapidly between languages, not just his native, but others as well, fragments of things he used to know in their entirety, all equally, deeply affected. Erik likes to talk, but he's not altogether put together, so it comes up mix-and-match. Fortunately, Charles can parse it as easily as blinking, their minds close together, Erik completely undeterred by pain and fear.  
  
He would be able to parse it anyway, even without their Bond. It’s Erik’s accent, rough and thick and layered over every word regardless of the actual language that grounds him, though, that has always grounded him, because he doesn’t have the memory but he has the sensation. He doesn’t know why and he doesn’t need to, just that it does. And perhaps it means something he doesn’t have the knowledge to understand that it’s Erik’s voice and talking that’s keeping him stable, that he keeps reaching and reaching and reaching for. He needs to be told. Charles isn’t speaking wholly in English, either, and he hasn’t been this entire time; with every language in the world at his fingertips, absorbed into the Void and filtering out through him, switching is natural, it’s inevitable, and their mish-mash language comes more naturally than anything even without the context for it. His own accent is strange, sometimes heavier, sometimes less, more American, more British, posh and then decidedly less-so, because he’s not consciously affecting it, and he usually does. But he doesn’t think about it, or process it. He just does as he’s told, brushing fingers apologetically over Erik’s chest and thrilling a bit at the correction, at being corrected even when it stings and he doesn’t like it, whining softly, clenching down tight to remind himself he’s still full. “They were looking at me like -” He closes his eyes again, and breathing hurts again for a moment. Like everything he’s never wanted to be. They were scared of him.  
  
Erik keeps doing it, keeps correcting him, even the most minor things. The placement of his fingertips, how rough or gently he should touch, where he should. They're facing one another, with Erik buried deep inside, Charles clutched to him like a liferaft and they're curled up, and Erik's listening to him, marveling at how he sounds, it's for him, he's speaking to Erik, he's making sounds-for him, because of him. It's beautiful. But that doesn't surprise Erik anymore, even like this; Charles has always been beautiful to him from their very first moments. What he says, though, makes Erik close his eyes in sympathy and he presses their foreheads together. There's a lot about Charles's experiences, in life and internally that he can't intuitively understand, but this is something he is intimately familiar with. "People are afraid of things they don't understand," he croaks solemnly, stroking Charles's cheek. It travels to his chest and Commands, breathe. "It does not make you any less good, or any less mine."  
  
It isn't the first time, not by a long shot, but now it might as well be. Everything is. Charles curls into Erik even further, wriggles about until he can hide in him properly, and if he's corrected for it he'll take it happily, but now he just needs to breathe his mate in. His fingers are shaking where Erik placed them but he doesn't move them, just sniffles quietly again, and there's sadness pouring off of him, sadness and that creeping terror. "I didn't mean to," he whispers again, eyes closed and tears clinging to his lashes. "What if I can't be good anymore?" He wanted to be, desperately. He wanted to be such a good boy while they were outside, but he wasn't. He got scared, and he scared everyone. Those people wanted to take him away because he wasn't good for his mate. Would he have deserved it?  
  
"That is not your prerogative, nor anyone else's. It is mine and _mine_ alone," Erik says, a sharp growl on the edges of his words. "No one decides what you deserve but me. No one decides if you are good but me. And you are," Erik whispers, softening those sharp edges. Erik surrounds him with it. Charles is very good, and he did nothing wrong. He was a good boy. He still is. Erik swipes away those tears, and presses two delicate kisses to Charles's eyelids. Erik loves him so very much, it's a piercing ache inside of his body. All Charles has to do is listen to Erik, and obey him. That is what matters most, and he is doing that; doing it very, very well.  
  
But how? Charles doesn't understand, and new tears quickly replace the ones Erik wiped and kissed away. "You had to take me back here," he gasps, and he's so embarrassed, so guilty, because he promised his mate he would be good before they left. That he would listen and be obedient, and Erik said if he didn't behave they would go right back inside but even when he tried he made a mess. He got scared, and he didn't know what to do and he hurt and he almost made people hurt them. It was frightening, and overwhelming, and he didn't know anything, and what if he never does again?  
  
"Yes, I did," Erik murmurs, smiling gently. "But not because you were bad. Because it was too much." Not just for Charles, either. Erik attacked them and would have done worse if Charles hadn't been there. "There is no need to fret, _neshama_. I would tell you if you did something to displease me." Charles didn't mean for it to happen. Erik won't punish him because he got scared and reacted out of instinct. He isn't that kind of Dominant. He won't be.  
  
And Charles doesn't need him to be, but he still whimpers into Erik's neck, low and confused. His Dominant would tell him if he did something wrong? He was firm with him, he corrected him, but not because he was disappointed. It's just that Charles is keen on punishing himself, and he isn't sure it's his place but he can't quite stop. That's why they're talking, he thinks, why he's been made to tell. It's not for nothing. Erik talking him through it helps. He has to talk to him so his Dominant can make it better. "But they looked at me like I was bad," he mumbles, and the pain that causes him is clear as anything, dripping off each word. The police officer thought he should be locked up, too. Charles heard it.  
  
It isn't his place and it never will be. Erik won't allow it. He won't allow anyone, whether it's Charles himself or otherwise, to punish him. That is solely Erik's jurisdiction. And he has made the decision, and he won't permit Charles to circumvent it. That's why they're talking. It's good to talk, to tell. Erik likes it when Charles talks to him. "I know, sweetheart," he replies quietly, smoothing some hair from Charles's face to kiss his temple. "Some humans don't understand us. What they don't understand, they're afraid of." Erik hadn't hurt that officer, there was no need for him to reach for his weapon. He was overzealous and trigger-happy, and two strange mutants wouldn't even rate a line in the morning newspaper. Unfortunately for that man, he picked the wrong two mutants to mess with. Not only because either one of them could disintegrate mind or body, but because of their very public stature. If word got back to the man's superior it's unlikely he's still on the job, if only to keep up appearances. Not because anyone particularly cares about mutant rights.  
  
It didn't. Charles took his memory. He took everyone's memory, and then he gave the things he hadn't meant to take back, and the reminder makes him sniffle and pull in closer again, shifting restless for a moment in Erik's arms. It jostles where he's pressed deep inside and he makes a soft, discontented noise, frowning into his mate's neck. "But I hurt them," he whispers. Just by existing, just by being there, Charles hurt them. Perhaps Erik didn't, but Charles did. What if swallowing the Void made him dangerous? That's what they were all thinking, Charles could hear it. They were thinking he was dangerous, and they were afraid. They were thinking all sorts of things that Charles can't make sense of, and none of them were that he was good. What if he needs to be locked up?  
  
Erik huffs a little, and settles Charles closer to him, wraps him up in his arms and tucks his head under his chin. "You didn't hurt them," he disagrees quietly. "It was loud and scary, and they felt some pain, but they're all right. Sometimes we lose control of our abilities when we're afraid, but we handled it together. We made everything OK again. Everyone got to go home to their families and they aren't the wiser for it. Whether or not you are dangerous, whether or not you need to be confined, is my decision. Not yours, not the police. Mine." And Erik won't take the word of an ignorant human over his own perceptions, not in a million years. Erik breaks eye contact for a moment, swallowing and looking away. It's hard for him to have this conversation without naturally thinking about himself, about the kind of threat he imposes himself. If anyone deserves to be locked up, it's Erik. He clears his throat and swallows again, swallows it down like a lump in his throat. It doesn't belong.  
  
Charles’ reaction to that is immediate. He’s shifting again in Erik’s arms, fussing horribly just so he can wriggle his way on top of him, distressed and upset and unsettled when it dislodges Erik from inside of him, sobbing loudly because he can’t imagine any greater torture in the world at right this moment. Being empty is a greater punishment than any of it, but what matters is nuzzling into his Dominant, kissing everywhere he can reach, rubbing against him with body and mind to get his attention, begging for it. He’s been hesitant, ever since they got back. He’s kept himself leashed, even though it isn’t his decision if he’s leashed or not, but he can’t help it. It’s no different now, and it’s tinged with fear, even that little brush of ability. “You’re not dangerous, you’re not,” he argues, mumbled into Erik’s skin, and he doesn’t need memories or context to know that. Erik is powerful, he knows that better than anyone ever could, but that doesn’t mean he’s a threat. He keeps Charles safe. He protects him. Besides - “I have to tell you everything?” he checks, and the room is blanketed in fear again, thick and heady.  
  
Erik sits up against the headboard a little and hugs Charles to him, instantly dropping Charles back onto his cock, not allowing him to escape for even one moment, and if that's a little rough, a little on the edge of pain, let it be known that even now Erik is correcting him, for squirming his way out of Erik's hold, for deciding in place of Erik's Will, but Erik lets him stay, because he can be generous, sometimes. When they've settled again and words come back after the heat melts just a little, Erik just shrugs, and smiles in that way Charles can't precisely recall, but is pretty sure means that Erik is just humoring him. "You didn't mean to do it," Erik whispers, like that's an answer. It is. Charles didn't mean to hurt anyone, he never would, not like that. He's always believed in peace, in diplomacy, in a better way. In finding commonalities, in overcoming differences, and integration. Those are as integral to him as the skin he lives in, and those qualities can't be erased, not even when he doesn't remember. Erik clears his throat and smiles, gives him another little kiss. "Everything, _neshama_. Do you have something to tell me?" his eyebrows raise, and the expectation is clear.  
  
Charles is gasping and whimpering again and it does hurt a bit, sore and insistent inside of him, stuffed achingly full and perhaps it’s the correction, the reminder that makes him leak against Erik’s stomach, oversensitive and twitching. He tries not to rock too much in his mate’s lap because he wasn’t told he could but it’s hard to stay still, and thinking is difficult. He didn’t mean to do it. He didn’t mean to hurt anyone. He never would have, he never wanted to, it’s why it scared him so awfully. Why it still does. But Erik isn’t dangerous either, not really, and Charles knows it. He knows it like he knows how to breathe, and Erik is the one who taught him to do that again, so he knows it’s the truth. His Dominant didn’t hurt them, either (but he was angry, wasn't he, he didn't like them?). “Uh-uh,” Charles mumbles, though, swallowing and nuzzling into Erik’s chest. It’s clearly not the truth and in the aftermath of the lie, Charles turns red with shame.  
  
Erik didn't like them-that's an understatement. They infuriated him, and unlike Charles, Erik has no compunctions about murder being always wrong. They threatened his mate. They drew a gun on Charles. They're lucky, and this is no word of exaggeration, that they didn't get their necks snapped. "Look at me." It's sharp and pointed and when Charles does, Erik grips his throat in hand, trailing the edge of his nail along the soft skin of Charles's throat as it's bared to him. "Do not lie to me. Now, I expect a truthful answer this time. Do you have something to tell me?"  
  
Perhaps, when and if all his memories return, Charles will be able to properly explain away the absolute thrill he gets at Erik’s thoughts, the shudder he gives that isn’t fear at the thrumming electric current of danger. It’s not that he’s particularly excited about people being murdered in his name; even without memories, the thought is horrifying. It’s just that it’s aimed toward him, it’s because of him, his mate is protective of him, dangerous and powerful and primal. He certainly can’t help his reaction, nor is he overthinking it at this particular moment. Instead he’s wide-eyed again, breathing shallowly, swallowing around Erik’s hand, that sharp nail. There’s no fear, but there is awareness of what he’s gotten into. He’s not supposed to lie, but the alternative is frightening. Charles shakes his head. That only lasts a moment before he realizes it was decidedly the wrong choice, before the shame threatens to swallow him and flushes him even redder, and he bites his lips hard. Slowly, he nods instead. “Mm-hm,” he mumbles, eyes closed.  
  
"Very good. Now tell me what it is," Erik murmurs, all that thinly-leashed primal power fully and completely focused onto Charles. He loosens his grip a little, but not all the way, taking to stroking instead, his hand warm and large and fully encompassing the span of Charles's neck, easily, another minute way of demonstrating who is in control here.  
  
Charles can't help but preen when he's praised, when Erik pets him instead of scratching, but he swallows heavy against his fingers another moment later. "I love you," he says, sweetly, and smiles, sheepish and hopeful. He knows that even while knowing nothing else, even without his memories because Erik is his mate and it might not be what he'd thought to say, but it isn't a lie. He wiggles in Erik's lap for good measure, gasping loudly when Erik shifts inside of him, his drawn-out moan vibrating against his Dominant's hand.  
  
Yeah, that's definitely not going to fly. Erik loves Charles, too, and the sentiment is appreciated, but Erik wasn't born yesterday, Charles. He does more than shift after a second, snapping up hard into him, his fingers tightening once more. "The truth," he growls in warning, holding up his finger (removing his hand from Charles's neck to do so) once more, ready to correct him at a moment's notice if the next thing out of his mouth isn't exactly what Erik's asked for.  
  
But Charles wants to be good more than he's frightened, and Erik has made it abundantly clear how to be good in this instance. He could make the wrong choice, he could choose to disobey, but he doesn't want to. Not even when he's terrified. So Charles whimpers, still startled and twitching from his Dominant nudged up further inside him, and hides in his mate, seeking comfort as he does what he's told. "The Void talked to me, I think," he whispers.  
  
That sharp finger turns instead to tuck more of Charles's hair behind his ear, emitting a pleased purr of satisfaction as he listens, and he nods. Charles made the right choice, and it wafts off of him like sparkling lights. "What did it say to you?" he asks, and somehow he doesn't seem surprised at the revelation that the Void can speak, can make its wishes known, but then again Erik is-to put it mildly-difficult to faze.  
  
To be fair, the Void has spoken to Erik on more than one occasion, though Charles is wholly unaware of it. But at the new question, Charles only makes a low, quiet noise of distress, bending his head further to duck it into Erik's shoulder. He shakes his head, and it might not be disobedience as much as confusion, as fear. "Hurts," he tries, weakly. It's the truth, and he tentatively presses his mind against Erik's to show him. Will he make it better again?  
  
Erik hooks his finger under Charles's jaw to tilt it up, nodding in devotion. He'll make it better. He'll do whatever it takes to make it better, anything at all. "Tell me, _neshama_ ," he Orders in a low rumble, sparing no time between shifting himself where he's buried, pulling himself back out inch by agonizing inch before thrusting forward in powerful Dominion, sweeping out across the room and wrapping Charles up as sure as Erik's own arms, which follow suit. Charles belongs to him. And whether it's accurate or not, he thinks the Void might in some way belong to him, too, wearing his collar when it separates long enough to wink at him from Oblivion. And Erik loves the Void, because Charles is inside of it and it is inside of Charles, a part and a whole, and Erik will guide it best he can. But to do that, he must Know.  
  
Charles is a gasping, moaning mess again after that, but it's not that he wanted to disobey. He just needed a bit of a nudge, reassurance and Dominion, and it's clear he's gotten it, whimpering and sweet into Erik's neck and trying not to wriggle against the cock lodged heavy and hard inside of him because he hasn't been told he can. His own dick is so red and leaking it's painful, dragging and leaking against his Dominant's stomach and it won't take more than a word to have him come again, at Erik's Command. He's waiting like a good boy. He needs so much guidance, but he's so eager to be good. "It said a lot of things," he murmurs, and none of it was in words. A language only he and the Universe share, but it's Charles' job to translate. To help Erik know. He's stalling, just a little, but not really. Erik said to tell him everything, and Charles doesn't get to decide what's important, but this is clearly not the part that worries him. "It said - that I should trust you, that I have to trust you, no matter what," he whispers. He peeks up that shy, sweet smile, kisses Erik's neck gently. "That I have to be good for you. That you know what to do, but I have to behave for you." This is good for Erik to know, too, isn't it? That this is how the Void feels, what he's shared with Charles?  
  
For his part, Erik is thoroughly distracted by Charles's thoughts, by the way he struggles not to move and Erik pins him down, hard, hands over his head, knees his legs open wider so he can roll them over a little, so Charles can Present to him properly and he's full in more than one way, Erik's already pulsed inside of him, and it hasn't sated a bit. He fucks into his own mess, eyes locked on Charles's reddened, puffy hole as it sucks in Erik's cock like he was made for it and he was, he was. He was made to be Erik's, in all ways and Erik's hands trace down his chest, to clasp his poor, leaking dick in calloused fingers and Erik's rasping into his ear, "Waiting, hm? Being so good and waiting for me, sweetheart? Because you belong to me-" punctuated with another searing jolt. "No matter what. No matter what. Behave for me, hm? Even now. Aren't you?" Perhaps this isn't what the Void meant, but Erik's been burning alive for what seems like hours and he can't help himself and he's sorry, he's too-animalistic, too baser, too focused on raw physical instinct to really appreciate it-even though he does, because of course he does. Everything the Void does, that it does for him, Erik is awed and humbled by it and that spills out, too. The Void helps him. The Void trusts him, it asks him to teach and he's trying, trying so desperately-he just wants to make Charles feel good. Make him feel safe. Make him feel wanted and whole and perfect because he is-  
  
Charles wails as he's fucked, loud and practically incoherent, because he's been burning up, too. Inside out, he's been burning up and it's been excruciating, but this feels so nice. His mate takes such good care of him. He gasps and clenches harder, whining in protest every time he fucks back out of him, whimpering, actually tearing up when his Dominant isn't filling him up and stuffing him. Even a second or two is torture. His hand wanders to his own belly, not to touch further down, he wouldn't dare if Erik didn't say, won't even thrust into the big hand holding him there, but just because - he swears he can feel, that he can feel Erik inside of him, and he's purring with it. Does Erik know about it, how nice it is? The truth is, he could have come plenty since this started again, but he's waited. He's waited because he knows that good boys wait to be told, to breathe and move and certainly to come, and he couldn't the first few times but he can now, he promises. Erik decides, not him. "Please, sir," he begs, and it's clear he's forgotten about the other things the Void said. He's focused on this, too, he's animal, too.  
  
"'S nice? Hm? You feel nice, _neshama_?" Erik rumbles into his ear, his other hand pulling Charles's hips back against him as much as it can, without sacrificing that delicious hold over Charles's cock that's leaking all over his fingers and it's fire, in his gut and his chest like a flashflood arcing between every neuron and he groans with it, a loud noise that he'd never ordinarily make but it's different now, it's all different, he doesn't remember why he can't anymore and it's too much, it has to escape him somehow. "Want to come, sweetheart? Mmhmn, you've been very good, do you think I should let you? You do sound so pretty begging me. Keep you like this."  
  
Better than nice. There's fire in Charles, too, burning him up and out. His skin is so incredibly hot to the touch but this time it's not sickness. This time it's sweat and heat and need, pure, raw, instinctive need and whimpering and gasping and moaning, loud and unashamed because he's forgotten how to be again. His Dominant groaning makes him shudder because he's being of use. He's making his mate feel nice, too. He's forgotten nearly everything but Erik's cock inside him, but being full and being owned and he's crying again but it isn't fear or shame. He's just so overwhelmed, it feels so nice, being full. "H- ah, I -" It's hard to speak, but Erik asked him a question. Good boys answer when they're spoken to. "Please, sir, may I come?" Ask nicely. Erik might say no, but he can always ask. He's learning, is it good? Is Erik pleased, is he proud?  
  
" _Not yet_ ," Erik grits out lowly into his ear, his hips snapping forward inhumanly-harsh. The Void took the pain away, one that he never realized existed there until it was gone, joints overtaxed from years of hardship, and it is nice and he loves the way Charles feels in his hand, underneath him, spread out and whining and making the most delicious sounds that Erik absorbs like a plant bends toward sunlight-not because Charles has been bad, oh no, but because it's Erik's choice and Erik wants him like this just a little while longer, just a little more, until all that incoherent need builds up and blisters out and only then, only then does Erik capitulate. "Come," he Commands roughly, jerking Charles's cock and slamming right up against that bundle of nerves inside that makes Charles convulse unconsciously.  
  
Charles will happily endure it for as long as Erik says. He'd take it even if he didn't get to come, even if Erik said no, even if he made Charles take it and take it and take it but when Erik says he can, when he Orders him, rewards him, Charles screams. He screams at the top of his lungs, animal and drawn-out, whining and crying and gasping for air as he slowly comes down from it. He's utterly wrecked, he's boneless and sobbing and somehow still hard, squeezed tight around Erik inside of him, and he's babbling, too. "Th-Thank you, thank you, thank you, sir," he pants, because he's a good boy, he's a polite boy, his Dominant is so generous and takes such wonderful care of him and he should know how grateful Charles is and he's covered in his own come, he came so much, he moans as he comes even more, another spurt that makes him entirely too oversensitive, shivering violently, and still it's not enough. He thinks there's something else he wants to say but he can't think it, he definitely can't speak it, just cries and slumps into the bed, knowing Erik will take care of him like this, too. He can still use him, too. Charles wants that.  
  
"Mmmhh," Erik mumbles a non-coherent noise, nosing against Charles's cheek, drawing him up closer. He's come again, too, but he keeps lazily thrusting into it with a contented little growl. "Want to say?" he pokes at that, because anything Charles has to say, anything he thinks, everything he thinks belongs to Erik, not just his body but his mind; Erik wants it all, every thought and twitch in his hand (which he still hasn't moved, pumping Charles in a slow, satisfied rhythm) and in his heart and his head and beyond, into the Void and outward, every atom that Charles has put forth in the universe, Erik wants it returned back to him, back to its rightful place. "Say it. Tell me," he Commands, still coming down off of his own release and quite a bit Domineering for it.  
  
Charles certainly isn’t going to argue that Erik should be less Domineering, and he’d have a much better time making a case for more. It makes him shiver harder, besides, mumble into the bedsheets where he’s fallen forward. He’s still Presented nicely for his mate, whimpering quietly every time Erik’s thumb strokes over the head of his dick, still twitching and leaking and red and now so oversensitive that hurts, but he’d never ask for it to stop. He wouldn’t want it to, Erik can hold him for however long he likes, he can make him take whatever he feels like. It takes him a while to get his thoughts back enough to obey, and he’s sniffling as he attempts it, but he thinks he remembers. “The Void wants to talk,” he mumbles finally, and tries to find Erik’s other hand, warm and comforting. He wants to curl up and be petted, purring and wrecked and mostly drifting, the Void can wait, can’t it?

* * *

Erik is a good multi-tasker, though, and he does indeed gather Charles up in his arms to be petted and spoken to softly, nonsensical stories about kings and donkeys and hidden treasures in the sky, and meanwhile, he presses little open-mouthed kisses along Charles's jaw and inquires, "Talk? 'Kay," he purrs contentedly. "It can talk, it's OK. It belongs, too." Belongs here. Belongs to Erik. Belongs with Erik. It's not an intruder. Even amidst the throes of this cycle, whatever it may be or however it originated, Erik can't see the Void as a threat, simply because he can't see it as separate from Charles. Different, yes, and it is not his mate, and he would never seek to replace Charles with the Void, but-there is a place for it, here. He can make space. He can be good, too.  
  
But one thing that’s quickly becoming apparent is that Charles is in some ways hurt by the Void, and he’s certainly pushed away when it comes forward. They can’t seem to exist at the same place at the same time, at least not currently, because in some ways they are the same. The Void is apologetic. It doesn’t mean Charles any harm, of course it doesn’t; it did everything it could to preserve Charles, to save him after he swallowed it, when it became Void-Charles. It’s still trying to help. It’s part Charles, too, just like Charles is also the Universe. But they are separate, and Charles pouts, sniffles louder, wriggles against Erik to feel him still-hard and filling inside him, squirms in his arms until he can get his mate’s attention. He’s greedy and he knows it, but he wants his attention. They’re going through a cycle and it doesn’t feel like it’s done, or even close. His instincts are nearly all he has now, and he was a good boy and Erik said he would take care of him if he did, so why should he go away? Why should he have to? He fusses, still frowning as he presses back against Erik’s chest. “I don’t want it to,” he huffs.  
  
Maybe not, but that isn't Charles's decision, and Erik isn't banishing him away. He couldn't. He would cease to exist himself. But the Void did for him what no one else could possibly do; the Void helped him. It helped him take care of Charles when he was fragile and it helped him save Charles,. He can't ignore it, either. Erik gets the feeling it's emerging for the same reason, and if there's some way it can help, if there's some way it can perhaps restore what was lost, make Charles less afraid, more comfortable, Erik is obligated to entertain that request. Erik touches Charles's cheek. "I'm going to take care of you," he whispers, kissing his temple. "I wouldn't let it speak unless I knew it could help me do just that, hm?" he smiles softly. "Let it come," he whispers the Order, gentle. As far as he's understood it, Charles won't notice the passage of time; and he hasn't been aware of the Void before, which means he isn't cognizant of where he goes during those periods. It's safe. Erik hopes beyond hope it is safe.  
  
Charles doesn’t know. He won’t remember. It’s safe. Those facts are conveyed to Erik even while Charles himself doesn’t know them from somewhere outside (but inside, too, the way all Void-things are) because Charles is frightened even as he does as he’s told, clinging desperately to Erik, whining as he feels himself start to slip. He’s burning up again, for a different reason than before. “But I’m scared, I don’t want to go, I want to stay with you,” he gasps, and his eyes are full of tears again as he grabs onto Erik’s arm, squeezes down where he’s still inside. The room is starting to shake, the bed trembling with the force of the sheer amount of energy and power being summoned forth. “I don’t want to go, please don’t make me,” he repeats, voice cracking. He needs Erik. Doesn't Erik need him, too? Wasn't he a good boy?  
  
"Stop," Erik whispers, framing his face, dislodging his hands to hold them and touch him. "You won't go anywhere. I promise. You need to trust me. Remember what you were told? That is true now more than ever." And it has nothing to do with Charles being bad, Erik makes sure that fact is abundantly clear, and everything to do with his own concern for Charles's welfare. And there is a deep confidence in him, too, that isn't just blind faith. He knows that Charles will be all right. It's happened before. He hasn't kept it hidden from Charles, but they haven't exactly had time to sit down and talk about it, either. But Erik knows Charles won't go away. He won't disappear. He'll pop right back into existence, he'll be right beside Erik as if no time has passed at all. He won't be lost in a Void. Erik would never let that happen. "You need to trust me, _neshama_. Please."  
  
Perhaps, deep down, Charles already knows that. It’s not being swallowed he fears, it’s being pushed away at all when he can’t fathom it at the moment. It’s selfish, maybe, greedy and silly, but he doesn’t want to share his mate’s attention with anyone now, not even a part of himself. But he nods regardless, even as he cries, nuzzles into Erik’s hand on his cheek, allows himself to calm. He does trust his mate. It hurts, but not unbearably. He wasn’t fighting it in the first place, but now that he relaxes the room is absolutely seeped in energy, and his eyes are too heavy to keep open. He’s fading. “Will you - will you hold me?” he whispers, quiet and hopeful, his words slurred, and his skin is suddenly freezing. Asking nicely, even if he won’t be around to reap the benefits. He’s not being sent away, he knows that. But it will hurt if Erik isn’t touching him even if he’s not here, will he please keep holding him, will he stay inside so he's not empty?  
  
"Always, dear-heart," Erik murmurs softly into his ear, pressing their foreheads together. Erik couldn't fathom being separated, and he shifts so that Charles can rest himself against Erik's chest, tuck himself under Erik's chin and be soothed by his voice and his hands, as much as Erik can. It belongs to him, too.


	86. oh my crumbling heart, if you be good to me, i'll be good to you

It happens slower this time than it has before, or perhaps it’s just that Erik is aware that it’s happening. Charles settles against his Dominant’s chest, his eyes slipped closed, and eventually he slips out. His consciousness begins to fade, and then it’s gone entirely; not taken, not stolen, not swallowed, but temporarily out of reach, Charles’ body left breathing shallowly, his skin clammy but cold like ice. The room is colder, too, and just like before Erik finds he can’t do a thing to change it, all of the heat sucked out like something is absorbing it, but it isn’t truly the case.  
  
It’s just a perception, just the way it manifests, the way Erik’s brain makes sense of the Universe manifesting in this bedroom, and for just a brief moment there’s the ear-splitting sound of the world bending and twisting to make room, deafening, unbearable. Everything shakes and trembles, then stops. Goes utterly still. And then it’s there. Leaned against the bed as casual as can be, wearing Charles’ face, albeit cracked with galaxies, bare except for Erik’s collar, those endless black holes for eyes, but somehow there’s always still been kindness there, too.  
  
The Universe wasn’t kind before Charles swallowed it, but it is now. Its lips curve up, and then, looking straight at Erik, it winks. It told him it would be back soon, and here it is.  
  
Erik curls into Charles further for warmth, shivering, teeth-chattering until it slowly dissipates and the Void is left in comparably human form. He blinks up, owlish and curious and a little de-centered, his thoughts rolling around like marbles in his skull, but he manages to pull his face into a facsimile of a smile, as if he can't-quite remember how to do it, how to be anything other than Charles's mate, how to exist in any other way, but he is, he still is. Even now, he is. He rubs Charles's back, cards his fingers through his hair and stays inside, just like Charles asked. When he finds his voice, it's hoarse and cracked, but his smile turns warmer, more sincere. "Hello."  
  
Erik doesn’t need to be anything but Charles’ mate, fortunately. The Void is here to speak to Charles’ mate, actually, and there doesn’t need to be any sort of readjustment. When it walks, everything seems to distort around it, around its graceful, elegant strides; the temperature drops again, far too cold for summer, and the Universe whispers, in tones and a language Erik can’t understand, but it’s fascinating and exceedingly obvious how powerful it is. And yet it perches right on the bed and smiles, the one dimple not swallowed by the cracking in its skin visible. Charles’ dimple. **_Hello_** , it greets, in that same voice, not-Charles but certainly more him than it isn’t. _**You have questions. I’d like to answer them.** _It spoke to Charles, and Charles understood, but there are some things it needs to discuss privately with Erik. Charles’ Dominant can decide when and how those things get told to Charles; even the Void doesn’t presume to tell him how to care for his submissive, only give him the right information so he can. It wants to help.  
  
Erik knows he does have questions, but he can't exactly remember them right now, that would involve a series of coordinated and sequential thoughts that he doesn't have the capacity for, but he nods. He thinks the Void knows, and the Void will help him piece it together. Instinctively, he touches his own forehead, where the gash had been that closed over; but he doesn't put it together, it's an unconscious motion. "I would like that," he whispers back, drawing the blankets over himself not to conceal himself, but because he is genuinely freezing. He knows it's not the Void's fault, but despite being unable to alter the room, he can manipulate a blanket-fort.  
  
The Void hums, half sympathetic, half apologetic; it doesn't mean to make Erik uncomfortable, and it would certainly never do it intentionally. It warms the blanket until it's heated, far more cozy, reaches out to tuck it over Charles' body, too. Even wholly unconscious Charles is shivering, wracked by full-body tremors. It's sorry for that, too. He's starting to reach out to me, the Void sighs, and perhaps for the moment it seems worried. But he doesn't know it. ** _You saw yourself. The healed gash. The healed brand._**  
  
"Yes," Erik replies softly. When he's alone with Charles, all of his responses and reactions make sense, but this isn't just Charles, and Erik is embarrassed to find that tears have gathered in his eyes when he remembers-Charles took it from him. The pain, and fear, and disgust, he can't take that, but he took the brand, and it threatens his stability, wavers his composure until it cracks just a little before he can stop it. He clears his throat and swallows it down, hiding his face in Charles's shoulder for a few moments before lifting his head again. "Is that a bad thing?"  
  
The Void doesn't judge, not for a moment. It's patient and it's kind and it waits, but though it's almost impossible to discern an expression on its face even though Charles is normally very expressive, it looks grim and serious when it leans forward, touching Erik's cheek. It doesn't feel quite like Charles, like skin touching skin, too cold, whispering too much; it isn't. **_Yes_** , it answers simply. **_But not necessarily for him._**  
  
"For you?" Erik wonders, his eyes instinctively fluttering closed against the touch, completely trusting, despite so much evidence still written on his skin that the Universe is unkind, that it only wants to hurt Erik, that its inhabitants are inherently dangerous and frightening; Erik isn't afraid. He can't be afraid, not when he recognizes his beloved.  
  
And his beloved recognizes him. It smiles again, and it has become kind; it's gentle, if not cold as it touches Erik's face, traces the curve of his cheek, as if in wonder itself. **_No_** , it answers, shaking its head. Its eyes wander to the window, and suddenly it opens. **_For them_** , it clarifies, when the sound of the city is much more audible, amplified, the volume turned up to make its point. For everyone else.  
  
"I don't understand," Erik whispers, regretful he's a very simplistic kind of human, apologetic for not being able to instantly comprehend what the Void is telling him, as if it will grow impatient and recognize what Erik has always feared, that he is not worthy of being Bonded to it; if not it specifically, then very-near adjacent. And then apologetic further for his own insecurity. In moments like this, everything is... _heightened_. Every aspect of one's self, for good or ill, and a big part of that for Erik is restraint and repression and control and so it's been bottled up inside, and leaks over at inopportune moments. He doesn't know that, though. He just knows that he feels-unstable. He doesn't like that feeling. He wants to pop it all back into himself and bury it under the trees and inside the particles of sand, and but then it might touch Charles, and he can't have that, either. Erik realizes he's gone into a spiral, his thoughts chasing themselves like dogs chasing their tails, and he ducks his head a bit, into the Void's hand with the motion, sheepish. "Sorry."  
  
But the Void just smiles, and it strokes Erik's mind like it does his cheek, a calming balm, soothing and patient and healing; it doesn't think those things at all. Erik is the only one who could ever hope to be worthy of Bonding to Charles, and the Void by extension. Erik isn't simple, and he's allowed to be insecure, but there's no reason to repress and no rational reason for that insecurity. The Void is here to help, and so it will. Erik knows what to do. Charles is still in his arms, still shivering, seeking Erik out even while he's unconscious; ** _it's nice, isn't it, to hold him? To care for him, to control him?_** It will give him back soon, it promises. **_He doesn't want to hurt anyone_** , the Void says, an echo of earlier. ** _But he might, like this. He wouldn't mean to. But if there aren't proper precautions, he might. More than he did today. More than some pain, some loudness. Something irreversible._** And they both know what it would do to him.  
  
Erik nods, and listens, solemn and serious. "What can I do? What kind of precautions?" he wants to know, because he'll do it, anything. It's not that he cares deeply about everyone else, because-and maybe it's sad to say, but true-they don't matter to him as much as Charles matters. And he doesn't want Charles to suffer the things he has which made him that way. He doesn't want him to know the pain of death and killing, of being a monster.  
  
The Void hums again. It leans back, but its hand lingers on Erik's cheek, its black eyes watching him silently for a few moments that, strangely, feel like decades. ** _You are not a monster_** , the Void informs him, and from his mouth it sounds like objective fact, not the quiet, pleading, emotional intensity that Charles delivers it with. Charles and Erik are not the same, but that is what makes them mates, a perfect match; but for Charles, hurting those people outside the window would crush him completely. It would destroy him. The Void needs to avoid that, and that's why it's telling Erik. **_You can't stay here. He's going to lose more, I'm afraid, and when he does, everything will become unstable._** Staying here puts everyone in danger. Including the blue couple downstairs, the ones Charles and Erik consider family.  
  
"Stay here-?" Erik looks around the room. He doesn't know again. "We don't remember a lot. I remember more. I know things sometimes, and not other times." Like the blue couple. Erik knew instinctively, but then he didn't, and he frightened the man. He tried to hurt. The woman was angry with him. Is angry with him. He doesn't remember. "Will he get it back? He wants to know."  
  
When the Void laughs, it sounds very much like Charles' laugh except in the way it echoes, the way it sounds like every time Charles has ever laughed; proof that he's inside of it, that it's made up of him, too. **_Yes_** , it promises, certain. **_But he'll lose more first. You'll remember. It might be frightening for you, or perhaps it will be sad. I'm sorry,_** and it is. It truly is, though it's hard to tell, its universe-cracked lips pulled into a bemused frown. The Universe was never sorry before Charles, but it is now. It is sorry to hurt Erik, to ask this of him, but he's the only one who could. **_He'll need you more than he ever has, then, but he might not know it._**  
  
Understanding clicks into place. The Void didn't mean you as in **_you_** and Charles, he meant you as in _Erik_ , specifically. Erik needs to go back. He needs to return. To remember. He's not sure he wants to. He knows enough to know that it's-painful. A kind of pain that can't be taken from him, without fundamentally changing who he is. Without taking away the parts of him that can be responsible for an entire Universe. He knows almost all of the marks on his skin are associated with their own worlds of terror, and when he touches over them the screaming and the thrashing, bleating, trapped no exit. no. exit. no. exit. no exit. no exit. no exit- doesn't pop up. He just feels-warm, and content, and safe, and he's with his mate, and it is nice. It's nice to be holding him like this. He wants to keep doing that. He's selfish. "OK," Erik croaks back, giving a shaky nod.  
  
Well, it means both. There's something quite literal about it too, but Erik hasn't truly forgotten, has he? It's not taken from him, is it? But the Void isn't going to take this from him. The cycle isn't over. His mate still needs him like this, needs him desperately, breathing shallowly in Erik's arms only because he's being held and taken care of even now. They're both learning. There's still more to teach and learn, but the Void interrupted for a reason. ** _You cannot stay here_** , the Void repeats, though he knows it will cause problems. It will be difficult. But Erik wants to keep Charles safe, and this is part of it. He can do it. He will know what to do, not only now and like this but when the time comes. The Void is only sorry that it will. ** _Once, you said you would run away with him if he asked. It seems I am asking for him,_ **the Void says, and its lips twitch again.  
  
Erik doesn't understand again, but he trudges forward resolutely, nodding. "OK. Where do we go?" he asks, and it's not a refusal. He'll do it. He said he would run away with him and he meant it, he'll go anywhere he needs to go, to the ends of the Earth and beyond. He already jumped into the Void and spent a million years floating in indiscriminate space. He'll do even more.  
  
The Void is sorry, which is wholly new for the Void, actually. It's sorry to have to ask this, and there are things Erik knows, perhaps not precisely at this moment but that it returns gently, quietly, that will make this inconvenient. Obligations, circumstances, commitments. But it isn't wrong, either. Not about the danger, and not about what it will do to Charles if something should happen. It sighs, and looks exceptionally like Charles as it looks toward the window again. ** _Build a new nest,_** it suggests. **_He won't like this. You may like it even less._**

* * *

Erik swallows, because at this second he doesn't particularly care about obligations and commitments, he cares about Charles. But he's trusting the Void, he's trusting it not to hurt them. But he can't help to clutch Charles closer to him. A new nest. If he has to. He already doesn't like where this is headed even though he doesn't know what this is and his hackles are raised, the cycle very much still in effect, but he's starting to feel clearer. More rational.  
  
The Void is still staring at the window it opened, but considering it sees everything and the human eyes it has are a construction, it doesn’t mean it isn’t watching Erik, too. Some of that rationality has quite a bit to do with it; it needs Erik to be rational for this, to understand what it’s asking. This cycle won’t be over for quite a while yet, in human terms, but what comes after and what happens during the rest of it is crucial. Charles is starting to skip breaths in Erik’s arms, starting to convulse. They don’t have much time, they never do. There’s almost something sad about that for the Void, and when it looks toward Erik, it’s clearly evident. It loves Erik, too. **_Do you have questions? We’re running out of time, Erik,_** it says, and it loves Erik, too.  
  
Erik sits up, and this time he puts his own hands over the Void's cheeks (more or less, like touching a galaxy itself and Erik inhales softly, audibly at the sensation), the good and the bad. "Lots," he admits roughly. Lots of questions. The Void must know that Erik loves it, too. He has since the moment it appeared wearing his collar. "I will figure it out. I will keep him safe. I will protect him." Thanks to you.  
  
Actually, it isn’t exactly the case. The Void knows everything, and all of it at once; it could answer those questions, if Erik asked them. It likes answering questions, if it can like anything. It’s very good at answering questions, but the truth is that Erik often figures it out all on his own. The Void is good at nudging, the same way Erik is now teaching his Charles. Erik needs to learn, too, and it’s important that it lets him, but it doesn’t want to leave him frightened. It’s learning not to be cruel, somehow. The Universe is learning, too. **_It would hurt him_** , the Void explains, and looks down at Charles, wracked by shivers in Erik’s arms. ** _I will be here, and I will be back, but for now it's for the best._ **The Void can’t blink, and it doesn’t show surprise, but it tilts its head the way Charles does, that bit of mimicry. ** _You will miss this? Why?_**  
  
Erik shrugs. The easiest answers are often usually the simplest ones, although if the Void were human, it would absolutely be vague and unhelpful, but knowing everything in the Universe might make that transition easier. "Because I love you." _Too_ , he doesn't add, but the Void Knows. He's part of Charles, and Charles is part of him, and Erik knows it isn't the same, but that's just the way it is. Erik feels protective of the Void, responsible for it.  
  
Responsible for it. The Void is amused, and it's pleased, in that abstract, strange way, filling the room with it; it feels protective of Erik, too. Very much so. And truly, Erik wasn't wrong about the Void belonging to him, too. Does it not wear his collar? Does it not help him so Erik can care for Charles, and by extension it? It hums again, and then it does something incredibly strange, for the Universe. It nuzzles against Erik's hand against his cheek, like a seeking, affectionate creature, rubbing galaxies into it in the process. It can stay a while longer. It won't hurt Charles for it, but it can stay just a while longer. It wants to talk. **_Where will you take him?_** it asks, though it already Knows.  
  
Erik blinks. "I have a choice?" he didn't think he did. He doesn't know what the parameters are. The Void says it's not safe here, but anywhere Erik can think of-home, in Israel, is what comes to mind-the same parameters apply. There are still people. Should he go some place without them? How far away does he need to go? Erik rubs his thumb, the good one, under the Void's eyes, so very gently.  
  
Erik doesn’t need to be gentle with the Void, but it appreciates the gesture. Its eyes don’t close like Charles’ might, but the sound it makes is almost a purr in its own right, a vibrating humming noise that sounds like electric currents, something to please Erik. He likes those sounds. They calm him. **_Of course you have a choice,_** it huffs. The Void never tells Erik what to do, only helps him decide. It trusts him to make the right decisions. ** _I can keep anyone from finding you, but it should be a good distance. Somewhere safe. Somewhere worthy of a nest, of course_**. It sighs again, that human mimicry. **_He won’t always like it,_** it reminds Erik, but Charles’ Dominant knows Charles enough that he must have guessed. ** _You might have to leave him._**  
  
Those electric currents do calm Erik, and he sags a little, his head lolling forward until he can press his forehead to the Void's, taking slow, even breaths. "I can't leave him," he whispers. Erik twitches, deeply perturbed. He can't be away from his mate. He can't, he'll burn alive. He'll burn everyone else alive. It's not about disliking it, although he does, deeply. But he'll die. And Charles, what will happen to Charles? He'll think Erik abandoned him. And why? Why would he do that? What could possibly make him do that? He won't forgive Erik. Erik won't forgive himself.  
  
The Void sighs again. He knew this reaction was coming, of course it did; it summons pretty, shining metal spheres for Erik to play with, hums more of those pleasing, calming currents. It wants to help. It wants to calm. Its hand winds itself into Erik’s hair, and there’s something like fascination coming off of him; it’s learning, and it strokes impossibly gently, afraid to cause harm. It cannot hurt Erik. **_Do you remember your family, Erik?_ **it asks.  
  
For a while Erik is still very tense, but when the Void scritches right behind his ear, he sags even further, eyes fluttering closed. He shakes his head. He doesn't remember them, not really. Charles is his family. And the blue man and woman. And Israel is home. But that's it, there are vague undercurrents, something he should know, but it's lost amidst the cycle, the fever and burning and heat. "Not well," he croaks.  
  
The Void can’t and won’t take away the heat and the burning, the cycle, but it can give Erik a reminder. It can help him understand what it means, and what Erik will need to do. **_Look_** , the Void whispers, and in its eyes is the answer, the endless black opening up to reveal it. The kids. Wanda, Pietro. Magda. All of those people currently relying on him, the ones who came to their Bonding. Erik's family.  
  
His lips part and he gasps, shocked by the knowledge, but something else happens too and he doesn't want to put Charles down or stop touching the Void but he smashes his hands into his eyes and wheezes harshly, and he doesn't know what's happening or why but he forgot them-he forgot who they were. He forgot who they were. He seemed to be OK with it, before he remembered, trusting that it would come back and it has, but something is different about their children, something more than it just being that they're Erik's kids (though there is that guilt, it's tempered by understanding).  
  
The Void knows. And the truth is, Erik didn’t forget. Not the way Charles did, not the way he will. He knew, he always knew. The cycle is overwhelming, and it burns everything else out, and that isn’t something worthy of guilt. It isn’t at all that he’s neglected him or forgotten, he knew; but once it’s over, what comes next will be a problem. There are things Erik will have to do while taking care of Charles. **_Y_ _ **ou** didn’t forget_**, it assures. **_But they need you, too_**. Which means he cannot always be with Charles. The Void is sorry to put him in this situation, he knows it will be difficult.  
  
Erik breathes out shakily, sniffing. "I can take him with me," he thinks, and says it aloud as he does. He can make sure that he's not five thousand miles away when Charles wakes up, lost and confused and not knowing what's wrong. His children may need him, and he'd never deny that, but they have Magda. They have David and Ellie, they will survive a few days or weeks without him. Charles won't.  
  
That’s true. They will, and Charles will need Erik. The Void won’t deny that, it couldn’t. ** _You cannot take him with you_** , the Void says, and it hasn’t told Erik what to do, but this it will insist on. If Charles would be devastated by hurting someone else, imagine how he would feel if he came back to himself and found out he’d hurt one of them. Someone in his family. He would not live through it. But it isn’t quite about that, is it? **_Do you remember what you were doing, Erik?_ **Why they were in Israel. Where they were meant to go next. The Void shows him, and plays Charles’ voice, his reasoning why they could not simply disappear: for them. For their family. For their future. It’s the Void’s duty to remind him, to show Erik every aspect so he can make the decision. Erik does not have to leave while Charles is sleeping. It very easily could be weeks, after their cycle ends. Months, even. Charles is going to completely reset. How will Erik handle it? Will he have them both disappear, while Charles can’t be around others?  
  
"I can't-I can't do that, I can't-" Erik stares at the Void, completely lost. "I can't do that. I can't do it. I can't do it." He's misunderstood what the Void is telling him and he knows he's babbling, but-he can't. He can't go through with Shaw's trial without Charles. It is not possible. They won't go anywhere next. Erik is the key witness, without his testimony on the record the Defense will have ample opportunity to make a case for Shaw's innocence, and even when Shaw's second trial starts, one that Erik won't have much to do with (although he'll likely have to sign an affidavit at the least since he _saw_ those records), it is possible that the court will find Shaw innocent enough to mitigate a more serious sentence.   
  
It's happened before. If they can't prove that Shaw directly took part in, or so ordered others to take part in the killings, and in many cases that proof is substantially lacking, even in the 50s. 80 years later it's unlikely they'll find anything truly significant, and Shaw's power means he's been intimidating people to keep silent for at least half that long. The point is, without Charles, there is no Erik. There may not even be justice.  
  
There’s no reversing what Charles is experiencing. There’s no postponing it. The Void stares calmly, though, his hand on Erik’s cheek. **_Do you think he believes you can do it, Erik?_** he asks quietly, and there are those humming currents again, soft and thrumming and consistent, his other hand still in Erik’s hair. Learning, learning.  
  
"I can't do it," Erik gasps. Charles might believe it. He's incredibly, endearingly idealistic. Erik won't be able to do it. He won't even be able to talk. There's no way. It's over. They've lost. Even if he could speak, he can't survive facing Shaw alone. And although Erik isn't thinking this, the Void knows all to well that without Charles, Shaw will see an opportunity, because Shaw has already seen who really protects who. Erik may be powerful, but it doesn't matter. He won't use his abilities. He'll fall right back into line, scared and afraid. And Charles will blame Erik for getting himself hurt or worse, he'll blame himself.  
  
The Void knows. It was worth asking, but it knows. Erik isn’t entirely correct, and he can’t be on this; but there is accuracy, and so it leans back. Its eyes are dark and boundless again. **_I could fix it,_** it says.  
  
"Fix it?" Erik whispers.  
  
Now it smiles, its head tilted again. I am the Universe, it tells Erik, and it isn’t bragging, but there is some of Charles’ pride there. Another absorption, or perhaps the other way around. Both. **_The world can wait, if I’d like it to. Would you like it to?_** It is Erik’s decision. Charles would never do it, but Charles is not the Universe. He does not think like it does. Perhaps Charles would agree, but Charles is not here. Erik must make the decision for him. It's his responsibility and his right.  
  
Erik swallows. He doesn't really know what that means, but-"I can't do it without him," he chokes. Maybe it's selfish and wrong and ill-advised, and overly reliant, but he can't. That's what it means to be a Pairbond. Erik can and will and has faced any danger, any peril, but only if his mate is by his side. "I'll disappoint him."  
  
That is how a Pairbond works. Charles won’t be disappointed. He would never ask Erik to do this alone, and the Void wasn’t asking him to, either. They ended up here, and by the quirk to its lips, it seems to think they would always have ended up here. But Erik got here on his own; he made the decision, and the Void helped him to make **_it. It will only be you and him, then_** , the Void informs him. Only the two of them, separate from the rest of the world but inside of it, too. It’s unfortunate that it will be the first time they ever are, the first time there is nothing outside pressing in, but perhaps it is exactly what should be done. What they need to move forward, and come out stronger. **_A full-stop, with only each other. He will need you in ways you cannot imagine. It is no small responsibility_**. And the Void trusts Erik explicitly, but it wonders if it is asking too much. It also knows there is no other option, not one Charles will survive.  
  
Erik is OK with the responsibility. He just worries he won't live up to it. That he'll make a mistake, that he'll damage Charles irreparably. But he'll do his best, his very best, and maybe that's all that can be asked of him. But there is no other option. The world needs to stop. It needs to, because Erik can't exist in the world alone. He did, once. He existed, he thinks he did. He thinks he floated from day to day, with a mind turned off, processing events and people like a computer processes data. But he wasn't a person. He doesn't think he was. Now he knows he is. "I'll take care of him," he rasps softly.

* * *

His very best is always good enough. He will not damage Charles, but he will take care of him. They will be together, for the first time only together, and it will be difficult, and there will be pain, and stress, but they will come out stronger. They will become more of themselves, and more of what they are together. They will teach and learn. The Void knows these things as facts, and it is running out of time. Again there is that lingering, perhaps awed sadness; it will alter the very fabric of the world to give them time and space, it will help Erik in this way, it will watch over and protect, but it will not visit him like this. It can’t. There is something sad about that, though the Universe is not meant to be sad, and it makes those soft, electric hums, reaches forward to frame Erik’s face in its hands and lean in close, its eyes playing memories. A literal window into Charles’ soul, because it is in him, too. **_Ask me_** , it requests, and perhaps if it were human it would be begging. It wants to give Erik this. All the knowledge of the Universe, and it wants to help. It wants to give, but only to Erik. It wants to talk. It wants to stay, but it cannot, so it will take what it can get. There is more to say and it will, but what does Erik want? What does he desire to know? All of the Universe, and it looks and speaks like Charles. It wears Erik's collar. It's really quite extraordinary.  
  
Erik leans into that touch, cold and cracking and terrifying and awe-inspiring, but he only finds comfort, where no other being could. Charles and Erik are extraordinary. Faced with a source of such immense power, most people would struggle to stammer out a single coherent thought. Most people would want to know their future. How do they die, will they get the job, will they find true love. It's not wrong, either, but it's trivial for Erik, because he has his beloved. He is content to learn through time and experience, but there is something he does want to know, and maybe it's trivial, too. But not for him. The Universe wants to give to Erik, but Erik wants to give to it, too. He wants to know, he wants to make sure. He wants to take care of the very Universe itself. It's silly to think that it could belong to him. If he were himself, if he remembered, if he wasn't so incredibly focused on his mate and all the wonders held within him, he might very well have significant questions, philosophical questions, thought-provoking questions. Is there a G-d, where do people go after they die, will mutantkind be persecuted forever, why is there so much suffering, so much pain-but right now the only thing that comes to mind is with a soft smile. "Will you be happy? Someday?" Happiness. Pleasure. Joy. Erik wants that for the Universe.  
  
The Void isn’t surprised by it. It isn’t shocked, or startled, or confused. It does laugh, and it laughs Charles’ laugh, warm and gentle, echoed strangely but otherwise entirely recognizable. It strokes its thumb over Erik’s cheek. **_If you are, darling_** , it says, and it sounds so much like Charles that in that one moment, that one instance, it’s almost difficult to tell the difference. There almost isn’t one. **_May I show you something, Erik? It may be overwhelming, but I promise not to harm you_**. It never would. It's why Charles will not be safe around others, why he needs to be taken away, but it is alright if Erik is there. Why Erik can be the one to take him, to care for him when he needs it most. When the Universe slips out of him.  
  
Erik's trust is completely unconditional, and he nods without hesitating at the question, placing his hands over the Void's, in that moment unable to help thinking of him (him?) not as a Void at all-a void is an empty space, without feeling, without reason, and Erik has never felt this from the entity-but as Charles. As a part of Charles, as clear as any other part that has ever surfaced. He smiles almost sheepishly at the amused laugh. "OK," he agrees solemnly. "I'm ready."  
  
It’s not entirely accurate, but there is something to it. The Void - the Universe, the entity - is all of Charles, not a part of the whole. It contains everything he has ever been, or thought, or felt. Every memory, from first breath to the moment he swallowed it and it swallowed him right back, when they became each other. Now it wants to show Erik one of those moments, a moment he was not privy to in its entirety. He can’t be, truthfully, but there is more of it, more of it that the Void wants him to see, and suddenly they are not in this bedroom at all. They are floating in the Nothing, and Charles is screaming. He’s screaming, and screaming, and screaming, such agonized sounds, he’s being torn to shreds, ripped apart at his very seams, his existence stretched like overstressed elastic, pulled, pulled, pulled, and Erik is watching helplessly, not comprehending what is happening because there is no comprehending it; but here is the moment, and so Charles guides Erik to watch. It would be stunningly easy for Charles to give up here. To give in, and to let the Universe swallow him, absorb him, discard him; to let go, and stop the fighting he’d been doing for so very long. Impossibly long, unfathomably long, unbearably long, being destroyed and put back together and destroyed again. But what kept him going? What kept him fighting? What kept that tiny spark of hope, that bit of fuel? He was fighting a losing battle. It should have overcome him. It should have destroyed him. But it didn’t, and he became the Void, entered the Universe and let the Universe enter him. How? Why? It’s Erik’s face. It’s green eyes, emerald oceans that Charles remembers falling into as a child with wonder and awe, freckles, so many freckles (he has an exact number, he’s counted), his skin newly tanned from the sun in the desert. His desert boy, all grown up. Sun-kissed, Charles was thinking from a rooftop, smitten. Sun-kissed, and he was very nearly jealous of it, because who should kiss Erik but him? It’s the way his face crinkles when he laughs, the strong line of his jaw, the slope of his nose, how it rubs against Charles’, how it scrunches when he kisses it. His hands, large, always warm, calloused and rough, how it entirely eclipses his, how it makes him feel safe. His voice, rich and low and rumbled out from his chest, shivers down Charles’ spine even when he’s saying nothing particularly poignant. It’s all of this and more than this, all of it at once, and Charles thinks for him. He thinks for him, for him, for him, and a new Universe is born. The Void was created, this one who wears Charles’ face and Erik’s collar. **_Do you see_**? it asks, and it truly is remarkable.  
  
When the World comes back into focus, Erik is pitched forward, his bad arm loosely around Charles, the other hand is braced over his own chest as he struggles to suck in air, nearly retching with it. In the span of moments he watched Charles be ripped apart over and over again and he watched and he watched and his mind is screaming in tandem, please stop. **_Please stop, please stop hurting him_** -he couldn't understand, but even then, it's the sole mantra. _Don't hurt him. You don't have to hurt him._ And the Void listened. Somewhere in all of the screaming and the agony, the Universe listened, where it never listened to a single mortal before. Erik is crying, silent and without fuss, dripping into the bed sheets, but he turns to smile, to shift closer to the Void, and he puts his head on what he suspects is a shoulder, but he can't quite be certain. It was a lot. He wasn't harmed, but it was a lot, and he's shivering in the aftermath, teeth clacking together until he clenches his jaw. "I see," he replies. And it's overwhelming in a different way, confronted with the way his mate views him, it warms him from the inside-out and makes him somehow-shy (he must be returning to himself, he couldn't possibly feel this way before) and a lot grateful, and devastatingly awed by his wonderful, beautiful submissive and how strong he is and how amazing and incredible he is, the things he's done. Erik can't even imagine it. All he can do is fall more in love, if that's possible. The Universe is here; anything is possible, after all. "Thank you," he rasps against the frog rabbiting in his throat. He means it, from the depths of his soul and beyond. Thank you.  
  
It doesn’t make sense, but the Void, in the aftermath, is almost sheepish. Not quite embarrassed, because it doesn’t have the capacity, and certainly not regretful, because Erik learned what he needed to; but it was overwhelming, and perhaps it lingered for a second too long, showed him a moment too much. It strokes his hair, cold and calm but soothing, too, hums that pleasing, purring current. Charles is ghostly pale in Erik’s arms. The Void shouldn’t have kept him so long, but there’s just one last thing. It doesn’t mean to hurt him. _I could give it back to him, but it won’t last long_. They’re in the middle of a cycle, and it isn’t an ideal situation, but nothing ever is. Charles will be different, soon. He’ll be resetting, likely when said cycle does, when it comes to its end. Perhaps Erik would like to say goodbye before that happens. Perhaps Charles would like to say goodbye, perhaps they both would, together. To their family. He could arrange for it, allow for it; tinker with it just slightly, so they have enough time before the heat consumes them again, before they should leave. Then Erik can take him away. Then Erik can take care of him. Take care of the Universe, and the man who holds it inside of him. There is no mortal that could be trusted with the responsibility, none but him.  
  
It makes Erik look up and grin, quick and boyish. Without all of his comprehension, his experiences, his memories, he's younger like this. Less wrinkles, less tension. Just the cycle. Just Charles, and their nest, and their cocoon away from the World. But the Void is right. Erik needs all of those pieces to do his job, what he was meant to do. To take care of Charles, and his family. His whole family. Magda and Pietro and Wanda. Their babies. Does the Void know? Does the Void see how beautiful they are, too? Erik forgot them, he forgot to think about them. The cycle made him forget. Ms. Frost made him forget. It hurts. He doesn't mean to hurt. He doesn't mean to ache. But when the Void offers something else, Erik's lips part. "You can do that?" he whispers, no less amazed now than he was a moment ago.  
  
The cycle did not make him forget, certainly not the way Emma Frost did. Perhaps some things were reprioritized, but it wasn’t and isn’t forgetting. He always knew. They were always there, and they always will be, even when there are cycles, even when there is heat and burning and need. Even when they are away. Charles will forget them entirely. He might forget everything entirely. The Void knows it will be difficult. **_I can do that_** , it promises, perhaps amused, but solemn, too. It can offer this. **_But as I said, not for long_**. When the cycle starts again, he’ll start to lose again. **_It might be a very long time, Erik, and you will need to leave quickly_**. So they should get their goodbyes in while they can. It supposes it will need to say goodbye, too, its lips quirked as it rubs a lock of Erik’s hair with its fingers.  
  
"OK," Erik nods again, nudging against the hand in his hair. He's always liked that. He didn't remember until right now, but-it always makes him feel safe. Erik blinks and shifts a little, Charles still in his other arm. The thought is totally random, a memory out of place, a shifting of consciousness as the Real of his life seeps back in and shores him up. The bad slipping through with the good. Sometimes nice people did that. Stroked his hair. But the Void isn't here to hurt with the gentleness. A long time ago, someone promised him it would never happen again. He doesn't remember what. But he's safe, and he'll keep Charles safe. He too wants to stay, a moment out of time. But they don't have that luxury, so he sits up, takes the Void's hand in his instead. "OK," he repeats softly.  
  
No, they do not. Erik will get everything back when the Void leaves, too; a parting gift, though when the heat comes again so will the instincts, perhaps even stronger than they are now. Overwhelming, but not harmful, not unbearable. His will stay, even so, unlike Charles’. He’ll need it, to care for his mate. He’ll need it to take him somewhere else, somewhere safe, to find them a new nest, and he’ll certainly need it after while Charles resets. The Void hums again, and then it leans forward and presses its cool, galaxy-cracked lips to Erik’s cheek. We’ve run out of time, it says, unnecessarily. Erik knows. **_Are you going to take care of him?_** Its eyes are on Charles, now convulsing in Erik's arms, thrashing. The room is beginning to shake again.  
  
"Yes," Erik whispers, and his other arm comes up around Charles to steady him, to keep him from hurting himself. Taking care, even now. "I will find somewhere safe." He doesn't know where, exactly. His mind is full of mountain-tops and little huts, that he could build just for them, a nest made out of houses. He could do that. It would be safe, and remote, and the World could stop for a while and they could just be, and it would be all right. Erik will protect him and love him and serve him, too, in return.  
  
 ** _Hmm_** , the Void hums, and they only have moments. Seconds, really, but its lips are pulled up and it tilts its head. I do know of a castle that’s in need of being filled. Perhaps if you find it, also, you could put it to good use. Charles is resetting. Rebuilding. Reconstructing. He’ll need to remember, to reclaim; and if they ever hope to make cold, impersonal walls into a home, they will need to start somewhere. It’s only a suggestion. **_Don’t forget what you’ve learned, Erik_** , it says, and it’s Charles’ voice. It’s Charles’ voice, and so when the Universe is saying goodbye, perhaps it sounds a bit sad, too. Another mimicry. **_What he needs. What you do, too. Do you know what to do? Do you know who you are?_**  
  
He's starting to. Everything is beginning to seep back in, memories without feelings, feelings without memories, and Erik can't help it; when that one memory comes back, when it finally filters in, the point at which everything broke for him. He clutches to Charles tightly and hides his face, struggling to breathe. "OK," he gasps wetly. "OK, OK. I know. I know. I know, I know-" He wheezes softly, struggling, struggling to get himself under control. They don't have time for a breakdown, for a lifetime's worth of sorrow to crush its way in on Erik's heart. He has his mate, now. He has to look after him. "I know," he adds, softer.  
  
Seconds, but the Void can still help. Seconds, and it takes Erik’s tired heart, his ragged, weathered soul, and he eases it out, smooths it like he’s smoothing out wrinkles. The wrinkles in his shirt, the ones Charles was meticulous with earlier, the ones he will be with later if Erik Orders it; the way he serves his Dominant, his mate, the love and devotion. Erik should remember that. He should not forget. He's learned so much, and he should remember it; only Erik can care for his mate, only Erik can handle it, only Erik knows how. Erik, it says, and Charles is beginning to wake up, a cry on his lips as he tries to thrash in Erik’s arms, convulsing violently.

* * *

Erik sniffs and nods, looking back at the Void, fondness in his expression even through the cringe of pain that can't-quite be erased. He's heavier, now, more-himself, all the things that he's carried with him, all the pieces roaming around inside his head, inside the place where desert-meets-snow, have been returned. He's heavier for it, denser, as if each memory has a quantifiable weight in his soul. He's more restrained, he's more upright, he's more tense. But he's also more competent and decisive and able. He gathers Charles up completely, dresses him in pajama bottoms for the journey and tucks a blanket over his shoulders. "It's OK," this time he whispers it to Charles, pushing his hair back from his forehead. "I've got you. We're going somewhere safe."  
  
When the Void disappears, Charles is left retching, breathless, and heavy. Heavy, too, incredibly so. There’s no heat, and he’s so cold to the touch; there’s no heat, though he knows that it will be back, but there is clarity. There are memories, all prodded back into their place, fleeting and temporary and he knows, because the Void spoke to him, too, that it won’t last. That they will go, and he will forget, slowly and then all at once. He doesn’t know what will stay. He doesn’t know what will be left, and it’s so fiercely terrifying that he can’t even cry for it, can’t even grieve. The Void didn’t tell him how long, and he doesn’t understand all of it, he doesn’t know what was discussed, but he knows the gist. He’s going to be gone, soon, at least how he is. Perhaps he will never be this Charles again. How long does he have to know the people he loves? To remember them? How long do they have? He’s too weak to stand, he’s too weak to even fully lift his head, the heaviness in all his limbs, in his head, in the pounding, insistent migraine. Where are they going? He can’t go. He can’t go, he can’t go, this isn’t at all fair. “I - I have to, we have to -” There are people he loves, and Charles doesn’t want to forget. He doesn't want to go.  
  
Erik didn't want to remember, so they're two peas in a pod. But he's glad he does, because the good came with the bad. His kids, their children, David and Ellie and Near over the breakfast table laughing at some gaff _Likud_ made in the morning paper, even Dr. Haller and Carmen, and meeting Izzy, flying across the Manhattan skyline with Charles in his arms, their Bonding. Those things matter. They won't be gone forever. "I know," Erik murmurs, halting him in place. "I love you a great deal, Charles. Do you know this? Hm?" he lifts Charles's chin to gaze at him softly.  
  
They won't be gone for Erik at all, they weren't really gone in the first place and he did not forget so much as - but it isn't the time, and it isn't the place, and when Erik lifts his chin his eyes are incredibly blue and incredibly filled with sorrow, even as he nods, because doesn't he realize that's the problem? If something in this goes wrong, he could forget permanently. For even a moment, he likely will forget, he will forget, and he already did forget things he held so closely he could not previously imagine being gone. The thought strikes more terror in him, more grief, and his eyes widen as he turns and runs and does not spare it a thought because there is movement downstairs and he can hear it. He can hear it and Raven is right at the bottom of the stairs and he's immediately throwing his arms around her, he doesn't know how much time he has to do this and so it needs to be now and then he can't help but sob. He simply can't. 

* * *

"Raven, Raven, darling, oh, darling, my dear, my lovely sister," and she usually cuffs him over the head playfully for too many of those, especially if he means them, but it's an apology and it's for himself, too. How could he have forgotten her? How could he possibly have? They haven't had time to talk. He hasn't had time to tell her and he certainly doesn't now. Already the first stirrings of the heat from before tug at his belly, but he will ignore it for as long as he possibly can, and he holds her and he grips her tightly because she can squeeze him far harder than he could ever squeeze her and he does not want to let go. "I love you, I love you so very much, so dearly, surely you know," he gasps, and he means surely you will even if I don't.  
  
Erik follows behind, leaving himself on the outside and leaned against the wall after throwing on a pair of jeans that were crumpled in the corner of the bedroom, hopping and skipping to keep up and miraculously not falling all over himself. He doesn't interrupt as Raven hugs him back, her reddened eyebrows arched.   
  
"Of course I know," she huffs, settling her hand in the feathery hair at the back of his neck. She doesn't know what's going on, but she rolls with it as best as she can. "I love you too, silly," she teases affectionately. "Are you going to be OK?" she means that she obviously knows something is up, but not what, and it's disturbing and frightening and she looks to Erik standing there behind them a little warily, as if he's liable to jump up and throw her against the wall with a flick of his finger.  
  
He supposes he can't blame her for that. Charles laughs, thick and hoarse, sniffling into her shoulder, his fingers smoothing over her back and she's wearing a nightgown entirely too much like the ones he used to help her steal from Mother, and it's such a strange and wonderful and horrid thing to remember all at once and he would spend millennia experiencing the worst of Kurt and Cain if it meant he could hold onto this. "Do you remember at your wedding," he says, instead of answering what she's asked, "when we danced? I was feeling a bit sorry for myself, I'll admit, and I'm sure you knew," he snorts, because he was ecstatic that she'd found someone, that it was Hank of all people, but it sometimes makes the loneliness unbearable, being reminded of it. "But then you said I'd always have you. You didn't even think of it, Raven, you just said it - though I couldn't be sure of that, with you so tetchy about all this," he's teasing, truly teasing, and he taps his own temple, winces at the oversensitivity, at the migraine, but it doesn't matter. It could wrap him up in seething agony right now and it would not keep him from this. "You can't know what that has meant to me. You couldn't possibly." But he thinks she might, even still. "I'll be okay, darling, because if I'm not I'll never have beat you at darts, not once, and that really would be a black spot on my existence."  
  
"Oh please," she snorts. "You have never beat me at darts and you never will, little-brother." She grins, because he's older than her by a fair bit (OK, not a fair bit, but a bit-but to Raven, he's practically ancient); just another inside-joke between them. Because he's, you know, little. She lays her head down on his shoulder and sighs, wistful. "I'm sorry it took me so long to be comfortable with you," she says softly, solemnly. Another look-back at Erik, because regardless of how pissed off she might be at him, he's still responsible for helping them bridge that barrier. "You always will have me, Charles. No matter what." It doesn't matter if Charles thinks he didn't do a good job with Raven, it doesn't matter if there's still a lot for them to resolve in their past, he was the one who took her in and fed her and played with her and sang to her and told her stories and tucked her in at night, and she's never forgotten it.  
  
“Stranger things have happened, sister dear,” he reminders her, which is something he’s always said. Stranger things have happened, and it has never been more true for them, but even before all this they’d lived an extraordinary life. He did more than feed and clothe her, he knows that. He told the monster in her closet and under her bed stories to ward them off. _They can be our friends_ , he’d said, and she’d found it cheesy even then but played along. Once, he made her three birthday cakes before he ultimately decided store-bought was quite certainly the way to go, but he’d never told her about the effort beforehand, the frantic dash while she was off at school. He kept her safe, he protected her, and for all that Charles still wears marks on his body, for all that his mind will always be burdened by them, for all that bedroom doors creaking in the middle of the night sends him into a terror so visceral he cannot breathe or think, there isn’t a mark on her, even if her skin couldn’t heal them away. Not one. They never touched her, and he made absolutely sure of it. He knows she holds guilt because he could not always hide that they touched him, but he would rather it this way. A thousand, million times over, he would rather it this way. He was not always the best brother, but, “I tried,” he gasps, and tangles his fingers in that long, gorgeous hair of hers, red like fire engines and it never needed to be blonde. “I tried, Raven, I tried so very hard to give you the life you deserved, and I didn’t always know -” He had no reference. He had no real help. He was frightened and he was alone and he was desperate and he scrambled, he made poor decisions. “But I tried, and I loved you, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”  
  
"I know, Charles," Raven breathes into his ear, still-laughing. He was the best brother to her. She doesn't bear marks of her time with the Xaviers, but she does from her life beforehand, and it's something she's never really been open with him about. She'd been so small when he found her, it seemed like she'd forgotten about it over the years, but the truth is, she hasn't. She knows where she comes from, and she knows where she ended up and she vastly prefers that option, thank-you. Raven was always stronger and faster than him, and she threw herself in-between him and the others as often as she could, but it never made much of a difference, and she's sorry for that. She should've tried harder, been better. They both have mistakes to atone for, but Raven's never thought about it like that. She only cares that she has her brother, that he's here, that he's whole. "Don't even think on it," she murmurs. "I love you. You're forgiven, a hundred times over. Got it?" she barks gruffly.  
  
“You should know by now that you can’t boss me around, Raven,” he laughs, watery but genuine, because she’s certainly tried over the years, but, “Yes, yes, I’ve got it.” The truth is, he knows. Better than he’s ever known before, he knows what haunts her, what has always haunted her; trauma is trauma, regardless of the age it comes at or the form it takes, and it leaves a mark. It always will. But he’d never wanted her to stand in front of him, and over and over again he’d manipulated the situation so she never had to. So she never even had to entertain the choice. He prodded her more than he’s ever admitted, redirected and nudged, unconscious and desperate, because she didn’t need to see it. She didn’t need to know it. A child does not need to be privy to it any more than she already was, and he doesn’t regret that. He doesn’t think of himself as her savior, but he does think of himself as her older brother, and there is very, very little he would not do for Raven. That he hasn’t already, often at the expense of himself. “I don’t know how this will work, I don’t know what will happen,” he admits, and he is all at once terrified again, because he doesn’t like not knowing, and he especially does not like admitting it, “But you were the best sister for me, too. Just know that, yeah? Promise me you will? You were the best sister, and -” He's suddenly far too choked up, the words completely stuck in his throat.  
  
"You're going to be OK," Raven whispers back, firm and fierce because there's no other option that she will accept. There's no other world that she will accept other than the one where Charles Xavier exists wholly and healthily and as much and as deeply as possible. "Whatever happens, we're right beside you, always. You're not alone. I still am the best sister," she pulls back to stick her tongue out at him. "I always will be."  
  
“You always will be,” Charles agrees, wholeheartedly and with everything inside of him, and he pulls her back to squeeze her, tightly, firmly, as if he’ll never get to hold her like this again. He has to believe he will. He has to believe that he will, and he doesn’t know if she’ll feel any sort of loss, if she’ll be aware of time, what the Void will do to keep the world from moving while they’re gone, but he doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want to leave her. Drowning in work and late hours and the papers and books he plunged himself into to replace the alcohol and the pills and the shaking, and she was still there, she was always there. To show up to his house when he forgot to feed himself with pizza, to sit sprawled across his couch while he read boring paper proposals and she took his form to mock the way he delivered it, to listen to him fret over patients and mutant crime rates. “I don’t want to go,” he gasps, and holds her even tighter. "What will you do without me?" he teases, so he can hide the sob that shudders through his entire body.  
  
"I don't know," she says, and maybe she should've replied with another quip-she usually does, she's not that forward with her feelings, either; Raven's always been an emotional chameleon, mimicking the states of others or remaining calm in the face of whirlwind terror, but now she's just soft and solemn. "But I'll manage, and I'll be here when you come back. And you will come back. Or I'll drag you back myself." She smiles, and kisses his forehead gently. And then gives him a noogie, because she can. She wants to ask- _where are you going?_ and _when will you be back?_ and _what's happening_? but she doesn't, as if she's cognizant of how little time Charles has, and those questions aren't important. What's important is this. Contact. Feeling. Humanity. "We're gonna be OK. I promise."  
  
Charles hears it anyway, but the truth is he doesn’t know the answer to any of those questions. Instead he laughs and shoves weakly at her when she torments him as she always does, as she acts like the sister she is; and goodness, how much trouble she’s caused him, and how in less than a heartbeat he would do it all over again. Every second of it, even the worst of it, even the fights and the anger and the pain and the miscommunication, even the moments he could not fathom being more furious or upset with her. “I think I have to go,” he whispers, because there are more people he wants to say goodbye to, to hold and to love while he still can, but that means saying goodbye to her in the process. It means letting go. He doesn’t want to. He just doesn’t want to.  
  
Well Raven isn't going to let him go if he doesn't want to go, either, so they're going to be stuck this way, sorry 'bout it. She gives him a tight squeeze, much tighter than he ever could hope to accomplish, but not enough to hurt him. "OK, little-brother. I'll be here when you get back."  
  
“I know,” he breathes, because she always has been. After every horrible, wretched day, after every terrifying, traumatizing night, there she was. There she always was. He knows he’ll forget that, he knows, and it’s utterly devastating, but right now he knows it. He looks over his shoulder at Erik, because he doesn’t think he can pull himself away from her. He’s going to need help.  
  
Erik, meanwhile, looks a little green and while Charles has been talking to Raven he's been gazing sightlessly at the wall, following the pattern of spots and cracks that lead up to the ceiling. He should fix that for Raven and Hank, their home is beautiful but it's an imperfection, and he can help there. He knows how. He remembers how. He remembers a lot. Too much. He jerks out of his reverie when Charles looks over at him and he takes a few limping steps forward, as if his body has newly-remembered its aches and pains, and is afraid of them. "Here, come along," he puts his hand on Charles's shoulder and gently separates them.  
  
The Void took those aches and pains, and it did not give them back. Perhaps some things it did not fix in the instant it had, through Charles no less, but Charles makes sure there’s no pain, either, that there’s absolutely none, and his chest hurts, too. It hurts and he tenses up against Erik’s hand, tears in his eyes, and very seriously considers wrapping his arms back around Raven. Remembering, for right now, is a blessing for him. When he forgets - and how is he positive he’ll remember? But he takes another breath, and swallows it all down. If he holds her again, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to separate. He doesn't want to come along. He wants to stay. What is stopping him? What does the Void know? He could stay, and he could fight it. He could. He doesn't want to go.  
  
Erik doesn't know why this is happening, either, but he does know it's necessary. Charles has been putting himself back together ever since he jumped in, and Erik has a sneaking suspicion that this is just another piece that needs to be slotted into place, another journey that must be undertaken before Charles emerges whole. What Erik does know is that he trusts the Void doesn't mean harm. It's shown that much, and Erik wants Charles to be whole. He wishes it wasn't like this, that it wasn't necesary, that it didn't frighten Charles so much. He'll take care of him. He'll make sure he's OK during the process. This isn't the end. Erik won't let it be the end. He squeezes Charles's shoulder, for the first time since their cycle started, letting him go at his own pace. This is his goodbye. He should spend it how he likes.  
  
Charles clenches his hands at his sides to keep them from reaching for Raven. He can’t go at his own pace, truly. There isn’t time for it. If he went at his own pace, he would never leave, and then he wouldn’t say goodbye to everyone else and that would hurt worse, even if he didn’t remember that he didn’t. It matters. But he’s tense and he won’t turn around and ask to be held by Erik, either, even if he wants that, because that’s a goodbye of its own, too, even if they’ll have time while he forgets, when the heat comes back, and it will, soon, he can already feel it; and even if Erik was right, even if he needs the same amount of guidance and Dominance always, he knows too much to ask for it now. To admit it. And Raven is right there and he’s going to forget her, he’s going to forget her - he closes his eyes tightly, and forgets how to properly breathe.  
  
Erik is there, though, and he puts his hand over Charles's chest after turning him face-to-face, Commanding him to breathe. One foot in front of the other. "Who else?" he murmurs, the Order at the back of his throat, grim-featured and tall. Restored, heat-abated for the moment. He touches Charles's face, eyes crinkled at the corners, the only evidence that he is a person and not a statue. That he is Charles's Dominant, that he is here and that he is taking care of his submissive, even if he can't do much of anything else at the moment.  
  
Who else does he love? If he never remembers them, if something goes wrong and they are lost to him, if he is lost to them, who would he regret now, as he is, not speaking to? Not seeing, and touching, what would he regret not saying? It’s such an overwhelming, ridiculous thing to have to do, and he shakes his head. He shakes with it. How much time do they have? Who does he love? It isn’t fair, and Erik is - but his heart answers. It knows. His family, their family, the people at that ceremony; their children, even after the short time he’s known them that feels like a forever, the precious time they’d had. Erik’s kids, who have become his, too. Does he have enough time? And he breathes because it’s Ordered, but he feels himself unraveling. He remembered it all, too, and it’s crushing. There isn’t possibly enough time, and there’s just too much terror and sorrow.

* * *

They do. If the Void can make the whole world stop, it can give them seven minutes. Erik leads Charles by the hand to the door; looking at him dutifully, solemnly, and guides him to wrap his arms around where he'll be the most comfortable before lifting off of the ground. They'll make the time. A sonic boom echoes through the streets as they emerge up over the clouds and zoom off into the distance, with Erik keeping everything of himself calm and contained; he remembers how to do that, now. Even though he has the utmost faith that this is not really goodbye, he knows how important it is to Charles and will do everything in his power to give it to him.  
  
He doesn’t know that. There’s absolutely no way for him to know that. And him humoring Charles, acting like - it’s goodbye for him, too, doesn’t he realize that? By making Charles do this, by accepting that this is to happen, doesn’t he realize that this is goodbye for him, too? These trips always make him ill, sick and dizzy and uncomfortable, and he closes his eyes and purses his lips and locks down every muscle, keeps everything inside of him, too, coiling it up and he doesn’t say or think a word. He doesn’t ask where they’re going. It feels like a death. For Charles, it is a death. His own.  
  
What's the alternative? That Erik believes that somehow Charles won't come back from this and that his bondmate is going to end up completely forgetting him and their family and everything that makes him himself? Does Charles realize exactly how impossible that is for Erik? They come back here as regularly as they can, so Charles recognizes it when the heat begins to seep in-not the cycle, not blistering and insistent, but the warmth of sun-currents and air. Their feet land in desert-sands and Erik touches his shoulders again with both hands, gazing down at him with fathomlessly vivid eyes that reflect gold and chrome. "I know that you're mine," he murmurs softly. "And I know that you will come back to me." It's not humoring him. It's knowing that Charles truly and deeply believes that this is the end, and he wants to say goodbye. How could Erik deny him that? Just whisk him off and away into the sky without letting him see his family while he's coherent? "You will not die. I won't let it. Now take a deep breath and relax yourself." It's not a mindless Order of the caliber that Erik sometimes gives when Charles begins to spin off. It comes from every atom inside himself, opening up like flower petals and sprinkling down over Charles's consciousness and into his neurons sinking and sinking.  
  
It is going to happen. Whether he comes back to himself or not, back to Erik or not, that’s the question, but it is going to happen. It is going to be a death. They haven’t come back here, though he does recognize it; there hasn’t been time. There's been no regular. There’s been sickness, and there’s been deteriorating, splitting and breaking, incoherence and forgetting and losing and a futile attempt to rebuild that even the Void recognized as useless, there’s only been days in between but it’s been centuries and centuries and centuries and there wasn’t even nearly enough time. There definitely isn’t now. He takes the breath, he relaxes himself, but there’s no way Erik could Order this fear, this loss out of him; it’s too much, it’s too deep. “I will die,” he whispers, and stares at the ground, not able to feel the panic now as the tears slip down his cheeks, gather and pool. Perhaps he will be reborn, perhaps he will come back. But he will die. And he’s afraid of it. He’s terribly afraid.  
  
Erik wouldn't try and do so. That fear and loss isn't an evil that must be purged. It is an emotion as valid as any that Charles is entitled to feel, that Erik will ensure he can feel it, but he won't break from it. He won't allow that. His eyes flutter shut. There isn't enough time for Erik's grief, so he cannot let himself feel it even if it's there, encroaching, a heavy-handed fist gripping his heart tight. Charles couldn't possibly think that Erik's optimism is blind and mindless. He couldn't. He remembers now. He knows Erik better that. There isn't enough time for his fear and his loss. He breathes out himself, short and sharp, and forces his eyes open. "You won't," he croaks and clears his throat and repeats himself stronger. He's seen death. He's seen broken bodies and chopped up limbs and flayed skin and burning ash and the smell of-consigning Charles to that, he won't do. "I'll be with you, the whole time. You might not remember, but you will be alive, you will be a person, you will be mine. I will take care of you and I will make sure that you will return." And that's what he has to offer in the face of everything and it's almost laughable and surely-infuriating and he steps closer anyway, closer to the grief, to the terror as it encroaches and encroaches on his controls, and takes Charles's face in his hands. Erik's own eyes are wet, even though he doesn't realize it. "I wish I could take it from you. I would. It should be me, it should have been me. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." It's real, at least, even though it's not what's needed.  
  
It’s real, and there is time for it, and it’s exactly what threatens to break him all the while pulling him back together. His Dominant hiding himself away, his own grief and fear to care for Charles has never helped him, and they’ve both learned it. It doesn’t work the other way around, either. It shouldn’t have been Erik. It never could have been Erik. But when Charles breaks from Erik’s grip, it’s not to pull away, not to fuss; he buries himself in his chest like he’s wanted to do since he came to, and he takes a moment to sob. To him, it feels like dying. It feels like he is dying; what is a body without a mind, a mind that knows and is? But Erik says he will take care of him, of what is left, of what forms, and he has to believe that. He has to. “Will you - are you -” He doesn’t know what he means to ask. It dies in his throat.  
  
The tears fall then, streaking down Erik's cheeks while the man remains completely oblivious to it. His arms come up around Charles tightly, more tightly than Raven, who takes such care not to break him, but Erik knows he is strong instinctively and he's sorry, he doesn't mean to hurt but he can't let go. He knows that Charles feels it as a death, he knows. He won't let it be a death. He won't let it. The Universe marked him the most powerful being in existence and what fucking good is it if he can't keep his mate alive? What fucking reason is there for anything if Charles no longer exists? Erik will burn the World down in compensation, he will, so don't fucking test him. He's shaking, vibrating and trembling, every muscle full of spinning, crashing atoms into one another and sending out sparks and he buries his head in Charles's hair. "Tell me," he Orders roughly.  
  
Squeeze him tighter. If it hurts, if it aches, it’s the best kind and he wants more of it, he wants harder, he wants Erik to promise to never let go even if he has to. Even if he will need to shortly, if they’re going to say goodbye. Erik won’t see them for a while, either, indefinitely, any of them; unless he leaves? Unless he leaves Charles, and he would understand, he would, even if he doesn’t in the moment - how could he ask him to stay? To lock himself away with Charles, to stay with him while he resets? Away from the rest of the world, isolated, holed up. Imprisoned. It’s too much. Too much. “Are you afraid, too?” he asks, and then he peeks up at Erik. "Are you really going to take me away?"  
  
"Stop it," Erik growls, but it's not angry, it's impassioned. "It's not a prison," he says, his voice wavering. He'll be with Charles, whatever incarnation that ends up being, it will still be Charles, some way, some form. His soul. Erik knows him, knows his heart. Knows his spirit. "I won't leave you. Never. I'm going to take us somewhere safe. I promise." His arms squeeze just an iota further, leaving only enough room for Charles to take those breaths he's been Ordered. He himself feels like he's breathing through a straw, wheezing and gasping for air, but he doesn't waver on this. "I'm afraid," he admits tightly, like his chest is cracking open. "Of course I am."  
  
It shouldn’t comfort him, but it does. They’re both frightened. But Erik is going to take care of him. He has to trust that. He has to trust him. And he does. His voice is muffled by Erik’s chest, but he forces it out. “You could lock me up somewhere, you could leave me, you could -” He knows Erik won’t, but he has to offer. He has to. Erik doesn’t need to say goodbye to all this, too. He could visit Charles. Charles won't know enough. It would mean he hurts less, wouldn't it?  
  
"Do you really think-think that I would do that?" Erik's voice sounds hoarse to his own ears, even as he tries so hard to make it come out even. It wouldn't hurt less. He'd be separated from his mate. He told the Void to halt the World because he can't be without Charles. He can't exist without Charles and Charles hates it when Erik relegates his own being to simply living for him but he doesn't understand, he doesn't understand that this is why he exists. For Charles, for his family, for his submissive. He can't do it alone. He can't exist in all this without his beloved. It was no choice at all. "I love you," he whispers the answer softly. "You're mine."  
  
No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t think that. But if Charles didn’t say it, if he didn’t let Erik know that he could if he chose to, he wouldn’t forgive himself for that. He wouldn’t have any problem with the choice, either; that is how a Pairbond functions. He loves Erik. Charles is his. “Say goodbye,” he mumbles, not a full sentence, not full thoughts, and it hurts and he’s so afraid, he’s so full of sadness, but he doesn’t let go. He doesn’t pull away, not that he can. He doesn’t want Erik to.  
  
And Erik doesn't want to, and it's almost impossible for him to do so, but he knows what Charles means. "'Kay," he rasps into Charles's ear, still petting his hair. When he does part it's only to stay pressed right up to Charles's back, an arm protectively around his waist, tucking Charles into his side as they head up the walkway to David's house. "Gonna be OK. I promise. Don't break them. I'll help. I'll keep safe. Promise."

* * *

It’s the middle of the night here. Not everyone is sleeping, he can hear that; but perhaps he shouldn’t be allowed this. What could he possibly say? If this is the end, if this is truly the last time he will be himself, isn’t this cruel to everyone? His feet stop at the front door and there’s a lump in his throat, he suddenly can’t breathe again. “Can’t,” he gasps.  
  
Erik lets him breathe, though, that steadying hand on his chest. "You can," he murmurs firmly, Command thick on his tongue. "You can because I want you to. Do you understand me?" the Order is soft where Erik is anything but, all hard-lines and angles and pillars, a veritable column of strength to lean upon and he bends Charles's fear to his own Will, so that he will do just that. Lean on Erik. He is here.  
  
He can? Erik wants him to? Charles breathes as he’s instructed, takes air in slow, steady, and does what his Dominant directs him to. He leans against him, quite literally, still shaken from the Void, still scrambled from what it gave back, still sick from the journey, still terrified, presses back into his chest. He nods, slowly. “Do we knock?” he asks, barely audible. David and Ellie are both asleep. Should he really be waking everyone else up, just because - just because you’re dying soon, his brain provides, and hopes Erik hasn’t heard it.  
  
He can. Erik opens the door with his power, extending his free hand in a crutch of a movement that he really doesn't need, but he's always focused his power that way, the same way that Charles often touches his temple (or used to) when applying his telepathy. They slip inside. "Let's wake them up," he decides, and flicks the lights on with a repeating flick of his finger. Charles can feel the residents in the house begin to stir. There are many, many children, some of whom are already awake, gathered in the room they've been assigned. Beds have been pushed in, but they've taken to the floor in a big pile. Wanda and Pietro are with Magda, in a separate bedroom, asleep in her arms. David and Ellie sit up in their bed and rub their eyes blearily, but it's no secret who's here and Ellie smiles at her husband. "Let's go greet the party," she grins softly.  
  
The moment Erik does it, sleeping minds rising into wakefulness, some slower than others, Charles regrets it. He regrets asking for it, insisting upon it. How will the Void stop the world? Will they know time is passing? Will they be aware of any of it? If it becomes clear Charles isn’t recovering, that he’s - will they begin where they left off, hours or days after he leaves here, and be told that he won’t ever come again? Or, worse, will they meet a shell of him, a shell that doesn’t remember; what will be taken? What will be gone? It feels cruel. It feels exceptionally cruel, to satisfy his own selfish desire to see them when he won’t even remember it. More than that, it hurts. His eyes are stubbornly, resolutely on the ground as children begin to descend down the stairs, and there are tears in his eyes again and, no, Erik was wrong. He can’t do this.  
  
 _Atzor_ , Erik Commands him silently. It would be crueler for them not to have this moment. Erik doesn't think about anything else because he can't, because he will shut down and never come back, because the Void didn't know that Erik can't handle even the thought-experiment of losing Charles in any capacity, despite the fact that it told him outright that Charles would gain it back; it's hard to remember but he holds onto that with everything he's got. If, if, if. It does no good. Ifs don't matter, they just don't. What matters is family, is being here while he can be here, and it would be crueler to deny them that. Charles is Wanda and Pietro's father. As much as Erik ever could be. Erik won't let him entertain the idea that it's somehow better for them never to see him whole again, because it isn't and Erik is just done with the concept. He sets his hand on Charles's shoulder, unaware that he's digging-in a little, and urges him to look up. Magda is smiling and with her customary shawl draped over her shoulders. She's all skin-and-bones now, and looks haggard, but happy. She opens up her arms for an embrace as she approaches. "Charles," she murmurs in her raspy, deep lilt. "It's good to see you."  
  
And Charles completely, utterly loses it at that, at all of this. His arms go around Magda and then he’s crying, well and truly sobbing, trying to keep the dry, hiccuping fit of it inside, but it isn’t doing him any good. It’s leaking right out. He tries not to hold her too tightly, not to squeeze, not to harm her; something is bursting out of him, something strange and vibrating, an energy he doesn’t at all understand or notice. She’s been in more pain, and he fussed with her receptors the last time he was here, but now - it’s something else. He doesn’t notice, but it’s something else, the same as he did with Erik, a total relief from all of that horrible aching, the agony of it, the weakness of it; but Charles just holds her, gently, because he hasn’t gotten to know her properly, he hasn’t - and what if - he can’t help it. He wasn’t there when the Void spoke to Erik, and even if he was, it feels like - he doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want to go.  
  
Pietro is zipping about completely unawares, while Wanda, ever the more serious of the two, hugs her mother's leg, squished happily between the two of them. She gives him a squeeze back as tightly as she can manage, kind of melting against him in a human-shaped puddle as all the lingering tension and pain seep out of her and she sighs, not really knowing what is happening but-but it's good, the best she's felt in a long, long while. Morphine helps, but it leaves you wrecked, especially for someone without a tolerance. And it doesn't entirely take it away, not like this. "Oh, Charles," she laughs gently. "Is that you?" she gives him a tap on the temple knowingly. "Thank you. _Sei un angelo, caro_."  
  
Charles shakes his head, because it isn’t, is it? But then explaining that means explaining why he can’t currently get a breath in without it getting stuck in his chest, even with Erik behind him to tell him how and when, and it’s all just trapped in his throat. Pietro has just woken up which means he’s wired and energized, literally vibrating the way he’s prone to do when he finds he’s recharged; he can’t at all regulate himself yet, and Charles thinks he’s helped with that, because he’s had far less near-misses with walls and doors and generally solid objects. While he takes to climbing Erik like he’s a tree, looking for purchase as he tugs on his jeans (and shouting “ _Up! Up! Up!”_ which he definitely will decide he does not want shortly after he gets there, because it means being held still), Charles leans down to scoop Wanda up, letting Magda stay leaned against him. She gives a happy giggle at the attention and immediately wraps arms around his neck, grinning with teeth slightly turned in. It’s only been days, but her face looks fuller, she looks brighter, she smiles wider, less shy; his heart aches, it’s absolutely breaking, and he buries his face in her curls as she buries her face in his neck, babbling in half-languages. She’s learning so fast. “Hello, hi, little girl, beautiful, brilliant girl, do you remember me? Do you remember?” And she does, is the thing. She does, and she’s happy, being held by him. It’s cruel. It’s so very cruel.  
  
Erik's eyes squeeze closed for the briefest of moments, a brief flash of pain that no one but Charles could possibly detect as he kneels slightly to accommodate his wily son and he winces as Pietro winds up on his shoulders, but he holds him there with a steady application of his power. " _Shalom, tayer_ ," he breathes, tickling under Pietros chin as he twists to look up at him, his emerald eyes shining with unshed tears and an over-abundance of affection. "Are you keeping everyone here busy, hm?" he laughs slightly, nose wrinkling. Magda watches them both fondly, leaving her arm wrapped around Charles in a loose embrace. He doesn't know her that well, and she in reverse, but like most of the people in Erik's inner circle, she knows enough. She knows that he's responsible for reuniting her with her children, and that makes him family. He's so good with Wanda, with Pietro, that she's begun to be at peace with her inevitable end. Because they'll have someone. They'll have two parents who love them beyond any condition when she's gone, and that's all any mother can ask for.  
  
At even the slightest hint of pain from Erik, something inside of Charles flares up and out, something fierce and aggravated by this horrible fear inside of him, this sorrow; he absolutely will not allow his Dominant to feel pain, not under any circumstances, and he knows he can’t take the emotional - he could, he could, but no, no, he doesn’t, he shouldn’t - and he doesn’t know what the result is, exactly, what this humming, shaking energy is, but he does know that Erik looks lighter for it, hunches less, and he’ll gladly take it. If he is going to lose everything, if he is going to need Erik to care for him, he will care for him like this first. All of those aches, all of those creaks in his joints, all of that carried tension - he doesn’t understand, he’s not trying, he’s not thinking it, but it’s happening. None of it, there should be none of it, and he knows Magda better than she could imagine, has seen the inside of her, but how unfair is it that she will never know him now? The Void can’t truly put them all in a bubble. It can’t guarantee - and the thought makes him so breathless and sick he loses his balance, trips right over nothing, and Wanda makes a little cry against his shoulder as the room spins. He knows he doesn’t make it to the ground, because he never would with Erik right beside him, but he also knows that his legs are shaking horribly and Wanda is patting at his face with her tiny hands, confused and upset because he’s crying again. “Shh, darling,” he tells her, and kisses one of those little hands. “I’m sorry, _shh_ , don’t be frightened.” Don’t be frightened, but he is. Horrified, too.  
  
Of course Erik's there immediately to right Charles (and Wanda by association) up before he even gets close to hurting himself, settling him back on his feet so he can indulge Wanda's pets. He's less tense from the pain lining his seamed-up joints and the bolts holding them together now that Charles is actively interfering with it and he moves more fluidly with Pietro's climbing antics now, turning to shoot Charles a grateful, but sheepish smile. A silent thank-you. Tabby and Roberto and Marie inch closer into the room and Erik holds open his arms for them to approach, still-strong, still-solid, because he has to be. He can't fall apart. He promised he would take care of his submissive, of his family. He can't break.  
  
There's nothing to thank him for. Absolutely nothing, and it only begins with the fact that he has no control over whatever it is everyone thinks he's doing. No pain or not, fixed joints or not, he is causing this. It is cruel. With the other children closer, he moves them all; it takes him a moment to realize he must have used at least some application of his power, because he certainly didn't speak but everyone did, and he tries not to let it spiral him. He didn't want Magda on her feet, and he can't stand himself, his own legs useless jelly and the couch a clear option. Wanda is in his lap now, Pietro in Erik's, the children gathered around, and he tries for a half-hearted smile. It's transparent as anything. "I'll trade you," he teases, because Pietro is currently attempting a bold climb across Erik anyway, his little face vibrating enough to make Charles dizzier. Wanda will protest the exchange, but only until she realizes it means Erik will be holding her. She's never quite happy until someone is, and though it's sad, terribly so, she's gotten increasingly inventive and demanding about how to assure that.  
  
Erik scrunches his nose up at Pietro and murmurs affectionately, " _Rotze tateshi_? Hm? _Beseder_ , here we go," he lifts Pietro up in a big sweeping motion that he knows he likes, sending him in an arc over to Charles where he sets him down gently in Charles's lap before carefully barring his arm over Wanda's chest and his other under her butt like Hank taught him and picks her up carefully, settling her onto his chest so she can press her cheek to his skin. They're wearing shirts, now, but Erik's has a few buttons open so she can lay her head on his bare chest the way she prefers. Erik was uncomfortable with it at first, but she's been denied so much skin-to-skin contact-a kind of touch that babies need to be healthy-that it's only logical she seeks it. So he got used to it, and now he doesn't mind. Murmuring catches of stories in Polish and English next to her ear where she's settled, he places his hand on Charles's knee when he can, nudging him with his shoulder. He's still here. Charles must still lean on him. It's not a request, or an entreaty.  
  
He must? It's just that Charles is keenly aware that they're running out of time, and there is so much he wishes he could have done. Things he could have said. There's pain, again, actual, tugging pain; how long until it overcomes him? Both of them? And then he says goodbye to Erik - the tears are back in his eyes. Pietro is a smart boy, despite his adopted mother's concerns about his lacking attention span (it's just that everything is slow and he's bored), and he's a bit less gentle than Wanda when he slaps a hand over Charles' cheek.   
  
"Why crying?" he demands, and Charles huffs, and then he laughs, because what else could he say? Pietro doesn't like that answer, scrunching his face up. "Why crying? No sad," he insists, and Charles would give this little boy everything, everything the Universe has to offer, but he just can't offer this.  
  
Erik catches Pietro's hand and shakes his head. "Be gentle, _tayer_. _Adin_. We don't hit." He runs his thumb over the back of Pietro's palm and sets it gently onto Charles's cheek. When Pietro demands the answer, Erik just draws a fingertip of his own through Pietro's white curls. "He just loves you very much, _za'ir tayish_. And we must leave soon. But we'll be back, because nothing can keep us separated from you." And if it's cruel and false-hope then it is, but Erik doesn't believe that. He has to trust that the Void told him the truth and if it didn't then he'll handle his fate, he'll let Pietro hate him for the rest of his life, he can cope with that, but what children need is hope. It's what Erik needs, too. He can't face what's to come without it. Tears track down his own face and spill  
  
Charles needs it, too, and apparently it is Erik clinging onto it for him now. "We don't hide from each other, either," he whispers, and manages a watery smile, and Pietro is fast. He saw Erik's tears because they were there, they were truly there, and he reaches his hand up gently to touch where they'd been, climbing over and up Charles to do it.   
  
"No crying, no," he reprimands, and he's turning out to be just as bossy as Charles was and it makes him laugh. Wanda is upset she's definitely be jostled now and pops her head up to scowl in an expression so much like an animated, frustrated Erik, scrunched nose and all, that he can't help but kiss her head.   
  
"I love you," he tells them both. "It's true. I love you so very much, I -" No, he can't. It gets lost in his throat again, dies in the clench of his chest.  
  
It makes Erik laugh, too, wetly and he thumbs his nose, a gesture common amongst the Eisenhardt clan it would seem-Charles has seen David and Near both do it. He doesn't know how to express how pleased he is to see Charles's traits in him, too. Maybe it's strange, maybe a Dominance shouldn't find bossiness endearing, but Erik does. He always did with Charles and now that his son is evidently barking up that tree it's only more endearing. However-" _Adin_ ," he reminds with a tap to Pietro's nose, and settles Wanda back down against him, humming and rocking her. "Gently, _za'ir echad_." He encourages Pietro to tell him about his day, to babble and talk excitedly about his car, the one he always pushes into Erik's hands whenever he sees him, and tonight is no different. "Vroom vroom, hm?" He doesn't want to lose this, either. Charles doesn't know it, but it's a death for Erik, too. If Charles dies, he cannot possibly think that Erik could go on. For the sake of them he wouldn't do anything so drastic as take his own life, but he would not be Erik Lehnsherr anymore.  
  
Well, he finds it endearing to a point, and there's quite a bit more to it than that when it comes to his own submissive. Charles tries not to think too hard about that, about - because it's just another thing they've just touched, that they've just gotten, learned, and it's going to be gone. Erik promised him it would never be gone, that it was immutable fact, that Charles belongs to Erik in the way he does, that their Dynamic will only grow and develop, and here they are. It's going to be gone along with this. Charles knows. He knows what this will do to Erik, and he feels himself start to slip entirely as Pietro babbles on, feels the clenching heat and insistent tugging in his stomach grow. It's not fair, he doesn't want to go. He doesn't want to say goodbye. Pietro is making car noises and Charles hurts, that physical pulling and not, and there's no more composure for him. He sobs. He starts to sob. He's not ready.  
  
Whatever composure had threatened to crack before at the line of Charles's thoughts, Erik goes still and cold, pressing his teeth together, eyes staring sightlessly at the scene before him until his submissive starts to stop, and then he kicks into gear; into action, because he could never bear to see it, and tugs Charles closer to him, wrapping him up in a tight hug that presses Wanda against them-light enough not to hurt her, tight enough not to let go. Never to let go. Charles is his submissive. He made that promise and he will keep it. Charles will still be his. No matter what happens. It is a fact, regardless of its appearance, and he will fight the literal Universe if it dares to claim otherwise.  
  
How does he know? Charles is going to forget. He's going to forget, he's going to die, and then Erik is going to lose his submissive and it's all Charles' fault and it's starting to hurt. It's starting to hurt, which means the cycle is starting up again and he's going to forget, Erik has to watch him forget, he has to say goodbye - it's too much. It's too much and Charles can't keep from sobbing into Erik's shoulder, completely wracked by terror and sorrow, Wanda and Pietro shocked and scared as they watch, reaching out to hug and pet and comfort him. Pietro is asking, asking _"why sad, why sad_ " but Charles could never explain to them that soon he won't remember being sad at all. He won't remember them, he won't remember his mate, and it's starting to burn. He'll still be Erik's? He's going to take care of him? But he's not ready to say goodbye, how could he possibly say goodbye to his Dominant?  
  
Erik pets each one of them, drawing his fingers through their hair and whispering songs of soothing, because he can't do anything else. He tells Pietro that it's OK, sometimes adults get sad, but it doesn't mean anything is wrong with him and they won't be sad anymore in a while, and it's OK and he's doing such a good job comforting them, and he makes sure Wanda can still touch and hug as much as she wants and talks to her in all his languages because she needs that, she needs to know that people care about her and talk to her and love her, and he kisses Charles's temple and rubs his back and tells him that yes, he knows. He knows, the Void trusted him to know, and Erik will hold the Void to its promise because if it doesn't keep, Erik will reach down inside and rip it out until it is nothing, but he doesn't think, he doesn't truly think that's necessary. Despite all of his rage and his fear, he trusts, he trusts Charles. And Charles will belong to him no matter what, Charles won't have to say goodbye to him because he's right here, and he might forget the periphery but Erik will make sure he doesn't forget who he belongs to. The Void said that Charles will need him. Him, specifically. An empty husk doesn't need anything. So he won't be empty of his entire being, his entire soul and if he forgets Erik will tell him, Erik will teach him and show him all over again, Erik will be himself all over again and show Charles why he deserves to be his Dominant even if he doesn't feel like it all the time, he'll remind Charles, of all the things Erik finds-well-silly, but that the Void told him about, about himself. About how Charles focused on Erik, on how much he loved Erik, so if he forgets Erik will tell him all the ways he loved Erik, and he'll have to love Erik again, right? And Erik will always love Charles, Erik will never forget that.  
  
And how horrible that Charles will? It's not fair. He will have to say goodbye. He will. And the more time that passes, seconds ticking by, the closer they get. He can't catch his breath by the end of it, dry sobbing into Erik's shoulder while Pietro climbs all over him and Wanda gives him hugs and frets. It hurts, he tells, just Erik, because he won't frighten them more. Separating from them will be nearly impossible, he can't do it himself. It hurts again. It hurts. Erik can make it better, but then - then that's it? That's it. Goodbye. He doesn't want to. He doesn't want to go, he doesn't want to die.  
  
Erik leaves Charles to be with their children as long as he can before he feels that the pain is starting to encroach too much, and Charles isn't the only one. He's grimacing with it himself, forcing everything back, forcing himself to be solid and strong and present and pushing everything else down. Down through his feet and into the earth. He gently shifts Wanda and Pietro over to Magda and helps Charles to his feet, touching his jaw. _I know, sweetheart. It's going to be OK. I promise you this. I can make it better. I will make it better_.  
  
He can make it better? How can he make it better, how will he make it better? Immediately Charles is practically collapsing into his Dominant, into his mate, into Erik, and he's so worked up. He's worked up and now it hurts, worse than it did before, worse than he can ever remember it being; he's burning, truly, from the inside out. "I don't want to," he croaks, into Erik's chest. "Please, I don't want to go." He knows it's not fair to break down like this. He knows it's not fair to Erik, but he can't stop. He's scared. He's so frightened.  
  
So is Erik, and he is worked up too, but when he gets worked up he gets more strict, more fierce, more firm and he sets his hands on Charles's shoulder in full view of their family, completely without decorum and murmurs lowly into his ear, pressing up against him. It's not lewd, it's encroaching, possessive. "You will do what I say, _neshama_. I won't let anything happen to you. Trust me." He can't Order trust, not real trust, what he could Order is just a facsimile so he doesn't try, but it doesn't detract from the Commanding tone of the rest of his words. "I will keep you safe. I will protect you, and you will follow my Orders and listen to what I tell you to do, do you understand?"  
  
It's always exactly what Charles needs. Right now, with the heat burning him alive, tugging in the pit of his stomach, fire licking at his skin, it's especially so. But Charles sniffles and shakes his head, twisting out of Erik's grip so he doesn't have to look him in the eyes. "I don't want to go," he repeats, raspy and scared, even as he tries to pitch back forward into his Dominant's arms. He knows he's the only one who can make it better, who can stop the hurt. He knows, but he doesn't want to go, he doesn't want Erik to take him away. Maybe if he stays here it won't happen.  
  
Erik doesn't let him leave the first time, keeping Charles still with both hands on either side of his shoulders-not wrenchign and violent, he couldn't in front of his family, and he wouldn't to Charles besides, but firm and in place. He holds a finger up to his face, a warning and a reminder. "I asked you a question and I expect you to answer me, now. You are going to listen to what I say and abide by my decisions. Do you understand, Charles." There's no room for anything other than what Erik demands, his Will practically saturating the room, unfurling out like the smokey edges of leathery wings. He can't help that.  
  
Does he understand? Right now, yes. As much as Erik can’t help the way his Will spreads out and uncoils, thick and heavy and palpable in the air, Charles can’t help his response to it, not a mindless, hollowed-out blankness out like he’s seen so many submissives react with when Erik forgets to rein it in, but a shudder, a gasp, a shivery sensation that settles right into his bones and pounds in his veins. It joins the heat, the wretched pain of it, the desperation, but the fear, too, not gone, and he picks a spot just to the left of Erik to focus on, unable to bear looking his Dominant in the eyes just then. He nods his head, just a single, unsteady jerk, and he isn’t trying to play cool, but even if he was his knees knocking together would give him away. “But I don’t want to go,” he whispers, and it barely makes it out of his mouth, with Erik’s Will pressing down on him like it is, overwhelming when everything is ramped back up. He doesn’t want Erik to take him away, and the Void did warn about this, but Erik could have guessed.  
  
"Look at me." Erik's voice is practically otherworldly, an edge to his words that no other Dominant alive, at this moment, could hope to approach. A D5 in the midst of a full-blown Pairbond cycle; no one on the planet alive stands a chance except for the two people in this room, beyond all logic and probability and reason. Everyone else is buckled under the weight of it, but Erik doesn't notice. He has eyes only for his submissive while Pietro instinctively climbs over to Wanda to quote-unquote "comfort" her. _Adin_ , Erik would chide, if he could pay attention to anything but Charles. He can't. "You will abide by my decisions and that is final. I know what is best for you, and I know what will keep you and everyone we love safe. Do you understand me? I don't want to hear what you want. I want to hear you obey me." The Orders are stern, leaving no room for Charles to maneuver in any direction.  
  
Anyone else besides Charles would be absolutely crushed under the full weight of this. Stifled, muffled out, nothing but a senseless automaton to obey Erik’s Will, no thoughts of their own or sense of self; bleary-eyed and empty-headed, but Charles isn’t. There’s nothing else in the room for him, when the Order comes his eyes snap instantly to Erik’s face, he’s shivering so violently and his knees, especially, are trembling - he wants to kneel, it’s such a strong impulse he almost can’t breathe for it - but there’s so much heat, so much of it, he’s burning up and how could he fathom anyone but Erik making it better? Knowing what to do? His Dominant knows what to do, even when Charles is terrified, even when it isn’t what he might want at exactly that moment. He knows what's best for his mate. “Yes,” he breathes, eyes wide and blown, but - but... there’s no rooms for buts now, is there?  
  
"Good," Erik growls into his ear, tugging him impossibly closer to mold them together, because being even a few inches apart is torturous. With Magda looking after the kids, Erik takes him straight by the hand and bodily herds him out of the living area and through the front door, the entire time pressed right up against his back. "You will get to kneel for me, once we are safe. Now, you will hold on to me." He turns Charles so they're facing one another, and touches his jaw with a lingering affection that shows he's still in-there, somewhere beyond the heat and the pressing need. "And I will take us where no one will be harmed." Because he remembers that, too, the Void telling him that it was necessary, that Charles could never live with himself if he hurt anyone. So Erik protects him this way, too. Keeps him safe. His heart-safe. His soul, his precious spirit. Erik will not allow anything to breach the shield of his Dominion which keeps Charles plastered to him.

* * *

Where no one will be harmed. Is that what’s to come of him shortly? He’ll be a danger, he’ll be a threat - and isn’t that exactly what they thought of them, those people outside that cafe? Isn’t that exactly what they say on every news station, in every paper, on every blog? He’s just as dangerous as they think he is, except he’s worse than that. Worse than they ever could have imagined. It doesn’t make sense to fight this when he knows how sensible it is, when he knows it’s the only way they’ll both live through this; the Void is right. He won’t forgive himself. But why do they have to walk right into this? He doesn’t want this to happen. He doesn’t want to say goodbye, he doesn’t want it to happen at all. He doesn’t want to lose himself. Charles is hot, he’s so hot, it hurts, and he knows Erik can make that better but he’s far more preoccupied with mustering every bit of willpower he has to shake his head, to whine in protest as they begin to lift off the ground. “I won’t - you can’t just lock me up somewhere, you can’t, I won’t let you -” It makes his heart nearly stop, saying it like that. Being outwardly defiant like that. He doesn’t want to be, but how else can he stop this? How else can he stop this? He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to let go. And, "It hurts, it hurts."  
  
"You do not have a choice," Erik outright snarls at him, the fire-whip slash of Will and fury colliding into a supernova that explodes outward as loud as the sonic boom beneath their feet. The howling, ancient beast inside of him has been called up deeper and more fluent than he can ever recall except that he can't recall, not really, and maybe he technically could but he doesn't think to, it doesn't matter. And Charles is defying him and more-than that, he's hitting a nerve that Erik's had pushed to its last, frayed limit. He will be the monster, then. He will be the bad guy. He is good at that. "And if you don't want to spend the rest of your time being punished for insubordination I recommend you do not speak to me that way again."  
  
Immediately Charles gasps, a soft, apolgetic whimper as he tries to bury himself in Erik's chest, properly and thoroughly chastised. His own instincts are having a difficult time following along with what his head is working through, but he hangs onto all of it, blinks tears out and wipes them into Erik's chest, into his shirt, holding on for dear life. It's still as disorienting as it was the first time, traveling like this. "Not the bad guy," he mumbles, because it isn't what he'd wanted Erik to think. It isn't how he feels. He's just frightened, and he's hurting, and he's in actual, physical, horrible pain right now, worse than before, and he just doesn't know how to handle it. He doesn't want this to happen, he doesn't want it to happen like this. He should apologize, the ancient part of him says, get on his knees and apologize and tell his Dominant that he didn't mean to question him, but Charles hangs on instead, sniffles loudly.  
  
He knows Charles didn't mean it like that. He's sorry, too. But he's not a jailor. He's not. That isn't what he's doing. And it hurts in every way, a physical ache of blistering heat he can't sate and the impending terror of facing a version of Charles that doesn't know who he is, and he' scared, and he's trying his very best and he will not be defied like that. He lifts Charles's chin to rub their cheeks together, bidding Charles to close his eyes for once, so he doesn't see how fast the world is passing them by. Charles is his and he will obey Erik and he will let him do what is necessary for this family. Because otherwise Charles will die. How he's been going, that hasn't been. Thrashing about sick and incoherent half the time, he was on his way to death. Whatever has to happen might be the Void's only way of purging it out, of relieving its crutches. And no one else, not a soul, has any idea, that Erik can't be afraid. He doesn't want this to happen any more than Charles does, but Erik is a very simple-minded person. Shaw taught him well. The ends justify the means. Charles will live. They will suffer, but they will live, and life offers a choice. You make the choice of life, always, no matter what, no matter the cost and you _shut the fuck up_ and you do what has to be done, even if your friend, your only friend, is screaming and begging you to stop-and he will-before this is through he will-  
  
Charles makes a noise of protest at that, too, and clenches his fingers tighter in Erik's shirt, tugs even though he shouldn't, careful about not hurting but not minding in that exact moment if he jostles. He's too terrified, but he knows even through that terror that Erik is doing what he needs to protect them, and it's different. Whatever happens next, it's different. Charles trusts Erik. He trusts him completely, and with everything he has. Even if Erik were to play jailer for his own good, and perhaps he will have to, there is no part of Charles that believes he would ever do that to be cruel, to be harsh, to be bad. The Void believes Erik knows how to take care of his mate, but Charles does, too. Whatever comes next, what is not in question, what should never be in question is whether Charles trusts Erik to care for him the best he can, because he does. No one else would even stand the slightest chance, and he's - his knees feel like they're knocking together again, every instinct inside prodding him to kneel, to apologize properly, because he doesn't want to spend his last bit of time as himself being punished. Being defiant. He doesn't, and even if Erik is willing the let it go, it's a knotted up pit inside of him, gnarled and coiled up, knowing he did. What he needs is something entirely different, and he gasps again, clenches the fists he's made in the fabric of Erik's shirt harder again. "Hurts," he mumbles, rubbing his cheek against Erik's chest, eyes closed like he was instructed. It hurts, so much worse than before. They have so little time, he just needs -  
  
Erik extends his hands out, and steps back from Charles even though it pains him significantly to do so, not doing what needs to be done will only hurt them both more, and Charles finds he can stand on his own, that the shield has extended to below his feet to form a kind of barrier-floor, and Erik gazes down at him expectantly. "I know it hurts. Kneel for me, Charles. Now." The Order is crisp and clear even amidst the sonic energy flying all around them. They're protected inside the sphere. The mechanics of speed and velocity have been adjusted so that inside, they're safe. Inside, they're protected and the air has returned to nominal status, and Erik's done it entirely unconsciously even while he's completely out of his mind, because Charles needs it, because he gets sick, and Erik has to take care of him, and Erik has to make him kneel and has to make him-"Tell me what you need."  
  
Somehow, though, Charles still feels sick. They've been here before, they've done this before, but he still feels sick and dizzy, there's still that awful pit and he feels like he might truly retch when Erik lets go of him, unsteady and distinctly uncomfortable as he drops to his knees. It's what his body knew it needed, what all his instincts are screaming for but he's finding it difficult to breathe now and it hurts and he shakes his head, even as his mouth opens. "Sorry," he mutters, head bowed all the way down and eyes closed, both because he still thinks he might get too dizzy, his ears popped and ringing, and because he doesn't want to see. He's trembling.  
  
"Not a request, _neshama_ ," Erik murmurs. But he doesn't let go, he never could, crouching down to touch him and talk to him. The altitude adjusts to return his inner ear back to correct balance. "Now tell me." The Order is clear now if it wasn't earlier. Erik is done with half-measures, Charles wants the opportunity to choose and ordinarily Erik would give it to him but not today, today there is no choice. Today Erik decides. He lifts Charles's chin to pin his gaze, Erik's own fierce and passionate, his body trembling with invisible tremors that wrack his frame from head to toe.  
  
Charles huffs out a quiet, agitated noise, because he was obeying. He did, he already did, and it should be better and it's almost too difficult to breathe it hurts so badly, he feels so sick, and his stomach is just full of knots, vines wrapping up and over themselves, twining. "Say sorry," he mumbles, and writhes in Erik's hold, trying to drop his head again, wanting to close his eyes. He already did, why isn't it better? But every instinct is still beating at him, rushing at him, coiled up and tugging and it hurts and he sniffles. It won't get better if he doesn't fix it, and he doesn't want to spend the last time he has being disciplined. He doesn't, but more than that he doesn't want to need it, to warrant it. Charles doesn't need to be told it's not good enough, not for Charles' instincts or Erik's, to know. "I need to say sorry," he repeats, louder, and then his eyes do close from the shame.  
  
"Be still," Erik murmurs, and forces his head up again. "And look at me. What do you need to apologize for?" he says, because like most things with Erik he isn't content to leave it at that, he wants details. He wants to be certain he understands Charles and that Charles understands him, that Charles understands where he belongs. It's not that it isn't good enough. It is. But that's Erik's job, to ensure that Charles reaches his full potential, to expect the utmost of him, and he wants to say sorry; and Erik wants to listen. Erik wants to hear it. Fully.  
  
It wasn't enough for Charles, but the truth is, maybe it wasn't because he knew it wouldn't be enough for Erik. Because he knows what his Dominant expects of him by now, most of the time, even when he won't ask for it, even when he holds back (he isn't, now, and it's so wonderful, he didn't have long enough to experience it -) and a mumbled sorry was never going to fly. It won't be long before he truly doesn't know what's expected of him, before he loses it all, and the thought steals his breath so violently he lets out a sob, then tries to suck it all back in. For now, he knows. "I'm sorry for being defiant, sir," he whispers, and his eyes are wet and red from tears but blue, too, bluer than ever and knowing and devoted and genuinely apologetic, even as he's consumed from the inside, muscles locked in place so he doesn't move before Erik says so. "And not trusting you. You know what's best. You do what's - what's best for me," he finishes, choked up. Because he knows it's true. He has to trust his mate to take care of him now, no matter how frightened he still is (very). "You'll take care of me." Even if Charles doesn't always like it.  
  
"That's right," Erik whispers back, framing both sides of his face and then touching his chest. "Now breathe. I'm not going to let anything happen to you. It doesn't matter what we face, you are mine. You belong to me. I will keep you safe, I will guard your heart and your soul and I will ensure that you return to your family. All of them. Trust me, neshama. I cannot do this by myself. I need to know that you are with me. I know it's scary, I know the immediate future isn't certain, but I will be right beside you to guide you through this just as I have through everything else. I haven't always known how to rely on myself but I'd like to think I've done a good job. That you can look back and realize that you did not make a mistake by relying on me then, and certainly not now. Because it isn't a choice, Charles. I am your Dominant. You will listen to me and lean on me and abide by my decisions. Am I understood?" it's less harsh than earlier, much less. That ancient, screaming beast of his is mollified, for the moment, by Charles's submission and his contriteness.  
  
Perhaps it's less harsh, but it's no less demanding, no less entitled and firm and Charles doesn't need it to be. He doesn't want it to be, when the beast inside of him is so insistent and in need of its mate. There are tears slipping down his cheeks, stopped by Erik's big hands, but he's breathing through it because he's been told to, because his Dominant seems to have accepted his apology, told Charles exactly what his frayed nerves and unruly mind needed to hear but he wants - he needs? And he whines as he bows his head, but this time he bows his whole body, too, down until he reaches Erik's feet, until they're all he can see and he's biting his lip. "Yes, sir - hurts," he gasps, his entire body shuddering with the heat, the need, the pain. But he knows his Dominant, his mate, will take care of him. He always has, he always does. He hopes he always will. He hopes he's been good enough for that sort of attention. He really is sorry, help him be better now. That's how he wants to spend the rest of his time; Erik's good boy, like he's meant to be. With his mate.

* * *

They travel along the buoyed rifts of Erik's unconsciousness, and when they land he's not quite-sure where they are, but eventually they are inside. It's somewhere far away, a castle made from the places where sand-meets-snow and the trees sway with little people and creatures inside of Erik's mind, but the outside-world is not-so-much. He stays pressed up close to Charles and leads them to where he knows no one will find, a nest arranged with the finest trinkets and food and precious metals, gifts curled up from Erik's touch, and he smiles as he lays Charles down along a bed of soft pillows and blankets, flowers sprouting up all-around. Flowers and sunlight and life.  
  
Charles knows where they are immediately, instinctively. Not all of it is something Erik can create or change; he has limits, just like Charles, and Charles, for once is grounded more in the Real than in the places in between. This place has always felt cold to him, this empty, hollow castle, a prison with white walls and how fitting, but perhaps it's precisely why the Void prompted for it, why it nudged them here and Erik chose it. It will reset, too. There's no sunlight, the dead of the night here now that dawn is breaking in Israel, and the food and abundance is something that already existed, but he tries not to focus on it. It won't matter that they're here soon, he doesn't think. What matters is that Erik built them a new nest in a place where it never could have existed before, what matters is he hurts, what matter is he can't stop crying, but he trusts his mate. He trusts, he has to. So he gets up and crawls on his knees for Erik, and he's shaking so horribly, he's well and truly in agony. "It hurts," he whispers, voice broken again. "Sir, it hurts."  
  
Erik knows. He knows it hurts, not because he can guess but because it is echoed inside of himself, a vice-grip burning away his heart until the only thing he can see before him is Charles; the only thing he wants to see is Charles. He rises to his feet and takes Charles's hand in his, laying it over his shirt, his gaze hard and firm and controlling as ever. "Undress me," he murmurs, because they're too-clothed and he can't breathe except for the idea that he can soon touch Charles's skin, that Charles can touch him, that they can be close-that Charles can serve him as he's meant to that he remembers that he wants to that he remembers he needs to, that he remembers he still belongs to Erik and he doesn't have to because he still will belong to Erik either way but this is nice, too, Charles wants to belong to Erik and Erik will show him exactly what that means. Exactly what he will take with him.  
  
Charles remembers. He remembers, and it's threatening to devastate him, knowing that soon he won't. How much will he forget? Will he forget the feeling of this, too, of how overwhelming it is, how desperately he wants to please, how wholly he belongs to Erik and how right that feels? His fingers are shaking as he tries to work on Erik's buttons, and then it's just entirely impossible. He can't get them open, and it makes it hard to breathe, he was told to do something and now he's struggling and it hurts so badly and he's wasting time, he's wasting so much time, how long do they have left? It's difficult to see through the tears, to breathe through the sobs, everything blurry and spinning and he's making stuttered, pained noises. "I - I -"  
  
Erik halts him with a raised finger. "Shh, neshama. I am here for you. To help you, too, hm?" the buttons slip open themselves all in a row. Not a waste. Erik is unclothed and Charles follows suit shortly, and he rests his hand on Charles's bare chest, leaning forward to press a kiss in the center of his sternum. "Right here, see? You are mine. You belong to me so beautifully, hm?"  
  
It hurts. It hurts so bad, he's scared, he can't breathe, and he throws his arms around Erik's neck and burrows right into him, gasping and crying and unable to calm. He's still shaking, shuddering, quite convinced he's close to burning alive, and does Erik feel even half of this? Is it consuming him, too? He tries to breathe, because his Dominant wants him to breathe, to listen. He needs help, he needs his mate, he needs him. He needs him so awfully. "Can I - it hurts - collar?" he sobs, and he doesn't realize it's not at all coherent.  
  
"Tell me," Erik murmurs, low and steady. He stretches out over Charles and pins him, touching his collar which gleams prettily against his skin even now, strokes it and rests his hand over it-over Charles's throat, possessive and does Charles want to know if he feels it? He doesn't know? He doesn't know that Erik is soaked in gasoline and air is a lit match and he's an echoing scream personified? He doesn't know that all Erik needs at this very moment is his mate, and he rubs against him, not wanting to frighten him. Not wanting to instantly bury himself inside of Charles when he's scared and Erik can't do that, no matter how far gone he is, so he just shakes and pets his submissive.  
  
Oh. Charles shudders with that, forcefully, his toes curling into the sheets as Erik stretches over him, looms above him, pins him and rubs against him. The petting, gentle as it is, just strokes the fire higher, makes him pant with it, eyes practically crossed and so wide it’s near comical even as he sniffles and gives a few last sobs; it feels so good, having Erik’s skin touching his like this. How could he ever function without it? It’s distracting and it hurts, he needs Erik to make it better, but he remembers - “Please don’t take it off,” he begs, and his own hand goes to cover Erik’s much larger one over his collar. He’s terrified of the idea, and he doesn't know why it's suddenly come to him but it has.  
  
"Never," Erik growls. He purrs against Charles, fingers stroking along the metal lining his throat, his skin, inhaling sharp and deep, nosing into the crook of his neck. "You are mine you will always be mine." Charles really shouldn't look at him like that, shouldn't make those enticing sounds, drawing Erik closer and closer like a moth to a flame, it hurts, he doesn't know how much it hurts. He doesn't. He hurts but not like Erik. Not the same way. It's a different kind of pain, the pain of being empty but he doesn't know the pain of wanting to take. And how desperate, crazed, it can make a person and how Erik is shaking apart trying to keep himself under control, trying to keep himself-trying to keep Charles safe.  
  
How could he doubt his mate, ever, when he does such a good job of it? When he’s always taking such perfect care of him? But the pain isn’t an itch anymore, it’s not a tugging; it’s fierce, and it’s unignorable, and it’s desperate, it’s in every cell of his body, chipping and chipping away at him and it’s sore. It’s fluttering around nothing and he can’t breathe for it, clenching around air and he can’t help the way his hips buck up, seeking out Erik, looking for - but he has to hold on just a bit longer, even if they have time during, because what if he loses the thought? And he gasps, feels more tears, pooling around his lips salty and hot. “Even if I - don’t let me, please,” he rasps. But it’s such a wretched thing to ask someone, Erik is always so worried about - but he doesn’t want to exist, not even for a short while, without his collar. He doesn’t want to come back like Erik promises he will lead him and find it’s off. “Please, just promise me, please -”  
  
"I promise," Erik gasps back to him, his lips against Charles's, fingers tightening where they're fastened enough to feel Charles's pulse-point rabbit wildly into his skin, and when his hips stutter up Erik clamps his hand down over his ass and drags him closer, impossibly closer, compelling his legs to spread and come up over Erik's waist. "You are mine. You will never belong to another, never."  
  
There are things he still desperately needs to say, but none of them are going to come out now. There’s not even a chance of it, not without the heat dampened at least a little, not without Erik inside of him, and he’s absolutely mad for it, hyperventilating now, not able to ge a full breath into his lungs. Erik doesn’t break promises. He’s never broken a promise he’s earnestly made to Charles, and if he couldn’t make it he’s said so. But that thought goes away quickly, tucked away for later because his legs are around Erik’s waist and Erik’s dick is rubbing against his belly and then his own cock and he whines, wriggles frantically, sobbing out in despair when it doesn’t immediately slide in. He’s sore and puffy and open, so open, so empty, and he thrashes about like a fish on the line, seeking and seeking. “Please, fuck, please, Erik, sir, please, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts,” he sobs. He has to make it better or Charles will surely die right now.  
  
It sends an electric arc through him, piercing his chest and his whole body flashes over with it, with unbearable heat and he groans lowly, bows their foreheads together and snaps his hands up over his head. Keeps him still and his eyes flutter, and he can't help smiling. "Mine, hmmmn. _Sheli_. Come here. Make it better. I'll make it better," he whispers and he draws himself back, only so he can do exactly what he's wanted this entire time, bury himself inside of his submissive, in a long relentless line, his cock hot and hard and twitching inside of him and his whole perception narrows down to the world between their bodies and he has to make it shrink he can't bear to be separated not even an atoms-width. "Make it better-love you-"  
  
“Love you,” Charles mumbles back as he’s finally, finally filled, breathless and still gasping, chest heaving underneath Erik, legs still wrapped tightly around his Dominant’s waist where Erik urged them to go. It’s a stretch still, somehow, it burns. Erik’s cock feels huge like this, twitching and insistent and he’s all sore inside but somehow that only makes it better. It’s so unbelievably better like this, and Charles finally settles even as he cries with it, this time from relief. There’s a dreamy smile on his lips when he stares up at his Dominant, adoringly, devotedly, and he’s still terribly frightened but, “Feels better, thank you,” he whispers sweetly. His hands are still held over his head in one of Erik’s - strong, his mate is so strong, it startles and delights him every time - but he tugs gently, a silent plea. There’s something else he needs.  
  
Erik doesn't even move, he stays just like this, chest-to-chest, Charles's cock trapped against the muscles of Erik's stomach and he can feel that, too, and it feels good and he likes it, Charles needs him. Needs him inside. Needs to be filled up, needs to be owned and Erik purrs into his ear, a low rumble from the bottom of his chest that sounds nearly-animalistic. When Charles tugs, though, he finds himself pinned right back to the ground. "Nicely," Erik rasps the reminder with a pointed thrust inside his mate.  
  
It makes Charles wail, and then his eyes do cross, and after that it takes quite a while before he’s coherent enough to remember what it was he was meant to be asking for, to remember anything besides the fact that Erik’s inside of him. He doesn’t come, but his dick gives a desperate, needy twitch, already red and messy and the only reason he hasn’t is because he knows to wait. It wasn’t defiance, he just forgot, and he clenches nicely in apology, bites his lip and he’s still smiling, all the edges softened out but he’s still him. He still remembers. It’s all still there, and he wants to hang onto it for as long as he possibly can. “May I use my hands, please?” he asks, and it makes him shiver, because it’s asking permission and it’s perfect, Erik was right before. It’s how it should and must be.  
  
"Mmmn, yes," Erik laughs into his ear, affectionate because he's still him. He gives Charles a little tap on the nose and then kisses its tip before finaly letting him up, which means pressing all the way up against him, his weight heavy and solid. He tries not to hurt, never to hurt, laying on him in such a way that they're both comfortable-as comfortable as can be. Every once in a while he's spurred into motion and gives an almighty thrust, fucks Charles like he's meant to be doing, but mostly he just holds him, enjoying the feel of skin and sweat and the way Charles shivers under his fingertips.  
  
It doesn’t hurt. It feels wonderful, actually, calming and soothing and perfect and he is shivering and moaning with it, eyelids slowly fluttering closed. At first, despite asking for permission, he doesn’t seem to use his hands at all. Not for any particular reason, anyway. They come up to graze against Erik’s back, careful because he knows none of it hurts but Erik is sometimes more uncomfortable with it than he usually is, doesn’t like it, because he has all the memories he needs. He’s himself. He’s Charles. But it’s that thought that bolsters him, because he has to do this while he remembers; he’s focusing on something, and suddenly far away, but it isn’t whatever the Void warned of. He’s just concentrating, tongue poked out from his lips and eyebrows pulled together the way he does when he’s absorbed in his work. After a while he sighs, looks up at his Dominant, those lips pursed into a very Charles pout. They’re more swollen than usual, cracked when he tugs them between his teeth again. “Will you help me with something?” he asks, and then he’s smiling, because not only is he asking nicely, he’s asking for help. He’s reaching out for help instead of being flooded with frustration or insecurity, exactly like his mate has been teaching him to do. Even with everything, even with the Void restoring it before it lets it be wiped away, he’s tried so very hard to learn. “Please?” he adds, because he’s Erik’s boy and he knows his manners, thank you.  
  
Erik shifts under the contact, not exactly-away, but tense, muscles rippling and hunching up as Charles settles his hands against the gnarled, winding limbs of tissue like old tree bark, but he allows it. He doesn't pull away; he almost never does. When Charles asks for help, though, it brings a smile to his face and he nuzzles into his cheek, kissing him along his sensitive temple just because he can, because he's proud, and delighted, and the creature that lives on in him is soothed, too. "Tell me," Erik whispers, soft.  
  
Erik being proud of him is one of his absolute favorite things in the world, and since he’s prone to forgetting it very soon, he lets himself soak in it now. He purrs with it, leans into it; his temple is particularly sensitive now, but for some reason it doesn’t hurt when Erik kisses it, just sparks with shivery, delightful sensation, the room plunged into it, too. It takes a while to focus again, floating in sensation, in submission, and his fingers are skimming against Erik’s back as he does, still. To Erik it feels like the cool, glowing touch of the Void for a few moments, releasing tension from all his muscles, evaporating any lingering aches, as if there is no difference, and some of the gnarled flesh seems to shift; but it’s Charles in his arms, undoubtedly Charles, biting on his lip as he tries to do as he’s told. “Can I - hm…” He wants to ask, but he’s not quite sure how to phrase it, his nose scrunched with it. “Can I use it?” he decides, earnest and still-soft, eyes still wet and he lets Erik knows what he means, pulling it forward into both of their conscious attention; the humming, thrumming, ever-present power inside of Erik, fields and force and charge, the Earth and the currents, invisible lines, the way Erik always feels it but sometimes it’s stronger, delicious and shivery and comforting, the pull of metal, the hum of it; fascinating, and Charles has always felt it but now he really feels it, as much as he ever could, his eyes glazed over and his lips parted. It’s lovely, it’s intoxicating. Erik has told him he can before, but he wants permission, especially because of what he's asking because even if he controls Erik, technically, he wants Erik in control. He wants help. Right now, with the Void so close, he could do anything, but he won't. He won't. He'll ask nicely, while he still can.  
  
This time it's Erik who's biting his lip, eyes rolling up and he inhales sharply. It makes his gut do a flip and melts out into his fingertips, makes his ears and eyes and the tips of his toes flush hotly, chromium and sodium channels in the air rushing through his nerves. Ion channels expanding, sizzling, electric-buzzing and sparks flying-the room crackles with energy, mixed with heat; all of Erik's abilities routed through fire, through desire as if the world itself has shifted on its axis, shifted into a parallel perception, the innate beauty of its construction, the eroticism of movement and touch and composition and Charles reacting to it causes it to react to him, flowing right back into his body, into his mind. "Yes," he presses into Charles's temple, into his skin, down to the atomic level.  
  
It’s suddenly a bit too much for Charles, suddenly overwhelming; he gasps, cries out and clenches hard around Erik inside of him, starts to shiver with it, starts to shake. It’s not that he can’t control Erik in this way (he doesn’t quite like that term, though he has nothing better; he should never control Erik), that he can’t take all of that beautiful, crackling power and use it like he’d asked permission for, it’s that he can. In this moment, with the Void close and Erik closer, he can, and it’s so wholly overwhelming that he forgets to breathe for a few moments, dizzy and dazed in the aftermath, whining as he makes little thrusts with his hips to soothe himself. “It’s so much,” he whispers, utterly breathless, because it is, and it’s right at his fingertips. What if he hurts? With the Void peeking out, who knows if he would be gentle, if he would use the right amount of care, that he wouldn’t hurt Erik in the process, take his mind and hollow it out? But the Void suggested Erik take him away, not lock him up in a tower and leave him to fend for himself. It thinks Erik needs to help him. Even at his most powerful, he couldn’t harm his mate, could he?  
  
"You be good," Erik whispers back, and it's not a Command, exactly, but it is, too. And an answer. Charles will be good, he will be and he is. He won't hurt Erik. Neither him nor the Void will. Erik doesn't know how he knows that, but he does, with every fiber of his being, he does. It isn't mere trust, it's knowledge. Charles belongs to Erik, but Erik also belongs to Charles, and so Charles is just as entitled to Erik as he is to Charles. Maybe not to control him, but when he wants something, something that only Erik has, he will find that it is there purely because it belongs to him, because he has earned it, because Erik is here for him. Almost without thinking, when Charles pushes up against him and clenches all around him, a zap of real electricity shoots between them and echoes all around the room, a harmless blue lightning bolt that peels and twists off into the dark.  
  
For some reason, that makes Charles afraid; it’s not that he disagrees, that he doesn’t know Erik is his mate, that they were made solely for each other and that means, without a doubt, that Erik is for Charles, too. But it’s something about the way it’s phrased, it’s something about entitlement, about - he doesn’t know why it has him all tangled up, but it does the opposite of sooth, and he pulls back. Pulls away, not physically but mentally, separates and unravels and distances himself, unconsciously shying away. Shutting down.  
  
"No," Erik growls and he doesn't let Charles get anywhere, the moment he turns to disappear he meets that wall of metal once more and Erik pulls him back to where he belongs. "You tell me. No hiding, no hiding," he Orders harshly, splaying his fingers over Charles's jaw to make him look. If he didn't forget, if he's still right there, if he still knows who his mate is then he knows that Erik won't accept anything less.  
  
Charles is still here. He’s still right here, and Erik is still lodged deep inside of him and his legs are still up around his mate’s waist, as much as they can be because Erik is huge, he’s his mountain man, and they’re starting to ache but he focuses on that, too, lets it settle him as he takes deep breaths like his Dominant would want and looks up at him, chastised again. Apologetic. “I - it’s just…” Charles just doesn’t want to take. He doesn’t. He’s said it before, and it didn’t hit him until precisely this moment how much he absolutely does not want it. He doesn’t like the idea of it. Everyone has taken from Erik, everyone has taken and taken and taken and maybe Charles is different, he is, he knows he is, but he doesn’t want it to work like that. He doesn’t think it would be good for him if it did. And one of his biggest complexes, not just with Erik but with anyone, with everything - he could so easily take. Take anything, everything, more than even Erik could. Now more than ever, with the Void’s help. But he doesn’t want to. He’s never wanted to, and there’s never been anyone - and earlier he twisted himself up into knots about it, about how he thinks he shouldn’t need permission for things, but maybe does, and who has he had to ask for it? He’s tried to keep himself in line. He built walls, he built shields, and they crumbled, and he rebuilt, and they fell, and he restarted, and it never got him anywhere. Actually, it got him here. So if all of them break, if there’s nothing left, what’s keeping him safe from himself?  
  
"Me," Erik rumbles deeply. Charles isn't taking anything from him. He never has, and he never will. What Charles fails to understand sometimes is that Erik has given himself to Charles as deeply and powerfully as Charles gives himself to Erik. And What Erik himself fails to realize is that he has so much to give. Everything to give. That it's all right there, that it hasn't been taken and destroyed. Maybe it was, but Charles rebuilt him, too, and here he is. A whole being, and he would give all of himself to Charles a hundred times over, just because he wants to, because he likes it, because Erik loves him. He asks Erik for permission. And Erik gives it, almost all of the time, because he likes to. But sometimes he doesn't, because he likes that, too. And it gets them here. They found each other. They help each other. "Trust me. I keep you safe." And sure, Charles could just decide one day to wipe Erik's mind and kill the world, but he might have a more difficult time with that than he anticipates, anyway. Erik is not powerless in the face of him, after all. He is the only one who could possibly hope to match him. But Erik doesn't think like that, he's not capable of thinking like that. Of if he could beat Charles or take Charles on, because it's just not something he considers. Charles is his submissive. When he gets out of line, Erik will correct him.  
  
A more difficult time but it wouldn’t be impossible, it wouldn’t even be improbable, but Charles can’t think like that, either, because it isn’t the way he wants or needs to think right now. But it’s important, in those deep, unconscious places, the distinction, because it doesn’t change anything. Charles being able to do it gives him a power that changes nothing. It isn’t even a possibility, not one he would ever be able to consider while he still thought and felt like himself, while the Void was still made up of him, and if there’s ever a time when he doesn’t, when it isn’t, when he truly, completely loses himself, then this would be an entirely different discussion anyway - but it doesn’t matter. Erik preventing that is what makes him least powerless, what makes him the only one just as much as any other application of power. Charles swallowed the Void for him, and the Void swallowed back with Erik in mind. The first thoughts of a reborn Universe were Erik Lehnsherr. Erik is the man with the Universe wearing his collar, and that reality is important, not undermined by the fact that he could decide not to, because he won’t. He won’t. But more than that, Charles doesn’t fail to realize. He knows. He knows these things, and he knows Erik has given himself to him, and he’s gladly accepted it, over and over again, but it’s not the same. It doesn’t work the same way, even if in some ways it does. It’s equal, but not the same. The entitlement there is not the same. And he needs to ask for permission. He needs - and it isn’t about rejecting that Erik belongs to him, it isn’t about failing to see it, it isn’t about any of that. He wants all of Erik, too, he’s said that plenty and meant it more, and he’s been more than vocal when he felt like he wasn’t getting it. But now, and here, with what’s coming looming - Charles closes his eyes and forces himself to breathe, not to fight against that metal wall, because the truth of the matter is, he absolutely could break it down now if he wanted to. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t, and he won’t, but he’s getting all worked up and it’s not how he wants to be. He could get rid of that, too, he thinks, the inconvenient thoughts, the uncertainties, the Void would help him. Is he supposed to?  
  
Charles is the one with the power. Erik has always known that. He's the one with the ability to do anything he wants, but it just doesn't matter. It's a thought experiment. Prosecuting yourself based on what you theoretically can do is pointless, and Erik spares nothing for it. What Charles can do, what he does do, is what Erik says. And if he forgets, Erik has told him many times, Erik will remind him. Erik will keep him in his place. If he loses himself, Erik will keep him safe. He will keep everyone safe. He will keep himself safe. He's not going to be rid of anything, he is going to stop, and calm down, and listen to his Dominant. "If you wish to do something, you will ask for permission. And you have done so. And I have given it to you, and it is frankly that simple. If you need something, you will ask me for it. It is that simple." The Orders are frank and with Erik's usual lack of nuance, but that doesn't mean he doesn't understand. He does.  
  
But isn’t it funny that it’s just another way Charles and Erik balance each other out? That they help each other? Charles twists himself up into knots, and he has since he was a young child. His brain is always processing on a level that’s far too fast and complex, prone to tangling up in itself, tripping and twining; and Erik isn’t at all unintelligent, quite the opposite, he’s more than capable of keeping up (which is new for Charles, too, even now), but he doesn’t overcomplicate things. He doesn’t deliberate until he’s brought himself agony. He’s decisive, and he’s firm, and he keeps things that don’t need to be complicated simple. He decides, he doesn't let things linger and fester. Charles has always had trouble with that, and somehow he musters up a smile, awed, relieved, because perhaps his Dominant is right. It’s just that simple. “I want to get rid of it,” he teases, weakly, because his mind is still going, and going, and going. He’s still so scared, and he unconsciously shifts, head falling back onto the pillows when it nudges Erik inside of him.  
  
"Mm, no," Erik smiles back down at him, moving a strand of hair from his face to behind his ear. "It's mine," is what he says. Simple as can be, because it is that simple to him. It's his and he wants it. He wants all of Charles, every part and every iteration even if it's scary and tough, Erik wants it. He wants it and they end up here, right here, plastered to one another and entirely open. Erik's hips stutter forward with the movement to bury himself even further and he tenses all over again, his hand trailing down Charles's stomach, through the wet spot pooling there together his cock between calloused fingers, warm and steady. No more winding, trailing, screaming, twisting. Just this. Simple. Charles belongs to Erik. Body and spirit.  
  
Charles shivers under the attention, whines when Erik starts to play with his oversensitive dick, still leaking and red and painful, but he hasn’t come, even after all the stimulation, because he needs permission for that, too. It’s just that it’s hard to keep his hips still, even though he tries; and it makes focusing almost impossible, his eyelids heavy with overwhelmed pleasure. His Dominant gave him permission for something and it would be a shame to waste it, especially when it was important, but there’s absolutely no way he can have both at once without exploding from sensation, because both separately threaten to completely undo him. “Ah - may I, can I,” but nothing else comes out of his mouth, his cock twitching in Erik’s fingers, spurting, and he has to lock every single muscle, his belly taut with it, to keep from coming.  
  
"Mmmhmn," Erik's chest vibrates with the sound, right through Charles's skin. Erik can't stop, his attention instantly snapped to the way Charles moans for him, how his dick leaks against Erik's fingers, how his hips stutter up, desperate and seeking and needy. His submissive needs him. Wants him. Feels good for him. Such a pretty, good boy he has. Erik's eyes are half-lidded and hazy, vivid green edged out by inky blackness, but completely locked on his mate. He secures his grip on Charles's cock, no longer playing at all. Erik loves watching him writhe and twist and gasp and whine, he loves listening to Charles's pleasure. Being its source. Erik's working him, now, slow and easy and no less overwhelming but he pauses when Charles's voice escapes him and bows their heads together, just holding him. "Mm. Can you what, _neshama_? What would you like to do? Tell me." He has permission. He should use it. Erik wants him to.  
  
But Charles is whining, gasping, moaning, his eyes too heavy to keep open as he writhes in Erik's grip, beneath him, whimpers loudly when his Dominant stops stroking him in unconscious protest. He can't calm down now. His belly contracts, and he can't keep from squirming, from trying to seek out Erik's long, warm fingers; it hurts, and he doesn't need his cock touched at all to come on Erik's, especially not like this, but waiting hurts. There's no way he can focus now that Erik's played with him like that, ramped everything back up, and up, up. "Wanna come, please," he whimpers, hopeful, but he waits. Because he's a good boy? He needs Erik to make it better so he can focus, he's so overwhelmed.  
  
And maybe that's yet another way Erik's taking care of him because he knows. He knows there's so much Charles wants to do and so much left to say and it's hard to focus on anything when the heat threatens to obliterate, so he's ramping it up. Bringing it to a head, where it can't be ignored and shoved down and pushed aside; and that's OK. Erik will give him relief. He'll give them both relief. He'll take care of it, he can, he knows how. "Yes, _neshama_. Show me. Come for me, hm? Look at me. For me. Mine," he rumbles, pleased, taking Charles's chin in his bad hand. He can't grip it the way he wants to, but he turns Charles's gaze toward him, holds him there steadily.  
  
And he does. Charles comes right on Command, wailing with it, keening and gasping and crying through it, his whole body twitching and clamping down on Erik desperately. He didn't need to be touched, he didn't need anything more than that; Erik said, so he did. Now he's shivering with the aftershocks, panting heavily, clinging to his mate with everything in him, body and mind; but he's safe. He's taken care of, and there is relief, among the oversensitivity. He can think beyond the heat again, he's not sated, it won't last, but it's better. "Thank you, sir," he whispers, and flutters beneath Erik, his legs shaking horribly as he tries to keep them up for his Dominant. It feels nice, he feels nice, and he tries to stretch up to nuzzle into Erik, seeking more contact, more attention, always particularly sensitive and needy for touch after he comes. Especially like this.  
  
Erik makes a sound halfway between a hum and a growl, nowhere near satisifed, but satisfied with Charles. Pleased, with him, specifically. Erik kisses him, long and lingering and gentle, stretching up alongside of him to tug him into his arms and guide him to rest his head on Erik's chest, practically glowing with fondness. He's still nudged up perfectly inside of him, still hard; just-barely able to focus on stringing a thought together. Mostly iterations of _mine_ and _love you_ , but you get the drift. He peppers more kisses along Charles's jaw, gives him a little mark above his collar for good measure, laughing into his ear.  
  
There are quite a lot of those marks there, now, and Charles thrills at the reminder of it. Marked up and Claimed and Erik's, and now he's full of his Dominant's come again, too, purring and content with it, his legs shaking from the strain of being held up so long but he's boneless with the relief. Nuzzles into Erik's chest, kisses idly, runs his fingertips over bare skin. To feel, to know, while he still can. And then he's shivering again, because he can focus, even just a little, on what he'd asked permission for, and all of that power in the afterglow is almost entirely too much. He whines with it. How does Erik do this, how does he not get so overwhelmed by it? The same thing could be asked of him, of course, in a different way, but it's so much. He's never been able to feel it like this.  
  
Erik laughs again, but it's gentle. He draws his hand down Charles's arm, down his chest and over his back, stroking at his skin and letting the hairs raise in the aftermath of electric outburst. His body is built for this. To channel it, to experience it. Every nerve ending in Erik's constitution is saturated and primed for the smashing of atoms into one another, the curve of space and time and gravitational flux. He knows because he's been tested. He knows intellectually that he can handle massive surges of power, hundreds of thousands of volts beyond what would kill an ordinary human being even when it agonized him, when it felt like he was being ripped apart, his molecules spreading and spreading until they fell on the floor like loose marbles. But they never did. They always snapped back into place. It's different, now, so different, to feel it in its natural form. To feel the thrill and hum of everything all around him, all that energy and power, without dials on the table turned-up and crunching, convulsing agony on the other end.  
  
A fundamental force bent naturally to his mate's Will, and he's experiencing it now. Utterly fascinating, and still so terribly overwhelming, his breath hitching as he gasps with it. It's not in his own body, it never could be, all secondhand sensation but it's functionally negligent, with the Void close like this; he can be Erik like this, sink into him and become him, and it's - to feel both, to be both - his body is wracked with the shudders, clinging to his Dominant for purchase. "So much," he breathes. "If it's too much, Order me out, promise?" Because they're always connected, and Charles has nudged his way in before, made Erik do things without him even noticing, had him use his abilities, too, but this is something different. And it's going to be intimate, Charles wrapped around his very existence in a way smoother than Frost could ever dream of. No jerkiness, no distance, no hack-jobs. They can become one like this, if Erik - if he wants it.  
  
"Yes," he whispers back, pressing a kiss to Charles's temple. He wants it. As close as they can possibly be, he wants to be. He's had the thought before, he can't get close enough. He needs to be closer and Charles knows, doesn't he. He knows how to look after his mate, too. He'll take care of Erik. He won't hurt him. He won't leave him empty and hollow. He won't force him to do things, he won't manipulate him like a marionette on strings. Erik knows that instinctively, that it won't be uncomfortable. It will be home. Charles where he belongs, on the inside of Erik's being. Written on his nervous system.  
  
Charles inhales, long and greedy as if he anticipates he won’t take a full breath for a good while, exhales nice and slow, and then he focuses. And here’s the thing about Charles’ telepathy, ever since the Void began to encroach, ever since those defenses of his began to tumble down and disintegrate, and it all started when he met Erik in that holding cell: everything has gotten sharper, and he hasn’t allowed himself to feel it. It isn’t buzzing anymore, not with anyone, even when he attempts to fade it out; it isn’t just surface thoughts, vague feelings, dulled sensations that he needs to pick apart from each other. This is nothing Emma Frost could have achieved, even with her telepathic links, because it’s simply leagues ahead of her. It’s on another level entirely, no different than comparing Erik’s control over electromagnetism on the subatomic level to him simply moving metal, someone using telekinesis. Charles gasps, loud and echoing, finds himself spinning with it, because he can feel everything. Everything Erik is, in this moment, Charles is, too. It takes him a while to orient himself, to find his concentration again, but - he cuts off some of Erik’s sensation, his perception, shuts it down entirely, the mental equivalent of playfully sliding hands over his eyes. “No peeking,” he teases, but his eyes widen because it’s come out of Erik’s mouth, too, in Erik’s voice, his deep rumble, and he hadn’t intended that at all and it’s a lot, but he finds his footing quickly. He closes his eyes, and Erik’s close, too (oops) and he focuses.  
  
Erik is delighted and he can't help laughing, and right before it tumbles out of him he wonders if he'll hear it in Charles's voice instead, but he dutifully keeps still and allows his eyes to close, he doesn't resist in the slightest. A sleeping beast allowing his mate to run and jump and play all over him, patient and fond all at once. His whole being, his whole consciousness, curls toward Charles's like a needy cat, a plant to sunlight, the ocean to the shore. All that's been taken from him, wrung out and bent and wrong, a mind shattered into a million different facets; he's not afraid of Charles. And Charles is nowhere in the same category as Emma, but maybe that's part of why he doesn't worry. Emma was a butcher. She only knew how to carve and slaughter. She knew nothing of tenderness. Not like this.  
  
And Charles is tender. Gentle, sweet, submissive, exceedingly so, and it feels like it; not an intrusion, not a breaking-in, but a loving, welcome presence, one that still very much belongs to Erik. He doesn’t yank control, he doesn’t take blindly, he doesn’t cleave apart or destroy or shatter. While he works, though, and he’s working diligently, a deep well of concentration humming all around them, of power, of focus, Erik’s and his twined intimately together in a place Erik cannot feel or see, he does play. He does serve, as he should. He finds the beast in Erik’s chest, calmed and momentarily sated (or perhaps not, because his certainly isn’t) and he prods at it, playful and wanting, laughs from somewhere inside of Erik as well as outside, tugs at all of those instincts and thoughts Erik finds animal and coaxes them, because he’s curious, because he likes them. _What's this_? he asks, from deep inside. More of this. He finds all of those aches and pains he alleviated earlier and he does more; he takes every tense muscle, every tension in general, and he eases it. Slowly, carefully, methodically, until Erik’s body melts into a relaxation he did not previously think possible, more than he can ever recall being. It feels nice, it feels good. He has never played like this. He’s never been free with his abilities like this. He’s still himself, very much so. But there’s something light, too. He checks, he peeks; _it’s okay_? He still has Erik’s permission?  
  
Erik hums again, low and long, arching up against Charles, whether it's in the Real or not he can't tell and it doesn't matter. What is this? Charles asks, and Erik has to ask it too, because he doesn't know until it riles up in response, a super-sonic growl, an otherworldly snap of teeth and fingers and want and another endless well of possession , of ownership, of pure joy and lust and love and wonder. Fierce Dominion that sweeps out and wraps Charles up, from all the way inside of Erik where he didn't know it lived. Those primal thoughts, those animal desires of the body and the mind, that want to peel Charles apart from the inside-out. Not to hut, but to uncover. To explore. And to hurt, maybe a little. A little pain. The thoughts that Erik doesn't let out. Usually he responds to Charles, he reacts to him, but Erik almost never initiates. He never demands, out of nowhere. But that doesn't mean he hasn't thought about it. He's sorry he struggles. If Charles has a complex about what he can do, Erik has a complex about what he has done. And it's so, so hard to overcome, to act entitled to that. He's already beginning to panic, afraid-just, afraid, he's sorry.  
  
Charles understands. More than he ever has, he understands, because he is. There’s a humming noise from somewhere and he thinks it might come from Erik’s mouth, too, but he doesn’t disrupt his work; he just acts with tenderness, with love, with care, the same way Erik noted only he could. He takes those panicked, troubled things, not just the thoughts but the impulses behind them, the reasons for them, and gently soothes them as efficiently as he did Erik’s tense muscles, treating each one with the proper attention and care, filling Erik with peace instead. It’s not an overlay of calm while Erik screams underneath it, the way it’s even been with Charles before, too frightened to do much else, to manipulate more than the surface - it’s deep, and it’s heavy, and it’s full; why shouldn’t Erik feel entitled, when those same things live in Charles, in the depths of his soul, his heart, his mind, ingrained into his body? It doesn’t need to be responsive, because Charles will always respond, and if he for some reason doesn’t, he’s always made that clear. _Look_ , he says: and he aligns their pieces. He lines them up, spreads them out for Erik to see, like he’s taking their hands and pressing the palms together to show that they fit (though Erik’s are always laughably huge, next to Charles’), squeezing Erik inside of him at the same time to demonstrate that way, too; see? See how we fit, see how yours fits mine? And it’s shattering for Charles, too, his startled awe is palpable, pulsing inside of Erik’s mind, his body, felt like it’s his own - Erik wants to own? Charles needs to be owned. Erik wants to explore? Charles implores him to do so. Erik wants to hurt? Charles needs to be hurt, too. It’s just a fact of things. Should he be ashamed of it? No, because _look - mine match yours. Look. What is this? What is it, will you show it to me?_

* * *

It takes a few moments but Erik does settle, and he doesn't know where he begins and Charles ends and he loves it, and he feels like he's floating. Floating in the world that is just the two of them, or perhaps it's because Charles has soothed away the tension that has been his companion for sixteen years, along with the pain. He's given Erik more gifts than he knows what to do with, than he could ever hope to express his gratitude for and the only thing that comforts him is he thinks Charles might be able to feel it for himself, how piercing and all-encompassing it is, how humbled he is that Charles chose him. He remembers saying something similar a long time ago, in a hospital room, where they lived far away. Erik's pieces match. What Charles wants, he wants. There are dark parts of him, parts that should never see the light of day, but Charles helps him, just like he helps Charles when he gets himself worked up. Erik is still too ashamed to talk about it openly, but Charles doesn't push him, either. He is what Erik needs, always. "We fit," he gasps, not shocked because of course he knew, but in awe at what he's seeing, what he's perceiving. An infinite kaleidoscope reflecting them forever and ever, light-filaments bent through soul. Does Charles want to see? Whatever he wants to see, whatever it is. It's his. Erik will show it to him. It belongs to Charles. He can ask, he can ask permission, and Erik will decide. But he's decided. Yes, Charles can see.  
  
Even now, Charles doesn’t dare take without asking. Not because he believes Erik will tell him no, but because it’s his right to do so if he wishes, because, at the end of the day, perhaps Charles just needs to ask. There are places he could go now that he does not go, not because he’s frightened or disgusted but because they’re not to be prodded at right this second, not to be pushed at. He focuses on other things, namely filling Erik with that same gratitude, that same pride he feels whenever he thinks of wearing Erik’s collar, being Erik’s, that awed joy. Speaking of focus, Charles’ eyes flutter, and for a moment he seems to pull back; he certainly hasn’t, he’s still there, but he’s gotten a bit overwhelmed. “Erik,” he gasps.  
  
Erik pets his cheek and curls around him, in body if not all the way in mind; not chasing him down but also-a little, because he doesn't want Charles to pull away, he wants him even closer but he doesn't-he won't ask Charles to overwhelm himself. _Not like that. Take it easy. Be easy_. They can learn and go slow. _It's OK, see? It's safe_. Erik smiles down at him. Charles belongs there, too. Belongs inside of him, inside of his mind, as deeply as he can go. Erik will never fear him, never. Please don't be afraid of Erik. He won't hurt Charles. Never will. Not like that, not damage, not harm, not suffering. Never.  
  
That’s not quite what the problem was. He’s not frightened, and it wasn’t anything inside of Erik that overwhelmed him, technically, he’s just been busy, he’s been borrowing, he’s been doing what his Dominant so generously gave him permission for, and it overcame him for a second; he pulls up a memory of Erik’s effortlessly, and it’s not a projection. He feels it as if he’s living it again, and Charles does, too, though for him it’s the first time. They’re both that desert boy, in his body, watching through his eyes, and the car begins to slip and then it doesn’t. It lifts instead. It’s the first time they - it’s the first time Erik truly feels it, all of the humming power, all of that energy, all of that potential. It completely changes him. When it’s wiped away, Erik is looking at Charles as Charles smiles up at him from his chest, sweet and still awed, still startled, his eyelids heavy with it; it was so overwhelming, wasn’t it? For Charles it’s overwhelming. It’s so much. “It feels good,” he gasps, and he sounds properly drunk on it. On Erik.  
  
Erik will always remember this day. Iakov was so busy underneath the car that he didn't pay attention, and when it began to creak and fall he wasn't even aware. And time slowed down for Erik to a pure crawl, and Edie thought she was going to watch her husband be crushed from the kitchen window, until something spurrs him into motion and the whole universe flares and he can feel it, tug on the lines, it's immense and bright and _find the light_ , and he does and it's floating he made it float. Erik can't help but grin. From that very first moment, he loved his power, he loved feeling his power. He never felt entitled to the world, the way some do when confronted with the fact that they have an immeasurable, insane degree of ability-he felt responsible for it. Overwhelming, but good. "You like it?" he grins again.  
  
“Mmmm,” Charles agrees, and it’s practically just another moan, his eyes heavy-lidded. His abilities didn’t come to him in so wonderful a way; it was jarring and confusing and loud. From the very first moment he hated and feared them, thought he was wrong, bad, sick, crazy, but Erik has always endeavored to teach him differently. Just another way he’s taken such good care of him. He’s purring with it now, heavy and full with it, and he rocks his hips unconsciously while he filters back in a layer of Erik’s perception he’d hidden. He can feel it now. Feel Charles working, feel him concentrating, feel him borrowing, what he’s doing just slightly out of reach but it’s all Erik’s body, all of that magnetic hum, the feel of it flowing through him; Charles can feel all of it now, too, can feel it without the layer-removed and he’s still panting with it, head bowed into Erik’s chest. “I love it,” he corrects Erik. Not because it’s power, but because it’s Erik’s and he’s being let in. Erik is letting him see. No one else will ever understand this intimately, will ever know exactly how and what Erik feels, not even those who studied and stole it - but Charles will, he does, and he loves that. Call him selfish, greedy, but he loves that. It's only his.  
  
Erik can't help but be proud. Of being loved, that Charles has seen inside his deepest self and found it-nice, found it worthy, found it wonderful. That Charles feels the way the world feels, just as he does, and likes it. Erik smiles, trailing his finger down Charles's cheek. Charles can have it. He can have it whenever he wants, he can always be here, always be like this. Erik wants to give that to him. There are so many things he doesn't know about his abilities, about his full potential. Things Sebastian Shaw never would dream of unlocking, things that have nothing to do with aggression and death, that only Charles will ever be privy to, will ever know how to unlock. He burrows in closer, watching Charles play, the perfect, most patient human jungle-gym.  
  
The lazy, indulgent beast, watching its mate with every fondness in the world. Charles shivers, because with the Void as close as it is, there’s so much he could do; but he doesn’t want to somehow speed things along, to call on it accidentally. The thought is absolutely terrifying to him. He’s been trying not to think about it, not to think about the limited time they have. And when he does, when he considers that - how do you say goodbye to the other half of your soul? What do you say? But Charles can think of a few things, and he takes a shaky breath, shifts his hips again, sighing at the feel of Erik still inside. “If - If I don’t -” But he can’t. Erik said not to focus on what ifs, but Charles is stuck on it. He’s consumed by it. There’s so much he hasn’t said, so much they haven’t done. They've only just started.  
  
If Charles needs to say something, he can say it, but Erik won't let him be consumed by something that isn't even a certain possibility and allow that to be the only thing he focuses on before he has to go away. Erik kisses his brow, shaking his head. "You will. I have faith." In them. In Charles. In the Void, even. In himself. Erik can't express how he knows, only that he does, or at least hopes so strongly that it's as good as. "And we will do it all, say it all. All of it. I will give you everything."  
  
It’s Erik’s complete and utter hope in this that keeps him from spinning right off into despair, in truly wasting these last precious moments. His Dominance, his decisiveness, his firmness, everything they’ve been building from the very beginning. But he still hides in Erik’s chest, swallows the painful lump in his throat. “I don’t want to go. I want more time,” he whispers. It’s childish, it’s pointless, but he does. It always feels like they’re running out of time. He turns the clock back fifteen minutes in everyone’s minds but he can’t do it indefinitely, not without stopping the world like the Void intends and even that can't stop this. It always catches up, and it never feels like enough. They can never just be.  
  
"Me too," Erik whispers back, crushing his eyes shut. It hurts. He wishes, too. But they will. They will have time. They'll have all the time in the world, Erik will give it to them, he'll make it. He'll fashion time out of sand until it weaves through them like silk and he won't let them fall apart. It's never going to be enough, he knows that. But it doesn't have to be. Erik will make sure they get to spend the rest of their lives together. Always. Forever.  
  
Charles has to believe that. He knows he likely won’t be conscious through this process, whatever it is. Not as he is now, not as Charles in his entirety. Like when the Void comes and replaces him, he’ll cease to exist. Like a death, too much like a death. “Will you miss me?” he asks, almost too-quiet.  
  
"Always," he laughs softly. When the Void comes, Erik doesn't see it as Charles ceasing to exist, not really, because he's always known that Charles is there, that he'll come back, that the Void won't hurt him. But this is different, the Void told him so itself, that he'll need Erik now more than ever. But Erik is willing to endure, to go through that, to take care of his submissive exactly how he needs. He will make sure that Charles emerges, but that isn't to say he won't miss Charles. He absolutely will. He always does from the moment they are separate. Erik doesn't know if he can even exist on his own, but he will try.  
  
On that, on Erik’s ability to care for him, Charles doesn’t doubt. That was never going to be in question, even as fear continues to eat away at him. He peeks up, reaches up, too, places his hand gently on Erik’s cheek and all his restless shifting is ramping things up again, but that’s alright. It means they still have time. Erik will take care of it. “I’m sorry, darling,” he sighs, frowning. “You’ll be brilliant, but you shouldn’t have to. I would do anything to make it so you didn’t have to.” Surely Erik knows that.  
  
He closes his palm over Charles's, his bigger over Charles's smaller one and nuzzles into his skin. "I'm scared," he admits softly. He's scared he won't be enough, he won't do enough, he'll hurt. He won't help. He's just scared. He's not invulnerable. He's not infallible. He's just a person and he's afraid. He doesn't know how to exist alone. He's been alone before, but he hasn't been a person before. "I love you. Come back to me."  
  
Charles knows. It nearly breaks his heart to hear it, but he knows. He lets out another hitched, heavy breath, rests his cheek back against Erik’s bare chest for comfort. It’s broad, and strong, and he can hear his Dominant’s heartbeat. It’s safe. “I know,” he whispers. “I love you, too. And I trust you, Erik. You’re always asking me to trust you, and I do. I don’t want to ask this of you. I don’t want to go. I’m frightened, too, terribly so. But I know that whatever becomes of me, I’ll be in your hands.” He takes Erik’s hand and slowly, gently guides it back to his neck, to his collar. “Don’t let me take it off. Don't take it off for me. Promise me.” Erik has already promised, but Charles wants to hear it again. He wants to believe it. "Promise me that when I go, you'll remember this for both of us."  
  
"Of course I will." He rubs his thumb across Charles's skin, swallowing roughly. "You are mine. You belong to me. No matter what, no matter what you are like, you are mine. You are not free. You are not independent. You are not alone." Erik just hopes he won't be, either. He hopes Charles understands that he can't live, by himself. So he has to try and come back. Their children need him. Erik needs him.  
  
Immediately Charles is crying again, tears blurring his vision until he closes them firmly, the nerve struck. He doesn’t know how much trying he can do, how this will work, what will happen, where he’ll go. He doesn’t want to reassure Erik of something he can’t promise, of an effort he can’t give, and so it doesn’t come out, but surely he knows that if there is anything at all he can do to come back, he will. He’s done it before. Erik was there for some of the screaming, for the rending, incomprehensible agony as he took on the Void and fought to stay. He doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t. “I trust you,” is what he repeats, voice caught on a sob he won’t let come. “And I’m yours. Wholly, completely, I’m yours. No matter what. I know you say I helped you remember you’re a person, Erik, and now I need you to remind me. Of who I am. Of what we are. I know you can do this. There’s no one else who could. Protect us, yeah? Please?”  
  
He lays two kisses over each of his eyes, gentle and soft. "I will. I will." He'll do his very best. He will endure every trial and every agony, and he will keep Charles safe. Charles trusts him. Erik will be worthy of it. He gives Charles a little tap on the nose, his own wrinkling playfully. "I promise."  
  
Charles opens his mouth to speak again, but what comes out is a gasp, and then a moan, low and near-tortured, his body trembling with it, his nails digging into Erik’s shoulders because he forgets, it’s always so overwhelming. “I’m almost done,” he whispers, and it’s shy all of a sudden, it’s quiet, it’s nervous, but his eyes are glazed over, he clenches down hard around the weight inside of him, bites on his lip. “Again? Please?” he asks, cheeks flushed with embarrassment, but they can talk through it, too. Erik can take care of him in every possible way. He’s more than capable. And Charles, hesitantly, but then with all the playfulness from before, finds that sleeping beast and prods at it again, and prods, and prods, and prods, giggling to himself as he does. They should have this, before it’s gone.  
  
Erik laughs, and Charles finds that beast inside of him stirring under his ministrations, blinking its large eyes open down at him, and abruptly snatching him up and thrusting inside of him deep and long and full. "Mine," he purrs, dedicated and content. He brings Charles to the edge of coherence, because if Charles wants, he should ask nicely. He should beg. Erik wants to hear. That Dominant invocation flashing fire and heat through his body demands to hear. For Charles to Present and beg for what he needs. So that he will carry it with him, always, and never forget, not in his heart, where he belongs.  
  
And Charles wants that. Desperately, he wants that, needs that. To offer himself right up to that sleepy, waking beast, to bare his throat and purr in satisfaction when he asks nicely and finds that Erik takes care of him like always, makes the growing discomfort submit to his touch and voice and cock just like Charles does until it’s just a distant thought, sated again. It’s nothing he can’t handle. But he’s Charles, and he likes to prod, especially now that he’s found where that beast lives, now that he can nudge it with his foot like he’s playing some sort of game, and he wants to play. There’s only so much time left and he wants to play, he wants to explore, he wants to be. So he sits up and whines out a startled, pitched moan when he realizes how gravity will sink Erik that much deeper inside, that much more insistent, and grins down at his Dominant, at his mate, Erik’s power still humming and mixing with his as he finishes his work. “Fuck me,” he demands, and it would have much more of an effect if his cheeks didn’t immediately go red, if he didn’t squirm with it, but it’s all goading. That’s where they started, didn’t they? But now he thinks Erik might play with him, and in the beginning he never did. He held back. Charles felt it, all that suppression. Why cage a beast when it’s so lovely, when Charles loves it?  
  
Erik snarls at him, and all of a sudden Charles finds himself pinned to his stomach, Erik's fingers gripping his hair. He's slipped out now, as painful as it is for him, rubbing himself against Charles's ass but giving him no relief. Not until he submits. "I said beg. Properly. Or I might finish myself off. You can watch. Would you like that?" He gives Charles's jaw a sharp bite, entirely goaded and fierce and Dominant for it.  
  
Charles whimpers, long and pitiful, and he’s still so close to Erik, still so far into his mind that he can’t help being dizzy and shocked by how much it is, by how very much Erik wants this, by how much he needs it, too. How fierce the reaction is, how immediate and firmly he rises to Charles, where he never did before. This was always there, wasn’t it? Even outside of a cycle, and he stamped it down and down and down. It must have been awful, perhaps even painful, holding himself back. “Uh-uh,” he gasps, because he certainly doesn’t, and the thought drives him wild because he can’t imagine anything more torturous than that. He turns his head when he’s given in the slightest bit of slack, and flashes another breathless grin. “Get on with it, then,” he taunts, suddenly bold, and pokes at that creature some more. _Poke, poke, poke_. There’s not an ounce of defiance in him now, not the real, unruly kind when he steps out of place, when he gets all twisted, but who says he can’t be a bit of a brat?  
  
The thing about it is, it's not an idle threat at all. Erik doesn't do this often, but when he does it's usually because he knows how very much Charles would prefer to be the one touching him. He himself prefers it an inordinate amount and right now it's liable not to offer any relief at all to either one of them, but he doesn't care. He will get what he wants. Charles finds himself pinned and unable to move, arms held above his head as Erik ruts against him. He has no slack left, no purchase upon which to find himself. Charles is right. This has been here the whole time. Even outside of a cycle. He's spent a lifetime being conditioned to stamp it down and down and down, taught that it was dangerous and wrong and evil. He's always been holding himself back. Charles just never realized how much. "Much better, hm? I think so." He gives Charles's ass a sharp smack, dragging himself over the welts that form in the aftermath but never coming close, never giving Charles what he wants. Not until he begs like his Dominant demands.  
  
It’s what he needs, and Charles quickly becomes mad with it. There’s been an element of multitasking through this, of making the most of Erik’s permission to use his power, but that goes to the wayside as fast as anything, deteriorates into thin air because there’s not a chance he can focus while he needs this badly. With the hurt and ache of it, and he can’t even wriggle back into Erik’s cock. He can’t even try to get it inside of him even as it slaps against his ass, against his swollen, greedy hole, and he’s vaguely aware that those loud, animal whines are coming from his throat, that he’s on the verge of crying from it. “P - Please,” he gasps, and the thought of Erik coming not inside of him, when it won’t fill him in some way, where he can’t feel fit to bursting with it or taste it makes him wild, has him devastated. “Please, please, please,” he begs. He presses back with his mind, still curled around Erik's so intimately; does he feel how greedy Charles is, how much it will hurt if Erik doesn't let him have it?  
  
Erik knows, of course he does, and he grins, nipping at Charles's ear. "Oh no," he murmurs back, giving his ass another hard slap. "Beg me properly. You want me to fuck you, hm? You want me to come inside of you? Then I had better hear you ask for it and I better believe it." Despite the harsh words, he delivers a gentle kiss to Charles's temple, giving him even more of that shivery, delicious sensation.  
  
Right now, it’s completely overwhelming. Charles wails at the slap, less because it’s unbearably painful and more because it’s sensation on top of sensation but it isn’t what he needs, it isn’t Erik’s cock, and he cries for the loss of it, his hole clenching determined around nothing. Erik’s come is leaking right out of him, sticky on his thighs, and idly, where he can think, he wonders if that’s enticing. If it drives the beast he keeps poking at even more wild, seeing what he’s done. How sore and swollen he’s made Charles, how he still desperately needs more. “Please, please, I need it, I need you to fuck me,” he breathes, and it’s entirely without shame now, all of that burned out of him as he cries, rubs his cheek into the sheets to soothe himself. He wonders if it will hurt when he pushes back in, big and hard, and finds that he hopes so, that he likes it, that he wants Erik to like it too. It hurts more to have him outside, infinitely so, and it will feel so much better, so much nicer, to have him back in that empty, sore place. “Please fuck me, sir, please, I’m empty, come inside of me, fill me up, please?” It’s babbling, it’s barely coherent, but he means it. He'll do anything for it. He'll be so good.  
  
He needn't wonder much. Erik's grip in his hair tightens and he finally lets Charles's hands go but only to Order him, the sensation sliding up his nerves like melted butter, to spread himself open for Erik and Present, filthy and taken and marked by Erik in every way. By his nails and teeth, by instrument and right down to what leaks out of him, what Erik can't bear to see-emptiness. But what he wants more than that, is for Charles to feel it. Every inch, every ounce, belonging to him, unable to move or think except for what Erik gives him. And he waits. Second by agonizing second until Charles complies, until he shifts up on his knees like he's told and exposes himself to Erik, who hums and slides down so he can give Charles's hole a proper slap, watch it twitch for him until finally, finally-abrupt, sudden, Erik snaps forward and buries himself as deeply as he can get, triggering a fresh cascade of wet, hot come that stains him from the inside out. Another method of marking. Another way for him to belong. Erik doesn't move beyond that, though. He wants Charles to fuck himself back onto Erik, to show him that he wants to be here, that he wants to be owned, that he needs this, that he loves this. Show him. Let him see. Please.  
  
It’s very nearly too much, but it isn’t, it can’t be, because it’s what his Dominant gives him. Either way Charles screams at the top of his lungs as Erik thrusts inside of him, as he’s stuffed and filled and marked, and his voice is hoarse from all the noise he’s made before this but it’s loud, anyway, it echoes, and it doesn’t matter because there’s no one around to hear but Charles wouldn’t care one bit if there were. He was right. It does hurt, it’s sore and it aches, sends sparks of it down his spine and all the way to his toes, has him shuddering, but it’s so nice, so right, so perfect, too. Charles is crying with it as he tries to hold himself up, strung out on Erik’s cock the way he’s meant to be, tries to fuck himself back the way he’s being asked; every time Erik slips even partly out he whimpers, mournful, and when he nudges deep, Charles unwilling to stop until he’s back where he belongs, he cries out, shaking all over, barely able to hold himself up but obedient, needy. He needs this. “E-Erik,” he sobs, and it couldn’t be more obvious, even as he’s overwhelmed by it. He’s not mindless, not even now. Because Charles is still close, closer than he’s ever been, and he lets Erik see like he’s asking: he loves this, he loves Erik. It should never have been stamped down. There’s nothing more right, not in all of the Universe. Charles would know.  
  
Erik likes that, though. He wants loud. He wants Charles to scream for him. To cry, to move and shudder and clench and whine. He likes when Charles is just on the edge of overwhelmed. There is nothing on this planet that he likes more, that he wants to have, more than Charles's pleasure and joy. It's what he's here for. It's why he exists. When you take that away, what's left of Erik? He doesn't want to find out. But Charles is here, and it makes him smile and he presses a kiss to Charles's lips, fond. "Yes, _neshama_. Right here. All mine. And I'm yours, too, hm?" his voice takes on that deep, honeyed rumble he gets when he's particularly overcome, affectionate and layered in Dominion. "I love you very much."  
  
It's one of those errant thoughts that undoes him, his gut twisting with the heat of the cycle but despair, too, all of that fear from before, and Charles freezes halfway-impaled on Erik's cock and sobs, dry and helpless. He's too overwhelmed for it not to affect him like this, and he hangs his head and tries to calm, but he's just so plugged in. He's just so sensitive, to every twitch, to every thought, every emotion and he can't quite help it. And not moving makes it worse, it's like before, it hurts too much to focus - he shakes his head and whines again, he's too overwhelmed, it's too much. It's utterly too much.  
  
Erik pushes all the way forward, and leans in, brushing Charles's hair away from his face. "No," he murmurs lowly. No hiding. No shutting down and pushing him away, not now. "Tell me." It's not a request. It's an Order from the deepest, darkest depths of himself. "Calm yourself and tell me." Despair? Here? No. Erik won't let it. He's sad, too. He's scared, too. But they're here, together. They will always find one another. They have proof of that.  
  
Erik asked what's left of him without Charles and Charles is going to force him to find out. He's going to cause his Dominant so much pain, and he won't be able to do a thing about it. He promised not to leave him, he promised never again, and it's going to happen. Charles can't quite calm even as he tries, making soft, hurt little noises and bowing his head into the blankets. "I want to stay," he gasps, fisting his hands into the sheets. "I want to stay." He doesn't want to hurt Erik, and he's going to, and it's the worst torture to know he can't stop it. He can't do a damn thing.  
  
" _Yode'a_ ," Erik hushes him. "I'm strong. I will be OK." He uncurls Charles's fingers and slides his own hands into his palms instead. "You're strong too. You will be OK, too. I'll make sure of it. Protect you. Keep you safe. I can handle it." Erik smiles down at him. He did it before. He survived millions of years alone. And he's still happy. He's still himself. He can survive this, too. It's not Charles's responsibility to make sure Erik never gets hurt. Erik is the one who looks after him. Erik is the Dominant.  
  
The Void took nearly all of that, so it's not comparable, and anyway - "No," he says, and it's muffled in the blankets and he's still crying, voice hoarse and broken, but it's clear as anything. "Wrong." And if he sounds a little contrary, a little bratty again, so be it. It's probably the accent, and the fact that he's still so overwhelmed he can't breathe for it, and he hates when Erik uses that argument. That he's strong, that he's been through worse, is it meant to make him feel better? It doesn't. But the thing is, he quite likes being right, but this makes it sting.  
  
Erik thinks it should. He isn't going to collapse. He isn't going to disintegrate. He isn't going to melt into a puddle of goo. He can't make the promise to never be affected by things, to not be affected by his submissive disappearing for an indeterminate amount of time, but he can promise that he is strong, that he will endure it for as long as any one half of a Pairbond could possibly endure such a thing before it's too much. Long enough for Charles to come back to him. There is no right or wrong answer. There is no argument. Erik won't let there be. So breathe. Properly. And focus on what matters. On being here.  
  
There is a right answer, and it's Charles'. He lifts his head and there are tears in his eyes still, desperation, too, it hurts again because he waited and he needs relief but he shakes his head. "I protect you, too," he mumbles, and despite the croak of it, it's fierce. He's meant to protect Erik, too. To keep him from harm, to keep him safe, to serve him and love him and he's not going to. He doesn't have a choice in that. Does Erik know how much that crushes him? How could he think of anything else? How could he? Every second it's right there, pressing in, in, in. It's unbearable.  
  
He doesn't, because Erik decided. He took responsibility because that is his role, that is his duty. He will make sure that Charles is safe, and that Charles never has to feel the way he did. That is something he couldn't bear. Charles can bear this. He can trust Erik. He can trust that Erik knows what is best for him and that Erik will be right here when he returns, and that he will return. He swipes away those tears and encourages Charles to seek, further and more and deeper. Relief is his. It's always been his. Always.  
  
There was never a choice to make. They weren't given one. And of course he trusts Erik, of course he knows he'll survive, that he'll endure, that this is the best option - but it crushes him, that he's damning Erik to this. That he's helpless to it. And what if - Erik said none of that, none, but he can't help it. It hurts so much but he doesn't move, shaking but frozen, unable to take and he doesn't realize it's not the only thing unsteady. Everything else in the room is shaking, too.  
  
No. "Stop. You are mine. We are not helpless." Erik's Orders are soft, but no less fierce than the deepest core of himself. Charles will steady himself. He will steady this place. He will look at Erik and he will know that he will not be crushed, because Erik is keeping him safe, and controlled. Erik is not damned to anything. He decided. He always decides. He could have chosen something else, there is a choice. There always is. He could have picked selfishness, what was comfortable for himself, but not what was best for Charles, for them. But he did. "I love you, _neshama_. It is going to be all right. I've got you."  
  
Because Erik is the good one! He was always the good one. From the very beginning, he was the good one. He should have gotten a handle on this sooner, and perhaps it wouldn’t have been like this. Perhaps he could have fused with the Void sooner, he could have done it in a way that didn’t cause pain for his mate. He could have looked it in the eyes instead of building walls and doors to shove it behind so he didn’t have to look, to acknowledge it, to face his own fears. There’s always been a connection, there’s always been this inevitability. Why didn’t he just face it sooner? Why was he such a coward, why has he always been such a coward, inept at keeping the people he loves from harm, most of all Erik? But the room stops shaking because Erik Ordered it so, and Charles pitches forward, trembling, it hurts. Deep inside of him, it hurts, “it hurts, Erik, it hurts,” he sobs.  
  
Erik bows his head forward and kisses Charles along the back of the neck, pressing hime even further into the bed, keeping him still and held and owned. He didn't face it because he was afraid, and Erik didn't know enough to guide him through it, but they know, now. They're facing it, now. And it's going to be OK, for the both of them, and Charles now has a clear example of the reason why it's important for him to be open with his Dominant. Erik laughs a little. He's never been prone to optimism, but it's always easier where Charles is involved.  
  
He meant before Erik, actually, but there's really no use agonizing about it. There's not a thing he can do to change it, or any hope of convicing himself that he would have been ready to look it in the eye back then. Even if he did, he wouldn't have made it. Charles calms again, eventually, after he's fucked again, goes quiet for a bit except moaning and whimpers because he's full and sore and thoroughly overwhelmed, clenching around his Dominant, but there's clearly things on his mind, and ways in which he's beginning to panic, and his face is pressed mostly into the sheets, wet with tears, when he speaks again. It's muffled, but still heard, even as Erik continues to give them what they both still need, slick skin slapping together. It feels so much better like this, so much nicer. "Does it bother you?" Perhaps he can come back different, at least. Better.  
  
"What, hm? Does what bother me? This?" he thrusts forward, laughing lightly. "No. You are mine. I want you as you are. I know that you know this." Erik isn't very calm, either. He's supposed to be the Dominant but he can't even control this, it always feels like everything is wildly outside of his control all the time, that he's just buoyed along and it's his fault, he can't fix anything, he is just-broken, he was never meant to be-but he keeps himself that way, shuts it down and keeps calm and he makes sure that Charles feels safe and like he can rely on his Dominant because he can, because Erik won't accept another option.  
  
Erik doesn’t have to be in control of everything and all the time to be his Dominant, to be a brilliant Dominant, to take care of him, and it’s something Charles hopes one day he learns. That Charles can help teach him. But it wasn’t what he was talking about and the fact that there are fresh tears spilled into these blankets makes it worse, makes him burrow himself in closer, grateful that he’s on his knees like this so he can hide his face. “The way I get,” he clarifies. Charles has always been too sensitive, and he never quite managed to eliminate it. Not for lack of trying, by others but also by him. It isn’t that he doesn’t want to feel, it would just be nice if he occasionally didn’t feel so much. If he didn’t react to everything so strongly, especially now, if he didn’t get so overwhelmed, anxious, tangled up into knots. If his thoughts didn’t constantly climb all over themselves, firing off sometimes more rapidly than he can keep up with. He knows it must be frustrating to constantly coax Charles out of it. It must be exhausting. It's another reason to hold everything back; the more in touch he is with his abilities, the more overwhelming it gets. He knows it's because he isn't used to it, but it doesn't change the fact. Erik thinks himself simple sometimes, but the fact is that Charles just makes everything so complicated. There's always a third or fourth or fifth or millionth layer. It can't be easy to handle.  
  
It's not easy, but Erik doesn't need easy. He will be here to help, as much and as often as possible, and Charles will learn and he will slow down, with time. Erik knows he will, is confident he will, because Erik will ensure that it is so. And it's not like Erik is so simple, either. He hasn't had the time, he hasn't had the luxury, to stop and really start to deal with any of the things that he's discovered, that he's faced, but someday he will and Charles will need to help him with that, too. Even more than he already has. And it won't be easy to handle. But they help each other. "What you are is mine. That will never change, I do not want anything less."  
  
It freezes Charles right up again, and being tense makes things hurt, less deliciously sore and more painful. It’s all clamped down and cramped muscles and tightness in his chest. “Alright,” he whispers, muffled almost entirely by the blanket. It's not an agreement.  
  
"Stop it," Erik growls at him roughly. Again and again and again he will it doesn' t matter. He'll repeat himself over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over until Charles gets it. He doesn't get to just tense up and shut down anymore, that is not an option. Erik doesn't need him to come back better, he just needs him to listen. No hiding, no secrets. No more. "Tell me," he Orders, sharp and firm.  
  
Those thoughts crash right into him, and it’s suddenly very hard to breathe again. Charles tries not to let his legs give out underneath him, but they’re not doing such a good job at the moment. “Burden,” he gasps, and he can’t imagine he has many more tears left but there they are, because the blanket is newly-wet beneath his cheek. “I didn’t mean to,” he adds, and it’s overwhelming, the shame of it. He didn’t mean to tense up. He didn’t mean to shut down. He didn’t mean to make Erik repeat himself, to make him frustrated and disappointed and - over and over and over and over and over...  
  
Erik holds him up, anyway, because that is exactly what he's here to do. "You are not a burden. Anymore than I am to you. You are my submissive. You are meant to rely on me, to lean on me. I don't care if I need to repeat it a million times." He gives Charles's temple a kiss. He's not frustrated. He's not disappointed. But he is fierce. He is assured. He's never been confident in himself, in that he knows what's best, but at the crux of this cycle he can't think anything else. He does. There is no person on this earth who is more dedicated to Charles's wellbeing than him. Not even Charles.  
  
Especially Charles, actually. He’s never been very good at caring about his wellbeing. It’s not really the point, though, and it’s just another example of how horribly sensitive he is now, how prone he is to being overwhelmed; and Erik agreed. He said it wasn’t easy, and perhaps he doesn’t need easy, but Charles would like to give it to him. After everything, he would like to give it to him, to not make every day with his submissive a frustrating hardship, an over and over again. Charles is still wilted a bit into the blankets and the sheets and he’s wilted in more than body, his mind further away from Erik’s, skittered off because it was suddenly too much. He doesn’t go too far. It’s comforting, Erik’s confidence. His assured, fierce Dominance. It’s calming. He seeks it out just that tiny bit, prods at it, but it’s enough, even as he's mostly hidden. Peeking back out, back in.  
  
Erik huffs. "Of course it's not easy. I struggle. Not because of you," he smiles gently. "I don't know how to rely on my own instincts, and if I did, then it wouldn't be so hard." He doesn't get too far. Erik doesn't let him. And besides. He is sensitive, he does get overwhelmed. He does focus on a million things at once, and overcomplicate things. Erik isn't going to condescend to him and pretend otherwise, but also, Erik doesn't mind. There is nothing wrong with any of that. It isn't a burden. He knows all of that, and he doesn't mind one bit. He is, more than anyone else, capable of relating to that, to helping Charles calm down when he needs it. It isn't a hardship. It never has been.  
  
Charles lets out a full, deep breath, and perhaps that’s what this cycle is for, outside of a biological imperative. Perhaps there’s a reason it’s hit them now, like a particularly insistent freight train. Because Erik is doing a wonderful job of relying on his instincts now, and he truly hasn’t let Charles slip too far away when everything inside of him is scattering and wants very much to do so. If Charles has been given evidence of why he needs to rely on his Dominant, Erik has been given evidence of how effective it is when he trusts himself with Charles, too. He hasn't always been right, but the less he holds back, the less Charles frets and squirms. There’s more he’d like to say, a lot more, actually, but he wiggles back first. “Can you help me turn over, please?” he asks, quietly. Nicely. He wants to see Erik, if Erik permits it, but he also can’t imagine him being outside for even a second, a fraction of one, so he hopes Erik can think of a way to assure that because Charles will almost definitely start crying again if he’s left empty.  
  
"Hmmnn," Erik rumbles in return, and he does help, not allowing them to be parted for a moment. He draws his hand down Charles's face. He does permit it. He wants it. He wants to see Charles. "Hi," he smiles warmly. Charles asked so nicely, of course he had to permit it. No emptiness. Just this. Both of them, here, together. He hasn't always been right, but he's not holding back, anymore, either. Charles belongs to him. He will always belong to him.  
  
That’s what calms Charles more than anything, what keeps him steady. Erik isn’t holding back and it makes him feel like maybe all those things inside of him, his own needy, responsive beast, isn’t so terrible. That it isn’t something to be terribly ashamed of. “Hi,” he croaks back, offering a shy, watery smile, sweet and dimpled and he nuzzles into Erik’s chest. “I have things to tell you,” he breathes. He wants to tell Erik everything that’s in his head while it’s still there, actually, but he’ll never manage.  
  
"Mmm. Tell me, then, _neshama_ ," Erik grins back at him, nose wrinkling up fondly. There is nothing to be ashamed of, there is nothing remotely terrible about this. Erik wants it, it's all he wants. "I'd very much like to hear." As much as Charles can, as much as he has, Erik wants it all.  
  
He's trying not to think of this as the last time he can say these things, but it will be a while. It will be a while before he can, before he can say anything, tell Erik anything, talk to him about anything, and it hurts but right now it makes him eager, his mind fluttering with it. Charles has so much to say. Talking to Erik is his favorite thing. "How strict is your lying rule?" is what he decides to ask, and there's a soft, shy little grin on his lips. It's playful. With the little time they have, they should be like this, Charles peppering gentle, sweet kisses into Erik's skin, nestling closer. "I've wanted to confess." Nothing serious, Erik can tell, but he'll let his Dominant decide. He'll tell him everything. This is how it must be.  
  
"Mmm. Very serious. But maybe I shall give you a pass. Depending on what it is you have been... concealing," his eyebrows raise pointedly. "But you had better tell _me every. little. detail_." He punctuates each word with a tap to Charles's nose, and then tickles under his chin for good measure. He hopes Charles knows how much Erik loves listening to him talk, why the thing he says most often is tell me. Because he wants to hear, he wants to know. Everything, all the time, from the silly and mundane to the serious and severe.  
  
Charles wants to hear and know, too. He wants to talk with Erik, he wants to use their time for this, and he laughs quietly as he ducks into Erik's chest. "What if I don't want you to give me a pass?" he dares, that soft grin peeked back up at him. "It's just that I let you beat me once at chess, and it's been weighing on me ever since. It was only once, and we were close to the end, and it's just because -" He bites his lip, bowing his head back down, but they're close again, their minds, and Erik can feel embarrassment, shyness, amusement like it's his own. "Well, that's my transgression, anyway." There might be a few more. It's silly, but why shouldn't he now? Erik said he wanted to hear, and Charles wants to tell and to hear in return.  
  
"You did _not_!" Erik squawks, indignant. "We shall have to have a rematch. For real." Erik laughs lowly, amused and a little delighted, but definitely a little offended, too. "Do you remember our first match, hm?" he beams, nose scrunching up. Erik had been so certain that he would win. And he had. But he hopes Charles didn't let him win then, too. He'd like to think he could keep up on his own merits, thank-you-very-much.  
  
He can, and Charles didn't. It was his first time in subspace, and therefore hardly a fair fight, but Erik has won after that, too. Not often, and Charles is extraordinarily proud of that, because Erik can keep up. It's become fun, an actual challenge again. Erik has only won when Charles is at least a bit off his game, when he's distracted or out of sorts, but it's still brilliant. No one had ever beat him before Erik. No one. "Truly, I just wanted that match over with, and you -" His cheeks flush and he cuts himself off again, kissing Erik's chest in hopes of distracting him. "I told you, but of course if you felt it was necessary to take the proper measures for lying about it, I suppose I'd have to accept it..." And he clearly would hate for that to happen, and isn't goading at all. Clearly. He can even make some more confessions, to inspire him into further action. Playful, comfortable.  
  
Erik is also the only person who deliberately uses Charles's telepathy during the game rather than considering it a form of cheating-in his opinion that's just garbage nonsense by lesser-evolved organisms, but potato, tomato. He's won a few times by outright laying traps in his head, thinking of moves upon moves upon moves, sending him into spirals. It doesn't work so much now, because Charles has moved on from the surface, but it was an effective strategy at one point. Erik throws him off his game pretty early on in most matches, possessing a keen tactical mind as well as the benefit from years of isolation with very little else to occupy his time. Even now he can keep up. Charles likes to think he knows the outcome before the game is played, and Erik uses that to his advantage in more than one area, often conforming rigidly to what is expected until the last minute, leaving Charles uncertain of his own perceptions. "Mhm," Erik rumbles skeptically. He pokes Charles in the cheek. "I'm going to bite your nose off," he tugs Charles's nose playfully. " _Nom nom. Let me win_."  
  
Charles is clever, and he adapts; it's just that Erik does, too, and they truly are each other's only real match. He's no slouch, and it's not his telepathy that won him games, because for years and years he'd deliberately suppressed it during these sorts of things. It's not just straight knowledge of the game, either. It never is with chess, but people underestimate him and always have. Even Erik, sometimes, though not in the same ways, and far, far less. It's what gets him his wins, really. Charles is a more than formidable opponent, and Erik winning even once, advantage or otherwise, still makes him giddy. Speaking of, he laughs as he's attacked, pouting in the aftermath even as he giggles, rubbing his cheek back against Erik's chest. Tucking in safely. "You don't even want to know why I let you? That's not very thorough," he teases. It's muffled, because he's very content to enjoy this while he can, too.  
  
Erik blows a raspberry at him and kisses him for his trouble. "And you know I am very thorough," he smiles, feeling a bit giddy himself. He strokes Charles's cheek. "Tell me about it, hm?" He rubs his fingers through Charles's hair, letting him settle himself back against Erik's chest, more-than content to keep him there and listen to him talk.  
  
He's purring with it before long, pleased, encouraging noises, arching between Erik's fingers in his hair and where he's still inside, his toes curled with sensation as he wriggles happily. "I like when you're confident," he whispers, like it's explanation in its own right. "Very much. You weren't shielding well, or... well, regardless, you were certain you'd won. I could tell. So I let you, because I like it." And his mind wasn't on chess anymore. Still, he'd seen the right move, the one Erik hadn't, and he'd decided not to take it.  
  
"Mhm," Erik makes a face. "You like when I embarrass myself, I see," he huffs, but he's not really displeased; Erik is fairly competitive but spending time with Charles is more important to him than any game, regardless of its outcome. He massages his fingertips through more of Charles's hair and runs them down his back, along his spine, letting little zaps of electricity sizzle from the contact. "Maybe I let you win, _hmmmm_?"  
  
Charles is finding it difficult to laugh through the shivering Erik's touch is inspiring, soft little shudders as he bites back a moan, but he manages. "You didn't, and it's not embarrassing," he murmurs, still perfectly content to stay half-hidden in Erik's chest. He found it anything but embarrassing, actually, but now Charles bites his lip. "No more secrets?" he asks, quietly. "I have to tell you?"  
  
"I _could_ have! I was lulling you into a false sense of security." Erik grins down, but it's futile. He could never do that, not even in jest. Charles's security is always genuine, always ensured, always guaranteed when it comes to Erik. "No more secrets. You see, even my ego can handle it, so you have nothing to fear."  
  
It makes Charles frown into Erik’s chest, tense suddenly underneath his stroking fingers, his shoulders bunched up. But he doesn’t pull away. He knows that’s not what he’s meant to do, not what his Dominant expects from him. He’d been worked up and upset himself, but Erik had asked how do I know I can trust you what seems like ages ago but isn’t, and it’s stuck with him. It’s been rolling around in his mind ever since he’s gotten most of that mind back, and he swallows. “I -” He clenches his fingers into fists to keep the emotion at bay, the tears that are threatening, because everything truly is overwhelming now. “If I hid from you, or lied to you, even a little, I didn’t do it maliciously. Sometimes I didn't even think of it. But I did do it.” And he does want to get it off his chest, no matter how silly or trivial, and most of it is, because he doesn’t want it lingering. None of it. He doesn’t want any of it lingering, because there won’t be a chance to handle it later, but how do you handle everything at once? How do you say everything you haven’t had the chance to say, especially when you don’t know how long not long is? It’s all clamping down on him again.  
  
Erik touches his cheek, gentle. "I know that, _neshama_. I have never thought that. Not once." He kisses Charles's forehead fondly. He's never, ever meant that Charles was a bad person, not ever. He wanted Charles to know that he took it seriously, that it is about trust, when Charles promises something, that Erik believes him. And that it's hard for Erik to say that he's never going to consider what happened in the future, but it's not a guilt trip. It's not for Charles to prostrate himself and cry and feel bad, that's not why Erik said that. And he probably wouldn't have said it if he weren't upset, himself, if he weren't-if it wasn't his own emotional reaction. He'd prefer to be better, to be kinder. He's sorry. He hopes Charles knows that.  
  
Charles shakes his head, ducking back into Erik’s chest because he’s a bit too overwhelmed to do anything else at the moment, because it’s comforting, because it helps him breathe when he can hear Erik’s heart beating under his cheek like this. It’s always seemed louder to him than it should be, probably. He can always find it. Erik is allowed to have emotional reactions. He’s allowed to not always be kind. “You were hurt, and I should have felt bad, and I did,” he whispers, even when it gets caught in his throat he pushes it out. But he was punished for it accordingly, and it’s done. It’s one of the reasons he needs to be disciplined so badly, why he gets all out of sorts when he isn’t. Not the only one, but it’s up there. It wasn’t that he’d lied that night, not the way Erik thought he did, but they’ve had that discussion. It’s not worth rehashing, it doesn’t need to be. It’s just - “I want you to trust me, I want to be honest with you, I want -” And there are still things he’s worked himself up about, but if he tells Erik now, what will happen? Should he tell him?  
  
"Of course you should," Erik taps him on the nose fondly. Erik can't say what he'll do, especially now, but he will react proportionately. He wants Charles to know that, to trust him. Erik doesn't need the discussion to be rehashed, either. It is the reason for punishment, for discussing it, and having everything laid out. There's nothing unresolved for him, except for his own guilt in his reactions, which is not something that can be addressed by punishing Charles. Charles can only atone for the things he's done, after all. "Tell me, _neshama_. I want to know." Not just so he can punish his submissive but so that he will know, because he wants to know all that Charles has to tell him, so he can make the best choices in the matter.  
  
But Charles has forgiven Erik for that, more than forgiven him. He presses soft little kisses to his Dominant’s chest, partially to soothe himself, partially to remind Erik; whatever Erik feels like needed to be atoned for, it was. It always is. When Charles has a grievance, he knows he can bring it to Erik, if he does it respectfully. He’s still learning that last part, and he’s sorry, but he’s trying. He truly is. This is important, it must be. If he’s going to go away, he wants to do it with nothing lingering. He wants them to talk, and so here they are. “Do you remember when we were in the hospital together?” he asks, muffled again by Erik’s chest. It’s not to distract from the matter at hand, it’s leading into it. And of course Erik does, but a few hours ago it was the case that neither of them did, at least not well on Erik’s part.  
  
"Of course," he whispers back, soft. He'll always remember it, all of it. "Tell me what happened?" he murmurs, and he hopes he knows that Charles is aware that whatever it is, Erik always forgives him. Always. Charles doesn't need to be scared. Erik will never hurt him. He never wants Charles to be afraid of coming to Erik with the truth. Not ever. That's what respect means, from both sides.  
  
Charles does know that. He isn’t afraid, he never has been. Perhaps hesitant, perhaps worried, and there are times he’s very much wanted to avoid discipline, but it isn’t because he doesn’t trust Erik to handle it accordingly. It’s mostly because he does, but that’s not inspired by fear. “Nothing, there,” he mumbles, and presses into Erik’s hands, seeking the comfort. “But when I woke up, Raven was there. Do you remember, when I kept us safe through your surgery, you -” He’s embarrassed, for some reason, his cheeks warm against Erik’s chest. “You gave me your first rules and expectations? Our first contract?” What came before the contract, really, but it was important. Incredibly so. It changed everything, for Charles.  
  
Erik laughs softly and lifts Charles's chin to gaze down at him, warm. "Mhmmm," he agrees, one eyebrow arched pointedly downward. No more stalling, Charles. Erik's Expectant Eyebrows don't allow for it. "I do remember," he rubs their noses together affectionately.  
  
Charles pouts rather spectacularly at that, squirming in Erik's arms because he misses the warmth of his chest, and he was providing relevant context, thank you much. "It's just that Raven saw me writing them out like you asked, and she said that it seemed like I would have trouble with it. She was worried. And I told her not to, but -" He bites his lip. But perhaps he did, is what he's saying. It did, indeed, change everything. "She said some things to me, and I thought... maybe it got to me." Charles has a hard time with shame, when it comes to his submission. Regardless of what he actually wants and needs.  
  
Erik... doesn't exactly know what that means. He blinks. "What did she say? What got to you?" he scowls a little. Raven. He loves Raven, but she can be... much. She always says what she thinks, even when it's not what's exactly necessary. But Charles needs that, sometimes, honesty, even when it isn't exactly necessary. He can't help but be fond of her even now. She doesn't mean to hurt, either.  
  
Raven has never been apologetic about butting into things, but he's always allowed for it. She's had plenty to say about Erik throughout the entire process, and of course she loves him now, considers him family; but in the beginning? Not quite, and she'd had her fair share of concerns. "She said... I'm not the type to want a Dominant to be involved with things, like -" Like what he should wear, what he should eat. How he should behave. And of course it's because Charles has always said that. "She didn't think I could do it, or at least she was skeptical. She was thinking, this won't last long. That I'd chafe under it, that it was too big of a leap to make." He swallows, because the truth is - well, he'd found he'd needed even more, much more, actually, not that he's admitted it completely yet since Erik pointed it out earlier, but she wasn't necessarily wrong. It wasn't because of what he needed, though. Not even close. Less has made him incredibly anxious, actually. Distressed, even.  
  
He knows that Raven cares about Charles, that she only wants what's best for him, and so does Erik. So he's not angry at her, but he is miffed, a little, that she fed into those beliefs that he isn't a normal submissive. He is normal. For an S1. Who could possibly speak to what that means? Who has the right? And as someone who is now faced with the prospect of raising an S1 child? Of everyone speaking those same truths to him, too? It's grating. Irritating. Frustrating. "Hmm. Well she appears to be wrong, hm?" Erik smiles softly.  
  
She was terribly wrong, but the thing is, it started with Charles. She just reinforced it, and she couldn't have known better. "I presented as Dominant for years," he whispers, though Erik already knows. "She didn't say anything that wasn't already in my head, nothing I didn't already think myself. It still is." Now he's hiding in Erik's chest again. There was a point to this, but Charles doesn't want to get to it.  
  
"Mhm," Erik murmurs, because he's also not saying anything that Erik doesn't already know. "Tell me," he murmurs the Order softly. He crooks his finger under Charles's jaw, encouraging ('encouraging,' AKA Commanding, but that's neither here nor there) him to look at Erik.  
  
And Charles tries very hard not to look anyway, not to be defiant but because he's ashamed. Upset. "I did have trouble with it. She was right," he mumbles, as quietly as he can. "And I didn't come to you with it. I -" Lied, sometimes. Or bent the truth, concealed it. He's already admitted it, that was the point of this discussion. Not about anything huge, but perhaps it adds up. The trouble didn't come from not needing it, but from not letting himself. Refusing to let himself, even as he considered that perhaps he needed more. There was so much shame, there still is. That's what hurt him, not what Raven was worried about.  
  
It doesn't matter whether or not he tries, he doesn't get to succeed. Erik doesn't let him, not anymore. Most of this Erik already knows, either way. There is no point to any of the things they do if Charles feels like he can just pick and choose what's applicable, and there is a lot that Erik can do, but Erik can't chase him down and force him to submit every minute of the day, not practically. He is limited by the constructs of simply being a person and Charles knows that, and has used that to his advantage. There comes a time when Erik has to trust Charles to obey his wishes , but that doesn't mean he doesn't know about it. He's glad that Charles is able to admit it to him, but it's not shocking. In the end, the only person it hurts is Charles. It doesn't hurt Erik, anymore than his submissive not getting his needs met hurts him. It hurts Charles. That is the reason for any of Erik's rules, for any of Erik's guidelines. He runs his fingertips through Charles's hair. "No more," he whispers. He doesn't get to refuse. Not now. Erik wants. Erik decides. Charles doesn't get much of a choice. Does he know that? Maybe he had choices. Maybe he can still pull the wool over Erik's eyes. It doesn't matter. Erik will find out. He will, he's not stupid. He's smart, and he cares, and he'll fix it. He will always fix it.  
  
It does hurt Charles. It hurt Charles while it was happening, too, and now he closes his eyes, feeling entirely overwhelmed again. He doesn't want to cry, but there are tears building behind his eyelids and there's nothing he can do to stop it. "There's -" He shakes his head, swallowing as he tries to nestle back into Erik's chest, needing to soothe himself. "I didn't even want to do it when I did. It didn't feel good. And, it's just..." It's just that he's not totally convinced he won't keep doing it, because the truth is he still sometimes struggles. There's dissonance, between what he knows he needs (so much) and the shame he feels for needing it. And he doesn't know what can be done about that, unless Erik urges him to do this? To admit to it? Because he hadn't realized how much it was bothering him until right this moment, and he hasn't even confessed to anything, really. It added up.  
  
"I can't stop you from doing it," Erik whispers. Not without instituting a drastic overhaul in how he relates to Charles, removing his sense of free will entirely, and that isn't something which would benefit either of them. He can't stop Charles from feeling ashamed and acting against his own interests all the time. He knows Charles wants him to, but it isn't possible. Charles has to choose, Charles has to give that power to Erik. It's like he said. He has to keep choosing, to keep making that choice. "You know the reason why my rules exist, _neshama_. And as long as I am able, I will enforce them. You are not telling me anything I do not already know, however. I know why it happens." It doesn't change much of anything, though. And when Erik discovers it, as he always has, he will act to ensure that Charles understands his Will. The only thing that can be done about it is that. The only thing that can be done is for Charles to learn that his shame does not dictate Erik's Dominance. It never has and it never will.  
  
But Charles shakes his head. "No, I don't," he disagrees, his eyes still closed and the words almost completely muffled. "I definitely don't want you to. I want -" But he swallows, and takes a deep breath, and tries so very hard not to cry. It doesn't matter if Erik already suspected he was doing it, if he did (and he hates that, he finds, he doesn't like the idea of it at all, for many reasons), because Charles has been needing this for a while. It would have come without this eventually Erik has always told him to try and express his needs, his thoughts, and he's going to try. "Can I ask you a question?" So he can work through it, so Erik can work through it and come to a decision. Because that's what they do, isn't it?  
  
"Always," Erik whispers back. He's always free to do so, independent of any decisions that Erik makes they can always talk about it, and discuss, and come to an understanding, because that's always been how things work. Erik won't make a choice that Charles doesn't understand (whether he agrees is a separate matter). It doesn't matter how long it takes, he's proven that already.  
  
But those thoughts just completely overwhelm Charles, especially sensitive right now, and that's when the tears come. It's not distress, it's - gratitude, and an affection, a love so fierce and strong he's dizzy with it, grasping onto Erik for purchase, rubbing his cheek against skin again and again to ground himself. "I love you," he whispers, watery and wrecked by it, because he does. He's momentarily forgotten the discussion, shaking with too much emotion instead.  
  
Erik grins in return. " _Gam ani ohev otcha_ , " he runs his thumb under Charles's eye tenderly. He just wants for Charles to be happy, and feel safe, it's all he's ever wanted. He hopes he feels just a little bit more secure in himself and his submission since they've met, and that he knows how important he is to Erik, how much he matters.  
  
Of course he does. There’s no possible way he would be able to have this conversation when they first met, not even if Erik forced it out of him word by word, pulled teeth until he finally admitted any of it to himself. He’s not even sure if it would have worked, with how deeply raw all of it was, how strongly he believed the things he did. But he hopes he’s helped Erik, too. That Erik feels safe and happy, too, and it isn’t what he wanted to ask and maybe he’ll get redirected back to that, but he asks, quiet, almost afraid, “And you promise it’s what you need, too?” Erik said it didn’t hurt him any when Charles decided to undermine him, but doesn’t it? If Charles had somehow convinced them both that what was best was Erik giving him less, would Erik be alright with that? Would it have made him happy? Would it now? If he told Erik right now like he did back then, _don't Order me unless I say_ , would that be enough for him?  
  
"It is," Erik murmurs back, fond and gentle. It was never going to be enough for him, anymore than it would be enough for Charles, but Erik wouldn't have been capable of this back then, either. There is still so much that he needs that he isn't ready for, yet, that they've only broached the surface of, but they're progressing in the right direction and they will get there, both of them. If Charles is still ashamed of his submission, there are many facets of Dominance that frighten Erik, that make him feel-evil, abusive. He was never supposed to be Dominated, even if it hadn't been sadistic, it would have been off, wrong in some way. But that it was just made him more certain he couldn't do it. But there is a difference. They're both learning.  
  
They’re both learning. The problem is, Charles thinks he’s lost his confidence in the time that’s elapsed in between, and he’s settled himself nicely against Erik’s chest again. Everything is incredibly overwhelming, and he wants to talk it through, to say what he’d meant to, what he needs to, but perhaps he shouldn’t. Perhaps he can keep it all locked away for a while more, and Erik doesn’t seem at all bothered by - it makes him feel a bit sick, really, so it’s better to leave it off. “We can change the subject now?” he whispers, and it’s more a question than he’d like it to be, shakier than he’d like it to be, too.  
  
"Mmmn, no," Erik rumbles the response affectionately, finding a nice spot in Charles's hair to pet. A new spot, maybe he likes being scritched behind the ears as much as Erik? Probably not. But it's still nice and warm, and he rubs along, tickling the back of Charles's neck. "You had a question," he reminds. "Ask. No more locking away. No more secrets." He should. Erik wants to know. And it isn't a request, not when the room is steeped in Dominion the way it is.  
  
Not quite, but his neck is exceptionally sensitive, and he shivers as Erik’s fingers graze it. More than anything else he likes it when Erik touches him like this, when he pets him, when he runs fingers through Charles’ hair, and he lets it soothe him the way it’s supposed to, lets it calm him even as he frets over the rest of this conversation. “If - if I had…” It’s something he needs to know, he thinks. Because realizing how much it bothered him, how much it is bothering him, it’s made it clear how important this is to him, and perhaps that’s why he’s tried to put it off. “If I had come back from that party, if you’d left me to it alone,” he pauses here to peek up at Erik, because, yes, he knows that likely never would have happened, but it could in the future, it’s a possibility, and they both know it, “and I’d -” If he’d spun off, perhaps not as fantastically as he had that night, but if he had. “If I’d had a drink or two or three, gotten into some sort of trouble, if I came home and you asked how it’d gone and I made you think it was all peachy, I could do that, we both know I could, and then a day later it hit me -” That he doesn’t want that. Because he doesn’t. Pulling the wool over Erik’s eyes, sidestepping rules and expectations for the sake of it, dodging their contract like a bullet he’s so cleverly evaded, it’s not what he needs and they both know it. “And I came to you, and I told you before you found out on your own, what would you do?” Because that, perhaps, would have been more severe than the silly little things that Charles is still agonizing over, that are still twisting him right up, but he needs to know.  
  
Erik blinks at him, because it takes him a few seconds to figure out what Charles is trying to say; but he still doesn't really know, exactly, because the answer seems rather obvious to him. It would be a transgression, a significant one, and Erik would be angry, but he wouldn't do anything. He wouldn't hurt Charles over it, he wouldn't harm him, or decide that he wasn't worth being Erik's submissive anymore. "I don't know," he admits, because it's a bit too abstract. Charles has done something like that before, and he's been punished accordingly. Obviously he would be punished. Erik doesn't know how; he doesn't tend to have specific... _infractions warranting a specific response_ , it's all pretty individual.  
  
And for some reason, it just makes Charles laugh. It’s barely a snort at first, bitten-off because he’s gnawing on his bottom lip, but then it turns into peals of laughter, quiet little giggles because he can’t help it. The fact that Erik thinks the answer is obvious is answer enough, and probably closer to what he’d actually wanted to ask. He sobers up quickly, still hidden in his Dominant’s chest. “But you’d… address it?” he asks, when he’s done giggling, and he’s much less giggly, much more serious. “If I came to you and admitted that I did it?”  
  
"Of course I would," Erik blinks down at him owlishly. Blink blink blink. "I always will. I know that you don't tell me everything, but I'm not going to punish you for something I _suspect_. If you tell me, or if I find out about it, it will be addressed, and handled. You do a good job of that; of coming to me when you need to." And he would appreciate it, and he wants that to be known, of course it always will be better for Charles if he admits it first, if Erik doesn't have to figure it out by himself, but he still will take action.  
  
If he's completely honest, the question was a bit of a lead-in. He wanted something confirmed, he wanted to understand. To check in. Sometimes he doesn't do that; he assumes, or works himself up about it, writhing this way and that instead of asking, finding out or discussing. But not now. He hides from Erik's blinking eyes, his raised eyebrows, but arches back into the fingers in his hair. "But that example was - I mean, obviously you'd need to -" Charles bites his lip. "What about small things? Or at least smaller ones? It's just, you've never..." Well, Charles just doesn't have real experience with Erik handling them, besides being permissive. Letting them go because they weren't at a place where he was ready to not. Do they add up? Do they get dropped? It's not even about the ones he's still holding now, the ones that had him all wound up in the first place, but what if it happens again?  
  
Erik's head tilts. "What do you consider to be a _thing_?" he wants to know, because, "Our definitions will naturally differ. There are many things I just don't care about, and I cannot see myself ever caring about it. Like what kind of small thing? It really depends." But he can answer the latter half of the question, he certainly has no intention of anything adding up. If he decides to implement a change of behavior it will not be retroactive, that is unfair and unnecessary, especially over small things.  
  
Charles tries not to let himself get into knots about it. It’s not fair to Erik, it never has been, to wind himself up about things like needing more, equal parts ashamed and disgusted. Frustrated. It isn’t right. Perhaps if he needs things that Erik doesn’t, if he does, it’s because those things are unhealthy. That’s fair, isn’t it? It’s worth the shame? If Erik doesn’t care, then he was right. Neither should he. He can do as he pleases one way or the other, and he should be happy with that. Small things don’t matter. He was right, Raven was right. Simple as that, except his eyes are closed and he’s gone quiet. “What don’t you care about?” he asks instead.  
  
Erik shrugs. "I don't know, I mean to make a big deal of it, to punish you over it. I don't think that's appropriate. If you are like this, you know, if you are getting wound up. I won't accept it, I've never accepted it. But there is other ways of addressing things that is not punishing you for having normal human emotions, either?" The fact of the matter is Erik doesn't know what Charles is talking about. "You brought this to me, but you aren't telling me what you mean. So tell me what you mean, and I can give you an honest answer, if you are honest with me." The Orders are calm, but definitively not permissive.  
  
Charles gets wound up about things he has been punished for - very, incredibly wound up, particularly the most recent time - so he doesn’t exactly know what that means, and all of the things he’s been disciplined for have been the result of normal human emotions, albeit spun out of control, so where does that even leave him? It’s clearly not important. He worked himself up about something that isn’t important, again, and confirmed something he didn’t exactly want confirmed and they don’t have the time to get fussy about stupid things, about things he does or does not need. It’s just Charles making things difficult, being ashamed, being complicated, being impossible. No wonder Raven doubted his ability to do this. “I did stupid, defiant things and lied or hid them because I didn’t think it would matter, or I didn’t think I had to, or just because I was having trouble accepting that I wanted to be obedient, and now I’m telling you about them,” well, he’s not, because he doesn’t want to because it won’t matter and it won’t make him feel any better, he just needs to get over it, “and so I wanted to know what would happen when the infraction wasn’t some -” Some meltdown, some catastrophic, clearly horrible thing, like hiding bloody tissues in the garbage or being repeatedly, obviously defiant. “Nothing, clearly, and that’s fine. I don’t need you to care about little things. They don’t matter. I’m being stupid.” That’s that.  
  
"So you wanted to know what would happen if you come and start talking to me like this, because I can tell you very clearly what will happen, Charles. You don't get to tell me what is this and what is that, or what matters or what doesn't matter, that isn't up to you. You are asking what would happen if you _lie to me_ , or hide things from me, I think you are smart enough to know the answer to that question. You have told me nothing, but you know that, and I know that, and this right here, will not continue. You will tell me, sincerely and truthfully the things you're talking about and then I will give you a specific answer and not this nonsense, am I understood clearly now?"  
  
“But -” It bubbles up in his throat before he can stop it, before he can bite it down, and Charles squeezes his eyes shut painfully tight. “But it - it’s not important, I don’t need to know, can we please drop it?” It’s even asked nicely, because Charles is frightened of the answer. Not of Erik harming him, or hurting him, or punishing him unfairly. He’s never been afraid of that. Not even once. It’s just that it matters to Charles, and now he’s gotten himself wound up about maybe it shouldn’t. Maybe he's meant to not care. White lies, minor infractions, what does it matter?  
  
"That is well and good, but I didn't ask for your opinion. I asked for the truth. And I wasn't asking, so try again." One thing he absolutely won't abide is having words put in his mouth, and Charles is smart enough to know the difference. He knows what Erik is like. It's unacceptable. He doesn't get to go halfway and decide he doesn't feel like it anymore because of what he's made up about Erik's Dominance. That is not how this works.  
  
It’s less Erik’s Dominance he’s concerned with, and more what it means for his own submission. It always is, a deep-set insecurity he can’t quite get over, even as he improves. And he has. But he takes a shaky, choked breath and tries not to overwhelmed by it again, eyes still closed as he goes stiffer in Erik’s arms. “Little things, Erik, like I said. You’d tell me to eat while you were gone and I’d forget or decide I didn’t feel like it, that I wasn’t hungry or that I didn’t need you to tell me so I wouldn’t and then you’d get back and I’d make you think I did and you’d -” He’d say good, like he was pleased with him and Charles would feel his stomach lurch, but he couldn’t tell him after that. He’d wanted to, but he didn’t, because he’d convinced himself it didn’t matter, that Erik didn’t care because it wasn’t really disobedient. “Or you’d - you had a meeting with Carmen and I was working on a paper and you told me to take a break because I’d been working all morning but it doesn’t - I mean -” He didn’t want to, is what he’s getting at. He didn’t want to and he’d gotten prickly about someone telling him to, worked himself up about needing it and knowing he needed it, wanting that kind of control, so he’d kept working. “But you checked in and I made it seem like I wasn’t. I did take a break. Eventually.” He takes another breath. “And you told me once I could have one piece of cake, but I made Raven give me the rest of hers because -” Because, again, he’d just wanted to prove to himself that he could. That he could buck it off, that he didn’t really need Erik to tell him how much cake he should consume. But he does, is what it comes down to, and that’s why he’s worked himself up over it. It does matter, to Charles the little things do matter. Once, Erik said routine would be good for him, that rules and expectations would be good for him, and he didn’t know then how much. But admitting that is hard, it’s very difficult. Raven was right, just not in the right way.  
  
Erik sighs. "So, you lied to me. I don't consider that a little thing. You changed my perceptions, you circumvented my Orders. That's not minor, what you're describing is pervasive and I am not OK with it. Am I going to punish you for every single time you've gotten away with something, _right now_? Probably not, that would not be practical. But of course I'm going to address it when it happens. When you tell me, or when I find out about it. I always have. That's not going to change, Charles."  
  
Charles bites his lip. "It wasn't a big lie, whether or not I ate lunch, it's hardly -" But it wasn't a little thing, is the thing. Not for Charles. He can't even pretend. Even just admitting it, even just saying it, it already feels less like it's crushing him. Sometimes it feels like the little Orders, the smaller instructions matter more, because they're what keep him grounded, and it's what he's always felt guilty for needing more of. It's why it happened in the first place, that internalized shame. That voice that whispers, _What are you doing? You don't need this_. But he does. He always has. He swallows, and chances a peek up at Erik. "Are you...?" He trails off, because he doesn't know what exactly he wants to ask.  
  
"It was a lie, there is no such thing as something big or something small. It is not written in our contract that you are all right as long as you tell me _small_ lies, _neshama_. I know you know that." He curls his fingers over Charles's cheek, kissing across his brow. "Am I what, hm? Ask me," he whispers the Order.  
  
“But -” He doesn’t have a but. He knows he doesn’t, and his mouth shuts promptly, his head turned away from Erik because he’s feeling - something. He doesn’t know. Just overwhelmed again, perhaps. “Upset,” he mumbles in response to the question, eyes closed tight again. Disappointed.  
  
"Open," Erik Orders again, soft. Eyes open. Of course he's disappointed, he doesn't like to hear about the times that Charles has deliberately disobeyed him, but he's not angry. "You know why that kind of behavior isn't acceptable, don't you?" It's not just about what Charles needs, or his submission, although that's a part of it. It's because he's doing it to Erik. He's lying to Erik. It doesn't feel good.  
  
Charles makes a noise of protest when he has to open his eyes again, breath hitching as he tries to squirm but there’s nowhere to go, really. Already he’s dislodged himself too much for comfort, and he tenses up with it. Still, he nods, tiny and fast. Of course he does. “But -” Nothing comes out, and he shakes his head instead. It doesn't feel good, and it's all sitting in his stomach.  
  
"But-what? Hm?" There's nowhere to squirm. Erik has him fast and he won't let him go, not even a millimeter. That's where Erik is most comfortable, when Charles is kept still and safe in his arms. But it was only a small lie, but he didn't mean it. Erik knows that. It doesn't make it any better. It doesn't make it less important, less severe. Does Charles really want to give excuses for it now? Erik doesn't want to hear them, does Charles really want to give them?  
  
He wasn’t going to give an excuse, actually. There’s no real excuse to give, not when they both know why he did it and why it still wasn’t okay for him to do it. But now he bites on his cheek, because Erik said he would give him an answer, and part of him feels like he needs it. “If - if I had come to you then, and told you, what would you have done?” Because it matters. It’s not stupid. Those things matter to him, and he wants them to matter, and he knows it’s too much and he knows maybe Erik doesn’t care sometimes and that it’s him who gets all - he takes a breath. Slow down. His eyes are closed again, but at least he’s breathing. Trying to. No more nonsense, that’s what Erik said.  
  
"You know perfectly well," Erik murmurs back. He would be punished, there's no question about it. Erik doesn't care about the small stuff, but he doesn't consider that to be small. It's the reason why it's in their contract in the first place. That matters to Erik, too. He's never thought it to be stupid, certainly not when it comes to how he permits Charles to treat him. The lesson he wants to teach isn't that Charles is free to do what he likes, but that he is accountable, and that Erik will hold him accountable. It's what they both deserve.  
  
Except he doesn’t. He does, maybe? But he’s not always certain, and sometimes he can’t tell. He can’t tell what Erik will be strict about and what he will let go, brush off, and it’s changed over time. It sometimes changes day to day. It isn’t Erik’s fault, because he’s struggling and learning, too, they’re figuring this out together - but to say that it’s always been consistent, that Charles should know exactly what will happen, that something will happen, isn’t necessarily fair. “I don’t know what that means,” he admits, quietly, and he tries to keep it honest, not frustrated but a genuine expression of confusion. Erik said he’d never do things, never expect things if Charles didn’t understand them.  
  
"Have I ever let you just get away with lying to me, Charles? No. It doesn't happen. You know why lying to me is wrong, you know why I expect you to be honest with me. You would be disciplined, of course you would be. As you always would be, as you always have been. It's in our contract, it's on the wall. We've discussed it many times. You know the answer. You know it's not right behavior, not good behavior, and that I won't accept it."  
  
Charles makes a little huff of a noise, frustrated that he’s frustrated, and reels it back in. It doesn’t have a place here. “I know, and it doesn’t even matter if you didn’t always if you say that you always will,” he mumbles, and he believes that. That Erik will. “That isn’t what I meant. It’s just - small things, little things…” Things Erik doesn’t care about. He doesn’t understand what the distinction is. If he had just not eaten lunch when he was asked to and then told Erik, right then and there that he hadn’t, would that have mattered? It wouldn't have been lying. If he’d left his desk a mess when Erik clearly expects it to stay clean and is clearly uncomfortable with it being otherwise, would that have mattered? Earlier, Erik thought that maybe Charles needed it all the time, the level of control he was getting, but - “I think you were right, maybe, and I don’t know what that means, and I guess it doesn’t matter much now,” he mutters.  
  
"What you guess isn't what we're talking about," Erik returns sharply. "And I can't give you the answer when you don't ask the question you want to ask. If you disobey my Order, of course it matters. If you forgot to clean up your desk when I never told you to do it in the first place, if you're just doing it to piss me off, if you just forgot, if you're busy-the circumstances matter. I can't tell you what I'm going to do in a general way, it doesn't work. There are times I will decide to do something different, and then you will say well you said this other thing. Well, I don't know. I don't know until it happens. If I feel like you are being deliberately disobedient and if I feel like you are disregarding my Orders then we will have a problem. If you make an honest mistake I'm not going to punish you for that."  
  
For a while, Charles is quiet. Completely silent, actually, except for when he breathes, and the little gasp he makes, the whine when he shifts unintentionally and remembers Erik is still inside him, still hard, that they're still in the middle of this cycle. And then he starts to laugh. Giggle, really, quiet at first and then hiccuping and loud and he tries to muffle it in Erik's chest but that doesn't work, not at all, and he shakes his head and, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you, I promise," he gasps out between peals of it.  
  
Erik's lips twitch. "Mhm," he snorts. It's mostly-affectionate, but a little embarrassed, since he doesn't exactly know why Charles is laughing. "Do I get to discover the reason for this wondrous amusement, hm?"  
  
“No,” Charles says simply, but it’s around giggles so it’s not as if it’s a heated refusal. He’s back to squirming with it, which does help with the giggles, but only in so much as he’s making different noises instead, constantly reminded of where he’s clenched around his Dominant. It’s a good reminder. “It’s just - it sounds so simple, and it is, I know you don’t like what-ifs, but…” But Charles is prone to them. It’s the way his brain works, in a way. It’s a constant churning, whirring mess, it has been since he was a child, and Erik seems to be the only one even half capable of straightening it out. “I didn’t want you to give me the ways in which you would handle every situation every time, of course that’s not going to work, I just -” He sighs and bites his lip, tugging it particularly hard this time as he turns his cheek into Erik’s chest so he doesn’t have to look. “I think you were right, like I said. I think you really might have been right and it’s a lot for me and I don’t always believe that it’s something - that you could need it, too, and so you say things like, like things you don’t care about, some things you don’t care about, and I -” He wonders if they’re the things he needs Erik to care about. Erik keeps saying, over and over, over and over and over, if Charles knew he’d be somehow shocked, he wouldn’t want all of it, but he’s still fairly convinced it’s the other way ‘round. And all his life he's said otherwise. Why did Raven think otherwise? Because he convinced her, and himself, and it's a lot.  
  
Erik tucks a strand of Charles's hair behind his ear. "Well of course some things I don't care about. If you make a mistake I'm not going to care about it. If you make a decision that's another matter. If you say _this is what I want and you don't get a choice,_ that's another matter. Because it is my choice, it should be my choice. I'm your Dominant. If you care about it, then I care about it." He may have convinced Raven, and Warren, and himself, and everyone else, but he hasn't convinced Erik, and he never will. There is no what-if scenario that will reveal Erik doesn't desire to fully Dominate him, every moment of the day, at all times. That won't happen. "I know I am right. I know that. You don't need to convince me that." His nose wrinkles fondly.  
  
Charles is in the process of convincing himself that it’s alright, that it might even be true. He huffs out a breath, though, putting on another pout. “Don’t be smug,” he mumbles, except that he thinks he’s made it exceptionally clear how much he actually enjoys it when Erik is smug, how attractive he finds it, so that’s not much of a statement at all. “It’s just… In the beginning, even just a while ago, you - you kept saying there are things you are willing to be permissive about, to let me get away with…” And Charles had made it seem like he wanted that, but that’s only because it’s what he thinks he should want. And hasn’t he fooled Erik with it before, too?  
  
"Well, I'm stupid. I say stupid things." He smacks his hand off of his own forehead playfully. "But I don't think I do. I don't let you get away with things, not when I know about it. I try to resolve it and understand it. You may feel like you do because you didn't tell me about it, but that's different. I always try to address it when a problem comes before me. But you didn't fool me. We didn't have our dynamic now, what we have, at the start. We had to build that, to be ready for it, to trust one another. That takes time. I mean I find out, you know, I found out all this-you know, I see images in my mind, when I dream, I dream these things, and I don't want to hurt you. I try to be careful. That's all. I just want to be careful and make sure I don't harm you."  
  
“You - what do you see? What did you find out?” Charles blinks, confused, and peeks up at Erik, frowning. “You’re not stupid, and you’ve never said stupid things,” he adds, and it’s firm, it’s upset, because if there is one thing he hates it is that. Anyone assuming that of Erik, but especially Erik assuming that of himself. It just isn’t true, and he doesn’t want to hear it, and it does hurt him so he’ll bring it up every time.  
  
Erik draws Charles's hand to his own face and kisses his palm. "About me, you know. About what I've done." He hides his face as much as he can in Charles's hand, blinking his eyes closed. He's rational, and calm, and collected, even when he doesn't feel it. He believes those things about himself, but he doesn't usually say it out loud; he knows Charles doesn't approve. That's enough for him, that Charles doesn't think horrible things of him. That's enough. "And knowing that what I know is probably, is probably not even the whole story, that I've done things. Add I have to live with that. But I don't want you to live with it. I don't want you to be hurt by it. I have dreams like I am killing you, with my own hands, you know? It is hard to, to, _parse_. All of who I am and what I want and what I desire and to know if it is right, and just, or if I'm, if it's twisted."  
  
Charles sucks in a breath, a loud, shaky breath, and shakes his head. He wants very much to crawl up closer but he’s completely unwilling to separate them in other ways, to part them especially now, so he reaches up his other hand and touches Erik’s face with that one, too, swallowing around the lump in his throat as he cups his Bonded’s cheek. “I will live with it, and I’m sorry about that, but I do it willingly,” he whispers, because he’s said it before and he’ll say it again now. If it is Erik’s burden, it’s his. That’s how Pairbonds necessarily work, and it can’t be altered. “You can’t shield me from it, but you’ve never harmed me, Erik. And I trust you never will. Because you have these discussions with me, and you listen. We match, remember?” Charles is a bit more removed than he was, but it takes less than a second to slip right back inside, to line up all those pieces and remind himself, too, and they might not know what all those pieces are or in which ways they fit but they do. They match. “Do you ever think what I want is twisted? That the things I want from you are twisted? Or do they feel right? It’s you, too. It’s not just me. And I know it’s difficult to talk about them, but I -” He wants to know. To talk about them. He wants Erik to do them, to act on them, whatever those desires are. Desperately, he wants that. But they’re still building, and learning. Charles, too. There’s no rush. “It’s just, sometimes - sometimes I worry I’m the twisted one, that all I’m doing is hurting you, making you -” He closes his eyes. "You've been hurt so much. I don't want to hurt you anymore. I never want to hurt you."  
  
"No," he whispers back. "Not twisted. It feels right. Everything with you feels right. You don't hurt me. You make me feel like the happiest person. You fill me with joy." He kisses the center of Charles's palm once more. "I am thankful every day that I met you." He nuzzles his cheek against Charles's hand, relishes the feel of warm skin against his, his own eyes still closed, letting the maelstrom of shame and fear wash over him that often does when he stops to think even for a mere second on the incredible weight pressing on in his chest; all the things he's done, all the things that their life includes as a result of Erik. The trials, and courts, and lawyers, and media, all of it. And how much worse it's going to get from here, and how he can do nothing about it. The only thing that keeps him afloat, the only thing, is Charles. "You didn't hurt me. You never hurt me."  
  
Carefully, gently, Charles takes it from him. Not in the sense that Erik forgets, that it’s wiped away, not even in the sense that it’s taken, but a soft, loving ease, a balm over what’s hurting and raw, something he didn’t have the capacity to do before, or at least wouldn’t have; and he whines quietly, wriggling about because it feels like he’s not close enough again. His hands are on Erik’s face and it still feels like he isn’t touching enough, even when he rocks against him and it becomes abundantly clear that they’re still connected. It just doesn’t feel like enough. “Erik, all of that? Yes, it’s complicated, but look at this,” he laughs, and tries very hard not to let his own fear rear up again. Here, where they are, what’s happening and what will. “We lead complicated lives, but we lead them together. I don’t resent you for any of it, any more than you resent me for this. We’ll be okay,” he whispers, an echo of Erik’s reassurances from earlier, and he dips a smile into Erik’s skin, a kiss, too. “We’ll be together, even if we aren’t, and that’s something, isn’t it?"  
  
As if by command, Erik's eyes pop open when Charles says look, and he gives a nice hard thrust forward, splaying his fingertips out over Charles's neck, over his collar. "You are my favorite person," he gives Charles's nose an affectionate tap. "I love you very much, _tayer_. Very, very much. Never doubt this, not ever. You aren't alone anymore. You won't be left alone. I'm sorry, that I'm responsible for so much hardship. I'm sorry it has been so difficult and challenging and I wish it should be easy for you, for us, it should be easy, and I'm sorry. If I could make it easy, I would."  
  
Charles is having a difficult time doing anything but moaning in the aftermath of that, trapping it between his teeth, biting and biting on his lip to stifle it, but he can’t help shivering right into Erik’s hands when his neck is touched, when his collar is. “I love you, too,” he breathes, and there’s enough sincerity there to drown in; the room is coated with it, suddenly, a film on both their skin. “But I haven’t made it so easy either, have I? You haven’t made anything a hardship. You've made me so happy.” And besides, this hardship, the one they’re facing now, that threatens everything - this is Charles’ fault, completely. There’s no way around that, and the reminder catches in his throat, squeezes at his chest. He closes his own eyes. “I’m sorry - I’m sorry I’m leaving you alone, I promised - I’m so sorry, I'm - so sorry, I am,” and he can’t help it. He really can’t help it, the way he starts to tremble. The way he starts to break.  
  
" _Atzor_ ," Erik murmurs, stroking his fingers down Charles's neck. There's no need for this. They've hashed it out, and Erik knows the reason for it. He's done his best to ensure that things don't get disrupted, that he isn't left alone when it matters, that Charles will stabilize as best as he can. He doesn't blame Charles, but-"It's forgiven. It has been forgiven. We will get through it. I will make sure we do."

* * *

It isn't his fault, maybe, there's nothing for Erik to forgive because this is inevitable, but it doesn't mean he isn't sorry. There is reason for this. There is reason, because - "I can't do anything about it," he whispers, and he sounds as utterly wrecked as he feels underneath it all. He doesn't want to waste their remaining time with this, but the truth is hashing it out means nothing. "What if I truly forget everything, Erik? What will you do? How will you -" He leans right into Erik's fingers for comfort, tensed up but seeking. "Things will be disrupted, even if the rest of the world stands still. And I have so much left I wanted to tell you, things I don't want..." To go unsaid. Undone.  
  
"There is no purpose to thinking about things like that," Erik whispers back. The answer isn't something Charles wants to hear. That Erik won't be able to do anything, that Shaw will likely go free, that Shaw will probably end up looping him back in somehow, that he'll probably end up dead, or worse. Erik needs his mate. There's no way around it, whatever Charles thinks of himself, he has to know that Erik needs him and it isn't theoretical. "So tell me them. What you want to say. Say it."  
  
But he shakes his head, because perhaps Erik isn’t understanding. He didn’t mean forever. He knows he should listen to his Dominant, that he should say the things he wanted and needed to say, but he needs to say this, too. He needs to have this reassurance before he goes. “No, I meant -” He swallows. “I will forget everything, won’t I? You? And let’s assume the Void isn’t lying - I don’t think it is, before you say anything - and everything really does stand still while that’s the case. That absolutely nothing changes out there while we’re locked away in here. Let’s say it’s only weeks, only a month or two. How will you…” It hurts, to think about it. Well and truly. “How will you manage it? I don’t want to leave you to that, Erik. How will you handle me if I don’t remember? Haven't you wondered what the Void meant, it said I'd need you, doesn't that...” It frightens Charles. Very much so.  
  
"I don't know," he whispers, shrugging. Because he doesn't. Of course it scares him, but there's nothing to do for it. It's going to happen and Erik will just have to handle it. He'll just have to figure it out. His mind doesn't work like Charles's, he doesn't need to analyze every single iteration of events, because it won't matter. What will matter is what happens, and he can't know that until it does happen. He knows he is afraid, and that's about the extent of it. He knows he'll do his best. That's as good a comfort as he knows how to give. At least Charles won't be aware of most of it, that's one small assurance. But Erik will be. And he'll be alone, and he doesn't know what the purpose of this questioning is. It can't be solved, it can't be helped. It can just be endured. "Whatever you need, I'll be here to give it to you. That is all I know."  
  
Perhaps there is no point. Perhaps it’s self-indulgence, selfish, to want to hear reassurance for which there’s no reassurance for besides what he already knows, what he already has. It’s not because he’s worried of his own wellbeing, it’s because he’s worried for Erik’s. “I want - I want to help you,” he gasps, and his eyes fall closed of their own accord, his body wracked with a shudder because it’s painful, thinking of it. It’s physically painful. “All of it, I want to help you through it, I always do. I know sometimes I don’t always do the best job of it, but I want to be here, I want -” He just doesn’t want to go. He keeps coming back to it, because it’s impossible not to. If it’s still him in any capacity, if there’s still any sliver of him left, he knows he’ll find ways. It’s built into his DNA, he thinks, into his core, into his soul. Erik is. “I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t do any good. I just want to help, Erik. I don’t want to leave you.” It makes him gasp again, another cut off sob, a shaky breath. “I don’t want to leave you,” he repeats. "You know that? You'll hold onto that? You promise?"  
  
"I know," he whispers back. He knows all of it. He knows. Erik doesn't know how to assure Charles of his own wellbeing. He'll survive. He'll handle it, he'll endure, he'll be OK. Erik has faith that something will get him through it, something has to get him through it. If he stops to think about it too much he'll just devolve. It's up to him to be strong, to be patient, and calm, and not lose it. That's the best he can do and he's sorry, he doesn't want Charles to hurt any more than he has to.  
  
Charles isn’t concerned with his own pain. He’s utterly consumed with the thought of Erik’s, though, and his lip wobbles pitifully as he reaches back up to stroke Erik’s cheek, peeking up at him again. “You don’t have to be strong all the time, my darling,” he whispers, and his smile is watery again, even as he refuses to blink out more tears. “I promise you that. Just promise me you won’t forget? This, I mean.” He thinks it’s crucial, them having this time, and when he thinks about all the things he hasn’t spoken yet it overwhelms him, but he takes a breath and he tries not to fall apart, either, because it doesn’t do any good. “Do you - there must be things… will you talk to me?” he tries, because Erik will be the one who can’t speak to him for a while, who won’t be able to reach for this Charles, this Charles that knows and loves him so dearly. And he thinks that the thought must be equally painful for Erik. Does Erik know that while they were separated, in the time in between, Charles would make lists of things he wanted to ask, to know? Sometimes he never got to them. There are things he still hasn't gotten to, from those very first lists. Because he wants to talk about everything.  
  
Erik smiles down at him, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear, and nuzzling into Charles's hand. "I won't forget," he whispers. "I promise. I just want you to know how much I love you, and respect you, and want for you to be whole and well, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that happens." Charles doesn't know how painful it is, because Erik isn't good at demonstrating his pain. He's not good at being open about his pain, and he does have to be strong, all the time. He wants to be strong. "Do you have a list now? Ask me. Anything you want. I'm all yours."  
  
But Charles bites his lip harder, swallowing around a different sort of lump in his throat. "Can I ask for something first? You promised that if I needed something and came to you, respectfully, you'd try and give it to me. You said you're mine, too."  
  
Erik's eyebrows arch. "Of course you may. What is it?"  
  
Charles smiles, stroking his fingers over the apple of Erik's cheek, over his nose, tracing the shape of it. Down to his lips, his jaw. Exploring, though he knows all of it by heart. "Be weak for me," he whispers. "Be vulnerable. Cry, if you have to. Be afraid. You can be, and I know, Erik. I do. You're safe with me, do you know that? You try to make me feel so safe, and I do, always, but you're safe with me. Do you know?" He just hopes he does, on some level. That he feels it.  
  
"I know," he murmurs. And he does. He can't make himself be weak on command, though, it has to be natural, and there will come a time when that can happen naturally, but Erik doesn't think he can do it right now, if he opens himself up in that way it will devastate him beyond his ability to cope when Charles leaves, and he can't be like that, Charles will need him and he won't have anybody to help him get himself back under control. "I know."  
  
Charles just continues to smile, though, undaunted, strokes his fingers over Erik's lips, completely taken. He always is. Erik is beautiful, he's so beautiful. "I'll put you back together before I leave, I know I will," he whispers, and he gently tugs at Erik's mind, crawling back inside, curious and eager; let him see? Let him in? Charles will never leave Erik broken, it's not even possible, and no force in this universe, not even the Universe, will change that. "It's safe here. It's safe. Be with me while we can, darling, please. Doesn't this feel nice?" And it does, and Charles can reach so far inside now. He can slip into Erik's soul, but never without permission. He wants it so badly.

* * *

Erik shivers, as if Charles's fingers are stroking along the inside of his brain. It feels very nice. His soul seems to wrap around Charles easily, winding tendrils of its own creeping up and down Charles's body and drawing him in, needing him closer, wanting him closer. He can come in. He doesn't have to be scared. He belongs here. " _Ken, tayer_." He grins back, though. He's not feeling much like crying. Erik just doesn't work like that, he doesn't know how to stop and just feel. He has to be doing, working, acting. "I love you."  
  
Erik doesn't have to cry. Charles isn't demanding it of him, or telling him what he should or shouldn't feel; he's just asking that he doesn't hold it back. That he lets Charles see, crawl inside and underneath his skin, that he doesn't feel like he needs to be strong, because it's safe to be weak here, whatever that means. Charles promises. He promises. He shudders, eyes nearly rolling back, utterly overwhelmed by how close Erik is, how much he can feel and how deeply. He's never been so sensitive. It's so much, he's nearly panting with it. "Thank you, I love you," he breathes, that dreamy smile on his lips. It feels very nice, as an understatement. "Do you... do you want..." He trails off, suddenly shy, a fluttering all around them, shakes his head. It can wait?  
  
"No waiting," Erik's nose wrinkles up fondly in return. He doesn't want to wait, he wants to know. "What do I want? Tell me about it." He brushes Charles's hair from his forehead once more and kisses him, content to soak up Charles's reactions, and delighted that simple proximity to himself could cause it.  
  
It absolutely can. Charles is squirming now, though, huffing out a tiny noise of protest, but it’s not actually a refusal. After a moment, Erik gets the feeling that something is lingering just out of his perception, dangling close but not quite close enough; a playful tease, accompanied by that fluttery shyness. It’s been there the whole time, he realizes, whatever it is, or close enough, but he hasn’t known to look for it. Charles still has fingers over his eyes, so to speak, and now he’s biting on the inside of his cheek and trying not to wriggle them apart, still needing - very, very much - Erik inside of him. “Made you something,” he mumbles into Erik’s chest. "I think it's done. It's not very good, please don't get excited."  
  
"Too late," he laughs, that delight only magnifying. It doesn't matter if it's not good, which Erik certainly wouldn't think either way, even the fact that Charles made it in the first place is enough to fill him with warmth. He thought something as much, he could tell Charles was doing something, but he was letting him work, planning on addressing it at some point, he wanted Erik's abilities but pleasantly surprised that this is the result.  
  
What else would he have been working away at? Charles can't help but grin, too, even as his heart beats double-time in his chest, the inside of his poor cheek taking the brunt of his anxiety. "Close your eyes?" he requests, because even if he could just close them for Erik like this, it's more fun this way.  
  
"Mhmmm," Erik laughs again, but his eyes obediently slide shut as he waits for whatever-it-is to be illuminated for him. He taps on Charles's cheek blindly, silently Ordering him to stop biting on it. He trusts completely, which is absolutely unusual for him, Erik typically doesn't like closing his eyes on anything, but with Charles it's a non-issue, his body as un-tense as it normally gets.  
  
If Erik takes the time to think back now that Charles has lifted the mental hands away from his eyes, away from his perception and memory and processing, he’ll see he’s been the one working this whole time, in the very technical sense; when Charles borrowed, he was quite literally feeding the information of what he wanted to Erik, and letting him handle it from there, all while keeping any knowledge from him. Now he understands. It’s a complicated, astounding difference from trying to manipulate Erik’s abilities himself, from manipulating them secondhand through a manual process he didn’t fully grasp - it was clumsy, and always rather silly, nothing more than bent paper clips stuck together. Child’s work that led to frustration, because they aren’t his abilities, and he doesn’t know how to properly use them, and certainly not how to direct Erik to in the way he was. This isn’t that. He sunk as far into Erik’s mind as he possibly could, let himself feel and see and understand, and guided from there - he let Erik do what he does best, and all he really borrowed was his awareness of it happening. He saw and felt and experienced it, in awe and wonder and overwhelmed delight, but it really required little work on his end. No great mastering of a skill, only his own telepathy, which - well. He’s just stalling. He’s just prefacing.   
  
“You can open your eyes,” he breathes, and he’s holding them. Cuffs. He’ll admit they don’t look like much at first glance, despite plenty of deliberating, but he holds his breath as he waits for Erik to feel it out, to reach out with the abilities he’d technically used to make them for Charles. Charles has become a bit obsessed with materials ever since he’d decided he wanted Erik’s cuffs to be special, and the reason is he knows Erik is more than a bit obsessed with them. He cares what things are made of, and so when it came to his cuffs, he knew they had to be made of important things. And they are. At first, they appear to be mostly made of leather, and it’s expensive, high-quality; partially made of exactly that, well-made materials that he knows instinctively because Erik does will last the test of time, fade well, keep. These he bought, unsure of what to do with them, of how to make them into anything. They look and feel like Charles, because Charles has always favored things like this, but that’s not all there is to them. Some of the leather is older, already more worn; Erik will recognize it because it doesn’t belong to the rest, it isn’t from the same place. It’s from a journal, from a book in a drawer kept safe. Not enough that the original piece is at all compromised, but enough that it’s there. The only thing that stood the test of time in the Wasteland after the desolation, the piece Charles spent plenty of time laboring and agonizing over in the Real, pouring love and effort into; his Bonding gift, and now it’s here, too, for Erik to carry around with him. Other things thrown in, from everything he could think of; the leather planner he’d written his first set of rules in, the watch he never takes off, always worn around his wrist because it’s seen plenty of Charles and perhaps Erik would like it for that, the leather binding from his old copy of _The Once and Future King_. There’s metal gleaming through the middle, a perfect match of Charles’ collar, because of course there had to be, a match but not the same, but it’s not pure, either. There’s bits and pieces here, too, just the way Erik seems to prefer things. From metal roses he found on their windowsill back at Raven’s. From the belt buckle that made the very first one. From a couch in a cafe that became metal balls, floating toys to amuse children with, his private secret, his little obsession - a piece from Erik’s home, from his history, his past (if he looks, he’ll find it’s in the leather, too, what he’d first meant when he asked Erik for a piece of it, but it’s worthy of more space, and now Erik will always have it, no matter where he goes). From Charles’ ring, still on Erik’s finger, just the tiniest fleck because it had taken time to get here, Erik has been patient and he’s waited and Charles thought _perhaps another symbol will do_ , but it won’t, even if he continues to wear it. He wants Erik to have these. Desperately. Weaving the two parts together is the ribbon he’d tied around Erik’s wrist. The silly cuffs. But there’s something else in them, another line that becomes the focal point, always seems to draw the eye. It’s blue-green, pretty emerald oceans, delicate and luxurious and achingly familiar. It’s from Charles’ first collar. It’s a daring move. A bold one. But what is Erik’s Dominance without Charles’ submission, after all? How could he be Charles’ Dominant without Charles putting on that first collar, tears springing to his eyes as they stared at his reflection in the mirror, Erik’s fingers around his neck? But there’s nothing engraved, from what Erik can see. Charles takes a long, slow breath. “There’s - something else, too,” he whispers, quiet, and he realizes he’s shaking with the nerves. He waits.  
  
Erik strokes over the material with loving hands, already fully aware of what each component is comprised of, a soft little smile on his face. He's not really paying attention to anything else at all, completely enraptured by the gift, totally overwhelmed by it. "Hmm?" he whispers when Charles speaks again, tearing his eyes away at last to meet his submissive's, bowing their foreheads together. "Something else?" Something beyond this? Erik can't even conceive of that. "It's beautiful," he murmurs. "I can't believe you made it for me." Not that Charles couldn't do it, not that he couldn't conceive of doing it even, but more that Erik still has trouble believing that he's worthy of anything like this. "Beautiful," he repeats again. There's no words to accurately describe his reaction. There aren't any. Love doesn't really cover it, though it's there. Every aspect from the journal to the aquamarine of his first collar, Erik recognizes it all, and it snaps behind his eyes as clear as day. They're memories that will always stay with him. Always, and now they always will, and Charles had to know that. All the things that have held meaning for him, and-more than that, really. From his home. All of the love and effort, Erik can feel them like real entities, like real materials, between atoms and molecules.  
  
Charles still feels a little like he can't breathe, his fingers shaking horribly where they're still holding the cuffs out like the offering they are. He swallows, and for all that he's so deeply in Erik's mind, in his soul, he's still so uncertain, so shy, so nervous. "It might be overwhelming," he warns, and then bites down on his lip again, this time enough to crack it. "You like them...?"  
  
"I love them," Erik whispers back, laughing. "Did you really think I wouldn't?" he closes his fingers over them, touching gently, reverently. There's no room for uncertainty, not like this. They're too close. He can't explain his response, not really, but he doesn't have to. Charles can feel it. The utter devotion Erik has for him. The complete joy. "Perfect. You are perfect."  
  
It's not that Charles can't feel it, it's just that - he agonized about these, for so long. Fretted and fussed and drove himself mad, and to finally give them to Erik, to have finally made them after truly believing there was no way he could because he hadn't learned how yet? It's more than overwhelming. Here, now, it's devastating in the best possible way, and Erik hasn't even seen what makes these truly special yet. Impossible for anyone else to have, something that started with the journal but he's mastered it now. He gently takes Erik's hand and places it over where an engraving should be, probably, where it would be. Where it is, but not in words. And gasps as his mind fills with it, too. It unfolds slowly, carefully, built not to overwhelm, but it's all there. Breathing, trapped within the material, embedded in it, just as much a part of the whole piece as leather or metal. All the memories that make up their story. "So you don't forget," he breathes. So he can remind Charles when he does, and share it with him when he doesn't. So it's always there, their story.  
  
Erik lets in an audible breath, not-quite a gasp of his own. He touches his own temple, smiling unconsciously. He lifts Charles's hand and kisses along his knuckles, affectionate. "Beautiful," he whispers again. These are memories he'll never lose and now he never has to. It's precious. A precious thing, and he will protect it. Always. "I love you so much. Do you know that?" Is there any way he can bottle that up? Distill it? Give it to Charles in a way that he could always carry with him? Does Charles know? Can he ever really know? Their story. He will keep it with him, forever. And if Charles ever forgets, if he ever needs it, if there's ever anything that Erik has carried with him that he could give back, it will be there, guarded with his life. No, with his heart. His ability slides across the grooves and indentations, the small scratches and imperfections that make it up, that hold Charles's imprint. That hold the way that Charles belongs to him. That's what this holds, more than anything else. Charles's submission, his dedication.  
  
Charles is biting on his lip again. The truth is, of course he knows that his Dominant is pleased. That he finds the gift pleasing, that he doesn't think it's particularly lacking in any way, and there's no real room for uncertainty there, but still he flutters with it. He's spent so long preoccupied with this, mulling it over, collecting both physically and not that pooling it all together, especially like this, is a lot. An overwhelming process, one he's still shy about. "Are you going to wear them?" he asks, as mild as possible, his eyes lowered.  
  
Erik lifts his gaze to meet his eyes completely, the way that he prefers. "Always." It's not lacking in any way. It's magnificent. He taps on Charles's lip, shaking his head. "Mm-mm. _Atzor_. Mine now. Always mine." He fastens them over his wrists, clasping them together lovingly. He already has started to pulse over the engraved memories, learning how it works, learning what is embedded where, each one with as much weight and reverence as the last.


	87. if you stand up for me, I'll stand up for you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _trauma and recovery_ , judith herman

It makes Charles heart skip a bit, makes those overwhelmed tears threaten to spill, his breath hitching magnificently as he stares down at where Erik's wrists are no longer bare. "I've wanted you to wear them for so long," he admits, breathless and affected and hoarse. He's starting to feel hot again, to feel itchy, but he wonders if it might just be because he's happy, despite everything, and the Bond is rejoicing in it, urging more closeness. He still wants to talk. There's so much to say, but he's forgotten some of it in the wake of this. "Do they feel okay? Nice?"  
  
"Very nice, hmm," Erik whispers back. Happy? Charles is happy? Erik likes that. It's his favorite thing. He's wanted to wear them for a very long time, too, but he would never have rushed Charles in making them, content as he was, but he's more than content now. He is pulled in by the thrall of the Bond, running his fingertips down Charles's chest idly, completely unconscious.  
  
Charles is happy, in this moment. He's also shivering underneath Erik's touch, gasping, whimpering with it, eyes wide and overwhelmed as he stares down at Erik's fingers, at his hand, at his cuffs. He's wearing cuffs because he's Charles' Dominant and no one else's, just Charles'. "No touching," he teases, pouty and bossy, because it's going to make the heat come back and Charles wants to talk. "Talk, please? You first."  
  
"Me first?" Erik laughs. And of course Charles is being bossy and of course Erik immediately taps him on the nose in reproach, tickling under his chin. But he asked nicely, so Erik blinks down at him, acquiescent. "All right. What would you like to talk about?" Anything he would like to talk about, everything under the sun. Erik is much like Charles in that he really does enjoy talking, but he doesn't always know how to start, or what to say. In this, he's happy to take guidance from his submissive.  
  
The bossiness didn't pay off quite as well as he'd hoped, it seems, because the heat is still crawling up underneath his skin, spreading out like it's been fanned, uncomfortable and prickly but electric, too. Comforting, because he knows his mate is right here to take care of it. He decides to ignore it all the same, flushed pink and wriggling back down until he's settled nicely on Erik's chest. He's quiet for a while after that, besides those soft, unconscious little noises. "When you say you want to start this school with me, are you humoring me any, or do you honestly believe in it?" Charles does. Wholly and completely.  
  
"I believe in it completely," Erik murmurs back, tucking a strand of Charles's hair behind his ear affectionately. He still can't help touching, odds and ends, over Charles's cheek and jaw and along his collarbones and down his sternum, Erik has a hard time being separate for more than a few moments. He knows that he and Charles don't always agree on the same political ends, but the practicality is much the same. Erik believes in a mutant institution, for mutants, by mutants, a place of safety and education and self-determination and self-defense, if necessary. He doesn't necessarily agree with allowing baselines to infiltrate, but he understands that there are times when it'll be necessary, and having baseline support is necessary for their success. But yes, he believes in it, wholeheartedly.  
  
Charles hums, warmed by the idea of it; anchoring himself in the idea of their future, not thinking about what's to come, not letting the horrific fear consume him for too long, just being with Erik, talking with Erik, that's what he needs. He draws patterns on Erik's chest with idle fingers, rocks subtly back and forth, calm. Content. "Do you really think it might come to violence?" What he's really asking is do you really think it might come to war, the way Erik sometimes does, but it doesn't hold the same terror it does for him as it usually does. He's just picking Erik's brain a bit, the way he likes. Checking in. As if this is any other evening, as if they have all the time in the world to chat.  
  
Erik nods. "Absolutely," he murmurs. "I do not think it will be a war. I think we might put up a fight, but once they find ways of disabling us, it won't be much of a war. They'll put us on a list and when they figure out what to do with us, they'll act. It's vital that we have the infrastructure in place to defend ourselves. That starts with education, with community, with purpose."  
  
"Erik -" The idea is terrifying, truly, and he knows not to suggest it's outside the realm of possibility. It isn't. He doesn't think it will, but it isn't. "A school won't last long, if that's the case. You realize that." Not as he dreams of it, not as he wants it to be. It will necessarily need to be more than that, and it certainly won't be a recognized, legal establishment (not that all of it will be legal in the ideal version, either, Charles has proven more than once he's willing to break rules). "Do you believe in a school, or do you believe in a fortress?"  
  
"I can't pretend that I believe in the same world as you," Erik murmurs back. "But I don't think the two should be mutually exclusive. I believe in mutant safety and self-determination. Maybe I'm strange, maybe I have a strange point of view. I don't know. We're going to be building an institution that houses dozens of children, do you expect that we _won't_ be building a fortress? That we won't be defending them? Will you put children somewhere that they'll be vulnerable or will we have tools in place to protect them?"  
  
"You don't have to do that," he whispers softly, fondly, rubbing at one of Erik's freckles with infinite softness, adoration. Despite the conversation, he's smiling. "Qualify yourself. Of course we'll have ways of protecting them, but it should not feel like a fortress. That is not the environment I want children to live, no, always in fear and primed for a fight that may not come. Do you think they will be able to live in a world outside of it after?" And Charles thinks they should. "Besides, I truly pity anyone who comes knocking on our door, Erik." He does not imagine they will like what follows. He does not imagine they will make it to the door in the first place.  
  
Erik's nose wrinkles up under Charles's attention, smiling back fondly himself. "It will come. It's already here. I want them to survive. Sooner or later people are going to feel like they have permission to aggress against us, and people we think of as friends and neighbors will not hesitate to drive us out, to kill us in broad daylight. It's not murder, it's not a crime. They'll look at the systematic problems in their culture and think, _well it's the mutant's fault. They're degenerates._ They're, whatever you want. Socialists or fascists, or whatever. _All the problems in my life are caused by mutants, so I am morally justified._ Is that a world that can be lived in?"  
  
Charles sighs, and this time he's the one who reaches up and taps Erik on the nose, stroking it afterward. Following the slope of it with gentle fingers, lovingly. His Dominant is so beautiful, sometimes he's blindsided by it. His darling, even when he's talking like this, when he's convinced the whole world will turn against them. "No, but that is not the world we live in, and we can prevent it from ever becoming so," he says, like he's said before, like he will always say, even if it should come to pass. "Until then, we can work with the world we do have. They shouldn't be made to fear the world, Erik. They are a part of it, their families and friends are a part of it. Our fear will not lessen theirs any."  
  
Erik shakes his head, pressing his lips together. Of course he can't help but be flattered by Charles's thoughts, and he can't help but smile a little, tucking his face into Charles's hand. But he just doesn't agree. It only takes one man like Shaw to unite a world against _The Mutant Problem_." His eyebrows lift, pointed. It can't be said Charles doesn't know his history. "People all over the world still couldn't survive amongst each other. Most people are violent and cruel and petty, quite frankly there can be no trust that humans, or _baselines_ , whatever they're called, could reasonably oversee mutant affairs. Uniting them under a cause, under the ideal of purging out _non-human beings_ -saying _they're a different species_. You hear the rhetoric now that humans throw at one another. Your president says in public that it's _fine_ to be a Nazi, you know? And everybody says, _well Lehnsherr is just paranoid, he's just paranoid._ Am I? You just need _one_ supremacist to get on the radio and say mutants should subjugate humans, and you watch how fast it happens." There is a good reason for fear. But Erik doesn't want fear, either. They don't need fear. They need action, and a plan, and a preparation.  
  
But Charles only sighs again, fingers stroking featherlight over his Bonded’s face as if he’s memorizing it. Down both cheeks. Playing with the firm line his lips have become, as if melting away the severity. “I don’t believe you have no cause to think this, you know that,” he says, though he does think some of it is extreme. Unnecessarily pessimistic, and horribly grim. “It’s not blind paranoia. I know. And perhaps I am naïve, but I have seen the worst of people too, my love, and I have also seen the good. There is hope, far more than you seem to believe there is, and I will do everything in my power to show it to you.” Perhaps neither of them are right, at least not their arguments taken to the full extreme. The world so seldom works that way, the scales so rarely tip wholly to one side. Despair and hope often coexist. “I’m not so naïve to think there will never be violence, that mutants will not suffer simply for being born who they are,” he whispers, because he’s seen that, too. He always has seen it. “You and I both know it has, and it will. And we will help them. Of course we will help them. But to say that it is _inevitable_ , that it will always lead to this end - certainly you agree it’s at least preferable to think there is hope, hm? Surely you know which would be a better world for our children to live in? If there is no hope, I will make it, Erik.” He shakes his head. “I am not saying it’s not possible. I am saying it is not inevitable, and the future you speak of has not come yet. Perhaps there are foundations for it, but what gets built on top is still in our hands. You said so yourself, just moments ago. One person, one speech. Humans are capable of learning, of change. Of growth. Won’t you let them, before you make your plans against them?”  
  
"I just think it sounds very, it sounds very _familiar_ , that's all," Erik murmurs. And of course under Charles's ministrations that severity melts. It has to melt. "I know that you've seen it, but I don't think it's the same thing as living it. As the..." as always in these conversations, there comes a time when Erik struggles to verbalize his perspective, where the light leaves his eyes and his gaze distances, but it's important. He wants Charles to know. "I don't want-I don't want you to be _shocked_ by it, to be surprised. To be taken off guard. You know, _it can't happen here. We don't live like that._ These are good people. They have families and they go to church, and they go to the supermarket and _I taught their children, they're good people, they couldn't possibly commit atrocities._ Or these people did, but they're _psychopaths_ , they're abnormal. _The ordinary response to atrocity is to bury it_ , that is a normal response. But if we build an establishment meant to take on large numbers of mutant children into one area we cannot be blinded by faith that our peers will respect the sanctity and validity of the lives inside. We can't say _this isn't the world I live in_. We can't say I never expected it. We both live in this world. I don't hate humans, but you can't throw a stick without hitting someone who believes I want them all exterminated. How many people think I belong in prison, or I should be hanged alongside Shaw, that I'm a supremacist, and of course that isn't pure _anti-mutant sentiment_ , either, I know that." He rolls his eyes, and presses his cheek into Charles's hand. "And they try to make it about politics, if you're a leftist, if you're _dah dah dah_ , but it doesn't matter. They think the same thing. Oh, it's fine, if they have _nothing to hide_ they shouldn't mind registering under the MCA. What happened at _Arad_ happened because the authorities _cooperated_ with Shaw, in one of, I would argue, the _safest_ places for mutants to exist right now. How many _Circle-M_ pins do you see on a daily basis, but when someone rolls in and says, you know, _I'll take care of your mutant problem for you_. By all means."  
  
Charles shakes his head again, though. “I don’t think you’re understanding my position, Erik, and I don’t blame you because I would perhaps have you believe otherwise,” he says, quietly, and there’s a much more melancholy smile on his lips. The truth is, he would like to believe otherwise. He would argue that everyone would. “Again, I’m not saying it is not possible. I am not saying it hasn’t happened, or that it cannot happen here because they are not like that. I know it can. I know they could be. I am very much aware of it, what makes it a possibility, so please don’t assume I am so naïve.” Does Erik realize that Charles has more than the media to go off of here, more than spoken sentiment, much more? That with the access he has now, to thoughts, some buried beneath politeness and social etiquette and civility, others right on the surface, he knows far better than anyone else what the public believes? But Erik’s words are an exaggeration. Sticks can be thrown, and the people it hits will not always be looking for mutant extermination, or restriction, or criminalization. They won’t. “They don’t all think the same. They simply do not. Even if they do, there is time to change that sentiment. We are not stuck in an endless loop, Erik, and while I will concede humans can be extraordinarily awful at learning from their own mistakes, that does not mean they can’t. Things can change. Thoughts, feelings, sentiment, public opinion. What has happened before has great bearing on what will in the future, but it does not always have to follow the same course. Nothing is set. There is always hope. If I am not to be naive, but do not be so jaded, my love. Do not assume history must always repeat itself. Let yourself be surprised - humans are not always good, no, but they can be. They have been. Have you not seen that yourself?”  
  
Erik's head ducks a little. "I have seen more bad than good," he whispers. He tries not to tar them all with the same brush, but it's difficult. His fellow mutants weren't much kinder to him. He does have some memories of good, though, it's just more difficult. The bad memories are remembered differently. The brain remembers them differently. They're vivid and searing. The good memories are just his faulty, human memories, many of which are from before he even had the cognitive capacity to be classified as a whole, unique person.His own behavior isn't exempt. "I've done more bad than good, too." His lips press together again, eyes fluttering closed.  
  
That makes him hum, a soft, disagreeing noise, and his fingers wander back to Erik’s lips, his thumb rubbing against them gently. “I don’t think it quite works like that, but even if it does, it isn’t true,” he whispers. “I’ve seen bad, too, Erik, and not just second hand. The worst thing my stepfather thought of me was not I should murder him, and that is saying something, isn’t it? I never had -” What Erik had, and he has been so guilty about it, the envy he sometimes feels when Erik thinks of his mother, because he knows it’s so horrifically ugly. It’s terrible of him, it’s rotten. But it creeps up, sometimes, and especially because he is aware of where they are now, because he is traumatized, too. It isn’t known, it isn’t played on every news station, some of those closest to him - Gabby, for one, who he dated for a year - know nothing of it, and he knows it was not as - as severe, if trauma can be tested against other trauma, but it exists. It’s his mind, too. There are things he has not told Erik, and he’s not sure he can. Perhaps it’s silly against the weight of what Erik holds, to call it trauma, to call it - but it is. He knows it is. “But there is good. You’ve felt it, seen it, and you’ve certainly done it. You have such a desire for it. May I ask you something else?”  
  
Erik doesn't think it's silly, and he doesn't think it's terrible or rotten. The two things just can't be compared, but it's hard to exist as a human person and not compare your experiences with those of others, even the people you love most. To think that only you have this special understanding of how the world works, when in reality, when you respect a person, you know that their experiences and their opinions are formed in just as valid a way. They're just different, not better or worse or right or wrong. He doesn't believe that trauma can be tested against other trauma or that there is an objective measure of suffering. To be honest, Erik doesn't feel it's very fair for anybody to call his experiences trauma. It's hard to comprehend real cause and effect, it's hard to consider when for most of human history the vocabulary to express this kind of behavior just didn't exist and had to be invented, in places where Erik now spends a good deal of his time preparing and testifying. The cause and effect between a decision, an action, a choice, a consequence, a method of force, torture; they aren't instinctive. They aren't intuitive. Even when you have the context, even when the context exists within your own family, it is not an instinctive thing. When someone forces you to do something against your moral code, what does it mean if you obey? Does how they force you matter? Do their threats matter? Erik spends a lot of time, more time than is normal, perhaps, mulling all of this over these days. And if he is responsible, what does that mean for him, for his family, for his mate? Does he condemn his children to live in the shadow of his crimes? Will anybody ever divorce the name _Lehnsherr_ from atrocity? Erik swallows, realizing his thoughts are rolling around like marbles, now, and he gathers them all up and puts them away. "Of course."  
  
But Charles reaches for them as he so often does, still plugged right into Erik’s soul, to his being; he gathers them up in his hands and rolls them around there instead, lovingly and soothingly, gives them the care and the attention they deserve, and there is no such thing as normal under circumstances like this. Is the way Charles thinks normal, beyond even his mutation? Are some of the things he considers, thinks, frets about, becomes overwhelmed with, melts down over normal? He traces his fingers back down to Erik’s chest. What Erik experienced is trauma. There’s simply no way around it. “Do you know where we are right now?” he asks quietly. It’s perhaps a silly question; Erik is the one who brought them here.  
  
" _Ja_ ," he nods, touching Charles's cheek. He hasn't quite switched out of German, which is the general default language he tends to even have those thoughts in, in the first place. He is sorry if it brings up something bad. But they do intend to live here, eventually, right? They should start making this place a home, a place where they belong. He hopes that he hasn't caused Charles to suffer too much, if he had another option he would take it, but the Void told him it's better for there to be fewer people around, and while he doesn't know precisely what will happen, he does know he will do his best to protect Charles's heart, to keep him safe.  
  
“That was rather the point, actually,” he breathes, and the truth is, he doesn’t think the association will ever completely go away. If he won’t walk down the halls of this place, even if they’re altered completely, even if they barely resemble those of his childhood, even filled with children and light and laughter, and not see what he did as a child. As a teenager. As an adult, even. But perhaps that’s not so horrible. “There’s always good in the bad, Erik. Hope when things seem hopeless. It’s not just something bad, it’s -” He swallows. “There will be some days I don’t think I’ll think of this place much more fondly than you see anywhere you were caged. But I have hope for it.”  
  
"Well you are really so surprised to be better than me?" Erik grins down at him. He knows Charles probably won't think it, but he's a telepath, there's no use in pretending that Erik doesn't think it. He's not patient and he couldn't cope with the Institute even standing, he knocked it to the ground, and he would likely to the same to the CIA if he were alone. Erik has never desired to break Charles of his beliefs or change his mind, he likes that Charles is optimistic and idealistic. He can be jaded enough for the both of them. He'll make sure that they're protected, one way or the other.  
  
Charles frowns. “That’s not true,” he argues, and about this he does get upset, because he certainly doesn’t find it anything to joke about. Perhaps Erik is less patient than him, but sometimes Charles finds he can hardly find himself optimistic. “Do you really think there weren’t days I wanted to knock this place down? To reduce it to rubble? But it’s -” It’s his. It belongs to him, rather officially, soon, if they truly make it through this, and that means it’s his responsibility. It’s his choice what he makes of it, and smashing every wall and ripping out the floorboards would do nothing to erase the pain, the reality of what happened here. Nothing at all. The blood and the screams and the hurt would linger. “It’s different, besides.”  
  
Erik shakes his head. He doesn't think it's so different. And besides, what Charles thought about doing and what he did are two different things, although Erik doesn't feel particularly guilty for what he did to the _Institute_ , it does highlight their differences in a stark way. Charles has hope, he believes the system can be changed. Erik supposes he's more or less a revolutionary, with all the good and bad connotations that come with it. He wouldn't identify himself as an extremist, but of course, when you advocate for force to be used in some capacity, you will inevitably be labeled as such. And Erik is not shy, at all, about that, his utter conviction that force will be necessary, that resistance, via arms, will be necessary. And yes, there will be good humans, there will be people who will help, there are people who are already helping, but that's separate from an establishment. But Charles isn't wrong, either. Tearing down the _Institute_ didn't erase what happened. It was an impulsive decision that likely made it worse for Erik and the children in the long run, and he just did Shaw's dirty work for him. If he'd been thinking clearly, he might've made a different choice.  
  
“I would not go that far,” Charles sighs, because he wouldn’t. Impulsive or otherwise, Erik got himself out. He got those children out. Whether he prefers the use of force or not is entirely, completely irrelevant to how he feels, ultimately, about what happened there. He doesn’t regret it. It’s not his to regret in the first place, perhaps, but he doesn’t. “Revolution does not always mean force, you know. I certainly don’t want to keep things as they are,” he huffs, because somehow that’s lost on people when they talk of him. Charles has never said, nor will he ever say, things are good as is, let’s keep on without rocking the boat. They aren’t. He has little respect for the status quo, and every hope for a better future. One that does not, ideally, require force. His lips quirk up. “You didn’t flat out destroy those officers earlier, so perhaps you’ve made progress,” he teases, and rubs his thumb over one of Erik’s nipples because it’s there, because he wants to touch, humming. They’re still in the middle of this cycle, very much so, and for some reason the thought of Erik being protective, being fierce, being aggressive, even, when it comes to that - it makes him shiver, right down to curled up toes. They're a safe, good distance away, so - "They threatened me," he breathes, unsure why, exactly, as he peeks up at Erik.

* * *

He trails his hand up to grip into Charles's hair, humming against his ear and snapping his hips forward in a way that absolutely cannot deny how very-much in the middle of this cycle he still is. "No progress," he murmurs roughly. The only reason he didn't obliterate them is because Charles was there, and he didn't want Charles to see that. He doesn't want him to see death and fear and destruction, only pleasant things, good things. So they got to live, but only barely. Their guns didn't fare as well. Unfortunately they now likely are even more terrified of mutants than before, which might not go over so well in the future, but Erik doesn't care. He has to protect his mate, at all costs.  
  
Except they aren’t, remember? They have absolutely no memory of it happening in the first place. Their guns were explained away rather nicely. What a nifty trick; Charles is too busy moaning for a bit, gasping, shaking with the electric heat of it to grin for a while, but he does eventually. Everyone always forgets what Charles is capable of, and perhaps that’s his own fault - he relied on that, for a long time, and he’s used to holding himself back, but he can protect, too. He does and he will. Biting his lip again, he trails his nail over one of Erik’s nipples, experimental and teasing, because Erik said no nails, sweetheart earlier and he likes not listening playfully sometimes. He wants to keep talking, though, so he does, but his mind is on this now, and maybe he has to see it through. “You’re saying if someone came here right now, if they showed up and tried to take me away from you -” Charles knows he doesn’t want Erik to hurt anyone for his sake. Especially not for his sake. But the thought of it is so - it’s utterly mad, but -  
  
Poor Charles, he gets his hands abruptly snatched up for that and pinned above his head, and Erik spreads his legs further apart, giving a good, hard thrust forward when Charles does comply. inhaling deeply against his neck. "Nobody take you away from me. Nobody. Don't even joke." Erik's compunctions about killing people evidently drastically reduce the further into this cycle he goes. And sparing Charles, well, that will only protect them for so long. Erik can be, as Charles has seen, fairly creatively violent.  
  
Now he's breathing fast, his heart absolutely pounding in his chest, and he's fairly sure this should frighten him. That Erik's thoughts, where they've gone, should frighten him. But it doesn't, and the fact that there's miles of land between them and the nearest human helps. It just makes him shudder, and it's quite the opposite of dread as he whines and tugs at his hands. "I want to play," he pouts, because usually Erik lets him, and he'd only used his nails a little. He wants to touch while they spend this time together. "I'm not joking - you're going to protect me, aren't you?" And for some reason, his voice cracks with it. He doesn't know what makes him say the next part, just that it feels like he has to. "Protect your mate?"  
  
" _Ken, neshama_ ," Erik purrs back, and he doesn't let him this time. "Want to play? Ask nice. No scratching." His own hand trails down Charles's chest and stomach, in long, sweeping lines; Charles's are still captured in his good one, held fast and strong and not going anywhere despite his twisting and squirming. "Protect you. Keep you. Mine. Nobody else. You don't want nobody else?" Erik whispers, soft.  
  
Charles just pouts harder, mostly for show because truly he's delighted. Still, of course he nods; he doesn't want anyone else, and he never truly has. There is no one else for him, no one but his mate. There never could be. "Hands, please," he huffs, and it's just this side of bratty, tugging again for good measure even though it gets him absolutely nowhere. "What if I want to scratch? Nicely?" he asks, grinning softly, and then he leans down and bites Erik's nipple for good measure. He can be creative, too.  
  
Erik lets out a little squeak of shock and then rather abruptly wrestles Charles right onto his stomach, giving his ass a proper smack before sliding right back inside of him, tugging him up on his knees to angle exactly where he wants, to make Charles feel every inch. He ends up with his hands pinned right back above his head and Erik purring contentedly into his ear, chest pressed against Charles's back, still and kept right where he belongs. "Nicely," he chides. Ask permission. Ask politely. Be a good boy. He knows Charles can.  
  
Charles knows exactly how to be a good boy. The problem is that he’s gasping for air now, his chest heaving because Erik was in him before but from this angle he’s so full and it feels so nice, he’s moaning with it, but the problem is he’s still pouting rather spectacularly. Now it’s just pressed into the sheets, until he throws it over his shoulder so his Dominant can see, too. “I want to play, please,” he repeats, only slightly petulant, because the sound Erik made was enticing and he wants to try and get the same one out of him again. Maybe if he scratches and bites. “I said please, let up? Want to play, want to talk,” he manages, because he does. It’s not defiant, really, and there’s that spark from inside, that excited, heated flip to his stomach; what will his mate do? What will he do now?  
  
Erik hums against him, though. He's so pretty on his knees, Erik doesn't know if he can let him up. Not unless he's very nice, and very polite, and addresses his Dominant properly. Not bratty and entitled. Otherwise Erik just doesn't think he can be so generous. Charles belongs to him. He belongs right here, it feels so good to fuck him, to take him, to fill him up and keep him still and Order him to clench hard around Erik's cock, to make Erik feel good because he wants to, he never realized it until recently that Charles wants to, that he wants Erik to make him and normally it wouldn't matter one bit to him. He's always preferred giving pleasure to getting it, but it works out either way, because they fit. They're made for each other. Charles is made for Erik. And Erik is made for Charles, too. But he can only play if he is good.  
  
He quite likes being on his knees, too, incidentally, and Charles whines louder against the sheets, clenching tight now not because he’s Ordered to but because he can’t help it, because it feels so terribly good and his eyes are crossing with it again. Not being filled is complete agony, how will he ever survive it? Couldn’t Erik just stay inside forever? But he shakes his head as if he’s shaking off the thought, and he has something to ask, fierce and curious, so curious, but first comes first. He’s been properly chastised. Erik doesn’t give rewards to boys who don’t deserve it, does he? Is that how it works? So Charles takes a breath and thinks about how to earn it. “May I please play, sir?” he tries, breathy and muffled but earnest, too, and he even peeks back, eyes wide and that endless azure.  
  
It's still challenging for Erik to let him though. Not because of anything Charles has done, but because he's so incredibly enticing like this that it's taking all of Erik's self control not to immediately lay into him. He just touches Charles's chin instead, bowing their foreheads together and slowly lets him, at last, after he's satisfied, return to laying against the sheets on his back. Erik separates only for a moment before pressing back inside, giving his nipple a little scratch for posterity.  
  
It’s not quite as good as being on his knees or on Erik’s chest like he was before, but Charles beams anyway, soft and suddenly shy because he’s facing his Dominant again and he’s fluttery with it. “Thank you, sir,” he whispers, sweet, but after he’s finished squirming, crying out at even the faintest touch to his nipple, he's so sensitive there and Erik hasn't been touching them, whimpering softly to reassure himself that Erik is still inside, that his mate is still there because he was gone for a second, just a second and it nearly made him panic, he’s clenching as tightly as he can, it’s painful with all the soreness but he likes it, too. More than he should, maybe, his cheeks pink with it, but - “You're wrong,” he says, and that’s bold, such a contrast to just moments before, and he’s smiling that soft smile still, but there’s smugness, too. There’s Charles, because of course there is, because there’s still here and he likes being right, everyone who knows him knows it.  
  
"Mmmhmmm," Erik laughs, swiping his thumb over Charles's nipple again and then pinching it, rolling it within his fingers until it perks right up, listening to him gasp and twitch with an absolute relish that's hard to describe, except that the room is now doused in Dominion. Needless to say he doesn't particularly care about the nuances of a political argument right now, but he's happy to listen to Charles's opinion if he'd like to share it. Erik is the type of person that is relatively confident in his own beliefs, though, so even if he doesn't argue back, it's still pretty hard to change his mind over things, which is probably why him and Charles get along in the first place; he isn't easy to steamroll over, but he doesn't take it personally or get offended either.  
  
It’s difficult for Charles to be smug when he’s having a hard time breathing, when he’s squirming and gasping, when he can’t help his eyes fluttering shut as he lets out a low, needy whine, but he shakes his head. “Not politics,” he breathes out, because while Charles is quite confident in his ability to change minds, and he’s done it for Erik before, something he’s infinitely proud of, it’s not that sort of debate he’s after. “I’m just right,” he declares, and there’s that grin again, however much he’s wriggling as he flashes it up at his mate.  
  
Hmmm. Erik brushes his lips over Charles's chest instead and gives his nipple a proper bite in return. Turnabout's fair play, Charles. "And what are you right about?" he ends up smirking this time, eyes bright and vivid when he glances up from his spot. He crawls back up Charles's body and buries himself inside once more, stroking his fingers lightly down Charles's exposed chest and stomach.  
  
Charles nearly screams when his poor, sensitive nipple is bitten, trying to stifle another loud whimper by biting down hard on his lip but it does absolutely no good. By the time Erik is thrusting deeper inside of him he’s panting with it, the heat crawling back up his skin, but he’s determined not to - there is some panic, then, but he tries to shove it down, and down, and down, focuses instead on Erik, on how fluttery and good it feels when his big hand rests on his belly, strokes there, ticklish and squirmy. He nuzzles into Erik’s neck, his grin much more breathless but no less playful, smug. “Won’t tell,” he sing-songs, and promptly bites Erik’s neck, hard. He did say he wanted to play.  
  
It turns out that Erik is not very good at playing, since he just decides he can Order Charles to tell him, after all. His head tilts and then Charles is biting him, hard, and he gasps; he should have known, but he's taken off guard and his nails dig, scratching Charles's skin deeply enough to leave long red lines over pale flesh, but not enough to draw blood or really injure him. He shakes his head, though, and pets Charles's hair, turning him to gaze into his eyes. "Tell," he whispers. Panic? No panic. Erik can help. Safe here.  
  
His eyes do cross when he’s scratched, and he wails, arching up off the bed and further into Erik, wriggling around like a caught, wild thing as he pants and whines with it. Tell about what he’s right about, or the panic? He doesn’t want to say the second one out loud. It’s just that he’s worried if he gets lost in the heat again, he’ll forget all the things he wants to say and he had so much more, and he just doesn’t want to run out of time. He knows Erik doesn’t want to talk about silly things like politics right now, but Charles does, and it’s not to say that he doesn’t also want to be fucked and made to submit, because he absolutely wants that, too, it’s just - he doesn’t know how much longer he’ll be him for, and he’s scared. He’s very scared. But he swallows that all down and leans into Erik’s fingers, and squirms, hopeful that maybe he can get Erik’s hand back on his belly, because it’s warm and nice and comforting. “You always say you care so much more about giving pleasure, it’s all you want, but I know you’re wrong,” he breathes, and then it’s not so smug. It’s shy, too.  
  
Erik huffs. "I never said that!" Because it sounds completely silly, but it's absolutely an ingrained thought, and not one he's ever consciously had, so this comes out of left field for him a little bit. But it's ingrained enough that he nods anyway, because it seems legitimate to him. He does care about it. It's what he should care about. Being focused on himself is bad. It's wrong, and dangerous, and his brain fuzzes out the rest of it. "You do not think it is true?" he tilts his head, like maybe he's done something wrong.  
  
It’s clear that Charles doesn’t think Erik has done anything wrong, but he nods, and whines louder, because Charles is suddenly exceptionally needy and Erik isn’t touching him nearly enough or the way he’d like (bratty, perhaps, but true), nuzzling into his neck, kissing at where he’d bitten moments ago. “It’s not,” he says, matter of fact. “Because it isn’t bad to be focused on yourself, and when you are, you like it.” An awful lot. Sometimes it frightens him, or makes him uncomfortable, but Charles likes when he likes it. Very much. He’s also forgotten about asking, because now he decides to take Erik’s hand and just put it where he’d like it. No asking. Greedy, now.  
  
And hearing it put so bluntly does make Erik quite uncomfortable, and considering where they are and the kinds of thoughts running through his head borderline afraid, even though he does a good job keeping it all down and keeping himself calm. Those thoughts slide away like marbles when his hand is grabbed, though, and Charles immediately finds himself pinned down once more, flushed and pretty beneath him. "Ask," he whispers, tapping Charles on the nose once in warning. "Nicely."  
  
Unfortunately, Charles seems to have no control over his own emotions and reactions at the moment, more sensitive than he's ever been, everything overwhelming and nearly too-much. He gasps at Erik's reaction because he can feel it even as it's pushed down, his eyes welling up with tears as he stares up at Erik, pinned and suddenly shaking. "Afraid?" he croaks, full of his own fear and dread, squirming rather aggressively underneath his mate, not to escape or struggle but restless and upset. "Uncomfortable?" He upset his mate? He didn't mean to, he's sorry, he didn't mean to -  
  
He doesn't get very far, either way. Erik doesn't really know what Charles is talking about for a moment and it takes him a minute to connect the dots, shaking his head. " _Lo_ , sweetheart. Not afraid. Not uncomfortable." Not with Charles, or with anything Charles did. With himself? Absolutely. With his own thoughts and feelings and desires? He can't help it. He might always have a problem. He has his own sensitivities and they're always there, always. He can't go longer than a few moments without running into something embedded deeply in the back of his mind that he never knew was there, some form of conditioning or training or trigger or something. He's sorry. He wishes it was easier, better. That he was better. It didn't used to be this bad. His mind is dissolving recently, maybe. Maybe he finally encountered something he couldn't cope with and it's trickling down into every other part of his life. But he can't think about that, not right now.  
  
It's not something he has to apologize for, and besides, Charles has never minded. He's only ever wanted to help, to heal, but for some reason the fear just grips him tighter at Erik's response, grabs onto his heart and squeezes and Charles wheezes with it, tears rushing to his eyes and making everything blurry and unfocused. He can't breathe? He can't breathe -  
  
He can. Erik makes him. He can breathe. It's safe here. Erik tilts up his face and makes him look, makes him see that Erik is here, he has him, he will protect Charles, always. If there are fingers of fear clutching Charles's heart Erik slides his underneath instead, dislodges it gently. Charles does help, and he does heal. He always has. The only time Erik has ever felt a hundred percent safe is with him.  
  
Charles knows it should be calming, and it is, but it hurts, too. It winds him up further and he's still gasping for air even as Erik Commands every breath, and he can't help reaching out, almost blindly, mind and body, winding his arms around Erik and holding on as tight as he possibly can. "Don't - don't want to, I don't want to," he sobs, and his mind is tugging at Erik's, wound around and around like claws dug in. Help him, please, he needs it.  
  
Erik lets him wrap around fully, doesn't shy away in the slightest and presses his whole body up against Charles's, and his mind follows in short work. He kisses along Charles's jaw and temple. It's going to be OK. Erik will keep him safe. He'll be OK. They both will. He can't stop it, and maybe he shouldn't, because it needs to happen, but he will be here the entire time. He will help as much as he can.  
  
"But who - who will -" Charles can't get it out. He wants to, he needs to, but it won't come and he buries himself in Erik's neck to cry, to gasp for air, because he needs to be touching, to feel skin against him or he'll just completely fall apart. "W-Who -"  
  
"Stop and breathe and tell me properly," Erik Orders softly, putting his hand over Charles's chest and forcing him to slow down, to be easy. Erik is right here. He isn't going anywhere. He will help. He will.  
  
He tries. He really, truly does, and he manages to do more than gasp, but the tears keep coming and he buries himself right back in Erik's neck, completely incapable of not being there right now, still clinging. "Who will take care of you?" he finally gasps, and that fist is right back around his heart, closed and clenching. "Who will help you? Who will - who will hold you during flashbacks and stroke your hair, who will help you remember where you are when you forget, make you feel safe, who will tell you they love you and kiss you good morning and -" It hurts, his chest hurts. He's being squeezed, crushed, but he keeps going. He has to. "And serve you, dress you and kneel for you and shine your shoes and read to you and obey you and follow your Orders and help you remember the word in English when you forget and play games and sit with you while you pray and tell you that you're beautiful and ask you questions and lick the spoon for you when you're baking and make sure you're never in pain and remind you to put on an extra layer before you leave because it's cold for you and you always shiver and, and -" Charles is sobbing now, and whatever came next doesn't come.  
  
Erik kisses him across the brow once more, doing his best to smile in the face of it, to try and be reassuring. It's hard; because he knows. They're all things that he is immensely grateful to have in his life, and he doesn't know what he's going to do without Charles here. The only thing he knows how to say is that he knows. And that Charles will do those things again, for him. He's not going to die. He's going to come back and he's going to be OK, and he's still going to be Erik's submissive and he still will be even if he doesn't remember all the way, Erik will help him. "You will," he whispers back, swallowing down his own sorrow. "You will. Just come back to me, OK? Don't leave me here."  
  
Charles will. He'll come back and he will. Who knows what will happen while he's gone? Perhaps whatever is left will find ways to help Erik, too. If it's him in any capacity, any at all, he thinks it will have to. Erik won't stop being his mate and his Dominant because he can't recall it. "I will, I promise," he rasps, and slowly feels himself calming down, noisy sniffles rather than loud, trembling sobs. "I - do you remember -" He takes a slow breath to steady himself. "I wanted to tell you, I wanted to ask, do you remember when I promised you that one day we would live in New York and there would be a library with so many books?" It wasn't in the Real. But he made the promise, because it was true, and here is the library, in this house. "So many of them have bookmarks of mine, my favorite parts, or I left little notes, or - or I put them somewhere different, hid them because I liked them so much and I thought I would find them easier if they were on this shelf or that, but I lost track of them somehow because I was too busy with the new books and they're in odd places, and -" Another breath. "I like the library. Take care of it for me? It must be terribly dusty in there."  
  
He nods solemnly. "I remember, _neshama_. Of course I will," Erik whispers back, wiping Charles's face, his tears and under his nose and above his lip, keeping him dry and comfortable. He will probably come back to find it all rearranged neatly and efficiently, by title or in some kind of alphabetical order, or based on another system (such as how fond Charles seems to be of it). He'll have, he guesses, plenty of time to fix this place up, to interject it with some form of life, or to discover the pieces of genuine life that existed here and bring them to light. Charles has never enjoyed Erik's particular brand of organization, but he can't deny it will certainly be easy to find everything in the aftermath.  
  
Charles manages a tiny smile, ducking himself back into Erik’s neck. Now he arches up into him, because the heat had picked up, demanding more, and it doesn’t seem willing to stop for distress. But surely they can talk through it. Charles is determined to, because he’s running out of time. “Are you going to make me stick to your system?” he sighs, but the truth is, he hopes so. He hopes Erik does, even if he’ll drag his feet and huff about it when he doesn’t feel much like following it at all. He hopes it’s something he chooses to enforce, because Charles likes when he does, when he makes the decision and puts his foot down on it, and they both know it. “You’ll let me know what you read? But don’t change up too much all on your own, please. Not because I’m over fond of this place, it’s just -” He thinks perhaps it’s important they do it together, that he’s involved, that there’s something that might be healing about it and whatever is left of him here, whatever remains, it could help somehow. The memories here aren’t pleasant, but they’re his memories. “I - there are things I can show you before I go, things - could you please…” There’s embarrassment again, already-flushed cheeks redder, and Charles tugs at Erik’s hand again, not pulling it to where he wants it to go but it’s clear enough what he’s asking for. It’s starting to hurt again, and if Erik doesn’t touch him he’ll surely start to cry again.  
  
Erik knows. He doesn't plan on doing anything major, he doesn't even know if he'll have any time, but he does know he tends toward organizing and cleaning when he's bored and he doesn't know if he won't reach that point here alone. But if he does put some systems in place, well, he would prefer that they were followed. He knows he'd do it in a way that works for them both, but if they are going to commit to living together, it's not realistic to expect Erik will always be pleased when things aren't neat. For the moment, living with Raven and Hank, he tends to shoulder all the work, but that's not sustainable, especially in a place like this. But his thoughts aren't particularly oriented toward that anymore when Charles asks him for more, for touch and he huffs gently, sliding his fingers down Charles's chest to settle it over his belly, to stroke his thumb over the skin there and move deeply within him. How could he possibly refuse, when asked so nicely? He knows Charles didn't precisely ask for this, either, but Erik can't help-his fingers wander lower, until he can circle Charles's cock in his palm, warm and steady, loving how he bucks up into Erik's grasp, how he whines and writhes. No, he can't help that.  
  
“N-No, wait, please -” It’s wonderful, of course it is, Erik’s hand is big and warm and it always feels Commanding even when it’s soft, even when it’s sweet, but he’s frozen right up, maybe even tried to buck away now that his mind has caught up with what’s happening, tears back at the corner of his eyes as he squirms. “Please, I - I don’t want to…” His eyes close and he sniffles again.  
  
Well of course he drops it, not quite capable of doing otherwise when confronted with fear and fright. Even when Charles has made it clear he usually prefers if Erik doesn't shy away, that is something ingrained in him that he finds almost impossible to ignore, when Charles says no, Erik reflexively freezes. He doesn't let Charles squirm out of his arms, though, he doesn't let him hide away. " _Lo rotze?_ " he whispers, lips pressed together. His hand remains back on Charles's stomach, in an attempt to comfort.  
  
It does comfort him and Charles arches right into it, but he doesn't have the ability to talk for a few moments, all worked up. He stops twisting and squirming in Erik's arms, focusing on the warm hand on his stomach, urging him to keep rubbing; it really does settle him, it might be the only thing right now, besides Erik deep inside of him. "I don't want it to be overwhelming, I don't want to get lost in it, won't be able to talk, running out of time -"  
  
Erik strokes his thumb back and forth over Charles's skin, smiling down at him. It is frightening to think about, but he's dedicated to keeping the peace, the calm, to making whatever is left of their time as pleasant as possible. "Talk?" he whispers, encouraging Charles to keep going, to tell as much as he can, as much as he wishes to, with what remains. He wants to listen. He wants to hear.  
  
Charles sighs softly, calming just like Erik wants him to, tugging gently at his Dominant. Soft little prodding at Erik's mind; can they cuddle again? It's a silly request, but he wants closer. He wants Erik to be more comfortable, he wants him to keep petting him, and he wants to touch, too, but he wants - he needs, so maybe if Erik goes slow? So they can still talk, so they can just be. "Want me to show you something secret?" he whispers, like he's afraid someone might hear, and there's a soft little smile on his lips. A secret one, just for Erik. "But you have to tell me a secret, too. It's only fair."  
  
Erik wonders privately whether or not he even has any secrets from Charles; not that Charles would know them automatically, but that everything he's ever considered a secret-well-Charles is the only one who really knows him, all of him. Maybe he'll come up with something silly, or something will inspire him, but he just smiles and nods, and crawls up a little closer to wrap Charles up in his arms. "Secret," he whispers back, tapping Charles on the nose affectionately.  
  
It doesn't have to be particularly deep, honestly. Just something Charles doesn't know, anything at all. There's a reason Charles hasn't learned everything about Erik; because he wants to learn. Because desperately, wonderfully, he wants to find those things out on his own. To hear Erik decide to tell him, to trust him. It means the world to him that he does, more than it. At Erik's prodding, he hums, curling his leg around one of his Bonded's, with the added bonus of pushing Erik in deeper. Eyes fluttering, purring, there's the sound of something crashing, the room around them vibrating. A few things fall off the shelves, the ones still lined with books Charles never transferred over; this is his old room, after all. Charles sighs, a pout on his lips. "Oops," he declares. "I was trying to show you." It's sheepish, embarrassed. He hides in Erik's neck.  
  
All the things that crash and fall just hover gently in place and slide themselves back to their original positions. "Oops," Erik laughs gently, pressing his lips to Charles's temple. A little memory pops up from his mind, something he isn't sure Charles knows or not, but it definitely is a little silly. When he was very small, he used to collect lizards, and hide them in his bureau. One day his mother found out there was a huge collection of lizards in his room, and demanded to know what was going on... so he blamed his sister. Erik laughs under his breath. Yeah, he was not believed. Now it's Charles's turn.  
  
He didn't know it, but now he does, and he's infinitely warmed by it. Sometimes - and he tries to keep this to himself, but it isn't that he can't, it's just that he doesn't want to, it's just that he wants his every thought to belong to Erik while that's still an option - he forgets about Erik's sister, perhaps because thinking about her aches. About her unruly red curls, about the smile that looks very much like Erik's; it's impossible not to think of Raven, though their roles were switched, though Charles was big brother and guardian both. "Thank you for sharing," he whispers in their secret-space, cuddles in even closer, rubbing their noses together. Does Erik know he wants to learn everything? That nothing is silly to him, that there's still so much to discover, consciously, at least, and that thrills him? Unfortunately, when he tries again to reveal his secret, things begin to shake, to tremble, to slide out of their places. A book flies across the room. Charles huffs, pouting again. "I'm having trouble," he admits, still embarrassed but with an edge of frustration now.  
  
The book hovers in mid-air once more. Erik slides his fingers over Charles's, encouraging him to calm. "Tell me," he whispers, and hooks into Charles's mind, guiding him gently and carefully to maneuver what he needs to, assisting him so that he can show as well as tell. Charles really doesn't need to keep that to himself. Erik knows. It is hard for him, too, and those thoughts don't often creep up, but sometimes odd little memories will peak out like that one, which he is grateful for. Sometimes he wonders if he lost it, but it's all still there, buried deep under the rubble.  
  
Charles will happily spend the rest of his life lifting that rubble as he has from the beginning and breathing life and love into what's been suffocated underneath; rebuilding, renewing, restoring. He hopes it's helped any, much more than it's hurt. It's another thing he is here for, another way in which he cares for his Dominant. It isn't lost on him that those things peek out in moments like this, and it's for that reason exactly that Charles has been in Erik's mind, his soul deeper than anyone could hope to and still doesn't know things. Because he hasn't let himself, even though he must, on some level. He wants so desperately to learn, to help Erik re-learn. At Erik's maneuvering, Charles gently steps back, pulls back, not a refusal, but a determination. He wants to do this alone. He wants to get it right, he's stubborn. "I want to," he insists, and it's not that he doesn't like Erik's help, or refuses it, but he does have some pride. He closes his eyes, face twisted up in that concentration, his brow furrowed and nose scrunched. "It's just - there's a spot in this room, but I can't -" He sighs, less frustrated now. Focused on Erik anchoring him, at his calm and Dominion. His eyes pop open suddenly and he stares, wide-eyed. They're burning with that familiar curiosity. "Huh," he hums. "I wonder..."  
  
Erik likes it, too, and it' s no secret why those memories pop up most often when he's with Charles like this, at peace. Because it's the only time that Erik's mind feels safe enough to bring them up, like he can breathe when he thinks about it and not collapse into death and horror. So much of his experiences and memories are tainted even backwards, stained with slimy, slippery oil that never washes out, with blood and dirt, but that's not all that Erik wants to have left of his family. It's not all that is left. Charles can do it on his own, but he should lean on Erik. He always should. Erik pets him, anchors him, and when Charles blinks up at him he blinks back down, a soft smile on his features. "What do you wonder?" he murmurs, incredibly fond.  
  
Charles has so many things to tell Erik, and he whines quietly, overwhelmed by it again. He shakes it off, though, arches into Erik's hands, purring happily when those long fingers are back on his stomach, broad, rough palms. It feels good, soothing. Grounding. "If you Ordered me, would it work?" If it's something he struggles with, he means. But he doesn't think so, because they've been in similar situations. It would expect his best effort, and not obeying would be painful, uncomfortable, horrid, especially like this, but it wouldn't force a result. It couldn't. He'd just be determined, because Charles - the thought of not obeying an Order really is devastating, now. "It shouldn't be so hard," he sighs, frowning again as he rubs his leg against Erik's, rocking to soothe himself, to feel Erik nudged up inside of him, just for more touch. They haven't really had the time to work on it, actively, and now he looks up at his Dominant exactly like he's supposed to. "Help me?" he asks, hopeful, quiet. He doesn't want Erik to do it for him, but - he's supposed to guide him in everything, isn't he?  
  
Erik doesn't think it would work, either, if it isn't possible. He can't Order Charles to do something that's physically impossible for him, but relatively speaking, that window is getting shorter and shorter. If he Orders Charles to fly, he'd probably just use Erik's abilities to accomplish it. He can force Charles to say and do certain things, but he can't make his thoughts or feelings change. Although, that's a bit of a gray area, with human socialization and engineering he's sure it would be possible if combined with Dominance, to brainwash people. He's seen that done. But of course, he completely disagrees with all of the above and wouldn't do it. When he does give an Order the expectaiton behind it is for Charles to give his best effort, and to rely on Erik for help and support. "Of course," Erik murmurs, because that's exactly what he's been doing, or trying to do. He is supposed to guide, to help, and he has an innate understanding of the way this works that he was born with, that Charles doesn't, and he can use that to help him feel the way things are, the way they move, the way they exist. Their forms and structures.  
  
Charles thinks it's a lot less grey with him, and he thinks Erik likes that, but he's preoccupied with something else at the moment. "Oh," he whispers, like he's surprised Erik said yes, and all of the sudden he's fluttery with it, delighted to have his Dominant's attention and shy from it, too, wriggling closer into Erik's body like he wants to crawl right beneath his skin. "Um - there's a catch in the floor. One of the boards is loose, and I keep trying to pull at it, but I can't find it," he pouts. He just doesn't have a sense of it like Erik does. He could look through Erik's perception, but Charles wanted to maybe do it on his own, from his own meager abilities.  
  
Erik doesn't even need a few seconds before he identifies where it is, and he guides Charles's mind carefully over the floorboards until he spots it for himself, the way everything is looser, here. The molecules are less confined, and even though the room is a bit dark, Erik can see everything perfectly and he guides Charles's mind with his own eyes. Working in tandem. "You see it?" he grins down.  
  
"Uh-huh," he breathes, his eyes closed and his breath held as he focuses. It's not quite precise, nor is it exceptionally impressive, but with enough force, a soft grunt of it, the board pops up, the same as when he'd step on it. Silly, but he can't help but be a bit proud of himself even over something so simple, even with so much of his Dominant's help. "Secret," he declares, laughing quietly, embarrassed now for a different reason. Erik used to tape things underneath his bed. Charles kept them here. Quickly, he steals Erik's perception of what's hiding here, still hiding here, like a relic of the past. Like hands over his eyes again, and that's effortless. "Guess what's here," he grins, playful.  
  
"Hmmmm," Erik wonders, and then tickles Charles along the sides. "What's here? Hm?" he huffs, brushing their noses together. He could easily find out, but he doesn't, letting Charles press his hands along his eyes in utmost trust and he instead just presses his own cheek back against those wandering mental fingers, content as long as Charles keeps touching him and talking to him and stays close to him. "Potatoes. Toy cars. Coloring book. Robots."  
  
He couldn't, is the thing. If he tried, he'd find himself utterly, completely blocked, unless he Ordered Charles to make it otherwise, which he could do. That's something he can always use, can always decide; the Universe did name Erik most powerful, and there's a reason. Collars worn even in the Nothing. But Charles, despite his struggling just moments ago, is undoubtedly different now, in this in between time, this space of waiting and calm. Stronger. There's an effortlessness to this that should be frightening, but he isn't thinking of it that way; for once, he isn't thinking of it that way. It might be Erik through Charles or it might be Charles, but it's irrelevant when the contents of his hiding place come to join them though Erik still can't see them, as if they don't exist or do but right out of the corner of his eye, Charles laughing, soft little giggles of it. "I'll show you if you promise not to tell another living soul," he teases. "Do you want to see?"  
  
Erik's eyes practically twinkle with amusement, and he kisses along Charles's jaw fondly. "Very much so. I solemnly swear I will never tell another." He removes his hand only to put it over Charles's heart-because he can't quite fathom removing it entirely from Charles's body, after all. Erik doesn't think about it that way, either. They are attuned to one another, and belong to one another. They should always help one another and trust one another, and he does trust Charles. Implicitly. Which is why he doesn't immediately Order or, or shy away, or anything like that. He's just mischievous and amused.  
  
Charles is, too, grinning softly as he slowly reveals what's there already. Most of it is silly, sentimental, things he didn't have the heart to disturb because they'd been kept there so long; a photo of him and Raven, in all of her blue glory as she so rarely is in pictures as a child, well-worn and folded over. It's mostly candid, the camera set on a timer; they're smiling at each other, mid-laugh, out in the gardens. The natural light makes a warm, pleasant glow. A moment of peace and joy. A child's drawing, not his; a family of two, a boy and a blue girl holding hands. A few comic books, things he was unable or too embarrassed to display, superheroes and powers and heroism. A first edition of The Hobbit, which is worth quite the pretty penny, but Charles has clearly loved it well. A few candies, stashed here, very inedible by now. His acceptance letter to Harvard. A tie and a watch. A Pink Floyd album alongside a Beatles album. And a box, which - Charles' eyes widen as he reaches for it, still very much connected to Erik, as close as he can be while still leaving room for it. He strokes his fingers over the wood of it. "I - forgot about this, I think," he whispers. Embarrassment follows soon after. "I suppose this is secret."  
  
Erik's eyes mist over when Charles uncovers them, and he doesn't quite say anything except to hold Charles closer and tighter, kissing along his eyebrow and temple and under his ear, an outpouring of affection that cannot be contained. He trails his finger over each object as it's presented, lingering over the drawing of the blue girl and her brother, smiling unconsciously. The comic books are interesting, but not shocking; Erik remembers his own _mutant phase_ when he was a child, too, but his location and prior to the advent of the real computer age made it hard to get his hands on the kind of materials that Charles has now. Mostly he remembers being absorbed with the little television his parents had in their living room, watching superheroes fight crime and win the day. Nothing embarrassing about that. "I will be extra protective of it, then," Erik whispers back, laying his fingers over Charles's.  
  
Charles laughs quietly, wetly because his own eyes are misted, but there’s something startled there, something awed. It gets caught in his throat as he stares down at it, playing with the lock on the box’s front. There must have been a key at some point, displaced somewhere through the years. He knows he doesn’t have it. “Don’t you want to know what’s inside?” he breathes, and he knows; it makes him swallow, throat bobbing with it.  
  
It unlocks, an easy application of Erik's abilities, but he doesn't open it for Charles. "Very much so," he murmurs. He swipes his thumbs underneath Charles's eyelids, another unconscious gesture of affection. Charles doesn't need a key. If there's a lock, Erik will help him uncover it, open it up, reveal what's inside. Whether it's a box or just the clanging emotions that get riled up behind his chest. "Show me, _neshama_ ," he whispers the Order, gentle.

* * *

When the box slides open, it doesn't look like anything incredibly fascinating. It's a box of letters, neatly folded among each other, some older, some more recent. Charles' handwriting has changed over the years, but it was always messy, loopy, the coming-together of fancy penmanship and near illegibility. There are pictures in here, tucked in as if to be carefully sent off in an envelope, but one in particular, and he slides it out carefully, staring down at it with his breath caught in his throat. It's cut out from a magazine. He couldn't say which and it doesn't matter. What does is that it's a desert, and these letters are all addressed - " _Dear desert boy_ ," he laughs, choked.  
  
Erik feels all the breath in his body leave at once, exiting out in a whoosh of air that catches in his throat and tears immediately spring to his eyes. He frames both of Charles's cheeks in his hands and presses his lips to Charles's forehead, letting his eyes flutter shut. "Read them to me?" he croaks, too affected to say much more than that. Of course Charles had to suspect it would be the reaction, but Erik is a hundred percent taken off guard, and a little bit overwhelmed as a result; in a good way.  
  
Charles is clearly affected, too, his throat heavy with it, his mouth dry. "All of them?" he whispers, in awe himself, because there are so many letters here, more than this box under the floorboards can comfortably fit, stuffed in; the bulk of them are much older, where he seems to have written, for a short time, nearly every day to his unknowing cross-continental penpal. The first is dated February 5th, 2000. The last, July 13th, 2007 (Charles' sixteenth birthday, his brain fills in helpfully). "I - I forgot..." he breathes, and he's captivated himself, fingers shaking as he unfolds the very first.  
  
" _Dear desert boy_ ," he reads, voice shaking, too. " _My name is Charles Xavier, and I live in North Salem, Westchester, New York. I am nine years old as of writing this. This might sound mad, but I believe I've been visiting you in dreams. I can't be sure, but I think you -"_ He sucks in a breath, stifles a laugh. " _I think you live someplace very different and very far away. I don't know your name yet, so I've chosen to call you by your home; my sincerest apologies if you find this rude. I know it's strange, and there's a possibility that you're only a dream, but something tells me you're very real and that I have connected to you for a very important reason. If you're out there, I hope one day you'll read this, somehow, and talk to me. I've tried talking to you, but I don't think you can hear me. Recently there have been many voices, but when I dream of you they aren't as loud. My headaches aren't as awful. Thank you for relieving me of this, because sometimes they hurt unbearably. I only wish you would hear me. It's -_ " Charles has to swallow around the lump in his throat, the tears in his eyes. " _It's dreadfully lonely here since Father passed, and the voices are so loud I can't think most days. I'm not well. I hope you don't think I'm mad (I hope I'm not, too). I'm going to write down everything I wish to tell you so I don't forget, and I hope one day you will share, too. I think we will be great friends. I don't think you speak English, so I should have to find a way to translate these for you when you can read them. I look forward to knowing you, and hope that in the future this letter finds you well and that we should meet outside of my dreams. I eagerly await it. Yours sincerely, Charles F. Xavier. P.S., I hope you also want to be friends. I've never had a real friend_."  
  
Erik tries the entire time to keep himself composed, but he surely fails. His eyes are closed, tears leading between his long eyelashes that clump up against his cheeks, but he's laughing softly at a few intervals. He can't explain just how incredibly grateful and overwhelmed he is to be able to hear this now, that this letter has found him now, and he wishes beyond all comprehension that he'd been able to hear Charles clearly back then. He hopes Charles know how desperately he wishes he could have replied. And now he can, now Charles knows exactly what Erik would have said. He would have told him about his life, about his family, he would have immediately been delighted to have a new friend, he would have wanted to know everything about Charles and would have tried to send him comfort and something to make his day a little brighter. He couldn't do that then, but he's here, now. They are beyond great friends. And his hopes have been realized, Erik always desires to share with him and spend time with him. Their family is small, but tight-knit, and growing larger every day, and Erik wants to surround Charles with as much love and friendship as he can handle, for the rest of his life. "I love you," he whispers, finally opening his eyes, and lifting his head from where it's been buried in the crook of Charles's shoulder. "I'm sorry I didn't get to say it back then. You should have heard it so much sooner."  
  
It was a long while before Charles did, but hearing it now makes up for the wait. Without question, it makes up for the wait. Charles is still shaking with the emotion of it, with the memory of it; did he forget his desert boy like one forgets an imaginary friend, tuck him back into his consciousness and behind those doors he does not open because he could no longer carry him around? But he had, even after this last letter. He undoubtedly, surely had, all the way into that holding cell when Erik finally answered. Charles bites his lip and makes a valiant effort not to cry, but there are tears stuck to his eyelashes, too, and he curls into Erik’s neck, rocks gently into him where they’re still connected, sighing and whimpering quietly. “Do you -” There are still so many letters. They certainly don’t have the time to read them all now, but in time they will. They've made a start. Charles grins against Erik’s skin. “A new game we can play. If you pick a letter, I’ll read to you. But you’d have to tell me what you’d send back.” Retroactively corresponding is silly, perhaps, but they’ve done it before. Reached back in time and soothed what needed soothing, been there for each other when they could not be there then. It’s healing, he thinks. Incredibly so.  
  
Erik doesn't think it's silly at all. It's exactly what he'd intended with his thoughts, not exactly a direct response, but in the vicinity. Erik thinks it's healing, too. There are places and times that he doesn't think he could ever let Charles exist in, and he's sure the same is true in return, but maybe that will fade with time, too. They're both strong. They're both resilient and versatile. He wants to hear every letter, every word, trace the ink with his powers and the paper with his fingers. There is also the fact that Erik is an adult now, and doesn't have too much insight into himself as a child, into himself before everything, and it might be a little disingenuous to try, but somewhere inside of him that desert boy still lives, and when Charles reads these things to him, he thinks he can feel himself reaching back out. Across time, across space, whether it's the soul or psychology, who knows. It is real. "Always," he whispers. He'll always tell. Charles should always know.  
  
Charles is distanced from his own childhood, but for entirely different reasons. There is no before and after for Charles, not even after he turned sixteen, took Raven and crossed an ocean; it all existed in the same place, the same space, though he’s tried to break those pieces off, too, the same way Erik does, the same way anyone who experiences what should be incomprehensible for a child, for an adolescent, for a person does. They’ll make sense of things, and in the process heal from them. They have from the beginning. For now, he smiles through the tears still clinging to his lashes, and gently butts Erik with his head, nudges at him with the leg still wrapped up and over Erik’s longer, stronger one. Connected, always. “One more? Pick,” he insists, and the box tilts toward Erik of its own accord, the letters all nicely lined up. From the beginning? From the middle? The end? Charles wants to tell Erik a story this time, and hear one back. To recover something before he loses. It only seems fair, it only seems right.  
  
Erik gives him a slight tap on the nose, a reminder to ask, not demand. But his own curiosity and affection have overtaken him and he gladly selects one from the center of the box. He wants all of it, to hear every part, but this seems like a good compromise if he can only pick one more. Erik butts Charles back as gently as possible, mostly rubbing his cheek against Charles's hair and laughing playfully, rolling his hips a little to remind Charles exactly where they are.  
  
As if he could forget. Charles whines anyway, thoroughly reminded, grounded nicely now, floating for a moment in content subspace. In ownership, in this cycle, in his Bonded and Dominant and mate. When he takes the letter from Erik, shy again, somehow, he scans it quickly. His lip is immediately between his teeth, worrying at it, already so swollen and red. "Sad?" he whispers quietly. It's a little sad, he means. All of them are, he imagines, but does Erik want to pick another one? Charles doesn't want to ruin the mood, but - he'll read it if Erik wants to hear, if he promises to pet him through it.  
  
Erik wants to hear. It's OK if it's sad. Charles isn't alone with it anymore. He finally has the chance for the intended recipient of his letter to hear it and respond, and he wants to. And he promises to pet him and hold him and whisper things into his ear, silly things maybe, and there is nothing ruined. Nothing at all. "Go on," he murmurs back, already brushing Charles's hair from his forehead and giving him a sharp tap on the lip in reprimand for biting it.  
  
The letter is dated May 10th, 2002. It isn’t lost on him that Erik only has months of normalcy left, that he is close to turning eleven and not long after, not long at all, his entire world flips itself on its head. Is destroyed, utterly, a new one built on rubble and ash. But this letter comes after many others, after more than a year of Charles dreaming of his desert boy, his friend who doesn’t know he exists. The one he follows around and plays with, who helps with his headaches. Charles’ world has changed rather drastically; there have been less letters, but not by much. He’s still writing often. He hasn’t stopped, not since that first time. He won’t, not for a long time, even as the letters get less frequent, even after the dreams stop.  
  
“ _Dear desert boy_ ,” he begins, nuzzling into Erik as much as he can while still reading his own handwriting. It’s particularly messy, here. “I _wish you could hear me today more than most days, and I wish you could hear me very often. I didn’t get to see you last night, and I missed you terribly. If you could hear me or see me, would you feel the same way? I hope so, though I know it’s awfully selfish of me to mention. Are things well with you? The last time I saw you, you were trying to figure out your powers. You’re brilliant at it, even though it’s frustrating you horribly. Do you know that? Before I met Raven, I had never met another person like me. I thought I was alone, even though I knew I couldn’t possibly be. She’s amazing, of course she is, but you are the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen and you’ve only just started. I eagerly await seeing more of what you can do. I wish I was there to help you with it, though I know you don’t need my help. I wish you were here to help me, sometimes. Is that alright to say?_  
 _My headaches are getting worse. I don’t feel very good at all, and sometimes it hurts so unbearably that I can’t think or move or breathe, but I don’t want Raven to know about it. She told me never to get into her head, but between you and me, and please don’t judge me too harshly for it, I sometimes still do. I don’t know what else to do. She’s so young and she needs me so much, I can’t let her know that I’m sick. Father used to give me medicine when I was ill, but I don’t know where it is or how to get it. I can’t possibly ask Mother. I’m growing more worried for her, though I’ve already told you plenty of it. Last night I was up the entire night because she wasn’t well. I’m tired today, so please forgive me if I don’t make the most sense. I stayed by her side and listened to her breathing. I was truly truly truly frightened that she would stop, but I don’t know what I would have done if she had. Would anyone have gotten her fast enough, with us all the way out here? There used to be people who lived here with us, but they don’t anymore. Sometimes I think it’s better, but when nights like last night happen, I’m not so certain. I’m so worried for her, worried absolutely sick, and I don’t know what to do. Kurt Marko is spending more time with us. I don’t like him more than I did in my last letter. Sometimes I think he takes care of her, but I know he doesn’t have good intentions. People feel a certain way, when they think I can see it and I can feel it, and he feels horrible. I don’t know what it is and I try not to listen when he thinks, like I’m plugging my ears, but it never works. He thinks horrible, frightening things. He doesn’t think anything good at all. He wants us for our money, and he doesn’t care about Father like he claims to._  
 _More than that, I’m worried about him hurting her, but I know she won’t listen to me if I tell her that he isn’t good. She never listens to me. She doesn’t talk to me. She doesn’t talk to anyone except for him, and I know that it is good for her to talk to someone because after Father died, for many months all she did was cry and drink but I wish sometimes it would be me. I just wish she would look at me. She doesn’t ever look me in the eyes. Sometimes she looks at me like I’m a stranger, or like she is so disgusted by me that she can’t possibly be seeing her son. There is always something wrong with me if she speaks to me. Why? I don’t understand what it is I’ve done. I’m doing very well in my lessons. They say I’m achieving at a rate far beyond my current grade level. I could skip several grades, if I fancied, and perhaps I will because if I do then perhaps Mother will look at me. I know it’s silly to be so worried that she won’t look at me, but I don’t understand. I try to make sure she is happy and safe but she won’t look at me. Is there something terribly wrong with me, like I’ve always thought? Am I truly so sick? I just want Mother to look at me. I’m_ -” This is where Charles needs to breathe, to take harsh, unsteady breaths. There’s no question of where the water damage on this particular letter came from, and he’s certain Erik can feel it in the ink. He takes a breath, and he pauses, shaking with the aftershocks of it. He’ll read the rest. He wants to. He just needs a moment.  
  
For a few moments Erik is suddenly very grateful that he is hearing this now, and that Charles wasn't subjected to the childlike ruminations of Erik's opinions on the matter at age ten, because needless to say they would be lacking. He knows instinctively what he would have said; that Charles should have come to live with him in _Sisim_ , and if Charles said yes, things would be so much different. But also, Erik really didn't have a nuanced comprehension of things, but maybe Charles didn't need that. He just needed someone to hear him and tell him they were sorry and tell him that he was good, and it wasn't his fault, and Erik likes to think maybe he would have known enough to do that. On the other hand he's deeply sorry that he didn't receive it, because Charles didn't hear it when he needed it, but Erik can make sure he hears it now. He puts his hand over Charles's heart, gentle. "I love you," he whispers softly, not interrupting. " _Ani kan, beseder_?" He lets Charles take as long as he wants, his mind a swirl of dandelion-puff-carefulness. He's not going anywhere.  
  
Charles laughs, softly, wetly, and takes another shaking breath. There’s more than half of the letter yet, and he truly does want Erik to hear it, to receive a now-letter back, but he’d like to say something before he does. “I love you, too,” he breathes, and that’s all, before he hunches his shoulders and focuses on reading. It’s becoming increasingly clear that this is not the writing of a ten year old boy, but a boy pushed well beyond his years and limits. “ _I’m really tired, I think. The headaches are all the time now. I don’t always know what voice in my head is mine or if none of them are, if I just hear everyone else all the time and there’s nothing of me. It’s confusing and frustrating and frightening. Which one is me? What if I’m really nothing at all? It gets so scary. It gets so loud. I’m afraid I’m going mad again. I don’t know what to do. I want Raven to be well and happy so I do everything I can for her, but sometimes when she’s sleeping I start to cry because I don’t know how I’ll be what she needs. She doesn’t have parents and I don’t know how to be a parent or even how to be a brother because I’ve never had one. How are you a brother? What do you do? Is there some book I should read? I’d like to read it. I wish Mother would help. I don’t know what to do. I’m sorry, this is terribly unfair of me, telling you all of my problems when I haven’t even come to visit you. The night before last I was too tired to sleep for long enough and I missed you, then, too, but I hope I can see you tonight. I hope you’re there. I look forward to it every night, and I think about what adventures we will go on, where you will take me and what I will see. I try to find books about the place where you live but I don’t think I’ve found any in the library yet. I’m going to keep looking so that when we meet one day, when you see me, I will know about where you’re from and I’ll speak your language so you don’t need to learn mine. That way we can talk right away because I don’t know if I can make you understand me like I understand you._  
 _I feel very alone sometimes. Very, awfully alone. I don’t know what to do about it but there’s no one here to ask. Next year Raven will go to school, did I tell you that? I’m worried about her losing control at school, of her not being safe, but I know she can do it and I’m proud of her. I want her to have friends and people to talk to. She should have a normal, happy life. I’m going to make sure she does. I don’t know if I will be well enough to go next year, too. What is school like? It seems like you enjoy it. I wish I could go with you, though I don’t think I’d learn much where you are because I don’t speak your language yet. I’d like to learn. Sometimes I am so lonely that I feel I will die even when Raven is here, as silly as that is. I sit and listen to the voices. I listen to Mother cry. I watch her drink. I’ve tried to lock the cabinet but somehow she keeps opening it. I try to hide the bottles but she just gets new ones. She broke a glass again so I cleaned it but I cut myself and I didn’t know where the antiseptic was, I know you are supposed to treat wounds but I wasn’t sure how. I’m just not certain what to do. I wish there was someone to ask. If you somehow get this letter, if you somehow start to hear me, can you please ask someone what I am meant to do or tell me if you know_? _Sometimes I just feel so terribly, awfully alone. I wish you could hear me. I’m worried that tonight Mother will be ill again and I won’t get to see you. I’m worried that I won’t see you and I will have to go another day. Even though you can’t hear me, somehow I feel like you are listening. Thank you for letting me write these letters, even if you don’t know I am writing them._  
 _I finished the shelf in the library. I don’t know what I’ll read next. It’s harder to read with the voices being louder but I still do, as much as possible when my tutor isn’t here. It feels like when I read I am talking to someone. I hope I see you tonight, and that we can go on an adventure that is truly larger than any of the books I am reading. I look forward to it as always. Writing these letters helps me feel less like I am the only one in the world, like there is no one at all but me and I hope one day when you read this you won’t find it odd. I hope that you think of me as your friend, because you are mine and I miss you terribly. Yours sincerely, Charles F. Xavier. P.S., I’ve learned how to treat cuts now, better than before, so when we are together I’ll make sure that you treat your cuts after you fall because I’ve noticed that you don’t. You really should be more careful. I worry about you, too. I hope you’ve been careful in the past few days I haven’t seen you and that you haven’t fallen.”_  
  
Erik laughs softly, too, because he doesn't remember precisely what specific incident Charles is referring to, but he knows he likely did not learn until he was forced to via necessity. Even when he wasn't being harmed and even when his life was good and prosperous, and even though he was quite athletic, he was also very bullheaded and overconfident and stubborn and frequently razed the ground under his shoes trying to get where he was going, resulting in plenty of scrapes and scratches. He tries to reach down into himself, to remember himself as he was back then. Just before his eleventh birthday. September is in four months, he's in grade five. It's been a year since his mutation manifested, and three (he was tested earlier than most, because of his obvious Indication) since he got back his official alignment.  
  
People are starting to grow more suspicious of him, but he's close with most of the people in his community. He goes to Synagogue regularly, his mom is friends with most of the people on his street (which is the main residential area, with a few light poles and some stores and carts, and his school, and the assembly hall all on one large stretch looping in a cul-de-sac without pavement or gravel, just loose dirt and rocks); he's popular. He's well-liked, and he's already beginning to show strong leadership tendencies. He already knows that his future is planned for him, that maybe he'd like to teach, or work with families like the people in the big cities do when they come to _Sisim_ , or elect for a health care specialist position, but those aren't going to be possible for him. His mother is worried, desperately so, but he's strong, he tells her it's going to be OK and he'll do what's right.  
  
There's a lot of wrong, even in their remote corner of the world. The Bedouins clash frequently with them (they just want to live in their villages, too, but the government keeps saying they should move to proper settlements with infrastructure and they don't want to leave, and Erik doesn't blame them but there's problems, and they like to clip the borders of _Sisim_ and steal things because _Sisim_ is hooked up to the electrical grid and they aren't, and Erik always remembers his father's calm, patient voice when he explains that his gun is for self-defense only, that it's not appropriate to ever fire a weapon at another living being unless that person is trying to kill you, and there is no malice or hate in his tone but there is a reality), the settler zones are expanding and subtracting at irregular intervals and many countries are against it, he is never quite sure if he should believe his teachers or his friends or the Americans on television; he's never seen it, he doesn't know.  
  
The world is cruel, and he's not oblivious to it, but he doesn't have any nuance, either. Like most kids he believes what his elders tell him, and he's still, to this day, struggling to sort out the fiction from the fact and if that's even possible, if it's even relevant. Life isn't easy. They're on the frontier of civilization, less than two hundred strong, but it is enriching and rewarding and there is love, and light, and joy. And that's the part of him that reaches back when he traces his fingers over the letter Charles holds in his hands, the part that remembers light and joy. He's not sure he can talk, but Charles doesn't need words, and the voice he hears isn't Erik's voice as it is now. It's more reminiscent of that red-headed, hyperactive bulldozer chasing lizards and throwing rocks at his buddies.  
  
 _Hi_ , is the super overly casual opening statement. Grand, indeed. _You shouldn't feel bad. You're a good brother. You sound like my mom, she's always looking after me and Ruthie. I wish you could come live with us and she'd take care of you, too._ It's not a reconstruction or a recollection or wishful thinking, Charles can pull it right out of Erik's head. That's exactly the response he'd get, there's no doubt about it. And he'd get other things, too. Little gifts and odds and ends and trinkets, and Erik would say _I hope you like them, I pulled them out of a rock, no big deal!_ but be secretly extremely proud of himself. Wanting to show off, half a world away.  
  
 _I'm sorry your mom isn't nice. She's just sad. You write to me and try to look after her. I'm happy you're my friend. I'm not that good of a brother. The other day I put gummy worms in Ruthie's hair when she slept. It was HILARIOUS. She got really mad when I picked them out and ate them. She says boys are DISGUSTING. Me and Ruth have aba and ima. So I don't have to be a great brother, not like you. If anybody tried to mess with Ruthie I'd punch them, though. I'm sorry you cry so much. You sound like a really good big brother. I live in Sisim. It's a REALLY small village in Israel. It's really boring sometimes, but sometimes I get to take the train and go to Jerusalem, and we always go to Matokafe every Hanukkah, and if you were here we could go on the train..._  
  
And naturally, being Erik, he'd go into a five minute long spiel about trains. _I love the trains because they feel really nice. I can feel all the parts of them working together. You could meet my friends and you wouldn't be alone anymore, even if you hear voices. There are lots of mutants in Israel, and it's no big deal. People are a bit afraid of me though. I think my mom would say you should talk to your teacher, they could find someone to take care of your mom so you don't have to, and maybe put her in a hospital. P.S, you aren't crazy. Kurt Marko - don't trust. I believe you. P.P.S you should write again, and send your phone number. Mine's 972571234567._  
It wouldn't be as detailed, as long or as complex, but Charles would be able to feel his sincerity in return. He would. He'd know he had a friend, somewhere out there in the world, who got him and wanted to listen to him and had his back, believed in him, and wanted to hear from him as often as possible. To take him on adventures and distract him and make sure he wasn't so sad all the time. Erik hopes he would know. He hopes he does know.  
  
The difference is all at once astounding to Charles, and it occurs to him, finally, that Erik’s letter, the letter he finally received back from his desert boy after all of these years, the one he is infinitely, unspeakably grateful to receive, is not less complex than it should be. It’s not undetailed, or not grand in any particular way. For a child, it’s actually quite brilliant work, and if any child sent something like it to him, he would find himself impressed and thoroughly charmed. He’d especially like the bit about the trains. It’s just a child’s. Charles stares down at the letter in his hands, and wonders all of a sudden why he thinks a child’s script is messy, or why he ever wondered why his handwriting is now; what child’s natural handwriting looks like this? One who sat for hours and worked on his script, face scrunched in determination. Charles assumed he was born like that, but looking back with all those closed-doors, all of those Do Not Enter caution-tapes, some of which he still has not undone; was he? Where is the line between what he is and what a man with all the power in the world over him said he should be, told him to be? By fifth grade, he was reading at nearly a college level. He knows who it was who said reading is enlightenment for the soul. Would you rather be unenlightened, Charles? Perhaps it was good advice. But what child is so embarrassed of their comic books that they hide them beneath the floorboards?  
  
It might have helped him realize. He thinks, it did before he forgot. It helped him be a child, though he was unskilled at it, uncertain, more worried about clothing getting dirty and muddy feet and schoolwork some days than he was about the adventure, but he learned not to be. In his dreams, the desert boy taught him how not to be. Teaching him, re-learning. Raven helped, too, though it was difficult, it was complicated; even as they played in the gardens Charles knows he thought, though he doesn’t often admit it, and certainly never to her, How will I feed her today, how will I get Mother to sign off on her tutoring, what will she need, how will I get it and he was only a child. He was only ten. There were gummy worms for them, too, but Erik is right. He had to be a good brother. But he never stopped trying to hide his Mother’s bottles from her. She broke the lock on the cabinet, eventually.  
  
“Thank you,” he breathes, and he realizes, belatedly, that he’s crying, that there are tears soaked into Erik’s neck where he’s hidden, the letter a bit crumpled up in his hands, between his shaking fingers. “I -” He shakes his head. Thank you.  
  
Erik nuzzles into his cheek, not fully aware of what just happened, but he knows that it wasn't just something he spouted out as an adult, a lame _hey it's not your fault_ that kids so often hear, that's relatively meaningless because for most people, it's easy to brush that off as they simply lack the requisite understanding of the problem. There are such large generational gaps between children and adults that it can be hard to trust the things adults around you say, especially when the adults around you are unhealthy or abusive. Of course you should have adults around you that say encouraging and supportive things, but another component, Erik thinks, is that you also need other children around you to help you socialize properly, and Charles would not have had that even if he weren't contending with everything else in his life. His only peer was Raven, who was too young and who struggled with her own trauma, and he was put in a position of care over her early on, so that doesn't really count.  
  
His own mind is incredibly fractured, and this exercise is the first time he's really encountered that before, where he hasn't just considered it normal. There is before and there is after and the two are indescribably, incomparably distinct. He cannot imagine that any reply to a letter Charles sent after would look anything like one sent before. Erik's entire perception of himself, of the world, his morality and ethics and sense of justice and values and his religion and everything that made him him, was completely decimated over the course of less than an hour. That's never really sunk in until now, until he thinks, _I hope I don't pick one after_ , because he doesn't want Charles to be exposed to the way he was after.  
  
Maybe being exposed to Erik's lesser developed musings would have been good in more than one way, it would have shown him what other kids his age are expected to do, how they're expected to behave, but Erik is grateful for the moment that Charles can see right now the differences, even if it's so far into the future, even when he's no longer most in need of that distinction. It's still important and it's still healing. Reaching through time. Erik presses a kiss against his forehead. "You were only a kid," he whispers. "I wasn't anything special. You'll say I was, but I mean I wasn't expected to be. I was just expected to live and play and do my homework. That's all." That's not necessarily true, either, even Erik's idyllic youth was fraught with some tension; after his Indication became common knowledge, the expectations and responsibilities heaped onto his shoulders gradually grew, but he still had adult support. He had people around him to guide him, their rules weren't unrealistic.  
  
Erik thinks that this will probably become more obvious to Charles when he's around kids all the time, he'll see that his own behavior toward them is drastically different to the way people treated him. Of course, most people who are abused carry some tendencies with them from simply failing to learn the alternative, but Erik will help with that, and Erik isn't exempt either; he can be overly strict about the rules and regulations and while that might be useful for his submissive, it's less so for children who need room to grow and expand. After all, they already had a talk about not spying on them 24/7... The point is, it will become more obvious. If Erik could give him a reply to every letter in the box, he would, and he wants to. A counterpoint, a semblance of normalcy.  
  
It’s not that it isn’t already obvious to Charles. It not that he doesn’t know that his childhood was not, by any means, the norm. That it was not, perhaps, ideal. But putting it together like this, stringing it together like this, standing back from a distance and also being this close - it’s overwhelming in an entirely different way than he expected it to be, on top of the way he did expect. There are so many more letters in this box, and he knows some of them are decidedly after. Not only for Erik, with a clear line, but for Charles. Some of them are before. Some of them are much closer to certain things than others. Some of them may not be this sad, but some of them are very likely to be far sadder. He curls closer into Erik’s neck, into his body, inhaling. “You can take out your strictness on me,” he teases, responding to a thought that’s easiest at the moment, right now, while he gathers himself. “You’ll - all of them? You want to do this for all of them?”  
  
"Every single one," Erik whispers back, even though it's hard. Even though it's difficult. Even though the closer they move to after it will be-Erik knows. It will be sad, pulled out of mind from that exact moment in time. He doesn't want Charles to see that, to experience that, to hear a Robot-Erik without feelings or thoughts or morals, a wild animal screeching in the dark. But Charles deserves it. He deserves to know. He deserves that counterpoint. He deserves someone telling him across time and space that he is valuable and loved and beautiful, that he will be a wonderful submissive, that he isn't broken or backwards. The world he lives in may be, but he is not. Erik hopes even in the worst depths of his disconnection to humanity, he would find it in himself to inspire some hope in his response. And if Charles wants it. Erik breathes out softly, swallowing. "All of them," he rasps. "I love you."  
  
It will be difficult for both of them. When Erik picks an after, or when Charles finds himself falling back into something he’s forgotten along the way, another broken piece of a cohesive but utterly fragmented childhood in its dysfunction. But won’t it be healing, too? To reach back that way? To find those pieces together, to weave them back through with each other? It’s a bit like something he might suggest to one of his patients - remarkably similar, actually - and now it makes him laugh, a soft, shaking bout of it, rubbing his cheek again and again into Erik’s skin. “Don’t forget this while I’m gone. Don’t read anymore without me, either,” he suggests, and it’s exceptionally bossy, demanding, that faux-sternness because if he’s honest he just wants Erik to correct him again. He just wants that grounding. “Promise? We’ll play another round when I’m back. We’ll heal together. You swear to me we’ll get back here?” To a place where they can. "Swear it."  
  
Erik taps him on the nose, and against his cheek enough to leave a little mark. Nothing severe. Merely a reminder. Charles does not boss Erik around. Erik decides. He smiles, though, soft. "I swear," he whispers, because he understands the significance. Enough to correct Charles, but not to discipline him. Not yet. But Charles knows exactly what his place is. Erik will ensure he does. They will get back here. If Erik has to do everything in the whole world, the whole Universe, he will get his submissive, his mate, his beloved, his Bonded back where he belongs. At Erik's side. He will come back and they will read all the rest of them and Charles will look into Erik's mind and see, see the real responses, and know even if he didn't back then; that he always has someone who supports him and loves him.  
  
Charles smiles, too, even in the aftermath of the sting, maybe because of it; call him manipulative, but it’s just exactly what he wanted, what he needed, and he thrills at it, his heart jumping in his chest. It takes a second and some fussing after he places the letter safely back in its place, but he’s insistent about it when he climbs on top of Erik, squirming the whole way, wriggling until he’s gasping with the change of position but properly settled back down, where he can rest his head and listen to his mate’s heart. “It works both ways,” he whispers, because he wants Erik to know it, too, if he doesn’t. When they read an after, it works both ways, just like it always has. Charles will always be there. To tell him he loves him, that it’s okay, that he’s safe. He stopped writing letters at sixteen, but their hearts, their souls, those never disconnected. Not once. Charles hums, playing with the cuffs around Erik’s wrist where he’s taken one of his hands hostage, stroking at the skin around it like he’s mesmerized. “Don’t take them off,” he huffs. “You’re not allowed.”  
  
When he starts to climb and fuss around, Erik is the one who shifts him, who easily maneuvers Charles back into place, and when he's settled again Erik runs his fingers through Charles's hair and down his back, in long, rhythmic strokes, all the way down to the curve of his ass and his thighs, pressing him close each time. Not letting Charles romp about because of his insistence, but he knows what Charles wants, and even though Charles is far too quick for Erik to do anything about it in the moment, he knows full well that Erik wants him to have asked nicely, so for his trouble he gets a few sharp, painful smacks over the marks already lining his ass. Not for fun, either, but Erik smirks up at him all the same. Charles knows better. "Not allowed, hm? Not allowed?" he darts up and kisses Charles fully, playful. They are still playing, after all. He sobers a few moments later, though. "I wouldn't. I never will. They're mine," he croaks, his voice breaking on the word.  
  
Still playing, still together. Even still, Charles whimpers loudly into the kiss after he’s already cried out from the smacks, pouting rather spectacularly as he fusses for a different reason. He’s clenched tight around where Erik’s still lodged deep inside of him, exactly where he belongs, and it’s clear he isn’t actually distressed; in fact, it’s quite the opposite, everything nicely soothed, grounded, like the bone-deep relief after a punishment but not quite as overwhelming and earth-shattering (he hasn’t made it through one of those without crying it out good and long and hard afterward, which Erik always holds him through, takes such perfect care of him, he loves him so much), but he still pouts. “Ow,” he protests, sniffing mostly for show, though when he wriggles it really is because he’s awfully sore. He wonders, idly, if Erik likes that. If he knows how much it smarts. “I mean it. You’re not allowed. If you take them off, when I come back I’ll know and I’ll be so cross with you. You won’t even get a kiss from me.”  
  
Erik laughs softly. "Well, I had better keep it on then," he jokes, but it's not a joke. Not really. Charles knows that barring the most exceptional of circumstances (ones that would not occur , that Erik would not allow to occur, the means of survival and all of the broken minds and promises that go with it; survival is always Erik's priority, but with his abilities and with the Void and Charles at the ready, he severely doubts it would happen as long as he is not left to his own devices)...-the point is, it simply wouldn't happen. He's always wanted this, after all. And, of course, he very much wants a kiss, at all times, in fact he arches up and steals one now. "Hmm," he whispers into Charles's mouth, trailing his fingers over his collar. And now it's a little playful when Erik gives him another light rap over those marks, the ones he gave. Oh, yes, he does like it. A great deal. Even when Charles is being perfectly behaved, Erik can't help it sometimes.  
  
Charles whimpers again, but he can't hide, even through all of the soreness and aching, that even without the cycle he would be wanting. He never enjoys punishment, discipline, he knows it's different and somehow his body knows to respond properly, but Erik isn't displeased now. He isn't disappointed. And more than that, he likes it; he likes it so much, he's admitting it, and Charles squirms harder with it, hoping, just a bit, that Erik might correct him, might soothe all those unruly things inside him and keep them that way. "Being good," he protests anyway, pouting, even as he wriggles this way and that, mostly just to feel. And so Erik can scold him, so he can be strict and Charles can feel safe. They can spend this time together. His fingers wander Erik's chest and he bites his lip; can he touch? He wants to try something. They have time, still. "May I?" he asks. Whispers, like he's still shy.  
  
Erik blinks up at him and gently slides his hand over Charles's nodding. "Yes, _neshama_ ," he grants permission easily, curious more than anything even as he holds Charles in place, making sure he never squirms or wriggles outside of where Erik has placed him. He scratches his nails lightly over the marks on Charles's ass, a warning rather than a reprimand, but when he settles back down properly Erik smiles, letting his fingers move and rest over Charles's heart. He can try. He can play. He always can, Erik always encourages it. To let go, to be himself, to revel in it. Erik loves it. All of it.  
  
Is Erik agreeing that he's being good, too, since his Dominant gave him permission? He hopes so. Charles doesn't squirm too much now, sniffling just a little because it is sore, but it's so nice, too. It hurts but it hurts because Erik is taking care of him and making sure he gets what he needs, and sometimes just because he's doing what he wants with him, and that's good, too. Very good. It's that thought that makes him just a little bolder, still flushed and shy as he touches with both hands over Erik's chest, light, almost teasing. "Does it feel nice?" he whispers.  
  
Erik shivers a little under the ministrations, twitching and laughing, a brilliant smile crossing his features. "So nice," he whispers right back, putting his hand over Charles's, splaying fingers out to tangle them together. Every time Charles touches him he feels it, the electric sparks that shudder along his nervous system, his mind and body still entirely unaccustomed to the sensation of being loved, of feeling good at all. He scratches his nails lightly down Charles's chest, scraping over a peaked nipple with a playful grin upwards.  
  
And of course Charles squeaks, moaning and squirming in the aftermath because by now it should be stunningly obvious that his nipples are incredibly sensitive and in his opinion they’ve been horribly neglected today, but instead of encouraging more attention, perhaps even asking for it like he knows Erik would prefer, he pouts. He pouts and looks down at his Dominant like he’s done something naughty, broken the rules of the game he never explained in the first place. “Uh-uh,” he scolds, and he’s smiling now, soft and pleased with himself. “You said I could, and that means no touching. But -” He bites his lip, then switches right to his cheek because he thinks he’s rather clever when he does that, that Erik doesn’t notice. “But you can talk, please.”  
  
Indignant and a bit pouty himself, Erik pokes out his lip in an exaggerated motion, but he dutifully drops his hands to the sides, allowing Charles with all the graciousness he can muster up out of his deeply entitled body, to run ragged over him. On the other hand, as soon as he bites his cheek instead, Erik reaches up and pinches his cheek, and not so gently, either. "Nuh," he wags a finger. "No biting." His nose wrinkles up in amusement. "I can talk, hm? Then I mustn't disappoint," he smirks. It's never been more abundantly obvious that Erik is letting Charles have his way, that Charles is in no way forcing his own will on Erik, than in this moment. Even though it seems as if Charles is bossing him around, he very much is not. Every moment, every second, Erik is there with a correction or a gaze that lets him know he is being permitted to do it.  
  
And Charles absolutely thrills at it, delights in it, even as he pouts and whines at the pinch to his cheek, puffing them out in the aftermath. "You said I could," he reminds, which is rather the point but he's very pleased about it, except now he actually has to act on it. Charles can't help nearly going for his cheek again, fidgeting as his cheeks flush. He settles for running both hands down Erik's chest again, admiring and outright staring at the muscle there, brushing idly over Erik's nipples. "Feels nice?" he asks again, watching his Dominant's face.  
  
Erik shifts and twitches minutely under the attention; even now he's still unaccustomed to it and he wonders somewhere in the back of his mind, in the spaces that still think-and-reason, if he'll ever grow used to it even if Charles does it for the rest of his life; which he hopes he will. He hopes even if he never does that Charles never stops, that he'll always be here to touch him and ground him and make him remember that he's a real person, now. He's real and he's being touched and it's nice. It is nice. He nods, swallowing and touching his hands over Charles's for the briefest of moments, not moving or ceasing him, but because he needs the contact. " _Ken_ ," he murmurs roughly, eyes flicking up to meet Charles's in vivid green.  
  
Charles swallows down the emotion that gathers up in his chest, tightening it, but it's all there in his eyes. It's all pooling in new, insistent heat in his belly, an ache, but besides some wriggling, a soft little sigh, he's determined. His fingers brush more purposefully over Erik's nipples; he rubs his thumb over one, bends to kiss the other, the fingers of his other hand still roaming, massaging and exploring the muscles of Erik's chest. "That feels nice, too?" he whispers, voice shaking a little.  
  
Over the past few months, Erik's frame has begun to fill out to the point that Charles can feel genuine muscles peaking out, the result of Erik's somewhat rigorous physical therapy and exercise regime, which of course being Erik he's stuck to like clockwork. His chest rises and falls under Charles's hands, a sharp inhale through his nose as his submissive's mouth lingers over his nipples, which have in short-order quickly stiffened up, sending an electric zap right down to his toes. "Mhm," he mumbles, eyes hazy and dark and his hands move, unconscious and unfiltered, to Charles's hair, gripping in deep. " _Ken, neshama_ ," he repeats unnecessarily, his voice throaty and thick.  
  
That inhale is incredibly encouraging and Charles prides himself on it, sucking in a breath himself as he calms the nerves still buzzing around in his belly like overactive, flapping winged-creatures. He fastens his lips over one of those perked up nipples, sucking for just a moment before he pulls away with a 'pop.' And then he stops touching altogether, sitting up a bit. "Was that nice?" he asks, and this time there's something not-quite innocent about it, his lips quirked despite attempts to keep it neutral.  
  
Erik's head thunks back against the pillows for a moment, and he outright groans-low and soft and barely-audible except for Charles, the only one who is highly-attuned enough to him not to mistake it for a simple exhale, or a noise of movement. The only one who has ever really known him, and he can't help but trace over the academia of it; they are two peas in a pod after all. In his language, the verb _to know-one_ that is also used in the _Torah_ in rather telling excerpts he should add- _yada_ , means to know somebody, but it also means to be intimate with them, explicitly. Erik never understood why these words were connected until he met Charles. And now he does, and now he's a mite frustrated that Charles has stopped so suddenly. "Charles," he rumbles, a beast stirring from its respite to glare at him one-eyed.  
  
Charles shivers with it, a full-body twitch that he tries so very hard to hide but of course it won't work. His whole body feels like it's vibrating, tuned-in, that pooling in his belly turning molten; but he smiles sweetly, innocently, tilts his head. "Hm? Was it not nice?" he whispers, feigning upset like he doesn't know perfectly well. "Do you want me to stop? Did you not like it? I wasn't sure..." And of course by now what he's intended this entire time should be crystal clear, but when Charles had forgotten Erik said he'd teach him. Won't he let Charles know him now, before he forgets? Won't he let himself be known?  
  
Despite his consistent admonishments, Erik turns out to be the one biting his lip now, and his eyes go half-lidded as his fingers trail up Charles's throat and tighten around his neck, against the cool metal of his collar and the warmth of his flesh, trailing the flush that creeps down under his jaw with a satisfied gleam in his eyes. "Do not stop," he practically growls, a purr that vibrates in his chest. He draws his hand down Charles's back and curls it against his ass, withdrawing a little from where he's still buried to snap his hips back up. Charles belongs to him; that's what he knows, above anything else. Charles belongs to him. He wants Charles to keep touching him. He couldn't stand it if he stopped.  
  
Now Charles is the one making noise, gasping and whimpering loudly when Erik nudges up perfectly inside him, thick and insistent and hot, stuffing him where he’s sore and aching for more. It’s not that he isn’t embarrassed by it, because his ears turn a brighter red behind his hair, his face practically scarlet with it; but he obeys, of course he obeys like this, so securely in subspace that if he didn’t go away, he’s positive he would truly never crawl out. “Yes, sir,” and he meant it to be cheeky but it’s just breathless and eager as he leans back down and takes Erik’s other nipple between his lips, kissing and sucking and laving at it with his tongue, his fingers rubbing at the other, still peaked and wet from his spit. He’s a bit too preoccupied to speak, but he asks the next question anyway, is it nice? Do you like this? When he pops off this time, he’s a little too affected to play innocent, but he tries anyway. “Should I stop now?”  
  
Erik is arching underneath him, hooking his leg over Charles's thigh so he can rub Charles's cock, which he can see is practically purpled in angry desire and leaking against his skin steadily and he rubs it back and forth against his own abdomen, shifting with each motion of Charles's lips to press fully up against him each time-and each time his own cock thrusts inward, Charles clenching tightly around him-and he's trembling like a leaf caught on a wire, attempting to keep himself perfectly still. He told Charles he could. He gave permission. Charles has been a very good boy this entire time, and he should have his reward; he should be able to touch and play, so Erik is going to let him, even if he barely knows what to do with himself. "No," he purrs, fingers flexing into Charles's ass, nails digging into his skin to push him down, hard.  
  
A very good boy. His reward. Charles moans, overwhelmed and startled to the point that tears squeeze at his eyes again, so sensitive to everything at the moment; it’s hard to think when his cock is being rubbed against Erik’s firm stomach, when his Dominant is rocking him back and forth where he’s trapped and filled up. “N-No,” he gasps, and shakes his head just like he did before, more desperate this time because he can’t think like this. He feels like it’s all caught inside of him, churning and heating up and beginning to twist painfully, and he frowns, trying to catch his breath. It does hurt, not coming, it’s such an awful distraction and it feels all coiled up like it did before Erik pushed him onto his cock when this started, but he doesn’t want to focus on that. “I - I wanted…” So he sits up a bit where Erik can’t rub against him anymore, and he knows he didn’t ask but maybe he’ll allow it and it settles Erik deeper inside and he wails, but it does help focus him. “Make you feel nice,” he whispers, lowering his eyes. Have his Dominant tell him what feels good, what feels best.  
  
His Dominant's fingers skitter up to frame Charles's face, and as he's bidden, he ceases moving, but never fully withdraws from his place-from where he belongs, buried deep, deep inside his submissive. But he stops. He lets Charles catch his breath, strokes the tears away from under his eyes. "Ask me," he rumbles, his voice low and deep and affected beyond all recognition, the Order sharp and hot and snapping through Charles's nervous system. "Tell me. Show me."  
  
And Charles shudders with it, just like he’s meant to, head to toe, and it takes a good while before he’s able to speak, because how could he when his Dominant is looking up at him like that? When his voice is so deep, settling into Charles’ gut, stirring up all of that heat and desire and submission that’s twisted up nicely inside of him? He pants with that, too, but it was an Order and he knows better to avoid them even if he could, fingers running down Erik’s chest again as he leans into the hand against his cheek to ground himself. “I want to take care of you,” he breathes, because Erik is always taking such good care of him. He’s always making sure Charles feels nice, that he feels pleasure, always giving him what he needs and he takes, too, and Charles loves when he does, but for a long time and even now he doesn’t make Charles give like this. Doesn’t ask him to, and certainly doesn’t expect it, sometimes even actively veers away from it. He’s getting more used to it, more entitled about it, and Charles loves it more than he can possibly explain; asking his submissive to fetch him things when he can get them himself, or dress him, shine his shoes and wash his hair in the morning, just because he can and he feels like it, but what about this? What about asking Charles to pleasure him, to touch him in ways he likes? To tell him what those ways are, and find out? Charles wants to know. He wants to be able to serve like this, too. “Please let me,” he whispers. "Show me?"  
  
The only problem is that Erik doesn't know. He doesn't think he knows. Does he know? He knows the obvious things. He knows he loves being inside of Charles. The feel of Charles hot and desperate against him, the way Charles moans and begs and pleads and whimpers. The way he gasps when Erik spanks him, the way he moves against Erik's lap when Erik bends him over it. He knows he loves when Charles sinks to his knees and envelopes his cock within the wet, soft warmth of his mouth, the way his lips stretch obscenely around his width. Erik's eyes flutter closed at the memories, as if he can feel them in real-time. He loves when Charles puts his hands on his chest and touches him, skin-to-skin, hands roaming over him, thumbs brushing against his nipples, fingers massaging into his back and neck until he's melted into the bed. He likes when Charles kisses him, everywhere; when he delves into Charles's mouth and takes and when Charles peppers them feather-light along his hips and legs. He likes Ordering Charles, but he's not-he's not accustomed to that, to-and he's sorry, he should be better. He should be better. It's hard to expect. It's hard for him to expect; it's certainly not out of a lack of desire. He struggles, sometimes, to convince himself that he is separate from the people who put it into his head that his role is to serve, in every iteration of the word. And this is different. It is. He wants Charles to serve him, but sometimes he gets scared and his mind whirls up and he thinks that Charles wouldn't want to, that he wouldn't like it. Erik didn't like it. It hurt him. And now he's thinking about that instead of Charles nuzzling his cheek into his hand and the way he's flooded with molten heat and Erik is sorry, he's so sorry-  
  
“Mm-mm,” Charles is saying immediately, as soon as the thoughts fully register, before Erik is even finished, leaning forward again to bring Erik back. To bring his Bonded back to him, to reassure him, to do exactly what he’d asked to do, to serve properly; he peppers kisses into Erik’s neck, his jaw, his cheek and nose, rubs against the stubble already growing in nicely, his Dominant’s beard persistent and stubborn, and who will shave him while Charles is gone? But he rids himself of the thought quickly, nuzzles and kisses instead, light, ticklish things. “It wasn’t right for you, Erik. It hurt you because it was never meant to be like that. They hurt you, and without your consent; but you know it’s different, don’t you? You know how different it is?” Charles opens up his mind wide and lets Erik see all of the ways it is, slips right into him and fills him with it until he can feel it like Charles can. Does he feel it now? The leap of Charles’ heart when Erik gives him an Order, when he tells him what he’d like him to do? The thrill and pleasure he feels when he’s serving Erik, pleasing him, deep in his bones and every nerve singing with it, perhaps even stronger than when he’s being pleasured himself? Does he remember the time Charles came just from sucking his cock, completely untouched? He lets him see it from Charles’ perspective, just for a moment so as not to overwhelm, the completely earth-shattering force of it, how the only thing in the world that mattered was making his Dominant feel good, and how good that made him feel in turn. Because this is how it’s meant to be for Charles, and he consents to it more than enthusiastically. See how much he benefits from it? How happy it makes him? But it’s alright if Erik is scared, if he feels like he can’t. Charles will never force him or hurt him, never. “But it doesn’t hurt me,” he promises, his own voice lower, affected. “Not in the slightest.” Quite the opposite.  
  
"Promise?" Erik murmurs lowly, his mind still reeling from those images which have firmly displaced any fear that might've crept up only moments ago, and they've caused him to arch up again, to pull Charles firmly into him and he spreads his hands along Charles's back, gentle and apologetic. He's breathing shallowly, his thoughts a hazy swirl of desire that's built, melting slowly through his chest and settling into his gut, his cock twitching even now where it's settled snugly into Charles, and without warning, when Charles shows him that image; that reminder, he moves. He slips out of Charles, his cock dripping and still-hard, after all this time, and his hands reach up to frame Charles's face again, but this time he pushes Charles down, so he can rub his cock along Charles's cheek, leaving sticky-wet trails along his reddened skin. "Promise, hm? Promise?"  
  
Charles is whining the second it happens, crying out in what’s incredibly close to anguish as Erik slips out of him, tears already gathering on his cheeks. But he knows better to complain, and he doesn’t want to, anyway. If Erik would like him to serve this way, he will. He can be a good boy and endure, because it isn’t about him, he doesn’t want it to be. Sometimes it can be, sometimes Erik wants to give and Charles is here to take what he’s given, but it doesn’t need to be. Erik can just take, too. He can just want. Charles is here to make him feel good. “Promise,” he rasps, and he’s nuzzling against his Dominant’s cock, smearing his cheek with it, whimpering in need; but he won’t taste until he’s told he can. “What do you want? What feels good?” he whispers, looking up at Erik with eyes that impossible-blue, wet with tears again. “How can I serve you? Please, tell me.” If it’s going to be a while before Erik gets this, he wants to leave him with a reminder. Something to hold onto. Charles can’t help kissing at Erik’s hip, at his thighs, his fingers roaming too because he loves it, knowing. He loves knowing that for so long Erik didn’t feel pleasure, didn’t feel desire, didn’t feel good - and now he does? Now he does, because of Charles?  
  
It's burning inside of him, an arc of lightining-infused superheated plasma that flexes his fingers and curls his toes and makes his stomach twitch and tense against Charles's lips, his eyes rolling up slightly as he struggles to compose any form of thought at all, but they're slipping away like marbles on the floor and out the door. "Yes," he groans, forcing his bloodshot eyes open, even brighter and more intense for it, gripping his cock in hand and dragging the tip across Charles's lips, and he re-adjusts himself after a moment, gritting out harshly, "Down. On your knees and spread your legs, _neshama_. Lean forward." The Orders are spilling out of him, too, before he can properly even compose them. He can't very well speak anymore, too overloaded and his cock is free for the first time in forever and even the air rushing over is too much, but he wants more than anything, and it's powerful enough to override. The images are clear; Charles with one hand behind his back, his other free and wrapped loosely around Erik, using it to guide him even deeper than normal, to touch him in the meantime, to touch like he wants, for Charles to show him how he wants to please him, to show him how much he wants this-it's the most potent fantasy Erik's ever had and maybe there's a reason for that; he likes to see how much Charles really wants it, not a show, not a performance because he knows all about that far too deeply, but for real; to remind himself, to encourage himself that it is different. And it is, it's so different, Charles does like it-he likes it, he promises. Erik makes a small, high sound in the back of his throat.  
  
Down. Charles knows what the Order means, and he scrambles to obey, but he thinks it might work in another sense, too, because when he’s down on his knees he can practically feel himself submerged further, further and further and further, dragged under by Erik’s rough voice, by the sight of his cock leaking and waiting to be serviced, by the molten flames settled in his belly, stoking themselves over and over as he whines. When his fingers wrap around Erik’s dick, he gasps with it, tears slipping down his cheeks again, tries not to squirm too much because he knows how his Dominant feels about staying in position if he was Ordered into it; but surely he can feel it? He’s so plugged into Erik that it it’s utterly devastating, the feedback, and Charles isn’t hiding, he isn’t being shy, so certainly Erik can feel it, too. How much he wants this, perhaps more than he ever has. How his eyes are blown with desire, darker blue, how he’s panting for breath. Erik’s cock is twitching in his hand and it’s so big, it’s been inside him for so long, stretching him open, filling him up, it hurts, but he doesn’t mind as long as he can have this. He thinks he likes the pain, too, because Erik is asking him to endure it for him, but more than that, more than that - “Please, please, please, please, please, sir, please,” he’s babbling before he can even think not to, aware of how wrecked and needy he sounds, cheeks that brilliant shade of red with it but he can’t help it. And does Erik know what he’s begging for? Not to make himself feel good, he truly couldn’t care less at exactly this moment. He’s begging to serve, because he does like it. He does want it. It’s got him desperate and worked up, it’s got him shaking; see? Does Erik see now? Is this as good as a fantasy, the reality of it?  
  
If Erik were even an iota of a lesser man he might've come from that alone, from watching Charles on his knees looking up at him with those beautiful blue eyes, his gorgeous lips parted with ragged need as he tries desperately not to move but can't help shifting just a little bit and it builds up to a point inside of Erik where all that can happen is it overflows in a harsh, almost pained groan. His legs spread a little of their own accord and he curls his fingers into Charles's hair, tilting his head up to stare right into his azure gaze. " _Pe'ar, neshama_ ," he croons softly, expression dark and exuding power like twisting, lashing plumes of fire. "So good," Erik can't help talking, he can't help babbling himself, raspy and lilting as Charles obeys when he demands, he demands and Charles listens. He opens up and Erik gasps with it. A need purely reflected back, a circuit completing and exploding all at the same time. "You're such a good boy, hm? Do you know that? Such a sweet boy, and you're mine, look at how pretty you are when you take my cock, hm? Do you like that? Do you see? You want more, sweetheart?" He finally pushes himself past, lets his fingers curl even more into Charles's hair- "Look at me, look-"  
  
Charles is looking, and what’s reflected back at Erik in those eyes he’s so fond of is pure, hazy need, his pupils blown wide, endless blue encroached on by near-black. It’s more than want, it’s desperate, clamoring desire, it’s twisting and ratched-up greed and a determination and devotion and pleasure in serving that he’s never sunken this far into, but here it is. Absolutely nothing else in the world matters more than pleasing Erik now, his every breath dependent on it, every beat of his heart dictated by his ability to do so; and the praise devastates him like this, makes him whimper around Erik’s cock, completely overwhelmed by it because it’s all that he wants. It’s all he wants, right now. And it’s not duty, it’s not detached survival, it’s not the harm that was done to Erik, what was forced on him, conditioned into his brain and body; this is Charles, and he looks nothing but blissed out as he stares up, and the truth is he is. There’s no way to fake that, to put it on as an act. There’s never been an intoxication quite like this, and he opens his mouth wider not just because he wants to make Erik feel good, though he does, but because he’s greedy for it himself, because serving is his own pleasure, and he could come like this if Erik allows him to but mostly he doesn’t care. Mostly it’s an afterthought, and for Erik to think that he doesn’t desire this seems completely ridiculous in the wake of this, in the force of this, in the way his mind still begs please please please please now that his mouth is busy, sucking and licking and trying to make Erik feel nice even while his mouth is stretched and he uses his hand while Erik decides how much of his cock to feed him, makes sure none of him isn’t properly tended to, fights not to let his eyes flutter closed. It’s so good. It’s so wonderful. Doesn’t Erik feel it now? Doesn’t he understand?  
  
Charles's tongue against him feels like it's inside of his body, licking into his neurons and synapses and it makes him shiver, his hips stuttering as he withdraws to only push himself deeper, his hands splayed against Charles's cheeks gently and he crumples forward to press their foreheads together, letting his cock slip out for a moment to do so, running fingertips over Charles's lips still wet from spit, a little line of pre-come dangling from the corners and he grins, breathless and stunned and delighted all at once and is it over? No, it's not over. He can feel good again. He can make Charles take his cock again. So he does, Ordering Charles back down onto his knees so he can push him back onto his dick, this time with far less finesse and grace, though somewhere within him is the desire not to hurt Charles. Well, maybe a speck. Maybe it would be lovely to cane him while he has Erik's cock in his mouth, listen to him whimper and scream against him. That would be nice, wouldn't it? Would it? Is it harmful? Is it bad? Erik's head is spinning.  
  
It’s not harmful. It’s anything but harmful, but the problem is that Charles isn’t thinking so coherently at the moment, and he’s exceptionally sensitive to everything; he moans around Erik’s cock at that expression of desire at the same time that his eyes fill with tears, and he’s confused for a moment before he realizes he’s worried, terribly, awfully worried, shame and confusion and sorrow sunk into his belly and he tries not to squirm with it, doesn’t want Erik to hear or feel it because he might make Charles stop servicing him because he thinks he’s hurting Charles and he isn’t, he isn’t, Charles isn’t hurting. It’s not harmful and it’s not bad, he’s just - he sniffles and chokes, just a little, but please, please, please, don’t make him stop -  
  
Erik doesn't make him stop, but he does pull away a little, resting his cock against the corner of Charles's mouth instead, his hips swaying forward in tiny, aborted movements completely unconsciously. "N'stop," he slurs, struggling to figure out his head, afraid and confused and piercingly sad; the last thing he wants to do is hurt. It's the very last thing. He doesn't want to hurt anymore. Erik blinks back tears of his own and shoves it down ruthlessly. "Tell," he Commands with a hoarse voice, soft and firm.  
  
Erik isn’t hurting. He isn’t hurting him, he never hurts him, he never does, even when he causes him physical pain; because it’s good, it’s part of Erik’s Dominance as much as any other part, and he needs it just as desperately. More, sometimes. Sometimes it’s exactly and precisely what he needs, the only thing that helps. But it’s just that Charles is a little mixed up, too, everything is close and more, more than it’s ever been, it’s overwhelming, he’s making hitchy, breathy sounds that turn into sniffles and he presses his cheek into Erik’s cock for comfort and he can’t feel shame in that. “Bad?” he asks, quiet, barely audible, and it takes him a moment to catch up to his own thoughts, his own reaction. He knows Erik doesn’t like him to think of himself as bad when he misbehaves, when he needs punishment, but sometimes he still does - mostly when he’s like this, when the thought is particularly terrifying for him, when Erik often chooses not to punish him because he doesn’t punish unfairly, he doesn’t punish mistakes, he doesn’t punish things Charles doesn’t do consciously and willingly. Defiantly. Even when he does, even when he corrects, he doesn’t say Charles is bad. But he can’t think of anything he might have done to deserve discipline now, and he can’t quite figure out why he’s worried about it until he realizes Erik said cane and - he knows it doesn’t have to be, Charles likes when Erik hurts him just to hurt him, and his cheeks go redder at the thought but it’s hard to hold anything back now and it’s true, he likes enduring because Erik wants him to, but when he’s caned it’s always because he’s being punished, it’s just always what Erik’s used and he finds he dreads it a bit because of that, not scared not terror (not like a belt, his brain supplies for just a quarter of a second, not at all like a belt buckle and the way it cracks against flesh and leaves bloody uneven welts) but dreading, sinking, punishment-feelings, accepting and sorry and did he do something wrong? Did he do something bad? He didn’t mean to, he’s trying to be good, more than he can ever remember needing it he needs it now, and his eyes are full of tears as he looks up at his Dominant and asks, “Bad? Punished?” They’re not full sentences, but they’re all he can manage.  
  
Not always, though. There've been instances where Erik's used swishy, reedy things to draw zippy red marks all over his skin, implements made of swirling, artistically-designed metal that left patterned welts-but somewhere in Erik's mind he does remember the association, outside of clearly delineated session, he's mostly used canes for punishment, typically employing large, broad strokes that deliver a significant degree of pain that is not pleasurable in the slightest. It's why Erik didn't immediately snap one into his outstretched palm, it was just an errant thought, an idle fantasy; the urge to redden Charles's skin and hear him whine and shift about, knowing that he is completely at Erik's mercy. The cane was just the most simple implement he could think of while his brain is melting out of his cock. "Not bad," he confirms in a raspy whisper, stroking Charles's opposing cheek with his good hand. "Not punish. Promise."  
  
Charles feels particularly bad for ruining the moment, for ruining Erik’s fantasy, because he wants, so desperately, so badly, to fulfill them in this moment. To hear them and bring them to life, to be of service in that way. It’s just that he does have the association, and he’s never quite liked it, the wires crossing; Erik might use something besides a cane one day to punish him (that day in Israel, he’d made Charles pick and some of them weren’t canes - he shivers, not from pleasure, just for a moment, because he didn’t like that at all but that was the point), and he’d accept it, of course he would, it’s not his decision and never will be, but it was a cane that first time and every very major time since it has been, too, and Charles sucks in a breath, sniffles again, rubs against Erik’s hands and his cock both, trying to settle himself down. Using his Dominant’s voice to do it. “Don’t wanna be bad,” he mumbles, because he doesn’t, and maybe he isn’t bad but sometimes he doesn’t behave and right now he absolutely, positively wants to behave. He wants to make Erik feel good and maybe he wants to be rewarded, too, because Erik said he was good and he deserved this as a reward and it is, it really is. “Not a punishment?” he checks again, because he just needs the reassurance now when he’s so sensitive but now that he knows, there’s that heat pooling in his belly again, excitement, anticipation - Erik wants to hurt him? He’s going to? Will it really hurt, since he's already sore? Will he like that?  
  
He isn't bad. Erik has never once said he is, because it's simply untrue. Even at his most ill-behaved, even when Erik himself snaps from genuine anger and frustration, he has never even had an errant thought to suggest that it's due to Charles being bad. But he looks up, his hand still laid against Charles's cheek, eyes bright and shining. "Not a punishment, sweetheart." Erik doesn't exactly know the difference, only that there is one, and it is significant. He doesn't want to hurt Charles. It's not all about the pain, and the pain itself won't be uncompromising and relentless, not in that way. It will be melded with pleasure, with service, with joy, balanced on a stretched-out vine or need. Charles likes that, Erik remembers, does Charles remember? When he's so overcome he can't breathe with it and he's shaking and then Erik smacks him in some way, and it sends a fresh flood of electricity through his whole body? Erik remembers that. It's not bad. Not punishment. Not abuse, right? It's not? Erik blinks groggily up at him, his own mind threatening.  
  
Charles remembers. He's not even a little frightened, not concerned and anxious anymore; see? He's shivering for a different reason, worked up in anticipation that has nothing to do with dread. Punishment is different. He doesn't like it, he's not supposed to, but a lot of that has to do with context and if Erik says it's not punishment, that's all the reassurance he needs. Even if it hurts badly, Charles knows he'll take it and he'll like it because his Dominant says so. Remember in Israel, Charles prods? Remember, remember? He shivers harder at just the memory, nuzzling into Erik's cock as much as his Dominant's hand, unable to help himself, greedy. It's leaking again and he wants to lick it off but he controls himself and waits to be told, even as he whines. But remember? Erik hurt him and he cried and said no more but he liked it. He needed it, he loved it. It calmed him down and made him feel good. Charles will take whatever Erik gives him - but afor, remember? If he gets scared or something's wrong, he'll say it, he promises. He wants Erik to do what he wants with him. Please. It's all he wants. "M'a good boy," he insists, because after even the scare of something warranting punishment right now, he just wants Erik to know that. He needs to believe that. It's not that he thinks all pain is punishment, he promises. He just got scared Erik needed to punish him, got a little mixed up. But he doesn't because Charles is - he's being good? Like on their Bonding night. Remember, Erik took him over his lap just because, even though Charles was good, spanked him first but played with him, too? Definitely not a punishment, it's different. Charles is shivering violently now, making those high, needy whines, rubbing his cheek into Erik's cock again and again. "Oh, please, please, please, please, please -"  
  
Erik's eyes practically turn into slits as he regards his submissive; Charles telling him he's good does something to him Charles has rarely seen, mostly because he rarely says it, but he has to know-he has to know how much it affects Erik, to the point that he gasps aloud, right on the edge of a moan and grips Charles's hair tightly in his fingers, pulling his face back down to his cock and murmuring, "Open up, _tayer_. That's it, open up. You remember, don't you, hm?" He's laughing as he pushes forward, sending his cock almost completely down Charles's throat while yanking his hair back enough to send rippling sparks through his head and down his neck and shoulders. Charles sitting there thinking about all the times Erik has hurt him, remembering it, greedy for every speck of sensation that Erik gives him. "You know you're a good boy, don't you? That's it. Use your tongue. You can take it deeper, can't you? Swallow against me." Erik's reduced, reduced to murmuring filthy Commands that burrow low and dark right down into Charles's ears, and when Charles is practically drooling and sloppy with it, Erik finally holds out his hand (releasing his hair to do so) holds out his hand and without even thinking, materials sluice off of various items and begin to reform into the object he wants, a leather crop expertly designed slapping into his outstretched palm. He gives Charles no opportunity to realize what he's done before he feels the short, sharp sting of leather against his skin.  
  
Immediately Charles chokes, sputtering and drooling all over Erik’s cock and down his own chin, a wrecked, muffled moan vibrating right over his Dominant, but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even dare pull back, even though he could now without Erik forcing him down by the hair. Instead he forces himself to breathe through his nose, to fight the moment of panic when his throat feels like it might close around the intrusion, swallowing and swallowing and there are tears in his eyes, he must look like such a mess and he truly, truly doesn’t care, feels not an ounce of shame anymore, all of it burned right out of him and it feels like it’s burning, inside, it feels like his belly is full of flames, but he ignores it, ignores his own leaking, twitching dick, doesn’t ask for permission even though he could, just like this, holds himself back instead. Does Erik see what he was asking for, now? To serve just for the sake of it, to be a tool of Erik’s pleasure? To be used? Does he see what that does for him? If Erik wants to see marks on his skin, if he wants Charles to cry because he thinks it’s pretty (he does, doesn’t he?) then he can. He should. It’s his right, and Charles tries so hard to make it good while he does, diligent and devoted, taking Erik all the way down even though it never feels like it should fit, even though he gags every time. Erik likes it, doesn’t he? Doesn’t he? Does he see how much Charles likes it, too?  
  
He does. To the point that he's honestly ashamed of himself, terrified of himself, terrified that it makes him like that. Like them. He falters for a moment, snaps of memory assaulting him, and hating himself for it-his mind is wide open, of course it's going to come up. Charles isn't the only one who's mixed up sometimes, especially like this, when he has barely any filter, but his eyes fixate on Charles a few moments later and the image abruptly crashes through any such recollections like a tsunami burying a city under its thrashing waves. He sees. He sees. It spills out from his lips, too-"I see," he whispers softly. He sees just how much Charles likes it, from the way his cock twitches against his own thigh completely untouched, how he rocks unconsciously into the blankets underneath him, the flush that spreads down his cheeks through his shoulders and chest and Erik can't help spreading his lesser hand across the expanse of skin, just to touch. Just to feel his heart beat even if he can't really feel it, not that well. There's not much sensation left, but Erik's imagination almost makes up for it. The way Charles whines in pure, unadulterated desire when Erik shoves his dick in between his parted lips, doesn't move away, but moves closer-Erik sees, he sees and he almost can't believe, and he brings the crop down harshly a second time, enough to ricochet through Charles's body as he fucks his mouth, whispering nonsense down at him. Erik loves him so much. He's being so good, he's always good. Always. Does Charles know? Does he know how much Erik loves him, how much Erik likes this? Likes using him, seeing him completely at his mercy, submitting to him. He's beautiful. The most beautiful thing he's ever seen, from the moment he first laid eyes upon him. It was one of the first thoughts he ever had, that Charles ever intercepted. Erik couldn't help thinking of how beautiful a man he was, even sat across from him, part of the team attempting to determine the extent of his guilt. Perfect. Gorgeous. His, all his. Erik knew Charles was his, too. Somewhere deep inside, somewhere that made him put his hand over Charles's on that cold metal table during their very first encounter. Erik couldn't help touching him, because his soul knew it had found its mate.  
  
It’s too much. It’s too much, the feedback is too much, Charles nearly sobs around Erik’s cock but even as he’s overwhelmed, even as his sensitivity is ramped up, he focuses on his Dominant. On making him feel good, on giving him the pleasure and the service he always should have gotten, in giving it back to him because the truth is Charles knew, too. He knew from that first Order, from before it, from the first time he saw those eyes and they’re looking down on him now, vibrant even darkened like this. Charles is a shivering, shaking mess, but he takes Erik down his throat all the way again and swallows, gags and drools and makes a mess of himself for Erik’s pleasure, chokes himself willingly and lets out a strangled scream when he’s struck again, cries, and Erik wants to feel? He wants to touch? Charles can fix that, he can give it back; see? Feel? Charles knows what the sensation should be, he can reroute it. Is that good? Does it please Erik? The problem is he’s so overwhelmed; he’ll wait, he’ll hold himself back, he’ll be a good boy, but his body has limits and he’s so close to coming and he doesn’t need a touch, with his legs spread there’s no friction anyway but he can just like this, just because Erik is pleased. Charles whines, not wanting to ask. Not wanting to be greedy, but it hurts now, it’s unbearable, he’s starting to squirm with it, afraid he’ll come without permission, fussing as his entire being is overloaded. It’s never been this much. It's so much, it's so, so much -  
  
More than anything else, it's that one touch that undoes Erik, the sudden flare in his right hand-sensation, Charles's skin, he can feel it and-and that makes him gasp long and loud, and his cock spurts immediately. He thinks he whites out for a few moments, the room glowing and spinning and shining and particles are in the air and Erik can feel them falling, gently like snowflakes reflecting rainbow-kaleidoscopes. Erik takes a few moments to float back down before he notices Charles, before he really notices, and it brings a chuckle to his lips. Ordinarily he'd be soft by now, but he's not, it's oversensitive so he slips out a little, rubs the head of his dick over Charles's lips and makes sure to draw small strands of come down his cheek and jaw. Beautiful. Marked. Erik's eyes are pinned to his, nearly aglow. "Come for me, sweetheart. Come for me. I want to see how much you like serving me, hm? How much do you like it? Are you going to come for me?" he crouches a little, not enough to disconnect them from touching but so that he can watch Charles, watch how his body goes taut, for no other reason than this, and it's so potent that Erik can barely breathe for it.  
  
And Charles does. He comes right on Command, completely and utterly untouched, Erik’s come on his tongue and his cock against his cheek, shaking and shuddering right through it, eyes shut tight as he whines and gasps. It seems to go on for a very long time, and even when he comes down from it he hasn’t, whimpering loudly, crying, hands come out to grip at Erik’s thighs. He’s making even more of a mess of himself, already covered in spit and come, rubbing his cheek against Erik’s cock because he needs it, because it’s comforting, and he can’t stop making noise, can’t stop shaking. “E-Erik, Erik,” he gasps, and tries to get his breathing to even, tries to get more than harsh, hitched breaths in, tries to stop his chest from heaving, but it’s all so intense, it’s never been this intense before.  
  
"Mine," Erik growls in complete satisfaction, immediately he draws Charles up to him and rubs his still-hard cock against the insides of Charles's thighs, pressing Charles's against his stomach as he molds their bodies together and runs his fingers through Charles's hair. He can feel it. He can't move his hand good, the strokes are a bit clumsy, but he can feel it and Charles can't know what a gift that is. He puts his other hand on Charles's chest, encouraging to breathe slowly and softly, each breath matched to Erik's. Everything matched to Erik's. "Mine, _neshama, nehedar yeled sheli, meyn tayer,_ " he laughs a little, rasping sweet nothings into his ear, all the names Charles deserves to be called, all the ways in which he is good and wonderful, it's spilling from Erik like rain drops.


	88. bending the air love is so full

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _aida_ , elton john & tim rice

Charles soaks it right up, gratefully, desperately, and he’s hard again against Erik’s stomach, rubbing up against hard-earned muscles as he’s rocked, as Erik’s cock slips against his thighs, trails come and spit, but there’s another reason he’s crying. He wants to breathe, he wants to focus on his Dominant, he wants to match himself to him, and he does; his breathing evens out, hitches less, but he’s digging his nails into Erik’s back, clinging with all the strength he has, still shaking so violently he’s dizzy with it. “No, no, no, no,” he repeats, over and over, gasping little noises. “Please, please no, please, I don’t want to go, please, I’m not ready, I’m not - not ready, I’m not ready,” and he’s a bit inconsolable now, because he wanted more _time._ He wanted more time. Maybe they can hold it off? He’s hot, he’s burning, he knows what he needs, but he also knows what comes _after_ and it’s tugging at him. “Please no, please, please just -” He’s not talking to _Erik,_ it becomes clear after a moment.

Erik rolls them over so that he can prop himself up and gaze down at Charles sternly, eyebrows narrowed. " _ **Do not hurt him,**_ " he growls lowly, and in that moment it seems possible that Erik could take on the Universe itself, challenge it to an inevitable battle and burn himself out like a dying sun against the almighty power it wields, but he _cannot_ and _will not_ sanction Charles being forcefully and painfully ripped away from his reality. _**There is another way.**_ He can go to sleep. He can go to sleep and wake up when it's over and know no time has passed. _Something_ can be done to ease this transition and Erik will not rest until every possible option is exhausted and that is an _**Order**_ and it is final.

The problem is, that’s already the plan. It won’t hurt. It will be as easy as falling asleep, and from inside Erik can hear and _understand_ that it’s the truth; the Void doesn’t desire to hurt Charles, nor does it wish to rip him away. It must, but it doesn’t _wish_ to. It feels no need to cause him pain. It is part Charles, after all. It feels this pain, too, though certainly not in the same way. It seems to express something that Charles hears, a speaking from inside and immediately he begins to thrash, to shake his head, to claw at Erik’s back. “No, no, no, don’t let it - don’t let it take -” Because it would hurt less, the Void knows, if Charles didn’t know he was going. If he wasn’t aware of it. If they sated the rest of the cycle, and he simply drifted off into what he thought was a normal sleep. But Charles doesn’t want that. He clings, desperately, stares up at Erik with pleading eyes, because he knows the Void will listen to _Erik._ “Please don’t let it take - I want to say goodbye, I want -” He isn’t _ready,_ but he’ll never be ready. He just won’t be. It’s going to hurt, but he’d like to feel it. If they only have this time left, he doesn’t want to spend it blissfully ignorant. Some things need to hurt. Erik can't protect him from everything. But the Void still asks, still wonders: should it? It could. Charles would be less upset if he wasn't _aware._ But Erik doesn't need to take on the Universe, see; the Universe is Erik's, too. What power he has, and how will he choose to use it?

Erik shakes his head. "Not that way," he whispers. "Not that way, but you need to slow down, _now_." Erik puts his hand _firmly_ on Charles's chest and keeps him in place, his Orders severe and punching through that hazy fog of panic all at once. "We knew this was going to happen, and I know you think you are not ready, but I know you can do this for me. I know you can face this _with me_. I will never take away your awareness of such a thing, but you need to _calm_ yourself down and breathe, do you understand me?"

Charles nods, just a jerky bob of a thing, but his nails are still digging into Erik’s skin and he can’t convince himself that if he lets go for even a moment, if he relaxes his fingers, if he stops clinging, he’ll just disappear. He knows it won’t happen that way because the Void told him so and it doesn’t lie, but he can feel it _tugging_ at him the same way that pent-up heat is tugging at his belly, he _does_ know what’s going to happen, and even as he breathes, even as he calms, settling at Erik’s voice, he can’t help crying. “I’m not ready,” he insists, voice cracking. “I’m not ready to go.”

Erik brushes his hair back from his forehead. "I'm not ready either," he admits, because Charles told him long before that he doesn't want Erik to be a statue made out of stone sometimes. He doesn't know if this is the right time. His instincts always tell him _be strong, don't be weak._ But he doesn't feel strong, right now. The only thing he can give is the truth. "You will still be mine, _neshama_. You will always be mine, whatever happens. I will take care of you, I will make sure you are safe, I will make sure that you come back to me, and in the interim you will _still_ be mine. I won't let anyone take that. It is impossible. We have to be brave, sweetheart. I know you are so brave, and you know that I'm right here. I'll always be right here beside you."

They have to be brave. Erik’s words calm him more than anything else could have and he closes his eyes, the tears still escaping as he relaxes his fingers, his grip, strokes gently instead, apologetic and needy. “Make love to me?” is what he whispers as he opens his eyes, bright blue wet with tears, filled with fear and sorrow but _love,_ too. So much love it’s utterly indescribable. It was a silly thing to ask the first time he did and it’s silly now, too, but he means it the same as he did then. If he only has so long, he doesn’t want to spend it panicked and afraid. Erik is right. He’ll listen, he’ll be brave.

* * *

" _Always_ ," Erik murmurs, stretching out over Charles and gazing down at him with pure affection. It's not stupid. From the moment Charles first said it to him and Erik connected the dots, the fact that he's never considered it an act of _love_ before Charles, that he's more accustomed to _fucking_ than anything else-he's always thought of it as born of _love_. Everything he does, everything he says, it's an act made from _love_ , even the most debauched of things, looking at his submissive completely lost in pleasure? There's no other word to describe it, but love; an endless well of it that pours forth even as Erik slowly presses back into him and strokes his cheek. "I love you so much, hm? Do you know?" he smiles gently.

That’s why it’s silly, really. Because what they were doing before this was _love,_ too. It’s not what he’s asking for that’s silly, it’s just that the term is so wholly inaccurate as a descriptor. Between them, there’s certainly no lack of love even when Erik is surely _fucking_ him, even when he has him by the hair at his cock, even when he’s choking and gagging and crying out as he’s struck with a crop. But it’s not what he wants right this second, and he gasps out a broken cry as Erik slips inside, wraps his legs around him as best he can and nods, nuzzling into him. “I know,” he whispers. “I love you, too. I love you too, Erik.” It’s shaky, and he’s not breathing perfectly again, but he doesn’t think he can. How do you say goodbye to the other half of your soul? And even if he falls asleep and wakes up, no time at all gone by for him, how can he leave knowing that he’s leaving Erik without him? Charles tries in vain not to cry, hiding the sniffles in Erik’s neck. “Do you know how much I love _you_? Could you possibly?”

"I know," Erik whispers back, because he _is_ the other half, and every moment he spends with Charles his soul sings with it. He makes sure that Charles _does_ breathe properly, he gives him every breath, matched to his own heartbeat. Charles once said that he might need Erik to even take in breath sometimes, and now that it's true Erik _knows_ exactly what it means, in this instant, to be _truly_ Dominant. To watch Charles's chest hitch and then reach out to slow it down and smooth it out and make him inhale, slow and deep and calm. To give him air itself. Erik will. Air and love and light and hope, he will give it, Charles will always have it. He will always be safe and cared for, no matter what. "You are my _favorite person_ ," he croaks softly into Charles's ear. " _Never_ forget that. Not ever. You are mine, my wonderful submissive, and you always will be. No matter what."

No matter what. Charles has to believe that. He has to believe, above all else, that he is Erik’s and that even while he’s _gone,_ gone as he is now, that will continue to be true. That Erik will care for him when he needs it most. Perhaps it’s the sadness or the fear getting to him, but he laughs, quiet and hoarse, wraps his legs and arms tighter around his Dominant and closes his eyes. “Promise you won’t miss me too much?” he teases. “And that you’ll take care of the library?”

"I am uncertain I can promise to the former, but I will absolutely promise the latter," Erik murmurs back warmly. "And I shall endeavor not to rearrange your 'organizational system' too much," he can't resist adding the tease; they both know he's a strict perfectionist, as evidenced by the fact that the home they share with Raven has become exponentially cleaner and more efficient than he's ever seen it. Erik nuzzles his cheek against Charles's, relishing the warmth. No matter what.

As much as Charles complains, he knows it's good for him, that organization. He's sure he _will_ complain about it and stamp his feet at some point and be met with that comforting strictness in turn, but now it makes him laugh, even when it sticks in his throat. For a long while he just holds on, rocked gently underneath his Dominant, cradled and warm and loved, loving in return; it might be minutes or hours or ages. He comes again, and then again, softer, gentler pleasure, quivers and sighs and quiet moans into Erik's neck, and for all that he had so much to say and still does, he finds the words don't come. He's sleepy, Erik's neck wet with his tears as he curls fingers into his hair, strokes at that spot his Bonded loves touched. "Promise you'll be okay," he croaks. "Please. Just promise me." He's so sleepy, now.

"I'll be OK," Erik whispers in return, and each time Charles's cock pulses against his stomach he presses down a little more, trapping him fully, reminding him that he is owned and safe and surrounded on all sides by his Dominant, who doesn't move an inch to separate them. "I'll be OK, sweetheart. Close your eyes, OK?" he Orders, kissing Charles's temple. "I'll be right here. You will always be mine. No matter what. I'll take care of you."

Charles has to be brave. He has to do what he's told. His eyes flutter closed, slowly but surely, even as he sighs in protest. Erik will be okay, and he will take care of him. Charles just hopes he'll be taken care of, too. "I love you," he breathes, and it's slurred, barely coherent, not English and not quite anything but Erik can _feel_ it, knows it because it's their language, so it's alright. "M' so sleepy, Erik," he murmurs, as if he's fighting sleep on any normal night, unwilling to take a bit of a nap, nuzzling into Erik's touch. Gone slack.

Erik kisses his forehead, his temples, his cheeks and jaw and under his eyes, delicate butterfly things. "I know, _neshama_. Go to sleep, OK? I'll be right here the entire time. I love you _so much_." His voice cracks a little, but he clears his throat and hopefully manages to conceal it with that. He sings something silly under his breath, a Yiddish lullaby sung to him often when his heavy eyelids finally fluttered closed in the dawn of night.

* * *

Charles drifts right off to sleep in his Dominant’s arms, peaceful and mostly unaware, a soft smile on his lips. That smile lingers, sweet and lulled, and it’s clear Erik got his wish; there’s absolutely no pain to the process. He doesn’t wake up. Hours pass, then days, a process which should be entirely familiar to Erik, but he doesn’t wake up. What makes it strikingly different than the time before is that last time, even while Charles was in a _coma,_ he made a point to keep himself open. Here and there would be thoughts, reassurances, dreams. Bits and pieces through the Bond they’d already established well before Bonding. There’s none of that now. It’s more than quiet, it’s utterly silent. But that isn’t to say that Erik is left completely alone.

Charles stays still on the bed, a seemingly empty vessel, no thrashing or tossing or sweating or convulsing like the first time, nothing at all, but around him are strange occurrences. Sometimes when Erik goes to reach for something, it comes to him before he can. It isn’t his own mutation, he realizes quickly, but something else entirely. Sometimes books open to Charles’ favorite pages, which would be impossible to discern if he wasn’t _Charles,_ if he hadn’t left copious notes in margins (little ‘!’ when he’s particularly excited over something, underlined words). Coffee makes itself in the kitchen before Erik can think to want it. Once, a piece on the chessboard moves itself. Then, when Erik notices, it begins to tremble, insistent and delighted to have attention. It plays with him. It wins

It’s a bit like a haunting, but it’s the best the Void can offer, and it offers it freely. The days pass by. It’s more than the last time, but not by very much. The Void trusted Erik in more than one way; Charles is vulnerable here, and he’s still human. It knows he’ll be taken care of, that his _body_ will be taken care of. And then one day, in the middle of a Westchester afternoon while Erik is in the library, when just minutes before Charles had been still, so still and silent and barely-breathing that he looked rather dead, Charles stirs. He blinks his eyes open. But there would be no way for Erik to know instinctively like he did that first time, because there’s nothing through the Bond but continued silence. Not snapped, but completely dormant.

It's one of the few times in Erik's life where he isn't expected to simply _be_ anywhere, or _do_ anything other than care for his submissive and ensure that his body is stable and healthy, an endeavor more difficult than one would think when it comes to food and water, but Erik figures it out and given it's only been _days_ it's not such a critical, pressing issue, but he still wants Charles to be comfortable so he dutifully tends to him. And he keeps his promise, too, caring for the library and arranging a few of the books in dusty corners that haven't seen light for years, into a proper system while leaving many of the ones he's scribbled in along, or moving them into a more prominent view. Most of Erik's time is spent reading and exploring the mansion, cleaning it up and taking upon himself the project of ensuring it's presentable. The instances of what he can only describe as _Charles_ 's presence are the only thing to bolster him through it. He misses Charles. More than he can say, more than he knows how to express, but he shores himself up and ruthlessly refuses to allow it to break him. Consequently, while he's in the library reading through a few books, when Charles blinks his eyes open Erik is sitting in the chair, and while the Bond doesn't _tell_ him, his whole body thrums as if an electric current snaps off under his skin, and he looks up, rubbing his own arm. He doesn't immediately go to Charles, but he sets the book aside and gazes out the window, brows furrowed curiously.

Charles wakes up stiff, groggy, confused. Then he becomes frightened. There’s no way for Erik to tell at first, no way for him to know, the Bond silent as it is, their link not fully connected, but all at once it becomes _abundantly_ obvious; because Charles is projecting it. Not in any way he has before, not in any small slip. It becomes very clear very fast why the Void wanted them away from people, what it meant when it said he would hurt them without meaning to. Fear becomes the air of this place. It becomes the walls, the floors, everything in between. It clings to objects and it takes _hold_ of Erik’s mind, the Void’s protection and his own ability to let things slip past him the _only_ reason he isn’t utterly crushed under its weight. The reason he doesn’t go mad with it, scream with it, feel himself clawing at his own skin to get it out from under the way it’s crawled into his bones and become his being. Fear, distress. It’s still overwhelming, even for Erik, even protected as he is, but he is the only one who could stand it. Through every corner of this mansion, everything wonders, _Where am I? Where am I? How did I get here?_ If it were Raven in this house, if it were Hank, they would be incapacitated by it. There would be damage. But Charles doesn’t know, he doesn’t realize at all that he’s doing it - he’s gotten up from the bed, stepped out into the hallway. The library is on the floor under his old bedroom, but he doesn’t know that. There are things missing, just as the Void promised, and this Charles doesn’t recognize this corridor at all. “Hello?” he rasps, voice incredibly hoarse from disuse. He puts a hand to his own throat, eyes widening when he realizes it isn’t bare, the weight of a collar there. When his heart leaps, the world seems to shake with it, distorts strangely to accommodate his confusion. “ _Hello_?” he insists, and instinctively he walks toward the stairs, toward Erik, the only other mind in this house a beacon.

* * *

Erik sags underneath it, brought to one knee as his own mind _whirls_ up in response, eyes closing. It's the way of minds that it isn't only _Charles's_ fear which clutches at his consciousness and spirit, but his own. All the fear that exists inside of his body, inside of his memories comes crashing down over him like brackets of cold, bracing water filled with electricity and it makes him gasp and tears fill his eyes. He takes several long, steadying breaths and clenches his fist, ruthlessly submerging everything under intense, endless watertight compartments, screams echoing behind walls of drowning metal. He rises and hearing Charles's voice call out, ducks into the corridor. Charles is wearing clothes, pajamas that Erik put on him in case this very thing happened, in case he woke up collared and naked and terrified and Erik _won't_ remove the collar but he also won't distress Charles any more than he already is. When Erik appears, he too is clothed in black pants and a black turtleneck, his auburn hair curling mightily down his shoulders, relatively clean-shaven (he managed to do so himself, perhaps because Charles always _did_ ask about it) and vivid green eyes brighter when he realizes that _Charles is awake_. He's tall, _too tall_ , and very evidently Dominant and it oozes from every pore of his being, but he doesn't make any untoward motions. "Charles," he murmurs, accent clear and a bit peculiar. "It's all right. You're safe. It's OK." He raises his hands in a non-threatening gesture.

Charles still backs himself up against the wall even though he’s the one who called out in the first place, very clearly _terrified,_ and that terror oozes right out of him, clings to everything Erik sees and perceives, everything he knows, suffocating and completely unavoidable. Pressing down and down and down, pressing out, until there’s hardly room for anything else besides fright and confusion. “Where am I?” he demands, and he hates the sound of his own voice, doesn’t recognize it at all; croaked, strange, one hand still touching the collar around his neck. “Who are you?”

"You do not know?" Erik whispers back, touching his temple with a grimace as he forces it all _back_. Down, out, in through your nose and out through your feet. He's been this terrified before, and much more as well. Empty yourself of all feeling. You are a stone, a statue of clay. "You are in Westchester. Your family home. We took you here to ensure your telepathy did not affect your loved ones in a negative manner. My name is Erik Lehnsherr. We are..." he gazes down at his feet. "You know me. You did know me."

After a few long moments, at the very least, the distortion calms. It retracts its claws slightly. It no longer seems like everything is shaking quite so dramatically, that it’s all closing in, it no longer feels like Erik is being _bombarded_ and _crushed_ even through the protection promised to him; and imagine if he hadn’t been? There is _power_ here, pure, raw, immense power, but Charles doesn’t even know he’s wielding it. He stays backed up against the wall, swallowing around the dryness of his throat painfully. “My what?” he whispers back. "I don't know you. I don't know -" Anything, he realizes. He doesn't know anything.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he whispers softly. "I know it must be so much to understand all at once. There are many things I do not understand myself. Your knowledge will return," he promises, equally as soft. "In the interim, you are _safe_. I promise you this. I know you do not know enough to believe me, but all I have to offer is the truth."

But what choice does he have, really, but to trust him? Charles is still frightened, and with good reason to be. He doesn’t unflatten himself from the wall, lip caught between his teeth, dry as anything. He feels _weak,_ come to think of it. A bit like his legs are just about ready to collapse underneath him, but he’s hardly about to crumble in case he needs to bolt. His fight or flight hasn’t quite kicked off yet. “What did you call me?” he asks, and he sounds, even to his own ears, too quiet and vulnerable. A lost, frightened child, but there’s nothing he can do for it. He feels it.

It breaks Erik's heart. All he wants to do is open his arms and ask Charles to _come here_ , but he won't terrify him that way, he refuses to, so he submerges his own natural instincts. "What do you mean, hm?" he murmurs, head tilted to the side. His own voice is gentle, low and soft.

Charles stares down at his feet, closing his eyes as his heart thuds in his ears. “Charles,” he whispers. It’s so _horrible,_ to have to ask this. “My name is Charles? That’s what you called me.” This man, this Erik Lehnsherr, could lie. He could tell him anything, have him believe anything. He could even be the one responsible for this situation in the first place. But for some reason, Charles get the feeling that he _isn't._

Erik nods in understanding. "Charles," he murmurs. "That is your name. Will you sit with me? You can ask me whatever you like. I will not lie to you, not ever. You can tell if this is true," he adds, touching his own temple again. "You have a power. To see into the minds of others. You can see into my mind. You can see all that I know of you, and all you know of me."

_That_ makes Charles blink, eyes wide and startled again. “What are you talking about?” he demands.

The man before him nudges up against his mind, very softly. "It's nothing to fear. I promise you. I possess a gift as well," he adds, with a small smile.

Or he tries to. It would have been comforting, if this were before. If this were the Charles he held days ago in bed, but it isn’t. He would have immediately received something back, reassurance or warmth or _something_ , even if it were fear, even if it were discomfort; what he receives back is nothing. Dead silence. A cut line. “I don’t know what you’re _talking_ about,” Charles insists, and he tries to back further up, but there’s nowhere to go. He’s already against a wall. “I can’t read your mind. I’m _not_ telepathic.”

"Is it really so strange?" Erik wonders quietly, and he raises his hand. A small metal coin lifts out of his pocket and hovers above his palm before settling back against his skin. "There are many different people, with many different gifts."

The expression on Charles’ face is a mix of both awe and frustration, but he tears himself away from how _fascinating_ he finds that to look Erik in the eyes. Or attempts to, but something is averting his gaze, and he stares somewhere _close_ instead. “I _know_ that,” he sighs, impatient. “But I am _not._ I’m not telepathic. I cannot read your mind. You must be mistaken.”

Erik shakes his head once, and says, "Look at me, _neshama_." It's an Order, one that zips up Charles's spine. "Do you think I am lying to you?"

And nearly brings him to his knees. He’s whoozy with it, but when he does look he has to swallow down the lump in his throat again, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth for a moment. “No,” he whispers. “But I didn’t say you were lying, I said you were _mistaken,_ which you are. How did you do that? What did you just call me?” he demands all at once, and now he steps away from the wall, but only to back further away, inching down the corridor.

But Erik isn't deterred. "Charles, I'm not going to hurt you. I promise you this. Come and eat some breakfast with me, OK?" he Orders it again, and holds out his hand for Charles to come closer instead of farther, but he doesn't take steps to close the space between them, allowing Charles his distance as he leads them down the hall and into a small study where there is a tray of fresh fruit and coffee made up; abandoned when Erik left for the library. It's still warm.

* * *

It does absolutely nothing to calm his nerves, and the fact that it’s difficult to _walk_ , that he feels weak and dizzy, that doesn’t particularly help either. The moment he’s in the room, he’s already backing out of it, shaking in the fingers. There are electric currents shooting up his spine and he doesn’t understand them; they’re disorienting, confusing. “You didn’t answer my questions,” he accuses, and his arms are crossed over his chest defensively, his eyes narrowed. “I’m not interested until you _explain_ what’s happening to me. Now.” For some reason, demanding that feels a bit _impossible,_ and his voice cracks on it, but he manages.  
  
Erik doesn't know how to explain it. "It means that you are someone very close to me, someone I care about a great deal," he whispers back. "Come and sit. Come on." The Order is quiet, but no less firm than before. "I do not know how to explain it very well," he admits. "Your mind is reorganizing itself. Restructuring itself. Healing itself. You have a whole life, and a whole family, of people who love you very dearly, but you don't remember them right now. But you will. I promise you this."  
  
The _promise_ doesn’t settle him, either, and he hates how _quickly_ he sits when he’s told to, teeth grinding together because he certainly didn’t want to. He doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t understand _this._ “Then why are you the only one here?” Charles snaps, agitated, frightened, confused. “None of this makes _sense._ And stop doing that. Whatever you’re doing, stop it. I don’t want you to do that, I don’t _know_ you.” His eyes have found the cuffs around Erik’s wrists. It makes his head spin, fingers creeping up to the collar around his neck. “I don’t know you,” he repeats, voice a helpless croak.  
  
"Because I am the only one who is capable of enduring your telepathic resonance," Erik murmurs, the truth as he knows it. The truth as it _is_. "You know me," Erik adds, the only thing he can say, but something rises up in the room, something that he doesn't speak and doesn't say; _i grew up in your hometown/at least began to grow/how i know you/yes i know you/my only home is silence, you've never seen my face/you don't know me/yes i know you/you don't know me/how i know you, how i know you-..._  
  
Charles swallows again, practically audible this time. He gathers his legs up onto the chair and hugs them to himself, buries his face in them, tries not to be sick with the spinning of his head. “ _Stop_ ,” he insists. "I don't know you. Stop."  
  
Erik lifts his coffee and takes a drink. "Eat," he murmurs, another Order. It's just fruit, easy enough to digest. "You're OK. It's all right. You're safe, here. I wish that I could explain it more fully, but this is all I have to give. If you have questions, I will do my best to answer them, OK?"  
  
Truthfully, Charles feels more sick than he does hungry, but he reaches out before he can think better anyway, too-quick, dizzy with it, electrified by it, and it’s only when he’s chewing a bite, the sugar of a strawberry acid on his tongue and in his throat that he stands abruptly, dropping the rest of it to the floor in his haste, knocking the chair over and nearly himself. “I told you to _stop_ ,” he hisses. "How - why are you doing that? It's not _alright,_ stop saying that! This isn't my idea of bloody _alright_!"  
  
"Frankly, it could be worse," Erik mutters dryly, mostly to himself. He blinks up a few moments later. "Why am I doing what?" Evidently he doesn't realize exactly what he's doing, or he's the world's greatest gaslighter.  
  
Either one makes Charles scowl, and he was already scowling, arms tightly around his own waist, unsteady on his own feet. " _Making_ me do things," he mumbles, as if doubting his own perception.  
  
Erik clears his throat all of a sudden and swallows. Everything is gone. _Everything_. He's grateful he didn't promise that he _would_ be OK. Forcing himself to animate and clutch his cup of coffee, he drinks it so that his facial expression can be obscured until he marshals it again. "I am Dominant," he murmurs. "I apologize. It wasn't intentional."  
  
For some reason, it immediately earns a reaction. A _violent_ one, one that has _Erik_ plastered to the chair he's in and the room shrieking in its wake, one that has everything shaking and distorting, the study gone and replaced with nonsense and the wailing of psionic energy. In the meantime, Charles bolts, the door slamming behind him as he darts aimlessly down the corridor, looking desperately for a safe room to duck into. But that's the problem, really. None of them look _safe._ None of them look like anything.  
  
Maybe it's because of the reaction, or maybe the psionic energy, or maybe his own violent memories surfacing, but it pins Erik to the floor, slid out of the chair with his knees drawn up to his chest and his breaths coming out in wheezing, horrified gasps as tears stream down his cheeks and he struggles to inhale oxygen. He's sorry. He didn't mean it. He's sorry.

* * *

Charles finds a room at the end of the hall. Truthfully, he has no idea what it's _meant_ for; it's old and dusty, filled with what seems like nonsense trinkets, art and sculptures and a white couch, but it will do. It's as good as any other. He sinks to the floor, too, in this dark room, knees pulled up to his chest again, and wheezes out his own panicked sobs, frightened and confused, the room so filled with energy it would entirely bowl others over. It's pathetic but despite waking from sleep he's _tired,_ he's weak, his stomach hurts awfully. He doesn't understand.  
  
It takes several moments for Erik to get himself up off the floor. He finds Charles easily and withstands the force of the room, crouching down in front of him. "Let me help you, OK? Let me help." The Order is gentle. "You won't be harmed in this place. I won't let anything happen to you." He keeps his hands to himself, despite his urge to reach out and touch.  
  
Charles' fingers are at his temples, confused, frustrated, and he refuses to look up as Erik crouches in front of him, curling in on himself tighter. "I want to be alone to think, please," he whispers, voice raspy and hoarse and cracked. It's perhaps not the best idea, but he's too overwhelmed to fathom anything else. "I know you -" He swallows. "I know, and I'm very sorry, but it doesn't change the fact that I don't know _you._ "  
  
"To think of what?" Erik whispers back. Resolutely not allowing himself to falter and break down. Not allowing it. Never allowing it. He is not a person who feels any longer. An inanimate object. A statue that exists only for one singular purpose. "What do you know?"  
  
"That you -" He gestures vaguely between them, still pulled up tightly to his own knees, the sound of his voice further muffled. "I didn't read your mind, it's just obvious." Charles is silent for a few beats, and when he speaks again, it's truly small, not even a whisper. It could easily be missed. "I'm sorry."  
  
Despite Erik's seconds-ago promise not to _falter_ , he does, but this time in the opposite direction. His eyes alight and he has to huff, a small smile gracing his features before it's gone in an instant. "Obvious, I see." He inhales again, because he knows it's not _progress_. It doesn't mean Charles has suddenly come back to him. It just means what it means. "You don't know very much else, do you? How could you think, without knowing all the information?"  
  
Charles is silent for a long few moments, still tucked into his knees until he eventually peeks out. He _looks_ small, like this. "I don't know anything," he admits, and it's appropriately terrified, his voice shaking. "I know my name is Charles, because you told me. I know yours is Erik Lehnsherr. I know you think - I know you're my..." But he doesn't say it. "I don't know much else. At all."  
  
"So let me help you," Erik murmurs back softly. "I care for you a great deal. I do not wish for you to be so frightened. I cannot replace all of your _felt_ knowledge, but I can tell you things, about the world, about yourself. I won't leave you here alone. I can't do that."  
  
Slowly but surely, Charles peeks further out from his knees, resting his chin on top of them. "I didn't mean to snap at you," he whispers, quiet, apologetic. "It's just - I don't understand. What's happened to me? I don't even know who I _am,_ let alone who you are."  
  
"I know," Erik replies, completely forgiving. "Your mind is undergoing a period of healing. I'm not completely certain of the particulars, but it seems most of your memories have been suppressed while this is happening. It is not permanent. I do not expect you to act toward me as if I am-" he grimaces a bit. "But I _do_ care for you. I will do my utmost to help you through this."  
  
"As if you're what?" he asks, quietly, and he's aware he's fishing but knowing absolutely nothing about himself and his life is frightening, so perhaps he'll be forgiven. "What am I healing from? What happened to me? Was there an accident? Am I -" He shakes his head, overwhelmed.  
  
"As if we are close," Erik says gently. "You are healing from-from a good deal of pain. You were harmed, greatly, by others who did not understand how to treat living beings. But you are safe, now, and they are never going to hurt you again. This is a process that you initiated yourself. It was not forced upon you. You will heal, and all that you have forgotten will be returned to you. In time."  
  
" _Are_ we close?" he whispers, and his eyes are clearly on Erik's cuffs. He seems to know what _those_ mean, if nothing else. "What kind of pain? How did I _choose_ this? And how do you know that? Why would I choose to forget everything, was it -" Really that bad. He doesn't say it, but he doesn't need to. "I don't understand."  
  
"We are," says Erik, still-soft. "It is the kind of pain that occurs when someone aggresses against another. You haven't permanently forgotten it, but your mind is now beginning to heal from its effects. I know of it because we are Bonded. Your pain is like my own, and I know it intimately. As you do mine. But we are more than pain. We always will be more than pain."  
  
Charles shakes his head, sighing. "That's incredibly _vague,_ " he points out, frustrated, concerned. He doesn't know enough. He doesn't know anything. "How do you know I haven't permanently forgotten? _Why_ did I choose it? Why did I need to forget to heal? This doesn't make sense. I don't _know_ anything." And it's still terrifying.  
  
"I do not intend to be vague," Erik murmurs back, reaching out with a hand, letting it hover over Charles's knee without touching him. "I know you haven't forgotten it permanently because I know you. You are the whole Universe, did you know that? And the Universe doesn't lie to me. I think it is not so much _forgetting in order to heal_ as it is simply a byproduct of your mind's restructuring. I wish I could be more forthcoming, but the process is somewhat elusive to me. I _trust_ in you. I trust that you will be OK. And what you do not know, I will share with you."  
  
Charles feels awful for still being frustrated, still being scared, when it's clear this man he is meant to know is _trying._ He clearly doesn't like the situation either, or there would be something else here to consider. Still, he burrows back into his knees, pulled back into himself. "But why would I need to _forget_ to restructure? I don't - am I just _like this_ , then?" Perhaps it isn't permanent, but it is everything this Charles knows. Fear, uncertainty, emptiness and Void where there should be knowledge and history. "You don't understand. I don't know _anything._ " At all. Does he not realize what it is to wake up in a strange place, to a stranger-who-is-not, how overwhelming and horrible? There doesn't seem to be anything healing here at all. He is just frightened and more confused than when they started. Dizzy, disoriented.  
  
"I know," Erik whispers; he hasn't raised his voice much above one since they began talking, somewhat suppressing the deep, rumbly quality he usually exudes. An attempt to seem less frightening, maybe, an awareness that most of his physical form is _designed_ to be frightening, on some level. D5s are the _apex_ of the apex predators, everything from his height to his teeth is perfectly developed to _hunt_. It's not something he relishes, certainly not at this moment. "I'll help you, _neshama_. I'll do the best I can do. You aren't alone."

* * *

The thing is, though, _Charles_ has never been frightened of Erik. He isn't supposed to be (there's a very _different_ way he's meant to react). Frightened of _not_ being frightened, occasionally, which is a funny but important distinction, but alas. He isn't now, either, even when he knows absolutely nothing, even when he's been hollowed right out in some senses; and he isn't. He's frightened, but not of Erik, and even without their Bond to clue Erik in it shows. He doesn't lean away this time, even as he stays hidden in his own knees, even as he bites hard on his cheek. "We're in America?" he checks, though it seems a silly thing to check when there's so much else he doesn't know. It's a start. "I live here, then? _We_ -" He makes a gesture, but doesn't finish. It seems natural to assume they would live together, though he's currently questioning his own decorating skills. Some of the art in this room is dreadful. It seems like a waste of the space, really.  
  
It makes Erik smile, which does a good deal of wonder for his _fright level_ , anyway, his nose and eyes wrinkling up with it kindly. "We are in America," he confirms. "But not always. Sometimes we go to Israel, to see our other family. We do not live here. Not yet," he amends, quiet. "But we will, someday. Right now we live with your sister and her husband, Hank. Her name is Raven, and she is blue. And so is he. This estate is your parents', but I believe you are entitled to it by inheritance." Erik isn't _lying_ , here, but his tone does shift, as if he's not _quite_ certain of the particulars on that.  
  
It's abundantly clear that Charles is processing all this, a soft, quiet hum even with his head in his knees, his arms wrapped tightly around himself. "Israel," he parrots back, because that was certainly his next question; it's clear from Erik's accent that he did not grow up in America, nor speaking English, though considering _his,_ there's a possibility that he isn't American either. Some of this doesn't quite add up, but lives are often complex and strange, and being dropped in the middle of one as it feels he has been is not the norm. "Then we met...?" His brain cycles possibilities. College. Through work. A coffee shop, possibly, during an international trip. "You shouldn't crouch like that, it doesn't look comfortable," he adds, mumbling, but he doesn't look ready to move. This dusty, dim, empty room is fine.  
  
Charles is right on more than one count. Without his telepathy, without his awareness, all of the pain that Erik's body has ever held has returned a thousand-fold, and it makes the wrinkles on his face deepen into harsh grooves, the creases around his eyes more intensive and his lips pulled into a perpetual frown; but Charles doesn't know any better. That's just Erik's _face._ You know, Resting Bitch Face. But Charles must know, instinctively, can tell by the way Erik's balanced more on his left hand and his legs are awkwardly spindled like a coiled up spider. But at the suggestion, he slowly maneuvers himself into a seated position instead, his legs half-crossed in front of him. "We met in prison," Erik smirks, because- _come on,_ he has to find the humor in it _somehow_. His features sober up again though, when he thinks of all the ways he's going to have to explain that one. Maybe a _vague_ answer would have been better. "We met-I was being detained," he explains softly. "I committed a crime, and you were asked to determine my competency to stand trial. You are a forensic psychiatrist."  
  
It’s not as dramatic as all _that,_ it never could be. Charles might not be aware of the need for it, but he would also never leave Erik to pain, there’s no _question_ of it, and neither would the Void, the same way it hasn’t left anyone else Charles has helped; it’s true that Charles, when he was here, when he was himself, accommodated in thousands of different minute, complicated ways for his Dominant, shifting always to provide comfort and ease, altering perception and sensation, pain recognition and input, but it isn’t to say that he’s left Erik entirely on his own. He wouldn’t, and while _this_ Charles seems to be completely unaware, while he seems to do nothing at all but blink, all of that pain melts right out of Erik, seeps out of his bones, everything eased in those thousand different ways, smoother. The Void _did_ make it clear it would be around, and who does Erik think played chess with him? What’s less reassuring is the look on Charles’ face as he peeks up out of his knees again, clear shock. “Right. That isn’t _exactly_ the turn I expected this to take,” he mutters. His eyebrows have furrowed. "I was your _psychiatrist_?"  
  
 _Erik_ himself seems to melt with it, right into the floor, his bottom finally touching the ground as he slides a foot out from under himself and he sags with utter relief, several lines on his face disappearing all at once; eyes closing to savor the sensation. It takes several long, slow inhales before Erik finally answers, only because he's paused to appreciate his new, floating reality. "You were," he nods. "You are no longer my therapist, but-" how to explain. "There are two trials, currently. One where I am the defendant, and another where I am a victim." The term is odd, there aren't many courts of law that would define any participants as a _victim_ , but Charles knows without knowing that Erik is one hundred percent accurate in his terminology; so something' s definitely afoot _there_ as well.  
  
Charles blinks in surprise, watching as _something_ seems to happen, but it’s offset by the further shock as Erik continues. “There are _currently_ -” Unless something is utterly amiss and his conception of the world and the American legal system is completely shot for some reason, due process and what-have-you, it doesn’t take _years_ for trials to come about, which is certainly what he’d assumed. Trial, past tense. “Now, currently? What are you on _trial_ for?” He doesn’t mention that it clearly hasn’t been enough time for any of this, that his head is reeling with it. “And are you -” He bites his lip. “Are you alright? We could move, if you’d like, this flooring isn’t especially comfortable.” Plus, his nose has been twitching for the last ten minutes from the dust, and reminding himself of that makes him sneeze. Once, then twice, then three times, sniffling in the aftermath.  
  
Erik hefts himself to his feet first, and then helps Charles up gently, brushing his hand over his shoulder for a moment as if to absorb some minimal contact before letting it (tortuously, painfully, reluctantly) drop. He leads them back out, to somewhere less dusty. "It is complicated," he whispers, pained. "I would not wish for you to-to be afraid of me, or to assume that it is relevant to your convalescence here." He swipes at his eyes, knowing that it will inevitably come to that, but he promised to be _honest_. It's only after they're seated again that he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I was originally charged with terrorism and multiple counts of murder in the first degree. These charges have been reduced to aggravated self-defense."  
  
“ _Terrorism_ and -” The impact of this is slightly lessened by the fact that Charles begins to sneeze again, nose twitching with it. He’s always been particularly sensitive to dust. Still, it was Charles, unaware of anything else, that stepped into that holding cell and chose to listen to Erik rather than assume guilt, or insanity, or anything quite like the _evil_ being projected onto him. It was Charles who decided to help. It’s Charles now, though a Charles with far less _context,_ with far less understanding, who doesn’t lean back. Who doesn’t get up and leave the room again. And so perhaps it’s just who Charles _is._ “Simplify it for me, please. You said you were a _victim_ as well.” It’s that tone he used, that very first meeting. The one he still uses now. Calm, a seeking to understand; a great deal more empathy than Erik was ever afforded beforehand in that place.  
  
Erik fashions a handkerchief out of some stray fabric and gently reaches up to dab at Charles's nose, leaving it behind when the other man grasps it. Erik wants to touch him again, to feel the warmth of his skin, but he doesn't. They're meeting. They're meeting again, for the first time. Erik remembers the first time like it _is_ the first time. He will remember this, too. And he never, in any part of his being, had any doubt of Charles's innate empathetic nature. It is who he is, it has always been, and shall always be. There is nothing that could extinguish it from him. Erik glances up at the ceiling. How could he possibly simplify it? "Myself, along with twelve other children, was imprisoned in a government-funded medical facility run by a man named Sebastian Shaw and his team. They tortured us and performed experiments upon us." The way his eyes went hollow, and his whole bearing emptied of all emotion, all sensation, all _being_ -spoke to the fact that he was _sparing_ the majority of details, here. "I saw an opportunity to escape and I took it. Ten scientists were killed in the building's destruction."  
  
"Hence _aggravated self-defense,_ " Charles concludes, but his lips are drawn into a frown, his expression stricken, not with _pity_ as so many look at Erik but with kindness, with empathy, with sorrow. "I am very sorry you suffered. I cannot imagine your pain." And it's true, in this moment. When Erik thought, he will not understand, that first time, he would be correct now. This Charles can recall nothing similar; he can recall nothing at all. "And the chil-" This is where he sneezes again, huffing in frustration but immensely grateful for the handkerchief, dabbing at his nose with it. "Excuse me. And the children?"  
  
But Erik doesn't think that, now. Even when he perhaps should, and should moderate his expression more carefully, he's drawn in to Charles just as he was so long ago, so long it seems and yet not. He merely flicks his eyes to Charles's, leaving space for him to get his sneezes out, his good hand unconsciously rubbing over the cuff on his left wrist. "They are safe," Erik says, barely-audible, but with a small smile. "They live in Israel."  
  
"Thanks to you," Charles says, because perhaps he doesn't understand the _nuance_ here, but he knows that. He understands that, even from this overly simplified version. Unfortunately he's gotten a bit distracted, his eyes on Erik's cuffs again. For a long moment or two he stares, swallowing hard. "Are those...?" The rest of the question dies in his throat, but he's sure Erik will get the gist.  
  
Caught out, Erik sheepishly ducks his head and drops his hand to his side, resting it on his curled up thigh. "They are," he repeats in that same soft, barely-audible tone, filled with utter kindness. Erik can be kind and empathetic too, but it's in a different way. It's not Universal, not like Charles. It's distinctly for his _mate_ , for his _family_ , for the people under his protection. "You made them for me. I'm sorry-if it makes you uncomfortable." He hesitates again, and then whispers, "please do not ask me to remove them. I will try to find something to-to cover them with instead." It's a silly request. But Charles made him _promise_. The Void still wears his collar. He can't.


	89. you've never left you've been here the whole time I

Immediately Charles is shaking his head. "You don't have to," he whispers. "It would be cruel of me to ask that. The person who made those would want you to continue wearing them, I'm sure." He knows it might be painful to hear that. To hear the distance he puts between himself and the one Erik is Bonded to, and he knows they're the same, that it must have been him - Erik isn't lying - but right now they aren't. Charles doesn't remember making those cuffs at all. "I made them, you said? They look..." Elaborate, but simple, too. Still, it would take some degree of skill and thought. The lack of engraving strikes him as odd, though he doesn't say; his furrowed brow might give him away. Charles has always been expressive. "And this, did you -" He touches his hand to his throat, to the collar sitting there, his gaze lowered. "It doesn't appear to have a clasp," he points out, raspy, barely approaching a whisper, as casual as he can manage.  
  
"You were able to store memories inside," Erik whispers, and his fond, unconscious smile as he speaks of his Bonded says everything a person could hope to express in a single moment. "You took materials from places that mattered. Gifts-" he stutters for a second, long enough for Charles to know there is more to this story, but valiantly forced down "-my home." He swallows down the rest of it when Charles continues, and he nods once, twice, throat bobbing as he forces nothing painfully down. "It doesn't," he agrees. So soft. Please, please no. Please, no. How could he-how-  
  
Charles doesn't need to read minds to see how even the thought of this is affecting Erik, and he hasn't even asked anything of him yet. His own throat bobs with the weight of it, for some reason, his fingers frozen on the metal of this collar. "I imagine that means I haven't taken it off much," he breathes, aware that his voice has cracked further. His mouth feels very dry all of a sudden and he can't quite swallow around it.  
  
"No," Erik agrees. "Not since it was placed. It was originally-" he can barely get it out, but he does. "Originally a source of comfort." The fact that it's the opposite now-it's not Charles's fault, but Erik can't help but be affected. Of course he's affected. But, being Erik, and without Charles utilizing his telepathy appropriately, Erik's facial expressions remain largely neutral, shifting only the slightest amount; not enough for anyone to truly grasp any inherent meaning. His tone is soft and gentle, but monotonous, smooth, as if reading a book. Charles wouldn't know it but his telepathy was largely the thing that clued him in to Erik's emotive state at all. Without it, he's as bland as a statue.  
  
Not quite as bland, because somehow, Charles can tell. Even without proper use of his telepathy he has more empathy than most people know what to do with; he could feel other people well before his abilities truly manifested. “I -” He lowers his gaze again, swallows around another heavy lump, wrings his hands together as he bites hard at his chapped lips. “You’d prefer I didn’t take it off,” he says, and it’s not a question. He knows. It would be impossible not to know.  
  
"I promised it," Erik admits, eyes peeking up from his frayed jeans to catch Charles's with the light, ethereal in vivid emerald. But it's more than just a simple promise that fuels his desire, of course. He mutes it down, not wishing to frighten the other man and uncertain he could even handle such an event, but-Charles is his Bonded. It's difficult on more than one level to fathom him taking off his collar. "Try to let them heal," he adds, unable to help the thread of Order, referring to Charles's lips. Some things never change.  
  
Charles is more than a bit shocked when he actually does what he’s told, not because he has any reason not to, just because it feels like such a habit; he doesn’t know much, but he knows he hadn’t noticed. He picks at his hands instead, eyes resolutely on the floor as he takes a slow breath. “A promise to who?” he asks, but the truth is he already knows. “I know this must be - I can’t imagine this is easy for you.” More than anything, Charles wishes he could offer what Erik likely wants from him. He’s carefully avoiding Erik’s gaze. “I’m sorry. To be fair, I don’t much enjoy this situation either.” Frankly, he’s still terrified and feeling incredibly helpless.  
  
Erik can't help it, and he reaches out gently, putting his hand over Charles's cheek. "I know." But the truth, and one Charles can feel, is that Erik doesn't want anything from him except for him to heal, and to feel more at ease. This version of Charles doesn't know him, and Erik won't force anything. He's not thinking about the future right now because he can't, his mind is severely limited, severely tunneled in. One foot in front of the other, one moment to the next moment. "It was a promise to you."  
  
Charles feels particularly awful about the startled, spooked noise he makes when Erik touches him, the way he turns his head into it for a second and then jerks away suddenly, cheeks flushed and on edge. He doesn't feel great about the way his heart leaps into his throat or his pulse races, either. "So what do you suggest we do?" he asks, to hide that reaction, looking nowhere at Erik now, his hands clenched in his lap. "Surely you're not suggesting we sit here and wait it out."  
  
Erik isn't deterred, though. He's gentle, but this time he just briefly, lightly, settles his hand over Charles's own, a pulse of warmth against cool skin. "What you need to understand is that you are an exceptionally powerful telepath. I know that you do not believe me, but it is the truth. If you leave this place before you regain proper command of your abilities, an untold number of innocent people may be permanently injured or even killed. There is nothing truly keeping you here, and I would not deign to keep you prisoner, but that is the reason why you have been isolated. I don't want you to have that on your conscience. I know what it is like, and I would not wish it upon anyone."  
  
It's wildly inappropriate, perhaps, but Charles laughs. He laughs, incredulous, a bit hysterical, thoroughly shaken, leans back and away and pulls his hand with him. "I've told you, you're wrong. Whatever happened to me, it's changed things. And how very convenient that you would not hold me prisoner, but would expect me to hold myself. So if I left? If I got up and walked out? You would have no qualms with it? You would not try to stop me?"  
  
"I would ask that you do not," Erik murmurs. "The only thing that has changed is you are no longer aware of your own abilities. But I assure you that they exist. When you awoke you nearly obliterated me. That is a fact. If I were any other being, it's probable I would not be conscious, or even alive right now."  
  
"You wouldn't be -" There doesn't need to be a telepathic link between them to tell that Charles is reeling with fear, with shock, physically recoiling. "How would I have killed you? I haven't done anything, you said I could read minds -" He's beginning to panic again, which means Erik is feeling it, too. Strongly.  
  
"Charles, I need you to stop. Right now." The Order is calm and clear and Erik puts his hand on Charles's shoulder. "I need you to take a deep breath and reign yourself in. Look at me. Look in my eyes. I am not messing around with you. This is very serious, but it is not insurmountable. I am extremely familiar with how to handle your abilities and I will make sure that everyone is kept safe. But you need to trust me. I know it is a lot to ask. I know."  
  
It doesn't answer the question, and it doesn't calm the panic, and even though Charles stops for a moment, breathes, looks at Erik, it's not long at all before he's shrugging off Erik's hand, standing to his feet and wobbling unsteadily. Everything seems to wobble for Erik, too, distort, his ears blown out with discordant noise. "You just told me I could kill people with my mind without even meaning to, and you want me to calm down? You don't know, I don't know you! Do you have any idea what this all sounds like?"  
  
Before he can stand, he's once again seated under the weight of Erik's firm hand. "I know you. I know you better than anyone alive. And if you do not want me to drop dead before you, you need to calm down. Immediately. Look at me. Breathe. You are all right. You are safe, and so is everyone else, because I am here to ensure that it is so. You are not here for my pleasure or my amusement, I am not going to hurt you. We need to get through this, and we will. Do you understand me." There's no more wheedling or arguing or debating or talking around in circles, Erik's Will has risen up in its entirety for the first time, utterly drowning the sensation and filling up Charles's lungs, Orders like air.  
  
Enough for Charles to choke on it, to strangle himself with it, because he certainly doesn't want to submit to it in this moment. He breathes, because he has to. He looks, because he has to. He sits, because he has to. But he's vibrating with it, his teeth tightly clenched along with his hands, and he hasn't stopped in one way; it's pressing down on Erik, even now, all of that power the Void warned he would gain, less forceful but dangerous. The Void is protecting him, and that is the only reason he is not crushed. Charles couldn't know that, though. "No," he seethes, as if it's incredibly difficult to get out. It is.  
  
"Look at what you are doing. Look. Feel what you are doing. Focus upon your mind, focus upon your senses. Do you really think that there is no power, here? That you are not emanating vast quantities of power? No. You know I am right, and you do understand. So you will sit here, and you will calm yourself down, and you will breathe. I am here to keep you safe and to keep everyone in the vicinity of your reach, which happens to be everyone, safe. That is my job, that is what I was tasked to do when I was born, and that is what I will continue to do until I cease. So while you are not my prisoner, you will very much remain here until your abilities return under your proper control." Erik gives him only a cool eyebrow raised back, but his jaw is gritted, teeth grinding into one another, the only sign he has begun to waver, his body sagging under the weight of Charles's power.  
  
Slowly, wavering, Charles does calm, at least in that way. He's still upset, he's still frightened; but Erik no longer feels as if he's being suffocated, as if his mind is collapsing in on itself, for now, and that's something. "I'm not doing anything, and I don't understand, so don't you dare tell me what I know and think," he snaps, sensitive, frustrated, eyes narrowed as he sits but shakes with more than just emotion. It's power, too. He knows it must be. "Don't tell me I'm not your prisoner and then treat me like one. You've made it very clear how much freedom you're willing to give me and what my position in this is, thank you."  
  
"I did not say that you were free," Erik murmurs softly, almost dangerously. He doesn't say anything more, though, his own body vibrating and shaking with something that Charles can't tell. Even when that power recedes Erik's jaw is clenched, teeth grinding against one another, his fingernails dug into his jeans hard enough to scratch them off.

* * *

Charles stares, and he can't help it. He's upset, of course he is, any reasonable person would be and he refuses to let that go, but he can't help this, either. He bites on his lip so hard it bleeds, arms crossed around his own waist. "Are you alright?" he asks.  
  
"Let it heal," Erik croaks again, voice coming out a bit hoarse, and he swallows that down and smiles instead, gentle. "I am all right. Thank you." It's genuinely grateful. "I apologize for your state of dress, as well. You have other clothes, if you wish. You can pick some out." He's talking until his voice sounds normal again.  
  
Charles bites his tongue, hard, to swallow down his comment about that, but he's visibly bristling with it. But even still, he's concerned. "You're not alright," he accuses, digging his fingers into his arm. "Did I..." He swallows, hard, his gaze on the floor. Is this really what he's woken up to? Is this who he is?  
  
Erik's gaze pins the ceiling at that, hard and long, and he breathes deeply in and out. "You did nothing, _neshama_. I could not imagine anyone handling these circumstances better than you. It must be terrifying. I am sorry. _Ani mitzta'er, ani lo mitkaven kol shel ze_ ," he rumbles almost under his breath in a different language.  
  
Charles doesn't understand it, of course, but he doesn't need to at exactly this moment. He closes his eyes, still gripping tight at his own arm. The pain is grounding, if nothing else. "I know it's - I know you..." He shakes his head, takes another breath. "I'm sorry. Did it hurt? Did I hurt you?" He still doesn't believe that this could be real. That he could have the power Erik says when he certainly doesn't feel it, but Erik is visibly affected, hurt, and he can't ignore that. He'll never accept that.  
  
"You simply lost control, that is all," Erik rasps back, utterly forgiving, because he could never blame Charles for anything. He clutches his thigh beneath scrambling fingertips, struggling to get himself back under control. He can handle Charles's telepathy, and doesn't appear frightened of him at all, but there are other things at play, here. Erik breathes out slowly.  
  
Lost control of what? Charles is clearly panicked, but he keeps sucking in breaths, terrified to lose it again, which will likely have a great deal to do with it when he does. Whether Erik fears Charles or not, he implied he was in danger, and perhaps he is. "What is it?" he rasps, always perceptive even while drenched in his own upset.  
  
"It's all right," Erik reaches out and squeezes Charles's knee, always more attuned to the state of his submissive than to his own. He doesn't need to be taken care of. He need to handle his own shit so that he can look after his Bonded, that is what's important. "I just needed a few moments, that is all." He smiles again. "Just breathe. It's all right." His eyes flick down from the ceiling to watch Charles's face, imploring.  
  
Charles moves away again, mostly because he can't fathom the frustrating urge to move closer, shifting uncomfortably in the aftermath. "No, it isn't," he argues, scowling. "I've lost my memories, not my intelligence. Please tell me what's happened."  
  
"I'm sorry," Erik croaks. "I know you do not wish to be here." But Erik has to keep him here. Erik has to force him. Erik swallows, smiling up at the ceiling. "I know, and I am sorry. I hope that one day you may be able to forgive me."

* * *

It makes Charles pause. He takes a sharp, heavy breath, squeezing harder at his arm, nails digging in, his eyes finding the floor again. "No, I'm sorry," he sighs. "I lashed out at you and you've done little to deserve it. Neither of us are in an ideal situation. I shouldn't have accused you, it's just -" He shakes his head. Surely Erik can understand. "I know you say you won't hurt me, that you know me, but I'm sorry, I don't know you. I wish I did, that I could be - but I am not," he whispers. "I am not."  
  
Erik taps his hand over Charles's, shaking his head. "Don't hurt yourself," he whispers quietly. His lips twist into a grimacing frown, eyes dazed and miles away. "I know you don't know me. There is so much between us that you do not know, and I don't wish to force it upon you. I will not do that."  
  
Charles huffs, hands dropping to his sides and then digging into his legs instead, eyes still firmly on the ground. "I can't imagine how difficult this is for you," he whispers. "I know you're not - I know this isn't some fantasy for you, that you aren't playing captor," he mutters, because it does need to be said. "But I won't pretend to like this." He's frightened, to put it lightly. He's terrified. And he doesn't believe that Erik will hurt him, but he also doesn't like the position he's been put in. Even still, he peeks up for just a fraction of a second. "You aren't hurt? I don't even - I didn't mean to..."  
  
Erik settles his hand over Charles's briefly, giving it another light squeeze, a reminder not to hurt. "It isn't," he whispered. It isn't some fantasy. It is, in fact, a great source of pain. But Erik doesn't mention it, nor display it. Having his Bonded forget everything about him, about their relationship-he told himself he could handle it, that he could do this and the Void expects him to be strong enough to do this, and he has to do this, he has to see Charles through this and he is going to, but there is no denying that he is affected by it. Strongly. He rubs his temple and shakes it off. "Not hurt," he murmurs, smiling a little. "Just a little headache, but it is fading, now. I know you didn't mean to," he assures gently.  
  
Knowing he didn’t mean to doesn’t change the fact that he did, and Charles had barely noticed. He’s grateful when Erik moves his hand away again, that there is none of the electricity there, the strange urge to seek it out, and because it means he can go back to digging his nails into his palms. “You said - you could…” He swallows, closing his eyes tightly. “I could really kill you?” He pauses a beat, clenches his fists tighter, his jaw, too. “How powerful am I?”  
  
"You are the most powerful telepath alive, which quite frankly makes you the most powerful being alive," Erik replies bluntly. He doesn't say anything of his own abilities, or why it's only him here and not anyone else such as a doctor or academic specialist. He watches Charles dig his nails into his palms and grimaces unconsciously. "With that said, it would be very easy for you to incapacitate or kill another person, yes."  
  
“But…” Charles is clearly reeling with it, as he’s reeling with everything, and Erik feels dizzy in the aftermath, too, lightheaded and uncomfortable, something unconscious but it’s all affecting him in ways it never has before. In ways Charles has never affected him before, and it’s different. Something has absolutely changed, here. “Why - you said I needed to be away from people, that I shouldn’t leave, but you’re going to risk staying? You said I could kill you, too. So why? Why wouldn’t you just -” He gestures vaguely, swallowing around the implication.  
  
"I do not want to overwhelm you any further than you already have been," Erik says back, pained, and not only from the migraine pounding down his neck and shoulders. He bears it dutifully, not giving away an iota of discomfort. He is accustomed to discomfort. He was built for this. He knows how to handle this. "I stay with you because there is no alternative, for me." It's not said grudgingly, though. Erik is smiling, his nose wrinkled up and his eyes creasing.  
  
“I don’t think there’s a way to prevent that, so you might as well remove the band-aid,” Charles points out, and it’s dry but doesn’t hold much heat to it, not now, not even as he pulls his legs back up to his chest on his chair and buries his head in them. “Your headache isn’t little,” he mumbles, barely coherent, and he’s not sure how he knows it. He just does.  
  
"I know," Erik tells him. "And so do you. But it will subside. Do not beat yourself up over it. This is why I am here, to help ensure that this doesn't happen to everyone around. I am not as powerful as you, but I do have my own strength. I can endure, you needn't worry over me."  
  
That inspires him to look up from his knees, a withering scowl as his stomach twists horribly with the implication. "I'm going to anyway," he informs Erik, before ducking back down. "You shouldn't stay here. What if it's worse than a headache next time?" He doesn't understand why Erik is implying it could be, but not for him. "I won't do it. Stay here and - and what? Hurt you? Make you endure? It's not happening."  
  
"You are not making me do anything. I love you," Erik murmurs, simple and quiet. "My place is by your side. You will not implore me to leave. If my welfare is your priority, then you will cease this line of inquiry."  
  
Charles makes another soft, protesting noise, bristling just a little where he's still lost in his own knees. "I will _cease this line of inquiry_?" he asks, but it's amused, mostly, and he snorts. "If this is really what you say and I'm some huge danger to humanity at the moment," and he tries to frame it so it's less terrifying, but the truth is it can't be, it's absolutely terrifying, "Then shouldn't I be the one making the calls here? You won't let me risk hurting anyone else, but you'll let me risk hurting you, the person you claim is -" He shakes his head. "I didn't say I was making you do anything, but don't I have any choice in how my own brain self-destructs, because that seems to be what's happening here."  
  
"No," Erik replies back with an easy shrug. "Not to the effect that you will ever choose to be rid of me. For anything else, I will endeavor to acquiesce to your wishes. If there is any way that I can alleviate your suffering, I will do it. Please believe that, if nothing else."

* * *

It makes Charles' head bow further, a raspy little laugh escaping. "I believe you'll do that," he murmurs, because he does. Truly. "Are we...?" Whatever it is he means to ask, it dies in his throat. He shakes his head.  
  
"Ask," Erik murmurs, the Order escaping him before he can stop himself.  
  
Charles clearly doesn’t expect himself to answer, because his eyes go comically wide, his hands clenched into the material of the sweats he’s wearing, teeth clenched, too. “How does the dynamic work,” is what comes out despite his best efforts, because he’s wondered, of course he has, but he hadn’t wanted to actually ask. “It just seems like -” Even without memories, even without his normal context, Charles is inherently observant. "Don't answer that. It was an idle thought, that's all."  
  
Erik's eyebrows arch, clearly skeptical of that. "It seems like you already have some idea," he replies, gentle. "But I do not recommend sitting there and stewing in something you have only perceived. I will tell you about it, if you would like to know. Just be aware that my expectations of you now are vastly different than they were prior to your loss of context. I won't force you to do anything you do not wish to do, not unless it directly impacts your well-being."  
  
That makes Charles snort, though he clearly tries to stifle it in his knees. When he mumbles something, it’s entirely incoherent, and without the link between them, the active Bond, it’s not at all distinguishable, less than it is usually. “I suppose it would be good to know,” he whispers, finally. "For context. I do need to regain that, don't I?" This is giving much less credit to his own curiosity, but Charles is never quite as mysterious as he thinks he is. It's never been his strong suit.  
  
And aside from that, Erik knows him well. Better than he thinks Erik does, sometimes, on top of being one of the most naturally observant people he could ever hope to be in a room with. "There are many aspects to our Dynamic," he starts off slowly. "But very simply, you are my submissive. I am your Dominant. What that means is different for each person, and for us it is quite a bit different than usual."  
  
Charles makes a valiant effort to hide his eye roll, but he’s not quite sure he manages. “I’ve gathered that. The collar was my first clue, actually,” he points out, dry, but it’s not biting. “You’re being very _vague_ again.”  
  
Erik laughs a little, his nose wrinkling up again. "I do try my best," he murmurs, fond. He sits back, squaring his shoulders. "I am a D5. You are an S1. What we both require out of our Dynamic necessitates a much more consistent expression from it. Things do not really stop, or end, for us."  
  
When he does, it’s almost impossible for Charles not to notice how imposing he is. Not in the sense that he’s frightened or even intimidated, but there’s something there, certainly, something in the way he holds himself like this, in the broadness of his shoulders - he swallows and shakes it off, fingers clenched just that much tighter into the fabric of his pants. “What do you mean?” he prods, and curses himself for how his voice cracks just a tad.  
  
And Erik notices. Of course he does, and it's impossible for Charles not to know that Erik notices, by the way his lips quirk up slightly, unconsciously, as if pleased to have garnered the reaction. But he doesn't comment upon it. Not yet, anyway. "For most people, their Dynamic starts and stops in the bedroom, or within planned scenes, or traditional ceremonies. Ours does not. It is consistent."  
  
Charles flushes, but it’s offset by his blinking a moment later; he bites his lip again, forehead scrunched and brows furrowed the way they usually are when he’s considering something thoroughly, head tilted, too. “I know that much,” he says, because it seems like while he’s lost everything about his own life, most of his cultural context is still in place. That still leaves large gaps here, considering how much of this was formed by personal experience. “Although I’d argue with you. Many people display characteristics of their Indication outside of the bedroom, especially in their personal relationships. It’s important and consistent in every relationship, some more than others, from what I know, but - you’re still being vague, is what I mean,” he provides, helpfully.  
  
"If you would like a specific answer, you will need to ask a specific question," Erik reminds him quietly, still heavily amused. A piece of Charles's hair falls into his face and Erik reaches out to tuck it behind his ear, brushing next to his temple with his thumb before sitting back once more, his eyes creased up affectionately.  
  
But Charles pulls back, though there isn’t much further to go, leaned into the back of his chair. “Please don’t,” he breathes, and seems to tremble with it.  
  
Erik suppresses a flinch at that, having not even realized what he'd done until it was too late and he pins his hands to his lap, one clenching the other harshly. "My apologies," he whispers hoarsely.  
  
Charles ends up flinching in the aftermath, sunk back into knees, his face mostly hidden where it’s ducked in now. After a few long moments he emerges, and, with shaking fingers, touches Erik’s hand, barely grazing. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and he is. He truly is, but there are things he isn’t completely comfortable with, that he’s trying to come to terms with. The fact that Erik’s touch is electric, sends shivers up his spine and feels achingly familiar while his mind considers him a stranger is one of them. “I don’t have specific questions,” he says next, bringing the topic back. “But I’d like to understand. Anything you can tell me would be helpful.”  
  
Erik's hand moves underneath Charles's to grasp his palm, squeezing in reassurance. "What you think that most people do, we do not do." He rubs his thumb across the back of Charles's palm. "What we both need is different to what most people require. I expect many different things from you, and enforce those expectations. From how you dress, to what you eat, to exercise, hygiene, and many other things."  
  
It clearly isn't what Charles expected, and Erik's touch isn't doing much to help. Charles' cheeks immediately flush and he shivers, trying to hide it, to shake it right off, taking his hands and sitting back. "Oh," he breathes, and it sounds too breathy even to his own ears. He clears his throat and digs his fingers into his palms again. "Other people still have Dynamics that are - like that," he points out, mostly just to say something, his mouth incredibly dry. It's obvious he's curious now.  
  
"No," Erik murmurs, his voice lower. "They do not. Not like ours. We need one another. We depend on one another in a way that others do not. We are strengthened by one another in ways that others are not. We are a Pairbond." It's why even now, even without his memories, Charles is *drawn* to Erik. His body is drawn to Erik, his attention is drawn to Erik.  
  
That's clearly frightening for him, too, that impossible, undeniable draw, and he ends up digging his hands back into into his legs and avoiding Erik's gaze, trying not to admit that the way Erik's voice lowered has electric sparks shooting down Charles' spine, reverberating through his entire body. "A Pairbond?" he asks, and his voice sounds too quiet again, too breathless. "And you...?" Again, he swallows it.  
  
"And me?" Erik's head tilts, one eyebrow arching coolly. Unlike Charles, he is perfectly composed, not at all flustered. Not even a single hair out of place.  
  
Fortunately, Charles isn't looking, ducked back into his knees. He gives a shrug, shaking his head right after. "I asked another question," he points out, as haughty as he can manage while he's red up to his ears. Fortunately, his hair covers that.  
  
"Did you? "Erik hums thoughtfully. "Then look at me and ask it," the Order comes in a soft rumble from the center of Erik's chest, spreading out through the room in an infusion of Will that bounces off of the very walls themselves.  
  
Charles gasps at that, audible and unnerved, and he looks up, forcing himself not to fidget under Erik's gaze. It doesn't work, exactly, if his restless shifting is any indication, the clenched teeth and nails digging into his legs. "What is it," tumbles out, and he bites on his tongue, but it makes him want to shiver again. "A Pairbond. What does it mean?"  
  
Erik smiles. "It is what happens when a compatible D5 and S1 come together. It makes us stronger and better than if we were apart. It makes our instincts attuned to one another specifically. We make one another whole. I am here to guide you, and you-" Erik cuts off at that, but not because he's hiding anything, just because he needs a second to regain control. Which he does, effortlessly. "I would not be here if it weren't for you. You saved my life."  
  
"And you, and I..." There it is again. It hurts this time when Charles bites his tongue, and he shakes his head, the pain enough to snap him out of whatever flustered, dazed trance he'd floated into. He can't describe it, really, has nothing to compare it to, but in the aftermath he feels dizzy and wobbly, even sick. He tries to stand anyway. "I want to change," he says abruptly.  
  
Erik stares at him. He silently encourages Charles to sit again, to relax, to have this conversation without causing himself to bleed and injure himself. "Change?"  
  
That's quite a bit harder with the Bond inactive, and Charles is clearly trying to stand, and especially digging fingers into his palms. "Clothes. I want to change clothes," he repeats, sounding clipped, and part of it is that he's so out of sorts now. He really is dizzy, and Erik can feel some of it, too, as if it's crept outwards, not as Charles does, an awareness of it like he usually has, but as a sensation in his own body.  
  
"Of course you can," Erik rises with him, nothing on his face that Charles could use to accurately pinpoint his reaction, his tone that same gentle, mild murmur as before. "Let me show you where they are."

* * *

"No!" It's said too quickly and when Charles steps back, clearly wanting to put space between them - and Erik is tall, how is he possibly so tall - he knocks over the chair again, cursing under his breath. "I'm sure I can find it. On my own. But thank you for the offer."  
  
The chair rights itself easily, and Charles's gait steadies itself so that he doesn't quite pitch over. Erik wants to intervene, to interject in some way, but how can he? When they first got to know one another, Erik didn't immediately jump in and start Ordering him around, Charles had to acclimatize, to gain that trust, and this Charles doesn't have that. He just gives a nod. "OK," he whispers.  
  
Charles nods back, jerky, unsteady, and his mouth is so very dry but there's certainly nothing for it. "Okay," he repeats. "Goodbye, then." He doesn't have the proper context to know, but something tells Charles that the way he turns on his heel and darts from the room isn't his smoothest exit, and that the way his legs shake the whole way, the way he has to stop on the stairs to calm himself and not be sick isn't, either.  
  
Erik heads out onto the balcony outside the study after shrugging on his jacket-it's still cold, even in June, and he fishes his pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lights one up. It's not the best coping mechanism, but it keeps him steady. It keeps his head on straight. He blows a long plume of smokes out over the edge, leaning on his good elbow as he stares out across the gardens. The land, which had fallen into disuse, is now thriving; the grass is mowed, there are flowers growing, hedges trimmed. Erik has been slowly and steadily dusting the place off.  
  
It takes Charles quite a while to find his clothes, to shrug on a button-down and slacks and for a long time all he can manage to do is sit there, stare, and attempt to begin the endeavor of processing all of this. It turns out that just makes his head spin, and he gives up on it quickly. Exploring is the next best option, but he ends up overwhelmed by that, too, reeling. Running into Erik is an inevitable and slightly terrifying concept at the moment, not because he's frightened of Erik so much as the circumstances, and somehow, however these powers of Charles' work, they don't find themselves anywhere near each other. Not even if Erik wanted to.  
  
Charles considers eating, but in the end the thought makes him feel strangely ill even though he's weak and shaky; he drinks about a gallon of water to compensate for it, his throat dry and scratchy and grateful for the hydration, and then, perhaps through some unconscious manifestation, he finds himself down at the pool of all places. The pool, indoors, in this castle of a place Erik called his family home. Sitting by an Olympic-sized swimming pool in the basement. One of the basements? Charles rolls up the cuffs of his slacks, peels off his socks and dips his feet in for no other reason than it seems as good a choice as anything else, because it feels nice. Calming, somehow. Who knows when his head will explode, the way Erik was talking about it? He loses track of the avoidance somewhere in the middle, but he doesn't think it matters much, staring idly into the deep end.  
  
The ash tray that Erik's set on the balcony outside is gradually growing a collection of butts, and Erik stubs out the next one, raising up his hand and tugging out every speck of nicotine-stained particle, throwing it over the edge along with the smoke before entering the room again. He cleans up his breakfast and sways against the wall, eyes slowly closing; it's been days, and days and days since sleep and he jolts himself into wakefulness at the last second. He's been too afraid to go to bed, and it hasn't been faring well. He pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head, smiling to himself before padding the rest of the way into the kitchen to wash the dishes and make himself another cup of coffee, fold his jacket up in the closet and dust the spoons or whatever other form of cleanliness-related compulsion he felt necessary to indulge. His body has been running on fumes for a while, now, and while he's seated in the chair waiting for the water to boil he can't remember the next thing before it's whistling in the air and he's got his head in his arms.  
  
For Charles' part, he really can't be sure how long he spends staring at the water. Staring, and staring, and staring. His feet kick and he's trying to remember, to recall something, anything; but it's blank. Void. There's nothing for him to reach. Eventually the restlessness gets to him, but despite a vague, frustrating awareness of where Erik is in the house, he doesn't go anywhere near him. It's the intention, actually. The sun is setting outside and he's shaking in the legs and fingers again, but he doesn't pay it any mind as he finds a back entrance into the gardens, still barefoot, feet wet from the pool. He starts to wander. How long would he have to walk until he wandered into someone else? And if he did - he shudders, shaking it off. There's no sense of direction, of awareness. Nothing looks familiar. Charles wonders if he'll get lost out here, in the dark, because the property doesn't seem to end, but it's at least summer. He won't freeze. Maybe collapse, because despite the fact that he's groggy enough to suspect he's slept for days, he's exhausted, and the dizzy shaking doesn't help.  
  
It's probably about an hour later when that frustrating awareness, which hasn't moved from the kitchen at all, or even moved in general at all, becomes a fear not of his own making that presses in on his consciousness, like a fist jammed down his throat and wrapping around his heart to squeeze until it pops in his chest. As quickly as it comes, it vanishes like a scream dying out in the distance, a tide sweeping an entire city under its pull before receding into the endless depths of the ocean.

* * *

It terrifies Charles. Of course it does. The problem is he's been walking for an hour, and he hasn't even the faintest idea of how to get back; there's a lake that he's been following, shocked to find out must still be on the property. It's not memories of his past or life that guide him back to the Manor proper, but his instinctively good memory; and Charles' telepathy, however much Erik claimed it to be powerful, clearly isn't working. There's no mind-reading at all, and he's quite convinced whatever he thought he felt was a fluke. It's well past dark by the time he's inside again and he's shivering, shaking, damp and a bit scratched up, wild-eyed and afraid and he didn't want to come back, some part of him wanted to just make a run for it, but here he is, and he knows to go right for the kitchen.  
  
Erik looks smaller than he did when Charles left him, and he's situated cross-legged (as much as he can be) in the corner of the kitchen with a blanket over his shoulders and a cup of licorice spice tea in his hands, his shoulder pressed into the wall. When Charles enters, though, his eyes go wide and he rises to his feet, abandoning the mug and the blanket to sit Charles down and dry him off, water wicking off of him instantly and evaporating into the air, a gust of warmth ruffling his hair moments later.  
  
It happens too fast for Charles to fully process it, but once he does he's shrugging off the attention, standing again even though he's shaking and limping, visibly, shaking his head. "Are you alright?" he demands, but one look at Erik, a proper look, answers his question. "Sit down," he says, and it's clearly not a request.  
  
"What happened to you?" Erik croaks, his voice cracking a little and he clears his throat, smiling reflexively even as he sits, swallowing harsh and dry. He rubs his hand over his face and inhales deeply, marshaling himself back under control as best as he can. "You're injured."  
  
Charles shakes his head, frustrated. "I'm not injured," he sighs, as if Erik is being somehow ridiculous. His tone is drenched in panic, though, and worry, and he's avoiding Erik's eyes again but staring nonetheless. "You need to sleep. Now. Where have you been sleeping? This floor or the one above? Actually, no, this one will do. Come on." He clearly attempts to help Erik walk to a bedroom even when he can barely manage the walking thing himself.  
  
"Stop," Erik murmurs the Order, placing a hand on his shoulder. Charles bumps into him when he becomes an unmoving mass, and not much can encourage him to move when he doesn't want to be moved, especially by the much smaller frame before him, sorry buddy. "I'm not going to sleep. You're going to sit down and I am going to treat these cuts." Erik clears his throat once more, and holds out his hand for the first aid kit which snaps into his palm.  
  
Immediately he's shaking his head, jaw clenched again because he's affected, clearly, and that dizzy, uncomfortable feeling from before is back. It's difficult to be firm when he can't even look Erik in the eyes, but he manages. "No, that's ridiculous, I'm fine," he insists, despite the fact that he's holding his weight strangely. "It's just a few scratches. You need to lie down. Now. Then I'll take care of it, alright?"  
  
"It was not a request. I didn't argue with you when you left, but if you are going to get yourself into this kind of trouble, you and I are going to have a problem very quickly. Now sit still." He dabs at the worst of the cuts with a warm washcloth and a Q-tip levitates into his hands so he can draw Polysporin down it before covering it with a bandage. "What were you doing out there, anyhow?"  
  
Charles' eyes narrow at that and he huffs. He sits still because he feels like he has to, because there's apparently no other option, grunting as Erik dabs at the worst of the cuts. "This kind of trouble?" he repeats, skeptical, and he's shaking even worse now. "It's none of your business where I went or why I did," he snaps. "Now let me up so I can help you to a bed before you pass out." Even agitated, he's worried, but he'd like not to show it.  
  
Erik doesn't respond, and he also doesn't let Charles up until he's finished caring for him. The smaller ones don't receive band-aids, but the more challenging ones do. Erik makes sure to treat them gently, to avoid pain and soreness. "It very much is my business when you return injured and covered in cuts and bruises. _Consider_ that for next time."  
  
That earns an immediate eyeroll. "It isn't, and it's just a few scratches besides. I don't need to be scolded for brushing up on some branches, thank you," he mutters, jaw clenched hard with it, but now that he's up (and still holding his weight differently, favoring one side heavily), he shakes his head. "If you're done playing doctor, can you please listen to me? You look dreadful and I'm not having you passing out in a corridor somewhere."  
  
"I will not pass out in a corridor. I already slept." Something that would absolutely not happen again any time soon, if he had anything to say about it. "Now, please sit back down," Erik murmurs, and when Charles does, because there is little in the way of choice at this very moment. Erik told himself that he would give Charles some leeway when it came to Orders, but that does not extend to injury, thank you very much. He lifts up Charles's foot to dig the pads of his thumb into certain points on his ankle. "Does that hurt?"  
  
"Not enough," he argues, exasperated. He's scowling again as Erik Orders him to sit back down, all of that uncomfortable pressure inside of him back, building and building, and he doesn't know why. He presses his lips together tightly as Erik touches his ankle, teeth clenched. "No," he lies. "Could you please let me handle this myself? I'm capable."  
  
Erik doesn't respond, but the answer is self-evident in that Erik clearly doesn't believe him, and he lets Charles's body speak for him instead of his mouth, which is just running with no filter and frankly testing Erik's patience beyond its capacity; but that very well could be due to the fact that he hasn't slept in days, and his mind is still screaming at him, shrieking alarms, and he wants to smash himself over the head with something heavy so he can escape it. Instead he just works to wrap Charles's foot up as well, to keep it immobile and supported and to help alleviate some of the pain, meticulous and gentle every step of the way.  
  
Charles rubs his hands into his eyes, hard, and the truth is he's soaked in pain. It seems to be more than the injuries actually warrant, too. "I'm not injured and this is unnecessary," he mutters, though he highly doubts Erik will actually listen to him. "But now that you're done playing nurse, you need a bed. I mean it. Now."  
  
"That is not happening, I'm afraid," Erik just says, fussing with his work a little more before rising and making a cup of tea, which he puts in front of Charles, along with a couple of pieces of chocolate. "It will help."  
  
Charles immediately shakes his head. "No, it won't," he sighs, and as much as tea might sound nice in theory, and chocolate, he's especially not interested right now. "Fine. I'm going to bed, then," he says, even though he has absolutely no intention of sleeping. Getting up immediately makes him wince, and the truth is his limp is far too severe to be a twisted ankle; he's dragging it by the time he's at the arch of the door, and he can't even make himself leave. "Why can't you just humor me? I sat and let you wrap this for ten minutes even though there's nothing wrong with it, the least you could do is move in the general direction of a bedroom," he snaps, and it's clear he's more than overwhelmed, and he's worried.  
  
"You can barely move. Of course there is something wrong with it. I hope you don't think I am that unintelligent, Charles." Erik presses his lips together in a thin line, his jaw ticking. His abilities have swept out, looking for signs of damage. He can feel it, like anything else, feel what's out of place, what's broken or damaged, and his eyes close as he struggles to concentrate, but after they flutter shut he inhales sharply and they pop open again, and his grasp on his powers starts to elude him in ways it never has before, like water slipping through his fingertips.  
  
Charles doesn't quite understand what's happening, but he does know he's in pain and that, while his ankle is certainly a bit damaged (Erik will note it's the same one he broke months ago), there's no logical reason for it to be this pervasive. For him to limp like this, to have to grab onto the wall for purchase, and eventually he can't put real weight on it at all. Or maybe he can? Either way he shakes his head, eyes narrowed, and he basically hops over to Erik on one leg, thoroughly frustrated and trying to shift off the pain. "Come," he demands, and tugs on Erik's arm. Avoiding his eyes, still, noticeably.  
  
He's too tired to argue much, and he lets himself be tugged, but he puts an arm under Charles's shoulder to help him. Erik already knows where the bedroom is, but even when they get there, it's obvious he has no intention of sleeping, now or possibly ever again. Instead he helps Charles to sit on the edge of the bed and sits down beside him, drawing his hand anxiously down his thigh.  
  
It makes Charles sigh, dizzy with pain, everything an overwhelming throb. "Lie down," he whispers, like it's a gentle Order of his own. Of course it isn't, and couldn't be. "Please."  
  
Erik shakes his head, swallowing roughly. "I already slept. I am all right. I'm OK. You do not need to try and make me."  
  
"You clearly didn't, and I'm not going to stop insisting," he states, dry as can be. "So humor me and lie down. Please."  
  
"I did," Erik murmurs back, shaking his head again. He presses his fingernails into his palm, staring somewhere off into the distance. No part of this situation is all right. He should be more stable, more capable, more able to look after Charles, but he's just a train wreck in his mind as well as his body ,which won't stop running at a hundred miles an hour on pure fumes. But that doesn't matter. Charles is in pain, whatever silly, stupid difficulties he's having can wait.  
  
They can't, mostly because Charles isn't going to let him. "Not enough," he argues again, and swings his legs over the bed (he has to manually move one of them), gasping in audible pain and closing his eyes tightly as he lies down, stiffly, and reels with it. "I did it. Now you try. Unless you're just going to sit there and loom, which would make me uncomfortable, and you went on earlier about how you'd like to help with that."  
  
Erik can't help but huff a laugh, shaky and pale, and he lifts his own legs up as well, manually moving his right leg onto the bed just as he always does. Despite the lack of pain, he's still stiff, especially after falling asleep at the kitchen table. He's hoping he doesn't pass out again. He can't endure another round of that. He'll tape his own eyelids open before he does. "There. No more looming, hm?"

* * *

Charles is incredibly stiff, too, but for an entirely different reason. Reasons, really, one that should be more pressing and concerning and isn't. "Close your eyes," he demands next. "Both of them. Please," he adds, as an afterthought. "I'll close mine too, so I won't even know. You don't have to actually sleep, just close your eyes." Like some strange trust exercise.  
  
"Explain to me what happened to you," Erik returns. The only person to whom this isn't apparently pressing and concerning is Charles, and Erik isn't going to drop it just because Charles doesn't want to deal with it or deal with him.  
  
Well, Charles isn't going to drop this either. "Close your eyes first and I will," he huffs, but it's fairly easy to tell when Charles is bluffing when he's like this, and he isn't. "It's nothing, though, so you'll be disappointed. I have a few scratches."  
  
"I do not care about being disappointed," Erik murmurs, but he dutifully closes his eyes. He's cringing before long.  
  
Charles sighs, watching. Erik looks just about as stiff as a board. There's a blanket at the foot of the bed and he pulls it up as if that might help, hissing in pain when he moves. He's flat on his back again soon. "I fell," he mumbles. "It was getting dark and I wasn't wearing shoes and I lost my footing and fell into the stream. See? Nothing dramatic. Just a bit scratched up. You can stop being concerned now."  
  
Erik lets it bunch into his palm, and sits up, leaning forward to rest his forehead against his knee to breathe shakily, silently to himself. "I see," he murmurs, for all the world like he does not see. He's taking short, soft inhales through his nose, struggling not to vomit all over the bed.  
  
Immediately Charles is sitting up, too, even though there's a great deal of pain involved, perhaps more than there should be, and his hand shakes horribly as he sets it on Erik's arm. "It's okay," he whispers, voice croaked and raspy. "You're okay." And as he speaks, there's a soft, calming lull, what Erik can immediately recognize as Charles' telepathy. It's not a conscious application, but it settles in regardless, touching along frayed nerves and exhaustion and smoothing out, gently, precisely.  
  
"Can I open my eyes now?" Erik asks softly, the words small and ashamed to be seen like this and he sways toward the sensation like a tired cat, his stomach roiling. If he could just get it under control, he could just-he could take care of Charles properly instead of this. Instead of being too selfish to concentrate.  
  
Charles is very sure that this is exhaustion. Erik clearly hasn't slept properly in days, and it's showing; he doesn't know why, but he can tell that his mind is unraveling. If he lets him open his eyes and sit up, how long until he passes out somewhere? He bites the inside of his cheek, tastes copper, and he doesn't make a decision. Something just happens. Like an immovable force - and it quite impossible to resist, just as impossible as Charles not following an Order - something presses in, presses down, and he can feel Erik's mind slipping beneath the surface, into sleep. Not the thoughts or feelings, but the presence of it, quickly succumbing to the weight of - whatever this is, and surely it can't be him. Surely not.  
  
Erik's already in an awkward position, and when Charles tugs on that part of his brain he just falls right over. But Erik does resist it, and Charles can feel that, too, like fingernails clawing at the walls, and tears form in the corners of his eyes, completely unconscious as his breathing evens out and his head winds up against Charles's stomach. All that fear pressing down on Charles from moments before returns with a vengeance, like a match lit above a gas burner. Ignition, sound, darkness.  
  
And then nothing. Charles doesn't understand it, and he couldn't replicate it, but he feels Erik fall asleep, watches as he calms, as he goes limp except for his soft breathing, as his panic soothes necessarily, subdued under the current. He knows instinctively that Erik won't wake for a while, and he's heavy, but he doesn't move at first. He doesn't know why, but he reaches out to stroke a hand through Erik's curls instead, coaxing them out of his face. Charles swallows when he realizes, bites his lip. Eventually he pulls the blanket up after rearranging Erik as best he can. Truthfully he doesn't want to walk anywhere right now, isn't sure he could, and grabs the book that's sitting on the bedside table.  
  
His body relaxes pretty much instantaneously, but even while asleep Erik pets at Charles's stomach and nudges his head against his knee. The moment that Charles puts his fingers through Erik's hair he presses right up into it like a needy kitten, practically purring alongside. He makes soft, snorting noises under his breath before stretching and falling still, deep into assisted REM sleep. It's the first time since this all started that he's actually slept at all, other than the brief stint in the kitchen and that shows. The moment his body isn't under stress he becomes as docile as a baby bird.  
  
Perhaps not as docile as all that, but he certainly looks much more peaceful. Charles manages to rearrange him again with lots of grunting and effort, because being touched still makes him feel strange, uncomfortable, as if he's been mistaken for someone else, but it's mostly because of the way he reacts to it. The way he naturally responds. It's frightening and confusing all at once. Still, for whatever reason, he stays; briefly he gets up, limping and dragging one leg all the way behind him - and that pain quickly goes from bearable to fairly excruciating - to gather more books, but after that he stays. There's distance between them on the bed, but every now and then Charles finds himself looking over, and sometimes touching; a hand in Erik's hair again, or to pretend to fuss with the blankets even though no one is here to see him do it. Even finding himself doing that much is overwhelming. Hours pass like this, Charles reading and occasionally staring, not tired himself but sometimes drifting anyway, as whatever power he has holds Erik through enough sleep for him to function on. Well. A reset and recharge.

* * *

As soon as Charles returns he's found Erik curled up right at the edge of the bed, as if having followed him. Even while in a dead sleep, Erik's body has a mind of its own, so to speak. Charles really shouldn't give in to his urge to pet Eriks, because they rapidly grow accustomed to such treatment. When Charles returns, Erik settles back down contentedly into his side. Charles has found his way back to the bedroom Erik shared with Charles, and the books he's found are Erik's, unfortunately for him. They're math textbooks, dense particle and quantum physics with notes along the margins. _!!! מדהים_ and _:D עבור צ'ארלס_ and _> :C שגוי_ when something has particularly irked him.  
  
There are some others, too, since Charles ventured out to the study, though that trip was awful and in the end he didn't bring much back. Walking is exceptionally difficult at the moment, and causes too much pain to justify. In the end he puts a pillow between them, half for his own comfort and half to resist the urge to reach out and touch, but even then he does every now and then, unconsciously, settled into the books and writing notes of his own with a pen he's found. He loses track of time, then, though he knows it really is hours; Erik was clearly exhausted, and he likely hasn't slept this much in a very long time. Years, probably. Years and years. Maybe ever. Eventually Charles gets tired, and by the time Erik is anywhere close to waking, the sun is rising and he's drifted off into one of the books, slumped over uncomfortably and with a pen behind his ear.  
  
When Charles finally passes out, Erik's eyes blink open and his brows knit together, confused for several moments. He smiles when he finds that Charles is asleep and he puts him back down onto the bed, adjusting a pillow under his head and taking the book away from his fingers, covering him with the blanket and laying his hand over Charles's cheek for a moment before settling back down, checking his watch and gasping softly when he discovers it's been hours later.  
  
Not just a few, either. Not just one or two or even three. It's been at least ten, past the amount of sleep a normal, functioning adult should be getting, and Erik probably hasn't gotten that in - well, who knows, really? Charles does stir when he's touched, though, blinking big blue eyes up at Erik, confused and groggy. He slurs out something incoherent, something about book, as if he's indignant that Erik disturbed his reading. Then he hisses loudly after he stretches, crying out in pain; he'd forgotten about that.  
  
Sixteen years, at least. Almost seventeen, now. He runs his fingers through his hair, patting it down as flat as it will go, which spoiler alert is not that much. "Go to sleep," he whispers the Order fondly, tucking a strand behind Charles's ear and settling back down. Erik flexes his fingers and toes, which substitutes a stretch for him, and slowly, carefully gets himself out of bed. By the time Charles wakes up again, it's to the smell of breakfast set out on the tray beside him. There's coffee and tea, and homemade bread and fruit with clotted cream. Erik's dressed and looking out the window, stirring from his dazed dreamlike state when Charles finally moves, smiling fondly. "Good morning, sunshine."  
  
Charles, by contrast, needed far less sleep. Technically, prior to all this, he'd slept for a week. It's not long at all before he stirs, but when he does, it's with a groan, both of pain and grumpiness. His response is to burrow underneath the blankets. "Go 'way," he mumbles. It's nothing personal, really. Charles has never woken up gracefully.  
  
Erik just starts laughing, covering his mouth with the back of his hand, shoulders shaking a little bit. "Some things rarely change," he huffs, picking up his mug of coffee and wrapping his fingers around the warmth of the ceramic. Even still, Erik is pleased he got some rest, being in a coma isn't the same as dreaming after all.  
  
Not that he'd been dreaming peacefully, because he hadn't been. Charles feels a bit unsettled, actually, as if perhaps he'd been having a nightmare, but he doesn't recall it; one of the many things, then. What makes him finally emerge from underneath the covers, groggy and scowling, is the smell of food. He can't be sure, but it must have been days (and days and days, Charles hasn't had a meal in a very, very long time) since he's eaten. It feels like it, the smell equal parts incredibly enticing and nausea-inducing, but he thinks the enticing part wins out. Unfortunately sitting up is a bit of a struggle, and he ends up hissing and clenching his teeth through it, touching a part of his leg that isn't his ankle, where Erik had wrapped it the evening before. "Ow," is what gets muttered.  
  
"Stop," Erik murmurs, and helps him upright into a seated position easily. He plates a few fresh slices of warmed bread and butter alongside a sugar-dusted _bougatsa_ and some fruit and holds it out for Charles to take, while the tea infuser lifts and pours him a cup all on its own. "Eat," he murmurs after a few moments. Everything is laid out fresh, and still warm, but not piping hot and uncomfortable.  
  
It's decidedly not a pout on Charles' lips as he's rearranged, because he doesn't need that help, thank you. For a long while his attention is still on the throbbing pain, his teeth clenched, and once that passes some, or at least becomes manageable, he becomes more focused on the food in front of him, biting his lip. "Thank you," he murmurs, and eats slowly, fighting nausea and intense hunger in equal parts, pain by now, his stomach sparing no noise. His cheeks heat and he talks through it to ignore the rumbling, growling sounds. "You look better," he notes, because Erik does. Shockingly better, actually, and Charles imagines sleep was long overdue, but it's something else, too. He's willing to chalk it up to something he doesn't understand about his own - power, if that's what Erik called it, though he's still skeptical it's his.  
  
Erik wrinkles his nose up at Charles in return, an unconscious smile on his face. He has a stack of _tiganites_ on his own plate, a small dish of honey spooled over a comb that he drizzles atop them, with lemon slices on the side. Erik squeezes out a small bit of the lemon juice to mix with honey, which isn't exactly standard, but go figure. There's plenty more on the tray for Charles to try if he wants as well, but mostly it's just fried donuts; Erik's felt nostalgic so a few childhood staples crept in. "As do you," he murmurs, although Charles is still in pain, he looks better than when he first arrived, and Erik suppresses the glare that threatens because the Void told him there wouldn't be any pain and there isn't any reason for it, so yeah, he's _pissed off_ , but he won't make that obvious at all.  
  
Well, when he first arrived Charles was covered in dirt and damp, and the scratches did look worse than they really are; the one across his cheek was bleeding last night, but it's almost entirely superficial in the morning light. "You're angry," he murmurs, and it's not a question but a statement. Charles doesn't know how he knows, but he does. "Why?" he asks, head tilted as he breaks off another piece of bread, his stomach lurching. It's a nice distraction.  
  
"Eat your pancakes," Erik says instead of answering, there's no way to explain it properly in any case. He uses a fork to offer Charles some of the fried-doughy confections from the tray, busying himself by preparing it with a helping of powdered sugar and honey. "There you are." And Charles better believe Erik is already fully aware of exactly how he really is. He's no longer dirty or damp, and the cuts every which way are fully tended to, most of which only needed to be cleaned out. Erik didn't properly rouse him until now, but it very much was purposeful. Erik is good at taking care of him, he likes doing it.

* * *

Charles was also awake for a long while while Erik slept; he didn't exactly stay dirty in that time, and even after Erik dried him off the clothes he was wearing were uncomfortable. Mostly it was taken care of, because Charles is stubborn and certainly capable of taking care of himself. He scowls at the non-response, shaking his head. "No," he sighs. "Tell me why." Besides, eating more powdered sugar while his stomach is eating itself is just going to make him sick. He has a sweet tooth, and a brilliant one, but even he knows better. Mostly he just doesn't want to vomit when he's having a difficult time walking and it's a close call after he'd eaten so fast, as much as he'd tried to not do that; the trips last night were excruciating after a while. "You've been cryptic and vague this whole time. The least you can do is answer my questions and not brush me off."  
  
"It would not make sense to you," Erik says, "and it is of little consequence." He doesn't address any other part of that statement, because he's already frustrated and it's not fair to take it out on Charles. Nothing is fair, and that's just the way it's going to have to be. "I have answered your questions to the best of my ability. Asking me why I am angry does not fall within such a category. I am entitled to handle my emotions how ever I deign to. Now, please, eat your breakfast."  
  
"I'm the only one here," Charles points out, frustrated himself, and on top of the layers of helplessness and fear, it adds up horrifically. He sits up further in bed and pushes away the tray, clenching his jaw against any pain. "If you're angry, I'm assuming it's because of me, and considering the reaction last night, it seems likely. I'm sorry, would you rather I have stayed in this nice little bubble you've created for me? I am entitled to go where I deign to, and eat whenever I'd like, thank you. I'm finished now." It's not to be contrary. His stomach really is twisting over itself, trying to make sense of being fed. Charles attempts to meet Erik's eyes and raise his chin, but his head ends up lowered, and he swallows around the lump in his throat. "I'm sorry I cared," he mutters. "I see it's apparently none of my business."  
  
For some reason that just makes Erik withdraw even further. Erik completely shuts the rest of himself down, whatever thoughts and expressions Charles could pick up on beforehand find themselves evaporated in short order. "Of course I would rather you stay here, where you are safe. I said nothing about it. I am not angry at you."  
  
"Yes, you did," he argues, but there's no point to it, because Erik looks like that again, and Charles lowers his head even further. His teeth are clenched and he absolutely refuses to look visibly upset, but he's much less adept at hiding his own emotions and feelings naturally. "Fine. I'm sorry I said anything. Thank you for breakfast, it was lovely," he says, and he doesn't remember his upbringing, he doesn't remember anything, but some things have clearly lingered, because it's clipped and polite to hide the hurt.  
  
There is no point, because Erik is never going to be swayed from his opinion there, but it's also not relevant to his feelings now. Erik exhales sharply from his nose. "I am frustrated because I was assured this would not be painful for you. I care about you. I do not like seeing you injured." He shrugs a hand and stares at the floor.  
  
It quiets Charles down some, though he does bite on the inside of his cheek to hold back his immediate reaction. "I tripped on a branch, Erik," he points out, and there's some huffy amusement there. Quite a bit, actually. "And rolled into the stream. Whatever you're referring to, I hardly think this counts. It wasn't my brain imploding, it was me being particularly clumsy in the dark. I don't even think you can call me injured, and unless you'd like to make sure I only ever walk on flat surfaces for the rest of my life, I'm afraid there's just nothing you can do to keep me out of truly horrible danger," he snorts. "I'm fine. It isn't - painful, really, it barely even hurts." Alright, that one is a lie.  
  
"There is in fact a great deal I can do, and will do, to prevent you from any type of danger," Erik practically rumbles, and Charles knows when he's in the presence of a terrifying predator the way any human being recognizes lions, bears, tigers (oh my). Even if he doesn't have the wherewithal to be frightened of it. "You are also _lying_ to me, which you will cease doing." Erik catches his eyes and pins them down, gazing eerily at him. "But you are correct. You were mildly injured, and your tissues do not demonstrate any sign of significant damage, which means that this is a product of something else."  
  
Charles shivers, head to toe, and it's not with fear, but it's a shuddering sensation nonetheless, utterly overwhelming. He swallows around the dryness of his throat, and rips his eyes away from Erik's with effort, staring down at his lap. "I wouldn't go that far, perhaps," mumbles. "I know my own body better than what you can perceive, I think, and -" And there's a good deal of pain, because Erik was right about the lying. "I've broken it before. I know what it feels like." But he shouldn't, is the thing. He shouldn't recall it at all, and Charles doesn't realize what he's said. But he is right; there is an injury, just not one warranting the amount of pain, or even the kind of it. "It doesn't hurt," he insists, which is of course still a lie.  
  
"I did not ask for another lie. If you persist in telling me another, you will find yourself shortly incapable of telling me anything other than the truth." And that very much is an Order, because he's made it plenty clear to Charles that he won't tolerate willful lying. "You broke your foot a while back, but there is no damage to your tissues that accounts for the degree of pain you are suffering. There is another reason for it, and I suspect that it's related to your loss of memory."  
  
It makes Charles bristle, suppressing his reaction which is another shiver. He pulls the covers up as if shielding himself from it, hiding. "A while back? It's clearly injured now," he mumbles, because if Erik wants the truth, fine. "I felt it when I fell. I heard it. I can't walk. Clearly something is wrong and it has nothing to do with my memories. Are you a doctor as well as a lie detector?" It's sarcastic, but not cruel or biting or mocking; his lips are quirked even like this. "I'm sure I'll live. You really can't protect me from branches, unless you plan to lock me in this room." Which would be easier now, with the limping.  
  
"I am a mutant," Erik reminds him quietly. "You have not torn any ligaments, sprained or otherwise broken any bones in your body. I would be very aware if you had, not only because of my powers, but because I am accustomed to the distinct symptomology of those occurrences." Just call him almost doctor; frankly it's not wrong. He's broken many in his body at least once and dealt with almost every iteration of joint, muscle and bone damage that a person can be exposed to and had to treat it on his own. Charles couldn't be stuck with anyone better if they were a doctor.  
  
Charles blinks, and then shakes his head. "Then you're confused," he says simply, not harshly, but it's a statement of fact. "I know my own body. I couldn't tell you my medical history," he snorts, "But I know. I have experience, too. I'd like to downplay this as much as the next person, but I know I'm not daft, and I clearly went to medical school. I felt and heard what happened last night, and as I was there, I think I know better than you. I'd appreciate you not insisting you know my body better than I do." In this case, he can't even come up with a reasonable reason why Erik is besides genuine confusion.  
  
Except tapping two fingers over the bandage causes Charles to seize up in pain, a hand to his mouth which he promptly bites to hold back a startled, overwhelmed cry, and the tears that rush to his eyes don't help.  
  
"If it is broken, I need to set it," Erik says like they're in the surgical suite of a forward operating base in Kandahar and not Westchester, New York.  
  
Charles’ eyes widen and immediately he’s trying to scoot up the bed, as if there’s anywhere to go. “Then it is not broken, because you are not setting it,” he decides, shaking his head. “It’s fine. Just leave it be. Like I said, it doesn’t even hurt.” Despite he fact that he’s still reeling with pain, and there are tears on his cheeks now.  
  
"That is not how this works. Now be still and let me examine it. If you are in this much pain, either my perception was altered," he flicks his eyes up to deliver a nicely scathing glower, "or there is something else at play here. Still," he holds up a finger, brokering no further argument and even less now that there's an Order at play. "I won't do anything to hurt you. I just need to get a look at it."  
  
“Please don’t,” Charles whispers anyway, as if he’s well and truly frightened, and he is. It’s an overwhelming mix of things, mostly, not so much the pain, but he stays obediently still (what choice does he have?) as Erik moves down to remove the bandage, and this is strange. There’s absolutely no way that Erik could have missed this in all the times he’s looked at it, but Charles’ ankle is very clearly broken now, the bone protruding awfully, bent awkwardly, swollen up under the bandage. There’s almost no possible way he walked on it without it being utterly excruciating. “It’s fine,” Charles says, and now he sounds uncertain.

* * *

It's not that strange. The moment Erik said it was the moment he figured it was probably true, given Charles's pain levels and his certainty. He clenches his jaw, but Charles sees something strange happen with him, too, it's not just a matter of shutting down, but his whole mind wipes clean, focused purely on the problem in front of him. "I have good news and bad news," Erik mutters, dryly. "Which would you prefer first?"  
  
“Neither would be nice, unless the good news is that you’ve realized I’m fine,” he sighs, and attempts to wriggle further up the bed, to pull his leg back, but neither of those work out for him. In the end he shakes his head helplessly. “It doesn’t hurt, I told you. You were right the first time, it’s not broken. Your breakfast is getting cold.”  
  
"Stop," Erik murmurs, the Order firm and powerful. He attempts, but he gets absolutely nowhere. "Whether or not you wish that to be the case, it isn't, and no good will come from this repeated denial. Now sit still and let me think for a moment."  
  
Charles is starting to panic, now, his chest heaving with it, his already unsettled stomach dropping with the reality of the situation and he's clearly trembling with the weight of the Order, too. “But you looked before and you said it was fine. You said you knew what to look for, that you’re almost a doctor,” which isn’t actually something he’d said out loud, strangely, despite the fact that Charles doesn’t seem to have access to his telepathy, “and you didn’t see anything. So you were right. There’s nothing to think about."  
  
"That's correct, and I also said that it is possible we are both right. If I had seen this yesterday, I would have had a very different reaction, and I am certain you are perfectly aware of that. Now breathe, and relax yourself. There is no reason for you to panic. I've encountered this situation many times before. You will be all right. The good news is that I cannot set this for you like this, so you are not going to experience any kind of excruciating pain more than you have already experienced thus far. The bad news is that I need to call a physician here, and it's probable you will need to be sedated for him to treat this."  
  
“Excuse me?” Charles repeats, his eyes now comically wide, and he tries, in vain, to move, and when he can’t the panic is written all over his face, and then spilled into the room, into Erik, who feels it just as strongly. Overwhelmingly, really, pressing down and into him, sinking into his being, not unlike the forceful terror of the day before. His heart beats faster with Charles', his pulse races. One thing is exceptionally clear: Charles is more powerful than he's ever been, affecting Erik more than he ever has, but he has absolutely no awareness of it. “No. Absolutely not. Why can’t you set it? You said you could.”  
  
"This is a broken ankle with compound involvement. There's nothing to set, Charles. If it were a _toe_ , which is what I suspected when I said that, then yes. I can't just _pop_ this back into place. You need plates and screws, or you are facing the possibility of permanent disability. I will not allow that to happen to you, so you will be getting this treated appropriately. Now calm. yourself. down. Immediately." There's nowhere to escape from Erik, either, and his Orders are just as strong and just as powerful as any telepathic resonance.  
  
It helps that Charles hasn’t looked, that he has absolutely no idea where the pain is coming from - but he shakes his head, and the Order sets in but the problem has always been that there are some things Erik’s Orders do not seem to work on. They are incredibly powerful, incredibly strong, but to say that they are just as powerful as Charles’ telepathy would be incorrect, because while Charles’ chest stops heaving, while he begins to breathe normally, the panic is clearly still there, clearly still clanging around in his head, which means it’s in the room, too. It’s everywhere. It’s crushing and it’s violent and he doesn’t even notice, his eyes closed tightly. “No,” he says again. “No, it’s not happening. You said I could hurt someone else. I’m not doing that. You made a huge fuss about not letting me near other people and now you want to call a doctor here? It’s not happening. I’ll manage. You’ll do what you can, I’ll do what I can, and that will be that. I’m not risking it. This is my decision, and I’m making it.”  
  
"Except that it is not." Erik stares at him, hard. "Not this time. You made me promise to look after you, you trusted me to do so and I'm going to. You leaving this place and ending up in the middle of New York City is different than me calling someone here while you are sedated. This is not up for discussion, or debate. And you are not going to finagle your way out of it by manipulating my perception." That is an Order before anything else. "Regardless of whether you recall it, I am your Dominant. I will make the decisions necessary to preserve your body as well as your mind."  
  
“I don’t even know how to do that! I don’t know what I can do!” Charles shouts, all of the frustration mounting and reaching a boiling point, and he’s clearly terrified, the room heavy with it. It’s nearly impossible for Erik to breathe, let alone think properly. It feels like being drowned. Every word ramps up that pressure, clamps tighter with clawed fingers. “You’re not my Dominant. I don’t remember you. I don’t remember this collar. I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t consent to this - you can’t just decide for me, you can’t tell me that I could kill someone and then put me in a position where I can. Do you realize how mad that is? You don’t even know how it works, and you’re willing to risk that because I twisted an ankle?”  
  
"Yes I am," Erik growls. He didn't just twist his ankle and he knows it. These kinds of fractures can be deadly and Charles knows it. The only problem is, he doesn't know that Erik knows it. He doesn't know that Erik won't put up with his denial. "I can just decide for you. Yes, I can. Hate me if you wish, call me your abuser or your captor if you wish, that is what is happening."  
  
It’s utterly humiliating, but Charles’ eyes fill with tears. He turns his head immediately to hide them, but the sniff he makes, loud and hitched, is difficult to miss. The room is completely drenched in heavy, pulsing energy, too much for even Erik to handle, enough to make him sick, enough to have physical, real effects on his body, enough that it's clear something is shielding him at least slightly, because the power involved here is palpable again, breathable, physical; but Charles doesn’t notice. He faces the other way and he says nothing, because if he does he might cry, and he will not allow that.  
  
Erik just focuses on breathing. It's not the worst thing that's ever happened to him by a long shot. He can handle more than anyone, even without the layer of protection, and he doesn't panic or freak out the way others might. It doesn't mean any of it is OK, it doesn't mean that it's all easy for him and he's just being a big, mean _asshole_ , but he can handle it. Whatever it's going to do to him, he can't stop that, but he can handle it. He just breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth.  
  
It wouldn't cause others to panic or freak out. It would crush them. It would destroy them. Something makes sure Erik knows, right this moment, something immovable and demanding to be felt and heard, that if he were not Charles' mate, if he were not shielded, he would either have gone mad or keeled over. It is not the worst thing because it is not meant to be, it could never be coming from Charles. But if someone is to come into this house with Charles like this, sniffling and out of control, they will not make it out. Those are the facts. This room is difficult for Erik to handle, but he is Charles' mate and his Dominant, so it is not deadly. The same thing cannot be said for others. And even Erik is finding it difficult to breathe in here, to think, to function; it's not even part of the force, bearing down on him. To let it escalate from here would be catastrophic. Meanwhile, Charles is clearly trying to move, and the frustration he's feeling is a force, too, physical and storming, helpless and lashing out.  
  
Well that's too bad. Erik won't risk Charles's life over a _hypothetical_ and whatever force is out there had better realize that there is no reality in which Erik just lets him wait out a broken ankle so severe Erik can see the bone protruding from the skin so it had better figure something the _fuck_ out! Erik's mind lashes back, stung and irate, but he grits his teeth. "Stop it!" he grits the Order out harshly, lowly. "Now stop it this instant!"

* * *

Very rarely, if at all, has Charles been frightened of Erik. There have been times when the entire world feared Erik, it seemed, where they looked at him with distrust and contempt and terror, even those who loved him dearly, and Charles stared into Erik’s face and felt none of it. But this moment is different, and Charles visibly crumples in on himself, frightened and wilting, and the room is still heavy because he isn’t doing anything, per se, he never meant to, but it no longer whips about as violently. There was no noise, before, but now it seems dead silent, as if perhaps there was - something audible as well as palpable, and when Charles curls into himself, when he sniffs again, it’s wet and much too loud. He doesn’t move an inch. He tries not to even breathe, to not make a sound.  
  
It's like a switch is flipped in Erik from the first moment he can think for himself again, he clears his throat and and he sags, covering his eyes with his hand so he doesn't have to see that expression on Charles's face. It's his own fault. There's no one else to blame, there's no one else responsible for all of this. He feels it in his ears, ringing, rising. "I'm sorry," he gasps. He couldn't think. He could barely breathe. It doesn't matter. Would it even matter, if he explained? Would it help? Would Charles believe him? He is spiraling and he doesn't know anything anymore. Everybody was right about him, in the end. When everyone you meet is a monster, you should look in the mirror.  
  
For a long few, dragging moments, Charles is silent. Completely silent, not even the sound of his sniffling, which he might have interpreted as part of the Order. But when he looks back at Erik, briefly, it isn’t quite the same kind of fear in his eyes, and he ducks his head, his voice quiet and exceptionally small. “Are you alright?” he whispers. There is genuine concern there. There is genuine fear for Erik, there.  
  
"It's OK," he whispers back instead. "You don't have to be quiet. That wasn't what I meant." He swallows again and struggles to smile, but he just ends up drawing his hands over his eyes, grateful he didn't start crying. It doesn't really matter what he meant. He lost control, and did the one thing he'd always sworn never to do. "It's fine. I'm fine. Thank-you."  
  
Charles shakes his head, and swallows hard around the lump in his throat. “It’s not, I don’t think, and you aren't,” he says back, voice still trembling and small. “Did I - I was hurting you?” And the shaking in his voice is perfectly indicative of how frightening that is for him, but it won’t do him any good not to ask. Not to know. Even if he can’t comprehend how it belongs to him, it doesn’t change the fact that he must be responsible.  
  
"Hard to breathe," he just replies, as if that's totally normal. Hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to get the edge of his mental fingers around the constructs he's built over years and years of his own mind-numbing panic, panic that no ordinary being should be equipped to face without stumbling around like a chicken with their head cut off. "I am sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."  
  
Hard to breathe. So, yes, is his answer. He was hurting him. Charles is quiet again, crumpled up still, eyes down in his own lap. The tray of food has been completely displaced, pushed off to the side. “You startled me,” he admits, because he was told not to lie and as a general rule he tries not to. “I just wasn’t expecting it. I didn’t know I was doing it.” Which is absolutely terrifying, by the way, and true. He really didn’t. He still is, a bit, though it’s nothing close to as intense. “You said if I had questions and wanted to understand, I could ask and you’d help me. I have a question.”  
  
"I know you did not know," Erik whispers. "I would have-I would have been-" he would have been more gentle, if he could think, he would have Ordered him in a nicer way, calmed him down the way he had before, when Charles lost it earlier yesterday. "Of course you may ask."  
  
Charles shakes his head again. “It wasn’t your fault. I was hurting - I’m sorry,” he gasps, and he goes still again, noticeably to hold back the emotional reaction - he’s noticed the pattern, too, at least here. Finally, the words muffled by the way he’s biting on his lip, he says, “You said we had a Dynamic that is more than all other people. That we function differently. Right?” These are the questions he had avoided yesterday, had become too overwhelmed by.  
  
"You are forgiven. Always. Without question," Erik gives him a genuine smile this time. There's no lingering resentment or a grudge hanging in the air, it's entirely let go. "Yes," Erik murmurs, his breathing now slower, calmer with the receding of Charles's horror show. "That is correct."  
  
Unfortunately, Charles hasn’t let it go, and there’s no way to forgive himself for it when he isn’t even certain how it happened in the first place. All he knows is that he’s hurting Erik, who clearly cares for him. It isn’t fair, but he swallows around it and continues on, still quiet and staring down at the blankets. “And you said you make certain decisions for me,” he hedges, clearly looking for confirmation. He says certain because he isn’t sure, exactly, how much that applies to.  
  
"That is correct," Erik repeats softly. He reaches out his good hand and takes Charles's within his fingers, squeezing gently, and running his thumb along the back of Charles's palm. Erik doesn't mind a little pain, and he knows that Charles doesn't mean it. He just wants Charles to know that he isn't bossing him around just to feel superior, or because he can. He just cares about him. He wants to make sure he is well, and safe, and happy. That is all.  
  
It’s more than a little pain. Charles shakes his head, his throat dry and something thick in it again, something he can’t quite swallow around. His fingers are limp in Erik’s, and he’s clearly trying not to pull away, his hand shaking where Erik is touching it. He shakes his head again, and doesn’t speak.

* * *

Erik gives it another squeeze before letting go, not wanting to make Charles even more uncomfortable than he already is. "Ask me," he whispers the Order softly.  
  
But Charles makes a noise of protest, completely unconscious, and his hand moves, as if he’s going to reach for Erik’s. Then it drops into his lap, still trembling, and he still has his head bowed. “What decisions do you make for me?”  
  
Erik's hand is still right there, though, and he touches Charles again on the back of the palm, reassuring. "All decisions," he whispers. "Every decision. But this is not like that. I know, I know that you're scared, and I know that you're-that you did not consent to this. I do not hold you-" it hurts, to say, but Erik forces it out over the lump in his throat. "I do not hold you to the same standards. Only so you will be safe. That is all. If you want to-if you-if that is right-" Erik laughs, cutting himself off, sharply. It's hard. Hard to bear.  
  
Charles doesn’t even need telepathy to hear the pain there. He swallows around it again, and slowly, carefully brushes his fingers over the outside of Erik’s hand, watching as if in awe. Erik’s hands look impossibly large next to his. “Tell me, please? Finish what you were saying?”  
  
Erik sags underneath it, unable to help the rising pleasure at Charles's touch. "I just want you to be happy. I know you cannot trust me. I would not dare to ask." He swallows. "I know that, patients have the right to refuse treatment. But I can't-I can't. I'm not that enlightened. I know what happens. I can't see you hurting. I know you might hate me."  
  
So Charles keeps touching, just barely grazing, stroking over Erik’s knuckles. “Is it difficult for you?” he whispers. “To not - do that? Make decisions for me? Expect of me what you’re used to?”  
  
Erik smiles, huffing a laugh. "Very much so. But you do not need to feel guilt over that. I know it cannot be easy. I cannot even imagine it."  
  
It isn’t, but Charles shakes his head. He is guilty. It feels as if he’s stolen something from Erik, someone, as if he’s taken the Charles who knows Erik and replaced him. It doesn’t seem fair. It seems rather cruel, actually. “If -” It’s the question he actually wanted to ask, and he purses his lips. “Do I ever disagree with your decisions?” he asks. The way he asks it makes it clear he can’t imagine there are some he doesn’t disagree with, because Charles feels like he’s opinionated, even knowing as little as he does. He feels strongly about things.  
  
"I cannot really think of a circumstance where we haven't resolved it," Erik says truthfully. "For most things, I am pretty flexible. I don't mind that you have opinions, but I think for most things, you probably don't care enough about it to form a real opinion on what you're going to eat or wear, that sort of thing. Politics, on the other hand, are a different matter. But I don't expect you to agree with me on everything. If you disagree with something I take that into consideration. And I think you know the type of matter that you're unlikely to have success in persuading me."  
  
Charles nods, but that isn't quite what he was getting at. He bites the inside of his cheek. "Yes, but when I do disagree with you, what happens?" he asks quietly.  
  
"It depends on the issue," Erik shrugs. "Sometimes I override your objections and sometimes I don't."  
  
"Is there something about D5s that makes them exceptionally _vague_?" Charles snorts, but his scowl isn't without amusement, and it's clear he's teasing. "What if I am very, very convinced that I am right and you are wrong? Or I'm frightened by something, or I object morally, or I just decide I don't fancy it? What do you do? Surely it must have happened."  
  
"It depends on the issue," Erik repeats, smiling back. "If I could be more specific I would be. Every situation is different. Every _decision_ is different. If there is no genuine basis for your objection, I typically override it. If there is a genuine basis, I do my best to address it. But when it comes to your safety, to your wellbeing, I don't play around. And you know that."  
  
“Do I?” Charles asks back, because he has an idea of it, yes, but the way Erik phrased it makes it seem like he has plenty of experience. He doesn’t. There’s no way for him to really know, which is why he’s asking. He ducks his head back down, his fingers still idly roaming Erik’s hand, getting a bit more bold with it and ignoring the way it makes him want to shiver, the touch. “What about this situation? How would you normally handle it? I think I have a genuine basis. I'd like to object.” It's said as lightly as possible.  
  
"You do," Erik murmurs, but he didn't mean Charles does now. He meant that ordinarily, Charles would. "And I know," Erik murmurs. He lightly runs his fingernail along Charles's inner wrist. "I would override it. I have seen what happens otherwise. It's my job to protect you, even when you can't protect yourself."  
  
Most of this is related to the situation at hand, and the fact that he’s still properly terrified about it. The other part is genuine curiosity, and like in all things, they tend to mix for Charles, whose personality relies on that curiosity, that drive to know and understand. “What happens otherwise? And would you override me without listening? You said you’d address my objection before you decided, so surely that applies.” It’s not accusatory, really. Charles knows there are things he doesn’t understand, things he couldn’t possibly without the context, but he’d like to; now that he’s calmed some, he’d genuinely like to, even beneath that terror.  
  
"You will always have someone to listen to you in me," Erik murmurs back. "Do you feel as though I did not address it?"  
  
“You said you won’t hear me. That this is not up for discussion or debate,” Charles points out quietly, and it still isn’t accusatory, muted mostly down. “That doesn’t sound very much like listening to me.”  
  
"If you wish to talk about it, you may. But I won't be debating it with you. Neither does listening mean that I agree with your assertions. I understand your perspective, but it doesn't change my decision."  
  
That makes Charles look up, and this time his expression is sharper. He can only actually look at Erik for a moment before he has to look away again, but it’s enough. “Actually, listening requires hearing the entire objection before you decide you already disagree,” he says, dry as anything. “You can’t say you’ve addressed a concern when you’ve already written it off. And if you have, you aren't listening. That’s not how the process works.”  
  
Erik shrugs. "Do you really believe that there is something you can say that I will agree with?"  
  
Charles raises an eyebrow, even though it's difficult to see when he refuses to raise his head and potentially meet Erik's gaze. He doesn't pull his hand away. "Yes, actually," he mutters. "Are you going to assume I won't before I can try? That doesn't seem very fair. In fact, it seems very hypocritical for someone who just claimed he would always listen."  
  
"I am listening," Erik says, unable to help a small smirk.  
  
It inspires a soft huff when he glances up. "Are you listening, or are you humoring me? Because I don't see the point in wasting my breath if you're just mocking me," he mumbles, and crosses his arms over his chest.  
  
Erik shakes his head. When Charles withdraws his hand, though, he grimaces. Feeling every moment without touch. "I'm not mocking you," he murmurs back, soft. "But I won't pretend like I agree with any part of this, either."  
  
Charles can't help but notice. He bites his lip and looks the other way, but slowly reaches out for Erik's hand again, his cheeks pink. "It's dangerous and it frightens me and I won't do it," he mumbles, practically inaudible.  
  
It makes Erik melt a little once more, and he takes several long moments to reply, mostly savoring the sensation. "It's nowhere near as dangerous as leaving you be," Erik points out. "And there is no reason to be so afraid. I won't let anything happen to you."  
  
"How do you know? How can you promise that?" he argues, and his voice is sharper with the fear. The room vibrates slightly, as if in reaction, all of that power still here. "You could barely stand it. You were hurt. You're going to let me hurt someone else? I could -" He can't say it. His throat closes around it.  
  
"You won't," Erik murmurs. "I can't promise that you are capable of being out in public right now, but I can help you with this. I can keep a few people safe. That includes you. Part of protecting you, means making sure that you don't hurt other people. I know how that feels, too. I won't let it happen. But you have to trust me. I'm here. I'm fine. We're both all right. I made sure of that, hm?"  
  
Charles is shaking his head before Erik is even finished speaking. "No," he says. "No, it's different. You can't promise that it will work the same with another person. And I won't let this be on your conscience, too." He shakes his head again. "It's not - no. You were not okay, how are you going to promise you can protect someone else? I'm not doing it."  
  
"You do not get it," Erik replies back. He blows out a breath. "As if allowing you to be permanently affected is just a minor inconvenience instead of something that would be on my conscience. I am fine, because I did not let you lose control, because I am responsible for ensuring that you remain in control. I do not have telepathic abilities, not like you. I am not _randomly_ immune to you. I keep things in control, always."  
  
"That wasn't in control!" Charles protests, his lips pursed and his hand pulled away from Erik's again. "You did not keep me in control. You were hurt. It could have been worse, you said it yourself. If it's such a problem, then we'll find a different way to fix it. I would rather I be disfigured than someone else. Don't tell me I do not get it. I do."  
  
Erik just sighs and doesn't respond. "What different way, then? What, you want me to do _surgery_ on you myself?"  
  
Charles shrugs, helpless. "You said you were an almost doctor," he offers, quiet.  
  
"I did not say that." Erik glares at him. "And I can't do it."

* * *

It's a lot to ask. Too much, really, but Charles bites hard on his lip. "If we were stranded, if we were on an island with no possible way off, what would you do? If calling someone here was not an option, what would you do?"  
  
"That's irrelevant, that's a completely _irrelevant_ question, because it is not the case, and there is absolutely no reason for it to be the case. The truth is that you are scared, which I understand, but do not dare make this about me and my conscience and then ask me to perform _orthopedic surgery_ on you ! Don't be ridiculous. I'm not an _anesthesiologist_ , I'm not an _orthopedist_. I don't know the first thing about it. I'm not doing it, so you can forget it."  
  
"So you'd rather risk me killing someone? You'll let me live with that over a broken ankle? Is that really worth it to you?" he snaps, and now he's sat up properly again, teeth clenched. "We are isolated. This is an island, for all intents and purposes. Don't you dare make this a gamble where if I lose, someone dies because of me. I won't do it. If you won't fix it, I will, but risking someone else is not an option, so forget it."  
  
"You say you graduated medical school, well _figure it out_. Figure out what I'll do when you _code on the table_ in front of me, huh? Ridiculous." Erik swats at the air in front of him. "I'm not risking your life for a hypothetical scenario. I know you are not stupid, so don't play it with me. You want to talk about gamble right, well if I lose, I just kill you. No big deal."  
  
"I'll stay awake. Now anesthesia is not a problem," he says, and that thought is properly terrifying, but less terrifying than the thought of killing someone else. "You won't kill me. You said yourself, you know bodies. You know my body especially, don't you? Your abilities put you at an advantage. This is a logical solution."  
  
"I am done entertaining this. If this what you thought I'd agree to, you know me less than you think you do. The logical solution is for you to trust me and get yourself treated by a physician. This is a farce," Erik growls.  
  
Charles laughs, loud and near-hysteric. "There's no reason for me to trust that you can promise I won't kill anyone, and every reason to believe I might! Perhaps you don't care if someone dies because of this, perhaps it doesn't matter to you, but it matters to me. If someone dies, what do you think will happen? Do you think I will ever speak to you again?" It's harsh, but he is terrified and he is desperate.  
  
"Then don't speak to me again. I don't care, right?" Erik huffs, rolling his eyes. Everything else is completely shut off.  
  
Tears immediately gather in Charles' eyes again, and he turns his head sharply to hide them. "Is that it? That's how -" It gets completely swallowed, and he covers his mouth.  
  
"Yes well I don't care, right. It doesn't matter to me, right. Who cares. You are talking about nonsense. You don't know anything about what you are talking about."  
  
Those frustrated, humiliating tears slip down his cheeks and he clenches his hands into fists. "You aren't acting like you care," he whispers. "About me, especially. But what do I know? I only talk nonsense."  
  
"I'm not acting like I care about you because I won't do some _crack pot surgery_ on you in your _bedroom_? If that is the prerequisite, then fine. I don't care about anything." Erik huffs a laugh, staring up at the ceiling. "I swear, if you knew-" he just shrugs and rolls his eyes. It doesn't matter.  
  
But it makes Charles pause, anyway, even if he won't look anywhere near Erik now, tears rolling steadily down his cheeks. "If I knew what?" he demands, sniffing around it. "And you know that isn't what I meant, but please, continue to treat me as if I'm mad and stupid for not wanting to potentially murder an innocent doctor, that is doing wonders for you. I love being demeaned and patronized, truly."  
  
"I said I'm not doing it and that is the end of it. This is not _Frankenstein's laboratory_. I am not going to _actually_ murder my submissive because he thinks he might _potentially_ hurt someone. Whatever message you take away from that is your business."

* * *

It stings. Of course it does. It churns around in his newly-full stomach. Charles bites a new hole into his lip in the process of attempting to stop crying, to hold back the ridiculous reaction to this, and then he tries to move. It's difficult and shifting hurts, but he doesn't care. It's better than staying trapped in this bed.  
  
"Stop moving," Erik Orders grimly. He can't be on that foot and Erik doesn't give a shit about being The Bad Guy anymore.  
  
Charles stops immediately, goes completely still except where he trembles. His head lowers all the way and he bites at his poor lip again, until there's blood and the room spins. He doesn't say a word, but there's something brewing in this room again, something fierce and unsettled and deadly. But mostly he's trying hard not to break down, not to let himself be further humiliated, refusing to make a noise even as the tears drip off his nose and pool on his lip.  
  
"Let it heal, please," he says again, and even though it sounds polite it very much is an Order. Erik doesn't say anything else, resting his elbows on his knees and digging his fingertip into his forehead. The thing is that Charles isn't wrong. Erik could fix this. Without surgery, most likely. It would hurt, a lot, if he weren't anesthesized. But there's something else, something there, something that presses in on the room as palpable as any application of telepathy. He's not thinking about it, though, his mind is just a riot of refusal.  
  
And Charles doesn't say anything, either. He's far too busy making a valiant effort not to cry, though he's failing, and especially not to let Erik see him cry, thoroughly helpless and frustrated and humiliated. He's terrified, and more than that he's hurt. Truly hurt. He's angry, both because of the situation and his own reaction to it. It's all whipping up, slowly but surely, drowning the entire room in it, the entire house. Things are shaking. Distorting, changing, ripping themselves apart. There's a force inside of Charles that he does not know he has access to, a force made of the Universe that he doesn't understand he's manipulating, and it's horrifying, but now Charles clearly doesn't notice again.  
  
Good. Maybe he'll rip Erik apart this time. He doesn't bother telling Charles to stop, leaning into it more than anything else. He is frustrated and scared and it doesn't matter. None of this matters. He just grinds his teeth together. There's nothing Charles can do to his perception that would be any worse than the fact that his brain is on fire. Erik isn't going to help him kill himself. Anything else is inconsequential.  
  
It's not just his perception that Charles can affect. It isn't about that anymore, not anymore than Erik simply moves metal. There are many things worse that he could do, many things horribly worse, and all of a sudden he is aware of it; telling him to stop might not even work, likely will not, because the truth is he's not doing anything. He's not doing anything but the entire house is shaking with it, screeching with it, and it doesn't hurt like it did before this started and if he knew it, perhaps it would be worse but either way Charles buries himself in his arms and sobs, pulling at his own hair. Sobs hard enough for it to hurt and feels everything sob with him. "Go away," he gasps. "Just go away, if you're going to - at least don't sit there and watch me and make me watch you and do nothing, and prove -" he sobs, and he's truly and utterly humiliated, is this what Erik wanted? For him to be helpless and frustrated and scared, to just sit there and watch as he loses it and Charles can't even move?  
  
"Stop it," Erik murmurs again, tugging his hand out from his hair. "I'm not doing anything to you, Charles. I'm not knocking you out and dragging you into my lair to be secretly operated upon. Will you just stop, and relax." Erik sighs, audible through his nose. "I am not making you do anything, in case you haven't noticed. I didn't create this situation. I didn't force you to leave the house. I didn't cause any of this. I am doing my best to handle it now that it's here. It would be a lot easier if you calmed yourself down and examined the facts, logically, but since you refuse to do as much, you can at the very least stop ripping the house apart."  
  
"Don't touch me!" he hisses, and it distorts strangely, booms louder than it should, embedding itself into every corner of Erik's mind as he looks up to glare. "I've told you not to touch me, I've told you not to and you keep doing it, I didn't ask for any of this! I'm not doing anything! I'm terrified and I don't know anything aside from what you've told me, I'm not trying to hurt you or anyone else and when I first woke up you said that I could kill someone without meaning to, that I could kill you, and you'd like me to be calm? You'd like me to risk that now that I know it? You are forcing me, whether you like it or not, I've told you very clearly what I am and am not comfortable with, I spoke with you calmly and you made it clear you had no intentions of listening or considering another option and now you've decided it's fine to patronize and mock and -" His teeth grind together, and Erik will note that nothing has stopped. It's intensified, even though Erik had Ordered. It isn't in Charles' control. "Go away. Get out." And then Erik feels himself start to move, entirely against his own will.  
  
"Really? You're not trying to hurt me?" Erik laughs bitterly. "I am not forcing you to do anything. I haven't taken any actions against you. I haven't done anything to you other than ensure that you don't set my mind on fire. You talk all about how comfortable you are with this and that without even pausing to _consider_ what kind of effects your words have on me. I didn't ask for any of this, either, you know. I didn't ask for my submissive to wake up and decide I'm the worst person he's ever met. You hear something you don't like and you decide to, what, exactly, is this, huh? And then you have the nerve to say you aren't _hurting me?_ You don't know a single thing about me."  
  
"No, I don't!" Charles shouts, and abruptly everything stops. Objects Erik found outside of his control drop to the ground, thud and in some cases break, and he realizes that it was likely because Charles had control of his abilities. That he's been tampering with them this entire time, without meaning to, without knowing. Erik finds himself in the middle of the room, able to move on his own again. Charles buries his face in his hands. "No, I don't," he repeats, and sobs so violently the world shakes for a moment, or at the very least seems to from Erik's perspective. Everything is drenched in quiet and sorrow.

* * *

Everything picks up off of the ground and rights itself, weaving together. It's an aspect of Erik's power completely outside of his conscious direction, and Charles can see everything knit itself back into proper form at the molecular level. There is absolutely no doubt Erik could do the same with a human body. "Do you honestly believe I will do anything while you are terrified and adamant otherwise. In case you haven't noticed, this house is conspicuously empty of any other people." His good hand is clenched into a fist, his whole body vibrating with adrenaline and hurt.  
  
"You said -" It's barely audible from behind Charles' hands, but he can't stop sobbing. It's ridiculous, completely, it's embarrassing and awful, but there's too much inside of him. It's overwhelming and even he's choking on the power in this space in the aftermath. It's more than difficult to breathe. It's near impossible. "What else would you have me to believe? You certainly made it seem that way, you said -" And Charles is hurt too, clearly. Deeply so, and not only that, he's still just as Erik said. He's terrified and shaking with it. "It's not true," he mumbles, almost impossible to catch around the tears and his hands.  
  
"What isn't true," Erik asks, but it comes out more of a monotone than anything else. Erik is forcibly holding himself back, holding everything back, every ounce of his own emotion locked behind iron. He barely makes a sound, his face doesn't move, waxen as a statue.  
  
"That I think you're the worst person alive, that I hate you, that I want to hurt you," he gasps, and he wipes at his face but it doesn't do anything to help. He's still crying, his shoulders shaking with it. "It's not true. I know you didn't ask for this, I know this hurts you but I can't - I can't -" It's just too much. He shakes his head.  
  
Erik picks up a cloth from the bureau beside the bed and folds it up over his arm, walking over to Charles to hold it out and dab at his tears. "You can't what?"  
  
Charles takes it from him and finishes himself, but it does almost nothing when he can't quite calm, and it's getting harder for Erik to breathe, too. He curls in on himself, desperate for Erik to not see him, and especially to not have to look. He shakes his head, sniffling. "I can't," he just repeats, small.  
  
"Breathe deeply and slowly and tell me what," Erik Orders, repeating himself again.  
  
It's a difficult Order to follow when he doesn't know what, but at least he's breathing around quiet sobs, still turned in on himself as much as possible. "I can't be what you need me to be," he whispers, almost completely muffled. "I can't control it, I can't do anything, I know you didn't want this either but I can't change it and I don't want to hurt you, I don't," he gasps. "It's horrible to say that to me. I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't, but I can't control any of this and it's terrifying, and you - you...." He shakes his head, silent except for sniffing. "I don't blame you. But you've hurt me, too, and I don't know you, you're right. I don't hate you but I don't know you and that's not my fault, either, it's not."  
  
"I didn't say it was," Erik replies, and it's all he replies with. His words are relatively hollow, with no mental feedback behind them at all. "And I don't need you to be anything other than alive." He gets up and collects the dishes and plates, stacking them on top of one another to give himself something to do.  
  
It still makes Charles laugh, bitter and hollow too. He keeps his face turned away from Erik, shifting every time he's near as if he can't already see that there are pathetic tears all over his face and hands where they've soaked in. "That's a lie," he accuses, and knows he's right. He doesn't say anything else either, wiping away the rest of his tears and wrapping his arms around himself as if they'll bring some form of comfort. They don't.  
  
Erik just shrugs. "Does it really matter. I do not expect anything from you but that. What I wish is irrelevant. And it has nothing to do with the problem at hand."  
  
Charles snorts again, but even to him it sounds more like another sob, heavy and helpless. "It has everything to do with it," he argues. "And it does matter. Quite a bit."  
  
That just makes Erik sigh. "What would you like me to say?"  
  
Now it's Charles' turn to shrug, though it's much less a brushing off and more of a curling in on himself. It's impossible to breathe again, around that suffocating, stifling hurt, stinging and thick, but he says nothing.  
  
"Well, I don't have a solution for you. I don't have anything. I cannot do what you are asking me to do."

* * *

Charles says nothing again, fingers digging into the blankets, one of them squeezing over his own leg. He stares out the window, and the room doesn't get any easier to breathe or think in, absolutely drenched in his own fear and hurt and sadness, twining itself around Erik, too, and dragging him under and down.  
  
There's nothing to drag under. He finishes stacking the plates and sends them out the door, and then finds a first aid kit and seeps out further, until he finds some painkillers and restores them back to full form. They're relatively light, but at least they'll help the immediate issue. "Take these," Erik murmurs, and sits on the edge of the bed. "I need to examine your foot again."  
  
Charles continues to stare out the window, fingers gripping tight to his thigh. His jaw is clenched and he says nothing, only shakes his head.  
  
"Take them now." The Order is much less forgiving.  
  
Charles' lip wobbles, but he likes to think it's the only visible sign of distress as he takes the pills, throat constricting and bobbing as he's forced to swallow. He continues to stare out the window, silent, fingers shaking now where they're still dug into his leg.  
  
Erik pitches forward after a few seconds, putting his head in between his knees.  
  
It startles Charles out of whatever trance he's in, enough that the room is drenched in panic and fear, all of that power uncertain and waiting to be aimed somewhere. Instead he just swallows and, hesitant, frightened, touches Erik's shoulder. "Please," he gasps.  
  
It's not necessarily due to Charles's abilities, though, because even when they rein back a little Erik is still breathing shakily and he jerks his chin. "I'm-fine, need minute."  
  
It still leaves Charles frightened and uncertain, and in the end he scoots closer, dragging his ankle and breathing harshly through the pain of that. When he actually does get closer, he's not sure what to do. He settles for touching Erik's knee, rubbing gently. "Please," he repeats, eyes closed tight.  
  
"You have a plate in your ankle," Erik says, totally affectless, except for the fact that all the blood has drained out of his face, leaving him grey. "If I am going to fix it I need to take it out, and so I need to repair the other injury as well. It will be impossible for me to do this while you are awake, if you move wrong I could permanently damage you and if it hurts too badly you could go into ventricular fibrillation." He's staring at his hands while he's talking. "But I can't knock you out because we don't have the equipment and that's far riskier, which means I need to completely cut off your sensation to your foot."  
  
Charles doesn't know what that means, exactly. But he does know that he grabs Erik's hand and squeezes, his eyes still shut tight. It's strange how he instinctively knows how to find it, how he can breathe a little easier when he does. "How?" he asks, quietly.  
  
Just like riding a bicycle. "I'll have to block the nerves," he murmurs. "Because I have to remove the plate I will need to make an incision even if I could otherwise repair the bone internally, which increases your risk for infection and complications. It's possible I could heal the incision, I don't know. I've never used my abilities like this before." Erik squeezes back a bit limply. His hand is cold, and a bit sweaty.

* * *

Charles doesn't have all the understanding he once did of Erik's abilities, but he's sharp. He picks up fast. He read those textbooks. He knows how they work, relatively, understands somehow - and doing something like this is not a simple or easy application. It would not come naturally. Scientifically and medically, it would not even be efficient. Possible, yes. He clings tighter to Erik's hand, grabbing it with his other, too, stroking it unconsciously. "No," he breathes. "No, you were right before. It isn't fair to ask you this. It's okay, Erik. I never should have suggested it."  
  
"The only other option is for a physician to come out here," Erik replies, his tone unchanged from the robotic monotone he'd adopted. It would be efficient. It would be as easy a task as Erik's ever had working with matter, the only issue is that Erik is triggered as fuck and looks like he's liable to vomit into any open wound he creates. "I've done it before, without my abilities. With them it should be much simpler."  
  
Charles shakes his head, lips pursed. It isn't that he doubts Erik's ability to do it, but it won't be as easy as other matter; human bodies are extraordinarily complex, and shifting around particles in them like this isn't exactly the same, especially while upset. Charles has been messing with his abilities, on top of that; he's been off. If anyone could do it and manage it, he's somehow certain it's Erik, but he shakes his head anyway. "Then we'll call a physician," he decides, grim now himself, lips drawn into a hard line. "I won't ask you to do this. It's alright. Shh, relax," and he moves his hand up and down Erik's arm, helplessly trying to settle him.  
  
Erik's shoulders are tense, hunched almost up to his ears, but he slowly leans into the contact. "It's your decision," is all he rasps, sounding like he's swallowed a handful of gravel stones churning against one another. It's silly and stupid for him to be worked up over it in the first place.  
  
It isn't, and Charles doesn't have reference for this but he's fairly sure this moment ranks above the top he's felt as helpless. He rests his head against Erik's shoulder as if it might somehow help, desperate, still rubbing gently. "I'm just not sure - there's something else happening here. And I think I was right." It's not said as in I told you so, or in any way indignant. It's just fact, quiet and scared.  
  
Erik doesn't have the mental fortitude to care if it were in an I told you so manner, anyway. "About what?" he says, because he honestly doesn't understand the words coming out of people's mouths. Everything is hazy and far-off, and his ears are ringing. He's fine. He's OK. He can do it. It will be fine. He is fine.  
  
Charles shakes his head, because right now he doesn't think it matters. He doesn't think Erik will make much sense of it, especially when it's so theoretical. Instead he scoots even closer, heart thudding in his chest, and carefully, slowly wraps his arms around Erik. "Shh," he repeats. "It's alright. It's alright, Erik." And now that force from before wraps him up in a different way, soothing and gentle, tugs at Erik's mind, no longer lashing out. Like it's wrapping its arms around him, too.  
  
Up close, Charles can feel Erik shivering, but as soon as arms are wrapped around him he sags a little bit, and nuzzles his head against Charles's. "'Sok," Erik mumbles, slinging his own arm over Charles's shoulder as gently as possible. "Sorry," he whispers, letting his eyes shut.  
  
Charles forces himself not to tense up, not to pull away, his heart pounding in his ears, practically audible in this space. It's fluttering in his throat, but he brings one shaking hand up to Erik's hair now that his head is closer, tangling his fingers up just like he did when Erik was falling to sleep the night before. "It's okay, it's alright," he repeats, as softly as he can, and that soothing force creeps closer, too, embeds itself in Erik's mind, every corner, wraps him up in apologetic comfort. "Shh. Shh. Peace. You're alright, hm? You're alright, Erik."  
  
Erik's eyes flutter beneath closed lids and when Charles's fingers run through the spot of hair behind his ears he sags completely, making a rumbling sound in the bottom of his chest completely without conscious direction. "Gonna be OK," he whispers over and over again, doing his best to be reassuring. He's sorry. He got scared. He forgot where he was. He didn't mean to hurt anybody.  
  
Charles just holds Erik through it, holds him and scratches at the place behind his ear because he's caught on, at the very least, doesn't pull back or away and that force he can't control or even recognize swirls around them, swathes them tight, another set of arms, a comforting, fiercely intense balm. He tries not to shiver, being this close, hearing that deep rumble, but if it does perhaps it's hidden. "That's right," he whispers gently. "It's going to be alright. See? You're doing wonderfully, just keep breathing, yeah?"  
  
Erik doesn't cry, exactly, but Charles can tell that he's blinking back tears, in whatever part of himself can still feel. It's silly, and he feels silly, but he wheezes in some more. "I'm sorry. Being horrible." It doesn't even make sense, really, it's a wild fluctuation, but Charles as helpless as he feels is doing more than he realizes to soothe him. Erik ends up being easy to soothe, nestling into the fingers twisting through his hair.  
  
Perhaps it's awful of him, but Charles thinks he much prefers even this Erik to the stoic, blank-faced Erik who gives Orders in that monotone, who Charles feels very much does not care even though it's irrational, who watched Charles as he cried, drowning in his own humiliation. "Shh," he hushes again, because he doesn't think it's true. "Everything's alright, see?" And he realizes he's sniffling himself, that he's started to cry again himself, all that pent-up terror and helplessness. "It's okay," he rasps, clearly trying to convince them both. He buries himself a bit in Erik's shoulder, letting himself be vulnerable. It's okay like this.  
  
Erik pets him back, rubbing across his shoulders and along his spine. It's not always evident, but Erik always does care. And he doesn't mind when Charles cries or gets emotional, but he does think it's often better if he doesn't let his own feelings rise up in response, because that just seems like a recipe for disaster. How can Erik keep the situation under control if he can't keep himself under control? But this is nice, too. Erik much prefers this, too. He doesn't like yelling, or arguing and never has. If he's being particularly stubborn about something it's almost always for a significant reason, not merely because he likes to watch Charles suffer. But maybe this version doesn't know that. Erik's thoughts roll away a little like marbles between his fingers. "'Kay," he whispers, soft.  
  
Charles bites hard at his lip. He can't hear Erik's thoughts, not now, and Erik can't hear his, and perhaps that's a part of it, but the other part is that Erik is right. He doesn't know him. He doesn't know anything at all, and it's thoroughly frustrating, terrifying, panic-inducing. When Erik calms Charles goes rather stiff in his arms, when he starts to touch back Charles begins to shy away, confused and flittering, uncomfortable with his own reactions. With how his body responds, wants to lean into it, closer, comforted. Especially after just before this, it doesn't feel right; he freezes right up, goes silent again. He wipes away the rest of his tears with the back of his sleeve, frustrated, and looks away.

* * *

It doesn't really do a whole lot to preserve Erik's precarious state of calm, but he drops his hand anyway, settling it in his lap. Charles already said don't touch him. Erik doesn't listen. He's not a good guy and that's all anybody really needs to know at the end of the day. He rubs at his own thigh instead, in long, dragging strokes. "Sorry." He just wants to melt into the floor and go away. He's not a real person anymore.  
  
But it makes Charles react, for some reason, and he hates the pained, helpless noise he makes, the way he has to immediately cover himself, hands in his own hair in the absence of stroking Erik's. "Stop it," he whispers. "Please. I think I can feel it, and - " His poor lip. "You upset me. You hurt me. I'm not going to lie to you and say that you didn't. But I don't hate you, I don't think you're the worst, I won't never forgive you. You making yourself miserable isn't good for either of us. I don't want that. I don't want to hurt you, regardless of what you seem to think. I'm sorry I can't - I'm sorry. I wish I could. You don't know how badly. I would give anything to give that back to you." To us, he doesn't say. "I don't want to hurt you. You don't deserve that. I want us -" He doesn't know. It's all so confusing and mad, and he shakes his head. "Please understand where I am right now. I'm trying, Erik. I'm frightened and I don't know and I'm trying, I want to know and understand and if you truly want to listen..." He lowers his head, feeling foolish and ashamed again, his cheeks red. He shouldn't have said it.  
  
Erik blinks at him. Honestly, his thoughts have very little to do with what he thinks Charles wants, and have very much to do with what he has more or less always believed about himself. "I know you don't wish to hurt me," Erik mumbles, largely inaudible. "And I know you are trying. You don't need to try and be something that you think I expect. I just want you to be well. Everything else is simply not relevant. Trying to act like it is will only make you more miserable. I don't want you to be miserable. I always want to listen. Just talk to me."  
  
Charles shakes his head. "It doesn't work like that," he mumbles, and he's largely inaudible, too. "It isn't irrelevant. It matters. You can't just throw that out, and I don't want you to. You don't have to. I'm not saying I should act a certain way, I'm saying I wish I could. That I could -" That this wasn't happening, really. That he hadn't woken up like this. But he can't do a thing about it. "But I was talking, Erik, and you weren't listening. It's okay that you were upset. I know you're hurting, too. I know I don't understand. But I'm trying, so don't tell me I'm trying to hurt you, or that I hate you, or act as if I'm irrational and dramatic and - it isn't fair, alright? I am trying. I know this isn't fair to either of us. I know that. I wish I could go back to sleep and wake up as I was, you can't know how much." Likely as much as Erik wishes he would. He doesn't just want Charles to be. He wants him back. Charles isn't stupid. "But I can't," he croaks. "So I just - I want to make it as easy as possible. For both of us. Don't tell me it's irrelevant, what you feel. It is. I want it to be. It needs to be."  
  
"I was not upset because of that," Erik murmurs. He doesn't explain why he was, mostly because he doesn't know how to properly verbalize it anyway, and Charles doesn't need to know the minutiae of the things that trigger him. It's not Charles's fault, anyway. "I'm sorry that you don't know a better version of me. I don't want to make you feel bad. I'm sorry."  
  
Even staring down at his lap, it's clear when Charles slumps, when he goes softer, less guarded. "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know a poor version of you," he sighs, because Erik has been helping him since the moment he woke up, as patient as he could be. It makes sense that inevitably they would hit this point. "I hurt you, too. I'm not talking about physically. I'm sorry for that. I'm just frightened, and there are things I don't know, not that it's an excuse, and - I want to understand. I truly do. I want to, and how else will I remember? But it's... difficult, for me. You have to realize why. It's terrifying and I'm very - I'm..." He's overwhelmed. Completely. Waking up without a single idea of who he is, without memories, with the warning that he could accidentally murder everyone in the world - he thinks maybe he should get a small pass.  
  
"I know," Erik whispers back, soft. He can't pretend like he understands entirely, but he can fathom it. That's the reason why he doesn't want Charles to feel like he expects all of these things from him. And he does have a pass, a big one, one that he doesn't really conceive of having because he doesn't know the way things used to be. Erik has been trying his best, even if it's not very good, he's been trying not to hold Charles to the same standards, to go at his pace. It's not easy, when most of Erik's being a person tends to hinge on Charles in the first place. And maybe that's not fair, but Erik's always needed him, probably more than he's ever realized, and it's obvious now. He is a poorer version of himself, a much poorer version, without his submissive. Their Bond is dormant. Erik's brain feels like it's ripping apart, all the time, and what good is it to talk about or make Charles feel bad about it? What's important is that he's safe, that his wellbeing is cared for, that matters more than anything else to Erik at all and that's not just suppression.  
  
Slowly, with shaking fingers, Charles reaches for Erik's hand again and gives it a gentle squeeze. "I want to know," he murmurs. "It's good for me to know. You're suffering in this, too. And the more I understand, the better things are. I need to know, don't I?" He looks down again, still rather incapable of meeting Erik's eyes. "You can talk to me, too. I want to listen."  
  
Erik just presses his lips together, struggling to offer a gentle smile. "i would not even know where to start." There is so much that Charles doesn't know, so much context, and he couldn't possibly give it in a digestible way. "I didn't know a lot about anything. I just knew about suffering. But you changed that. You help me. I care about life, you know. I care about people." Erik swallows. It's a bit random, but he doesn't know how to elaborate, just squeezes his hand back gently.  
  
Charles shakes his head, trying to muster up a small smile of his own. "We have time, don't we? We are stranded here." Which leads him to his thoughts from before. He bites the inside of his cheek. "How long can we keep my ankle like this?" he asks quietly, because he truly doesn't want to deal with it. "And what is the likelihood of convincing you it's perfectly fine on its own after all?" he tries to joke.  
  
"Zero percent," Erik murmurs back, his nose wrinkling up a little with amusement. "Not much longer, I would venture. The sooner it is treated the better off you will be."  
  
"Alright," he breathes, and shifts a bit up the bed, gritting his teeth against the pain. He keeps his hand in Erik's, even though he knows he'll have to let go. "Have your look, then. What's the damage, Dr. Lehnsherr?" And it isn't amusing, really, but he's almost about to laugh anyway.  
  
"Hmm, I could get used to that," Erik grins shyly, but he nudges down a little to gently, carefully take Charles's foot into his hands and palpates the area very lightly, studying every twitch of movement. It's swollen and purple by now and he seems to nod to himself. "It isn't good," he rumbles, soft again. "I think I could fix it, but it will be an ordeal and I cannot guarantee-I am not a doctor. Just a mutant with some experience. A pretty good one."  
  
He tries very hard not to wince and grimace and gasp through it, but it hurts. Quite a lot. "I swear this isn't an _I told you_ so moment," Charles says, which makes it seem like it is, of course, "But I really - I think it might be our only option. I have a feeling, about what's happening." And it's not as if he likes it, either. It isn't a great option, considering what it asks of Erik. "It doesn't matter right now, but I trust you. I know you won't hurt me."  
  
"Tell me?" Erik tilts his head, and lifts up his head, drawing a pad of paper and a pencil to him and beginning to sketch a rough outline via his abilities. It doesn't look like he's doing a whole lot, and he doesn't touch if he doesn't have to, but it's as crucial as anything else. He needs to get a feel for it, to learn Charles's body from the inside out, to run his mind's eye along every nook and cranny. Erik has begun to settle back into himself, his emotions no longer a riotous swirl.

* * *

"Well, think about it," Charles murmurs, and the very least it's a nice distraction from the fear. Trusting Erik doesn't mean he isn't nervous. "You said I'm the most powerful being in the world," and he sounds thoroughly skeptical of it, still, "and that I could hurt everyone without meaning to. If that's the case, what are a few miles of distance going to do? Surely that means I have better range. No, I think something is - perhaps the isolation is physical necessarily for it to work, but there's something else, Erik. I think we are on the most deserted island there's even been until this is through, whatever it is. A shame it's not as tropic." Not for Charles, really. He'd burn to a crisp shortly in that scenario.  
  
Erik nods, but his attention is distracted, laser focused on his task. He's clenching his jaw, forcibly suppressing every reaction he has. He doesn't know exactly what Charles means, but maybe it's related to the Earth being stopped for a while. He doesn't know. It's not super important to him right now. It can't be. "Take a deep breath," he murmurs, flipping his hand over and moving his fingers as if he's adjusting an invisible touch-screen dial.  
  
Charles does as he's told, and he's aware of exactly how tense this situation is. How frightened Erik is, even if he won't show it. He takes another deep breath right after, calming himself. "Also, I think I'm growing a second head, hopefully you don't mind?" he teases, because he's fairly sure everything is in one ear, out the other while Erik is focused, and he has to make light of it somehow. It's better than him being distracted while he plans for mutant-surgery.  
  
"Mm, that's nice," Erik murmurs to himself, nodding again. Something makes Erik smile, though. Charles doesn't notice it, because there's nothing to notice, but Erik's been lightly pressing his fingers into his ankle for the past few seconds now without him being any the wiser. He's successfully dialed down those nerve endings, and it hasn't taken long at all for him to figure it out. "OK, I'm going to pick you up and I need to transfer you to the sub-basement. I still have to take some more scans, but you should feel some relief now. Are you ready?"  
  
But Charles immediately shakes his head, biting hard on his lip. "No," he says, firmer than there's any reason to be. "No. No, no, no, no -"  
  
"Charles, I have to. There is no way around that. If this is your decision, I need a sterile environment. I can't do that here. If you want me to do this procedure on you, then you are going to have to abide by my decisions. I cannot fight with you about this."  
  
It's less a fight and more visceral terror, and there's absolutely no reason for it, his eyes shut tight and tears squeezed out. "Okay," he whispers, shaking with it, and that force is welling up again, encroaching in, responding. Confused and unsteady again. If it presses in on Erik during all this, it obviously will not be good.  
  
"It will be all right," Erik murmurs, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. "We're the only ones here. I won't let anything happen to you. Just try and trust me."  
  
It's not that. He doesn't know what it is, exactly, but his pulse is absolutely racing. He's feeling abruptly ill. Still, he nods, because there's no logical reason, and squeezes Erik's hand enough for it to hurt, fingers digging in. "Mmmm," he mumbles, something vaguely resembling agreement, and all that power is swelling.  
  
Erik is prepared for it, though, and just grits his teeth through it, lifting Charles up easily bridal-style with his leg dangling over the edge of his elbow. "Just calm yourself down, and take a deep breath. You're safe. I've got you. Feel secure?" Charles really doesn't realize how tall Erik is until he's straightened up and the world feels very high up.  
  
Not looking helps, his eyes firmly closed, but the way he's trembling all over makes it feel much less secure. He's making a valiant effort not to vomit all over Erik, teeth clenched, and his fingers are grasped in the fabric of his sweater, because it's the only thing to grab. "Hhh," he mumbles.  
  
It doesn't take long for them to head down to the sub basement, but it looks nothing like the last time Erik was there. They end up in a room that's largely an examination room with a small bed and some equipment already laid out, a portable X-ray machine and blood pressure cuff and some instruments in a tray. The lighting is different, the colors are different. It's brighter and calmer. The furniture has been replaced. Erik settles Charles down onto the bed and touches his face. "We're here," he murmurs, rolling over a stool to sit on it.  
  
Charles is shaking so hard his teeth are chattering. He refuses to open his eyes, which means he hasn't seen anything, not that he would recognize it. He doesn't respond, mostly because he doesn't think he can, and everything is starting to vibrate in that way Erik finds out of his control, to distort, to close in, the air in the room seemingly drained out though it isn't. There's a loud, piercing noise, horrific and offensive to the ears, enough to inspire a killer migraine.  
  
"Charles, I can't do this if you don't calm down. Open your eyes and look at me. You're all right." The Order is soft. "You need to breathe and relax your muscles. I know you can do this for me." The lights aren't harsh when he does open his eyes, more akin to a waiting room than harsh fluorescent. "It's all right. I promise."  
  
Except they are. They are. They're fluorescent and blinding and right in his eyes, right in Erik's and the entire world spins, the nausea rising up in Erik, too, and he doesn't know what's happening but that screeching gets louder, piercing and it doesn't do anything for the nausea, either. Erik finds himself standing from the stool and suddenly on the other side of the room as Charles gasps with it, unaware of what's happening. Everything is shaking. The floors are shaking. The walls are shaking.  
  
"Charles, stop it," Erik forces out over the noise, crossing his arms over his chest. "I cannot do this like this. You need to listen to me and focus on getting yourself under control. I can't do that for you, the only other option is for me to call someone here to sedate you. So if you do not want that, you need to listen to me, and bring yourself back. Now."  
  
There’s no possibility of that happening, but it seems like there’s no possibility of this stopping, either. Charles is pulling and tugging at his hair, gasping, helpless noises leaving his lips, and Erik finds himself entirely incapable of moving, plastered to the wall, frozen in place, an onslaught of panic and weakness and nausea constantly washing over him. It looks and feels as if there are bright, harsh lights in his eyes, like they’re blocking out everything, making it impossible to see, to look without losing the contents of his stomach on top of everything else. “I - I don’t know what’s happening,” he gasps, and somehow it’s audible even over the screeching, which hasn’t let up. It’s getting unbearable instead.  
  
More than anyone else, perhaps, Erik's mind is built to deal with unbearable. You either deal with it or you die, and Erik has no plans to die yet. "Yes, you do. Look at me and breathe. See me. I'm right here." There's no possibility that anything he's saying could be construed as anything other than an Order, delivered in a hoarse, quiet reply. Erik doesn't panic, and maybe anyone would, maybe there's no way for him to avoid it, but as long as he's cognizant and not completely vegetative he's able to face the situation. He speaks calmly, he keeps himself in control. For now.  
  
Charles looks, but there's something wild and terrified in his eyes, something unseeing even as he stares straight at Erik like he was Ordered. "No, I don't!" he shouts, because everything is closing in and he doesn't understand, he doesn't know. He doesn't know what to do, and there are tears down his cheeks again as he takes harsh, painful breaths. Then, abruptly, everything stops. Everything goes black for Erik, just for a second. And when he looks again, Charles isn't there.

* * *

Erik sighs and sinks to the ground, putting his head in his hands. He's never felt more frustrated and stupid and helpless than in this moment. After taking a few seconds to orient himself, there's not a lot to do except what? Look for him? He's obviously concealing himself. There's nothing else to do though, so that's what he does.  
  
Significantly more time has passed than Erik first realized, and it becomes apparent as soon as he’s released from whatever hold he was under. Charles isn’t in the basement at all, which means he walked up the steep concrete stairs on his very broken ankle, but he didn’t make it much farther than that. He’s at the top of the stairs, buried in his own legs. “I’m sorry,” is the first thing he says, muffled almost entirely.  
  
It's not a frustration at Charles much as it is at himself. If he were better, if he were more competent, none of this would be happening. It's all entirely on him. He's failing in every way. It's frustrating, everything he does he makes the wrong choice. He doesn't say anything, he just sits down beside him. "You're not to walk on that again," he murmurs at last, the Order clear.  
  
Charles’ cheeks immediately heat, as if he’s been caught doing something naughty. Technically he has. “I didn’t,” he tries to lie, which is an extremely ridiculous lie, considering they’re now sitting close to the stairs and Charles isn’t the one who can hover over the ground if he pleases.  
  
Erik just inhales and exhales audibly, making it very clear what he thinks about that. "Not to do it again," he just repeats himself firmly. The only good news is that it didn't make Charles's pain any worse, because the nerve is still blocked off, but that doesn't matter. Erik knows first hand what it's like to still struggle despite pain.  
  
It certainly wasn’t easy, crawling up the stairs like that, but he managed it. “You’re upset,” he whispers. It’s not a question. "I'm sorry."  
  
Of course he's upset. He doesn't bother denying it. But, "Not at you," Erik murmurs back.  
  
Charles shakes his head, still buried in his knees. There’s quite a lot of weight on his ankle now, but he just hasn’t realized it; it doesn’t hurt, thanks to Erik, and he’s still partially convinced it doesn’t need anything done to it at all. “Should be,” he sighs, still muffled, mumbled. “I’m the one who did it. I don’t know what’s happening.”  
  
Erik removes the weight, pulling Charles's arm from his knee and helping him straighten the ankle out. "It doesn't matter," Erik murmurs kindly. "It's not on purpose. I think you are just triggered, somewhere. Your body remembers even if your mind doesn't, but I don't have another option. I can't open you up in your bedroom. I'm sorry."  
  
His hands end up bunched up in his legs, digging in hard. His face has gone entirely too pale. He shakes his head. “There has to be an option,” he says, quietly. “Because I can’t go down there again. I’m not going to do it.” It’s terrifying, not knowing why, but he does know he can’t. "You said you'd listen to me. You have to listen to me."  
  
"It's not a matter of listening to you," Erik says, the monotone having abruptly returned. "You are a doctor. You tell me the option."  
  
It makes Charles curl back into himself, tensed up. “Surgery has been performed, successfully, under much worse conditions,” he mumbles. “Personally, I think a slightly less sterile environment gives us better chances than us going down there where I’ll kill you while you have me sliced open. It is about listening to me. You need to trust me, too. I don't know what happened, but I'm not - you can't put me in that position again.” He's trying to draw his legs back up, what's clearly an unconscious form of self-defense.  
  
It makes something in Erik's mind snaps, as much as if he'd yelled out loud, except that he doesn't. He isn't one to raise his voice and he isn't going to start, now. He doesn't say anything at all, except to ensure that Charles stops putting weight on his ankle.  
  
Except he did, before, and Charles flinches visibly like he has, but he can’t get up and move because he’s been Ordered not to, so he turns his head again, stiff as a board and determined not to let this upset him. Erik said he’s not to walk again, so he scoots down the wall, which is thoroughly ridiculous but it’s better than sitting here while Erik looks at him like that.  
  
"You seem to have confused listening to you with agreeing with you," Erik murmurs, soft and quiet as anything. "I do not agree with you, and you have absolutely no requisite experience to back up your claims, whereas I do. You are _one hundred percent_ incorrect. I cannot, and will not, perform any kind of surgical procedure on you in an area that is not medically sterile."  
  
“I’m not, actually,” he whispers, and he’s still scooting along the wall, jaw clenched. “That basement is not the only place that can be made into a sterile environment. I didn’t say operate on me while I’m in bed, I said I can’t and won’t go down there again, which I won’t. What was that about not dragging me to your secret lair to operate? I don’t know what that basement is, but I’m not going - I’m not -” It’s actually making him sick again, which is making Erik sick again. Aggressively so.  
  
"Well I don't know how to do that. Not safely. Not reliably. Do you want to lose that foot? Because this is absolutely nothing compared to what will happen _if I mess up_ , which you are conveniently failing to recognize. What do you think will happen if you bully me into doing a surgical procedure on you that I am not comfortable with and I _fail_."  
  
“Bully you?” he repeats, and his head swings toward Erik, incredulous and shocked it’s even come out of Erik’s mouth. He reels with it for several long moments, taken aback and hurt, exceptionally so, but he tries to keep it off his face. It ends with him looking like he’s sucked at a particularly sour lemon. “I do know how, for whatever reason. It’s not a horribly difficult process, especially with your abilities, but did you ask? That room downstairs was not a sterile environment, by the way. If you’d performed surgery there, there would be just as much of a risk as up here. But please, drag me back downstairs where I’ll hurt both of us, into a place that I am clearly terrified of for some reason, that makes brilliant sense. Go ahead, tell me how unreasonable and stupid I am, how frustrating and difficult I am making everything after waking up without a single clue as to who I am, how there is nothing to back me up, tell me. I’d love to hear how much of an idiot and a bully I am.” Charles is pissed, clearly.

* * *

"In case you haven't noticed, you aren't being dragged back down there." Erik gets up and rams his fist into the wall on the way out of the corridor, and then pauses only long enough to do it again, and again, and again.  
  
Until he stops, abruptly. Freezes, his fist halfway there, unable to move an inch. Charles says nothing from where he’s still on the ground, hunched up against the wall. He can’t get up, so he doesn’t. He doesn’t, but he curls in on himself, shaking and hidden and flinching, unaware that he’s stopped it and clearly expecting it to go on.  
  
There's absolutely no pain response on his face. Erik stalks out of the area. When he returns it's with a variety of equipment in a pack slung over his shoulder. "Put your arm around my shoulder," he says flatly, not giving Charles the option to disagree.  
  
There’s no pain, either, which helps. That fist should be thoroughly banged up, but it isn’t. Not in the slightest. Just a bit of a throb to it, maybe a bruise, as if it’s scolding Erik as much as the few extra seconds he was kept frozen and unable to move his own body, and Charles very deliberately does not look at him as he does as he’s told.  
  
Well that only makes Erik more pissed off, not that anyone can tell. He carries Charles up the stairs and into an unused bedroom, one that's been cleared of dust just as all the other areas of the house, and he sets the pack down on the bureau. "Tell me how to do it," he demands flatly, again, no option to disagree.  
  
Charles swallows around the horrible lump in his throat, but it goes absolutely nowhere. He stares at the wall, as far away from Erik as possible. “Can you manipulate or produce UV-C light,” he mumbles, barely audible at all. Just like the first time, Charles didn’t need to be told about Erik’s abilities to instinctively understand them, to guess at some of the applications. "Any instruments can be sterilized through moist heat, or steam. I assume you can do that, too."  
  
"I don't know," Erik replies emptily. He's never really produced light on his own, to his recollection. There's no reason to think he couldn't, but enough to sterilize something? He doesn't know. "What about the area itself."  
  
“UV radiation falls along the electromagnetic spectrum,” he whispers, but understanding and manipulating it, he realizes, is a bit more difficult than simply turning on a UV light without the UV light. “You’d be targeting the nucleic acids of microorganisms and disrupting their DNA, which would - you’d be killing them,” he simplifies, because Erik didn’t ask for a science lesson and for once he doesn’t feel like giving it. “That would take care of airborne contaminants, which would be the area. It’s the biggest concern in an operating room. Everything else in the immediate area needs to be sterilized, including your clothing. Like I said, moist heat is most efficient. Anything that isn’t needs to be removed. We’ll need sterile draping to ensure that everything remains sterile, especially around my body and any open wound, which was available downstairs. And you’ll need to do something about the vent,” he nods vaguely toward it, still staring blankly past Erik. “So that it doesn’t circulate in contaminated air.” It’s all offered matter of fact, but barely loud enough to constitute a whisper.  
  
"'Kay. Thank you," Erik mumbles, and then he... goes into the walk-in closet and shuts the door. He slides down the wall onto the floor and buries his head into his knees, breathing deeply and evenly. He stays in there for a while before emerging, his face noticeably red. He sits down on the edge of the bed and rubs his bad hand against his thigh since his good one is still twinging.  
  
Charles stares at the wall and swallows and swallows and swallows against that awful lump, the constriction of his throat, helpless and mostly immobile since he’s been Ordered not to walk on his ankle. He’s taken that to mean he can’t hop, either, and his body seems to agree. “Let me see it,” he whispers, not looking at Erik, but at least looking at his hand.  
  
Erik holds out his left hand, which is mottled and bruised. "We have a big family," Erik looks up at the ceiling, smiling. He withdraws a phone from his pocket and hands it over. "That's Wanda and Pietro. They're our kids. That's Magda. She's their mom. And the others. Roberto, Irene, Anna-Marie, Tel, Tabitha, Tim, Martha, Rahne, Kurt." The last picture shows a blue child mid-teleport with a big grin on his face.  
  
Charles is quickly overwhelmed, both by that information and the fact that when he touches Erik’s hand, it is much less bruised, just slightly red. It should probably be broken. It isn’t. It doesn’t even make any sense, and he assumes it’s Erik except he also assumes it isn’t, and he stares down at the phone and then sets it down. Closes his eyes and tries to breathe. It hardly works. He might actually be sick.  
  
"I had to take care of them when we were together," Erik says, shrugging. He's not sure it even matters anymore. "I am sorry." It's stupid, he doesn't know why he started talking about this.  
  
Charles shakes his head. It’s not Erik’s fault he’s literally incapable of processing it right now, that the words our kids are making him feel sick to his stomach. He opens his mouth, but it closes soon after, and he turns his head away. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice hoarse and cracked.  
  
"I meant, the other twelve," Erik realizes how what he just said sounds. "We both took care of our kids. But the other twelve. I was with them, for a long time, beforehand."  
  
He sucks in another breath, and it’s terribly inappropriate, but all he can do is nod. He should ask questions here. Charles knows he should, and he wants to know; that curiosity is pressing right in, but he’s overwhelmed at the moment. Completely. His fingers are shaking as he lifts the phone again. Staring right at him is a picture of Erik, smiling, and Charles, clearly in his lap and clearly looking up at him with all the adoration and devotion in the world, a bright smile of his own. Seeing that expression on his own face locks his throat right up again and he practically throws the phone back on the bed, breathing harshly again as he closes his eyes tight.  
  
Erik tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. "I never meant to make you feel bad. That's Irene, right there. She can't see. I never told you how that happened. Because I fucked up. What am I going to do if I fuck up with you?" He turns away, shaking his head, pressing his hand into his eyes. It's stupid.  
  
Charles tries not to flinch when he’s touched. He knows it isn’t fair. He knows Erik is just doing what’s natural, that he looks at Charles and sees what he should be and that Charles isn’t who he should be. That he’s forgotten everything that makes his life a life, that all he’s doing is making Erik miserable. But he swallows that all down and reaches up for Erik’s hand, even as he can’t quite look at him again. “You won’t,” he whispers. “And I know you were just trying to make sure you didn’t. I shouldn’t have - I was very frightened, and I didn’t know why, and you have to realize how completely terrifying that is, and I don’t like that - I don’t want to hurt anyone, especially not you, I know I don’t, and I can’t control any of it, I don’t know what I’m doing or how it works or how to stop it or start it or -” He’s babbling, but what else can he do?  
  
"You can't say I won't. You don't know how many times someone's life has been in my hands and I've failed, and they didn't walk away whole or at _all_. For what? For _what_?"  
  
"I can," Charles murmurs, quietly, and he's still got Erik's hand in his. It's almost impossible to tell he's bashed it against a wall, and if that is him, he supposes that's one application of this terrifying power he doesn't mind. "You're not going to fail. You won't hurt me. I trust you." It's hard to say, but Charles knows it's true. Instinctively, he does. "I trust you," he repeats, as if in awe himself.

* * *

Erik's teeth chatter and he presses them together to try and stop it. He makes a noise in the back of his throat and presses his hand back into his eyes. Even if Charles does trust him, Erik doesn't think that's enough. It's not enough to change what he knows and what he can do. Erik doesn't want to hurt him, what he intends doesn't matter. He'll just end up with Charles dead.  
  
Charles chases after Erik's other hand, biting his lip as he does. He gives it a light squeeze, mostly just a touch, because he's certainly noticed that one has less function than the other. "You won't," he promises, fiercer than before. "It's not that complicated a procedure, but even if it was, you can do it. I'll help you. You said I'll be awake, yeah? I know I haven't made you very happy sonce I've woken up, and -" He looks down, abruptly overcome. "I understand why. But I don't want to hurt you, or make this more difficult. You can do this, and I'll help. I'd like to help you, Erik." And he doesn't realize it, couldn't possibly, but it's an exact echo of what he'd said in that holding cell, that very first time, and how funny that he still says it now. "I wish I could go back to sleep and wake up as I'm meant to be. But for now this is all I can offer you, and I know this is a horrid situation to be in, but..." But he believes in Erik. He does.  
  
His fingers twitch underneath Charles's, and it would be a squeeze back if he could manage it, but his movement is fairly limited even now. He can't really feel much, but Erik removes his hand from his eye, where they remain mostly dry, and pats on top of Charles's palm, inhaling deeply through his nose and straightening his shoulders, sitting in a better posture. "You don't need to wish for that," he rasps quietly. "You always make me happy."  
  
It makes Charles laugh, quiet and bitter, staring down again. "I do anyway, and please don't lie to me," he whispers. "I've done nothing but frustrate and upset you. You don't need to pretend. It's alright to wish that I'd - that..." He closes his eyes, sighing. "I don't want it to be like this either. I know it's difficult, and that's alright. It doesn't help to pretend that this is how you prefer things, or that it doesn't matter. It actually makes it rather worse for me, when you -" He bites his tongue, shrugging. "I'd rather you be honest. It helps to know. I want to know."  
  
"The only thing that I would prefer is that you were happy," Erik whispers back. "That is the truth. It isn't your fault. Of course it is upsetting that you don't remember me, that your only impression of me is this." He gestures at himself harshly. "You can't remember all of the reasons why this situation is upsetting to me, beyond the face of it. I shouldn't have expected you to."  
  
Charles snorts. "Erik, it's not," he argues, but he doesn't mean it harshly. It's just simply not the truth. "My being happy relies on my actually knowing the first thing about my life, anyway, but I know you'd prefer - and that's alright. It's how it should be." He might be worried if Erik seemed less upset by this whole ordeal, and he has been when he looked it. He still has Erik's hands, so he tentatively strokes over the back of Erik's palm. It's his right hand, but Erik feels it, feels it when Charles carefully touches each finger, like he's exploring, apologizing, calming all in one. It's clearly an application of power, but like this entire time, he doesn't notice. "If there's something I won't understand, you can tell me. Explain it to me. Leaving me in the dark, it - it's frightening. This whole thing is horribly frightening." He's said it already, but he wonders if Erik can really understand that. "I don't think poorly of you. I know you care, and you're trying to help. I just don't -" He bites hard on his cheek again. "I just don't have all the information. I can only judge based on what I know, which is basically nothing," he laughs, despite finding it, well, horrifying.  
  
Regrettably for Charles, Erik doesn't deal with negative emotions very well beyond burying them, which has resulted in wild, crazy mood swings interspersed with total monotonous shutdown, so that's probably super fun. On the plus side, Charles definitely doesn't need to be concerned that Erik isn't affected by it. He is. Significantly, more than Charles could know. He feels a tingle of electricity run from his fingertips to his wrist and his hand twitches beneath Charles's, surprised. "I don't know how to explain-" most things. Anything. Charles either found out by accident or because Erik was forced to clinically relay details in rooms filled with lawyers. He's still completely no-good at managing any of it. Charles walked in with a partial picture, but he doesn't even have that anymore. "I don't want to distress you by telling you about horrible things-I wanted to avoid that."  
  
“I know,” he whispers, and it’s calm, gentle, not accusatory, his fingers still stroking at Erik’s hand, careful and soft, mostly unconscious, bringing feeling to places that haven’t felt in quite a while. They’ve always done that for each other. “But I don’t think we can avoid it. It just isn’t possible. It won’t distress me any more than not knowing and having to guess, or assume.” Because he’s never going to guess right like this. It just won’t happen, and in the meantime they’ll be making more difficulties for themselves. “What - what happened…” Charles shakes his head and trails off, lips pursed. “No, forget it. I’m sorry.”  
  
Erik's eyebrows arch. "You can ask. It might be easier that way, anyway." Erik doesn't really know what Charles doesn't know, he doesn't know what's relevant or important for Charles to know, to him it's just a long, endless line of shit and that's been the single saving grace of this entire situation, that at least he could spare Charles from having to experience it.  
  
If that’s the saving grace, Erik would be pleased to know Charles knows nothing, and it’s just about the worst thing Charles can think of. He sucks his lip into his mouth to chew at it, then lifts Erik’s hand slightly, the one he’s still touching and petting. “Your hand,” he whispers. “What happened?” It’s likely not relevant, directly, but he thinks it might be. And he does have it on his mind now. He strokes along one of those long fingers, shivering himself for some reason, and shifting to hide it. “Do you feel that? Does it hurt?” That frightens him, and he’s tempted to pull away.  
  
"I feel it," Erik murmurs, his voice unconsciously lower, as if to say don't even think about pulling away. He straightens up even moreso, despite the feeling he still can't use his fingers and there's not a whole lot that can cure that. "Mr. Shaw is a mutant, with the power to convert kinetic energy to force." Erik's never told Charles this story, but it's one of the few that is close to the surface along with every visible scar on his body; he's never had to, it's always been evident. He trails off after that for a while; because it's contextual, and the context is hard to give, now. It wasn't when he first told Charles, because it was normal, then. By now he knows enough to be embarrassed about it. "It was a punishment, for failing to satisfy him," is what he goes with, which is vague and overly euphemistic, but Charles is smart enough and telepathic enough to fill in the blanks. He means satisfy. "He explained that if I wasn't capable of using my hand correctly, then I wouldn't be permitted to use it at all, and he crushed it with his foot. I have Volkmann's contracture," he skips neatly over the rest of it and into the medicine. With his opposite hand he forms a grotesque looking claw. "Like that. I got a few surgeries to correct it, but the nerves are permanently damaged. Almost no sensation, almost no movement. I was to be grateful for reconstructive surgery because it was unsightly," he laughs a bit, genuinely amused, as if that's funny. "It doesn't hurt, anymore. But it did, for years and years."  
  
Charles is quiet for a long, long time. It’s horror, and Erik doesn’t need the Bond to feel that, but it’s something else, too. The whole time he continues to hold Erik’s hand, to stroke it gently, to touch each finger as if he can give it back sensation and motion. He can’t give back motion, not without something much more intense, impossible in the physical sense, but the sensation - he doesn’t know, but he’s restoring it, giving it back. There are new tears on his cheeks when he lifts his head. “I’m very sorry,” he whispers, but it’s not pity. It’s never been. “And I’m very glad you’re not in pain anymore. You said you can feel it?” he asks, quietly. Softly. “You promise that it doesn’t hurt? If I shouldn’t touch -”  
  
He shakes his head. "It doesn't hurt. Your abilities, I think," Erik smiles unconsciously. He lifts his hand to gently wipe away the tears that have fallen down Charles's cheek. "You don't need to be sad. I'm OK. I am not perfect, but I am happy, and I have hope. I think because of you, if I were alone, it would not be so simple. So many people don't have that at all. You needn't be sad for me."  
  
Perhaps he doesn't need to be, but he is. He shivers again when Erik touches his cheeks, and ducks his head to hide how they flush in the aftermath. "I know I can't help you like this, or make you happy," he whispers, and his voice cracks. "But I promise I meant what I said before. I don't hate you. Not even a little." He knows it's a small comfort, tiny, really, but he can at least offer it. And as if to show it, he leans into Erik's hand instead of away, his cheeks a bright red by now. He can't help the way his body responds, always gravitating, even like this. Even that first meeting. Even across continents. Always.  
  
Erik runs his thumb alongside the apple of Charles's cheek, his eyes crinkling faintly in affection. "You would be well within your rights to," is all he murmurs, more or less tracing the line of that flush down to Charles's neck and shoulders. Erik doesn't like himself very much; that wasn't a big secret beforehand but it's somehow more obvious now. He's less comfortable, less confident in himself, back to second-guessing every decision he makes. All the progress he thought he'd made has seemingly evaporated overnight and the only one who suffers is Charles.  
  
That isn't true. Charles isn't privy to what Erik was like before, but he frowns, still leaning into the touch, even as he tenses up a bit. It only lasts a moment before he melts right into it, completely unconsciously. He's still flushed and embarrassed, but fluttering with it, pulse racing even as he calms. He's trying not to show it, avoiding eye contact again, but unfortunately for him it's obvious. "I don't," he says softly. "You've done your absolute best to help me through this, Erik. It's not your fault. I'm -" He bites his lips, cheeks somehow heating up even more, and what a brilliant red that is. "I'm very grateful you're here. I know this is difficult for both of us, but I am."  
  
"I am grateful for you, and I am grateful for you now, as well," Erik whispers back. Charles could have just gotten up and run off the moment he woke, but he stayed, and he's doing his best to listen and to trust, and Erik can't ask for much better than that. He just needs to take a breath and calm himself down because he's still extremely worked up, more than he even realized, his heartrate pounding in his chest and body flooded with adrenaline and panic. Charles calming has the mirrored effect in him, though, and his blood pressure begins to plummet from its toasty position as over one thousand degrees horrible.

* * *

Erik really does need to calm down. Charles has calmed, just like Erik noted, and he's realized something; he's biting his lip, and his hand is shaking again as he reaches out, touching Erik's chest lightly. "Breathe, okay?" he asks. "Nice and slow." And then, swallowing hard, he scoots forward again, wrapping his arms around Erik in a hug. As much as he can, anyway, this man is truly a giant. It's a little stiff, a little nervous, and he's red up to his ears and down to his chest, but it feels... nice, too, and his own heartbeat slows, and that presence that's lingering around them, powerful and imposing, calms too, wraps itself around Erik as if it's been tamed for the moment. "Breathe, Erik. You're okay."  
  
Erik practically melts against him, resting his chin on top of Charles's head and tucking him in a little closer. Charles will note that he does fit rather perfectly into Erik's chest, but even just being like this, it's enough to make Erik's brain stop screaming at him in high-definition. He's still breathing poorly, halts and starts, but that evens out after a while, too. "I'm sorry," he croaks, a bit red himself. He's not usually so, so-this. "I want to help you, too."  
  
Charles shakes his head. "You don't need to apologize," he says, but it's muffled a bit by Erik's chest and that makes him flush even harder. He considers pulling away, embarrassed and a little uncomfortable, but in the end he can't, and he's floating with it. He doesn't actually know what's happening, but he doesn't want to move, and he knows this hug probably should have ended a while ago but he doesn't think he can be the one to do it, and his heart is beating fast again, this for a reason beyond panic, his stomach flipping over itself. It's strange, a tugging feeling right in his belly, then all through his body, and he bites the inside of his cheek as hard as possible. Despite the fluttering, he feels calmer than he has since he woke up the day before, panicked and terrified and so confused.  
  
Erik certainly doesn't end the hug, he just gives Charles's cheek a tap and a silent warning to let it heal. He tries to just leave Charles alone but can't help running his hand through the back of his hair a little, gentle. It doesn't need to end. It's OK for this to be comfortable. Erik doesn't expect anything out of it, and that is true. It's not going to fool him into thinking there aren't still significant issues to work through. But it does help him calm down, and it helps Charles calm down, too, and those are both wins right now. "Very well, I shall not. As I am right all of the time, as you well know," his lips pinch together, amused in that very subtle way he usually gets. Many people who aren't telepathic have a hard time knowing when Erik is joking, but Charles never had that problem.  
  
For whatever reason, Charles truly doesn't seem to be reading Erik's mind, at least not consistently, but it still makes him snort quietly. There are things he has always picked up on. Erik's hand in his hair has him sagging against his chest, and a soft, pleased noise escapes him before he can stop it, his cheeks absolutely flaming in the aftermath. There's something happening to him, and he doesn't know what it is; he blinks, confused and a little unsettled, but even then he doesn't move. He can't. He does bite on his lip again, though, worrying it, and he can't very well ask about this, so he doesn't, just goes a bit stiffer in Erik's arms, uncertain, that force around them vibrating with it. When he speaks up again, it's so mumbled and muffled even Erik has no chance of catching it.  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik rumbles back, his chest practically vibrating with it, tugging away a little to gaze into Charles's eyes. "Tell me," he whispers the Order softly. "Properly." He doesn't want to make Charles more uncomfortable, so he wants to know, he wants to make sure.  
  
It doesn't matter if the Order is soft, the way it shudders right through him, electrifying and shivery, makes him gasp. Immediately he looks away, uncertain again, part of him wanting to pull away and the other quite unwilling or unable to. He's trembling. "Ankle?" he mumbles, loud enough for Erik to hear it, and it is what he'd said, but it isn't really what's on his mind right now. Not really.  
  
"Yes," Erik murmurs. "What else?" His eyebrows arch, because he knows that's not the start or the end of anything. "Tell me what you are thinking about."  
  
Charles tests that one. When he doesn't immediately spill it out, he's not sure whether to breathe a sigh of relief or be disappointed, and that's an interesting frustration; that confusing tugging is back, and he shakes his head, swallowing visibly again, backing off a few inches even though it seems to instantly make him more anxious. "I'd rather not, thank you," he whispers, and wonders if that will be that. "I wasn't thinking anything else of importance, anyway." That one's just a lie, he thinks.  
  
"I am not asking your permission," Erik rumbles again. It's not frustrated at all, but rather quite entitled, and somewhat warm. "Tell me."  
  
Charles' eyes go wide, and he's not sure what to do in the aftermath, clearly. He's restless and confused, trembling in the fingers as he wrings them together in his lap, backed off from touching Erik almost completely. "I feel strange," he settles on, just barely a whisper again. "I'm not sure what's - I'm not sure what's happening," he admits, his cheeks that bright red.  
  
Erik nods after a bit. "I think I might know," he touches Charles's cheek again, but doesn't linger, instead just sets his good hand on Charles's knee. "You're all right. It's just normal. You don't need to do anything about it. It doesn't feel bad, right?"  
  
Charles bites his lip, but shakes his head. It doesn’t feel bad at all. “Are you going to tell me what it is?” he asks, and that’s a bit testy, but it’s just because it’s another thing he doesn’t know, another thing he’s in the dark about, and if it’s normal he feels like he should. He should also have known his own name without being told, though, so here they are.  
  
"Of course I am," Erik strokes his cheek, fond. "It's called subspace. I think it can happen for any number of reasons, but it just means you are feeling more comfortable. Many people, find that kind of response, a little bit inevitable around me. But for you it is a bit different. You retain yourself."  
  
"But -" Charles bites even harder on his lip, effectively biting down whatever that first reaction was. He's having an even harder time deciding whether to lean into Erik's touch or jerk away, and in the end he goes stiff again, stuck and restless between both instincts and reactions. "What do you mean by retain myself? I don't understand." His eyes are firmly on his lap, refusing to even consider looking at Erik during this.  
  
"Some people-they have a hard time with that." Erik doesn't sound particularly thrilled about it, either. "They become incapable of making their own choices, or asserting themselves in any way. I don't like that very much, I want people to be able to make their own choices near me. But many find it difficult."  
  
Charles' brows furrow at that, some of that fierce curiosity riled back up along with concern. He peeks up, but not enough for their eyes to meet. "Other submissives can't make decisions around you? At all? That's -" He doesn't know. It sounds like an awful burden to bear. "Obviously you can still make me do as you say, though." Even if he didn't know what an Order was, and he does, it would be impossible for him not to have caught on by now.  
  
"I can," Erik nods. "But not really. It's not as much of a choice as people think. I value you as a person, I make decisions for you that make you feel good, not to tear you down. But some people, it doesn't matter what I say, they can't assert themselves at all, and it scares them. And it scares me."

* * *

There are a lot of things about that that Charles finds himself curious about, and that he isn't quite sure is accurate, face twisted up with it again as he gnaws on the inside of his cheek. "You said you make every decision for me," Charles says, slowly, as if he's trying to understand. He is. Truly. "And that we are more than anyone else, which I took to mean - well. I doubt all those decisions make me feel good. But you're saying it's different in that I can assert myself even while having that Dynamic? Earlier, when we were - debating..." It's as appropriate a word as any, really. "Are you saying that wouldn't have been possible, with another submissive?" Not that Erik preferred it to happen the way it did, because Charles got the distinct impression that he was holding something back. Or a lot back, maybe. Charles appreciates it, but he still thinks Erik would have listened, like he said. He'd said so himself. If Charles disagrees with something, he's allowed to voice that opinion. "Do other submissives... just not have opinions around you?" That's thoroughly horrifying.  
  
"They might not make you feel good in the moment, or you might not agree with me, but that isn't what I mean," Erik murmurs quietly. "When I make a decision for you, it's for your good. Not because I want you to feel inferior to me. Some Dominants, can be like that, so people assume that I am constantly holding myself back from making you do horrible things at all times. But it isn't the case. People don't really argue with me, no. If I express an opinion, people move out of the way. If I am having trouble or going against something that's good for me, your presence is really the only thing that shifts the situation. Otherwise they would leave me alone."  
  
Charles shakes his head, eyes back stubbornly on his lap. "Why would they assume that? That doesn't make sense," he mumbles, because he never assumed that of Erik, not now and not the first time, either, even when it frightened him. He's always defended him in this, fiercely, even as he worked through his own reservations. "Besides, I'm not sure - well..." He shakes his head again, and bites on his tongue this time, deciding he doesn't need the answer to whatever that curiosity was. "I consented to this Dynamic anyway, didn't I? I assume we discussed it? That's entirely different. The way you make it sound -" He cuts himself off. It just doesn't seem like another submissive would be able to give consent for something like this. Not fully.  
  
"Because people are scared of me," Erik murmurs back. "I cannot say I blame them." Erik nods, though. "We've discussed it many times. I'm very cautious. You might say too cautious, but it is important to me not to make the wrong choices. Someone else wouldn't be capable of asserting themselves enough to consent to a relationship with me. Not really. If I got mad or overwhelmed they would maybe choose something they wouldn't otherwise do. It wasn't really an issue for me; I didn't have any relationships beforehand."  
  
Charles already assumed that, truthfully, but now he’s chewing on his lip again, playing with his hands in his lap in the absence of anything else to do with them. “I didn’t feel that way, even when I knew very clearly what you wanted,” he points out, unnecessarily, because he’s sure by now Erik knows the ways Charles responds to him. It’s interesting, though, and he’s mostly saying it to himself at this point. He often does that, makes observations aloud, mumbles something he finds fascinating - and it’s still Charles. This is still Charles. “Is it because - you said we were a Pairbond? And -” He clearly has more questions, but his cheeks are heated again, a sign he isn’t certain he wants to ask them. That he’s too embarrassed to.  
  
"I am not sure," Erik murmurs back. "I've never met another adult S1 before, but Pietro seems similarly inclined as well. I'd venture it's more your Inclination than us being a Pairbond, but I am not a scientist." Erik smiles, tapping his fingers over Charles's hand, and he shakes his head. "Let that heal, Charles. What else would you like to ask? I want to help you understand."  
  
For some reason, it makes Charles tense up again. He bites on his lip harder, his shoulders hunching in and the flush spreading down to his neck, most of his face hidden now. "Nothing, but thank you. I understand fine," he lies, and his voice is shaking, not even mentioning the near-violent shiver.  
  
"Tell me," Erik murmurs the Order quietly. "Did I say something wrong?"  
  
"Mm-mm," Charles mumbles, hunching further, flushed even more. "I just - I don't understand why... subspace is different for me? How do you know that's what's happening?" It would be impossible to miss how breathy he's gotten, like he's having trouble getting enough breath in to speak.  
  
"Well, I recognize it," Erik replies, smiling gently. "Just breathe. There's nothing wrong with you, or how you present. I think you found it hard, before you met me, because other people couldn't put you down at all, and you felt abnormal. But you aren't abnormal. You just needed to meet someone like me. Maybe me," Erik laughs softly. "You've been around another D5, but you didn't need to follow their Commands."  
  
Charles blinks at that, even though Erik can't see it, still practically bent over into his own lap. "How did that work? And - and how does it work now?" He still doesn't sound like he's breathing well enough, probably because he's holding his breath, something Erik will recognize from those very first meeting, the first one especially. It never worked. He was still affected. He just doesn't understand, even though he's frightened by it for a very different reason this time around.  
  
"I don't really know how it works now," Erik whispers. "I think we're still figuring that out. But back then, I just asked you not to follow their Commands. You listened to me, not them. So I think, maybe that does have to do with us being a Pairbond. It's something that transcends the basics of what we think we know, about life and function.  
  
"That's mad," he whispers, and it's so hushed. His breath hitches when he hears the sound of his own voice and he goes silent for a few moments, breathing harshly and tensed up again. Eventually Charles shakes his head. "That it works like that, that two people - that we - biologically, evolutionarily speaking..." It's fascinating, and unlikely. It's truly no wonder D5s and S1s are such a rare, unique phenomenon. They're something else entirely. "Does it - do you ever -" Another head-shake, more tongue biting. "My ankle?" he asks instead, and he tried that in the beginning, too. Changing the subject.

* * *

And it doesn't work now, either. They'll get to that. Erik won't let it go on for much longer, but at the same time, he doesn't let Charles get away with changing the subject so transparently, either. "Ask me," he says, the Order fond. He can't guarantee an answer to everything, but he does want to help Charles understand, as much as he understands himself.  
  
A breathy, slightly helpless noise slips past his teeth before he can really stop it, but he doesn't have much of a choice, so he grips hard to his pants and digs his nails in. "Do you ever - put me down on purpose? Does it just happen? How do you recognize it? Can you make it stop?" It all rushes out mostly at once, and he stays hunched over himself, trembling slightly as he waits.  
  
"Of course I do," he murmurs. "And yes, it does." Just happen, he means. "I recognize it because I am attuned to you. I can make it stop, but I don't have too much experience doing so in a way that isn't distressing for you. Abruptly coming out of subspace can trigger a situation known as sub-drop, which is highly alarming to both of us. I almost never see a reason to bring you out of it in an unnatural way. It's a normal part of life, for everybody."  
  
It's funny that he's so startled, really, because he isn't even in subspace now, the same as that first meeting. Hovering near it, close, just like in the beginning, but just like back then it's completely overwhelming, feeling it for the first time all over again. If this were Charles, the Charles with all his memories and experiences, he might even consider himself out of subspace, considering how deep he's gone. He very, very rarely gets any more removed from it than this, especially when they're so physically close. It's an interesting exercise in perspective, though only Erik has the context for it. "Could you do it now, please?" he mumbles, and it's so quiet. "I don't - it feels..."  
  
"I can try, but I cannot guarantee I will be successful nor that you will feel any better if I do, nor that I won't actually send you deeper under," Erik tells him, being completely honest. He's not really sure how a lot of it works, but he knows his instinct, in how he gives Orders, could definitely just make matters more complicated. "How does it feel?" Erik wants to know, not making any other movements or decisions at the moment.  
  
Charles certainly doesn't want to answer that, nor does he really think he can to any degree of accuracy, and he makes another half-distressed noise, shaking his head. "Can you just try," he mumbles, and perhaps he meant to snap it but it just comes out more breathless.  
  
There's nothing that Erik can really say that will do it, but he remembers the last time he did with any degree of success and works from there, finding that spot within his own chest where he can feel Charles, like the end of a string leading to the bottom of an upside-down ocean flipped in a mirror. He tugs on it, slowly reversing the image as best as he can, leading Charles to the surface.  
  
Immediately Charles' eyes go wide and he hunches further into himself, abruptly begins to tremble harder, a gasping whine pulled right from his throat that's entirely unconscious. It doesn't make him feel better, perhaps predictably. Instead he's left breathing harshly, shaking violently, and terribly nauseous, trying not to retch or, worse, to cry.  
  
Erik frames his face with both hands, good and bad, allowing the string to tug itself back into a more natural position. Making things smoother, easing things out. Charles may not have thought he was in subspace before, but it's different when he's abruptly surfaced out of it. "It's OK. Just breathe. I've got you."  
  
If this were Charles with all his memories, it likely wouldn't affect him so much, if at all. It would be uncomfortable, but he's been much, much, much deeper, and he wouldn't have considered that to be subspace at all, likely - but this Charles has nothing to compare it to, and it's jarring and sudden and distinctly uncomfortable. Alarming, like Erik said. He's finding it very hard to breathe, unsteady and dizzy, and he shakes his head, biting his tongue to hold back another distressed noise. "What did you do -"  
  
"Breathe," Erik Orders firmly. "I did as you asked. I did advise you it was not recommended," he points out wryly. "But you are all right. Just take a moment."  
  
Charles didn't expect it to do this. He gasps for those next breaths, bent over and trying not to dry heave, his entire chest tight and his stomach wholly unsettled. When he calms some, he still feels unsteady and dizzy, as if someone displaced the earth from beneath him. He isn't sure he'll ever be steady again, and it actually hurts a bit, an ache, a pit in his belly. "I didn't know it was - was that -" If that's subdrop, he's uncertain how submissives have handled it for so long. "And it's... for you, too?"  
  
"For me?" Erik's eyebrows knit together. "What is for me?" Certainly not this. He'd much prefer Charles feel comfortable.  
  
"No, you said -" It's actually fairly difficult to talk, and Charles feels the instinctive need to be closer, to gravitate, so he grits his teeth and continues stubbornly staring at his lap, trying to ride it out. Ignoring how Erik's voice soothes everything slightly is impossible, but he tries anyway, feeling on edge and shivery. Not in the same way as before, either. "You said it's alarming for you, too."  
  
"Yes," Erik just says, not intending to elaborate. He's still not very good at that. It doesn't stop him from trying to make Charles comfortable, even if it is very hard to endure.  
  
Charles still feels dizzy and unfocused and nauseous, so maybe he should have heeded the warning. He keeps his head bowed into his own lap, slumped over as he breathes slowly. "How?" he mumbles. For whatever reason, Erik talking is helping.  
  
"It doesn't feel good," Erik shrugs. It doesn't show on his features, but Charles knows him well enough by now to be able to decipher the tightness around his eyes.  
  
Not that well, but no one can accuse him of being unobservant. "How?" he asks again, more demanding this time, slowly breathing easier. "What - what does it feel like?"  
  
"I don't know how to describe it," Erik whispers back, his own free hand curling into his knee and his nails digging into the fabric of his jeans harshly, scratching them up. He doesn't know how to say that it's hardly bearable and his eyes burn and he can't stop shivering. "It feels like pain. Like being cut."  
  
That’s certainly alarming. Charles bites his lip hard, finally glancing up to reach for Erik’s hand with his own shaking fingers. “How do I fix it?” he asks quietly, and his own teeth are chattering, his voice coming out cracked and weak. “Have you felt this before? What did you do?”  
  
"Sometimes. There is not really much to do. Talk with you. Calm down. That is about it." Everything else isn't relevant to them, and thinking about it only makes Erik feel more like shards of glass are piercing through him. "It's OK. It passes."  
  
It seems to be passing extraordinarily slowly for Charles, who still feels rather like there’s an elephant sitting on his chest. He squeezes Erik’s hand, feeling foolish and helpless at once. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, bowing his head again. “I shouldn’t have asked. I didn’t know. This is - this is horrible.”  
  
"I did tell you," Erik says, his lips pursing in amusement. He places his hand over Charles's. "There's no reason to feel embarrassed when it happens. It's very normal, and I am not going to take advantage of you."  
  
But Charles lowers his head again, his cheeks pink. “Is there a way to avoid it in the first place?” he asks, quiet. Small. “It’s - it’s not you,” he rushes to add. “I don’t mean to suggest that. But I’d rather not.”  
  
"No," Erik murmurs back. "There isn't really anything. It's just part of who you are, that's all."  
  
Charles bites on his poor lip again, shaking his head. “No, there must be something. Surely it would have been impractical when we were first meeting? In prison?”  
  
"It wasn't, really. We weren't supervised, and it doesn't happen all the time." Erik smiles.  
  
“That wasn’t my first concern, surprisingly,” he mutters, dry as anything, still staring stubbornly down at his lap. He still feels shaky, on edge, uncomfortable. “It doesn’t happen all the time?”  
  
"It might be more common now that we are Bonded, and that you trust me and feel comfortable with me, and with your submission." Or, he did. "But when we first began to interact it wasn't as common to occur spontaneously, no."  
  
Charles chews harder at his lip, nodding. “Perhaps it won’t happen again, then,” he whispers, and it’s clear the thought is legitimately frightening for him. He absolutely refuses to look anywhere near Erik.  
  
"Why does it bother you?" Erik wants to know, his face and voice entirely neutral.  
  
A head shake. “It just does,” he mumbles, which has never been a real answer, but he’s not sure he knows the real one. If he does, he doesn’t want to offer it.  
  
Erik just stares down at his hand, saying nothing.  
  
Eventually Charles barely peeks up, dizzy still, but needing to see. Erik not talking has made him anxious, upset him, but he refuses to admit that to either of them. “It’s not you,” he whispers again. “It’s - it feels...” He shakes his head, trailing off helplessly.  
  
He looks up, swallowing and waiting for Charles to finish. Charles doesn't want Erik to act like his Dominant, which leaves him very little choices in how to interact, because he doesn't know how to suddenly stop doing so. But he can't force Charles to do things, so if Charles doesn't want to tell him, is it even appropriate for Erik to Order him otherwise?  
  
Whatever he wanted to say, it dies quickly. Charles swallows it down and shakes his head again, taking a shaky, uncertain breath. “How did - in the beginning, did you...?” He doesn’t know what he wants to ask, really, but maybe Erik will.  
  
"...Did I?" Erik prompts, tilting his head.  
  
Charles sucks in a breath. “How did we transition into the relationship we have now? Did you -“ Now it’s rather obvious what he means. Did Erik always act Dominant around him, did he always inspire the same reactions. “I know you said we’re a Pairbond, that I needed to meet you, but was it always like that?”  
  
"I think so," he nods. "Even from our first meeting it was very evident. Before you had met me you had not met anyone who could Dominate you in the same way."  
  
“And did I... like it?” Charles asks, still chewing on the inside of his lip, mostly mumbled now. “Did you?”  
  
"Very much," Erik can't help but smiling, but he ducks his head, breathing in through his nose slowly. "On both accounts. I wasn't always like this. I was less forward. I never Ordered you at all. You got frustrated over that."  
  
It makes Charles sigh, pulling at the fabric of his pants again, tasting a bit of blood from his cracked lip. “You didn’t?” he asks, and it sounds incredulous even to his own ears. “You’re holding back now, yeah? Is it hard?”  
  
"Immeasurably. But that doesn't matter," Erik smiles again. "It was hard to trust myself at first to begin with. I still hold back a great deal with us. We were learning to navigate it."  
  
It does matter, is the problem. Charles twists his hands more restlessly in his lap, just to give himself something to do. “If I was myself right now, or at least all of myself, would you - Order me? Expect things of me, like you said? How much would be different? Could you tell me what those things are?” He’s trying not to sound too interested. Too entirely curious, maybe even desperate. He’s failing.  
  
"I do not know," Erik murmurs. "I would Order you. I would expect things from you." Things would be more stable and easy because Charles would have the context to trust Erik at his word and Erik wouldn't argue with him about things as much because he would be assured in his own decisions. He's not anymore.

* * *

Charles tries not to be frustrated with that, sighing. “You really are _vague_ ,” he mumbles, but there’s amusement there, too, even as he won’t lift his head to show it. It’s partially because he still feels sick, at least. “Do you want to do it right now? Order me, or -?” he wonders, and tries to sound casual about it. He doesn’t feel it, and his wringing hands are evidence.  
  
"I prefer to think of it as _nuanced_ ," Erik replies back warmly. "I always wish to. But I value your comfort more than a momentary impulse."  
  
“Is that what it is? An impulse?” he asks, quiet again. Hushed. “Or is it...” Something stronger.  
  
"It's not an impulse," he finally says back, quietly. "Nor is it momentary. But that does not matter to me. What matters is that you feel safe."  
  
For a very long time, Charles is quiet. Then he shakes his head. “Does it hurt, not - not...” Not acting like what he is. Not acting like Charles’ Dominant. “Tell me the truth, please.”  
  
"It-" Erik sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose by lowering his head into his fingers. "Of course it does," Erik whispers back.  
  
Charles already expected that answer. It’s his next question he’s frightened to ask, so he curls in on himself until he’s practically a Charles pretzel and mumbles something that sounds like, “ _Dosubmissivehapif_?” It’s not coherent, but it’s the best he can do.  
  
Erik puts his hand over Charles's shoulder and eases him up into a more seated position so that he doesn't strain or hurt himself, nor his ankle. "You'll need to repeat yourself," he murmurs, the Command in his voice clear even if it's not a Command. Yet.  
  
For a long moment, Charles seems to consider that. Then he shakes his head and bends right back down, disappearing into his lap again because he can, and because it’s safer. “No, nevermind,” he breathes, as evenly as he can. But it seems like he’s testing something. He clearly is.  
  
"Stop," Erik does Order him, not allowing him to curl up any further. "Tell me what you want to say."  
  
It makes him restless, and he clearly tries to do it anyway, but that gets him nowhere. “Do you think it hurts me to not be - to not act like...” It’s obvious enough by now. Charles covers his face with his hands. “Why did you make me stop,” he mumbles, disgruntled, and it’s more than a little childish. And there’s something else, too. He’s shivering again.  
  
"Of course I think it hurts you," Erik says, nodding. "Your ankle still needs to be fixed. You can't be bending yourself all out of shape before we deal with it. Tell me what else." It's almost like Erik's the telepath here. Very little slips by him, even now.  
  
Charles obviously tries again anyway, just to see if he can. He can’t. “My ankle isn’t going to be hurt by this,” he mutters. “Tell me I can do it. And there’s nothing else.” He tests that one out, counting seconds. He’s not compelled to do it, so he’s assuming it wasn’t an Order. This should be very familiar to Erik, really; these are all things Charles did early on, still sometimes does now. Testing.  
  
"No. Now tell me." Erik's eyebrow raises and there's nothing optional about that.  
  
It’s absolutely not a pout on his lips, and Charles refuses to look at Erik or admit that his cheeks are hot again. “I feel it again,” he mumbles, and then, because he’s thoroughly embarrassed and worked up and no one has ever accused Charles of not being stubborn enough, “Tell me I can. If I want to twist myself up I should be allowed.”  
  
"That's not happening," Erik repeats simply, shrugging his shoulders. It's evident what he thinks about that, and he doesn't bother detailing it in high-definition. Charles is a smart man, he can fill in the pieces. He's being contrary and he knows it, and Erik doesn't feel the need to defend himself.  
  
Erik didn’t even address the thing he’d Ordered right out of Charles’ mouth and he’s more contrary for it, frowning as he shivers again, full-body and unconscious and frustrating. “I’ll keep asking. How long do they last?” he mutters, and he’s still trying. It’s still not working. He’s still pouting.  
  
"As long as I want them to," Erik says, and he can't help a small little *smirk*, either. Erik isn't immune to being *smug*, sometimes.  
  
Nor should he. Unfortunately for Charles, it makes him shudder again, taking in a harsh, huffing breath to hide it. “Well, take it back,” he demands. “You said you wanted me to be comfortable. I’m uncomfortable. Fix it.” That’s pushing it, slipping right into ordering Erik around, but Charles has always toed this line. It might just be natural for him, whether a quirk of personality or instinct or both, as most things are.  
  
"I also said that I do not trifle with your safety, so we will just have to find some way to exist in the middle." Because, as it's imminently obvious, he's not going to fix it because there is nothing to fix. It's fortunate, though, that Charles gets to experience this for the first time, in the presence of a real Dominant and not someone who would become threatened or frustrated; because Erik isn't. There's nothing wrong with him, and that is what he wants to teach Charles above all else.  
  
And it’s interesting to note, really, that this Charles isn’t ashamed of his submission in the same way. He doesn’t have the proper context for that. His embarrassment is for a different reason entirely, and this resistance is, too. Perhaps there is no reason besides what comes instinctually, and Erik seeing that is important. Even in the midst of pain and frustration, there are ways to grow and learn. “It’s clearly not because of my safety, don’t pull that,” Charles scoffs, skeptical and pointed and haughty. “There’s no middle. Just take it back.” It’s ridiculous and he doesn’t even want to do it anymore, but he’s still going, in true Charles fashion. At least Erik can be convinced he hasn’t been wiped entirely blank.  
  
Erik just laughs, though. "No, _neshama_. You will simply need to come to terms with it." His eyes crinkle up at the corners and he straightens up again, seeming to be calmer even from this interaction alone. Charles seeing this is important, too. Erik can be firm, without degrading him, that his submission doesn't give people the right to treat him badly. That even if Erik does Order him, it isn't to damage or humiliate.  
  
Perhaps it would have calmed Charles, too, and it’s clear that for a moment he isn’t certain what to do, what reaction to follow; he shivers again, entirely without noticing this time, and then he scowls. “Why? There’s absolutely no good reason for it. You’re laughing at me,” he huffs. It’s riled up frustration, maybe, but Charles finds he doesn’t want to sit here any longer. Shifting off the bed is nearly impossible even with the pain gone, but he starts to try anyway, turned fully away from Erik.  
  
"Stop it." Erik Orders him still, again. "Calm yourself down. You need to deal with it, because you need to stay still for quite a while as it is. I won't have you doing any more damage to yourself. There is a good reason, and I have explained it to you, and you are merely acting contrary for its own sake. I won't be dignifying that with a mounted defense, Charles, so yes. Sometimes I just have to laugh. But I am not laughing at you, and I think you know that."  
  
“No, I don’t,” he snaps, and there’s truth there. Charles refuses to look at Erik, but the look on his face, puckered up and frowning, says enough even turned away. “How would I know that? You said yourself, didn’t you? I don’t know a single thing about you. I also can’t stay on the bed if you’re going to make it a sterile field, so I might as well get ahead of the game. Unless you’d like to mock me some more, as you seem exceptionally fond of doing?” And there’s real hurt there, too, underneath whatever else this is.  
  
"The alternative is that I let you know that I do not appreciate you lashing out at me without a significant reason," Erik murmurs back flatly. "As you seem exceptionally fond of doing. When I am ready to convert the room into a sterile area, I will help you move carefully. I will not be performing surgery on you while you are agitated and upset, so I am not ready to do so. Any other concerns?" he says, crossing his arms over his chest with an arched eyebrow.  
  
“Yes, actually. Is that truly what you call raising a concern? Being upset? Lashing out? What gives you the right to decide whether it’s a significant reason or not, what upsets me? Are you aware of how utterly condescending that is, to make me feel like -“ But he cuts himself off, pursing his lips. “Fine. Since I don’t have a significant reason to be agitated or upset, I suppose I won’t be. Problem solved. Get to work, then.”  
  
"I didn't say you could not be upset. I said to stop lashing out at me. It is my right to decide when I do not appreciate having this situation openly thrown in my face for no other reason than that I am ensuring you are looked after. But I suppose you are not aware of how utterly hurtful and disrespectful the throw-away comments you say to me are."  
  
“Is that really what you think just happened?” Charles asks, incredulous. “I was upset by something and I told you, and you felt the need to - what? To make me feel like I’m being unreasonable and mad and stupid again? Clearly you don’t see how hurtful your throw-away comments are, either, so I suppose we’re even.”  
  
"Enough," Erik murmurs lowly, the Order zapping through the entire room. He says nothing else, leaving the area in tingling silence while he works to decontaminate the place. "You constantly make assumptions about me. You did not tell me anything, you never tell me any single thing. You force me to pry it out of you and then resent me for doing so, because if I do not, you insist that you've told me something. But really what you have done is once again concluded that I am an evil dictator who does not care for you in the slightest."  
  
Charles goes absolutely still for a very long time, trembling where he’s at least slightly bent over, his entire face turned away from Erik now. “I never said that,” he whispers, finally, and his voice is trembling too. “Not once. Not once did I say that, in fact I said the exact opposite, several times, but I did, just now, tell you that something upset me and you chose to make me, again, again, seem unreasonable and horrid. I don’t quite see how that’s fair or right, but who am I to say it? Apparently I haven’t said anything, and I don’t resent you -“ But he shuts up again, because his voice is cracking, and not with anger. It’s genuine hurt and upset, as it was from the beginning.  
  
"What you say and what you do are different things, Charles. You continually insist that I mock you and degrade you and condescend to you. You throw everything I say back into my face as if it is some elaborate _got you_ statement. You are right, you do not know me. And it kills me. Is that what you want to hear? It feels like my mind is being shredded apart. I asked you to tell me what was wrong and you refused. You become angry with me when I act as your Dominant and when I don't. I do not know how to act. I am doing the best that I can do. There is nothing fair, or good, about any of this, for either of us. But I am not expecting anything of you and you are expecting _everything_ out of me! Well, I don't have everything. Our Bond is gone. I can't feel it anymore. So I have nothing. So that is what you get. You get nothing." Erik presses his lips together so that he doesn't fucking cry and abruptly whirls around on his feet, leaning against the bureau to conceal his expression.

* * *

Charles goes silent again. His shoulders hunch all the way in on themselves and he takes harsh, shaking breaths, making a similar effort himself. Finally, he whispers, “Could you come here, please?” And it’s small again, and trembling, and uncertain.  
  
Erik never meant that he wouldn't give Charles everything he has. He meant that he is nothing. And that feeling swamps the room now, saturates it. Erik can barely move because he's made of brittle glass and one wrong footstep he's going to shatter all over the place and he didn't intend to ever allow any of those feelings to surface. The wake is like the wake of an atom bomb, silent inside him with dust particles floating in his heart. But Charles asked it of him and so of course he acquiesces, turning around with a visible divot in his jaw from where he's cracking his teeth together. He sits back down, taking slow, deep breaths.  
  
As soon as he’s close enough, as soon as Charles can scoot the rest of the distance, dragging his ankle with him, he wraps Erik up in another hug. For a long time it’s silent except for their breathing, harsh and unsteady, the quiet little hitches in Charles’. “I’m still very frightened, and not of you,” he whispers. “And you’re right. You were right. I’m lashing out a bit. I don’t know how to act, either. Because there is - everything is missing, it’s just gone. You cannot imagine how terribly I want to remember everything, and not just for your sake, trust me. I feel so helpless, Erik. I feel so utterly helpless. There’s just nothing there. Down in that basement, that fear - but there was nothing. I don’t know anything. I have no idea why I suddenly couldn’t breathe. And with you, I feel... perhaps it’s just instincts, but even so, I know -“ He shakes his head against Erik’s chest. “I want to remember that. I want it back. It’s horrible not knowing, and I’m sensitive to it. But I don’t think you’re some awful dictator, Erik. Quite the opposite. I know you’re trying to make the best of an impossible situation. Thank you.”  
  
Erik's head slowly leans so he's resting it against Charles's shoulder, taking in slow, stuttering inhales through his nose. It's hard to talk, but he is listening. "I know," he whispers. "I wish I could make it easier for you. I wish I could make you as comfortable as you deserve to be. I don't want you to feel ashamed or made fun of. I wish that you could remember how much I love you. You deserve to know that. I didn't know you would be afraid, or I wouldn't have brought you down there. I thought it was the safest option." He's sorry; he's sorry he's doing everything wrong.  
  
“I know,” Charles murmurs right back, and slowly reaches out, rubbing circles wherever his hand is, massaging out tense muscles, the other reaching up to stroke Erik’s hair. “I know you’re trying your best. You didn’t think I would know, and you don’t mean to -“ He bites his lip. He knows. “It’s just I think sometimes you assume I’ll know or understand things I don’t, and when I don’t and you’ve made it clear I should, I feel -“ Stupid. He feels very silly and very stupid and very helpless, and for Charles, even this Charles, it’s a frightening thing to be. “But there’s no way for you to know that, because why would you? I should know better. I want to. I just don’t, and I know that hurts you. I know and I’m sorry.”  
  
His eyes close of their own volition when Charles's hand tangles into his quite messy hair. "You might feel stupid, but that isn't how I feel," he murmurs, sounding a bit sluggish. It's more than just expecting Charles to know something that he doesn't, it's more complicated than that. Erik doesn't expect him to know anything, but it's hard to navigate what he knows and what he doesn't know, it's hard to determine what is there and what isn't, especially when Charles's knowledge vacillates at random from knowing how to sterilize an operating room but not what subspace is. When Erik decides he knows nothing, Charles feels patronized. Which makes sense, but when he decides he knows everything, that can't work, either. The only option, figuring out exactly where his knowledge stops and starts, isn't accessible to Erik because he isn't telepathic. For all that he does know. "I don't know anything, either," he murmurs.  
  
Charles isn’t very telepathic at the moment, either, which adds an extra layer of difficulty. Except, interestingly, as he’s untangling some of Erik’s hair, gently, carefully, “I knew what subspace is.” It’s noticeably not something Erik said out loud, but Erik still gets the impression he isn’t reading his mind, not even the way he did in the very beginning. He doesn’t seem to notice the difference at all. Either way, Charles hides the quirk of his lips in Erik’s chest. “I just didn’t know what it felt like. I remember most - impersonal things, I suppose. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. While you were sleeping I read your textbooks. I understood them. I couldn’t tell you how I understand advanced particle physics, since apparently I’m a psychiatrist, but I do. I also don’t think I should know how to sterilize an operating room, from what you’ve told me, but that’s up there. I imagine a lot of things work similarly.”  
  
"It sounds like your semantic memory was preserved, but not your episodic memory," Erik blurts out this random fucking _factoid_ that he probably shouldn't know, but there they are. But Erik doesn't know if that's true, because there are some things that Charles has instincts for which are informed by his past experiences whether he knows about it or not. It's not the same thing as a neurological deficit. This process is something else. But that's not really important. "You will get it back," he whispers. "I have confidence that you will. I know it is hard, but please try and be patient with me. I am not doing things to deliberately hurt you, 'kay?" he mumbles, and nudges against Charles's fingers, practically purring under the attention.  
  
Charles snorts, and it’s mostly muffled by Erik’s chest again, but it’s genuinely amused. When he sobers up, it’s pulled back a bit, focused on detangling Erik’s curls still, rubbing them between his fingers. “I know, and I’m trying, but I’m not intending to hurt you either. I’ll try to be better about talking.” Because how else will Erik know? There’s too much assuming happening, on both sides, he reckons. “I think there’s something else we should talk about, though,” he whispers, and then says absolutely nothing about what that is, quiet and not yet breaking the hug.  
  
" _Mmmrrhh_ ," Erik rumbles contentedly. He rubs his eye against Charles's shoulder, doing his best to hide the reaction. "What else?" he whispers, hoping that Charles doesn't stop any time soon. There is something physical at play here. When he's isolated from touch for a long time, he grows less stable. It's only taken a few seconds practically to calm him down again.  
  
He won’t, and not just for Erik. It helps Charles, too, which is part of what he thinks they should talk about. “You think it hurts me to not be - to not submit,” he states, because it isn’t a question. Erik agreed to that earlier. “And that it hurts you, not to Dominate.”  
  
"I think so," Erik whispers. "More accurately I think it hurts you when you suppress it. Not that I think you need to force yourself into doing something that you aren't comfortable with?" Erik shrugs a little in Charles's hold, unsure if that really made sense.  
  
It does. But Charles bites his lip, because, “What if one is directly related to the other?” He can’t really be sure if he’s suppressing it because he’s uncomfortable or if trying to suppress it because he feels like he should is making him uncomfortable. Either way, he’s distinctly uncomfortable, and it’s probably both. “But I think you’re right. And not Dominating how you normally would is hurting you, right?”  
  
Erik just shrugs at that, which is frankly answer enough. It doesn't feel good, but be doesn't want to admit that he *is* hurt. He just leans his head into Charles's fingers, nuzzling against his hand. He doesn't know if Charles is right or not, but he doesn't expect him to force himself to be or do anything. If he wants to explore that part of himself, though, Erik also has no issue with that. It should be explored, and there's no safer place to do it.  
  
“So, yes,” Charles huffs, but it’s amused this time, too, softly so, his fingers still working on stubborn, thick locks, just as careful as in the beginning. Obliging. “Do you think - do you think it’s bad for us, then? You said that even in the beginning it was obvious, and excuse me for saying so, but it doesn’t sound like the circumstances were optimal. You make it sound like...” Like the Dynamic they’ve found themselves in is natural, perhaps even inevitable, and that this, this break from it, it’s rather excruciating. Even unhealthy. Even after he’s trailed off, he thinks Erik will get the gist.  
  
"They were not very optimal," Erik mumbles into Charles's shoulder. "I think it is natural for us." He gives a little shrug. "And not very natural to suppress it, if you feel that it is coming up, and you have those instincts." Erik doesn't know what that really means, though. It's not appropriate for him to be entitled to anything or expect anything, and he doesn't. It is excruciating, but that doesn't matter to Erik, only if that is something Charles wants to explore. His own pain isn't important to him.  
  
It’s important to Charles, though. It’s always been important to Charles. He bites hard at his lip again, sighing softly at the pain, at the taste of copper. “I do,” he mumbles. Have those instincts, he means. Strongly.  
  
"Stop," Erik says before he can make himself bleed again, the Order rough as he clears his throat.  
  
Charles freezes, a full-body shudder taking hold of his entire body. He stops chewing on his lip, but he stops everything else, too, barely breathing as he shivers and stays hidden in Erik’s chest.  
  
Erik pats him on the chest. "Not everything," he mumbles, hiding a smile there, too. "Let your lips heal. I mean it."  
  
His cheeks are flushed again, his eyes closed as he tries to breathe evenly. It’s not working well, and he keeps shivering. “Why,” he mutters, and that’s contrary, because apparently that’s an instinct, too.  
  
"Because I don't like seeing you bleed," Erik murmurs back. It's more sincere than Charles probably counted on.  
  
It is. It stuns Charles into silence for a moment, and then he huffs. “M’not bleeding,” he mumbles, except he definitely was. “I can’t help it.”  
  
"You can," Erik nudges back into his fingers after he'd stopped, as if affronted that he'd done so. " _Mrrp_ ," he mumbles under his breath, eyes squinting up.  
  
Charles laughs quietly, hoarse and shaky but there, and goes back to his daunting but calming task of detangling and petting. Perhaps it’s as good a time as any to test boundaries, or at least Charles seems to think so. “What if I don’t want to?” he challenges. “You get to decide?”  
  
Erik settles back down, blinking sleepily until his eyes close outright and he hums thoughtfully as if really considering it. "Hmmm. Yes." He grins. "Please." He really doesn't like it at all, and never has. That much is never going to change.  
  
“But I don’t want to,” Charles repeats, and his fingers have stilled in Erik’s hair again, mostly because he’s trying to lock up his muscles so he stops his shivering. He did stop, before, but that Order has never lasted long; usually it’s unconsciously that he disobeys it, because it is just a habit, and apparently still is even for this Charles. But now it’s deliberate, and he pulls his lip right between his teeth.  
  
"Stop," Erik murmurs the Order again. "Finish what you were going to say before?"  
  
That inspires another shudder, and Charles finally pulls away, scooting over and wincing even though there’s no real pain, staring down at his lap. He fidgets with his hands, since he’s so rudely been denied the ability to bite his own lip off. “I wasn’t going to say anything,” he mumbles, and he sounds breathy and hoarse again. Charles sucks in a harsh breath.  
  
Erik almost immediately shrinks back into himself, having not anticipated Charles abruptly pulling away and having settled into it a little too easily, and he clears his throat, straightening up again. "You said that you feel the instinct. What would you like to do?"  
  
Charles is unsteady for it, too, hunched back into himself and shivering in earnest. “I don’t know,” he responds, which is awfully unhelpful, but he doesn’t want to be the one to offer any other solution here. He’s a bit preoccupied, anyway, fingers dug into his own leg now they’re not busy in Erik’s hair.  
  
That makes Erik shrug, because it's not like he has the solution. It's not up to him to just Order Charles around and treat him like he's his submissive. It won't work out and the whole purpose of their Dynamic is built around consent. Charles can't do that if Erik forces him to, so he just stares at his own feet. "I think you need to put some thought into that," he murmurs at last. "I'm not going to force you into acting like my submissive." He's not sure how he would even feel if Charles did magically agree to that. He doesn't know anything else, it's easy for Erik to take advantage of that. "You don't remember me. That's not good. It will just make you afraid of me."

* * *

Perhaps it’s odd, but Charles’ lips twitch, barely visible from where he’s bowed his head and his hair has fallen in front of his face. He’s really trembling now, though; not little shivers, but full-body quivering. “How did we do it when I didn’t know you the first time? How did we build up to it?”  
  
Another small shrug. There was more at play than Charles simply not knowing Erik and then suddenly knowing him, though. "I think at that point you were very accustomed to the idea that you would never meet someone who could put you down, or whose Orders you would be obligated to follow. You had a lot of experiences, you had a relationship that didn't work out so well. You didn't expect to meet a Dominant, but I think when you met me, you realized that the possibility existed and you wanted to explore that. So we just built up to it."  
  
Charles huffs again, this time with the beginnings of true frustration. “That is very _vague_ , even more than usual,” he points out, and it’s a good thing his head was dipped too low to really see Erik’s shrug, because that is working at his nerves, too. He knows he should be more patient, but he just doesn’t know, and there’s so much he doesn’t have access to. So much he can’t simply guess at, or even assume. “How did we build up to it? I can - I can see why it would be -” Charles swallows, and shakes his head. “But how did we go about it? How would you do it now, if -” He cuts himself off again.  
  
"I just started by Ordering you. We made some boundaries, but inevitably those changed when we became more comfortable with each other. You only wanted me to Order you to do something when you asked. But you grew to trust my judgment. You felt, I think, that you were still in control of everything. Which was helpful at first but gradually defeated the purpose. I had my own struggles as well."  
  
He’s aware, really, of how utterly mad this situation is. He knows, logically, perhaps even instinctively, that he’s - and if he didn’t, the collar around his neck says plenty, anyway. It helps that he’s seen for himself that Erik is willing to respect and watch boundaries, except for the times he’s forgotten himself, which Charles can’t blame him for. It’s, again, an impossible, complicated situation. “But if you had to do it over now, in a way,” he whispers, and it’s very quiet, “How would you do it? Differently? The same?” Because not only does Charles not feel the same way he did in the beginning because he doesn’t know what those things are at all, or how he came to them, Erik doesn’t. Neither of them are coming to this from the same place, and it really can’t be ignored that, in this scenario, Charles knows far, far less than Erik does.  
  
"Much differently," Erik whispers back. "We were learning things together, back then. We learned with each other, we adjusted for each other. While that can still be true, I have a distinct advantage. I don't want you to feel pressured into pleasing me. I don't want you to try and act how you think I want you to act. If I were to ever do anything over again now-" and Erik doesn't know how that would work, because the prerequisites for consent aren't there. "I would just encourage you to explore your submission, whether that it is in relation to myself, or yourself, or us both. It's not something either of us can come up with the solution in a day."  
  
It’s a perfectly fair, reasonable response. There’s another aspect that Erik is neglecting, however, and it doesn’t surprise Charles that he has; it seems to be a common theme. “Would it be painful for you, if - if I wanted…?” he asks, quietly.  
  
"Whatever your decision, my pain level should not be a factor," Erik murmurs gently. "But what would you like?"  
  
Charles immediately shakes his head. “I’d like it to be, in this case,” he whispers. “If it’s going to make you uncomfortable, or - if it might make it worse for you, because I know it won’t be the same -” He hunches further in on himself. It’s not about forcing himself into something, but the truth is there’s already a Dynamic in place. He has no idea what’s not here, what’s being missed. Erik does.  
  
"If what would make it worse for me?" Erik asks, ducking his head to catch Charles's eyes, and there's no Order or Command there but it's almost impossible to avoid the magnetic lock that links their gazes together, either. Erik's are almost otheworldly, illuminated by sunlight from the window.  
  
He’s biting on his cheek again, heart beating right out of his chest. “Experimenting,” he mumbles, and it really is barely audible.  
  
"No," Erik whispers. "It would not make it worse for me." He hasn't been very prone to smiling since Charles woke up, in fact it almost seems like his face doesn't know how to do that, for real. He's been smug and smirky a couple of times, but mostly neutral; but that changes for a few seconds now, with Erik's nose wrinkling up unconsciously alongside it. It would be a lot worse, he thinks, if Charles decided he didn't want anything to do with Erik at all.  
  
Charles is still uncertain. “You can be honest,” he whispers. “I can imagine it would be difficult, to just - and there’s nothing wrong with that. You’d be reminded that...” He trails off, but it’s rather obvious anyway. That Charles isn’t right. That he doesn’t remember, that he isn’t the same at all.  
  
"That does not bother me," Erik says back. "It would be worse if you didn't want anything to do with me at all." It's OK if Charles doesn't remember and isn't the same. He's still Charles. They can, and will, figure the rest out. That Charles even wants to try to do that is more than enough for Erik.  
  
Another huff. Charles has closed his eyes, trembling again. “I don’t think ignoring it is possible,” he admits, mumbled again. “And I don’t think it would help, anyway. How will I remember if I don’t engage with what I’m meant to be remembering?” It makes sense to Charles, anyway.  
  
"I don't think it's possible either." Erik picks some lint off of his pants, and sets his hand over Charles's knee; the bad one, instinctively trusting that it won't get jostled. He gives it a pat and straightens up again. "But you get to decide what extent you want to engage things."  
  
Charles considers that, too. “How would that work?” he asks, still mostly muffled as he bends further into his own lap, looking for lint on his own pants. He does find a piece of fluff. “You said it didn’t work the first time. It defeated the purpose. You know better what works for us than I do at the moment.”  
  
"I don't," Erik corrects softly. "We don't have the same relationship. You realized that it defeated the purpose because you wanted something more intense, and you trusted me to give that to you. Those experiences aren't there anymore, so you need to learn what you want."  
  
He’s sure it’s incredibly inappropriate this time, but Charles laughs, helpless. “I have no memories. No experiences. Absolutely nothing. You think I’ll somehow discover what I want? I’m not a different person, I’m a person that’s missing large portions of themselves. I don’t know what I want. I don’t want anything.” And it’s terrifying, but that’s beside the point. “I won’t have different desires or needs or - whatever you’d call this. I just don’t remember the ones I have, Erik.”  
  
"That is exactly why it's important to experiment," Erik murmurs back. "So that you can re-learn the types of things you like, what you don't like. What you end up wanting more of, or less of. I *can* help with that. I know what you wanted, and needed, from before, and I can introduce those elements into our interactions at a pace that won't overwhelm you. If that's what you want."  
  
It makes sense. It makes plenty of sense, actually, and Charles picks at his sweatpants, taking slow, even breaths. “I still have my instincts, the things that weren’t formed or changed by experience, at least on the conscious level,” he murmurs. “What if I find I like or need something and it’s not something I wanted with my memories because of - you know, experiences, whatever those might be? Nature and nurture and what have you. Won’t that complicate things for us?”  
  
"I don't think it will," Erik smiles. "I can show you our contract, if you would like. If you end up wanting something now that you didn't want before, we will deal with it. Or if you end up not wanting something now that you wanted before, that's fine as well. My own experiences are still the same, so there are some things that will be limited by my own boundaries, but other than that, I have faith in us."

* * *

The hum Charles makes is that soft, endlessly curious one he often does without noticing, even as he continues to be wracked by shivers. “You said we were still experimenting, though?” he asks quietly. “It’s just that - you said, for whatever reason, I felt ashamed. You certainly act as if you expect I am. There’s context there that I don’t have now, and it might mean whatever’s underneath pops up. Are you sure it wouldn’t change things, if you found those things out? I couldn’t tell you what those things are, or even if they exist, but it’s a possibility. There’s also the fact that I don’t - there just isn’t that same level of trust. If I don’t want something now, or it doesn’t function the same way, I imagine it would be because of that.” As horrifying as this whole thing is, it does create fascinating circumstances for experimentation. Erik said the words reset. Perhaps there is a purpose besides torture, and what seems like an obvious physical necessity. Melting down brains and all, which Charles still doesn’t even begin to understand.  
  
"It won't change things," he says fondly. "And that is precisely why it is important for us to communicate organically, and let our experiences and their reactions determine the next steps we take. It would not be appropriate for me to act entitled to your trust. Although I hope that you do come to trust me," he adds with a small smile. "But, yes. We were still experimenting. Growing. Changing. All the time."  
  
Again, Charles thinks it makes an incredible amount of sense. It could help, and if nothing else, it won’t hurt. If for whatever reason he decides he’d rather not, he truly doesn’t think Erik will force him. He trusts that. “How would it work? How would we start?” he asks, hushed.  
  
"I don't really know," Erik murmurs. "Do you want me to Order you to do things? Do you want me to do so only when you ask me? Do you want to put a boundary on that at all? How would you like to start?"  
  
“If you only Order me when I tell you to Order me, isn’t that a bit pointless?” It’s funny to hear him say it, but this Charles isn’t frightened for the same reasons. He isn’t hesitant for the same reasons. And even when Charles had suggested that, he’d likely known it didn’t make much sense. He’d only asked it of Erik because he was terrified by the alternative, and how much he might need it.  
  
"It might be a little bit pointless," Erik grants with a small smile. "But it was a good tactic at the time. It allowed you to explore being submissive within your comfort zone. But, much like the you-of-then, you also don't have the context of trust to draw upon. If I Order you whenever I deem it necessary, which I might... all the time, I do not know-it might scare you. And that-" Erik looks away. "I do not want to scare you."  
  
Charles tries very hard not to bite his lip. In the end he settles for more fidgeting. “Wouldn’t it be more productive for you to - you said you would introduce things slowly, so I don’t become overwhelmed? If I do, couldn’t I just say so? Or - if there was some way to signal that discomfort, so you could tell when I really needed you to stop, or when I was frightened or upset? That might have helped before, actually,” he mumbles.  
  
Erik nods. "We do have one," he says softly. "A signal. It's a pause-word, that either one of us can use at any time, regardless of circumstance. It simply means to take a break, and figure out what is happening and where to go from there. Does that make sense?"  
  
“Oh,” Charles breathes, not because it isn’t expected or even because he’s at all surprised but because it’s nice. It sounds like they have a very intense, all-encompassing Dynamic (which makes him shiver again, thinking about it), and to have that seems sensible. It’s something he thinks he’d want, which of course makes sense. “Yes, it makes perfect sense. But earlier you said - sometimes you override me? Does that apply here? I don’t necessarily mean now, but in general.”  
  
"Yes," Erik nods. "In our Dynamic prior to now, I would periodically override you. If you were really afraid, or something was really bothering you, then we would pause and work through that. But our Dynamic also included discipline, so there was a different set of rules at play there. If you could merely use a pause-word to avoid receiving punishment, or to avoid talking about something, or to get out of doing something-you understand. It would have defeated the purpose of our Dynamic to begin with. But for right now, I do not know how reasonable that is."  
  
It doesn’t frighten him, hearing it, but it is more than slightly overwhelming to think about, and he swallows, looking back down at his lap. “I have questions, now,” he admits, lips quirking, dry mostly because it takes the attention away from the fact that his heart is racing again. “Did I do that? Use a pause-word to avoid those things? What do you mean by discipline? Was it like that from the beginning, did you always -“ He makes a vague gesture. “And did you just ignore it completely, in those cases? How did you determine whether I was truly upset and needed the pause or not?” It’s not accusatory. He’s genuinely curious. He wants to know, to understand.  
  
"Not often," Erik murmurs in return, smiling back. "Maybe once, that I can recall, but the temptation was there, and that removed it. We shared a Bond, and I suppose I just knew you. I could tell the difference, but I wouldn't ignore it regardless. If I wasn't certain, I would still stop, and check in with you. We did not introduce the concept of discipline into our Dynamic until later on. I was hesitant for my own reasons. But it was healthy for both of us, at the time."  
  
“Oh,” Charles says again, feeling rather silly for it, but he’s just processing. Taking it in. He nods, slowly. “At the time? Did it become unhealthy, or do you mean - ? Do you still feel hesitant? I don’t mean for now, I just mean...” He’s trying to map things out, is what he means. To learn as much as he can about the Dynamic they had - have? - and how it functions.  
  
"I just mean that I do not expect you to want that same level of intensity right now," Erik murmurs. "Discipline is something that requires trust. A good deal of trust, you need to trust my judgment, and be willing to acquiesce to my perspective. Sometimes I still feel hesitant. I worry that I am wrong, for appreciating that aspect of our Dynamic. But that lessened over time."  
  
That’s what Charles expected, really, so he nods, even though he doesn’t seem certain. “And you think that’s healthy for us? Something we both need? You said - the way you make it seem -“ He takes a breath, centering himself. His pulse is still fluttering, a hummingbird beneath his skin, and he’s ducked into his lap again. “There must be more to it, our Dynamic, than you simply Ordering me about at random and compelling me. Could you tell me more?”  
  
"There is," Erik huffs softly. "We rely on one another. We support one another. We are both still dealing with a lot of things all at once, some of which are legal. We've been through a lot, separately and together. Our different needs are compatible. If I need to Order you, you need to be Ordered, and so on. You have expectations, you have rules. They don't change if I get into a bad mood or I'm frustrated or whatever. It's generally pretty consistent. I am not a perfect person, but we work together well."  
  
It makes Charles smile, soft and small, but he shakes his head. “That was still vague, you realize,” he huffs back, and it’s teasing rather than frustrated. “And not quite what I meant at all, but thank you.” Perhaps it’s better not to have the specifics, actually. He doesn’t want to ask again, so he looks for more fuzz on his pants to fuss with, trying to process the things he does know, clearly buzzing with it.  
  
"Mhm. So tell me what you meant," Erik murmurs, unable to help the frisson of Command in his tone.  
  
“ _Mmmh_ ,” is an approximation of the startled noise that’s pulled first from Charles’ lips, and he’s so startled by the noise itself that he forgets all about not biting, chewing harshly at the inside of his cheek as if it might stifle anything else. He shivers again, and his voice comes out much more mumbled. “I just meant - you keep saying needs, things we need, but you haven’t said what those things are exactly. What are the expectations you have for me? You make decisions for me, but on the day to day, what does that look like? What sort of Orders do you give me? I just - actually, perhaps I’d rather not know -“  
  
"Different things, I suppose," Erik rumbles deep in his chest, content with that reaction. Charles is silently encouraged to stop biting at himself once more. "What to wear, what to eat, if something needs to be done. That one is a little more complicated; for both of us. I like being responsible for chores, but you appreciate being asked to do things as well. Exercise, diet, medicine, that kind of thing. I make sure you are healthy, and happy, and safe, as much as possible. I expect you to be respectful, to speak plainly about the things you want or need. I don't respond well to fits."  
  
Charles blinks, and he’s gripped his legs tightly, still overwhelmed, stuttering out breaths as his pulse continues to race. “I appreciate it?” It’s not incredulous or disbelieving, just clarifying. “You don’t prefer that? And you said we’re still - figuring things out? Do I like that, then? You expecting things of me?” He keeps it as neutral as possible, as detached as possible, but it’s impossible to miss how breathless he’s gotten again.  
  
"You tend to appreciate it, yes. But I do not want you to feel used, if that makes sense. I have a lot of experience being forced to take care of things, and with Dynamics that feature a Dominant who believes the best way to be Dominant is by forcing their submissive to do labor-intensive tasks. So, I guess, I don't really make you do too much. To keep your things tidy, because it is good for you, too. You are not very good at organization," he huffs, laughing. It's amused, not insulting. It's clear that Erik finds it more endearing than anything else. "So I typically won't clean up after you. I will make you do that. But yes, you like it very much."


	90. you've never left you've been here the whole time II

It’s not something they’ve discussed in any sort of depth yet, Erik’s past experiences, but Charles is observant. He picks up on things and knows intuitively how to read between lines. He’s especially so now, when he needs to be, and it makes his brow furrow. “Have you - have we discussed that?” he asks quietly, and it’s not meant to be accusing, either. Just something he has to wonder. “Because you just contradicted yourself a bit,” he points out, and it’s quiet, still, gentle. Not just an observation, because he’s completely aware he is not an outside party in this, but he does have an outside perspective right now.  
  
"Discussed-?" Erik murmurs, eyebrows arching. "Sometimes I say things that might seem contradictory," he acknowledges. "In my head it isn't so, but English is my fourth language, so I don't always communicate well."  
  
Charles shakes his head. “It’s not that, your English is brilliant, and if you’d prefer another language I’m fairly certain I know more than one, too,” he says, because he’d actually learned that while Erik was sleeping, along with his knowledge of particle physics. It’s amused, because discovering these sorts of things, what he just happens to know with no context as to how or why, is funny when it isn’t frightening or confusing. As soon as he begins to get a picture, things shift. “Do we normally speak to each other in English? I meant discuss what you’ve just told me, though. You expressed that you didn’t want me to feel used, and then in the next breath told me that I enjoyed it and appreciated it when you did. I just wondered if you’d asked me what I thought. Do you not like giving those sorts of Orders?”  
  
Erik shrugs a bit. "I enjoy giving you any Orders, really. I definitely do not think you would appreciate being used. I do my very best not to come across that way; so you do not really consider it in that vein. Hopefully, at least," Erik gives a small smile. "We have spoken a few times over a variety of things like that. You've always expressed that you appreciate it when I Order you, nearly regardless of the situation. We normally do speak in English, yes. Sometimes we speak in Hebrew. When we are in Israel that is more common." He grimaces, uncertain how to phrase the next thing. "Mr. Shaw is being prosecuted by the ICC. For crimes that he committed... many years ago." Hello, it's Erik, _Vague-Man_. "That ideology was... present, in his treatment of me. I was conditioned from an early age not to speak in my native language. So it is not... easy for me to... disregard that. Sometimes."  
  
Charles snorts, his lips pulled up again where he ducks his head down, his face obscured by his hair. It’s long now, since Erik opted not to cut it last time. It’s always grown fast, unlike his lack of consistent facial hair, and it’s been months now. “I didn’t mean whether I would appreciate being used, I meant whether we had discussed housework, chores, those sorts of things. I think they’re very different, and I imagine there’s a difference between expecting those things and Ordering it one-off,” he shrugs, but what does he know. Mostly nothing, except there’s insight here, too. An inside-outsider, so perhaps there really is room to learn from this. He sobers up at the mention of Mr. Shaw, frowning. “Does it bother you, to mainly speak in my native language? I’m assuming it is, anyway, since it’s what I spoke when I woke up. Have I -“ He has, of course. Asked about it. Expressed this same concern.  
  
"We've definitely discussed it," Erik nods, his eyes creasing up fondly. Erik doesn't think there's anything wrong with discussing it again, though, and he values Charles's input regardless of the situation. He's happy to learn from Charles at all times, and just because they've discussed it once or twice before doesn't mean that Erik thinks Charles's opinions are cemented in gold. "And no. It doesn't bother me. I mostly didn't speak English growing up. I was expected to be proficient in it, but there are no negative associations."  
  
“What did I tell you, then? Have you told me what you just did about your concerns?” he asks, mildly, mostly because he’s curious, and also because he’d like the insight into his own brain. How he feels, what he needs or desires or thinks, because right now he just doesn’t remember having those things. It’s strange, perhaps, but he thinks it might be helpful. “And are you certain? I didn’t mean that it had a negative connotation, really, just - I imagine you’d want to speak in your own language, too, that’s all. But -“ His eyebrows pull up. “Hm. Odd.”  
  
"I..." Erik trails off. Maybe he didn't... share, exactly. But he does know that at the very least, Charles didn't feel bad about the things that Erik did ask him to do. He always liked having expectations, being asked to help, and if he didn't or he had issues with it Erik wouldn't have pushed it. But it likely contributed to the fact that he did ask less often than maybe Charles would have theoretically preferred. "Hm? What is odd?"

* * *

Charles lifts his head to raise an eyebrow, but it’s not judgment, really. More amusement. Perhaps they hadn’t discussed it as thoroughly as Erik thought, but the truth is these things often slip, and communication is always an ongoing process, especially in more intense Dynamics. Theirs is apparently the most intense of all, and still being explored. He can’t exactly weigh in now, but it’s something to store away. “Oh, nothing,” he mutters, but he’s obviously rolling something around up there. “It’s just - earlier when you spoke Hebrew, I don’t think I understood you, but while you were sleeping I’m fairly sure I read Hebrew and understood it perfectly well. It’s just strange to me, is all.”  
  
"You do know it," Erik murmurs affectionately. "How to read and write, and speak. You know most languages, but I believe that is largely due to telepathy, so you might not have access to them right now. But Hebrew is one that you know first-hand, so it makes sense that it is still there."  
  
“I just think it’s strange that I didn’t to begin with, but perhaps it was just a glitch,” he murmurs, head tilted as he considers it. There’s clearly quite a bit going on in his brain right now, and some things are getting mixed up and crossed. His reaction to the basement is evidence enough of that. “Did you teach me?” he asks, quiet, curious.  
  
"Not explicitly," Erik smiles. "You already had some knowledge by the time we met. Your previous relationship was with someone from Tel Aviv. But you learned more through me, yes. It's possible that you only retained what you knew prior to meeting me."  
  
Charles doesn’t think that’s the case, for some reason. The more they know about this, the better they are, and there’s fierce curiosity, too. Off-track, but since they’re stranded on this mansion-island, he’s sure they can afford a tangent. “Can you say something in Hebrew, please?” he asks, and tries not to sound too eager.  
  
" _Betach sh'ken_ ," Erik murmurs, his nose wrinkling up. " _Ma atah rotze li ledaber_?" His eyebrows arch, amused and warm. This is something Charles used to do when he was just learning, too, and sometimes just for its own sake; and something Erik has always silently appreciated.  
  
For some reason Charles gasps, and his eyes go wide and startled, a soft, helpless noise as he shudders. His shoulders hunch in defensively, and he goes still and silent except where he’s trembling slightly.  
  
Erik leans forward and touches his shoulder lightly. "Did I do something wrong?" he asks, uncertain. "I apologize."  
  
Charles stays very still, and now it’s obvious he’s breathing harshly, his shoulders moving with it. “ _Mmmnh_ ,” is his intelligent response, breathy and strained. His hands are clenched in his pants, and he’s biting insistently on his cheek again. If Erik looks, he’ll notice Charles is flushed down to his neck again, up to his ears, hot and demanding. “Strange again,” he gasps, quiet, not ashamed but small, overwhelmed, and clearly trying to fight it off because he doesn’t know what else to do, especially on his own. It isn’t working.

* * *

"It's all right," Erik murmurs back. taking Charles's hand in his larger one and squeezing it, gentle. "There's no need to be afraid. Nothing is wrong with you. Just relax, OK? I promise it is all right." It's safe, and completely normal. He doesn't need to worry about Erik, or worry about what needs to happen. Nothing does.  
  
Charles is trying, truly, but he can’t. Everything feels strange and electric and overwhelming, every breath heavy in his chest, and he follows Erik’s voice like he’s following the only light in the universe but he’s shaking all over and surely there’s something wrong here? It feels a bit like he’s spinning out, everything dizzy and oddly focused and he squeezes Erik’s hand with everything he has, still gasping. “Can you - please, I -“ He can’t articulate what he might need, but it’s something. His skin is prickling and he’s cold and hot at the same time and there’s pressure, in his stomach and chest, pressing down, tension he can’t release. He doesn’t know, and another helpless noise slips right past his teeth before he can swallow it down.  
  
Erik covers his hand with his other one, even more gentle. "You can. Look at me. Breathe and focus on my voice." The Orders are quiet, more natural. He unconsciously sounds firmer, more assured, his voice low in his chest. When Charles meets his eyes he smiles. There's nothing wrong, here. "Ask me what you need. That is what I am here for. Always."  
  
But Charles doesn’t know. He settles some at the Orders, bending toward them like he’s searching for air, and he’s gasping for it, too, a bit frightened despite best efforts to calm him. It’s all so much and he’s entirely losing himself to it, squeezing and squeezing Erik’s hand like it’s his lifeline. “I - I don’t know,” he admits, hoarse and hitched, maybe a bit frantic, and his eyes are blown, the blue darkening. “It feels - it feels so strange, I just, could you, please -“ The room is vibrating again. It’s less violent this time, but no less intense, plunging Erik right into that unstable power.  
  
"It's just subspace. There's nothing wrong with you, at all. I know it feels a little bit strange, but it's all right, see?" Erik touches his face, fingers grazing lightly enough that it can barely be called a touch at all. "You know, because I am here, and I am not going anywhere. You are safe. I know it can be intense, but nothing is happening to you. It's a normal reaction. Just breathe and stop fighting it." The Order is quiet. "You don't need to fight it. I will not allow anything bad to happen to you."  
  
Charles wasn’t quite fighting it anymore, but he certainly can’t now. He makes another gasping, startled noise, struggling to breathe, the room entirely drowned in thick, overwhelming static, shuddering energy, amplified tenfold, and his eyes fall close. “I - please -“ he breathes out again, and he’s still a little scared, but he isn’t trying to buck it off. It’s just that there’s something heavy, there’s that unbearable pressure, and he’s not sure what he’s trying so hard to ask for. He doesn’t know enough about this to know what he needs to make it better. He just knows Erik’s voice helps, Erik’s touch helps, without it he’ll break off and if he drops this time it’ll be devastating for both of them, perhaps dangerously so with his powers involved.  
  
Good thing he doesn't need to worry about that. What he's noticing now fills the room up just as much, with a rich resonance that's different than what he's currently feeling but vibrates along the same harmonics. It's Erik, the low hum of a tuning fork vibrating airwaves just below range of sound. He swipes his thumb under Charles's eye, Commanding him to look instead of shrinking in on himself. "Tell me," he murmurs. "What you're feeling. Be specific as you can."  
  
There’s a level where it can’t be contained, and Charles knows it and it frightens him, but most of all he’s so overwhelmed. It trembles right around it, gasping and pulsing like he is, and he opens his eyes. They’re almost entirely blown now, wide, that sharp, ethereal blue and as expressive as they’ve ever been. “It’s - I don’t know, there’s something - like it’s pressing down? Like I need -“ Something, but he doesn’t know what. Something, more desperately than he’s needed anything. “Like I’m on the edge, like -“ Like he’s almost somewhere but not quite. Another quiet, unconscious noise that he tries to bite off, and it presses down on Erik, too, all that swelling energy, demanding something of him. Prodding at him.  
  
"Stop fighting it," Erik murmurs, running his thumb underneath Charles's eye. It rises up just as fiercely inside of him as it does for Charles, but in a different way. Aligned differently. No less powerful and intense. Submerging Charles right underneath amidst a relentless tide of Dominion. "Let go, _neshama_ ," he Orders. "Let go of being on this surface. You don't need to be any longer, do you understand? I have got you."

* * *

It’s less the Order itself, which he’s already gotten, and more the fact that it’s an Order. That first time, the very first time, the one he doesn’t remember now, it was brilliantly traditional - kneel. Turns out Charles’ brain likes this one just as well, and when he gasps, loud, amplified, projected this time, the whole Universe absolutely shivers with it, shifts, trembles, and then plunges. It feels like a physical change, everything vibrating and singing with it, the air thick and hot and electric. Humming against Erik’s frequency, too. Charles is shaking like a leaf in the aftermath, his teeth chattering. He clearly can’t speak, though his lips are parted, red and full; he’s gasping, quiet little noises, he doesn’t know he’s making them. “Mmm,” he sighs, eyelids heavy now, fluttering. “Erik -“  
  
He is beautiful. As magnificent as the first moment Erik saw him, and it makes him smile, thumb sliding over the apple of Charles's cheek gently the entire time. Erik doesn't mean to let that thought slip; if Charles could hear it he doesn't want him to feel even more overwhelmed, but he can't help it. He runs his fingers through Charles's hair instead, untangling some of the knots, massaging against his scalp lightly. " _Ken, neshama. Ani kan_." Everything is richer, fuller in vibration when they both slot together in this way.  
  
Fortunately for Erik, Charles doesn’t seem to hear anything of his thoughts, except sometimes what gets picked up at random. He certainly seems unaware now, just like that first time, eyes fluttering with the sensation. To an outsider he would look properly drugged, and it’s not completely inaccurate; studies of the brain in subspace show it’s not always far off, the rush of chemicals and hormones, and this is the first time he remembers experiencing it. Another first time. He leans right into Erik’s hand, chases after it, gasping softly again. “Erik,” he repeats, like he doesn’t know what to do with himself, and he doesn’t. It’s wholly overwhelming. Is this what it is all the time? Is this what is supposed to happen?  
  
Erik just smiles. He doesn't have to do anything with himself, that's the whole point. He can let Erik take care of everything, which he fully intends upon doing. He doesn't do anything more than run his fingers carefully through Charles's hair and touch his cheek, a warm expression unconsciously spread across his features. This is exactly what is supposed to happen. "You're all right, see?" he murmurs, fond.  
  
It’s not that Charles is afraid. It’s just that it’s so much and he’s reeling with it, drowning in it, overcome by it. His cheeks heat but he can’t help but press into Erik’s hand more, seek more attention, nuzzle. What else can he do when the touch feels so good? When his eyelids are so heavy with it? But - “Ow,” he pouts.  
  
"Ow?" Erik huffs, affectionate. "Tell me what the matter is, hm?" Erik tickles him under his chin, smiling brightly. "Is it your foot?" They should definitely take care of that, and Erik plans to; hopefully with Charles fully submerged beneath the surface that process will go more smoothly.  
  
Hopefully, except if Erik expects Charles to be fully coherent and capable he’s forgotten how dazed and floating Charles was that very first time, and his chess win. Very off his game, and this does require working knowledge of sterilization techniques. He seems even worse now, even more dizzy with it, and he fusses at the touch to his chin, as if he doesn’t know whether to turn into or away; not really upset or uncomfortable like before, but uncertain. Shy, maybe. Charles nods, biting his lip again. “It hurts again,” he admits, even though it really shouldn’t. Quite a lot, actually, which might have to do with all the walking he’s done on it. It doesn’t look good, either, swollen up far beyond what’s normal, the bone still stuck right out.  
  
Fortunately Erik turns out to be far more competent than he gives himself credit for. "Don't worry," Erik assures him quietly. "We're going to take care of it. Just keep very still. I need to finish blocking off the nerves here." Charles is not the only Omega-level mutant in this room, and Erik closes his eyes, Erik doesn't move matter simply by picking it up with an invisible hand, he sees right down into the molecular structure of items, the spaces between atoms that sizzle with electricity, and this isn't the first time he's done this.   
  
He's familiar with Charles's body now, and he's calmer than before. This time, when he tweaks something, the pain shuts right off, ending just above his calf and abruptly vanishing his foot and ankle from Charles's awareness. The room comes next, and drapes situate themselves properly while Erik makes sure Charles is comfortably situated on the bed, and Erik seems to be operating under his own auspices as well, his own knowledge-dressing the foot and leaving only the area of incision open, collecting up every ounce of particulate dust into one area and sending a blast of ultraviolet radiation throughout the room. It's enough to obliterate the germs, but not enough to hurt either of them.   
  
"How does everything look?" Erik murmurs, because he still doesn't have any confidence in himself and he doesn't want to take any risks. "How does it feel?"

* * *

Charles doesn’t answer. He’s far too busy attempting to curl in on himself, his eyes tightly closed as the room starts to vibrate more violently, less physically (that, too, and Erik recognizes it because it might actually be his at times, there’s a lot going on here that Charles never did before) and more with energy, entirely different from the power Erik harnesses. Untouchable, too. The issue with Charles being so powerful currently is that he doesn’t know it, and it seems like just about none of it is intentional or under his control. There’s clearly a reason they’re isolated. It only gets more obvious.  
  
Erik clamps his hand over Charles's shoulder firmly. "Charles. I asked you a question and I expect an answer." His words are just as firm, but not angry or impatient. It draws Charles's focus completely to Erik, shrinking the room away until there is nothing left except for Erik's Will. "Look at me and tell me." The Order sinks under his skin just as shivery as before, an electric arc from the top of his head zipping all the way down his chest.  
  
More shivery than before, judging by the way Charles absolutely shudders, particularly violent and then shaking in the aftermath. He’s not at all emerged out of subspace, clearly, but he is unsteady, unsettled, uncomfortable, his teeth chattering as he looks up at Erik. “It hurts,” he gasps, which really shouldn’t be possible. “And it’s - I can’t - my head -“ He doesn’t know how to describe it, so he just grits his teeth together. But he does lean into Erik’s shoulder, shaking like a leaf, seeking him out instead of jerking away. It’s alarming, really, to find he needs to be touched.  
  
There isn't really a shouldn't about it. It isn't possible. When Charles leans closer to him he wraps an arm around him and tucks his head closer. Under Erik's chin, where he belongs, resting against his chest and Erik's fingertips running down his spine. "Speak clearly," he murmurs the Order. "Tell me what hurts, and why."  
  
Charles’ cheeks heat up immediately but he can’t help but curl right up, seeking and pitifully needy, nudging himself into Erik in the way that assures the most touch. “My head,” he mumbles into Erik, and he’s restless, clearly looking for a place to settle. “And my ankle. It hurts.” It’s literally impossible, but he’s not lying.  
  
"Settle down. Just relax." Erik can't do anything until the pain goes away which he apparently can't even do, but there's nowhere for him to go and nothing for him to tweak in any better way. Erik isn't a doctor, he doesn't know all the reasons behind why someone could feel pain, but there is no nerve activity at all. It doesn't make sense and Erik can't fix it, nor can he continue. So he just says, "There's no nerve sensation there," stupidly. "Is it because of your telepathy?"  
  
He does as he’s told, though, finds a place that feels comfortable (and tries not to notice that it’s where there’s the most contact, nuzzling into Erik’s chest, nudging up against Erik’s hand for more petting). After that he’s calmer, breathing easier, and submerged entirely. “ _Mmmph_ ,” Charles murmurs, which isn’t a response, but he clearly doesn’t know. He just wants Erik to touch him more, to Order him more, and he can’t help it.  
  
He certainly doesn't have to help anything. Erik doesn't mind one bit, and he ducks Charles's head under his chin, scritching his fingers through his hair affectionately. "I need you to tell me what is going on," he murmurs lowly, the Command evident. "I can't treat you if I don't know what is causing this pain. I need your help, OK?"  
  
Charles murmurs something mostly unintelligible, not because he’s being difficult but because Erik put him closer to his chest and he can’t move or the world might end, he’s fairly certain of it, and it’s ridiculous and embarrassing but he really, truly can’t help it. Erik has seen this before, in a Charles with memories; sometimes being dunked into subspace unexpectedly makes him act this way, shivery and unwilling to break touch until he’s properly grounded. That he’s unsure of it, a little frightened, a lot embarrassed, only adds to the mix. “Don’t know,” he mumbles, and then when Erik’s fingers stop threading through his hair for a second he grunts, presses against them, shifts restlessly, near panicked. He’s confused, too, and he’s struggling with it, clearly.  
  
Erik doesn't need him to break touch anyway, and he certainly doesn't want him to. "I've got you," Erik murmurs into his ear, settling him against his arms, rubbing his back and making him comfortable as possible without jostling anything.  
  
The problem here really is that Charles is the one fighting it. He’s the one uncertain, the one causing his own fear, and even his own pain; he continues to shift around in Erik’s arms well after he would have normally settled, under usual circumstances, circumstances where he’s wholly himself and not missing large, crucial chunks. It’s obvious that he probably needs something, but not what it is. “You can do it,” he mutters, and he probably meant it to be testy, but it comes off soft and breathy and smaller than intended and that makes him shiver and close his eyes tightly, trembling again.  
  
"I will do what I plan on doing in my own time, in my own way. I do not take Orders from you, so please do not presume to give them to me." It's firm, but nowhere near approaching impatient. Erik just cards his fingers more through Charles's hair, his voice taking on a deeper, richer tone that vibrates in his chest where Charles can feel it against his cheek. Erik has been rather restrained when it comes to Orders of his own, but now they flow freely. "Settle down and stop fighting against me. You are safe, here."  
  
The hitch in Charles’ breathing is rather obvious. He tenses up completely before he goes limp again, except where his eyes are still closed and his fingers are clenched tightly, uncertain of where to touch or grab so he keeps them bunched up and to himself. “Mmmph,” is his response to that, which does have a note of protest, but there’s no way to win in a fight like this, anyway, even if he wanted to - he’s got every odd stacked against him. But he’s still shaking horribly, and the truth is he doesn’t know how to speak anymore, how to do anything, it’s far too much all at once and not enough, maybe, and Charles shakes his head but stays obediently still.

* * *

Erik takes his hand and sets it onto his own chest so that he's not curled up in on himself, leaning on Erik exactly as intended. It's not too much for Erik, he is exactly accustomed to this and in all honesty, likes it a great deal. Charles is the only person alive who _could_ ever properly submit to him, not merely react mindlessly and without reason. He's responding to *Erik*, not just because Erik exists, and Erik just assures him, murmuring things into his ear and petting him softly, helping him to settle as much as he Orders it. He doesn't need to worry any longer, Erik will take care of everything. Just let him.  
  
Charles turns his head until it’s completely buried in Erik’s chest, in the fabric of his sweater, practically suffocating himself but it helps. It helps and he settles except he’s making hitched, breathy noises that begin to sound more and more like crying, because he’s close to it, and his hand clenches in Erik’s sweater. “It - I feel -” He doesn’t know. Maybe there aren't words for it.  
  
It reaches right into Charles, too, crawls beneath his skin and down into his bones, his muscles, straightens everything out nicely the way it always has. He doesn’t know how to show Erik like he did before, he doesn’t even know that’s a true possibility; so he takes a shaky breath and tries to find the right words, compelled and shivery for it. Erik can feel it, anyway, in that power that presses down on him, always a constant presence, always swirling and building and now heavy and submerged just like Charles is. It’s buzzing with it, too, reacting to Erik, too, feeding right into Erik’s Dominion. “Strange,” he decides on, breathy, and his cheeks are hot, his face turned back into Erik’s chest so everything comes out muffled. “I - could you -” He closes his eyes tighter until it hurts, biting on his lip. “Order me more,” is what comes out eventually, and it would be a demand if it didn’t shake.  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik rumbles, stroking his finger under Charles's chin. "Look at me and ask me politely. You do not need to make demands, here. Not only is it ineffective, but it is unnecessary. I will always provide you with what you need. Provided you ask." His eyebrows arch, and he runs the back of his hand down Charles's cheek, each Order compounding on itself like an abacus of molecular chain reactions in perpetual motion.  
  
Charles flutters with it, a quiet, gasping noise as he tries to curl in on himself and finds he can’t, stuck between nuzzling into Erik’s hand and turning away from it. His eyelids feel so heavy as a result that he honestly can’t blink them open for a few moments, and when he does he’s gone back to shaking so hard his teeth feel like they’re clacking together. “Please?” he tries, because he doesn’t know how to say the rest, his hand still balled up in Erik’s sweater. Immediately he’s closing his eyes again, burying himself.  
  
Erik swipes his thumb over Charles's jaw, in gentle, smooth movements. "Please what? What would you like. Tell me, dear-heart. I will always give you what you need. But you must ask me for it." They are Orders, as crooning and gentle as they sound, and his Will is just as prominent and intense as if he were bending the atoms of walls themselves toward him, demanding every subatomic particle of attention. "Ask me."  
  
“ _Mmmhnnn_ ,” Charles murmurs, and by this point his eyes have fluttered closed all the way, eyelids entirely too heavy to stay open. He’s practically purring as he nuzzles into Erik’s big palm, insistent on being touched, shivering and trembling fiercely. There’s no option to pull away now, no want to, when he needs Erik’s touch to stay steady. “Would you - would you Order me more, please,” he whispers, and his cheeks are dusted that bright pink but there’s nothing to be done for it and his stomach is fluttering knowing it. Truly, for a first experience in subspace, as far as Charles currently knows and remembers, there’s far more unraveled Will in the room than there was that first shivery, tentative time, and it’s obvious - he’s fallen deep, dizzy and near-drugged with it.  
  
Erik smiles brightly, his eyes practically glowing in ethereal emerald light. "Of course," Erik rumbles deeply, that honeyed voice that makes it clear he's entered into Dominion completely in the wake of Charles's beautiful responses. "Look at me," he murmurs the Order gently, slowly, languidly. "Look at me and focus upon my voice. You are safe. You are safe and I will keep you safe. There is no more pain. No more anxiety. I am here to protect you. I am here to ensure that you are treated and that you will be good-as-new when I am done, OK? I need you to trust me. Just this once. Trust me," the Order is soft. "Release that pain from you. It has no place, here. Only my Will. My voice. Breathe in. And exhale all of that fright and fear. You are safe." The Order is rich, luxuriated in Will.  
  
It’s difficult for Charles to keep his eyes open, even with the Order. They’re half-lidded and heavy and he’s making soft, unconscious noises, almost delirious under the suffocating force of Erik’s Will; his own power is vibrating right off of it, shaking with him, too, perhaps becoming more wild, but he’s not in pain anymore. He can’t remember being in the first place. Currently he’s nuzzling into Erik’s chest, rubbing his cheek against his hand, really butting up against it at this point. Perhaps it’s demanding, but he can’t imagine not being touched right now, feels like he might truly break and spiral if he wasn’t. He clearly doesn’t think he’s being given enough attention, when outside of this space he would almost certainly feel uncomfortable, fuss, turn away. Even if he didn’t actually want to. “Mnnh,” he gasps, and his eyes are so blue, so dark. Everything is hazy and strange. “More, please?” He sounds gone. For a first time, he’s fallen exceptionally far, and under the haze he’s becoming a bit unsettled, panicked even though he can’t process all of it, shaking harder, he can’t stop shivering - is this normal? What’s happening to him?  
  
"Just be easy," Erik whispers, and that suffocating Will lets up just a little bit, goes from suffocating-to-calming instead, but no-less present. To ensure that Charles is comfortable and not panicking. "There's nothing to worry about. I'm right here. This is very normal." Erik rubs his hand through Charles's hair, strokes against his cheek. "Relax, breathe easy. Settle yourself down. This is where you belong. There's nothing bad about it. I won't let anything hurt you. This anxiety has no place here. Let it go, banished where it belongs into the ether. Look at me. Listen to my words. You're doing a very good job. You're doing so well, did you know that?"  
  
Charles absolutely melts into it, whining low in distress at first when some of Erik’s Will recedes, and Erik can feel all that rushing power in the room chase after it, needy and insistent. He calms, though, just as he’s Ordered to, gasps again and buries himself in Erik’s chest, overwhelmed. Still so overwhelmed. “ _Mmmmph_?” he whispers, entirely unintelligible. His eyes have fluttered closed again.  
  
Now those tendrils of Will sweep right back up, slowly and gently at first, so as not to overwhelm him once more. " _Mmhmmm_?" Erik rumbles, affectionate. "Speak clearly. Tell me what you want to say." It's an Order again; of course it is. It has to be. He can't seem to do anything else, especially as far down into Dominion as he is.  
  
The shudder that passes through Charles’ body is particularly violent, and he murmurs with it, muffling it into Erik’s sweater as he takes slow, slightly hitched breaths. “Doing well?” he asks, quietly, and it’s still mumbled but it is clear, and he opts to keep his eyes closed. The truth is, he’s still incredibly overwhelmed, but he’s having an increasingly difficult time being frightened by it.  
  
Erik strokes his cheek, overwhelmed a little himself, his eyes pricking hotly as if tears were about to spring to them, but miraculously don't. Instead he just feathers his fingers through Charles's hair and down his back, encouraging him to lift his chin. "Eyes open," he murmurs the Order warmly. "Very well." He's helping Erik do his job, he's following Erik's Commands. He's calming himself, releasing all that tension and pain.  
  
Opening his eyes is difficult, and he blinks owlishly up at Erik, dazed and wondering. Charles puts exceptional effort into not sighing happily when Erik praises him, but he just doesn’t manage; he presses right into Erik’s hand, arches into it, urges more attention, more touch, insistent. “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he mumbles, because it doesn’t. There’s no pain. There’s plenty of floating, strange, overwhelming sensation, electric sparks, but no pain.  
  
"I'm very glad to hear that," Erik rumbles, pleased and warm all at once and it unfurls throughout the room just like tendrils of his Will. "You're going to help me with this, aren't you? I need your help if we're going to be successful. Can you do that for me? Will you help me?" he asks as he threads his fingers through Charles's hair, rhythmic and soothing and gentle.  
  
Charles is nodding before Erik is even finished speaking, far too eager, rubbing his cheek back against Erik’s chest, insistent on being closer even as he arches back into Erik’s fingers and nearly purrs again as his hair is stroked. “I’ll help,” he assures, breathless, but his fingers reach up to grip at Erik’s sweater unconsciously, clenching tight.  
  
Erik brushes his own fingers across Charles's, smiling fondly. "Good," he murmurs, twining strands of Charles's hair between his index and thumb. "I'm very pleased to hear this. I do not wish for you to be in pain, or injured, any longer than you need to be. So we are going to fix this, together. I've completed most of the preliminary preparations, can you tell me if I've done them correctly?" Even though it's a question, like this Erik can't help the Command in his voice, low and steady.  
  
And Charles truly can’t help responding to it; with the addition of the word pleased he’s gone back to trembling, a soft, startled noise because everything is exceptionally strange and he doesn’t know where the line between normal for subspace and embarrassing is, but he finds he cares less and less as the minutes tick on, even as his cheeks heat. “You should - mm,” he’s distracted for a moment by Erik’s fingers scritching against a particularly nice part of his scalp, leaning into it like a pleased cat, “Technically we should strip the room, and you should scrub up, but if you’re altering the makeup of the entire area on the subatomic level, and it seems you are, it shouldn’t be an issue. Most doctors just can’t do that.” His lips quirk with it, and it’s encouraging to know that, wherever this medical knowledge comes from, be it med school or somewhere else, he still has access to it even when he’s like this. That being said, the moment Erik’s fingers seem to stop doing their petting he frowns, deeply upset, and reaches up to hold Erik’s wrist like he hopes to keep it there, his hand shaking. “No,” he says, a bit like he’s scolding a naughty child.  
  
Erik's eyebrows fly up and he smiles, nose wrinkling fondly even as he gives Charles's hand a gentle rap of admonishment, more a reminder than anything else. Most doctors can't do what Erik can do, so even though the room doesn't look completely sterile, it effectively is. There's nothing that stripping the room and scrubbing up could do that Erik hasn't already done, and he is confident in that. "We're going to begin very shortly, Charles. So there are things that I am going to be expecting from you. Can you promise me that you will adhere to these conditions?"  
  
There is risk like this, technically - Erik’s effectively decreased the risk by a lot, about as much as standard sterilization practices would, if not more. Likely more. It’s fairly incredible, but he isn’t focused on it as he nods again, gasping loudly as Erik corrects him like he’s been properly slapped, fussing with it. That strange, overwhelmingly powerful force in the room is buzzing and vibrating again, alarmed when he is, nervous when he is, psionic in nature though he doesn’t notice and still hasn’t quite accepted belongs to him. “Mhm,” he murmurs, and he’s gone back to burying himself in Erik’s chest. “What are they?” he mumbles.  
  
"So, I'm going to slide down to the edge of the bed so that I can get a better angle for your foot, OK? I'm going to elevate it on that side alone and take off your shoes and socks so that I can work. I want you to remain very still for me, and very calm for me." These are not requests, they are Orders. "I want you to focus on my voice, and remain calm and acquiesce to my Will. I am not going anywhere. I'll be here the entire time. There is no danger. You are safe with me. I need you to trust me, Charles. Can you do that for me?" He's lifted Charles up off his chest to frame his cheek instead.  
  
That, unfortunately, seems to alert that looming force because everything begins to shake again, including the drapes that Erik set up earlier. There’s the sound of something slamming far down the corridor. “Mm-mmm,” he’s saying immediately, and he twists his head in Erik’s grip, struggling to duck back into his chest, grabbing at his sweater between white-knuckled fingers. “No,” he declares, but it’s quiet, even as it’s insistent. Determined.  
  
"No," Erik Orders in that ethereal voice dripping with Command and Will. "You will stop this, and you will look at me and you will listen to me. This is a necessary procedure. You will obey my Commands because I am going to ensure that you are taking care of to the best of my ability. You will lay back on this bed, Charles, because I am Ordering you to do so and I expect to be obeyed. Is that understood?" Erik helps him into a laying position with a pillow under his head, still stroking at his cheek. "Now calm yourself down and focus on my voice, on my words. On my Will. You will release your grip of this room, of this tension, and redirect your attention to me. Where it belongs."  
  
It isn’t quite that simple, because Charles doesn’t have any clue that he’s doing it, and perhaps he isn’t, not in any real sense; it’s reacting to him, but it certainly doesn’t feel like a part of him. Things calm some, but still seem to vibrate, everything buzzing to the point that it puts Erik’s teeth on edge. In the aftermath of Erik’s Orders Charles is shaking like a leaf, violently, unable to stop, and he’s grabbing again for Erik’s shirt, desperate, his eyes wide and still blown, dark. “N-No,” he repeats, even quieter this time, his lips even trembling with it.  
  
"Be still," Erik Orders firmly. "And obey my Commands. Now." Erik puts his hand over Charles's against his chest and gently disengages it, but doesn't remove their fingers from knitting together. "I know that you want to obey me and do what you are told, and I know that together we can get through this, but you will listen to me. You will obey my Orders and you will trust my judgment." It is not a question, or a request. None of his statements are. His Will unfurls throughout the room like beating, leathery wings, rich and luxuriating. "Am I understood, neshama? I want to hear yes, Erik. Am I understood?"

* * *

Charles hasn’t disobeyed any Commands, yet, technically. If they were Orders, it isn’t even like he could. It’s just that the idea of eventually obeying them when one of them requires something that at the moment is distinctly unsettling, perhaps even humiliatingly terrifying, isn’t especially pleasant. It’s not that Erik is wrong; as deep as he’s fallen, as unused to it as it is, he does want to obey Erik’s Orders. It’s startling and a bit unnerving how desperately. But he also feels frightened again, and that’s just not something Erik can Order away, so he swallows so hard it bobs in his throat, that it nearly chokes him, his nails digging into Erik’s hand as he clutches as tightly as he possibly can. “N- N…” It won’t even come out, and he shakes his head, closes his eyes, squeezes them shut. “Please,” he whispers, and it’s very nearly too quiet to hear at all.  
  
"I know that you are afraid," Erik says back softly, but firmly. "And I am not Ordering you to abandon all fear and perfectly trust in me. But we need to work together, to cooperate with one another, to face this together. You are not the only one who is scared, _neshama_ , but we can deal with that. You might not know me very well, but I think you know by now that you can trust I will do my very best not to harm you. That I am taking action to prevent you from being damaged permanently, and that your cooperation is essential to this fact. I can't do this if you aren't willing to, Charles. I can't do it if you fight me."  
  
“Mm-mm,” Charles denies, but he’s biting hard at his lip again so that all comes out a bit muffled. The vehement shake of his head helps, and he feels locked in place in the wake of Erik’s Order to be still, a low sound of distress as he claws more desperately at Erik’s hand. But his eyes close tighter, and he tries to take slower, deeper breaths, entirely overwhelmed, that psionic energy buzzing and searching and overwhelmed with him, clinging to Erik’s mind and tugging at it. He isn’t trying to fight, and he doesn’t even want to. But how does he explain that he’s so overwhelmed, that he feels like he’s drowning, and in this very moment the worst thing he can possibly imagine is Erik not touching him? But he takes another breath, then several more, and nods, slow and hesitant. Erik was right, as unsettling and uncertain as it makes him; he wants to do what he’s told.  
  
"I know," Erik whispers back. He can't help his next action, either, and he lifts Charles's hand to brush his lips across his knuckles. "I know it's not easy. But I am right here. I promise you I am not going anywhere." He's able to scoot down to lift Charles's leg up into a specially designed holster that levitates before him, and he runs his fingertips up over Charles's knee where he can still feel it, squeezing his other leg gently. "See? I'm right here."  
  
Keeping his eyes closed actually seems to help, even as the room shudders when Erik moves, Erik’s stomach dropping with Charles’ and a wave of nausea rushing over him, dizzy unsteadiness. The real danger here is, like the Void warned, is that Charles has never been so powerful (perhaps too powerful, if you asked Charles), but also so unstable, so uncontrolled. It’s exceptionally clear by now why he needs Erik here, why they must be isolated, but also why Charles needs Erik more than he ever has, when he knows and trusts him least. “Mmmmn,” Charles breathes, trying to force himself not to lock up, to relax like Erik Ordered. He wants to listen. He’s going to try. It’s almost painful, not being touched, and that’s startling, a little scary, but he can hear Erik. “Can you - talk, please, can you -“ He bites on his lip again, and the room is spinning just a bit, dizzying for Erik, disorienting.  
  
"Of course, _tayer_ ," Erik murmurs low and steady, and he doesn't realize he's switched from English as he slowly begins to press his fingertips into Charles's ankle, mapping and locating and scanning every molecule for himself. He's slipped into some sort of silly story, about an old man, frustrated by the noise of his family, who's counseled to buy many goats and geese and cows until the whole house is a disaster-the suitably Jewish It Could Always Be Worse that he relates with warm humor. Erik's a natural storyteller, with a treasure trove of nonsense to draw upon at the best and worst of times.  
  
If he’s honest, Charles is mostly not listening at all to the content of the story. He does, usually; he has from the beginning, or the book Erik’s so fond of would not exist, but at the moment he’s a bit incapable of it. He tries to focus on Erik’s voice regardless, but it’s not being touched, along with what’s actually happening, that complicates things, and the room begins to swell with all that power. Even Erik at his absolute best would find himself distracted and suddenly overwhelmed, and when Charles’ breath hitches, it’s amplified and projected extraordinarily loud. As if it were a scream. “Could - like before, could you -“ With his eyes squeezed shut still, Charles lifts his hand to his mouth as if to stifle the rest, biting down.  
  
Erik halts him before he can, having not paused or twitched an iota out of place from what he'd been doing, because he's at more-than his best right now, he's in another dimension. Only his eyes flick up, calm and controlled, and the switch to English, to firm Command instead of a lulling tale lets Charles know that he's paying attention to anything beyond his two hands. "Could I what, Charles? Speak plainly and clearly."  
  
But Charles is at his best, too, or perhaps his worst, his most dangerous, his most volatile, a force of nature just as much if not more than Erik; they are each other’s matches, and Charles, for right now, is truly dangerous, in a way he never has been before. Truly dangerous in a way no one else has ever seen him, and that he’s also been terrified to see in himself. When that force begins to press down again, it’s vibrating, pulsing, threatening. “I - Order, could you, could you Order me -“ There’s panic in his chest again, and Erik can feel it too, as his own, ears ringing and teeth aching with it, a pressure that can’t be relieved, something pressing, and tugging. It won’t be endured. It does need to be controlled. Honed. Accepted. But Charles isn’t even thinking of it - he’s just floating, and he needs an anchor. He needs Erik. “Like before, could you talk like before,” he gasps.


	91. you've never left you've been here the whole time III

There's no denying that Charles is at his most dangerous, but there's also no denying that Erik simply isn't afraid. Not of him, not of his power, not of the potential consequences if he takes a single step out of line; despite the fact that most of Erik's fears throughout his life and throughout his relationship with Charles have been precisely this. But at this very moment Erik isn't thinking about any of that, he is focused and deliberate and calm. And when he speaks his voice is ethereal with Command, with Will that shimmers and flexes through the room like an organic entity, breathing and shifting with every heartbeat. Erik doesn't need to endure it. And he can control it, wrapping all of that panic and fear and confusion and spiraling frayed-nerves in the swaddled cotton-batting of Dominion. "Be still," Erik murmurs softly, the Order inescapable. "I am right here. You need to be easy. Look at me. Take a deep breath. Let it out, and let this go. Relax yourself. Your mind. Your thoughts. Your body. Your muscles." He is not free. He is not in control. Erik is. He's paused hovering over Charles's body, and he sets his hand just above the numbed-out area of his leg against his calf, a warm weight. "Look at me. I am right here. See me." Erik's otherworldly eyes catch Charles's, pinned and immobile.  
  
There is a reason the Void told Erik, very firmly and in no uncertain terms, that Charles would need Erik more than he ever has. It was saying a lot, perhaps had even seemed exaggerated, but the reality is beginning to make itself clear, to unravel right in front of him. As his most dangerous, at his most powerful, at his most unstable, Charles would be unstoppable. He should be. But he isn’t, and the reason is Erik, and he takes shaky, slow breaths, tries to let everything out as he blinks his eyes open, looking through the fear. All of that rushing power lingers, but stills, too, seems to calm, too, still there, still dangerous, but waiting. Listening. Obeying. The Universe claimed Erik was the most powerful being, even as it spoke itself; because it wore his collar. This Charles hasn’t taken it off, either. “More,” he gasps, because Erik’s voice is a lifeline, is the only thing keeping him steady. Anchored. “Please, more?” he whispers, quiet and shaking with embarrassment. Not shame, but overwhelmed uncertainty, the frayed edges of panic.  
  
Of course more. Always more. Erik sets his bad hand on Charles's opposite leg where he can feel that pressure of warmth over his skin- a point of contact while he works. "Hold very still for me. I do not want a single movement of your right leg, do you understand me?" the Order is intense, even as it's delivered in a gentle, soft tone. It sweeps out through the room, suffuses through that power and transforms it into Will, that glitters and sparkles somewhere the Universe has eyes, but mortals do not. "We are going to get through this together. You are going to remain relaxed, and calm, and under my Control. Not yours. Not anything else. The only person in this room that your mind and body will abide is me. You are going to listen to me, and obey me when I speak. That is not optional." More Orders, always more. "Am I understood, Charles?"  
  
The noise that leaves Charles’ lips is very ostensibly a whimper, even as he bites them as hard as he possibly can to hide it, his cheeks hot and scarlet red. His eyes have fluttered closed again, and his teeth are chattering though he’s much more uncomfortably warm than he is cold, shaking in the fingers where he holds tight to his own self for lack of anything of Erik to grip, but nothing else of him trembles. As per Order, his body stays perfectly still, knowing as instinctively as the rest of him, perhaps much more right now, to obey. And he does. “Yes, Erik,” he whispers, barely audible, his breath hitching on it, shuddering on it. It feels good, to say it, extraordinarily so, sends pricks of overwhelmingly shivery sensation straight to his belly where it dances about though he tries and succeeds not to move with it, biting and biting at his lip in the absence of anything else to do. It’s uncomfortable, still, not being touched the way he was before, but keeping his eyes closed and listening to Erik’s voice helps. It settles him. It plunges him, and all that power shudders with it, but not in nearly the same way. It’s obeying Erik, too.  
  
"Good. I'm very pleased that you are here with me, that you are listening to me and carrying out my Will," Erik murmurs, amongst similar hushed-whispers as he slowly begins the laborious task of his work; once he is sure that Charles is calmed and Down and obeying his instructions, he lifts his good hand and swivels his fingers a little, causing the scalpel to raise and a small incision begins to form along Charles's ankle, a completely painless procedure facilitated by Erik's magnetizing Command, a Command that has settled into the room entirely unconsciously; a pure product of his power, of his Dominion, functioning in tandem in a way it never has before.   
  
The metal structures in Charles's ankle begin to detach and dissolve, disappearing into a fine mist through the opening of his skin as Erik examines the bones they held and as if breathing, as if moved nearly by a thought, they knit together harmlessly into perfect harmony. And then he begins the real task, the real challenge. With a soft click, audible through the room, a simple-so simple action, much simpler than both of their fears and panic combined ought to have warranted at all-Charles's broken ankle weaves together and aligns itself right back to normal. Charles isn't the only Omega-level mutant in this room; Erik's power is something to contend with as well, when he is focused, when he is calm and strict and controlling and demanding as he always should be, with Charles held totally immobile in his grasp, among those glittering-sparks. There's still bruising, remnants of before, but the swelling has significantly reduced and the site looks entirely ordinary as the incision site knits back together, atoms and molecules of muscle and fat and fibrin mesh-nets and blood and ligaments manipulated on the finest level of magnified synchronicity.  
  
Charles isn’t watching, his eyes closed, his breathing slowed way down except for the times it catches or hitches, as if catching on Erik’s Will, a thick, heavy weight that swaddles him and the room with it. He knows enough to know it’s extraordinary, what’s happening; there are quite a few elements of this that Erik can’t completely fix, medically, scientifically, but what he’s done is so completely brilliant and far, far more efficient than any surgery would have been. Charles can feel that power, of course he can. He feels a bit like he’s choking on it, but it isn’t inspiring panic. There are tears down his cheeks by the time it’s over, though he doesn’t know why, and when his eyes open, they’re so dilated it’s difficult to tell they’re as blue as they are. He’s panting.

* * *

And Erik's looking back, his own eyes vivid in the morning light, and he's smiling gently. "Hello, there," he rumbles deeply, and gradually, so gradually the sensation begins to filter back into Charles's perception, pins-and-needles at first before fading into normalcy and Erik's shifting his foot down to rest against the bed. The first thing Charles feels is Erik's fingers against the delicate skin atop his ankle, careful and deliberate like everything else about him and Erik brushes over the small, reddened area where the incision used to be, just testing, before pressing so softly against the bone and up toward his calf. "How does it feel?"  
  
Charles’ eyes shut tight again and he shudders, full-body now that he can, startled and shaking. “Mnnnh,” he breathes, and for a few moments that’s all he feels truly capable of, confused and overwhelmed, his eyebrows pulled together as he tries to make sense of it. Of anything. It’s unconscious again, and Charles doesn’t seem at all aware of it, but for a moment Erik feels pain; a sharp, harsh snap of it, the cracking of bone, the sensation of fingers around a tree branch, his own but not, tugging. Dragging his ankle, limp, up long, dark path, up stairs, something else, something intangible. Pulled-up, thin lips. Horrible pain, crushing pain, worse than a broken ankle warrants. Dizzying fear, flooding calm. Warm, large hand. Dull throbbing. Shivering. Charles has obviously projected before, but not quite like this, and the experience is dizzying in itself, because there isn’t at all any difference between Erik experiencing it, and for a moment there’s no way for him to tell that he isn’t, that they aren’t his memories and thoughts, even his mind fully succumbing to it. “It - it doesn’t hurt much,” Charles whispers finally, shaky as if he’s uncertain, chest heaving and eyes still screwed shut.  
  
"Good," Erik whispers back, and he's taken Charles's hand again, pressing his lips to each knuckle comfortingly before Charles feels the warmth of his palm against his cheek. The bones are healed enough to walk on, knit together with precision unlikely to be obtained by any other, but Erik doesn't bid him to move just yet, giving it time for all the rest of those little molecules to settle down in place. Erik feels the projection and endures it, like an oak branch splitting through lightning, his eyes fluttering minutely as he patiently takes it into himself and casts it out. An old mantra plays, something absorbed from a television show long ago. _Pain is of the mind. The mind can be controlled. Cast out fear. There is no room for anything else until you cast out fear._ And he does, because he is in control. Even now, especially now.  
  
As it turns out, that control is likely the only thing that will see them through this, as Charles has shockingly little at the moment. Slim to none, really. There are many things he can do now that could hurt Erik far worse than he could reasonably endure, deeply and perhaps irreversibly and without meaning to at all, but the Void trusted that that neither of them would permanently hurt. It promised it, in a way. Charles is leaning into Erik’s hand again, but he’s also trembling again, and the confused, overwhelmed tears on his cheeks haven’t dried or perhaps they’re new. He doesn’t know, with his eyes shut tight, and there’s a lump in his throat that he can’t swallow around, a pressure in his chest he can barely breathe around, harsh, gulping breaths now. “Please, it’s -“ It’s too much. Charles shakes his head, and everything in the room is suffocating again, vibrating, static and amplified, every sound and noise strange and garbled. There’s something pressing on Erik’s chest, too, something in his belly twisting about, an awful throbbing of pain, first in his ankle and then his whole body. Gone, then back. Gone. “It’s too much. Please. Please,” he begs, and now he knows the tears are new, cheeks hot and embarrassed as they fall.  
  
Erik has shifted up to take Charles's face in both of his hands, swiping away those tears gently and he kisses Charles's forehead, a warmth amidst the encroaching chill. "Be still. Be easy. I've got you. You are all right. You are safe. Just because your treatment is over it doesn't make you any less mine. Even now, you are mine. I know you do not feel like you are mine, but you are. Here, now, at all times. You are under my protection. You will obey me when I tell you to do something, tayer. Now calm yourself. That's it." Erik pets him, down the shoulders and chest, soothing tension along the way beneath his fingertips as he goes, gentling him like a spooked animal.  
  
Charles certainly feels like a spooked animal, and the attention only makes those tears slip down faster, face red with the embarrassment, of it, chest tight with it and something else, too. It’s not quite panic that’s making it difficult to breathe, and Erik isn’t quite correct, either, and so he shakes his head again, trying to suck in air but instead he feels like he’s suffocating. He’s breathing harshly again, panting again, dizzy again, but his body seeks Erik out anyway, arching greedily into his touch as he keeps his eyes firmly closed. The world is off-center, is strangely hazy, is drenched in something electric and confusing and overwhelming, and the weight of it is pressing, pressing. “It’s - too much, it’s - “ He’s whispering, but his voice is loud, echoed.  
  
"Breathe. Tell me, sweetheart. You need to tell me what the matter is. You asked me what our Dynamic was. Do you remember that?" Erik talks to him, his voice a low, deep rumble; sometimes English and sometimes Hebrew, switching unconsciously between them. "You are meant to tell me. When something hurts like this, when it gets hard, you tell me what the matter is, and I will do my utmost to help you, OK? Never feel ashamed for that. Not ever." Erik brushes his thumbs over Charles's cheeks, drying them carefully as he goes. "Tell me what is too much, hm? Tell me what you are feeling." The Orders are inescapable, as inescapable as any pressing-down projection Charles can throw.  
  
“You!” is what comes out of his mouth, and Charles’ eyes fly open and they’re all but eclipsed again, dilated, and even as he breathes he feels like he’s choking. The room shakes with it, the Universe shakes with it, but he can’t force himself to pull away. He can’t jerk or hide, even as he trembles, even as he swallows around it. He wants to be closer. He needs to be closer, and being so far away for what seemed like an extraordinarily long time while Erik operated was too much already, and that’s confusing, too. His voice is a boom in otherwise silence where there shouldn’t be, an echo as if this room is much bigger than it is, as if Charles is much bigger than he is. There’s truth to that, and for a moment it almost seems like his eyes glow strangely. “You’re - it’s - please, it’s too much -“  
  
Whether it's through projection or a culmination of Erik's abilities and Charles's combined, the bed that he's on gives way to more space so that Erik can lay next to him, and he's gathering Charles up in his arms even as he struggles to grit out the answer to Erik's Orders, strong arms coming up and holding him steady just as his Command wafts over Charles to be still and calm himself. "Tell me. What about me, hm? Tell me." It's right next to his ear, Erik's breath against his skin.  
  
It makes Charles shiver, violent, and then it makes him tense even as he instinctively curls closer, and then his eyes are squeezing tighter, tears slipping down his cheeks again. “Everything, it’s too much, I can’t think, I don’t know what to do, it feels like too much,” he gasps, and now he honestly sounds distressed, even as his breathing is even. Even as he relaxes, suffocated beneath Erik’s Will. “Please don’t,” he whispers, quiet. Small. “I can’t - I don’t like - please don’t,” he repeats, and the sound he makes, even with his head turned, is very obviously a choked-off sob.  
  
Erik just keeps stroking him, drawing his hand down Charles's arm and chest, trying his very best to soothe even as his Will flexes throughout the room entirely unconsciously. "You don't like-? Tell me, Charles. Be specific. What don't you like?" he murmurs lowly, much more of an encouragement due to the Command lining his voice. "You needn't do anything at all. That is what I am here for. To guide you, to tell you what to do. All you must do is simply honor my Will, and heed my words. That's it. What don't you wish me to do?"  
  
Charles hates that he’s crying in earnest now, utterly, completely overwhelmed, and he turns his face away even as his body leans into Erik’s touch, seeking out the comfort and soothing, responding with shivery sensation all over. “I - stop, I want you to stop, you said you’d stop,” he gasps, because he doesn’t know how to be specific. He doesn’t know how to describe what he’s feeling, what’s happening to him. It’s not that he even wants to fight it, it’s not that he wants to fight Erik, it’s just too much like this. It’s suffocating, it’s devouring him. “Stop it. Please, I’m asking you to stop - “ It hurts. His chest aches, his stomach aches, he can’t stop shivering, why won’t Erik stop? He lets out another broken sob, trying to swallow it. “You promised. You said you’d - go slow, you’d let me think, why are you doing this?” And if he sounds pathetic, how can he help it? He’s so beyond overwhelmed. He’s too deep and like this, like this, it feels like drowning. He’s frightened.  
  
Erik seems to go utterly still at that, barely taking breaths, his chest hardly rising and falling at all even as his expression clears and evens out. Neutral, safe, calming, soothing. He keeps a hand on Charles's shoulder, but only as a support, ensuring that he stays in place so that he doesn't imminently hop off and run on a newly-healed ankle. "OK," is all he whispers, with a blink that functions as a nod.  
  
Somehow it doesn’t matter. Charles immediately tenses, every muscle bunched up tight (which is painful, and terrible for said ankle, not that he notices in that moment) and instead of curling into himself (though he does that, too, like he isn’t sure which way to go), he tries to curl into Erik, suddenly heaving with panic. Blind, horrific panic, and pain, too, and he whimpers with it. “I’m - I’m sorry, I’m sorry, no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” and he can’t seem to stop, babbling it over and over, and it’s all so confusing, and it hurts, and he didn’t mean to upset Erik, he didn’t mean to displease him he didn’t mean to hurt him and now he truly can’t breathe, shaking worse than a leaf, the Universe shaking right along with him. It feels like chattering teeth, and confusion, and fear, and dropping. The room hardly exists anymore. It’s all just this.  
  
But Erik is only a person. He's only a human and he's under an inordinate amount of stress, events piling and piling and piling on top of him and it's inevitable that at some point, at some point he was going to crack under their weight, but he was doing well. He was doing good, they were getting somewhere. And now for the briefest moment, there's a flash, an instant where he isn't one hundred percent capable, and everything has begun to fall apart and he's keenly aware of that but can't seem to come back to himself despite it, despite everything. "I know," he whispers. "It's OK. You're OK."  
  
Erik doesn’t need to always be capable. He doesn’t and no one would expect him to be, but Charles is confused and he’s frightened and he’s reactive. Now he’s shivering, violent shudders of it, curled into Erik’s side and hidden, all tensed up and crying, shaking and shaking as he drops horribly and the world does, too, spinning and the distinct sensation of falling even when they’re lying down. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he continues to mumble. It hurts. He hadn’t truly believed Erik before, but it hurts and he feels sick again.  
  
He continues to pet Charles a little mindlessly, eyes burning and red as he struggles to marshal himself but it's failing. He's failing. "Everything is all right," he murmurs, kissing Charles's brow and holding him as gently as he'll allow. "It's all right. We're safe. Safe. You're safe." Safe from Erik. Safe from everyone.  
  
Charles doesn’t know what’s happening to him, really, even though it’s happened before. Whatever it is, it’s painful and jarring and it seems to last forever, and he certainly doesn’t feel safe. He feels sick. He feels lost. He feels, quite honestly, wretched, and there are several times through his fit where he wheezes and coughs and retches, where he curls in on himself and seems to shrivel, falling and falling and it hurts. By the time he’s done he’s coughed and cried himself silly, shifted away from Erik on the bed and hidden himself, too, denying himself the comfort he knows they both probably need. His ankle hurts again. Everything hurts again. “It was just too much,” he whispers, after what feels like ages, and there’s no telling if Erik will hear him with his face buried in the pillow. He doesn’t know if it matters. He sounds horribly small to his own ears. “Right away. It felt -“ Too overwhelming. Too intense. And he hadn’t had the words to tell Erik, he still doesn’t now.  
  
"It's OK," Erik whispers back after what seems like forever; long after Charles just assumed his words went unheard because Erik remained motionless as a statue for an indefinite duration, but finally he animates and the words creep out of his throat like crunching gravel. Charles doesn't need to feel guilty; Erik is the one who did wrong, but he just can't seem to come out of whatever-this-is enough to properly apologize and communicate, and there is a lot of context that Charles no longer understands, things which Charles-that-Was would immediately attribute and be able to self-soothe by, to tell himself what was really wrong and act accordingly. There's just nothingness and silence and disarray. Erik is sorry. He is. Erik loves him. That's all Charles knows.  
  
But Charles barely knows that much, even as he knows, and all of this is so unfair, so frightening, so confusing, and the room is wrapped up in it again, the house, the Universe, the Everything, held in Charles’ unstable grip as he lets out another last, quiet sob and begins the task of climbing out of bed, and everything hurts. It feels uncomfortable and sore and stiff and he winces when he throws his legs over, grateful he isn’t facing Erik, his shoulders hunched all the way in. He feels awful, well and truly. Being like this, being nothing in the aftermath of that - and he’s exhausted, he’s put out. No wonder they call it dropping, if that’s what it was. Charles is sure he’s crashed, is still crashing, spinning out of orbit, and he can only imagine it hurt Erik, too. “Thank you,” he whispers, and his voice is so hoarse and quiet he would say it’s unrecognizable, except what does he know? Nothing.  
  
Of course Erik doesn't show anything in the face of it, in the face of unimaginable grief that flickers over his features for only the barest glimpse, before it too is wiped away like remnants on a chalkboard. Hollow and gaunt. Dust in the aftermath. Erik sits up beside him, presses their shoulders together and legs, a silent Command for him to remain seated that cannot go ignored. He can do that much, at least. "You needn't thank me." Erik didn't do anything except all the wrong things. There should be no gratitude for him.

* * *

Charles swallows, everything locking up tightly again, the pain shooting straight up his spine; he doesn’t know whether to lean in or away, and he’s shaking again. Still falling, and falling, and falling, and splatting over and over. Is Erik, too? He’s cold and hot and uncomfortable, hurting, and he closes his eyes again to try and block it all out. “You treated my ankle. Thank you,” he repeats, and he means for more, too, what he’s already said. Quiet. “There must be crutches somewhere in this house,” he says, mildly. He knows there are, actually. He saw them in the corner of the bedroom he woke up in originally - his bedroom? He doesn’t know.  
  
He couldn't possibly know if Erik was, too. Not unless he looked. Really looked. With his eyes, as well as his mind, his thoughts stretching over Erik's like familiar-waters sluicing over worn rocks; but Charles's mind isn't there anymore. Erik can't feel him anymore. And Charles doesn't know Erik anymore, consequently. He is stone-faced and solemn, but if Charles really looked, he'd see the lines of stress around Erik's eyes and the gauntness of his cheeks, the way his shoulders are slumped and how tense every one of his muscles is. The tell-tale signs are so subtle that most would never know, and indeed nobody ever really did know that Erik struggled, on news outlets and television programs and the vast expanse of the internet Erik was always painted as patient and rational by his supporters and devoid of all human commonality by his detractors. When he speaks, now, it's still in that deep rumble, slow and steady and calm. "I will obtain them," is what he says, disallowing Charles from maneuvering himself off of the bed still, and extending his own hand so that he can reach out his power and find the aforementioned devices. After several moments they snap into his palms, the wood clacking together.  
  
Charles isn’t much looking. The metal of the crutches is cold and it’s soothing in its own right and he leans his cheek against them because he’d like to lean his cheek against something else (someone). It calms him just a little, but he’s still shaking terribly. “I’ll be careful,” he says quietly, as casually as he can with his voice hoarse and shaking too, tears dried on his cheeks. Erik cares about that, and it isn’t fair or right to make him worry or hurt more. That isn’t Charles’ intention. It never has been.  
  
Erik tugs the sleeve of his button-down shirt across his wrist and wraps it up into his palm so he can gently dab at Charles's cheeks, drying them completely. "I'm sorry I made a mistake," his voice betrays him only momentarily, an issue with speech that's never before been an issue with Charles rearing its ugly head as words seem to fail him and disappear and shrink, his mind shrinking and shrinking until he doesn't have to intrude at all on anyone's space by the mere nature of his existence. "I'm sorry. I hurt you." Now Charles is going to run away and hurt himself again and Erik can't even stop it. He's trapped. Motionless. Lifeless. A doll on a shelf, a useless slave hidden away.  
  
But Charles shakes his head, his cheek still pressed to the metal, his eyes still closed. “No, it’s okay, it - it wasn’t your fault, I couldn’t tell you properly,” he whispers. And it really isn’t. It’s clear as anything in Charles’ voice that he isn’t blaming Erik, that he wouldn’t, that he was frightened in the moment but it wasn’t of Erik, really. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me on purpose. Are you -“ He swallows again. “Does it hurt? Right now? For you, too?” It’s a difficult question, but he needs to know. He feels like he needs to know, and Erik has been honest so far. He can tell.  
  
Charles can see Erik swallow, his jaw tensing, but he gives the barest of nods. "Yes," he finally whispers, because he doesn't want to be dishonest, even if he'd much rather prefer not being honest in this particular moment. In case Charles hasn't noticed (he has, even if he isn't looking for it, it's very-much evident) Erik isn't exactly a sharer. "Dominants have a-a similar-version of-of what happens to submissives-" he trails off, rubbing his good hand down his own cheek as if to self-soothe, an entirely unconscious action.  
  
Erik said that before, but it’s different now, he thinks. For him, anyway. It’s worse. Undeniably, shockingly worse. He stares at the floor for a long while before he speaks again, fussing idly with the crutches. “What does it feel like?” he asks quietly. “Right now?”  
  
Erik draws his fingertip down Charles's cheek, and then abruptly pulls his hand away as if touching a heated element, as if remembering himself. "Like being shredded into pieces by billions of glass particles," he finally utters, and then clears his throat as if unintending to say such a baldly honest feeling.  
  
Charles jerks at the touch, shudders, but if Erik was paying attention he would notice it was into the touch, not away. His fingers clench tightly to the crutches he’s holding, his head bowing down and away. “It doesn’t feel much better for me,” he whispers, and there’s the barest hint of amusement he doesn’t truly feel there, his lips quirked at just the corners. It’s an understatement. Of course it’s an understatement, and he’s shaking horribly still, all over. “I - I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t,” he repeats, because he doesn’t want Erik to think so. “Can I ask something of you?” he asks, still so quiet and small, hoarse, trembling like the rest of him.  
  
"Of course," Erik whispers back, his own lips quirking up. "I know you do not wish to hurt me," he murmurs, because Charles has mentioned that a couple of times. "I definitely do not think such. You can always ask-" he hovers. "Ask anything. Always."  
  
Charles’ eyes close again, shut tight. “Could you - before that, could - could you just...” He knows it’s a bit hot and cold of him, but he’s shivering so hard and it’s painful, and somehow, strangely, he knows something that will make it even slightly more bearable. For both of them. He shifts on the bed, scooting a bit into Erik’s side, hoping his request is fairly obvious.  
  
Erik pats his hand over Charles's knee, nudging into his shoulder a bit playfully. Unfortunately it's not that evident for him. "Could I what?" he asks, encouraging quote-unquote 'encouraging' AKA 'Ordering' Charles to be more specific. "Before what?"  
  
Charles sucks in a big breath, everything dizzy and hot as he stares down at the floor. “Hold me,” he mumbles, because it sounds incredibly childish, but the shivering is getting ridiculous. He can hear his teeth clacking together, and if Erik leaves, if he’s not touching him at least a little, he might start to cry again. He just needs a bit of grounding. “I wanted - I think... there’s something I want to ask you for.” His cheeks are even hotter, because asking for things, like he somehow needs permission, it’s all so strange and yet not at all and Charles doesn’t know what to think. What to feel. He knows what he does feel, and it’s often too overwhelming to fully process.  
  
Fortunately Erik doesn't have any intention of leaving, and he nods, willing to abide by Charles's request as much as he ever has as long as Charles actually puts the request forward. "What would you like to ask me for?" he murmurs, but it's less of a question and more of an Order, much as most of his 'requests' tend to be.  
  
Charles has plenty to ask. For now he curls up into Erik’s side, shivering violently, but relaxing some. “Does this feel better for you, too?” he mumbles, which clearly isn’t a question he’d had prior to this moment, but it is genuinely curious. Whatever is between them, it’s strong. It exists. Charles may not understand the scope or intricacies of it, but that would be like denying that the sky is blue. Whatever just happened, subdrop, it isn’t pleasant. He’d prefer to never feel it again. “I do want to ask you. Many things. But I think - could you give me time?” It’s what he’s already asked, but more direct. “To think. To formulate the questions properly. To decide - I just want to think.” The Charles that Erik knows, the Charles that is Charles, he gets like this too - too much stuck in his brain, and it all gets clotted like blood, thoughts running into each other, disorganized and scattered. He asks for space, usually not for very long at all. To think, to sort. Then he comes back. He’s always come back, right into Erik’s arms.


	92. take a chance on all the things you can't see/make a wish on all that lives within thee

Charles has plenty to ask. For now he curls up into Erik’s side, shivering violently, but relaxing some. “Does this feel better for you, too?” he mumbles, which clearly isn’t a question he’d had prior to this moment, but it is genuinely curious. Whatever is between them, it’s strong. It exists. Charles may not understand the scope or intricacies of it, but that would be like denying that the sky is blue. Whatever just happened, subdrop, it isn’t pleasant. He’d prefer to never feel it again. “I do want to ask you. Many things. But I think - could you give me time?” It’s what he’s already asked, but more direct. “To think. To formulate the questions properly. To decide - I just want to think.” The Charles that Erik knows, the Charles that is Charles, he gets like this too - too much stuck in his brain, and it all gets clotted like blood, thoughts running into each other, disorganized and scattered. He asks for space, usually not for very long at all. To think, to sort. Then he comes back. He’s always come back, right into Erik’s arms.  
  
"Of course," Erik murmurs back, always largely willing to give him his space, although he's less willing at this point given Charles's recovery. His ankle might be healed, but it's still weaker than average and the last time Charles went bulldozing around on his own he'd broken it in the first place. But he doesn't intend to keep Charles caged up and controlled, either, not when he doesn't want it. Doesn't view Erik as his Dominant. As anything. "Please-be careful," Erik rasps, drawing his hand down his own cheek again.  
  
“Somehow I think I’ll manage,” is Charles’ snarky, knee-jerk reply, but he knows it isn’t particularly fair. Erik is hurting, too. Erik is uncertain and overwhelmed by all this, too. So Charles sighs, closes his eyes, leans further into Erik’s side for the time being. “I’ll be very careful. I promise,” he says, and it’s much gentler.  
  
And he is, for the most part, though Erik has no true way of knowing. It’s a bit like playing hide-and-seek, but without their Bond and with Charles the way he is, there was never any chance of him winning. There are traces of him, because none of it is on purpose; dishes left in the sink, mess made in the library, ruffled sheets in whichever dusty bedroom he’s decided to attempt sleep in, though he’s dreadful at it. Footsteps, sometimes, above or below, creaky old floorboards. And then there’s that power, seemingly only growing, coming in and out, encroaching. It’s palpable, the way it never has been before. Things move when they aren’t meant to, vibrate, disappear, distort. Erik forgets where he’s going, what he’s doing. He finds corridors stretching for miles. Stairs where there shouldn’t be. Lack of color or decidedly too much of it. Things are strange, unsteady, uncertain. It’s only a few days but it feels like an eternity until Charles approaches the study Erik’s sitting in, the same one they once had a difficult discussion in when things were Less-Real but no less real, but Charles doesn’t remember that. He merely bites his lip, grips tight to the plate he’s holding and the paper slid underneath it, knocks gently on the frame of the door with his free hand. “May I join you?” he asks, quietly. Politely. “I brought - I wasn’t sure if you’d eaten, so I brought you something,” he mumbles, bowing his head.  
  
To be honest at this point Erik isn't doing particularly well; he's checked in on Charles to ensure he hasn't flung himself off a cliff carelessly but otherwise has been quite motionless, dead and still as if a doll gone back to sleep in the absence of its owner. He mindlessly prepares himself food and shovels it into his face-hole, but it's devoid of any flavor or meaning. Almost as if returning to life from his statuesque position, he straightens up when Charles enters the room and smiles unconsciously. "Of course," he murmurs, his voice a low rasp from disuse. "It is appreciated."  
  
To be fair, Charles isn’t doing much better. There are deep, dark circles under his eyes, and he hasn’t quite eaten in days, which is a problem because before that he hadn’t eaten; apparently it’s something he’s prone to even without proper context, and he’s noticeably, worryingly thin. Thinner and frailer than Erik has ever seen him, and somehow more full of noticeable power than he’s ever seemed. The vessel of the Universe. He sets the tray of fruit and cheese and bread down on the desk and takes a seat across from Erik, still worrying at his lip. “You don’t look quite well,” he whispers, and pot, kettle, there, but there’s concern in his tone. “I - I’m sorry it took me a while. I was thinking things through. I even wrote some of those things down, just in case my memory decides to take another dive,” and he half-grins here, raising the paper he’s brought along, wry but weak. “But I think I’ve decided on some things. I’d like to talk, now.” Like Erik had offered that first day, but he wasn’t quite ready for.  
  
Erik lifts up a piece of the fruit and pops it into his mouth, himself worryingly thin, which on Erik is a considerable amount heavier than Charles, but for his history with starvation is in and of itself concerning. Not that he addresses that, right now he's far more worried about Charles, and it shows as he leans forward when Charles sits down, his hand twitching in his lap is if prepared to reach out and touch his knee, but it stays where it is. "You needn't apologize," Erik rasps softly. "I understand this period is challenging." He nods as he speaks. "Please," he gestures to the open space between them. "I would enjoy to hear what you have to say."  
  
Charles’ eyes find the table, and it’s clear he’s worried about Erik, too, even without knowing all that he should; he truly doesn’t look well, even without knowing how much worse he’s looked before, and it’s easy enough to blame himself for it. “I don’t think we should avoid each other,” he says, and then snorts, because that should be rather obvious by now. “It clearly doesn’t do either of us any good. But I think we should talk about where to go from here, and I -“ He swallows. “I need your help. I’m sorry I wasn’t ready to accept it, but I’d like it now, if the offer is still on the table.” How else could they possibly get through this?  
  
Erik just smiles, without sarcasm or irony, a brief flicker of himself shining through his features that's been painfully absent in Charles's absence. "I do not believe avoiding one another will resolve anything," he agrees, quiet and calm, his voice a low timbre, resonant in the dark study all the same. "Any help I can offer you is yours; it always was. I will always do my best to help you. You need only ask."  
  
He hadn’t been ready to ask. He is now, though there is the question of where to begin. “Have you been sleeping?” is somehow what comes out of his mouth first, and he’s frowning as he studies Erik’s face. Perhaps some, but not nearly enough, not that Charles can talk. He’s gotten next to nothing, and his body is suffering for it; and perhaps Erik has noticed how he’d limped into the study. “I’m sorry, I - you must miss...” Him. Charles, as he’s meant to be. He purses his lips and looks back down at his lap. “This is difficult. I thought my head would be clearer, but if I’m honest, I’ve only become more frightened,” he admits, lips quirked wryly again.  
  
Another tic from Erik, a jerk of his head to the left in compulsive honesty even as he doesn't wish to reveal that he hasn't slept an iota since Charles left him in the bedroom. There are dark circles under his eyes, wrinkles more evident, hair thinner than usual. He's already noted Charles's limp, filed it away in the back of his head, where idle frustrations dwell and die. "I am all right," Erik whispers, giving Charles another solemn smile. "It does no good to dwell on the things that are different or similar to my former circumstances. All that matters is your recovery. That is what I am here for. To help you in any way I can. I know that this is frightening; it is for me as well. But we will endure, and get through it, as we always have." Erik finally does set a hand on Charles's knee, briefly. "Will you tell me what you would like to discuss?"  
  
Charles shakes his head. “No, I think it does. I think we need to,” he whispers, because there’s no way he could possibly stomach what this is clearly doing to Erik. Perhaps he’s worse for wear, too; it’s written all over him, down to the way his shoulders slump, how clearly exhausted and pained he is, how frail and horrid and pale he looks; but what did it in the first place, he thinks, must have been their estrangement. When Charles left Erik in the bedroom, besides his stiffness, he looked well. It’s only just been days. There’s no reason for such swift deterioration except for what he can’t immediately explain. “We can’t ignore it. It won’t do us any good, pretending it isn’t hurting you. That there isn’t something missing. That’s one of the things I meant to discuss. I need to know. I need to be exposed to it. You were right. I was right. It’s just -“ He swallows, hands twisting in his lap. “It’s overwhelming. All of it. It - I was frightened, the other day. It was too much at once, and...” It gets caught in his throat, his cheeks red with shame.  
  
"But there is nothing to be done for it," Erik croaks, fanning his fingers across his lips idly. It's his bad hand, eerily straight and motionless and he breathes between the spaces, finally lowering it back down to his lap when he realizes what he's doing. "What were we right about?" he decides to focus upon that, upon something tangible, something real that they can progress through. Dwelling on his submissive's absence, on his total lack of ability to be a human being without Charles to help him-it won't do anyone any good and he is quite firm about that. Erik's troubles do not matter, not in the face of Charles's physiological and psychological wellbeing.  
  
Except they do to Charles. They always will, and always have. Even here. Even now. “There is,” he insists quietly, even as he frowns down at his lap. “It’s - we can’t ignore this, Erik. What’s clearly between us, I can’t -“ He can’t pretend that everything isn’t right there. That a day or two separated didn’t drive them both sick and mad like this. He shifts restlessly, runs a hand down his face, makes a helpless, frustrated noise. “We’re stuck here. Do you know that? I don’t know how I know that, precisely, but I do. We are quite literally trapped in this house, or at the very least I am. There’s just - what are we going to do? How could I possibly ignore -“ What he felt, for the brief moments before the panic. “But I can’t pretend to be exactly like I was, because I’m not, and you can’t pretend you don’t love and miss that person. So what do we do, Erik?” He’s asking, and when he looks up, he’s never looked as helpless or scared, and considering all that they’ve been through - the room is absolutely, completely drenched with it.  
  
"I know it," Erik creaks like an old attic door. Opening and opening and opening into a yawning chasm, an inky-black abyss without end or beginning. "I am not trying to pretend anything," he adds, soft. It's as close to an admission as he can get; that he does mourn, that he is afraid for the future, that he does miss what was. But he ruthlessly, mercilessly shoves every ounce of that feeling down beneath a plastic shield he can never penetrate. He's blinking rapidly, and draws his good hand over his eyes, drooping lids batting long eyelashes against his palm. He lets his head loll against the wall momentarily before continuing. "And I do not need for you to pretend, either. I wish I had an answer that would resolve this for us both, that would make us both feel secure and good, but I don't have it. All that I can say is we keep working at it, and keep talking it out, and to lean on one another when necessary. We are stuck here, we are our only support systems. It does no good to shut that out. It sounds like-you might be interested in exploring more about how you feel toward me, and toward submission in general, and I will try to facilitate that as gently as possible. I do not wish to take advantage of you or cause you discomfort, Charles. That is never my intention, not ever. I hope that you know this."  
  
Charles shakes his head. “I do,” he whispers. “That wasn’t - it wasn’t the issue. I just...” He’d had no way of telling Erik that he’d truly been overwhelmed, that he’d become uncomfortable. He doesn’t blame Erik for treating him as he would before, for slipping into that. This isn’t a normal circumstance. He can’t even imagine the pain there. “You said there was a word? A pause-word? I’d like to know it, please, so it doesn’t happen again. So I can tell you when something becomes too much. And I’d like to know more about everything, about me, about us - I need to know who I am, so I can...” So he can come back to it, eventually. He knows there’s nothing either of them want more. “And then there’s - there’s...” He swallows thickly again, visibly, shakes his head. Closes his eyes.  
  
"Go on," Erik murmurs, belaying any response until Charles fully fleshes out his thoughts, until he has the most information to work off of. Erik shifts up away from the wall and straightens in his seat, reaching for some fruit so he doesn't touch Charles again.  
  
“I can feel it,” he whispers, hushed and scared, fingers twisting together tightly. “Inside of me. In my head. I couldn’t at first, but I can now. All the time. This - this force, this...” Power. Unleashed, incredible power. All inside of him. All uncontrollable. Raw, untapped, waiting. Erik can feel it, too. Like this, with Charles like this, it’s dangerous. Contained for now, but perhaps not for long. And the damage it could do is unspeakable.  
  
"I know," Erik replies quietly. "I think that is partly why I am here. To help you control it, to help you contain it. I do not know exactly how, but that is why we must keep trying. As you regain more of yourself I believe you will become more comfortable with your abilities," he says, completely sincere. "As for our pause-word, it is _afor_." It's a Hebrew word, meaning _grey_ , rather than the typical _adom_ and such-most of which have unfortunate implications in Hebrew. Blood and guts aren't exactly productive for either of them.  
  
Charles nods, committing it to memory (again, of course), not remembering it but learning it, and for now that seems good enough. “Does it frighten you?” he asks, quietly. “What I’m capable of? Do you know what I’m capable of?” Because he doesn’t. That, on its own, is terrifying.  
  
"I know," Erik whispers, and Charles gets the sense that it's in the broadest application of the word. Erik truly doesn't think there's anything Charles can't do if he puts his mind to it (quote-unquote pun unintentionally intended). "It does not frighten me. Nothing about you could." It's said with absolute trust.  
  
“But you said yourself,” he whispers, and his heart thuds with it, stuck horribly in his throat. “I could k- “ It gets caught, his voice breaking, and he has to try again. “I could hurt people, people you love and care about, that I do, I could hurt you -“ Charles shakes his head. “You truly think I’m capable of endangering the entire world, and that doesn’t frighten you? Not even a little?”  
  
"Not even a little," Erik says with a small smile. "Anybody could do anything. That is a meaningless statement. I know you, even if you don't. You do not have a handle on this ability yet, and as such you could put people in danger. But that is why we are here, so that will not occur."  
  
Charles shakes his head, peeking up. “No, it’s not. Not everyone has -“ Power like this. But he doesn’t want to say it. It’s still terrifying, the thought that it’s real and belongs to him. That he’s responsible, when he hasn’t the faintest how to control or handle it. To wield it. “You said I am the most powerful being, in your own words,” the Universe would disagree, it would say Erik, but for different reasons, “and you think that doesn’t matter? And besides, what if I don’t get a handle on it? Are we to be trapped here forever? Could you honestly live with that?”  
  
"That is merely catastrophizing," Erik says without a beat. "We will not be trapped here forever. You have demonstrated a capacity for controlling this when it is necessary, via my assistance. You will not hurt me. I cannot explain it any better than that I have the utmost faith in you."  
  
“You don’t actually know that,” he points out, and this time he knows he’s right. His hands clench into fists in his lap. “I can hurt you. I have hurt you. And you are the one who told me how grave this was when I first woke up - are you changing your mind now? Are you going to claim you were exaggerating?” He wasn’t. And Charles knows it, now.  
  
"My statements are not incompatible," Erik points out quietly, in his usual deferential manner, hands clasped over one another in his lap as if mirroring Charles's posture. "You have not harmed me. When you needed to stop, you stopped. The gravity of this situation is very much apparent, to both of us. All that we can do is continue to try."  
  
“I have harmed you!” he argues, and his voice raises not at Erik, but in desperation. In cracked, rising fear, enough that it’s felt and heard. Everything in the room trembles, ears ringing with resonance and screechy feedback. Charles stares down at his hands, digging the nails of one into the other. “Don’t say I haven’t. I have. I could do more. And if you are so sure I can manage it, why have you agreed to this? Because you think I’ll just murder everyone else on accident, as if that’s better? How long do you imagine you’ll be trapped in this house with me, with -“ He bites his tongue. “I know it hurts you. I know. You want to treat me like you’re used to now, don’t you? You want to touch me. To Order me.” It’s hushed, hoarse, and not a question. “You’re aching for it.”  
  
"It doesn't matter," Erik grits out viscerally, his good hand firmly clenched over his bad. "That isn't what you want any more. I would never force it upon you." He's missing the point, obviously. "I am certain that you can manage it, with my assistance. I imagine I will be here with you as long as it takes for you to recover. This is not a hardship for me." That, at least, is honest and not denying.  
  
Charles smiles, and it isn’t mocking or harsh or cruel. It’s only sad. “Do you truly think you can continue to treat me as if I’m a stranger? Do you think it can work, acting as if you don’t look at me and only see what isn’t there? What you’ve lost? You’re trapped here in a haunted house, Erik, and I am the ghost.” His voice cracks again, breaking with frustration and helplessness and guilt.  
  
Erik shifts forward and puts his hand over Charles's. "That is not what I see. I am having a difficult time because a large degree of my stability was dependent upon our Dynamic. That is not your fault. You aren't responsible for my feelings. That is my job. I see you. And whether you know it or not, you are still very much yourself."  
  
It makes him laugh, quiet and startled and bitter. “Perhaps that’s true. Perhaps I am myself, even if I don’t have a bloody clue what that is. What good does it do either of us? The things that matter, the things that count -“ He breaks off, swallows. Shakes his head. “You say this is my family home? That I grew up here?”  
  
"That is correct," Erik murmurs back, giving Charles's hand a squeeze before returning his own to his lap, sitting there awkwardly, uncertain how to address all of the hurt that Charles has over this. That Erik has undoubtedly caused him, because he woke up a blank slate, and now he is still all hurt and pain and it's got to be Erik's fault.  
  
Not precisely. He woke up panicked and terrified, and he would continue to be without Erik. More so, without Erik, and that is evident by the way his throat bobs as he swallows again, looking down at his twisting fingers. “I checked nearly every room, which is quite a feat,” he mutters, lips twitching just barely. “I looked at the photographs on the walls. I touched everything I could. I don’t recognize a thing, Erik, and yet every time I get even vaguely near that basement - and I don’t know why. I haven’t a clue. I look in the mirror and I might as well be someone else, for all I recognize it.”  
  
Erik once more touches his hand, encouraging him to look up. "I know. I can't give it to you back, and I am sorry. But it all lives within me. One day you will regain control of your abilities and you will find yourself within me. You will know the answers. I promise this. We will not stop until that day."  
  
Tentatively, slowly, Charles squeezes Erik’s hand back, just barely peeking up, his lip caught between his teeth. His fingers are trembling, but not for the reasons they were before. “What if it takes a long time, then? Weeks? Months? How can you say - how can you not resent me for this? For trapping you here with me?”  
  
"If it does, then it does," Erik murmurs. "I believe that even now we share a connection. I choose to focus on developing this, rather than ruminating on what was. I know you believe that is 'pretending' but it is not. I wish for us to become familiar with one another again. And if it takes weeks, or months, that is only more time in which we will have to grow closer. I firmly believe this." There is not a trace of resentment in him, not now and never in the future.  
  
Charles looks down again, and he can’t quite chase the fear out of his heart, but he does smile. Even just slightly. “I’m not quite familiar with myself right now,” he points out, quietly. “But I think I’d like that very much. Do you think -“ He takes a breath, staring down at their still-touching hands. “Do you think that is what we’re meant to do? Will it fix me?”  
  
Erik's hand by now had flipped up to clasp Charles's lightly. He nods. "I do believe so, yes. There is only room to grow, here. That is something to be grateful for. Not resentful."  
  
Charles takes another sharp, long breath, and then laces his fingers with Erik’s. It’s almost impossible not to notice how impossibly right that feels, and how everything seems to glow and shake with it. “Have you experimented?” he asks, and his lips pull up, which means that whatever he’s referring to, he has. Ever curious.  
  
"Experimented?" Erik's eyebrows arch curiously.  
  
That grin of his becomes just a bit less strained, and he looks just a smidge less exhausted (just barely, though, those dark circles are rather impressive) and weak as he leans forward. Regardless of the circumstances, Charles values knowledge. “I tested how cut off from the outside we really are,” he says, and there’s fear there, too, hidden underneath the intrigue of it. “The answer is very. In fact, I’m not sure -“ He bites his lip, considering.  
  
"I believe we are entirely isolated," Erik tells him solemnly. "The entity that did this ensured we would not be confronted by the outside world until this process was complete."  
  
“Yes, and that would be fascinating on its own, but it just seems like -“ Charles purses his lips again, forehead creased the way it always is when he’s mulling something he finds fascinating over. “It feels like we are the only ones here, Erik. And I don’t mean here, as in this house. I mean it feels as if, for the moment, we are the only people at all. Clearly that isn’t possible, but -“ But all the signs point to it, and whatever entity did this, it was thorough. “It’s like we’re the only ones moving. Everyone else is simply...” He shrugs, uncertain.  
  
"In some type of stasis, perhaps. I-" Erik trails off. "There are many things I simply could not accomplish without you. The Universe understood. It knew the only way was this if we are to pursue proper justice for my perpetrators. And in a way it is kinder upon your family."  
  
“My family?” he repeats, and then blinks, because something else alarms him and his eyes widen. “Excuse me, but did you just say ‘the Universe’? I assume you’re being metaphoric?”  
  
Erik has to smile. "I am not quite certain how else to describe it. It is you. All the parts of you. With all the knowledge and experience of an entire world. With full control. They are quite capable of doing all of this. Yes, your family. Your sister and Hank. Our children."  
  
There’s quite a lot to pick out there, and Charles is speechless for several long, dragging moments. “Me?” he repeats, because he has no reason not to believe Erik, and yet even without any context it sounds incredibly far-fetched. He reaches up for his temples without thinking, perhaps a lingering tic. “You - our children...” He’s reeling again. It’s written all over his face. “You’re saying I put the entire world except for the two of us into stasis? There’s - how?”  
  
Erik gives him a shrug. "I honestly do not know. These are merely my theories on the matter."

* * *

Charles swallows down any comment he has for that, everything becoming dizzy and strange again. The tray of food he’d brought in is vibrating, shaking. “So we - what do we do? Where do you suggest we go from here?” he asks, trying not to sound breathless or frightened, but his eyes are closed, his nose pinched between his fingers.  
  
Erik gives Charles's hand a squeeze. "Just breathe," he murmurs the Order softly, his voice easily overpowering the room all the same. "I don't know where we can go." The admission is painful, but true. Charles was always the teacher. The healer, the consoler. Erik was the protector. The sentry. They were going to build a school and Erik was going to make it safe so that Charles could teach the next generation. That was the plan. "I think maybe we can try practicing with your abilities, try to get you into touch with them so that you will begin to learn some elements of control, and that will help you feel more in control rather than at the mercy of these powers."  
  
This Charles doesn’t know much about those things, which might actually, as it often turns out, enable him to see more. He breathes, even though he’s rather overwhelmed again, and clings tighter to Erik’s hand, glancing down at their linked fingertips. “You’re uncertain, too, but -“ He shakes his head, and his lips curl up, because it truly is amusing. It’s comforting, too, in its own way. “You understand far more than me. You’ve told me to let you help me, but then you’re worried over your own ability to help? You could tell me anything right now and, within reason, I’d see it as a logical next step. You have to realize how confused I am right now.” And how much he’s been put in a position where he has to rely on Erik. Charles cannot do this without Erik. It has been made abundantly clear. “You said you make decisions for me? That you... structure things? And you said you’d help me - and we’d...” He’s trailing off again, mumbling again, so he takes a breath and tries again. “I can’t control it, Erik. Not at all. I don’t know when I’m doing it, or how to stop. You’re wrong. I didn’t stop before. It stopped on its own. It feels like something outside of me. But I do know that you were right, before. I think -“ Another breath, and his eyes close, his hand in Erik’s tightening even further, almost painful. “I think we need to do this together. Whatever connection we have, and it is there, we need to work on that. Perhaps it’s not as complicated as all that,” and he tries for a weak smile, here. “I know you remember, and that will certainly come in handy, but perhaps...” It sounds silly, though, so he closes his mouth before the rest comes out.  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik shakes his head. "Tell me," he manages a smile, and that's sincere, too. More gentle.  
  
Erik seems rather fond of doing that. Charles closes his eyes tighter, and his hands loosens in Erik’s, but he doesn’t pull away. “Don’t ask me how I remember this but not my own name,” he laughs, because it really is mad. Ridiculous. “But I think I remember watching a film, and - well, one of them lost their memories, and the other was quite in love with the first one,” and he pointedly doesn’t look up, here, “And they seemed to work it out just fine. Besides the fact that there seems to be a dangerous, destructive and potentially murderous force in my head,” and his breath hitches, that panic welled right back up, “and that the rest of the world is motionless and we’re trapped in this, admittedly huge house, you’ll have to explain that to me, by the way, I don’t see much of a difference. As it is, it seems like we have all the time in the world, for better or worse. I wasn’t lying. I don’t know you, Erik. I don’t remember why I put myself here, why I trusted you to be the one at my side when I woke up. I’d like to say - but I can’t, right now. I’m terribly sorry.” It’s laced with regret, with melancholy. But there’s a shy, genuine smile on his lips, like when Erik had first cracked Dr. Xavier’s exterior. It hadn’t taken long. “I’d like to,” he whispers.  
  
"I know," Erik interrupts in the barest hint of a whisper, his own voice cracking here, when Charles says that he doesn't know Erik. "I know you don't know." He allows Charles to finish before continuing, after a long period of silence and introspection. "I believe we will get there," Erik has to look up and offer his own smile, a sliver of light in the encroaching darkness, something that sheds away years on his face in the space of a single heartbeat; his vibrant green eyes shining with it, boyish and bright. Shedding the terrorist, Erik Lehnsherr's exterior had never been difficult for Charles, either. "I would like for you to get to know me. I'm aware that you know-" he cuts off again, and goes soft. Again. "That I love you. And this could never be in dispute. But-please do not believe that I intend to pressure you in any way to return the affection, or resent you if you currently do not. What I would like-" Erik swallows, as if suddenly shy, and his head ducks as well. "Is for you-to know me. If you wish that."  
  
Charles laughs quietly, softly, shy himself, but only because he’s already said so. “I do,” he murmurs, and means it. Truly. He squeezes Erik’s hand, and seems absolutely unwilling to let it go, holding it perhaps a bit too tightly still. “We should - I mean... I know it might be difficult for you. I know you can’t just start over when you remember everything perfectly. I know it will hurt, to...” He closes his eyes again. To treat him as if he’s a stranger, too, when to Erik he is anything but. “But I do want it, Erik. To know you. To try this. There are things I think we should discuss, but I don’t want you to think I don’t. I know we need to do this together. I was just a bit overwhelmed.” He pauses, swallows. “There are times I think I still will be, and I’m sorry for that. It’s quite a lot to process.”  
  
"Whatever you wish to discuss, I am amenable. I understand how difficult this is." And he does. He doesn't know exactly what Charles is dealing with, but he can imagine, and it's not as though he's immune to all of the challenges this situation has presented, either. Even if he will barely admit it. "And you needn't apologize for your feelings."  
  
Charles thinks he knows, anyway. It’s practically written all over Erik’s face, even without a sensitivity to it. “I did say I have a list,” he laughs, ducking down into said list, shy and fluttery all of a sudden. “But you have to promise me something first. You can’t ask what it is, you just have to promise.” It’s a very Charles move. He’s said exactly this before, actually.  
  
"Very well," Erik answers, all serious and solemn as he's wont to do. It's very Erik, taking things in due uprightness, even if it might seem silly to other people. And even if Charles doesn't really know it, yet.

* * *

And just like Charles, he grins, soft and just a bit mischievous. “When we’re finished talking, you have to sleep. You promised.” He can tell how exhausted Erik is. It’s clear as anything, even if it might not be to everyone.  
  
Erik huffs gently. "I will try," he does promise. Whether or not he'll succeed is another matter entirely and dependent on too many variables to count. Sleeping alone in the chair in the study hadn't worked, and he doubts it will work now, but he doesn't mention that.  
  
Charles’ lips purse, as if he doesn’t quite believe that. “Last time, I think I helped,” he whispers, because he doesn’t know how he did it, only that he did. Erik was having a difficult time with it, but then he slept. “I could... try to do that again? You’ll let me?”  
  
"You did," Erik murmurs fondly. "And you may do so. I will let you."  
  
That earns another smile, soft and pleased, and Charles gives Erik’s hand another firm squeeze. He hasn’t let it go once since he linked their fingers, and it doesn’t seem like he intends on relinquishing it anytime soon. When he lowers his head again, it’s to bite hard at his lip, considering before he speaks again. “I wanted to ask about - do you think...” They’ve decided this already, really. But his cheeks are still bright pink, because he hasn’t been this blunt. “You want to build our Dynamic back up, too, yeah? You said you’d go slow, that we’d ease into things, but how? I’d like to know beforehand, please,” he murmurs, and it’s that polite, posh tone again, as if he’s discussing business more than a relationship Dynamic.  
  
"I wish to be clear that my intention isn't to build our Dynamic back up to what it was prior to this circumstance, not unless such a thing were to occur organically. I wish I could provide you with specifics, but regretfully I do not have any to give you. I cannot predict what you will be comfortable with, and that is the basis for how I move through any of our interactions. Hopefully the inclusion of more Orders and more expectations will come with time, and whatever results from that will result from it."  
  
“I can’t see how that would work,” Charles says, and it’s quiet but blunt, because never has it been part of his personality, his nature, to not give his opinion. He’s not looking at Erik, but even with his hair fallen into his face it’s easy to see his brow is scrunched up. “Are you suggesting you’re just going to... what, try things? Wouldn’t you be much more likely to run into something that makes me uncomfortable that way, instead of discussing it and setting boundaries now?” He waits a beat, and then shakes his head. “Actually, I phrased that as a question, but it’s what I’m comfortable with. I’d like specifics, please.” And if it’s a little haughty, a little demanding, if he sits up in his chair and lifts his chin, so be it. “I’m not going to agree to something if I don’t know what it is. That’s mad. Is that how you did it the first time?” He raises a skeptical eyebrow.  
  
"Do you have any boundaries you wish to establish now?" Erik asks instead, because that's the most important part of the equation and always has been.  
  
That gives him pause. Charles’ cheeks go red, and his ears follow shortly, ducking back down until his hair covers more of his face again. “You could give me specifics, and I could tell you if it makes me uncomfortable,” he mumbles, and it’s clearly to hide his own embarrassment, even as it’s a real suggestion. That he doesn’t know if he does, at least not off the top of his head. Not the way Charles did before. “Aren’t you supposed to be in charge, or something?” he snorts, to distract from it.  
  
"Something like this is difficult to give specifics for," Erik murmurs kindly. "I had expectations of you, and I expected you to follow them. I frequently gave you Orders, and these pertained to a variety of scenarios. From what you wore, to what you ate, to when you slept and bathed. I will not just be _trying things_ to see what works. What I will be doing is slowly introducing various aspects of our prior Dynamic to see if that is something you are comfortable with. I could Order you to complete a basic task, or I could establish a very basic set of expectations that I wish you to observe while we are living together here, that kind of thing. We can discuss this list together, of course. Does that make sense?"  
  
Charles considers that, quiet for a long few moments as he nibbles on his lip, his hand still in Erik’s. He stares down at it, unwilling to pull it away even as he mulls it over, rolls it around in his head. “If you gave me expectations, wouldn’t those be specifics?” he snarks, but even he knows it’s just to distract from the way his pulse is racing. “Is that what it is? You Ordering me about, and I do it, because I can’t not do it?” It’s not accusatory. He’s curious, and he was curious about this the first time, too. Erik could tell him to do anything and he would do it, because he wouldn’t have a choice, but even now he doesn’t find the concept of it, alone, very satisfying, even as he doesn’t know better. Already he knows he thrives on Orders, but that’s not all. He is Charles, instincts and needs and all, and the fear he feels, the uncertainty, it isn’t there for the same reasons it used to be. It gives him a certain clarity, even through the hesitance. “I’d just like to understand better before I jump into something. What would those expectations be, if you gave them to me? Right now? What kind of tasks would you have me do? Would I just follow Orders as you gave them, or... or would you - you know,” he’s mumbling again, nodding between them. “Would you act like -“ Like he was Charles’ Dominant. “All the time?” Because Charles isn’t stupid. He knows that Erik is holding back, every second.  
  
"They would be specifics. And by giving you expectations, I would only Order you within the confines of those expectations. So I would expect you to take proper care of yourself. Personal grooming, hygiene, and the like. I would expect for you to eat healthily and engage in regular exercise. I would expect for you to keep your spaces clean and reasonably tidy. I would expect you to keep yourself safe, and I would expect for you to yield on my Orders when given to ensure your safety. I would expect for you to tell me the things that you need, when you need them, to the best of your ability. I would expect you to use your pause-word without fail, whenever you become uncomfortable. This word is yours, and you may use it whenever you wish. Lastly, I would expect for you to treat me respectfully."  
  
The noise he makes is considering, a hum, but Charles’ fingers are trembling in Erik’s now. His heart is beating double in his chest, practically audible. He tries to keep his voice even. “You didn’t actually answer most of the questions I asked,” he points out, falling back on that sass again even when it’s breathless. It’s always been a habit of Charles’, and now Erik knows it’s a very natural one, a quirk of both Indication and personality. He’s still staring at their hands, willing his own to stop shaking as he bites away at his lip.  
  
"Tell me which ones, and I will answer them for you."  
  
It’s fair enough, but Charles was deflecting a bit. It’s disconcerting that they’re hardly talking about anything intense and his pulse is racing like this. Idly, he wonders if Erik can feel it. “I asked if it would be - if you would - all the time?” It’s the only way he knows how to ask it, and he has to force it out, rushed, before he leads into the next one. “Would you Order those things, or just expect me to do them because you’ve told me so? Is there a difference?” The way he phrases it makes it clear he thinks so, which shouldn’t at all be a surprise. “Would you Order other things, too? What if I became uncomfortable with an Order but I had to do it anyway because it was an Order? What sort of tasks would you ask of me? What if I didn’t do what I was expected?” At the last question he looks up again, raising a curious eyebrow, and what a Charles question that is.  
  
"There is a difference, and I imagine that it would be a combination of both. It is possible that I would Order other things of you, but it is unlikely I would seek to do so outside of already established boundaries. There is always a risk that you might be uncomfortable with something Ordered of you, that risk was present within our prior Dynamic as well. I am familiar enough with you to be able to gauge your comfort levels relatively easily, and it is unlikely such a progression of events would occur before I can put a stop to it. It truly depends upon what it is you aren't obeying, and why. Truthfully the only thing I can do right now is merely Order it from you in the absence of your fulfilling such expectations on your own accord, but that is a matter you will need to determine for yourself. Our Dynamic included discipline, but that is not really an option at the moment."  
  
Charles opens his mouth, then promptly closes it. Bites his tongue. When he finally pulls his hand away from Erik’s, it’s to tuck both of his neatly in his lap. “Alright,” he says, quietly, and avoids Erik’s eyes, clearing his throat.  
  
Erik straightens up himself, lips pressed together. "Tell me what I have said wrongly," he murmurs quietly.  
  
But Charles shakes his head. “Nothing,” he murmurs, and clears his throat again, reaches up to rub at a temple, one of his more obvious tells. “I had - unrelated questions, would you answer those for me?” Polite, again, poised, he leans back in his chair and reaches for the paper he’s brought with him, which happens to be absolutely filled with questions, but he’ll keep it to a few for now. Erik looks truly exhausted, and truthfully there are still places in this house he’d like to explore. He imagines he could rummage around for months and still not feel as if he’s learned it.  
  
"I will answer any questions you wish to pose," Erik replies naturally. "But I expect for you to be honest with me as well. It is obvious I've said something to upset you. Tell me." It is not exactly an optional sentiment.  
  
Charles swallows, then sighs, and shakes his head again, this time more frustrated. “You didn’t upset me,” he argues, and it’s not a lie, per se, which means he’s gotten around the question. “It sounds reasonable. I understood it, mostly. You know better than I do, at the moment. Is that not enough?”  
  
"I do not think so," Erik murmurs again. "It is not enough for you. Tell me the truth." Again, there's no real option afforded at the moment. If Charles does want to have this conversation, then they'll have it, but not ducking and covering.  
  
His lips purse. “It just sounds...” Charles gestures vaguely, and sighs again. “I clearly couldn’t handle it, so I don’t blame you. But it’s a bit like the training wheels have training wheels. I don’t see how it’s meant to be fulfilling or sustainable, but I imagine it isn’t supposed to be. It’s fine. You’re frightened, too, and like I said, I don’t blame you after that spectacular scene I made the other day, so -“ Another gesture. “Training wheels it is. Could we move on?”  
  
"Regrettably I am not comfortable re-introducing our prior Dynamic without firstly beginning to explore what that means for us. Whether or not this is fulfilling to you will depend upon your reactions," Erik shrugs back. "If it is not fulfilling, if you require more, this will become apparent and we will adjust accordingly, of course we will. But you are correct. Your response to merely being in subspace while I was present was to become overwhelmed. I will not plunge you into a similar experience without first establishing that it is something you desire. That would be irresponsible."  
  
Charles tries not to huff. He really does. He doesn’t manage. Whatever he mumbles under his breath, it isn’t audible, and when he looks back up he shrugs right back, even as he looks past Erik. “I said alright the first time,” he points out, slightly more irritable now.

* * *

"Why don't we move on to what you would like from me," Erik replies back evenly, and that is an Order, not a nudge or an unconscious application of Will, but something that swiftly engulfs the room. "Instead of muttering under your breath and huffing about it. Tell me what you want. Because if it is our old Dynamic, then you have to understand at no point would I allow you to continue conversing with me in this manner."  
  
It freezes Charles right up, if nothing else, his hands twisting in his lap, visibly shaking again, his pulse kicked into gear. “I don’t know,” he whispers, which is mostly truthful, even as his voice trembles on it. “And I’m conversing just fine, thank you,” that’s cracked and breathless as anything, as if he knows he shouldn’t have said it. His curiosity gets the better of him again, though, and he silently curses himself as he mumbles, “What would you have done?” into his own lap.  
  
"I would have ensured that you understand I am your Dominant. Not someone to trifle with or mire down in petulance. Depending upon your response I might have disciplined you." Erik's eyebrows arch calmly. As if aware of Erik's shift, the room shifts, too, deep, wafting tendrils of Command pulsating in Charles's wrists and at his neck.  
  
Charles shifts right along with it, plugged in more than usual, which is likely the reason he became so overwhelmed so fast the first time. He’s never been more sensitive to it, and he just doesn’t have the experience with it now. He’s reduced to squirming in his seat, pulling at his own fingers. “I wasn’t - I wasn’t being petulant,” he argues, entirely too breathless. The tray is shaking again.  
  
Erik just arches that infuriatingly calm eyebrow again. He taps his fingers over the notebook in Charles's hand. "Whether or not you find my decisions regarding how and when I choose to exercise my Dominance, that decision is mine. It is not yours. If you are dissatisfied, truly dissatisfied, I will account for that. Now. Continue."  
  
He jumps as if Erik’s tapped him, then shakes his head. “No, thank you. I think I’m done,” he mutters, infuriatingly polite again, still looking down at his own lap as the tray continues to vibrate its way off the desk, not that he’s noticed.  
  
It doesn't get very far. It rights itself easily. "That is not what I asked you. You said you wished to know. Well, this is it. You came to me because you wanted to have this discussion, and we will have it. I will not pull your teeth the entire way. I told you that I expect respect from you. If that is uninteresting to you, then perhaps you are not ready for any level of our Dynamic at all. Demonstrate to me that you are prepared to accept my Dominance or quite frankly this is done. I will not be pushed about or manipulated. Leave this room or make your choice. I cannot make it for you. Submission is freely given."  
  
And then promptly, abruptly, it slams into the wall, and every book decides to throw itself off the several bookshelves in this room at the exact same time, firmly outside of Erik’s control like when the Void is present. In a way, it is, that hint of a glow to Charles’ eyes as he snaps his head up. The room is dead silent, not even the sound of their breathing. Eerie. “I already have,” he huffs. “I’m the one who walked into this room, not you. I don’t see how my having nothing left to say makes me manipulative or unwilling, but if you’d like me to leave because you’re sick of pulling teeth -“ It’s hurt, there, a sharp edge to it that cuts, now, and he moves as if he’s going to stand. He doesn’t.  
  
"Incorrect. You walked into this room, but then shut down every time I deign to suggest that I not force a very intensive, all-encompassing Dominant and submissive relationship upon you. A fact that, for the most part, you do agree with. That is not a choice, that is not willingness. It is hurtful and it is unfair. I am trying my best, too, Charles. So tell me what you would like from me. Tell me what I have said wrong, or what you are unhappy with. That is what _discussion_ means."  
  
Charles’ eyes widen and he shakes his head, and then he laughs, taken off-guard. “Excuse me?” he rasps, and his voice seems much louder in this place, amplified likely because he’s now upset. “Did I say that? Is that what I said, or what you assumed you heard? Never in this conversation did I say I wanted - whatever our old Dynamic was, in its entirety. I had a reaction, I explained I understood multiple times even if something felt off, I told you I wasn’t sure what I wanted even though you insisted. I’m sorry, what in that are you objecting to? Should I stop having feelings? I’ll get right on that, and in the meantime maybe you should learn how to have a discussion,” he hisses, now thoroughly prickly. The books are beginning to pick themselves up, but only to throw themselves about, the room heavy now. Darker, too.  
  
"So because you are unsure of what you wanted, unsure of how our Dynamic will affect you at all-yet you become hostile when I present something you claim to be reasonable while deriding it as training wheels with training wheels and unfulfilling and unsustainable. And when I ask for clarification, you shut down. Always. You say OK, very well, in a way that is obvious to a child that you are not content with what you've just heard. Instead of telling me your thoughts and feelings on the matter."  
  
“I didn’t become hostile!” The whole room is buzzing with it, and then Charles does get up, the sound of the chair scraping against something loud and thudding and horrid, which makes no sense because the desk and chairs are on carpet, but it does regardless. It echoes. “I was perfectly willing to let it go, and I didn’t shut down, I just didn’t know! I just didn’t know. I didn’t deride anything, you asked me how I felt and why I reacted and I told you, I’m sorry you didn’t like it but that is the truth, to the best of my ability, which is apparently all you expect. It does feel that way to me. I don’t know why. It feels like you are treating me with kid gloves because you expect me not to handle anything else, that it will amount to some silly play-act at a first Dynamic that will do nothing for either of us for very long, and then I pointed out, myself, in the same breath, that I’ve proven I probably can’t, that apparently I’m - so getting upset at it is silly. That training wheels sound reasonable, but they are still training wheels. I said it myself. I’m confused myself. I don’t know, I don’t know why I feel or think things now, so yes, sometimes I shut down. I require some teeth pulling, sorry to say. I don’t know what it is that bothers me, I don’t know, I just feel things, I just feel so many things, but I don’t know anything and -“ He breaks off, closing his eyes. There’s fear in the air, heavy on the tongue. “What more did you want? What more could you possibly ask for? You asked and I didn’t know, so I told you and you accused me of manipulating you, of pushing you around, of - why? What did I do deserve that? Why don’t I get respect, too?” he demands, and he sounds genuinely, truly hurt. Everything is more intense now, as evidenced by the absolutely trashed room, and he hasn’t even noticed it, really. “It’s not fair. That’s not fair. I wanted this, I walked in here and I asked to talk, I tried. I’m trying.”  
  
"Charles, I did not accuse you of manipulating me. I said that it is a type of behavior that I am not willing to accept. It was not a response to anything that you have done. You seem to dislike this aspect of being put on training wheels. So I asked you why. But you won't tell me why. You won't tell me what it is you want, despite this-" he taps the notebook again. "Pages of it, it seems, of questions and thoughts and questions-" Erik just breaks off again and stares at the wall instead. "So yes, sometimes I prefer to err on the side of caution. To use _kid gloves_. Have you considered, perhaps, that there is a great deal that makes me reticent to do more so quickly? I do not mind helping the conversation along. I do not mind Ordering you to tell me things. But that is not something we have even discussed. How do I know it won't make you uncomfortable? How do I know anything at all unless we start slowly and build up? How do I know if I am-if I am forcing you into doing something you are not comfortable with."  
  
“You did,” Charles mutters, but he shakes his head and drops it, and all the pressure in the room seems to pop like a deflating balloon. Actually, because he thinks that, it makes a sound a bit like it, too, and slowly he sits back down. With the notebook in front of him, it’s easy enough to notice that the food he’d brought is now dumped all over the floor, and he’s sheepish and embarrassed and upset in that aftermath, staring down at the desk. “I didn’t - I don’t know why it upsets me. Most of these questions aren’t about this,” he gestures between them, quiet, “They’re about unrelated things, and most of those things are just as scattered, which is why I wrote them down in the first place. I don’t know what I want, really. I don’t. But I’m trying. I asked for the pause-word so I could use it, and I will if I need to. I’ve lost my memories, not my free will and ability to consent,” he points out, but even though it’s sharp, it’s not harsh, either. It’s gentled even further when he tentatively reaches out for Erik’s hand, twining their fingers back together. “If something makes me uncomfortable, I could simply tell you. But how will you know if you don’t ask or try? I don’t really know if I like chocolate ice cream now, either, off the top of my head. That doesn’t mean I don’t, or that you offering it to me would be you forcing it upon me if for some reason I didn’t. I don’t know. Training wheels are reasonable, Erik, especially for right now. I just -“ He shrugs, helpless. “I don’t know. But you assuming I can’t advocate for myself is a bit insulting and entirely unnecessary. If something makes me uncomfortable, I’ll tell you. Isn’t that how it worked before? Weren’t you still experimenting? You’ll know because I’ll let you know.”  
  
"It wasn't," Erik croaks. Because it couldn't have. Not really. Not to Erik. Not to Erik's satisfaction, because nothing could possibly meet his standards of self-advocacy, not when it comes to consent. Not when it comes to consenting to Erik, and that is very loud, and very evident in his mind, at almost all times, even if Charles can't figure out why it's so prominent. As a Dominant it was always Erik's belief that his role was to safe-guard that, and a pause-word is only one part of the equation. "And it isn't-it isn't unnecessary. It is the most necessary. For me to take care with you."  
  
“It wasn’t?” he repeats, and squeezes Erik’s hand, shaking his head. Charles can’t hear what’s going on in Erik’s head, still, not reliably, not consciously, not any more than Erik can hear what’s happening in his, which is to say not at all. “What do you mean? You being careful is different than what you’re suggesting. You can’t undermine my choice and will in this, either. That isn’t fair.” It isn’t harsh at all, now. Actually, it’s hushed. “I have little choice in this whole scenario. Don’t take this, too. I came to this room freely, and I’m sitting here because I chose to.”  
  
"It couldn't-I always have to be careful. Always. What do you think I am suggesting?" Erik rasps, drawing his bad hand down his face.  
  
“Why? Did I - did you not trust me to _consent_ properly?” he asks, and it’s not an accusation, even as he frowns. His free hand twitches on his lap, begins to reach out, but he pulls it back. Shifts in his seat. “It sounds like you’re suggesting that you can’t know if you’re forcing me into something, ever, which is just untrue and unfair. Of course you can. And the solution isn’t to just - training wheels, fine, but...” He shrugs, then sighs. He doesn’t know. “I don’t need you to treat me like I’m utterly helpless and incapable of choice. I’d much rather you didn’t.”  
  
"No-I can't," Erik barely whispers, his voice hoarse. "I can't. Don't know how. I-" and then he shakes his head and falls abruptly silent, all the wheels spinning off their spokes in his mind and clanging onto the ground with loud, metallic thuds. His breathing is short, sharp and wheezy. Altered.  
  
For a long moment or two, the room is still and silent. Then Charles gets up, the chair not making a single sound this time. It’s not in a fit of upset frustration, nor is it to walk out of the room. He walks around the desk instead (stepping over books to do it, this study really is a mess now), and then hesitates on the other side. Bites on his lip, and shifts restlessly, distributing his weight strangely still. “You can,” he whispers. “Why do you think you can’t?” He’s regretting moving, now, with no desk between them. He’s not even sure why he did.  
  
There are no tears in Erik's eyes, now. Charles always did see the inside of him more than the outside, but without full control over his abilities, Erik looks almost serene. He just nudges his head into Charles's side, every muscle trembling at once. It's not fair to expose Charles to any of that. He just shakes his head. He straightens up after a moment, though. "I didn't intend to imply-that you couldn't-that you aren't capable. I'm just-I'm not-I just need to make certain you are protected from me," he says, teeth chattering. "To be responsible."  
  
“I don’t need to be protected from you. I’m not afraid, not of you,” is the first thing that comes out of his mouth, and it shocks him how much he means it, of how fierce it is, but it did the first time, too. He’s reeling with it just like then. Except now he’s uncertain, biting on his lip until it bleeds, twisting his hands, digging his nails in - shifting and restless, and he takes in a sharp breath himself. “I - could...” But he shakes his head.  
  
"...Could?" Erik whispers, swallowing over the lump that's appeared in his throat and he doesn't know how he's managed to get here, to let the situation devolve into this.  
  
“Could,” Charles repeats, a breathy whisper, as if it’s somehow a response, licking at the blood gathered at his lip as he stares at his feet. At Erik’s feet.  
  
"Tell me," Erik rasps, and it's not a request. Not at all.  
  
Charles looks almost like he’s been electrocuted, the way he jerks and sways briefly. He feels it. He closes his eyes tightly enough to hurt. “Could kneel,” he whispers, as if, perhaps, the suggestion came out of nowhere. As if he’s just realizing it himself.  
  
"Yes," Erik says, and this time he sounds less shell-shocked. "Yes, you could." He finally gazes up at Charles, looking more vulnerable himself than Charles has ever seen him, despite Charles being the one to offer a submissive Posture. His eyes are still bright, but less with mischief. More with-searching, sadness, desperation. Something. Desire, maybe. For Charles to do exactly that. "I would like-" he cuts himself off. "That would be very pleasing. To me."  
  
When Charles finally opens his eyes, whatever he sees makes him gasp. He immediately closes them again, trembling, shivering, his knees suddenly feeling very weak, and his stomach - “You would?” he whispers, so hushed, licking at his lips again.  
  
"Very much so," Erik rumbles. "Is that unwelcome?"  
  
Charles’ throat bobs visibly as he swallows. It shouldn’t be possible, but Erik can hear his heart racing in his chest, even with all that suddenly immeasurable-seeming distance between them. He shakes his head. “No,” he breathes, his eyes still closed.  
  
Erik's nose wrinkles up, affectionate. He reaches up and pats Charles's hand, and raises it to his lips, brushing a kiss over his knuckles. "Then kneel for me, _neshama_ ," he murmurs, the Order evident.

* * *

Perhaps it takes a minute for it to register, because for a very long moment Charles is impossibly still. Then he shudders, gasping out another breath, and falls slowly to his knees. He’s shivering all over, shaking just as intensely as he was the first time Erik put him down; and he breathes shaky, then calms, biting his lip again as he scoots forward until he can tentatively rest his head against Erik’s leg, until he can be closer. His Posture isn’t perfect, and his eyes are firmly closed, but he’s not frightened. He’s anything but.  
  
His hand ends up in Charles's hair, fingers kneading through the strands and his own head ends up lolling against Charles's, all of the adrenaline and fear gradually loosening out of his muscles. The more Charles settles against him, the more he calms, too. "Feels OK?" he whispers, checking in.  
  
 _Okay_ is not at all the word Charles would use to describe what he’s feeling right now, and apparently his abilities agree, if the way everything that flew off the shelves earlier is floating an inch or two off the ground is any indication. He murmurs at Erik’s voice and nods against his knee, shuffling even closer, still shivering and trembling. “Mmhmm,” he breathes out, eyes still closed as he settles down. And down.  
  
Erik tucks him even closer, his eyes closing as Charles nestles next to him. It's the first time in a while that he's felt like he's capable of being responsible. He lets his hand run through Charles's hair again and again. "Good," he mumbles, gradually fixing Charles's Posture while still allowing him to rest somewhat comfortably, so that he doesn't forget exactly where he is.  
  
Charles leans right into it, arching into those hands in his hair. He’s not truly being very good about holding Posture, shifting so he can follow Erik’s hand, so he can move about and rest more fully against his legs, and now that he’s down, now that he’s calmed even through the shivering, the exhaustion is coming on, too. Electric, but sleepy. He’s not sure how it can be both, but it is. “Erik?” he whispers, and finally looks up, and the light in here is dim but his eyes are stunningly, almost unnaturally blue. There’s that hint of a glow. Things are still floating.  
  
" _Ken, tayer_?" Erik murmurs back, tucking Charles's hair behind his ear fondly. He spreads his hand over Charles's cheek, rubbing his thumb under his eyes slowly. He doesn't realize he's not speaking English anymore, his own gaze vivid and otherworldly in the morning light. He's not afraid, or disoriented, and despite appearances his own mutation has activated unconsciously, giving him insight into the smallest of spaces between atoms, for things to shine and sparkle on the molecular level.  
  
There’s no light in this room, though; the study isn’t facing any windows, not this one, and even if it were it wouldn’t matter. It’s midday and there should be natural light from the hall, or from the dim lighting of the lamps, but what there is doesn’t match with what there should be. Everything is strange and hazy and suspended and hovering, quite unlike anything Erik has ever felt, and he can’t perceive things the way he’s used to. They don’t exist like that, not for the moment. “It feels -“ Charles swallows, and the noise that comes from his throat is entirely unconscious, but terribly audible, the entire room silent again. He sucks in another breath, shifts about on his knees. On his knees. “Do you - feel better?” he asks, quiet, searching.  
  
Erik nods once; he's not paying much attention to anything else other than Charles either way, so it's not a significant concern at all. "Yes," he murmurs, his lips curving up momentarily. "How do you feel?" he asks, brushing the back of his hand over Charles's forehead.  
  
It takes Charles a long time to come up with a proper response to that, and he still doesn’t have one. He’s not unsettled; if anything he’s calmer than he’s been in days, even as he’s overwhelmed, shuffling on his knees and always nudging into Erik’s legs because he can’t imagine pulling away, and he doesn’t know proper Posture, so he certainly doesn’t hold it. The touches sometimes startle him, until he leans into them - and he does. He bows his head into Erik’s knee and breathes out, shuddering again. “Good,” he mumbles, finally, because it’s the only thing he can think of right now. “How does it feel... for you?” There’s curiosity there, fierce, searching curiosity, almost palpable around the haze as he peeks up. Erik said that when Charles had dropped, it had felt like being cut by shards of glass. Does the inverse feel just as strong? As strong as it does for Charles?  
  
"Hmmm," Erik ponders the question, nose wrinkling up. "Warm," he settles on, smiling. He places his hand on Charles's shoulder and guides him to sit up straighter. Hazy, content, much like Charles, even if it's coming from a very different place, many of the feelings are similar. Like electricity through his entire body, like all of his hair standing up on end. Fuzzy, but somehow more entirely awake than he's ever been. Certainly just as strong.  
  
Warm. It’s a good description, Charles thinks, even as he shivers. The whole room feels warmer all of a sudden; the Manor can be rather drafty even in summer, one of the things Charles had noted during their planning needed fixing, but right now it isn’t an issue. Warm, but not uncomfortably so like it sometimes gets. Not stuffy. Electric, but not unsettling or painful. Strange, certainly, for Charles, but not in a bad way. They were arguing, weren’t they? But he doesn’t quite remember what about, his eyebrows pulling together as he tries to. It’s clear by Erik’s hand on his shoulder, even if he hasn’t said, that he wants Charles to straighten up, and he finds that, rather spectacularly, he wants to obey that; but would he be Charles if he didn’t want to test it, too? Just a little? So Charles bites his lip and wiggles until he can duck back into Erik’s knee, his shoulders slumped. It’s entirely too obvious that he’s peeking up at Erik. “Talk?” he asks, quietly. Didn’t they need to? Don’t they?  
  
"Mm. Straighten up," Erik murmurs the Order, sending a bolt of condensed electricity from the top of Charles's head down to the tips of his toes. There's no testing, here. Erik is in control. "What else would you like to discuss?" he asks, in the manner that it's clear he's not asking as much as he's telling, and that sense of Will only increases the longer Charles is on his knees. Where he belongs. With Erik. There is no getting around that, not in Erik's mind, no matter how sensible he acts about this entire situation, how much he wouldn't say it or admit it. Charles is his. Always.  
  
Said toes curl right up, and he’s shivering again as he straightens up his shoulders, eyes closed again as he breathes through it. There’s a quiet noise of pain, but it’s barely audible, swallowed up by everything else; it’s hard to even feel it, like this. “I don’t know,” he whispers honestly, because everything is all hazy again, and he hadn’t quite known in the first place. He bites his lip. “I had questions, but they’re not - I could ask them anytime, I don’t even know where to start. I just wanted...” He takes a breath. “I wanted to know where we went from here.” And when he blinks up at Erik again, there’s something nervous but expectant. “I don’t think we’ll get much farther until we decide that. Really decide it.”  
  
"I can't make that choice for you," Erik murmurs back. "You claim that your ability to consent is unimpacted by your circumstances but I am not convinced that is true. You are completely reliant upon me, and trapped with me for the foreseeable future. I know a great deal more about you and our history, than you do about me. That is not a fair distribution of power. I don't always know where the line is or how to draw it. What is normal and healthy and what is crossing boundaries. I can't make those choices for you. I can't tell you what kind of Dynamic you should submit to with me, like you said, all we can do is try. Like this. How does it feel? I don't know. I think it feels OK." Erik frowns and shrugs and trails off.  
  
Charles goes silent for a while, and then shakes his head. “I didn’t ask you to make the decision for me,” he whispers, hushed, and his eyes are on the floor again. “But you do know more than me. You know about my history, and our history, and - honestly, there are gaps I don’t understand. Things I just don’t know, and things I do that I don’t know until they come up, and it’s all very confusing, but the point is, you are right. I’m completely reliant on you. But from what I understand, there was never an equal distribution of power between us, Erik, nor do I think either of us wanted there to be,” he mutters, and his lips twitch up, though he knows there’s truth to it. “How will we try if - I don’t know enough,” he admits again, and swallows. “But I don’t understand how that means I can’t consent. Why should it? I haven’t lost my ability to think for myself, and I’ve trapped you here just as solidly as you’ve trapped me, if not more so. I’ve already told you when things were too much. If you don’t tell me how to submit to you, if you aren’t even willing to discuss it, I don’t understand, how am I supposed to -“ His brow furrows, and he goes quiet again, staring hard at the ground.  
  
"I don't know," Erik croaks back. "I don't know anything anymore. You shouldn't be relying on me for this. I am the least qualified person for this." His heart feels like it's grown wings, fluttering inside his ribcage upside-down. "I am just trying to identify things that are objectively, that are objectively-that can allow for you to be submissive without-and I don't know. I never knew any of that, everything was always mixed up together. And it wasn't relevant because that was just, it worked, but now it doesn't work. I don't know how to do anything." It feels like telling a big secret, like he's supposed to have known all this time, but he just doesn't. It's all twisted together and tangled up and he's never had to untangle it before, it's never mattered to him, but Charles's wellbeing is a different story.  
  
It makes Charles tense up. “Oh,” he whispers, and it’s not really in response to anything. His shoulders hunch up and he swallows thickly, but he doesn’t understand why he feels close to crying so he scowls down at the floor, hating the hot, itching feeling, the sting in his eyes and he refuses to submit to that. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. We don’t have to, you don’t have to - I’m sorry,” he repeats, and to be honest he isn’t sure what he’s apologizing for, only that he feels rather silly and embarrassed and he’s restless on his knees again, but he doesn’t want to get up. He has no desire to. “It’s alright. We can forget about it.” Except the problem is, he really doesn’t think they can. He doesn’t think he can. He’s tried, in the past week (he tried the first time, too). “We can forget about it,” he repeats, smaller, and he isn’t sure which one of them he thinks he might be convincing.  
  
"I am just going to make a mistake and I am going to do something wrong and make you feel bad about yourself. And the only thing you knew about me was just how, how bad I was at it, and why. And in a way that has been nice because, because you don't know anymore and I can pretend to be normal but I am not normal. I just hurt people and you should know that, you should know because that it-that is the whole point of consent is you should know."

* * *

Charles is still staring at the floor, and for a very long time he can say nothing. That sting is still there, everything is still there. “I don’t think that’s true,” he whispers, finally. He can’t look up, but he reaches up, tries to find Erik’s hand. When he does, he grips it tightly. “I just don’t think that’s true. Because I’m - because I know, I think, and I don’t know very much. But I think I might know this, at least a bit, and I’d like to know the rest.” He pauses, and his own voice cracks, too. “I think we might have a very long time in this house together, Erik. Just a hunch. Would you like to find out? Because I think you already have, but I need to do it again, so if you also need to do it again, I don’t think that would be very bad at all.”  
  
Erik's hand squeezes against Charles's, strong and sturdy. He doesn't know what to say, all the words choked up inside, so instead he just drops his head against Charles's, his chin tucking the top of his head underneath, combing his fingers through Charles's hair, untangling every last bit. "You always saw the best in me." Even if Erik doesn't deserve it. "Thank you," he whispers, smiling.  
  
Charles smiles back though Erik can’t see it, biting at his lip. “You don’t have to thank me,” he whispers, sincere. “But that isn’t actually an answer, you realize.” It’s light again, teasing, even as there’s a hint of anxiety he can’t quite hide in all of this, more restless shifting after a while.  
  
"The answer is yes," Erik whispers back. "Of course it is. I am just-" he swallows. "Afraid. But not bad. Never bad. I want you to feel happy, and satisfied. I just want you to have all of-of the information, that is all." Erik grimaces, unaware he hasn't really revealed any information and without any intention of doing so beyond the vaguely ominous.  
  
But Charles is smart, and intuitive, and there have been hints among the actual information. He can put things together. “I doubt I started out with all of it, and there will be time to learn it again.” And process it, perhaps, along with his own life. “You probably don’t know everything about me, either, which is either very inconvenient or very convenient, depending on how you look at it, because I don’t either.” More teasing. But his lips purse, and he tries to wriggle out from Erik’s hold so he can see, his lips pursed. “What will make you happy and satisfied, Erik?” he asks, quietly. “Don’t say what makes me happy. That’s not an answer and I won’t accept it.” There’s that natural bossiness again, it seems, a huff to go along with it.  
  
Erik drops a chaste kiss onto the top of his forehead. "Being here. With you. I know that might sound vague, but that has always been what satisfies me. It always will be. Being able to focus upon our connection." He smiles down, this time visible since Charles is peeking up at him. He doesn't really have a more in-depth answer. Life has always been about moving from day to day, surviving from day to day. It's impossible to get out of that mindset, even now, after months in relative safety. "You make me happy. Always."  
  
Charles sighs, and looks down again. “That’s not the truth, really,” he whispers. “It is, and it’s - but there’s more than that, and you know it.” And if he’s a bit frustrated now, he can’t help it, frowning down at the floor again.  
  
The thing is, there's not. Not to Erik's perception, anyway. He doesn't know it, and he's telling the truth as much as he does, so the reaction just makes him frown silently. "What do you think I want?"  
  
“Many things,” Charles mumbles, and he’s still frowning intensely at the ground. “Maybe with me, I’ll grant that, but also independent of me. Everyone does, but - and anyway, how do I make you happy? By existing? That isn’t true, because in the last two weeks I’ve made you rather miserable even if you won’t admit it, even if it wasn’t me, exactly, which has a lot to do with what I asked in the first place. If I said, no, actually, forget it, I’m not interested in trying this, would that make you happy? If I said, well, let me try to be Dominant, maybe that’s what I really am, would that satisfy you? If I said, well, how about I only tell you when to Order me like you suggested, how long would that work? Would that really, truly satisfy you? Would you get much out of it? Don’t say yes, don’t say it’s whatever makes you happy, that’s bullshit. It doesn’t help, either. It won’t make me happy.”  
  
"No," Erik mumbles. "But I am more concerned with treating you properly than I am with-with any of-" he gestures at himself. "It would make me incredibly unhappy if I made that kind of mistake and I can, and I will. You can't trust me like that." It blurts out of his mouth before his brain has fully registered what he's said, and he sort of wishes he could take the words and put them back in. "If I just did what I wanted with only my own satisfaction as the guide it won't end well." The moral lesson here is that Evil Erik can never Enjoy Things obviously. Which is perfectly obvious. To Erik.  
  
“Why?” Charles demands, and looks back up, insistent. A good deal haughty, too, because he’s frustrated. “That isn’t even what I’m asking, but doing it without it in mind will make both of us suffer, don’t you realize that? I can make decisions, too. I can decide if I’m being treated well. I’ve lost my memories, not my common sense and ability to think freely, which you seem to be forgetting consistently. You ignoring your own wants and needs isn’t treating me well. Do you know that? It isn’t, and it isn’t going to get us anywhere.” Now that itchy feeling is back, and he’s even more restless than before, his shoulders all the way hunched in.  
  
"It is not so simple," Erik whispers. "I'm not trying to be noble. I'm not trying to- _martyr_ myself. I'm just trying to be good. And I'm not very good. _Lo yode'a_. Of course it would make me unhappy. Of course I am miserable. Isn't that obvious? But you aren't dead. I don't know how to focus on any of those things. I just know how to move forward. That is all. Maybe I have no thoughts in my brain and I am just an automaton that never analyzes itself. I don't know."  
  
His shoulders hunch even further, if that’s possible, the pricking sensation at the back of his eyes stronger. Charles closes them to offset it, and reaches up for Erik’s hand again. “It is that simple, you just haven’t let it be. Do you think we can move forward like this? Do you think it will help me, do you think we won’t just be stuck here, going round in circles, miserable? Is that better? What will that do? This is moving forward. Maybe you will make a mistake, maybe I will. Is it better that we don’t, but neither of us is happy? If we’re going to move, wouldn’t you rather it be somewhere better?”  
  
Erik clearly doesn't believe that. Not that it's simple. There's something fundamentally broken about him, or at least he perceives this, something so horrific that any exposure could be catastrophic and destructive and he's been trying to limit it this entire time. Limit himself. Shrink himself down and away. "I hope that you won't decide not to," he manages to croak at last. "I like when you kneel for me. It makes me happy." It's simplistic, maybe, but genuine.  
  
Charles closes his eyes tighter, but he can’t help the unconscious little noise that slips. “It makes me happy, too,” he admits, barely audible, even hunched up as much as he is. “But - what else? The rest?”  
  
Erik slides his hand down to Charles's shoulder, making him straighten up once again, to release that tension. "The-rest?" His eyebrows are knitted together, not uncooperatively, but he's failing to understand the question.  
  
Charles is, too, if he’s honest. His own eyebrows knit together, and he bunches himself right back up, maybe to test again. Maybe he can’t help it. “I just... I -“ He makes a frustrated noise, and shrugs, which does nothing for his Posture.  
  
"Tell me," Erik murmurs the Order firmly. "And straighten up." He gives Charles's hand a squeeze before settling it palm-down against his thigh, encouraging him to relax more until he approximated Rest. "A basic Posture," he explains simply.  
  
“I don’t know,” he admits, because he doesn’t, but he still sounds frustrated. Less so, now, though, and he stares down at his hand where Erik’s put it as if it’s fascinating (it is, a bit). His lips twitch up, and it’s clear what he’s going to do before he does it, setting it to the side of himself instead. “Like this?” he asks, feigning innocence.  
  
"No," Erik rumbles deeper, and that Order perks all the way through the air, ruffling molecules until they tap up electric shivers through Charles's body. "Correctly." Once more his hand snaps to his thigh, this time without assistance. He feels a pressure against his back and down on his shoulders, encouraging him to straighten up and focus on his Posture. "Like this."  
  
“Mmmh,” is Charles’ eloquent response to that, his eyes fluttering, and for a moment or two he fusses, not fighting but settling back down, and then into Posture. He focuses on it this time, straightening his back, breathing until his shoulders match, setting both hands on his thighs. Palms-down, because he doesn’t remember anything different. “Like this?” he asks again, breathless this time, watching Erik for a response, full of that fluttering, electric energy. Too-eager, his cheeks pink with it.  
  
It makes Erik smile for real this time, his nose wrinkling up affectionately. "Like this," he agrees, warm. "It is called Rest. It's a very basic Posture. There are many more that you used to practice every day. How does it feel?"  
  
He’s clearly sunk back down some, his eyes half-lidded. Charles bites his lip. “Do you like it?” he asks instead, still breathless.  
  
"Yes," Erik admits, quiet. "Is that OK?"  
  
Charles nods immediately. “It’s - I like it when you, it’s -“ He cuts himself off with a helpless noise from the back of his throat, shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he finishes, the purse of his lips an indication he’s frustrated himself again even as his eyes stay half-lidded and his Posture stays disciplined.  
  
"You do," Erik murmurs, tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear. "No need to be frustrated about it. We're both here. It is all right. Just breathe and focus on my voice. Tell me about how you are feeling." At this point Erik's ceased speaking in English, reverting to the Imperative instead.  
  
Usually Charles would switch with him. He has, before all this, many times and mostly unconsciously. He doesn’t now, and hasn’t since this started, but he understands, clearly, just as well as he did before; it’s another strange distinction, and Charles is shaking his head again, helpless. “I like it when you do that,” he mumbles, because he doesn’t know how else to phrase it. It’s true, at least. “I feel - it feels strange again, but good. Now you,” and if he means it as a demand, it’s still too hushed for that. He clearly means it to be.  
  
"Me?" Erik's eyebrows arch. "And what shall I do, hm?" his nose wrinkles up and he huffs, amused and gentle. "How I feel?" he hazards a guess, and his eyes flick up as he considers that (and hopefully it is in fact what Charles means). And he isn't sure how to answer that, either, not specifically, but he tries. "Very good. Not strange. The most myself."  
  
It is what Charles meant. He seems to consider that for a long time, his eyes closed as he flutters and floats, and when his eyes open, they’re hooded again but incredibly bright. “I suppose it’s only strange because -“ He bites his lip. Because he isn’t sure what himself is, but he imagines it’s something like this. Erik had said not to worry, that subspace is natural. “Is there anything you want to discuss? I know this must be exceptionally strange for you, but...” Charles quiets again, looking down. “I want to try,” he whispers, hushed. “Maybe - I know it’s not likely, but maybe this can be good, perhaps...” He doesn’t know. It’s optimistic, and Erik had agreed he’s miserable, but he also admitted he hadn’t figured everything out. That the two of them were still learning. “Perhaps I can help,” he mumbles, cheeks heated because he thinks it must sound ridiculous. All this has done is hurt Erik. All he’s done, ever since he woke up empty and helplessly lost.  
  
"I know that you will," Erik says, a good deal more confident about that. It's not ridiculous to him. "You already have. Far more than you realize. I know it is strange, but I think we are doing all right. And it will only continue to get better, in my opinion." And that is true. Erik does think it will get better, and he does agree that there is a lot of good, here. "I want to try, too. I always have."  
  
Charles’ lips twitch into an amused smile, something he can’t help even as he keeps his head ducked. “You have a maddening habit of not actually answering questions, you know,” he points out, and really, pot, kettle, here. “You said you were afraid. Can I help with that?” he asks, quietly, because it might help his own anxiety, too. He doesn’t want to admit it, but not knowing, being uncertain - it’s causing the most distress, above anything else, and probing is the only way he knows how to fix it. He doesn’t want to feel so in the dark. About himself. His own needs. Everything. The thought tenses him up again, his shoulders dipping as he bites harder on his lip.  
  
"I don't know," Erik murmurs, because he is still Erik and is still committed to honesty. "I have always been afraid of this, but this situation is-" It's much more intense, it's much more. There's nothing Charles can do or say to make Erik trust himself or believe that he's making the right choices because chances are Erik will just convince himself he's forcing Charles into placating him. It's a downward spiral. "But it's OK. I always had this problem, even beforehand. All I can ask try not to resent me if I need _training wheels_ , or I don't have all the answers immediately."  
  
Charles shakes his head, his shoulders even more hunched now at the reminder. “I didn’t mean to imply I would resent you for needing to build up to things, especially when I’ve asked for the same,” he whispers, perhaps just a tad defensive. “It was just - it’s just that I’m surprised at how much - and will you trust me? You said you’d adjust accordingly, but how will you know that you can or you should if you don’t ask me and then trust me when I tell you? How will you even know that I am ready for it, like you said you would know? You’ve questioned whether or not I can consent. You have to realize why that worries me.”  
  
"I don't know," Erik admits, ducking his head. "It's not your problem. It's my problem. I don't know how to fix it. I just need to be careful. I can tell when something is positively or negatively affecting you. For the most part I know when you are uncomfortable or comfortable. And if you tell me that and I observe it, that is all I can really go by. But even if all of that happens I can't promise I am not going to be afraid."  
  
Charles certainly looks uncomfortable now. It’s immediately obvious that the second he breaks Posture he’s more visibly upset, hands twisting together instead of staying properly on his thighs so he can fidget. It doesn’t help, and it never does; he just doesn’t know that it won’t, not used to falling back on his own submission yet. On Erik’s Dominance. He hasn’t been guided into doing so. “But - you said it feels good, that you feel like yourself. That you think we need it. But it makes you afraid? I don’t want...” Erik said it was his problem, but of course Charles has a difficult time accepting that.  
  
"Both of those things are true," Erik replies, and he puts his hands over Charles's to still them and guides them back to their proper spot with a silent Order to stay put. "I have a lot of past experiences that were not conducive to developing proper Dominance. We had to do a lot of growing together even when you possessed all of your memories and I had a-a _team_ of medical professionals to help me when you couldn't. This is not an optimal situation for me, I am not-I'm a mental case, and you have to understand that."  
  
It makes Charles frown, and he becomes a bit restless again, a quiet sound from the back of his throat. “That isn’t - don’t talk about yourself like that, it isn’t fair,” he says, and it sounds like a demand because it is. “Just because you struggled, just because you had difficulties, that doesn’t mean you should disparage yourself. Erik, have you ever been given the opportunity to - I imagine when we first began things, the circumstances were not optimal for other reasons. But you make it sound like we managed just fine. You’re already - I mean...” He swallows, and looks down. “It feels as if it’s better, when we’re -“ He breaks off again.  
  
"It does," Erik smiles softly. "And it is. And I'm not disparaging myself. It is the truth." He's afraid, of course, that if he ever did get the opportunity he would just fuck it up, and that's exactly what's happening right now. "But we did manage. And I think we are managing, now. And we will manage it better as time goes on. But that doesn't mean I wasn't scared. I never learned how to do anything properly. Sometimes I just guess. I'm not a very good person. You should know that. You had to compromise your morals to be with me. That isn't fair either."  
  
Charles only frowns deeper, a full scowl now. He fusses, finding it frustrating that he can’t seem to move his hands, but he certainly wriggles about as much as he’s allowed. “Stop it,” he snaps. “You’re not scaring me, if that’s what you’re trying to do. It won’t work. I’m not frightened of you. And you clearly know enough, and what you don’t know, can’t we learn together? Whatever it is you’ve done, whatever it is you think makes you a terrible person, it clearly didn’t stop me from trusting you with this. All of this. I could - this power inside of me, Erik...” He closes his eyes. Every time he thinks of it, the terror is palpable. “You won’t make me think otherwise. I want to try. Here is your opportunity. It’s just us, trapped here for however long. There’s no better time to learn.” He pauses. “Have we really not... have we ever done this, before? Has it ever been just us?”  
  
Erik shakes his head. "Not really." He puts a stop to that fidgeting and squirming about, too, tapping Charles's back to get it to straighten up further. "We have a big family. And there is always things we need to do, and people I need to check in with." He shrugs a bit. "I am not trying to scare you. That is the last thing I want. But there is a lot about me that you simply don't know. I think maybe... you trusted me, before you did know, and just tried to, to tell yourself it was fine. But it's not really fine."  
  
Charles scowls harder, discomfited and restless in other ways, another protesting noise. “It sounds like you’re projecting,” he says, bluntly. “Whatever it is, I’m sure I’ll learn. There is plenty of time for me to learn. But don’t discredit me that way. Do you really think I’d stay, that I’d convince myself into it, that I’d - it’s insulting and it is meant to frighten me off because you know I don’t know enough to know better and I don’t want to hear it,” he mutters, and he’s truly upset, now, the whole room shaking again. “Let me find out and make my own decision again. You don’t get to decide that for me. You never will.”  
  
"I don't want you to be scared of me. But you are wrong if you think there is no legitimate reason for me to be afraid of doing something to hurt you. I am not projecting that. I don't know why you didn't blame me. But you didn't know everything all at once. You wanted to know why I was so afraid, well that is why. It is not because I struggled or had difficulties or anything else."  
  
“It is,” Charles argues, and he knows he could be wrong. There is no way for him to know any better and he knows it. But it’s a gut feeling, it’s there, and suddenly he goes very quiet. Too quiet, entirely silent, his eyes on the floor.  
  
Erik doesn't like arguing and doesn't want to, so he doesn't say anything to refute it despite evidently not believing it. "I'm sorry," he mumbles. "I just don't want you to think it has anything to do with you, or this. Because it doesn't. It's just me. It always has been."

* * *

Charles still says absolutely nothing, his eyes tightly closed, and he’s managed to tense himself right back up again, his shoulders holding visible tension.  
  
"Look at me. Tell me what you are thinking about," Erik murmurs the Order.  
  
When Charles’ eyes snap open and he looks up, they’re that strange, vaguely glowing blue again, ethereal, too bright for the lighting. Too bright in general. “I’m frightened,” he gasps, but he doesn’t mean of Erik. “I’m very frightened.”  
  
"Of what?" Erik asks, but the Command is clear.  
  
It takes a moment for him to respond. When he does, his voice shakes, but so does everything else. “Myself,” he admits. “This - this -“  
  
"I know what that is like. You are here with me. I'm not going to let anything happen to you."  
  
Charles shakes his head, his eyes closed again. His throat is bobbing for an entirely different reason than the fluttering of subspace. “I’m not worried about me,” he whispers. “It’s - you don’t understand. It’s, I can’t explain it, I can feel it, but I haven’t a clue how to control it, it’s just there, it’s so large -“ It’s inadequate, simplistic, but that’s what it feels like. Too-large. For his body, for this house. Perhaps for this world. “Have you considered that I might hurt you before you could ever hurt me?”  
  
"You will learn. That is part of why we are here. And I understand more than you think," Erik murmurs. "I used to sleep in the bath tub because I was afraid if I was next to you I would snap and cut you to pieces." Erik's mind is small, and filled with his small, ordinary thoughts, but that's part of what makes it so insidious. It's all him. There's no one else rattling around in there. It's just how he's wired. "I've seen what you can do. I'm not scared of that."  
  
Charles’ lips curl up, but it’s not amusement. His eyes open, and now there’s something exceedingly strange there. Something that looks like staring into the Void, but there’s no blackness. Only bright, clear blue. “No, you haven’t,” he whispers, and it’s quiet, ominous, heavy.  
  
"I have. And I know what you could do. We can do a lot of things. I can do a lot of things, too. More than anyone really knows. It doesn't scare me."  
  
Another head-shake. “You don’t,” he assures, and for all he doesn’t know, he knows this. “Maybe you aren’t afraid of that for some reason, but I promise you don’t. I don’t, either. If you did, perhaps you would be.”  
  
"I wouldn't, and I'm not. The possibility of all the horrible things mutants could possibly, _maybe_ , _potentially_ do? Not really high on my list of concerns. What matters to me is what you choose to do."  
  
Charles makes a noise, and perhaps under other circumstances it would be a laugh, his shoulders hunched again. Shaking, again. “I’m not mutants,” he says, and his voice is shaking again too. “I’m not even you, and you are not, either. You are, but not - you’re more, too. But not like this. And it isn’t a hypothetical. If we weren’t trapped here, everyone you love, our family -“ He can’t say it. “That doesn’t scare you? I’m not choosing. I’m not in control.”  
  
"You chose this. So no, it doesn't scare me. If you are as powerful as you claim to be, then you have the power to control it within you. You have been in control for many years, and you will regain that and much more the more you begin to experiment and become comfortable with yourself. I know that it isn't easy and it isn't fair, but it is possible."  
  
“You’re guessing. You don’t know. And if I was really in control, if I really could - do you think we would be here? Trapped? Isolated?” His voice raises as he goes, not in anger but in pure, raw terror. “Why would I experiment with this? What if all I do is -“ Again, he can’t. His mouth snaps shut and there’s a sound like a slamming, locking door. “Do you really think you can help me? How?” he demands.  
  
"Because there were a lot of things in your mind that were preventing you from coming into your potential," Erik says bluntly. "Anyone first coming into their abilities is going to struggle with controlling them. You removed the possibility of being able to affect anyone negatively while you learn that again. I don't know how. I'm not a telepath. I'm not a teacher. If you want to learn to control them, you will need to begin consciously utilizing them. That is why."  
  
“I can’t,” he protests, and now he looks even more terrified. It’s not just the shelves shaking anymore. It’s everything. Things that were on the desk undisturbed begin to throw themselves around, and when Erik checks, they’re completely outside of his perception, but there, too. “You said you could help me,” he accuses, and his eyes are so wide and so full of fear.  
  
Except that they're not. Everything flies back into its proper spot and seems to dissolve entirely from the Earthly plane, or at least anything able to be manipulated. "Cease this, immediately." The Order pings off of everything, vibrating the atoms in the room like two tines of a tuning fork. Erik's Will is holding everything completely still, trapped inside unwavering amber. "I will do what I can do. You are not going to hurt anyone, and I won't let anything happen. Now take a breath and straighten your Posture and calm yourself down. We are here. We will figure it out."  
  
Charles’ eyes close, and his lips purse, his jaw clenches, and they are. Everything immediately begins to shake, to split off, to crack. He breathes. He straightens his Posture. But he shakes his head. “You can’t promise that,” he accuses, and everything is immediately back to the way it was. Chaotic, and swirling, and completely untouchable. “You can’t. Do you see it now? You can’t, and that should scare you.” And he’s right. “I’m more powerful than you. Does that frighten you?”  
  
That just makes Erik laugh, but it's not cruel or frustrated or angry. "No. You aren't telling me anything I don't already know. Now put things right, and take a breath." His eyebrow arches. It's not optional, and it's not a request.  
  
His eyes widen again, and now there’s fear for a different reason. “I don’t know how,” he rasps, quiet. Panicked.  
  
Erik shrugs. "You will. Close your eyes." But here, though, Erik's brain begins to fail him and begins to shut down. "Uh, and, uh," he stutters. Shut it down. Hands and claws come out from the ether. Erik shoves them behind the door, exhaling harshly. "Just, uh, breathe." His ears are ringing and he can't hear his own voice, which is much louder than normal. "Just breathe and try to concentrate on everything you can perceive in the room. On what you know. Tell uh, me, what you can see and hear."

* * *

What he knows? What he sees? What he hears? Charles tries to do as he’s told, and he does, to be fair. He can’t do anything else. “You,” he breathes, and there’s still panic there, but it’s a bit less pronounced. “You,” he repeats.  
  
Erik wishes that he could be less whatever is happening right now, so that it doesn't impact Charles worse, but he can't. It feels like all of the molecules inside of him are shaking apart, too, chaotic flux he can't put back into place. Jolts seize his chest, spilling down to his toes uncomfortably. "Good. What else? Just listen. Slow everything down. Your breathing and heart rate."  
  
But Charles shakes his head, and tears spring to his eyes. “I - nothing,” he croaks, like he’s confused. He is. “What’s happening? Am I -“ The terror makes that awful noise again, splitting, crunching, breaking.  
  
Nothing is happening. Erik just has to get himself under control, except that he can't. "You're fine," he rasps. "You're all right."  
  
Charles certainly doesn’t feel alright. There are tears on his cheeks now, and panic as strong as anything. Impossible to breathe through. “Let me up, please, you have to, I need to - please,” he gasps, and he’s shaking horribly, head to toe. “I’m sorry. Please, I’m sorry.” It’s not _afor_ , which he wouldn’t have forgotten. He hasn’t. It’s something else, something else, it’s stronger and it’s horrible and he’s starting to cry in earnest the longer it goes on.  
  
Erik doesn't really say anything or do anything, though. He can't help, he can't do anything, he just repeats the same or similar things as before. "Be still." The Order comes out at last. "And slow down. I didn't say spiral out of control. I said slow down, and breathe. And tell me what you can sense. If it is me, tell me what."  
  
It does help, though. Some of the panic leaves Charles’ eyes even as tears continue to slip down his cheeks, and he goes rigidly, exceptionally still. “You’re - here, and you’re my - you’re Dominant, and you’re, something is wrong,” he rasps, and he tries not to spiral, but whatever is upsetting him now is truly upsetting him. “P - lease, please, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry,” he sobs. “Let me, please, I need to, I didn’t mean to.”  
  
Erik has a hard time following that, mostly because his brain feels like a bus crash just happened inside of it. "OK," is what he says, swallowing a lump roughly. "I know you didn't mean to do anything. Stop apologizing. I am here and I am your Dominant. So tell me what is wrong."  
  
“M-My -?” Charles sobs, and he doesn’t move, not even to wipe the mess of snot and tears that’s appeared all over his face, fighting against even trembling. “You t-told me to do something and I didn’t, I’m -“ He physically swallows down another apology, giving another hiccupped, suppressed sob.  
  
"Stop." Erik interrupts him before he can. And Charles doesn't need to move. Erik makes sure he is clean. "I told you to do something and now we're doing it. Together."  
  
Charles tries to let that calm him, but now he just cries harder, and keeping his face clean at the moment is a bit of a lost cause. “I - you said put it back but I don’t know how, I can’t, not like that,” he cries, and it all sounds rather muffled, like somehow it’s through a tunnel. “I didn’t want to d-d -“ He can’t say whatever he’d started to. He just shakes his head and tries to gasp in another breath around a sob. “It hurts,” he admits.  
  
"I know what I said. We will figure it out. If I was displeased, you would know about it. I am not. I know it hurts. But you are all right."  
  
“I - I -“ It’s just more stuttering. Charles can’t get any of it out, and if he did, it wouldn’t be anything of substance. He can’t stop crying, either, even though he’s trying, hot, shameful tears, wet, wrenching sobs, and he’s noticeably curled toward Erik’s voice. “O-Okay,” he gasps, shaky and terribly vulnerable.  
  
"You need to listen to me and do what I am telling you to do. You are not going to have any success in this unless you take it down a notch. Our powers are inherently tied to our emotions. I need you to slow down. Listen to my voice. Relax yourself. One muscle at a time if you have to. There are places inside of you that are entirely still and at peace."  
  
Charles doesn’t know of any, but he doesn’t say so. His teeth are chattering and he’s crying too hard for that, anyway. He tries. He does try, truly, and to a degree he succeeds; he evens out his breathing until he’s no longer choking around every breath, he tries to relax the muscles he’d tensed up in an effort to stay perfectly still for Erik, though he wouldn’t be able to say, consciously, that it’s what he’d done. He listens to Erik’s voice. There are still tears rolling down his cheeks, though, and he can’t help those; they hitch his breathing every now and then, silent now but still there, the upset not gone. But he tries, he’d always meant to try. He said he wanted to try.  
  
Erik knows he doesn't believe it, but there is. In between heartbeats. In small moments, even if he doesn't see or feel it for himself, they're there. From one breath to the next. He uses the time to focus on himself, too, forcing all of the panic in his own chest down and out. He keeps talking, and wipes the tears from Charles's cheek as he does.  
  
They keep coming. Charles doesn’t know why, but he can’t stop, and what terrifies him is that Erik will ask him to and he won’t be able to, an irrational fear he can’t suppress. He leans fully into Erik’s hand when it wipes at his tears again, nuzzling into it. He can’t help that, or the shivering, or the pulling in his stomach, or how horrifically vulnerable he feels. “What’s - wrong?” he asks, and his own voice sounds so warped. It’s barely a sniffle, too, which doesn’t help.  
  
But Erik doesn't ask for that, he just rubs his thumb along Charles's cheek. He doesn't mind if Charles cries, there's nothing wrong with it. The question makes him blink, though, his gaze coming back from somewhere far off. He'd been talking lowly for some time but not really saying too much. "Hm?"  
  
Charles blinks back, too, more fat tears gathering on his cheeks. “What’s wrong?” he repeats, hoarse but desperate, seeking, all but rubbing his cheek against Erik’s hand at this point. Chasing after it, like he’s afraid of Erik pulling away. He is. “Something’s - something’s -“ He hiccups, sniffling, his cheeks hot from crying and shame.  
  
"With you?" Erik whispers, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear.  
  
Charles shakes his head, sniffling harder. “With you,” he corrects, quietly.  
  
Erik shakes his head, too. "I'm uh-OK," he rasps. He isn't, but as Charles is fully aware by now, that's pretty typical of Erik. "Nothing bad. I promise."  
  
“Please don’t lie to me,” Charles whispers, and it’s not a demand, and it’s not angry, but it is pleading. He seems to be crying harder, even as he tries to hold it in, wet sniffles as the shame settles in his belly with that tugging sensation.  
  
Erik doesn't know how to put it into words. Which is also typical of Erik. Erik shakes his head and tries to shake all the memories out of his mind. Screaming and screaming. Another language. A faceless monster. Pain and pain and pain. "I, ah, just do not have much experience helping-"  
  
Charles doesn’t think it will help any, and it’s likely just as much for his own comfort as it is for Erik’s, but he nudges into Erik’s palm, nuzzles, his cheeks burning with it. “Helping?” he prompts quietly.  
  
"You always used to say that I had such good control of my mutation," Erik blabs little out of context. "But I don't want to teach you like that. But I don't know how else to teach you so I don't know I am just going to keep guessing and I don't know. I'm sorry I don't know."  
  
It’s difficult to follow, but even still it makes Charles’ breath hitch in understanding. The noise that comes from his throat is embarrassing and inexplicable, but he presses even further into Erik’s hand, nudging. “It’s alright,” he promises. “You could - when you, it helped - can I...” His cheeks are so hot, and for some reason the embarrassment is making him cry more, which just makes him cry more. It’s a bloody awful cycle.  
  
Erik just tugs Charles close to him and puts his face against Charles's hair, inhaling deeply. "I don't want to hurt you I don't think you need to be hurt and I don't want that. To do that." Erik mumbles nonsensically. "'Kay."  
  
It’s actually what Charles was ashamed to ask for, more or less. Now that he’s been given it, he curls up into Erik’s leg, sobbing quietly, his shoulders shaking with it for a moment. He’s not sure why. “You didn’t hurt me, you don’t hurt me,” he assures, equally as nonsensical, his own brain misfiring. “It helped, when you were - it helped,” he repeats, rubbing his cheek against Erik’s knee.  
  
"Mm?" Erik wants to know. "What helped?"  
  
“Told me what to do, talked to me, made me - Ordered me, said you were my -“ His voice is already muffled by Erik’s knee and his sniffling, but it just completely cuts off there.  
  
"Mnn. _No_. Tell me." The Order is muffled a little in Charles's hair, but no less strong.  
  
“Said you were my Dominant, had to listen,” he mumbles, and he’s grateful to be buried in Erik’s leg now for more than one reason, because it means his face isn’t visible, covered in tears and splotched red with all that embarrassment.  
  
"'S true," he mumbles, petting Charles's hair gently. "I know you don't remember and sorry," he pets more. "But's how I think. I'm here 'cuz you're mine. Even if you don't remember. 'S still true for me. Keep you safe. Protect you. Always."  
  
The sound that slips from Charles’ lips is even more embarrassing, low and too-needy, but he can’t help arching into Erik’s fingers, squirming to try and get closer. “My Dominant? Have to listen,” he mumbles, like he’s not even sure he’s said it. He gives another wet sniffle into Erik’s jeans. “Didn’t,” he gasps, upset again.  
  
"Mine. And yes. Because I said so. That is what matters." Erik presses Charles a little closer to him, mindful, but letting him be more or less embraced.  
  
Charles doesn’t seem to have any problem being embraced at the moment, actively seeking out more contact, leaning into everything he’s given. He even nudges into Erik’s hand when it seems to briefly stop petting, practically wrapping himself around one of Erik’s legs, curled up. “You said to put things back and I didn’t,” he says, and sounds miserable for it. “Made a mess.” And he did. The room looks like something in the aftermath of a natural disaster, of turbulence and chaos, every book scattered, every paper dumped on the floor, the tray of food everywhere. He knows that, if he’s not being controlled by his own power - his? Can it really belong to him? - Erik can probably clean it. Efficiently. Fast. But is that what’s to happen? He’ll follow Charles around, cleaning up his messes every time he becomes upset? Charles sniffles again, fresh tears soaked into the denim of Erik’s jeans.  
  
"That's fine. You'll learn." Erik scritches the back of his neck fondly. In comparison Erik is a scalpel, surgically precise as everything fits itself neatly back to where it belongs and dusted off. "You stopped, and calmed down, and that is an accomplishment. Power comes in a lot of different ways. It's not about measures of force. I don't know how to teach you. How I learned was not good. But your abilities are a gift, and they are beautiful. They have given us a lot of good things in our life, and will continue to do so. You are not a slave to them."  
  
Charles can’t see how that’s true, and somehow Erik’s measured clean-up only makes him feel entirely more guilty and sick, head spinning with it as he bows his head into Erik’s knee and cries. “Stop, please,” he gasps. “Let me - “ It’s such a silly thing to have a reaction over, but everything moving abruptly does stop, held vibrating and still. “You said you didn’t,” he whispers.  
  
Erik touches his finger over Charles's lip. "I said what?"  
  
He hides himself back in Erik’s legs, fully out of Posture though still very much on his knees and he knows it, his arms around Erik’s leg and it’s impossible not to notice how long and large it is in comparison to his own. How big Erik is, even as he’s distressed and crying. “Said you didn’t clean up after me,” he mumbles, and it’s so silly, it doesn’t matter, but somehow it really does. Erik said put it back. He Ordered it. It’s twisting him up, his belly, his head, having it done for him like this. Like he couldn’t do what he was told, like he made a mess of things and then Erik cleaned up after him instead. There’s something else, and like everything else related to this he just doesn’t understand it, is overwhelmed by it, but he shakes his head as if it might go away.  
  
"Stop. You did the best you could do and that is all I ever ask for. I do not help you with things you can do yourself, but it is my job to help you with the things you can't. Now straighten up. You said you could sense me, earlier. So focus upon me. You always know how to find me."  
  
Charles straightens up even though he makes a sniffling, pathetic noise as he does, a clear protest, and shakes his head again. “But - I could, I could clean it -“ But apparently it doesn’t matter. It’s silly, just like he thought it was. It doesn’t matter to Erik, it shouldn’t matter to him. Whatever he’s feeling, it’s wrong and he just doesn’t know and he clearly tries to make himself stop. He stares down at the floor, his cheeks hot with shame and all of that awful rolling about in his stomach. “Okay,” he says, small.  
  
"You will. But not today." Erik kisses the top of his head. "I will take care of it, and you will let me. That is what I am telling you to do. Am I understood?"  
  
Charles fights the tears in his eyes, because he’s already cried himself red in the face. He doesn’t need to cry more over something ridiculous, even as the stinging is there. “Okay,” he repeats, barely audible, his head still bowed.  
  
"Good." Erik's nose wrinkles up, and he bows his head against Charles's, breathing as deeply and calmly as he can.  
  
Charles focuses on trying not to cry. He focuses, and focuses, and breathes, but it doesn’t work. It feels horrid. All of it does, and he doesn’t even know how to express that. A pause-word doesn’t work in this situation, so what does? Nothing. So Charles just kneels there, and wriggles about, restless, and cries, and waits it out, ashamed and unsettled and silent.  
  
Erik tugs Charles's attention outside of himself and onto him, which is where he's wanted it since the beginning. "I told you I am not going to do things for you that you can do for yourself. So stop fidgeting around, look at me like I said for you to do, and pay attention."  
  
Charles looks, and feels truly pathetic when his lip wobbles and more tears fall. “Okay,” he repeats, for a third time, even quieter than before.  
  
The scope of Erik's exhaustion hits him rather slowly, like falling off of a cloud, and he just tightens his grip around Charles and tugs him close. "OK."  
  
Charles’ face falls with his stomach, but he tries not to show it. He’s never been very good at that, memories or otherwise, and the tears keep stinging his eyes, blurring his vision. “Okay,” he says, again, and stays tense in Erik’s arms.  
  
Everything lifts up and rights itself. There's no invisible hand or perception of strength, things just move as if they always meant to do that, like a natural process.

* * *

Charles lets it happen, like he was told to, but he wouldn’t even know how to consciously stop it. “Okay,” he whispers, to nothing, a hollowed out echo. He’s shaking. “Can I - get up?” he asks, his eyes closed, because he thinks he might begin to panic.  
  
"Is that what I said?" Erik murmurs back.  
  
Charles blinks, confused, his face still thoroughly tear-stained and it doesn’t help with that, the tears that fall out. “What?” he asks, hoarse.  
  
"You are upset because you were unable to follow an Order I gave, but yet are _not_ obeying simple commands that I am giving you now. So is that what I said? Did I say you can get up? Because I do not recall doing so."  
  
“You haven’t given me commands, you haven’t said anything,” Charles points out, frustrated and restless and upset all over again. “I want to get up now. Please.” It wouldn’t help, probably, but he doesn’t know what else to do, the hitch in his chest worse. It’s better than sitting here, humiliated and seemingly ignored.  
  
"And I said no." The Order flexes out entirely like a nail into a board. "Now what exactly is the problem."  
  
He shivers with it, violently, but it seems like it helps, too, or at least startles him enough. Both, probably. “I don’t know,” he admits, thoroughly ashamed and miserable about it. There’s so much he just does not know. Does not understand about himself, about all of this. And even Erik is annoyed by it now, it seems, the thought making him restless again, threatening to start up the tears.  
  
"Not acceptable. I didn't say you could get out of Posture or look away or focus your attention on any of the thousand of other things that are not my WIll. Tell me what you are feeling and thinking. Now."  
  
Charles’ eyes go impossibly wide and he shudders with it, but it settles him again. He sniffles, but straightens his shoulders without Erik asking, his fingers shaking as he sets them back on his thighs like he was taught just before. “It feels like it hurts? In my stomach. My head. It feels wrong, and I don’t know why. I don’t know why it bothered me so much. I don’t know why.” It’s the truth, and he tries to think about, to really think about it, his brow furrowed. “It felt like - I should clean it up, you said I should clean up my own messes, you said you expected it, and you Ordered it and I did something, I made the mess and I should - I should...” He doesn’t know the right words. He’s trying now, though, focusing, looking at Erik, holding Posture. He didn’t mean to not do those things, he’d just been upset. Worked up over this, and his inability to understand his own thoughts and feelings and instincts. “I know it’s silly. I don’t know why,” he mutters again, clearly ashamed still.  
  
"Well that is fine, but I also said for you to relax and allow me to assist you. I do not expect you to do things that are impossible for you. If you could have done it you would have done so. It was sorted out. It is not wrong because it is exactly what I told you to do."  
  
“I tried,” Charles sniffles, and he’s so humiliated, everything so hot and confused. “But I couldn’t. It felt horrible, I didn’t know how to tell you because I wanted to listen -“ It’s novel, too, to admit that, but it’s true. It’s exceptionally honest. He had wanted to listen, and being told what to do, the way he’d been told, the way he is now, was helpful. It is now. “I could have cleaned it up by hand? It would have taken a long time, but -“ He knows it isn’t what Erik said to do, that he probably hadn’t even considered the possibility, because the mess was substantial. He forces himself not to look away again. “Responsible,” he whispers, finally. “I wanted you to -“  
  
"What you are responsible for doing is listening to what I say. I didn't tell you to do that because I didn't want you to. It has nothing to do with why I gave the initial Order in the first place. When you can't do something, I will help you."  
  
Charles opens his mouth like maybe he wants to protest, but he closes it again. Opens it, sniffles, and then closes it, and eventually he nods. “It’s just - I know, but it’s just that this is so terrifying, I’m so afraid that I’ll just, I’ll just lose control and there’ll be no one to, and I’ll -“ Irrational, and silly, and it takes everything in him not to hide again. But Erik asked, and he’s trying, and he doesn’t know what else to do.  
  
"Well there is not no one. There is me. I am here and I am not going anywhere."  
  
Charles knows that. It’s the only thing that’s stopping him from - he doesn’t even know. He bites hard on his lip. “Could you... maybe, could you -“ His face is terribly red by now, all of that shame built right up, tear tracks still on his cheeks. “Nevermind,” he whispers.  
  
"No, _tell_ me." The Order is firm.  
  
It gets his attention right away again, and he sucks in a tight breath. “Could you give me something else to do, another task, or a chore, so I could - something, I just -“ He’s sure it doesn’t really count as a consequence if he’s asking for it, regardless of his feelings on cleaning, and he’s sure he’s not supposed to, it’s not even quite the same, but it’s still all wound up. Erik said ask for what he needs. He’s not sure if this is it, but it’s in his head.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "I am not punishing you for something that you didn't do. You are not the one in charge, here. I made the decision and I stand by it and I am not acting out discipline when it isn't warranted. Now you do not get to pick and choose what Orders of mine you choose to listen to."  
  
Charles isn’t certain if that’s what he’d meant, but either way his face falls visibly again. “Can I please get up?” It’s hoarse, and strained, like he’s just barely holding back tears again.  
  
"What did I say already."  
  
His jaw clenches, lips pursed but it’s mostly just to attempt to hold it all in. To not humiliate himself even more. “You said no,” he feels compelled to say, voice barely recognizable.  
  
"And what makes you think I've changed my mind in the last two seconds?"  
  
“It’s been more than two seconds,” he feels the need to point out, for some reason, likely because he’s overwhelmed and hurting. “And now it’s been more than another two, will you please let me up?” In his defense, he sounds more desperate than anything, though it would be impossible not to hear the frustration.  
  
"I said no." It's flat, and firm, and there is no mistaking the Order.  
  
So Charles doesn’t move, but his eyes begin to sting again and he swallows around it, and swallows and swallows, absolutely refusing to let the lump in his throat win as he closes his eyes. He doesn’t think he’s even capable of speaking around it, so he just stays silent.  
  
"I know you are afraid but that does not negate anything. I told you what I expect of you and what I don't, and that is final."  
  
Charles still says nothing, fighting with everything building and terrified of it coming out again, even more terrified now than he was before. He digs his hands, still at his thighs, into the fabric of his pants, and keeps his eyes tightly closed.  
  
Erik runs his fingers through Charles's hair, letting his eyes close so he doesn't snap.  
  
It’s too much. This time Charles does pull away, a jerk from beneath Erik’s fingers, a low noise of protest, and his mouth opens like he’s going to say something, but nothing comes out. It doesn’t close. He’s shaking.

* * *

Erik sighs and deflates.  
  
There’s no way to stop the tears, then. They just fall right out, and he tenses up with them, wanting desperately to wipe at them, to wrap his own arms around himself, something. “Please let me up,” he begs, quietly. “Please. You’re not doing anything, you’re not saying anything, I told you what I was thinking, I’m - I don’t know what else you want, please, I’m listening, I’m trying to, I’m confused and I don’t understand, please just let me get up.” He sounds very close to sobbing, his face completely red, and he wonders if, if he’d had his memories, he would be able to say if he’d ever been this humiliated or felt so small.  
  
Erik doesn't say anything but Charles no longer feels compelled to remain where he is.  
  
Still, he stays. He stays there, and he looks up at Erik, and he truly doesn’t understand. He covers his mouth with his hand and his face crumples up, and he tries to choke around a sob. “Why - I don’t -“ But what good is it going to be to stay here? Apparently he’s not even worth addressing. Charles doesn’t get up, though. He slumps on his knees, wraps his arms around himself and cries, confused and hurt. “I don’t understand,” he repeats, and turns his head away.  
  
Erik squeezes his shoulder, and unwraps his arms from himself. "What don't you understand?"  
  
Charles tries to curl back in anyway, but he doesn’t right very hard. He’s completely unwilling to look Erik in the face like this. “I don’t understand,” he repeats, which is unhelpful but it’s through a particularly harsh sob, and it takes a few moments to calm enough to even consider talking again. “You’re not talking to me, you’re not - I don’t know what I did, you’re angry I got upset, you told me to ask for what I need and I told you and you, you, and you won’t talk to me, you won’t tell me what you’re feeling or what’s happening and you just don’t say anything, you acted like I was doing something wrong when I did what you asked, I told you and it hurts, you said it’s all about figuring it out together and talking but you don’t talk, you won’t and it’s all stuck inside and it h-hurts and you won’t even listen, you brush it off and it hurts and I’m confused and humiliated, you don’t c-care -“ It’s a bit hysteric, maybe, a bit unfair, but he’s upset. “I don’t understand.”  
  
"You didn't do anything wrong. You asked for something, which is what I told you to do, and I declined because I've already made my decision on the matter. That is not the same as not listening and not caring. I'm not making you do chores to compensate for failing to control your power. It's out of the question and that's the end of the discussion. There is nothing else for me to say about it."  
  
Charles shakes his head. He’s curled into himself again, letting out quiet, painful sobs, but when he speaks again, it’s different. “You’re afraid,” he declares. “And you won’t even consider that - you told me to talk to you, and you won’t talk. It is the same. You don’t -“ It’s not fair, so he closes his mouth, but it doesn’t really matter when he’s wracked with sobs anyway.  
  
"What do you want me to tell you?" Erik sighs. "I already told you that. I told you everything."  
  
“You didn’t, and you’re acting like -“ But he’s already said it was hurtful, so what else could he possibly say? How many more ways can he tell Erik that he doesn’t understand, that he wants to at least be talked to, that he feels humiliated and confused, like he’s the chore, the one making Erik’s life miserable, dredging up the past, overreacting. Not even worth explaining things to properly, or addressing at all, apparently. That’s certainly how he’s been made to feel. Erik might as well be rolling his eyes, and Charles stomach rolls with it. He does get to his feet, then, shaking, his knees knocking together, sweaty and unsteady and even closer to sobs, still limping, and walks over to the nearest bookshelf. In one motion, he knocks the books on the closest shelf clean off, tosses them right onto the floor, and begins to grab from the next. It’s not mature. It’s not particularly graceful, or his proudest moment, even only remembering the past week. But he does it anyway.  
  
Erik just rises to his feet. Everything slams back into its proper place. "Stay off of your ankle and eat some breakfast," he growls the Orders, flat and hard and icy.  
  
The platter he’d brought in earlier is hardly appetizing when he’d dumped it all over the floor, and he isn’t hungry, his jaw clenching and that hot, terrible stinging at the back of his eyes, sobs to swallow down as he hops to the desk. He grabs a piece of strawberry, because he has to, shoves it into his mouth, and shoves the books on the desk off, too, the papers, the ashtray, which he’s noticed is used, because if this is how it’s going to be, then fine. He ignores the sinking of his stomach, the need to sob, swallows around the urge to gag. What does it matter? Erik will just put it back. He could tear this whole house down and Erik would just put it back and probably ignore him, put him on his knees and then not even acknowledge him. Like he’s nothing. Just someone to make him miserable. Well, fine. Charles will let it tear him to shreds if he has to, because it feels like it might.  
  
Well he's doing a pretty good job of it. And he isn't wrong. Everything fixes itself. "And if you ever want to continue this conversation in the future you will stop throwing things around and accusing me of nonsense simply because I do not rise to temper tantrums. I have done everything I know how to do to help you. I have told you what I think and how I feel. You choosing not to listen to me is not the same as me not saying it," he grits out, and everything obliterates before re-forming into its proper place and form. "The only thing I want is for you to be happy. So you figure out what you want from me and tell me in plain terms. Until then we are done this interaction." He throws his hand up and walks out the door.  
  
Charles doesn’t bother shouting after him, though for just a second it bubbles up. He doesn’t bother moving at all. He slumps to the floor, not even bothering with the chair, pulls his knees up to his chest and sobs, good and hard, until he runs out of breath, until he runs out of tears. He doesn’t move.  
  
Erik goes to work on the garden or something but he ends up just punching the brick shed a few times until his knuckles peel back and shred. He checks in on Charles after a while and drops off lunch.

* * *

Charles doesn’t look up. It’s almost like he just hasn’t heard. He’s in the same place, in the same position, buried in his knees. It’s been hours and he hasn’t moved and clearly doesn’t intend to, even though it’s an awfully uncomfortable position after a while.  
  
It's only been a couple of hours. Erik helps him to his feet and Orders him to sit and eat and stretch.  
  
Charles obeys, hollowed out, but just hardly. He moves because he has to. He takes a bite because he has to, and then not another, and he doesn’t look at Erik the entire time. His cheeks are hollowed out. The last time he looked this rail-like, this sickly, he was a teenager and quite unhealthy. It looks worse on him now. He doesn’t know any different, except he doesn’t really know himself in the mirror.  
  
Erik doesn't keep telling him bite by bite, he just tells him to finish the meal.  
  
Which isn’t effective, really, because less than halfway through he’s openly gagging, but he doesn’t say a word against it. He just chokes, and tries to keep some of his dignity, but there’s not much at all left when he’s cold-sweat shaking and about to vomit everything he’s put in his stomach onto himself, which, in the last week, really consists of... this, and not much else.  
  
Great. Well obviously Erik doesn't make him keep doing that.  
  
So Charles stops. His stomach settles, eventually, and he pulls his knees back up, and he seems to fully be expecting Erik to leave him again.  
  
Considering how much time Erik's spent in prison he makes a pretty decent prison warden so he just helps Charles get up and to the bathroom to wash up.  
  
And it just makes Charles even more humiliated, more hollowed out, standing in the doorway and clinging to it. He refuses to go inside. “I think I can manage this,” he whispers, and feels how awful it tastes in his mouth. “So this is it?” he asks, and he’s not sure if he’s even asking Erik.  
  
"Is what it," Erik returns.  
  
Charles turns away, and considers not saying anything. But it won’t get them anywhere, and he already feels sick enough. “You herd me around, give me maybe two word Orders, we don’t speak? You didn’t even -“ Charles purses his lips together tightly, and physically bites his tongue.  
  
"Sit," Erik directs Charles to do so along the edge of the tub. "I didn't what?"  
  
Another shake of his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, and tries to convince himself he means it. He stares at the wall. “You sit, too. Please.” His voice is so hoarse and raspy it’s barely there.  
  
Erik does, sticking his left hand between his knees to hide the tape holding his fingers together. "It matters to me. Tell me. Please."  
  
Charles sees it anyway. His lips purse further. “You didn’t say anything before you started Ordering me about. You didn’t ask if I was alright, or even say hello, you didn’t -“ But it’s silly, isn’t it, because neither had Charles. He shouldn’t have expected it to be anything but this. It shouldn’t bother him, or take him off guard, or sting. “It’s fine. It doesn’t matter, like I said. If that’s what it is, then alright. Let me see your hand,” he demands.  
  
It just makes Erik sigh again. "You weren't going to say anything to me. We both know that. And you're not all right. So I focused on something I could control." He holds up his hand.  
  
“I would have if you’d said something to me, actually, anything at all, but it doesn’t, it doesn’t -“ It just doesn’t matter. Charles doesn’t have any energy or tears anymore, and it’s one thing to be grateful for. He barely touches Erik’s hand, except he needs to because he thinks it should be checked, so he sucks that up quickly. His jaw clenches. “They’re not broken,” he sighs, which is maybe the best he can say. He thinks, maybe, he can fix them, but it’s not like he has the slightest clue how, and thinking about the damage he could do by trying makes him want to retch again.  
  
"I know," Erik mumbles, setting his hand back on his own lap after a moment. "I'm just trying to take care of you the best way I know how. I'm sorry it's terrible." It's not like he didn't open with that.  
  
Charles stares at his own lap, too, his fingers twisting together. “That isn’t an apology, if that’s what you’re attempting,” he points out, quietly. “I’m sorry for throwing things. I got frustrated and I was hurting and I wanted to make it stop, the ache of it, the confusion, but it isn’t an excuse. I’m sorry I wasn’t very clear, or very mature. I’m not sorry for being upset, and I’m not sorry that I voiced how I felt. You asked for me to do that, and I did, and you brushed it off. You sighed, you said nothing. You closed off the conversation. You said it was nonsense, what I was feeling, when I was clearly very upset, and I don’t think that’s very fair. I’m not sorry for saying so. You don’t need to disparage yourself. You haven’t been terrible and I know it and you should, too. But you made me feel very small and very humiliated, and then you left me to drop again, alone, and when you came back you hardly -“ He tries not to make it harsh, and it would be difficult anyway, as exhausted and hoarse as he is. “It’s upsetting and it’s hurtful and I have a right to say so.”  
  
"I didn't say you didn't and I didn't ask for an apology for those things. I. do. not. know. what. you. are. talking. about," Erik enunciates each word in exasperation. "You asked me give you consequences and I said no. And then you, at entirely random, accused me of not caring about you because I didn't tell you how I'm feeling. I don't know what you are talking about. I don't know what you're talking about I don't know what you're talking about, Charles."  
  
Charles freezes up immediately, every part of him tense as he breathes out through his nose. “I was upset and accusing you of not caring wasn’t fair, but it wasn’t entirely at random, and I told you what I was reacting to and you shut down, again, something you accused me of earlier, by the way, but fine. It doesn’t matter. I’m mad, I overreacted, it doesn’t matter. We can drop it now.” He leans forward and drops his head into his hands. “We can just drop it now,” he repeats.  
  
"Well I am telling you that I don't know what you're talking about. Consider me _fully_ stupid."  
  
“I didn’t say that, I didn’t even imply that, why are you -“ His voice cracks, and he breaks off completely. It all just dies in the lump of his throat, his stomach gurgling and turning over with it.  
  
"I know you didn't say that. I never said you did. But it's the truth, isn't it. I don't know what's going on or what to do."  
  
Charles is very quiet, and then he shakes his head. “It’s not,” he whispers. “But it is the truth that you’re being very - very mean right now, and I don’t know why. I know I was difficult, but I apologized, properly and to the best of my ability, if you wanted something more you could say, and all I asked was that you treat me like a human being and...” His breath hitches again and breaks on it. “And I know you must miss the man you’re used to, very, very much, but please don’t take that out on me. I am trying my best, and I am feeling stupid, too. It’s not just you.”  
  
"I don't want anything more," Erik just murmurs. "Thank you for apologizing. I know you're trying your best." He stands up, but doesn't leave, just faces the sink, turning the tap on with his ability so he can splash some water on his face. "I'm sorry I made you feel bad."  
  
Charles stares down at his feet. “Please don’t apologize if you don’t mean it or don’t know what you’re apologizing for,” he whispers. “I wasn’t even asking for what you think I was, you know. Maybe I was, but it wasn’t - you reacted, and you refused to talk about it, or how I felt, or what was happening. You didn’t ask. You didn’t discuss it with me at all. I wasn’t overreacting, Erik, but you convinced me I was. I felt truly awful, and you acted as if it was a failing on my part. You got short with me and said I just needed to listen better, but you weren’t listening to me when I raised real concerns, when I broke down. I know there’s a reason for it. I’d like you to tell me, but if you can’t, that’s alright.” He barely looks up, but he does.  
  
"I do mean it," Erik says, because he does. He doesn't know much about anything but obviously he did something wrong and made Charles feel bad and he is sorry about that. "What?" Erik blinks. "Tell you what?" His whole brain is just a swirling blank and he rubs at his eyes.  
  
“The reason you reacted the way you did,” he repeats, and it’s gentler this time, because Charles can tell what’s happening. He’s completely unwilling to ignore it, biting on his lip. “Can you come sit down again? Please?”  
  
Erik shrugs and drops back down beside him with a thud, rubbing his eyes with the crook of his elbow. "I don't know. I was trying to help. I already told you I am a monster. I don't know why I do anything."  
  
“You’re not, and you do,” Charles protests quietly, and scoots on the tub’s edge until they’re closer. Until they’re touching. “Just because I was upset and you didn’t react perfectly - and I didn’t, either, mind - doesn’t make you a monster. We said we’d work at it together, not that we’d get it right in one go. I just want to understand. I don’t know what to do when I don’t understand, and it’s very frightening not understanding most things. You did help. You helped me, Erik, but then something went wrong and we need to talk about it because I think it’s important. I don’t want that to happen again.” He pauses, and swallows, heavy. “Please don’t leave me like that again,” he begs, hushed.  
  
"Well I don't agree 'cuz you said I don't treat you like a person so I shouldn't be here." Erik mumbles it into his elbow.  
  
Charles shakes his head. “I said I didn’t feel like you were, in that particular moment,” he corrects, quietly. “But you do, and I want you here. You help. You’re -“ He bites his lip, and promptly cuts himself off.  
  
Erik lays his head on Charles's shoulder, sniffling quietly. "I thought you wanted me to go. I never slept for week. You were upset and panicking 'bout something and I didn't even mind so I was jus' tryin' to help. I'm not anything. I'm just stupid."  
  
“You’re my Dominant,” Charles whispers, and says it, even though his eyes are closed. Because they both need to hear it. “You’re not stupid. I haven’t slept, either. You’re my - you’re my Dominant, and I think we should take a nap.”  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik shakes his head and curls up closer. "You 'sleep. I stay 'wake. Watch over you."  
  
“No,” Charles protests, and this time he’s the firm one, though in a different way. “You’re my Dominant and you’re taking a nap.” As if the first part softened the second. Really, Charles just thinks he wants to say it. To get used to it. There’s still so much he’s uncertain and worried about, but it can wait until they’ve slept. “Up we go,” he teases, and nudges at Erik’s side.  
  
Erik mumbles nonsense under his breath, curling up even further instead, but at the nudging he hefts himself up to his feet, swaying a little as if drunk. " _Mrrrhp_ ," he protests. "Dominan'. _Mrr_."  
  
Charles isn’t much better, considering his terrible and inexplicable limp he has going for him, and the fact that he’s exhausted, too, extraordinarily so, but he tries to lead them towards a bedroom. “What are you trying to say?” he teases. “I’m afraid I don’t speak extremely sleep deprived very well.” Not that he’s much better, and he can quite literally feel the exhaustion in every muscle and bone.  
  
Erik shakes his head and nuzzles into Charles's cheek. _"Mrrrp,"_ he replies very sensically, tweaking Charles's nose. The closest bedroom isn't very far away at all. He's getting the collar of Charles's shirt wet, tired enough that tears are streaming down his cheeks.  
  
Charles doesn’t think he minds, and perhaps it’s absolutely wretched, but he’s even a bit relieved even as it tugs at his heart for reasons he’d never be able to explain. He ends up all but pushing Erik onto the bed, grunting at the heaviness, because Erik is huge, and tentatively climbs onto the edge. “Nap,” he insists, biting on his lap. He knows he has to do something. He doesn’t know what it is or how, but it worked last time.  
  
Erik makes sure he doesn't fall on Charles, and tugs Charles down alongside of him, wrapping an arm around him. " _Gakztt_ ," he mumbles, burying his head under the pillow so Charles doesn't have to see his face.  
  
Logically, Charles knows he has to sleep, too. It doesn’t make sense to drag himself to another bedroom, and he doesn’t even think he’d be able to make it. But he’s still a little nervous, a little tensed up, even as he tries not to visibly pull away or freeze up under Erik’s arm. “What?” he asks, sure he might be a bit delirious himself. He lifts the pillow, because he needs to see Erik’s face now.  
  
Erik blows him a raspberry and frowns and puts his hand over his face. He peeks through his fingers after a moment. "Wah?" blink-blonk. He takes his arm back and just nestles closer to Charles's side, hiding his face _there_ instead.  
  
It’s hard not to smile, even through the haze and the uncertainty. They both need to sleep on it, desperately. “Good night, Erik,” he breathes, and something shifts. It’s not conscious. It doesn’t have to be. Erik needs to sleep, and so he does, perhaps a bit too heavily; he’s really out like a light, and too strong and too fast for there to be any panic at all.  
  
" _Nuhhh_ -" and then Erik abruptly passes out. He snuggles closer.


	93. you're running/and i tried to make it work before

When Charles wakes up, he can’t honestly recall falling asleep. He’s tangled up with Erik, which does all sorts of things to his nerves and belly, his fast-beating heart, and he almost doesn’t want to untangle himself. He does, groggy and sore and with a protesting stomach, which seems very intent on churning. Still, even through the haze of it, it feels nice to have slept, and a glance at a clock tells him it’s been nearly twenty-four hours, with Erik still passed out. Perhaps he could leave, go wander again, but he finds he doesn’t want to. Staying in bed feels like a bit too much at the moment, so Charles limps himself over to the nearby window seat. It’s raining out; heavy, summer thunderstorm, and he presses himself to the window and waits, absentminded and sleepy, but pleasantly so even as he frets, chewing on his lip and drifting against the glass despite the long nap.  
  
Erik grimaces and mumbles in his sleep in German, and his eyes blink open after a while with very little fanfare. He stretches and groans under his breath, adjusting to the light in the room and finding Charles by the window. " _Hallo_ " he grins. "Um, morning."  
  
There’s very little light except for those flashes of lightning, actually, despite it being well into the afternoon. Charles starts at Erik’s voice, having fully drifted off, and grumbles as he fusses to get comfortable again. He’d been using his hand as a makeshift pillow. “Morning,” he mumbles, trying to offer a sleepy grin in return. He’s never going to be graceful at waking up.  
  
Erik sits up, his eyes riveted on the window as the lightning zips across the sky. Charles can feel it inside, too, like a build-up of static electricity that leaves fuzzy trails of warmth along his exposed extremities. "I love thunder," he whispers, pulling his leg to himself in a half-crossed position, rubbing at his calf absently.  
  
Charles bites his lip, still sleepily leaned against the window. “There’s room over here,” he whispers, and he knows it’s silly to feel shy now, but he ducks his head anyway.  
  
He scoots up, concealing a wince as his leg threatens to crumple once he puts some weight on it, but he is more distracted by sitting beside Charles and watching from the window as the lightning outlines his face in the glass. "OK?" he whispers, giving Charles's hand a squeeze. " _Mmmnnhhtrgroigjdfkgfhhhhhhh_ ," he makes a weird noise. It's Erik's pre-coffee walrus impression.  
  
It makes Charles laugh, a quiet, throaty giggle, and he nods even as the uncertainty courses through his body. He squeezes Erik’s hand back (which, notably, is no longer injured), and then tentatively leans against him, dropping his head from the window to Erik’s shoulder. It’s much more comfortable, in several ways, and it gives him more shivers than the thunder does. “I think so,” he whispers back.  
  
Erik scratches his fingers through Charles's hair, and his arms wrap around Charles more completely, tucking him in safe and warm and sound. "Yeah? I'm glad," he nudges Charles's shoulder with his own.  
  
For some reason, touch still startles Charles sometimes. He’s quick to be overwhelmed by it, though he doesn’t always know why. He tries not to tense up too much when Erik wraps himself around him, not to squirm too much. It’s not that it isn’t nice, especially when he’s sleepy like this, but Charles is a natural at fretting. Now is not even close to an exception, though he tries to hold that in, too, his head turned so Erik can enjoy the thunder, and the morning-that-isn’t, and Charles feels horrible for it, but he imagines it wouldn’t be hard to pretend Charles is just himself if he tries to stay still and quiet. He can give Erik that at least, can’t he? It’s only fair. Anything he can say will just ruin it.  
  
Erik doesn't pretend that, though. Erik is pretty good at fretting, but even after 24 hours of sleep, he's still pretty tired and his eyes squint shut after a while. "Thanks," he whispers, low and soft as if afraid to disturb the moment, interspersed with loud cracks of thunder that make Erik shiver. "For helping me sleep. I'm sorry." He scrubs at his eyes.  
  
It relaxes Charles, too, and he smiles softly despite himself, curling a bit closer instead of away. He’s still sleepy, too, if he’s honest; he yawns quietly when he opens his mouth to speak, murmuring in embarrassment in the aftermath, his cheeks dusted pink. “Of course. You needed the sleep. You don’t have to apologize.” He knows they need to talk, and there are plenty of things Charles has to say, but right now he doesn’t. Right now he closes his eyes and lolls against Erik’s shoulder. “I was trying to remember the rain. Being in the rain. A rainy day. Something specific, anything. But I couldn’t,” he mumbles, and it’s laced with sadness. Longing and wistfulness. “It just isn’t there.”  
  
Erik scrubs his fingers through Charles's hair softly. "It is now," he says, because there's not much else he can say. At the yawn interrupting things he just laughs, gentle. "You told me once that you used to follow me around when I was a little kid. I used to stand on top of the roof in thunderstorms" His nose wrinkles up.  
  
“Of course you did,” Charles mutters, because even with his limited knowledge it seems like something Erik would do. Then and now. He is trying to learn those things, to learn Erik. He longs to, actually, but he doesn’t say, though his cheeks turn pinker with it even as his brow furrows in confusion. “I don’t understand. How did I follow you around when we were children?”  
  
Erik stands to his feet and holds out his arms, to help Charles up. "I don't really know," he confesses with a laugh. "Your abilities, perhaps. I didn't know you were really there. Not consciously."  
  
Charles frowns, mumbling in protest as Erik stands and displaces him. “So I followed you around with my mind, but you didn’t know I was there?” he clarifies. It’s fishing and he knows it, but there are many questions on that list he’d left in the study about his own childhood. He’s made some assumptions, but he has no way of knowing how correct they are. “Where are we going? Why are you standing? I’d like to stay here,” he grumbles, because he’s sleepy, still, and the rain is nice. Calming in a way, even with all the rumbling.  
  
Erik just grabs another blanket and comes back, wrapping Charles up in it and taking his seat again, tucking Charles back into his arms. "I didn't really, I don't think. Some things happened and I think I-cut you off, somehow, after that. But before then I think you liked following me around."  
  
“Mmm,” Charles hums, because that’s much nicer, and perhaps it’s the sleepiness or the rain but he lets himself melt and relax right into Erik’s chest, into the blanket covering both of them, the warmth and comfort of it more than just a physical sensation. There’s something else wrapping them up in it, that always-lingering power, presence. “I’m sorry, about yesterday,” Charles whispers, breaking the peaceful silence after a moment. “I know I’ve already apologized, but we were both exhausted. I was very upset, and I felt like -“ He takes a breath, and decides he needs to be honest. “Small, like I said. Unheard. I was becoming desperate, and I’m not proud of it. It wasn’t fair to you. But Erik, we can’t do that again.” He closes his eyes, and fights not to tense up at the reminder. “It’s painful. Extremely. I’m beginning to think shards of glass doesn’t quite cover it. Please promise you won’t, that you won’t...” It’s not fair, perhaps, because the first time Charles left. The second time, he certainly doesn’t blame Erik for leaving. But it’s a vulnerable plea, all but drowned out by another roll of thunder. “Please promise you won’t leave me like that again,” he begs.  
  
"OK," Erik murmurs, running his hand down Charles's back. "I won't." His eyes shut again and he leans against Charles's shoulder, hiding his head in Charles's neck. He doesn't bother bringing up who's done what because he doesn't keep a tally in his head, and he's already forgotten about it. "And it's OK. I'm sorry, too."  
  
Except Charles doesn’t think they should forget about it, as much as it might be nice to. It’s never served them, not that he knows it; he bites his lip and takes a long, deep breath, nodding and letting some of the tension in his body out. “I know you’re frightened, when you think about helping me with... with all this,” he whispers, because saying my abilities is strange to him. Not the concept, just that they belong to him. “I know you don’t want to hurt me. But I think I need you to teach me proper control, Erik.” It’s too-quiet again, extremely vulnerable. “And whoever it is you’re afraid of becoming, you won’t. I know you couldn’t.”  
  
"I'm not afraid of becoming anything," Erik corrects him quietly. "It's already happened, more times than I could count." He sighs, his own shoulders having tensed up in the interim, but that doesn't really mean much considering he's almost always tense.  
  
“Perhaps. But it isn’t true now, and that’s all I know. You said you wanted me to know you. That involves your past, I’m sure, but also the person you are now. The one you could become.” There’s more he’d like to say, but first he sighs. “You’re not very comfortable to lie against when you’re stiff as a board, you know.” It’s huffed, but mostly teasing, except Charles wants to try something. It’s only worked a handful of times, and always under the same circumstances. It could hardly be considered conscious, but he bites hard at his lip and his own nose scrunches with concentration. A moment or two later, Erik feels an impossibly strong force pressing down on him, too strongly and powerfully to be pleasant or gentle the way he’s always known Charles to be. It’s much more than Charles, but it’s not, all the same. Not the calming, controlled but vaguely unsettling presence of the Void, but not Charles’ telepathy as he remembers it, either. But he finds every muscle immediately relaxed, and himself becoming completely melted, useless goo in the aftermath, everything jelly and forcibly smoothed out.  
  
Erik lean against the wall with Charles against him, mumbling under his breath nonsense. He tugs Charles a little closer and nudges his head against the top of Charles's. "I'll try my best," he promises, because it's all he can say. It's obvious he doesn't know what he's doing and he has zero experience doing it. But of course he'll try.  
  
But Charles is clearly fretting still, though this time he lets himself rest against Erik’s chest, his eyes closed. It’s much more calming than the rain, though that helps, too, and he lets it soothe him. “But that means we need to discuss things, Erik. I need you to - please, you have to...” But he doesn’t know how to express it, and if he’s honest, he’s terrified of Erik rejecting him. He’s even more terrified of the alternative, but not by much. He goes tense himself, grateful his eyes are closed.  
  
"We are discussing things," Erik points out. "And I have to do what?" Erik asks, mildly. Regardless Charles has to know that Erik will do his best to do whatever Charles asks of him. There's no thought of rejection in his mind or his bearing.  
  
Charles is still hesitant, and Erik doesn’t need their Bond or projection to know he’s nervous, wriggling about in Erik’s arms all of a sudden. “You said we had children,” he says, seemingly out of the blue.  
  
Erik nods. "We do," he has to smile. He almost always does whenever he talks about them. "They live in Jerusalem."  
  
“What would you do to protect them?” Charles asks, hushed, low.  
  
"Anything. Always." Erik shrugs. The answer comes easy to him, but it's clear it isn't hypothetical. He has done it and will keep doing it.  
  
It’s what he expected. “What would you do if someone was a threat to them? If they put them in danger?”  
  
"Now? Kill them." Erik shrugs again.  
  
Perhaps he wasn’t expecting that one. Charles goes utterly still in Erik’s arms, and abruptly silent.  
  
Erik's eyes migrate to the window to continue watching the storm. "I'll do whatever it takes to protect our family and I won't apologize for that."  
  
Charles is silent for a long time, and when he does speak, his voice is nearly drowned out by the thunder, shaking and weak. “I’m the threat, Erik,” he whispers.  
  
"You keep saying." Erik's eyebrows raise. "I'm not trying to invalidate your feelings, but I don't agree with you and I never will."  
  
“Then you are wrong,” Charles says, bluntly. “And not taking this nearly as seriously as you should be, considering where we are right now and what’s happening. Whether you like it or not, whether you choose to believe it or not, I am the threat and you said so yourself when I first woke up. Either you believe that or you don’t. Either you think I can kill everyone accidentally or you don’t. What happens if I don’t get this until control? Hm? One of two things, either we stay here forever, which either hurts them all anyway because I haven’t the slightest how this is working, or you never get to see them again because you’re stuck in this bloody empty castle with me, either of which I’m sure we can agree is a wretched deal. Or we leave somehow, I go back without a real handle on it, and I - and they -“ He still can’t verbalize it. “And you’ll say, well, alright, we’ll just get it under control, won’t we? Yes, but that requires you to realize that until that happens, I am the threat. I am the one person most capable of hurting everyone you love, and probably you, too, at the end of it. Underestimate this if you want, but that is, that is the fact of it. That is all I know for certain, and you cannot change that. Look at me and realize that. Right now, I am a bomb, and when I go off those children will be part of the fallout. Everyone will. There’s nothing to disagree with.” And now he’s trembling, turned away from Erik to stare out the window.  
  
"Why are you fighting with me and arguing with me about this? What do you want me to say, Charles? What, you want me to kill you, is that it? Huh? You figure out what you want me to do and say and I'll do and say it because I don't know what you're talking about or why you're talking about it. We're here. All we can do is deal with what is in front of us. I don't know what happens if you never ever learn to control your abilities ever ever in the entire world and you murder everyone on the whole planet and commit genocide of seven billion people and cut my head off with a machete or what _ever_ else, Charles. I don't know. I don't have all the answers."  
  
Charles’ eyes close, and he goes very still again. Slowly, he inches out of Erik’s arms, wrapping his own around himself instead. “I wasn’t trying to fight, I was trying -“ But he shakes his head, and just stares out the window. “Nevermind,” he whispers, small.  
  
"So what, what are you trying to do? Trying to tell me you are the real threat and what should I do huh to protect our children? Go on and tell me then."  
  
“Please don’t speak to me that way,” Charles croaks, hoarse, his arms wrapped firmly around himself. “I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to fight. Please.”  
  
Erik sags against the wall. "I have no experience with any of this. You are so far out of my league we are not even playing the same game. The only thing I have to offer is my best effort."  
  
Charles nods, stiff and tense, still, and continues to stare idly out the window. “I know, and I wasn’t trying to suggest anything else,” he whispers. “I only meant to point out the severity, because in truth it’s all I can think about. I shouldn’t have. I won’t say anything more.” Though he’d clearly meant to, and it would likely be helpful. He’s effectively closed up.  
  
"I know the severity. I've experienced the severity. I'm here with you. You know, you're the only person here who thinks this situation is wretched. Because I don't think that."  
  
Charles shakes his head. “If you don’t see it like that, I don’t think you do,” he whispers. “We’re here because I’m a danger to everyone else, and every second I consider that perhaps it won’t be enough, perhaps I’ll just -“ He swallows. “No, nevermind. It doesn’t matter.”  
  
"Considering that I'm the one who told you that in the first place, I fail to understand why you think I don't grasp the situation. I'm not going to agree that you're better off dead to prove a point."  
  
Charles blinks, genuinely taken aback enough to look at Erik and peek out from the little ball he’s curled himself into. “What - what are you talking about?”  
  
"You're asking me how far I'd go to protect our children from you." He laughs a little hysterically and doesn't say anything else.  
  
“I didn’t mean - I would never suggest that, Erik, I know how painful that would be for you.” As a final, last resort he might, actually, and they both know it, but they aren’t there yet and they don’t need to talk about it. He imagines that’s what Erik meant in the first place. “I obviously don’t want it to happen that way. I’m not asking you to kill me. I’m not setting myself up to be a martyr. I just meant to suggest that I think - I don’t know,” he mumbles, but this time he clearly does, at least as far as what he’d meant to say. “I’m sorry I framed things that way. I didn’t mean to cause you distress.”  
  
Maybe if Erik thunks his head against the wall enough times he will knock himself out again. After a particularly hard shove, he sags back down and watches the thunder ripple through the clouds. "So tell me what you meant," he Orders calmly.  
  
It startles Charles again, and he frowns, inching closer. “I meant there are things I probably need if I’m going to control this, and controlling this is crucial to everyone being not in danger, and that’s all. That’s all I meant. Please don’t hurt yourself, I...” His arms are back around his own waist again, as much of it as there is. “How can you say this isn’t wretched to you when all I do is make you thoroughly, absolutely miserable?” he asks, instead of expanding on his deliberately vague answer, and that horrible stinging feeling is back to his eyes, in the drop of his stomach. “I don’t understand. I’m trying to talk to you, I apologized for upsetting you, and you’ve just - do I really upset you that much?” he asks, his voice rising on it, not in anger but in genuine confusion and hurt.  
  
He just shakes his head and rests his chin on his knees, nudging against Charles apologetically. "Not you. Just my brain. Won't stop. What kind of things?"  
  
But Charles bites his lip instead, and scoots over just a bit closer, grabbing for the blanket that slipped off both their shoulders. He fusses with it, trying to get it around both of them. “How can I help? What won’t stop?” he asks instead. “It feels like me,” he admits, staring at his knees instead of the window, and at the next round of thunder, he jumps. “Like all I do is upset and frustrate you. I’m not trying to. Alright, yesterday I was trying to, for a bit, but that’s beside the point. I don’t want to fight. I didn’t bring this up to torture you. I don’t always understand, because I don’t know. But sometimes you react, and you don’t tell me why right away, and...” And it hurts, but he doesn’t want to say it.  
  
Erik shakes his head again and rests it back on Charles's shoulder. "I'm not frustrated and it's not you. I have a bad mind, I'm not a stable person. I just get reminded of things and it won't stop. But it's OK."  
  
Charles scoots the rest of the way, ignoring the flush to his cheeks when he tries to settle into Erik’s chest again, which happens to put him practically in his lap. “It’s not, and I don’t think your mind is bad. How can I help?” he asks again, quietly.  
  
"I don't know. Maybe I can bang my head more on the wall?" he tries, smiling half-heartedly. He helps Charles settle and tucks him back in.  
  
“Please don’t,” Charles deadpans, but peeks up a little smile, too, then wriggles until he can rest his cheek properly against Erik’s chest. It feels more comforting than he’s willing or capable to admit. He’s aware he hasn’t answered the question from earlier, but he asks something else instead. “Can we go outside? In the rain?”  
  
Erik just keeps chopping and chopping inside of his own head, like a miniature lobotomy until everything begins to quieten down and he smiles again. "OK," he agrees, and rises to his feet again, carefully helping Charles up. In a sudden movement he sweeps Charles completely off the floor and into his arms, grinning down at him. "Hi."  
  
“Hi,” Charles repeats, rather dumbly, breathless, and he’s smiling back, too, even as he fidgets. But then he frowns (pouts, really), and tugs on Erik’s arm, nudging him back toward the window seat. “Not now. I wasn’t done,” he huffs, unclear about what exactly that is.  
  
Erik sits back down again (and demonstrates not-unsurprising strength, but if Charles had his memories he'd know it is a far cry from where he started four months ago. He doesn't even look like the same person) and doesn't let Charles get very far, either. He just pets his shoulders and back. It's nice.  
  
It is nice. It’s very nice, and Charles bites his lip to keep the quiet noise of content from slipping out, finally relaxing and resting his cheek back against Erik’s chest. He can hear his heartbeat. It’s strong, and comforting, and calming, and the building storm is, too, actually, and he closes his eyes again. “We should eat something soon,” he points out, ignoring the churn of his stomach. It makes a grumbling noise, as if on cue, hungry and nauseated both as Charles tends to be after days of poor eating. Or none, as it is. In contrast to Erik, and all these discussions of power, he’s horribly frail in Erik’s arms. “Can we stay and talk a while longer?” he whispers.  
  
Erik just smiles. "Breakfast," he agrees, and nods at Charles's last request. "Of course we can. As long as you like." Something like a tiny little cloud forms over Charles's head and it rains on him for a second, before he realizes it's candy confetti. Erik whistles innocently.  
  
Charles laughs, charmed and awed and warm, and lets his eyes close again. “I don’t want to upset you again,” he admits, quietly.  
  
He shakes his head. "It's OK." He's just too stupid and sensitive. The lobotomy will help. "Tell me?"  
  
“Can you tell me what upset you first?” he asks, quietly. “It’s alright if you can’t, but I’d like to know. Please.”  
  
"Umm. First?" Sorry, Charles. Erik wants to help, and give him the answers he needs, but his dissociative skills are practically weaponized and he doesn't remember much about anything, really.  
  
He has a feeling that has something to do with it. It really would be nice to read Erik’s mind now, and he suspects that’s part of why he can’t, which is frustrating. “Earlier, something upset you,” he whispers, gently. “Can you tell me what it was? It was about - about me being a danger, or at least that’s what we were discussing.”  
  
"Oh," Erik swallows. "I don't know. I didn't understand why you would bring up our children like-uh, that. Unless you wanted that. Me to hurt you."  
  
Charles shakes his head. “I don’t,” he whispers. “But I do think -“ Again, he can’t get it out. He doesn’t know how, and he just curls up closer into Erik’s chest, restless, nudging into him. “I’m sorry I made you think of that,” he says instead, sincere, quiet.  
  
"It's OK," Erik smiles. He's good at smiling, and shoving down, and swimming in the foggy loam of his own mind where everything sinks lower and lower beneath the surface until nothing is left. And it is OK. It's not like Charles meant it. Erik isn't just placating him, he means it. "Sorry I got um, frustrated." But he wasn't really that, either. He never really is.  
  
But Charles bites his lip. “You don’t have to do that,” he breathes. “I don’t want you to do that. I want you to be honest with me, and I just don’t know things that I should. I’m sorry. I’m going to make mistakes, and not understand, and get confused. I just need you to tell me. Please.” He’s clearly fretting, too, seemingly unable to get comfortable now, shifting every two seconds. “I didn’t know why you were acting that way. I just think it’s because I seem to make you miserable, and I don’t - I don’t want that. I don’t want to fight with you. I don’t.”  
  
"You don't make me miserable," Erik drops his head on top of Charles's and encourages him to relax again. "I don't know how to tell you about stuff that goes in my head sometimes. Either I don't know or I, I don't want to make your world ugly."  
  
There’s still some fussing, because Charles seems to have a lot going on in his own mind, but he shakes his head. “I want to know,” he whispers. “You said you wanted me to know you, and that includes this. I’d like to know. Please.”  
  
"I consider all of our kids my family. Biological or otherwise. It doesn't matter. But I hurt them a lot. That's all. That's all, really. It's all right." He says, like it's normal to just say shit like that and then move on. "And not just them. Lots of others. So that's it, really. And it just, reminded me, that's all."  
  
Charles doesn’t immediately say anything, but he does shift again in Erik’s arms, this time to try to wrap himself closer, nudged right where Erik will feel him most, unconcerned anymore about being in his lap. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, his throat dry, but it’s not disgust or fear or pity. It never was. “I never wanted to make you think of those things. But I’m afraid. That’s why I said them. Because I’m afraid, and I know it’s a reality, and I can’t -“ He swallows again. “Thank you for telling me.” He’s become restless, again, worrying and worrying.  
  
"It's OK," Erik says, giving Charles's body a gentle squeeze. Erik keeps himself still, letting Charles maneuver himself how he wishes, but keeping himself as always fully under control. He's content not to have to go into anymore detail, having mastered the art of being vague even in specificity to the point where it's probably not possible for him to be blunt on the matter. Or maybe what he said before still holds true. He doesn't want to make Charles's world any uglier than it already is. "I know you're scared. You don't have to apologize for that."  
  
“No, I do,” Charles argues, gently, quietly. “If it hurts you, I do. It isn’t okay. There was no way for me to know any different, but now I do.” He looks up at Erik, twisting until he can manage better. “You have to tell me, Erik. If all you do is - I don’t know, alright? And I worry all I do is harm you, and I’m already worried enough about that. I’ll tell you if you hurt me in any way. I know you’re concerned with that. But you need to tell me, too, and...” He trails off, clearly fretting again. He never stopped. “I want to know. Please tell me.” He’s not pushing for more, or specifics, not because he isn’t curious, not because he doesn’t want to know, but because they have time for him to learn. Erik doesn’t need to spill out everything, painfully, at once. There’s no court-mandated process. No time-sensitive, within reason, limits. It’s just them this time.  
  
"I'll try," Erik promises. He doesn't always know. But if it happens, he can at least try. "But you didn't hurt me. It just reminded me, that's all. I'm not very good at being open about things, and I don't always even know. But it's not because of you. It's just my stupid mind that's all." He smiles. "Thank you for-asking."  
  
Charles frowns at that. His hand is shaking a little as he does, but he reaches up to touch Erik’s face. “Your mind isn’t stupid. Please don’t speak that way about yourself,” he whispers, gentle, and it sounds achingly like something Charles has reminded him many, many times. “It isn’t true. Certainly not to me.”  
  
Erik leans into the touch almost immediately. His eyes flutter closed. "That's all that matters," he decides on, even though some part of him desperately wants to ask really? Seriously? Because half the time all he ever feels like is an idiot. But Charles already said that. It feels warm. "I don't care about anyone's opinion but yours."  
  
“Technically you’re the only person I know right now, so returning the sentiment wouldn’t mean much,” Charles jokes, and manages a grin. He tries to settle back down into Erik’s chest, but his mind is clearly racing, because he just can’t seem to sit still, one of the quirks Erik can immediately recognize. He’s always been restless when he’s working himself up about something.  
  
Erik keeps Charles still, and just smiles against his neck. He doesn't need the sentiment returned. Truthfully he doesn't believe enough good things about himself to trust that anyone would truly value his opinion in things anyway.  
  
It’s returned either way. Charles cares deeply about Erik’s opinion, which is why he’s currently fussing so much, still trying to move even as Erik holds him, and eventually opting to completely hide in his chest. It does wonderful work of completely muffling him when he speaks up again, especially around the thunder.  
  
Erik kisses the top of his head. "Hm? Say that again," he murmurs the Order fondly.

* * *

Charles didn’t actually say much, so at least that one is easy. “I need to talk to you about something,” he mumbles. “But I’m worried you’ll be upset, and I don’t want that.” It’s vulnerable again, raw, and terribly worried. He’s worked himself right up, just as Erik is used to seeing him do.  
  
"Well that isn't your responsibility. If I get upset, I will handle it," Erik assures him. "Tell me what you'd like to discuss."  
  
“It’s a little bit my responsibility,” he mumbles, still muffled by Erik’s chest and sweater as he works himself up to actually doing what he’s been asked. “Let me preface this by saying I don’t want you to hurt me. This is terrifying for me, and being - being punished for something I didn’t ask for, for not being able to do something, that’s not going to help. It’s going to make me more afraid, or only able to control myself because I am afraid, and I don’t think that’s what you want. It’s not what I want. If you had taken it out on me because I couldn’t put everything back with my abilities yesterday, I would have been hurt and confused. It would have upset me. But I - it’s just -“ He’s not really sure where the line is here, between what he feels like he needs and what Erik (and he) would find upsetting. “I want to be held accountable. Please. Because they’re safe here, but what about when we’re out there? What happens if I slip up? That’s not going to mean books toppled over, Erik. That could be someone’s life. A friend. A child. I can’t live with that. I’d much rather, I’d rather...” He doesn’t know. “It’s not anyone else doing this. No one else is responsible for wrecking that study yesterday. That was me. I got upset, and I did that.”  
  
"I know that, Charles," Erik murmurs, and smiles. "That doesn't upset me. And I know it's true. I don't believe you aren't responsible for what has happened but I do not want to punish you for something that is outside of your control, either, and I do not know where the line is, either." Charles never said that aloud. Erik is just intuitive. Oddly, oddly intuitive. "That-" he whispers. "It is why I left. Because you kept throwing things around even without your powers and I didn't want to-because you were trying to upset me and I did not want to entertain that. But I didn't communicate very well. But and I didn't know, or I would have been better and made sure you were OK before. I thought you wanted me to go, too."  
  
Charles immediately shakes his head, still hidden in Erik’s chest, something muffled and clearly a protest before he remembers to pull back enough to speak clearly again. Or at least more clearly. “You didn’t know, and you were upset,” he whispers. “But I’m not sure you understand, Erik. I’m - I’m asking you - I don’t know what I’m asking, really,” he admits, ashamed and squirming again. “Except there has to be something, because I can’t - the consequences for losing control out there will be worse. Much worse. And I need to learn, you have to teach me, please.”  
  
"I will do my best," Erik murmurs, and it's no different from what he's always said, but he doesn't have anything better to offer. "I understand. I'm not a half-wit, you know," he smirks. "You will have to help me, too. OK?"  
  
It just makes him shake his head again, curled up further into Erik, which makes all of this exceptionally difficult to hear because he doesn’t really know how to have this conversation. This seems like the least embarrassing and frightening way. “I don’t think you are, but I don’t even know -“ What he’s asking for. What he thinks he needs. “Could you tell me what you think I mean?”  
  
"I-I don't know," Erik murmurs. "That you would like me to-to tell you how to control everything so you don't hurt everyone. And I want to do that for you."  
  
Charles goes quiet again, his face entirely hidden in Erik’s sweater, nestled up in the crook of his arm. There’s something happening up there in that powerful brain of his, obviously, but Erik just has no access to it. “How do you want me to help you?” he asks, hoarse, and it’s too measured for so long of a pause.  
  
Erik loosens his arm so that Charles can tuck in even further. "Help me. Tell me what you are feeling and experiencing, do your best to follow my Orders when I give them. Nothing you aren't already doing right now. I don't have all the good answers, I don't know what it feels like for you, or how your abilities work, so we'll need to work together. Help each other. As best as we can."  
  
It feels nice, to nestle right into Erik’s arm. It feels safe, and warm, and comforting, especially with the storm happening outside. Charles feels himself relax, truly, for the first time since he woke up, and it helps with the rest of the anxiety, the way he’s fretting. “Yes, alright. I promise. But what happens if -“ He bites his tongue, and then forces the rest of it out, eyes tightly closed. “What if I do what I did yesterday again? What happens?” he asks, so quiet and muffled it’s almost impossible to make out, and yet Erik understands it.  
  
Erik shrugs, covering his mouth with his hand momentarily before settling back down. He hasn't been taking very good care of himself either and the nausea is roiling. He nudges his head against Charles's shoulder. "Well I am sure it will happen again. All we can do is clean it up, can't we?"  
  
Charles bites his lip, hard, tastes a bit of copper, and nods into Erik’s chest, grateful that his face is hidden. “Okay,” he says, quietly. Something is obviously still lingering, but he squashes it down. “Breakfast,” he says, a diversion and a demand at once, even though his own stomach is so completely unsettled.  
  
Erik presents a strawberry from a metal plate that had already floated into the room a while back, smiling fondly. "OK. What else?" he murmurs, head tilting.  
  
He doesn’t reach for it, or even extract himself from his hiding place in Erik’s arm, but he does shake his head. “Nothing else,” he mumbles, shivering at the next roll of thunder. “It’s alright.” It’s probably not, but he’d rather pretend it is than go through it right now.  
  
"Eat. And tell me what else," Erik doesn't give him the choice.  
  
Charles pulls a face, frowning as he forces himself (or, really, Erik forces him) to pull away long enough to take a tiny bite. The hunger and nausea are a deadly cocktail, churning everything, and the gurgling noise embarrasses him as he nestles back in. “It really bothered me, and I think it will again,” he mumbles into Erik’s sweater. Erik isn’t a half-wit, like he said, so he’ll follow. “And you didn’t ask or really listen, or talk to me about it, you just said no because you reacted right away but I couldn’t -“ It had been upsetting, for Charles. Enough that he couldn’t settle, enough that it hurt. “It bothered me,” he repeats again, his cheeks hot. “Are you going to eat, too?” he adds to the end, and offers a strawberry to Erik, partially as a distraction, partially because it’s been at least a day since Erik’s eaten.  
  
"I know," Erik replies. "And I'm sorry." There's not much else to say. He can't always explain why certain things affect him like that, he can't explain it, it's confusing to him too and he doesn't have any additional answers. All he can do is apologize again. He shakes his head at the offered food. After a few moments he reaches out and forces himself to eat it, setting a good example at the very least and silently urging Charles to do the same.  
  
“No, I, I didn’t want -“ Charles sighs and shakes his own head, pressing his lips together firmly. “Nevermind, we don’t have to talk about it,” he sighs, quietly, but he’s clearly upset by it, if his fidgeting is any indication, and he shakes his head again as he’s offered another fruit, offering it to Erik instead. “My stomach hurts,” he mumbles. It doesn’t help he’s all worked up. “Please eat. I’m alright.”  
  
"No. You will eat your breakfast and you will elaborate on what you mean, plainly," Erik murmurs the Command softly. "I cannot promise that I will never hurt you again. All I know how to do is try. If you lose control in the future I will do my best to hold you accountable in a balanced way."  
  
“But what does that mean?” Charles asks, biting his lip before he takes another bite of strawberry, compelled to do so. It does upset his stomach, but he obediently swallows, offering another to Erik. More insistently this time, frowning up at him even as he avoids eye contact. “What does holding me accountable mean? It’s just that we didn’t talk about it. We haven’t. I just wanted you to - but I don’t want to tell you...” he trails off, sighing again, and runs a hand through his own hair, frustrated. “I know you can’t promise not to upset me, ever, or make a mistake. I’m not asking for that. I never would. But we can avoid the same exact thing happening, at least, can’t we? I don’t want to go around in circles, Erik, and I don’t want to fight. Please. Speak plainly with me.”  
  
"I don't know what it means," Erik repeats. "I don't know." Erik shrugs, again, but it's not meant to be dismissive as much as he's trying to shrug off himself, to throw off the screaming in his brain and shut it down. "I don't know what anything means. The only experience I have in controlling one's mutation is via torture."  
  
Charles’ expression softens, and he pushes the tray away until he can sit up some, resting his hand on Erik’s cheek. He tries not to notice how it puts him much more noticeably in Erik’s lap. “You need to talk to me. Please,” he repeats, softer this time. “You know that’s not what I’m asking, and you know that’s not the way you would do it. You said, you said you understood, and I think you do. You know - you know me, Erik,” he whispers, and averts his eyes, his already churning stomach flopping about with it. “Don’t you?” he asks, voice cracking as if he’s uncertain.  
  
"Yes. Always." Erik kisses the top of his forehead, his own eyes closing at the sensation of Charles's hand against his cheek. "I don't know the alternative way to do it. That's the only way I know. Everything else is just a guess. You wanting me to hold you accountable for mistakes, on top of that, I don't know what that means. It's the same thing that I was subjected to."  
  
It makes him shake his head, and slowly he raises his other hand, even as it shakes slightly, framing Erik’s face and ignoring the racing of his heart as he looks him in the eyes. “I’m not asking you to torture me,” he says, gently. “Mistakes are one thing, but the truth is I could hurt people. I could hurt you, or the children, or any other number of innocents. It’s me, it’s my responsibility, and it matters. I just need -“ He bites his lip. “You said you discipline me. When you do that, why do you do it?” he asks, quietly.  
  
"You mean what kind of things would I discipline you for?" Erik clarifies after a moment, his tone much calmer than the last time they tried to have this discussion almost entirely because Charles is near him and touching him. Erik isn't exactly relaxed, but he's more relaxed than he's been in days.  
  
Charles shakes his head again, tentatively rubbing Erik’s cheek with his thumb, biting on the inside of his cheek. “No,” he says. “I mean why do you do it? Why do you think you discipline me, for anything? Why is it important to - to us, that it’s part of our Dynamic?” And there’s that curiosity again, too, Charles’ eyes searching.  
  
"I don't know how to explain that very well," Erik huffs, his voice a deep rumble in his chest that's hard to differentiate. "But the purpose isn't to hurt you." He bows his head against Charles's, his long eyelashes resting against his skin as his lids flutter shut. "It is to enforce my Will. When you purposefully did things that were disrespectful or defiant. Not because you were upset or made a mistake."  
  
Another head-shake. “Why, though? I know there’s a reason. Can you try, please? Why do you think I need it?” he whispers, and there’s something desperate there. Searching. “Why do you think you do it? I want to understand, so, so -“ Because he’s confused, and there are things he’s all twisted up about. He’s asking for help, which is exactly what Erik told him to do.  
  
"I think you need it because I have rules and expectations and there are consequences when those are intentionally trespassed. I don't change the rules, I don't do things arbitrarily. It's a way of stability. You know that you can count on my Dominance. And it helps you to be able to let go of any guilt you might feel when you come back to yourself."  
  
“And why do you need it?” Charles asks, barely a whisper. He’s closed his eyes, too. “Do you?”  
  
"Yes," Erik murmurs back. "I don't know why I need it. I thought it might just be how I am wired." He gives a little shrug and a small, but genuine smile.  
  
Charles bites his cheek harder. “Don’t you think - I mean, don’t you think part of it is, for both of us, don’t you think...” But he trails off. “It just seems that way, when you talk about it. But I obviously don’t know,” he mumbles, perhaps unaware of how unclear he’s been.  
  
"Tell me what you mean," Erik's nose wrinkles up fondly. "And cease that." He taps Charles's cheek pointedly, the Order soft.  
  
It’s absolutely on purpose when Charles switches right to biting his lip. “Most of your rules are important, right? You said nothing is arbitrary. They’re there to make sure I’m healthy, and safe, and happy, or just to demonstrate and enforce your Dominance, which is necessary for both of us and seems to contribute to those things. Don’t you think part of it is, is to - to teach me?” He doesn’t know what makes him swallow, heart beating out of his chest. “So I, so I know...”  
  
"Sometimes," Erik whispers, and gives a secret little smile. "Sometimes they are just because I like it. But it _isn't_ arbitrary. You know the kinds of things I expect and the things I don't, and that doesn't change very drastically. To teach you what? So that you know what, hm?"  
  
Charles lets his hands fall from Erik’s cheeks so he can nestle into his shoulder, the next words incredibly muffled. “To teach me,” he repeats, embarrassed, mumbled. “That I have to listen, that there are consequences. How to be, um, how to -“ He shrugs, helpless.  
  
"Well, yes," Erik laughs, and presses his cheek against Charles's. "Of course I think that. I try to teach you everything I know. Even if it isn't that much."  
  
“It seems like quite a lot to me,” Charles mumbles, but that isn’t the point he was actually getting to. He seems to remember the tray of food Erik levitated in, because he reaches for it, but not for him. He offers it to Erik again, averting his eyes for some reason. “If I’d been upset and thrown everything around without my abilities yesterday, if things were - if we were... would you have?” he asks, cheeks hot as he keeps things intentionally vague, but he thinks Erik will follow. “Would you have made me clean it up, at least?”  
  
"Of course," Erik's nose wrinkles up fondly. He snatches up the strawberry out of Charles's fingers and gives it a decent little crunch before making Charles eat one, too. "And it's very likely I _would_ have disciplined you, if you didn't stop when I asked you to." But he'd been angry, and he didn't know what for or why, and he still doesn't have a great grasp on what set him off in the first place, so he'd chosen to leave instead of escalating things even when Charles had thrown stuff around without his powers.  
  
“We can’t live off strawberries, you know,” Charles points out quietly, and it’s entirely because he’s red-faced again and back to hiding in Erik’s chest, which is somehow, at the moment, less embarrassing than this conversation. He shivers at a particularly loud crash of thunder, only clinging harder. “If I hurt someone with my abilities because I got upset and lost all control, do you think anyone would care that I didn’t do it with my hands? Do you think I would?” he whispers.  
  
"I don't know. What would you think if I lost control and hurt you by mistake? Or if I punched you in the face right now? They're two separate circumstances," Erik says with a small shrug. "I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. My understanding of cause and effect isn't the same as everyone else's. I don't believe in punishing people for making errors. Deliberate malice is something entirely different."  
  
“Do you think you’d forgive yourself if you lost control of your abilities and really, truly hurt me right now?” Charles asks, equally as quiet. “Would you let me tell you that it wasn’t you, it was something out of your control? That it wasn’t your fault? They’re a part of you, as much as your fist is. There’s no difference. It wasn’t a mistake, wrecking that room. That was me reacting poorly, and my abilities doing the rest. I could have calmed down like you told me to, but I didn’t. That wasn’t a mistake. That was me not having, not having control of something it’s my responsibility to have control over. If I don’t have safe, reasonable consequences here, if I can’t learn this way, what do you think happens out there, Erik? Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to -“ It still won’t come out. Charles takes a shaky, choked breath, curled all the way into Erik now. “I won’t accept that. I won’t live with that. You must realize that.”  
  
Erik really doesn't want to be having this conversation right now and he starts to push back against it the same as before, but this time he just shrugs and shrinks down into himself. "I'm not disputing any of that. I am saying that there is a difference. I won't discipline you every time you knock a book off of the wall by accident. I told you that I would consider how to react in a balanced way. And I will."  
  
“That’s not -“ Charles takes another shaky breath, and visibly, noticeably deflates. “Okay,” he mumbles, defeated, and pulls away from Erik, too, mostly so he can wipe at his face without Erik noticing. “Fine. Okay. I’m going to take a shower, then, since we seem to be done talking,” he mutters, and he tries not to sound as upset and frustrated as he feels, or as unsettled at the distance between them, but there’s no helping either of those things at the moment.  
  
Erik snatches his hand away and dabs at his eyes instead. "Enough with the sarcasm," he murmurs the Order flatly. "I am doing my best to respond to your concerns. If you are not done speaking, then say what you intend to say, plainly."  
  
Charles makes a noise of protest, turning his head away sharply. “I can as be sarcastic as much as I please, thanks,” is his prickly response, his lips pursed, “Especially because you’re not. You’re upset but you won’t tell me why, and you’re picking at this like it’s mad, just like you did yesterday. I never asked you to do anything every time I knocked a book over, but that’s not what happened yesterday and we both know it, and having me clean up my own mess, which, if you recall, is what I actually thought I should be held accountable for, is hardly unreasonable. But you’re not listening, and you’re not telling me why, and I’m forcing everything out of you like pulling teeth, and I’d like to take a shower since it’s obvious I’ve been extremely open and vulnerable about what I feel like I need, which is what you asked me to do, and you’re clearly done. End of discussion. Is that plainly enough for you? I don’t want to fight, Erik. Just let it be. It’s fine.” It’s not, by the look on his face, and the way he fusses now as he works himself up to getting up entirely.  
  
"You are trying to convince me of something, but you won't tell me what that is, and then you become frustrated when I don't know the answer, either," Erik finally blurts out, swallowing and looking away out the window. "I understand what you are saying and I agree with it for the most part. I haven't said it's unreasonable. I haven't said I am done. I am not picking at anything. I haven't said anything except that I will consider what to do in the future when that happens again."  
  
“No, you’ve gotten defensive and you’ve gotten dismissive, don’t do that,” Charles huffs, staring down at his feet. “Make me feel as if I’ve got it wrong. I don’t. There’s already so much I don’t know, don’t make me question what I do. You’re frightened, and you think you’ll mistreat me, but I’m telling you -“ He bites his tongue hard enough for it to hurt, truly, a strangled noise in the aftermath. “I can’t force you to - to... It’s fine, alright? It’s fine. I can provide it for myself, somehow,” he mumbles, but it sounds exceptionally weak. He doesn’t think his own decisions here will be very fair, nor does he feel, in that strange, instinctual place, that they’re his to make, but that’s all overwhelming on its own. He can ignore it.  
  
"Well I am afraid that you want me to punish you severely for making mistakes. And I will, if that's what you really want, but I will be deeply uncomfortable with it and you will know that, some day, you will be able to feel that and you will blame yourself for that, too. So what do you think I should do?" Erik asks, letting his hands drop to his thighs and inhaling slowly. His tone isn't aggravated or defensive now, it's a barely-legible croak. "Or what do you think I should have done."  
  
Charles stares down at the floor for a long time, startled into silence, and then finally shakes his head. “That’s not what I was asking, and I would never -“ His voice breaks off and cracks, too. “I’ll handle it myself,” he decides instead of answering, and wraps his arms tightly around himself. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it myself, somehow.” He doesn’t know how. Poorly, probably, but it’s better than this.  
  
"So tell me what you are asking," Erik touches his cheek. "You're not handling it yourself. I don't want to hurt you. But there is a balanced way to move forward. I believe that, which is why I said it. But you keep pushing and keep pushing this, like that isn't enough for you, which makes me think you do want me to hurt you."  
  
“I don’t know what that means and I just want you to tell me that - that...” Charles huffs out a breath and shakes his head again, dislodging Erik’s hand in the process. “I will handle it myself. I don’t want you to hurt me, why would you even come to that conclusion? Obviously you’re not comfortable with this at all, I understand, I’ve said it’s fine. I’ll stop pushing,” he mumbles, embarrassed and hurt again, and this time moves to stand up.  
  
Erik stops him, but doesn't keep him trapped on his lap, setting him alongside instead. "I do know that you are right," Erik shrugs, not sounding particularly strong himself. "I should have made you clean up that mess, but I was upset and not thinking clearly. If you believe I think I made the right decision, well I don't."  
  
Charles blinks, startled again. “You don’t?” he whispers, sounding genuinely surprised.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "Of course not," he whispers back, swallowing roughly.

* * *

That’s not at all what Charles expected. Carefully, slowly, he inches back, hovering like he wants to climb right back into Erik’s arms. It’s a bit cold, and the blanket’s fallen off his shoulders, besides. It’s practical. “What would you do now, then? If you could go back?” he asks, quietly.  
  
Erik tugs the blanket back over him and wraps his arm around him, pulling him a bit closer. "I would have made you calm down, and clean up everything, whether or not you could control your abilities. You can still move and think and act. I wouldn't have-" he coughs and trails off, deeply ashamed and remorseful, and pinches his fingers against his eyes to compose himself. "Left. I would have made sure you understand that I am your Dominant and that I expect you to be responsible for yourself, because of course I do."  
  
Everything tense seems to melt right out of Charles immediately. He sighs, but it’s not frustration or upset, it’s utter relief, for some reason, and he quickly hides in Erik’s shoulder, grateful the storm outside is very loud and it’s dark. He opens his mouth to say something, but it doesn’t come out, because abruptly he’s so overwhelmed by relief that he feels he might cry, which is absolutely horrid. He bunches his fingers up in Erik’s shirt and breathes heavily, unsure why he’s so affected by this. He didn’t know last night, either.  
  
Erik wraps him up in his arms completely, curling right next to him with spidery-limbs, too-long and too-skinny even-now, glomming on a little and nuzzling his head against Charles's shoulder and cheek. "Of course I do," he murmurs, obfuscated a little by the fabric of Charles's shirt. He pets Charles's hand apologetically.  
  
It doesn’t seem that way for Charles. He’s never seen Erik before, he has no reference for how much progress he’s made; but even then and especially now he seems strong, imposing and calming and his body totally engulfs his, wrapping him up and enveloping and he melts even further, jumping at the thunder and burying himself in entirely. “I did, too,” he mumbles, barely audible. “We have to, we have to do this together, Erik. Please talk to me,” he begs quietly, hidden somewhere in Erik, perfectly content for the moment to be lost in the Dominant’s body. “We could wait until after we’re outside to shower,” he whispers, hushed and hopeful, really, that Erik still wants to spend time with him. That he just wants to enjoy something with him. Experience it for the first time that Charles can remember. “And we’ve eaten something besides strawberries,” he teases. “Or you have, anyway.”  
  
Erik settles even further, hiding his head in Charles's chest and bunching up the fabric, rubbing his cheek against it affectionately. "I'll talk," he agrees, soft. "Try to talk. I don't know much. My head is all mushy..." he mumbles something unintelligible, mostly sorry. "Outside," he murmurs with a shy grin aimed up at Charles once he lifts his head, vivid green eyes flashing in the dimness of the room. He lets them sit up, still fairly attached. "Breakfast outside," he sticks his tongue out. The plate has more than strawberries on it; there's plenty of fruits and cheese and crackers, some toast and cream cheese, and bagels beside. Erik picks up one of the bagels and munches on it, forcing it down his throat almost reflexively before offering the second one to Charles. "Eat," he Orders, smile softening. "Go slow if you have to, but you need to eat, so you will, too." He holds up half of his bagel in solidarity. "Don't like to sometimes neither. But together."  
  
Charles takes that as a cue to climb as subtly as he can back into Erik’s lap, to fold into his chest, shivering and completely unwilling to separate, apparently. It’s the most he’s been comfortable with touch since he woke up. Obediently, if grudgingly, he takes small bites of the bagel as he curls in, watching to make sure Erik is, too. He doesn’t know to be worried and he still is, even though, at this point in time, he’s worse off in that department. He’s physically deteriorated, in the time all of this has come to a head. It’s never been more obvious than right now. “Maybe we should have a routine,” he suggests, quietly. “If, I mean...” He muffles the rest in Erik’s chest, and around a bite.  
  
He runs his fingers lightly down Charles's back, in a soothing, rhythmic pattern that mostly serves to placate him. "We do, you know. We did. Would you like to hear about it?" His voice is soft and lulling, and he twines his fingers into Charles's hair just enough to make him look up, touching his face gently before returning to his task of smoothing out every visible wrinkle and dust-mote on his shirt.  
  
It soothes Charles, too. He arches right into it, sighing softly, peeking up at Erik, much more shyly than before. “Yes, please,” he whispers, soft and polite as can be.  
  
Erik smiles down at him, curling a strand of his hair into his finger. "Well, usually the first thing we do is take a shower, brush teeth, all of those things. And then we practice your Postures, get dressed, eat breakfast. Then we generally had other things to occupy our time, which do not really apply here. But there are lots of things we can do now. We can focus on fixing up this place. We were planning on turning it into a school, did you know that?"  
  
Charles smiles softly, tucking himself back into Erik’s chest. “No,” he murmurs, shaking his head. He takes another small bite of his bagel, glancing up to make sure Erik is, too. “What kind of school? And -“ He bites his lip. “Do you think... with some minor tweaks, do you think...” He trails off again, unsure why his cheeks are warm again. “I just have some questions, and some suggestions, if that’s alright,” he clarifies.  
  
"A school for mutants," Erik laughs softly. "So that they have some place to be themselves. To be safe. To learn to control their abilities in a structured environment. You are a teacher, by nature. So I think that appealed to you. And questions and suggestions are perfectly all right. Tell me," Erik says, perfectly willing to listen and adapt as necessary.  
  
It surprises him, for a moment, how much that makes sense to him. Charles pauses, confused about the clenching in his chest, but he decides it’s just that - “That sounds wonderful,” he whispers, almost wistful. It sounds like something he’d like, and with all the confusion, it’s easy enough for nothing to feel like it belongs to him. The next part is more difficult, but he wants to work through it, too. “One thing at a time, then. I - think I know of Postures,” he mumbles, and his cheeks are definitely red now. “But not how to do them, or anything about them, really. It’s really just a blank. You had me practice them every day?”  
  
"Indeed," Erik smiles. "Every day. And if you are interested, I can certainly show them to you again. I would enjoy doing so. It helped you to start each day in a more calm state of mind, and to reinforce our Dynamic, so to speak."  
  
Charles bites his lip harder, then nods. “I think I’d like that,” he whispers, ducking his head in even more to hide his heated cheeks, though he can’t quite figure out why he’s so flustered. “Will you teach me other things, too?” he asks, before he can stop himself. “Or - help, I suppose. I know it’s a lot, it would put you in a position to spend most of your day doing that, because I was going to suggest, um, I think it would be important to fit - training, into our day, too. Every day.” For some reason his own wording just makes him even more embarrassed, actually squirming with it. “I know you’ll have difficulties with it, but it’s important. I think.”  
  
"Believe me, I would not mind at all. I enjoy teaching you, all manner of things. But you need to be patient with me, too, because I don't know a whole lot about it. But I am confident that we will learn, together. With our school, I was never going to be much of a teacher," he admits, sounding like that was obvious. "My role is to ensure this place is safe, and to protect its inhabitants. You asked me to teach you this as well, and despite your abilities, I believe it would be useful to you. If your abilities are blocked somehow, or you aren't able to control them in a stressful situation, knowing how to defend yourself via traditional methods is important. I would like to incorporate some of those elements into our training as well."  
  
“Alright,” Charles agrees, easy enough, though there is quite a lot to respond to there, humming as he considers. “I think my abilities need to come first. I don’t mind learning the rest, but I think not hurting other people comes before defending myself, maybe,” he tries to joke, except it’s so viscerally terrifying still that it just makes him sick, spinning for a second and wondering if the bagel might come right back up. He tries not to dwell too much this time, because he can feel everything building, gasping into Erik’s sweater and tensing as he tries to force himself to calm. “That doesn’t sound like a terrible routine to follow, for now,” he whispers, from the crook of Erik’s arm again. “Is there anything else?”  
  
Erik rubs his back. "Just relax. It will come. We will approach both, together. It is a holistic approach. The mind and the body are quite connected, and an additional part of your routine is physical activity. Along with tending to this place it should provide some well-needed structure to our days. If you'd like to have personal time we can incorporate that as well. Is there other things that you would like to see involved?"  
  
Charles does his best to relax as he’s told, arching into the hand on his back but shying away, some, too, hidden again. At least he managed to eat some, first. He nods, though in relation to what, it’s unclear, and then shakes his head. “No,” he mumbles, which is only partially honest, and Erik can feel heat in his own cheeks, the beginning of butterflies in his own belly, another transferral Charles is completely unaware of.  
  
"I expect you to be honest with me, Charles. Tell me what else." The Order is firm, but not harsh. Not stern. Not yet. Erik does his best to eat as well. He doesn't really have any eating problems, which is probably just him lying to himself, but he's unaccustomed to having meals and the mechanics often make him feel sick. Nightmares slipping through into the waking world. Bad-bad brain. But Charles is here and in his lap and his arms and that helps.  
  
“I think I do need personal time,” he mumbles, because that’s the easiest part and what he’d been agreeing with, earlier. “To, to figure things out, and process. To learn and remember who I am. Of course we’ll still be in the same place, so if something happens -“ And Charles clearly thinks it might, and it’s more than a hunch. It feels inevitable, to him. “But I’d like that space, please. I don’t mean for days at a time again, I’d just like time to myself during the day, if that’s alright. Besides that, I just... well, you said we should get to know each other, that we should experiment, that - I just think it might be nice to make that part of the routine, too, but I imagine it already is, it’s just...” He shrugs, trailing off and embarrassed again, the room hot with it. The funny thing is, this is the first time they’ve really been able to dictate their own schedule, entirely independent of any outside influence or factors. The first time they’ve been alone like this, and free to do entirely as they pleased. Charles doesn’t know it, but there is something important happening here.  
  
Erik nods, because that's what he suspected, frankly and it's healthy, too, not to spend every single moment of every day locked in this place together. Solitude is necessary for some semblance of sanity, at least a few moments of the day. For Charles, at least. Erik doesn't do so well on his own, but maybe he should learn. He's had plenty of time to try, but it hasn't gone over so well. "Of course. And what else?" Erik's eyebrows raise, his fingers digging in a little, offering a new sensation but nothing harsh. Never harsh.  
  
Charles shivers and squirms in Erik’s hold nonetheless, and shakes his head again. “I can’t think of anything,” he lies, and then, biting his lip, almost entirely inaudible except that it isn’t, “Isn’t there anything else you want? You never say.” There’s something else mumbled in there, but that’s lost.  
  
"Tell me the truth," Erik Orders firmly, and Charles finds he has nowhere to squirm to, no room to maneuver, only Erik's Will. "I do not need much of anything else," Erik says, and it's not because he's denying his own needs but because he has never had the opportunity to pursue things like hobbies or interests. Everything is functional and with purpose, and if he's alone, he's doing something to advance something. Working on the house, the garden, cooking a meal, cleaning up. Periodically he reads, or practices with his abilities, or works out, to keep himself in shape and in form. But nothing for... fun, not really. Even if Charles does know by now Erik has a hidden playful streak.  
  
Good thing they have so much time to figure those things out. Charles shrugs, cheeks still hot, but in the absence of anywhere to squirm it seems like everything else has chosen to, a sensation of movement and wriggling even as things stay still. “I don’t know,” he admits, which is the truth. “I already said. Before. I’d like to figure it out. I want, you said we would try, and experiment, that we’d do things together, so...” That’s what he’d like. To find out. Everything. “You’re going to be my Dominant?” he asks, and it’s very quiet and uncertain.  
  
"I have been, and always shall be," Erik murmurs back. "What that means might vary depending on what is happening in our life, like this right now, but we will figure it out, just as you said. And my feelings toward you will never waver."  
  
Charles is very quiet for a very long time, everything still vibrating all around them, but not threateningly, this time. It’s just too much, and so it creeps out, it’s always too much, too scary, and now it’s out here. “You’ll - do things, even after yesterday?” he asks, still barely heard, and Erik can tell it’s because he’s been worried. “I don’t want... I understand training wheels, but...” He doesn’t know. He bites his lip to quiet himself. “I know I can’t - I’m not what you’re used to, I can’t be the same, I don’t, I don’t know or feel...” He swallows, eyes tightly shut, and shakes his head. It’s painful, but for both of them. It isn’t remotely fair, but he wants to make something good of it. He’s been trying.  
  
"Of course after yesterday," Erik huffs, laughing gently and sweeping a few strands of Charles's hair out of his face. "I don't know very much, either. This situation is new to me, too. We're bound to make mistakes, but that doesn't change how I feel about you. I might not be as strict or as decisive as you expect, I might be a little hesitant, but it's only because I'm still learning, too. It's not because I don't want to be. Because I do. But I also want to ensure that I am not doing too much, too fast, that I am not intimidating you, that I do not make you feel... that I am not even... that," he stutters on it. "That I'm not even treating you like a person. I don't want that. You are the most important person. To me."  
  
Shame immediately pools in his belly, and Charles makes a low, apologetic noise from his hiding place in Erik’s sweater, in his chest, curled up into a tight ball in his lap as the storm rages on outside. “I didn’t mean to hurt you when I said that,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean - I’m not afraid of you, and I might be overwhelmed, but none of it is...” He doesn’t know how to say it, chewing on his lip insistently again. “It’s all because it feels right, not because it feels wrong,” he admits, to himself and Erik, his eyes tightly closed and his breathing hitched.  
  
Erik runs his fingers through Charles's hair, digging his fingers lightly into his scalp. "I know," he murmurs lowly. "It pleases me a great deal to hear you say that. It should feel right. It is right. But that only means that we are on the right track, it doesn't mean that I can do whatever I want. I will do my best not to make you feel uncomfortable. I will always try to listen to your input."  
  
Charles smiles softly, a small little shiver wracking his frame. That’s exactly what he’d needed to hear, really, and what Erik has already promised him, but he believes it. He trusts it’s the case, that his concerns about the day before are heard, and that Erik understands them, most of all. It makes his stomach flutter, and then he jumps practically out of his lap at a particularly harsh clap of thunder, startled but a bit relieved for the distraction. “Can we go outside now? Before the rain stops,” he urges, trying not to sound so eager, but he has no specific memories. No recall of it against his skin. He’d like to. With Erik, too.

* * *

Erik laughs heartily and with great agility lands on his feet, too, quiet as a mouse. "Let's go outside," he agrees, his voice warm as he wraps Charles up in a one-armed grasp easily, leading him to the hallway where the big door is going to outside. He could easily shield Charles from the rain, but he dresses him up in a yellow raincoat anyway (because of course it's yellow, and there are little bees on it, that Charles notices move and smile at him with their cartoonish features). Erik shrugs a green raincoat on adorned with swaying trees. "Ready?" he looks down at him.  
  
It feels like an incredibly long walk to the door (the house is huge, Charles has realized, and getting lost in it is nearly inevitable without a working memory or map of some sort), and by the end of it his limp is much more noticeable. There technically shouldn’t be a limp like that at all, but it’s there, and he winces slightly before nodding, as soon as he’s done being awed by what seems like Erik’s endless ability to create. He’s entirely distracted by the storm and doesn’t wait before he’s stepping outside on his own, the hood of his coat down as he steps from beneath the cover of the Manor and into open air, his face turned straight up to the sky. For a few moments he’s silent, standing with his head up and his arms out, palms up, before he laughs; loud even as it’s drowned out by the sounds around them, hoarse but happy, a true, pure expression of joy, and perhaps the first one since he woke up all that time ago. The lines of his face have smoothed out, his eyes have brightened even in the grey, and when he turns to face Erik, he’s absolutely beaming. “Come on!” he urges, and holds his hands right out in offering.  
  
Erik's grinning, too, the creases around his eyes wrinkled up fondly. When Charles holds out his hands, Erik follows easily, as smitten now as he was when he first met Charles, and his hands slide easily (well, one does) into Charles's fingers, twining them together and giving them a gentle squeeze. Up above the lightning cracks and sends molten sparks of melted heat through Erik's body, that transmits through Charles's fingers and through his whole frame.  
  
Charles shudders with it, eyes falling closed and lips parted despite the downpour, shivering across from Erik as he takes slow breaths. He doesn’t think it would normally be safe to stand outside in a storm like this, but he isn’t worried at all with Erik here; he has absolutely no doubt that both of them are protected. It feels exceptionally silly but he grins even wider, careful of both their limping as he urges Erik into a slow spin with him, their hands still linked, laughing loudly into the storm, over the thunder and the streaks of lightning that light up the sky. It feels like something he couldn’t possibly describe, and it hums all around them, vibrating, heavy energy, Erik’s and his, building, and building, and something is building inside of Charles, too. He grabs Erik’s hands even more tightly. “I want to try something,” he gasps over the rain, thoroughly drenched now, his hair stuck to his face. “But I’m frightened.”  
  
Erik leans forward and kisses Charles's forehead, just in time for another crack of lightning to illuminate the sky and dark clouds above. "I'll be right here with you," he assures, his voice low and rumbly, taking on that tone Charles has only heard very rarely since he woke up. That means he's pleased, his Will shining through the darkness.  
  
It makes Charles shiver all over again, and take a long, shaky breath, his heart beating loud enough that he imagines it might be audible even over the thunder that follows. “Do you trust me?” he asks, his own voice trembling.  
  
Giving Charles's hands another reassuring squeeze, Erik nods, bowing their foreheads together. "Always," he murmurs lowly. It doesn't matter that Charles believes he isn't the same person, Erik would still and always follow him anywhere he asked, and Charles can feel it.


	94. i have pulled myself clear

It’s not that he doesn’t think he’s the same person. It’s merely that he can’t remember who that person is. It’s confusing, and frightening, and altogether devastating, but perhaps some things are simple. Erik has always taught him that, though he can’t remember those lessons. Charles clearly hesitates, his breathing uneven, his heart pounding, and in the end it’s Erik who moves. Not of his own volition, but he does, not a jerky, robotic motion like he’s known other telepaths to inspire, but as smooth as if he’d decided it himself, bending at the knees. It becomes immediately obvious why when Charles leans up the rest of the way, in the pouring rain and during a particularly bright flash of thunder, and presses their lips together. The sound of his heart, literally and impossibly, is louder than the next crash of thunder, pounding in both of their ears.  
  
Erik can't help how his eyes pop open in surprise, but his whole body relaxes a split-second later as everything catches up, and he can't help exhaling a puff of air against Charles's lips, relief and joy and happiness flooding through them. He frames both of Charles's cheeks in his hands unconsciously, a movement engrained in him as breathing and blinking, and when he does return the kiss, because of course he does, it's with absolute tenderness, gentle and soft. When they pull apart, Erik keeps their foreheads bowed together, his thumb rubbing over the apple of Charles's cheek. "Hi," he whispers, smiling radiantly.  
  
It’s a first kiss, for Charles. Perhaps, in a way, it’s a first kiss for both of them. The world around them is shifting oddly, contorting strangely, and louder than anything else is Charles’ heartbeat, as if it’s all quieted and slowed and stopped and left only its thudding in the wake of it. His eyes are firmly closed, and he’s gone still in Erik’s arms, shaking. “Hi,” he croaks, but there’s a smile on his lips, too, even among the crashing wave of fear and whatever else is obviously overflowing inside of him.  
  
Erik silently encourages him to open his eyes, running his fingertips featherlight over Charles's lids. "Was that OK?" his voice continues to be a whisper, as if he's afraid speaking any louder will break the moment, will cause Charles to pull away from him again, and he thinks he might collapse into a thousand pieces if that happens.  
  
Charles keeps his eyes closed even despite the encouragement, trembling in Erik’s arms as he nods. If part of him wants to pull away, to bolt, he doesn’t. He stays right where he is, in Erik’s arms in the pouring rain. “So much,” he gasps.  
  
Kissing the top of his head instead, just a chaste peck, Erik wraps him up even further. "I know," he rumbles lowly. "For me, too. Sometimes. But that's OK. It's not bad. Just a lot."  
  
“No, it’s -“ Not what he meant. Charles squeezes his eyes shut tighter. He’s beginning to tremble harder, and there’s a noise from somewhere, that strange, harsh ringing sound in both their ears, drowning out everything else.  
  
"So focus on me and tell me what you meant," Erik Orders firmly, his voice and his Will drowning out everything else besides.  
  
“It’s loud again,” Charles breathes, because it’s really the only way he can think to describe it and it isn’t accurate. It’s wholly inadequate, actually. He’s shaking with it in earnest, now, as much as the trees from the storm around them, still raging on and on, and Erik can feel it building, too, that ringing louder and louder, until it’s taken place of the wind and thunder and everything else. “Can you do something for me?” he whispers, and it screeches slightly with the fear and over that horrible noise, like electronic interference.  
  
"Anything. Always," Erik whispers back, still framing Charles's face in his hands as gently as possible, the thumb of his good one rubbing along Charles's cheek. "I've got you. I will keep you safe. I promise, OK?" he speaks lowly, softly, like a lullaby.  
  
When Charles’ eyes open, they’re a strange, glowing blue, perhaps a trick of the light. Perhaps not. “Kiss me again,” he gasps, still hoarse and distorted. “Please.”  
  
Erik smiles brightly, and obliges sweetly, pressing his lips against Charles's, gentle and slow. "Always," Erik murmurs, his voice low and raspy against Charles's mouth. He's still gentle, careful, as always, but Charles can feel the heat, too.  
  
Charles relies on that heat. He channels it. He kisses back, and it’s far more enthusiastic than before, far less hesitant, even though it still is; shy, nervous, with an edge of fear, but not for Erik. He gasps into Erik’s mouth. And the world shifts when Charles melts into it.  
  
The storm clears. Immediately the clouds part, the sun peeking through them. Everything is flooded with light. The thunder abruptly stops. There are the sound of birds chirping, of a gentle breeze, the feeling of soft and hazy midday summer heat, everything blinding and golden and warm. There’s no way for the storm to clear that quickly, that spectacularly, but it does, and the rainbow that pops up is more pronounced than any either of them have ever seen, or ever will, naturally, after; an exaggerated, film background display of color and beauty, everything exceptionally green, the flowers newly-planted more vibrant than they could ever hope to be, every color cranked up.  
  
But Erik has no perception, even with his abilities, that it might still be storming. That there is anything else but this. There’s no end to it, and no beginning. No blurry haze of disruption or illusion or redirection, nothing to differentiate. Nothing off.  
  
This is Charles’ world made reality by simple thought.  
  
It just makes Erik smile, laughing lowly and drawing his fingers through Charles's hair. Most people, although Charles wouldn't know it yet, struggle even with the most mild applications of telepathy, find it overwhelming and frightening. Erik doesn't, though. It just makes him grin, his whole face brightening right along with the sky. Everything sparkles just a little more, Erik's abilities naturally reflecting off of Charles's without conscious direction from either of them. Perfectly matched. It's the most relaxed and downright happy that Charles has seen him so far, a great big relief flooding his entire body, a relief he didn't realize he'd needed until it was there. "Hi," he laughs, vivid eyes locked onto Charles's in infinite fondness.  
  
Charles is staring at the sky, lips parted in shock. His own eyes are still unnaturally blue, too strange and glowing. When he reaches one of his arms out, fingers shaking, there’s no sensation of the rain. There isn’t for Erik, either, until there is because Charles thinks there should be; the feeling of drops of it against skin but no actual rain, the sky still as clear as anything, nothing but fluffy, parted clouds. It doesn’t feel like an illusion, nor like a projection, and when his heart thuds harder in his chest, rising into his throat, the sound of its beating becomes another reality, as if it’s as natural as thunder. “I said I was more powerful than you,” he whispers. “But I can’t be. I don’t - I did this?”  
  
Erik kisses him again, drawing his fingertips gently down Charles's cheek, streaking through droplets of rain which have now seemed to dry in the warmth of summer sun. "You're very strong. And your abilities are beautiful. Everything that you can do is a wonder." Erik thinks he could do this, too, and has in smaller amounts; changing molecules and particles and flipping electrons and neutrons here and there, condensing and expanding liquid particles, but he isn't sure if something like this is beyond his scope or not, and he isn't counting. He's never really tried, never experimented beyond the whims of the moment, the playful urges that periodically transform chocolates into gold and metal into flower-sculptures, but this is as much a gift to him as any of those were to Charles and it only makes his expression grow fonder, a deep well of affection Charles could never hope to fully grasp because it is as infinite as the Universe itself.  
  
It’s not what he’s actually done that shocks Charles. He’s aware, in some far-off place, because he’s the one who did it, that he hasn’t changed the weather. But he has, too. Or hasn’t he? It’s not the scope, because if this was all he could do, perhaps it wouldn’t be so frightening. Perhaps he wouldn’t have even have thought what he did. But the fear is beginning to overwhelm any sense of awe, and it’s immediately felt; the sky begins to crack, straight down the middle, split into two where the storm meets the calm, meets warm summer’s day, and the sensations are so strange and distorted they’re jarring, pouring rain and the sun’s warmth, sunshine and illumination from streaks of lightning and the gloom of a storm and it becomes overwhelming quickly, even for Erik, who finds he can’t feel either of those things completely. Charles closes his eyes tightly, but it doesn’t go away, his throat bobbing. “Please,” he gasps.  
  
Erik's hands splay out across Charles's face on both sides. "No," he murmurs lowly, and the Order suffuses the air, too, a burst of warmth in kaleidoscope-color. "Look at me. Focus upon me. There is nothing to be afraid of, here. Not now. Not with me. We are safe. You are all right. I promise." He delivers another soft kiss to Charles's forehead. "I've got you," he whispers. "I promise. Calm yourself down and focus upon me. This is all that matters."  
  
Charles’ eyes open back up, and they’re bluer than Erik has ever seen them, but stranger, too. There’s depth to them that shouldn’t quite be possible, and if he looks too long, it feels more and more like staring at the Void. “You’re wrong,” he accuses, voice trembling on it. But still, he calms slightly; he’s not shaking, and so not everything else is, either. The sky seems indecisive above them, uncertain whether it would like to heal itself. Above the Manor, there’s a perfect split of storm and sunny day, as if the world has merely split apart at the seams. Neither feels more real. “You’re wrong,” Charles repeats.  
  
"No. I am right. Because I have said so. And I am your Dominant, and you will obey me," Erik's response, Ordered all the same, is very soft and low, rumbled deep within his chest, but absolutely all-encompassing. "Now look. Look. See. You are starting to calm. And so is your power. It is responding to you, because it is you. Take some deep breaths. Look at me. I have got you. I am right about that."  
  
The shudder that inspires is felt and heard more than it’s seen, all of the world shuddering with him. The ground beneath them shakes with it. Charles opens his mouth as if perhaps he’d like to argue, but it closes again, and he takes a deep, slow breath exactly like he was told to. The sky is splitting further, cracking, but not unstable; he doesn’t think he’s controlling it, exactly, not the way he’d like to, but Erik promised he would help with that. There’s a loud crack of thunder, and Charles lets himself relax into Erik’s arms even as that fear shines in his eyes, in the unnatural bright of half-sunshine and the unnatural blue of the man who swallowed the Universe. “What if it’s true?” he asks, quiet but not demanding. There’s fear there, still, and he doesn’t think he can quite squash it completely. “What if I am more powerful than you? What if the only thing stopping me is gaining control of myself, which I seem to be -” He cuts himself off, but Erik knows him well enough, even without the Bond, to know what he’d likely say. It isn’t complimentary. “That doesn’t frighten you terribly?”  
  
Erik draws his fingers down Charles's face again. "No," he whispers back, smiling gently. "And you are wrong. You do not need to gain control of yourself. Because I am here. I am the one who ensures that you are kept in control. My Will. My Command. You are mine." As he speaks, the World reverberates, too. And it isn't Charles, this time. It's Erik. "Now. Breathe. In. Look at me. You will not destabilize any further. You will calm yourself. You will focus upon my voice. My Will. Am I understood." It is not a question.  
  
“Yes, Erik,” slips right from between parted lips before he can even think to say anything else, and what that does to his stomach is indescribable. His eyelids are heavy with it, but he forces them open because Erik said so, he said to look; and he does. At Erik’s face, at the green of his eyes, brighter and a slightly different color in the sunshine but somehow still vivid and striking in the dark, too, in flashes of lightning. The sky doesn’t heal itself, but it doesn’t rip apart anymore, either, the sensation of rain more coherent when it’s visible, even though half of it doesn’t seem possible of producing that sort of downpour. “You’ll teach me to - you’ll… train me, to, to be -” He doesn’t know if it’s the right thing to say. He doesn’t know, but he wants to say it, so he bites hard on his lip and does before Erik can urge him to, his eyes flashing when the next bout of lightning does. “You’ll train me to be under your control?”  
  
"That's right," Erik murmurs back, drawing his fingers now through Charles's hair, rhythmic and soothing, those eyes locked completely upon him, all of the strength of his Dominion behind his gaze. He then taps his finger over Charles's lips. "And you will not harm yourself this way before me." It's always been unacceptable, and now is no different. And at this moment he practically towers over Charles, all of the power of his Dominion now fully engaged, moreso than Charles has ever felt it, for the first time Erik is allowing himself to relax, too, not to be so strict about letting Charles really feel it.  
  
And Charles does. It’s overwhelming, and it’s wholly consuming, but it isn’t harmful. It never has been, and if anything he blossoms right beneath it, the way he always has. A perfect match. He’s Charles, even now, even with so much missing, and not another submissive, not someone to wilt or shrink or disappear entirely underneath Erik’s Dominion, beneath the strength of it like he’s always feared; and so, like Charles, he merely switches to biting on his cheek, eyes flashing with that mischief, with that playfulness, as the sky begins to heal itself, as if it’s physically fitting back together. The sun stays mostly out, and the rainbow in its magnificence only spreads further, nothing about it fake. Brightness in the dark of the storm. “Why can’t I read your mind like you said I could?” he demands, seemingly out of nowhere, because it’s on his mind at exactly this moment, their eyes locked and his knees feeling weak from the force of Erik’s sheer, undeniable Will. If his voice comes out breathy, if he feels a little dizzy, there’s nothing to be done for it.  
  
Erik's smile turns mischievous, too, and he lays another kiss against Charles's lips, tender. "You're just learning right now," he whispers. "You will learn. You will be able to. I promise. You have already demonstrated an awareness of my mental state, of my feelings and emotions, and desires. It is just not consistent. But with more time and practice, it will be, hm?"  
  
Charles flutters with it, his heart beating erratically in his chest again, and this time he’s aware of how audible it is. It’s cartoon, really, and incredibly embarrassing, his cheeks pink with it, but there’s not much he can do. He doesn’t have the control for that. He’s not convinced he ever will, but Erik is, and it’s rather difficult not to believe him. “I’m not sure that’s it,” he says, biting harder on his cheek in the aftermath, because he isn’t, but he smiles anyway, soft again. “If we stay out here any longer, we’ll catch cold,” he points out. He starts to laugh, too; quiet at first, and then louder, true peals of it, uncontrollable until his shoulders shake with the force and he has to lean on Erik entirely to keep himself up.  
  
Erik wraps him up completely in his arms. "You know," he murmurs, his voice coming low and steady into Charles's ear, a warmth from his breath that shivers all through Charles's body. "I think maybe sometimes when I don't communicate good, I still think you can," he tries to explain, tapping his own temple. "And I take that for granted. Because I didn't have to try very hard, because you always knew. And it helps because I'm not good at talking about feelings and things." His accent has gotten a lot thicker, directly parallel to how comfortable he feels and how affected he is by Charles's submission, even as mild as this. "I'm sorry," he whispers again, softer this time, almost inaudible. "I said wrong things, and made you feel bad. I didn't mean to cause you pain. You didn't deserve that."  
  
It doesn’t feel like the case, really. Most of the time he’s sure he doesn’t understand anything Erik is thinking even though he wants desperately to, and it’s wholly frustrating. Charles bites his lip again and shakes his head, wiggling further into Erik’s arms, aware of how safe it feels. How shivery it makes him, Erik’s voice and accent doing nothing to help with that. “You’ve already apologized, and I said the wrong things, too. I’m sorry tor that, you didn’t deserve it either,” he whispers, gently. “I’m sure one of us will do it again. We can’t read each other’s minds as easily now, and I know you miss it,” he swallows and looks down, that horrible guilt and shame acting up again even as he tries to shake it off. “But maybe we needed this, too. We can work on it.” There’s a lot they can work on, here, even with the circumstances seemingly bleak. Perhaps he wants to add something, but what comes out instead are more giggles against Erik’s chest, the rain pouring down around them again, even with the sun shining blindingly. “I’m sorry, it’s -“ He shakes his head, lost to another fit even as he tries to stifle it with his lip biting.  
  
It makes Erik laugh a little, too, completely charmed. "What is it, hm? I'm very funny?" he huffs, nuzzling into Charles's cheek with his nose. In some ways he wonders if this isn't exactly what they do need; a way for them both to re-learn how to talk to one another, with words, something that Erik sorely lacks practice in, as evidenced.  
  
Charles squirms away from the attention, but it isn’t as cagey as before, and he doesn’t even want to get away, he doesn’t think; he’s still laughing, fluttering, even as he turns his head only to hide into Erik’s chest, for a moment content to let the rain pour around them and drown everything else out. It’s warm, despite his apparent concerns about falling ill, but it wasn't in the beginning, and Erik can remember that, too. It feels soothing against the skin either way, now. “Think about it,” he mumbles into Erik’s raincoat, as if that answers anything.  
  
Erik's raincoat seems to sparkle in response to that, swaying trees turning into tiny stick people made of bark that run and jump about. It's not even conscious, just a projection of Erik's unconscious mind in pleasure. "Mmmmm," Erik tries. "Is it how adorable you look in your little rain jacket?" Erik laughs, tapping Charles on the nose. They match, of course. And if Charles looks down at his feet, he'll notice he's wearing yellow galoshes with smiling bees fluttering around on them. One winks.  
  
He noticed from the beginning, mostly because, unfortunately, he’s still in quite a bit of pain and it’s difficult to walk, his limp especially noticeable out here; he shifts at the reminder, biting on his cheek harder, but it doesn’t stop him from laughing again, from smiling. The raincoats are abruptly not Erik’s design, with no chance of him changing that; they’re Charles’, simpler, single-colored, and Charles’ is blue, not yellow, no bees in sight. He’s grinning, even through the bit of fear that sparks in his stomach every time he notices that perhaps he’s done something. The sky cracks again, the beginning of instability, but he talks through it instead. He tries to breathe through it instead.   
  
“Have you ever seen _Breakfast at Tiffany’s_?” he asks, because apparently he has. He couldn’t say when, or how, or why, but at least he has this useless knowledge. “ _Four Weddings and a Funeral_? _The Notebook_?” He’s grinning even more by the end of it, but staring at his own feet, and there are suddenly no yellow galoshes in sight. He’s barefoot, actually, mostly because it seems to hurt less than bothering with shoes, but also because he wants to wiggle his toes on the cooled-off, wet pavement, the cobbled path that leads up to the Manor’s main entrance. It bothers him, a bit, it concerns him, but he doesn’t have the words as for why, and he doesn’t want to share how frightened he still is, so he swallows that down, too. He tries not to let it show, his face bowed down enough that he's sure it isn't.  
  
The laughter that comes forth from Erik is genuine mirth, his eyes crinkling up like they do when he's incredibly delighted. "I haven't," he murmurs back. "Not lots of time for movies. But I would like to see them. With you," he curls his finger over Charles's cheek, still-gentle. When the raincoats change he gawks a little indignantly and pokes Charles right on the nose. "You don't like yellow!" he laughs even more, his grin full that brings out the large dimple in the right side of his cheek, the one that's just-this side of unnatural but not enough to notice unless you were looking for it. He takes Charles's hands in his and kisses each knuckle. "But I remember _The Notebook_ they were in the rain, too," he points out, recalling an old poster from some vague notion or another. (They could always watch _50 First Dates_ ; and if Erik knew what that was he'd definitely insert-joke-here.)  
  
“They were in the rain, too,” Charles agrees, still grinning even with his head ducked, his soaked hair falling in his face enough that he doesn’t think it’s much of an issue that he feels the anxiety in his chest. Above them, the sky begins to crack and split, making horrible crackling noises as it does, as if Reality itself is unwinding. Charles visibly swallows. “There are plenty of movies inside, I think. We could go watch one,” he offers, his voice drowned out by the rain in a way it wasn’t just moments ago. Now that he’s not actively leaning on Erik, he’s shifting on his feet.  
  
"We can watch them all," Erik whispers. Every movie, for all time. He wouldn't mind a single bit. But for now he refocuses Charles's attention back to him, where it belongs, with another gentle kiss delivered to his lips. "Breathe," he instructs firmly, a reminder that his Orders haven't been forgotten, that they still apply, not and always. And in a split-second Charles is suddenly swept off of his feet, held steadily in Erik's arms, bridal-style. Erik grins down at him mischievously. Almost possessively.  
  
Charles shudders with it, and the Universe shudders with it, and the sky shudders with it, cracking and shaking, and he takes a harsh breath. There’s delight in his expression, among the startled laughter, but a second later he bites on his lip. “Can you put me down, please?” he whispers, and his voice is cracked, too.  
  
And of course Erik obliges this, too, and gently, oh so carefully, sets him onto his feet. "I did wrong?" he asks, his voice and expression carefully neutral.  
  
But Charles immediately shakes his head, because Erik didn’t. It had made his stomach drop, but not in a bad way, the same insistent butterflies that popped up and turned the front courtyard into vivid color and light. Still, he’s chewing on his lip as he limps under the cover of the Manor, dripping from the rain and wincing a bit. “Can we go inside? I want to take a shower,” he says, keeping his own voice as level as possible, and avoiding Erik’s eyes again.  
  
"You will look at me and tell me what is the matter," Erik responds instead, the Order low and gravelly, cupping Charles's face in his good hand.  
  
“Oh,” Charles squeaks, his stomach flipping fantastically again, and he looks back up, his eyes a much more normal shade, but still exceptionally blue. It’s hard not to notice that things around them begin to float, jerking oddly, nervous just like Charles. “There’s just something I’d like to talk about. But I’d like time to think about it, and I’m soaking wet and have a bit of a chill, so I’d fancy a shower first,” he sighs, but he doesn’t sound as put out as he’s like himself to. It’s a product of being breathless, and breaking eye contact as soon as he’s capable of it, fidgeting as much as he can while greatly favoring one leg.

* * *

Erik waves his hand and the rain ceases to land on Charles at all, and he finds himself warmed from head to toe. "Come along," he murmurs, ensuring that Charles leans fully against him while he leads them back to the house and inside, fully dry by the time they enter in through the foyer. He helps Charles get out of his raincoat and boots, and then begins the task of getting them both up the stairs.  
  
It doesn’t particularly matter that Charles is dry, he feels wet and shivery, arms wrapped around himself and teeth chattering. “I know where the bathrooms are,” he says, voice hushed, and he’s still avoiding looking anywhere at Erik. “I think I can manage this on my own, but thank you for helping.” It’s overly polite again. Nervous.  
  
"I know you can," Erik says back, "but I am assisting you to the shower so that you do not stress your injury more." There's no room for argument, and Erik certainly isn't asking, it's as good as an Order, delivered in that same low rumble as before. "Once we arrive I will leave you to disrobe. There is a chair in the tub that you can sit upon. Understood?" His eyebrows raise. It's not optional.  
  
“No, thank you,” Charles whispers even still, even though it’s difficult and does make his stomach drop in a bad way, biting hard on his lip and keeping his own tone as level as possible. His eyes are firmly on the floor. “I’m not injured, I’ve been doing everything just fine on my own. Thank you for helping me up the stairs, but I can take it from here.” And he tries to slide past Erik, limp and all, down the hall to the bathroom, all while somehow avoiding ever looking him in the eye. He doesn’t make it far before he stops himself, chewing hard on his lip. “I’ll see you downstairs?” he asks, eyes closed and back turned, tentative and worried.  
  
"You will, and you will see me right now. I did not ask for your opinion on the matter. Now let's go." Erik loops his arm under Charles's shoulder and helps him to take the weight off of his ankle more securely, helping him up the stairs into the larger bathroom that is better equipped and opening the door with a wave of his bad hand. "You will be careful with yourself." This is an Order. Not a request. "You are hurting, you are recovering from surgery, and you will take the appropriate measures to watch yourself, and if I find that you haven't, there will be consequences. I trust you do understand this." Erik fluffs a few towels and sets them on the counter. "I will get started on lunch."  
  
Charles huffs, but doesn’t say anything, leaning against the sink. He certainly isn’t going to disrobe with Erik still standing there (even the thought turns his cheeks pink), but he wisely keeps any further protests to himself. But when Erik goes to perhaps step out, he speaks up again, so quiet he’s not sure he’ll hear. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he whispers, his eyes on his feet.  
  
Erik has his hands folded formally behind his back, and he turns, in the small space taking up an enormous degree of room, looking a little like a linebacker on a tricycle for how small the area is in comparison to him. He's skinny, though, with a frame more suited for running than bowling people over, and despite how very firm and terrifying he truly can be to those who threaten him and his family, he exudes an aura of safety instead, an aura that wraps Charles up entirely of unconscious volition, that lets him know he is welcome here, that he is home, even when Erik's features are stern and stoic. "Didn't I?" he asks, head tilted to the side.  
  
It’s a spacious bathroom, too. Even the smallest bathrooms (and the rooms in general, really) in this castle are unnecessarily lavish and huge, Charles is finding, but Erik has a way of looking like he’s just squeezing in everywhere, the impressive muscle he does have far more intimidating and imposing than anything he’s seen on a linebacker. But Charles has never been afraid of him, even when he’s been aware of all that, of his ability to be strict, and he isn’t now. He shakes his head, still staring at the floor, but there’s a smile on his lips. “You didn’t,” he promises. “You did everything right, actually.”  
  
The rooms are changing, though. Slowly but surely, they're beginning to reflect a more neutral tone. Less lavish, less ornate, and more simple. Erik fully intends on reshaping everything with Charles's input, but he's fairly certain that Charles in any form wouldn't feel particularly comfortable in a gaudy mansion. "But you are unsettled," Erik surmises, his own expression unsmiling, nevertheless it is not unkind. One might go so far as to say it softens, in fact.  
  
There are things, even still, that have stayed entirely the same, sometimes after Erik has tried to tamper with them. Empty, useless rooms. Charles’ old bedroom. Several of the studies. An entire wing. The kitchen, the entirely too-perfect, entirely too-formal dining room. The basement, which, if Erik returned to, he would find is a perfect replica of what it was before he changed a thing, as if entirely untouched. And perhaps they need to, because what Erik finds he can’t change (and some of those things are surprising), are the things Charles seems least fond of in any incarnation. The Void took them here, but Erik will have realized by now there’s no real reason it has to be here, geographically; it’s no farther away than anywhere else. Closer than many places, in fact. But everything has been orchestrated, the Void knew, and there are things they can do here together that they can’t elsewhere. Together. Charles isn’t thinking of that at all, nor could he, but Erik watches as he peeks up, shaking his head. “I’m not... unsettled,” he mumbles, and the guilt eats at him, turning over his stomach. “I know it seems that way. I know it’s probably difficult to follow. Sometimes things, they - it’s just...” He blows out a puff of air, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he finishes, his lips pursed now. “Can you come here for a moment?” he asks, so quietly. “Since I apparently can’t walk without aid,” he adds, because he’s Charles, a small little grin turning up his lips that he hopes Erik will see.  
  
It's a great deal frustrating. At least on one occasion Erik's completely trashed the place in anger only to find it returned to how it was, but that's neither here nor there. Erik isn't thinking about it, either. Erik takes as much of a few steps forward as the space will allow, taking Charles's hand in his, rubbing his knuckles softly. "I'm not hurt," he murmurs, gentle. He puts his other hand on Charles's shoulder, tucking his head under his chin.  
  
“Yet,” Charles mutters under his breath, dry and self-deprecating, but this is exactly what he wanted. He wraps his arms around Erik, or as much of Erik as he can reasonably wrap around, hugging him tightly and perfectly content to spend a few moments in his chest again. “I’m really not upset. You didn’t do or say anything wrong. I was very happy, actually,” Charles admits, which for some reason seems harder than admitting he’s miserable, and he swallows around it, nervous, as he tries to wriggle out of Erik’s hold. “I do want to talk about something, but I also would really like a shower,” he laughs, and his smile is back. “Could you - would you mind putting the kettle on? I think some tea is in order.” It’s very domestic, really. Perhaps they can find a balance, a routine. Perhaps it starts like this. “I could help with lunch when I’m finished here, if you’d like,” he offers, too, and it’s not something to be shy about, but somehow he feels it.  
  
"I would like that a great deal," Erik returns, more of a vibration in his chest than audible, kissing the top of Charles's head and squeezing him lightly. Hearing that Charles was happy only bolsters him, and he takes a deep inhale, muscles relaxing slightly. As much as Erik ever relaxes. "I was hoping that I could use this opportunity to induct you into coffee properly, but I see that some things still remain very much the same," he laughs, affectionate. "We have some of your favorite downstairs. I'll put the kettle on."  
  
Erik laughing relaxes Charles, too, and makes him feel slightly less guilty. He exhales out a breath he hadn’t even known he was holding, and when he smiles, there are his dimples. They’ve been hiding lately. “You’re not cross with me?” he checks, because they’ve been terrible at telling each other where they stand. It’s funny, too, how Charles was eager to run off, and now he finds he wants to stall Erik, as if they aren’t stuck in this house together, as if he won’t see him in about fifteen minutes regardless.  
  
"Of course not," Erik murmurs, tapping his thumb against one of those dimples. "I thought I did something wrong. Hurt you. I don't want to do that. Never do." He gives Charles's nose a playful peck, sweeping his hand across Charles's shoulders, which have now totally dried off.  
  
Said nose scrunches up. “I think we need to be more worried about me hurting you,” he mumbles, clearly worried about it himself, but he smiles anyway, however much that anxiety swims around in his stomach. “I didn’t mean to worry you. We can talk about it over lunch.” And it sounds pleasant, even as he knows it will be difficult. Something to look forward to, rather than dread. The change makes all the difference. Charles would love to jump in the shower now, still feeling rather disgusting and a bit cold, despite being dry now, but he lingers anyway, and not because he’s trapped against the counter by Erik (that, too). “I’ll see you downstairs...?” he asks, and hates how it sounds a bit like don’t go yet.

* * *

"Take your shower," Erik murmurs against his skin, low and warm, taking a step back without relinquishing his hand just yet. He gives Charles's knuckles another couple of kisses before finally letting them go, too. "I will be downstairs. Tea and coffee," he makes sure to add, "await." He places his hand over Charles's stomach reassuringly. "I will be waiting. Ensure you remember what I said. Take care of yourself."  
  
Charles tries not to show how he visibly shivers at that hand on his stomach, wondering if he can write it off as the chill from being drenched not too long ago. Likely not. The storm outside continues to rage, loud in nearly every room, and there’s something cozy about the thought of helping with lunch, sipping tea, perhaps watching a movie like he’d suggested, even with the promise of what he knows will be a difficult conversation. Charles smiles, soft but wry, too. “I think I’ll manage,” he huffs, and waits until Erik leaves the room, finding he’s still shivery from his presence. But fifteen minutes pass. It creeps into a half hour, and quickly becomes closer to an hour, and Charles doesn’t find his way down the stairs. The shower is still running.  
  
'Shocking.' An hour definitely doesn't pass. Erik knocks on the door after thirty minutes.  
  
Charles doesn’t respond. The shower is definitely still running, and there’s steam built up inside, but no audible reply.  
  
Erik opens the door since Charles is probably dead or something, don't @ him.  
  
Charles isn’t dead. He is curled up in the tub, noticeably not on the seat Erik had instructed him to use, his knees pulled up to his chest, shivering because the water had gone cold quite a while ago. Now that Erik is in the room, he can hear him hiccupping, shaky little sobs. The water is running red, and it’s impossible, but Charles is covered in bruises. Nasty, heavy bruises, his skin mottled with red and black and deep purple.  
  
The water shuts off and Erik takes a towel from the sink counter, drying Charles off easily with a flick of his hand. He wraps Charles up in the towel and climbs into the tub with him, embracing him gently. "I've got you," he murmurs. "It's OK. I have you."  
  
Abruptly, as if in an instant though it isn’t, Erik finds that he’s on the opposite side of the tub, or perhaps Charles is. Either way they’re not touching and Erik finds he can’t move, at all, and Charles is shivering violently in his towel, aware that he’s naked, clearly panicked and confused, his face still wet. It’s covered in blood, one of his eyes so swollen it won’t open. “Please don’t touch me,” he croaks. He buries his head in his knees, shuddering. “It happened again,” he whispers, his teeth chattering.  
  
Erik doesn't say anything, since he can't move. He just stares back at Charles, his eyes unnaturally green in the harsh fluorescent light of the bathroom. There's no expression, or more accurately a vacant one, on his features.  
  
Charles doesn’t look up again, shaking and hiccupping out frightened little sobs into his knees, but after a few minutes Erik finds he’s not plastered in place, as if held by invisible bonds. He can move, though there seems to be a little bubble around Charles, entirely unconscious. “I don’t understand,” he whispers. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand...” And he mumbles it over and over, increasingly incoherent. There’s no water running anymore, but there’s plenty of red in the tub, filling it even though the drain isn’t stopped in any way, a bit like a horror movie.  
  
The vacant expression doesn't clear even when Erik can move again, but he puts his hand in front of Charles anyway. "Stop," he Orders, calm and collected. "Look at me. Tell me what happened."  
  
Charles looks up, and he’s clearly terrified, still shaking in the towel, clinging to it. “Something happened again,” he gasps. “The other day by the river, when I tripped, I... it hurt, before I fell, someone pushed me, or -“ He shakes his head, and everything’s broken up by another dry, painful sob. “But I was just washing and there was blood, I looked down and there was blood and it hurt, it hurt so much, I don’t understand, it hurts and I don’t know why, I didn’t fall,” he gasps, but there’s obviously no way he would look like this even if he did.  
  
Erik nods. "I believe I know why. If it's the case, you likely aren't injured," he murmurs, making his voice sound gentle. "You're all right, I promise. Just focus on me, on relaxing yourself and taking big, even breaths. You're safe."  
  
He certainly tries, though those breaths are shaky, hitched, and they come out as confused, pained sobs more often than not. “It hurts,” he insists, and once, a sister he doesn’t remember asked, if, through his telepathy, he could make someone think they had a broken leg to the point where their leg would be functionally broken. He’d said no. He was wrong. “What’s happening to me? I don’t u-understand.”  
  
"I know. You're OK," Erik murmurs. "It's the same reason why you're limping. You've altered the perception of reality to reflect what's happening in here," he taps Charles's temple gently.  
  
Charles jerks away from the touch, and Erik finds himself completely unable to move his arm, and a good few inches away again. The tub is slowly filling with water, stained red. “I’m limping because it’s broken,” he snaps, confused and overwhelmed, shivering. “You’re the one who, who won’t let me - walk on it, you’re the one...” It doesn’t matter, really, it’s not an accusation. Charles is quite close to hyperventilating, teeth chattering in his towel as he buries himself in his knees. “I don’t understand,” he repeats, voice oddly slurred. “It hurts so badly, I don’t understand, I don’t understand, I don’t understand, I don’t understand...”  
  
"Stop it, Charles, now. Stop it. Stop. Just look at me and breathe. Slowly. And listen to me. You don't understand, so I am telling you what is happening. And I would know, wouldn't I? Because I am your Dominant. And you are my submissive. I know you. I know how painful this is. I know what lives inside, even if you can't remember it yet. I know that it's trying to find its way out. And I know that you are capable of calming yourself down and listening to my words. Because right now that is the only thing that matters."  
  
It takes what seems like an eternity but isn’t, surely, for Charles to peek out of the towel (much bigger than it was, and noticeably a different color, though there’s no reason for it to be), to nod, small, miserable, but perhaps trusting. The water continues to slowly creep up, past their feet, up their legs, swirled with blood and other unidentifiable matter. Something is stuck in the drain. “It’s real,” he insists, voice cracked, because part of him is worried Erik thinks he’s lying, or mad, that he doesn’t see what Charles does, doesn’t know what he feels, and that’s why he’s insisting he’s alright. “What happened to me?” he croaks.  
  
Erik just smiles softly. "I know it's real," he whispers. "I know that. You said that you trusted me. I need you to trust me, now. This occurrence is due to your abilities. It's no less real because of that. Now look at me and just breathe. Like I told you, like we have practiced before."  
  
It takes a moment or two, but Charles does. Everything comes out shaky, and the room is unnaturally dark, the tub continuing to fill, and Charles continuing to bleed; he shakes his head, too shocked to truly cry, choking on the breathing Erik wants him to do but forcing himself to do it anyway. “It hurts,” he repeats, again, because he’s not sure if Erik understands that it isn’t in his head. “It hurts so badly, Erik.”  
  
"I know," Erik says again, meeting Charles's eyes. "You were harmed a great deal by people who were supposed to look after you. For a long time. But you are safe now. I won't let anything happen to you."  
  
Charles takes a deep, sobbing breath, and for a moment seems like he might edge closer. He doesn’t. His eyes close instead, and the tub begins to fill faster, getting them both wet. There’s no indication if it’s reality or not, and it doesn’t much matter. It’s become it. “I don’t remember,” he whispers, broken. “I don’t remember. I looked down, and there were - all over -” Underneath the towel, there are still marks all over his body. He shivers, pulling it tighter at his own reminder. “Why is this happening if I don’t remember? Why is this happening to me?”  
  
"I can't tell you the answer to that," Erik murmurs softly. "I don't know why it's happening. My best guess is that on some level that knowledge still exists, and is still held by you, inside of you, inside of your body. Maybe it is similar to how you know on some level that I am not going to hurt you. You don't remember me, but everything hasn't been completely wiped out."  
  
It’s a perfectly logical answer. It’s not that Charles doesn’t accept it, it’s merely that he’s hardly capable of processing right now; he’s thoroughly, horribly shaken, and it’s incredibly obvious, even as he nods, likely not in response to anything. His teeth are chattering even more now, and when he moves the water sloshes, startling him. He stands, shaking, looking exceptionally frail as he backs himself into the shower wall. “There’s so much blood,” he whispers, and his eyes close again. "It hurts. It hurts." It's all he can think, really.  
  
"I know," Erik repeats again, because it's all he can do, too. "May I give you a hug?"  
  
It makes his stomach sink with guilt, but Charles immediately shakes his head, over and over and over, backed even further up into the corner of the shower, the towel held as tightly to his body as it can be, which does nothing to help with the significant amount of pain. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, hoarse. He looks and feels far too much like a cornered, frightened animal. The tub is beginning to overflow.  
  
Erik doesn't say anything else, and doesn't move, probably because he can't anyway. His clothes are completely soaked in Charles's blood and water, red droplets running down his cheeks and jaw, dripping onto his shoulders and through his hair which is plastered to his head. He'd only been wearing a white button-down shirt and cotton pants which are now stuck to his skin and practically see-through, stained with dark rivulets of pooled blood.  
  
Charles closes his eyes, tightly, but when he opens them up it’s all still there. It hasn’t gone away, even though he’s willed it to. The pain is dizzying enough, but the image is worse, and he feels suddenly lightheaded, suddenly trapped. His chest clenches, and he becomes aware that the awful wheezing noises are coming from him, his eyes wide and frantic as the water sloshes this way and that, over the side of the tub, over Erik, onto the floor and it’s gathering, it’s pooling, more and more of it. He grabs at his hair, tugs, and his mouth opens like he might scream but all that comes out is a harsh, gasping whine. “I can’t - I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I can’t breathe, please help me, I can’t -”  
  
When Erik is released from his invisible bonds, he moves and does take Charles into his arms, then, wrapping him up securely and using his abilities to warm him, waves over another towel and drapes it over them both like a secret-fort, snapping his fingers to give a small light that floats like fireflies. He Orders Charles to calm himself down and breathe properly, breathes with him and helps him to relax one muscle group at a time.  
  
The breathing is the easy part, as it always is. The calming is nearly impossible even with an Order, and Charles finds himself unable to relax, shaking in Erik’s arms, and he doesn’t want to look. There’s blood all over him, all over both of them, and no matter how hard he closes his eyes, it’s still there when he opens them. The water is flooding the bathroom, is seeping out underneath the door into the hall, everything damp and dark and frightening, shaded strangely even with Erik’s attempts at light, and he shakes his head, again and again, trying to force himself further into the corner except there’s nowhere to go. “Please, you can’t - you can’t touch me right now, you can’t touch me,” he says again, and he knows it hurts. He clenches his teeth tightly, letting out a wrenching sob. “Please. Just, talk to me, just - tell me it’s - please,” he begs. “It won’t go away. I can’t make it go away. It hurts, you have to help me, please,” he’s just babbling, frightened and incoherent.  
  
Erik wraps him up further in the towel, making him as comfortable as he can before holding himself up on his arms to scoot backwards and give Charles space. There's no pain in his expression; there's no anything except for endless, relentless composure. "It will go away," Erik whispers back, cutting him off. "It will. But you need to focus on me, not upon this. It is just pain. It cannot have you. I won't let it. You are good, and you are safe, and I've got you. I promise." He meets Charles's eyes, holds his gaze, makes him look instead of frantically darting all about.  
  
“It’s not just pain,” Charles argues, gasping, because it isn’t. It’s fear, too, thick and visceral, it’s terror and it’s something intangible, something he can’t describe, it’s the same lack of control and knowledge that’s been plaguing him since the moment he woke up. “You aren’t frightened?” he asks, even as it gets stuck in his throat, even as it cracks high, panicked, and he tries to focus on Erik’s eyes, not his blood, not the sound of water running. “It’s real,” he insists, and surely Erik can feel it, too. He’s standing in it. There’s nothing remotely fake about any of this. “And I don’t know how to change it. I don't know how."  
  
"I didn't say it wasn't real. I said that you are causing it. And you are. I know you don't know how, yet." He takes Charles's hand in his, and rubs his thumb across the back of his palm. Erik's skin is warm, as if heated by an element underneath. "I am not scared of you. I am right here beside you. You are strong, and you are capable. You can calm yourself down. You can focus upon the things that give you joy. Something that makes you happy. Tell me about it."  
  
It takes everything he has not to pull his hand away, because his first instinct is to jerk in the other direction. He’s not sure why; the panic, perhaps, the fear still tight in his chest, the dizzy ringing in his ears. It’s shaking, though, and he flattens himself even further against the wall, not frightened of Erik but certainly frightened, cornered, overwhelmed. “I don’t know,” he croaks, shaking his head. “I can’t think, I -” He swallows. “I don’t know.” He doesn’t, really. There’s no way for water to be trapped in this room like this, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t, that it isn’t rising, and rising, and rising, and Charles’ fear rises with it. “I don’t know what makes me happy. I don’t even know what makes me afraid, so how can I -” He shakes his head, lips trembling.  
  
Erik presses his teeth together for a second, his jaw ticking, but otherwise looks entirely unfazed. "Stop. I didn't ask you to argue with me. You do know. You can think. You can look at me and tell me about something that makes you happy. Something that has happened that you have felt peace, that you have felt humor and good nature. So tell me about it." This time it isn't optional.  
  
But it makes Charles flinch, visibly, his eyes closed as he wilts into the wall. He does yank his hand away from Erik, using it to wrap the (now useless, since it’s soaked) towel tighter around himself. “I was happy earlier,” he whispers, barely audible, hushed and broken, his eyes open again only because it was part of the Order. They close right after.  
  
"Look at me. I didn't say you could look away. Earlier, when?" Erik demands. His voice is firm, completely swamping the room in his own power, because he is not powerless in the face of Charles's overwhelming abilities, because he isn't. Power has variable definitions. It isn't about force. Charles belongs to him. His power is because of that, and his Will shimmers throughout the room in golden strands, harp-strings without music that flutter as they pass through Charles's skin.  
  
Charles’ eyes fill with tears when they open. “Earlier, in the rain,” he says, just a raspy little croak, his arms so tight around himself it makes everything ache more, throbbing awfully. Everything has become damper, the ceiling beginning to drip.  
  
"Me, too," Erik whispers, ducking his head to try and avoid the water hitting him, with little avail, and he inhales shortly through his nose. Charles doesn't know much about the mysterious Dominant that showed up when he awoke, but he's always been the only person who can see when Erik is distressed even when he doesn't demonstrate it in any visible way. "You made it sunny. Remember?"  
  
Charles nods, the tears on his cheeks mixing with the stained water that’s dripping on both of them, and they’re standing in the tub but the water seems to be rising above it, up to Charles’ knees, and he swallows so hard Erik can hear it. “But I don’t know how,” he whispers. “Please, don’t be angry, I didn’t mean -” And he truly thinks Erik is. He tries to close his eyes but finds he can’t, everything thudding with the beat of his heart.  
  
Erik reaches out and touches his hand again, shaking his head. "I am not angry. Not at all." He offers a small smile, and then drops the appendage, folding his own hands neatly behind his back. "You did it because you were happy. Because you felt safe. And I know you don't feel like it right now, but you are safe. I want you to remember that feeling. To really remember it." The Order is soft.  
  
Charles tries. At first it doesn’t seem to work, if their surroundings are any indication; the dripping from the ceiling gets worse, the water rises higher, his face is still swollen and bruised, covered in blood, his lip fat and bleeding fresh. Then, slowly, shaking, he reaches his hand out, the other still grasping the towel so firmly to his body it’s obviously causing more pain. “Just your hand, please,” he whispers.  
  
Erik slides his fingers into Charles's palm, squeezing gently, a fresh wave of warmth slivering through his body. His expression remains neutral, head twisted downward to avoid being spilled on by water. It doesn't work, and he has to control himself. Every breath measured. "I'm right here," is what he says, his voice completely calm.  
  
But Charles knows Erik isn’t calm. It threatens his own shaky, horrid grip on it, but in some ways bolsters it, perhaps more than he expected. He takes a sharp breath. “You’re frightened, too,” he whispers, because he’d taken it for something else, and now he can clearly see it. It’s not telepathy giving him that ability, but something else entirely, Erik’s thoughts still a mystery to him. “What hand am I holding?” he asks, quietly, seemingly out of nowhere.  
  
Erik doesn't deny it, but he doesn't confirm it either, just swallowing. "Mm," he mumbles, stuttering. "My good one, left one," he manages to answer, everything about him even and deliberate and calculated. "It's OK. 'M here. Remember the rain too."  
  
Wading through above-knee water to get to Erik, especially when it’s soaked red with his blood, is more than a bit disconcerting and threatens to bring back the earth-shattering panic from before, but he tries to ignore it, stepping just that inch further. “Are you sure?” he asks, his chest clenched, but his eyes locked with Erik’s now. There’s something in Charles’ eyes, something Erik has seen before. “I’m holding your left hand right now?”  
  
They aren't, though, because Erik isn't looking at him-can't be, for some reason that Charles doesn't know, yet. He can't put his face up to the water. Outside, too, he got wet, but his hair was completely dry. His head was. He inhales deeply through his nose, refusing to allow anything else to rise inside of him, but he can't focus. He can't do his job. He can't help. "I dunno," he mumbles, which is unlike him. Erik usually enunciates everything clearly. He'd squeezed Charles's hand so it has to be his left hand. "Ya."  
  
Charles has put it together, but there’s nothing he can do. Except this. This is it. He takes a big, sucking breath, and looks down at their perfectly linked hands. “It’s your right, Erik,” he breathes, and if Erik looks, he’ll see Charles is right. Impossibly, perhaps, but he’s right, and his left is still by his side, but certainly not holding Charles’.  
  
Erik gives his hand another squeeze, closing his eyes. There's water dripping from the ceiling onto his cheeks, obscuring everything, and he's grateful for that much even though when his eyes open again, the greens are unnaturally highlighted through streaks of red. "Oh," he croaks, a reflexive smile curving his lips.  
  
When Erik’s eyes open, Charles’ close. Only for a moment, and he squeezes Erik’s right hand, at least as far as either of them can tell, in this moment completely, utterly real. Erik can feel it, more than he has in years. In projections, in the past, there was always a way to tell, even when that hand was functional - something dreamlike, something strange, something detached. Something hazy about it, something off. In the hospital, however real it all felt, there was something removed. Something both of them had noted when most of their interactions slipped into the Real instead. There’s none of that distinction here. There’s fundamentally no way to tell the difference, not even for other telepaths, not even for Erik, who has endless experience with it; this is real, and it’s happening, and when Charles’ eyes open they’re brilliantly, ethereally blue, glowing in that odd, beautiful way. The ceiling stops dripping, not all at once but slowly. The water starts to drain. Charles is still bruised, is still hurting, but his eye is no longer swollen shut and black. “It’s your right hand,” he whispers again, a repetition, and squeezes it hard. It doesn’t hurt, but Erik feels it.

* * *

When Erik had squeezed his hand originally it was weak, whether it was Charles's perception of how weak Erik's hand was, just getting used to it, acclimatizing or just because it's real and Erik's hand needed time to adjust remains to be seen. But now Erik's fingers clench over his with surprising strength, all at once, warm and solid and alive. Erik's head ducks to avoid having Charles watch his features crumple, a miasma of emotions tearing through him like twin tornadoes. "Oh," he whispers back, but it's not the disjointed, disconnected, dissociated acknowledgment from before. He feels it. He hasn't felt it in years.  
  
The water from the tub is draining, and as it does, it looks like water, no longer stained unnaturally red. The bathroom is no longer flooded. The ceiling is no longer dripping. There are visible bruises on Charles’ skin, and he’s carrying pain, still, pain he doesn’t understand or recall, but the lighting is no longer tinged. The bathroom looks like a bathroom, and not a scene straight out of a horror film. They’re both wet, drenched, actually, but no longer blood-stained. Charles’ continues to cling to his towel, shivering, but there’s something he’s much more focused on and it’s Erik. He strokes Erik’s hand, his fingers, none of them bent or strained, his own lips parted. “You can feel it?” he asks, hushed. "Are you... alright?"  
  
Inhaling slowly through his nose, Erik nods, and this time his smile turns genuine. He's shaky, himself. But still composed. Always composed. Erik doesn't lose control. Can't lose control. Especially not now. But Erik looks around, forces himself to see what's there. No blood. No water. Just them. "I can feel it," he manages with a nod, amazed, lips parted.  
  
It all gets caught in Charles’ throat, and he sees, too. He sees Erik, in front of him, exactly how he is. It’s beginning to fit together, what he couldn’t make fit before, and this time he doesn’t have Erik’s thoughts to do it. Erik doesn’t have his, either, though he’s already done it. But he’s right. This time, right now, it’s just them. Charles’ own smile is tentative, is slow, but not strained; it’s real, albeit shaky, and he lifts both their hands, fitting them together. Curling his fingers around Erik’s, his hand much smaller, but somehow they seem to belong. “You feel that, too?” he asks.  
  
Erik's shirt is drenched and entirely transparent, revealing rows upon rows of scarring underneath the fabric that cling to the surface, that snake up his arm and through to that hand in Charles's fingers. But he isn't focused on any of that, now. All he can see is his palm against Charles's, all he can feel is skin-to-skin. "Yes," he rasps lowly, eyes finally lifting.  
  
Charles pointedly doesn’t look, either, still very insistent on holding up his own towel, but it’s the last thing on his mind. He’s focusing on this. On Erik, just as he was told to earlier. “This is real,” he whispers, repeating what he’d said before, but it’s far less frightened now. “Can you bend your fingers? Does it hurt?” He’s breathless, awed, too.  
  
Erik shakes his head. Not because he can't, because he probably could, but because his brain is sending him _no! don't!_ signals after years upon years of pain and suffering caused by these hands. Created by these hands, but that's an existential matter for another day. It doesn't quite want to cooperate when he tries. Exhaling harshly, he shuts it down. Marshals himself. Controls himself. And tries. And his fingers bend. And it doesn't hurt. "No pain," he responds, barely audible. He slowly draws his finger down Charles's palm, crooking it slightly.  
  
It’s almost playful, when Charles hooks their pinky fingers together, even as his shakes, a soft little smile on his lips. “It doesn’t hurt? This doesn’t hurt?” He’s anchoring himself, Erik realizes. His eyes are still glowing, and things in the room are shifting. The floor doesn’t show any signs of ever having been wet. The bruises on Charles’ face are faded, as if they’re healing.  
  
"Doesn't hurt," Erik reiterates very softly, this time smiling for real. He crooks his pinky finger around Charles's and gives it a good squeeze, his eyes widening almost comically as he realizes he really can do it. "I have-I-" he can't, the words get choked up in his throat and he shuts his eyes.  
  
Charles gives Erik a squeeze right back, this time less gentle again, less careful. Every time he’s ever touched Erik’s right hand before this, outside of mindscapes, it’s been with delicate tenderness, with awareness. “Tell me, please,” he urges.  
  
"I-" Erik's head ducks again, swallowing around that lump. "I haven't been able to-not for-long time," he whispers. "Not since-" he just shakes his head, not desiring to finish that sentence and regretful it burst out of his throat all. But Charles knows anyway. Not since it was destroyed. Since Shaw destroyed it.  
  
“I know,” Charles whispers, because Erik told him. It’d hurt for many years, Erik had said. He’d put the rest together, what that meant. The agony it must have been, as unlikely as Erik would be to mention it, to complain about it, however much he deserved to. “Does it feel alright?” he asks, hushed again, and he knows it isn’t the best way to ask, or the most astute question, but he’s breathless as he waits for it.  
  
"It feels-" Erik doesn't know how to describe it. He's never known. "You keep giving me-" and he makes a kind of choking noise, before Charles realizes that just a few tears have slipped down over his cheekbones, and he laughs a little in a brazen attempt to shrug it off. "It feels wonderful."

* * *

Charles chokes on something, too. It’s stuck in his throat, in his chest, and he reaches up before he can think to stop, all the way up, because Erik is tall, and strokes his cheek, catching those tears. Those are real also. He exhales out a breath. “Did you put on the kettle?” he asks, and laughs breathlessly, too, tears on his own cheeks that he hadn’t noticed fell.  
  
" _Ken_ ," Erik murmurs, leaning into the hand against his cheek very slightly, but his hand follows, too, because he's unwilling to relinquish Charles's fingers quite yet. Erik is-there's no other word for it, trembling, very minutely, with the effort to contain everything within him threatening to spill over. "I have your favorite tea."  
  
Charles is, too, so they’re quite the pair. The bruising has mostly faded, but some of it lingers; marks that shouldn’t be there but are, because he felt them. Because they were real, and it’s still shaken him. He squeezes Erik’s fingers again, because he thinks Erik might want that. He does, too. “What is my favorite tea?” he asks, very quiet, but he’s smiling. His eyes are a much more normal blue, but still so bright. Perhaps brighter than Erik remembers them, endless, open skies.  
  
Charles is very much correct that Erik wants that. "It's a surprise," he whispers, and his smile is bright, eyes sparking almost mischievously. "Want to come down and see?" Erik murmurs, gazing down at Charles fondly.  
  
After a moment of pause, Charles nods. His smile falls just a little, though, and he looks down at the tub, swallowing. “I’ll change,” he whispers. He takes a breath. “And I’ll - I’ll -“ He’s not sure why he’s stuttering, why his chest feels tight again, why he can’t finish the sentence.  
  
Some clothes float into the room. "I can turn around," Erik says, giving a shrug of his right shoulder, still having yet to drop Charles's hand.  
  
Charles doesn’t drop Erik’s, either, squeezing again just so he can feel this time, but his head is ducked, and his brow is furrowed, face scrunched up though it’s difficult to read. “I can - I can -” But there’s clearly something panicking him. He doesn’t imagine Erik will leave the room under those circumstances, even though he’d like to be able to change by himself, but it’s silly to protest too much. He knows it’s nothing Erik hasn’t seen before, besides. He’s not naïve, or stupid. Even still, his cheeks heat with embarrassment, still faintly bruised. “You’ll turn around and close your eyes?” he mumbles, though he knows it’s patently ridiculous. How many times has Erik likely seen his body naked? Why does it matter that he doesn’t remember it? He’s an adult, not a child, but even still.  
  
Erik lays his good hand, his other hand, across Charles's cheek. "I will. But tell me what is going on here," he whispers the Order softly. He draws his right hand down Charles's arm and lays it against his opposing jaw, using his newfound maneuverability to rub his thumb across the cheekbones there. "What has got you so worked up right now?"  
  
Charles bites his lip, now much less swollen but still puffy from all the biting he’s been doing regardless, that near-unnatural cherry red they always are. “I’m still shaken,” he admits, as if it’s something to be ashamed of, his eyes darting to the bottom of the tub they’re still standing in. There’s no blood, no overflowing water, but he can still remember it. “It still hurts. I don’t want to, I looked down and -“ It was terrifying, to look down and see himself covered in marks. Violent, brutal marks, and no idea where they’d come from.  
  
"That's very natural," Erik says, giving his lip a tap in reminder, silently Ordering him to stop it. "There's nothing to be ashamed of. I can't promise you that things like this won't happen again, but I can promise you that I will be here with you, I will endure it with you, as I always have." It's genuine, and Erik means it, even though he has an unconscious tendency to suppress any real feelings or thoughts of his own. He clears his throat and adds, "It is very difficult," he starts softly, "for me as well. You aren't alone."  
  
It’s a bit startling, for Charles. Erik hasn’t been very forthcoming with these sorts of things unless he’s been pressed, and for some reason it makes him smile softly. He peeks back up. “What is difficult?” he asks, quietly, hoping Erik will tell him. That he’ll share.  
  
Erik nods, tracing his finger down a mottled bruise on Charles's cheek, inhaling slowly. "Seeing you injured that way."  
  
Charles swallows, but leans into the touch. Trusting, even as it throbs dully with the reminder of that harsh, sore pain. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” He reaches up to touch Erik’s hand on his cheek, the other still trying to maintain his dignity. “You don’t have to hide that. It’s better when you don’t, you know. You can tell me. You can talk to me.” He looks down again, and when he speaks, it’s almost impossible to pick up it’s so quiet. “You know who did this to me?”  
  
"You didn't frighten me," Erik corrects him, lips pressing together as his eyes dart to the side. What's on his mind doesn't feel appropriate to share, with anybody. It's irresponsible. It's unnecessary. He swallows it down. "I know, yes. They cannot hurt you anymore."  
  
But Charles sees it. He shakes his head, gently stroking Erik’s fingers, the ones he has new feeling in. “Please tell me?” he asks. Pleads, really.  
  
"I very much dislike it," Erik murmurs, low. "Immensely. I dislike seeing members of my family injured." It's the truth, obviously, but it's very vanilla, bland enough to be cardboard. "I've seen-" He doesn't continue. "I dislike it."  
  
The truth is, he doesn’t need much more of an explanation, or at least not at exactly this moment. Charles doesn’t need telepathy to be intuitive, to put two and two together. It makes him swallow, squeezing Erik’s fingers particularly hard. “I’m sorry,” he breathes. There’s clearly something he wants to ask, several things, actually, but he says none of them. He bites his lip. “I should get changed now,” he mumbles, and shivers as if remembering to be cold and uncomfortable.  
  
Erik draws his hand down Charles's shoulder and he warms up immediately, the rest of the water evaporating. Erik doesn't leave, he just turns, and plucks the straight razor out of the medicine cabinet, smiling to himself and running a hand over the scruff that's collected on his chin. And then he gathers up some soap, applying it along his cheeks and jaw, before slowly running it down the surface. In his right hand. Not with his abilities. "You wanted to ask me something else," he ventures mid-task. "Ask me," he Commands, soft.  
  
Charles has apparently forgotten about dressing himself, watching Erik instead. The anxiety is back, pooling in his stomach, swimming in his head, but he’s also just watching, as if transfixed, even as he fidgets in his towel, still shivering and exposed despite Erik’s attempts to keep him warm. “I want to know,” he whispers, unspecific, hoarse, his throat dry as he stares, watching Erik’s hand as it works and visibly swallowing. “I need to.”  
  
"Get dressed," Erik's Order reminds him all the same before he turns back to his endeavor. "What would you like to know? Ask and I will attempt to answer."  
  
“You said you’d close your eyes,” Charles mumbles, feeling extraordinarily embarrassed as he tugs at his towel, unwilling to make a true effort until he knows for certain Erik isn’t looking. He knows how silly it is, and he’s appropriately flustered, doing a whole lot more shuffling as he looks at the clothes Erik brought him. They look comfortable enough, at least, though he notes he didn’t pick them himself with pinker cheeks. “I want to know what happened to me,” he whispers, and his stomach drops again, for just a second the room flashing red, with the sound of rushing water. It’s disorienting and leaves him feeling sick, winded, so he imagines it isn’t pleasant for Erik either.  
  
"I did," Erik murmurs, and he does, feeling along his own face to continue his task with his eyes shut. It's not difficult, not with his powers, and he doesn't make a mistake. The clothes Charles has in his hands are soft and fluffy, pleasing to the touch. "Your parents were unkind to you," he explains softly. "You know how powerful you are, well, your father sought to exploit that. He performed medical experiments on you when you were a child. After his death, your mother remarried. Your stepbrother was unkind to you as well. Abusive," he states, not sugarcoating it. "There are details that are unknown to me, though I have surmised them for myself. You and I are not dissimilar."  
  
For some reason, Charles thought that, perhaps, hearing it, knowing it, would make him remember. He also knew it would be entirely too easy if it did. It doesn’t inspire anything except nausea, no rushing memories, no sudden flashbacks. It does make him dizzy, to the point where he needs to sit on the edge of the tub again, and when he looks down, he makes what sounds like a stifled gasp. He covers it up quickly. “You’ve surmised it?” he asks. “Have we not, have we not talked about it? Because -” But he bites his tongue, fast.  
  
"We have discussed some things," Erik nods. "But some things aren't as easy to talk about. And this isn't easy regardless. What happened to me occurred in isolation. It was normal. I didn't know enough to be embarrassed about it. But for you, you attended school, and had friends, you learned how society treats abuse survivors. I find it more difficult to talk about my experiences now than I did when I was first extracted from my situation. So I never pushed you about it. You opened up to me in your own time."  
  
Charles’ lips twitch up at the contact. It’s strange, to know and think about one’s life like an outsider. To know, bits and pieces now that don’t even begin to form a real whole, but not to remember. “I thought if you told me, it would all come rushing back,” he whispers, embarrassed because he knows it’s naïve. He didn’t really believe it, either. He looks down at Erik’s hand, his smile less strained and anxious when he notes which one it is. “You’re sure it doesn’t hurt?” he checks, concerned.  
  
He picks up Charles's hand and wrinkles his nose fondly at it before pressing a kiss to the back of his palm. "Quite sure," he murmurs. Unlike Charles, though, Erik is dripping wet, his shirt and pants soaked and he can't help but laugh lowly when he finally notices it, plucking at the shirt with an exaggerated face. "Perhaps I ought to change as well," he snorts.  
  
Perhaps Charles didn’t even notice it. He does now, his cheeks pink when he realizes that it’s difficult not to notice the outline of muscle beneath Erik’s shirt, and so he pointedly looks down, clearing his throat. “You should,” he offers, as casual as he can manage. “I can - I can go downstairs, I’ll meet you?” But it’s impossible not to tell how anxious he still is, how utterly shaken up. He’s still thinking about it, and he’s not sure he can stop. For a moment everything is wet again, tinged red. Blink and you miss it. It leaves him sick when it’s gone, reeling, taking a harsh breath. The bruises on his face look just a bit darker.  
  
Erik fastens the blanket he's floated over across Charles's shoulders. "Or you could always close your eyes," he smiles softly, eyebrows arched. It's obvious Erik doesn't have any embarrassment about it at all, but he understands if Charles doesn't want to.  
  
For all that Charles enjoys independence, and has some things to discuss downstairs just like he said before, he’s a bit too shaken right now. He’s still in pain, too, albeit less startling and harsh than before, and he’s trying to hide it for Erik’s sake but it’s obviously there. He grips tightly at the blanket Erik provides him with, finding it’s convenient to duck into it and hide his heated cheeks. “Alright,” he mumbles, his eyes already firmly shut before Erik is even anywhere close to removing clothing, his breathing picked up.  
  
Doing quite a good job concealing his amusement, thank-you very much, Not at Charles's pain, but at how clearly he's pretending to avoid looking at Erik or anywhere in Erik's direction or acknowledging that Erik exists in the same universe as him. Erik's movements are far less haphazard and embarrassed than Charles's, but not enough to be deliberately discomfiting. Its still not easy for him to get dressed, though, with plenty of other injuries in the way, and it takes a while.  
  
It’s stunningly less difficult, though, with everything eased out just as nicely as earlier, Charles always accommodating even when he doesn’t remember that he should be. Not as well as when he dressed Erik himself, as he had every day before this, and perhaps not as pleasant, but better than he ever has before. All those aches and pains Erik had considered part of his reality permanently are effectively gone in this moment. Not that Charles is aware of it, his eyes closed so tightly they ache, his shoulders hunched into the blanket. He’s shivering, or shaking. It’s hard to tell which. “Please tell me when I can open my eyes,” he whispers, trying to keep his voice as level as possible.  
  
"You can now," Erik says softly once he's done up the button on his pants. It's the first time this Charles has seen him shirtless and despite knowing some of his history it's still shocking to see it first-hand. It's obvious he just views this state as modestly dressed, but continues to shrug his shirt on (with difficulty) all the same. He's smiling, though, unconsciously. He plucks something out of his pocket and scans it momentarily, the pages flipping of their own accord before it seems to vanish into thin air. "Tea?" his eyebrows arch when he finally finishes the top button.  
  
Perhaps not for the reasons Erik is assuming, though certainly those, too. Charles clearly does not think Erik being shirtless was the proper time to open his eyes, if his squirming and eye-averting means anything, and he’s shaking far more noticeably by the time Erik is finished with the buttons. “Yes,” does eventually come out of his mouth, but it’s strained and quiet and sounds too much like he’s forcing out breaths, like it was punched out of him. He doesn’t say anything else.  
  
Erik puts his hand on Charles's shoulder. "Tell me what is the matter," he murmurs the Order quietly, tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear. Erik assumes, whether it's right or not, that Charles is bothered by it, and he tries not to be embarrassed or ashamed about it.  
  
Charles is the one who’s embarrassed, and it’s even more embarrassing that the second Erik touches him he nearly jumps out of his skin, shivering harder, tears springing to his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he gasps. “I’m - it’s a lot, I’m just overwhelmed, it’s a lot to...” He’s starting to hyperventilate, is what’s happening. “I’m - I’m - nothing’s wrong -“ Technically it’s true. “Please. I’m alright. Don’t make me,” he begs, cheeks bright red with humiliation. “I’m - I’m -“  
  
"Go on," Erik says, and it is Commanding if nothing else. He swipes those tears aside with his thumb; the right one, because he can.  
  
It’s too much, after the upset from before. After the panic that’s still lingering in his chest, and the shame and the pent-up nervousness that was there to begin with. “I’m - I’m -“ He’s stuttering, horribly, in a way he never truly does, tears hot as they slip down his cheeks again, and he doesn’t know if he wants to lean into Erik’s hand or abruptly jerk away. Not being able to articulate it doesn’t help, either, because it’s an Order and he can’t seem to figure out how to obey it, his tongue too twisted and heavy. “I’m - I’m - I, I, I -“ It’s not something Erik has ever seen Charles struggle with, really, especially not to this extent, but mostly because if he had this much trouble he could always project. It’s not an instinct he has now, and instead he does start to hyperventilate.  
  
"Stop. Relax and breathe properly." Erik puts his other hand over Charles's heart, silently making that decision for him, not allowing Charles to pull away or look away, or anything else. Trapping him, like a fly in a spider's web. "Tell me, or show me. Nothing else. Just my Will."  
  
Charles doesn’t know how to show him, so he gasps out breaths, forced to breathe properly though his chest still clenches and heaves in protest. “Overwhelmed,” he wheezes, because it’s the truth, and he writhes internally, closing his eyes. There’s clearly plenty going on inside, but Erik just has no access to it. It’s particularly jarring now, when Charles would choose to share that way. “I wanted to look,” he finally mumbles, and he sounds truly, thoroughly humiliated, his cheeks burning with it.  
  
Erik nods, splaying his hand across Charles's cheek in its entirety. "There is nothing wrong with that. It doesn't mean I am going to force you to do anything you are uncomfortable with. Do you think there is?"  
  
It makes him blink up, still very close to panicking and perhaps, even worse, to crying. “Do I think there’s what?” he mumbles, barely coherent.  
  
"That there is something wrong with that?" Erik murmurs softly. He doesn't make it clear his feelings one way or the other, once more exhibiting complete neutrality. It isn't exactly rocket science, though.  
  
Charles can read right past it, and he exhales a breath. It takes a moment, but he shakes his head, small and quick. “No,” he whispers, and he’s sure Erik won’t hear it, even though it’s true.  
  
"There is nothing humiliating about it. Curiosity is natural, and I have no objections," he smiles. "You are mine. I am yours, as well. It is up to you, to determine what that means for you. How you would wish to engage with that. If at all. But there is no need for so much alarm. I assure you."  
  
Still, Charles’ cheeks are hot to the touch, and he closes his eyes. “It feels embarrassing,” he mumbles, because it does. The shivering, the way his heart beats, how utterly overwhelmed by it he is on top of everything else. “Does it - do you ever...” He bites his lip, but the question is fairly clear. “Did it always feel like this? In the beginning, too?”  
  
It's not super clear to Erik, who still looks puzzled. "It is no less than what I feel for you, I assure you. Not embarrassing. Just normal. Is it always so intense?" he huffs a little, his nose scrunching up affectionately. "We learned to navigate things. But yes."  
  
He lets out short, sharp breath, nibbling insistently on his lip. “But in the beginning, when you first met me. What did it feel like?”  
  
Erik brushes his thumb over Charles's lip. The Command is clear. "It felt like I was being slowly electrified, from the inside out. Like being able to-" Charles doesn't know this part, yet. There's no reason for him to. They exist in isolation. Erik finds himself surprisingly unwilling to share, all of a sudden, as though it will color Charles's perception of him. "Exist," he settles on. "Freely."  
  
Charles’ brow furrows, even as his lips part in a gasp, puffing hot air against Erik’s fingers. “What else?” he urges, still demanding, insistent, because he needs to know. He doesn’t know what’s normal and what isn’t. Everything is distinctly overwhelming, even what should be pleasant and exciting. “Immediately? Did you feel it right away?”  
  
"Immediately," Erik nods. "Right away. Because-" Erik trails off.  
  
“Because what?” Charles asks, and it’s in that persistent, haughty tone, like the faux-Order he’d taught himself, but this is something else. Less for show, less out of habit, and more something much more natural, something he’d only just started experimenting with. But it comes out, here, as natural as anything else.

* * *

Erik doesn't respond very well to it, though, mostly because he is embarrassed now. His head ducks and he draws his fingers through his own hair, inhaling slowly. "Well, I didn't talk. Before I met you."  
  
It makes Charles blink, squirming on the edge of the tub in hopes of better seeing Erik’s face. “What do you mean, you didn’t talk?” he asks, but it’s softer now, a response to Erik being uncomfortable.  
  
It's still pretty much neutral, but Charles finds he can see the tic of Erik's jaw, the way his lips quirk downward very slightly. He lowers beside Charles, sitting next to him, still hand-in-hand. "I, uh, it was just part of what-" he waves his hand. "I was conditioned not to."  
  
“Conditioned not to,” Charles repeats, just a hushed whisper. He doesn’t have the proper context, but he can, again, put two and two together. It’s not a pleasant picture. When he shifts, it’s much closer again despite any lingering anxiety, their legs touching. “But when you met me, that changed?” It sounds a bit distracted, not because he isn’t interested and curious, not because he doesn’t want to know, but because he’s staring again, this time for a different reason, his cheeks hot all over.  
  
"It did," Erik whispers, twining their hands together, too, nudging their shoulders just a little playfully. "I didn't have any trouble talking to you. I hadn't spoken on my own volition for, thirteen years. I still, I can't, not really. Just with you."  
  
“Oh,” Charles whispers, and he’s aware it sounds rather lame in the wake of something like that. His eyes close, and he takes another sharp breath. “Do what you did before,” he demands suddenly, offsetting the heat in his cheeks with that bossiness, with entitlement.  
  
"Before?" Erik's eyebrows raise. "Perhaps I will. If you ask me nicely." His lips purse, amused.  
  
“Before, outside,” he clarifies, huffed, and bites the inside of his cheek. “You wanted to, and I told you not to, but now I’m telling you to,” he mumbles, despite it being silly, because it’s the easiest way to get through this. “My leg hurts.” Which is true.  
  
"No," Erik murmurs back. "You are telling me to, and that is not what I respond to. Ask me nicely. You know how." Erik strokes the side of his cheek. "I know you do."  
  
Of course he does, but now Erik's told him to, he wants to more than anything, which also means, when he's feeling like this, he wants to huff again and put up more of a fight. He takes his hand out of Erik's to cross it over his chest, shrugging. "Carry me?" he mutters, and it sounds much more like a question, at least.  
  
Erik places his hand over Charles's. Against his chest. "Ask. Me. Nicely." And Erik isn't asking anymore, either. He is telling. There is nowhere to go, nowhere to fight against. There is only Erik's Will.  
  
Immediately Charles gasps, his lips parted on it as he squirms around on the edge of the tub they’re still sitting on, but it isn’t to fight. He shivers, suddenly feeling much more exposed than he did even while he was only wearing a towel. “Will you carry me downstairs, please, Erik?” he asks, breathless and polite, his eyes lowered as his heart continues to beat double-time in his chest.  
  
That makes Erik smile, for real, his vivid emerald eyes practically glowing in pleasure and he rises, lifting Charles up to his feet with both hands entwined. And this time it costs Erik nothing to sweep him right off his feet, to cradle him close, bridal-style and kiss his forehead, gazing down at him with more adoration than either of them likely know what to do with. "See?" he whispers, fond. "All you need to do is ask. And I shall provide."  
  
It’s a good thing Charles’ eyes are closed, that he’s hiding in Erik’s chest, then, because he’s already thoroughly overwhelmed. He wriggles in Erik’s arms as if there’s anywhere to go, takes harsh, unsteady breaths. They can talk when they get downstairs. Erik said it was alright to be curious. “Tea,” he demands, which certainly isn’t asking, but he’s always needed to safely experiment with this. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. “Please,” he adds, after a moment, but it’s huffed, clearly sarcastic despite how breathy it is.  
  
The reproachful look Erik gives him is clearly a warning, and he smirks when Charles finally does add a _please_ at the end of it. There's nowhere to go, nowhere to escape from Erik's Command and he whisks Charles downstairs, where the kettle is whistling happily away despite the time they've taken; Erik's abilities taking care of it.  
  
Charles knows he’s been rather hot and cold. In fact, the reason they’d ended up where they were in the first place is because he’d spooked himself, because he’d wanted to think over a difficult conversation (to be fair, he still does). But he’s thoroughly shaken. He can’t get the images of those bruises still lingering underneath his clothing out of his mind, of the blood, of Erik covered in it, of water rising up and the walls caving in, suffocating, drowning, rushing. He can’t even admit how much it’s truly frightened him, how much he can’t stop wondering about your parents treated you unkindly. And so when Erik goes to set him down, he kicks his legs, vehemently shaking his head and locking his arms in a vice grip around his neck, ducking into it in the same breath. “No,” he protests, and so maybe tea and his promise to help with lunch will be more difficult but he’s truly hanging on for dear life, panicked at even the notion of being set down.  
  
Erik doesn't put him down though, he just shifts so that he can have access to one of his hands, his abilities taking care of the rest. "I know," he murmurs, brushing his fingers through Charles's hair. "Here," he detaches Charles's hand just enough to wrap it around a mug. "Drink. You like this one. I won't let you go. I promise."


	95. horses in my dreams like waves like the sea

He knows it’s silly, to cling on like a monkey, needy and childish, but he can’t shake it. He cradles the mug as soon as it’s given to him, entirely trusting despite the lack of Order when he brings it up to his lips without bothering to check what it is first. Charles hums in pleasure as soon as he can taste it, because he does like it; even without memories it’s comforting, soothing, settling nice in his belly when everything else seems to make him feel sick. It was always that way, even it he doesn’t know it. Speaking of. “I want to help with lunch,” he insists, because he’d offered, but there’s probably not a whole lot he can do from Erik’s arms like this.  
  
Erik smiles down at him, tapping him on the nose. "I don't plan on anything particularly extravagant." The ingredients float out of the fridge, cucumbers and cream cheese and dill, and Munster cheese and habaneros. They're all brands that Erik bought when they lived together, another subtle 'assist' that Charles wouldn't know about. White bread, some rosemary focaccia and a bread knife, and cheese grater. "Oookay," Erik looks at everything. "You can shred," he decides and angles himself so that he can start slicing cucumber while Charles can take the cheese grater.  
  
It would be much, much more efficient to not be in Erik’s arms like this as they work. Charles knows it, but he doesn’t want to be set down under any circumstances, so all he whispers is, “Am I too heavy?” He’s absolutely not, and Erik doesn’t seem to be having any trouble at all especially with his right hand available to him (and Charles is still fascinated, watching, because he can tell Erik is). Either way he reaches for the grater and goes about the task he was given, which he notes is exceptionally simple, but he’s grateful for it anyway. It’s something he can do, if nothing else. “Am I doing this right?” he asks next, despite knowing he is, because - well, because. Because he wants Erik to tell him, and his cheeks are burning with it again.  
  
It's also the first time that Charles has seen Erik work in the kitchen manually; all the rest of the times he's just used his abilities but now he chops vegetables and manipulates the implements with ease, demonstrating a clear efficiency even after years of disuse. "You are not heavy, and you are doing it correctly," Erik scrunches his nose down at Charles affectionately. Erik's abilities ensure that Charles remains where he is while they work, although Erik did give him an easy task just so that he wouldn't have to struggle around too much getting everything settled. It's nice, feeling Charles's weight against him, the warmth, the domesticity. Erik is practically floating. No, he's literally floating. Just a little.  
  
It makes Charles laugh, some of that unsteady, lingering anxiety calmed as he focuses on the task he’s been given, his only difficulty juggling the cup of tea he’s greatly enjoying. It’s warm, and Erik is warm, and his stomach feels settled for the first time in a long while though he knows it might protest when he eats. But he feels hungry, and more importantly after the incident in the bathroom he’s beginning to feel safe, and he has things on his mind but they’ll have lunch. They’ll have time. So while Erik seems very busy with chopping, Charles takes advantage of his position, swooping in for a soft, hesitant kiss. He’s flushed again, wriggling in the aftermath. “You can put me down now,” he announces, but he’s clearly not uncomfortable. Nor does he really want it. “I want another task, too,” he tacks on as a demand, which is amusing considering he’s asking for a chore, asking because he wants another way to - well, there’s no mincing words. To obey, the way experimenting, young submissives often do, giddy on the high of it, on the potential for a taste of subspace. He’s grinning.  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik rumbles against his mouth, giving him a squeeze further toward him instead of away. "OK, put the stove on and grab me the frying pan and oil. You can assemble the sandwiches, I will fry." There's a story there. There's definitely a story there. Erik moves so that Charles is sitting in front of the cucumbers and crust-less white bread. "Just put some cream cheese on both sides, then layer as many cucumbers as you want, top them with dill and a little salt. Not too much." Erik is grinning back, his eyes creased.  
  
Charles is grinning ear to ear, now, some of the weight of the experience in the bathroom falling off his shoulders visibly, and it’s like all of a sudden it’s easier to breathe for both of them. The kitchen, poorly lit by design (which Erik has found himself unable to fix) is suddenly flooded with light, which makes little sense because they can both hear the rumbling of thunder outside, the storm continuing on. But it makes sense in here. “I’m sorry, did you say a lot of salt?” he asks, cheeky, because he’s Charles. “I think I’m having some trouble hearing you.” Which is absolutely not the case, with Erik rumbling right into his ear. He tries to shake that thought off to resist shivering, and does set to his task, enthusiastically, as silly as it is. It’s something Erik asked him to do, and he’s trying not to be embarrassed by how much he likes that.  
  
Erik laughs, that sound directly in Charles's ear, too. There's plenty more to do, but Erik takes the lead on chopping habaneros (without gloves, not because he's so obviously at home in the kitchen but because, uh, Erik loves peppers to a nearly unhealthy degree and no longer finds the burn alarming). The secret to a brilliant grilled cheese-which yes Erik is making for himself, although the arrangement of ingredients makes calling it a grilled cheese almost a little insulting-is amazing bread, and amazing cheese. He sets aside another one for Charles lacking the spiciness. "I think you can hear me just fine," he smirks.  
  
Erik’s voice does plenty to inspire another shiver, mostly because he can hear it loud and clear. “Are you sure? I think I’m still having trouble,” he teases, his head ducked even as he continues to be held, carried around like he weighs nothing while Erik works. He squirms in Erik’s arms at the reminder, still grinning and flushed as he finishes up his sandwich assembling. “Did I do this alright?” and he doesn’t mean to sound shy but it comes out that way anyway, because he’s fully aware, at least in this, that what he really wants is for Erik to say yes. That he did a good job.  
  
"You did. It looks very good," Erik gives his nose a little tap. Erik floats them onto a decorative plate and holds it out to Charles while he finishes off frying his own lunch. There's a table in the kitchen, but rather than set Charles down Erik just sits down and shifts so that Charles is balanced on his knee.  
  
Charles somehow manages to turn redder at that, shifting restlessly on Erik’s knee before he settles. Predictably, he doesn’t get straight to eating, as hungry as he actually feels. “Can we talk about something?” he asks, quietly, and decides to play with his food instead, poking at it. Poke, poke, poke.

* * *

"Eat," Erik Orders softly. "And of course. What do you wish to discuss?"  
  
Well, eating is subjective. Charles takes a quick bite and goes back to toying with his sandwich, fussing with the bread, pulling off some cucumbers as if they’re being rejected. “I think, maybe, we should establish some boundaries. If that’s okay,” he whispers, suddenly nervous.  
  
"Eat. Properly. And of course that is OK. What kind of boundaries would you care to establish?"  
  
Charles makes a face, but obediently takes another bite. “You, too,” he demands first, pushing Erik’s plate closer insistently. “I think... we should sleep in different beds, firstly,” he mumbles, and his head is bowed, his hair falling in front of his face. “I’d like to help you sleep, like I have been. I can. But I think, maybe just for now...” He trails off, ashamed.  
  
Erik does eat, as much as he can. "Of course, that is fine," he says mildly, nodding. "What else?"  
  
Charles bites his lip. "Are you sure it's fine?" he asks instead, staring down at the floor. His feet aren't touching the ground.  
  
"Of course I am sure," Erik replies, taking a sip from his own mug which is filled with a reddish colored black coffee, with thick foam on its surface. "There are plenty of rooms available for you to choose from. You can decide where you wish to be located."  
  
There's clearly more to talk about, more that he wants to talk about, but he's distracted or else stalling. He peers into Erik's cup, wrinkling his nose up. "It smells good," he admits.  
  
"It is good," Erik laughs, offering the cup to Charles easily. He trades one of the grilled cheeses on his plate with a cucumber sandwich on Charles's and wiggles his nose playfully before eating it in one gulp. Tea sandwiches are at least easier to handle.  
  
They're delicious, too, which helps, but Charles takes a bite of the not spicy grilled cheese, continuing to stare curiously into Erik's cup as if it might reach up and bite him. "I think I want to take this slowly," he mutters, taking a deep breath.  
  
"Try it, if you wish," Erik murmurs. "And I do not expect anything different. I don't wish for you to be uncomfortable. I will do my best to honor your requests."  
  
“Are you comfortable?” Charles whispers, and takes a sip of Erik’s coffee. He immediately pulls a face, sputtering a little. “Yuck,” he announces, eloquently.  
  
"I am comfortable ensuring your safety and well-being, yes," Erik replies, and then laughs when Charles grimaces. "You didn't much like coffee before, either. Which is wrong, but I'll forgive you."  
  
“I’m right because it’s disgusting,” he argues, and then takes a breath and turns in Erik’s lap, facing him, even as he refuses to meet his eyes. “I don’t want you to think I don’t want it. I do. I just want - I want to be sure, and take our time. If that’s alright."  
  
"Of course it is all right. Are those the only boundaries you had in mind?" Erik's eyebrows arch.  
  
Charles’ cheeks immediately heat with shame, and he ducks his head. “No,” he mumbles. That’s it.  
  
"So tell me what else. And eat your sandwich." The Orders come one after the other.  
  
He eats happily, mostly because it’s a distraction, because he can mumble around a bite, his ears hot. “I don’t want to have sex right now,” he says, and it’s very hard to pick up.  
  
Erik snorts a little, but it's not unkind, and when Charles looks up his expression is soft. "Neither do I. I don't feel it's in either of our best interests."  
  
Charles prickles at it anyway, his mouth turned down as he refuses to look anywhere at Erik’s face, and shifts to get off his knee altogether. “I don’t think it’s fair to mock me for this, when - there’s…” He trails off, biting his lip. “You asked, so I told you,” he mutters, unsure why he’s so bothered.  
  
"Be easy, Charles. You did, and I'm not mocking you. It's good to be able to discuss these things candidly. Is that something you thought I wanted?"  
  
He doesn’t know how to answer that, and he seems unwilling to anyway, tensed up and halfway off Erik’s lap. What he offers is a shrug. "I didn't think you'd pressure me, if that's what you're asking," he mumbles, which is the truth.  
  
"It isn't, but I am pleased you don't think that all the same," Erik smiles. "That is very far from my mind right now." Mostly because Erik doesn't think it's possible to want sex without it being a form of pressure, but his unhealthy relationship with his own desires aside, it's very clearly not due to his feelings about Charles.  
  
“But earlier, upstairs, you said you felt -“ Charles shuts his mouth, and shakes his head. “Nevermind,” he mutters, and he’s as far away from Erik as he can get now without standing up, still unwilling to make that final move. “We agree. That’s what matters. I don’t think I have anything else.”  
  
"What matters is that something is obviously on your mind, so tell me what it is." Erik doesn't give him much choice in the matter.  
  
Charles grumbles about that for as long as he's able (it's not very long). "Why don't you want to?" he asks, very quiet now, and promptly shoves another bite of sandwich into his mouth.  
  
Erik shrugs, picking out a cucumber to eat it. "I don't believe it would be healthy. It would be self-serving. I think it would be very easy for me to manipulate you into pushing past what you are obviously comfortable with and that frightens me."  
  
It’s exactly the answer he wanted, but something about Charles still seems unsure. He picks at his sandwich, pulling off bread idly. “It’s not because you’re not... you know,” he mumbles. “Right?”  
  
"It's not because I'm not what?" Erik murmurs back. "Ask me plainly and I will answer plainly." Once more, Charles has little recourse but to do so. Erik ducks his head for a moment and then playfully snatches up a cucumber from Charles's plate, grinning a little.  
  
Charles makes a face even though he wasn’t going to eat it anyway, probably. “Not attracted to me,” he whispers. And then he steals off Erik’s plate, not to even to eat it, because it’s obviously necessary.  
  
Erik smiles again. "No. Not because of that. It is my hope that isn't your reason as well," he says, eyebrows arching. He taps over Charles's hand. "Eat," he insists, the Order quiet. After all, if Charles is going to steal off of *his* plate, he'll make sure he gets some nutrition out of it.  
  
At least the food is delicious, and he is hungry. Charles shakes his head, though, after he takes a bite, offering it to Erik, too. Putting it to his lips insistently. “You eat,” he demands, and he’s grinning softly again. After a beat, he whispers, “It isn’t. The reason.” And promptly averts his eyes, flushed again.  
  
"Mmhmm," Erik winks at him, ensuring he's taken a few bites before doing so himself. He's fairly confident that Charles's reasons are similar to his own. He hopes. But it's all right ,even if Charles doesn't have a reason. He doesn't need one. "Tell me what else."  
  
“I don’t have anything else,” Charles says, and it’s the truth. He turns back around in Erik’s lap, but it’s only so he can tuck into his chest. “If I have something else, there’s a word for that. You gave it to me. Is this -“ He’s holds up Erik’s hand, his left hand, biting his lip. “Nevermind,” he amends, quickly.  
  
"Tell me," Erik Orders, soft. His fingers wrap around Charles's gently, giving a gentle squeeze.  
  
“You’re wearing a ring,” he whispers, and he imagines it’s clear enough what he wondered for the moment he did.  
  
"I am," Erik nods. "It has sentimental value for you, so you gave it to be before you made my cuffs." It has writing as well, both in English and in Hebrew. "Are you-do you not-" Erik scratches his head.  
  
Charles tilts his head, his eyes on the ring in question before he looks up, biting his lip. “Do I not what?” he prods.  
  
Erik shrugs again. "Like it."  
  
It makes Charles smile, ducking his head under Erik’s chin. “That isn’t why I pointed it out,” he laughs. “I thought perhaps it was - but I’m not wearing one, so obviously not,” he mumbles, embarrassed.  
  
Erik's nose wrinkles up. "Not yet. There is always so much going on within our lives, and-our relationship is not-sanctioned, by the authorities in our lives. We wanted to wait until it was. So it's real."  
  
For some reason, Charles’ heart clenches again. He takes a big, gulping breath, and bites hard on his lip. “Kiss me again,” he demands, breathless. “Now.” And he closes his eyes, waiting.  
  
While Erik does press his lips against Charles's, he doesn't kiss, not exactly. He merely murmurs low and soft, the Order, "Ask me nicely. I do not respond to demands, _neshama_."  
  
“Kiss me, please,” Charles requests, whispered against Erik’s lips. He’s flushed and his heart is beating right out of his chest. “Please,” he repeats, and it sounds much more like a plea.  
  
"Happily," he laughs. Erik cups both sides of his face, in both hands, because he can. Charles will never understand exactly how much that means to him. And then Erik is, and it's not frantic or frenzied but it's not chaste, either, not by a long shot. There is heat, and wonder, and comfort pressed back. Erik makes a soft sound in the back of his throat, easily missed in the blink of an eye.  
  
But Charles doesn’t miss it. It makes him shudder, a soft gasp of his own escaping against Erik’s lips as he squirms in his lap. He doesn’t know what it is that’s gotten into him, but he’s testing. Erik said exploring was alright, and perhaps that’s what this is. He’s searching for answers here, too. One of his hands tangles itself up in Erik’s shirt and the other finds its way to his hair, tugging only slightly, his lips parted for panting breaths and also in invitation. “Please, Erik,” he whispers.  
  
Charles feels it unfurl underneath his skin, like livewire electricity. Alive, organic. Erik's eyes flutter shut and he tries his hardest to remain in control, not to push the boundaries of what Charles has clearly indicated he's uncomfortable with, but he's only a person. He doesn't intend to go any further than this. But he misses Charles. He can't help but respond to that invitation. He's missed this, so when he does surge forward and delve deeper into Charles's mouth it's practically without conscious volition, a low, rumbling growl vibrating in his chest.  
  
The thing about this is that Charles has nothing to miss, but this first time is even more overwhelming than the first. His body knows exactly what to do, and it seems to have no problem responding, no problem submitting. It knows it belongs to Erik. That electricity courses through his entire body, crackling, and he hears himself moan into Erik’s mouth but has no time or space to be embarrassed by it, tugging harder at Erik’s hair, scrambling to be closer, wriggling in his lap with the effort and letting his tongue come out to play, too, shyly letting Erik take the lead, but that’s how it’s meant to be. Guiding, teaching, even in this. Erik said it was alright, and so he lets himself experiment, flushed all over and, for just this moment, giving into it.  
  
And Erik doesn't disappoint in the slightest. Charles finds himself utterly trapped, pinned in place, with nowhere to move and nowhere to go except to take what Erik gives him. Erik seems to know exactly what to do to draw him out of himself, to draw more of those noises from him, something he's always been able to do that isn't necessarily from experience, but from experience, too. How it's meant to be. Erik's flushed, too, breathing too-even, hair a mess between Charles's fingers and and his own fingers slip down from Charles's cheek, touching over his neck and shoulders.  
  
It’s dizzying. It’s extraordinary, really, how Charles feels it all the way down to his toes, curled up bare and still dangling as he’s made to properly straddle Erik’s lap. When they part to breathe, he’s panting harshly, his eyes closed and a slight tremor to his frame, but it’s anything but fear. Everything in the room has decided to float, but if Erik had the mind to look, he’d find it’s all blurry. Literally, impossibly blurry, as if brushed over with a filter, his brain unable to make any of it out because Charles has deemed it unimportant. Because everything else has faded, and he’s clinging to Erik’s shirt for dear life, perhaps tugging his hair too hard now. “Erik,” he gasps, breathless. When his eyes open, they’re blown wide.  
  
"Charles," Erik whispers back, his voice a raspy croak in Charles's ear, and he hums lowly under his breath, eyes closing so he can nuzzle against Charles's cheek. Erik isn't paying any attention to anything other than Charles to begin with, so it barely registers. He lays his hand over Charles's heart, letting the warmth of his skin seep in through Charles's shirt. "Beautiful," he murmurs.  
  
Charles shivers, laughing softly, breathlessly, because it tickles a little. Erik only shaved about an hour ago but it still feels a bit like there’s stubble growing in, and he imagines it never takes long. He wriggles about again as if perhaps he can get closer, but he can’t, and that almost makes him frown, his pulse still racing and all of that electricity staticky and insistent and overwhelming in ways he can’t even describe. “Erik,” he insists, not certain what he’s insisting on, what he means, but he pulls a bit at Erik’s hair, biting his kiss-swollen lips to watch for the reaction.  
  
It makes Erik _growl_ and he presses his thumb over Charles's lips and Orders him to "Stop biting," his head dropping a little so he can give Charles a well-deserved nip along the jaw instead, as if everything's built to a feedback loop and delivered a shock to Charles's nervous system that spreads from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, both reacting in tandem.  
  
It inspires another moan, this one much louder, and his cheeks immediately feel as if they’re burning. He squirms in Erik’s arms, in his lap, finding it hard to breathe normally as his heart pounds under Erik’s hand. “Can I bite you now?” he asks, hoarse, and he meant it to be daring, fierce, but it comes out shy somehow. His eyes lower.  
  
Erik huffs against his skin, letting his fingers grip tighter, just a little. "By all means," he rumbles deep in his chest. He's keeping himself still and calm and in control, letting Charles set the pace, take the lead, even if that seems counter intuitive, it's the only way he can maintain his own sanity. "Look at me," he murmurs, gentle. "I want to see you."  
  
All of that rumbling is doing things to Charles, having more of an effect than he even thought possible, and he’s utterly helpless to it. He tests that out; it wasn’t an Order, apparently, because he isn’t compelled, isn’t forced, and he sucks in a breath and ducks into Erik’s neck. He wants to obey, his stomach fluttering with it, but he can’t. “No,” he mumbles, but it’s breathless, hushed, not really a no.  
  
"Yes," Erik growls. It's not a compulsion and it's not force, but there is no less Command in the air than right at this moment, practically sticking to the walls of Charles's lungs. "Now." Erik grips his jaw between his fingers and tilts his head up, pressing their brows together.  
  
It’s exactly what he wanted. Exactly what he needed. Charles whimpers, and there’s absolutely no denying that he’s dropped deep, his eyes dark with it, his body gently trembling with it. Both hands are bunched tight in Erik’s shirt, wrinkling it. “E-Erik,” he moans, and before there was an electric response, an instinct, but this is molten heat. Charles is more than a little obviously drowning in it right now.  
  
Erik can't help but smile, his hand drawing softly over Charles's chest, rhythmic and soothing. It's difficult for Erik, too. It's been a while since he's felt it like this, but he doesn't take more, he doesn't possess more. He controls himself. He is in control. "I've got you," he murmurs like gravel. He brushes his lips over Charles's throat, holds him still and steady.  
  
And he does, too. Charles knows it isn’t saying much since his recall spans about two weeks, but he’s never felt this much like someone has him, completely. Like Erik does. He arches into the lips on his throat, breathes harshly again, a soft, helpless little noise as he tries to wriggle. “Hnhhh...” is what comes out of his mouth, and he nuzzles into Erik as much as he can, feeling entirely out of control himself. “It feels -“ He shakes his head, not defiant or even embarrassed. He just doesn’t know. There aren’t words.  
  
Erik doesn't let him move, taking both of Charles's arms in one of his and trapping them behind his back, completely pinned against Erik. He has two hands this time, and he contentedely runs his fingers through Charles's hair, strokes along his throat and chest. "Tell me how it feels."  
  
Charles gasps at that, too, completely overcome. For a moment he struggles, but it isn’t to struggle, and Erik has seen this impulse in Charles many times; he just wants it confirmed that Erik will hold him fast. That he’ll hold him tighter. “Like electricity,” he whispers, an echo of Erik from earlier, but perhaps he hadn’t understood it then. He tugs again at his arms, looks Erik in the eyes, and bites at his lip again, more than a nibble. To get his attention, as wave after wave of current washes over him. “Got me?” he checks, and in that second sounds just as vulnerable as he did upstairs in the shower. Searching.  
  
He doesn't need to look far to find what he's searching for. "Always," Erik practically purrs, lips quirking in a smile. And in recompense for once more biting at his lips, Erik gives him a sharp nip to the throat, smiling against his skin. "I always have you," he repeats again, because he can and because he wants Charles to hear it. To feel it.  
  
Feeling it isn’t a problem in this particular moment. The noise that slips from those bitten, bright red lips is a startled yelp that quickly becomes a startled, half-stifled whimper, and then a moan, Charles shivering in Erik’s lap and unable to move. He gives another tug again, even though it does nothing, panting. His eyes close, promptly, overwhelmed, and everything is vibrating again, trembling along with him. He certainly feels it.  
  
Good. Erik buries his head in Charles's shoulder, slowly beginning to relax, tension held in his shoulders and neck that he didn't even notice until it starts to leave him. Charles isn't the only one overwhelmed. "You are mine. That will never change. It will never alter. Never."

* * *

It takes a long time for Charles to calm enough to even breathe normally, and he manages to squirm just enough to nuzzle into Erik’s neck and stay there, breathing heavy and settling. It’s not uncomfortable, or frightening, it’s just overwhelming, and he grapples with how much he wants. How much. “Can we... could we watch a movie?” he whispers, hesitant and quiet, because he wants. But he doesn’t, too. Not now, not yet.  
  
Erik doesn't move for a while, either, and he doesn't make Charles move. He breathes, too, calms down, and lets that calm filter back over, resting against him softly, letting the rise and fall of his chest soothe as much as it can. "Of course," he smiles, his nose wrinkling up fondly. "You will have to pick, unless you want to watch Hebrew children's movies."  
  
Charles does end up picking, and it seems he’s gotten a certain genre stuck in his head, because what they end up watching seems extraordinarily silly but he can’t quite mind it. It’s somewhere through Four _Weddings and a Funeral_ that he scoots closer from where he’d been keeping his distance on the couch, and sometime during Breakfast at Tiffany’s that he ends up in Erik’s lap again, drifting against his shoulder. The storm has been on and off, but it’s raining outside now, a quiet, calming background noise, the room dark except for the light from the television. He’s stopped watching the movie, if he’s honest. Instead he’s watching Erik’s features, the light dancing off his face, flickering on and off. He’s trying to be sneaky about it. It’s the first time, really, that there’s lasting calm; no fighting, no hashing out, no fear, nothing but this. Nothing but the rain, a lazy evening, Audrey Hepburn. It’s something they got very little of before, but even with nothing to compare it to, Charles finds it nice. Very nice.  
  
Either Erik doesn't notice what Charles is doing or he's pretending not to notice, his eyes following the screen as his hands idly trace Charles's back. He looks older than he is, is the first impression one usually gets. He's got bits of gray near his temples and lines in his face, but now he seems more at ease than in a very long while. Perhaps since Charles has known him. _You musn't give your heart to a wild thing. The more you do, the stronger they get, until they're strong enough to run into the woods or fly into a tree. And then to a higher tree and then to the sky..._ He finally does notice Charles staring up at him and grins, tapping him on the nose. It is nice. Very nice.  
  
Charles ducks into Erik’s chest when he’s caught out, more fully in his lap now, not that he wasn’t to begin with. There’s a soft smile on his lips, that gentle fluttering in his stomach. He peeks up, shyer than he wants to be, grateful for the dimness. “How many of these movies are you willing to watch with me?” he teases, and wriggles until he’s resting more comfortably, half-watching the movie again even through his distraction. It feels extraordinarily normal.  
  
It’s the answer he expected, but it still makes Charles smile, flushed with the pleasure of it as he burrows closer into Erik’s chest. It makes it difficult to see the screen, but he doesn’t mind much. “Are you a fan of Audrey Hepburn, then? Perhaps we’ll watch _Roman Holiday_ next.” It seems like such a silly thing to discuss, to do, considering the circumstances. Lounging about, watching a film, the rain pouring outside. Perhaps that’s the point. He leans into the hand stroking his hair, and then back into Erik’s chest, comfortable and warm, nudging as subtly as he can in the hopes of being more properly held. He finds he doesn’t mind that, either. “How do you feel about ice cream for dinner?” he asks, grinning, but it’s hopeful as he looks up at Erik, and that’s normal, too. A normal they’ve never really had time to settle fully into. Until now.  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik laughs, a deep, rich sound from low in his chest that Charles can practically feel. "I will make a proper dinner. If you eat it all, then you can have ice cream." His eyes crinkle. "I would be pleased to watch any movie you would like. I am enjoying this one." It's a positive and negative, really. Erik's taste in things has been awfully delayed. Television, movies, clothes; even food and hobbies, at first Erik followed Charles's lead but then gradually began to develop his own sense of style and branch out. Making choices, likes and dislikes, they're uncharted territory. But they never had time to really sit and absorb media before now. He didn't watch movies or television, not outside of very specific things. Erik is just grateful for the proximity.  
  
“If I eat it all?” Charles repeats, pulling a face as he twists in Erik’s lap again to better see his face. While he enjoys the movie perfectly well, he admits there’s something else that has just a bit more of his attention at the moment. It’s late in the evening now; they got a late start to begin with, but Charles finds lounging off into the evening is a much more pleasant way to spend it than he has been. “What if I eat some? Would that satisfy you?” And it’s meant as a tease, but for some reason Charles shivers with it, hoping the dark hides it even when they’re so close. “You should pick the next movie,” he adds, nodding to the stack he’s dragged over from a rather impressive, rather surprising collection. He knows it must be his, or else he at least contributed, but at this point it’s just as much a mystery for him as it is for Erik. He’s already learning it’s sometimes hard to tell how Erik really feels about something, mostly because he doesn’t seem to share it, but Charles thinks he can crack that.  
  
"All," Erik insists sternly, but not unkindly. "That will satisfy me." He curls Charles's hair around his finger and lets it bounce back playfully. A movie does float out of the stack, once that they were both acquainted with well before; an old technicolor-copy of _The Wizard of Oz_. "This one I know," he reveals softly; it's obvious he likes it based on his tone.  
  
Charles smiles, because Erik sounding pleased, showing favor for something - he likes it. It’s a nice change, and he feels a bit self-satisfied that he asked in the first place, although Erik choosing something he already likes seems a bit counterintuitive to his original purpose. “Alright,” he murmurs, and turns back to the movie that’s still playing, resting wholly against Erik, back to chest and snugly in his lap. It’s strange, how comfortable he feels. “What counts as a proper dinner, anyway? Who decides? Do I get to make suggestions?” He’s still on this, yes, but mostly because he’s getting a bit hungry again, on top of sleepy. “Can I help again?” He tries not to feel too embarrassed at how eager he sounds. And how he knows he just wants Erik to ask something of him.  
  
"You certainly get to make suggestions, and you are always welcome to assist," Erik replies soft still. It's more than that of course. Erik wants to ask. To demand, more so, but he's reining all of those impulses in for now. "It counts if it is property substantial and of nutritional value. The food groups, you see." He sticks his tongue out mischievously.  
  
For just a fraction of a second, Charles frowns, but he hides it quickly, playing idly with the fabric of Erik’s shirt between his fingers. “Dairy is a food group,” he points out, grinning. “Ice cream is dairy. I’m not seeing any sort of problem here.” His eyes wander back to the screen, head still resting against Erik’s chest. “Audrey Hepburn would want me to have sweets for dinner, don’t you think?”  
  
Erik notices. Of course he does. Charles might almost be convinced he isn't the only telepath in the room. "Mmhmmmmn," Erik grins. "If you eat it all, then you may have dessert." He taps Charles on the nose gently. He won't and generally hasn't forced him beyond what he can handle, but he will make sure Charles is somewhat healthy under his care.  
  
“I may have dessert?” Charles asks, and he means it to come out much more haughty than it does breathless. He also means to stare up at Erik, to challenge him, but the fluttering in his stomach prevents that, his eyes on the movie instead. It’s technically where they’re supposed to be right now. “I need your permission?”  
  
"Indeed," Erik grins down at him, thoroughly pleased with himself, now. Charles doesn't know it yet but Erik is generally decent about letting him indulge his sweet tooth, with the exception of meals, which are more non-negotiable. He'd prefer Charles eat something even if it's unhealthy than nothing. But maybe this is an opportunity as well, to teach him better habits, better conceptions. Not that Erik would know a great deal about what is healthy; his own experiences vastly dark and twisted, but he can do his best.  
  
For a moment, Charles is silent, resting against Erik’s chest, the only noise his breathing and the sound of the movie still playing in the background. “What if I decide I want to anyway?” he asks, and it’s so quiet it’s almost difficult to catch. He’s not looking at Erik, his eyes on the screen, and the only sign something is going on inside is the way he’s biting his lip. “That I don’t need your permission?”  
  
"Then I would intervene," Erik murmurs. "I will not play games with your health. Ever. I am not so strict. A point that you frequently saw contention with. But if you follow my directions you will find yourself more than rewarded."  
  
Charles tries to seem as if he’s barely interested, his eyes on the TV screen. “You’re not strict? And what did I take issue with?” he asks, as casual and offhand as he can possibly manage. “What do you mean by rewarded? And if I can just do it anyway, what does it matter? That just means you’re not going to do anything about if I do,” he points out, and it really should get right under Erik’s skin, outright defiance even while it’s played off.  
  
"I will figure it out," Erik replies with a twitch of his lips. "If that means I need to follow you around and ensure you do what you're told, so be it. I can't do the things that I would normally do, you are right, but that isn't an excuse to do whatever you want instead."  
  
“It kind of is,” Charles mumbles before he can stop himself, and then quickly bites on his lip, and then his tongue just for good measure, shifting against Erik’s chest. His eyes are firmly on the TV.  
  
"So what do you propose I do about that?" Erik's eyebrows lift.  
  
Charles shrugs, suddenly very interested in Audrey Hepburn. “Absolutely nothing, I imagine,” he snorts, which sounds as fiercely sarcastic as it is. Charles’ personality (and therefore some of that natural defiance, which perhaps is Charles, and perhaps is an S1 trait, but likely a healthy mixture of both, as these things often are) is peeking out more and more, less fear and hesitance, but that presents its own challenges. “Are you using your abilities right now?” he asks, and it’s a deflection, but also genuinely curious. Almost enough to make him look at Erik. Almost.  
  
Erik shrugs right back, choosing not to engage with the sarcasm at all. "I am usually always using my abilities, but I am not doing anything in particular right now. Why do you ask?"  
  
“It’s been storming rather intensely all day, and I wondered if you had something to do with the power not going out,” he murmurs. There was also some of that hum in the air, earlier, but Charles is having trouble differentiating between that being Erik’s abilities or something entirely different. He’s fairly sure it’s both. Either way he’s frowning and a bit restless again, sighing, shifting this way and that until he’s mostly out of Erik’s lap, clearly trying to focus on the movie again.  
  
"Ah," Erik nods. "You would be correct. I am protecting most of the manor from the elements." There are some things he's left alone, like the shrubs and garden, since they tend to benefit from the rain, but all-in-all Erik looks after everything, not just Charles. All of the tiny molecules and objects that exist here are under his protection, too, as silly as that sounds. With a bit of distance, though, it's clear to see that Erik is exhausted, no matter the fact that Charles has helped him sleep, it hasn't been restful. Not really. "You once told me that this was one of your favorites," he adds, soft.  
  
Charles hasn’t rested, either, and even in his sleep he was concerned with Erik’s sleep. It was better than all the strange not-dreams that seem intent on haunting him, every out of reach thought, every viscerally terrifying reminder that this is his life but he does not know it. He’s become restless and agitated in Erik’s arms again, like he’s forgotten again how not to be, shifting until he and Erik are barely touching. It isn’t pleasant, but it’s all he can do. “What is?” he grunts, mostly reluctant but entirely unwilling not to be curious. It’s always won out; over annoyance, over sleep, over better judgment.  
  
"This," Erik gestures to the screen. "The movie." He settles his hand over Charles's. "Tell me why you are so unsettled." There isn't anything optional about the request, or rather, demand.  
  
Charles continues to look at the screen instead of Erik. “I don’t know. I’m frustrated, but I don’t want to talk about it,” it’s said quickly, as calmly as he can manage, and he reaches out to pause the movie. It’s only the beginning of it. “I don’t remember this film at all,” he whispers, mostly to himself, and stands from the couch. From Erik’s lap. He looks a bit lost, a bit out of place, standing like that, and he feels it too. It’s much colder without Erik holding him, without his chest against his back, and he wraps his arms around himself.  
  
Erik rises, too, and puts his hand on Charles's shoulder, a familiar weight at his back. Even with Charles's abilities, Erik is not an easy person to read. He's perfectly calm, the same as always. "Frustrated about what?"  
  
If Charles had all of his abilities, it would be far easier, but he doesn’t. Or at least he doesn’t know it. That’s frustrating, too, because he knows it; Erik has made that clear enough, that he’s relied on it. Charles hates himself for shrugging off Erik’s hand, for wrapping himself up tighter. “I’m just frustrated,” he says, quietly, and he feels the lump in his throat. Impossible to swallow around. “I think I’d like to finish the movie some other time. I’m going upstairs, if that’s alright.” It’s not phrased as a question because it isn’t meant as one.  
  
"We don't need to watch anything else," Erik says. "And it is fine if you are frustrated, but I would like to know why. Tell me, please." Once again, it's phrased politely, but it is a Command, not a request. He doesn't do anything else with his hands other than fold them behind his back formally.  
  
Charles grits his teeth together, grinds them almost hard enough to be audible, and fully turns his body away to hide his face, his expression, running a hand through his own hair. “I don’t know,” he repeats, and hates more than anything that his voice is shaking. “I don’t know. Right now, you pushing is frustrating me. Standing here is frustrating me. I said I’d like to go upstairs, so I’m going to.” And for just a moment, Charles looks over his shoulder, as if watching for a reaction.  
  
"I am capable of hearing," Erik murmurs, dry and flat at the same time. "And I did not excuse you from this conversation, so you will not be going anywhere until I am satisfied." It's an Order, delivered with the same startling zap as earlier, and the one after it only builds the electricity in the air. "Tell me why these things are frustrating you now."  
  
“I told you I don’t know!” Charles snaps, but he sucks in a breath, and his shoulders hunch a bit. They’re less tense. He holds himself even tighter. “I don’t have an answer. And you don’t have to excuse me, thank you much. I can go wherever I please. I can do whatever I please,” he breathes, and even he hears how his own voice hitches. He’s not quite brave enough to meet Erik’s gaze, still turned, but his chin is lifted. “Is that clear? Did you hear that part?”  
  
"You will cease raising your voice at me, and you will turn around and look at me when you talk to me, now. I trust I do not need to repeat myself for my Will to become clear to you." And Charles is given absolutely no room to maneuver himself out of those Commands, either. "It sounds like you aren't particularly happy doing whatever you please. And I asked you what it is you would expect me to do about it, but you failed to provide me with an answer. You will do so, now."  
  
Charles turns around, but he makes quite a show of rolling his eyes as he does, of crossing his arms over his chest, uncomfortably shifting on his feet. One leg is still noticeably worse than the other, and he knows it looks silly. It feels it. “I did give you an answer. I said do something. You didn’t, you’re not going to, I am perfectly happy, and I’m going upstairs. Excuse me.”  
  
"You are not excused, and I trust you will know when you are, so you will cease this line of inquiry at once. You will cease trying to provoke me and goad me into whatever response you are hoping for and talk to me like I am telling you to. Do what, exactly? What is it you would like me to do?"  
  
“I wasn’t asking you, thanks,” Charles says, but it comes out a mumble, as if he’s appropriately cowed. He scowls at the floor, arms still firmly crossed over his chest. “I don’t know. I don’t have an answer. I don’t want to talk about this, there’s no reason to talk about this. Just drop it. Now,” he says, and it comes out breathless again, his breath hitching like he knows he’s done something reckless. Dangerous, even, though he doesn’t feel scared.  
  
"And I was not soliciting your opinion on the matter," Erik rumbles back lowly, darkly. "What is it you think I should reasonably do when you think you can walk around Ordering me and talking back to me and being sarcastic with me and throwing things all over the place and generally having a pure temper tantrum because I am attempting to exercise a modicum of responsibility in this scenario? What do you think the right answer is? Shall I flog you? Send you to your room without supper? A time-out corner? Because you are right, there is a disconnect if we wish to develop a Dynamic of my failing to enforce it in a satisfying way, but that doesn't mean I can treat you the way I've always treated you. So start talking." Erik practically jabs his finger into Charles's chest, his features pulled down into a real glower.  
  
Charles swallows visibly, then again, staring determined at the floor. His brow is furrowed, noticeable even with his hair in front of his face. He’s gripping tight to his own arm. “I don’t know,” he insists, hoarse. “Why do you think I have the answer? That I know anything? I don’t. And I told you I didn’t want to talk about this, and I don’t, and it’s perfectly fine, so please drop it and let me go upstairs to cool off so we can have dinner later like nothing happened.” It’s quiet again, but laced with all of that frustration that he desperately needs to cool off from.  
  
Erik lets out a slow, long, deep breath, closing his eyes and tipping his head up toward the ceiling. He doesn't do anything more, except this time when he touches Charles it's gentle, careful, both hands spread out over his chest. "And I said that isn't happening. It is not up to me to make a unilateral decision on every aspect of our Dynamic. That is why we talk about things. You lack absolutely zero context for any of it and I don't feel comfortable acting like nothing has changed between us. I don't feel comfortable punishing you for transgressions. I don't believe you are prepared for something like that, I don't think you trust me enough, I think it will warp the trust that has begun to build. It took me a very long time to believe and see the benefit that it had, and I don't believe those conditions exist right now. And I don't appreciate being lashed out at for that. So it won't be dropped, and we will be discussing it, and that is final."  
  
And Charles immediately steps back and away from the touch, his teeth grit together, his eyes on the floor. “There’s nothing to discuss, and I’m not lashing out,” he whispers, mostly to control the volume of his own voice. He’s tense as anything. “There’s nothing to discuss. You just said what’s happening, and made a unilateral decision, and I didn’t say anything about it. You pushed. You prodded. Not me. I asked to go upstairs to cool down, and you said no, and now we’re here. I’m done talking. I have nothing left to say and you’ve already told me what’s happening, so what do you want me to do? Argue with you?” Charles rolls his eyes again. “Fine. I don’t care. Can we be done now? Is this done?” He gestures between them, frustrated and impatient and agitated.  
  
"You are not the only person in this Dynamic who has boundaries. If you cannot be bothered to even tell me how you feel about it, you can rest assured such a thing will gain zero consideration from me."  
  
Charles breathes out harshly through his nose. “I told you I don’t know,” he repeats, and feels as if it’s all he ever says. I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s so thoroughly frustrating he’s turning red from it. “I never said anything negative about it. I never said to get over your boundaries, or to - I didn’t say any of that. I didn’t say anything, actually. I said I wanted to cool off so I didn’t react. You’re the one who acted as if the whole thing was ridiculous, as if I’m some silly child that couldn’t possibly understand, all this mocking as if -“ He clamps his mouth shut. “I’m not going to tell you how I feel when I don’t know, and when it doesn’t matter anyway because it’s clear enough how you feel. It’s fine. I don’t care. What do you want from me? It obviously won’t matter what I say, and I don’t know what that is anyway. What’s there to consider? Let’s just keep playing this game.”  
  
Something in Erik seems to snap at that and he just stands there motionlessly, silently. "I asked you to talk to me, to give me an answer, to explain your thoughts and feelings instead of constantly lashing out at me in frustration, and not only have you failed to do so, you have now decided to start accusing me of not caring about you once again. Very well. This discussion is terminated. Dinner is in twenty minutes. Do not be late." As if he has a choice. He doesn't.

* * *

“I didn’t -“ But Charles just closes his mouth, purses his lips. Turns on his heel. It’s mostly to hide the growing frustration, the growing upset, everything in the room abruptly throwing itself every which way. But Erik doesn’t see him anymore. He’s disappeared, the only trace of him the mess he’s left behind and the sound of a slamming door upstairs that definitely shouldn’t be audible from a flight down in a house this humongous, but somehow is. Because Charles wants it to be. The house shakes with it.  
  
It doesn't garner a response. Erik moves to the kitchen to start dinner, pulling out ingredients and utensils and manipulating them with precision. It doesn't take very long for two plates to fill up with curry rice and vegetables, and then he ends up wandering until he lands back in the study. There's an old piano with the cover down that he finds himself in front of, plinking at notes with both of his hands.  
  
Charles is completely off the radar for twenty minutes, outside of Erik’s every perception though it’s obvious he’s somewhere in the house (the forces that be, Universal in particular, seem unwilling to allow anything else at the moment), and when he does pop up in the kitchen it’s only because he seems compelled to. He isn’t hungry anymore, despite being rather ravenous on the couch; in fact, he feels sick to his stomach, and he’s limping more, holding actual pain in his body. The stairs haven’t been kind to him, creaky and steep and unwilling to change. Either way he doesn’t look for Erik, opening the fridge and completely ignoring the food Erik actually prepared, but when he does he doesn’t do anything but sulk at its contents, nose scrunched.  
  
Erik practices at the piano for a while; he can actually play very well, which is not very shocking at all. The fridge door closes of its own accord. Erik towers over him, pressing the plate into Charles's hands. "Sit and eat," he murmurs. Erik doesn't bother requesting it.  
  
Charles doesn’t even bother arguing, grabbing the plate and absolutely refusing to look Erik in the eyes. He sits, and he eats, picking, scraping the fork around the plate between small bites that take an extraordinarily long time to chew, silent.  
  
Erik sits, too, hands curled over a mug of coffee. He doesn't encourage Charles to hurry up, but he clearly expects him to finish it all, however long that takes.  
  
It’s apparently going to take a very long time. He also wasn’t Ordered to do it, and he doesn’t really appreciate being watched like this, so he lifts his head, still avoiding eye contact, to scowl. “Could you at least eat, too?” he mumbles, and tries not to show how concerned he is. Tries not to let it show how bothered he is. How horribly he dislikes this. “Eat, too,” he demands, and gets up without asking to rummage through the fridge again like he’s searching for something.  
  
Erik stands up, too, but only to put his hand on Charles's shoulder and silently guide him to sit down. Erik doesn't like it, either. He's bothered, too. He just conceals it better. "OK," he whispers back quietly. He lifts the covered plate he'd made for himself and brings it over, idly picking at it as best as he can.  
  
It frustrates Charles, who shrugs off the hand and scowls even further, but doesn’t say anything. Until he notices how poorly Erik is eating, and then it’s to sigh. Not impatient or frustrated in this, just heavy, like he’s exhaling some of that. “If I need to finish, so do you,” he states, and it would probably be playful if he felt like he could manage it, still pushing rice around his own plate.  
  
Even at his worst Erik still reflexively eats, but recently he's become more withdrawn and less likely to, and given his history it hasn't taken long for it to become noticeable. "I will," he promises solemnly. "As will you."  
  
Charles shrugs, noncommittal, because he might not remember his eating problems, of which are many and of a very different kind than Erik’s, who has always eaten and truly bulked up magnificently, the change astonishing, but Charles’ body is the same. It’s not hard to turn his stomach, and he’s never been capable of eating while upset. It didn’t take long to remember that. He goes quiet again, until he gets up, for a third time, to open the fridge again and stare inside of it. His brows are pulled together, and he wanders back on his own this time, scowling down at his plate like it’s offended him. “I’ll take this upstairs,” he says, which is a tactic Charles has always used, to varying degrees of success. There’s a reason he did working lunches, why he sometimes (often) dodged them with Raven or Hank or Warren. He doesn’t know that, or remember that, but his body does. He knows he’s uncomfortable being stared at while he eats, pressured unnecessarily, and uncomfortable and bothered in general.  
  
"Sit, and eat," Erik Orders sternly, rising from his chair instead. "All of it. Come and see me in the living area when you are finished."  
  
“No,” Charles says, immediately, and it’s firm, his lips pressed together tightly. “Because you won’t finish that. If I have to sit here and eat this like a child who needs to be watched, so do you. You sit down,” and it sounds very much like he’d like to make it an Order, except of course it can’t be.  
  
Erik gazes at him, eyebrows raised. "Of course I will finish it." It's not really a lie, because Erik obviously believes this to be true, but it's also not the truth in a way that Erik doesn't really grasp. "I do not think you need to be watched. It is why I was leaving."  
  
“Well, don’t,” he huffs back, and shoves around some rice with his fork for good measure. “Sit, and eat.” As far as Charles is concerned, he is going to finish it. “I won’t be able to finish this,” he mumbles, tacked onto the end, his head ducked.  
  
"Finish as much as you can," Erik just says, simple.  
  
Charles sighs at that, and goes back to picking, scraping, and occasionally actually eating a bite or two. It doesn’t taste like anything and he doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t particularly care, either, too focused on not looking at Erik under any circumstances.  
  
Well Erik is definitely taking advantage of that. It's pretty obvious it's not intentional by how hard he's spacing out, chin resting on his fingertips, eyes gazing through the wall at nothing at all. He seems to remember he's a person every once in a while and does the same.  
  
Charles notices. He doesn’t know what to do about it, because he’s not a whole lot better, truth be told, but he notices. “You’re not eating,” he points out, after a while, because Erik has been staring at the same spot and Charles has been procrastinating on a bite for the last five minutes and he feels as if he’s slowly but surely going mad in the silence. “And I’m done. So you have to finish, too.” Erik might actually have eaten more than him, but Charles needs less anyway, so it all evens out, right?  
  
"No, thank you. That's enough for right now," Erik finally croaks, and moves to collect their plates, animating like a statue returning to life.  
  
Charles grabs them instead. At least it gets him out of eating, and Erik’s plate is really in better shape than his is, so he can’t say much. They ate a reasonable amount of calories; Charles does the math on it, even, uncertain why it comes so easily. Washing the dishes also has the added bonus of having his back turned, and giving him something to do with his hands.  
  
"Come out here," he says instead, placing his hand over Charles's and lowering it into the sink for the plates to be dealt with later. He leads Charles into the living area instead where everything still lies in a splintered wreck from where Charles heaved it everywhere.  
  
It’s difficult for Charles to look at, so he doesn’t, staring at his feet instead. His hands are wet from the sink, and he wipes them over and over on his pants even well after they’re dry, fidgeting and silent.  
  
"Look." It's not optional. "You did it. You can look at it."  
  
Charles huffs out a breath, but looks, his entire face crumpled with it. It looks a bit like the storm hit inside. “I looked,” he mutters, but the tone’s lessened a bit by the fact that he looks as if he might cry. “What’s the point of this?”  
  
"This isn't going to fix itself. And I am not going to follow you around cleaning up after you. So you will pick up every last item that is out of place and return this room to the state it was in prior to your interference." Erik's Orders are soft, not angry, but firm as an iron wall.  
  
That’s a daunting task. Charles swallows on it. “Why?” he demands.  
  
"Because I said so." There is practical force behind the statement, a reflex of Will that vibrates wildly through the area. "Because your actions have consequences even if it is merely to return the status quo. We can discuss alternatives at a later time. For now you will start here."  
  
“You’re not worried about ruining my fragile, weak trust in you? You reckon I can handle this, then? I thought -“ It comes out before he can stop it, and immediately Charles bites hard on his tongue, his head bowed. Maybe he’s more bothered than even he thought.  
  
"Get started," Erik murmurs, interrupting him entirely, his voice taking on an ethereal, otherworldly snap like a deep freeze suddenly engulfing the place.

* * *

And Charles scrambles, scatters, a bit like a shot pool ball, fluttering with it and not in a particularly pleasant way as he sets about his task. It looks overwhelming, and to be honest it is, nearly everything off some kind of shelf, and he silently curses whoever else lived here for collecting and accumulating so many things.  
  
Erik stands there, watching him, offering absolutely no assistance other than literally stepping out of the way so that Charles can get at something obstructed by his foot. He doesn't make it harder and doesn't comment on anything, but it is evident that there is no room for Charles to sulk around doing a half-assed job.  
  
It absolutely does make it worse. Charles flushes with shame, and to be fair, he doesn’t slack until somewhere in the middle, when well after a half hour has already passed. Then he starts to mumble under his breath while he sorts through toppled CDs, never loud enough for Erik to actually hear.  
  
He receives a hard jolt to his shoulder, from nothing that he can discern, the sensation appearing out of nowhere but very evidently emanating from Erik. It's not exactly pain but it does grab all of Charles's attention. "If you have something to say, speak properly. This is not acceptable, nor does it resemble the area prior. Fix it correctly."  
  
It does get Charles’ attention, but he does everything to hide a reaction. “I’m sorry, how would you like it?” he shoots right back, and it’s far too breathless to be as sarcastic as he wanted, but it certainly isn’t sincere, either, just the wrong side of bratty. “Alphabetized? By artist? Album title? Color coded?” He throws one haphazardly into a pile he’s made.  
  
It tosses itself right back into Charles's hand, and all the rest that are in the pile destabilize and fall back to his feet. "Fix. it. correctly." It's almost ominous, even when Erik doesn't raise his voice every word is like a hammer to a nail, spikes of Will driven into Charles's nervous system at warp speed.  
  
Charles sucks a harsh breath in, through his mouth and out through his nose, his heart pounding in his ears and stuttering around in his chest. He gets back to work quickly after that, and ends up arranging everything exactly as it was in the first place, surprised to find he knows how. That he remembered just from glances. The next time he pauses it’s with a CD in his hand, and it’s clearly not defiance or laziness that has him turning it over, staring at it. He goes to put it back in its spot, then jerks it back at the last second, flipping it over again. Staring.  
  
Erik watches him, but doesn't interrupt. He crouches a little stiffly, tapping a finger over the plastic cover. "What is it?"  
  
The cover is blank, the case holding a CD but no way to tell what it actually is. “Nothing,” he mumbles, uncertain if it’s a lie, still staring.  
  
"No, you will tell me what it is, and what is going on. The truth. Now." Erik's features are completely shuttered closed, it's almost impossible to determine what he's thinking or feeling, but the Orders are plain as day.  
  
Charles’ shoulders hunch in again, and he bites down hard on his lip. “I’ve seen it before, I know it, sort of,” he whispers, grateful he has something to stare at that isn’t Erik. “Sometimes I look at things, and - but I don’t remember what it is, or why. It’s just that I know it. See? Nothing,” and he tries to make it dismissive, maybe even talking back, but he’s too bothered for that. Too wistful.  
  
Erik lifts it from Charles's hands and opens the case, looking down at its contents. "We'll take a look at it," he promises. "After you finish here."  
  
“No,” Charles immediately snaps, and he’s not sure what inspires the reaction at all. He just knows he has it, and it’s vicious. The CD seems to disappear right out of Erik’s hands, and Charles is scowling at the pile of unsorted ones, stiff as a board. His teeth are clenched. “Learn to leave well enough alone,” he suggests, and it feels like something he’s said before, like a repeat performance, tears pricking at the back of his eyes as he tries to force whatever this is back down where it came from.  
  
"Finish doing what you were told to do," Erik growls harshly in response, every iota of softness drained out of him. "And if you ever want to leave this room again I suggest you learn how to address me properly." The second Charles goes to respond Erik holds up his hand. "I didn't say I wanted a response from you. Finish your task. Now."  
  
In all reality, in every discipline session he’s been through, which he obviously doesn’t remember, it’s Erik’s disappointment, his scolding that gets under Charles’ skin the most when it comes down to it. The punishment itself never helps, of course. But even without context Charles’ body, his soul, whatever it is, it knows to respond to Erik, and right now it’s with a pit so firmly in his stomach he never thinks he’ll get it out, and hot, insistent tears threatening to spill down his cheeks as he takes shaky breaths and does what he’s told, this time not pausing even though there is plenty left to straighten and clean.  
  
It doesn't really seem to matter to Erik at all. He doesn't back down and he doesn't give in even when Charles's eyes start watering, he just stands there as firm and unrelenting as a statue. He says nothing, but he doesn't have to. His expectations are more-than obvious. He doesn't allow Charles to slip up for a second, always there to readjust and make him start over when he gets it wrong.  
  
It takes easily over an hour to put everything back exactly where it was, and by then Charles is thoroughly worked up, not that he wasn’t before. It’s for a different reason now, or perhaps the exact same reason but in a different way; his eyes are burning and his throat is, too, with the effort of not crying, but every time he swallows he feels it building itself back up, feels the lump there, the twisting around his stomach is doing. When he puts the last object back on the shelf, straightening it, he just stands there, unwilling to look anywhere near Erik and almost certain he couldn’t speak even if he wanted to.  
  
Erik doesn't have anything at all to say to him, but he doesn't leave, either, he just stands there for a while until he remembers something else. "That CD you disappeared. Return it and put it back as well." The Order is unwavering.  
  
Charles blinks, staring down at his feet. “I don’t know how,” he admits, quiet and ashamed. He’s fairly sure he might be sick, for how dizzy and abruptly miserable it makes him, how hard it is to breathe, the panic in his chest, the same as the first time Erik Ordered something he couldn’t manage.  
  
Honestly Erik is at his wit's end and it's extremely obvious, moreso than usual, so rather than back off or comfort Charles he just repeats an amendment of his original Order in the same even tone. "Then try."  
  
Charles swallows, and then he closes his eyes and tries. The few times he feels like he’s had anything to do with his abilities, it was thinking about the outcome he wanted that worked, so he does; he thinks of the CD, of the shape and size of it, he tries to negate whatever impulse it was that made it vanish in the first place. But it doesn’t pop up. It isn’t on the shelf. Tears fall down his cheeks, finally, hot, humiliated, and Charles just stands there, his eyes closed, trying. Nothing is happening and they both know it. He can’t get his mouth to make words.  
  
Erik shrugs and waves his hand. "Disregard that, then." He doesn't feel like standing there anymore so he goes to sit down at the piano again, stretching his fingers over it.  
  
Charles continues to stand there. He continues to stand there, a bit like he’s turned into a statue, his eyes closed, his whole body tensed, and he’s not sure if he can move. Either way he doesn’t.  
  
Erik taps out a few opening notes of a solemn melody, silently encouraging-read-Ordering Charles to come and sit beside him.  
  
It feels like every movement is stiff, like it’s outside of his own body, and he nearly trips on the way there, his ankle screeching out in protest, but he sits. Folds his hands in his lap and stares at them, putting as much distance between him and Erik on the bench as he can, his head deeply bowed.  
  
Erik catches him before he can do any damage, setting him upright. It's not even conscious; it doesn't matter how aggravated he is, he can't let Charles come to any harm.  
  
He made it, anyway. It’s just that everything is bothering him more, his ankle included, but the horrible churning in his stomach is the worst, and he can’t speak around the lump in his throat again, so he just sits there and waits, silent and still, his head practically ducked into his lap.  
  
Erik doesn't say anything. There's nothing to wait for. If Charles doesn't want to speak properly, Erik isn't going to fight with him about it. If he doesn't want to work with Erik then he can sit there forever as far as Erik is concerned.  
  
It feels like a decidedly cruel tactic to Charles, who doesn’t feel as if he isn’t working so much as he can’t speak. It takes a horribly long amount of time for him to convince himself he’s not going to cry, something he’s done an awful lot too much of, but the tears come anyway, thick and frustrating and just as humiliating. “For someone who -” But it doesn’t come out. It gets stuck right at the back of his throat, perhaps where it belongs, and he lets it die. “I’d like to go upstairs now. I’m tired,” he says, barely loud enough to even constitute a whisper, and the only reason he does is because he knows with near certainty that if he stood, Erik would only summon him back. He doesn’t want to go to bed like this, and he’s perfectly aware that he won’t sleep. But it seems a better alternative to this.  
  
Erik doesn't respond for a long moment. If Charles had all of his abilities he might be aware of Erik's internal machinations, but it's easy to interpret his stony silence as anger and cruelty. He's never been an easy person to get along with and it's extremely exacerbated by lacking insight into his mind. There's a reason Charles was the first person who ever even liked him to begin with. "You had something to say. So say it." The Order is quiet as ever.  
  
It’s not that Charles thinks Erik is cruel. He’s perfectly aware he isn’t. But there’s something about this that makes him feel exceptionally small, and he sniffs, shaking his head. “For someone who claimed he didn’t want to punish me without proper discussion and a foundation of trust, this feels extraordinarily like a cruel and unusual punishment,” Charles whispers, because he can’t not. Because Erik Ordered it. “I hate when you -” That dies, too, but Charles knows he’ll just get it probed right out of him, so he takes a harsh breath in and forces it out while it’s still on his own terms, as much as it can be. “When you ignore me. When you’re cold like this, without even - if it was your intention to make me feel wretched, you’ve succeeded. Can I please go upstairs now?” he asks, voice shaking.  
  
Erik turns and looks at him. "I am not punishing you any longer. I am waiting for you to indicate that you are interested in speaking with me, as my previous attempts to engage you were met with nothing but hostility. It is never my intention to make you feel wretched."  
  
“You are, and you did,” Charles whispers, though he knows there’s something very petty about it. It’s mostly hurt, all of those bunched up feelings, his head still ducked all the way down. “You could have said that, instead of just...” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he amends, though he’s clearly hurt by it.  
  
"You clearly don't know what any of my intentions are, so I recommend you cease trying to ascribe them to me. I have been sitting here for all of two minutes. I did say it, when you asked. I've tried repeatedly to reach you, to have a discussion, and you refuse, you insult me, you lash out at me. So if you want to talk to me, then talk to me."  
  
“I didn’t insult you,” he argues, but there’s no heat to it, and he sniffs right after. “I’ve tried to have a discussion. I told you I wanted to cool off, and let it go, and you wouldn’t let me. I don’t know what you want from me,” he whispers into his lap. “You say I can’t tell what you intend, but you don’t know what I do, either, and you keep assuming. It’s not fair. And I just - I didn’t know...” He breaks off, and shakes his head again. “It does make me feel awful. When you just don’t talk to me. When you ignore me. You could tell me first, you could...” Charles trails off again, getting quieter and quieter. “How am I supposed to know what’s happening? I can’t read your mind, Erik. I can’t.”  
  
"You can ask me. Just as I have been trying to ask you. I told you what I wanted. I wanted to know what the issue was and have a discussion about it, and try to come to a mutual decision that both of us are satisfied with, but you are not interested in doing that."  
  
“No, I can’t. Not when you’re like this,” Charles whispers, and there are tears on his cheeks that he refuses to acknowledge. He hates admitting it, but Erik apparently wants honesty. “And it’s because you’ve already made it clear how you feel,” Charles mumbles into his lap. “And I don’t know why I feel the way I do. I just don’t know. You said you were upset that I felt that way, that you didn’t like that I felt that way, so what am I supposed to do? What’s the point? You made me feel silly for it, or ridiculous. Like I was violating your boundaries just because I felt something.” It’s another admission, and his shoulders hunch even further. “If you’ve already mocked it, why would I even want to discuss it?”  
  
"I explained my reasons to you. The fact that _you felt_ silly does not mean that I was mocking you. Rather than take me seriously, you become sarcastic and bitter instead. Rather than even consider telling me how you felt you insisted on storming off. Why would I want to keep pushing you if you are only going to insist that I don't know my place, because apparently you can do whatever you want."  
  
“Well that’s what it feels like,” Charles mutters, and he shakes his head again, shaking slightly where he’s bent all the way over. “It does matter that you made me feel silly, because you did take that tone. You did. It’s not fair that you get to talk to me like I’m - it’s not fair,” he repeats, quietly. “I don’t know much. You’re right. But I am not stupid, and I can’t help what I feel. But you’ve made your boundaries clear, so why would I tell you what’s obviously inconvenient for you? I didn’t want to storm off. I wanted to cool off, exactly like I said. To come back when I felt less frustrated. But you wouldn’t let me, and you acted like that bothered you, too, so what was I expected to do? I told you I didn’t know exactly what I was feeling, and you took that as me refusing, so what do you want from me? What, Erik?” He’s snapping again, but there are clearly tears on his cheeks, in his voice.  
  
"I didn't say that I didn't like that you felt that way, and neither did I say your feelings don't matter. I said I did not appreciate you lashing out at me when I try to engage you. And you are acting as though you calmly and rationally told me that you needed some time for yourself, when that is patently untrue. I have boundaries for a reason. I was perfectly willing to discuss the situation, but you are not."  
  
“I did, the first time I asked, but you refused because apparently the only time it matters is when you need it,” Charles snaps right back, absolutely hating how he’s starting to cry, how it’s obvious in his voice. “You back me against a wall and then get upset when I react to it. I don’t want to talk about it. You have boundaries. Fine. It doesn’t matter, what is there to discuss? What do you think it’s going to do? Do you want me to respect your boundaries or not?”  
  
"You are the one who asked me to speak to you, so I am speaking. It matters to me, obviously. If you are unhappy and unsatisfied with the way our Dynamic is progressing I am willing to adjust things. Why else would I bother backing you against a wall in the first place."  
  
“Why would I want to admit that it isn’t when you clearly don’t feel comfortable doing anything else,” Charles mumbles, and it’s clear he’s felt ashamed about it. Erik is his only context now. He’s learning from those reactions, trying to decide how he’s meant to feel.  
  
"Because I asked you to tell me, because it is important. If it weren't important, I wouldn't have asked. It does not seem like you take any of my objections seriously. That does not make me inclined to explore alternatives, but I tried anyway, and you continued to shut me down."  
  
Charles nearly looks up, vibrating with it. “Where did you get that impression? I obviously take them seriously. It’s why I don’t want to talk about it, but I can’t help what I feel,” he whispers. “And you’ve done nothing but make me feel awful about it. Like it’s wrong.” And there is that shame again. “I didn’t shut you down. I tried to shut myself down, because you made me feel like I should,” he admits, small again.  
  
"I got that impression from the amount of sarcasm and mocking you have continued to employ since I raised them. I have always encouraged you to be open with me. I do not need you to help what you feel. There is nothing wrong with it. This has nothing to do with your _feelings_. It has to do with your _behavior_."  
  
“You mocked me first,” Charles mumbles, but he can’t argue too much. He knows. “I just - I don’t know what it is, I don’t know why it feels like I need - why you not doing anything about...” He’s all twisted up, his brow furrowed, sniffling again. “I don’t know why it makes me so upset. But it does. It frustrates me. A lot.” And he doesn’t think he can change that. He’s red with the shame of it.  
  
"No. I didn't. And I understand that. You claim that you are capable of consenting to our Dynamic but you won't acknowledge my concerns. That makes me extremely hesitant to alter our course to include something as significant and potentially damaging as punishment when it is clear you don't even trust me enough to talk to me about your feelings on the matter."  
  
Charles takes a deep, sharp breath. “I acknowledged them,” he grits out, and tries very hard to keep his voice even. “That’s why I didn’t want to talk about my feelings, so you wouldn’t feel...” He shrugs, another breath. “You’re still assuming why I do things, why I feel what I feel. I understand why you’re concerned. I told you it’s fine. But it doesn’t mean I don’t feel -“ He lets himself cut off again, still ashamed. “They’re not mutually exclusive, so I would appreciate it if you would stop saying that I don’t acknowledge it. It’s not fair to me. It’s actually very hurtful.”  
  
"You can barely get through a single conversation without raising your voice at me. Do you really think I am being so irrational exercising caution? You saying it's fine and refusing to discuss anything with me does not mean acknowledgment."  
  
“When you push me,” Charles whispers, but he knows it isn’t exactly an excuse. “You can’t get through one without shutting down, without becoming distant and cold, so I’m not sure how fair that is. And I have acknowledged it, as I said, multiple times. I didn’t want to push you with how I felt. Should I apologize for trying to be considerate? For being concerned? I didn’t say I was unwilling. I said I wanted to cool down, because I was frustrated and I couldn’t help that.”  
  
"I am supposed to be your Dominant," Erik bursts out, his voice echoing through the room. "You can't handle it when I _push you_! then how are you going to handle it if I _punish_ you. How are you going to handle it if I cane you, or if I deprive you of sensation? I didn't ask you for consideration. I asked you to be honest with me and once more you refused. If I believed that you truly understood the nature of my reticence we would be having a different conversation. If you think everything I do is wrong and inhuman and uncaring-" Erik throws his hands up and shuts that line of thinking down, once more wiping his expression.  
  
Charles goes very quiet and very still, hunched in on himself. “I don’t think that,” he whispers, finally, after what seems like a very long time. “I don’t think that at all. Please don’t say that.”  
  
Erik shrugs half-heartedly and swallows. He's not exactly open now, but he's weary, and hurt, and triggered and it's not completely hidden any longer.  
  
Charles is in a similar place, but he takes another deep, slower breath, and scoots closer on the bench. Not touching, but very close. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he whispers. “I was trying to do the opposite. I’m sorry. I was frustrated, I couldn’t... I wasn’t trying to be difficult, at first. I didn’t know how to talk about it, especially when you seemed sure and I still felt so - I still don’t. It isn’t because I’m unwilling. It isn’t because I didn’t acknowledge how you felt.”  
  
"You are recovering from total retrograde amnesia and I have a history of violence and abuse. I don't want to make the wrong choice. I am not sure about anything. I want your opinion. Your insight. I want to know how you feel and what you think. I was just trying to share my perspective, so there was a place to work from."  
  
It makes sense, but Charles was frightened, too. He isn’t entirely sure of anything, as it is, ever. He scoots even closer, and works on breathing. “I don’t think it can work without some sort of... I am always going to be frustrated, and I don’t know how to fix that. But I can just - I’m not sure,” he admits, still looking down at his own lap, even now when their legs and sides are touching. “I don’t know how I should feel, either. It frightens me every time I do feel something. I’m not sure if it’s normal. I’m not sure if it’s right, if it’s what I should feel.”  
  
"There is no wrong answer. You should feel the way you feel. And I don't need you to resist telling me about it because you believe it will spare me somehow." Erik nudges his leg gently with his own, not moving away from the contact. "You don't think what will work, without what, precisely?"  
  
Charles isn’t sure what it means that part of him wants to climb right into Erik’s lap, that he’s trembling with it, but he resists the urge the best he can, wringing his hands in his lap. “Our... Dynamic,” he breathes, like he’s trying it out on his tongue. “Without consequences, without - it makes me feel frustrated, and confused, and lost. I don’t like it. I - am I not supposed to...” But Erik said it was alright to feel what he feels, so he trails off.  
  
"Supposed to do what?" Erik prompts. He settles his hand over Charles's, stilling it within his own much larger one. "I don't like it much either. But I don't know how you even feel about me. I don't want to introduce that kind of intensity into the way we relate unless you trust me."  
  
It’s calming. Charles lets out another breath, wrapping his fingers around Erik’s, shifting closer even though there isn’t a whole lot closer to go, without actually climbing onto Erik’s lap. “Feel that way,” he answers, biting his lip. “You don’t like it, either?” he asks, instead of the many other things he could, staring down at the piano keys.  
  
"No," he confirms with a murmur. "You can feel whatever way you please," Erik assures him softly. "What matters to me is how you behave. There are no right and wrong feelings."  
  
“It doesn’t have much to do with what I please,” Charles huffs, because most of the time he doesn’t know why he feels a certain way. He’d much sooner feel none of it, but it isn’t an option. “Why don’t you like it?” he asks, quietly.  
  
"Because outside of forcing you to do what I want, there is no way to enforce my Commands." Erik shrugs. He's not stupid, either.  
  
Charles’ lips twitch, just a little. “And you don’t like that?” he prods, still quiet.  
  
"Not particularly," Erik murmurs, with more warmth than previously. "I have to fight my urges all the time. I feel stupid and fake. It's not pleasant."  
  
Perhaps he’s pushing his luck here, but Erik is being open. He’s admitting something, and Charles responds immediately to it, leaned much more fully into his side. It calms him, too. Brilliantly. “Stupid and fake?” he repeats, softly. “Why?”  
  
Erik shakes his head. "I don't know. I'm supposed to be your Dominant, but there is no way to make my Commands meaningful to you." He shrugs again. It doesn't help that Charles constantly goads him about it, either. "But none of that is important."  
  
“I need you to stop doing that.” Charles says it quietly, softly, but this is his version of firm, and not in a goading way. Not in a bossy way, either, or a defiant, bristling way. It’s one of the first things Erik asked of him, either time, every time; to be honest about what he needs, to the best of his ability. “If this is going to work, not just now but ever, I need you to try and stop doing that. This. Please.”

* * *

Erik's head tilts down at Charles. Much like every other time that Charles has been honest with him, he seems far more receptive to it. "Stop doing what?"  
  
“You shut down, Erik,” Charles whispers, and he doesn’t need all the context to guess why. He never has, but there are intricacies here he doesn’t understand he knows it. Even still, he knows this, too. “You don’t tell me when you’re feeling or needing something, and then I don’t know. You don’t share, and it makes me - it makes me feel alone, sometimes. It makes me feel like I am constantly being pushed into honesty, into openness, and not getting the same back. It can’t work like that. You are - you are...” He takes a breath, ducks his head into his lap. “You are my Dominant, you’re supposed to be. But I am your submissive,” and if his voice gets caught and breathy, it’s just the way it is. “And I’m meant to, to provide for you too, aren’t I? To, well, you know.” Saying it seems like too much right now, but he hopes Erik sees where that was going. “I shut myself down because I wasn’t certain that, I wasn’t certain...” He takes a sharp breath, and decidedly does not look at Erik. “I trust you. I trust that you will do your absolute best to take care of me. I don’t know if I trust that you will take care of yourself. And I can’t help, I can’t do that, if you don’t talk to me. I don’t think you are some terrible person, Erik. I do think when you become cold, when you don’t properly explain these things to me, it...” It hurts him. A lot. He goes quiet.  
  
Nodding, Erik runs his fingertips through Charles's hair, holding him with one arm. "I don't know how," he admits quietly. "Not really. I didn't learn how. It was never important. I just had to survive. I didn't learn anything else. And you always knew, and I didn't have to learn. It wasn't just your abilities. It was your profession, too. You knew what was happening even when I didn't. I wasn't very open even in my mind, but it was probably more than this. You said when you lost your abilities once that it was... I wasn't the same person. Everybody thinks I am cold and unfeeling. I'm not trying to hurt you, or ignore you. I care about you, to the exclusion of everything else. None of this is easy for me. I am just trying to stay sane, so I can make sure that you are happy. I'm just trying to do things right. I am sorry I am not doing a good job."  
  
Charles shakes his head, and finally takes the leap and curls fully into Erik’s side, nudging until he can fit properly into his arm. Until he’s being held, and the difference that makes is incredible. “You’re very worried about me being happy, but have you considered that I’d like you to be happy, too? That it’s very necessary for this to work?” He smiles, even if it’s hidden. “It’s alright not to know. Would you like to try and learn? I promise to do a better job of communicating as well. I’m sorry that I’ve been misunderstanding you. We didn’t have the same start this time. I know it must be difficult.” For Erik, it’s not really a start at all. It’s an abrupt change. He can’t imagine what it must be like. “I do not think you are naturally cold, and I certainly don’t think you’re unfeeling, Erik. I know you care. I apologize if I ever implied otherwise. But to do this right, we both need to be honest with each other. When you shove all this down, all these thoughts and feelings, you leave me alone. Please don’t do that to me,” he pleads, quiet, affected.  
  
"Of course I would like to learn," Erik whispers back, tucking Charles into his side carefully. "This makes me happy," he adds, giving Charles a gentle squeeze. "It is not my intention to leave you alone. I don't know how to handle certain things. I am sorry."  
  
“It would seem I’m not always the best at handling these things, either,” Charles admits, sheepish, barely above a whisper again. “And I’m sorry for that, too. But it would mean a lot to me if we could work on those things together, yeah? And I suppose that starts with actually discussing things,” he murmurs, and bows his head again, though now it’s into the crook of Erik’s arm. “But we don’t have to do it now,” he adds, quickly, though he knows they probably do.  
  
"No," Erik agrees. "But we should. We will. The sooner we figure it out, the easier things will become."  
  
Charles sighs. “I don’t know if we can figure it all out in one go, or if we should,” he admits, thoughtfully, resting more naturally now, his voice just a bit muffled from where it’s buried in Erik’s arm. “Or if we need to. You seem so certain you need to make the right choice, immediately, but it doesn’t all fall on you, Erik. Shouldn’t we be - experimenting? Both of us? You said if something didn’t work, or if there was a need for it, we’d reevaluate.” He almost grins, and Erik doesn’t need to see his face to know it. “I believe it’s time to reevaluate. May I ask a question?”  
  
"It falls on me not to make the wrong choice. Not to harm you. That much I know." He's always believed that they should simply progress organically, but that hasn't seemed to work for Charles, either. The only alternative is making decisions. "And you are always free to do so," Erik replies, scritching his fingers through Charles's hair rhythmically.  
  
Charles blinks. “Excuse me?” he asks, and he sounds - offended. Hurt, almost, though he stamps it down, trying to dull the reaction. He forces himself not to pull away, either, not to bristle; he knows he can be sensitive, when he’s worked up about something, that he can be touchy. But he’s tenser for it, and he can’t quite help it.  
  
Erik blinks. "What is it?"  
  
“How do you suggest we progress organically, and why does that fall on me that we haven’t, if that’s how you feel?” Charles asks, and it’s clear he is a bit hurt. He also hasn’t realized it isn’t something Erik vocalized, but it isn’t the first time it’s happened. It seems as random as knocking books off the shelves, at this point. “I don’t think that’s fair. So because I wasn’t satisfied with something, it’s not a natural progression? If you recall, I did try to keep my mouth shut. You were the one who insisted I discuss it. What, exactly, would progressing organically entail? Is it just what you deem organic, what you feel should be, and because I don’t happen to be feeling that way it doesn’t work for me, so now you have to make a decision? What is the alternative, in this somehow more organic approach? Not discussing things, even when they clearly do not work?” He’s getting worked up again, his lips pursed, though he hasn’t moved away. “Is there a certain projection, a script we should be following? Forgive me for deviating, I don’t remember my lines.” Underneath the sharp tongue there’s growing insecurity, growing concern. It’s always been how it manifested, something Erik tried to coax him out of, but he doesn’t remember that either.  
  
Erik just sighs and waves his hand. "I haven't said anything to you about any of this, Charles. I have no idea what you are talking about, or why you are picking a fight with me once more. You told me that it isn't on me to make decisions, but that is false. It is on me. And when I make choices I do so with your input, which is why these discussions are necessary."  
  
Charles sighs, too. “I’m not picking a fight,” he insists, but he sounds resigned, weary, even, and bites on his cheek. “Why do you always think I’m picking a fight? Why, when I’m hurt or bothered by something, is it picking a fight? I don’t want to fight with you. But I am also rather sick of being treated like I’m some sort of problem, like I’m irrational and horrid, and you dismissing it. I just don’t want -“ He sits up, and shakes his head, running a hand through his own hair and sighing. “I know I’m a problem. I know I am actively making your life more difficult and complicated. I don’t need to be reminded of how difficult I am every second, especially when I have really tried. It is confusing and frustrating for me, too. I don’t always know how I’ll react, and when I do I spend so much time wondering why and if it was the correct reaction, if I should need or want something, that I’m just as thrown by the next one. It’s like fumbling around in the dark and occasionally stumbling into things. And sometimes those things flood bathrooms with blood. It’s terrifying, Erik.”  
  
"I am not treating you like a problem. I have not said anything to you at all even remotely approaching that. You wished to ask me a question and then you began once again raising your voice at me and devolving into sarcastic rants. You're saying I am treating you unfairly when I am merely sitting here. I don't have any response to the things you are saying other than that I know you are struggling and I am sorry for it."  
  
Charles buries his face in his own hands, and his entire frame is wracked with the heavy breath he takes. He wants to lean back into Erik. He doesn’t. “Alright,” he sighs, instead of anything he could say, because he’s just a bit too weary to argue it.  
  
Erik puts his hand over Charles's and tugs it down. "I don't believe you are horrid and I wasn't dismissing anything that you said. You didn't seem like you wanted to talk this through. I agree that some measure of experimentation is important, but leaving everything up in the air hasn't been beneficial to you, either. I initially thought that letting us build up to something like discipline would be the best option, but it obviously isn't. So the time has come for us to talk about it, instead."  
  
“I’m worried you’re going to resent me,” Charles says, as if out of nowhere. His eyes are closed. “I’m worried you already are. I’m deeply concerned that we had a perfectly functioning relationship and I am going to entirely ruin it without any knowledge of what it was like in the first place, except that it clearly made us both happy and I am now in the process of destroying it.” And there it is. There’s the bomb that Charles knew would eventually drop, and in the aftermath he’s shaking with it.  
  
"We had a very good relationship, but nothing is perfect, Charles. I am not learning anything new about you that I didn't know beforehand." He tugs Charles a bit closer and kisses his forehead. "Many of our issues would be resolved if I knew definitively that treating you the same way I did before wouldn't be overwhelming to you. I'm being pulled in many directions at once and I'm trying to find the thread of least harm."  
  
“That’s not what I meant,” Charles mumbles, and he lets himself burrow back into Erik, a pathetic little sniffling noise escaping. Erik’s shirt is a bit wetter now. “I’m not the same. People are the sum of their experiences, there are elements of nurture, and I don’t have any of them to fall back on. I don’t know what it means when I feel certain ways, I don’t know where it comes from. I don’t remember things I should, I say or do the wrong things, I hurt you, you have to - you have to tell me so much, and be so patient with me and I’m not consistent, I can’t be and I’m the one being pulled, I never know what’s right or what to think or feel, everything is - I -“ He gasps, suddenly overcome, and his next breath comes out as a sob. “You’re going to change things for me and then what if I get my memories back and it doesn’t work anymore, and I can’t be exactly as I was right now because I don’t know who that is and you miss it and I’m just ruining it, I’m just ruining something that was perfectly fine and hurting you s-so -“ He’s quickly too worked up to speak.  
  
"I know that you aren't the same," Erik murmurs, wrapping Charles up tightly. "But you aren't that different, either. And that is part of why I am trying so hard to ensure that you are all right, because the only nurture in this environment right now is me, and I don't want you to learn things that make you feel bad about yourself. I don't mind teaching you. I don't mind being patient. And if you get your memories back, it is my hope that you will have new knowledge, that you will be happier because of it. Because you weren't very happy beforehand."  
  
“I wasn’t?” Charles sniffs, muffled and too-quiet, though he imagines he already knew.  
  
"Not really. I tried to make you as happy as I could, but you felt really badly about yourself, and I couldn't make it better."  
  
“Oh,” Charles breathes, and for a while he just lets himself cry. He’s not certain he’s capable of much else. “But you miss - you miss it. You’ll resent me for this, I know you will. Why wouldn’t you? I can’t make you happier like this.”  
  
Rather than brush it off or reassure Charles that everything is fine, Erik finally speaks honestly. "I don't resent you, but every time I say one wrong thing or think one wrong thing, you take it as evidence that you are horrible and I don't care about you. I have to constantly walk on eggshells to avoid upsetting you-which isn't successful anyway-and even though you are looking at me to guide you, I can't take any action to correct it. Because it could damage our relationship for real. It could make you scared of me. I can deal with everything else, but that is something I can't deal with."  
  
Charles doesn’t say anything for a long time. “Oh,” is what he does say, finally, cracked and hoarse, which he knows is wholly inadequate. There’s just something stuck in his throat, potentially tears, and he can’t seem to speak around them. “I don’t take it as evidence that you don’t care. You keep saying that, and it isn’t true. And I -“ But he shakes his head. There’s no way to get it out.  
  
Erik sways him side to side, gently. "I don't mind how you feel. You don't need to worry if it is right or wrong. Your actions and your decisions can be right or wrong, but not your thoughts and feelings. Tell me what else," he encourages, the Command soft.  
  
“But you just - you just said that how I think and feel makes you feel as if you are on eggshells,” Charles sniffles, and it isn’t accusatory, and it isn’t heated, and it isn’t harsh. It isn’t anything but thoroughly miserable, because he’s clearly been working himself up about this for a while. “You basically just confirmed that you’re - that this is making you utterly miserable, that I am, and I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how. I don’t think you don’t care, I don’t think you’re horrible or inhuman or anything you keep saying I think you are, and every time I point out that something hurts me, you lash out, too, and you say - _I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t know, Charles,_ and it isn’t that you’re terrible, Erik, alright? I know I’m misinterpreting things sometimes but I can’t read your mind right now and maybe that’s a good thing because you can’t, you can’t just shut down when these things happen, you can’t just shut me out and expect me to know even if maybe I should be able to. You can’t get cold. That scares me more than anything else you could possibly do to me,” he admits, barely a whisper at all. “Without talking to me, without - it scares me,” he croaks. “You go away. You go away and I don’t know when you’ll come back and I don’t -“ It’s gone, again, his voice cracking into another quiet sob.  
  
"Your responses make me feel that way. Not your feelings. You can tell me these things. I don't mind it. I am not miserable. But I don't know how to not disappear-" Erik shrugs. "I'm not programmed to deal with conflict. The more it happens the more likely I am to become more rational, more composed, not less. Being honest with you when you are in the middle of losing your temper with me, it's not-how I-" he just shrugs again. "And maybe it isn't fair. I'm too broken."  
  
For some reason it makes Charles laugh, a hoarse, wet little chuckle. “I’ve forgotten you and you’re worried you’re the one broken, the one who’s making this unfair? Erik, earlier I -“ He can’t say it again. Even now he’s shaken by it. “We can learn, together. Alright? You are not broken. And if you are, we both are. Do you think perhaps we’re here to begin mending?” Charles has considered it, more than once. Why else? What else?  
  
"It is a distinct possibility," Erik murmurs back, warm. "I'm supposed to teach you, but I don't know anything. Not really. I just don't want to hurt you. I don't like seeing you suffer. If I can prevent it, I will try. " He tucks Charles's head under his chin. "-Earlier?"  
  
Charles shakes his head. “I want to prevent you from suffering, too,” he whispers, sniffling again. “Do you really think it’s a possibility?”  
  
"Yes. I always have," Erik replies. It's what he's always thought. "Tell me," he adds, the Order fond.  
  
It takes a moment for Charles brain to catch up, but the Order prompts him nicely. He shakes his head again even as he speaks. “I meant what happened in the bathroom. I was just making a point, that clearly I’m also...” He shrugs helplessly, and goes quiet again. He hasn’t stopped thinking about it since it happened, even at his most distracted. It plays over and over in his mind.  
  
Erik squeezes his shoulder and takes his hand, pressing it against his own heart. "There is nothing wrong with you. I love you very much, and that will never change. No matter what happens."  
  
Charles ducks further into Erik’s chest, the next words very muffled, when he has the ability to say anything at all. There’s a fairly long pause. “You promise you won’t resent me for this?”  
  
"I promise. But I don't want you to resent me, either. To resent being trapped here, with me. I don't wish for you to dislike me. I know who you are, but you don't know me at all, and I don't think I am making a very good impression," he admits quietly.  
  
It makes Charles peek up from his cozy little hiding spot. As if in slow motion he leans up, what seems like a very far distance from his perch nearly on Erik’s lap and kisses the other man’s cheek. It’s a soft, sweet kiss, and Charles offers a matching smile, even though his face is streaked with tears. “I don’t dislike you,” he promises. “Quite the opposite.”  
  
Erik practically seems to glow, and he strokes his finger down Charles's cheek. He does seem to be genuinely surprised by that, though, but in a good way; as if he's always been afraid it wasn't true, and it makes him smile back, raising Charles's hand to kiss his knuckles. "I am pleased to hear that."  
  
They’re not in the most comfortable spot for this, but Charles shifts restlessly until he can find his way back into Erik’s arms, hugging him. After the upset from earlier, it’s more soothing than he’d be totally willing to admit. “Are you sure you like me?” he mutters, sighing.  
  
"Very sure," Erik laughs softly. He presses a kiss to Charles's neck and breathes in deeply.

* * *

Charles shivers with it. To distract from both the conversation he knows he wants to have, but isn’t quite sure how to start now, and the shivering itself, he turns just enough to be facing the piano they’re still sitting at. “I think I know how to play,” he whispers, as if he’s afraid to speak any louder. His voice is hoarse, anyway.  
  
"You do," Erik nods. "You're very good." Charles never knew that Erik could, before; he never focused on the things he couldn't do, and it was never the same using his abilities to compensate. There are many things that he's given up over the last several years, but now he has the opportunity to explore them again and he's very grateful for it.  
  
“Hmm,” he hums, and shifts again until he’s properly on Erik’s lap, sitting on his knee. He ghosts his fingers over the keys, thoughtful, and when they move, he’s fairly sure there’s something else moving them even though he knows there isn’t; it’s muscle memory, it must be. He doesn’t know the song except to know that he knows it, and Erik won’t recognize it, either, but it’s pretty, melancholy, soft. Charles is still playing when he speaks again, barely audible over it, and likely on purpose. “If things were like before, would you have punished me for earlier? All of it? Any of it?” he asks, trying to play it off as simple curiosity when they both know it’s anything but. "Would you have tolerated it in the same way? You said you were holding back urges."  
  
"Yes, I would have," Erik replies simply, not to Charles's last question but his first. "I would not have tolerated it. At all."  
  
Charles bites his lip, his fingers faltering over the keys, stuttering for a moment, before they go back to playing. “How?” he asks, quietly.  
  
"Physically, most likely. My methods are dependent upon the situation. I don't always do that, but in this instance I would have."  
  
Charles stops playing altogether, and his fingers are shaking a bit, but he isn’t frightened. He needs to make sure Erik knows that, so he takes a breath and rests against him, seeking out his embrace more fully again. “Physically how?” he prods. “I - could you be specific?”  
  
Erik accommodates naturally, letting Charles burrow his way back in and wrapping him up. "You would assume a Posture specifically intended for discipline and I would use an instrument of some type to deliver a predetermined number of strikes to your bare skin. This is not set in stone, it is just what I have most commonly done. I do not tend to go through with discipline until I am certain you understand the reason for it, but sometimes it was necessary to bring you back into line."  
  
Charles is thankful for it, getting even closer. It does make it almost impossible to understand his mumbling, but there’s no way around it. “And you’d definitely have done that, earlier? If things were as they were?”  
  
"Yes." There is no hesitation whatsoever. "That is correct."  
  
There are quite a few questions Charles has, but he settles on one at a time, sucking in another audible breath. “You said you’d explain it to me. Why you were doing it. Why, in this case?”  
  
"Because you insisted upon attempting to Order me around. Because you continued to raise your voice and speak disrespectfully despite repeated warnings to stop. Because you did not obey any of my instructions outside of direct Commands. Because you failed to cooperate with me." It's quiet, and none of it has to do with Charles's feelings at all.  
  
Charles swallows, and he’s fairly sure Erik can hear it. His breathing is hitched, stuttering, and he hides more fully in Erik’s chest, in his arm, totally unwilling to look at him in this moment. “Would it, ah, would you -“ He shakes his head, and changes course, sure it can’t be obvious. “Would you have still made me clean up this room?” he asks instead.  
  
"Yes. That was not a punishment. It was a consequence. I would have expected you to clean this up regardless of your behavior otherwise." Erik rubs Charles's shoulders; his voice is firm and unwavering, but his touch is gentle.  
  
Charles leans right into it, grateful and seeking, relaxing under Erik’s ministrations even as his heart races, even as Erik can feel that, too. “Would it have - would you have...” He takes a breath. “Would it have been a lot of strokes?”  
  
"You were very familiar with my expectations, with my personality, with the types of things most likely to cause a reaction. If you had behaved that way before, I would know that you were deliberately antagonizing me, and it would not have been a mild punishment."  
  
“Oh,” Charles breathes, and it sounds a little squeaky even to his own ears. Not frightened, but certainly not thrilled at the concept. The pit in his stomach is back, but for an entirely different reason. “Five?” he guesses, and tries to conceptualize that. It sounds like an awful lot. This Charles has quite a lot less baggage, a lot less reason to be fearful, a lot more reason to be trusting, something Erik might not even have considered; but he also hasn’t been exposed. He just doesn’t know. There’s an element of trust, of course there is, but the first time there was a reason for him to be fearful. Now there isn’t, but there isn’t anything to compare it to. He’s never experienced any sort of correction, or punishment, healthy or otherwise. Whatever Erik teaches him will be all he knows, until the moment he gets his memories back, and even then they’ll be altered by these experiences.  
  
It makes Erik chuckle a little, not at him. It's hard to explain why. Maybe because he just seems... innocent. And it's refreshing to see, a Charles who is unencumbered by such heaviness. "Now? That is likely. You aren't familiar with it and I would endeavor to, as you say, go easy on you. Before? Most certainly not. Perhaps thirteen. Knowing, fully, that you would incur more before we were finished. Fifteen, or sixteen."  
  
Charles immediately huffs, but it’s difficult to have the effect he wants when he still refuses to look up from Erik’s chest, still curled in tightly. “I don’t need you to go easy on me,” he mumbles, his pride flaring up. It sounds appropriately bratty, but it’s all false confidence, because the thought of it has him spinning. “Is that - the most you would give me? Surely it can’t be worth that many?” He’s going over his own behavior, now, what Erik listed earlier, which is maybe the point. That pit just keeps growing.  
  
"That is my prerogative," Erik murmurs back. It's an answer to both of Charles's statements. "Not yours. If I deigned to give you a hundred strikes, you would take them, because I Commanded it of you. But I would not do that, because I know what your limits are."  
  
“Do you? Or do you just go easy on me anyway?” Charles asks, far too sharply, and he’s not even sure where it comes from. It doesn’t help that he’s still hidden in Erik’s chest, but he takes a breath right after and he’s not upset, this time. It just came out that way, challenging, bristling. He’s biting his tongue now, quite literally.  
  
"Whether I do or not is irrelevant," Erik replies firmly. "The decision is mine. That is the purpose entirely."  
  
“Doesn’t it defeat the purpose if you do?” And maybe Charles needs to learn to keep his mouth shut, because apparently biting on his tongue isn’t even enough. He huffs again.  
  
"No. It doesn't. You are speaking from complete lack of experience. I assure you that you would find even five strikes exceptionally unpleasant."  
  
Whatever Charles has to say to that, it’s so muffled Erik couldn’t even hope to make it out, which means Charles decidedly does not want him to hear; he’s been perfectly capable of making sure Erik does when he’s wanted that. There is another huffing noise, though.  
  
"Speak up, then," Erik Orders him sternly.  
  
Charles panics a bit at that, and clearly tries to swallow it down. It doesn’t work. “It doesn’t matter because you won’t, you won’t do anything,” he croaks, finally, much less confident in it the second time.  
  
"You do not sound particularly confident in that assessment," Erik replies back, dangerously low. "I will do what I choose to do. Nothing more and nothing less. Things are not like before. You have yet to tell me your thoughts and feelings about it. So do so." Charles doesn't have a choice there, either.  
  
Choice or not, it takes a long time for Charles to speak. It’s because he’s genuinely pulling his thoughts together, though the longer he waits, the more anxious and restless he gets. “I don’t know. I just know I need something to happen, I don’t - when you just make me, it isn’t...” He shakes his head, at a loss here. “I got so frustrated before. I don’t know why.”  
  
"And does what I described unnerve you at all?" Erik asks, eyebrows arched.  
  
“Um,” is Charles’ eloquent response to that. He curls up tighter in Erik’s lap, like he’s attempting to become a human ball.  
  
"Not _um_. Tell me the answer." That's accompanied by a very obvious flex of Will.  
  
Charles shudders with it. “Yes. No,” they both come out nearly at the same time, because they’re equally true, technically, and the result is a stuttering Charles almost never does. “No, it doesn’t - it doesn’t scare me, it’s not something that inspires true fear, or makes me uncomfortable in the way I think you’re suggesting...” He’s fumbling quite a lot, but it’s the truth, and Erik can tell. “But depending on your definition of unnerve, yes, I can see how it would apply.” Perhaps not the time to be a smartass, Charles.  
  
"I've never planned on doing nothing. It was never my intention. I wanted to ensure that you were not disturbed or overwhelmed by these aspects of our Dynamic but it is more than evident that such aspects are necessary for us to function properly. But I need to be certain that you understand what this means. You do not get to argue with me about it. You do not get to determine what is too much or too little. You do not get to decide that I am being unfair. You need to trust that I am in control of all of those variables."  
  
It does make Charles nearly peek up, which is saying something at the moment. “Never? What if it’s a genuine concern?”  
  
"Then I will address it. But if I have decided to administer a punishment to you, it will be administered. When, and how I choose to do so is up to me. Not you. Not _ever_. You will experience pain. You will likely experience displeasure, discomfort and unease. It will not be easy for you, under any circumstances." Erik inhales slowly. "But I won't ever be violent toward you. I will not be cruel. I will not cause you to suffer. I will not discipline you when I am angry or frustrated."  
  
“Oh,” Charles says, and it’s more than clear that all of that pride and haughtiness has drained right out of him. He’s trembling in Erik’s arms, but it’s testament to his building trust in Erik, which is exactly what Erik said he needed, that he doesn’t pull away or try to manage it on his own. He tries to get closer, though it’s quite impossible, nudging against Erik. Seeking comfort, and reassurance. “Alright,” he breathes, rather lamely.  
  
Erik of course permits it, letting Charles practically noodle his way onto Erik's lap and wrapping him up more completely. "Does that sound like something you would want?"  
  
That takes Charles a bit to answer, because he isn’t sure how, at first. Enough time passes that he’s sure Erik considers Ordering it out of him, but eventually he nods, tiny and easy to miss from where he’s bunched up in Erik.  
  
Erik tilts Charles's chin upward. "Tell me. Using words."  
  
Words are particularly difficult right about now, and at first Charles just nods again, which he knows isn’t what Erik asked for. He takes another breath and lets it out before Erik can Order him, before he has to. “Y-Yes,” he manages, and swallows. “But - want is, it’s not…” He swallows, his tongue perhaps stuck to the roof of his mouth. “Need, I think. Probably. But -” Another breath. “We could wait. If you - for the more physical aspect of it, you said you use alternatives, and we could wait. You have boundaries.” Except now it sounds a bit like Charles is bringing them up because he’s nervous. Not frightened, not disturbed, but certainly nervous is a word he could use. Unnerved. Uneasy.  
  
Erik just smiles down at him. "I do. I do not want to thrust you into a situation to which you are unprepared. But I do not have an issue conducting whatever punishment I deem necessary. Do you believe you deserve to be disciplined right now?"  
  
This is where Charles knows he should be honest, but the knot in his stomach is making that rather difficult. He bows his head back down into Erik’s chest, taking full stuttered breaths. The piano plays a few notes seemingly by itself, discordant. “I - no? Maybe,” he admits, whispered.  
  
"Maybe?" Erik's eyebrows arch. "And why do you think you _maybe_ do?"  
  
Charles is very grateful he can’t see Erik’s face, but it doesn’t really stop him from knowing, from feeling his heart pounding. “I - I don’t know,” he stutters, face hot.  
  
"Yes, you do. So look at me and tell me." The Order is immediate, a flex of Will snapping through the room like wisps of iron.


	96. Determination.

Swallowing, Charles forces himself to peer up at Erik, shifting on his knee. “I - um,” and he’s not sure why he’s stammering, Charles doesn’t usually, but he is. “I raised my voice at you. I talked back?” he whispers, and it sounds more like a question.  
  
"Is that a question, or an answer?" Erik gazes down at him calmly. It's certainly evident that Charles doesn't have a choice to answer; and to do so honestly. He isn't harsh, and he isn't angry, but his features are forbidding, pure Dominance and expectation that Charles has only rarely felt from him before now.  
  
It still makes Charles pulse jump, and his heart beat right out of his chest, all of his hair standing on end. “An answer,” he croaks out, barely managing a whisper. He’s lowered his eyes again.  
  
"And what else?" Erik prompts, placing his hand over Charles's racing heart, encouraging him to calm and focus and speak.  
  
Easier said than done, but infinitely easier with Erik’s help. He’s still nervous and fumbling, his eyes closed tightly as he curls back into Erik, grateful he’s so much larger. “I didn’t - ah, I didn’t do as I was told,” he mumbles.

"That's right," Erik murmurs. "And do you believe that behavior is acceptable?"  
  
Charles chews at his lip. “Not particularly,” he whispers, hushed, and it’s completely evident that this is his first time experiencing something like this, that he remembers, that he knows. His fidgeting is as clear a sign as any. Charles always said everyone lets me get away with everything but the reality, of course, was something much more complex, wrapped up in trauma and survival responses. Coping mechanisms. There’s none of that here. Even after he’s been told he doesn’t know. It’s nothing more than a nightmare for him.  
  
"No," Erik agrees. "It is not particularly acceptable. If we were as we were, I would discipline you for this. And I believe it is time for you to understand what that entails." Every word is drenched in Will. "I believe that you understand what you have done is improper. Would you agree?"  
  
Charles shivers, his head back in the crook of Erik’s arm. It’s a very nice hiding spot. Slowly, he nods, and then, because he thinks Erik might prompt it anyway, whispers, “Yes.”  
  
Erik nods, placing his hand over Charles's cheek. "I am pleased to hear that. I want you to understand the reasons why I discipline you. It is not because of your feelings. It is not because you were upset. I know that this situation is very stressful and frightening for you, but I still have expectations for your behavior. Now," Erik shifts Charles slightly until he's out of Erik's lap. "I want you to stand up for me." It's an Order, and when it's obeyed, Erik places his hands on Charles's shoulders from behind. "And come along." He takes Charles's hand.  
  
Charles whines the moment he’s displaced from Erik’s lap. There’s no other way to describe the noise that slips right out of his throat before he can swallow it back down. He knows Erik probably means for him to walk, but he can’t quite make himself do it; perhaps he’ll just be Ordered into it, which seems to be Erik’s method from what he can tell, but for now he turns himself around and launches himself back into the other. Wraps arms around him, trying to bury himself in his chest, grip on tight to his shirt. He doesn’t say anything, he just clings, breathing Erik in.  
  
But Erik doesn't rip him away. He's discomfited and unsettled and nervous and wary, and Erik is fully aware of that. It isn't that he will only discipline Charles when he's at 100% happiness, but Erik will always build up to it, always let him know that he is safe even when he is being punished. But he doesn't stop. He doesn't turn away, he doesn't veer off course. They end up in Erik's bedroom, which is by far the coziest room in the house. There's a fireplace, a bookshelf, and a window that may or may not have originally come with the house. The walls are dark, with bright yellow trim along the edges to match some of the yellow blankets and curtains (all with distinct, artistic patterns). There are books, tools, collections of metal trinkets and jewelry at what can only be described as a work station. Everything is neat and proper and organized, the bed made to perfection, as if the room were to be featured on a magazine. There's sufficient space on the floor, and Erik brings out a mat, rolling it down. "Kneel for me," he Orders softly.  
  
It’s not quite to Charles’ taste, but that’s the beauty of it, perhaps; it doesn’t need to be, yet. It isn’t his. Not the bedroom they originally ended up in, the one that was Charles’ for a very long time, however much he doesn’t remember it. It’s Erik’s space, something he’s never had, and whatever force lingers here - Universal, watching, guiding, aiding, perhaps caring, fond- it knows that. It’s why he hasn’t had any trouble altering it, while everything else stays fixed, same, often cold, often empty, often bare. Long corridors and what seem like horribly large rooms, for all that they’re filled. Exactly as it was, as if trapped in time, a living memory, but there’s something else - and Charles doesn’t know it, won’t, hardly even notices his surroundings at all as he swallows the lump in his throat and kneels as he’s told. His eyes immediately find the floor, head dipped, and it would be impossible not to notice the tremor to him.  
  
"Look up at me," Erik whispers the Order, crouching slightly, but still very much towering over his submissive. His. He doesn't say it, he doesn't really even think it, but the room is soaked in it. Erik is clad in all-black, a turtleneck and slacks, and it makes his severe features stand out more starkly. In his hand is a small, swishy, reedy looking implement. "You are going to remove your shirt, and fold it up neatly beside you."  
  
Charles can’t quite take his eyes off said instrument. It’s not fear coursing through his veins, not panic, but it certainly is something that renders him so dizzy everything spins a bit for a second, that makes his fingers shake so badly they’re essentially useless in the task Erik gave him, which has him flushed with embarrassment in the first place. “I-I-“ His eyes close, and he shakes his head, but it’s not a refusal, really. It’s just that the idea of it is one thing, the reality of it totally different. “Do I - do I have to -“ There’s that stuttering again. It’s just that right now it’s a barrier, his clothing, his shirt.  
  
"You do," Erik murmurs lowly, the Command snapping through the room. "You will be removing your shirt only," he adds, having came to the decision on what to do and how to do it, everything has snapped into place. Erik has snapped into place, in a way Charles hasn't seen before. Confident, assured, Dominant. He's keenly aware of Charles's distress level, and he continues, keeping a watchful eye on his submissive all the same. "Now remove your shirt and fold it neatly beside you.  
  
It’s still not an Order, not even the second time, and just like he suspected it makes a difference. It’s far more difficult to obey like this, and he has to make the choice to do it, through his clenched-tight chest, through his shaking fingers. Folding seems impossible, and he fumbles and then, realizing, dawdles a bit, but it doesn’t do much to stall for time. Charles’ urge is to cover himself, so he does, arms around his own chest as he shivers, feeling horribly bare. “Wait, I - we -“ It dies in his throat. He shakes his head, helpless.  
  
"Place your hands palm-down on your thighs," Erik instructs him, guiding him into a position of Rest. "And tell me how you are doing, right now." That is an Order.  
  
Charles is shivering, and it’s definitely not cold in this room. A bit warm, actually, even without a shirt. He’s clearly fighting to stay in position, wiggling too much for it to be disciplined. “I -“ He makes a sound from the back of his throat. “Nervous. Overwhelmed, but not - not...” A sigh, because the stammering is becoming frustrating, but he doesn’t know how to make his tongue work around it. He takes a breath. “I’m not afraid of you,” he assures.  
  
"Good," Erik murmurs. "Now I don't need to explain to you the reasons why we are doing this, do I? I think you know perfectly well. You disobeyed me. And that is grounds for discipline." Erik wields the reedy implement calmly. "You will receive five strokes. After each one you will count it out. You will not use my name. You will not speak unless you are spoken to. You will not move out of place. You will be still and take what I give you." Every statement is an Order, unable to be defied. "Am I understood."  
  
It doesn’t seem like a question, and Charles knows he understands. For very different reasons but quite like that very first time, he briefly considers a pause-word, not because he needs it but to remind himself it’s there, and he has to trust that it would work. He’s not sure why there are tears pricking at his eyes, but he imagines it has something to do with the pit in his stomach, with the shame pooling in his belly. He sniffs, and nods, tensed up because he doesn’t know not to be, doesn’t know it’ll only hurt more this way; he just doesn’t know, and he’s anxious, dreading, worked up without Erik even needing to strike him.  
  
"M-hm," Erik responds to that nod, looking down at him. "The very last thing I wish to impart is for you to remember your pause-word. If you need to stop, really need to stop, this will let me know. I will stop. We will work it out together. I will decide where to go from there. Now, I asked you a question and I expect a verbal response. Am I understood."  
  
Charles’ lips almost twitch up, because he should have known Erik would remind him anyway. It doesn’t do much for the horrid anticipation, the lump in his throat and stomach, but nothing really will. “Y-Yes -“ And he’d meant to say Yes, Erik but the second part gets trapped in his mouth, swallowed down, and he realizes he can’t. He would have forgotten, and he thinks perhaps Erik knew that, but the reminder does a number on him, the tears that had been gathering slipping down his cheeks because he wants to be able to say it. He tries to suck the reaction back in, but it won’t budge, hot and awful in his belly, behind his eyes where it burns.  
  
"Good. If you fail to count it out, or if you use my name, you will receive an additional strike. So I recommend that you obey my instructions." Erik's voice is low, deep. Gravelly and soft, elemental. "Keep your head up and look at me."  
  
Charles means to. He fully intends to, but something wells up inside of him, something fierce and suddenly frightened, not of Erik but in general, and perhaps frightened isn’t the right word. Perhaps not, but either way he whimpers and curls into himself, tears hot and fat against his cheeks and he knows Erik hasn’t even touched him, he knows he should and needs to take it, he knows there’s been an awful knot in his stomach for too long and that this is what will unwind it - but he can’t. He closes his eyes, but a pause-word doesn’t come out, and he knows if he needed to say it, Erik would hear it. It’s not because he can’t speak.  
  
Erik crouches and puts his hand against Charles's cheek. "Look at me. Tell me what is going through your mind." It's an Order. Soft.  
  
“I-I’m -“ It’s a pathetic attempt, and he sniffles right after. He doesn’t have the words. He leans into Erik’s touch, ashamed that he’s making such a fuss when he knows he must have had more severe punishments, that Erik is going easy on him, that he’s being lenient, but he can’t help it. He doesn’t have a word that isn’t scared, which he knows isn’t right, but he does know what else he is. “I’m s-sorry,” he gasps, and usually it takes the length of the punishment or at least part of it for him to get to this point, but it’s different now. He’s different, right now, more sensitive, more innocent, perhaps, exactly like Erik noted. He’s a nearly blank slate, and whether Erik realizes it or not, he’s training him, reshaping perceptions long-held. It’s an opportunity for both of them, and slowly it’s becoming clear, besides the obvious, why.  
  
"I know you are," Erik whispers back. "And I very much appreciate you saying it. You mean very much to me, and it is important that I teach you how to meet my expectations. Saying them is one thing. Enforcing them is another. Now, I know that you are going to straighten up, lift your chin and take what I give you. I know you can do that."  
  
Part of Charles desperately wants to say that he was wrong. That he doesn’t at all want this, that he isn’t ready, that Erik was right to start with; the problem is that it would be a lie, and not even a particularly good one. He knows the frustration he felt before, and this horrible, lingering ache, it’s not going to go away otherwise. He knows Erik is right, too. So he sniffles and does what he’s told, what he knows he can do, what he knows he needs. There’s nothing to be done about the trembling, but part of it feels good, even with all that swirling, ramped-up dread; he will take this.  
  
"Good," Erik murmurs. It's different this time, too. Purposefully so. Erik hasn't shuttered himself away like he normally does. That will not be a part of this punishment. Not today. He is still warm and alive, his mind a vibrant swirl of golden threads, but he is imposing. Commanding. Authoritative. Every muscle in his body is primed to Dominate. He crosses over behind Charles, trailing a finger along the top of his right shoulder. A warning, perhaps, because very suddenly the reed snaps over his bare skin, sending a pure electric shock of nerve-rending pain all the way down his spine.  
  
It would mean less, anyway, not that Charles knows it. There’s so much he doesn’t have access to, that they’ve both been cut off from, and Erik’s mind is one of those things. It happens to go both ways, but Erik wouldn’t need their Bond to know that Charles is worked up, that he’s anxious, that he’s just a little scared, but not in the way Erik fears. And when that first strike hits, Charles cries out loudly and he’s immediately crying, something that would normally take him much longer, would require a much more intense punishment session. It isn’t that he has less of a pain tolerance, that he can handle less, or even that he needs less, because the truth is he doesn’t and never will; it’s just that it’s new, and it’s been built up, pent up, and by the third strike he’s openly weeping. “S-Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he’s babbling, and he’s forgotten about counting, he’s forgotten about pride. He’s forgotten most anything, his shoulders hunched as if might protect him from the next stroke, and normally he might not even be affected yet, it might take him longer to be sorry like this, to feel like he's atoning. But it's new. He's new, and Erik is training him, in a way he never had the opportunity to before because someone already had, and not in a way even closer to what he would have preferred.  
  
"Straighten up," Erik murmurs. "Three. Isn't that right? I told you to count it out. So tell me." He's stern, strict and domineering but not harsh, not cruel. Never cruel. He doesn't waver, he doesn't pause, but he does give Charles time to correct himself before the next strike. He can be lenient, sometimes.  
  
Charles needs that leniency right now, this one time. He is overwhelmed, truly, but not to the point of it being damaging or actually distressing. For the first time, under these circumstances, it’s just at the edge of being too much but never quite tips, because he needs this. He counts the last two strokes, but by five it’s so muffled by sobs that he’s almost entirely incoherent. The effort is there regardless. He tries not to speak, not to babble, not to fold himself back in two even though he hopes it’s over, because Erik was right and even five was extraordinarily unpleasant, because he wants to be obedient. He does, and he wasn’t told he could. He was told not to. Charles is sorry, and not just because Erik is punishing him. It matters to him, and he knows it.  
  
Erik counts it all the same, saying it with him. He kneels in front of Charles when it's over, still towering over him, and drapes a soft blanket over his shoulders, taking him into his arms instantly and letting him rest his head on Erik's shoulder. "It's OK," he whispers, his voice pure. "I've got you. You did so well, sweetheart. I've got you. It's over now."  
  
Charles cries. He cries, and cries, and cries, wet, loud sobs, and it was only five strokes, but it’s not really about the pain. It isn’t unbearable, even though it’s certainly unpleasant. It’s something else, overwhelming and new and a distinct, absolute relief as much as it something else, more than it is a reaction to anything physical, and he clings to Erik, fingers tangled in his sweater. And while he might need less harsh discipline right now, he clearly needs more attention and care after. He’s just learning, just like Erik said. “D-Done?” he asks, finally, peeking up from Erik’s shoulder, sniffling pitifully. There are tears and snot all over his face, red from all the crying he’s done.  
  
"All done," Erik whispers, fond. " _Kol beseder, neshama,_ " he rumbles in Hebrew, murmuring things under his breath. Little stories, like he used to. Stories about a great big bird who believed it was a monster, who showed compassion and found peace in acceptance after learning what it truly means to love and be free. Stories he's told a million times over, that live within him like air, that Charles is only hearing now for the first time.


	97. To become so slow

It takes a very long time for Charles to calm, for him to listen to those stories enough that they make any sense. He stays in Erik’s arms well after he does, clinging, mostly silent but seeking affection in the way he hasn’t, really, in the way he’s been hesitant to. He nudges into Erik’s touches, looks for little kisses, gives them himself, however shy, however tentative; but he’s calm, and he’s relieved, and he’s relaxed in a way he just hasn’t been. Boneless with it, to the point where it’s utterly impossible to miss how much this benefits him, what Erik worried so much about. His first time, at least in his memory of it now, was safe. It was wholly unpleasant, but not harmful, not damaging. The opposite. When it comes time for bed, when he’s drifting in Erik’s arms, it’s with absolute reluctance that he extracts himself, that he walks down the hallway to his own bedroom.  
  
Erik finds himself falling asleep not long after, and it’s clearly Charles’ doing; apparently he doesn’t need to he in the room to have that effect. But somewhere in the middle of the night, creeping into the early hours of the morning, he finds himself stirring. It’s not an intruder or a danger that wakes him, but there is a sense of unease, of fear. It’s dark, but he can sense Charles lingering in the doorway, fidgeting and restless, clearly debating whether or not he wants to step inside.  
  
Erik doesn't stir as much as he sits fully upright in the bed, immediately awake. He's still clothed, wearing a matching set of pajamas with little designs splashed all over. The lights flick on, dim to replace the moonlight seeping in through the blinds, and he offers Charles a small smile. "Hello there," he murmurs, voice sleep-roughened. "Come inside," he Orders softly, patting the space next to him on the bed.  
  
Charles, in contrast, is wearing old favorites, though he doesn’t know they are. Even now he’s apparently gravitated toward them. Grey sweatpants well-worn, an Oxford sweatshirt about two sizes too large with a hole in the sleeve, which he very clearly could have replaced but never did, or mended but he objected to, for whatever reason. He sits on the bed, fidgeting and stiff at first, but it doesn’t take long for him to launch himself at Erik, to hide in his shoulder. “Hi,” he whispers back, hoarse himself. “Sorry for waking you.”  
  
Erik sifts his fingers through Charles's hair before tucking him in close, wrapping him up in the soft blanket bunched at the corner of the bed. "Never apologize for this," he kisses the top of Charles's head. "I'm pleased you sought me out. Did you have a bad dream?"  
  
“Mmm,” is Charles’ response to that, his lips pursed. Even if he’s perhaps a bit too warm, having kicked off the blankets in his own bed, he takes the blanket gratefully, shifts until he’s properly leaning on Erik. The lights seem to have dimmed further again, hiding his features, perhaps not the way they would be hidden naturally. “I don’t have dreams. They start, sometimes, and then go away. I chase them and I can never reach them. But I woke up, I needed a drink of water, and -“ He shakes his head, gripping the blanket and Erik both.  
  
"Tell me," Erik encourages, a spark of Command chasing the words.  
  
It helps the way it always does. Charles still hunches into himself, into Erik. “It felt like someone was standing in the doorway,” he whispers. “Well, no. They were. I thought it was you, and I was going to tell you that you gave me a fright, that you should come in if that’s what you wanted because it was silly to just linger in the doorway like that,” and he huffs, here, because that’s what he’d done, “But it wasn’t you. Obviously.”  
  
Erik's nose wrinkles up fondly either way. He doesn't fault Charles for it at all, he's actually grateful. "Who was it?" he asks, quiet. "Do you know?"  
  
Charles shakes his head. He’s still a bit shaken, for whatever reason. “They were tall,” he provides, and knows it likely won’t be helpful. ”Very tall. It’s why I thought it was you,” and it’s even teasing, despite the lingering, persistent unease. Erik can feel his lips curl up against his skin, more than he can see it, for the moment it lasts.  
  
He nods, even though Charles can't see it. "It seems like the memories you lost are still lingering beneath your conscious ability to recall them," he posits thoughtfully. "That's a good sign, even if the things which resurface aren't particularly pleasant. That must have been quite disturbing."  
  
Another nod, though Charles is biting on his lip. “When I dream, that’s what it feels like. Like I’m being haunted by things that should be mine, but aren’t. But sometimes -“ He shakes his head, sighing. “Nevermind. It’s silly,” he mumbles. He takes a deep breath. “I’m alright, I really shouldn’t have woken you, it’s just...” He’d felt unsafe, and Erik feels more safe than even his own mind right now. Somehow it gets across, even while it’s unspoken, lingering between them.  
  
"I know," Erik murmurs softly. "I know. There is absolutely no shame in that, and I would always prefer that you wake me than suffer in silence." His eyebrow raises accordingly. "In fact, that is what I expect you to do. Tell me what you think is silly." His demeanor conveys the rest. There is nothing silly about Charles to him. Not anything.  
  
Charles takes another deep breath, and curls himself further into Erik’s side, fussing with the blanket between them. “It just feels like someone is watching me sometimes,” he sighs. “See? It’s silly. I’m paranoid. Mad,” he mutters, frustrated. He shouldn’t be waking Erik up because he saw shadows move on the wall, or mistook a shirt in the closet for a person. It seems exceptionally childish, and he’s flushed with it.  
  
"I disagree," Erik says back, stroking his fingers through Charles's hair. "I think your mind is attempting to make sense of things that you have no conscious recollection of. It isn't silly, and I am pleased you decided to seek me out."  
  
“But -“ Charles bites on his lip, relieved that his head is ducked too much for Erik to see it or his expression, but his fidgeting is indicative anyway. “I know we’re alone here. That’s been made abundantly clear. It just feels like sometimes we’re not,” he mumbles, and sighs.  
  
"I don't think that makes you mad," Erik repeats softly. "The person you thought you saw? Your description of him, is very familiar to me. I only know of one person who is taller than me, who relates to your life. So the fact that you think you are seeing him speaks to a certain logic."  
  
“I didn’t say he was taller. I said he was tall, but to be fair to be comparable to you someone would have to be notably giant,” he huffs, and the teasing might be half-hearted but it’s there, even muffled into Erik’s pajamas. “It’s just that I don’t think - but I don’t know, I suppose,” he corrects himself, frowning in the dark. “Who do you think it is?” he asks, quietly.  
  
"Someone from your past," Erik murmurs. It's not that he's intentionally trying to be vague, or hiding anything from Charles, but it's difficult for him to be fully honest because there's a good deal of unresolved rage there that he doesn't feel would be helpful in this conversation. Charles can almost feel the room getting colder, as if a dark frost has slowly descended upon everything, lightly crystallizing the surfaces in the area.  
  
It alarms Charles, who shrinks into himself for a moment, not frightened of Erik but worried that perhaps he’s upset him. When that passes, he chews on his lip before nudging closer into Erik’s arms, leaning up to kiss his cheek. It’s a similar kiss to earlier, when Erik was fretting, when he was upset; soft, sweet, almost-shy. “Who?” he prods. “Tell me, please.”  
  
Erik thinks as his mind whirls around back to the individual in question that it's just another reason he despises Mr. Invano-Azazel; because he'd taken the opportunity for Erik to gut them alive and peel their skin from their body right out from under him. Surprise, Erik is always vengeful all the time. He grimaces, but softens slightly under Charles's ministrations. "His name was Cain Marko. He was your stepfather's son. He is deceased."  
  
“It isn’t him,” Charles says immediately, quietly, and it’s not immediately clear how he knows, but he says it with certainty. “He’s deceased?” he asks, fishing again. Sometimes he isn’t sure he wants to know. Other times he thinks he’s rather desperate for any knowledge of a life that doesn’t feel at all like it’s his. They’re often at war, the two urges. “How? When?”  
  
Erik's recollection of that moment is fractured, so he's not lying when he says, "I don't precisely remember how. He was killed by a former..." Erik doesn't know how to word it. "By one of Shaw's men. A couple of months ago."  
  
Charles blinks. “A few months ago?” he repeats, taken aback. “By - why? I must be misunderstanding something.” Scrambling up names. There doesn’t seem to be a connection, not one that he can make without more information.  
  
Erik shakes his head. He doesn't want to talk about this. Not any part of it. When he does speak, it's clinical, as if he's a doctor relaying facts to a patient. "Azazel was interested in you. He is a D5, like myself. In his twisted mind, he felt he was doing you a favor. Cain was cruel to you."  
  
“He was... interested in me?” Charles repeats, and his stomach drops appropriately, twists over and over even if he doesn’t know to be properly frightened. He can certainly guess, judging by Erik’s reactions.  
  
"Yes. You asked me not to kill him," he adds, dry. "But I am certainly amenable to a change in perspective."  
  
“No,” Charles says immediately, without thinking, because some things do not change. “Interested how, Erik?” he whispers.  
  
"The usual way, I imagine," Erik mutters. "He wished for you to be his submissive. Obviously, he did not succeed."  
  
In the usual way. Charles runs that through his head, and for some reason - perhaps Erik’s unease - shifts even closer. “You don’t like to think about it,” he observes, hushed.  
  
"No," Erik murmurs, softer than before. "Azazel was cruel to me for many years. When he targeted you..." Erik trails off, shrugging. His feelings on the matter aren't important. Charles was the one victimized.  
  
But Charles doesn’t let him. He gently nudges against Erik, reaches up to kiss his cheek again. “Please tell me,” he urges. “I know it must be painful, but I’d like to know.” How Erik felt. How he feels, even now.  
  
Erik shrugs again. "My heart obliterated itself inside my chest." It's a bold, dramatic statement delivered in a totally quiet, affectless monotone.  
  
It’s more than he expected, and Charles finds that the tone doesn’t matter. He’s learning to read Erik, and this time he’s not using his telepathy, at least not in most cases; it’s something that comes naturally, perhaps, but that he’s never had to hone. He climbs fully onto Erik’s lap, fumbling around in the dark until he can touch his cheek. “But he did not succeed,” Charles reminds him. “Obviously,” he adds, and his lips twitch just slightly.  
  
Erik lets him adjust until he's comfortable and sets his hand over Charles's, his own lips quirking up. "Obviously," he murmurs, eyebrows raising slightly. Erik's features are flat, severe; in the way they only get when he talks about his time with Mr. Shaw.  
  
Charles can barely see him in the dimness of this bedroom, everything deliberately shrouded, but he touches Erik’s lips. Just for a moment. Traces that twitch. He’s grateful Erik can’t see his flush in the dark, and he leans forward to press another kiss to one cheek, and then the other, soft, lingering. “It wasn’t my stepbrother,” he says, quietly, returning to the previous topic. The one that had led them here. “It probably wasn’t anyone, or anything,” he sighs, but it’s in that way Charles does when he has a very strong inkling about something and, for once, does not want to be right. The trick is that he often is. "Just something that went bump in the night. I should have just turned back over."  
  
"I am pleased you didn't," Erik whispers softly. He presses a little kiss to Charles's fingers before he can pull them away. "I can't give you the answers you need, but I have faith that they will become illuminated as time goes on. I know for a fact that you aren't crazy. But I understand why you would feel that way."  
  
“There are pictures of him. Cain,” Charles clarifies, and rests his head against Erik’s shoulder, attempting to keep his tone cool. He doesn’t know much at all about him, except that Erik has made it clear enough they did not get on. He imagines it’s an understatement. “A few of them, actually, and I put two and two together. He’s tall, certainly, but bulky. Much bulkier than you, and I don’t mean that as a slight.” He was fairly sure it was impossible to take up that much space, but the pictures proved him wrong. “There’s no conceivable way I would have mistaken his frame for yours, not even from miles away.”  
  
"It was a product of his mutation," Erik says with a nod, and it's evident he doesn't feel slighted at all. "He was very strong. But not stronger than me." Erik's brow quirks, and it's pretty clear that Erik obviously got the best of Cain in some fashion at one point or another. Never let it be said that he doesn't have a flair for confrontation.  
  
“Mmm, I’m sure he wasn’t,” Charles murmurs, and his lips twitch again, something fond and teasing both there. His eyes close as he leans against Erik’s chest, and he isn’t drifting; he’s fretting, as the seconds tick on, still shaken, still frightened, even as he’s here, biting hard on his lip as he lets his mind run away from him.  
  
Once more Erik's fingers naturally sift through Charles's hair, carefully untangling as he goes. "Tell me what you are thinking about," he murmurs, and Charles can feel the rumble in his chest where his head is perched.  
  
It’s soothing, certainly. Charles leans into it, sighing. “I can’t stop thinking about the man,” he admits. “It feels like he’s watching us. Me, especially, and I don’t fancy it."  
  
"Mm," Erik tuts. "No, I don't imagine there is anything fanciable about it." Certainly not to Erik, either. It's a lame response, but Erik's mind is obviously whirling, considering what could be going on, with no real results.  
  
Charles pokes Erik’s chest, managing another small smile as he nudges back into a moment later, his eyes still closed. What he can say is that he feels safer, now. Safer than he did. Less frightened. “Your turn,” he insists.  
  
Blink-blonk. "My turn?" Erik says, head tilted.  
  
Another poke. “To tell me what you’re thinking about,” he urges. “Fair is fair."  
  
Erik gives an unconscious little squeak at the poke. "I do not like it, either," he admits. "But I am here to protect you. I will always do so, as long as I draw breath. I will not let anyone harm you."  
  
“I always notice it when you aren’t around,” Charles whispers, pressing his cheek more firmly against Erik’s chest, as if he’s trying to listen to his heartbeat. To soothe himself with it. “Which isn’t to say I wouldn’t like to be alone, it’s just -” It’s strange, that’s all. An observation. “It’s why perhaps I thought - only seeing someone when no one else is around to see them as well is textbook hallucination, but in this case the same logic wouldn’t apply. I don’t know what to make of it.”  
  
"Only noticing something in my absence speaks to something other than a hallucination. If you were hallucinating you would do so regardless of your environment. Given your abilities I would venture it is something else." But what, Erik doesn't know, and it has him on edge. There's a threat, and he doesn't know what it is or how to fix it, and it makes him even more severe than usual.  
  
“I’ve worried you,” Charles sighs, frowning, and reaches up, rather blindly, to touch Erik’s face again. “It’s nothing, Erik. He didn’t do anything, anyway, he just...” He swallows, shrugging. “It’s no concern,” he says instead.  
  
"I recommend not brushing it off as nothing. You do not know that. I do not know that. Vigilance is important. I do not like that something is occurring that makes you uneasy. I will never like it, and I will never not be concerned by it."  
  
“Not even if I tell you it’s not a concern?” he tries, but he’s biting on his lip again. “Perhaps he’s frightened of you,” Charles suggests, and it’s partially a real suggestion and partially to calm Erik, because he imagines he’ll like that idea. Charles does, a bit, too, not that he’ll admit it.  
  
"Not even then, "Erik agrees, or disagrees as the case may be. He's tense, his shoulders squared and his muscles poised as if he can fight an invisible shadow. When Charles speaks again, he calms slightly. "He would be wise to be frightened of me," Erik murmurs back, just a little bit dangerously.  
  
It’s horribly endearing, Erik’s protectiveness, on top of other things. Charles shivers, then hums, fidgeting again. “Are you tired?” he asks, hushed again.  
  
"Not really," Erik replies, dropping a kiss to the top of Charles's head and tucking him in closer. "Are you?"  
  
“Mmmm,” is Charles’ response. “Not really,” he lies, and then yawns. There’s something else there besides stubbornness, and he becomes restless again, shifting this way and that.  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik shakes his head. "That yawn was not particularly convincing," he chuckles lowly. He shifts, bringing Charles with him until he's on the bed, laying against the headboard. He curls the blanket up and lets Charles nuzzle into him from the side. "Sleep here," he says, but it's not an Order. He knows Charles didn't want to. It's a request. "I will watch over you. I will not let anything in."  
  
Charles shakes his head, but it’s not actually a refusal. Erik saved him the trouble of requesting it, but he doesn’t say so, squirming to get comfortable. He can’t, really, and he pulls a face in the dark. “I want you to sleep, too. You don’t need to watch over me,” he insists. “As long as...” He takes a breath, embarrassed, and closes his eyes. “As long as I’m not alone tonight,” he mumbles. He can try again tomorrow, and he plans to, but tonight he knows he wants to stay.  
  
"You won't be," Erik whispers back, touching Charles's face. "You are never alone. Not ever. But I would be very happy if you stayed with me for tonight." Happier than Charles could ever realize, without a glimpse into Erik's mind itself. He expertly doesn't comment on his own necessity to sleep.  
  
Charles knows Erik needs to sleep, though. And as Charles accepts that he’s sleepy, Erik feels himself pulled under, too, more and more, that foggy haze creeping up on him. Charles curls into Erik’s side and lets himself fade, warm and safe. “Mmmph g’night,” is his mumble, his second good night, but this one he isn’t walking down the corridor for.  
  
"Goodnight, _neshama_ ," Erik mumbles back, ducking his head into Charles's shoulder as he slowly shuts his eyes, against his own will as he'd very much prefer to be awake, but he can't resist the impulse of his muscles to relax until his head lolls off.


	98. Wandering the Wastes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _jewish legends and fairy tales_ , gertrude landa

And they both sleep. A full, healthy eight hours, actually, and the truly incredible thing is that it becomes the norm. Perhaps even more incredible is that the next morning they eat, too, a full three meals and a snack in between, which Charles’ body is wildly unused to. In all of the time they’ve spent together before all of this, before being trapped in this place, there was always something disrupting that, even under the best of circumstances. That isn’t to say there aren’t worries, that Charles isn’t frightened, isn’t fretting, isn’t anxious; but there is, in the week that follows, peace. Routine. It’s the first time they’ve ever had one truly established, that they’ve been able to work it out amongst themselves - how they spend their time, both with each other and apart. The first time they’ve gotten to be anything resembling normal together, and how ironic, considering the circumstances.  
  
Charles finds he enjoys learning his Postures, which he has quite a lot of trouble with, seemingly, because he’s learned, not unlike the first time, that having trouble means Erik needs to correct him. There’s no foundation to work with, and so the process is much slower, but there’s something to be said for that. Everything is new, fresh, and needs to be taught. Needs to be trained into him. They watch movies together. They spend time, in the same room, sharing each other’s company. Charles enjoys helping with meals. He enjoys playing chess. He enjoys talking, exploring, and he’s becoming less embarrassed that he enjoys submitting. They’re learning, together. And something about it makes the whole process less terrifying.  
  
Learning to use his abilities is a horribly slow, frightening process. He isn’t very good at it, nor is he very good at controlling it when it comes out to play. He still feels, nearly all the time, as if he’s being watched.  
  
He sleeps in his own bedroom at night, and keeps the door closed. He isn’t certain if it’s to keep his phantom out or to keep himself in, when most nights he’d much prefer being down the hall. He shies away from touches, sometimes, is hesitant to even think too hard about kissing Erik, about touching Erik, about -  
  
But June has rolled into July, Charles’ birthday month though he actually doesn’t know it, and the sun is shining and Charles is sweating, midday in full swing, and it’s with a rather huge smile on his face that he wanders through the house, peeking into doorways in search of Erik. “Erik? Erik!” He probably should have called in the first place, because Erik seems to materialize wherever Charles needs him at any given time, but fortunately he finds him in the study Erik seems particularly fond of, pokes his head in and grins. “There you are. I checked every room, you’re very elusive,” he teases, even though he really isn’t, and Charles can always find him when he truly needs to. It’s like he’s a beacon. Either way he hops right up onto the desk. “What are you up to? Whatever it is, you’ll have to drop it, because I’m afraid I have plans,” Charles announces, cheeky and at ease. Playful, natural, less bogged down in nearly every way. The difference is almost shocking.  
  
There are no words to describe Erik's internal shifting as they slowly grow more accustomed to one another. He was never lying when he said that he wouldn't resent Charles, that this was in many ways an opportunity. For healing. For learning. For exploring and growing. And they do, every day. Charles learns his Postures. Slowly. ("Charles. I know you know Rest," Erik murmurs fondly one morning when Charles puts his hands palm-up instead of down.)  
  
Erik hasn't ever had a time like this, not since he was a young boy. To indulge his own interests, to relax, to simply say _I'm going to stay in bed today and watch Netflix like an ordinary adult_. Not that Erik would ever do so; he rarely sits still. He is always on the move; a project, cleaning, making elaborate dinners of various cultures embedded in his brain along the way.  
  
On the ninth, a different atmosphere seems to take over as Erik begins preparations for celebrating a holiday in his tradition known as _Shavuot_ , celebrating the _matan Torah_ at Mount Sinai. Erik is fairly religious, Charles has come to realize; always taking time each day to read from the little book he keeps in his pocket, and periodically brings out a large, sweeping shawl decorated in watercolor depictions, slinging it over his shoulders and head as he prays.  
  
It's an unusual dichotomy, for someone so fascinated by science and quantum mechanics (he's practically exhausted the manor's extensive library on the subject) to be so outwardly religious, and Erik doesn't seem to hold any of the usual things associated with it. He's always been open, and honest, and accepting of everyone; not because he _loves the sinner and not the sin_ but because he's willing to admit that the people who wrote his religious texts were simply wrong on the matter.  
  
On that day he eats _chalav_ , milk, and reads from the Book of Ruth, amidst other late-night studies of the _Talmud_ and _Mishnah_. He seems to take extra pleasure in including Charles in these moments, especially when Charles appears fascinated by them, as he always has. At first Erik is shy, ridiculously so. Charles practically has to coax him out for him to even talk about it at all, which he can put together from context clues (it's not every day the ICC prosecutes anyone). But he does, with a muted, childlike excitement.  
  
Erik relishes the time he spends with Charles, delights in showing Charles the myriad of ways he can submit, that he can serve, and delights in the fact that he is truly teaching Charles that being submissive is nothing to fear, and nothing to be ashamed of. Not any more than being Dominant, which Erik clearly is. Never a moment goes by that he doesn't find some way to exert his Will, to let Charles know exactly who is in charge.  
  
On this day he's listening to a suite by Inon Zur through headphones, and takes a few seconds to turn from his laptop and regard Charles with a warm smile, brilliant eyes lighting up at the sight of him as they always do. The sun is streaming in and falls in splashes over his face, illuminating features that seem far younger than they used to. He's wearing a white cable-knit shirt and black slacks, one of his favored outfits that shrugs over his frame comfortingly.  
  
"Mm," he murmurs, his voice a deep rumble, sleep-roughened. "I am hardly elusive," he huffs, fond and amused. He waves the headphones which are still blaring music. "Just listening to something." Turning it off, he sets it aside. "What are you up to today, hm?"

* * *

In some ways, they are still flittering about each other. Dipping their toes in, whereas the first time they were practically forced to plunge right in considering the circumstances, to dive headfirst because anything else was impossible or unsustainable; here they have time, they have space, they have opportunity. There is time to dance around each other a bit, for them to take things slowly, to ease into both themselves and each other. Charles is truly being trained into his submission in ways that were never possible before, but more than that, Erik’s submissive. But it’s also something else, something budding, something growing, something lingering, and it’s electric. It’s everything, both gentle and overwhelming in its force, and Charles tries not to think about it too hard as he huffs right back. “You’re going to blow your eardrums out, Erik,” he chides, but he’s still grinning. “I’m up to something that involves you. Come with me,” he demands, breathless, excited.  
  
"My eardrums are perfectly content," Erik grumbles good-naturedly, sliding the headphones off from around his neck and rising as if obedient himself, hands folded formally behind his back. There's something far less unsettled about him since they've really begun exploring their Dynamic, less pulled-in-opposite directions. He's more confident in himself, more competent in managing Charles the way he should be managed, owing to a plethora of former experience, but this experience is new, too. Teaching him, too. How to ease in. How to exist on his own, how to be alone with his own thoughts. It doesn't always go well. He's hidden away from Charles before, in the bath tub, late at night when he can't stop shaking. But he's learning. "Very well, then, let us see what this endeavor shall bring." His eyes crinkle up, endlessly affectionate. He can't help but grin back.  
  
They really are exploring, in every possible way. It’s slow, and it’s steady, and for once nothing is in peril, not in any way they can change or alter outside of themselves, not in the same way it had been. There is time for ease. There are many ways Charles is not being managed in the way that he was, Dominated in the way that he was, and perhaps in the way he should be, in the way he needs, truly - but there’s time, and no rush. There’s no urgency. There’s just them. And Charles is more natural than he’s ever been, in that sense; he has no training but Erik’s, and an eager longing for that to continue, with no shame. Not in the same way. Now he tugs Erik’s arm, practically drags him down the corridor, insistent and demanding in the way he often is, chatting as he tugs the Dominant down the stairs. “Have you perhaps seen what it looks like outside, or have your eyes been impeded by your deafening music, too? I can’t believe you were going to spend such a lovely afternoon indoors. It’s criminal, really, and I simply won’t stand for it. We have to make a stop in the kitchen.” Now he sounds sheepish, stops in his tracks at the bottom of the stairs. “Actually, ah... I can meet you outside, on second thought.” And now he’s fidgety. “No need for us both to waste more time indoors, yeah?”  
  
Erik's eyebrows raise. "Charles, tell me if something is the matter." Erik knows it's not fair, if Charles is preparing some sort of surprise for him, but he can't help but be hypervigilant after so many experiences of harm and horror. It's safe to say... Erik isn't easy to surprise, because of it.  
  
Finding ways around Erik’s Orders when it suits him is one of Charles’ talents, unfortunately (or fortunately, he would say), especially when he’s feeling particularly defiant or mischievous. It’s perhaps a mix of both, at exactly this moment. “Nothing is the matter, per se,” he hedges, and it isn’t a lie. “Right now. But as I said, I’ll meet you out by the front - go on, then,” he urges, and it sounds an awful like an Order, or the shooing one does with a child.  
  
But Erik stays still, an immovable wall of steel Will. "Tell me honestly, or I will most certainly accompany you to the kitchen." The Order is unmistakable, and Erik's eyebrow raises, gaze meeting Charles's pointedly.  
  
Charles huffs, and looks down at his feet, shifting from one and then the other. He still has a bit of a limp, so it’s even more noticeable. “You won’t like it, so I wanted you to not see it,” he clarifies, sighing. “You still shouldn’t, by the way. It will completely ruin the fun, and you wouldn’t want to do that, would you?”  
  
"I will not like what?" Erik says, arms crossed over his chest. Pointedly. Still.  
  
It’s slowly chipping away at Charles’ haughtiness, and he swallows, letting his breath out in a rush and through his teeth. “I didn’t do the best job of tidying,” he admits. “It’s nothing. See? Nothing. Now, excuse me, please, I just need to grab something from the kitchen. Which, again, you don’t need to see. It can wait.” Possibly ever, as far as Charles is concerned.  
  
Honestly, and Charles has figured this out by now, Erik is fairly neurotic about cleaning. Let's get that out of the way. He is fastidious about his personal spaces, and encourages Charles to keep his own tidy. But he won't punish Charles if he fails to clean up. Not unless Charles does something specifically defiant in the process. Not as long as Charles admits to it and rectifies his mistake. Erik knows that his own preoccupation with order is not necessarily healthy, and he doesn't wish to transfer that particular neurosis onto his submissive. So he merely smiles, and touches Charles's shoulder. "Well, let us go see, and fix it up. At least to ensure that the dishes are put in the sink and there is no leftover food anywhere. It sounds like you were quite excited about this particular adventure," he laughs gently.  
  
Well, he might want to rethink that one, and Charles certainly seems to believe he’ll be getting in some sort of trouble, because he shrugs the hand off his shoulder off as he tends to do when he’s nervous, fidgeting too much to want to be held or touched. One of the things Erik did say he expected, that he asked of him, one of the very first things, was to at least try to keep things neat. Organization and order is something he sorely needs, his own levels of organization (or lack of it, as it is) bordering on truly skillful in how horrendous they are. It seems that’s a personality quirk. “Or,” he tries, one last time, “You really could just go to the door and wait. I highly suggest it.” He means for it to come out bold, but at this point he’s quickly running out of steam, more resigned to the idea that Erik will probably see the kitchen one way or the other.  
  
"Mm. No," Erik murmurs. There are definitely some instances where Erik's lenience in the matter is tested, and when things are entirely, horribly out of control, such a test is inevitable. But Erik just shakes his head and tweaks Charles's nose. "Come on. Let's go and see what we are dealing with." Unfortunately he has no choice in the matter.  
  
Charles sighs, horribly resigned and reluctant, and drags his feet all the way to the kitchen. Stomps them, really, not to be defiant (alright, a bit of that) but mostly because he thinks he might be able to get himself to stop walking. He doesn’t. The kitchen looks quite a bit like a hurricane swept through it, down to the fact that there is flour everywhere, on every conceivable surface, somehow, and if Erik looks, there’s a nice, healthy smear of it on Charles’ cheek too. It had been hidden before exactly this moment, one of those unconscious little tweaks of reality that Charles can’t seem to help these days. He’s trying to be better about noticing it. “It’s not that horrible, really,” he argues before Erik can say anything, but he’s squirming again, which means he knows it is.  
  
Erik's eyebrows climb into his hairline. "Charles, what is this? What happened?" he can't help but laugh. "Is this the reason why you wanted me to go outside?" he huffs. "You know we are going to have to clean all of this up." And by we he mostly means Charles, but considering the pure scale of this mayhem, he's willing to help.  
  
Another sigh, this one as huffy as it is embarrassed. Charles scuffs his socked feet against the floor, scowling down at them, and they happen to pick up quite a bit of flour and something decidedly sticky. “I was surprising you,” he mutters, and it seems rather silly now. “But you’re rather ruining it, at the moment,” he can’t help but add, petty as it may be.  
  
It makes Erik's heart swell a little. "It seems I am," he murmurs, fond. "Let's take care of this, and then we can go outside, hm? I'll help you."  
  
That’s rather ruining Charles’ decision to pout, his arms crossed over his chest as he leans against one of the counters. “I don’t need you to help, it’s fine,” he insists, trying not to snap, trying not to be too huffy. He can’t help but still be a bit touchy, sometimes, uncertain. “I’ll take care of it. Can you just wait, if you insist on my cleaning it right this second?”  
  
Judging by the look Erik is giving him, Charles is walking on very thin ice, but Erik inclines his head and gestures to the area. "Very well, I will wait."  
  
“Not in here,” Charles mumbles, rolling his eyes. He’s glaring at the floor, and it’s that prickly, overcast kind of upset, the kind that is deeply felt, as everything with Charles is, the kind that everyone else avoided and kept a wide berth from, before Erik.  
  
Erik tuts and raises his hand. "Enough," he murmurs the Orders, quiet but firm. "Now, I'm going to help you and we are going to get this cleaned up far faster than if you do so on your own. We will not be arguing about this any further."  
  
Charles’ mouth opens, then shuts firmly closed. “Fine, have at,” he mutters, gesturing wildly to the disaster he’s made. He’s quick to turn his back on Erik, his mood thoroughly shot, the room seeming a bit darker for it, grey and muted where the sun had just moments ago been bathing everything in golden light.  
  
"Unless you would like to spend the rest of this nice day on your knees, I recommend you cease speaking to me in this manner. Now, I have offered to help you despite the fact that you caused this in the first place, because I acknowledge that it is a difficult task and you were attempting to do something nice for me, the product of which I have yet to see, but I am sure will be wonderful. All the same, this will not stand. So we will clean it up. Together. And I don't want to hear another word about it or we'll go straight upstairs. Am I understood." Erik folds his arms over his chest, features dour.  
  
There are many times in Charles’ existence, not that he knows enough at the moment to learn from it, where he’s wished he could just keep his mouth shut. Lock it up and throw away the key. As it is, that warring, riled up something, instinct, perhaps, regardless of how useless it is, and how much trouble it gets him into, rises right up before he can squash it. “What are you going to do then? Send me to my room? Give me a time-out?” he scoffs, as if it’s ridiculous. “Please, Erik. Just stay on that side of the kitchen,” he mumbles, and underneath that bristling response, the one that is looking more and more natural, as S1 as any other part of him, there’s genuine embarrassment, and perhaps even worry. It isn’t casual effort that gets flour caked into every surface like this, along with whatever that caked-on black stuff is that’s stuck to the bottom of the counter.  
  
"No. I am not." Erik adjusts himself, flexing his arms where they're crossed and straightening himself so that he towers over his submissive. "Clean this up, now. All of it. I want this kitchen looking exactly the way it did prior to your intervention." There's no mistaking the cool undertone of Command lining his words. Charles has no choice but to obey, but furthermore, Erik *doesn't* move. He isn't helping at all. Charles *will* be doing it by himself.  
  
“I was going to clean it up anyway!” Charles huffs, but apparently he’s capable of being cowed (not that anyone thought otherwise, for even a second) because he mostly keeps his mouth shut as he goes about his task, except for the grumbling he does, the eye-rolling, the rather impressive pout he has on his lips.  
  
"I didn't ask for your input," Erik growls back dangerously. "One more word from you and you will go from five strokes to ten. Anything else to add, hm?"  
  
Charles does his best fish impression for a moment or two, mouth gaping, and then decides, wisely, to shut up, physically biting on his tongue. It doesn’t stop him from sighing, from making a face when he has his back turned. The process of cleaning the kitchen out of the absolute disaster area it is takes a long time, and somewhere between scrubbing the floor free of goop and sneezing as he inhales flour he cools down. He’s much more sheepish, then, staring at Erik’s feet, clearly waiting to be told if it’s good enough.  
  
"Look up at me." Erik murmurs the Order softly, but there is no less danger in his voice now than from earlier. Charles has fully cracked through the ice and is well on his way to the ocean floor. "Now tell me what this is about. There is no way you could have intentionally made such a disaster in here, and I certainly did not appreciate the tone you took with me after I offered to assist you instead of making you clean it all up on your own, which has just taken a considerable portion of our day. Are you looking to be punished? Because that's exactly where your insolence has landed you."  
  
When he looks, it’s really as brief as he can make it, and he swallows as he fights to break eye-contact again, fidgeting awfully. Charles shakes his head, but apparently now he’s decided he won’t run his mouth, silent and covered in flour and sugar.  
  
"I asked you a question and I expect an answer." And now there is no choice but to answer.  
  
Technically he was answering, and so Charles shakes his head again. “No,” he mumbles, staring down at his feet again. “I wasn’t.” And apparently that’s all. He’s too busy scuffing his feet, rubbing at a spot of something grainy on his arm.  
  
"Then tell me what you were hoping for." Erik no longer speaks without giving an Order, since Charles evidently won't offer it of his own volition. That's fine. He has no volition, here. Not when it comes to this.  
  
Charles is still silent for a moment or two, about as long as he can lock it between his teeth before he lets it all out. There’s a noticeable hitch in his breath. “I spent all morning on this,” he whispers, and he clearly doesn’t mean destroying the kitchen. It hadn’t been the end goal. Charles really might just be that might of a disaster when it comes to kitchen areas. "But also some of last night, after you went to bed. Well," and this one is tricky, because Erik has been pretty clear and firm about how much sleep he should get, since they're sleeping in different bedrooms and Charles has a tendency to get lost in a task, "Most of it." He's even more sheepish now. "I cleaned it up already, before you made breakfast this morning. I was going to do it when we came back in. I was just -" He was excited, and momentarily forgot about the disaster zone he'd created.  
  
"So why-why this?" Erik whispers. "Why this-insolence, and backtalk? Why not allow me to help you so that we could get things on track? I would much prefer to be enjoying the surprise you've created for me than disciplining you for this kind of behavior. I can tell that you put a great deal of effort into whatever it may be. I merely wanted this task to go by as quickly as possible so that we could, as you say, get to the good stuff." His lips quirk up a bit. "So tell me. Tell me what's really going on." And there's no choice there, either.  
  
“I don’t know,” Charles admits, and he’s frowning, staring at the floor again, unable to keep still. “Sometimes, I just - I was embarrassed, a little, that I’d spent so much time on it and you made me show you the whole thing out of order, and -” But there’s a bit more to it than that, and Charles doesn’t really understand it. It seems like something to be embarrassed by, so he is, sucking in another breath. When he looks back up at Erik, finally, he’s biting his lip. “Can we still go outside? It really would be a waste of a beautiful day. It’s been raining, which is nice for curling inside with a book, but…” But he’d been thinking about this, and planning it, and now it’s here and he’d be quite miserable staying inside.  
  
Erik is genuinely thinking, processing the situation and all of its variables. "We can still go outside," Erik murmurs. "But I want you to know that I am not forgetting this. I told you that you would be punished if you continued to talk back to me and you did so anyway. That will not be forgotten because of this. But that does not mean we cannot delay it. If that is truly your preference. I will let you decide."  
  
Charles’ face falls, and he chews harder at his lip, his head bowing again. “You’re still going to punish me when we come back inside?” he checks, hoping perhaps Erik will change his mind if he hears it out loud, or maybe after they’ve been outside. It’s a possibility. And they've never really had the time to negotiate things like this, either, because they just didn't have the time. The certainty that there will be time. They do, now.  
  
"Indeed I am. Regardless of what happens, you will be punished. So we can do it now, or we can do it later." Actions have consequences, and those consequences were very clearly laid out. Erik can be lenient, but he doesn't go over on his word, either.  
  
“How bad will it be?” he whispers, and the truth is, he nearly always does poorly when Erik is lenient in any real capacity. He thrashes against it, because for as much as Erik’s instinct is to give more - well, Charles is his perfect match, and it all stands to reason. They’re going slowly, and easing in, and taking their time, but what was present in the beginning is there, now, just less agitated. He still needs this, perhaps now more than he ever did because he’s open to it. Receptive, and terribly responsive. Because it’s new. Because the thought of being trained isn’t terrifying when he thinks about it too hard, sometimes, it’s overwhelming but exhilarating. It’s what it should have been, unmarred.  
  
And Erik needs to give it. It says something about this environment itself that he barely hesitated at all, in fact he didn't hesitate, directly referencing punishment the first time Charles stepped out of line. "I am still deciding. Definitively more than five strokes," he murmurs, and now he's hemming and hawing, if only to broadcast his authority in this situation .It is his decision. No one else's. He can take the time to figure it out. "And the longer we go before our session, the more time I will have to think. At this moment... given that you were amply warned, and given that I was attempting to help you despite the mess that you single-handedly caused... you can expect at least six to seven lashes." Lashes, not strokes. Meaning a whip of some kind. Definitely far worse than being caned. But Erik does pause here, as if he's taking a time-out from everything. "But you will not be harmed. The tool that I will use is fairly small. That does not, however, mean that you will find it easy to endure." On the contrary. It will be worse.  
  
“Oh,” Charles squeaks, and his head is bent but Erik can hear how wide his eyes are, can see how he’s started to squirm. “I wasn’t warned, and when I was I stopped, anyway. and - it’s not like it’s such a terrible thing, wanting to clean up alone. One might even say responsible,” he whispers, because he’s gotten nervous, now. “You know, you really could just send me to my room later. It’s a perfectly respectable punishment.” It actually might be, because Charles is very good at punishing himself when Erik is disappointed with him, and giving him a time-out isn’t so ridiculous, but right now it’s obviously not a real suggestion nor is it his to make in the first place. Not that he hasn’t wondered at non-physical punishments. He has. Quite a lot, actually, but mostly because he’s wondered about everything. Frequently.  
  
"Stop," Erik raises his hand, the Order ringing clearly through the room like a bell. "You were, and you didn't, and it wasn't, and it was, and I will not." Erik's eyebrows raise as he fires off answers to everyone of Charles's statements. "This is not the only way that I discipline you, but..." well, right at this second probably isn't the best time for this conversation. "But this was not an open forum. I will employ what methods I deem necessary."  
  
Of course Charles is curious, fiercely so, but he swallows that down for later and nibbles determinedly at his lip, considering. Steps just a bit closer to Erik, and takes a breath. “What if I am very - um, what if...” His cheeks heat, and he rubs at the back of his neck, his eyes dropping again. “You said you reward me, too. Equal and opposite must apply, then.”  
  
"I do, and it does," Erik murmurs the answer with a nod, smiling faintly. He unfolds his arms and clasps them in front of himself instead. "Have you made a decision?"  
  
The gears are turning in Charles’ head. This way, there seems a high possibility Erik actually will let it go, especially if the day goes well, and Charles would obviously like it to. He gets to put it off, and they don’t waste their daylight. The sunshine, which is bathing everything in warm light again. “Later,” he decides, and it isn’t a particularly difficult decision, when the alternative is far inferior.  
  
But of course this is all just wishful thinking on Charles's part, since by now he must know that Erik almost *never* lets things go. He is, however, quite skilled at deferring them when the time is necessary. "Very well," Erik replies, inclining his head. "Let's head out there, then."  
  
A shake of Charles’ head, and now that easy excitement from before is beginning to peek out from beneath whatever it is that sometimes urges him to be defiant that way. “I spent all night and morning working on something and cleaned the entire kitchen twice and you’re going to leave it inside?” he teases, and now he’s less spiky and more shy, fidgeting for a different reason.  
  
Erik blinks, eyebrows knitting together. "Ah," he realizes. "I misunderstood you," he murmurs, lips quirking up in a smile. "I presumed based on the manner in which you were speaking that it was located outside. However, on... second thought, that might be less logical." Considering it appears to be a baked good of some kind. Leaving that outside might not be the best option.  
  
“The activity is outside. It’s a multi-step surprise, and we’ve done it a bit out of step now, but so be it.” Charles is biting on his lip again, shuffling along the floor for a different reason. “Close your eyes? This won’t take a moment, but there’s mild assembly required.”

* * *

Acquiescently, Erik's eyes flutter shut, entirely trusting as Charles hops about next to him getting everything ready. It's still not incredibly easy to read Erik's emotions, but Charles can tell he is, at the very least fascinated to discover what exactly this surprise shall entail.  
  
It really does feel like it only takes a few moments, but there’s some distortion there, another unconscious tweak; either way, it feels as if moments, no time at all, before Charles is back in front of Erik, gently slipping something into his grip. Both hands, too, which is still novel, still extraordinary. It’s a large basket tied with a bow. “You can open your eyes now,” Charles declares, and he has a tentative, nervous smile on his lips, is twisting his hands together. “I thought it might be nice to have a picnic.” It’s feeling sillier by the moment, and it’s become abundantly clear that Charles looks for praise, or the opposite, in everything he does, and this version is far less likely to be ashamed enough to hide that. For encouragement, or discouragement, for guidance. Not from just anyone, from Erik, especially, especially now. It's where he's taking all of his cues.  
  
Erik's eyes slowly open, and a slow smile spreads across his face. "This is-" he swallows. "Wonderful," he finishes quietly, blinking a bit rapidly to be fully natural. Which is a silly reaction, but Erik's never had anything remotely approaching this kind of experience before. "Thank you, Charles." He adjusts the basket in his hand to free up one arm, pressing his palm against Charles's heart. "I would be delighted to share this with you."  
  
Charles continues to squirm a little, even as a relieved, delighted smile plays onto his lips. “I did my best,” he murmurs, staring shyly down at his feet, hands in his pockets. “I wanted to make things you would like, even if it isn’t very good.” And he put effort into it, real effort, because he isn’t naturally good at cooking or baking. He’s dreadful at it. But he wanted to try, for Erik.  
  
Erik is practically vibrating with excitement, the way he always has when Charles has given him a gift in the past, but this is the first time that _this_ Charles has seen Erik practically bouncing with it. He extends his arm outward for Charles to loop his into. "Shall we?"  
  
Immediately Charles takes it. He leads them outside, a good ways past the gardens, out by the lake with the tree he used to swing and climb on with Raven as a child but has no memory of now. Somehow he’s still drawn to it, the way he is many things, pushed and pulled toward and away by feelings he doesn’t quite fathom. There’s a blanket spread out for them already, perfectly positioned. A speaker, so they can play music. A portable chess set, just in case. And Charles has left books here, too, because it’s a gorgeous day, and he fully intended to spend all of it soaking that up. When they sit, though, he’s visibly nervous, pulling at the grass. “On second thought,” he says, and clears his throat, because his voice cracked a bit, “Perhaps we don’t open the basket. I’m not particularly hungry, anyway.”  
  
Of course, Erik is, judging by the protracted rumble his stomach makes. The less stress he feels, the more it becomes apparent that he has a surprising appetite, which makes the times he hasn't that much more stark. He ducks his head, sheepish. "I would like to see what you've worked so hard on," he murmurs.  
  
Charles takes a deep, nervous breath, sucks it down and opens up the basket. Most of what’s inside isn’t anything terribly complex; finger sandwiches, mostly, ones Erik has made before so he knows he likes them, and watched carefully and helped as he did, snacks; nuts and sunflower seeds, because Erik seems to devour them between meals in stunning quantities, dried fruits, a fruit salad, a salad Erik made the other day, that Charles found easy enough to toss, with grains and vegetables that he finds he doesn’t hate, a pasta salad, hummus, which he certainly can’t take credit for because it was sitting in the fridge and Erik made it, a few miscellaneous leftovers thrown in there, too. And then what he’d actually labored over - bread. He doesn’t think it’s anything to be particularly proud of, and he only achieved it by memorizing every step Erik took when he baked the same loaf the other day, watching every minute detail of his hands and fingers (which was quite fascinating, and Charles won’t think about it too much), and even then he’d failed miserably the first few times. “You don’t really have a sweet tooth,” Charles is mumbling, and it’s clear before it happens this is going to become nervous babbling. “Which is mad, by the way, who doesn’t enjoy chocolate in large quantities, but I’ve noticed it. But you love bread. You make it constantly, so I thought - well, I thought I’d try my hand, so yours could take a break,” he laughs, and it does dissolve some of the nerves. “It’s cooked all the way through this time, and not hard as a rock. I checked.”  
  
Erik is already shwooping some nuts into his mouth while Charles is talking, and when he grins, there's a sunflower seed stuck between his teeth. "Chocolate in large quantities," he laughs. Erik seems to hate chocolate and ice cream in general, which is even crazier to Charles. "This is lovely," he whispers, picking up one of the slices along with some butter (he notices that there's no meat here, which just makes him warmer because that's not really a conversation they've had in extensive detail, but Charles has still noticed it) and immediately takes a huge bite of it after spreading some over. HOPEFULLY IT'S NOT GROSS 'cause he has like committed to this now. He holds another one out for Charles to take, too.  
  
It’s not gross. It’s actually very good, believe it or not, or at least spectacularly decent for a first (second, third, fourth...) go at bread when Charles is notoriously awful in the kitchen. Catastrophic levels of awful, really. Perhaps a bit salty, perhaps a bit uneven, he certainly won’t be winning baking competitions anytime soon, but it’s not inedible by a long shot, and that means an astonishing amount of effort and thought went in on Charles’ part. Because he’s burned water. Several times. He bites his lip, leaning forward and watching Erik’s face, nearly vibrating with the nerves. “How is it?” he asks.  
  
Erik will take it. He eats the whole thing and takes another piece, making absolutely no indication that it's unpleasant in any way. Erik knows full well just how bad Charles is in the kitchen, it's part of why Charles has been relegated to chopping vegetables instead of any other kind of helping, but Erik is pleasantly surprised that it isn't inedible at all. He's grinning, and holds out a piece for Charles, too. "It's quite good, actually," he says softly. He leans forward, too, brushing his nose against Charles's playfully.  
  
Charles laughs, a soft, startled giggle of a thing, and he’s shy again as he rubs their noses together, exactly as he used to, even as he grins wide, his eyes bright with his delight. “It’s really alright?” he asks, hushed. “It was really quite dreadful, the first time I tried. I’m fairly sure it you were hit over the head with it you’d find yourself with a concussion. Then it was all sort of gooey and deflated, and the one after that -“ Well, Erik gets the picture. He’s been working at this. “I didn’t sleep at all last night, truthfully. I wanted to get it right, or at least decent.” For Erik, goes unspoken. It also explains how thoroughly cranky and groggy Charles was this morning, and perhaps even the incident in the kitchen.  
  
"Gooey," Erik huffs, his nose wrinkling up. Well, even if it were gooey, Erik would still eat all of it. But he is grateful that it, you know, isn't. "But, yes. It is really all right. Moreso," he murmurs, besotted. "What gave you the idea for this?"  
  
It should be a simple question, but Charles ducks his head immediately, biting at his lip. There’s a clear flush to his skin. “I thought it might be nice to spend some time outside together, when we’ve been so cooped up,” he murmurs, and he’s picking at blades of grass again. “And you’re always cooking for me, so I thought it might be nice to try for a change. I wanted to -“ He wanted to make Erik happy, and pleased with him, but there’s no way he can say that. It’s fluttering between them anyway.  
  
Erik gives Charles's nose a playful tap. "Well, you've succeeded," he whispers, because even though Charles doesn't say it it's not difficult to determine, really. "Share with me?" he asks, but it's not really a question as much as it's a Command.  
  
Charles takes a quick bite, and of course he’s tasted it, but it really isn’t that bad. Certainly not as good as Erik’s, but not inedible is about as much as he could have hoped for. “Your eyes are a different color in the sunlight,” he whispers, and looks down as soon as he does, his cheeks hot. He’s said it before, but he doesn’t remember it.  
  
Erik laughs, gentle. "Yours always reminded me of the sky," he murmurs back, lifting Charles's hand so he can press a kiss to Charles's knuckles. He picks up a sandwich next, taking a bite and hoping it doesn't have like fifty tablespoons of salt in it.  
  
It doesn’t, actually. Charles had been careful, and he’s paid attention when Erik directed him, when he had him help. It’s another form of obedience, of care, and he doesn’t know how to properly articulate what it means that Erik notice it, that he’s positively acknowledging it. It’s really enough to have him fluttering. “I want your help with something,” Charles says in a rush, clearly to distract himself from it.  
  
"Help with what?"  
  
This is another silly thing, perhaps, but Charles reaches for the pile of books he’d brought out earlier. Picnics and sunshine are fairly synonymous with reading, as far as he’s concerned, lounging about in the warmth. It feels familiar even though he can’t recall why. This book is clearly in Hebrew, and Charles turns to the page he was on; it’s covered in notes in scrawled, loopy English, Charles’ handwriting. “Sometimes I can read perfectly, and other times I get stuck. I can’t seem to comprehend what this page is saying, and I’ve been reading it over and over,” he sighs, his brow creased with frustration. He bites his lip. “Will you read it to me?” he asks, grabbing a sandwich himself.  
  
It makes Erik's whole face light up and he wraps his fingers around the tome, glancing down to see what it is Charles is reading. He has to huff a laugh. It's one of his books, turned to a passage quite befitting of them both. Erik reads it out loud softly in English. " _They led him gently indoors, but everything was strange to him. The customs, the manners, the habits of the people, their dress, their talk, was all different, and every time he spoke they laughed. / "Thou seemest like a creature from another world," they said. "Thou speakest only of the things that have long passed away._ " / _One day he called his grandson. / "Lead me," he said, "to the place of my long sleep. Perchance I will sleep again. I am not of this world, my child. I am alone, a stranger here, and would fain leave ye."_  
  
Charles is absolutely enthralled as Erik reads, and it’s written all over his face. His eyes follow along, that crease in his brow still visible where he’s scrunching his face up, focused, his tongue just barely poking out from between his lips. “Again, please,” he whispers, leaning against Erik, the sun warm and Erik somehow warmer. Everything is basked in an ethereal sort of glow, partially summertime haze, partially Charles’ perception of it. “But in Hebrew, this time. Slowly?”  
  
Erik smiles gently. "I think I know why you are having a bit of trouble with this. This one is in Yiddish, see?" he taps over one of the words. "Some of them are in Hebrew, but then it switches in these ones, because Gertrude Landa spoke primarily Yiddish." He wraps his free hand around Charles because he can use his other to hold the book up, propped against his knees, and he repeats the passage again in low, lulling Yiddish. " _Er hat gemakht zeyn veg tsu vu er shlof far hundert yor, aun dort zeyn sfilh far shlum iz gintfert. er shlof vider, ober nisht in dem velt er volt dervekn zikh_ ," he reads the closing paragraph fondly.  
  
“Oh,” Charles breathes, both in response to Erik’s reading and the fact that he’d been trying to read the wrong language, which seems like an exceptionally silly mistake. He reads along better this time, humming, resting content against Erik’s side, and nibbles at some of the sandwich he’d grabbed earlier. He grabs another one for Erik, too, absentmindedly anticipating a need. “Could you keep reading?” he asks, and it’s a bit shy, but mostly eager, glancing up from the book to look up at Erik hopefully. “And then - well, nevermind,” he laughs, embarrassed.  
  
"And then what?" Erik murmurs, but of course he obliges, settling in and snatching up the sandwich when it's offered, poking the whole thing between his lips and devouring it immediately. " _If this thou doest,_ " he wrote, " _I, Pharaoh, son of the Sun, will pay thee tribute; if thou failest, thou must pay me tribute_ ," he recites in Yiddish, the rest of the stories fairly grim, which is typical, rendering Erik's cadence somewhat dry.  
  
When Erik has finished the next few pages, Charles reaches back into that pile of books, grabbing up a pen while he’s at it. He makes a few notes, then shows Erik what the notebook actually is; it’s filled with Hebrew, Charles’ writing, translations, questions, quick jotted notes. “I’ve been studying,” he admits sheepishly, smiling. “But I thought - perhaps if you wanted, you’d help? You do need to practice your teaching,” he teases.  
  
"I would be delighted," Erik says, laughing in pleasant surprise. "You'll be happy to know that you're already quite advanced, this is remarkable," he murmurs as he flips through all of the pages, tapping a few questions. "Off the bat, I can tell you that the difference between _tet_ and _taf_ is pretty much we don't know. I learned that _tet_ comes from words that aren't originally Hebrew, and _taf_ does, but that rule breaks down fairly quickly. _Shin_ and _samekh_ are an interesting story; when working with the pure _suh_ sound, you will most often see _samekh_ , which is also used to transliterate words, but sometimes, such as in _chag sameach_ , you'll see a sin instead. It's not very common and chances are when you encounter words it will be _samekh_ ," he grins. "For all of it, I believe the letters used to have more clear distinctions, but those have been lost over time, and now they mostly sound the same."  
  
Charles hums, completely fascinated and utterly engaged as Erik speaks, nuzzling in closer without thinking and nibbling on a piece of his not-inedible bread, because it really isn’t horrid. “I wanted to practice some before I brought it to you,” he admits, and his grin is shy again, ducked into Erik’s arm. “I study everyday, but I think I’ve reached the limit of what I can do without a native, fluent speaker. Is this correct? I wasn’t certain.” And he points, nudges until Erik’s arm is more fully around him, and offers a bite of his food. It’s all terribly comfortable.  
  
Erik laughs, utterly fond and charmed. "It is correct," he whispers, tucking Charles close and dropping a soft kiss onto his forehead. "I'd be thrilled to help you out as much as I can. Truthfully I do not think you will require that much tutoring," he laughs, gentle. "You will be completely fluent in no time."  
  
“I want to know your language,” Charles whispers, and suddenly it seems heavy, hushed. He’s biting on his lip again. “There’s so much I’ve forgotten and lost. I want to remember this. I want to learn it.” For Erik, but for himself, too. Sometimes, it feels like he may never recover what he’s lost. That it is all too far and hidden for him to ever dream of touching, not really his at all. In the meantime, there’s no reason he can’t claim these things anew, learn them again, experience them differently. “Besides, it’s practical. When you’re - well, you tend to...” He takes a breath, lets it out, and promptly stuffs his mouth with another sandwich.  
  
"You will," Erik replies softly. "And you are. You're doing very well. All of this, is-" he breaks off and shrugs. Without the benefit of their Bond, Erik is nigh-on unapproachable, emotions rolling off of him the way rain slicks off a duck. But Erik's eyebrows lift again, and he can't help but press another kiss against Charles's knuckles before taking another sandwich. "When I tend to do what?" he murmurs, curious as ever, his head canted to the side.  
  
Charles shakes his head, still nibbling on his sandwich, and trying not to notice how warm and shivery he feels at Erik’s mention that he’s doing well. It must be the sun, the haze of a beautiful afternoon. “Tell me what you were saying first, and then I’ll tell you,” Charles bargains, grinning up at him, sticking out his tongue. “Maybe. If I fancy it.”  
  
"No," Erik tuts, raising a finger. "Tell me now." The Order zips up Charles's spine; it's not frustrated, but in fact it seems almost warm itself, mixing with that shivery delight until it sends tingles all the way to Charles's fingertips.  
  
In the beginning this frustrated Charles, but perhaps only because of how fiercely he responded to it. He shudders, trying to hide it, but he’s clearly fluttering in the aftermath. “When you’re being, ah, more... when you Order me, or ask something of me,” he breathes, hushed now, “You switch more often. And I understand it, but I’d like to have it be more than that.” He wants to be just as fluent in both languages, to know it more than instinctively. But he shakes his head, and pokes Erik’s arm. “Tell me now,” he demands.  
  
Erik laughs again, ducking his head a little in embarrassment. It's been happening more often lately, switching back into his native language purely out of comfort; periods of forgetting, of simply existing. He pokes Charles's cheek, where his dimple comes out as he smiles. "It's just very nice. I never-" he clears his throat. "Before I met you-" he doesn't really know how to say it, and peters out.  
  
But Charles wants desperately to hear it. He shifts until he can find his way more properly in Erik’s arms, poking him in the stomach this time, and smiling softly, dimples and all. “Tell me, please,” he requests, this time a gentle plea, not a demand.  
  
"I didn't have experiences like this," Erik finishes a little lamely. "My life was very..." he threatens to sputter out again but manages to end, "-very dark. You can't know how much it means to me."


	99. changes come/keep your dignity/take the high road

Charles’ face softens even more, his smile tinged with melancholy, but sweet, soft, and endlessly _fond._ Slowly, perhaps achingly so, hesitating as he does, he leans up and presses their lips together; just a brush, just a touch, waiting for Erik to take the lead there, too.  
  
Erik cups his cheek, bowing their foreheads together and shifting Charles so he's seated on Erik's lap more fully, kissing him back. Slowly, gently. There's a warmth building in the center of Charles's chest like a burning ember that gradually grows stronger, hotter, and begins to trickle and spread down through his limbs.  
  
And in his belly, where it pools and burns, the warmth of the sun beating down on them. Charles is panting before long, soft, gasping noises against Erik’s lips, perched up on his lap where he knows he’s fully supported, held safely, held _in place,_ and his cheeks are heated like the rest of him is as he pulls away to breathe and hide in Erik’s neck, spinning with it. Trying to calm himself, even as his heart thuds in his chest. His fingers are grasping tightly to the back of Erik’s shirt, white-knuckled.  
  
Erik runs his fingers through Charles's hair, rhythmic and repetitive. His fingers fall down to Charles's back, rubbing soothing patterns against his shirt. He's making no sounds, barely breathing, completely still, but Charles notes that his heart is beating erratically in his chest, and his lips are still parted, eyes widened. His hair is messy from where Charles had gripped it, and his clothing is a rumpled mess. "Hi," he murmurs lowly, laughing a little. "Was that OK?"  
  
Was it _okay?_ Charles is shivering in the aftermath, little shocks of it as he clings to Erik with all that he has, still hidden and nuzzled into his neck. He gives a shy, hesitant kiss to said neck, mumbling something unintelligible and refusing to peek back out. What he _does_ do is squirm, and after a moment or two it becomes abundantly clear that it’s _intentional,_ that he’s testing something, his breathing picked right up.  
  
Erik's eyes are half-lidded, gazing down at Charles like a predator awaking from a long slumber and his next breath is practically a purr as he runs his hands down toward Charles's neck, tracing his throat and _making_ him look up, so he can pin Charles with a penetrating stare that shocks all the way through his ribcage and into his stuttering heart. "Charles," he rumbles; a warning.  
  
Charles is barely breathing himself at this point, a full-body shudder wracking him as the electricity works all the way down to his toes where they’re curled up in his shoes. He’s biting his lip as he slowly, deliberately _wriggles_ , a full roll of the hips. “Yes, Erik?” he whispers back, too breathy and knowing to be entirely _innocent._ Consider the warning unheeded.  
  
Actually biting his own lip to keep himself from doing or saying anything; from following his _instincts_ that Charles had, before now, pleaded with him to heed, coaxed him into being and now he doesn't know what to do or where to go. His fingers tighten across Charles's jaw and he presses a kiss to his neck, giving him a solid _nip_ of reproachment, letting his arms tighten over Charles to keep him _still_ and in place. The fire is in full force, burning him, little rays of sunlight bouncing off of his skin and melting into his body and somewhere in the back of his throat entirely beyond his own volition a noise escapes into the air, a low moan breathed into Charles's ear.  
  
This is what Charles had done in the beginning, too. What he’s always seemed inclined to. They’d called it _goading,_ and perhaps it truly is the best word for it, but what Charles is really doing is _testing._ Daring, to see what he’ll get back. It seems an S1 instinct as strong as any of the others, fierce and demanding inside of him, and never as much as right now; Charles couldn’t possibly describe what that noise does to him, how it rolls his eyes back, how he starts to shake in Erik’s arms, gasping and nearly biting his lip off to stifle his own moan in the wake of that tease of a bite. Erik is strong, but Charles is willful, and he’s _determined_ , and he squirms this way and that until he can budge, until he can squirm up and then rock right back down, and this time - he bites his tongue, his eyes closed, but it doesn’t stop the _whimper_ he barely manages to swallow down. “I can’t, ah, I can’t seem to get comfortable, I’m sorry,” he breathes, and doesn’t even pretend that it comes out as smooth as he’d wanted, entirely coy.  
  
There are other things that are different, too. The first time it was Erik's _first_ time-with _anything_. And he was awkward, and stilted and messy and too-much, and it was perfect and Erik doesn't want that, not now. He knows better, he _can_ and _will_ be better. There's time, to learn one another, to dance around a little. But it's threatening to happen anyway because it's been- _so_ long. He grabs Charles's wrists on instinct and Charles finds his hands immediately pinned behind his back, _fast_ , with nowhere to go. "Charles- _Charles_ ," Erik rasps hoarsely, and Charles can _feel_ the effect his actions are having, how Erik's whole frame is vibrating with minute trembles to keep himself firmly under control.  
  
Charles is trembling, too, head to toe, and another cut off little noise, a choked down _moan_ escapes when Erik pins his hands, when he rumbles at him like that. “Yes, Erik?” he asks again, and this time it’s much less coy and much more breathless, his eyes widened slightly at the _force_ of his own reaction. He _tries_ wriggling again, frowning and fussing when he finds he can’t.  
  
"Be _still_ ," Erik growls against his neck, doing his best to suppress the pure electric flood gathering in his chest and zipping down to his belly where it pools hotly. His free hand practically moves of its own volition, curving over Charles's hip to cup his ass with a firm grip, fingernails _felt_ digging in through the fabric of his clothing.  
  
The response to _that_ is absolutely immediate, and strongly felt, the whole _Universe_ gasping with it, shivering violently. Of course they’ve _kissed,_ in the last week. Perhaps even fooled around, if it could be called that, wandering hands, soft moans, but Charles has always squirmed away when it got _heated_ like this, wiggled his way out of Erik’s arms to cool down, and there’s a possibility he still will, but right now he isn’t. Right now he looks right into Erik’s eyes, grins, breathless and wanting, and _grinds_ into Erik’s lap when he loosens his grip just slightly. Goading. Testing. _Daring._ “ _No,_ ” he whispers, that spark of playful defiance.  
  
" _Yes,_ " Erik growls, the Order shooting its way right back up to Charles's head, but Erik doesn't just _sit_ there, either. He takes a few seconds to calm himself from the veritable frenzy built up under his skin, and then _he_ nudges Charles back down against him, _slowly_. Charles is not the one in control anymore. He never _was_. And Charles can feel how _heated_ Erik is, how much he very clearly _wants_.  
  
When Charles gasps this time, it’s drawn out, breathy and keening and entirely ripped right out of his throat, his eyes wide and blown. There’s absolutely no way to hide how much _he_ wants, how startled and overcome by it he is; from the shivering to the way his heart is fluttering like a caged bird. “Let me move,” he demands, breathless, and Erik will recognize this prodding, too, this insistence. Fortunately, he’s already in trouble, a fact he’s _sure_ Erik’s forgotten; what’s a bit more?  
  
At this moment? It's blaringly obvious Erik is thinking of _nothing_ else but Charles in his arms. Deferred means _deferred_ , in Erik's mind, but there is something niggling that his animal-brain is desperately trying to whack away. " _ **No**_ ," the Order is purred from the bottom of his chest, and he spends the rest of his time nuzzling into Charles's neck, giving his throat little nips here and there. _Marking_ him. Brushing up against him. He _is_ in trouble, right now, just not the trouble he's thinking about.

* * *

It’s the kind of trouble Charles is pushing for, if he’s honest, it’s just that he’s gauging how far he wants to push his luck and he’s decided the answer to that is pretty far. He wants to see what happens. It’s not at all fear it inspires, but it’s impossible not to notice that there’s a danger to Erik, something lingering always beneath the surface, lurking, held back. Enticing. There’s a natural, instinctive part of Charles that needs to coax that out, to submit to it, to meet it. He’s gasping and panting, eyes fallen closed as he’s rocked slowly in Erik’s lap, and he’s not sure how far he’s willing to go but he knows he wants to do this. To poke at what sleeps in Erik until it wakes up, just a little. It’s different than whatever took him over in the kitchen, but perhaps the same, too. “Yes,” he manages to gasp, and then he struggles, pulling at the hand that has his wrists trapped, attempting to thrash in Erik’s lap even as he’s held immobile. It’s not to get away. There’s not an ounce of panic in him, but plenty of instinct, plenty of defiance, of fire, and want. Pent up desire.  
  
But there's nowhere to go. Charles struggles fruitlessly, held trapped firm in Erik's grip and Erik's grip only tightens over him, his free hand now fully available for his next task, and his fingers wrap around Charles's throat, holding him entirely captive. "You are mine," he growls lowly into Charles's ear. "You will do what I say." He punctuates this by giving a good squeeze to Charles's throat as he thrusts up just enough to brush them together, so that Charles can feel exactly what he's doing to Erik.  
  
And what Erik is doing to Charles. By now he’s a gasping, whimpering mess, entirely overwhelmed, and very obviously wanting. But things are different now, and right this second, Charles has more instinct than he ever has, making up for everything that’s missing. So he grins, playful even as he shakes with the force of this, and he can’t move but he meets Erik’s eyes, fierce. Daring, challenging. “And what if I don’t want to?” he breathes, shivering right away because he hopes he’s in trouble.  
  
"Then I will make certain you do," Erik whispers, and his hand travels from Charles's throat straight to his ass where he gives him a sharp slap of reproach, practically glaring up at him from where he's seated on Erik's lap.  
  
Charles yelps, loud and startled, trying to shift away from Erik’s hand (but maybe into it, too). It’s difficult to even think right now, but he still has that fire in him, and he needs Erik to rise to it. So he bites his lip, coy again, taunting again, and gives that little grin. “Was that supposed to do it? I’d like to see you try, Erik,” he whispers, and immediately he feels himself shivering with it. Waiting.  
  
Erik just huffs. "It certainly feels like I am doing it," he murmurs lowly, and quite suddenly Charles feels something soft and silky trace over his hands, binding them in place all the way up to his forearms, elegantly wrapped so that Erik has full use of his extremities. The next slap is much sharper, and his free fingers trace up to Charles's throat, squeezing enough so that he feels every iota of Erik's presence, Will wrapping him up just as efficiently. Erik leans up to capture his mouth again, still moving up against him.  
  
When Charles cries out this time, it’s so startled and drawn out it surprises him, eyes wide as it’s swallowed down by Erik’s insistent, demanding kisses, his breath stolen too. He’s clearly overwhelmed now, perhaps got a bit more than he was expecting, more than he bargained for, but it feels too late now, and more than that, right now he doesn’t want to stop; Erik’s hand around his throat feels good, and he pants for breath, for air, knowing instinctively he’ll always have enough of it. That Erik will watch, be careful. That he’s safe. So he licks his kiss-swollen, impossibly red lips and smirks, waiting until he feels like he can, until Erik isn’t thinking of it, to use his hips, to grind down right as Erik brushes up, and his own head falls all the way back as a result, his shocked moan drowning out everything else, the only sound audible in that moment, amplified. “I think you’re... oh,” Charles gasps, and whatever decidedly smug, goading thing he’d been about to say is gone because he can’t catch his breath, because he’s never felt this and it’s so much.  
  
"You think I am what, hm?" Erik purrs lowly into his ear, tracing his thumb over those reddened lips, ensuring that Charles's eyes never leave his, and the Order is clear. "Tell me what you think I am."  
  
Charles bites said lips, a soft, overwhelmed noise escaping before he can stifle it, swallow it. “Holding back,” he accuses, and it isn’t the first time. “You’re not - you’re not...” It’s an Order, and Charles feels compelled, but his belly is flipping over with heat and anticipation, all of that brave defiance suddenly melted out of him as he shivers, now that he’s being made to say it. “You’re not keeping me in line very well,” he accuses, and his breath hitches as he does. Erik’s mostly teased about it, since that first punishment. They’ve skirted around these things, danced, flirted, never really dived in, because they don’t have to. But it’s been there, just beneath the surface. Of course it has.  
  
"I do not know if you are ready for me to keep you in line," Erik whispers back, and it's growly and intense but it's also softer, somehow, evidence of Erik's care and attention pinging off of electrified molecules all around them. So he doesn't do anything, not physically, but he's always held the power of his voice and now he leans up and gives Charles's ear a solid bite, a possession and a claim. "Were this before, I would turn you over my knee and spank you until you were red and crying in my arms. Unable to move. Unable to speak. Except to take each one, except to say thank you, sir." Erik punctuates that with another slap across his clothed ass. "And you would not be wearing these." Erik's eyebrows quirk up playfully.  
  
The hitch in Charles’ breathing is stunningly obvious. The way his eyes darken and then flutter closed, the way he gasps, the way he moans, loud and vibrating between them; it’s all indicative of how much he wants, how much he needs. It’s practically violent, now, electric, pulsing beneath his skin, racing with his heart. There was a time, once, a time he doesn’t remember, where he sat on Erik’s lap just like this and thought I may never get another chance to do this. It wasn’t being pressured, but there was a rush, a full speed ahead, no stops. A fevered _kind_ of desire that he wanted to see through, heat of the moment, before it was taken from him. This isn’t at all like that. Now Charles buries his face in Erik’s neck, lets out gasping breaths, almost as if he’s wounded, closes his eyes tightly. “I want you to,” he breathes, but it’s quieter now. There’s a but.  
  
"No, look at me when you speak," Erik rumbles and lifts Charles's chin up from his neck, rubbing his thumb along Charles's jaw. "Tell me what you want." It's not a fevered-desire kind of Order, either. It's more muted, more sincere. What he wants, with but included.  
  
Charles makes a quiet noise of protest, biting hard at his poor lip. He wants to close his eyes, but finds he can’t, his heart stuttering in his chest. “I want you to keep me in line,” he breathes. He means something like I want you to take me over your knee and spank me until I cry, but he can’t quite get himself to say it. Isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to, with how red his cheeks are just from this. “But I wanted - I wanted to wait, I...” He digs his teeth into his bottom lip, sucking in a breath. “I wanted to wait,” he finishes, repeating himself. But, still hangs there. But he wants, and he wants, and he wants, and it’s so overwhelming how much. How he needs.  
  
"I know," Erik murmurs back, stroking his fingertips down Charles's jaw and neck. "And I do not wish to engage in such intensive activities at the moment. Because I have not forgotten what must come next. And I want you to be certain. I do not want you to move forward on desire alone. I do not want you to have any doubts whatsoever that you are prepared for such a thing. But it is always healthy to talk about it. To explore, and play. A little bit." He smiles, his words and entire aura dripping with warmth that mixes with the molten heat in Charles's stomach, filling his limbs with rich honey.  
  
It wasn’t the intensive activities that Charles was worried about, not really, and he tastes the blood more than feels the sting when he bites his lip a little too hard, a breathy sound escaping again as he arches into Erik’s hand, as he squirms openly in his lap again. “I get to decide?” he asks, and that spark is back, that challenge, because Charles is always pushing. It’s natural for him, it’s instinctive, it feels necessary. He’s not sure why. He doesn’t remember Erik asking him, once, why he needs Erik to fight for it a little. For his submission, his obedience. But here he is, and it’s different now. Less frightening, now, because he doesn’t know to be. “I get to decide if you - if you...” He can’t say it, trailing off, his heart beating too fast in his chest.  
  
"No," Erik purrs back, pressing his hand to Charles's chest. "I decide. But your comfort level is part of what I base my decision on." Erik doesn't duck his head or hide away in the crook of Charles's shoulder, even though his gaze wavers for a moment. "Your thought processes are important to me."  
  
Charles licks his lips, copper on his tongue from where he’s truly bitten himself a nice little hole, and he ducks into Erik again despite being told not to, overwhelmed again. “I’m not - I’m not uncomfortable, I want, all the time, I want you to...” And he’s not even sure he can articulate it, he just knows it’s there, building up inside of him, insistent, all the time. It’s maddening, sometimes, how much it is.  
  
"Hmmn," Erik makes a noise in the back of his throat, a rumble that Charles can feel echo throughout his body, and his hand slips down to Charles's belly, thumb rubbing little circles above his navel, a large and heavy weight against him. "Stop biting at yourself. Look at me. Tell me what you want me to do," he says, clear as a bell, the Orders melting into Charles's skin.  
  
Charles’ stomach flutters with it, his belly pooled with all of that heat, anticipation, that electricity, and he’s squirming underneath Erik’s hands, breathing heavy again. “I want you to keep me in line, when I...” It’s clear that if Charles could be biting his lip, he would be, trying desperately to hide again. “I’ve been challenging you, a little,” he mumbles, as if Erik doesn’t know. As if it isn’t obvious.  
  
"I know you have," Erik murmurs. Erik doesn't let him hide, either. "But I won't be challenged into this. If this is something you want, you need to tell me. You need to explain why you believe you no longer want to wait. And I will decide. You can't poke and prod at me, do you understand?" Erik swallows. "And it's not because of you, or what I think you need. It's-because I can't work like that. Not with this."  
  
“It’s not like that,” Charles lets out in a sharp breath, cheeks heated with - embarrassment, or shame, he’s not sure which, but his stomach turns over with it all of a sudden. “I didn’t want to push you, it’s just -“ He’s not entirely sure, or at the very least he doesn’t have the words to properly articulate it. He closes his eyes, as tightly as he can. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” His hands are still tied, which makes steadying himself difficult, but Charles tries to climb out of Erik’s lap anyway, hot for a different reason now, aware again that the sun is beating down on them, that he’s uncomfortable now, unsure.  
  
Erik doesn't let him go. "It matters to me. I know you do not intend to push me into something I am uncomfortable with, and the fact that these urges exist is not a bad thing. But the fact that I am stopping you, and asking you to tell me what you are thinking, and considering your feelings, does not mean that you get to decide anything when it comes to this. It does not mean that I am not Dominant toward you. That is all I wish to convey."  
  
Charles makes a huffy, confused noise, and he’s biting on his lip again, restless in Erik’s arms now. “What do you want?” he asks, staring down at the blanket beneath them, at the lake behind them, anywhere but Erik as his heart pounds in his chest. “I already told you what I want. What I’m thinking.”  
  
Erik stutters for a second, clearing his throat, but he doesn't waver. "I want you. In every way. I am always resisting my instincts toward you. I want you to know who you belong to. But I can't risk-if I did something, if I hurt you, I don't-" he ducks his head, grimacing, trying to avoid his expression being seen. Pain. Not normally evident, but a flash.  
  
But of course Charles doesn’t miss it. Immediately his own expression changes; softer, knowing, somehow, even when there’s so much he’s unfamiliar with, and he does what he can to nuzzle into Erik, rubbing his cheek against him. His cheeks are hot, but he does it anyway, kisses at Erik’s cheek. The sun is suddenly brighter, warmer. “Do you trust me?” he asks quietly.  
  
Erik nods immediately, nuzzling against Charles quietly, like a wild dragon being soothed by its human keeper. But one second, one toe out of line and it will rage and thrash, destroy and conquer all at once. There is no question who really has the power in a Dynamic, but in terms of raw force and strength? Charles has the Universe itself in the palm of his hands, and not just the one he's familiar with. The one that razes everything down. "Always," Erik breathes.  
  
It makes Charles smile, and he struggles against his bindings, but only because he thinks Erik might react to it. He can’t help it, really. Not even when he tells himself he should, because there is something fierce in him that is meant to be tamed, made for it, and Erik is the only one who can. “Then why don’t you trust me to use the word you gave me if I need to?” he mumbles, and it’s huffy again.  
  
Erik just shares his head though, and holds up a finger at that huffy tone. "You know full well how to address me." He trails off, though, because he doesn't know how to continue. "Even the idea." Erik doesn't shift Charles off of him, but he does nestle him closer so that he's comfortable. "Where I was before, my thoughts didn't matter. My opinions didn't matter. People just took what they wanted without regard. And they," and he drops off there and starts to shut down.  
  
At first Charles opens his mouth, but it quickly closes. Instead he nuzzles into Erik’s neck, kissing the side of it lightly. “Talk to me?” he whispers, and it’s soft again, quiet. “Tell me. Please. It matters, I want to know.”  
  
Erik keeps his head ducked, hidden so that Charles can't see his features as he speaks. "And they made me do the same thing to others. And I don't want-to do that to you."  
  
Charles swallows, heavy. When he lifts his head, it’s to try and meet Erik’s eyes, frustrated that his hands are still bound, that he can’t stroke his face. He kisses his cheek instead, both of them, one and then the other. “You don’t need to fear that, darling. You wouldn’t. You couldn’t,” he promises. “You have to trust me.” And he doesn’t even realize that it’s slipped right past his lips, that soft endearment: _darling_ , more accented than ever, more Charles than ever, no habits from his mother to recall.  
  
Erik presses against him, those bonds tightening further as if to soothe himself. He's never heard Charles's mother, anyway. The endearment has always brought him a measure of peace and today is no different. "How do you know I won't," he whispers. "I have to be careful. I can't ever let my guard down."  
  
“Because I wouldn’t let you. Because you made it so I couldn’t,” Charles breathes, because he knows it’s more convincing than any of his other arguments, though he genuinely believes they’re all equally true. “You said you trust me, and you gave me a word to use when I need you to stop. You have to trust I’ll use it, just like I trust you’ll stop. That’s how I know. And, besides...” He bites at his lip again, hides in Erik’s neck. “I want you, too,” he whispers, muffled. “You have to know that.”  
  
"It is somewhat evident," Erik whispers back, doing his best to lighten the mood a little. He draws his hand down across Charles's hip, another bid to soothe himself. "There so many things to show you, but I haven't forgotten that you are still owed discipline. And I won't defer it quite that long. That is my decision, as torturous as it is to enforce. So perhaps we had better go inside."

* * *

Charles blinks, taken aback, as if he’s forgotten. The moment the lightbulb goes off in his head, it’s practically visible; he bites on his lip again, nudges forward to nuzzle into Erik’s neck, to kiss it, behind his ear, feathering up to his jaw. “But I made such a lovely picnic for us. I baked bread. We aren’t going to enjoy it? I prepared it for you. For us.” And these parts of Charles are just as natural as the other parts, it seems, in some ways; because even without nurture, without memories, here he is. He knows exactly what he’s doing as he kisses back down to that spot Erik seems to melt at. “Haven’t I made you happy?” There’s genuine concern there, too, as much as he tries to hide it. Nervousness.  
  
Erik picks up the empty picnic basket, swinging it with an arched eyebrow. "Very much." They've both been, mostly Erik to be honest, chowing down on its contents over the last little while and are now down to the bottom dregs. Erik's muscles turn a little jello-y as Charles kisses under his jaw.  
  
It’s exactly what he’s looking for. Charles smiles against Erik’s jaw, against his neck, peppering more of those kisses, becoming bolder as he goes. Right behind his ear, where Erik tends to get all shivery, soft, warm kisses everywhere he can reach. And he squirms on his lap as he does, supposedly innocent. “It’s still so sunny and warm out,” he breathes. “Absolutely beautiful. Don’t you want to stay out here a while longer? We haven’t walked by the lake, and I wanted to. I have more I want to show you. Don’t you want to enjoy it?”  
  
"Charles," Erik rumbles in warning, drawing the sharp almost talon-like edge of his nail down Charles's throat. "Behave," he whispers back, sweetly, before he gives his submissive a sharp bite right along his jaw, enough to leave a mark. "Or else you most certainly will not be enjoying anything other than the feel of hardwood floors under your joints."  
  
Charles cries out loudly at the bite, and it makes him squirm more in Erik’s lap, this time not quite on purpose. It’s difficult to maneuver with his hands still bound, but he manages anyway, nuzzling back into Erik’s neck. Peppering more kisses there. Sweetly, as if in apology, and perhaps just this side of too sweetly, too demure. He looks for those spots Erik seems to react most to, still. “I’m behaving,” he insists, and tries to keep the huffiness out of his tone. “I’m just reminding you of how lovely it is out, and how much of a shame it would be to waste it. Don’t you think so? Let’s stay out here, Erik.” Another kiss, right to that spot at Erik’s jaw, lingering just a bit too long.  
  
"Mmhm," Erik purrs, and it's evident that he's skeptical. He rises to his feet in one agile movement, picking Charles up and setting him down as though he weighs nothing. "You did mention the lake," he gives Charles a peck on the forehead, wrapping him up within an arm, still bound, and not letting him go anytime soon.  
  
There’s some wriggling that happens, there, Charles pouting a bit when he finds those ties really aren’t going anywhere (but liking it, too). Still, he turns slightly so Erik can see his bound hands, looking up with what he hopes is quite a convincingly earnest, sweet expression. His bottom lip is even jutting out slightly, swollen and particularly red from kisses. “Will you untie me, please? I’d really like to hold your hand,” he whispers, and there’s just a tinge of shyness there, but also some mischief. There usually is. “Please?” he repeats, for emphasis.  
  
Erik bites his earlobe. "I think I much prefer you like this," he laughs. He strokes down Charles's arm, not untying him. Not yet. Maybe not ever again, not if Erik has anything to say about it.  
  
But Charles pouts harder, despite his startled pleasure with it, tugs harder at his hands, at his wrists, grateful Erik chose something silky. “Please?” he tries again, biting at his lip. “I’d like to show you something. I’ll exchange something for it, if you’d like,” he teases.  
  
"Mmmn," Erik hems and haws. "'Kay," he nudges Charles with his elbow and strokes his jaw. "Like what?" his eyebrows bounce playfully, nose wrinkled up. "Maybe.... one kiss," he boops Charles's nose, too, gentle.  
  
It scrunches up immediately, and Erik finds himself crouching, which Charles looks exceptionally smug about in the aftermath. He still has little to no control over his abilities, in a truly dangerous way, but sometimes there are moments. This is one, and he kisses Erik, sighing right into it, his eyelids fluttering. “Untie me now?” he pleads, flashing those eyes again, brighter than the sky even on this beautiful day.  
  
Erik sticks his tongue out, laughing under his breath and Charles finds the twine around his arms suddenly undone, and Erik rubs along his skin, making sure he's comfortable even still. Of course Charles has Erik wrapped around his pinky, that much was never in doubt.  
  
But Charles is going to push that a little, to see how far it goes. To test boundaries, the way he needs to, to know it’s safe to do it, but first there’s this. First there’s Charles sticking out his tongue right back, and then grinning. His shoes have already been kicked off, and faster than Erik can process (and that’s Charles, too, it must be), he’s running in just his socks across the grass, limping still, uneven, but unwilling to slow down even though Erik has reminded him over and over to be careful. “Catch me!” he demands.  
  
He immediately finds himself suspended in the air, running on nothing, with Erik practically glaring at him from a distance, arms crossed over his chest. "If you won't be careful, you won't be put back down," he warns with a wag of his finger. "I'll levitate you everywhere. Don't think I won't."  
  
Immediately Charles is frowning, and then something strange happens. Not only is he put down, righted suddenly without any visible movement at all, but he’s gone in the next blink. Invisible, imperceptible, vanished, except for when he laughs, surprised and amused and mischievous, smug, from a good distance away. “You could try,” he taunts, suddenly behind Erik. “You didn’t catch me. Is it because you’re worried you can’t?”  
  
Erik shakes his head, a small jerk of his chin, and gives a small smile. "I can't," he whispers, and holds out his hand, 'encouraging' (Ordering) Charles silently to reach back and return to him, as if he's uncomfortable being separated for even a moment.  
  
Charles does return, all at once, as if popping into existence. He does take his hand, but he’s frowning, head tilted like a curious bird. “Why not?” he asks.  
  
Squeezing Charles's fingers with his own gently, Erik gazes downward, shrugging a bit. "My leg," he murmurs. "I can't keep up. I'm sorry."  
  
It makes Charles frown deeper, looking down, too. Of course he’s noticed, but he hadn’t thought of it. It hadn’t even crossed his mind, and the guilt of it sinks heavy in his stomach. He squeezes Erik’s hand, the right one, and it’s suddenly back to what it was before a week ago, before the bathroom where Charles held his hand. It doesn’t bend the same way, the lack of flexibility and range of motion, lack of feeling; and it’s the first time in a week it’s been like that, the only indication that perhaps it isn’t healed, if it isn’t. The thing with Charles’ abilities as they are now is it’s unclear exactly what he’s capable of, but the Universe seems to indicate far, far more than either of them know. Charles can feel it, and they’ve seen it. His hand was fixed, and now it isn’t. Now he stares in horror, bites hard at his lip, and takes a breath. “Close your eyes,” he breathes, trying to squash the panic in his chest. “Please. Close your eyes.”  
  
Erik inhales sharply, the only sign that he's physically impacted by the nerve-rending sensation of electrical impulses run through hot forks like limp, twisted noodles in his arm and fingers, but he does as he's bid and his eyes flutter closed, expression not daring to tense with the pain. "It's OK," he whispers. To Charles, or himself, isn't clear.  
  
Focus. Breathe. Charles takes deep, sucking breaths, and suddenly Erik can feel nothing. Not his hand, but nothing else either. It’s completely, totally numb, from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. “Talk to me,” he begs, and it’s obvious he’s trying, like those sessions they’ve had. He hasn’t been able to make any progress at all, really. Whatever these powers are, they’ve never once felt like his, not since he woke up.  
  
Erik cracks an eye open. "Mmm," he huffs, keeping his wits about him, keeping some levity to the situation. "Preferable to the pain," he comments softly. "But I can't seem to feel my entire body anymore." A little bit to the left, a little bit to the right? Erik couldn't begin to fathom it. "I trust you," he decides upon, because it's true, and because it's the power he has to give in this scenario.  
  
Charles grimaces, and he doesn’t realize Erik has opened an eye because his eyes are screwed shut, tightly, his hands clenched at his sides now. It’s a beautiful day, he thinks. Erik trusts him. “When was the last time you ran?” he whispers. “Do you remember when it was? What it felt like?”  
  
Erik shakes his head. "Not since I was a child. I used to-" another head-shake. He doesn't like thinking about it, that much is apparent. "I used to a lot. I remember..." he trails off, shrugging. With Charles's eyes closed, he doesn't see Erik's gaze drift off into the distance. "It's all right, though."  
  
It’s not alright. Charles knows it isn’t alright, and it gets stuck right up in his throat, in his chest when he swallows that lump down. “Tell me. Please tell me.” And when Charles reaches for Erik’s hand, it’s impossible to tell which hand it is, but he can feel it. The only thing he can feel, the only sensation he has, everything else floating limbs, disconnected body, disconnected nerves. “Tell me what it felt like.”  
  
Erik's fingers still close over Charles's and he squeezes tightly. "Like being free. Like flying. Before I learned how to fly," he adds, wry. "I did a lot of running. I liked playing sports and challenging people to races. I was pretty fast." He shrugs and swallows. "I don't really like-I don't like dwelling on it."  
  
Charles knows it’s painful. He knows, because right now he can feel it. He takes another breath, sharp and stuttered, and squeezes Erik’s hand. “Close your eyes again,” he requests, and his eyes aren’t open but he knows. He can tell. “And think about it for me. Just this once, please. Think about what it felt like. Let yourself feel it.” And miss it. Long for it. Grieve for it. “Think about - the dust kicked up, the ground beneath you, all of that metal, all of that energy, the rush of it, the thrill. The taste of it in your mouth, in your body. The sting, the ache, the speed. How you didn’t look back. Think of it for me, Erik.” And those aren’t things Erik has told him, but right now, right this second? Charles knows.  
  
"I don't-" Erik inhales sharply. He doesn't see the point. He doesn't like focusing on things he can't change. And beyond that, he doesn't know how. He doesn't really know how to let his guard down and just feel grief like that. The force of it threatens to buckle his stability. It could do a lot worse. "OK," he mumbles, letting his eyes close. He doesn't know why, or what the purpose is, but he does trust Charles. Even if Charles wants him to feel-pain.  
  
Sometimes pain is necessary. Sometimes pain heals. Charles takes Erik’s hand, the other, right or left, it doesn’t matter, because neither hurt and both bend, and breathes as even as he can. “Remember, Erik,” he breathes. “Remember for me. Remember the rush. Listen to the ground the way you used to, when you could feel it moving beneath your feet as you ran, with all the world behind you. With the wind in your hair. With the Earth thrumming inside of you as it bent beneath you, to your feet and your Will. You remember, don’t you, darling? How fast? How far?”  
  
Erik grinds his back teeth together, but obliges all the same. "Yes," he murmurs at a croak. "I remember." What he remembers is obscured by a piercing sensation through his heart, as if gripped in an icy fist, and his composure only increases with exposure to the feeling. His instinct is to downplay it, to ensure Charles that he's all right, but he just endures it, and nods. "I remember," he whispers, softer.  
  
There’s so little sensation in Erik’s body, still. He can feel Charles’ hands in his, and he knows when he’s moved, when he’s crouched slightly, because their foreheads are suddenly bent together, and he can feel that, too. There’s a sudden chill around them, though the sun is still in the sky, the clouds are still fluffy and harmless. There’s no reason for the wind to whistle through the nearby trees, but it does, blowing their hair, too. “I want you to do something for me, Erik,” Charles whispers. “Could you, please?”  
  
Erik presses his forehead to Charles's, nuzzling against him a little. "Of course," he nods. "Anything. I will always try."  
  
Finally, Charles opens his eyes. The wind sings loudly, and if Erik were to look, he would see the flash in the skies of Charles’ eyes. “Race me,” he requests. “Right now, to that willow tree by the lake. Race me. First one to touch it wins.”  
  
Blinking his eyes open, Erik raises a brow. "But I-I don't-"  
  
“Trust me,” Charles insists, breathless, and there is that look in his eyes. Determination, or something else. Something fierce; a quieter fierceness than the one that lives in Erik, but no less strong. No less powerful. “Trust me, and race me. One -“ Somewhere, a little girl says, _wait, no fair, you didn’t say three! You cheat!_ Charles hears it, and he squeezes Erik’s hand. He doesn’t know her, he can’t see her, but he knows she is real, somewhere, someday, someplace, and one day he will remember, too. “Two -“ There’s no three, just like before, just like always. Charles turns and runs, the wind rushing through him, the world strange and off-center, loud and new, and feels his heart hammering in his chest long before he picks up any speed.  
  
He hopes. He well and truly hopes, and that is the difference.

* * *

There's no concept of thought that propels Erik forward, but it happens all the same with a burst of speed unlike anything that Charles has ever really encountered outside of mutation-at least, prior to this scenario. Now, of course, it is unlike anything he's encountered. Every muscle in Erik's body moves as one cohesive whole, with memory ingrained in each sinew pushing him to easily catch up, and then overtake Charles in long, bounded strides. He doesn't seem to realize what's happened until he turns around and abruptly trips over his own feet and slams face-first into the ground in total shock. "Oof. Owie. _My bones_ ," he mumbles into the dirt. After a couple of seconds Charles can hear him laughing, shoulders shaking as he rolls over.  
  
Charles is laughing, too. He’s laughing and then he’s tumbling, and it’s only when he’s fallen right over Erik, breathless and exhilarated and relieved, utterly bursting with that hope that’s always driven him that he realizes he’s teared up, too, even as he laughs, even as he leans down to kiss Erik until he runs out of the rest of his breath. “We’re still racing,” is what he says when they part, and he smiles so big his cheeks hurt, dimples and all, the wind singing and singing. He’s quick to his feet, fast himself even with his ankle to consider, and he doesn’t look back as he runs to the tree by the lake, the sun so bright it bathes everything in a hazy, brilliant glow. “Catch me! You’re behind!” he taunts.  
  
Erik abruptly hops to his feet and zooms after Charles, and catches up in no time, giving him a tap on the nose as he loops around the tree and does a little twirl, outstretching his arms as he bows playfully. "I win," he smirks, sticking his tongue out. The origin of Pietro's superspeed isn't far-fetched; and it goes to show how much Erik had lost after all this time even in the short span they've frolicked about.  
  
It aches, really. Somewhere deep inside of him, it twists and it aches and Charles grieves for what was lost, though he doesn’t know, though there’s so much he doesn’t know, can’t understand, doesn’t remember; but he knows his chest hurts with what’s bursting out of it, with the persistent thrumming of his heart. Erik is fast, all long, powerful limbs the way he was meant to be, a predator in every sense, built for these things; but more than that he’s beautiful. Achingly so. Danger and grace woven so intricately together it should be impossible, and the thought chokes him up again until he shakes his head, laughing. “I haven’t warmed up,” he teases, and then he’s running again, just so Erik will follow him. He ignores the twinge of pain, the whipping sting of the wind on his cheeks, too. All that matters is that Erik follows him, that he runs, that he’s freed, even for just this moment.  
  
Erik catches up then, too, and swoops in to pick Charles up off the ground, easily lifting him from bearing weight on his ankle. "You have warmed up quite a bit," Erik whispers, drawing his hair away from his forehead. "I won't let you hurt yourself more." His eyes reflect the light, shining brilliantly, and he ducks his head, hot prickles building up behind his eyes that don't fully form, but Charles can tell he's affected. "Thank you," he whispers, knowing that it isn't sufficient.  
  
But Charles is, too, that pricking in his own eyes, and he only smiles brilliantly, ducking his own head. “You needn’t thank me,” he breathes, and squirms in Erik’s arms, laughing again, warm and out of breath, his cheeks pink and his heart still pounding. “I thought one of your rules was that I exercise? How will I, if you’re always carrying me around?” he huffs. “You’re truly horrid at enforcing your own rules, you know.” It’s perhaps too far, but he decides to prove his point by wrapping his arms around Erik’s neck and kissing him, wholly overcome with the need to do it.  
  
"We will figure out a way," Erik hums. "After all, I do enjoy carrying you around all the time." He squints a little, melting into the kiss unconsciously. "I wish I could express-" he huffs, sniffing and darting his eyes away. "I never thought about-you know," he doesn't know how to continue, and it's in the realm of negative feelings, so he isn't particularly inspired to try. "Thank you."  
  
Charles shakes his head, biting on the inside of his cheek. It doesn’t help to keep his own reaction at bay, nor does the squirming in Erik’s arms, how he hides in his neck. “I told you, Erik, you don’t need to thank me,” he whispers, because it’s all he can say. “I just wanted - I know...” He trails off, muffled. Kisses Erik’s neck again instead, nuzzles into it.  
  
Erik lets him down again, just so he can take both of Charles's hands in his. There's a lot threatening to tumble out of him, but he dutifully keeps it at bay, far more interested in enjoying the scenery than dredging up the past, talking about his own feelings, about his own past. He just nods, and kisses Charles's knuckles.  
  
Except Charles can feel it. He frowns as he’s put down this time, unsteady on his own feet as if he isn’t used to using them, bearing far more weight on one than the other; he ducks into Erik’s chest instead. “I want you to talk to me,” he breathes, quiet. “Please? You told me you would.”  
  
"I know," he whispers, kissing the top of Charles's head. "It just-" he doesn't really know what he's trying to get at, anyway. "I had so much-taken from me. I just tried not to think about how much."  
  
It clenches in Charles’ chest, physical. “It’s alright to think about it, Erik. To feel it.” It’s muffled from where he’s hidden in Erik’s shirt. “I wish you’d talk about it more,” he admits. “I want to help. I don’t know how.”  
  
Erik soothes himself by rubbing Charles's back in rhythmic motions. "You've helped far more than you can ever possibly realize," he murmurs, fond. "The last time that I really remember feeling joy, before I met you-" he trails off. "It was when I was running. I was running home," he laughs, and shrugs. "Anyway-I didn't mean to be depressing."  
  
It soothes Charles, too, and he shakes his head again, still unwilling to pull away from Erik’s chest. “Tell me about it,” he insists. “Talk to me. I want to hear, and I don’t care if it’s depressing. I can handle it.”  
  
He enfolds Charles fully in his arms, squeezing gently. "I didn't know that anything would be different, until it was. I was just a normal kid. My world was so small, but I was happy. Everything that made me a person-" he cuts himself off. "I buried everyone that I knew, everyone that I loved. I guess it seems silly that-that I would care about being injured on top of it."  
  
Charles is silent, but clearly listening, even as Erik’s shirt is wet with the tears he can’t help but shed; everything is felt, right this moment. It lingers between them, and twists into Charles’ heart, tangling up in it. He doesn’t mind the burden if it means it’s shared. “You buried parts of yourself, too,” he whispers. “It’s only natural to grieve. It’s just -“ He bites his lip, and for a few moments is silent again. “Did it feel nice?” he wonders. “To run again?”  
  
"Indescribable," Erik whispers. It's the reason all of these feelings are bubbling out of him in the first place. "It-you've given me, so much. A life, really. But this is the first time I've ever-felt like something that was-taken from me that day-" Erik just trails off. He's not very good at talking about how he feels; there's no logical explanation for the connection, he wasn't injured then, but-that joy, that sense of purpose. It was taken, then. "So much has happened since, but part of me- _exists_ there. I don't think I ever- _stopped_ existing there."  
  
It’s difficult for Charles to explain what it is that makes him cry, but he thinks it might be Erik. It’s all there, inside of him, too. Aching, and aching, and aching. “I know,” he gasps, and grips Erik tighter, as tight as he dares, as if afraid he might be ripped away. “I can’t change that. I can’t change what happened, whatever it was. I don’t even know how well I can change these things, it’s just...” His breath hitches. “I want to help you. You’re helping me even though I’ve only hurt you, and I just want to help you.” His throat is raw with it, the honesty. The earnest, bubbled up feeling in him. “I want you to run again.”  
  
Erik shakes his head. "You've done nothing to hurt me," he pulls away so he can cup Charles's cheek. "Not truly." The situation has been frustrating at times, for the both of them, but harming him? No. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I didn't mean to make you sad. Please, forgive me."  
  
“There’s absolutely nothing to forgive,” Charles says immediately, perhaps predictably, but there’s that fierceness again. If anything, another apology bubbles up on his lips, but he swallows it down before it breaks, because Erik’s response to that is predictable enough. “It’s alright to make me sad this way, Erik. It’s alright to acknowledge your pain. It’s good. How do you expect to keep it all inside of you, all of the time? Don’t you think some of it deserves to come out and breathe, so it doesn’t suffocate you?” Charles wipes at his eyes hastily with the back of his arm, and wonders if he’s crying because Erik finds it difficult to, or if it’s just because it’s painful. Painful the way it is for Erik, the way it was in the bathroom a week ago, Charles bruised and battered and crying. Even if it’s different now, there’s no denying that he cares for Erik, deeply so, that they’re connected. And sometimes feeling pain is the only way to heal from it.  
  
Erik tugs Charles's hand down and dabs at his eyes more carefully with the edge of his sleeve. Even given how nice the day is, Erik grew up in a place that frequently reached over 40 degrees, so he usually wears sweaters and jackets even as the weather turns to summer. "I don't like thinking about it," he murmurs back. "I don't like talking about it. Especially when it makes you sad. I just want to forget it ever happened. I'd rather focus on all the good things I have now. Like you." He smiles gently.  
  
“You can’t,” Charles breathes, and he smiles, too, the melancholy seeping in, everything taking on a slightly blued hue with the wind still whistling in the trees on what had been a perfectly calm, still day. It still is, the sun brighter in the sky than this stretch of New York would normally boast in early July. “You know you can’t. It creeps up on you, it always will. When you’re sleeping, when you’re showering, when you’re walking down the stairs. Don’t you think I know? It makes me sadder when, when you hide it, when you force it down. Don’t you think that perhaps we’re here for you, too?” he asks, quietly, and it’s the first time he’s vocalized it, but something he’s considered for quite a while. “Don’t you think we’re stuck here because you need to be, too? Just a little? You said we’re here to become stronger. To learn. I don’t think that means just me. Whoever did this, the Universe, some cosmic force, me - it’s given us a chance, and I won’t see you shut it out any more than you’ll let me. Have you considered that maybe, on top of a thousand other reasons neither of us will understand, I don’t know because there’s a part of you that needs to tell me?”  
  
But Erik shakes his head, a sudden, jerky movement. He can't believe that, because that would mean part of him needed to cause Charles pain, to mire them both in horror and that just isn't how Erik is wired. But Charles isn't wrong, either. There's at least a few times a day that Erik feels it, eyes burned into his back, the cold grip of fingers digging into his shoulder, sludge in his mouth and ash in the air and electricity forcing his molecules apart, dragging his hands over the waxy, expressionless void of his face in the mirror. Erik presses his lips together. "But you know," he shrugs, slouching, sticking his hands in his pockets like it will make him smaller. "I, I told you-everything-relevant."  
  
“We both know that isn’t true,” Charles whispers, and reaches for Erik’s hands, chasing after them, both of them, held equally in both of his. Huge, and warm, and real, and it soothes Charles, too, as he drags his thumbs over them, rhythmic and gentle. “Do you think it would be right for me to never gain back my past? To walk around without it forever, to say it doesn’t matter? You’ve seen what it’s done to me, Erik. It will only do more of that, I imagine. The other day, in the bathroom...” He closes his eyes. “I know it’s like that for you, too. We can’t hide from this. From what hurt us. We need to face it, here, together. Please let me help you, too. Please. You said I wasn’t happy, before. That there were things I wasn’t facing, and you couldn’t help me because we didn’t have the space to do that. Don’t you think that’s true of you, too?”  
  
"I like-" Erik whispers very softly, the admission dying on his lips before it can come to fruition. He focuses on Charles's hands in his instead, on the feel of his thumbs rubbing soft circles. Erik always calms when he's being touched, it's always easier to talk to him and get through to him with physical proximity. "I like that you don't know, sometimes. That you don't know about me. That there is a world we live in that you don't-that you didn't see-that I could just be-a _normal guy_." He shrugs, ashamed.  
  
But Charles smiles, gentle, soft, understanding, and brings one hand up to kiss. “I know,” he whispers. “But you don’t have to tell me all at once, Erik. There’s no rush this time, and no way for me to find out on my own. I’m not your doctor -“ And this time it’s true, not just a feeling. In this space, in this little, insulated world, he isn’t and has no memory of ever being. “And I won’t be listening to your testimony. It’s just us, darling. One step at a time. But I’d like you to share it with me. I’d like to know, and help. Not all at once, alright?” Because it doesn’t need to be, and there was no way to handle it like that. But they have the time, now, to break it down. To talk it out. To progress more naturally, more carefully.  
  
Something seems to drain out of Erik at that, something he couldn't articulate, but Charles landed on it precisely. To Erik, it feels like all he's done is expose Charles to this, to court dates and testimony and the CIA and prison and the ICC and it's been a constant litany of torture and war and suffering and disease and death and damage, not to mention his own trauma. Erik likes just being ordinary, not being _Erik Lehnsherr, Mutant Rights Activist_ or _Erik Lehnsherr, Terroris_ t or _Dr. Charles Xavier, Forensic Psychiatrist, Billionaire Philanthropist_ -he likes that they can exist without worrying that someone is writing literal fan fiction, _literally_ , of them, that _literally happened_. That reporters aren't constantly in their face, no lawyers and trial services officers and videotapes and-Erik is just standing there, zoning out now. "OK," he jerks a little, back to reality.  
  
Charles squeezes Erik’s hands, biting his lip. “It’s just us here, Erik. There’s no -“ But he cuts off, his eyes somewhere behind his Dominant, twisted to the side to see. “Sorry,” he mumbles, distracted, shaking his head, when he looks back up at Erik. “We have time, I meant. To be normal, whatever that means,” he teases, knocking away the unsettled twist to his stomach. “We should take advantage of it, at least.” And there are frightening, frustrating, upsetting things about this. But there are also things that aren’t, that Charles can’t know the scope of, but imagines must be immense for Erik.  
  
Erik touches Charles's face. "I don't ever wish to cause you pain," he whispers. "I only ever want joy for you. I know that isn't realistic, but I have to try to give you joy. That's what being normal means for me," he laughs, and his smile reaches his eyes, crinkling them up at the corners, warm and crystal green. "Just being able to make you smile. I know you don't-remember me very well, but that's OK. You are still mine. I will still-I will still be for you."  
  
“I don’t remember you at all,” Charles corrects, and swallows, still distracted but now in a different way, his eyes on their feet. “But I’m learning you, now. You can’t always make me happy, Erik. That isn’t normal. It isn’t healthy, either. It doesn’t lead to happiness, avoiding everything else in the process. But you do a good job of it,” he whispers, barely audible at all, the words a bit stuck in his throat. Not because it isn’t true, but because he’s suddenly shy again. “I know you remember me, obviously, that it isn’t quite the same, but -“ He shrugs, and hopes his meaning gets across.  
  
"You think I do a good job?" Erik looks up, huffing under his breath lowly, a release of breath, of tension out through his feet and he lifts Charles's hand up, brushing his lips across his knuckles. "I want you to know me. I just don't-" He forces it out. "I don't want-I don't know if the only thing I am..."  
  
“It’s not,” Charles says, and that fierceness is back, that certainty and confidence and force. He shakes his head. “It’s not the only thing, Erik. There is so much to you, so much that you don’t even know yourself. I know you’re trying to, you’re... you don’t want to frighten or upset me,” he settles on, because he knows it’s the truth. “But you won’t. I’m not afraid of you. I can promise you that, with absolute certainty. So much frightens me here, but you do not. You don’t need to make yourself smaller than you are so I don’t run off screaming.” His lips twitch up, his head still bowed. “It seems you wouldn’t let me, anyway, and you’re very fast. I’d prefer you catch me.”  
  
Once again Charles has hit the nail on the head, and Erik resists shrinking away from that truth, too. It's a constant thing. He's always doing it; making himself smaller, forcing all of his thoughts into the Void so that he can outwardly focus on everything else except for himself, and if he keeps pushing and pushing they will all go back to the Landscape and vanish into the mountains. "I'm not good at it," he whispers at last. "But I-I will keep trying."  
  
“Thank you. That’s all I would ever ask of you,” Charles smiles, and leans up on his tip-toes as if going in for a kiss, but something stops him. The smile vanishes, and he swallows, quickly taking Erik’s hand. “Let’s walk this way,” he suggests, but it’s really more of a command because he attempts to drag Erik as soon as he said it, tugging insistently on his hand.  
  
Erik is easy enough to lead, though, and he follows obediently as if he's the submissive and not the other way around, happy to follow Charles wherever he wishes to go; but he chases after that kiss all the same, acutely aware of the change in attitude like reflections through a prism, small overlays of shadows and flickers that he's acutely attuned to.


	100. Listen To Your Heart For Your God's Sake

Charles kisses back, easily enough, though his brow is still puckered with concern. He’s not as good at hiding things without his abilities, without conscious misdirection, which Erik already knew. It isn’t the kiss itself that made him pause, and he doesn’t startle at touch nearly as much anymore, fluttering between his body’s obvious craving for it and the thought that perhaps he shouldn’t, that it’s too much; but Erik is less of a stranger, now. He feels like much less of one. Still, he’s quiet, walking silently along the lake, occasionally glancing behind them.  
  
Erik takes his hand, eyebrows arching. "What is the matter?" he murmurs, but it's not really a suggestion as much as an Order. "Tell me about it."  
  
“Shhh,” Charles shushes, teeth digging into the inside of his cheek. He glances over his shoulder again, clutches harder to Erik’s hand. “He’s here again. He’s following us. Don’t look behind you,” he urges, except Charles keeps doing it, unsettled and paranoid. “It’s fine. He’ll leave.”  
  
Erik certainly does not _"shush"_ , he makes a low growl and whirls around abruptly, metal filaments out of the ground rising up and surrounding his hands as they clench into fists. Maybe it's only a figment of Charles's abilities, but Erik can't resist his impulses, either.  
  
Charles sighs, vaguely panicked, and does not turn around. But nothing happens, and when he checks, the man is gone, just as he expected. “He’s been watching me more often,” he admits, quietly. “He doesn’t say anything. He just stands there, and stares, and -“ Charles shakes his head, taking a sharp breath. “It’s alright, Erik. He’s gone.”  
  
Erik glares. "No, it is not all right. Who is this person? Tell me." Erik doesn't allow it to even resemble an inkling of a suggestion, his features pulled down in a dark glower.  
  
It makes Charles shiver, but he isn’t afraid. Not of what Erik will do to him, anyway, and perhaps there’s some strange pleasure there, too, in seeing Erik like this. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t think he’s anyone in my family, like you thought. He’s not in any of the pictures.”  
  
"Well. They are right to disappear when I am around, because they know exactly what will happen to them if they try anything toward you." Erik is on hyper-alert like the attack-dog he pretty much is, teeth ground in the back of his jaw, brows furrowed, nostrils flared out, muscles tensed to maneuver.  
  
For some reason it makes Charles smile, though there is nervousness to him, too. Something unsettled, still, and he glances one more time behind them. “When I’m in bed, he -“ He bites his lip, hard, tries to steady himself. “He’s there, every night. I’ve wanted to come to you, but I just - and he stands there, Erik, and he smiles. It’s...” It frightens him. Truly. “He usually goes away, if I ignore him enough. It’s alright, I promise.”  
  
"You should have come to me about this," Erik grits between closed lips, the words grating up against one another like pulped fruit through a strainer. "You tell me I should be open with you and yet conceal this information from me."  
  
“I didn’t - I wasn’t -“ Charles feels the words clot in his throat, hanging his head. “I did. That night I came to your room. But it kept happening, and I didn’t want to keep bothering you. It’s just in my head, isn’t it?” But he doesn’t sound very convinced, either, and it’s clear he’s been frightened.  
  
"I don't care," Erik whispers. "It is upsetting you and frightening you. I don't care where it comes from, that is not your decision. You do not get to decide what bothers me. If something is happening to you, you need to come to me with it. How am I supposed to take care of you if I don't know what is happening?"  
  
“I did come to you,” Charles mumbles, huffy now, staring down at his feet. “I told you. I just didn’t follow up, exactly. You don’t need to do anything about it, Erik, it’s fine. Can we continue walking? We’ll run out of daylight soon.” He reaches for Erik’s hand, clearly wanting to drop the subject, to move them along.  
  
Erik takes his hand all the same. "You came to me once. You did not tell me this was ongoing, you did not tell me it occurred every night, you insisted on remaining by yourself, alone and afraid. You did not follow up. I do not know what it is. But I will not tolerate this. You will stay with me." And that is final, a snap of Will through the words.  
  
“No,” Charles says, immediately, even though it’s not what he wants to say. He lets go of Erik’s hand, practically rips it away, and he’s all coiled up defiance again, arms over his chest. “I won’t. I don’t need you to coddle me.”  
  
"I did not ask for your input on the matter." Erik folds his now-empty hand behind his back, stiff and formal and all hard lines and angles and vibrations of Dominance pinging through the atmosphere.  
  
Charles bristles even further, scowling. “Well, I’m giving it, and it’s not happening,” he snaps, even though he knows it’s only on principle. He’d felt safe, and comfortable, and protected with Erik that night. But he can’t admit that right now. “You told me we could have separate rooms. I’m not staying with you. That’s ridiculous.”  
  
"I said I-" There's just something. It twinges at Erik and there's nothing happening, nothing different, and he didn't cry when he spoke about burying his mother, but he is now; looking at Charles with something that wells up in him until it overflows and he lets out a strange noise, one Charles hasn't heard from him before, and does his best to rein it all back. He blinks and realizes in horror that he can't force any more words out of his mouth, and in even greater horror, he can't seem to stop himself from crying like he's been punched, features still that same expressionless glaze, vision blurred and he doesn't know what to do, or what is even happening in the first place, and seriously contemplates just running away but he's frozen, rooted to the spot.  
  
Whatever defiant, prickly funk Charles had slipped into, pride and embarrassment and that strange, instinctive need to fight sometimes, it slips away just as soon as it’s come. His eyes widen and he’s reaching for Erik immediately, reaching for his hands, reaching up to touch his face, concern written all over his own. “Erik? What’s wrong? Please, talk to me,” he whispers.  
  
Erik crushes his eyes shut, his entire body vibrating with the effort to stay still and calm and motionless and not have his whole expression crumble into pitiful wobbles, teeth ground together, jaw totally locked up and he doesn't know, what hit him so suddenly, what thought twinged inside for the briefest of moments but he shakes his head and just wraps Charles up in a crushing hug, getting tears all over his hair. Sorry.  
  
Charles doesn’t mind that. He hugs Erik right back, and doesn’t mind how tight it is, either, squeezing as tightly as he can, too. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, ashamed. “I didn’t mean - whatever it was, I...” He certainly didn’t mean to make Erik cry, for him to be so upset, and it’s twisting him up, eating him alive, the thought that he’d done it. “Talk to me. Please.”  
  
It hurts the back of Erik's throat and he doesn't; he doesn't _know_ or he doesn't want-he doesn't want to upset the balance, to hurt anyone, to hurt Charles. But it just hit him that Charles really doesn't remember him, he doesn't remember that he _loved Erik_ , he doesn't remember that he felt safe with Erik, that he wanted to-and now he's afraid and by himself-and as quickly as it comes it passes, Erik swallows it all back down and pets Charles's back instead, rubbing it in soothing motions.  
  
But Charles isn’t soothed by it, tensing instead. He swallows the horrible lump in his throat and shakes his head, tears pricking at his own eyes because he didn’t get any of that. He doesn’t know. “Erik,” he insists. “Please. What is it? I should have, you’re right, you said I should come to you when something like that happened and I didn’t. I wanted to, and I didn’t. Every time I wanted to, I wasn’t afraid when I stayed with you, but...”  
  
Erik shakes his head again and touches Charles's cheek. "No it's OK," he croaks out, barely legible. He doesn't want Charles to think this is because of him-that this is-some emotional punishment; it isn't, Erik doesn't know, either. He doesn't realize how much weight is pressing against him, how hard it is; he cannot realize it or he'll suffocate, drown, be crushed, kidneys-releasing-myoglobin-toxic-Erik brusquely shakes it off. Has to. "I'm sorry," he gasps, trying to laugh it off in a harsh huff. "Sometimes I, I-forget you-don't remember. Me." It's stuttered.  
  
It isn’t okay. Sometimes Charles forgets, too. How much Erik must be hurting, and how very much he is the root cause. And how awful must it be, to be constantly reminded? Charles feels the tears again before they actually come, in his throat, in the tightness of his chest. “I wanted to come to you,” he repeats, though he isn’t sure Erik will take any comfort in it. It’s the truth either way. “I did. The night before last, I got all the way down the hall before I turned back, Erik. But I knew -“ He shakes his head, stares down instead of at Erik again. “I wanted to come to you,” he repeats, quietly.  
  
He makes himself take comfort, though. He forces it all back down, has to force it all away, has to. "You should always come to me," he whispers roughly. There should be more to say but his chest feels like it's imploding, lights and glass and color splintering inside him. He tucks Charles's head under his chin where he still fits perfectly.  
  
And Charles cries, too, because he feels it. Some of it, enough of it, too much of it, and it isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that Erik should suffer in this, and that there’s nothing he can say to soothe it. What could he? He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t know, and it’s hurting Erik, but no matter how hard he tries, or focuses, reaches for those out of reach things, they never come to him. Elusive. But he doesn’t squirm away when he’s tucked in close, and he doesn’t want to. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, because he doesn’t know what else to say. “I’m so sorry. But I - I know it’s not the same, I know, but -“ He takes a sharp breath. “I knew if I came to you that first night, I would feel safe. I wouldn’t be afraid. I was right. I wasn’t.” He doesn’t want that to be in doubt. That Erik does make him feel safe, and he doesn’t need to remember to know that. He discovered it on his own, right now, again.  
  
It's all mucked up and sludge-oil inside the machinery stalling the wheels and Erik can't admit it, he can't, he won't, there is no point. There is no purpose to this pain. It changes nothing. It affects nothing, it only brings more suffering into the world, more suffering to Charles and he refuses to let it. "Whatever it is frightens me, too," he mumbles with a shrug, slow and steady and wavering, swallowing around bobs of his throat that threaten sound. "Me, too, OK? I don't want you to be alone with that. You need to come to me. So I can keep you safe."  
  
“I’ll come to you,” Charles promises, his eyes closed as he holds onto Erik tightly, fingers wrapped around his shirt again, refusing to let go. “If he comes again, and I’m frightened, I’ll come to you. You’re right. You’re my - you’re my -“ It should be so easy to say, but it isn’t because he doesn’t want it that it’s difficult. It’s that he does. Exceptionally so. “You’re my Dominant, and I should come to you with these things.” He pauses, biting his lip. All that shy uncertainty, especially in the aftermath of Erik’s pain. “Right?” he asks, barely a breath. He’s not sure which statement he means. Both.  
  
Erik softens at that, the tension in his muscles slowly leaving and he nods, brushing his knuckles over Charles's cheek. "That is correct," he rumbles lowly, a predator soothed. "And I will take care of you." That much is certain above anything else. "I will not let any harm come to you. Never."  
  
Charles shivers at the promise, rubs his cheek into Erik’s shirt, hoping to wipe away the rest of his tears that way, too. “Do you know who he is?” he asks, and the fear creeps back in. The paranoia, the worry that every time he turns a corner he won’t be alone. But he’s tried to shake it off, to ignore it.

* * *

Erik shakes his head, feathering his fingers through Charles's hair. "Tell me what he looks like," he whispers the Order, soft.  
  
“I don’t know, really,” Charles whispers, which he knows is a strange answer, considering. He presses into the hand in his hair, eager to be soothed now. “He’s a bit blurry, I think? But he’s tall. Very tall. He has this, this presence... I couldn’t explain it. It’s almost like yours, but entirely different, and not quite. Twisted. I can never see his eyes, but I think he has lighter hair, and this smile...” Charles shudders, trailing off.  
  
Erik is reminded of someone, of course, that description could only fit a few people he knows and it's possible it's not even a person he's aware of at all, but-and Erik frowns, there are people that have terrorized Charles that he knows, of, but lighter hair rules out a few. Narrows it down a little. "Blue eyes? Dominant? Wears suits? Any accent?"  
  
“He hasn’t spoken,” Charles reminds Erik quietly, but he’s biting harder on his lip, nuzzling in closer. “But - yes, I believe his eyes are light, too. And he is wearing a suit. Definitely Dominant. Not as much as you, but -“ But it’s noticeable, nothing that could ever be mistyped. Charles doesn’t like it, goes without saying. It’s an uncomfortable presence, nothing like Erik’s.  
  
Erik doesn't want to make the association, because it doesn't make any sense. If it is a figment of Charles's power; why, and if it isn't, how. And Erik could be wrong, anyway, he's just-he's just hypervigilant. He's tense, wary, and his chin jerks as he looks over his shoulder. "I'm not sure," he mumbles, shirking away again.  
  
But Charles is nothing if not observant. He tenses, too, reaching for Erik’s hand to squeeze it, uncertain of which of them he’s attempting to calm. “You think it’s him,” he breathes, and he doesn’t need to say which him he’s speaking of. The Mr. Shaw Erik speaks of. “It’s alright, Erik. It’s alright. It’s just a ghost, hm? Just something lingering. He isn’t real.” But Charles doesn’t sound convinced, and he doesn’t feel it, either.  
  
Charles's hand gets an immediate squeeze back and Erik tugs him closer, tighter. "No, you don't-things don't just-they don't just happen, you aren't crazy, you aren't-it is always something and I- _Ich möchte nicht, dass er dich verletzt_ ," he doesn't realize the unconscious switch. " _Er gehört nicht hierher_."  
  
The switch almost doesn’t register, because Charles understands it just as well as he does English but without the context for it, but he knows. He nestles in even closer, encourages Erik to squeeze him tighter. To not let go. “It’s alright,” Charles promises again, quieter now. “He’s not here. He’s gone. I’ll come to you, Erik, I promise. You’re my Dominant, remember? You said so. What does that mean?”  
  
"I protect you," Erik whispers, barely a rasp, dropping a small kiss onto Charles's head. "I don't want him here. He doesn't get to be here. He doesn't get to watch you and make you feel-no, I will not allow it-" Erik is spiraling, as if this World they've created just for them is being intruded upon.  
  
Charles suddenly regrets asking, his stomach turned over with dread at the look on Erik’s face when he pulls back, the clear panic. He shakes his head, squeezes Erik’s hand tightly. “He’s not here,” he whispers. “He’s not. Let’s walk, Erik. Along the lake, remember? The sun is setting soon. We can watch, just the two of us.” And because it seems to calm him, he repeats, “You’re my Dominant.” It calms Charles, too. The hand not clasping tightly to Erik’s wanders up to his neck, and his eyes widen slightly, as if startled to find a collar there.  
  
"'Kay," Erik mumbles, following along a little like a giant dragon on a leash, tightly wound, ready to pounce at any moment, but dutifully traipsing after the human he's attached himself to. He stays behind Charles, a hand steadying at the small of his back. "Mine," he murmurs, which isn't necessary, but it calms him, too.  
  
And it has the added effect of making Charles shiver, head to toe. He leans back into Erik’s arms, at the hand at his back, aware now of how steadying it really is. “Isn’t that what you said before?” Charles asks, and he takes Erik’s hand as they walk, circling toward the center of the lake. “That you wanted me to know -“ Who he belonged to, was what Erik said. He can’t repeat it, so apparently this goading isn’t effective, though he’d meant it to settle Erik down. Appeasing the dragon, really, except now his cheeks are hot with it.  
  
Erik practically purrs behind him. "That you belong to me," he has no trouble saying, darkly into Charles's ear, with all that leashed-up power thrumming through his veins and spiraling into vast tendrils of Will that lash out gently throughout the air, wrapping Charles up, suffusing the whole area, eradicating every ounce of being that does not belong here. Charles belongs with Erik. Sebastian Shaw-taunting, tormenting-no.

* * *

If he’s honest, Charles completely forgets about the phantom man who’s been trailing him, heavy-lidded and heavy breathing as they come to a stop in front of the lake, turning until he can bury himself back in Erik. He’s drowning, a little; everything is hazy with Erik’s Will, so much so that he’s sure he’s choking on it. “Say it again,” he demands, breathless, as the sun slowly climbs its way out of the sky.  
  
And Erik's focus certainly is no longer on Shaw, even though somewhere in the back of his mind he is always-always on alert-but at this very moment, all he can focus on is Charles, and his arms tighten around Charles's middle. "You are mine," he whispers, softer but no less fierce. He isn't focused on the sun, either. Charles is more than enough.  
  
But Charles brought them here to watch the sunset, and he’s very obviously not concerned with the sun, either. He is concerned with how fast his heart is beating, his pulse thrumming where Erik can feel it; how he can’t seem to stop shivering. How much he wants. “We should go swimming,” is what comes out of his mouth, somehow, but it’s so breathy it’s almost as if it’s something else.  
  
Erik laughs, a real, genuine sound that isn't very common for him. He brushes his hand over Charles's chest, rubbing the fabric of his shirt between his fingers. "Then you should remove this," he murmurs lowly. "So that it does not become ruined."  
  
It warms Charles up to his core, and he shivers almost violently, hoping to play it off as a breeze. “Take it off for me, then,” he breathes, and he meant it to sound bold, to sound goading, and it does. It is. But it’s that quiet, uncertain shyness, too, even as he meets Erik’s eyes, practically trembling as he waits.  
  
Erik's fingers trail down to the bottom of Charles's shirt and deftly unbutton it, slipping it from his shoulders easily and brushing soft touches back up so he can rest his hand against Charles's chest, feeling his heart flutter against his palm. He brushes against the hem of Charles's pants. "And these," he says, his voice barely audible.  
  
Charles’ breath hitches, and his heart is absolutely beating out of his chest, his eyes heavy with the force of it, startled and squirming. “Are you going to help with those too, then?” he dares, and then he smirks, to himself, mostly. It’s smug, the look Erik often said before this he did feel challenged by. He should. Charles is fairly proud of himself at the moment, around the squirming, overwhelmed flood of everything else.  
  
"Yes," Erik murmurs, and it's dripping with Command, with Will, and before Charles can even blink or move, he's already doing so, Ordering him to step out of his jeans once they settle on the ground; Erik still very much fully clothed. "There," he smirks, wolfish and predatory. "Much better." He rubs his thumb against Charles's chest in rhythmic motions.  
  
He’s a bit less bold, honestly, now that he’s standing here in his fairly thin boxers, squirming this way and that, his cheeks so hot they burn. He’s shivering even though it isn’t cold, his arms coming up around himself without conscious direction, his heart still hammering so hard he can feel it in his chest. “Take yours off now,” he demands, huffing.  
  
"No," Erik grins, but it's not a real refusal. He takes Charles's hands in his and places them against his shirt. "You take it from me." The Order is warm, amused. Erik's accent is more prevalent now, a product of-of something. He's not squirming or blushing, but he is very much affected, eyes dark and locked on Charles.  
  
Charles squirms beneath that dark, powerful gaze, biting hard on the inside of his cheek. Eventually his fingers do move, shaking as they work at the buttons of Erik’s shirt, sliding it off his shoulders. He takes a harsh, uneven breath, and decides not to look anywhere near Erik’s chest, at the muscles there, at the tan, bare skin. “I thought you said we shouldn’t before,” is what he mumbles, to play off his own reaction. “You’re not very good at disciplining me, Erik,” he scoffs, mostly because he wants to smirk again, smug and gloating for the same reason as before. He’s won, in his mind. “Rather dreadful, actually.”  
  
"I'll discipline you when I feel like disciplining you," Erik rumbles, dark and low, and he doesn't let Charles's hands go, pinning them to his chest instead, with one while using the other to tilt his chin up and capturing his gaze like a dart spearing a butterfly on a board.  
  
Charles snorts. “No, you won’t,” he snarks, and his lips are still pulled up in that smirk, and now he’s bold. Maybe to hide how his fingers are shaking even worse, or his heartbeat is audible, or his breathing is heavy, but either way it’s a challenge, goading pure and simple. Defiant. Toeing the line to see how far Erik will let him go over it. He’s pushing, because he feels safe to do it. To flirt with danger, with that sleeping being he knows Erik must be holding back because he’s seen glimpses. “I’d like to go swimming, now,” he says, smugly, because he fully expects Erik will let him. And perhaps getting his way makes him frustrated and out of sorts after the fact, but in the moment, give Charles an inch when he’s like this and he’ll easily take miles. That seems in his nature, too.  
  
It sends a jolt of something down his chest and into his feet and it flashes over his face, too, dark and deadly to anyone other than Charles at this possible moment. He stays rooted to the spot, everything clashing inside of his head like a car crash.  
  
Charles freezes, eyes widening like he’s a deer caught in the headlights. “Erik?” he whispers, and his voice cracks on it, uncertain.  
  
"I told you that you would be disciplined when we return inside," Erik says and his voice is very flat and even and calm, not a trace of anything on his tongue, even though his eyes blaze. "If you would like to expedite this process to immediately then feel free to continue addressing me this way."  
  
It makes Charles’ stomach flip, his mouth suddenly dry. “Immediately?” he squeaks, because he definitely didn’t expect this reaction. “But, I wasn’t -“ Well, he was. He just didn’t expect Erik to do anything about it.  
  
"Think very carefully about your next words," Erik interrupts him, soft as anything. "I afforded you the opportunity to go outside because I decided to be nice, but that will change if you continue to challenge me about it."  
  
To be fair, Charles doesn’t use words next. He does huff, then scoff, and seems to realize just about a second after that perhaps it isn’t the wisest of decisions, his head immediately bowing, trembling where Erik still has him pinned. He isn’t afraid, but he would have to be completely mad not to know that there’s danger here, lurking, and he’s been poking insistently at it all day.  
  
To be fair, Erik grips his chin, making him continue to look up. "If you have something to say to me, then say it. Continue to mumble under your breath and laugh at me, and you will find this evening cut very short."  
  
Charles’ breath hitches, wriggling like a worm on a hook in Erik’s grip, barely dressed and wide-eyed. “I wasn’t -“ But, wisely, he decides to shut his mouth, decides that perhaps winning this particular argument is not worth the risk. It’s a good lesson to learn. He probably hasn’t really learned it yet. “Sorry,” he mumbles instead, cheeks burning, feeling thoroughly scolded.  
  
"Sorry- _sir_ ," Erik corrects him, not releasing his grip at all. " _Sorry, sir_. Correct yourself."  
  
There’s an internal debate that plays right over Charles’ face, his lip trapped firmly between his teeth. Then he sucks in a breath, letting it out in a, “Sorry, sir.” If it’s a little bit huffed, so be it. It’s mostly just to offset how breathy it is. How hard it is to breathe.  
  
"You can address me better than that. Try it again." Erik's practically glaring down at him, every inch the Dominant. There's no escaping his Will, let out before to roam, has now encroached solely upon Charles, wrapping him up like invisible bindings.  
  
Charles squirms with it, incredibly aware of his state of undress, of how vulnerable he is, of how suddenly overwhelming this is. Erik is. He’s been pushing for this all day, and now it’s here and it turns out he’s much less brave, much less smug. “I’m sorry, sir,” he repeats, even more breathless, quiet, but appropriately chastised this time.  
  
"Acceptable," Erik murmurs, rubbing the pad of his thumb under Charles's eye. He spends a lot of time outside, working on the hedges, planting the flowers, tending the weeds and at one point cleaning the lake because he needed to keep going, to keep busy. It's reflected in his skin, which is lighter than that on his arms and face, but still very much tanned; and the longer they remain here, the healthier Erik seems to become. Every day is a little better, he looks a little less emaciated, more befitting of his hulking stature even as he does periodically slouch it away. Not now. Now he's fully towering over Charles, keeping him firmly in hand.  
  
And Charles is absolutely wriggling under the force of it, gasping out quiet, harsh breaths, biting so hard on his swollen lip it stings but he doesn’t quite notice; his chest aches, his heart is beating so fast, his pulse racing, his eyes wide and startled, still, looking up at Erik like he’s seeing him for the first time. In some ways, perhaps he is. And this is what he’s been begging for, in the way he knows how, in the way that feels natural, and now they’re here. Now they’re here, and Charles is trying to remember how to breathe properly. “You - um, do you want to...” He swallows, takes another breath, clears his throat. “Can we still wait for the sun to set?” he asks, and it’s not meek, because Charles is rarely meek in the way people tend to think of submissives, in the way they always are around Erik, but it is deference. It is asking, not telling. He’s looking up at Erik like he’s his Dominant, and feeling what that means, perhaps for the first real time.  
  
"That depends," Erik murmurs, still soft, still quiet, and still completely saturated in pure Dominion. "Are you going to behave yourself?" An eyebrow arches accordingly. Maybe it is the first time; Erik's been reluctant to really swing his weight around, knowing that Charles doesn't remember him, maybe not even feeling entitled to be his Dominant in the way he was before, but-for the moment, there is nothing else.  
  
But he didn’t start out as Charles’ Dominant, either, and the first time they were much less careful, much less slow, because there was much less time. There was a sense of urgency there isn’t here, and Charles has had time to acclimate, to learn; and he’s learning now, right here, as he ducks his head and takes stuttering little breaths. “I can try,” he breathes, and means it to be teasing, but it comes out far more earnest. Because at the heart of it, Charles wants to be good. He just needs a certain level of Dominance to inspire that. He needs Erik, and there’s a reason he’s been testing and pushing all day. To see how far, to push boundaries, a natural part of being S1, but also to coax Erik out. To let him know it’s okay, even if it’s a little overwhelming, too. They’ve been dancing, skirting, and maybe Charles needs just a little more.  
  
"Then we can try to remain here and watch the sunset," Erik replies accordingly, still refusing to give an inch any longer, the rope pulled back, no slack left for Charles to hang his poor self. Erik swipes his thumb across the apple of Charles's cheek. "We can even go swimming, if you behave respectfully."  
  
Charles bites harder at his lip. Even without slack, he could find it if he wanted. But he doesn’t, right this moment, because he’s shivery and wrapped up in Erik’s Will, and he likes it. It’s overwhelming and very nearly too-much, and he likes it. Perhaps too much. It’s calming, nearly immediately, and the signs that he’s slipping under, down into subspace, are obvious and visible especially after being on edge about his phantom moments before; his half-lidded eyes, the constant shiver, the way he’s trembling against Erik’s touching, arching instinctively toward him. “How do I do that?” he asks, quietly, and it’s not sarcastic, or huffed. It’s soft, seeking; he’s asking how to behave, so he can. What Erik expects of him. To have the line drawn for him, by Erik. It’s something he needed before, too, but never asked for in this way - but things are different now, and Charles is freer, now. More open.  
  
Erik tucks Charles against his chest, pressing his cheek into the bare skin there and running his fingers through his hair, holding him close. "To start with you should be speaking with me respectfully. That means addressing me properly. Following my Will, even if I haven't Ordered it. That is a choice. Anything else is defiance and I do not appreciate it." It doesn't mean don't have an opinion, but it does mean not to throw a strop about it.  
  
Charles closes his eyes though it makes no difference, looking for something to cling to. His fingers only find Erik’s bare skin, and he makes a soft, quiet noise, startled, before grabbing for Erik’s hand to squeeze. “You, you said call you sir,” he whispers, voice thick with it. “Just now. When am I supposed to, when…” He shakes his head again, finding it frustrating that he apparently keeps losing his voice. His nerve. But it’s clear enough what he means to ask, what he’s genuinely wondering, what he wants Erik to teach him. To train him? He can feel his cheeks burning.  
  
Erik brings Charles's hand up and kisses his knuckles before placing his open palm against his chest. "Always," he murmurs. He doesn't mean always call him sir. He means that Charles is always his. Always expected to follow his Orders. Always his submissive. But, there's something else, too. Because he does mean now. "Always," he repeats softly. He strokes Charles's cheek with his other hand. The fingers curling naturally. Unbroken. "You are not free. And right now, you are not clear. You are on very thin ice. So I expect at this moment that you address me properly." And Charles knows what that means, by now. "I give you quite a bit of leeway ordinarily. But it is not so for the moment. If you wish to remain here. If you wish to enjoy the lake, and the sunset, and extend your time outside. You will not speak so frivolously with me again."  
  
Immediately Charles’ breath hitches, all whooshing out at once in a heavy exhale. He clings harder to Erik, instinctively seeking comfort in the face of being overwhelmed, even when Erik is the only overwhelming him in the first place, overloading his senses. His pupils are terribly dilated when he looks up, but bluer than ever, and he’s biting on his cheek again. “I’m on very thin ice?” he checks, and can’t quite help the waver to his voice, the nervousness. He isn’t afraid; but if Erik is the predator, he is the prey, and he would have to be extraordinarily thick not to recognize that even though he’s safe, even though Erik takes such brilliant care in everything he does, even though there is nothing to fear, here, there is danger, too. He’s been poking at the sleeping creature all day, just to see what it would do. Now he isn’t quite sure he wants to know the answer, even though he’s deadly curious.  
  
"Yes," Erik practically purrs, drawing his fingers down Charles's face with an almost reverence, his own gaze brilliant malachite reflecting streaks of orange and blazing red from the sun, glinting off of his hair which now frankly tumbles down his shoulders in corkscrew curls at the bottom, reddened auburn from his time outside. Without his shirt he bears the scars that Charles hasn't yet asked about, but can guess the answers at, if he so chose-and one wisely wouldn't do so. They mar his skin every which way, curling around his shoulders and streaking down his back in ugly, gnarled branches. Even so, they aren't marks of weakness. They are marks of battle, and looking down at Charles now, there is no doubt that Charles has been thoroughly ensnared by this predator. "So I recommend you afford me the respect I am due from you. Because you are mine. And that does not cease. Not ever."  
  
Charles is learning. Every second, every word, every step; Erik is his only point of reference, and as embarrassed as it makes him, as hot and shivery, there’s truth to being trained, and it doesn’t scare him, thinking of it. It’s right and proper, hasn’t been tainted by someone long before Erik. Not now. But he’s curious, and testing boundaries the way submissives are meant to, the way Charles is meant to, safe, testing. So he bites his cheek harder and whispers up at Erik, eyes closed, “What happens if I don’t?”  
  
Erik silently Commands him to cease biting at himself and instead frames his cheeks in both hands, gentle, as if to say relax, it's all right. But it's so much more. It's buzzing with danger and electricity, that Charles knows he cannot maneuver within. He is safe, here, but only because he is Charles. Everyone else would not stand a chance. "Then I will ensure you face the consequences," he whispers, like he's saying something comforting, but it's soaked in Will and Dominance, in presence-of-power. Charles knows it is deathly serious.  
  
The shudder that runs through him is full body and the aftershocks last an embarrassingly long time, violent little shivers that wrack him as he stares up at Erik, at this Dominant, at his Dominant - and he’s wide-eyed and startled, but he still leans into those hands, large and framing his entire face. “What if I say I’m sorry? What if I change your mind? What if I do something you like?” Prodding, curious, even now, except it’s breathy. It’s hoarse. He’s in subspace, without even a doubt of it, and every sign of it is strikingly obvious, from his breathing to his eyes to his trembling, the way he gravitates toward Erik like he’s the new center of the World. He is, here. This world, Charles’ world, in this moment.  
  
"You will not change my mind," Erik assures him, still-soft. "But I implore you to consider your words carefully. You are mine. You should always strive to please me. If you disobey me, I expect that you will apologize for your transgressions. But that does not supersede discipline. It is merely an aspect of it."  
  
Another shiver, and Charles curls into Erik’s chest, entirely floating now. Entirely sinking, and sinking and sinking. “I want to,” he whispers, eyes firmly shut, breathing stuttered. It’s an admission, the flush spreading up to his ears, hidden by his hair where it curls down to his shoulders, long and overgrown by now.  
  
"No. You will," Erik corrects him firmly. "What you wish is important. How you think is important and I will always consider it. But what you do, how you behave, that is irreplaceable. I will not accept anything less than my expected guidelines."  
  
Another sharp breath, and Charles shakes his head. “I meant -“ But Erik probably knows, and it’s embarrassing to admit it, so he clamps his mouth shut and hides further in his chest, nodding. But something in him is still curious, toeing the new line Erik’s set out before him. “Can we go swimming now, Erik?” he asks, and even he can’t hide the vague emphasis that gets put on that name, lingering between them.  
  
Erik's fingers grip tightly against Charles's throat, this time. "I told you to address me correctly." There's a very thin, dangerous line that Charles is walking and he's gradually teetering over the edge, Erik's features darkened in a hazy glower that cuts through the atmosphere like a silver-lit knife. "So you will correct yourself and tell me what you meant." It's an Order, this time.  
  
Charles practically chokes on it, his eyes somehow even wider, and he’s shaking, now. Head to toe. “Can we go swimming now, sir?” he whispers, and it’s more of a squeak.  
  
"You told me that you meant something specific. Tell me. What. It. Is." Every word is drawn out, like a punch to Charles's gut, the Order practically slithering down to settle there on top of it.  
  
It threatens to completely unravel him, Charles wriggling under Erik’s gaze, under his Dominance. “I want to please you,” comes out in a rush, his cheeks that shocking red, even redder in the late afternoon sun. “Um, sir,” he adds, hastily, looking up at Erik for approval. For guidance.  
  
"Mm," Erik tilts Charles's chin upward, but instead, traces his fingertip down Charles's chest, down his sternum. "I see. As I said, you should strive to do so. And when you please me, you will be rewarded. Both because you will feel good, and because I will endeavor to please you in return."  
  
Erik is right. It does make him feel good, even without the promise of a reward, and his mouth goes dry with it, squirming under the touch. “Didn’t I please you today?” he asks, quietly, and there’s that dual mischief and uncertainty; coy, testing, but genuinely seeking, too. Whether it be praise or disapproval.  
  
"Yes," Erik purrs, smiling down at his submissive. His. It is abundantly clear that this is how he thinks of Charles, that it's how he's always thought of Charles even if he hasn't always made it so clear; felt so entitled to it. But now all of that uncertainty of his has melted away, leaving only pure, clear Dominion.  
  
And Charles floats with it, grinning and shy in the aftermath, but there is something he wants to settle. Something he needs to push. “Surely enough that - that we don’t need...” He swallows. “There’s no reason to dwell on this morning, is there? We could go swimming, and then, after the sun sets, we could go inside and play a game of chess, or watch a movie. Wouldn’t that be lovely?” It’s not something he has tried before, really, because the circumstances were different. Because Charles himself was different. Erik has to do quite a bit more work, but he has also has much more of a canvas to work with. Charles is looking to him for answers, and it has never been more abundantly clear - this is the role Erik was always meant to have, and now he has it. “There are other things we could do as well...” Charles suggests, and bites his lip, one hand brushing lightly against Erik’s chest even as his cheeks burn. He’s willing to try all his options, here, and that one seems like a strong one.  
  
"Mhm," Erik laughs fondly. "We could indeed. And we very much will," he promises lowly, all riled up, feathers and scales inside his mind glinting in the blazed-sun rage above. "But there is certainly reason. To dwell? No. To ensure that my Will is obeyed, that you are appropriately disciplined when I deem necessary? Yes. I am afraid there is little to do for that. You will take your punishment, whether it is in the moment or later on. I will not allow transgressions to go unanswered. I promise you that."  
  
“What about forgiven?” he tries, and his eyes are appropriately wide, his voice appropriately sweet, and perhaps some of that is true. It’s more than likely, with how shy and fluttering he feels, thoroughly dunked into subspace. But there’s more to it, too, and Charles is testing how far it will get him. “I am sorry for how I acted this morning,” and that’s mumbled, his gaze dropping, because he is. Especially now, like this, he is. “You could be nice,” he suggests, hopefully, and touches Erik’s arm, strokes it, still biting at his lip. “Just this once? Please? I’ve learned my lesson. I promise.”  
  
"Of course you will be forgiven," Erik murmurs. "But I am the one who decides when you have learned your lesson. Not you. You will take the discipline that I deem necessary. I know you are sorry, but attempting to shirk this is not helpful to you."  
  
“It is,” Charles insists, some of that spikiness back, a turn to his lips and a souring of that sweetness, because some of it was nurture, but perhaps part of Charles just expects to get his way. For better or worse, even when he knows Erik is right. “You said I pleased you. Just this once won’t hurt. And I’m - I...” He’s nervous. Not frightened in the way Erik is worried about, but certainly by other definitions. He ducks his head. “Please?” he tries, one more time, quieter now.  
  
"No." Erik is firm, flat, unyielding. "You made me very happy today. In so many ways. But you disobeyed me. And I will not allow that to stand. I never will. You must learn this."  
  
“I didn’t really disobey you, Erik, it was just a silly -“ Charles clamps his mouth shut, quickly catching his own mistake here. He takes a harsh breath. “No, nevermind,” he decides, hasty, his pulse jumping again with the reminder of how truly dangerous Erik can be.  
  
Erik trails his fingers along Charles's throat once more. "That is right. You know what was done. You will fail to sway me to any Will but my own. You do not give Orders, here. You wish to know what you must do? You must listen to me. You must follow my Commands. That is what you must do."  
  
“You certainly can’t blame me, when you haven’t consistently -“ No, that’s not what he should say, either, and Charles swallows it down with what he hopes is a calm breath, but is much more of a sigh, petulant and loud. He’s very aware of the hand on his throat, looking over at the lake instead of Erik. “You’ve changed your mind before, or let me - so why not now? It’s been a wonderful day. Do you want to ruin it? It doesn’t seem fair.”  
  
"No, I have not. When I have told you that you will receive discipline, you have received it. And you will receive it. If preserving each day in its entirely as unmarred is important to you, then you should consider that when you act. I did not force you to misbehave. You did that all upon your own desire. And there are some ways in which you simply won't get your way."  
  
“Why? Because you decided now you don’t want to coddle me the way you have been, over something inane? We had a row in the kitchen, I didn’t misbehave. That’s very unfortunate timing, Erik, perhaps you’ll reconsider what you’re going to arbitrarily be strict about in the future,” Charles huffs, and realizes just a bit too late that it definitely isn’t what he should have said, everything else dying in his throat. It’s painful, now, in this moment; it all clots like blood, breathing difficult, trembling when he steps back from Erik like it might protect him from a reaction if they’re not touching. “I - I didn’t mean - sorry, that was...”

* * *

Erik folds his hands behind his back, his features hazing over like a storm. "Pick up our belongings from the ground and fold them," he murmurs lowly, the Order zipping through the air, static particles before a lightning strike.  
  
Charles does, his throat bobbing visibly as he swallows, every muscle tense and the panic on his features obvious as his fingers shake with the attempt to fold. “I - Erik, I didn’t mean that, truly,” he tries to backtrack again, nervous and tripping over himself now.  
  
"Yes, I understand that you did not intend to speak those words to me, as you are aware of the consequences I have laid forth," Erik says, almost dismissively, and watches as Charles works. "Fold them neatly and drape them over your arm. You will accompany me back to the house, and if I hear any further backtalk, you will face additional discipline for it."  
  
It’s horribly embarrassing, but tears spring to Charles’ eyes to match the lump in his throat, the gnarled pit in his stomach. “But I didn’t mean it,” he whispers, though it’s barely even audible. “Please don’t do this,” he pleads, even as he gathers his clothes up like he’s been asked.  
  
Erik doesn't reply; but only because Charles knows the answer. He knows exactly what Erik would say, as if it's written in the molecules of the atmosphere itself. If he doesn't want this to be done, then he should act accordingly. Erik's features are shuttered over and he presses a hand to the small of Charles's back, guiding him firmly up the pathway back home.  
  
Charles frowns and drags his feet the entire way back to the house, which happens to be an incredibly long way, made worse by the fact that he’s still mostly bare, and barefoot on top of that. The sun hasn’t set yet, but the house is extraordinarily dark on the inside, likely a product of Charles; he’s practically projecting rain clouds overhead, grey, upset, discontent. “This isn’t fair,” he mutters, and when they’re properly inside, he takes the time to throw their clothes onto the nearest surface.  
  
They float right back up again and bunch in Charles's hands. "Fold them properly and put them in the laundry basket," he practically growls the Command, standing with both arms crossed over his own chest. When Charles is finished, Erik Orders him up the stairs, bidding him to be mindful of his ankle, where they enter Erik's bedroom. A place Charles doesn't normally go. A place less familiar.  
  
It’s a place Charles decidedly does not want to be under these circumstances, and he makes that abundantly clear, frowning down at the floor, feeling his stomach turn over and over and over, flopping horribly. “Please don’t do this,” he whispers again, and feels the sting of tears in his eyes.  
  
"You will begin at Rest," Erik Commands softly. "Now." That much is an Order. When Charles kneels, Erik crouches to his height, inspecting him.  
  
Charles doesn’t stay still, the tears in his eyes stinging hotter, and he refuses to look Erik in the eyes. “I didn’t mean to say it,” he mumbles again, frowning deeply, the tears clinging to his nose with how much he’s bowing his head.  
  
"Look at me when you speak to me," Erik utters the Order, clear and firm, in a low, deep rumble. "Why didn't you mean to say it?"  
  
“Because I didn’t,” Charles mutters back, pulse racing again, worked up because he doesn’t want to look. He doesn’t want to, especially when there are stubborn tears in his eyes. “It - it slipped, that’s all.”  
  
"Incorrect," Erik says, the words with a sharp, growled edge. "Tell me the truth," he Orders again, and this time there is no chance for Charles to maneuver himself out of doing so.  
  
“I - I don’t know what answer you’re looking for,” Charles admits, and it’s the truth and it’s laced with frustration, but worry, too. Because he hadn’t lied by the lake, either, when he admitted his desire to please. “I don’t know. Because I know you’d consider it disrespectful,” and he tries to scoff at it, to frame it as ridiculous, but his bowed head speaks volumes. His squirming and the tears on his cheeks say even more. “Why do you do that? Is it because -“ But he figures his mouth has gotten him in enough trouble, perhaps, so he bites right down on it, silencing himself.  
  
"Well if you are looking for punishment, you have certainly found it," Erik breathes, almost like a hiss that slides right up into Charles's ears and slithers down past his tympanic membrane and worms its way inside the canals and tunnels of his head until he's spinning with it. Erik can be sarcastic, too, but he elects not to be, because it has no place here and because he generally dislikes it on the whole. It's not witty, it's not helpful, it's just intentionally cutting. How apt that the word itself means to cut. "Why do I do what, hm? Why do I coddle you?" One could almost mistake Erik's tone for warm, for loving, for accepting, but one would be a fool to get themselves ensnared by the siren's call. He is every bit a monster dripping honey as he is snarling fangs. And Charles knows deeply, in his heart where it pangs very suddenly, that Erik was not just displeased by that comment.  
  
The tears that slip down Charles’ cheeks are suddenly far more noticeable, big and fat and humiliating, and he’s suddenly out of position because he’s digging his fingers into his legs, bare except for his boxers, clenching his teeth together, shivering. What comes out of his mouth, perhaps, is surprising, not prickly but quiet, bothered, frightened. “What’s wrong with me?” he whispers, small.  
  
Erik tips Charles's chin up. The beast is in full reign, now, but he doesn't exhibit cruelty, even if one would almost expect a claw to exist where only his fingernails do. It's an odd juxtaposition. " _Ba'er_ ," he insists, the Imperative drawn out slowly.  
  
Surprisingly, it seems to calm Charles, even as that horrible pit of dread sits in his stomach, heavy and unsettling, eating away at him. “I don’t - it’s just, I feel like I have to, I want you to, and I don’t, and I don’t want to displease you or upset you, but it comes out and I don’t want punishment, I’m scared of it and it’s awful and I wanted to be outside with you, I wanted to go swimming, it’s just -“ He swallows thickly, shaking his head. He doesn’t understand it, and he’s sure it’s wrong. That something must be broken in him, because shouldn’t a submissive instinctively obey? So why does it seem like it’s opposite for him, sometimes? Why is he pushing and fighting so hard? The lump in his throat is bobbing, and he knows if this goes on any longer he’ll be openly crying, all of it too much inside of him, and he doesn’t know how to stop it.  
  
"I cannot answer that for you," Erik murmurs, but he hasn't let up an inch. "But I know there is nothing wrong with you. You seem to consistently believe that I have no interest in meeting you for what you consider to be your real submission. You fail to understand that I am your Dominant and have been for longer than you can remember. I know you. I know who you are, I know how you react and how you behave. That much has not changed. If I choose not to do something specific, or to do something specific, it is because I have considered it to be the best option within my comfort level. But if that does not satisfy you, fine. If you need a demonstration that I will not permit you to act so out of line with me, you are going to receive one and frankly five lashes is not going to cut it. Or were you concerned about getting what you want?" Erik's eyebrows arch up. Charles has fully stepped into the bear trap, he has fully riled Erik up, and now he's going to face the consequences of that.  
  
Charles squirms in Erik’s hold, uncomfortable and filled with dread; there’s no other word for it except that, and the tears in his eyes match. “I didn’t - it wasn’t -“ He doesn’t know what he means to say, exactly, except that it’s all welled up now, tight in his chest. “What’s wrong with me?” he repeats, so quiet it’s not audible, but Erik hears it anyway. Just not from Charles’ voice, his mouth. It’s a genuine question; he doesn’t know what’s normal. He doesn’t know himself, really.  
  
"Nothing is the matter with you," Erik murmurs back. "I understand that you might be tempted to act this way because you want the assurance that I am capable of handling it. But I do not approve of this kind of behavior, and that is something you must come to understand. When you act this way, there will be consequences, and if you don't believe that, you are sorely mistaken. Do you know why you are here, right now? Do you know why I am displeased with you right now?"  
  
Charles shakes his head, and there’s a distinct possibility it isn’t even in response to Erik’s question, because he’s clearly a bit distraught, overwhelmed, worried; he hangs his head the moment he can again, taking harsh, shaky breaths and swallowing around the tears. It doesn’t serve any purpose besides making him choke on them, really.  
  
"Tell me. I am speaking to you, and I expect an answer, Charles. Must I Order everything from you?" Erik whispers, and it's not angry, but it is definitely... unsatisfied. Disappointed, even.  
  
“I don’t want you to,” Charles admits in a small little whisper, and Erik is suddenly aware that it’s what he’d meant, before, when he asked Erik why he kept doing that. He’d meant Ordering him, and it had been a jab, a low one, and he’s grateful he hadn’t finished it but he’d certainly thought it. That Erik was Ordering everything out of him because he didn’t expect Charles would listen otherwise, and it was inspiring two very different responses. Defiance and shame, mostly. “I know,” he whispers, finally, and looks at Erik without being Ordered, even as his breathing stays unsteady, uneven, forced in and out of his lungs. “Why you’re - I know why,” he mumbles.  
  
"Why I am what, precisely, Charles?" Erik asks expectantly, eyebrows raised. And he doesn't Order it this time, even if he doesn't, at this moment, anticipate that Charles will obey him like this, when he's so defiant like this. And that is all right. Sometimes Erik's will is immutable, law, fact. And he will ensure that it is.  
  
Charles is defiant right now, is prickly, is uncertain and unsteady and perhaps even frightened; but he sucks in a breath, cheeks wet, and mumbles, “Why you’re displeased.” It’s so quiet it could almost be missed, but he says it, lips quivering on it, the word displeased settling like a rock in his belly.  
  
"Then tell me why, because that is precisely what I asked of you in the first place. If you are so bent on me not Ordering you every second, then it would behoove you to follow my Will when I direct if of you to begin with." Erik's words are quiet, but flat.  
  
It’s almost worse than Erik just yelling at him, and he tenses up, breath hitching. “I - I was disrespectful, even after, even after...” Without the Order, it’s undoubtedly harder. He has to obey on his own accord, and it isn’t forced right from his lips. But he’s trying, even as he trembles on it, even as his lips quiver. “Even after you warned me,” he finishes, weakly.  
  
"That is right ," Erik murmurs. But they both know there's more to it, and he waits for Charles to elaborate. Because it wasn't just the first time that they're here for.  
  
Charles doesn’t. It’s not defiance, this time; it’s clear he just genuinely doesn’t know what Erik is looking for, or perhaps it isn’t able to articulate it, struggling and panicking in the process, his eyes wide and full of tears. It’s a bit like being told to decide your own fate, your own punishment - and that thought makes him shiver, because he can only imagine what the right answer to that is. “I was - I disobeyed?” he tries, raspy, because he knows there were at least a few times he did the opposite of what Erik asked, or tried to. Most times Erik just Ordered it, if he asked for anything at all, and the thought riles him up again for some reason, squirming and frowning, red in the face with shame and something else. Now that he’s here, he has to process it all, and it feels like it must be too big for his body. For this room.  
  
"How many times, in how many ways?" Erik asks, and it's clear it's not really a question but more of an observation. More than once. It's too many times. For Erik, disrespect isn't some ego, macho, bullshit thing. It's not about that. "Are you asking me or are you telling me the answer? If you don't know why you're here, if you don't think you did anything wrong-" Erik gestures widely.  
  
But Charles is shaking his head, tears staining his cheeks again, head bowed as he takes those harsh, panting breaths. “I don’t,” he whispers. “Think that. I - but I don’t…” His brow is furrowed, his lip caught between his teeth. He doesn’t know how to list his own offenses, what Erik might think is punishable, what it is in the laundry list of poking and antagonizing and testing that really, truly crossed the line, what it was that made Erik decide not to - and saying it wasn’t his proudest moment, surely, even in the short amount of experience he has memory of, but he can’t lie. He can’t say he hasn’t felt it. "I disobeyed you," he mumbles, again, and this time it isn't a question. He knows it's true. Even the littlest things, to see if he'd be called on it, to see what Erik would do, because he'd needed to know. Erik said to call him sir, that he was on thin ice, so he said Erik. Unconsciously, maybe, but more than once, the name slipping off his lips like something forbidden, because it was, in those moments, and it made Charles want to try. And try again. And again, if he'd gotten away with it. And he wanted to, to see what he could get away with. Murder, if he was inclined and Erik would let him. And he knows it.  
  
Erik's lips thin, though. It's not that Charles's answer is wrong, but that he's failing to conceptualize a crucial part of why Erik even cares whether or not he is disrespectful and antagonistic in the first place. "Every time you push me. Do you know what that says to me? And I let it go. I don't put you on your knees until you for get anything other than who you belong to. Despite the fact that I very much wish to. And that's fine. I understand that. You can push. But when you start insulting me, and mocking me, do you know what that says to me?"  
  
“I wasn’t -“ It’s knee-jerk, and Charles lets it slip out through his teeth roughly. They clench right after, and he shakes his head.  
  
Erik raises to his feet and crosses his arms over his chest. "This is not a discussion. It is not a debate or an argument or a fight. I did not call you here to hash out what you think is best. I asked you if you understand the nature of what is occurring and it is clear that you do not. I always have and always will strive to make it clear why you are being punished, but there will be times when that simply isn't possible. You know enough. You know that you have displeased me. You know that you did it on purpose. You know that you disobeyed me and antagonized me and pushed me just to see what I'd do. And that is good enough for me. Now get into Child's Pose." His words are flat. Not harsh, but affectless.

* * *

Charles is exceptionally grateful it’s not an Order, because he knows how truly, truly awful it is to not be able to obey one, for any number of reasons, and this one has a few, some of which he doesn’t think would matter and one which he think would, but either way he shakes his head, eyes on the floor instead of Erik. There’s something bubbling up inside of him, but he doesn’t speak, perhaps because he’s swallowing around more tears.  
  
"That was not a request," Erik gives him the opportunity to correct himself and it is very clear that it is the only consideration he is going to get here, outside of specific outliers. "If you have something to say to me, say it."  
  
So he does, because right now it’s the only thing he can say, the rest caught in his throat and chest, stinging behind his eyes. “ _Afor_ ,” he croaks, as clearly as he can. It’s the first time, for him, and he’s uncertain what happens next, only that it’s important he say it. That he trusts Erik is listening for it, even as quiet as it comes out.  
  
It isn't a big revelation, it doesn't immediately solve what he's feeling, but Erik mirrors his position and touches his knees with both hands on either side. Giving him time to collect himself. "Tell me what is happening," he just murmurs, quiet.  
  
It takes a while for Charles to even begin to articulate it. He just doesn’t know how. His heart is stuttering too much in his chest, anyway, and he shakes his head, over and over, the hair getting in his face and sticking to his damp cheeks, but eventually he manages something resembling a coherent response. “I don’t want it to be like this,” he finally says. “I don’t want it to be like this.”  
  
"You do not wish for it to be like what?" Erik asks, tapping a finger against Charles's jaw to still it.  
  
“You’re - you’re disappointed, in me, about something,” he whispers, and he hates the twisting it does to his stomach, the dropping, the clenching, the way it makes the tears slip out again, tastes awful in his mouth. “I don’t want you to, to not tell me, to punish me, I don’t want to - you said you’d tell me, that I’d understand, we’d talk first and you can’t skip that, the only time it wouldn’t be possible is if you don’t let it be and it’s not fair and I don’t want to be punished for something you won’t even tell me about, something you won’t talk to me about,” it’s all a rush, all a breath, and Charles sucks what he’s exhaled right back in, coughing on it. It’s not the conversation they’d be having before, if Charles had his memories. It’s actually a much easier conversation, a much purer conversation. Charles doesn’t even know why it might upset him, he’s reacting because it doesn’t seem right. Because it doesn’t feel right. There’s something there nagging at him, but mostly it’s a sense for it - something in his gut, something making him feel sick. "It's not good enough. You said you'd talk to me, even when - even when -" Even when he's disappointed in him, but saying that hurts because he thinks it might be true. It hurts more than Charles ever expected it to.  
  
"I am not-" Erik sighs, his lips flattening tightly. "I have no desire to go back and forth about it, Charles. I told you what I was disappointed in you about and you decided to argue with me. That makes me think you have no intention of understanding it, that you are only interested in being right."  
  
“No,” Charles says, and it’s hoarse, and it’s small, and it’s hurt. “No, that’s - no, _afor_ , no, I’m not doing this.” And he’s having trouble breathing, actually, more than before. He’s shaking his head again, and something is welling up inside of him, his arms suddenly around himself as tightly as they’ll go.  
  
"Take a breath. Properly." That much is an Order. "And tell me what is the matter."  
  
When he does breathe, it all comes out in a whoosh, and then in a startled little sob, and Charles digs his fingers into his arms. “I was trying to listen. I stopped myself from arguing. But I should be allowed to disagree, I should be allowed to say how I feel, I should be allowed to talk about it, and you can’t just decide you don’t feel like it and you’re going to skip steps, you said you wouldn’t. You said you’d never punish me when you were frustrated and you’re frustrated and you can’t say, good enough, it’s good enough, you said I’d always understand, you said I’d always know, you can’t just do it because you don’t want to talk about it. Because you don’t feel like it. It’s not fair. It’s not.”  
  
Erik sighs. "Charles, I know-" He exhales through his nose, slowly. "It is not always easy for me to-be the best version of myself. You are right. I shouldn't discipline you unless we are both on the same page. But I don't know how feasible that is always going to be. When you are wound up, and defiant, you aren't always going to understand my motivations." He shrugs. "The truth is that-you want me to open up to you, but-I am more- _sensitive_ , than you think. OK?" He spreads his hands, huffing a little self-deprecatingly.  
  
“So make me understand,” he fires back, and he knows it might not be fair, but he’s shaking his head, and there are tears still in his eyes, and this whole time they’ve been falling, and they’re stuck to his voice. It comes out weak, but firm, too. “If you can’t do this part, then you can’t - you can’t do the part that comes after, even if I need it, even if I deserve it, even if it's what should happen. Because I won’t ever consent to that. I’m sorry, but I won’t, and if I did before then I was wrong.” And maybe that’s too much, too strong, but right in this moment it’s how he feels and his chest is puffed with it, and his heart is set on it, and he’s clearly wound up about this, but not because of defiance. Not entirely, anyway. “If you can’t handle that part, this part, then you don’t get to do the other parts. Not with my consent.” And this is something Charles has never really understood, not entirely, not fully, but he does in this moment: he has power, too, because he’s the one giving it up. He’s the one who offers it, even when Erik is taking it. Because he truly believes Erik would never, under any circumstances, do something without knowing he had Charles’ full consent. And right now, here? He shakes his head. “You can talk to me, and explain it to me, but you can’t just decide I don’t need to know. I need to know. If you’re punishing me, I need to know. So figure it out. You said you’re my Dominant, so figure it out. Or you don't get to act like it.” It’s the most blunt he’s ever been about it, and perhaps it’s too strong, but he means it. Right now, in the aftermath of this afternoon, in the aftermath of every instinct that riled him up in the first place, he means it.  
  
Erik's expression, which had at least softened marginally enough to make a small joke at his own expense just moments before, completely just... vacates. There's a fortress inside of Erik's mind separating what's behind his eyes from the outside world and at this very moment all the watertight compartments come crashing down, almost audibly. "Very well," he starts, slowly and softly.  
  
Charles’ face falls, too. Visibly, and practically audibly, his head drooping again, his eyes on the floor, fingers digging painfully into his arms. He doesn’t know what to say, now, except that he doesn’t want to take it back; it had felt important, to say it. To mean it. More important than he currently understands. But now it’s all caught up again, so he hangs his head and he waits, wishing he had another hand to attend to the stinging in his eyes, the tear tracks.  
  
"I hear what you are saying, and I agree with you, which is why I indicated when we first began talking about this that I would always try and do so. My reaction was disproportionate and incorrect. Thank you for telling me how you feel. It is necessary and what I expect from you."  
  
Somehow it still makes Charles feel - he’s not sure, exactly, but it clenches tightly in his chest, wells up in the pit in his stomach. “Is that really how you feel?” he whispers. He doesn't mean for it to be accusatory, really. He just doesn't know. And he's afraid, a little. He's anxious. He's uncertain, now, in the aftermath.  
  
"Yes," Erik says. His voice is still flat, but it's different. It isn't frustration. It isn't anything; flat isn't even really the right word. It's monotone, and Erik's posture has changed, become straight and entirely rigid. Formal. Stilted. "Being able to articulate that is important and I am pleased you did so."  
  
“Then why…” But it dies in his throat, and Charles shakes his head. If the stinging in his eyes is worse, it’s easy enough to ignore. He tries to, fingers still digging into his own skin, head still ducked.  
  
"Thank you for being honest with me, and I will endeavor to figure it out so that I act properly in the future. I apologize that this is not a good response to your statement. I am currently very upset and I do not know the reason why, so I am going to postpone this session until my emotions return to a baseline status."   
  
“Oh,” Charles breathes, and it’s small, quiet, closed off, too, in its own way. It aches, horribly, throbs deep inside of him, but he ignores it. He ignores everything, or tries to, blinking back stubborn, persistent tears. “Alright. If that’s... if that’s -“ But he’s upset, too, and he can’t hide that. He couldn’t, not even if he tried, not when this whole stupid, bloody house is so plugged into him, not when the walls shift with him, not when it’s suddenly so dark the lights aren’t helping much, even when they haven’t even been up here long enough for the sun to set. Charles doesn’t wait for Erik to tell him to stand, because he doesn’t think he will. He does it, hasty to be out of this room, and he supposes in the end he got his wish. What he wanted. It feels so thoroughly miserable, but he knew it would. He hadn’t actually wanted to get it, and there’s the irony of it, really. “I’ll go, then,” he mumbles, voice thick with emotion, in contrast to Erik’s, and he’s already turning to leave. To run. To hold himself together.  
  
Erik's right hand settles against his left forearm, strategically over the thick black lines of the circular tattoo emblazoned there. It looks decorative, but it's odd. Out of place. The problem is that Erik can't make himself be OK. He can't make himself _not_ be experiencing whatever it is that is happening and he's already made assurances. Assurances that Charles clearly expects him to honor. "You will not leave," Erik tells him. "I meant that I am unable to discipline you at this time. It doesn't change that you wish to know the source of my concerns. That you wish to understand."  
  
“I want to leave, Erik,” Charles whispers, and his back is turned, his feet already halfway out the door. He’s hardly even feigning composure at this point. “Please and thank you. We can talk about this later. But I’m going to leave now, I think,” he says, because if he stays any longer he’ll sob and he’d much rather not do it in front of Erik at the moment. If he’s not being disciplined, there’s no reason for it.  
  
There is a reason for it, actually. Erik is still sitting neatly on the floor, which is a contrast to their usual positions, one hand stretched out over his knee. He looks up at Charles, and everything is severe and then it's twisted, the room bending out of shape in distortions. Sounds are splintered.  
  
Charles closes his eyes, his arms tightly around his middle, as if he’s somehow been injured. If something is off in the room, distorted or strange, he wouldn’t know; he goes still, and quiet, and then it seems as if he isn’t moving at all. Not breathing, even, still as anything. Too still to be normal, or possible.  
  
When Charles goes still, Erik's eyes catch on him again, and then he notices that he isn't breathing and finally animates; watches himself animate. Watches as he rises in one fluid motion and crosses the room to put his hand over Charles's heart, going still himself to find the beat. Erik's face is all flat and wrong, a Picasso painting put back into order. Everything is splintering and faded out. "Charles," Erik hears himself say.  
  
Charles doesn’t respond. He doesn’t move at all, though he’s clearly there; standing, still, silent, motionless, as if he’s been molded entirely out of clay. Out of wax. Placed in this room and left there.  
  
Everything goes black for Erik for a few seconds, the sounds and colors and images overloading his senses until he fades out entirely. Unformed and reformed, the gears switching behind his gaze. He leads Charles to sit on the bed.  
  
But Charles doesn’t move. He’s still as anything, as if he’s just completely frozen. If Erik drags him, he’ll go; but there’s no movement of his own, not even breathing. Not even blinking. Nothing.  
  
Erik just stands there uselessly, touching Charles over and over, his eyes staring and uncomprehending.  
  
Part of that isn’t his fault. It’s clear something is wrong, that it’s off; that it isn’t how it should be. There’s the sound of harsh, gasping breaths, of panic, the pulsing waves of it, choked off sobs, but Charles isn’t the source of it. Or at least he doesn’t seem to be, utterly unresponsive.  
  
Erik keeps petting him, his face and chest. It's obviously all his fault, and of course he can't fix it. His own futility was inevitable. He's upset. He can't think. Now Charles is gone. Those are the facts. The end.  
  
Of course Charles isn’t gone, and it becomes increasingly obvious he’s just taken a moment, taken a second, everything distorting to afford him that. He hasn’t even left the room. The harsh, panting breaths are coming from close, and then Erik isn’t petting anything, anyone, becomes aware he hasn’t been looking at Charles at all, because Charles is beside the bed, curled up into his knees close to where Erik had him kneel, fighting more sobs. The force of his own reaction. But he’s not gone, and it isn’t the end.  
  
The wind is howling inside of him, as his brain scrambles to adjust. To find space. The result is an inward implosion, a switch of consciousness, a new occupant. But even as a mechanical being he can't escape. When he approaches it's on silent feet and he practically materializes next to Charles, dropping to his height, placing a hand over his cheek. It's warm. Somehow he doesn't anticipate that and his whole body shudders.  
  
Charles leans into it, shuddering and frightened; he hadn’t known what was happening. He hadn’t known, immediately, and he’d taken it into himself. And now he’s shivering and upset and he’s - “Sorry,” he mumbles into his knees, one cheek lifted to meet Erik’s hand. He hadn’t meant to do whatever he’d done, he’d just needed a moment, but hadn’t been able to say the words this time. He’s not always brilliant at it, either.  
  
Erik taps a finger under his arm and straightens him up, brushing his fingers across Charles's shoulders and across his cheeks, sweeping his hair back from his face. The gentleness is a direct juxtaposition from Erik's expression, which remains waxy and unmoving. "You do not need to apologize," he speaks at last in a much more heavily-accented than usual monotone. "You did nothing wrong. It is OK. You will be all right."  
  
It feels like he has, but Charles tries not to think that. Not to feel it. He tries to breathe, normally, without choking on it, without sobbing, but it’s difficult. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” he wheezes. “I shouldn’t have.”  
  
"Breathe." It's an Order. "You said what needed to be said," Erik counters. "Why do you feel this way."  
  
“Because you went away right after I said it,” Charles whispers, and it’s tiny, vulnerable, frightened. Sometimes Erik goes where, right now, he absolutely cannot reach. Has no access to. And without that access, he doesn’t know what’s happening. What, in that instance, he’s done.  
  
Erik's lips part slightly, but no sound comes out. He just touches Charles's cheek again, blinking slowly. When he speaks again, his words are measured. Calm. At complete odds with the content of his message. "I am very distraught. I do not know how to fix it. I know that it is not fair. You did nothing wrong. You did exactly what I have always told you to do."  
  
It had felt like what needed to happen, in that moment. Erik said that’s what it was for, the word, not to ever ignore his need to use it because it would be a breach of trust. A huge one. But now he feels sick, and he tries to believe Erik. To listen. He nods, sniffling. “Can you talk about it?” he asks, quietly. It’s pleading. “Can you tell me? I can help.” Even when they’re in this situation. Even when there are things that need to be settled, and won’t be fixed until they are.  
  
He just keeps touching Charles as if he's grounding himself, rhythmic and repetitive. Along his jaw, his cheek, his shoulders. "I don't know. I need help. I am supposed to help you. It is not right. It is twisted. It is backwards. I cannot figure it out."  
  
Charles shakes his head, but lets Erik touch him, pet him, use him to ground himself. It has the added benefit of helping Charles, too. “It’s okay, it’s alright,” he croaks, and reaches tentatively for Erik’s hand, his own fingers shaking violently. “It’s not backwards. It’s not twisted. I can help.” He’s still close to hyperventilating himself, but he’ll try. He wants to try. “We help each other, yeah? It’s not backwards.”  
  
"OK," Erik repeats slowly, as if experiencing lag. His fingers curl around Charles's immediately, warm and solid. Help each other. Erik needs to help. He needs to be brave, and strong, and not like this. He can change. He can help. He stays still. Petting at Charles, repeating. "It's OK. It's all right." He swallows and presses a kiss to Charles's hair, and then flinches at his own actions, before going entirely rigid, immobile.  
  
Charles tenses up, not at the kiss but at the reaction, curling back up and into himself. “Sorry,” he mumbles again, attempting to hide back in his knees. He doesn’t understand what he did, or what to do, and it must he him. Whatever it is that he is, it’s made Erik so distraught he can’t function. “I don’t know what to do, I’m sorry, I want to help,” he whispers, and he’s crying again. “Please? Talk to me. I don’t understand,” he admits.  
  
Erik tries to shake it off; the reaction, finding it almost unbearably worse to be parted and his hand finds Charles's once again. "I don't know," he repeats again, softly, his gaze far away. "Dunno. _Lo yode'a, ve..._ " he mumbles under his breath. "You don't-" he can't say it.  
  
Charles squeezes Erik’s hand tightly, and peeks back out of his own knees. “I don’t what?” he urges, softly. “Please tell me.”  
  
Erik's eyes widen, glazed over and gazing at nothing in the background. "Consent," he says, calm and unaffected.

* * *

Oh. Charles lets out a breath, shakes his head, and immediately his arms are around Erik, as much as they can be when Erik is so much larger. “Not like that,” he agrees. “Not when it would hurt both of us. You told me I needed to tell you, when I needed - you told me to, so I did, but I consent to this, Erik. To us. Completely. I want you to - I know you should, you need to, all of it -“ It’s part of the problem. He’s worried Erik isn’t taking his consent seriously, is holding back because he doesn’t think Charles is giving it. That he can’t. “You’re my Dominant. I consent to that. I do. To all of it. But I can’t consent to - to that. I’m sorry,” he whispers, unsure if he should be ashamed, tears in his eyes again. “I can’t consent to you punishing me without talking to me about why, without discussing those things. You said you always would. I know you need to, I don’t want you to, but - but I consent, just not like that. I consent to you, to...” It’s hard to say right now. He’s not sure Erik wants to hear it, and it makes him want to curl up again, to cry again.  
  
Erik doesn't know why he is acting like this, why he finds that he can't breathe even when Charles is tacitly discussing things that he himself has said it's necessary to address, but the whole conversation, the words, something is tweaked up inside of him and he can't breathe and he doesn't know why and it's not that he's a telepath and it's not that he's still as a statue but it is that he's stopped moving, stopped breathing, for real and the world is spinning; the room is spinning while he tries to reply logically. Rationally. "Thank you for telling me this," he croaks out of lungs that don't work. "Thank you. I won't. I won't do it. It's OK."  
  
It makes Charles’ stomach turn, and he doesn’t know what to do. He squeezes at Erik, panicked and concerned and guilty and worked up, wheezing himself. “I’m sorry,” he rasps, because he doesn’t know what else to say to make it better. Because he’s frightened, and everything is spinning for him, too. “I - I shouldn’t have, I’m sorry. Just talk to me, _please_ ,” he begs.  
  
"I am damaged," he manages hoarsely. His face is leaking. He reaches up to touch the wet tracks on his cheeks, curious. His face doesn't contort at all, he's a mannequin. "I am damaged," he stutters, finds the words are disappearing. Everything is swerving. "Sometimes when you push at me. You say things that feel like being slapped. You wouldn't know why. I wanted to punish you but you would-so it was wrong. I am wrong. Bad. Not your fault," he slurs. "I dunno how to discuss it. I'm damaged. Damaged." Erik's hands are around Charles's body, easily encompassing him and his fingers flex against the skin of Charles's back, the pads petting him gently. Trying to comfort him, to ease him, to make him feel good. Slowly, his head falls against Charles's shoulder-lolls there, really.  
  
Charles shakes his head, and tries to hold Erik. To touch him, to hold him, to stroke away his tears, to run a hand through his hair despite the terrible angle. He hiccups. “You aren’t,” he insists, promises. “You aren’t. And you - it’s not punishing me that I don’t - you should,” he whispers, eyes squeezed closed. And he knows it. He knew it. Erik’s instinct was right, and what Charles always needed to happen. “It’s me. It’s me. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, why I have to keep...” He’s trembling again. “I don’t know. It must be me,” he croaks, broken, and worried. “It’s alright. I won’t - I’ll figure it out, and I won’t, okay? And you don’t have to, you don’t have to do anything. Okay? You’re not damaged. It’s me. I’m not a good submissive. Maybe I’m not...” He knows he is, but maybe he isn’t. It’s something he wondered as a child, too. His whole life. It’s always been an insecurity, and he never got to navigate it safely. But he’s frightened now, too.  
  
Erik nuzzles into Charles's shoulder, leaning right into the fingers in his hair totally unconsciously. " _Lo_ ," he whispers amidst petting at him. "You said I can't handle it. You're right. If I were normal I would just discipline you right away and you would-feel like you belong, like you are supposed to. But I'm wrong." Erik does not know how to talk about this. Especially not when it happens in the midst of a serious transgression, one that does require discipline, by Erik's standards and Charles's too. What happens when he starts to fail in the exact moment he is meant to exert his Will. How to deal with an intense trauma response when Charles is seconds away from being put into Child's Pose. For reasons this version of Charles has no context for. Charles flies off, he goes silent, the world ends. Maybe.  
  
“It’s me,” Charles argues, because it must be. It must be. He’s the one making Erik feel this way, and he tries to nuzzle back, to not cry anymore. It’s difficult. “Can you try to - to talk about? Just try. Please,” he whispers. “You don’t have to do anything. It’s alright. I don’t need anything, I won’t push anymore. I’ll never do it again. I won’t.” But he doesn’t know if he can promise it won’t well up, frustrating and insistent and instinctive inside him and he hates it. He hates it because it hurts Erik, clearly, and he chokes out another sob, entirely against his will.  
  
"Stop, stop it," Erik interrupts him as he's speaking. "Stop. I don't want that." Erik curls his fingertips over Charles's face, as much as he can from where he's half-buried in Charles's neck, refusing to come out, refusing to let his own expression be bare as he considers all of this. "You should always be as you are. I don't want you to suppress yourself any more than you wish it of me." He walks his fingertips down Charles's chest almost playfully. There's a little village there, a forest, some mountains, some happy blobs. Maybe it's the ghost. Buried inside Erik's head, wormed all the way in there. That voice. Those eyes. That smile. Erik can't shed it, he can't get rid of its looming presence over his shoulder. _You were just born that way. It isn't really how you are. Let me show you._  
  
“But it hurts you,” Charles rasps, and it’s barely words at all, so quiet. This is him, in so many ways, discovering his submission and what it means for the first time. It will be formative, even after the memories come back. And he’s frightened of it. “It’s not something I need, whatever it is. You do want it. I’ll stop it, alright? And we can go back, we can... it’ll be alright, Erik,” he promises, and tries to sound - tries to sound in charge, certain. Dominant, perhaps, even just slightly, even just unconsciously. Just like the first time. “We’ll be alright. We can forget this happened, we can do what we were doing. It was nice, like that. Wasn’t it? Tell me, please. Tell me what’s wrong.”  
  
Erik retracts his hand and covers his own face so he doesn't need to be seen. "You said that I just-that I am arbitrary, and I coddle you, and I have to-to figure it out or else I can't be your Dominant anymore and I- _huh_ -" he can't really continue, and oddly laughs, nudging further into the corner he's carved out for himself inside Charles's chest. "I'm not a good Dominant. I'm not," he quells any dissent. "I never learned. We-you-go to school and learn. I, uh, I never. And-" his eyes squeeze shut and he abruptly quiets, his whole body vibrating. "I'm sorry. _Ich wollte mich nicht verlaufen_ ," he mumbles hazily. He isn't indestructible, as much as he's displayed to Charles so far. The shell is cracking. He looks different somehow. More vulnerable. Not the Commander, just a villager. And he knows this isn't how it's supposed to be. Charles isn't supposed to be Dominant. Charles isn't supposed to put him back together.  
  
Charles isn’t supposed to be Dominant, but he is supposed to help. To put Erik back together, if he needs that. To care for him. And he tries, holding him, stroking his hair, even as he does dissent. “You are,” he says, and it’s insistent, it’s firm, it’s not something he’s willing to be persuaded or Ordered out of it. It’s something he feels strongly, that he knows, and in this place he doesn’t know much. “You are. You care for me. You consider me. You, you take care of me, even when I don’t deserve it, even when I disappoint you -“ He feels it get stuck in his throat, swallows around it. “You’re a wonderful Dominant. I don’t care if you never learned, you’re learning now. And you’re doing brilliantly, you’ve been so patient, and careful, and I know, I know I haven’t...” He squeezes his eyes shut. “It’s me. It’s me. It must just be, I must just be an awful submissive,” and now it’s his turn to laugh, inappropriately, because his stomach has dropped right out again. “Who pushes and disobeys and makes you feel horrible about something you have no need to feel horrible about because, and I don’t know much but I know this, you are everything a Dominant should be. I’m making you doubt what you shouldn’t. You were doing perfectly, and you’re very unlucky. Apparently I’m the broken one.”  
  
" _Du haben es immer verdient versorgt zu werden_ ," Erik whispers. " _Ve ani ratzon ze tamid_." He lapses more into German and French, other languages; nestles closer and lets Charles run his fingers through his hair, slowly tries to calm himself down. "You aren't broken," he finally says in English. "I think-" Erik shrugs in on himself, now. "You are right. If I were more open, maybe it wouldn't feel like hurling stones at an iron wall. Sometimes the wall crumbles. I try to stop it and reinforce it and meet your needs; my needs." He scratches down his own face. He does need it, too. "If I trust myself more. If I wasn't so sensitive." He sniffles, and Charles realizes he's been hiding tears this entire time. "My thoughts intrude all the time. I keep thinking-I learned so much in the span of-and now this-I can't-I-can't breathe. I can't breathe."  
  
Immediately Charles is there, and perhaps it doesn’t do much, but he rearranges, kneels in front of Erik (kneels, is that right, is it okay, is it good?) and places his hand on Erik’s still bare chest. Sucks in a big breath, as even as he can possibly make it around his own tears, and passes it on. “You can,” he promises, his own voice thick and affected. “You can breathe. And you really are brilliant at this, you’ve been so good at it - I feel safe, with you. I want to learn. I want to try. I want to -“ He shakes his head. “It’s my fault. I promise it is. Whatever’s wrong with me, I’ll make it better, and you can just do what you were doing. That was perfectly fine, we can stay like that.” It’s not a lie, really. It’s only a half-truth, but those are better than lies. “I didn’t mean to make you - you were right, to punish me for that. You were. It was out of line and uncalled for. I just wanted a reaction. But I shouldn’t have done it.” And that isn’t a half-truth at all. It’s fact. Charles feels how much that affects him, all the way in the gnarled, twisted pit in his belly that’s been there ever since Erik Ordered them inside.  
  
Erik touches Charles's cheek. "It is not perfectly fine. It never was. It isn't about that. It isn't about that," he whispers. "It isn't about-it isn't. It about me. I can't. Cuz I'm scared I will hurt you. I can't get over it. I learned some bad things. Recently. And now I'm scared. I'm scared all the time. I know you don't think I take you seriously when you talk. I-it isn't about you. It's me. Stupid me, stupid brain." Erik thwaks himself in the head.  
  
Charles grabs Erik’s hand, his eyes wide and startled, and rearranges them until he’s quite literally in the way of Erik hurting himself. “You’re not stupid. If either of us has a stupid brain, it’s me,” and he tries to laugh, but it just comes out pathetic, wet and sniffly and stuffed up. “You won’t hurt me. Didn’t I just prove that? Something bothered me, it didn’t feel right, and -“ He bites his lip, hiding a little in Erik, resting his cheek without thinking too much in his bare chest. It’s calming, more than he’d ever be able to admit right now. “And you stopped. Right away. Because you’re a good Dominant, and you take care of me,” he whispers, cheeks heated with it.  
  
Erik keeps stroking Charles's cheek, running his fingers through Charles's hair. Even if he wants to be clawing his own skin off. "I did everything wrong and you got sad because-and I used to-I used to be good-I learned how-and now I forgot it all. I'm scared-scared to-" Let go. Scared to let go. "I'm damaged." Erik swipes at his eyes furiously. "I love your brain. It makes me happy. You make me happy. I want to-I-" he chokes. "But what if I make a mistake. And you-and you hate me-you-" Erik can't say the rest. He can't. But it's inside of him. It always has been.  
  
“It’s alright, Erik,” he whispers, and nuzzles right into him. Grazes his lips over Erik’s chest, unconsciously, really, just seeking more touch. More attention, more comfort. He strokes a hand through Erik’s hair, too, plays with the curls. “I won’t hate you. You’re allowed to make mistakes. You didn’t do everything wrong before. You haven’t forgotten. You know. Right? That’s what you said. That you know me, and what I need. You know, don’t you?” he breathes, and lets himself believe it, too.  
  
"It was different, before," Erik whispers. "I am a stranger to you, now. You do not know me. If I make the same choices-" Erik coughs and nestles himself further into Charles, curling up into a little Erik-ball. This wasn't the plan. He's sorry. "But I-" he coughs. "I know about disciplining you. I can do that. I just-couldn't-like this. It's not right."  
  
Charles shakes his head. “You’re not a stranger to me,” he whispers, muffled in Erik’s skin, in the warmth of him. It’s difficult to not be entirely too conscious that he’s still stripped down to his boxers, shivering despite the particularly warm temperature Erik seems to keep his room at all times, something Charles has noted the few times he’s spent time here. “You were, yes. But you’re not any longer. I might not know you as well, but - I am beginning to,” he mumbles, because he’s enjoyed the process. The last week, all and all, has been lovely. There has been skirting, and grazing, and flittering, and there has been some frustration, but overall it’s been far more lovely than terrifying, and considering the situation, the level of terror he’s felt, it’s saying quite a bit. “You don’t have to - I’ve pushed you, and I can see now it’s distressing. We don’t have to touch it, Erik. It’s perfectly fine without it, just as I said.” It’s not, and he’s using that tone again, that measured, in-charge tone that he’s always just mimicked, and it’s funny, now, because what he’s mimicking is Erik. His model is Erik. It’s all Erik, and truly, there is so much more room here. So much less trauma.  
  
"Well that isn't your decision," Erik mumbles, and there is so much more Dominance injected into his tone even while halfway curled up into a circle than anyone other than a D5 could possibly hope to achieve, and it's Erik in particular. Commanding, even when he's wilted in on himself. "And I do not need you to lie to me to make me feel better. I don't like it, I don't want it, and it wouldn't make me feel better regardless. You aren't-aren't the only one. Who needs that. I just, and it's not up to you, to solve. Nobody can solve it. Nobody can help me. Nobody," he trails off.  
  
“I can,” Charles argues, and it’s firm, stubborn, but soft, too. He tangles his hand up in Erik’s curls, tugging playfully, hidden in his shoulder. “I can help. If you talk to me.”  
  
Erik arches up against that, flittering a little amidst the playful contact and the pulling, all ruffled up before settling back down. "The reason I couldn't discipline you before was just because I was-uh- _lachutz_ , you know," he waves at his head. "I don't really know why. You talked about consent and, and I just, I don't know. And I can talk about things and I can do things and I don't get upset. It's not because I can't or anything. But there-I learned things, recently, and I can't-and now this situation; I can't-if I make a mistake you could die."

* * *

Charles isn't sure if it's the right reaction, but seeing a reaction out of Erik has always made him want to do it again. To test results, especially when he was so still and unresponsive just moments before. Call him a scientist. So he gives Erik's hair another soft tug, twining strands between his fingers, and shakes his head. "I won't die," he insists. "And you won't make a mistake like that. Didn't you see what just happened? I stopped it when I got upset, when it felt wrong to me. I caught you. Isn't that what a pause-word is for? What's the point, otherwise?" he snarks. "It's not like you gave it to me for, I don't know, when I felt like it. It's there for this, from what I understand." Even under these circumstances, Charles finds it difficult not to be a bit sassy.  
  
"You must think I am just being dramatic," Erik whispers, and he shakes his head again. "I'm sorry." He floats up a little more when Charles tugs on his hair and finally peeks out, giving Charles's chest a little scratch in response.  
  
Immediately Charles is shaking his head again, offering a small, encouraging smile, and he pokes Erik in the chest in response, right in the middle. "I don't," he promises, and it's soft. "Of course I don't. You aren't being dramatic at all. You're having a response to something horribly traumatic. It happens. When it does, shouldn't you step back, too? You're allowed to. It's not just me. You should be taken care of, too." And that's firm, and always has been, for Charles. "It's just - are you sure... it might make you feel better, to just forget about it," he mumbles, and then he's looking down. "I'm not lying when I say it's perfectly fine with me if we never go a step farther than we have been, and you don't - you know," he says, which is a lie, but perhaps a less obvious one. He might not even know it is, actually.  
  
"No. I don't want to hear this any more. How can I take a step back?" Erik shakes his head. "Because it makes you feel like you have to be perfectly fine without integral aspects of our Dynamic. I don't want that." Erik shrugs and burrows back where he was, patting Charles softly, ticklishly. "I did something you do not consent to." He didn't, but what just happened has clearly translated to this. "I-could do worse. I don't know any better. I could snap and-forget who you are, and kill you." He's far away, his gaze blurred.  
  
Everything shifts suddenly, all with Charles’ harsh intake of breath. He tugs softly at Erik’s hair again, but this time it’s coaxing, pleading, trying to pull him out again because - “Oh, darling,” he breathes, and there are tears in his voice again. “Is that what you’re worried about? You didn’t. I told you what I was uncomfortable with and you stopped. Right away, you stopped, and you made a decision to pause until we could discuss it. You didn’t hurt me. You could never hurt me,” he whispers, and finds he means it. “You couldn’t. You’ve taken wonderful care of me, you’ve been so patient and thoughtful, but you don’t need to be so careful. Don’t you see? When something bothers me, I will stop you. You’ll always stop, hm? What happens when I use that word again? You know. You gave it to me because you know. It’s alright, everything is alright. Look at me. I am perfectly alright, because of you. Because of you. You really don’t know how brilliant you’ve been, do you? I’ve been researching, you know,” and that’s mumbled, embarrassed.  
  
Erik's lips are pressed together a little self-consciously, and he finally peeks up again, attempting not to be red-faced. He strokes a finger down the center of Charles's chest, right over his sternum. "It feels like I am stumbling in the dark and everything I do-" he chokes off. "I end up hurting you all the time. How can I be doing any good? I thought I knew this. I was learning and I thought I was getting there and then this happened and I know nothing anymore and I'm no good anymore-" he huffs, laughing because the alternative is worse. He swallows. "-researching?"  
  
“You haven’t hurt me,” he argues, a stubborn line to his lips. “You haven’t. You’ve helped me, this whole time. You do know. You haven’t forgotten, you don’t know nothing. You’ve been teaching me, haven’t you? And it’s been wonderful,” it’s a whisper again, quiet, shy, shivery when Erik touches him, his belly quivering. But he means it, and he needs Erik to hear it, too. “Research,” he repeats, without elaborating.  
  
"Research," Erik's laugh becomes a little more genuine and a smile peeks out, showcasing the rather large dimple of his own on his right cheek, the product of muscle damage rather than genetics, but serving the same purpose. "What did you research?" he shakes his hair out of his face.  
  
Charles helps him, stroking it out of the way, behind his ear, playing with the curls and rubbing the thick locks between his fingers. “I think you need a haircut, perhaps,” he grins, and it’s a deflection. He knows it is, too. “Nothing particularly interesting,” he lies. It’s clear he’s found whatever he’s looked into fascinating, but his cheeks are hot and he tries to hide this time.  
  
"No lying to me," Erik taps him on the nose. "Tell me about it." The implication is clear. He wants to hear about it. He is the Dominant. He should be entitled to anything he requests from his submissive. He doesn't Order it. Yet.  
  
It makes Charles squirm, something flipped over in his belly. It doesn’t help that Erik is still touching there, that he’s still just in his boxers. “S1s and D5s,” he mumbles back, and finds it makes him - he’s not sure. Following an Order is one thing, but doing as he’s told without one has its own appeal. He finds his breath hitches with it.  
  
Erik's palm splays across Charles's chest, feeling his breath shift and move beneath his skin. There is, as always, a rich and luxuriating feeling that comes from having Charles obey him, especially on his own. "What about S1s and D5s?"  
  
That makes Charles wriggle, too, shifting insistently until he can settle himself on Erik’s shoulder, more thoroughly in his lap. It’s always felt safe, there, when he’s allowed himself. “There are less of us,” he murmurs, and now there’s that fascination, the eagerness to learn, the intrigue that’s always been a part of who Charles is. “S1s, I mean. Even less than D5s. And it seems like no one has ever known what to do with us. Either we are mistyped until late in life, or when we are typed properly, it doesn’t -“ He presses his lips together. “‘Unusual presentation,’ I believe it’s been called.”  
  
"There are," Erik nods, his head bobbing where it's nestled into Charles's shoulder. "Less of you. There are only about twenty D5s registered in the world," he adds, soft. "I only ever met one other." His expression clouds over slightly. "Our son is one, as well," he whispers. "Pietro. What are the chances?" he huffs a laugh. "We're all meant to join the military. D5s. That's what I was supposed to do, but-" he shrugs.  
  
“He’s a D5?” Charles asks, misunderstanding, because it certainly seems less likely he’s an S1. The likelihood is almost none, really (which of course means it’s the case, considering it’s them). Charles hides even further in Erik’s chest, curling up quite nicely, soothed by his Dominant’s skin, his warmth, his presence. “S1s - they do not seem to fare well,” he laughs, and perhaps it’s self-deprecating, even without context. It is. “There’s... mistyping, and issues of defiance. No one seems capable of -“ Of handling them, more willful and stubborn than even high-Doms. “It sounds very lonely. Isolating, really. There are studies on these things. The relationships between an S1 and a lower-leveled Dominant...” They don’t work. Almost always, they have not worked. It simply isn’t enough.  
  
"Pietro is an S1," Erik corrects softly. "And you aren't wrong. Those elements manifested in your life as well. You held a relationship with Gabrielle Haller for a year, as she was a D4.5. That was the highest you'd known, but she couldn't put you down." Erik's lips twitch vaguely for some reason. It's not exactly mysterious. He can. He can handle Charles. He is capable. The reminder warms something in his chest that flickers into existence, a candle flame burning slowly, lashing up at Charles's consciousness. "I don't really know how D5s fare. The government keeps it all on lockdown. I can say I am pleased Pietro is an S1, instead of a D5. I would hate to have to blow up the Pentagon, after all." He gives a wink.  
  
“No one would have had to know,” Charles murmurs quietly, and it’s the truth. They wouldn’t. Blowing up the Pentagon is a bit more conspicuous, but he’s fairly sure they would have found an alternative. “But -“ His lips press together, and he draws on whatever that tugging is between them, tries to focus on how warm Erik is. “It’s lonely, and from all I’ve read extremely frustrating and isolating, but in many cases it’s also short.” And he doesn’t know their son. He has no recollection, no memory, even the name rings no bells. He’s seen pictures, he’s heard stories, but they aren’t his. But now he’s worried, and it’s obvious, humming between them. “Because the likelihood of finding a D5 partner is - well, statistically, it’s nearly impossible, Erik. And from all that I’ve read...” He bites his lip. “S1s seem to do extraordinarily well on the surface, despite their strange presentation. Some of them actually take on Dominant roles, and they pass in those well enough. But it doesn’t seem sustainable.” It isn’t.  
  
"It won't be easy," Erik nods in agreement. "It wasn't easy for you. But you were told your whole life that being submissive was a flaw. We won't do that to Pietro. He'll have the opportunity to define himself the way he wishes. And there are D5s out there. Even if he does not encounter one he is compatible with, relationships are about more than just Indication. A lesson he would do well to learn, considering he is the product of a homogenous pairing."  
  
Charles shakes his head. “I don’t think you’re understanding,” he whispers. “I didn’t say their lives were just difficult. I said they were also short, Erik. There’s something...” He takes another breath, because it applies to them. To whatever is between them. “There’s something more to it, something strictly biological.”  
  
Erik looks at him uncomprehendingly. "What do you mean short? What is biological?"  
  
“Have you ever heard of an elderly S1? An old, wise sage, someone to fully explain what it means and is to have that Indication? On their own, I mean.” He pauses, and closes his eyes. “No. Because it doesn’t happen. S1s die, comparably, very early. Very young. Because there’s something biologically necessary about our submission. Something necessary for our stability. Our functioning, even. And it’s very rare we find someone who... you know.”  
  
"So what are you telling me?" Erik shakes his head, eyes wide.  
  
“I - obviously it isn’t -“ Charles shakes his head, too. “There have been so few of us it might mean nothing. There simply isn’t enough data.” Except all the data there is seems skewed one way, and pointed toward a fairly supported conclusion. “I don’t need it,” he breathes, because he’s gotten it into his head that it’s what Erik is referring to. What he’s reacting to, at least partly. “So I’m sure no one else does, either. It’s incomplete research.” And a lie.  
  
Except that Charles can see something snap off in Erik unlike anything he's witnessed up to this point, as if he can hear it, as if he can sense it in the atmosphere, a thunderous crackle of lightning without the storm clouds. "Speak plainly," he murmurs, low and dangerous. This time it is an Order. "The next lie I hear will be the last."  
  
“I’m not lying,” he snaps, and immediately feels like he should regret it, his stomach turning with it. He sucks in a breath, fussing against Erik’s shoulder, pulling away slightly. “It’s not complete data. And I don’t need - I don’t need - so whatever I read, it’s irrelevant and does not apply to me.”  
  
"It doesn't," Erik growls. "Of course it doesn't." He pushes down everything else. "You found me. You have me, and your needs, which I happen to know a good deal more than you seem to think I do, will be provided for. I am not interested in us, Charles. You're telling me it's likely that our son is going to die?"  
  
“That’s not what I’m saying,” he huffs, because of course the thought is horrifying. Of course, even not knowing Pietro himself, he feels that horror, that terror, that worry and concern. “It’s - when D5s are without their, their...” He gestures, because he doesn’t want to say it. “It seems to be an outward thing. They destruct outwardly. But for S1s, it’s very inward, and it can be...” He swallows. “But he isn’t going to die now, or anytime soon. There is plenty of time to address it, if it’s even true. I was clearly fine without you,” he insists, and he doesn’t need to remember to know it’s just another form of the same lie, indignant and haughty and false.  
  
"But you weren't," Erik whispers, voice rough. "We had a connection. You were getting better, with me. Me too. Because we-because you are mine." Erik draws his hands down his face, stressed. "What if he doesn't find a D5 he likes? Then he is just doomed to self-destruct? Even if we give him the best possible foundation?"  
  
“I was fine,” Charles snaps again, though of course he can’t know. He’s not even sure what’s inspiring the reaction, which is particularly harsh. “I was managing fine. I had several advanced degrees, a career, and clearly was not self-destructing.” He was. More and more every day, actually. “He will be fine, too. I’m sure of it. And we - you will help him,” he whispers. “So it doesn’t matter, Erik. It doesn’t matter.”

* * *

"Stop talking." It's an Order, and far harsher and more Commanding than anything out of Charles's mouth. Whatever he's said, he has very clearly pissed Erik off.  
  
Charles freezes up, his heart pounding in his chest. In his ears. In his throat, where everything’s clotted up. He’s wide-eyed with it, caught by the predator he’s quickly becoming aware Erik is. He’s wriggling under the force of it, as if he plans to run; not frightened, but aware of the potential danger.  
  
"You speak of matters you are dangerously ignorant about." Erik jabs a finger into his chest, rough, glaring at him from above. "You spit your words at me, you continue to disobey me. You claim you understand what went wrong before, you claim that you shouldn't have done it and that you are sorry, but I fail to see how. You sit here and tell me you do not need to be put in your place. That is incorrect and I trust that we have cleared up our former misunderstanding. The next words out of your mouth had better be _yes sir_ or _no sir_." Every one of Erik's words have taken on an otherworldly clip, a growling purr that practically bites with every consonant. And there's no threat. There's no or else. There is only blinding expectation and rippling power as Erik moves, maneuvers to rise to his feet as he speaks.  
  
Charles whimpers; it’s entirely unconscious, soft and bitten off, his lip stuck firmly between his teeth. Immediately he’s shifting to cover himself, to hide, feeling cold and dreading with Erik no longer holding him, covering him. Keeping him safe. But apparently there is still something bold in him, all of that riled up defiance, because even while he’s hiding in his knees he’s mumbling something that is clearly not yes, sir.  
  
And Erik does something he's never done before. Not with this version of Charles. But this version of Charles, who is very much the same man he knows and loves, has never felt it before. Has never felt what it's like to have finally agitated that beast until it rises up and shoves him back down where he belongs. And he's never felt it, either, the sensation of having his jaw gripped in hand hard before being delivered a precise slap across the cheek. It hurts. It leaves a mark, a red blossom that trails down his neck. But it isn't violent. It isn't out of control. It isn't a fit of temper. It is a Command. It's a way of draining Charles out and refocusing him back up, putting his attention back where it should be. " _Speak. Up_." Erik hisses, glowering.  
  
Charles is reeling with it. His eyes are comically wide, and he’s trembling in Erik’s hold, head to toe. His cheek smarts, and he’s startled, shocked, completely caught up in Erik’s Dominance; his hand comes up to grip his cheek, to feel the heat of it, the sting from Erik’s hand. “I - I didn’t say it didn’t matter, that I don’t care,” he gasps, his teeth chattering with it. But somehow he finds it in him to glare up at Erik, defiant and risen up more than he ever has been, even as he shakes worse than a leaf. “I said I don’t need you to Dominate me. I can handle m-myself,” he hisses, even as his pulse races, even as he feels it all in his stomach, a horrible twisting. “Sorry, should I say sir?” he snarks, and Charles has been defiant before, but this is a challenge. In every way. This is a test, and with his cheek bright red, it’s a dangerous one.  
  
"You will," Erik whispers back, deceptively soft. Electricity ablaze. Forest fires razing down. "Not Erik. Not my name. You no longer have that privilege. Not an offhand comment. You will speak when you are spoken to and you will address me properly. Until you do. Until you say please, sir, may I be disciplined,-it will not begin." It sounds like a joke, being told to ask politely for punishment, but Erik is deathly serious, judging by the severe expression on his face. All filters have closed. Leaving only the monster.  
  
Charles is staring, wide-eyed, as if he doesn’t understand. As if he doesn’t comprehend, as if Erik is speaking a language he doesn’t know, his lips parted on a gasping, pathetic noise. He really is shaking horribly, enough that he can feel it in every part of his body. “Ask?” he repeats, incredulous. Dreading, quiet.  
  
And for that, he is jolted again-across the cheek, but this time not with Erik's open hand. It's with a thin, swishy instrument that feels like a bomb has gone off in his head for a couple of seconds as the searing pain roils up through him and then fades quickly. " _Please. Sir. May I be disciplined._ I don't want to hear anything else out of you."  
  
Tears spring to Charles’ eyes, a result of shock and pain, and he squirms around on the floor, part of him considering something as inane as crawling away. His cheeks are hot even around the slaps, and his breathing is so harsh he thinks he might hyperventilate, the inevitability of this sinking beneath his skin. Still, he shakes his head, and feels sick the moment he does, as if he’s just poisoning himself. It’s a worse sensation than even whatever it is Erik just struck him with.  
  
"Hands behind your back," Erik Orders of him, without pause. As soon as he obeys, Erik gives him a good strike across the upper arms, jabbing the reed underneath his chin. "If you are so insistent upon disobeying me, you will very well keep your head up. _Please sir._ Let's try again. I have nowhere to be. I have nothing else to focus upon but this. Because you belong to me and your opinion on what you need does not take precedence over mine. You said you were mine. You said you wanted me to Dominate you. Hollow words. _Lies_."  
  
It isn’t lost on Charles that Erik specifically isn’t Ordering him, and he’s suddenly aware of how much worse it is. He isn’t being made to obey; he’s being expected to, coaxed into it. Properly trained. Erik fully expects Charles to bow to his Will and submit, and there’s not even an ounce of Charles that believes he won’t. But it’s not the blow that brings tears to his eyes again, even though it stings horribly, sends shocks to his entire nervous system, sets him on fire. It’s the words, biting and firm and harsh, punishing in their own right. Scolding. Charles feels the tears on his cheeks before he realizes he’s started crying at all. “N-No -“ It’s not true. He clamps his mouth shut, but it’s not true. It hurts.  
  
" _Please. Sir._ " Erik enunciates each one with a sharp, swift strike, bringing his hand all the way up and letting the reed fly across Charles's exposed upper thighs in two neat lines. "Not no. You claim you wish to submit to me, yet you disobey me. This is a fallacy. You are uncertain. You are confused. You believe that you are in control. Who am I?" He forces Charles's chin up again, to make him look at Erik's blazing eyes.  
  
It hurts, and worse than that, there are tears in his eyes, spilling unbidden down his cheeks, his face burning with the shame and humiliation, the reminder that most of him is bare, including his thighs, overwhelmed and trembling violently. “Dominant,” he gasps, and he doesn’t say my Dominant, he doesn’t say sir, and he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know why it won’t come out of his mouth, something stuck up inside of him.  
  
"Not for you. Not what you need. Not what you want. It doesn't matter." Erik punctuates each word with neat, red, emblazoned lines across both of Charles's thighs and one across the back of his hand as he crosses over for good measure. He grips a bit of Charles's hair in his hands. "Our children. _Matter_. I will never let you say otherwise. They matter to _you_ ," Erik growls. "Every time you say otherwise you will end up here. Every time you tell me that you don't need this, that you don't want this, that it doesn't matter. You will end up _here_. Every time you _smart off_ to me, and _mock_ me, and push me and goad me and throw my words back in my face you will end up _here_." Another sharp jolt, this time over the backs of Charles's feet. "And until you ask me for your discipline you will stay here. Indefinitely."  
  
“That’s not what I said!” It’s fierce and violent, the reaction, but Charles doesn’t know why. The room shakes with it. He doesn’t know why there are tears all the way down his cheeks that have nothing to do with the horrid, stinging pain (well, perhaps some to do), or what is keeping him clinging to this stubbornness, this wretched knot that’s done itself up in his belly. Enough to make him speak out of turn, even when he knows how dangerous it is, how serious Erik is. “That’s not what I said. Don’t put words into my mouth, Erik.” It’s more than playing with fire. It’s shoving himself right into the flames, but he looks Erik right in the eye and doesn’t flinch, even as his heart thuds in his chest, even as all those marks smart and ache.  
  
"Do not _raise your voice_ at me," Erik Orders him, practically growling it out. Erik crouches in front of him. "You told me that I would deal with things. Independently of you. That is what you said. You do not get to spout off at me indiscriminately and remain immune to the consequences of your words. Be _silent_ ," he roars, raising a hand-not _to_ him, but in halting. The Order spinning through the room and slamming into Charles like a freight train before he can think to contradict him at all. "Unless it is to obey the Commands that I have given you, I don't want to hear it. It matters to you? This matters to you? Hm? Then who am I. Not Erik. Who am I. To you." Erik presses his hand against Charles's chest, fingernails digging in.  
  
Charles is fighting every moment not to cry, now, well and truly, everything caught up in his chest where Erik is currently clawing. It’s almost panic, considering the force of it, choked off little noises bitten away as he forces himself not to crumble, but it’s a losing battle and he knows he can’t fight it anymore. It feels so distinctly horrible to fight it. “M-My Dominant,” he whispers, the actual answer, and bows his head low, feels the tears prick at his eyes again. “Sir.” But it’s not the only thing he wants to say, and it’s the only thing he can say; he tries, and it just dies in his throat, bitter and terrible until he chokes on it.  
  
And Erik knows it. Charles knows he knows it. "Who knew that you have ears which work," he traces his fingernail under Charles's chin and then nevertheless gives him another thwak with the reed, because-because it is progress but it is not what he asked for and until it is-Erik's expression remains inscrutable. "You always have some answer. Some justification. Some argument. I tell you not to lie to me and the first thing out of your mouth is a lie. Maybe you just haven't learned yet that I take the things you say _seriously_. I take your actions. _Seriously_. This is not a game to me. What you need, what you want, what I need. When I tell you again and again something, and you persist in lying over my words. And you are going to tell me that I am your Dominant. Then treat me that way. I do not want to listen to more lies from you. I will leave you here alone to sort out the truth if I hear one more. Have I made myself clear."  
  
Charles’ lips quiver, then press together, and it’s incredibly obvious that he’s holding something back. Tears, almost definitely, and the noise that the pain inspires, even as a little stifled whimper escapes. Fighting, even this second. “Yes, sir,” he mutters, still with that hint of attitude and then he reaches forward and tugs on Erik’s pants, grips the fabric tightly between his fingers, balling his fist up in it. There are things he can’t say, things he isn’t allowed to say because Erik said be silent, and it has to come out somehow. His breathing is so hitched and harsh he’s almost hyperventilating, overwhelmed and desperate.  
  
"Put your hands behind your back and do not move them again. I did not give you permission to do so, and since you cannot be bothered to follow my directions when I give them, I suppose I'll have to make it an Order. So be still." Erik clamps down on it entirely, not capitulating an inch against Charles's thrashing, a veritable iron wall that he keeps coming up against over and over again. One that he never quite knew was there. But it has always been there. "You have something to say. Then say it. And you had better mind your place when you do so."  
  
It did get him attention, if nothing else, but Charles practically whines as he finds his hands snapping behind his back, fussy and overwhelmed all over again, those tears always pricking in his eyes. “I never said they weren’t important, or that I didn’t care. I just don’t -“ He doesn’t know them. They don’t feel like his, because none of this does. It isn’t the same, and Charles stares up at Erik, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “You can’t punish me for not remembering. For them not feeling like my children, because I won’t lie and say they do. I don’t know them. I’ve never met them, as far as I’m concerned. But I didn’t mean he doesn’t matter. Of course I didn’t. It’s hurtful that you’d even suggest it. Of course he matters, he’s your - he’s our son.” It’s difficult to say, but Charles says it. He says it because he knows it’s true, even if it doesn’t feel real to him. He says it even though it makes him want to cry a bit more, for entirely different reasons. “I meant if he’s an S1, that research doesn’t matter, it’s irrelevant and false because I’m an S1 and I don’t - I don’t -“ But he’s much less brave than he was before. There’s not a chance it will come out, his throat bobbing with it.  
  
"Consider your words incredibly carefully," Erik murmurs, smooth as silk. "You are not here because I'm _sad_ that you don't remember our former life. You are here because you have lied to me, disrespected me, disobeyed me, and dismissed my relevance to you. When you say that things do not matter, you speak carelessly. You speak about me. About your family. I do not need you to pretend-" Erik shakes his head. Disregards that. His own feelings. His own reactions. That's enough of that. "You will choose with care how you speak about us. Because you say that you wish for me to be your Dominant. That comes with things. It means that you aren't free any longer to do and say what you wish. What you meant, is that you would like to lie to me, and tell me that you don't need a Dominant. That you don't need me. After promising moments beforehand that I was doing brilliantly. How about you tell me which one of those things was the lie."  
  
“They don’t contradict each other,” is what Charles mumbles, and right about now probably isn’t the time to be a smartass, but it’s never stopped Charles Xavier. Still, he bites his lip so hard it nearly bleeds and keeps his head bowed, because he knows Erik may not deem it acceptable. “The two statements aren’t in opposition. I said you were doing brilliantly, and you were. You are. But that doesn’t mean -“ But he can’t. He can’t do it. Not fully.  
  
He receives a short, sharp smack from the implement for that, right across the opposite cheek and across the shoulder, and Erik watches him and waits, one eyebrow raised. "I remain firmly uninterested in your academic understanding of the situation, especially as it is directly preceding once more, a lie."  
  
Charles can’t help crying out, even as he tries to stifle it, biting on his cheek, closing his eyes until some of the awful sting subsides. It feels like it doesn’t, really, even when he opens his eyes to look at Erik again. He’s shaking, still, and for all his talk, he’s so overwhelmed he keeps forgetting to breathe. “How do you know it’s a lie?” he demands, and he means for it to be challenging, but it’s all too clear he wants to hear the answer. That he might need to hear it.  
  
Charles doesn't realize that Erik is shaking, too. Vibrating from head to toe, completely charged with adrenaline that seeps out of him the same way Charles's telepathy encapsulates them; an overwhelming combination of Will that electrifies the room. "Because you need me. You need to be Dominated. You need to be put in your place. You need structure and Order and discipline. You need expectations." Erik loses his momentum momentarily when he speaks next, because it's quieter. He roughly swipes at his eyes and continues almost angrily; angry at himself. "You need me. Not just a D5. Anything else is a falsehood," Erik growls. "Hollow. Empty. You pretend to spare my feelings. You say it isn't mutually exclusive. You hurt me." He emphasizes, swiping his finger toward Charles and then jabbing it into his own chest, rough and hard. "So you don't want to be Dominated, then you know, you can spend the time here by yourself. And we are not even started."  
  
Charles blinks, and then suddenly he’s crying. Real tears, big and fat, because hearing it, hearing it all spoken so bluntly, it’s almost too much. It is too much. “It was a lie,” he whispers, and it’s an admission and a realization all at once. He can’t move, not in any real way, Erik’s Order apparently still holding, but he tries to squirm closer even with the promise of more pain, even with the dread thick in his belly at the idea of it. He doesn’t want to be left alone. “It was a lie,” he repeats, hoarse.  
  
"So what else. Why else are you here." Erik juts the reed under Charles's chin once more, lifting it so that he can see Charles. He crouches and dabs away the tears; the only sign of tenderness so far; but it isn't one to be trusted. His tone of voice, his expression, the way his accent has grown deeper, less careful. This might be something that Charles has never seen before. Erik isn't going through the motions. It's what always separated them, the feeling that he was. The distance he always, always kept while Charles was in this position.  
  
Either way, Charles leans right into that hand, those stroking fingers, soaking it up like a sponge, more comforted by it than he’d ever be able to verbalize. It’s like there’s suddenly more air in his lungs, even as he takes deep, sucking breaths. “I was - I was disobedient,” he whispers, and it’s drenched in shame, his cheeks red even around the marks. “I was disrespectful. I was rude and defiant and I wanted to, I wanted to get a rise out of you,” he admits, though there wasn’t any doubt. “Even after everything. I wanted you to prove it to me.” He still does. Right now, he still does. There’s that edge inside of Charles, that riled up: I dare you.  
  
"Do you know why you are here, right now? Not what you did. Why, why you are here." Erik looks at him, his green eyes still somehow bright in the dimness of the room, imploring him to think. "Why these things matter."  
  
It’s a broad question, and as overwhelmed as he is, Charles begins to panic; he doesn’t know what answer Erik wants, and because he isn’t compelled to, part of him considers not answering at all. The problem is he wants to. Something has broken inside of him, just enough, that nagging and constant desire to please that Erik has always recognized is there, underneath all of that spiky defiance and uncertainty and whatever instinct it is he has that makes him need a fight before the surrender. Perhaps it’s just a need for a partner who can win. Either way he tries not to sniffle as he takes those harsh, greedy breaths, the pain still radiating all over. It hurts, and underneath it all, Charles can still feel where Erik slapped him, the sting of his hand on his cheek, shuddering like the first time. “Because I belong to you,” is what comes out of his mouth, small and hitched, because it’s the only thing he can think about. He shivers, as if his own words have ruffled him. As if he hadn’t expected them to come out.  
  
Erik inhales slowly, nostrils flaring as if he can smell the last dregs of Charles's resistance begin to give way. "That's right," he rumbles, steady and certain. But there's something else, too. "You belong to me. And I don't like it. I do not like when you treat me that way. I don't like it. You should not do it. And if you don't know, then now you will learn." He once more takes Charles's jaw in hand. "You say you belong to me. That you lied. Then ask me."  
  
There’s clearly quite a lot going on in Charles’ head, and the tears he’d been holding in this whole time immediately slip down his cheeks, clinging to his lashes as they fight to escape all at the same time; his breathing is horribly uneven, his chest aching with it, practically vibrating with pain and dread and deep, welled up shame. “Can’t,” he gasps, eyes closed. He shakes his head. It’s not only defiance, this time. “I can’t.” But he doesn’t think he wants Erik to make him, either. Not to be compelled into it. It’s just that he can’t, and he doesn’t know why. Something must be wrong with him, and Erik can feel that clanging, trembling fear; something is wrong with him, something is wrong with me...  
  
"Eyes open," Erik does Order, and when they do, it's to the sight of his Dominant practically glowering at him. "No. You tell me you need this, you rage at me and spout off at me. I will give you what you need. But you will obey my Commands. I did not ask what you think you can do." Charles receives another slap, this one much more stinging, followed by a short, swift strike with the reed to his opposite shoulder. He is not taking it easy, any longer. He isn't backing down, he isn't saying there, there. He has an expectation and he will see it through.  
  
For a moment, Charles considers using his pause-word again. He weighs his own panic, has to seriously contemplate whether he is overwhelmed more than he can handle, whether he’s afraid or simply anticipating and dreading and miserable as a result of what is, quite obviously and perhaps more than it has ever been, a punishment. He thinks he is frightened, surely. Unsettled, but not afraid in the way Erik does not want him to be, and so what is left is bottled up shame and that terrible, nasty, gnarled and stuck pit, the clenched up fist in his belly he’s somehow swallowed and cannot get rid of. It hurts, and he’s crying in earnest, unable to hold it back, to swallow it down, to bite it away, and he can hear the way he’s breathing. At first he shakes his head again, but now it isn’t defiance. Now it’s something else entirely, and he doesn’t know what, he doesn’t know what’s happening except that he certainly can’t breathe, but he forces it out anyway. “I - will you - w-will you,” It’s the most he’s ever stuttered like this, and he lets out a shaky, pathetic sob, humiliated when he realizes he can’t wipe his face and it’s now thoroughly covered in snot. “Will you please discipline me, sir,” he gasps, and it feels like the entire world shifts. It does, the room entirely different than it was before.

* * *

Erik lets out a small exhale, his head tipping back slightly as if to absorb all of that resistance breaking like a dam, and he reaches out, wiping off Charles's face and cleaning him up just a little, nodding. "I will," he murmurs, slow and steady as molasses. "I have got you. I will not let you go. I will not let you falter. You belong. To me. Get into Child's Pose. And your Posture had better be perfect." Or they will stay right like this until it is, goes unsaid.  
  
Now Charles hesitates again, but it isn’t at all defiance. There’s clearly dread, there’s clearly fear, but it’s not why he pauses, why he bites hard at his lip. He isn’t sure if he’s allowed to speak; Erik said only when spoken to. And he doesn’t want to move his arms from behind his back in the meantime, and the result is panic, noticeable as anything in wide, teary blue. “Sir?” he whispers, and feels ashamed that he has to, embarrassed, because he does want to obey. He does.  
  
Erik strokes down his cheek, a juxtaposed gentleness. Monitoring him, watching him, still excruciatingly careful even like this. Always. "What is it?" he murmurs. "Tell me."  
  
“You haven’t -“ And maybe he should know, anyway, but he doesn’t. He’s had no formal education that he recalls, not in this, for whatever reason. It’s just gone. He only knows what Erik has taught him, only what he’s trained him in, and the last time he’d been punished, the first time, Erik hadn’t shown him a Posture. He’d taken his punishment at Rest, because he had been going easy. The first time Erik asked for this, this was part of the panic; he just doesn’t know, exactly, what Erik wants. “I don’t know how,” he admits, eyes lowered because he’s ashamed of himself. Erik wants something and he doesn’t know how to give it. It’s clearly something he should know, that he’s expected to, and he’s made himself a bit sick over it. It’s a reminder to Erik, too. Charles is a blank slate, and it isn’t that what’s written will erase what’s underneath, in invisible ink but still surely there. But it will add to it. It will become a permanent marking, and it starts like this.  
  
Erik startles momentarily, and then huffs out a laugh, soft. "That's OK," he murmurs almost fondly. "So you start here, at rest. Put your hands back to a normal position. Then you stretch downward and lean into your hands, over your head." He nudges Charles's hands as he speaks, the image crystal clear in his mind. "You will only ever be in this Posture for discipline. That is what it is for. I will not use any other kind of punishment Posture on you. Do you understand?"  
  
Charles follows Erik’s instructions, and even without the images and the aid of Erik’s mind he had the first time, it isn’t a particularly difficult Posture. It isn’t comfortable, but he works on keeping everything straight, structured, perfect like Erik said, and wishes the comfort of obeying overrode the horrible sinking feeling, the reminder that he’s being punished, not being taught a new Posture while the sun streams in through the windows in the morning or before bed, as they’re settling down together, before they part ways. Something to leave him on. This is different, and it doesn’t feel nice; the second he settles properly he’s crying again, unsure why except that it won’t stop, his breathing uneven and shaky and stuttered. He nods his head.  
  
And for that, he receives a swift and impromptu strike along the backs of his feet, making them curl up. And yet another when Charles jolts from the surprise and shifts just slightly out of place. "I asked you a question. I expect a verbal answer. Do you understand."  
  
“Yes, sir,” Charles gasps, like it’s been ripped right out of him, and he’s trying not to let his trembling get in the way of holding Posture. He’s not particularly optimistic about it, already sniffling, and suddenly Erik can hear everything; all of the sound in the room abruptly cuts out, every perception gone, but what does come floods him in a way that’s frankly disorienting, loud and clambering over itself, and it becomes clear just a moment later what it is. For one of the first times since their Bond snapped and Charles fell asleep in Erik’s arms, waking up with less of himself, it’s Charles’ thoughts. They aren’t connected the same way, not even close, and it’s much closer to those first tenuous peeks in that holding cell, when Charles let him see and it was overwhelming but brilliant, but it’s there. All of them, pure and unfiltered, the volume cranked up. He’s anxious, he’s dreading. He’s thinking: Will it hurt? Will I cry? Will he stop when I do? How many? How much? How hard? What if it’s too much? What if it’s not enough to fix it? What if I make noise? I’m frightened, it hurts, how much is left, will it be quick... He’s thinking, further down, pulsing beneath where Erik can hear if he listens properly: I need this. He’s thinking: Do I really belong to him? He’s thinking, deeper down, in his soul, where Erik knows intimately: Yes. I must.  
  
Even if it weren't being blared at him at top volume, there's a part of Charles that knows-Erik knows. They don't need a Bond for Erik to know him the most intimately he's ever known anyone and that's been evidence since they woke up, too. That Erik can anticipate him. That Erik can tell exactly what he's thinking, at most given moments. But of course right now, it is completely evident. He drags the reed down Charles's back. "Yes," he growls softly. It will hurt. He will cry. Erik will not stop. Has not stopped. "You will take fourteen strikes," he murmurs. "You will count out each one and you will say thank you, sir, after. If you fail to do so, you will receive another strike. If you reach twenty strikes, I will leave you here in Position until you recover enough to endure them. If you need to pause, you will use your pause-word and we will pause. But one way or another. We will not stop until you have taken everything I deign to give you. This is a punishment," he whispers. "But it is also a privilege. I choose to give you this. And if you are not appropriately grateful to be put in your place, you will remain here until you are. Is that understood, neshama."  
  
But since Charles woke up, there have been misunderstandings. Lapses. Miscommunications, because the Bond afforded them a certain certainty, and it was ripped right away from Erik, that extra layer of intimacy. Something that belonged, happily, to the both of them. Something shared. Whatever it is in Charles that’s linked them up now, at least on Charles’ end, whatever station he’s been plugged into, it’s crystal clear. Every thought, every wonder, every fear, every clenching of panic inside of him. Mostly it’s a number. Fourteen, like he’s never heard it before. Fourteen. Fourteen, on top of what he’s already taken, he’s assuming, but he decides, wisely - and Erik can hear the whole process, is privy to it, it’s almost overwhelming, it would have been incredibly easy to forget being tied to someone like this, and it doesn’t seem Charles notices he’s done anything - not to mention that. Instead he heaves shaky breaths, closes his eyes because his head is naturally bowed in this Posture (at least there’s that, but it’s shameful instead of comforting now, for some reason) and something crops up. A small, frightened little thought, an insistent one: is this because he pushed Erik? Is he doing this because Charles made him angry, and when he’s done, will he regret it? Charles is dreading this, dreading it quite a lot, but in this moment it’s that he’s more afraid of. Erik can see when he shakes it off, when he shoves it down, like it’s evaporated, like he’s forced it to burn off. “Yes, sir,” he whispers, small, and isn’t aware of everything else he’s said, too. Isn’t aware Erik can hear when he thinks: I do really need this, don’t I? It was a lie? It was a lie. I need him. It’s buried underneath the anxiety of fourteen? Fourteen, fourteen... of course.  
  
Erik crosses over in front of Charles and lifts his head up so that he can gaze directly into his eyes. " _Neshama_. We will begin shortly. But you must know that I am not angry with you." It blares out of him in return, too, tangling with Charles's cacophony, a chaotic symphony of deep-plucked chords, with the bass of Erik's heart-strings underlying the bottom if one only sought to check. He isn't angry, but he doesn't know this feeling. It is an impulse that is overpowering. He is riled up. He is dangerous. He is Dominant. He isn't doing this because Charles pushed him. He is doing it because Charles thought he could push him. Because Charles thought he could get his way, because he thought he could direct this situation however he wanted, because he assumed he was in control. But in the process, he was disrespectful and he disregarded Erik, and for that, Erik is disappointed. He is hurt. But none of that makes it into his hands, into his actions and steps. He is not taking his emotions out on Charles. But it is part of why he needs this, too. Charles needs to be punished, that must come from somewhere. A primal need, to be put in his place, to atone. Well Erik needs to rend it from him. Erik needs to put him down. And in the process, those feelings will ease. Charles will learn. He will know better. He will come back to Erik where he belongs. That is why. "Do you understand?" he whispers, soft.  
  
But Charles isn’t fully privy to it, or at least can’t make proper sense of it. If he hears, it only serves to further overwhelm him, and when he closes his eyes whatever tenuous connection was formed between them abruptly snaps, taking his clattering thoughts with it and leaving a mark on both of their minds like an overtaxed rubber band on the rebound. Absolute silence in Erik’s mind where Charles’ should be, and it’s horribly obvious; Charles feels it, too, even though he didn’t notice while it was happening. Tears well up in his eyes and he shakes his head. “No,” he admits, in an ashamed little whisper, and Erik said he would always make sure Charles understood but he’s not sure if he can.  
  
He strokes Charles's cheek. The time for talk has passed. What remains, is this. "You will," he promises. His whole demeanor, his bearing, has changed. Become more full. More in tune. "Now remember what I said. You will count each one. And you will thank me for it. Let us begin." He trails the implement down Charles's spine before all at once giving him a brutal strike with it. Putting his strength into it, across his shoulders. He hears the whistle before it impacts him, feels the impact before-pain-  
  
Charles cries out, a loud, startled cry, but in the aftermath he goes silent. Still, except for where he trembles, and silent in more ways than one; after the taste of Charles’ mind, it’s noticeably missing, not even a hint of projection, which he always tends to be doing without quite noticing, in intense little bursts that seem to inspire headaches. Nothing shakes, or breaks off, or contorts, but Charles is silent, and then he’s still. He’s not even crying, as if he’s too shocked for even that.  
  
Erik trails his fingertip up along Charles's throat after he slowly moves to crouch in front of him. "Open your eyes." The Order is low, dangerous.  
  
Charles’ eyes snap open, bright blue and wet, wide, and he stares at Erik as if he doesn’t comprehend what’s happening, something wild and frightened there, like an animal about to bolt.  
  
"Remain still," Erik murmurs, reaching out a hand to tuck a piece of his hair behind his ear. It's getting long, too. He'll have to remedy that soon. The hand strokes against his cheek. "Now tell me what you are experiencing." Another Order.  
  
Very long, and well on its way to his shoulders by now. But Charles blinks up at Erik, tears that won’t shed in his eyes, and finally takes a shuddering, forced out breath. “I’m frightened,” he whispers, as if it’s been pulled from out of his throat, from somewhere deep inside of him. What is he experiencing? His eyes are so impossibly wide, and he's wracked by tremors. "It hurts. I'm frightened."  
  
Erik's jaw ticks, and he swallows. "What are you frightened of?" he murmurs roughly.  
  
“I -” But it dies somewhere in Charles’ throat, and he shakes his head quickly, closes his eyes again.  
  
"Tell me," Erik repeats again. It's not an Order. But the intention is clear. He is expected to obey.  
  
“Something is wrong with me and it hurts,” Charles gasps out, all in a rush, and suddenly there are tears pouring down his cheeks. Suddenly his chest is heaving. “Something is - wrong with me, and - it hurts, I’m frightened -“  
  
Erik's expression looks like it could be made out of granite. "You are safe, here. With me. Tell me what you think is wrong with you."  
  
It’s not that Charles doubts that. He doesn’t. It is that he feels like he can’t breathe, a little, and he knows it isn’t good, he knows he’s being stupid, a coward, even, or something similar, but all he knows is that he wants to reach out and grab for Erik but he stays still, just barely out of Posture. “I don’t know. Something is t-terribly - terribly wrong with me, it must be. I’m not right, and you’re disappointed in me and -“ Every word is wrenched out of him. He knows he should have simply taken his punishment the first time, but he’s all worked up, he’s frightened and he’s crying and he’s new. It’s all so new to him, and it can’t be forgotten in all of this. He didn’t even know Child’s Pose. There was no reason for him to. Erik hadn’t punished him yet, not like this, so he hadn’t been punished at all. Not ever. Once, he must have felt like this, had all of these emotions; the answers were harsh and twisted, then, and they became his reality. Erik had to write over them. Now there just isn’t anything to write over.  
  
"Nothing is wrong with you. I am disappointed in you. That is true. But we are here together. There are simply things that you need to learn. Ways that you should behave. And you are a person. Just a human being. You are not bad. You are not wrong, or evil. I have never thought that and I never will. But you need to know that there are consequences to your actions if you elect to do otherwise. So you will take your discipline. You moved away from me. And I will bring you back. Starting here."  
  
Charles shakes his head, and big, fat tears slip down his cheeks, burning at the marks there. The one from Erik’s hand is still visible, bright red and obvious. “What if I don’t learn? What if you try to - to, to train me, and I don’t learn because something is wrong with me? What if I am always like this, what if I do it again? Because there is something inside of me that’s broken. I read this. There are - there are defiance issues, there are all sorts of behavior anomalies...” He stutters through it, because surprisingly, very hard to say while in this Posture, nearly hyperventilating. He’s fretting just like he did the first time, twisting his brain around it. “What if I don’t come back? Or I’m just, I’m never there -“ It’s a bitten off whisper. He’s frightened. He’s gotten himself worked up about it.  
  
"You will," Erik hushes him, pressing a finger to his lips. "The people who wrote that research were not D5s. They observed S1s without a Pairbond. But you need one. And you have one. Now breathe. I will train you, and you will learn. The same as you did the first time. And part of that training means that you need to calm yourself so that you can obey my Commands. I'm not going to Order you. You will do it on your own. And we will stay here all night until you do. Is that understood?"  
  
Erik will train him, and he’ll learn. Charles tries desperately to believe that, arching into Erik, into his touch, into the finger on his lips, even; not willing to move too much out of Posture, obedient, but frightened and needing that comfort, too. It’s all jangling around inside of him like loose change, and Erik can’t hear it anymore, but the anxiety is palpable. “Yes, sir,” he breathes, and it feels good to say it. “But what if you can’t train me? What if I’m - you say to do things, sometimes, and I want to obey, I do, but it’s like it’s all stuck on the inside. The way adolescent S1s behave is similar to the way young Dominants behave when they’re testing their own Will, do you know that? You tell an S1 child to do something and -“ For young Dominants, it’s usually no, you do what I say instead. For young S1s, it’s a bit more like: Why should I? Why do you get to tell me? “How will you fix it? How can you?” Exactly like this, but Charles doesn’t know it yet. He doesn’t have enough experience.  
  
"Like this," Erik smiles. "And maybe you will always need this. I don't anticipate a time where you might one day be free of the need for discipline. My rules are not a prison. You have your own will, too. It is simply not more important than mine. And when you step out of line, you will be brought back. Like this. Because you belong to me. Because you submit to me. S1s, maybe. Or maybe it's just you. Maybe you need to know that the person who is giving you an Order deserves your obedience. Is able to handle the depth and breadth of your submission. You don't know me very well. So you might feel more defiant now than before. But that is fine. You will learn. You are not going to run away. You are not going to shirk your responsibility to the Dynamic that we are crafting. I know that you won't." Because that isn't about obedience, it's about them. About Charles and Erik, and Erik knows Charles cares about that. It's why he wants to obey at all. Erik was always pretty similar to the Dominants in that scenario. As a child he'd thrown some pretty epic tantrums when he didn't want to do something. ( _Why should I listen to you?_ Maybe they're more alike than they know. _Why should I obey you, I could Order you to do anything I wanted. Who are you to tell me anything?_ / _I'm your_ mother _, Erik. Don't you ever talk to me like that again. Everyone is worth listening to._ A lesson well-learned.)  
  
But it’s different, and the frustration wells right back up, as if Charles is a child. He feels like one, for all that he understands. For all the experience he has. “You don’t understand, you won’t be able to - if you want to train me, good luck,” he mumbles, and squeezes his eyes shut until more of those tears leak out. He’s frightened, just like he was when he was first discovering his Indication. In a bubble like this, and he still feels anxious, self-conscious, wrong somehow. He feels out of step. He feels like he’s tripping over himself, and it’s so hard to breathe, as if he’s forgotten how to do it.  
  
He receives a harsh strike for that over the back of his thighs. "Fifteen strikes. Not including that one. And open your eyes back up. I didn't ask for your sarcasm. I wasn't asking for your opinion. I was telling you the way it is going to be. Talk back to me again, and you'll receive them with the whip instead of the cane. Now, you failed to count your last one. So you are up to sixteen. Do you want to keep at it?"  
  
This is how he knows he’s right, because the second it happens, amidst the sharp, startling pain, something wars inside of Charles. Something harsh, and discordant, and uncontrollable, something bubbling up over the surface; he wants to behave, like Erik told him to earlier, and he’s aware of the vulnerable position he’s in, stripped down to his boxers while Erik looms over him. His thighs sting horribly, and he blinks out more tears. But he feels like he can’t, like something twisted and insistent has wormed itself around that pit in his belly. He tries to swallow it down with the tears, but what he does is glare up at Erik, lifting his chin to do so. “No, sir,” he hisses through his teeth, as if Erik couldn’t possibly deserve the title.  
  
"Do you think," Erik kneels down to him, gripping his cheek in hand, "that I would accept being spoken to in a tone like that?" In an instant Charles feels the slash of the reed against his other cheek before it's let go, and Erik pats him roughly. Another implement snaps its way into Erik's hands, and Charles has no time to adjust before he feels the agony erupt over his opposite shoulder. It's small, with many different leather strips that whistle nicely through the air before impact. "Now you will be good and you will count it out and I want to hear thank you, sir. After every. single. one."  
  
It’s more pain than Charles is used to, that he has any experience with. Immediately he’s choking on it, eyes wide and startled and frightened, but not the terror Erik is afraid of. It’s just a realization of what he’s gotten himself into, and he tries to bite the tears back, but even he knows he doesn’t stand a chance. Not against the urge to cry, and not against Erik’s Will. “One,” he bites out, and there’s no possible way Erik will give him more than sixteen. It’s lip service, surely.  
  
"Seventeen. Try again." Charles receives another before he has time to even think. Erik's countenance is distant, almost cold, his Will seeping through the room like steam invading every one of Charles's senses.  
  
Charles cries out this time, shocked with the pain of it, reeling with it. At first it seems like maybe he’ll fail to count again, and there’s a harsh, trembling panic that briefly coats the room, but he gasps out, “One. Thank you, sir.” It’s spat out, a bit, as if the horrid pain isn’t quite enough to drain out that last bit of defiance, of guarded, riled up attitude, but he says it, shaking through it all the while.  
  
"Unacceptable. Do not sneer at me. Try it again or we will be here until you earn twenty." And again he raises his arm and brings the whip down, hard, along Charles's other shoulder to give him a matching set of bright red marks. The skin hasn't broken, but it is shockingly painful, zippy and racing up his back like his skin has been suddenly stripped off in a long line.  
  
It hurts, and Charles forgets his pride pretty quickly. Whatever he wanted to hold onto, whatever he wanted to prove, to Erik or himself, it’s quickly gone. What’s left is shock, is pain, is regret, that sinking, awful feeling from before, that wound up pit in his belly mixed with the already extraordinary sting, and he chokes, coughs, sobbing all at once. “One. Thank you, sir,” he repeats, and this time it’s a sob, but there’s no hint of sneering there. He’s realized, at least, what that gets him. Where. That Erik is serious, is far from coddling him now, and it’s one he sorely needed.  
  
"Good," Erik rumbles. He looks different, now. The light falls across his face differently. His Posture is different. Cool, indifferent waves of Dominance batter Charles's perception and whether he can sense it telepathically or not doesn't matter, Erik's Will is choking enough on its own, exists as its own entity, bowling Charles over with its might. He brings the cat-o-nine tails down again, over the back of Charles's thighs.  
  
When they first made the transition to the Real, besides a few clandestine, stretched out meetings, Charles noted that it was so much more, in person. Erik’s consciousness, his being shouldn’t have been any different, and it wasn’t. Most of it certainly transferred over. But there is an element of physicality to this, to Erik’s Dominance, and now Charles finds himself drowned by it, suffocated, and his lack of control over his abilities doesn’t dull that. If anything, in this moment, for this Charles, it enhances it. Either way he’s utterly overwhelmed. It doesn’t take long at all for him to be openly sobbing, weeping and leaking all over himself, covered in snot and his own tears. It doesn’t take long for him to whimper, and then to scream, somewhere at the tenth strike, his body so drenched in pain it no longer feels like his own. He’s never felt anything like it, really. It’s completely, totally beyond what he expected, and he realizes that Erik is not letting up. On the twelfth strike, Charles sobs, deep and gut-wrenching, and a count doesn’t come. It’s certainly not defiance now, any trace of that long drained out of him. It’s almost enough that it might seem like he’s just forgotten, but then he whimpers, so quiet it’s easy to miss, “ _Afor_.”

* * *

But Erik doesn't miss it. He doesn't miss anything. This isn't mindless, for him. He is in perfect, total control, calculating every step so that Charles isn't harmed, watching every twitch of his body, knowing exactly where to strike and how hard to hit. There are neat, parallel marks over most of his exposed skin, but aside from a few scrapes, there is no blood. It's enhanced pain, delivered expertly, precisely, not to cause physical damage. But he watches. Because pain, even without damage, can be its own form of harm if not meted out properly. The next strike doesn't come and neither does a reprimand. Erik kneels in front of Charles and lifts his chin, using a cloth to wipe up his face, strokes his cheek with his thumb when he's done. "I've got you," he whispers softly. "I've got you, neshama. You are all right." He's still completely Domineering, but in a new way. Ways are opening up inside him, and he is so much more than Charles anticipated, too.  
  
This is so much more than either of them knew. Charles wants to reach out. He wants to break Posture, to wrap his arms around Erik’s neck and hide there, to take comfort and cry, but he doesn’t. He sobs, pained and unsettled, and it all spills out from his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he gasps, coughing, and his face is covered in tears again in no time. “I’m s-sorry, I’m sorry, please I’ll be better sir I promise I’m sorry please,” is what he manages, and it’s not the weedling he was doing before to avoid punishment.  
  
Erik cleans those off, too. But he doesn't change. He doesn't soften. Not yet. Right now it's more like a pause in the moment, a sliver of light. "I know that you are sorry," he murmurs, stroking Charles's cheek. They aren't done yet, they can't be, but Erik takes Charles's hands, letting him sit up. "It is all right. You are doing such a good job. You are taking it very well."  
  
Even if it makes him cry harder, it’s exactly what Charles needed to hear, or at least part of it. He soaks it right up. He leans into it like he does Erik’s hands, shaking and oversensitive, tries to hold on as tightly as he can, his fingers gripping helplessly at Erik’s shirt for purchase. “It hurts, it hurts,” he whimpers, and hides his messy, red face in Erik, gasping for air. He can never get a gulp in before he’s struggling for another. “Please, I - I’ll behave, sir, please, no more, please, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” and he knows he should take his punishment, he knows, but it hurts so terribly. He can’t imagine bearing more.  
  
Erik rubs Charles's back, lets him wipe his tears and doesn't force him back down, just rubbing soothingly with his palm. "I know it hurts," he murmurs comfortingly, careful not to scrape over those smarting marks. "And I know you are sorry. But this is something that you have to get through. You're OK. Just breathe," he Orders, soft and calm. "We're taking a break, OK? We're just right here." He doesn't mean it's over, or delayed. He just means in this moment. Because he is not going easy. Not any longer. Charles belongs to him and the room is soaked with that knowledge. "You're going to breathe, and calm yourself down, and we'll complete this together. You're with me. You are coming back to me. Where you belong." He is not paying Charles lip-service. He said seventeen and he means it.  
  
At exactly this moment, Charles doesn’t know if Erik’s hand against the flayed-open skin is soothing or not, but he does know he needs it more than anything. To be touched, to be settled, even if the softest of touches feel like rending agony, even if everything is screaming out and his throat is sore from the outward manifestation of that. He tries to do what he’s told, breathing around sobs, grabbing and grabbing at Erik because in Posture there’s nothing to hold onto, he has to hold himself up so Erik can - and it’s awful. “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts,” is all he can seem to say, shocked and overcome and sniffling all over Erik, covering him in tears. “One less? Please, just one less, I’ll be good. D-Don’t you think I’ll be good for you?” He hasn’t said that yet, Erik hasn’t really said that yet, and it makes him shiver, but he’s not being defiant. Part of him might need to know if it works, but mostly it’s just earnest, hopeful. It hurts and he can’t imagine seventeen, but he couldn’t imagine sixteen, either. “I could, I could... something else, please, sir, it hurts.” And there’s no pride in I’ve taken much, much worse with Charles, as there sometimes was. It isn’t a pretty thought, and it was hard to remember it in the heat of the moment anyway, it was never conscious, but of course it cropped up. Trauma always does. There’s none of that right now, because it doesn’t exist. This, right now, is the worst pain Charles has ever experienced.  
  
Erik leans forward and delivers a kiss to Charles's forehead, warm and steady. "I know you will be good for me. Right now, that means you will listen to what I tell you and you will endure your discipline. You will not receive one less. You knew. I told you what would happen and you continued to disobey me. You must learn that the things I say are genuine. You're doing such a good job for me," he whispers. There's something about this that's making Erik-that's-he can't think it. It's too much and he inhales sharply. It's not good. It's not right. He can't falter. He cannot falter. "You'll keep being good, hm?"  
  
Charles was already sobbing, but for a moment he’d calmed. Now he cries harder, but it’s not even in response to Erik’s words. It’s that spotty, here and then not connection, and he grabs at Erik’s arm, almost painfully, because it’s the closest thing to grip. “What’s - what’s...” He’s panicked, worried. “Too much?” he asks, because he thinks Erik is triggered again. By him, by this, and he didn’t mean to do it. “I won’t, we won’t ever have to - to do this again, I’m sorry -“ And there’s all of that guilt and insecurity, spilling right out without any of the spikiness. This has always inspired it in him, brought out emotions and thoughts that were stopped up inside. Harmfully so.  
  
Erik presses his finger against Charles's lips. "Not too much. Not you. You're perfect," he murmurs, smiling gently. He inhales again, head tipping back slightly with it. He wants to be honest, but he doesn't want to-he doesn't want to scare Charles. Scare himself. But Charles is sensitive, moreso than normal right now, so he shrugs. This aspect of everything will keep cropping up no matter what he does. He swipes away one of those tears. "You are very beautiful like this," he croaks in a soft rasp. "I like that you are mine. That you know it."  
  
Charles’ eyes widen, because he didn’t expect that answer. He didn’t expect that answer at all, and he’s clearly trying to process it, still gripping tightly to his Dominant. “You like it?” he whispers, and it’s not accusatory, and it’s not frightened, and it’s not bothered. It’s hoarse and croaked and filled with tears, but those were there anyway, and most of all it’s - curious, perhaps. Seeking. "It's not making you..." He doesn't have the words for it right now, so he makes a little sniffle, as if that's enough to signify the panic Erik had worked himself into earlier, the episode, the trauma response.  
  
Erik shakes his head, his eyes darkened. "It is not making me that way," he promises. "I don't want you to be frightened. But you are my submissive. I like it. When you submit." It's not about the pain. Maybe it's wrong. Maybe it's bad. He shouldn't like it when Charles cries for him. But he does.  
  
“Oh,” Charles breathes, and doesn’t know why it makes him shudder, a little. Perhaps simply because the room is completely, totally drenched in that sensation, that force, Dominion and Will so strong he’s constantly inhaling it into his lungs instead of oxygen. He sniffles and lurches forward to bury himself in Erik’s chest while he can, calmed slightly again. Not by much, but enough. “I’m not frightened,” he promises, even though he’s anxious, and the thought of starting again, of taking more is so overwhelming he nearly stops breathing. “Will it - will you go softer, now?” he asks, to gauge what’s coming, because Charles has always felt like he needs to know. It’s obvious as anything how anxiety-ridden and frustrated he becomes when he doesn’t understand, when he can’t say with certainty that he knows something, and perhaps that’s something he needs to learn, too. Is learning, without the help of his telepathy. “Will it hurt less?” There are only six left. Six doesn’t seem like an awfully big number, except it had, because around six was probably around when he started wondering if his skin was tearing off, if he’d ever not be in agony again.  
  
"No," Erik murmurs again, rough. To both questions. "It will be as it was. You will not be harmed. But you *will* face your discipline as I see fit to mete out." The room practically *purrs* with Will, deafening and silent all at the same time. He rubs Charles's back, lightly, with fingertips, before stroking his hair. "But I have got you. I won't let anything happen to you. I promise."  
  
Charles sniffles harder, and doesn’t quite understand why those are the most comforting words in the world right now even when he knows it won’t be long before Erik is hurting him, making him cry, making him scream. He trusts they’re true, because there’s a difference. He knows there must be. “But it hurts so terribly,” he whispers, broken and small, rubs snot into Erik’s shoulder, ignoring the burn of his cheeks, still hot from slaps. It’s been noted before; he needs more discipline now, perhaps, but also more care. More check-ins, more explanation, more. He’s so sensitive to it all. “What if, what if I can’t hold Posture, I can’t stay still or I forgot what number -“ He takes a harsh, choked out breath. He wants to be good. He wants to take it. But he wants it to be over, and he’s not scared, but he’s - he doesn’t know the word for it, if not frightened.  
  
"You will not forget what number. I will make sure of that. And you will hold Posture as well as you can. I understand some physical sensations cause more drastic responses, and I will not hold that against you," he assures gently. "But I will also know the difference if you break Posture deliberately. Do you understand?" he touches the back of his fingers against Charles's cheek.  
  
At first Charles only nods, sniffling loudly into Erik’s neck, but after a moment passes he takes a harsh intake of breath, mumbles, “Yes, sir.” It’s not reluctant or sneering or pulled out of him, it’s offered entirely freely. And he peeks up at Erik in a way he hopes isn’t obvious, looking for the reaction to that. Always looking for cues, willing to be trained. He bites his lip, already abused today. “Can you - just a little longer?” he asks, deliberately leaving the middle part of that request out. He’s embarrassed, and debating whether he has enough energy to be ashamed, too.  
  
"Of course," Erik only offers in return, still smiling gently down at him. He presses another kiss into Charles's hair. "You are OK. I will make certain of it. Always."  
  
Another sniffle, and Charles gasps out in pain when he shifts too much and everything bursts into agony again, fresh tears pooled on Erik’s skin as he takes those shaky breaths and slowly calms down, and down, and down. “It hurts,” he whispers, and it’s not a disagreement. He won’t die, and he isn’t terrified and shivering and confused, horrified like those moments in the bathroom. He knows it’s different, even without the experience to compare it to. It’s just he wouldn’t describe himself as particularly okay, either, because all of this feels horrid and he’d much prefer it over. “You really have to finish? Right now? It already hurts so much.” Part of him hopes Erik just says no, but he knows it’s not what he needs. It might not be what Erik needs, either, though he can’t be totally sure.  
  
"I know. But I also know that you need this," Erik whispers. "And so do I. And it will not be good enough if I cut corners. And we will finish . Together. Now. If you need to pause again, we will. If you need to pause for longer, we can. But we are not leaving here until it is finished." He kisses Charles's cheek, so, so tenderly. Gently. Mindful of those reddened marks.  
  
It makes Charles cry again, aware of how silly it is, but he’s just overwhelmed. He’s not terrified, or horrified, or any bit defiant, unwilling to not get his way, he’s just overwhelmed, and anxious, and dreading. It doesn’t feel like something they’re doing together, because Charles is still horribly aware that he’s being punished. But maybe he needs the reminder that Erik still cares, even when he’s disappointed, and that’s what he’s getting now. “Before you, before you start again,” and he takes a shaky breath, because the thought of it makes him want to sob, “Can you...” But Charles closes his eyes, and shakes his head. “No, nevermind. This is enough.” It is, but it’s also a lie, because Charles is thinking it, whatever he’d meant to request.  
  
"No, Charles. You will tell me what it is you were going to say. Immediately." The room once more shimmers and seems to practically vibrate with palpable Will. It's not an Order. But the expectation, as ever, is clear. "Because I want to hear it. So I will."  
  
Immediately. But without the Order it makes Charles shiver, because it’s not tugged right out of him. It’s just an expectation, and it’s on him. He can choose to obey or not. And he wants to, desperately. “Can you please kiss me?” he whispers.  
  
"Yes," Erik rumbles, fond. "I certainly can." He leans forward and delivers a gentle kiss to Charles's lips, and while there is no heat, it is warm. He brushes his fingers lovingly over Charles's cheek. "You're OK," he whispers again as he pulls back.  
  
Charles certainly doesn’t feel it. The kiss does warm him, steady him, reassure him; but he’s sniffling and full of horrible anticipation and there’s just nothing to be done for it. He can’t think of any reason, besides the pain radiating all over his body and his desire to stop, that they need to pause any longer, and it makes his throat close around it, a soft, pathetic noise slipping out somehow. But Erik is right. He brought this on himself. He decided to disobey. They’d be nearly done if Charles had just listened. It’s that feeling that truly reminds him of why he’d submit to this. The punishment itself is awful, but worse than that is that knot all done up in his belly, winding round and round the rest of him and squeezing, sinking like a rock whenever Erik touches him because he knows it’s still there. Erik is disappointed. It won’t go away, none of it will go away, until he takes this. Fresh tears spill down his cheeks and he takes another shaky breath, then moves. He hasn’t been asked but it’s a gesture in itself, one he’s actually never made; he folds himself back into Posture, into Child’s Pose, shaking and already beginning to cry and without being asked. Presenting himself for punishment, offering himself up.


	101. Two Friends Take a Step In the Darkness

Erik nods, and trails the tails along Charles's skin to remove the element of surprise before continuing with the next series of six. During their moments paused he'd become kinder, more gentle, but now falls effortlessly back into where he'd been while delivering the first set of Charles's punishment. In control. Distanced. Pausing after each one to ensure that Charles does what he's expected to do.  
  
And Charles does. Obediently, between sobs, between bitten off screams toward the latter half, until he’s so exhausted and drowning in pain that he doesn’t even try, resigned to hoarse crying and being covered in his own snot again. He falls out of Posture once or twice, but quickly puts himself back in, counts and thanks Erik between strokes, in between harsh, heaving sobs, trying so hard to stay still, to be good. By the seventeenth, he’s shaking so hard it’s violent, coughing between breaths because of how hard he’s crying, everything spinning and spinning with pain, which makes the room spin, too. But he doesn’t move out of position. He doesn’t speak after that gasped out, broken “thank you, sir.” Because just like Erik promised, just like he always has after a punishment session, he’s come back.  
  
Erik lets him stay there for a little while until he catches his breath and then leads him to Rest, wrapping him up in a soft blanket and taking him into his arms. "Hi there, _neshama_. It's OK. You're all right, sweetheart. I've got you, see? You're doing so well. It's all done, yeah? _Kol beseder_. Just breathe. Be easy."  
  
It’s, perhaps, the most severe punishment he’s ever taken. It isn’t too much, it isn’t damaging, and it’s exactly what Charles needed, because he’s more defiant like this but he also needs more of this. More aftercare than he ever has. He’s still sobbing in Erik’s arms, hiccupping against his shoulder, and he grasps so tightly it’s painful, unconsciously digging his nails in. “All done?” he repeats, raspy, choked. His eyes are rimmed so red when he peeks up at Erik.  
  
Erik's nose wrinkles up. "All done," he murmurs, fond. He rubs his thumb under Charles's eye before letting him settle back against him. He doesn't even flinch when Charles's nails dig deeply into his arm, letting him apply as much pressure as he needs even when it leaves Erik with a few new marks.  
  
Perhaps not quite that dramatic, but it does seem like he’s terrified of being ripped away, like he’s especially worried that he might be asked to let go. He chokes out some more stuttered out breaths, coughing, sniffling, hiccupping loudly, rubbing his messy, red face into Erik’s neck like he needs skin contact to live. “Not - you’re not -“ He has to calm down a bit before he can get it out. “It’s over?” Erik’s disappointment. His disapproval. He doesn’t know how to ask for praise, for reassurance, for comfort, but he’s trying. To be open, to be good.  
  
"No, dearest. Not any longer. You did a very good job. It's over," Erik whispers back, taking care not to jostle Charles at all. Erik is more than just not disappointed anymore, he's actively quite proud, pleased in fact, that Charles was able to endure what he did. He had no doubts, of course, but all the same.  
  
It may not have been too much, but there’s no doubt that it was a lot. Nearly too much, even, for right now, for this Charles who has never felt pain in this way, and this is the part that matters. That will stick. Charles has always cried during punishments, but never this much; never to this point, never so much. He’s not calming easily, but he’s soothing himself, rubbing his cheek again and again against warm skin, not minding the sting from where he was struck earlier. “Did well?” he whispers, and looks up at Erik, face completely covered in tears and spit and snot. It’s not the prettiest he’s ever looked, and he’s shivering violently, but there are few times he’s been this vulnerable.  
  
"Very, very well," Erik murmurs. There's absolutely zero concern for Charles's appearance, there, either. He just makes sure he's cleaned up and held and soothed to the best of Erik's ability. "I'm so proud to call you my submissive, you know," he whispers, soft. "I always have been. I'm so used to you being able to-to you knowing that, that maybe I don't say it as much as I should. But I am very, very lucky."  
  
Charles’ breath hitches, not that it wasn’t already hitching. He takes a stuttered breath, shudders in Erik’s arms. “You’re proud of me?” he asks, as if he can’t possibly believe it, and maybe there’s something there. Maybe he’s just that vulnerable, that wide open, that desperate for Erik’s approval right now.  
  
"Very much so," Erik kisses the top of his head. "Proud, and deeply satisfied." He only hopes that one day Charles might feel the same about him, in return.  
  
He already does, is the thing. Charles makes a choked noise, ducks his head into Erik’s chest, uncaring for the moment that it hurts to move. His shoulders are shaking, and it’s astoundingly obvious that he’s crying again, overwhelmed. Entirely.  
  
Maybe Erik doesn't need approval in the same way as Charles, but he does need Charles, and Charles's approval is part of that package. Erik tucks Charles close to him once more, keeps him bundled up in his blanket and wrapped in his arms. Keeps him safe. Always.  
  
It’s embarrassing how much Charles needs right now, or it would be if he could feel it. He can’t, really. He’s much too in the moment, much too overwhelmed, much too needy. Much too Erik’s. He’s not exactly sure how to ask for what he needs, but he tugs on Erik, on his hand, peering up at him, still teary-eyed, still hurting, still trusting. Far, far down.  
  
It makes Erik laugh, infinitely gentle, and he kisses Charles along the brow. "Tell me what it is you're looking for, hm? Anything. Everything. It's always been yours, but you must ask first, *neshama*." He gives Charles's nose a playful tap.  
  
Charles shakes his head, but it’s not a refusal. It’s certainly not defiance. It might be shyness, or something else entirely, but he dips back into Erik’s neck, sniffling loudly. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, or what he needs. He doesn’t know at all, he just knows Erik can provide it. “Please,” he tries, instead. Raspy, hoarse, submissive. Down, down, down. This Charles has never felt like this before, and he’s a little uncertain, a little frightened, maybe, gripping Erik tight again like a lifeline.  
  
He tilts Charles's head up with a finger beneath his jaw, giving him a soft, sweet kiss against his lips this time. "Tell me. Tell me what you need." Erik's expectation in this is absolute.  
  
Charles is a bit gross right now, with all the crying, but he smiles through those new tears, a bit shy, a lot sweet, burying himself back in Erik as soon as he can. “I don’t know,” he croaks, which is the truth. “You?” he tries. He does know that. “I, I like when you, it’s...” He bites his lip, still hiding. “Tell me?” That he’s good. That Erik is proud of him. That he’s an alright submissive, that he’s meant to do this, that he isn’t broken. That the punishment is really, truly over, though Erik has already said so more than once. He just needs it right now. He needs the reassurance right now. The aftercare, in more ways than one, though he can’t articulate the other things yet, either. But Charles is being open now, is so wide, wide open in a way he’s just never been, and perhaps there are things Erik still has to learn. They’re both learning.  
  
Erik smiles, petting Charles's hair. "I like it too," he murmurs. "I like you." He obliges, again and again. Forever. As long as Charles needs. He is proud, and he is pleased. Charles is a good submissive, no matter what he might think of the opposite. It is over. And he is back exactly where he belongs. In Erik's arms. With Erik. By Erik's side. Erik needs this, too. He needs this part, too. The aftercare, the returning. Anything else would not be adequate. He needs Charles, too.  
  
The problem is, there’s so much Erik has to say, now, because Charles just can’t hear it. He just has no access to it. He can’t feel it, really, so he has to rely on this; and perhaps there are other things he needs, that he’s shy to ask for, uncertain about, but this is most important. At least at exactly this moment. But Charles doesn’t know if it’s alright to ask Erik to tell him that he’s - that he’s good, and it’s slightly embarrassing, so he settles for something else. “What do you feel? What are you thinking?” It’s not something Charles has ever had to ask, but he is now, sniffling more as he settles on Erik’s shoulder and looks up at him, trying not to shift too much because it hurts. A lot. But Erik said he liked this, that he liked punishing Charles, and Charles wants to know. What it’s like, from the other side, because this time Erik has to tell him.  
  
"I..." Erik considers. "I need this, too," he whispers, as if divulging a secret. "I need you. With me. I-" he almost sputters, gasps. "I like-disciplining you. But I like this. Too. When you-need me. This way. And, if you think-" he shakes his head. It's so silly. "Think I am doing a good job."  
  
Charles nods, still sniffling against Erik’s shoulder, but Erik can feel the smile there. It’s soft, and small, and still so fluttery, all of the dread and guilt and that horrible knot melted right out. Untangled. “You are, s -“ He cuts himself off, biting hard on his cheek. His cheeks were already red from marks and crying, thankfully. “You are. You, you take care of me, even when you’re doing... that,” he whispers, voice terribly quiet. “You really like it?”  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik rumbles. "I am, what?" he insists, rough. Because he does like it, but he likes this, too. Being Dominant. Being Charles's Dominant.  
  
Charles never thought or felt for a second that Erik wasn’t being Dominant. It’s exactly what he needs right now, more Dominance than he ever has. Charles is certainly in subspace, completely. Utterly. “Sir,” he mumbles, cheeks bright red, gasping on it as he tries to bury himself even further in Erik.  
  
Well, it's a little hard to deny Erik's Dominance right this second anyway. It's thick enough through the room to shimmer like smoke. "That's right," he grins, nose wrinkling up fondly. "And yes," he whispers. "I do. I like showing you where you really belong. I like knowing that I'm the only one who can."  
  
More curiosity bubbles right up, and Charles is all soft edges now, completely Erik’s in a way he’s just never been yet. Not this Charles, who doesn’t remember. He’s still sniffling, still hiccupping, but he’s not crying in earnest, at least; it’s an overwhelmed, hazy kind of aftermath, grounded by radiating pain but also warmth, now. Seeking out comfort. Needing it, needing Erik in ways he hasn’t because it hasn’t gotten to this point. “Do you like it when, when I call you that?” he whispers. “What does it - what does it make you feel?”  
  
The unfortunate thing is that Erik doesn't have the literacy to describe his feelings beyond the basics. "Good," he murmurs, not particularly creative but his tone is it's own statement. He touches his hand over Charles's chest. "Warm."  
  
Warm. In the moment it’s good enough for Charles, though he bites his lip, ducks his head more thoroughly into Erik’s chest. “What does it feel like when you punish me?” he croaks, and these are questions he’s just never asked. Not knowing has made Charles much more inquisitive, because he has to be.  
  
Erik flushes a little, clearing his throat and scratching the back of his neck. "It feels... like everything is heightened," he murmurs, brushing his thumb over Charles's lip. "Like... I can feel every molecule of myself, and you, and-" it doesn't make much sense. "I always tend to feel-warmth, with you. But that is like being hot." He doesn't mean in that way, exactly, but they're adjacent sensations. They come from the same place. Exerting his Will. He ducks his head. "I know-that you are in pain. It is not really about that. I don't like suffering." He trails off.  
  
Charles bites his lip. It’s not that he thinks Erik likes suffering, it’s just - “Are you sure it isn’t a little about that?” he whispers, his voice muffled by Erik’s shoulder, dipped back in. His hands are grasping tightly again. “And if it isn’t, what is it about? Are you upset that I’m in pain?” Because he is. Quite a lot of it, and it hasn’t even really dulled.  
  
"No," he says, but he doesn't know how else to talk about the rest of it. Only that it feels like his brain is itchy and hot and stifling. He rubs his chin against Charles's hair as if to soothe himself. "I'm not good at talking," he whispers. "I'm sorry. I don't know. I shouldn't like anybody being in pain." He shrugs. "I don't want you to think that I enjoy seeing you-injured, or anything like that." Because he hadn't. At all. But while Charles is in a lot of pain, he isn't harmed in any real way. Erik made certain of that. It's different, and he doesn't have the words to explain the difference. "Does it upset you?"  
  
“No,” Charles whispers, immediately. Because it doesn’t, and that much isn’t and never has been a lie. “You are good at talking. You’re just not used to...” To Charles having to ask. It’s what he’s assuming, anyway, and he sniffles and folds himself even further into Erik’s chest, nuzzling right into the crook of his arm. “If I was truly frightened or couldn’t handle it, you would have stopped. But I could, and you knew. I needed it,” he croaks, and it’s not for Erik’s sake. It’s true, and he’s hot with it, flushed down to his neck, up to his ears. “It hurts,” he breathes, and after a moment peeks up to see Erik’s reaction. “A lot.”  
  
Erik strokes his fingers along a neat cluster of marks over Charles's shoulder, underneath the blanket, holding him still against his lap so he doesn't shuffle around. "Good," he breathes lowly. "It is supposed to hurt."  
  
Charles hisses, then sniffles, bowing his head and making soft, hitched little noises. “Why?” he asks, quietly, not because he doesn’t think he knows but because he wants Erik to explain it to him. He wants him to talk him through it.  
  
"Because," Erik whispers. "It is a reminder. Of me. Of my Will. Where you belong. How you belong. That you must obey me." Erik can't break it down any better than that; he's never verbalized any of this and he doesn't quite know how, but he tries his best.  
  
His best is apparently enough, because Charles shivers, full body, whimpers softly when it jostles him, finds a new spot in Erik’s chest. “A reminder to be -“ But he doesn’t finish, shaking his head. “I’m cold,” he whispers instead, even though he’s covered by a blanket, wrapped in Erik’s arms, and it’s very surely summer now. It might be a distraction, but it’s also the truth. His teeth are even chattering. Erik said, tell me what you need. He still needs things, he thinks. Needs Erik. And those things are allowed, they’re good. He shouldn’t be embarrassed or ashamed of them. He’s learning. Being trained. It feels nice, he’s realizing, to be so far down. To not think and worry and fear so much. To just rely on Erik. It feels nice.  
  
"It reminds you," Erik rumbles lowly, "to be good. For me. You want that," he whispers, rubbing his fingers against Charles's arm, stroking at him, petting him like he's a pampered, cherished thing because he is. Always. "Do you want that? You want to be good for me?"  
  
Charles nods, head bobbing eagerly against Erik as he curls in tighter, shivering again. He is cold, but he’s warm, too, and he can’t describe it. All he knows is that he arches into the petting, needing it. He feels like he needs so much right now, but not how to properly articulate it. He claws at Erik again instead. “Do you think I am?” he asks, do quietly, fluttering as he waits. “Right now?”  
  
Erik smiles softly. "Very much so," he whispers, soft. "My wonderful, good boy. I care for you very deeply. And you are very good."  
  
This time he goes completely, utterly still, and for a moment he just stops breathing. When he starts back up, it’s stuttered, and he shudders head to toe in Erik’s arms, so thoroughly affected by the words. The most he’s ever been. Good boy. It’s worked its way through his whole body, where he shakes slightly, and he sniffles into Erik’s chest. “Cold,” is what he mumbles again for some reason, nudging into Erik as if to get his attention.  
  
The Will that's saturated the room flexes in response, as if to wrap Charles up just as Erik adjusts the blanket for him in the Real, warming him from the inside out. "Better?" he whispers, pressing Charles as close as possible, letting heat and warmth and light inside.  
  
But Charles shakes his head, sniffling still into Erik’s chest, rubbing his cheek there. He tugs at Erik again, insistent, staring up at him as if Erik can read his mind. “Cold,” he repeats, just barely a whisper, teeth still chattering. Still shivering.  
  
"Tell me," Erik insists, dropping out of English automatically, the Imperative zipping up through Charles's spine. He can't read Charles's mind. But he can pull out what he wants, when he wants it, because Charles belongs to him and the room shimmers with the knowledge.  
  
It feels so silly. Charles has no way of knowing he’s always needed these things, especially after punishment, but right now, despite being shy, fluttering around it, a little uncertain, he isn’t ashamed. He can’t be, like this. “Can you - can you give me a bath?” he whispers, small, hesitant, for several reasons. He doesn’t look at Erik, curled into his arm again. “And maybe some tea?” They’re such small requests, but he doesn’t know if they’re ordinary, he doesn’t know if they’re alright, and like in all things he looks to Erik, waits, a little tensed up despite how boneless he is.  
  
Erik pets him along the back and strokes his hair, and then his cheek. "Of course," he whispers warmly. "Thank you for asking me. I like when you ask me for things, you know. It isn't a burden. I prefer it, did you know that?" he grins playfully. "And bath time tea definitely sounds like a plan," he winks, and gently, so gently, helps Charles to stand, keeping him close and wrapped up in his arms. "Would you like me to make the tea and send it over, or do you want to come to the kitchens with me?"  
  
Charles is a little shaky on his feet, but it’s not the reason he whimpers at Erik’s question, immediately clinging with all he has. Fingers dug in again. “Please don’t leave me, sir,” he gasps, and there are tears in his eyes again and he can’t even be embarrassed, needy and vulnerable and frightened, frightened that Erik will let him be for even a second.  
  
"Of course not," Erik chides gently, tapping him on the nose. He couldn't handle it right now, either. He thinks he might go full feral if Charles is anywhere other than at his side. "You see, I can make it from right here. You will be in possession of one floating teacup."  
  
Charles clings even harder, as if he doesn’t quite believe it. As if he’s still frightened, and he is, in this moment, his heart beating out of his chest, unsteady and unsettled and tearing up again, sniffling into Erik’s chest. He mumbles something there, shaking his head.  
  
"No," Erik reprimands, touching his jaw. "You will look up at me and speak clearly." The thread of Will in his voice is unmistakable, but Charles has the ability to choose. For now.  
  
There’s no choosing right now, really. Charles whimpers, because he needs to be obedient. He needs to be. He peeks up, slowly, biting his lip. “Will you please carry me?” he whispers, because his legs are shaky and he doesn’t know if he can make it right now, and more than that, he just wants to be closer.  
  
All at once, in a big motion, Erik sweeps him off of his feet. He wraps Charles's arms around his shoulder, carrying his weight easily as they head downstairs. "I like carrying you," he murmurs.  
  
Charles gasps, squeezing his arms around Erik’s neck, and his legs, too, even though it hurts. It all hurts, it’s all sore and achy and throbbing, but it’s better like this. He hides another sniffle in Erik’s neck. “You won’t let go?” he rasps, rubbing his cheek there. “I’ll be good,” he promises, his breath hitching on it.  
  
"No. I will not let go. Ever." He's talking about more than just carrying Charles around, but that's fairly evident. Erik leads them to the kitchen and he's never been more grateful for his powers than right now, because everything starts floating up and engaging itself to make the tea on its own, without the use of his hands.  
  
It’s a good thing, because Charles doesn’t understand it but he truly might cry if Erik wasn’t holding him like this, wasn’t touching him like this, even though he gasps and whimpers quietly with pain every time he’s shifted even slightly. “Hurts, sir,” he mumbles into Erik’s shoulder, just to say it, maybe. He feels so hazy. It’s strange but not frightening, not right now. “I don’t want to be punished, ever again,” he mutters, and he probably knows it won’t be the case, but that’s certainly what he’s come away with. He’s still shivering with it, hiccupping out a few little tears occasionally, still needs to be settled. It’s new, for this Charles. He hasn’t had years of all sorts of experience, or more with Erik. There’s just this. He needs Erik just as much now as he did before and during. Maybe more.  
  
"Mm," Erik laughs gently, his chest vibrating against Charles's skin. "Then you'd better behave," he murmurs. "Because you are mine, and my Will is absolute. It's important that you learn such things. Because I certainly can keep up with you, and there will be no doubt of that. I care for you deeply, but I won't tolerate flagrant disobedience. Now you know," he trails a finger down Charles's cheek.  
  
Now he knows. Charles shivers when Erik touches his cheek, finding it still smarts, but when he thinks of Erik slapping him - he makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a whine, even as he bites it off, turning his head into Erik’s neck and closing his eyes. “I want to be good,” he murmurs, because he’s so much less embarrassed like this, so much more open, he always has been. The knot is entirely untangled, unwound, and Erik did that. It’s impossible not to see the effects of it, and none of them are harm, even as that pain lingers as a reminder, probably will for quite a while. “Is it alright?” he asks, a bit out of the blue, as the tea kettle whistles for them. “That you have to do it all over again? I know it must be awfully frustrating,” he whispers, and there’s that hint of guilt, of shame.  
  
"Not really," Erik whispers. "I don't punish you when I am frustrated. It is not a product of that," he smiles. "It is not a hardship. It is an important, integral part of our Dynamic. It is something I need, too. Even if I struggle to express that sometime."  
  
Charles shakes his head, looking up at Erik again. Hesitantly, as if he’s reluctant to let go of where he’s clinging, he brushes a strand of Erik’s hair out of his eyes, and immediately goes back to his leeching. The thought of being made to stop is honestly distressing. “I meant in general,” he whispers, averting his eyes. “Having to - to train me again, on top of everything else. Because I don’t know. Isn’t it frustrating?”  
  
Erik doesn't make him stop though, even when the tea is done and prepares itself exactly the way that Charles likes. "No," Erik murmurs back, shaking another long curl out of his face. It's honestly getting unruly at this point. "Not at all. I like training you. Very much. And I believe this is an opportunity for my lessons to really sink in, because you are not bombarded with the little voices that tell you the opposite. It is my hope that when your memory does return you will have internalized more of my lessons than before, and that is a very good thing."  
  
“Oh,” Charles breathes, and bites his lip before reaching up again, tucking some hair behind Erik’s ear. If he’s still holding tight with his other arm and his legs, if he can still feel Erik, it feels more bearable. “Will you, um. Will you do more of it?” he asks, because he doesn’t know exactly what Erik means, but it makes sense. He certainly feels like he will retain this lesson. He doesn’t have any reference for what other lessons might be, but he wants to know. He wants to be trained, especially right this moment.  
  
"Always," Erik breathes. "I will never stop doing it. I anticipate the joy of being able to train you for many, many years to come." He captures Charles's hand and places it to his chest, before the tea floats over and he curls Charles's fingers around the mug. It's warm and steadying for them both.  
  
It is very steadying, but Charles frowns and passes it over after a moment and without a sip, distracted. He shifts in Erik’s arms, hissing quietly at the pain, but he’s got a mission. He reaches up to mess with Erik’s hair again, forehead creased with the effort. “It keeps falling in front of your eyes,” he mutters, and he’s frowning. Pouting, really.  
  
Erik laughs gently, the sound vibrating in his chest. "It's getting a little bit out of hand," he chuckles, and once more it drops right back down to where it was. He's always had a good head of hair, but the downside is that it's too thick to bear any real changes without serious product-induced assistance; and Erik's not really a product kind of guy. The most his self-care routine consists of is shaving (sometimes) and washing his face. "I am afraid I don't think that's going to do much," he huffs, soft.  
  
Charles is nothing if not persistent, determined, and he keeps trying, pouting more and more as he does. He wants to help, he wants to do this for Erik, and he’s a little discomfited that he can’t. “Perhaps we could cut it,” Charles suggests, quietly, because they can’t exactly get it cut, and he’s not sure how long they’ll be stranded here. At the rate they’re going, potentially quite a while. “Mine is long, too,” he mentions, because his continues to fall in front of his eyes, and has made its way well down to his shoulders.  
  
"Mm. Perhaps we should both get that attended to. Do you know how to cut hair?" he wonders; and it's not because he wouldn't let Charles do it anyway, but more out of curiosity for what Charles knows and doesn't know. He seems to have retained his other skills so there's little to suggest he wouldn't know.  
  
Not that he was an expert before, either. Charles’ face scrunches up as if he’s having a difficult time deciding, and the truth is he is. He rarely knows he can do something until he does it; he doesn’t remember the context for learning any of it, and some things have been wiped completely because they’re entirely contextual. Because he can’t know them without knowing how he learned them in the first place. His Postures are an excellent example. “I don’t know,” he admits, embarrassed now, because it’s something he wants to be able to do if Erik is asking for it. When he said he wanted to be good now, he meant it, and not being able to tend to Erik in any way is honestly too horrible of a thought to stomach at exactly this moment. He buries himself in Erik’s neck, and if Erik listens, there’s a quiet little sniffle. “I’ll try, sir,” he offers, and it’s so exceptionally earnest, vulnerable, small. A reminder of where Charles is right now, of how deep under he is. The first real time.


	102. If I Stayed In Your Arms I Would've Never Got This Far

Charles is all too happy to follow Erik down to the kitchen, even if he isn’t particularly hungry. He spends the rest of the evening, not that he would admit it, floating in blissful, quiet subspace and following Erik around like his shadow, completely incapable of not being latched onto him every second. When Erik lets go of him for even a moment or two he becomes unsettled, whining and fussing over it, though he attempts to hide it; it doesn’t much work when it’s exceptionally obvious how poorly he’s tolerating distance, which makes bedtime seem especially difficult. About the time when they’d normally part ways, Erik to his bedroom and Charles to his, Charles lingers in the hall, frowning; he grabs Erik’s arm, chews insistently on his poor lip, terribly abused from the attempts to stifle himself earlier. “I want to ask you something,” he whispers, and looks down at his feet immediately. “Could you come into my room? Or we could go to yours, it’s just -” He gestures vaguely, shuffling.  
  
"Of course," Erik interrupts, tapping him on the lip to discourage biting. They finished dinner with some naan, olive oil and sambal, with some large falafels on the side for texture and profit. Erik doesn't really like distance, either, so it works out for him. He's been dreading going to bed, even though he'd never admit it, more willing to accommodate for Charles's comfort. He leads them to his room.  
  
Charles wonders, idly, if he would have preferred his room, though it would have given him no advantage. It doesn’t really matter where they are, and he’s gone back to shuffling about and avoiding Erik’s eyes as soon as they’re inside, his hands shoved into his pockets to hide that they might very well be shaking. “Do you remember what we talked about, earlier? In the bath?” he whispers, mostly under his breath, entirely mumbled.  
  
"I do," Erik nods, reaching out to still Charles and tug his hands out of his pockets. "Take your hands out of your pockets and look at me properly," he Commands promptly, and takes Charles's hands in his instead, squeezing gently. "And speak up. Don't be mumbling into your feet."  
  
Erik gets a little huff for his efforts, though he certainly tries to bite it down. Charles goes on fidgeting even when Erik has his hands and has scolded him about it, up until the point that he takes a sharp, deliberate breath, pulls his hands out from Erik’s, and drops rather ungracefully to his knees. It’s a bit like someone kicked his legs out, but there’s no hiding that it was intentional, his head bowed so his face isn’t visible. There’s a long, shuddering pause, but he doesn’t speak.  
  
Erik tilts his head upward. "I said look at me," he Commands again, and this time it's an Order. Respect isn't just about not insulting people. It has to do with comportment, too, and Erik refuses to let him mumble his way through something that important. "And tell me what you want to say."  
  
It takes Charles a long time to compose himself, but it’s not disobedience or disrespect that makes him hesitate. He’s taking shaky breaths the whole time, and even though Erik has gone over Rest with him plenty, he can’t seem to figure out what to do with his hands, wringing them nervously. “Will you train me,” he finally says, in a single breath, almost like it’s a single word, his breath hitching noticeably on it, his chest stuttering. He shakes his head, huffing at himself, and tries again before Erik can correct him. “Will you - will you allow me the privilege of being, being trained by you?” he asks, and thinks he might be forgetting something but he can’t figure out what it is, is too nervous by being made to look into Erik’s piercing eyes, so much more noticeable now they’re not obscured by unruly hair in the same way.  
  
Well it's not like Erik knows the difference. He takes Charles's hands again. "Stop fidgeting, and come to Rest." It's not a reprimand, but rather a lifeline, a way to stabilize Charles as well as himself. "I don't know what the traditional response is," he murmurs. "But of course I will. Of course." He lifts Charles's hands and kisses his knuckle. "You belong to me. I would be very honored to teach you what that means." To even learn what that means at all, because he doesn't always know; or feel worthy of it.  
  
“I don’t think there is one,” Charles whispers, helpfully, and he’s having trouble holding eye contact even though he obviously knew Erik would say yes. Even steadied, grounded, he’s full of nervous energy, his fingers shaking in Erik’s even as he sighs in relief. “I can’t be at Rest if you’ve got my hands,” he points out, and it’s just the right side of snarky, not meant to be disrespectful but certainly hoping to get a reaction out of Erik, a teasing, soft grin on his lips as his stomach does flips over itself.  
  
Erik _nips_ his finger (gently, of course), grinning back. "Now you can, see? I'll bite off all your little fingers," he chuckles. His nose wrinkles up and he presses another kiss to the center of Charles's palm.  
  
Charles laughs softly, swallowing around the lump he hadn’t even realized was in his throat. He takes his hands back, folding them neatly on his thighs (one slightly out of place, because Erik always corrects him during morning Postures, and he’s always eager for it) and taking another deep breath. “Is there anything you want to, um. To ask of me?” he whispers, and he bows his head again without even meaning to. “Changes to our routine?” He’s buzzing with anticipation, with nerves, still, the whole room pinging with it. “How would you like to train me?” Sir, goes unspoken, because right this second he’s having a hard time getting it out of his mouth. It feels real, to him, and not submerged totally in subspace, maybe too much on his own.  
  
And of course Erik corrects him with a tap. He doesn't know the right answer, but he does know that there are-there are things that he does want, and there are things he can teach, even traditional things that he knows, that he'd enjoy introducing Charles to. He nods. But he's a little nervous, too, and he doesn't want to make Charles uncomfortable all over again.  
  
There is no right answer here. Charles is clearly waiting for an answer, though. His Dominant’s answer. That’s the right one, and he knows it. When it doesn’t come, he peeks up at Erik, chewing on his lip again. “Si - Erik?” he prompts, not sure why he can’t say it when he wants to. “Please tell me?”  
  
"I don't like being alone so much," he whispers. "I'm not good at it." As it is now they both spend a good deal of time in the morning and at night apart. Erik doesn't need them to always be together, but-he's not that good at taking care of himself. It's one of the ways Charles always did help him, that he finds he struggles with now. "And I like making choices for you, and having you help me with things."  
  
Charles stares down at the floor, and takes another shaky, long breath. It’s Erik expressing that he wants something from him, and it settles appropriately in his stomach, everything flopping this way and that. “You could have me wake up and be at your room by a certain time,” he suggests, because he’s just not ready to share a room, to go to sleep and wake up together. Not quite yet. “Before I dress. Before I do anything else. I could serve you in the morning, then, however you’d like me to. And you could, you could -“ It sounds so extraordinarily silly, to phrase it this way. His cheeks are pink. “You could put me to bed at night, after I’ve served you then, too. Then I’ll know if I’m, if I decide to stay up, to get out of bed, that it’s against your wishes...” Erik seems like he wants to be much stricter about things like sleeping. Getting adequate rest, which Charles just doesn’t get. A training period sounds like a good time to implement those things, even if it does get Charles disciplined a few times before it sinks in.  
  
Erik nods a few times. Better eating, better sleeping, a proper physical and mental regimen. It's what they had before. It feels normal to Erik, and Charles is expressing that he wants to introduce those aspects again, which aligns well with Erik's natural inclination to be stricter in general. "That would make me happy," he whispers softly.  
  
It doesn’t sound too bad. Actually, it sounds nice, if Charles is honest, and he’s still being allowed some of his own space. He’s still being the one expected to come to Erik, to behave, and he can’t quite put his finger on why that makes the difference but it does. He nibbles on his cheek, nods right back. “Alright,” he agrees, softly. “Is there anything else? If you’d like to lay out a routine now, anything you’d like me to do in a day, anything new...” He knows he’s fishing, but he wants Erik to know it’s okay.  
  
"You will start sleeping better, and eating better. We'll do more in general to take care of yourself. That is what I expect from you to begin with. You will come to me so I can be more involved with you. You won't keep things from me if you are not feeling well or something is going on. And I expect you will behave respectfully. There is other things but they are not really day to day things. I can show you some. Deportment and things like that."  
  
Charles takes another breath, steadies himself out, and keeps his head bowed. “Alright,” he whispers again, and he knows there’s a much more formal answer and he wants to give it, but it won’t come out. He’s nervous, hands off his thighs again, and it’s more obvious than ever that he’s never been formally or even casually trained. He’s got the instincts for it, but nothing else. “When would you like me to come to your room in the morning? When should I be awake by?” he asks, quietly. “What else is there? What kind of things? Are there any - will you give me something to do, something...” Something measurable, something he can choose to do or not do in a day, something Erik can approve or disapprove of and he doesn’t know why it matters so much, but it does. “Would you like to have weekly, um...” He doesn’t know what to call them. “Like the books suggested. Check-ins. So I can, so you can...” He’s struggling here, tripping right over his own words. Asking so many questions. Buzzing with nervous energy. “What happens if I do keep things from you, but then I tell you? Is that good?” Is that good. He’s asking, seeking, exactly what Erik promised. What does it mean to be Erik’s. They both need to find out.  
  
Erik traps his hand against his thigh. "I said be still." He doesn't really know the answer to Charles's question, or what kind of thing he's looking for. Erik has a good deal of submissive education and is reluctant to rely on it at all. "Just kind of the way you act, how you address me. It's like an example, just learning by example and in the moment. For instance right now you keep fidgeting and looking away when you are talking to me. You keep releasing your Posture without being told to. That isn't acceptable. You don't address your Dominant by mumbling into your feet. Are you not interested in what we're talking about? You don't want to do it? Reluctant? No, not really, you are just nervous. How you communicate is as important as what you are communicating. So I will help you with that. I'm not just going to correct you a thousand times in a row. You need to demonstrate that you are willing to apply those changes yourself. So that is the kind of thing I will be looking at. And yes, I think checking in is a good idea. If you do keep something from me you will be disciplined. If you disobey my Orders you will be disciplined. What that entails depends on your attitude. If you tell me about it then yes, that is good. That will be less severe. I prefer to start mornings earlier. Like six. That means going to bed earlier. And of course you will have tasks throughout the day. There are skills you should learn, and I am not the only one living in the manor, I shouldn't be the only one looking after it."  
  
Charles’ eyes widen, and even with his head ducked all the way down it’s easy to tell. He fidgets even more, not trying to be disobedient; Erik was right, he isn’t reluctant, merely nervous, but he needs to be taught those things, too. He’s vibrating even more now, not uncomfortable or frightened but overwhelmed, left wondering what he’s gotten himself into. Nothing he doesn’t want, is the answer. And if it is, Erik said they’d have check-ins. He takes another harsh breath. “Six is too early,” he informs Erik, and he’d meant it to be bold, assured, testing for a reaction, but it comes out mumbled. He shivers right after.  
  
"No," Erik returns firmly. "What did I just say. Still yourself, look at me and speak up. And if you have something to add, I expect to be addressed correctly. I'm not some random, not your _buddy_. You aren't telling me what to do. You are asking me, and if you are, you are doing it right. Try again."  
  
It runs Charles’ blood a bit cold, not because he’s scared, but because it’s a side of Erik he’s only gotten glimpses of. When he’d asked for a training period, he knew this is what he’d been hoping for, expecting, needing - but to have it is different than imagining it with his head in a book, and he’s inquisitive and curious as ever. He lifts his head and meets Erik’s eyes, something vaguely challenging in the flash in that azure gaze, more blue than they have any right to be in dim lighting. “I’m not your buddy?” he teases, smirking, instead of anything else he could have said or done. His stomach twists immediately, but he somehow fails to bite his own tongue. Once he’s started, he seems to have a hard time stopping. He always has. “Six is far too early, _buddy_. Especially if you expect me to get any sleep at all. Don't you think you should be reasonable?"

* * *

Charles finds himself on his back. Immediately. Erik's looming over him, gripping his throat in hand. He's not going to hurt Charles, not really, and he's not relying on fear to get the result he wants, but it's more a heart-stopping application of Will that threatens to dissolve Charles's skin and replace all the air in the room with Command. "No. And I don't appreciate being laughed at. So try again, or try it again from Child's Pose. You want a set record for how many times I can discipline you in one day, we can start now."  
  
Charles’ eyes are now as wide as saucers, and he’s trembling all over, shaking like a leaf. Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t this, but for some reason there’s not single part of him that wonders if Erik might hurt him. He feels safe, even now, even when the air crackles with danger and Command and Dominance. Will. “I -“ Whatever it was he’d thought to ask, or demand, rather, he’s completely forgotten it. He’s too busy being caught by Erik’s gaze, trapped in it, his chest heaving but not with real panic. “I’m sorry, sir,” he whispers instead, still impossibly wide-eyed, a deer trapped in very bright headlights. Prey that knows it’s been caught. And there it is, what he knows he’s wanted to say all day: sir, and somehow it makes his chest tighten further.  
  
Erik strokes his hand down to Charles's chest. "Correct," he murmurs, low and soft and deceptive. "You will go to bed when I tell you to and you will wake up when I tell you to. You will do what I tell you to. Because you belong to me. And I have your best interests at heart. Am I understood."  
  
When he nods, it’s shaky but overeager, several times, his throat bobbing where Erik still has his fingers wrapped around it. “Yes, sir,” he gasps, and his eyes haven’t returned to their normal size, though they’re dilated now. He’s having trouble breathing, by the sounds of it, by the motions of his chest. Rise, fall, rise rise rise, fall, the rhythm all off. “Do you want me here at exactly six?” Measurable, routine. Charles needs it, the structure, which is funny because Erik seems to thrive with it, too. Enforcing it. Enacting it.  
  
"Yes, Charles," Erik practically rumbles, a low vibration in his own chest. "And I am not playing around. You are not going to toe the line, or approximate. I will know when you are late on purpose and when it is a little bit of an error. And I will not accept disobedience. Am I understood."  
  
“Yes, sir,” he gasps again, louder this time, absolutely pinned to Erik’s gaze. He’s still underneath it, though, despite the fluttering in his chest and stomach, because Erik said to be still. “I understand. When do I go to bed? The same time every night?” He’s asking if he can stay up all night reading, some nights, really. If sometimes Erik putting him to sleep is a suggestion.  
  
Erik shrugs. "Maybe not every night. Maybe if you are especially good, I will be more lenient. But it will be what I will say. Every night."  
  
“Oh,” Charles breathes, because every time he expects Erik to back down, to loosen his hold, he doesn’t. He still looks quite like caught prey, which is how he feels. “You’re going to train me,” he whispers, as if he’s just realized it.  
  
Erik grins at him, like a shark with too many teeth. "Yes," he agrees. "I am."  
  
And he does, or at the very least he begins to. As it turns out, Charles is only too eager to learn, to throw himself into it, though he certainly stumbles, the nerves and uncertainty acting up. But the days pass, and he spends each and every one of them trying to be good. It turns out there’s plenty internal motivation for that, but every sliver of approval and praise he gets from Erik affects him more than it ever has. He completely glows every time he gets it, not at all spiky or ashamed to need it. Now, he actively seeks it out, however shy and nervous.

* * *

And he does, or at the very least he begins to. As it turns out, Charles is only too eager to learn, to throw himself into it, though he certainly stumbles, the nerves and uncertainty acting up. But the days pass, and he spends each and every one of them trying to be good. It turns out there’s plenty internal motivation for that, but every sliver of approval and praise he gets from Erik affects him more than it ever has. He completely glows every time he gets it, not at all spiky or ashamed to need it. Now, he actively seeks it out, however shy and nervous.  
  
There are things that don’t add up, still. His telepathy, mostly hidden now except in those strange, miraculous changes, or those odd distortions, lingers just under the surface. Above it. Around it. All too powerful and threatening, and Erik’s lessons in that get him almost nowhere but frustration, but he can almost ignore it. The circumstances, the fear. Almost, when every day with Erik begins to feel normal, expected, and frankly wonderful.  
  
Six in the morning has begun to feel bearable, actually. Hardly, but it has. On the morning that he shuffles into the view of Erik’s doorframe at a stunningly late eight thirty (and he imagines there’s a reason Erik didn’t just come gather him), nothing particularly strange happened the night before. Actually, they spent it playing piano, Charles leaned on Erik’s shoulder, sometimes helping, sometimes throwing in discordant keys just to see Erik’s face scrunch up, to hear him laugh. But he’s here, ruffled, his hair messier than it’s been in quite a long time, and wrapped up conspicuously in a blanket, like an ashamed Charles-burrito. His whole face is noticeably bright red, spread up to his ears the way it always has when he’s particularly mortified or embarrassed. “Sorry,” is the first thing out of his mouth. His eyes are firmly on the floor, the way Erik’s been training him out of. They’ve actually made progress, but considering all the fidgeting he’s doing, this morning isn’t the best display of it.  
  
"Charles," Erik whispers, and quite unusually for him, he is still in bed, too and his voice comes out in a croak. He's sweating, his now-shorter curls plastered to his head unflatteringly. Charles has never seen Erik stay in bed this late, and the reason isn't immediately obvious at first except that he's breathing harder than usual, wrapped up in a burrito of his own. "Come here," he slowly, gingerly moves to sit up, his forehead creased with tension. "Time?" he doesn't even know what time it is and there's a bucket by the bed that's seen better days. "I'm sorry," he rasps.  
  
Charles’ eyes go wide, and he stares for a moment or two, frozen and processing what he’s seeing. Then he shakes his head, a refusal of both kinds. “No, lie back down,” he whispers, as gently as he can, and decidedly does not move from two inches outside of Erik’s room. “You need water, and a cold cloth, and perhaps some crackers, and I’ll grab something to take your temperature. I know you’re perfectly capable of measuring that yourself,” he says, before Erik can. “But I’d like to anyway. Stay here.” He’s gone from embarrassed and contrite to this very quickly, and he’s already turning to go, his heart beating fast in his own chest.  
  
"Charles, no," Erik shakes his head and winces at the motion, raising a hand. "I'm not-I'm not sick. It's OK." It's not an in-denial kind of denying, either; Erik clearly knows what's wrong and it's not the flu. He pats the side of the bed. "Come. Sit." He offers a wan smile.  
  
“No, thank you,” Charles croaks, and stays exactly where he is, hoping that Erik won’t ask him again. That he won’t Order him the next time. He’s been doing it less, lately; letting Charles choose whether to obey or not, though he’s not sure this is a Command in the first place. His fingers are shaking where they’re gripping the blanket. “What’s going on?” he whispers, concerned and a bit frightened, on top of whatever he’d been feeling when he first walked down the hall. “You look ill, Erik. Please, just let me get you some water.”  
  
He has been, but whatever is occurring while it doesn't show on his face is evident in the bogged-down weariness of his general aura, so it very quickly becomes a series of Orders. "Charles, sit, tell me what time it is and what is going on. Please."  
  
Charles makes a croaked, grumbled noise of protest, and his feet get quite literally dragged over to the bed. It looks exceptionally strange, the way he’s trying to do everything he can to delay this, to keep them from reaching Erik, though it does have the benefit of seeing him up close. He still looks ill, and Charles is frowning anyway but the view certainly deepens it. “It was eight thirty-five when I left my bedroom, so I imagine it’s a bit later now. I’m not ill, either,” what a loophole. “Or hurt or anything you can think of. But you look ill. Please, tell me what’s happening.”  
  
"I juh- _uh_ -" Erik gets cut off by another wave and grits his teeth. He inhales sharply. "Just a spot of pain. It happens sometimes," he pastes a smile on. "Which is no excuse for how extremely late you are. So tell me what happened."  
  
“Pain?” Charles’ eyes go wide again and he obviously wants to scoot closer, to check for himself, but he doesn’t. “But -“ Now he’s frowning for a different reason, panic lashing at his chest. “I thought I helped,” he whispers, because he has been. He knows he has been. It’s not always consistent, and he imagines it’s because he’s not always consistent, but Erik has been using both hands. Both legs. “Where is it? I can make it better,” he offers, but the fear in his voice makes it obvious enough he’s not sure he believes that.  
  
"You have been helping," Erik whispers. "It's-it's fine. I'm OK." It's everywhere. Maybe because he's been using both hands and both legs; whatever Charles has done for him, Erik is still physically the same as he was, and eventually there had to be some kind of breakdown, especially since Charles doesn't have full control of his abilities. He's still recovering from his new injuries, too, on top of everything else, and he hasn't been keeping up with his physical therapy which has created more stiffness and less range of motion in his arms, which he's dutifully powered through until today. "I'll be OK. I just need to-" get accustomed to it again.  
  
Charles shakes his head immediately, that panic overriding whatever it was he’d come into this room with, dread and guilt and he swallows around all of it. “No, it’s not fine,” he snaps, and takes a deep breath. Whatever he’d done, he doesn’t think - he knows instinctively - it wasn’t harmful to Erik, but he should still be managing this better. Erik shouldn’t be in pain at all. He closes his eyes. “No, I’ll fix it,” he promises, his voice raspy and thin. He doesn’t know how. He’ll learn. Right now, he’ll learn.  
  
Erik sighs. He's exhausted and in a good deal more agony than he's letting on. Despite not having the wherewithal to parse any of this, he tries, concern overshadowing everything else. "I said sit," he Orders roughly. "Tell me why you did not show up on time."  
  
“Because I overslept!” he huffs, which isn’t the truth. It’s very obviously a lie, but he shakes his head rapidly, and sits more naturally, however stiff he is, every muscle tensed up and his eyes still closed. “Don’t talk. Please. I’m trying to concentrate,” but he doesn’t know how this works, or how to tap into it, or what he’s even meant to be doing. Every single session with Erik to work on this has either ended in frustration, in nothing, or in chaotic disaster. He feels the tears pricking in his eyes. “Let me fix this,” he insists, hoarse.  
  
Erik winces as he reaches out and takes Charles's hand. "Charles. I need you to cut the attitude, stop lying to me and obey my instructions. That is what I need from you right now. So you can either do it kicking and screaming with me Ordering you every step of the way or you can cooperate with me."  
  
Charles doesn’t say anything. His hand is completely limp in Erik’s, if not horribly clammy, and his eyes are screwed so tightly shut it honestly looks painful. He doesn’t shake his head, or huff, or argue. He just sits there, shaking, breathing harshly, and there’s something happening in there, certainly, but like this Erik just has no access to it. No way of knowing except perhaps that the air is ringing with it, humming, churning, that he seems far away even though he hasn’t moved.  
  
Maybe it's just because he's been awake writhing in pain for the last nine hours, but Erik flops back down on the bed and covers his head with a pillow, hoping that this will somehow resolve the situation.

* * *

Charles doesn’t react. He doesn’t say a word, or move, and it doesn’t even sound like he’s breathing, after a while. He sits there with his eyes closed, and Erik wouldn’t be able to see with that pillow over his head, but the room is in constant flux, an outward sign of whatever it is that’s happening on the inside that, this time, he just can’t see. Abruptly, Erik feels nothing. It’s quite like a few days ago by the lake; no pain, not a trace of it, no nausea, not even lingering ache, but nothing else at all, either. No perception, no sensation. He can’t feel his arms or his legs or his face. Charles leans over and retches.  
  
The pillow lowers and Erik's eyebrows are knit together still, this time in confusion. Honestly, it's immensely preferable to the hell that was his existence a few seconds ago, so he's not complaining. He sits up and just wraps his arms around Charles, taking a few shaky breaths. It's been a long time since he's dealt with that and he's frayed, raw edges, thin tremors jumping under his skin. "Thank you," he croaks into Charles's neck.  
  
If Charles shoves Erik away, weak and uncoordinated, it’s not meant to harm him, or because he’s upset. It’s because a moment later he’s vomiting, violently, sweating and shaking. He gasps out something that sounds like “ _hhhhghh_ ” but it’s obviously not coherent or intelligible in any real way, his eyes nearly rolled back. He’s hot to the touch, and it’s not like the fits of pain and distorted reality he’d experienced before all this. The Universe promised that was over, and it hadn’t lied.  
  
Erik rubs his back and adjusts the blanket over his shoulder, suppressing whatever emotional reaction threatening to break through the barrier so he can focus on Charles. He draws his hands down his face, shaky. "It's OK," he murmurs, smiling instead. "You did really good. You did it," he whispers.  
  
And he did, truly; sensation begins to flood back into Erik, slowly but surely, or he wouldn’t be able to move, but none of the pain. There’s still a numbed, strange sensation left behind. Like something is missing, and it makes moving for him difficult, odd, confusing - like the nerves aren’t properly connected, like something has been damaged, this time to less agonizing effect. Like he’s simply been under anesthetic, perhaps. But Charles is another story entirely. He’s trembling all over, seizing, actually, sweating, his own still-longer hair matted to his forehead, to his cheek; he falls limp and shivering and frightened, confused, and what comes out of his mouth is another quiet, strained, whimpered “ _hhhhhhhgh_ ,” followed by similar moans of agony.  
  
Literally Erik doesn't care if he never moves again. He's just grateful that whatever hell he was in has finally simmered down. Fortunately Charles is too distracted to see him dab at his eyes with his sleeve. He combs Charles's hair out of his face. He doesn't really say anything else but keeps murmuring in Charles's ear.  
  
Charles continues moaning and writhing, trying very hard not to be overcome by it. It doesn’t work. He leans over to vomit again, shaking in Erik’s arms, and he seems entirely incapable of speaking. Whatever’s happened, he’s overwhelmed and confused and scared, and he can’t express what that is but it might be obvious; while Erik feels none of it, Charles seems to be feeling it instead. “Erik,” he gasps, and he’s trying not to cry but it’s catching up to him.  
  
"You're OK," Erik murmurs. It takes a few moments for him to figure out that Charles just transposed their experiences rather than that this is merely a side effect of some sort and he shakes his head. "Give it back to me. This isn't how we do things and I'm not going to accept this. Return things to how they were, now." It's not a request, or a Command, but a straight up Order.  
  
The problem is, Charles can’t do it. Even if he wanted to, he just can’t, because it didn’t quite work that way. He gasps out louder, and now he’s crying, like he has every time he can’t follow an Order Erik gives him, and he’s whining and whimpering even louder, shaking all over, sweaty and confused and panicked. “H - _Hhhh_ ,” he moans, and looks rather like he’s having a fit. Erik can’t Order something impossible, they’re both finding, but it causes Charles distress when he can’t. Like he’s being entirely torn apart.  
  
Erik sighs, and bids Charles to just relax as best as he can. He would much rather be feeling the pain that actively belongs to him than watch Charles experience it. And now that he is it's evident that Erik suppresses a lot more than he shows in nearly every respect, because it is truly debilitating. There wasn't much he could do about it for himself and there seems to be nothing he can do about it for Charles except hold him and talk to him, so that's what he does; but at least he can concentrate more than two feet in front of his own face.  
  
But Charles knows now. He knows, and he writhes with it, and he cries with it, and he seizes with it, utterly consumed by it. Eventually it soothes. It fades. He’s left shivering and sweating, but still, finally, his mouth tasting awful from some of the vomiting he’d done. “Erik,” he whimpers.  
  
"You're OK," Erik whispers back, brushing his hair from his face and kissing his forehead. "I'm sorry," he rasps harshly. "You shouldn't have had to experience that. I've got you." He rubs Charles's back.  
  
Charles shakes his head, sniffling. “You shouldn’t have to,” he whispers, curling up into Erik’s chest. “You shouldn’t have to. Ever. Never again, _never_ , I’m never letting you feel like that again, I don’t care I’m never - never letting you, ever feel that again,” and he’s babbling, and he’s crying, but he rubs his face into Erik’s chest and he means it. He means it. “Never, ever, never, _never_ again.”  
  
"It's not so fun," Erik laughs a little wetly, resting his head against Charles's shoulder. He breathes in shakily, unable to continue. It's been an extremely rough night, even though he knows he should be focused on Charles, it feels like he hasn't been able to breathe for hours, thrust right back into a hellscape he thought-that he'd been lulled into complacency thinking he'd left behind. "I'm sorry," he gasps.

* * *

It isn’t so fun. It isn’t so fun, and there’s something bubbling up in Charles, something harsh and insistent and perhaps unfair, tears still in his eyes. He pulls away from Erik, sitting up even as he shakes, even as he’s weak and wheezing with the leftover pain. “You _promised_ ,” he hisses, much rougher than he means to. It’s the leftover haze, the pain, all the confusion and fear and the odd start to things, too. He’s all out of sorts. “You said you’d tell me when you were hurting, or experiencing something, and you didn’t. You just stayed here, all night, you didn’t call for me, you didn’t - I could have helped,” his voice breaks on it, tears down his cheeks. “All this talk, all this us being together, and you can’t even do this. So I get punished for it and you just suffer in silence?” He shakes his head, sniffling loudly. “No, Erik, it is not alright. It is absolutely, certainly not. I could have helped,” he repeats, and it gets all stuck in his throat.  
  
Erik wraps his own blanket around his shoulders instead, wilting in on himself and rubbing the corner of his eye against his knee. "That wasn't what happened," he croaks, barely audible.  
  
Charles knows it isn’t fair. He’s just upset, and he’s sick with the guilt of it, the panicked horror of it. He tries to soothe himself; Erik shouldn’t be in any pain now, none at all, and he won’t let it happen again. “Never again,” he promises, this time mostly for himself, and rubs his own face into his hands, taking shaky, unsteady breaths still. He’s still reeling and in shock from it, his body unused to it. Shivering violently, even with his blanket. “What happened?” he whispers.  
  
With Charles closer to him and no longer in writhing agony, it's more obvious that Erik is green, pale, and clammy. He's not talking, but after a few seconds it's evident that he's keeping himself completely silent under there, erasing any sound at all, tears dripping down his cheeks.  
  
Immediately Charles softens. He’s crying himself when he wiggles his way closer to Erik, underneath Erik’s blanket so they’re pressed together. He’s sweaty and shaky and sick, too, but he nuzzles into him. Reaches up with shaking fingers to stroke his hands through Erik’s curls, clumsy and perhaps not so comforting, but he tries. “It’s okay,” he murmurs, as gently as he can. “It’s alright. Shh, darling. It’s alright now. Never, ever again. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but it’s alright now.”  
  
He can't verbalize it at all. Or anything. Everything is completely caught in his throat. He got lost. Inside his own head. He couldn't move or think and the only thing that existed was pain and memories of pain. There's no denying he'd been relieved when Charles showed up, rather than hiding from him. He burrows into Charles's chest. "Didn' mean to," he practically slurs.  
  
It isn’t fair to be upset, but he’d been so horrified. That he’d only been just down the hall this whole time, while Erik writhed and got swallowed by the pain when Charles could have potentially stopped it much, much sooner. And he’d been late this morning. Erik expected him at exactly six (and he’s been showing up a few minutes earlier every day, eager) and he’d showed up a full two and a half hours late. He sniffles and continues stroking Erik’s hair, still shivering and trembling. “I know, darling, I know,” he croaks, trying to nuzzle even closer. “It’s alright now, hm? It’s all alright. You’ll never feel like this again, I promise. No more pain. It’s all alright.”  
  
Erik's heart is still hammering away in his chest, but he bats his head against Charles's fingers a little like a cat demanding more pets. "I'm-sorry," he gasps, running his hand down Charles's chest. Stupid, it's stupid, he's stupid. He fully intends on addressing why Charles was late, and-and everything, he just needs a few moments. A few moments of being being electrified and strung out. You can't even do this. "Thank you," he warbles a bit, throat bobbing. He rubs his eyes into Charles's blanket and focuses on getting himself under control.  
  
Fortunately, Charles needs a few moments, too. He’s still shaking rather horribly, and reeling from the pain, shocked by it, sick with it. It’s nowhere near what Erik experienced for hours but it’s enough that he’s weak and exhausted by it. “Shh, it’s alright,” he repeats, a bit slurred himself, and just keeps on stroking Erik’s sweat-damp curls. “We’re alright. No pain, right? There’s no more pain. I’m here, Erik,” he promises, and stays right there, as close as they can be. “Shh. I’ve got you, darling. I’ve got you.” And he does, he promises. He won’t let Erik hurt like this again, he swears. He can’t.  
  
"No pain," he whispers back, his voice raw and hoarse as if he'd been screaming for that entire time even though they both know he was silent as a statue. He ends up curled in a little ball in Charles's arms, petting at him as best as he can in return. He's so relieved that this is happening and not, not what was happening before-he really could cry, but he manages to restrain himself with a smile.  
  
Charles knows he was crying, anyway, and it absolutely breaks his heart. “No pain,” he repeats, more for his sake than Erik’s, more to reassure himself, and he kisses the top of Erik’s head, holds him tightly. It’s comforting for him, too. Incredibly so. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Erik, I - “ He shakes his head and sniffles, takes small, stuttering breaths. He had no way of knowing, he just wishes he did. That he could have taken it before it ever got to this point. It hurts, seeing Erik in pain. Suffering. It hurts so very much, makes such an awful, churning feeling in his stomach. “It’s alright,” he repeats, as if it’s the only thing he can. “No more pain, hm? No more.”  
  
"You helped me," Erik mumbles into Charles's chest, eyes fluttering closed. "You made it better." Charles is nice and soft and holding him, and that is so, so much superior. All the screaming and contortions inside of him are starting to die down, drowned out by love instead. Louder than pain. He hates that any portion of his life is dedicated to this at all. He would much rather be focused on Charles than on himself, on his own stupid mind, and it's over, it's over. It's all over. They're OK.  
  
“I’m going to keep making it better, okay? I promise,” he whispers, and he means it. He means it. Even when he’s all worked up himself what matters to him more is Erik, is assuring Erik is alright, the remnants of pain and agony and writhing in him so wholly unimportant when it comes to soothing and comforting his Dominant. He’d been so hurt to imagine Erik locked up in this room alone when Charles could have helped, but he’s helping now. He doesn’t know how much, but he wants to at least try. “You’re alright now. See? I’m right here. We don’t have to move, or worry about anything. I’m just right here, darling.” And he is. Stroking Erik’s hair, kissing the top of his head, nuzzling against him.  
  
It's important to Erik. He hates that Charles had to experience even a second of pain on his behalf. "You make me really happy," he mumbles, peeking up at Charles. His eyes are red, and incredibly greener than usual. The blankets are soft and Charles is kissing him and talking to him and it's nice. "Please don't go 'way."  
  
“I won’t,” he promises fiercely, as if even the thought of it is painful. It is, right now. He rubs his cheek against the top of Erik’s head, sniffling loudly. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen,” he whispers, small and ashamed and mumbled. “I know I’m - I should do what I’m told, yeah? I know. You’ve been training me and I know better. But you were in pain and I needed to help, and I’m sorry. I had to help,” he repeats, tearing up again. “I don’t regret it. I had to. I needed to. But I’m sorry I didn’t listen, still.” It’s a strange contradiction, but he means that, too.

* * *

"Why late?" Erik whispers, reaching up to pat Charles's cheek, before hiding himself back into the cocoon he's made of blankets against Charles's chest, relishing the warmth and the softness and human contact. Trying to push everything, everything, everything into the back of his mind. Out, out, out.  
  
Charles whines softly, hiding himself in Erik’s hair, still stroking it, holding Erik as tightly as he possibly can. “I overslept,” he lies again, quietly. “Okay? I’m sorry about that, too.” And he is sorry about, and not just because he would have found out Erik was in excruciating pain earlier if he’d just come to his room when he was supposed to, when he was meant to. When Erik expected him to. “I won’t be late again. I promise.” He might be, but right now he wants to promise it regardless. To be good and help Erik, to be here. To help.  
  
Erik is still shaking, minute tremors felt rather than seen through Charles's hands. His eyes are closed, his expression is peaceful, even though his mind is ablaze with everything unsettled. He feels a lot like talking through cotton, his head packed inside a styrofoam box. "No, truth," Erik Orders roughly. "Don't lie to me."  
  
And Charles is all too aware of it. “I was awake,” he corrects, quietly. “But I wasn’t doing anything. I was just late, Erik.” It’s another lie, but one he hopes is a bit less obvious. He shakes his head, strokes Erik’s hair away from his face, grateful they’d cut it the other day. “It’s alright. Can you - can you talk to me about what’s happening? So I can help? Please. We can talk about everything else later,” he begs. “Please. Let me help now.”  
  
"I -uh, just-" Erik taps his own temple. "Bad memories." They don't need to go into detail. No one ever needs that kind of detail. Erik wants to melt into the core of the earth. "Now, 'kay, stop avoiding my question. Tell me why you were late and tell me the truth," Erik Orders instead since evidently asking isn't getting him anywhere, shaking his head. "You are my submissive. I take care of you. I can't do that if you don't listen to me."  
  
It makes Charles tense up completely, his eyes firmly closed. “I had a dream and I don’t want to talk about it,” he manages, through grit teeth, because it’s quite literally been forced between them. “I don’t want to talk about it right now, alright? Especially because I’m supposed to help you too but you never talk to me,” he sniffles. “I always have to tell you, but you never tell me what’s happening and it’s not fair. I’m listening. I told you. I don’t want to talk about it right now, Erik, please. Just let me help you.”  
  
Erik shrugs, wilting again. "I just remember-how I used to feel all the time," he swallows. Lead by example, right? He's pretty good about demonstrating everything else, but this part is tough. "What happened-" he touches his shoulder, where Charles knows under his shirt there's the edge of a large, gnarled scar, and his hand and his leg. "How I-how it happened. That is all. I just been existing there for too long. I-it's just hard," he wipes his nose on the blanket. "I'm sorry."  
  
“Please don’t be sorry,” Charles whispers, tears in his eyes again. He squeezes Erik, kisses the top of his head, nuzzles against him. “I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been, darling. I’m so sorry you dealt with that. But I’m here now, alright? I’m right here. You aren’t there. You are safe, with me, and there’s no pain. No pain at all. Yeah?”  
  
"No pain," he assures softly. "I don't want to think about it anymore," Erik whispers, drawing his hands down his face. Despite his best efforts he can't seem to cast it out as quickly as he wants, but he's doing his best. Focusing on being here. "I'm sorry, I am," he wants to sink his nails into his own eyes, as if that will purge the images, but he doesn't. But he is sorry. All he can think is how he's not being a good Dominant because he's too tormented by his own angst, and he inhales sharply. "It's OK. It's over. We're 'kay."  
  
Charles doesn’t think he’s being a poor Dominant, though. He never will, for something like this. He couldn’t. “There’s no reason to apologize,” Charles whispers, and continues petting and stroking Erik, rubbing those sweat-damp curls between his fingers gently, twining their legs together beneath the covers. “Everything is alright. I’m here now. See? I won’t go anywhere. I’ll stay right here and help. We don’t have to talk about it if you can’t. You’re safe, Erik. There’s no more pain. Not with me.”  
  
He's very gross and very sweaty and very close, unconsciously pressing closer when Charles digs his fingers in gently behind Erik's ear, soothing away the terrible imagery. He's rocking back and forth a little, swaying slightly, holding himself so still and calm. It's just a storm and it will pass and everything will be OK. There is no more pain, no more suffering. No more brutality. No more cruelty. No more, no more. "I'm sorry," his voice cracks and he turns his head away. It's humiliating how deeply this has affected him, how he's been reduced to this broken, twisted thing, he feels like he has no skin, one of those grotesque experiments with all their muscles exposed and at a certain point you feel contempt for them; they aren't people anymore, they're just mindless, mindless animals. Erik blinks rapidly a few times and then abruptly stops, feeling himself spiral and not willing to subject anybody to it. He just breathes in slowly and carefully.  
  
It breaks Charles’ heart all over again. Breaks it and twists it up and crushes it beneath a boot, and he sucks in a sharp, shaking breath. He doesn’t know what to do. He never knows what to do, how to bring Erik back to him. He just doesn’t know. There are tears on his cheeks but they’re entirely useless, and all he can do is hold Erik, is stroke his hair, is kiss him; all over his face, as if it might reanimate him. “Please don’t go,” he whispers, and his voice is croaked and broken, too. “Please? I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Erik, please don’t go. I’m here. I’m right here.”  
  
Erik presses his cheek into Charles's hand, his eyes opening. "'M not gone," he murmurs, smiling weakly. He's slower, somehow, but he puts his hand over Charles's, then presses a kiss to the center of his palm. He's just muting his own head down. Trying to calm himself down. It's just a storm. It will pass. "Thank you," he kisses again. "Stayin' with me. Being so nice. I'm sorry."  
  
Charles sniffles again, presses more kisses to Erik’s face, unsure if it’s doing anything but needing to do something. He squeezes his hand. “Okay,” he rasps. “What do you need from me? What can I do?” he pleads, because there must be something. He took the pain away and Erik is still hurting, and of course he is, but Charles feels so useless, everything churning inside. He doesn’t know what to do. “I want to help. I don’t want you to go. I need you.” It’s the first time he’s said it like that, but of course it’s true, of course he’s meant it before, though now it’s hoarse and raw.  
  
Erik takes Charles's hands in his and squeezes. "You have me, 'kay? Always. Let's get you into the shower and start off with your Postures, and then we can have breakfast and then we can go from there," he says, unwilling to let whatever is happening within him take precedence over looking after his submissive. He needs to be doing that.  
  
But Charles shakes his head and frowns, gripping Erik tighter. “No,” he insists.  
  
Erik looks up, rubbing his thumb over Charles's hand, still half-expecting it to twinge with pain and relieved when it doesn't. "Tell me what you are thinking. Not no."  
  
“No,” Charles mumbles again, because it’s really the only thing on his mind right now. His legs are wrapped thoroughly around Erik, like a particularly clingy octopus. An octopus also intent on nuzzling his way beneath Erik’s skin, apparently. “You didn’t sleep, did you? You need to rest, and I already took a shower,” he confesses, quietly, because Erik says first thing and apparently even sending him into the shower is something he likes to oversee. “Sleep. We can sleep.” You need me, he doesn’t say.  
  
Erik sniffles, still very raw. "But your Postures. Your routine. I'm not-I won't just-and you didn't even tell me what you dreamed about-" he shivers. He's making Charles suffer for his own pain. Bad Dominant. That's all he can think about himself right now. Even if Charles is right. Erik does need him, but-he shakes his head, too. Because he does need Charles, and he isn't sure he can be alone right now.  
  
“Later,” Charles whispers, because he knows. He knows, and he knows, and he knows. More than he ever has, he understands; he’s felt it, too, in his own body. Not just secondhand. And perhaps Erik despises that, but he’s grateful for it. There’s so much he does not know now, and this he knows. He kisses the top of Erik’s head again, tightens his legs up as if he’ll keep Erik hostage that way, as if he’s not so easily overpowered even like this. “Rest with me. Right here. Then I’ll do my Postures and I’ll explain why I was late and you can decide what to do about it, I promise. Please?”  
  
But Erik would never overpower him, he never could. He is fully ensnared, but more than that, he is tired, his body still overloaded and charged up, and he nods miserably. "'Kay," he gives in, pressing his head to Charles's chest. "Promise?"  
  
Perhaps not like this, exhausted and vulnerable in Charles’ arms. He feels exceptionally delicate in this moment, which is not something Charles ever expected Erik to be; but it isn’t offputting, either. Erik is just a person, and he is a person who has experienced far, far too much hurt. He doesn’t need all the gory details to understand that. Charles kisses the top of his head. “I promise,” he reassures, playing with the curls at the nape of Erik’s neck, stroking there, tickling softly. “I’ll even do an extra set to make up for the lateness, if you’d like. You can teach me the one I'm having such difficulty with again. Would you like that?” It’s mostly an idle question, the way he croons it. Like luring a predator into complacency, into quiet. Into sleep, which is exactly what he’s doing.  
  
And it works pretty well, too. Charles has always been good at calming Erik down, even in the worst upsets. So much of Erik's outward personality is just armor-Charles has always been privy to more, but now he's had to learn Erik in much the same way as Raven and Hank did, and there's a lot to dig through to even start to approach what a person could theoretically look like. And it's all just armor. Erik is, at his core, very sensitive and silly, with years of un-dealt with pain. But Charles always helped him, and he always will. Erik's eyes slowly close. "'Kay," he whispers back, clutching one of Charles's hands to him and pressing it into his own face.  
  
Isn’t it all just armor? None of it is ever fake, not of it is ever more real. Charles knew that when his telepathy taught him as much, and he knows that, instinctively, intuitively, now. It’s all Erik, including the vulnerable, exhausted man in his arms right now; it’s all Erik, and though some of it is surprising to Charles now, it doesn’t shock or disgust or repel him any more than it did the very first time he looked at Erik and saw. It all makes up a full, whole person, one that Charles is grateful to be getting to know, if a bit frightened to be handling. A bit out of his depth. He hasn’t felt like he’s handled it exceptionally well, like he has the tools to help - but has he ever? And so he does this, what he can, what he does know. Things like that soothe Erik. Routine, and subtle reminders. Reassurance, and comfort, and Dominance, Charles’ submission, and quiet and touch and sometimes, it seems, Charles’ voice. So he bites his lip and watches as Erik closes his eyes and he keep talking, just softly talking, things that he knows must all be nonsense.  
  
He presses his hand to Erik’s cheek, and brings one of Erik’s up, curling it around - around his collar. Because for some reason, it feels like something he should do. He doesn’t know if it’s alright or not, if it’s the right thing, but it’s what he does. “You’ll help me with my Postures when you wake up, hm? I’ve been struggling with them, you know,” he hasn’t been, honestly, but he’s been pretending to, and he’s not entirely sure if Erik has fallen for it or not, “And I do so appreciate the help. And then you’ll make sure I’m nice and dressed, won’t you? And we’ll have breakfast. I’ll make your coffee for you, would you like that? I’m learning how to make it just as you like it. I’ve been trying to learn, because I know you’re a bit particular. And perhaps I’ll try it again this morning, won’t I? Just to see? Maybe if my memories stay away, my tastes will change,” he teases, mostly to himself because Erik is mostly out, but it’s calming to him, to talk. To just talk. So he does, stroking Erik’s hair all the while. "But then again, perhaps they won't," he whispers, so quietly, so softly, and this time most assuredly to himself.  
  
Erik is mostly asleep, lulled by Charles's words which slowly begin to banish away the horrors that exist behind his eyes. The lashings of a full-whip, tearing skin apart, screaming and screaming in agony as chunks of flesh fall to the floor, electric batons on his legs sending electricity, electricity, and boots over his hands raised up _-stomp-_ _Findest du Kraft, kleiner_ , and it all slowly, slowly, carefully, with Charles's ministrations, eases and eases until he finds that spot behind Erik's ears and all of a sudden he's like an Erik-whisperer, and he's half listening because he loves to listen to Charles talk, but the images, the horrors, they're melting and leaving only Charles and the smell of coffee and soon Erik is lulled over, fast asleep. Dreaming out teaching Charles some new Postures, teaching him how to practice the ones he quote-unquote "struggles" with. And the ones he does. Erik wraps them both up , into a nice, lovely cocoon and now, now, he drops off into sleep. Lulled away by the Erik-charmer.

* * *

For once, Charles is the one who stays awake. Who keeps watch. He drifts, he thinks, but never fully falls; once or twice he finds his head bobbing, and he isn’t fighting it. There’s just something better to be doing, and that something happens to involve stroking Erik’s hair, monitoring his breathing, assuring himself that he isn’t in any pain at all. And he isn’t. He’s perfectly, absolutely pain-free, and somehow Charles knows it, but he soothes himself by checking anyway. By rubbing against tensed, overworked muscles, by kissing Erik’s head as he snores lightly, by holding him in calm, soft-dreamed sleep, not in any conscious way but by simply hoping it into being. He hums to him, occasionally, too, just little tunes under his breath. It calms him, too. It always does.  
  
Sometimes Erik mumbles in his sleep, Charles has seen it a couple of times before, mumbled German and half-asleep tears, but this time he just settles softly, and he does mumble still, but it's mostly nonsense, with Charles's hand held close to his cheek like a teddy bear. Erik's fast asleep in no time, a peaceful smile on his face as he absorbs Charles's words by osmosis, his touch, his love.  
  
It’s a word Charles has tried very hard not to think about, but there’s certainly care there. It’s impossible for there not to be, and for Erik not to notice it; the way he coos to him when he even begins to shift out of place, frowning and lulling him back to sleep, the way he stays still and lets Erik touch him even in sleep, the way he kisses his head, his cheek, plays idly with his fingers. Perhaps he isn’t ready to share a bed, but this is certainly nice. He’s glad to do it. Perhaps he wishes he’d brought a book, but there’s something interesting enough about Erik like this, and when he’s convinced he won’t wake, he searches Erik’s bedside table for reading material. Of course he finds something, and he settles down again, careful not to jostle his Dominant too much. He’s exhausted and strung out, too, his own body echoing with pain, with shivers, with feverish agony and sickness, but he knows he can’t sleep. This isn’t such a bad alternative, making sure Erik does.  
  
Erik stays asleep for as long as Charles keeps talking to him and petting him. Erik doesn't sleep for an immensely long time, a few hours at most, but he does wake naturally and shifts in Charles's arm, blinking his eyes open with a soft smile on his face. "Hi," he whispers, his voice hoarse from sleep still, accent a little thicker than normal.  
  
Charles only startles a bit, not that he’d admit to it, but he’s smiling too as he mumbles out a, “Hmmmm.” He’s halfway through a page and despite his brain’s insistence that he knows Hebrew, it still feels like it takes him an exceptionally long time reading it. Once he’s flagged his place he gives Erik his full attention, setting it aside, touching Erik’s cheek, tentative and gentle. “Hello,” he murmurs, a bit shy, a soft smile on his own lips. “How do you feel?”  
  
"Better," he whispers, so infinitely grateful not to be waking up in agony which is what happened last night. He leans his cheek into Charles's touch, closing his eyes and savoring the moment. "So much better. Thank you for taking-taking such care of me," he rasps, sincere and meaningful. Charles always did. He's the first one who ever did.  
  
“Of course. I’m just so sorry -“ But Charles cuts himself off, swallows it down. There’s no use in it. He can’t go back and change things, or somehow make himself aware. There’s only this. He strokes Erik’s hair gently instead, leans down to plant a sweet kiss on his cheek. One, then the other. “You aren’t in any pain?” he whispers, forehead creased with concern. “You promise?” He doesn’t think so, but he needs to check. To make certain.  
  
"No pain," he breathes. "I promise," Erik touches Charles's cheek in return. He practically glows from the attention, and really always has. He's not used to being doted on, even after five months with Charles, every day is a new surprise to him and he leans up to give Charles's forehead a kiss, too.  
  
Even like this, even not remembering, in some ways because of it, Charles startles and then flutters at that kiss. Smiles, his dimples greeting Erik after his nap, too, and he sighs softly and rests against his Dominant fully, still holding him, his legs still thoroughly wrapped around him. They can’t hold all of him, but he can at least try. He isn’t even aware he’s still doing it, keeping Erik close as if he’ll run off on him. “I was very cross, you know,” he whispers, his eyes closed now, his face lined with tension. “When I thought you’d hidden this. I know you didn’t. I’m sorry for accusing you. It’s just - I never want to see you suffer like that. Ever. You should never suffer like that. That’s what I’m for,” he croaks, and it’s something he’s said before, but not like this. “That’s what I’m for. You don’t suffer with me. It simply isn’t allowed.” He doesn’t mean Erik isn’t allowed to be sad, or suffer as a result of the horrible suffering he’s already experienced. But that pain? It’s unacceptable, as far as Charles is concerned. Completely, especially now that he knows it.  
  
Erik touches Charles's cheek, and then presses his own against there too. "Before I met you, I was on so many drugs I could barely function." He doesn't know if Charles actually ever knew that. They never really talked about it, except that Erik was always so strict about it. "Being high was nice, but mostly it was-this," he taps his own shoulder. The pain. "Then I met you and-it stopped being an option. But then you figured out how to do this for me." He smiles wetly. "I wasn't hiding," he promises. "I just couldn't find-" he touches his own temple.  
  
What would he have done, anyway? Screamed for him? They aren’t connected in any way. Charles can’t hear him, even though Erik sometimes seems to think he can. It riles up all that guilt and sorrow for a moment, and Charles frowns with it, his eyes closing as he falls silent and his heart aches. It really, truly aches. “I know. I’m sorry for reacting that way,” he whispers, and his breath stutters in his chest. “And I’m - I’m sorry for being late,” he adds, grateful his eyes are closed. He’s not sure if Erik will push the issue after this, but he feels shame. He wasn’t even a little later. He was a lot late, and he knows it, and now he feels it. “I should have been here to take care of you. I’m supposed to be here every morning to do that.” To serve him, and meanwhile, what was he doing? Dragging his feet for two and a half hours.  
  
"Yes," he agrees softly. Charles didn't know any better, so Erik doesn't put that on him. But he is supposed to be there, anyway. "So why were you late?" Erik whispers, still nestled into Charles's protective hold, only just now starting to feel more like himself and less like an overwrought mess.  
  
“I told you, I had a dream,” and he doesn’t mean to snap, especially now. It’s not harsh, but it is abrupt, dismissive, ruffled, where he’d only been soft and crooning before. He closes his eyes tighter, tensing up. “I don’t want to talk about it, alright? Especially not now. Please,” he begs, and he knows Erik could just Order him to, but he hopes he doesn’t. Whatever it is that kept him this morning, it’s clearly worked him up, and he’s embarrassed about it. Humiliated, really. “I shouldn’t have been late. End of story, isn’t it? I won't do it again," he whispers. "That's all."  
  
"No, OK, it is not the end of the story. You were two hours late and you refuse to tell me why, you lie to me about it, now you are snapping at me and taking an attitude again. This is unacceptable behavior, so I am giving you a chance to explain yourself on your own terms, and if you don't, then I absolutely will Order it from you and then I will decide how best to discipline you for it."  
  
But Charles doesn’t snap again. He sniffles instead, and buries his head in Erik, nudges into him until he’s thoroughly hidden, including his incredibly red face, and the tears that have gathered in his eyes. “It’s humiliating,” Charles mumbles, and Erik gets the feeling that for Charles, it really is. “And I’m - I’m sorry, I really am. I won’t do it again. I’ll be on time tomorrow, I promise. Please don’t make me tell you,” he pleads. “Please?”  
  
"I don't like secrets," Erik says. "Especially when they drastically impact the routine I have set into place for you. How can you say it will not happen again? What if you find it too humiliating tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that? What precedent does it set if I let this go, without getting a full picture of what happened, how am I supposed to take appropriate action? You are not trusting me to look after you, you changed up your routine and now will give me no acceptable reason for doing so. Saying you will do better is not good enough. Being too humiliated to face me most certainly means this will happen again and I know you know that."  
  
Charles sniffs again, his head lost somewhere in a tangle of blankets and Erik and he whines, not that he’ll ever admit it. “Just this once?” he whispers. “Just this once, Erik. I won’t ever do it again. It’s been a rough morning, hasn’t it? I’ll do my Postures twice. I won’t make any mistakes.” He’s bartering, but he knows it might be a losing battle. He knows Erik could still just Order him, but he’ll do it on his own anyway and he knows it. He just doesn’t want to. He really doesn’t.  
  
It is a losing battle, because it's not a battle at all, and Erik just raises his eyebrow. "I don't need you to never make mistakes. I need you to be honest with me when something like this happens. I care about you. I promise you that nothing you can tell me will make me think any less of you."  
  
“That’s not what I meant,” he mumbles, but he knows taking an attitude at exactly this moment isn’t his smartest move. He shakes his head, eyes firmly closed still, tense and wound up in Erik’s arms. “I’ll do my Postures correctly, I meant. And I’ll - I’ll do extra chores, I’ll be on my best behavior.” He’s still trying, but mostly because underneath this, he’s full of dread and shame. “It’s not that I, that I think you’ll - just, please. It’s too much. I don’t want to, Erik,” he sniffles, and to his credit, he sounds appropriately miserable about it. “I won’t make this mistake again. Don’t you trust me? Isn’t that enough? I’ll be better. I’ll be here early tomorrow. I will, I swear.”  
  
"No, it's not enough," Erik says. "Because this happened. And I don't believe that you won't make this mistake again because you are not even open to telling me why it happened in the first place, which makes me think exactly that it will happen again. And I know what you meant."  
  
“But-“ Another sniffle. Charles knows he should want to break away, but he just rubs his cheek into Erik’s skin. “It wasn’t my fault, okay,” he mutters, quiet and bothered, and he knows it’s incredibly childish. He can’t help it. “Didn’t ask for it to happen. It’s not my fault.”  
  
"No, but it is your choice how you react. Lying and obfuscating don't fix problems, and they certainly don't give me the confidence to take you at your word that no such thing will ever occur ever again. I'm not interested in blaming you, I am interested in you telling me what happened so that I can take appropriate action."  
  
The problem with Charles is that he’s never taken well to this, even when he has. Erik is training him, and he’s learning, but he’s prickly; he gets defensive, especially when he’s embarrassed, and his cheeks are certainly hot against Erik’s skin, a greater indicator than anything else. “You don’t need to take any action,” he mutters. “We could just take a shower and do my Postures like every morning. I could help you set up a bath, if you’d like. I was late. Fine. So what?” And he knows it’s probably a mistake as soon as it comes out of his mouth, but he doesn’t want to be having this conversation. It’s obviously making him uncomfortable. “It’s not such a big deal, is it? You've had a rotten morning. Let it be, please." And he starts to get up.  
  
"It is a big deal to me," Erik shuts him down flatly. "It is a big deal to me when you lose your temper at me for failing to let you know what happened when you did not show up for _two hours_." Every word is hard, like a hammer to a nail. "And now you are once more taking this attitude with me and telling me what to do. You don't tell me what I need to do. You will tell me the answer to the question I have repeatedly asked you since you came in here which you have failed to do so despite my giving you the chance to do so on your own terms. Anything else, I don't want to hear." He holds his hand to interrupt Charles before he responds. "Anything else, I don't want to hear about it. I want the truth and I want it now."  
  
Technically, it’s not an Order. It isn’t, but he knows how fast it can become one, and more than that, he’s appropriately cowed by Erik’s tone. By his words. He’d suffered so horribly last night, and Charles is making him deal with this? But still, for quite a while he’s silent, sniffling, perhaps beginning to cry; he knows how utterly ridiculous it is, but he can’t stop. He tries to hide it anyway, squirming until his face is buried in blankets, as if that might protect him. “I had a dream about you,” he whispers, mumbled and almost entirely muffled by the fabric.  
  
Erik wraps an arm around him again, not so willing to let him leave, to let him disappear. "A bad dream?" he whispers, trying not to let on how much the thought of that would be devastating to him, but he understands how one could be led to view Erik as a nightmarish specter.  
  
Except Charles never has, even when everyone else did. He sniffs again and shakes his head, wiggling harder like he can squirm himself right away from this, still attempting to burrow himself into the covers.  
  
Oh. Erik puts his hand on Charles's shoulder, helping him bunch the covers up if it will help. "Charles," he whispers gently. "And you avoided me because of that? You're really so ashamed?"  
  
Charles attempts to shrug that hand off, to curl further into the nest he's created for himself, squirming further and further out of Erik's arms. "That's not what happened and I don't want to talk about it and don't, alright, just leave me alone," and the last part is childish and very prickly but now he's very close to crying, thoroughly humiliated.  
  
Erik tries not to let himself feel a little hurt, but he presses onward. "So tell me what happened," he takes Charles's hand, and does Order this time, "look at me. I'm right here. We deal with things together. You said that. This-what you dreamed about, bothered you? Makes you feel embarrassed? About me? No, I won't just leave it alone. I don't want you to ever feel like that with me."  
  
“Well, I do,” he snaps, and takes his hand back, holding it protectively to his own chest. He barely looks at Erik, only as much as he has to to be looking at him, and there are quite obviously tears in his eyes. “Yes, obviously it made me embarrassed. I don’t want to have a discussion about it. Not everything has to be dealt with like this. Why are you just humiliating me? Please, I already told you,” and he turns his head when he can to take a harsh breath, to wipe his face into his arm, sitting up now.  
  
"I'm not trying to humiliate you," Erik whispers, and it's impossible to deny the hurt in his expression. "I just wasn't aware-" Erik shakes his head, and tries to make his voice even. "I just wasn't aware such a-thing, would-cause you to feel shame with me." Erik just smiles and sits up, too. "OK. We can just, just go, have a shower and do your Postures. That's-that's fine," he smiles, reflexive again.  
  
It’s not fine, and Charles isn’t moving. He’s wiping his face over and over on his arm and into the blanket over his shoulders even though he’s definitely, absolutely not crying, and he keeps his back to Erik now, his shoulders tense.  
  
Erik wraps himself up in his own blanket, cold and bereft, from where moments ago Charles had been in his arms. Charles had a dream about him that wasn't bad, and it makes him feel shame and embarrassment and humiliation and-Erik just shuts the rest of that down. Charles doesn't want to talk about it, it's too embarrassing and awful, and Erik is just making him feel worse-making him ashamed, humiliating him so-he just sits there, feeling the ringing in his ears, watching the wall vacantly.  
  
Charles sniffles to himself, because every single ounce of him wants to turn around and bury himself back in Erik, and he knows it. He feels hollow and horrid, too. He wipes at his eyes again, peeking over his shoulder and frowning. “I wanted it to be real, Erik, yeah? Alright? Very desperately. And I didn’t avoid you, I just couldn’t - I couldn’t get it out of my head, no matter what I did, and I tried, I tried and nothing worked and then it was so late and I felt so embarrassed because of me and then I came to your room and I wanted to lie so I didn’t have to, have to, and you were -“ He chokes, uncertain why he’s so worked up. “Hurting, hurting so terribly and I’d just, I’d been late because of something so inane and you suffered for it, because I had some sort of wet dream about you and couldn’t manage while you writhed about in agony and so yes, it’s humiliating and it’s awful but I wanted it to be real, it’s got - it’s got nothing to do with you,” he huffs, and by now his arms are firmly around his own waist, defensive and protective.  
  
Erik shakes his head, nudging himself closer to Charles. "It's not awful, nor is it humiliating," he whispers. "I wish you hadn't stayed away for so long. The fact that I was hurting was merely coincidental. It wasn't caused by your actions. You are a wonderful person, and there is nothing wrong with having a dream, or a fantasy, or anything else." Notwithstanding that they have shared some physical intimacy, just not a lot of it, both not quite ready yet. "We live very close together and share a Dynamic, it would be stranger if you didn't."  
  
It doesn’t make him feel any better. If anything it makes him quiet, but whatever's going on in his head is outside of Erik's reach. Charles squares off his shoulders again, hunched in and apparently very unwilling to touch Erik at all even if he needs it, making another pass at his face with his arm. “Fine, then,” he mutters, because he doesn’t want to say anything else, doesn't want to correct Erik, to argue, he just doesn't want to. “We’ve discussed it, can we move on now?"  
  
"No," Erik states firmly. "Tell me what you want to say. Don't just push away from me. I understand you are embarrassed but that does not, nor will it ever, give you an excuse to take an attitude with me."  
  
“I don’t have an attitude. I’m just done discussing this,” he sighs, and stays just as guarded, unwilling to turn into Erik’s arms, to touch him, to be touched. He tugs his blanket, the one he’d dragged from his bedroom, firmly around his shoulders, protective. “Do you want me to bring you something to eat? You probably shouldn’t be walking.” And it’s an excuse to get out of the room for a bit.  
  
"No, you are not done discussing this. Tell me what the matter is. Now." And that is an Order, because Erik is done, and his features are flat and hard and irritated now.  
  
“You keep pushing this!” he snaps, frustrated and agitated, those stupid tears gathering in his eyes again. “That’s what the matter is. Do you really want to talk about this after this morning? Do you really want to make me? Do you know how horrible and vile that makes me feel, after you spent all morning suffering from trauma memories and excruciating pain and I spent it - Just let it go! I’m done, Erik, Jesus Christ,” he hisses, and gets up from the bed, rubbing at his face, fisting a hand in his own hair. “I was trying to help. I just want to help, and forget about it. I said I’m sorry I was late. I don’t know what else you want from me. I’ve tried to move on. I don’t need you to make me feel better and tell me it’s natural because we live together, thanks much.”  
  
"No, I am finished. You had a _dream_ , instead of being honest you shirked your duties for hours and now try to shrug it off and curse at me and tell me what to do when I try and reach you, I am done. So yes, get up." Every Command is an Order, drenched in Will.  
  
Charles is already up, his hand still fisted in his hair. “That’s not what happened,” he mutters under his breath. “But why can’t you just accept that I can’t tell you? Like this? That I’m uncomfortable?” he sniffs. “I don’t want to do this right now, Erik. Not when you’re like this.”  
  
"Why do you think I can't accept it," Erik returns flatly. "Because you are unhappy and I desire to make you feel better, I know, I'm the most horrible and vile person around," he throws his hands up sarcastically. "I'm like what? I'm fine. I slept. I'm not in pain any more. Like you said, it's all finished now and we're both totally fine, and nothing needs to be addressed."  
  
“I didn’t say you were - why don’t you just listen to me!” And he doesn’t mean to raise his voice again, but he’s frustrated and worked up and he regrets it right after, the tears in his eyes falling down to his cheeks, clinging to his eyelashes. “You’re not fine. You’re not. You had an extremely difficult morning and I’m upset because I don’t want to talk about this when I know that. I don’t want to. It makes me uncomfortable, it makes me really, truly uncomfortable,” he admits, and swipes at his eyes, but it’s all honest. His voice cracks on it. “I’m embarrassed and I’ll get over it but not if you keep prodding at it. What are you even trying to accomplish? Do you know, Erik?” That’s scathing, and petty, and he bites his tongue but can’t take it back.  
  
Erik rises to his feet and points down the hall, his expression closed off, features dark and glaring. "Get in the shower," he Orders flatly.


	104. You See Me Move Back and Forth Between Posts

It’s not like he has a choice. Charles hates that he doesn’t, but at least it gets him out of the room. It’s not really what he wants, apparently, because his stomach turns over and his heart sinks and his expression crumbles even more, lip wobbling slightly, mouth opening like he’d like to say something, but he turns on his heel and he marches down the hall and he slams the door behind him, letting it vibrate on its hinges. Erik doesn’t need to hear the sniffling to know he’s crying, because his emotions are trickling out like they sometimes do, random, fierce projection, dizzying and disorienting.  
  
The door stops before it shuts, since Erik followed him. "I don't like your tone. I don't like the way you are addressing me. Apparently I don't know what I'm doing, so I am doing us both a favor. Now get in the shower and we'll continue with where we should have started hours ago. And when you're finished, we will have breakfast and I will decide what I'm going to do with this entire _lapse_ in judgment. Meet me in the kitchen when you are finished here, and do not delay." Those are Orders, too, and then Erik is gone.  
  
It takes Charles a long time to meet Erik in the kitchen. Certainly longer than it usually takes him to shower, and longer than even that. It can be written off as dallying, but it would be difficult to come to that conclusion when Charles’ eyes are clearly red from crying, when he looks exhausted, when he’s holding himself as if he’s dragging weights on both his shoulders and his body itself weighs tons. He’s wearing sweatpants, because Erik didn’t leave anything out for him like he’s been doing, because the routine is broken and shot by now anyway, out of order, his Postures long forgotten, and because he doesn’t have the energy for anything else. He hardly looks at Erik, all but ignoring him as he goes for the fridge.  
  
"Sit down," Erik says, and the Order is firm, but less irate than earlier. It's only eleven thirty, so everything isn't incredibly off-kilter, and it could still technically be considered breakfast. He sets a plate in front of Charles, along with some tea. He sits down, too, rubbing at his eyes. It's not difficult to tell that he's still not over what happened this morning, but it's in the past, now. Submerged. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," he whispers. "I thought if you talked about it with me you would feel better. I wasn't going to force you to. Eat your breakfast," he adds with a smile, patting Charles's arm even if he doesn't want to be anywhere near Erik.  
  
“You were, though,” Charles mumbles, mostly under his breath, and pushes the plate away. “I’m really not hungry. I’m sorry.” It’s not that he doesn’t want to be near Erik. It’s just that he can’t look at him right now, staring at the kitchen table instead. “You need to eat, have mine,” he adds, hoarse, and tries to muster up a smile, too. He doesn’t quite manage it.  
  
"No," Erik whispers. "I wasn't asking you to tell me in detail, about it. I just wanted to know why you were so upset. I thought it was something else. I thought you were pushing me away, and I didn't know why, and I thought I could make it better. But when you said you didn't want to, I backed off. I didn't make you go any further. I don't want you to be uncomfortable around me. I don't want to make you feel vile." Erik just shuts down, then, because he feels incredibly stupid. He feels all of a sudden like he can't breathe, like all of those memories he'd suppressed from earlier are desperately banging on the door, shrieking in the landscape and he suddenly pushes his hands into his eyes. "I just wanted to know that you were safe, and then you kept pulling away from me and I thought I-" he suddenly feels it. For the first time since he's known Charles. Like he can't talk. Because if he talks. If he opens his mouth. He's going to raze the world down.  
  
Charles is up and standing immediately, and then his arms are around Erik’s waist. He wiggles his way in until he’s pressed up tight, nuzzled against his chest, squeezing with everything he has. “No, no, no, no,” he whispers, shaking his head back and forth. “No. None of that is true. None of that is true, Erik, it’s alright. Shhh, shh. Shh. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, shh.”  
  
"I'm sorry," Erik manages through stuttered gasps. Relieved that Charles is once more touching him and horrified by his own responses, humiliated in his own right that he can't control his own feelings, on the verge of a breakdown over a bad morning. It hurts, pierces his heart, that he can't just shove it down to where it belongs.  
  
Charles knew this was happening. He knows it doesn’t make much sense, but it’s why he’d lashed out in the first place, why he’d been so upset. He shakes it off. He shakes it off and he holds Erik as tightly as he possibly can, stroking his back, touching his hand - the hand that has feeling in it again, because Erik is here, Erik is with him - touching those poor, overworked muscles, the place where pain would linger if Charles hadn’t stolen it. “Shh, it’s alright,” he promises, soft and soothing. “It’s alright, Erik, we’re alright. You’re alright. I’ve got you, now. There we are, I’ve got you. You're doing perfectly, hm? You are. It's alright. Shh, that's it, darling."  
  
Why is this happening to him. Why can't he shut them out of his mind. Why can't he-"it's OK," he tries to get himself under control. "It's 'kay. I'm 'kay, it's OK," he whispers to himself over and over again. Why won't the screaming go away. Why is it in his own voice. Erik hides his head, forces himself to breathe, slow and even and calm. The spaces in-between heartbeats.

* * *

It’s not frightening or disturbing Charles, except to inspire that same feeling of helplessness; surely, before, he handled this better? Surely he used to know what to do? He doesn’t know. He feels entirely out of his depth. Either way he carefully tugs Erik out of the kitchen, slowly, gently, until he can set them down on a couch in one of the many sitting areas this manor has, the one with the much more comfortable couch, the one they relax and watch movies on. He guides Erik’s head to his shoulder, buries his fingers in those shorter, more manageable curls, still messy from earlier. “It’s alright,” he promises. “It’s alright. I’ve got you. You’re safe. You’re here with me, and I promise that I have you.”  
  
Erik immediately turns to curl up into Charles's shoulder, his body vibrating a little with tremors as he lets himself be cocooned up in both the blanket as well as his submissive's arms. Erik is supposed to look after Charles. Erik isn't supposed to get so lost in his own mind that he neglects to even go through with his submissive's routine and he does his best not to be destroyed by that. He winces and gasps every few moments, splinters of experiences behind closed eyes desperate to be submerged, to be gone. Desperate to stop seeing what he's seeing.  
  
Charles doesn’t know what to do, really. He feels so terribly unhelpful, so horribly inadequate, but what can he do but this? What can he do but stroke Erik’s hair and touch him, do his best to ground him in this moment? He takes a shaky breath and starts to ramble again, to whisper, things he isn’t even sure are comforting. “You’re with me, aren’t you? Right here, with me. On this couch, which you’ve made very comfortable for us -” Blankets, and pillows, their own little fort. They’ve spent long evenings here, sometimes watching a film, sometimes simply talking, sometimes not much at all. Charles reading while Erik plays one of the manor’s many pianos. “And we’re safe, and we’re perfectly alright. You’re a wonderful Dominant, Erik, did you know that? You’ve been training me so well. You really have. I’m learning so much, did you know? All these lovely things you’re teaching me. I’m very lucky to have you to do that, and to have you here on this couch with me. Which, as I mentioned, is very comfortable, isn’t it? Are you comfortable? Are you in pain?” It doesn’t mean anything, it’s all nonsense, but maybe it will bring Erik here. With him, where he desperately wants him to be.  
  
"With you," Erik croaks, head burrowed firmly in Charles's chest. He's repeating things to himself in German, under his breath, his voice low and barely audible. Charles can barely hear anything at first, it sounds just like Erik is mumbling or shifting about. Dreaming, maybe. Half-snapped off reality. _Bitte herr verzeih du mir ich werde es nisht wieder tun ich liebe dich es tut mir leid, bitte, bitte, hör auf, bitte hör auf..._  
  
So Charles keeps talking, too, even though he doesn’t know if it’s helping, even if he isn’t sure if it will ever drown out what Erik currently has in his head. “That’s right, darling. You’re right here with me. On this couch, with me, and I have you. What did you make for breakfast? Will you eat something with me later? Remember yesterday, you made those pastries. Those were delicious, I thoroughly enjoyed them. You’ll make them for me again, won’t you? You’ll let me help you? I want to learn so I can make them for you, too.” Nonsense, nonsense, but it’s all he can think to do.  
  
It's not nonsense to Erik. It's the only thing keeping him tethered, even as he shivers in Charles's arm. He's not in pain, not really, but somehow he is, too. His face is screwed up. His body remembers. He's clutching his hand protectively, shivering. He's trying to climb up to the surface so Charles doesn't have to, so he doesn't have to, but someone's hand keeps gripping his head and shoving him under the water and he can't breathe. Someone's hand is on his neck. The electricity is inside of him. "No it's not," he gasps, "it's not. It's not real."  
  
It’s frightening, a bit, but only because Charles doesn’t know what to do. If he’s doing anything at all, if he’s hurting Erik in some way. So he just keeps petting, and squeezing, and stroking, kisses Erik’s cheek, the top of his head, plays with his curls. “And then, later, perhaps we’ll go for another walk in the gardens? You’ll take me? You’re doing such good work there, Erik. The plants are very lucky to have you. I’m almost jealous, all the attention you’re giving them. Will you let me read outside again? I know last time you left me like that it took me ages to come back in, but I can’t help it. There’s something about the sun and a good book that’s completely enthralling. But, really, it might be better to have a bit of a shut-in day, hm? I don’t think I’d mind too much. I could take care of you today. I have you, I really do. I’ll make you coffee, will you like that? Will it please you? I’ll make you coffee, and we’ll sit right here. I’m real, darling. It’s safe. I’m - I belong to you, yeah?”  
  
" _Mine_ ," Erik whispers at last, the first coherent response in a very long time, mired with tears. "You're mine and got sunburned but you like bein' outside and I didn't mind you were _happy_ -" he chokes off, his language skills regressed and split between many. How did this happen. He can't find his way. How can he be lost twice?  
  
Charles doesn’t mind. He’s relieved, to hear anything at all. If only some of it registers, if only some of it sticks, that’s perfectly alright to him. He kisses Erik’s cheeks again. His nose, too, for good measure. “I was happy. I’ll be just as pleased to spend a day inside with you, I should think. More blankets, perhaps? Would you like that? And lots of coffee. I’ve really perfected it, you know. Exactly as you like it. I am yours, and I did - I did shirk my duties this morning, but I won’t now. I’ll stay with you, and care for you. You’re here with me. Hm? Right here, and I belong to you, Erik. You’re alright. I’m right here, and so are you.”

* * *

Erik reaches out his hand from the fort they've made and another woven blanket drapes itself over Charles's shoulder while Erik tucks himself deeper, shivering. A plate and Charles's tea float out from the kitchen and settle themselves on the table beside, and Erik pets Charles's face, before cocooning himself back up. It's different now than it was before; different because Erik doesn't really look like anything, aside from the mumbling and shivering there's no real expressiveness on his face, there's no indication of what's going on in his mind, or even what's getting through and what isn't, just that he's vacillating between different stages of agitation. Throughout it all, though, it appears he's still trying to look after Charles.  
  
It’s difficult not to let that frustrate him for a moment, but the frustration isn’t aimed at Erik. It’s just that, between the two of them, he’s been the useless one today, and the one who failed to fill his role. Perhaps Erik can’t see it right this second, but it’s the case. So he doesn’t touch the food or his coffee, but he does wallow in it a bit; he keeps murmuring, almost completely nonsense now, but he tucks Erik into the blankets. Fusses, but makes sure not to cut him off from skin contact, because it seems that’s always helped. He’s noticed. But he props him in a more comfortable position, nudging, layers him in soft, warm things, and when a cup comes out of nowhere from the kitchen, Charles doesn’t question it. He’s not going to curse his spotty, unstable abilities when they’re working in his favor. He grabs for it and takes Erik’s hand, wraps it around the handle. It’s warm and even he can admit it smells wonderful. In theory. “Look, Erik. I made you coffee. Technically.” Something he’s sure is connected to him in some way did. Either way, he knows it’s a positive sense memory for Erik. “Can you take a sip for me, darling? Do you know who I am? Could you tell me, please?” He just needs to check in. To see how much Erik is processing.  
  
Erik presses his cheek against the cup and for a brief moment a brilliant grin peaks over his features, something replacing the chaos behind his eyes which flutter shut as he inhales deeply. " _She_ -uh," he stutters and shakes his head, the words like tripping head first into concrete. "Mine," he whispers. He drinks as he's bidden, but generally seems more fascinated by the warmth and the smell than the taste. His brain isn't exactly operating on all cylinders. Honestly, he seems peaceful like this, he's not lashing out or out of control, he's just a bit fidgety and not quite lucid, like a fever-dream. Even now, still, containing it, trying to cooperate and be easy.  
  
Charles doesn’t need easy cooperation. He just needs to know that Erik is here in some way, that there’s a possibility of him helping. He doesn’t mind the lashing out, when he knows where it’s coming from. He doesn’t mind that he’s sometimes out of control. It’s just that he wants to take care of him, and he wishes he knew how best to do it. The coffee seems to help a bit, at least. “That’s right,” he whispers back, and kisses Erik’s cheek, right where he’d pressed the warm cup moments ago. “I’m yours, that’s right. I’m your submissive and you’ve been training me.” He takes Erik’s free hand and wraps it around his collar, tugging it gently. “See? I’m wearing this. You made it for me, didn’t you? It’s very lovely.” His attention naturally gets drawn to the cuffs on Erik’s wrists, the one that someone he doesn’t remember being made. Him. “And these, hm? We’re here now. Can you tell me where we are?”  
  
Erik huffs out of his nose loudly and shakes his head. He touches the coffee mug again mournfully, wanting to return to wherever he just was. It was nice and warm and Charles was there. Not here, wherever here is. It's not the manor. Erik's nose wrinkles up and he sniffles, holding back obvious tears. "Home," he croaks, but whatever home means, it hurts.  
  
Even without his telepathy, Charles knows. It isn’t fair, and he’s sorry, but he keeps Erik’s hand on his collar, the other still wrapped around the hot mug. It’s staying warm, somehow, which Charles appreciates, if nothing else. “I know,” he sighs, and kisses Erik’s forehead. “I know. But you’re here with me, hm? We’re here? In this big house, with just me. It hasn’t been so terrible, has it? And we’re safe here. Aren’t we? We’re safe, right here, together. It’s alright. Can you come back to me, Erik?”  
  
Erik flinches a little when Charles kisses him, but then seems to melt into it; a sensory creature seeking light and warmth and drawn out where it appears. "'Kay," he answers, predictable in his effort to comply and appease, to make things better, to make them easier. He doesn't want Charles to be sad. He doesn't want him to be frustrated and alone. He's sorry.  
  
Charles sighs, but it’s not frustration. It is a bit of sadness, but there’s not much he can do about that. He rests his head on Erik’s shoulder for just a moment and he holds back every emotion he has, the urge to sniffle. “I want to take care of you,” he whispers, and it’s so quiet, it’s likely not even for Erik. It’s for himself. “But I - I don’t know how. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Erik.” He doesn’t know what’s the best, what’s right, what’s not. He just wants to help, and all he can think to do is hold Erik, to ground him. “I’m here. I’m sorry I’m not very good at this, but I’m here, and I have you. You’re alright. You’re safe. There’s no pain here.”  
  
Erik rubs his fingers against the hairs at the back of Charles's neck, skating down his shoulder and back, transmitting as much warmth and love as he can through touch. "Help," he whispers back, smiling against Charles's cheek. Charles is helping. Just being here, comforting him, it's more than enough. And Erik's doing his best to keep it all inside, to keep it all from spilling out, it's just taking a little time, that's all.  
  
But Charles doesn’t want him to. He doesn’t need him to. He doesn’t know how to properly express that to Erik like this, but he can’t pretend he doesn’t delight at the touch, shiver at it. “It’s alright, Erik. It really is. It’s alright to feel this,” he whispers, rubbing his cheek against Erik’s because it feels - it feels nice, like the right thing to do. He can’t help it. “It’s alright. I can just stay like this today, if you’d like. I can stay here and remind you. You’re safe. You’re looked after, too, yeah? I’m here. You’ve almost finished your coffee, would you like another? Your blood is likely coffee-colored, you know. You drink so bloody much of the stuff, I worry for you. But I won’t say a thing of it today. I could make you something light for your stomach later. Perhaps I’m not a master in the kitchen, but I think I can manage soup and some bread. We could put on some music, or a film. You’ll let me tend to you today, won’t you?” Because Charles needs to, as much as he thinks Erik needs it.  
  
Erik's nose wrinkles up at Charles, his eyes squinting open barely a crack. "Coffee," he snorts, a thrilling commentary of its own, but there's amusement there, too. It does feel nice, and Erik certainly doesn't shy away from it, only tensing up every once in a while. Letting go, letting it out this way, it isn't right. It isn't fair, it isn't what he is supposed to do, but everything is just so much, and it keeps piling on. There's no reprieve, no break, just more and more and more of it, every memory in vivid technicolor; memories returned and ones long ingrained and it hurts to move. It hurts to breathe. Maybe there's never been pain in the organic sense but it's all Erik can feel. When Charles moves away even momentarily Erik shrinks and covers his face. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "So sorry."  
  
That’s not a problem, really. If Erik suffers when Charles moves away, he simply won’t move. He’ll stay right here. He leans Erik right against him again, rubs his cheek along his Dominant’s, runs his hand through his hair. “Shh, there’s nothing to apologize for. I’m meant to tend to you, aren’t I? It’s my duty? What I’m meant to do? Let me, then. I’ll make up for this morning, shall I?” And he’s incredibly grateful when he looks over at the table and realizes there’s another cup of coffee already waiting, and who knows how that happened, but it looks especially warm and equally fragrant, and he takes it and wraps Erik’s hand around it, replacing the old one. “More coffee, see? And we’re in a perfectly comfortable spot, and we’re very safe. Things are alright, darling. Do you need more blankets? More pillows? What would you like, Erik? Anything at all. I’ll be here for you today.” He’s here for Erik every day, or he should be. But today he can be especially doting, one of those submissives who anticipates and tends to even the simplest things. He doesn’t think it sounds terrible at all.  
  
Erik dips his finger in the coffee and pokes it against Charles's lip playfully, still shaking, still unsettled and vaguely unhinged, but doing his best to reassure his submissive. "Safe," he whispers. "Comfy. Blankets." He sounds like he's about two seconds from breaking down, but valiantly hangs on, letting his eyes close again. Things are all right. It's safe. Warm. "Hurts," he mumbles forlornly. "Too big. No space."  
  
"What do you mean, darling? What's too big?" He whispers it so softly, as softly and gently as he can; not because Erik is fragile, but because right now he is, a bit, and that's alright. Everyone is fragile sometimes. He continues on stroking Erik's hair, letting him hold his coffee, keeping the blankets wrapped nicely around the other side of him so he isn't cold, or uncomfortable. "You're alright. Let me fix it. What do you need, hm?"  
  
It's not often that Erik is fragile like this, really like this, but right now it's clear to see that he is. He taps his own temple, swallowing roughly. "Bad thoughts. Bad feelings." He doesn't know how to make it go away. How to fix it. He knows how to go away. He knows how to cut it out. But every time he tries it just makes everything worse and Charles doesn't like it. How could he ever possibly fix it? It's too big. Too much.  
  
It isn’t so much about fixing it is as it about acknowledging that it’s there in the first place, and Charles can do at least that much. He can make space for it. “That’s alright,” he murmurs, scritching behind Erik’s ear. “We can just stay here, and let it run its course. I’ll help you manage it. It’s not too big, darling, and if it is, there’s plenty of space in this house. Just let it breathe. We’re alright. You’re doing perfectly, just breathe for me. Let me help.”  
  
"No, no," Erik shakes his head vigorously. "I don't want it anymore. Don't want it. Time to go away. Bye-bye." He rests his head on Charles's shoulder, leaning into his fingers. "It's OK."  
  
“It’s not alright, Erik, and that’s okay. It is. I don’t mind sitting here with you, don’t you know that? It doesn’t bother me. Look, I even have tea.” It’s a bit cold now, and grabbing for it and still keeping a grip on Erik is difficult, but he attempts it. “Now we both have warm drinks, and plenty of blankets. It’s nice, isn’t it? Is there anything else you’d like?” Charles knows he keeps asking, but it’s with the hope that Erik will ask for something. Something he can provide. Until then, he’ll at least make himself available. Let Erik know he is.  
  
Erik touches Charles's lips gently with his fingertips, a silent entreaty for him to drink, and eat, and help Erik take care of him, too. "Not mad?" he whispers, sounding incredibly more vulnerable than Charles has ever really heard him.  
  
Charles isn’t very hungry, and living off tea isn’t the healthiest, but fortunately whatever abilities he has are showing themselves off now. He tries not to be bitter about their inability to do so every other time, but either way, there’s a glass of water on the table, too, and some pastries from the other morning. “I’m not even a little mad,” he promises, and kisses Erik’s forehead again. “I’m happy to be here with you, doing this. It’s what I’m supposed to be doing, isn’t it?” He reaches for the water and presses it gently to Erik’s lips. “Drink for me, please?”  
  
Erik does, but presses his hands against his face for a long while, swallowing roughly and trying not to cough. "H-" he tries to talk, but it dies in his throat and he just rests his head back on its perch in the crook of Charles's shoulder. Seeking more contact, more touch, more connection. Charles is happy. Happy. He wraps it around himself like armor.  
  
“Happy,” Charles agrees, guessing, mostly, but even without his telepathy he’s intuitive, and he’s tuned into Erik. He kisses the top of Erik’s head. “We’re doing just fine, here. It’s warm, isn’t it? And comfortable? And we’re safe, and I have you. There’s nothing wrong with sitting here while you sort through things. Don’t push it all back, darling. Let it breathe. I’ve got you. I’m going to take care of you. You know who I am, hm?”  
  
Nodding, Erik reaches up once more and touches Charles's face, an anguished expression on his own. It's the encouragement he needs, but the air is palpable with it in every exhale; drenched in fear and sweat and sickness. He puts his palm over Charles's heart, drifting through several iterations of jarring, painstaking experience that seems to have stolen his voice from him for the time being. But he knows. He's never forgotten Charles, even at his absolute worst, and Charles is always safe with him.  
  
Charles certainly doesn’t doubt that. It’s just that he doesn’t want Erik to drift too far, to get so lost in these experiences that he can’t be pulled back; it’s a fear Charles can’t help but have, but he attempts to tuck it neatly away, to focus on grounding Erik through this. All he does is kiss Erik’s head again, touch him, play with hair, winding a curl around his finger. “We’re safe,” he assures again, for both their sakes. “We’re alright. Just breathe for me, Erik. Just breathe nice and slow, and let it breathe, too. I’m right here. I’ll just sit right here and I’ll hold you and I’ll make sure you’re tended to. I’m your submissive, aren’t I? It’s my job."  
  
It's like being sick, except Erik has no immunity to this, to just feeling something, and the more it goes on the more he finds himself defaulting to his basics, to disappearing, to pushing it down and getting rid of it. He can't tolerate distress because he is not accustomed to feeling it. When it happens it gets ruthlessly partitioned. He doesn't know why this is happening now and it's confusing and alarming and embarrassing. Erik's eyes remain wide and fixed on Charles, watching every movement. Feeling the walls around them, the white walls, the equipment. They're here together. It won't end well. Everything is mashed up. "Mashed potatoes," he sighs sadly.  
  
That one, admittedly, throws him. Charles’ forehead creases with it, his brow furrowed. “Mashed potatoes?” he asks, quietly. He doesn’t know what’s happening inside of Erik’s head, but he knows he wants to be here. He wants to help. To serve. To be what Erik needs, and tether him through this. “We’re alright. It’s safe, and you’re okay. Look,” he whispers, and squeezes Erik’s hand, as if it might prove it to him. "Feel it? Yours," he murmurs, and that's a bit shy, but he can't help that.  
  
"Mashed potatoes," Erik says woefully. He touches his head. Inside his head is mashed potatoes, mixing the past and present and future into a big potato all whisked up into a big blob. Too big for him to ever really comprehend. He could never let Charles in on these things. He could never reveal these things. Not to Charles. Sweet Charles who he loves so much, who he needs to protect from the horrors. Such horrors. He can't let them breathe. He can't talk about them. He can't ever expose another, not his lovely submissive, to such disgust and treachery.  
  
“Oh,” Charles breathes. But how can he explain how he feels to Erik? He bites his lip, hard, and rubs his cheek against Erik’s, finding it comforts him, too. “Do you like it when I’m sad, Erik?” he whispers. He knows it’s out of the blue, but he thinks he can help Erik process this way. “Don’t you want to do everything to help? And you get frustrated, you get upset with me when I don’t give you the tools to help with that. Erik, if you don’t talk to me, how will I help? I want to help. It makes me sad when I can’t help like I’m meant to.”  
  
Erik feels his whole face collapse in pure, unadulterated agony. "But-" he gasps, practically wheezes. "Can't talk. It's bad. Make you sad. Bad things. They hurt me and so many bad things and hurt and don't wanna, you hear about it, and... too much," he rasps, tears in his eyes.  
  
“Not too much,” Charles promises, and stays as calm as he possibly can seeing Erik dissolve like this. He continues to touch, to stroke that place that makes Erik melt, the one behind his ears; takes deep, slow breaths for both of them. “It’s not too much, Erik. It’s alright. You can’t trap all of this inside you. It’s making you sick. It would make anyone sick. That makes me sad, Erik. It makes me sad, I want you to be well. Let it breathe, darling, please. Breathe and let it breathe.”  
  
Erik struggles internally for a long time, warring with himself, and burying himself back in his safe cocoon in the meantime. Still-calmed even riled up like this by Charles's feather-light touches behind his ears. "Hurt me," he whispers at last. "Remember he hurt me. Pain," he croaks, barely audible. "Don't like memories. Don't like. It's sad to hear. Don't wanna make you sad." It's woeful.  
  
But Charles wants to hear, even if it hurts. “Shh, it’s alright,” he whispers, still gently scratching at that one spot. Holding Erik close, kissing the top of his head. “I want to hear. It might make me sad, Erik, but it will also make me - it makes me feel good, to help you. I don’t like seeing you suffer alone. I don’t like it,” he whispers. “And you’re doing so brilliantly, letting me help you. It makes me happy to help you, to care for you. It’s what I need, yeah? I know he hurt you. I know. And I’m here, and I can help. I’ve got you, I promise.”  
  
Erik shudders, swallowing roughly. "I don't like water," he crushes his eyes shut. "He put water on my head," he whispers. "He put electricity in the water and electricity in me and used me every way you can hurt humans. So I stop caring about being hurt-" he stutters, tears dripping down his cheek. "Not human. I don't care about pain anymore? Don't care," he whispers. "Just the bad things I did. Not the pain. Not the pain."  
  
Something in Charles goes cold, but he takes a breath, swallows it down, and kisses the top of Erik’s head. “You are human,” he whispers. “And you’ve been hurt so very, very much. I know it matters. I know you care, but you couldn’t because -“ He tries not to sniffle. Not to show how much it affects him. “Because there was so much of it. But you’re safe now, Erik. With me. It’s alright to be frightened, and it’s alright to feel it, to recognize how absolutely horrible it was, but you are safe now. And you will never be hurt like that again. Never. I won’t let it happen. For the rest of your life you will never feel pain like that. Only this. Do you feel comfortable? Warm?”  
  
He nods miserably, burrowed deep inside of Charles's chest and covered in blankets, wrapped in his arms, he's still shivering a little, but it's mostly disoriented. He tries to stop crying, to wipe his tears. "Sorry I made you sad, made you sad," Erik whispers in his barely audible croak. It breaks his heart that the simple reality of Erik's life makes Charles feel cold and sad and affected, that he has to feel like that. "I never stop to think about it," he gasps. And it's true, really. Erik has some specific triggers, but considering the myriad of events where he just experienced pain? Experienced humiliation? Irrelevant. There's so much of it, if he ever-he would die, he's sure of it. If he ever allowed himself to feel the full impact of everything it would kill him. "I don't think it matters, I hurt people too," he admits softly. "I don't deserve your kindness." He sniffles.  
  
“You do,” he argues immediately, holding Erik tighter, giving soft, grounding little kisses, wherever he thinks to plant them, wherever he can reach. “You do. It doesn’t matter, Erik, you didn’t deserve it. None of it. You have to know that. What you suffered, all that you suffered - you didn’t deserve it, and you’re allowed to, to feel that. That horror. You are. I’m here. It’s safe with me. It’s safe, and I have you, and I’ll take care of you. I promise.”  
  
Erik can't, though, he can't do this, he can't-his head shakes and he shakes and he immediately hides himself back in Charles. It's too much. It's too big. There's no space. "Yes I did," he barely manages to get out. "I should have been honest with you f-from the start so you know what-kind of person I am and you-would-" Erik shakes his head. He can't go on. He was alone for a million years and his mind forgot itself but he's been slowly put back together and with it comes everything else. Everything.  
  
“I know what kind of person you are,” Charles whispers, and kisses Erik’s cheek. There’s a pause, but it certainly isn’t hesitation. He buries his face in Erik’s hair. “I don’t need to know the details to know what kind of person you are. You didn’t deserve it. You’re the person I belong to, Erik, and even if I don’t remember, I know -“ His voice breaks. He takes a harsh breath. “I know,” he repeats, so quietly. “You didn’t deserve it. Not a moment of it, a second, even the thought of it. Please don’t say otherwise. Please. I’ll tell you that as many times as I need to, but please.”  
  
Erik shakes his head again and bundles Charles back up in his arms, a comfort to himself or to his submissive he couldn't tell. But it's certainly not a secret any longer that he's the one soothed by it. He can't talk any more, he can't say any more but Charles knows, nonetheless. He's a criminal. He belongs in jail. He doesn't deserve to feel sadness. He doesn't argue, he doesn't talk back, though. He knows Charles is saddened by it even like this, fevered and delirious, and doesn't want to hurt him. "'Kay," he whispers back softly, petting Charles's face. He's very pretty and nice, much nicer than anything else inside of him.

* * *

How can he say he isn't affected, that he isn't saddened, when he is? When it aches inside of him, including the fact that he knows he doesn't even know the half of it? Charles doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to reassure Erik, how to comfort him, how to encourage him; he just doesn't feel like he knows anything, and the helplessness wells up inside but it isn't the time for self-pity. "Do you think I'm an awful person, Erik?" is what he eventually whispers. "That I'm undeserving of love, or comfort, or peace?"  
  
Erik kisses Charles's fingertips and presses his palm against his face, shaking his head again. Charles deserves the most love, the most comfort, the most peace. Erik will dedicate his life to ensuring that Charles has it, no matter what obstacles lie in the way. "We're not the same, _neshama_ ," he croaks mournfully.  
  
"Aren't we?" he asks, quietly. "Look where we are, Erik. Right now. Look where we are, what's going on around us. Aren't we? I don't - I can't say I'll ever - but look, please. And then tell me again that we aren't."  
  
Erik nuzzles against Charles's hand. He doesn't know what Charles is referring to, he doesn't even really know where they are right now, but he _does_ know the truth of his own words, and they remain even if he can't speak them aloud.  
  
"Perhaps we're not the same," he concedes, and he strokes Erik's cheek, because he's learned by now how much contact comforts him. Soothes him, like this. "But aren't there similarities? Erik, I forgot everything. Everything. It's just gone. Does that seem like I was coping particularly well to you? These things are too big. They are. They feel as if they don't fit. But there is space for them. Unless you think I won't ever heal? That I'm just hopeless, that I don't deserve to not feel frightened and confused?"  
  
Erik's eyes flutter at the contact. "No," he whispers softly. They do have similarities, of course. Charles experienced a great deal of pain and still does, and that certainly doesn't mean he isn't entitled to heal or struggle with his emotions. "You're good person," he smiles gently. "Not hopeless." There's just no denying that Erik doesn't believe the same is true of himself.  
  
"Then why don't you believe that of yourself, Erik? Don't say it's because you're a bad person. You aren't. You weren't. You don't believe that because you were made not to believe that," he whispers, and his own eyes flutter for just a moment. They're glassy when they open, but there's that quiet fierceness that Charles often exudes. "And don't you think I was in the exact same place? We're here because something - because I wasn't properly processing things, yes. But we're also here because you weren't." It's a statement of fact, even if he can't know. He knows. "I think - I think we're a pair, Erik. And it's not just me who needs to heal, but you can't even begin to do that until you admit to yourself that you deserve it." And neither can he, really. "You're not hopeless, either. You won't ever be. Don't you think that, I won't allow it." And that's final.  
  
Erik shrugs, and it's clear he's consciously not arguing, not responding, not wanting to rock the boat or create conflict. "OK," is what he whispers, smiling again, just as gentle as before. Hoping that maybe whatever is happening with him will quiet down and submerge so he can get back to what is important to him; focusing on what matters to him, which is decidedly not how much of a bad guy he really is. He doesn't know how to process it. He never has. It's too big, and too much. He doesn't think there's ever going to be a way for him as he is now to genuinely believe that he deserves anything. Charles needed his entire mind wiped to even start the process of healing. Erik is sure he probably needs a lobotomy, or worse.  
  
Charles' face falls, but he tries not to be discouraged. He tries not to feel disheartened. He doesn't know what angle to take from here. He doesn't know what else to say. He's at a loss, and it is frustrating, but not because of Erik. "If you don't face this," he whispers, "We won't get out of here, Erik. I really don't think we will. Because I can't heal without you healing, too." Perhaps it's not the most delicate way to put it, but perhaps that time has passed.  
  
"I dunno how!" Erik blurts, turning his head away to bury it in the couch cushion so he doesn't have to cope with seeing Charles's frustration and disappointment at him. "I, I talk about it, I said everything, I, I sit here, I'm just _sitting here_!" he gestures roughly at himself and hits himself in the chest with the back of his hand. He sits up, hunching in on himself, shivering.  
  
"Erik," Charles breathes, and it's soft, and crooning, and gentle. He carefully, slowly scoots closer again, wraps Erik up as best as he can, blankets and all, takes his hand in his. Takes the coffee cup and places it on the table, so he can hold both. It's a little for contact, a little to keep Erik from hurting himself. "It doesn't just go away. It doesn't just happen. You have to sit here. Every time this happens, you have to sit here, and let it. You can't force it away. You can't force yourself not to feel. It hurts, doesn't it?" His eyes are visibly glassy again, but he just can't help it. "It hurts awfully. I know, darling. It doesn't feel nice. But you have to sit here with it, or it will always be just too big. You're doing wonderfully, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry it's such wretched work."  
  
"I don't care!" Erik sniffs. "And you're wrong, everyone is wrong, everybody always telling me what they think about it, you don't know! You don't know, you never _killed_ anyone. You never hurt anyone. Why would you know! You never tortured anybody. You never ruined anyone's life! You gotta just get over, and admit you like an evil guy." He jabs his finger at Charles. "I'm so sad. It's stupid! I don't care anymore. I'm over it. Everybody else gets to cry. Not me."  
  
Charles reels back, but he’s not frightened. He’s startled, and horribly shocked, but not frightened. He sucks a breath through his teeth and doesn’t wilt, not now. “You’re not. You’re not over it, and you won’t ever be, because you are a good person who was forced to do terrible, horrific things and you will just need to admit that. And you will, Erik. I will be here, the whole time, while you do. Because you deserve it, and I do not like an evil guy. I belong to a brilliant man who had everything stolen from him, including himself.”  
  
Erik brushes Charles's shoulder, his teeth chattering in the aftermath of his outburst. He's sorry. He didn't mean it. (He did, though.) It's been building inside of him for months, always suppressed, always pushed down, to the side. Listening to people's opinions, listening to people tell him about it, but they don't know. Whoever he was before Mr. Shaw found him, he isn't that person anymore. Sometimes the only thing keeping him from going on a violent rampage is Charles. He still wants to kill. He still wants to hurt people. He made those choices long after the excuse of childhood had worn off. Long after he knew better. The fact that he was hurt, too? Meaningless. Purely meaningless. The fact that he was tortured and violated means nothing. It's not even fair to call it that. Not to the people he harmed. And he knows he is not the only person who feels that way.

* * *

But Charles doesn’t, and never will. He takes the hand on his shoulder and he squeezes it. “You were harmed beyond anyone’s comprehension, Erik, I cannot even...” he whispers, trailing off. “And you survived. You survived. And that is all anyone, anyone at all, could have asked of you. But you can do more than survive now, if you forgive yourself for what you had to do to make it this far. I know. Not firsthand, not from experience. I know my saying it means nothing. But you deserve this. To survive this, too. The pain of it.”  
  
Erik does what he's always done, though, and shoves away the last remaining thought that comes up when Charles says those words, because it isn't fair and it isn't right and he doesn't care, not really. He has more than he could possibly have hoped for. He is so grateful to have what he has now, that the idea of dwelling on past suffering seems almost inconsequential, so incredibly silly. He would endure it all again if it meant he got to live the life he is living now. Even if he is confident that a good person, a moral person, would have opted not to live. His mind is being pulled apart in too many directions like pieces of meat pulled off the bone, ground up and chewed out. "You're kind," he whispers instead, squeezing Charles's hand back.  
  
“No, I’m -“ Charles takes a slow breath, letting the frustration melt right back out of him. It’s not aimed at Erik. It’s never aimed at Erik, but it’s creeping up, and up, and up. “I’m not. I’m not kind, Erik.”  
  
"You are," Erik whispers. "To me." Erik touches his face again. He didn't mean to make Charles frustrated again.  
  
He isn’t frustrated, but he is, and he shakes his head. He doesn’t say it, but he shakes his head, and closes his eyes, and holds Erik. Everything else he could possibly say is clogged up in his throat because surely he used to be better at this, used to know more, used to be able to help. But it’s still not the time for self-pity, so Charles just hides his face and holds Erik, at a loss what else he could possibly do besides just to be here.  
  
"I don't know how forgive myself," Erik whispers softly. "I don't know how, admit I'm a good person who, deserve healing." His English is fractured, affected, splitting into half-German and half a mash of nonsense. "I don't feel it. I dont-how to feel it. How to process. To even talk the worst of it. My mind is all jumbled up, mixed up," he rasps. "I don't know how to heal. How to sit and feel this. I can't breathe. I can't stop thinking of things that happened. I keep it inside so you don't hear and don't make you sad. I can't stay here good. My mind is all, spilled open and-" his eyes press shut, leaking tears. Charles never used to be better at this, because this-Erik has never let himself feel like this, not for more than moments at a time. "How can I say I am hurt when I did it too. I'm just bad like _Herr_ Shaw. I'm evil." So how come he can't stop remembering the stench and the sweat and the fear and the rooms and fierce-strong hands at the back of his neck and water in his mouth and electricity, and searing strips of flesh ripped from his back and crushed, crushing, suffocating, immobile, and Erik can't breathe, he can't breathe. He's wheezing, taking in short, desperate breaths that sound like his throat is closing up. "Can't-" he covers his mouth, making a low, whining, keening noise as he tries to take in air without success.  
  
Charles is there. Charles is there, and he takes Erik’s hand away from his mouth, rubs at his back, puts a hand on his face. “You can breathe,” he promises, and tries desperately not to show panic at all himself, to be calm and to be steady and to be here. “You can breathe, Erik, see? Breathe with me, darling. I want you to take in a deep breath and then let it out nice and slowly, can you do that? You’re doing wonderfully, it’s alright. It’s alright. You’re doing so well, just take a nice, deep breath with me. We’re just breathing, that’s the very first step. Just breathing. I know you can do this, you help me all the time when I do Postures. In, and then out, Erik, hm?”  
  
Erik shakes, trembles in Charles's arms and he doesn't seem to see or hear Charles at all, taking shaky, impossible breaths and letting Charles move him and touch him, but he can't catch his breath. He can't make it stop, the only thing he can do is lean against Charles and wheeze in short, soft huffs. He doesn't deserve to feel this, but he can't stop. It's not a feeling anymore. It's not a jumble of memories anymore. It's the smell of sulfur in the air like cloying incense and Erik is locked behind that vacant expression, shivering and wheezing and crying.  
  
There’s nothing he can do but this. Charles holds him, and rocks him, murmurs soft, nonsense things. Reminders to breathe. Reminders of “in and then out, Erik, lovely,” even when Erik wheezes or his breath gets caught. He touches him wherever he can, grounds him. It’s all he can do, but at least he’s doing it. “I’m here,” he promises, his own voice croaked. “I’m right here. There it is, Erik, let it out. I’m here. I have you. You’re safe, you’re so perfectly safe, and you’re doing so well. There we are. Breathe for me, darling.”  
  
The difference from this morning is that Charles is here, and instead of being in writhing pain, Charles is soothing Erik, and keeping him company. On his own he'd been an empty shell, floating far away and divorced from the emotions if not the images, but it's like a connection has been made and Erik can't stop it, and it gets thrown onto Charles because he can't even speak, agony and grief and loss. Terror, wrongdoing, he made a mistake, made a mistake, Erik whispers under his breath in Russian.  
  
Even if he’s not privy to Erik’s mind, Charles knows there are awful things happening in there, but necessary things, too. It aches, but sometimes what’s distinctly painful is what’s needed. And all he can do now is hold Erik through it; is rock him back and forth, stroke his hair, whisper the same nonsense from before. That Erik is alright, that he’s safe, that Charles has him. He feels inadequate, he feels incompetent, he feels like he’s not at all what Erik needs because how could he be, but he’s here. He’s here and he’ll hold Erik through it.  
  
Erik keeps himself huddled into Charles's arms, and doesn't know how long it goes on for, emotions feeding into images and delirium and flashbacks that leave him breathless and his cheeks tear-stained and his body worn out on adrenaline and fear. Erik is whimpering under his breath, silently screaming with the tiny-self inside of him, noises trapped in his throat. Charles's shirt is covered in snot and tears and drool, and Erik just keeps rubbing his face into the same spot, shuddering. So sorry.  
  
However long it is, Charles doesn’t stop talking. He doesn’t stop rocking Erik, and murmuring softly to him. Kissing the top of his head, stroking his hair, not minding at all as he’s covered in snot and tears. He reaches for tissues on the coffee table and gently swipes at Erik’s face, uses his fingers to wipe away the rest of the tears and doesn’t mind that he’s a bit drenched. “Shh, shh,” he hushes, and pushes the hair back from Erik’s forehead, kisses it. “There’s nothing to apologize for. You’ve been brilliant, darling. It’s alright. You’re safe and I’m right here. Just keep breathing for me, can you do that?”

* * *

"Nn," Erik moans unsuccessfully, wounded, and burrows deeper into his Charles-induced cocoon. After who knows how long, Erik seems to quieten down, settled, eyes closed as his body succumbs to exhaustion even as he keeps whispering half-delirious, dream-state things under his breath, shivering every once in a while. Half-awake, half-asleep, warm, it slowly eases off, because it's physically impossible for Erik's body to sustain whatever's happening inside of him any longer.  
  
It’s frightening, not knowing what’s happening. If there’s more he should be doing, if there’s more that he did, before this. If there was a routine and a procedure to this, too, something he’s lost. But in the end, some of that panic edges away, too; what more could he do but this? He keeps Erik resting against him, despite the weight, finds it comforting after a while, continues to stroke his hair, murmurs half-coherent things himself, soft little nothings to combat whatever it is that Erik is hearing, that he’s mumbling to himself. He’s been doing it this whole time. Charles is tired, too, but it isn’t showing. Right now he is here for Erik. He cleans up his face, wraps them up more completely in their blankets, makes certain there is a pillow everywhere there should be. He promised he would sit here while Erik sat with this, and he is. He will. “You’re alright, darling,” he whispers. “You’re alright. You’re safe. You’re with me.”  
  
"Charles," he whispers sleepily, his voice rough but coherent. He rubs Charles's neck and hair between his fingers blearily and tucks in even closer. "With you."  
  
“Erik,” Charles breathes back, and can’t help shivering himself at the touch. He’s sensitive, and it’s nice, after everything. It’s grounding for him. “How are you doing, darling? Hm? What do you need?”  
  
"Hug," Erik sniffs, pressing his cheek against Charles's. It's one of the first and only things he's asked for, to be close, to be touched, to be reminded that he's a person.  
  
“Of course,” Charles whispers immediately, wraps his arms tighter around Erik, rubs their cheeks together again and doesn’t mind that Erik’s is still faintly damp. He hasn’t let go of him once, not this whole time. “For as long as you need. Could you drink some water for me?” He reaches for it with one hand, gently brings it to Erik’s lips. “Just a sip.” He’s fully intending to stay right here, to tend to Erik. Fully dedicated to it.  
  
"Nnn," Erik bats it away lightly. Last time didn't go so well, either. Erik is usually good about eating and drinking, but now he's avoidant, his mind skittering away like marbles under a door. "Hug," he whispers again, giving Charles's nose a tap. Hugs are much better.  
  
Perhaps, but water is important when Erik just cried his lungs out for what seems like a good hour, at least. Charles brings the glass back up, insistent. “Just a sip, please? For me? Then we’ll settle right back in for a cuddle,” he promises, cheeks faintly pink at his own words, but it’s what he wants, too. That comfort. That reassurance that Erik is still here.  
  
Blowing a raspberry, Erik quickly snatches the cup and takes a quick, almost nonexistent sip before settling back into Charles's arms with a shy grin. He's not exactly back to normal, but his mind has shifted somewhere, no longer crying, not exactly lucid, but clearly more playful than earlier.  
  
It’s comforting to see it. It makes Charles feel better, and he smiles softly, shaking his head. “That doesn’t exactly count,” he murmurs, but he accepts it, taking a long sip himself before settling into Erik’s arms. He did promise they would settle down for a cuddle. “We can stay right here, if you’d like. I have you,” he promises again. “Maybe in a bit we can take a bath.” Because sending Erik into the shower alone sounds like a mistake, but he doesn’t say so. “And you’ll try to eat something soon, won’t you?”  
  
Erik shakes his head vigorously to both suggestions. "Cuddle," he mumbles contentiously, tweaking Charles's nose again and making sure he drinks and eats, too, because even like this that's important. "Love you," he whispers, and tucks himself into Charles's arms, making little sounds under his breath as if to soothe himself.  
  
Charles’ throat feels horribly clogged all of a sudden, tight and scratchy. He swallows around it and the prick of tears in his eyes, and holds Erik. He doesn’t need to eat, and he’s had enough to drink. What matters is Erik, and he refuses to be swayed on that. “I’ve got you,” he croaks. “But you’ll need to eat soon, alright? Can you please do that for me? I won’t make you get up, we don’t need a bath, but I really need you to eat for me, Erik. For me. You’ll let me tend to you, hm? Like I’m supposed to?”  
  
Another head-shake. " _Lo, lo_ ," he laughs. "And you're mine so you gotta hug me and that's all," Erik says with a tone of finality, giving him a kiss on the forehead. No bath time, no eating, no drinking, just hugging and probably being dehydrated, which is very likely since Erik pretty much cried more than he's ever honestly cried... _ever_ , really.  
  
It’s what Charles is worried about, really. He’s grateful Erik doesn’t seem in the right mind to Order anything, because he sits up shortly after, reaching for the water again. It seems to have refilled itself, which is beyond strange, and he doesn’t understand it, but he won’t question it right now. “No, I’m yours which means I need to - to take care of you,” he settles on, though it quite obviously wasn’t the first thing that came to mind. “Another sip, please. You really need it, and then some food. There are pastries here, the ones you like. And we know they’re edible, because I didn’t make them,” he teases, as lightly as he can.  
  
Erik huffs, but obliges as quickly as he can, taking a single drink and a bite of one of the pastries before deciding that is plainly good enough and busying himself focusing on what is really important, which is burying himself as deeply and solidly in Charles as he can. "Don't wanna," he mumbles. He doesn't mean to be uncooperative. He's not... really in a normal frame of mind, right now, and he seems to be upset at his own behavior, quickly drinking the rest of the water and stuffing a few pastries in his mouth after a few moments, even though it looks like he wants to throw up.  
  
Charles’ eyes widen, his heart stuttering in his chest. Quickly he gathers Erik back up, petting his hair, cradling him against his chest, his own eyes closed. “It’s alright, Erik,” he soothes. “It’s alright. You didn’t have to - I’m sorry,” he whispers, quiet and trying not to sound frightened, to sound sick, to sound taken aback, even if he’s a little of all those things. “It’s alright. I just wanted you to feel better, that’s all. I wanted to take care of you, I...” He doesn’t know what to do. This is an Erik he’s never seen, and he doesn’t know what to do, really, but he knows he feels guilty. He’s not even sure why. “I’m sorry,” he repeats.  
  
Erik pets him and drinks more water. See? Charles is taking care of him. He's being nice, and good, and it's Erik that's messing everything up and changing everything and he didn't even take care of Charles today, he didn't even do anything except sit here and cry, and he sniffles; but he's too cried out to even well up. It's OK. It's all OK.  
  
“It’s alright,” Charles whispers again, and tries not to show any uncertainty at all. Any faltering. Erik needs him now, and he wants to be here. He isn’t nearly enough, and he feels distinctly inadequate, but he’s trying. He takes the glass so Erik isn’t sick and sets it down, wipes at Erik’s face and settles him against his shoulder again, stroking his hair. “We’re alright. Thank you, Erik. What else do you need? What can I do?” He tries not to sound desperate.  
  
Erik leans into the touch, smiling to himself. "Just hug," he whispers. "It's OK. Promise," he insists, and it's real, absolutely real. "Just hug, promise," he repeats, soft. There's nothing inadequate about this at all, as much as Charles feels it might be because he's just holding Erik and talking to him, but that's all Erik needs. And he is so incredibly grateful for it. "Just hug, and stay with me, please don't go," Erik warbles a little, throat closing off.   
  
It’s just that Charles feels like it isn’t, but what can he do but listen? Isn’t he supposed to listen? So he nods, and does as he’s told. He hugs Erik, and touches him; plays with his hair, kisses his cheek. “I’ll stay right here,” he promises, quietly, fiercely. “I won’t go anywhere. We’ll stay right here and I’ll make sure you’re safe, alright?” If it’s all he can do, then he can at least promise to do that and mean it. They don’t have to move at all.  
  
"Promise?" Erik whispers back. No moving. He doesn't want to move. Especially not to get in the bath, even if he's sweaty and gross. "Safe," he makes a little noise under his breath like a whistle, leaning into the fingers in his hair.  
  
Erik will need to take a bath eventually, but it doesn’t need to be right this second. And Charles can be there. “Promise,” he repeats, softly, and scratches his fingers through Erik’s hair, into his scalp. Behind his ear. “We’ll just stay right here, and hug, shall we? That’s all. And you’ll tell me what you need, and I’ll provide it for you. Anything you want.” Charles hopes Erik asks for something, anything, because he so desperately wants to provide. To be what Erik needs.  
  
"Hugs," Erik grins up at him shyly, rubbing his thumb over the apple of Charles's cheek. His eyes close almost instantly as Charles pets him, and he hums, the air charged around them. All at once he shucks off the blankets though, shivering a little and whining uncomfortably. Hot, _too hot_.  
  
Erik is rarely hot, though, so Charles frowns, leaning up to press his lips to his forehead. With him so sweaty and clammy, it’s honestly hard to tell, and he sighs, offering a tired, soft smile and kissing Erik’s nose. “No blankets, then? Shall we strip off our socks, too?” Charles actually isn’t wearing socks, but he’d had to go wander around and pick something for himself this morning, which should seem an extraordinarily ordinary chore except Erik’s been doing it for him. Walking with him to his bedroom and selecting his clothes. It’s strange, maybe, but it’s also become routine. He’s tried not to admit that he likes it so much. “Everything is perfectly alright, you’re alright, Erik,” Charles whispers, so softly it almost seems to himself, and tucks Erik back in.

* * *

Erik tickles Charles's foot, struggling himself not to break down all over again at the fact that he hasn't been here for Charles at all. His nose scrunches up when Charles kisses it, and he lets himself be settled back into place. "So hot," he laughs softly, dragging his fingers through his gross hair. He's definitely looked better, and it's so shockingly stark because frankly Erik doesn't get sick, and it's hard to tell if it's purely mental or physical but either way his defenses are way lowered. He's gradually begun to come back to himself, though. If he has anything to say about it, this will never happen again, not ever, and he pets Charles's cheek apologetically.  
  
But it will, and just like this time Charles will be here. There’s no better time for it. Nowhere for them to be, no place or circumstance for Erik to perform. They’re perfectly alright just riding this out, and Charles intends to make it as comfortable as possible. He doesn’t mind that Erik’s hair is sweat-soaked; he goes on stroking it, humming softly. When he reaches out for the table, there’s suddenly a nice, cool cloth there, and he gently dabs at Erik’s forehead, his neck. “No blankets, then. We’ll just stay like this. And you’ve eaten, but perhaps later we’ll make soup, hm? And watch some telly? I’ll take good care of you. Anything you need, I’ll make sure you have it,” he swears, solemn and determined. To please, to care. “Just a nice, lazy day for us.”  
  
Erik laughs a little and arches up into the cool compress. "What's a telly?" he has to ask, because Charles's posh accent has come out more and more since he's spent time just talking to himself, soothing Erik, filling the room with the sound of his own voice, which has worked wonders to calm his Dominant. "You take care of me," he whispers, grateful and completely unaccustomed to it, not in this frame of mind. Lo and behold his eyes are watering again, but this time it's not fear at all. His head hurts and is all stuffed up but he still manages to squeeze out a few extra tears. "One time you found me and gave me a blanket," he rambles a bit nonsensically.  
  
Charles laughs, too, a bit hoarse and affected himself. There are tears in his own eyes, misty and bright blue even in dim lighting, but he wipes at Erik’s tears diligently, kisses where they were. Keeps dabbing at Erik’s forehead, the back of his neck, attempting to cool him down, soothe him. It’s true that his accent has only gotten more pronounced, the more time they’ve spent just here; less American-tinged, more aggressively posh. “The television,” he translates, smiling. “When did I find you, Erik?” he asks, mostly just encouraging Erik to speak. It’s comforting to him, to have him back. In a place where he can speak. “Was it a warm blanket? Not too warm?” he teases.  
  
Still Charles, though, and that's the most comforting thing in the world to Erik right now. His thoughts are tumbling around like clothing in a dryer, mixed up and hard to separate, but it feels important to express and detangle it. "Um, my room," he whispers. "I got," he gestures at his head. "Lost, you found me and," he struggles, turning his head away to wipe at his eyes. "Took care of me. And it means-" he laughs a little. It means so much to him. It's healing.  
  
Even with the pauses and difficulty, Charles thinks he understands. He kisses Erik’s forehead, smiling softly as he sets down the cloth. Whatever abilities are allowing him to care for Erik the way he needs now, he’s grateful for it. He’s learning to be grateful for it, if it means he can help. And heal. “I’ll find you again, if you need me to,” he promises. “Wherever you get lost, I imagine I can find you. It’s alright. Do you hurt anywhere, Erik?” he asks, and fusses, checking Erik’s forehead again, wiping at his tears, checking for any visible tension. He’s doting, today. Endlessly. It’s what he needs, and he wonders if Erik realizes that.  
  
Erik shakes his head, gentle. "You took from me," he murmurs, at once fond and nervous, compulsively petting at Charles, making sure he isn't in any pain whatsoever. "You always take it from me," Erik breathes. "If it weren't for you I'd-" he chokes up again, a little frustrated at himself because he can't seem to get the words out without dissolving into a puddle, too overly sensitive, but it's OK. They're all right. "Take care of me," he just repeats softly. Trying not to be guilty about it, maybe not truly grasping that it's what Charles needs, too, that maybe always being composed and in control kept him at a distance in some way, never letting himself be vulnerable, never letting himself be doted on or taken care of, and never realizing that it's necessary sometimes.  
  
It’s what Charles always thrashed against, what always upset and frustrated him most, that he couldn’t get Erik to be vulnerable. Because it is necessary. And more than that, it’s absolutely what he needs. It’s something he needs just as much as anything else. “Alright. You’ll let me know if you hurt, yeah? Even a little? And I’ll take it from you, I promise.” And he does. Charles isn’t hurting right now, either, and he knows Erik wouldn’t like that, but he refuses not to find a way. Not if Erik needs it, and he does. “Are you still hot? Thirsty? Uncomfortable? I could get you more pillows,” he offers, and he’s doting. Let himself lean right into it.  
  
"I will," Erik promises, too, even if it's incredibly difficult for him to do so. He can't say that he isn't uncomfortable, because frankly he's just sweaty and gross and all-around feeling worn out and dragged through the ringer, and probably what he does need is a shower even if that wouldn't go over particularly well, but- "Safe," he settles on quietly. "Mmm... coffee?" his eyebrows shoot up hopefully.  
  
“Coffee,” Charles says in return, eager and immediate, and he makes as if he’s going to sit up but he knows he can’t leave Erik. Fortunately he doesn’t have to. There’s a cup right here, and it’s almost as if it’s come right out of a dream, right out of a thought, a memory; to Erik it smells and looks exactly like he needs it to, aromatic and frothy and utterly perfect. He hands it over, hopeful himself, seeking pleasure and approval. “Is this alright?” he whispers, suddenly and somehow nervous. “I could, I could try again -“ He doesn’t know how he did it the first time, where it came from, really, but he knows he’d do anything to please Erik at the moment.  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik whispers, kissing Charles's forehead. As soon as Charles tries to sit up Erik immediately tenses again, but he relaxes when Charles stills, as if he can't bear to be separated and at this point he really can't. "Perfect," he smiles, completely sincere and taking a long drink from the cup, looking more down-to-Earth, more like himself than he's yet to thus far. "And tea," he encourages, for Charles. "Coffee's better, though," he pokes his tongue out playfully. Erik presses the mug to his cheek again, eyes closing.  
  
“I’m alright at the moment, though you’re terribly wrong. Tea is far superior, darling,” he teases, and strokes Erik’s hair back again. Truthfully, he’s not sure how he’s doing anything he is, just that it’s coming from pure, raw need and desire to - well, to make sure Erik is properly cared for. Served, and tended to. “Do you think you might want a bath soon, Erik? I could draw you one. I wouldn’t leave, not the whole time, I promise. I would be right there. I’m going to take care of you today, anything you want or need. I won’t leave your side.” It’s a vow, really. “You’ll ask for what you need? What you want?”  
  
Erik nods, even though he's really not looking forward to that idea at all. "Tea," he insists again, and waits until Charles makes that for himself, too before saying anything else as if he's stuck on it, as if that will somehow make up for the fact that Erik hasn't been good today. He tries to cooperate though and slowly sits up, half-buried in Charles's shoulder. "Don't leave," he whispers. "Please."  
  
Erik insisting on it seems to do the trick. Charles is so plugged into Erik’s needs, his desires, that everything works quite like an Order even if it isn’t; Charles needs to listen, right now. To dote, and eagerly so. He doesn’t drink the tea, because he doesn’t really want it, but he holds it, as if wanting to please Erik even like that, and nuzzles into Erik’s cheek. “I won’t leave. I’ll stay, the whole time. I won’t leave your side. Anything you want, I’ll make sure you have it,” he whispers. “Alright? I’m - I’m here for you.”  
  
Erik makes him take a few sips anyway, not that it really makes up for anything, and lets himself be guided into a seated position and wrapped in blankets and taken to the bathroom, pressed close to Charles's side the entire time. His clothes are gross, jeans and a button-down shirt (as per usual) plastered to him unpleasantly, but he doesn't make any move to take them off, half-inclined to just get in the bath in his clothes. He's still cradling his coffee protectively, hunched in on himself and looking particularly gaunt in the harsh lighting. "For me," he whispers almost to himself. "Mine," he clutches Charles's hand in his own somewhat desperately.

* * *

“Yours,” Charles whispers, idly, as if he doesn’t quite realize he’s said it. As if it’s an automatic response, though no less a true one. “For you. That’s what I’m for today.” And every day, he wants to add, though he’s not quite sure it’s true yet. He doesn’t know if Erik wants it to be. There’s a lot he doesn’t know, and one of those things is how to go about this; he sets to filling the tub with water, to finding something pleasant smelling to drop in, to organizing soaps and shampoos because Erik’s hair desperately needs a wash - but the rest? He bites his lip, still holding Erik’s hand with the one he’s kept free as his cheeks go pink. “Would you - would you like me to…” He trails off. He’s never undressed Erik. Erik’s always been dressed, one way or the other, ready for the day, by the time he showed up at his bedroom at exactly six. Likewise, Charles has always been given his own privacy to shower and dress once Erik’s told him what he’ll be dressing in. Now seems like a difference circumstance, and Charles feels himself shifting from foot to foot, nervous and uncertain. He wants to undo Erik’s buttons for him, to help him into the bath, but is that too much? Is it - he doesn’t know. And asking Erik to decide right now is wrong, isn't it? But what else can he do, when he isn't sure? But Erik needs him to be decisive, and to know...  
  
Erik spends the entire time pressed up against Charles, eyes glassy and distant, but Charles's hand on his chest pulls him out of wherever he's disappeared to for the moment and he feels himself splintering off again, shrinking smaller and smaller because he doesn't want to be a source of discomfort, to violate boundaries especially in the mindset he's at right now. And Charles was already upset about, him, and he's spent too long with everything too fucking loud and he's getting sick of himself. His throat bobs as he swallows and he pulls himself together. "OK," he rasps, nodding. He touches Charles's face, silently doing his best to convey that Charles should only do what he's comfortable with, that Erik doesn't find it awkward or alarming, but he doesn't want Charles to feel that way, ever.  
  
It doesn’t much answer Charles’ question, but he feels guilty for even insinuating asking it in the first place, feels it roll around in his stomach and sink. Is he so useless that he can’t even make simple decisions? But what if Erik doesn’t actually want him to, and he’s just saying it because he’s afraid not to? What if it’s just like before, what feels like empty words to make Charles feel less utterly humiliated that he’s - he swallows it down, and down, and shakes it off, and lets it drop at his feet, takes a harsh breath. And then he starts at Erik’s buttons, doing his best to hide his shaking fingers, how red his face is, how unsteady and fidgety he is, how he feels shaky, too. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, because he’s meant to be here for Erik. He just won't think too hard, or look too hard, or let himself falter. It's fine.  
  
Erik snaps his hand over Charles's, though, and stills it, shaking his head. "I'm not scared," he whispers. "And not empty. Never." He presses their foreheads together. Hopefully Charles knows by now that Erik is hopelessly in love with him and desperately attracted to him, that he shares no similar reservations about any of the things that Charles seems to. But that Charles seems to is reason enough for him to be cautious and especially not to have Charles push through his own fear to do something he isn't ready to do. "Don't force yourself," he insists, keeping his voice as even as he can, calm and in control again. He can make all the decisions and direct the situation because that's what he's supposed to have been doing this entire time.  
  
That stupid pit in Charles’ stomach aches, and he clenches his teeth together. How did Erik even know he was thinking that? Did he say it out loud? Did he think too hard? He doesn’t particularly like the idea of it right now; he shakes it away, shakes away the possibility of it, locks it all down as best as he can when he doesn’t actually know what he’s doing, how to control these things. And he shakes his head. He’s not forcing himself, he’s just - he’s not going to force Erik to be decisive, to play at something like he did before. Especially not because he’s being insecure and childish. He moves Erik’s hands out of the way and gets right back to work, even as his heart thuds in his ears, even as he feels everything shaking. "It's fine," he mumbles.  
  
The sound of the water rushing into the tub and sloshing up against itself roars through Erik's ears, and Charles's shaking fingers and insecurities thud through his heart as if his hands are clenching it in a vice grip and there's a point at which Erik is sure he would never have allowed what happens next to happen; the part of him that is Dominant, that is D5, that is specifically Charles's Dominant, that knows when he isn't in control everything starts to deteriorate. The point probably before he spent the last however many hours paralyzed on the couch, because of nothing, because literally nothing happened and he has just been falling apart all day at random. All the sounds are robotic, discordant, Charles is forcing himself, he is suppressing himself, he is making himself feel bad in order to appease Erik in some way, he's embarrassed and humiliated at the thought of even touching him and making himself be fine with it and Erik just stops seeing, and stops hearing, and stops feeling, and stops.  
  
Charles thinks he feels it the moment he happens. He stops, immediately, just freezes up himself and stares, wide-eyed, and then - and he truly, desperately hates himself for this - he starts to cry. He starts to cry, like he’s completely incompetent, overemotional, incapable of handling even the slightest bit of conflict, even as he tries to force it down his throat, breathes harshly through his teeth and clenches everything up tight. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and feels so helpless. He’s felt helpless and lost all morning, and this is the worst of it. “I’m sorry. Please, I didn’t mean to, I just - I just wanted to -” He shakes his head and flounders, because he’s truly gone and bloody ruined it now, made Erik worse like he knew he would. Stares down at his feet and sniffs. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, uselessly. He’s messed up again, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise when he isn’t right. He just isn’t right.  
  
He just needs a moment, a moment to reorient, to synchronize, to reign himself in. He's never felt more like a big, stupid oaf than right now, like he's got all of this all wrong and everything he is doing is just chaotic and disastrous. And honestly there is nothing particularly rewarding about finally losing control because he knows that he's allowed the entire day to go practically unhinged. Erik doesn't get to lose control. Period. The problem is that Erik doesn't know how to deal without losing control. Erik stays very still and very quiet for a few more seconds before animating and taking Charles's hands, placing his outstretched palm against his own chest. "I'm sorry it's been so hard," he whispers hoarsely. "Thank you for being so good. Helping me."  
  
Charles wrenches his hands back, lets them fall to his own sides, and he knows it isn’t the proper response. He knows that. He knows it isn’t fair and it isn’t right but he feels the tears on his cheeks, and pricking in his eyes, and building at the back of his throat, making it scratchy and uncomfortable and he knows what message he’s sending and it makes him feel sick, and awful, and - he shakes his head. “It’s not been hard,” he argues, and shuffles, uncomfortable, wraps his arms around his waist. “It’s fine. Everything is fine. You don’t have to take a bath. I’ll find some other way,” he promises, through the lump in his throat. To make Erik comfortable. To make up for his own insufficiencies. "It's alright. It's perfectly alright." He'll be fine in a second, too, when he look Erik in the face again because he's not crying like an infant.  
  
Charles yanking himself away from Erik definitely doesn't do anything to contribute to his overall comfort level, and his mind evaporates up like water on hot pavement. Charles said he wouldn't go away. But he is.  
  
And he messed up, again. Charles wipes angrily at the tears in his own eyes with the back of his arm and throws himself at Erik, because he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to do, and he hates that he doesn’t. But he can at least put his arms around Erik and hope it helps, but he feels so stupid, and so small, and so - “It’s alright, Erik, it’s alright,” he whispers, and pretends he isn’t shaking. “It’s alright. We’re alright.”  
  
Erik stays standing where he is, just outrageously out of control and unable to salvage any semblance of the Dominant that Charles obviously needs him to be, thoughts ratcheted up too far to be coherent in any sense of the word. He doesn't even seem to notice when Charles wraps him up again, his whole body stiff and tense, a wax doll in gargantuan proportions. Slowly, slowly, his head drops onto Charles's shoulder and he just tries to breathe. Slow, short, inaudible through his nose. If he does anything else he's going to have a fucking panic attack right here.  
  
The worst thing he could possibly do right now is cry, so Charles forces himself not to. He forces himself not to cry, or to sniffle, or to make any noise at all at first, just stroking at Erik’s back, slow, circular motions, things he knows to be comforting, or hopes are, because they worked alright before. It helps him, too, when Erik manages to breathe some, and he takes a deep breath. “Alright,” he whispers, trying to muster up that calm, soothing tone. He just about manages. “Alright. It’s alright. Would you still like to take a bath? I won’t leave, just like I said, I promise. You can - you can just undress yourself if you’d like, since -” He won’t cry. He won’t. His voice breaks, then dies on him, but he won’t. He’s alright. He’s perfectly in control of all this, and it was just a blip. He can still be what Erik needs. Even when he’s not, and he knows it.  
  
Charles has done everything right, everything good. He's been here and he's been solid and he's held Erik and looked after him and he keeps coming back and keeps trying and Erik keeps failing to function like a human person. The walls are vibrating with it, with the kind of raw, untapped power that Erik almost never demonstrates beyond the convenient and certainly never loses control of. But it's not all right. It's not all right. Charles is forcing himself to even touch Erik. It's not all right, it's actually not all right. All the plaster in the room abruptly seems to explode around them, into billions of sharpened shards that somehow weave between them. Not cutting, not hurting, just a pure expansion of energy seconds away from embedding itself through the cracked walls.

* * *

Charles gasps, and tries so hard not to pull away. It’s not that he’s frightened of Erik, it’s just that he’s startled, he’s shocked, he’s maybe a little worried and his heart is beating fast and he grips Erik tight. “Erik,” he breathes, as urgently as he can. “Erik. Erik, please, stop. It’s okay, please,” he begs, and tries not to sound as completely terrified as he is. Not of Erik, but of his own inability to make things okay. "Please. Put everything back, please," he tries, and it sounds as weak to his own ears as it likely is. He can't do this, and he hates that. Why can't he know what to do? But it's certainly not the time or the place for self-pity now.  
  
Hearing Charles plead with him to stop-all the little shards floating around stop and fall harmlessly to the ground, and Erik clutches onto Charles, trembling. Not letting him go even if Charles doesn't want to be near him. Erik is evil, Erik keeps him anyway. The walls begin to repair themselves. Water goes back in the tub, one drop at a time. A snowglobe perfectly arranged back into order.  
  
He lets out a breath he hadn't even known he was holding in, and his heart stops stuttering horribly in his chest. Charles does want to be near him, and he holds tighter, doesn't even think of pulling away. "Erik?" he whispers, peeking up at him, and wishing he could hide the tears in his eyes.  
  
Erik touches under Charles's eye, as gentle as stroking the wing of a translucent moth and dabbing at the corner with his sleeve. It's like being caught inside the creature's lair, Erik doting on him in touches and presenting him with a folded metal trinket in the shape of a rose, holding it out to him like an offering. Apologetic, horribly sensitive, wrung out. He'll fix it. He'll make it better. He'll do whatever he can to make it better and make Charles feel more comfortable and not afraid of him anymore and not embarrassed anymore.  
  
It’s all Charles’ fault. He sniffs, and offers a watery smile in return. Takes the rose and strokes it with his fingers, and then lurches forward to hold Erik tighter again. “It’s alright, Erik,” he whispers, and works to keep his voice level. It shakes anyway. “It’s alright. Do you not want to take a bath? It’s perfectly fine if you can’t. We can just go back to the couch, if you’d like, and worry about this later. I could put on the telly for us, just like I said before.” He doesn’t want to mess up again. It’s inevitable, but he can’t do anything but try, even if the helplessness rages inside of him, squeezes at his heart.  
  
Erik swallows and kisses the top of Charles's head. "Not alone," he finally croaks. He doesn't want to take a bath by himself, he can't, he can barely even stand to be in the same room with the sound of the water, but he is gross and he doesn't want to go back to ruminating in his own filth, either. "You don't wanna," he finally says, doing his best not to sound heartbroken.  
  
Charles blinks, looking up at Erik as if he doesn’t quite understand. “I don’t want to what?” he echoes back. “I told you I wouldn’t leave, Erik. I won’t. I promise.”  
  
Erik strokes Charles's cheek, and picks up his free hand, placing it against his chest again as if that will help to better illuminate what he means. Charles didn't want to undress him. Erik was making him? It's all jumbled up. The room threatens to vibrate again.  
  
Somehow, Charles understands. He knows what Erik means. He sucks in a breath, and quickly shakes his head, tears threatening to prick at his eyes again. “No, it isn’t true. I do want to,” he whispers, his eyes closed.  
  
Squinting one eye open, Erik regards him with a tilted head as if not quite sure whether or not to trust his words over what had clearly stuck in his own head. "Promise," he whispers. He doesn't want to hurt Charles. Make him feel bad.  
  
“Promise,” Charles whispers, with his eyes still closed, but he’s not lying. Erik can tell he’s not lying.  
  
Erik lays his head on Charles's shoulder again, still not really able to separate from him yet. "Scared of me?"  
  
That one is particularly easy for him. Charles shakes his head again, firmly. “No, I’m not,” he murmurs, and he means that, too. “I’m not afraid of you, Erik.”  
  
"Don't wanna make you scared," Erik whispers. He gives a shrug and tenses up, pressing his lips together to hold himself together. "I want you to, you said you're for me. Take care of me. It feels nice. You didn't want to. You went away. I made you feel bad. I just want to hurt you. See?"  
  
“I’m not scared,” Charles whispers again, and he means it just as much. It’s fiercer, the second time. More certain. He opens his eyes and looks up at Erik, gently squeezing where he’s got his arms around him. He’s still holding his metal flower. He doesn’t want to let go of it. “I didn’t not want to. It’s just, I’m just -“ He doesn’t know how to properly explain it. “I wanted to,” he settles on, quietly. “I want to.”  
  
Erik will give him a hundred metal flowers. A million. He slowly relaxes a little more when Charles squeezes him, drawing comfort from the touch. "You should. You're mine. I'm not scary," he croaks, his own eyes squeezing shut. "Won't hurt you. Promise."  
  
“I know,” Charles breathes, emphatic. He knows that. He knows Erik would never hurt him, not under any circumstances, especially not like this. But he closes his eyes again, makes a half-wounded noise from the back of his throat. It’s bobbing. He’s trying so hard not to cry. “I want to. I know you won’t hurt me. I’m not afraid,” he repeats, like he’s a broken record.  
  
Erik shakes his head, keeping himself focused on breathing so he doesn't rip the room apart on the molecular level, focused on fashioning another little flower out of metal ball-bearings to present to Charles once again. "Not true. You're crying. I hurt you."  
  
Charles doesn’t notice, with his eyes closed and all. He shakes his head again and reaches up to wipe at his eyes, even though he isn’t crying. Now, anyway, a fact that he’s grateful for. “You didn’t hurt me. It’s true. I’m not scared, I’m just -“ How does he say it, so Erik isn’t hurt? So he understands? He bites his lip, and feels his heart race and his cheeks heat and that twisting in his stomach. “I’m just shy,” he mumbles.  
  
Erik closes Charles's hand over his second metal flower and nestles closer, feeling something inside of him shift a little. "I won't hurt," he promises softly, rubbing Charles's back. "You believe me? You're mine?" he tries not to crack on it, not to sound desperate or stupid, or to push Charles even further away.  
  
“I believe you. I’m yours,” Charles whispers back, and he takes the second flower, though it’s hard to hold both and Erik, too. He sets them down on the tub in favor of nestling in just a little closer, holding just a little tighter, even if Erik is still drenched in sweat. “I’m for you. I know you won’t hurt me, Erik. I’m just, I’m -“ Well, he’s already said it. He looks down at his feet, swallowing.  
  
"Won't hurt," Erik just repeats himself again. It's OK to be shy. He'll be so careful. He won't hurt. Never. "Bath?" Erik murmurs, even though half of him is reflexively inching away from the water, it's what Charles wanted to do to take care of him, and he's just as much leaning toward it, too. Charles may or may not receive yet another metal flower. Erik puts it in Charles's hair. "Undress me?" he whispers, his eyes fluttering shut as if he expects it to hurt Charles and make him afraid. Make him go away again.  
  
It doesn’t make him go away. This time feels different, though Charles’ heart still jumps and gets caught in his throat; Erik asked him, this time. Erik wants him to do it, though Charles isn’t doing it just because of that. He was never being forced to, nor did he feel like he was. He takes a sharp breath and reaches out to work at Erik’s buttons again. His hands are shaking, still, but he isn’t frightened, or reluctant. He’s pink-cheeked and really, truly shy, but apparently that’s alright. When Erik’s shirt is off his shoulders, he swallows, takes a deep, shaky breath, and works on unbuttoning and unzipping Erik’s pants, his heartbeat audible, pulse fluttering under his skin. It’s not fear. Charles’ legs tremble the whole way down as he lowers himself to the floor, onto his knees, so Erik can step out of his jeans.  
  
Erik has always wanted for Charles to be close to him, to tend him in this way, too; his own hang-ups on pushing that behavior or expecting it making him more cautious and cerebral than logically necessary. He is sorry. Ironically more than anything that Charles has done for him today this brings him back the most, warmth spreading from the top of his head to the tips of his toes like a statue returning to life. He stays very still and doesn't rush Charles at all, moving to make things easier and watching him with bright eyes. Erik doesn't like it when Charles is embarrassed, or feeling negative, but there's nothing wrong with his natural shyness, especially when Erik can bring him out of his shell. When he does step out of his jeans, still clad in his silly-patterned boxers (today featuring cartoon depictions of smiling suns and frowning moons) he crouches to Charles's level and frames his face in both hands, touching his lips to Charles's forehead. "You, too?"  
  
There is a bit of embarrassment lingering from this morning, some uncertainty; but it’s not the majority of what he feels, even as his pulse beats on and on, a hummingbird caught in a cage desperate to escape. He’s trembling when Erik kisses him, doesn’t reel back but he does startle at it, and he knows he’s probably not supposed to. With exceptionally pink cheeks, he shakes his head. “I don’t need a bath,” he murmurs, mostly as an excuse. It’s not because he’s scared. “It’s alright. I’ll just take care of you. I can sit on the edge.”  
  
"Please," Erik whispers, and it's genuine, this time. Nearly wilting at the idea of being submerged by himself, even if it's perfectly safe and ordinary. His head isn't right. There's a very real fear in his eyes that he's doing his best to suppress, putting on a gentle smile instead. "You, too. With me."  
  
Besides, they’ve already done it, and it was lovely, wasn’t it? Charles felt perfectly safe and comfortable, just as he does now. It’s silly and childish and stupid to be this worked up about nothing, and all Erik has done all day is try to tell him that. That he’s being horrible, that he’s messing things up by being so weird about it, frankly. So he sniffs once and stands on shaky feet, fingers still trembling a bit as he undresses himself, nodding. He wants Erik to be comfortable, and he’s gross too, anyway. It’s not that he doesn’t want to. He does.  
  
Erik stills his fingers, touching his face and smiling down at him gently, helping him undress the rest of the way and keeping their foreheads bowed together, stroking his thumb along the edge of Charles's collarbone. Of course he'd never tell Charles that he's being horrible and messing anything up. "Mine," he whispers softly. "Not scared?"  
  
He doesn't have to, really, since Charles is so brilliantly doing it for him. He shakes his head, and he doesn't look frightened. He looks shy, he looks fidgety, he looks like he's trying to cover himself up with his arms, but he doesn't look scared. "I'm not scared," he promises, shivering for a reason unrelated to the cold. "I'm - yeah." Yours.  
  
Erik tucks him close when he's all done and Charles has stepped out of his own pants, rubbing his back and petting his hair, soothing himself with the contact and hoping he can help to soothe Charles, too. It *feels* less exposed like this, like Charles can hide in Erik instead of feeling scrutinized by him. "Thank you," he whispers. "Being good," he kisses Charles's forehead again.  
  
It does feel like he’s less exposed, like this. Erik apparently knows how to care for him even when he’s supposed to be the one cared for, and Charles takes a moment just to sit with it, to revel in it, feeling safe and hidden in Erik’s chest. “I am?” he mumbles, in a way that makes it exceedingly obvious he doesn’t think so. That he’s still upset with himself for not being adequate.  
  
"M-hm," Erik runs his fingers through Charles's hair. Smoothing away as much of that upset as he can, because he needs to take care of Charles as much as anything else, too. "Very good," he smiles into Charles's hair. He shivers a bit, cold, rubbing Charles's shoulders to warm himself up.  
  
Erik’s hand in his hair does wonders, and Charles’ eyes flutter with it. Fortunately for both of them, the water is warm, still steaming and bubbled up because Charles thought something scented and foamy might be better than - well, plain water, which Erik is currently struggling with. It’s a pretty blue color, which also helps. “Shall we?” he whispers, and tries not to falter. Tries not to be too shy. He’s still worried. “I’ll be with you the whole time. Promise.”  
  
Erik really doesn't want to, but he puts on a brave face and slowly steps in, helping Charles over the edge of the tub and standing in the water for a long moment, watching it swirl resplendently around his feet. Erik lifts his hand and a few bubbles float up. Erik sticks his head into a giant bubble and makes a little funny face.  
  
Charles laughs, a soft, delighted smile on his lips as he settles himself on Erik’s lap. It’s warm, and comfortable, and nice to not be covered in sweat. “Would you like me to, um. To help you?” he asks, biting his lip.  
  
He lowers and helps Charles to sit, making sure that he doesn't slip and fall, and wraps him up in his arms once more, still-shivering but this time from the feeling of water against him and not so much the cold. But he's right. It's warm, and being so close to Charles is filling him with a light, airy pleasure that tickles underneath his skin. Charles laughing only increases that and he nods at the question. "Yes, please," Erik whispers.  
  
There’s still shyness to him that he just can’t shake completely, but it’s overwhelmed by that eager need to please. Charles reaches for the shampoo he made certain they had, squirting some on his fingers and lathering it into Erik’s hair once he’s wet it some. “You have such thick, beautiful curls,” he breathes, unable to help himself though he’s made the comment before. He hopes the flush on his cheeks is impossible to distinguish from the flush from the steam.  
  
It makes Erik laugh gently, nowhere near at Charles but, just-genuineness, genuine pleasure, and gratitude for him. "You would tell me this before, too," he says softly, his voice a deep rumble in his chest, practically vibrating against Charles. "It means a great deal." He lays a kiss against Charles's forehead. "I didn't hear many, many positive things about my appearance as a kid. And when I did, it was very, it wasn't what a child should have heard. I'm OK with myself now but-" but it's more out of a sense of rebelliousness than self-love, maybe. And being around Charles is the first time he's ever really felt that, felt something other than objectified or ashamed, and it's silly that it comes up now, but it's all fresh, all spiraling in his mind and he is sorry, but-he sniffs, and shrugs, and laughs again. It's not upset. Just gratitude. "You're a lovely person. A beautiful person, inside and out." He touches Charles's face.  
  
Charles frowns halfway through his task. “You didn’t -“ Well, of course he didn’t. It doesn’t lessen how sad that makes Charles feel, well and truly. He massages his fingers gently into Erik’s scalp, thorough and diligent, as if it might make things better. It’s something he wants desperately to do, a task he wants to complete, and perhaps he hasn’t realized until exactly this moment how much he needs that. “You’re lovely, Erik. I’m glad I told you so, because you deserve to hear it.” He pauses, chewing on his lip. “Does this feel okay?”  
  
Erik's eyes are practically fluttering shut as Charles's fingers massage through his hair and he hums, leaning against Charles and resting his head against the back of his shoulder, laying a kiss there, too. "Feels very nice," he murmurs fondly, and it certainly does make things better. Everything with Charles tends to. He definitely doesn't mean to make Charles sad, that isn't the reason he mentions that, he just wants Charles to know that he is appreciated, that he matters, that what he says has an affect on Erik in a very positive way.

* * *

Erik sounds much more like himself, now. It calms Charles down more than he’d like to admit, and he hums as he works, enjoying the feel of Erik’s hair between his fingers, the lather, the warmth. The task itself, and knowing he has one. “We’ll need to rinse it out,” he murmurs, sitting up on Erik’s lap. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep the soap out of your eyes,” he teases, trying to keep things light. “Are you alright? Can I do anything to make you, um. To make you more comfortable?” He hopes he doesn’t sound too eager.  
  
"I'm going to start a new style," Erik grins at him, gesturing to his soapy hair which is stood straight up on end now. He means that he is really not looking forward to having water dumped on his head and he's trying to cover it with humor. Erik clutches his hand in response to his question and squeezes. "Don't let go," he whispers and closes his eyes, preparing himself.  
  
"I promise I won't," Charles whispers, but it's in that moment that something happens. Erik doesn't feel water dumped on his head at all. Actually, for just a moment, a blip in time, everything seems to stand exactly still, perfectly quiet, as if it's frozen. Skipped. Then, just like that, Erik's hair is rinsed, sticking to his cheeks but no longer at all soapy. He didn't feel the water on his face at all. He doesn't feel it now, either, even as his hair is clearly wet. "Alright?" Charles whispers, and time is moving again. Things are moving again. Whatever he's done, he doesn't notice he's done it. He's gripping Erik's hand tightly, nervous, concerned, a crease to his brow.  
  
Erik lets out a little gasp and burrows back into Charles's shoulder gratefully. "All right," he replies quietly, firmly, holding onto Charles tight but not too rough. He knows exactly what happened and he's incredibly grateful for it, a burst of tension releasing out of him as he sags into Charles. He touches his own hair with a laugh, his nose wrinkling up and he kisses Charles's cheek, pulling back to gaze at him fondly. "You helped," he boops Charles on the nose with his finger.  
  
Charles smiles at the kiss, squirming for just a moment with obvious delight because he’s been worried, absolutely wrecked with it, and Erik touching him helps even when he gets confused and overwhelmed - but he blinks, confused. “I helped?” he repeats, because he’s not really sure how. Either way he reaches for a cloth, soaps it up, and then hesitates, gnawing at his lip again. Erik definitely needs a good scrub, but - “Would you like to do this part yourself?” he whispers, voice cracking.  
  
Erik shivers a little and instinctively shakes his head. "You," he murmurs back with a small smile and wraps his hand around Charles's, pressing it to his chest, looking down at him to see if he really doesn't want to. Still sensitive, but it's pretty clear that Erik is the most comfortable with Charles close to him and touching him, and this is no exception.  
  
It’s not that he doesn’t want to. It’s just that he feels nervous, and he’s fidgeting again, which he knows isn’t great when they’re in a tub and Erik is sensitive to the sound of it, to the feel of it. He does want to. Charles takes a sharp breath and closes his eyes as if it might help, reaching out to gently drag the cloth over Erik’s chest. It isn’t the most effective, but it technically is washing him.  
  
Huddling in close to Charles, Erik tries his best to block it all out, focusing instead on Charles's hands against his skin, continuing to hold him and pet him and reassure himself despite the fidgeting and splashing. "Not scared?" he checks, his voice a low murmur in Charles's ear.  
  
Charles shivers, despite the warmth of the water and the steam, and shakes his head, uncertain if Erik can even see it. He’s a bit too nervous to open his eyes, but it really is making the whole endeavor more difficult than it has to be. He can still feel Erik’s chest under his hands, anyway, the muscle of it; it’s more so he doesn’t have to look at Erik with his cheeks all pink, and he tries not to squirm, but he doesn’t quite manage. “I’m not afraid,” he promises, voice hoarse and thick and stuck, and he isn’t. Washing Erik’s arms is easier, when he gets there. He even peeks one eye open (but only one, of course). “Is it - is this alright?”  
  
Erik swipes his thumb under Charles's open eye affectionately. "It's nice," he whispers, hoping that it isn't bad, that it doesn't make Charles uncomfortable or make him go away, especially right now. But it is nice. It feels nice, and Erik hopes he doesn't stop.  
  
Charles isn't going away. In fact, he'd like to be closer, if at all possible, and Erik's response gives him just a tiny bit more confidence. He opens his other eye, at least, though his cheeks are still red and not from the steam, though he's still exceptionally squirmy in Erik's arms, in his lap. He's trying not to slosh anything around, not to move the water too much. At least he's looking at what he's doing now, watching Erik's shoulders, down to his torso, his breath hitching the further down he goes. When he gets a bit too far, he freezes up; but it's not fear. It's not. He's just trembling, the cloth in his hand, his eyes wide. A deer in the headlights again, and he's cursing himself on the inside.  
  
Erik's stomach jumps under the contact and he laughs a little, letting his hand find Charles's again. His other hand skitters up to Charles's neck, rubbing his thumb along his throat as if to let him know it's more than all right. Erik doesn't want to say Charles can keep going, because he isn't sure he can cope with the idea that Charles doesn't want to, and his head is already clanging around with self-loathing and fear and worry of being inappropriate. But he can. If he does. Erik just hopes he doesn't stop touching him in general.  
  
"I, um -" He wants to. The problem all day has been that Charles wants to, that he's wanted to. That he's thought about it. But it isn't appropriate now, and it isn't right, and Erik has spent all day really, truly struggling, lost in the past, lost in his own head, and Charles is upset that he's even beginning to feel this way. That it's even crossed his mind in the first place. He's starting to tremble, and he hates that more, and those stupid tears from before are gathering in his eyes and he doesn't stop touching, but he doesn't move, either, frozen, his eyes shut again. "I - I -" He doesn't know what to do, and he hates that, too, because he can't just expect Erik to guide him all the time. He should be the one in charge today, it's only fair. Erik needs that, and Charles keeps faltering, and he keeps messing up, and he forces himself to breathe. To breathe. He can't panic. He has to be calm, and he has to be stable, and he has to be what Erik needs, and that's that. That's that. But he can't get himself to move. He just can't.  
  
It really doesn't matter if it's fair, Erik is the Dominant and he is the one in control, and he's just not doing a good job of it so of course Charles is faltering. That is Erik's fault. But Erik doesn't find it inappropriate at all. In fact, of anything that's happened thus far, being close like this seems to have had the most positive and immediate effect. He just doesn't want to be rejected and that fear is strong enough to prevent him from being decisive. He tucks Charles into his chest and wraps him up in his arms, kissing his shoulder. "No problem," he whispers. "It's nice. I like you're here with me and taking care of me."  
  
Charles doesn't mean to tense up, he really doesn't. It's just that he's all worried, he's all worked up. It happens naturally. He relaxes a moment later, and sniffs. Tries not to, grateful they're in the bath so it might be impossible to tell the difference between bathwater and something else when he rubs his face against Erik. He shakes his head.  
  
Erik runs his fingers down Charles's back rhythmically, speaking words into his skin, his voice a low vibration in the bottom of his chest. "I like being close to you. But I won't make you, 'kay? Promise."  
  
He knows that. Of course he knows that. But he’s still shivering, and he’s still all frozen, and he’s trying to hide his pathetic little sniffing noises. Charles shakes his head again, and one of them escapes. He mumbles something into Erik’s shoulder.  
  
Erik rubs his back. "Tell me," he murmurs the Order softly, the first one he's given in quite a long while and the contrast is stunning. It seems to bolster him, too, because he squeezes Charles's hand in his and the sensation of Will unfolding all around them zips right through their point of contact.  
  
Charles makes another noise, tries to cut it off by biting harder at his lip. “I’m not good at it,” he whispers, his eyes tightly closed.  
  
Tucking his finger under Charles's chin, he lifts his head and Orders him to open his eyes, gentle. "Not good at what?"  
  
Charles blinks owlishly up at Erik, and hopes it isn’t obvious how glassy his eyes are, how nervous he is. He squirms. “Being - like you,” he mumbles, and looks down. “Being, um. Dominant.” And he sounds ashamed of that.  
  
Erik presses a kiss to Charles's brow. "I much rather you be like you," he says, nose scrunching up fondly. Erik isn't being very good at it now either. He's sorry. He can't overcome the fear in his mind.  
  
He shakes his head. “No, but -“ Charles makes another discontent little noise, curls back into Erik’s shoulder. “I’ll get better,” he promises.  
  
"I don't need that," Erik says back. He doesn't need to be Dominated. He doesn't know what he needs. Anything he can think of is all unrealistic and stupid either way. He can't make Charles feel comfortable with him and it isn't fair to be triggered by the fact that he's not.  
  
"But -" Charles shakes his head again. He sniffs harder, frustrated at how truly pitiful it sounds, and hides further in Erik. Just give him a moment and he'll be fine. He just needs a moment of this. It's not that he doesn't like caring for Erik, and he felt perfectly capable before, perfectly content, it's just - but he's shaking his head again, and nothing is coming out of his mouth. "I'll get better," he whispers again, as if Erik hadn't said anything.  
  
Erik certainly doesn't mind, and he lets Charles burrow in as much as he wants, the water still warm and fragrant around them and he shuffles a little bit back so that he can lean against the wall and let Charles rest more easily. "I don't need it," he repeats again, firmly. "You aren't my Dominant. I'm yours."  
  
Charles squirms even harder on Erik’s lap, uncomfortable. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. He knows this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. “Uh-uh,” he mumbles, but he doesn’t even know what it’s in disagreement with.  
  
"Yes," he says softly. "I'm supposed to look after you too. I'm sorry I wasn't good at it," he whispers.  
  
Another head-shake, and he turns his head, but it isn't because he doesn't want Erik to touch him. It's just because he doesn't want Erik to see his face, and he doesn't want to come out from his momentary hiding spot, and he doesn't speak again but it's obvious he disagrees. There's another little sniffle, but he refuses to even think about crying. About letting Erik see him crying. He's just taking a second to breathe and enjoy the bathwater, that's all.  
  
Erik knows anyway, no matter how messed up he is he's always been very attuned to Charles. "You are mine. Nothing changes that. You can't tell me I should feel everything and then say I can't look after you because I'm upset, because I won't do it, then. You are more important to me than anything."  
  
"Uh-uh," Charles insists, and perhaps like this it's incredibly petulant, but it just can't be helped. Erik doesn't understand, and he doesn't know how to explain it, and he makes a soft, vaguely frustrated noise, sniffing again.  
  
"No, tell me properly," Erik Orders him, firm.  
  
"I'm supposed to be better because you do need it and I'm not and I'm messing up and I'm upset about it and I don't need you to make me feel better, I'm rotten at this and I made you mad this morning and then you went away and I don't know how to take control and I'm all - I feel all -" Another sniff, and it's all come out in a jumble, a complete mess. He's sure it doesn't even make sense. "I keep making you think you have to act a certain way and you don't and I'm ruining it, you won't get better like this I'm supposed to be better, I read about this, what if it's true, and I'm just not good at it, and there's something all wrong with me after all and you won't heal because you're trying to take care of me because I'm useless and I can't do anything right for even just one second and I'm sure I was better at it before but I'm not now and you loved him, and not me and I know we're the same but we're not because I don't remember and I don't know how and I'm - I'm so -" Alright, now he's crying. "You need him and I'm not him and I'm sure he knew how to be, how to be -"  
  
Erik tucks Charles's head under his chin and rubs his back as he talks, pressing his cheek to his chest. "Taking care of you is healing for me," he murmurs slowly, softly. "You don't need to be good at taking control. You're not required to. I like it and it's good for me. I'm just not perfect. Sometimes you might feel out of control if I'm not doing very well." His eyes flick up to the ceiling. "I never really, this has no precedent in our relationship. Everything you know about me, came from legal meetings and court. I was never good at feeling bad. I just made it go away. And part of that is, yes, because you would blame yourself and hate yourself when I struggled. So I don't want you to develop that pattern again, because it is not helpful to me, and it is not helpful to you. I love you, and I need you. Not whatever you think you should be doing but what I am telling you to do, because you are my submissive."  
  
"But -" He tries not to tense up again. He tries not to pull away. He tries not to feel sick, he tries not to feel sad, he tries not to feel a little hurt. He's not sure if any of it shows. He does know he's no longer limp against Erik's shoulder, rigid and uncomfortable instead. "Mmm," he settles on, because he doesn't know. His eyes are closed again.  
  
"I won't get better if you pretend like you don't-don't want or need me," Erik says as simply and honestly as he can, trying not to shrug or look away or appear self-conscious at all, despite very much feeling as such.  
  
"I'm not pretending anything," Charles mumbles, and for all that mumbling he sounds honestly surprised, and there's definitely hurt there, now. He peeks up, completely taken aback. "Is that what - why would I even do that?" He tries not to sound offended. He feels a little offended, a frown on his lips.  
  
"Because," Erik whispers, pressing his lips together, touching Charles's face gently. "You don't want me to look after you, or help you, or prioritize you. And you think I won't get better if I do. But that's wrong."  
  
“That doesn’t mean I’m pretending,” he mutters, still frowning. “And it’s not wrong, anyway. You can’t prioritize me right now. That’s not what you need. Do you ever think that maybe I blamed myself because you can’t stop doing that for two seconds and every time I mess up you just - you just - and you blame yourself, and you hate yourself, and that’s not healthy either.” He doesn’t mean to be defensive, really. Charles knows it comes out that way anyway. “You don’t let yourself, and then when you do I mess up and...” He hates that he’s starting to tear up again. “Don’t put this on me, this whole thing. Don’t say that. Why did you say that?”  
  
"You didn't mess up," Erik contradicts him softly. "None of this is on you. I don't believe that and I never have. That is exactly what I am trying to say. And it doesn't do any good for me, for my own sanity, to stop acting like your Dominant." Erik raises his hand before Charles can say anything else. "I don't know what you mean, I cannot stop doing what? And say what?"  
  
Charles sniffles loudly, shaking his head. “You’re not supposed to be my Dominant like this, I’m supposed to...” He trails off, shrugging helplessly. “Putting me first. Prioritizing me. Trying to act Dominant when you don’t want to, for my sake. I read about this, too. About - I’m supposed to -“ Whatever he’s got into his head, it’s mixed him up. He doesn’t know what’s true or not. He’s just all worked up, and he shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s alright. I’m sorry I got, I’m sorry I was - let’s just get you washed up the rest of the way, shall we?”  
  
"I am always your Dominant. No matter what. That is exactly what I want." Erik gazes down at him, his expression far more representative of his usual self than perhaps the whole of today combined. "What is it that you've read about? What do you think you are supposed to be doing, as my submissive?"  
  
More squirming. Insistent squirming, actually, enough to slosh some water over the side. Charles feels appropriately guilty about that, but it doesn’t stop him from fidgeting. “S1s are mistyped. Often. And I read these articles about how perhaps they fare better if they, if they switch roles -“ He hadn’t liked the idea of it, really. Actually, it had bothered him, riled him up quite a bit. He tries not to show it. “To, ah, it said that perhaps it’s natural and we’re not actually fully submissive, that perhaps the lack of Dominant genes -“ He shrugs, hides back in Erik’s shoulder. “And you seemed to be so upset, you were only acting a certain way because of me even though it harmed you, so I thought, I thought... I don’t know how to be submissive yet. I can’t imagine being Dominant.” He doesn’t say it, but he’s not sure he wants to. But should he? Had he, before?  
  
"You are not mistyped," Erik murmurs softly. "That information is based on the observations of individuals whose Will is insubstantial to affect an S1. Mine certainly is. I have no desire for you to Dominate me. You help me to be stable, to be reasonable, when I am upset, or-" violent. He doesn't add that, because it doesn't quite connect, but it's the truth. Charles keeps him in check, but not by Dominance. By submission. "That is not the same thing. I am acting the way that I want to act. I am not being harmed. I was upset, but not-what do you mean, acting a certain way? What do you think I was upset about?"  
  
Charles shrugs, suddenly cagey and unwilling to speak. Not that he was so willing before, but he’s especially not now, and the squirming is worse than it was. “I don’t know,” he mumbles. “It just seemed like you were forcing it. For my sake. So I thought maybe I was supposed to...” Another shrug. “But I’m not good at it,” he mutters, a repeat of before. Miserable.  
  
"You are supposed to do what I say. Always. You do not need to be good at Dominating me because that is not necessary for my wellbeing." And it isn't, and that isn't Erik telling him what he wants to hear. At his worst, most traumatized stages he's sought out that kind of behavior perhaps unintentionally or unconsciously, but it has never come from a place of health and when presented with the facts in reality, Erik has always withdrew. From pain, from Command. It isn't natural. It isn't helpful. It just increases the negativity swirling around in him, the compliance patterns, the intrusive thoughts. "So stop squirming around and answer my questions," Erik replies, the Command firm. "You think I am forcing what?"  
  
“But what if it is?” he mutters, even as he hopes it isn’t. He doesn’t want it to be natural. It certainly doesn’t feel natural. Charles sighs, shaking his head, burrowing into Erik again. “I don’t know. Forcing being Dominant with me. You, you were - I don’t want you to do it because you feel like you have to. I wanted to help you, not make you worse. I just keep messing up.”  
  
For some reason that kind of tweaks Erik's brain a little bit and he blinks, swallowing roughly. "Do you think-is that-do you think it is necessary for me?"  
  
Charles doesn’t like that question. He doesn’t like that question at all, and he wriggles about. His first instinct is to rapidly shake his head, and it’s his gut, honest answer. “No. And I don’t like -“ So, he hopes not. He certainly hopes not because he doesn’t like anything about the idea of it. “I’m not good at it, I don’t think. I don’t like it. I don’t want -“ But he shuts up, because what if there’s - what if he’s wrong? He swallows, too. “I just don’t want you to hurt. I’ll do it if I’m supposed to,” he whispers, but tears gather in his eyes so that doesn’t sound like something he’s particularly excited about trying. It’s almost funny, in a horrible way, considering everything he doesn’t know at the moment.  
  
Erik presses his lips to Charles's forehead. "I was already Dominated. I already went against my natural instincts for years. It didn't help me. I don't respond well to it. Do you think I would?"  
  
Charles bites his lip, bowing his head to curl into Erik's chest. "No," he mumbles. "But I read all these things, and I wasn't sure - and I thought, maybe if you didn't have to stress about Dominating me, maybe you could -" He shrugs. It all sounds incredibly silly, right now.  
  
"I am your Dominant. There is no greater pleasure in my life than that. It is not a source of stress to me," Erik says, running his fingers through Charles's hair and massaging his scalp tenderly. "Educating yourself about this is important, but you can't forget that most of what applies to the general population does not apply to us, and the information that is given about us, is provided by people who have no personal experience with us. What is the most important is listening to one another, hm?"  
  
"What about observing each other?" Charles hates that it comes out of his mouth. He keeps his head firmly ducked, his head eyes closed, tensed up again now. "You were - I mean, earlier - you kept apologizing, you were so guilty, how is that not stressful? You won't let yourself struggle because you're so worried with being my Dominant, and that isn't fair. It's hurting you. So shouldn't I, aren't I supposed to..." He doesn't know. All he knows is that the idea of Dominating Erik, in any capacity, is truly uncomfortable to him.  
  
Erik shrugs. "I'm always going to worry. That's just my personality. I want to protect you and keep you safe and care for you. When something prevents me from doing that, it-" he touches his own heart. "That is never going to change, and I wouldn't want it to."  
  
"But you can't always do that," Charles mumbles, shaking his head, still curled into Erik so his face is hidden and his words are muffled. "It's not healthy. You can't worry about what you're not doing for me when you need to focus on your own healing. And it makes me, I worry - I just don't want you to focus on me so much you hurt yourself, it isn't fair," he whispers, small. "So I thought, if I was the one -" But he doesn't want to. He doesn't want Erik to want to, either, and he doesn't know if he should be ashamed or not. He's clearly grappling with it, fidgeting and unsettled.  
  
Erik stills him again, rubbing his back, a help for them both. "I don't want that. I can't heal alone," he whispers. "I need you with me, as my submissive. That's exactly what you've done. I know I'm not very good at being, at caring about my own needs. But you help me with that. You always have."  
  
“I haven’t done a very good job of it,” he mutters, and it’s as self-deprecating as he feels. “I just - if you’re so focused on me, how will you - I thought maybe if I didn’t need any of it, for a bit, it would be better for you. But you don’t think so?” He tries not to make it so obvious that he’s looking for some kind of guidance here, that he peeks up to check. “I didn’t mind caring for you. I like it. But it felt like every time I faltered or messed up you felt like you were doing something wrong, and you tried to be more, you know...” He gestures vaguely, splashing water about. “So I thought, if I do it instead, maybe - I don’t know. I don’t like it very much.”  
  
"Neither do I," Erik murmurs down at him, resting his palm against Charles's cheek. "It will not be better for me if you don't need me to be your Dominant. That is part of what I need, too. And I think you will help me, if I struggle to prioritize my needs first. That doesn't mean you need to be my Dominant." He boops Charles on the nose fondly.  
  
Charles bites his lip, turning his face away from Erik. “But what about - it’s just, you tell me to look to you for decisions, to do as you say, but what about when you can’t make them? Or you’re not thinking clearly, and they’re not -“ He doesn’t want to say not good decisions. It’s what he’s thinking, though.  
  
"I don't know," Erik whispers softly. "All I can do is try to prevent that circumstance as much as possible. I think if I am making bad decisions, you are always free to tell me so, and tell me why. I think no matter what happens I am always going to try and act rationally, and act in your best interest. Even if sometimes I might not make a decision right away, or might be too upset, or something might be happening, then we will just deal with that and then work on it. Sometimes I can't make decisions, so you will have to help me to take care of you, too. But I don't believe that is the same as declaring that you are now Dominant."  
  
“You don’t?” he whispers back, and tries to hide how hopeful he sounds. Charles is now very obviously looking up at Erik, even half-buried. “You don’t think I have to be both?”  
  
"Of course not," Erik rubs his thumb across the apple of Charles's cheek.  
  
“Are you sure?” Charles knows how silly it is to check again, but the certainty feels necessary. “You don’t - we’ve never, um. Switched? You don’t think I have to? I read that perhaps it was necessary for coping and survival for S1s, since we aren’t typically submissive, so I just thought... and if it would make you happier...” Another shrug, self-conscious now.  
  
"We have never switched," Erik murmurs, his nose wrinkling up fondly. "And it is not necessary for us. It certainly wouldn't make me happier, and I don't think it would make you very happy, either." The idea of submitting to Charles in particular is very uncomfortable to Erik, and mostly wrapped up in trauma reenactment, making everything twisty and gross-feeling. No, it wouldn't be good and it wouldn't make them happy. Not for either of them.


	105. I can feel their blue hands touching me all these things into position

Charles shakes his head immediately, because he really, truly doubts it would do anything but make him distinctly, horribly uncomfortable. The reassurance settles him against Erik’s shoulder, though, and he’s only squirming a bit, now, grateful the water is still warm, that everything still smells lovely. “I wasn’t frightened,” he whispers.  
  
Erik pets his hair and kisses him every once in a while, pleased that Charles has returned back to him less tensely than before. "No?" he returns, soft. He sniffs a bit. "I'm sorry. I thought you didn't want to and that made me all out of sorts."  
  
It’s nothing to apologize for, especially when Charles more than understands where it came from. He shakes his head, rubbing his cheek against Erik’s chest, leaning up into the touches and little kisses. He hopes Erik doesn’t mind that he’s seeking them out. “No, just shy,” he murmurs, embarrassed. Quiet. “Nervous. That’s all.”  
  
He certainly doesn't. The more Charles seeks them out the bolder Erik gets, wrapping his legs around Charles, too, essentially turning into a human octopus. "Nervous about me?" he whispers.  
  
That one makes Charles pause, a soft noise spilling from his lips, though it's unclear where it's distressed or something else entirely. "Not really," he settles on. "Just..." He shrugs, squirming again.  
  
Erik makes him go still again, keeps him in place. Where he belongs. Hopes it's OK, checks to make sure he isn't distressed. "Just what?"  
  
Charles fusses a bit, but it's not struggling. It's not distressed, or frightened. He does hide, practically shoving his face in Erik's armpit, which makes understanding him about a thousand times more difficult. "Just shy," he repeats, again. If there's anything else, it's lost.  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik rumbles lowly, kissing him on the forehead again. "Just what." It's much firmer, now.  
  
Another quiet noise, very close to a whine now, and he burrows in even further, turns his head. "I want to but I don't know what to do and I don't want to upset you and I don't want to disappoint you and I don't want to be inappropriate," he mumbles, all at once. "And I'm embarrassed."  
  
Erik runs his fingertips down Charles's face, holding him steady. "Well I do not think you have anything to be embarrassed about. You are certainly not upsetting me or disappointing me. And I find nothing that you do inappropriate," he replies, his eyes crinkling up. "What do you think would be inappropriate? What don't you know how to do?"  
  
Charles turns his face again, and this time it's more petulant than it is anything else, done with huff. "Anything," he mutters. "And you've been upset, I shouldn't be... you know. And I'm not," he tries to assert, although he clearly was. Thinking about it. Even if it wasn't the same as this morning, which he's still exceptionally guilty about. Embarrassed about, too.  
  
"I don't think there is anything wrong with that," Erik murmurs softly. "I've always found being close to you helps me to not be upset. And besides, if you think that you are the only one who thinks about it, that's just not true. I think about you a great deal. I have the same experiences as you did this morning."  
  
Charles blinks. That, apparently, is enough to get him to look up at Erik. “What?” he croaks, rather dumbly, as if he hasn’t understood.  
  
Erik blinks back down at him. "What?" he returns, simply not comprehending that Charles couldn't have known this, when it is so desperately obvious to Erik himself. "Did you-think I don't?" He smiles a little bit.  
  
“You do?” Charles whispers back, as if it’s somehow shocking. Some sort of revelation.  
  
"Of course I do," Erik laughs gently. "That is the reason I was trying to tell you it is all right. It wasn't an empty platitude."  
  
“But -“ Charles’ brow creases, and then he ducks back into the crook of Erik’s arm. “But you made it sound like, like you never dealt with it, but of course I did, because we live together so of course I’d be -“ The rest is too muffled to make sense of, but Erik can surely get the gist.  
  
"No," Erik whispers. "You just seemed to be so embarrassed, and horrified, I thought-" he shrugs a little himself, self-conscious. "Well you really don't want, you know." Erik. "So I said it's OK, you don't have to worry. But of course I've dealt with it."  
  
Charles goes quiet for a bit. He's fidgeting about on Erik's lap again, hidden completely. "Do want you," he mumbles, and it might have been a full sentence, originally, before it got spoken into Erik's skin.  
  
Erik lifts Charles's head up, stroking his cheek and running his thumb over his bottom lip, gazing down at him softly. "You have me," he says, and it's more true and more profound than Charles will ever realize, past present or future.  
  
"That's not -" He knows it's not fair to be frustrated about this, especially right this moment. It's inappropriate, and frankly, it makes him a little ashamed. Charles shakes his head, effectively wriggling his way out of Erik's touch again, even if it makes him a bit less comfortable, a bit colder, a bit more unsettled. "We shouldn't stay in the bath for so long. We'll prune. I'll just wash my hair, and then we can get out, yeah? I promised soup and telly."  
  
Erik doesn't let him, though. He doesn't let him move away or change the subject, the sensation of Will tightening around them both making it difficult to ignore Erik's natural Dominance. "Tell me what you wished to say."  
  
“I know I have you, and it’s very sweet, but...” he mumbles, thrashing a bit in Erik’s arms, and then watching sadly as some of their nice, warm water splashes over the side, sheepish. “But you’re not, you know. Doing anything about it,” he whispers, so quiet it’s barely anything at all. “Which is fine. You shouldn’t if you don’t want to. We don’t have to talk about this, Erik, alright? I just want to get out now.”  
  
"You don't know," Erik murmurs back. The water slips back up and into the tub, and Erik locks Charles in his arms entirely, pressing their foreheads together. "I thought you didn't want me," he admits roughly. "I always want to. I just don't want-I don't want to hurt you. Scare you. You really don't know what it is like in my mind."  
  
Charles’ eyes open, though he hadn’t even known he’d closed them. His breath is all hitched, too. “What is it like, then?” he demands.  
  
"You forget," Erik says, his voice low and soft, "that my dreams are not only dreams. I remember what it is like. It is difficult for me to even concentrate, sometimes."  
  
Part of him wants to back down. Charles is nervous, again, trying to squirm, but he can’t. “Then tell me what it’s like,” he insists, trying to sound bold even as his cheeks heat.  
  
Erik runs his knuckles down Charles's cheek. "Like being heated from the inside. Every time I look upon you. Like resisting to kiss you, and Order you, for its own sake. To hear you, and see you. If you think I do not want you, you are sorely mistaken." Erik's eyes are practically half-lidded, and his fingers trail to Charles's hip, along his throat, and he presses a kiss to his jaw pointedly.  
  
Something is flaring up in Charles again, something practically violent, something that hasn’t gone away since this morning, try as he might. It’s fierce, a different kind of pain, sweat, gasping; for just a moment Erik gets a glimpse. Charles in his bed, tossing and turning, flushed beneath the covers, kicking off his boxers as he gasps and pants and - “Then do something about it,” he hisses, demands, challenges, just as he attempts to wriggle his way out of Erik’s lap. “But later. We have to get out of this tub now.”  
  
Stomach flipping over, a zip of electricity flares underneath Erik's skin and Erik lets out a noise that can only be considered a growl, and his fingers tighten hard against Charles's throat, keeping him completely subdued. Before Charles can even register Erik gives him a sharp, warning nip against his neck, finding those sensitive spots that he already knows exists with his free hand and wrapping Charles up once more in his legs. Pressing up flush against him. Charles doesn't tell Erik what to do. "You will leave when I say you will leave," he rumbles into Charles's ear. "Is this the first time that's happened?" he whispers. He means those images. The ones behind his eyes, the ones Charles is pushing into his head, making it difficult to think beneath a swamp of superheated Dominion that rises in the air, humid and damp.  
  
Charles yelps, and from the blush on his lips and the images spilling right out of him, the ones he hadn’t known he was sending in the first place, it’s clear the answer is no. It’s not the first time. It’s not even the second or third. A dozen more images come rushing out, all to the same tune; Charles sweating and completely overcome, trembling with need, wide-eyed and flushed with it and completely unsatisfied. Always unsatisfied, always longing, always frustrated. He tries to struggle against that sure, Dominating hold, but he doesn’t get far. “Let go,” he pants, already breathless. “I’m cold.” He’s not. He’s incredibly hot.  
  
"No," Erik whispers back. "You will stay where you are." Erik can't help it; it's residual stress, maybe, residual chaos from the day that he's more vulnerable to his feelings and less likely to control them, to rein himself in, because his hand curves down to Charles's ass and he holds him down against his lap tightly. And it is not difficult at all to see what kind of effect that's having on him, his breathing audible through his nose. "What were you thinking about this morning, hm?" he asks, speaking the words into Charles's skin. There's nowhere to go. No escape from the heat.  
  
And Charles is panting with it, wide-eyed just like in those images, trying to wriggle and finding that only makes things infinitely worse. “No,” he gasps, a refusal that’s much more like a cut off moan. He’s already overwhelmed, and really, Erik has barely touched him. But he remembers what this morning was like. He’s remembering it, unaware that Erik is seeing it, is seeing Charles as he squirms about under his covers, his hand working furiously though it’s doing nothing, tears on his cheeks as he moans and gasps and cries, bites his lip until it bleeds, afraid Erik will hear him down the hall. He whispers Erik, Erik, Erik.  
  
Erik rubs his thumb against Charles's stomach, humming into his ear, pressing him closer. It's impossible not to feel how it's affecting him, even through the water and through his clothes, his skin heating up beneath Charles's hands as they rest on his chest and his fingers dig into Charles's skin unconsciously. "Beautiful," he breathes out softly. "You really thought that you weren't mine? That I do not think of you this way. Imagining that you want me, hm? That you want me to touch you, and take you. Is that what you were thinking about?" His voice is a low, steady rasp against Charles.  
  
Charles whines, a low, half-wounded noise, wriggling awfully in Erik’s lap which does absolutely nothing to calm him. “No,” he insists, but it’s not a refusal of this. His face is so hot he can feel the heat, he’s shivering so much he’s sure the water has gone cold, though he’s warm inside, his belly pooled with it. “No, I wasn’t thinking of that,” he pants, even though he was. He was. For hours he was thinking of that, consumed by it, trapped in the fever of it, squirming and gasping and crying, not getting relief, not getting satisfaction, no matter what he did. No matter what. “It wouldn’t go away,” he whispers, hoarse, his eyes closed.  
  
"That is because you belong to me," Erik rumbles back lowly, and he tips Charles's chin up to gaze down at him, his eyes half-lidded and hazy, and he presses his lips to Charles's gently, smiling down at him when his eyes pop open as a result and then does it again, this time far less gentle, Charles pinned exactly in place as wisps of Will rise up to bind him invisibly. Erik surges forward, emboldened by Charles's response, by the noises he can elicit, by how good it feels to finally be able to express this part of himself without tiptoeing around it, without the fear and fright of making a mistake, knowing that Charles wants it as badly as he does, emboldened by the images in his mind.  
  
Needs it, it this morning is anything to go by. “Mmmm - wait, wait,” Charles gasps, his eyes impossibly wide, his hands seeking purchase, gripping onto Erik’s arm as he trembles with it. With this, all of that heat in his belly threatening to burn him from the inside out. “Wait,” he repeats, as if he’s not sure what he wanted to wait for. He’s completely breathless, pupils dilated, wanting to squirm just because Erik is holding him still.  
  
Erik only pulls back a little bit, and runs his thumb across Charles's bottom lip. "Wait for what?" he breathes back, practically right into his mouth, his voice hoarse and incredibly affected, thicker than Charles has ever heard it before.  
  
Charles blinks, and for a second looks entirely dazed. “I - um...” He shakes his head, making a helpless noise from the back of his throat. “We can’t. Do this. Right now, I mean,” he whispers, and sounds thoroughly upset he’s even mentioning it.  
  
Erik tries not to look disappointed. "We can't?" he says, gazing up at Charles with wide, vivid eyes that look practically glowing in the fluorescent lighting around them. He touches Charles's face. He doesn't want to? Afraid? Erik is sorry.  
  
It’s neither of those things. Charles bites hard on his lip now that Erik isn’t touching them, kissing them. “You’ve had such a rough day, Erik. I don’t want...” he trails off, bowing his head. “I don’t want to hurt you, even if you think it won’t. I said I’d care for you,” he whispers, ashamed. Because he does want to. He does want to, and he can’t get this morning out of his mind, can’t erase that insistent heat that’s still gathered in his belly, tugging and tugging at him.  
  
"So care for me," Erik whispers roughly, tapping his thumb against Charles's bottom lip again. "Won't hurt. It never hurts. Always helps." And that's true, it always has, regardless of what's going on, even in the midst of the worst of the interviews Erik has found the small spaces to touch Charles and stay close to him and ground himself. "Much nicer day now," he grins.  
  
“It helps?” he echoes, and he can’t help sighing when Erik touches his lips again, can’t help the way they part as if in invitation. He’s thinking of it again. Of this morning, of the feverish, gasping, awful need of it, of thrashing and whining and rubbing himself against the sheets like some wild animal, of standing in a cold shower and it not helping, of nothing helping, and Erik can see it too. It’s all just pouring out, what he couldn’t say this morning. “I was late,” Charles gasps, as if he’s only just remembered it. He was late because of this, because of this clawing, insistent desperation inside of him. And there’s something else, and his face is so red, and he’s squirming again, even though he knows it won’t help.  
  
Erik can't help leaning forward to kiss him again, his body responding to that invitation before his mind can properly catch up, and he takes a long moment just to revel in that sensation. To thoroughly claim Charles's mouth, his body, as well as his sense of self. He belongs to Erik. In all ways. In every way. And it has been immeasurably stressful for Erik to pretend otherwise, to pretend like this hasn't been eating at him every moment, to force himself to be distant. "Tell me what else," he Orders roughly because he can, because the sensation travels through them both like wildfire.  
  
Charles was already burning. He’s panting into Erik’s mouth, trembling all over, and burning, just like he was this morning. “I was late,” he croaks, and at first it might seem like he’s disobeyed an Order, but of course he hasn’t. Of course he couldn’t. “I was late, so I thought, I thought - the other day when I said you should put me in my place and you...” He swallows, wriggling harder like perhaps he really does want to escape (he doesn’t), his cheeks an extraordinary shade of red. It’s not that he finds punishment exciting. He’s already learned he likes nothing less, actually, if he’s totally honest. But there’s something. About the way Erik treats him, about the way he might. Nothing appealing about how he did before all this, the disappointment and frustration, the lingering upset - but how might he have, if Charles had come to him, just a bit late on a normal morning, panting and flushed and desperate? For such a minor infraction, with no intention of real disobedience? If he’d been mouthy, if he’d talked back? Charles is wide-eyed, shaking, and the images still aren’t staying in his head: Erik hauling him over his lap without preamble, Erik’s hand pulling down his sweats, Erik... Charles whimpers, shutting his eyes again. He’s craved it. All this time, he’s craved it.  
  
"You should have come to me," Erik practically purrs. Once more Charles finds he has nowhere to go, but very suddenly and without warning Erik launches to his feet, bringing Charles up with him, leading him out of the tub and backing him up into the wall, trapping his hands in one of Erik's larger ones behind his back, nudging his feet apart to press his thigh in between Charles's legs, both still soaking wet and what little clothes are left hiding absolutely nothing. "The first time. Every time. Always." That's why he could never find relief. It doesn't belong to him. It belongs to Erik. It is for Erik. All of it. He scrapes his teeth across Charles's jaw, giving him another little nip, humming softly under his breath, the vibration echoing under Charles's skin against his heart where Erik's all pressed up against him.  
  
There’s a part of Charles that’s still uncertain. That’s all wound up. Not too long ago Erik was sobbing, shaking, experiencing cold sweats and flashbacks; is this really alright? Can it really be helpful? But it’s so hard to think straight like this, panting, eyes blown wide, trembling against the wall where Erik’s pinned him, where he knows he truly can’t escape unless he’s given leave to. Where his hands are trapped and he can’t even hold on. He tries not to squirm against Erik’s thigh, but he can’t manage not doing it; he’s making soft, horribly needy noises he doesn’t even know he’s making, doesn’t even recognize. This is what he’d wanted this morning and he knows it. “You never do anything about it,” he breathes, and it would be more effective if he didn’t sound so breathless, but it gets the job done. “You talk, and talk, and talk, but you hold back instead. What about putting me in my place? You won't even tell me what it's like. I don't have to come to you," he challenges, and he's nervous, it's more than obvious, but his eyes are also burning hot.  
  
"Yes, you do," Erik growls back, his free hand trailing up to grasp at Charles's throat, then down his chest, and down, and down. All of the filters in his head have wavered and collapsed, probably due to the day he's had, but he's not drowning himself in an escape. He's not losing himself in Charles, he's coming back to himself. "You want to know what it is like? Every time you talk back to me I consider putting you on your knees to Present so I can redden your backside with my hand. Your mind belongs to me." He uses his foot to slide Charles's apart, runs his fingers down into the inside of Charles's thighs. "Your body belongs to me. I have nowhere near begun to approach the kind of training I properly expect of you. The service I expect from you. I pretend like I don't so that I don't frighten you away and you lock yourself in your room and pretend you don't want me to make you beg for release."  
  
There’s danger, here. Not any real threat, nothing that could hurt him (not really), but Charles knows that Erik presents a unique, intoxicating kind of danger to him, a promise, and he’s never really been more aware of it. He could defer, here. He could even squirm away, shy away, ask nicely for them to wait, and he knows Erik would listen. But he doesn’t. He pants, shivering, trembling, and lifts his chin to look up at Erik as that hand inches closer, as his heart races, his boxers soaking wet and hiding nothing. Hiding nothing, which is exactly why he hid this morning. His cheeks are still so red, he’s still so nervous, but he fights right through it. “Talk, talk, talk,” he sighs, and grins.  
  
"No more talk," Erik murmurs back lowly. His fingers hook under the hem of Charles's boxers and they slide down, pooling to his feet before melting away from him entirely unconsciously, no awkward shuffling necessary. Erik's cheeks are flushed darkly, his eyes bright and eclipsed with black, his whole face changed in just a moment. There's the sternness that Charles always recognizes, the scrutiny, but what he can also recognize as pure desire lingers beneath the surface, a slow broil charring all of Erik's blood in its veins. And he realizes very quickly that this isn't new. It's always been there. This whole time. "Keep still," he Orders into Charles's ear, biting down hard and wrapping his fingers gently, lightly, excruciatingly around the thick length of him that pushes insistently into his palm.  
  
Except Charles isn’t looking. His eyes have shut tight, and he’s gone entirely still except where he shivers; perhaps because of the Order, but it’s obvious enough that he would have anyway. He’s barely breathing, even as he takes stuttered, almost choking breaths. He’s not frightened. He isn’t. He’s just frozen up again, his belly tight, his whole body tense, his lip bitten bloody as he tries not to make noise. “You’re still just talking,” he hisses, because he’s nervous, because he’s goading, because he’s shy and he’s uncertain and it has to come out like this. He’s been lost today, too. Confused, twisted up. Erik said they’d talk about what to do about what happened, but they haven’t, and maybe they won’t, and this morning really bothered him and it never went away and - he can’t open his eyes, he can’t look, Erik is touching him and he doesn’t know what to do and -  
  
"Look at me," Erik murmurs the Order roughly, his voice an ethereal whisper. "Breathe. Tell me how you feel." He lightly runs his fingertips over Charles's stomach, still keeping him firmly pinned in place, prey trapped inside an ever-growing web of Will constricting him deeper and deeper.  
  
Charles’ eyes snap open obediently, and he takes a sharp breath, as if it’s been physically forced out of him. Maybe it has been. “I - I don’t know,” he admits, voice hoarse and cracked, shuddering at the touches. His stomach jumps when Erik’s fingers move, a low, gasping noise pulled from his lips. “I’m not frightened,” he promises, because he knows it might be Erik’s next question. “But I - there are things...” He shakes his head. It’s silly. It’s especially silly right now. Charles closes his eyes again, not forgetting Erik’s instructions, just choosing not to listen to them now that he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t want to look right now. “Please,” he breathes, tensed up and trembling.  
  
"I did not tell you to look away," Erik growls softly, inching even closer to him, rumbling low into his ear, tracing his fingernail down Charles's chest and abdomen before giving him a light scratch. "Relax yourself and tell me these things." The Orders are deceptively soft, and the intention is clear; Charles will have a real bad time if he manages to disobey.  
  
Charles does relax, but not for long; he’s shuddering in Erik’s arms, wriggling as much as he can like he’s truly prey. He doesn’t want to escape, though, and it’s obvious to both of them. Even still, he’s more exposed than he’s ever been, and he forces his eyes closed again, even though it flips over his stomach. He can’t make himself forget Erik’s fingers on his - he’s not even wearing boxers anymore - “You’ve been out of sorts all day, and you were upset with me and you said we’d talk but then you needed me and we didn’t do my Postures and that’s fine it’s not like I need you to give me tasks and instructions every day, I’m not that -“ But he is, and he does, a little, and he doesn’t like lying like this because Erik seems especially opposed to it so all he does is swallow, squirm as much as he can against the wall.  
  
Erik delivers a much rougher, sharper scratch along Charles's throat, gripping it in his hand, his other firmly clamped around Charles's behind his back, keeping him locked in place. "I am your Dominant. What you need is to listen to me and heed my Commands. I was upset. You were late. You had an attitude. You didn't come to me with what is mine." Erik doesn't sound very upset anymore, but he does sound increasingly Dominant.  
  
Charles yelps again, his eyes flying open before he can stop it. His pupils are definitely dilated, and he deliberately tries to squirm even though it gets him absolutely nowhere this time. “I didn’t have an attitude, and I didn’t need to come to you. I should be able to wank one off without -” Without ending up frustrated and gasping and thrashing about in bed, covered in sweat, resorting to an hour long freezing cold shower because the other options were slim and already exhausted. And there was a reason he’d still been covering himself with his blanket when he’d finally poked his head into Erik’s room. But his cheeks are hot, and it’s all just talk on his part. It’s all just posturing, trying not to let Erik know just how nervous he is, and shy, but more than that, more than any of that, how much he wants this, whatever comes next. Needs it. Needs Erik, needs his Dominant.  
  
"No," Erik growls. Charles finds fingers constricting gradually along his throat, not enough to hurt or panic, but they are there, a solid and heavy weight pinning him to the wall just like Erik's thigh insistently between his legs, and he can feel Erik against him, with his eyes open he can see how dark and heavy Erik's features are now. "You don't know what real Dominance is. I'm always afraid to show you." He releases Charles's throat very suddenly. "Stay still or I will continue this lesson in a far less appealing manner," he warns, raising a finger to Charles's lips. "This belongs to me." His fingers, warm and dry and huge, encircle Charles's erection as if he's been caught. An electric jolt snaps through Charles's body, a million different processes sliding into place, a door between his feelings and their resolution he simply never realized existed until this moment. "As much as you do."  
  
“Ah -“ It’s a startled, drawn out gasp, and Charles is panting again. Despite Erik’s heeding, he still finds himself wiggling about, mostly because he can’t imagine staying still. He isn’t at all used to being touched, nor is he particularly disciplined. Erik certainly has his work cut out for him, if he intends to train this Charles. This Charles who pants and stares, eyes all but edged out of stunning blue and filled with equal parts desire and challenge. Because who is Erik to tell him he doesn’t know Dominance? It riles up all of those out of order thoughts, that competitive, unruly streak, something they’re both learning is natural and necessary. There isn’t a Dominant bone in Charles’ body, no desire for it, but there is this. Untrained and untempered, right now, not trampled or stamped out or touched, not by anyone but Erik. “I’ll wank when I please,” he tries to throw back, but it comes out barely a whisper, almost a squeak. He tries to stare Erik down as if that might save it.  
  
"Be still," Erik Orders, that otherworldly voice coming out to play again as his thumb slips gently back and forth. Charles finds his hands are incapable of moving any longer even though Erik's free hand is not behind him, but stroking along his collarbones and chest. "This belongs to me. You belong to me. You will not do what you please, not in any sense of the word. Not ever. You will do as I please. You will control yourself. You will be still. You will breathe and you will not look away. And when I ask you a question I expect an answer and I expect to be addressed properly when you give that answer. Am I understood?"  
  
Charles could very easily obey, now, considering the vulnerable position he’s found himself in. He’s sure Erik might reward him for it, despite any earlier transgressions. But Erik was right the other day. Even more skittish, more shy, Charles is more rebellious, too. More defiant. His lips are parted, soft, gasping noises, but he looks Erik right in the eye and shakes his head. “I’ll do what I please,” he repeats, sneering. “I’ll have one out if I feel like it. You can’t stop me,” he huffs, and it’s absolutely petulant. “So no. I don’t understand.”  
  
Charles receives a short, sharp slap across the cheek for his trouble and Erik grips his chin in hand, his other that still feathers maddeningly over his cock. Not enough to provide relief, not enough to do anything but ramp Charles up more and more, only there's nowhere for it to go, as if slammed up against an utter wall of Dominion or perhaps just being locked-in to Erik's laser focus. "I said. That you will do as you are told. Am I understood." The question is a dangerous purr.  
  
Charles cries out, flinching more at the sound of the slap than the actual pain, even as he reels and shudders with it. Erik is still touching him. All this time he’s been touching him, and overwhelmed tears are gathering in the corners of Charles’ eyes, but he’s not ready. Not yet. He jerks his head away. “I’ll do what I want, and you’ll let me,” he rasps. “Do you understand, Erik?”  
  
"You do not tell me what to do," Erik growls, and Charles feels something shift in him, something that he's been poking at this entire time, something that Erik has always been afraid that Charles doesn't even realize is there, that he never has but unfortunately he's been, frankly, pent up for the last month and Charles keeps prodding at him and prodding at him, so it's becoming less likely for him to keep himself in control, too. "There are plenty of other Postures for you to practice. And you are going to learn them. Today. Turn around and face the wall," he Orders lowly, his eyes ablaze.

* * *

Of course Charles does, shivering so hard it’s honestly more like he’s having full-body tremors. He’s almost grateful for it, because it means Erik can’t see the way his lip wobbles when he’s no longer being touched in any capacity, how empty and cold he feels, how he frowns. He scowls over his shoulder, but it doesn’t change or make up for how bothered he looks, how he squirms, how he uses his hands to try and cover what’s indecent, exposed and fidgeting. “I don’t want to,” he mumbles, and now it’s more embarrassed than bold, not that it ever was. It’s hot cheeks and shifting weight, racing heart, racing pulse. He feels exposed. He feels - not frightened, that’s not it, but he’s certainly anticipating.  
  
But Erik doesn't go very far, nestling close to Charles to pin his hands to the wall. "Then you should cease talking back to me," he purrs, and all at once a whistle seems to fall through the air before a loud crack erupts over Charles's ass, blooming red quickly. Erik rubs it under his fingers moments later, brushing his thumb in little circles. It's different than discipline, real discipline, but there is no less an aspect of predatory danger here, either.  
  
Charles gasps, cries out, those tears that had gathered up threatening to spill right out. He’s shaking and reeling for a moment, startled, overwhelmed, and when he whimpers he tries so hard to bite it back, to swallow it down. To not arch into Erik’s touch, the softness, to not seek out sensation after the sharp blossom of pain. But he’s not holding on well, and he doesn’t know what to do or feel; between his legs, he’s starting to leak, still hard as anything against his thigh. “I -“ He falters for a moment, throat bobbing, and then shakes his head. “I wasn’t talking back.”  
  
Erik grips onto Charles's hair in his fingers, tugs his head back and sharply marks him along the back of his throat, reminiscent of a wolf pinning down its mate. Maybe it's more frightening than Charles can comprehend. Maybe Erik has never truly let go. " _I wasn't talking back, sir_. Try again." Another loud, harsh smack, followed by gentleness, followed by the sensation of Erik pressed right up against him.  
  
Those tears slip right out when he yelps again and Charles is suddenly shaking, his lip caught firmly between his teeth as he tries not to make any noise at all. He shakes his head, struggling in Erik’s hold, panting harshly, his chest heaving and his breathing just as uneven. “If I don’t, what happens? What are you going to do, Erik? Spank me? Make me sorry?” He tries to sound more skeptical than he is worried, more scoffing than he is breathless. “I’m not worried.”  
  
"I do not believe you," Erik murmurs. "And I said try again. You are nowhere near as sorry now as you are about to be, I promise you that." And it's not just one, or two or even three slaps that come next, delivered sharply and precisely and repetitively, while Charles remains totally immobilized between the wall and the solid mass of Erik's body. If Charles thought the idea of spanking him was silly before, he won't for much longer. "I don't want to hear another word out of you that isn't _yes, sir_."  
  
It’s not the same kind of pain as the other punishments he’s received at Erik’s hand. Maybe it is, because certainly there’s some sinking in his stomach at the threat, some worry and twisting in his belly, but there’s also heat. Charles cries out, but he tries to arch into it, too, instead of away like he sometimes couldn’t help during discipline, the instinctive need to cover himself, to break Posture, but this isn’t that. He’s hot all over, he’s panting, he feels like he can’t breathe and Erik is right there and - “Bite me,” he whispers, and it’s not a suggestion, it’s petty, breathless back-talk, defiance in its purest, most riled up form. Charles feels himself stop breathing in the aftermath, his own eyes widening.  
  
"Gladly," Erik growls, nipping at Charles's throat again, sharply. Erik nearly grinds up against him, letting him feel, letting him know that all Erik is thinking about at this exact moment is putting him in his place in the most primitive, animalistic way one Dominant could possibly show to their submissive. But that is a privilege, and one he plans on making Charles beg him for. "You will Present yourself for me properly. Legs apart. Back arched. Shoulders straight," he maneuvers Charles's body into position, each Command falling off of his lips in an Order that makes Charles comply, makes him feel the full effect of Erik's Dominion. When he pulls away it's only to rain another series of blows along his ass, both sides, until his skin is cherry red and throbbing.

* * *

It doesn’t take long before Charles is crying. It’s everything, really. It’s the pain, and it’s the overwhelmed, shocked intensity of Erik’s Dominion, of being dropped inevitably into subspace hard, and it’s the force of his own need. It’s simply the knowledge that he’s Presented and exposed and crying out as Erik spanks him, turns his ass red until he cries while he can see everything, including how hard he is between his legs still, how he’s leaking and twitching without being touched and he doesn’t know why it’s different than how awful punishment is in just this moment but it is. It is, but it still hurts, and for some reason the hurt just makes him need more. He can’t breathe, honestly. His chest feels squeezed. When he turns his head he’s red-faced and crying and panting, gasping, and he looks so thoroughly, completely wrecked when truly they haven’t even started. “I won’t talk back anymore,” he gasps, whimpers, and breaks position to cover his ass with his hands like it might actually protect him.  
  
Erik's fingers wrap around Charles's and promptly his hands meet the wall again as Erik delivers another blow, then rubs out the sting, kneading softer, gentler. " _I won't talk back anymore, sir._ Believe me. I have no issue watching you twitch beneath my fingers. We can be here all night, if you desire." He almost laughs, a rich and dark sound Charles hasn't heard before.  
  
It makes Charles shudder, and he’s already trembling quite nicely. He arches into Erik’s hands, whimpering, seeking it out even though it still stings, even though it smarts even when Erik is being nice. Even though those same hands could spank him again, make him hurt. It’s worlds away from the Erik he’d had just an hour ago, and his head is spinning with it. He’s crying with it, but not because he’s upset. He turns his head and sniffles again. “I won’t talk back anymore, sir,” he whispers, and this is a different Charles, too. It’s so quiet. It’s shy.  
  
"Good," Erik rumbles, sweeping his thumbs gently over the harsh red marks he's just dedicated a good deal of time to ensuring. Erik presses his lips to the back of Charles's neck, soothing over the bite he'd nipped just moments before. "Now, it is certainly time to continue your education," he says softly, tugging Charles away from the wall to spread his hand over Charles's face. He leads him out of the bathroom, taking small steps backwards toward the closest bedroom. His.  
  
The bathroom nearest to Erik’s room is the largest. Erik is still wearing boxers, but honestly there’s absolutely nothing hidden and the thought that he could look down and see is enough to completely unravel him. Charles feels like he can’t breathe at all by the time they reach the bedroom, his heart pounding in his chest. “Wait,” he gasps, when they’re barely inside, and he’s shaking like a leaf. His eyes are closed and all of that boldness, all of that defiance is just melted right out of him.  
  
Erik takes another step closer to him, invading his space with heat and solidity. "Relax," he murmurs into Charles's ear, pressing kisses along his throat, laying his palm against Charles's stomach and lightly stroking the muscles jumping beneath his abdomen. "Tell me. What you think, what you feel."  
  
It feels like too much. Charles isn’t relaxed, he’s practically hyperventilating, tears squeezed out of his eyes as he squirms in Erik’s arms. It only reminds him of what a state they’re both in, it only lets him feel Erik against him, reminds him that he’s bare and exposed and that his arse is smarting, and the noise that escapes is bitten off and thoroughly embarrassing. “I don’t know,” he whispers, strained. “Sir,” he adds, even though Erik didn’t tell him to, because it feels like he should. Because he wants to, especially after today, and he doesn’t know if that’s alright. He doesn’t want the Erik from the bathroom to go away, but what if he messes up? What if he says the wrong thing? What if this isn’t what’s proper to feel right now, whatever this is? He struggles in Erik’s arms, making soft little noises of protest, but he doesn’t know why.  
  
"I don't want to wait," Erik murmurs lowly. "You are mine. I do not want to wait for you anymore." It's as honest as he's ever been, if only because he thinks that maybe all of Charles's hesitance is because he doesn't expect that Erik really feels like that. Well, he does. And he's tired of being too afraid to say it. "You will follow my instructions. You will do as I say. That is what is correct. Am I understood."  
  
Charles shivers so violently it looks painful, a low, startled whimper slipping right from between his teeth. He wants comfort, especially after the firm admonishment, especially after the spanking, as quick and lenient as it was - and wouldn’t he like more, his brain decides to supply, wouldn’t he really like it if Erik decided to make him redder, to make him cry more, to take him over his knee before he had him, maybe after, too, and that was an image this morning, he liked it, and this time he knows Erik can see it because it’s like he can feel it, like it’s pulled out of him and he’d been so hot with the idea of it, with being oversensitive and crying and - and he’s panting, and there are tears and he’s nervous and he’s shy but he nuzzles in close anyway. He has to. “I don’t know what to do,” he whispers, quietly, and he knows it isn’t an answer to Erik’s question but he’s worked up over it. Because in this, he’s wholly untrained, too.  
  
"You will do as I tell you to do," Erik murmurs back, and takes steps behind him until he's sitting on the bed, pulling Charles over his lap and in the process dragging the length of Charles across his own thigh, leaving a wet streak that only serves to fuel Erik as much as the images behind his eyes. "Now I asked you a question. Am I understood." Before Charles has time to answer this time when Erik delivers a swift slap to his rear, it jolts him forward across Erik's leg, too, and Erik looks up at him with dark, wild eyes as the state of Dominion rises in the room, sticky and humid and hot.  
  
Charles cries out and squirms, wiggles, gasping and panting and so completely overwhelmed, leaking and practically rutting against Erik’s thigh without even meaning to. It makes his cheeks heat even more, red to match his poor ass, because he can’t stop; he’s like some sort of animal, and it flips his belly right over. “Mm-hmm,” he breathes, and twists his head to look up at Erik with tears in his eyes, all wide and startled and hot as stars. “I won’t - I’ll listen, I won’t talk back, I promise,” he whispers. The thought of being spanked, of already being spanked, is enough to undo him and he doesn’t know why, he doesn’t know why but he’s so hot, and he feels like he’s been like that for days and days and he hasn’t been able to. He hasn’t known why, just that he can’t. No matter how much he squirms alone in bed, crying from the desperation.  
  
"Stay still," Erik Orders him roughly, and Charles finds his legs spread out more, as Erik pulls him closer, so much closer than before, his cock trapped between his stomach and Erik's as Erik simply doesn't let up, delivering blow after blow of sharp, intense heat and he captures Charles's mouth a moment later, humming right into him. "You belong to me. This belongs to me. Your feelings, your thoughts, your body. They are mine. You do not hide away from me. Ever." Another slap. This one across Charles's cheek, lighter than the others, and Erik's fingers spread out over his jaw. "Now be still. You will control yourself. You will receive what I give you. And if you behave, I might reward you."  
  
It doesn’t take much before Charles is crying again, harder this time, his cheeks wet with tears when Erik slaps him. He gasps, whimpers, tries so hard not to squirm this time because he’s falling, he’s sinking, and Erik is right; no matter what, he can get Charles here, even when he feels most defiant. He can spank it right out of him, and it seems he has, what’s left and lingering practically nothing as Charles cries for him. “N-No,” he whispers, but it’s not so much a refusal as it is an overwhelmed whine, and he tries to bury himself in Erik’s shoulder, to hide. “No more. I’ll be good, sir, no more,” he begs. Because it hurts, but it’s riling him up, too, and Charles doesn’t understand it, he’s just completely overcome by it. “I’ll be good,” he repeats, muffled, sniffling loudly.  
  
"No," Erik purrs and makes him stay where he is. Not buried, not hidden. Erik wants to see him. "You will look at me," he says, and he nudges Charles against him, a little more, that friction as he ramps up yet another series of blows. Erik's eyes bore into his, his gaze intense as he feathers light touches across Charles's hips and ass, watches the way he cries and sniffles, and it is not with a sense of fear or anxiety. Erik is actively entranced and it's not hard to tell. "This is what you wanted, isn't it, sweetheart? Hm? This is what you have been thinking about. This is what you have been imagining. Tell me."  
  
When those blows come, Charles gasps and whines, tries not to wriggle but can’t quite help it; he doesn’t know if he wants to arch into the slaps or away, if he wants to tense at those soft touches or melt into them. He’s sniffling and crying in earnest, trying to grab onto Erik, and he’s clearly overwhelmed; he shakes his head, cheeks impossibly red because he has to look at Erik, eyes filled with unshed tears. His chest is heaving again, not that it ever stopped.  
  
And Erik doesn't stop, either. His fingers trail down to Charles's inner thighs, ghosting every so lightly over his cock. When he grips there, it's a little rougher, a little tighter. "I asked you a question and I expect an answer."  
  
Charles gasps, his lips parted on it for what seems like long, immeasurable moments, his eyes fluttering and more tears slipping out as he trembles. “Can’t,” he croaks, and clings harder, even if it means Erik can touch him more. Even if that’s what’s overwhelming him. “Can’t, I can’t, please -“ He tries to close his legs, but they’re shaking, and Erik has them trapped.  
  
"You can. And you will. You told me you were going to be good. Now I expect you to follow my directions and answer the questions I have asked you. Now tell me," he murmurs, another squeeze punctuating the Order this time. "I want to hear. It belongs to me. No shame. No embarrassment. Only my directives," he purrs, using his free hand to deliver another slap that pushes Charles forward, right up into his grasp.  
  
“Yes, sir,” Charles gasps out like it’s been yanked right out of him, followed by a shaky moan, his chest heaving. “Yes, I’ve thought of it. I’ve wanted it, and I imagined it, and that day you said you’d take me over your knee I wanted you to, I wanted you to just do it,” and it’s almost a sob, his cheeks a new, extraordinary shade of red. “I know you punished me when I - but I wanted you to -“ He doesn’t know how to explain it, and it’s working him up. There are tears gathering on his cheeks. “And I’ve thought of it and I tried to - to - but it never worked, it never works, I haven’t been sleeping when I say I will, when you put me to bed because I just stay up and I -“ He’d meant to confess it at some point, really. This marks a week, and he’d meant to bring it up at their check-in, to tell Erik he isn’t always a hundred percent honest about how much he’s sleeping. But it’s spilled right out, and there’s shame there but it’s a relief, too, all of it is, and he cries and he arches into and away from Erik’s hands, fidgeting, torn, desperate. “It hurts,” he whispers, but he sounds like he’s in awe, because he’s never felt this hot during a punishment. He’d wondered if something was wrong with him, perhaps, to fantasize about it. About Erik spanking him, soundly, until he cried, then taking him promptly after. And he has imagined it. It’s all spilling out, and spilling out, and spilling out and the Erik in his fantasies wants to hurt him and he’s been so guilty about that, too, and that spills along with it. He just can’t keep it in.  
  
"Good," Erik purrs again, rubbing where the skin is hot and bright and inching backwards, pulling Charles over him so that he can press himself right up against them with almost no barrier. "It should hurt. You have been neglectful. You should hurt, a little. It's good for you. It reminds you of your place." Charles's hands themselves are free now, wrapped around his neck and he takes one in his own, trailing it down past his navel to the hem of his boxers. "Remove these from me." It's an Order, not because he doesn't think Charles won't obey, but because he just likes giving Orders. He likes it. It feels good, a crackle of electricity in the air. He doesn't want Charles to keep it in, that's the whole point. "Now," he gives Charles a proper motivational blow for good measure.  
  
It’s good for you. Charles is shaking, and he yelps again at the slap. He’s absolutely helpless to Erik’s Order as his fingers tremble, fumbling as he tries to do as he’s told. His eyes are closed again. His chest is heaving so much, he doesn’t feel like he can breathe. He can feel Erik when he slowly pulls the last barrier down, but he can’t look. He can’t. “I’m - I’m nervous,” he whispers, and his voice shakes, too, and he’s embarrassed and the tears slip out again and he’s so thoroughly overstimulated. “I’m - it hurts and I’m nervous, sir,” he gasps, and tries to breathe, and breathe, because Erik doesn’t like it when he stops.  
  
Erik's hand fashions over Charles's, again, and his free thumb rubs across his bottom lip, always aware of where he is in space, what his hands are doing, always touching and pinching and scratching and biting and slapping him just a little, keeping him on edge, keeping him alert and making sure he understands who is in charge here. He gently sets Charles's fingertips to him, holding his gaze. "You are mine," he rumbles deep in his chest. "You belong to me." Not to nervousness or shame or embarrassment. To Erik. "Look," he presses a kiss under Charles's eye. "Look at what you've done to me."  
  
Charles looks. He looks, and he’s fairly sure his heart just stops for a second. A few, maybe. His hand twitches, like he wants to pull it away, it’s shaking, his fingers, but it doesn’t matter because he can’t pull his eyes away. He’s staring, wide-eyed, lips parted, and - “Oh,” he breathes, and it vibrates through the entire room, startled and overwhelmed and wanting, wanting and wanting and he’d imagined but this is better. It’s better. Erik can see, can hear, for just a moment, an outpouring: he’d imagined but the reality is better and he’s so hot with it.  
  
"You imagined-" Erik whispers, and Charles can almost feel where Erik twitches between his fingers in response to that, hot and hard and heavy, a clear weight of desire not only there but all across his features, his bearing, pouring into the room in thick strands of Will that threaten to replace all of the oxygen. "No more imagination," he growls. It would probably be funny if it wasn't dripping in Dominion. "You were late. You knew the consequences of that behavior. You haven't been sleeping. You haven't been honest with me." Each sentence is punctuated by long, loud smacks across Charles's backside. "There are consequences to those behaviors. You belong to me. Tell me."  
  
Perhaps he’d lured himself into a false sense of security, because the moment he’s spanked again Charles cries out loudly, jerking, more tears immediately spilling. He’s getting to the point where he can no longer be embarrassed, though shy is another story; he’s whimpering, squirming again but this time not in defiance, sniffing as he rubs his wet cheek on Erik’s shoulder for comfort. “I belong to you, sir,” he murmurs, and there’s no hesitance. It’s just earnest, it just feels true. “Sorry,” he adds, quietly, sniffling mostly in shame but not for the same reason as before.  
  
Erik presses a kiss to Charles's cheek, a gentleness that might seem out of place but really isn't when it comes to them. Sweet and soft always went hand-in-hand. He shifts Charles on his lap a little, slowly guiding his hand. "I have always expected this from you, too," he breathes roughly. "There is so much more to your submission. To your service. To your training. None of which permits you to hide from me. So what will you do when this happens again?"  
  
Charles is still sniffling, fresh tears spilling back out when Erik kisses him, when he speaks softly to him. It’s not that it’s worse, it’s that everything is so much, and he gasps quietly, hiccups. His eyes are glued to his hand, to Erik’s - he swallows, fingers twitching, frozen but not because he’s frightened. Not at all. “Come to you, sir,” he whispers, still hot with shame along with something else. “You’ll train me?” It’s so quiet, so hesitant, because it’s what he’s wanted all day. Before that. He’s felt guilty for it, wrong somehow. He nuzzles into Erik’s shoulder, breath hitching when he shifts on Erik’s lap, when his sore ass rubs against Erik’s leg, when his dick does, still so hard, still leaking. “I didn’t know what to do,” he admits, small. “I didn’t - I didn’t know. I was embarrassed. I couldn’t make it go away. It just stayed, for hours. I tried to go to sleep, sir,” he sniffs, rubbing his cheek against Erik’s skin, seeking comfort. He really didn’t mean to misbehave. He peeks down at his hand again, gasping. Closes his eyes. “I want you to train me like this too, I’m just shy,” he promises, though by now Erik must know.  
  
"You didn't know any better," Erik murmurs. "Which is why you are here, and not in Child's Pose," he gives Charles's bottom another sharp rap. "But make no mistake that if I find this happening again, I will respond with far less leniency. I know that you know better than that. But I also know that you must have been very nervous. How do you feel right now?" Erik rasps into his ear, shifting Charles against his leg more, slowly showing him how to move his hand. "Eyes open." Erik tugs his head back a little. "Feel good? Feel nice? There is so much more than you could know. I want to show you. Not scared?"  
  
Still nervous. Still so overwhelmingly shy, and he whimpers with it, wriggling, finding that does nothing but work him up more. His ass stings, smarts horribly, and the rest of him throbs, too. He’s still shivering and crying and he can’t help it. “Not scared. It’s so much. And it hurts, but it’s not - I’m sorry I talked back, sir,” he whispers, low, ashamed, and he knows Erik’s likely moved past it, seems to have, but it’s on his mind, because there’s something desperate and worked up inside of him and he just wants to please. All day, he’s just wanted to please, and it’s his own nerves and shame that got in the way. His eyes are wide again, so blue again, filled with tears as he watches their hands move together with red, tear-stained cheeks, squirms harder. “I don’t know how,” he whispers, again. “Does it feel good?” It’s hardly loud enough to hear. It’s barely even a whisper, muffled as he tries to nestle into Erik’s shoulder again for comfort.

* * *

"Very good," Erik whispers back, soft. He slowly moves until his back hits the wall, taking Charles along with him, letting him grow accustomed to the new experience, keeping himself still and poised and in control even if he wants to do so much more, demand so much more, take so much more. He goes slowly, and steadily, and carefully, because that's just who he is, regardless of instinct. He ends up dislodging Charles's hands in the movement only to rub himself up against those warm welts broken out over his skin, dragging thin strands of leaking white across the painted marks, keeping Charles locked into place, legs spread so Erik has more opportunity to take him in hand, this time nowhere near light and soft. He strokes Charles's cock firmly, steadily, with plenty of experience that taps into a reservoir of electricity threatening to shoot through his whole body, but then just as fast lets him go, gives him another light smack across the cheek when he tries to look away again. "What did I tell you."  
  
Charles whines, loud, overwhelmed, no longer able to focus on embarrassment or shame or self-consciousness. His hips thrust up into nothing and he almost cries, because it’s been so long. For days he’s been on the edge, worked up and up and up and there’s just been no relief. None. Nothing had worked. Not his hand, not thrashing and thrusting against the bed - Erik has seen plenty of that in those slipped-out images - not a cold shower, nothing except eventually drifting into a fitful sleep. It’s been maddening and awful and he’s leaking so much, so wet, if Erik touched him just a little longer he’s sure - “Not to look away,” he sniffles, because he wants to be good. And he keeps his eyes open, even though it’s difficult, even though it makes him shy and squirmy. “I’ll be good, I promise. Please, sir,” he gasps. “Please. It hurts.” He doesn’t just mean from the spanking, either. It’s hard to breathe again, and he clings to Erik, rubbing up against him, seeking more touch but trying not to hide. It’s difficult, it’s so difficult, but he’s trying.  
  
"Be still," Erik growls. "Sit back on your knees." He looms over Charles predatorily, each word dripping with Command and there's simply no escaping it whatsoever. When Charles moves into proper position, Erik nudges his legs apart, drawing his fingertip down the curve of his erection. "You will not come unless I say. Is that understood. If you do, I'll take you over my knee until you learn." This time, the image comes from Erik's mind, loud and vibrant, Charles shifting forward to rest his cheek on Erik's thigh, taking Erik in hand, using his mouth. "There is so much for you to learn," he rasps hoarsely.  
  
It must be a memory. Charles isn’t sure how he’s getting it, he didn’t know the connection was two-way, but it must be a memory because the Charles in Erik’s mind knows what to do. He’s eager and unashamed and he moans when he gets his mouth around his Dominant like there’s nothing he wants more, no greater pleasure, and Charles shivers, hard, his eyes closing again before he can even think to stop them. He’s shaking, shaking horribly. “Do you want me to -“ He can’t say it, but he’s thinking it. Erik can’t see it or hear it but he doesn’t need to. It’s a little more than obvious. “I don’t know how,” he whispers again, and his voice cracks, too. His own cock jumps against his thigh, mostly untouched.  
  
"You will learn," Erik rumbles, and encourages Charles to lean forward, makes him open his eyes again. "I'll teach you. Does it frighten you?" he whispers, leading Charles forward, forward, to rest his cheek against Erik's leg, running his fingers through Charles's hair, scratching into his scalp, making him hold himself in Position where he's set, strictly enforcing it with intermittent raps to his cheek, his ass, anywhere he can reach.  
  
Erik will teach him. He doesn’t need to be scared. He doesn’t need to worry. Charles takes a deep, shaky breath, rubs his cheek against Erik’s thigh to soothe himself and shakes his head, breath hitching when he realizes Erik’s cock is right there. It’s thick, and big, and leaking, and Charles feels as if he truly can’t breathe. “You’ll train me?” He doesn’t sound frightened, because he isn’t, but he does sound nervous. Incredibly timid. “It’s so big,” he breathes, and his cheeks burn, because he knows how horribly silly it is. Slowly, with that same shyness, he leans just a bit forward, but he can’t close the distance. Not yet. His heart is pounding.  
  
It's like being in proximity with that beast all over again, holding himself incredibly still and letting Charles grow accustomed at his own pace. But not too slowly. He is in control, even now. "I will," he murmurs, low and steady and he lifts Charles's chin with his fingertip, his eyes blazing as they hold Charles's. It takes only a few moments for him to encourage Charles forward, taking his dick in hand and gently rubbing it along Charles's cheek, relishing at how it looks against his blush, expression darkening with pure, saturated desire that rips through the room from that simple point of contact.  
  
It makes Charles’ cheek wet, red from his shyness, from the earlier slaps, smears it and he takes a sharp, unsteady breath, his eyes as wide as saucers but so impossibly dilated, too. He wants. He wants, desperately, so much so that he’s shaking. He doesn’t need to be frightened or nervous. Erik will teach him, Erik will train him. He reminds himself of that (and Erik, too, it’s all just spilling out, this tenuous, unstable connection, the one he doesn’t know he’s starting) as he turns his head just slightly, his lips touching the head of Erik’s cock. It twitches and he gasps, startles, pulls back, his chest stuttering. But he doesn’t want to disappoint Erik, and besides, that’s not the only reason. He wants. Charles steels himself, reminds himself Erik will train me, Erik will take care of me, doesn’t even realize he’s phrased it like that, and inches forward again. Erik’s cock looks just as big, just as hard and wanting and just as intimidating, but he sticks his tongue out, like a curious kitten. It’s barely anything, but he licks like he’s trying out a lolly, eyes turned up despite his nerves to watch for Erik’s reaction. He doesn’t know at all, becomes increasingly clear. He’s never even seen - whatever it is he should know, whatever it is he did know before he came to Erik’s bed that real first time, he doesn’t now. He’s a blank slate.  
  
For some reason that only seems to make it better for Erik, who is pleased that is the case, pleased that Charles doesn't know anything beyond him. It's how it should be. It's selfish, maybe, to want to be the only one he's experienced this kind of closeness with, to eliminate any prior negative experiences and replace them with pure positives, but it remains true. Erik twitches, a ripple through his body like a small flutter and rubs his thumb across Charles's bottom lip, expression hazy. "Beautiful," he rasps hoarsely, unaware he's switched from English. "Open up a little more. Don't worry. I won't hurt you." (Or at least not yet, his traitorous brain supplies.)  
  
Still, Charles hesitates. It’s not disobedience. It’s not fear. He’s just nervous, pure and simple, and he makes a quiet, whining noise before he does as he’s told. He opens up, his heart thudding and thudding because how will it fit? How will he not choke? But Erik will teach him, he’ll train him, he’ll make sure he knows. He won’t hurt him. It all seems silly with that calming, hazy, demanding Dominance washing over him, so Charles trusts and he opens wide and he waits, his eyes so blue and his lips that bitten, kiss-swollen cherry red. He submits, like this, for the very first time.  
  
And Erik doesn't, not yet at least. It's slow, easy, and Erik whispers down at him almost non-stop. He's beautiful. He looks perfect right where he belongs, on his knees, serving his Dominant in the way he's always meant to. Erik bids him to go slow, and to mind his teeth, but mostly it's just intuitive. The fact that Charles is doing it, the fact that he enjoys doing it, is what really makes Erik shudder. Once Charles takes him in a way, Erik withdraws and slaps him lightly once more. "How does that feel. More? Tell me. Look at me."  
  
For some reason, having Erik taken from him like that makes Charles cry more than anything else has. There are big, fat tears on his cheeks all of a sudden, and panic in his chest, because he’d been nervous and uncertain but he’d needed it and he takes a heaving, overwhelmed breath, rubs his cheek against Erik’s cock and whimpers, tries to get closer, his lips parted. “Yes, please, sir,” he gasps, uncaring for the moment how absolutely desperate he sounds. His eyes are blown wider than should be possible, and he looks thoroughly, properly wrecked, even from only this. Even from something so simple, so slow and gentle and easy. “Please. Train me, sir?”  
  
Erik lets out a noise, low and unconscious and his eyes close to half-lidded. "Oh, yes," he promises darkly. "You needn't worry about that." He guides Charles to open his mouth again and this time guides himself in, making him take just a little more. Not more than he can handle, but enough for him to feel it all the way, feel the stretch of it, feel the way his tongue moving over the flared head causes Erik's stomach to jump and audible, sharp inhales. He lifts Charles's hand, wraps it around the rest of his cock that's untouched. "Like this," he murmurs roughly. "Now keep still. You will not break position."  
  
Charles is wholly inexperienced, but what he doesn’t know he makes up for with pure enthusiasm. With eager, hazy, desperate need to please, and he moans at the feel of Erik’s cock in his mouth, the weight of it, the stretch to his cheeks. There’s a little panic, a little bit of nerves, but mostly there’s need; he can’t imagine taking more, but he’ll do whatever Erik asks. He will. He moves his hand like Erik showed him before, attentive, but somewhere in the middle he starts to whine, loud even as it’s muffled, those tears in his eyes falling again. He starts to wriggle, even as he tries to hold position.  
  
"Mm, no," Erik rumbles. "Be still," he insists, withdrawing once more and rubbing himself along Charles's cheek again, running his fingers under his eyes to catch those tears, smearing them along with everything else, heat spreading from the center of his chest right down into his gut. "What did I tell you?" he smacks Charles's cheek, grips his hair in hand.  
  
“Not to break position, sir,” Charles pants, but he’s still squirming, even after being reprimanded. His cheeks are so red, hot and burning, and he wonders, briefly, how they look against Erik’s cock. It forces out another strained whine. “You told me not to be still, not to break position -“ But he’s clearly having such a hard time with it, making little gasping sounds, trying to nuzzle against Erik all the same.  
  
Inside of Erik sensation snaps, watching Charles struggle to contain himself, watching him practically rut against the mattress, watching him wanting and desperate and needy, it does things to Erik that flip his stomach over and make him want to pin Charles down and-but he doesn't, not yet. He takes his time. He takes it slow. Ramps it up, tuning a dial millimeter by millimeter. "Yes, I did," he growls. "Sit up. Put your hands behind your back. If I see you squirming around again, I'll stop." At nearly a foot taller, with Charles knelt on the bed, Erik easily stands over him on the floor, but instead of doing what he craves and jamming his cock down Charles's throat-an image that's relegated to the darker areas of his mental chamber, surely-he instead trails his fingers along his shoulders, fixing his Posture, straightening him out. "Move, and I will stop," he warns, pressing his fingertip against Charles's mouth. "If you come before I tell you, we will be here for a very long time." And while that might not sound like much of a threat, Erik is very clearly heated by it, by keeping Charles on edge, by controlling him. He doesn't restrain him, he doesn't bind him down, expecting that to be accomplished easily by his Command when he nudges Charles forward a little and abruptly drops to a crouch, and it becomes imminently obvious very quickly that he knows exactly how to bring Charles to heel, with pain and with pleasure he slowly takes Charles into his mouth, sinks down on him, throat fluttering against him before popping off with a grin. The posture itself may look submissive, but Erik practically drips with Dominion in every movement.  
  
It’s so much. Charles gasps, moans, whines, but then he starts shaking. Maybe it’s ridiculous, maybe it’s an overstimulated overreaction, but he starts to sob. He starts to well and truly sob, shaking uncontrollably, his Posture loosened because he can’t hold it. He knows it’s wrong, he knows he should be calm and obedient and take what he’s given and he wants to but his chest is heaving and he can’t breathe and his lips part, he can’t make words. His eyes close. Things in the room begin to shake, abruptly and loudly, something crashes and maybe it’s nothing, because nothing seems to have fallen.  
  
Erik doesn't startle, though, he just eases off and rises up to his feet, kissing Charles on the forehead. "Be easy," he purrs in that same ethereal voice, stroking along Charles's cheek. "Tell me what you are feeling, hm? Deep breath. Calm yourself." He murmurs little Orders until Charles gradually begins to slow, bringing him back in line.  
  
Be easy. Calm yourself. Charles is shaking so hard it feels like his teeth are chattering, but he slowly eases; it seems to take an awful long time for him to calm, rubbing his cheek against Erik’s skin, wherever he can reach, always sensual and touch-oriented this far into subspace. And he is, undoubtedly, and it’s incredibly overwhelming. “I d-don’t - I don’t -“ He sniffs, trying not to stutter, finding it embarrassing and frustrating even now, and his cheeks hurt they’re so flushed. “I don’t want to disobey you,” he whispers, finally, and his chest hurts, too, from how hard his heart is beating, from all the clenching it’s doing. He tries to nestle closer into Erik, needing the contact even on his overheated skin.  
  
"Mm, I can see that," Erik laughs gently, tugging Charles toward him so he can press his cheek to Erik's abdomen. He runs his fingers through Charles's hair, separating the strands, grounding him through touch. "You can't keep yourself still? Is it too much?"  
  
“Mm-mm,” Charles mumbles, because it’s not exactly that. He doesn’t want to admit he’s having such difficulty with a task Erik’s given him, but his stomach churns a little when he considers that he might be lying so a moment later he nods, miserably, against Erik’s stomach, sniffling loudly again. “But -“ He lets out a quiet, distressed exhale, rubbing his tears into the muscle of Erik’s belly, and some of the stickiness, too, which just helps work him up more when he thinks of where his mouth was not too long ago, and how close Erik’s cock still is, how hard it still is. He’s not looking but he knows.  
  
"Tell me," Erik murmurs, his voice vibrating all the way down where Charles can feel it against his skin. He can practically feel the warmth of Erik's arousal seeping through the air, and it doesn't abate even as Charles sniffles and wriggles about. He runs his fingers down Charles's back, soothing him, taking care of him. It's not a frantic free-for-all, it's not-at least he hopes, a one time event that they'll never get back. There is time for patience and checking and everything in-between.  
  
It’s not an Order, and for once Charles wishes it was. There’s shame gnarled up in his belly, twisting about. It’s been there since this morning. It’s been there since before that. He doesn’t know why, just that it must be shameful; how could it be normal, to want and need so much? But he sniffles, and nestles in closer, arches into those gentle touches, and follows Erik’s Will. Does as he’s been told, of his own volition. “I was - I was going to...” It’s so quiet. It only gets quieter. “I was going to come,” he whispers, hoarse and muffled against Erik’s stomach, hunched in. When Erik had his mouth around him, yes, but before that. When Erik wasn’t even touching, just from the taste and smell and feel of Erik’s arousal, of being trained that way. He can’t explain why, but he’d felt it in his belly, what he’d been seeking and seeking and seeking on his own but couldn’t reach and Erik might think it’s been a short time but for Charles it’s been days. He’s so worked up. It’s painful, actually, and there are more images as he shivers in his Dominant’s arms - thrashing and thrashing, restless, upset, and this morning. He’d cried in the shower, desperate and aching, sore from all the dry friction, uncomfortable, ashamed, hurting. A little frightened, honestly. A lot alone.  
  
"Mm-hmm," Erik hums roughly, touching his face, peering down at him with heavy-lidded eyes. "It doesn't belong to you," he whispers. "It belongs to me. You should always seek me out. I'll take good care of you. I always will." He rubs his thumb over Charles's stomach gently. "Now sit up for me," he murmurs, taking Charles's hand in his and running his thumb along the back. "I know you've been holding on for a very long time. So if you be very good, and do exactly as I say, you will be rewarded. Am I understood?"  
  
It belongs to Erik. This whole time, he’s been suffering because it belongs to Erik and he’d been too nervous and ashamed to come to him, too worried about what he’d think, too worked up and in his own head. Charles sniffles and nods, but doesn’t sit up like he’s told. Not yet. Instead he lurches forward, buries himself in Erik’s stomach again. “I want to please you, sir,” he whispers, and Erik can feel it when new tears leak out, wet against skin. “I just - it hurts, I’m - hug?” It’s the only way he can think to ask for it, to call back to Erik’s request, earlier. He just needs to be held for a moment. He doesn’t want to be disobedient. He’s afraid, a little, that he will be. It wouldn’t be on purpose. But Erik said he’d train him, and teach him, and he wonders, idly but loudly enough for Erik to hear - and it’s all spilling, spilling, it’s in these moments that should remind him of the early stages of their Bond, whenever everything was tenuous and forming but strong, noticeable because it wasn’t yet normal - if it includes this, too. If he belongs to Erik, if his body belongs to Erik, shouldn’t he learn how to behave? Will he? Charles swallows again. “I want to be good,” he gasps. That much should be extraordinarily obvious. Undeniable.  
  
Erik's arms come up around him immediately, and he gives Charles a good squeeze, warm and close. "I know you do, sweetheart," he whispers gently, kissing the top of Charles's head, his nose wrinkled up. Erik's thought processes suddenly seem more intuitive now, somehow, less closed off and filtered. Less distanced, less empty. He loves Charles, he loves to look after Charles and take care of him, and he won't let him fail. He won't let him be bad, because it's simply not possible. If he gets overstimulated, if Erik doesn't anticipate that well enough, that's OK. If he can't hang on very well right now, that's OK. He will learn. He had to learn before, too. Erik trained him, and he will continue training him, and there is nothing wrong with him. No reason to be ashamed. To Erik, he is beautiful. His submission, his desire, his mind and body and soul. "I've got you," he soothes gently.  
  
Charles doesn’t hear all of it, just like Erik is missing so much of him, but there are parts that he knows, Bond or not. He knows Erik cares for him. He knows Erik will care for him. He knows he’s, above all else, safe. But there are things that need to be said now that just didn’t before, that weren’t before, that were maybe even ignored, before, and it becomes abundantly clear when Charles sniffles again, then whispers, “What if I disappoint you? I want you to -“ He bundles himself up tighter, some of that embarrassment lingering. “I like that you’ll train me. I want you to - to... if I don’t listen -“ And this is quite a bit more like Erik remembers, except it isn’t conscious on Charles’ part this time, because he’s thinking of Erik taking him over his knee, scolding him softly, but in that firm, purring voice, in a quick, scattered image, and it’s not fear or damage that it’s framed with. It’s pure, undeniable heat. Desire. “But I’m not the same, and I don’t know how, and what if I disappoint you? I don’t want you to be disappointed. I want to please you, and I’m...” He’s afraid he won’t, somehow. That he won’t be able to learn, or learn fast or well enough. That something will be missing here, too. Charles spends so much of his time now upset and fretting over what’s missing from here, and he thinks - and Erik hears, for just a second before the connection snaps completely again, like an overstressed rubber band - that it would be wholly devastating to find he’s lacking here, too.  
  
"You won't disappoint me," Erik whispers. "Not like this. The fact that you want, that you desire, that is what is important to me. The most important. I will teach you how. And-" Erik breathes in slowly. "And you have nothing to worry about, besides. What you do not know, I will teach you. But you must know how you affect me," he rubs Charles's back. "The way you look. The way you sound. How eager you are to please me. How wonderful it feels to be touched by you. Believe me. You do not lack." Erik's voice has slipped from its usual composure to something less polished, his accent heavier, words thicker and more affected. "And if you do not listen, I will respond appropriately. But if you do, if you obey me, you will be very well-rewarded. This has always belonged to me, too," he whispers, stroking his fingertip down Charles's abdomen and along his cock, too. "No more hiding. When this happens, you come to me. Just like you would want me to come to you. Would you? If I were lying awake in bed, imagining you? Should I seek you out?" He's just talking, almost rambling, in the way he does sometimes when he's a little ramped up.  
  
Charles starts to tremble again the moment Erik touches him, though he already was, really, just from the words alone. He whimpers quietly, rubs his face into Erik’s stomach again, and nods, small. “But it’s different,” he whispers, biting his lip, and Erik can’t hear, right this second, but it’s obvious enough that he doesn’t want to provide an explanation. He certainly doesn’t offer one, and he’s got another question, besides. “I have to come to you? Every time?” he asks, and it’s shy again, but it’s also curious, eager in the way he has been since they started this training period. Looking for Erik to tell him what’s expected, what the rules are, so he can operate according to them. Decide, according to them. So he can learn. He’s taking to it as ferociously and determined as he has in any of the things he’s studied, and more.  
  
"Every time," Erik murmurs. "It is not different. We are not meant to be alone with this. It is for us. Together. I don't ever want to hear about you suffering like this by yourself. It is mine. As much as you are." He runs the back of his fingers along Charles's face.  
  
“It’s different,” Charles argues, and there’s only a tiny bit of attitude there, and only because he’s fairly sure of this. Whatever makes him sure, though, he’s not about to offer up the explanation. He rubs against Erik’s fingers instead, sighing. Like a plant seeking out the sun. “It hurts,” he mumbles, softly, and fusses, wriggling again, soft, distressed little noises escaping.  
  
He gives Charles's cheek a sharp rap in reproach, more for the attitude itself and not the actual objection. "Sit back," Erik purrs in that dark voice again, a thin snap of Command whistling through the air. "Now," he draws his fingers down Charles's chest. "I do not like being spoken back to in such a tone. So tell me why."  
  
Being let go of, even with Erik still touching him, feels like much more of a reprimand, though he cries out at the slap, too. Charles tries not to acknowledge the tears that spring to his eyes, tries to soothe himself by focusing on the fingers on his chest, glances down to watch them as if convincing himself they’re there. He takes a hitchy breath, sniffles a bit. “It’s just different,” he mumbles, which he knows won’t be adequate. “For you. Because, because you said you’ll train me so I, so I tend to these needs, too, so if you needed that, you should seek me out, because - because...” He shrugs, cheeks somehow redder. But it’s obvious he doesn’t find the concept upsetting. He finds it exciting, if his body is anything to go by.  
  
If Erik's reaction is anything to go by, the way his eyes darken and his features practically give off heat lines, it's easy to see that he knows the answer to his own question well before Charles does and merely expects him to say it. "Because why?" His fingers dip below Charles's navel, one eyebrow arched in demand.  
  
Charles knows the answer, too, and it’s burning him up inside. He’s a little preoccupied, though, his belly tight as Erik’s hand travels lower, trying not squirm too much even though it seems physically impossible. Everything feels so coiled up, so tight, and he’s panting again. “Because I’m yours?” he tries, though he knows it’s not the most descriptive or thorough answer. He still can’t help watching Erik’s fingers, laser-focused on the point of contact.  
  
"You are," Erik rumbles lowly. Charles belongs to him, and that means this belongs to him, too. But it also means more. Charles is meant to serve him. "And what does that mean? When I decide that I want you. Does it mean I sit alone, by myself, and take care of it by myself? No. It means that you take care of me." He runs his free hand across Charles's cheek, and because he's risen to his feet, he has plenty of leverage to lean up a little and brush his cock against the slowly reddening mark he's just left there. "And it is my job to take care of you. You are not free. You are not alone. You are mine. That means you come to me."

* * *

Erik is so tall. It’s not even nearly the first time he’s noticed, but it is particularly obvious in this moment; everything about him feels larger than life, intimidating and Dominating but Charles has seen him in his most vulnerable, weak moments, too, in this case just an hour or so ago and it makes everything seem better. Not in a horrid way, just that he knows it’s safe. This isn’t a frightening man, some stranger, though sometimes it still feels like it, though by some accounts he still is. Erik is a complicated, complex, lovely person, and all of him together makes up - makes up his Dominant. His Dominant, who’s going to train him properly. He promised. When Erik’s cock grazes his cheek, he gasps, fidgets extraordinarily, eyes half-lidded but filled with startled want. “Have you,” he starts to ask, because his curiosity always gets the better of him, even as he nuzzles his cheek against Erik’s dick, shy but needy, “Has it happened to you, too?” Not in the same way, perhaps, but of course he’s wondered.  
  
"Yes," he answers hoarsely, and his eyes threaten to flutter but snap open again, mostly so he can continue watching Charles, as if he can somehow burn every moment of this experience into his memory and there are so many of them, so many times in the past that he's done the same thing, that he's stood in this same place and sketched each line and twitch of Charles's expression into his mind. "I was afraid to tell you, too. Afraid you weren't comfortable. I didn't want to pressure you." The reasons for that are clear, as early as an hour ago. He rubs the pad of his thumb over Charles's bottom lip, pupils dilated, black eclipsing brilliant green as he stares seemingly through Charles and right into him.  
  
Charles knows he’s grateful. That he likely needed the time, though it was agonizing, and perhaps in some ways he still does. But not in this way. He shivers, absolutely electrified under Erik’s gaze, lips parted as Erik’s thumb touches his already swollen lips. “And you -“ It’s almost a squeak but he can’t bite it back, and it’s obvious what he’s looking at. What he’s focused on. What he’s imagining, as he presses his cheek insistently against the heavy weight there, biting his lip to bite back the noise that threatens to escape. “While you thought of me?” He has a hard time believing it, somehow. Processing it. “How often? What did you think of?” He wants to know. He needs to. “I should have - I’m meant to...” Right?  
  
"You should have come to me," Erik whispers. "You are meant to." He grasps himself in hand, slowly drawing the tip of his cock across Charles's mouth, not giving in to the urge to do a good deal more. Watching, just this, is enough to flip his stomach over into knots. His ears are ringing, his hands are hot, fingers flexing with need. "Often. All the time. I thought of-" so much. "Like this. On your knees. Underneath me. Ordering you. Making you come. Making you wait. Listening to you and seeing you. I'm afraid I have a much filthier mind than you realize," he laughs a little, soft. And it doesn't help that he has memories of all of those things, not just fantasies. It's been absolute torment.  
  
What Charles knows is that he wants to learn. He wants to learn, preferably starting right now, how filthy Erik’s mind is. “You’ll train me now?” he whispers, utterly breathless, his lips parted, panting hot breath over Erik’s cock. It’s right there. It’s so close, but before Erik took it away from him - and isn’t that a thought, as if it’s a reward, and the truth is, the truth is it feels like it - and he doesn’t want that to happen again. “To do this?” To serve Erik like this, too, he means. He’s wanted so desperately to learn to tend to Erik’s needs, his wants, and this is absolutely no exception. His eyes flutter closed, overwhelmed again, but he leans forward and kisses Erik’s cock, his heart pounding. It’s almost sweet, except it’s also filthy, his lips wet and sticky in the aftermath.  
  
Erik's feet spread a little and he grasps himself firmly, this time rocking forward to push himself right past those parted lips, both hands framing either side of Charles's face. "Yes," he growls roughly. Orders spill from him, inky and dark like oil. For Charles to straighten up, to open wider, to take him deeper. He doesn't do anything harsh, but give an experimental little thrust, fingers curling against Charles's throat. "Beautiful boy," he whispers. "Do you know you are mine? You will learn."  
  
It’s not too much. After all this time imagining, and waiting, it’s completely perfect. Charles gags a little, startled even though Erik isn’t even halfway (surely he won’t ever learn to take all of him at once, will he?), but he settles quickly. It’s just that Erik talking like that is driving him wild, pooling all of that heat in his gut in a way that’s truly overwhelming even as he wants more than anything to please, to serve, but fidgeting is inevitable. Moaning is inevitable, and his eyes close. Charles looks well and truly blissed out, and he’s starting to tremble again, harsh breathing through his nose as he sucks, his cock twitching and jumping against his thigh and he’s a little panicked, even as he’s soothed, and isn’t that a strange sensation, because he thinks he really could - just from this. He doesn’t understand, but he didn’t understand it before, either, when he couldn’t. No matter what he did.  
  
"Look at me," Erik whispers again, as if unable to speak above a certain volume, trapped inside a snowglobe of light and pitch dark empty of anything other than Charles before him. "Hands behind your back." This time he doesn't stop moving, doesn't stop giving Charles what he wants to give him, steadied by his response, inflamed by it. Thick roils of flame shoot down his body and pool in his gut, wrenching a low groan from the bottom of his chest. "You like this? Listen to you. I think you do. I think you could come just from this. Just from taking my cock the way you are supposed to. From being where you belong. Isn't that right." His words are low and thick, and he keeps talking, half-nonsense, moving slowly, so slowly, but with the thinly veiled control that suggests he's holding himself back from hurting Charles for real.  
  
It’s too much. It’s entirely too much, and not enough, apparently, because he wants more. He tries to keep up, to suck, to use his tongue, to breathe through his nose and mind his teeth and serve, and he does. He sinks right into it, as if he’s been doing it all his life, even inexperienced and messy and still-nervous. But he’s also shaking. His thighs are getting the worst of it, and he starts taking gasping, desperate breaths through his nose, moaning continuously around Erik’s cock, spit gathering at the corner of his mouth and he doesn’t even know what’s happening at first, just that it is. Just that Erik’s voice - and the taste of him, the smell, the weight on his tongue, the stretch of his lips and jaw - and there’s a high, whining noise, and then he’s coming. He’s coming, and he didn’t mean to and he meant to hold on but he is, thighs shaking and shaking with it, making a mess of his own thighs and belly as he cries, tears pouring down his cheeks because he doesn’t understand, Erik wasn’t even touching him, he tried to listen -  
  
It makes Erik laugh, a rich, luxuriating sound and he pulls back just a little, bringing his hand down to grasp Charles gently, tugging him against his belly and holding him through it, soothing him and rubbing his back and reassuring him. He knows. He's always known. "That's it, it's OK," he hushes softly. "Come for me, sweet boy. I've got you," he grins, his own dick jerking hard at the sight and sensation before him, and he can't help drawing along Charles's face. "I know, I know. You needed it so much."  
  
He did. Charles is crying, gasping, his chest heaving as he rubs himself against Erik, takes all that soothing comfort, and keeps coming. It feels like even when it’s over it goes on, and on, and on, and he’s twitching with it, shivering, crying softly, something finally untangled that had been coiling up and up and up. “I’m sorry, sir,” he rasps, hoarse, wrecked, and keeps nuzzling against Erik’s belly, always aware of his Dominant’s cock, of how much of a relief it was, and is. Is. “I couldn’t - it hurt so much,” he breathes, and it’s really the truth. Not unbearable pain so much as unbearable pressure, and he looks up with tears in his eyes and red cheeks and wonders if he should be horribly ashamed. But then he twitches again, lets out a wounded, half-choked gasp, and his eyes nearly roll back. It feels so good. It had felt so good, to do what he was supposed to. Does Erik know? Does he?  
  
"I know," Erik whispers, drawing his cock along Charles's bottom lip, the muscles of his stomach jumping at the contact. "Never, ever apologize for this," he touches Charles's cheek. "You will learn. We have so much time. Magnificent," he says, hoarse, struggling to keep his half-lidded eyes open and control himself, and he smears some of Charles's own mess along his inner thigh, along his stomach, marking him as fiercely as any bite or scratch with evidence of his own arousal. "You want to make me come? You want to serve me. Look at me and answer."  
  
“But, but you said -“ And the thought of being spanked right now is so thoroughly overwhelming he sobs, right against Erik’s cock, presses little kisses to the head like it’s soothing to him. It is. “You said I had to wait until you told me,” he sniffles, and he’s shivering still, violent, hardly able to think let alone make sentences. He nods, eagerly, without hesitation, shaking every time Erik even grazes him, oversensitive, shivery, still-electrified. He looks up, his eyes so blue, filled with tears still that cling to his lashes. “I want to make you come, sir. I want to serve you,” he whispers, heated, determined, devoted. Devoted to being trained, and to Erik. Already. Always.  
  
"Mm-hm. I know what I said." Erik gives his cheek a little slap for good measure, and then slowly crawls on the bed, leaned back against the wall. "Come here," he demands, tugging Charles forward so that he ends up on his hands and knees in front of Erik, his cheek still pressed right up next to him. Erik gives his ass a jolt once he can reach. "Open up. I don't want to see any slacking off or laziness from your Posture, either." When Charles complies, he rocks forward, filling him once more with hot flesh, talking lowly the whole time. Telling him what to do, how to do it, how much to suck, how to use his tongue, how to use his hand to jerk Erik off right into his mouth. And interspersed with it all if he feels Charles is pausing or losing himself, he gets another blow right over the marks already emblazoned on his backside.  
  
Charles doesn’t slack off. He doesn’t even consider it. Still shaking and oversensitive, still crying a bit, he takes to the task Erik gives him with more eagerness than even he knew he had. He’s not very skilled. Sometimes even what he’s taking, even not having Erik’s full length, even with the careful consideration from his Dominant, he sputters, has to pull off for just a moment to breathe, to remind himself that he can breathe, through his nose. Erik calms him. Soothes him. And truly, this is calming; even when Erik is rougher with him, even when he slaps him, is firmer with him, he looks peaceful, and content, even a mess, even with tears down his cheeks. It’s nice. It feels good, it feels nice, and his eyes slide close and he hums, moans, sometimes, less desperate but still pleased, still wanting, unconscious and not at all forced. He feels good like this, even overwhelmed. He couldn’t have imagined it but he can’t help hoping it won’t end.  
  
It's never been about skill, for Erik, not ever. Not only does he not know any better, but it's always been about Charles. About what Charles is doing, watching him enjoy doing it. Making him do it, even, within certain constraints. But he can't admit that, yet. Maybe not ever. When he sputters or coughs, Erik lets up, and then starts the cycle again until his hips stutter and he thrusts deeper than normal, pulling back a bit abruptly in apology, his body vibrating unconsciously. "Feel OK?" he whispers, thumbing along Charles's bottom lip where a strand of white has settled. He slips his thumb into Charles's mouth, too.  
  
Charles doesn’t know if he can ever admit how much he liked it. Perhaps he can, like this, fresh and inexperienced and being trained; perhaps he’s in a better position to do it than ever, once Erik coaxes him out of the shyness. Either way he’s coughing a little, tears at the corner of his eyes again, his throat sore, his lips swollen, but at Erik’s question he nods so fast his head spins and then flushes at his own eagerness. At the fact that somewhere in the middle of this, it’s possible he’d twitched between his own legs, even after coming so hard and violently he’d seen stars. “Did... did I do something wrong?” he whispers, hoarse and small, and because he can’t help it, he sucks at Erik’s fingers. Like he needs something in his mouth, even if he’d much rather - well, he’d much rather it be Erik’s cock.  
  
Erik's eyes are half-lidded and he unconsciously bites down on his lip to keep himself quiet. "Absolutely not," he rasps, fond. "I didn't hurt you? Not too much?" he can't help talking, this Charles doesn't know that, yet. But he will, very soon. He takes his fingers out and draws them down Charles's cheek, streaks of his own saliva before guiding his cock back where it belongs. Inside the warm, wet heat of his submissive. "I can see how much you like this, sweetheart. Look at you. Do you need more? You will have to beg me for it." He withdraws his cock again, slapping it against Charles's lips and pulling away before he can list forward.  
  
It’s not too much. He’s the opposite of hurting. When Erik pulls away again he whines, loud and distressed and pouting, is the best way it could possibly be described. He tries to squirm enough to get Erik’s cock back, but of course he can’t. Of course it doesn’t get him far, and he doesn’t want to be disobedient, anyway. He just feels like he needs. “Please?” he tries, his voice absolutely wrecked. He’s not feeling particularly eloquent, in contrast, but he does look appropriately desperate, his eyes heavy, almost like he’s been drugged. He hasn’t, of course. He’s merely overwhelmed completely by subspace, dropped down so far he’ll drown without Erik.  
  
Fortunately for him, Erik has no plans to ever let him go, ever again. Not ever. "Mm-mm," Erik rumbles with a grin, running his fingers up and down Charles's cheek. " _Please, sir_. I know you can ask me better than that. And I know you know how to address me properly." The more wrecked and needy Charles looks, the more wisps of Dominion seep out of Erik and all through the room, wrapping him up to the point of choking even without touching him. But touching is always better.  
  
Touched is infinitely better. At the correction, Charles pouts harder, even though he knows Erik is right. Even though he wants to obey, desperately so. “Please, sir,” he murmurs, and it isn’t with a trace of attitude, the way it has been in the past. He knows better than that right now (well, always, but he’s behaving now). He nuzzles up against Erik’s fingers, kisses them, sucks them into his mouth. “Please? I’ll be good, I promise. I like it,” he whispers, shocked himself by how much. How good it feels. “Please train me, sir. I need it.” And his own eyes widen, because it’s true. He does. He needs it. “I’ll do what you say. Promise.”  
  
Erik can't resist dragging the tip of his dick across Charles's lips, even when he's trying to make a point. It's been so long, and usually he has much better control than this but right now it feels as if it's building to a fever pitch, his whole body hot with it. "Yes, you will." It's dark. "You need it? You need my cock in your mouth? Tell me. You will not get it unless you ask for it." The next thing he says is an Order entirely of its own volition. " _Please, sir, I want your cock in my mouth_. Say it. That's right. Open up." But when he does, Erik pulls away again, glaring down at him expectantly.  
  
And Charles sniffles, as if being denied this is the worst punishment of all. It certainly feels like it. “Please, sir, I -“ It’s an Order, but even still Charles struggles with it. His cheeks hurt, they’re so red, and his neck and ears feel warm, too, prickling. He shivers. “Please, sir, I want your cock in my mouth,” he gasps all at once, his own eyes even wider, as if he can’t believe he’s said it. Tears squeeze out of his eyes, but he isn’t distressed. It’s true. It’s just overwhelming, still, to hear it. To mean it. To need it. His chest is heaving, and Charles is shy, he’s embarrassed, but he opens his mouth wide. He wants Erik to know, too.  
  
"Good boy," Erik growls, and before he has time to process Erik grips his hair between his fingers, tugging his head back so he can thrust forward in a steady surge, making Charles gag just a little, making him choke just a little, patting his cheek where he can feel the length of himself on the other side. Slapping him when he drifts off too far. "You are mine. This is where you belong. This belongs to me. You will never keep it from me again. Not ever." Erik cuts himself off, pressing his fist to his own mouth to avoid making an embarrassing noise as his stomach flips over and he begins to careen all the way down that slope ending at his release.  
  
Charles wants it, though. He takes what he’s given, eagerly, gratefully, even when he chokes, even when tears spring up in his eyes again. He recovers quickly, because he wants to please, even when panic grips briefly at his chest and squeezes. He wants so badly to please. The sound Erik makes just urges him on, needy, gasping, moaning around the stretch, and he ends up taking more than he can handle all on his own; he gags a little, tears leaking out, but keeps going. Tries to relax his throat, to relax for Erik, to just open up. Because he wants Erik to come. He wants Erik to feel good. He wants to serve Erik, and the thought is enough to have him hot all over again, but this time he doesn’t pay any attention. He just wants to be good for his Dominant. When he looks up, he’s hopeful and eager and so needy himself, tears in his eyes, but determined. He’ll be good. He’ll show Erik how much he wants to be trained.  
  
Erik wanted this to keep going, didn't want it to end because-and there's no reason why, really, because they can just do this again and isn't that nice? It is. But he can't, he's gone over the edge and reached terminal velocity in no time at all and he frames Charles's face in his hands, peering down into his eyes a little wildly and before he can even think-Charles wants it, wants him, and it's all of a sudden too much and he's coming, with a harsh exhale and he doesn't pull away, making Charles swallow most of it, catching a few flecks at the corner of his mouth with his thumb and smearing them a little over his bottom lip, a stuttered gasp caught in his throat.

* * *

Seeing it is a little too much for Charles, too. All of a sudden he’s completely overwhelmed, not only by another burst of panic when he’s made to swallow, sputtering and choking softly around it, but by pure, inexplicable heat. Electricity targeting every nerve. It’s like he can feel it, too. Like he’s the one coming, too. Erik was pleased enough to come. It sends sparks of pleasure straight down to his toes and in the aftermath Charles is greedy, overstimulated again but needing contact; he rubs up against Erik’s sticky, spent cock, licks what’s left, as if he can’t possibly get enough even when he’s unused to the taste. He nuzzles up into Erik’s thighs, breathing in deeply, taking stuttered gasps of air himself. He can’t explain it, but it feels so good. To know that he pleased his Dominant - “Was it alright?” he whispers, and looks up, shy again. He has to know. He has to hear it.  
  
Erik tugs Charles up to his chest and embraces him tightly, burying his head into Charles's shoulder even as he nods, sharply overcome himself, not just from the physical sensation but on an emotional level as well, in a way that's hard for him to verbalize. "Wonderful," he whispers. "You are absolutely wonderful. You were so good. You are so good," he repeats, stroking Charles's back, wrapping him up and pressing little kisses along his neck and throat. "Beautiful."  
  
Charles preens at the praise, sighing happily. His throat and jaw are awfully sore and he can’t imagine ever taking much more than he did, but already he wants to. To learn, to try. Already he’s wondering why he ever considered locking himself away in the first place, when there’s nothing at all harmful about this. In fact, he’s perfectly content, relaxed for the first time all day, and maybe just days, since this all started; he nestles into Erik’s chest, humming, half-sleepy and half still-heated, half electric and half serene. “Feels good, sir,” he murmurs, leaning into every touch, following Erik’s lips, trying to anticipate the next kiss so he can flutter with it. It does.  
  
"Yes," Erik purrs against his ear, wrapping him up even further inside of blankets, keeping him tucked close. "Feels very good," he rubs strands of Charles's hair between his fingers. They trail down Charles's back, along his spine and curve against his ass, pressing him up close against Erik's thigh as all of his muscles gradually release their tension, tension that's been building for days, for weeks, for months. Being alone, dealing with this alone, and finally having relief, the relief of knowing that Charles still feels the same way, is still attracted to him in the same way. He kisses the top of his head.  
  
Everything feels fluttery and warm and still, somehow, electric. He no longer feels like he’s being consumed from the inside out, no longer feels like he’ll surely suffocate if he doesn’t serve properly, but it’s still there. It’s still very much there, and when that hand wanders to his ass, still red, he whimpers, squirms. “Did you mean what you said before, sir?” he whispers after some time, and peeks up to check, to watch Erik’s expression. “That I need to come to you? Even when I’m just...” He bites his lip.  
  
"Yes," Erik murmurs, drawing a thumb across Charles's bottom lip. "And I know I did not make it very clear before now. I didn't think you-" he shrugs, a bit self-conscious. "I didn't expect you to want me the same way. But now you know better. And if it happens again I will react accordingly." He gives Charles's behind a nice jolt for clarity.  
  
Something flutters in Charles’ belly again, and he wriggles with it, shifting on Erik’s lap, gasping when he’s reminded of how sensitive he is, still. “I’m not allowed to, um...” Well, there’s no delicate way to say it. His cheeks feel warm again, just like the rest of him. But he’s always checking, making sure he knows the rules, what’s expected. They were supposed to do that today, check-in. This feels like a good start, and Charles almost giggles at that thought, hiding in Erik’s shoulder.  
  
"Mm. No," Erik rumbles, grinning. He strokes Charles's face tenderly. "Mostly because, I know that it isn't effective. It is just prolonging the torture. If it were effective, maybe. But it isn't. Because you belong to me, and your mind and body know deep down that they should seek me out."  
  
“What if I try anyway?” he asks, because he’s curious, and he wants to know. What’s acceptable, and what isn’t. What happens when he crosses a line and chooses not to obey. There’s a lot of boundary testing happening, all the time, in a way he just didn’t feel entirely free to before. It’s part of the training period, perhaps. “What if it works? You don’t know.”  
  
"I know," Erik rumbles dangerously. "And if you try and hide this from me again, you will face the consequences. I don't like secrets. You are not meant to deal with this by yourself. It belongs to me. And I want it. And I will have it. And if you keep it from me, you will be disciplined."  
  
“How will you even know,” Charles demands, and realizes fairly soon after it comes out of his mouth that it might not be the best question, considering what it implies. He nestles in tighter. “I’ll be good, promise. I’m just wondering,” he tries to save. “Or what if it’s very late, and you’re sleeping? Am I to wake you up to tell you -“ More fidgeting.  
  
"Yes, Charles," Erik murmurs, his eyes hooded. "You must. And I will find out. I always do. And whether that is because you tell me or because I determine it of my own volition, the longer you hide it from me, the more severe your punishment will be."  
  
“You didn’t guess the first time,” he points out, quietly, and once again feels like there must be a way to learn to control his own mouth. Charles shakes his head, his next words very muffled. “I’m not waking you up in the middle of the night to tell you I’m a bit randy. That’s mad, isn’t it?” But Erik told him he must come to him if he has a nightmare, or sees something go bump in the night. It’s just that this seems even sillier, and he’s already embarrassed and shy imagining it.  
  
Erik gives him a short, sharp slap across the cheek for his attitude. "It is not optional. You will do as you are told, or you will face the consequences. I found out, and I will find out in the future. Talking back to me at this time is very unwise, Charles," he warns, gripping Charles's jaw in his hand. "You belong to me. Or have you forgotten so quickly. Perhaps I won't let you leave my bed at all."  
  
At first, Charles bristles. Then he takes a sharp breath, sniffing softly and rubbing his newly smarting cheek against Erik’s chest, ducked back into him. “I’m sorry, sir,” he whispers, and to his credit, he does sound appropriately sheepish. “I didn’t forget. I won’t forget. But will you really punish me if you find out I - that I didn’t tell you I was...” He’s really struggling, and now he’s really squirming, again, especially after being slapped again. Especially because every time he shifts he remembers Erik rubbed around his own come, made him messy, remembers that he was spanked quite thoroughly, that his ass is sore. That he’s sensitive.  
  
"Yes. Yes, I will. I don't appreciate being kept in the dark. Especially if it results in you being as miserable as you were this week," he adds knowingly, shifting Charles against him subtly, those thoughts slipping out and into Erik's conscious stream and making him gaze up at Charles darkly once more. "Be still," he Commands, scratching his nails over the welts on Charles's ass.  
  
“I wasn’t miserable,” he mutters, because truly, he wasn’t. He was a little embarrassed, and uncomfortable. It did hurt. He didn’t always sleep, especially not when Erik put him to bed, often thrashing and wriggling about under the covers for hours still. But he wasn’t miserable. Actually, he’d been rather content this week. He’d been getting into routine. He’d enjoyed being trained, and being with Erik in general. At Erik’s scratching, Charles squirms harder. “Are you sure it’s not just so you can control this, too?” It’s not accusatory, because - well, maybe Charles is more okay with that than he’d let on. “I bet I can get it to work, and take care of it by myself,” he whispers, and it’s quiet. Like he only half wants Erik to hear, or he’s lost his nerve before he even said it. Likely both.  
  
"No," Erik rumbles, the vibration pressing against Charles's cheek where it's laid on his skin. "You were not sleeping. You were dedicating hours to something that should have been resolved together. I told you what I expect and my mind will not change. Maybe I like controlling this, too," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to Charles's temple where he knows it's sensitive. "Does that bother you?" He soothes over those scratches with his thumbs, the flesh beneath his touch hot still.  
  
Charles does some more squirming, Erik’s touch riling him all over again. He doesn’t know his temple is so sensitive, but he shivers, goes completely still as if he’s been electrified. Hurt, even, but he’s not. Just overwhelmed by that spark of connection, shuddering after a moment with a soft noise of startled pleasure. “It doesn’t bother me,” he whispers, finally. He doesn’t say it’s an understatement. That he thinks he wants Erik to control it. “But what about when I feel like it, and you’re busy? What then?” He doesn’t say that it’s happened this way before, but he doesn’t need to. The image leaks out; Charles wriggling about in the library, midday, unable to focus on his book because he’s suddenly found himself with a problem, pink-cheeked and frustrated with his own body.  
  
Erik's eyelids are practically slits as he regards Charles, wrapping a leg around his hip to press him closer, more flush against Erik's thigh than even earlier. "Then you will come to me," he growls out softly, his voice appearing in Charles's ear, low and tinged with the beginning stages of Dominion once again. There's nothing more important, more essential to Erik, than caring for Charles's immediate needs, and this is no exception.  
  
To say that Charles is in the beginning stages of subspace would be incorrect; he never floated outside of it, and he doesn't think he can. Not like this. He gasps against Erik's skin, wiggling harder in his Dominant's lap, which only serves to rub certain places against the muscles of Erik's thigh and stomach, which only serves to turn him flushed and fidgeting. "What if I don't?" he asks, dark curiosity getting the better of him. He shivers even asking. "What if I don't, and you find me, and I'm - then what? What happens?"  
  
"Then I would discipline you. Then and there," Erik promises lowly. "And when I am finished disciplining you I might be inclined, if you take your punishment well, to have you properly service me. And you would not find a release either way. That is reserved for when you behave."  
  
Charles bites his lip. He bites his lip hard, but it apparently doesn’t help. “I don’t believe you,” he challenges, softly, as if that might help.  
  
"Keep talking," Erik growls, giving his ass a hard slap of disapproval. "And I will be happy to prove it to you."  
  
That certainly gets his attention. Charles gasps, whines quietly in the aftermath, clinging hard to Erik as if to soothe himself. “You can’t because it’s not happening,” he points out, and then he makes a noise of distress, because even he knows he needs to learn when to hold his tongue. Suffice to say, he’s not very good at it.  
  
"I can, and I will ensure that you know where your place is." Another devastating blow, this one giving a resounding crack through the room. "I do not appreciate being spoken back to like this. Keep it up and you will be on your hands and knees for the forseeable future."  
  
After Charles cries out this time, loudly, the broken sound startling even him, he goes silent. It becomes clear why when he starts trembling in Erik’s arms, tears gathered in his eyes as he nestles in close. “I’m sorry I talked back,” he whispers. There’s a but, but this time he wisely doesn’t voice it. He just rocks in Erik’s lap, hissing through his teeth when his poor ass rubs on Erik’s thighs. It’s also having another effect, along with Erik’s voice, and that’s doing things to him, too.  
  
"I expect you are," Erik purrs down at him, petting his hair and down his back, letting him ease up from the pain while not allowing him to move in any significant way, keeping him pinned in his arms and by his legs and pressed up flush against him. "And you can address me properly. Can't you."  
  
“I’m sorry, sir,” he repeats, and sniffs quietly into Erik’s shoulder, fussing as much as he possibly can. It doesn’t help at all, but it does rub everything together, bare skin against bare skin, until he has to bite his lip again to hold back a moan. It isn’t the time to dig the hole deeper. To be a smartass, as Charles is so inclined to be. But it wells back up, and he just can’t leave well enough alone. “I just don’t think you will,” he mumbles, as if he’s trying to convince himself.  
  
"Well if words have no meaning to you," Erik murmurs, "then I will just have to communicate another way. Talk back to me about it again and you will see. This is your final warning." Something about his tone is dark, as if relishing the fact that Charles inevitably will smart off to him, and they both know it, but here Erik is giving him an opportunity to save himself despite the fact that they both know he won't. And Erik anticipates it. Gladly.  
  
To Charles’ credit, he really does try. He hesitates, at the very least, fussing in Erik’s arms best he can. For the most part, and especially right now, he wants to be good; whether he can make sense of it and articulate it, he wants his Dominant to be proud of him. If there’s anything he reacted to in the last hour, it’s being called a good boy. But he’s also naturally smart, in this way. He always has been, quick-tongued and hasty with it, unwilling to be wrong. If there’s one thing that might always get him in trouble with his Dominant, it’s his mouth. Even when there’s no one here to prove himself to but Erik. Some of it is circumstance, a good chunk is personality, and - “But you won’t,” he insists, stubborn, quiet. “You won’t ever do that. You say you will, but it’s just talk. If you caught me like that, you wouldn’t react that way at all, Erik.” That doesn’t mean the thought frightens him. He’s just stating a fact.  
  
"You were warned," Erik rumbles and agilely maneuvers to his feet, taking care not to jostle Charles or nudge him in place with sharp elbows and bones, and once he's off something snaps into his hand. "Get on your hands and knees, Charles." It's an Order, and a little different, there are subtle nuances in the way Erik reacts to him. There's no real disappointment or frustration or conflict here, it isn't a punishment intended to wilt Charles the way it has before, but it is intended for something else. To bring him into line. To fill his senses only with Erik's Will. To show him that he cannot step out of place no matter what they're doing.  
  
There’s not much choice being afforded to him here - he imagines that was already extended, if Erik’s warning is anything to go by - but he grumbles through it anyway, unsettled that he isn’t being touched, wholly unhappy with the change in position and the lack of contact, his belly twisting itself up at the thought of whatever is in Erik’s hands now. It’s difficult to hold himself up, everything jelly-like and limp, except between his legs, which had been starting to stir again. Traitorous, as he’s learning, and now it’s a bit inappropriate and he finds himself embarrassed, trying to press his thighs together. “I shouldn’t be punished for just telling the truth,” he mutters, frowning, but he knows he doesn’t actually believe that. There were plenty of ways he could have handled this better and more respectfully, but the truth is he didn’t want to. "I'm sorry. I take it back, alright? Can we just -" He just wants to be held again. It's funny how he wants Erik to coddle him when he's actually earned himself some discipline.  
  
A sharp crack echoes through the room, almost before Charles can feel the bloom across his bare skin, and Erik nudges his knees apart, rubbing along with his hand in the aftermath. The interruption is swift. The implement that delivered the blow is different to what he's used in the past for punishment, it's swishy and made of black leather and Erik alternates between giving him little jolts and running his fingertips over the marks he gives. "You will take what I tell you to take. You will do what I tell you to do. When I say I will do something, I will do it." Erik gives him several more open-handed slaps, and crawls onto the bed, pressing himself against those marks, too, letting Charles feel right up against the swell of his ass how pleased Erik is to take him in hand. "Am I understood."  
  
“Y-Y-” Charles sniffles, making hitched, whining noises as he tries to settle but finds he can’t. Whether it was true punishment or not, it hurts, and he wriggles hard against Erik as he’s held in place, near to sobbing with the overstimulation, with the reminder that Erik likes this. What he doesn’t expect is that he likes it, too, in a different way, that his belly is still pooled with all that heat even as tears threaten to spill again. He’s starting to shake again. “N-No more, I’m sorry,” he gasps, rubbing his face into the blankets because Erik is behind him and he wants to be held but he doesn’t know how to ask for it. “I’m sorry, sir. I just meant - sometimes you say it, but you don’t, and -” And he knows he shouldn’t keep talking, but Erik said to talk to him, he said to always be honest with him, and he’s trying to be. He knows he wasn’t very honest this week, but he’s not lying now. “I’m sorry. It hurts,” he repeats, muffled into the blanket.  
  
Erik stretches over him and bundles him up, still pressed up against him, this time his whole body pressed skin-to-skin. "Yes," he purrs in response, his voice tickling Charles's ear. "It should hurt. I told you what would happen if you kept talking back to me. I have no problem demonstrating that to you. I have done so and I will continue to do so. So you will come to me when this happens. Am I understood."  
  
Charles gasps again, thrashing slightly beneath Erik, but it isn’t to get away. He can’t hold himself up properly, his arms shaking harder than the rest of him, overcome by shivers with Erik so close. But somehow, even now, even thoroughly in his place, he shakes his head. It’s so small it’s easy to miss.  
  
"No?" Erik growls, and Charles finds his hands pinned above his head, as Erik sits back, trapped in place by his abilities more than physical exertion but only so that Erik can once more focus on his true task, which is shutting all of that dissent down, alternating strikes from the instrument and his hand both. "What will make you understand? Because I have nowhere to be but here." He's already stirred again between his own legs and Charles can feel the full length of him when he presses up against those new, heated stripes along his skin.  
  
Charles begins to cry in earnest, quietly and softly at first, just tiny little sniffles, but soon they’re full, hitched sobs as he rubs his cheek against the blankets and sheets in the absence of Erik’s skin. It’s not quite as soothing, but it helps, and he’s a little dizzy, a little overwhelmed, uncertain whether he wants to arch into Erik’s attention or away from it, to avoid pain. It’s all blending together, the sensations, and when Erik’s big, warm hand settles on his ass to rub out the latest sting, he whines, arching his back impressively in an attempt to encourage more. “But what if you - what if you don’t -” He sniffs, and it’s not talking back. It’s genuine worry, rising up below the need to be smart. "I understand, sir, I do. No more, please. Hurts."  
  
"I will. I always have. When I am certain that you know better, when I am sure that your actions can only be due to disregard and disobedience instead of a myriad of other possibilities, you know that I act. I've given you my expectations and if you fail to fulfill them I will respond accordingly, as I always have. If you fail to come to me, if I find you hiding this from me, there will be consequences." He punctuates that with another open-handed slap.  
  
That’s final. It’s certain. Charles feels himself lean into the words as much as he does Erik’s touch, and he sobs quietly when the hand he’d been arching into slaps him again. He slumps back into the bed, his face mostly buried, which means his words are mostly muffled, barely audible. “But you wouldn’t let me - let me...” He turns his head, just enough to stare up at Erik, to see his face. “You didn’t always,” he whispers, but he doesn’t mean it as back-talk. It’s just that he doesn’t always know, because Erik hasn’t always been consistent. He’s learning. They both are. That’s what today was for, after all. To check-in on the process. “We’ve never done this before,” he whispers. “I just want to know.”  
  
Erik trails his hand along Charles's back and cups his cheek, rubbing his thumb along his bottom lip. "I do to the best of my ability," he murmurs softly. Certainly since we have begun training. I do not like to let things slide. I have done this before," he corrects softly. "I know what you need. I know how to take care of you. I am not always confident in that, but I know. And I will always rise to it, no matter what. You belong to me. You will know that."


	106. Take me down (don't be scared)

Charles does want to believe that. For this to work, he needs to believe that. He nuzzles gratefully into Erik’s hand, pressing his tear-stained cheek into it like a needy kitten. “So when I, when I’m... you won’t let me?” he whispers, and now he sounds shocked. As if it’s shocking, that Erik might really enforce such a thing. “I get punished?” It’s almost humorous, how late this seems to be sinking in for Charles. He seems to be trying to make sense of it, sniffling again. “Not just a spanking?” That seems to be Erik’s go-to, and Charles couldn’t possibly lie and say it distresses him in any real way. But he’s not thinking about the spanking right now. He’s always wondered this, had wanted to ask; and now he’s got an opportunity, albeit a different one than he expected. “I belong to you,” he adds, eyelids heavy, and that’s sweet. He wants Erik to know he knows, that’s all, and this time he’s so far down and thoroughly Dominated he doesn’t even hesitate, doesn’t even get nervous about it.  
  
"Yes," Erik rumbles deep in his chest. "You do." It's an answer to both statements, the punishment and the belonging, and it's easy to tell that from the tone of his voice, tinged with the telltale dark richness of Dominion. "Because I've given you the warning and I know that you know the difference. I will not accept disobedience. What happens is up to you. If you do what you are Commanded then you will be rewarded. But if you don't, you will experience the consequences. And in the end you will not have relief. It is simply not beneficial to you."  
  
“It’s not?” And it’s more smart than it is truly skeptical or even curious, but Charles catches himself quickly, turns his head to kiss Erik’s palm as if the sweetness will override any mouthiness. He tries to move, whining when he can’t; Erik is all pressed up against him but he still feels so far away, and Charles wants. He feels unsettled like this, not being held and stroked and talked to when he’s so far down, after any kind of punishment. “But what if I need it? You’ll still say no? For how long?”  
  
"For as long as I deem necessary," Erik presses a kiss to the back of his neck, and gives him another short, sharp slap for talking back to him again. "Certainly for as long as you continue to mouth off to me." This is obviously referring to the moment and not the future. Erik gives him a nip of reproach along his throat, worrying a mark into his skin.  
  
Charles thrashes again, arching into and away from the touches in equal measure. “Sorry, sir,” he whispers, voice cracking on it. “It’s just - you’ll really do it,” he breathes, and apparently it’s a revelation. Erik would really punish him that way. Maybe more ways, too. He’s learning. It’s a lot, and he doesn’t know why he shivers, why he suddenly feels so hot. Why he’s squirming even harder, gasping so loud when he brushes up against Erik.  
  
"Yes," Erik murmurs. "Yes, I will. Because you belong to me. Because I know what you need and I know how to provide it to you." He holds Charles down entirely, with his own hands, not just his abilities, pressing against him to keep his hips from arching up, too. "There is nowhere for you to go. No way in which you are free. Never again. Not from the moment you met me. If I am inconsistent it is only out of an abundance of caution. It is not due to lack of ability or lack of desire. And I am running out of caution."  
  
It makes him whine again, protesting, but he knows it’s Erik’s right to do that. To stop him from rutting back like some animal in heat when it’s all he wants at the moment, everything ramped right back up and he doesn’t know why, just that he feels like he’s burning up. “What happens when you run out of caution?” he asks, breathless. Utterly breathless, his eyes fluttering shut as he continues to try and squirm against the bedsheets, seeking sensation. Everything feels so sensitive.  
  
But there's no where to squirm to. Erik keeps him pinned, hands above his head, knees spread, Presented for Erik as much as he's ever been. He's playing with fire and he knows it. "I might decide I want more than just your mouth," comes the answer before his rational mind can even tell him to be careful.  
  
Charles freezes right up, but it’s not because he’s afraid. It’s not at all because of that, and he’s suddenly trembling head to toe, shivering harder in Erik’s arms. “What do you mean, sir?” he whispers, as if he doesn’t already know. As if he hasn’t imagined it.  
  
Erik bows his forehead against the back of Charles's neck, running his fingers down the sensitive skin, there and leaning up to press a kiss to his sensitive temple. He really doesn't want to overstep, to come on too strong. The problem is that it exists in him far louder, far more dangerously, than he's ever revealed to Charles. And he doesn't want to drop the barrier all of a sudden and make him realize that he's just as crass and selfish as everyone else. But it means nothing, because it isn't true. "I think you know what I mean," he replies lowly, and fully draws the length of his once-again hardened dick along the crack of Charles's ass. Charles has to know, though, that if he were hesitant, if he didn't want to, that Erik would never force him. He has to know that. Erik doesn't even need to say it because it's practically seeping out of him, just as much as any arousal. Charles is safe, no matter what.  
  
Charles knows. Of course he knows, but he wants to. Desperately, he wants to. He’s wanted to this whole time, maybe, the moment they started this. He’s panting under Erik, biting hard on his lip, whimpering at the feel of Erik hard against him, at the drag right against the worst of those welts. “But you spanked me,” he whispers, and maybe it’s just to say it. Just to remind them both that his ass is bright, cherry red, that it’s Erik’s doing. “I’m sore, sir.” And wanting. And willing. And trying so hard to squirm.  
  
"Mm-hm," Erik's breath puffs against his ear, and it's not a real answer, more of a soft and unconscious noise of approval. "I like spanking you," he whispers roughly. "I should keep spanking you, and I should take you in-between. Does that frighten you?" he's practically grinding against Charles, only through the grace of self-control keeping it slow and steady and making him feel every bit of it before he ever gets started.  
  
Against the bedsheets, Charles is most definitely hard. Leaking again, actually, whining now, trying to rut himself against the mattress, to arch back against Erik, making startled, needy little noises he doesn’t even realize are coming out of his mouth. He shakes his head, because it doesn’t. It doesn’t at all. “But it hurts,” he gasps, because it does. “I’m so sore.” And he doesn’t know why, he doesn’t know why but he hopes Erik doesn’t care. He hopes he does it anyway.  
  
It makes Erik huff above him, a dark little laugh. He strokes Charles's cheek in one hand, the other holding both of Charles's over his head, trapped in place, and then he sits back slightly, giving Charles's ass another slap for good measure. "You're going to stay still. You're going to hold yourself in this position for me. If you don't, I will stop. I expect you to be good. Do I make myself clear."  
  
Charles bites hard on his cheek, another long, loud whimper escaping. It hurts, but he’s so hot it’s nearly unbearable, and that’s worse. Or better. He can’t tell. “Yes, sir,” he whispers, breathy and obedient, but there’s something else. He turns his head, eyes half-lidded, pupils dilated, but still so blue, misty with unshed tears. “But - can I...” He doesn’t want to overstep. He doesn’t want Erik to think he’s talking back, or questioning him. So he shakes his head, whining, covering his face again.  
  
He leans forward and touches Charles's cheek yet again. He's been thinking about this for a very long time, and in a frenzied, heat-fueled moment is not the way he'd like to do this. Maybe his caution has run out, but not his care. "Look at me. What would you like? Tell me."  
  
He leans right into it, sighing softly, happily. It’s exactly what he wanted, really, and his eyelids flutter with it, his whole body relaxing some. “I - I just wanted...” He’s stuttering again, and he wishes he wasn’t, but there’s nothing to be done for it. “I just wanted to be able to see you,” he whispers, his cheeks pink. He knows Erik wants him to Present, to be in position. But he’s nervous, and now Erik can see that, too.  
  
"You will," Erik promises softly, running another hand down his back and rubbing along those marks he just left on his behind. As nice as it would be to just pin Charles down and fuck him, properly, that is not what Erik has in mind. Not for the first time. He knows it must be a bit frightening, on some level. Overwhelming at least. But for the moment, for this moment, he expects Charles to obey. Mostly because he wants to take the opportunity to really make him hurt, just a little. Redden his ass completely while preparing him, while he holds himself in position. It makes Erik's blood sing. "As long as you behave, and you are good. And you take what you are given. You will."  
  
It calms Charles down, considerably, even as anxiety coils its way into his chest and his belly, pooling there with the hot, insistent anticipation, the need. He arches into Erik’s hand, sighing again, soft and sweet and needy even as his heart pounds. “Will it hurt?” he whispers, so very quiet. Small, too.  
  
Erik doesn't know how to answer that, exactly. He continues rubbing along Charles's poor overstimulated skin, giving him little jolts here and there. "Not in a scary way," he whispers back. "More like this." He gives Charles a solid spanking for reference. "Not a bad pain," he laughs gently. "Lean forward, rest on your elbows. Arch your back." His voice is rough with Command, liquid fire racing up and down strands of Will that pour out of him. Somehow, someway, Erik is prepared, and something snaps into his hand from the dresser that's just opened itself.  
  
It’s silly. He knows it’s silly, and childish, and inane, but Charles is trembling. His eyes are closed and he’s trembling and he is oversensitive, and he is hurting, and he whispers, almost inaudible, “Wait.” It’s not a demand, it’s just the only thing he can think to say, but it’s also notably not the pause-word. It’s not because he’s forgotten, either. He squeezes his eyes closed tighter, until it aches.  
  
"M-hm, what is it?" Erik murmurs behind him, giving him a pat instead of a slap this time, rubbing the sting in all the same. "Look at me and tell me. Eyes open."  
  
Charles opens his eyes, obedient, and breathlessly so. This isn’t even close to defiance. “Are you upset with me?” he whispers, and he can’t help when his eyes close again, his heart clenching.  
  
Erik moves to sit on the edge of the bed and he presses his hand to Charles's cheek, running it through his hair. "Eyes open. Look at me." He waits until Charles obeys. "Not at all, dear-heart. You are doing wonderfully."  
  
It looks very much like someone turned the sun on inside of Charles the moment he gets that reassurance, a soft, sweet, shy smile on his lips. He nuzzles into Erik’s hand, and tries very hard not to close his eyes again, though they threaten to flutter at the sensation. “I am?”  
  
Erik leans over and kisses his temple again, and then his lips, warm and heated at the same time. "I'm very proud of you. You're being very good." He soothes with his hands, with his lips, kissing his cheeks and sweeping his fingers down Charles's shoulders, leaving him with traces of electricity under his skin.  
  
Charles absolutely melts at the touches, at the praise, soothed and settled and relaxed, nothing but putty in Erik’s hands. He’s having trouble holding himself up, but he tries anyway, even as his arms and shoulders shake; he wants to be good. Desperately, he wants to be good. “Even though I talk back?” he asks, biting his lip. Frowning. He knows he shouldn’t. He’s sorry. As if in apology, he kisses Erik’s palm when it pets him again, softly. Reverently, almost.  
  
Erik's thumb slides over his bottom lip, his own expression intensely fond. "You are still good, even when you talk back. I do not approve of this, but you know that. And I will always make sure you are brought back into line when you do." He gives Charles's ass a little tap of reminder.  
  
A quiet, pleased little hum, Charles’ eyes slipping closed for just a moment without even his notice. He sucks Erik’s thumb into his mouth before he can think to stop himself, sighing, lips parted when he can remember to speak again. “I’m not being punished?” He opens his eyes, and there’s worry, there. Not fear, but worry, and maybe dread. “I - you’re not going to make me...” He shakes his head. “I’ll be good. I won’t talk back anymore, I promise. I’ll be respectful and I’ll listen and I won’t mouth off.”  
  
"You are not being punished for now," Erik rumbles deeply, rubbing his thumb against Charles's bottom lip again, this time wet and sticky and glistening. "But that does not mean you will not be put in your place if you do not yield." And it definitely doesn't give Charles a free pass to be disrespectful. A playful session can very easily turn into a punishment even according to this Charles's experiences. "I will not make you-what?"  
  
That’s alright. As much as he might sometimes say so, he doesn’t want a free pass for those things, nor would it ever be beneficial. He is relieved now, though, and smiling again, his eyelids too heavy to keep open, and for a moment he seems to forget himself, sucking at Erik’s fingers, a sensual, hazy creature who’s forgotten how to be embarrassed or wonder, rather, if he should be. “You’ll let me come, if I’m good?” Because there’s no polite, roundabout way of asking, and if there was he doesn’t think he’d get away with it. His cheeks feel warmer anyway, and he nudges them into Erik’s hand insistently as his eyes slowly open again, bright and blue and watching his Dominant.  
  
Erik smiles down at him, running his thumb along Charles's cheek, pressing his fingertips into Charles's mouth to let him lick and suck to his heart's content. He remembers this Charles, and it tugs at his heart in his chest, a sorrowful pang. He's missed this, more than Charles could ever know. "Yes. If you are good. That means listening to what I say, following my instructions, and trusting that I will take care of you. Can you do that, sweetheart?"  
  
Charles hums, and for a few moments he doesn’t respond, suckling instead at Erik’s fingers, rubbing his cheek against his thumb, shifting closer on the bed and gasping when it rubs all those sore places, and his sensitive, hard cock against the bed. “I’ll be good, sir,” he murmurs finally, sweetly, and offers another smile. This is a softer, less guarded Charles, a Charles wholly and completely drowned in subspace. It doesn’t mean he’s become exactly like before, or that he isn’t different; but in this moment exactly, he looks shockingly similar, the devotion and trust in his eyes anything but fake. Erik is earning that all over again, and it’s truly remarkable. “But what if I get frightened?” he asks, quietly, mournfully, because there’s still anxiety tugging at his chest. It’s his first time. For Charles, it is really, truly, his first time. There’s been no trauma. No experience. Only this, only Erik.  
  
And it affects Erik more than he anticipated, although he has anticipated it; privately if nothing else. He frames Charles's face with both hands this time, kissing the top of his forehead, along his temple and under his eyes. "I will always make sure you are OK," he whispers. "You can tell me you are afraid, or you can use your pause-word. Anything you like. I will take care of you even then. Do you trust me?"  
  
It makes Charles shudder, that tiny kiss to his temple, and for just a second they’re connected. It snaps as soon as it forms, but it leaves a tingling, pleasant sensation in its wake, warm and buzzing between them. “Yes, sir,” he murmurs softly, honestly, and nuzzles into Erik’s hands, turns his head to rub his cheek against them. “I trust you. But I’m, I’m a bit...” He bites his lip. Closes his eyes. “I’m sorry.” He’s just nervous, that’s all. He’s just nervous.  
  
"That's OK," Erik murmurs back, fond. "Being nervous isn't a bad thing. But I will not let anything happen to you. I will take very good care of you," he trails his fingertips down Charles's spine and ghosts them over the pure red marks along his ass. "Beautiful," he purrs lowly, under his breath.  
  
Charles hisses, his eyes wide and startled at even the gentlest of touches, squirming again underneath the attention. Any attention from his Dominant, really. “You’ll take care of me?” he echoes, and tries to wiggle closer, seeking and seeking and seeking. His eyes close again, and he makes a soft, humming noise. “Beautiful?” he asks, like he isn’t sure what Erik means. Everything is slower, now, like he’s wading through molasses, sweet and sticky and distinctly pleasurable, as long as Erik is touching and talking to him.  
  
"Mm-hmm," Erik hums, giving him a little jolt, watching his whole body flutter with it. He guides Charles back into position and spans his hands across his ass entirely, keeping himself in perfect control as well as exerting said control over his submissive. "Beautiful," he repeats. "Such a pretty boy. You're doing wonderfully. Just relax and let me take care of you, OK?" he keeps talking, mostly nonsense like that, as he lets Charles get accustomed to this for several minutes, really, before coating two fingers in the liquid he'd floated over and slowly begins to press them inside of him.  
  
The first time, before the Void, before this, Charles had been nervous. Eager, breathless with it, but understandably nervous. There had been something different about it, though. It wasn’t Real, for one; he’d felt the anticipation, but it wasn’t all exactly the same. It couldn’t have been, even outside of the physical sensations. There was urgency, there was haste. There was the brilliance of having time alone together, of knowing they wouldn’t very soon after, of doubt in the future that they might ever again, that just doesn’t exist now. It’s nothing quite like this. He starts to whine the moment there’s a finger inside of him, startled, oversensitive, maybe even confused in the haze of all of it, trembling and fidgeting, unable to hold position. Even one finger feels overwhelming, so he has no idea how he’s possibly going to handle Erik’s cock, and the tears come shortly after as he takes harsh, panting breaths. “I’m - it’s -” He doesn’t know. It’s stuck in his throat, and his chest, and it feels strange, good but strange, and he teeters between arching into Erik’s finger and away from it, whimpering at the soreness, at the stretch. He's more far-down now than he was then, too, and that becomes quickly obvious. It's settling him, but also confusing him, everything new and startling and just a bit frightening. What he didn't need before, he needs now. A firmer hand, but also a more delicate one, too. He wouldn't accept it, then. He couldn't. He can now.  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik shakes his head, removing it to give Charles's ass a light jolt. "Stay in position, and relax yourself." Another jolt, another soothing moment, and then Erik twists his fingers inside once more, seeking out something until he twists in just a certain way, locking down all the tendrils of sudden, overwhelming pleasure that might make Charles release without even realizing it. It causes everything to heighten, but Erik makes sure it doesn't do so in a way that completely overwhelms and scares him, and backs off soon after, letting him adjust. "Feel OK?" he whispers. "Tell me."  
  
Charles can’t. He can’t breathe, even, taking harsh, panting, sobbing breaths, shaking all over, his eyes so wide they’re nearly popped out of his head as he shudders. It’s a stretch, and it feels strange, all of it is so strange but whatever that place inside of him was, it made his head spin, whited out his vision, struck him with electricity so strong it choked him and made him thrash underneath Erik and he’s clenched up again, everything trembling. Everything. “Nn - I, I -“ He shakes his head, overwhelmed. His belly is so tight, everything is so tight, his eyes firmly closed, clenched uncomfortably around Erik’s fingers. He’s never reacted this way, really. He’s never needed so much preparation, and reassurance. But it’s only his first time, in so many ways.  
  
Erik certainly doesn't mind. He channels it all toward Charles, toward making sure that Charles feels safe and comfortable and supported, so that he can give him this. He backs off when Charles twitches under him again and focuses on petting and soothing him, leaning over to lay a kiss over his hip. "I've got you," he whispers, moving up to curl his finger under Charles's jaw. He lays Charles on his back and moves over him to kiss his temple again, and touch his chest. "See? You're OK," he promises softly.  
  
Charles gasps at the kiss, and for another moment, for a lingering, precious moment, they’re connected again. When it snaps, it makes Charles whimper softly, twitching in Erik’s arms, tears he doesn’t remember shedding on his cheeks. “S-Sorry,” he whispers, because he knows Erik told him to relax, to be good, but it’s so much sensation. He clenches around the fingers still inside, all of that startled, confused pleasure much more apparent now he’s flipped over. “You’ve got me,” he repeats, softly. Trustingly. It’s a power Erik hasn’t had for a while, and not like this, even then. Not quite like this.  
  
"You're being very good," he murmurs, brushing away all that insecurity, touching at Charles's cheek and laying another kiss on his lips, and Charles can feel Erik's smile rather than see it as he does it again, his fingers rotating carefully to brush up against the bundle of nerve-endings inside that make him clamp down and shudder, but Erik bows their foreheads together and encourages Charles's eyes to open through it.  
  
And he gets to see all of that shocked pleasure, the strangled, loud moan, the whine that follows shortly after. The way Charles thrashes again in his arms, his belly as tight as other places as he clenches and new tears slip out of the corner of his eyes. “Wh - What -“ He’s never felt this before. He didn’t even know to expect it. Charles is a panting, squirming mess, trying to grab onto Erik for purchase, wanting to be held as Erik stretches him open. Desperately. “It, it’s -“ It’s odd and strange and tight and sore and it’s a stretch, already it is, but it’s also unexplainably good. “Oh,” he cries, so thoroughly overwhelmed.


	107. i will do as i am told, i will keep away the cold

Erik draws a free finger down along the shaft of Charles's cock, smirking when it twitches and liquid pools at the slit. "Be still," he rumbles, holding Charles in place. Letting him hold on, but also not allowing him to thrash about, a subtle Dominance that ripples through the room. Charles is being made to take it, to feel it, even as Erik is still careful and cautious and watchful the whole time. "Look at me. Tell me how it feels," he Orders, gripping at Charles's jaw to turn his cheek toward Erik.  
  
Not thrashing is so incredibly hard, and Charles finds himself grateful Erik is physically holding him. It also means he can’t thrash away from the overstimulation, and he cries out when Erik touches his cock, almost like he’s hurting. “It feels - it feels -“ He can’t talk. There’s no way he can talk like this, but he wants to be good so he whimpers, curls into Erik as much as he possibly can, encouraging Erik to hold him. To just hold him through it. “It’s so much,” he breathes, finally, his chest heaving. “It’s strange, sir, it feels strange but good and it hurts a bit and -“ He sniffles, clenching up again, his eyes widening with it. “It’s so much,” he repeats.  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik rumbles again, shaking his head. "Not so much," he whispers. "I will not give you more than you can take. You trust me? You trust me to take care of you?" he strokes inside again, lights him up from the inside out again, holding him down and making him experience every iota of sensation as it presses relentlessly forward in a real, vivid way far beyond anything he could have imagined while flushed under the covers of his bed by himself. And Charles knows, somehow, that Erik can and will and has done a whole lot more, much filthier things, things that are rolling around in his mind now, but he doesn't let them even twitch his focus. He's still slow, and steady, and easy. There's no pressure, even if nothing ends up happening today.  
  
Charles trusts Erik. He does, but he’s crying again, tears leaking out just like his dick is, and he twitches in Erik’s hold, shakes, his lips parted on a loud, high moan, his legs trembling and his thighs threatening to clamp closed. “It’s only two?” he gasps, and maybe it would be humorous if it wasn’t breathy and hitched with his breathing, if he didn’t look up at Erik with that same shocked pleasure, with tears clinging to long lashes, with need and trust and something a bit more wild. It’s only two of Erik’s fingers, even if they’re long, big like the rest of his Dominant. But it feels like they’re stretching him right open, it feels imposing and too much already, so how is he ever going to take Erik’s cock? How is he ever going to be fucked? It’s obvious what he’s thinking, and he clings to Erik. “Trust you, sir,” he whispers, and means it. But he’s a little nervous and overwhelmed, too, and he wonders if Erik can tell. How he can tell him when he can barely breathe. “More?” he asks, voice hoarse and cracked.  
  
"Yes. More," Erik growls, and it's not difficult to tell that he is very pleased about the turn of Charles's thoughts, the ones that he can practically see. That Charles is thinking about being fucked by him. He doesn't go too fast, though, preparing Charles with legendary self-control and slowly, carefully adding a third finger, this time using his opposite hand to jerk Charles's cock in rhythm. Enough to make him feel good, to focus on the sensation of being penetrated from the inside out, rather than the pain or discomfort. Erik doesn't want that. Not right now. "Have you thought about this?" he whispers heatedly, his eyes ablaze in the dim light of the room.  
  
Even still, Charles whimpers at the new stretch, arching against Erik’s hands, wriggling hard in his hold even as he’s held firm. He nods, jerky, eager, but only because there’s no way he can speak, not with all the other noise spilling out of his mouth, all the harsh breathing and panting he’s doing. “Hh - sir, it feels good,” he whispers, as if it’s shocking to him, and his eyes close again, his cheeks wet, and he doesn’t know which way he wants to squirm. Into the hand around his cock or the fingers inside of him, stretching him out, preparing him, and - “But it hurts, I’m full, I can’t, I won’t be able to,” it’s just babbling, and he knows he must have taken Erik’s cock at some point, there’s no way he hasn’t, but he can’t fathom it. It felt impossibly large in his mouth, and he’d barely taken half of it. There’s no way, and the thought has him whining, his chest filled with new worry, his belly all clenched up and he doesn’t know why but maybe part of him wants it to hurt a little, has considered it when he thought of this alone in his bed and he doesn’t understand that, either. It’s silly to be scared, isn’t it? It’s ridiculous. But he is, a little, because he’s overwhelmed, and he’s sensitive, too sensitive. He feels so full already, and when he clenches this time it punches the breath right out of him, his head thrown back and a long, drawn out moan escapes. It hurts and it’s good and how is he going to survive this? His dick jumps in Erik’s hand and what if he comes without permission again, Erik said he needed it?  
  
He can't, though. He finds that he can't. As soon as it would happen, Erik locks it down in his body, adjusting the electrical impulses under his skin entirely without conscious volition. It's one thing to say it, but he doesn't like setting Charles up for failure, so he'll help a little bit, especially at first. It's what he did before, too. It's not too silly, it's not wrong, it's not ridiculous. Erik knows, and Erik is so incredibly grateful to be able to help him through it, to be able to build trust like this. "You can," Erik's chest vibrates with the words, pressed against Charles as he keeps him still and steady. He waits, waits until Charles has become accustomed to the sensation before he twists a little, before he speeds up a little, drawing every bit of his focus to Erik inside of him. "Open up, dear-heart. Look at me. That's it. You look so beautiful for me. Listen to you. You've thought about me taking you, hm? Tell me about it." It's an Order, and Charles is trapped, pinned inside the predatory web of Erik's Domain.  
  
Charles’ head is still thrown back, his eyes half-lidded now but still popping open wide every time Erik’s fingers rub against that spot, practically cross-eyed as he gasps and moans and keens, shaking all over. “Make me yours,” he breathes, and maybe it’s not the most descriptive, but there’s a reason it’s called Claiming, that there’s something primal and old and ritual about this, too, just as sure as anything else. When Erik starts to move his fingers in earnest, he makes a wounded, almost pained noise again, his thighs trembling horribly as he tries to close them and, when he can’t do that, wrap them around Erik, his hands already reached out for him. “So full,” he whimpers. “Open up? Thought about it?” They’re two questions, neither of them particularly coherent, but he needs to hear Erik talk. He needs it as much as he needs to be touched. It’s always been so soothing, so calming, and he’s sought it out even in the darkest places. Erik’s voice is a balm for the Universe, but most of all for Charles, exactly like this.  
  
It makes Erik chuckle. "You'll have to be a little clearer," he murmurs, pressing his lips to Charles's jaw just under his ear. "What would you like me to tell you about?" he asks even as he keeps going, keeps stroking him, keeps pressing deeper inside. Keeps his legs spread so Erik can see as they disappear, and feel Charles's reaction as he clenches down in shock. "Have I thought about it? Oh, yes. Exactly like this." He keeps going, doesn't cease even when Charles begins to acclimate and seek it out, right up until Erik can feel him arching into it instead of away. Patience is in the long run, even if Charles can visibly see if not feel it pouring from Erik just how hard and keyed up he is. He pulls his fingers out after a long moment and gives another sharp slap to Charles's ass, because he hasn't in a while, and he lifts the bottle up and wraps Charles's fingers around it. "Like this. You're going to get me ready."  
  
The moment Erik’s fingers leave him, the moment he’s no longer being stretched but being slapped and left empty, Charles wails. It’s a loud, unconscious, sorrowful noise, and he’s crying before he can stop himself, fussing and uncomfortable and clenching around nothing in Erik’s arms. He’s lost the ability to be embarrassed, to wonder at his own reactions; he does know that he’s shaking and suddenly empty, and he reaches up desperately for Erik, tries to nestle into his neck as he whimpers, constant, pitiful noises.  
  
Erik turns his head to glare at him though, and helps Charles coat his fingers in lubricant before guiding them to his own cock. "What did I say? I know you're going to be good and follow my instructions." He rubs the sting of that slap out of Charles before giving him another little jolt of reminder. "Now. Get me ready. Just like this." He guides Charles's hand at first, but certainly doesn't expect to do all of the work and it shows. Erik can be gentle, and delicate, but he is also incredibly stern and unyielding at once.  
  
Charles needs more guidance than usual, and he sniffles in apology more than anything verbal. When his hand wraps fully around Erik’s cock, though, he tenses up, a punched-out gasping noise slipping from parted lips. He looks down to see, and his eyes widen, all frozen up in Erik’s arms. He doesn’t pull his hand away, but without Erik’s there to guide him it doesn’t move, and his eyes have closed again.  
  
Erik touches his cheek, his fingers still wrapped around Charles's reassuringly. "Look at me," he whispers the Order softly. There's an outpouring of affection coming from him, and deep love, fondness and joy that comes from Charles submitting to him and it comes through in every movement. "I've got you. You're OK? Not scared?" he checks, rubbing his thumb along Charles's jaw.  
  
Part of the difference is that Charles can’t feel it now. Not in the same way. There’s so much he doesn’t have access to, so much he doesn’t hear, and in some ways it’s like a lost sense, like he’s lost his sight or hearing. Both, really, for the magnitude of it. It makes everything different. It’s the biggest difference, actually. But he still responds to Erik’s touch, to his voice; he needs those things more than he ever has, and he nuzzles against the hand on his face, moves until it’s cupping his cheek, big and warm. “Scared,” he admits, quietly, because Erik said to be honest. To always be honest.  
  
"Scared of me?" Erik whispers, pressing his lips to Charles's forehead, sweeping his hand down his chest and stroking at every inch of available skin the best he can, gathering Charles up in his arms and murmuring little nonsense into his ear. "Trust me? Take care of you. Promise. Won't let anything bad. Never."  
  
Charles knows by now that for Erik, this is more than a sore subject. It’s not even because of that that he shakes his head so vehemently, clinging to Erik, nestling gratefully right into him; it’s just the truth. “Not scared of you,” he promises, which he knows is an important distinction. For him, too. “Trust you, sir.” He whines when Erik touches his oversensitive skin, his belly, squirms beneath him and almost giggles, everything ticklish and tingling and he’s still all clenched up around nothing. “It feels empty,” he sniffs, muffled by Erik’s neck where he’s made himself comfortable again.  
  
It is, and Charles can easily see the way Erik curls toward him, like a flower arching into the light, the way he touches him and tries to soothe him as gently as possible. The idea of hurting Charles or scaring him is unfathomable, and it's more important to him than anything else to make sure Charles feels safe and wanted. "Mm, does it?" he chuckles softly, letting his hand wrap around Charles's and showing him slowly what to do.  
  
Charles’ breath hitches again, his eyes closing on their own as Erik moves his hand on his cock. It’s leaking, wet and sticky and warm and twitching and thick and big, and he feels himself swallow, feels how dry his throat has gone. “It’s going to hurt,” he whispers, and there’s nerves there, there’s anticipation, but there’s also excitement, right underneath the surface, pulsing. It excites him and he doesn’t know why and more tears trail down his cheek as he squirms harder. “Right? It’s going to hurt when you -“ When he presses up inside of him, stretches him open, fucks him and Charles suddenly can’t breathe again, thinking about it.  
  
Erik touches Charles's face once he finds his own rhythm, preparing Erik to do just that, and as in-control as he is, as still and calm and relaxed as he portrays himself, Charles can see the way he twitches minutely. In his hand, the muscles of his back , and Charles knows that he's being taken care of by the same animal impulses that whisper in Erik's ear to hold Charles down and put him in his place. He's taking extra care, being that much more generous, because this is what he wants Charles to remember. How this feels. How it feels to belong to Erik, and only Erik. "It will," he nods, choosing not to lie. "Not in a bad way. Not scary."  
  
Not scary. Charles is making soft, constant noise again, his eyes peeked open to watch his hand glide over Erik’s dick, thoroughly wet now. He’s still finding it hard to breathe, his chest as tight as the coiled-up heat in his belly. “Could you hold me?” His eyes flutter closed again, because he knows it’s silly. It’s not the best way to do it, maybe, and it’s childish to even ask but it came out before he could stop it. “While you... please?”  
  
"Mm-hmm," Erik rumbles low in his chest, encouraging Charles subtly to breathe, his eyes half-lidded and intense even in the lighting of the room. "Of course I will," he whispers back. It goes without saying that Erik can make just about anything work, so it's certainly not the worst way. He likes holding Charles besides, giving him comfort and making him feel safe, that's what matters. He's now thoroughly coated and he takes his dick in hand, rubbing it along Charles's crack most obscenely. "Look at me," he rasps, spreading his hand out over Charles's belly as if to gather up every iota of heat in his body and pool it all in his gut.  
  
Charles gasps, his eyes open but barely, hooded as he wriggles right into the attention. Everything is so sensitive, his ass most of all, hot and sore and still clenching around nothing because Erik isn’t inside him anymore and it’s awful, honestly. It feels wrong. His belly tightens and jumps under that soothing hand, and he takes deep, shaky breaths, looking up at Erik as he bites his lip. “Empty, sir,” he mumbles, clearly upset with this. “Trust you. Promise.” And he does, is the thing. There’s nothing more obvious right now than the fact that he does, that he wants this despite any nerves. “Trust you, sir,” he repeats, quietly, softly. The first time, he wasn’t this far under. He wasn’t this vulnerable. There was trauma, buried and buried and buried, there was impulse, there was need, but this is the Charles Erik should have had if none of that existed. This will still exist when Charles remembers that it does. It’s just his first time.  
  
"Good," Erik whispers back. He slowly tugs Charles toward him, bending his legs back a little to let him wrap them around Erik's waist, and releasing some of that earlier vice grip on his pleasure as he slowly, slowly, with the help of iron Will, begins to press inside. His eyes are locked on Charles's face, and he kisses under his eyes, his lips. His hand finds a rhythm with Charles's cock, focused on making sure that it isn't painful in a way that rips him out of the moment. His eyes are glued on Charles, the way he disappears into him, the way he clenches down around him. "I've got you, sweetheart. You're doing so wonderfully. You are mine. You are meant to take me this way. You are meant to be here, to be full," he murmurs in Charles's ear. "Relax, be easy. I've got you."  
  
Charles certainly doesn’t think he can relax. His whole body is arched under Erik, his lips parted, but at first no sound comes out except hitched, panting breaths. When Erik is about halfway in, he lets out a desperate, whining noise. It does hurt. There’s no denying that there’s pain even after all of Erik’s careful preparation, but there’s also the odd, pleasurable stretch, the knowledge that Erik is inside of him, is Claiming him in the most primal way he possibly can, and he’s overcome with it. When Erik pushes that last bit inside, he wails, and somewhere in the process he’d started crying again, but he blinks up at Erik with that startled, confused pleasure again, completely hazy with it. “Full,” he gasps. “I’m so full, it feels - sir -“  
  
"Mm," Erik hums, tugging Charles's head back with fingers gripped in his hair to kiss him, as if he can absorb all of those sounds into himself. It takes him a long time to finally bottom out, but when he does it's like punching all of the air out of Charles's body, and it echoes right back inside of him, and he groans softly, the noise pulled out of him without conscious volition. His fingers spread over Charles's throat, and he finally stretches out completely over Charles's body, propping himself up and letting Charles hang on. Giving him time to get used to it, being patient, even when all of Charles's wriggling about makes him want to pin his hands over his head and make him take it. "Tell me how it feels," he encourages softly.  
  
It feels indescribable. It’s like nothing Charles has ever felt, quite literally, but it’s immeasurably more than he could have imagined. It hurts, it aches, it’s sore and it feels a bit like he’s being cleaved in two, but for some reason that only makes it more pleasurable, only serves to work him up in a way that surely isn’t fear, and his cock is leaking in earnest in his Dominant’s hand, needy and messy. Because it’s Erik doing it. It’s Erik inside of him, stretching him open to make himself fit, and Charles pants and cries and clings, clenching around Erik. He can’t speak for a while, just gasping like he’s dying, teetering on the edge already, trying to get used to the feeling but every time he thinks he might he wriggles just right and it’s all punched out of him again and he can’t breathe except to whine or pant or cry. “I’m so full,” he whimpers, and he knows he’s already said it, but it’s all he can think. His eyes are still so wide, shocked, confused with all the pure, raw sensation. “Are you going to -“ To move. To fuck him. Charles’ eyes slip closed and he whines again, because the thought is too much. He’s never going to get used to this. “It hurts, but it’s, it’s -“ Indescribable. Good. It’s not a scary hurt, just like Erik promised. More tears pool on his cheeks, and Charles clenches tight around the cock inside him. Erik’s cock.  
  
It makes Erik growl and he pulls back just a bit, stuttering forward with a snap of his hips. It's not bruising, it's not rough, but given how overwhelmingly intense the experience is it's enough for Charles to feel like he's flash-flooded with fire. "Am I going to what, Charles?" he rasps, scraping his teeth along Charles's jaw. "Am I going to fuck you? I might. If you ask me politely. Would you like that? Is that why you're squeezing against me so tightly? You're thinking about being used properly?" The words themselves are pure filth, among plenty of others, even though Erik's actions themselves remain quite tame. So far. The message is clear, though, even if Erik doesn't intend to say it; that won't last long if Charles keeps making those noises.  
  
Then it won’t last long, because Charles can’t be quiet. Words are failing him spectacularly, but he’s making plenty of noise, long, breathless whines, soft little moans, and Erik isn’t even moving yet. It’s just from having him inside, from being stretched. It’s so overwhelming he can’t imagine anything more, but he wants it. Of course he wants it. “Please,” he moans, eyes so heavy with sensation, just pure, inexplicable sensation, wave after wave. He’s clenching again, as if he’s trying to trap Erik right inside. Where he’s really beginning to wonder if he belongs. “Does it - does it feel good for you?” he asks, quiet, nervous, looking up at Erik with teary, glazed-over eyes, so full of hope and submission and devotion. Devotion Erik is earning all over again.  
  
"Oh, yes," Erik hums and trails his fingertip down Charles's temple, ratcheting up those little shivers under his skin and pressing the sensation along with himself inside, letting Charles feel just how affected he is, twitching deep where he's buried. He inhales sharply when Charles clamps down against him once more, letting out a shaky breath. He withdraws more, this time, and uses his hands to leverage Charles's ass up a little before rocking right up into him, right up against that sensitive spot inside of him. "Please what," he insists this time, eyes burning right through Charles in pure heat.  
  
Charles wails again when Erik thrusts in, nudges against that place inside, and for a moment his vision goes entirely white. He’s still reeling from the touch to his temple, the brief moment of breathless, wonderful connection; still shivering, and now he’s trembling all over. Crying again, but only because he’s so overwhelmed, so stunned at how much he’s capable of feeling. “Please fuck me, sir,” he breathes, and he doesn’t even need to be told twice because he needs it. He knows he does. He’s not frightened anymore, even if he’s nervous; if it hurts, he knows it will be good, now. It’ll just remind him that Erik is Claiming him as Charles has wanted for far longer than he’s willing to admit.  
  
Certainly not much longer than Erik has wanted to do this and the words make him shudder, heat pooling in his belly and melting down to the tips of his toes. "Mm, are you sure? Sure that's what you want?" he laughs softly, stretching over Charles and this time capturing his hands, keeping him still as Erik finally gives him a good, hard thrust. "So beautiful," he purrs. "You're being so good. Such a good boy. Is this what you want? Are you sure?" he's grinning, his whole face utterly changed, boyish and bright.  
  
This time Charles screams, Erik’s cock battering against his insides in a way that’s utterly, completely overwhelming, and something happens. He doesn’t know if he comes, because his dick is still hard, but it twitches and leaks, sticky white fluid that sticks between their bellies and Charles was downright quiet before in comparison to now. He doesn’t even recognize his own voice, high and needy, but he’s nodding, fiercely, desperately, squeezing Erik inside him like he can’t bear being empty for even a second. “Please, sir, please, I want it, I’m sure, please fuck me, please,” he babbles, gone. Wrecked already, and Erik hasn’t started.  
  
It makes Erik inhale sharply, that sound, the way Charles dissolves into incoherence. Above everything else, above anything else, Charles's pleasure has always ramped him up, has always made him work for it; devoted to it in the same way that one might suggest the other way around. As a Dominant it's not as clear, maybe it's a D5 thing or just an Erik thing, but knowing that Charles belongs to him, hearing confirmation, knowing that he is the only one who can take Charles to this level is as intoxicating as any physical sensation and he wastes little time giving him exactly what he's begging for. He presses Charles's cheek to the bed with his fingers, lightly, so he can kiss and bite while he snaps his hips forward again and again. "Feel good? Hm? Listen to you. Your body knows where it belongs, doesn't it?"  
  
It’s Erik talking to him like that that further undoes him, but with the physical sensations so new, they’re a very close second for what’s affecting him. He’s completely incoherent as Erik begins to thrust into him, his breath stolen from him every time; he whimpers when Erik pulls out, distressed about even a moment without him, gasps and moans and keens when he presses back in, stretching and aching and nudging just exactly right. He knows Charles’ body, but Charles doesn’t know what to expect until it’s there. Until he’s feeling it. His hands are at Erik’s back, trying to hold onto something, anything, his eyes nearly cross-eyed as he takes and takes and falls apart. “Sir, sir, sir, sir please -“ He doesn’t know what he’s begging for but Erik will.  
  
Erik doesn't let him get away with that, though. "No," he growls roughly, biting at Charles's throat to worry a bruising mark into his skin the second he rocks forward once more. He allows Charles to hang onto him, lets him seek comfort however he can, but he doesn't let Charles off the hook so easily in any other respect. "Use your words. Tell me what you want. I might be inclined to give it to you, if you ask nicely."  
  
Words are a bit difficult for Charles right now. Thoughts are a bit difficult for Charles right now. He’s finding it especially difficult to breathe without gasping, without moaning, and his nails dig into Erik’s back as he tries to gain enough sense, enough breath to do anything but whine for more. “Please, can I - can I...” When Erik’s cock hammers right into that spot, he screams again, breaking the request right off. He sobs, his legs squeezing Erik just like he’s squeezing him inside, but to his credit, he’s holding on. He’s clenched up tightly, taking sobbing, harsh breaths now, because he wants to be good. “May I come, please, sir?” he whimpers, finally. Desperately.  
  
Petting at his face, it's a contrast to the way Erik finally does grasp his hands, holding them loosely above Charles's head, keeping him still and steady and peppering him with kisses where he can reach. Soothing, as he drags himself all the way out to the tip before plunging back in, all the muscles in his body fluttering in response to the way Charles grips him in earnest. "Mmn, do you think you deserve to come, Charles? Have you been good? Should I let you come?" Charles's cock is trapped between their stomachs, rubbing against Erik's abdomen and it makes him smirk, wondering if he'll even have to touch Charles for him to do so.  
  
He won’t, if the piercing wail he gives as Erik thrusts back in is anything to go by, the way his cock jumps between them, sticky and wet and he has to clench everything to keep from just coming, from just coming before Erik says, but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to, and he’s never done this before and he’s crying again, his face red. Charles doesn’t know how long he can be good but even wholly overwhelmed, he wants to. He wraps his legs around Erik tighter because he can’t use his hands, because he feels controlled and it’s good, it’s so good, but it’s so much, too. Perhaps it’s tame for the Charles who remembers, but it’s this Charles’ first time, and Erik can never forget that, all of his reactions amplified, different. Even the first time, even their Bonding night, he wasn’t this far down. “Please, sir,” he whispers. “Please, please, please. I’ve been good, I’ll be good, I promise. Promise, I promise -“ And he’s trying so hard, he’s trying so hard even though it hurts, does Erik know?  
  
It makes Erik crazy, which makes him more controlled, more stern. But when Erik leans forward to kiss Charles's temple again he can feel the resulting explosion from the brief connection that forms once more, wobbly and unstable and electrifying. It's a moment he never will forget, etched into his memory along with every other for the rest of time. "This is how you should come," he growls into Charles's ear. "This is the only way you should come. This belongs to me," he traces one hand down Charles's dick trapped between them. "You've been so good, sweetheart. Come on, let me see you. Let me see you come all over my fingers. Let me see." He gives Charles another experimental nip and his hips snap forward again, and this time it's rough.  
  
Honestly, the snapping of that connection, the rebound when it comes, the tingling, buzzing it leaves behind is more harsh and shocking than any slap could be. It leaves Charles winded, his lips parted on a silent scream as he cries, and by the time Erik takes him in hand he’s sobbing, completely and totally wrecked. The words are enough to ruin him. In an instant he’s arching under Erik, his eyes wide and shocked and wild, his head thrown back, and this time his scream isn’t silent. This time it’s loud enough to wake the dead. There’s no trying to stifle it, no biting his lip, no shame. He just screams as he shakes through it, his whole body convulsing, his vision whited out, and he looks a bit like he’s been electrified. Like he’s in pain, and maybe he is, as overwhelming as it is. Charles comes, and for long, lingering, breathless moments he keeps coming, his body wracked with it, helpless to the waves of it, and he doesn’t think it’s going to stop. Briefly, madly, he doesn’t think he’ll survive, it hits him so intensely.  
  
Erik shivers at the sensation, feeling as though he's being pulled inside of Charles's body all over again, and it doesn't take long for him to follow suit, murmuring nonsense into Charles's ear and tangling himself up in Charles's limbs. "Beautiful," he whispers softly, brushing Charles's hair back from his face and kissing his cheek, his lips. "Just beautiful. Such a good boy for me, hm? That's it. I've got you," he rumbles lowly, resting his head in Charles's shoulder as the aftershocks slowly ease, gathering Charles in his arms and holding him steady, letting him hug Erik as tightly as he can.  
  
Charles is all loose-limbed, boneless, crying quietly as Erik holds him. For a long time he’s completely incapable of thought, of reason, of speech. He’s just deep-under, nuzzling into Erik, sighing against him, sniffling. He cries for a long time, but it’s not a bad cry; he’s just overwhelmed, just oversensitive, but he’s content. He’s happy, humming with it, buzzing with it, leaving little kisses whenever he can remember to, arms and legs wrapped around Erik like a very persistent octopus. It’s after a long time that Erik can feel something, and it comes suddenly: fear. Pure, raw fear, and Charles has gone completely still in his arms. His nails dig into Erik’s back. He can’t speak, though. He can’t, and so he whimpers instead, trying to get his Dominant’s attention.

* * *

It makes Erik inhale sharply and he continues stroking Charles's hair, running his fingers through as comfortingly as possible. "Tell me what's wrong," he whispers the Order, wrapping them up in blankets, rolling to his side so that he can press his body against Charles's back and keep him safe and protected as he floats.  
  
But Charles rolls over as soon as he can, nestling into Erik’s chest. He’s having trouble breathing, and he opens his mouth but nothing comes out. This has happened before, when Charles was very deep in subspace; when he couldn’t speak, when he couldn’t do much more than this, whining softly, but before he could show Erik. He can’t now. He just can’t, and he’s frightened, and he rubs his cheek into Erik’s chest, distressed because he can’t follow the Order, distressed because he’s scared, distressed because he was floating and now he’s not.  
  
"No," Erik doesn't let it happen. "Look at me," he runs his fingers down Charles's chest. "Just breathe, and relax yourself." They're Orders, the same as ever, mostly because Erik is still deep in the throes of Dominion and doesn't appreciate not knowing what is happening with his submissive. "I will take care of you. I will protect you and keep you safe as I always do, but you will communicate with me."  
  
Still, it takes a while before Charles can speak. He does as he’s told. He breathes, and tries to relax, not to panic, even as he curls insistently into Erik’s chest. Hides there. Truly, he’s hiding, but not from Erik. “Here,” he whispers, muffled. He knows it’s not very helpful, but he’s trying.  
  
Erik gathers him up tighter, wraps him in the blanket and sits against the wall, letting Charles rest in his chest and sheltering him from the outside world. He knows what Charles means, ruthlessly shoving any response he has to it down. "It's OK," he whispers. "It's all right. I've got you. I won't let anything happen to you. Just focus on me and nothing else."  
  
Charles tries. He tries to just focus on Erik, to just drown in Erik again, but he’s clearly upset. He’s clearly frightened, and he can’t shake it off. He’s too far down to really process, to really communicate what’s happening; but he makes himself small against Erik’s chest, hoping it helps him, too. He knows Erik’s protective. He needs Erik to be protective, at exactly this moment. It’s not fair that it’s happening now, and he’s making distressed little noises, still unable to speak. To do anything but this.  
  
"It's OK," Erik keeps saying over and over. "You're OK. I won't let anyone hurt you. Never. I promise," he whispers, kissing Charles's forehead and under his eyes. It's all he needs, for Charles to tune it out and listen to the sound of his voice instead, his presence instead. "I've got you, see?"  
  
When Charles shakes his head against Erik’s chest, it’s not in denial of anything Erik has said. He couldn’t possibly argue with his Dominant at the moment, which for Charles means he’s exceptionally deep under. Maybe farther than Erik has ever seen him. “Hurt you,” he gasps, and it makes him want to die, thinking about it. About someone hurting his Dominant, the only one who could possibly tether him in this moment.  
  
"It's OK," Erik soothes gently, rubbing Charles's back and separating strands of his hair rhythmically with his fingers. "It's OK. He's gone. He can't hurt anyone anymore," he croaks, letting his eyes close as he rests his chin over Charles's head. All his muscles are tense, and he has to consciously force himself to relax each one.  
  
But Charles shakes his head again, and this time it is because he disagrees. That just makes everything worse, and he whimpers into Erik’s chest again, trying to curl up even smaller. “Here,” he repeats.  
  
"Try and block it out," Erik tells him. "Cast him away. He doesn't belong. This is our space. Not for him." He wraps his legs and arms around Charles, acting as a shelter between him and the rest of the outside world. Pushing down all of the instinctive terror jolting inside of him, it doesn't belong either.  
  
It makes Charles tense up in Erik’s arms, sniffling. How is he supposed to block it out? How is he supposed to make him go away? It doesn’t feel like an illusion, like a strange distortion, the way the hallways sometimes stretch longer and the stairs lead to nowhere. It feels real, and horrid, twisting dread up in his belly where there should only be lingering pleasure. “Can’t,” he whimpers, sorrowful.  
  
"Yes, you can," Erik insists, meeting his eyes and lifting his chin to capture his gaze fully. He tucks Charles into his chest and covers him with the blanket, blocking out the room in its entirety. "You have seen what you can do. You know what you can do. This is your playing field. Your mind cannot be invaded. Cast him out."  
  
Charles just shakes his head miserably, because none of that is his. He can’t even read Erik’s mind for more than a second. Everything that happens, it’s never because of anything he did. It always feels out of his control. “Here,” he sniffs, but he burrows easily into Erik’s chest, into the blankets, not fussing there. He wants to be covered completely. He knows he’s frightened Erik, too, and he doesn’t want that. He wants Erik to feel safe. He wants to feel safe in bed with him, after his Dominant took him for the first time. He doesn’t want someone intruding, but he can’t cast him out, either.  
  
Erik doesn't feel safe, at all. He feels like Shaw is watching him be intimate with his submissive and it makes him feel disgusting and on display, and the idea that Charles could feel like that too is completely intolerable, but he pushes it all down and down and down. "I'm here. That's all that matters. Just us."  
  
“Here,” Charles just repeats again, frightened and mournful both, because usually - usually he isn’t. Usually it only happens when Charles is alone, when he’s vulnerable, when his Dominant isn’t available. It feels mocking and threatening both. Honestly, Charles has been grateful for it if it means Erik isn’t exposed. But now he’s here, and Charles can’t see him, his eyes closed, hidden in Erik’s chest and the blankets, but now Erik can. If it’s an illusion, if it’s Charles’ telepathy playing with them, it’s awfully convincing.  
  
Erik tenses up even further, surprised to realize that such a thing is in fact possible and he turns so that he's shielding Charles with his body, baring his teeth at the intruder. "Go away," he growls at the apparition. It's with such venom and viciousness that Charles knows instinctively he isn't talking to him. "You don't belong here!"  
  
Charles tenses further, too. He whimpers louder in Erik’s arms, from his chest where he’s now crowded, and he knows it’s good for his Dominant to be protective, but he doesn’t want him to feel threatened like this. He doesn’t know how to make the man go away, though, and he certainly hears what sounds like a laugh, and honestly it curdles his blood, puts every hair on end. “Okay,” he whispers from Erik’s arms, weakly, and he’s still not speaking properly. He wishes he knew why, but words just aren’t working. “Okay. S’okay.”  
  
Every single piece of metal in the room from top to bottom abruptly flips up and poises itself at the apparition. " _Go away!_ " he bellows, as every end sharpens, a thousand-million slicing razors ready to tear apart the image in front of him. It's all posturing. Charles has spent enough time by now with Erik in his most vulnerable state to know that Erik is afraid of Shaw, in a deep, visceral way that he hasn't demonstrated with anything else, even when Charles's abilities go utterly haywire. It's easy to say that he's not scared. His expression barely twitches, but Charles can tell more than just what's on the outside.

* * *

It frightens Charles. It frightens him for more than one reason, but even now it’s not Erik he’s frightened of. Either way he gasps and feels that terror course through him, feels the tears prick at his eyes because he’s overwhelmed, because he’s still drowned in subspace and doesn’t know how to crawl out, more vulnerable than he’s ever been, and there’s that laugh again. That horrible, wretched laugh, and hiding in Erik doesn’t make it go away. The man thinks it’s amusing. He thinks it’s pathetic, and isn’t he? Isn’t he? Charles can’t even make him go away, even though Erik seems to think he should. He can’t protect his Dominant. He can’t even stop crying like an infant. And when Charles thinks it, Erik can hear. It’s all noticeably in German. It doesn’t sound exactly like Charles, because it isn’t.  
  
With a growl, all of those metal pieces embed themselves at lightning speed into the place where Shaw's image is burned. "It's OK," he says, falling back on everything he used to do. "It's OK. Just ignore it. I've got you. I've got you, you're OK. There's nothing to be afraid of. I'll keep you safe. I'll protect you, OK?" he presses a kiss to the top of Charles's head, adjusting his blankets to ensure he can't see anything, warm and cozy against Erik's chest.  
  
But Charles can feel it. That’s how he knew, in the beginning, that he was here. That’s how it started. The room got colder. It got quieter. Everything drained out, and dread coiled up in his stomach. That’s how it feels when the image steps closer, completely unaffected by Erik’s attacks. That’s how it feels when his head fills with German he doesn’t remember learning, and Erik’s, too. Does Erik know that Charles was never meant to belong to him? They shouldn’t be so silly. Charles has been so silly, but it’s only expected. “No,” he whimpers, and feels so thoroughly pathetic. Weak. It was only his first time. Does Erik know? He meant to be better. He’ll be better next time. He can hear those thoughts, but not what caused them. Where they’re coming from. He won’t cry next time. He won’t. He sniffs hard, tries to force it all back, to swim back up, but he’s so down, and he’s sorry. He’s so pathetic he can’t even speak.  
  
"No, stop that," Erik Orders roughly. "You are wonderful. You are doing wonderfully, and you are being so good. Now and always. You belong to me. You are meant for me. Nothing else matters. You are not pathetic or weak. You are mine. That is final," he whispers, not letting Charles come back up, keeping him in his place. He completely ignores Shaw, tries to tune him out, force him away. It doesn't matter, nothing else matters.  
  
Charles very clearly can’t ignore Shaw. He’s tried, this whole time. He’s tried to stop seeing him out of the corner of his eye. He’s tried to ignore him when he’s preparing for bed, when he lies down for sleep. He’s tried not to hear his laugh or notice his smile around corners, amused, unaffected, unruffled. Walking about in a suit as if he belongs here, in these corridors, showing up in every room, in the kitchen when Charles goes for a snack, in the library when he turns too quickly. He doesn’t understand it. He especially doesn’t understand why now, but he thinks he’s beginning to, because he begins to sob; he begins to sob, and he doesn’t mean to, but it all just comes out. It all just pours out, and he can’t keep it in. He can’t possibly keep it in. “Bad,” he gasps. “Bad. Bad." And when Shaw is suddenly much closer when he should be, when he touches Charles' head as if he's a very pathetic animal, Charles leans into it.  
  
"Stop it," Erik whispers, not to Charles but to the one person who he has never been able to Command. " _Bitte hör auf, lass ihn in Ruhe_ ," he croaks, as though watching his worst possible nightmare come to life wide-eyed. He tucks Charles closer to himself, wrenching him away from any specter of Shaw. "It's OK, I got you. I love you. You're OK."  
  
Charles doesn’t fuss any when he’s pulled in closer, when he’s wrenched closer to Erik’s body, held tightly and protectively to his chest. He’s still crying, though. He’s sobbing and inconsolable and it’s not like the oversensitive, quiet little sniffles from before, when he’d curled against Erik so nicely, kissed at his neck and jaw and face; he’s upset, and he’s still so far into subspace and he doesn’t know how to handle it. He digs his nails into Erik as if it might help. “Lying?” he whispers.  
  
"Not me," Erik whispers. "I don't lie to you. He lies," he says, peppering Charles's skin with warm kisses, trying his very best to keep him calm when his heart threatens to hammer out of his chest, when it hurts to take a deep breath when flashes of agony ripple under his skin. The idea of Charles being terrorized by Shaw is too much for him to handle. "You are mine. You are wonderful, and I will always protect you. Always. Anything else is a lie."  
  
“It is?” he whispers back, and it’s heartbreaking, but he doesn’t sound like he fully believes it. Charles isn’t sure that he can. After what they’ve just done, it aches and it aches even worse but instead of pulling away he stays right where he is, rubbing his cheek into Erik’s chest, curling up smaller and smaller. He wants it to be the truth. He wants what Erik says to be the truth. “Trust you. Don’t lie,” he mumbles, and it’s not to Erik. He’s trying to convince himself, rocking himself slightly in Erik’s arms. “Don’t lie. Didn’t hurt me,” he sniffles. Erik didn’t hurt him. Erik would never hurt him. Right? He was careful, he was lovely, he took care of him. That just happened, and it was real. Erik took care of him. He held him when he was frightened. He made sure Charles felt good, that it didn't hurt unbearably. Only enough that it was good. "Didn't hurt me, didn't hurt me," he repeats.  
  
"He lies," Erik whispers, swaying Charles back and forth slowly, rhythmically. He tries not to think about anything else that's being said, just adjusts the blanket and rubs Charles's back and shields him from the outside world, from anything threatening them. He would never want to hurt Charles. But how could he promise he didn't? It's not up to him. Maybe he did, maybe he made a mistake, he miscalculated and made a mistake just like he thought would happen and that's why Shaw is here and why this is occurring. He tries not to shake. "It's OK, I've got you. You're safe with me."  
  
Safe with Erik. Charles nods, and cries a little harder, but it’s just because it’s all coming out. It’s all stuck inside, and he’d been so overwhelmed with joy and pleasure and it’d turned so abruptly to fear and dread and shame and now he’s clinging tightly, only breathing at all because Erik’s stroking his back. “Didn’t lie,” he mutters, just a repetition, self-soothing and reminding himself. Speaking is difficult. He feels hazy, and his head hurts, and opening his eyes makes things fuzzy so he just keeps them closed, and stays small in Erik’s arms. “My Dominant?” he sniffs. “Lie?”  
  
"Not a lie," Erik murmurs, kissing Charles's cheek and fixing his hair. "I am your Dominant. Always. You're OK. I've got you. You're safe." He knows he's just repeating the same thing over and over again, but it's all he can do so that his voice doesn't get caught in his throat and his words shrivel up on his tongue.  
  
Charles looks up from his little cocoon, his face messy with tears, and he tries to wriggle closer even if there’s nowhere to go. He half-sticks to Erik, a reminder of what they did, and it actually comforts him; that was real, wasn’t it? Erik took him to bed and held him, made him come, and it was nice. It wasn’t scary. He wasn’t scared at all. He reaches up to touch Erik’s face. “Real?” he croaks. “Okay?”  
  
He closes his hand over Charles's and leans into the touch, his eyes pricking wetly and he blinks to hold back the hot flood. "Real," he confirms, fond, smiling down at Charles and keeping his composure despite everything. "It's OK. I'm real. I've got you."  
  
Charles notices. His heart aches, and he touches underneath Erik’s eyes, tears leaking out of his own. “Sad,” he whispers, and he knows it’s silly and simple to point it out, but it hurts him. After those brief moments of connection, after what they did, after all they started this past week and the day they’ve had - it hurts, and he wants to fix it even when he’s upset and uncertain himself. “It’s okay. Gone.” He’s not, but Charles lies, assuming Erik won’t know.  
  
Erik just shakes his head, and Charles knows that Erik knows. Not just because Erik knows him, but because Erik can see the monster, too. He's just trying to block him out, as he's done all of his life. Pushing Mr. Shaw's presence to the back of his mind, making himself go somewhere else, focusing only on the person in front of him. On making sure his submissive is OK. "It's all right," he whispers back with a smile. "I'm just happy you are with me. I'm so thankful you are here with me."  
  
Charles keeps touching under Erik’s eyes, and there’s recognition, there, even through the haziness. He was supposed to float, and let himself feel, that’s what Erik always tells him to do when he’s this far in subspace. That’s what he tells Charles to do, and he doesn’t like it when he tries to throw it off or fuss through it, because it’s natural. It’s what he’s supposed to feel. He doesn’t think he’s ever gone this far, but he’s safe. He thinks he’s safe, if Erik is here. “Scared,” he whispers. He doesn’t mean him, even if that’s true, too. He means Erik.  
  
He's not nearly as scared as he would be, and has been, facing such apparitions on his own. Erik is very good at putting on a brave face. Charles hasn't ever really seen him as scared as he's ever been, from something other than worry for Charles, because it takes so much to get him there. This is one of the few people who can inspire a response from zero to a hundred instantly. Especially after today. Erik rubs his cheek against Charles's hand, not denying it, but trying to shore himself up all the same. "It's going to be OK," he whispers back. "We've got one another. We protect one another, take care of one another."  
  
Erik always tells him not to lie. If there’s anything that frustrates and disappoints his Dominant, it seems to be that. He doesn’t like when Charles lies. So Charles touches Erik’s face, pets it gently, and takes a shuddering breath. “He’s real, too,” he whispers. “Not gone yet.”  
  
"I know," Erik murmurs softly. He keeps Charles's cheek pressed to his own chest, keeps him kept safe and sound, far away from prying eyes. "I see." He smiles instead of crumbling, even when that's all he feels like doing.

* * *

This is the part he hasn’t shared. This the part he hasn’t talked about, but he’s meant to. He’s meant to, it just hasn’t come out. He’s been too frightened and too disturbed to mention it, but there’s no guard up now. There’s just subspace and vulnerability. “Dreams,” he whispers.  
  
It makes Erik's blood run cold. "What- _what_ dreams?" he asks, managing to keep his tone level, to keep petting Charles's head and bundling him up further and further as if that will ward anything off.  
  
Charles appreciates the petting. He nuzzles into it. “Bad dreams,” he answers, muffled almost entirely by Erik’s chest. It’s all he can really offer right now, even if he’s not sure Erik will accept it.  
  
It makes Erik pet him more, obviously. He will never stop petting. "Like what? Tell me," Erik murmurs the Order quietly. A little desperately, if we're being honest. "Please."  
  
Charles wilts, curling up into a ball against Erik’s chest. “Says they’re memories,” he whispers. But they’re not. He knows they can’t be. Because that means everything Erik’s told him is a lie. He doesn't want to believe that. He can't believe that.  
  
Erik swallows, having absolutely no idea what those words could mean and his mind is closing in on him, the idea of guessing purely horrifying to him right now, but he has to know. "Says what are memories? Tell me," he croaks the Order barely above a whisper.  
  
The reality of those dreams is horrifying, too, which is why Charles hasn’t spoken about it. Why he’s kept it to himself, and tried desperately to forget about it. To put it right out of his mind. “His,” he whispers, hoarse, cracked.  
  
"Memories of what?" Erik insists, letting his eyes close and his head drop over Charles's, tucking it under his jaw.  
  
Charles lets himself be held for a few moments, shaking his head. “No, I meant - was his,” he mumbles. He doesn’t want to describe it. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t want Erik to know.  
  
"I know," Erik murmurs again. "Tell me what was his." What makes him think Erik could be lying to him.  
  
He’s not sure if Erik is understanding it. He can’t process very well right now, but if he’s asking for specifics, Charles isn’t giving them. He can’t. “I was,” Charles whispers. It hurts to say. It hurts.  
  
"No," Erik shakes his head, arms tightening around Charles. His heart stops and doesn't start again, causing his next words to sound punched-out. "That is not true."  
  
Charles knows. He knows that. He really, truly wants to know that. But he hasn’t gotten memories of the life Erik’s told him about. None, even when he’s tried. He’s had dreams of this life, though. The horrid, terrifying one this man is claiming he’s lived. And he doesn’t know why. “He’s lying,” he mumbles, and he’s convincing himself, too. Those dreams are a lie. It’s not real. This is real. He has to believe that.  
  
"He is lying. It's not true," Erik rocks him back and forth, eyes squeezed shut, every muscle in his body tense with fear. "You should have told me about this. I told you to tell me about this." And now Charles is remembering a horrifying lie in the spaces after their intimacy, and Erik can't breathe.  
  
Charles squeezes his eyes closed. "I was going to," he whimpers, and wilts even further, curling right into himself. "Didn't want to hurt you." And he knew it would, when Erik found out. It would hurt him, it is hurting him, and now he can't breathe again, either.  
  
"It doesn't matter. That isn't your decision. You are mine," Erik's voice cracks. "You belong to me, not anything else." It's saturated in Command even now.  
  
Tears squeeze out of Charles’ eyes at that tone, but it’s not because he’s frightened. It’s because he needs it. He’s still in subspace and he needs it, especially right now. “I didn’t want to think about it,” he admits. He didn’t want to consider it.  
  
"That is not acceptable. You hid this from me, again." Erik is hurt, and afraid, and finds himself unable to calm it down, so he just holds Charles and shakes. "You should have told me. Why wouldn't you tell me?"  
  
“Because I was frightened,” he whispers. “I was frightened. I didn’t want it to be real. I didn’t want to come to you and -” And see any reason to believe it. Any reason to doubt. He didn’t want to even consider it, and he was scared he would. He was well and truly terrified.  
  
"And find out that I have been lying to you all of this time?" Erik rasps, eyebrows drawn together like he can't process what's happening, he can't process any of it, the dark specter of some vague dreams that his imagination is filling in, the image of Mr. Shaw doing horrible things to Charles and convincing him-and Charles believing it, somehow. It's too much. And for it to come up now.  
  
Charles knows. He knows, and he keeps his eyes closed and his chest aches, it aches so horribly and he didn’t want this to happen. He didn’t want this to happen at all. It was supposed to stay bottled up, it was supposed to be trapped inside of him, something he wondered about in those darkest, most uncertain moments; but now it’s here, and it’s spilling out, and it was his first time and Erik was supposed to hold him, he was supposed to hold him and stroke his hair and tell him he’d been good, that he’d been a good boy and now Charles is shaking, and he’s falling apart, and he’s crashing and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe -  
  
Erik is still doing all of those things, even now. Holding him, comforting him, reassuring him. It was never meant to be trapped inside of him because it was always meant to be melted away by the light and by truth. Erik doesn't want to hear the gory details to get a thrill. He wants to know because the best way to counter this horror is the truth. "You belong to me. That is not a lie."  
  
It’s not a lie. Charles has been telling himself that, and the truth is he doesn’t need to force himself. He knows it. But he’s wondered, and the gory details are a part of it and he doesn’t want to talk about them. Not right now. He can’t. “Not a lie,” he repeats, nodding, and continues to bury himself in Erik’s chest, into the blankets. “It’s not a lie. Belong to you.” It’s all stuttered, and croaked, and he can barely get a good breath in.  
  
Erik just nods, keeping his teeth clenched so they don't clack against one another with shivers. "That's right," he murmurs. He tugs Charles closer and wraps him up as best as he can, keeping him warm and making him feel as safe as he possibly can. "Just take a deep breath," he Orders. "I'm here for you."

* * *

Charles does, feeling it heave through his entire body. He forces himself not to sob, trapping all that terror back inside, leaning on Erik instead. He’s still so far down, and he can’t claw back up. He just can’t. “You took care of me,” he whispers. “It was good?” He knows this ruined it. His phantom, those dreams. But he needs to hear it now anyway.  
  
"Of course," Erik whispers back, and this isn't a lie, either. He smiles, his eyes crinkling up. "You are beautiful. Wonderful. I love you very much. It was very good. You are very good," he taps Charles on the nose playfully. "And I will always take care of you. Always."  
  
But for some reason it makes Charles tense up. He goes very still, and very quiet, and Erik can feel that he’s started to cry again more than he can hear it, the wetness against his chest because Charles doesn’t want to and can’t pull away. He nods against Erik. “I’ll get better,” he promises, muffled.  
  
"You don't need to get better," Erik says, tucking Charles's head under his chin. "You just have to come to me and talk to me like I tell you to." He keeps his tone carefully neutral, choosing his words very carefully, remaining calm, not letting his kneejerk reactions slip out. Calm. Controlled. Composed.  
  
Charles nods again, because he knows Erik is right. He knows that. But he couldn’t have done it, and he knows that, too. “Be better next time,” he promises again, as if he hadn’t heard, quieter this time.  
  
"Come to me, next time. I am your Dominant. You are supposed to rely on me to take care of you. Anything else is-" Erik clears his throat, turning his head to the side. "Anything else is secondary."  
  
This time, Charles shakes his head. He shakes his head and he whimpers, just a quiet, small little thing, but it’s upset, distressed. He doesn’t really like denying his Dominant under ordinary circumstances, but especially not like this.  
  
"Tell me what you are thinking," Erik Orders firmly, taking Charles's jaw between his fingers, gentle but effective. No matter how piercing the sensation inside of him, he can't help the Commanding tone of his voice. "Don't just shake your head at me."  
  
Charles whines again, especially at the attention, but it’s not defiant. It’s what he needs to anchor him, actually; idly, somewhere very far away and outside of his own body, he wonders if Erik is reacting instinctively. Submissives go into subspace because their Dominants are exerting Will, so shouldn’t it work the same way in reverse? He’s certainly never been more under than this, not that he remembers. “Hurt you,” he sighs, trying to nuzzle into Erik’s hand.  
  
Erik's hand, of course, spreads out over his cheek. "No," he disagrees, but it comes out more like a croak. He smiles, even when tears prick at his eyes again, and he shoves the sleeve of his shirt near his upper arm over his face to swipe them away roughly. "No, it's OK. You didn't hurt me."  
  
But Charles reaches up again, fussing, squirming, making low, wounded noises, and quickly kisses right below Erik’s eyes, pats away the tears. “Hurt you,” he repeats, frowning deeply. He knows he has. He’s upset his Dominant. He was supposed to be good, and he upset him instead and he knows it’s ridiculous but he feels tears building again.  
  
"Not you," Erik whispers, pressing his lips to Charles's forehead tenderly. "You were just scared. I know." His nose wrinkles up and he wraps Charles back in his arms, back in his blanket, tucking him up against his chest where he's safe and sound.  
  
Another head shake, which looks rather silly when it’s buried underneath all those blankets. “Me,” he insists, even though he doesn’t want to argue. He just knows. “Bad,” he sniffles. He’s not sure why everything is so hazy and simple right now, only that it is.  
  
"You do not get to decide that. I decide that. I am your Dominant. What I say, and what I think about you is what matters most. And you are my submissive, and you are good, and I love you. That will never change." Erik kisses the top of his head.  
  
It freezes Charles up again, and he sniffles harder, ducking his head into Erik’s chest. Eventually, he gives a small little nod, though it’s clear he’s not only not convinced, he’s upset. It’s especially obvious like this, with him so vulnerable, but the fidgeting he’s doing is as good an indicator as anything else.  
  
Erik touches his cheek. "Tell me what you are thinking about," he Commands softly, holding him down and in place.  
  
It's not about hiding. It's about hurting. It's about hurting Erik, and he doesn't like doing it, and he sniffs, curls himself up all the way again, like a creature receding into a shell. "When you say you love me, it hurts," he whispers, and he hopes Erik just doesn't hear it. He truly hopes he doesn't.  
  
"Oh," Erik mumbles, nodding a couple of times. Today has been fun. He just leans back against the wall and wraps his arms around Charles. "I apologize."

* * *

"Not because of what you're thinking," he whispers. But he knows it doesn't matter, anyway. It's already sunk in, and Erik's already taken it the way he's going to, and Charles doesn't blame him. It's why he didn't want to say it in the first place. And this was supposed to be nice. He was supposed to feel good, and his Dominant was supposed to feel good, and he'd imagined it and imagined it and it was going to be his first time. Crying helps nothing, and he knows it, but he cries anyway. He cries because he doesn't know what else to do, and he doesn't know how to make Erik feel better, and he doesn't know how to soothe himself, and he doesn't have the capacity to do anything else. There's just panic in his chest. There's just panic but when he's upset, it makes his Dominant upset, but he doesn't know how to stop, either, and he can't go away because he'll just stop breathing and he can't stay because he'll make Erik sad, and he can't just make himself go back to normal so they're stuck, and they're stuck, and he's not good -  
  
"Charles, stop it," Erik whispers the Order halting him in his tracks. He takes Charles's chin in hand and makes him look, gripping tightly. "Nothing here is ruined. You are no less mine. You told me you trust me. Lie?" his eyebrows raise, voice Commanding.  
  
“Not a lie,” he whispers back, and that’s the truth, at least. He knows it is. There’s no way he would have done what they did if he didn’t, and he’d thought about it, there was no rush; but Erik deserves it. He’s earned it. Whatever dreams he’s had, whatever uncertainties, whatever doubts, whatever he might not be telling him, whether to protect him or otherwise, he’s earned Charles’ trust far more than any phantom. He’s earned his submission. All over again, or for the first time, it doesn’t matter. Either way he has it, and it’s Erik that settles him now, Erik’s voice and Erik’s touch and Erik’s hand on his chin, holding him steady, strict but gentle, even as he cries softly. “Was the first time, wanted -” He wanted it to be what it was, but the aftermath was supposed to be different. He wanted it to be different. He’s still so far down, and he wanted to show Erik what it meant to him. Maybe more than it meant to Erik, who’s already experienced it. He knows it’s not the same, and that’s the point, but he doesn’t know how to express it right now. He doesn’t have the words, and he doesn’t have the abilities to do it without them. He doesn’t have the head for it, everything still feels hazy and centered differently, centered around Erik but he doesn’t know how to describe the difference. He likely wouldn’t have before, either. “Head is fuzzy,” he decides to tell his Dominant, because it’s the best way he can think to describe it at the moment. It’s fuzzy and he just wants to make Erik happy, not sad, and it rips him up inside when he does the opposite. It aches horribly. “Got all fuzzy.” Somewhere after Erik had Claimed him, and he squirms at the reminder, because it’s still a reminder. It’s still there. It happened, and he knows that was real. “Scary,” he adds, but it’s clear enough he doesn’t mean anything Erik has done or said.  
  
It makes Erik smile, though. "It was the first time," he murmurs, kissing Charles's forehead. "And it was wonderful. I'm so sorry that these thoughts encroached afterward, but it does not take away from it, not for me. I know it must, for you, to see and hear these bad things. But they are lies, and I am real. I am here. I've got you. OK?" he whispers almost inaudibly. "I've got you. I never want to hurt you, not ever. And when you get fuzzy I will help make things clear. I'll make it nice, not scary. It's not scary with me."

* * *

Charles shakes his head immediately, because he’s certainly not afraid of Erik. There’s no way he could have done what they just did if he was afraid of Erik, and he hopes that Erik knows it. “It’s not scary, it’s just -” He sniffs again, finding it difficult still to put his thoughts into order, to get them to stop roaming off to other things, some of them very nice, some of them less so. He tucks himself back under Erik’s chin. “Like this before?” he asks, curiously, quietly. He means the fuzziness; did he get fuzzy? Did he get all warm, all slow, all hazy, when they did this? Did it get hard to speak? Did it get hard to move without wondering if it was where Erik wanted him? Did he need touch, did he need Erik to talk to him? It does feel nice, when he’s not worried that Erik is disappointed or upset with him. It inspires a thought, though, and Charles closes his eyes, a soft, mournful noise slipping from his lips. “Disappointed? Mad?” he asks. Because he didn’t tell Erik he was having dreams, too.  
  
"Sad," Erik whispers. "I wish you would have told me. It is what I tell you to do, all the time. Always. Because you are mine," he taps Charles on the nose. "But I know you were scared. Those things are very hard to-" see, talk about, experience. Erik knows. And that it was Shaw to boot. He isn't angry, or disappointed. Just sad that it happened at all. "It was like this before," he breathes gently. "When you are back in your place, where you belong. When you know you are mine."  
  
Charles takes a sharp, shaking breath. Even with his head all fuzzy, he knows Erik is thinking of something very different than he is. But he doesn’t want to talk about it, not right now, so he nuzzles into Erik’s hand instead, urges it to stroke his cheek. He’s certainly noticed it’s large enough to cup most of his face, that it’s warm and comforting, the callouses familiar to him now. “Secret?” he asks, and looks up at Erik with a soft, almost playful smile. He’s burrowed himself into the blankets and Erik’s arms again, very grateful to be covered and protected and warm.  
  
It makes Erik smile for real and he leans forward to press a playful kiss to the tip of Charles's nose. "Secret?" he repeats warmly. "You have a secret for me?" his eyebrows arch up, his whole expression lit from the inside out in delight that Charles is here, with him, and that overshadows any darkness that could possibly manifest.  
  
It feels good to be fuzzy again, to be hazy, now that Erik is smiling at him like that. Looking at him like that. They can discuss dreams later. Maybe the man is still watching, but Charles can’t see him, and he can’t hear him, and he’ll fret about it later. Now he can’t even remember why he was frightened. He touches Erik’s lips, grinning. “Secret, sir,” he repeats, and squirms in his lap, gasping when he feels how sore he is. His eyes are full of that startled look, everything still new.  
  
Erik's lips spread beneath Charles's fingers in a warm smile and he presses a kiss to the pads of Charles's fingers, each one reverent, each fingertip sacred and important as every other part of Charles's body; including those parts that are sore and aching and reminding him of exactly how he got here. And no one else could have done so. Not the apparition, cast aside, back into the ether where it belongs. "Tell me secret," he rumbles the Order deeply against Charles's ear, pulling him closer into his lap.  
  
Charles shivers, squirming again, and wraps his arms around Erik’s neck. It feels nice, to be held like this. To cling to his Dominant, to be soothed after an upset. If he’s gotten even a little close to the surface, he’s swiftly been dunked back down, and he doesn’t mind. “I was going to tell you today,” he murmurs, shy again, somehow, and rests his head on Erik’s shoulder. “When we talked. Excited,” he sighs, and he means to talk. If they still are, he still is. Because he had good things to say. He’d figured some things out, even. In all the uncertainty and confusion, it felt like progress. It all has. It is, isn’t it?  
  
Oh, yes. Erik lets out a low rumble of approval, dropping his chin down to tuck Charles's head right against his kiss and press a kiss to his hair. "Excited, hm?" he murmurs, dragging his fingers through Charles's hair. It is progress. Charles is learning. He brushes Charles's hair away from his forehead and kisses his temple tenderly. "Tell me all about it, _neshama_."  
  
“Uh-uh,” Charles laughs, and it feels light. It feels airy, even with that lingering fear and upset, because Erik is here and he’s got his arms around him and he’s smiling at him, talking to him, and he’s just been taken for the first time. The first time, and Erik is right. It was wonderful. He shivers when his temple is kissed, squirming at that little burst of sensation, of connection. He thinks Erik must be doing it on purpose. “Wanted to do it right. Can’t do it now.” Well, maybe they can, but Charles just wants to curl into Erik’s shoulder for right now. He kisses his neck softly, smiling. “I was going to tell you I was ready,” he admits, quietly. “If you didn’t say something. I was going to tell you.”  
  
Erik shifts against him just-so, his hands wandering to Charles's ass to give it a good squeeze and a light jolt. Reminding him, as if he's forgotten. Erik thinks he won't forget this for a long time to come. "I think it was right," he rumbles into Charles's ear. "Felt good? Not scared of me? I take care of you. Always. Never hurt, never."  
  
Charles whines, nodding eagerly against Erik’s neck, sore and sensitive and kissing lazily wherever his lips happen to fall, just to have contact. Just to feel Erik’s skin. “Felt good,” he promises, and it’s certainly not a lie. “I was - I was scared. But it felt good, and you took care of me. I know.” He nods again, sighing, his eyes fluttering closed. He’s not tired, he doesn’t think, just sleepy and hazy again now that the fear’s mostly gone, replaced with this. This is nicer. “Sir?” he asks, and pats at Erik’s chest, like he needs to get his attention.  
  
Erik stretches Charles out over him so that he's leaning against the wall and Charles is nestled up in his chest, running his fingertips up and down Charles's spine soothingly. "Yes?" he murmurs, his voice vibrating against Charles's cheek. He strokes a fingertip down Charles's face affectionately.  
  
Charles kisses Erik’s fingers, then turns his head and kisses Erik’s chest, too, a sweet, warm press of lips. He hums, pleased to be held like this, to be kept like this, fussing a bit until they’re both under a blanket. “We can still talk?” he asks, looking up at his Dominant, his eyelids still too heavy to fully open. “Check-in? I want to talk,” he sighs, and he always does, really, but he has specific things he wants to address. Things he wants to discuss. He wants this to work, first and foremost, and for Erik he likely already thinks it has, and it does; but for Charles it’s still brand-new. It’s still budding. He’s eager to do the things they just didn’t get to do the first time, without even realizing that they were things they couldn’t. “I wrote a list.” Of course he did.  
  
"Of course we can still talk," Erik chuckles gently. "Check-in," he confirms, soft and petting Charles's hair and kissing him where he can, especially in that most sensitive place along his temple. He's pushing aside the creeping sadness he's felt for the past little while because he wants to focus on this, on this Charles, on the one who knows his place and gets comfort from Erik, which is the only thing he's ever really wanted. "A list," he huffs, fond. "Let's see."  
  
He gets plenty of comfort from Erik. Actually, it’s extraordinary how deep in subspace he is, how much he’s relying on Erik; and the way he blooms right under every touch, soft little sighs, smiling into Erik’s skin as he kisses, too, gentle, as if Erik is breakable and delicate. “Not here,” he huffs back, amused, and shifts up until he can rub his cheek into Erik’s neck, place a warm, lingering kiss there. “Sad? Scared?” he asks, and watches Erik’s face closely. He touches Erik’s temple, as if that might help him hear. It won’t and it doesn’t, but he strokes there anyway, fascinated after a moment with Erik’s curls, no longer weighed down by length.  
  
"Mm, do you remember the list?" Erik suggests warmly, running his own fingers through Charles's hair. The moment Charles touches him he leans into it, eyes fluttering closed without conscious volition. "Not scared," he whispers. He doesn't want to hurt Charles either, or make him feel guilty, or make him feel bad. Because to Erik he is perfect, even when he disobeys, he is never bad. And there is no reason for guilt. Erik truly believes that. "Just a little sad. It's OK," he says honestly.  
  
Charles nods, but he’s frowning now. His solution is to rub his cheek against Erik’s, because it’s the comfort he needs. “Talk?” he pleads, quietly.  
  
Erik ducks his head, pressing his own cheek into Charles's hair, nuzzling against Charles. "You said-I hurt you." He can't verbalize the rest of it because it disintegrates in his chest when he tries.  
  
It clangs around in Charles’ chest, too, sinks uncomfortably in his stomach, and he sniffs a little, fidgeting as he nestles against his Dominant. “You didn’t hurt me,” he promises. “Not hurting me. See?” He doesn’t understand what Erik is talking about, exactly, but he takes Erik’s hand so he can press it against his cheek and nuzzle into it, sighing.  
  
Erik inhales slowly and leans into Charles's touch, sweeping his hands down Charles's back, ghosting over those marks on his ass. "When I said-when I talk about-" he shrugs, turning his head away. "Loving you. You said it hurts. I understand. It's OK."  
  
Charles shakes his head. He hides, too, ducked into Erik’s chest. “You don’t,” he whispers, nearly inaudible. It’s not defiant or riled, just a fact. “Understand. I didn’t explain, sir.”  
  
Erik kisses his forehead. "Will you-explain?" he rasps, his voice soft in Charles's ear.  
  
When Charles nods, he doesn’t actually speak up for a few long, dragging moments. He’s lost his voice again. He stays curled up nicely against Erik’s chest, and when he finally speaks, it’s so quiet. “It makes me sad because you don’t love me and if - when I - it won’t matter, because you already do and you’ve already done it and...” He closes his eyes. He knows it’s silly. “My first time. Not yours. It’s okay,” he whispers, because nothing will change it, short of wiping Erik’s memory, too.  
  
"No," Erik rumbles softly. "I love you. As you are, right now. You are my Charles. I know you. I am so pleased, and proud, to be able to give you-" his voice chokes up and he buries his head, the rest coming out as a mumble. "-give you pleasure, and beauty, and that it's your first time just-I am so, so grateful, to be able to give that to you. You take care of me. You talk with me, you obey me, you like me. You are not a different person. You are just growing. And when you come back, I hope-I hope you will have these memories, good memories, that you have learned-that it is OK to be submissive, to be my submissive, not to feel shame or disgust at it. Because you are beautiful, and mine, and I love you." He's rambling now, a train going off the tracks, and cuts himself off. "I never want to hurt you." His lips press together. "It was not my first time," he agrees softly. "That happened-" he can't go on, actually, and he doesn't want to bring that into this conversation anyway. Images flash behind his eyes. Burning sun, hot sand beneath his cheek. Snowflake-ashes in the sky, plumes of flame. Creaking wood. Erik banishes it. "But with you, before. It was my first time. And for you, now. That is my first time, too. My first time really showing you what it means to submit to me. No shame. No fear. No sad. Just nice, and good, and kept in place."  
  
He didn’t mean Erik’s first time, ever. He meant his first time with Charles. And he knows it’s not fair that it makes him sad, that it aches in his chest and pools sorrow in his stomach, because Erik is right. He’s the same person, even if he can’t remember. To be jealous of himself, to be jealous of a Charles who got to experience this the first time, in full, in all of this - it’s utterly ridiculous. But it’s there, riled up inside of him. It’s there and he’s frowning as he continues to hide in Erik’s chest. “But you’ve done it already,” Charles whispers. “It’s just, it’s just... repeating it. But I don’t remember. It feels new, it is new, but -“ But Erik has already done it. He’s already done it with a Charles Charles doesn’t remember being. It’s just a little sad, that’s all. “You want me to come back. I know. But I don’t remember going away, sir.” He just knows this. And it hurts, sometimes, that’s all.  
  
"That does not make it cheap," Erik murmurs firmly. "It does not make it less valuable or important or wonderful or beautiful. I do have experience with you," he agrees. "With your body, with what you like. I'm grateful to that, because I can show you all the ways that you can feel pleasure." He digs his fingers in right at the center of Charles's spine where he's sensitive just tapping at it to release little electrical jolts. "I expect you will come back. I want you to be exactly as you are. I want you to be here, with me, like this. Really learning. Really seeing. Experiencing moments like this for the first time." He swallows. "I am sorry you are so sad."  
  
Charles is gasping in the aftermath, taking shaky little breaths into Erik’s chest, grasping tightly. He’s trying not to be sad. He knows it isn’t fair. He knows Erik is right. “It’s just -“ A shrug, because he doesn’t know how to explain it or express it. “I wish it could be the first time for you, too.” But it can’t be, and that’s alright. There’s nothing either of them can do to change it and he knows it. “You’re just repeating things, but this time I’m...” Less. He doesn’t have to say it, and Erik doesn’t have to hear his thoughts to know. “It’s okay,” he mumbles, eyes tightly closed. “We don’t have to talk. M’ not sad.” He is.  
  
Erik lifts his chin with a fingertip and kisses him, tenderly. "Not less," he whispers. "Mine. And I get to teach you new things, and learn myself. This experience has been hard, but there is a great deal of joy in it for me, to be able to train you this way and see you this way. You are beautiful, in every incarnation, and I love you in every way you come to me. I will repeat it a thousand times, with distinct pleasure."  
  
Charles blinks, and suddenly there are tears. He wishes there weren’t, a soft, unconscious noise slipping from between his lips before he can stop it. Quiet, discomfited. “But it’s not the same as the first time,” he whispers. “And you wish it was. You want it back. I know. It’s okay. It’s not so sad. It’s okay,” he repeats, and tries to make it real. He’s rubbing his cheek against Erik’s chest, trying to soothe himself. It’s hard, like this. Everything is so raw. Everything is so much. He’s still new to it, it still overwhelms him.  
  
"It doesn't have to be the same, for me, Charles," Erik whispers, rubbing Charles's hair between his fingers and digging them into his scalp gently, massaging away all that stress, stroking delicately along his temple. "Hear me, Charles," he rumbles the Order, still-soft. "I have no wish for anything but you." And it's true. Of course Erik misses the Charles he came to know during the CIA detention and the trials, but it is also true that Erik is pleased that Charles is here, and happy, for the first time. No shame, learning his submissiveness without someone bleating in his ear that he's worthless. Erik doesn't want to give this up, either, not abruptly. Not unnaturally. He simply wants it to take its course, however that turns out.  
  
“I want it to be real,” Charles whispers, and his eyes are closed still. He leans into Erik’s hands and sighs, startled and pleased both at the touches. The fingers at his temple cause that short, intense spark again, and he gasps with it, shivering. “All of it. I don’t want it to all just go away, but you did it before and when I get my memories back, what happens, it all just...” He disappears. This Charles, as he is now, this Charles who’s beginning to trust Erik, to know Erik, he disappears. Everything he learned, everything they build here. Why would it stay when there was already something? When there is something, outside of this frozen place?  
  
"This is real, sweetheart," Erik whispers in his ear, pressing a kiss to his temple and his forehead. "You won't go away. You will just have more context. All of this, all that we are doing, I simply do not believe it is so that you can regain your memories and continue as you were. You will be changed. But you won't disappear. I would never allow it."  
  
“You, too?” he asks, his voice still quiet, still hoarse from before. He looks up at Erik, at the man who he’s accepted as his Dominant. Who he wants to be, not because he was told that he is, but because he’s choosing it. Because he wants it, right now, regardless of anything that might have happened before. “It’s real for you, too?” he repeats, his voice cracking because maybe, of this, he’s a little afraid.  
  
"Me, too," Erik whispers with an affectionate smile, tapping Charles's nose. "I am not biding my time and waiting for you to return. You are right here, and you are my submissive, and there is no greater honor for me than to be your Dominant, especially in these moments. It is very real to me. Nothing could be more real." His accent is a bit thicker with emotion, which he doesn't notice.  
  
Charles notices. He reaches up to touch Erik’s cheek again, and a slow, soft smile spreads over his lips, his belly flipping over in delight. “It was my first time,” he whispers. His cheeks flush a little, he ducks his head. “It felt good,” he adds, squirming on Erik’s lap. “I was nervous.”  
  
"I know," Erik practically purrs, giving him another kiss, this one more heated than the last. Taking his time, exploring, letting Charles feel his Dominion as it rises and rises in response. "But you did so well," he whispers. "You did such a good job. You were so good." His voice is low and thick, like molasses. "It appeals to me very greatly," he admits, pressing his lips to Charles's jaw. "Watching you discover, watching you learn. Watching you realize where you belong, watching you like it for the first time. Believe me, I-" Erik adores him, and he doesn't know how to say it, but it pours out of him.  
  
The praise makes Charles preen, lights him up from the inside out, and he wriggles with the surge of delight. It’s palpable, how much it affects him like this, how much he likes it, how much he needed to hear it. His eyes are so bright when he looks up, even shiny with tears from before, so blue, that soft, big smile on kiss-swollen, cherry lips as he sighs happily and rests back on Erik’s shoulder, rearranging himself. He kisses Erik’s neck gently, reaches up to play with those curls again. “You first,” he decides, and pokes Erik’s cheeks, grinning softly, playful and light again, his phantom forgotten. “List.” Even if Erik doesn’t have one. He wanted to do this in a formal, ritual sort of way, to sit in the study and kneel and discuss, with tea and coffee, but he’s totally unwilling to not be in Erik’s lap right now. Naked, apparently, and he flushes again when he remembers how much.

* * *

Erik grins and boops Charles on the nose, his own scrunching up mischievously. He runs his fingers down Charles's back, soothing. "Well, I do not have a list," he laughs, because of them both Erik is the most likely to just wing it in discussions like this, despite being the most organized person in the universe. "But I can say I have been very pleased with you. You are taking to your training very well. My only concern is that you are still not as open with me as I'd like. Issues get prolonged, and suffering continues in silence. I do not like that. But with regards to your training, I think it has been going well."  
  
Charles lights up even more at the praise, clearly floating with it, his eyelids heavy. Erik’s reminder that he isn’t being open unsettles him a bit, sits heavy in his stomach; but he knows that. He nods, kisses Erik’s neck as if in apology, then pokes his cheek again. “Specific,” he demands, because he’s been worried. He’s looked forward to this for a while, written things down throughout the week, because Charles has always been prepared for these sorts of things, when he could be. It’s clear he always wants to be. “Tell me. Please,” he adds, sheepishly tacking it on, offering another smile.  
  
"M-hm," Erik laughs, gentle. The correction Charles offers is almost on-par with his exact observations. "Well," he taps his own chin. "You have been addressing me properly, most of the time. You've been correcting yourself when you don't," he adds, smiling. "You've been showing up on-time, even early in some cases. You are willing to learn new things and to seek out knowledge on your own, and you are progressing very well in the skills that I've been teaching you."  
  
More preening, now. Charles is absolutely glowing with the praise, hanging onto each of Erik’s words and beaming. There’s no way for Erik to know how much it affects him, how important it is to hear these things, even and maybe especially with the corrections, too; he’s been thinking about this. He didn’t lie. He was excited, last night. He wrote out a whole list, after all. It’s new. Not only for Charles, but for them, not that he knows it. “Bad at Postures,” he mumbles, and hides his face, because it’s partially a lie. Some of them he doesn’t like very much, admittedly; but he never struggles with them as much as he lets on. He just likes Erik’s corrections. Maybe a lot. “No more Postures.” More Postures, is what he really wants. They didn’t do them today, and maybe it feels a bit out of sorts. Maybe it’s already becoming routine.  
  
"Mm-hmm," Erik murmurs skeptically. "You are certainly not bad at Postures." Erik knows full well that Charles's necessity to be corrected is purely because he wants it, not because he needs it. There are some more difficult Postures where this may not necessarily be true, but Charles surely knows how to do at Rest properly. "And I am inclined to give you far more and assuredly not less." He grins. "Tell me about your list."  
  
Caught in the act, then. Charles murmurs quietly as if he’s actually surprised that he’s being called out for messing up his Rest Posture, as if he’s still unsure where to put his hands. Of course he knows, but Erik uses that stern tone every time he does it, and usually makes him correct it right away. It’s an easy Command to obey, and especially nice when Erik doesn’t actually Order it; he can’t explain it, just that it’s distinctly - well, pleasurable. He bites his lip, and this time pokes Erik’s chest. “Oops,” he grins. “I forgot it. No list.” Another poke. “More,” he demands.  
  
"Mm-mm," Erik rumbles. "Your turn." Mostly because off-hand Erik doesn't have much more to add, he's been pleased throughout much of this period and doesn't have many complaints or corrections to add, but that might change when Charles goes through his own list; he'll have commentary to add and be able to think through more specifics. "Tell me."  
  
His own list. There were many things on that list, actually, and now Charles feels rather silly. He’s still having trouble with verbal expression, too, and there’s no way to just have Erik read his mind; he has to do his best. He huffs a bit, and takes a deep breath. “More,” he whispers, because that’s the bulk of it, and then clarifies by pointing to himself. He wants more, he means. Charles offers a small, perhaps shy smile.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "Mm-mm. More what? Be specific," Erik admonishes lightly, his nose wrinkling up as he presses another affectionate kiss to Charles's forehead. "Tell me what you have been thinking about. What you've liked and disliked. How you think I've been."  
  
Charles huffs softly again, but this time in thought. He’s not sure where to start, really; the list was categorized, but his thoughts aren’t, and he flitters from one to the other, more concerned with pressing little kisses into Erik’s shoulder, his neck, his jaw. “Wonderful,” he assures, first of all. He pats Erik’s chest, and goes back to considering. “Like when you tell me to do things,” he breathes, and he knows it’s hardly specific. He hums after a moment, clarifies, his eyes too heavy to keep open again. “Little things. Chores, sometimes. I like chores. Yesterday? You asked me to make you coffee and bring it into the living room.” He knows that’s not exactly noteworthy, but for him it was. “It felt good. To do it. You didn’t Order it, I could have not done it, but when I did it felt good. I like that.” It’s simple, maybe, but Charles gets quieter as he speaks anyway, shy about it for some reason. Not ashamed, not even embarrassed. Just a bit shy. "More of that."  
  
It makes Erik smile. "I can do that," he practically purrs, because-"I greatly like it as well," he whispers, like an admission. He shivers a little at the kisses, arching his neck to allow Charles greater access. It frightens him sometimes, how much he wants to be Dominant, to tell Charles everything, but he tries to balance it with not being entitled. With not being abusive; and sometimes he doesn't always know the difference. It's good feedback to get. That he's doing good, that Charles does enjoy when he asks for things like that. He touches Charles's face. "I can do that," he whispers again.  
  
Charles hums again, delighted when Erik seems to like his kisses; before this afternoon, he’d been skittish with affection like this, but he has absolutely no guard up now. He peppers kisses all over, light and ticklish, just because it feels nice to do it. Because it means his lips are touching Erik’s skin. “I like routine, but I’m awful at it,” he admits. It was true before, too. “Sometimes, I get - lost, I think. I don’t know what to do. It’s frustrating, not knowing.” Not remembering. It’s a large estate, and it’s overwhelming to not recognize it when he knows he should, to find his abilities acting up all of a sudden, to fear that phantom around the corner. He likes his independence, he’d like to keep it, to have his own time to explore and to read and to research and to roam but - “If you gave me something to do every day, if you told me? Maybe,” he mumbles. He’s not sure if that’s an alright suggestion, but it was on the list. Erik said he wanted to hear the list.  
  
"Mm. I can do that," Erik murmurs, running his fingers through Charles's hair. He more-than likes those kisses, wishes Charles would do it all the time; unguarded, seeking him out. He likes that, too. "I know i don't always ask you to do things that I think about asking. I am pleased to hear that you enjoy such a thing. What else?" he asks softly.  
  
“Hmmm,” Charles sighs, because now he’s getting distracted. He’s very busy with nuzzling into Erik’s neck, with kissing near his ear, with practically purring in this hazy, in-between space, but he does want to have this talk. He tries to focus long enough to respond. “No more going to bed,” he decides on, because it was on his list of concerns, so it must be voiced. “Later bedtime. Much later. I’m not sleeping, anyway,” he admits, which was something he was going to bring up eventually. They did say he would admit to things at these check-ins, if there was anything to admit to. “And not just because - you know.” He flushes.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "That is unacceptable," he murmurs lowly. "You need to sleep. You currently go to bed at 8:00 PM, due to waking up at 6:00 AM. That is nine hours of sleep, which is not the ideal. I would prefer more. Nevertheless, I have done my best to include your sleeping habits into the routine. Would you prefer waking up at a later time?" That would, of course, shift their entire routine. "Because I will not allow you to simply not go to bed. Nor to go to bed as you wish, which you have admitted is none."  
  
Erik’s negotiating with him. Charles is a bit surprised, but pleased, too; not because he thinks it won’t be Erik’s final decision, anyway, but because it means he’s thinking about Charles when he makes these decisions. It feels pleasant, and warm, and he gets lost in kissing Erik’s neck again for a while before he remembers what it was they were discussing. “No, I want to go to bed later,” he murmurs, stubbornly. “Usually I just can’t sleep, but -” He bites his lip, and briefly reconsiders. But Erik will just tug it out of him, anyway. “Sometimes I read instead,” he mumbles, flushed for a different reason this time. "Under the covers, though. Counts?"  
  
"No," Erik rumbles. "If you go to bed later, you will wake up later. Our routine will be somewhat altered. But I am willing to do so if you desire. If you continue not to sleep properly, I will have to address that sooner or later." His eyebrows arch. "I will not allow this to continue. Perhaps you would benefit from sleeping in my room."  
  
Charles bites his lip, and his eyes are closed but he ducks his head anyway, curls up in Erik’s lap. “No, thank you,” he whispers, quieter than before. “I like - I still want to sleep in my own room, please. I’ll go to bed when you tell me to, okay?” It might still be the hardest rule to follow, though, and sometimes just because he doesn’t feel like it. Which - he gets squirmy, so apparently there’s something to that.  
  
Erik looks at him. "It does not seem beneficial for you to sleep by yourself. You have nightmares that you don't tell me about, you are frustrated and dissatisfied, you read all night instead of sleeping and you simply do not tell me any of this. Frankly, it makes me foolish. You do not go to bed when I tell you to. You just said to me so. Why would I agree to continue with this arrangement?" His words, and his tone, are utterly saturated in Dominance. It's not disappointment or anger, but it is firm and unyielding. "So explain to me why you would prefer to sleep alone. And I will consider it when I make my decision."  
  
Charles wilts, anyway, and closes his eyes harder. Maybe he wasn’t ready for this conversation, because he doesn’t want to disagree with Erik. It upsets him, but he doesn’t want to agree if he doesn’t, if he’s not comfortable. It all amounts to him fussing about. “But I’ll be better. And I told you, I’ll tell you, that’s what you said I had to do,” he whispers. “I could disobey other ways, too. You said I had a choice.” And he chose, outside of nightmares and some other instances, to stay up. He chose that, for one reason or another. He takes a long breath. “I want it. I want my own space. I want my own - please,” he begs, quietly. “You said I could have boundaries. Don’t take it from me, please.”  
  
Erik's brows bounce and his head tilts as he regards Charles, for a long moment considering, it seems. "Be still," he murmurs the Order at once, taking Charles back into his arms. "I do not desire to take it from you," he says at last, his voice still a low rumble. "But I need you to know that I am not willing to tolerate continued disruptions in your sleep cycle. So I would like to figure this out. Is it that you need more time to unwind? Should you be going to bed earlier? Having your own space for an hour or two? Tell me what I can do to help you, and I will do it. But I won't accept your hiding things from me. I won't accept that you simply don't follow my instructions when I tell you to go to bed. I don't Order it. Because I expect you will listen, but it turns out that you aren't. Should I?"  
  
“No, sir,” Charles answers immediately, quiet, sheepish, because Erik is right. He should be listening. He should be obeying just like anything else Erik expects from him. He stays still because he was Ordered, but he feels fidgety, scolded, and he should. But his Dominant is discussing it with him, too, just like he promised he would, checking in like they agreed upon, and it fills him with a distinct elation he can’t properly voice. “Not earlier, please. Um, I’ll just, I’ll just tell you -” He makes one of those soft little noises, his cheeks hot again. “If I’m restless. And if I have a nightmare, I’ll come to you. But…” He takes a sharp breath. “If I wake up and I, I can’t sleep, do I have to tell you?” he whispers. It’s vague, but considering what they discussed before, he thinks Erik might know what he means. “You said I did. Do I really?”  
  
"Yes, Charles," Erik rumbles again, his voice practically vibrating in his chest against Charles's cheek where he's nestled himself in. "You need to come to me. With any type of thing that you are experiencing, any type of disruption. You will come to me, and we will handle it together. If I find out that you're continuing to hide alone in there, then I will presume that changes need to be made. I give you the things you ask for because I trust that you will respect my Commands even if I am not there to enforce them. Am I understood?"  
  
Another sharp breath, but Charles knows he’s not going to be able to argue this one. He isn’t even sure if he wants to. “Yes, sir,” he whispers, and rubs his cheek against Erik’s chest, seeking that warm, shivery feeling he gets every time Erik speaks like this. “But - sometimes, can we just make it a little later?” It’s worth a shot, and Charles looks up hopefully, smiling in what he hopes is sweet and convincing. It’s certainly worked a few times before.  
  
This time, though, Erik tilts his head and looks at Charles, really looks at him. "Would that help you? For real. Not because you are just trying to wiggle around. Is that what you need?" his eyebrows raise, genuine. Erik doesn't want Charles to feel stifled. He wants Charles to feel comfortable and excited and satisfied with his life.  
  
Charles bites his lip. Hard. “Hmm,” is what comes out at first, because he doesn’t want to lie. Not right now. Not here, against Erik’s chest, after their first time and his first week being properly, formally trained and their first check-in, where he promised to be as honest as possible. Both of them did. It won’t work if they aren’t, it ruins the whole point, and he knows that. So he tries to think, to really think. “Sometimes,” he decides on, and traces patterns on Erik’s chest, idle little shapes. It’s an unconscious little thing, a need to touch. “Sometimes I’m too restless to sleep. My head feels too full. I can’t do it. If I stayed up a little later, it might help. We could do something for a little longer, maybe -” He doesn’t mean that, but it makes him a little flustered anyway, because he thought of it. “But sometimes I just want to wiggle around,” he admits, and that’s honest, too. "And, and then..." He shakes his head, that flustered noise escaping again.  
  
Of course sometimes he just wants to wiggle around, as Erik calls it, but they both know what it means. When Charles is feeling stroppy and defiant, and deliberately antagonistic against his Command. The desire to be put in his place as a result. Erik has never viewed it as a bad thing, but he generally doesn't allow it to affect his decisions afterward. But the other things that Charles says, the ones he knows stem from a real cause; it makes him nod. "I understand," he murmurs softly. "And I will do my best to differentiate what is going on. And if you need to stay up and wind down for longer, we can do that. We can do things a little longer, or you can have some alone time. I'll determine that based on the situation," he decides, which is generally like most of the things he expects. "And then what?" he adds, prompting quietly.  
  
Charles goes right back to squirming in Erik’s arms, rearranging himself needlessly. “I like it,” he breathes, and he doesn’t know if he should feel embarrassed or not, or if it’s good or not, or how to feel about it himself, clearly. He just knows it’s true, and maybe vague, but honest, too.  
  
Erik's head tilts again, a predator regarding its captive inside a deep interconnecting web of Will. "What is it that you like?" he asks, voice pitched deep, an entirely unconscious reflection of Dominion as he strokes a finger down Charles's cheek.  
  
“Mmm,” Charles sighs, and leans up into Erik’s hand, his eyes fluttering shut again. It’s comforting, at the same time that it makes his belly flip. “Just - when you ask me to do things, and I don’t want to, and you ask me to do them anyway, and I know that’s -” He bites on his lip, trying to sort through how to phrase this with his mind still hazy and slow. “Not things I really don’t want to do. If I was scared to go to sleep and you made me go to sleep, I wouldn’t like it. But I don’t always like going to bed so early, but…” But too bad, Erik says sometimes, and he likes that. He wonders if that’s okay, to like it.  
  
"Mm-hmm," Erik digresses, because-"I want you to know that I like it as well," he purrs into Charles's ear. "And I know the difference fairly well," he huffs, gentle. "And the times I don't, I will learn. I do not ever want you to feel scared or frightened or truly upset and anxious about the things I ask you to do. You will always have a choice in that, in telling me your thoughts and perceptions. That is why I ask you to be open with me," he tweaks Charles's nose fondly and then skates his fingers down Charles's spine.  
  
“Hmmm,” he sighs, a little shiver to accompany it, a pleased little smile into Erik’s neck as he goes back to peppering sweet kisses there, enjoying the warmth of Erik’s skin. “Why do you like it?” he wants to know, looking up at Erik, and his eyes are so very blue, filled with that bursting curiosity.  
  
"Because it means I get to show you your place," Erik murmurs lowly into his ear, running his fingertips underneath Charles's clear, blue-eyed gaze. "It is a task that I greatly relish," he ends up grinning a little bit. Entirely unconscious.  
  
It’s a nice grin. Charles traces Erik’s lips with a finger, awed, almost; Erik is beautiful. In that moment, it’s impossible not to see what he’s thinking written all over his face, no telepathy required. It’s shy and fiercely fond all at once, something uniquely Charles, and he’s smiling himself. “More, then,” he demands. “Thoughts?” He taps Erik’s temple, biting his lip to keep from giggling. Surely Erik has thought of things he wanted to incorporate and hasn’t. Charles wants to know.  
  
It makes Erik press his lips together, and he just leans forward and kisses Charles's forehead, holding onto him tightly. It's hard to explain the outpouring of emotion, just that it's very fond, and overwhelmingly grateful and pleased. "This," he rasps against Charles's shoulder. "What we just did. I've wanted that for a long time. Is that-something you would-repeat?"  
  
It’s almost comical, how fast Charles nods, how vehement it is, how he sighs softly and presses closer unconsciously. He’s wanted it, too. Obviously he’s wanted it. The nerves he’s had, the reservations - the nerves he still has, really, they’re not nearly enough to dampen that. “Train me,” he demands, breathlessly. “That, too.” Because surely Erik has wanted - he said so before, and that excites Charles more than anything.  
  
Erik huffs a laugh. "No," he murmurs, not in answer to Charles's question, but he presses his finger to Charles's lips. "Do not demand of me. Ask me. Nicely," he rumbles darkly. It's obvious that he's more-than inclined to train Charles, in all ways.  
  
Charles decides to take this opportunity to bite Erik’s finger. Not enough to hurt, of course, but he sucks it into his mouth in apology a moment later, his eyelids drooping closed at the sensation, at the reminder, and he sighs with it for a moment. “I’m not nice,” he argues, grinning. “I like demanding. Train me, kiss me, hold me, or else. Oh - list,” he breathes, and now he’s a little more nervous all of a sudden, biting on his lip.  
  
Erik lets out a little _eep_ of surprise, mostly, and then rubs the pad of his thumb along Charles's bottom lip. "You know how to be nice. Ask me properly, or else," he murmurs, and his threat is a good deal more potent than Charles's, when backed up with heady threads of Will that swirl about the room and wrap around Charles's entire body.  
  
“Hmmm. No, still learning,” Charles argues, and forgets momentarily about his next point, mostly because his eyes are so heavy now they won’t stay open, because he’s squirming on Erik’s lap, because there’s electricity buzzing about and warmth pooling in his belly, Erik’s Will tugging at him. “How do I be nice?” he asks, feigning innocence. He’s forgotten, apparently, just like he forgets what Erik means when he tells him to get into Rest and wait for him in the mornings. Wherever do his hands go? He does know one way to be nice, though, so he takes Erik’s thumb into his mouth, sucking it gently. He likes Erik’s fingers.  
  
"Perhaps I ought to remind you," Erik growls lowly, a warning really, before his hand comes down over Charles's ass all of a sudden in a shocking blow that's infused to the brim with the Dominion-soaked threads of Erik's Will. Charles has felt it before when Erik's doled out a physical implement, when he puts something else into it, something that sends electrical impulses all up Charles's body and right into his eyes and ears and mouth.  
  
Charles is not at all prepared for it, despite very knowingly playing with fire. He gasps so loud it’s amplified, vibrates around the room with the shock and the force of it, the world stuttering for a second as he reels and trembles. He lets out little whimpers, dropping his head into Erik’s neck to press apologetic kisses there, not crying but sniffing as if he could, at any moment. “Sore,” he whispers, and he is. In more ways in one, in ways he isn’t used to - not that he’s even used to the other way, yet, but even so. He wriggles with it. “I remember now. I can say ‘please, sir,’” he murmurs, looking up at Erik for approval, smiling because he can’t help it. Because Erik makes sure he stays in line. “I have more things on the list,” he adds, because it was a long list. Charles is nothing if not prepared, and he did plenty more research. Of course he did, why wouldn't he?  
  
"Oh, indeed," Erik huffs gently, because of course he does. It's one of the reasons Erik's so very fond of him. Usually Erik is the more organized of them, but in these conversations he usually isn't. He's the kind of person to simply take what happens at face value, while Charles is more likely to analyze interactions and sort them. So Erik nods, pressing a kiss to Charles's cheek. "Tell me about them," he whispers, because he wants to know. To know what Charles thinks, to know what he wants.  
  
“Um,” Charles stumbles, though, because his thoughts are a little hazy again, and he’s floating and maybe slightly dizzy, and he tries to sort through it all and remember what was actually on the list. It’s strange, because his memory has been affected by all this, too; there’s so much that’s so very naturally tied to his mutation, so much disrupted by this. Those little things add up, and Charles stumbles and stutters over them, because he’s supposed to have them, the way people are meant to see and hear and touch. He’s missing things, important things, and most of the time he doesn’t even realize except to know something feels off. “We should do this every week,” he suggests, and he suggested it already, but he especially thinks it’s important now. “And, I just - well, I know you’d prefer I didn’t wait until the end of the week to tell you about things, but sometimes… it’s hard,” he admits, closing his eyes. “To admit things. Or sometimes, I think it’s not such a big deal, surely you won’t mind, and then I realize you probably would, and if we did this, then I could tell you and I wouldn’t feel -” A little twisted up about it. “You don’t have to do anything about it. I just want to tell you, I think it’d be good for you to ask so I can tell you,” he whispers. Because if Erik doesn’t ask, maybe he’ll just keep it inside, and maybe it’ll fester, and maybe he’ll fret. Charles is very good at fretting over things, at letting them get trapped inside where he internalizes them. Very good. "Not all big things. Just the little things. Check-in. So, so there's nothing that drags over into the next week, yeah?" It makes sense to him, anyway, but maybe it's a silly idea.  
  
"Of course," Erik rumbles in his ear, petting his hair and kissing his forehead. "I had intended to do so, you know. Not silly at all," he whispers softly. Erik has trouble with things too, sometimes, and it's good for him, too, to be able to play off of Charles and hear what's going on from his perspective. It helps Erik to open up, too, to let him consider things in this light, to be able to say what he wants, to say what he likes and dislikes. "It's a beautiful idea," he continues, the praise soft against Charles's ear. He doesn't need to verbalize the entirety of that thought. Charles is beautiful.  
  
Charles just lights up all over again, sighing happily. There’s nothing more soothing than Erik praising him like this, and he feels it through his whole body; tingling, and warm in his chest, lingering in butterflies in his belly. He likes it a lot. “So, um...” He bites his lip. “If you ask, and I tell you things, the things I didn’t tell you, what happens?” He imagines this is going to be one of those it depends answers. But it’s worth asking. Erik said he’s always allowed to ask questions, and in this case it’s establishing something. A system, a routine. Charles is finding out quickly that he likes those things, maybe even craves them.  
  
"It does depend," Erik confirms, pressing more kisses along Charles's cheek and one particularly gentle one to his temple. "If you tell me something that I've explicitly told you to inform me about, then discipline will be considered. Even if you were upset. Even if you were afraid. Those are the times you should most come to me. But some things are more severe than others; the level of punishment will depend upon what specifically was hidden."

* * *

But Charles just blinks, after he startles at the kiss to his temple. All of a sudden, the room is quieter, as if everything’s shuttered to a stop. “How are you doing that? Am I doing that?” he whispers, brows drawn together. He’s bothered, clearly.  
  
It puts Erik immediately on edge; because Charles is bothered, mostly. Not because of the application of abilities, and his head swivels around quickly. "I am not doing that," he murmurs, hand closing into a fist.  
  
Charles presses his lips together. “No, you must be,” he argues, quietly. “Because I’m not. How are you doing it?” he demands, maybe a little frustrated. It’s difficult not to be, all things considered. “It’s on my list, actually,” he adds, looking down and not at Erik. It was last on the list, because he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to address it. Definitely not before other things, but he’s rather distracted and unsettled now.  
  
"I did not say you were," Erik whispers. "But I can't do things like this." He doesn't think. "However, I implore you to take a deep breath, and remember that I am still your Dominant. You are safe here, with me." He touches Charles's temple, and puts some hair behind his ear. "What was on your list?"  
  
Charles reels back as if Erik’s slapped him, though, reaching up to touch his own temple. Protectively, almost. “Don’t,” he insists, and it’s still quiet. “Don’t do that.” He’s frowning, now, everything shifted, staring down between them. He’d liked it, before, though, more than he can describe.  
  
Erik takes his hand instead, pressing it to Erik's own chest. His own brain is bleating its version of an early warning alarm, something that has kept them both alive dozens of times in the past. "Tell me what is going on," he Commands firmly. "Tell me what you can sense, or perceive."  
  
A harsh, huffed breath, and Charles isn’t feeling defiant. Certainly not. It’s not that. He is frowning, and he is unsettled, and he shakes his head. “Tell me what I’m experiencing,” he says instead, eyebrows arched. “Don’t you know?”  
  
"No," he whispers. "If it were what I think we would know by now."  
  
Charles blinks again, taken aback. “What do you mean?” he asks, alarmed himself.  
  
Erik shakes his head, pressing a kiss to Charles's forehead, warm. "In the early days. There was a woman. Ms. Frost. She is telepathic, too. Like you. She worked for Mr. Shaw. She tried to attack you, mentally. It is just hard to turn off the worry sometimes. She was nowhere near able to meet your strength, though."  
  
“Oh.” Charles shakes his head, though he’s biting his lip. “No, I don’t think so.” But he’s clearly not telling Erik something, even as he shakes his head again. “It wasn’t that. It was something else,” he mumbles, and looks down again, quiet. Upset. “I’d rather not talk about this, actually,” he adds, hasty.  
  
"No," Erik growls. "You will tell me what is going on, and you will tell me it now." For the moment, it isn't an Order, but that can change very quickly.  
  
Charles closes his eyes tightly. He doesn’t want to disobey, not like this; not here, still pressed against Erik’s chest, still floating and anchored in subspace. It’s just that he doesn’t want to talk about this, either, and the result is every muscle in his body tensing right up, a soft whimper escaping from pursed lips. “It must just be me,” he whispers. “It’s just me. It just doesn’t always feel like it, that’s all."  
  
"No, you said it was something else," Erik murmurs. "Tell me what you think it is. What you can perceive, what you can sense and feel. I know it must be frightening," he whispers, kissing Charles's forehead, "but this is the best way to determine what is happening and how to control it. Things seemed to be going OK," he adds. "This seems to be somewhat random. Usually when your abilities go off it is due to something verifiable; something causing you to be upset beforehand. Talk to me."  
  
Charles shakes his head again, sighing. “No, it’s -“ He presses his lips together again. “We’re talking about two different things at once. It wasn’t random. You responded to something I thought,” he taps his temple, then flinches, then frowns, head drooping, fidgeting and uncomfortable again. “And it’s not you, so it’s me, and I don’t like that. I don’t like that I don’t know when it happens, when it doesn’t. That I can’t control it. That sometimes I hear you, sometimes for a second you hear me. I don’t like it. And it happens all the time, anyway -“ And he hasn’t been telling Erik, because surely he’s experienced it, too. He knows he has. The hallways that don’t make sense, the staircases to nowhere, the weather fluctuating. Opening a door and finding it goes somewhere dark, and oddly colored all at once, then blinking and it’s the library as it should be. Disorienting, odd, uncomfortable. Charles likes to pretend it doesn’t happen. “I just hate it,” he sighs, mutters it under his breath.  
  
"I'm sorry," Erik whispers, brushing Charles's hair away from his face. He has been experiencing those things, too, alongside Charles, and he's been trying to get Charles more in touch with his abilities, so that he can control and shut it down when those things impact them negatively. "I can't tell you if it is you or me. We shared-" Erik pauses to inhale sharply. "Shared a very deep connection."  
  
This time Charles’ teeth clench, and he looks away. “It’s me, it’s my fault, I know,” he snaps, suddenly finding his temper riled. It isn’t really aimed at Erik. “I don’t want to talk about it, please. It’s over now. I can’t hear you, and you can’t hear me, and we’ll just have to talk.” But one of the things he really did want to discuss was this. He’s suddenly not in the mood at all, and that the room feels heavier for it bothers him, too. “Please,” he repeats, hoarse.  
  
Erik grips his jaw in hand. "Do not raise your voice at me. I would never blame you for any of these things that are happening. I-" his lips press together, now, because Charles is angry and he's the one having a stupid emotional response, and he looks away, blinking rapidly. "I just thought-you meant that you didn't want it. Didn't want me to know. And I want to know. All the time. But-" he huffs, smiling gently. "I think talking is important, too. We didn't do a lot of that, back then."  
  
Charles isn’t angry, exactly. He’s a bit frustrated, but not with Erik, and the moment he’s refocused, the moment Erik grips his chin it all deflates, besides. “It’s not that,” he sighs, softer. “It isn’t. It’s just that I don’t know when it’s going to happen and when it isn’t. I don’t know when I’ll be able to hear you and when I won’t. Sometimes I think about wanting something, and suddenly it’s there. Other times it doesn’t work at all. I fix your hand, and your leg, and then I can’t even do something you’re telling me I could do at eight,” he mutters. “It’s frustrating. I don’t like it.”  
  
"I know," Erik whispers, petting him and holding him and doing his best to calm things down. "I know. I'm sorry. I wish I could make it better. But you're getting to use your abilities more naturally. You can do much more now than you could before. You took care of me," he reminds Charles softly. "I know it seems random. But you're just learning. I know it will get better. You were a child once. It must have happened this way back then, too. But you learned. It is not impossible."  
  
“So I’m a child again,” he sighs, his nose wrinkling up in distaste. Understandably, Charles doesn’t much like the thought of it. He closes his eyes. “That’s what was on the list. I want you to train me more, in - in this. And I know that frightens you a bit, and you’re not sure how, but I need it. Please. I can’t be constantly frightened about this anymore. I need to learn to control it. I know you can help me.” Of this, he sounds absolutely certain. “You can train me.”  
  
"Charles, I-" Erik ducks his head. "I've been trying. It doesn't-it doesn't frighten me. I just-I'm just _bad_ at it," he finally admits, sniffing slightly. "Of course I want to train you. I've been trying. Trying my best, and-I'm not a telepath. I can't-get into your head the way someone else could. All I can do is repeat stupid clichés and hope something sticks." And he hates himself for it. That much is clear.  
  
Charles shakes his head, and reaches up to cup Erik’s cheek. “You don’t have to be a telepath,” he whispers, stroking Erik’s cheek. “You’re my Dominant, sir.” And the title comes out without him even realizing, because he’s still down. He is. And this is supposed to be their check-in, and he wanted to do it formally. “You’re supposed to train me, in everything. I know you can help. Even if you just repeat clichés,” he smiles.  
  
Of course, Erik presses his face into Charles's hand. "One thing I can say for certain," he murmurs, a vibration that shakes through the room. "I will do my very best. You are not alone, here. You are with me. You are my submissive."  
  
Erik’s submissive. The reminder makes him shiver, and he continues to pet at Erik’s face, soothed by it. So soothed by it, calmed by it. It’s visible, the way his muscles relax, the way he takes a slow breath. “I want to learn,” he whispers. “And I want you to teach me. Everything, sir, alright? I want to learn. You said I’m just learning.” Charles is trying to be alright with that.  
  
"Yes," Erik rumbles. "Yes you are. And you are light years beyond where you were initially. So do not get so hard down on yourself. I won't let you. Because you are mine," he repeats lowly.  
  
He’s Erik’s, but he’s not quite so sure he believes that. “I haven’t,” he mumbles, and drops his hand, but only so he can grab onto the blanket and tuck it around both of them again, nestle back into Erik’s neck. He likes it there. “I haven’t improved at all. I feel so helpless still, sir,” he whispers, eyes closed, and he did say they should always he honest during these check-ins. That he would tell Erik how the week went, the best he could. All the thoughts he’d saved up.  
  
"You have," Erik murmurs. "When you first awoke, you did not even believe that you were telepathic. You could not do much of anything, so it isn't surprising you didn't. And then when you could, it was just to throw things around. But now you are doing so much more. Your mind is responding to your needs, to your wants. I notice, you know," he taps Charles's nose. "Even when I was very fargone. Ideally you would be able to do those things consciously, and you will. You just need to be patient with yourself. And with me," he adds, because despite his best efforts that aspect hasn't improved.  
  
“But is that really much better?” he sighs, frowning against Erik’s skin. “Or any different? Yes, I’ve done more, but I can’t do any of it when I really try. How useful is that? And you said the first thing I could do, the very first, was read minds. So why am I not usually able to read yours?” He knows Erik doesn’t have these answers. He sighs again. “I don’t like being patient with this,” he admits.  
  
"I don't know," Erik answers honestly. "And framing it in terms of what is useful, isn't. Mutation isn't about what's useful. And I have observed you reading my thoughts plenty of times, you just don't often realize it when it happens. Most people, can't even tell anything about me. But you can. So I think you are constantly perceiving things that aren't otherwise evident."  
  
Charles shakes his head. “I know you believe that,” he sighs. But it’s more than that, for Charles. He’s frightened about hurting people, and so it matters to him, seeing results. Quantifiable, verifiable results. Something that isn’t terrifying because he can’t control it, because it leaks out from the inside of him and terrorizes them both. It could hurt them both worse, hurt everyone worse, and knowing that - that changes things. “Are you sure I’m reading your mind? Or are you just sharing more of it, without my having to?” Perhaps it’s a bit of both, but Charles thinks the question is important to hear; he reaches up to touch Erik’s face again, smiling softly. “I like that you are,” he adds. “I’m sorry you have to, now. I know you didn’t with me. But I like it.” He hopes that’s alright.  
  
Erik presses his cheek into Charles's hand, and kisses the center of his palm, setting his own hand overtop. "I do believe that," he murmurs. Charles hasn't been privy to the ideological wars raging back and forth across the planet and Erik hasn't done much to educate him one way or the other; it comes a little too close to what Shaw tried to do with him for his liking, but he's surely heard about it by now in his research, and Erik's very much a separatist at heart and hasn't gone to any real lengths to conceal that fact, either. Some days it's more obvious than others; especially when they talk about abilities. "But I understand that being able to control your abilities is important and necessary, and I know it must be very frightening not to know what's next from one day to the other." His nose wrinkles up. At Charles's question, though, he shakes his head. "I probably am. There's no need to apologize; if I am then I am glad for it. But that isn't really what I meant." He gives a little shrug.  
  
Of course he’s run into it. It’s not ideological, though, the reason he needs to learn this; it’s quite a bit more than that, and he knows Erik knows that. Erik is the one who told him in the first place, when he woke up and did not believe it. “Then tell me,” he murmurs, wiggling his free hand out from the blanket to touch Erik’s face, too. He strokes at his other cheek, feather light, his eyes tracing everything; awed, again. He is. “Please,” he adds, belatedly, and grins up at his Dominant, sheepish. He’s still a little hazy, but it’s in such a nice, drifting way now.  
  
It means Erik has to lean forward and kiss him, of course, and he does so gently, incredibly fond and sweet. "I do not really know, how to-how to explain it." Just that he doesn't express things, certainly not in words but not in his facial expressions, either. To everyone else he looks utterly blank, and it's been remarked upon endlessly by his supporters and detractors alike. But Charles can still read him. Most of the time. "People see me as very severe. Very-" he draws his hand across his face as if miming a blank slate. "But you never have." Well, that's not exactly true, either. In the beginning Charles got very upset with him for being cold.  
  
Charles frowns, and it’s not because he read Erik’s mind, it’s just that his has gone to the same place. He looks down, shame gathering in his belly, and drops both hands. “I’m sorry I couldn’t in the beginning,” he whispers. “I know that must have been frustrating, when I used to be able to. But it’s not so much that I’m perceiving all the time, I don’t think, just...” He doesn’t know how to explain it, either, and he’s not at his most eloquent now. When he reaches back up, he touches Erik’s lips. “I watch you. I’ve noticed things.” And maybe he didn’t have to, the first time. But he’s grateful that he can now. Erik said it was real, what they’re doing. That it matters, even if it’s not the same. “I’m not always good at it. I’m learning,” he smiles.  
  
Erik kisses the pads of his fingers gratefully, pleased that the touching has returned. He smiles back, eyes crinkling. "I remember you had trouble when you lost your abilities, before. You struggled with that. But you got better. Maybe you are just uniquely suited for Erik Reading." He gives a little wink. "I'm sorry that I wasn't-that I'm not so good at being open, like that." Everything is still very subtle, very muted, very conscious, but he is trying, too. This is real.  
  
“That didn’t last very long, though, did it?” He tries not to sound bitter. It’s just difficult for him not to feel inadequate, sometimes. To think of all the things Erik might miss, and be jealous of himself for being a better submissive. It’s mad, but it’s there nonetheless. “I notice things, now. Here,” he traces Erik’s lips, smiling again himself. “Sometimes, even if you don’t smile, your lips twitch. When you’re pleased, or amused. And here,” he reaches up, under Erik’s eyes. “Your eyes are expressive, even when your face isn’t. But when you’re happy, there’s a bit of a crinkle. And up here -“ To Erik’s forehead. “When you’re worried, concerned. And these, too,” he grins, touching Erik’s eyebrow. “When you’re displeased, too. When I know I’m in a bit of trouble. When you say _‘Charles,_ ’” and he tries to imitate Erik’s stern voice, dramatically and comically lowering his own, raising his own eyebrows sharply.  
  
It startles a laugh out of Erik, which comes out like more of a bark, but then again, Erik was never really one for laughter either. Charles seems to be the only person who can consistently inspire it. He playfully captures one of Charles's hands so he can press it against his face like a warm mug of coffee. "I do _not_ sound like that."  
  
"You do!" Charles laughs right back, delighted as always that he made Erik laugh. It makes him shiver, actually, and he wiggles in Erik's arms, feigning as if he's simply getting comfortable again. "You sound exactly like that. ' _Charles, what did I tell you,_ '" he imitates, and this time it's even more ridiculous, completely unable to replicate the deep rumble, especially when Erik is exerting Will that way. "I should just be you for the day. I make the decisions, I make the rules, because I'm using the _Voice_." It's how he's referred to it in his head, actually. "No bedtime. No more Postures. I can eat as much ice cream as I please. You already agreed to the first two things." In a way.  
  
"I certainly did not," Erik snorts, his nose wrinkling up again just as Charles said it did. Just s Charles's accent grows the more indignant he is, so too does Erik's, making him sound especially against that particular idea. "Certainly bedtime, and Postures. And a reasonable amount of ice cream." He's a real party pooper. "The _Voice_ ," his lips pinch together as if holding back another laugh.  
  
"You're using it right now," Charles points out, grinning, and then shakes his head. He pokes Erik's nose, this time, because it did wrinkle, and he did notice, and Erik's words sound richer, almost, when he's not concealing his accent, conscious or otherwise, and he likes that. He likes it more than he's let on, but it's obvious now, everything about his expression fond and open and bright, still deeply in subspace. He likes the feeling of subspace, he's decided. It's much less frightening now, even though it's still sometimes overwhelming. "But you did. You said I could stay up as late as I like, and that Postures are optional." Okay, he didn't say the last part. Or the first part, in so many words, but Charles is willing to tease and try his luck here, at the same time. "You said I could bring up concerns during check-ins, and you'd consider them. And you considered them, and now they're rules, right?"  
  
It makes Erik smile. He can't help it, the description of what he's feeling right now is impossible. Full, warm, like his heart is singing. Everything in him curves toward Charles like a plant in sunlight, even his eyes seem brighter and more vivid for it. "I am very certain I said no such thing. In fact, I may be even stricter than I was before," Erik teases back, one eyebrow arching mischievously.  
  
Charles makes a soft, unconscious noise, his own heart jumping in his chest. He reaches up to touch Erik's lips again, without thinking, really, just tracing that smile. "No strictness," he argues, but he knows he likes it. He knows it's exactly what he craves, even when and if it overwhelms him. Erik always listens to him. "Should I keep going?" he asks, biting his lip. "Or do you want to say things? I know you didn't have a list, but I'd really like to hear more from you, too." He feels shy about asking for it, but he does want it. For Erik to use this time to talk about what works and what doesn't, too.  
  
Charles touching him just makes Erik's insides glow all over again, and he wraps his arms around him, tugging him closer. "To be honest, everything I've said before is where I am at, currently," he murmurs with another smile. "I think you are doing exceptionally well, and you are taking to your training very skillfully. I am very pleased with the way things are going. My only contention is that you are not as open with me as I would like, and as I've stated, the incidents when you are not, where you know better-which you should, following these discussions-will merit a disciplinary response. I am more interested to hear the rest of what you had prepared," Erik finishes softly. "And I can hopefully offer a more specific response then." And he has been making notes, but most of it is vague because the things that don't work are merely a product of defiance and attitude, which Erik is taking steps to curb and correct as it appears.  
  
Something in Charles sobers a bit, and he takes a short, sharp breath, adjusting in Erik's lap until he's nestled back into Erik's chest again. "I wrote down a list of the things I didn't tell you during the week. Some of them are very silly," he prefaces, even though to Erik they might not be, depending on how strict he's decided to be. "But you said I should. And then there's - there's what you learned, before," he whispers, closing his eyes. "But we don't have to talk about that now, do we?"  
  
"No," Erik says, but it's not in answer to the question, it's a refusal to brush it aside. "Tell me, Charles. All of it. I told you that you should and that means everything. Even the things you think are not worth mentioning. Even the scary, uncomfortable, upsetting things. Especially those things. "  
  
It’s what he expected, honestly. But it’s certainly going to be a longer conversation, so he shifts on Erik’s lap and takes another breath, this one slower. He might as well start with the least distressing parts. “I don’t always go to sleep when you tell me to, sometimes just because I don’t feel like it,” he admits, and it makes his stomach turn over, even when he’s already admitted it. Even removed from it by days, it’s uncomfortable to admit that he’s disobeyed in any way. “The second night, I wanted to finish the book I was reading and you weren’t having it, so I waited until I was sure you’d gone to bed and then I took it out again.” Which is a bit sneaky, and now seems ridiculous, though in the moment he’d been very proud of his own decision to buck Erik’s authority and get away with it. “You told me to clean up in the study the other day and I just shoved the papers in another room, in the drawers, because I didn’t feel much like sorting them.” Again, he’d felt very clever doing it. Now it feels decidedly less clever. “And - you told me to be careful on my ankle, still, and I don’t know if you’d consider it reckless,” by Charles’ tone, he doesn’t, “But I did wade around in the stream a bit, the other day, and took a little fall. That’s why I took the second shower, when you asked. It wasn’t really a lie, mind, because if you remember I told you I’d just felt slightly disgusting. I was muddy.” He’s making that a trend, apparently, but Charles has always been a bit clumsy. He bites his lip. “I think that’s all I had… oh, no, you said I should wait until we’d had dinner to eat that chocolate, but I snuck a bite while you were outside in the garden. Just a tiny one, really."  
  
"Mm," Erik rumbles, but it's what he expected, too. "It seems you're making quite a habit of deciding not to follow my instructions. And I do in fact consider that action to be reckless. It took a lot of work and a lot of pain from the both of us to have your ankle fixed. I don't want to have you on the operating table again." He's checking, now, and it does seem like Charles is generally OK, but the warning still holds. "What else?" he murmurs, indicating for Charles to go on.  
  
Charles looks down at the blankets covering the both of them, fidgeting until he’s faced mostly away from Erik, his back pressed to Erik’s chest. He certainly doesn’t squirm out of his arms, though, wanting his Dominant to hold him tighter. “It’s not a habit,” he whispers. “And I did tell you, didn’t I?” Maybe he’s stalling a little. He shrugs. “Nothing else. There’s nothing else that you don’t already know,” he lies. “Nothing I’ve done, anyway.” Less of a lie.  
  
"You did. Eventually. And eventually in these cases is not my preference," Erik rumbles back, his hold tightening over Charles all the same, entirely unconscious. But Charles knows all of that, too. "And I do not prefer that you lie to me. Tell me the truth, Charles. Now." He punctuates that with a brief slap to Charles's ass before gathering him up again.  
  
He startles with it, whimpering because he’s truly sore, but his eyes close again for a different reason. Charles grabs hard at the blankets, makes sure he’s properly wrapped in them (and Erik, too) before he nestles up against Erik’s chest, as close as he can be. “I see him a lot more, now,” he breathes, achingly quiet. “Around corners. Sitting across from me in the library. In the garden, in my bedroom. Sometimes he stays, sometimes he doesn’t. But he’s following me. He’s watching me, I think.” It’s frightening, but Charles has largely tried to ignore it. It works, occasionally. "It's alright. It doesn't bother me."  
  
It makes Erik inhale but he curbs it so that it isn't sharp or startled, and instead he lays his head down on Charles's shoulder, bringing them even closer together. "Don't tell me that," he murmurs in a low vibration. "Don't say it doesn't bother you. Don't lie." It's almost a whisper. "It-" Erik touches his own chest. "Bothers me." His voice is raspy, almost inaudible. "I don't want him here. I don't want you to see him or talk to him or know him in any way. He doesn't belong." It's obvious Erik is afraid even if he doesn't show it. It's obvious to Charles. Just Charles.


	108. Hephaestion, who died Alexander's lover now my riverbed has dried

And, like always, Erik has seen right through Charles, too. He turns his head to nuzzle against Erik more thoroughly, attempting to comfort them both. “It bothers me,” he states the obvious. “It frightens me. But it’s alright, isn’t it? I’ll just listen to you, and not to him. That’s all.” It doesn’t feel that simple. He bites his lip. “I didn’t want to worry you. I didn’t want you to be alarmed, I didn’t want you to think - I do trust you, Erik. I promise.” But he’s been confused, too. He’s been awfully confused, and worked up about it. He's been awfully afraid.  
  
"I do not want you to hear his voice, telling you lies." Erik has wilted by now, his legs brought up to his chest with Charles in the middle, keeping him folded up and tucked in almost a ball. Erik's whole frame is vibrating. "All he ever did is lie." And the idea that _Sebastian Shaw_ is telling Charles that Erik is hurting him and can't take care of him and Charles believing it, is too much for Erik to bear, truly.   
  
This is why Charles, above all else, did not want to bring this up. There were quite a few reasons, but this is one of them. He squirms until he can touch Erik’s face, until he can wriggle out of the ball Erik has curled him into, even though it’s safe. It’s safe and he doesn’t really want to leave. “He’s not,” Charles whispers. “He’s not... talking to me, really. Not like you’re thinking.” But it doesn’t make it much better, he imagines.  
  
It doesn't. "You said he is," Erik croaks. "It's OK. I'll do better." He can't break down like this every time Mr. Shaw comes up. Every time he sees Mr. Shaw, hears him, listens to his insidious voice. The last time they spoke still plays over and over in his mind on a loop before he goes to sleep. _Deny it all you like, but I gave you power. Everything you are, everything you have achieved, is because I did not settle for anything less than excellence. I made you strong._ Erik shakes it off.  
  
“You don’t have to do better,” Charles assures, still touching Erik’s cheek, gently stroking it. Tentatively, slowly, he reaches for that place behind Erik’s ear, the one that seems to calm him. “You’re doing wonderfully right now. And he isn’t speaking to me. He’s just - there. And at night, I have dreams, and he speaks in those. It’s alright. They’re just dreams, aren’t they?” But his voice gets quieter, as if perhaps he’s unsure. “They’re just dreams.”  
  
"They are lies," Erik murmurs lowly, but his eyes slowly close as Charles gently massages his fingers through his hair and he leans his head against Charles's hand, his breathing beginning to even out. He's sorry. He's OK. He isn't upset.  
  
“We don’t have to talk about this,” Charles whispers again, because it hurts to see Erik like this. To see him so worked up, so afraid. It aches especially like this, and he keeps massaging, stroking, touching, hoping it might help even a little. “I know. They’re lies, I know. I won’t listen,” he promises, so quietly.  
  
"Please don't listen," Erik rasps softly. He turns his head into Charles's hand, like a weary cat coming up for a pet. He can't explain just how horrifying it is, the visceral pang of fear that jolts through his whole body, the crash of memories and feelings and mixed associations. He's fine. It's fine. It's not even his problem. He should be looking after Charles and caring for him, he's the one affected.  
  
If Charles doesn’t feel it exactly, he at least knows it’s happening. His eyes close and he takes a shaky breath, focusing on just petting Erik, on staying curled up into him, on holding and being held. He’s not sure what else to do, really, but he can do this. That it soothes him too is secondary. “It’s alright,” he promises, softly. “I won’t. I promise I won’t. I’ll come to you, alright? And you can tell me it’s a lie. I’ll believe you.” He wants to believe Erik. It’s all he wants. “Let’s not talk about this. Let’s talk about something else, remember that I ate chocolate when you told me not to?” It’s a poor attempt at humor, at changing the subject, but it’s all he can think to do. All this seems to be doing is hurting his Dominant. Frightening him.  
  
There are many things going on under the surface that Charles simply can't know, that Erik has ruthlessly locked down and will never let out. He just nods over and over again. "I remember," he murmurs, offering a poor excuse for a chuckle.  
  
It’s not at all convincing. Charles isn’t even sure it’s meant to be, and he gently scratches at Erik’s scalp, leans forward to press warm lips against his Dominant’s forehead, aching with it. “Talk to me,” he requests. “Please. Please, sir.”  
  
It was, unfortunately, meant to be. Which just goes to show how much this has been bothering him all along. His head lists forward until he's practically pressing his cheek against Charles's face, and his eyes flutter closed. "I can't," he croaks, feeling everything jamming up in his chest like a bad car accident.  
  
Charles just kisses Erik again, wherever his lips happen to touch. Forehead, cheek, nose. It would be playful if he wasn’t so incredibly worried, if he weren’t frightened and sad himself. “You can,” he promises. “Please. Talk to me. I need you to talk to me, Erik. What’s happening, darling?”  
  
Charles can feel wetness against his skin and Erik just breathes quietly, inaudibly. He rubs Charles's back, doing his best to soothe even now. He doesn't know how, he doesn't know how to talk. His voice is trapped inside. Everything is trapped. "'Kay," he finally blurts, sounding much different than before. "Sorry," he tries to regain it. "It's just hard. I'm sorry." He kisses Charles's forehead, too. "So much of my life was- _is_ -intruded on. By Mr. Shaw." There are memories behind his eyes, but he doesn't voice them.  
  
“And you feel like he’s intruding now, too.” Even after Erik got away. Even after he found safety, even here, in this isolated, frozen place, where it should only be the two of them. He feels his heart ache, and drop right into his stomach; it isn’t fair, and Charles bites his lip until it practically bleeds, kisses all over Erik’s face again after he’s taken a breath, though he isn’t sure it will help. “I know. I know, darling, I’m sorry,” he breathes. “But I promise, I won’t - I’ll only listen to you, alright? I’ll only listen to you. It’s just us. You said this is real, hm? And it’s just us here. We just, we...” He swallows. “I had my first time, and it was just us, wasn’t it? And it was lovely? No intrusion. He didn’t ruin a thing, you said so yourself.”  
  
It's hard to feel like he can breathe. Erik's eyes squeeze shut. "It wasn't ruined," Erik whispers, truthfully. But it's hard to escape the sensation that Mr. Shaw is standing there watching them, _leering_ at them in their most intimate moments, making Charles regard him as someone who hurts people.  
  
Sometimes, it's hard for Charles to escape that sensation, too, and it's not just in moments like these. "It's not what you think it is, you know," Charles whispers. He's trembling.  
  
"What isn't-and what do I think it is?" Erik asks, sounding much less Commanding and far more plaintive.  
  
But Charles just shakes his head. "I don't want to talk about it," he mumbles, despite urging Erik into speaking just moments before. "I really don't think we need to. It's just not what you think it is. I know what you're imagining, and it's not that."  
  
"I don't know what you mean," Erik mumbles into Charles's neck. He swallows and pulls back to draw his thumb over his eye, trying to seem casual about it.  
  
Charles doesn't want him to. "I don't want to talk about it," he just repeats, his own words clotted up in his throat, turning to cement. He touches under Erik's eye instead, wipes away the remnants of tears, and kisses there again. "It's alright. It's alright, Erik, we're alright. He's not here. Nothing was ruined, remember?"  
  
"No, tell me," Erik croaks the Order, unwilling to sit impotently in place again on the verge of another freak out. It is not all right.  
  
Maybe it isn’t. Charles closes his eyes again, makes a strangled, half cut off noise, and pulls away just slightly so he can grab at something, anything, in this case the blankets still tangled up around them. “They’re just dreams,” he mutters, as if he’s convincing himself. “They’re just dreams. They’re not memories. You told me that I met you in prison, that I didn't know you or him before then, and I believe you. I believe you. He’s just lying. It's just a lie."  
  
"Well you don't sound very sure of that," is all Erik says, and it's quiet, defeated. His expression has returned to its typical state, only this time it's easier to attribute the blankness of his features to hollowness instead.  
  
For some reason, it makes Charles wilt, too. He coils up into himself, still touching Erik but wound up, too. “Oh,” he mumbles first, as if it’s the only thing he can get out of his mouth. As if it’s punched out of him. “I do believe it,” he says next, but his eyes are firmly closed. “You told me, so I believe it. You’re my Dominant, and I trust you. Why don’t you believe me?” he asks, and his voice cracks. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. I believe you, Erik. Alright? I trust you. I just, can't we -" Go back. Charles wants to go back. He doesn't want to acknowledge this, he never wants to acknowledge this.  
  
"Because you are once again failing to tell me things, even when I directly tell you to do so," Erik says flatly. "I don't have to be a telepath to know that. You told me to tell you what isn't working, this is not working for me. I expect you to be honest with me. Now."  
  
“I don’t want to talk about it!” And he doesn’t mean to raise his voice, and truthfully it’s more of a hoarse croak than anything, especially when his voice cracks on it again, but it’s much more desperate than angry. It’s not even angry at all. It’s afraid. “I don’t want to think about them. They’re just dreams. Why do I need to tell you about my dreams, they don’t mean anything. Please. I told you what they're about, why isn't that enough? Why can't you just trust me when I say I don't believe any of them are true, I don't believe those are my memories." But he doesn't have any other memories. None.  
  
"Because they are disturbing you and because they are influencing the way you see me, and they are encroaching on moments of extreme intimacy between us. That is why. I don't need you to tell me the specifics. I can very well guess for myself. You told me that it wasn't what I thought. What wasn't. What do you think I am thinking?"  
  
Charles shifts until he can hide in Erik again, until his head is buried in the crook of his arm, until he’s all bundled up and curled into the ball Erik folded him into earlier. “You’re guessing the wrong things,” he whispers, and that’s a guess, too, but he thinks he’s right. “He isn’t hurting me. In the dreams. He doesn’t hurt me.”  
  
Erik feels like someone took a pair of scissors and snipped the parts holding his heart in his chest, feeling it bounce off of his ribcage and down into his stomach. Because of course. It's not that he thinks that, his own feelings far too complex to untangle in such a simplistic response, but it's the truth. Of course Sebastian Shaw would choose this method instead. It's perfect. "Oh," Erik whispers. It's not that he's ungrateful. He would much rather Charles lack memories of being hurt.

* * *

Charles has a feeling Erik still isn’t getting it, but he doesn’t blame him. It’s been his goal this whole time to conceal it. “Oh,” he repeats, quiet and hollow, and perhaps they can just leave it at that. He doesn’t know what to make of Erik’s reaction, or non-reaction. He doesn’t know what it makes him feel. He just knows what’s fact: either Shaw is lying, or Erik is, in whole or in part. The two versions of reality are completely incompatible in some very key ways. He knows which one he’d prefer to believe, and maybe it’s just better left at that. Erik said this was real. So why should it matter? It doesn’t matter. They're here, and it doesn't matter. He doesn't want it to matter.  
  
Erik honestly didn't think it was possible for him to feel as inhumanly eviscerated as he does now, but as always, Mr. Shaw has proven himself skillfully able to twist the knife in a plentiful new method of torture. "Then I suppose it makes sense that you aren't certain," he grants, offering a small smile. He tries to pet Charles's back, his hair, and everything that was in him dims quite a substantial amount until all the lights have been snuffed out entirely.  
  
Charles feels his throat close right up, his breath hitched. It’s not the reaction he wants, but it’s not fair to expect anything of Erik right now. Charles knows it’s not fair, and still he finds himself wanting to cry. “I am certain,” he argues, small, his eyes firmly closed. “I believe you. I believe that you’re my Dominant. I believe that.” And he does. He does, he does, he does. But he’s gone still in Erik’s arms, entirely too still, and this isn’t the reaction he wanted. This isn’t how he wanted this to go. He’s retreating, too, except he refuses to let himself cry. "I believe you're supposed to be. My Dominant. That you are. I feel that. I don't need memories to know that. You said that, you said we're a match -" And it's not a lie, that he believes that. But why isn't Erik reassuring him? Why isn't he arguing against the rest of it, even if he doesn't know what the rest of it is? Why isn't he saying something? Charles feels his heart sinking, and sinking, and beating too hard in his chest. He hears his breathing falter.  
  
He isn't saying anything because he can't breathe. He isn't saying anything because he is genuinely furious and he doesn't know why, only that everything inside of him is chaotic and screaming and shredded into trillions of paper-pieces, and he doesn't want to unleash any of it on Charles. "We are," he says, sounding like a frog has lodged in his throat.  
  
“Alright,” is what comes out of Charles’ mouth, and it sounds and feels like sandpaper, the way it gets caught in his throat and tightens up his chest. He doesn’t have access to any of that, and so what can he say? All he can do is tense up in Erik’s arms and not open his eyes, as if he’s terrified he might see another man holding him instead. As if this is the dream, this wonderful, extraordinary thing they’re building, piece by piece. Because what if it is? What if it is, then what? He doesn’t want it to be. He doesn’t want to wake up.

* * *

"You should have told me," Erik finally says, and Charles can feel where all the adrenaline is building in his muscles and sending wracking vibrations through his entire body. "All of it. You should have told me this the minute it was happening." There's something about how he says it, the way his gaze is narrowed and hard. Charles surely has access to that from his time spent with Erik. He is well past angry.  
  
It turns his blood cold. “I couldn’t,” Charles whispers, his voice shaking.  
  
"Yes you **_could_** ," Erik growls. He doesn't say anything else, he just sits there, and shakes, and stuffs his fist into his mouth and bites down on it hard enough, sharp enough to draw blood.  
  
Charles is shaking, too, but he has enough sense to grab for Erik's hand, to try and move it away from his mouth. He knows Erik probably doesn't want it right now, but he links their fingers together, staring down at them. It's been comforting, to notice how much bigger Erik's hands are than his. It just feels sad, now. "I couldn't," he repeats, digging his own free hand into his own skin. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Erik, I -" He shakes his head.  
  
Erik doesn't pull away, though, but he is dripping blood, unfortunately. He's trying not to completely lose it, the rise of feelings in him that he doesn't understand threatening to overwhelm, a tsunami battering at the shores. "Tell me," he implores.  
  
It’s all just bursting in Charles’ chest, and he doesn’t know what to do. That panic, that distinct, visceral fear wells up inside of him again and he takes harsh, gulping breaths, but he can’t seem to get enough oxygen into his lungs. “I tried,” he gasps. “I tried, and he followed me. Every time he followed me, Erik. I would walk toward the study to tell you, I swear I would, and he’d walk with me, and - and I couldn’t, I couldn’t with him, I couldn’t do it with him there. And by the time he was gone you’d shown up, and you wanted to tell me about the song you were listening to and ask what books I’d been reading and I forgot, I couldn’t, it wouldn’t come out and I tried to make it come out but it wouldn’t and I don’t want to - I don’t want -” He’s panicking, now. It’s not a he might have a panic attack, it’s the middle of one, and everything is seizing and the room is suddenly spinning and he reaches up to yank at his hair, which is still very long, fortunately for him at exactly this moment. The room is suddenly dizzy, the walls are suddenly close, the bed is suddenly made of concrete, nothing soft or comforting to speak of. “What if it’s true? What if it’s true, and you didn’t tell me? What if it’s true and I hurt you and you didn’t tell me and I’m his and you didn’t tell me and I’m, I’m this wretched, horrible - and the first thing you said, the first thing was I could kill you, I could kill everyone, and what if it’s true? What if I’m just, what if I’m, what if that’s why I don’t remember, I don’t remember, what if this is a dream what if I’m horrid what if I belong to him and not to you and what if I’m not submissive at all or what if I am and it doesn’t matter or what if, what if what if I -” No, he can’t breathe. Neither can Erik, as if there’s a physical hand right around his throat.  
  
Erik lifts Charles's hand to his cheek and presses it there. "No," he murmurs, loudly, interrupting the train of thought. "No. Stop this and breathe. It is not true," he whispers. "You didn't hurt me. And you do not belong to him. I do not lie to you. I have never lied to you. And you need to trust me because I don't know if-" he shakes his head, then, cutting himself off, because the next words out of his mouth were decidedly unfair.  
  
But Charles can’t breathe, and whatever it is Erik’s said, he hasn’t heard it. He’s much more focused on what he didn’t say, and his hand is limp on Erik’s cheek. His eyes are closed and he can’t open them. The world is breaking and he can’t fix it. He shakes his head, but not in any specific refusal, just over and over and over again.  
  
"Breathe," Erik Orders him, because yes, he can. "You belong to me. Not to Sebastian Shaw, or to panic and fear. Me. And you need to believe me. Because I don't think I can survive knowing you don't." It comes out anyway, and he shuts his eyes, apologetic.  
  
He chokes. He chokes, and he’s not sure what comes out. He’s not sure what happens. All he knows is that he’s awfully dizzy, and nothing in the room makes sense. It’s not the same room when he opens his eyes. It’s not Erik’s bedroom, which he’d been perfectly comfortable in, it’s not the blankets they’d been nesting in or the bed they’d been sitting in or anything he recognizes except in dreams. It’s a different bedroom, and a different house - house? And a different life, and he grabs Erik’s arm so hard it’s painful, because it’s not Shaw he’s staring at, looming over them. It might be, somewhere, but he can’t even think to check. It’s him. It’s Charles, or another Charles, or the same Charles, the Charles he’s been so absolutely terrified is him. The one he’s been missing. But how could Erik love this Charles, with the cruel look in his eyes? With the collar around his neck that he’s positive Erik didn’t give him? But what if he did, anyway? Charles doesn’t know. He doesn’t know, and he wants to shut his eyes again, but now he can’t. "I believe you," he gasps, and it comes out of his mouth, but the other Charles mimics it, his lips curled around it harshly. "I believe you. I believe you, I believe you, I believe you -"  
  
Erik tugs him back into his chest, into his arms, and rests his cheek against the skin there. "That isn't you," he murmurs gently into Charles's ear. "You are mine. You said you believe me. Don't lie to me." Erik shoves all his own feelings to the backburner, kissing the top of Charles's head. "Besides, my collar is much nicer," he adds with a small smile. "You haven't hurt me, certainly not that way. It's just a lie. He plays on people's insecurities, on their fears. That is what he does. This is harming you."  
  
But Charles can’t focus. He can’t focus on anything Erik is saying to him, because there’s nothing inherently fake about the room they’re in. It’s not that he doesn’t believe Erik. It’s never been that he doesn’t trust or believe him. It’s just that, within this place, this place he’s been visiting in dreams unwillingly, it is the truth; how else could it be anything different? He closes his eyes, but it doesn’t change anything. Not his perception, not the beating of his heart, not the fact that they’re being watched and he knows it. “Please stop,” he whispers, and he doesn’t think he’s speaking to Erik at all. It sounds hoarse, and pathetic, which is exactly how he feels as he stares helplessly at his doppelgänger, who’s fully clothed while Charles isn’t and looks appropriately pitying. He won’t stop moving closer, but he’s not speaking, just moving his lips as if he’s speaking at the same time Charles is. A distorted mirror. Which one is the original, which is the copy? Is that how mirrors work? He doesn't remember.  
  
"Listen to me," Erik's Order resounds through the room, sending ripples through the glass. "Look at me." The next Order. "Look." He cups Charles's jaw. This scenario isn't playing well with his own mental health, either; watching this interpretation of Charles like an unholy mannequin. If he wasn't pissed off before, he would be now, but he has more important things to deal with. His submissive is the only thing that matters. "You belong to me. Say it. Say it," he rumbles the Order lowly.  
  
Charles’ eyes go wide, his heart stuttering again in his chest, the panic making everything painful and tight. “I belong to you,” he croaks, and he knows he means it. It’s just that he hears it twice, and the dread that sinks right into his stomach is deadly. The Charles lingering far too close to them looks different than the one in Erik’s arms; his hair is much shorter, for one, he’s well-dressed, sporting a different collar but he just seems - and Charles refuses to wonder. He refuses. Someone else is in this room and he can’t look at that man, either, but he feels him, the way he does every time, like a pricking at the back of his neck. “I belong to you,” Charles repeats, breathy because it hurts to breathe. The echo hurts worse the second time, because the other Charles doesn’t mean it. He finds the idea funny.  
  
Well bully for him. "That's right," Erik murmurs, brushing his hair with his fingers. "Anything else is a charade." He doesn't think anything else; certainly not about the way it makes him feel, as if he could ever hope to categorize that. "I love you. You. Not a fantasy or a memory. Just you." And he doesn't need for Charles to love him back. He just needs for Charles to believe it is true.  
  
But tears leak right out of Charles’ eyes, and he desperately shakes his head. “You don’t love me,” he gasps. “You love someone I don’t remember being.” And it’s a different kind of ache, all twisted up inside him. “I believe you. I do. I believe you,” he whispers, and he hates that he hears it in a voice that’s his but not. He hates that he hears footsteps, that his entire body is tense because all he wants is to be back in Erik’s bed, safe, discussing things as they should be. All he wants is Erik to laugh again. He’d done that, hadn’t he?  
  
"You know better than that," Erik growls. He knows better than to keep lying to Erik's face, when it is obvious he doesn't believe anything that comes out of his mouth, and he understands that Charles is upset which makes all his own feelings on the topic entirely irrelevant. "Just breathe and listen to my voice. You're OK."  
  
“Stop it, I said I do,” Charles whispers, and he hates himself for crying. He hates even more that when the other Charles repeats it, it sounds far nastier. Mocking, and singsong, as if he doesn’t believe it either but Charles does and he takes harsh, panicked breaths, everything overwhelmed. Erik hadn’t even corrected him. He hadn’t even bothered. “I’m not okay, and neither are you. Look where we are,” he hisses, and truthfully he doesn’t know, except that he’s had dreams about this place. He’s had dreams and now the phantom man is stepping closer, and closer, and his shoes shouldn’t be making nearly that much noise but they are and Charles is frightened. He doesn’t want this.  
  
Erik presses his hands into his own eyes until they're ready to pop out of his head. It is so incredibly frustrating except of course, Erik isn't allowed to be frustrated, and he isn't allowed to have any feelings at all, so he just keeps pressing and pressing and pressing. "Don't take that tone with me," he Commands roughly. "This is a dream. It is not a real place, and that is not a real person. I told you that you are mine, and I love you. And that is what is true."  
  
“Stop it!” Because it is frustrating, and it’s not a dream for Charles. It might not even be a dream at all. And the more they do this, the more amusing the man finds it, the more amusing that Other-Him finds it, and he can’t take it. He wants to go back. He wants to be small and protected in Erik’s arms, he wants to float in subspace, he really does, he wants to finish their check-in Erik promised they would talk he would address things they weren’t done he was supposed to kneel he was supposed to - but he can’t do that here and it is a real place. It is a real, actual place, but Erik just says it’s alright when it isn’t and he won’t say anything else, he won’t say anything besides ignore it, he won’t clarify he won’t reassure him and he didn’t even correct him because it isn’t true. And who is it that Erik loves? How is he supposed to know who that was? And why even believe him, trust him, if he thinks he’s just lying anyway? What confidence is that meant to inspire? It’s too much, and he’s too frightened, and he’s still naked and Erik was supposed to protect him, he was under he is under and he said it was always safe to be in subspace but he doesn’t feel safe now and it’s still-hazy and he grabs at his hands, riled and upset and he’s said that Erik should feel this whole time. He promised this was real. “Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop -“ He’s still just panicking. There’s nothing else he can do, he’s still just helpless.

* * *

Something in Erik's mind reaches out and swats the scene away like an overzealous bug, the room and the man and the sound and everything else erupting into dissolved smoke. Charles isn't at the mercy of this. It doesn't control him or dictate anything they do. He takes the blankets that were wrapped around them both and tucks Charles back into his arms, which is where he's always belonged this entire time, and works on crushing the tidal force of sensation inside of him because frankly he has nothing to give, not after today. And he's trying to reassure and he's trying to correct and it's absolutely useless, because of course he isn't believed. Why would he be. He takes his hands back and shoves them back against his face and keeps Charles against him and keeps pressing.  
  
But it doesn’t dissolve at all for Charles. It’s all still burned behind his eyes, the place between Universes and Worlds and it’s too much for him to handle because he doesn’t know. Because he’s learning but he hasn’t even begun to learn how, maybe he really wasn’t built for this and he wrenches himself away from Erik because he’s not sure who’s touching him, who’s holding him, or who he is or where his body is or where he is or how he got here, and he’s terrified, he’s well and truly terrified and he isn’t speaking to Erik anymore when he mutters, over and over, “Stop, stop it, stop, stop, stop, please stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop -” And Erik has nothing left to give and he’s hurting himself and he doesn’t even know where Erik is, it's dark and too light and too distorted and he believes him, he believes him, he trusts him but there are things he can’t explain, and there are things he just doesn’t know and how can he be blamed for that? Why should he be, when he was put here by some fucking Universe that never bothered to explain what it is he should be doing, how he should be learning, how he should handle this? How could anyone do this? He’s breaking. It’s breaking, and the World will break with him and he just wanted this to be real. He grips at his hair and tugs, satisfied when strands come out.  
  
They don't, though, because Erik doesn't let that happen and snaps his hand over Charles's before he can. "Cease this, now, and listen to me." The Order growls through the room. "Now relax yourself and breathe."  
  
Even with everything breaking inside Charles’ brain, perhaps the first real glimpse of it - and it doesn’t hurt, the way it used to hurt the Charles before this, he doesn’t bleed or scream in agony, collapse, convulse, the Universe promised - he listens. Every part of Charles listens, even if he doesn’t know how to relax, even if he looks without really seeing, his eyes that odd, glowing blue. He brings another hand up to his hair, but he doesn’t yank, because Erik said not to, and Charles would find it impossible not to hear his voice. “Stop,” he gasps, but he’s not talking to Erik. It’s obvious he’s not talking to Erik. “Please stop.”  
  
Erik takes his hand and presses it to his heart. "Come here," he tugs Charles against him and wraps him up in his arms once more. "You do not listen to anyone else except for me," he murmurs the Order, still-rough. "I've got you and I will protect you and keep you safe. I love you. That is the truth. And you will hear me." And that much is an Order, too. "Not anyone or anything else. You said you believe me."  
  
“I can’t h-help it,” he gasps, and Charles sounds mournful, regretful, sad, because he is. Because his head is more fuzzy than it was before, but not for the same, nice reason. It’s because it feels like there’s pressure, unspeakable, inexplicable pressure, and it’s all pushing in and in and in. It doesn’t hurt. He wouldn’t describe it as pain, and maybe that’s the Void peeking in and keeping its word, it’s hard to say, but either way his ears feel popped and his eyes aren’t focusing properly and still he manages to blindly nestle himself into Erik’s shoulder, trying so hard to breathe like he was told. “I believe you. I believe you,” he promises, and he wants Erik to believe him. He does. Erik said this was real, that it was real for him. That what they’re doing here is real. Charles believes that. That’s the most important thing for him to believe, because without that, he’s not sure he can manage. “But you have to believe me. That’s real, too. It’s real,” he whispers, because he’s scared. It’s frightening, and he’ll listen to Erik, but Erik has to listen, too. He has to believe him. "I'm sorry. I can't help it, I'm sorry, I can't -"  
  
"You can," Erik tells him, interrupting it. "You can breathe, and listen to me, and obey me. That is all you need to do. That person doesn't exist. It is a dream. I know it feels real, but it isn't. You have never been someone else's submissive. You have never belonged to Sebastian Shaw. That is false and I won't listen to you tell me it's true." Erik's temper is getting the better of him and he doesn't say anything else.  
  
Honestly, he didn’t expect Erik to understand it. He doesn’t understand it. He can’t even begin to comprehend it, to make sense of it, to follow the scattered, confused pattern of his brain, but he shakes his head and whimpers, because he doesn’t want Erik to be angry with him. He doesn’t want Erik to be upset with him, because he really, truly can’t help it. He doesn’t want to deal with it, either, or understand it, or learn it. He doesn’t want to know things if these are the things he has to know. “Okay,” he breathes, which doesn’t mean anything except that his ears are still not popping, and his head is still full of that horrible pressure, he’s stretched thin and he just doesn’t want to break anything. He has to hold it all inside of himself so it doesn’t break. He doesn’t want anything to break, especially not Erik. "Alright. Okay. Please," he whispers. "I'm sorry."  
  
It's too late for that. Erik is already broken. It's not out of spite, so he keeps it locked down, so Charles won't know the extent. He believes that there's probably more to it than he can understand, but it doesn't change his response, and he doesn't want to say or do anything he's going to regret, so he makes himself as small as he possibly can. Inside and out. He tucks Charles's head under his chin and sways him back and forth.  
  
Charles can feel it, anyway. Not enough to know all of it, but not knowing it’s there is impossible right now. Not seeing it isn’t an option, not that he’d ever want to look away, and he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to make it better, or softer, and he doesn’t know how to reassure Erik when he’s so distinctly terrified himself. “Please,” he whispers, but he doesn’t know what he’s asking for. He closes his eyes as tightly as he can, but it doesn’t do much to help. It just aches. Not the terrible, splitting headaches he doesn’t remember, but it stings. Everything stings, everything is too much to fit inside of him. It's too much, and it hurts Erik, but he can't pull away either. There's just nothing he can do. “Please.”  
  
"Please what," Erik croaks, and there's nothing in his tone that remotely suggests an answer is optional. He's doing his best, despite the shrieking adrenaline. He's trying to block it out, he's trying to reassure Charles and keep him calm and mitigate this and remind him where he belongs.  
  
Charles shakes his head, back and forth and back, and it’s not a refusal. He just doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what he can reasonably ask for, he doesn’t know what he needs. “Mashed potatoes,” he whispers, and hides in Erik’s neck, pressing his forehead there, rubbing it like he might be able to get it all to tumble out, relieve the pressure, the ache. He whines. “Please don’t be angry,” he says, eventually. “I’m sorry.”  
  
"I know," Erik murmurs, brushing Charles's hair with his fingers. He couldn't begin to explain his own emotional reaction, except that it is visceral and there is too much and there is anger. But needless to say, he knows that Charles is sorry, and it doesn't mean that Charles doesn't belong to Erik. "I won't hurt you," he whispers, kissing Charles's forehead.  
  
That’s not what he’s worried about. He’s not worried about Erik hurting him, but that he’s angry in the first place is almost too much to handle at the moment. Almost. It’s even more unbearable to feel it and not acknowledge it, even with his head close to exploding it’s so full. “Tell me, please,” he begs, and maybe that’s what it was. “Why. Please.”  
  
"I just wish you told me about it," Erik croaks softly, his eyes hot and pricking. He's disappointed, more than he is angry at Charles. He continues petting Charles's hair and swaying him back and forth.  
  
But Charles shakes his head again, distressed and frowning and unsettled, and he doesn’t know what to do. He just knows he wants Erik to feel better, and he wants his head to feel better. “Mashed potatoes,” he sighs. It’s funny how he didn’t understand what Erik was saying, before. Now he does. “I couldn’t. I tried, I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it,” he sniffs. “I couldn’t. Voice stopped working, I couldn’t. I will, okay? I will. I’m sorry. Please don’t be angry.”  
  
"I know," Erik murmurs, soft. "I'm not angry at you. It's OK." And he's not, not really. He's just mad. "I love you," he whispers back again. "Thank you for telling me now," he makes sure to add, because he's not sure he did, and he is thankful for that. He kisses Charles's forehead. "Mashed potatoes."

* * *

It still hurts, if he’s honest. It still aches. But he believes it, and he hopes Erik knows he believes it; he nods, still miserable, letting himself be rocked even if he feels slightly sick. “Mashed potatoes,” he repeats again, and his eyes are still glowing and unfocused when he looks up. “Tell me more? Please?” Because he needs to know, and he needs to hear Erik’s voice. He’s using it as an anchor.  
  
Erik shrugs, because he doesn't know what else to say. He doesn't know what to say. "I just wish you told me," he whispers. "I would have waited. I wouldn't have-so you wouldn't have seen him. Not right after. I didn't ever want that. I'm sorry. And you wouldn't have-have told me you-" he wouldn't have told Erik he belongs to Mr. Shaw right after. It hurts.  
  
“I couldn’t,” Charles gasps, and it hurts him, too. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t. And it just came out, he would have - I’m sorry, I can’t make it go away, mashed potatoes, I’m sorry,” and now he’s rambling, and close to falling apart again. To breaking, and breaking everything, he didn’t mean to do this and he’s sure he couldn’t have said anything. He tried, and he tried, and he tried. He wasn’t hiding it. He wanted Erik to know, it was frightening to do it on his own. It was scary. “I didn’t want to wait. I didn’t want to. I wanted to be yours, I did, I do,” but now Erik regrets it and that hurts more than anything. “I’m scared and I’m sorry, mashed potatoes, mashed potatoes, too much. I didn’t want to wait. I wanted to be yours I’m sorry. I didn’t want to see him. I just wanted to be yours.”  
  
"You are mine," Erik returns softly, kissing the top of Charles's head. "There is no wanting about it. It is not in past tense. You belong to me." Erik doesn't say anything else, he doesn't need to. Charles knows, and maybe his reaction makes more sense now. Or maybe it doesn't, since he can barely keep things straight in his head. "I will protect you," he murmurs. "No fear. I will keep you safe. I promise."  
  
But maybe it’s time to be honest. Really, truly honest, now that it feels more like he can breathe, now it isn’t all stuck up in his throat like it used to be. “I’m still frightened,” he admits, and he thinks Erik might be, too. He thinks maybe he has been this whole time, and Charles sometimes takes that for granted. There are things he can’t see, that he doesn’t know. He’s sorry for that. “I’m still very frightened. And you regret it,” he whispers, and he didn’t mean to but it just tumbles out and his eyes are closed again, but mostly because he’s disoriented and he’s grabbing onto Erik anyway. He imagines it was the goal. What better way to drive a wedge than to make them regret this? What if they just never do it again, now, and Charles doesn't get to learn because he's worried about someone else poking in?  
  
Erik shrugs. He feels bad, and cold, and he can't pretend like he doesn't. He doesn't want to make Charles feel worse than he does, but he can't pretend like he wouldn't have made a different choice. He can't pretend like he isn't incredibly hurt, and horrified, and reminded of things that he has always strove to keep out of their lives, out of _that_ part of their life. And he can't help but think that Charles should have _known_ that. He _should have known_ how much it would hurt. He should have known. Erik just smiles, though, because that's all he can do. That's reality. "I'll be OK," he rasps. "And so will you. I will make sure of it."

* * *

That smile hurts worse than anything else possibly could have. It sinks right into Charles’ stomach and eats away at him from the inside out, gnawing at everything until there’s nothing left but ache. He tried, and what could he have done? The two things weren’t related. If Erik knew, what would have happened? Everything would have just stopped because of the man from somewhere else who haunts him? Who follows him around and steals his voice? But he couldn’t, and he knows he couldn’t, and it doesn’t matter. Erik regrets it. It’s ruined. The tears are hot and bitter and particularly awful this time, and he tries to pull away. “I think I’d like to go to bed now,” he whispers, hoarse and raspy and small. “Please let me go.”  
  
"Just stop," Erik murmurs the Order back, raising his hand and indicating for Charles to stop struggling away from him. "Be easy. Did you expect-that I wouldn't-have some kind of-response? To you insisting that you belong to Sebastian Shaw instead of me? Do you think that I wouldn't have a reaction? To seeing him standing there watching us afterward. Of course I don't regret anything. And nothing is ruined."  
  
“Yes, you do,” Charles sniffs, and it isn’t because he’s upset with Erik. It’s because everything is still all shriveled inside of him, and he doesn’t have memory but he’s sure he’s never felt quite so hollowed out. “And I didn’t insist that. That’s not what -“ But Charles shakes his head, because apparently it’s his fault he’s been absolutely haunted by this. Unable to talk about it, unable to process it, carrying it around and not understanding it one bit. “Let me go, please,” he repeats, croaked.  
  
"No, you showed me yourself wearing someone else's collar, you thought it's true, you thought that _either Shaw is lying or I am_. You are the one who thought I was lying to you. If you think I have no reservations about being intimate with you when you couldn't even be certain of my intentions-" Erik cuts himself off in a growl.  
  
Charles feels everything inside of him turn ice cold. It’s chilling, and empty, and distinctly horrible, and at first he goes completely still in Erik’s arms. It’s mostly to hide how shattered he is. “Let me go. Now, please,” he whispers, and this time it’s not weak at all. “I don’t think I want to be here right now.” He definitely doesn’t.  
  
"I said no!" Erik's Order pierces everything. "I said no. All you have told me this entire time is that you've done exactly what I have told you not to do. You are not at the mercy of any one or anything other than me. Sebastian Shaw is not your Dominant. You do not listen to him. You don't get to say that you have spent this entire week deciding what you want to talk to me about and then run away when I am disappointed in you."  
  
Charles closes his eyes as tightly as he possibly can. “ _Afor_ ,” he croaks, because he’s frightened. He doesn’t know how else to get Erik’s attention. He doesn’t know what else to do. “Please stop.”  
  
Erik lets out a slow breath, but of course he stops, and takes Charles back into his arms. "I'm not going to hurt you," he murmurs, squeezing his eyes shut. "I won't hurt. It's OK. I'm sorry."  
  
It just makes him shake his head, unsettled and uncomfortable and trying to wriggle away, to wrap the blankets and the sheets tightly around himself as if they’ll protect him. There’s no way to get the words he needs to say out of his mouth, but he doesn’t want to be in this bed, exposed, naked, after the things Erik has just said. After what he knows Erik feels. “You don’t want me here and I don’t want to be here so please let me go,” he gasps, as if he’s all out of air. As if he’s struggling to breathe again. “Please. I can’t do this. It’s not okay.”  
  
"I said no. You do not get to tell me what I do or don't feel and how I do or don't respond, and what I regret and don't regret. You don't get to say I believe you and then tell me who I love. You don't get to just decide that something is finished, or ruined. You can do this because I am telling you to do it. So explain to me what you need to say."  
  
“Does it matter? Are you just going to tell me that I -“ Charles can’t even say it. He certainly can’t look at Erik. “You regret it. Clearly, you regret it, and that’s fine. It’s fine.” It’s not, if his voice cracking has anything to say about it. He’s shivering, too. “I can’t. I can’t do it,” he whispers. “And you won’t believe me, anyway.” He wraps the blanket as tightly around himself as he can, holds himself as far away from Erik as he can. “You don’t believe me. You just think I’m horrible, that I hid it to hurt you and showed you this on purpose and that’s...” That’s exactly what Shaw makes him out to be, too.  
  
Erik doesn't let him get far. "Of course I don't think those things. I have never once said you are horrible. I never have and I never will, so stop putting words in my mouth unless you want this conversation to continue from Child's Pose, I am _so_ close to it. _Stop_ telling me what I think. _Stop_ telling me what I feel. I won't believe you about what? Now is not the time for you to keep hiding things from me. So look at me and explain."  
  
“I’m not hiding things!” Charles bursts out, all of it exploding right out of his chest where his heart has shriveled up. There are tears on his cheeks, and he pushes at Erik’s chest, as if he can physically wrench himself away. “If you don’t think them, then how could you say what you said? About how I showed you those things, or acting like I brought him here, like I did it on purpose just to hurt you, how do you think that makes me feel? Do you care right now?” He’s whispering again by the end of it, because it’s abundantly clear that Charles is hurt. He’s devastated, actually. “Don’t call me that right now, and don’t threaten to punish me for something I didn’t do without even hearing me talk. This morning, did you hide from me? Did you hide or could you not get out of bed, could you not get it out of your mouth? When you couldn’t talk before were you hiding? Or were you terrified? Were you mixed up? Don’t tell me not to tell you what you feel and then put things on me, tell me what I did, what I did or didn’t believe don’t do that. Just because you’re my Dominant doesn’t mean you get to do that. I know how incredibly difficult this is for you but you don’t get to project that onto me. If you don’t think I’m horrible don’t treat me like it. Don’t say of course. The things you said made me feel like that.”  
  
"I said it to you because you told me that you didn't say you belonged to someone other than me. But you did." Erik's response is blank, and flat. "Of course I care. I don't believe you did anything with the intention of harming me." He sits up on his own and stands, folding the blanket and resting it on the bed.  
  
“No, I didn’t! I said that in those dreams, in that -“ He doesn’t know how to describe it. But what he knows is he never said, never as anything more than an explanation of something he had experienced in a way he knows he can’t properly explain to Erik, was that he belonged to anyone else. Erik asked for clarification of what he’d seen and felt and that was it, there was no other possible way to describe it. “And if I did, if I did for even a second are you going to hold that against me? For struggling with something that’s completely, utterly beyond my control? For something that I don’t understand and couldn’t -“ Charles cuts himself off again, cold and shivering and so empty when Erik moves, grabbing up the blanket to cover himself because he refuses to not be. Anything else is unbearable. “I told you I trusted you and I do. But I don’t have memories. So when I get them, and they’re, they’re memories, trust me, and I get them and they’re that - but I still believed you. I still trusted you. I believed your intentions, because if you think for even a second I would have done what we did if I didn’t you’re wrong. I believed you in spite of what would seem like evidence to the contrary, but apparently that’s not enough for you.” And it feels horrible. He feels horrible.  
  
"I am not holding anything against you. I am doing my best-just _leave me alone!_ " Erik growls, grabbing the blanket back and wrapping it around his shoulders. "I shouldn't have to defend my claim to you a _gainst that man!_ " he shouts, voice cracking. " _Afor!_ " he yells, covering his own eyes, head shaking.

* * *

Charles swallows. It’s completely weak and childish to cry in a situation like this, but there’s no other reaction. There’s none. He can’t do anything but cry, ripped horribly and suddenly out of subspace, overwhelmed, dizzy, head still thoroughly mashed potatoes. He covers himself the best he can with his hands, and there are no clothes on the bed because Erik led him in here from the bath. The idea that he’ll have to shuffle out naked and ashamed and dizzy because his head won’t stop, because he’s still not processing or seeing or comprehending normally is so distressing he feels slightly sick. He doesn’t know how to deal with this, but he grabs a pillow because it’s all he has and he turns his head away and waits until things settle so he can leave Erik alone. That’s what he asked for.  
  
Erik wraps Charles up in the blanket anyway, struggling to breathe in. None of his feelings make any sense at all, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that they aren't rational. He isn't seeing what is in front of him. "Stop throwing everything in my face!" he pleads. "I'm not holding things against you and I am not careless and things are enough for me but you didn't want it, you didn't want it and I hurt you. It hurts. Stop telling me how I feel. You don't know! It doesn't matter how I feel. He already made me-" he can't, and he just fixes the blanket. It doesn't matter.  
  
Charles inches farther away, not sure if he should be grateful that he was at least given this after Erik stole it away from him in the first place. He doesn’t want to be exposed like this. Not like this. He’s uncomfortable, and hurt, and he just doesn’t want this to go on any longer. He doesn’t know how to manage it. “I’m not doing that,” he whispers, as calmly as he can when his voice is broken and cracked, because he refuses to yell and he doesn’t even have the energy. “Please stop telling me how I feel. Please stop throwing things at my face. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I never said I didn’t want it. I said I did.” He doesn’t know what to do with the rest. He just doesn’t know. He huddles into the blanket, turned completely away from Erik, and his shoulders are shaking underneath it. “I did. And I trusted you, I do trust you, and I did.”  
  
Erik shakes his head. It doesn't matter. "Doesn't matter. I don't-" He wraps his arms around himself, plenty naked, after neurotically making sure Charles is covered and comfortable. "You're right," he digs his hands into his eyes. "I'm no good. I just did what I wanted. Shouldn't trust me. I should have known. You were scared."  
  
Charles isn’t at all comfortable, but that’s beside the point. He’s just a ball covered by blankets now, no part of him visible. He wishes he could say it helped, that it made things less overwhelming or the pressure more bearable. “You’re not no good, I never said that,” he says, muffled but audible. “I wasn’t scared. You don’t scare me. It matters.”  
  
Erik doesn't say anything else. He tried and it just made Charles mad at him and made him think Erik believes he's horrible. If he says anything more he will just ruin everything. Erik just shakes his head and keeps petting Charles anyway. It doesn't matter. It's not fair. Everything he feels is wrong and bad. He has to stop seeing it, he has to stop feeling it. Charles didn't say he's no good. He is.  
  
At least Charles is so thoroughly under the blanket that Erik can’t see him all tensed up or crying. “Please,” he whispers, from underneath. “Just talk to me. Please. I don’t know what to do. I didn’t throw anything at your face, I wasn’t scared, you aren’t bad. But I didn’t do it on purpose. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t make it happen. I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t, I couldn’t -“ And it’s not a lie. It’s just not. “But I trust you. You don’t believe me but I trust you. That’s why I did it, because I want you and I trust you.”  
  
"I, I-" he can't. And it's stupid. It's stupid for him to have such a strong response, such an irrational response. "I know," he just says, petting Charles's head. He knows Charles didn't do it on purpose, and he would never have claimed as much. "Believe you," he pets Charles's face. He sniffs and wipes his eyes. "I thought you, you hide from me. You didn't want me to, to-" he shakes his head again. He can't. "Can't talk about it. I can't. It's stupid. It doesn't matter. I'm stupid."  
  
Charles’ face is a bit impossible to pet right now, since he’s completely covered and hidden by the blankets at the moment and didn’t intend to come out for a long while. When Erik is finished, though, he does peek out. Just a little. Part of him, a hurt, wounded part, wants to mention that Erik did actually claim that. But he doesn’t, and he won’t. He swallows it right back down. “Please?” he whispers. “Please. Try.”  
  
"You didn't want me to know-" Erik finds his voice warbling. "He made me hurt you. All of my friends and everyone I ever knew, why wouldn't he make me hurt you too."  
  
This Charles is the most well-adjusted when he’s not terrified and reeling from what he’s never had to experience, deal with or understand, but silently he thinks seeing that would be too much for him. Perhaps not in general, but to do what they did earlier without Erik knowing somehow? It would be too much. He shakes his head, but it looks rather silly from beneath his blanket fort. “He didn’t,” Charles croaks, promises, because he can. It didn’t happen.  
  
And Erik is the most well-adjusted when he is not face-to-face, literally, with Sebastian Shaw juxtaposed with his submissive, and being intimate with his submissive, and seeing any depiction of his submissive acting out Mr. Shaw's macabre fantasy. And it's playing havoc on his mind, which was already tenuous to begin with. Erik just whines in the back of his throat and tugs Charles closer to him, refusing to let go, closing his eyes to rid himself of the carnival of horrors behind his lids. "OK," he says, shoving it all down and away. It's stupid, he is stupid. He shouldn't be in charge. He can't react right. Nothing makes any sense.  
  
Charles doesn’t think those things. He’s never thought those things, and he doesn’t now, and he lets himself be dragged closer, even still practically smothered by blankets, but wiggles his head out because one, he needs to breathe, actually, and two because he can just jam his face into the crook of Erik’s arm. “I know,” he whispers, and his voice is still breaking. “I know. I didn’t do it on purpose.” Show Erik, he means. Erik said you showed me but he didn’t. He can’t control it. He can’t help it. “I didn’t ask for it. I don’t like it, because I believe you.”  
  
Why _should_ Charles believe him? If Mr. Shaw is feeding him memories and he's not hurting him then he's bound to be showing Charles someone who can give him what he needs. What Erik can't give him. A person who doesn't fall apart at the slightest stress. Someone who isn't furious and jealous, let's be honest. And mean. It's a lie. Because Mr. Shaw is all of those things and worse. But he knows how to make himself look good. He fooled Erik while he was beating him with one hand and feeding him with the other. He's skilled at manipulation and Erik isn't. Erik doesn't know how to do that. He doesn't know how to fight that. And if Charles didn't believe him he doesn't even know what he would do. He makes sure Charles can breathe and holds on tighter, frame trembling. "Don't like it?"  
  
Another slightly ridiculous nod, and Charles is apparently insistent on suffocating himself because he curls up even tighter into a ball. “I don’t like it,” he mumbles. “I don’t like it. He wants me to realize I like it but I don’t. I don’t like it. I like you.” Maybe it’s stupid, simple, he doesn’t care. It’s what comes out and it’s what he honestly feels.  
  
Erik shakes his head. It's not stupid, but it's wrong. Charles shouldn't like him. "I'm no good. Mean. You said I think you're h-horrible," he hiccups.  
  
This is where Charles could very easily lie, because he might have a natural talent for it, not that he’d like to acknowledge it, but he doesn’t. Erik said that this was the one thing he was disappointed about, Charles not being honest with him. So he’ll try, and he looks up, just a set of teary blue eyes eclipsed by blanket. “You hurt my feelings,” he whispers. “But that’s alright. I’ve hurt yours before. It doesn’t make you mean. I don’t think you’re mean. I think you’re very kind, especially to me.”  
  
"I'm not," Erik shakes his head, pressing his lips together to try and sound vaguely composed and not childlike, not like he's about to dissolve. He's not kind. He's mean, and he hurts people's feelings. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He pets Charles's hair. "I didn't want to hurt you."  
  
“I know,” Charles promises, and then he reaches up to pet blindly at Erik’s face, aware that it’s probably far from comforting. He can’t exactly reach well, and his eyes are closed. “I know you didn’t want to hurt me. I didn’t want to hurt you, either. I didn’t want to make you angry, or disappointed, or -“ He can’t finish. He shakes his head. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I brought him here, and I’m sorry.”  
  
Erik takes Charles's hand and presses it against his cheek, feeling the warmth. Needing it more than anything. "You don't like him?" he repeats again, aware that he sounds pathetic, and not wanting to. But he can't help it, he just can't. He needs to hear. He needs to know it's true. He's jealous. It's stupid, and he feels bad, and he didn't mean to make Charles feel bad. It's his own problem. Not Charles's problem.  
  
It’s Charles’ problem, too. Charles rubs at Erik’s cheek, letting him hold his hand hostage while still trying to disappear into his chest and the blankets. Difficult, but not impossible. “I don’t like him,” he confirms, and then huffs. “I don’t like him. I want him to sod off, I want him to stop following me and ruining things. He said I’ll realize and come to him but I won’t. Alright? I won’t because I don’t want to and I don’t like him. I like you. I want you instead, alright? And your collar is nicer,” he adds, just for good measure.  
  
This time Erik's growl sounds far more like a purr, and he tucks Charles safely into his chest where he belongs, nestling his head under his chin for good measure. "Wasn't ruined," he whispers, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "I don't regret. I thought-" he shakes his head again. He thought bad things. Got mixed up. He's sorry. "Didn't hurt you?"  
  
Charles shakes his head, as vigorously as he can when he’s tucked underneath Erik’s chin and still swaddled, very comfortably, he might add. “You didn’t hurt me,” he promises, because Erik did the opposite. Charles can’t help getting choked up again, and he knows it comes out in his voice. “You took care of me. You made it feel good, even though it hurt a little. You didn’t hurt me. I’m sorry, I -“ He’s having a hard time keeping his composure, too. Everything got dizzy and horrible, for a second. “You don’t regret it?” He doesn’t look, but he has to check. To hear it again.  
  
"Never regret it," Erik whispers, and he's telling the truth. "He can't make me regret you. But I would regret-" he would regret, and does regret, hurting Charles. He couldn't live with that. And he keeps telling Charles to be honest, so he should, too. "I thought I hurt you and, and you didn't tell me. And I could just see. Hurting you. And I'm sorry. I know you are scared. I'm here to protect you. Not make you feel bad. I don't regret it. Never. You are mine."  
  
Oh. Charles rises up abruptly from Erik’s chest, but it’s not to pull away. It’s to throw his arms around his Dominant’s neck, nuzzle against him, kiss his cheek and his nose and his jaw and back up to his forehead, crying a little but unable to help it. “No, you didn’t hurt me,” he breathes. “You didn’t. You made me feel so good. You made it wonderful, not frightening. I don’t like him. I like you. I want to be yours, not his. I - I am yours. Not his, alright? I don’t care what he says or what he thinks. I don’t want to wear that collar, I want to wear yours. Yours is better, so much better. Please don’t make me take it off, I know I wasn’t sure at first and I know I still don’t remember the right things but I know I want to wear it now. I don’t want to wear his.”  
  
It makes Erik's eyes flutter closed and he leans right into each kiss, tears slipping down his cheeks. "Promise?" he whispers, and it's pathetic, but he can't help it. "I love you. I love you. I've known you for long enough to know I love you. I know you don't remember but you still know that I'm your Dominant. Well I know I love you. You will not wear anyone else's collar. Never. I will never let it."  
  
“I promise,” Charles repeats, fiercely, with all the strength and force he has left in him. He kisses Erik’s face some more, over and over and over, over his cheeks and his nose, gathering up those tears and tasting the salt. “You promise you won’t let him - I know, I know you shouldn’t have to fight for a claim and you don’t, you don’t I know I’m yours, but he wants to take me. He says you stole me. You didn’t steal me. I was just yours, I know. I know that. Please, I don’t want to wear his collar. It’s not as nice. It’s not yours. I don’t like it.”

* * *

Erik doesn't even want to categorize the feeling he has about the situation, because-no, he can't, he simply cannot. It's a deep, burning fury and the reason has clicked into place, and he feels so disgusting, so hideous, that his whole body threatens to burn from the inside out. He shakes in Charles's grasp. "I won't let him," he croaks hoarsely. "He steals. Not me. I promise." His fingertips stroke the edges of Charles's collar.  
  
Charles looks up, his eyes suddenly wide. "Angry," he whispers, as if it's the only thing he can say, and his voice trembles with it. He touches Erik's face, as if he can smooth it out, but he knows he can't.  
  
"It's OK," Erik rasps, rubbing his cheek into Charles's hand. "Stupid, stupid, stupid." He's angry at himself. "Not you," he pets Charles as gently as he can, feeling like an overgrown idiot minutes away from crushing him to bits.  
  
"Not stupid," Charles argues, pretty immediately, and pats at Erik's cheek, feeling slow and incompetent himself. He can feel that Erik's upset, vaguely, but it isn't like he can do anything. He's not good enough for that. "It's not okay. Tell me, please?" He can't help the shiver he gives, but he's not afraid. He's just a little startled to be feeling so much, still unused to it. It's not pleasant, really, but it's not Erik's fault. "Angry," he repeats, his eyes closing with the weight of it.  
  
"No, I can't. I can't. I can't." For the first time Erik truly and stubbornly refuses, he refuses. He refuses. He cannot. No one can ever find out, especially not Charles. "It's OK, I won't be mad anymore. It's OK."  
  
But Charles knows that isn’t true. He knows it can’t be true. He pats Erik’s face again, frowning, upset. “Please?” he begs. “Please, sir. I need to know. Don’t hide it. Why are you angry?”  
  
Erik shakes his head again and again. Feelings aren't facts. "It's just my mind playing tricks on me. That's all. It's stupid and I know it's stupid and I don't care and I don't feel like it anymore, and it's gross and I don't think gross thoughts anymore," he knows he's rambling but he can't stop it and he puts his hand over his mouth as if to hold it in.  
  
Charles considers letting it go. Erik is clearly distressed. Really, truly upset. But he can’t. He knows he can’t, not like this. “Please,” he pleads. He touches Erik’s cheeks, with both hands now, gently guides him to look. Charles’ eyes are wet, still. “Please. It’s alright, please.”  
  
Erik digs his fingertips into his cheeks where they're still pressed up to his face, his eyes welling up again. "Jealous," he mumbles, disgusted with himself.  
  
Oh. Charles makes a soft, quiet noise himself, but he’s not disgusted. He’s just upset, and he fusses in the blanket he’s utterly trapped himself in despite his free arms, wrapping them around Erik’s neck again, wriggling closer, kissing his jaw, his neck, his shoulder, peppering those kisses all over. He means for them to soothe Erik, but they just soothe himself, mostly. “It’s okay,” he promises. “You didn’t like it? Seeing me like that? It made you mad.”  
  
Erik shakes his head. That's part of it. A big part. Charles belongs to him. Mr. Shaw shouldn't have any part of it, it shouldn't be in any part of their lives, seeing him in someone else's collar made Erik snap and see red. But there's another part, too. A darker part. The part that wanted to lash out and claw at Charles for being wanted by Mr. Shaw. Erik spent his whole life under Mr. Shaw's thumb, and it feels like being cast aside. It's stupid, the rejection, it's gross and Charles thought it was gross when he remembered.  
  
“Oh,” Charles whispers, because he doesn’t need to read Erik’s mind to understand. He understands. He’s intelligent enough to put the pieces together, and how they fit is actually quite horrific, considering what Shaw has been showing him, but he tries not to show it on his face, in his body language, anywhere. His eyes close. “That’s okay. It’s alright. I’m - I’m sorry,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. He doesn’t know how to react to that, but he doesn’t want to react at all, really. He’d rather not. He doesn’t want to think about it, because he doesn’t want to acknowledge how - he shakes his head. “It’s alright,” he whispers again. “I’m sorry.” Charles just won’t open his eyes. He can’t.  
  
"I don't wanna talk about it anymore," Erik's voice catches pathetically. "I know I'm gross. I know, it's OK. I'll fix it. Fix it," he promises, unwilling to let Charles go, unwilling to stop petting at his hair and his face, hoping he won't leave because Erik's too stupid to feel properly.  
  
“You’re not gross,” Charles insists, and he doesn’t pull away. He leans right into Erik’s hands, into his touches, into the fingers in his hair. He hides in Erik’s neck. “It’s not gross, it’s just something you can’t help. Something you feel. It’s alright. You don’t have to say such awful things about yourself.” It’s just that it’s too close to something else, and he’s struggling with it. He can’t help struggling with it.  
  
"It's not all right. Make you feel bad." He sets his head on Charles's shoulder. "I know I'm gross. I'm even grosser. You just don't know. I don't say it. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter." Doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn't matter. Charles struggling with it only proves that it's wrong, and it is wrong. He knows that. He is wrong.  
  
Charles shakes his head, trying not to dislodge Erik in the process. It’s not fair that he’s having a response to it, and it’s not Erik’s fault. It really, truly isn’t. “You’re allowed to feel things,” he murmurs. “It doesn’t make you gross. I’m sorry I made you feel that way,” he whispers, his eyes tightly closed.  
  
"But it makes you feel bad. Why? If I'm not gross?" Erik whispers.  
  
“Because he talks to me. In the - in the dreams.” He almost said memories, but that’s because they feel like them. Maybe they are, even if Charles doesn’t believe they’re his. He doesn’t know, it doesn’t make sense. All he knows is he doesn’t want to talk about it, and he shakes his head. “But it’s alright. You’re not gross. It’s alright,” Charles rasps.  
  
"No," Erik whispers back. "Tell me. What he said." He knows it's going to hurt, but they can't ignore this. Charles said so, before. He said Erik can't pretend like it doesn't exist, he has to face it. They both do.  
  
“That you’re jealous of me,” Charles gasps, and he closes his eyes until they feel like they might pop, that horrible pressure back behind his temples. It’s not pain, but he can’t describe what it is, either, except that it’s uncomfortable and unwelcome. “He said you’re jealous of me, because I’m - because he -“ Another head-shake, this one much more adamant. “No, I don’t want to.”  
  
Erik tries not to flinch, but fails. "Neither do I," he murmurs. "But I'm not ignoring anymore. Tell me." He sweeps his thumb across Charles's eyes. "Open," he Orders softly.

* * *

Charles doesn’t want to look. His eyes open, but he turns his head away, briefly terrified of what he’ll find there. But there’s nothing. The room is dimly lit and there’s nothing, no one standing there. For a moment, everything blinks strangely, an odd blip, and then it’s gone. Erik’s bedroom is just his bedroom and Charles still feels like his chest is far too tight, like his stomach is filled with lead. “He said you’re jealous of me because I’m stronger, I’m more powerful, and you’re not his favorite anymore because he has me. That you want me, and you want to be me, and you can’t have either and so you’re jealous.” It hurts to repeat it. It hurts, and it lingers in his mouth long after he speaks, a horrible aftertaste he can’t swallow down. “That you’ve put all these things into my head because you’re jealous and you want to steal me to prove you can, but really you’re just jealous.” And then Erik said it, too. He doesn’t want to think about it.  
  
But Erik's emotions are different than that, and that's what makes them more real, more genuine. He's not jealous of Charles, not really. He's angry at Mr. Shaw, angry at Mr. Shaw for casting him away after he broke Erik so thoroughly, and it's not a nice reaction and it's not a neat reaction but it is a real one. "No," he whispers softly. "Not like that." He smiles a little. "I'm proud of you. Proud to be your Dominant. Happy if I can help you to be strong, and confident."  
  
Tears gather up in Charles’ eyes and he can’t explain why now is the moment he sobs, why it completely racks his body, why his chest just utterly bursts with it, loud and messy and unrestrained and he doesn’t know why, just that he tries to hide in the blanket again as his shoulders shake with it. “Sorry, I’m sorry, l’m sorry,” he gasps, overwhelmed, overdone, worked up. His head is spinning, his ears still haven’t popped, he really can’t explain what he’s experiencing right now.  
  
"Just breathe," Erik pats him on the back and feathers his fingers through his hair. "Take deep breaths. Listen to the sound of my voice. I'm here. Not going anywhere. Nobody can drive us apart. Nothing to be sorry. Tell me?" he wraps Charles up in the blanket and then his arms around that, keeping him fully safe and secure.  
  
For a while, Charles just sobs harder. He knows it’s ridiculous, that he needs to stop, but he can’t. It’s frightening, and confusing, and still so overwhelming and being knocked around from that deep-deep place, from being so thoroughly plunged into subspace - it’s too much. It’s too much, he’s still not used to it. He still panics a little, just from that. He doesn’t mean to, it just happens, as if he’s a child experiencing it for the very first time. “I don’t want to be his,” gets out, eventually, around loud, violent sobs, because he just can’t stop it. “I want to be yours. I don’t want to be his.”  
  
"You will never belong to another," Erik murmurs softly, sweeping his palm over Charles's back again and again. "Never. You are mine. I will not let him hurt you, I will not let him take you. He lies and steals and hurts. He kills. He hurts. I won't let him hurt you." Erik knows he's just repeating himself, stupidly, but he can't help it.  
  
“I don’t want to be his,” and apparently Charles is just repeating himself, too, but the sobbing hurts and he hasn’t been able to let this out, all week it’s just stayed locked up inside of him and it’s too much. It’s all just escaping. “I don’t want to be. I don’t want to wear his collar. I don’t want to do what he says. But he told me not to tell you, told me -“ And Charles listened. He doesn’t know why. But every time he went to tell Erik, every time, he just couldn’t. He couldn’t. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be his, he says I’m his and - and in the dreams, in the dreams -“ He can’t. He just dissolves back into sobs.  
  
"Tell me," Erik demands, his voice low and gravelly. "You don't listen to him. You listen to me." It's an Order. "It is not a fight, it is not a contest, there is no question. He is irrelevant and stupid. So tell me."  
  
Irrelevant and stupid and there’s no question. Charles holds onto those things, lets them work their way inside of him, sniffles against Erik’s shoulder as he wriggles and fusses and tries to stop dry sobbing for long enough to speak. “I like it,” he admits, hoarse. “I like it, I can feel - it’s like I’m me, but I’m not. Because I don’t want it when I wake up. I don’t want to be his. But in those dreams, in those memories, I do. I call him M-M -“ Charles shakes his head, over and over now, because there’s no way it’ll come out. He doesn’t want it to. “I don’t want to be his.”  
  
"It is not going to happen. And you're not going to listen to it anymore. Do you understand? Look at me. Tell me who you belong to," Erik touches his cheek, turning his face to practically glare at him.  
  
Charles opens his eyes, another harsh sob shaking everything up, and he holds tight to Erik, as best he can when he’s been wrapped up again. “I belong to you,” he whispers, and finds that it has to be the truth. It is the truth. “I don’t want to be his, I don’t like him. I’m sorry I listened. I didn’t mean to.” All he’s doing is repeating himself now, but it’s all just come out, spilled all over the bed between them, and he can’t gather it back up.  
  
"You do not have to apologize, but it won't happen again. I won't let it. You are mine." Erik will repeat it as much as Charles needs to hear it, but it doesn't change the fact of its truth. He frames Charles's face in both hands. Nobody can separate them, nobody can drive a wedge between them. It's not possible. They are a Pairbond. Nobody can take advantage of that. They are stronger than anything anyone can throw at them.  
  
It won’t happen again. Charles tries desperately to hold onto that, but he’s not as certain as Erik. It’s not because he doesn’t trust him, or because he feels like he belongs to anyone else. It’s just frightening. “But what if it happens again? I don’t want to belong to him, I don’t want to -“ It makes him sob again, even though he tries to hold it in, and it runs through his entire body. “I don’t want to remember him training me. Just you. You’re training me, not him, not him.”  
  
"It won't," Erik murmurs softly. "Because you are not going to listen to him. Not now, not ever. The only person you should be listening to is me. And that is an Order, and you will obey it, for now and all time. If something else happens, you will tell me. You will not give him any power over you, because he does not deserve it, and never will. You are strong and he is weak."  
  
Charles bites his lip. He’s frightened. He’s still frightened, and he doesn’t know what he means when he says, “Come with me?” It surprises and confuses even him, his brow furrowing, but he just rubs his face into Erik’s neck, not able to clarify.  
  
"Always," Erik says, taking Charles's hand and squeezing it. "Where are we going?"  
  
“I don’t know,” Charles mumbles, and blinks, because he doesn’t. He takes Erik’s hand and brings it up to his face so he can nuzzle against it. “I don’t know why I said that. Nevermind.” He’s preoccupied with something else, now, because it’s just another thing he can’t make sense of. It’s all tangled up and he doesn’t have the tools to unravel any of it. “Are you still angry?” he whispers.  
  
"Wherever you go, I will follow," Erik promises him nevertheless. His eyes flutter closed at the contact and he rubs Charles's cheek beneath his thumb. "A little. At myself." For being stupid, for feeling stupid, gross things, for having the complete inability to understand his own reactions, for saying things that hurt Charles. For everything.  
  
“I’m angry with myself, too,” Charles admits, quietly, and leans his entire face into Erik’s hand, enjoying how big it is, memorizing the callouses again, the feel of it, the warmth. “But you don’t need to be angry with yourself. You’ve been so wonderful. Today has been difficult, but -“ But he bites his lip, closes his eyes. “I don’t think it was all difficult,” he whispers, and just hopes Erik feels the same. He really, truly doesn’t regret it, and technically they’re still talking through things, just like they promised they would during check-in days.  
  
To be honest, Erik has a small smile on his face, still incredibly delighted at being able to move his fingers of his own volition, to use them to touch Charles. It's miraculous, and given how much pain he was in this morning, a welcome reprieve. It's just another reason to be grateful. And he would much rather feel gratitude than anger. It's a form of shoving it away, that Erik is only too happy to do. "Neither do I," he murmurs back fondly. "In fact, some things were very nice indeed." His nose wrinkles up, amused.  
  
Charles smiles, too, just a small, soft thing, but it’s there. It’s certainly there, and he likes Erik’s fingers. He encourages more touching, silently but insistently, nudging his face into Erik’s hand like a persistent cat. “You swear you don’t regret it?” he asks, for the moment frightened over the answer even though Erik has reassured him multiple times now. “I know you said you’d train me like that, but if you’d rather we didn’t now...” He was going to say it wouldn’t bother him, but he’s a bit unsure if that’s a lie. He certainly wouldn’t demand it, if Erik couldn’t. It’s not even his to demand in the first place. But he might be disappointed.  
  
Erik leans forward and brushes his lips over Charles's, slow and sweet. "I swear. And I stand by exactly what I said," he murmurs lowly, even the reminder sending a warm ember ablaze in his chest that slides down to his gut. Charles belongs to him. In all ways. There is nothing and no one that could ever hope to take that from him, outside of Charles himself.  
  
Charles himself has no intentions at all of doing that. He gasps into Erik’s mouth as even the simplest, gentlest of touches startle him, and they do. He’s not sure why, only that he never expects them, only that they encourage those sparks down his spine, curled toes, fluttering about in his belly. “Come with me,” he asks again, and this time he doesn’t seem to realize he’s even said it. As if he hasn’t.  
  
"Come with you where? There is nowhere to go. Tell me what you are talking about," Erik Orders, not because he doesn't expect Charles to comply, but because his brain has immediately latched onto the pattern and raised a red flag.  
  
Charles frowns, his forehead creased again. He rubs it into Erik’s shoulder. “I don’t know. I didn’t mean to say that,” he mumbles. “Can you - will you kiss me again, please?” he requests, because it was soothing and he wants more of it.  
  
Erik nods, and obligates, but it's not really an obligation at all. It is a well known fact that Erik likes to take any opportunity to kiss Charles, and he does, pressing a smile into his mouth alongside it. "It concerns me," he murmurs. Some would call him overzealous and paranoid, but that paranoia has kept them both alive on numerous occasions. Now is not a time not to listen to his gut.  
  
“What does?” Charles asks, a bit out of it for more than one reason, and currently drifting somewhere in Erik’s shoulder, his face pressed into his neck. He reaches up to touch Erik’s face. “Don’t be concerned,” he murmurs, just because he doesn’t want Erik to worry. He’s not really sure what he’s talking about, though.  
  
"I am," Erik insists. "Come back to me. You said you belong to me. Tell me what you are experiencing. Now."  
  
What he’s experiencing? Charles blinks, letting out a quiet noise, mostly confused. He doesn’t understand what Erik means, really. “I don’t know what you mean,” he sighs, and nestles further into Erik’s skin. “I’m here, with you. See?” He lifts Erik’s hand to his face again. But when he looks up, his eyes are glowing.

* * *

Erik isn't going to get any answers, Orders or otherwise, so he just tucks Charles back into his arms. "It's OK, I've got you. You're here with me. It's all right." He pets Charles's hair and rubs his back, adjusting the blanket over his shoulders.  
  
It’s just that Charles has no idea what he’s experiencing. He’s hazy and confused, blinking up at Erik with those glowing eyes, almost unsettlingly blue. He can’t articulate what he doesn’t know, and none of it is a lie; he just can’t offer what he doesn’t have, or doesn’t understand. “Okay, you’ll come with me,” he sighs, lulled against Erik’s shoulder. “You’ll come.”  
  
He knows, and there's no use demanding it when Charles very clearly can't offer it. There's no need to create more stress and more anguish, but he remains on guard, idly soothing Charles as best as he can. "I'll come with you," he agrees softly, kissing Charles's forehead. "I always will. You're not alone, not ever."  
  
Charles doesn’t need to be soothed, really. He’s perfectly calm against Erik’s shoulder, perhaps exhausted, perhaps just overdone, overstimulated, but either way he hums softly and lets his eyes close again, too heavy for him to keep open. “Come with me, okay?” he repeats, and by now it’s a bit eerie, which is a good enough reason for Erik to feel that his paranoia is founded. Somewhere down the hall, a door opens. Charles pays it no mind at all. “Come with me. I need you to come with me.”  
  
Erik was never not sure that his paranoia is necessary, trust him. "You will stay right here with me, and you will be safe," he rumbles into Charles's ear, swaying him from side to side. He flicks his hand and the door shuts. The only person on this planet stronger than Erik is Charles, so needless to say it isn't jealousy he experiences. If anyone has any conceptions about getting into this house they will find themselves sorely obliterated.  
  
Fortunately, it’s Charles who has kept this place safe, and protected, and isolated. Utterly frozen, cut off from everything and everyone, if anything is even moving at all. A part of Charles, anyway, or something that is part-Charles. There is no feasible way anyone could disturb them in the way Erik could certainly, absolutely prevent. But that statement - that there is no one stronger except, perhaps, Charles, that is the problem. Because the sounds are still there, and the door stays shut, for now. But Charles is drifting, and he’s tugging Erik with him. It’s slow, at first; the way Charles has been lulling him this whole time, a cloying drowsiness, a slowing of sensation, of awareness. But there’s no fighting it. It’s sorely inevitable, and it’s becoming clear exactly what Charles meant, what he did not understand he was asking for.  
  
It's not precisely clear to Erik, whose mind feels rather foggy, but he lets his head drop onto Charles's shoulder because above all else, he trusts Charles, which is precisely why Charles's power doesn't frighten him or make him jealous. Of course Sebastian Shaw would speak of power in those terms. Shaw has always wanted more, always been jealous of Erik and those who were naturally Omega-class, but Erik doesn't think of abilities that way. Charles's have always been beautiful to him. His eyes flutter closed, as is rather inevitable.


	109. I climbed the tree to see the world

When they flutter open, they’re somewhere different. It’s somewhere Erik recognizes, but not somewhere Charles should, which is distinctly strange; but even then, it’s not. There’s familiarity, and strangeness, odd out of place pings of alarm. The Charles who sits on the bed beside him is not the Charles who he fell asleep to. His hair is short, his clothes - he’s wearing clothes, for one - are pressed and crisp in a way he’s never known Charles to be, even at his most formal, always much more comfortable in oversized cardigans and wearing expensive suits for show more than anything. This has never been Charles’ style. It’s the collar around Charles’ neck that should be most alarming, because it’s not Erik’s style. It goes without saying whose it is instead.  
  
Erik awakes with a start, pupils wide and dilated. He takes in short, sharp breaths through his nose and his arms wrap around Charles, holding him protectively. He doesn't speak, he doesn't say anything, finding it completely impossible to produce sound. As if the sight of this room itself, this place, has stolen his voice from his throat. He draws his fingernail down the collar and it disengages and falls off, thudding onto the floor.  
  
But this Charles - is it his Charles? Is it someone else entirely? He bends down immediately to collect it, his eyes wide and terrified, truly, for the moment it shows in his eyes. He backs away from Erik, his lip curling, his eyes wide and glowing, glowing more than Erik has ever seem them. “Don’t touch me,” he hisses, but it’s weak, too. His voice is hoarse. When his eyes dull again, they look tired; he’s holding his arm and now the collar protectively, backing away from the bed. It’s more skittish than vicious. “Don’t touch me,” he warns again, and reaches up to his neck, his lips pressed together the way they always are when he’s trying not to express an emotion. But unlike Erik, he’s always been rather poor at it.  
  
Erik knows this place better than anyone. He descends from the bed, not toward Charles, but toward an area of the wall he's always known to be weak. A piece of metal is still there, and it snaps into his hand, forming into a sharp blade that he pockets. He's not reacting right. Nobody on this planet could possibly understand what is going on inside of him now. They couldn't know. Not even he knows. He can only take so much heaped on him before he breaks. Having to walk himself through a caricature of events where he protects his submissive from Mr. Shaw is quite possibly the worst thing for his mental health that has ever been conceived, and he doesn't reply. Doesn't say a word. He can't.  
  
Except maybe Charles can. He’s always been able to, even when he shouldn’t be able to. He’s always heard, even when Erik has locked him out and away and suffocated everything inside of him. Perhaps that’s why this Charles’ eyes close, playing with the collar in his hands. “You know you don’t need that,” Charles murmurs, not above a whisper at all. It’s perfectly matter of fact.  
  
Erik shakes his head, pressing his lips together, and it floats out of his pocket and separates a little into a million, billion pieces until it reforms again into the shape of a flower. He holds it out to Charles, swallowing roughly. It's an offering, it seems silly. He's sorry.  
  
It’s never been silly to Charles. In fact, his eyes widen and he steps forward, not close enough for them to touch like before but certainly close enough to take the flower from Erik’s hands, to cradle it in his own, still holding onto the collar that isn’t Erik’s. He stares down at it, holding it delicately, as if it might burst or break; perhaps cautiously. “It’s lovely,” he whispers, which is something he’s said before but never like this. His voice is still so hoarse, as if he hasn’t used it in quite some time. He reaches up and touches his throat. “You can’t?” he asks.  
  
He lets out an audible breath and shakes his head again, his lips turning down mournfully. It's never happened like this with Charles before, never. The quieter he is, the louder the screaming inside of him. He remains tense and guarded, on edge, but Charles's appreciation of his gift makes him smile very faintly, almost undetectably, mostly by the way his eyes crinkle up. He's happy Charles likes it.  
  
It’s possible that any version of Charles, any version at all, would like it. Would appreciate it, and delight in it, and treat it with startled pleasure and care. Charles seems reluctant to set it down, actually, but eventually he has to. He has to because he’s set on putting the collar Erik removed back on, though he struggles with the clasp; it doesn’t have one, but not in the same way Erik’s works. His lips purse. “You broke it,” he sighs.  
  
Erik raises his hand again, intent on breaking it apart into several smaller pieces while he glares at Charles the entire time, a little like a deranged animal. He herds Charles back to the bed and unfolds the blanket, fluffing it and all of a sudden it becomes clean, completely, and he wraps Charles up in it. It's fluffy, and soft, and more than any kind of comfort that anything else in this room has ever provided.  
  
Charles doesn’t quite let himself be herded. He struggles, shrugs off the blanket and stands, scowling himself as he does. “I can’t do that,” he mutters, slowly, as if he’s trying to make Erik understand. He snatches the ruined collar back while he’s at it, and it reforms exactly as it was. It’s an effortless, natural use of abilities, whether Charles’ own or something stolen from Erik. It doesn’t matter when it’s done so skillfully and quickly, and without even a blink of the eye. “I didn’t come here for this, and neither did you. Don't make this more difficult, Erik," and he sounds very much like he's chiding a child.  
  
Erik's jaw tics and he presses his lips together again, as if to hold back an uncomfortable noise, and he rubs his hands over his pants rhythmically before touching his own face and wrapping himself up in his own arms, taking in quick, short, sharp breaths through his nose. The collar breaks apart and again, this time in many different pieces, and vanishes. He isn't letting that go, evidently. He looks up and touches his palm to his chest. Charles knows him?  
  
Another sigh. Charles nods, his own jaw clenched. “I’m the one who brought you here. Stop it,” he snaps, frustrated. “All you’re doing is making more work for me. I’ll just put it on again. Besides, it doesn't work like that. It's up here," he explains, as if irritated that he has to, and points to his temple.  
  
Erik picks up the flower again and folds Charles's hand over it, not knowing what else to do. He touches his hand to Charles's chest, repeating the question in kind. Wanting to know why he's here. How to help.  
  
When Charles sighs again, it’s weary. He turns his head away, toward the door, but it doesn’t open. “You’re here because you needed to see,” he murmurs. “And now you’ve seen, so I imagine you won’t be here for much longer.” His lips purse. “He isn’t here, you know. He’s away. Is that what you wanted to hear?"  
  
Erik pokes his finger into Charles's chest, eyebrows raised. It's odd; despite not talking, he's good at communicating, and even without telepathy it's not difficult for him to convey that he wants to know who is here. Why this is happening. What it means. Who is responsible. It needs to end, Erik will not permit it to continue.  
  
“You can’t stop it,” Charles mutters, his lips pressed firmly together now. He crosses his legs and drops his hand away from Erik’s, settling it formally in his lap. “You don’t actually belong here. There’s not a thing you can do. Does that frustrate you?” It's almost mocking, cruel in the way Charles can be when he's hurting. When he's trying to distance himself in a way he's never quite capable of.  
  
He already stopped it. Mr. Shaw is in jail and he's never getting out, and if this keeps happening Erik will fly to The _Hague_ and personally obliterate him and every one of the _Hellfire Club_ where they stand, and nothing could possibly stop him. This is a facsimile, a parody, and everyone knows it. Charles belongs with Erik. Everybody knows it, even Mr. Shaw.  
  
“You’re wrong,” Charles whispers, his face still turned away. There’s a scar on his cheek that Erik doesn’t recognize. One right under his eye, too. His lips are turned up slightly, as if he's amused. “Shaw isn’t doing this at all. I am, and it's very real, I assure you."  
  
It is not real. Charles wouldn't do this. He wouldn't hurt Erik like this. Not on purpose. There is another explanation. Erik doesn't believe him. He glares back, decidedly unamused. What possible reason would he do this for. Why?  
  
Charles just shakes his head, his teeth so tightly clenched it looks painful. “You really don’t understand what you’re seeing, do you? You have no idea.” He switches legs, crossing them again. The movement looks off, for some reason. “Who do you think I am, Erik? What do you think my story is?”  
  
Erik shakes his head. He doesn't know, stop telling him he's stupid. Just tell him. He wants to help, he doesn't want Charles to feel pain; any kind of Charles, any kind of pain. He never has and he never will. A flutter of Will goes through the room, as if the air ripples.  
  
“You can’t help me,” Charles states, as blunt as anything. He’s turned away from Erik completely now, his back to him. “Because I’m dying, and that means you’re likely dead.” There’s something else in the room, blanketing and thick and horribly obvious to anyone who has ever experienced it: despair. True, hopeless despair. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. You should leave. Now, preferably.”

* * *

Erik's head tilts and he touches Charles's shoulder, gentle. _Dying_? From what? Erik doesn't pay much heed to the fact that he could also be dead; he doesn't think so. He doesn't feel dead. He's glad that he was brought here. He wants to be here. "Why?" Erik whispers, barely an audible croak, more a breath than anything else.  
  
“Do you know what happens when one half of a Pairbond dies?” His lips twitch upward. “It’s excruciating, I’ll have you know. Practically unbearable. There’s nothing else I could possibly be experiencing, and so I put the pieces together. I thought -“ He closes his eyes. There’s a tremble to his voice, to his fingers where they’re clasped in his lap. “Please don’t touch me. It’s more difficult than I expected.” Somehow, this Charles is composed even while drowning in his own sorrow. It’s very obvious that just like the Charles Erik knew with his memories, he was trained to be. This Charles even more.  
  
"I'm not dead," Erik whispers, his voice coming out hoarse and unused, as though at this moment in time he hasn't spoken in years. He can't talk very well, it isn't sustainable, but Charles knows the rest. Erik doesn't live here anymore. Charles doesn't, either. Charles lives with him, and they're both alive and healthy. Sometimes it hurts but Charles helps him with the pain. He tries to help Charles. They're alive. He doesn't understand.  
  
When Charles finally turns his head, there are tears on his cheeks. “No, you don’t live here anymore,” he agrees, and this time his voice truly shakes. “But I do. I have since I was nine years old, Erik.”  
  
Erik cups Charles's cheek, swiping away the tears. "I don't understand," he croaks. Doesn't Charles know that what he says is the truth? Both of these things can't be true, he simply refuses to believe that.  
  
Charles smiles, and it's exhausted and it's sad. But more than that, more than anything else, it's hopeless. It's well and truly hopeless, which is something Erik has never seen in his submissive, not even in the most bitter, terrifying, awful moments, and there have been plenty in the life Erik remembers for him. It's something he swore was impossible. Even at his worst, even at his most pathetic, Charles has to hope for a better future. He has always had to hope for a better future. But here it is, and it's written all over the solemn resignation on Charles' face. "But they are," he whispers, his voice cracking horribly, too. "They're both true. I'm not your Charles. I was, briefly, but I'm not now. Because you're dead, Erik, and I'm dying. And that's real, too."  
  
"You still are," Erik murmurs. "You are always mine. I'm not dead." He isn't dead, he is right here. Charles belongs to Erik, it's that simple. All of Charles, no matter what. It's the kind of hopelessness that he's experienced more times than he can count, and something he never wished for Charles to experience. Something he would have done his best to ensure he didn't. Where was his Erik? Why didn't he take Charles away from here? They are both more powerful than anything anyone can throw at them. It doesn't make sense.  
  
"Too little, too late, I'm afraid," Charles mutters, and there's something awfully bitter and dark about it. He turns away from Erik again, toward the door that still won't open. Perhaps it's incorrect to say that Charles' Erik -- the one he knew, before, the Charles before they were both isolated, when the world froze, the one with memories -- never felt hopeless. There were moments. But Erik was there in those moments, even then. He was there, and he pulled Charles back when he lost himself. For whatever reason, this Charles was clearly not afforded the same luxury. "This is exceptionally painful. Much worse than I anticipated," he whispers, and it would be formal and cold again if that despair wasn't hanging in the air again, thick and heavy and suffocating. So terribly suffocating, a physical presence that clings to every wall, to the floor, to the both of them. Sinking beneath the skin.  
  
Erik touches Charles's cheek again. "Look," he whispers the Order softly and leans forward to deposit a kiss to his forehead. "Tell me about it," he asks, not understanding but perfectly able to see the pain in Charles's face, to know that it is real for him. He could never imagine dying and leaving Charles behind. The concept is almost too much to bear; but that's what Erik was trained to do. To endure, to cope, to handle, even at his breaking point.  
  
“Tell you about what?” And perhaps he doesn’t mean it to come out as lashing, snapping and harsh, but he jolts away from Erik as if he’s been struck, his jaw clenched tightly again. “There’s nothing to tell. You’re dead, Erik. You left me behind. You swore we would leave this place, and then you left me.” It’s more bitter than he actually feels. Mostly there’s gnawing, incomprehensible grief. This time Patroclus was left to dig into the dirt and weep, but without a body to hold. “I haven’t decided how I’ll do it quite yet,” he whispers.  
  
"This isn't my reality," Erik whispers. It doesn't make sense to him, he can't speak to it. It's like someone being mad at you because you hurt them in a dream. He knows that Charles isn't actually angry with him; he can guess he was probably murdered, probably unforeseen, they would have had to know the risks of staying. He never would have tolerated keeping Charles here under any capacity, he barely tolerates it now. He doesn't tolerate it now, but apparently there's nothing he can do and isn't that frustrating. He can understand the anger because he feels it himself, at any person claiming to be him who didn't fix this. "That isn't necessary," he rasps. "Just tell me where you are." He doesn't know what it means, what anything means, but he's never exactly been a physicalist. He knows there is more to life and the universe than meets the eye. He can accept that. He can't accept this.  
  
“What do you mean?” Charles asks, and Erik is right. He’s not angry with this Erik. He’s not even angry at his own Erik, not in any real capacity. Not in any rational way. But grief is tricky, and it’s messy, and this Charles is grieving more than words could ever hope to express. He is beyond devastated. It’s clear in his every movement, his every word, his every breath. "If you mean your Charles, he's sleeping. Perfectly alright." If that's bitter, too, it can't be helped.  
  
"No. You," Erik whispers. "Come get you. I'm not gone. Don't have to stay. You are stronger than anyone. Even me." Especially him, really, but he doesn't say that.  
  
It gives Charles pause, and he turns his head, fresh tears on his cheeks that he doesn't need to acknowledge. It's inevitable that they're there. It's abundantly clear that he has already shed many of them. "I don't know what you mean," he repeats.  
  
Erik dabs at them gently with his sleeve. In this arena his hand is limp, as if reflecting all the times that he's ever been in rooms like this, but he can still move his arm. "Where are you? Where are you?" his eyebrows raise, imploring. "Westchester," he points at himself, and then to Charles. "You know me. You found me. Help me find you."  
  
Oh. Charles shakes his head, his gaze turned back toward the door, as if waiting for it to open. He’s been staring at it this whole time. “I can’t go with you, and you can’t take me with you. It doesn’t work like that.” He’s sure Erik is tired of hearing that. Charles is very tired of knowing it. “It’s alright. I’m not the only one who’s been unfortunate. That’s the way of things, apparently.” His lips purse. “You don’t need to lose sleep over it. For you, it will never have happened. You’ll wake up.” But he wishes he would, too. It doesn't need to be said. He wishes desperately that he could wake up.  
  
"I will," Erik says, and Charles knows that, too. There is no universe that exists where any version of Erik can know that Charles is suffering and not worry, and not lose sleep, and not be devastated if he fucking decides to _kill himself_. "Why not? You brought me here. How do you know?" He hates himself for sounding pathetic, for sounding childish.  
  
“I didn’t bring you here. He did. I just happened to be the one he latched onto,” Charles sighs, and refuses to look anywhere near Erik. It’s painful. It’s incredibly painful, and he wants to do it more than anything. “There’s no way around it. Don’t you think it kills me to know that there’s a universe where you’re alive and I can’t access it, except like this?” His voice breaks again. “He’s stronger than me, you know. I haven’t a clue why it chose him over any of the rest of us poor sods, but I can’t say I envy him. It’s rotten luck, really. I’m dying, so I suppose the Universe doesn’t see the harm. One way or the other, I won’t last.” He’s sure it isn’t fun for Erik to hear, but it’s the truth. No use concealing it. “He’ll know all of this, soon. Everything there is. Does that frighten you?”  
  
"No," Erik croaks. Charles has never frightened him. He forces away any other reaction, his own eyes reddened, but dry, his expression stoic. Maybe even a little like the Erik he knew. But this one is more developed, more mature, with more experiences than just suffering and brainwashing. "I don't want you to die. You matter to me."  
  
“I know,” Charles breathes, and this time when his voice cracks, he knows there’s no feigning that he isn’t affected. There’s no use. Erik always knew, and this one should be no different. When he finally turns, he covers his mouth to choke back a sob. “Your hair,” is what comes out of his mouth. “I’ve never seen it so long. It’s curly.” Of course he knew that, but to see it is something different entirely.  
  
It makes Erik laugh, and he presses Charles's hand to his cheek. "You gave me a haircut," he whispers. "Needless to say it used to be worse." He sounds different, too. More assured, more self-confident. There is fear, being back in this place, but there is strength, too. This Erik doesn't cower to Sebastian Shaw anymore. It's never been evident to him, because it's been months of freedom without much change. It's been subtle, it's been slow, he's regressed, he's been afraid, he's failed to fight back. But right here and right now, the difference is astronomical. He speaks, for one, and it's taken him a while to find his voice here, but it's there. He wonders if he talks to Charles. He hopes he did.  
  
Charles nods, his throat bobbing. “You did,” he whispers, and stares at the hand on Erik’s face. It feels far too real. “Talk to me. You did. It took a while, and it was never much. I wish I could have heard more.” He really, truly does. But this will have to be enough. “Do you believe in an afterlife, Erik? Any sort of one?” It’s not abrupt, really, considering the circumstances. “I never asked. I should have done, I suppose.”  
  
It's hard for him to keep his composure; and it's different to what Charles ever would have experienced with his Erik. So much different, but yet the same. He sniffles a little, eyes welling up. "Yes," he nods. "Not like Heaven and Hell," he laughs again, fond. "But yes. Do you?"  
  
“I’m not certain,” he answers honestly, and seeing Erik cry is enough to break him. He touches under Erik’s eyes, as if he’s fascinated. It’s not something he’s seen much of. “I suppose it’s possible, isn’t it? I was just wondering what the odds are, is all.” It’s so quiet. So resigned, and weary. This Charles has been fighting for a very long time, quite like the Charles he knows before the Void. It’s been a different fight. “Is he dead? Sebastian Shaw. Is he dead, where you are?” he asks, even quieter. His voice trembles for a different reason.  
  
He presses his lips to the flat of Charles's palm where it rests near him, blinking to try and clear his eyes but it only serves to send a few tears down his cheeks. It's something Charles never would have seen with his Erik. As different as Charles is, Erik is, too. He's far bulkier, taller, tanned. There's a lot for him to be grateful for, but right now all he wants to do is fix everything, to make everything OK. "No," Erik finally shakes his head. "He is being held at the ICC. He's being prosecuted for what he did. He will rot in jail, powerless, for the rest of his life."  
  
“Ah,” Charles responds. “Fitting.” There’s a bit of a pause, and then a flash in his eyes, a glimmer of something. “I’m going to kill him,” he says, and it’s fairly emotionless, though Erik can feel all that simmering anger. That unbearable grief. It’s just a fact. “I’d prefer my bare hands, but I’m willing to be flexible.” He means it. Erik’s Charles wouldn’t have been capable, but this Charles is. That much is obvious, at right this moment.  
  
"I know," Erik whispers back, and he frames Charles's face in his hands, kissing him gently on the forehead. He rubs his thumb under his eye. Erik killed, too. Not just the people he was compelled to. He killed those scientists, he brought down that building. He still doesn't have much remorse about it. He regrets that it had to happen, but there was no alternative, and he'd do it again. The option of killing Shaw at the Hague is still very real to him. If he ever tried to interfere in their lives, he would find his own short lived. He just wishes that Charles would live, not worship death, not seek death. Escape, and live, and find joy. Even if it's small. Find his sister. Find Hank, and Warren. Find love. It's easy to love Charles, that much is already obvious. But he knows firsthand what Charles is going through, and where Erik is, seems like a complete fantasy. He knows that.  
  
“I’m dying anyway, love,” Charles reminds him, and it’s almost soft. Erik used to kiss him on the forehead like that, too. His lips were more chapped, but the sensation is there. “And if I am, I am taking him and this entire miserable, wretched place with me. Perhaps I’ll burn the world for good measure. It killed you, so why does it deserve my mercy?” But he won’t, is the thing. He’ll stop, even without Erik to stop him. He’ll think of Erik’s hand on his chest, and how he’d put a hand on his own chest, too. A silent plea. Charles will listen. “He thinks I can’t. Look.” Charles tucks some hair behind his ear, and it becomes obvious immediately what he means to show Erik. There’s a noticeable, jarring scar, never quite healed. It looks like it was viciously painful to earn, more butchery than real surgery. It was. “He wanted to control my telepathy. He succeeded, for a long, long while.”  
  
Erik inhales sharply and closes his eyes, mostly to avoid reacting strongly. His throat bobs painfully over a large lump and he presses the back of his hand to his mouth, feeling faintly nauseated. He gently touches the area around the mark, and kisses it, too. Gentle, delicate, like the Erik he knew. "I'm sorry," he whispers. He's sorry for everything. He doesn't know how this happened, but he's so sorry.  
  
Charles shakes his head, and offers a much more genuine smile. It’s exhausted, even still. There’s not much room inside of him for anything but grief anymore. “It was a long time ago,” he promises. “When we met, something happened. It stopped working.” I learned we could do this, he adds, mentally, even just a tiny spark of humor in his eyes. It’s something Erik is used to, but hasn’t experienced in a long time; right now, his Charles is incapable of it. Secret communication, secret, stolen moments. Erik is putting the picture together. In the most unlikely of places, the most horrific of circumstances, they find each other.  
  
It makes Erik laugh wetly, and he rubs Charles's back, tapping him on the nose. Achingly fond. It's been so long since he's heard Charles's voice in his mind that it almost brings him to his knees. It feels like having his brain stroked by loving fingers. Charles's telepathy has always been beautiful to him. It's why he hopes Charles won't burn the world. There's a lot of ugliness, but not all of it deserves to burn. He wishes Charles could see some of it. Erik pulled this building down and got all the kids out, and they live on a farm in Israel, with the last of Erik's family, and they go to school and they're happy. And they have Wanda and Pietro, and things are scary and changing but there is a reason for hope. They're going to start a school, for mutants. To keep them safe. Protect them from people who would harm them, people like Shaw, baselines in the government. Because they found one another.  
  
He doesn’t need to know all the details to know they are far, far better circumstances than Charles’. Than his Erik. “Right now, where I am right now,” he points to Erik, touches his chest, and he doesn’t mean him, exactly. He means this Erik’s Charles. “You don’t know the burden of this. Of knowing. He needs you.” It’s almost stern, the way he talks now. Don’t leave him, he thinks, and lets Erik feel, because it’s too impossible to get out of his mouth. “How is he, now? Be brutally honest, I know when you lie. How am I?”  
  
"He's well," Erik whispers softly. "He didn't end up here. His life wasn't easy. There was abuse and suffering. But now he is starting to heal from that. He's learning new things," he adds, gentle. He's learning more about himself, about submission, replacing the negative imagery and internal voices with what Erik teaches him instead. Erik can't imagine ever leaving him. He can't imagine the circumstances that occurred where he died instead of-and he can't keep thinking about it or he'll drive himself crazy.  
  
“He doesn’t remember, does he?” Charles murmurs, and somehow, somehow, it’s sympathetic. For Erik, he’ll always have the capacity. There were times he thought it had run dry, and Erik, as always, surprised him, and yet didn’t at all. “It must bother you. But you’re alright? How are you?” His voice cracks, again. He clears his throat.  
  
"No," he whispers. "He doesn't remember. But we're adjusting. I think it will come back." He offers a smile, kissing Charles's forehead again, touching his face. "It's not easy. I had a bad morning. But it turned nice," he promises. They're making new memories. They're learning again. It could be much, much worse and Erik knows it.  
  
That doesn’t mean he isn’t allowed to feel it, sometimes. But Charles understands. Of course he understands. “He’s learning more than you know,” Charles murmurs, and the way he leans into Erik’s touch is hesitant, much less open and willing than the Charles in his bed now; but still, he does. “I wouldn’t expect it to be easy. Perhaps that’s why it’s him. He’s in the best position to handle it. Without memories, or... baggage.” With Erik, the way they are, goes without saying. Charles is sure of that. “You’re learning, too, aren’t you? Is it nice, at least?”  
  
"Very nice," Erik whispers. "I am so grateful every day that I met you," he says. Not him, not really. Erik doesn't differentiate like that; he can't. He loves Charles. All Charles's, everywhere. They may not belong to Erik as he is now, not if one exists. But he loves them. There's no way he can't. They aren't the same thing, but Erik sees the core of Charles, the core of his soul, his spirit. Maybe it's corny. Erik feels his eyes well up again. He doesn't always show it. They fight. Normal human things, but to Erik it feels horrific. Sometimes he forgets to be kind, to give the benefit of the doubt, to not react knee-jerk. It's damage. But it's healing. He just wants to make sure that Charles knows.  
  
Charles smiles. It’s so incredibly sad, and that despair pangs off every wall, every molecule, but there’s something else, too. Something Erik might not recognize at first. “It doesn’t always have to be easy. In fact, I imagine many times it won’t be. That’s alright. What you’re doing, it’s...” Incredible. It’s wondrous, and something Charles can’t comprehend. He closes his eyes. “You must realize that there are many places where you would never get this chance. This opportunity. Fighting won’t ruin it. You should have seen us this time.” There’s darkness, there, but Charles gives him no access. Some things he’s better off not knowing. “But I know that you know that.” He does, truly. Charles has always understood Erik intuitively. “You talk so much more. You have an accent,” he breathes. When his eyes open, they’re filled with wonder just like Erik’s Charles, however dulled. “I don’t remember you having an accent like this. Why is that?” It’s not a question for Erik, really. Just another thing he wonders. Another thing he’ll never get to ask his own Erik.  
  
Erik can imagine, though. He can imagine because of course Mr. Shaw would have known how much Erik loved him, and would have used that to torture them both to his great amusement. Erik could barely cope with the insinuation of it, he doesn't know how fractured his mind would be if it was his daily reality. He thought he was broken, with the kids, with Magda, but he realizes now that there is always worse. He's been incredibly lucky so far. At the mention of his accent, his nose wrinkles up, and he laughs. For some reason, hearing that he doesn't have one here, makes him feel uneasy. There were so many times that he'd tried to get rid of it and just couldn't, no matter how much Shaw beat him. And he hated it, but since meeting Charles he's come to appreciate it. He can't always hear the difference, but he knows it's there. It's a piece of himself he never lost. "I'm not sure," he whispers. Maybe because he met Charles early on. Maybe he applied himself more, did better. In the beginning he resisted a lot.  
  
“We didn’t meet early,” Charles corrects, quietly. There’s unfathomable sadness there, too. “If we did, I’m positive we would have made it,” he laughs, and it’s bitter because how could he help that. Too little, far too late. “He kept us separated. He knew about us from the beginning, though I’m not certain how. Either way, he knew. I didn’t know you until recently. He thought we were securely under his thumb, but he was wrong. The moment he put us together was the moment he dug his own grave.” And Charles’ tone is hard and dangerous.  
  
For some reason that makes Erik let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, but he supposes that makes the most sense. Shaw wouldn't prioritize his sadistic inclinations over his own life. And there was always plenty of torture to choose from. "I'm happy he got to meet you," Erik whispers, mournful. "I'm so sorry. But I can tell you that he was so happy to have met you, and you made his life so much better. More than you could ever know."  
  
“Was he?” Charles mutters, and looks away again, the lump in his throat visible. He rubs at his leg, and Erik can feel the ache, physical and otherwise. “I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t do a damn thing,” he whispers, his eyes closing.  
  
He touches Charles's leg gently, massaging at the muscles, knowing instinctively how. "What happened?" He's been afraid for his own life many times. But his Shaw had, in his own way, loved him. Erik isn't convinced his Shaw would have murdered him, or if he did, it would have been by accident. A rage. Maybe Mr. Ivanov, or Mr. Essex. Another client. He can't imagine they got away with it. Much better to keep your playthings alive.  
  
“Do you really want to know?” Charles asks, and turns to Erik with those exceptionally sad, hollow eyes, glowing faintly. “Does it matter? Things are different, here, I’m sure. Subtle differences, ripples. Your Charles can explain it to you when he learns, because I confess I don’t fully understand. What matters is that you’re not here. You’re gone. And I felt it,” on this, his voice just completely breaks. Charles reaches up to cover his mouth. “I felt it. I felt you leave me.”  
  
"Not for curiosity," Erik whispers. He wondered if telling Erik would help Charles somehow. Having someone to talk to, letting those feelings go somewhere, not just rattle around in his own mind. He cups Charles's jaw, rubbing under his eye. Erik knows he's gone. He knows. He can't do anything except be here now. "I know, _neshama_."  
  
His eyes stay closed, but Charles is visibly trembling. Erik’s touch is devastating, but perhaps this is what he needed, too. “You should go,” he whispers, though it’s abundantly clear he doesn’t want Erik to. “I’m not sure he’ll remember this.” He means Erik’s Charles. “But if he doesn’t, it might be for the best. I doubt he’s ready for it. I’m not,” he laughs, and there are tears on his cheeks again. “He’s incredibly powerful. Are you sure it doesn’t frighten you?” Another gleam in Charles’ eyes when they flutter open, if only for a moment.  
  
"It doesn't," Erik whispers. He doesn't want to go, either. He can't. "I love you so much. I know he loved you so much. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. You should have been with him. It isn't right. I'm so sorry." It's a useless sentiment, he knows, but Charles also knows that he is piercingly sincere, like a hole is in his own heart now, knowing that this has happened. How many more like this exist? How many ended brutally, awfully?  
  
The tears slip right down Charles’ cheeks now. It’s not a moment later that he sobs, harsh and dry and painful, his arms tightly around his own waist. He’s shaking horribly. “He never said that to me,” he gasps. “He never said -“ Charles shakes his head. It doesn’t need to be said.  
  
"I know," Erik whispers, and he gently dislodges Charles's arm to wrap him up in his own instead. "He should have said it." But he knows why Erik wouldn't have; he would have been terrified to. Terrified that someone would find out, that someone would hurt Charles, or worse, make him hurt Charles. But he should have said it anyway.  
  
Someone had already done that, but Charles says nothing about it. He doesn’t need to when Erik has already imagined it on his own. Instead he wraps his arms around Erik and lets himself sob, just for now. He lets himself sob, and finds it brings him peace in a way he never expected. Perhaps his Erik was different, but there are enough similarities that he’s convinced this Erik must know. He must be right. His Erik loved him, too. “You have to go,” he whispers. “There’s more for you to see. Could you do me a favor before you do?”  
  
Erik rubs his back and massages his hair gently, strokes his temple in the way he likes; the way no one else really could, no one else knew. "Always," he returns softly, kissing the top of his head, his forehead. Not wanting to leave him alone. He doesn't want to go, but he can't control this, he doesn't have any way to control it. It is frustrating, but for now he just exists and lets Charles cry and hopes that will be enough. It won't be.  
  
“Tell your Charles you love him, regardless of anything,” he croaks, and he lets himself be rocked and kissed, lets himself nestle into Erik’s shoulder. “Tell him. As many times as you can, preferably. Enjoy the time you have. Fight, but not for too long, hm? Let him wear your collar,” and Charles voice just breaks, here, so much so that it’s difficult to understand. He never got to. He never got to, could not even imagine it. It goes without saying that he and Erik never got particularly far. They certainly didn’t get to learn and experiment. They were too preoccupied with other things. Charles wore another collar around his neck.  
  
"You do," he whispers. "Wear mine. I don't let him take it off. Never," he promises. He knows that this Erik must have been scared to say it, but Erik isn't. It's one of the things he says as often as he can, to his children, to Charles. For a long time the only valuable thing he had to put into the world even a little bit was that. He couldn't let anything happen to them without them knowing they were loved. For as long as he lives he will do his best to ensure that Charles knows.  
  
Erik is getting tired again. It’s just as hazy and inevitable as before, and this Charles can feel it, too. He clings with everything he has, but there’s peace. There’s peace, somehow. His story certainly won’t end happily, but to know that this Erik’s might, that his Charles’ might - it’s not nearly enough, but for the moment, it soothes. It seeps into his soul, and it doesn’t fix, but it might be enough to make the difference. “Be well,” he whispers. Erik knows, somehow, that it’s the last thing he said to his Erik. The very last thing, and now he knows it wasn’t true. He hopes beyond hope that this time it might be. “Be well, Erik,” he sobs.  
  
His eyes flutter closed and he lets his head drop to Charles's shoulder. "I will," he mumbles lazily, slurred, but it's fierce all the same. A promise. He will, and he will make sure that Charles is, too. "I love you, _neshama_. Never forget that." He presses a kiss to Charles's neck, and tries to hold on as long as possible.

* * *

Erik doesn’t wake up in his bed. At least not the one he remembers. Not the one with his Charles in it. The Charles he’s training, the Charles locked away in the manor with him, the one he just shared a tumultuous but wonderful, intimate afternoon with. The one he fell asleep to. This bedroom might look familiar, even still; it might, if his vision wasn’t blocked completely by someone’s face. It isn’t Charles. It’s a little girl, her eyes wide and green, her teeth half missing when she grins, her face freckled and mostly covered by unruly, wild curls, a shocking, vibrant emerald that matches her eyes. “Found you,” she giggles.  
  
Erik blinks at her, and somehow he knows instinctively that she is someone close to him, someone important. It's like a magnetic tug in his heart. Unconsciously he grins up at her, snapping playfully at her finger. "You found me, _tayer_ ," he murmurs, warm. Who is she? What's her name? It's impossible to ignore the resemblance.  
  
It’s a fairly uncanny resemblance. Her eyes are Erik’s eyes, sure as anything. They’re certainly related. She tugs at Erik’s hair, blinking. “Why’s your hair like that?” she demands. “Why’s your face like that?” Tact, she doesn’t have mastered quite yet.  
  
"I just decided a little change today, that's all," he whispers fondly. The question gives him pause as he tries to determine the best answer. Mm. "Are there any other adults here?" he asks softly, rising to his feet and gently dislodging her, setting her gently down beside him. Is Charles here? He tries to tug on the space where their Bond is. With his Charles it's usually quiet.  
  
The green-haired girl doesn’t mind being dislodged, though she does attach herself to his leg rather immediately. “Yeah, everybody’s here,” she replies, looking up at Erik with her button nose all scrunched up. “Are you sick? Is that why you were in bed? If you’re sick, I can make you better,” she offers brazenly, though Erik gets the feeling it’s not an offer she can deliver on. At nearly the same moment, the Bond Erik has felt only in short, aching bursts, flickering, shaky moments, almost completely silent and cut off responds, in full, brilliant color, alive and thrumming and more fierce than he even remembers. There’s a small little ping of ! and then a question, an absent mental ?. Charles is distracted, but he’s here. He’s most certainly here.  
  
"Come along, _tayer_ ," Erik holds out his hand for her to take, and he must look a bit silly with a goofy smile on his face. His mind is still spiraling and spinning from everything that's happening, the only way forward is that he has partitioned everything, so he's reacting to the moment only. He has to, or he won't be able to cope. And being able to feel Charles after weeks of absence is indescribable. He follows along that thread to where it leads to him, hopefully.  
  
Truly, he wasn’t built to handle this; but perhaps he was, too. He survived the Void, with Charles’ guidance and protection. He navigated it when it should have rendered him dust, ripped him to shreds, collapsed him into nothing. Perhaps this is the Void, the Universe, guiding him through, showing him; he asked how he could better understand, how he could help Charles. How could he do so without even a taste of the scope of it? The girl takes Erik’s hand happily, tugging him down a long corridor that Erik both recognizes and does not, and into a study where Charles is bent over a desk, papers spread out along the entire surface, tapping away at his laptop. “Hello, my darlings,” he greets, without looking up. “I’ll be just a moment. Did you wake your father up from his nap, Lorna? You know he needs his beauty rest,” he teases, and Lorna giggles, looking up at Erik to see if he’ll laugh, too.  
  
"Lorna," Erik whispers, crouching to offer her a kiss on the forehead. Charles is distracted, but there's something in Erik's tone, in the way he speaks, that immediately Commands his attention that something is off-something is different. Erik is mystified, and overwhelmed, and enchanted in a way that isn't normal; or maybe it is normal, but he's also clueless. "Hi," he offers Charles a little wave. He didn't laugh, a bit too affected, but he does smile down at her and ruffle her thick hair.  
  
“Oh,” Charles gasps, and immediately he looks up. He’s startled, shocked, but his expression evens out after a moment. Instead he smiles softly, that warm, fond smile, his eyes crinkling up. They’re more creased. He’s a bit older than Erik knows him. “Oh, dear. Lorna, darling, come here,” he beckons her, and when she does, he picks her up, sets her on his knee and kisses the top of her head. She grins at him, still missing a front tooth. “Will you do me a very important favor?” When she nods eagerly, he grins, too. “Go find your grandmother, would you? I believe she’s downstairs baking with your brother and sister.” When that gets Lorna beaming and excited, wiggling in his arms, he carefully sets her down and pats the top of her head. “Off you pop, then. Don’t run in the house, please!” It falls mostly on deaf ears, of course, though Lorna does chirp back, “Okay, I won’t!” While she proceeds to slide down the banister. Charles is silent, and then he laughs. “Well, you seem a bit lost,” he notes, perhaps needlessly.  
  
Erik scratches the back of his neck, offering a sheepish smile. " _Ktzat_ ," he whispers, making the motion with his thumb and index finger of a little bit, his eyebrows creasing in the center. "She's beautiful," he adds softly. He's not sure why he's here, but he's infinitely grateful that this man seems-happy. He has an Erik, a Bond. Children. It's enough to bring fresh tears to his eyes again. He's not accustomed to crying so much, but today has been a day.  
  
Charles isn’t certain why he’s here, either, except that it’s difficult not to tear up, too, seeing Erik like that. “I’m afraid I had very little to do with that, but she is very beautiful, yes,” he agrees, and stands from his chair, hands folded in front of himself as if he’s afraid he might reach out. He is, honestly, and he’s not sure who is standing in front of him at the moment, except that he looks very much like the man he loves. This Charles seems to take that in stride, at least. “Would you like to sit down with me?” He gestures toward the nearby couch, old, comfortable, worn leather, draped with a hand-knit quilt. “If you’ve come such a long way, you must be exhausted.” Another grin. There’s nothing but welcome pulsing through their Bond, which Erik is still privy to. It’s his, after all, even if right now it’s only borrowed. "You do look exhausted, actually. Are you alright?" Now he's worried, his eyebrows raised. "Are you here because something is wrong? I should have asked that first, I imagine. And if you're here, then...?" It goes without saying what he's concerned about. He's wondering what's become of the Erik he remembers, who'd just gone down for a nap, apparently. It had seemed rather odd to Charles, too.  
  
"Nothing wrong," he croaks, and it's easy enough to tell that it's the truth. He follows along to the couch and sits, and takes Charles's hand once he does. He doesn't think his Erik is in trouble, or in danger. The Universe couldn't possibly be so cruel to them, just for a chance encounter. He's likely safe and sound, in Erik's spot in his bed, while his Charles is snoozing comfortably. "I'm all right," he laughs, gentle, and discreetly wipes at his eyes. "It has just been a very-" it's been trying. "I come from somewhere else," he says, which is plainly obvious. "I think I'm-I'm just visiting." He studies Charles's face, the new wrinkles. He's still so beautiful. Very distinguished, with a few extra lines. "Is this your school?"  
  
There are quite a few more smile lines when Charles does smile again, those wrinkles smoothing out slightly, his forehead no longer creased with worry. He’s not old, really; he’s just not quite as young, and he’d be thoroughly stroppy if Erik made the insinuation, thank you very much. “This is our home, yes,” he corrects, but it isn’t a correction, exactly; it is, indeed, a school. He squeezes Erik’s hand, and reaches up with the one that’s free to touch his face. “Oh, you poor man,” he sighs, and he doesn’t know; but he feels the exhaustion, the weariness, the emotional turmoil Erik has been put through today, feels it right through their Bond. It makes him frown. “You’ve had quite a day, then. What can I do, hm?” Perhaps nothing, but he wouldn’t be Charles if he didn’t offer, if he didn’t stroke Erik’s hand gently with the pad of his thumb. He’s wearing a ring. "If you're just a visitor, I can at least be a decent host," he teases.  
  
It makes Erik laugh for real, and he lifts Charles's hand to his lips, kissing the back of it with aching affection. He strokes along that ring, feeling a subtle joy. "Tell me about you," he whispers. He wants to know. Everything. Who Lorna is, who her grandmother is. All the kids. All of his family. What's different. What's the same. And this time it is curiosity, but also a form of soothing. Coming from the reality where Charles is clearly about to die has wrenched him in ways he won't be able to discern for many years. "Please," he amends softly. He's never been much for good hosting, but he does know how to be polite. Sometimes. For Charles.  
  
Perhaps he’ll make many more visits like this, as Charles begins to learn; as he learns, and grows, and gains access. Some of them will clearly be heart-wrenching, but this is not one of those places. At least not for nearly the same reasons. This Charles’ face lights up with true, inexpressible joy, his face lined with it. He’s a healthy weight, Erik realizes, and he’s aged well. It looks good on him. “Lorna is our youngest,” he murmurs fondly, filled to the brim with adoration, for Erik and her both. “She’s six, though she’ll have you know she’s six and a half. Then we have the twins, Wanda and Pietro, and their older brother David. There are plenty more little feet around here, but those are our four lovely menaces. You were very timely with your visit, actually,” he laughs. “Your family is visiting. I can actually get work done, for once, with so many extra hands. Apparently our house is just full of visitors, some more unexpected than others."  
  
He runs his fingers across Charles's hand the entire time he speaks, rhythmic and repetitive, his touch light and gentle. "My-family?" he whispers, and for some reason it's with the sound-as if he's holding his breath. He makes himself let it go, though. He's hanging onto every word, completely entranced by just a simple conversation. It could be different or much the same to his own Erik, depending. But this one seems fascinated by the mundane, taking meaning from every moment.  
  
“Not your entire family,” Charles laughs, as if he thinks that’s the problem. He really does. “I doubt even we could manage that energy here. We’re missing at least a few cousins,” he jokes, and it’s so fond, unaware of the gravity. “Your mother has been an absolute gift, especially around the hols, let me tell you. Davey actually listens to her without rolling his eyes, can you imagine?” He snorts, shaking his head. Clearly it’s difficult to imagine.  
  
Erik feels his heart stop in his chest. His ears are ringing, and all the blood drains out of his face. "Pardon me?" he creaks like a rusty door, pressing his hand to his ribcage to try and remind himself to take in oxygen. It looks like a strong wind would break him in half, and even if Charles weren't telepathic it would be imminently obvious that something is wrong, which is telling especially for Erik.  
  
It is. Charles’ breath hitches, too, though it’s clear he doesn’t understand. He tries, nudging and prodding along the Bond, but something is blocking him; he’s not meant to know certain things, perhaps. Either way it panics him, and he squeezes Erik’s hand, firmly. “What is it, darling? Have I said something wrong?”  
  
"She didn't die?" Erik asks, sounding small and vulnerable. He doesn't understand. He can't understand. What happened when Mr. Shaw came? How did Wanda and Pietro-how-maybe it's not normal to question so much, but his mind is frazzled and spinning out. He squeezes back, gripping tightly.  
  
“Who?” Charles asks, taken aback. Horrified. “Your mother? No, Erik, of course not. In fact, she’s in better health than I am, why would -“ He quiets. “Ah,” he whispers. “Because you’ve lost her, haven’t you.” It’s not a question. Charles’ eyes are sad, now, as he lifts their joined hands to kiss Erik’s. “I am so sorry, my love. I didn’t know.” How could he?  
  
"Is-" Erik doesn't know if he can even ask it. Something has unlocked in him and tears drip down his cheeks unfettered, dropping off to land on his pant legs. "My father? Sister?" he can barely get the question out. He doesn't mean to make Charles sad. If he had his wits about him and hadn't been so startled by the information he might have held back, but it's overflowing. Everything is overflowing.  
  
“Oh, darling,” Charles breathes. “Come here, please,” he whispers, and wraps his arms around him, one hand in Erik’s hair. His fingers go right for that spot behind his ear, because some things are constants. He knows. “Your father is perfectly well, and Ruthie is as lovely as ever.” He pulls away to dab at Erik’s tears, smiling as softly as he can. There’s sadness, there, because the insinuation could not be more clear. “Your mother pulled out the pictures again this morning. It’s shocking how much like your sister Wanda looks. And you were a very cute baby, of course.” He’s not sure why he says it, except to talk. He only hopes it won’t hurt Erik more.  
  
Erik presses his head into Charles's shoulder, wheezing in a shuddering breath loudly, wrapping his arms around his middle and now he's the one falling apart. He doesn't sob openly, just crushes his eyes shut, making no sound, doing his best to shove everything back inside of himself. He's shaking. Hearing Charles's voice helps, having his fingers in his hair helps. The pictures. Erik didn't realize it was possible to hurt this much more. It's so much to take in. It's not pain, not exactly, it's just-confronted with so much. "She must like you," Erik mumbles into his neck.  
  
“Oh, Erik,” Charles breathes again, rocking Erik as well as he can, stroking his hair, letting him nestle right into his shoulder. It doesn’t matter that he isn’t his Erik; seeing any version of his husband in pain is more than enough for him, and he hushes him softly, kisses the top of his head. “She does say as much, but I admit I’m always nervous about getting on her bad side. It runs in the family, that temper of yours, hm?” It’s a joke, something he’s teased with his Erik; it occurs to him that maybe it isn’t the thing to say, but it seems like it’s all just spilling out for him, too. He feels a little out of his depth, but there will never be a time he won’t try. “They’re downstairs, if you’d like to…” But he purses his lips together. “No, you probably wouldn’t, I shouldn’t have suggested it,” he mumbles. It’s just that his Erik adores his family endlessly, and he can’t imagine - well. "It's alright, dearest. I have you."  
  
Erik slowly sits up, and touches Charles's face. "Temper?" he looks very concerned about that. He gets mad at Charles? It's not a normal reaction, to be frank Erik doesn't seem very normal. He more resembles one of the kids Charles has taken off of the streets. Skittish, a little too meek. Odd triggers. The idea that he could get mad at Charles and hurt him-  
  
“Just a bit,” Charles murmurs, but he’s shaking his head, perplexed, concerned. He holds Erik’s hand to his face, turns his head to kiss his fingers. “But I need to be kept on my toes. You would never hurt me, Erik, don’t be silly.” It’s not even a consideration for this Charles. It isn’t for Erik’s Charles, either, not really, but it’s different. It’s very different. “What is it? What can I do? Talk to me,” he breathes. He’s not sure if he’s allowed those things, because this isn’t an Erik he recognizes, but he’s come to visit him. He’s here. Charles can’t just leave him be. He has to help, to ease.  
  
He touches his hand to his own chest. "Hurt. I'm sorry." He's sorry. He tries to unstick his throat, and swallow, without everything spasming and ejecting out of him. Pack everything up. "Downstairs?" he peeks his head over. Because-Charles is right. Because of course he can't just ignore it. He couldn't. Will Charles come with him? Help him. He doesn't think he can do it alone. He lost her when he was very young. He hardly feels much older right now.  
  
Very young. Charles’ throat feels stuck, too, and he bites at his lip, exactly like Erik’s Charles does when he’s worried, his forehead all creased up. “Are you certain?” he asks, quietly. “It’s alright if it’s too much. If it will hurt you…” But if Erik wants to go downstairs, of course Charles will come with him. Of course he will. He promises, and the Bond thrums in agreement, strong and nourished and comforting.  
  
Erik taps Charles's lip. "No," he murmurs, warm. He gives his head a shake. He can't promise it won't hurt. But it's something he needs to do. If Charles will come with him. He thinks Charles will, though. "I'm certain," he confirms, taking solace from the hum of psionic energy in his mind. Long-missed.  
  
“Alright, darling,” Charles murmurs, a bit shaken, though he tries not to show it. “We’ll go downstairs, then, shall we? I believe -” He taps his temple, focusing for a moment. “Yes, it seems everyone is in the kitchen. Fortunately we have a very large kitchen.” He tugs his lip between his teeth again. “I could go down first, if you’d like? Or they could come up here, if that would be easier, I could see how it’d be overwhelming…” He just wants this to be as painless as possible, but he knows he can’t guarantee that. He knows. “Our - ah, my -” He stumbles, here, uncertain. “Our daughter is about to knock on the door, by the by. She's always had excellent timing. I can tell her we need a moment?” And there it is, barely a moment later.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "Let her come in," he whispers, and he flicks his hand, allowing the door to open of its own accord. He puts his hand on Charles's shoulder, sensing that he's nervous, sensing that he's shaken. He's come and upended everything, hasn't he? Is he really entitled to this? This isn't his life. Does he get to come in and turn everything upside down?  
  
 _Oh, hush. You’re turning nothing upside down, and you’re perfectly entitled. I insist,_ and it comes in Erik’s mind rather than out loud, another thing he’s lost in the past weeks, because at the same time Charles says, “Come in, Wanda. Don’t be worried, dearest, we’re perfectly alright in here.” He’s not certain if he should tell her that things are off, but she’s more than intelligent enough to catch on that they are anyway. Wanda is much older than Erik last saw her. She’s creeping into her teens, by the looks of her, and her hair falls in unruly, thick ringlets just like her younger sister, although it’s that lovely darker red she inherited from Erik. She does look exceptionally like Erik’s sister, even more so now that she’s older. It couldn’t be more obvious, the resemblance. “Lorna said you’re sick,” is what she says, abrupt, her lips pressed together with worry. She’s a bit like Erik in that way, Charles notes fondly, and it gets transferred right over through the Bond. Everything is. “And that you’re being weird. What’s going on? David said he can’t hear you. Are you sick?” she demands, and looks Erik over, up and down and up, scanning for something. Charles purses his lips to keep from laughing, which would be a wholly inappropriate reaction to his endearingly concerned daughter.  
  
Erik rises and embraces her all of a sudden. "Not sick," he whispers, giving her a gentle squeeze. "You look just like Ruthie." It's achingly familiar, and he thinks he must have told her that plenty of times. But maybe not, because this version of Erik had Ruthie. She might have been taken for granted. They all might have been. He hopes that Magda is OK; wonders if she's still around. Everything here is so incredibly different he can barely comprehend it.  
  
“Uhh…” Wanda is clearly faltering here, but she pats at her father’s back, pulling away to look up at him. “I know, everyone tells me that all the time.” So apparently not, is the answer to that. “Are you sure you’re alright? You seem… different,” she looks at Charles for confirmation, her eyebrows raised, and she’s so fiercely intelligent for her age. Charles offers her a grin, shrugging his shoulders as innocently as he can manage and standing himself. “Lorna’s worried and she says you promised you’d teach her how to fly after dinner but you can’t do that if you’re sick. And Pietro and Aunt Raven are playing darts again,” she says, as if it’s self-evident why she brought it up.  
  
Charles sighs. “I told her to wait at least until dinner was over.”  
  
Lorna peeks her head in, that shocking full head of green hair. “Are you really not sick? Does that mean you can teach me how to fly? You promised,” she huffs.  
  
 _I am so sorry_ , Charles thinks, but it’s so achingly fond it’s obvious he isn’t apologizing at all, except that it might be terribly overwhelming. Their house is never boring, at the very least. And Magda is downstairs, so I imagine that means she's very much around. She's visiting, too. With about half the world's population, if you haven't already gathered. We have a very, very large dining table.  
  
"Magda?" he whispers, too. "Not sick?" He's asking Charles, although it sounds like a disjointed answer to Lorna's question. Instead, he kneels and gives her a big forehead kiss. "I promised," he agrees, gentle. "But you have to eat dinner first, _tayer_ , so you can get nice and strong and fly really high," he tickles under her chin and looks up at Wanda, taking her hands in his. "I'm not sick," he assures her softly. "Just a little different, for right now."  
  
“What kind of different?” Wanda demands, at the same time that Charles says, “No, not sick.”  
  
“Did you have a weird dream? David gets weird dreams,” Lorna offers helpfully, nodding. “Are you weird like David? And Dad said I can’t fly high, because I’m too young,” she pouts.  
  
“Yes, he did,” Charles confirms, laughing.

* * *

“No one’s weird like David,” and it’s another voice, Pietro’s voice, his white hair falling in front of his eyes when he suddenly appears in the room, hardly a blur. He leans against the wall as if he was there the whole time. “Like, you could gather everyone in the whooole world and no one would be as weird as David, dude.”  
  
“Be nice, Pietro,” Charles chides.  
  
“Yeah, Pietro, be nice,” comes another voice, this one deeper, quieter. This is clearly David, and he looks shockingly like Charles. It’s perhaps mostly due to his eyes, Charles’ stunning blue. He’s older, just like Charles said, and every bit a brooding teenager. “Dinner’s ready, and some people promised they’d set the table.”  
  
Pietro blinks, and then grins. “All done,” he announces. “Let’s eat, shall we?”  
  
“Show off,” David mutters.  
  
“Weirdo,” Pietro returns.  
  
It’s teasing, and brotherly, but Charles still pinches his nose. “Be nice,” he repeats, and looks at Erik, because - but he’s not used to this, is he? Through the Bond, there’s a clear question: still alright?  
  
The last time Erik saw Wanda and Pietro both they were infants, little babies with barely an understanding of the world around them, and now they're all grown up. And there's two more, to boot, and David-who looks so much like Charles, they're all an amalgamation of all the people that Erik loves most in the world, and it's impossible for him not to be affected. He sniffles and wipes his eyes, offering them a smile. "Be nice each other," he whispers. "Both of you." He wonders if he's really here, if he's really affecting this place. He lifts his hand and a metallic sphere forms, and then splits into several halves. Each of the four children receive one that melts away into a design of some kind. Gifts; Lorna's is shiny and colorful, meant for a child but with gems that are real. David's is deep and made of precious metals, an intricate sculpture of several different molecules. Wanda's is transformed entirely into something new, a new element for her to consider and play with. Pietro's turns into a lattice of inscribed platinum that extends when he pulls it apart like an accordion, capable of withstanding very high speeds.  
  
That gets a collective reaction out of the children, and Charles watches in delight as they delight, chorusing their joy, leaning over each other to show off their gift. It’s very festive, and heartwarming; Charles heart clenches in his chest, because what an entirely Erik thing to do.  
  
Lorna kneels on the ground so she can make hers hover, flashing a toothy grin up at her fathers. “Look!” she declares. It wobbles and falls over a moment later.  
  
“Lorna inherited your mutation,” Charles whispers, affected, and clears his throat. He realizes it’s not exactly necessary to say, for most in the room. “Ah, I mean - she’s been working very hard.”  
  
Lorna nods. “I’m not as strong as you yet,” she sighs. “I will be, right?”  
  
David’s eyebrows are raised. “Dad,” he mutters.  
  
“Yes, yes, Davey,” Charles responds, and it’s clear he’s responding to something David said. David is a telepath, he explains. And no, he cannot hear our private conversations, which I am endlessly grateful for.  
  
“ _Dad_ ,” David groans.  
  
“I’m sorry, _David_ ,” he grins. “I forgot you’re all grown up now. Well, what do you say we all march to the table before your grandmother marches up, hm?”  
  
Lorna tugs on Erik’s leg. “Can you float me downstairs?” she asks.  
  
“Perhaps you should walk, green bean,” Charles suggests, glancing at Erik. “We’ll be a bit behind you, I think.”  
  
Erik did it for a reason, because he doesn't know if he'll ever be back, and he wants them to have something that he made. A way for him to remember them, even if their gifts don't seem obvious completely yet. Erik gives Lorna a little wink and snaps his finger, and she spirals up into the air slowly in a rush of colors and light, before being set back on her feet. He ruffles her hair again. "Go on, sweetheart. We'll be down soon, OK?" he encourages, gentle. _They're beautiful,_ Erik says to Charles in his mind. It's been a long time since he's done this, but it comes back almost instantly. This Erik's mental voice is much _stronger_ , much more focused, it isn't just Erik thinking to himself; he is actively projecting into Charles's mind. Erik loves them indescribably. He didn't think he was even capable of love, for the longest time. When Charles first told him he loved him, Erik wasn't even sure he knew what it was. But the larger his family grows, the more that grows in him.  
  
“We’ll be downstairs,” David says, and drags both his sisters with him, one in his arms (Lorna feels it necessary to inform him that he isn’t as tall as Erik, and he huffs) and the other by the elbow. Wanda is arguing the whole way down the stairs, in several languages, and Pietro was noticeably gone for quite a while, very eager to show off his new belonging.

* * *

“Your head must be spinning,” Charles laughs, because his sometimes does, too, and he processes very fast. “Are you alright?” he asks, standing up on tip-toes to cup Erik’s cheek. "Lorna absolutely adores you, if you haven't noticed. They all do, of course - even David, don't you dare let him fool you - but she's practically attached to your side, Erik. She wants to be exactly like you," he smiles, because what a wonderful thing to be.  
  
"I'm very happy in my life," Erik whispers, because he wants Charles to know that. "I have you and Wanda and Pietro, and twelve other kids, we have them too, and I wonder if they're here," he's babbling now, but he reins himself in. "But-" but he doesn't have his mother, or his father, or his sister. He's buried most of the people he's ever known. He's hurt many others. He's never known a life of peace like this. Not yet. He wants it so badly it vibrates inside of him, threatening to disintegrate him.  
  
Charles frowns. “Erik,” he sighs, and wraps his arms around him again, turning his head until his ear is pressed to Erik’s chest, exactly like Erik’s Charles does. Exactly as he likes the most, where Erik can tuck him under his chin and wrap him up completely in his arms. Briefly he considers that this might be a breach of trust, that it might incite jealousy in his Erik, but that seems a silly thought as soon as he has it. This is Erik. Even their Bond recognizes that. “I’m so very sorry. I can’t imagine -” He shakes his head, and it all just clogs up his throat again. His eyes are closed, and there’s sorrow pulsing in the Bond between them, which is very much still alive, still humming, still active. Not at all silent. “Will it hurt you, to go downstairs? Be honest. If you’d like, we could stay right up here. I’d like to hear more. You haven’t had peace yet?” It concerns him, to say the least. “I don’t…” The Charles this Erik knows, he doesn’t bring him peace? Happiness? He's not sure why, but it hurts.  
  
Erik wraps him up and feathers his fingers through his hair, laughing gently. "You do," he corrects softly. "More than I've ever known. There are people who-" he shakes his head. There are people who need dealing with. They don't have their school yet. There are evolving tensions. Erik can't relax, he can't let his guard down, because he's still too scared. Every time he does something happens that he should have foreseen. "If it weren't for you I wouldn't be-" he wouldn't be anything. He wouldn't be anywhere. Erik is confident that it will happen, and maybe that's the best form of peace he has right now. "You make me so incredibly happy, _neshama_. Never, ever doubt that." And besides, right now, it is very peaceful. The world is on pause. He shares as much of that as he can. The mansion, as it is slowly being reworked. Charles's loss of memory; what precipitated it. Not full details, but some spare basics. It's a life of difficulty, for both of them. They're still adjusting, still healing.  
  
Charles’ eyes flutter, processing all of that. He hums when it’s settled in, still nestled nicely in Erik’s chest. “It sounds like you’re very safe, at the moment. If the world is paused, you certainly have the time to figure a few things out,” he murmurs, because it gives him peace of mind. “I imagine it must be terribly overwhelming for the both of you, but you’ll be perfectly alright. You have the time to let your guard down some, don’t you,” he laughs, and looks up at Erik with those gleaming, bright blue eyes. “To teach each other. Do you feel like you’re learning, darling?” he teases.  
  
"Very much," Erik nods, kissing the top of Charles's head. "Every day you teach me new things." And he hopes that he can help Charles learn some new things, too. "We have one another, and we're safe. I could not ask for more." He really couldn't, it's just that he's faced with it, and he doesn't know if he can pass it up. If it's even meant for him. The train of thought threatens to send tears to his eyes again.  
  
It makes Charles’ heart clench again. “If you’d like to go downstairs, Erik, it’s absolutely yours,” he promises. “You are always welcome here. You are no stranger, you must know that. I don’t know the circumstances, what happened -” Another sharp breath. “But if you are certain it won’t hurt too much, we’ll go downstairs and we’ll have dinner. I’d like it if you stayed for dinner,” he whispers, because he has his Erik, yes, but he’d like this Erik to stay just a bit longer. He's so welcome.  
  
Erik rubs his back and kisses the top of his head. "No imposition?" he whispers. He can see how much Charles loves his family, how much they mean to him. He doesn't want to intrude here and make it all about him, he knows that Charles wouldn't have barreled right into this if he'd known, and maybe Erik could have moderated his response a little better. "I'd like that," " he adds. "You can tell me all about your life here."  
  
“Absolutely not. Perhaps not technically, but they are your family, too, Erik. And since they are your family, it is awfully rude of us to hole up here when they’ve prepared such a lovely, extravagant meal down there.” Extravagant, but not in the way Charles was used to growing up; this is still his manor, after all. The meal prepared downstairs is one made with love, and care, one that fills the house with warmth. Charles touches his temple. “David is sending us a warning,” he grins. “He’s concerned about our wellbeing, should we stay up here much longer. It is a holiday. Holidays." Which explains why most of their students are gone, except for the ones with no safe homes of their own. The manor was emptier for a day or two. They solved that quickly, obviously. "It seems we're running on different times, too. How odd. And yet you found us," he smiles. He's pleased about that, and he wants Erik to know that. He's very pleased he's staying for dinner.  
  
It makes Erik laugh. "He looks so much like you, it's remarkable. He has your eyes," Erik smiles softly, because he knows that's probably something Charles hears fifty times a day, but to Erik it's brand new and incredible. "I suppose we had better not disappoint, hm?" his brow wrinkles fondly. Inside, he's incredibly nervous. He can still hear the last thing Edith said to him before-he can still hear it. He's heard it every day for the last sixteen years.  
  
Charles squeezes Erik’s hand, and offers a soft, gentle smile. A fond, incredibly adoring smile. “Come along, my love,” he murmurs, and playfully tugs Erik toward the stairs. Through the Bond, he sends reassurances, gentle caresses of the mind; if Erik becomes overwhelmed, it’s alright. Charles will be there the whole time. He is welcome, and he belongs here. Charles loves him. He thinks that very clearly, and it’s been a while since Erik has heard it, too, his Charles still learning: I love you. This Charles has known it for years. There is nothing in the world more natural.  
  
Erik wraps him up suddenly and abruptly, squeezing him as much as he can without hurting him. It's been weeks since he's heard that. He knows it must be there, he hopes it's there. But he's been living alongside a Charles who forgot he loved Erik. And that has been more challenging than he could possibly say. He does his best not to crush his poor submissive, giving a very tender kiss to his temple when he pulls back, taking Charles's hand instead. "Thank you," he whispers softly. "I love you," he returns, kissing the back of his palm, too.  
  
“I know,” Charles murmurs, and there’s a glint to his eyes despite being squeezed half to death, because surely Erik must know that his Charles can’t be at all far behind, if he hasn’t fallen as inevitably and as surely as he always will. Some things do not change. “Are you ready, darling?” he asks, and squeezes Erik’s hand. “I’ll be there the entire time, remember. If you need anything, you know,” and he taps his temple, just like he always has.  
  
He knows. Of course he knows. He's never wanted to pressure Charles into saying it, either, doing his best to let him come to terms with his feelings on his own. He knows. But hearing it is important, too. It's why he was so, so sorry for the Charles he just left. He must have known how much his Erik loved him. He hopes he knows. Erik gives a little squeeze back. "I'm ready," he confirms, his voice still quite and soft. He's not ready. He'll never be ready. But he takes a deep breath and steels himself. He can do this. He can do this.

* * *

Charles leads him down the stairs, squeezing his hand gently the entire way, holding on tightly. The moment they step into the kitchen, Charles feels his own breath catch, anticipating; because there Edie is, and Ruthie not far from her, the two chatting so passionately about something Charles mostly doesn’t hear that they don’t notice their entrance at first. He holds his breath, and presses himself against Erik’s side, sending wave after wave of soothing comfort and love and familiarity through the Bond. I’m here, he reminds Erik.  
  
It doesn't matter how much he thought he prepared himself for this, he draws attention when he presses his hands to his mouth and inhales sharply. " _Ima_ ," he gasps, almost wheezes. " _Ima at kan_. Ruthie-" he feels his legs start to buckle. Only the presence of Charles next to him keeps him standing upright. He's practically white-knuckling it on Charles's elbow, and when he realizes he relaxes his grip, petting instead. There are many immediate differences to this Erik than their own. The limp, the fingers, the scars. His face has more lines, despite the fact that he looks younger. Someone, somewhere, made a left turn instead of a right and this is the result. This is what happened.  
  
But Charles knows they love him all the same, because he silently reassures them, too; this is Erik. This is Erik, perhaps not exactly as they remember him, perhaps not in a way they understand, but it’s Erik. Their son, and their brother. Their family. He gently peels away from Erik’s side, but only to nudge him forward. “Go on,” he whispers. “Go on, darling.” Erik should have this. It’s his, too.  
  
Charles doesn't need to tell Edie. She knows, immediately and with full comprehension, and she crosses over the room and bundles Erik up in her arms without a second of hesitation. This is what she's meant for, she knows that now. She exists. Past, present, future. This universe, the next, and dimensions beyond. Echoes across time and space. She didn't remember before. But she does now, a crowded street in New York City. Bustling taxicabs and jarring horns and so many colors, touching Charles's shoulder. _He needs you, tayer._ Touching his face. The woman in white. The rage, and the grief. Ruthie's eyebrows are raised, because she doesn't understand, not exactly, but she touches his arm.   
  
" _Zeyn royk, tayer. Ikh vel haltn ir zikher_ ," she defaults to the language she taught him as an infant, one her Erik doesn't use much anymore. One her Erik doesn't remember. But one this Erik very much does. His heart has dropped into his stomach and he chokes, and chokes, and keeps choking, and makes a low and pained noise into the crook of her shoulder where she's reached up to tug him down. The height difference is truly comical in life; he was taller than her at ten. "I got you. Hey," she snaps her fingers at Pietro, meeting his eyes with her own sharp greens. "Don't gawk. Go get us a blanket, OK?" she Orders. She's stern, but warm, and she doesn't Order them around all day every day, but it's good for Pietro to have some discipline in his life and she's definitely a counterbalance to the whirlwind.  
  
Pietro doesn’t have to listen, not even for someone so high on the scale, an S1 in this universe, too, but he usually does if it’s Edie. She’s about as close to a D5 as you can get, anyway. Charles is a different story entirely, and Pietro loves to remind him when he’s feeling petulant, but they’re certainly working on it; it’s a learning curve for them all, even without trauma. Even without pain and maladapted coping, as Erik has learned from his Charles. But it’s possible, and it’s natural, and there is always learning. Boundaries testing and patience for it, and Edie and Erik certainly provide discipline to a life that is sometimes very chaotic. Strange and utterly wonderful. Pietro comes back with the blanket faster than it takes to blink, and by then Charles is stroking Erik’s back, his heart aching.   
  
Little Lorna has somehow found her way into the kitchen, too, and she attaches herself to Erik’s leg, distressed at the thought of her father hurting. Charles crouches down to pick her up, kissing the forest of her hair. “It’s alright, green bean,” he murmurs, using the petname he’s so lovingly given her. “He’s perfectly alright.” He will be. “He’s okay, he’ll be just fine,” he whispers.  
  
Even while struggling to maintain his failing composure, a truly lost cause, Erik does his best to pet Lorna and touch Charles and hug Edie, feeling incredibly silly truly breaking at this moment, getting snot all over her shirt; but that's OK. That's what she's always supposed to have been there for. She wraps Erik up in the blanket and rubs Pietro's back lovingly when he separates, giving him a solemn smile and a mouthed _toda raba_. She doesn't know where he came from, or how he got here, but all that matters is he is here now.   
  
"I'm OK," Erik rasps hoarsely, for Lorna's benefit. "I'm OK. Thank you," he gasps. "Thank you. I'm OK." He doesn't know if it's possible for him to let go right now.  
  
It is, and it will be, but it doesn’t have to be right now. Charles kisses Erik’s cheek where he’s bent practically in half to hug Edie properly, and encourages Lorna to do the same, which she does with eager glee despite the situation. It’s not very long at all before Pietro and Wanda join in the hug, and David after that, with the reluctance of a sullen teenager but also as one who understands far better than most in the room. It’s with plenty of love, too. “Yes, you’ll be alright,” Charles promises, in Erik’s ear. _You’ll be perfectly alright, my darling. My love._  
  
Erik touches David's face, affectionate. He's filled with so much love for these kids that he's practically overflowing, and there's nothing in the world that fills him with more pride than knowing that David inherited Charles's abilities; even though he knows that he must struggle at times the way Charles did. It's a beautiful gift; all of their children are extraordinary.   
  
Edie whispers catches of nonsense in his ear, rubbing his back, keeping her lips pressed tightly together to avoid outwardly reacting as strong as she inwardly feels. Her anger has no place here, the only thing that matters is taking care of her child. That someone did this-it is infuriating, she is furious. She looks up at Charles and squeezes his shoulder, and David's too. They must both know by now. "It's going to be OK, you're going to be all right. We promise," she whispers in English.   
  
Erik rubs his cheek against her shoulder and touches her chest. He knows she's mad. He's sorry. So sorry.  
  
There’s nothing at all to be sorry about, Charles reminds him quietly, though David is on edge, too, because even with more unstable abilities he knows, at least that something truly horrible has happened. That this Erik is not his father, but he is, too. He is. It’s impossible for Charles not to cry at this point, though he held on for an admirably long time; he cracks, now, his shoulders shaking as he holds onto Erik, stroking and prodding at the Bond to soothe himself the way he has since it first formed. It’s so loud, Erik realizes. Constantly nourished, constantly growing, and he gets to experience the other half of it. It’s a natural progression. He and his Charles will get there, too. And more, perhaps. _Please stay for dinner_ , Charles whispers in Erik’s head, even if he’s not sure if Erik has a choice.  
  
"Stay dinner," he croaks, laughing a little, and touching Edie's face. Touching her hair, her hands. He looks up, his own face streaked in tears and red and blotchy, and she dabs at it with her sleeve. "You still look the same," he whispers, gentle. There's so much inside of him, everything he's ever wanted to say to her, all the reasons-but that's the first thing that comes out of his mouth, dumbly. He leans over and takes Ruthie's hand. "And you-" he wedges her in a bit closer to give her a big squeeze. Whatever universal entity brought him here, he can't begin to express his gratitude. They are beautiful, and grown and healthy and happy. Their bodies aren't broken and left in the dirt. They aren't burned to ashes. He tries to keep it tightly inside as best as he can.  
  
It doesn’t need to stay inside. Charles coaxes it out the way he used to, but gently, so as not to have it overwhelm or spill all at once — the way he does, here, all the time for his Erik, which is of course why he knows how to do it. Some of it is trauma, but some of it isn’t. He nudges and pets along the Bond, soft, soothing mental fingers, with the expert touch of someone who has been doing this for a very long time. He isn’t as powerful as Erik’s Charles, for whatever reason there needs to be, but he knows Erik most of all. “I love you,” he reminds, quietly, but right into Erik’s ear. “Why don’t we sit? Your legs are shaking, darling.” And he’s concerned about the limp, the one his Charles fixed but that there’s no fix for here, not one this Charles knows; he’s worried he’s in pain, that he’ll hurt. He doesn’t know. His Erik isn’t injured. Lorna reaches forward abruptly to wrap her arms around Erik’s neck, squeezing tightly. She doesn’t understand at all what’s happening, too young, and Charles feels his heart clench. “Lorna, dearest, come here, don’t crush your father,” he tries to insist, but she just clings harder, stubborn.  
  
"'Kay," he murmurs back, all of his muscles locked and seized up. It hurts, it does hurt. But he's OK. He's lived with pain before. He lets Charles guide him to sit, and takes Lorna onto his lap, petting her mountain of bouncy curls. "It's all right, _tayer_. OK. Promise." He kisses her cheek, warm and dry. Edie sits next to him, touching his knee, letting him lean against her again. "Still short," he taps her nose, which makes her bark a laugh.   
  
"I'm not so short, _boychik_." She holds her arms out to Ruthie and Pietro and Wanda and David. "Come along, come along. This food isn't going to eat itself, hm?"  
  
“Stranger things have happened,” Charles retorts dryly, offering a grin as he settles himself as closely into Erik’s side as he possibly can. The children all crowd, too, because of course they do. There’s the sensation of different mental fingers, creeping along Erik’s mind, tentative, inexperienced, but comforting, soothing, familiar, somehow. David. It’s taken him a bit to access Erik’s mind, not afforded the Bond, and he visibly sags when he can; it was frightening, for him, not being able to hear and feel his father. But everything’s alright, and even if this Erik is only visiting, he’s perfectly welcome. That has been made abundantly clear. Charles kisses his cheek, and then kisses it again, and Pietro, nearby, scrunches up his nose.   
  
“Ew,” he declares, before Wanda knocks him upside the head and tells him to “shut up,” and Charles laughs, because he just can’t help it.  
  
Erik touches Wanda gently, tapping her on the nose. "Be nice, 'k?" he grins a bit shyly. Feeling David's mental touch, his mind curls toward it like a flower unfolding. His own mental mosaic is peculiar, not at all like the Erik he knows. His mind is expansive, and projective, with more control, everything richer and fuller and different, a whole world seen through many lenses and information crafted like houses. He pets David's mind back, intent, a swell of love crescendoing out. Two dancing suns in the sky. Tiny blobs with circles for arms and legs, and ghostly people. There's Pietro and Wanda but they're babies. No Lorna or David yet, but surely they'll come soon. "Be good to each other," he whispers. They're family. It's so important.  
  
“But he’s a moron and he’s ruining the moment,” Wanda sighs, put out. Still, it’s impossible not to see the affection all over her face as she grabs for a protesting Pietro, who squirms and fidgets like he always does when he’s hugged except in very precise moments. They bicker and squabble on the outskirts, while David’s eyes go wide and he ends up on Charles’ other side, needing some help processing the new information; he gets overwhelmed, still, but it’s only to be expected. Charles offers that help freely and easily, kissing the top of his son’s head despite the grunt he receives, and   
  
Lorna pats Erik’s cheek, reaching up to offer him a bent spoon. "I found this," she tells him, proudly. She attracted it, more like, the precious little magnet that she is.  
  
It makes Erik chuckle fondly. "Can you straighten it out, hm?" he whispers, and tries to show her. It curves and flexes and rises up gently, and both David and Charles can tell that this Erik is orders of magnitude more powerful than their own. He's an Omega-class mutant, rare enough that none of them have ever encountered one before. Every particle he interacts with drips with power, even in the simplest, smallest of ways, like a walking nuclear reactor. The lines and waves practically sift off of his mind.  
  
Charles noticed, of course. It was one of the first things he noticed, and he’s put it together since then; whoever Erik’s Charles is, he’s leagues more powerful than he could ever hope to be, too. He’s not sure if he was to begin with, or if something touched him along the way -- but then again, how could it if he couldn’t withstand it? It’s as perplexing for him as it was for the Charles Erik met before, already Omega-class, and it’s very possible he just can’t comprehend it. It isn’t his to comprehend, nor Erik’s, really, though he imagines his Charles will show him regardless, any way he can, because they are meant to comprehend each other. Erik’s Command of the lines and waves and whispers of the World are truly incredible, but nothing that shocks him -- in whatever universe he’s a part of, Erik is a force to be reckoned with, a force all his own as he controls something fundamental. It could never be any other way, even without subatomic manipulation, which is fascinating, mind.   
  
“I can’t,” Lorna pouts, because during all this thinking she’s been trying, her little face scrunched up as she stares at the spoon. When her own abilities manifest, there’s sometimes a glowing green light, different from her father’s more subtle manipulation; it glows, now, pretty and mesmerizing, magnetic in nature just like she is. “Is it ‘cause my hair’s green?” she demands to know, and Charles brings his hand up to his mouth to stifle a laugh. It’s a perfectly innocent question, and he raises his eyebrows at Erik. He’ll pass this one over.  
  
Erik's grin spreads again, prompting Edie to kiss his forehead and sweep his hair back from his head. "It might be, little pea." He tweaks her nose, achingly affectionate. The spoon slowly separates like melted platinum into millions of swirling particles, separating and separating and wrapped in Lorna's green shimmer, as Erik interacts with her abilities, producing something greater than the sum of its parts. "You're helping me, see?" he winds it up through her fingers, lets her feel it down into its very structure. Erik nudges Charles's shoulder, too. It's a moment out of time, something that worms its way down into him just like the last Charles he encountered, and he wants to sit here and soak it up for as long as humanly possible. "I love you, _ima_ ," he whispers to Edie softly. He hopes her Erik tells her. He hopes she knows.   
  
Ruthie grins. "No love for your sister, huh?"   
  
Erik laughs wetly and gives her a squeeze. "All the love."  
  
There’s so much love. Charles takes a sharp breath all of a sudden, a bit overwhelmed himself, but he takes another breath, and another, and notices something he didn’t before. He frowns, playing with the back of Erik’s hair. “Darling, who cut your hair last? Was it you? Did you do it in the dark?” It inspires quite a few laughs, but he fusses with it, sighing. It’s a moment within moments, and he doesn’t know how long this will last. He just knows that he’ll enjoy it while he can, and give Erik exactly what he deserves; perhaps his world is frozen, and his Charles isn’t quite where he needs to be yet, but there will be pleasure in that, too. He’s sure of it. There will be peace. All he can do is hope for that, that the two of them figure it out. That Erik teaches his Charles so that he grows, so that he learns to wield the incredible abilities he's been given. That they use their opportunity for all that it is, all that it's affording them. He has to hope.  
  
It makes Erik snort, and then he's laughing in short, sharp bursts. "We're still learning," he giggles. "You cut it," he adds, his nose wrinkling up fondly. "I think it looks unique," he huffs, incredibly affectionate. Erik fully believes that, too. That they will grow, that they will learn, that they will change the fabric of the world itself. Starting with one another, because they're the only ones who could possibly hope to match. They're a Pairbond. In every Universe, that is one thing that Erik is drawing from this experience and it warms him beyond belief. Even if there is suffering and difference, they find one another for the briefest of moments. So when he says he believes in the soul, that isn't a platitude. It's evidenced right in front of him. Maybe that's just his lack of scientific understanding, except that Erik is uniquely qualified to grasp the physics behind it. He does, and he's not looking to simplify the solution. But if nothing else speaks to him about their spirit, it's this family, this constant.  
  
“Please tell me to learn faster, then,” Charles snorts, and he isn’t nearly as sensitive and powerful as Erik’s Charles, but even he can feel it when Erik begins to shift. When something begins to shift. David feels it, too, and he grabs at Charles’ arm, silent and unsettled. Charles pats his hand, though everything in him is so overwhelmingly sad, and it flows right into the Bond. He can’t quite help it. “I thought you could stay longer,” he whispers, right into Erik’s ear. “I’d have liked you to stay longer.” Because what is the likelihood that Erik finds this place again, in exactly the same configuration? Perhaps Charles can find it for him, but he just doesn’t think that’s an option at right this moment. It’s selfish to want this Erik to stay for just a while longer, to look at the extraordinary life they’ve built, to give him a few moments with his mother, his sister, his father who’s standing nearby. “How will I know if you’re alright? Are you always in pain? What can I do, what -” Charles is fretting, he knows. It’s just that sending any version of Erik off without knowing that he’ll be completely alright is difficult for him.  
  
And Iakov has stood back to allow the moment, but now crouches to Erik's height (he's tall, too, it's not difficult to see where he gets it from; and while Erik inherited his mother's eyes, he got his father's dusty auburn hair and freckles) and wraps him up in a firm hug. "You'll be OK," he rumbles in his low accent. He's not very good at English and his Hebrew is very secondary, but he knows the most important things. Edie and Iakov have cobbled together an effective communication strategy over the years where they meet in the middle, and that cooperation has affected both of their children here, a model for how to do things well. "You'll be OK," he repeats softly. He isn't privy to what the rest of them are, being a complete baseline, but he's sharp. He knows something. The way Edie gives him that _look_ , the subtle differences. Parents know their kids.   
  
"Gonna be OK," Erik whispers back softly, for everyone's benefit, but especially Charles. "No more pain," he smiles, watery. "I promise. I love you," he creaks out. "Be good, OK?" Be good, I love you. Be good to each other.  
  
“I love you,” he whispers, and through their Bond he promises _I’ll be good, I’ll take care of everyone, I’ll be good_ , because it’s natural for him, because he’s well-adjusted, because he’s learned to blossom into his submission and his Dynamic with Erik gracefully, and openly, just like Erik’s Charles has the opportunity to do now. He can only hope it isn’t wasted, but he knows it won’t be. He can only hope that they sort it all out, but he knows, somehow, that they will. They will. “I love you. Please be well, please,” he pleads, and he squeezes Erik tightly as he begins to fade, as he gets tired and far away, as this universe becomes unstable for him to hold onto, his mind separating from it. _I’ll be good_ , he promises again. Take care of him. Teach him. He’ll be good for you, too. Erik must know that.  
  
He does. It's the first, best thing he knows. He falls asleep in Edie's arms with tears staining his cheeks, and slowly begins to fade out, doing his best to let the vice grip on his heart release. Doing his best not to mourn them for a second time, to just be grateful for it, for the experience, to tuck the comfort in his chest that these people are happy and healthy and whole and Erik left them with gifts, and reminders, and maybe that will be enough. He hopes it will.

* * *

What Erik wakes up to this time is quite the disaster. Everything is a complete and utter mess, the bedroom -- his bedroom, in the manor they’re sharing, the paused-world with its castle far away from all of it -- torn apart completely, every object in the air and being thrown about, crashing into the walls, knocking things over, doors slamming, the windows blown open as a storm rages outside, howling wind and pounding rain and claps of roaring thunder and Charles can’t control the weather but he can certainly influence the perception of the World as it is to fit his emotions, and that’s exactly what’s happening on the inside. There’s a sucking black hole in the center of the room, which isn’t at all how it works but it certainly will crush everything in its wake regardless, the walls strangely warped and moving, the ceiling nonexistent except for white space. That’s exactly what Erik sees, the truth of it, really, because there’s no changing it, Charles’ power kicked up into an uncontrollable frenzy. But it seems to slow, when he opens his eyes. To falter. “Erik?!” he gasps, and he touches Erik’s face, tears dripping onto it as he leans over his Dominant. “Erik, Erik, Erik…” he sniffles.  
  
Erik blinks and falters and sputters like a car engine, and immediately goes to Charles and wraps him up in a crushing hug. "Calm, _neshama_. Calm, calm. I got you, hi. Just breathe and calm. It's OK. I'm here." Was he not here? He must not have been. He doesn't realize how much he's missed Charles until it's right in front of him. Those Charles's, he loves, but they aren't his Charles. And the difference is immediate and he feels like he belongs again in the universe, because one part of that perception was that he just didn't fit in the same way. He was too adjusted, or he wasn't adjusted enough. There was nothing to hold onto, not exactly. He doesn't dismiss it. Far from it. But he thinks he understands a little more than he did before he returned, because this is a form of learning, too. "I love you," he whispers, because he promised he'd say it. And because he does. "I love you so much."  
  
Charles was sleeping, at first. And then he wasn’t. “I woke up and you weren’t - I couldn’t wake you up, I tried to wake you up, it felt empty and I tried shaking you and you wouldn’t wake up and you always wake up so easily -” And he’d thought the worst, of course he had. He’d been panicked and he’d been afraid, he’d been so afraid, and everything is still banging around as he takes wheezing, painful breaths, clinging to Erik with white knuckles and wide eyes and he’s crying, relief or leftover terror, he doesn’t know. “I love you,” he gasps, like it’s been clawed out of him, but it’s true. It’s true. “I love you, I’m sorry I couldn’t say it, I’ve been feeling it but I wanted to wait and then I was going to tell you after we, we -- but I didn’t, and then you wouldn’t wake up,” and he’s babbling and mostly incoherent, but he’s Erik’s Charles. Everything is in complete chaos, and that hole in the middle of the room is tearing up any semblance of coherent Reality, but he's Erik's Charles.  
  
"Oh, dear-heart," Erik kisses the top of his forehead. "I'm here. Right here. Just breathe, slow and steady," he Orders softly, rubbing his fingers along Charles's back. He doesn't even take note of the room, it's not the most important thing. Charles is, Charles always is. "I think I understand a little more now," he whispers. "We're going to be OK. We're going to be just fine. I know it seems so scary sometimes but we're good, hm? We're good."  
  
When he takes those shaking, heavy breaths, everything in him trembling, the room begins to repair itself. Slowly, and surely, and faltering, but it does. Everything that’s been dumped all around ends up exactly where it threw itself -- which is saying something, because there’s a book half through the wall -- and the thrown-open window isn’t pouring in rain. It’s cloudy instead, thunder still rumbling, but not the middle of a storm. “It’s going to be alright?” he asks, looking up at Erik, everything in him still vaguely panicked. “I couldn’t wake you up. I shook you. I shook you and you didn’t wake up.” It’s shaken Charles, clearly. There are things missing, here, that were in the other universe; their Bond is still silent, but what Erik realizes is that it's not dead. It's not cut, as he'd first thought. It's there. It's been there this whole time, flickering on and off like a switch, the connection flipping on like a light without sufficient power, rather than snapping like a cord, like they've been imagining it. It's quiet, and it's inactive, but certainly not gone. They'll be alright. They'll find it again, Charles for the first and second time at once.  
  
"I know, sweetheart," he whispers mournfully. "I didn't mean to go. The Universe-or, something," he laughs, dry. "I had this dream, or maybe it was real. It felt real. I know what you mean, now. But I would never leave on purpose," he promises. "Never. Never like that. You mean so much to me. You. You. You are so perfectly matched to me and I know you don't remember, but-" Erik can't explain it. He uses the most of his meager abilities, tries to flick that light on and hopes that Charles can understand. He met different Charles's. He loved them. But they weren't his Charles. And he knows if Charles met those Eriks, he would love them. But they wouldn't be his Eriks. "Even without your memories, even as you are right now, even if I completely forgot everything and woke up and didn't remember. I would wake up loving you. I know I would. If we could meet all over again. I know truly, that you are mine. That I love you. That you are beautiful." Because it's happened. It happened the first time. That instant Spark of an Omega-Pairbond. It happened with you, too. Because you love me. You loved me. So I never needed you to say it. But I am so happy you did because I love you so, so much, and-" he starts to crack.   
  
Charles understands. He understands, even though he doesn’t, really, because - “I said come with me,” he gasps, realizing, but just like that angry, grieving Charles warned Erik, he doesn’t remember. He’s not ready to remember yet. He’s not ready to wield the full range of his abilities, to understand what the Universe does, but that’s just because he’s still learning. It’s imperative that he learn, that he adapt, that he grow, because the burden of this was killing him. It was draining the life right out of him, and Erik was watching it happen, helpless to the nosebleeds, the splitting migraines. He’d been experiencing those from when he was very young, and perhaps that this didn’t happen sooner was a result of interference, but it was vital that it did. Because now Erik is here, and the world is paused, and he can learn. He can learn the right things, the right skills, the right mindset. He holds Erik so tightly, not quite understanding, the room still tearing itself apart a bit because he’s still not sure how to stop it once it’s started, still doesn’t know control or discipline, but he does know that he believes Erik. It’s difficult not to when he knows in his heart it’s the truth. “I just felt so horrible, so awful, I thought you didn’t want me you just wanted your Charles back and I felt so wretched and I wanted you to realize that I was, that things were different and I wanted you to train me and I want to learn things about each other and not miss him and,” and he’s crying, too, worming his way closer, gasping and gasping and gasping. But he is Erik’s Charles. He is. He didn’t disappear, he’s right here, even without the memories to support it. Erik understands that now. "I love you," he croaks, hoarse and small but sincere, and looks up at Erik. "I love you."  
  
"No, no, dear-heart. _Kanu'a sheli._ I want you. I love you. Did you know the whole time that this has been happening; I haven't missed him. I missed that you remembered me. Our shared experiences, perhaps. But that's a blip," he laughs. "Because you are right here. I see you. I love you. We will build our Dynamic up, with just the right kind of teaching. You are mine. You have always been mine. And those memories will come back. I know this with full faith. But I am so privileged to have the time together that we do, without them. For me to teach you as you should have been taught. It is the highest honor I have ever been given." He struggles not to choke up.  
  
“Oh,” Charles gasps again, and if Erik struggles with, Charles completely fails, so utterly overwhelmed it’s impossible not to. He chokes up and wraps his arms around Erik’s middle as much as he can and buries himself in his chest, and the world settles, some. There’s wreckage left behind, some of which Charles needs to be responsible for -- namely, the objects that seem to have phased out of existence, or exist oddly, strangely, inconsistently with the rest of everything else -- but it calms, because Erik told him to, and Charles tries to listen. He’s been trying to listen, and to learn. “I’m not very good at learning, am I,” he mutters, and it’s more bitter than he intends. He sniffs. “I want to learn. I don’t know things, and I know it must be frustrating, he knew things I didn’t and sometimes I just don’t know and I hurt you or I make a mistake or -” He doesn’t know, he’s just babbling again, fretting again, still shaken. It’d been such a long day and then Erik wasn’t waking up. He’d worried he’d - he’d worried he’d -  
  
"You are doing beautifully," Erik whispers back, shaking his head. "Magnificent. I know you are struggling with these abilities, but-" but he's given Erik a gift he doesn't even understand, yet. "But they are beautiful, too. You are so strong, and you have so much more to grow. But that's why we're here," he whispers. "It's OK to make mistakes. It's OK if you don't know. He knew a lot of things but he also knew a lot of bad things, learned a lot of bad lessons and I was doing my best to teach him differently, but now I really can. I think that's why we're here. It's not frustrating at all, neshama. I'm very grateful," he rubs the back of Charles's neck. "Very grateful. I'm right here, _tayer_. Right here."  
  
Charles doesn’t know any real lessons at all, except what he’s researched on his own — and if he doesn’t know or he’s uncertain, he feels like he can come to Erik. He’s wanted to, and the only thing stopping him is shyness, nerves, not trauma or fear. He wants to ask questions, try things. It’s such a difference from a Charles who held so many horrible things inside of him, who internalized so much. Charles sniffles wetly and feels bad for rubbing his snot-covered face on Erik’s shirt, but he needs the contact, arches into Erik’s stroking fingers. “I made a right mess again,” he huffs, but it wasn’t because he was feeling stroppy. He still feels a bit guilty. “I was just so worried. I thought I’d hurt you,” he croaks. “You’re alright? You’re not in any pain? How’s your hand? Your leg? Your head?” Charles has to fret. He has to.  
  
"It's OK, sweetheart," he whispers. "I know you made a mess. But I also know how scared you were. One step at a time. How worried you were. You didn't know where I'd gone," he whispers softly. He'd experienced pain while in the other universes, but-when he's home, where he belongs, he breathes a sigh of relief. "No pain. No pain. You're taking such good care of me."  
  
“I didn’t know where you’d gone,” he agrees, practically suffocating himself in Erik’s chest. The relief he’s feeling is completely indescribable, and he’s still winded by it, his chest tight and his breathing uneven. “I didn’t know where you’d gone. I thought I’d hurt you, that you would never wake up. I kept shaking you. I was saying your name and -“ He chokes again, shaking his head, and looks up, his eyes red and wet. “You think I’m taking good care of you?” he rasps.  
  
"I know. You didn't hurt me," Erik soothes gently. "You've been doing so well. You're *very * good at taking care of me. You are very good. My wonderful boy. You didn't hurt me," he promises softly, over and over again. "You were just showing me-" and he doesn't know if he can quantify it yet, if he can even verbalize it. "What you needed to. But there's no pain. Safe and sound," he boops Charles on the nose.  
  
Safe and sound. Charles laughs at the touch to his nose, a watery, hoarse giggle, everything inside of him blooming at the praise. He’s desperate for it at the moment, not at all ashamed of receiving it, and it soothes everything that got bent out of shape inside him. “I don’t remember what happened,” he admits, quietly, though Erik already knows that. “Are you sure I’m the one who’s meant to have this?” he huffs, and folds himself back into his Dominant. He’s exhausted, even though apparently he just took a nap. It’s been such a long day.  
  
"Oh, yes," Erik answers without hesitation at all. "I have never been more certain of anything. You are meant for me," he says tenderly, and *kisses* the tip of Charles's nose for good measure. It's obvious by now when Charles pulls away that Erik has been through an ordeal more than what they've just shared themselves; he's still red-faced and splotchy and holding back tears, but he happily wraps Charles up in his arms and adjusts their blanket.  
  
Charles settles more fully on Erik’s chest, tugging at him insistently until he lies down again, too. “That’s not exactly what I meant,” he murmurs, but he’s smiling; it’s nice to be assured of that. It’s nice to know that Erik wants him, not the idea of him he can’t quite live up to at the moment. He’s felt sorely lacking, these past few weeks. Perhaps right now is the first time he doesn’t, and all he needed was some reassurance. This was a complex formed from circumstance, not from years of trauma and terror of failure or inadequacy - it’s telling. It’s obvious. “I meant this... power. These abilities. Perhaps the Universe had a bit of a mix-up here,” he snorts. He certainly doesn’t feel like they’re meant to be his.  
  
Erik smiles. "I don't think so. I've seen a lot of things recently. I think it's meant just for you." And in a way, maybe for Erik, too. It might just be that they're the only two with the power, and the conscience, to wield it at all-if such a thing could be wielded, which is not something that either of them tend to consider. It's a heavy weight of responsibility, but of anyone, they're certainly the most equipped to handle it. "I couldn't think of anyone better."  
  
“Hmm,” Charles sighs, his eyelids heavy. He doesn’t want to sleep just yet, but he is exhausted. Truly. “Why me, do you think?” he whispers. It’s something that both other Charles wondered. Why this Charles swallowed the Void while they would have been utterly consumed by it, they didn’t know. They didn’t even know the specifics, only that there was no way it would be possible for them, even one who had been classified Omega-level. The Universe didn’t say exactly. But this Charles, right here, is somehow capable. It did promise that, and it brought them here to give him the best shot at managing it. To give Erik the best chance at teaching him to, at guiding him. The Universe wears his collar, after all. “And if I’m meant to, why is it... I mean, surely I should be better at it by now, shouldn’t I? Do you really think I’m doing well?”  
  
"I really do," Erik whispers back. "Without a single doubt. And you will get better at it, as the time comes for you to learn, and the more ready you are to know, and the more equipped we both are. There is no fault of your own, there is no failure on your part, dearest. This is a challenge no one else could possibly hope to match. You are doing magnificently, and I am so very proud to be your Dominant."  
  
“Oh,” Charles whispers, and his voice cracks on it. He’s not sure where Erik was, but there’s something different now. Or maybe it’s just that it’s exactly what he needs to hear, and he’s swimming in it, glowing, smiling so hard his cheeks hurt even as his eyes droop. “Mmm. Can I stay here for tonight?” Charles asks, and then yawns, his ear pressed to Erik’s chest. “I still want my own room, if that’s alright, but for tonight?” Another yawn, and he pulls closer into Erik, wriggling as he gets comfortable. “I know it’s not nighttime. Tired, though.” He pauses, and then his eyes blink open. “Do you really think walking by the stream is dangerous? I’m just a bit clumsy. I could just as easily fall walking down the stairs.” Apparently this is what his brain has decided is important to come back to.  
  
"Mm-hmm," Erik whispers. "But you will be careful, because that is what I expect. I'm apprehensive about you walking alone out there because you have injured yourself before. And I don't like the idea of you hurting yourself. Your foot is still healing, so let's take it easy as possible. You are a little bit clumsy," Erik's nose wrinkes up, fond.  
  
“I have the sudden urge to climb trees,” Charles giggles, his eyes fluttering closed again, relief and calm sopping whatever was left of his energy as he relaxes and listens to Erik’s heartbeat. It takes a lot out of him, to use his abilities in any real capacity, Erik is noticing. After these fits, where there used to be nosebleeds and screeching agony, there’s just exhaustion. He just gets a bit sleepy. “And - and other dangerous activities, which I can’t think of at the moment. I’m not sure how I would skydive from here, but I could try. Pole vaulting, perhaps? I’m sure I could fashion one of those. That would drive my protective Dominant wild, I reckon." And he might like the idea of it a little too much.  
  
Erik lets out a warning rumble even at the teasing. "Perhaps save the Olympics for when you are fully healed," he laughs. "If only to spare me an additional heart attack." He drops his head onto Charles's, tucked safely under his chin, and discreetly wipes his eyes. He's not *sad*. He's just so, so overcome with gratitude and love it has nowhere else to go but from his eyes, it seems.  
  
It’s a nice rumble. Very effective, most of the time, in keeping Charles in line, but it also sometimes has the effect of exciting him. It’s really quite inconvenient for Erik. Or maybe not, depending. “What if my goal is to see how many heart attacks I can inspire?” he teases, and he’s slurring, just a bit, drifting off, but he’s not done chatting yet. It feels good to chat like this. It’s what they should have done before, and did, and now they’re back here and he’s spending the night in Erik’s bed and he’s comfortable. He’s very comfortable. “You see, my Dominant is so protective, he gets so worried for me. It’s just so adorable to see him fret and growl, how could I not? Besides, apparently he wants me to exercise, though I fail to see why, and what better way than pole vaulting."  
  
It earns him quite another well-deserved growl. "Mm-mm," he vibrates against Charles's cheek. "I shall certainly dictate what is acceptable exercise." And he can think of plenty of things. Some healthy and some strenuous in a different way. He laughs, though. He thinks they're both a little too tired for more than petting and kissing, but it makes him feel warm. Knowing that Charles loves him, that Charles liked intimacy with him. He kisses Charles's neck. This is nice. Just being able to chat. To check-in. To recalibrate. It's the kind of thing he's missed so much in the brief moments he was gone, moments to him that were like an eternity. So much love and joy and sorrow packed into a small visit to the Otherworlds. But this world, with his Charles, despite it all. This is where he belongs.  
  
“Lazing about and reading?” he asks, grinning sleepily, sighing happily when Erik kisses his neck. He’s not quite sure what’s gotten into his Dominant, except that he’s so overwhelmingly relieved and exhausted that he can’t think on it too much. Right now, he’s just grateful for it. He’s just warm with it, practically senseless with it, unable to keep his eyes open, unable to do much of anything but curl into Erik’s side. “That counts as exercise. I’m sure I could find research to support it. And I can’t hurt myself while doing that, so surely my overprotective Dominant will approve. But what a shame, there would be nothing to growl and pound his chest at. Maybe I'll try sword swallowing, I do have time to pick up hobbies."  
  
"Mmm," Erik agrees, and he starts laughing. It's small at first, but then it turns into big, hiccupping giggles as he finally loses his marbles. He buries his head in Charles's shoulder and just laughs and laughs.  
  
Charles blinks, and then he giggles, too. It takes a bit of effort but he rolls himself completely on top of Erik (and they’re still naked and it makes him flush, shiver, he’d forgotten somehow and now there’s so much bare skin against him and he makes sure to wriggle up to avoid anything untoward) and laughs, and nuzzles into him, and kisses all over his face. His jaw and both cheeks and his nose and his forehead and his brow and back down to his cheeks and nose, still giggling, too. “What? What are you laughing at? I was being very serious and you’re being rude. See if I have another check-in again, I’ll just do what I please.” He gets more distracted by his kissing, over and over and over.  
  
"Sword-" Erik loses his composure again. "Sword-swallowing," he waggles his eyebrows with an incredibly mischievous grin, his green eyes alight in a way Charles rarely sees. When Erik is truly amused, full of mirth; Charles brings it out in him, but even before the memory reset, it was never as much as he'd have liked. He's needed to laugh like this since the moment he saw Edith Lehnsherr turn around from her spot prepping vegetables at the counter, he's needed it because if he doesn't laugh he's going to dissolve and bounce off the floor in a trillion disintegrated atoms.  
  
But Charles would never let that happen, anyway. He needs those atoms not disintegrated. Now he makes a high, embarrassed noise, his cheeks red even as he laughs, too, laughs and laughs and gently nudges at Erik’s shoulder, still peppering kisses all over his face. He can’t help it. He can’t help it, he’s so relieved and there are tears on his cheeks again but they’re not sad tears. They’re really not. “You _would_ like that, wouldn’t you?” he scoffs, but he’s not really scoffing. Actually, it might be a real question, and his heart clangs around in his chest a little, tight with nerves and not true anxiety. Erik said all those things earlier and he’s still not sure which ones he intends to make good on, except that he knows he wants to find out. He wriggles on top of him, finally hiding his face into Erik’s neck again. He’s smiling. Of course he’s smiling, and wrapping his legs around Erik in the best impression of an octopus he can manage. He’s going to be embarrassed and nervous when he wakes up like this against Erik’s chest, if he falls asleep like this at all, but he’ll deal with it then. That sounds like a problem for future Charles.  
  
Erik's grin turns practically predatory, that same dark, luxurious Dominion always waiting behind the corner and riled up at a moment's notice. "I plan to make good on every single one of those things," he murmurs in a growling purr. "But for right now, I think someone's pretty sleepy," he wraps Charles up tight, gets them both comfortable with Charles settled right on his chest, and lets out a long, slow exhale. He's missed this so much. It's only been a little while, but he's really missed it. The idea of Charles falling asleep against him fills him with joy he can't quite verbalize, and he won't, because he doesn't want to pressure Charles into doing something he isn't comfortable with. But for right now, he is grateful.   
  
Charles lets out a sharp, startled breath too. For one, he apparently projected again; that little spark of connection between them, usually silent, usually dormant, and most of the time not two-way. Erik hears or he does and not both. It feels two-way now, because he _knows._ He knows exactly how Erik feels, how much he likes this. It’s frustrating, when it quiets again, but he’s too sleepy to fret over it right now. Erik is right. He’s very sleepy, and he’s insistent on having his own room for whatever reason, on sleeping in his own bed but for tonight he’s _grateful,_ too. He’s comfortable. Erik is warm beneath him and the blankets are soft around him and Erik isn’t gone and he _wants Charles,_ he wants to make this work with Charles exactly as he is, and that’s enough to settle him. There’s so much more that needs to be done, that they need to figure out and talk through and explore, but it can wait until they’ve slept. “Good night, Erik,” he whispers, and lets sleep slowly take him, dragging his Dominant down with him. They both need the rest.  
  
"Good night, dear-heart," Erik whispers back, kissing him on the forehead, letting himself be taken under by the gentle wave of Charles's mind. He's exhausted, in every way, from the recent experiences to his lack of rest the previous night. But this here, this is good. He holds Charles to him protectively in his arms and lets his eyes drift closed, mostly with Charles's help; it's very rarely of his own accord these days. Sleeping doesn't come naturally to Erik, who is, as Charles noted, such a light sleeper in general that of course he'd been worried. But it melts away.


	110. running all the red lights (who do you think you are?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _bluebird_ , charles bukowski  
> ii. _the cap: the price of a life_ , roman frister

Charles wakes up disoriented and sore. It’s not panic, really; just sleepy confusion, because he isn’t used to it. He rarely sleeps with more than a sheet in his own bed, mostly because he’s been unbearably hot as summer kicks into full gear but aside from being sweaty - it’s a balmy July morning, and it happens to be Charles’ birthday, actually, though he doesn’t remember - he notices immediately that there’s skin sticking to his, that he has to vaguely peel himself off another human being to lift his head properly. It’s Erik, of course. It’s Erik and he remembers why he’s so sore, so achy, in places he’s not used to aching and his cheeks are as hot as the rest of him, hair curled against his temple. It’s getting irritating, how long it is, how it gets in his face and sticks to him, but it’s the last thing on his mind as he watches Erik’s sleeping face, his Dominant still pulled under by Charles’ influence.   
  
He looks calm, relaxed. Peaceful. Charles’ heart beats in his chest, his pulse races. His throat is dry. He takes a shaky breath and tries to squash all those butterflies in his belly, all those nerves, but they’re still there. Much more innocent than Erik thought they were, it’s never been fear. He kisses Erik’s forehead. His cheek. His nose. And his hand touches Erik’s chest, not exploring, but feeling the bareness, the muscle, the light sheen of sweat. It’s new, and different, and there are reasons he doesn’t think he wants it to be every morning that are very complex and tangled up, but this morning he might as well take advantage of it. He listens to Erik’s breathing. He’s still asleep, but not gone. Even with that connection between them dulled and snapped, he knew when Erik wasn’t here. He’s here now, just sleeping. Just peaceful and sleeping. Charles soothes himself with it, kissing Erik’s eyelids while he can, his own breathing picking up.  
  
Today is a day Erik's been looking forward to for quite some time, actually. There's not a hint of it in Erik's mind, sequestered away where Charles can't find if he doesn't go looking; for once having the advantage of surprise and he's taken full stock of it today. Locked away with it is excitement, for once being able to truly surprise Charles with something wonderful, something unanticipated, something thoughtful that he's been preparing for, for months. He's still asleep when Charles wakes up, mumbles something under his breath that isn't wakefulness, but sleepy-soothing comfort, his arms gentle against Charles's back as he snoozes and his dreams tumble around, catches of whispers that Charles dulls unconsciously so that they don't hurt him. No pain, no fear. No screaming nightmares. His eyelids flutter under the kiss, but his face remains relaxed, thoroughly conked out while Charles explores of him what he wishes. There's a deep, abiding trust there, a ping of unconscious pleasure everywhere Charles touches. Even in his deepest dreams, Erik loves being touched by him.  
  
The truth is, this is likely the only time in their shared life together where Erik will have the advantage of surprise, ever again. It’s his only real opportunity, because even if he actively tries not to, even before his telepathy developed to this point, he always found out. He always knew eventually, and with Erik there was a Bond to dodge, too, those things often became apparent. But he doesn’t, now, with their Bond silent. With his telepathy shaky at best. So he’s oblivious, and much more preoccupied with something else. The nerves are just growing inside of him; the butterflies are wild in his belly, fluttering and fluttering as Erik continues to sleep. He’s far too shy while Erik is awake, but he’s shy now, too, and he didn’t expect that. His heart jumps when he touches Erik’s chest and Erik’s breath hitches, but he’s not awake. He doesn’t seem awake. Charles bites his lip and glances down, watching his own fingers as they slowly begin to explore, just Erik’s chest, just soft, fleeting touches. He comes across a scar and traces it, wondering if it still hurts at all, if Erik remembers where it came from; not wanting to know, and wanting, too. Before, Erik didn’t have to tell him. Charles heard the memories like echoes on the skin. He doesn’t now. There’s so much to learn, now, and some of those things are sad but most things are thrilling. He holds his breath and lightly touches a nipple, his own eyes closing for some reason; would that feel good, if Erik was awake to feel it? Would it feel good if Erik touched him there? He doesn’t know. But it’s thrilling, it’s so thrilling.  
  
Some of the scars are more obviously born of pain than others, but it's hard to tell; deep, circular porous ones that burn his flesh white, raised and gnarly ropes and cords, scratches that might be letters or numbers. But there are others, too; the one above his lip that's thin and wispy, decades old. The ones around his knees, from slipping and sliding in the gravel too often. Falls out of trees and fights with friends gone astray. When Charles did know, he tended to remember more than Erik really did. There's just too many, they all fuzz into nothing unless attention is called to them. But on one particular touch to his nipple Erik's chest tenses right up against his hand, warm, and he inhales a bit of a stutter. But Charles is good even when he can't remember much, so he doesn't yet wake.  
  
Charles gasps at that, his hand freezing suddenly on Erik’s chest. All those fluttering butterflies rise up in his belly again, and he bites his lip, staring down at his fingers again. Erik isn’t awake. But if he was, would he like it? Was that a good reaction? It’s not like he can tell. But perhaps he’s feeling bold, or maybe just inquisitive, curious, because he does it again. He rubs his thumb right over Erik’s nipple, gently, watching for any reaction; he wants to know what happens. He’s desperate to know, actually.  
  
Erik's mind practically rolls over, lazily like a big cat who caught someone sneaking into its den, and he lets out a low rumble that sounds distinctly like Charles's name. Maybe it's in his mind or on his lips. It's hard to say, and it's hard to say if he's still asleep, to be honest. The way his mind works, he's not fighting against Charles's influence or fighting for consciousness, more that he has an intrinsic awareness at all times, and he's certainly not dead to the world. Charles can tell he's soft, and mischievous, and amused, even when he isn't fully awake.  
  
There’s so much missing from Charles’ perception, but what he does know is that that rumble absolutely vibrates through him, sending shocks through his whole body, making him shiver near violently. He feels like prey, Erik the sleeping predator, his heart practically pounding in his ears. But it didn’t sound upset, certainly. In fact, it was downright encouraging. When will he be bold enough to do this again? So he bites harder at his lip and keeps rubbing, then bends down slowly until his lips touch the nipple he’s neglected, his own pulse jumping because to him, to this Charles, it feels exceptionally brave. He doesn’t know if Erik will like it, but now seems the time to try. He looks up to watch, nervous, waiting. Because it’s only a matter of time, isn’t it? Until he gets caught, just like this?  
  
"Mmhmm," Erik rumbles at last, and that's when he tips over into wakefulness. His hand raises to feather in Charles's hair, to keep him exactly where he is. "Good morning," Erik purrs down at him, and suddenly he's trapped by Erik's legs, to where he can feel the evidence of this morning's ministrations in the hot, hard length pressed against Charles's inner thigh. Held to Erik's chest and body so his eyes can slide open to regard his pretty submissive through a hazy, lidded gaze. "Certainly do not stop on my account," he vibrates a rumbling, deep, and quite-affected encouragement.  
  
Charles squeaks, his eyes wide and startled, because he hadn’t thought this far ahead. Of course Erik would be - hasn’t he found himself just like this many a morning, squirming beneath the bedsheets? It happened yesterday, which feels like ages ago, and Erik said it’d happened to him, too. And now he’s trapped, and wriggling about certainly doesn’t help, and he gasps when he lifts his head and Erik’s fingers tug at his hair. “Good morning,” he whispers, hoarse, his voice cracking just a bit. “You’re -“ hard, he finishes, but not only is such an obvious observation, he’s far too embarrassed to say it, cheeks glowing bright pink in the morning light streaming through the window.  
  
"Mmm-mmm," Erik says on a rumble that sounds almost suspiciously like a moan. "What am I? Tell me what I am." His voice is slow and steady and full of Dominion. He traps Charles's ass against his thigh with a hand against both still-smarting marks. "And I wonder, are you, Charles? Tell me what you are." The Command is a low purr.  
  
What comes out of his mouth is a helpless moan, his cheeks even hotter as he tries to squirm in Erik’s grip, truly the prey that got caught tip-toeing around the den. He nods, because how could he lie? He’s imagined this. Of course he’s imagined it, and maybe it’s not what he wants everyday, right now, but how could he deny how exciting it is to wake up in Erik’s bed like this? His breathing is so uneven. “Hard,” he mumbles, as quietly as he can, hoping Erik might not hear him. And he’s rubbing against Erik’s stomach, definitely affected, wriggling. “And sore,” he adds, gasping on it, clenching on nothing except the memory of Erik - of Erik - he closes his eyes, breath catching again. _Jesus_.  
  
"Mmm," Erik grins, because he can hear the end of that thought, but he wants more. Tracing those tenuous lines. "Memories of me what? Hm. Use your words. You know I don't respond well to vagueness," he gives Charles's cheek a light slap. A silent entreaty to keep still, to submit to Erik's mercy even first thing in the moment.  
  
Charles takes a harsh breath, then visibly winces; it’s not exactly the reaction Erik is looking for, he imagines, but it’s not because he was slapped. In fact, that made him gasp again, a soft, undeniably excited noise. Erik knows his reactions well enough not to need the Bond, but Charles hides in his neck, making a different noise now. It’s vaguely pained, or maybe just sad. He wriggles again anyway, despite the warning, and he’s still plenty excited, which just makes him more restless.  
  
Erik reaches up and strokes his face, tucking his hair behind his ear. "Tell me, sweetheart," he murmurs half-lidded, the Command warm and careful. Still dedicated to Charles's comfort and pleasure even when he's barely awake, because it's built into every breath he takes outward.  
  
Charles offers a small, reassuring smile, putting his hand over Erik’s as if he can keep it to his cheek, warm and comforting. He doesn’t want less touch, he wants more. He definitely wants more. “Hurts?” he says, and it comes out more like a question, his brow furrowed. He takes Erik’s hand and brings it to his temple, shivering violently so Erik knows what he means. For just a second, there’s a spark between them, electric and powerful.  
  
"Mmm," Erik rumbles. "No pain," he says, soft and fond and delighted. He strokes his finger where it's put, just a little, and his eyes flutter closed and he lets out a soft noise of pleasure. Barely audible, but Charles hears its echo. "No pain at all," he runs his thumb over Charles's cheek and his leg comes up against his hip to secure him better.  
  
“Mm-mm,” Charles mumbles into Erik’s neck, trying to squirm more now that he’s being held still. It makes him gasp again, eyes fluttering firmly shut as he rubs against Erik’s abdomen again, all that muscle. “Hurts, I think?” And it’s still a question. He brings Erik’s fingers back to his temple insistently, making that quiet, sorrowful noise again. It doesn’t hurt, the way it did before, the times he doesn’t remember. It’s not screeching agony. But he’s sleepy and confused and falling quickly into subspace, and it’s not comfortable. It’s something he wants to tell Erik about. “Hurts,” he sighs again, and settles closer into Erik’s neck, drifting a bit with his eyes closed even as his pulse races.  
  
Erik's eyebrow furrows, now, and he pets Charles's cheek, gently draws a fingertip down that shivery spot along his temple. "You hurt?" he whispers, soft. "Tell me, sweetheart," he encourages, the slow wisp of Command that almost peeks over into an Order simply because he can, because he likes the little zap of electricity it brings.  
  
Charles likes it, too. He sighs at it, eyes fluttering again, threatening to snap open; it feels good. It feels so good, and it all just pools in his belly, hot and persistent. They’re both still covered in a thin layer of sweat; it’s hot today and somehow he’s not uncomfortable anymore, at least not right this moment. When he shifts again, gasping, it’s deliberate. He’s flushed down to his neck, but eventually he remembers to shake his head. “Uncomfortable,” he sighs, frowning. “It’s just uncomfortable. No pain, it’s alright,” he murmurs, rather dreamily, and pats Erik’s chest. That reminds him of all the touching he was doing before, and then he’s restless again.  
  
"I don't imagine it is," Erik whispers, brushing his lips over that sensitive spot next. He likes it when their connection blooms open under the contact, and it brings an unconscious smile to his face. He's been doing so much work, even if he doesn't know about it. There's a level of exhaustion to Erik, too, when he looks closely. A weariness, a tightening near his eyes, whether Charles is just noticing these things for the first time or they're simply becoming more evident the longer that connection stays open, it's very obvious this morning that he's struggling. But it's much nicer to focus on Charles, and pet him, and touch him, than to process the great machinery in his brain. When Charles shifts up against him it makes him grin, and he gives Charles's jaw a little nip of appreciation.  
  
When Charles winces this time, physically recoiling — not from Erik, never really from Erik — it’s to gasp, his eyes closing tightly. He hides in Erik’s neck again a moment later, frowning and fussing and sighing. Their connection has snapped again, everything quieted down, buried. “What’s wrong?” he asks, voice still hoarse from sleep, and reaches up to touch Erik’s cheek. “Was it me? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have woken you. I could put you back to sleep —“ He’d been heading straight for subspace, but he tries to tread water, to keep his head above surface.

* * *

Erik winces, too, but it's mild, almost undetectable without the benefit of the Bond. "Of course not," he whispers softly, running his fingers through Charles's hair. His lips press together because he doesn't want to ruin the moment, he doesn't want to make Charles sad. He doesn't know how to move, and it blurts out of him before he can think of what to do. "I saw-" his head shakes as if he can put the words back in. Knowing Charles, knowing he doesn't want to hide from him and knowing he'll coax it out, he tries to finish but it barely makes a sound. "My mother."  
  
Charles’ brow furrows. He frowns, all the heat in his gut swiftly drained out as he takes a harsh breath. “Your mother?” he prods, quietly. Gently. “In a dream, you mean? I’m so sorry, Erik, I didn’t -“ He bites his lip and disappears further into Erik’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he repeats.  
  
He shakes his head, rubbing Charles's back and drawing him closer with a leg. "You needn't apologize," he murmurs lowly. "You never should, for this." And it's a promise, delivered with a kiss to Charles's temple. And if it had been a dream, as it so often used to be, Erik is accustomed to shaking it off. Actually, he's accustomed these days to dreamless sleep entirely. That's thanks to Charles. "It wasn't a dream," he whispers. What he said before, it clicks into place. It was another place. "She was alive there."  
  
Charles winces again, but tries to hide it, his face mostly ducked too far into Erik’s neck and shoulder anyway. “I should,” he sighs, ashamed, but that’s not what matters. It isn’t what he cares about at this exact moment. “She was alive... where?” he asks, hushed, and tries not to sound too curious. If not a dream, then where?  
  
But Erik cares about it. He lifts Charles's cheek. "Never. It belongs to me. And neither is it out of place." Charles just has more access to Erik now, more access to things under the surface. More than even Erik, at that point, who was very much present in the moment. "You belong to me. There is nothing shameful in that." It's a low rumble, followed by another sweep down Charles's back, his hand settling at his hip, adjusting Charles to curl right up into him, nestle close and comfortable. It takes him a long time to answer Charles's last question. "I think it was another dimension," he whispers.  
  
Charles bites back any argument he has, even as he restlessly shifts atop Erik’s chest, because he’s too preoccupied with something else soon enough. He blinks, waiting to see if Erik will clarify, if he even heard correctly. “Another dimension?” he asks. He looks up, eyebrows furrowed again. “What do you mean?”  
  
Erik knows it sounds silly. "When I left," he whispers. "When you couldn't wake me up. The people you keep seeing. I think it's-" it's the same thing that Charles calls the Universe. A kind of power he's vaguely aware of, now, that he can put a name to. "And I saw-" it's the first time he's said it out loud since. Erik covers his mouth with his hand, shaking his head.  
  
“Oh,” Charles whispers. He won’t say it’s silly. There’s so much he just doesn’t understand, that he can’t comprehend, but he’s learned to stop reeling from it. There’s no use. “And your mother...” He closes his eyes, too. “I’m sorry, Erik. That must have been difficult.” He knows it’s an understatement. He scoots up until he can kiss Erik’s cheek.  
  
"She was there. Ruthie, and _aba_ -" he shakes his head again and again, and closes his eyes. His expression slowly drains out in real time, becoming neutral, becoming calm, toning down as he composes himself and regains control. If he doesn't the pain inside of him will just expand and expand until it has no place to go, until it bursts out of his chest like an alien in a movie. "I know it sounds like a dream." But it wasn't a dream. Erik knows the difference.  
  
“I believe you,” Charles promises. He reaches up to cup Erik’s cheek, his eyes sad, his heart sinking. “I can’t imagine — did you get to speak with them?” He’s not sure if that would hurt worse, but he needs to ask. He doesn’t know how it works. He doesn’t remember that he’s the one who allowed for it, has absolutely no conception that he might have.  
  
Erik nods, swallowing painfully. " _Ima_ was a mutant," he whispers. "Like me." He doesn't know why he said that, only that he's trying to communicate something that's too big to put into words. It's too big, it's too much. He's sorry. He tries to pack it all up and tuck it away inside of himself. He doesn't want to deal with it anymore. He doesn't want it anymore. He doesn't want to know that he brought the suffering of this world into her world, that he brought those memories to her, that she _knows_. That his _worst possible fear_ , from one of the _worst moments in his life_ , is realized. He sits up out of bed all of a sudden, as if he can physically distance himself from the downward spiral of his thoughts. "I thought-I thought you coul-could help me breakfast," he stutters. "Me make breakfast. Help me make breakfast."  
  
Charles gasps, making a short, winded noise, not at all expecting to be suddenly jostled. He doesn’t get up, even still. He winds his arms around Erik’s neck, squeezes, and shakes his head.  
  
Erik apologetically touches his face-he ensured that Charles would not be _harmed_ by any sudden movement, but he didn't mean to startle him, either. He doesn't know what Charles means, he doesn't know anything. "Gotta eat," he whispers. "Breakfast." And shower, and Postures, and good things to fill the howling chasm of his mind.  
  
Charles just shakes his head again, burrowing into Erik. Squeezing around his neck and, after a moment of brief hesitation, tightening his legs around his waist, too, despite being painfully aware of how bare they both still are.  
  
Erik wraps his arms around Charles and holds him in place, but Charles doesn't seem to need any help in that arena since he's glommed on for all he's worth. "Don't want to get up?" he croaks, his voice warbling again the way it does when he's holding back a barrage of emotions.  
  
Another head-shake. Charles stays exactly where he is in Erik’s neck, but he’ll find it’s a bit wetter now. “No,” he answers, finally, hoarse.  
  
"Why?" Erik asks, and it should be Commanding and Dominant but it just comes across soft and vulnerable. Why can't they make breakfast and do their routine and feel good and forget about this, and put it out of Erik's mind, and out of his body and out of his spirit and-"Please," he gasps, pitifully, shaking in Charles's arms.  
  
Charles frowns, and then abruptly rolls over. He only does it so he can pull the blanket around himself, because — well, because, and then he tugs Erik, at his arm, his eyes deliberately closed. “Come hold me,” he demands, voice cracked. “Okay?”  
  
"'Kay," Erik acquiesces, situating himself back on the bed so he can wrap Charles up in his arms again, focused on keeping himself calm and still. Calm and still, calm and still and calm and still. Calm and-he puts his head on Charles's shoulder, his body vibrating. Calm.  
  
When Charles shakes his head this time, it’s much more insistent. He reaches out, eyes barely opened as if he’s afraid to open that, and taps Erik’s nose. Then he taps it again. “No,” he says, frowning, almost admonishing. It’s unclear why he’s lost his voice, why he isn’t talking nearly as much, but he means it.  
  
Erik looks up, his eyes dull and lifeless, but a closer examination reveals the weariness again. The grief. The lines of horror. He keeps it still, he keeps it tucked inside the cage inside his heart so it will never get out. _there's a bluebird in my heart that/wants to get out/but I'm too tough for him,_ \- "No what?" he rasps, his voice gravelly.

* * *

“No,” Charles whispers again, and moves his fingers under Erik’s eyes, rubbing gently like he can rub out all of those lines, all of that weariness, all of that pain. He pulls a blanket over Erik, pats him like he plans to tuck him in. “No hiding it. No pushing it away. Come here,” he demands again, and kisses Erik’s forehead. “Come here.”  
  
"OK," Erik rasps, pressing his lips together to try and keep his voice from cracking and he wraps his arms around Charles tightly, and he doesn't want to hide, but he doesn't want this. He doesn't want to face this. Not this. Not like this. Never. He had a bad day yesterday and he messed up Charles's routine and he was supposed to do better again today and all he can think about is how furious his mother looked, how he _brought that to her world_ , how she-how-"No I can't, I can't do this, I can't, no I _can't_ do it. Gotta make-make, make breakfast," he weakly gestures his hand. " _Don't_." His eyes close like he can close out the world.  
  
Charles closes his eyes, too. He doesn't want to force Erik to sort through this. He doesn't want to all but tie him to the bed with his limbs and insistence and make him feel something he isn't ready for. But if not right now, when? If they don't talk about it now, when will they? It'll just be another thing forced down in Erik, and he doesn't have access to it. He can't see it. He put his hands over his ears and sighs, uncomfortable. "Please," he tries, rather weakly. "I'm sorry, I -- I did it again, but I'll be here this time. Please?"  
  
Erik never wants him to see it. Ever. _Never_. And the only reason he knew about it was because he _saw_ it in vivid detail in Erik's mind. He's never talked about it. He's never alluded to it. He's done a very good job suppressing it down and only ever touching the barest edges, burning his fingers on the heated element. But this was unprecedented. Erik isn't ready for it and he can't talk about it and he _never will be_ , and _he never will_. The answer is _never_. If Charles didn't coax it out of him, it would burn an ember in his heart until a block of coal fell out of his chest and he died. And-and it's not as important, anyway. It's not important. "You did it?" he whispers. "You're here?" Where did he go? Erik's mind is sluggish and slow and damaged. So, so _damaged_.  
  
With another quiet sigh, not prompted by Erik, Charles shakes his head again. Turns out he's rotten at expressing himself, too. He tries to curl closer, keeping the blanket carefully wrapped between them, but pressing his cheek into bare skin. It helps. Whatever he'd meant, it doesn't matter. "Would you like to forget about it?" he whispers. He doesn't know what makes him ask. "I won't take you anymore. We won't go anywhere. Just here. We'll just stay here."  
  
Erik touches his cheek. "Of course I'll go," he whispers. He doesn't know where. But anywhere Charles would like to take him. He'll go. He could never forget about it. He keeps focusing on trying to make himself still and small, but he nods. Of course he'll go. And Charles will be there, too. He understands now. He doesn't really. He doesn't know what's going on. His mind feels like it's splintering in half. All he can cling to is Charles. Charles said _come here_ , so he is here. He'll never leave. He's here. "Take me," he whispers, his eyes pressed shut.  
  
When Charles shakes his head again, it’s sad. It’s sad but Erik can’t feel it; maybe he can see it, feel it in the frown against his shoulder. The way he’s all tensed up again. “No,” he decides. “You can’t come anymore. We’ll just stay here. I’ll help,” he promises. “It’s going to be alright. I’ll help.”  
  
"No," Erik whispers. "Show me where. Take me. You asked. I decide." Erik doesn't even know what he's arguing against, and he's so weary, and so tired, and so miserable and panicked that he doesn't know if he can fight it out and he won't Order it because he doesn't even know what it is, and he always feels fifty steps behind and he can still feel-and he can still hear-and he can't, he can't cope. He never could cope, it's someone else's turn, it's someone else's problem. It can't be Erik's problem anymore. It can't be. He can't hold it anymore. And he died, and left Charles alone. He wasn't held down in the dirt. The picture is still on the coffee table in _Sisim_. Charles is alone. He's dead. He's dying.   
  
Charles makes a noise that sounds distinctly like he’s choking, on air or his own rising grief and panic, he isn’t sure. He doesn’t even know what he means, if he’s honest, except that he doesn’t want Erik to fight him. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He doesn’t know what to do. He closes his eyes hard enough for everything to leak out, and he takes a breath, and he pushes. Pushes out. All the pressure building up in his ears, behind his temple. He pushes, and pushes, and breathes. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s uncomfortable. Everything feels like it’s popping inside of him, wound too tight, vibrating. He gasps, and chokes, and continues to breathe, and to push, and pop, pop, pop. His ears are ringing. "It's going to be alright," he promises.  
  
Erik clutches onto Charles with everything he has, because he can't lose him, too. He can't. He buries his nose in Charles's neck, inhaling the scent of his skin to try and drown out the stench of ash and the horrible, Dark Place that holds the thoughts he's never let himself think, the intrusive nature of his own being that punishes and punishes for all time. " _Kol beseder_ ," he rasps, hoarse, holding on and petting Charles as best as he can. He has to be there for Charles. He is the Dominant. He can push through this.  
  
That’s not what Charles wants, nor what he plans to do. It’s going to be alright. He’s going to make sure it’s alright, because Erik isn’t going to get better if he doesn’t, and there’s simply no reality where he’ll let him break. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to do it, either. He can’t hear Erik’s mind. He can’t hold their Bond. It keeps snapping, it keeps turning off. It’s uncomfortable and it leaves him unsettled, leaves him sometimes colder. Charles takes a breath. “It’s alright,” he promises again, and he’s smiling even as everything snaps and cracks and shifts inside of him. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you. Just go back to sleep, okay?”  
  
"No I don't wanna," Erik responds, much unlike Charles's big growly Dominant and far more like a scared child. He buries deeper, clutching on with shaking fingers. " _Lo, ani lo rotze_ ," he mumbles, struggling to keep the tears out of his eyes.  
  
Charles shakes his head, and sucks in a breath. Shakes his head again. “It’s alright, I’ll wake you up,” he promises, his voice faltering. “It’s alright. Just go to sleep. Just go to sleep for me, Erik.” He doesn’t know what happens after this, he just knows Erik can’t be awake right now. He knows that. He takes a breath, and takes a breath, and he knows Erik is getting tired but he is, too. His ears are so full. With pressure, with water, he doesn’t know. Is he drowning? Is Erik drowning? He touches Erik’s chest, tries to feel for his breathing as he gets plunged down, not into lovely hazy sleepy subspace like he was earlier, but a different kind of haze. It’s alright. He’s a bit frightened, but it’s alright. “I’ll wake you up,” he whispers again. “Just get some rest. Just get some more rest, darling."  
  
Erik finds he doesn't have much of a choice either way and he ends up curled up into Charles's arms rather than the other way around, tucked into the blanket and rolled up in a little Erik-ball. Well, a large one. It would be comical if it wasn't extraordinarily miserable. As he sinks lower and lower into the abyss of sleep, he gradually relaxes, but his body holds onto that tension stubbornly. His eyes are all screwed up, moving behind the lids, and he twitches uncomfortably as if trying to hang onto wakefulness. He mumbles something in Russian under his breath.  
  
Charles doesn’t know what he can about that, really. Normally he would, or at least he would try; he would focus, and if that didn’t work, he would find that place behind Erik’s ear and pet and murmur to him until he was more relaxed, but he’s fading, too. Fast. It’s disorienting, and he sighs and gasps, eyes closed tightly, or open, maybe. He’s not sure. He’s not positive if he’s sleepy or exceptionally awake. Erik is sleeping. He can hear his breathing, feel his heartbeat, his pulse. Is Charles? Is he going to? He knows right now he needs Erik, but Erik needs to sleep. But he needs him. Does that make him weak? Pathetic? There’s nothing he can do. His ears are ringing. It doesn’t feel like he’s holding Erik anymore. It doesn’t feel like he’s touching anything anymore. Is he falling asleep? Is he dying? No, he can't be. Erik needs him. He needs Erik. He really needs Erik right now.  
  
But Erik is asleep. That much is certain. Even tensed and miserable, he isn't conscious, and that isn't as much his choice as it is an overwhelming inevitability when faced with Charles's abilities. Charles who is always trying to give him what he needs even when he doesn't always know himself. But something is happening, that is for sure. He's pushed Erik under, but something else is pushing back. Or more accurately, someone. The veil is getting thinner, and Charles doesn't know if he's asleep or he's awake, but things look a little different. It's subtle at first, just a shimmer. Charles is at the intersection, an apex, the top of the point where things curl and twist upside down. Not wrong, not inside out, just different. Someone went right where they would have turned left. When he looks back at the bed, Erik isn't there.  
  
Charles has been pushing this whole time, but he doesn’t know what to. He doesn’t know where. He knows he’s disoriented, and confused, and everything is pressing, and pressing, and pressing. Pushing, or pulling? Pulling away, pulling toward. He’s vaguely sick, but there’s no pain. It’s more like he’s dizzy, like he’s been turned round and round a few thousand times, stumbled. He knows what he needs, more than anything he can think of: he needs Erik. He needs Erik, which is why when he has a sense of his body again and reaches out beside him and finds he’s not there, panic immediately blooms in his chest. Everything spins and shakes and he gasps, trying to stand to his feet. He wobbles.

* * *

But of course something, or rather some _one_ catches under his arm before he can fall, helping him to his feet. He's not in their bedroom anymore, but he is in the manor. He can vaguely sense a bustle about the place, occupied by many minds in the sense that they're not alone, there's the pitter-patter of feet along his consciousness as though they're sliding through the halls. "Now, now, how many times must you be told not to run through the corridors...-" the voice that greets him is warm, and when he looks up, it's too a shocked older man with both (rather white) eyebrows raised.   
  
"Well." There are many lines on his weathered face, and while one hand is under Charles's arm, the other is occupied by a sleek wooden cane by which he uses to support his weight. Charles can't quite tell his age, but he's well past his sixties, with a full head of snow white curly hair. " _Kochanie_ ," he laughs gently. "You're looking rather youthful today." And it's odd. He's got a bit of an accent, like his own Erik, but it's different. And the language in his thoughts, the way they turn and form over themselves. It's different, somehow. Not that he's precisely a different person, but the way he thinks about things is different, the concepts he's inherently familiar with are different, as though his native language itself isn't the same.  
  
Considering Charles can’t hear those thoughts, it doesn’t make much of a difference. He’s never been called that particular term of endearment by the Erik he knows, though — his Erik? Is there such a thing? There must be, even though Charles knows he doesn’t precisely fit. Erik told him so. He promised that Charles was his Charles, that it didn’t matter that he had a head empty of memories and abilities that don’t want to work. He’s dizzy, still, and maybe a little sick, or just confused, he isn’t sure. Winded, perhaps, and staring because Erik warned him this was possible but he had no idea how he’d done it, and certainly no conception of how to do it again, let alone like this. He sways even with the hand on his arm, woozy, his ears still popped. Like he’s just gotten off a long, long flight. Motion sickness, maybe. Does he get motion sick? He must, and his thoughts are tumbling around and he wishes he could read minds now. Apparently even this Erik is hidden from him. “Hi,” he greets, lamely, and his voice croaks. He looks down and he’s grateful to at least be wearing pants. Not so grateful that it makes everything spin again, his eyes closing as everything blacks out for a moment.   
  
“ _Hgh_ ,” he adds, rather intelligently. He won’t be sick, but maybe it’s a close call.  
  
Erik murmurs something that sounds like _chesk_ , or _check_ , and it's warm. "Come along," he adds in English, guiding Charles to a small off-room that leads to a wide-windowed study, and leads him to sit down. He pulls another chair over from the side and lowers creakily into it, setting his cane aside and placing both hands on either of Charles's knees, as if in wonder. "Try and take a few deep breaths," he encourages, the thread of Order soft in his tone. He's a little out of place, here, but this Erik knows him all the same. There's recognition, for any version of Charles, but he can tell even without his abilities that Erik is surprised. Not by his presence, per se, but just by how he looks, the way he is.  
  
Charles struggles for a few more moments, taking harsh, steadying breaths just like he’s told to, dropping his head down closer between his knees. Eventually everything stops spinning, at least to the point where he can lift his head. His ears are still ringing, but it’s better. He’ll take what he can get, here. “I’m not in Kansas anymore, am I?” he snorts, even though it comes out weak and raspy. It’s likely a result of Erik playing that movie every time he gets a chance, which Charles keeps reminding him is not the point of picking a movie for movie night. It’s supposed to be a different movie. Off track, now. Everything’s still shaky and he sucks in a breath and tries to smile. “Sorry. I’m rather dizzy,” he mumbles, though it’s clearly an understatement his posh accent highlights. “I didn’t mean to --” Fall on you? Drop in? He’s not sure what’s appropriate here.  
  
Erik touches Charles's face. His own is still reserved. There's something a bit harsher about it. Less gentle, less careful, is perhaps the best word to describe it. He's still Erik, but the way he moves and the way his expressions shift is just altered in such a subtle way, it's challenging not to notice as it all weaves together to form a pattern that his unconscious brain recognizes, or rather-doesn't. Telepathy or no telepathy. "I don't believe you are," is Erik's dry response. He's still in possession of vivid green eyes, and they trace Charles's every feature with muted awe. " _Ojej, no nie mów,_ " he shakes his head. "You're in Westchester, New York," he explains after a startled second. "At _Greymalkin_ Manor."  
  
There are plenty of things to latch onto here, and Charles is still too properly dizzy to sort his way through them. Either way, because he looks too much like Erik not to, Charles leans into that hand after a moment’s hesitation. “So am I,” he laughs, wincing at the sound a moment later; not a real headache, it’s just ringing. Echoing. Everything around him feels utterly and completely real, it’s just that he doesn’t. He can’t quite explain it. “Or I was. Could you give me a year? A date? I’m very turned around.” He sounds like a time traveler from some old sci-fit hit, and the thought is so ridiculous it makes him snort, his head ducked down.  
  
Erik rubs the edge of his thumb along Charles's temple, a practiced movement. "It's 1993," he murmurs, as if he's normally used to answering that question from a version of his Charles that looks like he stole the baby out of the cradle and ran away. It doesn't do much exactly to determine Erik's age, but he adds, "It's April 5th. You-well, tomorrow-" his eyebrows raise and he clucks his tongue. "Well, I _had_ sent you to the store, but you've come back rather-" he chuckles. His eyes are drawn to the collar at Charles's neck and he lightly runs his fingers over it. He recognizes his own work, but this Charles is so young. Erik didn't collar his Charles until-well. His lips purse. "You aren't-" his mind is whirring. "You're from somewhere different," he deduces, stupidly.  
  
“1993?” he chokes back, uncertain why that’s so surprising. Timelines and all that, it makes perfect sense that they’d be a bit wonky, a bit altered, but it makes him laugh anyway. After it makes him recoil, his forehead scrunched up; now it does hurt, a little. In a sore, achy sort of way. But he doesn’t mind it, either? It would be nice if he could figure this out, but after a moment he settles, less startled, and lets Erik touch him. It’s strange, but it’s comforting. It’s always been strange and comforting, even when he woke up confused and in a terror. It’s much less strange with his Erik now. “I was born in 1991, or so I’m told,” he snorts, because isn’t that a strange thing to say. He lifts his hand, notices it’s shaking, but mostly lays it over Erik’s on his collar. He’s done it with his Erik, too. When he needs the comfort, usually silently, usually with a flush to his cheeks. “Is - are you...?” There’s no way to say _am I your submissive_ without it coming out odd. His cheeks do flush. “It’s July 13th,” he rushes to inform Erik instead. His birthday. He still doesn’t know that.  
  
"Well, I suppose this visit qualifies as something special," Erik smiles down at him. It's firewood dry, but there's something just a bit off about him. Not in a bad way, he's not more or less than Charles's Erik. He's just not the same. He's not timid. He speaks freely, he holds himself with a confident bearing that Commands all the attention in the room not just of the merits of his DS score but because he feels perfectly entitled to it. "And I am," he adds sonorously. "But we didn't meet until quite a while later. You and your _integrationist_ trifle," he huffs. It's not heated (anymore). "You can walk." And then just a trace of the Erik he's familiar with creeps out as his eyebrows knit together as if recognizing he might've said something, well, impolitic. "Ah." He waves a hand and tsks. "Forgive me, I don't intend to be rude." Or to stare, openly.  
  
It’s very close to what he imagines his Erik might be, what he is, when he lets himself be. Forgets to question or make himself smaller, lets himself stretch out instead of coiling up. The _Voice_ , as he’s called it, and it’s quite a wonderful voice. Charles is drawn right to it like a moth to flame, so Erik’s staring can certainly be forgiven. “You are,” he sighs, like he’s relieved. He is. The rest he can mostly wave off, it’s really quite expected even though Erik’s been rather quiet about politics because he doesn’t want to overwhelm Charles, who doesn’t have all the prerequisite knowledge for a good, healthy debate yet, except - “I can’t walk?” he asks, brows scrunched together. It’s not a value judgment, he’s just surprised. And then he realizes something, suddenly. “Oh, I can’t —“ He vaguely gestures to his temple. He shakes his head after a moment. “I mean, rather, I can. Clearly. It’s just it’s not working properly,” he huffs. “So I can’t hear you. If you were assuming as much.” Erik still expects it, sometimes. He tries not to let it hurt every time, to frustrate him.  
  
"You can't _hear_ me?" Erik repeats, his head tilted to the side. For some reason that makes him start to laugh. "There was a point in time where I'd be grateful for that, you know." His nose wrinkles up, amused. "You and your Erik have a very-" he can tell, somehow. "A very different relationship. You must. You weren't shot, you weren't adversaries. Tell me about your telepathy," he says very abruptly, holding up a hand to quell any further off-track commentary. "What do you mean you _can't_ hear me? Tell me about your life, about what's going on."  
  
Charles balks, his eyes wide as he tries to process that. “Excuse me, what? Shot? _Adversaries_? First of all, who _uses_ that word —“ He snorts, unable to help grinning. Sometimes, in those moments he’s learning to be so very grateful for, his Erik’s flair for the dramatic comes right out. He’s adored it, every time. He’d like to see more of it, and this only makes him more assured of that. “No,” he decides on, that gleam to his eyes when he thinks he’s got the clear advantage, when he’s being mischievous and — well, let’s be honest. defiant. It’s even more amusing now, with Erik like this. “You talk first. My throat’s scratchy from the trip, so I need a moment to rest it.” And he wants to know. He’s so incredibly curious, one aspect of Charles that will always exist. That burning, desperate need to understand. The world, everything, but people most of all.  
  
"Who-" Erik covers his mouth, stifling a laugh. This is an Erik who is so assured of himself, so utterly Dominant, that it seems every time Charles does defy him it takes him off guard a little, like he just doesn't expect it. "Don't play _coy_ with me, Charles," he rumbles back dangerously. "I don't care what universe you're from." He gives him a little warning tap on the nose. Their knees are touching, Erik unconsciously leaning forward. "It happened before we met. Officially met. You were always on the news, and I was bitching on the radio. At _you_. And then you got shot."  
  
Sometimes it surprises his Erik, too. When he feels particularly — when he uses the Voice. The way his eyebrows shoot up, arched at him. Charles tries very hard not to shiver, to stifle down that reaction because he’s sure it’s distinctly inappropriate at the moment. Still, it’s delightful. It’s always been delightful, to inspire that surprise, and he reminds himself to keep it up. He wonders if he did it before. He likely didn’t get much of a chance, or Erik — well. Thoughts for another time, aren’t they. “I’ll be as coy as I please, Erik,” he smirks, and then stands, walking over to the window to glance out. There are children out in the garden. He looks over his shoulder, fully intending to walk back over shortly. He tries not to feel as if he already misses Erik’s presence when they’re two feet apart, to want immediately to scurry back, locks his knees together just so he won’t. It’s just that he needed to talk to Erik so badly. He really, really did. He might be avoiding the subject, here, but it’s not any less the truth. “How many students are here? This is a school, yeah?”  
  
Erik rises as well, and settles a hand on his shoulder from behind, the heat of his body radiating outward. He's always been like a furnace. "This is a school," he nods back sternly. "Right now we are just shy of one hundred students." It is difficult to miss how proud Erik sounds of that. Among the other jumble of experiences tumbling through his head, clanging like metal in a dryer. But he can't help it, something in him always has to rise up and quash whenever Charles feels the urge to step out of line, no matter where it happens. "I shouldn't be surprised you've still got a smart mouth. Here I thought age begat wisdom," his lips twitch. "You might be young enough to attend school here but I am very much your Dominant, and you'd best address me as such. Or you will find your visit here quite unpleasant." He grips his fingers into Charles's shoulder pointedly, a flair of Will swatting away that playful defiance like a bug.  
  
Charles reels with it. It’s not that it’s more intense than his Erik; far from it. It’s just that his Erik has been so gentle, so patient and accommodating, and he’s liked that. He probably needed that. But he’d like more of this, too. He knows he would, and he can feel how it comforts and eases him. Even so, Charles grins, bright blue gleaming right over his shoulder and up. Erik is still so tall. The first thing he ever noticed. “I’m not sure you can do much about it, old man. Your bones are creaking,” he teases, but he can’t hide the way he shivers again, either. His face falls after a moment, and all at once he turns, hugging Erik around the middle. Tucking himself in. It feels like Erik, regardless of age. It is Erik. “He’s sleeping,” he whispers, like he wants to reassure himself.  
  
"Oh-" Erik lets out a little noise, startled, but he immediately wraps his arms around Charles and squeezes him close, firm and powerful. "Your Erik is asleep?" he murmurs into Charles's forehead, rubbing his back in gentle circles, giving him soft pats here and there. It's gentler than anyone in this universe expects out of him; anyone except for Charles, perhaps. "Is that why you've come to visit?" he asks warmly.  
  
Charles doesn’t want it to spill out. He doesn’t want to burden this Erik, who surely has his own messes to handle and didn’t ask to be involved with inter-dimensional ones; his Charles just popped off to the store, and to ask him to hold him while he dissolves is utterly wrong, but he can’t help it. His shoulders start to shake, but he doesn’t cry. He sucks it all in. “No, he’s --” He takes a sharp breath. “I don’t know how to help him. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know enough. I can’t hear him. There are so many things I just don’t know, and it’s frustrating, and it’s exhausting, and I know --” His voice cracks, and then dies. He shakes his head again. “I don’t know how to help him,” he repeats.  
  
"You must be about twenty by now," Erik guesses (close enough), and it's a weird response, but Charles can _see_ Erik thinking even if he can't hear him thinking. He seems to conclude whatever it is with a nod that says he understands, even if he doesn't quite understand. "It's in my nature to hide," he murmurs softly. "Come here. I've got you," he adds, twining his fingers through Charles's hair. This Erik has full use of his hands, and he doesn't have a limp. He doesn't have the same scars, at least not on the outside. "If he is anything like me, I promise you that you are helping him. There is a-" and he realizes he's about to, like, start _pontificating about shit,_ so he rolls his eyes at himself and laughs it off. It's a disconnection, one that's served him very well. "You've helped me so significantly," he chooses to say instead. In the moment it's the most sincere thing he's said so far. "I know it must be so frustrating, and so exhausting. You mustn't blame yourself for that. Perhaps I can be of assistance. Maybe that is why you've visited me," he smiles into the top of Charles's hair. "Tell me about what you need, _kochanie_."  
  
“About twenty,” Charles scoffs, though it’s amusing, because it’s not like he remembers the number of years he’s been alive. He didn’t remember his own name before Erik fed it to him. Still, it’s nice to know he has a youthful face; he’s sure he’s been told that before. Erik looks younger, too, when he’s not -- he shakes his head, and takes another shaking breath. “I don’t want to burden you. You didn’t ask for me to drop in like this,” he sighs, frustrated with himself. Still a bit dizzy from the trip, too, so he doesn’t stop leaning on Erik. It’s really only an excuse, because there’s no physical reason for him to nestle his way right into Erik’s chest. He just needs to. “What language is that?” he asks, quietly. If he knows it, it's not like he'd know that he knows it. Sometimes he recognizes that he does before he recognizes what language he's recognizing -- it's disorienting, but convenient, most of the time.  
  
"What _language_?" Erik's eyebrows raise. " _Polish_ ," he supplies. "What language does _your_ Erik speak?" he sounds faintly shocked at the insinuation that it could be different. He keeps rubbing the flat of his palm over Charles's back, in precisely the way it always calmed his own Charles. "You are mine, always. It is no burden. Share with me. Let me take care of you. I am asking you now."  
  
“Hebrew. And about every other language on the planet,” he mumbles into Erik’s shirt, muffled. Some things must be universal, because he relaxes right into those hands, sighs as his eyelids grow heavy and flutter closed. He’s not even sleepy, just thoroughly calmed after he’d worked himself up into a tizzy. It could happen again, but -- “Say it again first,” he demands. He knows it’s silly, but he needs to hear it. It makes him a bit guilty, actually, but he needs to hear it.  
  
Erik can't help grinning for some reason, and it sheds years off of his face. "You are mine," he repeats, low and steady. And if something is wrong, if Charles needs help that his Erik can't provide, then it only stands to reason that he step in. "Always." And he knows Charles can feel it, too. "Let me help, _myszko_."  
  
Charles sighs again, a full-body shiver zipping right through him. It feels nice. He’s sure he won’t go into subspace -- right? Surely not. He’ll just stay above water, just like he needed to back home. He’ll tread. He can tread. “I have amnesia,” he admits, eyes still squeezed close. “I woke up, and I didn’t remember -- anything, really. Not even my own name.” That he was terrified likely goes without saying.  
  
"Oh, Charles," Erik murmurs softly. It's not pitying more than it is empathetic. "I can hardly imagine. You met him afterward? Or beforehand?" he tucks a bit of Charles's hair behind his ear, pressing his lips together disapprovingly. It's far too long. His Erik has been slacking off, he notices unkindly.  
  
He knows he shouldn’t be doing this, but now that he’s here, now that Erik is holding him and soothing him, he can’t help it. Charles’ shoulders begin to shake again, and he takes a breath and holds it to keep it all in. Keep it in. Tread water and keep it in. It’s just that he can’t talk to his Erik about this, because he’ll just make him guilty and upset and he doesn’t want to do that. “Before,” he whispers. “This -” He reaches up, touches his collar. “I was already wearing this. I didn’t remember him. He knew what was happening, but he didn’t know what to expect. I couldn’t -- I didn’t know I was telepathic, because I couldn’t hear him. I still can’t. But he told me I could kill him and everyone if I wasn’t careful, and the world is frozen and --” He’s forgotten to take a breath. He shakes his head. "It's not all bad. Of course it's not. It's not, and some of it has been wonderful, it's just ---" Another head-shake, a sigh of frustration.  
  
Erik puts his hand on Charles's chest. "Deep breath. It's all right. That is what I am here for," he assures firmly. And he's different, too. Not as fragile, maybe, with a strong, strong sense of himself, a sense of foundation that isn't easily rocked. "Go on," he touches Charles's cheek and jaw, his expression unchanged. He's not guilty, and he's not upset. But he does think he's starting to understand. "I cannot imagine it's been easy keeping this all inside. Let it go," he murmurs the Order softly.  
  
It makes him feel guilty, though, that he needs this. Should he need this? Sometimes Erik feels inadequate, and it’s not that. He can assure him, confidently, that it’s not that. He doesn’t need a solid, unfeeling rock, a Dominant who stands above and Orders him without emotion, without struggling himself. It frustrates him when Erik tries. But there’s something, there’s something that he needs, and Erik was falling apart and he couldn’t go to Erik to ask for advice, to ask for guidance, to ask what to do or for comfort and he’d wanted to and he didn’t know how to make it better and he'd really needed his Dominant and -- “I don’t know what to do,” he gasps, and then it goes. It goes, surely, because Erik Ordered it and in any universe, he’s not immune. He listens. “I don’t know what to do, half the time I’m at such a loss. I don’t know how to control any of this, I don’t know how to make it work. I don’t remember what I’m supposed to remember. I can’t read him sometimes. He says all these things about how I know how to read him, how I see him so well, but sometimes I just don’t know, I haven’t the slightest clue what to do or say or what he’s feeling or how to make it better, and all I want --” He can’t. He closes his eyes again and out comes a violent, dry sob, his whole frame wracked by it.  
  
"I know," Erik nods, and he is a pillar, a solid rock that Charles can rise up the tide against over and over and it's not because he's trying to, it's just because he is, because he's different in that way, and there isn't an effort truly involved in doing so because it's simply the way that he is. And it's the reason he can be here now and it's also the reason why he's not really Charles's Erik, too. "You want to make it better. Of course you do," Erik pats him gently. "Can I tell you a little bit about myself? I don't know if you'll find it useful. But I can tell you what I know."  
  
This Erik is older, and his experiences are different, but there’s nothing he doesn’t recognize in his own Erik, too. It’s not at all strange. In his best moments, in his most assured. Immediately Charles hates himself for thinking that -- it’s not that the moments when Erik struggles are worse, just that -- and he shakes his head and pulls away from Erik’s chest, his own arms coming around himself instead. His arms crossed, his shoulders tense. “Yes,” he says, barely a whisper, even so, because of course he’s curious. Of course he wants to know. But he doesn’t want to take this comfort. He wants to tread water and shove it all back inside where it belongs, like he should have been doing from the beginning. He tries to back away and remembers he’s against the window, letting out a sharp breath. His hair is in his bloody face again, too, and he blows at it impatiently.  
  
Erik tucks Charles into his chest, brushing his hair out of his face, touching his arms and moving them to his side, taking his hands. "I spent a long time living under a code of silence," he murmurs softly. "For people like me-" his head turns away and he laughs a little. "Well, back then, no one really understood the cause and effect. So you live with this idea. And now I walk into a room and people respect me for those same experiences. Twenty-five years ago people would spit at me in the street. You never talked about it. Human life is the most important thing to me, but _my_ life was the _most important_ human life. So I made choices that I still struggle with today, that any _reasonable_ person would struggle with. And I think maybe your Erik knows a little of that. So you wake up and there is this man who you don't know. And there are all these little things that set him off, make him mad, make him _weird_. Of course you feel so helpless. It's like a big machine and you're just a cog. And maybe, I think-" he nods a bit to himself. "I think he must have spent a lot of time slowly opening up to you. Slowly revealing himself to you, and now all of that knowledge is gone."  
  
It’s certainly part of it, and of course Erik knew that. But he’s all tense in his arms, and fighting not to struggle, because it’s all still welled up inside of him. He’s not convinced if he lets it slip out for a moment he won’t be a wretched person. “It’s that, and -- we used to have a Bond,” he sighs, and it tugs at his heart. It sinks it into his belly, sorrow and shame. “And then I woke up, and it was gone. It was silent. I can’t hear him, and he certainly can’t hear me. Only sometimes, rarely, when it flicks on. And then it’s gone again. It just snaps. And there was so much I knew, so much I knew because I could simply know and he expects those things, sometimes, and I don’t know. I don’t know them. But I did. He didn’t have to tell me and I just knew. And there’s so much --” He knows Erik told him, just last night, that he didn’t miss that Charles, the one he doesn’t remember being. That he’s never missed him. He knows he’s supposed to trust his Dominant, but he’s not so sure he believes it. “I don’t know what to do, or how to be -- how to be…” No, he can’t say it to this Erik. He can’t.  
  
Erik nods. "Of course I don't intend to make it all about myself," he murmurs quietly. He has a bad habit of talking in terms of examples, and the most readily available one is of course his own. "But when you say you don't know, and when I hear you blame yourself-" he shakes his head. "No, _kochanie_. It is not your fault. It is not your fault," he repeats again firmly. "You are not the one to blame. That silence can be oppressive. But I know you. You are mine. You are my submissive, in any life. I know you. What you do, for me, you make it possible for me to speak. Maybe you don't know the specifics, or the full story, but your love and your acceptance make it possible for me to continue existing. And that responsibility is so difficult, I know it is so difficult. And for you to have that, at your age, and lacking all of the context that you once had. He would never allow you to blame yourself, and neither will I. I recognize you here and now, even when our experiences are so different. He recognizes you, too. What do you think you can't be? Tell me. You can." It's an Order, accompanied by Erik's knuckles across his jaw, stroking gently. "You can't be mine? Because that is just untrue. You know how to be mine. I see you are mine right now."  
  
“It is my fault,” he argues, and he tries to make it firm, and fierce, but it just doesn’t work. He chokes on it, and holds his breath again for a moment so it doesn’t come out as a sob or anything like it. “It is. It’s my fault I can’t control my own abilities, it’s my fault he feels guilty, it’s my fault he feels like he has to be strong all the time because I’m so bloody unstable, it’s my fault he has to --” Charles shakes his head, and holds his breath, and holds, and holds. “Be good for you,” tumbles out, and his cheeks and neck are hot, embarrassed and ashamed. “I don’t know how. He’s said he’d train me but I should just know and there’s so many ways I don’t. I’m just disappointing him, I’m just making him worse...” Alright, it’s slipping a little bit. Charles makes a desperate noise, trying to suck it back in.  
  
"No," Erik tells him solemnly, and kisses his forehead. "That is not possible. You have never, ever made me worse. I know that it feels like it must be your fault because it is so big, and because you might try to do some things and it doesn't seem like it's working. But it is working. You are being here, and being present. You know, me and-" he glances away. "We don't really talk much about-" he clears his throat, all of a sudden looking very familiar. Uncertain.  
  
He’s looked familiar this whole time. This whole time, he’s looked so shockingly familiar, and it’s made him wonder. Will his Erik look like this, in thirty, forty years? He’s still so handsome, which is such a strange thought to be having now, but so true. His face, the strength of his jaw, the slope of his nose. Impossible not to notice. Charles brings a hand to his mouth and breathes, holds his breath again for a second. “What don’t you talk about?” he asks, mumbled again.  
  
Erik takes his hand, and brings it to his lips, pressing them to his knuckles. A reminder to breathe, wrapped in Will. "Love," he answers, his voice quiet. It's there. It's obvious it's there. But- "You, loving me. That makes me better. And you are so loved. You never, ever think it brings me down. You trust him, when he tells you he loves you. And he should tell you that. As often as possible."  
  
“Trust him,” Charles whispers, uncertain why he’s repeating it, and then he’s abruptly in Erik’s chest again. Shaking again. He has to breathe, because Erik told him to. “I love you, too. I just told him last night, but I knew before then. I knew from the beginning, I think, even when I didn’t know him. And I love you. And I love him. And --” He takes a harsh breath, hiding his face in Erik’s shirt. “Your Charles loves you? And he tells you? When was the last time?” he demands to know. It’s important. Charles just said it, so he needs to know that this Charles isn’t slacking in that department.  
  
He's never been very good at lying to Charles, and he doesn't want to start now. "He tells me," he whispers. "Not in so many words. But when he speaks, when he acts, he tells me." Maybe it's the time; they're not as free to express themselves, there's a different set of standards. But it exists all the same. "You just keep telling him. Don't let him forget. That is the best thing that has ever healed me."  
  
Charles blinks, and pulls away. “But he doesn’t tell you?” He can’t decide why he’s suddenly angry, why his chest is tight with it. Before a day ago, he hadn’t told his Erik. But it’s different. It’s surely different, and he scowls. “Do you tell him?” And now it’s stern, his eyebrows raised. Like he’s scolding him. He is.  
  
It makes Erik's gaze break away, just a little. Ashamed. "I try," he rasps softly. "It is not so easy for us, to be so open. And sometimes it-" his lips purse. "And we carry that with us. But we try. Both of us. And if you can-if I can impart anything to you, it is not to start from a point of fear. Not to make that same mistake."  
  
Charles will try not to. He will certainly try, but -- “I am afraid,” he admits. Ashamed, too. He closes his eyes again. “I’m terribly afraid, even when things are wonderful. I’m afraid so often, and sometimes so guilty. I’m guilty right now,” he laughs, a raspy, dry thing, because it keeps him from letting the rest of it out. “Because I didn’t know what to do this morning. I hadn’t a clue. I needed him to tell me, and he couldn’t. I needed --” He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. I’m just guilty. And if he knew I was guilty, or afraid, or helpless, or even the slightest bit upset, he would be guilty. He would blame himself. I don’t want that. I just don’t know how to do it,” he sighs. “I feel so… inconvenient, sometimes.” And it’s so quiet. "Just awfully, bloody inconvenient."  
  
This Erik shakes his head, though. "Not to me. And not to him. The most important thing-" Erik touches Charles's face. "Certainly not my own guilt, or my own insecurities. The most important thing is for him to make you feel safe, and loved, and wanted. To give you what you need. You need to tell him. If you are afraid, what you feel. He is your Dominant. More than anyone else in this universe, or any other universe. He needs to know about it, so he can take care of you, and so you can take care of him, too."  
  
Charles sighs, and it’s like he deflates. His shoulders just slump. “I can’t do that,” he insists. “I just can’t do that. So I won’t.” Maybe it’s good advice, for someone else. Perhaps for this Erik’s Charles, but it won’t work for him. He glances out the window, but only because it means he’s not looking at Erik.  
  
"You can," Erik says. "If you can tell me," he laughs a little self-deprecatingly. "Look at me," he Orders. "If you can tell me, you can tell him. He won't break. I promise you he won't. But if he finds out that you are hiding all of this because you think he couldn't handle it- _kochanie_. He loves you. You are not an inconvenience. You are the most important thing in my life."  
  
“Will you always do that,” he huffs, and he knows it’s ridiculous in this moment, but his eyes are glassy with unshed tears when he turns his head toward Erik. Obediently, but only because he has to be. “It’s very frustrating. And then I close my eyes and you make me open my eyes. It’s extremely unfair.” It’s avoiding the actual issue at hand, but he needs that. Just for a moment. To breathe. “Does it annoy your Charles, too? It must.” It doesn’t annoy him actually, of course. What he’s really asking is if his Charles huffs about it, too. Complains about it, and is secretly grateful for it. He wonders how many of those things Eriks don’t know about that he's grateful for. Eriks, multiple -- strange. He covers his mouth so as not to laugh.  
  
And Erik does laugh, just a little, and swipes his thumb under Charles's eye. "It must," he agrees softly. Of course the answer is yes. Charles will always be huffy, but that's part of why Erik(s) love him so very much. "But I always will. I am your Dominant, which means I will always try. You should know every time-" he clears his throat. He and his Charles don't talk about this stuff. Not the way they should. "When I tell you to look at me. When he tells you that. I am always telling you that you are beautiful. Not to hide away."  
  
They should. Perhaps they will, now. Charles certainly hopes so. But he laughs, too, a bit wet, and clears his throat. “Are you coming onto me, old man?” he teases, his eyebrows raised comically high, because he needs just a few moments of this. He needed Erik, and here he is, and he’s not his Erik -- and he misses him, actually, of course he does -- but he still needs him, right this second. He hopes that’s not too much of an inconvenience. “That’s very inappropriate. Honestly, you said yourself, I'm practically young enough to be a student --” He presses his lips together, but he can’t help it. He giggles.  
  
"Certainly _not_ ," Erik replies haughtily, but after several moments he suppresses a smile of his own and gives Charles a wink. Because he likes his Charles, and he's very much _not_ a cradle-robber, but there is a certain amount of snarky, Dominant flirtatiousness about his personality whenever he encounters his submissive that can't be denied. "As if you could keep up."  
  
“You’re not?” Charles pouts as if he’s truly offended. “I’m wounded. You don’t seem very strict, you know,” he grins, and his eyes have that gleam again, that playful defiance. He feels guilty, again, because -- because he did need his Dominant. He did. It was all he could think the moment Erik went to sleep, when the world started to spin. And he feels guilty, for needing this. He shouldn’t, should he? He bites his lip and turns his head, his stomach tumbling over itself.  
  
Erik's nose wrinkles up, though. "Maybe a little," he grants fondly. No guilt, here, whatsoever. At least this Erik feels perfectly and completely entitled to his submissive. "And I certainly wouldn't comment on my strictness." He runs his thumb over Charles's bottom lip. "You like playing with fire." He laughs, gentle.  
  
“Why? Do you think I can’t handle it?” Charles snorts. “You’re not very scary. You always think you are, but you’re not.” Here, Charles grins, and it’s fond. It’s impossible not to tell that he’s just completely gone for any version of Erik, just like Erik promised he would be. He wonders how it took him so long to figure it out. “You’re - I mean...” Pronouns are strange, here. He bites his lip. “Back where I am, he’s - you know.” His cheeks turn pink again, and he reaches up to touch his collar, suddenly very aware of it.  
  
"I happen to think I am _very_ scary," Erik smirks, giving Charles a little tap on the nose. For most people here, he is. But never to Charles, and apparently not even to this younger version of his submissive. "I don't think I do know. Why don't you tell me," he insists, his lips pursing in amusement as his Will threads through the demand. His own fingers trace along the collar. This, at least, is good work.  
  
Erik’s fingers on his collar make him shiver, which is embarrassing enough on its own, his cheeks bright red by now. It’s not shame, as it might have been with Charles before. There’s really none of that. It’s just that he feels himself flushed up to his ears, shifting restlessly. “You know,” he insists, huffy again to hopefully distract from the ridiculous squirming he’s doing. He puts his hands to his face and mumbles into them, compelled but unwilling to really give in.  
  
It makes Erik chuckle lowly. "I don't think I do. Tell me, Charles," he practically purrs his name, and this time it's an Order, the only Orders ever given from someone other than his Erik that he's ever felt compelled to obey. And Erik is being cute, and being Dominant, but maybe it's the fact that he knows, deep down, that if his Charles were gone off of this planet, entrusted to another Erik, that he would trust that Erik to take good care of him, not to take advantage of him. And he never would, not in any dimension. But that isn't to say he won't give as good as he gets.

* * *

It’s funny, because Erik taking advantage of him would never even cross his mind. Never. Even when he was frightened and prickly and frustrated, even when he didn’t know Erik and he wasn’t sure, he never worried about it. Of course he doesn’t now. He’s safe with any Erik. They won’t be his Erik, perhaps, but they’ll take care of him, and look after him, and maybe even love him. The thought makes him squirm harder, his face still covered. “You’re training me,” he mumbles, peeking through his fingers. He wants to ask questions. He’s curious. He doesn’t, yet, too busy feeling like his face might burn off.  
  
It startles a laugh out of Erik, and he does so freely; more freely than the Erik Charles is accustomed to. "It would seem that some things are universal," he says, his shoulders shaking a little. He runs his fingers down Charles's face, across the flush over his cheeks. "It's a little like training kittens, but I've become quite good over the years." You know. Herd Charles in one direction, guide him in another. Unlike most Dominants, the idea doesn't aggravate Erik in the slightest. He relishes the challenge. Always has. "You're curious. That's why you're here, hm? To learn."  
  
Charles frowns, though it’s more like a pout, crossing his arms defensively. “What do you mean?” he demands, because he’s not sure what Erik means by universal. Did he train his Charles, too? He must have, obviously. A while ago? He is curious. He’s very curious, but now he’s a bit riled up, too. “Tell me,” he insists. What it was like for him, what it meant. Charles wants to know and hear and learn, Erik is right, and he tries not to be too eager about it.  
  
"Oh, you want me to tell you," Erik huffs. "Mm. Well, for starters, you certainly *do not* address me in that tone. You want to try *again*, Charles. You don't demand of me. You are *my* submissive. "And the *snap* of Will is forceful enough to be physically felt. "You ask me nicely, maybe I will tell you. Don't hide away from me. We are not about that."  
  
And just like that, there goes all the air he’d been holding in. Charles makes a noise that sounds almost like a choke, feels his heart stutter in his chest. Tread water, tread water. It’s getting difficult when Erik says those things, and his eyes close. “Tell me, please?” he whispers. When his eyes open, there’s still a hint of a glint there, and his lips quirk into a soft grin. “You’ve been trying to teach me this, but sometimes I forget.” Or chooses to forget, usually. It’s a very selective form of his amnesia. He has the mind to be sheepish about it, at least.  
  
"Mm-hmm," Erik hums, amused and warm. "Eyes open," he reminds, the Order just as powerful as Charles remembers. "I know you didn't forget that." It's chiding. He does think about the question, though, for real. "I think it might be a little different than what you know," he admits. "We both have very strong, very strong presence. Very strong foundations. I get the feeling maybe the Erik you know is more gentle with you. For us it was very much an explosion of Will, and where others might give up or have trouble. Not me. You belong to me. That is my strength, what I excel in."  
  
Charles bites his lip, and his eyes are open but he’s looking at the ground. “But -“ He shakes his head, and doesn’t finish that thought.  
  
Erik runs his fingers through Charles's hair. "But what?" he murmurs the question softly, but there's no way that Charles can resist the surge of Command there.  
  
“I don’t want him to be so gentle with me,” he sighs, biting even harder at his lip. “In theory, it’s nice that he’s being so patient and slow with me, very sweet, but—“ It’s horrible, that he’s thinking and feeling these things. Charles shakes his head.  
  
"Why do you think that is?" Erik asks, and it's not a _gotcha!_ question; he is genuinely curious, slowly gathering that there is quite a bit about their Dynamic that he really doesn't appreciate from his own perspective, that even though he has some awareness of his own motivations, this Charles's Erik is very much different to him.  
  
“He doesn’t want to hurt me,” Charles sighs. Which is why it’s so horrible for him to be here, complaining about it to another version of his Dominant. But maybe he needs it, too, and he’s not sure if that makes him as rotten and disloyal as he feels — is that even applicable, really? It’s Erik. They’re both Erik. “I try to give him signs, I really do. But he just, he stops himself. I can see it. He goes to tell me to do something, and then I give him push back, even just a little, and he says, _oh, okay, that’s fine, actually_ —“ Charles sighs. “Wretched, I’m wretched,” he groans out loud, running a hand through his hair. “It’s my fault, anyway. I’ve been very hot and cold. I just wish he would...” A vague gesture, here.  
  
Erik raises his hand and touches Charles's face. "No," he murmurs. "Not your fault. You simply need to be put in your place, that's all. It's not so difficult a thing. Of course harming you would be tragic. I can speak for that. I would never want to do that. But you are mine, and that means you do as I say. So why is that such a challenge?" his eyebrows raise, genuinely put off by this information.  
  
Charles has plenty to say to that, but first he swallows, looking up at Erik. “I need to be put in my place?” he asks, hushed.  
  
"Yes," Erik says simply. "You do. You are mine. And if you forget that, or if you don't always know, it is my job to remind you of that."  
  
It makes Charles smile. It makes his stomach flip, too. “He says that, too,” he whispers. “It’s just —“ A shrug. He shifts again. “Can you tell me about you and your Charles?”  
  
"Of course," Erik tucks Charles back into his arms, against his chest. "Where would you like me to start?"  
  
“Hmm,” Charles hums, and he lets himself relax, just a bit. It’s nice to relax like this, and he silently hopes Erik will go back to stroking his back. “When did you — you said it’s universal. You trained him, too, then. When did you collar him?” That’s usually the order it goes in, from what Charles can tell. “What was it like? What is it like?” He’s so curious, and it’s practically pinging right off of him.  
  
It's as if Erik is the telepath, because he absently does. "I trained him, too," he confirms with a nod. "But it's never really over. Not really. That's the nature of a Pairbond. It grows, it evolves, it changes. You always have to put into it, and give into it, and it will give back. It's like a living thing." He trails his fingers across Charles's collar. "We knew each other-of each other, for a long time. For years. But we didn't like each other. We didn't see one another as real people, I don't think. It was just the fight, the fight, the fight." He baps Charles on the back with each word softly. "So I didn't collar him for a long time. I regret-" he shakes his head.  
  
Charles hums again, this time sadly. His own Erik regrets those things, sometimes, for different reasons. Not knowing him sooner. But Charles doesn’t remember ever not knowing him, and it almost makes him laugh, thinking of it like that. He supposes it’s meant to be that way. “He says he likes this, because — well, it means he can train me properly, without everything I’d built up inside of me that he couldn’t quite get past,” he sighs. He likes it, too, when he thinks of like that. Perhaps too much. “But in the beginning,” he stresses, and taps at Erik’s chest insistently. Poke, poke, poke. “Get to the point,” he teases, grinning up at his Dominant with that cheeky gleam to bright blue. “What was it like? What did it feel like? What did you do? How did it go?” He’s forgotten not to be eager.  
  
Erik _snatches_ up his hand and _bites_ his fingertip. Just a little bit. "I regret not seeking him out sooner, because the moment we were in the same room, things changed. We never encountered anyone like ourselves before. There was some things we built up, and had to uncover. But in the beginning," he laughs. "Well, you were _angry_. Very angry. And I expected a lot from you, and you appreciated that, but sometimes you just wanted to tell me to fuck off. I pushed you through a lot of things. A lot of things, because there was that element of our Dynamic, and because I wasn't familiar with it and I made missteps. There was a lot of pain. But we came through it and built this-explosive, beautiful, unbreakable thing."  
  
When Erik is done speaking, Charles realizes he’s been holding his breath. “You pushed him?” he whispers. He doesn’t sound frightened. It’s hushed, instead, but difficult to pinpoint exactly what it is he’s feeling.  
  
It makes Erik laugh fondly. "A great, great deal. Much to his consternation. Some of it was what he knew he needed, but some of it was very difficult, and very painful, and very exhausting. Mentally, emotionally, physically, sexually. I think a lot of our Dynamic was shaped by that early interaction. There were some things we just couldn't afford to ease into. I think you and your Erik might be building toward that in a more organic way, perhaps."  
  
Perhaps. But Charles looks down, and feels his stomach drop out, and closes his eyes. “Mmhmm,” he mumbles, hoping it signals Erik to keep talking. He really does want him to keep talking.  
  
He touches Charles's cheek. "What are you thinking about?" he asks, because _he's_ not telepathic, even though he is still exceptionally good at reading Charles's cues.  
  
“Mmm,” Charles sighs, and on this he’s determined to be tight-lipped. He doesn’t want to verbalize it. He doesn’t want it to come out. It’s nasty, and horrible, and he’s supposed to be free of those things. Those thoughts. He shakes his head. “I don’t want to talk about it. Go on,” he mumbles.  
  
"Mm, no," Erik rumbles back. "I want to hear about it. Tell me what you're thinking about, _kochanie_ ," he Orders, firm, his fingers still splayed over Charles's face.  
  
Charles bites his lip. He doesn’t want to, but - “I feel like I’m pushing him, sometimes,” he whispers. “And I know I’m supposed to, to a certain extent. It can’t all be him. But I feel like...” He closes his eyes. “Sometimes I’m hurting him, by wanting things. But I don’t remember any of the awful things he said made me the way I am, which means naturally, I just —“ He’s been holding this inside of him too. He shakes his head and tries to stay back, eyes tightly closed. “I know it’s my fault. I try not to expect anything. I shouldn’t, I know. I’m the one that’s wrong right now, not him.”  
  
"What do you mean, you're _hurting_ him?" Erik's eyebrows raise. "I don't understand what you mean. You're submissive. You want to submit, to be Dominated. Why would that be harmful to him? What is this talk of being wrong? It's certainly not harmful to me. I would argue it is deeply necessary. What do you think you are pushing him into?"  
  
Tears finally leak from Charles’ eyes, still stubbornly closed. All of that before, and this is what makes him break. He reaches up to swipe angrily at them, frustrated. “He tells me that, too,” he rushes to say, before Erik gets the entirely wrong idea. “He does. And I believe him. It’s just that — sometimes he gets far away, and he can’t, it doesn’t seem like...” He shakes his head, a horrid lump in his throat. “I do something because I want his attention, I want him to —“ It’s not only ridiculous now that he’s admitting it, it feels silly and stupid. He feels small. “And he doesn’t. Or he gets frustrated with me, or he doesn’t notice at all. Or he just smiles. He’ll tell me to do something, and I won’t, and he’ll just do it himself. And he’s kind to me, and he’s gentle, and he pets my hair and tells me it’s alright...” But Charles is awful, because sometimes he doesn’t want that. “I am wrong. I know. It must be some weird, some glitch, my brain is just all wrong right now.”  
  
Erik rubs those tears away. "Charles, _zabko_ , it doesn't sound like you are wrong to me." It's firm and quiet but no less Commanding. "You are not wrong at all. It sounds like he is all twisted up about how to Dominate you," Erik tuts. "You're just an S1. That's all. That's completely normal. I can't imagine why he doesn't behave-"  
  
Charles blinks, and he knows it’s wrong to take comfort in this, and he doesn’t want to discredit or talk poorly of his Erik. That’s not what he wants. But this Erik is older, and he has experiences with his Charles, and - “What does that mean? That I’m just an S1?” he whispers. Barely audible. Because he can read about it, but nothing has really been helpful. It doesn’t seem like any of those articles have any clue what they’re speaking of.  
  
"It means you need to be Dominated. It means you need to be put in your place when you falter. You need to be controlled and guided and trained by someone capable. And I would like to think that is me," he murmurs. "You push back because you need more control, not less. It's not a defect. It is a privilege."  
  
“It is?” he whispers, and the thing is, he knows his Erik sees it the same way. But right now, he just needs to hear it, and he eats it right up, his eyes misty and wide when he looks up again, opens up his eyes. “Does he ever... fight you?” he asks, hushed again. “Your Charles?”  
  
"What do you mean by fight me?" Erik asks, eyebrows raised. "Disobey me? Defy me? All the time. Oh, always. I say go left. He has to go right, just to be contrary. No other reason." Erik's laughing, though. "But it's my job to make sure he knows what will happen if he goes right. And then to balance that with his need for independence, and self-reliance, and not to make him feel like a child or to do everything for him. Just as you said."  
  
“Oh,” Charles breathes, and he takes a big, shaky breath, lets it out in a long exhale. It feels like something was trapped in his chest, and he doesn’t know why more tears spill down his cheeks, just that he reaches up to wipe at them. “He doesn’t want to scare me. I know he doesn’t,” he whispers. “But for a little bit, I thought — well, he’s not doing it, so maybe he wants me to do it?” It had never sat right with him. It makes him shift uncomfortably now. “I read these articles, you know, about how S1s have naturally Dominant tendencies, how they do best in relationships where they can switch. And I thought, alright, I can try that. But I didn’t want to, I don’t ever really want to, because it’s not...” He purses his lips together, uncertain. He doesn’t know, except that the urge he gets, the one that he thinks is being described in those articles, it’s not what they think it is. “He told me he doesn’t. That he doesn’t need or want that, and that made me feel better. But I’m still not sure if I’m normal. I feel like, maybe like...” He sniffles, and shrugs. “It’s not fair. I think I must just be new, and I don’t understand,” he laughs, self-deprecating. Charles likes to understand, in any universe. It frustrates him when he doesn’t. He feels incredibly inadequate, unprepared, helpless.  
  
"Well I can assure you that you are quite normal," Erik tells him kindly. He catches those tears against his thumbs and wipes them off with his sleeve, gentle. "But in our relationship, switching was never an option. I don't think it is for you, either. I think those silly articles are written by people who don't understand what they're talking about. You do not have Dominant tendencies, Charles. You are so submissive, you need so much control, and most Dominants can't provide that. They're accustomed to setting the rules and that's the status quo. But we aren't like that. And I would never want you to Dominate me, and I doubt he would, either."  
  
Charles shakes his head, feeling silly for crying like this. He wipes at his own face even after Erik’s already done it, looking away again. “I know,” he mumbles, because like he said, Erik already assured him of that. He knows. “But it’s just, what if I hurt him because I need so much and he just feels pressured? Sometimes I feel like I want it more,” he says, and that’s it. That’s what he wanted to admit, and it tightens up in his chest. “Even though he seems to think I don’t, or I’ll be frightened or bothered. So I act like I don’t, and I push back or away, and he gives up. I can’t expect more than that. But I told him my boundaries for right now, and we have a pause-word, and I thought I made it so clear I wanted him to train me, really train me, but...” he sighs. “I’m sorry. This must all sound silly to you.”  
  
Erik shakes his head. "It doesn't sound silly to me at all. It sounds like there is something truly the matter with him," he says bluntly. "Why do you think you would hurt him because you need it so much? Why would he ever feel pressured? It is a joy to Dominate you. There is no fear, there is no tug-of-war. I am your Dominant, you do what I say, you address me appropriately, you serve me the way I should be served. And if you have a problem with that, or an attitude, no. Not your place, you'll be punished."  
  
“There’s nothing wrong with him, don’t you say that!” Charles insists, eyes narrowed, and there’s that temper. He crosses his arms over his chest, squirming away from Erik’s hold. “He’s been wonderful to me, don’t you dare. He just gets — he’s worried I’ll feel stifled, I think. If he always tells me to go left. So sometimes he lets me get away with going right, or he lets me decide which way to go completely. He just doesn’t tell me, so it doesn’t matter, I pick. That’s fine,” he insists, huffing. It’s not fine, though. He knows it doesn’t feel fine. He’s guilty. It’s all over his face, as much as he turns it to hide his expression.  
  
"Knock that off," Erik growls the Order firmly and gives him a good, solid rap over the knuckles and it's such a distinct difference to how his Erik would handle it that it's as startling as a blow across the cheek. "Now you look at me and you listen to me. You don't come in my home and talk back and take this attitude with me. If you think _I_ won't discipline you, you're sorely mistaken." His features have swiftly become severe, Dominant all at once in a way that lashes out and wraps Charles up with full confidence. "Now. I am not implying that he _isn't good_. I am saying that this is a problem that starts with him. He needs to lead. He needs to be in control. If he isn't confident to do that, of course you have these issues. And if he isn't confident to do that, why isn't he?"  
  
He wishes it didn’t make him feel guiltier, how breathless he gets. Because he’s needed this. He needed this, desperately, he felt helpless and confused and Erik needed to sleep but he needed his Dominant — and he found this Erik, and he tries not to revel too much in it, to lean too much, because his Erik is at home sleeping and hurting and he shouldn’t need it. “He doesn’t need to be in control all the time,” he snaps, scowling. “And anyway, you can’t discipline me. If your Charles went off to another universe, you’d let another Erik take care of his discipline? How do you even know that’s your place?” Charles knows it is. Beside the point. “My Erik is perfectly confident, he leads just fine.” It sounds hollow. It’s not a lie, precisely. He just knows it’s not always true. It could be. Absolutely, it could be. Charles feels that all the time. But right now it isn’t.  
  
"I can and I will. Test me if you require." Erik's eyebrows arc upward, a simple, but very effective statement. It's not intimidating, it's not scary, it's not threatening, it's just completely assured in itself. As if an afterthought, something that might happen during the course of the day that wasn't even remotely a big deal, something to straighten him out when he needed it. "Why doesn't he take you in hand properly? I don't want to hear _he's great, he does this, he does that_. I'm not attacking him. Stop defending him, stop blaming yourself. Is he your Dominant or _not_?"  
  
“Yes!” Charles throws back, all pent up frustration and quiet viciousness, figuratively bared teeth. A kitten with its fur raised up against what he knows is a predator, because he’s seen it in his Erik. Glimpsed it, even when that predator chooses not to pounce. “Yes, damn it, of course he is, but — he takes me in hand,” and Erik told him not to defend him, but here he is. He walks around Erik, side-steps to pace in this small study, needing to be away from the window. Feeling riled, feeling like it’s all just bearing down on him, and this is why he’d needed Erik in the first place. He’d thought I need Erik and ended up here. He scuffs his feet on what looks like an incredibly expensive carpet. All the ones in his manor are dusty and faded, and Erik’s been very frustrated he can’t seem to do away with them. “He’s punished me before,” he offers, looking at Erik like he’s just won, made an awfully clever point. “He takes me in hand. I’ve been disciplined.”  
  
"No. You said it would hurt him to Dominate you." Erik swivels around, capturing his hand so he can't get very far away at all. "Why? Why would it hurt him? Why would it hurt him to give you what you really need, what you really want, what you really crave? No, you answer me honestly," he Orders, holding a finger up to Charles's lip. "You answer me and tell me why."  
  
“I don’t know!” Charles huffs, loud and petulant, struggling against Erik’s hold. There’s no way he should be this strong at this age, but there’s no give. He makes a show of yanking at his hand anyway, his eyes narrowed. It’s likely childish, and he doesn’t care. “Let go of me this instant. I don’t know,” he insists, but there are tears in his eyes again. He knows he can’t actually disobey, and when the Order comes he chokes on it a little. “Because someone hurt him! Terribly, and horrifically, and — and how awful am I, to be frustrated, when...” He shakes his head, trembling. “It’s fine, alright? I told you, he’s disciplined me.”  
  
And he is strong, and Charles gets absolutely nowhere fast. "It is not fine. You are not fine. You are here. Don't you lie to me, Charles Xavier. Not in any universe, I will not accept it." He glares down at Charles piercingly. "They hurt him how?" he murmurs, this time soft. "It doesn't make sense to me. Not that anyone could hurt me in such a way that it would translate to being unable to take care of you. So explain to me."  
  
There are tears down his cheeks again, and Charles tugs and tugs on the grip on his wrist, mostly just to fight something. He shakes his head, but he speaks anyway. “I don’t know all the specifics,” he admits, because he did but now he doesn’t, and that makes it worse. “But they made him — they told him he wasn’t really Dominant. He was forced to be submissive for sixteen years.” That much he knows. The specifics, Erik keeps locked up, his mind unavailable and his lips sealed. But Charles has seen glimpses, even so. “They tortured and beat and —“ He sucks in a breath. Erik can fill in the rest, Charles isn’t going to. “And so, yes, he has difficulties. It’s fine. I don’t need it, I already told you as much, now kindly let go of me.”  
  
"I said knock it off," Erik growls the Order roughly. "And sit down." Another. He guides Charles to the chair, lowers next to him, keeping his hand entwined. "I didn't know that," he whispers. It's obvious this Erik didn't have a similar experience, but perhaps it says what needs to be said that he swiftly takes it in stride. Adjusts, orients. "So he was forced to be submissive, so he is not confident in Dominating you. But you said he is training you, you said he wants to train you, he wants to Order you, he likes to do it. You don't believe him?"  
  
Charles stares down at the floor, tears gathering at his nose. Clinging to the tip. “I do,” he whispers. It’s not a lie. He really does believe that. He feels that. “I believe him.”  
  
"But you won't tell him what you need. You won't tell him that you need him to push you harder, to make these choices, to take you in hand," Erik whispers, brushing those tears off of the edge of his nose tenderly. "Why is he so scared of hurting you? Why does he think Dominating you is going to hurt you? You can't sit back and say you don't need it and you're fine. It will dissolve. You need it. And so does he. It's just twisted up, but you can untwist it. You aren't defective. He isn't defective. He can't learn if you don't tell him. If you don't believe him. If he is anything like me-anything-" Erik huffs.  
  
“Then what?” Charles demands, his head snapping up. It’s hoarse, and expectant, but maybe a little desperate, too. He needs to hear this. “If he’s anything like you, then what?”  
  
"He needs you to be his submissive. He needs to really, truly, completely Dominate you. In every way, in every aspect, in every nuanced form. Every little thing. Like how you just spoke to me right now, that does not fly. You don't demand things and expect things of me. You defer to me. Every little thing, every moment. Every time a correction is needed. He's scared of that, he must have been hurt with that. I don't know because I wasn't hurt that way. I can guess. We aren't the same, but I think I know his spirit. If he is anything like me, he wants it so desperately his heart feels like it is cracked in two. He just needs to trust himself, and trust you, and you have to tell him when he is doing something right, and when he needs to do something more."  
  
Charles bites his lip, but he nods. He’s looking down at his lap again. “Your Charles — do you tell him which way to go? What to do? Every day?” he asks, croaked. “What happens if he doesn’t do something, just a little thing, you really...” He swallows.  
  
"Yes, I do. Because he knows better, and I don't accept anything less than his best effort. And he trusts me to use my judgment, and he trusts that if my judgment is compromised, that I will be willing to listen to him. But of course I do. And if he doesn't want to listen, then he can think about that while being disciplined."

* * *

It’s written all over Charles’ face that he’s still so curious. Enthralled, completely. There’s so much he can learn, here, and somehow he knows he found exactly the right place. He wants to ask questions, he wants Erik to — he takes a deep breath, swallows. “What did you send him to the store for?” he asks, which is not the most pressing question, but it makes him grin because his head is spinning a bit and he needs a moment just to gather himself back up.  
  
Erik grins back, too, wry and affectionate. Far more affection than he's ever shown anyone else in this place, other than his own Charles. "Just for some ingredients for _Pesach_. We're a little late this year." His nose wrinkles up in amusement.  
  
Charles’ expression lights up, suddenly, and he reaches forward to lightly tap Erik’s nose. It’s just that his Erik’s does that, too, scrunches up like that; it made him warm inside, affectionate. Adoring. It’s written all over his face, plain as day. “When I spoke to you like that before, did that make you —“ He bites his lip. Then he shakes his head, deciding he doesn’t want to ask that question.  
  
"Mm, did it make me what?" Erik tugs it out of him anyway, just as Charles knew he would. He runs his thumb along the outside of Charles's hand, an unconscious, soothing movement that he's long-adopted to ground them both.  
  
It is soothing. Charles stares down at their hands to watch, almost awed. “You know,” he offers, unhelpfully. His cheeks heat. “Did it make you — well, anything?” he asks, unsure.  
  
"No. Be specific," he Orders roughly, raising Charles's hand to his lips to press a kiss to his knuckles. "Did it make me what?"  
  
Charles doesn’t have the word for it. He rephrases the question instead, so Erik knows he’s not necessarily being difficult and sidestepping the Order (difficult, not impossible), just unsure of what he meant to ask in the first place. “If this was a regular day, for you and Charles, what would you have done?” he asks. “Did it make you want to... take me in hand?” He’s not sure why saying that makes him shiver.  
  
That makes Erik grin, practically predatory. "It did," he replies lowly. It's baldly honest, completely without shame. "I am unaccustomed to allowing such things to go unacknowledged. If you talk back to me like that and raise your voice like that, that isn't acceptable. You know the difference. You try it again and you'll be kneeling for the rest of this visit."  
  
“Kneeling?” Charles echoes, smirking. “Oh, what a horrible fate. I’m wondering about your idea of punishment, now. Your Charles must have it truly easy.” Now he’s just being smug, and he thinks he’s very clever for it.  
  
Erik grips his jaw in hand, giving him a solid smack along the cheek that reddens his skin. "Get on your knees," he Orders instantly, without any preamble whatsoever, a stern shimmer of Will snapping through the entire room. It's completely unconscious, a totally natural extension of Dominion that sweeps out in response and rises up. "At my feet. Now."  
  
Charles gasps, everything about him wide-eyed and utterly startled even as he fumbles to obey, nearly knocking his chair over in the process. It’s obvious in his every movement that despite his talk, he’s not used to this. He’s so early in his training, so unlike this Erik’s Charles and not just because he’s younger, and it shows. He doesn’t know where to put his hands. He doesn’t know how close at my feet means. He’s nervous all of a sudden, not frightened but truly nervous, which is something his Erik has mistaken for fear and backed off from. But it’s not, and this Erik can see that. He’s impossibly eager. Just very, very new.  
  
"Now you want to amend how you speak to me?" Erik rumbles, crooking his finger under Charles's jaw. "Hands behind your back. You don't slouch this way for him, I hope. Upright." He gives Charles another little jolt across the opposing cheek. This Erik has no fear. None at all. That nervousness doesn't faze him, that jittery, butterflies-good. He should be nervous. He should be shy. He should be deferent. Charles belongs to him. Every Charles. Everywhere. And if he has to be the one to teach it, he will.  
  
It’s not very different at all from how his Erik is when he’s fallen into it, but usually it takes more than this. He has absolutely no doubt that he would have gotten away with mouthing off to his Erik for far longer, in almost any scenario. He would have hesitated, maybe. Been more gentle. But this Erik isn’t, and he stares, reeling, wriggles on his knees. His cheek stings, and he almost can’t believe it. This is how it could be, how it will be. He wants to know, he wants to be soothed, all of those uncertain places inside that just aren’t sure it’s alright, that he is — he’d needed Erik to show him. Here he is. “No,” he says, and finds his mouth very dry. He’d meant it to be smart, but it just comes out whispered, practically meek.  
  
Something snaps into Erik's hand and he juts a small, bendy metal implement under Charles's chin. "Don't you look at the floor. You look up at me. You don't want to cooperate, fine. This isn't a hardship for me. You should know that I _enjoy_ doing it. So we'll stay here until you decide you want to amend how you speak to me. Now?" a _bloom_ of pain suddenly erupts over Charles's neck as that metal rod emblazons a long red stripe across his skin.  
  
His Erik has never used anything like this on him before. Truthfully, he’s used very little; they haven’t gotten around to it, though he’s certainly thought about it. He’s thought about it a lot. He’s not sure what riles up inside of him when he feels that first strike, besides startled, confused pain; he just knows it’s always been there, and he’s been holding it back. Because he doesn’t want to push his Erik. He’s been afraid, too, just not the way Erik expects him to be. “Why should I?” he hisses, and turns his head away from Erik, from that implement. “You can’t discipline me. My Dominant’s asleep. I don’t have to listen to you, or anyone,” he sneers, and he’s grinning. “He’d let me get away with it. I can speak however I like.”  
  
"Absolutely not," this Erik growls lowly and this time when the strike hits it's flat across Charles's face, and then again, and again. "You will not disrespect your Dominant like that. He would never let you get away with this behavior." And Charles knows that this is true. Because Erik might pause, he might hesitate, he might backtrack at times, he might be permissive and lenient but he comes through. He does come through. He tries, he gives his best effort, he pushes through because he would never accept that behavior. And the more Charles responds to being disciplined by him the more confident he gets. He's had to start from zero. But he's building back up. This Erik, though, is not starting from zero. He is at the fucking _finish line_ and has no qualms about it. "And you will not disrespect me like that. Not how you like. You came here. You came here for me. Because you needed your Dominant. And you found him. For this moment in time and space that is what I am and what I will be, and whether you agree is irrelevant. Because I said so." Another sharp smack. This time with his palm.  
  
For some reason, it’s that more than anything that makes Charles cry. Because he’s been so guilty, so horribly guilty about coming here at a loss, at needing Erik, but he realizes he doesn’t need to be. All this has shown him is that, above all else, he does belong to Erik. Anytime and anywhere. He needs to, more desperately than he could ever hope to suppress. Like his heart is cracked in two. And Erik is right. He should never, ever disrespect his Dominant like that, even if he’s being mouthy and feeling defiant. Never. Because he does try, and they are working at it, and he more than deserves Charles’ respect. His deference. His submission. It’s why he’d defended him so fiercely before, even though he’d done it disrespectfully — because he knows they can get here. And he wants it more than he could ever, ever hope to express, but he’ll surely have to try. For right now his eyes pop open wide, cheeks wet again and so hot when he brings his hand up to touch one, forgetting to keep still, to hold the position Erik put him in. “Ow,” he gasps, like he’s shocked. He can feel his heart thud, thud, thudding in his chest. “I needed my Dominant so badly,” he whispers, and his voice cracks on it, and he starts to cry. He’s been holding it back, just a few little tears, but now he starts to cry.  
  
And that hand gets another harsh strike with the implement. "Behind your back. I didn't say you could move." And where his Erik would have become more lenient, perhaps, more gentle as he begins to show deference and respect, this Erik does not. He continues to Dominate, to own, entirely. "You need him. So you need to tell him. Not this you don't need him and you don't need anything. You tell him. You tell him properly. You tell me properly." Another strike.  
  
Erik’s said that to him, too. He knows it’s hurt him, that horrid defensive wall he’s been putting up to protect his confused, splintering, needy heart. That’s what makes him cry, still, more than the strikes from any implement, though it’s that, too, as he rushes to put his hands behind his back where they belong. He tries to scoot closer, too, even though he knows he hasn’t been told he can, to bow his head onto Erik’s knee. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I do. I need my Dominant, I need you, I need him. I needed him so awfully this morning, I didn’t know what to do and all I could think was -“ He sobs.  
  
And maybe where his Erik would have allowed it, this Erik does not; and that is different. "No, I said upright. Not move out of position. Not like this, I didn't tell you this," Erik growls lowly, using his implement to nudge Charles exactly back where he wants him, because he hasn't earned that, yet. "All you could think is what? Don't fade away. Look at me and tell me."  
  
And Charles doesn’t dissolve. He doesn’t get frightened. He straightens up even as he sniffles, keeps his hands behind his back and forces his shoulders straight, wanting Erik to see that he’s trying. “I need my Dominant, I need to talk to him,” he gasps, hiccupping on it. “It’s all I could think. I need to talk to him, so I know what to do. I just need my Dominant.” And he hopes it doesn’t sound pathetic. It’s raw and vulnerable and nothing but the truth.  
  
"So you tell him. He is not here to suffer or be a martyr. He didn't choose to look after you and be miserable doing it. He needs you, too. To be honest and give him that feedback. He will not break. You do not need to protect him from himself, or from you." Erik delivers a sharp lash to Charles's shoulder to help him straighten up, his gaze demanding.  
  
It’s exactly what he needed to hear, and exactly how his Erik could never say it, but it’s harsh and it chokes him more than a lash of any implement ever could. He tries to sort it together, his shoulders so straight, not slouching, not even thinking of it. “But -“ He forces himself not to avert his eyes, because he doesn’t think Erik wants him to. “Sometimes he’s too far away. He can’t. This morning, right now, I -“ It just dies in his throat. He can’t ask his Erik what he’s meant to do about taking care of his Erik when he’s gone away on him. “It’s alright,” he gasps. “I don’t need it all the time.” He doesn’t?  
  
He gets a sharp smack across the cheek for his trouble. "Yes, you do. And if he is not there, it is _your_ job to bring him back. I know you know how. It might take time, but you know how. He is hurt, and he will be impacted by that. It doesn't mean you stop being his submissive. It doesn't mean you don't need him, or want him. It means you care for him, too. He is not too far away. He never will be."  
  
It’s not what Charles meant. It’s not what he meant, but he nods anyway, trapping any of the rest of it in his mouth and mourning his stinging, smarting cheek. “Okay,” he whispers.  
  
Erik runs his fingertip down Charles's throat. "Not OK. You don't avoid me and keep it hidden. Tell me what you mean."  
  
Charles swallows beneath that finger, noticeably. “Sometimes I need this and he can’t give it to me, because he’s —“ Hurting, and difficult to reach, and unable to. And it is alright. Charles swears it is, and he closes his eyes and lets them sting, too. “I don’t want him to force himself to, because he does. And it doesn’t feel...” Right, or satisfying. Because it never feels like Erik. And he hasn’t realized until precisely this moment why not, but he can’t share that. “Of course I still need him. Of course I’m still his submissive. But I can go without for a bit, it’s not such a sacrifice.” He’s thinking of something, and he won’t say that either. His lips purse.  
  
This time when Erik gives him another jolt it's by his own hand, and followed in several quick successive bursts along his thighs and across his knees, which hurts even though Erik is deliberate and careful not to injure him, he is evidently experienced in finding the areas of his body available to maximize that pain and refocus his attention sharply where it belongs. "I didn't say close your eyes. You aren't telling me everything, you aren't sharing with me everything. That is not acceptable. What else." And it's dragged out of him, the Order undeniable.  
  
Charles gasps and cries out, loud, startled noises, his eyes snapping open immediately which is likely exactly what Erik expected to happen. He takes just a moment to stutter out calming breaths, to reel with it and refocus, and then it just spills out. It spills out like Erik Ordered, and like it’s supposed to. “When he’s like this, he just acts like he thinks he’s supposed to and it’s never right,” he croaks, and he knows how horrible it sounds but it’s not the way his Erik thinks is wrong. He can hardly explain it. “I’ve noticed the difference but I don’t even know if he does. He gets cold and far away and he doesn’t call me, he doesn’t call me _neshama_ or sweetheart and I don’t mean he doesn’t _coddle_ me, because I’ve complained of that too, I’ve told you that, and I’ve seen him when he’s being strict, believe me —“ He gets a little embarrassed, here, because they weren’t the most delicate words, or the most respectful, what prompted that. “But he just... he acts like...” Like he read a book on how the perfect, unaffected Dominant should act. Or watched one. It’s like he stops letting himself be one. The one he already is, the one he naturally is, and it’s such a strange problem that Charles just didn’t notice it until now. “He acts like he’s pretending when I know he doesn’t have to pretend normally, and I don’t like it. It just makes me upset. And then if I get upset, or I don’t listen right away, he gets frustrated and confused, he just stops. It makes me confused. I don’t know how to act. And I haven’t - I haven’t -“ He shakes his head, running out of breath and courage. But he’s needed to say this. It’s so clear he’s needed to say this.  
  
"So it's like autopilot," Erik interprets with a nod. "Like the lights are on and no one is home. Because you said he has trouble finding his confidence because of how he was raised, he's not being genuine and coming to you from genuineness. Of course you are going to notice that and it's going to be confusing and messy. That isn't taking charge, it isn't engaging with your Dynamic. So why would that bring you what you need? He isn't in the club. He isn't in a scene. He's your Dominant, you're in a relationship with this person, you're collared by this person. By me," he reminds sharply, lifting Charles's jaw with cold steel under his neck. "Because you know what it's supposed to be, deep down. You know how it's supposed to be, how it could be, you can see him at his best. But he will never get there, Charles, if you don't be honest with him. He's just never going to get there if you keep letting him fail to meet you. If you keep saying well it's fine, I don't need it, not really. No, you are here because you know that you both deserve better than that. Do you think that he's never going to get there? Do you think he will never overcome it? Do you think he can never satisfy you? Really? I don't believe that."  
  
“I don’t want to hurt him,” he whispers, and fights not to close his eyes. Even though it’s cold and unyielding, Charles leans into that implement for comfort, in the absence of Erik’s hand, without being permitted anything else. “I know he will overcome it, but I don’t want to hurt him right now. It’s not fair. I’d rather just sacrifice some of my — and they’re just selfish, anyway,” he decides, sniffing. “They’re silly things. He has me doing this routine every morning. I come to his room, and then he has me run through Postures. Sometimes before bed, too, if he thinks I need it. And at first I wasn’t sure, and sometimes I still don’t like them, but —“ His lips press together again, this time to keep from crying.  
  
And finally, at that moment, Erik chooses to break from being stern to touch his hand over Charles's face. He's not finished here, but he can tell when Charles needs a real lifeline and when he doesn't. But the second he stops talking, those fingers grip his jaw again. "Eyes on me," he murmurs, in case Charles gets any ideas about being complacent. "And you don't think it will hurt him to find out that you've been suppressing yourself for what you think is his benefit? Because not only would that hurt me, but I would take exceptional _offense_ to it. It is not your role, or your job, or your _place_ , to decide what you can and can't sacrifice and what I should and shouldn't be providing for you. And if he can't tell you that in as many words, I certainly can. Finish your thought. Don't cut yourself off, give me a complete picture. You don't like them, but what."  
  
“They help me,” he mumbles, and only because he’s starting to cry again, lightly trembling with it as he nuzzles into Erik’s hand gratefully. It’s not the same hand as his Erik, but it’s familiar and it’s warm and it’s equally large and it’s exactly what he needs to steady and keep going. “They make me calm, even when I’m frightened about something. They start everything off. And then I don’t, I don’t think I fret as much,” he rushes to say, because it sounds silly. “Over silly things. My head doesn’t get so off-track, you know? And we didn’t do them yesterday, and we likely won’t do them today, at this rate, and that’s —“ Not fine. It’s not fine. Charles sobs quietly. “And yesterday we were supposed to have a check-in, and I wanted it to be... I know, it doesn’t matter. Why should it have to be formal? But I did, because he said it would be. I wanted to kneel for him, and I wanted, I wanted him to address things and it really is alright that all of that got interrupted. I just wish...” It wouldn’t have. “But it isn’t that I’m not satisfied. I am.”  
  
Erik nods. "Of course it helps you, because it is a reminder of where you belong and a reinforcement of the Dynamic you share. Building a routine is important, no matter what it is based upon. We have our routines, too." Not that, which seems obvious, but it's forced Erik to get creative and maybe even to rely explicitly on being Dominant, all the time, because there's nothing else to fall back on. "And sometimes they get interrupted, that's just _life_ , and if that happens then you get back on track. You go back and you check-in, and you do it again, and again, and again. Until it's right. If you need to put that effort in then you need to. Maybe I don't know what that's like, but I do know what it's like to be-to go through the motions, to get turned around. To get messy. And that is his responsibility, he has to clean it up. You say you want him to expect things of you and push you and take charge, you _have. to._ expect it of him, too. You can't give him a free pass."  
  
Charles shakes his head, though. “He deserves a free pass. He deserves them,” he whispers, and he doesn’t mean Erik is some sort of pitiable charity case. He just means - “I put him through so much, he goes through so much, and to have Dominating me be just another thing —“ He couldn’t bear it. “I can miss out on Postures for a few days. It’s not such a big deal, is it?”  
  
Erik isn't finished, though, and this time Charles feels strips of fire across his shoulders and down his back as he brings the cane down hard over him. "It's not another thing. And if it isn't a big deal to him then he wouldn't be your Dominant. It is a big deal. He didn't just fall into doing this out of obligation. But he isn't trusting himself. He's producing himself, he's focused on making everything perfect and giving this show of Dominance and that isn't what will build your trust. If you don't expect him to trust himself and you don't expect him to take care of you properly and fully, and you said he might not even realize the difference. So you have to tell him the difference. Tell him what it means to you. And listen to me and believe me when I say it will hurt him more in the long run if you don't."  
  
“Ow, ow, ow,” Charles gasps, and his eyes are so wide it’s almost comical as he wiggles around on his knees, like he can avoid all that sharp, stinging pain. He can’t, of course. The truth is he’s been treading water so deliberately this whole time, all worked up about needing, about guilt, and it all just snaps. It snaps, and he sinks, and he flutters with it, uncertain, untethered, looking for Erik’s Will to latch onto. Vaguely panicked, the way he always is when it happens abruptly, because he’s so new to it and it feels so intense. “It will hurt him?” he whispers. “If I don’t tell him?”  
  
And he finds it, in thick coils that practically slither up along his throat and tip his head back and grip him in his chest. And he finds it with every strike of the cane that keeps him focused, and present, and staring up at Erik with wide eyes. Because he isn't producing himself, he isn't putting on a show. He isn't reading from a script and then it's finished, he's actively enjoying it even while Charles is wriggling about. "Be still," he growls lowly. "I didn't say you could move. It will hurt him. It will make him feel like a fool. It is not respectful, and you owe him the truth. And you will deliver it. That is what I expect from you."  
  
Charles can see this in his Erik, too, sometimes. Peeking out, a long coiled-up thing. He’s learned how to make it small and unnoticeable and inoffensive, but Charles knows it’s there. That’s how he knows, right in his heart where all of this aches the most, how right Erik is. “I’ll tell him,” he promises, sniffling, and straightens his shoulders back up, clearly looking for Erik’s approval. He needs it. “I’ll tell him how I feel.” He’s frightened. He’s sinking, too, though, subspace completely, utterly inevitable, farther down, and farther down, and it’s what he needed. It focuses him.  
  
"Good," Erik rumbles back, stroking his thumb over the apple of Charles's cheek. He leans forward and presses his lips to Charles's forehead, warm and dry and steadying. Because he thinks he has a better picture now, and the both of them deserve better than to repress what they truly need, especially when he himself knows how integral and how important it is for them both to be healthy. "And you'll come back to me and you will tell me how it goes. I will not accept anything less than both of your best efforts. You will tell him how you feel. That's right."

* * *

“I can come back and see you again?” There are more things he wants to say, more things he wants to ask, but for some reason that’s what comes out first. And he knows it’s a silly thing to ask, or even to want. He misses his Erik, he really, truly does. But he loves this Erik, too, and there’s so much he’s learned. In just such a short time, there’s so much he’s learned, and Charles feels panicked at the idea of never getting another chance to ask all the questions tumbling and tumbling around in his brain as he leans into Erik’s touch and eats up that praise, visibly glowing with it. It does such good for him, how could anyone, especially himself, doubt how much he does need it?  
  
"Yes, and you will," Erik murmurs roughly, framing his face in both hands. "I didn't even know you existed, but now that I do, well," he huffs. "You are mine. I take care of you. If your Erik needs a little help, then I will be here to help him, and help you. And-" and Charles isn't the only one who's gained a benefit out of this, either, but Erik doesn't know how to put that into words. "And you have such an opportunity to start from the beginning and really make this work. I won't let you settle for anything less than an extraordinary life."  
  
Charles smiles, and there’s something shy and awfully sweet about it, tears clinging to his lashes and red marks all over his cheeks. He wonders if he’ll take those home with him, and have to explain them to his Erik. It’s enough to make him squirm again. “Can I, um...” He doesn’t know how to ask. His cheeks go pink, even underneath those marks. “He’s going to train me well,” he says instead, because he knows it’s true. And he’ll come visit Erik, and he’ll see that. And maybe he’ll even be proud. Charles hopes so.  
  
"Yes," he rumbles. "Yes, he is. You can come here and you can visit me and I can help you along, but you are his. At the end of the day. He is the best person for you. But he can't be the best unless you elevate him to that level. That is part of being submissive. It isn't taking control and making the decisions, and minimizing yourself. It is about being honest and being true and being a support, and letting him lean on you and rely on you, too. You have a big, big job. Don't slack off. Don't let him slack off. If he wants your trust, then he needs to trust himself, or he is not giving you a good example, is he?" he draws a finger down one of those marks and scratches at it just a bit. "Now ask me what you want to ask."  
  
Charles sighs into it, leans into those punishing nails instead of away, just as if Erik had stroked him. “Can I move?” he asks, quietly. Not from his knees, but he just wants to be a bit closer. Settling into subspace is difficult for him, sometimes. It’s new and it can be overwhelming and he needs to be touched quite a lot, talked to or he’ll just sort of drift — not at all like this Erik’s Charles, at this point, but he’s younger and he’s completely, wholly inexperienced except for what his Erik has done with him, and it isn’t that he can’t handle it. Just that even simple, little things hit him harder, affect him more. They’re starting from scratch. Erik is right. There’s such an opportunity here. “I have these powers inside of me, and...” He takes a breath. “They frighten me. They truly do. I haven’t the slightest how to control them, or even how to use them. But I think I know what the key is,” he whispers.  
  
"Come a little closer," Erik encourages him to rest his head against Erik's knee, running his fingers through Charles's hair. Charles is being deferent, now, and Erik sees fit to reward that just a bit. "Tell me what the key is," he encourages Charles to continue, to tell him, which is familiar to his own Erik, too.  
  
The noise that comes from Charles’ throat is so thoroughly pleased, a soft, near purr, and he rubs his smarting cheek against Erik’s knee and sighs again, fussing as he gets comfortable. “Us, sir,” he murmurs, and he’s smiling. He can’t help the title, the way his voice gets quieter, maybe a bit dreamy. He’d been fighting it all morning after Erik got upset, and it feels good to let go. To go under. To let Erik put him under.  
  
"I am very much inclined to agree," Erik replies, holding Charles still against him, keeping him in his place even now. Not letting up, not letting go, even when Charles does yield and does submit. "I started with my abilities from a place of pain, and so did Charles. But we both found so much more joy, and so much more appreciation for them, through one another. I thought I needed to be angry or in pain to be powerful. That's not true. It's not true for you, either."  
  
Charles bites his lip again, not hiding but nestling in thoroughly, soaking up all that comfort. “I know it might sound mad,” he starts, peeking up at Erik to watch his reaction. He wants to run it by him, to see what he thinks. He’s just shy about it, too, because it’s difficult not to feel like a child, with an Erik who has seen and overcome and established himself. But Charles isn’t intimidated, he’s just — well. “But I’m not sure I could do it on my own. I’m not saying I’m not powerful enough, though sometimes I can’t imagine I am, it’s just that...” His brows furrow, press tightly together as he thinks. “It’s very big, what’s inside of me. I can feel it, sometimes. And perhaps it’s mine, and I’m meant to wield it, for whatever reason there is. But he’s meant to —“ He’s struggling here. “See, it does sound mad.”  
  
"No, you aren't being clear, _kochanie_. What do you think he is meant to do? Finish your thought," Erik encourages, gentler than before, but no less firm and definitely not less strict. "It doesn't sound mad, so far. I think you are on the right track. But you need to connect all of it together, so tell me fully."  
  
“To keep me in check,” he whispers, looking up at Erik uncertainly. “Keep me in line. It’s so heavy, and it’s so much. I can feel it even when I can’t use it. And if he wasn’t there...” his eyes closed, and his shiver now isn’t from anything pleasant.  
  
Erik taps under his eye. "Open. Look at me. That won't happen. Because I will always be here in some form or another. He will keep you in check. That is not crazy and it is not mad, it is reality. You don't do these things on your own, you don't make these choices on your own."  
  
Charles opens his eyes just like he’s told, and that soft smile spreads over his lips again, slow but lighting him up from the inside out. “Can I ask for something else?” he whispers, shy again. “It’s important, and it would make me very happy.” Maybe it’s less clever than he thinks it is, prefacing it this way, but sometimes it works.  
  
Erik just smirks back at him, fully aware of what he's doing. "You may ask," he grants, one eyebrow arching pointedly.  
  
“When your Charles returns from the store, tell him you love him,” he murmurs, and nuzzles into Erik’s knee as he does. “In words. Just tell him, please. He needs to hear it. Tell him he’s good for you and that you love him. I promise he’ll like it,” he smiles. He knows, because if he’s anything like Charles, he aches for it in so many ways.  
  
His features soften significantly, and he leans forward and kisses Charles's brow. "I will," he promises solemnly. He knows that his Charles knows it, but there is something significant about saying it, too. And he's talked a lot about not being afraid, but in a lot of ways, he's been exactly that, too. Wanting to keep Charles safe to such an amount that it's detrimental to him.  
  
“I’ll check on you,” he teases, that gleam in his eyes again when he looks up, feigning sternness. “Don’t you think I won’t. When I come to visit, I’ll ask, and I’ll be very cross if you didn’t. He deserves to hear it, you know. As often as you can. He deserves to know how you feel, too. Don’t slack off,” he grins, and he’s back to being shy, that kitten swiping playfully at the much larger predator. “You have a big, big job. You have to take care of him. He relies on you.” His voice breaks again, here. Because he’s floating, and sinking at once, and he needed it. He said to himself that he didn’t but he did.  
  
It makes Erik smile, looking more relatable than he has almost the entire time, his harsh features smoothed out by fondness. "I know," he whispers back. It hasn't always been easy, and effortless, but he knows. "And he doesn't let me, either," Erik taps him on the nose. He's speaking from experience, because he's stumbled plenty of times. Been too wrapped up in anger and fear and pain. But it's never been the most important thing to him, and he knows it isn't for this version of Erik, either.  
  
Of course it isn’t. Charles knows that, too. He nuzzles into Erik’s hand. “I’m going to go tell him,” he murmurs, and he can’t tell if he’s slipping, or if he’s just falling deeper into subspace. He thinks it might be both. That Erik is sending him back to his Erik down and freshly disciplined makes him feel even more shy, but not in a bad way. “Can you talk to me? About anything,” he requests, so he doesn’t stumble, or crash, or fly off, but also because he wants this Erik to tell him some more before he goes. His eyes are half-lidded, but he fights to keep them open like Erik said.  
  
"Always," Erik presses his lips to the top of Charles's forehead, as if relishing the moment to really be affectionate. All of these universes, all of these different versions of Charles and Erik are being impacted by one another in ways they can't quite understand yet. The ripples outward are immense even if they just seem to emanate from a small stone in the lake. Erik decides to settle on a story, which is so like his Erik that it's almost amusing. It's a fairy tale, a glass mountain inhabited by an eagle with sharp talons guarding a tree of golden apples at the top. He tells Charles about how he always reads to him before bed, and it's his favorite time of day. It's one of their routines. Sometimes Charles reads to him instead, something new or something he's written or working on himself.  
  
And it’s not done. What is stunningly, apparently obvious, perhaps not to either Erik or Charles in this moment, is that it’s not done. Something is happening, and it has always needed to happen, and it will continue to happen. Touches through the Veil, ripples through the universes that strengthen and feed the Universe. But for right now, Charles is lulled and calmed and steadied, drawn to Erik’s firewood voice, curled into his knee. His eyes do droop, eventually, too heavy for him to hold open. It’s a lovely routine. He wants to tell his Erik about it. It’s not dizzy, this time; it’s fuzzy, quite a lot like the beginning of sinking into subspace once he’s gotten over the initial panic, the bumpy transition that he and Erik are working on smoothing out; it’s nice. It feels warm, when he starts to lose his grip. When he starts to fade. Like falling to sleep, except he knows he’s not. He’s not frightened. Wherever he ends up, Erik will always be there. He will always take care of him and protect him. And so there’s nothing at all to fear, like this, is there? He's very well taken care of.

* * *

When he wakes up, it's cradled protectively in arms that he knows, that he's probably always known, with Erik curled over him and petting him and talking to him indistinctly. He's worried and focused on keeping himself calm, but it's not working very well and and when Charles finally stirs he gasps and pulls back, touching his face, hugging him close. He thought something had happened to him. The second he disappeared Erik woke up, and the only reason he didn't completely lose it is because he suspected what happened based on what Charles had described of him when he left. But it doesn't make it less scary. He smiles, relief evident on his face, his eyes vivid and red-rimmed. "Hi," he breathes.  
  
Charles gasps, too, and wraps his arms around Erik, his legs, his whole body, curls into his neck and sighs. There are tears against Erik’s skin, now, and he realizes after a moment that of course he won’t have taken his marks with him because he didn’t take his body, but somehow he feels the ache of that metal cane, anyway, and he knows it was real and it’s a bit overwhelming, but mostly because he’s still very far down, and he’s always wondered, because he can’t really know right now, what him being in subspace feels like for Erik. If he knows right away. If he does, he must surely know now because Charles is so firmly down, and they’re naked, he forgot that but he’s only vaguely aware of it because what’s most important, what is vitally, life or death important right now, is being as close to his Erik as physically possible. “Hi,” he breathes, and it’s so pleased. He’s smiling. “Hi. Hi, I missed you very much,” he sighs, honestly, openly, sweetly. Oh, he’s so nicely down, whatever was keeping him even slightly above gone now that he’s with his Dominant. He did need this, didn’t he? It must be slightly surprising, for Erik, the force of it, but he can't even think of toning it down.  
  
What is immediately evident is that Erik seems much more naturally stable than he did before Charles left, before he was in subspace, and his eyebrows raise a little because he can instantly tell, like a reaction in his own body that tugs him fully toward Dominion without any stops in between and he runs his fingers along Charles's neck, over the marks on his body that he left, wrapping him up in his lap and pressing them as close together as he can. There's nothing on this planet that would ever make him want Charles to tone it down, at all. Never. "You visited somewhere?" he whispers, kissing his temple. He wants to hear all about it. "Missed you. So much." He's so happy Charles is back it's a physical sensation throughout the room, twinged in Will that rises and rises like steam. And it's different to the other Erik's Will, so much more somehow. Maybe it is a result of his mutation, or just a quirk of them fitting together distinctly.  
  
It might be a bit of both, but what Charles does know is that it slots together with him perfectly, wraps him up exactly as it should, two puzzle pieces locking in place. There wasn’t anything wrong with the other Erik, and he put him down just fine; but this is more than adequate, and it’s more than fine, and it more than does the job. This is belonging. Charles realizes he was waiting for something to fall all the way, and he knows now that it was this. It was being tugged into his Dominant’s lap, his Erik’s lap, wrapped up in his Erik’s Will and Dominion. Now that he has all those things, he’s solidly, deeply under, more than this Charles has ever been. This Charles with no memories, the one so eager to be trained. “I visited somewhere,” he confirms, shivering harshly when Erik touches his temple, startling in his arms but settling a moment later. “You were older, there. Your hair was grey. And --” He looks up sheepishly, grins the way he does when he’s thinking he might get away with something. “I got into a bit of trouble,” he admits.  
  
"Now I know you were somewhere else," Erik laughs. In his mind, he's never going grey, even if he already is. _Nuh_ -uh. And when Charles says he got into trouble, his mind connects the dots pretty instantaneously. He's thought of it ever since he first figured out what was going on; what would happen if this Charles encountered another version of himself. And he wondered if he would be weirdly jealous somehow, and the idea that another person, another Dominant potentially put hands on Charles, even if it's himself does inspire a bit of that sharp, strict possessiveness that lives in him forth, it also surprisingly... makes him feel a little better, in a way. Knowing that Charles was taken care of, and it wasn't by a stranger. It wasn't by Shaw. It wasn't by anyone other than the one person who really could be Charles's Dominant. But maybe he's jealous in the sense that-the Erik Charles met was right. He's the one who wants to do it, desperately. "Tell me what happened," he whispers, soft. And where that Erik would have Ordered it, this one doesn't. Not because he can't, but because he does expect Charles to answer him, the Command in his tone speaking for itself.  
  
Now Charles is shy. The thing is, he’s never had to tell Erik about something like this -- why would he, when Erik very clearly would have been the one to do it? And he was, technically, he just also wasn’t. And now he’s squirming in Erik’s lap, and his cheeks are red, and he reaches a hand up to touch one; and he hisses, his eyes wide again, startled. He can still feel it. He buries himself back in Erik’s neck. “I talked back a little,” he admits, understating it just a tad. “So, I got -- you know.” Telling Erik that he was disciplined for running his mouth, especially this far into subspace, does something to him. Charles can’t explain it, except that he’s definitely squirming now, unable to settle back down.  
  
Erik touches his cheek, too, mindful of the marks he does have there. "Mm. I don't know. Now you stay still and look at me and tell me exactly what happened, hm?" he traces his own fingernail down Charles's jaw, giving him a little scratch for good measure. He might be feeling possessive at the moment but Charles being this way is very easily doing things to him, too, and he has absolutely no trouble keeping Charles down where he belongs.  
  
Charles’ breath hitches. Erik is keeping him still but he tries to move, anyway, maybe just so he’ll be held down more; he definitely doesn’t want to get away. “He was telling me something and I thought he was speaking poorly of you,” he whispers, and his voice gets fierce, then, though it’s clear enough he learned that wasn’t the case. “So I told him he’d better not, and he didn’t like that much.” He pauses, bites his lip, and looks away again. “Then I mocked him, a bit,” he admits, as quietly as he can. No version of Erik seems to tolerate blatant disrespect for very long, not even this Erik at his absolute most lenient. “So he disciplined me,” he whispers, and his voice trembles with it. He shivers.  
  
Erik doesn't let him get very far, and doesn't let him look away, either. "And did that do you good?" he asks, his voice a bit raspy. Because it seems like it did, even if this Erik wouldn't have elected to do so, even if he wanted to do so. He's made a clear habit of suppressing his own instincts, of not even knowing the difference as Charles indicated. And he knows that.


	111. when the moment comes (i can say i did it all with love)

For just a moment it winds that guilt up awfully in his stomach before Charles remembers his promise. “Yes, sir,” he admits, his own voice quiet and hoarse, because it’s the truth. Because it’s so obviously the truth, and he bites on his lip but doesn’t stop there. “I needed a bit of discipline this morning. I was feeling out of sorts. It helped,” he ducks into Erik’s shoulder, not ashamed but wondering if he should be. He doesn’t think so. There’s nothing shameful about this, and that other Erik had assured him he was perfectly normal, so he must be. Simple as that. “Sometimes when I get mouthy, it’s just because...” he trails off. Surely Erik must know.  
  
Erik crooks his finger under Charles's chin to lift it and look at him. He does know, and most of the time when Charles goes far enough Erik does respond to it. He doesn't let Charles mouth off to him as much as he used to do, and especially not as much as he ever did in the beginning. It's easy to consider that Erik is permissive and lenient but he does take action, and the instinct and impetus is very much there. "Just because of what?" he asks all the same, wanting to hear Charles say it, not wanting to rely on filling in the blanks. Because Charles really didn't come to him with this today. If he was feeling out of sorts Erik expects him to come to him and communicate that. He was a bit upset and he is dealing with a lot, too much, but it doesn't mean he stops being Charles's Dominant.  
  
But that was really the problem. Charles takes a breath and lets it out slowly, and suddenly there are tears in his eyes again. “Just because I want your attention,” he breathes. When he feels out of sorts, when he needs a bit of discipline, a firmer hand. And sometimes Erik just seems to miss it. It feels like he gives him all the signs in the world and he just misses it, or worse, ignores it.  
  
He puts his hand on Charles's cheek, the familiar list of his right hand even though there is no pain somehow more Erik than the ones Charles has seen ever before. "There's nothing the matter with that," he whispers, his own eyes fluttering closed for a moment, attempting to keep himself composed. He's just woken up, and before now he was dealing with-something he has no words for, no comprehension, no ability. And he didn't mean to cast Charles aside in the aftermath. "You deserve all of my attention," he says, pressing a kiss to Charles's forehead. "I'm-" it feels stupid, but he presses forward. "I never, ever meant for you to-feel discarded. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get-" lost in his own drama. "To get lost," he finishes softly. To compel him away, to some other Erik who could-"I should have been the one," he croaks. It should have been him to bring Charles back in line. "I am so sorry it wasn't."  
  
Charles shakes his head immediately, those tears pouring right down his cheeks. He makes a quiet, protesting noise, lurching forward and wrapping his arms around Erik’s neck. He just wants to be closer. “You were struggling, it’s alright,” he promises. “You don’t need to —“ But it dies in his throat. Because he promised that other Erik, and he doesn’t want to disappoint him. He makes a low, confused noise, his eyes closed. “I want it to be you,” he admits. He was taken care of by that other Erik. But it wasn’t his Erik.  
  
He rubs Charles's back, too, but it's somehow so much more different than the older version of himself. The more confident, capable Dominant version of himself. The version of himself he could be, that he wants to be. He doesn't even know about it, but together, side-by-side, it has never been more evident. "It should be me," he rumbles lowly, Will infusing every word. "And I need, I need to. You must know I need to." He drops a kiss to Charles's forehead. "Even at my worst. You are mine and I have never ever forgotten that." He just has so much. He doesn't know how to bring himself in line, how to balance himself out.  
  
When he left that older Erik, he promised he would talk to Erik about this. But it all just dies in his throat, now. It all just disappears. He doesn’t mean to be so fragile, either, but it was overwhelming, and he’s in subspace, and he sniffles and rubs his cheek, still stinging, into Erik’s neck. “I know,” he whispers. “Sometimes you can’t. That’s alright,” he lies, and feels his stomach churn for the effort.  
  
"No," Erik practically growls, and this time when the mark comes over Charles's cheek it's from his Erik's hand. He grips Charles's jaw and makes him look. "No, not all right. You don't lie to me. Tell me. You tell me. You are mine. You need to tell me." Erik's eyes crush shut. "You tell me," he whispers.  
  
Charles gasps, choking softly on it. “It’s not alright,” he admits, and it hurts. It’s one thing to admit it to another Erik, and entirely another to admit it to his. “It’s not alright. I need you to be my Dominant all the time, and you hold back and you don’t follow through and you get too far away and you don’t enforce things and you don’t expect things so I don’t do them and I get frustrated and upset and confused, I don’t know what you want or what’s good because you’re not consistent -“ He didn’t mean to. He didn’t mean to say it, and he covers his mouth with his hand, regretful. “No, I - forget that. Please.”  
  
It hits Erik like a blow, but he's been dealt many of them through his life, and he doesn't allow it to crush him. He doesn't flinch at it. The Erik who told him to do this was right. He will not break. "I won't," he rasps, drenched in Command. He won't forget about it. He presses their foreheads together only so he can close his eyes, so he can compose himself. Composure. Control. He needs it. But Charles can see the pain there and it isn't from what he said, it's because it is the truth. "I thought I was-" he shakes his head. He thought that he was doing a good job. Before all of this. "I was learning and-" And then he had to start again. Charles didn't know him. Didn't trust him. Didn't remember him. And he's been trying to ease back into it, every once in a while those instincts come roaring out. "I am your Dominant. All the time," he whispers fiercely. Even when he doesn't know better. Even when he struggles. "I've been scared. To hurt you. I know it sounds stupid and repetitive," he covers his own eyes, trying to shield his reaction. "It doesn't mean I can't. I can."  
  
Charles just shakes his head again, his eyes tightly closed. “You haven’t done anything wrong, it isn’t your fault, please just forget it,” he begs, raspy. “You don’t need to do anything, alright? You are my Dominant, you’re right. You’ve been patient and kind and gentle. I appreciate that, you know that, don’t you? I appreciate you so much. I missed you so much,” he whispers, and he means it. He never could have gotten what he needed from that other Erik. He just couldn’t have. “You wouldn’t hurt me. You’ve never hurt me.”  
  
"That isn't true," Erik says back, mournful. He hurts Charles all the time. Charles said so himself. Erik doesn't do enough, he doesn't commit enough. Their training so far has been going fairly well; Erik has been expecting things out of him and teaching him and instituting routines to ensure he takes care of himself mentally and physically. He knows that he struggles to fully connect it, but there is a blank-spot there. And Charles is the one who needs to help him fit the pieces together. Maybe he should be able to do it himself, but he can't. There's too much damage. He wants to learn, and grow, and make his submissive happy. That's all he wants. But he can't, not without that input. "You said I don't-I'm not-I don't follow through and I'm not your Dominant all the time. Tell me what you mean." It's firm, and Commanding, with Erik's features gazing down at him sternly.  
  
It’s not a conversation he wanted to have. Charles tries to turn his face away, to avoid that gaze, and finds that he can’t. “You don’t expect things,” he argues, quietly. “Not nearly as much as you want to. You calculate everything, you make these rules, then when you get push-back, you just give up. You let me off with things you know you don’t want to. You think it’s giving me more freedom, that it’s keeping me from feeling stifled but all it’s doing -“ Charles presses his lips together. All it’s doing is confusing and frustrating him. “And then I don’t know, really. What the rules even are, because how can I if you’re not enforcing them properly?” He winces. He wishes he could just take it back.  
  
"I don't know how," comes out of Erik's mouth before his mind can catch up to what he's saying; blurted out from somewhere deep and instinctive. Not that he doesn't know how to be Charles's Dominant. That, he does. "You can't understand-" he shakes his head. "You would go from where you are now to somewhere that you have never been. Without any memory of how you got there. I'm just trying-" he huffs, lips pressed together self-deprecating. "To find a balance and I don't know how. It's all-" it's all there. He isn't missing anything. He isn't defective. He isn't submissive. But he is afraid to let it all out, to really treat Charles the way his instincts push him to. "I know you want more." It's soft. "I'm trying to find a balance and I keep failing. I don't want to hurt you but you are hurt now anyway."  
  
Charles bites his lip, hesitating, before he touches Erik’s cheek. “I know you’re trying, and that it’s difficult. I know that,” he whispers, and he wants, desperately, for Erik to know that. He nuzzles into his neck again, not to avoid looking, but because he’s in subspace and he needs to. He doesn’t want his Dominant to hurt. He wants to serve him, and please him, and belong to him. Doesn’t he know that, too? He sucks in a breath. “And you really are doing wonderfully. I don’t want you to think otherwise. I like being trained by you. It’s just -“ He takes another sharp breath. “The other day. In the kitchen, remember, when we had that little tiff? I saw it. I saw you stop yourself. Why did you do that?” It’s not accusatory. Charles is curious, and maybe a little sad, too. That Erik had stopped.  
  
And Erik runs his fingers through Charles's hair, holding him close, wrapping him up tight because he is exactly where he belongs. When the answer comes it's on the edges of smoke, curled wisps of Will that slither along Charles's exposed skin. "Because-" he stutters, and it would be easy to be tactful and produce a response but what comes out is genuine, instead, his voice quiet and firm. "I wanted to put you on your knees and cane you until you learned your place. Until you addressed me properly and apologized and left marked with the knowledge of your insubordination." It's low. "But then I thought-" and it's stupid when he thinks to say it out loud and he trails off, because it is. It is stupid. All of his hang-ups and all of his problems, they're stupid and harmful and of course-  
  
A soft noise, and then Charles bites Erik’s neck. He’s not sure what makes him do it, or why he thinks it might help, even, but he smiles sheepishly and looks wide-eyed up at his Dominant, heart hammering in his chest, as if he knows he shouldn’t have. He just wanted his attention again. “Tell me, please? Sir?” he adds the title sweetly, because if he addresses his Dominant properly surely he can get away with whatever.  
  
Erik's eyes pop open and he immediately and swiftly pins Charles to the bed, looming over him dangerously before giving him a hard, sharp mark just under his jaw, digging in his teeth and scratching down his chest. "You be good," he growls into Charles's ear. "You know how to be good. I didn't because I thought it would be too much. It would scare you. That I have rules but I shouldn't punish you for every little thing-" when Charles struggles against him again Erik gives him another long scratch. "No, stay down." It's an Order, this time. He glares into Charles's eyes, his own vivid and practically glowing. "Even though I should. Even though I want to. I thought it isn't fair. I think all the time. I always think. I always consider. You don't get away with things. You think I don't keep track and I don't remember and I don't consider everything, don't pay attention, wrong. I'm not bad Dominant."  
  
And for that Erik gets a whine, a bit of useless thrashing, Charles’ eyes wide and his lips pressed into a pout because he isn’t getting his way. He knows he should probably listen. He’s so far down, and really, really, all he wants is to behave. But Erik said — the other Erik, not his Dominant, but he wants him to be proud, too — that he needed to be honest, and make sure Erik knows, and not give him a free pass. “But you don’t do anything,” he breathes, feeling daring for saying so. A bit self-satisfied, even, now that they’re here, now that he’s flipped underneath Erik. “What do you think you’re teaching me? You’re just training me to break the rules because they don’t matter. If you tell me to washes the dishes I don’t have to. If you tell me to call you sir, I don’t have to. If you tell me to straighten up, or fetch you something, or be polite or go to bed — why should I?” he demands, huffing. “Why should I, Erik? Forget caning me, you don’t even scold me most of the time. What kind of submissive do you think you’ll get from that?” he grins. But it’s serious, too. It is. And Charles knows Erik needs to hear it. “You’re supposed to make me better. Is that going to make me better?”  
  
Erik's head drops to Charles's shoulder, and he gives him a nip of warning for the cheek. "Continue speaking to me that way and I will very much do something," he rumbles lowly. But he presses his head to Charles's shoulder, taking in deep breaths, firmly holding him down every time he tries to move. He's all riled up and scattered in a few different directions, and Charles goading him over it is only pushing him over the edge. Maybe it's not such a familiar Erik after all, because Charles can see he is deadly serious. "You should because I say it. Because you are mine. And I don't like when you disobey me. Maybe I have a hard time with some things," he rasps softly. "But you don't get away. You are mine. I will get better. And you will be here. And you will be mine. And there is nothing anyone can do about it." His voice is nearly otherworldly with Will.  
  
This time Charles shudders in Erik’s arms, and his eyes flutter closed, too heavy to hold open. He whines again, a low, helpless noise, because he doesn’t think he’s ever sunk like this. He can’t move to grab onto Erik, to use him as the lifeline he is, and for a moment he’s barraged by panic; but he takes a breath, and lets it out. Erik is here. His Dominant is here. He’s all around him, and on top of him. He can’t breathe without tasting his Will. “I want to obey you,” he whispers, and it’s the truth, and it’s a promise. “But sometimes, sometimes I just need -“ He opens his eyes, shy again, quiet again, and thinks of the other Erik. “Sometimes I just need to be put in my place, that’s all. I just need you to show me. Remember, you said you’d train me.”  
  
"Yes, you do," Erik purrs in his ear, not relenting, even when that burst of panic spikes. Normally that's the point at which he'd back off and pet Charles instead, but he doesn't, instead stroking his fingertips along the insides of Charles's wrist where he's captured his hands. He kisses the outside of Charles's ear, unyielding, keeping him firmly pinned in place. "I have trouble sometimes. I'm new, too. And I never wanted to put you into an intense situation where you were really afraid without having-" without having trust, and sometimes Erik isn't really sure if Charles trusts him that much, simply because-because he's so new. Because his memories of Erik are gone. How could he trust him? Without the benefit of knowing his mind? Waking up here, it's easy to spin Erik as a captor, an abuser. And in dark moments he worries he is. He's twisted, sometimes. "But it is not because I can't," he promises lowly. "Nor is it because I do not wish to. Your place is here, and I will ensure you know that." It's a promise. He'll be better. He'll do better.  
  
Charles doesn’t need Erik’s mind to know what he planned to say. “I trust you,” he whispers, and it’s a fierce promise. “I trust you. I wouldn’t want to be trained by someone I don’t trust. I wouldn’t want you to be the one showing me. You’re the only one who can, and you’re not doing poorly. You’re not.” He needs Erik to know that. He’s squirming in Erik’s arms again, but it’s because he wants to place those sweet little kisses and he can’t. He’s always trying to worm his way closer, this far into subspace. And he’s far. He’s far, more than this new Charles has ever gone, his eyes completely blown with it. “I don’t like Postures,” he whispers, out of the blue. But he does. “I won’t do them anymore, okay?”  
  
Erik gives him another little nip, and then bites down hard along his collar. "You will do them," he growls in dissent, his Will practically tasted in the air, a physical force. "I do not make you do them because you like them. You do them because you are mine and because I tell you to," he murmurs, pressing Charles bodily into the mattress with his own, skin against every inch of skin. It's so close. His eyes are eclipsed by black, pinning Charles's stare as if knifed to a wall. "You trust me. So you do what I say."  
  
It’s dangerous. Charles knows it’s dangerous, and he cries out at that bite, trying to squirm harder than before even as he’s afforded even less give. But he can’t help it. He thrashes and wriggles and stares wide-eyed up at Erik, his own eyes dark, practically panting. “No,” he protests, pouting. “I don’t want to.”  
  
"I don't care," Erik growls in his ear, and then all of a sudden he's off Charles, leaving a vacant space where his body used to be, all that warmth withdrawn. He tugs Charles upright. "On your feet," he Orders, eyebrows furrowed sternly.  
  
Charles scrambles to obey, a bit dizzy and off-center. He’s frowning, though; Erik not touching him sometimes seems just as much of a punishment as a caning is, and it’s funny, because a Charles with memories had a difficult time expressing that except when Erik explicitly left him or during those times. There’s no trauma here. But this Charles, new and unused to being this far down, immediately goes for Erik, tries to wind himself around him, to bury into his chest, to seek comfort. “Sorry, sir, I’m sorry,” he croaks.  
  
"No," Erik puts a hand on his shoulder and separates him, and then under his chin, making him look up. "I told you every day you come to me and we will do your Postures and you will be reminded of exactly where you belong and if you like them. If you like them is irrelevant," he purrs lowly, his voice taking on that tone, dark and rich. "Now you will kneel for me and you will start at Rest. And if I have to Order it from you we will practice disciplinary Postures on top of it."  
  
Something shifts in his belly, hot and pooling, electric down his spine. He’s overwhelmed. He really is. He’s never been so deep into subspace and he’s naked, he’s never naked when they do Postures, and he’s — Erik was pressed against him, and there was all that talk about putting him in his place, and he doesn’t know why it did that but it had an effect. Of course it did. He falls to his knees and he really does try to stay at Rest, but he’s nervous and Rest means being upright and he can’t cover himself with his hands, so he whines and scoots forward and grabs for Erik’s leg, looking up at him imploringly. Maybe he’ll let him stay. Maybe he’ll pet his hair.  
  
Erik immediately snaps his arms down to his sides. "No," he Orders roughly. "Now I have Ordered you, you say you don't want me to be lenient. Well I won't be lenient," he almost laughs, a low rumble in his chest. Maybe something is happening to him, too, the room soaked in Dominion and strands of luxuriating, dark Will. "Rest, Charles. Now and I want to see you do it perfectly." His nails scratch down Charles's jaw.  
  
Charles asked for this. He asked not to be coddled, for Erik not to hold back. So he takes a harsh, steadying breath and he wipes at his face and does as he’s told. “Yes, sir,” he sniffs. As he’s told, even as he’s overwhelmed and vaguely embarrassed, his shoulders perfectly straight and his hands on his thighs where they cover very little. He follows Erik’s Will, clings to his voice; he can be a good boy, can’t he? Erik is right there. He’ll take care of him.  
  
"Mm," Erik appraises him, lowering gracefully to the floor to inspect every aspect of his Posture, making sure he is straight and relaxed and upright as he expects. Charles knows this intimately, Erik has drilled it into him many times, and he taps one of Charles's shoulders to even it out a little. "Good," he approves, but nowhere is he near finished. There is the next set. And the next. And with each one he does not allow Charles to slide an inch out of place. He's closer, now, his body heat radiating, and his knees touch Charles's, hands ghosting over his body to issue minor corrections just because he can. "You don't tell me you don't do Postures anymore. You do them because you are mine. Because you belong to me. Because I am your Dominant. You say it."  
  
Some of these Postures are naturally more revealing than others. It isn’t such a big deal freshly dressed, but like this it is. Charles’ cheeks are heated and he’s so warm, head to toe, so underneath, so completely tuned into Erik, and it feels a bit like he can’t breathe. His knees are spread apart and they’re trembling, trying to close; he sucks in big, half-panicked breaths, so deeply, deeply in subspace and so entirely overcome by it. “I do Postures because you’re my Dominant and you tell me to, sir,” he whispers, his throat dry.  
  
"Mm-hmm," Erik murmurs lowly, sliding his hand across Charles's knee. "And you lie, before. You like them. Straighten up," he gives Charles's cheek a proper smack of admonition. Erik can see he likes them, from head to toe, in every shiver and twitch of his body, in every part of his body, tuned toward Erik. And it is obvious on Erik that he enjoys this, too. He enjoys putting Charles in his place, disciplining him like this. It's not exactly, precisely, the same as the punishments he's given before. It's not a scene, it's not a stop and start, it's all shifting in and out of warmth and joy and strictness and heavy Dominion that makes Charles stay down where he belongs.  
  
Charles tries to keep straight and keep still. He tries to hold his body exactly as Erik wants him to, in a way that’s pleasing to him; and the thought is so violently, wholly overwhelming he shudders again, gasping with it. Sometimes, he’s not the fondest of Postures, but he likes them because Erik likes them. Because his Dominant likes Order and he likes form and he likes structure and Charles can make his body bend to those things, he can earn his praise and satisfaction and it’s all so much, he wants it so much, that other Erik was right but he didn’t mention how desperately Charles needed it and that’s a shame because he does. It feels like his heart will burst in two, will simply shatter if he doesn’t get it. It has this whole time. There are tears on his cheeks and he’s having a hard time taking even breaths, his face red and not just from the slap and he tries not to list forward, whimpering softly. He wants Erik’s hand, and he’ll take another slap if that’s what Erik wants to give him. He wants to be in his lap but if Erik thinks he needs a spanking more than a hug he’ll happily climb right over his knee without any protest. And it’s spilling, a little. Not a lot, and only in broken, stuttered images, an unstable connection, but sometimes it spills. It doesn’t even need to. Charles’ eyes are hot as the stars when he looks up at his Dominant, and thoroughly worshiping. “Yes, sir,” he breathes. He doesn’t know what he’s agreeing with. Everything. Does Erik see the way he’s trembling for it?  
  
Erik can't help himself, he runs his hands across Charles's chest, just for the skin contact. But the second he tries to break Posture he gets another reprimanding smack, this time right along his ass where those welts are still smarting from the day before. "You are mine," he rumbles lowly, a vibration in his chest that rips through Charles in a seismic blast of Will. "You are mine and you are exactly in your place. Now, next Posture," he purrs, guiding Charles into just that, but this time closer, pressing skin to skin as he adjusts Charles's position. "Where do you belong? Who do you belong to? You don't want to do Postures, hm? You don't want to be in your place?" another slap, with his body pressed close enough to Erik that it's almost a hug, but not-quite, in the perfect position for him to deliver a thorough spanking.  
  
It’s somewhere in the middle of this that something in Charles breaks. Maybe he was right. Maybe there is something wrong with him, maybe he’s actually the broken one, because he starts to cry. Not even a little, not the hitched little breathy cries he was giving before, but real, heavy tears; and he takes a breath, and then another, and another, and tries to answer. “I’m yours and I belong to you and I belong here,” but it’s almost incoherent, and he doesn’t want Erik to stop, but Erik is going to stop, isn’t he, because Charles just can’t handle it. He can’t handle it. “Sir,” he whimpers, mournful.  
  
But Erik doesn't stop, not at all. He takes Charles in his arms, but instead of rubbing his back or comforting him exactly, although his fingers do feather down Charles's spine here and there, through his hair, his cheek, but most importantly he keeps doing it. "This is your place," he murmurs, drawing his hand down against Charles's ass again and again as he holds him against him, exposed and flushed and skin-to-skin, crying and red. That's how he should be. "And you don't think I can put you here, you are wrong."  
  
At a certain point, Charles just becomes utterly incoherent. He feels flipped upside down, even though he’s upright. It doesn’t really matter. All that matters is Erik, and the pain, and how deep under he is, and how still he goes, and how much he’s crying, and how close they are. Perhaps a good portion of his fantasies include being tipped over Erik’s knee and spanked soundly, but it must be because it’s where he belongs. Because he needs it more than he’s ever quite let on. When he runs his mouth or he gets out of sorts or he loses his way or he thinks he can make those decisions that aren’t his to make, and especially that he has to, this is where he belongs. And it’s sore and it hurts and he’s crying, he’s crying an awful lot, but he’s so relieved, too, along with how overwhelmed he is, he’s sobbing and choking for air but he isn’t harmed because Erik doesn’t harm him. Even when they stumble, even when he gets confused or overwhelmed or even a little frightened, he’s just not harmed. But what happens, at exactly, right this moment is special, and it hasn’t happened yet, it just hasn’t: Charles surrenders, and he fully, completely submits. There’s not a bone in his body or a thought in his head that thinks he’s in charge or has any say in what happens now without asking Erik very nicely, and only when he’s given that privilege, and the difference, for Erik, is obvious when he takes a second to look. All those times Charles said put me down and wasn’t quite satisfied with the results before all this, this is what he was looking for. And he’s done it now. Charles has been put down. That other Erik couldn’t do it, even if he started the job. This Erik certainly can. He’s supposed to.  
  
It makes Erik's whole body light up, something snapping into place inside of him that Charles has yet to see, too. The freefall into Dominion where there is nothing left except for Erik's Will, as Charles descends under the Earth and under the sea and through the floor and floating into the ether; a place he's been before, before all of this, when Erik was learning and growing and growing upward, and he's faltered and failed and started back from the bottom but at this moment he feels slingshotted into space, freefalling. He murmurs nonsense into Charles's ear, just the rumble of his voice. He is where he belongs. With Erik. No one else, not even another version of himself, can do this. Only him. It should always and ever only be him. "It's good," he whispers. "You're doing so good. Because you are mine. You don't resist me. You don't spiral out of place. You are here. With me." He punctuates each sentence with another smack, for good measure, because he likes it. Because he wants to. Because it matters.  
  
But the problem then, not that Erik would have articulated it in such a way, was Charles. It’s distinctly, profoundly obvious that the problem then was Charles. Because he was frightened, and he had good reason to be, but he could never quite let go of that fear. He sank, and he fell, through the Earth and through the ocean and down, and down, and down beneath the surface, but he always made sure to keep contact. Contact with something that wasn’t Erik. To keep his feet on the ground so he could push up when he needed to. He’s been here before, but not only does he not remember it, he’s never fully experienced it. Because Charles is calculating by nature, but what he feels he has to calculate is different. It’s altered, because he’s never been taught to be afraid of things like this. He’s never been told to be wary, to fear vulnerability. Sometimes he does, but not at all for the same reasons, with the same intensity. And this, this subspace -- it’s pure, in that way. It’s completely, utterly pure. Charles whimpers at each new slap, hiccupping and crying, still, completely red in the face when he looks up at Erik with his eyes shining and all those tears clinging to his lashes, there’s nothing but trust, there. Nothing but surrender. Part of him is a little frightened, but it’s only because he doesn’t exactly know what’s happening. But fear is alright. Erik soothes him when he’s afraid, guides him when he’s afraid. It’s what he needed this morning. “Yes, sir,” he agrees, and offers a soft, beautiful smile, his dimples peeking out.  
  
He never would have articulated it like that, but Erik does know. The Charles of before had these issues, that he was scared, that he had all of this messaging in his mind that told him he couldn't, and it's part of why he's been so grateful for this particular moment in time where those messages aren't there, where he can replace them instead with his own teachings. To let him know it is safe, and it is good, and he will be protected and loved no matter what. There is no need to push up. Erik has him. Erik always has him. Even when he struggles against his own programming. He brushes his fingers over Charles's face, over those dimples and grins back, leaning forward to deliver a soft kiss against his lips, running his fingers over those new marks along his skin. Erik has him. Forever. Always.

* * *

It will come back, eventually. It isn’t gone. But for right now, it is, and it’s never been as clear as it is this morning that there’s something happening here, something that needs to happen here; it is. It’s just simply not there. And Charles sighs sweetly into the kiss, his eyes still full of tears but also adoration and devotion and trust, so much trust that he felt but couldn’t quite act on before, and here they are. They needed to start from the beginning, and they are still starting. But it’s a beautiful, wonderful start. “Good?” he whispers, and for a moment he seems to falter; there’s some fear, but it isn’t of this. It’s that he’s disappointed Erik somehow. He might not be fighting it, but that makes it more intense, more overwhelming, more consuming -- and it’s only his first time.  
  
"Very good," Erik whispers back fondly, kissing him again. "My beautiful boy. I've got you, hm? You know I got you. Never let you go. Never let you wander away. You are mine. Forever," he strokes Charles's cheek, holding him and petting him now, scratching lightly along his skin, not letting him surface for even a moment. It's clear from Erik's expression he is far from disappointed; he's awed.  
  
Charles has no plans to surface. No thoughts of it. He would have, back then; he was always wondering, somewhere in the back of his mind, fretting and panicking over it, when he’d come back up. How long he should and could stay under. He was always trying to kick up to the surface before he was meant to, and it led to some shaky, uncomfortable drops, things that the two of them might even have considered normal because they’d experienced little else. Erik always threatened to keep him under for hours, a full day, but it never would have been possible. And there had been other circumstances, of course. Short, one-hour sessions, for one. But there’s time now, too. He’s firmly, solidly beneath, still crying a bit against Erik, but not because he’s distressed, just because it’s so much, and it did hurt; it does hurt. Every time he rubs against Erik he’s reminded of how thoroughly red his ass is, and how sore it already was, in ways he’s never experienced before. It doesn’t take long after that realization for him to start squirming against his Dominant, not to be defiant, just unconsciously, making soft, quiet little gasps.  
  
"No," Erik growls even still, because Charles belongs to him and he won't let him squirm all about. He nudges Charles back against the bed, practically pinning him there. "Still," he insists, running his fingers along the inside of Charles's knee. "Tell me. What you're thinking about. Words." He taps Charles's nose, not cute or playful, but very much a sharp warning. "No problem. Putting you over my knee all day. Tell me."  
  
All day? Charles can’t even imagine how sore he’d be, and despite some very vivid fantasies, he thinks he’d like to be able to sit down in the near future. He sniffles and kisses wherever his lips meet in apology. “Sore,” he whispers, because it’s all he can think about at the moment. How sore he is, and it’s not just on the outside. It’s inside, too, every time he moves, every time he thinks about it. And Erik told him he needed to tell him when he was thinking about those things, so -- “Hurts,” he adds, and he doesn’t know how to articulate it. Words are difficult like this, and he doesn’t know why that is, and he’s forgotten how to be frustrated about it. It’s just the case.  
  
"Mm-hmm," Erik rumbles in his ear, brushing his hair back to kiss his temple where it's sensitive, tender. "You should be sore. You should feel it. Because you are mine, and you were out of place, and now you are not. This is a good reminder," he runs his fingers up Charles's thigh. "Tell me more. Hurts where> I told you to tell me."  
  
Charles fusses a little at the kiss to his temple, because that’s a different kind of sore. A harsh, strange kind of sore, and there’s something that happens every time he does, a pressure he can’t explain, a sudden, breathless connection and when it snaps, it -- hurts? He’s not sure. But either way, his cheeks heat, everything flushed and hot. “Here,” he whispers, and he gently moves Erik’s hand further in on his thigh, his eyes closed because he’s practically vibrating with those nervous butterflies. That electricity.  
  
"Mm, no," Erik gives him a little tap on the nose, moving his hand up, up. "Look at me, _neshama_. Eyes open," he Commands lowly, speaking against his temple, his lips brushing along the skin, delicate and careful. "Do you like that? Do you like knowing you are sore because of me? Because I did it to you. Because you belong to me." His voice is low and gravelly, accent-affected; and it's different from the other Erik in that respect, too.  
  
It’s exactly how it should be. This is his Erik, speaking to him like that, purring to him in that rough voice; and he shivers, and tries not to squirm too much, not wanting Erik to be disappointed with him. “Yes, sir,” he breathes, and he knows he’s pouting when he looks down and finds Erik’s big hand spread against his belly instead of where Charles wanted to lead it. He’s so noticeably hard and leaking between his legs, has been for so long; and he was upset earlier, because it felt inappropriate, he was angry with himself, but now he can’t even think of those things. He just gasps at the mouth at his temple, wriggling because it feels so strange, so sensitive. “It hurts,” he insists, arcing his hips slightly so Erik knows what he means, his face beet red now. Erik said tell him. And he knows it’s daring, and probably not allowed — which is why it makes his breath hitch, as if he knows he’s doing something forbidden, naughty, putting his hand right into the cookie jar — but he reaches his hand down, gasps when it makes contact. His hand has been useless, really, not big enough, not properly calloused or rough or Dominating, but it’s at least some relief.  
  
Erik grabs his hand and pins it down, a low growl in his throat. "Absolutely not," he grins down at his captive submissive, lovely and reddened from marks he gave all over his body, his face and shoulders and thighs and ass still stinging from it; and from other things as well. He instead traces his own finger down Charles's cock, smirking when it practically twitches from the contact. He gives Charles's cheek a proper slap, not just a little tap but something real. "You do not touch. This is mine," he murmurs lowly, and very slowly, his hand circles around, certainly big enough to enclose every bit. "Now you want relief? Never from you. You tell me. Tell me," he demands roughly. "You tell me. You tell me what you need. Maybe if you ask nicely enough I will grant the privilege to you."  
  
Charles yelps when he’s slapped this time, tears springing to his eyes. He looks up sheepishly at his Dominant, smiling apologetically, a quiet, “Sorry, sir.” He knew he shouldn’t have, but he just wanted attention. Erik promised there wasn’t anything wrong with it, with needing it; and he does try to be good now, not to squirm, not to buck right into that huge, warm hand. He tries to be good, because he wants to be good. He wants Erik to be proud of him, to see how much he’s wanted to be trained, how hard he’s tried to learn. He’s tried to give him signals all week. “I — please, I need relief,” he whispers, and sucks in harsh breaths to keep his hips still, to not wriggle around too much. His cheeks are bright red, but he’s just shy, not ashamed. “I don’t touch?” he clarifies, his breath hitching on it again. He wants to know. He wants rules. He wants Erik to tell him how it works, what he should do, how he should behave, so he knows. Consistent, and strong, and strict. That’s how he’ll grow. He knows it is.  
  
"No," he rumbles deep in his chest. "You come to me. You tell me. And if you are being good, and if you do what I say, then perhaps I will grant it to you. Because it is my choice. Maybe you look so pretty on your knees right now that I'm not interested in making you come. Maybe I'm more interested in taking my pleasure from you instead, and you can stay just like this, desperate for me the entire time, hm?" his hand moves as he talks, just gentle, feathery little touches. "Not because you are being bad. Not because of punishment. Just because I want to. And if you do a good job, if you take everything that I give you-" he chuckles lowly.  
  
It’s Erik’s voice more than his hand that has Charles shivering, gasping, whining, but he tries so desperately not to buck his hips, to stay still and be good, because he knows Erik is always telling him to be still. It’s never been more difficult than it is at right this moment, and he hiccups, his thighs trembling awfully with the effort to stay apart. “I’m sorry I touched, sir,” he whispers, and it’s mournful. It’s quiet and almost sad, tears on his cheeks again, because he knew it was bad and he still decided to do it, and even if he needed Erik to correct him and tell him the rules it doesn’t feel nice, this far down, to do something Erik doesn’t approve of. It’s stunning, how deep into subspace he is. How far he’s still falling, and falling, and falling. It’s even a little frightening, because it’s still happening. He wants to reach out, to get help, but he just tries to focus on Erik’s voice, the touch he’s been granted, so grateful for it. Watching Erik’s hand on him, enthralled, flushed. “I won’t touch without permission, sir, I promise,” he breathes, and looks up for Erik’s approval. For more guidance, more rules, more direction. Instructions. Anything. See? He can learn. He wants to learn. He needs Erik. It’s all he can think. He needs Erik, he needs Erik, he needs Erik.  
  
Erik's free hand rubs his thumb over Charles's bottom lip. He can't help it, it's too much, his whole body feels electrified and on fire and he never, ever would have done this before; never would have thought of it before. He's crashed through the glass and into areas of Dominion he's never experienced and he gazes at Charles through half-lidded eyes, a lazy lion regarding its sheep. "Good," he purrs, amused, and sits back very suddenly. "Straighten up," he Orders, because he can, because it feels good. "Knees apart. Hands behind your back. Do not make me say it twice."  
  
Charles is more than eager to obey. The moment Erik Orders it he’s squeaking out a, “Yes, sir,” trying not to fumble as he scrambles to do exactly as he’s told, overeager and burning with the raw, desperate need to please. It’s entirely overwhelming. He straightens up his shoulders until they ache, spreads his knees as far as they’ll go even though it makes his cheeks burn, locks his hands behind his back where he won’t even think of moving them. “Like this, sir?” he asks, breathless, and he’s not even a little ashamed at how completely reliant he is on Erik, his praise, his approval, his direction. Why should he be? He needs him. He needs his Dominant right now, so, so badly. This is something new for Erik, too, and he’s a bit frightened by the intensity but it feels natural, too. It does.  
  
"Mm-hmm," Erik confirms, spreading his hand out over Charles's belly and running his thumb just under his navel. "Just like that. Look up at me," he Commands, and when he does what he sees there is something he's never seen before, even during their last moments of intimacy. Pure, unadulterated Dominance, infused with desire and assurance. Entitlement. Charles belongs to him. He wants. He should have. "This is where you should be," he murmurs lowly. "Not in your bed alone. Not touching yourself. No. You are to be on your knees, servicing me, because that is where you belong. My beautiful submissive," he can't help smiling, his eyes bright and vivid in the morning light. They're both naked, and Erik is noticeably hard; has been for much of the time but now it's clear, and he grips himself, rising from the crouch he'd gotten into to brush himself along Charles's cheek gently. "You're going to take what I give you, aren't you? And if you be a very good boy, maybe I'll reward you," he smirks.  
  
Charles nods, too fast and too eagerly, his head nearly spinning with it as he nuzzles against Erik’s cock. It makes him gasp. His belly flops over itself, heated and full of fluttering, frantic butterflies, and he sucks in a harsh breath. “Yes, sir, but —“ Immediately he presses his lips back together. He doesn’t want to argue with his Dominant. Erik knows best, doesn’t he? Charles doesn’t need to worry. It’s alright. “I’ll be a good boy,” he promises instead, smiling sweetly.  
  
Erik grips his jaw in hand, his fingers curling and digging in just a bit. "Yes, you will," he murmurs. "I will make certain of that, dear-heart. But you tell me what you want to say. No hiding," he whispers. "I will take care of you. But you tell me and you tell me right now."  
  
Charles’ cheeks are so red they feel like they might burn off. He whines, quiet, vaguely ashamed, bites at his lip but leans gratefully into Erik’s touch, even when it stings. Because it’s being granted by his Dominant, and that’s what matters. “I’m not very good at it,” he whispers, finally, tears leaking out as his eyes close. “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll try to be a good boy.” But Erik deserves to be served well, and Charles didn’t fare so well last time. It was only his first time, but he can’t say he’ll be much better. He’ll try. For Erik. He’s just worried, is all. He’s worried he won’t please Erik well enough. It’s all he cares about.  
  
"You are very good," Erik whispers instead, leaning over to kiss Charles's forehead. He doesn't need perfection, he doesn't need a show, he doesn't need skill. He just needs Charles, and with how eager Charles is, how much he likes it-that is what pleases Erik the most. "You fared very well, last time, _neshama_ ," he encourages sweetly. "Very well. I haven't stopped thinking about it, did you know that?" he rubs his cock along Charles's bottom lip, just because he can, just to see. "I dreamed about it. About you. Did you know that?"  
  
It must be greedy, to need more of that wonderful, addictive, nourishing praise, but right now Charles thinks it might absolutely be the very most pleasurable thing in the world. The sound that comes out of his mouth is very close to a moan, actually, and he kisses Erik’s cock as soon as it’s close enough to his lips, an almost unconscious, sweet thing, his cheeks so red. “You couldn’t stop?” he asks, hoarse, eyes wide. Erik dreamed of it? Of Charles? He really did alright? He couldn’t fit nearly all of it. He choked. Still, if Erik said he did well, then he did. Erik’s being so sweet with him. Charles’ lips pull up into a dreamy smile; “ _Neshama_ ,” he echoes, so quiet it almost doesn’t come out. It’s not meant to, really. It’s just that he loves being called that so much.  
  
Erik's cock twitches and leaks against his lips and it makes Erik suck in a breath, a soft noise that's barely audible, but it's there. He's there. "Mm," he nods, rubbing himself back and forth along Charles's lips. "I couldn't," he agrees softly. " _Neshama sheli_ ," he grins. Charles looking up at him with those bright eyes, the way his cheeks are flushed and his knees are spread apart, the devotion and adoration in his face, the smile that lights up his features. How his voice has become soft and hazy. "I saw this in my dreams. But you are mine. That means it is reality." His voice turns darker. "Open up for me. Show me what you want. And do not even consider moving out of place, or I will stop."  
  
It’s that noise that really threatens to do him in. Erik spends so much time attempting to quiet himself down, Charles has noticed; he cuts off noises, he holds his tongue, he softens his tone. He doesn’t have to, especially not like this. He shouldn’t. Charles is his, and he’s fully entitled to him, to having him, to Commanding him, so why should he quiet that down? But it’s more than it’s ever been, and so is Charles, and perhaps he can show Erik that it’s alright with his pure shamelessness because it’s not a second after Erik speaks it that he opens his mouth wide, even sticks out his tongue to gather a drop of sticky fluid that leaks, moans when he does. The thing is, it’s not a show. It’s not even close to one. There’s nothing but real, genuine devotion on his expression, open and raw, except perhaps quite a bit of love, too. This new subspace is founded on that. Who else could inspire it, after all? Who else could bring him here?  
  
It makes Erik fully gasp, letting out his breath in a stuttered, audible exhale and his eyes flutter as the whole world seems to swerve with the force of his desire. No, Charles never has to worry about not being good at it. That has never, ever been the determining factor. It's this. It's the way Charles shamelessly and eagerly opens himself up to Erik, how much he wants it, and Erik forces back a groan behind his fist that leaks out anyway, his dick twitching with it along Charles's tongue as he rocks his hips forward, sliding his hands into Charles's hair and making him look up so he can see, so he an absorb every ounce of submission Charles offers up. "Charles," he rasps lowly, stroking a finger down his throat, pushing past those plush lips and into the wet warmth of his mouth. "Show me," his words jam together a little bit, entirely overcome, almost babbling. It's not refined or composed any longer.  
  
Charles is, too. He’s moaning the second Erik presses past his lips, his eyes wide and startled but utterly hot, bright and aware and all too wanting. He desires this, first and foremost, and for so long he pretended he didn’t, he tried to stamp it down, because he wasn’t sure if it was appropriate it or not. But of course it is. Erik is his Dominant, and what should he want more than to please him? To serve him, in every possible way? There’s no suppressing it now, not even a thought of it. He opens up his mouth as wide as it will go, stretches his jaw, relishes the ache and tries not to choke, steadying himself, but if he does, Erik will take care of him. He’ll guide him. He won’t hurt him. Charles trusts that more than he trusts anything in the world right now. And it’s at all that babbling that he thinks: yes, sir and he can’t say it, which is a shame, but he doesn’t need to mourn it. Because he might not realize it, and it might not be a full connection, but for just that moment Erik hears it. Just as if Charles projected into his mind, just as he did those first times, those secret moments. _Yes, sir. I love you._ It’s shy, and it’s sweet, and it’s there. Shaky, a little disorienting, but there.  
  
It feels like fingers being stroked over his brain, and it makes his rhythm falter, physically and mentally and brings a smile to his face he can't suppress, eyes crinkling up with it. His nostrils flare and his head tips head and his gaze is hooded, slivers of green peeking through slits and when his voice comes it's heated, more than Charles has ever heard it. "Yes, yes you are mine. Love you so much. Belong here," he whispers, dragging himself out with a pop so he can give Charles's cheek a light smack with his dick. The second Charles makes a noise of protest he uses that opportunity to push forward again, gripping his neck in his hand and snapping his hips to give a powerful thrust, not enough to gag him or make him hurt, but certainly enough for him to feel the length of Erik inside his mouth, the walls of this throat. And Charles is still spread out before him on the floor, in perfect position with his hands behind him and Erik grins to himself. "Look at me," he Commands, rough. "Look at me and touch yourself. Show me how you touch yourself thinking about taking my cock. Show me, sweetheart. Let me see."  
  
The noise Charles makes when his mouth is suddenly stuffed is vaguely panicked, but mostly grateful, because being without felt close to physically painful, and he moans with it, tries so hard not to choke. He coughs anyway, drooling a bit, mournful but not discouraged; Erik will take care of him, he’ll show him, he said Charles was good. All he needs to do is be good and listen. At Erik’s Command, he gasps. Erik said no touching? But now he’s telling him to, so it’s alright. His mind is hazy, and languid, and having a hard time catching up, but he knows to do what he’s told, so he reaches around himself, tentative at first, and touches himself. It’s still hesitant, and shy, and too-gentle, like he’s afraid it might still be naughty even though Erik would never trick him, he knows that; he’s just not sure what Erik wants, and he just wants that. He just wants what Erik wants from him, and it’s so apparently obvious from the look on his face, from all of that crushing, hazy devotion. He’s so far down. There is something certain about that, at least: he has never been so submerged so far without the circumstances demanding it, and never quite like this. I need him, Charles is thinking, and somehow, shaky and shy — it feels shy, like his telepathy’s got butterflies, too, even though Charles is blatantly unaware he’s doing it — Erik hears it. _I need him. I need my Dominant so badly_.  
  
Erik's hands are in his hair and run down his face and stroke his neck and collarbone, big and warm as he thrusts his cock shallowly between Charles's lips, unable to help the soft sound that comes from him at seeing and hearing those thoughts. "I've got you," he assures kindly. "I've got you, dear-heart," he bends himself forward as much as he can to kiss Charles's forehead, stroke his chest and ghost across his nipples. "Let me see, show me," he Commands lowly. "Show me more. I know you aren't so timid alone," he purrs, and then pinches Charles's nipple and twists just a little, just this-side of pain with Charles filled up with him.  
  
Erik has him. Earlier, Charles wondered idly what it might feel like for Erik to touch him there, to touch his nipple where Charles ghosted his Dominant’s chest; and now he knows, at least partly, and his eyes prick with overwhelmed tears, coughing again around Erik’s dick as he takes sharp breaths through his nose. Erik has him and he wants to see. It’s allowed and it’s alright. He calms himself with that, soothes any timidity and nervousness down, and somehow Erik hears it, that shy, fluttery connection -- _he has me, he has me, he’s got me, he says it’s alright_ \-- and he wraps his fingers tighter around his own cock, eyes widening, gasping, as if it’s not his hand doing it. As if it really is an extension of Erik, an extension of his Will. Perhaps it is. Either way he tries to match the pace of Erik’s thrusts, to match him, to become that extension -- because Erik gives him this, too. Charles doesn’t give it to himself. He’s not allowed to touch unless Erik says. And the thought is so deeply, horribly arousing he’s moaning again, unable to even think of stifling it, thinking _he’s got me, he’s got me, he’s got me. I need him. I need him so much. I love him and I need him and he’s my Dominant and he’ll take care of me_ , and it’s just stream of consciousness, it’s just babble, but the more he sinks, the more Erik hears.  
  
And Erik's mind rises up back, as if swooping over Charles in that moment to wrap him up and keep him held fast to Erik's consciousness, surrounding him in warm, silky strands of Will that pull tight. "That's right, I've got you," he whispers and it isn't just his voice, either. Charles can hear it, because the connection has never just been one-way between them. It's Erik's voice, warm and deep and stroking all along his insides like calloused hands, and in a way he's never, ever, heard Erik before. Expressive, vibrant, real. _I've got you. I'll take care of you and I love you so much_. He smiles down at his submissive tenderly. "That's it," he whispers. "You're doing such a good job. Now go slowly. This isn't a race. You're not going to come until I say. Or your ass will be much redder before today is through." It's a promise and a threat all rolled into one. He taps his cock against Charles's lips again after pulling out, just taking the time to relish the sight of Charles needy and completely sunk under, a sight that he hasn't seen in a very long time. He's so beautiful, he's so gorgeous and perfect just the way he is, his submission is magnificent in its glory and it makes his stomach flip over and he has to control himself so that he doesn't come all over Charles's face two seconds into the moment.  
  
Charles doesn’t want this connection to snap. He knows it’s going to. He can feel it, tenuous, shaking; stuttering between them, uncertain, unformed. But perhaps this is the way to form it. Just like this, with Charles down, with Erik Commanding him, with the two of them so connected and close it’s hard to tell the difference; he did tell that other Erik, kneeling at his feet, that the solution was Erik’s Dominance over him. And it is. It has to be. So he doesn’t fret about it breaking, he doesn’t mourn it before it’s gone. He relishes in it, revels in it, breathes it all in and starts to cry a bit, too, overwhelmed, completely and wholly overwhelmed but in the best possible way, experiencing something he never has before. His hand is stuttering on his cock, but it’s because he’s whining for Erik’s, not quite understanding why it isn’t in his mouth, why Erik isn’t feeding it to him. “Please, sir,” he rasps, his eyes so wide and burning as he looks up, burning stars disguised as calm skies. “Please. Let me be good for you, please. I’ll be so good, sir,” he promises, and means it, and the way he sounds is truly indicative. He’s below. Below, below, below. He’s never been here before, but there’s no need to be afraid. Erik is going to take such good care of him this entire time. Does Erik feel good? Does he feel good, too? Does he feel it in his belly and his chest and his mind the way Charles does?  
  
"Mm-hmm," Erik rumbles lowly and guides Charles's mouth back open with his thumb, pushing himself past with a relish he's almost never exhibited in any other situation, but Charles being so down is doing things to him, making him more. Making everything heightened, Dominion crushing and crushing the room down until the Universe itself crumples into a box that contains only the two of them and dark ether everywhere else, leading them to one another by a lifeline. "I know you will," he purrs endearments softly, watching, his eyes alive and alight. "Oh, yes," he replies to those internal musings. There's no way for him to describe how it feels, like liquid flame racing through his entire nervous system. His thumb rubs along the apple of Charles's cheek as Charles's own hand grips his cock the way Erik told him to. Because it is an extension of him, and he wants it. "You're doing such a good job, you're being a very good boy," he murmurs, his eyes hooded fondly, and tweaks Charles's nipple again, twisting it just enough to send a jolt of electricity from his chest right down to his gut.  
  
Charles practically wails at just that gentle little tweak, putting so much effort into not moving, keeping his mouth open, his jaw relaxed. Erik doesn’t like when he wriggles about and away and doesn’t let him touch however he pleases, and he wants to stay still; to be exactly at Erik’s mercy, exactly how he belongs. Truthfully, Erik’s Dominion is feeding right back into him. He can hardly breathe for it, panting and greedy at Erik’s cock, trying to keep up the pace between his legs but not too much, because Erik told him it’s not a race. He’s not allowed to come. And being down is restoring things that were gone, that Charles hasn’t had access to in a long time, that Erik hasn’t felt or seen, by extension. Until right now. Until Charles gets desperate but doesn’t dare take his mouth off his Dominant’s cock, so he does what’s instinctive, doesn’t think; he finds Erik’s mind and he gently tugs, and tugs, and tugs, a little clumsy, but not painful. It’s a silent, _Sir?_ A call for attention, just like Erik remembers.  
  
Of course Erik's mind completely peeks up at it, tugging back playfully and Charles can feel it; not of his own volition but because it's Erik reaching back. Because their Bond has always gone both ways. He drags himself out of Charles's mouth just enough to tap him on the lips with his cock, mischief in his emerald gaze. "Hmm, yes, _neshama_?" he whispers the word, and it curls around Charles just the way his Will does, as if the endearment itself is a pure product of Erik's Domain, a perfect encapsulation of Charles being his. "Tell me what you would like, sweetheart," he grins down, his whole expression alive and vibrant.  
  
But Charles cries out, startled, and not because of something Erik’s done. He makes soft, mournful noises, rubbing his cheeks against Erik’s thigh, against his cock, soothing himself. He’s frowning a little, even though he feels so good, so far down and hazy and Erik’s. So owned, taken care of. Owned? He is. “Attention,” he whispers, because he’s forgotten what it was exactly he wanted his Dominant’s attention for. His hand has stilled on his own cock, and he goes to move it before he realizes and snaps it back, looking up at Erik sheepishly. He’s good, he promises.  
  
Erik gives a little growl at that movement, placated only when Charles stills and returns his hand to exactly where Erik put it. He crouches down a bit and completely covers Charles's hand with his own, rubbing his thumb along the head of Charles's leaking cock. He belongs to Erik. He is owned. And he will never be free again. But Erik will take care of him. He always will. "Attention, hm?" he touches his other hand to Charles's cheek, bowing their foreheads together. "Tell me what you need, Charles," he rumbles lowly, Charles's name dark and twisting along his tongue.  
  
What Charles needs, really needs, is rather simple at the moment. “You, sir,” he breathes, his eyelids fluttering when Erik presses closer, moaning when Erik’s fingers stroke his oversensitive, leaking dick. The only thing to grieve here is that he can’t put his lips to Erik’s cock, can’t have it fed back into his waiting mouth; and he wants. It’s so abundantly clear that he wants, but he’ll take whatever Erik decides to give him. He’s really forgotten what it was that he prodded at Erik for in the first place, but now he reaches up with the hand Erik didn’t place, gasping, and touches Erik’s temple. “Ow,” he sighs, frowning again, but it clears up after a moment, a shy, dreamy smile taking its place. “Can I be good for you, sir?” he asks. “What can I do?” Does Erik want him to suck him again? Does he want his hand? Something else? His cheeks are hot with it, but he’s so horribly eager. Does Erik see? Does he notice?  
  
The touch to Erik's temple makes him shiver, and he has to stop for a long moment just to regard Charles, his mind swirling with a billion different questions, a billion different answers split into particles that scatter across space and time, across the infinite Expanse that he spent millennia occupying and floating in aimlessly. There's been so much. So much in the span of so little, and he can't keep up. All he knows is that his submissive is in front of him and deep under. Because of him, because he Willed it. And he is hot like a burning star because of it, superheated plasma filling his veins and spilling down into his gut and further yet. He rises to his feet and motions for Charles to rise as well with a finger crooked under his chin. "Come here, sweetheart," he whispers, leaning forward to kiss Charles tenderly, with all the affection he has flowing through, at least at first. Charles melting into it flares him up again, a solar explosion, and he frames Charles's face in his hands, delving wet and deep into his mouth. "Beautiful," he murmurs against Charles's lips. His mind is alive in visions, of the past, of the future, of what he knows this should be, of what he knows Charles should always be. "Get on the bed for me. There are so many things I want to show you," he laughs, gentle. "So many things I haven't shown you. Get on the bed for me," he repeats. "Lay how you are comfortable," he adds, tapping Charles on the nose. It won't matter for much longer. "I must prepare something. But you needn't worry, because when I am finished, I will certainly put you in the Position I desire."  
  
Charles is breathless and panting, lips swollen in the aftermath. It takes a moment to register what Erik’s telling him, everything hazy, soft, wonderful, and he’s starting to obey, to lie back on the bed when all of a sudden he sits up, his heart pounding in his chest. His arms go around Erik’s neck immediately, his eyes wide, his panic obvious, blaring, loud. “No, no, please,” he begs, hoarse. “Don’t leave me, please. I’ll be good,” he promises. “Don’t go.”  
  
Erik's arms come around him and he kisses Charles's forehead, his cheek, along his jaw and by his ear, and his temple so-gently. "Of course not, dear-heart. I'm right here," he whispers, rubbing Charles's back and holding him against his chest. "Oh, I'm not going anywhere. Don't you worry, I would never leave you. Not ever." It's a hard promise to make, but one that Erik takes on gladly, for as long as he draws breath it will simply never happen. For as long as it is humanly, physically, universally possible. "I've got you. Don't worry. I'm going to take care of you, aren't I?" he gives Charles's nose a playful tap.  
  
“Yes, you’ll take care of me, sir,” Charles agrees, quietly, smiling softly and feeling rather silly for being so panicked. He can’t explain it, but the thought of Erik leaving him right now is truly frightening. Terrifying, actually. He doesn’t think he’d survive that drop. It’s just far, far too steep. He wouldn’t recover. “You’re not leaving?” he checks again, sniffling and pulling back to place a hand on Erik’s chest as if he can tell from just that. Feeling his heartbeat, making sure he’s real, that he’s here, that he’s going to keep Charles. “What are you going to do, sir?” he asks, brow furrowed. But he’s hazy and curious and wanting, again. Whatever Erik wants from him, he’ll do it. He trusts Erik. He belongs to Erik. “You’ll take care of me,” he whispers, soothing himself. Smiling with those dimples again, calmed.  
  
Erik smiles back, his own rather large dimple peeking out on the right side of his cheek. It's not a real dimple, it's the result of an injury, but it functions as such all the same; appearing even when he doesn't smile, but deepening when he does; for real, not just the reflexive smiles he often gives, and the change is immediately noticeable. In the room, in the atmosphere, the way each molecule is charged with Erik's presence, his Will attuned to Charles like nothing else. "I'll take care of you, sweetheart," he murmurs, feathering his hand through Charles's hair. "I'm going to take care of you. I am certainly not leaving. And you're going to be good and do exactly as you're told, aren't you? Because you belong to me. And I desire you." He runs his fingers down Charles's cheek.  
  
“You desire me?” Charles whispers, as if he somehow can’t believe it even though not moments ago Erik was guiding his cock down his throat. He rubs against his Dominant, nuzzling into his hand, sighing happily. He’s always been so sensual when he’s in subspace like this, and he’s never been under like this. Never. “I’ll be good. I’ll do exactly as I’m told. I didn’t disappoint you?” His heart skips a beat as he considers it, sinking into his belly. Is that why Erik made him stop?  
  
"Oh, never," Erik whispers. "You never could. You're my wonderful submissive. My beautiful boy. I desire you so much-" his voice actually falters, here, a series of emotions flashing over his face that would normally be hidden. "So much," he repeats softly, running his fingers down Charles's chest. "I'm just preparing something for you," he grins. "Because you are mine, and I want to teach you new things, and show you new things. New ways to be mine. Because I desire it. More greatly than you could ever imagine, dear-heart."  
  
Charles didn’t disappoint him. Erik desires him, he wants to train him. To show him something new, to teach him. Charles lets it soothe him, lets his heart pound with excitement instead, nervous butterflies that flutter and flutter in his belly. He wants, too. He wants to please more than anything. “What is it?” he asks, breathlessly, his eyes wide again as he tries to guess. He can’t. He just doesn’t know what it could be, but he’s so eager for Erik to show him. Does Erik know how badly he wants to please him?  
  
"Mm, no," Erik smirks and traces his fingers across Charles's nipple. "Not yet. You will discover soon enough. Now I want you to lay on the bed while I prepare this for you, do you understand?" He's so close the words breathe right up against Charles's lips, and he kisses him for good measure.  
  
The kiss helps center him, helps calm him the rest of the way. He just has to trust Erik. He just has to be a good boy and listen to his Dominant. That’s all. It’s very simple now; everything is simple, and hazy, and extraordinary. Wonderful. He nods eagerly, kisses Erik’s cheek, those dimples peeking out again. He doesn’t want to let go. He really doesn’t, but Erik asked it of him and he wants to be good more than anything. So he whispers, “yes, sir, I’ll be good” and climbs off Erik’s lap reluctantly, folding himself on the bed, lying back and looking up at Erik while he bites his lip, his belly flipping, squirming about. It doesn’t matter if it’s uncomfortable. He’ll be a good boy. Does Erik see? He can be such a good boy. He promises. He’s nervous, he’s shy, he’s new and he doesn’t know yet but he’ll be such a good boy.  
  
Erik doesn't move too far, migrating to the bureau beside the bed, leaving a hand free to touch Charles as his abilities open the chest and something that Charles can't quite see floats out, while Erik fashions it in the air beyond his peripheral vision. He intersperses it with fleeting touches along Charles's back, along the welts marking his ass-where he lingers just a bit, rubbing out some of the sting with an unconscious smile on his face. When he's finally finished preparing whatever he's got planned, he returns and the bed dips with his weight. He's much closer, the heat of the room bent around his body as it radiates outward. "Now, you're going to start at Rest," he Commands softly. "Keep your knees spread, and your hands behind your back." Charles can still see Erik, still see his face, and he leans over to kiss his temple. When Charles scrambles to obey, Erik continues; each murmured instruction an Order simply because he wants to. "Now forward," he places a hand in the center of Charles's back to guide him into a pose similar to Child's Pose. But it's different. His legs are spread apart, his cheek is touching the pillow, his hands are behind him and Erik is surrounding him. Touching him, talking to him. Guiding him, every step of the way, never allowing him to fall out of place or succumb to panic. Not ever.  
  
But Charles still gets a bit worried. He trusts Erik. More than anything, he trusts Erik, but he can’t help the way he starts to sniffle a little, the horrible dread that bubbles up in his stomach when he realizes how close to Child’s Pose Erik is putting him. Is it because he didn’t please him well enough before? Is it because he didn’t make Erik come? Is it because the connection snapped and he couldn’t hold it, is it because he asked for Erik’s attention, because he was greedy, because he was close to coming himself? He’s sorry. He didn’t mean to be bad. He’s so deep, so, so deep, but he’s new, too, he’s fragile; everything is a teaching moment. He needs so much guidance. He needs so much. “S-Sorry, sir, I’m sorry,” he gasps, tears hot on his cheeks. But he doesn’t move himself out of Position, or squirm at all. If Erik wants him like this, he’ll stay just like this. He can be so good, he promises. He just wants to be a good boy.  
  
"Mm," Erik decides, and lifts Charles up a little so he can really see Erik's face, puts him against his own shoulder and rubs his back. "Not a punishment. Just something new. You're doing very well. I am so very pleased with you. Are you afraid like this?" his eyebrows raise, genuine concern flitting over his features, slicing through all of that Dominion like a hot-knife. A soft reminder that he's still Charles's Erik. Is he hurting Charles? Making him scared? A sliver of all that pain and doubt. Erik tucks it down. It doesn't belong. The only thing that belongs here is his submissive.  
  
Charles immediately shakes his head, sighing gratefully when he’s against Erik’s shoulder. No, he just needed a bit of reassurance, that’s all. He just needed to be touched a bit more, talked to a little. He’s not afraid. He was just worried he’d done something to disappoint Erik. “Not being punished, sir?” he asks, a soft, hopeful smile on his lips, tears on his cheeks. Charles isn’t afraid. Even if he was being punished, Charles wouldn’t be afraid; he trusts Erik. He trusts him to take care of him, exactly as he needs. It’s radiating right off of him, so abundantly obvious it’s palpable in this room. “I want to learn, sir,” he promises, eager again, breathless again. He wants to know how to please Erik. “I’m not afraid.” Doesn’t Erik see how much he needs it?  
  
It makes Erik smile right back and he lifts Charles up slightly to kiss him and scritch his fingers through his hair. "Not being punished. Not at all," he promises. "And I never want you to feel afraid," he whispers. "You remember your pause-word?" he slowly brings Charles back down into position, running his fingers experimentally up and down his back, testing how he twitches and moves, nudging his legs a bit further apart. Tickling the palm of his hand behind his back. It's Erik's signature playfulness out in full force, even as stern and demanding as he is at this very moment.  
  
“Yes, sir, I remember,” he promises, breathless again. Eager and wanting and nervous, but not frightened. Not even a little frightened, and Erik can tell. He knows his pause-word. He trusts Erik. He giggles at those ticklish, fleeting touches, forces himself to stay still, to not break Position, not even daring to consider it. It’s difficult not to squirm, not to wriggle, but he doesn’t because he wants to be good. Surely Erik must see that? How desperate for it he is, to please him. To do exactly as he says. He’s never felt more Erik’s. Never. He’s practically senseless with it.  
  
"Mm-hmm, oh, I can see it," Erik whispers, those fleeting touches grasping fleeting images in Charles's mind through their tenuous connection, but even without it, Erik sees. He's always seen. "Now stay still," he reminds with a sharp rap to the back of Charles's hand with some sort of swishy, reedy implement. And then something's sliding over his wrists, silky and soft that binds them together and winds up his arms, down his legs and he isn't just Erik's in mind or in word, he is Erik's in body, displayed exactly how Erik wants, bound in place with velvety red rope that perfectly matches the marks laid out. And the marks Erik intends to give him. "You're being a very good boy," he rumbles fondly next to Charles's ear, running his hand along Charles's ass before delivering a light smack, rubbing out the sting. He moves, then, pressing a kiss to one of those welts with a grin Charles can feel against his poor skin. "How do you feel like this, hm?" he asks, delivering another stinging jolt with the reed, and pressing his lips up to it shortly after to soothe it out.  
  
How does he feel? Charles couldn’t possibly put words to it. He’s a gasping, sensitive mess, trembling in all that pretty silk Erik’s bound him up in but refusing to move out of Position, to wiggle his way out of Erik’s grip. It’s getting increasingly difficult to hold himself up like this, but if this is how Erik wants him, he’ll find a way. He whimpers at the next strike, his eyes closing tightly, tears leaking out down his cheeks as his skin smarts and aches, oversensitive and hot, his cock still jerking between his spread thighs. Erik’s never really tied him up before, but he’s imagined it; imagined being bound up and displayed, a pretty toy for Erik to play with. He shivers at the image, and it gets transferred over, shaky, flickering; Erik’s plaything, as if that’s all he has to be right now. There’s no fretting over abilities, powers, the Universe. There’s just his Dominant. “I feel wonderful, sir,” he whispers, and it’s so entirely truthful. He sounds blissful, because at the moment he is. So much farther down than he’s ever gone and so much farther to go. “I feel like I belong to you,” he adds, shyly.  
  
It makes Erik look up, and he spreads his fingers across all that skin before him as he does, moving to run gentle patterns up his back as he swims into view, his features clear and heavy with Dominion. "This is how you should feel," he rasps like gravel. "You should feel this way all the time. All day. Every day. For me. Like this, when you wake up, when you do your Postures, when you do your chores. Hmm, you should be thinking of this. Of how you are mine, of how I can do what I wish with you at any given moment because that is what you are here for, to serve me. To please me. To obey me," he follows that with an immediate strike across Charles's back, which has gone largely unmarked. He gives Charles's ear a little nip, alternating ghostly touches with flicks of the reed. "Maybe when you are organizing the library I will decide I want you. Because I have. You do not know. I watch you all day," Erik just keeps talking, just keeps spilling out his own deep-down secrets, not in flashes of imagery but in thick, honeyed words.  
  
“All day?” he squeaks, eyes wide, because he can’t imagine it. He can’t imagine feeling like this throughout the day, hazy and blissful and completely, utterly Erik’s, but it’s such a nice thought. He cries out at another lash to his back, more hot tears running down his cheeks, but somehow when he moves even slightly it’s into that pain. Into Erik’s hands. Whatever he wants to give him, Charles will take. He’s just here to please Erik, that’s all, and if red marks all over his skin will please him, Charles will bear it. Happily. “You want me? During the day, sir?” he asks, breathless again, greedy for it. For more of that anchoring, steadying voice. He needs his Dominant, does Erik know? He can hear it again: I need him, I need him, I’m just here to please him...  
  
Erik's eyes are fully locked onto Charles; there's nothing else in this universe that exists for him at this moment than his submissive, bound and eager for him and he takes a moment to just relish it, a feeling that sweeps through the room and practically winds Charles up as much as any strands of rope could do. The bed dips once more with his weight as he shifts and stretches himself over Charles, letting his own cock brush against those marks he'd swiftly delivered earlier, the implement still in his hands that he uses to drag against the skin at the back of Charles's neck and along his shoulders, imprinting short, almost gentle strikes that still leave their impressions. "Yes," he rumbles lowly, drawing his hands down Charles's arms and across his body tenderly. "All day" he answers; an answer to both questions, really. "You should be just like this. All day. I want you this way, Charles. All day. Can't you feel that?" he rocks his hips forward so Charles can feel the hard length of himself along over sensitized nerves in the aftermath.  
  
It’s not the answer Erik wants. He wants him to say yes, sir, but the problem is, Charles knows that would be a lie and Erik hates lies, considers them blatant disobedience and disrespect, and Charles can’t even conceive of that right now. So Charles whines quietly underneath his Dominant, pulling his lip between his teeth, trying not to arch beneath him without permission, torn. Eventually, he shakes his head. He doesn’t feel like Erik wants him like this all the time. Like he needs him, or has need of him. He’s never felt like an afterthought, per se, but sometimes — Charles closes his eyes tightly. It’s alright, though. He does now. Erik is taking such good care of him, doesn’t he see that? He should do this all the time. Charles would love to feel like this all the time. He could learn so many things.  
  
More than anything Erik wants to hear the truth. Even if it feels like his heart is suddenly clenched in an iron vice grip. He doesn't move, though, he doesn't get up, he just keeps petting at Charles, this time along his face and through his hair, wrapping him up in his legs and arms like an octopus. "You don't feel?" he rasps hoarsely, so far down below in the depths of Dominion that something truly astonishing happens; the emotion breaks through, vulnerable and heartbroken. He didn't know.  
  
But it would be a complete, total lie to say Charles doesn’t feel it now. He whines again, nuzzling into Erik’s hand, arching his back, sighing happily into every touch, soaking it up greedily, gratefully, easily. “Not before,” he whispers, heartbroken himself, because he hurt Erik. He didn’t mean to. He didn’t want to. He squeezes his eyes shut and feels it course right through him, horrified little shivers. It was just hard to tell. He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure if Erik really wanted him or not, if he was doing things right or not. If he was being good or not. He didn’t know, but he knows now. See? He knows now. He knows who he belongs to. Erik’s going to show him how to be good, and he’s going to take care of him. He trusts that.  
  
Erik kisses his temple, soothing him, touching him and settling him where he can. He's not hurt. Not by Charles, not by Charles's feelings. It's because he didn't know better, he didn't do enough, he didn't figure out how to make him feel this in the first place. It took this long. "Tell me why," he whispers, still pressed up so close against him, and nothing is ending. Nothing has stopped. Charles remains bound and submerged and he still feels Erik in every part of his body and his mind, those reminders and the wisps of Will that meander about. But this is important. Why didn't Charles feel it? What can he improve upon? Erik doesn't know the difference. Sometimes. He thinks it must be obvious in the way he moves and breathes, the way it is so obvious to him, that he could not take in oxygen otherwise. But it isn't, because he doesn't-because-and he doesn't know-"Sometimes I don't know better," he admits softly. "Always want you. I always want you. You are my whole world. I would be empty without you."  
  
It makes Charles choke, and then it makes him cry. He starts to shake in his bonds, but not to struggle; he’s not squirming or thrashing, perfectly content to be tied up nicely and held against Erik, but he is unsettled. Not unsteady, not dropping, just upset because he didn’t mean to upset Erik. He didn’t mean to make his Dominant sad over something there’s no use fretting about. “Far away, sometimes,” he whispers, sniffling. It’s quiet. It’s just that Erik gets far away sometimes, that’s all. He doesn’t have the Bond anymore. He can’t tell. And sometimes Charles has felt a little adrift at sea, uncertain how to navigate, uncertain what Erik expects, worried and fretting over whether Erik wants to train him at all, but it’s alright. He knows better now. They don’t need to think on it, do they? He sniffs again. “Love you, sir,” he murmurs, offering it up willingly, sweetly, softly.  
  
It makes Erik smile, his eyes crinkling up true and genuine and with his cheek pressed next to Charles's, he can feel it. "Not sad," he promises, stroking Charles's hair, rubbing against him so slowly, almost unconsciously. A reminder of where he is. A reminder of who he belongs to. Even in these moments, it phases in and out, a natural extension of themselves. Not an episode. No start or stop. This is how it should be. Always. "I love you. So very much. You tell me, 'kay? Far away?" he presses a kiss to Charles's jaw. He goes far away? What does it mean? Where does he go? Being so far in it everything is clear and sharp and hazy at the same time, he knows exactly what to do. With Charles. He knows, exactly. And this right here he would happily remain, forever, articulating Charles's every movement, every spoken word, every twitch of desire that runs through him shivery and electric. He doesn't know how he got here, exactly. It's a little fuzzy, and he's running on hopes and dreams. So he needs to know, he needs to have thought, so he can make the best decisions for his submissive. He tucks a strand of Charles's hair behind his ear and traces his fingernails right over a nipple. "You tell me. It's OK. Not sad. It's good. It makes me better. You make me better."  
  
Charles hisses at that scratch, his eyes wide, jerking briefly in Erik’s arms and offering a soft, shy smile in apology, going still again in Erik’s arms. They need to make each other better. That’s what the other Erik said, too, and then Charles came home and he went under and it’s so nice here, but he can still think, and feel, and talk. Everything’s clear, too. He knows he needs to be good for his Dominant. “You smile, but...” He bites his lip, and the sound that leaves his lips is sad. He can’t help it. “You’re not really smiling. You don’t really look at me. And when you Order me, you’re not — it doesn’t feel like you, you don’t call me _neshama_ , it’s like a stranger...” And after Charles became comfortable with Erik all over again, felt safe, trusted him, it’s uncomfortable. Sad. He sniffs again. “Not my Dominant. I miss you,” he admits. “You’re still there but I miss you.”  
  
Erik's lips do purse at this, and he conceals it by kissing Charles's neck. There's no displeasure, certainly not at Charles, which is imminently obvious by the way he keeps touching and keeps reaching toward him; in his mind and in his body. But he is disappointed. In himself. His lips press fully together and his eyes close, and he lays his head against Charles's shoulder, ensuring that he doesn't set his whole weight over his submissive and potentially crush poor Charles. "You mean when I get-" he doesn't know how to describe it, either, his voice soft. "Upset. Then I go away." He knows. "I'm sorry," he finally blurts out. "I'm sorry. It's always too much and I don't know how-and I'm sorry-"  
  
It’s so comforting, to have Erik’s weight right up against him. It feels wonderful, even when they’re having this conversation. And he knows Erik didn’t say he could, but he whines and tries to turn his head, to see Erik, pouting when it’s such a strain, when his neck aches with the effort. “It’s alright, sir,” he promises, voice soft, lips turned down because he wants to comfort. He wants his Dominant to use him to feel better, and he doesn’t know how to articulate that. “It really is. You just get lost, sometimes. But you come back. I just — sometimes you try, and I can tell you’re trying, and...” And usually, it doesn’t seem like he has to. Right now, it doesn’t seem like there’s anything more natural in the universe than Erik thoroughly Dominating Charles. It’s why it bothers him so much.  
  
Erik's head tilts a little, too, eyebrows raising at that assessment. He adjusts Charles a little so that it's easier for him to peek up and see without hurting, touching his face and kissing his cheek, nuzzling up against him. "What do you mean that I am trying?" he murmurs, because he doesn't really 'get it,' not on his own. The pieces are there but he can't put the puzzle together. He's thinking, is it bad that he tries? Shouldn't he try his best to be Dominant? But Charles is right. At this moment there is barely an effort at all. It is seamless, like breathing, humid air of Dominion filling up the room on every exhale. As Charles considers and thinks, Erik has to smile because he's begun stroking at Charles's palms, down his arms, fingertips skating over Charles's skin reverently.  
  
Charles shivers at those touches, distracted. It always feels so good when Erik touches him like this, and it feels especially good now. He can feel silk against his skin when Erik rubs against him, when he strokes down his arms, and he’s never experienced that before. It would be all too easy to forget this is just his first time being tied up pretty for his Dominant, but it is, and finally he begins to squirm, sighing softly. Touch me, more, he thinks, demanding, more demanding than he knows he should be, but it’s just in his mind, so there’s no harm, is there? There’s no harm. “You don’t need to try, sir,” he breathes, finally, and turns his head to try and kiss Erik’s cheek, smiling, too. “You don’t. See? You know exactly how to take care of me. But when you get lost like that, you try. You try and it’s all wrong. You don’t need to. You should be my Dominant, not -- not…” Whatever it is he’s trying to emulate. Whatever it is he does, when he gets far away like that. Charles doesn’t like it. It’s not what he needs.  
  
"Mm-hmm," Erik rumbles and he sits back again, running the flat palm of his hands, calloused and warm over the tender raised welts on his ass, and all of a sudden Charles gets a good few thwaks from the reed. "You know you are mine. You know you belong to me. You do not demand of me. I will touch you exactly as I wish. And if you want something," he purrs, leaning forward to press a kiss right at the sensitive dip of his spine. "Then you will ask me nicely for it." This time Erik spanks him, rocking him forward. "Because I don't have to try," he says it almost breathlessly. "You are mine, I don't have to try. I am your Dominant." It's like a relief, a weight off of his shoulders, floating into the ether and beyond. He doesn't have to put on a show, or emulate the best, strongest, most perfect being. He just has to look at Charles in front of him and see Charles in front of him and act, exactly as he is.  
  
At first, Charles is too startled to even cry out, his eyes wide again as his skin blooms with new sensation, new pain. When he’s rocked suddenly forward, spanked right on his sore ass, he does cry out, yelp, breathing harshly all over again as he tries not to squirm too dramatically, to stay where Erik’s put him. Because he doesn’t have to try. He’s exactly right, exactly perfect, just like this. He’s wrapped Charles up so entirely and so nicely, and now he can’t even imagine crawling back up to the surface, but why would he? Why would he ever? It’s so impossibly extraordinary down here, everything is hazy and clear and beautiful, warm, and he doesn’t ever want to leave. Instead he nuzzles back into Erik, sighing happily despite the new marks he’s earned himself. “You’re my Dominant,” he agrees, breathlessly. “You’re perfect. You’re perfect, sir, you take such wonderful care of me, and you put me all the way down here, and --” And he’s getting choked up again, wriggling in his bonds. He can’t help it. He'd needed him so much, this morning. So unbearably much.  
  
Where Charles is on the bed in the middle Erik crosses over to stand before him, lifting his chin. "You look at me," he rumbles dangerously, the jaguar awakened and eager to pounce. And Charles has no idea, has never even encountered the tip of what he's uncovered. This is a different Erik, striding across the bedroom confidently to appear before Charles and grip him by the hair, stroke his cheek, kiss his forehead and deliver blows from the reed to his shoulders at the same time. "I've decided I want your mouth again," he growls lowly. It's impossible to ignore with it right there that Erik is leaking right against his own thigh. "You will stay in position, Charles. And you will take what I give you. All of what I give you. You will listen to me and you will do as you're told, and you will learn because I am going to teach you. Am I understood?"  
  
It doesn’t take any time at all for Charles to become a gasping, wide-eyed mess again, his eyes definitely on Erik’s cock, practically right in front of his face. And he has nowhere to go, is the thing. He has nowhere to squirm off to. Even if he wiggled himself away, he’s all tied up, he’s helpless, he’s completely and utterly at his Dominant’s mercy, at this predator’s mercy, and there’s something so distinctly too much about that. Charles whimpers loudly, sucking in harsh, uneven breaths. “Yes, sir,” he moans, his heart pounding and pounding in his chest, run away and out of control. Erik’s going to teach him. What if he can’t handle it? What if he really is no good at it? What if he can’t fit it in his mouth? But he trusts Erik. Erik said he’ll take it because he said so, so he will. He understands.  
  
"Good," Erik praises him softly, touching his cheek, leaning forward to kiss his brow. He taps his thumb against Charles's bottom lip, his other hand wrapped around his dick as he slowly brings himself back to Charles's mouth once more, infinitely better now that Charles is all tied up like this, with a good deal of new marks to show for it. "Open up, neshama. That's it. Just breathe and look at me. You're doing so well," he rumbles, brushing his fingers through Charles's hair, almost gentle, loving, even as he gives Charles just a little more than he's had so far, deep inside of him, and pulling back before he can gag or choke. Erik will take care of him. He's going patiently and slow and steady, making sure Charles is still. For every time he moves just a bit out of place he gets a sharp, strong strike with the reed, his cries muffled by the cock in his mouth, which just makes Erik's gaze burn down at him all that much hotter. "Beautiful boy," he smiles. "I thought about this. Right here. I thought about you all tied up and serving me the way you've been meant to. And you are mine, hm? So that means I can do all the things I've been thinking about all this time," he laughs lowly.  
  
Charles feels very well taken care of. It’s all he can think, really, all he can focus on; how well he’s being taken care of, how perfectly, how completely -- he doesn’t have the words for it, honestly. All he knows is that something is different in both of them, and there is not a doubt, not a single, solitary doubt in his mind that he will be taken proper care of. That other Erik asked if he thought Erik wouldn’t be able to satisfy him, and it had sounded preposterous then and it’s even more ridiculous now. Of course he can. He’s the only one who can. It’s so soothing it’s overwhelming, it’s so calming and blissful it’s too much, and yet still not enough. He’s loose and relaxed and happy as he takes what Erik gives him, as he sucks his cock, trying to learn, trying to do what he thinks Erik might like; licking at the underside, the harsh vein there, suckling at the head, a bit like a kitten. He’s moaning, constant, pleased noises muffled by Erik’s cock. He’s well and truly content, like this, his eyelids heavy with it. He’s meant for this. He’s meant to serve. It’s so apparently obvious, right in front of Erik to see.  
  
And Charles does do something, along the way, just a tweak, perhaps by accident that makes Erik emit a stunned groan, and he curls forward to prevent himself from viciously snapping his hips forward. His breathing is less even, coming in short bursts through his nose, and his eyes are only open halfway. Enough to pin themselves completely to Charles, his stomach clenching when Charles does it again. He clamps down his jaw instinctively, but the reaction was there all the same. It's been such a long time; fantasy and wonder didn't do it. Memories helped, but they didn't do it. He'd started to forget the feeling, the physical sensation sensation itself until it slams right into him, a freight train on fire. He tugs his cock out just a bit to smack it against Charles's lips, dragging streaks of sticky white across before giving a good thrust. "I can," he growls, lifting Charles 's chin up with his hand. "I _can_ satisfy you," he promises, and it's less articulate than he normally is but it's hard to think through all the hot plumes of smoke in his brain.  
  
When Charles chokes as Erik feeds him back his cock all in one go, something happens to him. His belly tenses up, his chest tightens; it’s not panic, it’s far from panic, but it does set off the alarms. He’s gasping, moaning, frantic, his eyes wide as saucers as he stares up at Erik and tries to swallow around the intrusion, tries to take it, tries to breathe through his nose, and breathe, breathe, breathe, but it’s not because he’s worried about breathing. It’s because his own cock is twitching and leaking between his thighs, still spread for Erik’s pleasure, and it’s entirely too much. He’s going to come because Erik choked him on his dick and he doesn’t know what to do with that knowledge, but fortunately he doesn’t actually have the ability to process it. All Charles knows how to do is call for Erik’s attention again, the only way he can with his mouth so full, so he does; he tugs, harder this time, insistently, not painfully but certainly noticeable and jarring, pokes, pokes, pokes at Erik’s mind, a high-pitched _help! Help, sir!_ because he’s supposed to do that. He’s supposed to go to his Dominant when he struggles. He’s supposed to be a good boy, and he is. He is, he is, he is. He will be, he promises. He’ll satisfy Erik. It was that noise, that groan -- Charles moans, his eyes rolling back for a moment, his cock jumping against his belly where all those pretty ties rub him, silky.  
  
And then Charles isn't coming. It isn't that the sensation of overwhelmed arousal disappears, but somehow he doesn't come. That energy gets siphoned off. It isn't like being blocked up and exploding from pressure, but rather the container is full and the accelerant melts through the solid walls. It's all through his nerves, as if Erik's fingers are creeping through under his skin, and they are, and he digs his fingers into Charles's scalp, because Charles is desperate and needy and it's making Erik sink, fall, deeper into the Earth, cracked below the surface in magma. "Mmn, no," he growls, and this time when he pops out he smacks Charles across the cheek a few times, gazing right into those azure st rs. "You won't come. Not yet. You know how you're going to come, hm? Do you know?" before Charles can answer, though, he's intruded upon quite swiftly by Erik filling him up and it's not the same as-but it's pretty close to not just gentle, not just sweet, not just letting Charles suck him at his own pace. But to being fucked, like this, too. Being owned, taken. "I'll let it be a surprise," he chuckles. "And that's if you're very good."  
  
The thing is, Charles isn’t disappointed. He isn’t upset, even as he whines. He’s actively, truly grateful, and when Erik practically shoves his cock down his throat when he’s not expecting it, when he opens his mouth to thank him, what comes out is a gargled, obvious moan. It’s filthy, and messy, too, there’s drool down his chin because he’s gasping for air but realizing the only way he can get it is by inhaling through his nose. There’s panic, but it’s not real. There are tears at the corners of his eyes, but he isn’t harmed. It’s so distinctly obvious that he isn’t being harmed, and the sounds he’s making, muffled by Erik’s dick, would be the first sign. He’s choking, a bit, coughing, inexperienced and nervous even now and uncertain exactly how to get enough air through his nose, but he fights the urge to gag (he still does, a little), his eyes burning and bright, bright azure when they blink up at Erik, wide and still-startled and bursting with adoration. With pure, raw adoration, incredible devotion. Thank you, sir, he’s thinking, at exactly the same time he nearly chokes again, relaxes his throat as best he can, swallows and swallows and swallows and forces himself to be good, to take what he’s given. To let Erik fuck him as he pleases. _Thank you, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you_ \-- And it’s not an act. He means it. He’s astoundingly grateful for this treatment, blooming right under it.  
  
And even though Erik might be playing a little rougher than usual, he is still there. He isn't cold, he isn't distant, he isn't a big looming force to which Charles has no choice but to slam against an impenetrable fortress of nothing. It is a fortress, but one that he is being sheltered inside of. It is for him, to protect him, to keep him close, to surround him in love and joy. Because Erik is joyful, is grateful, is present and he's smiling down at Charles, rubbing his cheek tenderly in a contrast that really isn't such a contrast after all, it's just Erik. And being able to get right under Charles's nerves like that, being able to just sink in and enjoy himself and redouble all of that pleasure; Charles expresses it and it goes into Erik and it comes right back, a slow-moving fire inside his nerve endings. Erik loves him so much and it's so evident even when he's jamming his cock down Charles's throat, even when he's slapping him a little and gripping his hair hard and making him take it. There's such a freedom of movement that just hasn't connected before right now. And when he does it again, it's accompanied by the swift strike of the reed against his ass, pushing him forward with jolts that race up his spine. Making him spill out more of those beautiful sounds against Erik with nowhere to go. Entirely, thoroughly, deliberately owned through simple actions. "Mmhmm, I think I'll do this for a little while. Just a little while longer. We have nowhere to be, do we?" he grins down. "And after I decide I'm finished I think I'll take your ass, too. Put you on my lap, would you like that?"  
  
Charles gags a bit when Erik strikes him, his poor, smarting ass crying out in agony, but it’s beautiful agony, too. It’s wonderful. It’s pure sensation, so much so that he doesn’t think he could tell the difference between a harsh slap to the face and a gentle, soft kiss -- it’s all the same, it’s all so much, and he’s crying, red-faced and utterly overwhelmed again, but he doesn’t want it to stop. He never wants it to stop, actually. His throat is aching and sore and it’s so hard to keep it up, he’s not used to it, he still can’t quite fit Erik down his throat -- there’s a lot left, actually, he just can’t do it yet, he can’t imagine ever doing it but he thinks Erik will show him, he’ll teach him -- but now he’s got something else to consider. In his lap? Will Erik keep him tied up? Will he let him use his hands? Will it hurt again, or will it hurt more, because he was taken just the day before for the very first time? Will Erik stretch him again, will his fingers touch that place inside of him that, honestly, Charles wasn’t even sure existed? He’s whimpering, now, soft, desperate noises around Erik’s cock, all worked up again not that he ever wasn’t. Does that mean Erik won’t finish in his mouth? He’s been considering it. He’s been thinking it this whole time. What would it taste like? Would he be able to swallow it all? Would he choke on that, too, and would Erik like it? It seems like he likes it, and Charles can’t even articulate how hot that makes him. He doesn’t even consider being concerned or ashamed. It’s all just wonderful to him. He's just nodding, bobbing his head, stretching his poor jaw. Erik could do this all day and he'd stay just like this, does he know that? He'd stay just like this and be good for him.  
  
Honestly Charles is getting a little of both worlds because Erik is leaking so much it's almost filling Charles's mouth, too, with him, with every part of him, and the cold electricity jolts from his chest to his gut every time his eyes land on Charles again. But at the turn of Charles's thoughts, the ones that seep through Erik's mind on full blast, his hips snap a little, his dick jerks dangerously and he all at once withdraws, giving Charles a hefty slap and gripping his jaw and staring into his eyes, deep and penetrating. "Come here," he growls. "Come here, sweetheart. Get over here, let me see you," he finally positions himself back against the wall on the bed, drawing Charles over his lap, smoothing his hands out over heated skin. His legs are spread apart over both sides of Erik's hips, and Erik encircles him with his arms and legs, raising his hand to snap a bottle into it from across the room. It's not that he's frantic, but that every decision he makes is more assured and more confident and more certain than ever before.  
  
When Erik draws out of his mouth, Charles whines sadly, pouting quite magnificently even as he’s dragged over Erik’s lap and positioned so nicely. He’s still tied up; for just a moment, he tugs at his bindings, gasping when there’s no give, when all it does is rub that lovely silk over his skin. His eyes follow that tube as it snaps into Erik’s hand, his heart hammering in his chest, and he can’t help the bit of wriggling he does as a result, his lips parted as he pants quietly. “Is it going to hurt more than yesterday?” he asks, breathless, and the thing is that he doesn’t sound afraid. He sounds excited, his eyes still burning as he finally looks up at Erik, somehow managing to be shy now, too. To be nervous. To blush, when he’s made such a mess of himself drooling all over Erik’s cock with no lack of eagerness just moments ago.  
  
It makes Erik laugh, the sound rich and dark as he pops the cap open on the plastic bottle. "Yes, dearest," he purrs, nipping Charles's jaw with his teeth, running his hand down the hard length of Charles's cock that curves up toward his belly. He gives it a little smack. "Now be still. I certainly have nowhere to be, and neither do you. I can stay here all day, spanking you over my lap until you're messy and crying. So you will be good and you will stay still and you will take what I give you." Erik does spank him, again, just for good measure, rocking him forward over Erik's cock as it brushes against his ass. "Now come up here, just a little," he helps Charles maneuver until Erik can slide his finger, thoroughly coated in lubricant, between his cheeks, delving in without warning and curling right into that spot; he knows exactly where it is, and he grins when it's clear he's found it.  
  
Charles is just reeling. He’s just oversensitive and overwhelmed and reeling and Erik smacked his cock and now he’s on his lap and — the sound that escapes his lips is high and keening, almost wounded, and he’s trembling so hard in the thighs he’s not sure how he’ll hold himself up properly so Erik has the access he wants. His eyes are wide again, filled with shocked, confused pleasure, and he starts to squirm despite himself. To struggle just a bit, uncertain completely whether he wants more of that oversensitive, startling pleasure or less of the sudden stretch, the burn, all the soreness from the day before and Erik’s thorough spankings. “It hurts,” he protests, gasping, but it’s not a protest. Not really. Because he remembers Erik pushing inside of him yesterday, holding him down and making him take it, and he’s already panting harshly, his cock still leaking between his spread thighs. “Sir, it’s sore. Oh,” he gasps.  
  
"Mm-hmm," Erik laughs, and holds him fast, restraining him against his chest so he can work; so he can give Charles everything that he desires, and it is a contrast to his ordinary being and yet it is not, something that Charles has always recognized in him. The predator has come out to play. But he doesn't want suffering, or damage. Just this. Up in his palace in the sky the _Ziz_ longs most of all for companionship, for connection, for love. And this is what he gets, because Charles is here with him. He goes slow at first, one finger and then two, and then sharp-a little twist while he nudges that place deep inside to make Charles shudder against him, but he can't because he's held completely tight, wrapped all up like a present just for Erik's pleasure. "Oh, it's going to hurt," he rumbles. "Just a bit. But you were made to take me. And that is exactly what you will get, because I want you." He rubs his cock along the outer edges before tugging Charles up and then he's pressing in, and there's nowhere to escape to, nowhere to wriggle off to, Charles just has to take and take.  
  
When Erik begins to press inside, to press and press and stretch, Charles wails. He cries out, tears down his cheeks, shaking so violently his teeth feel like they’re chattering. It does hurt, Erik was right. It stretches and it aches but it’s also exactly, exactly what he’s been waiting for this whole time and he’s sobbing with it, really, truly crying, messy and burying himself in his Dominant, taking shaky, hiccupping breaths and he feels like he can’t breathe. Like it was all just stolen from his chest, like he can’t calm. He can’t cling to Erik physically so something else happens, his mind does; and it’s not like the Bond before, it feels clumsy and cloying and strange, but it’s there, and he tugs, and prods, and tugs. Asks for help, for attention. For his Dominant. “Sir,” he gasps, his chest tight. “Sir, sir, sir -“  
  
Erik is right there. He touches Charles's cheek and surrounds his mind and consciousness, kissing his temple and his forehead and his face and neck. "I've got you," he breathes against his lips. "I've got you, sweetheart. You're doing such a good job for me," he smiles, soft and genuine. And he talks and pets and soothes, just like he's always done, only it's more somehow. It's more, because he's reaching back. "Now, you're OK. Just breathe, and look at me. Right here?" his nose scrunches up and he kisses the tip of Charles's, sweet and playful and in deep contrast to what they're doing so far. But he doesn't back off. Unlike before, he doesn't stop. Because he knows what Charles can take, he knows it. And he trusts himself. For once in his life, he trusts that what he knows is right and good.  
  
Charles usually feels awfully silly for getting overwhelmed like this, which makes the whole process last longer, of course. He doesn’t now. He trusts that whatever he’s doing, whatever bit of a panic he’s fallen into, that’s alright; because Erik says so. Because he says Charles is doing well, and he’s petting and kissing and touching him, soothing his overheated skin, somehow, and not punishing or reprimanding or scolding, so Charles has done nothing wrong. He’s done nothing to be ashamed about. It’s the first time this has ever really happened, but it’s because, for the first time, Erik trusts himself. And besides, Charles is so deep-down he doesn’t think he’ll ever, ever find his way back up to the surface, but if he does it’ll only be with Erik’s careful hand. Charles’ lips are parted like he might speak, but nothing comes out; just more of that shaky, unstable connection, but it’s shorting out so much less. He rubs his cheek into Erik’s neck and whines, confused but so happy, too, and it all just builds, and builds, and builds. He has absolutely no leverage like this, which is probably what Erik intended -- and he would never defy that -- but he just rolls his hips a tiny, tiny bit, gasping like he’s been shot, his eyes squeezing shut. Erik is inside him. It’s sore and it’s oversensitive and it aches, but he’s inside and that’s where he belongs and Charles never wants him to leave.  
  
And he gets a good, swift smack for his trouble because he moved and Erik didn't intend for that, yet. He's grinning, though, because Charles wants and it's written all over his face, and Erik's got his fingers on Charles's skin and underneath and into his nerves, hooked-up to every part of him, controlling every part of him as he slips deeper inside, and deeper still. It's slow-going until he finally bottoms out, and just sits for a few seconds, letting Charles adjust. But not to become complacent because it's a few moments later when he pulls Charles up and lets gravity do the work, thrusting inside of him instead of just sinking deep, his own hips snapping up to complete the task while the sting from his blows blooms heatedly over Charles's backside. Charles belongs to him. He takes. He does nothing else. Not yet. Not without Erik's permission.  
  
Charles wails again, that high, desperate noise, tears leaking right out of his eyes as he does what’s meant to and trembles in Erik’s arms. There’s no escaping it. He’s sunk all the way down in Erik’s lap, trapped on his cock, tied up pretty. He can’t even hang on. All he can do is clench up, and that does nothing except make him feel fuller, sorer, more sensitive. He’s crying but it’s because he’s utterly consumed by it all, and everything, everything has changed as a result. He’ll just never be the same, will he? And that’s alright. He trusts Erik. He trusts Erik more than he can currently verbalize, which is not at all, and he rubs his face and his tears over and over into Erik’s neck, whining, making all that noise that he isn’t ashamed to make, letting Erik do with him what he pleases. He’s just a plaything, right now, and that’s good. That’s good and proper and right. I love you, he thinks, and it’s shy and quiet and he looks up at Erik, blinks open burning azure, and wonders if he hears it. It’s a contrast, but it isn’t, too. Of course it isn’t. He won't do anything without Erik's permission, he promises. He'll be good and he'll be exactly what he's supposed to be. He'll take it. Is he doing it? Does Erik feel good? That's what he wants, more than anything. More than anything, right now.  
  
"Oh, I love you very much," overcome by the sight and the sound and the sensation fluttering against him, against his dick that is currently buried inside of his submissive who is tied up with nowhere to go except Erik and he's grinning down, his vibrant green eyes flashing in the morning light. And Charles is crying and whining against him and he can't help it. He withdraws almost to the tip, and snaps his way back in, letting Charles feel every centimeter of him bit by bit, emitting a noise of his own that sounds like a choked off groan, that turns into a growl at the end, clutching onto Charles a little desperately. Erik is a person, too. Not just a Dominant, not a nameless face owning him. It's Erik. And he's here, stuttered a little, feeling all of this, and he nods against Charles's cheek. "So very good," he rumbles. It feels-he can't describe it. Like home. "Home," he whispers.  
  
Not a stranger anymore, either. Certainly, absolutely not a stranger. This is his Dominant. This is Erik making him scream as he throws his head back, tears rushing down his cheeks, everything hot and ramped up and overwhelming and he’ll take it. He’ll take as much as Erik wants him to take of it, because he trusts him. More than anything, more than anything, right now he trusts him. And it took such a long time to get here, and perhaps they’ll still need to do some work, but he is so far down, and he is so far below, and he is so very much Erik’s and he must be home, too. There’s no other explanation for the burst of sensation in his chest and in his belly and he tugs at Erik’s mind, without even meaning to, clings because he can’t with his hands and he sobs and if Erik wasn’t binding him in more ways than one, he knows he would have come right now. He would have come ages ago. And it is starting to hurt, to just ache, but he’ll take that, too. He doesn’t need to come. Erik should come, Erik should feel good, everything should be Erik’s. He just wants his Dominant to feel good. To know good. See? Charles can be a good boy. He can give it to him. He promises. He’ll learn. Will he make more of those noises? Will he please? Charles is going to be so very good for him, so he always feels this way. He'll try. He'll try, he'll try so hard.  
  
Not only does Charles take it, but Erik absorbs every response right back into himself like a feedback loop, giving it, taking it, returning it all in a fiery explosion that rocks between them with every push and pull. Erik is truly fucking him now, not just letting gravity do the work, holding him right in position to snap up into him, and when he's done that for so long, kept Charles against him for so long, Charles finds himself pressed down into the mattress with Erik on top of him. Touching his face from behind, biting his neck, purring into his ear. His legs are spread open, his dick rubbing against the bed every time Erik thrusts into him. Charles is owned. Completely. There's nowhere to go. He's surrounded by Erik at every turn, every attempt to wriggle away or struggle out of restraint. And Erik is watching, too. Calculating, making sure that there's no fear, no danger, no hurting. He slows it right down, enjoying this. Taking this moment by moment, steady and almost peaceful. His hand wanders down to Charles's cock, giving him a little more, ramping it up a little even while he slowly, slowly fucks into him. "Mine, hm? My boy. Look at you. So pretty, tied up like this. I should keep you like this all day long, hm? Maybe I'll finish my book and you'll be just like this, on my lap, sucking my cock like a good boy. Waiting for me to finish what I'm doing so I'll finally pay you some attention. And I might choose to fuck you. To take you this way, once I'm done. Because you'll be ready for me, because you always should be." Erik's voice rumbles in his ear, and Erik punctuates that with a firm thrust.  
  
What those words do to Charles is truly indescribable. When he shivers, when he moans, it’s so loud and so violent it shakes the room, it shakes the Universe, his eyes rolled back into his head as he whimpers and tries uselessly to arch into Erik’s thrust. It aches and it hurts and it’s exactly, wonderfully right, extraordinarily so. It feels so unbelievably good that he can’t breathe for it, except that he can, because Erik is right there giving him breath, too. Feeding him oxygen, as he Demands it, as he chooses. And perhaps, in the past, the notion of sitting pretty in Erik’s lap until he’s ready to pay him attention would be humiliating, would be shameful, would twist him right up when he considered it in practice, but it can’t reach Charles here. There’s not a single doubt in either of their minds that all it does is excite him. Is thrill and please him. Does Erik really mean it? Will he let Charles stay underneath just like this, will he let him serve him just like this? It’s all he’s wanted. He hopes Erik means it. He hopes he makes good on those promises, even though Charles is so overwhelmed and fucked-out just from this that he can’t imagine taking more. But he wants to, and he will. He will. He rubs his cheek into the bed in the absence of Erik’s touch, tries to seek out his hand, whining for it. He’s going to be such a good boy, all day. He’ll do whatever Erik says. It’s not mindless, it’s not robotic. Charles is just finally, finally accepting that he needs this. That he truly, absolutely needs this. And that Erik can give it to him. He hopes beyond hope Erik can give it to him. He'll bloom right under that attention. It's so obvious that he will now, that this is where they've needed to go. And there's so much further to go.  
  
"Like this," Erik growls as if he can hear those thoughts winding themselves around his mind. Just like this, all day. Every day. The predatory beast that stalks the cages of his heart has been unleashed and the world will be for ever impacted by it, because Erik can't put him back. And he doesn't want to go back. To always fearing, to always hating himself, to always compulsively forever checking, to hesitating and backtracking and falling silent. That has never been the beast. He has watched from the sidelines, watched Erik struggle and fail over and over again, not being allowed to come out and now he has broken down the doors and snatched Charles right up and dragged him under, and he's never going to let him go, not ever. But he won't hurt. Never hurt. They aren't meant for that. "Mine, mm," he just repeats softly, holding Charles down by the neck, withdrawing and plunging forth hard, pulling Charles's ass up flush against his hips as he does. "Look at you, the way you take my cock inside of you, look at this. Look at how you swallow me up, such a filthy boy I've got beneath me." He withdraws again and slaps Charles right across it, hard, watching as it twitches and spasms in absence of him.  
  
Charles screams, and if anyone else were to hear it would certainly sound like he’s been hurt — he has, just not any damaging way — but fortunately, there is no one to hear with the world frozen and Charles all alone with the beast in his lair. Happily, beautifully so. Charles is absolutely beside himself now, a whimpering, sobbing, totally incoherent mess, and he’s forgotten how to make words. This is it. This is what he needed, because he’s reaching for Erik even still. With his mind. Wrapping him up, begging without words, showing him how grateful he is for the treatment all without having to say it. How blissful it is here. He doesn’t want to leave. The thought of Erik forcing the beast back into the cage is devastating, and he almost cries with it. He’s happy here. He’s certain. For the first time, he’s certain, and not afraid. They’ll need to work and heal and do, but please, don’t take this away from him completely. He does need it. He needs his Dominant.  
  
And the noise is entirely gratifying to Erik, who rubs himself against Charles and presses back in once more with insistence. He's not lesser, but he is more simple like this. He sees the priority. He sees what matters. This. Here. It goes like that for who knows how long. It could be minutes, or hours, time has ceased to have any real meaning in this Frozen Place. And he keeps going, keeps talking and pushing and taking until Charles feels like he can't contain it anymore, and it's only at that point, the very knife's edge, that he finally releases his hold over Charles's body and rumbles in his ear-"You want to come for me? Hm? Come on. Let me see you come for me. It is mine and I want it."  
  
Charles isn’t sure what happens is an orgasm. He remembers enough to know what those feel like, and this isn’t that. It can’t be. All he knows is that his voice is hoarse from all the screaming he does, that his eyes are stinging from the tears, that he arches so much in his bonds he aches. It’s almost painful, the intensity. Everything whites out, quite literally. Erases. Ceases to exist. And when it comes back, Charles is still sobbing in Erik’s arms, still coming, wet and sticky between his belly and the sheets and it’s too much, he reaches back not with his hands but with something else, unaware, the connection incomplete and flickering but there. He needs Erik, he’s fallen apart, he’s been taken apart, and he needs his Dominant to fit the pieces back together. He’s making constant, unconscious noise, whimpers, gasps. He doesn’t even know what’s happened. It’s too much, it’s perfect, he’s going to go mad with it. But he’ll do it all again if Erik asks it of him.  
  
Erik's spreading his hands out over Charles's chest and body, holding him close as he stutters and stills inside of him, drawing his legs over his hips and pressing him down and keeping him, keeping him still and making him take Erik's release on top of it, an echo of his own that whites out the world on its own merits. As if plugging in his own end of that connection, stabilizing, an electric current running through them both and strengthened. And he helps Charles through it, because that's exactly what he's meant for, too. He doesn't let Charles get lost or snap off, he keeps him tethered. Right here, right now, because this is where he belongs. "Got you, sweetheart," his voice rumbles when he finally gets it back, petting Charles's hair. "I got you. You're OK. Mine," he purrs.  
  
He’s right. Erik is right. Charles is his, and it’s never been more certain. He might be a puddle of incoherent, shivering, shuddering sensation right now, but he knows who he belongs to, more surely than he ever has. He sobs in Erik’s arms, even after he’s calmed some, cries, hiccups, but he’s smiling. He’s smiling, because he’s so indescribably content. He really is. And for Erik to see that — Charles hopes he sees that. This is what he needs. See? Charles has needed this all along.  
  
It makes Erik smile, too, and he turns so that he can curl Charles into his arm, kissing the top of your head. "Need this?" he whispers, all that harshness and strictness very much there, but it's Erik, too. Simplified, condensed, everything melted down into a single point of Dominion. And just as Charles sometimes needs reassurance, it's just part of his core, too. He likes to know he did good. That he didn't hurt. That he made it better. And to see Charles smiling like this for him-it's everything. Absolutely everything.


	112. this will be a monument/this will be a beacon when i'm gone

Charles needs this. It’s so obvious that he needs this, and he sniffles but calms even more when Erik curls around him further, leaning right into him, nuzzling into that kiss to his hair. He’s floating so brilliantly. “Need it,” he promises, croaked and hoarse and wrecked, but certainly not harmed. He does. He needs Erik, and the more he holds back, the more difficult it will be for him to learn. This is the key.  
  
Erik brushes Charles's hair out of his face, kissing his temple. "Good," he whispers back, smiling against Charles' s cheek. "Love you very much," he adds, not making any effort to move or ease off of Charles at all, in fact he's still somewhat buried inside of him, even softening a little, but he's just unwilling to leave.  
  
Honestly, Charles doesn’t want him to move. Ever. He’s fairly certain he’d start to actually cry, if Erik did; he’d accept it, do as his Dominant pleased, but not happily. Now he’s just purring, nuzzling into Erik’s every touch, blooming underneath it. “Sir?” he whispers, and his eyes blink open. They’re glowing. But Charles is smiling, blissful, and the only other times he’s seen that is when he’s terrified.  
  
Erik touches his cheek, pressing a kiss underneath those glowing eyes. "Yes, Charles?" he murmurs, his features breaking into a warm smile. He bundles Charles right up in his arms, still bound, and making no moves to untie him even now, enjoying very much this particular position.  
  
Charles sighs happily as he’s bundled up, wrapped tight in Will and silk and Erik’s arms. It’s wonderful. He feels so safe. So kept. So owned. “Thank you,” he whispers, at first, smiling with those dimples. It’s soft, even though it’s raspy. His nose scrunches up, and there’s clearly something he wants to express, but words are so difficult this far down; he pouts. “Not right now, sir,” he decides, though Erik wasn’t privy to the rest of those thoughts.  
  
Erik boops him on the nose, his own scrunching up fondly. "Tell me what is not right now," he rumbles back, his own voice affected, sounding almost otherworldly with Will. Charles doesn't decide. Not anything, especially not right now. Erik wants to know, he wants all of those thoughts. They belong to him, just as Charles does. It's simple, really.  
  
It is simple. Charles doesn’t even think of arguing, even as he wiggles slightly, unable to really move at all between Erik’s firm hold and his bindings. He’d have thought it would be uncomfortable by now. It isn’t. It’s just lovely. “This,” he murmurs, and Erik somehow knows what he’s referring to. His eyes, that bright, impossible blue. Like staring into the Universe and having it stare back.  
  
"Yes, I can see," Erik laughs gently. He's never been afraid of the Universe. In some ways he's always felt as if this too belonged to him, the Universe itself under his Command. But he hasn't made demands of it, he hasn't tried to bend and warp it to his own vision, and perhaps that's the reason why he was chosen at all as its keeper. A responsibility only few could hope to shoulder. But, as he understands what Charles is referring to, he doesn't necessarily understand why Charles is referring to it. "Tell me more," he whispers, kissing the shell of his ear.  
  
Tell him more? Charles frowns. There’s pressure, all of a sudden; a quiet, barely audible snap. He blinks, whimpers, tries to wriggle enough to bury himself further in Erik. “Don’t know, sir,” he sighs. How can he say more of what he doesn’t understand yet?  
  
"That's OK," Erik murmurs, petting Charles's hair and stroking his back. He can't make Charles tell him what he doesn't understanding, either, but it's OK, because Charles is here, with him. He's bound up and in Erik's arms and at this particular moment in time that is all that matters to Erik, and he curls Charles up even closer. "I've got you," he rumbles again.  
  
Erik doesn’t get frustrated, so Charles doesn’t, either. It’s astounding how that happens. He just tries to curl up nicely into Erik’s side, wiggling and wiggling until he can nestle right into his neck, sighing and content. He’s still sniffling a little, but he feels safe to do that, too. There’s no shame. “I learned something,” he whispers, smiling into Erik’s skin.  
  
And Erik isn't frustrated. For once, even though there isn't control for him in this scenario, there is, in a way. Because he accepts it, embraces it, and faces it with a calm gaze and open arms. At least metaphorically, as his real arms are currently wrapped around Charles like an _Erik-ctopus_. But he isn't frustrated. He takes what he is given. He learns, too. Because as much as Charles belongs to him, he belongs to Charles. No one else could possibly be his made. No one else could possibly bring out the very best in him, but his submissive in his arms. "Oh, did you?" he whispers warmly into Charles's ear. "Tell me what you've learned," he breathes, his tone gentle and somehow stern all at once. All the parts of Erik have poked up to the surface to say _hello!_ and somehow, it all exists in continuity.  
  
Charles greets all those parts with absolute joy, with wonder, with purring contentment. “I know how to visit,” he grins. “And that it’s my birthday. Right? It is?”  
  
It makes Erik start to laugh heartily. "Oh, no," he breathes, soft. "It is indeed your birthday. I have something very special planned." .  
  
“You didn’t tell me, sir?” he grins, but there’s something shy to it, something quiet. It’s exceedingly obvious by his drooping eyelids, his breathy tone, he’s still so far down. There’s no coming up unless Erik explicitly guides him to the surface or he drops, and that would be utterly devastating. But he trusts Erik will anchor him, that he’ll keep him safe. He wiggles into his side again, just to feel, sensual and soft. Curious, now. “Special?” he asks.  
  
"I didn't tell you," Erik rumbles softly, touching Charles's cheek and keeping him still when he tries to leave. "I wished it to be a surprise. A good memory," Erik admits softly. "A special one."  
  
Charles bites his lip, and, not the least bit defiant, squirms again just because he likes being kept. Wriggles. "This has been a good morning, so far," he whispers, even though they had a bit of a creaky start. He's smiling so wide his cheeks hurt, nuzzling into Erik's hand. "I don't need any other surprises, sir. It's already special." And it is. And Charles knows, somehow, that it will change everything. His eyes are still faintly glowing, and for a moment he fusses, blinking them open and closed.  
  
"Oh, I know," Erik laughs softly. Charles is so special to him, he simply cannot express it into words. "I had made you a gift," he whispers, because-well-in typical Erik tone, it isn't flashy, it's not a party, but the subtleness doesn't take away from the meaning. And when Charles wriggles, Erik decidedly spanks him again, because he can. "Still," he purrs.  
  
Charles is curious. Of course he's curious. He gasps and whines at the spank, looking appropriately sheepish, but he doesn't pout; alright, perhaps a bit. "When do I get my gift, sir?" he asks, and he can't help addressing Erik properly. His cheeks turn faintly pink when he realizes, but he's not ashamed, either. Erik seems to like him like this. He's not protesting. He's not making Charles come back up. He's not going away. "What is it?"  
  
It's Erik's turn to look sheepish. "I thought for long time about this, did you know that?" he starts instead, curling Charles into his chest, petting his hair. "Your birthday was a day of misery, when you were young. You associate it with badness. And I wanted your first one with me to be filled with joy," he whispers, pressing a kiss to Charles's forehead. "But then this happened, and-" Erik laughs wetly. "Do you want to see your gift?" It's not a surprise anymore, but that's OK. It never needed to be.  
  
Charles blinks wet, shining, half-glowing eyes up at Erik, snuggled quite nicely and incredibly contentedly in his arms. There's curiosity burning in them, in that unnatural blue. Of course there is. "Yes, please, sir," he requests, sweet, but exceptionally eager. There's no association now. None at all.  
  
It makes Erik smile, privately, and he touches Charles's cheek with the back of his knuckles with affection. But despite the vibrations of Dominion floating throughout the room, it's Erik's turn to be shy, because he truly doesn't know how this is going to go. He's always been a fan of the big statement in small gestures and if anything encapsulated that concept, it's this. He sits and worries and frets and bounces, but at last he raises up his hand and a small, intricately decorated metal box floats into the room and hovers over his outstretched palm. He rns his other finger down Charles's collar, and the box opens. It's a simple, turquoise-ocean blended metal strip, at first, and it doesn't seem particularly... anything. It's like getting a pair of socks, really. Erik has to laugh a little and he flicks his fingers, watching it unravel at his command into a painstakingly handcrafted spire; it's thin, thinner than the collar he wears and sleek and forms into a circle, with markings along it that contain memories. Just as Charles's collar does, although he doesn't yet know how to access it at will. "It is not a replacement," he whispers. "It is an addition."  
  
What happens is that Charles begins to cry. The moment it registers what it is he’s looking at, what Erik is offering him, he begins to _cry,_ and he didn’t think he had tears left but he was wrong. He’s sobbing before long, and he can’t hold Erik, can’t cling, but he wiggles and he wriggles until he’s closer, or feels closer, until he’s practically on top of Erik, rubbing his face over and over into the warmth of Erik’s skin. “Thank you,” he gasps, when he can find his breath. “Thank you, sir. Thank you, thank you, thank you -“ But. There’s a _but,_ and Erik can feel it, can practically _see_ it as it bubbles up to the surface, Charles sniffling loudly and unable to wipe his suddenly snot-covered face.  
  
Of course Erik feels it, and he lifts Charles's chin with the crook of his finger, wiping off all the news accumulated there. "Tell me what," he Commands softly, rubbing at his wrists. He would like to do this properly. Which means unbinding him, as unappealing as that sounds to them both. Charles did express an interest in the tradition of the matter and Erik learned, the twisted rules of his own studies and most recently through articles and books on North American culture. He doesn't realize he's holding his breath. What if Charles hates it, what if it's a stupid idea, what if-  
  
“I want to wait, sir,” he breathes, and doesn’t realize he’s been holding his breath, too. His eyes are closed tightly, the only defiance he can even manage. “Not because — I know it’s silly, and I’m so grateful, I — I...” He shakes his head, overcome, his chest pinched with it. He doesn’t know how to use words properly right now, fumbling terribly. He’s sorry. He doesn’t want to disappoint Erik. He doesn’t want him to think he’s not incredibly, truly grateful.  
  
Erik's lips part, his eyes widened slightly, but his expression otherwise doesn't move too much. In typical Erik fashion, really. But he soldiers on, also in typical Erik fashion, touching Charles's face again. "No, you look at me, and talk to me. Tell me what you're thinking. Slow down and give me each one." He isn't disappointed, or upset, not really. It's more like he's withholding judgment, choosing not to feel anything at all until he understands the full scope of Charles's reaction, which is not something he's ever been particularly good at before, but in this place, as Charles's Dominant, it comes surprisingly easy.  
  
And so Charles doesn’t dissolve. He takes a shaky, harsh breath, but he opens his eyes and he tries to do as he’s told. “We just started,” he whispers. “We’ve only just started. And I wanted — I imagined it.” He bites his lip, breath hitching. “I know it doesn’t apply to us, sir. I know. I know it’s silly. Nevermind.” He feels silly, again. His cheeks are hot and he tries to hide.  
  
"It's not silly," Erik murmurs. It's why this gift has been on his mind. He's wanted Charles to know that he values him, as he is now, and knows that there are differences, and that they should be acknowledged. Because Charles belongs to him, on every level, and that includes being collared. "Now stop saying it is. It's important to me. So tell me."  
  
It’s important to Charles, too. It’s actually incredibly important. “I just thought you might train me for longer before you collared me,” he mumbles, his cheeks still burning, barely audible. “Officially. As me, now. You said we didn’t get to do it the first time, in order. I just think I’d like to.”  
  
"I understand," Erik whispers, curling Charles into him again, wrapping him up in his arms and draping the blanket over them both. "The decision to be collared is yours and yours alone. Your training will certainly continue either way, 'kay?"  
  
But Charles is frowning, unsettled now. He doesn’t want to be. Everything is still hazy, a little dreamy, he’s still in the afterglow but now there’s a spike of panic and new tears in his eyes, these ones a result of distress and not overwhelmed joy. “I ruined it,” he whispers, devastated. It was silly, he was right. He must have gotten something wrong in his head again, because Erik clearly doesn’t understand. He’s just confused and ungrateful. He ruined it.  
  
"Of course not," Erik murmurs back, kissing the tip of his nose. "I wanted you to know that I take this seriously. I take you seriously, and I know you have struggled with feeling like what we have belongs to you. It does, and you belong to me." He's grateful that this isn't the only thing he's prepared, though, and he has to laugh to himself. "I suppose I was simply eager to show you that, hm?"  
  
Charles shakes his head, still slightly dizzy with panic. Still so far down there’s no hope or coming up for air. “I want it, and it’s beautiful and I want it so much, sir,” he sniffs, wiggling again until he can get further into Erik’s arms. There’s nowhere to go, really, he just feels like he needs to be closer. “I do. And I’m so grateful, I -“ He can’t even express it, especially not now. He shakes his head, choked up. “But I want you to train me properly,” he whispers, cheeks hot. “Before you decide - before you collar me.” He knows Erik’s already decided. He knows it doesn’t much matter. But still, for some reason. Charles wants to do it properly, and he’s not sure why it matters.  
  
Erik takes him in even closer, in his body as well as his mind, wrapping him up in every way he can. "It certainly matters," he whispers. "And rest assured that I will continue to train you and expect from you every moment we are together." He traces his finger down Charles's cheek, smiling fondly down at him. "I love you very much. And we will do it properly."  
  
“You don’t think it’s silly?” he asks, barely a whisper. Frightened, maybe, but mostly curious, mostly looking for proper guidance the way he’s meant to, mostly just looking to Erik. Up at Erik, and his eyes are still glowing but they’re soft, too, vulnerable, still full of tears. A reminder that the Universe is in Charles, and Charles is in Erik’s arms.  
  
"Not at all," Erik whispers back, drawing his thumb under Charles's eyes, sweeping away some of those tears that slipped out before. "I think it's very appropriate, and I should have considered it," he huffs, fond. "But now you know what I wish, and what awaits for you. You belong to me, and I want you to see that, every time you see this collar." He touches it gently.  
  
Charles huffs, because he wants to touch it, too, but his arms are still a bit busy. He settles for pouting and staring, longingly so. “I could just have it now, sir,” he offers, sheepishly, though it’s obvious he still wants to wait. To do this right and proper. He just also wants to wear it now. “I changed my mind,” he lies, mumbling it into Erik’s neck, kissing there.  
  
"I am certain you did not," Erik rumbles back, giving him a smack in reproach. "Do not lie to me, Charles. You know I dislike that." The collar floats up once more out of the box, and dissembles quite abruptly into billions of twinkling-blue particles, barely visible but for the shimmer in the room where they hover, and Charles feels them sprinkle onto him like mist, and then disappear. "You will hold it for me. Until you are ready to wear it," Erik decides, fitting everything inside of Charles, an application of his mutation that Charles hasn't seen yet, the pure ability of Erik to manipulate the physical world like that, to melt something down into nothing and reform it once more. To ensure it doesn't hurt, that it doesn't interfere with his bodily systems. It looks simple. It isn't.  
  
Of course it isn’t. Matter can’t just be destroyed, and it can’t be created, either; what Erik is doing is manipulating on a level completely unheard of, something Charles can’t even comprehend without his own abilities. But for some reason it unsettles him. He doesn’t want to argue, he doesn’t want to seem disobedient or defiant or ungrateful; so he just sniffles and looks down at himself, and then back at Erik, his eyes glowing brighter than before. He’s deeper than he’s ever been, but he’s also more vulnerable. What happens now changes everything, and the Universe knows it, too. But Charles doesn’t. “Okay,” he hiccups.  
  
Erik touches his jaw. "No," he rumbles in warning. "You tell me. What you think. What you feel. You don't hide. Never." He doesn't feel it himself, the way he might another time. He might be embarrassed at fumbling, but it's muted down all the way now. His focus is where it should be. On Charles.  
  
And it makes all the difference in the world. Of course Charles still fusses a bit, pouting, and he nudges into that hand on his jaw, insistent. “Bring it back,” he demands quietly, and then gets instantly sheepish, squirmy. “Please, sir,” he adds.  
  
And of course he gets a stern smack for that along the cheek that Erik soothes out moments later, mollified. He twirls his fingers and the blue shimmers reappear out of Charles and form into a brilliant circlet. "Like this?" he whispers fondly.  
  
Charles bites his lip, whining softly from the slap. It takes him a bit, but eventually he shakes his head. “I just want it to exist,” he whispers, and he knows that’s silly. Inane, even, even when he’s so hazy. But he can’t help it, either. “I just want it to exist, so...” So that it’s waiting for him, the way it was, in the pretty case Erik made for it. Because he does want it. Desperately, he wants it.  
  
It's perfectly understandable to Erik, who nods, and it slowly returns to its spot, the particles reflecting light and shining softly as the case, embedded with glass at the top, closes. "And it will be waiting for you," he whispers, tucking a curl of Charles's hair behind his ear.  
  
It calms him right down, and warms him right up. He wriggles some more, just to feel, just to be, sighing at all the silk on his skin. “Thank you, sir.” The sheets of Erik’s bed are so soft, too, and he feels sore and well-used but not uncomfortable, somehow. Not in the sense that he probably should be. “He said it was too long,” he mumbles, grinning softly up at his Dominant.  
  
"Oh, it's definitely too long," Erik laughs, and as Charles grows more comfortable and calm, so does Erik, and it shines right out of him. "I absolutely plan to cut this. Just a little. Perhaps I'll give you the Justin Timberlake Ramen Noodle. You'd look very fetching." Erik grins at him, alive with mischief and playfulness.  
  
Charles grins back, too, soft and settled, squirms around until he can put his head on Erik’s chest properly. He feels so nice. Very sore, but very nice. “I want you to take care of me,” he whispers, and he’s never quite admitted that. Not so simply, not so unashamed. He does now, and there are differences. It’s why he’s not ready to be collared yet, even as he still wears the one around his neck. There’s just more for them to do and learn. “Do you feel nice?” he asks, blinking open heavy eyes again. They’re still a bit odd, a bit strange, something that might be unnerving if it wasn’t Charles. But it is, undoubtedly.  
  
Erik kisses his brow, nudging him even closer, running his fingers through his hair as he lays his face onto Erik's chest. Exactly where he belongs. "Very nice," he confirms with a whisper, and even though it's not exaggerated, it's completely sincere. For once he is entirely at home in his Dominance, even like this, in these softer moments. There is more to do and learn, for both of them, but at this moment in time he is more present than ever before, in his natural form.  
  
Charles wonders if perhaps it’s less exaggerated because he’s so comfortable. Charles is comfortable, too, and he hums, content, pleased, safe, turning his head to gently kiss his Dominant’s chest. Near his heart. “You’ll need to visit again, I think,” he whispers, because Erik asked him before what he learned, and he wants to share. He’s not afraid of silly things like ruining the moment anymore. If he knows something, he should share it with his Dominant. “There are people that need you, sir. But I need you more,” he teases, except it isn’t anything but the truth. He grins regardless, floating, eased. Down, down, down.  
  
"People?" Erik wonders, his eyebrows floating up. He's been thinking about his visits, of course. About his family, but they all seemed to be doing so well. He seemed to be the odd one out, melting and crying because he couldn't handle it. He just hopes he left them with something more than they had at the start. He smiles, laughing gently. "And I will always need you. And I will always be there for you. Always."  
  
“I know,” Charles breathes, eyes fluttering closed again. Calm, relaxed, assured. He doesn’t feel frightened or uncertain, at the very least not in this moment. “People to visit, and see. People connected to you.” He grins against Erik’s skin. “People like me, but not me. Very much like me. They’re going to help us.”  
  
"People like you," Erik wonders. Does he mean the other Charles's or something else? Someone else? Has Erik met them before? Will it be the same? He's very curious and he can't help the barrage of questions popping up in his mind, pinging around, even though he doesn't ask them, because he doesn't know that Charles can provide a clearer answer.  
  
Somehow, Charles hears them anyway. Perhaps it won’t last, the connection so tenuous and only just-forming, but it’s there now. He hums softly, rubs his cheek against Erik’s chest. “I don’t want you to go, sir,” he admits quietly. It’s not a plea; Charles sounds resigned to the idea, sighing. “I’ll miss you terribly.” Another huff. “But I want to know, too. Do you want to know the secret?” His eyes are gleaming, that excited spark when he’s got knowledge to share, and they’re still glowing when he peeks up at his Dominant, still hazy with unimaginably deep subspace. Still tethered to it.  
  
"I'll miss you very much," Erik whispers back, kissing the top of his head. He can't say he doesn't want to go, because the times he has went, he thinks (other than that time) that he left that place a little more improved than when he came. He helped a Charles, if not his Charles, and he simply can't regret that. But he does miss his Charles every time, and he's always so relieved when he wakes up and he sees his Charles dozing on the bed. He touches Charles's cheek, immeasurably fond of that excitement. "Tell me the secret," he purrs, not-quite an Order but full of Command.  
  
“You called it out our Bond,” Charles whispers, shy. Because it’s there. He knows it’s there, and he knows he’s the one preventing access to it. It’s two-way, it always has been, though Charles’ abilities are always the catalyst; but it’s been dulled, and silenced, and shut off, and he knows he’s the reason. He tries not to dwell on it, now, but those mental fingers inexpertly touch along the frayed edges. It’s there. “That’s how. We’re always connected.” No matter where, and no matter how (which means that even for that Charles, that lost, angry, hurting Charles -). He bites his lip. “You like to tell me stories,” he says, seemingly out of the blue. There’s something so achingly sad about it, and when he continues it’s obvious why. “They’re not always very happy ones, sir.”  
  
He gets another kiss for his trouble, and Erik rubs his back, in the same soothing manner that seems to work for every Charles he's encountered thus far. "We always are," he whispers back, nodding. "Always connected. Through our Bond. It's still there. I can feel it sometimes, you know." He traces his fingertips down Charles's spine, and then laughs softly at the comment. "I do like to tell stories, hm? Sometimes they aren't the happiest," he agrees. His repository doesn't include modified fairy tales. He just can't help it; replete through his heritage are a variety of stories, most of which have some aspect of melancholy to them. They're lessons, in a way, and to Erik, comforts, even if they're sad. Some of them he relates to a little too well. That can't be helped, really.  
  
Charles shakes his head, though there’s a soft smile there, lingering from the kiss. “I meant ours,” he whispers. Their story. “We’re always telling a story together, aren’t we? And it’s not always a happy one.” He aches for the versions who don’t have this. This moment, this wonder, the Charles who haven’t been taken thoroughly and held there, suspended, bound, calm and kept against Erik’s chest. How many don’t? It’s nearly agonizing to consider.  
  
Oh. Erik laughs, warm. "No," he agrees, a little mournful, but also incredibly grateful. "We've gone through quite a lot. But I would do it all again a thousand times if it means being here with you. We can overcome anything, as long as we're together." That other Charles said it best. Shaw's greatest mistake was putting the two of them together. It's anyone's fatal error. Almost as if Erik can sense the direction of Charles's thoughts, he entirely hesitates to consider what he would be like without Charles. Even that older Erik had some form of Charles in his life before they really met, modulating him, criticizing him, keeping him in line, helping him to consider. Charles was in his life and even though he'd never admit it, he always paid attention. But what about him? What about this Erik? What about the millions of other Eriks without a Charles? He shudders to think. The world itself would be vastly altered. It would be deprived of a person who could lead, who could take charge, who could Command, and it would instead be under threat. Under rule, even. Erik knows it from the bottom of his heart. He didn't have Charles for a long time and yes, he tried to do good, but eventually that tide turned. He wouldn't have stopped with the building. He knows he wouldn't have.  
  
Charles shivers, but not because he’s frightened. Because the thought is devastating, but not because he’s afraid. “I’ll help him,” he promises, as if he knows an Erik like that exists. Many, even. And he knows he never could. He knows he can’t touch every one and make them better, show them another way, but he aches to. It certainly won’t stop him from trying while he has the chance. “I’ll help, sir,” he promises, that sweet, deep-down devotion, entirely sincere.  
  
"Promise," Erik asks, and he knows he doesn't have the right to, but he can't stop it from coming out of his mouth. He just can't fathom the idea that there are Eriks without Charles out there. "Promise you won't be scared. He won't hurt you." No Erik could. He knows that as truly and deeply as he knows anything. He might posture a little, he might be rough and scowly and even a little mean, hurting and skeptical, but he wouldn't hurt Charles. He couldn't.  
  
“I know, I promise,” Charles whispers, fierce now. Certain. He kisses Erik’s chest, looking up at him with those bright, glowing eyes. “He won’t hurt me, I know. I’ll take care of you,” he promises, and means it with every fiber in his body. “Don’t worry, sir. I’ll be good.” He’ll figure out what that means. The other Erik said he knew. He might need some training in things, but generally, he knows. “And you’ll help me, too? If I lose my way?” he asks, hushed.  
  
"Always," Erik returns, just as fierce. He might be more outwardly conveying of his ferocity, but the drama, the panache as it were, doesn't detract from his sincerity. From the moment he met Charles he knew his life would be dedicated to caring for him, to helping him, in any way he can, in any way that would be beneficial. Even if it's not what Erik originally conceives, and he tries too hard in the opposite direction; he will come back, he will listen to Charles and do what is right in that situation, in that moment. Always. Forever. Charles can count on him, rely on him, lean on him.  
  
Charles’, too, just in a different way. He turns his head again to kiss Erik’s chest. “And when you visit, you promise you’ll come back?” he asks. It’s implied that he will, too, of course. There’s no conceiving of otherwise right now. “And you’ll tell me stories about it?” he asks, shy again.  
  
"Of course," Erik laughs gently. "I will always come back. And I will certainly tell you all about it. And you will promise to come back to me. I will not accept anything less," he Demands sternly, Charles's jaw gripped tightly in his fingers so he can look into those glowing eyes and make certain his Will is followed.  
  
“I’ll come back. I promise, sir,” he murmurs, hushed, breathless, his eyes slightly wide now. He still can’t move much, but he wiggles and scoots until he has more places to kiss. “I know they’ll take care of me,” he sighs, because Erik always takes care of him, “But I like the way you do it best.” It’s so honest. Open, even when it’s soft, a little shy, a little uncertain. Utterly truthful.  
  
It makes Erik smile, radiating severity and strictness mixed with pure joy, and devotion. Charles's declaration makes him vibrate with warmth. He's the best one for him, he's the one who can take care of him the best, and that Charles recognizes and acknowledges it means more to him than he can possibly say. "Good," he practically purrs, kissing Charles's cheek. "Because you are mine. Always. At the end of every day and no matter what universe. Mine."  
  
Charles wonders, idly, if there’s something to this. It’s hard not to notice the pattern, because the last time Erik -- well, that’s when it first happened, more or less. It’s likely not a pattern at all, but it doesn’t stop his cheeks from heating, or stop him from curling into Erik even further, as if that’s possible. “If you go somewhere,” he whispers, and he’s sleepy, now. He’s not sure if it’s because of how intense everything is, or if it’s something like before. He’s not familiar enough with it yet. “Just try to make it somewhere where the timing matches up, please, sir. Because it’s my birthday,” he grins. “I didn’t even know it.”  
  
Erik grins back. He doesn't know if he can make a choice, here but he does say, "If it is within my power, I will certainly try," he promises, because he can't really promise that it will absolutely happen, but of course he will try. He notices how sleepy Charles is and he runs his fingers through his hair. "I love you so much. I know you didn't know it. It was intended to be a surprise." He laughs a little. He'll make sure that Charles has an unforgettable experience, because that collar isn't the only thing he prepared.  
  
“Hmmm, I love you too, sir,” Charles hums, and closes his eyes again. It comes out easily, like this. “When you meet another Charles wherever you visit, you’ll love him, won’t you?” It’s not an accusation, and it isn’t jealous, really. More of a statement than a question. “But it’s my birthday,” he adds, for some reason.  
  
And Erik cannot help but be anything other than honest. Because he knows that Charles must know. "I will love every incarnation of you," he admits softly. "But you are mine." As much as he believes that every part of Charles, every kind of Charles is his. This is his Charles. And nothing and no one can take that from him. "It is your birthday," he whispers gently. This is his Charles. Always. Forever.  
  
It’s his birthday. Charles smiles, and kisses Erik’s neck. “I’m your Charles,” he murmurs. “And you’ll come back to me, so we can celebrate?”  
  
"Always," Erik whispers, and he's not sure if that means he's going to leave right now. As much as he wants to stay, he can't hope not. Because there might be a Charles out there who needs him. And it won't ever be as much as his Charles needs him. It won't ever be as much as this Charles is his. But it will be a Charles and he can't conscience sitting here on his laurels while a Charles is suffering and he could help it. But one thing he can promise. "I will be here. So we can celebrate. My _neshama_. My soul," he grins. Dramatic. Sure. But accurate. Always.  
  
“He didn’t call me that,” Charles mumbles, and he might be drifting, because it’s just a bit slurred. He’s not getting dragged down, like before; but he’s getting sleepy, and maybe that’s a good sign. “I missed it. I like when you call me that,” he whispers, and he’s said it before. He’s said it many times, before he lost his memories. It hasn’t at all stopped being true. “Will you always call me that?” He’s definitely getting sleepy, everything muffled.  
  
"Always," Erik tells him softly, kissing his forehead. "I always will. Forever, my _neshama_. I always will. You will always to me be this."  
  
It’s his birthday. Charles smiles, and kisses Erik’s neck. “I’m your Charles,” he murmurs. “And you’ll come back to me, so we can celebrate?”  
  
"Forever. Every birthday from the time we have met. We will celebrate." Because it is where Charles came into this world. Erik cannot think of a better thing to celebrate.  
  
Charles doesn’t think so. He knows that it’s the truth, and right now he certainly doesn’t think so. Perhaps this is just the way to spend their afterglow; a bit of a mid-morning nap. It doesn’t seem so terribly bad, and they’ll learn more. Isn’t it nice that they’re learning so much? He yawns, resting his ear against Erik’s chest, listening to his heartbeat, still tied up nicely. “Tell me a story, sir?” he requests, as his eyelids get heavy again, and Erik’s, too. He’ll try to listen, even so. He’ll always try to listen.  
  
Even if Erik's story ends up a bit slurred as his head begins to bob a little and finally lay itself on Charles's shoulder, he dutifully mumbles out a story; and this one is different than the one that older Erik told him. That one was about princes and princesses and mountains and gnarled warrior eagles. This Erik's is about a community of people and one man's penchant for complaining over and over again, until a bear attacked their village and he had to learn to work together with his fellow humans to slay the beast. Of course, afterwards, he went straight back to bitching. _Oy vey gevalt!_ he affects with the tried and true _shruggie_ of the generation (🤷) until he ends up fully unconscious and murmuring in his sleep.


	113. my love leave yourself to me

And of course he ends up somewhere entirely different, when he begins to come to. It happens to be to a loud crash, and the sound of muffled cursing. The groan that follows is pained and frustrated, followed by a huffy, short breath through the nose. It’s undeniably Charles, but not the one Erik knows. This one is currently trying to pick up shattered glass, and cutting himself rather spectacularly in the process. If he notices Erik’s presence, he says nothing of it.  
  
Excuse-what-" _Excuse me!_ " Erik blurts, halfway conscious, and he waves his hand. All of the glass pieces lift up, including the ones embedded in Charles's skin, and reform into what they should have been without any effort at all. Erik laments that he is buck naked or else he would rip off a piece of his own clothing, but he finds some fabric lodged somewhere and fashions it into a few strips worthy of wrapping around Charles's hand after jogging over to him and lifting it up. "You cut yourself," he says dumbly, peering down at this man, curious.  
  
What they should have been is a bottle, a rather empty bottle of whisky that was spilled all over the floor and now isn’t. This scraggly, older, weary looking Charles - he really, truly has seen better days - only scoffs and slaps Erik’s hand away like a child before he takes a long swallow, his eyes bleary. Before he rolls them, anyway. “What an astute observation, my friend. Would you _piss off_?” he sighs. “It really was a terribly poor morning, I don’t need your help to fuck it up further, thanks much. Though I can see why you’d think so, that is your specialty -“ It’s vicious, and it’s mean, and it’s perhaps aimed to hurt. Dripping with hurt, too, but no matter that. Right now he’s struggling to stand, grimacing. There’s noticeably no collar around his neck.  
  
Erik lifts him up easily. "Now you stop that instantly," he Orders with a low warning growl in the back of his throat. "You won't speak to me that way. Not in any dimension." His left eyebrow raises. "You are drunk," he notes, his other one following suit. It occurs to him that he's never seen his Charles drunk, because he's kept such a tight reign on that behavior this whole time. Erik's eyes drift to his neck. He can't really understand what's going on, here. Is this universe's version of him-is he responsible for this? If he's here, then he must be.  
  
“In any dimension -“ Charles laughs, low and darkly amused, exhausted, drunk, and shakes his head. It does make the entire world spin, but the trade-off for some exaggerated disbelief is worth the throbbing headache. “Well, you’re something else, aren’t you? Is this what it’s come to? I’m imagining you -“ He sighs, running a hand through shaggy, greasy hair. Very greasy, and now bloody from his cut. He hasn’t showered in days. “Well, no matter. I talk to you however I please, Erik Lehnsherr. You don’t tell me what to do. You don’t have the right,” he sneers. “Now, would you help me to the bed, if you’re going to be hanging around like a ghost? My medicine is wearing off.” He doesn’t mean the alcohol, though judging by the smell of his breath, he does his fair share of self-medicating.  
  
"Charles-stop, stop-" Erik takes his hands, wrapping them both up in the fabric he's acquired. "Stop," he whispers, gazing down at him every bit as real as he was in life. And, you know, every bit as endowed. Shall we say. He doesn't seem to notice that he's not wearing a stitch of clothing, but he does seem appropriately hurt by Charles's appearance, by his comments. "I'll help you," he promises. "But you need to calm down. Come on, OK? Let's go, we're going to bed." He leads Charles by the hand, not to the bed, but the bathroom, where he melts off the clothes that Charles is wearing. Not for any nefarious purpose, but the shower begins to run all of a sudden, and Erik assists him over the ledge of the tub. If he is an apparition it's a bizarre one. One who has his abilities. Who has his voice, if accented differently. Who has his stern, Commanding presence. His Will.  
  
Charles grunts, dizzy and hazy and only half-conscious, shoving at Erik as he’s herded off to the shower. “Let go of me, you great brute,” he huffs, and he doesn’t seem to care one bit that he’s hurting Erik. He doesn’t seem convinced Erik is really there, but he grabs at a towel anyway, throwing it at him. “Put - put that on, Jesus. I am certainly not in the mood,” he sighs. “I said bed. I don’t want a shower. I want a drink, and then I want to sleep for a solid sixteen hours, and I want you to fuck off.” Childish? Yes. But exasperated, and hurting, and tired. So extraordinarily tired. He turns the shower off. “Get out of my way, Erik.” He can’t stand. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that he’s in pain. An excruciating amount of it.  
  
Erik ties it around his waist haphazardly and Erik lifts him into his arms, turning the shower back on. It's not a harsh spray that greets him, though, but almost a mist, one that seeps into his pores and lifts out that liquored-up smell and works into his hair to slough off the blood, and help sober him up. "What you want is irrelevant. You are a mess, and I won't tolerate it. Now just relax yourself and stop fighting me." Another Order. "It's going to be OK. I've got you." He notices the pain immediately and it doesn't take long before Charles is washed off and clean. Erik wraps him up in a fluffy towel. "Where is your medicine? And your pajamas, hm?"  
  
“I don’t want you to have me,” Charles hisses, but the grimace all over his face makes it obvious enough he’s barely tolerating whatever agony is ripping through his body. He’s shaking violently in the towel. “The - the side of the bed, get out of the way -“ He wants to shove past, but he can’t. He can’t, and a panicked gasp slips from his cracked lips. “Jesus, Erik, get out of the way! It’s wearing off,” he hisses, his eyes screwed shut.  
  
"I've got it. I've got it, relax." Whatever it is, Erik feels it and finds it in the side of the bed and it lifts up. It's in a vial with a needle, but Erik doesn't need that for it to get into his bloodstream right away. He lifts out a strand of it, liquid and shining in the air and it disappears into Charles's arm, soaking into him and working as soon as it hits, Erik helping it absorb across the blood-brain barrier instantly.  
  
And Charles slumps in relief when it does, his head smacking against the back of the shower. He’s breathing heavy, and bent over, and gasping, his hands in his stringy, wet hair. “Bloody fucking - I’m always forgetting when to take that,” he grunts, in a decidedly un-Charles manner. He’s not speaking to Erik. He’s still fairly certain he’s not there, after all.  
  
But he is, and he's got Charles in his arms, and he brushes his hair out of his face and untangles it in his fingers, drying him off in the towel. "I don't like seeing you in pain, _neshama_ ," he whispers, and it's not an answer and it's not a solution, but it's Erik. He is there. He draws his fingers down his cheek. "I'm sorry. For whatever happened here." He shakes his head, his features drawn tightly. It's not a look this Charles is familiar with. As if Erik is forcing himself not to tear up.  
  
Charles blinks, then. He blinks, even bleary-eyed and hurting, pained physically and clearly emotionally, and looks up at Erik, too exhausted to fight too much. “Excuse me, what?” he demands. “You’re sorry for - ugh,” he groans, touching his temples. Massaging them roughly. “I’ve gone mad. I’ve finally gone mad.”  
  
"You are not mad, dear-heart. You are right, I don't really belong here. I'm just a visitor. But I am here. I promise you I am." He smiles, his nose scrunching up a little. This, too, an alien expression. He leads them out of the bathroom and gently sets Charles down on his bed, pulling the blanket up and sitting down beside him, still running his hand through his hair. He takes Charles's hand and sets it aside, massaging at his temples instead. Gentle. The way he knows his Charles likes.  
  
But it just makes this Charles slap his hands away, swatting uselessly at a fly. Flinching away from comfort as if it’s a slap. “Don’t - don’t you do that,” he grunts. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you, don’t you come here, don’t you -“ He pinches his lips together, slumping on the bed. He’s twitching. “Fuck. Bloody fuck, that hurts.”  
  
Erik catches his hands easily in one of his own, staring down at him indomitably. "It hurts because you forgot to take your medicine. You shouldn't do that. You need to take better care of yourself." He rubs his thumb along Charles's wrist. "What happened here?" he whispers, eyebrows knitted in concern.  
  
“Don’t tell me what I should do,” he growls, though it’s really just a pathetic slur of a thing, his eyes closed and his breathing panting and heavy still. “You know good and well what happened, Erik. What do you even mean?” He’ll apparently have to be more specific.  
  
"I don't," he whispers, brushing Charles's hair from his face, setting his hands down with one of Erik's holding them in place so he doesn't thrash about. "I'm not the Erik you know. I'm a visitor," he repeats, his voice slow and soft, it's been that way the whole time. If anything gives merit to what he's saying, it's that.  
  
Charles blinks again, rapidly this time. Still slow, still intoxicated, still reeling in the aftermath. Limbs still twitching horribly. “A visitor,” he repeats, slowly, and reaches up to rub at his temple again. “Christ. Alright. What do you want to know, then?”  
  
"What happened here? Where is your Erik?" he whispers mournfully, capturing Charles's hand now just as he did before and setting it aside. "Let me," he encourages. " _Bevakasha_. I'll make it feel better."  
  
“My Erik,” he scoffs, and that’s drenched in pain. Absolutely soaked in it. He sags against the bed, completely unable to fight, and closes his eyes. “My Erik. No, I imagine not. He’s very far away,” Charles sighs, his eyes heavy. “He could not be farther, and I would have it no other way.” That’s a lie.  
  
"You don't need to lie to me. I'm not here to hurt you. I'm so sorry if he hurt you. He should never have done that. He isn't-" dead. He's already met a Charles once that-and it crushed him in a way he can't comprehend right now, all of the experiences piling up and just piling and piling and-now this-and now this Erik. He can't understand.  
  
“You’ve gotten turned around,” Charles laughs, and it’s hysteric. It’s drunk, and hysteric, and he shakes with it. “You’ve truly come to the wrong place. I don’t get visitors, Erik, and I don’t need them. You can be on your way.” And he’s lonely, isn’t he. He’s so heartbreakingly lonely.  
  
"Maybe so," Erik murmurs. "But I don't think so. I am here, and I don't want to leave." He brushes Charles's hair from his face, tucks it behind his ear, settles him into the pillow a little. "You have a visitor, now." His smile is gentle, but sincere. So different to the sharp, harsh Erik that he's come to know. There was good in him, once. He felt it. And it's been melted away, twisted in grief and anguish. And he might not be able to feel it so well right now, but it's plainly visible on this Erik's face. Maybe he's an apparition after all.  
  
But Charles knows, somehow, that he’s real. His eyes close tightly, every muscle in his body locking up. It does nothing for the pain. “Where are you visiting from, then?” he asks, harsh, but not as harsh as he means for it to be.  
  
"Westchester," he laughs a little, soft. "It's your birthday. I made you some presents, but we got a little sidetracked," he tries his best to soothe those limbs, rubbing gently.  
  
“My birthday,” he echoes, as if it’s a foreign concept. He blinks up at the ceiling, and perhaps there’s a single tear on his cheek. “You’re together, then?” He doesn’t offer anything about his own situation. It isn’t worth noting.  
  
Erik thumbs that tear away, his touch light and delicate. "We are," he whispers. "You aren't with your Erik. What happened? You are so angry to him. He hurt you?"  
  
Charles tries not to flinch. “He made his priorities clear,” he says, simply, and that’s it. That’s all he feels he needs to say. “I need another dose. This one isn’t strong enough,” he whispers, pained. “I waited too long.”  
  
"I don't know what happened," Erik returns quietly, solemnly, "but I know-" he remembers, then, a flash. Of Charles and Erik inside the cell with Sebastian Shaw, and how Erik lost all sense of himself and just lashed out like a wild animal, spitting and screaming and throwing his fists. Charles wasn't there. No one was there, no one but Mr. Shaw's smug face and Erik's ferocious desire to pummel it into dust and ash. And Charles held him back, took him back to himself. At the end of the day- "I know he loves you, _neshama_. He might not know how to show it, or even what it is. But it's there. I know it's there as much as I know anything in any universe." He lifts the vial again. "Will another dose hurt you? Be honest with me. Please." Don't let him hurt Charles again. He can't take that.  
  
Charles’ lips purse, and there are more tears on his cheeks in the aftermath of that. Of hearing someone who looks very much like Erik - “No,” he rasps. “No, it won’t hurt me. It doesn’t hurt.” It does quite the opposite, and he’s quite addicted to it. “He doesn’t love me. Whoever you are, you don’t know him. Not the Erik I know. He doesn’t love anything but his - his _agenda_ ,” Charles spits, and it hurts. It hurts so badly. “He did, once. Not anymore.”  
  
"OK," Erik whispers, because he knows addiction. He knows it hurts, and he hasn't come here to cause this Charles any more pain. He does ensure through his abilities that what he gives doesn't cause unnecessary damage. Doesn't hurt his organs. Nudges it clean through his system, while letting him benefit from its properties. "He does," Erik whispers back, as confident in this as anything he's ever been. As confident as breathing. "He loves you. His agenda is just-" he waves the vial. It's an addiction. It's medicine, but not the medicine Erik needs. "I would have been the same. If I didn't have you. If you weren't mine. But nothing is ever-if he is still here-please give him another chance. Don't let this world fall to his rage. Nor yours. I promise you he loves you. This isn't a trick or a ghost. Just a visitor."  
  
Charles closes his eyes, lips parted on a gasp. He’s not sure if it’s from the relief or the agony, both so tightly woven together. “He was right,” he whispers. “We tried, you know. We gave it our best shot. I wore his collar,” his voice breaks, here. He shakes his head, bringing one shaking hand back to his temple. He’s noticeably not reading Erik’s mind. “But it didn’t work. Of course it didn’t, and he was right.” It’s the worst pain of it all. “Not about this. Not about what he’s done, what he’s willing to do. But he was right.” And Charles will live with that for the rest of his life.  
  
"Tell me what he was right about," this Erik insists. This Erik who is so incredibly open and genuine, this face wearing these expressions almost like a caricature if they weren't so earnest in their beliefs. He treads softly, unwilling to crush and hurt more than what's been done. To bring more pain. He can't bear that.  
  
“He said they would come for us,” Charles whispers, and he deliberately does not look at this other Erik’s face. He can’t. “And they did. Oh, they came,” he laughs, but the pain is so unspeakable that it’s all he can manage.  
  
Erik can't make it a secret that he believes this too, but he doesn't throw it in Charles's face. He could never. He just touches Charles's cheek. "I'm so sorry, _neshama_. So sorry. I wish it didn't happen like this. Wishes can't do a whole lot, but they brought me here." Just so he could say he's sorry. It's not enough, he knows it's not enough.  
  
Charles’ lips pull up. It isn’t. “I lost him after that,” he whispers. “He was more than angry. He was —“ At a certain point, nothing comes out. It just won’t come out. His eyes are closed and he’s just in too much pain, physical and otherwise. “I’m paralyzed, you know. From the waist down.” But he was walking, before, so clearly not all the time. Not with his medicine. He doesn’t know why he’s telling Erik, except that he’s hurting.  
  
"I saw a glimpse-" Erik realizes in the jumbled, screeching connection that flared to life, some images peaked through, and he's finally starting to make sense of it. "He was shot. By-some-" Erik can't get the words out, either, and he notices he's formed a fist unconsciously, the fingers of his good hand digging into his palms. He relaxes it. "He's not lost," Erik whispers. "Not fully. Not as long as you're here." His lips press together. This Erik is plain different, but yet not. "We've talked about what would happen. If that were to pass. I know how angry I would be. But I am his, as much as he is mine. I have faith he will pull me back." He smiles, melancholy. "He wasn't there, when I-" he shakes his head. It's not appropriate, it's not fair. For him to talk about his own life when this Charles is so clearly hurting. "The medicine you take, it helps you walk," he concludes softly.  
  
Charles shakes his head, laughing again. It’s harsh, and choked, and bitter. “You don’t know that. You didn’t see what happened to him,” he says, and there’s so much pain, here. So much anger on both sides, because there’s devastation. “He’s lost. There’s nothing I could say to him that would change a thing. He doesn’t want me to.” Charles nods stiffly, still massaging his temples. “Yes. It lets me walk.”  
  
"You can find him again," Erik insists, gentle. "What happened? Tell me. Share it with me." There's nothing in this world he can fathom that would break his connection to Charles, that would make him turn away from loving Charles. Nothing except, perhaps, for Charles himself. And even then, it would still be there. Buried under the rubble. It's as integral to him as his own lungs.  
  
“We started a school. A school for mutants, a school for —“ A harsh breath, here. His own lungs feel crushed. Charles curls in on himself, his legs jerking strangely. He takes panicked, heaving breaths. “And they came, just as he said. They came, and —“ There are tears again, now, but Charles doesn’t sob. He reaches up to tug at his hair, still-wet. “Where is the bottle? I’d like a drink now, I think.”  
  
Erik pulls his hands down gently. "Not right now," he whispers. "Please." He puts his hand on Charles's chest, rubbing there slightly, the warmth of him seeping in through Charles's clothes and through his whole body, like being camped next to a radiator. He brushes those tears away. "We're going to start a school, too," he murmurs. "We're fixing the manor up." And Erik knows in his heart that one day they will come. But that is the day that they will regret. He knows that, too. More powerfully than he knows anything.  
  
“You’re thinking they won,” Charles laughs. It’s low, and practically spat, and he doesn’t understand why Erik won’t let him just knead his temples because they’re throbbing awfully and the medicine isn’t working. He waited too long. “They did. But not for long. Do you know where he is?”  
  
But he won't, of course. He wonders if this Charles's Erik ever did it for him. He runs his fingers gently down the sides of his forehead, untangling his hair where he finds it, too, a rhythmic movement. "No," he whispers back honestly. "I don't know anything about him. Just what he must have been born with. Inside. Maybe his soul. If you believe in that," he offers a rueful smile. "Where is he?"  
  
“Oh, I don’t know,” Charles chuckles, looks off to the side. “He could be anywhere, I reckon. I get the news later. He doesn’t allow me access to much, so I take scraps from the radio when I can get the damn thing to work.” It’s a vague answer, but a truthful one. He closes his eyes again. “He’ll be here in about a week. Another visitor, but he won’t even look at me.” He can’t do this. Charles tries to sit up, and the wave of nausea and pain is so strong he collapses right back down. He’s not used to being so sober.  
  
The radio? Erik finds it. He waves his hand-a silly crutch that he's never needed, much like Charles's telepathy. Touching his temple is something he did when he was five years old. The Charles he met can melt universes. It's silly, the both of them, but Erik still does it because it's comforting and familiar, like an old blanket. The insides of the radio click; unseen in the room. Fixed, completely and totally. And it won't break down again soon.  
  
He must seem so slow. So stupid. It's always been his downfall, especially when Charles is feeling mean. His mind doesn't operate the way other people's do. He puts things together unconsciously, and sometimes reacts from that knowledge without it ever reaching the forefront. He knows he isn't stupid; he's learning anyway. You don't gain fluency in twelve languages and intuitively comprehend particle physics if you're a _moron_ , but it's at moments like this when he really feels it. "He still comes to visit you? But he doesn't let you access much? Access what? What could be more important?" his eyebrows are raised. In the millions of places where there are versions of them who don't have one another, Erik cannot fathom choosing to deprive himself of Charles.  
  
Charles’ grin becomes rueful, now. Harsh. He’s not sure if he’s so grateful for the radio, because when he turns it on, it becomes clear why it broke in the first place. What the radio picks up on, predictably, is another passionate speech by someone with Erik’s voice, not the first Charles has heard and certainly not the last. “That’s _Magneto, Master of Magnetism, Our Fearless Leader_ ,” he scoffs. “And he has no time for his poor, crippled, integrationist, gene-traitor ex-lover. No need, either.”  
  
Erik's eyebrows shoot to his hairline. "Excuse me, _what_?" he can't help blurting out. Another flick of his fingers and the volume raises so he can hear whatever diatribe he's assuredly spewing out. (It's a lot of _rise up, brothers and sisters and take the fight to the humans, we are the future, not them! The humans are akin to the Neanderthal who were wiped out by the superior homo sapiens_ stuff, which just means Erik's eyebrows will be permanently glued to his hairline by the time this is over.) "I would be lying if I said I wasn't a _separatist_ , but that is _ridiculous_. How could he-" Erik finds himself choked up, for a second.   
  
It just makes Charles laugh harder. “You’ll say that now, won’t you?” he asks, and it’s vicious again. Biting and cold. “You’ll say that now. You’ll say _, alright, Charles, we can open a school but we’ll do it this way, we’ll keep it separate_. And then they’ll come, and you’ll quickly change your tune. By next week you’ll be conquering Asia in the name of _mutant liberation_.” By the tone of his voice, and the radio’s spiel, it’s clearly not out of the question. It may have already happened. “And do you know what happens, Erik? People die. They die, and you get more angry, and more bitter, and more righteous, and then you’re not Erik at all. You’re just _Magneto_ ,” he spits. “And I can’t love Magneto the way I do Erik. I certainly won’t wear his collar. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”  
  
At least the anger is somewhat familiar. Erik finds his heart pounding and himself completely unable to stop it. It's not fair for him to dump this anger on Charles, either, and he tries to rein it back. To slow its spread. Stem the tide. But his fingernails are digging into his palm hard, and he has to crush his eyes shut to stop himself from shaking. The radio ends up turning off of its own accord. This has to be a mistake, this has to be-a joke, some kind of-Erik finds he can't quite hear over the ringing in his ears. " _Gene traitor_. What a load of horse shit. I wasn't aware I have early-onset dementia to look forward to."  
  
Charles’ eyes are still closed. He’s shaking. “Yes. It is,” he agrees, but he doesn’t sound stunned that this Erik seems to think so, for whatever reason. “It wasn’t you. You think it was you, that you left me. And you did, I’ll tell you that much. But I’m the one who told you that it was either my collar or the ridiculous helmet you wear like a crown. One or the other, choose. And you can see what you chose for yourself. I made you take it off me, because you’re a possessive bastard -” And he’s choked up, because he used to love it, perhaps he still does, it’s sick and it’s wholly unfair, “And I couldn’t do it myself, and I don’t belong to Magneto. I won’t."  
  
"I don't believe any of those things. It is not possible for me to believe any of those things. Of course I _know_ they will come, I've known it since my grandfather sat me on his lap and explained-how could any-any _version_ -" Erik abruptly stands to his feet, pacing. The thought that comes to him next is one that pierces through everything louder than a bell. "Oh, no," his head shakes. "No, no. No, no, no-" his hand covers his mouth. It's all wrong. But he uses his considerable mental prowess and slowly, slowly begins to lock down the watertight compartments until traces of the emotional outburst recede like tides from a shore. "Of course you couldn't," he croaks, pained. "You could never love that."  
  
Charles catches them anyway, and he sits up. Slowly, painfully, with more effort than it should ever take. He props himself up best he can, and raises an eyebrow. “What are you thinking?” he demands, because he doesn’t know. His lips quirk up, and it isn’t real amusement. It certainly isn’t joy. “You’re wrong about that. I _love_ him. I just don’t _like_ him, or have any desire to be his submissive. But I love him quite terribly, so don’t you assume that,” he snaps.  
  
Erik returns to Charles's bedside, slowly lowering himself again, and he touches Charles's chest, takes his hand and puts it over his own. "He's still in there," Erik whispers. He doesn't miss that Charles doesn't seem to possess telepathy here, or if he does, that something's happened to it. But he doesn't know if he can fix that, and to be honest, he suspects it's intrinsically tied into this most important thing, the most important thing in the world right now for him to convey. "I'm still in there. I promise you I am. You are the only one who has ever been able to reach me, Charles. Ever."  
  
“You’re not,” he insists, and Charles’ voice cracks on it, the horror and sorrow all tangling up in his throat. “He’s not. He doesn’t even look at me properly anymore. He comes, he brings me medicine, we fight, he leaves. We used to have sex,” he laughs, and it’s that harsh, chilled laughter, because he can’t manage much of anything else these days. “But I stopped that, too. Sometimes I think about it, just so he’ll touch me again. Do you know how bloody pathetic that makes me feel?”  
  
"I cannot imagine," he says sincerely. He can't imagine any equation including sex that also includes-this. Fighting, harshness, coldness. "But I promise you that I am. I can't-I can't explain it very good." His head bobs to the side a little, almost self-deprecatingly, a flash of what he remembers from his own Erik. "And you probably already know and I'm not explaining anything new-" He knows he must sound so stupid and he's almost in tears over it.  
  
It’s Erik. It’s Erik, and he’s right here. Right here and hurting, and Charles could never forsake that. He takes a heavy, short breath, and tries to scoot himself closer. Slightly agonizing, but worth it when he can touch Erik’s face. “Try to explain what you mean,” he whispers, and it’s almost pleading. “I don’t understand.”  
  
"My mind isn't like everyone else's mind. My-consciousness, isn't-isn't the same," Erik whispers. "It's-it's all-" he leans into that hand without hesitation, eyes fluttering a little. He knows he has no right to hurt here but he can't help it. Not after hearing it first hand. "Everything that is on the surface isn't all there is. There's all kinds of-" and he hesitates to name it, because it makes him sound crazy. So he tries to use an example, even if it's vulgar. "Anything you need. I used to call it my superpower. You have trouble deciphering it even because you don't want to exert any pressure on me like that. But you did it once. You went into the Dark Place and found what was taken from me. What I stored there. I don't know if maybe I am latent telepathic or something. Even now I made a few new ones. Because it's just how I think. Fractured," he whispers. "Some of them are really bad guys. Like this-Magneto."  
  
“And you think --” Charles takes a breath. When he lets it out, he sags back against the bed. “You’re not latent telepathic,” he sighs. It’s all he says. His eyes are closed again, and he looks exhausted. Pale, and sickly, and exhausted, and certainly worse for wear. He hasn’t eaten in days but he’s had his fair share of drink, clearly.  
  
He touches his hand to Charles's forehead, leans over and kisses it with all the affection he can muster. "There is no other explanation, other than that I am suffering from mold toxicity." It's meant to be a joke, but it sounds too ragged for that. "When is the last time you ate something? Hasn't he been feeding you, at least?" As much as Erik hates the parts of himself he's deemed evil, he hates this Erik, too.  
  
“No, I meant you’re not latent telepathic, not that I didn’t believe you. You’re something else,” he sighs, slightly impatient, but only because he’s in pain and he’s exhausted and he feels like he can’t move. His legs are quickly, assuredly going numb. “He puts food in the fridge and the pantry. Whether I eat it or not is my own business.” And it’s very obvious that he doesn’t often choose to do so, judging by how he’s thinner than Erik has ever really seen him.  
  
Erik touches Charles's cheek. "I know you believe me. I was just making a joke. Albeit, I suppose my sense of humor remains the same in every universe." His lips purse at the next statement, though. "Evidently it shouldn't be. You're killing yourself." His eyebrows arch, expectant. "And I don't know what I think. My Charles can move things with his mind. I can sense people, sometimes. It might just be products of both of our mutations, I do not know. Omega-level mutants have no..." he hesitates and then utters, quite magnanimously, "-credible scientific datapoints."  
  
“Yes, but you’re not telepathic. You’re something else,” Charles insists, and reaches up to touch his temples as if he’s been reminded. It’s just a pounding headache. “I’m not killing myself, don’t be dramatic. I’m doing perfectly well, before you stumbled in here. Where’s your Charles?” he demands, ignoring how his own voice cracks again. Your Charles."  
  
Erik just shakes his head, and it's never been more obvious that he isn't convinced of anything. "You are. And you know you are." And he cannot express how it pains him, how much grief is inside of him because of it. How could he possibly leave here like this? "He's-home," Erik whispers. "I think that's how this works. He's sleeping. He sent me-here."  
  
“That’s how I know you’re not telepathic,” Charles snorts, and perhaps it’s harsh, but he’s not exactly pleased at the moment. He tries to sit up again. “I don’t need you to lecture me, thanks. Now, if you could help me up -“ He might just fall over, but he’s going to try. He’s clearly been trying.  
  
Erik does help him up, though, even if it seems counterintuitive. These visits are more than just life lessons in their immediacy, there's something else happening, too. Something more subtle, behind the scenes, even if Erik could never explain why he did it, since Charles seems determined to hurtle himself off of a cliff. And it's not like Erik lets him, either way. The bottle finds itself promptly disintegrated. "It's not a lecture," he whispers. "It's the truth. It's what he should be doing for you. He is neglecting his responsibilities. It doesn't matter if you wear his collar or not. You belong to him. He should be taking care of you. If he can't do it then I will."  
  
“I don’t belong to him!” Charles snaps, sudden and fierce, except there are tears in his eyes and his whole body is shaking with leashed up rage and pain, his legs useless where they’re thrown over the bed now. “And I certainly don’t belong to you. Now you are trespassing, my friend, if you are here at all, and I would like very much if you left. Promptly.”  
  
"Yes, well, we don't always get what we want," Erik returns, soft. "You can lash out all you wish. But you're not going to behave this way in front of me. You said you love him. This isn't what he wants. Whatever stupid choice he made, he isn't a person. The person you remember is still in there. Please don't give up on him."  
  
“Oh, fuck off,” Charles hisses, and tries desperately to get up from the bed. His legs are shaking, useless jelly, but he persists, grabbing onto the frame of the bed to support himself. “You don’t know anything about me, or us, and I’ll act however I like. You don’t get to come in here and be self-righteous, to talk about your pain like you know anything of mine. I’m not even convinced you’re not in my head. So I’ll tell you again, Erik, and I do hope you’ll get the message: fuck off. I see enough of you when you waltz in here in your stupid bloody uniform, in that absolutely insane helmet. You think I want to see you now? I don't need you to take care of me. And I'll give up if I wish."  
  
"Stop it," Erik Orders roughly, the World twisting with it, Will exploding from him like lightbulbs. "Now you lie back. And you stop this. Of course I get to. I'm not in any stupid uniform. It's just me." He refuses to let himself display any evidence of how broken up it makes him. "Of course it hurts me. You don't get to tell me it doesn't and tell me to fuck off and any other thing. You didn't just give up on yourself. You really believe he's gone."  
  
This Charles is angry, and he’s drunk, and he’s hurting, and he does not seem to care, frankly, if Erik hurts, too. All the better. He sneers even as he’s made to lie back, his entire body locked up and clearly trying to fight it. It’s such a stark, incredible difference from the soft, content Charles in his bed, who purred and sought attention, who needed Erik so completely. Who trusted him. Who surrendered to him. “Because he is,” he snarls. “Because he is. Now, I don’t belong to you, and I don’t appreciate being Ordered. Let me up, Erik. Now. I won’t ask again.” It sounds like all Charles fall back on what everyone in their lives thought were Dominant tendencies when they’re distressed. It’s never what they need.  
  
"Or what. What are you gonna do. You can't even see straight." He's never sounded more disappointed in Charles than right now. "I don't appreciate you taking that tone with me. You can make him take your collar off but that doesn't make you less of ours. You don't get to give up just because it's hard. Not on yourself and not on him." This time when Charles tries to get up he finds himself barred by Erik's arm, held in place. "Pretend all you want. You don't fool me. And if you think I won't put you back in your place you are sorely mistaken. Your Erik may have forgotten but I have not."  
  
It triggers something in Charles, something gnarled and truly, honestly pissed. Erik is right, he can’t see straight. That doesn’t stop him from rearing forward and attempting to sock him right in the face, his teeth bared, his legs kicking out as if that can make any difference at all. It just causes him pain, but he’s willing to try it in an attempt to cause Erik pain, any measure of it. “Get off me!” he shouts. “Get off me, you bastard, you absolute fucking bastard -“

* * *

Erik doesn't expect it and he freezes, allowing Charles's fist to fully connect with his jaw. All the color drains out of him and he stares, unseeing. There's more than just hurt, there, it's _fear_ , too. Stunned, confused fear. When Charles tries to move again he finds himself totally immobilized. Erik doesn't seem to be all-there.  
  
It freezes Charles up, too, more than just physically. Because the medicine isn’t working properly. Something is on the fritz; the way Erik administered it, or how late he took it. How he’s slowly been building up tolerance, having to take higher and higher doses. His head throbs. His lips part on a silent gasp, and he closes his eyes tightly, panic exploding in his chest. “Erik,” he croaks.  
  
Erik's tongue seems to stick to the roof of his mouth, his throat closed up. There are tears on his cheek, which has bloomed an immediate, ugly blue, but he doesn't seem to notice it at all. He sits back down, touching Charles's face, silent and docile.  
  
It’s horrifying. It’s utterly, completely horrifying, and Charles stares in shock, frozen even if he isn’t actually frozen. This is not the Erik he knows. He closes his eyes tightly. “I’m so sorry,” he rasps, trembling with it.  
  
He lifts Charles's hand to his lips and kisses his knuckles, and curls up next to him in the bed, trying to comfort him. Trying to soothe everything and make everything better, his body all wound up, strobelights going off inside of him that keep flashing and flipping and fluttering and he's trying to make himself small, and he smiles. He isn't weak, he isn't dramatic, he isn't a victim. It's OK. Charles doesn't have to be sorry. He's sorry. He presses Charles's hand to his own face.  
  
And Charles pulls it right away, curls in on himself instead, his arms around his own middle. He’s in so much pain, and this will stay with him. “Please just go,” he whispers. “Please. You don’t belong here, and good on you. Just go.” There’s clearly nothing they can do but hurt each other. Charles is poisoned. It’s too late for either of them. “Go,” he orders.  
  
Erik shakes his head, though, and captures Charles's hand in his, pressing it to his heart. He won't hurt Charles. He promises. He belongs, no matter what, something of him exists in this Erik. It's this Erik who doesn't belong. He did bad. And he's sorry. He can help. He can make it better. He'll make it better.  
  
Charles yanks his hand back again, relieved that he can. “Please just go,” he repeats, his eyes screwed shut so tightly they ache. There are tears on his cheeks he certainly won’t acknowledge. “Just go. I told you to go. Go, just go,” and he’s just babbling, and drunk, and thoroughly upset. “Why won’t you just leave?”  
  
Charles finds himself pressed down into the mattress by the force of Erik's Will, his eyes closing but not tightly as Erik makes him fall asleep. He tucks Charles into the blankets and holds him in his arms, swaying unconsciously. It's not conscious, none of it is, not the application of Will or anything else. His thoughts have long-since scattered like marbles. But Charles continuing to lash out at him drunk and disoriented is not happening anymore. He goes to sleep until it wears off.

* * *

The problem is that it doesn’t wear off, really. It never much wears off. When he wakes up, and he does, he’ll be just as disoriented; he is. Just as angry, just as defeated, just as aimless. Hungover and hurting and agonized, and he’s just as tense. As soon as he realizes, the disappointment and the dread is so sharp and sudden it just chokes him. He doesn’t fight this time, though. Charles is in too much pain for fighting. He’s too exhausted. This Erik will leave eventually, and he’ll go right back to drinking himself into a stupor until the pain and everything else dulls. He doesn’t mind waiting.  
  
The problem with that of course is that even with Erik hurt and scared Charles has never outmatched him in Will, and never would. Erik makes him take a painkiller and drink water and eat some toast. Even this Charles belongs to him and that doesn't change, nothing will change it. Even if Charles gives up on him, another Erik will just show up and try to make it better until they succeed, because there is no other option.  
  
The painkillers don’t help, and he chokes and gags on the toast, and he doesn’t look. And he doesn’t want to. He’s convinced himself he doesn’t want to. “It won’t work,” he tells Erik, finally. “You know it won’t. So why don’t you cut your losses here? You’ll have to leave eventually. You think your Charles is sleeping. Don’t you want to go back to him?” he scoffs.  
  
Erik doesn't reply, because all Charles is doing is continuing to try and hurt him, and if he wants to take revenge on Erik, well, he can. Maybe his Erik could take it and that's why he's here, because he can't. He's too soft and wrong and damaged. Nothing he does is good enough. Everything hurts like an exposed, raw nerve. But it's obvious even to Charles that he doesn't want to go.  
  
“Why?” he demands, because it wasn’t. It wasn’t meant to hurt, not entirely. It was a genuine, sincere question. “Why?” he asks again. “Why won’t you just go? You should want to. There’s nothing here for you.” And whatever he’d meant to offer, Charles ruined that, too. It’s all they do here. Destroy each other in ways only they could.  
  
He is wrong. Charles is here. Even like this. He's here. Erik isn't destroyed. He touches Charles's cheek. He's not destroyed. He hurts. He's sorry, he tried not to, he knows it might not matter as much here. He ducks his head, pressing his hands into his eyes. Trying not to shake, trying to block out the very real pain that shoots through his nose when he brushes it. It's a feeling he cannot comprehend experiencing because of Charles, and he doesn't want to stick around if this is all Charles is going to do to him. That's true. But he wants more than anything to try his best to heal this place. He just has to get himself under control.  
  
Charles sucks in a breath. A sharp, harsh, painful breath. “You can’t,” he promises, but when Erik presses again, there’s no pain. There’s no pain at all. He’s shaking like a leaf. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but you can’t. It would be better if you didn’t bother trying.” And he pulls his hand away again, because he can’t bear it. He certainly doesn’t want this Erik to try.  
  
It's all he can do is try, it's all he can do is run against the wall over and over again because Charles is wrong, he belongs to Erik. He didn't ruin that. He can't ruin it. It's not possible. Even if he crushes Erik into the ground. He clears his throat and rasps, more mouthing the words, "I love you."  
  
But he would never do that. “I’m so sorry,” he gasps, raspy and revealing the utter horror he felt in the moment. He can’t move without agony, at the moment, but he finally touches Erik’s face. There’s no pain, none, but Charles can’t wipe away the bruise. He’s not the Universe. “I’m so —“ The rest is just choked nonsense, tears on his cheeks. “We’re not like you, we...” They fight, and scream, throw things, bare their teeth at each other. Charles doesn’t wear a collar. He doesn’t listen and Erik’s given up trying to make him. If this had been his Erik, and he’d thought in the moment it was, forgot, things would have ended differently. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”  
  
Erik turns his head to kiss the center of Charles's palm, holding his hand to his cheek either way, completely trusting even if Charles could use the moment to pounce again. But Erik doesn't believe he will. He's not destroyed. He can take a punch. But the words that Charles says, they seep into him, and he can't help tearing up. "You hurt each other? Hit each other?" he whispers, eyebrows drawn together. It's not judgmental, it doesn't disgust him. Nothing ever could. But he can't help the sorrow in his words.  
  
Charles manages to look properly ashamed at that, shaking his head. “Not usually,” he whispers. “It’s certainly not — not an everyday occurrence, just...” Sometimes he’d like to sock Erik in the face, yes. It’s too much and without him, there’s nowhere for it to go. No one to channel all that energy. To keep him tethered and stable. “He only shows up every month or two, anyway. There isn’t a wide window,” he mutters.  
  
Erik gives him another kiss. "I don't like this. This isn't right, _neshama_. You don't deserve this. And neither does he. He doesn't know any better. He's not a real person. He needs you. He needs you to dig in deeply and find him. I'm still in there. I'm still there, I promise you I am. Why do you think I traveled all this way, hm? To lie and make you hurt more? No, no." Erik blinks and those tears keep coming, hatefully as Erik regards them.  
  
Charles doesn’t like it, either. Slowly, carefully, he touches those tears, wipes them away so gently, as if he can make up for the violence of before. He knows he can’t. “I’m not sure you’re right,” he admits. “But if you are, your Charles -- do you think…” Because he can’t. It’s such a silly thing to even consider, even more silly to ask. But he knows he can’t. Not with things as they are.  
  
"Ask me, dear-heart," Erik whispers, unable to help the endearments. This Charles deserves all the love he has to give and it pours out of him, wrapping him up just like those smoky tendrils of Will that bind him to Erik across universes. And it's an Order. Because he deserves that, too, the way it zips up his spine, the way it curls into his lungs and down his throat and settles in his chest, when it's delivered purely out of joy.  
  
And he hasn't felt it like that in so long it gets caught up in his lungs, almost choking him. He takes a sharp breath and closes his eyes again. "Do you think he could talk to him? Does it work like that?" he whispers.  
  
"I will do my absolute best to make sure it happens, my love. I cannot make a guarantee, because I-" he laughs softly. He's just a visitor. Charles is the airplane, so to speak. But Erik knows he must have some kind of-his Will to this is so strong, could the Universe really ignore it? Would it ignore him this way? It's a familiar feeling and it's a little uncomfortable. But this is something he wields. This is the reason the Universe gave him that power. And for the first time, he wants to use it. Not to shape the world. Not to create some kind of paradise or utopia under his vision. No, he's long-since learned the world doesn't work that way. But just this. To help heal this Charles. To bring them back into alignment. "But I will do my utmost," he croaks. "I always will. Always."

* * *

 _My love._ Charles chokes, and then he just sobs, grabbing for Erik. It’s not to lash out. It’s just to cling to him, like he’s wanted to for ages. He never stopped. “Do you think it will work, then? Will he…” He shakes his head, unable to imagine it.  
  
Erik wraps him up immediately, squeezing him as tight as he can (his hand never seems to work in these places, maybe because these Charles's need to see him as he is and not how he is with a perception filter) but it's tight enough, and he rubs Charles's back with his good hand, kisses the top of his head and near his forehead and gently, gently along his temple. "I really think so," he whispers. Because there is no other option and no other choice but that they grow together, and if that means he has to crawl into Erik's mind and drag him back bloody and broken, he will do it his damn self.  
  
“I never know,” he croaks, his voice stuck in his throat, wobbling. “What’s going to happen. If I’ll turn on that damned radio and hear that he’s gone and gotten himself killed. He’s always fighting, always. I thought he’d at least stay safe, but --” And it’s so entirely selfish for him to want that, and he’s not always sure he does, but if Erik is going to declare himself world leader, _Supreme Overlord_ the least he can do is stay safe.  
  
"But he wouldn't, I imagine," Erik murmurs, because he knows himself more deeply than even he could admit. Erik would never send troops into battle and sit on the sidelines as a revered general. He would be right there in the trenches. And this Erik knows that one day the fighting may be inevitable, but not like this. Not with Charles left behind. Not in the name of installing himself as the _de facto Supreme Leader_.   
  
And this Erik has read the Reddit comments, you know. _Things would be better if there were just a country of mutants. Erik Lehnsherr for president._ And he's always shied away from that, because it goes against many of his own ideals. Power corrupts, innately. It's difficult-near-impossible to have that much power, and resist the temptation to use it. Even with his own abilities. The Charles he knows could keep him in check, but if they never met? If Erik got a head start? He could have done insurmountable damage. Even with the Universe. Erik knows he's been tempted. So he keeps himself. Rigidly in line. Rigidly in control. Never wanting for more than what is strictly necessary.   
  
It's hard for him to hear that this Erik has strayed so wildly from anything he's ever known to be true. Even if he were a leader. It wouldn't be like this. Not like this.  
  
Charles nods, and he hears Erik’s thoughts. It’s all coming back, now. Slowly, painfully, skipping like shoddy radio stations. Static in between. “He wasn’t always like this,” he whispers, because he needs Erik to know that. It wasn’t always like this.  
  
"What was he like, hm?" Erik asks, wrapping Charles up in his arms, petting his face and rubbing his back the way all Charles's seem to like, comforting and secure and kept.  
  
It does help. It does relax him. He does like it, if the quiet, startled, pleased noise he makes is any indication. “He was -- hurting, obviously. In so much pain that he couldn’t untangle, that he couldn’t share. But there was so much more to him. Joy, and love.” Charles shivers in Erik’s arms, and it’s hard to miss the sniffle. “He was passionate, and driven, and stubborn and protective and -- he was so many things, things he still is, but…” But they got twisted, somehow. So did Charles.  
  
Erik understands. He's been twisted before, too. Not to this degree, because he'd been captured shortly after, and then he met Charles. And Charles found him, and he couldn't leave. He had to stay, and fight. Charles said he was fighting. Not in a war, not in a battle, but in a legitimate way. A way that the whole world will forever recognize. In a way reminiscent of society, even if it isn't a revolution. That may come, but Charles and Erik will stand together. Not apart. Mr. Shaw wasn't right. They will not end up on opposite sides. Things got twisted here, but-"They can be untwisted, _neshama_. I know. The pain, and-the urge to fall to-" to his own instincts. To hurt, to rend, to tear. To cause pain. To tear down the establishment. And he knows the pain of having his children-he knows. "He's still in there. He's still there. I promise you," he adds softly, sincerely, kissing Charles's temple again.  
  
Charles shivers again. “I don’t know,” he admits, eyes screwed shut again. “I can’t reach him. No matter what I do, it doesn’t get through to him. He lost everything, and then we lost more, and --” He sucks in a breath, lets it out as a sob. “What if he can’t do it? What if your Charles speaks to him, and nothing changes?” Charles will give up completely. That’s what. There doesn’t seem to be another option, here.  
  
"I cannot imagine that is true. I simply cannot. But I won't let either of you waste away. We will keep coming back here and we will keep trying and we will keep reaching the spaces in between. You deserve love, dear-heart. And I know that your Erik loves you, regardless of the way he is. He may not express it, he may not understand it, but he loves you. Because I share a part of his soul. I understand more about him than I care to admit, frankly. There is nothing-nothing that could happen to take his love away. He got distracted. He put himself away and became a person who could accomplish these draconian ideals. But you are still with him, and so am I. And we will get him back." The resolve is unmistakable. Erik might not be the strongest mutant in the universe or the bravest person, or the most learned, but he will keep coming at a problem again and again and again and again until something happens. He doesn't give up, he doesn't drop it. Ever.  
  
Never. It just makes Charles cry again, because to a certain point, this Erik was unrecognizable. But of course he isn’t. Of course he’s exactly familiar. “Your Charles,” he whispers. “You trust him to help?” Charles doesn’t trust himself, so he has to trust Erik’s judgment. Charles is -- his submissive, after all. His eyes wander to the cuffs around Erik’s wrists, his breath caught in his chest again, stuttered. “They’re beautiful,” he says without thinking, raspy.  
  
Erik lifts his wrist so Charles can inspect them further, an unconscious, very proud grin gracing his features. It almost makes the bruise disappear, transforms him, really. He doesn't often display his emotions on his face; it's been literal years since he's ever seen his Erik smile, and yet this one does. "You made them for me," he rumbles back, achingly fond. "Because I am yours, as you are mine. And I have no doubt in my mind that you will be able to reach me. Perhaps right now, it seems impossible, but I assure you there is hope. That is what you taught me. I think, things just need to shake up a little bit. Your souls are connected. You, and my Charles. He is in you, too. All of the best parts of you, and maybe some of the less savory ones, too. I don't know why, but-" and Erik has to think, here. "But something installed him with this power. And he seems to be the only one that has it. So maybe he is the one who has to come and help. But it will be because of you. He will remind Erik of all the things that he is missing. All the parts of you he is missing. Not just the pain and fighting." Erik runs his fingers over Charles's face. "Besides, the world cannot be run by a man named _Magneto_. That is the most foolish travesty I've ever heard," he quips, his nose wrinkling up.  
  
It startles a laugh out of Charles, because when is the last time Erik joked with him? It just brings more tears to his eyes, but it soothes, too. This still exists. Somewhere, this still exists. “I tried to tell him as much. At least a less offensive name, if you’re going to take over the world, but he never listens to me.” That is bitter, but Charles tries to shake it off. Anger festers and poisons, he knows that perfectly well. "I believe you. I don't know why, or how, but I believe you." He hopes. For the first time in so long.  
  
Erik can't resist leaning forward and pressing his lips to those tears, wiping them away with his thumb. "Please believe me," he whispers. It means please keep believing me. Please keep trying. Please keep hoping. "I don't lie. Not to you, not like this. You are mine, _neshama_. For all time. Always." He knows it's a bold proclamation given how Charles reacted before, but he can't help the words as they come from his lips. They're the truest thing he knows.  
  
This time, Charles doesn’t punch him. He wraps himself around him instead, just like his Charles but with a bit less movement, curls into his chest. “Oh, I missed this,” he whispers, and his voice cracks, and then the rest of him does, too, and he lets himself cry. He needed this terribly.  
  
"I know, sweetheart," Erik whispers, kissing the top of his head, running his fingertips through his hair and untangling the strands there, curled up from the misty shower of earlier. All the dirt washed away, inside and out. That's what Erik was made to do. Not to kill and enslave. To nurture. To love. To give love. Sometimes his Charles doesn't need that, doesn't need to be held and spoken-to gently, but Erik needs to give it and now there is a well where it is needed and he fills it up to overflowing, lets it spill over and out and into his submissive here.  
  
Well, Charles always needs it, just not in every situation, and Erik doesn’t, either, but here -- this Charles, he needs it. He’s been starved of it, thoroughly and completely. He sobs, and sobs, and sobs, and lets Erik rub his back and stroke his hair, soaking in all the comfort like a plant long-starved for sunlight and water. He is. He has been. “I -- I’ve been alone for so long, there’s no one here, he doesn’t come see me, he doesn’t keep in contact, I miss him, damn it, I hate him, I hate it but I miss him,” he babbles, and he doesn’t hate Erik. He’s said it before, he meant it. He loves him. He always will. But even though Charles took off his collar and declared himself no longer owned, he’s the one who feels abandoned. Thrown away like unwanted garbage. A broken toy discarded.  
  
Erik shushes him, not to stop him talking, just to make a sound, to rock him in his arms, to kiss him where he can and pet him where he can and soothe away all of the tension in these muscles that he feels, which surely must contribute to his pain. "I'm here. I'm right here. You are mine and you are beautiful. Not garbage. Not ever." Not even to his Erik, who cannot comprehend love as he is. But it exists. Somewhere deep, far beyond the reaches of the Ether. They just have to crawl in and face those monsters and find it. Beyond the guilt and shame and horror, there is an Erik who can give this Charles what he needs. A sun for the wilting plants, to bring them back into bloom. Erik knows it.  
  
“But we can’t undo it,” Charles gasps, and he’s crying so hard it’s difficult to breathe, snot and tears clogging everything up. “All he’s done. All he’s started to do. The world is, it’s --” It just can’t go back to what it was. It’s been changed, irreversibly. It’s been altered. And Charles let it happen. He may as well be an active participant, at this point. There is surely blood on his hands.  
  
"I know," Erik whispers. No one can change what has been done. But they can change the future. It doesn't have to continue simply because it cannot be changed. If amends can be made, Erik cannot say. If they can reconcile, he cannot say. But he can bring Erik back. He can help Charles understand how Erik could possibly get to such a point. Diverge to such an unimaginable degree. He has to have hope that if he ever strayed so far, his Charles could find it within him, even if it took years, to trust him again. To at least let him sit and talk. To play chess and lay hands over one another's. Even if it's in a prison cell.  
  
Charles shakes his head. “You don’t understand, do you? What’s happened here. Turn on the radio again,” he suggests, laughing quietly. Bitterly. “Everything has been altered. Countries, nations, governments. He’s torn it all down. There’s no conceivable way -- and the instability...” It would be catastrophic. He cannot imagine the fallout.  
  
Erik doesn't need to turn on the radio to understand. He does understand. And even if that means Erik himself has to be the one to help them rebuild. Even if he has to be the one to take that mantle of leadership and turn it into growth instead of tearing-down. To spread a new message. He cannot believe it is impossible. If it can be torn down, something can be built in its place. Even if that means he can't leave a power vacuum. Charles can be at his side. Not thrown away. Not like this. Something has to change. It's why he's here. He believes that with all his heart.  
  
“At his side,” Charles whispers. It’s not clear how he’s feeling, really, mostly because he doesn’t know himself. His eyes close again, but his lips wobble with the threat of a sob. He clenches his jaw, and goes silent.  
  
"Yes, dear-heart. At his side. Where you belong. Where you have always belonged." And it is such a travesty that Erik himself cannot explain that this is the state of things. Charles should not be alone. Never again. He won't allow it.  
  
He still isn’t quite sure he wants that, or if he knows that to be the truth. All he knows is that Erik is warm, and that for the first time in ages he’s comfortable. He’s well and truly comfortable, and relaxed. He can’t help settling further into Erik’s chest. “Mmm,” is what he manages, not exactly an agreement, but all the fight drained out of him. A mollified kitten who put away its claws.  
  
And that's OK. Erik didn't come here to beat him over the head with it, or force it. There's a lot of work they will have to do together that Erik simply couldn't force. But for right now, he has Charles in his arms, and he can offer that comfort and it's with unerring gratitude. "Mmhmm," he rumbles back, fond, a smile on his face he can't quite be rid of, and he presses his lips to Charles's forehead again. He is safe, here. Safe. Loved. Kept.  
  
And then, something truly strange happens. Something Erik isn’t quite expecting, because he can’t expect it, but something his mind is uniquely -- well, besides one other, the only other -- equipped to handle. The world begins to blur and fade, but not disappear completely. He can still feel himself, there, with this Charles. He still is. He’s holding him, petting at him, murmuring those quiet, wordless things. But he’s also back where he belongs, with his Charles, who is currently looking up at him with startled, concerned eyes, glowing, wide. Back in his bedroom, with his submissive still tied prettily and waiting for him. But not gone from that other place, either. He’s in between. But his Charles touches his cheek even as that other Charles drifts in his arms, a quiet, worried, “Sir?”  
  
Erik blinks a little, gazing down at his Charles a bit curiously. His mind is like an open sieve, something most people couldn't dare to comprehend, experiences coming to him and passing through him and allowing him to be split into a variety of ways, his consciousness expanding and contracting like a living organism. He touches his Charles's cheek, too. "He needs you," Erik whispers to his Charles, rubbing his back, over those marks he'd left only moments before.  
  
For a bit there, before Charles drew him back, Erik was asleep. Floating, unresponsive. He knew what would happen, but Charles still breathes a sigh of relief, nuzzling into Erik’s neck. He drops his hand sheepishly. He may have untied himself a bit while in the midst of his brief panic. “Who needs me?” he asks, quietly. Curiously.  
  
Erik can't explain it. He doesn't exactly know where he is. But, "Charles and Erik. They need you. Everything went wrong," his voice stops up a little and he presses the back of his hand against his mouth. "You need to find him. Bring him back. You have to. Please."  
  
“Oh,” Charles whispers back. It’s confused, slightly disoriented, but his eyes glow brighter. He touches Erik’s cheek again, strokes it. “I will, I promise. Show me, please, sir. Show me where to go.” He knows Erik likely doesn’t know, but he can help. If Charles guides him through it, if they do it together, he can help. Because Erik was right. The Universe gave him the ability to Command it, because he Commands Charles. He can use it as he pleases. He only has to try.  
  
He does try. As hard as he can. To visualize where he is. To remember those radio broadcasts, as abhorrent as they are to him. To recall the Charles who is in his arms, now-mollified but before in such pain he could barely comprehend it. The place where they fight, and hurt each other. Countries conquered. Battles raging. Cold, distant, erased-Erik. Presses it forward as best as he possibly can. "Please," he whispers, pained.


	114. I said "they're watching my every sound"

Charles tries, too. To follow that visualization. To follow Erik. But somehow, he doesn’t end up following Erik, even as he does. He finds himself attracted instead to another mind, similar but so very different; a mind fractured, a mind changed. He’s dizzy, just like last time. Dizzy, and confused, and utterly disoriented, his legs shaking horribly and nausea creeping up from his churning belly as he tries to find his footing, to turn mental fingers into a physical grip. It’s not painful, just uncomfortable, when he’s the one doing it. A bumpy ride, whereas when Erik goes, he can smooth it out. His ears are popped again, and he groans, uncertain where he is and with stars dancing behind his eyes.  
  
The first thing he notices is that the walls are made of pure concrete, with steel inlets winding all the way around curved corridors. Sleek chrome, embedded with telltale traces of a familiar mutation. Even as the person who hauls him up to his feet is quite unfamiliar. At least to him. Her strength is extensive as she easily lifts him and sets him on his feet. Her skin is deep, sapphire blue with a fluttering quality, light shimmers reflecting off of it. Her hair is a deep red, tied up in a severe bun. "Charles, what are you doing here." Her voice is flat.  
  
Charles is even more utterly disoriented now, feeling the sick rise up in his stomach as he’s hauled quite viciously to his feet. He takes a sharp breath and covers his mouth, eyes squeezed shut. “Hngh,” is what he manages, and it’s weak, at that. When he finally does blink his eyes open, it’s clear there’s not a hint of recognition in them, and they’re glowing. Even here, they’re glowing, that ethereal, completely disarming blue.  
  
Her yellow eyes roll, pupils expanding and contracting in suspicion. "Damn it, Charles. You're not supposed to be here," she growls, and begins walking, dragging him along behind her. "Let's get him detained," she tells a shorter boy with blond streaks in his hair who gives her a dry salute and puts away his zippo lighter to take over Charles's charge. "I'll contact Magneto. See what he wants done with him."  
  
“Magneto — wants done with — ugh,” Charles groans, feeling suddenly very sick, and he doesn’t feel like he’s stumbled into the appropriate situation to be violently ill all over the floor. He clenches his jaw, but it does nothing. He feels so entirely, completely unsettled. He’s shaking, and sweating. He’s got chills. It’s such a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach, gnarled up. Breathing is difficult, physically, his heartbeat racing. He’s dropping. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but could you please tell me what that wretched screeching noise is,” he gasps, breathless and affected, because it really is awful. All of it. Nearly unbearable, really, and he closes his eyes tightly to block it out. It doesn’t work.  
  
"No, not a _cell_ , John. For the love of-just put him in this room. It's empty," the blue-skinned woman insists. She taps her fingers against the number lock and it clicks open, sliding aside to let them in. The room itself is at least not as threatening as everything else. There's a bed, a desk with a computer that's off, a window overlooking a small garden beneath, though everything else beyond is walled off in steel. She gives him a pitying look. "You shouldn't have come here." The door slides shut and locks. There's a chess set on the low table in the center of the room.  
  
Charles collapses right onto that bed, deciding immediately that the best thing he could possibly do is bring his knees up to his head and try not to gag. He’s shivering violently, shaking all over. It’s almost impossible to focus on anything, when all he can focus on is how he’s dropping, and dropping, and dropping, how the world is spinning, how sick he feels. That horrible screeching, wherever it’s coming from. “You’re my sister?” he whispers. It would be such an odd thing to hear, but Charles peeks up from his knees, because he hasn’t seen Raven. Not in his universe, and he doesn’t remember ever. Just in pictures. Just from Erik’s stories. But he recognizes her. He doesn’t remember her, but he knows instinctively that he should. Erik's told him as much as he can, when he's prodded. There's always a vague sense of melancholy, a loss he doesn't understand.  
  
She stops just before leaving, her fingers at the edge of the threshold. Directing John instead to go talk to Magneto, takes a step forward, her arms crossed over her shoulders as the door slides closed behind her and locks. "Of course I'm your sister. That doesn't change things. You chose your side, Charles. What are you doing here? What do you hope to accomplish?"  
  
It’s inappropriate. He knows it’s wholly inappropriate, but he smiles. Just a small, ghost of a thing, because she’s here. This is his sister, his Raven, the one Erik is always telling him about. The one he raised from a small child, protected, loved and cared for. The pictures hidden in the floorboards, in the albums, on his phone. He doesn't remember, he doesn't recall, but he's been told and that's enough. It's enough to feel a spark of warmth in his chest. But he knows it must not be the same here, and the sinking that does brings on a second bout of nausea he has to physically swallow back down. “I’m going to bring him back,” he promises, because that’s what his Dominant told him he had to do, what he promised he would, and what he needs to. Even if he’s dropping spectacularly in the middle of it, even if it feels like his body is ripping itself apart, and that shrieking sound. He’ll do it regardless.  
  
Her eyebrows encroach upon her hairline. "You're wearing his collar," she blurts, her hand going up to her mouth as her eyes finally take in what's in front of her. He's no longer bound, and he's clad in a pair of grey sweats (courtesy of the Universe, presumably), but he's wearing a collar. One that looks hand-crafted, one that speaks to-"What do you mean, _bring him back_." Her voice has a hard edge to it. "He hasn't left the Compound all day."  
  
Charles ducks his head back into his knees, but he’s smiling there, too, even as he takes harsh breaths. It’s not the collar that’s waiting for him in that shiny, beautiful box, but it’s his nonetheless. Erik promised it would feel like it, and the truth is it already does. “I’m going to bring him back to himself,” he clarifies, and then his head sharply snaps up, which does nothing good for his nausea and dizziness. “Erik,” he breathes, hushed and low, because he can feel him. Somehow, even while he can’t hear his thoughts, he can feel him. It does help the nausea, some. Just a bit.  
  
"He's not your Dominant anymore," Raven snaps, fiercely. "You made sure of that. You made him take it off and you are the one who took away any hope he had of mercy. You don't get to come _waltzing_ back in here-!" The door opens though, and a hand settles on her shoulder.  
  
"That's enough, Mystique." The voice is low and rumbling, very familiar, but the man it belongs to is not. He's tall and dark and closed off, wearing an all-black uniform with magenta and fiery red lining that sweeps out in a collar, melding together to create a flame-like effect of shimmering pinks and reds and yellows. He's all sharp lines and severity. "I'll handle the detainee from here."  
  
Raven's eyes bug. "This is bullshit-! He's just trying to manipulate you. You can't be this-"  
  
"I said enough." It's soft. Deceptively soft. She cowers nonetheless, her head dropping as she nods. "Now go and help Katherine prepare for dinner. I'll be there shortly." He dismisses her with a wave of his hand and takes a step in, eyeing Charles with almost an amused, distant coldness. " _Professor X_. It has been some time."

* * *

Charles can’t even help the shuddering relief he feels the moment Erik steps into the room. It’s his presence that he needed, and the coldness, off-putting and disorienting, doesn’t matter one bit for that; when he ripped himself away from his Erik, he ripped himself away from the only anchor, the only purchase he had at the very, very bottom of that deep, endless space, and this is finally something he can grab onto. Even this Erik can feel it immediately, how far down he is. How utterly submerged. It’s not something he could ever hope to fake or manipulate, but how he got there is a question all of its own., along with how he got the collar back on in the first place when it was designed with no clasp, differences between them aside. It becomes increasingly obvious as the seconds tick on.  
  
“Erik,” he gasps, because _Magneto_ is a terrifically awful name for anyone, and he blinks. “ _Professor X_? That’s horrid,” he states, until the dizziness gets to him again and he has to drop himself between his knees, harsh, ragged breaths as he tries to keep watch. He’s not afraid. Erik said, don’t be afraid, he won’t hurt you. Charles believes him.  
  
"Horrid, perhaps. But the people have spoken. The Twitterverse rejoices." Erik's replies are firewood dry, but they lack any warmth, any humor. It's all pure sarcasm. It's evident he doesn't quite understand what he's seeing, what is tugging at him, but he takes steps forward nonetheless and sets a hand on Charles's shoulder. "What are you doing here, Professor?" His touch is clinical. Necessary. It doesn't seem like there is any affection inside of him. Any connection at all. His eyes, once vivid green, are now a dull steel-grey.  
  
It doesn’t matter to Charles. It’s his voice, it’s his presence, it’s his Will, it’s his soul. Charles is sweating, he’s shaking, and he’s got chills so bad he can’t go a moment without shuddering, so the best thing he can think to do is attach himself right to Erik. Clinical or not, the touch is an invitation, and one he takes. He wraps his arms right around Erik’s middle best he can, all of that ridiculous, magenta fabric, cloak and all, and he breathes in deeply. So he doesn’t drop so far out of the universe he doesn’t come back, so he doesn’t break off and die, and takes harsh, sucking breaths, waiting for it to even out. Then he’ll talk. Then he’ll help. But right now, he just needs his Dominant, and whether this Erik still believes it or not, he is.  
  
There's a reason for the color, of course. Erik has never sought to be subtle, although only a few in the dredges of the internet pouring over theories have ever landed on the truth. Not that Erik would confirm or deny it. Ridiculous as the cloak is, none can deny it is fashionable, with its dark outer layer and sleek lines. He's always had a flair for visuals. It ruffles a little as Charles abruptly attacks him or at least that's what he believes for a split-second before it's Charles's arms that come around him rather than a fist to his kidneys. He doesn't quite know what to do here, but he stands there, letting the seconds tick by in silence as Charles recovers from whatever it is he's going through.  
  
Charles knows he should be careful. He should recognize this Erik is different than the one he left, that they’re not in bed together, that he’s not floating peacefully on his Dominant’s chest as they discuss the day they’ll spend together, talk about his training. But he can’t quite help it, because it’s such a dizzying relief. Erik isn’t petting him or talking to him or soothing him in any real way, but just having him here, for the moment at least, is enough. He sighs, calmed. “It’s my birthday,” he mumbles into Erik’s chest, which is such a decidedly silly thing to announce, but he’s currently silly with the fact that he’s not dropping awfully anymore.  
  
"I am aware," Erik replies back, in that same distant tone of voice. "I suppose _happy birthday_ is in order." He's not cruel, exactly, but he's different. Just as that other Charles said. He comes in, he leaves food, he makes sure Charles isn't dead. He gives him his medicine and turns him over so he doesn't get bedsores. But it's more like a nurse than a Dominant. And then he leaves, having barely even looked at him, to return to the front lines. But it is Charles's birthday, and Erik does usually visit, donning his helmet of course (which has found its way onto his head now). "I was planning to visit you after my return from _Brunei_. I see you have taken the initiative. And I see you've found a new D5. Congratulations."  
  
A new -- Charles blinks up at Erik, utterly confused. ‘Excuse me?” he rasps, when he can speak again, when his heart stops beating out of his chest. It still is, and he’s still sweating awfully, but it’s better now. He feels less like he’s going to fall apart at the seams. It’s odd, because the accusation isn’t even for him, and Charles still finds it ridiculous and offensive. How could he possibly assume that, and especially how he could he ask that, as if it could ever be a possibility? Charles feels sick and dizzy again, all of a sudden, coughing with it.  
  
Erik's fingers linger over the collar for a split-second, a furrow in his brow, as if that answers the question. It isn't his collar, and yet. "And I see you've acquired a certain style. It's fetching." His voice is cold. Concealing any possible reaction.  
  
Charles just blinks again, reeling from subdrop, completely unable to comprehend. And then he realizes, and he laughs. He laughs, soft, quiet little giggles, and he doesn’t mean to. They just slip out, and he buries himself in Erik’s stomach again. “It’s yours,” he snorts. “Touch it. Feel it. You know it is.” And Erik must, even like this. It couldn’t be anyone else’s handiwork.  
  
Erik's fingers brush over it again, the movement somewhat curious, even as his expression doesn't change. "You removed my collar," he says, his voice remaining firm and composed. He doesn't speak the way his Erik does; quiet and soft and almost a whisper most of the time when they're together like this in intimate moments. This Erik is as far removed from intimacy as is possible, it seems.  
  
Charles frowns at that. The thought is horrifying right now; he nestles further into Erik’s abdomen, wraps his arms around him tighter, taking what he can get. If Erik won’t hold him, then surely he can at least cling like this. “I did?” he whispers. “Well, I’m wearing it now. I’m not the Charles you know, Erik. I never took your collar off.” Even when he forgot who Erik was, and so -- and so something truly terrible has happened here. Erik was right. His Dominant was right.  
  
"You made me take it off," Erik corrects coldly, and if it were the Erik he knew, there might be a flash of hurt there. But there isn't. Not in this face, not in these features. On this Erik there remains nothing. Always and forever apart, standing tall in his black cloak. He gazes at Charles now, though, his eye critical. "You aren't the Charles I know," he concedes. But yet, he cannot quite claim it is an imposter, either.  
  
Because he’s not. Charles bites his lips and closes his eyes. “It doesn’t matter if he did that,” Charles sighs. This is truth enough, because Erik is tethering him. Even like this, cold and unaffected, he’s keeping Charles from dropping awfully. “I’m still yours. He’s still yours.” On the contrary, Charles is sweet, still. Soft, way-down. Something Erik hasn't seen in a long, long, long time. Not like this.  
  
Erik's head tilts a little. "He does not wish to be mine," he points out, all rationality and reason. Logical, stoic, composed-Erik. An Erik that has made an appearance more-than once with him, but in a different context. It's not impossible to see how he could morph into this person. "He told me to make a choice. I made it." Something about the way he says it suggests he was not altogether pleased with this ultimatum, but in the words of the venerable Vonnegut, so it goes.  
  
A choice. Charles didn’t hear it from Erik, but he can certainly guess what that ultimatum was. He purses his lips, his face still buried in Erik’s cloak. His fingers are gripping it white-knuckled, refusing to let go. Absolutely refusing. “Then it was the wrong choice. It was a stupid choice,” he feels the boldness to say, which is exceptionally bold this far down. He looks up at Erik, that gleam in his eyes that there always is when he says something particularly daring to his Dominant. “For both of you. And you know it."  
  
This Erik just shrugs a little, perfectly indifferent, perfectly entitled to his own opinions the way his own Erik is not. "Charles did not provide me with any real options. He chose not to be by my side. He chose to make me remove his collar. He chose to suffocate until he withers away into nothing. I chose to act. I will never apologize for it. I am doing what is in the best interest of our people, and he is drowning in self-loathing."  
  
Charles laughs. He can’t help it. It just bubbles right up, and he hides his face in Erik’s cloak, as if he’s trying to muffle it. “Are you sure that’s the case? Do you really, honestly believe that?” he asks, and when he looks up, it’s clear that he knows. He just knows. It doesn’t matter that Erik is wearing a helmet, he can’t escape this. Charles’ eyes are glowing bright, bright blue. Unsettling, almost. “I don’t think you do, sir,” he murmurs, and it’s soft again. The title just slips out, a product of this subspace. "And I think you're very afraid."  
  
When he looks up, it's to Erik's dull steel colored eyes, so different from the ones he recognizes, as if the life itself has been drained out of him and he's just a walking corpse. "I assure you that I am not frightened of anything," he replies coolly. That's of course the reason why even like this he continues to visit Charles and provide for his needs. Physically, at least. "What are you doing here?" he finally asks.  
  
But Charles knows he’s in there. Charles isn’t afraid, either, and he rests back against Erik’s chest, still taking slow, uneven breaths. “I came for you, sir,” he says, simply, and there’s a small little quirk to his lips. “That’s all. For you.”  
  
Erik contemplates putting his hand against Charles's shoulder and shoving him away. But he doesn't. He just stands still, allowing it. Tense and hard as a boulder. "You aren't the Charles I know. You wear my collar. Explain yourself now." It's an Order, but it doesn't have the same ring to it as Erik's Order. It's more akin to an Order one would give a dog.  
  
Charles has heard these kinds of Orders before. It would upset him, normally; it does now, too, just a tinge of hurt and sting. But he doesn’t let it bother him, nuzzling into Erik’s chest when he sits up a bit, taking what he can get even if he has to actively seek it himself. It could be pathetic, but he doesn’t see it that way. He can't right this second. “I’m from somewhere else,” he explains, simply enough. “Another universe, if you’d like to think of it like that. I’m wearing your collar because I’m your submissive.” He pauses, and his lips pull up again. “You’re training me. It’s wonderful.” And he was in subspace before he left, goes without saying. When he left his Erik, he started to drop; but now Erik has him again, regardless of the differences, so he’s alright. He belongs to this Erik, too, even if this Erik doesn’t want him.  
  
Erik's face doesn't change much, but he stares directly at Charles, not even blinking or breathing as he speaks. "That is what we used to be. It is not what we are. Not anymore." That is lost to him, and there is such a chasm between them that he can't fathom ever repairing it. "Another universe," an eyebrow arches skeptically. "You still love him," he finally says quietly, like a little afterthought that didn't mean to escape.  
  
Charles nods, easily. “I love him,” he agrees. He loves Erik, and realizing that, admitting that, was a relief incomparable to all else. But he pauses after a moment, and smiles up at Erik, just a soft, gentle quirk of the lips. Almost amused, that gleam to his eyes. “And I love you, too,” he declares.  
  
"Then perhaps you ought to return to your own universe," this Erik tells him, not for the first time in a pickle about whether or not to nudge Charles away so he can cross his arms forbiddingly, but his stern features and tone of voice more than make up for it. It sounds like a dismissal, but there's something there, in between the lines. This Charles isn't fazed by his silly helmet, but whatever it is remains elusive.  
  
It doesn’t matter. Charles isn’t fazed by his sternness, either, or his coldness. His Dominant told him not to be, and he listens. He trusts him. That’s enough to get him through this, and perhaps he needed to be this far down for it to happen. The Universe often works out that way. “You love me, too,” he states, plainly but confidently, and doesn’t mind at all nuzzling back into Erik when he goes stiff again, like a kitten persistent about being pet.  
  
"I am incapable of love," Erik practically recites, as if it's something that's been told to him over and over. Something drilled into him, from within and without. "I have a council meeting to return to," he adds, as if this kitten is one nudging by his feet over and over again, tripping him up, and he just wants to pick it up and set it aside and get back to his life. His life of steel and chrome and emptiness.  
  
Too bad. This is a very persistent kitten, and he clings tighter, and then he clings mentally. It shouldn’t be possible; it isn’t possible, for this Erik’s Charles. But he does it effortlessly, because he’s deep down and unthinking except that he wants his Dominant to stay here and pay him the proper attention. As simple and unconscious as that. “They can wait, I’m sure,” Charles breathes, and then there’s a pause. “I’ll drop without you.” And on that, his voice does break, hushed and small. He is afraid of that. He knows it will hurt; it might even damage. But Erik said that even this Erik wouldn’t hurt him, that he wouldn’t be cruel. He believes that.  
  
Erik retrieves a communicator from his pocket and flips it open, pressing it to his ear. "Mystique. Yes, I'm with the-I'm with him. You can call off the alert. I'll be indisposed for the indeterminate future. Provide the council with my condolences. We'll ensure they are buried properly. Have Havok send up something light to eat. Understood. Yes. _Erev tov_. _Lehitraot_." He snaps it closed and looks down at Charles again as if assessing him.  
  
Charles accepts it for what it is, and truth be told he doesn’t hear much of the conversation. He’s too busy reveling in it; in knowing that his Dominant was right. But for the moment, his Dominant is here, too. He’s not holding him, or taking care of him the way that’s familiar to Charles, but he isn’t leaving. That’s certainly enough. Charles rubs his cheek against Erik, not quite reaching his chest while sitting down. Erik is towering over him and despite everything it’s comforting. He’s making soft, calmed noises, unconscious, like he actually is purring; he looks up at Erik with those bright, glowing eyes, and smiles softly. As if he’s waiting, too. For what, he’s not sure. He’ll try to wait patiently regardless.  
  
Erik obviously is uncertain as well, even if he doesn't show it, but Charles knows. Eventually he take a seat on the side of the bed, sitting ramrod straight as though his spine has metal inserts keeping him upright, his hands placed stiffly on his lap. "Havok will be up with food for you shortly. You won't be mistreated here. This is a safe place, for any mutant."  
  
Charles hums, and nods, but he’s not really listening, something his Erik would scold him for. He’s very much and every bit a kitten as he follows after Erik, climbing into his lap as if he belongs there and making room for himself. “Would you mistreat me if I weren’t a mutant, then?” he asks, curiously, even as he’s nuzzling into Erik’s shoulder. “I can’t use my telepathy very well.” Which seems strange, because he’s using it more impressively and powerfully than Erik has ever known him to do.  
  
Erik's hands only settle on Charles to keep him from falling off. That's all. It's a perfunctory touch. Clinical. "Not necessarily," he answers, and this time it's quieter. "But infiltrating the Compound is a serious breach of operational security. You would be subject to interrogation." His answers are professional, curt. "And you appear to be using your telepathy quite well." The helmet lifts off of Erik's head. It's always hot and stifling and apparently it doesn't matter here.  
  
Clinical or not, it’s there. That’s all that matters. Charles curls up quite happily, rubbing his cheek into Erik’s neck, sighing with it. “I can’t hear your thoughts, though,” he announces. He doesn’t explain, because it’s a fairly long explanation. Instead he grins up at Erik. “Will you not interrogate me, then?” he teases, and reaches up to touch Erik’s hair now that it’s revealed to him. “Curly,” he notes, humming. With sweat, but in general. He likes that it’s the same. He likes Erik’s hair.  
  
It is curly, but it's peppered with white streaks at his temples, a little through the wave that sweeps across his forehead. It, combined with the deep grooves of his face, makes him look far older than his years. There's still that sheen of auburn, though, tempered with time. It's Erik, all except for the eyes, the color of steel. "I have many questions," he admits, gazing at Charles like he's an alien specimen. His hands haven't moved, keeping Charles steady. Still holding him in place, even in this twisted world. "But I expect I won't receive any concrete answers."  
  
Charles laughs, and he doesn’t mind that he doesn’t seem to be cracking past the surface. His Dominant is in there and he knows it. “You could try asking, sir,” he suggests, and leans up to kiss Erik’s cheek. “I’ll answer. I promise.” It’s obedient, but it’s amused, too, eyes still glowing and gleaming and so very much like his Charles’, even strange like this.  
  
Erik takes a steadying, inaudible breath through his nose, straightening up impossibly further. It's not a fairy tale. He doesn't melt back to life. But his eyes flutter for a second at that kiss. If it were anyone else they would be flung across the room and pinned to the wall in a heartbeat. But it isn't anyone else. Another breath. "You fight with him. You exist with him." His Charles doesn't want him. He knows that. Irreconcilable differences. That's what their get proclaimed.  
  
“I do,” Charles agrees softly, and takes the time to kiss Erik’s other cheek. To rub his against Erik’s, the way that makes his Erik laugh, all fondness and warmth and firewood-crackling deep. “It isn’t always easy. Sometimes we fight. He’s training me, and I’m not always good,” he admits sheepishly, sighing. “But I try, and so does he.” He kisses Erik’s nose. “He does want you. I know, because I want you,” he says simply, assuredly, his eyes half-lidded still with that deep-down. He wonders if Erik’s Charles was ever this far down, and for a moment he panics, breath hitching but it’s alright. He’s safe, isn’t he?  
  
"You do not want me, Charles," Erik says, and even though his voice hasn't lost that firm metallic undertone, there's something quieter about it. Charles can tell. But Erik can also tell, somehow, what he's thinking as if he's projected it clear as a bell. He touches Charles's shoulder with two fingers, a steadying kind of move that a doctor or a nurse might do. "You are safe here, Charles. I will not harm you." His hand doesn't move away. "My Charles is an integrationist. He doesn't understand what we are doing here. I disgust him."  
  
“He doesn’t hate you,” Charles whispers, because he knows Erik thinks so. “And I do want you. You’re my Dominant.” It’s as simple as that. He tries to get closer again, resting his head on Erik’s shoulder and taking a long, shaky breath. “I was dropping,” he adds, and the truth is, he still could. He wonders if Erik knows what to do. He must.  
  
"He does," Erik says simply. There's just too much history to condense. He focuses instead on the Charles in his lap, the one who proclaims he loves him and wants him, who touches him freely and trusts him and rests his head on his shoulder. It's a Charles he hasn't seen in years. "He divorced me. I didn't wish to-" he shakes his head. "It is all in the past, now." His hand finds its way unconsciously to Charles's back, stroking it a little, but it's as if he's the spooked animal.  
  
“It’s not. It doesn’t have to be,” Charles whispers, and he’s making those soft, content purring noises again. He loves it when Erik strokes his back, and he arches it, definitely the kitten who’s gotten spoiled now it’s been given even a little attention. He’d like more, please, goes without saying. “When was the last time you really talked to him?” Charles asks, and looks up at Erik with those unnervingly bright eyes. “How do you do it — I mean...” He bites his lip. It just seems painful. Sometimes he plays coy, sometimes he hates to admit it, but sometimes even hours away from his Dominant is too much and they’re trapped, frozen, at the manor. How do they manage? How could they? Don’t they need —?  
  
Erik shrugs a little, a gesture very reminiscent of his own. "I saw him a month prior," he answers, lips pursing together. It wasn't any more fun than he makes it sound, dry and clinical. "I tried to encourage him not to take that medicine. He screamed at me and threw me out." He taps his temple as if in explanation. The Erik Charles knows wouldn't have gone without a fight, but Charles makes it easy. "I focus on my work. It is the most important thing, now." It's a lie. The first lie Erik has ever really told him. It makes sense that it would come from this one.  
  
“You need each other,” Charles whispers. He closes his eyes, pained. “You need each other so much, and you won’t let yourselves try. Why not? Don’t you think he deserves that? Don’t you think you both do?” It’s just agony, being apart. Charles can’t imagine trying it, and he hasn’t even been trained all the way yet. He just knows. He winds his arms around Erik’s neck, wraps his legs around his waist, and clings. “Can you not let go of me?” he asks, quietly. It’s just that he felt horrid, before. Completely and totally unsettled. It was painful. He thinks he needs Erik right now, and he knows this Erik can take care of him in his own way, too. He believes in that. He’ll help his heart rate slow, his breathing evening out, soothe the occasional panic in his chest when it spikes back up.  
  
It's a little overwhelming for Erik, who immediately shrinks back, but he doesn't let go. He makes sure Charles is steady and secure, which means wrapping an arm around him. "I won't let you fall," he relents quietly, and maybe it means more than one way, too. "I tried. I visit him. I try and take care of him. He doesn't want-" he clears his throat. "It. He wants me to abandon this cause. I cannot do it. If he would stand by my side of course I would have him. He forced me to sign the _get_. To remove his collar. I wouldn't do it willingly. He is mine."  
  
Charles frowns and then sighs, shaking his head. It’s so horribly sad. “What if you listened to him?” he asks. He doesn’t want Erik to react right away, so he reaches up to touch his lips before he can speak, grinning softly, as if he’s doing something dangerous. If this were his Erik, he would be. It’s just that everything is slightly hazy, still. But clear, too. So clear. “To his concerns. What if you listened? Would you? And he stands by your side, and you do this together. You and him. Would you do that? Would you compromise for him? Would you change for him? If he promised to fight with you, by your side. You would let him?”  
  
Erik is a little distracted by the finger on his lips, and it's obvious in the way his brows knit together, in the way he stiffens further-at this point it's a miracle he hasn't shattered all over the floor. It's the most intimate touch he's felt in years and he finds himself swallowing roughly. Far too controlled to press a kiss to that fingertip, even if the thought traitorously crosses his mind. "I will not let our people be destroyed by savages," he whispers at last, his lips moving against the pad of Charles's finger. He's regaining his composure. Enough to speak. "They stole our children. Tried to cure them and when that didn't work they ripped them open. They stormed our school with machine guns and shot innocent children in their beds. I won't let it happen again. Never again. What shall I compromise, Charles? Making this world safe for us to exist? Preventing our extinction?" His eyes are somehow more alight than Charles has ever seen them in this place. That passion is still in there.  
  
Charles’ heart clenches in his chest. It aches. He’s struck silent, for long, immeasurable moments, trying to put the awful images Erik’s conjured up for him out of his mind. He can’t. “Shhh,” he whispers, finally, pressing his finger to Erik’s lips again more firmly, but he’s not really shushing him. “No, of course not. But there are other ways to do this. There are things he can offer that you can’t, that would save lives, innocent lives that you care about and you know it,” and now it’s firm, and bordering on scolding, but he looks appropriately nervous as he does it as if he knows he shouldn’t. Crossed wires. He’s just so far down, and he associates this with — well. The Erik who put him there is different, that’s all. He’s training him. “Did you listen to him? If he said, _let’s compromise, I want to stand by your side but we’ll change some things_ , you would really tell him no?”  
  
It's different than the fights he has with his Charles. This Charles is-is soothing him. In the middle of an argument. It's completely unprecedented and Erik doesn't quite know how to react. The images are burned in his mind. They will be for the rest of his life, a burning ember in his chest slowly consuming his heart in flame. That night, when they came. It caught everyone off guard. Erik had almost been convinced that peace was an option. And then they came, and the shots started firing, and Erik was asleep in his bed and woke up to-and he was too slow. The children screaming and running. Some as young as six years old. Wanda and Pietro, infants. His teeth grind together as he works ruthlessly to extinguish the memories.  
  
"He wouldn't," is all Erik says softly. "He still believes that they can be-" redeemed. "Humans are not fit to rule over mutants. The only way we will ever be safe is if mutants are in power. Sebastian Shaw was a Nazi bastard and I certainly do not intend to implement any of his methods, but he got one thing right. They-" Erik really, truly believes that they are savages. Lesser evolved. Whatever that makes him, he can't say. But innocent humans, innocent lives; he never held any interest in those. He just wants to see his people safe. The only humans who need to worry are the ones who get in his way. The ones who establish camps and hospitals for children. The ones who gather in mobs to stone beautiful blue-skinned wonders like Raven and Kurt. "They will never, ever stop coming and he doesn't-" and Erik is still so angry with him. Because Charles still embraces them with open arms. Because Charles doesn't blame them.  
  
“Some days he does,” Charles whispers, and he’s not sure how he knows except that he does. His eyes are closed, but if they were open, Erik would see them flash that unfathomable blue. “But you’re right. He can’t.” Because it would have killed him. It would have twisted him so beyond himself he would not be recognizable. Erik wouldn’t love that Charles; Charles wouldn’t live with becoming that Charles. Except Erik has reason to be angry, because — “He left you to this,” he breathes, pained, hurting, and reaches to stroke Erik’s cheek gently. There’s still devotion in his eyes when they blink open. There is nothing but. “He left you alone with this, and look what it’s done to you. Oh, sir,” he sighs, and wraps his arms around Erik’s neck again, curls up closer in his lap, because it’s horrible what’s happened here. Truly, unspeakably horrible. “He should be by your side. He’s yours,” he gasps, as if it’s painful to consider anything otherwise. Right now it is.  
  
Erik's already given up hope that his hand will stop idly rubbing Charles's back, and it's gotten bold enough now that Charles notices it for what it is; a feeble attempt at comfort. "I want him here," Erik says, his voice gone a bit gravelly. He has to rein that in. Composure. Structure. Order. "But he won't come. He doesn't believe in the mission." And to Erik that means they are on opposite sides. As much as it pains him, as much as he cannot express. Something in his chest is warming, reaching back. He feels it and tries to shove it away. Tries to stifle it down. It's not what is needed here. He needs to remain strong. For his people. For all the little ones in this Compound who are under his charge. This place looks cold and harsh, stagnant, but it isn't. There is laughter in the walls. There is gentleness, here, even if Erik cannot admit that is what he's always wished this place to be. And it would be better. With Charles. He knows that. "What could I compromise?" he ends up croaking softly.  
  
“Not their safety,” Charles says immediately. Because Charles would never dare to compromise that, and he knows there must be complications here, now. He rubs his cheek into Erik’s skin again, arches his back more, encouraging more touch. Grabbing and reaching every time Erik reaches back. “But you know the things he wouldn’t approve of every time you do them, don’t you? You hear his voice in your head. You think, _Charles wouldn’t do it this way. He wouldn’t want this._ And then you do them anyway. Why? You know.” Charles looks up at Erik, those knowing eyes daring him to argue. “In your heart, you know you need him for that. You need someone to -“ He bites his lip, suddenly uncertain.  
  
"I do it because it is necessary," Erik returns almost immediately, as if by rote. As if he's held this very argument a thousand times in the past. "They are barbarians. They do not understand any language but violence. So I will speak to them in the language they understand. If they come for us, we will respond. We are not helpless. We deserve our own sanctity, our own self-governance, our own self-determination." It's funny, because it's really not all that dissimilar to the way he's heard his Erik talk. Minus the violence.  
  
Charles laughs. He downright giggles, actually, nothing like the harsh, barking laughter of the Charles Erik knows right now, sarcastic and biting. He can’t help it, and he’s not really laughing at Erik. Alright, he is, a bit. But it’s not for the reasons Erik thinks, likely, and the first thing he does in the aftermath is take Erik’s hand and bring it up to his hair, leaving the other on his back, leaning into it. “Like this,” he demands, as if Erik can’t figure it out for himself, and it’s been so long that maybe he can’t. It feels incredibly bold of him to do so, and he shivers, smiling to himself as he hides in Erik’s cloak. It makes a wonderful place to do that, actually. “You know that’s just rubbish, sir. You know he’d find a different way. You know he’d change this place, make it warm, make it home. So why aren’t you bringing him here where he belongs? At your side? He belongs to you. And you’re just giving up? You're depriving your -- your people of that? Of him, when you know what good he would bring?"  
  
He really can't, his hand awkward and stiff in Charles's hair, but he doesn't move it. It settles of its own accord, and presses Charles against his chest almost unconsciously. The cloak is incredibly soft up close, another tell-tale Erik-trait, and practically wraps him up as much as Erik's arms do. "He doesn't want to come here," Erik insists quietly. "He doesn't believe in _Genosha_. He left me." Erik's lips press together as if holding in a reaction that threatens to escape. It doesn't.  
  
It’s very soft. Erik’s hand is comforting, too, even stiff and unmoving as it is, and he leans into it, smiles and settles, and settles, and settles. Wholly in subspace, and this is his Dominant. He doesn’t need to worry. There’s plenty to say to that statement, but Charles simply shakes his head, seeming to drift for a moment against Erik’s shoulder. “It’s my birthday, sir,” he repeats from before, softly. He might be going somewhere with this.  
  
Erik's arms seem to tighten around him just a little. This one is not as easy as his Erik to coax out. Not by a long shot. But his Erik was right. He's still in there. Somewhere. Roaming around the Landscape, hiding in huts, showing the Butcher how to use forks and knives instead of cutting blades. It doesn't always work, and the world sees more of the Butcher than anyone would like. "I'm aware," he says, and it's intended to be professional, but comes out more of a rasp.  
  
Charles hums. “It’s my birthday, so you should do something,” he suggests, grinning up at his Dominant, and then reaches up and pokes his nose. “It’s only proper.” And then again. And both cheeks, for good measure.  
  
It causes Erik's eyebrows to raise, not-quite amusement. That would be too much. But he can't stop his nose from wrinkling up when Charles pokes it. He doesn't know what prompts him to say the next thing, but it comes out of him as noncommittally as he can make it. "I had made you a gift."  
  
It’s not for him, obviously, but Charles perks up anyway. Perhaps this is part of coaxing Erik out, but mostly he’s so deep in subspace he doesn’t always remember from one minute to the next that he’s not in bed with his Erik. He nuzzles back into his neck. “What is it?” he asks. Demands, really, eager to know.  
  
Not that his Charles would ever use it (that infernal medicine) out of pure spite even if he had to, despite Erik's attention to detail providing the best finished product known to exist on planet Earth. At least, this planet Earth. And not that this Charles would get much use out of it. But he made it all the same, for some reason completely elusive to him. Erik is oblivious to the fact that his internal grumblings are obvious to this Charles. He lifts his hand and a metal ornament on the shelf levitates over to them, and reforms into the shape of a sleek, metal-lined wheelchair. "It's a bioneural mobility aid," he says, a little hollow and flat where his Erik might have sounded shy. "It operates based on thought and body-weight. It can go up stairs and navigate tight spaces with ease." And there's nothing like it anywhere else. He understands why Charles might choose walking over telepathy, given how much his Charles always seemed to suffer with his abilities, but he's not doing much walking either. He's just laying in bed, listless. And Erik cannot help but feel like he's taken away a crucial part of himself the same way Charles believes Erik has.

* * *

He has. Charles doesn’t know as much as his Erik does right now, but they swapped information when Charles clung on. His breath hitches. He hides in Erik’s cloak. “It’s wonderful,” he breathes, and he means it. “He — you blame yourself, don’t you? You shouldn’t. You don’t need to. It wasn’t your fault, and he knows that, too.” But he’s grieving. All this time, he’s still grieving. His legs, his home, his husband, his children. Charles’ heart clenches and he almost can’t breathe. Actually, he does stop for a moment, his eyes wide, his whole body tense.  
  
Of course it was Erik's fault. And this is Erik's fault, too. Because he didn't fight hard enough, he didn't resist enough. He didn't ferry Charles away to his secret Compound and lock him up until he knew better. It's silly. He couldn't have done. Charles was never his prisoner. He opens his mouth to speak but gets distracted by Charles's sudden loss of presence. "-Charles." Erik touches his face lightly and gives it a little tap. "Charles, speak to me." It's an Order. Not the panicked utterings of his Erik. It's calm and in control, everything else locked down tight.  
  
“I -” Charles shakes his head, rapidly, enough to make himself dizzy. He’s not dropping, still firmly planted in subspace, because he was right; two options there, one of them much more unpleasant, but coming out of it naturally himself just isn’t an option. What’s happening is something else, and his lips are parted, his eyes wide, his body trembling. It’s too much. It’s too much. “I feel it, I feel, I feel --” He shudders, and his eyes roll back.  
  
"-Charles," Erik repeats, firmer, his two fingers going to Charles's neck to take his pulse and he lays him down on the bed, examining him expertly for any sign of trauma or injury. When none are forthcoming he suspects something telepathic and whips out his phone once more. "Mystique." It's Erik's traditional greeting for Raven apparently. "I need you to bring Psylocke to our room. There's been an incident."  
  
Charles doesn’t know what that means. He shakes his head anyway, but a moment later he reaches up and grabs at his head, digs his fingers into his temples, his eyes so wide they’re practically bulging. It doesn’t hurt. It’s so distinctly, outrageously uncomfortable, unbearable pressure he can’t shake, but it doesn’t hurt. He’s just gasping for air, he just can’t speak, and he reaches for Erik. No, sir, please, don’t leave, he begs the only way he can, and it’s been so long since Erik has heard that. Since he’s felt it. It’s different than his Charles, in the strangest ways; it’s less expert, less honed, more fumbling and tenuous, but it’s also more powerful. Much, much more powerful. Erik can feel that instinctively.  
  
"Belay that. Await my orders," Erik mutters into the phone and snaps it shut. He returns to Charles and gathers him up again in a halfway seated position, so his head can rest on Erik's chest. "Tell me what is going on," he Orders, trying to make his voice sound less menacing. It doesn't exactly work, but the effort is there. Charles's voice in his mind is like fingertips running over his brain and he suppresses a shiver, because he's always loved Charles's telepathy, always loved feeling it.  
  
“I feel -- I can hear --” It’s so utterly overwhelming. Charles’ lips part again, and it’s not agony he’s experiencing, that much is obvious. He’s not screaming and thrashing and losing the contents of his stomach, the way his Erik experienced before all of this. But he is completely and totally overcome by it, confused, the pressure almost too much to bear on its own. And then it snaps, and Charles takes a breath for the first time in minutes, the first real, un-held breath, some of the panic melting. He closes his eyes and slumps into Erik’s arms. “There are no people where I am, no people, so I -- but I felt them, I heard them --” He should have felt it on his last visit, too, but he didn’t. But he’s all the way down now, he’s in this new, fantastic subspace, and it’s changing things. His Erik is in this universe, somewhere, taking care of that other Charles. It’s only natural he grow a bit. "Ow," he mutters in the aftermath, almost pouting as he reaches up to touch his temple. "Ow?" Does it hurt? He doesn't even know.  
  
For some reason, this is the thing that makes Erik's lips twitch a bit. Because it's something he's missed so desperately, something he never thought he'd get back given his Charles's stubbornness and pairing it with the loss of his legs-Erik can understand it, perhaps, but he will never stop mourning the loss. Legs are legs. Charles's mutation-that's a loss to the world. It's a loss to Erik, who can no longer feel his beautiful mind. Charles gets mad at him for wearing the helmet, but to be honest, he wears it to be an asshole. Always making statements, because they both know Charles couldn't read him anyway. "I don't think it hurts, Charles," he murmurs, his voice softening along the edges just a little. He traces his own fingertip down Charles's temple. He's seen pain on these features. He dreams of it. Nightmares. Emblazoned on his memory-how Charles could think he doesn't care is beyond him-and he doesn't see it here. "You said you weren't masterful with your telepathy yet. I think perhaps you are growing."  
  
Charles’ eyes roll back at that touch, gasping, shivering, convulsing almost for just a moment. It feels extraordinary. Like nothing he’s ever felt before, because of course he hasn’t. “I can’t hear anything, usually. I can’t hear him,” he sighs, frowning. He knows Erik misses their Bond. This Erik must miss it, too. “I don’t know why. I can do other things, but never when I’m trying, and it doesn’t seem to work --” He shakes his head. This isn’t the time to be frustrated. His Dominant told him he just needed to be patient, that he would train him and help him, and there’s nothing else to be done for it. “He doesn’t like the medicine, either,” Charles whispers, and somehow he knows. He knows a lot of things, now, and his eyes go wide again. “Mystique. Raven. She’s my sister,” he says again, and it’s comical, really, how much wonder is in his voice. “She’s very angry with me, isn’t she? She’s not very pleased with me at all.”  
  
"She is..." Erik isn't the most tactful person on the best of days, and this day has been A Day. "She has strong opinions on things. She was there during the massacre. She used to be wary of me, but we grew close. When it happened, when I declared I would work to make this world safe for all of mutantkind, she chose to remain with me. When you gave me the _get_ -" and he can't explain her motivations very well, because he doesn't know, but he does know that she hardened toward him that day. And this Charles knows why, now. Because Raven went with Erik to try and temper him. To make sure he didn't go off of a cliff he could never come back from. And Charles removing Erik as his Dominant-that was the one tether he had, and it made him colder. Harsher.  
  
Ah. Charles understands, now, even better than he did. He rests more fully against Erik’s chest, some of the pressure releasing. His ears popping. Pop, pop, pop. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen her in person. She’s more beautiful than the pictures,” he whispers, awed.  
  
"She is," Erik whispers. "They took her. They tried to take her skin. They thought they could use it to make adaptive weaponry against mutations."  
  
Charles’ breath hitches again. He closes his eyes tightly. “I don’t remember her,” he admits. “I know I raised her. I know she’s my sister, and that I’m meant to love her dearly. Back where we are -- Westchester, the manor. There are pictures, pictures I’d hidden. I know what she looks like, I knew. But she’s beautiful and I don’t remember her and --” Everything is just a bit overwhelming at the moment. Charles sucks in a breath and shakes his head again. “I thought perhaps if I saw her, I’d remember. But I don’t.”  
  
"You lost your memory?" Erik's eyebrows arch curiously. "But you know me. Him." This is getting confusing.  
  
Another shake of his head. “No, I forgot him, too,” he whispers. “I didn’t know who he was when I first woke up. But we -- we started…” He bites his lip. “We started something together. Again. He’s training me, even though he already has.” And Charles’ smile gives everything away about how he feels about that. "He made me a collar. My own collar, in addition to this one, just for me," it's so hushed. Reverent, even. "So it feels more like mine."  
  
"You two do not live in _Genosha_ ," Erik wonders. He recalls Charles saying Westchester. He can't help wondering. They managed it, Charles said they did. Did they really transform the world? Can mutants really be safe while there are humans out there terrorizing them? Erik cannot picture it. This world is not the same. The SENTINEL program ensures that. Every day Erik buries more of his dead. More of his kind. He didn't do enough back then. And he isn't doing enough now. The weight of leadership has made him prematurely grey, cold and harsh like winter. "That sounds lovely," he adds, almost under his breath. He doesn't experience much in the way of happiness anymore. But he is grateful that there is a Charles and Erik somewhere who take care of one another and love one another. Who haven't grown bitter.  
  
“It is,” he promises, and sighs, eyes fluttering. "It’s perfectly lovely, even if it’s sometimes frightening. He kisses Erik’s shoulder. “But it can be lovely for you, too. What is _Genosha_?”  
  
Erik isn't accustomed to having conversation like this. He just gives Orders. Even with Raven, their understanding is largely silent. And she is his first officer, they can't afford to get too personal. Combined with the kisses it's starting to have an effect. Erik seems almost jumpy. And this conversation especially, revealing details-but, he can't really say why he answers. "It is where we are. We're a _de jure_ sovereign state of mutants living in a previously uninhabited area near the Middle East."  
  
“Oh,” he murmurs, humming, and for a bit he goes silent. He does curl closer, though. He does kiss Erik’s shoulder again. When he’s ready to speak, he leans up to kiss Erik’s cheek, too. “But the radio -- you’re conquering countries, sir. Why?” It’s not lashed-out, coiled up anger. It’s not biting and harsh and aimed to hurt. It’s not even accusatory. Charles is still deep-down, and he just wants to understand his Dominant. To talk to him. That’s all.  
  
Erik can't help running his fingers through Charles's hair, either, just as he showed him. "That's what he believes," Erik replies, shoring himself up again. "I am not conquering countries. Not really. They are free to continue as they were, once their mutant population is liberated. All mutants have the right of citizenship here. They have a choice of staying or leaving with us. Those who stay may change their minds later. Most choose to leave. It's become easier over the years. I make contact with their officials and most of them cooperate; they usually don't want a vast mutant population anyway. Some of them resist. That is when we utilize force, if necessary."  
  
Charles blinks. “That’s certainly not what I’ve been led to believe.” He pulls back, and looks up, and it’s still not accusatory. He just wants to hear the entire story. He needs to know the entire story, and he waits patiently, quietly.  
  
Erik lets out a long breath. Here's the part where he always loses Charles, but it doesn't matter. It has to be done. "Of the countries that resist," he starts slowly, calmly. Composed. "Most of them only resist because they wish to prosecute mutants in their own cruel ways, or they are offended that we believe their methods of handling the mutant population are negligible. We have a considerable military institution and we install forces there to compel their governments to cooperate." It's a fancy way of saying that said countries are occupied by a foreign power. Erik's power.  
  
“Hmmm,” Charles hums, and it’s not pleased, of course, because he’s Charles, but it isn’t the harsh tongue-lashing he’s gotten from his Charles, either. And he lies his head back on Erik’s shoulder and presses another gentle kiss there, as if to soften his obvious distaste for it. Not because he feels he should or has to, but because he wants Erik to know that it exists in him, and in his Charles, too. The ability to compromise, to work together. “That isn’t how I would do it. But you’ll discuss that,” he says, simply, fully confident in it. “How many people live here? In _Genosha_?”  
  
"Our population is 1.3 million," Erik says, unable to help the very small smile that graces his features when he says it, because above anything else, above all the arguments and posturing and radio broadcasts, he is proud of this place. His head drops just a little to tuck Charles under his chin. "He won't discuss it with me. He never has. He simply believes I am some kind of _genocidal maniac._ " He grimaces.  
  
“He will,” Charles promises, and sighs happily, content, as he’s tucked under Erik’s chin. He belongs here, even though this isn’t his Erik. It’s just how it is. “Trust me, he wants to. He’s stubborn and he’s hurting and from the sound of it, he’s drunk, but he wants to. My Erik will convince him.” Of that, he has absolutely no doubts. It does make him pause, though. “He’s with him, now, you know. My Dominant.” Maybe there’s just a hint of a mischievous smile on his lips, because he knows how it made his Dominant feel. “Are you alright with that?" Judging by the reaction to his collar earlier that he tried so hard to hide, there might be some reaction there.  
  
Judging by the way his jaw ticks and his teeth grind together, there is definitely some reaction there, the way his eyes grow distant, how he stiffens up at even the mention. "It seems that he can care for Charles as he needs it. I cannot fault that." It's very carefully neutral. He's disappearing again.  
  
“No, you can,” Charles argues quietly, but he’s still smiling. He leans up to kiss Erik’s cheek again, coaxing him back out, carefully, patiently, lovingly, really. “Because you want it to be you. And it will be. You’re the only one who can care for him properly, you know.”  
  
"That would seem to be false," Erik murmurs very quietly. This isn't an argument he wants to have. Because he knows the outcome. He is not a good Dominant. He never was.  
  
“My Dominant feels that way, too,” Charles points out quietly. “But he is. He always was, and he is now. Do you really think it’s any different for you?” He shakes his head, but he’s not sure he’ll get through to him just yet. That’s alright. Charles can be here as long as he needs to be; he’s fairly sure time isn’t even moving, back home. It hasn’t seemed to, in his small amount of experience with these sorts of things. He nuzzles back into Erik’s neck. “Take me to your council meeting, sir,” he says. It’s basically just a demand.  
  
"No," Erik shakes his head. "You are wrong. Everything you have told me about your Erik vastly contradicts my own experiences." This Charles, and his Erik, simply do not seem like they will ever end up where he and his own Charles did. And he cannot blame anyone but himself. He does not apologize for the stance he took, but somewhere, there should have been a third option and he could never find it. An eyebrow creeps up at said demand. "Regardless of whether I am your Erik, I do not take Orders from you. If you wish to attend, you will ask me politely." There is no push-pull of Will here. This Erik is efficient, his own Will lashes out a little, and it's an Order of his own.  
  
“Hmmm,” Charles sighs. He disagrees, but that’s not something he can convince Erik of. He’s just doing his job to remind him of all that warmth and light he’s trapped and bottled up inside of him, to remind him of his Charles, who still loves him desperately. Charles knows because he’s felt it. The Order makes him shiver, and then it makes him grin, mischievous and playful all over again. “Take me to your council meeting please,” he corrects, smartly, just the way Erik remembers his Charles being when they were like this. When they were playful instead of harsh and cold and vicious.  
  
Instead of coaxing him out, though, it makes him snap shut. He doesn't abruptly stand and leave the way he wants to, but he stiffens and grinds his teeth together. He pushes it down. Down, down, down. "I won't take you anywhere with such an attitude," he replies flatly. It doesn't have the same ring as his Erik pushing back. It's just plain empty.  
  
It sinks all the way down in Charles’ stomach, dread, nausea, but he bites it down, too. He peels away from Erik’s shoulder, everything suddenly uncomfortable, prickling, but he takes a harsh breath. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and his gaze has fallen, too, drooped visibly with the rest of him, the grin wiped right off his lips. “I didn’t mean to -- I’m sorry, sir. Please, will you take me?” He does want to see. He needs to see. He was only playing at defiance, there’s no hope of it with how down he is now, but he forgot, momentarily, that this isn’t his Erik. That was stupid of him and he’s sorry. Ashamed, even, his cheeks pink with it.  
  
"You needn't apologize. You did nothing stupid," Erik replies, his lips pressed together. "It merely-I-" he shakes his head. The response slips right out of him like water through open fingers. All emotions do, these days. "I will take you," he decides instead.  
  
Charles smiles again. Slowly, only a small thing, but it’s certainly there. He settles back against Erik’s chest. “Thank you,” he whispers, but reaches up to touch Erik’s face. “Tell me, please?” he prods.  
  
Swallowing, Erik tries to remember, but he can't, his head shaking. He doesn't know. It rose up inside of him only to be squashed, an insect playing with gods. A tiny blob crushed underfoot. "You are welcome," is what he rasps instead.  
  
Fortunately, Charles knows when to let things go. He knows right now, instinctively, when he should push and when he shouldn’t; he decides not to now, kissing Erik’s cheek again instead. “And you’ll show me around?” he asks, his curiosity practically pinging around the room, a physical, excitable thing.  
  
"If you would like," Erik says, carefully measured. But Charles knows the truth; his Charles never wanted to see. He never, ever asked. He condemned this place without ever seeing it, and that did hurt, in the time when Erik could feel. More tiny blobs rush out only to be stomped into the ground.  
  
It’s strange, but Charles sees it. He sees those little blobs, scurrying away, screeching as they’re stomped on, and he gasps. He gasps, and he reaches out, not physically but mentally, the first glimpse he’s really gotten of this part of Erik’s mind -- and it’s not his Erik’s, but he knows that it must be like this, at least partially, Erik told him so -- and he gathers them up, and he shields them, and he holds them safely to his chest. No, no, it’s alright. It’s alright, he’s got them. And he kisses Erik’s cheek one more time for good measure. “I want to see, please,” he says, fiercely this time. He wants to know, and so will his Charles, but he can prove it like this. He can help.  
  
It makes Erik swallow tightly, trying to stem the tide himself, but Charles keeps taking them in instead, and it's twisting him all around. The Landscape is like nothing Charles could conceive of if he ever considered how human minds work. It's a vast world, superimposed upon itself in holographic duplicates, with many different components. The Ether, the Underworld, the Mountains. He sees the mountain-range now, with wilted, singed grass extending as far as the eye can see, a dimmed sun in the sky, gnarled trees and bare winds. Erik touches Charles's cheek, an entirely unconscious action. "The council meeting has already started. Shall we crash the party?"  
  
It’s a bit too overwhelming for Charles to process right now, but he absolutely will not let those little blobs to be crushed. He’ll protect them at all cost. He lights up at the touch to his cheek, smiling brightly like the sun’s been turned on in him. “It can start without you?” he teases. “You must not be very important, _Magneto_.” It’s cheeky, and for a moment his heart skips a beat; will it be too much? Will Erik disappear again, pull back?  
  
"I sure am. I'm _neato_ ," he murmurs back dryly. He nudges Charles up to his feet and follows suit, adjusting his cloak and removing it, folding it over his shoulder formally. He's wearing a thin black turtleneck underneath and dark brown slacks over stylish dress shoes, a clearly expensive watch adorning his right wrist. It's not typical attire for a leader of a state, but there is no denying Erik has taste. Maybe Charles taught him that, but something in the way he holds himself suggests otherwise.

* * *

When they exit the room, it's with Erik's hand pressing lightly at the small of Charles's back. The corridors are bland and metallic, but he starts to notice signs of life, too, and they open up into a large central, circular area with many floors and visible stairs winding up in curved, artistic spirals and unusual shapes that all form an intricate architectural pattern, with splashes of color from plants and large windows letting in the sun. Hundreds of people are out and about. Families, businessmen, children running amok, politicians and more. Every once in a while a flash of light or a bang or a shimmer or some smoke will emerge from people, things will levitate, people will transform, right out in public. "This is the Promenade," Erik's words express real warmth for the first time since they met.  
  
They're interrupted when a little girl runs up to him and regards him with wide eyes. "Mom! Mom! It's Magneto! He's here!" she shouts behind her shoulder quite dramatically. The woman, harried, jogs up behind her unruly child and grabs her by the hand. "Alisen, enough. I'm so sorry, Mr. Lehnsherr." She smiles sheepishly.  
  
"No apologies necessary," Erik says, crouching to her level and producing a bouquet of metallically folded roses for her. "Don't give your mother too much trouble, hm?" he smiles at her, his nose wrinkling up just the same as Charles's Erik's does. "What is your name, little one?"  
  
"I'm not little! I'm five!" she squeaks. "I'm Alisen. I can make bubbles!" she waves her hand and a variety of what appear to be large soap bubbles spray into the air, pelting Erik in the face and causing him to splutter indignantly. "Alisen!" her mother groans. "You can't just-" she has to laugh, though. "I'm so sorry. Let me help you-"  
  
"It's quite all right," Erik dabs at his face with the cloak. The bubbles are still floating, and he takes a metal flower from her and pops it inside one, and watches as it's carried away. "What a beautiful gift you have," he taps her on the nose. "Will she be staying with you at the _Mad Cow_?"  
  
"Yeah, Joe isn't off work until 10. At least I can bribe her with some ice cream," the woman snorts. "OK, come on, Allie. Mr. Lehnsherr has to get back to work."  
  
"I'll come say 'hello' when I have concluded my business, all right?" he promises the little girl gazing up at him with saucer-wide eyes. "Take care," he bows his head to them, formal. They flounce right off, and leave Erik's lips twitching in that tell-tale way when he's suppressing amusement or any other emotion.  
  
Charles watches in absolute awe as the scene plays out in front of him, a soft, delighted smile on his lips. The moment Erik is freed, he all but plasters himself to his side; he’s not sure why, but the moment they weren’t touching it felt a bit like he might dissolve into thousands of little, separated pieces, and this is much better. He takes shaky, calming breaths, but his mind is racing; and he looks up at Erik with wonder, and plain adoration written all over his face. “Can you come down here, please?” he asks, polite as can be, and makes his request clearer by tugging on Erik’s shirt.  
  
Obliging, especially as Charles asked very politely, he bends down as requested, letting Charles get a clear view of his grey-blue eyes, so much different than the other Eriks he's known, but full of storm and turbulence all the same the closer Charles gets to them to see. One eyebrow arches unconsciously, followed by the other. "Hello, down here." It's said flatly. But after a split-second Charles realizes it's a joke.  
  
And it makes him laugh, a quiet, equally delighted giggle. It also allows him to do what he’d wanted, which is plant a kiss right on Erik’s cheek. “Thank you for letting me see that,” he murmurs, smiling. “You’re not so frightening, Magneto.”  
  
That makes Erik's nose wrinkle up, too. Just a little. "Most people here just know me as Erik," he points out dryly. As they walk down the Promenade Charles gets a full view of a variety of shops and parlors available for perusal, but they enter a lift and exit into a more official looking area with hushed offices and various people doing paperwork. "My title here is technically Prime Minister," he explains as they walk. "We're closest to a parliamentary republic, but our governmental system is far more simplified. This is the basis of what we're still working out, alongside establishing infrastructure. Fortunately we have many mutants working in the public sector who help us maintain our self-sufficiency, but I am hoping to ease into trade relations with countries who are more amicable toward us."  
  
Charles takes everything in with nothing short of awe. He’s fascinated, truly. Plastered to Erik’s side and fascinated, curious, inquisitive, looking this way and that, peeking his head into things, taking everything in. “You really need to redecorate some of this,” he points out with a sigh, but when he looks up at Erik he’s smiling, and deep-down still, and unwilling to let go of his Dominant for even a moment. Actually, it makes him shy, and he bites his lip, pulling on Erik’s sleeve to get him aside, to get his attention. “Perhaps -- I could stay out here and listen, on second thought. You’d better go in alone.” And if Charles drops out here in the hall, that’s fine. He’ll be just fine. The sudden _panic!_ in his chest at the thought of Erik leaving him is just fine. He can't reach his Erik, for whatever reason, and this Erik, in this place and in this moment is his Dominant, but -- but, well.  
  
Erik stops and looks at him, an inscrutable expression on his face. So pretty much his face. " I see," he says neutrally. Whatever talkativeness he'd had seems to evaporate up again, but it's unclear precisely why. "I assure you that _human re-education camps_ is marked for _next_ Wednesday on the agenda," he mutters, all dryness and very little warmth. Unlike Charles, he can't sense the panic. Even studying Charles's features, whatever the issue in his mind, his emotional reading skills are subpar. But he is accustomed to his Charles's reactions. And of course it makes sense that-Erik cuts off that train of thought swiftly.  
  
Charles’ eyes go wide, and for just a moment he shrinks. Not frightened, but cowed; until he remembers that Erik isn’t thinking of him, he’s thinking of another Charles. Another Charles with a long, complicated history with him, with a lot of hurt between them. He takes a breath and shakes his head, staring down at the ground. Shifting, restlessly. “Subspace,” he mutters, and his cheeks are bright red. He’s trying not to be too ashamed. His Dominant wouldn’t like that much, he’s always trying to coax Charles away from it.  
  
Erik blinks, as if he hadn't even considered that prospect. And he hadn't. He just assumed-perhaps erroneously-that-this was how Charles was. But as he gets a closer look, it-well, it looks-familiar. "Oh," he murmurs, his head tilted slightly. As if magnetized, his hand comes up to rest on Charles's shoulder. "I apologize," he suddenly says. It's stiff. He's not accustomed to doing so.  
  
All that tension melts right out of him the second Erik is touching him again, and he lets out a slow, shaky breath, his eyes closed as he tries to compose himself. “It’s alright,” he whispers, rather small, and peeks up a hesitant smile. “It’s just -- before I came here, we were --” Well. HIs cheeks go even redder, if that’s possible. It’s a brilliant shade, really. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, looking down again as his heart just kicks double-time in his chest.  
  
"I misjudged," Erik says instead. He's just so used to fighting, to everything being a _fight_. He doesn't quite know what to do with a Charles who doesn't want to fight him. Who wants to learn, and see, and listen. He knows it's there in his own Charles. He hasn't thought of him in the most graceful terms since being here, but he does know that it still exists somewhere. He remembers it, now. It was so easy to forget, before. His fingers of their own accord trace Charles's cheek, before his hand snaps back down to his shoulder once he catches himself. "You needn't worry about it. I will not let anything bad happen to you."  
  
Charles swallows. He closes his eyes again, and tries to stamp it all down, but there’s just nowhere for it all to go. “I don’t think I can come back up,” he whispers, thoroughly embarrassed now, and determined not to look at this Erik. Not without Erik doing something to help him with that. The alternative is distinctly unpleasant, and not something he wants anyone to witness, either.  
  
Erik gazes at him for a long while. "Perhaps we should return to your room," he says, instead. "The council can get by without me for one day." It's not exactly full of immediate sense. This Erik is harder to read, even for this Charles.  
  
Charles opens his mouth, like perhaps he wants to argue. It promptly closes, the embarrassed flush spread up to his ears and down to his neck. He stares down at his feet, nodding. "Okay, sir," he whispers, trying not to feel the dejected pit in his stomach, the unease, the unsteadiness. He did want to see. He wanted to know, and to learn. But he doesn't want to fight, either. Especially like this, this Charles doesn't want to fight.  
  
There's a few chairs and a couch near where they're standing, and instead Erik takes them to sit. He lets out a long, slow breath, gazing out into the empty corridor. All at once he reaches for Charles's hand and takes it between his.  
  
Immediately Charles leans right into it. He squeezes Erik’s hand like it’s a lifeline, takes another one of those shaky, steadying breaths, and looks for his Dominant. For Erik’s Will, for the things that feel familiar, that are the same, that are constant. He finds it. He finds it and he locks onto it and he scoots closer, smiling softly because of course it’s in there; it never left, the other Charles just ceased being able to see it. “It’s new,” he whispers, shy. Eyes still lowered. “For me. I’ve only done it a few times, really. So it’s new, and --” And he gets overwhelmed, and he needs a lot of help, and this is deeper than he’s ever been. There’s no easy way up without falling, and falling, and crashing when he hits the bottom.  
  
There's something in Erik dying to get out, to express itself, and it keeps being trudged on and stamped into the ground before it can. He's pounding fists uselessly against a plastic barrier between himself and the outside world. He looks at Charles, squeezing his hand, his Will unfolding more deep and rich than Charles can remember from this Erik, and wills him to understand. Wishes he could.  
  
“I know,” he whispers, simply. “It’s alright. I know.” There are tears on his cheeks, now, all of a sudden, but he’s not sad, per se -- or maybe he is. Or maybe someone else is. But he’s not dropping, and he knows he’s safe, and he leans into Erik, curls himself into Erik again, and squeezes his hand. Squeezes it tight. “It’s alright,” he promises, and it is. He knows. He sees. Erik told him to look and he’d find it, even in this Erik, and he did. Of course he did, it’s right there. Charles is safe, and he knows that. That’s what matters. He’ll be safe, he’ll be alright, until his Dominant can reach him again. It’s alright if this Erik can’t be that, because he’s certainly got what he needs to keep Charles stable. He'll take care of him the best he can, Charles knows that.  
  
"It has been-" Erik presses his lips together again, tightly. Charles knows, though. It's been many, many years since he's seen this in his own Charles. Felt it. He doesn't want it to go away. If that means they don't go to a stupid meeting about water purification, he is more-than content to sacrifice that. Just to stay in it a little longer.  
  
Oh. Charles’ eyes widen, because he hadn’t understood, apparently. His head jerks up, searching Erik’s face even though there isn’t much at all to go off of. “You don’t want me to -“ He bites his lip. To come back up, to come out of subspace. He’d thought Erik was uncomfortable with it.  
  
Swallowing, Erik shakes his head. "Every time I visit him I ask him to accompany me back," he admits quietly. The result of that is clear. Erik stares at his feet, Charles's hand still clasped tightly in his own. He misses him. He can hardly bear to look at him with his neck bare of Erik's collar. "I am not an evil person. I'm not."  
  
“I know. And so does he,” Charles whispers, though he knows Erik won’t believe it. He touches Erik’s cheek, leans into his side. “I know, sir. You’re not evil. You know I belong to you, don’t you? That he still belongs to you? He always will. You know that.”  
  
"Yes," Erik nods, pulling himself together, even though he hasn't really slipped very much. But it's the truth nonetheless. He will always think of Charles as his. Even if Charles doesn't think so, anymore.

* * *

“He does,” Charles whispers, and curls closer into Erik’s side. All but scooting into his lap. “He does, you know. Even now. Don’t you know how much it killed him when you actually took his collar off?” Charles closes his eyes, because he’s felt it. It was nearly unbearable. “He didn’t think you actually would. But you did.”  
  
"Because he _forced_ me to." It's the most emotion that Charles has heard from Erik since he arrived here. His voice almost shakes, but Erik pushes it down and down. Staving the fire, smothering it.  
  
“How did he force you?” Charles asks, and tries not to make it sound like too much of a demand. But it’s so painful to think about. “Tell me, please. You didn’t fight him? You didn’t -“ Fight for them? Would his Erik?  
  
"No-" Erik shakes his head. Charles isn't getting it. He touches Charles's temple. "Of course I _fought_. He forced me."  
  
It freezes Charles up cold. He doesn’t move for long, immeasurable moments, and when he speaks it’s with absolute horror. “No,” he gasps, his eyes wide. He’s shaking.  
  
His own Erik might be inclined to comfort him by saying it wasn't really that bad, or it didn't matter. But for this one it's too raw. "He knew I would never stop. He didn't want me anymore. So he made me take it off. He made me agree to the _get_. I am surprised he didn't make me forget him altogether." And if his helmet looks stupid, the reason why he wears it has now become very apparent. He's afraid that it's the next logical step.  
  
Charles curls into Erik’s chest. Trembling all over, shaking like a leaf. There’s something radiating off of him, and it becomes increasingly apparent what it is when he seethes, “How could he?” It’s promptly followed by a dry, horrified sob.  
  
Erik doesn't quite know what to make of this Charles. The one he knows was always so assured he did the right thing. "I don't know," he sighs, clearing his throat so it doesn't sound-well-like anything. But he doesn't do a very good job of it.  
  
Clearly, something happened. Things were said, or done. Charles knows what it would take to get him there, but right now, like this, he can’t fathom it. He can’t fathom it. He wraps his arms around Erik, nestles into his neck, making it suddenly wet with tears. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “That never should have happened, sir.” It’s fierce, assured, honest. “I’m so sorry.”  
  
It surprises Erik a great deal and he rubs Charles's back, trying to process all of this. "We lost our children. It wasn't an easy time. I wasn't a victim." But it doesn't change the fact that Charles undermined his Dominance in such a way that he isn't certain it can be repaired. When he thinks about it the anger threatens to rise up and annihilate everything. He sighs again. "It isn't all his fault. He isn't a bad man. He just could not cope with me any longer."  
  
It makes Charles quiet for a long while, still inching his way closer on Erik’s lap. “Would you take him back?” he whispers. “Would you give him back his collar, if he wanted it?”  
  
"I do not see how he would ever feel like I hold any authority over him when he has clear evidence that he can do whatever he likes to me and I just have to be fine with that," Erik points out. "But of course I would take him back. We could work toward everything else." It's not a simple or an easy answer, but it's become suddenly apparent that this Erik, too, loves his Charles.  
  
It’s all he needs to give him hope. Charles smiles, leans against Erik’s shoulder, and -- Sir? And he’s not sure if it will work, but he’s reaching out, not to this Erik, but to his Erik, who he thinks, and knows, actually, is here. Somewhere, far away, with another Charles, and it’s all a little disorienting and confusing but he knows that if he really needed his Dominant right now, he’d answer, and so he doesn’t even fret.  
  
The answer that returns is warm and generous, and immediately distinct from the formal, stiff Erik beside him. _Hello, neshama,_ is what his Erik returns, his mental voice like a blanket draped over his shoulders, toasty and content. Charles almost thinks he feels fingertips scritching over his hair, soothing him.  
  
The absolute joy that inspires is astounding, and the delight buzzes right along that connection between them, weak and flitting as it is. _Hello, sir,_ he returns, and his grin is visible even over the wide distance, the several layers currently between them and their minds. He leans against the other Erik’s shoulder, and feels slightly guilty for imagining that it’s his Erik. _How is he?_ he asks, and doesn’t manage not to be amused and dizzy at the fact that he’s inquiring about himself, about how another version of him is doing in the care of his Dominant. He tries to quell down the spike of inane jealousy there, too.  
  
There's gentle laughter in the back of his mind, though. He knows what it's like to be a little jealous, even of himself. It sounds like Erik and yet so different, so much richer. Charles doesn't realize until this moment how limited his perception of Erik was before now. The difference between an Erik he can mentally understand and an Erik he cannot, is more than millions of oceans apart. _He is sleeping_ , Erik replies back, soft.  
  
There’s still so much he can’t understand, and the notion that their connection will likely _snap!_ again is vaguely devastating, but Charles will soak up what he can while he can. He wants to talk to him, Charles whispers over the distance, and it’s not quite what Erik said, but it might as well be. His own eyes flutter closed. I can’t come out of subspace, he adds, uncertain exactly why except that it’s relevant, that his Dominant should know about it. Don’t worry, goes without saying. He’s not dropping. This other Erik is trying to take care of him, and he’s doing his best.  
  
That doesn't surprise Erik in the last. _I'm very pleased to hear that,_ he replies, stroking his hand over this version of Charles. He couldn't leave them like this. He had to try and help, and from both of their intervention it looks like they've made some real progress. He hopes they have. They deserve to at least be amicable toward one another, to benefit from one another's presence instead of find only suffering and pain. All is not lost, not forever. _I trust that this version of Erik isn't enslaving human beings left and right._ It's a little sharp. Not toward Charles, that is obvious, but toward Erik himself. He's still enraged that any version of him could possibly use those words.  
  
 _No, but he did call them barbarians a few times,_ he snorts, because there’s clearly something going on there, _but he’s not evil. He’s not irredeemable. He’s certainly not a monster._ Charles lets himself drift against this Erik’s shoulder, squeezing at his hand in the absence of his Dominant even while he clings insistently to his mind and presence and Will. _I love you,_ he adds, even though it’s not particularly important at the moment, because he wants to say it. More than anything he feels like he wants to say it. He's a little worried about the transfer; will he start to drop again? Everything is hazy again, now. Warm, content, almost overwhelmingly so, and he wonders, having it in him to giggle at the idea, if it's because he's being held, technically, by two Eriks.  
  
 _Yes, well_ , the Erik in his mind jokes dryly. Humans could certainly be barbaric. In his experience, so could mutants. And Charles can't see him shake his head, but he can feel it. It is important, and Erik loves him very much. The Erik beside him gives his hand a squeeze back, running his thumb over the back of Charles's palm. They won't let him drop, either of them. He didn't the first time and he won't the second time. They both love him, and if one Erik's love seemed almost impossible to comprehend in magnitude, two Eriks is possibly a little much. But they'd never admit it, because there can never be enough. "Is something amusing?" Erik-Two asks.  
  
Definitely amusing. Charles giggles again, then reaches up to put his finger to this Erik’s lips. “Shhh,” he shushes, grinning. He knows it’s a bit insolent, but right now it’s rather the point, and that his Dominant -- his other Dominant? -- is watching is even more enticing. “I’m on the phone,” he announces, and taps his temple, aware of how profoundly silly it is. This Erik needs some more silly in his life, surely.  
  
And he gets Erik in stereo when they both chide him for it. The Erik beside him gives him a solid rap on the knuckles for said insolence, while the Erik in his mind rumbles a warning for him to be more respectful. Even if that Erik is a particularly hardheaded ass. Charles is right where he belongs, surrounded by Eriks. It's the perfect solution, really.  
  
It just makes him laugh. The haze is wonderful, and that warning and the reprimand makes him shiver, and he wraps his legs more fully around this Erik, seemingly unaware that they’re in public and that it all looks a bit odd, considering. “Can you fly?” he asks this Erik, looking up at him with that same soft grin.  
  
"I can," Erik nods. "Most of my clothes and shoes have some form of metal interspersed, and I can use that to propel myself into the air." It's different, too. It feels different. This Erik really can only control metal and magnetic fields. There are plenty of materials that he can't access, that he will never be able to access. Much like his own Charles, though, it doesn't mean he isn't very powerful. He just isn't Omega-level. So far, none of the others in any of the other universes have been.  
  
When they call his Erik the _Master of Magnetism_ , they surely must know that it’s true, then. It puts him in a kind of awe and inspires a kind of pride he can’t quite verbalize, but he wonders if his Erik catches the _spark!_ of it over whatever connection is between them. He smiles regardless, because it’s still magnificent, any Erik is, and he nods. “Can you take me somewhere, then?” he asks, and he knows that Erik knows where he means to be taken immediately. Somewhere very far away, where another Charles sleeps in his Dominant’s arms.  
  
Charles can sense his Erik's soft smile at that, and he can't help but be proud either, just because Charles feels that way about him. The other Erik nods stiffly, and rises to his feet, guiding Charles to step over them so he cap wrap his arms around Erik. "Be very careful that you do not let go. Understood?" he gazes down, all severity.  
  
Charles obediently steps onto Erik’s feet and wraps his arms around him, holding on tight just like he’s told. “I understand, sir,” he answers easily, but flashes up a shy, cheeky grin. “What happens if I don’t? You let me fall?” The thing is, he knows Erik never would. He’s perfectly safe.  
  
But Erik is deathly serious. "I might not be able to catch you, not with my mutation. Do not let go of me." He watches Charles's expression, making certain he comprehends. But, in his mind, he hears from his Erik, _do not worry. I am here, and I would never allow that to happen. You are safe, neshama._  
  
He’s safe. He’s always known that, but he nods anyway, smiling softly, reassuringly. No more teasing, not about this, not with this Erik. “I promise I won’t let go,” he swears, and squeezes tighter for good measure. “The whole time, no matter what, I won’t let go.”  
  
Erik nods. It's a little too close to home to think about Charles lying splattered on the pavement, so he puts the image out of his mind, and slowly they lift into the air, and he doesn't need more than a few split-seconds to determine exactly where he's going. From down below many people stop and point up at them, with cheers instead of horror. It's such a vastly different place than anyone could ever conceive of. A different society. A society where mutants can be really free. He levitates right up to the window where he knows Charles is and opens up the latch, setting them down on the floor.   
  
Erik-One gasps audibly. Erik-Two, however, growls in the back of his throat when he sees his Charles wrapped up in another man's arms. Even if that man is him.

* * *

And Charles knows it’s silly, but he jumps right out of Erik’s arms and into the other Erik’s arms, making the bed bounce slightly with his weight as he all but attacks him. The other Charles stirs at this, obviously, muttering and disturbed, his eyes blinking open as he looks around, disoriented and utterly confused. He rubs at his temples, and then his eyes, positive now that he’s just hallucinating. “Bloody whisky,” he whispers, even while knowing, somehow, that it isn’t.  
  
"Charming," Erik rolls his eyes, while the other Erik still on the bed catches Charles and laughs a little, kissing his forehead.   
  
"It seems we have visitors," he gently rouses the other after helping him to sit up and discovering he now has an armful of Charleses. "You be nice," he reprimands himself, pointing at him.   
  
" _Koos emek_ ," the other Erik jams his fist into his elbow.   
  
Charles sees the wheels halt behind his own Erik's eyes, before he throws out his hand and the man finds himself promptly slammed into the wall. " _Be nice._ Or I will _make_ you regret it."  
  
“What are you doing here, Erik?” Charles-Two demands, while the other cries out in horror, touching his Dominant’s arm, his cheek, trying to reel him back in after the violence.  
  
“Not the time!” he snaps at the other Charles, a little fierce, a little viciously, his heart pounding in his chest. “Are you alright, sir?” he asks the other Erik, currently flung across the room, worried and dizzy himself, spinning.  
  
“ _Sir?_ ” Charles-Two scoffs, unkind himself. “Are you in subspace?” He glares over at his Erik. “Didn’t take you long at all, did you? Just swooped this one right up, yeah?”  
  
“Stop it! That’s not what happened,” Charles hisses back. “You’re the one who ruined your chances. Don’t be bitter, you wretched drunk.”  
  
“Excuse you?”  
  
This is clearly not going well.  
  
"I came here because he told me he wanted to come here," Erik-Two growls back from his spot still pinned to the wall. "If you must know, he came to me in that state. I suppose he still-" and for once, Erik stops himself, not hurling whatever jab designed to cut just as viciously as he usually would. "I am fine. If you would set me down," he snipes at the other Erik, fully irritated.  
  
“I don’t care if he _came_ to you like that! You’re not _his_ Dominant!” is what Charles throws back, perhaps irrationally angry now, and more than a bit jealous. It’s so painfully obvious no one needs to point it out. It’s a bit hypocritical, albeit, when he’s still in this other Erik’s arms. Charles-One is certainly not going to be the one to say so, curling back into his Erik’s arms. It’s rather clear he hopes his Dominant doesn’t release him quite yet.  
  
And he doesn't. He tucks his Charles back under his chin and rubs his back, doing his best to leave enough room for the other. "This has been fun," Erik tells the other Charles. "I won't be berated by you while you're still in bed with him. As you both may well know, I have matters to attend. Good day." He turns to the window and pushes the pane outward, adjusting his cloak.  
  
“Don’t go.” And it takes a moment for everyone in the room to realize, including himself, but it doesn’t come from the deep-down Charles currently nuzzled into his Dominant’s chest, quite contentedly. It comes from the other one, which seems to surprise even him. “Please. Don’t go yet, Erik.”  
  
Erik pauses, taking a long, slow, deep breath and gradually turns around. He's not wearing the helmet, either, although he is wearing his cloak, given how fast he'd zoomed across the Atlantic. For a long time he doesn't look anywhere other than the wall, but after a long moment, his eyes finally drop to Charles's. It's a first, too.  
  
And Charles gasps, for a moment totally and completely struck still. It’s been so long. It’s been so terribly long since Erik has even looked at him, and he feels it thick in his throat. “I’m sorry,” he rasps. That’s it. That’s all that comes out, barely audible, but it does.  
  
And they're not dull, listless steel either. They're the green that Charles remembers, that otherworldly color. "You-" he looks between them. The old Charles and the new. This is further than he's ever gotten before. And it sounds like he might be gearing up to throw something back. _You're sorry._ Cold and harsh. But it doesn't come out this time. Erik isn't even thinking it, and Charles can tell. "You needn't apologize."  
  
He does, though. Of course he does. He has so unbearably much to apologize for. Erik does, too, and for just a moment it bubbles up on his tongue, the urge to lash out, to point at it, but he doesn’t. Charles swallows it down, and he takes a shaky breath, and he can’t move -- he’s in pain, his teeth visibly clenched -- but he does his best to scoot in Erik’s general direction, to speak through the lump in his throat. “I do, actually,” he whispers. “I’ve owed you an apology for a long time, Erik. And I’m sorry. I never --” Now his voice cracks. He has to close his eyes. “I never wanted it to be this way,” he croaks. "I never wanted it to end like this. Us. You must know that."  
  
But he doesn't, and it's obvious he doesn't, by the expression on his face at hearing it from Charles. How could he have known? Charles's neck is bare. He takes a few steps forward, not trusting it. "You did not _ruin your chance_ with me," he corrects the other Charles, and the glare he sends his way is harsh. "I will always be your Dominant. And I apologize. For saying and doing things that hurt you. I have never wanted to see you in pain." But he was hurt, and he was lashing out. And he thinks Charles knows what that's like.  
  
He knows exactly what that’s like. Charles feels the tears before he can process them, feels them roll down his cheeks when he blinks. “I didn’t want to do it,” he gasps. “I — I thought it would be better. That it would hurt us both less.” But it’s been tearing him apart. It’s been killing him, slowly and painfully. “But I wake up in the morning and I still —“ He touches his bare neck, and more tears spill right out. He still forgets. And he grieves, every time. Every time.  
  
"You were wrong," Erik tells him. It's not accusatory. They've never discussed this before. Not like this. But this is the first time that Erik has admitted it. That it hurt. That he's been hurt. "I keep asking you to come back with me. But you-" but he won't. He can't possibly want Erik. This is what he is. A person Charles could never love.  
  
“You are wrong,” Charles tells him, and there’s just a hint of a smile on his lips. It’s barely there, but it is. That’s what matters. “Because I love you. I’ve never stopped loving you, Erik Lehnsherr. Not for a single moment have I stopped loving you.” It’s the truth. It’s heartbreakingly obvious that it’s the truth.  
  
Erik blinks, because he's seen Charles smile, now. He saw it on the version of Charles that doesn't _really_ belong here. But this one, this one is for him. It's been years since he's felt the urge to smile, but it appears in his eyes all the same, his lips quirking up very faintly. It's entirely too familiar. "I love you," he murmurs, almost soft. "I miss you."  
  
Charles reaches for him immediately, swallowing around the tears, but of course it does nothing to stop them. He’s smiling right through them, tentative as it is, small as it is. It reaches his eyes, too, and being held by this other-Erik has been lovely, but he knows what he longs for more than anything. “I miss you, too,” he breathes. “Oh, I miss you too, Erik. Horribly.”  
  
"I did not make him stop being in subspace because it reminded me of you. And I couldn't let that go." Erik is close enough for Charles's hands to come around his waist, and he wraps him up in his arms in return, speaking muffled into his hair. This has to be some kind of dream. It's happened too many times to count over the years. He hopes he doesn't awaken.  
  
He won’t. Erik won’t, because Charles refuses to let this be a dream or a drunken, half-medicated hallucination either. He gasps as Erik puts his arms around him, holding him tightly, being held, trembling with the weight of what’s happening. “I never wanted to take it off,” he whispers. Of course he didn’t. “I never wanted —“ He makes a loud sniffing noise, shaking his head. “Not really. Never.”  
  
"But you _did_ ," Erik croaks, his voice wavering for the first time, probably, since all of this had begun. He did, and it was from that point on that Erik had been the one to get ugly, to _really_ lash out right in return. "-Why?"  
  
“You didn’t choose me.” It’s so quiet it’s barely there at all. Charles is crying in earnest now, muffled by Erik’s cloak. At least it’s soft. “I asked you to choose me, and you couldn’t. Our babies —“ He can’t. It cracks, breaks, fizzles out. “I needed you, and you couldn’t choose me.”  
  
He couldn't. When the choice was give up what he was doing or else. He just couldn't do it. Charles and Erik weren't the only ones losing their children. He couldn't let it happen. He couldn't keep letting it happen. He thought Charles would come with him. He always thought-  
  
“I couldn’t,” Charles whispers. His eyes are closed tightly, so tightly. Everything is shaking, and he’s taking harsh, uneven breaths, as if he might dissolve at any moment. “I couldn’t go with you and watch and — I don’t like disobeying you, I never did, I don’t like it and I thought —“ He thought Erik might ask something of him he couldn’t live with. That it would tear them apart, utterly, when it happened. So he did it first. He cut his heart out and buried it before Erik could. For both of them.  
  
"Of course I wouldn't have," Erik tells him, whispering. "I never would have." Charles matters to him. More than anything else. He never would have made him do something to hurt him that badly. Charles has always been the one to keep him in line, for precisely that reason.  
  
“I know, I thought I knew but —“ But the pain was completely unbearable. His legs, for one, but that wasn’t what mattered. That was never what mattered. Finally he sobs, his fingers grasped desperately at Erik’s cloak. “Our babies. Erik, our babies —“ And he can’t, anymore. It all just comes out.  
  
"I know," he murmurs back, rubbing his back. His fingers through Charles's hair. It has haunted him ever since. The only thing he can possibly be grateful for is that Charles didn't see it happen. That he wasn't the one to feel their blood slip through his fingers. That he wasn't the one who acted too slowly. That he wasn't the one who killed them. As bitter as they've been toward one another he's never brought it up, he's never thrown it in his face, he's never once mentioned it. It bubbles out, because he can't help it, because he isn't telepathic, because he's worn that helmet every day since to make sure Charles never did feel it.  
  
Charles laughs. There’s no humor. There’s not even a trace. “Do you know why I take the medication, Erik? Do you really know?” Because he saw it, too. Because he felt it. Because he had to feel as his babies’ minds slipped away from him forever, their delicate, innocent, forming minds, gone, they’re gone, he can’t hear them anymore because they’re gone —  
  
Maybe it's the way he laughs, so similar to all the other times, but perhaps it's the realization that no, he didn't know, but his head turns away very suddenly, followed by the rest of him.  
  
Charles keeps his eyes closed. He was trying not to be hopeful. He feels cold and abandoned anyway, just as every other time. He puts his arms around himself instead, silent, biting his lip until it bleeds so he doesn’t sob anymore. Erik does hate the medication. But it’s the only thing that keeps Charles from — well.  
  
But this time, it's the other Erik who touches his arm. He points, and Charles can see where Erik is surreptitiously wiping at his eyes.  
  
Oh. Charles’ heart pounds, and he reaches for his Erik, touches his arm. “Come here, please,” he whispers. “Please come here, darling,” he rasps, and he hasn’t — not in so long.  
  
Erik presses his hands to his face as if it will hide the reaction, hating himself for how it doesn't. He can't help but laugh, hollow. "I thought-" it's stupid. Of course it is. "I thought I was protecting you."  
  
“So did I,” Charles laughs, and it’s wet but not nearly as hollow as before. Not amused, but not empty. “And all it did was hurt you. I’m so sorry, Erik. I’m so —“ His voice just breaks again, gives way to another painful sob. He tries to cover it with a hand, too.  
  
Erik leans over and presses his lips to Charles's forehead. "I hurt you, as well." That much is clear. "And I am sorry. I never intended for that to happen."  
  
“I know,” he whispers, because there were so many times where Erik hurt him that he wondered if he wanted to, if he somehow got off on it, but Charles knew it couldn’t be. He’s known. It twisted them both, it always would. “I made you sign that horrible, that horrible —“ He shakes his head, laughing humorously again. They got a divorce. “I dream about our wedding, still. Do you know that? Late at night, before — I dream about it, and...” He can’t do this.  
  
Erik touches his face, though. "So do I." Because Charles isn't alone. Not in this. If there is one thing that the both of them can relate to, it is this. Even if _divorce_ isn't something any young couple in love shouldn't relate to.  
  
“I should have never made you sign that,” he breathes, and the tears choke him up again, threaten to suffocate him. “I regretted it the moment you did. I wanted to rip it up, I wanted...” But he didn’t.  
  
"You shouldn't have," Erik agrees, because he can't pretend like it _should_ have happened. But it's not bitter. "I wish you had not."  
  
Charles closes his eyes. And then slowly, so slowly, he lifts his hand. He’s wearing a ring. “You never notice,” he whispers, pained. “You don’t look at me for long enough anymore. I’m always waiting for you to notice.” It’s always right there, right out in the open if Erik wishes to see. He couldn’t hide it if he tried, with that helmet of his.  
  
Erik finds himself pressing Charles's hand to his cheek, against his lips. "It is hard to look at you," he admits. "I just see what is missing." He touches Charles's neck. But he missed this. And it's still the ring he gave Charles. He no longer wears the cuffs that Charles created for him, but he lifts his own hand, a small smile on his face. He's never taken it off.  
  
Charles sobs again, but there’s a matching, bittersweet smile on his own lips as he reaches up with his free hand, running it through those curls. “You’ve gone grey, darling. It looks very sophisticated,” he says, laughing wetly. “I haven’t seen you without that helmet in —“ In so long. In unbearably long. He plays with all those lovely curls, wraps them around his fingers, playfully tugs at them. Just like he used to. “Oh, I missed you,” he breathes, heart aching. It comes right out in his trembling voice.  
  
It's never been more clear than in this moment that Erik has truly been suffering in silence, and the longer they're in one another's presence without biting one another's heads off, the more Charles can feel the hum of Erik's thoughts roar to life. He's dutifully shown up over the years to do his best to look after Charles, but he's had to harden his heart. It doesn't come naturally to him. There's always been some part of him locked away, just waiting patiently in the hopes that Charles will find it. "I didn't want you to take my memories," he finally whispers, kissing the top of Charles's hair. He means take his memories of Charles. "You know everything about me," he huffs. He was never afraid of Charles's abilities. And he never really believed that Charles would hurt him that way, but after Charles kept taking pieces of himself away and forcing Erik to bend, he couldn't risk it. What if Charles made him never return? He couldn't risk it. His eyes close of their own accord when Charles's fingers slip behind his ears, as if remembering where he always liked petted. He abruptly squeezes him tight, overcome.  
  
“Take your --” Charles’ breath hitches, and he closes his eyes. It’s likely about as painful as Charles thinking, even for any short amount of time, that Erik would force him into something he’s fundamentally opposed to. It still stings, but he knows where the thought came from. He understands the fear. There’s no anger, not right here, not right now, and he scritches right behind Erik’s ear, using his other hand -- the hand with that ring, still there -- to stroke his cheek. “You used to look for my collar, for my ring,” he whispers, uncertain why he’s saying it, except that it’s choked up. It goes without saying that both are metal, one of Erik’s most instinctive ways of feeling out the world. “With your abilities. I thought, all this time, you’d come, you’d feel this ring, and you’d know. And you’d fight harder. I couldn’t, I didn’t know how --” He got twisted up, is all. So horribly twisted.  
  
"I've never stopped fighting," Erik whispers back. He's always held out hope that they could fix things. It's why the other Charles was able to reach him at all. If he didn't have any hope, it wouldn't have been possible. "You are mine. You always were, and always will be." His cheek presses into Charles's hand, eyes fluttered closed. He never thought he would feel this again.  
  
No, he didn’t, did he? Charles just felt as if he did. He worked this up in his head, made himself feel abandoned, discarded -- but Erik was feeling things similar, wasn’t he? And here they were, in this wretched, awful cycle, fighting each other instead of for each other, against the rest of the world as it was always meant to be. The two of them, side by side. “We have plenty to discuss, don’t we?” he whispers, and he’s awfully close to Erik’s face now, leaned as much as he can be without the use of his lower body, but it can’t be helped.  
  
Erik touches his lips to Charles's forehead, nodding. "It would seem we do," he murmurs back, and for the first time in many years, there's real warmth in his voice. As if he's been thawed out, the way that only this Charles could do. Even the other Charles, he managed to get through to Erik, but this one is the only one who could really reach him.  
  
Charles could not be more grateful for that thawing. He takes a sharp, sudden breath, and lets it out slowly, his eyes closed. “I won’t be able to walk,” he whispers, his voice trembling on it.  
  
"We'll figure it out," Erik promises. He knows it won't be that simple, for Charles at least, but it is that simple for him. After all, he did intend to visit here with a certain gift that was intended to make the process a little bit easier. But Erik isn't bothered by it. He never has been.  
  
“It won’t be the same, I won’t --” And he knows it’s so dreadfully stupid, to mourn the loss of his legs when there is so much more, between the two of them, to mourn. But he grieves regardless, and he’s never given himself time to properly grieve. To acclimate. To adjust. His throat bobs. “I was so very broken, why on Earth would you have wanted me?” he whispers.  
  
It's not like Erik did much grieving, he just channeled all of his fury into something else. The more he worked, the less time he had to think about anything. "There is nothing broken about you. I want you as you are, not suppressed like that." He knows that obviously what he thinks about it doesn't matter so much, but if Charles wants his opinion, that's it.  
  
Charles already knew that opinion, of course. He smiles softly, and leans forward, burying himself tentatively in Erik’s shoulder. “You really don’t like the medicine,” he mutters knowingly. “How pleased would you be if I rid myself of it?”  
  
"No, I don't," Erik replies back. "And I would be very pleased if you got rid of it. But I know that is asking you to deal with something very difficult, just for my own comfort. It is why I brought it to you. You were determined to walk. But you weren't really walking. You were in pain all the time. You weren't being who you are. I don't think it's helpful."  
  
It’s not. Charles knows it’s not. He takes another deep, steadying breath. “I don’t remember the last time I wasn’t drunk,” he whispers the obvious. The evidence is all over, empty bottles like a trail of his grief and anger and regret. “I don’t know how to be...” Himself. Erik’s Charles. He’s forgotten, somewhere along the way, the same way Erik has.  
  
"Neither do I," Erik replies quietly. "But we'll help each other. Instead of fighting. Hopefully." It's dry, but not cruel. Things aren't magically solved, but for the first time, they both have hope. The other Erik looks at his Charles with a suppressed grin, tucking him closer. He wanted to leave this place better than he found it, and Charles said it was impossible, but it wasn't. It isn't.  
  
And he’s going to. It’s Charles-Two who watches fondly as Charles-One sighs in delight and curls content and kitten-like into his Dominant’s chest, still very much in subspace. More so than before, even, if that’s even possible. He snorts. “Is that what I looked like, then?” he wonders, but it’s not mocking. It would be impossible to miss how happy that other Charles looks. How peaceful.  
  
"Yes," Erik whispers. It wasn't the same. They are two different Charleses, but-yes. And it's no secret that Erik misses it. There's no trace of condescension in his voice, and no word of a lie. Back then Erik could make him happy. He doesn't know if it's even possible anymore.  
  
It is. Absolutely it is. This Charles continues to stare, unable to help it. “You want me to come with you,” he says, not quite a question.  
  
"Yes," Erik answers softly. "I've always wanted you by my side."  
  
Charles’ eyes flutter. For a few long moments, he’s silent. “Alright,” he whispers, finally, so quiet it’s barely anything at all. “Alright, then.”  
  
Erik's face seems to light up, and he smiles, dropping a kiss to the top of Charles's head. "Really?" he murmurs the question. He doesn't realize he's practically holding his breath for the answer.  
Charles nods, holding his own breath. When he lets it out, it’s to look up at Erik and give him a gentle, playful poke to the chest. “But don’t expect this means I’ve forgotten how wretched your decorating skills are. I shudder at the thought of you designing a room — really, Erik? Concrete?” He taps his temple, making it clear where he’s gotten the information. It’s coming back. Slowly, stuttering, painfully, but it is. And his legs go more numb by the second. “We’ll need to talk, like I said. About many things. But, yes. I’ll go with you.” And he gets choked up, too. Because how long has he imagined finally saying that? Giving in and letting himself? How many times has Erik asked?  
  
"There is nothing wrong with my skills!" Erik squawks indignantly. There's a fragile peace building here, between the both of them, and Erik messes up Charles's hair just because he can. And because he knows, because he's doing his best not to dissolve right now, too, and it helps to touch. "Raven said it looked nice," he adds, while failing to add that Raven was definitely paid to tell him those things.  
  
Charles freezes at that. He freezes up completely, goes tense in Erik’s arms, and it’s not immediately obvious why. Until it is. “Raven,” he whispers. There are tears gathering in his eyes again. He hasn’t seen her, he hasn’t seen anyone -- and for all the comments about how he doesn’t want to be Erik’s prisoner in _Genosha_ , he’s been a prisoner here. A prisoner of his own making. “It’s been so long,” he sighs.  
  
"She misses you, too," Erik adds softly. While her reception toward the other Charles was certainly chilly, she never stopped _loving_ her brother. She just couldn't stay and watch him self-destruct. She couldn't sit idly by on Erik, either. Not after losing Hank.  
  
Charles knows. He’s been angry, and he’s been bitter, and he’s been so very sad in equal amounts, but he knows. He squeezes Erik tightly. “I can’t feel my legs, Erik,” he whispers, and he can’t help it. It’s mournful. “It’s worn off. I can’t feel them at all.” But his head is pounding. He reaches up for his temples, groaning.  
  
Erik thinks it's nonetheless better than the alternative, but he kisses the top of Charles's head. "I know," he murmurs, and this time replaces Charles's hands with his own. He still knows how to soothe away the pain. He's never forgotten. "You will be all right. I promise."  
  
It’s less that he’s worried about being alright. It’s more that he’s worried about everything that’s about to change, drastically. All the processing he’s shoved down and to the side for years. Even still he nods, taking those same shaky breaths, leaning fully into that comforting touch. “Alright then,” he whispers, and it’s almost nothing again, quiet and small. “Alright. I’ll come home with you.” Because this place, barren and void of Erik, surely isn’t. He hopes Erik realizes all he’s saying in those soft words, because expressing it right now would be impossible.  
  
"Good," Erik whispers, because nothing has been good without him. Not by a long shot. He isn't worried that things will change. He knows Charles is. But he isn't, because for once Charles will be by his side, and that's all he needs to feel confident that it will work out OK. This place isn't home, not anymore. Erik hopes that Charles will feel at home where they're going. He's done his best, but it hasn't been home, either. It's been lacking.  
  
Of course it has been. Charles takes a harsh breath and reaches for Erik’s hand again, stroking his finger over that ring. The one they picked out together, engraved lovingly on the inside. Erik’s handiwork, their combined Vows. “You didn’t take it off?” he checks, searching Erik’s face. It’s the last answer he needs, for right now. The last confirmation. Erik’s wrists are horribly bare of cuffs, but this —  
  
"Of course not," Erik smiles down at him, his nose scrunching up a bit. And the only reason he took the cuffs off in the first place was because it was becoming painfully obvious that he was losing the respect of everyone around him for hanging on so clearly. The other Erik looks at his own hand and grins, showing Charles the ring that he gave him, that Erik helped shape. It's the same here, too.  
  
It’s not a wedding ring, though. Charles hardly looks, that other Charles, barely blinks from where he’s curled all the way into his Erik’s chest; it gets Charles-Two’s attention, and he turns from where he’s half in the older Erik’s arms, his brow furrowed. “Oh, dear,” he sighs, and as strange as it is, reaches over to touch — well, his forehead. Definitely odd. “He’s very warm. And very powerful, isn’t he?” It’s not jealousy, or envy. Just quiet, curious awe. He certainly won’t look a gift horse in the mouth, here. “I would get him home, too.”  
  
Well, Erik doesn't have much of a choice with that, but he curls the other Charles closer to him all the same. "Be nice to each other, 'kay?" he whispers, reaching out to touch the second Charles's face. No more of this. They'll come and visit, and make sure that they don't lose track.  
  
Charles is halfway to saying something, his lips parted and moving, when the world gets hazy. When it deforms, and then dissolves completely. Then it’s just Charles, just Charles and not their bedroom, just this white, strangely-formed void, not the Void but an empty space. Charles gasps in his arms. He’s shivering, his eyes closed, still curled into Erik as much as he can be.


	115. every step feels like a mile

Erik doesn't know what to do, or where they are, or how to help get them home, so he just focuses on petting Charles and holding him close. He thinks they did a good job. Both of them. They helped. They fixed. He kisses Charles's forehead, wrapping him up tight. They set them in the right direction, he has hope they will make it the rest of the way.  
  
Charles does think so. He’s not hurting, it’s not agony, this place isn’t even discordant or frightening — it’s just not home, yet. An in between place. He mumbles something into Erik’s neck, sighing. “He tried to take care of me,” he assures his Dominant, and the only reason he understands that muffled nonsense is because they’re still connected. The other Erik, he means. “But —“ But he didn’t know how, really. And that’s alright, but Charles is just a little shaken. Dropping, just a little bit and unsure of how to get them back home. He’s very new to all this, is all.  
  
Well, this Erik knows it's not exactly fair to be jealous, but he does feel a little bit better, somehow, that he is the one who best knows how to take care of his Charles. And he will, Charles never has to worry about that. He isn't afraid, either, because they're here together, and as long as Charles isn't hurting, neither is Erik. "I'll take care of you," he promises softly.  
  
Charles is very much down in Erik’s arms, and somehow, somehow, he seems to be sinking more. “It doesn’t hurt,” he gasps, and brings Erik’s fingers to his temple, squirming and thrashing for a moment when he does. “Oh. It feels — it doesn’t hurt?” There are flashing colors all around them, all of a sudden. Like the Universe is bleeding in, but it’s not disorienting. It doesn’t screech or whine, it just overwhelms. See, it seems to say. I told you I would not hurt him.  
  
"No pain," Erik murmurs back, stroking along Charles's temple, delicate and immeasurably fond. There's not a whole lot Erik could do about it if it did decide to hurt, he can't show a lot of force in return, but he thinks maybe the Universe doesn't want to hurt him because, well, it would hurt Erik. It always did. Watching Charles suffer, pained him more than he could bear most times. And he's incredibly grateful that for now that isn't happening anymore, and he hopes it never does again. "Still," he rumbles the Order, his Will binding Charles up as much as any rope in the Real. No thrashing about. No more. Just this.  
  
Still, then. Charles tries, and the Order requires it, of course; he purrs, content, into Erik’s chest, mostly too down to do anything but nuzzle closer and sigh. It would perhaps be worrying, except he’s not afraid. He knows Erik will take proper care of him. He knows he’s going to be tended to. “I’m growing,” he grins, repeating the other Erik’s words. He smiles proudly up at his Dominant. “We’re in between. See?” It’s much more colorful now. Charles is wholly overwhelmed, but he’s starting to understand. So slowly, but surely. The Universe said he would begin to reach for all that infinite knowledge when he was ready.  
  
It makes this Erik laugh, gentle and with infinite affection. "You're growing," he whispers, kissing the tip of his nose playfully. There are plenty of things that worry Erik, but Charles grinning at him, in his arms, is the one sight that has always managed to soothe his soul, and it really doesn't matter where they are. He is a little curious, though. In-between? His head tilts and he slowly takes a look around. There's so much to process, and he doesn't know if he can. Being able to-being able to heal is all he's ever wanted to do, but it's-this, this whole thing, is so incredibly overwhelming-  
  
Charles gasps. His Dominant is afraid? He’s worried? He’s overwhelmed? Charles is, too, but he didn’t mean to; he didn’t mean to get them stuck, it’s just he doesn’t quite know how to find his way back yet. It makes him frown against Erik’s neck, sighing. He’s sorry, he tried to make it easier to process. “Look, sir,” he urges, and suddenly the in-between is a brilliant flash of colors Erik has never even seen, because they don’t exist. They’re not anything, but somehow he processes them all the same. They dance and sing; something tickles at Erik’s cheek. It’s Charles, and it’s not. “I made them for you,” he whispers, shy. Uncertain. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, only that he’d wanted to calm Erik, to please him. The colors, playful wisps of things, nuzzle against Erik, too, obedient, devoted, longing. What can they do? What can they do? What does Erik desire?  
  
It makes Erik's whole face light up, though, because of course it does. Charles never had to apologize from the beginning, but this certainly has the desired effect. He's delighted, and he squeezes Charles gratefully in response. "They're beautiful," he whispers, and he hopes that Charles know that this is more than he could ever ask for. Just this. Just Charles being here, in his arms. He's not afraid, and he's not worried, but knowing that there are all of these places out there-it's a little overwhelming. Knowing-knowing that-it's a little overwhelming. But the last time he thought about it he got upset and Charles needed him and he wasn't there. He promised it wouldn't happen again. "You're beautiful," he adds, kissing Charles gently.  
  
Charles is very down. He’s very, very much in subspace, perhaps more than he’ll ever be. But he still frowns, reaches up, and taps Erik’s nose like he’s a disobedient puppy. “No,” he scolds, and then grins.  
  
Erik's nose wrinkles up and he snaps at Charles's fingers, capturing it in his teeth and biting down a little. "No? No?" he laughs a little bit, and then rubs their noses together.  
  
Charles laughs, too, and so does the in-between; it sings and flutters and shimmers, colors and lights and swirling, playful wisps with bell-like chimes for laughs. “You’re allowed, sir,” he promises. To be overwhelmed. To be confused. Charles is, too, but he’s learning. He’s going to learn for Erik. “Give me a task. Tell me what to do, please,” he says, breathless and eager, and he wonders if Erik knows what he’s really asking for. “Anything. Ask for anything.”  
  
Erik isn't sure if he knows what Charles is asking for, if there is a specific thing he wants to be told to do, but he kisses his forehead, and both cheeks. "Mmm. You have to hug me," he grins. It sounds silly, but he's a little serious right now. Please. Hug him and pet him and make him feel better, and not like he's about to float off. Charles needs to help him. Keep him grounded. And keep showing him more of this place, more of himself. So much more.  
  
Charles smiles, and he certainly doesn’t mind holding Erik. Hugging him. Kissing his cheek, too, playing with his hair, nuzzling into him and making those soft, quiet sighs. But it isn’t quite what he’d meant. “But what do you want,” he insists, quiet. “Anything. Anything at all, please, sir. Ask me for it.” It’s pleading. “Give me something to do. Tell me.” That other other Erik did tell him he needed to be clear about what he needed, and right now he needs this. Direction.  
  
But what Erik wants right now, more than anything, is for Charles to be here with him. There's nothing, really, to do here, what Erik really wants, more than anything, is to go home. So they can do their routine, so he can ensure that Charles eats breakfast and gets dressed and does his Postures, and everything else that he's begun to introduce and build into their life, but he doesn't know if Charles can do that, if he knows how, and it's just-everything is just too much, he just wants to be home.  
  
That was it. That was it, and Charles gasps, and then he blinks, and suddenly they’re not Nowhere, In Between at all. They’re in their bed, wrapped up in blankets, Charles against his Dominant’s chest. He smiles up, small, soft, seeking. “Thank you, sir,” he murmurs. Because this is the key. Erik is the key. The Universe warned him of the responsibility.  
  
Erik immediately wraps Charles up again, and himself too, burying his head in Charles's shoulder and taking a few moments to just compose himself. "No," he whispers roughly. He doesn't know how to explain what's happening. He doesn't know if he needs to. It's obvious it's just too much, it's not really anything in particular. He's just so grateful for Charles, and the kind of experiences he gets to have because Charles is in his life. "Thank you."  
  
“I know, sir,” Charles murmurs softly, a matching smile on his lips as he nuzzles into his Dominant’s hair. It’s alright, it’s alright. Charles is overwhelmed, too, and there are so many things he doesn’t understand; but for some reason, just like this, he feels like he does. Like the entire Universe makes sense to him, even though he’s only just scratched the surface. His eyes are glowing again, but it’s not unnerving, somehow. Just ethereal, and just Charles. He kisses Erik’s head. “You’re growing, too,” he promises quietly. Because he is. Because it isn’t just Charles who has to grow this time, and it never was. Erik’s abilities might be honed, but that’s only the start of it.  
  
Erik isn't so sure he is. He knows that Charles has so much more to expand, but sometimes he feels like he might get left behind. His mind feels like it's being stretched and stretched, far beyond what any ordinary person could bear. "You make me so happy," he whispers, not letting himself think about anything else. "Come along, dear-heart. Let's get into the shower," he taps Charles on the nose.  
  
That’s just the thing, isn’t it? Erik’s mind is stretching and stretching where others’ would have snapped. Disintegrated. Charles grins in delight at the tap to the nose, going cross-eyed for a moment as he tries to look down at Erik’s finger, mostly to be silly. They’re home now, see? Erik said that he wanted to go home, so Charles found a way to take them home, and now they’re here. “I want to stay in bed, please,” he says, though, pressing his cheek to Erik’s chest, wrapping his legs around him, very much an octopus. “It’s my birthday. I get rewards for being born, don’t I?” he teases.  
  
Erik chuckles. "Always," he lifts Charles's hand to his lips, kissing his fingers. "But you do not get to skip your routine." He bites at Charles's fingers playfully. He likes it when Charles is a little silly with him. It makes him feel warm, in such a way that he couldn't begin to describe it. It warms him up, from the inside out. "I love you. So much. You know that, hm? Do you know?" Because after what he just witnessed, even though they had begun to reconcile, the idea that Charles could ever exist believing-  
  
Charles nods, and continues to cling persistently, making absolutely no moves to get up. If Erik wants to carry him bodily to the bathroom, he’s just fine with that, but he thinks he’s rather incapable of it right now. He nuzzles his nose into Erik’s, scooting up, sighing. “I love you, too. Will there be cake?” he asks, grinning, and there’s something shy there, again. Something just peeking out, because they’re alone. He bites his lip. “I tried to come out of subspace, but I couldn’t. I think I’m stuck,” he admits, looking down, because he’s not sure what Erik thinks of that.  
  
Erik grins back, and he swoops Charles up in his arms, content to literally carry him everywhere if that's the case. "There will be cake," he laughs, because all Charleses have at least that in common, the undeniable sweet tooth that makes having Erik for a Dominant less than appealing sometimes. But he's more than satisfied to indulge it every once in a while, especially on his birthday. "Not stuck," he promises softly. "Just mine." He runs his fingertip down Charles's chest. He likes when Charles is in subspace. There's no shame in it, he's not less functional. He is Erik's.  
  
Not less functional. It’s the reassurance he needs, the learning he needs; he sighs, and relaxes again, smiles against Erik’s cheek when he creeps up there to kiss it and rub their noses together again, playful, silly, like he used to. Like he will. Curious and light and Erik’s, so wholly Erik’s. “He didn’t know what to do with me,” Charles grins, his nose scrunched up fondly. “He didn’t know how to take care of me properly. But you do,” he promises.  
  
It makes Erik smile, and he leads them to the bathroom where be starts the shower; they had clothes on in the other places, but here there's no need to worry, and since Charles wiggled his way out of his bindings Erik doesn't need to focus on that, either. Ordinarily he would have been rather displeased, but he isn't simply because he knows the exact fear that Charles had experienced and if he'd had some more time he would have done so himself. But he does think that today, with their Postures, he will probably incorporate some more aspects of binding. Just to make it clear that Erik is the one who ultimately decides. "They seemed very different to us," he whispers, a little raw, still. "He'll have to learn how to care for his Charles," he adds, and he hopes he will learn it.  
  
“Mmm,” Charles agrees, but he knows they will. They’ll sort themselves out right, and if they don’t, there’s always the possibility that they can give another little nudge. He’s rather preoccupied with something else at the moment, though; wiggling out of those bindings made it much more possible to fidget, to become restless and squirmy, and that seems to be his mission. It’s clear that he’s not bothered or distressed or dropping, just -- well, shy. They don’t usually take showers together. They’re not usually alone and naked like this. He’s sore, and aware of it, and trying to cover himself up, but wanting to touch Erik -- needing to touch Erik -- at the exact same time, and the result is a lot of silly looking wiggling, switching from one foot to the other, odd placement of hands. “Are we taking a shower together, sir?” he asks, as if he’s startled by it, so far down into subspace he can’t breathe without his Dominant and not at all too long after being thoroughly Claimed. The day before, Erik had Ordered him into it with that flat, unforgiving tone. He swallows at the reminder. He doesn't like that version of the Voice, but he expects he's not meant to.  
  
Truthfully Erik hadn't even considered that Charles might be uncomfortable with it because the idea of separating from him for longer than a few seconds at this point just doesn't seem to be possible for him, so he nods, taking the decision far and away out of Charles's purview. It's his choice. Charles belongs to him. He gets to decide. "Yes," he adds, hardly above a rumble in his chest, and he snatches up Charles's hands in his own, pinning them behind his back and veritably holding him still. "Up," he Commands, backing Charles until his calves hit the cold edge of the tub. This time it isn't cold, or unforgiving. He's full of warmth, vivid eyes locked onto Charles as if to keep him into place like that, too.  
  
They’re very beautiful eyes. And Charles isn’t uncomfortable, besides, or else he knows what to do; he just nods, even with his eyes slightly wide and a slight tremble to his frame, because it is Erik’s decision. He can’t fathom making them himself right now, unless Erik asked him to. He does try to lock his own knees together to hide the more indecent things, his cheeks bright red, biting on his lip. “Could you, um --” He closes his eyes. “May I --” A shake of his head, his lips pursed in slight frustration. “I can’t stay still,” he admits, and he doesn’t know why, but Erik could just Order it and he wouldn’t need to worry, but for some reason that just makes him feel rather ashamed, rather embarrassed. He should be able to obey without the Order, it’s just he’s got all these butterflies in his stomach and they seem persistent in their efforts. Is that something he knew, before? Can Erik train that into him, too? Will he?  
  
But he's doing exactly what he should be doing, which is asking for Erik's help when he can't get there on his own, and Erik makes sure he knows that, that he is pleased by it as he nudges Charles into the shower, letting the water turn on with a mere blink. He doesn't need to do anything except belong to Erik, and listen to him, and ask for help when he needs it, which is exactly what he's done. "Be still," he murmurs lowly, the Order zipping right up Charles's spine and settling in his gut. He runs his fingers through Charles's hair, untangling it easily.  
  
Charles bites his lip harder. It’s nice, to not have to worry; it soothes something inside of him, something he’s been fretting over in some far away, hard to reach place, in this hazy one. This delightful, deep-down one. He’s still restless, but he’s sure Erik will fix that, too. He doesn’t need to get bent out of shape about it, which is odd, because it always seemed like he did, in the past. That he got all worked up and frustrated and it manifested as disobedience, as defiance. Not right now. Now he relaxes as best he can in Erik’s hold, sighs happily when fingers work through too-long hair, grateful, greedy; nuzzles right into the touch. “Can you ask me to do something, sir? Can I help?” he asks, shyly. It’s so silly, but he just wants to be told something so he can do it. So he can feel that absolute thrill. He just wants to be put to use, needs to be. There’s all this leashed up pressure and energy and power. It’s right in the palm of Erik’s hands now.  
  
The more down Charles seems to get, the more it opens up all of those places inside of Erik that he's kept suppressed for as long as they've been here. Charles doesn't even need to ask for it, though, because Erik is already uncurling his fingers from his palm and depositing some of the soap into his hand, and then presses it to his chest, gazing down at him expectantly. "Help," he whispers. It's only one word, but his intention is clear. Charles should help him. He should take care of him this way, too.  
  
Charles swallows, but already he’s set on his task, even as he fidgets some more, even as he feels fluttery and hazy. He traces Erik’s chest, all the firm, lovely muscle, and stops at a clustering of scars. He hesitates, then, even as he runs the washcloth over it, everything inside him twisted up at the thought of his Dominant being hurt. “It doesn’t hurt, sir?” he checks, voice cracking. And then, abruptly, it really doesn’t hurt. What Erik experiences for a brief burst of a moment is pure, unaltered ecstasy, a brief but powerful jolt that radiates through his whole body, far more potent than any drug or physical touch. Charles doesn’t realize.  
  
It sends a shudder through his whole body and he gasps, eyes fluttering shut as the sensation of warmth spills right down into his toes that curl into the tiles of the floor. "It doesn't hurt," he rasps back through parted lips, his eyes popping open and blown wide, almost black. Because Charles helped. He really helped, before, and it's stayed with him. He remembers the pain, though, and sometimes it's hard to forget, but in this moment he seems completely stunned by the sensation of something extraordinary.  
  
Charles’ eyes are definitely wide now, definitely glowing, definitely confused, watching Erik convulse like that. He tries to back away, but he hits the shower wall, the arm he’d been using to gently wash Erik’s chest falling to the side. “Did I hurt you?” he asks, thoroughly horrified at the notion.  
  
As soon as Charles tries to step away though, Erik growls and tugs him back. "No pain," he purrs. "Didn't say stop. You are mine. You don't go away." He definitely doesn't back away and stop touching Erik. He pets Charles's face. He doesn't know how to explain it, but it wasn't pain. Whatever it was, it felt-"You did something," he just huffs a little, stroking down Charles's temple. "Feels good. Love you."  
  
Now it’s Charles’ turn to shudder. He’s practically vibrating in Erik’s arms, now, lips parted as those fingers gently stroke where he’s extraordinarily sensitive right now. He’s clearly trying not to pull away, because Erik told him not to; but he’s getting overwhelmed, again. “I could do it again, sir,” he offers, eager, even though he doesn’t even know what it was. Just that he wants desperately to please his Dominant. He reaches up to touch again, dragging the soapy cloth over Erik’s chest, down his arms, humming and devoted. He wants to help, just like Erik asked. To serve?  
  
Erik shivers again, just the feel of Charles touching him enough to please him, more than Charles could ever know. He doesn't know what it was either, but he can't deny that it was, as with everything that Charles thinks to do for him, lovely. He doesn't expect it again, but-he does smile, and press Charles's hand next to his heart. He should serve. This is where he belongs. He tucks Charles's hair behind his ear. He belongs here, helping Erik, making him feel good, letting Erik make him feel good, too.  
  
After a moment, something seems to snap in Charles. He takes a harsh breath and lurches forward, burying his face in Erik’s chest. “He was different than me,” Charles whispers. Quiet, curious, but also distressed.  
  
"He was," Erik nods, scritching his fingers through Charles's hair. "They both were so very different," he murmurs, rubbing some soap into Charles's skin, pressing the cloth to him to return the favor. "What are you thinking about?"  
  
Charles bites his lip, squirming under Erik’s attention, halfway between utterly delighted and uncomfortable, but not with the touch itself. It’s an odd place to be, and he’s become increasingly restless, ethereal blue uncertain when he looks up at Erik, blinking through the shower stream, water clinging to lashes. “Are you positive that they’re very different?” he asks, and thinks the implication might be clear. Did he ever think like that Charles?  
  
"I recognized him," Erik whispers softly. "And I recognized me, too. Even if I don't like to admit it," he adds, his nose scrunching up. "Now be _still_ ," he adds, a snap of Order at the edge of his tone. "Did it disturb you?" he presses his lips to Charles's forehead, gentle.  
  
Charles nods, slowly. Small. “Yes,” he admits, quietly, and pauses quite a while, his voice not much of anything over the shower. “He pitied me, at first. He looked at me and — the way he looks at subspace, at submission...” He swallows. “The way he looks at the way I look at you. He thought I was rather pathetic.” It was that Charles’ first thought, cruel and bitter. “And that other you. He didn’t know what to do with me. He was getting frustrated, he...” He wasn’t used to it. To a Charles so far down, as if perhaps he’d never experienced anything like it at all. “He wasn’t sure how. He didn’t know what to do.”  
  
Erik rubs Charles's back, tucking his head under his chin and sweeping along his skin with gentle touches. "He'll learn," he promises softly. "We'll help them learn. But you are not pathetic, and I don't think he really believed that of you, either. He had a lot of jealousy and a lot of pain to fight through. I think-" Erik ducks his head to the side. "I think it's really hard to look at ourselves and resist the urge to disparage what we don't like in ourselves. That was-" he shrugs a bit. It was his first instinct, too. "It is my hope that they will learn to grow together, too. They weren't growing very well apart."  
  
No, they weren’t, but that isn’t exactly where Charles was going with that. He closes his eyes. “But did I think like that?” he wants to know. With his memories, he means. Is that what he’s like, with all his pieces?  
  
Oh. Erik touches his cheek. "Sometimes, you did," he nods, running his thumb under the soft skin beneath Charles's eyes. "You thought of yourself as weak, or pathetic, or wrong, whenever you needed this."  
  
He takes a sharp breath. “I got panicked, for a moment,” he admits, quiet again. “I didn’t know why. But I wanted to go to a council meeting with him, to see, and then — I thought, no, I can’t, and I didn’t know why. The same as,” he swallows. “The same as when I’m near the basement.” It’s just a whisper. That the basement terrifies him goes without saying, since that first day when he utterly lost it down there, horror and deep, uncontrollable terror he couldn’t explain.  
  
"Maybe because there is part of you that still unconsciously feels this way," Erik wonders, rubbing along his back. "That it is all right to exist like this, to be mine. Even in public." He's never shied away from letting Charles know what he thinks, or giving him the information he would like, but he doesn't make a habit of going over it in grueling detail, either. Charles is entitled to it all, but Erik tries to keep things less weighted by horror.  
  
Charles bites his lip. “It’s alright, then? To exist like this in public?” he whispers, and it’s clear he really is looking for an answer, for guidance, when he looks up. “I know there is no public right now, but...” But that’s not the point. “It’s alright that I can’t come up right now?” He knows they’re just at home now, but it’s been a while. He’s never stayed down this long. He drops naturally or Erik guides him up.  
  
"Oh, yes," Erik murmurs, pressing a kiss to Charles's forehead. "And you have been, too," he adds, fond. Because the Charles he remembers did struggle with it, but he was making good progress, too. "But I like it when you are this way. It makes me feel good, too," he taps Charles on the nose, leaving behind a dot of soap.  
  
It makes him smile, and he takes some soap and dots it on Erik’s nose, too, once he tugs him down so he can reach properly. Just for good measure. “It’s not an inconvenience?” he asks, hushed. He wondered if that other Erik might have considered it an inconvenience. His first instinct was to send Charles back to his room.  
  
"Not at all," he whispers back, his lips parting in a fond grin. "And he didn't want to send you away. Far from it. He was completely drawn to you. I think he just isn't accustomed to seeing that so much. It must have been a very long time for him."  
  
"Is it strange for you, too?" he wonders, looking up at his Erik now. They're not doing very much washing up, but the water is worn, and he's mostly forgotten his shyness. Except, of course, when he remembers it, and goes back to squirming a bit in Erik's arms despite previously Orders. "What if I don't come up? Is that possible?" It's a silly question, but he's wondering it anyway. Like this, those sorts of questions just come out; when he's unsure of something, he turns to Erik.  
  
"Not strange," Erik returns, and that question makes him laugh, but not at Charles. He's just incredibly charmed by this Charles, and always has been. "I don't think that is possible, but even if it were, then I would be very happy to have you by my side in just this way for the rest of my life. There might be times when you need to be more independent, and I will help you surface for that. I promise."  
  
It freezes him up, though. He looks down at their feet, suddenly skittish. "You don't think I can do things like this?" he asks. "Everything's hazy. Fuzzy, but --" But it's clear, too. Sharp, and exactly focused. He doesn't know how to describe it, really.  
  
Erik tilts his chin upward. "Of course I do. If it were up to me you would probably never surface again," he warns, sharply. "But sometimes, in the future, we might have to be separated. And that will be really hard, and you could feel really bad if you don't surface first. So I would take care of you then."  
  
"Oh." Charles bites his lip, smiling softly. "I started dropping. When I first got to that place, the place we just were. It felt like --" He takes a breath. "It felt like I was dying. I felt so sick. Like there was a sickness inside of me."  
  
"It doesn't feel very good at all," Erik leans forward and kisses him again, just because he can. "I've had some similar experiences, too. It's good for the both of us to be calibrated. When things like that happen so suddenly, it can cause a bit of that." He's just grateful that the Erik Charles encountered did end up helping him.  
  
"You'll take care of me," Charles sighs, and it's not a platitude. He honestly, truly believes it right now. He holds up the washcloth, grinning softly. "Do I still help?" he asks. He just wants Erik to tell him to do it, really. He just wants to spend their morning together, no conflict, no one else, really. It's his birthday and if Erik says it's alright for him to stay in subspace, then he will. He can't go up on his own anyway. They deserve a bit of this, don't they? They helped.  
  
"Yes. Still help," he chuckles softly, letting his own hand eclipse Charles's to place it over his own chest once more. No conflict, no one else. Just them. They deserve it. They always have, and they always will, and Erik will always do his best to create these spaces for them to simply exist with one another. "I will take care of you," he rumbles, pleased to have Charles tucked back into his arms.  
  
Erik's chest must surely be clean by now, but Charles go dutifully back to washing him, devoted, adoring, awed. He's so gentle around those scars, touching delicately, as if perhaps Erik will break despite knowing it couldn't be farther from the truth. "I think this is how I'll grow," he whispers, like it's a secret.  
  
And Erik remembers something Charles once let slip, that he could feel and hear all of it under his skin as his fingers ghosted over, so he does his best to keep that all locked up. It is, of course, fully clean but honestly he just likes having Charles touch him and he's definitely not going to correct it. "I think so, too," he murmurs back. Not just Charles, but him, too. He's here for a reason, too. To really let himself explore his Dominance, to just have this space where they can relax and get to learn one another without all the stress and pressure of the outside world. It's been sorely, sorely necessary.  
  
Charles gets a bit bolder, but he doesn’t seem to hear anything; their connection is still there, tenuous and strained, his abilities are, but they’re still not what they were. They’re more, just not precisely at this moment. Either way the cloth moves down to Erik’s stomach, and he shivers, as if Charles is the one being touched. “What are we doing for my birthday, sir?” he asks, and hopes it’s not so obvious how breathless he is.  
  
Erik's eyes crinkle and his stomach muscles jump beneath Charles's fingers, as if they're alive of their own accord. Everything about his body seems to breathe into the Real, impacting molecules just by virtue of existing, an independent force as rooted in his mutation as bending metal. But at Charles's question he laughs, gentle. "Nuh-uh," he smirks. "It's a surprise." Honestly he hopes that Charles will like it. His only references of birthdays are a little childish, and he's tried to, you know, update that a little from, like, balloon animals and glitter and shit, but he tamps all the rest of that down so Charles doesn't get any ideas. Poke poke poke.  
  
So Charles pokes him, right in the stomach. And then again, and again, and again, grinning with delight, with mischief, with playful joy. His dimples stick right out. "Tell me!" he demands, laughing over the spray. "Tell me, tell me, tell me," and he's still very much in subspace, but it doesn't mean he can't play like this. Charles finds he wants to play.  
  
Erik lets out a little _eep!_ of shock, twitching under those pokes and he snatches up Charles's fingers, trapping them against his chest, keeping Charles pinned under the weight of his Will. "Mm-mm," he rumbles lowly, drawing a fingertip down Charles's cheek, leaving shivery sparks of glittering, breathtaking Command behind. "It's a secret," he presses a finger to Charles's lip. He can't express how much he loves Charles like this, seeing him this way, full of joy and mischief. It's more healing than he could ever explain.  
  
There’s plenty of it to go around. Because Charles nips at Erik’s fingers, playful and grinning and bright, and shakes his head. “No, you tell me,” he demands, and it’s reminiscent of the way Erik says it when he’s trying to pull something out of Charles, except obviously very different. Charles is sheepish and downright nervous in the aftermath, not in a distressed way, just fluttering, as if he knows he’s the prey that tried to play predator. “I want to know. It’s my birthday, sir, I get privileges.”  
  
He finds himself thoroughly pressed against the wall for his trouble, Erik's fingers spreading out across his face. He leans forward and solidly marks him, right under his jaw, sharp and forbidding. "You get what I allow you to have," he murmurs back, soothing with his lips against the blooming redness of his skin. "If you are good, and do not mouth off to me, and do as you are told, then perhaps I will reward you. But if you don't," he gives another little nip. "I will have the privilege of taking you over my knee yet again." He gives a wink.  
  
Charles yelps at that, wide-eyed, whimpering a moment later, gone stiff and then limp and soft in Erik’s arms, completely subdued. Completely surrendering. It feels so good he nearly moans with it, his eyelids heavy even as the water pours down on them, clinging to Erik. “I’ll be good,” he promises, sighing and content again, wiggling just for good measure. “I really will be. I won’t talk back or mouth off. You won’t have to spank me, sir,” he informs him, rather quickly because his ass is decidedly very sore. “And I can eat my whole cake,” he grins.  
  
Erik gives him another mark just for good measure, as his hand travels down to give said ass a warning squeeze. "If you be good," he rumbles back, and he glances up at the shower. Until now it's sort of curved away from Erik, but he swallows and decides to get the hard part over with; this time it's easier because Charles is here with him, and Charles is supposed to help him. He said so himself, so he picks up Charles's hand and touches it to his hair, hoping that explains it well enough. He presses another kiss to Charles's jaw, mostly surrounding himself with touch, grounding himself in it.  
  
He’s supposed to help. Charles bites his lip hard, watching Erik tense up, watching the panic spread over his features. He can see it even without feeling it, all that tensed up dread. “I have an idea, sir,” he whispers. “Can you do something for me? Can you kiss me, please?” he asks, sweetly.  
  
Erik nods, his lips pressed together as he struggles to keep everything inside of himself balanced, but he spreads his fingertips over Charles's cheek and leans forward, first kissing his forehead, and then his lips. Gentle and soft, and exhaling a stuttered puff of breath over them, letting his eyes flutter closed.  
  
Somewhere in the middle of that slow, gentle kiss, which Charles sighs and moans softly into, time gets odd. Everything gets a bit hazy, a bit strange, a bit confused. They’ve just parted, Charles is panting quietly, but when his eyes open up, Erik realizes something’s happened, because his hair is wet and clearly washed, though the water never quite gets in his eyes. Or his face at all, actually, no sensation of it, even as they stand in the middle of the spray. “I’ll help,” Charles breathes again.  
  
It makes Erik gasp a little, amazed as he is every time that Charles demonstrates the depth of his power and awed that he's being cared for in this way, grateful more than anything for Charles, for his submissive and he rubs his fingers through Charles's hair, too, nudging in close to him and ghosting touches along his neck and down his spine. "You help," he whispers back, smiling warmly. "I love you," he adds, just because he can. He shakes his head a bit like a puppy and then abruptly yawns, stretching himself along Charles's body to curl him close. "Haircut," he adds, tugging at one of Charles's lengthy strands.  
  
“I love you, too,” Charles whispers, glowing and proud. It feels so wonderful to please Erik like this, in this way, and he grins when his Dominant shakes himself off, all too delighted to nuzzle close when he’s crowded in tight and touched. He’s no less greedy for it, no less sensitive or seeking. “No haircut,” he argues, though, and maybe it’s just to be contrary, just to see if Erik will react, testing these new boundaries. He knows good and well his hair has been driving him mad, though. “Let’s skip to the surprise, sir.” That’s earnest, at least, and he tugs at Erik’s arm with genuine, eager curiosity.  
  
"Haircut," Erik purrs, giving Charles's ass a proper warning smack this time. It's Erik's turn to take care of him, the way he should have been doing this whole time, and little flecks of guilt ping-pong for a moment that he's been so caught up in his own stuff that he hasn't gotten the chance to do this for him yet, even though it's been poking at him all this time. He likes Charles's hair a lot, though, and he snaps a comb into his hand, drawing it through the strands while humming under his breath, just to touch and work his fingers through. "Now be good," he taps Charles on the nose.  
  
Charles whines at the slap, and there’s a rather spectacular pout on his lips, but it gives way to a smile shortly after. He can’t help smiling like this, really, hazy and clinging to Erik’s Dominion like a lifeline, being touched and doted on. He leans into the touch to his hair, humming himself, his eyes fluttering shut. “Short?” he asks Erik, because he doesn’t know what Erik prefers on him, but his tone makes it clear enough that right now he’s not got much of an opinion; Erik is the only one who will see him, and he wants his Dominant to be pleased with what he looks like most of all. There might be something else on his mind, though, because - “What kind of cake, sir?”  
  
"Mmm, not too short," Erik murmurs. He gets a bit distracted just combing and straightening everything out, using the opportunity to massage his fingers along Charles's scalp, regarding him with a squint to see what would make Charles more comfortable and also look good. "And you will find out, _neshama_. _Savlanut_ ," he grins, his nose wrinkling up. He leads Charles to sit down at the ledge of the tub, levitating himself over the edge to sit down next to him, petting him and nudging up close. He kisses Charles's shoulder and then waves his hand, grinning when Charles's whole entire hair turns pink and purple, with glittery streaks throughout.  
  
Charles gasps, pouting again when he realizes what’s happened, his hands coming up to tug at his own hair. “I don’t like this color,” he tells Erik, as seriously as he possibly can before he dissolves into giggles, curling into Erik’s chest, all but climbing into his lap. He pokes Erik’s stomach. Once, and then again, and again, and again, that same playful streak from before bubbling up. “I want blue hair,” he insists, grinning up at his Dominant.  
  
Ask and ye shall receive. Charles's hair turns a brilliant blue, and Erik twirls it around his fingers, unable to keep the grin off of his face. "Very fetching," Erik laughs, combing it back from Charles's face. He pokes Charles right in the sides, then tickles under his chin. "Now stay very still, so I don't nick you anywhere, 'kay?" he holds his finger up sternly.  
  
Now that his hair is back to normal, thank you very much, Charles tries to settle. Or he does at first, anyway, until he realizes he can squirm all over, wriggle for the fun of it, grinning up at Erik. “Getting it out of my system, sir,” he murmurs, innocent as can be, but he can’t deny his cheeks are getting hot and he gasps, because he’s forgotten how horribly sore he was until he rubbed himself right along Erik’s thigh. “What do I usually do for my birthdays? You said I don’t like them much.” His curiosity is getting the better of him again.  
  
Erik smacks said ass sharply, drawing his fingertips right through the red welts he leaves behind and tilting his chin up, gripping his jaw in hand. "Still," he rumbles, eyes blazing as he sinks deeper and deeper into mirrored Dominion. "You didn't celebrate them, I don't think," he whispers softly, kissing his temple. "It made you sad." Erik's never talked about his own birthday and has no desire to, so he can certainly understand the sentiment. But maybe that's the reason why it's important to him to give him this, because it should be special for Charles, every day should be special for him.  
  
Charles has none of those memories. He wonders if it’s wrong, then, or silly, to be so thoroughly excited about a birthday he didn’t even remember until a few hours ago -- but he is, anyway. He whines at the slap, but the touch to his temple seems to startle him even more, his eyes wide as he thrashes a bit with it again, almost convulses his reaction to it is so strong. He takes a sharp breath and closes his eyes tightly. “What happens when this is over?” he asks, quietly. He’s not sure what he’s asking at first, but when his eyes open again, they’re filled with concern. “We’ll have been alone for so long, and -- it’s my birthday. The weather’s changing, time is passing. Is it passing for everyone else?” He’s not sure why it’s suddenly bothering him, the thought of it.  
  
"I'm not really sure," Erik whispers back honestly. "But I expect it will align where it needs to align. When the prospect of this first manifested to me, I-" he swallows, and then smiles, reflexive, reassuring. "I was originally going to be alone, I think. And everything was going to keep going. But you wouldn't have come back to the world you left. Mr. Shaw would have been acquitted. I might be in jail. If you weren't there they would have hurt us, retaliated when they were free. Whatever the causative agent is for this, there is caring, for you and me. For us. So I think what matters is that the big things aren't destabilized. I don't know if maybe we'll celebrate your birthday twice," he laughs. "Or if maybe all the dates will line up. The universe is a big power. I have faith it won't happen in too jarring a way, for anyone."  
  
“It loves you,” Charles whispers. His eyes are closed, and there’s a soft, small smile on his lips. He leans back against Erik’s shoulder, folding himself more comfortably on his lap, only shivering slightly from the dampness, the chill. Erik’s body is always exceptionally warm, so it solves itself fast. “That -- power, or force, the Universe, whatever it is. I can feel it. It loves you so very much.” But it’s no surprise, really. Erik says that it’s at least part him. How could it not? Charles himself certainly didn’t stand much of a chance. "It's trying to help us. Do you know that? It wants to show us, and help us. I thought --" He thought the worst. Feared it.  
  
Erik is snipping and cutting while Charles relaxes against him, keeps him still to make sure he doesn't nick anywhere, but with his abilities that's a foregone impossibility anyway. He doesn't even need the scissors, but he just likes playing with Charles's hair and touching him. "I know," he whispers back, soft. "It's never frightened me, because I've always seen you. Sometimes I've been-" he has to laugh a little. "A little angry, because it's a part that has caused you a lot of pain, and I think maybe it didn't know what that meant, but the more I see of it and the more it talks to me, the more it realizes that it is important to act with care toward you. Not just hacking and slashing at your mind, even if it would bring the same result. You hurt a lot. A lot of pain, from adjustment. I think part of this was to help facilitate that as well. And it promised me-" no more pain. And Erik has held the Universe itself to that promise. "And it has helped me in times when no one else could. It is part of you, or you are part of it, and I love and care for it a great deal." He taps Charles on the nose.  
  
Charles bites his lip. “Something happened to me,” he murmurs, and of this he knows for certain. “And I couldn’t come back from it, and it knew that. So…” So one way or the other, Charles needs to accept that there’s something growing inside of him, something far larger and more powerful than he’s ever imagined. It could destroy him, but the Universe doesn’t seem to think it will. He sighs, letting his eyes close, falling completely, utterly limp against Erik, trusting. Safe, down. “I know you’ve said that you think it’s right about me, but why me? Why not any of the others? I know, you couldn’t possibly answer that, but --” But he can’t get it off his mind. If there are so many others quite like him, why are they not the ones here? Why were they not the ones who braved the Void and swallowed the Universe?  
  
"I really don't know," Erik says. He's thought about it too, but in a different lens. "I can tell you that the times I've awoken in these other places, for a brief moment I experience a kind of dread," he has to laugh. "Because somehow, we're Omega-level and these other versions of us do not seem to be. That's something determined by genetics and environment, so what changes? Is it decisions? Environments? Different blueprints? And I don't know if I'm all right with that, which doesn't really matter, but I've dreaded waking up somewhere-" he trails off, then, because he doesn't really know how to put it into words.  
  
“Where what?” Charles whispers, and reaches up to touch Erik’s face. Right now, at least, he can’t read Erik’s mind. He needs to be told. “Tell me, please? Where what, sir?” he urges, as polite as he can manage while the curiosity and concern bounces around in his hazy mind.  
  
"Just, what if I woke up somewhere and I wasn't a D5," Erik says, doing his best to laugh it off. It's a silly, stupid worry and nowhere near as important as Charles's concern. But he's been thinking about it, thinking about what it all means, for Charles and for himself and for everyone else, too. He presses a kiss to Charles's forehead. "Maybe some things are universal. Maybe some things aren't. Maybe being Omega-level isn't genetics at all, maybe it's something unique to the fabric of how this universe is constructed. Maybe we've only seen a glimpse. There could be others just like us, swallowing infinite Universes. I wish I had a good answer, _neshama_. But I am fully confident that you are meant for this, and I will help you any way I can."  
  
“Oh,” Charles breathes, and after a moment he realizes his heart is clenched uncomfortably tight in his chest. He curls into Erik’s chest instead, suddenly not breathing as even, trusting Erik not to get him with the scissors he’s still holding when he moves. “I don’t think I like that,” he whispers, which is just an understatement. What if he’d gone to another universe where Erik wasn’t, and he was down like this, and that Erik couldn’t - he closes his eyes. No, he doesn’t like it. He grabs tight to Erik's arm, clinging.  
  
Erik rubs his back, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "I don't like it, either. Perhaps that is why we didn't visit those places, if they exist. It wouldn't be-" it wouldn't be healing, it wouldn't be helpful, they wouldn't learn anything. Erik knows for a fact if he ever wound up in a place where their roles were reversed he would drop right back into those damaging, horrible instincts he grew up in, and everything would get all twisted up, and it would undo so much of the work he's put into being comfortable and confident in his Dominance. Even the idea, entertaining the concept, has done him in a little bit. He doesn't want it. Charles asked him once if he did, and the prospect that it could be real, honestly makes him feel nauseated.  
  
Charles shakes his head into Erik’s chest, frowning, but arching into those stroking, calming hands. “I’m supposed to be yours,” he declares, fairly certain of it. “That’s what it thinks. Did you see it? I did, for a second. It’s wearing...” For some reason, he gets shy, his cheeks dusted pink. But his hands come up to touch the collar around his neck anyway, the one Erik wants to make feel like his.  
  
"Yes," Erik agrees, and this time his voice drops a little, warmer and deeper. It's why he's never been afraid, not really, not when it comes down to it. Sometimes he's been nervous, that jolt of panic when Charles wouldn't wake up, that frustration and rage when he was hurting. But underneath it all, the Universe, or the entity, or whatever it may be, wears his collar. And it's right. It isn't an interloper or an intruder. Just a misunderstood facet of Charles, a merging of them both. Erik can't help but love it. "You are mine," he practically purrs. "You are supposed to be mine." And that is what is good and healthy for them both. He has to believe that. He has to. He won't let Mr. Shaw's voice in. The one that tells him he's just pretending. He's not a real Dominant. Wouldn't it prove he wasn't? He can't bear the thought that this is just some accident, that-that Mr. Shaw is right. He shudders with Charles's arms wrapped around his neck, a shiver as though someone's walked over his grave. He refuses.


	116. They think that you emit the light but you only take it in

It shakes Charles to the core. He shivers, too, and grasps Erik much more tightly, burying his face in his neck, leaning up so he can settle there more closely. “No,” he breathes. “Close your eyes?” But Charles doesn’t wait for Erik to hear it. He trusts Erik to trust him, and reaches over gently, covering them himself. “Take a deep breath, sir. Please? I want to show you something.”  
  
Erik's lashes flutter against Charles's hands, but he lets them shut dutifully, of course he does. He trusts Charles, completely, but his breathing is shaky and he struggles. He tries. Deep breath. He can do that. It's OK. He's OK. He mouths _I love you_ against Charles's palm, presses it into his skin with a kiss, breathes.  
  
It’s all he could ask for, and all he wanted. Charles takes a deep breath, too, and slides his hands away from Erik’s eyes, leaning their foreheads together instead. “What do you feel right now?” he asks. “Don’t think. Just feel, sir. What do you feel?”  
  
Already he fails at that as his brain struggles to analyze, and categorize, but he pushes it down as much as he can. "Afraid," he laughs, self-deprecating. When he thinks about that and what it means, and what it might imply, because it changes everything, it changes what he's been working toward logically understanding. Sure, he's struggled with the feeling of it, but he's always been able to say, _logically, intellectually_ -and now that's kind of-wobbly.   
  
He's afraid, if Charles ever saw him that way, if Charles ever emerged somewhere and Erik couldn't take care of him, who would take care of him? Erik's been a little jealous, but at least he's been secure in the knowledge that a version of himself-he clears his throat. "I have all of these bad impulses, and we had to deal with that, and I just feel like I am starting to finally come into myself and finally be able to say, you know-" and he can't imagine a world where Charles doesn't belong to him. If he were anybody else this wouldn't be an issue. It would be a fun little thought experiment, but it feels so regressive. Unhealthy. _Twisted_.   
  
And he hates that he even brought it into the world, named it at all, because it wasn't even important in the first place. Just a stupid intrusion.  
  
Charles bites his lip, and carefully moves down, kissing each of Erik’s eyelids. “Okay,” he breathes, his breath warm against Erik’s cheek as he kisses that, next. “Now focus on me. Take a deep, slow breath, and focus on me. What do you feel from me, sir? Right now? Can you tell me?” Perhaps their connection is tenuous and stuttering and often fails, but Charles thinks this one doesn't even require it.  
  
Erik relaxes slowly beneath the ministrations, letting Charles pet and kiss him and gradually his own breathing slows. He'd much rather focus on Charles, anyway, and there are many answers he could give to the question, but it's hard to focus. In this state, so attuned to him, Charles has instinctively recognized that Erik's having what amounts to a panic attack, his thoughts all blurting over one another like sirens, loud and jarring and uncomfortable. But he's also discovered the easiest way to care for him. Talking, and touching, and grounding. "Mine," he rasps softly. Maybe it's a silly answer.  
  
It’s the perfect answer, actually. It’s exactly the one Charles was looking for, and he smiles against Erik, rubs their cheeks together, their noses, kisses it when he pulls away. Jaw, cheeks, nose again, both eyelids. Just soft, feathery things, his eyelashes kissing as much as his lips. “I’m yours,” he agrees. “I’m yours, sir. Do you feel how, how far I am? Even that other you couldn’t imagine it, he didn’t know what to do, really. It’s because I’m yours. You got me here.” And it’s a wonderful place to be, floating, hazy, blissful. He hums and squirms in Erik’s lap as if to prove the point.  
  
"Mine," Erik whispers again, burying his head in Charles's shoulder. "Don't want you to ever see me-" like that. Submissive. Twisted. Because it exists inside of him, still, and probably always will, and seems to always somehow pop up during moments of heightened Bonding, in those moments where he can't control himself and he can't moderate his own behavior. And he just doesn't want Charles to see it, to see it again. "Promise me you won't go there. Go anywhere like that. Promise." It's an unfair promise to ask for, maybe, but Erik can't help it. Charles needs an Erik, too. A universe where he doesn't belong to anyone? Where he has no Dominant? Erik can't handle that at all.  
  
Charles shakes his head, and kisses the top of Erik’s, nuzzling into him. “I promise,” he whispers easily, fiercely, because there’s more to it than just Erik’s discomfort. “I don’t want to go anywhere like that. I don’t want --” He closes his eyes, suddenly dizzy. He remembers it. The ungrounded, unsteady, horrible feeling, the clenching up and emptiness of his belly, the way everything felt off-center and wrong. That other Erik had found him, but what if he hadn’t? Charles sniffs at the thought, trying to burrow closer. “I’m not supposed to not have a Dominant,” he gasps, and realizes it’s true. He’s not. He’s always supposed to have had Erik.  
  
And during these times when Charles visits Erik has been left by himself, but somehow he's always known that he's not alone. That if he really needed Charles, he was still there. But the idea of him being in a place where-that feels like truly being alone, and Erik shivers with it. "Mine," he growls, and gives Charles's neck a sharp nip, leaving behind a prominent mark in its wake. "You are always supposed to have me. Always." It's a bit of a cliché, but it's woven into even the ring on his finger. _Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee._ Ruth was talking about immigration, but there's a reason people associate the phrase with love. Erik ghosts his lips over the darkening bruise on Charles's neck, the only kind of marks he ever wants there. "I will always find you," he vows.  
  
Charles’ eyes go near impossibly wide and he whines, a loud, startled noise that turns into a moan, shivering and thrashing slightly in Erik’s arms, squirming even as he tries to settle before his Dominant has to ask him. “You feel it, though, don’t you?” he whispers, and presses it into Erik’s neck, holding onto him tightly, still shuddering softly in his arms. “Don’t you? It wanted me to get here. I need to be here.” To learn, and grow. It’s the key. “I can’t come up,” he sighs again, worrying at his lip. He’s still not sure if that’s something Erik is alright with. What if he stays here all day, hazy?  
  
"Good," Erik says, instead of a reassurance, because Charles doesn't need a reassurance right now, that it'll be OK, that he'll come out of it eventually. No. He should be like this. All day, every day, for as long as they're here. He should be this way. Erik loves Charles when he isn't in subspace, of course, but he adores him when he is, and the idea that Charles is worried about staying with Erik this way-no. He should be. "I want it. You are mine."  
  
“You want it?” he asks, and looks up, a soft, searching smile on his lips. Because he doesn’t always know, really, what the proper reaction is. Looking to Erik seems to be the easiest, simplest way not to get all twisted up. “You’d take me to the council meeting just like this? You wouldn’t send me to my room?” he teases. But of course, it would be their council meeting, if it were to exist at all, wouldn’t it?  
  
"Of course," he says, as though it's the simplest thing in the world. For him, it is. He'd only needed to look at the other Erik's face to know that whatever the reason for him choosing to return to their room, it wasn't because Charles was in subspace. It had been healing for him, too. He presses his lips to Charles's forehead. "Everybody on the council would know you belong to me," he smirks, and then he hums. "I can understand where he was coming from, you know," he admits quietly. To a Charles that has his memories this wouldn't be very shocking. "A mutant utopia," he laughs a little. Not just a school, but police, government, housing, military. Yes, it's very appealing indeed.  
  
Charles’ nose scrunches up, but he smiles anyway, nuzzling into Erik’s neck. Finding a more comfortable spot on his lap. He’s not sure if the haircut is done, but he’s impatient with waiting for it to be and having to sit still, too pleased to wriggle about until he can touch as much skin of his Dominant’s as possible. “You would, sir,” he breathes, and it’s teasing and it’s light and it’s easy. It feels easy again. “Are you going to tell me what we’re doing for my birthday now? It’s not planning mutant utopia, is it?” He’s sighing again. Purring, really, soft, content little noises, so far down the room and the world sinks with it, too, buzzes with it. Erik says he should stay just like this, so he will.  
  
"Maybe it _is_ planning a mutant utopia," Erik tickles his sides and gently and curls him into his arms, letting him find his comfy spot as he fixes up the rest of Charles's hair, not with scissors anymore since Charles is too wiggly for that. "Mm, OK, let's see. Sit up for me," he whispers. "Let's get you all cleaned up and then we can do our Postures." He kisses along Charles's temple, right where he knows it's most sensitive.  
  
That earns a full-body shudder and a loud, still-startled gasp. Charles knows this is where he’s meant to say yes, sir; where he should smile, and sigh, and agree dutifully. And to be fair, he half does, smiling against Erik’s neck, but he doesn’t sit up. He stays right where he is and he shakes his head. “It’s my birthday and I don’t want to do Postures,” he declares, still down but now grinning, and there’s something different about it. Something dynamic, and easy, and far less ashamed. He’s not knocking himself out of subspace at every turn, or actively fighting it. He’s just pushing a little, because he needs to, because it’s fun. “I do want cake for breakfast, though.”  
  
He definitely shouldn't have put his face so close to Erik's mouth though, because he gets a sharp bite of disapproval and a loud slap across the ass for his cheek. "Postures," Erik rumbles, a little like that predator has been riled up and has decided to pace the cage and bat down everything that threatens him. But Charles isn't a threat. Charles is his. He wants to keep Charles and protect him. "And then breakfast." He gives Charles a tap on the nose. "You say yes, sir," he warns lowly.  
  
Charles isn’t a threat, but he is learning that he loves to poke at that predator. He doesn’t always like what follows, admittedly, and sometimes he finds himself wildly underestimating the danger of that action, but he knows the poking is something he greatly enjoys. The bite and slap do get a nice squeak out of him, and in his defense, he is appropriately deferent and shy for a moment, nuzzling back into Erik’s chest. That lasts about as long for the butterflies to kick back in, when he looks up, suddenly bold, and pokes Erik’s nose. “No, sir,” he declares, though it’s more obvious than anything that he’s poking. He’s playing, grinning with the anticipation of it. “No Postures, I don’t feel like them. Cake first. Up, up,” he demands. “Up you get.”  
  
Erik chuckles, warm and low, and snatches Charles's hand right out of the air, and settles his own over Charles's throat, rubbing his thumb just along under his jaw. "Up you get," he rumbles, and his Will extends out clearly, sweeping through the room, palpable and humid as he leads Charles to his feet by his neck, an easy movement that's followed by Erik rising and towering over him, completing the image of predator very nicely.  
  
If Charles visibly swallows, it just can’t be helped. Certainly, absolutely not, nor the shiver that follows. It’s just biology. He’s aware that this is his chance to back down, that Erik is giving it to him and there was decidedly no Order, which he likes; he’s been given a chance take a breath, maybe bow his head, and show his neck the way he’s meant to. Instead his belly twists into a knot and something flashes in his eyes before he turns and runs, naked, hair freshly cut, out of the bathroom and into the bedroom and then out of there, too, relying less on speed and more on Erik’s potential surprise. “No Postures!” he shouts behind him, laughing.  
  
Unfortunately for poor Charles, it doesn't give him the edge he seeks in the slightest. Erik vaults over the kitchen counter and lands on his feet as agile as a jaguar, despite all those injuries, ignoring every press of pain into creaking bones until it melts away, courtesy of Charles's continued gift to him. He grins, delighted, and launches himself after his prey, leaping over a couch, and finally cornering him next to a closet. "I got you," he purrs lowly, snatching up Charles by the arm and drawing him close. He leans down and gives him a solid bite for good measure. "Mine."  
  
And Charles shrieks with laughter, delighted, but it doesn’t stop him from struggling, from thrashing and wriggling in Erik’s arms as if he actually thinks he can get away. The bite stills him for a moment, inspires a soft whine, but he’s back to squirming just a moment later, playful and restless and still so far down, perfectly willing to be the prey he knows he is in this scenario. Counting on it. “No!” he laughs. “No, let go --”  
  
"No," Erik rumbles lowly, and Charles finds himself abruptly pinned right to the wall, with his arms in Erik's restrained behind his back, his cheek pressed to the hallways, Erik's weight looming behind him as he nudges right up close. "No. You are mine, _tzipor za'ir_ ," he says, the vibrations of his words out of his chest zooming right up Charles's bare back, as if by Will itself. "I shall never let you go." He gives him a sharp bite along the back of the neck, a truly Dominant gesture that floods the room in pure, saturated Dominion.  
  
And he’s never truly done that outside of one of those periods, and so he’s never gotten to see -- Charles sags completely, gasps, goes entirely still, but he’s not distressed. He’s just trembling all over, and underneath that Dominion is pure, sweet, cloying subspace, deeper than he’s ever gotten or knew he could ever go, entirely putty in Erik’s hands. In his Dominant’s hands. “Sir,” he whimpers, and his eyes are closed. It’s too much. It’s not enough, yet?  
  
"Good," Erik purrs in satisfaction. "You are mine. You shall obey me, because I want it, hm?" he strokes a shivery finger along Charles's temple. He soothes over the bite mark with his tongue. "You will do your Postures and you will say _yes, sir_." Another warning smack to his still-smarting ass.  
  
Charles yelps, then promptly whimpers, his eyes still shut as he arches into Erik’s touch, even when it’s harsh, even when it’s reprimanding. It’s always exactly what he needs, and he shivers at that finger at his temple, that breathless spark dancing right through both of them. “Yes, sir,” he whispers, breathless, practically moaning, even as he looks behind him. “But I won’t like it,” he adds, for good measure, still somehow grinning even as another shiver goes right down his spine. He’s in the mood to play, is all.  
  
"Lies, lies," Erik huffs fondly and he takes Charles by the hand, kissing it in good nature and leads them right back upstairs, right back into Erik's lair so he can put Charles on his knees where he belongs.  
  
Apparently Charles is just in a mood, playful and content and consumed by subspace, because it seems like he’s completely forgotten how to do Postures by the time Erik asks it of him. He’s clearly trying not to grin; at first the mistakes are small, perhaps even imperceptible from what he’d normally do, not even intentionally. Barely worth the correction. By the end it’s much more noticeable, and he looks up at Erik innocently with his hands in the entirely wrong place, unable to keep the gleam out of his eyes. “What’s wrong, sir?” he asks.  
  
The thing is, though, Charles has never been one for doing a good job hiding from Erik, and Erik knows he is fully aware of how to do his Postures, especially when he flubs silly ones like Rest. Erik has moved from just getting up into his space and nudging him properly into outright rapping him on the knuckles when his hands drift out of place. "Postures," he rumbles lowly. "Properly. Or we will do them again and again. I have nowhere to be," he winks.  
  
“I am doing them properly, sir,” Charles says, with all the innocence he can possibly muster up while his eyes have that playful, mischievous glint to them, while he’s clearly thriving on all of the attention. He wiggles about on his knees, squirming, and it feels good. He feels good, it’s almost indescribable. “I’ve forgotten the proper way. They’re too difficult,” he huffs, and then the grin slips right onto his lips regardless of how he tries to hide it, his hands right out of position again.  
  
It's not that Erik isn't playful, but something about today just makes him want to knock Charles right back into place, and instead of an answer, he hears something snap into Erik's hand and then just under his chin, a thin metal reed. "Postures," he practically purrs again. "Correctly." It's impossible not to nearly choke on the Will pouring off of him.  
  
And he certainly does. His throat bobs with the heavy swallow he gives, but he takes as even of a breath as he possibly can, ignores all of that twisting, wound up nerves in his belly, the thick, twining anticipation. He wants to obey; he really does. But there’s an impulse that’s just a bit stronger now even as he’s so far down, and perhaps that’s proof that it’s a natural inclination. He bites on his lip harder. “I am doing them,” he persists, looking up at Erik as if he isn’t trembling with the knowledge that he isn’t after being asked several times. “I’ve just forgotten. You need to show me.”  
  
Charles gets a solid thwak across his knuckles from the implement for his trouble. "If you have forgotten, then I will remind you," he utters lowly, and Charles knows full well that he's stepped in it now. He's still uncovered, from the bath, which gives Erik ample opportunity to strike him right along the skin, making him straighten up where he's required and leaving fresh marks behind. "Continue this line of behavior at your own peril. Just because you're being cute doesn't mean I won't punish you." Another jolt, this time across his thigh.  
  
It’s metal, and for some reason, that just makes it sting more. Perhaps because metal does hum for Erik, because it sings and responds like it’s a natural extension of his body. Other materials, too, but - there’s something about it, and he dances under the blows, whining. This is where he should fall into line; his belly is twisting, and he’s aching for it. To give in, to be sweet, to show Erik that he can be an awfully good boy when he puts his mind to it. But there’s just something stronger, stronger and anticipating and wanting, a little desperate and ratcheted up, and it is his birthday. He should be allowed some fun. “It’s your fault, sir,” he declares, as innocently as he can considering the words themselves. “You need to train me better. I’m very sloppy,” he sighs, and now he’s grinning. Sometimes he does wonder, though. Not that Erik finds him unacceptable or disappointing, but if there’s just more that he’s not holding Charles to.  
  
There is so, so much more than Charles could ever know, but something about those words in particular snaps something inside of Erik and Charles can feel the ping off of his heart and before he has time to reconcile it or ask about it he's receiving several blows all at once, and instead of mirroring him Erik rises to his feet, instead of backing down he growls out, "hands behind your back and Present correctly or the next Posture will be Child's Pose, now," with a thwak to Charles's ass for punctuation.  
  
Charles feels the change immediately. He knows well enough, especially like this, when he should back down. When he’s gone just a bit too far. In fact, he whimpers as he rushes to do exactly as he’s told, and not just because his ass newly smarts, the metal just as unforgiving as he thought it might be. “I’m sorry, sir,” he gasps, trembling but holding Posture as well as he can despite it as he looks up at Erik, startled and appropriately apologetic, now. He certainly doesn't want to be put into Child's Pose.  
  
Erik juts the piece under Charles's chin, raising it properly as he practically glares, green eyes a-glow down at Charles, his whole demeanor subtly shifted, sternly seeking tendrils of Will emanating from him like a physical force that wraps Charles up and slithers down his lungs. "Now you will start again," he rumbles, his voice a low vibration that echoes throughout every molecule in the room. "And I do not want to see any errors," he adds, unforgiving with yet another lash along Charles's wrist where he's shifted it just slightly out of place; a genuine tic that even now he won't permit.  
  
There’s certainly no playing, now. Charles knows when he’s on thin ice, can feel it underneath his skin, can feel it thrumming in his veins and pounding in his heart; he swallows and does exactly as he’s told, attempting to be just as exacting and precise as his Dominant has shown him. Because he hasn’t taught Charles to be sloppy, and he knows it. “Sir?” he whispers, quiet and smaller when he’s gotten through the next set, biting on his lip. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to --” Well, he’s not sure what caused that reaction, really. There’s curiosity pinging around the room, practically, not fear but underneath thick anticipation. He doesn’t want to spend his morning being really punished. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I know how to do my Postures,” he admits, though of course Erik already knows.  
  
"Yes, you do," Erik purrs, a beast soothed and satisfied by its mate, but only just. "And I do not teach you to be sloppy. I do not teach you mediocrity. You will perform exactly to my expectations, because you are better than failure, and I have zero issues with staying right here and enforcing those expectations until they are met." Because truthfully, at the heart of it, Erik is-exacting. He is a perfectionist as much as he is loathe to admit it, and his submissive will adhere to his demands. And while he is not unkind, while the Postures aren't stressful, Erik expects Charles to maintain form and function and execute them at the exact time, in the exact way, every muscle aligned. It's Charles's body, it's his mind, settling into place, belonging to Erik. "Now you are sorry. Now you will obey. So obey." He gives Charles a light rap across the knuckles. "I won't tell you again."  
  
Charles is already nodding, already whispering, “Yes, sir.” He works through the next set with all the hazy, deep-down concentration he can muster, clear and foggy both, his limbs merely an extension of Erik’s Will. He doesn’t forget, of course he doesn’t. If he feels himself slip, if something is out of place, he corrects himself nearly always before Erik does; he’s breathless to obey again, eager and seeking his Dominant’s approval, his praise. By the time he settles back at Rest his eyes are nearly glazed over with it, with the pleasure of simply obeying, of following through with something Erik has carefully trained him in. He knows not to be sloppy. He knows not to slack off. He knows that Erik likes form, that he likes structure, that when he asks Charles to perform a task he expects it done -- but it’s so very nice, even still, to be reminded. For Erik not to back down. He’s absolutely gone with it by the end, settled down and humming with energy both. He stays exactly where he’s put, waits for Erik’s Command. Because he’s being trained well and he knows it.  
  
And Erik practically glows with it, crouching back down, drawing his fingertip down Charles's cheek. "You are mine," he murmurs, his voice a low buzz that's almost indistinguishable from the Will thrumming about the room. He will remind Charles for the rest of his life. And Charles knows what Erik likes, and that's just beyond nice. That he knows, and he puts himself in position, and moves himself the way that connects to Erik. "Beautiful," he whispers, pressing Charles's knuckles to his lips. Does he see? When he obeys, when he follows through, how beautiful he really is. And that is what Erik wants to pull out. Not for sadistic amusement, but because it is-beauty. For him.

* * *

Charles heart goes on pounding in his chest, but it’s something else entirely now. He feels the tears on his cheeks before he recognizes how choked up he is, and he takes a shaky, half-startled breath, keeping himself exactly where Erik put him even as he aches to move. “Sir? Can I move, please?” he asks, because he won’t, not without permission, not right now, but he wants so desperately. To bury himself in Erik and be held. He doesn’t mean to cry, it’s just that he can’t help it. It’s all so much. Erik thinks he’s beautiful? When he obeys, he’s beautiful?  
  
"Come here," Erik whispers, and immediately wraps Charles up in his arms, because he also knows exactly where the line is and just how much Charles can handle, and while Erik can certainly push him past that, he wants Charles to know that it's more than acceptable to just ask for this, too. And he did, and he was very polite about it, so of course Erik grants it to him, kissing his forehead, rubbing his back. The soft, soothing touches that ground him, too. "Beautiful," he murmurs roughly.  
  
Charles immediately buries himself in Erik’s neck, wraps his arms around him, nestles in nicely and sighs in content. “You’re training me so well,” he whispers, though he knows Erik doesn’t need the reassurance that he’s teaching him Postures well. He knows. “I want to learn more, sir. I won’t be sloppy.” He won’t slack off, he won’t disobey, he won’t refuse to listen. Not in any real way, not right now. He’s far too hazy and dreamy for that, and he rubs his cheek into Erik, smiling softly. “I like being trained by you,” he admits, like it’s some sort of secret, his cheeks pink.  
  
"Did I ever tell you about when we met?" Erik speaks softly, humming almost, running his fingers through Charles's newly-shortened hair (that, sorry about it, looks much more dashing than Erik's haircut-a fact that completely endears him to Erik all the more, he will wear his, like, _bowl cut_ with pride). He presses a kiss to Charles's forehead. He loves training Charles. He loves this, these moments, where Charles knows exactly where he belongs, and who he belongs to. Where there is no doubt in the world.  
  
There is absolutely no doubt in the world. Charles purrs at the kiss to his forehead, at the gentle touches, at how Erik is rubbing at his back; leans right into it, content and grateful. “Tell me, please, sir,” he requests softly, and kisses Erik’s neck. Then kisses it again, and again, and again, just for good measure, laughing, light.  
  
Erik flutters under those kisses, delighted. "You know that I was detained at the CIA," he whispers softly. "You came to me in the darkness," he continues, and it's a little poetic, but those times often were, for him, trapped with only the fragments of his own mind for company. Shattered pieces. "And I knew you were mine, as soon as I saw you." And he spoke. And that's as significant to him now as it was back then, even if in the moment Charles hadn't realized it. But he soon learned. And he'd wanted to keep Charles right then, train him right then, clutch on and never let go. It doesn't matter in what form Charles ever comes to him, they belong together. Just like this.  
  
Charles nuzzles into Erik’s neck, purring with that mirrored delight. Curious, now, and he keeps peppering those little kisses, sweet and gentle at Erik’s neck and jaw. “Did you? Train me there?” In that dark, forbidden place? Did they find a way even there? How did he show Charles how to be good in a place like that?  
  
Erik bares his neck easily to Charles's kisses, a position that many would consider-submissive. It isn't submission. But it is a form of yielding; yielding trust. Trusting Charles to care for him this way, too, to light up underneath his skin with little constellations of warmth pressed against him from Charles's lips all the way to his core. "I tried," he whispers. He wasn't a very good Dominant back then. And some of it was downright laughable. He fumbled so much, but Charles was always so graceful and patient with him. He still is. "I wanted you so badly, but I didn't much know what to do. How to separate what I knew and what was good or bad. I was-am-" he admits, soft. "Scared of mixing it up." But he's loosing that fear. Every moment, every second that Charles bends to him and responds so beautifully fills Erik with more confidence to push forward, to do more, to see more, to be more. That older Erik was right. He should be expected of. "But I always-" he always tried, and he always made sure. Made sure that Charles was good. Good for him. Always.  
  
But they’re not in that place anymore. Charles hums, soft, purring still, rubs his cheek against Erik’s when he leans up to kiss his nose, grinning. Rubbing those together, too, and laughing afterwards, a content giggle of a thing. “I like Postures,” he admits, as if it’s any big secret. Even when he’s grumpy about them, when he really doesn’t feel like it. “And routine. And chores. And sometimes even bedtime,” he huffs, because that one he’s admittedly been the worst at. But Erik knows all of this, doesn’t he? That Charles needs it? That Erik can really do this now, can train him, and learn what that means? He frowns. “We couldn’t do those things there. But did you want them?”  
  
"Desperately," he croaks. He used to imagine it. Among other things, because one's mind could only entertain the hellish darkness of solitary confinement for so long before visions of Charles danced before his eyes, fractured and ethereal. But this. Just like this, a space just for the two of them, a space without obligations and fear and pressing horrors and momentum and trials and court and-just them. Where they could be free. Really free. And now it's here, and he could not be more grateful. "I need it," he rasps softly. He needs Charles to be his. "It is for you, for you to be mine. But it is for me, too." His nose wrinkles up at the kiss, eyes following suit, and he touches Charles's face. Beautiful.  
  
He leans right into that touch, nuzzling into it, kissing the back of Erik’s palm, his eyes fluttering. “Tell me, please?” he requests, because Erik hasn’t talked much about this part. He’s still on his knees, and he squirms, wriggling until he can more properly be on Erik’s lap again. It’s where he lives, really, and he’s finished his Postures. Erik said he could move. “Tell me what it was like. Did you try?”  
  
Erik gives his ass a little rap with the implement. "Still," he rumbles, taking Charles fully over his lap and settling him in there, tucking his smaller frame against his chest. "I tried," he whispers. "We met, for sessions. We didn't get much done," he laughs lowly. "That was the first time, for you. I put you on your knees. I Ordered you. You were in subspace. I lived for every moment. It was branded on my mind." He kisses Charles's temple. "I was in solitary, solitary confinement. For 'bout month." Erik shrugs. "It was really hard. You were this brilliant, magnificent light. Sometimes I thought I just dreamed you."  
  
Charles bites his lip, whining at the rap to his ass, trying not to wriggle in response. Fortunately, being against Erik’s chest helps him settle back down. “You put me on my knees?” he asks, looking up at Erik. “Right there? Did I like it?” He knows he did. He wants to hear Erik tell him about it, though.  
  
"I did," Erik chuckles softly. "And you did. It was my first time, too." He'd done similar things before, but it's just not on the same level. He had been an instrument of brutality, and terror, Orders bound in fear instead of love. Erik never wants to feel like that again, never wants to make another living soul feel that way again.  
  
He hums. It’s almost like he can hear, that budding connection thrumming between them as he reaches up to touch Erik’s cheek. “What did it feel like? What did you think? I went into subspace?” Charles can’t help the curiosity.  
  
Erik touches Charles's cheek in turn, stroking his fingers over the soft skin there. It almost crackles between them, alive and electrifying. "It feels like I am whole," he whispers. "Like everything inside of me is put into place." There's more, and he very nearly hesitates, but then he remembers-Charles is his, now. In all ways. "It filled me with such desire that I have never known. It is-still incredibly-" he huffs slightly, pupils dilated a little. "Overwhelming."  
  
Overwhelming is a brilliant word, Charles is finding. And the rest of those words definitely have him forgetting Erik’s reminder, squirming quite spectacularly again, which only reminds of how bare and sore he is. He did his Postures naked. His cheeks are suddenly very hot, and he hides them in Erik’s chest. “There, too? Tell me about it. Tell me,” he demands, breathless. “Please,” he adds, looking up at Erik with a sheepish smile. He knows to be polite, see?  
  
He gets a warning rap all the same, for all the squirming, for the brief moment where he nearly forgot. Erik doesn't abide it. Not anymore. He doesn't want to. And it isn't hurting Charles. It isn't, he checks, he makes sure. "There, too," he purrs into Charles's ear, lifts his chin because he doesn't get to hide away, not from Erik. "We waited, for this," he runs his fingertips along Charles's ass, rubbing instead of jolting. Gentleness, this time. Intimacy was so precious, it still is, but back then it almost felt stolen. Erik never wanted Charles's first time to be in a prison cell. And it wasn't. "But you were mine in other ways."  
  
Charles shudders at the touch all the same, perhaps as violently as if Erik had squeezed or slapped him. He squirms again, this time right into Erik’s hands, encouraging. “What ways?” he prods, so breathless. His pupils are dilated, too, still faintly glowing. He’s biting his lip. “What did we do?”  
  
"I taught you your very first Postures," Erik whispers, just a start. His fingers don't leave, pressing Charles right up against him instead, placing little kisses along his jaw. "I had you on your knees," he rumbles lowly into Charles's ear, the words vibrated in his chest where their skin is melded together. "In more ways than one," he gives a little nip to Charles's jaw, mischievous.  
  
“My knees?” Charles gasps, and goes back to squirming, red-faced and flustered and now entirely aware of his own nakedness. He tries to go back to hiding, even though Erik never seems to allow it, ducking his face into his Dominant’s shoulder. “There? Did you Order me? Did you-” How far did they go? How much did they do? How much did Charles want it, because he can’t imagine it was ever less than this, which is an incredible, extraordinary, honestly awe-inspiring amount. “You couldn’t collar me. Did that bother you?” Did Erik think about it? He said he knew Charles was mine, right from the beginning. He’s seen himself what the thought of Charles taking his collar off does to him.  
  
"I did," he answers Charles's pelting of questions with a laugh, holding him still and steady, wrapped up in his arms and his Will at the same time. And true to form, he doesn't let Charles hide, either, wanting to look at his face, wanting to watch him with dark, possessive eyes. "And I did collar you," he murmurs lowly. "It wasn't this, at the time," he fingers the metal around Charles's throat. "I let you pick it. Until I could make you one for real."  
  
“I picked it?” he whispers, looking up at Erik with curious, hazy eyes. It’s so warm against Erik’s chest, and he tries to wriggle again, sighing happily. “You let me pick it?” He’s not sure how he feels about that, because he likes — well. He likes when Erik decides for him, and his cheeks go pink, ducked into his Dominant’s shoulder again.  
  
"Not everything," Erik corrects, softly. Because he'd directed Charles even through that, and pretty much told him where to go and what to look for. So mostly it was, "The color. I wanted it to have aspects of us both." The way his real collar does, a Charles that is Erik's, not simply Erik superimposing himself on Charles. But he couldn't create that, back then, where he was. So he'd melded them in a different way.  
  
The color. Of course Erik wouldn’t let Charles wear a collar he didn’t think was fitting; that he didn’t find worthy or appropriate, as well as he knows materials. Charles bites his lip and nods, still nestled into Erik’s shoulder. “I want a Collaring ceremony,” he whispers, because something tells him they didn’t get it the first time. “I know it’ll just be us. It defeats the purpose, a bit. But I want it.” It’s muffled, shy. He’s already wearing Erik’s collar, but he means the one Erik presented him with before. The one he wants to earn, to be trained into.  
  
Erik's lips part a little and he inhales softly through his nose. "Of course," he whispers back, just as soft. They hadn't had one before, but there was more than one reason. Now it's Erik's turn to seem shy, just a little. He isn't turned away by the concept, but there is some kind of barrier there, some kind of block that Charles can sense. "I would love that." Even if it were just the two of them. Maybe especially because.  
  
Charles senses it. He pulls back, concerned, touches Erik’s cheek. Strokes at his face, the worry written on his own. “What is it?” he asks, soft. “What is it, sir?”  
  
"You'll think it's very silly," he whispers, smiling against Charles's hand, ducking to press a little kiss into his palm. "I do not really know how-" he swallows. He learned a lot. But not this. And what he knew of it, he would never wish to subject Charles to. And he's always been too scared to look it up on his own. He shrugs a bit. "Very silly, hm?"  
  
Charles bites his lip, shaking his head right away. He leans up to kiss Erik’s cheek, pressing their noses together again. “It’s not silly at all,” he promises. “I don’t know, either. We could find out together?” That seems to be what they’re doing now, after all. “We have time. I need more training yet, don’t I? I don’t know my Postures at all,” he teases, wiggling in Erik’s lap at the reminder of his poor abused ass, his smarting thighs.  
  
"Mhm," Erik grumbles skeptically, and once more Charles finds himself getting yet another mark for his cheek. He'll be covered in marks before this day is done, and Erik is fully satisfied with that. "You know your Postures. I may well make you go through them again, just to be certain," he growls. But he does tuck Charles back into his chest, running his fingers through his hair. "Not silly?" he rasps, almost inaudible.


	117. I have never liked the box of knives (you said was a paradox because you're kind)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _lebanon_ , khalil hawi

“Not silly at all, sir,” he promises, and he’s fully confident in that. He turns his head to kiss Erik’s bare chest before he nestles in further, humming. Wriggling more just for good measure. “And we do have time. I need to be trained more, don’t I?” He’s just hoping the answer is a resounding yes. That Erik has so much more to teach him, to expect of him.  
  
"Yes, you do," he rumbles against Charles's cheek, before tilting his jaw upward to give him a kiss. More training, more time, expansive, it's just overwhelmingly delightful to Erik; and for Charles to feel that Erik is being detracted-from in this experience-it is simply not accurate. "No. Stop," he Commands lowly, giving him a firm rap on the ass to prevent more wiggling. "Now relax." He kisses the top of Charles's head. "So much more," he whispers, almost to himself.  
  
So Charles wiggles just a little more, just a tiny bit, cheeky and grinning softly against Erik’s shoulder. “Can we get dressed and go downstairs, sir?” he asks, and that’s polite. Hazy in the way he is right now, soft and floating and so entirely Erik’s. “It’s my birthday,” he repeats, and there’s excitement. It’s silly, and childish, likely, but there’s excitement in a way there just wouldn’t be with a Charles before this. It’s unlikely he would have even accepted anything for his birthday. He’d made it clear enough he didn’t want to.  
  
Erik grins, shark-like showing his teeth merely because he is happy. So unbelievably happy that Charles is here for this. To give him this. He stands up. He lifts Charles to his feet. "Of course," he rumbles easily, a beast lagging behind its' master until the charge and the atmosphere flips and Will saturates and joy lingers. Electricity. Charles has no clothes on. Neither does Erik. They head downstairs and Erik flicks his hand and the Universe aligns with light! Brilliant bursts, fireworks, flowers, decorations of unimaginable proportions. Erik has been planning for a while now how they should go together to pique Charles's interest, to keep him happy and thrilled. Erik beams down at him, arm still wrapped around his shoulder, kissing the top of his head. "Happy birthday." There are boxes of gifts on the living area table.  
  
Charles’ reaction, however, isn’t perhaps what Erik was expecting. He gasps, loudly, audibly, but just a moment later he’s burying himself in Erik’s chest, closing his eyes and refusing to look, as if he’s too overwhelmed. He feels like he is. Something is shaking inside of him and he takes a sharp breath and then pulls away altogether, and when he does he disappears. Completely, but maybe not so completely, because despite their newly snapped connection, he’s still very, very much in subspace, and Erik would be able to sense that anywhere. He’s headed back up the stairs, just a bit more invisibly.  
  
Erik's lips part when Charles breaks their connection. When he vanishes and Erik swivels around, encountering his submissive at last when he tugs on that string in his mind. Swift-footed, he follows easily, that line. He touches Charles's shoulder. He collects Charles up in his arms. "Now stop. Stop," he Orders softly. "You don't like it?"  
  
It’s a bit odd, to hold someone who’s not registering as there; Charles feels solid, feels real, but Erik can’t see him at all, can barely hear him when he sniffs. “I like it,” he mumbles, muffled like he’s covering his mouth.  
  
Many things are odd to Erik, but he accepts them into his heart as much as anything else. "Talk with me," he Orders softly, and the hallway stretches, an expanse where they can sit, shielded from everything and everyone. "You're upset," he rasps. "What do you feel?"  
  
“I don’t know,” Charles whispers, muffled again. It’s hard to tell, exactly, what he’s doing; there’s a faint rustling noise, but he’s as invisible as he was moments ago, as if he doesn’t exist at all. He’s certainly scooted away from Erik, though, because they’re no longer touching. “Thank you. It’s lovely. I like it,” he repeats, quietly.  
  
"I know," Erik whispers. "Come back to me," he Commands, rough. He exists for Erik, and Erik reaches for him. Pulls him closer. He isn't invisible to Erik. Never. "Tell me," he implores. "Please."  
  
Even still invisible, Erik can feel Charles tense up in his arms before he lets out a breath, shaky and still-muffled, and relaxes. Relaxes into his Dominant like he’s supposed to. “I don’t know,” he repeats, softer this time. “Can we go get dressed? It’s a bit cold,” he whispers, though it’s not. It’s actually very warm, especially in the halls. They tend to get stuffy, something Erik is still having a hard time changing. It’s like the layer of dust that always seems to be floating around. “And then -- and then, I’d like to do it again, if that’s alright.” And he promises he’ll probably be less invisible by then, but for some reason he’s still not visible now.  
  
Erik draws his hand down and fabric melts out of the ether and into his hands, soft and warm despite the temperature. If Charles is cold, Erik will warm him. If he's hot, Erik will cool him. He is here to serve Charles, too. "I don't understand," he whispers back. He guides Charles to gently dress himself, helping and nudging up alongside him all the while.  
  
It’s not what Charles wants, but disobeying is uncomfortable like this, and what happens is a disgruntled, discontent noise, and then not much of anything. The clothes don’t end up anywhere, because Charles isn’t there to wear them. He’s still floating somewhere nearby, but not in Erik’s arms, sulky and uncomfortable because he doesn’t like the distance at all like this, either. And Erik just can’t see him. He can feel him; he’s not gone, not disappeared entirely like he was when he visited. He’s just not wanting to be found at exactly this moment. “Sorry,” he mumbles, from somewhere. “Just — sorry. I don’t, either,” and if he sounds vaguely panicked, it’s because he is. Because he’s in subspace, deep, deep subspace, but there’s an upset and something is keeping him.  
  
"No, do not be sorry," Erik murmurs. "Come back to me and let me see you." The Orders are firm. Charles belongs to him. Not to the ether. "You do not hide away from me. Not ever. You are mine," he rumbles, low and soft. "Now you tell me what you are experiencing."  
  
There’s another low, distressed noise from somewhere. When Charles shows up again, he’s a good bit away, all the way down the hall, his head ducked way down so Erik can’t see his face even with his hair no longer draping so much. He’s not wearing the clothes Erik tried to give him, but he is wearing them. He’s wearing a corset, actually. Pure white. “I can’t hide?” he whispers, like it’s a question. He shuffles just a little closer, but not close enough, like he’s suddenly shy. Skittish. He’s so far down, still, and the hall is drenched in it. There’s something sweet about Charles’ subspace, almost. Like it’s a physical, cloying, needy thing, always reaching toward Erik.  
  
Erik reaches out and takes his hand, tugging him closer, melting those close off of his body at once and instead draping him anew in the fabrics he'd been holding. "You cannot," he murmurs, his voice still low and steady, He draws Charles close to his chest, running his fingers through his hair, pressing his cheek to his skin, the warmth of his heart beating against Charles's ear.  
  
They just come back, which is the problem with this house. With this place, with this space. And right above Erik’s collar is a vicious, nasty mark that he decidedly did not give Charles, despite all the marks he did give. He would know his own handiwork. Any Dominant would, maybe, but Erik especially. Charles goes tense again, but seems to try to relax; after an unsteady breath or two, he does, going slack and still in Erik’s arms. “Alright,” he whispers. “Can we go get dressed?” he asks, again, despite being dressed. “Upstairs. Please.” Even though they are upstairs. He tries to pull away, even though he doesn’t want to, even though he needs not to, skittish, still.  
  
He tries to force down everything that comes up in the back of his throat like bile, and does a good job of it, just petting Charles's hair and running his fingers down his back. "We're upstairs," he says, not letting Charles go. Not allowing him to break away. He leads them to the bed instead and wraps Charles up in the blanket, sitting beside him, tucking him in close. "I love you," he whispers.  
  
“Oh,” Charles murmurs, blinking like he hadn’t noticed. He shivers even under the blanket, then squirms as much as he can, uncomfortable in the tight dress pants he’s found himself wearing. “Can I — help you get dressed, please?” he asks, and can’t help how desperate he sounds for it. He’s not looking at Erik, and he’s radiating nerves, even without their connection, without the Bond, shrugging the blanket off his shoulders. “Then we can go back downstairs. I want to see it again.”  
  
"You will," Erik promises. "But right now you are here with me. Just breathe and try to calm yourself down. Nothing bad will happen to you here. I won't let anyone hurt you. You are safe," he promises, kissing Charles's temple. "And you are mine. Look at me," he Commands, touching Charles's cheek.  
  
Charles blinks again, as if he doesn’t quite understand, looking right at Erik. He seems to be looking right through him, in a way. “I’m calm, sir,” he promises, even as his breath hitches. “Can I please help you get dressed?” he asks again, insistent this time, and back to his squirming.  
  
"You can. But you will get rid of this," Erik says instead, unable to verbalize how uncomfortable it makes him, but it shows in the tightness of his eyes and the way his lips press together and he touches his hand to the corset.  
  
Another blink. Charles looks down, confused, and then looks back up at Erik. “Get rid of what, sir?” he asks, quietly. “I don’t know what you mean.” And it’s not a deflection. It’s clear that he really doesn’t; he curls into Erik’s side again, tentative, on edge, nonetheless seeking, that sweet, needy desire looking for Erik’s Will even in the confusion.  
  
Well, thankfully, Charles doesn't see it. It's a small favor, and Erik gathers him up, curls him into his arms and keeps him steady. "I don't know," he shakes his head, feeling crazy. Trying to submerge it all down. Submerge, submerge. "It's OK," he says, brushing his lips over Charles's forehead. "It's OK."  
  
There’s a wave of thick, palpable shame, before everything goes quiet again. Charles fusses in Erik’s arms, stares down at his lap. “I’m doing it again,” he mumbles. “Aren’t I? I’m changing things.” Without knowing, sometimes without even noticing or recognizing. All topsy-turvy, the world bent strangely around him while he’s none the wiser.  
  
"Just a little bit, sweetheart," Erik hushes him, brushing his hair away from his forehead. His Will sweeps through the room, collecting Charles up just as much as his arms, snuffing out those embers of shame that don't belong. "It's all right, I promise. We're OK. I'm just a little worried," he admits softly. Worried that all these memories are starting to encroach. He doesn't want that. He wants Charles to be able to have this moment.  
  
But Charles doesn’t remember. Not really, if at all. He sighs, a soft, discontent noise, and eventually noses into Erik’s shoulder, frowning and upset. “I don’t know what happened,” he admits. “I loved it, it was lovely. It made me happy. But —“ But there was a knot of panic and dread in his belly, too, just like there is every time he passes by the basement door, and he doesn’t know why. “I hate when this happens,” he mutters.  
  
"It's OK," Erik assures him softly. "I promise you that it is. You are with me, and I won't let anything bad happen to you. Not ever. We don't have to go back down if it makes you feel this way, makes you-" makes him wear these clothes and feel dread and fear. Erik doesn't want that.  
  
Charles shakes his head again, this time more firmly. “I want to,” he insists, perhaps stubbornly. “I just — can we get dressed first, sir?” he asks, and he’s not sure why he’s so insistent on that, only that he is. It wasn’t what caused the panic in the first place, he doesn’t think. He’s never really sure. He buries his face in Erik’s neck. “I hate when this happens,” he repeats.  
  
"Get dressed how? Do you not dress how I dress you?" he whispers, fabrics sleeking over Charles's shoulder with Erik's fingers as they flutter along his collarbones. "It's OK. You're safe. I've got you. I love you." He nudges Charles closer, towards more of the fabrics.  
  
Charles shakes his head again, because he doesn’t really understand what Erik is saying. It’s not making much sense. All he knows is that he’s fussing again. “Can I help you get dressed?” he repeats from before, quietly. “Then we can go back down.” And he won’t be upset, and there won’t be tightness in his chest. He’ll just be awed and happy and grateful, like he’s meant to be, and is. He feels uncomfortable, and out of sorts, and especially unsteady this far down. A little travel sick, maybe. It’s an odd sensation.  
  
"Of course you can," Erik presses Charles's hands to his chest. "Come here, Charles. I've got you," he draws him up and presses fabric into his hands, soft and light and fully Erik's clothing; available for Charles's discerning nature even via touch. Erik loves soft things, and that hasn't changed over time. He just kisses Charles, over and over again, guiding him very carefully to help him.  
  
And Charles does. It seems to help, too, to settle him down, to relax him, somehow; he fusses with Erik’s shirt when he’s done, straightening it out between his fingers, biting on his lip. “I don’t remember,” he assures Erik, quietly. “But this house does. It remembers everything.” And sometimes Charles just hears it, even if it’s not specific. There’s always screaming from the basement. He still remembers that first week, and the pure, raw, inexplicable terror. He leans forward, resting on Erik’s shoulder, letting himself again. It feels so much better than being apart. “It hurts, when —“ When he does. When he moves away, physically or otherwise. He feels a little shaky and sick, still.  
  
"I know," Erik replies softly, tucking Charles right back against him where he surely belongs. "It hurts me, too," he admits. It hurts him to be away from Charles. And in this house, sometimes it hurts him, too. He can feel it. He can hear it. The walls hold everything from years' past and their atoms speak to him the language of sorrow. He hears. It hurts.  
  
Charles frowns into Erik’s chest, his eyes closing. He doesn’t know if he’d been lying before, but it’s hot in here; stuffy, a little sweaty, and yet somehow the soft fabric of Erik’s shirt is comforting even as he nuzzles in to try and find bare skin. “I didn’t have good birthdays,” he states the obvious. “Did I?” He would venture to say they were fairly awful, even. Something to be dreaded.  
  
If Charles's intuition wasn't apparent, Erik's distant, "No, I do not think so," says everything else. He dials down the temperature a bit and shifts closer to compensate, letting his eyes drift closed. His heartbeat is hummingbird-fast against Charles's ear, a flickering nightlight in his chest. "But you will." It is resolute.  
  
He will, won’t he? Charles takes another deep, slow breath, winds his legs up around Erik, clinging with all his limbs. It feels extraordinarily awful to not be touching like this, and he wonders if this is what Erik meant; if there are just moments he should be able to be independent, but just won’t be able to. He certainly can’t now. “I found something,” he admits, and wonders if maybe that’s what did it. The reminder that he should have memories of something wretched, but doesn’t.  
  
Erik's eyebrows raise slightly, and his grasp on Charles tightens up. "What did you find?"  
  
He can practically feel the rise in anxiety there. Charles reacts accordingly, ducking down until he’s fully hidden in his Dominant’s chest, exactly where he needs to be. “Old photos,” he admits. “Nothing — well. They were just labeled, is all.” And for all that Erik has certainly gone snooping, he hasn’t seen these photos. This house is full of surprises.  
  
Erik's grip tightens subtly, but he doesn't outwardly react much other than that. "I see," he whispers softly. "Can you show these pictures to me?" he asks, because he has to. Because it's a part of Charles's history and a part of his story and Erik certainly isn't going to leave this place without utilizing every benefit it has to offer, one of which being that Charles can at least look upon some of what happened to him with an objective eye. And maybe, just maybe, it may transfer through.  
  
There’s a bit of silence, lingering and full of dread, and then Charles shakes his head against Erik’s chest. “No, sir,” he whispers, hushed, too quiet. “I don’t know where they are,” he lies.  
  
Erik grips his jaw, though, and gives him a light rap across the cheek, enough to leave a little red line. "You do not lie to me," he whispers back, eyes ablaze.  
  
Charles whines, but immediately tries to duck back into Erik’s shirt. He’s clearly discomfited, shivering. “I’m not lying,” he mumbles, but of course he is. He knows exactly where they are, but he doesn’t want Erik to see them.  
  
"No," Erik growls, and prevents him from moving at all, this time giving him a real jolt across the cheek with an implement that seems to materialize out of nowhere. He juts it under Charles's chin. "You do not lie to me."  
  
Another shiver, and this time Charles closes his eyes when he whimpers. “I know but I don’t want to show you,” he mutters instead, which is the truth, and he can’t move so he just frowns. “It’s nothing. I just found them in a drawer. We don’t have to look at them.”  
  
"Eyes open," Erik rumbles, drawing his nail right underneath that sensitive skin. "You tell me. You do not hide. I will not ask you again." Charles is still deep in subspace, and Erik has fallen headlong into Dominion; and it's evident. The room shivers with it.  
  
When Charles’ eyes open, he shivers, too. They’re wide and slightly panicked, and he bites hard on his lip, squirming as much as he can under Erik’s gaze. He is in subspace, and not obeying now, being given that warning now — “They’re in one of the bedrooms, down the hall and second on the right, and in the top-left drawer of the desk,” he whispers, and he knows, somehow, that Erik will find them. Charles has been snooping, to say the least.  
  
Erik steels himself up, but he reaches through, flicks and rifles until he lands exactly where he must, and those photographs materialize in his hands as if teleported there through space and time, curled up and then uncurling. He doesn't want to look. He doesn't want to see. But he will. Because he must.  
  
Charles has his eyes closed again. The pictures aren’t explicit, necessarily. They are labeled, indicating his fourteenth birthday, and they do feature him knelt, corseted, and otherwise bare, his head bowed in nearly every picture and what’s clearly a dog collar around his neck, but there’s nothing — untoward, really, beyond the implied. Charles has tried not to be sick about the implied, here, while most of the pictures merely show him knelt in various stress Postures, his body covered in various marks and bruises. In the latter ones, he happens to be bleeding rather visibly from his back, the red soaked into the white of the corset’s stiff fabric, but he’s tried to ignore that, too. “I didn’t want you to see,” he whispers. He didn’t, either. He may not remember or even recognize the boy in these photos, but he knows what it might mean. Unfortunately, not many of the options are innocent.  
  
Maybe this wasn't available to him before, or maybe he's never seen this physical, specific thing, but he's seen. In his mind, in his deepest understanding and awareness. It's impossible for him not to have. He doesn't seem to have a response. Not really. Hollowed out, carved into like a pumpkin. The pictures curl up and vanish. "I wish I could take these experiences from you," he whispers, hoarse. But he can't. He can't do anything. Nothing he could do will make it not real. "But you will never, ever have a birthday like that again. You are mine. I have got you, and I will keep you safe. Anyone who dares to try will find themselves swiftly removed from this Earth."  
  
He shakes his head. He’s buried back in Erik’s shoulder, his eyes firmly closed. “I don’t remember,” he reminds Erik, hoarsely. “I don’t know —“ The context. What it means, really. Why these pictures of him mostly undressed and posed in Positions he’s only seen in the filthiest informational texts at fifteen were sitting in someone’s desk, in their bedroom. “I don’t remember,” he repeats, quietly. There were more photos in that room. Nothing explicit. He’s not sure if that means — well. His stomach churns and he swallows, ducks his head even further, disappearing.  
  
Erik won't let him disappear, but he doesn't let him go, either. "I don't know," is what he murmurs. Charles hasn't asked anything, really, but Erik's struggling to remain present. Everything sounds tinny, underwater and turned inside out. "I expect so," he says honestly, because he's expected so since before Charles ever told him anything, before there was ever even a hint of it.  
  
Charles blinks, because he really hadn’t asked anything. Not for clarification, not a question. It drops his stomach right out anyway. “Oh,” he mumbles, hollow himself, lost somewhere in Erik’s chest. What else is there to say? What other reasonable, innocent explanation is there? Oh. There’s nothing.  
  
"I just want you to know," Erik says, trying to keep his voice even, not to let the heat prickling at his eyes overtake. If there is anything he could teach Charles about this, any way he could use this situation to inform, it's the following. "There is nothing shameful about what happened to you. It doesn't make you bad, even though it makes you feel bad. You are a beautiful, wonderful, special person who I love very much."  
  
But all Charles does is shake his head. “I don’t remember,” he repeats, still hidden, still feeling rather sick to his stomach. “I don’t remember any of it.” So it didn’t happen. So it wasn’t real. They’re just pictures and they don’t mean anything. They certainly don’t prove anything, and they’re not inspiring any memories. So they’re not his at all.  
  
Erik digs his fingernail into his wrist, too-hard, enough to draw blood that drips onto his pressed slacks and he doesn't notice it. "There's some stuff that I don't remember, too," he just says, softly. Trying not to feel monumentally stupid, but he does, because everything he could say, what could he say. Other than that he knows. All the emotions, all the confusion and sick dread and humiliation and nastiness. Charles might not remember it, but it's still impactful. It's real.  
  
But Charles notices. He notices, and he whimpers, loud and distressed, immediately brings Erik’s wrists to his lips like he can just kiss it better. He shakes his head again. “I don’t remember,” he repeats, one last time. It doesn’t feel like his, and there’s no way to say whether it happened for sure or not, anyway. The pictures are innocent enough, aren’t they? So he just shakes his head again, and kisses Erik’s wrist, over and over, blood on his lips that he doesn’t mind or else doesn’t notice. “It’s alright. I don’t know.” And he doesn’t, and so Erik is wrong. There’s no impact. There can’t be, there shouldn’t be. He just stays curled into Erik’s chest, deep, deep, deep down.  
  
Erik shudders a little, letting his head drop into Charles's shoulder. He's spent all day able to hold it together and able to hang on but this is too much. It's finally too much, and it's not even fair. He presses his lips together, holding it all in, just by a thread. They're not innocent. They cut into Erik like knives, separating his skin from muscle and sinew. There's no way for him to express how much it hurts. He traps it all, unwilling to take up any more space.  
  
When Charles finally lifts his head, his own lip wobbles. He touches Erik’s lips, traces the pressed line of his mouth, frowning. “It’s okay, sir,” he whispers, hazier than before, farther into the deep-down and needing desperately to cling to Erik’s Dominion. “I don’t remember, alright?” And he doesn’t, is the thing. It doesn’t haunt him because it never was. It does make him feel — nasty, is perhaps the only word for it. It’s a nasty, lurching thing, but he shakes his head like he can shake it right off. “I don’t remember,” he rasps again, like it’s the only thing he knows how to say.  
  
Erik doesn't say anything. It's all trapped inside, and that's where it should be. Inward, not outward. He just nods and touches Charles's chest, takes his hands and kisses his fingers. Curls up all the way so he's practically in a ball. Muted, controlled. Strong. Able to be present for Charles. To support him and be strong for him. Petting at his exposed skin and kissing his cheek and forehead. It's OK. It's all going to be OK. Erik won't let any birthdays pass that are horrible again. They will be filled only with nice things. He draws his fingers off of Charles's back and produces a little stick in his hand that sparkles, rainbow and glitter, holding it up for him.  
  
It’s a very pretty stick. Charles stares at it, blinking and confused for a moment, and then he smiles, soft and sudden and with dimples and all. He lurches forward to wrap his arms around Erik’s neck, to latch onto him with all his limbs again. “It’s alright,” he promises quietly. “I’m not upset. See? I’m not. It’s my birthday and I’m not upset.” And he really isn’t. Perhaps he just isn’t processing, but right now it isn’t his to process. This is his chance to be without. Charles blinks again, pulls away, his brow furrowed. “Gifts?” he asks, like he’s just processed that. He tries not to sound too curious, too eager.  
  
The stick pops into a million pieces of confetti that rain onto Charles's head and disintegrate, which maybe Erik hopes will distract from the fact that tears are dripping from his cheeks and rolling off of his chin onto his collar, and he ducks his head to hide that and try to brush them off. His throat bobs as he swallows everything down. _Gifts_ , he mouths, smiling gently.  
  
It doesn’t distract from anything at all. Charles gasps, audibly, his face pinched up in distress as he throws himself back at Erik. Rubbing his cheek against Erik’s neck likely won’t do anything to help, but it’s skin-to-skin contact and it might distract from the fact that his eyes are beginning to water in reaction to his Dominant’s pain, his — Charles tries not to think about it. All he knows is that he ruined a perfectly good morning, a very difficult but perfectly good morning with this. He shouldn’t have said anything. He definitely shouldn’t have shown Erik, he should have found a way around it. He’s frowning and upset again, and fading. Actually fading, as if he’s some sort of hologram, some sort of ghost, just flickering in Erik’s arms as he frets.  
  
Erik's arms only tighten further and it makes a noise erupt out of the back of his throat, not exactly a sob, but not a word either. Charles can't go, he can't leave. Erik himself will break apart into a million pieces, too, and fade far too quickly. He touches Charles's lips. "Don't go," he rasps, already missing the smile that was there. Some glitter streaks from his fingers to Charles's cheek, leaving behind trails of warmth. Very pretty. Erik loves him very much. It does help. Reminds him that Charles is in his arms, where he can protect him and keep him safe. "Gifts," he tries to entice him to stay, blinking away any excess.  
  
It’s not the reminder of gifts that make him stay, but Charles hadn’t even realized he was leaving. He sniffs into Erik’s neck and becomes even more of an octopus, a clinging, latched-on thing, squirming until he can properly get his legs around Erik’s waist, until he can lock his arms around his neck. He wasn’t going anywhere, he’s not going anywhere. “You’re crying, sir,” he whispers, and sniffles again, because he can’t stop addressing him like that. He can’t come out of that deep-underneath space. There’s just no way up that he can see, he keeps slipping, but now Erik’s upset and he doesn’t know what to do. He’s back to where he was. Why isn’t he learning?  
  
Erik's hand comes up to his own cheek and he wipes the tears away, leaning forward to press a kiss to Charles's jaw and then again along his neck and shoulders. "I'm just sad," he whispers, barely a croak, and he doesn't want to make it about his feelings. It just makes him sad. People treated his submissive that way. And he remembers-he made Charles experience this, too. He didn't listen to his own instincts. He didn't put his foot down and Charles had to see it. And it's flaying Erik open from the inside out and it wasn't even _"explicit"_ whatever that means, as if a photograph of a teenager being whipped wasn't fucking _explicit_ , because it is. But Erik knows the implication anyway, and what Charles had to see was very much not implied at all. "I'm sorry, I'm just sad, you didn't make me sad," he promises, kissing Charles's forehead.  
  
He does, clearly. Charles whines in protest, turning his head tighter into Erik’s neck, refusing to look and see and feel and think. He doesn’t want to think about it. He can’t process it right now and, anyway, it doesn’t feel like his. It doesn’t feel like it was him at all. Why can’t they leave it at that? Why can’t it not be him in those pictures at all, when he really, truly doesn’t remember anything? Why do they have to make Erik sad when Charles doesn’t even — he sniffs again, whimpers, hates how sick he feels. He doesn’t like it when Erik is sad and he doesn’t always know what to do, especially about this. And he doesn’t feel like he can talk right now, so he just rubs his cheek against Erik over and over again, trying to find purchase to climb up, to climb out, but he can never get it. The walls are smooth and there’s no way to get his footing. He’s stuck down here and Erik is sad and he won’t let him disappear.  
  
Erik snuggles him up even closer, touching his face, prising him away just a little so he can pepper kisses along his cheeks. He's sorry. He doesn't mean to get sad. It's just painful. Reminds him of painful things. He doesn't want Charles to climb up or climb out, honestly, he likes him right where he is, and he holds him tighter as if trying to keep him submerged and in his arms. No disappearing, please. "Love you," he rumbles along with another kiss.  
  
Charles wants to say it back, and it’s not that he doesn’t feel it; it’s just that the only thing that comes out is another whimper, and he closes his eyes tightly and clings, and clings, and clings, because it’s the only thing he can think to do right now. The only thing that makes him feel a little better, and stops him from thinking about it. And thinking about how he made Erik think about it. There’s no way up, anyway. He keeps scaling the walls and there’s just no way up, he’s stuck down here and he can’t think straight and the only thing that really matters is making Erik happy, pleased, and he doesn’t know how. He could erase it. He thinks he could probably erase it, but the thought is so vile to him it makes him shiver, violently, his own thoughts about it guarded pointedly in a way he hasn’t done in a long time because he doesn’t know he can but he is, protecting it from their budding connection. A visible wall that’s gone up, and it’s painful like this. Any distance is painful, any upset is felt.  
  
"No," Erik practically growls. Mine. Charles belongs to him. All of Charles. Every part. No disappearing, not of anything, not of Charles himself. "You make me happy," he breathes, because it's true. Being with Charles is one of the only things that truly gives him joy and everything else stems from it. _We were walls facing walls/It was painful to talk/It was painful to feel the distance/Choked by the tragedy/It was painful to talk_ -but Erik doesn't want a wall. He just wants Charles. "I love you," he repeats, firmer this time.  
  
It won’t come out. Charles opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, just this choked, quiet whimpering noise, and his cheeks are hot with it because it’s rather pitiful but there’s nothing else he can do. Nothing besides curling into Erik, nothing except squeezing his legs tighter, because there really is no way up. He can’t find it. He can’t figure out how to knock himself out of subspace, which is something he’s been brilliant at doing before this point but can’t now. It’s getting to him, too, and he reaches up to wipe at his own face, not because there are tears there but because he knows there will be. He’s getting stupidly overwhelmed again, he doesn’t always know what to do; he’s still new, and this is too much. It feels like too much. He whines into Erik’s neck.  
  
Erik lifts him up again, and this time it's an Order to stay and look. Erik decorates his face with those little flakes. Pretty, Erik's mind whispers, touching Charles's dimples softly. He's sorry. So sorry. He doesn't mean to be so sad. It's not Charles's fault. It isn't too much. Erik has him. Even when he gets a bit sad. It won't all fall apart. They have one another. Charles is where he belongs, in Erik's arms, and it's the only steadying thing right now for him. The only thing that makes him wipe his cheek on Charles's shoulder and start to breathe, and calm a bit. Charles belongs to him. He comes out of subspace when Erik says so. Not a moment sooner.  
  
When Erik says so. Charles clings onto that, and he doesn’t stay put as soon as he can move again, wiggling about. He’s just completely lost his voice, apparently; it won’t come out, but there’s no mental feedback, either, no connection, just the small, unreliable thing that’s normally there — and even so he reaches up, tentative, touches Erik’s face, leans forward to kiss away those tears shyly. He doesn’t know if Erik is upset with him or not, because right now everything is so heightened he just can’t tell the difference. He’s somewhere strange, somewhere Deep-Down. Everything feels hazy, foggy, centered down on pleasing his Dominant but his Dominant is sad and it’s just overwhelming him. He tries not to cry, to offer another smile because Erik seems to like it. This is alright? This is normal?  
  
It's normal, and good. Erik traces that smile as soon as it appears, and one slowly forms for him, too, denting the center of his right cheek like always. Not upset with Charles. Never. This helps. Having Charles here. Touching him. Smiling at him. Kissing him. Telling him it's all right. Even reaching to scritch that place behind his ear that makes his eyes flutter closed instinctively. Charles is the only one who could possibly tame this creature, wild with Dominion but peacefully at rest. For now. But any little twitch could awaken him. Anytime Charles tries to move away. Or disappear. He chases after that connection. Charles is fully captured. "You are good," he rumbles, swaying a little from side to side, his own legs having come up to wrap around Charles, too. "I love you." He presses it into Charles's forehead with his lips.  
  
Charles is good? He isn’t sure what’s happening to him. Everything is narrowed down and yet still so foggy, like perhaps he’s drunk or otherwise intoxicated, but sharper, too. So sharp, so heightened. He can’t get his mouth to work except to breathe out something soft, maybe a purr. It’s the most accurate description he has. He can’t think except to let Erik touch him, to encourage him to do so, to — he’s not sure. He’s really not sure, and it’s that hazy, startled confusion that makes him sigh again, fuss slightly, rubbing his cheek over and over against Erik’s skin. Is something bad happening? Something frightening? He doesn’t think so. Just something new, but either way it’s utterly consuming him. Charles curls his fingers into Erik’s shirt, grasping tightly. Refusing to let go.  
  
"Good," Erik murmurs, and it feels like everything in him rises, that great giant leviathan raising its head and fluttering its wings. He opens the button on his shirt to move Charles's head down so he can press it against his bare skin, and that feels nice. Charles should always be touching him. Always be in his arms like this. Nothing to be afraid of. Erik has him. He will never let go, he will never let anything bad touch him ever again. He is utterly safe. Erik leans back against the wall so he can pull Charles completely against him, and that's even better. "You are mine," he rumbles lowly into Charles's ear, and his voice doesn't sound like his own, gravelly and soaked in Dominion, accent coming into play as it always does when he's this far-gone.  
  
It makes Charles shiver. All of it makes Charles shiver and he takes big, shaky breaths, so grateful to be moved to Erik’s bared chest where he can feel him better, where he can turn his head and inhale and feel safe. Big, gulping breaths, and his pulse is racing and his eyes are popped open wide because he’s just — startled, he’s startled, like a deer caught in headlights because he doesn’t know what this is. It’s like the very first time in subspace. But Erik says it’s alright — he trusts him. Charles trusts him, he really, truly does. He tugs at Erik’s shirt. What is he meant to do? What’s happening? And the questions aren’t spoken, but they are projected. Too loudly, too jarring, but so achingly familiar in Erik’s mind, near-intentional, louder than the Bond between them, the connection, has been since it first went dormant. Quiet. It’s buzzing now. It’s thrumming right along with Charles’ heartbeat.  
  
Erik's shirt parts open under Charles's hands and practically dissolves, letting him brush up fully against bare skin and it makes Erik glow, a hum that resonates right with Charles's own, his thoughts and feelings and his own portion of their Bond not created by Charles but purely of his own design coming into play, a meeting. Erik doesn't know precisely what's happening. But he does know Charles is safe and Charles can trust him, he will take care of Charles. He slips his hand under Charles's shirt so he can rub his back, large and warm and encompassing. Gentling him. He's safe. Erik loves him. He belongs right here.  
  
Maybe Charles’ telepathy didn’t create the Bond beyond that first connection — there’s something to it that’s Erik’s, too, something that meets him right back. But without it, it does snap. It’s broken, not necessarily one-way but rather unable to meet in the first place, two disconnected cables. And now there’s a spark. Charles whines, grabbing for Erik’s shirt because he wants bare skin but he also needs to hold onto something, to grasp it. His eyes scrunch closed. What else does he need? He’s not sure. He does know he needs Erik much more than air at the moment. That he’s tugging at him, and not just physically, needing desperately and not having the ability to ask or tell or speak except like this. He huffs. He needs. It’s in his belly, his chest, fogging up his brain. He whimpers, arches his back so Erik will rub him more, still startled and confused and uncertain, a spooked horse that needs gentling.  
  
Erik isn't precisely sure, either, but that's why they're here. To learn. Erik wants to learn. He wants to give, anything, everything, always. It is why he's here, and he shifts to be even nearer, both hands smoothing over the bare skin of Charles's back, sweeping down to his hips, pressing him right up close. He dots his lips along Charles's temples and forehead, down his cheeks, his neck. Gives a little nip, playful. Chasing that spark, as it meets Erik and flourishes into millions of glowing, rainbow lights.  
  
Charles is trying not to be frightened. To be spooked. It’s not scary, but it is completely overwhelming, and he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to do, and he hides in Erik’s shoulder, makes pitiful, gasping noises, choked sounds as he tries to figure it out. But he can’t. He can’t think straight. He can’t speak. It’s too much — it’s a common thread. It’s all too much, he doesn’t feel like he knows what to do with it. But Erik is here, and he keeps tugging, and tugging, and tugging. Erik is here. He’ll show Charles what to do. He’ll do something. That other Erik, he said he had to trust and expect Erik to know what to do. To rise up to what Charles needs. So he peeks up, he looks, eyes wide and misty — he’s expecting, now. He’s trying not to be scared. There’s no reason if his Dominant is here.  
  
Erik's hands come up to cup his face, and he smiles, completely charmed by those eyes, captivated as he was the very first moment he saw them. "I love you," he whispers again, because it's the only thing he's ever truly known. He leans forward and delivers a soft kiss to Charles's lips, grasping those tugging hands and yanking them toward him, placing them on his chest, holding Charles firmly in place. "Mine," he growls against Charles's mouth, vivid eyes looking up at him.  
  
Charles gasps again, whines again, wide-eyed and staring like he’s completely unaware of what’s happening, mouth slack against Erik’s. He is. He’s not sure if it’s panic, but he’s trying to wiggle in Erik’s arms, maybe away, maybe not — he doesn’t know. What he does know is that he still can’t speak, that his chest is so tight, that he’s squirming suddenly in Erik’s hold but it’s not because he’s being defiant. He’s just — spooked. Spooked, and confused, and overwhelmed, and he’s swallowing heavy. His lips part, and no words come out, just another quiet, desperate noise, his cheeks pink in the aftermath. He hides back in Erik’s neck.  
  
"No," Erik whispers. "Still." The Order bursts through the room, effectively wrapping Charles up in restraints from head to toe without ever slipping rope against him. He presses his cheek to Charles's, possessive and apologetic all at once. He made him feel panic. He can't take that right now. It strikes a chord of melancholy that plays through the room, heavy. He pushes all of it away, all of those tears that were dammed up threatening to spill out over again. "Still. Breathe." The Orders wisp against Charles's skin.  
  
Charles whines, but does exactly as he’s told, even as it brings tears to his eyes. He’s not panicked, really, and it’s certainly not Erik; it’s just so much, he’s in this new, strange place and he doesn’t know what to do here. He’s feeling so much. He’s making these high, choked off sounds, these low noises like he’s some sort of wounded, needy creature, and he can’t stop. He doesn’t know how to stop, or how to talk, and now he can’t move, which is usually fine and it is now, too, except he’s still trying to wiggle around. Erik can handle it. It’s a strong, confusing thought, but he thinks it. He can. He knows what to do. He knows, he has to, and he’ll do it. There’s no reason to get twisted up. Charles is a little spooked, but Erik will take care of that, too. Because he can. He’s not sure where it comes from, only that he thinks it with all confidence.  
  
Erik hushes him, still rubbing his back, kissing him where he can. He can handle this, and it's not scary. Certainly not to him. He knows it can be overwhelming for Charles. Sometimes the things he feels are so strong they overwhelm him, too. And Charles always handles that. They don't even handle it, really. Not like a chore. It's good for them, for both of them. Erik likes Charles a great deal, he likes every aspect of his submission, every new flavor there is to discover, and this is no different. He's OK. Erik has got him. He won't let Charles fall. And Charles's confidence in that makes him glow, those sparkles still floating in the air.  
  
But for some reason he keeps making those high, distressed noises, not because he’s actually distressed but because he’s got no words, he’s got no way to tell Erik what he needs or even any conception of what that is, what he’s feeling, what’s happening to him. He’s really not sure. It’s overwhelming, whatever it is, and he tugs at the hands holding his, tries to get at Erik’s shirt again to yank. He doesn’t know what else to do, but the longer this goes on the squirmier he tries to get, like he’s waiting out Orders, flexing one limb at a time out of place, whining in the back of his throat. He can’t just sit here like this, they can’t just sit here. He’ll be good and listen and stay if he has to, if Erik really, really makes him, but he’s forgotten how to do that and the only other thing he’s been told to do is breathe — so he does, he focuses on it, breathes and breathes and breathes and tries to let it comfort him, that he’s doing what seems to please his Dominant. Erik likes it when he breathe so he’ll breathe well, he’ll breathe a lot. In between these gradually louder noises, anyway.  
  
They can, because Erik tells him to. He will remember because Erik will make him remember. He will breathe, and he will stay still, and he will calm and focus on Erik and tell him what is happening, and he will do it now, without question, because Erik Orders it. Because that is what he wants.  
  
Charles can’t use words. He just doesn’t have them, and he’s not sure why; he just keeps making these pitiful little noises, whimpering louder now into Erik’s skin, so overwhelmed he almost starts to cry. He shakes his head. It’s too much, that’s all. All he wants to do is please and serve and Erik’s not giving him anything to do, not talking to him and it’s all he wants and he doesn’t know what to do, he’s just got all this energy and power inside of him and Erik’s saying stay still and that’s fine, it is, because his Dominant decides but it’s a little painful, he just feels and knows so much and being made to sit still — it’s a little like a punishment, really, and he frowns at the thought of that and visibly, physically tenses, his reaction to that so obvious it spikes anxiety throughout the entire world room. He’s not being punished, Erik just doesn’t know what’s happening. He’s not being cruel he just doesn’t know that Charles needs to know what to do, he asked before and Erik just said hug him and so he did but — but —  
  
"No," Erik whispers, painfully aware not for the first time that he's falling short again because he's too raw to speak properly, to just know what he's supposed to do intuitively like every other fucking Dominant on the planet. He swallows that down, the raze of anger at himself, at his own incapability. There's nothing to do, Erik is just incompetent, and sad, and stupid. Letting his own-letting the images in his own memory, the motions, the sounds, get louder than what's in front of him. He wants to shrink, to disappear, for everything he's feeling to just be not happening. "Not being punished," he promises. Just kept in place. He's sorry that he's so stupid that all of this is just going to end up making everything worse anyway because he can't seem to hide it anyway and Charles will blame himself, instead of who he should blame, and it will just make everything louder and uncoordinated and discordant instead of helping. He just doesn't know anything at all.  
  
But instead of spinning off, instead of recoiling, Charles rises up. Something in him rises up and he sniffs against Erik’s neck and then shakes his head, firmly, much more firmly than before. No, his Dominant can do this. He can take care of Charles. And when Charles pulls back, tears in his eyes, it’s more obvious than it’s ever been that he expects it. He expects Erik to take care of him, and he won’t settle for less. He will pull himself together and he will give Charles what he needs. The Universe demands it. Charles’ eyes glow bright, ethereal blue.  
  
Erik touches his cheek and guides him to sit up, taking his hands and kissing them. "You have to tell me what you need," he finally speaks, an Order of more than a few words, his accent quite prominent, affected in Dominion and he keeps Charles still, not wriggling around out of place, but not trapped either. Just calm, at rest. Touching Erik. "You have to breathe and show me. So I can take care of you. I can take care of you." He can. Charles is right. But sometimes he just needs a little help.

* * *

The smile that spreads over Charles’ lips isn’t Charles’, really. Or perhaps it is. But there’s something quite a bit different to it, something strange and knowing, and he tilts his head. **_Don’t you know?_** he asks, and touches Erik’s cheek. Doesn’t he know what to do, with his submissive making such a fuss in his arms? Doesn’t he know Charles? Doesn’t he know his own expectations, his own desires, his own Dominance? He will.  
  
He thought he knew, but then Charles got scared and he wasn't right. He doesn't know. When that voice appears that dam seems to fold under its own weight and tears spring to his eyes. He doesn't know his own desires, his own Dominance, not really. He never has. He's always struggled. He keeps struggling and Charles keeps suffering. He's so sorry.  
  
But this Charles shakes his head. Perhaps he’s visiting. Just here to see, to pop in and sort things out. He strokes Erik’s cheek. ** _Stop it_** , he insists. ** _Breathe. Think. Feel. You know what to do, Erik. Do we need your apologies right now, or do we need something else?_ **It’s scolding, and Charles has an eyebrow raised pointedly. We. Strange, but even still. Was Charles really frightened?  
  
He wasn't. He wasn't? Erik knew. Erik knows? He knows. So much doubt and shame. Instincts curled up on top of one another. Especially after-and, maybe he doesn't need to apologize but-Erik wanted to get closer. To be closer. He craved it. Touch. Just like that. A lightbulb sparking. Skin. Heat. Shivers. Water trailing up along the glass. But that's not good. His instincts are all twisted.  
  
 ** _Are they, darling?_ **this Charles asks, with that strange smile and still the dimples, a constant. **_Or do you simply not trust them?_** And Charles isn’t blacked out, now, limp in Erik’s arms, the Void doesn’t have its own form, its own body, because it clearly can’t stay — but it can do this much, at the very least. A little nudge. Because maybe they’re becoming less separate, Charles and him. Maybe they’ve always meant to be the same, and it’s a slow, painful process, but it’s happening. He needs you. **_Do you think it helps him when you disparage yourself? Do you think it does him any good when you tear yourself down? Were we frightened, or were you?_**  
  
 _Darling_. It always gets him. Erik presses his fingers into his eyes, making a noise suspiciously like a sob that tears out of his throat, surprising and raw. "But I get it all wrong," he gasps, his features crumpling up, jamming his palm into his face like he can make all of this stop. He doesn't remember but he saw Erik and Erik wasn't Dominant and Erik knew. He knew. He knew exactly what to do. He was so much better at it, so much more confident. And now he is struggling and a mess. "I'm so-I'm-" he can't, he cannot let go like this, he can't let this happen-  
  
 ** _Shh_** , the Universe sighs, and it’s still Charles’ face, still a soft smile, even with some sharpness to it, even with those glowing eyes. They’re more Charles’ than the Void’s. There’s blending, now. Look. **_Look, darling. Feel. How far down is he, Erik?_**  
  
He sniffles and nods, swallowing once, rough against the lump in his throat. He feels. It's good. It's where he should be. It's where Erik wants him. He doesn't apologize again, even though the Void can feel that, too.  
  
The Universe — Charles — shakes his head, still stroking along Erik’s cheek. **_No, feel. Look,_** it insists, quiet but firm. **_Do you see how far he’s gone? Could he have managed it without you, do you think?_** The answer is a resounding no. Erik is the only one who could tether him like this, who could manage him like this. He’s the only one meant to. ** _He’s very far, Erik. Do you know what will happen if you doubt yourself?_** And it’s pointed, but not meant to inspire fear. Not meant to be cruel. **_If you leave him like this? You have all the tools. The instincts. The desire — don’t you?_**  
  
"Yes," Erik whispers softly. Always. The desire is always there. It never leaves. "I-" he wouldn't leave. Never. Even if he wants to disappear sometimes, even if he wants whatever he's experiencing to just-go away. "He's mine and I love him."  
  
And the Universe is different than Charles, because it nods once, just the barest hint of that odd smile now ** _. Then give him what he needs. You tell him not to hide, and yet you hide. You tell him to trust his own submission, to not be afraid, and you fear your own Dominance in the same breath. Do you not see the problem here? You are teaching him. Teach him properly._**  
  
"Of course I hide," he whispers back, making a noise of distress. Of course he does, how could he not? When all the emotions he's feeling are-they don't belong. They're bad, they're gross, they're not even relevant, it's-Erik shudders. Of course he hides. He feels stupid and negative all the time. He doesn't want Charles to feel these things, to see these things.  
  
 ** _And when you do that, you’re failing him._** It’s blunt. Not harsh, not cruel, but the Universe may be learning kindness from Charles, may have absorbed that innate compassion, but it doesn’t need to mince words. ** _When you hide, you teach him to do that, too. And you fail the both of you, Erik. Simple as that._**  
  
He doesn't want to fail Charles, and that much is very obvious. But he got sad and it made Charles too sad, It made him blame himself. Erik wipes off his face, feeling-silly. "I don't know how to make myself not scared," he croaks. And he doesn't want to teach Charles to be scared like him.  
  
The Universe wipes away the rest of those tears, and this time there’s glitter on Erik’s face. Shimmering, strangely reflecting glitter, something Erik hasn’t seen before. Otherworldly, unfathomable. ** _You don’t need to not be afraid, Erik,_** it whispers. **_But you do need to be willing to share it with him. Otherwise how will he learn to share his, the way you want him to? If you shrink back every time, what do you think it will teach him?_**  
  
Erik touches those glittery spots, his eyes wide and awed as he watches it dance on his fingertips, a little distracted; he always seems to be by things that shine and glow, that feel otherworldly and unfathomable, he wants to dig right into its molecular structure. But there's more important things, of course. "You think," he croaks, and clears his throat to rid himself of the lump there. "You think if I tell him-tell him all of this-" he gestures to his head like it's self-evident. "It will help?" he sounds a little incredulous, honestly.


	118. (Walk the nightmare out the door)

Let it not be said that the Universe has no sense of humor, because it grins, just a tad more rueful than Charles might and shakes its head. **_I know so, if we’re going to get technical, but yes_** , it confirms. **_I do. Not only him, but you._** Fingers drag along Erik’s nose, and he pokes him there once, something very Charles-like to do, dotting the end of it with that shimmery, unknown substance. It’s vaguely metallic, perhaps because it’s for Erik. Because the Universe does, indeed, still wear his collar. **_Don’t let him crash, Erik_** , the Universe continues, almost chiding, almost sad, actually. As if it despairs for Charles, too. As if it’s learned not to hurt him, now that it’s becoming him, and Charles it. **_You won’t, will you?_**  
  
Erik shakes his head. "I won't," he whispers. He tries his hardest not to. To hold Charles steady. His nose wrinkles up when Charles pokes it and he can't help smiling in turn, the sensation of rare metals shivering through his body and he suppresses a little twitch. "But it's those-" it's that picture. And it's that. And it's floating around in his mind, swimming around, saturating him in-and he shakes his head again. "I don't want-" and it's not important. Because it isn't his pain-but he feels it anyway. And Charles doesn't even want to-admit anything and Erik can't stand listening to him downplay it. "What if I crash?" he rasps, afraid.  
  
Charles knows. The Universe knows. It strokes Erik’s cheek again, leaving behind shivery sensation, more metallics and glimmering substances that Erik doesn’t know, has never seen or encountered. Gifts. **_You won’t, darling,_** it promises, and it’s softer, now. Quieter, too. Much more like Charles’ tone, what Erik is used to hearing from this mouth. ** _But you can’t force him to see what he isn’t ready to._ **He doesn’t remember. **_Are you going to be there when he does? And he will._ **It’s another promise. The Universe is sorry (and isn’t that a concept?), but it’s inevitable; Erik knew it from the beginning. **_He will. When it’s time for that. It isn’t time for that now. He needs something else from you._**  
  
And Erik treasures them, is delighted by them. The Universe can tell. He touches his own cheek, letting those sensations sink right into the molecules of his body, as he dives into theirs. It's magnificent. It reminds him of the first time they went on a plane together, all those metals in the jet engines he'd never encountered. This is so much more. So much better. He nods, shakily. "I'll be there," he whispers. And it's a promise, too. But if Charles isn't ready to face what happened; can he really face Erik's pain? It hurts him, and makes him sad, and makes him confused and distressed. Erik doesn't like that. And he doesn't know how to meet him there except to dial it down, bury it under the Earth where it belongs.  
  
 ** _Has that ever helped?_** the Universe asks, and it’s not sarcastic. It’s not biting, or judgmental, or rude. It is blunt. It is pointed. It knows because it’s seen, it will see. It will experience, too, through Charles, and already has. **_Burying it down? Has it made anything softer? Easier to handle? Better for him? What has it taught him, Erik?_**  
  
"Maybe," Erik whispers, shaking his head. Maybe it has. Because if he doesn't hide it all, he doesn't have any idea what the result would be, but wouldn't it be worse? Charles doesn't need to hide from him. He gets sad. But he can push through, he can cope. But coping with Charles's pain, caused by him-caused by, him just talking about his life. Him just being, that open. He sniffles and wipes at his eyes, feeling pathetic. In the face of the Universe all he can do is give in to self-loathing, and he doesn't want to be that person. But he is, isn't he.  
  
 ** _No, he isn’t._** The Universe shakes its head. **_You’re harming him more like this,_** it says, blunt again. It strokes a hand through Erik’s hair like it might help ease things, soften them. It’s a bit stiff; it doesn’t know how, really, and again, what a concept. Charles is changing it, too.  
  
It makes Erik's eyes flutter shut instinctively, leaning into the touch even as stiff as it is, his breathing calming down just from that. "Before he lost his memory," Erik rasps, his whole body tense, the words barely audible. He doesn't know if he can go on, but he tries. "He saw-and it hurt-and I don't want to-" even in words. He doesn't want Charles to have to think about that fact. "It hurts him-more?"  
  
 ** _Yes_** , the Universe confirms, and gradually, it learns, too. It becomes less stiff. It plays with the strands of Erik’s hair and huffs at something, so very Charles, and then shakes its head. **_It hurts him more. Don’t you hurt, when he hurts? Aren’t you hurting right now, thinking of it? There’s no difference. You can’t protect him from that pain. It isn’t right for either of you._**  
  
Erik leans into those playing fingers, humming softly instead of answering in words. But the Universe knows the answer either way. Of course Erik hurts. When Charles hurts, and right now, thinking about it, it's like his heart has frozen in his chest and been smashed with a hammer, splintering into millions of glass-shard pieces. "I want to take care of him," he whispers. Help him. Make him better. That's all he's ever wanted.  
  
The Universe knows that, too. Of course it does. It hums quietly and plays more with Erik’s hair, as if it’s somehow fascinated. All the knowledge imaginable and some that isn’t at all, and stroking Erik’s hair is what truly throws it. **_Then you need not to hide from him. Isn’t that what you’re trying to teach him, Erik? Can you really in good conscience punish him for behavior you’re not willing to model yourself?_ **Some of it doesn’t apply, but this does. Erik is meant to make Charles a better, stronger person, and to step in when he isn’t. But if he can’t do that himself? But the Universe shakes its head. **_That isn’t the problem, currently. It will be, if you can’t find your way past it. But he needs you right now, and you need to be capable of giving him that. You are._**  
  
Erik makes a little sound under his breath that almost sounds like a trill of pleasure, totally unconscious, when the Universe finally finds that spot behind his ears that makes his legs go all jelly, feline-like. "I want to be strong," he whispers, soft. Really strong, not just the pretend-macho stuff he knows he has the habit of falling into. It's not what he's taught Charles in words, but it is often what he demonstrates, and he shrinks a little, appropriately cowed. He doesn't want Charles to end up like him, to develop those kinds of complexes. Being vulnerable is a form of strength he hasn't yet learned. Hasn't found, if one could ever really find their strength the way he was taught.  
  
 ** _Then start here,_** the Universe suggests, as if it could ever be that easy. It knows it won’t be. That it can’t be. **_You are strong. Don’t you know that, darling? You are so incredibly strong. It’s when you doubt that that you falter._ **And Charles’ hand cups Erik’s cheek again, strokes it gently with a thumb, leaving behind that strange, shimmering metallic substance again. **_But that isn’t why I’m here — do you know why I am?_ **he asks, head tilted as if he’s curious, lips pulled up just slightly. Even with Charles’ body, his face, the expression looks different, somehow.  
  
Erik's eyes widen again as he remembers the incredibly new and fascinating sensations playing across his cheek, and he shakes his head a little, unsurprisingly. It's shown up like this once before, when he needed help and just wasn't going to ever figure it out on his own, too emotionally heightened. But this situation doesn't feel the same, even though he's struggling.  
  
It isn’t. And he’s notably not put Charles to sleep; just stepped in a bit. The Universe smiles, and draws all that glitter down across Erik’s nose, dotting it there at the tip. ** _He’s reaching for me, just like I told you he would,_** it informs him.  
  
It makes said nose wrinkle up fondly, Universe or not, he is loved by Erik. "Growing," he laughs a little, because it's not surprising in the least.  
  
 ** _Yes_** , the Universe agrees, and it sounds equally as fond, for just a moment. **_But it’s dangerous for him, Erik. Don’t worry about anyone else, I’ve taken care of that_** , it’s almost an aside, a brushing off, but it’s a reassurance, too. He’s done what he told Erik he would. Take a deep breath. **_You’ll need to focus, darling. I’m afraid what comes next requires just as much work from you as it does from him, if not more. You are very powerful, do you know that?_ **And if it’s stroking Erik’s ego a bit, so be it. It sounds — proud, almost. As it it really is Charles.  
  
Honestly Erik hasn't been worrying about anyone else this entire time, he's been too terrified of what will happen to Charles for that. (OK, he's been a little worried.) Focusing isn't sometimes Erik's strong suit, especially now, but this is important, and he straightens up, tapping the Universe on the nose right back. He can't imagine Universes get much time to play. It's silly, to think he can provide anything it doesn't already have, but it's just his nature to try. "What comes next?" he whispers. Because he is powerful, but they both know it won't make a lick of difference here.  
  
And for its part, the Universe seems surprised. It’s utterly comical, but it even goes a bit cross-eyed trying to see Erik’s finger, as if it can’t imagine what’s just happened. When it gets its balance back, it shakes its head. **_Not your mutation, although a bit of that, too,_** it murmurs, dryly, and Erik can take that as what he wishes. ** _Your Dominance. He’ll need it. Don’t you feel that? He won’t know how to channel it. How to control it. Have you figured out why yet, darling?_** it asks, almost teasing.  
  
Erik shakes his head, though. "I've tried. It doesn't seem to-" work, to make a difference. He's exerted his Will a hundred times, a hundred ways, and it's only resulted in frustration, and distress when Charles can't follow his Orders. It's started to get better, recently, but it's been on Charles's timetable. Not Erik's. If this is going to rely on Erik or else the, the world melts. The world is in trouble.  
  
The Universe laughs. It’s stiff, and quiet, not much like Charles’ at all — but then again, maybe it is. **_He wasn’t where he is now, was he?_** it asks. ** _Don’t you feel it, Erik? Go on. Take a breath and feel him. Where is he?_** And as the Universe speaks, it gets warmer. Fonder. Less distant. More and more like Charles’.  
  
Erik listens and exhales slowly, pressing their foreheads together and laying his hand along his cheek. "Because-" because of subspace? Erik blinks a little. The answer seems obvious now, but he can't help feeling incredibly silly that it wasn't apparent in the first place. But not just ordinary subspace, because they've tried that, too. Something different. Something new.  
  
Something different. Something new. The Universe smiles, pleased but knowing, as if the answer and revelation was completely inevitable. **_He’s never gone this far, has he_** , it asks, and it isn’t a question. **_Does it feel any different, dear one?_**  
  
"Yes," Erik whispers back. It feels a little like how the metal against his cheek feels. Fascinating. Beautiful. Shivery. A little sparkly. That's not so much an objective measurement, per se. The sensation of metal has always made him feel. But this is so much more than electricity.  
  
It’s similarly magnetic, though. The Universe ramps up that magnetism, that sparkling, gleaming fascination, that call, smiling as it does. **_He needs you like this_** , it informs him again, and it isn’t a nice sentiment. It’s the absolute truth. **_What happens when there’s too much energy, Erik? Doesn’t it burst eventually?_ **And that can be destructive. Painful.  
  
Without a conductor, it inevitably will. But it isn't inevitable. Not between them. Erik wouldn't let that happen. And it doesn't seem to ever happen. He just rises further, becomes more, all that energy contained within him perfectly. How it should be. His eyes flutter again and his thumb moves unconsciously, rubbing along Charles's cheekbone.  
  
But the Universe just keeps on smiling. **_No, it is inevitable,_** it murmurs. **_Without_**... It trails off, one eyebrow raised, waiting for Erik to realize. Knowing that he will.  
  
He's a little distracted, though, and he blinks his eyes open again, lips pressing together. "Without me," he murmurs, though. Because that's true. Because Erik would never let him explode.  
  
Well, he’s certainly not wrong. Charles, the Universe, both and neither — they laugh, and it’s much less hollow this time, much less stilted, warmer and softer and he leans forward to kiss Erik’s cheek. **_A conductor_** , it whispers, fond. **_So what does that make you, darling?_**  
  
"A tall metal pole?" Erik grins. It's one of the first things he ever knew to be true about his mutation, even if that wasn't the kind of power the Universe was talking about. When he was nine his doctor thought he could control metal, it wasn't until much later, under less ideal circumstances, that it became apparent he could control electrons. And then subatomic particles altogether. But the fact remains that he has the most affinity for metal, because it remains the best conductor. The metaphor does work, even if Erik's a little fuzzy on the details. His thumb rubs along Charles's jaw.  
  
Because that’s how magnetism works. And isn’t that what they thought Erik was, in the beginning? Isn’t that, even now, what he is? Just on a scale they couldn’t fathom. The Universe continues to smile, its lips — Charles’ lips — twisted in amusement, another short laugh. **_He needs you for that, and right now he’s primed for it,_** it murmurs. **_You’ll need to help him. You’ll need to... put him to use_**. There’s more amusement, there, but the Universe knows how serious that is, too. It’s something Erik has struggled with, but he’s more than capable of it. He won’t break. He won’t fall apart. He’ll be Charles’ Dominant, exactly as he should be expected to.  
  
Erik's head ducks and he struggles not to outright burst out laughing, because he's not quite sure that the Universe has reached the _innuendo_ stage of development, but let's just say Erik has a mind in the gutter. A little. But it isn't wrong. Erik has struggled with it, either way. Sometimes he feels like he's just inventing things for Charles to do, because it's hardwired in him to do them instead. There's only so many chores he can pile on. It always feels like he's missing something, not that he can't give Charles what he needs but that he doesn't even know what he needs, which is infinitely worse.  
  
This is a bit different than that, but the Universe hums knowingly. **_You do,_** it counters, and it’s soft, again. It’s Charles’ voice, holds the same warmth, more of it with every passing second. **_You feel like you’re fumbling because you’re projecting. You didn’t benefit from it. Why would you? But he isn’t you. He’s quite the opposite, I’d say_** , and at the very least, it’s reached the humor stage, lips twitching again. **_And what hurt you will not hurt him. Some of it, yes. But not nearly all of it. Especially and only if it comes from you._**  
  
Erik has to wonder if this is why they're here, too. Not just for Charles to learn and grow, but for the Universe to learn and grow, too. It's changing, learning, just like Charles is. "How do I know the difference?" Erik whispers, sounding a little raw again, because it seems so obvious to everybody else, but-it isn't obvious. Not to him. And sometimes by trying to avoid damaging Charles he just does worse damage. Can the Universe really trust him with this? Erik doesn't. He doesn't. It isn't just Charles, either.  
  
The Universe runs a hand through Erik’s hair again, playing with those unruly curls. ** _Let me ask you a different question_** , it says, almost teasing, again, but it isn’t a game or a test. The Universe has done that before, and this isn’t that. **_What would make it different, if it wasn’t? If you did something that frightened him? That he didn’t like?_**  
  
"I don't know," Erik whispers back. He's been scared to admit that, but there's no hiding anything from someone who knows everything. "Sometimes he disagrees with me so much and I can't tell if it's because he's just-or if I'm hurting him, or if I should be hurting him, or what it means or what the difference is-" he rubs his hand over his mouth, heading swiftly into rambling territory.  
  
Fortunately, the Universe isn’t daunted. It just reaches forward to touch Erik’s cheek again. **_Do you trust him?_** it asks, simply.  
  
Of course Erik trusts him, but that doesn't mean he won't make a mistake. Do something wrong. Not know the difference. The whole point of this, of them , is that sometimes Charles doesn't always know what's best. In fact, a lot of the time. Erik can ask his input as far as the day is long and if Charles gets it wrong, if he elects to sabotage himself that day instead of help, if he just doesn't know the right answer and is relying on Erik to know-  
  
The Universe taps Erik’s cheek, and suddenly Erik isn’t looking anywhere but him. It. This. Like a magnetic pull of its own, and Erik is completely helpless. **_Erik_** , it says. **_What did you give him that you were never given? Think. What makes it so different, darling?_**  
  
Erik's eyes stop darting wildly through the room and seem to lock on his face as if pulled right there, and at that stage it's easy for the Universe to see that Erik's eyes are wet, that it's spilling out onto his cheeks. "I don't know," he wobbles a little. Not wanting to be so dysfunctional. The Universe knows the reason for that, too. It's an answer he should know and he doesn't. It seems so obvious when it's asked. Of course he was deprived. But of what? He wasn't, he wasn't-"wasn't happy," he swallows roughly. He wants Charles to be happy. He wants Charles to be happy. But he-but that isn't true for him, because-because some people wanted him to be happy. Someone did. Even Mr. Shaw. He just wasn't.  
  
The Universe hums again. **_That’s part of it. What else?_** It strokes Erik’s hair, right at that place behind his ear. It’s learning, too, just like Charles is. **_You gave him something very early, something I know you never had. And you claim you trust him to use that power, but it seems you’re a little uncertain._**  
  
Erik knows it's not meant to feel like a riddle, but it definitely does. His breathing slows down a little as those fingers find their way back. "I love him," he tries, but that seems wrong. It's right in that it's true, of course, but that's something Erik did have. He doesn't want Charles to be scared. He wants him to be safe. That's what he wants.  
  
The Universe sighs, but not at Erik. Perhaps it just knows too much; it means to guide the conversation, but the way it thinks is different, even with Charles in between, in and around. **_A way out_** , it whispers, and continues petting, because Erik calms with it. It’s still fascinating. **_A pause-word. A choice. Has he not proven he’s capable of that? Do you not trust him to?_**  
  
Erik shakes his head, brushing his cheek against that hand like a cat, just a little. "I trust him," he whispers. And he does. He just wonders-he wonders if it's enough. If a pause-word is really enough to hinge everything on. He knows he's too careful sometimes and that it isn't even very helpful most of the time. It's just normal to him, this mode of experience, he takes it for granted that everything that happened to him was so far off the base for normal he's lost the ability to chart. Any Dominant with these experiences would be irrevocably damaged, but a D5 in particular; it's as unprecedented as it is tangled-up. Is it always going to be like this? Is he always going to struggle with it? Will Charles always suffer for it? Does the Universe know that, too? Will he ever get better? Erik knows it's silly to even entertain those thoughts, but he can't help it, eyes flicking up, bright and uncertain.  
  
And the Universe is there to pet at him, to coo at him, perhaps a bit too softly; it doesn’t know how to do this, really, but how remarkable that it’s trying, wearing Erik’s collar even when it isn’t borrowing Charles’ body and trying. **_Yes_** , it promises, with all the confidence it possesses: utter, really. There’s no reason there wouldn’t be. **_You’ve already grown so much, darling, haven’t you noticed? You fret so much less. You push so much more. And he’s grown as a result. Surely you can see that much, hm? How he’s grown for you? Because of you?_**  
  
Erik blinks up at him slowly, tension gradually draining out of his shoulders the longer that he's petted and soothed, an entirely unaware process. He's always given Charles credit for most of that, for the way he's grown, but hearing that it's something he's doing right too, it makes him smile, a little wetly. "'Cause of me," he whispers back, almost to himself. He never could have imagined this even six months ago.  
  
 ** _Because of you, Erik,_ **the Universe agrees, and smiles right back. It touches Erik’s cheek, almost fascinated again as it gathers up those tears, replaces them with that shimmer instead. Erik seems to like it. ** _You’re his Dominant. You’re responsible for helping him to learn and grow. And don’t you think he’s learned? Grown? Become better? He’s wearing your collar, remember. Following your guidance. Have you not nourished him? And now that he’s blossoming, can you not see the role you’ve played?_**  
  
He does like it, a great deal in fact, shivering a little as the sensation trickles back down into his nerves. He rests his hand over the Universe's, and that's a funny sentence in itself, but Erik thinks that's what should happen. It's how he interacts with the world. With plants and trees and animals and tiny insects, and espresso machines behind the counter. Holding its hand, nurturing it, helping it to grow. Just like Charles, just like their children. He sniffs a bit, as if he can't quite believe it, can't quite see himself that way. His tears drip down his jaw, turning into sparkles that dust his collar. "Yes," he gasps. Because it's what he wants. It's everything that propels him forward.  
  
The Universe gathers those pretty, shining tears right up. Then it dots them on Erik’s nose, leaving behind something glowing. Playful. The Universe is learning to be kind, to be playful, and Charles — **_I’ll need to leave you soon, darling, and I won’t be back for quite a while_** , it warns. Almost sadly. As if it might miss Erik. For those days that Charles slept, silent and changing, it was the Void who tried to keep Erik company. It played chess with him. It left coffee for him on the counter, never getting cold. It wants to help, too. It’s always watching, always nudging, always responding, but there’s something about being here that’s so fascinating. Perhaps wonderful. **_You’ll need to take care of him. Can you promise me that?_**  
  
It makes Erik laugh, soft, and he leans over to press his lips against his forehead. It's less a kiss and more of a gentle embrace, grateful. "Always," he rasps, his voice affected, but no less certain. Erik will miss it, too. He always does. "You played chess with me," he grins. "I won one." He taps the Universe right on the nose again. He suspects it let him win, but he'll take what he can get.  
  
The Universe’s lips quirk again, and it tilts its head. **_Did you?_** it asks, and that’s playful. Dry, teasing, the way Charles often is. **_Or did you just see it that way?_ **It strokes Erik’s cheek one more time, lets that glowing, pretty metal get everywhere. **_When he comes back, he might be confused. He might be frightened. You know what to do,_** it assures him, softly. With full confidence. ** _Don’t you fret that you don’t._**  
  
Erik's nose wrinkles up, and he blinks away more tears. He will miss this. Sometimes he needs support, too, and the Universe seems to know this. Sometimes he doesn't know what's best. He struggles and doesn't feel comfortable letting Charles take that burden. But in these moments he can lean on the Universe, but more than that, he can look after it this way, too. "I won't," he whispers, soft. He will. Probably. But he'll try not to.  
  
And in this moment, it seems to falter. To hesitate. It’s such an odd thing to watch, and even odder for it to experience; it knows, with all the knowledge that exists, that it should go. That Charles needs his body back, at the very least, that the longer he stays the more fallout there will be. But he hesitates anyway, leaned into Erik, touching his cheek. It doesn’t say anything, and Charles’ face is rather expressionless, but it’s so exceedingly obvious that it’s feeling something. It’s incredible.  
  
And perfectly intuitive, to Erik, who listens to the trees and knows how they feel. It's not silly or strange. It is incredible, though. It always was. "Sad?" he brushes the back of his hand against Charles's cheek. He can come back. Visit again. It won't be goodbye forever. He promises.  
  
It makes the Universe laugh, startled and -- truly incredibly -- taken aback, blinking with Charles’ eyes as if it doesn’t comprehend. ** _Sad?_** it repeats, as if it doesn’t understand the concept despite knowing quite well about sadness, about misery, about devastation and hopelessness and things more like this, loneliness, longing. But how could it be sad itself? Is there even the possibility of it? But it feels something, for certain. Right now, in this moment, it is feeling something. And it’s reeling with it. **_I am not the same as him,_ **it informs Erik, as if it’s blurry on that. It is. The lines are blurring.  
  
"Sad," Erik whispers back, smiling faintly, stroking his thumb along its face. He knows they aren't the same. It may be impossible for him to completely separate them, but he knows there are differences. It doesn't need to be alone anymore. Erik won't let it. He's certainly been aware of its existence, but much like it self, he thought he was just... putting his own perceptions on things. Now he isn't so sure.  
  
Charles blinks — which means the Universe blinks in confusion, another odd occurrence, its head tilted with all of Charles’ innate, burning curiosity. **_Your own perceptions_** , it repeats, scooping the words right out of Erik’s mind. Charles was able to, before, but this is different. It’s not telepathy or a Bond. It’s something else, but maybe the same, too. As with all of this. **_What do you mean?_ **At least it has a question to ask.  
  
Erik's nose wrinkles up. "Maybe I was imagining things," he whispers the elaboration fondly. But he sees, now. He knows.  
  
He wasn’t. The Universe nods, understanding, comprehending; it could take everything from Erik, understand instantly, but instead it’s here, asking for clarification. Stroking his face. Sitting in his lap. **_You’re changing me,_** it realizes all of a sudden. Charles’ eyes are wide, almost comically so.  
  
"Changing you," Erik laughs, because he can't even imagine it. Changing the *Universe?* But he is. He sees it. He feels it. "Is it scary?" it must be. The Universe has been around for billions of years, in a never-ending similar state. And now... change.  
  
And it’s not just Erik. The Universe seems to touch his own cheek, but it’s clear enough that he really means to touch Charles’, wonder and shock in said man’s eyes. He swallowed me and now — It’s not becoming Charles. Certainly not. But it is becoming more like him, developing and learning and changing more the longer Charles reaches back. He looks at Erik, not answering the question. ** _It goes both ways,_** it warns. Charles will be different, the more he reaches. More like it.  
  
It doesn't scare Erik, though. "Will it hurt him?" is what he wants to know. He doesn't want Charles to be a different person. He just _is_ the person that could do this.  
  
He was. He is. The Universe shakes its head, still touching Charles’ cheek — his own cheek, at the moment — with that bewildered awe. **_No, certainly not,_** it scoffs, wholly Charles in inflection. ** _You made me promise otherwise. But it will be uncomfortable. Frightening. Confusing_**. So, yes, in a manner of speaking, but there’s no alternative. It’s already started. It started the moment Charles made the decision to swallow it, not for himself but for Erik.  
  
Erik will be there for that, too. He won't let Charles stay scared for long. He will protect Charles, and look after him, and he'll look after the Universe, too. He taps it on the nose, with every bit of fondness as it has seen him direct toward Charles. They aren't the same, Erik knows that, but they are... there is something special, and specific, and unique about this particular entity that Erik has always enjoyed being around. Not in the same way as Charles, but nevertheless. "You kept your promise," he whispers, grateful.  
  
The Universe chuckles, dry again. It’s regained its balance, no longer shocked, bewildered, confused. It understands this. **_It was meant to be like this_** , it says, simply. Because it was. It took it time to understand that, but Charles didn’t need to hurt. Perhaps it’s even sorry, or at the least sheepish; it tried to force something that could have been done more delicately. It doesn’t always think of these things. It’s never had to before, is all. All it knew was that Charles was meant for this — how it achieved that seemed irrelevant, the fastest way best. It knows better now.  
  
"I don't like it when he hurts," Erik says, as if it's a big confession, but it's not. It's something he's expressed many times, but right now it's just evident. He really means it, he really cares. It's a little silly to say something so obvious, but Erik wants both of them to know that. It bothers him. It makes him sad. "Thank you for taking care of him," Erik whispers, touching his cheek again.  
  
The Universe isn’t used to receiving thanks like this. It blinks again, as if it might be taken aback again, and then slowly, perhaps awkwardly, stiffly, it smiles. It bows its head and it smiles and it touches the hand on its cheek, stroking it gently the way it’s been learning to do. **_Take care of him_** , it repeats from before, and it isn’t so good at goodbyes; it’s never had to do such things. It simply continues to smile, until eventually it isn’t smiling anymore, and it isn’t at all. It’s a physical, palpable, felt thing when Charles comes back, not from slumber but as if from a trance, blinking rapidly, confused and beginning to question if he should panic because he’s not sure what’s just happened, still hazy-hazy-deep-down in that subspace neither of them have ever experienced before. He grabs, immediately, for Erik’s shirt, a startled, questioning noise parting his lips.

* * *

Erik frames his cheeks with both hands, kissing his forehead, smiling gently down at him. "You are all right," he whispers softly, stroking his thumbs along the skin beneath them. He doesn't have to panic. He doesn't have to be afraid. Erik has him and he won't let go. "I have got you," he rumbles, letting Charles settle into his chest. He is safe. He is loved. They just had a visitor, that's all. He's sure it must be very confusing, but they are all right. Erik has the situation in hand, he has Charles in hand, and he won't let him drown, he won't let him float away.  
  
All Charles knows is that his chest is tight, that his breathing is off, that his head feels foggy and strange and far-away; but also that he trusts Erik. That he trusts his Dominant with everything he has, with everything he knows, and it may very well be the only certainty he has right now. So he twists his fingers up in Erik’s shirt and propels himself into his chest and he clings, and clings, and clings, settling more closely in his lap. “M’alright?” he mumbles, blinking up at Erik blearily, but with all that trust. Complete, utter trust. He feels so strange, but he knows and feels that most of all.  
  
Erik smiles back, dots his brow with another series of kisses. "You are all right," he whispers, utterly confident. He runs his hands down Charles's back, soothing along his spine, right in the places that bring electricity and warmth, as if crackling from his fingertips. He's humming, almost, something silly under his breath, just his voice rumbling in the darkness. _There's a radiant darkness upon us/I don't want you to worry/you were a kindness when I was a stranger..._


	119. Take your hands off him, 'cause he's the only one that I have ever loved

It feels very nice. It feels nice and Charles sighs and leans right into it, content, smiling softly, calming, until he starts to fuss again. It’s just that he’s still under, still in that strange subspace the Universe warned Erik about, and it’s making him a little restless. A little agitated, uncertain, anxiety bordering on fear. He tugs at Erik’s shirt again, a plea for help. He doesn’t doubt Erik at all; he trusts him. Wholly.  
  
Erik growls, and Charles finds himself swiftly pinned to the bed, arms trapped above his head inside of Erik's hands, and Erik strokes along his cheek, and bites down at his jaw, leaving a long, bruising mark. "Be still," he warns, ethereal and full of Will. It's not a conscious action, it's not something he ever would have done of his own accord, but maybe the Universe has shifted into gear after all, because he's slotted right down into that space of Dominion he's never seen, body floating along molecules and-spark-  
  
Spark that’s completely shocking Charles’ system. His eyes go impossibly wide, but he doesn’t want to be kept still. Among the hazy, confused fog of whatever this is, there’s suddenly realization; Erik is here to take care of him. He will. And he doesn’t need to worry anymore. So Charles thrashes — he doesn’t know why it’s the next move, but it is, his body arching right off the bed like he wants to buck Erik right off, like he obviously never could. “Lemme go,” he insists, but it’s not vicious, it’s not vicious, and it’s not afraid, either. He’s just confused. He sounds it.  
  
It's too bad, because he gets nowhere fast. "No. You are mine. You will go where I say you go." Erik keeps him firmly in place, as metaphorical as it is physical, as it is real. "I am your Dominant. You say it. You are my submissive. You yield to me. To my Will. Say it." He scratches his finger down Charles's exposed throat, enough to leave a thin red mark.  
  
And Charles gasps, wide-eyed and startled, but not frightened. There’s not even a hint of fear in the room, and Erik has always been able to tell when he’s getting a bit worked up, twisted, in his own head. There’s none now. He just stares up at Erik, stares and stares and stares, and then bites his lip and shakes his head. Not denying it, but refusing.  
  
"No, you tell me or you will be in Child's Pose immediately. I did not ask you. I told you. And you do what I tell you." Erik scratches him again, growling lowly. There is nowhere to twist into, nowhere to work up into. There is only Erik, and Charles. Dominant and submissive.  
  
Charles whines this time, loud and more shocked than hurting, his eyes so wide. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, nothing except a sad, forlorn little noise, but he quickly gathers himself. He does what he’s told. He does what he’s told, and if he can’t do it one way he’ll find another way because Erik is in charge, not him. He’d never give him an impossible task, never set him up to fail. So he takes a shaky breath and suddenly everything, absolutely everything, the Universe and everything in it declares, _I’m your submissive. You’re my Dominant. I yield to you._ And Erik hears it loud and clear. It takes a moment, but Charles bites his lip and much more quietly adds, _Sir_.  
  
"Good," Erik murmurs, soft and low and pleased. "You are mine. I will not let anything happen to you. I will take care of you. Always." Erik is the one in charge. Not Charles. Never Charles. This is what Erik was meant for, what the Universe itself has recognized in him. He knows that now. He will not falter. He will not fail. Erik loves him, and it permeates the room, suffused in Will. And Charles has no choice. He never has, even if Erik didn't realize it. He does now.  
  
And what Charles needs, the kind of control Charles needs, it really is nothing that will ever show up in an observational study on S1 Dynamics or in any sort of scholarly article. It’s utterly, completely unique, because he is the man who swallowed the Universe, and Erik -- Erik? Erik is the man who collared it. Perhaps not directly, but it wears his collar, and that makes every difference. So Charles looks up at his Dominant with those blinking, hazy, glowing eyes, lips parted, and he thinks, Please. Because he’s reaching, and reaching, and reaching, and he just needs Erik to help. To channel. To conduct. He just needs his Dominant, and to know that Erik knows it, that he knows it, even after all that fighting, all that uncertainty -- he closes his eyes and sighs quietly, completely at peace even as he vibrates with energy he can’t contain.  
  
But Erik can contain it. That's what he was always meant for. And he reaches back, dragging his fingertips down Charles's chest, and biting him again, along his collarbone, marking him. Reminding him. No amount of fighting will replace this, will replace the fact that he belongs to Erik. Charles's hands are still pinned above his head, and Erik's leg holds his down, keeping him entirely pinned. In anyone else, trapped. But Charles isn't trapped. He is kept.  
  
Even when he’s still, pinned and kept perfectly, he’s not still on the inside. All that leashed up, restless energy, and there’s just nowhere for it to go. Charles whines, both at the bite and the sensation, trying uselessly to squirm for a moment. There’s nowhere for him to go, of course. “Help me, sir,” he gasps, finally. “Help me. Please, you have to help me,” he insists, voice cracking.  
  
All of Erik's instincts rage up, pushing him relentlessly in a direction he futilely resists himself, because it's not-and he lowers a little, resting his brow against Charles's shoulder, his whole body tense as he tries to let it pass through him and over him and out of him because it's not-appropriate. Because it frightened Charles. Before. Charles needs help. Not this. And he doesn't know how, the Universe lied. He doesn't know how. Tears prick at his eyes and he shudders. Charles is begging him for help and he's-  
  
And then all of a sudden, Erik is focused back on only one thing, and it isn’t his spinning-off thoughts; it’s Charles. Everything narrows, closes in, and there’s no room for those doubts anymore. It isn’t the Universe helping. It’s Charles himself, even as his eyes water underneath his Dominant, even as he’s confused and restless and close to hurting, because the Universe said he wouldn’t but not why or how. It factored this in. Because Erik knows. He knows. Charles whispers, “Sir, please,” and he knows. He was built for this. To be Charles’ Dominant.  
  
Erik shudders harshly, railing against his instincts, against his constant need to check and be sure and it's why he just doesn't instigate things, almost never without Charles subtly nudging him, telling him it's OK and it's got to be frustrating, and even a little affronted; does Erik even care? Does he even want things of his own? Is he just humoring Charles? There is an iron wall inside of him, towering above the Will, above Command, impenetrable by his own thoughts, and the Universe touched it and it buckled, it wavered and shimmered like those glittering lights. But just for a moment. Because it isn't the Universe's to repair.  
  
It isn't a construct at all, woven deeply into the baser parts of Erik's personality. Removing it would change him. Irrevocably. Make him less careful, make him less noble, make him a more reckless person. A worse person. Someone who blindly follows the whims of Dominion, firmly entrenched for Erik in muted-down desire, suppressed only until he's absolutely certain it's warranted.  
  
But it isn't true. He isn't just humoring Charles. He is Charles's Dominant and it's not just lip service. He does have wants of his own. He does have needs of his own. Things he wants from Charles, things he's even mentioned before, but deferred to Charles's opinion instead of his own. It's warped. Twisted. Wrong.  
  
It hurts. Charles is right. It hurts.  
  
Erik spreads his fingertips up Charles's chest, brushing his thumb across his nipple and tweaking it roughly, the way he knows sends a flurry of sparks down his spine, and draws his lips over the fresh mark he's just made. "Mine," he growls. "I want you beside me. With me. No more separation. No more leniency. I let you. You think of me wrongly." Charles's hands are still firmly trapped in place. Erik does value Charles's opinions and desires. But maybe it's just a little too much. He is the Dominant. He has the right. Charles gave him that right. Maybe he will take it away some day. Maybe Erik will do something unforgivable. But until then.  
  
It hurts to be apart. It hurts to be separated. "Up," Erik rumbles, barely coherent, tugging Charles upright with his hands now clasped in front of him, and Erik presses them to his shirt. It's just a fact. Just a facet of him. The need to be closer, to put Charles in his place as much physically as mentally. The howling, creature-part of him that communicates solely through touch, body-to-body.  
  
This Charles has never met it before. Not really. But the deeper-down he goes, the less able to control himself Erik is. He's supposed to be more in control, but it's a waging war against instinct and reason, and reason is losing fast. "Take them from me," he rasps, eyes eclipsed in black, pinning Charles's as swiftly as he had his hands.  
  
It’s an immediate change, or maybe it isn’t a change at all. Maybe it’s always been exactly like this, and they simply couldn’t see it, couldn’t unravel it, couldn’t untangle it -- there was shame, there was fear. There was endless worry, fretting, twisting-up. A Charles with his memories still would be; because what is he, what does it mean, if he lets himself? If he agrees that the very best thing for him, for his happiness, for his growth, is to defer it to Erik? To let him decide? To let him really, fully Dominate him, in every sense of the word?  
  
What does it mean? For his strength? For his ability to be independent? For everything he’d worked so hard to achieve? If his submission isn’t something to buck off, isn’t something to glance sidelong at, to turn on and off as he pleases…  
  
But it doesn’t exist here. Here, in this space, Charles has no access to thoughts like those. He doesn’t know them, and he doesn’t have any intention of meeting them. Here, in this place, he’s breathless and gasping and frozen, for the moment, his eyes still so wide where they’re currently locked on the buttons of Erik’s shirt. But he doesn’t hesitate enough for Erik to step in, not this time, and maybe only just; his fingers are shaking as they work on undressing his Dominant, the creature in his own chest that he’s never met rising up, whining at the sight of its mate. It slips out of Charles’ mouth, that noise, and he isn’t sure at all what to do but fortunately, fortunately, he doesn’t have to know. Erik is here for that. Erik will always be here for that, and so he does as he’s told, he slips Erik’s shirt carefully over his shoulders and then he looks up, looks to his Dominant, and he waits to be told. It’s simple. It’s easy. It’s how it should be. Isn't it how it should be?  
  
Erik's hands move Charles's down to the hem of his pajama bottoms, expectant. "And these," he rumbles, glaring down at him possessively, as if any movement he hasn't Ordered is a threat, the same way that a real intruder might be. He leans forward to punctuate this with a shivery kiss to Charles's temple, almost giving him little room to maneuver with how he's practically pinned him to the mattress. There is more to Dominion than simple physicality. But this at its core is where Charles belongs. Skin-to-skin. What Erik wants, for the very first time, instigating it. Because he wants to, just because of that. Not waiting for Charles to subtly hint at it, or practically engineer the scenario. And it might be more dramatic and poignant if he did have his memories, of how many times and how many ways he's had to coax Erik out of his shell, so to speak. But he's experienced it here, too. He belongs to Erik. In all ways. His body, his mind, his movement itself. He's right. It's easy.  
  
 _And these._ Charles’ heart thuds in his ears and tightens up in his chest, a harsh, uneven breath that his eyes closing for a moment -- but only a moment, because he knows better. He does. He also knows full well that Erik isn’t wearing anything underneath those pajama pants, the ones Charles had insisted on, and he takes big, gulping breaths as his fingers shake and he slowly peels them down and off, uncertain what to do with them once they are and trying not to look, heart fluttering and fluttering, beating on like hummingbird’s wings with his racing pulse. Erik has never done this. Charles has been leading everything, really, up until this point, setting the pace, setting the tone, and part of him had wondered if that was the way it was meant to be naturally. If that was the way it was. But it’s not, is it? It’s Erik’s to decide and always has been. He just hasn’t done it. And right now Charles is nervous, but he isn’t frightened. He’s a little unsure, but he’s not terrified, or hurting, or harmed -- he’s anticipating. He’s excited. He’s vibrating with it, all of that leashed up and too-much energy that desperately needs an outlet, and whatever way Erik decides it should be done -- he’ll defer, won’t he? Won’t he? Because he’s supposed to do that.  
  
Except that it is dramatic, and it is poignant, and Erik makes a sound like he's breaking headfirst over choppy ice-waters, like he's drowning, because he wants it. Tears prick at his eyes again, not because he's sad but because-it should have been this. It always should have been this and it's been close enough that it's been easy enough to pretend it was, but it wasn't. And he should have known but he was so scared of it. Of demanding this , and what if it's the wrong time , the wrong place, what if Charles doesn't-but that-and it falls right through him, right around this point, the point at which he'd balk and rewind and need to be reassured through it. How can he believe that this is merely an extension of his Domain, as beneficial and crucial as chores or training or picking out clothes or cooking dinner or self-care, and yet continue to separate it on the basis that he isn't entitled to it by default?  
  
And it's like a revelation. He demands it and Charles is here, with him, he wants and Charles responds, and if he didn't, he would stop. But he is, because of course he is. He recognizes his Dominant. And contrary to his usual manner he just balls up the clothes and tosses them aside, and Charles finds himself swiftly pinned to the wall with a lapful of Erik, overgrown and a little nervous. The movement itself is clumsy, but he's careful, too. Nothing jostles, nothing bumps, but Charles is caught like a fly in amber. When Erik drags a fingertip down his throat it sizzles. "You won't look?" his voice fills up the room, dark and low, slipped into that space it normally takes him far longer, far more plying, to reach. And not like this. "Do you think you aren't going to see very shortly?" It sounds like an idle comment, but the Command is there, with Erik's nail dangerously close to his pulse-point. _Look_.  
  
And Charles does. He looks, and now it’s his turn to make noise, a startled, strangled-off one, as if he’s never seen it before. As if he hasn’t had it inside him, in his mouth, as recently as earlier this morning. But for this Charles it is new, incredibly so, and he squirms with it except there’s not much room with Erik right there, and so he whines instead. His heart is just pounding, pounding, pounding, and it feels like the first time. He’s positive, truly, that he’s never met this Erik before, that he’s just never encountered him, but it’s Erik. He’s not frightened, but he’s overwhelmed. His eyes snap closed, his throat bobbing under Erik’s fingers.  
  
This is an Erik who has always been ashamed of himself. Always. He's shaking, fine little tremors through his muscles. A very short while ago he was desperate not to be this, not to be the person who needs like this, who needs so much. Charles thought he was the one. He isn't. Erik will overwhelm him. Drown him in it. Submerge. Hand holding his throat under the water. But the Universe said not to hide, and it wasn't just talking about a picture. The Universe told him that Charles would need more of him, and he didn't understand until this very instant.  
  
"I said look," Erik growls, and it's otherworldly, that searing heat of Will branding Charles's insides as efficiently as Erik's fingers, the ones squeezing his throat enough to wrench a gasp out of him. Erik's eyes are slits as he stares and stares, through Charles and beyond. "Do you know what I hold back?" his rasping entreaty is warm against Charles's ear, and he sees it filter in like sunlight through the blinds. (Is this a mistake? Should he-) Strips of heat along the walls of his mind. He's dusting some shelf, or chopping at the counter, or reading a book or kneeling to help Erik with his shoes, and Erik wants. To keep him on his knees because he's been hit with that pulse of desire that never dissipates and Charles is meant to take care of him, and Erik should expect it and they once discussed training like this, too, but Erik shied away.  
  
And now Charles is down deeper than he's ever seen and all Erik can think of is-hot, humid streaks of Dominion mist from him like steam, brilliant and dark and wet and filthy and adoring all at once, and Erik is submerged below the surface. Further-gone and wide-eyed than he's ever seen him, too. Erik wants to use him. "You are slouching," he reproves harshly, his fingernails skating down to a nipple where he scratches, sharp. "Put your hands on the wall and part your knees, Charles. I taught you better Posture than that." Erik is so hard that all it takes is the touch of Charles's gaze upon him to make him visibly twitch, a bead of white pearling at the tip and Erik's unconsciously biting his tongue over his lip, waiting for Charles to follow his Command.  
  
There’s something different about this. Something utterly, intensely different, and it’s not the way he scrambles to obey, nearly knocking himself because he’s so overeager, because he whimpered when Erik reminded him of his Posture because Erik is right, he does know better. It’s something else, something palpable, and maybe it’s just that for once he doesn’t expect Erik to stop, even unconsciously. He’s not waiting for him, every moment, to just back off. To shy away at the first sign that Charles is uncomfortable, even when that discomfort is normal, natural, even good. Like now. He’s trying so hard not to fidget, to close his legs, to close his eyes. He’d brought it up. Being trained like this, being trained to take care of Erik’s every need, and this is certainly one, but — but Erik had pulled back, and so he’d assumed it just wasn’t something that was right. But it is, isn’t it? Isn’t this part of his training, too? And Charles feels his tongue slip out to wet his lips, belly pooling with desire, too, because he needs to serve. Needs it and wants it and for him, it’s not twisted-up. Not with Erik. Not with his Dominant.  
  
Erik's warm hand encloses over the length of Charles a moment later, but it's not to get him off. It's not to ratchet up his pleasure and his arousal the way he's always done, Erik's always tending to him and looking after him and monitoring him-and he is staring, staring, vivid green eyes blazing in the light of day. It's almost a reminder, drawing Charles's attention to the fact that he is aroused, by this. By what Erik wants. "You will stay still," he growls, "and you will be good. Or you will get no relief." None at all. Not from Erik nor even from his own desires building up and spilling over, as has happened in the past. Nothing. Erik is not playing around anymore. There is no tentative hesitation. He is a grease fire boiled over spreading through Charles's nervous system. "I've had your mouth before, haven't I? Hm?" he splays his fingertips across Charles's cheek, trapping his gaze. Brushing his thumb over Charles's bottom lip.  
  
Charles doesn’t need the reminder. He’s leaking in Erik’s hand, so hard already it hurts, but his mind isn’t on that. And he knows it’s maybe not the thought Erik wants him to have, but it bubbles up and spills over anyway, loud and clear over that budding telepathic connection — good. If he doesn’t get what he wants this one time, then good. Maybe he should misbehave just to prove the point, except the thought is so abhorrent to him right now that he whines at it. It’s stolen from him the second Erik’s thumb touches his lips, and immediately they’re parting for him, sucking it right in without thinking. When he nods his head, it’s slow, everything filtering through strangely, warm and hazy and he still can’t find his voice, for some reason, but he hopes it’s enough. Images immediately flood the both of them, the only ones Charles has — the few times Erik has had his mouth, one in particular that Charles seems very fond of, fingers tugging at his hair and tears leaking out of his eyes.  
  
Erik trails his fingertip up Charles's cock and then that featherlight touch leaves, becomes a hand stroking down his chest for a moment, along his jaw, along those bitemarks Erik's already left there for all to see. Things slide into place from over the last five months. Afraid to admit that he just didn't know what Charles meant when he said that Erik was holding back because he thought he wasn't. He confided, he Ordered, he Ordered everything, he managed every movement, except for this. All the hang-ups and all the fears desperate to spill out. He shouldn't hide, but he isn't allowed-he shakes his head, shakes it off. It's old. Old architecture. Deeply rooted fear that is as instinctive as flinching from fire. There is no Universe where Erik is allowed to pursue his own desires like this. It would be unthinkable. But that's the problem. He can focus on every aspect of Charles for as long as he lives, but he can never meet Charles in this deep-down place until *he reaches back. For himself. Not for Charles. For Erik. "And I let you do as you wished, didn't I?" he continued lowly, and Charles could almost tell where Erik was going with this, but it was just off the periphery. He hadn't lied. Charles had done a wonderful job then and now. But there always did remain something- more. Things that Erik has buried so far below the Earth even he didn't realize they existed. Until the Universe came and buckled that wall.  
  
Charles has always been exceptionally bright, and with that brightness comes intuition. He knows, almost always, what other people simply do not. He’s fast. even without his telepathy. But in this case, Erik is right; he doesn’t know, exactly, what he means. What it could mean. This Charles, unlike the one from before, doesn’t remember all those times that Erik pulled back. He simply knows that he is, indeed, being held back on. That’s not beyond his own intuition. So he bites his lip and he nods, adds a quiet, “Yes, sir,” because he imagines it must be the truth. Erik does it in all things, eventually. There has been leniency. Why would it not apply here, too? He sighs with it, sucks Erik’s thumb further into his mouth to comfort himself. To soothe himself, sensual and far-far-far gone.  
  
"No more," Erik rasps, stroking his fingertips over Charles's lips, and swiftly he rises to his feet, the bed dipping under his (not insignificant; although he's quite underweight for his height and may always be, it's still a lot) weight. That straightens up in a moment though, the softness that might make their positioning a little awkward giving way to a firm surface, leaving Charles well and truly trapped where he is. "You will be taught what I want. How I like. What I need. " This isn't the curious, prodding exploration of earlier. Charles is in bed with an Erik he has never met before. Who has never said any thing approaching those things. "And you will obey. Because you are mine. You serve me."  
  
For just a moment, Charles feels a spike of pure, unadulterated fear. It’s muted down through the connection, but it’s there; fortunately, it’s directed, and it isn’t at Erik. Not really. Actually, it’s quite the contrary -- because what if it stops? What if Erik chooses right now, right here, to pull back again? Charles is afraid of it. He’s afraid because he knows, somewhere very far away, that it might kill him. Not actually, not physically, and it’s all a bit dramatic, but what if things go back to normal? To what he’s perceived, all this time, as normal? With him prodding and pushing the whole way, taking the lead, all but calling the shots or telling Erik when he can call them? And what if Charles pushes and Erik wilts? It’s not a pretty thought, or a flattering one. It’s not one of complete, utter trust, like only moments ago. It’s a slipping-out, for just a second. And then he slips back in. He takes a breath and he lets his beast, that instinctive, deep-down thing purr, blink up at Erik, and then he lets it grin. “What if I don’t?” he wants to know. It’s a dare. It’s a taunt. It’s just as much in his nature as doe-eyed submission, and Erik has always treated it with good humor and indulgence, which is nice, but --  
  
Erik slaps him, hard, across the face, gripping his jaw in hand. "You will. I will punish you. You are mine," he growls, low and blazing, his voice guttural and unrecognizable. It is not stopping. It is never stopping. Charles has been thrust headfirst down a rabbit hole he didn't even know existed. Depths that he's never been. In his own submission, in subspace, and in Erik. "Wrap your fingers around my cock. _Now_." It's the kind of Order he has _never_ gotten. Not. Ever. The words? Sure. Whispered and filthy when they're in bed, before, maybe even now, in the throes. But like this? From the start? Initiated because Erik just _wants_ him to? Never.  
  
Tears immediately gather in his eyes and roll down his cheeks when he blinks. It’s sudden and it’s more the shock of it that gets him than the burst of pain, the sting in the aftermath. He doesn’t even have time to process it before he’s fumbling to do what he’s told, practically tripping all over himself despite his brave talk, he’s just as overeager and breathless as he was moments before. He wraps his hands around Erik’s cock and gasps, chokes, a sound just ripped right out of him like he’s never done it before. He hasn’t, like this. He really hasn’t, and his heart is beating out of his chest and his eyes are wide again and still wet with those shocked tears, but he’s not looking at Erik’s face. He’s staring down at his own fingers, how big Erik is, remembering how it had felt — and he gulps down some air, waiting for more people instructions while his cheek throbs.  
  
"Did you know you loved this, before? Hm? You were learning so well on your own. How to take me deep inside your throat. You wanted it. So it happened. No longer. You will learn now. You will learn by my hand. And if you disobey me you will be put in your place." Erik's eyes are practically black, and it just isn't the kind of Dominance he's displayed for Charles's benefit before. It isn't cold and unfeeling and disjointed. It's like a punch to the gut. And then Erik's hands are there, adjusting Charles's to the correct way. Talking him right through it, words that had no business being so frank, but they rolled right off of Erik's tongue and pelted against Charles's ears as shockingly as any slap. "I said look at me." He brushes Charles's bottom lip with his fingers again. " His hands aren't there anymore. Charles is expected to move on his own, to jerk Erik's cock on his own, with Erik staring blazingly down at him, expectantly, without margin for error. "Against your face. Now." And be lucky, went unsaid, that Erik didn't just shove his dick down Charles's throat without any kind of preparation at all. It is training. Erik won't set him up to fail. But Charles is a great deal more talented and skillful than Erik has really pushed him to, too.  
  
The really interesting thing about all this is, if Charles were how he was before, they might not be capable of doing this anyway. He might balk at the treatment he knows he needs, the words and actions and Dominance he’s craved his entire life, had pushed and pushed and pushed Erik for, claiming he was ready, claiming he was prepared, claiming he was just waiting. Because Charles had twisted himself right up, too, and been twisted long before that. This Charles? He’s wide-eyed, he’s buzzing with nerves, he’s inexperienced and uncertain, but he isn’t afraid. He isn’t at all offended. He isn’t anything but wanting, eager, waiting and listening and craving, desperately, to be good. To be what his Dominant needs of him, to serve, to be taken in hand properly, and hard and ignored and leaking against his belly for it. It’s what he meant, really, when he said he wanted to be trained. It didn’t have to be sexual, though it certainly should be, if Erik had need of it -- but isn’t this the first time Erik is actually training him for himself? For his own desires? And didn’t it seem like all those things he was teaching Charles were frivolous because it was missing this, this entitlement, this -- and Charles whines, overcome, overwhelmed, but unwilling to not listen as he brings Erik’s cock against his face, gasping when it leaks there, streaks fluid. He doesn’t know if it’s insolent to do it without asking permission, but he turns his head to kiss it, his belly fluttering, his heart still racing, soft and reverent. And then he looks up at Erik and opens his mouth, nice and wide. An offering, even though he doesn’t need to offer. Because Charles is responding to this, too. Charles is opening right up, too. Sinking, and sinking, and forgetting nerves, and forgetting embarrassment, and forgetting shame and everything that has always held him back, even with very few memories to inspire it.  
  
It's not just about sex. It never has been, but up until now, that distinction has been easy. Erik doesn't want to just train him like this. He wants to train him. In everything. Every possible thing. And some of it certainly is sexual. Because _Erik_ is. As much as, as much as that makes him feel ashamed. And afraid. And as much as it will continue to do so in the future. He can't control or deny the fact that he is, and that a good portion of his Dominance is tied up in that. When Charles kisses him, though, instead of encouraging it he abruptly grabs Charles by the throat. "Not what you want to do. I did not say. Did I, _neshama_?" his eyes are bright.  
  
Charles gasps again, chokes a bit even though he’s perfectly capable of breathing (for now, and perhaps Erik is just being merciful, a thought that sends a shiver right down his spine) and shakes his head, bright-eyed and wide-eyed and meek, almost. In a way Charles just never really is, but perhaps it’s not meekness at all. Perhaps it’s its own kind of bravery, of strength, of completely letting go. “No, sir,” he whispers, biting his lip. “I’m sorry. I just wanted —“ To please him. That’s all Charles wants. And there’s something inside of him that’s bursting, that’s too much, coiled up in his belly and he doesn’t want to cry but tears are welling up anyway. It does hurt, a little. It’s so horribly tangled up, and he knows Erik can get rid of it. He’s just been begging for it, begging and begging and Erik asked _what would you like, neshama_? and he didn’t know —  
  
Erik has never once thought of Charles as meek. And it isn't what draws him closer. Some Dominants enjoy that, appreciate that, and there is certainly nothing _wrong_ with it. It's not a flaw. It just isn't Charles. Erik studies him like he's about to swallow him whole, and Charles certainly isn't imagining it. Not at all. Erik is absolutely being merciful. And that mercy has run out. He's not going to _literally_ choke Charles, but he does release his throat, where thin red streaks are left of his fingers, and directs him, "Lean your head back. If I see you moving other than what I tell you, you will sorely regret it." Emphasis on sore. "Now open for me." This time when Erik presses in it's not gradual, it's not slow, it's not-well, comparatively speaking, _gentle_. It is, in every sense of the word, entitled. He doesn't slam his way down Charles's throat in what would be an uncharacteristic display of brutality, but he keeps pressing and pressing and pressing forward until Charles is swallowing against him, giving his cheek a little smack in reminder when his eyes break away even for a moment. His voice fills the room, directing every minute movement of Charles's, from how to use his tongue to when to even inhale, his nostrils flared as if picking up the scent of Charles's submission to him.  
  
Before, Charles hadn’t even gotten Erik this far down. He’d barely taken half of him, and Erik had soothed him through that, encouraged him, told him what a good, sweet boy he was for trying his best, for pleasing his Dominant -- this isn’t that. He’s positive that Erik will resurface, that it’s a natural part, but so is this. This creature who looms above him and gives no room for him to falter, even as his eyes water and he begins to cry, even as he chokes, gags, sputters, spit running down his chin as he tries not to panic, to breathe through his nose exactly when Erik tells him. But he isn’t, really, except in body. He isn’t panicked. He isn’t afraid. He’s completely, wholly Erik’s; everything from his mouth to his nervous system, his breathing, his lungs. Everything. Charles surrenders it, willingly, and happily; because the more Erik uses him like this, even as Charles cries, the more he relaxes. The more that restless, horribly-caged energy eases for just a moment, everything in Charles channeled for the moment. And he might need more than this, in the future. Other applications. Other enforcements. But for now, for now? It’s not frightening. It’s exactly what he’s needed this whole time, and he isn’t experienced, he isn’t doing so well -- Erik tells him to swallow and he gags instead, but he tries. He’s eager, he’s open, he’s aching. He looks up at Erik with those tear-stained cheeks and wet, wide blue eyes and tries to apologize that way to say, _Sorry, sir, I’ll do better next time_. And he will. Training takes time. Charles desperately, desperately needs to be trained.  
  
Yes, he will. Erik is mystified. Even like this, unrecognizable, he is _recognizable_. He is Erik. He has Erik's soul. Whatever it is, whatever makes him Erik, he hasn't vanished, disappeared behind shutters or shut down or compartmentalized. He is awed at Charles and it shows, his eyes dark and half-lidded as he Commands Charles to do as he's told, to take what he is given, and so much more has begun to slot in place for him, too, as a result. Charles isn't scared of him. He isn't shying away. He isn't fighting back or bucking against it, or arguing or flinching, as though Erik's half-expected him to stop and patiently explain why he's a monster and why he can't-and he's needed it, too. That Erik still exists, too, warmed by Charles's eager devotion and he crouches at last to frame his cheeks, to praise him for what he's accomplished so far. But it's not like Before. Good job, now we can go back to drinking tea and playing chess. No. It's darker. Less careful. Erik settles himself down on the wall-he hasn't come yet, his dick a painful swell between his thighs and practically glares at Charles, that beast in full repose, one leg casually balancing his arm as he lifts his chin like a Grecian king in waiting. "Get on my lap," he rumbles lowly, Charles still covered in the evidence of his efforts, and he receives a harsh slap on the back of the hand when he raises it, whether he meant to clean himself up or not. Erik isn't done. He will never be done again. Charles woke him up. The Universe woke him up. He will not go back to sleeping. "You will leave it," he growls, like Charles doesn't already know, like he doesn't already want to. Erik just wants to drive the point home.  
  
For a moment, Charles is breathless and staring and unable to move at all, which means he’s unable to obey at all, but he hopes his moment’s hesitation doesn’t come across as defiance because it truly couldn’t be anything more different. More opposite. Wide-eyed, but this time completely in awe. It’s his turn. Erik looks, for the first time for him, like -- and it isn’t that he hadn’t looked Dominant, before. Tall and imposing and in his most confident, assured moments, certainly. But this is something else entirely. This is what a D5 looks like. This is what was missing in the books, and only very rarely and incorrectly speculated on, what Charles could only begin to imagine (and spent a good amount of time fantasizing about). It absolutely takes his breath away, and after being choked on Erik’s cock, he’s panting and nearly wheezing as he stumbles to do what he’s told, whispering a hoarse, “Yes, sir,” as he climbs onto Erik’s lap. He’s shaking all over, but he’s not afraid. He’s in his element, too. He’s where he should be, too. He’s the only one who could ever hope to serve Erik like this, and he doesn’t know how quite yet, but that’s because part of it is that Erik needs to teach him. To mold him. To channel it all out. And he will. Charles, for the first time, believes that he will. For the first time, and he may not remember the frustration and the fear as potently as a Charles before, but his body does. Something does. He's crying, and he might not know why, but he feels the relief. The room is drenched in it. Relief and submission. A kind of submission Erik has never seen before, but is about to.  
  
Good, the whole world whispers back. Good. Erik wants to see it. Needs to see it. Is desperate, has been desperate for it. Nothing knocked out of place or ashamed. As soon as he rather gracelessly climbs over Erik's lap, something that fortunately Erik finds endearing rather than irritating-although he does receive a little jolt along the back of his knuckles for it, because he does know better-he finds Erik staring and staring and staring up at him. He's beautiful like this. He hopes Charles knows, he hopes he sees himself through Erik's eyes. He holds out his hand and a bottle snaps into it after removing itself from the dresser, and he presses it to Charles's fingers. "Get me ready," he rumbles lowly, and usually where Erik would take the lead, where he would do something, this time he isn't. This time he's just watching Charles, expectant, dignified, waiting for him to obey.  
  
Charles freezes up. It’s not defiance. It’s not even fear. It’s panic, for the brief moment it clangs around in his chest, loud and discordant and worked up; because Erik said _only what I say, only what I tell you_ and he’s not sure what that means here. He’s hazy, he’s foggy, and does — is Erik just going to slip right in? Charles is sore from earlier, probably stretched from earlier, but that isn’t to say Erik isn’t big. That he doesn’t need a little help, especially because he’s so sore. But then it disappears. It goes right away. Because that’s not Charles’ decision. If Erik wants to take him like this, then Charles will accept the burn and stretch of it and say thank you, sir. He’ll trust, truly trust, that Erik would never take it too far or seriously damage him, and that if it was too much for Charles for even a second, really too much, he’d stop. So he sucks in a breath and all of that eager need to please comes right back and he spreads the lube on his fingers before he brings them to Erik’s cock, lightly touching at first, looking shy and up through his lashes. He corrects quickly enough, trying to do what Erik had him do before, to stroke him the way he likes, the way he tried to teach him, paying attention to the way he uses his wrist, his grip. He’s desperate, absolutely desperate, to do it right. To earn praise. To earn, in general. To submit. To please, above all else. There’s not even a thought of his own pleasure — it doesn’t belong here. Charles is here to serve. “Like this, sir?” he whispers, pulse racing again, voice still hoarse and raspy. His cheeks go pinker when he hears it.  
  
He never would. He would never take it too far, he would never damage him like that. Never. He keeps an eye on Charles, always, always cataloguing and making sure. He knows that Charles is still a little sore from earlier, which is why, when Charles does finally and liberally coat Erik's cock in lubricant, he reaches his hand up to pat Charles's cheek, eyes fluttering under the treatment. "You are learning very well," he rumbles, his dick warm and hard and beating to his pulse-point in Charles's fingers, twitching at the treatment. He guides Charles's legs to spread on either side of him, dousing his own fingers so that he can slowly and methodically work Charles open for him, just as careful, just as deliberate as he's always been. He isn't keeping track of the time, just watching Charles's face and his fingers as they continue moving over Erik's cock. When he's satisfied that Charles has been prepared to the ends of the Earth and back, he slowly withdraws. "You will go slow," he murmurs, eyes bright and pinning Charles's. "You will guide me inside of you, and you will go at your pace. To start with." In otherwords, Erik expects him to do all of the work. To serve Erik, just like this. "You will tell me if it hurts."  
  
Charles moans and keens beautifully during that long, intensely pleasurable process, and by the end of it he’s shaking and whining in Erik’s arms, blinking blearily at him as if he doesn’t quite understand what he’s been asked to do. The knowledge that he’ll be the one to do the work has him shivering, and then whining, not so much a protest as it is a response he can’t quite stifle. He sniffs loudly into Erik’s shoulder, so deep down he’s absolutely swallowed by it, consumed by it, nothing but pure, raw need to submit, serve, please -- it’s just a mantra, repeating itself over and over, it’s all he wants and knows how to do. So he does what he’s told, scrambling up on shaking legs, steadying himself with Erik’s shoulders, taking shuddering, panting breaths, and when he begins to sink down he whimpers. Even with Erik’s preparation he’s sore, his hole oversensitive and puffy after the thorough fucking he’d taken earlier, and he closes his eyes and trembles. It’s one thing to have Erik push him down on his cock and another entirely to do it all on his own, and he’s just -- he’s just -- “Sir,” he croaks, desperate.  
  
But Erik's eyes are locked on him. He touches Charles's cheek, head tipping back a little. He's giving Charles the opportunity to collect himself, but he won't give him forever. When Charles is too-much trapped above him Erik growls softly, "Do you need a refresher course? I trust I made myself clear." An eyebrow raised, pointedly. He's almost smiling. Charles can be desperate, he can be nervous, he can be a great many things given he is also doing what he's told.  
  
The thing is, Charles isn’t meek. He isn’t, even trembling and gasping over Erik’s cock, the thick head barely popped inside. He isn’t, even when he’s way, way way down. So he pants, and he stares back, blinking and overcome, and then he shakes his head, despite shivering because he knows how dangerous that is right now. “You said my pace,” he points out, and it is very much talking back, especially without the title. Normally Charles would grin, but now he squirms, which of course means he moans, overwhelmed at the stretch and stuffed feeling all over again.  
  
And Erik knows, if his reaction is any consolation. Charles gets a loud, bruising smack to his ass, but Erik doesn't just shove him down and have his way. "At first," Erik growls. "So that you do not hurt yourself. Judging by your propensity for humor, I would say you are free from that burden. More. _Now_." Erik scratches him along the throat.  
  
Charles wails at the slap, immediately crying despite having taken much more even in very, very recent memory, which is likely part of it. He’s sore, not just outside but inside, but he knows better than to talk back and disobey a Command twice, especially when he knows exactly how much sorer he can be by the end of this. So he nods and whispers, “Yes, sir,” even as he whimpers, even as he sinks a little bit lower. It’s sore. It’s too much. He’s trembling and his legs are shaking, but he whines and forces himself to take more, to sit further down, gasping, panting, because Erik wants it. It’s not for him. He’s clenching and stuffed and oversensitive and he looks up at Erik with tears in his eyes, biting hard at his lip. “Hurts,” he whispers, hoarse, except he likes it. It couldn’t be more obvious, his eyes blown wide.  
  
"Good," Erik rumbles, pleased. "And more. Lower yourself more. Not your pace. Not anymore. My pace." But not by Erik setting it. He fully expects that Charles will go at Erik's pace. On his own. Erik sits in waiting, eyeing up his submissive expectantly. Fondly, even. "More. Open yourself up on my cock. Let me see you. Do not look away," he raps Charles's jaw sharply.  
  
It’s like Erik knew he had every impulse to, not because he doesn’t want to see, to look at Erik, to look at his Dominant for direction, for guidance, for signs that he’s pleased, but because it’s so much. Because it’s so much, and he’s whining with it, taking harsh, shaky breaths, lifting himself up on shaking legs for leverage so he can slowly lower himself down, and down, and down, whimpering the whole time. By the time he’s sitting in Erik’s lap, settled down on his thighs, he’s an absolute mess. He’s sweating, hair damp with it, whimpering constantly, shivering, trying not to look away but every instinct says to find a safe spot in Erik’s neck and hide, just for a bit. He doesn’t. He doesn’t because his Dominant told him not to, and he’s a good boy. He listens. He’s overwhelmed, he’s stuffed so impossibly full, he’s sore all the way inside of him, but Erik is nudging that place and every time he shifts even slightly Charles gasps. There are tears down his cheeks. Erik didn’t need to do much to wreck him like this; he was already there, already exactly where he needed to be, and now the room is humming and it’s not restless, chaotic, discordant energy. It’s all channeled to Erik’s Will.  
  
"Beautiful," Erik rumbles. And that's how Charles know that it's his Erik, even like this. He doesn't let Charles hide away. He doesn't let him get away with anything other than his expectations. But he touches Charles's cheek and whispers beautiful like it's its own form of prayer. "It should have been this way," he gasps, his voice threatening to wobble. "It should always have been like this." Why didn't he know any better? He was still learning. He still will. Not everything is solved, not everything is fixed, but this-Erik wraps his hand around Charles's throat again, scratches him along his jaw. "Move," he whispers, and it's soft and gentle and still very much a Command.  
  
It should have been this way. But it’s this way now, and Charles is a panting, breathless, eager mess, tears staining his cheeks as he smiles, watery and with dimples peeking out on both sides of his reddened cheeks. Even as Erik scratches him, even as he grabs at his throat, especially then. It’s difficult around all the shaking but he takes a punched-out, slow breath and nods, mumbles, “Yes, sir,” and inhales deeply before he leans up and very promptly drops himself down. The noise that escapes him is utterly ruined, a high, distressed-pleasured keen, his head thrown all the way back as he cries and shakes and still, because his Dominant Commands it, manages to rock back and forth, to try and please him. To do as he’s told. “Sir — sir,” he’s whimpering, and he doesn’t know what he’s trying to say except that he’s so desperate to be good, to please, to serve. It hurts and it aches and it’s too much and he wants — he needs — but it doesn’t matter, does it? For once, it is about his Dominant. About serving, properly. Exactly how it should be like this. Exactly as is his right.  
  
Erik makes a low sound in the back of his throat, something that isn't intentional to be sure, but it nevertheless winds its way down through Charles's ears like every other part of this experience; heightened. Magnified. He touches Charles's cheek, as if to say, be easy. But he certainly isn't saying for him to stop. Erik rubs his thumb along Charles's throat, his nostrils flaring at those sounds. His. Charles belongs to him and he always will. He has this, now. He leans up, nipping Charles's ear. "You're doing very well," he purrs, and maybe now would be the part that he decides to take over, except he still doesn't. It's Charles's responsibility. It's his place. For once Erik won't help him. Fortunately it doesn't seem like he has to do that much work, because he can feel Erik hot and hard and insistent inside of him, a warmth that pulses to his heartbeat, that twitches with every movement. He likes this. A lot. And it shows.  
  
And Charles needs more than he’s ever needed anything to please Erik right now. He’s a sweating, whimpering mess, hair stuck to his forehead and tears down his cheeks and still he gets up again on his shaking legs and he gets to work. He starts to bounce in Erik’s lap, practically screaming every time he sits back down and Erik just rubs that place inside of him, toes curling, head thrown back, panting and panting and trying not to stop. It’s so distinctly pleasurable it feels a bit like pain, overwhelmed, screaming sensation, the whole world drenched in it. “Sir, sir —“ he’s gasping, over and over, as if he can’t quite remember anything else. His cock bounces with him, leaking and so hard and so ignored against his belly, slapping, and he isn’t even considering it. Could never. This is for Erik. Charles tries to squeeze him just right because he thinks that might feel good, tries to get the angle right, tries not to tremble or falter or fumble too much, even as he’s clumsy and already exhausted. He just wants to be good. He just needs to be good. Does Erik see how desperately he’s trying? For him? For his Dominant?  
  
Erik's lips are parted as if he's forgotten how to speak and for a moment he may well have, his hands dig into Charles's ass, leaving long, crescent-shaped marks. "Mine," he growls back, not particularly intelligent, and usually he is-but electricity zaps through his whole body and does flips in his stomach and he can't stop staring, and it's different. It's different, uncoordinated, clumsy, like the first time he realized he could give Charles an Order and it would be followed. He claps the back of his hand over his mouth, eyes wide where they're still visible as Charles clenches against him and he shoves down the gasp that causes. He sees. He doesn't want to ever see anything else again. And Charles knows, and he can tell, that Erik is still holding himself back, not from anything he could do, but just from himself, from being free with himself, everything is tense and withdrawn and stifled as if he's realized that he's gone too far and he can't-he doesn't want to-sully it up. Intrude. Take away.  
  
Charles sees, too. Something choked off slips past his lips, which wouldn’t be much to remark on considering the constant noise he’s making, but this one is sad. Mournful. For a moment, everything ramps down. The room stops buzzing and churning and absolutely vibrating with energy, quieting to a soft rumble. Charles slows, too, just rocking back and forth instead of the enthusiastic bouncing he was doing, his eyes closed now. He whimpers, low, sad, frustrated.  
  
"No," Erik growls, gripping Charles's cheek. "What's wrong. Tell me. Now." It's not particularly brilliant, articulated answer, and Erik's eyes are clamped shut, but they pop open now, and the overwhelming energy that had been in the room is replaced with Erik's muted distress. He doesn't know what happened. What he did wrong. But it hurts.  
  
Charles is crying when he opens his eyes, and his distress isn’t muted. It’s loud, and clanging, and overwhelming. He has no ability to hide or mute down or shift away anymore. He’s not. “Hiding from me, sir,” he whispers, biting his lip to keep it from wobbling pathetically. It still does. He closes his eyes again, clenches unconsciously where Erik is still buried all the way inside, where he’s sitting on his Dominant’s thighs. “Want — want you close,” he sniffles. But Erik is still stifling, and it’s not his fault, but Charles can feel it. See it. It hurts. It hurts.  
  
"Close?" he whispers, and it's different and yet it's not, from the grueling task master known only moments beforehand. His eyes are creased and he looks unsettled, apologetic once again because he keeps failing and he keeps trying and he keeps failing. He touches Charles's cheek. "Closer than this?" he tries to huff warmly, brushing Charles's hair from his temple to give it a kiss.  
  
Charles huffs, too, but it’s just sad. He’s not bent out of shape, he’s not twisted up, he’s just sad. He shivers at the kiss to his temple, squeezes Erik inside of him and lets out another choked, overwhelmed whimper, resting his head on Erik’s shoulder. “Please, no hiding, sir,” he begs. “Please. You promised.” Erik isn’t failing. He’s just not letting go, and if Charles is going to, he needs to. Charles knows he can. He knows he will. But he’s sad he’s not getting it now, and he won’t apologize for that this time. He can’t, like this. All he knows is his Dominant is still holding back and he’s sad. “Closer,” he demands, and gets shy a moment later, ducking further into Erik.  
  
At the clench around him, which feels like it's everywhere, Erik lets out a soft breath and his forehead bows against Charles's; he isn't quite sure what he means by holding back, only that he's still so tense, but Charles is soothing him. His eyes flutter and then again, it happens again, Charles tensing all around him and he gasps, a sound loud enough to fill the room even as it would ordinarily be deemed quiet and Erik's mouth drops open, his fingernails digging into Charles's skin. He promised, but he doesn't even know what that really means. How does he know? How does he know Erik can? What if he can't? What if he doesn't even know-he swallows roughly, biting sharply down on his lip as he leans back against the wall. "Charles-" he groans, eyes blinking up at the ceiling. Untensing. Little by little. Letting it out, letting it sweep all the way through them both.  
  
And Charles just absolutely soaks it up. He feeds off of it, whining loudly when Erik makes that noise, encouraging it, clenching and shivering. “More, please, sir,” he begs, and he means more of that. More of Erik opening up, being free with himself and his desires, with Charles, letting go. Because he can. It’s the only way he’ll meet Charles where he’s at, in this deep, deep place. His legs are shaking still but he takes a sharp breath and lifts himself up, because Erik didn’t tell him to stop, didn’t say he couldn't if Erik is faltering he won’t. He can’t. He has to be good. So he takes a breath, and another, and another, and loses it as soon as he drops himself back down on Erik’s cock, head thrown back again as he wails, moans, cries, his own nails dug into Erik’s back.  
  
" _Oh_ -" Erik gasps, every muscle in his body vibrating readiness. It's a slow process, so slow-Charles finds that spot behind his ear and he jolts and it's for him, Charles wants him. "Charles-" he wheezes, half-laughing. He looks. Because this is for him. No one else. And somehow before this very moment he didn't seem to comprehend-but he does. It's for him. The room is soaked in Will. "Come here," Erik rasps lowly, shifting Charles on his lap, so he can fuck him exactly how he likes, teaching and learning in return. "Like this?" he crinkles his nose, silly, and taps Charles's nose, too.  
  
 _Like this_. Charles is just completely, utterly gone by now, so deep under he can’t breathe, but fortunately he seems to need Will and Dominion more than oxygen at the moment. He tries to rest on Erik’s shoulder, to hold on as he’s rocked, as his Dominant guides him to fuck himself the way he wants Charles to be fucked, and it feels so good. It’s for Erik. It’s all for Erik, but it feels so good and he’s whimpering with it, overcome, overwhelmed, his dick leaking and slapping against his belly as he moves. “Hh — sir,” he moans, and it’s all he can say. It really is. He curls himself into Erik’s neck, gasping, crying, trying to find purchase. He knows he shouldn’t hide, but he isn’t. It’s just so much. It’s not just the room that’s bursting with energy anymore. It’s the entire house. The world. He doesn’t notice. What should he do? What is he meant to do? Please, tell him. Show him. Teach him.  
  
Erik blinks tears out of his eyes, touching them curiously as they track down his cheeks; but they're there. Erik is there. Arms wrapped around him in the morning light as hair curls along his temple and sun streaks through the wooden slats. It's how their days begin and end. Right here in this room, together. Awake. What is he meant to do? He is meant to teach the world. To change it as drastically as anyone in history ever could. With Erik by his side, the groundskeeper of the Universe, a role proudly accepted. At this moment in time, though, all Erik can think to do is gasp, all Erik can think for Charles is that he should be here, always, just like this, always. Erik tenses all over very suddenly, but this time it has nothing to do with hiding. He draws his fingertip down Charles's cock and grins down at him, and it's just as sudden for Charles, too, his release. " You make me so happy," Erik rumbles. "You've always made me so happy, you've done such a wonderful job. A reward," he laughs, nudging upward right into that place that makes Charles keen.  
  
It makes Charles sob. It makes him sob, relief and gratitude, and he doesn’t come explosively once he knows that he’s allowed, that he’s being rewarded because Erik doesn’t have to let him, not this time, because the focus was never on him; he just cries, whines, grateful, so very, unbelievably grateful, so devoted. He nestles into Erik’s shoulder and doesn’t at all move off of his cock, whimpering sadly when it begins to soften because all he wants is to be full, to be full of his Dominant, to make him feel good, to please him. There are other ways to do that and he’ll gladly, happily do them, is desperate to be told to, but right now he’s sad for it to be done, overwhelmed and oversensitive and whimpering into Erik’s neck, mouthing there, and he’s reached somewhere no one else ever could. They’re somewhere else, now, and they aren’t. Somewhere Between and somewhere Right Here. Charles sniffles, whispers, “Thank you, sir.”  
  
It won't be done. It never will be. Never again. Erik runs his fingertips down Charles's spine, delighted by the sparks that dance beneath his skin, tumbling headfirst into Elsewhere without a second glance. No fear, no apprehension, because he's with Charles. And that's enough. And he remembers, somewhere far off in the back of his mind, not consciously, not physically, but-it's there, swirling around. Where he'd been. What he'd done. What was done to him. And it's so very different from this moment, right here. He doesn't understand why he's crying, but the Universe does. It's not mournful, it couldn't be farther from it. "You're mine," he breathes out, and it's not so much a growled declaration as it is a discovery, all over again. Wonder.


	120. The stench of it, the rendering, the energy

“I’m yours,” Charles agrees, and there are equal parts wonder there. Awe, and gratitude, and choked up, raw emotion, his throat sore from more than what Erik put it through earlier as he sniffles and shifts in Erik’s lap, whining because he doesn’t want him to be gone, to be outside of him, he just wants to be able to burrow properly into Erik’s skin. He’s not sure if it’s allowed, but if it isn’t he’ll stop right away, he promises. It’s just warm like that, and comforting, and it gives him a spot to rest as he reaches up and wipes away Erik’s tears, smiling softly, craning his head to kiss at one that’s fallen down to Erik’s jaw. “No more holding back, sir?” he whispers, hopeful. So hopeful. He means the both of them.  
  
It's like promising never to lie. You can't promise that and be telling the truth. And Erik said he wasn't going to hold back, so he tells the truth, stroking his fingers through Charles's hair, shifting him himself so that he's situated exactly where Erik wants him. "We will always endeavor to be open," he whispers. He doesn't want to hold back anymore. But he knows that he isn't healed, yet. And there is still so much left to do. But it is a promise. To continue being open, to continue to work toward being open and full and present, just like this. It is a turning point, a place of hopefulness. That Erik can see that he hasn't held back here and that Charles grew from it, he wasn't suppressed, he wasn't crushed into the dirt, and every time that happens it touches something new in Erik, too.  
  
Charles sighs, but it isn’t displeased or upset or frustrated; just an acknowledgement, a soft, quiet thing, his head lolled against Erik’s shoulder even though he isn’t the least bit tired. “I need to be trained,” he whispers. “And you need to train me. That’s why we’re here, sir.” It’s just a bit more complicated than they’d thought it was.  
  
That, Erik can promise. It's opened up this inside of him. "I need to," he rasps softly, kissing Charles's temple. "You need to be trained. By me. I won't hold back like this anymore. Maybe i won't always get it right. I might get scared. But you are mine. And we will get through that. And you will learn. All the ways that you are meant to learn, by my hand. In every respect. You will not fall out of place. I will be there to put you back. Every time." Erik inhales softly, his hand still sifting through Charles's hair. He said he'd promise not to hold back. The Universe told him. Told him that he shouldn't always try to rely on his own strength, that Charles was strong enough, that it hurt him to be separated even from Erik's pain. "I had a reaction," he finally says, pulled out of the depths of himself. He doesn't know if he should even be open about this, if it's even the right time. But he promised to try.  
  
“A reaction?” Charles blinks, still hazy, still so deep beneath the water he couldn’t possibly find the surface. It’s murky down here, and somehow incredibly, unbelievably clear. He closes his eyes, worried but lazy, because Erik hasn’t moved him and that must mean he’s pleased enough with Charles drifting like this. “What do you mean?” he asks, reaching up to touch Erik’s cheek, trailing a finger down to his jaw, just idle, almost curious touches.  
  
Erik is very pleased, so pleased he has to stop and just hum at him, delighted. He runs his fingertips down Charles's spine, relishing the little twitches and sparks beneath his skin. "To that-to-" G-d, it's so hard. To bring it up now, but when else? When else than when he promised he would? He promised the whole World he would. "To that picture. Of you." It's barely audible.  
  
It takes Charles’ brain a bit to catch up, because it’s difficult like this. Hazy like this, slower, reliant on Erik and not so much his constantly racing, constantly seeking mind. But when it does, he tenses up, frowning against Erik’s skin. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. He shouldn’t have shown Erik. It wasn’t right. He knew it would upset him. “Can you — can you tell me why?” he asks, because he knows he needs to. Because he knows Erik needs to, too, even if it will hurt.  
  
Erik shushes him with a kiss to the temple, his lips curving against Charles's skin. "You should have shown me because I asked," he corrects softly. "You are mine and we promised no more hiding." He let's out a long, quiet breath. It sounds stupid every way he can think to verbalize it. Hell, he doesn't even really understand fully all the implications involved. He's starting to, being out in the world and exposed to real perspectives, enough to feel shame and confusion but it's not altogether connected up. "I just-" he stutters. "I know-" his eyes close. "I know you don't remember. But you did and you will. And I know how, how it feels. And I wish you never felt that."  
  
It all clogs up in Charles’ throat. He feels his throat itch and the tears on his cheeks before he recognizes he’s crying, but all he does is nuzzle further into Erik’s skin, sniffling softly. “I don’t —“ Remember. He shakes his head, because Erik knows, and it isn’t helpful for him to say it. That’s not the point. “When I do remember, you’ll be here, sir,” he whispers, which is the only comfort he can give both of them. “And you can help me. You help me.”  
  
"I will," Erik promises softly, kissing his forehead and tucking him in closer, wrapping him up in his arms like a shroud away from the whole world. Charles doesn't remember, but Erik does. He remembers everything, and he's seen things, he knows things, he's put things together. Despite how people might perceive him, he is not stupid. He understands more than everyone knows. It must be stupid, though, for him to pretend to have any idea what it's like. Why his heart reaches out to try to soothe, as if he could. How could he help. He doesn't know. He lets out a harsh laugh, eyes crushing shut. There must be a vault of this stuff somewhere, painstakingly scrutinized as evidence. Not for the first time, Erik is extraordinarily grateful that Charles doesn't have his memories. He takes a slow, shaky breath, exhales and smiles against Charles's skin. "I will be here. Always."  
  
Charles frowns, peeking up from his safe spot in Erik’s chest. “You’re still hurting,” he sighs, but he isn’t put out. It’s just that like this, he hurts, too; but the Universe is right. It would hurt even more if Erik hid from him, ache even worse. He touches Erik’s cheek, just a light, gentle touch. “Talk to me. Let me help,” he whispers. He shifts restlessly, uncomfortably for a moment, but tries to settle back down. Erik doesn’t like when he fusses, but he can’t really help it, all the shifting and fidgeting. He’s getting restless again.  
  
"Be still," Erik whispers the Order softly, a swaying lavender stalk along the shore. His lips quirk up against Charles's hand, laying a kiss to the center of his palm. "It just reminds me of-of things," he whispers. Tries to downplay it, soothe, ease. He's sorry. He pets Charles's back. "Things in my-my, uh," he stutters, swallowing roughly and rubbing his cheek against Charles's hand instead. "My life."  
  
If there’s a single Order Charles disobeys most, it’s that one, and there’s no difference now, despite best efforts. As soon as he can he’s squirming again, whimpering when it rubs all those sore places, frowning before it’s displacing things and he was perfectly content where he was, except — unable to be, somehow. Restless. “I know,” he whispers back, and pats Erik’s cheek sadly. He doesn’t know how to help, and it’s eating at him. Chipping away. “It’s alright for it to upset you, sir. You’re allowed to be sad about it.” And not break Charles in the process, not take up too much space or hurt him. He’s just allowed.  
  
It makes Erik growl and he shifts to laying Charles right down along the mattress, pressing against him and holding him in place. He will obey. Erik will make him. Erik presses his cheek against Charles's, nuzzling softly. He doesn't reply in words, he isn't too sure he can, but it helps. Just like this.  
  
Charles whines, frowning softly as he fusses beneath his Dominant, reaching up to grab at him. It’s bold and maybe insolent and he knows it, which makes his heart pound right now, but he tugs gently at Erik’s hair. “You have to help,” he insists, huffing. All this energy, and it’s still pent up. What they just did helped, but he needs more, and this time he’s not ashamed of it. He knows he needs Erik. He knows he needs guidance. He knows he needs everything channeled and controlled. And this is the first time, the first time, that he’s really, truly not afraid or embarrassed of that.  
  
Charles finds both of his hands pinned above his head. "No. I said still. You do not disobey me." It's a low rumble, and he spreads his fingertips over Charles's face. "Tell me how. What you need. Now." The Will that flutters through the room is unmistakable, almost sweltering.  
  
Charles tries not to choke on it, but he makes a low, half-wounded noise, whimpering. “You have to tell me, you have to use me, sir,” he breathes, biting his lip. He needs to be put to use. Too much energy, too much pressure, too much. “Put me to use, please,” he begs, and it’s different because it’s still not ashamed. But he does pout, even still. “No staying still,” he argues, huffing.

* * *

There isn't much for Charles to do, physically, at this point other than submit to the force of Erik's Command. Which presses him as painstakingly into the mattress as his body. He solidly bites the back of Charles's neck, luring him closer into yielding. Charles asks him for this a lot, to put him to use, but Erik doesn't really know what that means; not specifically. And maybe he's been avoiding admitting that, because he doesn't want Charles to feel like he wants too much. He doesn't. Erik just doesn't always know what it is. He just knows that he needs for Charles to relent and relax, and cease struggling, and the more that energy rises in him the more it rises in Erik in return.  
  
But he never really can. He tries; but Erik usually Orders this, when Charles starts to get restless and fuss, tells him to breathe, to just breathe and to be still and to relax, and — tears gather up in Charles’ eyes before he can stop it because he can’t hide much like this. It’s not fair, but it always feels a little like a punishment. Either way he nods, biting down harder on his lip. “Yes, sir,” he whispers, dutifully. Because he doesn’t want to disobey, like this.  
  
Erik grumbles to himself, and puts Charles's hand on his chest. He's tense, and agitated, and feeling a little stupid and once more inadequate, and it's the only impulse that makes any sense. He's tense, he can't relax. Charles wanted to help. He's supposed to help. Erik doesn't know how, except this feels right. Charles touching him.  
  
Charles wilts, closing his eyes and frowning, but it’s not because of Erik; it’s shame, really. It’s back. Because Erik is always asking him to do something and he just can’t do it, not really, and that must mean he’s rather worthless as far as submissives go. It’s the one Order he can’t seem to follow, no matter what he does. So he touches Erik’s chest the way he’s guided to and offers a watery, soft little smile, even as he starts to squirm on the bed again, or tries. “Can we go get breakfast, sir?” he asks, because it’s still morning and it’s still his birthday and at least it means he’s out of the bed, if they’re not going to do anything in it. He needs to do something. “I can help,” he offers, because it’s something, at least. It’s something.  
  
Erik grins all of a sudden, quick and shy, and leaps up out of bed, holding out his hand for Charles to take. He tugs him close when he does and gives him a warning nip of disapproval, sensing the turn of his thoughts as if he were the telepath. Charles belongs to Erik. It's Erik's decision, it's Erik's opinion, not Charles's, of what kind of submissive he is. He drapes Charles's shoulders in a fluttery, shimmering cape and produces a little hat, placing the strap under his chin. And a noisemaker, for good measure. He blows it out so that it thwaps Charles along the cheek. "Birthday," he smiles.  
  
Charles tries to laugh, too. He really does want to smile back at his Dominant, especially over something like this. Especially because he’s trying so hard to make Charles’ birthday as good as possible, especially because he’s doing everything he can. He tries. It sounds hollow, though, and the smile feels odd, forced, and he ducks his head into Erik’s chest. “Birthday,” he tries to peek up a grin, but it just comes out strained, his teeth grit together.  
  
Erik touches his cheek with two fingers. "Tell me," is all he says, but Charles knows exactly what he means. No more hiding. He promised.  
  
And then Charles does something he truly doesn’t expect himself to do and turns his face away, letting out a grumbling, huffy noise of his own. “It’s never enough,” he mumbles, ashamed and uncomfortable and entirely too deep into subspace.  
  
Erik turns his face back, though. "I didn't tell you to look away," he replies softly. "What is never enough?" Erik? That's the first thing that comes to mind, and he tries not to wince, tries not to stop breathing, because he knows. He knows he isn't.  
  
No, not Erik. Charles huffs and turns his face again, this time more than a little defiantly. “Everything. It’s never enough. I want to go downstairs,” he sighs, but he doesn’t turn to leave. He’s just uncomfortable, and ashamed, and all restless, shifting from foot to foot, squirming around. “It’s too much inside of me. And I — it’s never enough,” he just sighs again.  
  
He finds himself bumping into the wall, pinned there under Erik's body weight and he presses Charles's cheek into the plaster, giving his hands a sharp rap across the knuckles. "What. isn't." The words are enunciated slowly, almost dangerously as Erik's Will flares again.  
  
Charles tries to bat his hands whining, which is not the proper reaction, but he’s essentially pouting against the wall at this point. “You always just tell me to be still and I can’t because it’s all loud and — I keep asking you to make me do things, just use me for something, but you don’t, you do everything and then you say be still, just relax, and I can’t! I can’t,” he whispers, voice cracking now.  
  
He tries, unsuccessfully. "If there is something you want to do, you will ask me for it. Otherwise you will just do as I say, not pout and whine and make demands at me. Now, we're going downstairs, and you're going to help me get things set up, and you're going to cease this before I bring you straight back up here. Am I understood."  
  
No, apparently not, because Charles goes back to trying to wiggle and shove his way out of Erik’s arms. “Why do I always have to ask?” he demands, suddenly sour. “And I’ll do what you tell me to, but I always tell you I need to be told things and you just say — fine, then sit still,” he sighs, squirming. Restless. “Well, I can’t! I have the Universe inside of me, apparently, and it doesn’t like to sit still!” It feels like he’s vibrating with it. He can feel it in his teeth, a sharp, distinct ache.  
  
"I don't know Charles, because I'm fucking incompetent!" Erik bangs his fist into the wall, the words growled lowly. "Why do you think you have to ask. Why do you think I don't tolerate you just raising your voice at me over nothing and making demands out of me and bossing me around, why do you think I don't like that. I'm not telling you to sit still. I'm telling you to go downstairs. Or at least, I was. That ship has sailed."  
  
“Stop doing that, you absolute Neanderthal!” Charles is more concerned than he is angry, trying to wriggle out enough that he can grab for Erik’s hand and stare at it, accessing for damage. It shouldn’t hurt, because Charles is always monitoring for that, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be damaged. Erik has been able to use it, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe to just go pounding it into walls. “Every time you get upset you don’t have to hurt yourself, I hate that —“ And he’s crying again, tears down his cheeks. Because he’s too deep in subspace for this and it hurts and now he can’t breathe.  
  
Uh, yeah, it's damaged. Erik makes a noise in the back of his throat, wounded, when Charles grabs for it. It's limp in Charles's hold, and Erik is staring, as if he doesn't quite know what just happened.

* * *

Charles huffs out a breath, trying not to just lose it and sob, and cradles it carefully. He can help. He can at least make it feel better, if nothing else, and he’s better than any ice pack. Just because he’s feeling restless and fussy, just because the Universe is pushing in and ringing in his ears, doesn’t mean he can’t help here. So he tries, he does, closing his eyes and focusing. And it helps.  
  
Erik has been trying to push it away and ignore it and sublimate it and it's just coming out anyway, like this. All he can do is try harder. "It's your birthday. I put a lot of effort into doing this, and it's fine if you don't like it, but let's just go downstairs and you can help me with breakfast, OK?" he submerges it even further, before he breaks his hand into a bloody stump on the wall like he wants to.  
  
And it just makes Charles cry harder, because there’s the knife, twisted right into his gut. His hands immediately come up to his own face now that Erik isn’t pinning him to the wall, keeping him in place, his shoulders shaking. He nods, jerky, but he’s really sobbing to do much of anything, so he just doesn’t. He just stands there while the world starts to vibrate and tremble and shake with him, and he knew, he knew, he knew — now he wants to hit the wall, but instead everything flies off the shelves instead, knocks itself over, crumples up, distorts, screeches. Charles nods again, opens his mouth to say yes, sir, as if he isn’t destroying everything, but nothing comes out.  
  
Erik struggles, and almost fails, not to be frustrated, not to react out of exasperation. "Stop it now and pick this stuff up," the Order itself presses him back against the wall like wind. "And instead of throwing a tantrum at me and tossing everything around-" he just shakes his head and turns away abruptly.  
  
Charles huffs around his sobbing, but it does stop. It stops, immediately, as soon as Erik Orders it. All of it stops, in a way it didn’t before, even as he continues to cover his face and cry. “Not a tantrum,” he sniffs.  
  
Erik suppresses a shudder as he works to inhale, slow and steady and shaking. "I know," he whispers at last. He touches Charles's shoulder, even though he probably shouldn't be using that hand. Honestly, Charles is probably the one out of them both who isn't having a tantrum, since Erik evidently is.  
  
And Charles shudders, too, sighs, sniffles, and the truth is he was having a tantrum, at least a bit. He leans into Erik’s hand, even as he keeps his eyes firmly closed and his face covered, still crying hard enough to shake himself up. “You’re so afraid,” he whispers. And it makes Charles afraid. The shelves tremble again.  
  
Erik rubs the thumb of his good hand over Charles's cheek. "Afraid?" he whispers. He can't deny that he is, but he doesn't really know-he doesn't even know. Charles has always been more perceptive than him. He doesn't know his own mind, half the time. He doesn't really know what's happening or why he's-his fingers twitch a little. Or what's wrong.  
  
“Of yourself,” Charles sighs, and he’s back to pouting, to squirming, even though Erik isn’t even holding him anymore. And he’d truly believed, with all his heart, that maybe it wouldn’t end. That he would continue to be unafraid, to stay in that Dominion that matched Charles’ subspace. Because he’s still there, and thinking about it makes him sob again, his shoulders shaking harder. “I — I didn’t mean to — M’ sorry —“  
  
"I'm sorry," Erik gasps, pressing his hand to his mouth. He touches his own chest, eyes reddened, voice warbling in his throat.  
  
Charles squeezes his eyes tighter and he whines, low and affected, groans, feels the whole room vibrate and start to shake again and then apparently takes a leaf out of Erik’s book, because he turns to face the wall and promptly bangs his head on it, which does nothing except make him cry harder and see double. But it was worth a shot. It’s better than feeling like this.  
  
Erik doesn't let him, and he finds himself tugged back into Erik's arms instead. Everything, the entire Universe itself, is telling him that it's OK, but he can't-push past it, past himself. There's something at work under the surface, has been since he woke up amidst the room tearing itself apart, and he's been trying to push it down and away but it isn't working. And he keeps letting everyone down. And he can't fix it. He can't fix himself.  
  
Charles’ head hurts. Charles’ heart hurts. He sobs in Erik’s arms, pushing uselessly at him, uncertain if he wants closer or to get away. He’d believed it, and it isn’t fair. He’d believed it. Everything abruptly falls off the shelves at once and throws itself at the wall, and that’s a tantrum as sure as anything. “Stop it!” he demands. “Just stop it!” Because he’s dropping, and it isn’t fair. He’s sweating and panicked and it isn’t fair. Erik is built for this and he’s sick of going round in circles, and the room is shaking, and everything abruptly slams itself into the other wall. Something cracks outside.  
  
"It's not going to end," Erik rasps softly, running his fingers through Charles's hair. His heartbeat is unsteady, fluttering fast and hard in his chest and his breathing is off-kilter. "So just tell me what is wrong," he adds the Order roughly, trying to suppress the ringing in his ears. He presses his hand against his own chest. "Like I told you to from the start, instead of this. I'm trying to help. But you listen to me. Not this." He pokes a finger into Charles's chest, from his bad hand, wincing. "And you keep this up and see how long it lasts. You have one opportunity to answer my question or we're done here. I advise you take it. _Yell at me again_ ," he interrupts Charles's latest outburst, his own voice cracking through the room like a bolt of thunder. It isn't a shout, but it's just as effective. "Raise your voice at me again."  
  
“I’m not yelling, but you’re the one who isn’t listening,” and it isn’t in a raised voice, it’s in a whisper. The room shakes and trembles again, and something breaks. Snaps. Crunches. He glares down at the floor instead of Erik, still crying. “It doesn’t matter what I tell you, what I show you, what I say. You always do this. And I can’t help you.” And it’s hurting him. It’s killing him, because it was never him that wasn’t ready for this. He’s always been eager to be trained. It’s Erik that needed the coaxing. And Charles had believed, for a good thirty minutes, that Erik was meeting him. But now he’s back to feeling ashamed, and wrong, and small but actually much too big, and it isn’t fair.  
  
"Well I could have told you that," Erik growls, gritting his teeth. That it's his fault, that he knows he isn't enough, that he's too damaged and incapable. It's what he's known since the beginning. "Now put this stuff back where it belongs." The Order is low, deadly quiet. "All of it."  
  
It makes Charles choke, then cry harder, dissolving right into himself. Bringing his hands up to his face again. But he does exactly as he’s told, potentially just because he’s been Ordered, though he couldn’t before; he picks everything up, and it sets itself nicely back where it was. It feels better, too. It does. Too bad Charles waits a moment to breathe before he picks it up and throws it again, this time enough to curve reality, to bend Erik’s bedroom until it looks sideways, and that feels good, too. He takes a shuddering breath.  
  
"Get upstairs, now," Erik hauls him by his arm, the demand harsh and unwavering. "Put it right and get into Child's Pose."

* * *

In his defense, Charles whines, something that might seem deferent or even submissive as he scrambles into the correct Posture — whimpering, frowning, because he hates it — but everything goes back. Before it doesn’t. There’s a loud, booming crash, and it’s abundantly obvious to Erik after a moment that it’s just noise. Charles wants him to believe it isn’t, though. He’s not quite at the level where he can check for that, but it’s becoming clear that right now, in this space, every door is blown wide open. He’s got the Universe at his fingertips and what he was asking for is to not bear the weight alone. For Erik to give him something to do with it, so he didn’t resort to slamming things off shelves to feel less like he’s bursting.  
  
Too bad Erik is furious. "You want to raise your voice and yell and throw things and accuse me of never doing anything over what, huh? Over what." Erik's face twists. "You want to be trained, you want to know. You know how to talk to me. You know how to address me. You know how to assert what you need."  
  
“Then do your job!” and now he’s yelling again. Charles twists himself right out of Position, glaring and suddenly angry himself, even with tears rolling down his cheeks. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, stop taking every little thing as a sign that you should stop, stop accusing me of things when all I’m doing is what you tell me except you won’t listen — that’s what for! I need you, and you’re not meeting me!” And it slips out before he can stop it. “I need you, and you’re not meeting me, and it hurts,” he whispers, cracked.  
  
"You were not asking me for anything-" Erik cuts himself off, shaking, fine tremors wracking through his muscles. He'd been about to go off, about to lose his temper for real, but he's just-he won't. He refuses. He points at Charles, glowering. "You throw another thing and you can stay here for the rest of the day by yourself. Since I'm not doing my job."  
  
“ _You’re. Not. Listening!_ ” The whole world begins to shake, but as if Charles knows better, as if he knows when not to cross a line, nothing gets thrown. It does rattle. It does make loud, unsettling noises. There is a crack of thunder outside, a splitting, high-pitched shrieking noise that follows. “I keep telling you, and telling you, and telling you, what else do you expect me to do? Mime it out for you?” And he’s hurting, and Charles while hurting has always had a bit of a mean streak, even without all the nurture, tears running down his cheeks as he sniffles. “Just meet me! Just meet me — and if you say you’re going to keep me up here for raising my voice, then _Jesus, Erik_ —“ and it feels wrong, to use his Dominant’s name like that, but he spits it out anyway even as it burns his tongue, “do it! But you won’t!”  
  
"I'm not obligated to sit around and listen to this. You want to have a productive conversation, you know how to talk to me. We're done here. I'll be back in an hour." Erik whirls around and leaves, the door closing behind him harshly.

* * *

Charles gapes at the closed door, and what immediately follows is a sob. But he doesn’t follow. He thinks, perhaps, Erik wants him to stay in the Position he Ordered him in but he didn’t say so; but leaving the room would almost definitely be disobeying, so he doesn’t. He’s fairly sure he’s been left in this room, that it’s almost definitely a punishment except Erik didn’t say so. Either way it twists up his stomach horribly, and he feels himself crumble, and instead of throwing things around he just throws himself onto the bed, under the covers, and cries.

Charles definitely can't feel Erik the way he used to be able to, either, other than a faint roil of simmering heat that bubbles under the surface, but even that dissipates after a while until Charles is left with nothing but hard edges, exactly the way Erik's mind has been when he's been disciplined in the past. And it is an hour until he comes back, right on time, his features looking as if carved from granite. "You got out of Position," is what he says, his jaw ticking, arms crossed over his chest. "I guess you desire to spend your birthday being punished, because I fail to see an alternative reason for your behavior. Are you ready to speak to me like a human being or shall I leave you here for another hour?"  
  
He certainly doesn’t want that, but Charles shakes his head anyway, a lump under the covers that refuses to come out. The most Erik gets from him is a quiet sniffle, and it’s clear enough that he’s spent the entire hour like this. He hiccups.  
  
"Then get out from under the covers and come here," Erik Orders, sitting down on the side of the bed stiffly.  
  
When Charles does, he takes some of the blankets with him, rubbing his face on them and refusing to look at Erik as he scoots closer. He doesn’t say anything, staring down into his lap instead and letting out little hiccupping noises, his eyes and face red.  
  
"I understand you're upset. But you don't get to speak to me that way, ever. I don't care what you think I'm doing, or not doing, or how entitled you feel. So start talking, because I'm not doing this anymore. I will get right back up and leave. And you're wrong. This isn't a punishment. Not even close."  
  
It feels like one, and Charles isn’t going to be the one to say it. He isn’t going to be the one to say anything. He shakes his head.  
  
"Fine," Erik stands up again and walks to the door. "You don't want to obey, I don't want to sit here."  
  
Charles doesn’t get up, but he quite obviously wilts, his shoulders hunched even more. “Please don’t go,” he croaks.  
  
Erik pauses, his hand over the doorknob, and he turns, exhaling forcefully. He's hurt, but more than that, he's angry. It's not often-it's not ever, really, that he's ever held a grudge, that he's ever remained angry for so long, that he's ever expressed anger, even in the set of his jaw and the narrow of his eyes. But for a brief moment it's clear.  
  
Charles is angry, too. Hurt, too. And he is exceptionally good at holding grudges, when he sets his mind to it. But right now he’s just sniffling, wiping at his eyes with the back of his arm, shoulders still sunken in. “Don’t go,” he repeats.  
  
Erik presses his lips together, turning his head away, but he doesn't take another step outside. "I told you what to do," he rasps. "You don't want me to go, then obey my instructions."  
  
He sniffs. “I’m sorry I raised my voice at you,” he whispers. And that’s it. Barely audible, around another sniffle. Charles hides his face in his knees.  
  
"You wanted me to help you and give you something to do. So what did I do that was so wrong, huh? Besides ask you again and again for clarity. You know what, you don't want to talk, I don't want to be here," Erik growls harshly.  
  
Charles takes a deep, shuddering breath. It seems to shake his entire frame. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, quietly. That’s it.  
  
"You know what, you _piss me off_ too. But I don't speak to you that way. So you tell the Universe that," he whispers viciously. "Maybe you feel like talking in an hour. You want to behave like a child, I'll treat you like one. Goodbye. You get out of Position again and I'll make it two."  
  
Everything in Charles, absolutely everything, wants to hurl something back at Erik or climb back under the covers and stay there. He doesn’t do either. He stands up from the bed and he folds himself back into Child’s Pose on shaking arms, tears all the way down his cheeks. He takes harsh, shaking breaths, and he bows his head and he closes his eyes and he stays there.  
  
Good. Erik stops giving him any chance after that, he's finished, his patience is worn through and absolutely decimated and he is done. If Charles doesn't want to talk to him, then he can stay there the rest of the day, as far as Erik is concerned. He's purely stopped giving a shit about leniency. He's certainly not getting any kind of physical discipline, because there's no way Erik could do it responsibly. He checks back after an hour.

* * *

And Charles is still there, exactly where he left him, his arms shaking underneath him, his head bowed the way it’s supposed to be, and mostly run out of tears. He straightens up when Erik enters the room, but he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move. He hiccups again, loud and dry, swallows it back down.  
  
"You ready to talk now or not?" Erik asks flatly. "No? Fine, I'll come back." He doesn't even stop to consider Charles's reaction, already turning around. He's done being kindly and patient. He must just be so lazy and incapable Charles has to do his job for him.  
  
Charles is never going to be ready to talk, apparently, because the next time Erik checks, he’s still there. Still in Position, still trying, at least, to hold himself up. But he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t raise his head. He doesn’t beg Erik to stay, and there’s nothing through the Bond, nothing at all from the Bond. He’s not crying anymore, but it’s really just because he’s cried himself dry. He’s out of tears.  
  
"This time you don't get a choice," Erik murmurs lowly. "So sit up, and start talking, and it better start with _yes sir_." It's not a request, or a demand, it's a flat out Order. "And I don't want to hear about how sorry you are for something you don't even understand. _Talk._ "  
  
“Yes, sir,” Charles whispers, and he sits up, mechanically, as if he’s being pulled by strings. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out. It opens again, and nothing comes out. But it was an Order, and it looks painful when he finally speaks. “It’s crushing me,” he croaks out.  
  
"What is." Erik's mouth is in a thin, hard line. "Elaborate."  
  
Charles doesn’t know. He closes his eyes, a few more wayward tears leaking out. “I don’t know. The Universe. Power. Something. But it’s crushing me,” he whispers. “It’s too much. Inside of me. It’s too much.”  
  
He keeps going, his voice flat and robotic, as if entirely unaware. "I didn't say look away." His hand grips Charles's throat between his fingers, nails digging into his skin. "And you couldn't say that, you had to antagonize me and insult me and disrespect me, did that help? Is it better, now?"  
  
Charles shakes his head, and the noise he makes is definitely a choke. He doesn’t seem to be able to make words; he just shakes his head again, and then again. No, it’s not better.  
  
"I asked you a question." Erik's voice hits him, the Orders hard and flat like a hammer. "And I expect an answer. Is it better, now. Yes or no."  
  
Charles’ lip wobbles. “No, sir,” he whispers, swallowing hard around it. “It’s not better.” It’s better than another alternative, but Charles doesn’t say it. He hardly even thinks it, fighting to keep his eyes open.  
  
"I don't believe you," Erik murmurs. "Better than what alternative."  
  
And then he doesn’t think it at all. Charles shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he whispers, and that’s honest. There’s emptiness again, quiet, silent, dead Bond, completely severed. “I’m sorry you don’t believe me,” he adds.  
  
He jabs his finger into Charles's chest. "You don't get to be angry at me for holding back. Not anymore. And I never want to hear you speak to me that way again. You are not sorry. But you will be. Now sit down on the bed." Erik is breathing shakily, feeling like his throat is about to close up. "I'll be back in a few minutes." He heads over to the attached bathroom and shuts the door.  
  
Charles hears himself swallow as he gets up to sit on the bed, staring down at his dangling feet once he does. He’s never, quite honestly, and he’s sure this is because he doesn’t remember, seen Erik so angry. So riled. So worked up. It sits horribly in his stomach and he opens his mouth and considers asking him to come back in, but he doesn’t, because Erik didn’t ask him to speak. To argue. He just hangs his head and does as he’s told. He waits, hiccupping and sniffling.

* * *

Erik re-emerges with a cup of water and presses it into Charles's hands, Ordering him to drink slowly. He looks like he's splashed water on his face, which is blotchy and red, but he keeps himself composed, all severe and harsh angles. Charles has been crying a lot, he needs to drink, to prevent dehydration. Erik might be angry, but he's still trying to take care of his submissive.  
  
If Erik’s face is splotchy, it’s nothing like Charles’, which is so red it’s almost comical. He takes the glass with a quiet, “Thank you, sir,” because he isn’t going to blow it now by not being polite, and he doesn’t even argue as he brings it up to his lips to drink. He finishes it, too, when normally he wouldn’t. When he opens his mouth again, it closes just as fast. He doesn’t know if Erik wants him to speak at all. He doesn’t even know what he would say.  
  
"I'm not afraid to Dominate you," he rasps. "I am afraid. But not of that. I'm not _scared_ to train you, is that what you think? I'm not." He is afraid. But it's not about that. For the first time in a long time, it isn't.  
  
Charles stares down at his feet. “Then what are you afraid of?” he asks, quietly.  
  
"I don't know," Erik whispers, and it's the truth. Whatever is looming over him. He huffs, and shakes his head. "I don't even know why I said it. But not that. I just needed some help. I'm not always going to know what to do. But I will get there eventually. You belong to me. I told you I would stop holding back on training you and I meant it."  
  
Charles doesn’t know how to verbalize what he’s feeling, or even if he should at all, so he just hangs his head and nods. It feels like Erik is afraid, but apparently he’s not allowed to think so. “I was —“ Very deep under. He still is. It’s why he cried himself hoarse and red-eyed, why he’s still so close to it now. “I tried to help.” But apparently Erik doesn’t think so.  
  
"OK, tried to help, how?" Erik murmurs, rubbing Charles's back, skating his fingers across the planes of fabric and keeping him toasty-warm without making him sweat, everything glittery and shining.  
  
Charles doesn’t really know how to answer that. He sighs, and closes his eyes, and shrugs helplessly, completely uncertain if he wants more of Erik’s touch or to shy away from it, tense and uncomfortable and strung too tight. “I don’t know,” he mumbles, and it’s the truth right now. He tried to tell Erik, he got frustrated, he got mad, it doesn’t matter.  
  
"No, you know," Erik rumbles. "Tell me. Tell me what happened." That touch transforms, Erik's hands along his jaw, gripping his cheek in hand.  
  
“I just thought it was gonna be okay, and then —“ Erik double backed again. And maybe that’s Charles’ fault, for expecting too much, but everyone told him he needed to expect it, to expect Erik to naturally rise to meet him, and then he did and it didn’t happen and it was devastating. It hurt. It still does. Charles chokes, and he reels it back in, and suddenly it’s silent again, totally, completely silent, because he isn’t going to hurt Erik more like this. He’s not that spiteful. He just turns his head away, sniffling.  
  
"I didn't," Erik growls. Because he hadn't, he'd fully intended to do his best to put Charles to use, but it hadn't made sense to him, it was random, there was obviously something else at play. "And even if I did, that is no excuse for your behavior."  
  
“I didn’t say it was,” Charles whispers, because he wasn’t defending himself. Erik was the one who’d Ordered him to explain, and he’d tried, and neither of them get it and he shrugs, keeping his head firmly turned away. “It just feels like too much. Too much pressure. Like it’s crushing me. That’s all.”  
  
"It is not too much," Erik tells him. "I would never let that happen. So instead of losing your temper and your patience you need to trust me. You say you expect all this from me, well I can't do anything if you don't help me. If you don't trust me. That's your job. What's too much? Why now? Tell me what is happening." The Order shimmers in the air.  
  
Charles shakes his head, but it’s not a refusal, and he gives a helpless little shrug. “I don’t know. It just felt like too much,” he mumbles, because he doesn’t know another way to describe it. He doesn’t know how to help. “Like too much inside of me, weighing me down. And —“ Another shrug. There’s nothing at all that Erik can grab from Charles’ thoughts, but it’s clear enough without telepathy or Bond; he’d wanted Erik to help. To give him focus, and direction, and channel it.  
  
"And it is up to me to help guide you. I know that. That is what I planned on doing. I simply wanted to understand what was happening and why, so I could make the right choice." His eyebrows raise. "But unfortunately this happened and now we have to deal with that. Do you still feel all of that encroaching on you?"  
  
For a moment, Charles considers lying. Then he nods, his head bowed again. “Worse,” he admits. Definitely, undeniably worse.  
  
Erik nods in return, his eyes blazing and features stern. "I wanted you to help me. I wanted to put you to use and show you how you can serve me in daily life, minute to minute. And I will. But this setback demands a response, too. I cannot ignore it."  
  
This setback? Charles swallows, heavy and long, and stares down at his dangling feet. “I shouldn’t have raised my voice, sir,” he whispers, the words feeling like they’re clogging his throat. “You were trying to help. You were just trying to make me happy.” And Charles couldn’t just accept it. It had to be more complicated.  
  
"Yes, I was," Erik murmurs softly. That's all he ever tries to do, successful only in measures, he knows. He's still wary, though, his expression pinched and forbidding, shoulders tense. "And I did not appreciate the things that you said." It wasn't just a raised voice, or defiance, or lack of acceptance. Erik deals with those things all the time, and it doesn't bother him as much as this.  
  
All the time. Charles sours, his shoulders slumped, refusing to look up at his Dominant. “I shouldn’t have said them, sir,” he admits quietly. He shouldn’t have, and he knows it, and he isn’t at all unaware of that; it’s eaten at him since they came out of his mouth.  
  
"Is that how you feel about me? That I just feel sorry for myself and I can't do my job?" Erik whispers, and this time it isn't angry, just sad.  
  
Right away Charles is shaking his head vehemently, back and forth until things jostle, still staring down at the floor. It takes him a long while to speak around the lump in his throat. “No, I don’t,” he promises. “It’s just — you get so in your head, sometimes...” It seems like they’ve gone forward, and they circle right back. Charles knows it isn’t fair to be frustrated, but he’s certainly felt it.  
  
Erik nods. "Sometimes, I do." And he knows that Charles can't deny that he does, too. "Sometimes things encroach upon me, too. Things I can't handle on my own." Even though he tries to, tries not to expose Charles to it, tries to deal with it himself. But the Universe itself recognized that it isn't possible. They aren't meant to be alone in their own heads. "But when it comes to Dominating you, and training you, I don't let it stop me."  
  
Charles bites his lip. “But you have,” slips from his mouth before he can stop it, tumbles out of his lips, and immediately he’s hunching in on himself, eyes closed. “No, nevermind,” he hastens to add.  
  
"I struggle with it," Erik corrects him sternly. "I have never made a secret about that. But I move beyond it. You are telling me you do not struggle with your submission?" his eyebrow is arched sharply. "And do I ever throw it in your face? No. How you speak to me is inappropriate." He points a finger. "I do my utmost. So you want to be trained and you want to know how to speak to me. That is not the way."  
  
It makes Charles tense up, but any itching for a fight or an argument dies a moment later. It was never really there. He hangs his head further instead. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, hoarse. “You try your best. I know you try. I was just —“ He really needed stability. He still does. He’s crashing, still, right this moment. And it hurts. It’s painful and uncomfortable and frightening.  
  
Charles doesn't really know it yet, but even this is different than before, when Erik would shove down any spark of temper, any inkling of offense or hurt. He's not the same as he was. He's learning, too, even if it's more subtle, more mired down in tortures. "And what do I tell you, when you need something? What do I tell you to do? What have I been training you to do this entire time?" His eyebrows arc again.  
  
It’s a very easy question, but Charles seems to struggle with it, his cheeks and ears pink as he fidgets. “To talk to you about it,” he mumbles, properly chastised. He shakes his head. “But I tried,” he insists, even though he knows it’s no excuse.  
  
Erik cuts him off before he can, anyway, hand raised abruptly. "No. I don't want to hear _I tried_. I don't want to hear _Erik didn't listen_. You think I am walking around here ignoring you on purpose? No, I didn't understand. I was trying to understand. It is your duty to try again. Not to lose your temper and rage and scream and throw things. That is what a _child_ does. Not what my _submissive_ does and I will not tolerate it. You belong to me. You are going to act like it."  
  
The huff that gets is quiet and ashamed, too. Charles continues to stare down at his feet, scowling and ruffled and unsettled. “I didn’t know how,” he mutters, but he knows that isn’t an excuse, either. And throwing things off the walls just to do it was, admittedly, not the most mature of decisions. “I’m sorry,” he adds, again, and feels his cheeks heat again.  
  
"And it is my job to teach you how," Erik murmurs. "And perhaps I have been lax about it. But no longer. You understand why you are here, now, with me? Why you will endure discipline for your behavior?"  
  
Charles shakes his head, even though he knows. He’s biting his lip. “It’s my birthday,” he mumbles, as if that’s explanation enough. It was, before, when they were playing. When Erik was trying to surprise him, and Charles threw a strop instead, but that isn’t the point.  
  
"Irrelevant," Erik growls softly, his hand slipping into Charles's hair so he can yank his head back and practically glare at him, Dominion sweeping up through the room. "I told you what would happen. The price for failing to cooperate. I told you. You want me to just do it?" he rumbles. "So I will. Do you understand."  
  
Does he understand? It's fairly crystal, actually, and Charles' heart is pounding right out of his chest, that wilted, needy subspace fluttering right back up to the surface, because he'd never left. He'd dropped a little and it had hurt, but he'd never left. Still, somehow, he finds a way to lift his chin, to scowl, swallowing around that pesky lump. "No," he insists. "It's my birthday, Erik. Can't we just go back downstairs now?" And he really does want to, is the thing.  
  
He gets a good jolt across the cheek for his trouble, and Erik grips his jaw in hand. "You know perfectly well what the answer is to that question. You admitted to me already what you did, that you are sorry. I don't believe you. You are still trying to get away with it."  
  
"Only a little," Charles mutters sheepishly, which probably proves the point. He lowers his eyes again, still chewing at his lip with an almost impressive determination. His cheek stings, and he brings a hand up to touch it, gasping at how warm it is. As if he's never been slapped before, when he knows good and well he has, especially when he runs his mouth. "I am sorry," he insists, but sounds exceptionally grumpy about it. "I just don't think I should get punished on my birthday."  
  
"No? You don't think so? And I suppose you expect I will just do whatever you say, because I'm exceptionally good at not doing my job?" Erik growls, snapping up Charles's hand and shoving it away so he can tighten his grip over Charles's jaw. "If you didn't want to be punished on your birthday, you wouldn't have behaved so poorly. These are the consequences."  
  
"Mmm," he mumbles, because that's fair, technically. There's not a whole lot he can do to argue that, and his own words being used against him make his stomach churn uncomfortably, guilt bubbled right up to the surface. It was out of line and of course he knows it. He usually does, the instant it comes out of his mouth. "What are you going to do?" he asks, closing his eyes, and it's not fear, per se. It is, but not the kind Erik has always feared he'd inspire. Just a healthy dose of uncomfortable, fidgeting anticipation, and not the kind that's fun for Charles.  
  
"I am going to punish you," Erik murmurs lowly. "Just as I said I would. So you are going to get into Child's Pose, now. And if you know what is good for you, you will not make me Order it out of you."

* * *

Fortunately for Charles, he seems to know what's good for him, at least in this particular moment. He could not scramble faster off the bed and into Position if he tried, really, and it aches, he'd been like this for the past hour, completely alone, but he knows better than to whine about it, at least for the time being. He does lift his head to look behind him, fidgeting more than the Posture really allows. Waiting. And suddenly the Bond is opened back up, at least slightly, even as it stutters; there's fear, now, that same anticipatory, uncertain fear.  
  
Erik is stern and unyielding even now, but he is present at least, this time Charles knows he is not alone; he is in the presence of that predator once again. The one that Erik keeps leashed up most of the time, now roaming about freely, circling. Erik touches his back, nudging him into proper Position. "You will take twenty strikes," he states coolly. "And you will count each one. You will say thank you, sir after each one. Because I am giving you what you need. Because I am doing my job to the letter of perfection. And if you fail to do so then I will add an additional strike on top of it. If you cannot take all of them at once, if you fail to an inordinate degree, then I will carry this punishment over into such a time that you will not be injured. Am I understood. And the next words out of your mouth better be _yes sir_ or I will add yet another."  
  
"Yes, sir," is indeed the first thing that slips from Charles' mouth, fortunately. He's trembling, now. Trembling head to toe, that thick, revved up fear coming off of him in waves, knocking against Erik's consciousness, but it isn't intentional. It isn't harmed, and it isn't terror. It's just unease. Anticipation, like every time he's found himself here before, but somehow worse. He tries to keep Position, at the very least, because he doesn't exactly think Erik wouldn't give him extra for falling out of Position if he could help it, whether he's been holding it for an hour before this or not. He's wondering things, and Erik can hear, one of those glimpses, one of those rare moments with Charles like this where he can see and know: how badly will it hurt? How long will it last? Twenty strikes with what? Erik's hand? A whip? A cane? His mind runs over and over itself, working itself up as Charles is known to do, but he doesn't break Posture. He doesn't argue. He says _yes, sir_ , and he waits.  
  
It's going to hurt. It's going to last a while. It's more intense than anything Charles has experienced so far. But Erik will not hurt him. He won't harm him. He won't injure him. He won't rail out of control in anger, which is why Charles has spent so long like this in the first place, because Erik wasn't ready. But he is, now. And Charles will take it. It's a lot, so it certainly isn't going to be a whip, but instead it's a small leather implement, a swishy thing with a panel of leather at the end that Erik can use to control exactly how much pain is delivered each time. And he begins, an air of Dominion sweltering the room thick and hot with Erik's own anticipation, his own expectation that he be heeded.  
  
For Charles, overwhelmed and riled up and bursting at the seams, it’s already too much from the first strike. He’s a sobbing, wailing, red-faced mess before very long at all, and holding himself in Position proves to be nearly impossible. It’s around the tenth strike that he completely loses his ability to hold himself up, and to breathe, really, sniffling and out of breath and hurting, and what comes out of his mouth isn’t a count. It’s “ _afor_ ,” so breathless and drowned out by sobbing that it’s hardly even audible, but it’s there, along with the snot on his face and his hyperventilating. Things are vibrating again. Charles is vibrating again.

* * *

The eleventh strike doesn't come, of course. Erik crouches down instead and lifts Charles up so that he's at Rest, and he wraps his arms around him, feathering his fingers through his hair. "It's all right," he murmurs. "You're OK. You're doing very well." He dabs up Charles's nose and under his eyes.  
  
This is usually around the time when Charles loses it, anyway, and he sobs good and proper, dragging snot all over Erik as he rubs himself into him and cries. “I’m sorry,” he gasps, and of course he is, and not just because Erik’s making him cry, but it always comes out so much easier like this. Everything nasty, frustrated, wound up. “I’m sorry, sir, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he sobs, and clings as hard as he possibly can. A few things throw themselves off the shelves, but it isn’t a tantrum. He’s just overwhelmed, he’s got too much inside him.  
  
Erik knows, and he lifts them right back where they belong. "I've got you, _neshama_ ," he whispers, kissing the top of Charles's head, wrapping him up tight. "I've got you. It's not too much for me. You are mine. You belong, through me, hm? It's OK, sweetheart. I've got you," he hushes, swaying a little, side to side, and Erik smiles into his skin. "I know, I know." It is a pause-word, for-real. For anything. A pocket of time, a new dimension, a space to just breathe and just breathe and just heart-beat.  
  
And Charles does. He breathes, but he also cries and cries, and he really thought he’d run out of tears. He hiccups into Erik’s chest. “Please, I’m sorry,” he croaks, and there’s another dizzying wave of fear at the thought of being made to take any more. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m sorry. I really am, I’m sorry,” he sniffles, and in his defense, he does mean it. He’s hurting and he’s sorry. “I shouldn’t have — I shouldn’t have —“ Another loud sniffle. “M’ sorry.”  
  
"I know," Erik whispers, brushing his fingers through Charles's hair. "I know, I know," he shushes softly. "I've got you. I won't let anything happen to you. I never would, I never will. Not ever." It isn't too much, it isn't an overwhelming amount, Erik has him. Always. That's what Charles needs, what the Universe demands. He knows.  
  
But he shakes his head, sniffling, aching, rubbing his snotty, red cheeks all over Erik. “It’s too much,” he insists. “It’s too much, it’s too much.” He’s not sure if he means the punishment or his power, but right now it’s both. It feels like both. When Erik left him, he left him all bottled up, he left him dropping, he left him alone and in retrospect, it was a punishment in itself even if Erik didn’t intend for it to be. “Too much, too much, sir,” he whispers, and he’s there again. He never left. He’s been primed and there this whole time, entirely reliant on his Dominant even when he didn’t know it.  
  
He may have been dropping, as much due to his own choices as Erik's, but he was never alone. Not really, Erik would never allow for that. And he isn't, now. But Erik acknowledges maybe he was too heavy-handed, maybe he is being too much, going from all restraint to no restraint, as much as Charles says he needs that, it's Erik's responsibility, it always is. To do it safely. It's not about leniency when Charles had to use his pause-word. "You're all right," he kisses Charles's forehead. "You've done a really good job, OK? I think we can be done for today."  
  
But Charles is the one who shakes his head this time, after a long, dragging pause. It’s not frustration. It’s not anger. It’s not whipped up, frenzied desperation, or confusion, or shame. He just sniffles and rubs his cheek into Erik’s chest. “I want to take the rest, sir, please,” he whispers, so quiet part of him hopes Erik won’t even hear it.  
  
Erik touches his cheek, tilting his head to look in his eyes. "Not just because you think you must," he warns. "I don't want to hurt you. You promise that you can? You've been doing a very good job, so far. Not even any extras, hm?" his nose wrinkles up. "I won't let you get hurt. You promise it isn't too much?"  
  
Charles fusses just a little in Erik’s hold, but he knows it’s a silly, pointless struggle. There’s no reason to be embarrassed over this. He sniffs again and closes his eyes. “I don’t want to take the rest,” he mutters, hoarse, but the answer is in there. He won’t be harmed, even if he’s afraid and overwhelmed. He knows he can pause-word again if it really does get to be too much again. “It hurts. A lot,” he pouts. But not taking them because he doesn’t want to isn’t fair. Not to him, especially. How will he learn? How will he be trained?  
  
Erik nods, and Charles gets a new jolt across the cheek for his tone. "Yes, it hurts. That is rather the point. But you know what to do if it gets too much. I told you I would train you and take care of you. I'm not going to hold back any more. I know you can take what I give you. Because it is what you need."  
  
And Charles knows it, too. He whines loudly at the slap but he still clings to Erik, even while knowing he should put himself back into Position without being told. He wants to, and he will, but first he needs this. He needs to rub his snotty, ruined face against Erik, seek his Dominant’s warmth. “I know, sir,” he mumbles, reluctantly, solemnly, but truthfully. He knows what he needs. “I didn’t — I know you can do your job. I just really want you to,” he mutters, red up to his ears again. “It’s the only thing that — that helps. I get scared.”  
  
And Erik lets him, giving him exactly what he needs, when he needs it, rising to meet him as he always tries to do. As he is. "You don't need to be scared anymore. I'm not scared. Not of you, not of taking care of you. Not the way I know you need. Will I mess up, will I fail to understand sometimes, sure. I am a person. But I promised you that I could take care of you. And I meant it." The Will that snaps through his voice coils like a whip of its own, not harsh and sharp, but lashing, like a snake, ready to strike. Charles is exactly where he belongs.  
  
He really is. He continues to sniffle, to cling, to rub himself against Erik, cheeks red because he's hot from his punishment and he's bare and he's flushed all over, but it isn't the time to think of that, really, and he isn't. He's just thinking about this. He wants to take the rest of his punishment, but he really did need a pause. "I'm sorry, I know you planned something for my birthday," he sniffles. "I didn't -- I didn't mean to ruin it, or be ungrateful --" And he's guilty. He's guilty, and he's learned something; when Erik takes him in hand like this, those things tend to melt away. He feels them, he acknowledges them, and then they don't eat him. It's fairly incredible.  
  
"I know," Erik replies, kissing the top of Charles's forehead. He doesn't ascribe malice to Charles, even as angry as he was. He isn't angry anymore; this is good for him, too. It helps him, too. Everything returns to its right place. Charles, and Erik. "And we'll get to the celebrations," he promises fondly. But first they need to take care of this. Erik needs to take care of Charles.  
  
Charles knows what comes next. He knows, even if he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t wait to be asked, and he especially doesn’t wait to be Ordered. He takes a big, sucking breath, squeezes Erik one more time, rubs his cheek against him, and then slowly moves away on shaking limps and folds himself back into Position. It’s still hard to hold, but he’ll do it for his Dominant. He’ll do it because he needs it, and so does Erik, and this is part of his training. “I’m sorry, sir,” he whispers, one more time, but it’s alright, because once this is over, that’s it. He’ll be much more sorry, but they can move on. They can celebrate, and Charles won’t feel wretched the whole time. And Erik can do what he was going to, what Charles got scared he wouldn’t — that vibrating, overwhelming energy, he’ll give Charles something to channel it into. He just has to trust him.  
  
Erik gives him a quick brush through the hair with his fingers, before he settles back into continuing with the prescribed discipline, careful not to cause any more injury than strictly necessary, leaving only neat rows of marks rather than any haphazard, unsightly bruises and giving him time to comply with Erik's demands that he not only count out each one, but also thank him for receiving it. Erik doesn't let Charles down, even if he takes a little while to get there, he does follow through, and he will keep following through, and keep expecting the most of Charles.  
  
It takes Charles a very long time to calm when it’s over. Actually, for the first ten minutes he seems practically inconsolable, even though he took it, even though he complied, obeyed, even though he held Position with shaking limbs and didn’t earn himself any extras. He’s a sobbing, weak, boneless mess in Erik’s arms, and he doesn’t quite remember it ending, just that he’s crying and snotty and everything still feels like too much even with the relief. He doesn’t realize he’s done it again. That the room is more a formless, shifting Void than it is a bedroom, that everything’s gone wonky and strange and perception doesn’t quite work anymore. He’s too focused on nudging into his Dominant, seeking touch, seeking comfort, seeking direction. He’s wordless, but not mindless, not completely broken; just far gone, just inconceivably under, in that space he’d never left and can’t leave without Erik. Waiting.


	121. here i am expecting just a little too much from the wounded

Erik takes him in his arms, his own mind vibrating right in frequency like a tuning fork perfectly aligned. "It's all done, neshama," he whispers into Charles's ear, petting at him softly, covering him in silky blankets. The whole room breathes with Will, saturated in pure Dominion of heights that he doesn't think he's ever been before, shimmering out of him like glittering air. "You did so welll," he rumbles lowly. "You are right back where you belong. I will never let you get out of place like that. You are mine."  
  
And it’s over, and he’s forgiven, and it’s gone. It’s done. Charles sniffles, face covered in snot and tears and rubbing it all over Erik, but fortunately his Dominant never seems to mind that. If anything he encourages it. When his eyes finally blink open, he gasps, confused and startled, the world strange and unrecognizable. “Oops,” he mumbles, but he doesn’t know how to change it back. He doesn’t try, just goes back to resting on Erik’s shoulder, slowly calming.  
  
Erik chuckles softly, running his fingers through Charles's hair. It's the world, just as Charles has made it, and like all of Charles's visions and applications of his abilities, Erik is in wonder rather than fear. "Oops," he laughs, gentle. He doesn't mind. He touches his hand to Charles's cheek. "I think you'll put it back, hm? When we need to return, we shall. _Royk, neshama. Ragu'a, ragu'a_."  
  
But Charles isn’t afraid. Now that he’s like this, now that he’s in Erik’s arms all put in his place, he isn’t afraid. He just sniffles and nods, eyes blinking blearily open and shut, open and shut, but sometimes it’s so dark and strange that it doesn’t matter. The room isn’t much of a room anymore, just a space, just a changing, morphing thing. “Do you ever think that maybe none of this is real?” he whispers, and his eyes are glowing when he looks up at Erik.  
  
"What is real to me, are my experiences," Erik whispers back, his voice soft in the encroaching velvet-darkness. Many areas and aspects of Erik's mind, his Landscape, aren't technically real. But they've been there. They've touched. They've seen. If it's all a dream, a hallucination, if Erik is really just trapped in the CIA under a black hood; well this is the best possible reality. "And my experiences with you," he smiles, gentle. "Those are real to me. All real." Just because something exists in the mind, in the Universe, doesn't make it unreal. Just unusual. And Erik thinks it's beautiful. He's in wonder, always, over Charles's ever-growing power.  
  
Charles bites his lip. “No, I meant —“ He blinks, breathes, tries, and they’re in Erik’s bedroom again. It exists. They can feel it, and touch it, smell it and see it. “This place. Do you ever think it just isn’t real?” It’s clear from Charles’ voice he’s been wondering it for a while.  
  
Erik tucks Charles right back into his chest. "I wish I knew," he murmurs, still-soft. "We can see it. Touch it. Feel it. That's real for me." It's Charles. Even if it's merely a construction. It exists. They exist. Maybe he doesn't fully understand the question; sometimes he is simple-minded after all.  
  
The question isn’t very complicated, really. Charles hums and closes his eyes again, still sniffling and hiccuping and coming down from his punishment. “I don’t think the world is frozen,” he murmurs. “I think we are.” And they’re alone. The only ones in an empty, constructed world.  
  
"As long as I am with you," Erik starts, quiet and firm, streaks of Will still emanating from him. "I will be by your side. We are here together. That is what matters to me," he finishes, kissing the top of Charles's head. "Does it bother you?"  
  
Charles shakes his head. “I don’t remember anyone to miss them,” he whispers. “But you do. Does it bother you, sir?” he asks, carefully avoiding looking.  
  
"No," Erik whispers, perfectly honest. He does miss-his family, his children. But he knows they are there. They will be there, and Charles and Erik will emerge; stronger, better equipped, more able to engage with them, and yes he's looking forward to that, but he also relishes this opportunity as well. "I miss some people," he admits with a smile. "But I know they are safe and sound, and we will come back to them."  
  
Charles hums quietly, around all the sniffling. He’s not wheezing or hiccuping every breath anymore, at least. “How long do you think we’ll be like this?” he wonders. “Do you think...” Will it change. Erik’s answer. As time creeps on.  
  
"I don't know," Erik whispers softly. He means he doesn't know how long they'll be like this. "And-I truly can't say," he whispers, soft. "If we're here for a year, or two years, or ten years? Of course I would want to see my children. But for right now, for the forseeable future, it won't change."  
  
It makes sense. Charles finds that right now he doesn’t have the capacity to fret over it, but he’s sure it’ll crop up; but now? Right this second? He’s freshly punished, too deep into subspace to think too much on it. He mouths at Erik’s shoulder and sighs, lets his eyes close again with another wet sniffle. “Will you do that again?” he whispers. It’s not accusatory. It’s not upset. He’s genuinely wondering. “Leave me alone? Make me wait for you?”  
  
"I might," Erik nods truthfully. It's not a common occurrence. The last time it happened was because Charles couldn't take any other kind of punishment without being unduly injured. This time it was because Erik was too angry to punish him outright at first. But usually it isn't his first choice. He prefers to deal with things by his own hand.  
  
Charles bites his lip. “I didn’t like it,” he admits, which he thinks was the point. He wasn’t supposed to feel good about it. But he doesn’t have any nasty associations with it, there’s no fear; he just didn’t enjoy it. It’s a different experience, which is exactly what this is intended for. “It made me feel —“ He doesn’t know. About the same way Erik hauling him over his lap does, really. His cheeks heat. “I’ve been reading, still,” he admits, and then goes back to nuzzling and kissing Erik’s shoulder and neck, clearly trying to keep occupied.  
  
"Tell me how it made you feel," Erik rumbles, placing his large hand over Charles's cheek, running his thumb along the bone there, surrounding him entirely. "What have you been reading about?" Erik wants to hear it. Everything. It belongs to him as surely as Charles does.  
  
“Like you were punishing me,” he mumbles, which he knows isn’t descriptive, but he doesn’t know how to put it into words, really. Hot shame, twisting in his gut, all of those ramped up, heightened emotions. Knowing he’d disappointed Erik, knowing that he’s being treated like a naughty child because he’d misbehaved like one. He shrugs, but Erik hears it, surely as anything. Charles sniffs and turns his head back into Erik’s neck. “About — this book made suggestions, ways that you could...” And Charles swallows, whining. Ways that a Dominant could choose to discipline their submissive. It had definitely gotten his attention.  
  
Erik nods, understanding. "I was, in a way," he murmurs. "And I have used that method solely to punish you in the past. But when I said I wasn't punishing you-" he didn't necessarily mean that leaving Charles to himself wasn't an aspect of discipline, but that it wouldn't stop there. He was waiting for Charles to smarten up and cooperate, and waiting for himself to cool off. He nuzzles his face against Charles's for a second, giving him a kiss along the jaw. "And what ways were those?" his eyebrows raise, expectant.  
  
“All sorts of things,” Charles mumbles, hot in the face. He bites his lip, hard, and tries to hide in Erik’s shoulder again, turning his face away. “Corporal punishment, obviously. Loss of privileges. Things like —“ He’s bright red, by now. “Being made to stand in the corner, or kneel in a certain position, or write lines.” Charles very carefully hides his reaction to those things.  
  
Not carefully enough, funnily enough, and it makes Erik smile a little. He certainly doesn't let Charles hide away, gripping his jaw in hand instead, making him look. "And are those things that you feel would be effective with you?" one eyebrow raises pointedly.  
  
“Mmmm,” is Charles’ non-answer, his cheeks so red they feel like they’re burning now. He wriggles in his Dominant’s arms, and then whines, pain whipped back up. But there’s no emotion through the connection still forming and dulled between them, no thoughts, and it becomes clear that maybe Charles is deliberately snapping it this time. “Would you use them, sir?” he asks instead.  
  
"If I feel it is necessary," Erik murmurs back, sharp. "Now you do not hide from me. Stop that," he demands, tapping Charles's temple. Pointedly. And this time Charles knows he is not playing around. He might in-fact try out some of these new and fascinating developments.  
  
Charles pulls a face. It’s definitely not a watery pout, except that’s exactly what it is, but either way the connection buzzes back to life, however dulled it still is. “But would you?” he demands, obviously not satisfied with the response he’d gotten.  
  
Erik's eyebrows raise sharply. "I would. If you decide to contradict my demands. There are many ways to enact discipline. What you read is merely the tip of the iceberg. I will make certain you understand exactly where your place is. Do not worry about that, and certainly do not question my ability to do so."  
  
“I’m not questioning it,” he whispers, and the truth is he wasn’t. He keeps himself ducked into Erik’s shoulder, only barely peeking up at him. “I wasn’t, sir. I just — I wondered...” Because he has been reading. Quite a lot. More than he did before, exposing himself in ways he’d just deliberately avoided with his memories. It hasn’t made him frightened or apprehensive. It’s made him curious.  
  
Erik's lips twitch a little. "So tell me what else," he states, bolstered mostly by Charles's reaction, which isn't nearly as smooth and hidden as he'd like to believe it is. Erik can always tell, even when he's obfuscating. And let's just say his interest has been piqued.  
  
It’s difficult not to see his reaction with all the squirming and wriggling he’s suddenly doing, even as it rubs all of his new marks and makes him sniffle and hiccup and whine. “I’ve just been reading about, about... training, and —“ He bites his lip, nuzzling back into Erik’s shoulder. “I just wondered what methods you might use, that’s all,” he mumbles, and he’s so beet red. “You’ve never asked me to do any of those things.”  
  
The real answer is... Erik is embarrassed, judging by how he ducks his head. Because the real answer is he just doesn't know a lot of the proper ways to train a submissive. It's difficult for him to read the literature, not to superimpose... not to get sucked into his own world. Lost. "And what things would those be?" he whispers.  
  
Charles is embarrassed, too. They’re both trying to duck their heads, Charles into Erik’s neck, and then his chest. “Different... methods. Restraints, and tasks, and check-ins and... some things seemed overtly sexual, others —“ Not, but all of them were listed together and Charles is squirming now, unable to help himself. “There were pictures. It was all very descriptive.”  
  
Erik's fingers spread out over his jaw. "No, do not look away. I told you a hundred times." Erik's gaze turns hard in a flash, stern and commanding. "Descriptive? But you are not. Tell me about it. Properly."  
  
Charles whines loudly in protest, and then he shrugs, still trying unconsciously to worm his way closer into Erik, to squirm. “Different things, I don’t know how to be descriptive about all of it,” he mumbles, wriggling about. “Different sources suggest different things. I got the idea for a check-in from a few of them, but one of them suggested —“ He shrugs again, red-faced, whimpering. “There were suggestions, that’s all.”  
  
"That is not all," Erik growls lowly. "Do not make me ask you again." He scratches his fingers over one of those marks that he's just given. And so soon after a punishment, Erik has never asserted himself quite like this before, as if he'd put Charles right back down into Child's Pose. The minutiae, the minute-to-minute Dominance that he's always held back. "Suggested what."  
  
He’s definitely reeling with it. Dizzy with it, even. Charles whines again, this time for a different reason, and bites his lip hard. “It mentioned a few implementations into those check-ins, like restraints or Presenting or maintenance spankings,” he mumbles, and now he’s red up to his ears, practically bursting with it. “Just as an example.” Not something Charles has considered, not even briefly, not even once, of course.  
  
Erik blinks, not really comprehending what Charles just said; not exactly. He knows a lot about certain things, when they first met he demonstrated a clearly superior knowledge in fact to what most Dominants were taught in a classroom, but there are wide, gaping gaps that can't be accounted for that aren't strictly cultural as well. For instance-he seems to have never heard of a maintenance spanking in any other context than-well-and his eyebrows furrow. "And other examples?" he prompts, his curiosity getting the better of him.  
  
Charles blinks, too, taken aback even though he shouldn’t be. He’s still chewing on his lip. “The book I was reading suggests daily tasks to be completed, and journaling,” he mumbles, and bows his head again. “Daily check-ins, along with the weekly ones. Another suggests that training submissives should — well, floorpads were created for a reason...” That they always kneel at their Dominant’s feet, not just in formal situations. For the training period, anyway, which seems to range from days to weeks to months to years, depending on the pair. “They all seem to suggest that routine is key. What that routine is seems to... range,” now he’s red in the face again, for some reason, and wriggling about for it. “Like we have.” But clearly he’s wondered what Erik might add to it.  
  
It would be a lie to say that although Erik shies away from doing any true research, that he hasn't thought about many aspects of this; about things that he'd like to introduce, things that he's been a little too nervous or second-guessing himself to do, but hearing Charles talk about it this way makes his head tilt toward him, pinning his eyes with brilliant green. He's held Charles in his arms this entire time, soothing him after punishment, but something shifts in him. "And if you are supposed to kneel at my feet at all times, why is it that you have yet to take the initiative now and do so?" It is, like most of the things he says drenched in Will, utterly consuming Demand. Expectation.  
  
Does Erik mean now? Right now? For one, Erik is crouched down with him, and not too long ago he was cooing and soothing and assuring Charles that it was over, done with, all clean slate again. He wraps his arms around Erik’s neck and sniffles, not necessarily disobedient but hesitant, perhaps a little unwilling, clinging instead. “Cause you didn’t tell me I was supposed to,” he points out, perhaps smartly. “I can’t be expected to perform in ways you haven’t told me about, sir.” And that’s definitely smart.  
  
Erik grips his jaw, making him look. "Well I am telling you now," he rumbles, rising right up to his feet, curling his fingers under Charles's jaw. "And you will abide by my demands, hm?" his eyebrows are arched, pointed. "And it will certainly be without the attitude."  
  
It’s rather immediate, the reaction to that. Charles scrambles to his knees, scooting up until he can rest against Erik’s legs, to bow his head down. It’s the picture of deference, of submission; and honestly, it is. Charles is reaching new heights — lows? — of his submission, so far, far gone, floating. But he is still Charles. What Erik always feared will never come true. That his Dominance only inspired pain, fear, mindlessness. Charles looks up and he sticks out his tongue, sheepish, squirming, hoping to inspire a reaction. Giving an attitude, however playfully, even freshly punished, because... because he’s Charles, and he doesn’t lose himself in Erik’s Dominance. He finds himself.  
  
Erik's fingers strike against his cheek, not hard, just enough to remind him of his place, however playful Charles is, Erik rises up in return although this time he does seem to recognize it for what it is; not willful disobedience but simply an aspect of Charles, one that must be answered to, but not one that needs to be pressed down into the ground. Erik winks at him, stroking along newly-made marks. A warning, and a playfulness of his own. "What kind of tasks?" he demands to know, certainly not through with the discussion. What he knows is... different. Chores, mainly. Helping him with things. Maybe his knowledge is more limited than he initially realized. He tries not to be embarrassed about it; not to feel stupid. Maybe half of the problem is that he just doesn't know what he should. But that's what Charles is here for, isn't it? To help him. And this is one way that Erik can put him to use. He's read about all of this, after all, and what good is it just to sit in Charles's brain? Unutilized? That won't do.  
  
Charles really hadn’t considered that perhaps Erik needs to be taught, too. That there were things he didn’t know, that he hadn’t considered, things Charles has read in a book — and it makes him smile, for some reason. He leans against Erik’s leg and rubs against him a bit like a cat, sighing and pleased to be on his knees like this. “Chores, like you’re thinking, but not just because I’m helping you,” he smiles as he says it, a bit gentle because he knows Erik sometimes hesitates with that, unwilling to make him do those sorts of things, but Charles enjoys it. And when he doesn’t, he does anyway. “A set list of them, usually. Service tasks. But besides that, anything that might please you — goals to achieve, for the day or the week, either way, really. And then when we check-in, you would check in on those things, too.” Less immediate obedience, less Erik Ordering it in the moment. Charles hasn’t wanted to admit how badly he’s needed those sorts of things to keep him anchored.  
  
Erik nods, and his fingers find Charles's hair, scritching through it gently. Chores, he expected. And he has been thinking about that considerably, in fact. "That is something I would like to implement with you," he admits softly; not for his own benefit, but because it is just another way to extend his Dominion over Charles. "Service tasks?" he whispers, keeping his mind carefully blank and controlled. Even this conversation is a little challenging, but Erik dutifully presses through, because it's important. He needs to know. "What kind of goals?" He wants to know, more than that. Everything. All the things Charles has thought about but has been too afraid to ask. Not anymore. They are both learning, not to hold back. To share.  
  
Even so, Charles knows. He knows, even without telepathy, especially like this, when Erik struggles; and he curls right into him, nuzzles against his leg, sighs quietly to get his attention back on him and not wherever his mind may wander. “It is?” he asks, attempting not to sound eager. He’s apprehensive, too, but not in a bad way by a long shot. “Just — the sorts of things you might ask of me, as a demonstration of obedience. As far as I’m aware, they vary greatly, as do any goals you might set. It depends entirely on the submissive. But if we sat down and decided we both wanted — that you wanted me to work on something, and a way that would help me achieve that...” It would be a good way to work on not only obedience, but personal growth. It’s an appealing idea. “You might ask me to complete certain tasks that work toward that goal, and then present to you what I’d done at the end of the day, or the week. It would depend on — on what you feel I need to work on, sir,” he murmurs, and for some reason his face is red again.  
  
"I-" Erik falters a bit, considering. He touches his fingers to Charles's face, grounding himself. "There are some things that I think you could work on," he finally admits, doing his best to soften it so that it doesn't come across as criticism. Because it isn't, really. It's not about Charles as a person more than it is about making sure he is taking the best care of himself, and giving Erik the tools to do that, as well. "Some a bit more mundane," he adds with a soft huff. "Like, yes, I like things to be in order, and that isn't natural to you. But more importantly-about communication."  
  
Charles isn’t offended. He’s not defensive. There’s no reason to be, certainly not over things like this. Certainly not when he’s like this. He just looks up at Erik, leans into his fingers, kisses them when he turns his head. “You want to set goals for me, sir?” he asks instead, and again, tries not to sound eager. Because he’s still not sure what he’s supposed to need. “What do you mean?”  
  
"I want to," Erik confirms softly. "I think-you could do better, with communication. With me. With being able to tell me what you need, and what you're thinking, and about your instincts and things like that. And about being able to start to keep order with your things, and to take care of yourself physically. To help me with things, too. But you do very well with that when I ask," he adds, fond. "I think maybe keeping a journal would be very good place to start. Like you could think about what goes on every day, and if you don't tell me things, you write it down, and then show me. And then we can work on instead of writing, you talking to me about it. And to set a schedule, that you can start to follow, sometimes with me and sometimes just by yourself. Like keeping your belongings tidy." Erik flushes a little, hoping it doesn't sound silly. Misinformed.  
  
Charles lights up instead, his eyes bright as he smiles shyly up at Erik. “Alright, sir,” he whispers, and he’s squirming on his knees again, biting his lip. “I like that,” he admits. And not just a little, either, not just to humor Erik or because he thinks perhaps he should; he likes it. That structure, that accountability. He loves the idea of it more than he was capable of putting into words, more than he still is. Things like service tasks, like maintenance spankings, like check-ins — they’ve been on his mind, rolling around in there, and he’d been nervous to even bring them up. But here they are, on the surface, and Erik seems equally intrigued.  
  
That's part of why Erik suggested the journal as well. For all of those things rolling around in his mind that he's too anxious to say out loud, to train him to share them with his Dominant instead, in writing if not in spoken words. To build up to that. To trust that it isn't out of the ordinary. That it all intrigues Erik just as much as it does Charles. "It was-it is never because-" Erik hesitates himself, ashamed. "Because I am holding back or I don't want to. Sometimes I just, I don't know better. I never learned. Like in school. What I know is-and sometimes I am afraid to apply that, too. I don't know if it's-if it's normal."  
  
It makes perfect sense. But it’s a communication error on both their parts, and, “I read that when a Dominant has a submissive work on a specific skill, research shows that also develop that same skill in tandem...” It’s silly to say it like that, as if research applies to them, but there seems to be evidence here. When he works on something, when he opens up, Erik does, too. When he reaches a new low in subspace, Erik reaches new heights of Dominion. Speaking of - Charles’ head is still a bit fuzzy, more than a bit, actually, and he’s making these soft little noises again, curling into Erik’s leg, rubbing into him, nuzzling against the fingers on his face. He sucks one into his mouth, unable to help it, even though he wasn’t told he could. “Tell me, sir?” he requests, because if it isn’t normal, or if Charles doesn’t like the idea of it at all, more accurately, he’ll say so. He always has, and now he’s much more likely to because it actually doesn’t appeal, not because he’s ashamed. It’s their chance. Their training period, reached back and given back to them, in more ways than one.  
  
Erik just shakes his head though, and tears spring to his eyes all of a sudden, like being punched in the gut. He doesn't know how to verbalize this, and whatever is going on in the background of his mind has made it that much sharper, that much harder to separate. "Just some of the things I do. I don't know." He tries to laugh, and smile, eyes flicking up to the ceiling so he can suppress what's happening. It's crazy anyway. "But it seems OK." His instincts; to take Charles in hand, always, even when he isn't misbehaving, even over silly things; like doing things he isn't told to do. Erik often awards that with little jolts to the backs of his palms, or nudges to his shoulders, or knees, or even across his cheeks. It's never much more than a sting, it's more like a guidance. Charles doesn't remember very much at all; but Erik was similar with his kids, too. Always herding and nudging and pushing them, like a big cat keeping them in order. They were known to yell, even to get violent, and Erik always swiftly shut it down. Cuffs to the ears and yanks on collars and general herding tendencies, but for a second it breaks down, something; and Erik just has that thought, that he's done it, he thought that was normal. He tried to be more gentle. He clears his throat and as quickly as it comes it leaves, gone behind the door, and he goes back to petting instead. "Just silly things," he waves a hand. "But we'll learn."  
  
Charles blinks up at Erik, hiccuping quietly, his face and eyes still red from his punishment, and tilts his head curiously the way he’s always done. It’s difficult, sometimes, now. Everything needs to be relearned, reset. Hearing thoughts and getting images came so naturally it was sometimes like hearing someone speak, he had to consciously force himself to tell the difference, not that he knows that — but now it’s all more shaky, and off, and Erik can tell the difference more than anyone else could. Which is rather the point, but not this one, because he leans himself further into Erik and shakes his own head, confused but wanting to know. “I don’t understand, sir,” he whispers. “Why — why would you stop doing that?” Especially with Charles, who doesn’t always need a gentle hand, and they both know it. He actually needs quite a firm one, except when he doesn’t. He’s felt bad for it, thinking that maybe that wasn’t normal, that he was forcing Erik to just relive something truly damaging, act out against his nature —  
  
Erik runs his fingers through Charles's hair, doing it both to soothe him and to calm himself, tucking Charles in against his leg and touching his cheek fondly. It's not really about stopping it; more that it is his nature. Flashes of images embedded deep in his memory are available for the plucking, splattering against the pane of Charles's consciousness like raindrops. Whenever Erik had misstepped, that was the _Hellfire Club's_ preferred method of handling things, too. Backhands across the face, straight up slugs to the jaw, kicking, punching, among other-and Erik promptly shoves that down into metal watertight compartments before they flood. It's not the same thing? It isn't-abnormal? He isn't hurting Charles? Erik doesn't think he's ever done anything like that; that severe, but how can he know?  
  
It makes him gasp, his eyes shut tightly as he reels with it. Everything like that feels sensitive and almost painful, especially now; it makes him a little sick, and not just because the images do anyway, and for a moment or two he gets stuck in it, drifting. But he keeps rubbing up against Erik’s leg, nuzzling, kissing at his knee. “Not abnormal, sir,” he promises, and Charles isn’t hurt by it. In fact, it helps him. It guides him. It does exactly what it’s supposed to. He could use more of it, actually. “What else?” he wants to know, curious, but also because he needs to know; Erik needs to be reassured, too. Charles is learning that.  
  
"Lots of things," Erik whispers, wiping at his eyes as discreetly as he can. Ways that he feels, ways that he acts, that suddenly transpose in his mind to ways that were aggressions against him. The Universe said it; the things that harmed him, some of them at least, weren't supposed to be harmful to Charles. Being expected to do things, being expected to-cook, and clean, and launder, and fix up, and be presentable; all things that he's had an inclination toward guiding Charles into in some respects, but it's stuck. In roles, in misuse. He doesn't ever want Charles to feel used, or feel... Erik doesn't know how to describe it. Feel _lesser_. The way he felt lesser. Being made to dress a certain way, appearances, actions, everything always-Erik sniffs, clearing his throat. It's so easy for everyone in his life to just say-to just say it's fine, it's fine, stop holding back, but they don't-they don't know. They don't know how visceral, how much-Erik chokes a little, trying not to let on his pain.  
  
This time Charles chokes. His head bows and he starts to sniffle, though there really aren’t any tears left; how could there be, when he’d cried so hard before? But he hiccups again, and he sniffs, and he feels. He knows, even if he doesn’t know it. “I know, sir,” he whispers, croaked, but soft. Gentle, soothing, and he looks up with wet, red eyes, biting on his lip. “It won’t just go away. I know. But you weren’t supposed to have those things. It wasn’t for you. But —“ But it is for Charles, he thinks. It won’t hurt him. It hurts him when he doesn’t have it, actually, but how can he convince Erik of that when his own experiences are so very the opposite? When it was always going to be wrong and horrid for him? How could he ever understand that for Charles all of those abuses — they’re perfectly necessary? Helpful? Should he feel ashamed that they are?  
  
"I just can't-" Erik's embarrassed about it, and it shows. Ashamed to still struggle so desperately with it even after all this time. He should be over it by now. He thought he was. But he's just feeling sorry for himself. He's just pressed into the dirt. He wrings his hands. "Most of the time I'm OK, you know. But then my mind goes, you know, _hey, you remember_ -" he waves his hand, bitter. "Or you know. I hear-" and he knows he's getting dangerously close to crazy territory, so he trails off. "And I just-lose my confidence. What if-and it's-it gets stuck in this, like a tape recorder and I can't stop-" It sounds stupid when he says it like that. "I'm not-I'm not _sorry for myself_ -"  
  
Charles closes his eyes tightly. His throat bobs. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, voice cracked. “I should never have — I’m sorry —“ And he’s apologized and he’s been punished but it doesn’t just wipe it away, of course it doesn’t. He still _said_ it. It’s still caught in Erik’s head. “You don’t have to be over it. It was years and years of —“ Charles takes a sharp breath. “If you could forget all of it, would you?” he asks, suddenly.

* * *

It makes Erik blink. He does touch Charles's cheek, though. He knows that Charles is sorry for saying it, but some part of him has always believed that it's exactly what he's done. Wallowed in his own self-pity, like a knife. Reveling in his own horrid, pathetic pain. It only stuck in his mind because it finally came from someone other than himself. But Charles doesn't need to be sorry for it anymore. He knows-and Erik isn't-he certainly didn't, then. He stuck up for himself. He told Charles exactly how he expects to be talked to, and it isn't that way. He isn't just a creature of pain. He is learning. The question catches him off guard, though. He knows somewhere that the right answer-he wouldn't-be himself, maybe. He wouldn't be who he is. But it's been working in his mind all morning, he's been burying it and burying it and it hasn't been working. "Maybe," he rasps. "But I wouldn't be-I don't know," he stammers. He would forget his kids; but somehow that's-he'd also forget... he zones out, eyes fixed on the opposite wall unseeingly.  
  
Charles is biting his lip so hard it bleeds. “I probably could,” he whispers. Except he knows it’s not a probably, there’s none of that here and especially not right now. He could do it. Right here, right now, he could do it.  
  
Erik takes a long, shuddering breath. "Do you-want to?" he has to ask. Because-he could give Charles what he needs. If he didn't-if he wasn't-Charles wouldn't ever have to worry again.  
  
“No,” Charles gasps, tears in his eyes. “No, but — but...” It doesn’t seem fair, that he gets to escape it, that he has none of it in this place, and Erik does. That he’s burdened by it. It seems distinctly unfair, and Erik has wondered all this time, and so he brought it up. He’s wondered. Charles knows. And if he has that power, if he could give him an answer —  
  
"I-" Erik stares up at the ceiling again. "You shouldn't have asked me that question today," he croaks. Because the answer today, is _yes_.  
  
Charles’ lip wobbles. “I shouldn’t have asked,” he agrees, because all he’s done is hurt Erik more, apparently, even if the intention was to help his Dominant. He closes his eyes and whines, head bowed.  
  
It's not about Charles, it's not about his kids, it's not about-for one split second it's all narrowed down to only one thing. And if he could do anything, anything, to forget-his hand comes up over his face before he can stop it, covering his eyes, and he just breathes, silent and still. "I-it's OK," he whispers. "You, didn't hurt me. You didn't. It's OK."  
  
“I could do it,” he whispers again, eyes still firmly closed. “It wouldn’t be forever. I could do it.” They would have to start over, unless Charles quite literally reprogrammed Erik’s mind. Could he? Could he do that? And what sort of result would he get? It wouldn’t be Erik, but then again — is he not Charles, like Erik’s said all this time? It spins around and around in his head, making him dizzy.  
  
It's true that Erik's thought about it, too, mostly because-well, it's part of his life already. Charles is relearning, and growing, and he just doesn't think that he's capable of doing the same thing-the way he is now. And as much as-he coughs, struggling to breathe, struggling to think, choking over dust. As much as he wishes it was gone-his first duty is to Charles. He has to take care of him, especially now, the Universe said he would need Erik more than he ever has. Did it mean this Erik? He couldn't ever make that decision, he just doesn't understand enough, and being presented with it today of all days, but he doesn't make a decision, he falters yet again and does his best not to dissolve. "It's OK," he repeats over and over. "I'm OK. I'm all right. I'm 'kay." All the tiny blobs are risen from the ground, running rampant. It's OK.  
  
Is it? Charles lets out a quiet little sob, trying not to dissolve, too; but he is. Erik is dissolving above him and he can’t help but feel that, once again, it’s his fault. He brought this up. He forced Erik into this horrible, unfair corner. All he wanted to do was help, but he’s decidedly rotten at it. And so soon after a punishment, so far into subspace — it just devastates him, and he can’t cry anymore, so all he does is cling to Erik’s leg and tremble with it.  
  
Erik keeps his hand over his face, hiding himself, but he doesn't have the privilege of falling apart. He inhales wetly and tries to let it go. Charles needs him, not this-and maybe it would be better if he didn't remember, because he would finally be able to give Charles what he needs instead of this. Instead of not being able to breathe. Which he can't, and he tries not to keel over, and fails, landing hard on his knees, bile rising in his throat. "I'm- sorry, I'm sorry, I-I'm sorry, it's just- _juh_ -I'm-" he tries to shake it off, practically rambling. "No, _no_ , no, this _can't_ happen. Not now, not now. Oh, G-d. Oh my G-d. I gotta-why is this happening-"

* * *

Charles sniffles loudly, his shoulders shaking horribly. This is the worst day for this, Erik is right. It’s been such a long day, and some of what’s happened has been extraordinarily good, but other things — differing levels of overwhelming, really, and what about this? What if he does it? What if they both start over for a while, but does that mean he has to be the one to tell Erik about all of this? About — everything? That he won’t tell Charles the little details, won’t smile and dote when he remembers children Charles doesn’t? He doesn’t know. Maybe. It hurts to think about, it all hurts to think about. It’s nearly too much, and Erik is coming apart and that means he is, too, his entire being just tearing itself at the seams, his heart sunk so fully into his belly, and if he does it, not the Universe, he could fix it, too, couldn’t he? Just put it all back like Charles wishes he could? It’s too much. It’s not supposed to be his decision. His teeth are chattering and everything feels very far away, and very fake, and very sick.  
  
Erik covers his face. It doesn't have anything to do-it's just coming out, where he doesn't want it, and he can't stop it. "No, need this to _stop_. Need it to stop," he gasps, to himself, breathing out harshly. Some of it was extraordinarily good, but whatever it is, has triggered a time bomb in his mind that has exploded in slow-motion. This is what he was afraid of, when he said he was scared. That he wouldn't be able to pull himself back.  
  
Charles is breathing harshly. Maybe he’s not breathing at all. It feels like something is crushing him, if he’s honest. Like something is just crushing him, and he knows that physically he must still be touching Erik, but he can’t feel it. He can’t feel tethered. He can’t feel anything at all. It’s like he was at the bottom of the ocean, floating peacefully, except now he’s suffocating. Now the pressure is bearing down on him and he’s no longer weightless. This day has been too long, he’s just been punished, put back down — something is ripping? Breaking? Shredding? He covers his mouth with a hand. He might be sick, but does he even have a body to be sick with? He blinks but nothing comes into focus. There’s nothing to focus on. Everything is white. Black. White, black, blue?  
  
Erik feels his mind splintering like a bus crash, glass and metal screeching and bending and twisting all around him and he's floating in the middle, counting coins as they saunter through the air. Erik shuts his eyes, trying to draw himself back, out of this. Out of the-no. He was never supposed to go here, but it was given to him unwittingly. He floated through the Universe for a million years. Long enough to forget. But he wasn't supposed to forget. Everything is white, until it flutters, the frayed edges of a tallit worn over a smiling-woman's shoulders, vivid green eyes and unmistakable features.   
  
She kneels before both of them and helps them to their feet, hand-in-hand. It's time to go back. _This one goes out to the one I love_ , she laughs. _To the one I left behind... a simple thought to occupy my mind... fire, fire...-_ Erik's hand finds Charles's.  
  
When he looks, she's-


	122. Did she answer? (No) Not a single heartbeat? (No)

Charles doesn’t respond. He doesn’t open his eyes. He doesn’t look. His hand is slack but shaking, and there’s no going back. There’s never been any going back. He wrenches his hand out of Erik’s to bring it to his own head, to pull at the strands of his hair. To tug at them. There’s nothing to go back to. There’s nowhere to return to. “I’m sorry,” he gasps, lips parted on it. “But I have to.”  
  
Erik is crying, streaks down his cheek and dripping off of his chin, a mechanized shedding as his body remains perfectly still, eyes red and vivid as he makes Charles look at him, makes him take his hand, and as always-doesn't understand. He doesn't know. "Have to what?" he finally manages to rasp out, voice hoarse from disuse like he's been screaming even though he's been totally silent.  
  
And Charles’ squeezes it, but he’s shaking so hard that doesn’t mean much. “I have to,” he repeats, hoarse himself, throat so raw it burns. “I’m sorry. I have to.” And it’s causing him physical pain.  
  
"Tell me what," Erik repeats, holding his eyes through the splintered-realm as dust and inferno streak past.  
  
“I have to, sir,” he just repeats, and speaking feels like trying to breathe underwater. Gurgling, horrible screeching noises, and he winces. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I don’t want you to go,” he babbles, and he’d thought he’d run out of tears, but apparently not. Apparently not.  
  
Erik doesn't really understand. His mind is always lagging so far behind, like a puppy banished from home, running in circles. Chasing his own tail, in comparison to Charles, and he just shakes his head, blinking away tears of his own. "I love you," is what he says, shaky, and he tugs Charles closer so he can kiss his temple. He doesn't know what's going to happen, only that he supposes something will. But he trusts Charles. He does.  
  
It feels like there’s blood clogged in Charles’ throat. Like his entire world is being shred apart again, right after he began to understand it. It’s his birthday, but at least he didn’t know it until this morning. “I love you, too,” he gasps, and climbs into Erik’s lap. Rests his head on his shoulder. “I love you, too, sir. Go to sleep,” he whispers, and closes his eyes, too.  
  
In the back of his mind, in the great-big whirring, Erik has an inkling. A clue. And it makes the tears come for real, his body wracked with minute tremors. "I love you," he warbles again, eyes blazing with conviction. He chokes back a sob. "Promise-" he gasps. "I see you again?" he asks, a little like a child facing something he could never truly comprehend; an experience he's been running from-  
  
And is Charles just forcing it onto him? He feels everything inside of him shrivel and break, wheezing as he tries to breathe. He needs his Dominant. Desperately, horrific in its intensity, he needs his Dominant. But it’s pressing, and it’s pressing, and it’s pressing; how could he ignore this without being utterly, completely crushed? And Erik won’t go away, just like he didn’t. Right? So he wheezes, and he hiccups, and he sobs, and he nods. “You’ll see me again,” he promises, croaked. Broken. “I love you, too. Go to sleep, sir, okay? I love —“ He can’t. He just hiccups again.  
  
And it's pressing against Erik, too, that deep-dark loam of sleep he simply can't ignore, a crushing blanket for his consciousness that slowly draws his eyes closed even as he desperately tries to fight it, to tell Charles one more time, to remind him. On his birthday, Erik tried to make it nice. He tried so hard, he always tried. Charles won't forget, right? He won't forget. _Happy birthday. I love-_

* * *

There are still presents and banners and streamers downstairs. Erik had surprises for him, and Charles never got to see them. To be shown them. He never got to celebrate the way his Dominant prepared for, and now he’s asleep. Now he’s asleep, and Charles closes his eyes and he sobs. It’s dry, and it’s hollowed out, and it’s frightened and it’s dropping, he’s dropping, even with Erik right here. Because he won’t be exactly the same, just like Charles isn’t. He doesn’t know everything, how will he possibly help? How will he possibly do this? They were just starting. They were just beginning. They had plans. There were meant to be check-ins and exploration and they watched movies together in the evening. It was his birthday. Charles hiccups. Carefully, he lifts Erik from the floor, more ability than strength, of course. Charles will put clothes on. He’ll take a shower. He’ll try to be here when Erik wakes up. When his Dominant wakes up. Because he still will be, won’t he? Charles will be here. It’s alright. He didn’t remember it was his birthday, anyway, and the terrible, frightened loneliness he feels will fade away. His Dominant will need him when he wakes up.  
  
Erik mumbles nonsense in his sleep, things slowly fading away, until he's silent and-peaceful; his features slackening, the tension in his body beginning to drain until he resembles-and he stays that way for a long, long time. Until the next morning, until the sunlight begins to stream through the windows and cast strips over his face, and his eyes flutter, and he begins to stir.  
  
Charles didn’t sleep. He drifted, briefly, but Erik shifting jolts him right awake. He’s changed into sweats and a t-shirt, dragged a chair over to the side of the bed; he’s been watching, waiting, trying to feel, but it’s all a bit like feeling around in the dark. He looks worse for wear, the bags under his eyes dark and pronounced, his skin paler than usual. But he’s here, a book discarded on the nightstand, eyes blinking open as he looks over at his Dominant, anxiety twisting in his belly. What does he say? What could he possibly? He takes a sharp, slow breath. “Hello,” he whispers, voice cracked.  
  
While Erik looks a bit bleary and confused-the tension, tension Charles never realized even existed until it melted away, is gone. In his bones and muscles and the lines of his face, making him look years younger. His eyebrows lift as he examines the room, trying to parse; his mind is a little scattered in confusion. " _Shalom_ ," he whispers back, giving a little wave as he tries to set himself upright, glancing curiously at the black brace on his right hand. He offers a smile at the curious stranger, making his nose wrinkle a little and separating the freckles that dot the bridge. " _Mevin li_?" Curious. He wants to know. Where is he? Who is he? Who is this stranger that he feels compelled toward, as if by an invisible string?  
  
Charles swallows, but forces himself to smile back. It’s contagious, really; how could he not, when Erik’s nose scrunches that way? It feels better, even if only slightly, with Erik awake. Less like he’s being torn apart at the seams, at least. He puts his hand in his own hair and brushes it back to avoid reaching out. “You’re — you’re at my manor, you’re safe,” he assures quietly, though Erik doesn’t seem at all panicked, just curious. Confused, if anything. “My name is Charles. What do you remember?” he asks, the words nearly getting caught in his throat.  
  
It's always been Erik's way; something this-Charles has only seen peripherally. He's never been afraid. He's always embraced new situations with wonder, instead of analysis. And in some cases it clearly can't turn out well; he's run head-first into danger plenty of times. But in this instance, that particular quirk, which still remains within him, serves him well. He sits up a bit further and peers at him, like an overgrown praying mantis. " _L_ _o chotef li?_ " he murmurs, laughing a little. Maybe because it's so absurd. It doesn't seem like he's been... abducted, but he is injured, visibly. His eyes latch onto the many visible scars along his hands and arms, and he tugs up his pant leg to discover more, eyes wide. "... _Atah_ -?" he blinks. Did the stranger-... " _Lo yode'a klum_ ," he realizes, not really answering Charles's question-more looking at him as if he doesn't... understand him, to be honest.  
  
Charles presses his lips together to keep from laughing, more from hysteria than true amusement. It was his first assumption, too, regardless of how absurd it was. Why wouldn’t someone assume that, waking up in a strange bed with a stranger looming over you? He takes another sharp, short breath, and shakes his head. “I promise I didn’t kidnap you,” he murmurs, as gently as he can. His eyes are still bloodshot; it’s so incredibly obvious he’s been crying, and the reminder makes him rub at his own eyes. “Do you hurt anywhere?” He shouldn’t, but Charles needs to check; their connection is effectively snapped again, completely dulled and silent, and he tries not to let it fray his nerves. He wants to reach out; his hand moves, and then he pulls it back. Folds it into his lap instead and ducks his head. “I’m not your kidnapper, or your abductor, or —“ He might as well just get to it. “I’m your submissive,” he whispers.  
  
"Hurt," Erik whispers his first word in English, something a little more poignant than he has the faculties to understand at the moment. His accent is strong, even stronger than it usually is; Erik does tamp it down consciously. But this Erik doesn't have any preconceptions at all, newly-formed and-well-curious. The word of the hour. His statement isn't directed at himself, though, and he reaches out, touching Charles's hand before it can fully pull away. "Hurt?" he touches his own eye, looking at Charles with concern.  
  
It occurs to Charles that, without knowing how to use his telepathy, without any connection at all — he understands what Erik is saying, even as he lags behind a bit, but does Erik understand him? Fully, completely? The idea that there’s a language barrier hadn’t even occurred to him. He bites his lip; did Erik understand what he’d just told him? He takes another calming breath, staring down at the hand Erik’s taken in his, and then shakes his head. His fingers are shaking when he brings them up to the collar he’s wearing, the one he and Erik had discussed adding to after his training. The training this Erik doesn’t remember. “Your submissive,” he says again, quietly. As if that explains anything, any pain he’s experiencing, and truly it does. He’d just gotten used to saying the words, after all, and now — he swallows, shaking it off.  
  
" _Kanu'a sheli?_ " Erik's brain pieces it together sluggishly. He doesn't really understand a whole lot, but-and when Charles woke up it was dramatic and harsh and violent, and thus far Erik hasn't had the same experience, up until his eyes widen and he lurches forward a little, a thrum of power exploding out of him and knocking into every item in the room, his eyebrows shooting to the top of his hairline. Emanating from Charles's collar, all of its embedded secrets, spilling out, the metal whispering to him in particles, splitting and splitting. He's got a grip on every atom in the room, and he doesn't know what to do with it. " _Azor li, bevakasha!_ " he says, and now he sounds somewhat panicked.  
  
Immediately Charles begins to panic, too, but when he closes his eyes and takes a breath, everything abruptly stops. He knows how to do this, he’s done it before; when Erik’s powers got a bit out of control, though it was for a different reason then. Relief settles in, but he nods, trying to be reassuring, to smile; Erik was calm with him, with his uncontrolled power. He can be calm, too. “Submissive,” he repeats, softly. He taps his collar again. “Yours. We’re mutants —“ Does he know that word? How much context does he have, how much does he remember? Charles tries not to let it clench up his chest again, to swallow it back down. “You and I. The same. You’re alright, it’s alright.”  
  
"Aba-" Erik murmurs, eyebrows furrowing and he holds out his hand, flinging it a little. A shoe resting by the closet abruptly lifts and slams into the wall, exploding into a thousand pieces like it's made of glass and frost. Electricity hums through the room, raging through Charles's hold, straining and fighting and battling and cracking. Worlds out of alignment. Meteors and stars colliding. " _Aba- memalet-_ " smash-bang, twisting metal, standing at the window; cups dropping to the floor-smashing- " _Geni'tashnit_ ," he straightens almost proudly, smiling-sudden. _"Gam atah? Geni'tashnit?_ " He points at Charles, eyebrows raised.  
  
Except Charles swiftly grabs all of that power and tunes it down, and down, and down, sucking it all inside of himself with a harsh, shaky breath. His eyes close and he reels with it, and now Erik isn’t here to tell him to _breathe, neshama_ or _focus, neshama_ and the thought nearly brings tears to his eyes before he forces it away, and down, and out. He feels like he never stopped dropping, really. In that place where only Erik could meet him, and then suddenly — and everything has felt — but there’s nothing to be done for it. Charles shakes his head, feeling sick, feeling slow. “I don’t know what you’re asking,” he admits helplessly, because his brain isn’t translating quite fast enough. He knows, but — it’s strange, it’s odd. It’s not even close to his first language, and sometimes he needs help and now Erik isn’t here to help him, patient and fond. How hadn’t he realized how deeply — but everything is clear in retrospect. He takes another calming breath and points at Erik. “Erik,” he whispers, just in case. Because Charles didn’t even know his own name, and he doesn’t want Erik to wonder. The very least he can offer is that.  
  
"Erik," he repeats, laughing. " _Yode'a_ ," he nods, touching his own chest. "Lehnsherr." It's a different starting point; and maybe that's telling, too. The Universe had to take everything from Charles, because Charles started-from the time he was born, from the time he could say his own name, in suffering. But Erik hadn't. And Charles realizes belatedly that Erik's saying aba-father. Does he remember his parents? He seems to remember his own name, at the very least. He leans forward, his features knitted together with evident concern; and he's so much more now even as he is less. His every feeling printed on his face for all to see. " _Atzuv_?" he whispers, pained. He doesn't know Charles. But he knows that he doesn't want him to be sad. "I talk bad English," he adds, rueful. Apologetic. " _Slicha_."  
  
That concern is what eventually brings the tears, the ones he’d so carefully held back; his eyes are still swollen and red from all the crying he’d done the day before, and they sting with them. They’re on his cheeks before he can stop them, his breathing uneven as he forces himself not to fall apart; this Erik needs him, he needs Charles, just like Charles needed the Erik who waited for him, who was there when he woke up panicked and upset and terrified. “It’s alright,” he promises quietly, even as he has to swallow several times before he can say it. “It’s alright. I — I understand you. And —“ How does he tell Erik this? How does he even begin to explain it? He bites his lip and taps his temple, wincing at the sensitivity. “Telepath.” Not a very good one, for the moment, but he is. He forces another soft smile.  
  
Erik's returning smile is brilliant and genuine, and he reaches forward, touching Charles's temple, and somehow he knows to do it gently; so gently. He dabs at the tears, trying even now to care for him. This stranger. This stranger who-Erik shakes it off, like _deja vu_. "Tele-path," he repeats, and the fondness there is achingly familiar. " _Ma ze_?" he doesn't quite get it, exactly. He's never heard those words before.  
  
The tears sting at his eyes again and he forces himself not to sob, not to break; but Erik is touching him like that, in that way — except there’s no spark, now. No jump of connection, no immediate link, and it sinks his heart right into his stomach. He shakes his head and his smile nearly falls off except he forces it, forces it, forces it, closes his eyes, and focuses. _Breathe, neshama_. It’s an image of just a few days before that he gives to Erik, an image of the two of them; they were preparing dinner, Erik giving Charles calm, firm instructions. They laugh, too. Erik kisses the top of his head. Charles takes a sharp breath and cuts the memory off before it goes further. “Telepath,” he repeats.  
  
"My submissive," Erik whispers, his lips parted as he turns over the experience he's just been given. And he forgot all of this? Was he hurt? An accident? Is that why his hand is broken and his body is covered in marks? Why he can only remember... he blinks, stroking his mind over those images like fingers over a photograph, reverent. It could be a trick, he could be trapped in some kind of Void with this telepathic monster feeding him lies. But somehow Erik doesn't think so. His hand makes its way to Charles's collar. "Mine?"  
  
Charles’ lip wobbles as he nods this time. “Yes. Yours,” he gasps, a bit like it was physically punched out of him. It took him a while to get there, recently, but yes. He’s undeniably Erik’s, and they were certainly in the process of assuring he very much knew that. None of that, now, but Charles shoves those thoughts down and away. It doesn’t matter right this moment. “Your submissive. Ah —“ He points to himself, grinning softly, because he thinks Erik might know this. “S1,” he informs.  
  
Erik's eyebrows are shooting up again. " _Be'emet!_ " he laughs. "D5," he points at himself. " _Medaber ivrit_?" this is curious; because they don't seem to... share a common language. How do they communicate? "Telepath?" he guesses, thoughtful. There's no fear at all, even when there should be, and it turns out that's just a quirk of Erik himself. "Ehh, what happened? To me? _Ma kara_?"  
  
Erik’s accent is so thick. Charles understands just fine, and in fact — the only time it ever gets this thick, this pronounced, the only time — he shakes it off, but he can’t completely hide his shiver. He’ll pretend it’s chilly in here. The air is on, after all, something Erik protests but Charles flips on throughout the day, mostly to be playfully scolded for it, if he’s honest. “Actually —“ He reaches for the bedside table, picking up a small book and offering it over. It’s Erik’s book, in his language, but Charles has been making notes. He’s been studying. “I understand.” Perfectly well, telepathy or otherwise. “But you... you spoke, and —“ He bites his lip and decides to show Erik himself, opening up the book he’d just handed over, trying not to tremble at being so close. Erik had written notes back to him. They’re all in English, for the most part. For Charles’ convenience. To help him learn. Charles swallows hard again. “You — there was... you need to heal,” he decides on, and reaches one hand to touch his temple. He’s not demonstrating anything, he’s focusing; he wants Erik to understand. He’s still so clumsy, still just learning, but he wants Erik to understand. To stay unafraid.  
  
It doesn't look like the handwriting he remembers; it's odd. He's not really childlike, but it's almost as though his brain is having to play a rapid game of catch-up. It works a little differently in him than it does in Charles; Charles needed his semantic memory off the bat, but Erik really doesn't. So he's left with his actual memories, which are... outdated, to say the least. He has his skills, he knows certain things that he can't remember learning, he is matured; but it's... different. Headstrong, almost foolishly so, vibrant and alert and fascinated. "I write this," he scrunches his nose at it, tracing his fingers over the letters. "I speak better," he huffs. It's a book about physics, and he finds himself reading a few paragraphs, interested in the dense material. "I, ah... hurt my head?" It doesn't hurt, though. "You are cold?" The questions pelt one after the other, and he smiles sheepishly.  
  
Charles isn’t cold, but he’s not going to field that one — usually Erik is the one freezing when he turns the air on, so he’s surprised his teeth aren’t chattering by now. Having to explain to his Dominant what’s really happened to him is a task he didn’t exactly want to take on. He does have an idea, though, and he grabs for Erik’s phone off the bedside. “Yours,” he tells him. The lockscreen is a picture of the children, the ones he doesn’t remember, Pietro a blur and Wanda looking shocked, and he quickly bypasses it. He holds a button instead, and watches as it prompts him to shut off or reset — he picks the latter option, and holds it for Erik to see as it just does that. “Reset.” He points at Erik. “You.”  
  
"I am... reset?" Erik pieces that together since his phone is in Hebrew, he's able to quickly identify the word in English when Charles says it. His teeth have been chattering this whole time, actually, little tremors running through his own body that frankly are because of the chill in this place., but his curiosity has gotten the better of him, the adrenaline of these new experiences and new people-and he's barely even noticed it at all. "Why I am reset?"  
  
Charles can’t help but grin softly, sympathetically, because he’s just noticed. His instincts kick in because Erik is still his Dominant, and he’s supposed to take care of him. So he does, pulling up the blankets over his shoulders. He hardly even notices he’s doing it. “You’re healing,” he repeats from before. “And you’re freezing, aren’t you?” he teases, and the whirring from the air softens, as if just because he’d thought of it. It is, really. “You hate when I put the air on.” It makes him choke up again, and he swallows it right back down. “Are you hurting? Hungry? Thirsty?” Already he’s reaching for the glass of water he has waiting, offering it up.  
  
"Not hurting," Erik says, and already he's demonstrating clear intellect, using the right tense because he's just heard Charles use it. "Not hungry." He holds up a finger as if to say a-ha. "I am thirsty," he smiles warmly. He lets himself be wrapped in the blanket, warm and cozy, and takes the glass of water in both hands. "What I am healing from?" he whispers, soft. So confused, and a little desperate for answers. " _Ma kara_? _Magid li_? I beg you."  
  
Truthfully, it requires a much longer, detailed answer than Charles can give at exactly this moment, but he knows what he can’t do is avoid it because it’s uncomfortable. It wouldn’t be fair, and Erik wouldn’t accept it, if he knows anything about him; so he takes a breath, closes his eyes, and nods. “Something very terrible,” he whispers, voice cracking again. “For a very long time. And now — now you need to heal,” he murmurs, and taps his own temple. “From what happened.”

* * *

Erik starts to think he might be understanding a little more. Bit by bit, raindrops on his ceiling. He touches his own temple again, and looks at Charles, a question. He's here because of Charles? The terrible-things. They were taken from him, by Charles? "Why I just ahhh," Erik shakes his head, trying to piece together the word. " _Rak yode'a yaldut sheli_?"  
  
Charles bites his lip, his eyes still closed. He wrings his hands in his own lap. “You — it was very difficult for you, to process,” he breathes, his chest tight with it again. “To... to work through. You needed help. Me, too,” he adds, pointing to himself. “Together. Both of us.”  
  
Erik blinks. "No," he whispers, smiling a little, almost touched by Charles's concern. He wants to lay his hands over Charles's, an instinct pulling him forward, but he doesn't know how the stranger will react. He must miss... his Erik. The one who remembers standing in the kitchen. "I have good memory, _mavtiach_."  
  
It’s Charles’ turn to blink, genuinely confused. He must have missed something, misunderstood something, but he refuses to be frustrated. “No?” he asks, tilting his head. “You... remember?” There’s no possible way that Erik does, and so Charles doesn’t know what he’s referring to. But what can he do? He can’t hear, Erik can’t speak English well — and he doesn’t know what to do, really, except to try. Exactly like Erik did. To help his Dominant.  
  
Erik nods, and he puts his hand over Charles's arm, sensing his frustration and apologetic. "Ah, from a child. I remember that," he clarifies.  
  
From a child. Oh. Charles smiles softly, because of course he does. His fingers are shaking when he reaches for Erik’s hand, tentatively, slowly curling their fingers together. “I promise you can trust me,” he whispers, his voice shaking again, too. “I’m... I’m yours, Erik. Your submissive.” And if it sounds watery, that can’t be helped, either.  
  
"My..." Erik winces. "The time before I forget," it's convoluted, but he means his last memory-"I am playing with my friend in the school." This is fluent, but it's absolutely a phrase of some sort he'd picked up from English lessons. He counts on his fingers and holds up eleven of them. " _Echad esar_ ," he repeats in Hebrew. He hasn't really traveled through time-he feels like he's an adult, but-all that time? Gone? He looks down at the book, a little overwhelmed, but he instinctively squeezes Charles's hand, very gentle. "Submissive," he repeats again, and touches Charles's collar. " _Kanu'a_?" A light shines in his eyes, a true understanding, then. " _Sheli_? Mine?"  
  
Eleven. It would be, wouldn’t it? Before everything was taken from him. Before he was crushed into the ground. Charles swallows down the sick feeling that leaves behind, but it still lingers. He tightens his fingers around Erik’s and ignores the pricking in his eyes. “Something terrible,” he repeats, quietly. “But you’ll remember. I promise.” And he will. Charles doesn’t know when, or how, or in what order or by what means, but he will. The next question does make him smile, though, however sadly, and he nods again. “Yours,” he confirms, easily now. “I’m yours, Erik. I belong to you.”  
  
Erik's smile in return is slow, and curious. This is information he doesn't struggle to accept, although he is so very startled that he'd ever met someone-he was going to be content, in life. He had friends, he had his family, he loved them all very much. He was going to do... well, he was going to do things, if not great things, or even good things. His future was set. But a submissive? That was never... he sniffs a little and wipes his eyes. "Tell me? How you meet? About you?"  
  
It’s funny, really, almost hilarious, because not too long ago Erik had to tell him these things. And does he give him that version, the one he knows is true? Does he tell him about the prison and the court case, about their lives paraded around for all the world to see, about how it all still lingers, waiting for them to come back to it? Sometimes pushing in? Charles takes a breath. “We met here,” Charles decides on, quietly. “In New York. You were in some trouble, and I helped you, and we —“ A soft, shy smile, now, Charles’ head ducked. “We Bonded. We’re going to build a school together, a school for mutants, in this house. Bad things happened in this house, so we’re going to make it a good place instead.” He forces himself not to get too choked up, because those are things Erik has explained to him, things that lit him up inside, even when he didn’t understand. When he was frustrated, when he was frightened. “You’re — you were training me,” now he chokes up, his hand trembling in Erik’s. “Yesterday was my birthday,” he adds, for some reason.  
  
Erik really doesn't understand a lot of it, but somewhere, Charles's mind is working, too, and Erik seems to get the gist of it , if not the nuances. "Here, is New York?" Erik decides to start with the first thing he understands. "We met here, at New York. I was in trouble, you helped me." Erik smiles at that. Somehow that just seems true. He doesn't know the word Bonded, though. Charles's soft smile makes him inclined toward knowing, even if he doesn't, yet. He knows this is important. "We-Bonded?" Erik touches his own temple. "Tele-path? Show me what means Bonded?" He wants to go through the rest of it, too, but he wants to make sure he really gets it.  
  
Charles wonders, briefly, if perhaps this is a cultural thing. If there are things that Erik truly wouldn’t know, because the words were different or the entire practice was. But he grins, and he leans forward, and he reaches up to gently touch Erik’s temple; and he shows him what he means. Presses the concept in, first, the idea of a Bonding, as he knows it — a promise, a Vow, a Pair, a Ceremony, and then the two of them. He doesn’t have the memory, exactly, but he knows what it means. He knows that they’re a Pairbond, and that’s what he shows Erik now. A D5 and an S1, perfectly suited for each other. Made for each other. Balanced, complementary, far stronger together than apart. “See?” he whispers, his voice hushed. “Bonded.”  
  
Erik gasps, pressing his fingertips to his lip. He remembers the word in his own language, for Pairbond. " _Zivug_ ," he gazes at Charles in awe. Pairbond. A compatible D5 and S1. There are simply no words. But it's beyond that, for him. Because to him, they're just words. What he sees in front of him... "Ani lo yode'a atah," he whispers back, mournful. "I want," he touches his chest. He wants to know. Everything. He wants to-he's so sorry that he forgot. "And tell me training?"  
  
That makes Charles turn rather red, all of a sudden, because — does he not understand the word, or the concept? A bit of both? It’s not like he suddenly has memories that he didn’t have, and Erik was a bit confused, too, at least on the particulars. The idea of explaining that to someone who sees him as a perfect stranger, for all intents and purposes, has Charles fidgeting something awful. “No, ah — forget that part,” he insists, waving his hand, even though Erik just tried to train him out of that. The circumstances have changed, and that Erik isn’t here to tell him so. “Aren’t you thirsty?” he asks, swallowing, and gestures to the glass Erik is holding. It’s not the smoothest change of subject.  
  
Erik does drink, his throat bobbing as he gives a long overdue swallow. Like it's been eons since he's had a drink. His eyebrows furrow together. "But-" he doesn't agree. "Tell me. Mine," he says as if that's explanation enough. "Please." There's so much he doesn't know. He implores.  
  
It’s not an Order, but he imagines Erik doesn’t even realize he can do that. Even so, he feels compelled; and hearing Erik say mine, thickly accented like that — he takes a harsh breath and swallows himself. “Training me to be your submissive,” he whispers, but he knows Erik wants him to show him. He could pretend that he can’t, but he knows better than that, doesn’t he? His Dominant would never stand for it, and he has to think that even if he isn’t here, even now, he should behave. It steadies him. He presses the concept into Erik’s mind gently, just like he did before; a training period, a learning period, growth. A few passages of that book he’s been reading, translated smoothly, more thought than it is words. A Dominant showing their submissive what it means to Serve them, to be theirs. To be owned by them. Little images, things they’ve agreed upon, vague and quick while the heat spreads up to Charles’ ears — Postures in the morning, check-ins, tasks to complete. “That,” he breathes, shaky.  
  
Erik inhales softly in amazement. "We do this?" he whispers," awed. "You are mine. My submissive. I am your-?" he points to Charles, wanting to hear the word for himself in Charles's language.  
  
Charles grins, unable to help himself. “Dominant,” he provides, quietly, a bit awed himself. It’s new to him, too, actually. He touches Erik’s wrist, where he’s still wearing his cuffs. “You’re my Dominant,” he repeats, in a hushed whisper.  
  
"I am your Dominant. You're my submissive," Erik repeats the phrase with a pleased grin. He just doesn't know. So much lost. But Charles must notice, in its absence, how absolutely free with it Erik is. Like it's just an extension of himself. Of course he's Dominant. Of Course-if Charles is his, Charles is his submissive. He sits up suddenly, eyes darting about. "We... _garim kan_?" He gestures a little. They live here? In his enormous mansion? Are they rich? Famous? Movie stars? Erik waggles his eyebrows. After all, he was a bit famous in his... well... village. Shut up.  
  
It’s enough to startle a laugh out of Charles, a watery little giggle, really, and he covers his mouth to stifle it but it still comes right out, shakes his shoulders until it’s deeper and fuller and real. Charles was terrified, guarded, confused — of course Erik takes things in stride like this, wide-eyed and bewildered but willing to accept it, to adapt to it. “We live here,” he confirms. “It’s my family’s home, but now it’s ours. We’re turning it into a school.” He tries not to sound so intensely proud of that, considering he doesn’t remember being part of the actual decision, but how could he not be? The way he and Erik talked about it, the way he explained it, the way they discussed it together...  
  
Erik wiggles his fingers to his head, brow furrowed. Charles's laugh makes him laugh, infectious, and he finds himself grinning right back. How could he not? This is his submissive. "What, what do you teach? I teach? Me too?" he's very curious, that's really the only word for it. "Not _Tzahal_? Uh, army?" Somehow, this pleases him, even though he knows it's not supposed to. It's not like his parents expected it from him, specifically, but there's a... sense of duty, nevertheless, something he knows he's supposed to want. He just... doesn't. Didn't. It's still confusing.  
  
Charles laughs again. These are details that haven’t been quite ironed out yet, but Erik seems so — free, now. Open, curious, no walls up. He can’t help himself when he leans over, almost as if pulled by invisible strings, and touches Erik’s cheek. He’s smiling wider than Charles has ever seen him, nose scrunched up — how did he not notice the tense lines of Erik’s face, even at his happiest and most peaceful? He swallows around it. “You’ll teach, too,” he promises, though the Erik he knows best has his doubts about that. “We’ll teach mutants. Mutant children. Like you and me,” he points at the both of them, grinning. “We’ll keep them safe. Give them a home. A place just for them,” he whispers, chest clenching with that fierce pride again. He doesn’t know how he got to it, exactly, he doesn’t remember, but he knows that he wants it. “Where they can be themselves, learn themselves. We’ll teach them together.”  
  
Erik's smile continues, because of course it does, but he raises his hand. " _Geni'tashnit_?" he repeats again, soft, struggling to keep up with Charles's rapid-fire English. He presses Charles's finger against his temple, and then reaches for Charles's, touching gently. "Telepath? _Geni'tashnit_? We teach... like us?" He looks at the shoe he'd flung to the wall. Abilities. Mutants, he's trying to say. They teach mutants? "In English? Like us? With telepath? And _gam li_?" he taps his own chest. He doesn't yet know the word-mutant in English.  
  
Oh. Charles flushes pink, sheepish and embarrassed that he keeps forgetting. He presses the word gently into Erik’s mind, as gently as he can without proper control — mutant, someone with abilities like them. The concept, too; a safe place, a place for them to grow and learn, to be themselves. A home, with the connotation, the warmth. “What’s the word for you?” he asks, and smiles softly, because he knows but instead of looking for that recall, he usually asks. _What’s the word for this, and this. How do you say this_. Erik always seems delighted to answer, even if he taps his nose and tells him that you know it, neshama, even as he repeats it. “You speak English, too, and I speak your language, we spoke both,” he informs quietly. “I learned for you.”  
  
" _Geni'tashnit_ ," Erik replies, and the delight is there just the same, only this time it's so much more. So much less restrained. "I... learned English for you?" he seems proud of that, pleased, and so very touched that Charles learned his language for him. There is evidence all around them of the truth. That Charles... loves Erik. His smile fades a little and he swallows. "You love me?" he whispers.  
  
Now he understands. Charles laughs, delighted, too, despite himself. There may be a barrier now — several of them, actually — but they’re navigating it fairly well, all things considered. “You already knew English before you met me,” he corrects, because it was Charles who needed to really learn. He blinks at the next question, entirely taken aback; but then he smiles, slow and shy, and ducks his head. “Yes,” he whispers, and it wouldn’t have come so easy a week ago, but it isn’t a week ago. “I do. I love you.”  
  
He must have gotten better than his abysmal performance in grade school, he huffs, and at Charles's answer he smiles again. There's something so familiar about this stranger, but he just can't place it. He doesn't remember falling in love with Charles, or all the little things that would have drawn him to Charles, but the idea that he could love this person is not a surprise to Erik at all. " _Yom huledet sameach_ ," Erik whispers, his nose scrunching up fondly. It's Charles's birthday. He hasn't forgotten that. He squints, suddenly. "What day?" He knows his own birthday, but he doesn't know what... date it is? This will take some getting used to.  
  
“July 14th,” Charles supplies easily, and smiles softly, taking a still-trembling hand and touching Erik’s cheek with it. “The day after my birthday, but thank you.” He still hasn’t gone downstairs. He hasn’t cleaned away the decorations, or put away any of the presents. He doesn’t have the heart to. “I’m three months older than you,” he announces, with just a tiny grin. He holds up three fingers, as if Erik might struggle with that.  
  
" _Lo be'emet_!" Erik squawks indignantly, laughing. "You are _shtaim_!" he holds up two fingers in response, but it's without any real offense at all, a joke between them he never could have known, and yet here it is, all over again. They find one another. "I am ... _shmone esar_ September," he tries his best to use the Gregorian calendar, the one he learned in school. At least he does know the months fluently. He flashes ten fingers, then eight. " _Shmone esar_ ," he repeats again.  
  
Charles grins. “I know your birthday, Erik,” he teases, but it’s really quite funny because a few short weeks before he didn’t. Erik was the stranger, and he was much more terrified, completely unable to comprehend the life he’d been dropped into. “Do you have questions? More questions? I’ll answer anything you have, you must be awfully confused,” he bites his lip, because Erik seems more curious than anything, but there’s always the possibility that could change. Charles needs to take care of his Dominant. “And be careful, please. I helped, but —“ He gently brushes Erik’s hand, looking down. “You’re injured, still. You have injuries. I take away the pain,” he whispers, tapping his temple to give both the meaning of those words and the how.  
  
"Pain?" Erik whispers, swallowing. He hurts? Charles hurts? He takes it from him? Does he hurt, too? What happened to him? Why is there so much of it? He sees his hand, that's fairly obvious. Even with Charles's intervention he needs the brace to straighten his fingers, then there's his forearm, with a bright red, fresh surgical scar, among many more. He lifts up his shirt, eyes wide. He must have been in some kind of accident, but why won't Charles tell him that? He can't remember. It won't hurt. His mind feels like it's whirling a million miles a minute. "Confused," he croaks, nodding.  
  
It’s hurting Charles’ head, actually, because he can’t hear the thoughts but dully, far away he can hear the buzzing and he takes a sharp breath and shakes his head. “There are things that happened to you that —“ He doesn’t know if he can help Erik understand this, not in English, but not in concept, either. That’s rather the point. Some of it is simply above and beyond comprehension. “I don’t even know them. But you don’t remember because they were hurting you here,” Charles taps his own temple, then leans forward to tap Erik’s, trying to muster another smile. “You’ll remember them. You’ll remember everything, I promise. But for right now, you’re healing, alright?”  
  
"OK," Erik whispers back, and his nose wrinkles up when Charles touches him, feeling a warmth spread through the point of contact. "I..." he struggles for the words. "Never tell you? What happened?" He can't imagine that. He knows-without a doubt-there is trust, here. He trusts that Charles doesn't want to hurt him, and if-they loved each other, he loved Charles-he didn't trust him? He never told him? "I am sorry."  
  
Charles shakes his head. “Not like that,” he promises quietly. He bites his lip and looks down at his lap, uncertain how to explain this one. “Some things — they can’t be spoken, not all at once, not right away,” he whispers, and presses the meaning gently into Erik’s mind, not wanting that particular phrase to get lost. “You were talking to me about it, but it was... too difficult. You needed some time to heal. So you’re here,” he finishes, and offers a soft, albeit sad smile. “And we’re going to be alright. I’m going to help you.”  
  
"OK," Erik murmurs back, not-quite skeptically, but willing to just accept this for now. " _Garim kan be'_ New York?" he decides to ask a less intrusive question, maybe. "Your family?" he raises his eyebrows and points at Charles. Of course that's Erik's first question. What's Charles like, what's his family like, has he met _Ima_ and Ruthie yet? Does Ruth drive him crazy, too? The thought makes him snort a little fondly. Obviously he doesn't ask any of this aloud, but it's-it's hard to ignore, too.  
  
And Charles can feel it, even if he can’t necessarily hear it. This is all this Erik knows. He doesn’t know loss, or grief, or unspeakable horror and tragedy, not in that way. Charles wishes fruitlessly and hopelessly that he never will, that he’ll never have to, but it’s just not a possibility. But for now he can do his best to minimize that pain. “My family wasn’t the warmest,” he murmurs, quietly. He’s looking down at his lap again. “Or the kindest. But I have a sister, too,” and it sticks awfully in his throat, for more than one reason. For the implication, and the fact that he doesn’t know her. He just knows that he should. The version he did meet was incredibly cross with him, actually, and that’s the only experience with her he has. But he knows he’s supposed to love her, and the emptiness that results from not is mostly a pang. He tries not to let it consume him. “Her name is Raven. She’s blue.” He gives Erik an image of her, and tries not to feel awfully sad that it’s from Erik in the first place, recycled and given back; he doesn’t have a memory of his own to give. Only photographs.  
  
It makes Erik gasp, and his eyebrows dart upward in utter delight. "So blue!" he laughs, but it's not mocking at all. It never could be. Erik has no memories of her at all, but the one Charles picked is from his own mind, where her skin flutters and she emerges out of the ether, where a completely different individual had once stood. The word that comes to mind is ferocious, if a little untamed. It makes Erik unspeakably happy, for some reason. "You know my sister?" he touches his hand to his chest, and then laughs again, because-he doesn't know, really. There's no pain, there's no horror, or grief. "But," he thinks to add, raising a finger playfully, "she is not blue. A _ni rak geni'tashnit be'mishpacha shelli_ ," he lapses into Hebrew when he can't find the right words, grinning.  
  
He doesn’t know Erik’s sister, and even with all his memories he wouldn’t. He knows of Erik’s sister. He’s asked about her, in the moment that it seems like Erik is most capable of speaking about her. Is it fair to continue on like this, knowing what he does? Is this one of those memories that he can reasonably leave unspoken, Erik wondering all the time where she is and where she fits into his life? Charles takes a breath. And he takes a breath, and takes a breath, and takes a breath. “You have — we have children,” he croaks, for some reason, as if that revelation has to come now. As if he’s ready to talk about children he doesn’t know.  
  
Erik looks down at his phone. Reset, Charles said, but in his hand it comes to life like a flare, a shimmer of blue reminiscent of Raven and lapis lazuli. A spark, and it lifts and powers on to the home screen, Pietro a blur in the background, and Wanda-but he doesn't know them. He just knows their faces. It's undeniable. Erik's smile slowly dwindles, a pensive expression taking over as if he's trying to remember, trying- his children? He has children? "Where?" he whispers. Because they live here, in New York, and their children aren't here.  
  
This one is actually easier to explain than the rest of it. It’s the same question Charles had, and he offers a small smile. “They’re with your family in Israel while we heal,” he whispers, and stares down at them, too. Their faces. He doesn’t even recognize them, except to know that he should. Except to know that they look so very much like Erik. “They’ll be with us soon.” And by then, Charles hopes very much he feels connected to them. That he can see them as his, too. “Their names are Pietro and Wanda. They’re twins, obviously, and both mutants.”  
  
Erik is staring, captivated, and he swipes at his eyes; this time it's not discreet-there's no compunction, no necessity for strength and composure the way he'd been taught. His feelings come naturally, his features wobbling a little. His children. Their children? He doesn't remember. His fingers trace over Pietro's curls on the screen, and over Wanda's chubby-cheeked grin. "Pietro... Wanda." He repeats it softly to himself. He's grown up. He has children. He has a submissive. A whole life. " _Slicha_ ," he croaks hoarsely, the realization-right there, it's all-"I'm sorry," he whispers in English. Charles's language. "My family?" he finally asks the question, looking up with vivid green eyes red-rimmed and nearly a-glow in the room's dim morning light.  
  
How is he going to answer that question? He could avoid it. He could lie, even, but what good will that do when Erik remembers on his own and Charles was the one to lie to him? That won’t do much for their trust, the one they should be working on. “The children are with your aunt and uncle,” he whispers, and looks down again. But Erik deserves to have someone look him in the eye when he tells him this, so he raises his head, tries not to let his lip wobble. “Your mother and father — they’re...” There’s never going to be a delicate way to say this. “They died years ago, Erik. I’m so sorry.”

* * *

Charles can see the moment that Erik's brain catches up to that comment and just shatters-except that's things in the room, floating and lifting and shattering, as Erik's eyes widen with the realization. "Dead?" he croaks, as if he can't quite comprehend, the world huge and new and disconcerting and now this-his lips press together and he covers his face quite suddenly, shoulders drawing inward. "Oh," he tries to rein it in; this stranger shouldn't have to-but he can't. And it shatters.  
  
Charles’ chest goes tight with it. He doesn’t worry about the things; he’s broken his fair share since they ended up here, and he knows from experience they can be fixed. What matters is Erik, and he can’t help the way he gets up from the chair, scrambles right onto the bed and practically into Erik’s lap, wrapping his arms around him. “I know,” he breathes, voice shaking. “I’m so very sorry. I know.”  
  
Erik's head finds its way into Charles's shoulder and he clings back, the fingers of his left hand gripping into Charles's shirt hard enough to leave a mark along his skin. " _Ma kara_?" he finally manages, feeling like everything in his mind has obliterated into dandelion puffs, his whole body floating along the dust-drifts. He just asks the same question again, the only thing in his mind. What happened? Why? His sister? Gone? Everything is gone? He never met his aunt or uncle. Where do they live? Everything is whipped up like a storm, gasping for air.  
  
Charles isn’t sure he catches all of that, clanging feedback, a surefire headache, he’s just not used to it. He takes a harsh, calming breath and squeezes Erik tighter. Tentatively, one hand comes up to curl in Erik’s hair. “There was —“ Calling it an accident is so close to a lie it practically is one, because it wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t even close. “Something terrible happened, and you’re healing from it, Erik. We’re healing together. I’m so sorry I had to tell you that, I’m so sorry, but —“ Is there a but? He shakes his head and just holds Erik tighter, fully aware that he’s just a stranger.  
  
It's almost like a release-latch, Charles's fingers scritching in his hair behind his ear, and the tension in his body slowly drains as he rests against Charles instead of fighting in his hold, gasping for air, trying to keep his head above the surface. He drifts instead, calming. "Terrible?" he whispers, his voice rough in Charles's ear, affected harshly. "Hurt?" he doesn't know how to ask the full question, his vocabulary so limited, but that word-he knows that word, almost by instinct. Did they suffer? It was terrible? All gone?  
  
There’s no easy answer to that, either. Charles grimaces where Erik can’t see, stroking his hair gently. It’s the best he can possibly do right now. “I’m so sorry,” he repeats quietly, because what else could he possibly say? How could he possibly lie to give Erik comfort when he knows those memories coming back will just devastate him like this? There are tears pricking at his eyes and he lets them go. “I know. I know how difficult it must be to hear this, but I promise you that we’re healing. For the rest of your family, for your — for our children,” he croaks. “We’re going to heal from this, Erik. For them.”  
  
"Promise?" Erik finally whispers, as though he trusts this man-he's a stranger, but is he? The children in those pictures look so much like him-like-and Ruthie-no, Wanda. He shudders, imperceptible tremors wracking his body. Charles is their father; they had children together. A family. "Just... David _ve'_ Ellie? They live?" They survived, is what he's asking. " _Ve... ah... Avi? Jonah? Raysha? Meital_?" his friends? He used to play with them, running in the dirt, climbing up that single-lone tree with its leaves always hanging-on the heat.  
  
Charles has never even heard those names before; should he have? Has Erik ever spoken about them, has he ever brought them up? He knows, logically, that Erik had friends. That he knew an entire village of people that no longer exist — that died, that suffered, the same day his parents and sister did. But the Erik he knew was so far removed from it that he was almost detached, as if he’d lived two lives wholly unrelated to each other. There’s a lump in his throat that he just can’t swallow down. “I — I don’t...” But he does. He knows. He knows those people aren’t alive, if they were anywhere near that village that day. It’s taken until exactly this moment for Charles to comprehend, truly, how unspeakable it is. He climbs fully into Erik’s lap and squeezes him, as tightly as he possibly can. “I promise we’ll heal,” he whispers, his eyes closed. There are tears on his cheeks again, hot and stinging. “I swear, Erik. We’re going to heal. I know you don’t know me, but I swear we will.”  
  
Erik sits back, a little, so he can touch Charles's face, tears streaming down his own cheeks, but they're borderline uncomprehending. " _Ma kara_?" he just whispers again, and it's broken, cracked. A line in his soul jagged and splintered apart and put back together in the only patchwork-way he knew how as a child, but it's still there. Even though he doesn't remember it, even though he couldn't possibly understand, and he doesn't. "They-" he doesn't- "Charles?" he sobs, looking more desperately heartbroken than Charles has ever seen him, in any life. "Why? What happen? Ah-all my-? Gone? What happened?" he shudders to inhale. His mind races and tumbles over thousands of possibilities, some more far-fetched than others. Some kind of disaster? An earthquake? A flood? (This one much more far-fetched, but-) how? How could they-he just wanted to know where they were, now, where all the people he knew were-what their jobs were, were they still friends-did Charles like them? Did they like Charles? Did they ever go to _shul_ together? Charles said his family were in Israel; so Charles must have met them at some point-old friends, and new friends along the way, surely. From the military; but he- _"Ma kara?_ "  
  
There’s no way to comprehend it. There’s no way Charles could possibly explain it, especially when he barely knows it himself. There’s no way he could show him, especially when this is something Erik had pretty deliberately kept from him. He sucks in a breath and lets it out as a sob of his own. “I don’t know,” he half-lies, because the truth is he doesn’t know. This Charles hasn’t seen the memories. The tapes. Heard the testimonies. All he knows is that it’s all gone, and that there isn’t a single day that Erik isn’t haunted by it. “I don’t know, Erik. Shhh. I have you. I know you don’t know me, but I have you,” he promises.  
  
Erik's head ends up laying back down against Charles's shoulders, and he goes from gripping his shirt to petting at it, even now, even without all of his memories and history and knowledge, trying to soothe and comfort Charles from the sadness he can see, almost feel like a palpable thing in the air. But even this, the crushing sadness, the all-encroaching grief-it's different. It's the first time you hear they're dead. And it's a lot. Everything he's ever known, vanished like vapors up into the sky and burned along the edges of the sun, but it's different; even now, it's more open. Unencumbered by all the rest, by the experience. By what Erik has always kept from him, even when they were both whole. He sniffles, unable to speak, his throat raw from crying and he looks up again, trying to smile, apologetic. He didn't mean to get Charles's shirt all wet.  
  
Erik can get his shirt as wet as he’d like. He’s taking uneven, unsteady breaths himself, trying not to completely break down in the wake of having to be the one to tell his Dominant this; but he winds his fingers in his hair and touches his face and tries to force a smile of his own. “We stayed with your family recently,” he whispers, though Charles doesn’t remember it. It feels like something he should say, something this Erik should know. “You, you showed me...” He gestures, because he doesn’t have those memories either, and Erik was actually very tight-lipped about the things that happened on that trip. “It’s not all gone. You’re here.” And Charles is unspeakably grateful for that.  
  
"Why?" Erik whispers back, agonized. They're all gone. Why is he the only one? "I only remember... I walk from school, what about my friend? Why me?" he looks wide-eyed, confused; no-longer curious but desperate, searching, seeking. The answers that no one has, not even when he had his memory. "Why... I didn't die too? Why not?"  
  
“I don’t know,” Charles repeats, croaked, even though he does. Because they’d come for Erik in the first place. It’s the closest thing to a lie he’s gotten and he closes his eyes tightly, the sick shame of it churning his belly. But he can’t tell Erik the real truth, the whole truth, not right now. “And I’m so sorry. But you’re here, now. You’re going to build a school. You have children. You’re my —“ His voice cracks and he nearly chokes on it. “You’re my Dominant,” he breathes. It must sound awfully selfish, to focus on that. But Charles is here, now, and he does need him.  
  
"OK," Erik whispers back, letting the matter drop, but inside his mind is raging, a river roaring a thousand miles a moment and threatening to take him under, to smash him over its bedrock. "I'm sorry," he tries to smile wetly. " _Ani lo rotze ligrom atah lehit’atzev_ ," he murmurs, lapsing. He doesn't intend to make Charles sad, to distract from-being his Dominant, and taking care of him. "You want to show me presents you got?" his eyebrows lift, doing his best to redirect to some kind of... joy.  
  
Even now, Erik acts this way. Charles laughs, startled and wet, too, and shakes his head. When he pulls back, it’s to sit up on his knees and wipe at his eyes. He knows this won’t really drop. That it can’t. But following a sleepless night and an incredibly taxing day, perhaps he’s grateful for the distraction, too eager to take it. “I don’t know,” he mumbles, and it’s tinged with sadness, too, but not in the same way. “I didn’t open them.”

* * *

"Oh!" Erik blinks at him owlishly. "You want to open them?" That sounds much nicer than contemplating the nuances of what happened to everyone he ever knew and loved. He reaches his hand up and brushes away one of Charles's tears with the thumb of his good hand.  
  
Charles looks down, fussing with the bedcovers. “They’re from you,” he whispers. He fights not to let himself wobble, not to be visibly upset, but he knows he’s failing. He doesn’t even need the telepathy. “I didn’t get to open them with you before —“ Well. “I’m not sure I should.”  
  
It makes Erik's smile turn genuine, though, his nose wrinkling up. "From me? Then you have to," he declares, all haughty Dominant authority and it bursts out of him quite suddenly, and unexpectedly-Erik never really talked that way in life; he was always soft-spoken, always polite and formal, Dominance relegated to specific things, specific ways that he knew he was supposed to act. It was never just... spontaneous.  
  
And it fascinates Charles, who grins, because it’s the kind of entitlement — well, maybe he’s found it incredibly attractive every single time it’s cropped up, alright? It’s an instinct, it can’t be helped. “I have to?” he teases. “Who says, Erik?” Because apparently he doesn’t know how not to goad his Dominant.  
  
It makes Erik laugh, and even now, after hearing what he just has, it's a good deal richer and fuller than it usually is, less restrained. "Me," he grins back, poking Charles in the chest. "'Cuz I'm your Dominant. You said so." He touches the collar along Charles's throat.  
  
“You are,” Charles agrees easily, and he smiles, grateful, relieved, before he takes his finger and pokes Erik right back, right in the center of his chest, mischievous and grinning. “That doesn’t mean I listen to you,” he laughs, sticking out his tongue. It does, actually, it means exactly that, but what does this Erik know?  
  
Erik snatches Charles's finger up and bites it, playful as ever, only instead of a muted, restricted urge it all comes out, whenever he wants to, whenever he feels like, and the difference is indescribable. "Then I make you," he decides, completely at ease with that idea in a way the Erik Charles remembers never was. _"Hayom yom huledet le'Charles chag lo sameach ve'zer lo pore'ach_!" he sings, sticking his tongue out.  
  
It makes Charles breathless, dipping fast into the realm of subspace, embarrassingly, shockingly easy. Still, he playfully rolls his eyes, huffs softly, and crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t think you can,” he taunts, all the while he holds his breath. How would it have been, if Erik hadn’t been — if he hadn’t been? Haven’t they both wondered?  
  
Erik boops him on the nose, and just as easily hops to his feet, tugging Charles up along with him. "Birthday presents," he Commands, and this time the strands of Will that unfold from those simple words is like nothing Charles has ever really felt before. All this time, Erik has been holding it in, carefully measuring, timid and hesitant, but all of that-it's all melted away, unobstructed by pain and tragedy. "You come with me and we open them, _haven li_." This time it's Imperative, out of nowhere, just because. Just because he can, because it feels right, because he does it all the time, really. He did. When he was experimenting, learning. Sometimes people reacted badly, but it just redirected him, helped him to learn. It wasn't mired in terror and chaos and it isn't now.  
  
Charles’ eyelashes flutter with it and he tries to hide his shiver, the flush that results from recognizing it. What it does to him is completely indescribable, too. “You don’t know where you’re going,” he teases, but he’s breathlessly obedient anyway, leading Erik down the stairs where he’s left everything sitting exactly where it was. It’s more painful than he thought it might be to see it like that, all of it caught in his throat as he covers his mouth. Erik had done all this for him and he hadn’t even gotten to — but Erik is still here, isn’t he? Charles tries to stay steady. He tries to stay calm, to square off his shoulders, to tuck it all back in. It’s his turn now.  
  
He doesn't remember doing this; and it's more than just presents. There's lights everywhere, colorful lanterns and sparkles, the furniture adorned in tasteful flashes that chime through the air, as though they've stepped inside a snowglobe, a world created out of magic and sustained even though he lost his memory, his experiences, it didn't decay. It's been inside of him, sustained by him this entire time, and when they enter it pours out in brilliant wisps. He glances all around, unable to help the smile on his face, because this is something he gave to Charles, that he can still give to him, to show him how grateful he is, to try his best to take care of him even though he doesn't understand how. He wants to learn. "It's for you," he whispers softly. There are lots of little presents stacked on the kitchen table, most of them silly. Trinkets, odds and ends, Charles doesn't need anything, nor does he want for anything, but they all tell a story, crafted with devotion and effort and time, thrumming with energy and intent. Inside the smallest box is an intricately folded metal flower, and that's the one that Erik's hand hovers over as if by instinct.  
  
Everything comes unstuck when he unwraps that present, pulled right from inside of him. It’s just a quiet little noise at first, a sniffle, but it becomes a sob before very long at all; a full-bodied, wracking thing, his whole frame shaken with it as he stares down at the metal flower in his hand. “It’s beautiful,” he assures Erik, and brings it up to his chest, closes his eyes and cradles it. It isn’t fair to miss his Dominant when he’s right here, but he does. He does, rather desperately.  
  
"I'm sorry," bursts out of Erik before he can stop it, and Charles did it for him so he thinks maybe it's OK, but it isn't even rational thought. It's just instinct, that's all he has, to wrap Charles up in his arms and tuck him in close to his chest. "Sorry, _neshama_ ," he creaks into Charles's hair half-coherent, he didn't mean to make him sad, it's his birthday. He didn't mean to unravel it all, he didn't mean to disappear. He would take the pain back-  
  
Charles shakes his head, but he gladly accepts Erik’s comfort, nuzzling right into him. It’s automatic, really, his body’s natural response to Erik wrapping him up like this, and he tries not to let any more of it slip out. He has to be strong for Erik now. He has to be strong for his Dominant. “I just miss him,” he whispers, barely audible. “I’m very glad you’re here, and that we can heal together, but —“ But he’s more than a little lost, and Erik was showing him where to go. He doesn’t know anymore without him.  
  
"I won't let," Erik promises fiercely, pulling back slightly so he can touch Charles's cheek, his own expression so terribly imploring, eyes locked bright and brilliant on Charles's; azure and malachite, a combined element. "You remind me," he laughs, soft. "Sometimes I had dreams, you know?" His whole body leans toward Charles, seeks him, even when he doesn't know. "I won't let you hurt. _Mavtiach_."  
  
Charles laughs again, still startled, because this is just how Erik is. It’s just how he handles things, the fierce, reckless, brilliant way he comes to the world; not beaten down or suppressed behind timidness or reservation or fear. Charles presses his cheek back against Erik’s chest and takes a deep breath. “You can’t stop me from hurting,” he whispers. “Not any more than I can stop you from it. But we can learn that —“ He sniffs, and closes his eyes. “There are other things besides pain.” Perhaps they’d both gotten a bit too comfortable with it.  
  
"I'll stop it," Erik objects, because-and it's reckless and fierce and also a little naïve-a word that hardly anyone in the Universe would apply to Erik, and yet here it is, the unwavering belief, the complete and total Dominion over time and space that most people could never hope to get a glimpse of in their lifetime. Charles is an S1, the rarest Indication, this is true-but out of seven billion people, there are only twenty-seven D5s. The likelihood of anyone else on Earth encountering such blinding, pure devotion and assertiveness is next to nothing. "We learn other things. Better than pain," he smiles, nose wrinkling up again, eyes creased kindly. He bows their foreheads together; an expression of-something Charles couldn't really comprehend at this stage, skittish and fearful, but that's how they fit together. The analytical, the logical, the cautious combining, creating something that could never hope to be broken.  
  
Charles was far too skittish to think about touching Erik like this, cautious and frightened and confused beyond belief; but they aren’t the same. They haven’t had the same experiences, the same instincts, the same impulses. He’s learned to concede that he may always be surprised by his Dominant, even when he thinks he’s beginning to learn him, to know him, to understand him. But still, Charles shakes his head. “You can’t,” he repeats, slowly, and tilts his head up to look Erik in the eyes, because this is something the Erik he knew before wasn’t quite comprehending. It was something he was consistently, endlessly stuck on, Charles imagines long before they ended up trapped in this manor together. Long before Charles lost his memories. “You can’t take away my pain. You can’t stop me from feeling it. You can’t destroy it, or hide it from me, or brush it underneath the rug, not any more than I can for you when it comes, and it will.” It’s a kind of firmness that others just wouldn’t take in the wake of all that Dominion, certainly not a submissive, but Charles is an S1 and this is his Dominant, whether he remembers that or not, and if he needs to hear something, if they need to discuss something, they will. “And that includes yours. Do you understand?” he asks, and he takes on that haughty tone, that entitled, arched-brow look, stepping back so Erik can properly see. "When you hide it from me, it will always catch up to us. We can't run in place anymore. This is forward." For both of them, and if they had to take several steps back to get there, then so be it. So be it.  
  
And this Erik doesn't understand exactly why he's like that, only that his fervent belief that he could affect the world itself had combined with every experience-every person. Every man, woman, child, room. Every time he was alone with someone and had to get them through. False promises, false hope, anything. They say never promise, they say never speak in absolutes, they train doctors to never-and Erik, Erik thinks it's bullshit. It's bullshit because they're going to die anyway, they may as well die believing-feeling-thinking. But he doesn't have any of that, he doesn't know. He doesn't understand. "I don't remember," he whispers. He feels pain, now. He feels the agony, the wrenching sorrow of loss, but it's disconnected-it's not-quite. Like a dream. And he knows that Charles knows, and he tries not to trap him into a lie, he can tell, he knows it must be-it must be terrible. Unspeakable. He isn't hiding it. He just doesn't understand. "But you-" and this is different, too, because it's a sudden shift, no longer a conversation between equals, no longer going endlessly in circles. "But you don't talk," he points a finger. It's not fluent, but Charles understands. He doesn't get to be haughty and full of attitude. Erik is his Dominant. "You tell me nicely." His own eyes narrow, a flash of Will rippling through the room.  
  
Charles blinks, and he admits it startles him. It takes him completely off guard. Because of course Erik has made corrections like that, of course he’s said it, but usually not until after the fact. After the conversation, after they’ve talked themselves into circles. He blinks and then blinks again, because maybe he hadn’t realized it was supposed to work like that. “I told you nicely, that’s the way you needed to hear it,” Charles huffs, but he wonders if he’s wrong. Did he learn the wrong thing?  
  
"No," Erik murmurs, and it's a low rumble that sounds so very similar to the Erik he's familiar with, just-immediate. Instantaneous. He holds up his finger, pressing it to Charles's lips to silence any dissent. "You know," he warns. Did he teach Charles the wrong thing? Maybe he did. Maybe he's really starting from the very beginning after all. "I don't remember. You don't tell me. Then say do I understand. No. And talk with..." Erik wiggles his fingers. "You know. I don't like it. I don't need to hear like that. You said my submissive. I train you."  
  
Charles stares down at the finger just placed on his lips, as if he’s stunned. Then he gently pushes it away, doesn’t slap, just scowls over at Erik. But mostly he’s confused, and it couldn’t be more obvious. “You don’t like what, Erik?” he scoffs back, but now he’s faltering. “Me talking to you like you need to hear? That’s how — that’s how...” But is it? Erik usually let him get away with it, even seemed to respond to it. Sometimes it was the only thing he did.  
  
"Well that is not how I want," Erik replies back sternly, staring straight down at Charles, and it couldn't be more obvious that he was Dominant if he tried, towering over Charles in a total cliché that is definitely a cliché for a reason. Let's just say. "Maybe, I am different," he taps his own chest with his good hand. "So, I teach you better. Not like this. I don't talk like this. You want conversation and me listening to you, well then you act like it. You understand? _Haven li_?" the Imperative sparks through the room.  
  
Charles’ eyes widen rather comically, actually, and he stares up at Erik like he can’t quite comprehend what’s happening. It’s not that Erik has never reacted like this, or been like this, it’s just — different. It’s incredibly different from what he’s been used to this whole time, especially under circumstances like this, and he’s reeling with it. “I understand,” comes out of his mouth before he can stop it, and then he backtracks, shakes his head, and tries to take a step back. Not because he’s frightened, but because his heart is beating out of his chest and Erik looming over him like that isn’t helping. “How would you like me to speak to you, then? Do I just never tell you how I feel or what you need to do?”  
  
"You want real instruction, _beseder_ ," Erik murmurs back, dangerously. "You don't-sarcastic, you don't eyeroll, you don't talk with this tone, you know, I will walk through every sentence, if you don't know, we can pick words now. You say you don't think-you don't-" Erik's turn to huff, but it's frustration and he waves his hand dismissively, a flurry of motion. "That you don't think we can erase pain, and it isn't good to pretend, like. _Beseder_ , you feel that, but you hear me say it, I didn't talk snotty to you. So now you repeat. You learn."  
  
It’s likely not the appropriate reaction. Laughing here, especially in the wake of what he imagines is real danger for anyone else but him, considering who Erik is and how much he’s currently not held back by, is entirely the wrong response. But somehow he ends up with his hand over his mouth anyway, his shoulders shaking as he shakes his head, and -- it’s not in disbelief. It may be in shock, but he doesn’t know. He does know that he’s staring, still, wide-eyed, Erik’s words sinking into his bones and he really doesn’t think he’s comprehending, as if Erik is speaking the language he’s not quite proficient in yet. “You’re serious,” is what he says, and that sounds incredulous. Erik is being serious. “But --” But it’s not how he reacted before, and Charles thought he understood the differences, the subtleties, but perhaps he didn’t. "But I was right," he adds, as if he just can't help himself.  
  
Erik's hand comes up over Charles's, and even though his eyes blaze, his touch is gentle. He's not all disinhibition; he knows that he must be a stranger to Charles, that he isn't entitled-really, to just touch and grip at him, but he does get a brief strike over his knuckles for his consideration and Erik lets go when his hands are by his side. "Yes, I am serious. I do not care if you are right. You talk to me right, then you are right. So you straighten up and tell me what you want to say again."

* * *

That’s something the Erik he knows does, though he’s more reserved about it; after just waking up, after not knowing Charles except that he’s his submissive, would he even consider something like that? But apparently he would, because he did, and he’s doing it, and Charles finds himself reeling enough -- or maybe that’s just an excuse -- that he does exactly what he’s told, straightening up and repeating himself. “I don’t think we can hide from the pain anymore. I think we have to face it, but we have to face it together, and we have to start to heal from it.” It’s calm, and even, not huffy or haughty or snotty, as Erik suggested. He’s biting his lip. “I think we have to start to heal from it,” he repeats, quietly, because it never would have worked the other way. Charles isn’t the only one with wounds. Not by a long shot.  
  
And of course, Erik listens to him, softening when Charles yields to him, which is something familiar, but the fire in his eyes never-quite goes out, fully satisfied by Charles's submission, by his responses, as if further confirming to himself that Charles really does belong to him. And he nods pensively. "OK," is what he says, because Erik is nothing if not adaptive, open-minded, willing to entertain new ideas-willing to see the merit of someone else's-most of the time. Some things he was always stubborn about, but who knows if this Erik feels the same way. "How do we?" is what he asks, the concept entirely foreign to him, bewildered. He doesn't remember, and neither does Charles. How do they? Even if they did remember-how do you face it? What do you do? Something curious about the way Charles talks, though. "Charles, _bema atah oved_?"  
  
It’s fairly new to Charles, too, if not entirely foreign. He doesn’t have an answer. He apparently doesn’t have any answers, because Erik’s second question makes his brow furrow. “I don’t understand,” he admits, after a moment or two of probing and finding nothing. It’s more than a language barrier.  
  
"Ah... _avodah_? What do you work?" Erik's eyebrows lift. It's not exactly related to anything they're talking about, a stream-of-consciousness that's always been quite unique to Erik as he follows the currents of his thoughts and the thoughts of others wherever they may lead in the moment. It's useful in that it keeps him educated and fascinated by the world, but less useful as a distraction to reality.  
  
Oh. Charles laughs, staring sheepishly down at his feet. “When we met, I was a forensic psychiatrist,” he answers, but it sounds rather detached because it is. These are things he’s been told about himself, not things he remembers and knows from experience. Erik doesn’t need to know that just yet, but his lips purse anyway. “I’m not, anymore. We’re building a school, remember?” He gestures around them, though it’s far from school-like at the moment.  
  
Erik laughs, too, because the answer doesn't shock him at all. "I thought maybe you are a doctor," he confesses, unsure why exactly, just something in the way that he spoke. "But I like the school idea better," he adds, giving him a wink. They've returned to one another's orbits, Erik stepping a foot closer into Charles's space, peering at him wide-eyed. "How do we heal?" he repeats again, a soft whisper.  
  
“I’ll still be a doctor,” he points out, and several times over, but that really isn’t the point. It’s mostly to hide the fact that Erik is the one with every right to be skittish and yet somehow Charles feels his heart pounding in his chest when he steps closer, as if he still hasn’t gotten quite used to it — and this is an entirely different animal, isn’t it? He shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he admits quietly. “I don’t know how we go about it. I don’t know what the best way is to even start. But I do know that both of us are hurting very badly, and that the key is each other.” It’s a bold statement to make to a stranger, but Charles smiles and it’s earnest and it’s honest and he just hopes Erik believes it.  
  
His hand reaches up and he gently strokes the back of two fingers along Charles's cheek. It doesn't make any sense, there's no reason for Erik to trust a single thing he says. No reason for him to be so drawn, but it was this way in the beginning, too. The moment Erik saw him, he knew. It's just a repetition, it always would be. He just lacks knowledge. "I don't like it," he whispers. That Charles hurts. That he can't do anything to stop it.  
  
Charles shivers, just like both times before this, inexplicably and undeniably drawn right back. A moth to the flame, crowding closer before he even recognizes he is, even when he knows he shouldn’t. “I don’t like it, either,” he admits softly, and bites hard at his lip. “I felt out of my depth, you know. I didn’t know what to do. To help you. It made me feel like —“ He closes his eyes. “We both needed a reset, I think. So we could properly help each other. But now it’s happened, and I don’t have the slightest clue where to start, Erik. I just feel lost again.”  
  
Erik draws his hand down Charles's cheek, encompassing it in his palm easily, running his thumb under his eye. "But you-" he doesn't know, again and huffs, trying his best to translate. "What if you don't know what to do again?" he looks crestfallen. "And you get sad. You don't feel lost, I don't want that. I just won't-" he won't feel pain anymore. So Charles won't be lost anymore. He won't hurt anymore because of Erik.  
  
But Charles immediately frowns, stepping back so Erik’s hand falls from his face. Then he points at him, a bit like someone might point at a disobedient dog or child, and huffs, “No. Absolutely not.” It certainly has the tone of naughty Erik, and he doesn’t care.  
  
Erik grabs his hand and backs Charles up into the wall, glaring down at him. "What did I say? You still don't know?"  
  
Charles scowls right back, but it would be impossible to not notice the slight tremble in his voice, the way he shivers again and squirms against the wall, looking for an out. Avoiding Erik’s eyes. “Listen to me and maybe I’ll listen to you,” he challenges, scoffing again. “I told you we can’t do that. Absolutely not.”  
  
"That is not how it works. It is not negotiation. It is not give and take. It is not equal gift." That isn't really, that doesn't make much sense in English at all, but Charles pretty much gets it. Erik doesn't let up, and he keeps Charles pinned to the wall, keeps his hand pinned at his side, bars his arm over his chest. "You listen to me because I say so. I listen to you when you respect me. What you told me? What your Erik would do right now, you know. I bet he would-" he presses his lips together, looking lost for words. "You know. You kneel. You do what you are told. Or you get punishment. You say he is your Dominant and train you all this time and you talk like this? No way."  
  
Charles’ eyes widen. His heart is pounding in his chest, so intensely that he’s positive they both can hear it. It’s not that he’s afraid; to say that would be incorrect, though he’s trembling slightly, though there’s a lump in his throat he can’t swallow, though he’s certainly gone limp in Erik’s hold. Even in mostly broken English, Charles feels those words sink right underneath his skin, down to the pit of his belly where they warm up with shame, squirm around and heat his cheeks, too. “I —“ Maybe he really had begun to internalize the wrong things. This Erik seems so sure, so unwavering, so completely confident that Charles can’t even argue. “I’m sorry for speaking to you like that,” he manages, his throat thick with it, his eyes still wide.  
  
"Well, I-" Erik only eases off enough to gesture a little with his left hand, pressing his lips together and arching his brows. "I don't know really how to like, punish anyone," he huffs, but then points his finger right back, "but next time you poke your finger at me or talk like that, well, I'll try! Yeah, I'll try it. So you better get smart." It, honestly, isn't much of a threat at all, Erik's amusingly unlearned when it comes to the specifics of Dominance; which makes since, given he's had like, an eleven-year-old's education (and unlike, say, Charles, that education was largely age-appropriate aside from, like, the wildly incorrect speculations of his classmates), but he's got the spirit if nothing else.


	123. you worship the sun….but you keep feeding the dark

Erik certainly does have the spirit. Charles doesn’t want to laugh, even as it bubbles up; it really isn’t his fault, considering the circumstances -- how would he possibly know? How could he possibly adapt that quickly, even if he did? But already he’s much more confident and less reserved than the Erik Charles is familiar with, so much so that he’s beginning to doubt preconceptions that he had. So much so that he’s wondering if, perhaps, he did teach himself the wrong lessons before Erik expressly spoke them himself. It makes him bite on his lip, and then he takes a breath. “Do you want to read something, Erik?” he asks, before he can stop himself. “Not in English, I promise,” he adds, and on that he can’t help but grin. "I'm reading it, too. It could be like a book club."  
  
Erik blinks down at him curiously. "Book... club?" he repeats, a little confused, but his nose wrinkles along with the sound of Charles's laughter. He knows Charles isn't laughing at him, somehow, or at least he hopes it. "What book do you read?" he wants to know, but of course he'll read it. That much is entirely clear; and that's fairly unlike the Erik Charles used to know, too. He shied away from Dominance, from research, from anything approaching it, even if he got pushed to expressing himself, he always shied away from it. This person does not.  
  
Charles knows that, too, which is why this feels so incredibly important. This is something an Erik with his memories, with his experiences, was almost wholly unwilling to do. It was always a block in their discussions, whether they wanted it to be or not. And Charles is grinning, practically triumphant as he turns toward the table, which is now housing a book that wasn’t there before -- he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it, really. Forming the world around him, warping reality to his choosing, to his liking, as if it was always that way to begin with. He hands the book off to Erik, and then another and another, too, the same ones he’d been reading, the ones he’d found in the library, but translated. “Here,” he offers, bright-eyed and eager. “You read them, and I read them, and then we discuss it together. Book club,” he explains.  
  
Erik smirks all of a sudden. "You read to me, too?" he corrects instead, his whole demeanor entirely entitled and demanding. Certainly not all of them. He knows he has so much to catch up to on his own time, but- "In English. So I learn."  
  
It makes perfect sense, but Charles still blinks, taken aback. Immediately after he flushes, looking down at the books he’s just offered Erik and knowing full well the content of them. “You can read these ones on your own, and I’ll read you something else?” he offers, sheepish. He gestures to the books, all of which are in Erik’s language. “You read to me, too, you know. So I learn.” And now it can be quite a bit more mutual. Charles doesn’t know why, but there’s something thrilling about that, something almost nice; he smiles softly, ducking his head. Erik’s going to learn English for him.  
  
Erik laughs, beaming widely. "OK, I will read you..." he gestures with a flourish, and produces a pamphlet all about the stock market. "Very exciting." He bows, playful, his nose scrunching up. "What is your favorite? What you read? Then you can read me that one."  
  
Something occurs to Charles while he’s considering that. Does Erik have the full range of his abilities? It doesn’t stand to reason that he wouldn’t; he’s not the one swallowing the Universe -- who swallowed it? It’s just that Erik is along for the ride, fully and completely, and that he needed a bit of a reset, too. But doesn’t some of that mastery come from experiences Erik doesn’t have, or has the Universe accounted for that, too, the same way Charles knows languages he doesn’t remember learning and theories of medicine he doesn’t recall studying? He shakes the thought off, but to say he isn’t scrutinizing his Dominant would be a lie, that curious tilt to his head, one eyebrow raised. “ _The Once and Future King_ ,” he decides, fairly immediately, and grins. Conveniently, a copy is sitting right there, though Erik will note that it really wasn’t, if he strains to remember that, if he questions his own reality -- and Charles presents it with a flourish, this copy beaten, well-loved, and most certainly in English. “I’ll read this to you. Alright? But you have to read me something you really love, too, please.” They’re resetting, there’s an element of starting over, of rebooting; and why not here? Why not like this?  
  
It's a good thing to consider; because part of Erik's mastery comes from experiences he doesn't remember, but a good deal of his mastery actually wasn't; in fact, he didn't really gain true understanding of his abilities until he met Charles. He didn't know he could fly. He couldn't manipulate objects or transform them. Most of what he could do was relegated to applications of force. The problem is that the experiences Erik did have, taught him how to control those abilities and now he has no such barriers whatsoever. When he thinks something, when he wants something, there's almost no delay between it manifesting all around him, which is helpful when he's happy (which, appears to be somewhat of a default setting, thankfully) but obviously has the potential to go catastrophic very quickly. Erik means to do one thing, but destroys another. It's complicated. When he receives his copy of the book, though, he laughs and ducks his head.  
  
"Do I have to?" he almost flushes. "I don't-" he rubs the back of his neck, sheepish. "I..." he furrows his eyebrows. He's not-he doesn't remember being, a big reader. And what he did read was pretty silly. "I..." and something hits him really suddenly, for a moment, and he hides his face in his elbow. He does have favorites, after all; things that Erik has read to Charles, in fact. But it's very easy for Charles to just... assume that they came out of nowhere, assume that-Erik just found it on his own, but of course, he didn't. It's another divorce, another set of two lives walking-footprints beside one another without touching. "OK," he whispers. It's not, like Charles is accustomed to from him, dismissing his own feelings or trying to move away from it. He means it literally. He'll try and share it. "Sorry," he waves his hand as if about to sneeze.  
  
Charles’ head tilts, that curious, analyzing movement; his nose scrunches up, first in concerned confusion, and then in amusement. In fondness. When he laughs, his head ducks, too, hair that’s already growing far too fast falling in front of his eyes. If Erik only has memories from when he was eleven, it’s not exactly as if he’ll have been reading very sophisticated literature, but the truth of it is? He grins softly, covering Erik’s hand with his over the top of the book he’s handed him. “I think I read this for the first time when I was a child,” he murmurs, and what odd phrasing. I think, as if he isn’t quite sure, couldn’t confirm it himself, which of course is entirely the case. “Besides, you can’t go very well go about reading Shakespeare and Plath until you’ve mastered something a bit more simple, can you? Anything you’d like to read to me, I’d love to hear it.” That Erik has a bit more learning than he does, doesn’t need to be mentioned.  
  
"I like Shakespeare? Oh no," Erik whines, covering his face with both hands, now. "I became boring, Charles. _Boring_." He sticks out his tongue between his fingers, reverently reaching out to stroke them along the cover of the book Charles is talking about, thoughtful. Reading and literature were always ways that Erik used to relate to the world, to escape, to see something of his own experiences reflected back at him. Evidently an Erik without need of such an escape would much rather be playing soccer, or climbing trees, or poking Charleses. Truthfully, he is excited, if only to learn more about Charles, about what he likes, to listen to him talk about things he loves. "Read me some?"  
  
It’s awfully endearing, and not much at all like the Erik Charles knows. The one he fell so undeniably in love with, again, despite the odds stacked against him, despite the fear, despite any hesitance, despite his lack of context and memory; but just as he came to those alternate Eriks knowing that they were his Dominant just the same, so too is this his Erik. As sure as anything. “I thought you were eager to watch me open presents,” he grins, but takes Erik’s hand and gently tugs him into the living room, over to the couch where he and Erik have been spending a good deal of time together. But something stops him before he sits. His lips turn down into a frown, and Erik doesn’t need their connection at all to see that his face has visibly fallen, expression tinged with melancholy. “Oh,” he whispers. It’s to himself, he doesn’t even realize he’s said it.

* * *

Erik swallows and sits down, taking Charles's hands and helping him to sit, too. The presents will come, but naturally Erik's impulsiveness has won out for the moment. Something new, something completely intriguing, a chance to learn more about this man who has become like a stranger to him, and yet not in so many ways he can't quite fathom at the moment. " _Ma kara?_ " he whispers back, his head tilting now. "I did something wrong?"  
  
Charles blinks, confused, and then realizes — Erik might be asking if he did something wrong, if he did something to offend, but he isn’t dissolving because of it. He isn’t falling apart. The world isn’t melting down and it isn’t quite as dramatic as all that, and perhaps he expected it to be. It leaves a guilty, quiet pang in his chest as he stares down at his feet, fidgeting on the couch. “I just thought of something that made me a bit sad, but it’s nothing you’ve done,” he promises quietly, and lifts his head to offer a soft smile. “You said you wanted me to read?” He lifts the book in his hands, gesturing.  
  
" _Ken_ ," Erik beams back at him, but he lifts their joined hands and gives Charles's a gentle squeeze. "Talk about it? It made you sad. So we won't hide it, and then maybe it can get better." There's something simplistic about the words, but there's nothing simplistic about Erik's mind, or his thought process. He's learning and growing and adapting at an alarming rate, even now, taking in every bit of information and processing it like a giant sieve.  
  
“We... planned things, that’s all,” Charles voice is still not above a whisper, because he’s not certain he can get it there. They planned things yesterday morning, things that Charles had very much been looking forward to. And just days ago, they sat on this couch and watched some wretched, convoluted drama that both of them had found rather hilarious. They had been comfortable with each other, open and trusting and intimate. Charles had been in Erik’s lap, then, but even that isn’t a possibility. He shakes his head, and the problem is he knows Erik, and that he simply won’t let this go anytime soon. So he sighs and ducks his head again, flushing viciously. “You were training me. We decided, that for the training period... well, if we were sitting...” Another shake of his head, and he trails right off. It should be obvious anyway, shouldn’t it?  
  
"Oh!" Erik's eyebrows fly up. He's seen it before, of course. It's normal behavior, but in his own household such a thing didn't occur in front of the children; maybe that made his parents prudes, he doesn't rightly know the answer to that. Some religions are more uptight about outward displays of submission than others, although there was never any shame about it, he didn't have much, well, firsthand experience with it, either. He turns that over in his mind, and reaches out to touch Charles's face, unable to help himself. "I didn't even-" he didn't even think of that. "Do you-" he gestures to himself. "I guess we should talk, you know. If you want me... if... because you, might not... know me and, I don't want to make you feel strange." But even though he doesn't verbalize it, even though he's trying to be polite, it's clear-his eyes practically blaze with it. He wants Charles to kneel for him, more than anything.  
  
Charles swallows thickly and shakes his head again, unwilling to do much more than glance up to sneak a peek at Erik’s expression. Certainly not to hold his gaze. “I know you,” he corrects softly, a little smile playing at the edge of his lips. “Perhaps not like this, but you certainly aren’t a stranger to me. I’m much more worried about your comfort, Erik,” he murmurs. “Don’t think too hard on it.” Though that gleam in Erik’s eyes, that electricity — Charles shifts even more on the couch, pretending to readjust normally.  
  
And where the Erik he's familiar with would need even more reassurance, and hand-holding, this Erik absolutely does not. He takes that for what it is, at face value, and grins, the one that shows all of his teeth, eyes bright and boyish. "Then kneel for me," he says, his voice unconsciously dropping an octave. "You know what to do."

* * *

He certainly does, but that doesn’t mean he does it. Charles is perfectly aware that he’s walking a dangerous line here, and that at any moment — well, what does he have to lose? If the reactions take a turn toward what he’s more used to, that’s perfectly alright, too. He hasn’t minded needing to reassure his Dominant, he just didn’t always know when and how he needed to, or what was happening in the first place. “I don’t think I will,” he responds primly, crossing his legs and grinning. He opens the book and pretends to be reading it, right where he left off the last time he picked it up.  
  
Erik's lips part as if he can't even believe Charles said that, and before he catches some flies he snaps them shut and the Order bursts out of him. "I think you will. Now. Kneel." It's like every other Order from him has been in black and white and now, finally, color has burst to life across the canvas, vivid and visceral.  
  
The reaction is completely immediate. Charles all but throws the book down in his haste to get to his knees, and the truth is it’s not that the world is shaking with the force of it, it’s just that Charles is. This Charles? He’s not sure he’s really, truly felt the force of an Order like that. He couldn’t have possibly put words to the difference, but there is one, and he’s wide-eyed and completely overcome by it; something inside him is vibrating as he drops to his knees, automatically assuming Posture because Erik has attempted to train him. He fidgets in it, and just like during his morning Postures it seems like he’s forgotten to do with his hands, wringing them on top of his thighs, but it’s because he’s — has anything ever felt like this? Is this what it’s supposed to feel like, what it has felt like the few times Erik has really, truly let go? It’s left him breathless, and reeling, blown-wide azure locked on Erik, his tongue poking out to run over cherry lips. Does it stop now? Does Erik realize what he’s done? Does he backtrack? He doesn’t even realize he’s holding his breath.  
  
"I won't stop," Erik rasps softly, running his fingers through Charles's hair, down his cheek, across his jaw. Like a match ignited. "You want me to stop?" his eyebrows lift. It's like a supernova in his periphery, beyond his head, whiting out everything and everyone and pressing down. "You are supposed to be for me, aren't you?" he whispers under his breath. The cloud gets whiter and whiter. "All of this..." all these boxes all these cages, all these strands and twines, they're meant for Charles. For his mate.  
  
Charles gasps, squirming rather aggressively on his knees now, unable to worry about things like form when Erik is looking at him like that, speaking to him like that. He can’t quite catch his breath, but he shakes his head, and feels it as sure as anything; that tug, that promise that his Dominant will put him down. He doesn’t want him to stop. “I don’t want you to stop,” he breathes, for good measure, though he can’t imagine it isn’t incredibly obvious. “I don’t want you to stop at all. That’s rather the point, I think,” he murmurs, half to himself, and even while dazed and reeling he still somehow finds a way to be smart about it. He leans into Erik’s hand, eager for more touch, for more — everything.  
  
Erik grins, his whole face alight and his nose scrunched up. He runs his fingers down Charles's cheek and under his jaw, across his neck, dances along his collar. "I'm not very experienced," he warns softly. "You tell me when I do anything bad. You promise."  
  
There’s something almost dangerous, about this, but Charles realizes belatedly that it’s not dangerous at all. It’s just reckless. It’s just experimentation without the calculation, without the trauma, without the need to be constantly, constantly aware, on edge, comparing, considering; and it makes him so breathless he honestly feels as if his chest is being squeezed, the anticipation hot in his belly. He was ready for something like this and Erik wasn’t, would never be. Charles understands enough to know he never got it, never got to play and experience his own submission in a way that could ever resemble healthy, and this — “ _Afor_ ,” he whispers, but it’s not a stop, this time. He’s grinning, too, fidgeting something fierce, and he really has forgotten what to do with his hands, with any part of his body. He feels a bit like a fumbling teenager. “That’s our pause-word. You say it, too.” Because Erik doesn’t remember giving him that, and Charles wants to help. He’s supposed to.  
  
The notion of a safe word or a pause-word isn't common in traditional homes, and Erik's brain takes a few moments to catch up to what Charles must be telling him before it clicks and he melts all over again. "So if I do any bad thing then you say it, or I can say it if I want to stop. And you make sure you do. If you try to just do any thing and force it then I will be very strict. I really mean it. You understand?"  
  
Either way he’s certainly got the concept of it down. Charles ducks his head to hide his smile, and there’s something so endearing about hearing it phrased like that, spoken like that; it’s not something he’s familiar with. None of this is, really. “It’s not only for if you do something bad, but yes,” he murmurs easily, and looks up, meeting his Dominant’s gaze despite how it makes his belly clench with all of that warm anticipation, how it makes his pulse jump. “I’ll use it, I promise. I’ve already promised. If I’m uncomfortable or distressed in any way, I use my pause-word,” he assures, because Erik hasn’t had this conversation, not this version, and he’s more than willing to offer that reassurance. But his lips quirk up, and there’s that cheekiness, as if it’s been inspired by Erik’s openness, his lack of reservation. “Very strict?” he teases, one eyebrow raised.  
  
Erik's eyebrows waggle back. "Very strict," he laughs, tickling under Charles's chin. It's almost easy to forget that Erik truly doesn't remember him at all, remember anything about him, because he's absolutely delighted by Charles and happy to saturate in his aura for a while. "And you like that I am still your Dominant? You still obey me and I take care of you? And you said you love me. Does it bother you I touch you?" He's being practically pelted with questions, but Erik's brain evidently goes a mile a minute when it isn't bogged down with all the internal machinations of the Landscape; all of the inhabitants are peacefully asleep and Erik is none the wiser, an explosive information highway in his brain ripe for the taking.  
  
Charles laughs, too, a soft, startled noise, and scoots forward until he can rest on Erik’s knee. It’s not proper form, but it occurs to him that perhaps Erik doesn’t know those things? The thought that he might not is so startling and strange that it has him reeling for a moment, but he quickly brushes it off. “You’re my Dominant, regardless,” he whispers, soft and sincere, and offers a shy smile as he does. “I do love you, and I do like being —“ He bites his lip, uncertain of the word himself, but the flush on his cheeks gives him away. Erik’s, really, is what he means. “It doesn’t bother me that you touch me. I’m yours to touch, if you’d like.” And that has him squirming again, because it’s the truth, but hearing it come out of his own mouth is another story.  
  
"I do like," Erik grins, his nose wrinkling up fondly. He runs his fingers through Charles's hair, not correcting him on his Posture, and for another kind of Erik that might be ordinary, but for this Erik it is almost certainly a condition of not knowing the difference. He's swaying from side to side, all the little objects in the room vibrating with leashed contentedness. He's learned a lot since he just woke up, some of it devastating, but this right here, feels right.  
  
But Erik truly has no idea, does he? It’s the opposite problem. Before he had plenty of ideas, plenty of things rolling around in his head, desires, curiosities — but they were all from negative experiences, all marred by torture and backwards-wrong memories. Now those things have been wiped, and Charles doesn’t know how much he’s actually aware of. It occurs to him that it might be different. That this is an Erik very close to experiences that his Erik just isn’t, memories clogged back in his brain where they hurt less, in those brightest, protected spots. “Erik,” he whispers, and he still sounds breathless. “What does it mean for me to be your submissive? What does it mean to be a submissive?”  
  
"Ummm," Erik laughs again, but it's not uncomfortable in the slightest. "It means you help um, me-your Dominant, a Dominant," his nose wrinkles up again. "And serve them. And, obey them. But your choice, you give it. Not taken. And it's like two people together that are whole." He knits his fingers. "And make stronger. Like a gift. And all the little things that will help you grow. Like what you do and say. Then you feel like, kept." He touches his hand to his heart. Maybe it's silly. He tries not to sound embarrassed, but it's a lot different than what Erik might have said before. A lot more open, and honest, and shameless.  
  
It is quite a bit different than any answer Charles would have gotten before, and not only because the English is a little more broken. He doesn’t need the fluency to feel warm, to gravitate right toward Erik as if he’d been pulled in his direction, resting his head in his lap without thinking much of it. “Then you feel kept,” he murmurs back, his voice thick with the emotion. It’s been the case for him. “What sort of things does a submissive do? What do they help with?” And it’s -- telling, really, that Charles sounds desperate. He isn’t just fishing. He’s read, and he vaguely remembers his own lessons in school, but beyond that? He doesn’t know. Erik wasn’t very keen on ever telling him, hemming, hawing, sometimes confirming or denying. Maybe because he didn't know the answer himself, after those layered-on experiences.  
  
"Um, everything," Erik grins. His fingers run through Charles's hair rhythmically, sweeping from his forehead down to his neck. "Like, breakfast, or clothes, or cleaning, or just talking, or-um, anything," he huffs a little. That part is-well-you know. Obvious. "Being close. Maybe. Um, if they want to." He means physically, which is clear, but it's also clear that he doesn't want to make Charles uncomfortable. " _Aba_ would always say like being a first mate. Like a boat? And the whole world is like a crew. It's you and your submissive. And the world comes after that."  
  
 _Like being a first mate._ Charles can’t help but grin, because it’s such an endearing analogy, and not something he’s heard before. It’s something only Erik could have shared with him like this, and the Erik he knows -- Charles just isn’t sure he would have thought to recall that, to bring it up. It wouldn’t have been on his radar with everything else piled on top. “Your father was submissive, yeah?” he asks, looking up at Erik, curious and still nearly-desperate, and he’d never asked this before. Talking about his family brought Erik pain; it wasn’t something to be done incredibly lightly, not like this. Charles always made sure he could frame it properly. “Did he -- was…” He isn’t sure what he’s asking, really. He isn’t even sure he knows. “What is he like? And your mother? I don’t -- I didn’t have a very traditional upbringing,” he explains, and despite the fact that he doesn’t even remember it, because that’s rather the point.  
  
"Oh," Erik scritches his fingers through the hair at the nape of Charles's neck. He remembers Charles telling him that; that his family wasn't _warm_. He doesn't yet realize what that is code for, but even such a distanced description sounds very lonely and disjointed to Erik. "He is," Erik nods, smiling. It wavers a little. "Um, he-was." It happened so long ago, that's what Charles said. It's not fresh anymore. But the kind of pain he used to display; even subdued, just isn't there. It's-one hesitates to say _regular grief_ , because what grief is _regular-_ but it is... _comparatively_ normal. A comparatively normal experience.  
  
"He was pretty normal, I think, we were normal. But he was only submissive in the house," he laughs. It takes a few seconds for Charles to figure out Erik doesn't mean he only *demonstrated* submission in the house, but that he was _literally_ the only submissive in the household. Erik, his mother and sister were both very high Indication Dominants. "But I don't think I saw him in that way, like, _ima's submissive_. He always had like authority over me. He was wise. I respected him. _Ima_ didn't let me get away with less. But she was always very strict with me. Me! Not Ruthie. Just me." He laughs, though. "I never understand why until much later. Ruthie is-um-was-like her, very high, but not like me. No one is like me. I think she worry I was going to take for granted, about human beings. And she worry that the government will take me away if I don't listen, and she worry that if they did, then I would-it was a big, big world and I was very small, but I was so big, too."  
  
It doesn't make a lot of sense, not really, but what he's trying to say becomes more illuminated as he speaks, gesturing with his hands as he goes. He had a lot of responsibility from an early age, even though his parents tried to shelter him somewhat for it, his mother had always tried to teach him the _importance_ of respecting submission, and that started at home, with his father.  
  
Respecting submission. Respecting submissives, too, but respecting submission as a concept, as something revered and gifted -- that’s something Erik tried very hard to instill in him, his Erik, and he knows it’s because whatever experiences he had prior to losing his own memories, they weren’t indicative of that. Erik’s later ones weren’t, either. The way he expressed those things was fierce and almost desperate, as if he were trying to prove it to both of them -- this Erik’s? It’s just his reality. It’s just a statement of fact, a value passed down from parent to child. “You don’t think -- it’s nothing to be embarrassed about, is it?” he whispers, and shies away, his eyes fallen to the floor. “I think I used to be very embarrassed about it, and now I have to relearn that. You were trying to teach me that, that I shouldn’t be embarrassed or ashamed.” But sometimes it didn’t work, or the opposite impression was given, and it’s certainly not Erik’s fault, but before this moment -- well, there was a lot to unravel, some things even Erik likely wasn’t aware of.  
  
Erik just smiles, fond. "No way. It's just normal." He shrugs, saying it exactly like it's normal. It's not an overcompensation. It's a firmly held belief, but it isn't desperate. It just exists. "I think the idea it's less, is very prejudiced. And prejudiced people are weak people. I think," his head ducks a bit, but he presses on anyway. "What I see so far, what you show me, is very beautiful."  
  
And Erik hasn’t seen very much at all, but the truth of the matter is, he was raised with this idea and he’s much closer to it than any other Erik he’s come into contact with. It’s the only thing he knows. That submissives are respected, important, perhaps even essential parts of the household. Charles takes a breath, reeling with that; that’s the way it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? It’s what Erik wanted to teach him, what he was trying to train him into, even if he struggled. But this is different, and the simplicity of it is stunning. “Do you think --” He knows this is a gamble, here. Charles practically holds his breath, his eyes closed. “Training usually happens very early in a relationship anyway, doesn’t it? Would you -- do you think you’d still want to…” Not in the same way, and they have plenty more to work on, but what he’s asking is fairly clear.  
  
Erik touches his cheek, waiting for his eyes to flutter open again. " _Ken_. I won't know a lot. But you will help, yes?" he can't help smiling again, and this is new, too. Before, not knowing was a source of shame, but now it's a source of curiosity. He doesn't mind it. There's always going to be more to know. Charles will help him learn, and maybe he can help Charles learn, too. Things he didn't know before,, things that other Erik wasn't equipped to teach him. "I want to."  
  
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, but Charles wants, too. It’s boiling right under the surface, actually, all of that heat and electricity, all of those nerves and the anticipation and the shyness that comes with first submission; he’s squirming with it, again, his eyelids fluttering shut again as he takes a sharp breath. “I’ll help you,” he promises, because that’s what Erik said just moments ago a submissive is for. “Whatever you need help with, I’ll help you.” It comes out breathless, and that much can’t be helped, nor can the soft smile on his lips or the flush on his cheeks as he unconsciously nuzzles into Erik’s knee, even as he fidgets. "What do you need help with?" Give me something to do, please, he'd begged Erik, but he hadn't known. Anxiety twists in Charles' gut, and he bites hard at his lip.  
  
Erik scritches his fingers through Charles's hair. "Is there a right way you are supposed to kneel? Not just this, but a proper way?" his eyebrows raise. As nice as it is having Charles's head in his lap, he has the distinct impression that this is not a formal Posture. "I never got to learn about Postures. I only know really basic one, like Rest, and you said you do all the time, so you will have to show me. And how you do it, in America? Or did you do like we did?" Erik the ever-curious jungle cat.

* * *

Charles makes a face, but in all honesty it’s a playful scrunch of the nose, a grin as he furrows his eyebrows together and purses his lips. “I don’t like doing Postures,” he argues, because he’s had this argument with Erik more than once at this point. What it always boils down to is yes, he does, very much, but more than that he likes Erik putting his foot down about it, and that seemed to be one of the few things he was extremely willing to put his foot down about. He shakes his head. “You taught them to me the way -- the way you preferred them,” he mumbles, cheeks much hotter now. “I don’t know which way that is, except that some of them are the way I learned them in school, slightly altered,” he admits. He didn’t ask. Erik didn’t tell him.  
  
"Then you show me. And if I like it then we will do that. But maybe I won't and I'll change." He sticks his tongue out. It's his choice. He can do what he likes. He's the Dominant. "But you show me now. What the proper way is, for kneeling. You don't like? Oh, that's sad," he laughs softly, his chin tipping up. "Show me."  
  
This Erik is so confident. Almost cocky, really, and Charles can’t possibly explain what it does to him, to the twisting heat in his belly. He swallows, mostly to choke down the “yes, sir” he wants to give, biting on his lip instead and scooting back to get into proper form. He doesn’t mess around this time, but only because Erik doesn’t know the proper Posture enough to correct him, to scold him. It’s a very simple, modified Rest, and he knows the thought behind it is comfort; especially if he’s meant to do it often, and that was something he and Erik had very recently discussed. But just for good measure, he slouches his shoulders — even this Erik should know that isn’t proper, right? The cheeky grin would give him away, anyway.  
  
"Hey, no way," Erik gives his knuckles a solid rap on disapproval. "You don't trick me. You straighten up better." This correction is swift, completely entitled, something much more than confidence, soaking into the particles of the air around them. "Or else," Erik adds, and again it's not something he ever would have thought to add, but this Erik sees no compunction with reinforcing his Will.  
  
Apparently Charles is still feeling playful and testing boundaries, here, because he does straighten his shoulders, but it’s not even moments later that he switches where his hands we placed entirely. Erik might not know the difference, but he should know that only one of them can be the correct form; Charles is grinning ear to ear now, too, his eyes gleaming with that mischief. It’s sometimes something Erik didn’t know how to handle, if only because he was uncertain how far to push, how far to go. If Charles gave him enough pushback, even playfully, he sometimes shied away. Will this Erik, too?  
  
Erik's eyes widen. He's never really encountered this before, and for a few seconds he doesn't react, he really doesn't know how to handle it, but it's not based in fear, it's based in complete and utter inexperience. No one has ever really pushed back like that against him willingly, almost everybody he's ever met inevitably yielded to him, it just so happened that he was fairly calm and compliant as a person. He trusted the adults in authority around him, and believed their lessons, but somewhere in the back of his mind he always figured that if he really wanted to do something, he could. Maybe it's not the most privately noble, but it's not exactly bizarre in someone who can actively make people do whatever they want, either. And he never realized until exactly this moment that on some unconscious level, they acted like it. They didn't push him, they didn't antagonize him. Honestly, maybe they should have. What Erik has now, aren't lessons of fear and silence, the things that he considers too far are simply different, the lines have all changed. He crooks his finger under Charles's chin and quite suddenly an electric burst flowers over his skin, a jolt awakening his nervous system that is just this-side of painful, focusing his attention on Erik to a knifepoint. "Show me the real one," he rumbles the Order lowly, vibrating through the air the way liquid platinum moves as he separates it from gold.  
  
The response to that is completely earth-shattering in Charles. He gasps, loud and punched right out of him, his eyes wide and his breathing picked up. He’s scrambling to do as he’s told as soon as it’s out of Erik’s mouth, before it is, his hands immediately exactly where they’re supposed to be, his shoulders straight, his body poised and formed to Erik’s liking except for what he can’t control, namely his suddenly heaving chest. “Yes, sir,” he breathes without thinking, and the blown-wide blue of his eyes gives him away even if Erik couldn’t instinctively tell; he’s been put right down.  
  
Now it's Erik's turn to grin impishly. He actually does know that word, but he can't help but be curious at the difference in languages. "That's better. You know what it is in Hebrew?" his eyebrows raise, thoughtful. Did the Erik he knew never bother to teach Charles that, either? He didn't prefer it? There were a lot of words that meant a similar thing, that Erik's mulled over and disregarded in a few seconds, but there is a neutral word that he thinks would serve the same purpose, and that feels ultimately more familiar. His Erik didn't speak that much with him? Who _was_ this guy? Why didn't he share anything of himself with Charles? It doesn't make sense.  
  
He shared what he could. With Charles’ coaxing, with insistence, with frequent nudging and reassurance, but even then there was a block. Charles feels suddenly embarrassed, his head bowed and his shoulders slumping all over again as he shakes his head. “No, I don’t,” he admits, and he knows it’s because Erik never taught him, but why didn’t Charles ask? Wouldn’t it have pleased his Dominant to hear it that way? He shakes it off. “Will you teach me, please?” he asks, and raises his eyes, bright, curious, eager, wanting to please.  
  
Erik laughs gently and with another little jolt 'encourages' Charles to straighten up again, because he didn't say to slump over. This Erik, though, offers information freely, often first, wanting to share, wanting to be open. It's a complete 180. "It's _kav_! There are ones like _mefaked_ or _gvirtee_. Or _adoni_ or _baal._ But _kav_ is pretty base. It just mean like, a line. Like line-up. It's a weird word. I don't mind in English though. I like your language."  
  
Charles runs that over in his head, processing it, storing it. Then he grins, too, and despite being very much put down, there’s something strange about his submission, something odd that researchers and psychologists have noted; it often displays itself as “defiant behavior” to the point of Dominant traits, but Erik knew better, and he imagines even this Erik will. Perhaps better, actually. More instinctively, without the layering overtop. “I don’t think I’ll call you either,” he challenges. “But thank you for teaching me.” Smug, cheeky, smirking, now, lips quirked up.  
  
"Just for that I will insist you call me _Master of the Universe_." Erik wiggles his fingers in his ears. "OK, maybe not that. But I like when you know who I am. So you will call me one. Maybe not every time, but when you are on your knees, you will. It's respect. So I think you will." The spark of Will that accompanies those words is undeniable.  
  
Charles just smirks harder, leaning back on his knees, almost as if he’s relaxing. Unbothered. Is this what it might have been like, if they had met like this in the first place, with no trauma to speak of? It’s a thought he can’t quite shake, but he does shake his head. “I’ll call you Erik, because that’s your name,” he says, smug as ever. “I do know who you are, see?”  
  
He must love to get a reaction out of Erik; he never seemed to get quite the reaction he wanted before, either. Erik might rise up and kind of swat him down, but it was always very... there was almost a kind of stress about it, an unconsciously stressed aura, like, now is the time that I must respond to this-kind of vibe, and I must be in perfect control at all times. But it's not like that, now. He still looks like he could be bowled over with a feather, like, he cannot believe Charles is so cheeky, but there's no stress, there's no fear, there's no discouragement. He just gives him another prominent zap, this one pulling every muscle in his body taut, a leashed up power like touching a nuclear reactor. "No slouching, you do it properly. And you call me properly." His eyes are agleam.  
  
It’s that reaction more than anything that riles Charles up, that completely sets his insides on fire, molten heat and anticipation and — had he been waiting for this? Had he been seeking it this whole time? And to finally get it, to finally goad and not have Erik deflect in some way, intentionally or otherwise, to not nudge and nudge and nudge until he ends up with a proper punishment, necessary but not what he was looking for originally, obviously. is so poignant that all the breath feels punched right out of his chest. “No, Erik,” he whispers as he straightens, and he’s still smirking, and he wonders if that can get a reaction, too. “Make me.”  
  
"You think I can't make you, hm?" Erik's eyes narrow, and this is almost dangerous. Charles really doesn't realize what he's playing around with, because he's never actually faced it before. Even prior to losing his memories. He may have gotten into a trifle with a D5, but Erik still Ordered circles around him. The sheer amount of control that Erik does have is unquantifiable. But he's always existed like it isn't, always, and now he's not. "You belong to me. You said so. You said you want to be mine. So you submit to me." Maybe it's because it's the first thing he ever learned, too, the connection is so much stronger. Charles is his. It's the first thing he ever really learned in this new world. "So you straighten up and you call me properly this instant." He holds his finger up to Charles's face, delivering the Order with a firm little tap to his nose.  
  
No, he really doesn’t, but it’s everything he’s craved. Everything he was meant to inspire in Erik, the only one who could possibly even hope to handle this. Even so, Charles obeys, and it doesn’t break him. It doesn’t make him mindless or drooling or helpless like it’s been known to do to others, completely wiped clean of themselves; it inspires more of him forward. Charles gasps out another little breath, snapped to attention, every inch of him alive and laser focused. “Yes, sir,” he breathes, because it’s the most automatic, because despite not being left blank, his mind is still rather hazy in the aftermath. Erik really can make him, can’t he? He will if he needs to, won’t he? It’s so distinctly good to think that.  
  
And he's rewarded with a brilliant grin as a result. Erik is fully entitled to it, but at the same time, every time Charles does submit to him it's like a gift, and his delight shines out of him like glittering raindrops. It makes him think, maybe he can do a good job of this. Maybe it's OK that he doesn't know, because he'll learn, and there's nothing wrong with that. Being able to snap Charles to awareness that way, being able to watch the interplay on his features and in his body; Erik is fully fascinated and he hums in pleasure, mollified. "Good," he rumbles. "I never thought-" he whispers, rubbing his hands down his face all of a sudden, huffing a little under his breath. He never thought he'd ever meet someone that he could call his submissive. He never wanted to hurt people. Even if he liked someone, even if he loved them, they could never be in a relationship. He was always going to be alone. And now-and it's nearly overwhelming.  
  
Charles softens even more, a gentle, fond smile as he bites his lip before inching forward, not to break position but to nuzzle against Erik’s knee, before he sits up straight again. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” he whispers. Because it is. That they found each other, that they’re here together, despite any unfortunate or frightening circumstances. The odds of it are astronomical, and yet here they are. “That we found each other. It’s brilliant.” Perhaps an understatement, but Charles has come around to it. “That we formed a Pairbond. I didn’t believe it at first, either,” he laughs.  
  
" _Zivug_ ," Erik repeats again, as if he's forgotten. His brain keeps stuttering and stopping a little, and he's asked the same question a couple of times in a row now; it's hard to take in all of this new information and have it stick, have it be the same as experiencing it. It's like learning facts, by rote. They're a Pairbond. He still doesn't quite know what that means, despite the fact that it's a term most unique to his own biology, and to Charles's. "It feel like there is so much I missed," he confides softly. "I don't know why I lost all it. Why I only know so little now. But I know what I feel-I-" he touches his own chest. "Brilliant."  
  
“It’s disorienting and it feels like you don’t know yourself or your own life at all,” Charles breathes, and of course he’s speaking from experience. He inches forward just that tiny bit until he can lean into Erik’s lap again, certain that he won’t be scolded for it, and if he is, he’ll happily take it. “But I want to help you. There’s so much we can learn here. I —“ He bites his lip. “I want to help you heal and learn, too,” he whispers, despite being unsure exactly how to go about that. He knows it must start here, with them, with relearning each other. With getting the chance to. “If you missed something, we can come back to it. We can do it again.” But differently. And just like Erik told him, those experiences will matter, too. They’ll still exist.  
  
Erik doesn't scold him for it, but it isn't because he's being lenient, it's mostly because he's a little overwhelmed, a little affected, and Charles is responding to that more than he is trying to wiggle himself out of place again. Erik sniffles a little, smiling wetly. Maybe they don't know how, but maybe there's no road map, either. It just starts with one interaction, and then another, and then another. One foot forward, one breath at a time. That's how they got hurt in the first place, moments upon moments upon years and years. The thing about healing is it often isn't linear; it often doesn't take an equal amount of positive attention to undo the negative; Erik's response to Charles's basic kindnesses toward him at the CIA were like practically being reborn, learning how to be a whole person again, based on one or two meetings. These kinds of things are significant. While it might take years to really unpack everything and be healthy and whole and stable, this is an experience that will be invaluable to them for the rest of their lives. Together. "Charles, I-" his hands come up around Charles's and he holds them up, squeezing gently. "He told you about your life? About what happened? You said it isn't like traditional."  
  
There’s really no hiding it, now. How much he remembers, how much he knows, the circumstances he’s in; he’d been trying to keep that from Erik, really, even though part of it had slipped, because if he didn’t it was just messy. But there’s no use hiding it. Charles doesn’t have all the answers because he’s rather in the dark, too, all of his own memories strange, muted, or nonexistent. “I don’t know, really,” he murmurs, and his eyes are closed. He knows that when it creeps in, when he catches glimpses of it, no details, no real recall -- those things are terrifying, and unpleasant. “My mother was apparently not a very warm woman,” he whispers, which seems an understatement, judging by Erik’s reaction to her. “My father died when I was young. My stepfather and stepbrother were the cause of…” He swallows. Significant trauma, except he doesn’t remember most or any of it. He just knows that it happens, the way Erik knows his entire immediate family and all of his friends are dead. “They did not treat me kindly, we’ll leave it at that. But I don’t remember. It doesn’t feel like my life, because I don’t recall living it. I don't even know what exactly I lived.” And perhaps being here is part processing that, but part of it is also not having it to process while everything else settles. Charles wants desperately to remember, but sometimes he’s relieved that he doesn’t, and it’s a constant war.  
  
Erik thinks he's got a pretty good idea of what that feels like now, even if he didn't before. The irony is that if he did remember, he'd probably wish he didn't, much like before. "And I was nice to you?" he whispers back, imploring. "Kind? I mean when you wake up. You have some niceness?" that's the most important part to him, at least, that Charles has memories of kindness, even if they aren't memories from his prior life.  
  
Charles smiles softly, resting his cheek fully on Erik’s knee. “You were very kind to me,” he promises. “I was frightened, at first, and on guard. I didn’t know what was happening, I couldn’t remember anything. But you helped me, and now I can help you.” Perhaps not in the same ways, perhaps not with the same effectiveness, but he knows that he can certainly try. “I want you to have new memories, too,” he whispers, his voice cracking on it. “I know you don’t know me, and there are so many things I don’t know about you. But I’d like for us both to learn.”  
  
"Me, too," Erik whispers back, letting his hands once more settle in Charles's hair. He wants to share, anything Charles would like to know, he's happy to give it, for good or ill. It's not just because it's Charles, either, he simply doesn't see any reason to hide. He has a good deal of pride in his upbringing, his history, his family, his friends, his experiences, and he has a pretty healthy, some would say borderline cocky self-esteem as a result. And he wants to learn, anything that he can. Everything that he can. But it leaves something sour in the back of his mouth, something that keeps cropping up, something that he knows won't stop even though he's tried to put it out of his mind. From everything Charles told him, it sounds like a lot of what he has to learn is to stop being so secretive. He doesn't want to keep secrets. He doesn't want to clandestinely go in search of the answers he seeks. "I just keep thinking about-" Erik scrubs his hands down his face. Charles knows, how could he not. He knows exactly.  
  
How could he not? Charles bows his head and bites his lip, the sick guilt of it coursing right through him. If he tells Erik, he risks more questions that not only does he not have the answers to, are deeply disturbing, frightening, and completely ruin the entire idea of processing if given all at once, in horrific detail. Erik always told the truth about his past, but never elaborated unless Charles prodded or pushed, and sometimes even then he was guarded with the information; now Charles knows why, can feel why. He takes a breath. “I know,” he whispers, throat dry. “And if you have questions, I’ll answer. But Erik, I think it might be best if you didn’t — if just for now, just for a little while, you didn’t know.” He bites harder on his lip, until he can taste blood, eyes squeezed shut. “But I don’t know if that’s my decision to make,” he admits. Because wasn’t Erik trying to teach him that it ultimately wasn’t?  
  
"Maybe it's better if I don't know. I don't know. But I don't and-" he doesn't know what he's trying to say. But it's not difficult for Charles to tell. Erik can't stop thinking about it, and the longer he goes without answers, the more likely it is he'll take it into his own hands. And he doesn't want that. He doesn't want to find out by himself. And that would only give him an opportunity to create distance, dealing with it on his own, researching it on his own. The whole point of this was the opposite. "Maybe it shouldn't matter," he wipes at his eyes. But it does. His family were warm. They were kind to him. It's not that they deserve to live any more than anyone else, even people who are abusive or unkind, of course. It's not about that. He just doesn't have any negative associations, not really, he simply can't understand-if a group of people didn't deserve it, it was them. Wasn't it? It's a response to pain different than what Charles has ever encountered in any Erik he's met; the kind of response that asks how could any kind of G-d possibly exist, that would allow this to happen? Erik just can't understand how it happened, what happened. "I-I won't make you tell me," he rasps softly. He can tell that even that is painful for Charles. And Charles said that this was temporary, didn't he? He should just-put it out of his mind. "But I-" he can't promise to just sit here, either. He can't. He shakes his head. "I try not to think about it," he acquiesces, dabbing his eyes on his shirt.  
  
Charles keeps his eyes firmly closed, the clenching in his chest and stomach only worsening as the seconds tick on. It’s an impossible, uncomfortable choice, but he knows Erik well enough to know that it won’t ever work out that he simply puts it out of his mind. If Charles doesn’t tell him, he’ll go looking. Charles could hide that from him, absolutely, but it wouldn’t be right; not any more than Erik doing it to him would be, holding him hostage and unknowing in this place. “If I tell you what happened,” he whispers, refusing to look up at Erik, “Will you promise not to go looking? You’ll remember, Erik. It will come back to you. But there are some details you don’t — you shouldn’t...” He doesn’t know. It feels like too big of a decision to make for his Dominant, one he shouldn’t be allowed to.

* * *

But Erik squeezes his hands again and nods. "I don't want to," he confides softly. He doesn't want to get stuck there, not again. And if he goes off half-cocked by himself that is what will end up happening. If he finds out those things on his own, he will elect to be alone with them. Maybe now is the only real time he could ever make a promise like this, to say that it isn't just his anymore. To really trust Charles, unusual as it sounds, despite being an utter stranger to him. "I-" he nods. "I promise." He just-needs something. Just as he's sure Charles needed it.  
  
And Charles knows that, deep down. He knows if he doesn’t give him at least that, all Erik will do is wonder. All he’ll do is agonize. It won’t be conducive to anything but more hiding and more secrets, and so he takes a breath, steadies himself, and scoots forward until he can rest fully in Erik’s lap again. It’s as much for his comfort as it is Erik’s and he knows it. “There’s a man named Sebastian Shaw,” he whispers, and that name comes out more like a curse, wrapped thickly around his tongue. His phantom, too. “He was looking for powerful, Omega-level mutants. And he found you, Erik. I’m afraid everyone else —“ They just happened to be in the vicinity and not of perceived use to him except to break Erik, to make him follow. It’s a disgusting, vile thought, but it’s the truth nonetheless. “You were eleven. He — he took you with him, that day. And he hurt you very terribly.” It’s the short version, almost the clean version. No details, no gruesome atrocities, no broken bodies laid out or burned to ash. Charles doesn’t even know the details anymore. He couldn’t give them if he wanted to, and he doesn’t. There are tears on his cheeks.  
  
Erik's already been shocked by the news that everyone is gone, but it seems he can be shocked even further, eyes widening, brows furrowing at the center of his forehead as he realizes that it's much, much worse than that. "You mean-they are murdered," he says after clearing his throat, touching the back of his hand to his mouth and wiping it along his cheek idly. "What is Omega-level mutant? I can't do anything. All I can do is silly." Because of course, his memories only encompass being able to do very basic things. Move coins, levitate forks. The most advanced thing he'd ever done was lift a car for a few seconds. "Why would anyone-" why would anyone even think in those terms, as though abilities were quantifiable, as though they lead to power, as if some mutations were better than others. It reminds him of... "It's just mutation. What do you even mean? I have red hair, too. Why would anyone-I-" it's an odd thing to focus on, but frankly Erik's brain feels like it's splintered into a billion directions at once. "What-what happened to him? Why? Why would anybody-"  
  
There’s no making sense of it. There’s no explaining it, really. Even without truly touching the man’s mind in any conscious way, Charles knows what lurks there, and even when he did it didn’t make sense of it; it didn’t anything easier to swallow, it didn’t make it any easier to comprehend. It certainly didn’t make Charles empathize, as he has with so many others, as he did and does with Erik, even without the full range of his telepathy. “He believes that mutants are inherently superior to baseline humans,” Charles says, and his voice shakes, giving away any attempts at staying calm, at giving Erik the answers he’s seeking so desperately. “He wanted you because he could use you to achieve his own ends. You are more powerful than you know, Erik. Right now, he’s awaiting trial for the things he’s done, not only to you but to the many, many people who suffered at his hand and the hands of his associates.”  
  
It's almost like he doesn't quite believe Charles. When Charles first woke up, he wondered if Erik lied to him; and Erik doesn't really go that far, but he can't reconcile what he's hearing with any kind of reality he can understand. Charles must be mistaken. This is all wrong. Everyone is dead because of him. Because of his mutation? What? Erik tries to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth, feeling a little like he's swallowed sludge. "What you mean I helped achieved his end? What do you mean?" Erik asks this a little desperately. Did he-his head shakes. "No I don't believe it. I don't believe like that. Whatever this, is-is wrong. This is _wrong_ -"  
  
It’s too much to comprehend like this, all at once, even so far removed from it. Charles closes his eyes and ducks his head, shoulders shaking with the weight of this, and he knows it’s nothing compared to what Erik is currently experiencing. What’s going on in his head, which Charles blissfully doesn’t have access to. It’s one of the only times he finds himself grateful for their lack of consistent connection. “It’s true,” he whispers. “What I’ve told you is true, and I’m so very sorry, Erik. I don’t have all the answers for you. I don’t know all of the details. I do know that he’s a very evil, unspeakably cruel man, and that you suffered underneath him for far too long. I know that what happened was not your fault. I know that I can’t possibly say anything to make this -- to…” He swallows, tasting blood from where he’s bitten a fairly sizable hole into his lip. There's nothing he can say. He's not sure he would believe it, either, and he had trouble believing Erik's story about their life and circumstances, too.  
  
Erik knows it's not fair of him to demand for Charles to _make_ it make sense, but for the first time since he woke up, he thinks he can understand why his memories don't exist anymore. He lost all of the context of his relationship with Charles, but those feelings-they're still there. They still exist. Knowing his family was murdered by a madman because of him, and that he might have helped that person-Erik feels like he's choking and drowning at the same time. He taps his fingers firmly over Charles's jaw. "Stop biting," he growls the Order lowly, his Will completely riled up, eyes blazing.  
  
Charles jumps, whining at the back of his throat, an unconscious, startled noise that he tries to suck back in. Stopping is immediate, and there’s not even a hope of disobeying; there’s nothing playful about it, no cheeky grin as he waits it out to see how long until he can go right back to what he was doing. He just folds himself into Erik’s lap and nods, sick to his stomach. “I know you must be --” But he doesn’t have the words for that, even. He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry, Erik. But because of you, he is paying for everything he’s ever done. As soon as we leave this place, you’ll finish what you started.” It's a small comfort for Charles, too, even though he knows it may offer none in this moment.  
  
"That is stupid," Erik growls back, his hackles raised. It's stupid, finish what he started? Pay for everything he's done? The only payment is death. That's what he deserves. And as soon as Erik gets out of here that is what he will get. Several items in the room levitate off of their shelves and explode, causing him to jump, and his eyes to widen. "Stop that!" he points a finger at Charles. "Everybody just stop, stop it-" Crash. _BANG_!  
  
It does stop, though, as if it never started. As if Erik has actually Ordered it of him. Everything stops, as if time itself has stopped, slowed down; there are no items and there are no shelves, there’s nothing that Erik can perceive for a moment as if the world has thrust itself into total, absolute darkness. But when it comes back, it’s exactly as it was. A reboot, the phone turned on and then off again. “Killing him will not bring you the peace you and the others seek,” he whispers, but he doesn’t know how much he believes it. He knows that he should, and that perhaps he does. But not killing Sebastian Shaw, for Charles now and for Charles then, once he knew, once he learned, was never about preserving human life, not when it came to Shaw. Frankly, he can’t imagine he qualifies any longer. But killing him doesn’t bring closure, it doesn’t bring freedom -- to Erik, to the children he’s saved, to the thousands of others who suffered similar, horrible fates. It’s a momentary solution to a problem much bigger than Shaw himself could ever hope to be, but Charles doesn’t have the explanation now. He doesn’t have the ability to give it. He just shakes his head again, still folded prone in Erik’s lap.  
  
As soon as Erik has purchase again though, any iota, any molecule, he digs his fingertips into it and it and shreds, and shreds. Charles has never really encountered the spectrum of Erik's power before, and where he pushes against those buttons he suddenly finds something bending around him, pushing back in equal measure, the Universe itself warping and bending like light through water, distorted, planets and their orbits out of alignment, temperatures rising, oceans crashing, mountains falling. Erik digs his fingertips into his eyes, leaning forward so that he almost eclipses Charles in his lap, making a low, wounded noise. He takes a breath, and then another. His heart is beating in his ears, everything is hot and agitated. With a sound of pure, pulsating energy the manor explodes, the floor ripped from beneath them and Erik pulls Charles to him, letting out a startled yell.  
  
And then abruptly, suddenly, and miraculously, it doesn’t. Because Erik has never seen the range of Charles’ power, either, and neither has Charles. With his eyes still closed, there’s nothing that Charles does; there’s just something that is. Erik can explode everything he likes, rip it to shreds, change every molecule, remove it and add it and spin it and destroy it and remake it, and they will end up back here in the end. In this empty, blank place, in this In Between, where nothing exists and everything does. Where there is white and there is formless, but there is endless possibility. Erik tried desperately to change the manor, to recreate it, to remodel it; to give it warmth, to give it character, and he couldn’t. It would always have remade itself exactly how it was, and it still will. There is no manor, and there is and there will be. Charles opens his eyes, but there’s nothing to see; perhaps he’s kneeling, and perhaps he isn’t. Erik is still folded over them, but they’re nowhere he recognizes, because there’s nothing to recognize. The Void, and not. The endless expanse, and the Nothing. He takes a breath. “I’ll bring it back,” he whispers, his voice hoarse and broken, and he’s not really speaking to Erik. He’s speaking to himself. He’ll fix it. And if Erik breaks it again, if he destroys it again, he’ll fix it again, too.  
  
He's clutching Charles close to him, fingers digging into his skin, unwilling to let go. Every muscle in his body is vibrating like a tuning fork, a flutter inside of him that he can't dial down. "I don't know how-" he gasps into Charles's ear. "I don't know how-" he's not doing it on purpose, he's not doing it because he's mad-he doesn't even have any comprehension of the things he can do. Is this what that man wanted? He wanted this? Erik doesn't think he can breathe, and it's like all the oxygen in the entire world starts to evaporate, too, sucking the life-force out of every living being on the planet.  
  
But it happened somewhere safe, then, because there’s no one on the planet to drain. There is no planet, here. There are no elements, there is no physicality; this is firmly, solidly Charles’ domain, built to be that from the start. And he holds Erik to him and hushes him softly, whispers nonsense to him until some of the shaking stops, until this place where they’ve settled begins to form, until they’re somewhere recognizable; a field, somewhere, Charles doesn’t know where or why, but it exists, it’s somewhere, it’s safe and there’s sun that isn’t bursting and exploding, nothing that’s vibrating. Just calm, and tranquil, and quiet. The manor will come, eventually, once Charles can make sense enough to get them back there. For now there’s this, and Erik’s teeth were chattering, isn’t this better? It’s warmer here. Too warm, really. There’s sweat on Charles’ brow, he feels far too overheated. “It’s alright, darling,” he promises. “It’s alright. I know it’s very overwhelming, but you know how to control it. Shh. Calm down, now. See? We’re alright. It’s alright.”  
  
"Home," Erik whispers to himself, as soon as it forms around them, like he can sense the minute changes in the atmosphere, something Charles isn't even consciously aware he's known to replicate, but Erik recognizes it instantly. His grip in Charles's hand is almost bruising, and he loosens it a little, stroking his fingers apologetically. It's dry and dusty and endless, spreading outward and outward for miles and miles. Great spires and canyons are carved into the earth, where bright blue sky meets with cracked reds and brown and columns that encompass them both, high up into the atmosphere. Erik's never been here before, this deep. He wasn't allowed. But he recognizes it all the same, this place. And it works, all the energy inside of him beginning to wind down gradually, to rescind. He sags a little, leaning against Charles heavily.

* * *

And Charles relaxes, too. He lets out a breath he hadn’t even known he’d been holding and he sags, too, full-body, overwhelmed himself. His power, in comparison to the dulling in Erik, is thrumming, singing, pulsing; and he doesn’t know how to channel that, really. When it comes from him and not what seems like an entirely unrelated entity, cosmic and unknowable, it’s always enough to completely overwhelm him exactly like this. “Home?” he asks, and strokes a shaking hand through Erik’s hair, hoping to steady them both. There’s solid ground under their feet, at least, even though it’s so unbearably hot. Charles was wearing sweatpants perfectly appropriate for an air-conditioned building and not so appropriate for the desert.  
  
"Home," Erik sniffles and shuts his eyes, trying his best not to dissolve again. "My home is _Sisim_. It means like, sparrows. This place is just a big desert, lots of villages, and towns. But it's dangerous out here so I never go, but sometimes I sneak a little." He has to laugh, bittersweet. "And when you climb up you can see the whole place." He points up along the canyon's edge. Leave it to an eleven-year old Erik to scare the shit out of his family by mountain climbing with no equipment. Here, he looks different, too. Warmer, calmer, even though he looks weary and exhausted just from his own emotional rollercoaster. His teeth no longer chattering, no more goosebumps and hair stood on end.  
  
Except now Charles is sweating, his hair practically soaked with it, his shirt sticking to his back, the moisture gathering on his brow and feeling sticky and uncomfortable at his neck, near his collar. But he hasn’t heard this, not really. Not the way Erik is talking about it now, not the open, honest, close way he’s speaking about it, and that’s what steals his breath away more than anything. That’s what puts a bittersweet smile on his lips, and compels him to scoot closer to Erik even when it’s really too hot to have that sort of contact. “It’s beautiful,” he murmurs honestly, and then adds, laughing, “And very hot. Now I know why you don’t like the air conditioner very much.”  
  
It makes Erik laugh, too, a warm, gentle sound that's honestly something he doesn't realize he's still capable of until it exudes from him. "How you can have the air conditioner in only 20 degrees heat, I don't know. The people who live out here, they don't have a lot of things, like good education and electricity and whatnot. The government don't help them, they don't pay tax so they don't get any service in the government, that kind of thing. So we would come and give like scrap metal and things, that's how they got money, and to build streets and repairs and things. My mother hated it." He laughs again. "I always loved to come out. It feels... wild out here. Like anything can happen. Like you can run and run, and scream as loud as you want."  
  
It sounds so very much like the Erik he knows, and yet nothing like him at all. It’s not just the way he speaks, the words he uses, his lack of confidence in the language, it’s how he says it. It’s the way the words form, the way he thinks. It’s painful to imagine what changed that, but without the memories, the experiences, the constant, consistent, horrific trauma -- Erik is hurting awfully, but these parts still exist. And Charles knows he couldn’t even have pulled them through and out if they didn’t, if they weren’t still in there. If Erik couldn’t learn to reach for them again, the same way Charles knows there are qualities in himself that were buried and discarded before. “It all sounds rather dangerous,” he grins, sheepish, because Charles, even if he’d gotten the opportunity, even if he’d had the ability, would likely have much rather stayed inside with a nice book, even as a child. There’s a playful, adventurous streak in him, surely, but it often needs to be coaxed out, and that’s more personality than experience.  
  
"Dangerous! You don't like adventures?" Erik's eyebrows shoot up playfully, an unconscious smile on his face. Of course, quite unlike Charles, Erik has always loved adventure. Exploration and discovery. "My father would always take me and everybody always acted like it 's dangerous," he admits, "my mother hated that he take me, and would always complain I am just a child, but I think he really wanted to teach me very early that, it is important to get along. Nothing bad ever happened. Oh, one time, " he starts laughing. "We got invited to this young family's house for _Eid_ , it's like um, a holiday, a Muslim holiday, and they bury a whole lamb in the ground, and it cooks in there. Then you eat it like barbecue. And we would play soccer and things. It just seemed really normal, you know?" But Erik was the one who went on those trips, not Ruth, and he didn't really think too hard about it at the time. "I guess you know, we have different ways of life, we thought it was an obligation to help our neighbors, but it was a complicated situation. I think it was probably more dangerous than I understood," he laughs.  
  
“I like adventures,” he argues, scrunching up his nose, laughing much more openly than he thought he might, considering the circumstances. They’re still right in the middle of the desert, and Charles is still sweating profusely, but it doesn’t stop him from trying to roll Erik over so he can loom over him, grinning. “I’m excellent at adventures, thanks much. But unnecessary danger, climbing up cliffs --” He shakes his head, feigning exasperation when all he can do is feel fondness, when all that’s rising up inside of him is adoration clear as day across his features. “It seems like more of a risk than you need to be taking, don’t you think? I think you ought to think about giving me a heart attack in the future.” It’s all just talk, and he hopes it prompts more of Erik’s talking. More playfulness, more openness, more exploration between the two of them.  
  
"Nooo," Erik smirks, rocking up on his heels and towering right over Charles in return. "Cliff-climbing, honored tradition." All of a sudden they lift right up into the air, Erik's eyebrows shot up to his hairline as he realizes that it's him that's doing it. They float all the way up the canyon and settle right at the top, overlooking the entire area. "See? No heart attack. I would keep you safe," Erik pokes him in the chest playfully. He tucks Charles in close, gazing out across the whole Landscape. He hasn't realized how much he's missed it here until he's come back. "Maybe we can visit for real some day," he whispers, almost to himself, an idle fantasy.  
  
Charles shakes his head. “We are here for real,” he promises quietly, breathless and staring in awe out at the vast expanse. He certainly isn’t shocked by Erik floating, especially not the way he had; the Erik he knows is quite a bit more capable than this one is, but it’s only because he doesn’t know it yet. Charles sometimes wonders if that’s the case with him, too, though the circumstances are different. He reaches down to pick up a rock, flashing Erik a grin before he rears back and throws it as far as he possibly can. It’s not very far at all, predictably, and he doesn’t use any application of power to help it along -- isn’t even sure he can, if he tries -- but the point is made. “See? Physics apply. We’re here, truly. For right now, we are at your home.” Because it doesn't matter if they aren't physically there. There's no difference, in this place. It's nothing like the world Charles created for them ages ago, in a hospital room he has no recollection of. It is.  
  
"You mean I can fly?" Erik gasps. As if flicked by an invisible hand, the rock soars far and wide, before _poofing_ into thousands of colorful pieces. Thought becoming action, even though they aren't physically here. It says enough for both of them, that their abilities integrate so seamlessly, so far away. Effortless. "Is anything left of _Sisim_?" he whispers, swallowing roughly over a lump in his throat.  
  
It’s not so surprising; Erik has almost full reign over the physical world, and Charles has made this physical. The Universe has, perhaps, he doesn’t know. It’s functionally the same thing. The question gives him pause, and he scoots to the edge of the cliff before sitting down, staring out. “I don’t know,” he admits, because Erik hasn’t shared that part with him. But it’s clear enough what he’s thinking, even with their lack of a connection. No, he doesn’t think much at all would be. “It’s very beautiful,” he whispers again.  
  
He had the feeling there wasn't, so his reaction isn't as out of control as it was the first time. "It's all gone," he shakes his head, staring out into the expanse. "My home. I-I was such a _stupid_ kid," he sniffs and smiles to himself, dropping down next to Charles and kicking his feet along the edges. "I didn't know any thing or think about any thing. I remember, like yesterday, but it feels like years." He leans his head against Charles's shoulder.  
  
“You weren’t stupid. You were just a child, and nothing else could have been expected of you,” Charles whispers, leaning right into Erik’s side in turn. He scoots closer, until their legs are touching, until he can tentatively, slowly reach out for Erik’s hand and lace their fingers together. For a long few moments, he’s silent, letting the wind and the desert speak for him. “We grew up so very far apart,” he murmurs, not entirely sure why. There was so much more than an ocean separating them, now that he’s seeing it all right in front of him. “In two very different worlds.”  
  
That makes Erik laugh, but it's not judgmental. He squeezes Charles's hand. "You have a big mansion," he grins back, eyebrows waggling. "I moved up in the world." He gives Charles an outrageous wink. Erik certainly didn't grow up with anything approaching wealth, but he always had food on the table and clothes on his back, and people who loved him. It was enough. He never realized how much it meant. "How did we meet?" he asks, soft.  
  
It’s a question Charles knows the answer to, and an entirely appropriate and reasonable one. It makes him tense anyway, staring down, which does make him woozy for a moment considering how high they are and what a very long way down it is. “I don’t know,” he lies, uncertain why he does, exactly. He knows exactly how they met, but what good will it do to tell Erik that? He bites his lip. “As far as I remember, we met at the manor. I don’t remember anything before that, yeah?”  
  
Erik squints at him, though. "No," he murmurs. "No biting. And no lying," he rumbles lowly. He doesn't know how he knows, only that he does. "You don't want to tell. OK. But do not lie. I can't-" he shakes his head. "Please. I don't know what is real or not. You can't lie too. You can't."  
  
Shame twists up in his belly, hot and nauseating, and Charles closes his eyes to keep it from spinning everything. “I —“ He can’t say that he didn’t. He knows good and well that he did. “I’m sorry. There are things I wish had happened differently for us, and sometimes I like to pretend that’s the truth. I asked and he told me but sometimes I wish he hadn’t,” he admits, and hates that he does. “I know I can’t deny reality. I know it won’t do us any good when we leave here together. But I’d like...” To rewrite some of it, and telling Erik the details here? He’s not sure they’ll do anything but harm him.  
  
"You think I can't take it? That I don't get to know? I thought I am supposed to be Dominant, and take care. But I don't know any thing and now you are in control of it all, and I-" it comes bursting out of Erik before he can think better of it. "Why it hurts so much? Why is everything so-" horrible?  
  
Charles recoils immediately, as if he’s been slapped. His legs come up and he buries his face in them, arms firmly around his knees as he closes his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he croaks, and wonders if all of this is just a futile exercise anyway. Did he make the choice, or did the Universe? Was he ever meant to? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t have the answers. “You’re right. You’re the Dominant,” he mumbles, as if that’s a response to anything. It is, but whether something comes of it, he doesn’t know. All he knows is that he feels strung out, conflicted, confused, overwhelmed. “I’m sorry you’ve realized your life is so awful,” he mutters next, and tries not to sound as defeated and devastated as he feels.  
  
Erik just shakes his head. "I keep think maybe I want to know but every thing I find out-" and what could be worse, except that it always ends up being worse. He looks out over the desert landscape, as if that is proof itself. He shrugs a little, pressing his lips together. "Except you," he adds, soft. "I-like this part." He likes it a lot.  
  
“I’m a part of that wretched life, you know,” he mutters, still muffled almost entirely by his arms, tucked into his own knees. He felt the same way, when he began to learn things. He still does now, every time something new and terrible pops up. “And I can’t change it. I wish I could, that I could tell you that we had some fantastic, fairytale life together, but we didn’t. And I don’t know what to do,” he admits.  
  
"Me either," Erik admits softly, and it's something he probably wouldn't have admitted before, so concerned with always being in control and composed. "Maybe not a fairy tale, but-" still, the odds of them meeting at all-of being able to feel this way, what he feels inside-those odds are nothing to blink at. "I just found out my whole friends and family are murdered-I-can't pretend it's not horrible. But you aren't horrible. What I learned of you is-" Erik just smiles, gentle.  
  
Charles just barely peeks up from his knees, but a moment later he’s right back where he was. Unbearably hot for it, too, sweat dripping down his neck and back. “I know it’s horrible,” he whispers. “And I don’t know how to ease any of it. I wish I could. There’s so much you don’t know, and right now I think it’s better that you don’t,” he sighs, eyes closing again, but his shoulders slumping. “But I don’t know that. I’m not the Dominant. I shouldn’t be making these decisions for you, and now I have to again.” And he doesn’t particularly like it, and that isn’t Erik’s fault. Just the way it seems to be.  
  
Erik shrugs, too, and touches Charles's face, squeezing his hand where it's still held in his. "I make a choice, too. I can tell you to do it. I don't know, too," he admits softly. "I guess I just trust it is really bad, and maybe I don't want to know right now. But you can't lie to me. You promise you won't. Please."  
  
Slowly, Charles nods, still hidden. “I won’t lie to you,” he promises quietly, solemnly. “I promise. You hated when I lied to you,” he whispers, and when he peeks up again, there’s a soft grin on his lips, just barely. It’s code for I was punished for it, but Erik doesn’t need to know that.  
  
"Does anybody like when they got lied to?" Erik grins back, tossing another rock gently over the edge. He doesn't want to go back, just a little longer. The longer he stays here, the less real it feels. The more he can imagine to himself that everything is just fine, he could just get up and go back home and it would all still be there.  
  
They can stay for as long as they’d like, really. Charles doesn’t think they have to leave at all, except this isn’t the best place in the world to do many things. He doesn’t unwrap himself from his knees, apparently a natural position for him, just scoots to the side again until he’s touching Erik more. “I think I used to skip stones,” he murmurs, perhaps inanely. He picks up another rock and chucks it, satisfied with how far it goes. See? Who needs ability. “This isn’t so different. A lot sweatier, mind, but not so different.”  
  
Erik brushes Charles's hair from his face. "You are really hot? You want to go back?" he whispers, because as much as he longs to stay, his instincts scream at him to make certain Charles is comfortable. "Air conditioner," he laughs.  
  
Charles smiles, though, soft, and shakes his head. “I’m very hot, but I don’t mind it so much. Besides, you’re going to be freezing when we go back, aren’t you? I can melt for you if you’re willing to become a popsicle for me, darling,” he grins, and leans into Erik and the hand still near his face despite the heat, chasing after the touch, the affection. The signs that this is still Erik. “Have you ever seen snow?” he wonders, because he knows that going through a New York winter, the Erik he knows has. But has this one? Does he remember it?  
  
It makes Erik laugh, eyes alight. "No. It snowed in Israel, people even ski in the winter. But not here. My father said one time it snowed in _Arad_ , but I think he is just pulling my finger." So close, Erik. So. Close. "It is nice? Cold?" He looks very charmed by the idea, which is a lot like the Erik he knows, too. Only now it's a little clearer, a little more rooted. Erik just _likes_ things. He likes life, he likes experiences, he looks for the joy in things. Erik closes his eyes for a second and quite abruptly, holds up his hands, watching as flurries form in the atmosphere above them and swirl down onto them. "Snow?"  
  
Charles grins at them, at those flurries, turning his head up to watch. They’re cold, when they hit his cheeks; they melt immediately, incongruent with everything else around them, with this real, physical, grounded world, but it doesn’t surprise him at all that Erik can do it. “Snow,” he agrees quietly, untangling himself from his knees to lean all the way back and enjoy it, to let them kiss his eyelashes and fall into his sweat-damp hair. “I don’t remember it, really, but I know it snowed a lot where I grew up. Like a dream you can’t remember once you’re awake. All of it is.” Even the good parts, unlike Erik. It’s quiet, melancholy, but he sticks his tongue out to catch a snowflake, and that feels so achingly familiar he wonders if it is a memory.  
  
Unlike real snow, when he catches it on his tongue it spreads out in the taste of sour strawberries and kiwis. Erik sticks out his tongue, too, and laughs when the taste blooms. "Maybe real snow doesn't taste so good," he grins. He lifts his hand, touching against the flakes of cold. "I am doing this," he whispers, awed. He swallows down where that train of thought naturally leads. Charles feels a wind ruffle along his skin, Erik's unconscious care of him, cooling him down.  
  
“No, it doesn’t. It tastes like this,” Charles whispers, and when Erik tilts his head back again to catch another flake, it tastes like real snow. Like melting water, nothing, pleasant because Charles is still sweating and uncomfortable, but far less than he was just moments ago. He wonders if he should tell Erik this; he bites on his lip again, worrying what’s already an open, irritated wound. “Technically I’m the one doing it,” he mumbles, and stares down at his feet again, legs pulled back up to his knees. “Technically I’m doing everything.” The snow stops, abruptly, unnaturally, in a way it wouldn’t have if Erik was the one to have done it. It doesn’t stop at all, really. It just ceases to exist. “It was getting cold,” he laughs, though that isn’t the answer. There’s a storm brewing over them now.  
  
Erik shrugs, and gives Charles a painful rap on the knuckles. "I said stop biting. Don't do it again." A flash of lightning shines through Erik's eyes, as if imitating his Will, and he glances up at the sky. "I used to love this," he confides in a whisper. It never rained often, but when it did, it was often accompanied by electricity in the air. He's not sure why he says it.  
  
So naturally Charles does it again, whether it’s intentional or not, his eyes raised toward the storm above them. It’s ominous, perhaps dangerous, but beautiful, too. “It doesn’t frighten you?” he asks, looking up as the rain slowly begins to hit them, just soft, almost gentle droplets of it. The beginning. “That I’m doing all of this?” It didn’t scare the Erik he knew, but the circumstances were wildly different.  
  
Erik shrugs. "I don't-" he starts, but thunder flashes across the sky again and this time Charles can feel it light up his entire body, the only danger here present in defying Erik's Will. "Why would it scare me? Why does anybody think that? I never-and I said stop. Do you not hear me? Do you not know how to use your ears? Do you think I am just joking around when I say something?"  
  
Apparently so, because Charles just chews harder and more insistently at his poor lip, this time definitely in defiance. “Because it’s disconcerting,” he argues quietly, his head still tucked into his knees. “You woke up alone, confused, and without most of your memories, and I can do this. More than this. That doesn’t make you even a little frightened? How can you be sure I’m not manipulating you, Erik?”  
  
Erik blinks several times and clears his throat. "I didn't mean to-" he murmurs to his feet guiltily, almost shuffling a little. "It is not your fault." But it's oddly normal, too. It's something the old Erik wouldn't do unless he was pushed far beyond the boundary, just get mad, give in, be honest. Feel things. He isn't mad at Charles. It's not fair. He knows. He swallows. "But I am serious. I won't stay here. I won't watch you bleed. You stop." The Order is fierce, and like his other Orders, it doesn't even approach the level that Erik had used on him previously. Where Charles may have thought, this is it, this is Erik without restraint-he was wrong.  
  
There is an endless well of Dominion within him at all times, and it rages out now, flourishing in the atmosphere like electric sparks. "I don't know if you are manipulating me," he concedes softly, pronouncing the words with a curious lilt, but evidently just hearing the language spoken has affected how he speaks, gaining more proficiency with every word. "I do not know if this is a big-" he waves his hand. "Big fantasy, dream, abduction. I do not know. Whatever you do, I-have to trust. You have not harmed me. You-" called him _darling_ , touched his head. Charles can't hide his affections nearly as well as he thinks, and they burrow deep into Erik's own psyche. "Maybe I am not strong like you. Abilities," he means. "But it does not matter. Abilities are just a thing. How you choose and act, that matters. You obey me. That matters."  
  
It sounds too entirely like his Erik, even so, and Charles buries his head even further into his knees. A few moments later, his shoulders are shaking along with the thunder in the distance, and in the next moment they’re being drenched with rain. Absolutely soaked to the bone with it, a downpour that’s more of a roar than it is a pleasant dripping. “We were getting somewhere,” he whispers, and somehow Erik hears it over the deafening noise, the thunder that chooses that moment to crack. “You and me. Finally, we were getting somewhere. You were going to properly train me, you were telling me that you loved me —“ Not just the Charles who remembered. And now here they are, back to square one, and Charles feels so utterly lost and helpless again.  
  
Erik sniffs and wipes at his eyes, and they're both on their feet, with Erik behind him. He touches Charles's shoulder, a gentle weight that settles warmth through his whole body. "But-" he whispers back, just as soft, but somehow audible. "But you say I am not healed," he finishes, raspy. If he isn't healed, how far could they have gotten? "You are my loved one," he whispers. "I can feel that." Just as he did in that cell, his whole being knows that Charles-belongs to him. Meant for him. It thrums through his entire self. "Maybe I cannot be the best because I have to reset. I want to try. I do not know if I am the Erik you remember, but-I want to stay with you. Help you. I feel you are mine. So I can train you. I want to."  
  
Erik is right. If he wasn’t, if Charles didn’t honestly believe it, there’s no way he would be here. There’s no way he would be able to manage it, because in the end, it wasn’t the Universe who reset Erik. It was Charles. It was Charles who held Erik as he fell asleep and Charles who waited by his bedside and Charles, here, who took him home to comfort him without knowing at all where he was going. This cliff begins to look a lot more like a living room, and then it’s not a cliff at all. They’re both still soaking wet, and now Charles is shivering, the storm outside instead of in and rumbling outside the manor walls, but he turns in Erik’s arms and nods into his chest. “You’ll train me,” he breathes, and his shoulders are still shaking but it’s a promise. To both of them. They’ll reset together. “I’m yours.”  
  
Erik tucks Charles's head under his chin, noting that he's almost a whole foot taller than his submissive. His submissive. The thought comes completely naturally to him, where it wouldn't before, as if Erik had been ashamed to admit he thought of Charles that way, as if there were something inherently wrong even if he'd never, ever admit it. A product of his upbringing, of being forced to act in ways contrary to his nature. Charles was right before, he was compensating, protest too much, said Shakespeare. And somewhere on a deep level Charles noticed it; but it's completely absent now. Erik is fully confident in himself, in being Dominant, in knowing Charles's place on an instinctive level. "You're mine," he repeats back, a slight smile on his face, eyes glowing in the darkened light of the room. At one point it was the only thing he knew. A lifeline. "So just breathe. I still got you. I won't go away." It's almost painfully earnest.


	124. i'm pointing the gun towards my oldest friend

Erik always did this. Tucked him right in, rested his head on Charles, stroked his back. Made him feel small and safe and looked after, kept in exactly the way Erik described earlier, but it’s more now. They’re strangers again, and yet somehow Erik is less reserved. “You’re not shy,” Charles realizes all at once, muffled by Erik’s shirt. Perhaps Erik gets embarrassed, when the moment calls for it, but not reserved. There’s no ducked heads or hesitation, there’s no “OK?” It shouldn’t be anything close to a revelation, and yet somehow it is.  
  
"Shy?" Erik asks, his head tilting curiously, barreling straight into whatever it is that Charles means without any hesitation at all. He doesn't know shyness, he doesn't know reservation or restraint. Not really. It's a completely different beast. Something else, something that's lurked in Erik, sensed by Charles's extraordinary mind, but unable to break forth. Until now. He's not shy. Certainly not when it comes to Charles. "I was shy? Before?"  
  
“Not very,” Charles murmurs, and when he thinks about it, perhaps shy isn’t the right word for it. Restrained is. He looks up at his Dominant, worrying at his lip with his teeth before he remembers and offers a sheepish smile. “You didn’t always speak much, or sometimes at all. You hesitated when you did, sometimes. You didn’t do things without asking, sometimes you just —“ He gestures, but he’s not sure this Erik will get it. He just held back. In everything he did, he held back.  
  
Erik truly doesn't get it, but he recognizes it for what it is; the Erik that Charles knew-he must have kept so much inside. He would have remembered his family and friends being murdered. He would have remembered being kidnapped by a crazed lunatic. Erik doesn't know much more than that, but his mind works overtime to supply gruesome possibilities. It must have changed him irrevocably. The suffering. The pain. Erik looks at Charles, pressing his own lips together. There's another question niggling at him, this one cutting straight to the heart of it all. He squeezes Charles's hands in his and lets them drop only so he can roll up the sleeve on his left arm, a process made possible using his right hand purely out of Charles's compassion. On his inner forearm there's a tattoo; semi-circles in lines, thick-dark ink.  
  
"What is this?" he whispers. He'd noted it before. A tattoo, something he'd never do. He's not _dati_ , despite his family's connections in _Bnai Brak_ , he's not even particularly observant most of the time. But he listened to his mother, he didn't eat pork, and he knew she'd smack him silly (perhaps not in the literal sense, but when it came to Edith Lehnsherr, that didn't quite matter-) if he ever came home with a trendy entreat stamped on his skin for all eternity. It's out of order. It doesn't make sense. Did he truly change so much? Abandon his beliefs? Shut himself away even from the one person destined to be his submissive, an S1 who loves him and cares for him and makes sure he eats and sleeps and doesn't feel the rending agony of his nerves and bones. Erik cannot imagine that, and it's written plainly on his face. Entirely unhidden.  
  
Charles tries not to choke on his next breath, because of course this Erik would wonder. “You told me we had a contract, when I first woke up,” he whispers. “And you showed it to me. It says in that contract that I will not get any tattoos. It’s something we agreed upon together.” It’s a whisper, and a broken one at that, but it makes things clear enough; Erik didn’t abandon his beliefs. Not at all. It doesn’t at all answer the original question, but it is an answer.  
  
Erik's eyebrows furrow together as he tries to process this. Something about it repulses him, repels, and he can't figure out why, shuddering a little unconsciously. "Why do I have one?" he asks again, imploring. "The one who took me?" he finally reasons, because there's something about it that he feels, as if it contains its own personal message of suffering.  
  
It does. Charles closes his eyes as tightly as he can, and grips Erik around the middle, buried in his chest. “Yes,” he whispers, because there’s certainly no way to lie about this. Erik must already know. “Another thing he took from you. I don’t know the details, exactly,” he admits, and that part is true. Charles doesn’t have Erik’s memories, not like he did. He swallows. “I tend not to —“ Not to touch it. Not to look at it. Erik didn’t seem interested in speaking about it, really, and so he left it alone. Without telepathy, there was and is so much he just doesn’t know. They had to talk about it, but now Erik doesn’t know, either. “I could...” Charles gestures, vague and quick, and clings again right after.  
  
"You could?" Erik whispers, his eyebrows raising. He's so desperate to know, but it's at war with his natural instinct to recoil as though touching an open flame. Disgust and fear well up when his eyes are drawn to his arm again, and his jaw works as a cold blast of anger ruffles through him, a sharp wind, biting and cutting at his exposed skin. It shouldn't be this familiar. It shouldn't be this close, but yet it is. Somehow it is. Erik knows it. "I don't wish to bring you pain" Erik rasps, soft. "Maybe that is why he does not tell you. But-I am supposed to be yours, too? We should be able to talk. If you want." He knows that likely isn't the case. Who would want to? Maybe Erik knew instinctively, shied Charles away from it so he didn't have to deal with it, made it his issue that he wouldn't discuss it or bring it up. Somehow he thinks that's probably not entirely true, but he can understand-he's beginning to understand why it might have happened this way. Just the bare essentials are devastating. Who could bear to hear more? A loved one, no less?  
  
It’s not what’s on Charles’ mind at all. What he is thinking about is something he’s not sure how Erik will respond to, and so he hesitates, biting on his lip again, hiding it in Erik’s chest. “I could make it disappear,” he croaks, because he thinks if he tries, he can. He doesn’t know if he should, if he should give Erik that, but it’s an option. He’ll offer it up. “We can’t talk about it, because I don’t know and you don’t remember. But if you want it gone, Erik, I can do that.”  
  
Erik holds out his arm, his other wrapped around Charles and idly rubbing his back, somehow knowing the exact spots that Erik used to run his fingers past to soothe Charles and try to calm him down. He isn't sure how he's responding, either, but something-a memory he does have, and he presses his lips together, shaking his head. "No," he finally murmurs, gazing out of the window behind Charles to watch the courtyard alight in thunders and shadows. His head shakes, trying to gather his thoughts that seem to have scattered like marbles. "I know you could," he adds, fond. "And I appreciate offer. You are very kind. I-" Does Charles understand? Could he? But he doesn't remember, and Erik never told him. Never explained, never walked into the darkness. "I hate it," he adds, making sure Charles does understand that. "I do. I see and I-I don't know. It is ugly. A type of ugliness-" he can't express it, it seems. Who could have the words?  
  
There’s no possible way to describe it. There aren’t words for the horror, for the sick, sinking reality of it. There’s no way that Charles could understand, but as much as he can, he does. He’s tried to. He knew Erik would likely say no, because he knows that the Erik he knows would, but if he didn’t ask that would eat at him, too. He settles for burying himself more fully in Erik’s chest, nuzzling against him. “I’m sorry there’s so much horror here,” he whispers, his throat raw with it. It’s barely a whisper again. “I wish I could protect you from it, but I can’t. I just want to help you heal. I couldn’t, before. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t reach you, I tried, and —“ He swallows, eyes closed.  
  
It seems to work on Erik, too, as he gradually untenses with Charles in his arms. "You reach me now," he promises solemnly. "Maybe you can't protect it. It just exists. Now we must heal, both of us must heal. I would try to help you, too." This he swears, above all else, even not knowing this individual before him, Erik *knows*.  
  
It must be so overwhelming to wake up to. Charles remembers it himself, though the circumstances were different; waking up alone and panicked, in a place he didn’t recognize, with the Universe weighing down on his shoulders. He remembers Erik’s firm, calm explanation, the way he’d stared stoically at him, unmoving, grounded, until Charles stopped falling apart. It had seemed cold to him, then, but he knows now it isn’t — but would this Erik have done it differently? Almost certainly. He makes a soft humming noise, thoughtful and quiet, until another thought entirely hits him and he giggles. “We could date,” he snorts into Erik’s chest, nonsensically.  
  
It makes Erik grin as he pulls back to regard Charles, wide and freer than Charles had ever seen prior to when Erik had woken up himself. "You want to date me?" he asks, touching his own chest as if honored by the idea. Erik really doesn't know any of the conventions, what he's seen on television, what he's heard through the lens of half-mortified childhood. But somehow he does, too, he understands the gravity, he understands what it means, he knows the important bits. Not what to do, not really, but there are things that _aren't_ missing.

* * *

It all sounds rather silly, and Charles’ cheeks are pink with the knowledge that he’d even said it in the first place. But then again, why does it feel so silly? Because it’s something Erik had barely even considered, before, and therefore Charles hadn’t, either. They were already Bonded. Apparently, he’d known from the moment he’d stepped into a holding cell that Charles was his, and it wasn’t as if they were in a position to go on dates. What they had was quick and outrageously intense because it had to be, and because it was. It’s not much different now. Erik has just awoken without memories, been given absolutely devastating news, and Charles is the only one he knows. The only one here. It’s not exactly the best spot for a budding relationship. For dating in general. But he still takes a breath and peeks up at Erik, flushed and wriggly, all of a sudden. “I’d like to try, yes,” he whispers, sounding more breathless than he means to.  
  
"You won't get disappointed if I don't know how to do something?" Erik whispers, worried. But even this is different than before, there isn't shame attached to it, but there is, perhaps, a juxtaposed vulnerability. Erik is so confident and assured, but in moments like this, he seems almost self-conscious; understanding the vast chasm that exists between them, the vast lack of knowledge he perhaps once held. But he wants to try. He wants to learn. He just doesn't want Charles to feel impatient with him.  
  
The funny thing here is, if Charles got impatient with Erik, it was never because he didn’t know something. It was never a lack of knowledge or understanding that he found himself frustrated by, and it certainly won’t be now. It was the hesitance. It was what Charles mistook as a fundamental refusal to move forward, and what he misread in himself as a need for something Erik didn’t desire himself or perhaps couldn’t provide. But it’s not the case, and he’s learned as much. Seeing it in practice, this eagerness, this openness -- it’s honestly leaving him a bit breathless, and he shakes his head. “No, I won’t be disappointed,” he promises, entirely honest. “The truth is, I haven’t done much of it either that I can recall,” he laughs, shaking his head again. “I’m not sure how to do most of it, either. But I imagine that part of it is something we can figure out, if you’re willing. I can completely understand if you’d rather wait, or if you’d like to think about it, or…” All of this is so much to ask a stranger. Charles finds himself wondering if it’s too much, forgetting, even, and he’s back to biting at his lip. "There's been so much to think about since you woke up. If you need time, I understand."  
  
Erik shakes his head, though. "I would like to try," he murmurs, and there is no hesitation here. He laughs a little, even now, smiling brightly, eyes alight. Even after everything he's learned; because he's learned it. He hasn't lived it. There's a difference, and it's astronomical. Is there anger? Is there rage? Grief? Pain? Yes. But nowhere near to the scale that it had been. There's room for Erik to breathe, and think, and exist in himself. Exist with Charles. "I know we do not know one another well, or I do not know you, you know me-" his nose wrinkles up, amused. "But I want. I know what I feel and instinct, and everything inside of me, I am supposed to be-" he gestures to Charles. "Here. With you. And you will teach me about you, what you like. And I will learn, too." He taps the book that has floated into his hand, grinning. "And-I do not really know what I like. But I will teach you that, too."  
  
Charles has met other Eriks, now. Different Eriks, with different experiences, who felt very different things. He’s known them, and loved them, too. But they hadn’t been like this. Perhaps they couldn’t be -- can anyone, with the weight of their experiences on their shoulders? But this Erik, while he looks very different, is so endearingly, wonderfully the same. Not weighed down, not held back, not constantly tormented. Willing to learn what he likes. It’s a breath of lovely fresh air, and Charles is overcome and overwhelmed by it again, squeezing Erik tighter as he disappears somewhere in his chest. He’s not sure if it’s appropriate, considering Erik doesn’t know him at all, but he can’t help it either. “I’m still learning, too,” he promises quietly, his voice broken with the emotion of it, raspy. “I was still learning. There was so much I didn’t know, or didn’t understand, I was reading --” He laughs, gesturing to the book Erik is holding between them without separating, because he can’t fathom that separation at the moment. “You didn’t want to read, so I tried to bring it to you. I was going to. We were going to -- I wanted you to set expectations, and rules, I wanted us to talk it out, and we were going to, but…” But this happened, and anyway, Erik had been holding back. Charles would bring something, ask something, prod, and there was always a wall. There may always have been a wall, just like Erik told him there was with him. And that’s why they’re here, even if Charles mourns the loss of that progress. “Sometimes I suppose you need to step back to step forward, hm?” he muses, almost to himself.  
  
It makes Erik laugh again, gentle and affectionate. "I want to read," he promises softly. "I want to learn and set expectation and rules, and talk it out. Maybe what we do is little bit different, because of, I do not know-and I do not want to assume," he adds, making certain Charles does understand that. "But you say you are my submissive, and mine, and I feel that. So you will follow as I say? When I Order you will not be afraid?" he does check, much like Erik did check, but it's not because he's terrified, and that much is evidently clear. He just wants to know. What the boundaries are, what Charles would be comfortable with from someone who is essentially a stranger.  
  
Once again it’s so different that Charles nearly startles at it; what does it mean, for Erik not to question his own Dominance to the point of terror? What does it mean that his only concern is Charles’ comfort, and not his own insecurity and nagging, deep-seated fears? He shakes his head and can’t help but laugh himself, surprised but soft and affectionate, still curled into Erik. “I won’t be afraid,” he promises, and it’s more solemn than Erik likely knows what to do with, but it doesn’t matter much. He offers him a gentle smile, reaching slowly for Erik’s hand to squeeze. “I won’t be afraid at all. If you give me Orders -- well, if they’re Orders I don’t have much of a choice,” he teases, grinning. “But if you tell me to do something, or to not do it, I should obey, shouldn’t I? You said you were training me. I imagine that’s rather part of it.” Charles wouldn’t be Charles if he wasn’t a bit smart, after all. “Unless you’d like to be the sort of Dominant that lets their submissive get away with murder. I wouldn’t mind that.” He would, actually, but besides the point.  
  
"From what you say I was that way," Erik fusses a bit himself, his nose scrunching distastefully. He lifts Charles's hand and squeezes back. "But I am not that way." It comes out as a low rumble from the center of his chest, tethers of Will lightly brushing up along Charles and crackling through the air, a faint spark that could set off into a fiery inferno at any moment. "You should obey. Even if I do not Order. And I would make sure you do." He lifts the book again, grinning. "But you do not feel uncomfortable, for instance like punishment and things? If you fail to obey. Then I will make it known. I might not be too good at it. I don't know lots of things, and I do not want to injure you. So I would start a little slow. But you do not mistake it for getting away." He pokes Charles in the chest.  
  
Erik is so exceedingly open about these things, now. It’s almost shocking how much. When Charles first woke up, he was skittish, confused, frightened, but Erik was guarded; closed off and closed down, putting distance between them rather than pulling closer, in what Charles now knows was likely out of fear. Hesitance. This Erik is much more in the dark, and on a certain level must be frightened, since he has every reason to be; but there’s not even a real glimmer of it. It isn’t the stoic, controlled way that the Erik he knows pushed past his own fear and insecurities. It’s something entirely different, and Charles finds himself grinning into Erik’s chest, unable to help it. “I won’t feel uncomfortable,” he promises. “That’s what you’re meant to do. You’ll have to tell me what you expect, what you’d like from me, of course. But you said you wanted to train me, which means you have every right to -- well, train me,” he laughs, peeking up with that teasing grin. “Do you --” It occurs to him, suddenly, that there’s so very much that Erik likely learned by… he bites his lip again. “How would you punish me, Erik? If I disobeyed you?” he asks quietly.  
  
Charles isn't mistaken when he notices the flush of Erik's cheeks at the question; he's a little bit embarrassed, but he isn't wary of it the same way he used to be. "Maybe I don't think going to bed without a supper is the appropriate answer," he laughs brightly. The problem is, he really doesn't know how this works. What's appropriate and what isn't; and it's similar to how Erik used to be, except there simply isn't any reservation at all in exploring the possibilities. "Maybe I might hit you," he says, but then his eyes go wide. "I do not mean like-" he makes a fist and punches his own hand, a little mortified at the idea. "Not that way." He holds up Charles's hand and gives him a solid, stinging rap across the knuckles with his fingers, with more than just his strength behind it, his skin like a steel rod. It sends a jolt of pain right up Charles's arm, which flourishes before dissolving immediately. "More like that. Maybe you don't have supper. Maybe you don't get to do what you like, or you go to bed early, or do something really tedious and mind bending. Maybe a big physical task. This is a real big place, maybe you have to mow all of the grass." And it was a lot of grass, as Charles instinctively knows. "Or, you know," Erik's head ducks again. "Something... else." It's silly to think that Erik is _shy_ , but-well, it just goes to show how distanced he really was, he never truly personalized anything, he was almost... exactly as Charles intuited, performing, putting on a show, even if he consciously tried not to. Those kinds of behaviors were so engrained in him that he just didn't get embarrassed, because that's something that happens when you really connect with something. He was so accustomed to every single iteration of every single thing that could happen, and to guiding Charles through it all like a mentor, easing everything and leading him through-it's all part of the training he received, and something he fell back on when he might have been self-conscious.  
  
Charles isn’t certain it’s shyness, but regardless it’s awfully endearing. There’s so much that Erik’s said, either way, that Erik just — didn’t. Perhaps it’s because it never crossed his mind, or perhaps it’s because he was hesitant, but either way it’s startling, the immediate difference. Jarring. It all is, and Charles takes the time to process it, resting against Erik’s chest. “Before, you — you preferred corporal punishment,” he mumbles, and wonders if Erik just might not hear it, the sound muffled in his shirt. His cheeks are warm again, pink rising up to his ears, now far less covered by his hair. “I asked you about other forms of punishment, either alone or — or...” In addition, but it sounds like an awful lot to him. To be caned and then sent to bed without dessert? It’s wholly unpleasant and yet somehow makes him shiver, and he’s come to realize it isn’t the punishment itself he craves, because it’s rather the point that he doesn’t, but the fact that Erik will give it. “But we hadn’t... you hadn’t implemented any of that, that I know of.” He bites his lip, still very much hidden. “The book says it can be very effective, especially during training,” he mutters. “To have a system of rewards, punishments, privileges. While you’re, ah...” Teaching obedience. Building trust. But it’s all so much to say, and Erik had shied from it before, so he just shrugs and tries to make himself much smaller than he already is.  
  
Erik's nose wrinkles up the way it always does when he's amused-that much hasn't changed, evidently. "Training you," he finishes with a smile; it isn't mocking, he's endeared of it himself if he's honest. "I think corporal punishment has a place, but-" his lips press together. He doesn't know how to say that he thinks it's inadequate. Solely? He shakes his head. So much was missing from their Dynamic, that maybe Charles never even realized because he simply didn't remember. But it's difficult not to realize it when you don't have it day after day. " _Mitnatzel bechenut_ ," he whispers the apology softly. He can't help but think of this other Erik as a different person altogether, someone who chose differently than he would choose. "I think that system would be wise. And I have intention to do so." What constitutes a privilege is another matter altogether, because frankly, Erik doesn't know Charles-doesn't yet know what he would consider a privilege or a hardship. But he will learn. He's quick at that.  
  
Charles’ eyes widen. Even without telepathy, even with a language barrier, he gets the gist. He’s always been perceptive, even without his mutation. And even though he could have guessed these things would be different, it’s jarring that they are. It takes him a moment to even begin to process it, confused and almost stunned over something he imagines shouldn’t be so surprising. “You agree?” he asks quietly, and steps back just an inch to look up at Erik’s face. “But —“ Erik had been rather adamant about the way he enforced punishment. It wasn’t that it didn’t feel like punishment, because the physical element was always unpleasant and horrid and — well, something Charles thinks he might need, actually, cheeks redder at that particular realization. It’s just that sometimes he found himself wondering if there was something more to it. The books certainly seemed to think so, but Erik was always hesitant, reluctant, even unwilling. “This is going to be different,” he realizes, mostly to himself, reeling with it.  
  
"It was not that way?" Erik wonders, but of course Charles already told him as much. There are a number of likely reasons why it wasn't, ranging from anything to the fact that the Erik he knew was drawing on a more recent, pervasive set of experiences that didn't include anything remotely approaching that and he'd forgotten whatever he may have learned prior, learned through a lens unequipped to really absorb it the way Charles would have needed it absorbed, to simply failing to learn that such things could even constitute punishment; to being uncomfortable with dragging out a punishment any longer than it strictly needed to be. Erik was always deeply uncomfortable with the whole idea on the whole, whether or not he needed it himself wasn't relevant, much like Charles, he struggled to yield to those desires due to his experiences.  
  
It absolutely was not that way. It occurs to him that he doesn’t even know how to act with an Erik that’s not hesitant, reluctant, or frightened; and the thought is so terribly sad to him that he nearly chokes on it, right back to throwing his arms around Erik’s middle. “Do you make the rules?” he whispers, because for the past weeks he’s not sure Erik had been. Occasionally he’d throw something in, an expectation, a desire, but for the most part -- for the most part, Charles was leading. Perhaps that has everything to do with circumstance, but either way it was awfully disorienting and almost wholly uncomfortable. “Are you --” Will he take initiative, is what Charles means, but it seems so wrong to ask. He shakes his head instead.  
  
"Of course I make it," Erik says with an easy grin, dropping his chin over Charles's head to tuck him back in, running his fingers up and down Charles's spine, curiously watching the way he shifts into Erik's touch, the warmth in his chest when it happens. He had lost so much, it's a difficult realization to truly comprehend the scale, to recognize that it extended to this most very basic element of his existence: his Dominance itself. It had been broken, twisted, and as much as he's reclaimed, he couldn't reconcile that chasm. But now he can, because it's all his knows. "I don't know maybe what kind of rules to make sometimes, but I have things I want, and like, you know. And you do it, or there is a consequence. That is just normal," he laughs, fond. "You are for me. That is submission. Not just a random person saying _do this_. But me. You will learn to do it. Like chores, and service things. I know a bit of that. And helping me. And how you talk with me, I told you that part. I learn when I go, and make the rules. And you help me when I do not know."  
  
Perhaps it speaks volumes to Charles’ personal submission and personality that the very first thing he does with this new information, this new opportunity, is pull back to look up at this Erik, this self-assured, confident man that Charles is eager to get to know, and grin. “What if I don’t like the rules you set?” he challenges, one eyebrow raised into his hairline, one hand on his lip now that he’s not clinging nearly as tightly, now that he’s wormed his way out of Erik’s comforting grip. “What if I decide I don’t want to do the things you’d have me doing? What if I’m very busy during the day, and I don’t have the time to do any sort of chores you set me to?” This is really the test, here, because Erik had been odd about this in particular. If Charles refused to do something, Erik would inevitably do it himself, dutifully, quietly, and without real fuss. It left such a sour taste in his mouth, a drop in his belly, but there was no way to express that frustration. He’d gotten his way, but he’s still not certain how to explain that he hadn’t wanted to. Erik bent for him far too much. “I want to make the rules,” he says, suddenly, and crosses his arms over his chest. “I decide what I’m willing to follow. That’s fair, isn’t it?” And almost how it worked before.  
  
But all Erik does is laugh, crooking a finger under Charles's chin to tip it upward and trap his gaze. "I do not care about fair," he rumbles lowly. "If you are mine, you will be mine." It's something he's said before, a very long time ago. "You will not be too busy. You will not just decide not to. Or there is consequences. If you do talk back and refuse things then they will be severe, I will punish. With me, you obey. There is no _fair_."  
  
Charles shivers, but he laughs, too; it’s not at Erik, or anything he’s saying, even, especially not when it’s set sparks up his spine. It’s in disbelief, almost. He’s reeling, unable to fully comprehend how different this is from what he’s become accustomed to. He noticed it with that other Erik, too, but this? This is completely outside of what he knows. “Only Order me when I tell you to,” he huffs, unable to keep from grinning. He found this particularly ridiculous, something he can’t imagine doing because it wasn’t really him as it is; but he wants to see. The Erik he knows had considered it reasonable, and Charles is nothing if not curious. “Ask me if I like a punishment before you give it to me. We can make the rules together, so they’re fair. I don’t want to do chores, and I won’t have anything as ridiculous as a bedtime. Alright, Erik?”  
  
Erik's eyes gleam, though, and he runs the edge of his knuckle along Charles's bottom lip. "I will ask nothing," he rasps, soft. "You will do as you are told, or you will have consequences. If you don't like something, you may state so, and I will decide if I want different. But you don't want to do chores, or you are too busy to help me with things-" Erik's lips part in a veritable smirk. "You would find I am not too busy to put you in place."  
  
And that smirk does something to Charles, because he truly doesn’t think he’s seen it on Erik before. Certainly not like this, not so openly. He shivers again before he can stop it, and his instinct steps back instead and raises his chin. “I don’t have to do anything you say at all, Erik,” he murmurs, and smirks himself. “Do you really think you’re the one in charge here?” It’s not something he would say to Erik before. Not knowing what he does, not with the knowledge he has. But now? Now it slips right out, and his own eyes widen for just a moment before he goes back to looking appropriately smug.  
  
"Yes, I do," Erik rumbles low in his chest, entirely unconscious, a full sweep of Will flourishing through the room without volition, riled all up in a way he's never been before, a predator growling in warning. "Starting with how you speak with me," he adds, and this time Charles does get a particularly solid smack to the knuckles, an eyebrow of his own raising. "If you want I can show you exactly how. All the things that you can do freely, that is changed. You will do as I say, when I say it, or else."  
  
Charles yelps at that slap, immediately pulling his hand away to nurse it. If he were anyone else, he’s fairly sure this is where he would back down. It doesn’t take very long at all to note the predator in the room when Erik’s around, even when he’s making himself small — which he isn’t, now, perhaps for the first time since Charles has met him. But he isn’t. He’s Charles, and all he does is back up further, that smug look still on his face. “I can do whatever I please freely,” he scoffs. “Considering I’m my own person, and make my own decisions for myself. Now, kindly step away.”  
  
Erik snatches that hand and where Charles had been buried in his chest before stepping away, has given Erik the perfect leverage to pin him to the wall, barring his arm across his chest and spreading his fingers out under his throat. "You do not tell me what to do. Ever. You ask what you want. I told you this already." And that's all the warning he's getting before Erik gives him another sharp smack, this time across the cheek. It's light enough in force, but clearly Erik's abilities are at play here as electricity rends through Charles's nerves. It's so much different to what Erik would have done, and he's never used his abilities to cause pain before. But Charles instinctively knows that this is safer than literally anything else Erik could do to him. He is perfectly in control of every nerve and synapse, and knows exactly how much pressure to exert. Some things just come naturally. "You are not your own person. You are mine. You say it." The Order pierces through him.  
  
“I’m yours,” Charles gasps, and it sounds exactly like it was pulled right out of him, because it was. He can’t bring his hand up to his cheek to touch the heat there, to rub out the sting, not with Erik pinning him like this, but he certainly wants to; his eyes are wide, startled, and he’s clearly caught off guard. Why wouldn’t he be? Erik has never acted like this before with him, and even if he’d been testing it, even if he’d anticipated the difference, he wasn’t expecting this outcome. “But I can tell you what to do all I like,” he asserts, even breathless, even still reeling. There’s no smirk on his lips, and he’s flushed and flustered, but he at least attempts to hold onto composure and authority he knows he doesn’t and has never once had. It’s not for the same reasons a Charles with his memories clung to it. It’s something far more instinctual, though he hadn’t been able to explain to Erik what. He shakes his head. “You always listened to me before,” he taunts, even if it isn’t strictly true.  
  
Erik barely knows where it comes from, himself, only that something deep inside of him is screaming take! keep! want! have! and it's all pinpointed on Charles, something known deep in his mind and stored in every muscle of his body. "I listen to you," he corrects quietly. "But I decide." He scratches his finger along Charles's throat. It's instinctual for him, too. This reaction, the way he rises up and swats Charles right back down. "You do not tell me what to do. I do not let you. Not anymore. I do not know who I was before, but no more. You are mine, and you know it."  
  
He does know it. Charles knows it in every part of his being, and the truth is he has from the very beginning. But he still manages to scoff, trying to turn his head to get his throat out of Erik’s reach, the vulnerable curve of it. It’s a hopeless effort, but worth the show. “You think that,” he breathes. “But I’ve read about this, and then I saw it. I’ll end up manipulating things,” he says, and it’s not a taunt anymore. There’s a frown on his lips, and his eyes are turned down. He doesn’t want that. It just seems an inevitability.  
  
"You will not," Erik blazes back, and it's impossible to ignore this Order. It's impossible for it not to wind its way through to Charles's very being itself. Before now, Charles has never really felt the extent of Erik's Orders, even in that way he'd been holding back, not on purpose, but he just didn't know any better himself. "You do not want that, and I do not want it. You will not do it."  
  
The effect it has on Charles is visible immediately, and palpable in the air buzzing and thrumming and bending around them. He shivers so violently it surprises him, his eyes wide as he stares at Erik for long, dragging seconds with apparently nothing to say, lips parted on the heavy gasp he’d let out. “I —“ But what could he say, when Erik’s just told him the truth? Neither of them want that. His throat feels thick when he swallows. “Yes, sir,” he gasps, without truly meaning to.  
  
Erik's eyebrows arch, but it's expectant more than anything else, because it is the truth, and Erik simply won't accept anything different. "Good," he whispers back, pressing their foreheads together in a gesture so similar to the Erik he remembers, almost intimate. "You know the truth. You obey me. Not a manipulation. I know it is your choice. You could if you wanted. You must choose to be my submissive. I cannot force. But I do not. This is what you choose? So you obey. That is simply all."  
  
That is simply all. It’s so completely honest and simple that Charles is reeling all over again, staring up at this man who is entirely new to him and yet entirely the same, familiar in every way that counts. “I told you not to Order me unless I expressly asked you to, apparently,” he whispers, a soft grin on his lips as he fidgets under Erik’s gaze, his eyes eventually fluttering closed but their foreheads still pressed together. “I made final decisions on things. I led, and it sounds like in many cases I manipulated. Then, here --” He bites his lip. “It seems I fell into the same patterns. I read these articles, scholarly, well-researched, seemingly, about -- well, about the few S1s there are. Most seem to agree unlike the behavior in D5s, which is naturally expressed quite Dominant,” it’s an understatement, and he’s grinning for it, “S1s appear to express themselves as Dominant as well. Some even take on those roles in relationships, and find it suits them better. A strange quirk.” And he’s wondered if perhaps there’s merit to it, this whole time. If perhaps there was something wrong with him, naturally, the same exact way he had the first time.  
  
"Perhaps this is true," Erik murmurs thoughtfully, an eyebrow raised. "But it would only be true within the context-" he realizes something and he starts laughing, covering his mouth. "Look at my English, did you hear? I sound really good!" he's practically beaming, light shining in his eyes. "But I mean it would be true within a context of S1 and anybody else but D5. But I am D5. You do not Dominate me." Both eyebrows flash, now, utterly confident. "Maybe you want to push and poke and things. That is OK. I make sure you know best. I Order you when I want to. Because you belong to me." He gives a little shrug, as if to say and that's that.  
  
It’s all such a simple concept for this Erik, because he’s never had to struggle with it. Not once. Not once has he needed to question it, to remove all the twisted-up, backwards training he’d received; this is exactly right to him, and Charles, perhaps ridiculously, finds himself tearing up in the face of it. Because Erik as he was before could never quite reassure him that this was utterly natural, because he’d never quite believed it, at least in regards to himself, on his own. “I’ll push and poke,” he promises, even affected, still grinning. To demonstrate, he reaches forward and pokes Erik’s chest. “I’ll push you. Will you push back?” It’s not something he feels he might do with his Erik, but he gives this one a gentle, playful shove, laughing. This Erik is his Erik, isn’t he? And if he isn’t, they’ll certainly get there. Charles thinks they can get there.  
  
"Always," Erik whispers, giving him a little electric-tap on the nose that zips right down to his feet, not pain, but certainly a reminder. A flash of lightning inside of his body, connected from Charles right to Erik's soul. It doesn't matter which Erik stands before him. He is an Erik, and Eriks are meant for Charleses. And that is that. Erik doesn't quite know this, yet; doesn't remember, but he does feel the little zing in his chest, the way metal curves around his hand, pulling him closer. Charles is his. He may not remember it, but it hasn't been lost. "You are sad?" he asks, touching Charles's cheek.  
  
Charles touches his cheek, as if shocked to find there are tears there. “I suppose so,” he whispers, as if he’s in wonder himself, leaning his face fully into Erik’s hand. It’s just as large as it was, of course, just as fully encompassing. Just as safe, even if Erik doesn’t remember what he’s done to protect Charles quite yet. “But not in the way you’re thinking, I don’t think,” he laughs, because even he’s not positive in what way. “Erik, your English is much better. You’re an incredibly fast learner, darling. I don’t think you need me to read to you,” he teases, wiping at his own face.  
  
"I want it," Erik grins back, his nose wrinkling up. He methodically wipes off each tear, dries Charles's cheek, pets him and takes care of him just like he used to do, because he doesn't know how to be anyone else, how to do differently. He runs his thumb over Charles's lip, affectionate. He is undeniably safe, here. Even without his memories, Erik is drawn to protect Charles. No one could ever get in. He wouldn't let them. "I like listening you talk," he adds, fond.  
  
There’s something new about it, even after Charles has acclimated to this. Something novel, now, about being touched this way, spoken to this way, looked at in that way. It’s not wholly familiar, not by a long shot; this Erik doesn’t look at him the way the other did, simply because there isn’t what was once there. He doesn’t have the memories. He doesn’t have the emotions behind them, either. But there’s something protective, possessive, electrifying all the same, and Charles lets himself be breathless with it for a moment before he pulls away with a matching smile. “Let me show you around, then,” he offers quietly, because he knows his way around now. Mostly. When the staircases aren’t switching themselves up and the corridors aren’t elongating on him, anyway.  
  
It’s strange, to show Erik around a home he doesn’t remember growing up in, a place he only knows through stories and pictures, most of which Erik didn’t know to tell him either. It’s odd, and uncomfortable, and requires explanations he doesn’t have to give, but it’s easier than he expected it to be. The ache is there, just as he expected, but it’s not completely unbearable.


	125. You came here dressed for battle, you knew damn well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. _the palace of the eagles_ , _jewish legends and fairy tales_ , gertrude landa

It’s when the night comes that he struggles the most.  
  
He’d fought rather valiantly for his own bedroom, for boundaries, and if asked he would defend that decision. It’s just that somehow he’s ended up frightened and discomfited and lingering outside of Erik’s bedroom again, shifting weight from one foot to the other, hemming and hawing as he tries to decide if he’d like to bother a man who sees him as a complete stranger because he’s had the equivalent of a night terror. What he ends up doing is exceptionally silly, but all he can think to do; he camps right out in the hall, wrapped up in a blanket, leaned against the wall. It’s hardly comfortable, but being near Erik, closer in proximity -- it almost helps. It’s nearly enough, and that’s remarkable on its own.  
  
The door opens after a while, as if Erik could sense him out there, and he holds out a hand to gesture him in. "It is no good to sleep there. You will get crick in your neck." He offers a warm smile, but there's tightness under his eyes, too, a gauntness to his features, his hair plastered to his head in a cold sweat. Maybe Charles isn't the only one who finds the nights difficult after all. But Erik is there, and his smile is real, and he isn't hiding away. Not like he used to. "Maybe we get to start on the reading tonight, hm?"  
  
It’s impossible not to be at least a little embarrassed. Charles flushes up to his ears and finds himself, ridiculously (and rather childishly) hiding in the blanket he’s dragged into the hall with him, wrapping it up tighter around his own shoulders. “No, I’m perfectly comfortable out here, thank you,” he lies through his teeth, since his back is currently crying out in agony and his neck does feel bent out of shape already, even having spent a short time dozing. “Did I wake you? I thought I was being quiet,” he sighs, his head hitting against the wall as he closes his eyes again, groggy, his voice raspy with sleep.  
  
Embarrassed, maybe so, but this Erik doesn't react like Charles would ordinarily expect. He doesn't capitulate in the slightest, nor entertain it. His gaze darkens and the blanket dissipates easily, and he pulls Charles to his feet. "I said no lies," he murmurs dangerously. "Now you come in with me. Not here alone. Not hurt yourself. Now come." This Order is almost soft. Erik swipes at his eyes as discreetly as he can, offering a watery smile. "You do not wake me."  
  
It does make Charles a bit touchy, a heavy groan slipping his lips as he’s suddenly far more exposed than he wanted to be and suddenly pulled onto shaky limbs. It’s certainly not cold, in the middle of July, but that’s beside the point. “I wasn’t lying, I was comfortable,” he huffs, though no one is actually comfortable lying out in the hallway. There’s no blanket to tug back, but somehow he does anyway, frowning mightily as he wraps himself up in it. It doesn’t stop him from blinking in the dark to get a better look at Erik’s face. “Are you alright?” he whispers, features suddenly softening with concern.  
  
Erik grips Charles's jaw in his hand, though, glaring down at him-which affords him an excellent look at Erik's too-solemn features, heavy with burden, eyes red-rimmed. It doesn't matter, Will exudes from him, palpable, and his fingernails dig into Charles's skin. "No. I am not. I had bad dream. I miss my family. I am alone and all I think of is them. Now I said do not lie to me," that ethereal Otherworld-voice Commands. He never intended for Charles to be uncomfortable, the blanket smoothes over him and softens into almost cashmere, a gentle whisper over his skin in sharp contrast to Erik's hold on him. "No more of attitude. You are unwell. You tell me why. You do not lie to me. You want to be here. You need me. You stop denying it, it is not your choice. I gave you privilege of your room, but that afford you to hide from me, so you no longer have it. You will stay here, with me. And you fight it, you fight me, you talk back, I promise you will get worse consequences. Now you understand?" Erik's eyes narrow, boring holes into him.  
  
It’s difficult, when Charles is undoubtedly on edge, but wants nothing more than to calm Erik, too, as all his instincts are screaming at him to do. To soothe, to serve. It’s almost unbearably strong, that urge, so what he does is clench his teeth and take a sharp breath, planting his feet into the floor and refusing to take a step forward into Erik’s bedroom. “You can’t take away my bedroom. It’s not a privilege,” he insists, and ignores any implication that he should tell Erik why he’d ended up camped outside his door, preoccupied with something else. “You had a nightmare? Do you — want to talk about it?” he asks, and his eyes fall to the ground, his bare feet shuffling on the hardwood. He can’t help it, not when Erik is hurting and he wants to help. Of course he’s frightened and hurting. Of course he feels alone. Who wouldn’t, under the circumstances?  
  
"No, wrong. I can do what I want. I do when I want it, what I say, goes," Erik pokes a finger into his chest. He's breathing harshly, uneven. "You don't ignore me. You come in, and sit down, and tell me why you are here. Now." And he gets a sharp strike to the cheek for what Erik clearly perceives to be utter insolence, but Erik doesn't know how to do anything more, even when all of his instincts scream at him to put Charles in his place, he doesn't understand how. He hasn't had time to delve into anything more than the basics of that book he's been given, it isn't fair and he feels stupid and his Will flourishes through the room like electric strikes, pounding into Charles's nerves almost as if to compensate.  
  
Charles feels it. His hand goes to cradle his cheek, eyes wide as he steps into the darkened room. He deliberately avoids the bed, sidestepping toward the couch in the room instead, curling up with the blanket around him and his knees pulled up to his chest. “I had something like a nightmare, too,” he admits quietly, and there’s less insolence and more fear and discomfort, there, his hand still touching his own cheek, as if he can rub the sting out. He doesn’t look at Erik, bundled up in himself instead and grateful that it’s the middle of the night and Erik hasn’t turned on the light. “Tell me about yours?” he asks, hoping to change the subject. It’s not defiant, really, though it is; Charles knows he’s been scolded, but he doesn’t want to let it go just yet. Whatever wall he has up.  
  
But Erik leads him to the bed anyway, to sit, and taps his knee with two fingers, a light movement with redoubled force transmitted through Charles's entire being, another jolt that straightens him out, and the mattress dips with his weight. His lips press together, tight. He doesn't let Charles rub the sting out, and he gets another for even trying, for still trying to chafe against Erik's instructions, for still trying to wiggle his way out from Erik's Will. It's impossible, now, where it was almost easy in comparison before. "It was unspecific," he rasps, because Charles hadn't seemed willing to indulge him on the details, perhaps because they made him too sad, so it stands to reason he wouldn't wish to go deeper now. Nevertheless, Erik is honest. "I just felt-I-" he swallows, thoroughly shaken, frowning and looking up at the ceiling. Even thinking about it makes his eyes feel hot. There's a reason Erik hasn't turned on the light. "Like I couldn't-" he shakes his head. Couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't breathe, and when he woke all he could do was sit and think, when he had a nightmare as a child he could always pad downstairs and find his father drinking coffee in the living room with a book, but that will never happen again, because he was wiped from the face of the Earth by a nameless, faceless entity that Erik can't remember. Erik clears his throat, tries to smile. "Your turn. Tell me."  
  
Charles stands up, instead, and he is chafing. He’s chafing horribly, and fighting it is worse, but he ends up pacing instead of sitting like Erik told him to, the blanket abandoned but his arms wrapped around himself. “No, thank you,” he whispers, and pointedly doesn’t look anywhere near Erik, even as he wants to go to him, to comfort him, to be comforted, too. He puts distance between them instead. “I’d rather not talk about it.” Erik didn’t, either, so it’s only fair that he can choose to avoid it, too.  
  
"I didn't ask what you rather do," Erik points out, his tone hard. "And if you won't sit, you will kneel instead." The Order is all-encompassing, as Erik rises to his own full height, which while ordinarily would just be a quirk of Erik's now puts him at a towering-over range that's honestly as impressive as it was when Charles first encountered him. "You know proper Posture. You show me it, or else. And you tell me what I asked." He grips Charles's jaw in his hand, makes him look. Nowhere to avoid, this time.  
  
Apparently, Charles keeps forgetting. Forgetting how different this is, how different Erik is. He shudders before he falls to his knees, his teeth and jaw clenched even as Erik keeps it firmly gripped. But his hands are exactly where they should be, even as his shoulders slump. There’s something more calming about the way Erik is acting and treating him than he could possibly explain or admit, and he doesn’t know why he’s fighting it, exactly. Perhaps because he feels as if he should, because something is still tensed up inside of him. “I saw him again,” he finally whispers, and the silence of the room nearly swallows it. “Someone who hurt you. And me, but mostly you.” It’s not difficult to guess who that might be, even if Erik doesn’t remember him. Doesn’t even know his name. “You told me to come to you if I did,” he adds, mumbled.  
  
"But you didn't," Erik points out, and it is not difficult to tell he is displeased. " _Lo be'emet_. You sit outside and by luck I know. But I said come to me. Not out in the hallway. Now you straighten up. I said correct." Erik doesn't know how to administer proper discipline, or how to use his abilities consciously at all for more than party tricks, but unconsciously it all adapts and twists to fit his Will perfectly, and with every breath Charles feels it within him, sharp-shooting sparks that shower his insides most unpleasantly, with every clench and resistance as if to push him into line. He's staring past Charles, doing his best not to crack. He doesn't tell him the rest of it; that this body doesn't feel like his, that he stood in front of the full-length mirror horrified by what he saw, by what he could only imagine; with an impressive imagination to boot. It probably wouldn't match reality. But he does say, "I didn't dream of anyone. Not really of anything at all." He wasn't avoiding the subject, that was the subject. It was vague and undefined, feelings in total blackness. Sensations. He swallows and shakes it off. "What his name?"  
  
Charles’ teeth clench harder, his stomach dropping and tangling itself up with shame and guilt both, but he straightens up just like he’s told, not that he has a choice. Everything twinges and aches in the aftermath, shooting pain Erik has never given him before, but his eyes are closed in the dark. It’s the last question he wanted Erik to ask, because it means he has to say it. “His name is Sebastian Shaw,” he mumbles. It makes him shiver, as if even the name has power. He looks over his shoulder as if he can’t quite help it, then immediately corrects his Posture again.  
  
Erik laughs, though. "Well at least it isn't _Voldemort_." He shrugs, drawing his hand down his face, trying to keep things light. Trying to make a joke, which was never Erik's natural inclination before; he didn't rely a whole lot on humor even though he was obviously and clearly a playful person, he tended to take things a bit too seriously. This one is different, refusing to give this faceless person power over him, even though he feels it himself. He doesn't know why he even bothered to ask. It doesn't tell him anything new. It doesn't make him suddenly remember. The only difference is that after tonight, he knows he doesn't want to remember. And maybe if he laughs, Charles won't see how afraid he is.  
  
Of course Charles does, though. It’s all he’s noticing. Erik is alone, and he’s afraid, and he’s confused, and Charles has just dragged it into his bedroom, but what else could he have done? Left him alone? Would it have been better to stay down the hall? He doesn’t know. His head rests against Erik’s leg before he can stop himself and he sucks in a harsh breath, unable to find it funny. “He’s been... following me around,” Charles whispers. It should have stopped. Clearly it didn’t. “In — in my head. You were understandably upset by it. I thought he would go away, but I was wrong. He was there again.”  
  
"Oh! He was in your head!" Erik's laugh turns a little bit, uh, hysterical. That high-pitched note he could never consciously reach. That's great. That's just so good. He clears his throat, though, scrubbing at his face, pulling his shirt up to his eyes because he's stupidly shed absurdly-long eyelashes into his stupid eyeball from all the crying-so dumb, he never cried-not important, this is-none of this really is. Erik thinks he might be losing his mind, actually. "I-" another throat-clear. "I am happy you come to see me. Almost. You don't sit outside again. You come to me like I tell you to."  
  
And Erik? What happens when he’s having a difficult time, when he’s been agonizing and crying alone in this room in what Charles knows feels like is entirely too-big? But the problem is, he can’t quite bring himself to regret that he’d fought so hard for separate rooms, or even admit that perhaps it’s better if they don’t have them, because he’s not so sure. It doesn’t matter, in the end. What matters is that Erik was alone and clearly in pain, and now Charles is here, and he takes another few sharp breaths and leans himself fully against Erik’s knee. “I’m sorry for not coming in,” he whispers, ashamed of that, at least. The Erik he knew before would scold him for the exact same thing. “I didn’t want to bother you, or wake you. I thought you might need your sleep.” Which didn’t happen, clearly, but that’s beside the point. He bites on his lip. “But you should have come to me, if -- if you needed me, shouldn’t you have? I was right down the hall, and I wasn’t doing very much sleeping…” Now it’s his turn to try humor, even if the smile doesn’t come close to cutting some of the tension written all over his body, on the lines on his face.  
  
Erik rubs at his eyes again, a little insect-like. "I should?" he whispers, in what is admittedly a dumb response, but-he really didn't know, he didn't realize that's what he was supposed to do, because surely Charles has more important things to worry about than the fact that he wants to scream until he dissolves into a billion pieces. His fingers have found themselves in Charles's hair, stroking through rhythmically, just like he used to do. His chin scrunches up and he valiantly presses his lips together to avoid his expression crumpling completely. A sound suspiciously like a sob escapes, though, and he claps his hand over his mouth as if to take it back. "You don't bother me," he croaks, dropping his head over Charles's, almost bending in half to do so. "Not'all."  
  
It’s not hiding, Charles realizes. This Erik just doesn’t know, or hasn’t conceptualized it, and that’s so stunningly different it throws Charles for another few moments. Eventually he nods his head, scooting forward on his knees to curl into Erik instead of himself, like he was doing earlier. “I’m your submissive,” he murmurs, almost lost to the quiet and the dark of the room. “That means I — if you need me, for anything, anything at all —“ Erik should come to him and insist on those things. Charles is for him. They never got there, before, and perhaps they never would, but that’s what he was led to believe. He closes his eyes tightly. “He stands over the edge of the bed,” he croaks. Because Erik’s can’t be dealt with, as much as he wants to, but Charles’ — against better judgment, it feels like a physical threat. It isn’t, surely, but it does. Something he always wants his Dominant to handle, but how does he ask for that when he knows it’s irrational? It’s like asking Erik to banish the monster that lives underneath his bed.  
  
It's stupid, but Erik realizes that he doesn't even know what this person looks like, this person who took everything from him, who razed it all to the ground, who branded him, fed him lies about mutant superiority, and after all that he still isn't gone, he's still here, tormenting his submissive as if to mock him. Erik's features twist in what can only be considered rage before an ornament on the night table explodes, shatters as it flies into the wall. "Well he can't hurt. I won't let him. He's done. Forever!"  
  
It’s very similar to something Erik said to him before. Charles tries very hard not to flinch at the sound of shattering glass, but he isn’t frightened by Erik, merely startled; if anything he pulls closer, fighting the urge to wrap himself fully around Erik’s legs. “Could you... come to my room?” he whispers, hiding his face in Erik’s knee. “Just — he’s not there, I know he isn’t, but perhaps...” Perhaps what? If Erik checked for the monster, it would work? It’s silly and childish and he shakes his head. “No, nevermind. I know he’s not real.” But then why does he always feel so real? Every time? Why didn’t he go away?  
  
This Erik is a lot more ...'splodey than the Erik Charles is familiar with, but even still, Charles is in absolutely no danger. A little contrite, Erik wishes he could put it back together, but all that happens is everything vibrates too-loud and then goes still. "No. I will come," Erik says, and holds out his hand to help Charles to his feet, but he doesn't let go once he is. Erik's hand is cold and clammy, unlike the usual warmth he exuded, but as soon as Charles registers it the feeling dissipates as if for his comfort. "I will check. Why do you see him? I don't understand."  
  
Charles doesn’t, either, and it’s incredibly frustrating. All he can offer is a shrug, a quiet, “I don’t know.” He sniffs quietly and what he hopes is inconspicuously as he clings to Erik’s hand, leading him down the hall. It’s not leading, really, since as soon as they get to the open door of his bedroom he grabs for Erik around the waist, hiding rather surely in his side like a frightened, spooked child, fit nicely into his larger frame. “He’s in there,” he whispers.  
  
Erik doesn't really know what he expects to see when he looks, if it's in Charles's mind as he stated, or if this homicidal maniac is really in his submissive's bedroom, but a very noticeable difference between the Erik that Charles knew and this one is that the defensive position he takes is much different, more tense adrenaline than skill; everything Erik must have known before is gone, but all the same, his instinct to protect rears its head. "Then we banish him," he replies softly.  
  
Surely enough, he is standing there. Exactly as Erik doesn’t remember him, or Charles for that matter, but whether a projection or a phantom or merely a delusion, he’s there. Charles tenses in Erik’s arms, too, but the man doesn’t step forward, doesn’t speak, doesn’t do anything except smile at them from the dark. “We should go back to your room,” Charles gasps, because the way that smile makes him feel is wretched. It sickens him right to the core.

* * *

Erik stares at it for a long moment, pressing his teeth together hard enough to crack. "Fine," Erik replies darkly, and the door slams shut of its own accord. What did he expect to do, anyway? It's not like he stopped Sebastian Shaw before. He did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it, and Erik obviously didn't do anything about it.  
  
It makes Charles jump in his arms, startled and frightened and horribly on edge. What did he think he would achieve, dragging Erik to his bedroom like this to stare at that monster? It isn’t like he’s done anything. He’s horribly unsettling, but Charles should have shaken it off. He jumps even more when there’s a knock on the door Erik’s just slammed, like the phantom is playing with them, and Charles clenches his teeth and grips Erik tighter. “It’s alright,” he whispers. “He isn’t real.” He doesn’t know if he believes it himself or not.  
  
"He is a real person," Erik says. "And you see him for a reason. Why? Why you see him? Why can't he just leave us alone?! He already didn't do enough?" Erik replies, swiping at his eyes harshly. "He already tormented me as much as he can so now what can he do? Nothing. He has nothing. Whatever you see is an image. If he came here I would kill him. I promise you that."  
  
Charles knows, logically, that the Shaw he’s seeing is merely an image. He certainly isn’t physically here, if there’s anywhere physical to be in the first place. He hasn’t broken out of his containment. He isn’t taunting them or threatening them in any tangible way, and he hasn’t laid a single hand on Charles since the whole thing has begun. For some reason, it isn’t comforting to think that way. It isn’t enough to say he isn’t real, because there’s a nagging, horrific sense -- “Just an image,” Charles echoes, and swallows around the discomfort. Erik is right. There’s nothing that he can do, so Charles certainly shouldn’t fear him. He shouldn’t dread a phantom image. He shouldn’t creep into the hall and park outside of Erik’s room so he feels safe. “It was silly of me. I apologize. I overreacted, I just thought…” That he’d be gone. But he isn’t, and Charles closes his eyes and tries not to cling to Erik. Tries not to feel threatened, to feel afraid, to feel violated, in some way.  
  
Erik shivers a little, squeezing Charles tightly and closing his eyes. "No," he croaks, shaking his head. "No apologies. You did the right thing. You will again." If it happens again. Nothing in Erik's reaction honestly has anything to do with Charles at all, although that much is probably predictable. The feelings swirling inside of him are too complicated to untangle, before he'd awoken he wasn't accustomed to anything more complex than what he already had to contend with in his life, maybe it was a lot of responsibility, but he was handling it. This-he doesn't even have a name for this. "I have to apologize," he whispers, and brushes Charles's hair from his forehead just like he used to. "I..." he wiggles his fingers. "Frustrated. I don't like it. I don't like..." obviously this, but more than that, being helpless. He never has.  
  
Charles knows that, and he’s certainly been dropped into a situation where he’s rather helpless. In the beginning, Charles felt much the same way, and if he’s honest he still does. Like it’s too much, and nothing he’s equipped to handle because he simply doesn’t have the right tools. How much worse must it be for Erik, then? It makes him sigh, burrowing into his Dominant’s chest and squeezing him back. “I can go back to bed now,” he whispers, eyes closed. “He won’t -- even if he’s there, he’s just an image.” He’s not certain who he’s convincing with that, but if he says it enough times, eventually he’ll swallow it down and believe it. “Thank you for coming to check with me,” he adds, and offers up a small smile. It was silly to drag him down the hall to see his ghost, but Erik still did it, even so.  
  
Of course he did it, but Erik shakes his head, unwilling to let go of Charles. "No," he finally shakes his head. He leads them away from Charles's room and back to his own. If that monster isn't in his room, then that's where they're going. He can't explain why, it doesn't matter how many times Charles says something, he isn't convincing himself or Erik, but it's more visceral than that. He just shakes his head, clammed up.  
  
Charles plants his feet into the floor as much as he can, drags them behind him and stops short. “Erik, talk to me,” he whispers, tugging at his Dominant to get him to look, too, even if he can’t very well see much in the dark of the corridor.  
  
Erik presses his fingers to his mouth, overcome, and when he looks up it's with tears in his eyes. "Please don't go," he whispers, almost desperate. "Don't want you to-go. I- _slicha_ -" he breathes, sounding almost heartbroken. "Don't leave-please don't leave me-'lone."  
  
It breaks Charles’ heart, too, stomps on it and crunches it, so much so that he swears the noise is audible. “Alright,” he whispers, and grabs Erik’s hands again, both of them this time, squeezing firmly. “Alright, Erik. If you don’t want to be alone, I won’t leave, I promise.” Because that’s his duty as Erik’s submissive, and how could he have neglected it? Of course Erik would be frightened and overwhelmed on his own, he’s just had all of this dropped on him. Just because Charles demanded space he didn’t rightly want doesn’t mean it works the same for his Dominant, and if anything the opposite has proven true. There’s a noise from down the hall and Charles jumps right out of his skin, anyway, immediately thrusts himself right into Erik’s chest, so perhaps Erik isn’t the only one better off not sleeping on his own.

* * *

Erik doesn't even realize how relieved he is until Charles says he won't go, and he sags in Charles's hold, and he turns them around and promptly marches them back home. Ever since Charles asked him for space, Erik's understood the logic, but the practicality is he can't understand how this other Erik managed to sleep at all being separated from his submissive. He certainly can't, the only sleep tainted by horrifying sounds and sensations he'd rather scrub off of his eyelids the sooner the better. If he was Dominant, why didn't he ask for Charles to stay with him? Was he really so afraid? They loved each other, didn't they? It's all a little over Erik's head, maybe his brain still has more catching up to do, but right now he is just grateful his rather tearful entreaty was accepted, because sleeping in the closet doesn't sound very fun right now.  
  
Honestly, sleeping in that bedroom with Shaw looming over him sounds even less appealing. Charles knows it was an inevitability, them eventually sleeping in the same room -- but he’d wanted to wait it out, for whatever reason. He’d wanted the separation, and he’d wanted the space, and he’d wanted the short walk down the corridor. Tonight can certainly be an exception. He’s not dragging his feet anymore, even as being herded back into Erik’s room makes him slightly nervous, like it’s the first time again. Enough for him to fidget, to shift his weight, to pull idly at the oversized t-shirt he’s decided to wear to bed. “I can take the floor,” he offers, and his cheeks are pink because it’s an absurd suggestion when the bed is so large, but something makes him give it anyway.  
  
Erik shakes his head, a forbidding look on his face. "No. You stay on bed. You said that we are Pairbond. We don't do good alone. Don't lie." He puts up a finger. "You stay with me. Not all the time. I know you like space. But your place is beside me. When you are in trouble, or scared. Or..." his voice lowers a little, a bit embarrassed. "You know, me. If I get-" scared, he means, even though he'd like to think he's a big tough Dominant. Erik's always had a bit of bravado that's part of his natural personality, a fearlessness that is genuine, but it doesn't always work out when he is scared, because he doesn't really know what to do with it. He doesn't like being afraid, of cowering. But that's how he's felt this entire time since he's awoken. "Please." This time it's soft.  
  
Charles certainly isn’t going to leave, now that Erik’s practically begged him to stay, and his expression softens in the dark; it was a silly suggestion in the first place, wasn’t it? To think that he’d sleep on the floor when there’s a perfectly good bed, when Erik has made clear enough from every word and action that he wants to be Charles’ Dominant, in every sense of the word? He takes in a breath and shakes his head. “I’ll stay on the bed,” he whispers, as if he’s allowing it, even though he’s stiff as a board when he does sit on it, making no moves to get comfortable and certainly not to get under the covers. It’s not that he’s uncomfortable. It’s that he’s nervous all over again, skittish all over again, and it’s making him tense. All over again he doesn't know how to act, and he's still uncertain if he can trust cues.  
  
It makes Erik smile, though, and he takes Charles's hands, pulling him closer. "Stay," he whispers again, but it means something else. Don't be afraid, Erik won't harm him. He's safe. He runs his fingertips down Charles's arm, tapping playfully and brushing over a few freckles and spots that he finds, as if utterly fascinated by it. Like calming an animal, it comes entirely naturally to him; it's easy enough to be brutish and commanding, but to inspire comfort is another skillset entirely, one Charles couldn't be sure this Erik possessed in any degree, given their previous interactions. More like a bull in a china shop. He's not exactly brilliant at it, but he's making an effort. "You are too warm for blankets? Or too cold?" his eyebrows raise.  
  
Charles knows that Erik won’t harm him, not any iteration of him, no matter where they are. Across universes, continuums, and time discrepancies, there’s no doubt in his mind now that Erik, any Erik but certainly this Erik, is wholly incapable of hurting him in any way that Charles would know to fear. It’s just nerves that are holding him back, genuine shyness, and Erik has no way of knowing that. He swallows around the lump in his throat and shakes his head. “No, I’m alright,” he practically squeaks, which of course isn’t an answer at all, because Erik is very close all of a sudden and they’re in his bedroom in the middle of the night and apparently Charles is a teenager, because his heart is racing. “Aren’t you going to bed?” he adds, rushed, as if him sitting ramrod straight and tense on the very edge of it is going to be conducive to that.

* * *

Erik huffs very softly, tugging Charles a little bit closer, letting his arm drift over his shoulder to tuck him in as he's done many times before, even as this Erik. "I tell you my story," he whispers quietly, his lips brushing over Charles's hair and he smoothes it away from his eyes. "Remember you ask my favorite. Maybe not Shakespeare," he laughs, nose wrinkling up fondly. "My story is called _The Palace of the Eagles_ ," he recites, almost gentle. And it is a spark, a spark of old Erik, who has told this story in many iterations. But this time is different; because those Eriks, those stories were part of him, a part that he exerted and told. But in this Erik, there is origin. These were stories he was told, as he was lulled to sleep by his parents, about the great big _Ziz_ in the sky who tried to steal away his mate, only to discover that caging him against his Will would ruin him. He loved him so much he let him go, but he could only run back, realizing that the _Ziz_ wasn't a monster at all. It simply needed to learn. Erik ducks his head a bit shyly, having mostly rumbled it in low, lilting Yiddish.  
  
He’s heard this story before. Of course he’s heard this story before. Never like this, never told quite in this way, but he has. He admits to urging Erik into stories whenever they find the spare time for it, sitting down next to him or, indeed, on top of him and, when he was more comfortable, nuzzling right into him until it was all through, hung onto every word. He doesn’t remember the gift he made for their Bonding, but he does know that he loves to listen, and that Erik’s stories are calming, intriguing, and sometimes the only thing that settles him when he’s gotten himself worked right up. It does the trick now, too, though he’s still a bit stiff, at least lying down on the bed now even though he’s still on top of the covers, even though he’s still tensed up. “I love that story,” Charles murmurs in the dark, turned the other way from Erik though he does peek. “It’s a lovely story.” He pauses, then whispers: “Erik, does it always end that way?” He’s not sure Erik will know the answer, or even if it’s a question he should ask, but it’s dark, and he’s tired, and perhaps his tongue is loose around the nerves.  
  
But all Erik does is tuck him in more, urge him more into comfort, wrapping the blanket around them and nudging one leg over Charles's, as if to unconsciously keep him there. "Not always," he whispers back into Charles's ear, his voice still a low rumble, accented-English that Charles rarely heard before now. Erik had always kept that in check. But this time, this person, has none of those reservations; no disconnect from his homeland, no shame. But the question makes him smile, because it's one he used to ask his own mother. "Not always," he repeats again. Sometimes the _Ziz_ doesn't realize at all. He surrounds his love with millions of treasures that do nothing to soothe his soul. Sometimes the _Ziz_ lets him go and he finds a new mate, and the _Ziz_ watches on forlorn. Wishing it had made better choices. It always was an allegory for Erik to be careful. Careful with his words, with his Will. If he chooses to build a cage, he must understand the consequences. And Erik tries; but the urge is so intense, to keep. Charles is his. He could not bear to lose that.  
  
Since the very first time he heard this story, Charles has felt nothing but affection this great, winged creature; perhaps it’s a flaw of his, but if it is then it’s certainly one he’s grateful for. He felt his own fear and hesitance, waking up and feeling trapped, caged, stuck; whose fault could it be but Erik’s, the only other person around? But putting him in that role and asking him to play it out was never fair, nor did Erik ever fit it. Ironic, then, that Charles has spent quite a lot of time wishing Erik would hold him tighter, keep him more, afford him less freedom. Charles supposes part of it is how much he still fights it, instinctively or otherwise -- the way he’s still tense in Erik’s arms even as he’s wrapped up nicely, wriggling under the blankets less because it’s hot (though that, too), and more because he’s uncertain. His eyelids are growing heavy, though, and it’s getting more difficult to do even that. “When he returned,” he whispers, voice lilted with looming sleep, “Do you think he was free, Erik? Or simply choosing not to be?”  
  
"Relax," Erik whispers, and he doesn't even realize he's Ordered it, a simple proclamation that says it all, a distancing from the Erik he once knew who floundered when Charles fought; this one does not. He coaxes Charles to settle against him, a tightening of those reins that he's craved even if he can't always admit it. Erik pets at his hair as he considers the question. "We all make choices," is the rasped answer, closer to Erik's heart at this moment than possible in any other. "That does not mean we become free. We become..." bound, he thinks, unable to reckon the words in English quite-yet. Bound to the consequences of our own actions, our own decisions, whether we believe we've made them or not. So true of a Dominant and their submissive; one must choose to submit, to yield, and perhaps believe they are giving away their freedom, but are they really free, in the end? Erik doesn't know. He doesn't think so, because that deep-rooted unhappiness, unsatisfied and discontent-it would always be there, a cage of its very own.  
  
Even still, even after going limp in Erik’s arms, Charles fusses. As much as he can, as much as he’s able, as much as the Order allows him to, and just like before, perhaps part of him is testing it; how much it affects him, how long it lasts, how much it takes before he can go right back to wriggling about and squirming beneath the blankets that Erik’s insisted he be underneath and tucked in by. “But then it wasn’t the cage that was the problem, was it?” he murmurs back, his eyes closed now as he hums. “What if… I mean, suppose the creature were to let its mate go even after they all but begged to be kept, if not in words than in actions? I imagine it must be another telling of the story.” Because to Charles, it certainly is. “If it felt it was best, when all its mate truly wanted --” A shrug, here, and some more squirming, sleepy but far more insistent. "But if its mate couldn't admit it, or tell him that... well, it sounds very much like neither of them are happy to me."  
  
And what Charles finds is that comparative to the Erik of before, he is quite unable to fuss at all. Wriggle his toes, blink his eyes. Oh, he can move. But the Order wraps him up as swiftly as if Erik had bound him himself, tied in a golden twine, a platinum-infused rope of pure, shuddering energy. It isn't the same as be still. It's an expectation. This is the time for sleeping; and sometimes, times like tonight, for talking, for stories. A liminal space, his Rabbi used to call it. The time between periods of time, filled with all the possibilities one moment can splinter off into; a moment held indefinite inside a snowglobe made out of Universal sparks. Erik remembers, like yesterday, finding himself bored with that _dvar Torah_ , but as if he's awoken internally-risen up like the tide of a roaring ocean, he understands. He wishes he hadn't sighed and rolled his eyes. He tucks his wishes away. Slowly-fading like that looming specter. "I think maybe his mate couldn't admit it, then he would get scared that he is making him unhappy," Erik admits. It's the simplest, purest, most obvious explanation Charles has ever heard, the most honest self-awareness he could ever present of his prior actions. Nothing laced in metal-spiked shards of agony. "But if they are brave," he adds, his voice low and raspy, "and true, then they can say to each other how they feel. Then the cages will turn ropes instead, for pulling good toward one another."

* * *

It doesn’t stop Charles from trying, the same as he might if tied up and told to be still when he was feeling particularly fussy; so he wiggles his toes and he squirms this way and that when he finds he’s capable of it, turns his head away, sighs in Erik’s arms because his mind is infinitely more restless than his body. Fighting sleep, but fighting more than that, too, even when he isn’t consciously aware of it. “What if he wants the cage?” Charles challenges, quiet but huffed a bit, too. “And it seems like he’s being told he shouldn’t, that it’s some great evil. What could be expected of him? Of course he’d seek his own freedom, if it seemed like what he should seek. He’d say don’t put me in a cage, I can’t stand it, and so of course the _ZIz_ would listen. But it doesn’t mean it’s what’s best for him, or what he truly desires.”  
  
Erik nods, awareness seeping through. A moral fable that's always been with him turned slightly on its head, a realization; something that Charles always struggled to break through with Erik, to break through those preconceptions, to break through the barriers and conditioning. This Erik, he just listens. "Maybe what we should do, what people always telling us to do, that take away our real freedom, to be happy. What should we do, instead? How do you know if the _Ziz_ says, no. You are mine now. That he isn't just a bad guy? Who will tell him that his mate really wants to be with him? And that he is sad when they are parted? And untethered." His linguistic skills are funny, at this point. The vocabulary of a Shakespearean scholar who routinely forgets how to use a simple plural-everything jumbled and tangled in a brain still catching-up, but for the most part, Charles can get the gist. What makes the _Ziz_ different from someone like Sebastian Shaw? Erik is sure he must have said no. He really didn't want it. But is that true? What if being in a cage was good for him? And when he looks at Charles-when he digs deep into all the low, atavistic instincts pounding in his veins like sepsis-he's always known this allegory. Be careful with people. Don't cage them up just because it makes you happy. He's never really considered-considered it at all, honestly, from a submissive's perspective. "Tell me," he Orders, sitting up a little, touching Charles's face with two fingers. "How it ends. How you think it should."  
  
It should be such a simple answer, but it seems far more complicated than Charles’ skipping, racing brain can comprehend and tie together at the moment, especially chasing the edges of sleep. How does it end? How is it supposed to end? He shakes his head, eyelids growing heavy, taking a few more moments to wriggle in Erik’s arms under the guise of getting comfortable. He’s not certain if he’s trying to get away, really, or to fight; it’s just fussing, pure and simple, restless and vaguely unsettled. “I don’t know,” he admits quietly. “I imagine the original ending is a fine one, but presumably -- well, what if the _Ziz’s_ mate needed a cage? What happens then? They’d spend all their time terribly frustrated with each other, pushing and pulling and not getting anywhere at all. That doesn’t make for much of a happy ending, though they’re together.” And he doesn’t know what the solution to it is. Does the mate need to ask for a cage? What if he does, and the _Ziz_ continues to resist it, because it seemed to make the mate miserable in the first place? How long do they fight their natures, chase themselves in circles, drive themselves mad with it? He’s frowning, head turned away, inched toward the edge of the bed where he and Erik can touch as little as possible, scooched forward. “I don’t know,” he repeats.  
  
"No," Erik almost growls the Order, low. "You come back. I do not say leave. We are talking. Come back to me." Erik doesn't just encourage him with a meek little tug, but bodily takes him into his arms, wrapping him up completely within himself and the blanket like an octopus. "I think his mate must ask. That is submission. You can't take first, hm? What we spoke before, you remember. It is a gift. Then the _Ziz_ will know it. The truth. And he needed the cage, maybe how he was caged before, is wrong. The _Ziz_ only gave him little trinkets, gave him all the things he desired, but not much of himself. A sad creature. Maybe they learn how to do it right. That is what I think."  
  
It’s a more than reasonable solution to their problem, Charles thinks. They discuss it together, learn together, and move forward together. They both work on obtaining what they both clearly desire, and break down the walls that previously prevented them from doing so. It’s a much more satisfying ending. Even so Charles huffs in Erik’s arms, fussing now for the sake of it, restless in much larger, stronger arms. “Easier said than done, isn’t it?” he wonders. His eyes are closed, but he can’t help peeking, just for a moment. “What if the mate were to ask, but the Ziz refused to build another cage because it felt like it would only hurt again? If you were the _Ziz_ and the mate asked that of you, would you hesitate?” It’s a question he’s very obviously invested in, _tense_ as anything as he waits, though he knows it’s a bit heavy-handed.  
  
"No," Erik replies. Without hesitation. So he's at least consistent. "But I would make sure that I learn what he really needs. And make sure that he tell me it." Erik touches Charles's face, when his eyes blink open, it's to Erik's piercing, vivid stare pinning him in place. "That story, it was told to me, to teach importance of listening, and hearing. I think I always am the Ziz," he laughs softly. "If I make a mistake, I will try to correct it, but I would trust my instincts aren't there because I want to hurt anybody. Least of all my submissive."  
  
But there’s a strange grey area here that Charles thinks at certain points they both must have struggled with. Charles closes his eyes again, wriggling underneath the blankets as he tries to decide if he wants to nuzzle in closer or not. “What if the mate didn’t know?” he asks, muffled almost entirely by a pillow. “What if he had no idea what he needed, what he desired? What if he didn’t know what his submission looked like, or what it should? How would the _Ziz_ ever know?”  
  
Erik gives a small little shrug. "Maybe the _Ziz_ needs to help, too," he suggests, softly. "To try different things, and experiment what it could be. I don't think that's so wrong. If he doesn't know what he needed, they just try, and see what is good. The _Ziz_ has some things it needs and desires, too. Maybe they are the same thing, it just has to be-" he wiggles his fingers, uncertain how to explain in English. But the point is evident. The Dominant must lead, too.  
  
“You weren’t very good with that,” Charles whispers, and he knows he’s said it before, usually in the heat of the moment, usually while frustrated or after Erik prodded for a good long while, but it feels different now. Erik doesn’t remember that being the case; he doesn’t even remember why it is, in actuality. It’s dark, the lights off, their guards down, and Charles is well and truly exhausted. There’s no better time to speak candidly. “With leading. You waited for me, but I didn’t know, so we -- well, we spent a lot of time standing still, I imagine.”  
  
And unfortunately Erik still doesn't know why, doesn't really have even the faintest of inklings. "I don't feel that way now," he murmurs back. "I do not know why I feel that way, or act that way. It seem so strange to me. Because for me I don't want to wait for you. You are mine, why I would wait for you? I am supposed to lead you. And if maybe it isn't a good direction, then we learn from that, OK. But I don't stop trying. Why didn't I-?" he asks, soft. Why didn't he act like Charles was his submissive?  
  
Charles isn’t entirely certain if he knows the answer to that, either, because even when Erik explained it to him there was something holding him back from being truly vulnerable about it, even when he was heartbreakingly honest. He tenses up in Erik’s arms, sighing, curling in on himself instead of his Dominant. “You were told to fear your own Dominance, and separated from it,” he whispers, as delicately as he can. “It made you… hesitant, when you met me. And you still feel that way. You’re worried you’ll hurt me, and even when I encouraged you…” He still held back. He still waited for Charles’ lead. “I thought it was supposed to be like that,” he adds, grateful that it’s so dark, grateful that his voice is so muffled. “That I was supposed to take the lead. So I tried, but --” A shrug of his own, rather miserable and ashamed.  
  
Erik shakes his head, drawing Charles toward him instead of away. The words he says, they don't really make any sense to Erik at all. "When you talk about him it is like a stranger," he admits, quiet. "And I don't know, there is so much missing. I don't know anything about it." He doesn't understand how he could be separated from something as intrinsic to himself as this, how he could have grown to be so wildly different to how he's always acted and viewed himself. He just doesn't get it, and not even a remote semblance of the truth dawns on him. How could it? "It's not supposed to. I'm not supposed to be like that."  
  
And Charles isn’t supposed to be the way he was, the way part of him still is because he was following Erik’s lead. It’s all rather messy, but he smiles in the dark, into Erik where he’s been tucked in so thoroughly, even though he does some more squirming for good measure. “I believe that’s the point,” he whispers. “I didn’t and don’t remember most of the issues you claimed I struggle with. We’re starting from scratch here, and yet not.” Because this certainly isn’t scratch. Still, he prods Erik with a toe, grinning to himself. “Stay on your side of the bed,” he demands.  
  
"Maybe... we start from scratch," Erik pokes him back, his nose scrunching up as he laughs. "And not think of in terms of oh, this is your problem, or I remember this problem. We don't know anymore. We have to learn again, and maybe it could even be fun. Not about all this problems and whatnot," Erik suggests, tucking Charles firmly into his side and giving him a sharp rap on the knuckle for his troubles. "I stay where I wish. With you," he purrs into Charles's ear.  
  
Charles’ response to that is a very obvious shiver, and not at all because he’s cold (actually, it’s incredibly warm, swaddled under the blankets and pressed into Erik’s side, he always runs a little hot, apparently). Maybe it could even be fun. Is that how they should be looking at it? Not something frustrating, or frightening, or life-threatening? Not something that will end the world if they fail, that will destroy? Perhaps that’s part of the problem. Charles prods Erik with his toe again, and tries very hard to roll back over. “Your side,” he murmurs, and grins over his shoulder, nudging at Erik. “My side. You stay where you’re put,” he taunts. "Don't you know the etiquette of sharing beds?"  
  
"No," Erik rumbles back almost dangerously. "My side. My side." He taps Charles, and then the side of his bed where he rests. "All mine. Every side. That is proper etiquette for my submissive," he continues lowly, his voice vibrating deep in his chest against where Charles lies. In no way does Erik let him go. "If you try again I will make sure you stay put," he warns, holding up a finger. "Not just with my own hand. I tie you in place. You are mine. You don't go nowhere. Ever."  
  
Charles is truly beginning to wonder if there’s just something programmed into him that makes it distinctly impossible to ignore what sounds very much like a challenge to his ears. It’s not that he’s naturally disobedient or defiant, and he would argue it’s much the opposite a good portion of the time; but it’s this, too, and the threat of Erik tying him up -- he needs to know if it will happen. “You can’t tie me to the bed,” he huffs, and certainly does squirm up a storm, at least partially to hide how he’s gotten the shivers from Erik’s voice so close to him, rumbling against him like that. “I don’t like sleeping cuddled up like this,” he argues, which almost definitely a lie because the few times he has slept with Erik like this, he’s enjoyed it. “It’s hot. Leave me be.” He’s holding his breath.  
  
"You lie," Erik murmurs lowly, trapping Charles's fingers within his, and abruptly a sort of twine appears out of nowhere, shimmering-golden like the strands that used to wind through them, that still do, waiting to be uncovered and reconnected; and that's exactly what they're doing, what Erik is doing as he promptly and without any encouragement whatsoever, binds Charles's wrists together behind his back, leaving him exposed and reliant on Erik, who runs his own fingers down Charles's arms. "You lie," he repeats. "You like it. You want it. I know when you lie to me."


	126. You came here armed for action, you knew the drill

“No you don’t,” Charles argues, mostly just for argument’s sake, mostly just to be huffy, and just for good measure uses his legs to kick out and make a fuss of things, kicking, wriggling about like a worm who knows it’s been hooked. “It really is dreadfully hot, even when you try to make it cooler. You don’t need to be so close to me,” and yet he undoubtedly wants to be closer, which is truly the conundrum here. “Roll over, Erik. I’d like to get some sleep now,” he sighs, and the problem is he fully expects, despite knowing he shouldn’t, Erik to let him. He still holds his breath every time.  
  
And for good measure, Charles finds his legs bound up, too. "You stay where I put you to stay, what I tell you to stay. You do not tell me what to do and where to go. You are mine." Charles does find the temperature lowers, and there's no try about it, it's entirely unconscious and Erik doesn't even realize he's done it. Erik makes no move to roll over, and in fact merely tucks Charles closer to his chest. "And I will be as close as I like," he practically touches his lips to Charles's ear, the words vibrating against Charles's skin, into his entire body. "And you will sleep. Exactly when I say you will. I take care. I make sure. Not you."  
  
Charles is still hot, though, almost unbearably so, and it likely has nothing to do with the actual temperature. He closes his eyes tightly, squirms against Erik’s chest, until finally he settles. “I have… nightmares,” he whispers, and by the hesitance in his voice it’s clear enough that they’re a bit more than that.  
  
Erik tucks Charles's head under his chin, running his fingers down his spine lightly over his shirt. "Nightmare?" he murmurs, the hardness in his tone prior softening significantly. "Tell me about," he demands, and there it is again, Will creeping through the room and zipping up into Charles's neurons.  
  
There’s certainly some testing going on here, because Charles bites his lip. “They’re wretched and terrifying,” he supplies, which does almost nothing to actually describe them, and he doesn’t wait for Erik to correct him or prod in any way. “Isn’t this strange for you? Don’t you -- this morning, you didn’t know you had a submissive. It isn’t odd? How does this feel for you?"  
  
"It feels right," Erik replies, without hesitation. "Everything is strange. Many things are sad. I had a bad dream too. But many things are wonderful. Like this." Because Erik didn't know he had a submissive, but he'd always labored under the assumption he would never have a submissive and to find out there is one person on this Earth who genuinely wants, even needs the kind of Dominance he exudes, is the most precious gift he's ever been given. "Now you tell me about it. What you dream." He raps Charles along the jawbone, pulling his attention right back to Erik.  
  
“They’re frightening,” he repeats, but this time it’s far less of a diversion. Charles sighs, hesitating not because he’s avoiding the question but because he simply doesn’t know how best to answer it. “They’re… strange. Distorted. I see things, hear them, things I don’t understand and can’t fully process. I don’t always remember what any of it is when I wake up. Sometimes I see people, sometimes they speak to me --” And by his tone, sometimes those people are not good people. “But mostly they’re disorienting and odd. I wake up and I’m not in control.”  
  
"It sound like maybe your telepathy," Erik wonders, stroking along Charles's temple, still-knowing instinctively to be gentle. His fingers are warm, like the rest of him. "Tell me about the people you see, what you remember. The only way you defeat fear is name it. Fear thrives in darkness. I won't let it," he says, and it sounds like a promise.  
  
Charles still flinches, perhaps less from pain than from pure sensitivity, a shiver wracking his whole body. “I see everything,” he whispers, and it’s not another diversion, nor is it merely an exaggeration. There’s truth to it. “Everything there is to see, and sometimes all at once. It’s…” Incredibly, horrifically disorienting, and he doesn’t remember nearly any of it when he wakes up. He shakes his head, restless in Erik’s arms again. Erik doesn’t know about the Universe, and Charles doesn’t exactly want to tell him just yet, so he tells another uncomfortable truth instead. “I see Shaw, often. In my… dreams, if that’s what they are.”  
  
To be honest, Erik really has no idea of the scope of Charles's abilities; he's already framed it as being stronger than Erik, but not only does Erik not conceive of mutation that way, he only remembers being able to do what essentially amounts to party tricks. Lifting coins, making forks spell out funny words. The most powerful thing he'd ever done was standing over his father's body, about to be pinned underneath his Corvette. So, maybe Erik doesn't fully understand it, but he is very good at rolling with the punches, and he doesn't think Charles is exaggerating. He just doesn't understand what truly powerful really means. Frankly, none of those views are imbued within him at all, and it's a little astonishing. Erik doesn't comprehend why anyone discusses mutation in terms of power and strength. A mutant with a blatant active ability must be wise, and careful. And those around him must treat him with compassion. That is the start and end of it. No humans rising up or inevitable war. Erik believes in the strength of the human spirit, and that's how he woke up. Only now, alone in his room, struggling not to dissolve in tears, desperately trying to wrap his mind around his new reality-he'd been blind. He'd been naïve. No wonder he was so damaged. He'd been-well-a child. "He was important figure in our life," Erik nods, running his fingers through Charles's hair, keeping him bound and steady. "What do you see about him?"  
  
It’s an uncomfortable, strange understatement, and Charles grunts with it, wriggles harder. “I’ve seen a lot of things,” he mumbles, which is exceptionally cryptic, so he sighs and adds, “Some of them are… lies, obviously. They aren’t what happened. Some of it is --” He bites his lip. “Conversations. Sometimes he talks to me.” And Charles tries very hard not to talk back, but he’s slipped up on occasion. "Those don't feel like memories. And they don't feel much like dreams, either."  
  
"What kind of conversation?" Erik rumbles dangerously, tensing up. He isn't telepathic, but he knows the feeling. He hasn't been able to get Sebastian Shaw out of his mind since he first discovered who this individual was in relation to him. He feels as though he's being watched all the time. He feels it under his skin, a sickness he can't excise. And part of Erik is furious that they are just sitting here instead of going directly to The _Hague_ and melting him into a pile of radioactive dust. The atomic bomb of his mind detonated, imploded, destroyed.  
  
“Exactly the kind of conversation you might expect, considering the kind of man he is,” Charles mutters, but he shivers, too. They’re not pleasant conversations, and they leave him feeling cold and horribly disturbed when he wakes up, often for far longer than he’s ever admitted to Erik. He shakes his head, grateful to not be facing Erik, to have the lights turned off. “It’s alright,” he sighs. “I know they aren’t -- I imagine they can’t be actual conversations.” Though they certainly feel like it, and sometimes he wonders if he’s wrong about that.  
  
"No," Erik fights back fiercely, tugging on Charles's shoulder to bring them face to face, pressing a fingertip against his jaw. "No just dismissing it. Or brushing it off. Or evade. Tell me. Not this whole world of yours in private. I do not know what it can be. But you will tell me." The snap of Will through the room is a cold frost, papers rustling with the slicing wind that passes through.  
  
“Erik,” he sighs, and stubbornly keeps his eyes closed, turns his head into the pillow. “It’s very late, shouldn’t we be sleeping? It’s not real. Whatever it is, it isn’t him. You seemed fairly assured of that when you remembered.” But Charles wonders if perhaps Erik was dismissive of it, not because he meant to be, but because he couldn’t conceive of it. There’s no reason it should be happening, in all actuality. No reason that Charles can think of. “It’s just a strange… glitch. He’s not here. I only feel like he is. That’s not being dismissive, it’s being realistic.” And keeping himself sane, frankly, because it’s frightening. That it hasn’t stopped, that he still lingers, is frightening.  
  
"It is real to me," Erik's eyes blaze, an unconscious burst of Command forcing Charles's open only to find Erik's stare burning into him, burning him inside-out. "It hurts us. I will not ignore it, and you will not tell me to ignore it." The words are tinged with that ethereal-otherworld flavor, marking Orders that Erik doesn't even realize he's giving. "Whatever the reason is. You will not be alone. So tell me."  
  
“Tell you what, exactly?” Charles mumbles, and at least attempts not to sound as frustrated as he feels, all the helplessness welling right up and pitting uncomfortably in his stomach. “There’s nothing to tell you. Whoever he is, whatever he is, real or figment of my imagination, he talks to me when I sleep. Not every night, but often enough. It’s just as frightening and uncomfortable as you’d imagine. There’s nothing to be done about it. I can’t make it stop, clearly. I try to ignore him, and let him speak himself in circles, and that’s that. Can we please go to sleep now, Erik?” he huffs.  
  
"What he says. What you talk about. What you see. You know what," Erik murmurs back. "And you know it isn't that. So I ask again a last time, tell me." His fingers press lightly against Charles's throat, totally instinctive, completely unconscious, a purely Dominant impulse for Charles to yield to him.  
  
“He’s talked to me about the weather, Erik!” Charles sighs, exasperated and uncomfortable, squirming horribly in Erik’s arms now, especially with the hand against his throat. He tries to turn his head away, even though he knows before he does that he won’t make it far. “Sometimes he doesn’t talk to me about anything. Other times he tells me lies, he tries to confuse me. To shake me. He tells me things about you, about us --” And sometimes Charles isn’t entirely sure what the truth is, is the problem. Where the lies start, and where they end. Where the truth is, and where it isn’t. Erik wasn’t always very helpful with this, either, and part of that is because Charles didn’t know how to ask. He takes a sharp breath. “Are you looking for me to tell you every dream I’ve had of him? I can’t do that. I don’t even remember all of it. It’d be easier to ask me to let you watch the next time I do,” he mumbles. “Now, I’m tired. I’d like to sleep.”  
  
"Sure, tell me every dream," Erik returns sharply. "And you will let me," Erik corrects. And he isn't asking. "I do not like secrets. And I do not like raising your voice at me. I already told you this many times but you don't listen, and you keep fight me, you keep turning away, and try to tell me what to do. I cannot comprehend how you learn to speak to me like this, to act like this, how he would have sanction it. I do not." The bounds come undone all of a sudden, and Charles finds himself swiftly on his feet, Erik towering over him. "You say you want to be my submissive, then you will act like it. If I have to punish you every day, multiple times a day, until you learn. Fortunately I have all this time, alone, by myself, to study. Now get on your knees."  
  
Of course Charles does. Of course he shudders, head to toe, and finds himself exactly where Erik told him to be, on his knees, shivering despite the fact that it’s still uncomfortably warm in this room. “Erik,” he tries, swallowing thickly. “I didn’t mean to raise my voice. Please, can’t we drop this? I’m not keeping secrets from you. I’m failing to see how you want me to respond when I’ve already told you --” This likely isn’t helping him any. He bites his tongue, swallows it down again, and shakes his head. “I’m sorry. Is now really the time for this?”  
  
"Drop this?" Erik sounds absolutely incredulous, he is actually shaking his head, stymied at how Charles could make such an incredibly oblivious statement. Now isn't the time, but this Erik-the one who hasn't yet learned how to conceal his emotions behind a mask so brilliant not even Charles could penetrate it if he didn't want him to; and as Charles is finding out, as open as Erik had been with him, there was so much more beneath the surface that he just couldn't show-flashes hurt for a moment, as if he can't quite believe Charles said such a thing. "No. I will not drop it. You fail to see how? Well I will show you how. Not by yelling. Not arguing. Not fighting. Not putting yourself out of place. Do you really not know?" and Charles feels something jut under his chin, a thin and swishy reed that's appeared out of nowhere into Erik's hands. Even Erik looks baffled at that for a second, but he quickly reorients his attention back to what matters. He asked a question. He expects a proper answer.  
  
Charles swallows again, a heavy bob to his throat as he tries to jut his chin decidedly away from the implement Erik’s pulled from nowhere. It’s frustrating, really -- why is Erik having no problem at all using his abilities, when it seems to be taking Charles an extraordinarily long time to even do what he’d accomplished, presumably, as a child? But that thought is squashed beneath other far more important ones, and he purses his lips, his stomach twisting up with conflicting impulses. “I said I’m sorry for raising my voice,” he mutters, rather stubbornly considering Erik’s very clearly told him he won’t hesitate to punish him. “I gave you an answer, you just didn’t like it. Are you going to hold that against me? It sounds like it’s much more your problem, Erik. So, yes. Drop it, and let's go to bed, please."  
  
"Yes. You said you are sorry. The problem I don't believe you because you certainly do not act like it. So you will tell me, what way did I used to punish you? Before. I do not want vague things. Tell me explicitly. Everything." Because maybe Charles was, he doesn't know, bored of that, but Erik has absolutely no experience with this and it shows in the way his body is practically vibrating, not out of fear, just pure adrenaline and a little nerves. He's more than just some megadom, he's a person, too, and it's his first time. He has no memories of pain and abuse, no memories of his hands hovering over mutilated bodies and dead flesh. No memories of screaming, and begging, and crying. It's just plain, simple... he doesn't know quite how to describe it. Like he's about to go on stage and give a speech to a million people. Exhilarated and a little crazy all at the same time.  
  
Charles takes another sharp, loud breath, swallows again and shakes his head. It’s not much of a refusal, because he knows regardless of what he does, of how he acts, he’ll end up giving Erik exactly what he wants; it’s only a matter of time, and even at his most defiant he isn’t stupid. There are battles to pick, and this certainly doesn’t seem like one of them. “I told you,” he mutters, because he can’t help himself, his jaw set with that stubborn displeasure. His eyes find the floor, his cheeks hot with the shame of admitting this, of discussing this. “Mostly you -- you used corporal punishment. You spanked me, or -- or caned me, or…” He gestures vaguely, swallowing hard again and feeling the dread sink right into his stomach. “You likely wanted to use other forms of punishment, but you didn’t. So I’m afraid you’re not much help to yourself there.” It’s probably not the best time to mouth off, but Charles has never been excellent at holding his tongue.  
  
"Then it is fortunate I did not ask for my own help," Erik practically snarls, and that is new, too. Ordinarily Erik does not demonstrate any real emotion during this time, and he simply hasn't evolved enough to know better. The reed swishes against Charles's cheek. "And I did not say look away. You will look at me, address me properly. And tell me. Corporal punishment. I learned about where you are supposed to hit. In the book. And that there is some positions you can be in. What are you accustomed to?"  
  
It’s all very strange, being consulted on his own punishment. But Erik doesn’t know, does he? Charles bites hard at his lip, bringing his hand up immediately to try and rub out the sting even though Erik told him expressly not to do that earlier. “How do you know I’ll tell you the truth?” he huffs, and dares to look up at Erik, his stomach flip-flopping as soon as their eyes meet. “I could tell you anything, and you wouldn’t know, would you? Why do you think you can trust me? I could tell you he didn’t really punish me at all, and it would almost be the truth. I thought you said we were starting from scratch?”  
  
"Hands behind your back, now," Erik corrects lowly. "And I trust because if you lie to me, I will find out. I am learning. I am not stupid. And that punishment will be far more severe. You put yourself here. We will do it proper. One way or the other."  
  
Charles seems to be cowed at that, at the very least, his hands immediately behind his back, his Posture straightened up as he struggles to keep still on his knees. “Child’s Pose,” he mumbles, so quietly and reluctantly he may as well have not said it at all. “You usually -- you usually punish me in Child’s Pose, the few times you’ve done it."  
  
"And-" Erik's lips press together at this, his instinct to put Charles right down in his place at war with the fact that he is a civilized human being. He looks up to the ceiling. Charles gets a brief flash of his thoughts. Charles wearing his shirt during this, his clothes at all, would be wildly inconvenient and certainly allow for him to escape unscathed, barely a mark at all. That is not what Erik wants. But he also understands that Charles's dignity is important. He is new. This is his first time. He just doesn't know. Maybe it's awkward, maybe it's strange, but Erik's intensity shines through all the same.  
  
Even without his telepathy developing any consistency, Charles gets the gist of what’s going through Erik’s mind. The truly odd thing is that it’s written all over his face, in a way he genuinely has never seen before; at this point in a potential punishment, there would be nothing there. Occasional softness, when Charles expressed real remorse or concern, when he was fearful, but nothing like this. Not even a glimpse of it. “And what?” he practically taunts, his jaw clenched. “You don’t even have to do this.”  
  
"I do not have to do anything," Erik agrees. "Anything I do not wish to do. Anything I wish to do. I am D5. I decide. Take your pants and shirt off." The Order is brutal, as much as any strike. There are no games here.  
  
But Charles plays them, anyway, horribly flustered and confused, if he’s honest, though he isn’t even sure he could articulate why. He huffs, shuffling about to take his pajamas off, bunching them up and throwing them to the floor. Then he’s covering himself, scowling up at Erik, but his mouth, for once, is clamped shut. He’s nervous. It’s more than obvious, Bond or not.  
  
He's still wearing his boxers, since Erik only specified his shirt and pants, which is intentional. "Hands behind your back," he repeats, deceptively soft, but Charles knows instinctively that it is not. "I do not appreciate being spoke like this. I tell you many times, again and again. So maybe it is better lesson this way. Into Child's Pose. Now."  
  
It doesn’t matter how defiant and riled up Charles is beforehand. It has never mattered. The second he’s Ordered into Child’s Pose, then, now, is the second he feels the dread pool in his belly and bubble up in his throat thick enough to choke on, and for a moment he does. It’s an unsettled, protesting noise that means nothing in the face of Erik’s Dominance, his body instinctively and helplessly folding itself into the Position Erik wants him in. The Posture he’s punished in, and even if his mind doesn’t have nearly the experience, his body surely does. “Please, don’t --” He takes a sharp breath, shakes his head, lifts it. “You don’t have to do this, I’m sorry,” he tries, one last time, his voice hitching on it.  
  
"I do not have to," Erik agrees once again, still-soft. "But I do it. Because I want to. Because you must learn. Now you know your pause-word. You use if you need to. But you do not say sorry in one breath and taunt with another. You learn respect. Now you will take this. Because I tell you. Because you cannot learn any other way. Now. Silence. You will count each one. You will address me correctly. Any failure I add more. For now it is ten. Do you understand."  
  
It’s so different from everything Charles has experienced with Erik, every instance of punishment, but somehow strikingly similar. Softer, perhaps, but with that same strict, unyielding edge; and Charles knows better than to run his mouth at this point, when Erik’s solidly decided. In the past it’s taken longer, but regardless it’s obvious -- arguing at this point is moot, and much more likely to get him punished more harshly. “Yes, sir,” he mumbles, and closes his eyes tightly, all tensed up though he knows it certainly won’t help. Will it hurt less, because Erik is nervous? Will it be different, because he doesn’t know, because he never learned except from a book? The dread and anticipation of it all threads uncomfortably in his belly, twisting and twisting, and it’s fear, thick in the air and projected outward, but not in the way Erik always feared, never that way, and -- does Erik even know to shrink from it? Is it even a concern for him?

* * *

So far, it doesn't seem to be. Erik's not using a large implement, which gives him more control over exactly where he lands his strike, and Charles hears it whistle in the air before a sharp burst of pain slices across his shoulder, and it's funny, because he thought it would hurt _less_. It hurts _much_ more, with Erik looming over him, his chin jutted up as if to dare Charles to defy him right now, expecting his Orders to be followed-through in the smallest incarnation.  
  
It’s immediately much more than Charles anticipated. He’d known, vaguely, what to expect; what Erik has given him in the short time they’ve spent together with his Dominant comfortable punishing him like this in the first place. There’s still something different about this, and not in a way Charles had at all anticipated. He somehow manages to count despite being completely winded and thrown by the amount of pain, the intensity of it. It’s around the sixth strike that he falters completely, well into crying, his wail practically torn right from him as he reels with it, his lips unable to form around a count let alone a title; he’s not used to it. The Charles from before had trauma, at least, as awful as the comparison was -- he’d experienced such intense, horrific pain that even at their worst Erik’s punishments were always well in perspective, even while wholly unpleasant for entirely different reasons. The Charles who had woken up had run his mouth and gotten more than he’d bargained for, but the difference was that he didn’t see those things, not at all, while being punished and taken in hand. It was frightening only in the sense that he knew it would hurt. This, now? Charles perhaps didn’t realize to what extent Erik was holding back, and he’s not damaged, certainly not, he’s just finding it difficult to process. In some ways, perhaps it’s his real first time, too. Isn’t that what Erik said? To think of this as a blank slate? Either way he can’t breathe for the pain of it, the intensity of it, the complete drop of it.  
  
"And I say you count them," Erik murmurs, running the length of the reed under Charles's chin. "You forget it now?" It's not condescending, but it is something. Commanding. Insistent. Entitled. Charles forgets his place? He forgets how to speak to Erik, his Dominant? He shall be sorely reminded. In every definition of the word. One eyebrows arches down at him coolly. On Charles's body there is no indication of true harm, only neat rows of marks along both shoulders and upper arms. Something inside of Erik had selected this reed, completely without conscious volition, and it appears to be a sound choice. No blood, no cuts. Just this. The pain of reminder.  
  
Even without harm, it’s painful. It stings awfully, more than Charles can ever remember it doing, and his breathing is still coming in harsh, shaky breaths, little hitched sobs that he has only the barest sense to try and choke back. “Six, sir,” he gasps, but before Erik can strike him again he’s reaching back to cover himself, leaned up out of position, panting and crying. “Please, I’ve learned my lesson. I’ve learned, I’m sorry -- can we be done? Please? I won’t do it again.” It’s begging, pleading, and he knows that in the past Erik would at least respond to it, even if he didn’t bend to it. Charles can’t help but be hopeful, whining out another hurt, pitiful noise.  
  
The past is the past, though. This Erik doesn't even flinch, much less accede. Charles gets two solid thwacks across his wrist for what Erik considers to be immense insubordination, his own Dominance rising up entirely, spurred on even further by their positions rather than the restrained version Charles is familiar with. "You will not do it again? You learn your lesson? Then back on position. You do not cover yourself this way. I am not finished. Now what number, or you get another." In his mind, that's pretty lenient. As far as he's concerned, he's giving Charles an opportunity to repent.  
  
Lenient or otherwise, what shocks Charles is that Erik doesn’t waver. Even if Charles can’t always hear his thoughts, the Bond between them before, flickering on and off like that faulty lightbulb, disconnected circuit, it usually let him know. The moment Erik hesitated. When he considered, reevaluated, when he reached down to thread a hand through Charles’ hair mid-punishment or stroke at him, pet at him, whisper to him softly that it was alright. For a moment he’s discomfited by it, confused, left drifting; it’s different, and he’s not sure what to make of it. And then, not even seconds after, he responds. He sniffles loudly and responds, gets properly into Position and whimpers out a count, and the next, too, and then the next. He’s sobbing quite horribly by the end of it, snot and tears gathered all over his face, clinging to his nose and upper lip, but he isn’t damaged. He isn’t frightened. He’s shaking, he’s crying, he’s terribly sorry he ran his mouth in the first place, but he isn’t ruined. He isn’t fearful. He isn’t cowering. He’s still waiting for the next strike even after the tenth one has come and he’s counted, but it’s just because he’s a bit out of it, a bit gone -- a bit down, and then down, and then down. It's not the first time. Maybe it is. So many firsts, and all of them are important. All of them matter. All of them will make something new, something whole, something theirs.

* * *

Mostly it's because this version of Erik doesn't view punishment as something of an event, as something that must be carefully considered and practiced only within specific parameters lest risk harm and chaos and discord. He simply views it as natural, as something to swerve in and out of when necessary, just like that other, older Erik had done for him when he visited. Discipline at a moment's notice, not only when Charles has done the exact right amount of disobedience to qualify. At this point, Erik is a little out of his depth, but he does kneel down and touch Charles's face, gently dabbing at his tears. "You are OK," he whispers, brushing his hair from his temple with a smile. "You are all right. _Kol beseder_ , I have you."  
  
Charles feels entirely out of his depth, too, so it seems they’re in good company. He’s fallen fast into subspace, is reeling and perhaps a bit unsettled from it, like that very first time; but mostly he’s worked up, overwhelmed, utterly drowned in it, gasping for breaths he can’t seem to get into his lungs fast enough before he’s sucking in more, desperate. He knows to lean on Erik, either way, even if this Erik has never done this before. He doesn’t know whether he should move from the Position Erik put him in, and instinctively he knows he doesn’t want to until he’s told, but he leans anyway, sobs freely anyway, holds absolutely nothing back because there’s no chance of it. Perhaps it shouldn’t be so much of an upset -- but it feels new, and so he’s grasping, seeking, looking for new guidance after it seems like what he’d learned isn’t what is entirely natural. Is the punishment over? Are they done? What happens now? What does Erik do, what does he do, what’s expected of him? Is this it? He looks up at Erik, at his Dominant, and maybe it really is the first time he’s looked to him like this, and it's funny that it's the time Erik really might not know.  
  
Erik tries his best to guide him. "Sit up," he murmurs, guiding Charles with one hand to a Resting position, skating his fingers thoughtfully over the mark across his shoulder that runs down his collarbone, pressing his lips together to bite back the riotous swirl of emotions threatening to break through his chest. He doesn't have the preconceptions that Erik once did, but surely this can't be an appropriate response to discipline. It is more proof. Proof that Charles belongs wholly to him, not just in concept, but right before his very eyes; he has Commanded and Charles has yielded, and something very nearly primitive in him rejoices in its victory. He finds his fingers drawn to it like an electrical magnet. "Does it hurt?" he asks, voice low, nostrils flared slightly.  
  
The way Charles hesitates just a second too long, the way he tries to bite his lip to hold back a pained little whimper speak volumes to the kind of conflict inspired inside of him. It’s no fault of Erik’s. It was nothing he could possibly have avoided, with Charles having no prior experience before him but being exceptionally perceptive, empathetic, intuitive. But he hesitates not for his own sake, but for Erik’s; should he reassure him? Should he lie, and tell him that he isn’t hurting, that he’s not harmed or uncomfortable in any way? But something in Erik, this Erik, right now -- something unravels and Charles sobs harder, falls deeper, bobs his head in a tiny nod, because it does hurt. It stings, and in some ways he is frightened. He doesn’t know what to expect. He doesn’t know what comes next. He’s entirely reliant on Erik, and there’s something incredibly vulnerable and scary about that, even with all the trust in the world, and those were things he had already learned not to show with Erik. For his sake. For his comfort. But he whispers, “It hurts,” instead, and hopes it gets across everything else, somehow. He’s following Erik’s lead. He should have been from the beginning, but part of him never felt entirely assured that he could.  
  
Erik lets out a long exhale, blinks slowly and nods, chin tipped up. There's nothing within Erik that demands Charles ever be injured, of course. But if he is uncomfortable, it is only with is own submission, the submission he offers Erik, and Erik will demand it from him regardless of his comfort level, for as long as he doesn't cease their interactions in the appropriate manner. And he hasn't. So Erik keeps pushing, keeps pressing, keeps holding Charles down. "This is where you belong. Rely on me. Talk with me. Not fighting me. You won't. You will not win. You will not get away. You are mine. I did not really know-" he smiles, then, briefly, and runs his thumb over Charles's jaw. Something sharp and electrical and fierce and heated zaps between them, that which has settled under Erik's skin, and had since the moment he brought that reed down onto Charles. "I see now. And you will see."  
  
Charles’ breath hitches again, and then it’s almost like he breaks. Something inside of him entirely breaks. He sobs, loud and unrestrained, tries very hard to stay at Rest where Erik put him, exactly where he put him, exactly how he was taught and how he showed Erik he was taught. It’s alright to lean on Erik? To rely on him, wholly and completely? It’s almost too much, and he chases after Erik’s hand, after his thumb, a low, long whine slipping from his mouth before he can stop it. “See what?” he somehow manages, but it comes out garbled, sniffling, looking at Erik for everything. "Sir," he adds, a beat later, offering up a watery, hopeful smile.  
  
That beast has burst out of its cage inside of him, Erik is sure he can almost feel the moment it does, demanding attention, despite his best efforts at propriety. He's never felt this before, not really. He's not stupid, and despite his lack of memory, it's pieced together in an odd way; it doesn't feel-he can't describe it, it's a neurological white-space. This Erik is more open than ever, but he still swallows roughly, the hand that's resting on his thigh digging into the fabric, and his other coming to rest over Charles's cheek, and then across his neck, thumb jutting under Charles's chin to lift it, pinning his gaze the same as he'd pinned him to the wall earlier. Control. Surely he must have had some control over himself. He blinks a little as if he's brought out of a trance, pupils dilated wildly. He's leaned so close to Charles he can practically feel his breath as he answers, confident and entitled as ever. "You need me. This is your place. Here." Erik's stare burns into him.  
  
It’s incredible what that does to him. Charles whines again, long and loud, desperate, hot tears falling down his cheeks again, red despite his efforts to calm. He can’t calm like this, really. He can’t get his breathing to stop hitching, he can’t make himself stop crying, and he doesn’t try, really. He doesn’t hold back. He looks right at Erik and nods, trying not to bite at his lip because Erik doesn’t seem to like that much. “I need you,” he admits, and it isn’t shameful. It might have been, before, even just in this house, just since he woke up, but it isn’t now. Vulnerable, but not ashamed. “I do. I need you.” And sometimes it felt, horrifically, like Erik couldn’t be there in the way he wanted to be, in the way Charles needed him to be, held back by something intangible; this? Charles hopes desperately that whatever this is lasts, that he can trust it, still crying openly as he leans even closer in. Rubs his cheek against Erik’s hand, needy, open. Surely this must be so much for Erik, who doesn't remember, who didn't know until just now? But Charles can't help it. He just can't.  
  
Erik's thumb is warm against his cheek and he presses it to Charles's lips, curious if he'll be rebuffed, if Charles will be skittish and shy. It makes him smile, a predator who has finally caught its prey. Much different than Erik-that-Was, who quelled every single predatory instinct he ever had, who ruthlessly exterminated even the possibility that he could ever be entertained by anything other than Charles's total comfort. This Erik-is something else. Truly the apex, designed and built in every atom for conquest. He does not shy away from Charles's tears, or seek to eliminate them. In fact, he almost seems to enjoy it. Is fascinated by it. Intrigued. Drawn closer. Even heated by it. "But you fight me. Why."  
  
He is, a bit. He’s skittish, and certainly shy; his eyes widen, and he fidgets around on his knees, almost as if he might pull back. He doesn’t, but he looks well and truly caught -- the prey whose been cornered by the predator, his heart beating faster in his chest, his cheeks pink from more than just his tears. “I don’t know,” he whispers, and it’s not a rebuff. It’s honest, quiet, vulnerable. He sniffles, and his lips part for a moment, like he wants to suck Erik’s thumb into his mouth; his eyes flutter, and he blinks and catches himself, almost looking dazed. He feels it. “I don’t know. It feels…” Charles sniffs again, shakes his head. “Like I have to, sometimes,” he finishes, and his eyes fall, ashamed now. Because what kind of submissive feels that way? It’s not good or right, is it?  
  
Erik's free hand is on Charles's knee a moment later, holding him down. An interesting diversion; this Erik doesn't tell him to be still. He just pins him exactly in his spot, makes him. Keeps him. "If it is bad. You really want to get away. You use your word. But you didn't. You don't, I never heard it. Not yet. I think you want something else." Erik looms over him, brushing his thumb over Charles's lips again, this time himself daring-always daring, this one, always pushing the boundaries, curious and eager and so different from who he used to be. Was this person always inside of him? His thumb dips between Charles's lips, the faint taste of cinnamon on his fingertip from where he'd been cooking with it for their dinner that evening. "You want to be caught. You want me to catch. You want to know if you fight you will not be allowed to win. _Achshav atah yode'a_ ," he nearly purrs the words, a soft growl at their edges.  
  
Charles knows it’s true. There’s certainly no point in denying it, not when his pulse picks up, when his heart races, when his eyes flutter again as his lips part further to suck Erik’s thumb into his mouth, a soft, pleased noise slipping right out around it. “It hurts,” he breathes, instead of a true response; but it is one, at the same time, and there are still tears on his cheeks. He doesn’t like punishment, really. He’d much rather wriggle his way right out of it. There are times he knows it would be much more convenient and pleasant to get his way. But he doesn’t really want to win those fights. He never does. When he did, he was never happy. He didn’t think there was any real winning, because every time he fought, Erik took it to heart. He didn’t want to make Charles uncomfortable.  
  
"Ken," Erik's eyes are hooded, slipping back into his native language on instinct; something his Erik rarely did. Charles bends right to his touch, and it's-aggravatingly too much, and hardly-enough. Charles isn't the only one who is over-sensitized after a punishment, Erik is ramped up, too, every neuron firing off, every ounce of Dominion shuddering through him, pulsating in his veins, demanding he take. "It hurts. It will hurt. I make it hurt. I want it. You do not listen. I put you here. You will not struggle. I make sure you are kept. And safe. Even if it hurts." His smile is slight, and he runs his opposite hand across Charles's cheek. It's not even to dry away the tears, just for contact. Just to steady himself, to remind himself of their positions, of his responsibilities. He's never experienced this before, he doesn't know if it's normal. If he's normal. If it would disgust another, to learn his secret-thoughts. But his expression blazes with intensity, with an overpowering Will. "You mean to be here. I won't let you escape." Maybe he is the _Ziz_ after all.  
  
If Erik is the _Ziz_ , then Charles is the mate who was always meant to be caged. Perhaps there was something off about the cage at first, or he struggled against it on principle, needed to come to terms with needing a cage in the first place, with craving captivity; but why resist, why escape, when it only hurts him? The problem is that Erik is right. When he struggles, when he’s struggled here, since waking up, it isn’t because he wants to get away. Not truly. It’s because he wants Erik not to let him. Charles isn’t doing much struggling now, oversensitive and shy, still sucking Erik’s thumb between his lips because it’s touch, because it’s sensual, because he craves it, seeks it, needs it; his eyes have fluttered all the way shut and he’s trembling in Erik’s hold, sniffling loudly again. “You’re going to keep me caged up, then?” he whispers, and swallows at how breathy it is, at how his voice barely carries, at how raw and under he feels. It isn’t challenging. Charles doesn’t know what it is, but he knows he’s holding his breath.  
  
Erik withdraws the digit only so he can smooth the pad of his finger along Charles's bottom lip, as if entranced under a spell. "Yes," he rasps, unashamedly honest, almost vulnerably so. "Am I normal?" he can't help wondering, something soft and unintended to be spoken aloud. He doesn't know. He's never experienced Dominion this far, he's never experienced-desires-and he's not a fool, he knows-but he doesn't. The blank space has shifted, somehow. He doesn't know anything at all. And it should be a challenge to his Dominance that he doesn't, but it somehow isn't. It's just more. More of everything. More of him. More of him drawing Charles out, drawn to him like a moth to a flame. This is how he should be, and that other Erik, that stranger-Erik, couldn't do it. Good. Fine. He doesn't get Charles. This-one will steal him away, and take him into his palace in the sky and never let him go, and never leave him wanting.  
  
Charles laughs. It’s a soft, startled noise, and it looks almost as if it was ripped right out of his throat; his eyes widen in the aftermath, as if he can’t believe he possibly made the sound, but there’s a smile on his lips in the wake of it, too, among the dazed, hazy sinking of subspace. “If you’re not normal, then neither am I,” is his response, quiet, and the best one he possibly has. Because he feels it, too, or at the very least the inverse. “I want you to. To capture me, to lock me away, to keep me. Is that normal?” It’s a genuine wonder of his. When he first woke up, he was frightened, uncertain, skittish, and sometimes he still is, to lesser degrees -- but now? And surely that can’t be entirely normal, can it?  
  
Erik can't help it, he feels-drugged, something like liquid platinum slithering through his veins, and he knows he's never felt it before but this must be what precious metals are like, not just the gold of his mother's jewelry but something rare, something found in the sky or under a volcano-he isn't even thinking. Melted down, drawn forward like a string because of that smile, that laugh. His fingers find his marks and trace over them like a marvel, and then he presses his lips to one at the juncture of Charles's neck. "Normal to me," he growls. Normal. Wonderful. His.  
  
Charles’ eyes widen even further, his breath suddenly caught in his chest. He gasps, twitching in Erik’s grasp like he isn’t sure which way to go, forward or away; like he isn’t sure if he wants to struggle, to fuss, even just a little. What results is a low, confused whine, fluttered eyelids, his overeager heart pounding in his chest. “Should sleep,” he mumbles, but it sounds so far away, like he’s speaking it through a tunnel — should they sleep? Why is that for Charles to decide?  
  
"Why you decide that," Erik rumbles lowly against his skin, pressing another kiss further up near his carotid. His hand finds its way across Charles's heart, settling there. "Not your choice. My choice." He inhales slowly, pulling back but still stroking his fingers along the marks sliced over Charles's spine, red and angry but without blood or cuts. He is careful, even now. "You do not remember? Mine."


	127. All good things in time I know we'll be fine

It’s not that he’s forgotten. It’s just that he’s still so uncertain, floundering the moment Erik lets him. Skittish, because he doesn’t know how not to be, unsure of how to act because he’s been given rather mixed signals, and given them himself, not that this Erik remembers any of that. He hisses when those marks are touched, fidgeting, and then does something perhaps Erik doesn’t expect -- he flings his arms around his neck, pulling him back in, grasping onto him tightly, breathing harshly though he’s, for the most part, stopped openly weeping in the aftermath of his punishment. He’s not sure why he does it. He’s not sure what caused such an intense reaction, he only knows that he’s shaking head to foot, that he can hear himself panting for breath. “I don’t know how to do this and I’m frightened,” he admits quietly. "That we won't get it right."  
  
Erik catches him easily, pulling him close and keeping him pinned to his chest, both hands clasped in one of Erik's larger in-between their laps and one against his neck, fingers rubbing along those marks-still. "I will never allow that to happen," he rumbles, ethereal-otherworld Will spiking every edge of every word. "We keep trying. We keep doing. I do not know, too," he huffs a little, playfully tapping at Charles's spine, his lips moving along Charles's skin unconsciously. "But I will learn. And I will teach you. And you teach me sometimes. We will get it right. I do not accept an alternative. I never will. Now you breathe. You lean on me. Like you supposed to do. You know how. I got you. I will never let go."  
  
It’s tempting. It’s so awfully tempting, and Charles almost lets himself. He sags, if nothing else, his eyes tightly closed and his body limp against Erik’s except for the little shivers that seem to overtake him every few moments. “It’s not that simple,” he protests, and even he knows it’s weak. “There’s so much working against us, Erik,” and he’s mumbling, now, sniffling, as if he’s unsure if he even wants to verbalize what’s been rolling around in his head for what feels like ages. “And how do we know that when we leave here, when we’re not trapped in this place, how do we know it will transfer over? What we’ve learned, what we know? You’re so different, I --” His heart clenches, and he wonders, not for the first time, if this is what Erik felt, though perhaps on a grander scale. “I don’t understand how we can possibly make this work, and even if we did, I don’t know if it’d be enough. What if I’m never ready to leave this place? Do we stay here indefinitely, never facing what we’ve locked ourselves away from? How long do we try? What if we learn wrong again, what if I…” He shakes his head, thoroughly worked up. “I don’t know what to trust, what to believe. I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t. I want to think that we can put it all beside and learn, each other, this, but..." But how?  
  
"We try," Erik whispers back, and even those simple words hold far more weight than Charles's weaker objections. "We will try. As long as it takes. This is not a trap. I don't believe it." He inhales sharply, rubbing his jaw along Charles's cheek. "What is real is this. I do not know, you know," he admits, soft. "I do not know. You tell me all these things. I do not remember. I do not know. I just-I know what I feel." He taps his fist against his chest. "If I am so different-" he trails off. But the intention is there; even if he is. This has always been there. Erik has to believe that whatever he is meant to learn by this experience, he will carry it over. "I just know what I feel. I believe that is real. I will try for as long as I am alive. As long as you will have me."  
  
“Do we even have that choice?” Charles wonders, and he knows it must sound wretched. It’s out of his mouth, bitter and whispered, before he can think to hold it back, and much too late to shove it back in. He takes another sharp breath. “If I decided I’d rather not… involve myself in this, what would happen? What would we do? We are trapped, Erik. Perhaps it can be pleasant, but that doesn’t change the facts, does it?”  
  
He shakes his head, too many thoughts swirling up like spires of towering flame, razing down. "I do not know," he whispers back. He doesn't have any answers. Not really. He doesn't know anything, and if he were left here like this, if Charles decided he didn't want to involve himself-Erik swallows, doing his best to paste on a smile. "I would respect-if you-" he shrugs, looking a great deal less confident.  
  
Charles shakes his head, sick with guilt, but there’s no use skirting it. “No,” he whispers. “Because there would be nowhere for you to go. Nowhere for me to go. Do you see the problem here? We are trapped.” He’s barely breathing, now, shallow, panting breaths that never seem to take in enough air. “And if we never figure this out, if all we do is run in circles, we’ll never leave. Would you be content with that?” It’s a pointed question. Charles wouldn’t be. Eventually, Charles would go mad.  
  
"Breathe properly," Erik Orders instead, unable to help rubbing Charles's back. He doesn't understand why there are tears on his cheeks, and he scrubs them away furiously. "If you don't want, then we will figure it. You-you said this is your-that your power, that it is your doing. Somewhere inside you will find what you need to-" to escape him, Erik supposes. "This is all I know," he croaks. Why wouldn't he be happy? Why would he want to even return to a world-a world where-"I will just try my best," he whispers. "Whatever happens. We will just try our best."  
  
“I didn’t say I wanted that,” Charles reminds quietly, his own eyes still sealed shut, his heart still beating out of his chest despite Erik’s Order to breathe. He does, as best as he can, but it still feels shallow; he still feels, somehow, like he’s not ever able to get enough oxygen. “I don’t. That isn’t the point. The point is --” Perhaps he doesn’t know it after all. He’s exhausted, is what it comes down to, tensed up but unable to hold himself so tightly when his body aches and sags with that exhaustion. “What do you want?” he breathes instead. “You told me to lean on you. Alright. What do we do, then?"  
  
"We just try," Erik says, and it sounds simplistic and stupid to his own ears, but it's what he has. "I only have myself to offer. I want-" and it's different, this time. Because the Erik of before-he just couldn't communicate on this level. But somehow, even now, this is different. Because he can. "I feel connected to you. I want you to be mine. I want to learn how to care, properly. All the things I could not do before. And teach you, all the things we couldn't do right. I want you to be happy. I want to be happy. I want-" he wants his family, he doesn't say, because that's-he chokes a little. "Not to run circles. To build trust. To know real submission and Dominance. I never learned. And you too. I want to learn. With you."  
  
“I --” But Charles’ mouth closes. Because what could he say? Anything he might offer seems counterintuitive, somehow, because it’s the way he might deal with an Erik from before, who was uncertain for entirely different reasons. All he knows is that he’s utterly exhausted, and finally he lets himself sag entirely, shallow breaths and quiet sniffling, still grateful for the dark of the room. The lights seem to be back off again. “I hope we can learn,” he finishes, voice slurred slightly with the tempting pull of sleep.  
  
"We can," Erik whispers, running his fingers through Charles's hair. "I promise. We will. I will take care of you. Keep you safe. If we really start to suffer here I will do my best and try to fix it. I don't know how. But I will. I won't let you be harmed." Erik's Will flourishes with each word, even if it's entirely a leap of faith, it's something he has conviction in with every fiber of his being, and it's compounded further by the Command in his tone. He slowly sets Charles down on the bed, curling up next to him with the blanket, wrapping him back up in his arms. "Lean on me," he reminds softly. "I will not fail you." He doesn't know what makes him do it, but he presses a gentle kiss to Charles's temple. "Time for sleep," he huffs warmly. "I got you. Sleep now."

* * *

Charles was always one to wake incredibly slowly. Groggy, never all at once, his mind stuttering and refusing to fully jolt to life until properly stimulated; as if it’s a big, whirring computer, and needs long, dragging moments to boot back up and process correctly. Even without full range of his telepathy -- or, even without the range he had before -- this fact doesn’t change. The light from Erik’s window is far brighter than the light from his, and he blinks at it, confused and irritable, snuffles in still-sleep and burrows deeper under the covers. He realizes, belatedly, that there’s something else warm beside him and that it isn’t all from the blankets, softer than his and thicker, too, in a way that makes him sweaty and vaguely uncomfortable. His eyes snap open as soon as that realization sets in. His heart is immediately pounding in his chest; there’s a reason Charles fights so hard for separate rooms, and perhaps part of it is this. The best course of action seems to be ignore it entirely, especially with the day before slowly flooding back to him -- this Erik doesn’t remember anything even resembling morning routine, and so it doesn’t matter what time it is. He’ll simply wait for him to wake, and then crawl out of bed after him. Charles forces his eyes closed again, swallowing, and inches forward, slowly attempting to squirm out of Erik’s hold.  
  
Erik shifts a little, his face a grimace as swirls of flames scream around him in towering spires, and he huffs awake, eyes fluttering open. It isn't dramatic; he's still, but his eyes are wet when he opens them and it takes several moments for him to orient himself to what's going on. Instinctively his arms tighten around Charles. His body then does tense up, sensations flooding in-someone in his arms, someone he knows is his. Someone trying to-trying to escape-Erik makes a soft, plaintive noise in his throat. "Charles," he whispers, a rasp.  
  
It makes Charles gasp, though he tries to muffle it into the pillows, into the sheets. It’s utterly ridiculous at this point, considering how he’s still attempting to squirm away, but he keeps quiet, like he’s still playing at being asleep; as if he simply stays silent, Erik might not notice his pulse is racing, that his heart is beating out of his chest and in his throat. He hasn’t often woken up to Erik, to — his Dominant; and the idea that the Erik trying to tug him back in is a stranger, nearly, isn’t lost on him. He keeps his eyes firmly, stubbornly closed, trying to even out his breathing.  
  
Erik inhales sharply at that, his arms tightening more fiercely than before and there can be no mistake at all-though he's hardly even aware at this point until he shifts and his body presses up against Charles's fully. Realization begins to set in, driven by equal parts adrenaline and a sudden, irrevocable flood of-something else-and this Erik has no experience. None at all. The other Erik Charles knew would have handled it with diplomacy. No awkwardness or shame. He would have set Charles at ease, and most likely-well-Charles has imagined that more times than he can count. Erik had been growing more comfortable with himself. This Erik is a lot more-well-ordinary. In that regard. He shades a deep red and moves so that Charles isn't flush against him, as if he can pretend it hadn't happened. They'd never talked about this. He has no idea, none at all, of what's acceptable. And furthermore, a zing of pure unadulterated panic zaps through him, his thoughts a riotous hurricane. "Charles," he croaks into his own arm, shielding his face. His eyes pop open to stare sightlessly at the ceiling, vivid green more prominent in the light. He does try to laugh it off, looking pale and clammy. "Forgive me," he whispers.  
  
There was no time to talk about it, of course; the day before Erik had woken up with essentially no memory, no recollection of Charles at all. He’s infinitely aware that not only is he shirtless and legs bare, the only barrier between them his boxers, he’s sore and uncomfortable, marks from the night before rubbing awfully against the sheets and moments ago Erik in a way that’s distinctly too-much. His own cheeks are bright, splotchy red, his neck and ears cherry-colored where they aren’t hidden by his hair, by where he completely burrows himself in the blankets and pillows. If he says anything intelligent, it’s entirely too muffled to understand, his body curled up into a ball, his breathing uneven, as if he might still be pretending to be asleep. He doesn’t even peek.  
  
Erik struggles to regain a hold of himself, unsure why he's had such a strong and unprecedented negative response. He reaches over and puts his hand on Charles's arm. No. This won't happen this way. "Come here and sit up properly," he murmurs the Order softly, his features still sickly.  
  
Charles mumbles out what’s obviously a disgruntled, tired complaint, truthfully still half-asleep despite any upset, any anxiety, any embarrassment. Shame, even. He has no choice but to sit up, but he may not do it properly; he curls right up into into himself, taking the blankets with him, mostly covered in his knees. “Mmmmph,” is his intelligent, muffled contribution.  
  
Erik tugs the blankets away from his face, curling a finger under his chin. He's shaking, fine tremors from head to foot. "I do not know what is wrong with me," he blurts, completely out of left field, rubbing his own hand against his chest, his breathing now gone to entirely uneven and shaky. "Something is-it's wrong. Something is wrong with me."  
  
Charles blinks, and maybe for the first time since he woke up, he looks. His eyes widen and he’s moving immediately, his own hand on Erik’s chest, the other hovering as he finally wakes up, heart beating too fast again. “Erik,” he rasps, voice still hoarse with sleep, “It’s alright. Erik, it’s alright, darling,” it comes out without him realizing, his throat dry and concern written all over his features now. “Breathe. You’re alright. Nothing is wrong with you. Talk to me.”  
  
Erik's hand comes up to cover his mouth, eyes wide and red-rimmed, cheeks still wet, and his head shakes. "I don't know. I'm sorry. Something is wrong with me," he just repeats, swallowing past the golf-ball lodged in his throat. "I do not feel good," he gasps.  
  
The hand that was hovering makes its way to Erik’s face, to his cheeks, wiping away those tears as he shifts forward on the bed, his own pulse racing. “Nothing is wrong with you,” he promises quietly, his other hand moving to squeeze Erik’s in his. “You’re alright. You’re perfectly fine, darling. Just breathe for me. Just take slow, deep breaths,” he speaks slowly, careful — this Erik doesn’t speak English proficiently, and Charles’ abilities only half seem to work, as shaky as in everything else. Faltering. “Breathe with me. In through your nose,” he whispers, demonstrating, squeezing Erik’s hand again, stroking his cheek.  
  
Even without memories, Charles always seems to know how to soothe his Dominant, in any form. But this Erik has never experienced what is happening now, either, not really. Hearing about what happened-the grief, the pure level of insanity-but he had only heard about it. Second-hand. The implications long-over, even if for him it's the first time-there's a degree of disconnect. Whatever's happening now-it's different. And he doesn't understand. He struggles to follow Charles's instructions, lips wobbling in an expression of vulnerability almost never attributed to him. "Darling," he repeats under his breath, most likely not intending to say it aloud. But it feels warm. The only warmth he can feel. Everything else... is cold. Cold and slimy. An eel wriggling around his insides. "Don' feel good," he slurs softly, pressing his cheek into Charles's hand. "What's wrong?"  
  
Charles doesn’t fully understand, either, still groggy and terribly scrambled up, confused, so he does all he can. He does what he knows, and perhaps this Erik doesn’t need it in the same way, but this is something he’s certainly never minded. He keeps his hand on Erik’s cheek, grounding, warm, small in comparison to the larger one he’s got in his other, though he moves that too with one last squeeze, bringing it up to Erik’s unruly, bed-mussed curls instead. “Shhh,” he soothes, still-hoarse but soft, low. “You need to breathe for me, Erik, that’s all. In through your nose. Hold it, please,” it’s not an order, not by a long shot, nothing supposed; just a request, a plea, truly. “There you go. Out through your mouth, now. You’re doing wonderfully. Just breathe with me, that’s all. You're alright.”  
  
Erik tries his best to follow along, but ends up with wheezing attempts instead, looking well and truly horrified and moreover confused. For him, this has come out of absolutely nowhere. He doesn't recall anything that should truly distress him. He's a little embarrassed, and concerned for how he's affected Charles, but this is something else. He can't breathe. The world is spinning. His ears are ringing and his hands are hot and somewhere deep within he wants to claw off all his skin and abandon it. He can't stop crying even though he isn't sad. He isn't. Go away. It has to go away-the thoughts come unbidden and he doesn't understand it. Something is wrong. "Am I sick?" he whispers roughly, grasping onto Charles's arm like a lifeline. "I don't get sick. I never get. Charles-"  
  
Truthfully, Charles doesn’t know. He doesn’t know the Erik from before well enough, really, deeply enough, to fully comprehend -- and he certainly doesn’t know this one. He feels all at once out of his depth again, confused again, frightened again, but he takes deep, slow breaths himself, modeling, touching Erik because for some reason that’s always seemed to help, stroking his hair, touching his face, making soft, quiet noises in an attempt to soothe. “I don’t know,” he admits, hoarse still, uncertain, trying not to falter. Trying to keep calm for Erik’s sake, even as his heart beats too-fast in his chest, feeling all of a sudden sick himself. “You’re alright, Erik, I promise. Nothing is wrong. You aren’t sick. Stay with me. Shh, darling. I'm here. Focus on me. Feel me."  
  
Erik nods a few times, somewhat frenetic-even though he doesn't truly believe what Charles is saying, just because he feels so incredibly-he doesn't know, and that's the frightening part. "OK," he croaks, leaning his head fully into Charles's hand, eyes fluttering shut. "I am sorry," he blurts again, inhaling sharply through his nose. "I never got sick. Maybe you shouldn't be close-you can get sick and-" and he doesn't want to infect Charles with whatever this is. It has to be a sickness of some kind. His heart is racing, pulse pounding in his ears, eyes swimming in dizziness, head throbbing. "Oh. I don't like it." It's silly, perhaps, but-you know. True.  
  
The helplessness bubbling up in Charles is completely overwhelming, enough that he’s swimmy-headed with it, sick and dizzy, though perhaps some of it is secondhand. Empathetic in a way he’s realizing he just is, though it seems to vary day by day, hour to hour how strong that is, how overwhelming on its own, often depending on his telepathy. It seems to be a part of his telepathy, from what he understands, something uniquely him, something only he can feel. Either way it’s crushing him now, and he shakes his head, holding onto Erik tightly instead, wrapping himself around him instead, and reaching out; it’s helpless, still, and now it’s desperate, but in the past when he’s wanted to help, when he’s needed to help, it’s worked. He doesn’t know how, or what causes it, exactly, but it’s worked. “I know,” he whispers, voice broken slightly. “I know, darling. It must be awful. Shhh. Let me help. There you go. Let me help.” He’s not sure how, but he knows he’ll try.  
  
Erik slowly tries to curl up inside Charles's lap, as overgrown as he is, it's nearly comical and he only half-succeeds. "I'm scared," he whispers, resting his head on Charles's chest. "I feel..." he mumbles into the fabric there. "Wrong. I'm wrong. I'm all wrong," he just repeats mournfully. "Please don't hate me."  
  
Charles doesn’t understand, to be honest. He doesn’t know what Erik is reacting to. He doesn’t know how to help, now even less than he did before. He’s been told he’s a psychiatrist, but for all of that knowledge he supposedly and seemingly has, he feels like he understands far too little to have made it through any sort of formal training, and considering he did end up in an inappropriate dual-relationship with Erik, he’s not sure he trusts his own judgment anyway. All he knows is to hold Erik, to put his arms around him, to try and reach him somehow; subtle rocking movements, soft little noises, playing with his hair. “I don’t hate you,” he whispers. “And there’s nothing wrong with you. But I don’t know how to help,” he admits quietly. “There’s nothing wrong with you but I don’t know how to help.” It’s mostly to himself.  
  
Erik tries to practice breathing the way Charles told him, the fine tremors wracking through his shoulders slowly easing with each passing moment as Charles pets him and mumbles nonsense at him. Whatever it is, he doesn't know either. He knows frightfully little about himself. The last memory he has is from seventeen years ago; but all he knows from that time is generally good things. Yes, he had more responsibility heaped onto him than most children did, but he had a strong support network and a family who genuinely loved him, and it was enough. "All I did is wake up," he shrugs a little, peeking up at Charles. "How come-?" he wracks his brain, eyebrows creasing at the center of his forehead. He runs through it, and inhales sharply when he stumbles over something. An image. A flash. "Oh. I don't like that. I don't like it?" he blinks. That doesn't make any sense. He remembers yesterday, too. He sighs. "I wish I knew _anything_!" he smacks the blanket beside them, frustrated.  
  
That frustration is something Charles recognizes. To say that Erik has a bit of a temper seems a gross understatement, and for some reason it curls the corners of his lips into a soft smile. He’s endeared, rather than frightened, the way an Erik from before so often feared. The hand stroking at Erik’s hair tucks a few strands behind his ear, laughing quietly when they bounce right back, unwilling to be tamed especially so early in the morning. “What didn’t you like?” he asks softly. “Talk to me. Let’s talk it through together, Erik.”  
  
The smile draws Erik closer, and he ends up pressing his cheek to Charles's, a little like a tamed creature; even if tamed is the last word anyone could possibly use to describe Erik Lehnsherr in any incarnation. "I don't know," he admits, frowning mightily, nearly entering pouting territory. "I just tried to go and think about before I felt bad. I woke up and-" he ducks his head away, resting it on Charles's shoulder instead, focusing on the feel of fingers in his hair. Breathing. "And I-you-you know." He huffs. "It's not like it never happened before and you're mine and I guess it's normal and it should be fine and I guess it's embarrassing but-" but not like this. Not like he wants to rip off all his skin and throw it away.  
  
It embarrassed Charles, too, but not like this. But then again, haven’t memories and thoughts bled into his consciousness from what he doesn’t remember and can’t understand, too? It’s still there for both of them, waiting to be recovered, to be processed. Charles nods, still playing with Erik’s hair, wrapping curls around his fingers. “I’m yours,” he agrees quietly, and despite the context and situation his cheeks pink right up. He looks away, too, even without Erik looking at him. “It’s alright. It’s frightening, I know, to not — to not know or understand. I get frightened, too. But there’s nothing wrong about it. You were trying to teach me that, too. That it’s... normal.” Now he’s very red, and very fidgety.  
  
"I don't want to feel bad about it," Erik admits in a soft whisper, drawing his hand repetitively down the front of Charles's shirt, feeling the fabric and the expanse of skin beneath. "It doesn't feel right. I don't feel right. It-I-" he trails off, unsure if he should even share. "Yesterday when it happened-I didn't feel like this. I don't know why now." There's a lot of thoughts swirling around his brain. Maybe because Charles had reacted by pulling away; it must have niggled something in the back of his brain. Maybe it's because he's more focused on it this morning than he was yesterday. He just doesn't know. The psyche is a fragile, complex, bizarre-upside-down universe of, in Erik's opinion, utter nonsense. Mirror-writing on walls that no one can grasp. Least of all him. "It should just be normal. When I think about it I don't think anything bad. I just think, that of course, because you are mine. And you are-I-of course I do." He laughs a little under his breath. "I don't know. This is so stupid."  
  
“It’s not stupid,” Charles is quick to disagree, his own chest a bit tight as he processes what Erik is telling him. Heart beating in his chest, ears and neck thoroughly red, because perhaps it’s something natural Erik inspires in him. Something predatorial, but never in a terribly frightening way. It’s exciting, instead. There’s no other way to explain it, even when it makes him nervous and uncertain, looking to Erik for cues and often finding mixed ones. He takes a sharp breath. “I know you didn’t control this, but you -- you don’t have to feel bad about it,” he manages, and if it comes out a bit squeaky, he can’t help that, either. He’s decidedly not looking anywhere near Erik, his eyes closed on top of that. “I certainly don’t want you to.”  
  
"You don't think it is bad?" Erik wonders, his voice soft. He touches Charles's face and turns it toward him. "I thought you didn't like it. You went away from me. And I didn't know what to do. The idea of-that-it's different. It has to be different, doesn't it?" his eyes are wide, brows lifted up, searching. "And if you don't like it..." He would force it away. Of course he would. Cut it off. Wrong. Bad. Gross. There's the word; deep down, the real feeling. Slimy, gross, wrong, unnatural. All living inside of him, swirling up with arousal and curiosity and Dominion. And he doesn't know why.  
  
Charles isn’t privy to any of that; before, there was a budding, slowly-forming connection, his telepathy spotty but ultimately strengthening, but it’s been cut off again. Frustrating, confusing, steps seemingly backward, but that’s not on his mind at all. Instead his pulse jumps, his breath hitches. He turns his face away again, even though Erik turning it toward him was clearly something he liked if his gasp is anything to go by, the way he shivers. He shakes his head. “I was just nervous,” he admits quietly, but the truth to that is unspoken and hopefully perfectly clear; he didn’t dislike it. It’s quite the opposite. "I don't think it's bad, Erik. It isn't."  
  
Erik's fingers splay out over Charles's face, turning it back toward him again. "Don't go away," he murmurs, his voice a low rasp. He can still see the reddened marks on Charles's skin, curling out of his collar toward his neck, and Erik ghosts his fingers over them. "I don't want to upset you. I have-" he doesn't know how to describe it. "So many feelings I do not know how to describe."  
  
It makes Charles jump, then promptly gasp again, that electrified, overwhelming sensation sparking right along with the sharp burst of pain. “You’re not upsetting me,” he promises, and it’s nothing but the truth, the reality of it written all over his expression, in the part to his lips. Still he finds himself wriggling in Erik’s hold, turning his face again, his cheeks hot to the touch now. “You woke me up,” he complains, an almost comical change of subject. Erik didn’t, of course, but Charles certainly wanted him to believe he did. Not because he didn’t want the attention, but because he still isn’t sure what to do with it. Everything Erik feels, it’s matched in Charles, and it hadn’t been nearly enough time for him to learn what to do with it, especially not with a far more reserved, hesitant Erik.  
  
Erik's gaze darkens, and he pins Charles's cheek this time, crawling over him until Charles's head rests against the wall. Trapped in the lair of a beast he could hardly name. Not Charles, and not Erik either. "You are mine," he rumbles, nowhere near as upset as he'd been when this first started, as if it's simply melted away, spurred on by Charles's reactions. "Mine to wake. If I want. You never answered my question. I did not tell you to respond properly? I think I did."  
  
And Charles does squeak a little this time, startled, all at once overwhelmed, his heart thudding in his chest and practically audible as he blinks up at Erik. “I really don’t think you formulated a question, Erik,” he somehow breathes out, because he’s Charles, biting down hard on his bottom lip. “And isn’t waking me up counter to what --” His face falls, just for a moment. He swallows. “Before, you gave me… you told me when to sleep, and how much I needed,” he mumbles, his eyes closing again. It’s not shame, though there’s a hint of embarrassment. It’s something else, but even he isn’t sure he knows what it is.  
  
And this time, Charles gets a clear rap across the cheek right where another lovely red slash curls down over his jaw. Erik grips his chin in hand. "I asked if you like it. You did not answer me. You will answer me. Or I will take you on my lap. I tell you when you sleep. When you wake. I asked you a question. You answer." He doesn't quite know where this is coming from, but he's sliding headlong into Dominion and not-quite feeling up to even answering it at all.  
  
Charles’ eyelids flutter, a shudder wracking his entire body and a pained, startled whine escaping his lips. There’s really nowhere to squirm, now, with Erik looming over him like this, but he tries anyway, which really does nothing to help the situation, to how flushed he is, to how he’s practically panting now, his entire body oversensitized as he drops decidedly deep into subspace. “Yes,” he gasps. “I like it.” But that’s more than obvious, with his entire body vibrating like it is, with his eyes blown wide and dark. "I didn't think that needed a response," he adds, breathless, his lips curling up just slightly, his pulse racing in anticipation.  
  
Erik's pupils dilate, shards of black eclipsing brilliant emerald green completely visible as his face is practically jammed right up into Charles's, his fingers sprawled out across the expanse of his throat. He squeezes, tight. "It does. I ask. It does. When I ask you. I want a response. I thought you didn't want it. Didn't-want me. You didn't answer." His other hand is moving almost without his own permission, against Charles's thigh, parting his knees. "You are so beautiful with my marks on you. Of course I wake up this way. How he could not have you in his room. What a waste."  
  
There’s a lump in Charles’ throat all of a sudden, bobbing uncomfortably against Erik’s fingers, and just a moment ago he’d nearly moaned before he’d caught it, bit down hard on his lip, but now he shakes his head. His knees knock back together, a nervous twitch more than anything. “I want my own room,” he insists, like he’s insisted before. It’s as firm as he can manage with Erik’s hands where they are, with everything melted down the way it is, with his mind getting hazy like it always does when he starts to sink. When Erik is putting him down, sometimes all at once and sometimes a bit more slowly. “Please,” he adds, for good measure.  
  
This Erik isn't so easily deterred. "Tell me why. What good reason." This time, Charles has nowhere to move. Again. He stays where he is, under Erik's hand, pinned entirely in place. "You don't want to be with me?" He swallows, looking fierce and somehow innocent at the same time, uncomprehending.  
  
Charles shakes his head. “It’s not that,” he whispers, and it isn’t, truthfully. Not even close. “But we’re still — you didn’t know me until yesterday. I’d like my own space.” He’s biting his lip again, attempting to avoid those piercing green eyes. “You have no reason not to grant me that,” he decides to point out, throat dry.  
  
Erik doesn't let him do that, either, capturing Charles's gaze fully and completely under his own, bearing down on him in every way. "Because I don't like it," he whispers back. "Being alone. Everything became better when you stayed."  
  
Charles takes a shaky, slow breath, and closes his eyes. It’s the only way he’ll possibly keep his resolve. “I want my own room,” he repeats, slowly, deliberately, as if it’s difficult for him to argue. Sometimes it is, with Erik like this. “I’m only down the hall. If you have… if you --” He bites his lip, cheeks all of a sudden brighter, deeper red, and tries again. “If there’s something you need, you can come get me. If I need you, I can do what I did last night. It shouldn’t make much of a difference, but it’s important to me.”  
  
"Look at me," Erik Commands, shaking his head. He presses their foreheads together. "It makes a difference. To me. I don't like being alone. It hurts. Why? Tell me. Do not lie. Do not hide." He strokes down Charles's cheek, brushing his thumb along the red streak there, digging-in just a little. Reinforcing his Will.  
  
“Because I don’t think we should always be together.” It slips from him before he can stop it, and he sinks his teeth hard into his lip, his heart plummeting into his belly because he’s almost positive this will be something that makes Erik upset. Even if he won’t admit it. It certainly would have upset the Erik from before. “I know eventually we’ll share most if not all of those spaces, but right now, while we’re -- still… negotiating, still learning each other, it feels important to me. I’d like the space. In many ways we’re strangers, Erik. There’s no reason we can’t ease into things, is there? You met me yesterday,” he feels the need to remind, and jerks his head, clearly hoping to get it loose from Erik’s grip. Not because he’s frightened or truly upset, just because he’s nervous, now.  
  
Erik doesn't seem upset, though. He seems contemplative, his head tilting to the side. Charles doesn't succeed in getting away from him, either. "I don't know anything," he whispers, soft. "How to do it. My mind must know a little bit. I'm not a child. But all I remember-I don't know anything." He keeps stroking Charles's cheek. "I only know when I woke up I felt so bad. I was scared and you weren't here, and I didn't want to bother. And you came back and-" he presses his lips together, keeping in a real response. "And it just seems like a way for you to hide from me. Because you do. You hide. And you hide in that space, and he let you because he was scared you would leave him."  
  
Charles’ mouth opens, and then promptly closes again. His lips purse together, his brow furrowed in the way it does when he thinks, when he contemplates, when he’s choosing his words carefully. He shakes his head. “Then address me using the space inappropriately, if you decide I am,” he suggests, because Erik in both incarnations at least seems open to suggestions, when they’re phrased as such. “But don’t take it from me. I think it’s healthy, and it -- it means a lot to me, personally,” he breathes, letting it out shaky but honest. “I don’t know why. I couldn’t tell you, exactly. But I’d prefer it. If you want to decide what’s appropriate and what’s not, that’s well within your rights. But don’t take it from me, please.”  
  
Erik's lips press together again, and he glances away, eyelashes batting against his skin as his lids flutter closed. Ashamed. "I don't want to let you leave. You said you want it, but-" he lets out a huff, a harsh exhale. "And I'm supposed to let you go? But I don't want to. How much you didn't know about him? That he felt this way all the time. Because I feel it. I feel like I will hold you so tight I will crush you. There must be something wrong with me. Really wrong."  
  
All at once, Charles laughs. It’s not mocking, or harsh, or even hysterical, despite its suddenness; it’s just that he’s thought of something rather abruptly, and now he can’t help it, squirming insistently until he can bring a hand up to his own mouth to cover it, to stifle it. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” he assures first, because he’d wondered himself when he first woke if something was very wrong with him, wanting the things he did. Needing them. He still does, uncertain, confused, learning. “You said last night that you’re very much like the _Ziz_ , and…” It sounds awfully similar, is all. Charles can’t quite stifle another giggle. “There’s nothing wrong with you. I won’t tell you what you did before. I won’t tell you what we had planned. You can decide for yourself. Isn’t that what you said? Starting from scratch.” Erik needs to have confidence in his own Dominance, the same way Charles needs to learn to trust and understand his own submission. “But I really would like it,” he adds, just for good measure. The Erik before had always made it clear that Charles could make his own desires known, that he could ask for things. He was sometimes not as happy with being granted them as he thought he might be, but that's neither here nor there.  
  
Despite its suddenness, and Erik's utter seriousness just moments beforehand, he can't help but smile when Charles laughs, hazarding a peek up at him and tracing his thumb over the corner of his lips. "Scratch," he repeats, tapping Charles on the nose. "But you have to be honest. It's really unhealthy? It's really better this way? You aren't just saying it because you don't want me to know things? I can't make a choice if I don't know fully what is happened. I don't want to let you leave. But I can do it. If it's good for you. I don't want to hurt you." He traces Charles's temple, gently. "The _Ziz_ was a prison keeper. I don't want to be it." Even if it hurt to be alone. Even if he didn't know how to be alone.  
  
Charles shivers when his temple is touched, the same as he always does, squirming and sensitive. He shakes his head. “It isn’t… unhealthy, I don’t think,” he answers honestly, because Erik really doesn’t know. It would be cruel, here, to lie to him. To tell him something he doesn’t fully believe to get his way. He could, rather easily, and for a moment he may even have considered it, but he doesn’t. “But I think it would be healthy to have separate spaces, yes. It’s good for us to function on our own, too, and it’s only us here, Erik. The room is right down the hall. If you find I’m using the space inappropriately, or to hide things, you could do something about it. You’re not a jail keeper, but you are…” He still can’t always say it right away. He doesn’t know why, as if he’s some child. His cheeks are pink again. “I’d like to keep my room. But --” It’s Erik’s decision, and even if he does decide to grant it, it can be on his terms. But the Erik he knew before that didn’t quite seem comfortable with that, most of the time, more than likely to give Charles what he asked for, exactly as he asked for it, often the first time. Charles isn’t sure he trusts this Erik will be much different, because he just doesn’t know.  
  
Erik hums to himself. "I can do something about it," he realizes, nose scrunching up fondly. Charles is still very much trapped between him and the wall, speaking to him as if talking down an enraged beast, and in many ways that's often the case with Erik. But the Erik he knew before was a lot more... not necessarily cultured, but at least held a veneer of civility. Willing to provide Charles with the things he asked for without question, able to conduct himself like any other ordinary Dominant. This Erik... not so much. Not at all, actually. "I will let you keep it. But my way. I do not know what it is yet... but I will find more. And I want to learn about Postures. So you will do them there. So you won't think it is only yours. And I want to come visit. Because-" he ducks away, clearing his throat. "Because it's not easy for me. I won't come a lot. Just sometimes."  
  
Charles bites his lip, and tries to bite down the urge to argue right away, too. It only somewhat works, but to his credit, he hesitates a moment or two before he opens his mouth again. “I won’t be in there all day, Erik,” he points out, and can’t help smiling, either, as if endeared by Erik’s qualification of it. “I’ll hardly be in there at all, I suspect. But when I am, it’s not as if you’re barred from entering. As I said, you’re my… you have that right,” he finishes, clearing his throat as if isn’t incredibly obvious what the reminder even from himself does to him, cheeks warmer for it. “But, before, you had me come meet you in here. And I quite liked that, because…” He bites his lip again, shrugging and cutting himself off, attempting rather valiantly to squirm some more. “I just liked it, I suppose.”  
  
"I am your what?" Erik is distracted, though, and gives him a sharp tap on the nose. "No biting. Why did you like it? Tell me. What am I to you? I want to hear." Erik stares at him, as if having the power to keep him still by sight alone.  
  
“My Dominant,” Charles breathes, and he truly is breathy in the aftermath, as if saying it is enough to work him up. It might be, if his reaction is anything to go by, the way his heart rate picks right up again. He bites his lip again, nibbling it just a moment too long to not be deliberate on his part. “I liked it because… it was a task,” he mumbles. “Something you gave me to do and expected me to accomplish. You didn’t really like the idea of giving me chores, or… or anything of the sort, really, despite my asking, so…” He liked being given something to do, is what he’s saying. Something active, something involving a choice. An act of service, rather than a more passive form of submission. “You Ordered me, or asked for things in the moment, but there wasn’t much of… that. But I liked it,” he admits, looking away.  
  
"I like it, too," Erik practically purrs back, scratching underneath his jaw with his thumbnail. "I said no biting. I know I am supposed to decide what to do. But you have a routine, and I like that idea. I don't know how to do a lot of things, like Postures. I know, like, basic ones. But I want to learn it. I like that idea. That you are mine and you remember through that, your body, and mind. But I think that it will be different, too. Because I expect you to do those things, too. I like the idea that you do tasks for me. Because I tell you to. And to teach you new things, and hold you to the expectation that you are the best of yourself."  
  
Charles imagines those are things the other Erik would have wanted, too, if this is working anything like he suspects it is. He doesn’t know the details, exactly, of what was holding him back. All he knows is that he smiles, soft, perhaps a bit shy, pleased by that. It’s what he’d been asking for, requesting, but much of the time Erik just didn’t seem capable of implementing it, even if he’d wanted it himself. “Like what?” he asks, and now he’s eager, curious, even if Erik might not know. He seems to have ideas, at least, experiences that matter to him, that are closer to him. “I can’t help it,” he adds, biting down deliberately on his lip, the corners curled up.  
  
"Well..." and this time Erik smiles shyly. "Like how to cook. I think you might like it. And if you don't, well, then it will just be another thing you will learn, another skill, that you will have. I know I don't know many things, but I know that I want you to be the best. Not just in term of like following Orders. But having skills, and being able to anticipate my needs." Erik doesn't know this yet, but there's another piece of the puzzle hidden somewhere, there. The original Erik had shied away from this for precisely that reason, because it was just too close to his own experiences. This Erik has none of those preconceptions.  
  
And it’s so clearly different to what Charles has experienced so far that he’s startled by it, confused, wide-eyed. “And you’ll make me do chores?” he asks, and he sounds shy, too, quiet, almost disbelieving. His eyebrows are scrunched together. “You’ll want me to... you’ll have me serve you? How? In what ways? What will I do?” It’s maybe too eager, Charles embarrassed and pink-cheeked again in the aftermath.  
  
"You will do as I Command," Erik says, his lips brushing against Charles's skin when he talks, over a mark winding up his throat. "You will do chores. This place is so big. I cannot care alone. You will learn skills. I will learn too. You will serve me. Help me. From getting dressed or making breakfast or just how you talk and approach. Because you didn't learn it. He never taught you. I do not know why."  
  
Charles doesn’t doubt it. He’s read the books, if nothing else. He knows what sorts of things are expected of submissives, what’s asked of them, what roles they fill. Erik seemed extremely hesitant to let him fill some of those. “I thought --” He bites his lip, and can’t help looking away, a sudden lump in his throat. “I thought there was something wrong about it. Because you said we were meant to be a match, a Pair, but…” But he’d desired things that Erik seemed hesitant about, and sometimes wholly opposed to.  
  
"He was broken," Erik whispers back, soft. "-I was broken," he amends, and his voice is barely audible. "What happened that day, maybe. Sebastian Shaw. It broke me. I don't know why I couldn't be a proper Dominant, but I won't do that again. I won't let it happen again. You are right. I am right. We are good together."  
  
It breaks Charles’ heart to hear it that way. To hear it phrased that way, so bluntly, the way he knows an Erik from before would likely phrase it, too. He swallows harshly and shakes his head, and his hand is on Erik’s cheek again before he can stop it. “You weren’t broken,” he insists quietly. “He didn’t break you, because you’re here. If you were broken, this wouldn’t exist. You wouldn’t exist. We can learn. We can grow from this. You were a proper Dominant, you were --” Charles doesn’t know what makes him cut himself off. Honesty, perhaps. He remembers another Erik, somewhere different, somewhere far away, and his own disbelief over Erik’s behavior. “It wasn’t something you could help,” he whispers instead, throat dry. “And if that was what you could offer, all you could offer, it would have been…” But he can’t finish that sentence, either.  
  
"No, I was," Erik says, pressing his fingers against Charles's hand, lips curving upward along his palm. Bittersweet. "I must have been. How could I know what you need-what we both need-and be unable to provide it? I would never choose that. No matter who I was. He couldn't do it. But he is not all I am. I can offer. It is not all that is within me. Maybe he could have learned better, one day. But I am grateful to be here, now. So we don't have to wait so long."  
  
They don’t have to wait as long. Charles bites his lip, and finds his own eyes falling closed, that lump still caught up in his throat. “I think I was broken, too,” he admits in a whisper, and something in him trembles for it. “There were things I needed and wanted, but I couldn’t accept them. I couldn’t accept myself. I still get scared, sometimes, because I’m --” His breath hitches, and he leans into Erik, exactly as he wants to. Exactly as he should. “Because it’s so much. It’s all so much, and so overwhelming. It feels like I’ll burst, sometimes, and I wondered if that was wrong of me. If I should need less.”  
  
"No. I don't want you to need less. I wouldn't let you burst. I haven't been so bad, right? Even though I don't know a lot of things," he laughs a bit. "And even though I am apparently afraid of my own shadow." How the _hell_ did they navigate that, Erik has to wonder. It couldn't have been well, and it couldn't have been what Charles intended when he reset Erik's memory, either. That's a hell of a phobia. And a weird one. Now that he's not actively panicking, he's more or less just weirded out about himself. Everything he's learned since waking up about himself has been either horrifying, or _weird_ , or a combination of both. But Charles stayed with him, despite all of his shortcomings. He doesn't know how that's possible.  
  
“Don’t say it like that,” Charles whispers, biting harder at his lip. It’s defensive, really, but not for his sake; for Erik’s. For the other Erik, the one who he put to sleep. “It wasn’t always easy. You’re right. I didn’t always know what to do,” he admits, and he’s ashamed of that. He can’t help it. As Erik’s submissive, he should have known how to handle those things, but he never felt like he did. He didn’t this morning, even without the context for the response in the first place. “But I never would have blamed you for that. It wasn’t something you could control. It still isn’t now. I do it, too.” He’s not looking at Erik again, squirming where he’s held against the wall still, finding he has a bit more leeway now. “But we don’t remember those things. We aren’t as close to them. Perhaps now is the best time to learn how to deal with those that, too.” There’s so much they can learn, apparently, and the problem is Charles isn’t entirely sure where to start. “Do you…” He takes a breath, eyelids slowly fluttering open. “What do we do?” he asks, and laughs a moment after, a breathy, air noise.  
  
Erik laughs, too, his nose wrinkling up just like it always does. He's almost been an entirely different person; even the way he holds himself is different, the expressions he makes, but in this he looks entirely identical. "When we remember but continue to struggle the same way," he tilts his head in agreement. "It will not be good. We might be in a circle. What happened to us, we have to face it. Maybe not all at once, or right in the second," his eyes crinkle. "But I don't believe we are not good for each other. I do not remember you, but I know what I feel. It is not fake. You are mine." Erik touches his cheek, and then all of a sudden tugs him onto his lap. "What do we do? For all time? I do not know. For today? Right now? I want to know more. About your routine. About your Postures. And getting dressed, and shower, and all of that stuff. And then I want you to make us breakfast. I see you burn water, so I might help." He sticks his tongue out. "And we still have presents from yesterday. You will clean up the decoration and then get to open the rest of them. If you are good." His eyebrows arch.  
  
Charles gasps again at the attention, cheeks that bright, near-cherry red as he finds himself suddenly on Erik’s lap, wiggling about though he certainly isn’t uncomfortable with it. Shy, certainly, and it’s visible in his every movement, but there’s something else to it when his face falls, when he ducks his head away. For a few moments, he’s silent. “Is it alright if I… don’t open the presents?” he whispers, swallowing heavily after.  
  
Erik shrugs. Honestly, the idea that Charles would be opening gifts that he doesn't even remember making and being reminded of a person that he can't even remember was fairly depressing to him, but he just assumed that Charles would, well, want them. "You don't want? We can just put them away or something."  
  
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate them,” he sighs, and he might be explaining himself unnecessarily here, considering Erik’s reaction and the fact that he doesn’t remember making or wrapping them, but that’s beside the point. “It’s just that… you don’t remember them, Erik. And I don’t know if I want to open them now, knowing that --” He bites his lip, eyes still somewhere between them, avoiding Erik’s eyes. “You said we’d start from scratch, yeah?” His hand wanders up to his neck before he can even consider it, and the collar already there.  
  
"Hey," Erik touches Charles's face and makes him look at him in the eyes this time. "I know you are grateful. I also know it would be painful to me for me watching you open all of them and I couldn't even know what it means. I like the idea-starting from scratch." He smiles, soft. "But I also made you something. Me, not him. It's stupid," he laughs a little, ducking his head. "But I didn't want you to have birthday go by without at least something to mark our beginning."  
  
“Oh,” Charles whispers, and for a moment that seems all he’s capable of saying. He’s shocked, really, startled into momentary silence. He didn’t think this Erik would think to make him anything, especially when he seems far less proficient or even aware of his own abilities. Not the same way Charles is, for what are obvious but frustrating reasons, but the point still stands -- Charles needs to keep reminding himself that the Erik he’s currently in the lap of is a complete stranger, for all intents and purposes. There’s so much they don’t know about each other. “You didn’t have to,” he adds, lamely, smiling softly nonetheless, a softer flush to his cheeks now. "I didn't even know it was my birthday until the morning of. You certainly wouldn't have offended me."  
  
"Maybe," Erik grins. "But I like making it." And it seems like he does mean make, not really fashion out of thin air, which is yet another departure from the Erik that Charles is familiar with. He strokes his fingertips along that flush, warmed by it in return. "Show me your Postures," he murmurs lowly, helping Charles to get to his feet, still standing incredibly close to him as if drawn by an invisible magnet.  
  
For some reason, that makes Charles grin. He goes, willingly, to his knees, still a bit sleepy, a bit uncoordinated, but when he looks up at Erik it’s with all of that mischief, wonder, and curiosity in his eyes, bright blue in the sunlight streaming in from Erik’s windows. “You do realize that I could these any way I pleased, and you wouldn’t have a clue if you needed to correct me,” he points out, but does Rest correctly, for once. He has to keep his Dominant on his toes, after all. "I forget them, you know. I wouldn't be to blame."

* * *

"I will know," he rumbles back sternly, giving Charles a firm tap on the nose. "What you call this? For us it is _menucha_. Like serenity."  
  
Charles has never heard that, because Erik has never told him, but it makes him smile, a soft turn of his lips. “Rest,” he murmurs back, but quite likes the word Erik just used, because it often makes him feel serene. Sometimes it takes a bit, sometimes he’s a bit too restless or out of sorts in the morning to want to go through his Postures, but he’s even worse when he doesn’t and the Erik from before knew that. He wonders how long it will take this Erik to catch on. “It’s called Rest. I knew it differently, and you taught it to me like this,” he adds, flushed again though he’s not certain why.  
  
Erik smiles back, too. "I like it," he whispers, brushing his fingertips over the back of Charles's hand. And he does. It's not because the Erik-of-before sanctioned it, or because of anything to do with those past memories, but simply because Erik, as he is now, has witnessed this and legitimately prefers it. "You know that... this is how I learn it, too, you know?" he admits, soft. And he doesn't know exactly, but somehow, that makes him feel better. Because he isn't entirely disconnected from himself. This is how he was taught, and it's how Erik taught him, too. "Show me more," he Commands, his voice strict as ever.  
  
So Charles does. He takes a breath and he obeys. He slips into his sets, waiting for Erik to guide him from one to the next the way he usually does, though sometimes he’s mostly left to his own devices; other mornings he’d found Erik kneeling right across from him, watching intently, and both somehow flipped his belly over in different ways. Now he finds himself slipping, sinking, eyelids heavy with it and breathing slower, his bottom lip caught between his teeth as he comes back to Rest. Comfortable in his submission; it’s what Erik said he wanted for him, but Charles still found that he struggled sometimes. This morning he does anything but fight it, because there’s no fighting it, somehow -- he’s gone under, deeply, truly under, and it’s written on every inch of his body, on the peaceful, nearly dreamy expression on his face. It's overwhelming, but calm, too. Serene.  
  
Erik shifts with him, minute movements, not even conscious at all, but telling; of his own state of harmony, of how every part of him longs to be in synchronous orbit with Charles. "Beautiful," he whispers, entirely unconscious. He huffs and shakes his head, apologetic. He hadn't meant it to slip out, but if Charles hears it, he won't apologize either. He gives him another tap to the nose, though. "No biting," he reminds, a low rumble in his chest. "And I know you did not lie, hm? You did not say well I did these and they are right. Because you do this for me. Because I tell you to. Is that right?"  
  
For his part, Charles looks incredibly dazed. Like he’s barely comprehending the words. He’s looked like this before, mostly in the beginning; like he isn’t exactly sure anything in the world exists besides Erik. He blinks slowly, as if he’s confused, as if he’s in some sort of trance, and it’s not the kind of mindlessness that Erik always feared, that he was always warned about if he exerted his Will, if he didn’t keep himself tightly coiled -- it’s something else, it’s always been something else, and perhaps now Erik doesn’t know better than to keep it coiled. Charles licks his lips unconsciously, but obediently keeps from biting. He’s never experienced this before, he’s certain of that. Everything feels slow and warm. “Yes, sir,” he breathes, and smiles softly, because Erik sounds pleased with him.  
  
And Erik is fascinated, his head tilting curiously as he shifts forward on his feet, and he touches Charles's face on either side, unable to help himself. He doesn't know what this *is*, not really. He's never experienced it for himself, he's entirely brand new, but it's magnificent. That's the only thing he can think. There's no reason to keep himself tightly coiled, not anymore, even if *he* had been taught those things-which to a certain extent he had. But he hadn't been taught to fear himself, not in that same visceral way. "Doing good?" he whispers, as if afraid to break the trance.  
  
It doesn’t break the trance. In the past, Erik has; because Charles has needed, and Erik has faltered, and it wasn’t his fault. It’s a tenuous, fragile thing, whatever this space is. Charles doesn’t understand it, either, and sometimes it’s frightening, strange, overwhelming. But it isn’t now. He blinks and leans into Erik’s hands, still smiling, every limb relaxed and every feature painted with that serenity. Pure, open submission, though there’s some shyness, too, unmarred by anxiety. “Yes, sir,” he whispers back, and he seems to be waiting for something, feels like it, though he isn’t sure what that is. Perhaps nothing. Everything feels so hazy.  
  
"Good," Erik grins at him, looking to be for once entirely at ease, as if this is exactly the place that Charles belongs and he's perfectly equipped to handle that. Because, for once, he is. He helps Charles raise to his feet. "And you take shower and then I teach you how to make breakfast," he gives a little wink. He can't help but feel a little proud of himself. He got Charles to this point, no one else. "And we will clean up everything downstairs and you can show what kind of projects you are working on for the house." He still doesn't really realize how big this place is. "...And maybe show me where my clothes are." Erik, on the other hand, doesn't seem like he's interested at all in taking a shower of his own.  
  
Something clicks in Charles’ brain. Everything is hazy, warm, and strange, but he can still think. He can still process. He’s not empty except for what Erik fills him with, which is always what Erik feared the most. What he was made to fear. He’s frowning when he grabs onto Erik’s shirt, though, giving a quick shake of his head. He looks uncomfortable with it.  
  
He doesn't fear it now, but his head does tilt in confusion when Charles grabs at him. "What is the matter?" he murmurs, settling his hand over Charles's. "Tell me about it."  
  
Charles grips tighter, visibly trying not to bite his lip. “Come with me?” he whispers, voice tight and quiet. “Please.”  
  
Erik loosens his grip, touching his face. "Of course I will come with you where you wish. But I ask question, I expect answer. What is wrong?"  
  
Charles seems to have some difficulty with that one. He sighs, clearly discomfited, pitches forward until he’s all but hidden in Erik’s chest, both hands clinging hard to his shirt now. He’s not upset, really; perhaps just overwhelmed, everything too hazy to really make sense of, slowed down in a way he just isn’t used to. “I’d like you to come with me, that’s all,” he whispers, almost too quiet and muffled to hear. He peeks up at Erik, blinking slow again. “Please?”  
  
Erik lets out a slow, soft exhale. "Come along," he murmurs, taking Charles's hand into his own and nudging him into the bathroom leading off of his own room, squinting up at the harsh lighting and making a face in the mirror. He sits down on the edge of the tub and tugs Charles forward. As long as Charles isn't uncomfortable than he isn't, even if something in here is clearly setting him on edge. With a wave of his hand, the water turns on, and he busies himself by retrieving some towels. "OK, then you-and I'll just, wait here?" his eyebrows arch.  
  
Charles is tempted to accept that. Erik is clearly uncomfortable, even if he doesn’t know why; to be perfectly honest, Charles doesn’t really know, either. But something tugs at him, something deep inside of him, and he shakes his head. He reaches for Erik’s hand. “With me, please,” he insists, imploring.  
  
Erik wrinkles up his nose. " _Beseder_ ," he grumps, scowling. But something far more interesting comes along and he tugs Charles's hands up over his head. "Off," he laughs, peeling him out of his shirt in a quick motion. And if he just focuses on this, he doesn't have to focus on anything else. Just the sound of the water, and his submissive.  
  
It’s fortunate, because Charles is solely focused on Erik. It’s written all over his face. If anything in the world exists besides his Dominant at the moment, Charles certainly doesn’t see it, notice it, or care for it. He gasps when his shirt is suddenly slipped over his head, flushed pink even though Erik, even this Erik, has seen him shirtless; he swallows. “Now you?” he asks, and peeks up a soft, shy smile.  
  
Erik's lips press together, but he nods, shucking off the white long-sleeved shirt he'd found folded on the bed last night in a hurried wrench. Unlike the Erik of before, who would have neatly placed it in the hamper, he kind of balls it up and throws it there, making a funny face by sticking out his tongue and screwing up his eyes. He unconsciously brushes his fingers over the gnarled roots of the scar that curls over his shoulder, and ends up concealing the movement by rubbing the back of his neck. "And probably too," he pokes the hem of Charles's pants. "Showering in pajamas, not very efficient."  
  
It makes plenty of practical sense. Charles doesn’t exactly fancy showering in his sweatpants, either. But for some reason he freezes up, not frightened but all of a sudden very shy, his cheeks bright red as he all but throws himself into Erik’s chest. It’s silly, and childish, and likely uncalled for -- logically, Erik has seen this before. It just feels brand new, everything does. Hazy, foggy, sensitive. “I could keep them on, sir,” he mumbles.  
  
Erik gives him a wink, though, and his sweatpants alter almost as if by magic into a shortened version of themselves, with waterproof material. Erik's eyes widen a little and he runs his fingertips along the outer edge. "I do not think I ever get used to that," he snorts to himself, shaking his head. "Better?"  
  
It startles Charles, too, enough that he jumps. Perhaps he’d worry about how if he had the mind to, or be frustrated by the implication here, but he finds he doesn’t actually have the capacity at the moment. Everything seems exceptionally slowed down and simplified. In the end, he bites his lip and nods, though there’s something almost reluctant about it. “Okay,” he whispers.  
  
Erik rolls his eyes and huffs. "No, not OK. Something is bothering you, so tell me now or we go right back out there and I ask you again in a less nice way. I am not fond of continue repeating myself."  
  
Charles whines at that, just a low, quiet noise of discontent. “I don’t know,” he admits, still muffled by Erik’s chest, and it’s true. He doesn’t really understand his own thoughts at the moment, or how to follow them. He doesn’t know what this pressure in his belly is, and never has, not since the first time he began to drop into this place. He just knows he wants to be close to Erik, to be guided by Erik, to be Dominated by Erik, that even thinking that in his own head makes him shiver. He shakes his head helplessly and clings harder.  
  
Erik's eyes narrow, but he runs his fingers down Charles's arms. "Come then," he murmurs, his voice a low vibration in his chest. "Come inside," he guides Charles across the lip of the tub and under the spray, which has turned out to be the ideal temperature, but the moment it splashes in Erik's face he lets out a loud yelp and shudders, halfway tripping over himself to get out of it and shaking his head like a wet dog. It causes Charles to get blasted in the eyes with water, which makes Erik throw up his hands and cover them both in an invisible shield, and he glares at Charles, breathing hard as though he's just run a marathon. Erik wraps his arms around Charles as if to protect him from the Evil Water. "This morning sucks!" he growls to himself.  
  
For some reason, Charles’ response to that is extreme, too. The water is off, whether by Erik’s direction or his, he doesn’t know, but it doesn’t matter. His chest feels all of a sudden tight, his breathing isn’t coming easy; he gasps to find another breath to suck in, his eyes wide as if he’s entirely uncertain what’s happening, what he’s even responding to, what to do. All he can do is stand there and shake, and he is shaking -- head to toe, wholly, truly trembling, even down to his fingers. He’s not cold, he doesn’t think. He’s not frightened, or at least he doesn’t feel like it. But he can’t breathe, and his chest hurts, and he grabs at Erik again like he’s a lifeline, startled and uncertain. The mirror above the sink all of a sudden shatters, and Charles jumps, gasps, winces, closing his eyes tightly.  
  
Erik is well and truly angry, but doing his best to tuck all of that deep down inside so it doesn't boil over. He curses lowly and shakes his head, absolutely finished with this ridiculous idea that he hadn't even wanted to do in the first place-finished with this morning, finished with this day, just done. All the thoughts in his head are on full volume, just a blast of rage and adrenaline that have no direction and no origin and no reason for existing, which just makes it worse, since it's obvious he's ruined everything else, of course he scared the _shit_ out of Charles for no reason, too. That's just perfect. He'd been holding a bar of soap which he throws petulantly at the wall and he settles his chin on Charles's shoulder, trying to calm down, and to calm Charles down, too, running his fingertips down his back.  
  
But it makes Charles yelp, and there’s real fear, there. He’s not entirely sure what triggers it, what causes it, what twists it in his mind -- everything is incomprehensible, at the moment. It was sluggish, pleasantly weighed-down; and suddenly it’s not. Suddenly he truly cannot breathe, his fingers grasping at his own throat like he can force breathing that way, his eyes popped open and staring wide-eyed, backed out of Erik’s arms and pressed against the wall like a frightened, spooked animal. He opens his mouth, and perhaps something was meant to come out, but all that does is panting, panicked gasps.  
  
Unfortunately, this Erik isn't as good at getting his emotions under control as he used to be, and it's hard for him to compartmentalize in the same way. "Charles-what are you doing over there?" he mumbles, blinking skeptically. "Come back here," he taps his foot. It's also a lot more Commanding than Charles had ever experienced from Erik whenever he's been in this state, usually Erik falls apart in rapid concession or becomes overly conciliatory, but the time for that has evidently passed.  
  
And Charles clearly doesn’t know what to do with that, either, his eyes wider as he stays firmly plastered against the shower wall. He seems to respond, if nothing else, and maybe to consider, but there’s still something wild and, frankly, spooked about him. His lips are pursed together, and he slowly shakes his head.  
  
"Charles. Get over here now," Erik repeats himself flatly and he grimaces down at his own feet, shaking his head and clumsily exiting the tub. "Come on. I don't want to be in here anymore. This is stupid. We're getting dressed. Now," he Orders when Charles still doesn't move, pointing to the spot in front of him expectantly.  
  
Charles blinks, looking honestly shocked when his body moves, when he climbs out of the tub and stands exactly where Erik pointed. It’s not that he hasn’t been Ordered before, he certainly has. It just feels all at once entirely different, and he’s forgotten his panic somewhere in the middle, startled and reeling and quite honestly uncomprehending. He looks dazed, now, as if completely unaware of his own surroundings, looking up at Erik. He’s waiting.  
  
Above anything else, that seems to be what calms Erik down the most. Charles levitates above broken glass to land in front of Erik and he holds out a dustpan and a broom pointedly. "If you can't repair, then you clean," he says, arching an eyebrow down at the bits of broken glass littering the floor. "I didn't break it. Even if that would have felt good." His lips twitch very slightly.  
  
Charles doesn’t really remember breaking it, either. Not in the moment and not now. It doesn’t matter, because as soon as the broom is in his hand he’s sweeping, almost as if he’s entirely unaware he’s even doing it. There’s no fight. There’s no argument. It’s not mindless, droning obedience; he seems to be calming down, taking slower breaths, coming back if anything. It’s just that he can’t imagine focusing on anything else except the task he’s been given, his shoulders still hunched, his breathing still uneven.  
  
Erik uses the opportunity to try and tuck away whatever remnants of negativity he's still feeling, which at least is recognizable. He does his best to synchronize his breathing to Charles's, leaning against him as he sweeps, coming back to himself, too. "I'm sorry," he murmurs after a while. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I didn't mean to upset. It won't happen again."  
  
But Charles’ nose wrinkles up and he shakes his head, stopping his task for just a moment to glance up at Erik. “You were frightened,” he whispers. He looks back down at the glass, mostly gathered and swept up. “I shouldn’t have asked you to join me. I’m sorry. I --” He doesn’t know why, but his chest is so unbearably tight again, his breath hitching dramatically. "I didn't mean to displease you," he gasps. "I just wanted to help."  
  
He shakes his head, curling his fingers around Charles's jaw. "You never displease me. I didn't-I should have said the truth. I just-" he looks away, breathing out harshly through his nose. "It just sounded stupid in my head, I just feel so stupid all the time. Every little thing, I thought it wouldn't matter. But you didn't do anything wrong. You are helping now."  
  
Charles shakes his head again, not meaning to be defiant. It’s just that he disagrees. Even with his jaw caught in Erik’s hand, he averts his eyes. “I thought if we did it now, you could…” It’s obvious what he thought. That without the memories of the trauma, Erik would fare better. He still could, but testing it right away, right now, probably wasn’t the smartest of plans. It’s just that Charles also couldn’t bear being alone, not even for a moment or two, without proper direction. He feels entirely like he’s going to fall off the face of the planet without Erik’s orbit, and he doesn’t know exactly how to express it. “I never know how to serve you properly,” he mumbles, and he sounds exactly how he feels; frustrated and distraught.  
  
"Well, because I am supposed to teach you, that's why," Erik shrugs, nonplussed; but it isn't intended to be dismissive. He's just trying not to disparage himself, something he knows wouldn't be helpful in this situation even if he does feel it. "And I did not tell you. And now I don't know. I feel backwards all the time. I feel angry all the time. And just so mad." He kicks the toilet with his foot for good measure. "I woke up and-and-" he shakes his head, again and again. "And it-it's stupid, it's _stupid_. I know it is. I just-and I don't know what happened. I'm scared of everything. I don't know what is wrong with me. Am I deranged? A crazy person?" No wonder he needed a reset. He just wishes that whatever lived in his body and the back of his brain, the dredges of his mind, would leave him be. Leave Charles be. Excise itself from their relationship, its grip on everything. Even to how Charles served him. It isn't right. It's not right. "I did you a disservice. I hurt you. How could you even trust me to be Dominant?"  
  
Charles is frowning, and he only seems more unsettled and upset the longer Erik talks. By the end of it he’s shaking his head, still refusing to look anywhere near his Dominant’s eyes. “I keep trying to serve you, and I keep...” Messing up. He feels completely out of his depth. He’d thought perhaps with the reset he could catch up, but apparently not, and right now it’s particularly heart-wrenching. “You haven’t hurt me. I’m just not a very good submissive,” he whispers. “Or I would learn. I would be better.” He sounds as thoroughly sullen as he feels.  
  
"Well I think you are very good." He catches Charles's eyes, a silent Command to stay. To look. "And I won't make the mistake he did. Even if I don't know anything. I will learn, too," Erik promises softly. "Nobody did anything wrong. When you start from scratch sometimes it isn't all smooth. But nothing is lost. I just wish-I wish I could be better, for you. I don't know what you think you need to do. But what you need to do is just what I tell you. That is all. Whatever the matter is wrong with me, I don't know. I'll-" he gestures roughly at himself, hitting himself in the chest. "Make it go away."  
  
And for some reason, it riles Charles right up. He clenches his teeth, balls up his fists, and takes harsh, sucking breaths. He’s trembling. “Stop it!” he demands, finally, and the pieces of glass all gathered up shatter even further, tiny little pieces spread out across the floor. “Stop it. Stop it,” and it seems physically painful for him to say it, his jaw as tight as his chest now.  
  
"I said you do not speak to me that way," Erik returns flatly, and gives Charles a sharp rap on the knuckles. "You don't. I won't let you. That is not how we talk to one another. Maybe I set a bad example. I don't know. But I won't. Now you calm down and take breath and clean the rest of this up, and tell me what is the matter. What you think you need to demand from me. Properly. You look at me and say."  
  
“I don’t like —“ Charles takes a harsh breath, and he’s not at all calmed. He’s tense, he’s riled, he’s agitated, his fists are still balled up and he looks very close to completely melting down. He’s barely breathing, he’s so thoroughly worked up. “I hate it when you speak like that. It upsets me,” he admits, his voice cracking.  
  
Erik sets his hands over Charles's, and instead of fighting back, or shutting down further, he squeezes. "OK, like what? I don't want to upset you, or speak bad. So tell me what. This," he gestures between them roughly. "It is two ways. You can't just throw around things too. So tell me what." It's obvious that this time, it's not on purpose. It's not intentional.  
  
“I don’t like you disparaging yourself,” and he takes a harsh breath, because sometimes he wonders if Erik is even comprehending half of what he says, or if their new language barrier is an issue. He can’t tell if his telepathy is working, if it’s translating, if any of it makes any sense. He doesn’t know. He’s trying to breathe and he’s struggling, his chest rising and falling, everything rapid and unsettling and closed-in. “I don’t like you saying there’s something wrong with you or that you’ll just make it go away. It won’t help you and it doesn’t help me. It just gets us back in circles.”  
  
"Well I don't like when you do either," Erik points out, softly. "You say you are a bad submissive and things, just because I-because things-" he gestures again, grimacing. Unsure how to communicate himself. "And you take blame, for my own things. I don't like either." He swallows roughly. "I'm sorry. I know it's-I do not want it to be my fault," he laughs a little, shaky. "I try hard to be a good person. What I remember, but everything gets so backwards inside. I feel twisted. I-I don't even recognize-" and he cuts himself off, shaking his head. Ashamed, self-pity. He knows it. He tries his best to work through it. "You probably understand better than anybody," he finishes, nudging closer to him.  
  
“I do understand,” he breathes, and it’s the truth. There are still mornings where he doesn’t recognize himself in the mirrors. Days where he aimlessly wanders the corridors of this place, touching the walls, and can’t possibly recall a single memory here. There have been nights where he’s wondered, for all his trust in Erik as their connection grew and budded, if he even belonged to this life at all, so disconnected and free-floating. He tries to breathe evenly again, to compose himself again. “But -- sometimes, it feels like…” He sucks in a breath and shakes his head. “When this happens,” and he gestures to himself, frustrated, as if he’s some sort of problem, “I can’t imagine not serving you properly. It isn’t your fault, but when you’re upset, it... and I don’t know how to fix it, and it hurts,” he admits, and lets the breath out again. “It frightens me. It gets so tight inside of me, and I can’t breathe, and I just struggle and struggle and the more I did, the more upset he got, and he said things like, well, I'm just awful, aren't I, and then --” Charles shakes his head again.  
  
For some reason, that makes Erik snort, and he covers his face, trying very hard not to laugh at the thought that's flashed across his mind. He only semi-succeeds. "Oh, no wonder," he rolls his eyes. "I sound like my mother. That's not so good." He chuckles a little under his breath, and impulsively leans forward to kiss Charles's forehead, and folds his fingers over Charles's. "But I imagine he never meant to give you all this responsibility about his feelings. I don't. And I'm not try to be like, wow, I'm so terrible. But what I see-what you tell me-whether it was intentional or not, it obviously harmed you. You don't know anything! I never took it upon myself to teach you the most basic of things about myself! How could anyone, you, expect you to be a perfect submissive and be what I need. I never told you. I never really seemed to expect anything from you. You said I never even Ordered you to do stuff! It's not good, and it's not right. And I'm not here to feel miserable about it. I want you to know that I am not going to keep that way."  
  
Charles bites his lip, because someone who looked very much like Erik and yet nothing at all like him told him something similar not too long ago. There’s guilt along with some of his eased nerves, but he can’t help it. “I’m just supposed to know, aren’t I?” he whispers, but it sounds absurd even to his own ears. “I think I just knew before. I could read your mind. I can’t, now,” and he sounds miserable about it, guilty about it. He feels horribly inadequate. “Sometimes. Not often, and not enough. But I don’t know what he, what you want from me —“ And it’s frustrated, yes, but mostly it’s devastated. It’s cutting him up inside, and he makes a stuttered, pitiful gasping noise again, grasping at his own middle like he’s in physical pain.  
  
"I can't speak for him." Erik shrugs, lips pressed together. "But I want you to be my submissive. I don't know if you knew before, I don't know. I only met you today. And if I'm this messed up, I guess I just need you to help me. I don't know how. I'm not a doctor, I don't know how. Just be with me, like you were this morning. It helps me. But I am telling you what to do, what I expect, aren't I? How you speak to me, how you interact with me, what you do. You really don't know any little thing at all? I don't think that is true."


	128. Battle stations are now navigation, have we driven love to this

“I didn’t say I know nothing,” Charles sighs, and tries not to sound as frustrated and upset as he feels. He’s staring down at the floor, at the shattered glass, and not at Erik. “But I feel like I know next to nothing. I don’t know how to act. I don’t know what’s right. I feel constantly confused,” he admits quietly, letting it out as another sigh. “And it’s horribly frustrating for me, if you’d like me to be honest.”  
  
"I can see," Erik murmurs softly. "You don't feel bad about that. It's natural. I was supposed to bridge that gap and help. If I was-if I was anything as I am now, I know it was not meant. It was not to hurt. But it anyway, inadvertently did. And I want to try and fix. I don't know how, too. I feel frustrated too, I missed so many things," he gestures with his hands, but not emphatically. "And if I don't make it go away, all these problems, then you have to deal, and believe it is your fault and can't help. I don't want that, too. I will try not to hide. I have been trying not to, even if I think I am stupid, sometimes," he smiles ruefully. "Maybe he wasn't comfortable being Dominant. Telling you things, how to be, what he expect. But I-I don't feel that. I'm not afraid of it. I just know-I don't know sometimes."  
  
It makes Charles look up, finally, still biting insistently on his lip. “Please don’t call yourself stupid,” he implores, and it’s much softer than before. He doesn’t raise his voice or clench his teeth. “You aren’t. You never have been. If anything —“ But self-deprecation has gotten them nowhere, so Charles shakes his head and takes another slow breath, trying to fight through the clenching in his chest and belly. It’s uncomfortable, but not altogether unbearable, now, which seems like progress. “You said you’d train me,” he whispers, finally, and doesn’t know why his heart is beating so hard.  
  
"Yes," Erik whispers back, tucking a strand of hair behind Charles's ear. "Sometimes I might not know what that all means, but I want to. You deserve and I-feel inside me-I want to. You don't know, maybe. I don't know anything," he laughs a little, rubbing his hand against the back of his neck, tracing along the scars that wind there. He bites his tongue between his lips and settles, hands back on his lap. "I never learned about real Dominance, I didn't go to school for it. I only just began to learn a little. So I'm shaky. Please do not ever think it is because you are bad. That is untrue. When you don't know, I will tell you. Even if it is just one foot in front of the other."  
  
It sounds more than fair. Actually, it makes Charles laugh, for some reason, his shoulders shaking with it before he can bite it back. It all wells up in quiet little giggles until he’s well and truly lost to a fit of them, grabbing at Erik’s arm as if he needs help steadying himself. “I’m sorry,” he gasps. “It’s just — it’s absurd, isn’t it? We’re both stuck in this massive house, not a clue of how to do this, no idea really of who we are, practically strangers, and we’re meant to make it work. And what’s really mad is that...” He thinks they can, at the end of it, or at least wants desperately for it to happen. “I want you to train me, and I wanted it before, and I don’t know what that means, and neither do you. Perhaps we should ask you, he might know,” and it’s meant to be a joke, but the fact that it’s at least somewhat of a possibility is mad, too.  
  
Erik blinks. "Me?" his head tilts. There's absolutely no comprehension there, none at all, because the possibility makes absolutely zero sense to him and wouldn't even be on the top ten list of things he would consider it meant. Not even on the top thousand. He laughs a bit with Charles, thinking perhaps it's just the language barrier, and Charles is making a little joke and he doesn't quite get it. But Charles is laughing, and that is something he's imminently drawn to. He pets down Charles's arm, leaning against him as he's always done. "It is a little absurd," he agrees in a huff. It is absurd. But he has so much faith, so much confidence that somehow, someway, he will make it work. There's so much determination there it practically soaks the room. "You are right. I don't really know. But I will know. Somehow. I will learn. I won't make the same mistake. I won't."  
  
Charles grins and ducks his head, almost embarrassed. “I’m not certain how,” he begins, because he never is, “But I... somehow, I can speak to other versions of you. From different realities, or something like it.” He reaches up and taps his own temple, promptly wincing in the aftermath, his nose thoroughly scrunched up. “See? Mad. It all is.”  
  
Erik blinks again, though, his brows furrowing in a crease at the center of his forehead. "Another version?" he whispers, stroking his fingertips down Charles's temple gently; barely a graze. "A little mad," he concedes softly, but-"They can help? Help me? Help-? Us?"  
  
Charles flinches away from the touch even so, but leans into it just a moment later, as if willing to overlook the tenderness. “I don’t know,” he admits quietly, biting at his lip again. “They might. I imagine it would depend. I’m not sure I can do it on command, but...” He’ll try, goes unspoken. If Erik wishes it, he’ll try. He seems hopeful, almost, that he’ll ask.  
  
And Erik leans forward to press his lips against Charles's brow, as if he can't stop himself, and he leans back a moment later, an apologetic look on his face. He doesn't mean to intrude boundaries. It just lives inside of him. Inside of his body. "But you could? If-at some point?" his eyebrows raise. "I think-I could use all the help I can get," he laughs, smiling softly.  
  
It’s fairly safe to say Charles doesn’t mind, if the way he leans closer means anything, if the soft little noise that escapes his throat before he can swallow it down means anything. “I could try,” he whispers, and he sounds eager; it’s obvious why. He wants to help. He wants, right now more than ever, to serve. “Would you like that?”  
  
Erik nods, bracing both of his hands across Charles's face. If there is another version of himself out there-maybe that's the best person to tell him, tell him what he's missed. Help him bridge those gaps. Or at least fill in a little bit of what he's lost. "Yes," he croaks softly, eyes crinkled with affection.  
  
“We should probably be sitting,” Charles points out, because it certainly hasn’t made him feel stable when he’s tried it in the past, if try is the right word here. Actually, it’s made him dizzy, sleepy, sick; probably not the best for standing in the bathroom, especially considering the circumstances. “It’s a little like falling asleep. And it’s not precise, so...” He’s not sure, exactly, what they’re going to get. Results may vary. “And usually we seem to be separated,” he adds, biting his lip harder. It seems like an important fact to add.  
  
Erik seems to be almost vibrating with intention and he leans forward, touching both sides of Charles's face. "I won't let us," he whispers. He never could but it's a silly statement since he isn't really responsible at all, but it's very typical Erik.  
  
Charles can’t help but laugh, not at Erik, but at how every version of him, memories or otherwise, shares this intensity. He shakes his head. “Not permanently,” he corrects, because it occurs to him Erik likely has no conception of inter-dimensional travel. He certainly doesn’t. “But usually, I end up drawn to — well, you,” he whispers sheepishly, his head ducked. “And for you it seems the opposite.”  
  
"I draw to you," Erik nods in at least partial understanding. "You can make so that we can both talk? Or we will be separate the whole time? Do I talk to myself?" his eyebrows are climbing so high they're nearly obscured by the curls framing his hairline.  
  
“Absurd,” Charles reminds, laughing a little again despite himself. He can’t help curling into Erik, as if drawn to him right now. “I don’t know. We might be split up. I might find myself with... well, other you, while you end up with other me. That’s always what’s happened in the past.” It’s mostly mumbled into Erik’s chest at this point, his arms around Erik’s middle. “But perhaps we can go together. I’d like that.”  
  
"Me too," Erik whispers back. It seems the most viable option; they're here to lean. Not just themselves, but themselves with one another. He hopes that they will be together, but if they do get separated, Erik can't help the curiosity over a different Charles. But that pales in comparison to his devotion to the Charles before him, and his determination to do anything to get back to him even if it meant ripping a hole in the Universe itself. He wraps both arms around Charles and runs his fingers through his hair, his breathing gradually calming under the contact.  
  
The contact calms Charles, too, even as a different kind of anxiety takes hold of him. He really, truly hasn’t a clue how this works, only how it has. It’s best guess. “We should probably... the bed, maybe?” he mumbles into Erik. “Like I said, it’s like falling asleep. I’d rather not do that here.” He’s nervous, and it’s showing, fidgeting and biting his lip. In the past, maybe he wouldn’t have said anything until Erik prodded. Now he whispers, barely audible, “I don’t want to fail you. I want to please you,” almost like it’s a revelation.  
  
"You could never fail me," Erik promises him softly. He leads them up off the floor, after those glass shards are swept away into the dustbin of course, because he *doesn't* let that go-giving Charles's nose a tap of approval when he does so on his own. "All I ask is try your best. When I know that, I am pleased."  
  
Not standing on shaky feet makes Charles feel a bit better, even just changing into dry clothes (outside of Erik’s view, despite wanting the opposite, but he’s certainly not going to share that unless Erik prompts in some way). He’d like to help Erik dress, but doesn’t, waiting quietly on the bed, legs dangling as he takes slow, calming breaths. “I don’t know if it will work,” he warns again, quietly, clearly in his head about it. Erik might not consider him having failed, but there’s something about the idea of it that obviously upsets him.  
  
This Erik seems to have quite a few more compunctions about dressing and being, well, nude-than the other Erik does, seeing as he's still basically wearing soaked pajama pants. He wilts sheepishly and shucks them down, grabbing some boxers from the dresser before taking Charles's hands and guiding him to help him pick out a shirt. Frankly he just doesn't seem comfortable in his own skin, hunched at the shoulders, but he let's Charles help him regardless. "This one?" He holds up the shirt.  
  
Charles seems a bit dazed again, perhaps for a different reason now. He nods, offering up a soft, small smile, his leg bouncing against the bed where he’s crossed his legs. His fingers are grasping tightly to the sheets, his body tensed up. “I don’t know if it will work,” he whispers again, as if he doesn’t realize he has.  
  
Erik just laughs quietly. "I know," he smiles and sits back down beside Charles after struggling to put the shirt on, and get his arms through the holes, a process that frustrates him rather immediately. It's painstaking, one of the reasons Charles had in fact helped him in the first place beyond mere servitude. He growls with his head still stuck in the hole.  
  
But the servitude part helps, and Charles absolutely can’t watch it happening without feeling like he’s being ripped inside out. A noise comes out of his own throat before he can stop it, and then he’s jumping up from the bed. He flutters anxiously near Erik, almost as if he’s afraid he’ll be swatted back, and then takes a breath and moves forward to do what he wants desperately to: to serve. It’s everything he knows is inside of him but pushes down, and down, and down; frightened, concerned, uncertain. And maybe that’s why they need some help. "Here, sir," he whispers, and the titles slips out before he can stop it, even though he bites his lip as if he can choke it back down.  
  
Charles can't see Erik tilt his head or arch his eyebrow, but he feels when Charles puts his hand over his arm and slowly helps him ease his fingers through the whole, gently assisting him to straighten it and hold it in place where he can't, even as stiff and unnatural as it is. When he reappears, he reaches forward and tugs Charles toward him, wrapping him up in a hug. The more Charles does serve him, acknowledge him, the less frayed his temper feels, soothed. "Thank you," he whispers, soft. Quite a lot embarrassed, but grateful, too. "I never have these problems," he mutters, shaking his head. "I used to be-" he doesn't continue that train of thought. "Ah, nevermind. Shall we?" he gestures to the bed again.  
  
It calms Charles, too. Being let serve him. Encouraged to. It soothes places he doesn’t always need soothed, and he takes an even breath and nods, folding himself beside Erik on the bed. If he’s honest, he wants something else, but expressing those things seems rather impossible for him. He doesn’t want to ask, anyway, and it’s a strange thing to recognize. “I don’t know how it works, exactly,” he admits, laughing quietly. “I -- I suppose if I just concentrate…” But he’s having a hard time with that, evidently, squirming around on the bed.  
  
Erik shakes his head though, and looks at Charles, touching his knee. There's pressure there, trapping him underneath a deceptively strong hand. "What do you want to ask? I can tell. Ask me," he Orders, gruff, but not because he's displeased. More because he can feel the surge of Dominance rising inside of him like the swell of an enormous wave cracking over luminous city-scapes. Terrifying and unavoidable, metal floating inside water.  
  
The opposite rises up in Charles, just as it always does, swelling up inside of him until it’s that unavoidable, near frightening pressure in his belly. “I just…” He fidgets some more, sighing out a breath and trying again. He’s staring down at his feet, dangling off the bed. “It feels strange to sit like this,” he admits quietly. It always does. He feels like he should be kneeling, or at the very least in some sort of position where Erik has obvious Dominance over him. In his arms is fine, but this has always felt strange to him, and he’s always wondered if there’s something wrong with that. When he and Erik sat on the couch beside each other to watch a film, it always struck him as wrong, but he couldn’t mention that. He couldn’t bring it up. If Erik didn’t ask, he’d just assumed there was something strange about it.  
  
"Oh!" Erik laughs again, all of a sudden, and then seems to grow quiet-a little distant, even. "You know, it did not even occur," he taps his temple. "There is so much I don't even think to ask. But when you tell me, it is like a light goes off. Of course you should kneel for me. You always should. I-" he always wants it, too. "And you should," he rumbles, and all of the hesitance and frustration are melted away, replaced by pure conviction that shakes all the air molecules in their present space. Vibrating chords like wind-chimes.  
  
Charles feels like something near immediately releases inside of him. Whatever tension he’d been holding, whatever worry, whatever concern, it just melts right away. Perhaps it’s not that either Erik didn’t want or need things, perhaps it’s that there was a block there, whether that’s trauma or memory. But they’re getting help, aren’t they? Charles settles neatly onto his knees, puts himself into Rest, and takes a long breath. They’re doing this for a reason, and he’s going to help Erik in a way he can’t do himself. It all calms him down significantly, until there’s even a soft little smile on his face, his eyes closed so he can concentrate. He needs to concentrate, even if he hasn’t any idea what he’s doing.  
  
It always has been that way, even though Erik could never verbalize it, could never admit it. It never was because he was too noble to need anything. It may have simply been that the process of doing so, was too mired in memories at all to break lift-off. This Erik does not have those same compunctions, winding his fingers through Charles's hair and letting him rest his head against his knee, the picturesque constant of a Dominant and his submissive. "Just try your best," he rumbles lowly. "And I know if you don't. So you try." He gives Charles's hair a little yank for good measure, smirking to himself. This Erik is also a great deal more forward about being strict.  
  
There are very few instances where Charles doesn’t try to please Erik. Sometimes it’s frustration or embarrassment holding him back, but in this moment there’s none of that. The yank to his hair makes him sigh, a low, pleased noise, the attention exactly what he needs to focus himself. He blooms under that strictness, and when he let himself, he always has. His eyes stay closed, but his breathing evens out even more. The room is humming with something; with energy, with potential, with power. For a long time there’s nothing but Charles’ slow breathing and that faint, dull humming, until all at once - “Oh,” Charles gasps, and when his eyes snap open they’re that strange, impossible blue, glowing even in the light of morning. They fall closed a moment later, Charles slumping forward onto Erik’s knee.  
  
Um Erik has no idea what to do and like shakes him by the shoulder, a little wild and panicked to be quite honest as he's always gotten when Charles has randomly passed out on him. "Awake? Wake up? _Wake up_ ," he insists softer, evidently frightened.  
  
He’s not passed out. Yet. But he’s far away, or perhaps more accurately he’s in two places at once. Maybe it’s just that he’s everywhere. Charles makes a quiet, almost inaudible noise from against Erik’s leg, still breathing, still somewhat coherent. “Falling asleep,” he mumbles, and it’s slurred, slow, fading. He’s tugging Erik along with him, slowly. To somewhere else. “S’alright. S’okay,” he promises, still breathing shallowly. He’s not hurting, and neither is Erik. They’re just falling asleep.  
  
Erik finds himself utterly unable to resist as his eyes flutter closed and he ends up somewhat slumped next to Charles as well, falling and falling. Deeper and deeper into the unknown and unable to hide the pure apprehension that follows it- but hope, too. So much hope.

* * *

Charles doesn’t remember falling asleep, exactly. He doesn’t remember anything, actually, everything disoriented and strange and foggy, tugged in and then tugged out. He doesn’t know where he is when his eyes flutter open again, except that he’s got a seething headache. Charles hisses, grabbing for his head immediately, rubbing at sore, throbbing temples; it’s sensitive. Everything is too sensitive, the world not reformed yet, nothing solid or stable quite yet. He does know he’s somewhere else, but perhaps it’ll have to wait until he can think straight.  
  
Erik grimaces himself, his mind uncompartmentalized and hazy in the absence of the other Erik's massive metal internal structures. He feels as though he is on a tilt-a-whirl, his lungs twisting around his heart in a hot dizzying nausea. "Charles," he rasps lowly when he can speak again, eyes darting around. His hand goes for Charles's shoulder instinctively, sensing pain. "Where are we?" His eyes are wide as saucers.  
  
“Mmmm,” is Charles’ intelligent response to that, still completely unable to form coherent thoughts. It’s dizzying, disorienting, he still can’t open his eyes and the pounding, pulsing headache he has is just about killing him. He takes harsh, almost panting breaths, fairly certain if he sits up he’ll just be sick. Violently, even. “I don’t know,” he stumbles out, somehow, but even to his own ears it sounds garbled. He’s not entirely sure of anything at the moment, everything consumed by swirling, chaotic disorientation.  
  
Erik has zero idea how to help with that, or how to help at all, and he's just clinging to Charles while a dark void surges around them, feeling his own power crackle underneath his skin and through every nerve point in response as if riled up. He doesn't know if they even are where they're supposed to be, or stuck in between, but he tries to look around and get a view of things, and his eyes squint when he notices something in the distance. It's the manor, but-"Different," he says wondrously. It's different even when it's not; not really. Leaves crunch underfoot, the sound disappearing into the black.  
  
Eventually, Charles opens his eyes and looks, too. Everything is lightly disorienting, and he’s visibly woozy; he stumbles on his feet, grabbing onto Erik as if he can’t support his own weight. He doesn’t feel real, precisely, and it’s a dizzying thing to recognize, as if the world isn’t quite formed yet and he’s the one responsible for forming it. “Different,” he agrees, still trying to ground himself. “Shall we?” he asks, trying to muster a weak smile.  
  
Erik helps him stand as best as possible. There's a path that leads forward, and it's all Erik can think to do to set them upon it. "We shall," he huffs lowly, a soft rumble in his chest as he wraps his arm around Charles's waist to help him regain his balance. "It is the manor," he marvels. "But-" but not. It's different, somehow. The light is different. The sounds.  
  
Charles is having a difficult time focusing, but he moves with Erik, plastered to his side because he’s quite sure he’ll fall otherwise. It’s not that the world around them isn’t real, he’s coming to realize. It’s that he isn’t. He doesn’t belong in it. The Erik beside him doesn’t, either. “You may have to carry me,” he laughs, only half joking, because his temples are exploding with pressure. With pain, even, the sensation wholly uncomfortable. Whatever he’s done, he’s never done it this way before, and that Erik is right beside him is proof enough.  
  
Charles finds that no sooner than he says it than he's swept off of his feet, cradled bridal-style in Erik's arms with a particularly cheeky Erik grinning down at him. "I have got you," he promises solemnly. He brushes Charles's hair from his face. "How do I help? What could I do?" He grimaces, tense, but he doesn't quite know why he has such a flinching reservation to _All Of This_.  
  
Charles yelps as he’s lifted, more of a startled squeak than anything, but he’s quick to shake his head. It doesn’t help the migraine, or the dizziness, but fortunately he doesn’t have to worry about standing anymore. His arms wind themselves around Erik’s neck, nestled in closer before he can think to stop himself. “I’m alright,” he promises quietly, that same weak smile pressed into Erik’s shoulder. “Don’t fret. It just hasn’t settled yet, that’s all. We should hurry, though.” With whatever it is they need to see hear, to learn, to experience. “I’m not sure how long we have.”  
  
But of course, Erik can't help but fret, in any incarnation and this Erik is no different. He moves forward, a permanent frown on his features making him nearly reminiscent of the Erik that Charles clearly remembers, etching lines across his face. He carries them through the metal gate, which parts easily for them, and up the steps; noting the ramp, curiously enough, before shrugging and pressing his finger to the doorbell.  
  
Of course Erik is fretting, and perhaps there actually is a reason to. Charles is fading in his arms a bit, clinging as tightly as he can as the world screeches, halts, start-stops. For some reason, it’s not cementing now. Everything is nauseatingly in flux, the Void pressing in and then pressing out, making him dizzy in the in-between. “Hurry,” he repeats, into Erik’s neck as he nuzzles closer, unable to think rationally about embarrassment, or any other reason why he shouldn’t.  
  
Erik just keeps frowning. "We should return," he finally says. "This is not good. You are in pain." His lips press together, but the door is already opening, and Erik can't help the way his focus turns to the gentleman who answers.

* * *

Looming over the both of them, wearing a black sweater and matching pants that highlight stern features framed by greying hair, and sharp, vivid green eyes. It's unmistakable, the resemblance, despite the fact that this man is clearly much older. "You have returned," he murmurs fondly down at Charles, opening the door all the way. "Come inside, please."  
  
It’s not exactly up to Charles to step inside, but he does smile, his eyes lighting up with recognition, pitching forward in Erik’s arms to better look at the man who opened the door for them. Erik, actually. Just a very different Erik. His temples are still exploding, pulsing, but somehow this helps. “You told me I could,” he whispers, nearly shy, and tugs at Erik’s shirt. “I think I can stand.” It might be overestimating his own ability, considering how dizzy he still is.  
  
"I did indeed," the older man murmurs lowly, his voice a warm welcome as he ushers them to come through, and he guides Charles to the couch as if practiced a million times, bringing over a warm cloth for him before settling down. "Try this," he encourages the younger to press it against his temples, gentle and soft. "And I see you have brought a visitor," he regards this newest addition curiously, who just stares.  
  
"You-" the younger's eyebrows are practically disappeared into his hair. "-me?"  
  
"Indeed I am."  
  
Charles can’t help but barely stifle a laugh, even as it makes him wince. He gratefully presses the cloth to his temple, sighing and slumping at the warmth. It’s not much of a relief, but it’s something, and the world is beginning to reform itself, to make sense, to exist less in the In-Between. The Void doesn’t seem to be pressing up against him constantly, at the very least. “Absurd,” he mutters, because it truly is, and then regards this Older-Erik with what’s ostensibly a shy smile, curled up on the couch he’s been guided to. He isn’t certain what it is that makes him feel that way around him, and it isn’t that his Erik doesn’t inspire it; there’s just something here, something different. Something he responds to. Perhaps it's just the difference in age. “We need your help,” he whispers.  
  
The Older-Erik sits down next to Charles, lowering himself with all the grace and agility of his younger counterpart, untempered by age. "Then you have it," he returns simply, without question. His eyebrows knit together at the sight of the younger version of himself, a curious sensation to say the least-he never remembers being quite so young, but his eyes catch on something and he glowers fiercely, lips pressed together in disapproval. He doesn't say a word about it; it's not his place. These two come from a very different life. "What can I do for you both?" is what he says instead, offering his hand palm-up.  
  
Even if he doesn’t say it, Charles catches it. His own lips press together, and not for the first time he finds himself incredibly frustrated that his telepathy isn’t functioning the way it should. The ability to easily and discreetly pick this Erik’s brain would not go unappreciated in this moment. “Is there something wrong?” he asks instead, quietly, watching carefully for the reaction. Telepathy or otherwise, Charles is naturally intuitive, and more than that, he likes to think he’s becoming something of an expert in all things Erik. Still entirely too novice, but he’s been practicing, and every change only strengthens his resolve. It distracts from the question, too; his cheeks go red, and he realizes he has no idea how to ask for what they both seem to need. “We… there are questions,” he breathes, knowing it’s not even close to adequately explaining their reasoning behind crossing universes for this. "We thought you might have answers for us."  
  
This is a new era. He doesn't burden Charles with his internal machinations; it's hardly relevant. "I am at your disposal, Charles, -Erik," he adds, and this time his frown is just-peculiar. Amused, even. It's not often one speaks to one's own self, even if that person isn't precisely the same. "By all means, I will do my best to provide them."  
  
Except that means that, first and foremost, Charles has to ask the questions. He glances over at his Erik -- the one he’s brought along with him --- for help, suddenly feeling extremely… well, perhaps the proper word is still shy. It’s such an odd thing to feel, but he can’t help the way it comes over him, a sudden twisting of it in his stomach, fluttering away. This Erik is experienced. He’s confident. Everything about his Dominance is assumed, practiced, cultivated. He bites at his lip and fidgets with the cloth in his hands, humming though it echoes awfully in his head, worthy of another wince. “He doesn’t remember,” he murmurs, for some reason speaking for Erik, and not looking at either of them in the aftermath. He’s not sure if he should, but he’s not being given another option, it doesn’t seem like. “Which leaves us both rather… well, clueless isn’t exactly right, but you get the idea,” he huffs, lips quirking just slightly.  
  
It makes him smile, all of a sudden, barking a laugh. "That would appear to put you both in quite a predicament," he replies warmly. The whole situation is a little absurd, but over the years he's learned to take the zany in stride.  
  
"I remember some things," Erik adds, quite unable to cease staring. "Just not-" his nose wrinkles. "I am not educated, you know. Like with-with Dominance," he says, and it's not with embarrassment at all, but it is inexperienced, and that much has never been made more evident until faced with the epitome of otherwise. There are so many questions he has all of a sudden, and none of them seem quite right.  
  
The other takes the cloth from Charles's hand, purely presumptuous, and presses it carefully to his temple. "I see," he starts, thoughtful. "Well, Dominance itself in the manner which applies to us-" he gestures between them. "Is something which sounds complicated, but isn't. Plenty of individuals who know nothing have written treatises on the subject, but the truth is rather simple."  
  
"The truth?" Erik blinks.  
  
"The truth. Your instincts. What you want, what you need. Does that make sense?" His head tilts down at Charles.  
  
Charles has heard several times over that it’s exceptionally simple. That it should take no real thought at all, and that, in fact, he should probably just know. Perhaps he’s even heard that from an Erik who didn’t know to expect otherwise. It makes him bite on his lip, and then, absurdly, look between the two Eriks, considering, before he shakes his head. He isn’t the one Older-Erik is speaking to, but it doesn’t quite matter to him. “No,” he mutters. “Sorry, but no. Or wouldn’t we have figured it out yet?” It’s clear he doesn’t think he has, already frustrated by the thought. He grabs for the cloth Erik’s put to his temple without thinking, feeling suddenly too warm and damp.  
  
The older man just looks on him with patience. "There are a great many things that can be taught in a classroom, _kochanie_ , but you are not uneducated. Maybe you do not know Postures or ceremonies-inconsequential. You will learn. And if that is why you came here I am happy to teach you." He gives a slight smile. "But it is as simple as doing what you want."  
  
"What if that's wrong?" Erik can't help but ask. "Or I want the wrong thing."  
  
"It is simple but I daren't say it is easy, Erik. I was not educated either, but I managed."  
  
"How?"  
  
"I did what my instincts told me to do. I saw what I wanted and I did it. Even when it was hard. Or impossible."  
  
"That makes _no sense_ ," Erik grumps. "You speak riddles. We came for answers, not that." A flare of pure Will rises up, hackles arched.  
  
That makes Charles laugh. It’s a bubbled up little giggle, really, and he takes his hand to cup it over his mouth and stifle it even though it doesn’t work. When he gets an idea, it flashes right across his face, lights up his eyes as clear as anything even around the discomfort he’s still experiencing. “Hush,” he demands, of his Erik or the older one, it’s unclear. Perhaps both. His hand hides his grin.  
  
Erik gives him an almighty glower while the other looks on in what can only be described as fond amusement. He pokes Charles right in the nose. "You tell me?" he murmurs, dangerously close to something even in this casual setting. It's frankly different to how he's ever acted before where he'd ordinarily laugh it off in stride.  
  
"It seems you have the basics," the other man smirks.  
  
"Quiet, you."  
  
Charles isn’t sure which reaction is strongest; the urge to laugh some more, to giggle, the absurdity and the nerves getting to him, or the urge to shiver. Either way he does, his eyes widened slightly as Erik pokes him. The books spoke about this, frankly. About how a submissive might be handled in a public setting, not that this is usual. It occurs to him that both these men are, even if they aren’t technically, his Dominant. In theory, he should never be more taken care of. He’s not sure what instinct he’s following here, but he lowers his hand and smirks. “Yes,” he says, even as his voice sounds breathy, his heart racing. “I didn’t stutter, Erik. Hush.” It’s smug.  
  
"You did not," Erik agrees lowly, dangerously.  
  
His hand snakes up to Charles's chin, gripping it between long fingers as even the older has straightened up in the face of what _he_ perceives to be absolute insubordination; something he could never tolerate from his own Charles, who could be surly and caustic at the best of times let alone when he felt rebellious.  
  
"You say _what I want_ ," Erik breathes out harshly, his other hand dug into his pant leg, crimping the fabric harshly against his nails.  
  
The other merely nods. "So what will you do?"  
  
Erik doesn't mean to falter; and he isn't. Not really, but it's hitting him more suddenly and more forcefully than he's ever truly experienced in his life and it feels like he's toppling headfirst over a roller coaster as the world screams around him. "I say you don't Order me," he rumbles like a sleeping dragon awoke. Maybe it's the combination of two D5s in one spot; everything is utterly ramped up. Erik leads Charles to get to his feet, rising alongside him and glaring down at him. "And address me right. What _I_ want? You should be in your place. Now. Who you are when you are with us?" He almost bares his teeth. "Kneel."  
  
The floor drops out from underneath him and the world falls out. Charles gasps and he swears the entire manor shakes with it, trembles, shudders; he does, too, shaking as he falls to his knees, legs knocking together in the process as if his body couldn’t possibly obey the Order fast enough. It isn’t a subtle slip into subspace, it isn’t a slow sinking. It’s immediate, sudden, the most intense thing he’s ever felt, all the oxygen gone, chest and belly clenched, eyes wide, a tremor through his whole body and especially in his fingers when he struggles to get into proper Rest. But somehow, somehow, because he’s Charles, because he’s an S1, because he’s the perfect match - “How would I have known, sir?” he challenges.  
  
Erik growls, and it isn't even conscious at this point. He grips Charles's throat in hand, glaring down at him. "Because I say," he whispers fiercely, struggling to contain the vibrating tremors pulsing through his nervous system. He can't help but glance at the older version of himself, who seems to be watching with no small measure of curiosity. Erik can't help it, either-"What would you have done?" he whispers. "At this-right now? What you do?" Because there are too many possibilities scattering his thoughts and he can barely breathe.  
  
"Oh, me?" The older one laughs, almost darkly. "I would have taken him over my knee." He gives a slight shrug, as if he's merely commenting on the weather. "What do you think?" he asks Charles, sitting back into the couch with all the casual poise in the world.  
  
And Erik can barely think. "-now? In-you would?" he asks, because-it hasn't occurred to him. That he could. And now it has.  
  
Charles pales. He goes white as a sheet, his eyes wide again, the tremble back to his body. Even the idea of being turned over Erik’s knee in front of this older Erik is enough to work him up, pulse racing, stomach twisting and dropping. “No,” he whispers, voice breaking, and his entire tune has obviously changed. “I didn’t mean it. No, I don’t — I’ll behave,” he swears. “You don’t have to do that.”  
  
"You always say, you don't mean, you are sorry," Erik grips his hair in hand and jerks his chin up so that he has no choice but to look. "I don't believe you. If you really meant that, you would not be only sorry when I threatened you." Erik didn't, really, but it's so incredibly obvious that the idea has planted itself in his mind that he may as well have. He swallows, though, rough around the lump that's formed in his throat, feeling his mouth go entirely too dry. There has to be something wrong with him. Something he should ask this version of himself about, but he's too-but he can't, not in front of Charles. Without memories, how could he know the difference?  
  
Charles isn't the only one who has the opportunity to learn new things, to learn different ways of interpreting his submission. Erik has now been placed in the same situation, of not knowing any better. It's just easier to wonder-when you're the only one of your kind. Now he's almost too afraid to ask even if Charles weren't here; and besides, there's no guarantee that the older version of himself would have the answer. He obviously has led a different life, right?  
  
"If something is on your mind," the man interrupts his internal spiral when he stands there for longer than strictly necessary. It's difficult to imagine anyone, let alone the students under his tutelage or, hell, a mail man, for G-d's sake, ever standing up to him. Even a fellow D5. One with less experience, less confidence, less trust in himself.  
  
"I'm not-" he doesn't know how to say it. "There is nothing-wrong with me? Like you have to fix?"  
  
" _Wrong_ with you? Don't be foolish." He gives Charles a look that says he sees what he meant, by his last visit. "There is nothing wrong with enjoying yourself. I'd think Charles would learn the lesson a good deal better that there is little wrong with him if we stopped couching our natural inclinations as something to be ashamed of. Which goes equally well for you." He glances to Charles.  
  
There’s clearly some internal war happening inside of Charles now. First he shivers, perfectly aware that he’s in danger even if he’s not at all in harm’s way, even if it’s nothing like the danger supposedly inherent to D5s, the damage they inflict by mere existence. He knows with full confidence that he is the prey in this scenario, not the predator. But the way Erik’s talking, the way he’s still hedging, the Older-Erik looking at him like that from where he’s sat up straight on the couch, all of it is doing something to Charles he couldn’t possibly explain. He’s trembling absolutely head to toe, so noticeably he feels like his teeth might be chattering, his eyes wide as he tries to process through it. “You can’t convince me either of you would take me over your knee in the middle of this foyer,” he breathes, unsure himself whether he’s willing to take the bet, but it doesn’t stop him from running his mouth. “We’re civilized human beings, and I was merely pointing out that it's rude to speak of someone like they aren't there." If it somehow excited Charles at the same time that it made him prickly, that's neither here nor there.  
  
Erik just lifts his chin and then points a finger at Charles. "Get up," he Orders, and without a single word of warning, he walks over to the couch and lowers himself down into it; across from the older version of himself rather than right beside him, but that only serves to have the other Erik watching from across the room, one eyebrow arched, a half-smirk on his features because he knows full and well that Charles has really stepped in it-if this person is anything like himself. He doesn't encourage-or say anything at all, but perhaps this is what they came for after all. Charles said they needed to learn. He'd always been a big believer in hands-on lessons. Erik taps his knee. "And get over here. Now. Civilized?" he rumbles lowly. "I do not care about civilized. If you think I do, then I am real new to you. Get here. Now." And it is mighty clear that he is no longer hedging.  
  
Charles is well aware he’s stepped in it, too. His body springs up as if it’s pulled by strings, but in the aftermath he’s utterly frozen, staring wide-eyed, a doe caught helpless in the headlights. He feels, frankly, unable to move, even as he’s compelled to, his face flushed at first and then completely white, pale and clammy, his hands shaking at his sides. His heart is pounding in his ears and suddenly all that pressure at his temples is concentrated in his belly, twisted-up and knotted awfully. “You can’t be serious,” he bawks, and then glances over at the other Erik, as if somehow he’ll help him. “I wasn’t -- Erik, don’t do this. It’s mad. We’re in someone else’s home.”  
  
"Well it turns out I am not very civilized," Erik growls lowly. The other Erik, of course, does nothing to help, looking very well amused by these proceedings as a matter of fact. "I told you what happens but you push me, you think I am just saying things and making it up and I will not do it. Maybe I would not, before. But I am not him. Now get here." The Order is low, sparked in danger, his very own brand that heats up the room just as well as the older man's had frosted it over. "I do not like being talked back to. I told you this many times. How many? But you do not learn. So now I teach you. I am supposed to. To train you. He never did. I will not make that mistake. Now you come here where you are told, and you will take discipline as I see fit. Now." The Order once more, intense, directing Charles right over his knee, just as promised.  
  
There’s nothing to be done for it now. Even if he could, even if he wanted to, there’s not a chance in hell that he could possibly resist this. Charles knows he’s well and truly in trouble, and he isn’t stupid; he knows when to back down, but unfortunately it seems to come far too late, rebellion inspiring that prickliness that he’s known for. That caustic, smart, occasionally harsh tongue that so often gets him into trouble. He’s never been more aware of his own habits than he is now, bent over Erik’s knee, and for a moment the shame does eat at him; if he’s a perfect match, if he’s Erik’s submissive, why is he right? Why does it seem so difficult for him to just do as he’s told? He swallows thickly, and it’s not a protest that comes out of his mouth, his face pressed into the couch and his bottom up over Erik’s lap in the most undignified way possible, his cheeks bright red. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he whispers, and wonders if it might be too quiet for Erik to hear. His voice breaks. “I -- I know I should listen, but… Erik, please don’t do this?” It’s a plea more than anything else now. He sounds a bit frightened, but perhaps it’s something else entirely.  
  
"You know you should," Erik replies lowly, and because he is ostensibly Charles's match in every way, he certainly doesn't back down even when Charles is nervous, even when he's afraid. Instead of replying verbally, he lifts his hand and brings it down hard over Charles's rear, as if that alone is answer enough. Even over his clothing, it's enough to sting, and Erik obviously has no intention of stopping there. "Nothing is wrong with you," he says. "But you need a lesson. It just so happen I enjoy that thought significantly. Now I don't ask for pleas. You put yourself right here." Erik doesn't even give him a number, a way to know when it will be over, a way to separate what's happening now with what happened before.  
  
It’s not the sting that gets to him. That does knock the wind out of him, but it seems almost inconsequential in the wake of the flooding shame that courses through him, a whine he can’t bite back escaping as he tries to bury his beet-red face into the couch. He’s horribly aware that not only is another version of his Dominant watching him be put over Erik’s knee like a disobedient child, they’re in a public place. He isn’t indecent, but it doesn’t matter. There shouldn’t be tears but already he feels them welling up, choked back, his legs kicked out, and Charles reaches his arms back to cover himself. “Please don’t do this,” he begs again, voice cracking. “Please, you — you can punish me, but not here, please — surely you don’t,” he gasps, and now he’s talking to the Other-Erik. Surely he doesn’t take Charles over his knee in public. It’s doing something extraordinary to him, but Charles can’t even process all that he’s feeling around the humiliation.  
  
He just continues smirking. "Oh, I would do far worse. I daresay your Erik is being _lenient_." He gives an almost dark chuckle as he watches, nose wrinkling up in pure fondness. As much as he does quite enjoy this sight, he knows Charles is struggling, and he isn't unkind.   
  
"Not here? You tell me what to do? Again? It is not acceptable," Erik returns lowly, and Charles is rewarded with several hard smacks for his impetuousness. When he reaches back to try and shield himself, he finds his arms clasped tightly in Erik's iron grip, pinned against his back so that he has nowhere to move to.  
  
The tears come, then. They’re hot and shameful and knot everything up even more when they slip past his cheeks, a pit of it in his stomach as he yelps and then whimpers at the slaps, unable to jerk away from them, to even squirm properly on Erik’s lap now. His cheeks feel so warm he honestly worries about combustion, the humiliation and shame swimming in his belly. Perhaps this is where Erik would have stopped in the past, and so he waits for it, even subconsciously, even unknowingly; but it doesn’t stop. “I’m sorry,” he gasps out, desperate now. “Please, I’m sorry. I won’t talk back again. Please,” he begs, and it’s far from the most painful punishment he’s ever received, but somehow this discipline is different than even what he’s received just a day ago. It's different, and having this other Erik witnessing it is both excruciating and -- he doesn't know. He doesn't know, he just knows it makes him want to cry, not damaging but certainly not entirely pleasant, either.  
  
It's not particularly painful-Erik isn't exactly going easy on him but he's protected by a layer of fabric that helps, but it is-at least from Erik's perspective, particularly satisfying to be able to rob him of speech, for once, for him to focus on nothing else but Erik's Domain. No matter what he says, or what he does, he has nowhere to go except exactly where Erik Commands him. "You won't do it again, but here you are, you are still doing it. You do not see? You do not understand that?" Erik punctuates this with more smarting jolts, dragging Charles's chin up off of the couch so he will look. So he will know he has nothing to do now but submit.  
  
It’s not the pain that’s the focus now, and it’s never been this way. Charles truly does not think it’s ever been this way, though perhaps he’s simply forgotten. Punishment has always felt dreadful, and borderline humiliating, but Erik has always made it a point in the past to bypass that as much as possible. The moment he felt these sorts of things, he would stop, check in, let Charles breathe. There’s none of that now. He’s sniffling and red-face and humiliated over Erik’s knee, all churned up, and there’s no escaping it. He realizes that. It takes a few long minutes of slaps for him to go limp in Erik’s lap, to stop fighting. To stop trying to squirm and wiggle and cover himself, to stop begging and pleading. He still cries, he still makes these soft little whining noises, but they’re not protests. Charles thought he had a fairly good idea of what it felt and looked like to submit to Erik. He apparently had no idea.  
  
More and more Erik too feels parts of himself open up, an enormous metal structure unfurling like flower petals inside of him the longer he begins to engage with his own Dominion. He doesn't stop, not until Charles well and truly yields to him and even then he keeps going, until it slots right into place that he is exactly where he belongs. Slowly, though, he eases off until his fingers are running through Charles's hair, soothing instead of harsh, gathered up more fully in his lap, attention solely focused on him with barely an acknowledgement of the other occupant of the room. He's murmuring little nonsensical things in Charles's ear-reminding him that he's safe, that he's done well in taking exactly what was prescribed.  
  
Charles has mostly forgotten that someone is watching, too. He’s nonsensical and completely pliant in Erik’s arms the moment he’s let up even slightly, clinging to Erik, crying softly, rubbing his face into his Dominant’s neck and letting out little whimpering cries, shifting in his lap every time his ass rubs up against Erik’s thighs. “M’ sorry, sir,” he mumbles. “I’m sorry. I’ll be good,” he promises, sniffling, and so deeply in subspace.  
  
"Yes, you will be," Erik murmurs back, firm, with no opportunity for dissent. Charles will be good, because he will ensure it is so. He doesn't seem to realize there's another person in the room, either, eyes entirely doting on his submissive-while said person just gazes on fondly; these people aren't from his universe, but he can't help but feel they are kin, in a way. Family. "There are many things I do not know. But keeping you in line. I know that. I learned that. Because you are mine. Anywhere. Anytime."  
  
Eventually, Charles remembers. Maybe it’s the vague pounding in his temples, or the way everything feels too-bright, too strange, but he remembers. His reaction is immediate. His cheeks, already red from crying, turn a brilliant new shade of red. He hides them in Erik’s neck, clinging even tighter and mumbling nonsense there. This other, older, more experienced Erik is watching. He just saw him be spanked across Erik’s knee. No Bond or telepathy is necessary to feel the hot shame that’s coursing through him, suddenly much squirmier in Erik’s lap.  
  
His Erik just continues to pet him, twining his fingers gently through his hair even as his words are less than soothing; in fact they're nearly predatory. "Embarrassed? Hm? Because this is not one time thing. You misbehave that way with me anywhere and it will happen again. You are mine no matter where you are, in public? No matter. Still mine. So you will be good or this, again. And I will not be so easy next time," he purrs into Charles's ear.   
  
The older version of himself seems fairly satisfied at this turn of events. "He is yours. All you need to do is act like it. He will learn." His smile this time is a touch more sincere.  
  
But they’re not fading. There’s still more to do here, or perhaps it’s just Charles tethering them. He isn’t sure, but he sniffles into Erik’s neck, tugging at him; with his hands, but with his mind a bit, too, which is not something he did before. Not something this Erik would be at all familiar with, because Charles hasn’t demonstrated nearly any telepathic ability with him. He’s a soft, pliant weight in Erik’s arms, entirely plunged into subspace and rather dizzy with it.  
  
Which is good, because Erik gets the distinct impression that he's not finished, either; that there is still so much to learn, and he hardly knows where to start-so he just starts here. With Charles in his lap, alternating between soothing words and words of pure promise, because this is just the beginning. It's never the end. At the tug to his mind, Erik gasps, the feeling a little like liquid melting down through his nervous system and turning his insides electric, and he touches Charles's temple, curious. "You?" he whispers, soft. His adoration for this experience is plain as day, especially for someone inside of his mind. He's practically glowing, bright embers of Dominion wafting visibly through the room.  
  
Charles nods, shakily, inhaling sharply through his nose; he fusses for a moment, sensitive, his temple pulsing again. When he can manage to, he peeks out from Erik’s shoulder to the other Erik, still sitting across from them. “What is he like?” he whispers, his voice slightly hoarse, quieter because he’s still embarrassed, somehow can’t help being shy.  
  
An eyebrow arches in response. "He?" the older version asks, blinking curiously. "You mean my Charles?" A laugh, but softer. It's obvious even in the way his eyes grow distant that he's exceptionally taken with his own submissive. "Much like you, I suspect. Quite contrary. Stubborn. Idealistic." And he never envisioned himself living here, standing by Charles's side, but now he can no longer imagine being anywhere else.  
  
“Does he ever disobey you just because he feels like it?” is what slips from Charles’ lips before he can bite it back, and then he’s hiding in his Erik’s shoulder again, red and shifting every time his ass rubs uncomfortably. It’s quite a lot of fidgeting, which is embarrassing on its own. “Because he... can’t help it? Because it feels like he needs to?”  
  
He shrugs. "Sure he does. I've never felt it to mean anything significant beyond what it is. The reason any submissive misbehaves. I suppose you would have to ask him for a more in-depth answer, but I don't tolerate it, and at this point I expect it's merely for the reminder."   
  
Erik gives him another smack just because he feels like it, because Charles won't stop shifting around, which communicates very clearly his intent instead of fighting with it.  
  
The reason any submissive misbehaves. Charles lets that tumble around in his mind, considering. “And he isn’t ashamed of it, and you aren’t upset?” he wonders, biting at his lip and letting his head rest on his Erik’s shoulder, attempting to settle. “Does he ever... test you?” It’s barely loud enough to qualify as a whisper.  
  
"I think at some point he had misgivings about himself. He felt submission was weakness. But it is my hope he no longer feels that way. As for testing me," he has to laugh. "I believe he might consider his behavior such, at times. I am certainly not upset by him. That would be silly. I am Dominant. If behavior displeases me, I address it."  
  
It sounds extraordinarily simple out of this Erik’s mouth. Charles bites his lip harder. “You’ve...” he trails off, flushed red up to his ears. “In public before?” he asks, letting Erik fill in the rest. “Did he test you on it?”  
  
"Of course. He tries," this older version of Erik chuckles a bit. "But with little success. He is mine. He knows full well what that entails."  
  
There’s no hesitation. No considering, no other option, no alternative. Charles is honestly startled into silence, his eyes wide as he considers how different this Erik seems. He peeks at his Erik, and telepathy isn’t necessary to understand what he’s wondering: if this is how it will and should be for him, too. “He doesn’t get embarrassed? Ashamed?” his voice is hushed, still. “It doesn’t make you stop?”  
  
Erik's lips press together, then, and he straightens up. "What you must understand is that Charles and I have been together for many, many years. We didn't meet at your age, and we were fairly set in our ways by the time we did meet. Of course we had a learning curve. When we did enter a relationship, he was dealing with a lot of things very quickly, that he had no experience with. Yes, he absolutely felt shame and embarrassment. This wasn't so much from submission as he believed he was critically unable to do so in the first place. I may make it sound simple, but it wasn't. I made a lot of mistakes. There are a lot of things I would have done differently in retrospect, but there are no regrets. It just took us longer to get there. You are both dealing with something that I imagine is very similar. The outside forces pressing in on you will undoubtedly affect how you submit, and how you Dominate. The only real advice I can give you is do your best to trust yourself, and trust your partner."  
  
Charles supposed that’s more than fair. This Erik and his Charles have had the time to figure these things out, to become comfortable with themselves, their relationship, their Dynamic. Charles wishes it eased his mind, but it just makes him begin to fidget again, suddenly uncomfortable in Erik’s lap. “What mistakes?” he wonders, though he imagines it isn’t pleasant for Erik to recall them, or even if they might help with their situation.  
  
He shrugs. "I was too permissive, at times. I would get frustrated and only then would I act, in moments where I hadn't made the conscious decision to do so. I struggled with my own experiences. I neglected to realize that they played a deeper role in my ability to form an intimate relationship than I could have understood at the time. I was too easy on Charles, but sometimes I was too hard on him. I didn't understand why he felt the way he did. I could be dismissive. Lots of things," he laughs a little, now.  
  
It’s reassuring to hear, if nothing else. It’s not entirely comparable, especially now, but Charles knows it must be close. He sighs, still resting his head against his Erik’s shoulder, lips twitching at the thought that this is happening. Absurd seems to be an understatement, really, for the life they seem to be destined to lead. But this, he thinks, the core of it? It’s exceptionally ordinary. “Did he get frustrated, too? Did you... fight?” he whispers, glancing at his Erik, because he hadn’t quite mentioned those parts.  
  
Erik smiles. "Frequently. We still do, but it is different, now. We both know better about a lot of things, and we have always worked better together instead of in conflict. In that regard, I would caution you both to be careful. Some things cannot be unsaid. Do not forget that you both wish for the same thing, at the end of the day."  
  
It’s a fair word of caution. They’re both passionate, often stubborn people -- and hasn’t he seen it for himself, too? A Charles and Erik who had not talked in years, separated, hurting, alone? He hums against Erik’s shoulder, closing his eyes. “Do you…” He truly doesn’t know how to ask this question, but if he knows anything of Erik, it’s going to be prompted out of him anyway. Charles sucks in a slow, calming breath. “How much does your Dynamic… I mean, how much -- no, I don’t know what I mean to ask. It just seems like you’re very open about it,” he mumbles.  
  
"There is no reason why I wouldn't be open about it," Erik returns mildly. The Erik whose lap he is resting on runs his fingers along his spine, curious and thoughtful. He hasn't experienced what they are discussing first-hand, but also, the behaviors that often prompted Charles to react aggressively to him are wildly diminished without his memories, evidently they were entirely learned as a response to trauma, and against his natural traits. "But we have different experiences. I could not claim to know what that is like. How much of our Dynamic is what, precisely?"  
  
Charles shakes his head, suddenly curled up and tense. “I misspoke,” he murmurs, carefully, quietly. There is a part of Charles’ calculating cunning that is learned, taught to him through observation and trauma both, but it’s also natural. He’s not lying, per se; he’s just not being truthful, either.  
  
"You forget who you are speaking with," the older version of Erik returns sharply, an eyebrow arched. He's had plenty of experience handling Charles's verbal shrewdness over the years, but like most versions Charles had encountered this one values bluntness all the same. "State your meaning plainly."  
  
Charles is aware this is likely not the time to push his luck, when there are two Dominants in the room rather than one. It’s a recipe for disaster, but perhaps that’s exactly what he needs, sinking and trembling into subspace. He lifts his head from Erik’s shoulder to blink at this older Erik, and shakes his head once, lips quirking at his own boldness. He can’t quite meet his eyes, though. “Where is your Charles?” he demands.  
  
It's definitely not time to push his luck considering the sharp rap to his knuckles he gets from his own Erik. "Be respectful. You are where I want you and I will discipline again if necessary," he rumbles in warning.   
  
"He is running errands," the older does answer simply. "Which is where you seem to find us most often, but you may find it beneficial to speak with him. However, he is correct. I asked you a question and I expect an answer."  
  
Charles’ nose wrinkles right up. He seems to consider this, eyebrows pulled together, before he shakes his head again. “Technically only one of you is my Dominant,” he points out, huffy and matter of fact. “I don’t have any obligation to answer you, do I?” But he does wriggle as if he’s trying to get out of his Erik’s lap. It’s funny, really, because they’ve never been around other people together. Ever. They’ve always been, as far as Charles recalls, trapped in the manor with just each other. It’s a change, even when the other person is Erik, even when they’re both his Dominant and he knows it.  
  
Erik growls and Charles gets a prompt smack across the rear for talking back, as swift and heavy as earlier. "What do I say? You want me to repeat myself I will repeat everything. Including this. Maybe that is what you want."  
  
It makes Charles pout, after he’s done yelping. “But I was correct,” he points out, mostly under his breath, and then sighs, as if he’s awfully put out by this. He’s still thoroughly in subspace, but there’s something else to it; something new, something that’s opening up, blossoming. “How much of the time are you... like this?” he whispers, finally, cheeks pink as he hides back in Erik’s shoulder. It’s convenient again now, so suddenly he’s fine with being back in his Dominant’s lap.  
  
It makes Erik huff, and he script he's his fingers through Charles's hair. The other man appears confused, though. "I do not really understand," he admits. "We are always like this. There is no point at which our Dynamic ends. It is always, and forever."  
  
Charles shakes his head, patiently, as if Erik has simply misunderstood. “But when do you… switch,” he mumbles, the last word so completely under his breath that it’s barely audible at all.  
  
Erik blinks. The assessment that he misunderstood is certainly not out of the question, because he genuinely doesn't. "...Switch what?"  
  
It’s confusing for Charles, too, but ultimately far more embarrassing. He squirms mightily in his Erik’s arms, eventually completely curling himself up until he’s hardly much more than a Charles-shaped ball. “Switch roles,” he mumbles, and the only reason it’s audible must have something to do with telepathy, because he’s so thoroughly muffled by Erik’s shirt. “When does he have to decide things?”  
  
"Switch roles?" the man can't help but laugh. "Don't be silly. We don't switch roles. Do you?" he eyes them both, terribly curious, but a little-well-it's hard to explain. The idea that he would ever be submissive is simply ridiculous to him, but he understands that this Erik has been through an experience he cannot comprehend. "We don't," he amends softly, in light of that realization. "I am Dominant. He is my submissive. That is how it is, always."  
  
“But…” Now Charles can’t help but feel a little silly. He shrugs to hide that reaction, still thoroughly bunched up in Erik’s lap. It’s less embarrassing to cling insistently than it is to be visible for this conversation, to either of them, really. “What about when you can’t make decisions?” he mumbles. “What happens?”  
  
His head tilts, brows knitting together to form a crease at the center of his forehead. "It depends. I often take input from Charles in many things. If there is something I am struggling with, I will lean on him, as I'm supposed to. He is my submissive. He supports me. He helps me when I am unable. To be able. But the decision, at the end of the day, is mine. Always."  
  
Charles’ brow furrows, too, just where Erik can’t see it. For just a brief moment, he pops his head up to peek, a bit like a child peeking out from the blankets. “And what if you... falter?” he whispers. “What does he do?”  
  
"I imagine my failures are frustrating to him," Erik says plainly. "At times; at least they were, and I imagine it is the same for you. I do not blame him for that. The things that used to make me falter now affect me only rarely, because we have learned how to deal with it. Just as I had to adapt to deal with Charles's concerns. We are partners. When one falters, the other holds them up."  
  
This is a conversation he could never seem to have with his Erik, and as such it seems essential. He’s sure his own Erik, new even to him has his own questions, but he realizes now isn’t the time to be shy or mince words; he peeks out more fully from Erik’s lap, sitting up and wincing when he remembers he’s just been spanked quite thoroughly. “Ow,” he mumbles first, rubbing at his tear-reddened face, now red for a new reason. “It’s just... what if you make a mistake? A wrong call? A poor decision? What happens? Does he tell you? Does it...” He’s not sure how to word this part, but it feels obvious. He bites his lip.  
  
The older man shrugs again, head tilting curiously. "Then I do. I am not infallible, Charles. I make mistakes at times, and when it happens we deal with it. It doesn't erase my status as Dominant, nor does it indicate that our Dynamic must switch." He eyes Charles wriggling about in discomfort with something approaching amusement, sharing a look with Erik. "Is that what you mean?"  
  
Charles shakes his head. “No — well, yes, but...” He huffs, blowing a piece of hair out of his face, and continuing his wriggling, realizing there really isn’t a comfortable way to sit on his Dominant’s lap like this, cheeks hot with it. “Does he tell you? When you make a mistake? Do you listen?”  
  
"He does, and I do, generally. At times he is just-well-complaining, to be frank. I have learned to tell the difference."  
  
It’s experience again. This Erik has learned his Charles, the kind of concerns he raises, the protests he gives. It gives Charles hope, if nothing else, but still he’s biting on his lip. “But do you ever choose to ignore him?” he breathes. “Because... you know best? Or do you simply listen? What if you disagree?”  
  
"Of course. Frequently," the older Erik laughs heartily while Charles's Erik wraps him up tight, unwilling to let him go. "We argue plenty, and I respect his opinions and undoubtedly allow them to shape my decisions, when it is necessary. But at the end of the day, it is my choice."  
  
“And if he doesn’t accept it? If he puts his foot down?” Almost as if to make a point, Charles wriggles in Erik’s arms, even pushes at them, even as he whines in pain under his breath. His cheeks are immediately hot again, remembering that he was turned over his Dominant’s knee while this other man, Erik or not, watched. “What happens when he voices those things?”  
  
"Then I remind him of his place," the older Erik states. It's calm, but there's a humming electricity in the room, a kind of danger that only someone who's met a D5 in person could quantify. "I do not mind his opinions or his objections. But when I make a choice I expect to be obeyed. And if Charles has a valid reason for refusing then I expect that he come to me respectfully about it. Anything less and he surely would be disciplined."  
  
“What if it’s a ridiculous choice, and he disobeys on principle?” Charles demands, perfectly aware that this is very thin ice again. But technically he’s not challenging his Erik, and the cheeky grin on his lips is telling. “You can’t fault him for that, surely.”  
  
He practically growls in response, which answers that question, as well as Charles getting a firm smack across the rear for his impishness. "I demand obedience and respect regardless. Principle is irrelevant. I am his Dominant. I have final say. That is final."  
  
Charles turns his head to glare at his Erik, his eyes narrowed in challenge. “You can’t swat at me for something I said to him,” he huffs, pouting thoroughly. “It was a good point. I don’t have to obey if I don’t agree.”  
  
"Of course I do not have to," Erik almost laughs. "But I want to. Because you make a point that is silly and you know it. You know I do not say ridiculous things. I respect you, too." He looks to the older version of himself, who nods deeply in agreement.  
  
Charles bites his lip. This is slightly dangerous (or very dangerous, depending), but he’s feeling particularly bold. It’s probably what makes him scoot entirely out of Erik’s lap, looking between the two Eriks. “What if you do? What if I don’t want to? Will you drop it?”  
  
And both Eriks instantly jump up. One behind him and one before; entirely unplanned, and they spare only a knowing glance. The older Erik grabs Charles's wrists in his own, trapping his hands behind his back-and his back against Erik's chest. His Erik steps forward to grip his jaw. "So I look like I drop it, do you think?"  
  
“Yes,” Charles dares, except it’s breathy, squeaked. His pulse is racing, his heart is beating right out of his chest. He struggles in Erik’s hold; both Eriks. “You always do. You drop things. You’d rather let me get my way than hurt me,” he whispers. Because he has to.  
  
"Letting you get your own way will hurt you," Erik murmurs back into Charles's ear. Then he unceremoniously bites it, hard. "Kneel. Now. You want to talk to us then you talk properly. From your place. You speak nonsense. He is Erik. He maybe does not, you know," he laughs a bit, eyebrows bouncing in amusement. "Not the same thing. But you respect him. Because I say so. That is why. And the only things I _drop_ are you on your knees. Now kneel."  
  
Charles swallows, throat bobbing, and for a moment, perhaps he considers disobeying. It doesn’t last long, because the desire is there. He’s freshly disciplined. He’s still very much aware that it could happen again, and he wouldn’t enjoy it. His cheeks are hot with shame, for more than one reason, and he drops right to his knees, in perfect Rest, shoulders straight even as he bows his head. Erik always told him to look, Charles, but he can’t manage it now.  
  
He jumps when someone else enters the room, the cue a cleared throat.

* * *

Said someone is in a wheelchair, but there’s no sound to indicate it. Perhaps telepathy, perhaps not. Either way he enters the room smoothly, a soft, knowing, amused smile on his own lips. “I wasn’t aware we would have visitors today,” he murmurs, his nose scrunched in delight the way Charles’ does. The way they both do. He’s clearly older, distinguished, his hair gone, but he’s the same, too — that gleam to his eyes, that softness along with the sharpness that makes Charles who he is. “Shall I leave you to it? The foyer is an interesting place for this discussion, when there’s a perfectly good study down the hall, but don’t let me interrupt.”  
  
The younger Charles is turning a brilliant shade of red.  
  
The way the older Erik's attention instantly snaps to his submissive is entirely incalculable. The adoration isn't exactly plain on his face, but it is to Charles. Both of them. He gives the younger Charles's shoulder a squeeze and bends down to offer his own a brief embrace, murmuring, " _oczywiście kochanie. jednak nie byłbyś tak rozbawiony_ ," against his ear in his own clear amusement.  
  
The older Charles laughs, but his own reaction to his Dominant is clear, and equally inexplicable; immediately he straightens, his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright, his entire self oriented toward his Dominant. Completely, utterly. It’s truly a wonder, something breathtaking from the outside. The way his lashes flutter, the way he relaxes, the way he gives. Submits. Effortlessly, without conscious thought or deliberation. He belongs to Erik. It is exactly what it is. “Should I be worried you’ve put another man on his knees, then?”   
  
Charles’ eyes widen, looking between the two of them. “Excuse me,” he huffs, cheeks pink with indignation along with embarrassment.  
  
The older Erik grins, bright and vibrant-an expression they've yet to see on him yet brought out by nothing more than a few words from Charles. "I did nothing of the sort," he maintains. "This time." A sly smirk transforms from joy. _I must admit the finer nuances of etiquette in this particular situation-_ it's softer-private. Checking in as he's always done, in every universe it seems. He doesn't want to ever cause discomfort like that. Nor worry or fear. The only one for him is his Charles, and that's plainly clear just based upon a few moments of observation.  
  
Another soft laugh. _Fret not, darling_ , is what is returned, just as effortless and just as swift. Just as endlessly fond. Freely, willingly, eagerly given, and he’s beaming, his older face wrinkled with it. “What lesson are we teaching the youth today?” he teases instead, and his eyes fall on the other Erik, immediately curious, probing; his mind brushes against the other’s, an overt display of practiced, honed power. Nothing like the younger Charles in pure, unbelievable power, but trained in a way he very simply isn’t, his telepathy out of reach. He doesn’t need to make it obvious to him, and that much is clear — but he will, because even of this much younger version of his Dominant, he’s aware of how he acts. What he puts forward. What he takes without asking.  
  
The Charles on his knees flushes even further. “I’m not being taught anything,” he huffs.  
  
And the younger Erik can't help but stare, utterly transfixed, at the source of that power. It's like nothing he had ever felt before. He had of course, before his memories were erased, but not now. It's incredible. He's drawn to it, his mind seeking like a curious child. Well, to Charles, he almost is. But first he deals with the concern below him, crouching as best he can to give Charles a solid thwak across his knuckles with a thin reed emerged from nowhere. "Nothing?" he purrs dangerously, much more-impulsive, headstrong. Traces of the Erik he knows. "Then I will teach. I say to speak respectfully. You will. Or I will discipline you here and now. Again. In Child's Pose. You want to learn?"  
  
Charles is immediately shaking his head, his entire heart sinking into his belly at the thought of being disciplined right here and now. “Sorry,” he mumbles, head bowed now, more of the embarrassed flush to his cheeks. The older Charles watches curiously, a slight purse to his lips. “Interesting,” he murmurs, almost as if entirely to himself. It is, really.  
  
His own Dominant's eyebrows arch mischievously. "Interesting, hm? Well, you don't see this every day. That is certain." He too is watching the younger versions of themselves, eyes blazing with curiosity. What was the same. What's different. There's already a difference he's noted, beyond the younger version of himself being-what appears to be-utterly new to Dominance at all. New, perhaps, but more eager than he ever remembers being. More open, freer with himself. It's almost like watching a stranger.  
  
Likely because he doesn’t have his memories, but Charles — the older Charles, the Charles who belongs here — laughs, full and from the chest, even snorting a bit when he tries to stifle it, his own cheeks red from how wholly undignified that is. The other Charles’ head snaps up, but he shakes his head, waving his hand as if it’s a private joke. _I think you were quite a bit more eager than you’re remembering, darling,_ he whispers privately to his Dominant, and then turns his eyes to the other Erik, a soft smile on his lips. “You still have questions,” he murmurs. “Why don’t you ask? I think Charles is properly tamed for the moment,” he teases, which is perhaps cruel, because said Charles looks like he’d like to melt into the floor at the comment, not used to that form of submission. He’ll get there.  
  
 _I was not,_ Erik objects indignantly, almost pouting. The fact that Charles still snorts when he laughs is a matter of utmost joy to his Erik. As important as any mutant rights campaign.   
  
His counterpart looks mollified for the moment, at least, drawing his hand idly through his Charles's hair, already relaxing now that he knows his submissive is well in his place. "Lots of questions," the younger Erik blurts, rubbing the back of his own neck, even a little sheepish. "I do not-" he swallows. "I do not remember anything really. How to do it. Because I have no memory, because-" he swallows a little. "And he is like me, and he has memories, he-learned? He makes you happy?"  
  
Charles looks at his Erik, as if he’s waiting for an answer, and then almost startles when he realizes the question is aimed at him. He laughs again, much softer this time, and nods his head solemnly. He reaches for his Erik’s hand, patting it with that grin of his. “He does well enough,” he sighs, the gleam in his eyes giving absolutely everything away. “Most days I would say, passable. I would call myself content on the whole with his performance, yes.” It’s very clear by the purse of his lips he’s attempting not to laugh again, but his cheekiness is downplayed when he reaches up with his free hand to touch his collar, weathered hands stroking it fondly, lovingly, with utmost respect. It’s a comfort, a daily, constant comfort. Taking it off would be removing a limb. Worse.  
  
"Passable," Erik huffs, giving Charles's forehead a little flick in warning. "Passable."   
  
It makes his younger self laugh, though. "Good to see that you can still be the same in the future," he gives the older Charles an outrageous wink, which should be bizarrely forward and out of place but, like most incarnations of Erik tend to be, it just comes off as... well...   
  
"Don't be cute," the older Erik snarks at him, pointed.   
  
"I am never cute." His nose wrinkles up, though. So. You know. His focus redirects to the older Charles. "Did you-" his head ducks. The question he wants to ask-it evaporates, after he realizes that he can't very well base the answer on what will come true for his own reality. Mostly, what comforts Erik more than anything else is knowing that he must have struggled all the same, but they are still here. That gives them hope.  
  
The older Charles’ brow furrows. He tilts his head curiously, a quirk very much present in his younger counterpart. It’s all there, though they’re so vastly different; he is Charles, just as the younger man knelt before his Dominant is. “Ask,” he encourages, and glances up at his Erik as if for help. It’s natural for him. “Please. Perhaps I can’t give you the answer you seek, but I can give you my experience. There’s no reason to be so in the dark. You came here for a reason, yes?"  
  
Erik nods, while his counterpart rubs his thumb along the back of the older Charles's neck. He doesn't need Erik for the answer, but he can be a support. As always. "What happened to me-about-" he swallows, unsure how to word it. "But it won't be the same, here. I just-it was stupid, it wasn't about-" about their relationship. Not really. He's just been feeling grief and desperation and the idea that a future version of himself could just _tell_ him that-that Shaw was dead, that they won. "But I came for a reason. I just, I didn't know anything. I don't know so much I don't even know what to ask. How do you-do things? How do you know what will help, or hurt? I just don't know anything."  
  
For this, the older Charles looks up at his Erik, leaning fully into his touch. His guidance, his direction, his everything. It makes the younger Charles’ eyes widen, and he’s not quite sure why; it’s just such an obvious display of submission that he wonders, idly, if that’s what he looks like when he slips into it. It makes the older Charles smile. “Erik, darling, I think you’re better suited for this question, unless you’d like to give the impression that I make any of those decisions,” he teases, his lips pulled up into that familiar grin. His face has quite a few more wrinkles, but in some ways there’s no difference at all. “I think that might be to the detriment of our younger counterparts, don’t you? It took us long enough to come to the right conclusions, no reason to make them suffer through years more of that if we can help it.”  
  
It makes Erik lean down and give him a kiss along his temple. "I believe we can," he murmurs, fond. "I think you are afraid of hurting others, maybe more than is really necessary. You will be careful. You will be. But if you keep yourself paralyzed into inaction that will harm your submissive a whole lot more. Everything else is just window dressing." At his younger counterpart's confusion, Erik amends, "additional. Just additional. What do you think will happen? If you are really honest, and be yourself?"   
  
Erik shakes his head, though, pressing his palms into his eyes hard enough to hurt. He doesn't know. Something bad, right?  
  
Nothing bad. But even without memories, Erik fears it. Charles knows. He can tell. That fear lingers, haunts, burdens, even without the experiences that caused it. Charles bites his lip, then tugs on Erik’s pant leg, seeking his attention out in the only way he can think to. Beckoning him, calling him, even without use of his telepathy; but in his clumsy, uncertain way, he does that, too, just a slight tug at Erik’s consciousness, perhaps a touch too rough. Learning, he’s learning.  
  
It makes Erik's gaze snap down to him and he blinks, wide-eyed at the sensation even if it is a little too rough. He forces himself to breathe through the sudden spike of anxiety this line of thinking has caused in him and shakes his head. "Nothing," he croaks softly. Nothing bad. He knows. Why doesn't it feel true? This morning it felt the opposite of true. He doesn't want to feel like that again.  
  
The sensation only intensifies, though, a bit like Charles is tugging insistently; and he is, really, with some persistence, because at the same time he yanks at Erik’s pant leg, at the edge of his shirt, his brow creased, his lips pursed in something perhaps too closely resembling a pout. “May I…” He feels strongly, for some reason, that he should certainly ask for permission, but the problem is he doesn’t know what for. He sighs instead, eyes falling to the floor.  
  
Erik's whole face scrunches up and he gasps, confused and a little disoriented at the sensation. He takes a deep breath, steadying himself before touching Charles's cheek, doing his best to ground him in the feeling. "Ask me," he murmurs, and it can't help but be an Order, when he's too unfocused to really understand what's happening.  
  
Charles leans into it immediately, his eyes closed as he takes harsh, sharp breaths. “May I show you?” he asks quietly, biting hard on his bottom lip. When he peeks up, it’s not at Erik. Not his Erik. It’s the other Erik, and his Charles, like he’s seeking guidance. Help. He is.  
  
The older Erik arches his eyebrows, inclining his head, doing his best to provide that guidance even as this isn't truly his submissive-they came here for a reason, and it's his experience that they both need. "Show him," he Commands softly. Not an Order, like the ones Erik gives him, but it's authoritative all the same.   
  
Erik nods, pressing his cheek against Charles's as he's essentially been tugged down to his level, his body still vibrating with faint tremors, like a buzz in metal.  
  
Except he doesn’t know how, exactly, and it’s the other Charles who picks up on it. He shakes his head, nudging at his Erik. “His telepathy,” he explains softly, and it’s out loud for the younger Erik’s benefit. It becomes clear why in a moment when the younger Charles gasps, his eyes wide, his hands leaving Erik’s pants to grasp at his own head, startled and concerned. “He’s not in pain,” the older Charles assures, for everyone’s benefit, this time. His submissive or not, he’s more than aware his Erik has a soft spot for this younger version of himself, and it’s as endearing as it is amusing.  
  
Erik at first glares at the older Charles, because he can't help it, but he does become quickly reassured at the very least that his submissive isn't in pain. He doesn't like pain, he doesn't want Charles to experience it, and it frightens him when he does. As much as these mysterious triggers. More. He takes Charles's hands in his own instead, rubbing his thumbs across the back of his palms. It reassures the older Erik, too. Seeing any version of Charles in pain has always been difficult for him, although he has learned to carefully shield his responses behind a neutral mask; he merely gives his Charles a nod, squeezing his shoulder gently.  
  
Whatever it is he’s seeking to do, it’s clear enough that Charles feels he can’t. He’s leaning into Erik’s hands, his touch, his reassurance, but nothing is happening. He pulls his hands away from Erik’s abruptly, almost defiantly but not quite, rubbing at his temples again. His whole face is scrunched in concentration, brow furrowed but mostly in frustration. His jaw is clenched. It makes the older Charles hum. He looks up at his Erik. “Erik, darling,” he says, conversationally, as if nothing is strange or concerning about this at all, “Would you say I’m fairly powerful? In a general sense.”  
  
He doesn't get to do anything particularly defiantly right now, though, because he gets a stern smack across the knuckles for his trouble. Less frustration, less fear. More focus. Erik believes in him. He can do it.   
  
The older Erik gives a reluctant nod. It's clearly something they've argued about in-depth for many years, the usefulness of the label powerful at all. "I would," he concedes grudgingly, lips pressed together. For the younger version of himself it's reassuring to know that in this, they share an opinion. Of course, there are other things that he's noticed, now that he's taken the time to look. Things that have made him quieter, less silly. An Erik with his memories might not have become so reserved, might have even spoke it into existence, but this one simply can't fathom it. Besides, it's not particularly relevant, he doesn't think. It's unlikely that this older version of himself was raised submissively, frankly unlikely that he should be scared of his Dominance at all. Not like him. He isn't necessarily afraid, he's proven that. He mostly acts as he likes, that youthful recklessness serving him well in some moments but not in others-not when he just doesn't know what he's doing. But now, at this moment, when he thinks about just trusting himself-when it becomes something academic instead of instinctual-it feels like he can't breathe.  
  
There’s no way for Erik to know those things either. The specifics, the trauma, the moments that led to the feeling, the hurt, the pain. There’s no way because even Charles has no way of knowing. An Erik with his memories was tight-lipped about these things. Reserved. He didn’t seek Charles out. He didn’t ask for help. Often, without even meaning to, he assumed Charles already knew. That he had the answers, that he knew that trauma. But he didn’t and he doesn’t, and now Erik doesn’t, either, except in a vague, hardly satisfying way; that one man, Sebastian Shaw, took everything from him. That he has scars all over his body to show for it.  
  
The older Charles clears his throat. “We don’t need to debate it, dear, don’t sound so reluctant,” he snorts, but his smile is fond when he looks up at his Dominant. Endlessly so. “Why it’s relevant is a discussion of pure inherent ability. The level of responsibility I have differs from other mutants as a result, and those more powerful than me even more so. Yours, Charles, is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”  
  
Charles’ head snaps up, his eyes wide and wild. “Thank you,” he hisses, suddenly harsh. “That makes me feel precisely better, Charles.”  
  
Erik clamps down hard on his shoulder, his expression as forbidding as any by the older version of himself, whose hackles are clearly raised as well. "We know," is what he says softly. It's how they're here at all. "But I am responsible for him. You listen to me. You obey me. He doesn't need to hear all about that responsibility. We know it. He just has a hard time sometimes. But you can help," he realizes suddenly. "You can help. But you must be careful. We know and it hurts. I could do bad things too. Maybe I already did and I didn't remember. What matters is what you do and who you are. Not what you can do. So you help," he points a finger at the older Charles almost comically. "Not to hurt or lecture. Just help. Show." Above anything else he is on Charles's side, he has Charles's back. Always and no one not even a version of himself will ever supersede that loyalty.  
  
“It was a neutral statement, if you listened,” the older Charles sighs, his eyes on his Erik, and there’s a moment of wariness there; he’s riding a line here, clearly, and careful not to cross it too obviously. “He has more raw ability than anyone in this room. But he’s refusing to accept that, and that is dangerous.”  
  
“I am not —“  
  
“Ah,” the older Charles says, and taps his temple. “Then why did you not expect this, Charles? Why can you not hear us at all? Can you read my thoughts now? Erik’s? Why do you think that is? Come, now.”  
  
“Do I sound like that?” Charles huffs, frustrated.  
  
But it makes his Erik grin, and duck his head shyly. "Little bit," he murmurs, warm, and holds his hand up with index and thumb fingers apart. "But you are much loved," he adds, and it's the first time he's ever said something like that, and it surprises _him_ , too. They've known one another a day. But he's said it before. He knows what he _feels_. As much as that trauma has embedded itself so deeply that he wakes up shivering and sweating over memories he can no longer reconcile, so too does this survive. As it survived with Charles, as they found one another all over again. As they always do, and will. "But you won't be hard on him. He does a lot. Everything. He brought us here. He showed me my home, and helped me when I'm sick. You be _nice_ ," he growls, pointing a finger at the older Charles again, practically jabbing it. Demanding that he be nice, to himself. It's Commanding, plain and clear.  
  
It’s different, though. Instinctual instead of personal, the experience and time together missing, and Charles knows it. It doesn’t make him any less pink, his head ducked in his own shyness and the rest of the words a bit lost somewhere in the wake of it. The older Charles shakes his head. “I’m not being cruel,” he insists, and there’s a firmness to his tone that simply doesn’t waver even in the face of that Command. His lips are pursed, the wrinkles and lines of his face much more pronounced. “On the contrary, I am helping exactly as you asked me to. Would you rather he never recover his abilities? Would you rather he suffer more for it?”  
  
"He won't," Erik insists. "You help," he adds again, swallowing. His body hasn't calmed itself down, and he can feel it, but being able to focus on this is preferable. It's something the other Erik recognizes, though, and his head tilts, thoughtful.   
  
"He will help," the older incarnation assures. "We both will. But if I can impart some advice to you, from someone who knows just as well-" he eyes his own submissive here, lips quirked up slightly. It's obviously something they've had to work through, too. "Try to resist the urge to suppress it when you are unwell. It may seem like you are doing Charles a favor, but as I've been told plenty of times in the past-" he purses his lips fondly. "You aren't. Part of his role as your submissive is to help you. Hiding from him will only exacerbate matters."   
  
The younger Erik grimaces, wilting in on himself, and shakes his head.   
  
"Evidently you have something you wish to impart to him," the older continues. "You cannot do this alone. So Charles will help you, and you will stop fussing about it." His eyebrow arches sharply, the Order very much clear.  
  
“Which one of us is fussing?” both Charles demand, the indignance in stereo more than a bit amusing. The Older’s lips purse, recognizing that insanity. “Try again, Charles,” he insists, his voice softer this time, encouraging in the way he often is with his students. “It’s alright.”  
  
To his credit, Charles does try. His eyes close, his fingers leave Erik’s, prodding at his own temples again. Long, silent moments pass with nothing but scrunched forehead and nose, until finally he huffs a sigh out. “It’s not working, clearly,” he mutters.  
  
“You are not focusing,” the Older insists, and it should be absolutely no shock that while he has endless amount of patience for his students, he has very little for himself.  
  
Erik growls at him. "I said be nice. You said you will help, not act impatient. How come I am the only bad Dominant here you can't make him be respectful!" he blazes at the other Erik.   
  
"None of you are a bad anything," the older Erik says, and all at once it is clear when decades of real control manifest themselves in the sharp snap of Will through the room, permafrost that chills the air, curls their breath into visibility. "Now you will stop this, all of you. I will not have this in our house. He is not you, and you stop acting like he is. You be kind, like he is asking of you. You stop messing about, shying away, and being stubborn." The Orders pierce each Charles in turn before he rears on Erik. "And you, I recommend you tread far more lightly in the future. I don't care who you are. When I give an Order I expect it to be followed is that understood."   
  
The younger Erik's eyes are blown wide, though, and he shakes his head, exhaling sharply. "Please, don't, don't do that-don't do that."   
  
The older Erik's eyebrows arch. "Do what?"   
  
Head-shake. "I don't like that. Don't do that."  
  
It puts the younger Charles immediately on edge, his own eyes wide. Then it clenches his jaw, his eyes narrowed up at the older version of his Dominant as he shakes his head, his hands suddenly balled up into fists. If Erik will always be on Charles’ side, there’s certainly something to be said for the other way around. “Excuse you,” he seethes, and it’s that cold, indignant anger, the air suddenly humming with it in a way no one here has ever felt, in a way that frankly startles and perhaps even frightens the older Charles, well aware of what his younger counterpart is capable of. “Don’t you dare speak to him like that. You certainly aren’t his Dominant. You have no bloody right.” His chin is raised, his eyes are that bright, unyielding blue.  
  
Erik doesn't seem much frightened by it, but his gaze passes between the two of them, noting the way his younger counterpart seems only seconds away from a full-blown panic attack, and it dawns on him that his approach may not have been wise. His lips press together and he raises his hands, calm. "No," he murmurs softly. "I suppose I don't."   
  
The younger puts his hand on Charles's arm, trying desperately to reign the situation in, even visibly shaking. In his body is an urge he's never once felt in his entire life, and it startles and terrifies him, and his hand separates from the fabric of Charles's shirt as he takes a few steps back, face drained of color, tears hovering at the edge of long eyelashes.   
  
"Please, try and be easy. I didn't intend harm."  
  
Charles stands. He hasn’t been told to; there’s something wrong about moving from kneeling without that, but it’s an instinct more than anything, albeit perhaps an untrained one. He’s following after Erik, though careful not to spook him, perfectly aware that this Erik is new. That he’s frightened and confused. “Erik,” he breathes, his own hands raised, though less in surrender and more in what he hopes is a display of submission, of a lack of aggression, Dominance, or Command. “Erik, it’s alright. Look at me, darling. You’re safe. You’re alright. He didn’t mean to frighten you.” But Charles must be frightened, too, because the world, even this one, is humming, untrained, unlearned energy he can put to no real conscious use. Things begin to tremble. A very old, very expensive vase wiggles its way off a pedestal.  
  
Erik rubs his hand over his own cheek, an odd gesture that seems almost self-soothing in nature and not something this Charles has ever seen him do before. He exhales harshly through his nose and the vase slides back where it belongs, and he stares wide-eyed at Charles, rocking backwards and forwards unsteadily. His hand reaches out and bunches in the fabric of Charles's shirt when he gets close enough and he finds himself pulled into Erik's arms, where Erik lowers his head onto Charles's shoulder like an overwhelmingly large preying mantis. "'Not submissive," he whispers. "Don't want to."  
  
Charles nods, encouraging. His arms wrap around Erik, as much as they possibly can, anyway, one hand reaching up to thread soothing fingers through his hair. “I know,” he whispers, just to him. Just to his Dominant. Perhaps he can’t communicate truly privately yet, but this will have to do. A stolen moment, even here, even as the world continues to wobble and thrum unsteadily. “I know, darling. I know. You’re not submissive. You won’t ever be. Isn’t that right? Don’t you know that? You said you'd like to be my Dominant. You will be, won't you?"  
  
He nods, sniffling loudly even as his eyes flutter shut when Charles scritches behind his ear. He's the only one who has ever been capable of calming Erik down, of preventing the storm before it even forms, and nothing so untoward as a single vase drops to the ground when his control falters. Charles helps him, not by doing anything specific, just by the tone of his voice and his touch. Whatever anxieties he might have had about losing that control and unleashing the full breadth of his Dominance on Charles is entirely overshadowed by this-by the idea that it might be the opposite. He's still new, still learning, at an opportune time for an example to be made about trusting himself-and that he can see himself doing, he really can. But submitting? The idea makes him want to vomit, and he doesn't understand why. He has nothing but love and respect for submission, so why should the very idea of heeding to authority make him want to cower on the floor? He doesn't understand, all the inner workings of himself. "Promise," he gasps. "Don't Order me. Don't want it. My submissive. 'Kay?"  
  
Honestly, it helps Charles understand. There’s so much he doesn’t, so much he simply couldn’t, but this reaction puts at least one thing in perspective, one thing he’s been struggling with this entire time. He’s breathless, realizing that, everything unstable, wobbly, thrumming and thrumming and -- Erik might not lose control, but the opposite might not be so certain. “I promise,” he gasps, and finds himself clinging to Erik, grabbing onto his shirt with his free hand and tugging. “You won’t be submissive. Ever. You’re my Dominant,” he promises. "You don't have to be. You shouldn't be." And he hadn't realized, until exactly this moment, how wrong it is.  
  
Erik slowly does calm himself down at Charles's soothing, his steadiness even in the face of chaos. Erik might be the Dominant, but Charles is the only person in the Universe, in any Universe, who could have stopped Erik from melting down the world. From being truly wild, because in a way, he is, even now. He strokes his fingers down Charles's cheek, as if to reassure himself. "My submissive," he rumbles lowly, oblivious to their audience.   
  
It reminds the older Erik of a perilous time in his own past-a time where he'd pushed Banshee from the top of a spire to show him his true capabilities. He hadn't been kind back then, and this wasn't his intention now-he had believed that he was stabilizing the situation, injecting Order where it needed to go. But at the same time, it is a learning experience of its own. Another reason they are here.  
  
Everything is still chaotic. It’s Charles who’s struggling to calm now, though he doesn’t know precisely why. His eyes are wide, even as he buries himself abruptly in Erik, the room still and then suddenly shaking; the vase smashes again, this time without dropping, shattering and screeching in a way that it shouldn’t as if even if Charles isn’t defiant, his abilities certainly are. “I’ll never learn,” he mutters into his Dominant, miffed that even whispering, this older Charles will know. “I can’t. There’s something wrong with me.”  
  
Erik shakes his head, still buried partway into Charles's shoulder. "You can. We came here to learn. You too. He will show you. You will let him. And do your best." These Orders feel much different from the other Erik, not necessarily in any quantifiable Will, but because they feel like they're meant exactly for Charles. No one else.  
  
They’re certainly Orders, but Charles has always been able to react however he pleases to them. In this case he tenses up, clinging tighter to Erik’s shirt. “I don’t want to,” he insists, perhaps childishly, but his chest still feels impossibly tight. Constricted. “You don’t understand, Erik. You haven’t been there, you haven’t a clue — I can’t. Whatever this power is, he was wrong. I’m not meant for this.” He looks up to peer at the other Erik, shaking his head. “I can’t. Tell him I’m different.”  
  
With Charles wrapped around him Erik glares down and shakes his head. "You do not want it, well I tell you. You kneel at Rest right now." That Order is unable to be reacted to in any other way than what Erik intends. "Not different. You just don't know yet. You will. You will let him help, to show where to start. Both of you will be respectful. No talking back. No. I put you over my knee once I will do it again. You belong to me. I expect you to learn. This is how. You try. You take help. You do not talk back about how you don't want to."  
  
There’s a frown on Charles’ lips, perfectly pronounced and definitely closer to a pout than he’d like to admit, forehead scrunched and brow furrowed in that way it always is when he’s disgruntled, but he sinks to his knees anyway. “He can’t teach me,” he insists quietly, as if he can’t quite help it.  
  
“Not if you don’t wish to be taught,” the Older Charles huffs, thoroughly put out. “Have you considered, Charles, that perhaps you don’t know better?”  
  
Charles’ head snaps in that direction, angled toward his Dominant deliberately but now scowling over his shoulder. “And you do? You said yourself I’m different than you are!”  
  
“Yes, which makes it more of a problem that you have less control over your mutation than most of my youngest students,” the Older sighs, coolly. His eyebrow is arched. “Are you proud of that?”  
  
“It isn’t my fault,” the younger hisses, glaring now. "Would you please be less insufferable?"  
  
Erik's hand finds its way sharply to Charles's shoulder. "I said respect. Both of you. This is not the way. It is not your fault. You need to learn. I will not hear you speak that way to him. Not ever." Erik's words aren't frost and ice but more the way that a volcano erupts over the earth and scorches every living thing in its path. The room is vibrating with energy, molecules in motion in a way the older Charles has never experienced from his own Erik. "But he is right. You do not cooperate. That is unacceptable. So you try again or I will put you back where you belong and teach a new lesson."  
  
Both Charles sigh, this time in perfect unison, and their reaction to that is comical; further narrowed eyes and mirrored furrowed brows, the lines on the Older’s face more pronounced but nonetheless they’re matched. Charles’ lips purse and his jaw clenches, but he nods even with his chin stubbornly raised, his eyes closing and his hands obediently Positioned, poised toward Erik and his Will.  
  
“Focus,” the Older Charles urges quietly. “Clear your mind. Allow yourself to feel.”  
  
That earns a huff. “Would you like me to break another vase, then?” he asks, teeth clenched tightly. “That’s what tends to happen when I feel.”  
  
“You’re afraid of your abilities. Of yourself,” the Older notes, gentler this time. “As long as you are, you won’t grow, Charles.”  
  
“Of course I’m afraid of them!” His voice raises this time, Charles’ eyes snapping at the same time the rest of him does. The room appears to be shaking again, the very floor underneath them trembling, the walls humming in discordant noise and frequency. “I’m terrified of them! I don’t understand. From the moment I woke up I was told I could hurt everyone I love and care for and everyone else while I’m at it, not that I have any clue who those people are in the first place, and I’m supposed to accept that? Do you have any idea what it’s like to hear that, and have no clue at all what to do about it? How to control it? I don’t understand how they work. I don’t even know what any of it means. How am I supposed to learn?” His eyes snap open, wide and fearful, and focus on his Dominant. “We should go. This isn’t helpful.”  
  
Erik touches Charles's face. Both Eriks know quite a bit about what it's like to be afraid of themselves, but funnily enough, it's the older Erik who has more experience with it. Not so funny. At the end of the day fear isn't helpful, Charles has said that to Erik over and over again. It prevented both of them from growing their relationship to where it needed to be, and it will prevent Charles from doing the same thing. His Erik knows just as much and he shakes his head. "It will be. You will learn with me. I won't let anything bad happen. You asked me to help you. I can't. I don't know how. He can. Now listen to him."  
  
It isn’t at all helpful, but in this case it feels completely inevitable. To his credit, Charles tries. He sucks in a long, slow breath and then closes his eyes, and neither Charles speaks, but it would be obvious enough even to the least unobservant outsider who knows of their abilities that they’re communicating. Not bickering and taunting each other this time, but communicating; there’s silence in the room except for the hum of that lingering, thrumming power.  
  
Until both Charles’ eyes snap open, the older Charles grasping suddenly at his head, fingers pressing in on his temples as he gasps.  
  
Charles’ eyes, wide and afraid and suddenly might brighter blue, turn to the older Erik instead of his own Dominant, swiveled toward him on his knees. “Do you see? I can’t,” he insists, frantic. “Tell him to make me stop. I’ll hurt him,” and if he knows anything about Erik, it’s that he absolutely will not stand to see his submissive hurt.  
  
The older Erik is already crouched to take Charles's face in hand, prising his fingers away from his temple to rub them instead, entirely forgetting about anyone else in the room as he checks in. He knows Charles is stronger than he often seems at first glance, but it doesn't matter how many times things like this happen to them, he can't bear seeing him in pain. _Tell me what's happened_ , he demands between their bond, but it doesn't do much to mask the jolt in his chest.  
  
Already his Charles — the older Charles — immediately he can tell. He feels that jolt as if it is his own. The tightening in his chest, the sudden ringing in his ears even as Erik puts up his front, even as he stays calm. “I’m alright, darling,” he promises, out loud for everyone else’s benefit and no other reason, but he’s wincing. The Bond goes two ways, and he’s rotten at lying to Erik for exactly that reason; his temples are throbbing, hot with sharp, spiking pain. _He’s very powerful, inexplicably so, but perhaps even more terrified of himself_ , he answers much more privately. _Does it remind you of anyone, Erik?_ he teases.  
  
 _Oh, it does,_ he replies archly, an eyebrow raised and his lips twitching playfully. _I do not wish to see you harmed. Perhaps the best solution is not to push for results, or even pure control. He seems to struggle to even access his abilities. Maybe we can start with something simple. You could try to bring me in with you, perhaps my presence might help to stabilize you both._ Because he knows without a doubt that Charles wouldn't treat him like a student even if he calls him one. He would push just as he pushes himself. But Erik remembers when he first began to use his abilities for something beyond fighting and death. It was Charles encouraging him to look for the soft things. To see metal everywhere, to feel it and exist within it instead of shaping it in pursuit of a goal. That came later. And he's always had far better control through love than fear.


	129. You better run better run outrun my gun

Erik is right, unfortunately. Control is something that seems utterly beyond his younger counterpart, as much as Charles is loath to admit it, the furrow to his brow and the purse to his lips plenty indication of it. If this were a student, he would be endlessly patient in nearly every case, if this were any version of Erik likewise; but this is himself, and he’s always been, even at his most cocky and proud, his biggest critic. If he’s capable of that, even, Charles snarks, but sighs, clearly deferring.  
  
He knows better. This other Charles will learn, too, but it seems as if he’s being exceptionally slow with it.  
  
The Bond is open. Humming, bright, pulsing; always connecting, but not always so active. Charles leans into now, tugs at it, so when he focuses on the other Erik and the next wave of pain comes, sharp and seething, it’s shared. He grimaces, attempting to wall that off immediately. The younger Charles is shaking, frightened, his eyes scrunched tightly shut as his fingers dig into his own thighs, still at Rest on his knees.  
  
What Erik would notice, first and foremost, is the sheer, pure energy. Power. Raw, hardly even possible, contained in one place. Thrumming, singing, waiting. Untapped, unexplored, uncertain. _I’ve never seen anything like it,_ he notes, and the other Charles jumps, his eyes snapped wide as he reaches for his head, startled.  
  
He feels his Erik's hand on his shoulder, doing his best to soothe; he's not a telepath but he seems to be quite aware of what's happening all the same, hovering just on the periphery. There's something like the sound of footsteps before the older Erik's presence becomes sharp and vivid and real, like white floors and velvet fabric and soil, a mind entirely distinct to anything he would associate with his own Erik, but electric the way a storm is. Beautiful, is the only impression he gets. Erik has never been afraid of him in any universe, but most certainly not this one.  
  
Charles’ eyes snap open, comically wide as he stares up at his Erik, grabbing for his shirt again and tugging him down without thinking too much about it. It’s odd to him, the sensation of feeling someone else in his head, in his mind. His first instinct is to clamp down on it, to force it out, and what he does do isn’t far off; the older Erik finds himself grounded in Charles’ mind, far different from the mind of the Charles he knows, in a strange, dark room, walled in tightly. Get out, he begs, fingers digging into Erik’s legs, shaking, and it comes out his mouth, too, because he doesn’t know how else to project it. He’s a fumbling, frightened child, except he’s an adult, now. “Get out,” he repeats, voice hoarse. “Get out. I can’t control it, get out.”  
  
His Erik does his best to soothe, an altogether different presence and yet not. Two roads diverging before them, one taken, one open. Charles feels a touch on his cheek that isn't his own, the older Erik within. He isn't forcing or pushing. Just breathe, he encourages softly. He isn't in control here. He can't get out because he hasn't brought himself in. He's never been the telepath after all. "We're both here," his Erik murmurs. "You won't. I will keep you safe. Promise."  
  
Charles lets go of Erik, reaching up to touch at his own temples. Everything feels hot and nauseating and spinning, entirely too loud. “Make it stop,” he demands, hoarse. Breathless. “Make it stop. I don’t want this. Make it stop, please,” he pleads.  
  
Erik, the one firmly rooted in the real world, stares for a long while as if he's entirely disconnected from reality, looking a little like he's about to throw up. He can't even helplessly look at the older Charles and beg for help; entirely locked in his own mind like a coma. The older Erik steps between-figuratively. _Now Charles. Stop._ The Order is loud and intense like a hammer hitting a nail. "Now stop it. This is your mind. You are in control. Pause. Now. You do not trust your Dominant? Here? Then why do you come here. You don't trust us, you are afraid. Then why are you here. You don't want to do the work? You don't want to face it? Then why. So stop it. Focus on my voice. Stop spinning around in your own mind. It is completely unacceptable and I am certain if your Dominant were even on this planet he would be immeasurably concerned by this utter lack of composure. You know better. You are stronger than that. I will not accept anything less in my home."  
  
Charles takes a long, slow breath, shaky and harsh and let out in a vibration that seems to shake the room again, but his eyes close. The older Charles, seemingly far away, lets out a sigh, too; it’s ostensibly relief, even as things remain unstable, even as the walls in that room the older Erik finds himself in narrow, and narrow, and narrow, strangely dark but cracking. The Universe peeking in. “You don’t understand,” he breathes, still out loud though it doesn’t need to be, and suddenly he’s there, too. Standing in the room, clutching at his own head, his eyes wide and troubled and afraid. “I don’t know how to do this. Your Charles does, perhaps, but I can’t control it. It doesn’t work like it should. I don’t remember ever knowing this, or understanding it, and it frightens me. At night I have dreams I don’t understand, and he follows me…” Charles shakes his head, glancing about as if the other Erik is there, as if he’s listening. He isn’t. “You don’t understand,” he repeats. "I could hurt you. I could hurt your Charles. Nothing is keeping us there, I am."  
  
"Talk, talk, talk," the older Erik rumbles as he moves forward, footfalls heavy. "I could do this and I could do that. You sound like Senator Kelly." He gently removes Charles's hands from his temple. "You came here. You know. So who is following you, then? Who has more power over you than your own Dominant in your own mind? You're scared. He's scared. So do what you both do the best. Stand by his side and face it. Otherwise you decide it's not worth it. Go home and live in your empty mansion forever." His eyebrows arch. It's not visceral and it's not cruel but it is blunt the way he knows this Erik can be. Maybe even the reason he came in the first place.  
  
Charles’ lip curls, his jaw clenched. The small, narrowing room around them flashes, and he knocks Erik’s hand away from him, backing himself into a corner. “You haven’t any clue what you’re talking about,” he hisses. “If it happened, if I lost control, would you change your tune? If it was your Charles in danger, as it could be if I stayed? You don’t understand —“ He closes his eyes, and the room goes suddenly dark. There are footsteps from behind Erik. “I didn’t come here for a lecture. You don’t know what’s happening to me, or why I need to protect them from it. You couldn’t possibly know me, because I don’t.”  
  
Erik growls right back and whirls around to pin Charles's hands behind his back, towering over him. "I know you are letting fear run your life and take over everything good." He bites off the rest of his reply, so much like the Erik Charles knew before his memories were dissolved away. "And you can yell and thrash that I could never possibly understand like a little _angsty teenager,_ " he hisses dangerously, "But you wouldn't know the difference, would you? You scream into the Void at me? You want to frighten me? You want to hurt my submissive? You want to pound your fists and prove how malicious and evil you are? Is that why you came here?"  
  
“No!” he snaps, and it echoes, the walls seeming to absorb it and push it back, loud and rippling. “Of course not. Is that what you think I want? To be malicious? I never said I was evil!” he shouts, raising his voice even though it’s hoarse, from crying earlier, from strain now. Charles’ eyes stay narrowed, he struggles in Erik’s grip, chin lifted as if it can make up for the difference in height. “I said I couldn’t control it, and I won’t let myself become evil. I won’t hurt anyone. Does that anger you? Would you like to tell me how horrible I am for that? Sod off,” he snarls, and the footsteps get louder. Charles closes his eyes again. “Get out. Now.”  
  
Erik grips his chin. "You do not tell me what to do. Nor do you spit words in my mouth. I am not here to call you horrible and you know it. So do not play games with me. I know you more intimately than you could possibly comprehend. And so does he. But you choose to stagnate. You choose to rot in here." He jabs his finger into Charles's chest. "You call him your Dominant but he isn't. Not really. And that is not on him." His voice shakes with anger, but something else, too. "And it will mean nothing. I do not think you want to be evil. I think you are just scared. And if you think-" he just sighs instead and lets those thoughts go, footsteps and white walls peeled to yellow.  
  
Charles glares right back, frustrated, frightened, angry tears gathering in his eyes. The footsteps don’t stop. The walls, if they’re walls at all, press in closer. Suffocating and stifling. “He’s not my Dominant? How? Tell me, if you know so much!”  
  
Erik swallows roughly, for an instant looking far younger than his years belie. "Because you won't trust him. You won't trust me. You trust your fear more."  
  
Charles’ eyes stay firmly closed, but it doesn’t matter here. He knows. He sees. His hands come back up to grip at his hair, swallowing himself. “I trust you,” he argues hoarsely. “I trust him. But why does that mean I should trust myself? How can I possibly know to trust that? How did I know —“ He shakes his head. This room is closed-in, small, echoing, and the footsteps just get louder. “You have to leave,” he warns.  
  
"I won't," Erik murmurs back. Firm. Commanding. Authoritative. A manifestation of Will tempered by age, a glimpse of what his Erik has yet to become.   
  
“It’s not about that --” His ears are ringing. Erik’s are, too, because suddenly those footsteps are deafening. Charles doesn’t even think there’s a floor underneath them, not that he would be able to tell for certain with the panic gripping his chest. “And he doesn’t know me, besides. When he had memories, he didn’t tell me, and now that he doesn’t he has no way of it. I can trust him, but how do I know -- how does he know? There’s no way. Now, please. You have to leave,” he insists, trying to step further back. There’s nowhere to go, the wall behind him invisible, dark, but utterly unyielding. “Please. Call for him if you have to, but make him get you out.”  
  
Erik takes Charles's hands in his. "Do you really think I would leave? Do you really believe that I would ever leave you? Of course he doesn't tell you. Pain isn't who we are. He told you who he is. He is telling you who he is. And he knows who you are. He feels it." Erik touches Charles's chest. "Just as he always has. Maybe he knew more before. It changes nothing. You will find out together. And I am here. And I am not going anywhere." It's easy to mistake it for bluntness but the small lights beyond speak another story. A deeper story.  
  
It’s so loud. Does Erik not hear it, or is he simply ignoring it? Can he not hear those footsteps? His ears are ringing, and ringing, and ringing, and his chest is so tight he thinks it might collapse, Erik’s hand the only thing grounding him. “You don’t know me,” he insists. “He doesn’t, either. I know things are different for you, but you don’t understand. You’re not safe here, Erik. And if you won’t go, I’ll -- I’ll make you,” he gasps, every part of him shriveling at the idea of it, but he has no choice even as his voice shakes. “Please. I’m begging. You can’t be here.”  
  
"I know you are," Erik's eyebrows arch almost plaintively, reminiscent of his Erik as he's ever been even as he shakes his head. "You need to trust me. To let me in. Even if it isn't safe. Even if it's not. I will always be at your side. No matter what. You say you trust me. So let me be beside you."  
  
“How are you so sure?” he demands suddenly, even as the panic builds, and builds, and builds. An iron fist around his heart, around his throat. “Why are you so willing? I’m not your Charles. Can you not imagine that you don’t know me? That I’m not -- that I’m not the same as he is? Just go, now!"  
  
Erik touches Charles's throat, traces his cheek and down his chest. "Maybe I don't know. You want me to say I am afraid? Of course I am. I don't have a logical answer, _kochanie_. I only know what I know. I am willing to trust you. I have faith in you. Maybe you don't have faith in me. That's fine." He shakes his head again. It hurts of course that any incarnation of Charles would reject him, but it's his choice. It always has been. Submission freely given. "I am always willing. Always."  
  
It breaks him down. It always has and it always will. Charles takes harsh, uneven, loud breaths, staring past Erik instead of at him. “I wish you wouldn’t be,” he whispers, but he knows that’s not the truth even as it should be.  
  
The footsteps finally stop, but only because they’ve reached their destination. A man stands behind them, not looming, not even outwardly intimidating. He’s well-dressed, his suit immaculate, expensive, pressed, his hair cut short, the smile on his lips unsettling but altogether pleasant. His hands are in his pockets.  
  
It’s not Shaw. It’s Charles.

* * *

“Hello, darling,” he greets, head tilted. The Charles against the wall looks utterly terrified.  
  
And it's one of the many reasons that Charles should know by now that Erik doesn't follow anyone or anything blindly. That maybe he can't articulate his feelings or their origins but he is often an exceeding judge of any situation before him. He knows Charles. He knows his submissive. And this person does not inspire the same response. Not yet. Instead he is careful. Measured as he turns to peer down at the intruder. Positioned bodily between both of them. "Charles," he murmurs back, inclining his head formally, hands behind his back.  
  
The man — Charles — smiles, laughs, head tilted in the way it does when he’s curious, intrigued. His eyes are noticeably a shade lighter, though it can’t be said why. He mirrors Erik, linking his hands behind his back. “You came here for answers of your own, didn’t you?” he asks, an eyebrow raising. “Are you certain you want them? You’re wrong, I’m afraid. I’m just as much him as he is. He simply doesn’t know it yet.”  
  
"I haven't passed judgement," Erik corrects him softly. Because he hasn't, not yet. As if there aren't dark parts of himself. He clears his throat. He almost cracks his back tooth from grinding it so hard. "I want him and his Dominant to heal. Answers are secondary."  
  
“Answers are a part of that, are they not?” Charles wonders, that eyebrow still raised. He paces, hand behind his back, in a room that’s suddenly much larger, and much more recognizable as a room. A study, actually. “He’s frightened of me,” this Charles points out, clearly amused by it as he glances over at the Charles Erik came here with. For. “He shouldn’t be. I’m his inevitable conclusion.”  
  
"What conclusion?" Erik asks, cocking a brow upwards. "Why would you frighten him?" Erik speaks strongly and clearly, a vibrating presence all his own. Metallic and unyielding.  
  
Another laugh. “I told him the truth, but he didn’t want to hear it. He rejected it,” Charles sighs, stopping suddenly, pivoting, shoving his hands back into his pockets. “I’m what happens when he accepts who he is and the power he has access to. I am him. I agree, the fear is ridiculous.”  
  
"So tell me the truth. What makes you so horrible he can't bear it?" Erik whispers, really looking at him. Really seeing. He doesn't have the same talent for reading people that the younger version of him does but he is no slouch, either. He is finely attuned, an invisible antennae swiveling forward. But all the same he doesn't seem surprised. Of course Charles knows why. He must know everything. He has the power to crush Erik into dust here and now, but Erik only takes a step forward. Maybe it is blind faith. It is all he has ever had.  
  
“Ask him. Do you think I have an answer to that?” But it’s fairly clear that he does, by the look on his face. Smug, now, his lips twitching with that same amusement. He stays perfectly relaxed, watching as Erik moves closer. Watching, still, as the other Charles reaches forward to grab for his arm, as if to pull him back.  
  
“Please,” he begs, hoarse. “Don’t get too close to him.”  
  
The other Charles sighs. “Are you so afraid of yourself, Charles? Can you not see that there is nothing wrong with what you would blindly reject? Look at me. What do you see?”  
  
“A monster,” Charles snarls back, in no uncertain terms. “Which is exactly what you are.”  
  
That earns a shrug. “Then you are, too. Surely you know that.”  
  
He does. Charles tugs at Erik’s shirt. “Please,” he repeats, croaked.  
  
Erik squeezes Charles's hand and takes another step. "Do not be coy with me. Nor this vague generality. A monster? Why. What have you done so bad? I ask you. So you tell me." Maybe he has no right to be so Commanding here, maybe it is a monster after all, but it is part of Charles and he has never helped loving him. No matter what form. The back of his mind hums and sings and threatens to spill, as if reaching back. Monster to monster, but it's ruthlessly stamped back down. A touching that would raze the earth. "Tell me."  
  
“What have I done?” Charles asks, both eyebrows arched now. He stays exactly where he is, not stepping forward, not reaching for Erik, looking on with something resembling pity as the other Charles continues to try and pull him back. “Nothing, technically. Yet. I’m him, remember? I’m what he will be when he decides to stop fooling himself. The Universe gifted him power, and I am what he becomes when he accepts it belongs to him.”  
  
“Or go mad with it,” the other Charles hisses, stepping out from behind Erik. Gripping tightly to his arm, not for protection, but to protect him, noticeably.  
  
“If that’s how you wish to see it,” Charles shrugs, his eyes that brighter, ethereal blue. “You can lie to yourself as long as you’d like. He was right.” His eyes fall on Erik, lips twitching again. “Choose not to accept the inevitable. Stay trapped in your own mind for as long as you please. Will it serve you? Will it serve anyone? How long do you think you can hold it? Will it make you feel good about yourself, Charles, to know that you destroyed everyone and everything you sought to protect because you were afraid? Will your Dominant be proud of you, wasting away in that empty, drab mansion you conjure up for the two of you? Do you think he'll love you when he knows you're the reason it all went to waste and ruin? You know what it is. You've figured it out. An illusion. Nothing more. Where was the only place you would be safe? Your own mind. And that's where you are, wasting and wasting away, holding everyone in your grasp.”  
  
“Stop,” Charles gasps.  
  
Erik turns away from him, then, back to that frightened version of Charles; the one who came to him, the one who is still seeking. He frames his jaw in both large hands-still after all this time, he's much too large to fit in a room, but he manages here. "He tells you what you think," Erik whispers deep-down. "What you fear will happen. But it is not true. You understand? He will love you no matter what. If you choose to stay. He will stay right with you. Nothing you could ever do-" and here, he pauses, resists the urge to push it down. "And you have done some things, Charles. To me. Things that hurt me. Things that scared me. But I returned. I came home. We fixed it."  
  
There’s a snort from behind them. Charles’ eyes narrow, but it certainly doesn’t stop the other Charles from leaning against a desk that’s suddenly appeared. “And if he’s wrong? Are you willing to bet that?”  
  
“Sod off,” Charles retorts, weakly, but still he pulls away from Erik. He takes a step back, finding that all of a sudden he can. “You know that isn’t true,” he whispers, not accusatory but heartbroken. “I’ve seen it for myself. You know there are things you can’t and should not forgive, and reasons you wouldn’t -- and he doesn’t know. He doesn’t have any clue.”  
  
“And why do you know that, Charles?” this other Charles asks, softly.  
  
“Because there are things I couldn’t forgive,” he breathes, swallowing hard around the admission, his eyes closed. “There are reasons I wouldn’t -- it isn’t inevitable, that he loves me. It shouldn’t be. Don’t tell me it is.”  
  
Erik looks a little weak himself, even as he tries to straighten. "You might find you can forgive more than you think. Maybe you couldn't. But I assure you, we can." His smile is one of those reflexive ones he's seen on Erik before the memories dissolved. Something that might be tears in an Erik who could express such. But this Erik isn't one.  
  
“You shouldn’t, and you can’t assure me of that!” It’s the frightened Charles raising his voice again, and suddenly the room is gone. No desk, no walls, no floor, just spinning, empty Void, stripped clear, shaking and vibrating as he shakes his head. “Is it supposed to bring me comfort? To hear that I could be truly awful, and he’ll still love me? What joy should that bring me? That man out there has known me hours! I barely know myself!”  
  
The other Charles laughs again, still very much present, still watching, now back to pacing, hands in his pockets. “But you’re a Pair Bond, aren’t you? Don’t you think he’ll delight in following along after you? Isn’t that what you were already learning? He was right, Charles.”  
  
“Shut up!” Charles shouts, and everything, for the moment, whites out. There’s a noise like an explosion, and from the outside, someone cries out in pain. Charles grasps his head. “No, no, no --”  
  
Erik touches Charles's shoulder, squeezes gently. "So learn, then," is all he has to offer. If every single thing he could possibly say is useless, it's all he has left. "All I could ever assure you is that what he wants is to learn. For you both to learn. Not fear and hiding. It is worth it to try and learn. He would never keep you against your will. I never would. It isn't meant to be a prison."  
  
“And what about him?” Charles wonders, but it’s sharp, spiky, he’s visibly in pain himself, tugging at his own hair. It’s not that it’s useless. It’s that he’s afraid, and closed off, and perhaps unwilling to hear some of it, because it doesn’t comfort him. It frightens him. Learning all of this, accepting all of this, it frightens him, and he still doesn’t feel ready. He doesn’t know if he ever could. “If he learns, and he finds he doesn’t fancy me? Are you so sure that’s not a possibility? Have you not considered that now that --” He swallows, and swallows, and steps further back. “Does it not occur to you that I don’t take comfort in him being forced to stay with me?”  
  
It makes Erik smile a little, a soft huff. "It doesn't occur to me," he agrees quietly, with a shrug. "I don't know. Maybe you don't want somebody like that. Like me. But I am sure of that. It is his choice. Not forced. We choose you. Again and again. Maybe that isn't what you want to hear. I can't change it."  
  
It isn’t. Charles closes his eyes, everything spinning and dark, and shakes his head. “Then I can’t do this,” he decides, quietly. The other Charles, still watching, laughs again. Amused. Charles is anything but as he backs away, and backs away, and backs away, tears on his cheeks that have come from nowhere, shaking head to toe. “Then I can’t do this,” he repeats.  
  
"And every time you have the decision to give in to fear or make the decision to step up and face it, you will end up here. Do not act like you care whether or not you hurt me in some unfathomable mental plane, like you will unleash some dredge of suffering upon me, upon him. So go on out there and tell him, because you will spare him such heartbreak." Erik inhales sharply and whirls on his feet, striding as far away from the both of them as he can.  
  
“You’re in my mind, there’s nowhere for you to go!” Charles shouts after him, frustrated and heartbroken himself, his fists balled up at his sides. All of a sudden, he finds that there’s quite literally nowhere for him to go, an invisible wall that he comes up against. That he runs right into. Charles steps forward instead of away this time. “Don’t act like you know anything about what I do or do not care about. You don't."  
  
Erik growls and rolls his eyes, turning around and bodily _shoving_ Charles away from him. "What do you care about more than fear? You tell me lies, this whole time, all you did is lie to me. You want a competition of who doesn't know anything, is that it. Listen to me here Charles Xavier. You do _not_. About anything. You are what, twenty years old. You are a child and you _act_ like a child. So go sit in your corner and be afraid because someone has the _audacity_ to love you. Get out of here. You say another thing to me and you will find yourself on the end of something you have _never_ seen."  
  
It freezes Charles up. It freezes everything up, actually, frozen, suspended, suddenly freezing cold, though in the space they’re in there should be no temperature. He’s off balance, and he falls backward as a result, stumbling, barely catching himself, utterly stunned. His mouth opens, and then suddenly closes again. There’s nowhere for him to go, either. The connection didn’t start with him, and apparently it won’t end there. But he backs up another step, and doesn’t say a word. The tears on his cheeks, already red from earlier, feel cold somehow, too, and he can't understand why. He turns his face to hide them, as if there’s any hiding here. The connection will snap eventually. It always does. He's unable to access it, to keep it. The other Charles -- the older one out there, the one this Erik knows and loves -- he'll realize eventually, if it doesn't snap naturally. "I came here to help him," he whispers, finally. "That was very cruel." He's not sure Erik will even hear it.  
  
"I'm a cruel person," is what he says, a nod. An admission, maybe.   
  
Charles hesitates, but not for very long. If that other version of here, he’s silent, faded into the background. All that remains is this as he crouches and then kneels, trying to swallow the lump in his own throat, to fix the shaking of himself and this place around them, closed in and suffocating again. Freezing cold, shivery. He bites his lip. “You’re not,” he whispers, shaking his head. “I know you aren’t.” It likely doesn’t mean much, coming from him. He tries to stare at the ground, only to find that’s utterly dizzying, strange colors and whispers he can’t understand. He closes his eyes, but that doesn’t help much, either.  
  
He shakes his head and waves his hand, trying to cast off whatever feeble emotional response had risen up. "Yes, I am. You say there are things you can't forgive. Well I've done them. And so has he. I can tell just by looking at him. It isn't the same. But it's something you try to ignore. I never told Charles. He couldn't. He would say he did, but he couldn't. You say you came here to help him. How? You don't want to be with him. I'm supposed to help you. Well," laughter. "Well I didn't, did I."  
  
But Charles doesn’t go. He stays right where he is, even though he’s finding it difficult to look, right on his knees in front of Erik. And perhaps it’s not the Erik he’s meant for, but that doesn’t matter. It certainly doesn’t matter right now. “I never said I didn’t want to be with him,” he whispers, small. “I do. Very much.” He's not sure how much it means, but there it is.  
  
"Maybe it is just easy for me to hear," Erik looks up, still-laughing, terribly bittersweet. He said he couldn't do it. He couldn't do it if Erik loved him unconditionally. And he knows that any version of himself always would. So Charles couldn't-be with him, then. But maybe he meant something else. And it is just easy for him to hear otherwise. "Oh, I'm being utterly foolish," he growls, knocking his head back against the ether. " _Kurwa!_ Ridiculous."  
  
Charles shakes his head. “You’re wrong about that,” he argues, still whispering, still with lowered eyes, for all the good that does except to make him dizzy. “I’ve seen it myself. There are versions of you, of him, that do not. Perhaps it feels unconditional, but it isn’t. And it shouldn’t be. We aren’t inevitable, Erik.” He reaches up to wipe at his face, sniffling. “But isn’t that better?”  
  
"Of course _nothing_ is unconditional. If it is possible, if it is ever possible, that love will exist. If you make it _impossible_ , maybe not. If you hurt him beyond repair. Maybe not. But it's not because of some accident of your powers. It's because of the deliberate choices that you make to push him away, to wound him, to make him cry out. To be cruel. Of course he will-of course anyone would. But to think, that it could never be fixed, that there would not still be some spark there. You don't know me, then."  
  
“I never said that. I never went that far,” he corrects, because he’s seen that, too. Mending after years of pain and hurt and perceived betrayal and malice. “I believe that. What I don’t believe is that what we feel for each other should be assumed. That does us no justice.” It’s quiet, but firm. “I don’t know him, really,” Charles admits, and there’s sadness there, perhaps. “So how could I really love him? How could he love me? How could we trust each other completely? Those things are created, formed, grown. They aren’t innate. I don’t believe that.”  
  
"I don't think that's true," Erik points out. "You seem to know everything about him that matters. Every time it does matter, I see how you feel. When you came the first time, I saw. You are here now, with me. I see. You have been with him for weeks, now. I think you know him."  
  
“I don’t think he let me know him,” Charles whispers, and shakes his head. “I wanted to. I still do, even when —“ Another head-shake. “But everything important? I don’t think that’s true, especially not now. And I think you know it, too.” There’s a weak smile on his lips, the ether they’re in at least brighter. “But I want to. Know him. Trust him, completely. And —“ He doesn’t say the last part, finding his cheeks hot instead. Not in front of this Erik.  
  
"I would-" Erik shrugs. "I would think-" he breathes, slow. "If I had the chance, I would try to present myself in a more flattering light." He thinks Charles will know what he means. That knowing all of Erik-that there is ugliness, there. Things Charles couldn't forgive. But either way, he catches it all the same. "-and?" Erik's eyebrows raise, expectant. His nose wrinkles up now, too, the same way that Erik's does-the one Charles knows. The one he's spent all this time with so far.  
  
“It’s more than that,” he sighs, but he’s not upset by it. That there’s more of Erik to learn isn’t upsetting; this is a joy, and something this new Erik can perhaps only help him with, just as lost to himself as Charles is. Erik’s insistence and expression just make him flush further, his own nose scrunched up as he shakes his head. “And nothing!” he declares, grinning shyly. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”  
  
It makes him huff, a sound not unlike a laugh. He reaches over and tickles Charles's sides. "Yes I would," he smirks. Drawn to Charles in any incarnation, in any universe, no matter the hardship. "So you better tell me. Or else," he feigns sternness.  
  
Charles does laugh, squirming, gently pushing Erik’s hands away. “Quit,” he insists, and shakes his head again, this time just to be contrary. This time just to grin. “No, I won’t. And I wouldn’t go around threatening me, my Dominant wouldn’t like that very much,” he snorts, smug but soft, too.  
  
And of course, this Erik just has to rise up to meet him. "Empty threats," he whispers, though, soft in return. It's an old habit. A bad one. One he should never level at his submissive. "Tell me," he repeats, barely audible. Scritching under Charles's chin playfully. Maybe because there's something inside of him that's a little desperate; to know that all isn't lost. That he hasn't ruined things.  
  
And now it’s impossible to deny him. Charles gently takes one of Erik’s large, weathered hands and brings it to his cheek, finding himself unable to help from nuzzling into it. “I want to love him,” he whispers, and knows that they both know he already does, even if it’s not in the way Erik knows love for his Charles. “I want to belong to him,” he adds, more shy than he’s been this entire time now, eyes anywhere but Erik, cheeks warm underneath his hand.  
  
It makes this Erik's eyes flutter shut, all of the darkness muting out for a single moment. "So reach for him," is all he can rasp. The only advice he's given thus far that hasn't been in pursuit of anything, but purely out of his own heart. "He needs you. Reach for him. He will reach back. He doesn't have his memories, why? Because why? Reach for him. Everything you need to know, everything that must happen, it will happen if you search for it. Move toward it." He presses his lips to Charles's other hand, rubbing his cheek with his thumb. "You will learn it. I promise you will."  
  
But Charles’ face falls, those tears that had slipped out earlier making an appearance again, and this time he can’t wipe them. He sniffs instead, closing his eyes. “It’s not so simple,” he protests, though he knows he will. He knows he’ll try. When they’re interrupted, it’s by someone laughing again, harsher this time.  
  
The other Charles is watching. “What good will it do you if you’re trapped? You know what will happen the moment you leave this place.”  
  
“Shut up,” Charles hisses, jaw clenched again. “Shut up.”  
  
"Enough," Erik Orders sharply. The other Charles knows well and good it's meant for him, with nowhere to lash out against it. "What will happen is that you will try. And you won't keep bending to this fear, because if you do, you will be stuck there. I can't Order you to deal with it. You must make that choice for yourself, and not because you're berating yourself that you aren't good enough. I mean really make that choice. I mean really reach for him. It is that simple."  
  
The other Charles seems to go quiet for a moment, at the very least. Perhaps it’s a loophole in an Order, or perhaps it’s something else; either way he smirks, and he doesn’t need to say anything at all.  
  
“It’s not that simple,” Charles argues quietly, because it isn’t. “I don’t want -- I know you’ve told me not to tell you that you don’t understand, but you don’t. I don’t want to become like him.”  
  
“You already are,” the other Charles points out. “I’ve told you, I am you. You’ll need to accept that.”  
  
“I won’t,” he shakes his head. “I can’t.”  
  
“Then I suppose you’ll have a very isolated, wasted existence. I hope your Dominant is proud.”  
  
"I said stop," Erik growls it this time, holding up a hand to shush him. "Become like him, like what? I don't understand, then what? Tell me, then. Tell me what's so horrible."  
  
“He hurts people,” Charles whispers, which sounds awfully silly and simplistic, but it’s the truth. It obviously bothers him, deeply, right to his core. “For his own gain. Mercilessly and without remorse. He’s someone —“ Charles shakes his head.  
  
“Say it,” the other Charles dares.  
  
“He’s someone Sebastian Shaw would be proud of,” Charles whispers, close to inaudible. “I know because he’s told me.”

* * *

Erik doesn't seem to respond at all to that. Like a lightbulb has been switched off in his brain, his hand drifts down from Charles's cheek to settle on his own knee, limp. "Sebastian Shaw," he ends up saying at last, not a question, not in horror, the sound like typewriter keys clacking mechanically. His eyebrows pull together after a few seconds, confused. "You said it's 2019. The year you come from."  
  
Charles blinks, not comprehending for a moment. “It is,” he confirms, frowning. “Why? Why is that important?”  
  
Erik shakes his head. "It is not important. Forget I said it."  
  
But of course Charles shakes his head, tilted now as he leans into Erik’s hand. “No,” he murmurs, quietly. “I won’t. Tell me? Please, Erik.”  
  
Another head-shake. "I knew Sebastian Shaw. That is all. Our times must be divergent." He knows he's supposed to be doing more, saying more, but his blood feels turned to sludge. Immovable. Frozen. His eyes are distant even as he pulls himself back to what is more important. "I do not understand why you said that." And it can't be helped that he's staring at Charles rather critically, now. If he ever held doubts that there were conditions to Erik's affections, at least those have been laid to rest. "What has he-what have you done? Why?"  
  
“What have I done?” the other Charles asks, and then kneels beside them, ostensibly not in deference, not in submission, not the way that Erik would have him, form and proper Position aside. “I told you, Erik: nothing. Yet. But don’t you think it’s inevitable? What happens when you’re granted power unimaginable, the ability to change the world, mold it and shape it for the better? Would you pass that chance up?”  
  
“Yes,” the Charles still holding Erik’s hand to his cheek seethes, jaw and teeth clenched tightly again.  
  
“I don’t think so,” the other responds, thoroughly smug about it. “And I think both of you know that.”  
  
"You," Erik points a finger, voice wavering only slightly. "You have no idea what you are talking about."  
  
"I don’t?” that other Charles asks, his eyebrow raised near mockingly. “Are you certain of that? Or are you just unwilling to admit it? Take a moment to truly consider it, Erik.”  
  
“Don’t,” Charles begs.  
  
“Because you know I’m right,” the other announces, smug again. “The power we have access to is immense. Do you expect normalcy after that? Do you expect restriction? There is good we can do, and we will. He's just unwilling to accept it. For the moment."  
  
"Of course I am certain of it," Erik replies harshly. "It is far easier for you to convince yourself that I am in denial, that I could not possibly have any conception of what you are speaking." Erik gets himself up off of the ground. "You come here, to me. You speak that name, to me, and then tell me all about how it is inevitable. No, I am done with this discussion."  
  
That other Charles stands, too. It’s too close to how a defiant, prickly Charles might act -- because perhaps it is -- when he lifts his chin and puffs out his chest, something the still-kneeling Charles doesn’t because he hasn’t taught himself to. But Erik will recognize it. “What obligation am I under to listen to you, to heed you? Have you considered that I shouldn’t?”  
  
“Stop!” Charles shouts, begs, his eyes firmly closed. He’s pulling at his hair again. “Stop it. Now.”  
  
“Good show,” the other laughs, and shakes his head. “You said it yourself, Erik. You’re not really his Dominant.”  
  
"Your obligation is to yourself," Erik spits back. "To show yourself the benefit of a Pairbond and all that it represents. Your obligation is to him. He chooses you. Again and again. It means nothing if you do not choose back. You are not a monster. You are just a person. You are nothing like Sebastian Shaw and I am frankly disgusted and insulted by the comparison. I won't listen to it. Your life, your choice."  
  
It quiets the other Charles, but more than that it earns Charles’ attention. He swallows visibly, staring, silent. The room darkens, freezes again, as if a cold draft has swept in. It’s not a room; they’re nowhere, still, everything floating and unsettled, Charles’ mind a place he doesn’t know, understand, or accept. When he finally speaks, it’s whispered. “He didn’t make the comparison himself,” he says, and finds the words stick awfully in his throat. “He’s here, too. He always is. He won't leave."  
  
It makes Erik laugh darkly, drawing his hand down his face. "For what possible purpose would he enter your mind under any circumstances," he replies flatly. "He is dead. If not in your reality, then certainly in spirit."  
  
It makes Charles blink, and then shake his head, tears clinging to his eyelashes as he stares down at — what? His feet? It’s dizzying and there are echoes from outside of here, voices he sometimes hears whispering, calls in the dark. He reaches up to touch his temple, rub it, wincing. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But he does. He watches me. I don’t tell Erik all the time, I certainly won’t now —“ He bites down on his lip, hard. “He follows me. Around corners, into my dreams. In the bedroom late at night. I thought he might leave after I admitted it, but he hasn’t. He’s still there.”  
  
Erik lets out a loud sigh, glaring at a point past Charles's shoulder. "You will not hide it from him, nor will you lie to him. Whatever you are seeing doesn't matter, Charles. That man does not matter. Nothing he could ever say would ever be worthwhile to listen to."  
  
“It doesn’t… matter?” For some reason it riles Charles’ temper, which has the other Charles chuckling, watching like some irritating shadow. Charles would throw a glare in his direction if he wasn’t occupied. “I’m sorry, it doesn’t matter? So all that he’s said and done, that’s inconsequential? I should just ignore him? You have no idea what it’s been doing to me, having him --” He cuts himself off, biting his own tongue. “Don’t tell me what I see doesn’t matter, Erik. Don't sigh as if you find it some vague irritation. It's been haunting me, and I can't tell Erik, because..." Because he just falls apart. Even now. Perhaps especially now.  
  
" _It is inconsequential to your life!_ " Erik's reply echoes off of the nonexistent walls, a quiet roar. "It is valueless to your existence. You look at me. Look at me!" he Orders harshly. "You look at me and say I think it is just a vague irritation. So you see him and listen to his lies, and place _Sebastian Shaw,"_ Erik growls, gripping Charles right up by the lapels and dragging him to his feet. "Above your Dominant."  
  
“That’s not what I said!” Charles shouts right back, but he’s clearly frightened. Perhaps not of Erik, but there’s a trembling, a vibrating, and then all of a sudden they’re a good distance from each other though there was no movement, nothing to signify it, Charles’ arms wrapped around himself. There are tears on his cheeks, though when he turns his head, it’s hard to make him out at all, as if he’s some mirage. “That’s not what I said, or at least not what I meant. I know this is painful for you. It’s painful for him, too. But making me feel as if I’m at fault for being frightened or haunted by it does no good, either. It only makes me less likely to come to you with it. Don't you understand that? He said you would --" Charles closes his mouth, and seems to fade out.  
  
Erik breaks away, hiding his face so he can marshal himself discreetly. "You do not know this is painful for me," he says back, breathing evenly, calmly. "There is no possible way you could know. And I have no interest in illuminating you. It is enough that he is dead and gone. Whatever he said to you, especially concerning me, the fact that you consider it at all worthwhile-surely you understand how offensive that is to me."  
  
“Did I say that?” Charles whispers, and it isn’t harsh. It’s softer, imploring, even as he keeps himself distanced and mostly unseeable, unknowable, as if there’s a screen between the two of them, separating them. Dividing them. His arms are still firmly around his own middle, as if he’s trying to hold himself together physically. “I didn’t. I listen to you. I try. But how am I supposed to, to --” He feels unable to come to Erik with this, and the truth is, he trusts Erik. But he doesn’t know. What, exactly, is true, and what isn’t. What’s reality and what’s in his head. What’s here and what’s there, what’s up and what’s down. He needs to rely on Erik for that, and in this he can’t. He feels like he’s going mad half the time, or like he already has. Spun out of control. And if he can’t go to his Dominant, where can he go? Right now, nowhere. There’s no one else. There’s nothing else. It’s terrifying and alienating and sometimes hopelessly lonely.  
  
Erik takes another breath, long and slow, his chest expanding visibly as he does. "How are you supposed to know the truth? Look for it. See him for what he is and what he has done, and decide if that-if that is what you want instead. How could he tell you about it, if you doubt him? There is no way."  
  
“But I never said I doubted him,” Charles sighs, and steps back, putting space between them because he’s conflicted, because he’s afraid, because he doesn’t know whether he should need what he’s so clearly asking for. He shakes his head, eyes closed, and the world goes dark, too. Dizzying and empty and so unnervingly silent. “Ignorance isn’t doubt. If I can’t come to you for answers, do you understand that it leaves me with no one? I’m alone. I don’t have anyone else. I don’t remember anyone else --” It’s all rising to the surface, shockingly fast. Charles tries to suck in a breath, but it comes out a sob anyway. “I don’t have anywhere else to turn, he’s the only other person -- I know, Erik, it’s an unfitting term, but how am I supposed to…” He shakes his head. “Why am I a rotten submissive if I don’t know what you won’t tell me? I don’t understand. I don’t know what to do.”  
  
"You are not a rotten submissive," Erik contradicts fiercely. He reaches forward to take Charles's hands in his, a warmth in the unsettling cold of night. "What I won't tell you about what, hm? About Shaw? Is it really so important?" He gives a sigh. "And I doubt your reality converges so sharply from my own. Our experiences could not possibly be the same."  
  
Charles snatches his hands back a bit like they were burned, but it’s not because of Erik. It’s to cover his own face, to turn away, to put distance. “Yes,” he sniffs, and breathes, and breathes, and breathes. “Because I don’t know what’s reality, Erik. I can’t tell. I’m seeing so much, hearing so much -- and you wonder why I’m frightened of it? Because it’s frightening and I don’t understand and I can’t -- I have no one to turn to,” he gasps, and his voice finally breaks. "I know I'm not supposed to, I know, but sometimes I feel so --" He breaks off into a sob, covering it with his own hand. He wouldn't say it to his own Erik. He wouldn't even know. "It's alright. It's, don't, it's alright," he tries to add, and steps back, and back, and back, shaking his head.  
  
Erik's eyes close, and stay closed, his hands hovering in the air where Charles has pulled away before he settles them by his sides, separated by a screen of his own, as if meditating. "I do not know what he did to your Erik. I only know what he did to me." Pressing his lips together, he lifts the sleeve of his cloak to display his left arm. "And that is not a lie. It is not a hoax. That is _reality_."  
  
“I — that isn’t —“ But he can’t voice what it is. He’s falling apart this time, and Erik speaking what he already knew into existence, again, it snaps something, loud and harsh like gunfire and glass and shrieking. He steps backwards, and then utterly disappears, except for the sounds of harsh, heavy breathing.  
  
Erik adjusts his cloak and his whole bearing changes, becomes stiffer, more formal. His heart thuds mercilessly in his chest, and all the black begins to close in. And he is alone, with nothing but the echo of what he'd spoken reverberating back to him. Alone. He doesn't know why he expected it to be different. He'd always known it wouldn't be.  
  
He isn’t alone. It’s dark, but to say that he’s been left alone, even as Charles dissolves, would be a lie. It isn’t silent here anymore, even if Charles meant for it to be. To shut out any reaction, to separate it, to keep Erik from it. There’s the sound of panting, hitched breathing, and then sobs, loud and panicked and somewhere, even if Erik can’t see where they’re coming from, even if they seem to come from everywhere at once.  
  
With his hand pressed to his chest, and lips parted silently, he could be forgiven for thinking this might be the end after all. He hopes he can be forgiven that the only thing he can think about, and truly want in this moment, is the feeling of his Charles's arms around him, his voice. He always knew how to soothe Erik. And Erik has never been good at comfort. He wades through the thick of it, unsure what he's even searching for, if he could find it, if he could ease it. The suffering caused by his own hand.

* * *

Which is why it’s exactly what he gets. While this younger, conflicted, hurting Charles sobs, wading through sludge and thoughts and space he doesn’t know how to navigate or understand, someone Erik is much more familiar with fills up the cold and the dark; a warm, weathered, soothing presence, if not in body than wholly in mind. It wraps around Erik as sure as any embrace, though muted down some, and quieted by pain he’s clearly trying to conceal. _You’ve caused no such suffering, darling_ , that presence reassures, and fills, and fills, and fills. It isn’t the end, of course not. It never would have been. It's cold and dark and there is reason to be afraid, but Charles would never leave his Dominant to this alone.  
  
He can't help but sink into that sensation, minute tremors running through his body as he struggles to cope with the influx. _I should never have spoken. It wasn't relevant._ Charles asked what he would do if he didn't know what to do and right now he doesn't know what to do. He's shivering, and sweating all at once, more a feeling than physical discomfort that leeches out into the atmosphere. They've never had this conversation, either. It's always been assumed. _How could I hear that name and react rationally. What am I meant to do, Charles? How could I possibly help?_  
  
 _Shhh, Erik. Hush, my love,_ Charles whispers, and it isn’t Command, nor patronizing, nor anything but soft and crooning and adoring. Utterly, completely adoring, an outpour of love in the face of other emotion Erik knows is just beneath the surface of his own mind, because their Bond is two-way. It has been from the moment they solidified it, and one day this Charles’ and Erik’s shall be, too. _You’ve done nothing wrong. You haven’t reacted poorly. But he’s frightened, darling, surely you see that. He’s confused. He’s alone. You know that feeling well, hm?_ They both do. They both have. Hopeless, and grasping, and aching from it. Refusing to reach out to each other in the dark. Perhaps they should have had this conversation ages ago, and ages before that, but it’s never too late. They can learn, too, and they will. _It’s not that he doubts the experience you’ve had. It’s that he doubts his own. He doesn’t know. He’s terrified and hurting. You are far better at comfort than you give yourself credit for. Why don’t you find him?_  
  
And as it's always been, every single time that Erik has been touched with that sensation; with the love that Charles always held for him-the love that sometimes they were both too stubborn and prideful to admit; the love that sometimes felt too frightening and vulnerable to give to a man like Erik-but deep within he's always been a sole plant struggling up to the light, absorbing Charles the way plants shimmer in sun. He's never, ever been capable of refusing that hand. He breathes out, a harsh noise in pure silence, slowly straightening and rising to his feet, his hand blindly clasping for Charles-for something. Anything. So he starts walking, because what else can he do? "Please, come back," he whispers out into the ether. "Come back to me."

* * *

When he does, it’s slow. Hesitant, like a shy, frightened animal, the sound of sobbing growing in the dark and the cold and the abyss of his mind, because he hasn’t formed anything here to fill it yet, hasn’t accessed these parts or any part, really. Then there’s a hand. Different than the one Erik knows, less weathered, less experienced, but Charles’ nonetheless. When the darkness forms into something concrete, when the silence fills, Charles’ face is red and blotchy though they’re not anywhere physical. He doesn’t speak, the lump visible in his throat speaking for him, and he doesn’t step forward, doesn’t seek comfort; he’s not certain if he should.  
  
Erik has spent many years building the metal watertight compartments in his mind. Structure and order and chrome and lifelessness, soil and gleaming floors and reflective surfaces where fingers slip to find any edge. Too many years of discordance. Quantum decoherence on a psychic scale, separating molecules of grief until they scattered too far to ever reform. When Charles's hand finds him he uses it to tug him closer, wrapping him up in his arms and the fabric of his cloak; materialized as though it were a part of himself. "I've got you," he rasps quietly, rubbing his back.  
  
So Charles cries. He feels silly, and childish, and guilty, but he cries; he sobs and wails and throws his arms around Erik and lets it all out, into his shirt, into his chest, and he finds that he can’t and doesn’t need to stop. There’s no need to breathe here, after all, though he does gasp and sputter and nearly hyperventilate, almost wholly unaware that all of this was inside of him. “I feel so alone sometimes,” he gasps, and squeezes his eyes shut so tightly they ache. “And so trapped. And I feel rotten and awful and -- he said, he said he doesn’t feel that way but I do,” he sobs, quiet, so quiet, and he knows Erik -- the other Erik, the new Erik -- can’t hear and won’t, but it feels like a wretched secret to hold. “I don’t know what to do. I feel so lost. Please, just, help me,” Charles begs, feeling thoroughly pathetic. "What do I do? I don't know what to do. Who I am, how to do this. I don't know, and now he doesn't, and that's -- better, I know, but I..." He's just not making much sense.  
  
Erik runs his fingers through Charles's hair, pressing him close. "Just talk with him. With me. You want him to be your Dominant? You like him? You can start there. Learn. You are not rotten. You are not awful. You are a beautiful person, inside and out. Every part of you. Nothing can take that from you. Not even Sebastian Shaw. We are here for you, _kochanie_. Lean on us. I'm sorry that you feel trapped. I am sorry. I wish I could make it better for you, dear-heart," he just whispers; it's not a solution, it doesn't fix anything, but it's all he can offer. An attempt to comfort, just as his Charles told him.  
  
It helps more than Erik could possibly know, except perhaps he can, because the abyss around them, silent and spinning before, is brightening. Brightening and opening and warning even as Charles continues to cry. “I don’t know how to control any of it. I can’t hear him, I can’t read his thoughts, and sometimes that means I can’t understand him, quite _literally_ \--” He sniffles, laughing, because on top of everything else there being a language barrier what feels like half the time feels almost cruel. Insurmountable. He’s trying. He wants to try, but -- “There’s so much I don’t know or understand. I don’t remember. I don’t know how to make him leave me be, and I don’t -- he wants me to share a room with him,” he’s babbling, aware of it but unable to stop, just talking, just letting it out, to an Erik that isn’t the one he’s suddenly found himself sharing space with, an Erik he needs to get to know. “But I can’t. I don’t want to just yet, I don’t know why. Shouldn’t I want to? Why do I not know what I want or need? I read these books, there are books, but I don’t know which ones apply to me, which don’t. I don’t know what I’m meant to feel or think. I don’t mean to be --” He lets out a shaky, laughing breath again. “Alright, sometimes I do, but never truly. I just don’t know what I’m doing, and now he doesn’t, either, so what do we do? Stumble in the dark?”  
  
Erik just shrugs, laughing roughly. "Stumble in the dark," he whispers softly. "That is all you can do. Learn together. Make your own rules, your own traditions. Not what you think you must do, but what you feel. What you like, and do not like. He will respect that. Maybe he wants to be closer to you. Maybe he is more-" Erik doesn't know the word in English, but Charles gets the gist. Maybe he's clingier, more passionate than Charles remembers-from an Erik who did have his memories. "Forget the books. Just talk with him. Iron out what works for you both. He wants for you to be happy. More than anything."  
  
“No, I need those,” he protests, thoroughly affronted, though it’s mostly feigned. He’s sniffling, rubbing his tear-stained face on Erik’s shirt, on his cape. “Or I have no clue what the options are. I don’t know where to start, and I don’t feel like I should be starting, but —“ Erik wasn’t taking initiative before. Perhaps he will now. “What about what he likes? Will he...” But of course Erik doesn’t have the answer to that. He shakes his head. “What do you do? Can’t you help?” he begs, feeling young. Vulnerable. Coaxed wide open.  
.  
"I do what I want," Erik laughs softly. "We had different experiences," he reminds Charles softly. "So he might not be like me. If I want something, I do it. I like our routine. I like making sure you remember your training. To keep you up to date." His nose wrinkles up a bit. "It took me some time to be myself. To realize what I like, how I like things. I like order. Organization. Structure. Form. It is important to me that you represent me. Perhaps it is pride, in you. Knowing that you are mine, that you chose me." He presses his hand to Charles's chest. "And what you said about him, we're different in that regard. I don't have the same kind of experiences. But I did struggle to accept that part of myself. I was-sometimes I still am-very disconnected from that part of myself. When you are treated like less than human, you feel it in your body. I didn't want Charles to be disgusted by me. And that comes with time. With intimacy. With trust. You need to learn him. I can't tell you everything about him. And even if I did it would not make things easier. You say you trust him and you want to trust him. That starts with taking the first step."  
  
Charles is breathing easier. Sobbing less. Still crying, still red-faced, and now exceptionally nervous and shy, for some reason, as he mumbles a question into Erik’s chest. It’s far from coherent English, or any language, for that matter.  
  
Erik crooks a finger under his chin. "Ask me properly," he rumbles, his voice unmistakably Commanding.  
  
“Can’t you show us?” is what comes bursting out, and immediately he’s ducked in again. Charles doesn’t know if that’s an inappropriate request, if it’s an odd one; he’s just desperate, and confused, and now thoroughly embarrassed. Is he supposed to be?  
  
Erik's eyebrows knit together. "Show you what, precisely? Be specific." It sounds like a request straight from his own Erik, the voice all the same, almost indistinguishable. Of course, Erik never distinguished between them. Not really. He knows who his submissive is, but Charles-he knows Charles. And Charles knows him too, even if he doesn't.  
  
That earns a shrug from Charles, helpless and honestly a bit confused himself. He feels like a child, now, wrapped up in Erik’s arms like this. He tries to wipe away his own tears, though it’s pointless here. “Anything. Like, like —“ For a brief second, an image from earlier flashes in Erik’s mind. Him, earlier, over his own Dominant’s knee. It’s easier to tap into here — of course it is — but it wasn’t intentional. His cheeks are cherry red.  
  
It makes Erik laugh, though, gentle as he cards his fingers through Charles's hair. "Well that certainly exists," he huffs softly. Because his Charles, much like this one, has always been somewhat defiant-someone who does need to be shown his place. For them it looks a bit different; with Charles's injury, but Erik has found ways around that, even incorporating it. It wasn't always as easy as it looks now, because Charles can see it. Erik taking Charles in hand, fingers gripped against his chin, implements striking against skin leaving bloomed up marks. And this Erik, unlike the Erik he used to know, reveling in it. Taking complete joy out of it, being fully present within it. An ease, from one moment to the next, not a scene or something planned out. It just happened when it needs to happen, and then they move to the next moment.  
  
“But...” Charles bites his lip, inhaling sharply. It’s difficult for him to process images like that; he struggles with it, new and unfocused, unconsciously rubbing at his own temple and grimacing. At least it’s a distraction. “Not that, exactly, but —“ He shakes his head, not finishing the request.  
  
"But like what?" Erik prompts, that Command once more strung through everything, every molecule like lights strung up around the Dark Place. Illuminating.  
  
“Can’t you show us?” he just repeats, muffled and perhaps frustrated, as if Erik should simply know what he’s angling at here.  
  
"Tell me what you mean, now," Erik replies back, veritably smacking him back down into place. The Order is impossible to ignore.  
  
Charles pouts at that one, but his brain whirrs and scrambles anyway, considering it’s an Order. “I don’t know, though,” he admits quietly, now a bit ashamed. “It’s just — lead by example, yeah? I thought, perhaps if we saw you... I know you don’t do, I’m not asking for a scene —“ Like they’re in some shady club, his ears red now. “But a... demonstration?” It must be clearer by now.  
  
It makes Erik's eyebrows arch. Because frankly, it isn't. He does lead by example, always. All Charles ever had to do was watch him, because he hasn't turned his Dominance off just because they have visitors. He touches Charles's jaw, though. No need for embarrassment. It isn't shady, and it isn't inappropriate. He just doesn't quite understand. "A demonstration of what, precisely?" Discipline? Dominance in general? Intimacy? Erik doesn't get it, and he is pretty sure Charles knows that. "Be plain," he rumbles that Order, too.  
  
“Mmmm,” Charles mumbles, thoroughly embarrassed and confused himself. He’s trying, but the problem is he’s not entirely sure, either. “Whatever you’re comfortable... demonstrating,” he mutters, because he is shy about it. He was embarrassed earlier, with this Erik watching, but the idea of being the one doing the watching — but what better way? He wriggles a bit, turning his face away.  
  
"You will find that I am comfortable with quite a lot," Erik replies lowly. He has never been one to hide Dominance away in their room. And if his Charles demonstrates the need for discipline, he will be disciplined. It's that simple and always has been. "Why don't you stay with us for a little while. It will be time for dinner, soon. I won't manufacture a demonstration for you, but I won't have to, I daren't think." He smirks a bit.  
  
“I — I’m not sure I can...” Things have settled, some, but holding himself in these places is sometimes uncomfortable and difficult at best, painful or straining at worst. It never gets to unbearable levels, but he’s always dizzy or disoriented by the end. That’s mostly beside the point. They’re still in his mind, still in this strange, whispering place. He sighs, and pulls back, and suddenly there are no tears at all on his cheeks, though he looks frustrated. “It’s not... it doesn’t have to be... that,” he mutters, wholly unable to say the word “discipline” now.  
  
"No? It doesn't?" Erik murmurs almost dangerously. "It might very well be. If such a thing has cause to occur. Then it most certainly shall. You want a demonstration, all you need to do is watch. Because it is everywhere. All the time. I told you. It does not end, not ever."

* * *

 _Brilliant_ , a voice says, belonging to neither of them exactly, and suddenly they’re not in the ether, trapped within the whispering place Charles doesn’t understand. They’re in the Manor, though far, far different to how Charles and Erik know it, Charles still on his knees. “You’ll stay, then? We always welcome visitors.”  
  
Charles blinks, disoriented, confused, a little dizzy and breathless. “How —“  
  
The older Charles smiles. “Practice,” he says, simply, but he looks... frankly, exhausted. He’s grimacing noticeably, touching his own temples. “That wasn’t the point of the exercise, I don’t think, but we’ve arrived somewhere. Why don’t you fill your Dominant in, Charles?”  
  
Charles swallows. Then he shakes his head.  
  
And his Erik feels far different to the older. His hand squeezes more harshly, his Will sears out of him in nearly visible waves. "Now you tell me," he says sharply, maybe a little possessive. A reminder that he is Charles's Dominant, no one else. Not that he'd ever admit it.  
  
The older Erik has almost disregarded them in favor of tending to his own submissive, helping him out of the chair onto the softness of their couch so he can wrap him up in his arms, let him rest his head on his chest. Right here, in public, completely without shame. Erik is running his fingers along the back of Charles's neck, murmuring something to him in Polish while he recuperated from the obvious exertion. Erik won't let him suffer. Ever.  
  
For some reason, it makes Charles smile. His head ducks, almost shyly, again, and he looks down at the floor for a few long moments, getting used to the feeling of being on his knees again. “Apparently we’re staying for dinner,” he whispers, and he thinks the other Charles expected him to telepathically fill this Erik in, but he finds he’s unable to. Still a fumbling, rather useless child, but at least he hasn’t hurt anyone.  
  
Much, anyway. The older Charles is perfectly content to sit against Erik’s chest, but the pounding of his head and the mild nausea seems a rather small price to pay. I’m alright, darling, he promises, privately, softly, but then he’s adding, “You’re fussing again, Erik,” the smirk on his lips thoroughly amused.  
  
"Hush," is all he says in response to that, smiling discreetly himself. "I do not fuss," he opposes indignantly even though they both know it's quite a truthful assessment. He simply can't help it and never could even during all those times they fought one another. No more. _You are in pain,_ his mind whispers back, pained himself.  
  
The younger Erik peers curiously at them, almost mimicking posture as he curls his Charles into his own arms. "Dinner," he murmurs back, fond. He can't help but watch. "Are they OK?"  
  
 _You are in pain, too. I would wager more than I,_ he thinks back, and it’s accompanied by overwhelming warmth, but that same outburst of love and comfort, acceptance and belonging. Charles has known this whole time, but that they haven’t said it -- that they haven’t said it, just like the younger Charles pointed out the first time he visited, isn’t something he’s proud of at the moment. They should have, even if there are things that seem impossible to speak. He hums, turning his head, falling right into the soft touches he knows are just as much for Erik’s comfort as they are for his. His eyelids are heavy.  
  
The younger Charles watches with something approaching awe. He shakes his head, speechless, or at least unable to articulate. “Can I get up,” he mumbles instead, unsure why he’s suddenly embarrassed, why his cheeks are so red, why he feels in a hurry to not be on his knees. He doesn't wait for Erik's answer before he starts to stand, fidgeting.  
  
He doesn't get very far and honestly there's little reason to think he ever would as Erik nudges him right back down. He crouches in front of him as if to help shield, instinctive. "No. No hiding," he admonishes sharply.  
  
It’s nothing bothering him, really. He’s just fidgeting, frowning up at Erik, glancing over at the two on the couch. “Why not?” he demands instead.   
  
Charles on the couch covers his grin with his hand. “Yes, Erik. Why not,” he eggs on, getting a glare for his efforts.  
  
With all the propensity for recklessness of his youth that the older Charles remembers, the younger Erik grips Charles nearly by the throat, long fingers snaking up his jaw as he uses his other hand to solidly put Charles back on his knees. "Because I say so. Because I like when people see you are mine." He almost grins, breathless.  
  
Charles gasps, full and audible, and then… something happens. There’s a distinct, noticeable shift. One moment he’s reacting to Erik gripping him by the throat and putting him down, calling him mine in a way that feels very much new, and the next he’s responding to something else entirely.  
  
The older Charles gasps, too, his eyes closed. He can’t sit up, but he does attempt to straighten somewhat. “It’s alright,” he breathes, and it’s not to Erik this time. “Charles, it’s alright. Take a deep breath.”  
  
But the older Erik helps him straighten as well, knowing instinctively how he wants to move, and they both move fluidly, as though they're a single entity. In many ways they've become such over the years, anticipating one another constantly.  
  
His younger counterpart stiffens, uncertain, like a bolt of electricity has run through him and not in a pleasant way. He's always one step behind. This whole entire time he's just been here, useless, stupid, not knowing anything, contributing nothing, and it all weighs down on him in this very moment, a crushing boot. He wants to lash out, throw his fist into the wall until every bone shatters, a jolt of adrenaline as fierce as anything. "What's wrong?" is all he can whisper. A step behind.  
  
Charles reaches up for him. Tries to pull him down, to tug at him, and he shakes his head. His face is scrunched up in obvious discomfort, perhaps pain, perhaps not quite, but either way he’s trying to touch Erik, to reach him. “You’re not behind,” he whispers, but Erik hasn’t said that. Not out loud.  
  
Erik doesn't miss a step though, understanding instinctively what has happened, but his eyes shut and he leans his forehead against Charles's. "I do not want to be behind," he whispers, his lips pressing together. "You are mine. I should know. You say I should. And I should and I-" he can't believe he's crying. It doesn't make sense.  
  
It’s startling, honestly. The Erik he knew didn’t cry like this, and he’s taken aback, stunned for a moment, wincing; but he shakes his head, and reaches up again, grasping, tugging. “You’re not behind,” he promises again. “I’m sorry I can’t share it with you like they can. I --” He wants to. Sometimes, briefly, before, there was a spark of it. Of that connection. Moments. Sometimes hours, sometimes long, wonderful stretches of it, but it’s snapped again and it was never stable. He reaches for Erik’s hand, brings it to his temple, grimaces, lips parted on a gasp. His eyes flutter closed, lips trembling. “Loud,” he whispers. “It hurts.”  
  
But Charles is sharing, he's pulling Erik closer. And that matters. His hand curls around Charles's cheek and he presses his lips to Charles's brow. Shielding him, with his body, and trying his best with his mind too. The Erik he knew could do that, but it doesn't come easy to this one. He doesn't have any discipline. Not really, but he tries, envisioning it, like a big metal barrier. Quiet, calm, relief. "I know," he murmurs back. "I know. It hurts. I'm sorry. Just lean on me. I am strong. I will take it for you. It is my duty," he grins shyly.  
  
It makes Charles smile, comforted even despite the discomfort, the overwhelming sensation he doesn’t understand, the fear. He grasps tighter to Erik’s short, lips parting on another drawn out gasp. “Voices,” he breathes, awed, hurting, frightened, amazed. “I can hear them.”  
  
"What kind?" Erik blinks a few times, stroking Charles's cheek. Erik still doesn't understand a lot about telepathy, but-he remembers something. Maybe because it's so close to when he stopped imagining it at all. He used to have an imaginary friend who followed him around, who could read his mind. He doesn't know why he's thinking about that now.  
  
Charles mumbles something, wholly and entirely incoherent, not even meant to be words. He’s fading a little; not away from here, just overwhelmed. The other Charles is watching him carefully and he’s aware of it. “Everyone,” he whispers, hoarse, and it’s not the truth. It just feels like it. His eyes close and he seems to tremble for a moment or two, lost to it. “I can hear -- it hurts,” he repeats, breathy. It doesn't hurt, really. It just aches. He certainly isn't used to it.  
  
"It is OK," Erik says, almost a shrug, because he has no idea. Of course he doesn't. "It is just your ability. It's not bad." He scritches under Charles's chin almost playfully before tucking him close once more. "Can you-hear me too?" he whispers, letting his own eyes close. He's not being careful, and he's not afraid. He's just Charles's Dominant. That's all he's ever been.  
  
“Mmm,” Charles sighs, and keeps his eyes firmly, tightly closed. It’s too dizzying otherwise. He feels thoroughly disoriented. “Yes,” he whispers. “I think so.” It’s difficult to tell, with Erik, if he’s totally, completely honest. Sometimes he feels like he’s hearing something out loud, but it actually is his telepathy. He’s the only person to hear in the manor they share together, though this Erik sounds a bit different than the other. Not by much, just different. It’s a strange thing to note. “How do I turn it off again now?” he asks, only half joking, and it’s the older Charles who barks out a loud, amused laugh.  
  
He feels different, too; more boisterous somehow, lighter, less weighed down by boulders of experience. He wipes his eyes on Charles's shirt, which is probably not the best use of that fabric, but the fact that Charles can hear him makes him smile. He's much freer with his emotions, too; far freer, in fact, each one like a supernova in his mind that pelts down on Charles's consciousness. Everything is felt intensely, everything is immense; it makes sense, considering how far cut off he'd been. Everything opposing. "I like it," he declares, his nose wrinkled up.  
  
Charles’ nose scrunches up, eyes still squeezed closed. “I don’t think I do,” he admits, reaching up to rub at his temples. “How do you think straight?” he wonders, looking over at the older Erik.  
  
“Practice,” the other answers, smiling softly, patiently, amused. “Sometimes much easier said than done.”  
  
“So, it doesn’t turn off? Ever?”  
  
“Never,” the older Charles confirms, and taps his Erik. “Isn’t that right, darling?” he teases.  
  
The older Erik offers a small smile, still somewhat hollowed out, but genuine. "It does not turn off," he confirms softly. "But you will learn to shield it. So it doesn't overwhelm you or cause you pain. The more in balance you are with your abilities, the easier it will be." In other words, he would never be able to gain control if he allowed himself to remain stifled by fear and loathing.  
  
The older Charles pinches his Erik, lightly but absolutely cheeky as he grins. “You were supposed to take that opportunity to mention how I always know what you’re thinking, Erik. And that I select the best holiday gifts,” he laughs. “Don’t sell me short, now.”  
  
That does make the older Erik laugh a little, and he kisses Charles's brow, entirely fond. "I would not say always," he murmurs back warmly, and pokes Charles in the side where he knows he's still quite ticklish. He used to be wary of Charles's telepathy, not because he held his own thoughts in any great esteem, but because he'd never wanted to expose Charles to them. Even before they'd come together, no matter how much they fought, Erik knew he was a telepath and had cautioned him away. Charles always used to think it was because Erik didn't trust him, but that had never been the case.  
  
The younger Erik looks a little curious, though, and he raises his hand, eyes wide as he pushes his palm forward. A fork flings itself off of the coffee table and onto the floor in a wobbling, unstable motion before it suddenly shoots across the room and impales itself into the wall. He remembers having more control as a child, but now-now it's-different. His abilities feel different. He's not sure why he did that, actually, and sheepishly shrugs. Maybe because-he hasn't consciously seemed to use his abilities at all, either, since waking up. Stuff just... happens. And this seems like a pretty good place to maybe learn a few things for himself, too. You know, so he doesn't crash Earth into Pluto or something. Probably.  
  
"Y'ohhhh," he scratches the back of his head. "At least you aren't bad as me," he laments with a loud sigh, blowing a raspberry.  
  
Except it isn’t true. Charles’ face falls immediately, and then he’s grasping at his head. “Let me up,” he demands suddenly.  
  
"What you think I'm going to say to that," Erik replies back, irritated. "You don't demand from me. You want something, ask. Tell me why. I won't repeat it again."  
  
Charles goes silent instead, his lips pursed, tugging gently at his own hair. Something seems to be disturbing him, but he doesn’t say anything. It makes the older Charles hum. “Let me up, then,” he demands of his Erik, hiding a grin rather unsuccessfully.  
  
"Let you up then, hm?" his Erik snorts, his arms only tightening more. "I see it's only taken a visit from our past selves to forget all of our manners," he taps Charles on the nose. There's no frustration or tug of war. His Will is just assumed, always. "So if you want something," he smirks. "Then ask."  
  
Erik sighs again. He's not really irritated at Charles, that much is clear. His lips press together and he can't help but lean forward all the same. He doesn't have the same capacity for handling stress that he used to have. He keeps trying and all he can see is that he keeps failing, failing at everything, all the time. He wants to rip his hair out, but instead he just rubs Charles's back. "Tell me what is bothering you," he murmurs the Order lowly, not for the others to hear. "Please."  
  
Charles frowns harder, a disgruntled, vaguely pained sigh the only thing that comes out of his mouth for a moment or two. “You’re not failing at anything,” he mutters, and now he sounds irritated. “You haven’t, this entire time. You were dropped into an impossible situation that you had absolutely no control over, you’re struggling with so much, and it's bothering me that you're being self-deprecating while I'm completely unable to do even the simplest of things with my telepathy while apparently holding enough power to hurt and even kill -- shut up,” he suddenly hisses, and while it seems originally directed at Erik, who he was speaking to, he swivels his head to glare at the other Charles.  
  
Who looks thoroughly affronted. “I haven’t spoken,” he points out, one eyebrow arched.  
  
“You are thinking. Loudly. Kindly stop it,” the younger Charles demands, agitated.  
  
“Ah, I apologize. I will censor my every thought for you, as everyone should,” the Older retorts. Age hasn’t stolen his ability to be petty. Occasionally.  
  
"Enough," Erik murmurs patiently. "No one is going to stop thinking, and you be nice." He gives his own Charles a firm rap on the knuckles.  
  
The younger Erik just rolls his eyes. "Well so do I. The only thing that stops me is you. If you didn't then I would hurt everyone all the time and probably kill them all. But you do good things with your ability. You helped me, you brought us here." Erik shrugs, and sighs. "I used to be able to do things, I know I did. But my powers don't even feel like mine anymore. Like I got rearranged. I can't even move a fork anymore," he huffs, a little frustrated, but mostly sad.  
  
“You don’t even remember the majority of your life, Erik, and it’s been two days, I’m not sure why you think it won’t take work -- I can’t even use my abilities,” he mumbles, rolling his own eyes, and fidgeting on his knees, uncomfortable and unsettled. “Besides, that’s not even true. You’re not the one locked away in a manor so you don’t just destroy the world.”  
  
“I truly have a flair for the dramatic. I should stop poking fun at you for it,” the older Charles sighs, which makes the younger glare again.  
  
“Would you leave off?”  
  
“When you stop behaving like a child, yes.”  
  
“Like you’re much better!” is the retort, which is, admittedly, childish. He’s grasping at his head again. “Everyone be quiet,” he whispers, face crumpled up. His eyes are closed.  
  
Except Charles isn't exactly right, if judging by Erik's reactions when he first woke up. He may not have started off that way, because he used to have control. He doesn't anymore. If Charles wasn't there, it would be a different story and they both know it. It didn't used to take work. Everything just came to him, it was easy. All of his progress, everything he'd practiced, it's all vanished. It's not important anyway. "You be nice, too," he whispers back, tucking Charles's head under his chin.  
  
It’s important, but he can’t think about it right now. Everything is entirely too loud. “No, thank you,” he mumbles.  
  
The older Charles raises his eyebrows in disbelief. “Calm yourself,” he sighs.  
  
“I’m sorry, are you my Dominant?”  
  
“No. Does that render me unable to offer you a suggestion? You are becoming unstable, and I won’t see anyone in this house harmed as a result.”  
  
“How do you turn it off,” he gasps instead of a direct response, his eyes closed so tightly they hurt, wriggling until he’s out of Erik’s grip.  
  
He doesn't get anywhere. "It's part of you. You can't turn it off. Stop fighting it," he Orders firmly. "You say you could hear me. So try. Just focus on that."  
  
“I can’t,” Charles snaps, at Erik this time. “It’s incredibly loud. It’s not about fighting it, it’s about --”  
  
“You’re frightened,” the other Charles sighs, and this time it’s much more patient. Softer, too, that pettiness from before gone because he is incredibly in tune with his abilities, with Charles. He understands. The frustration comes from his frustration toward himself, but it isn’t warranted, even when it’s tempting. “And it’s uncomfortable. I understand. But you need to take a breath, Charles. The more you panic, the more unmanageable it will become.”  
  
To his credit, Charles does try. But it just leads to him pulling at his own hair, digging his thumbs into his temples. There’s a horrid, high-pitched shrieking, sudden and screeching and painful, and the sound of actual shouts, of pain and discomfort and confusion.  
  
The older Charles gasps, and then it’s silent. But he’s gone still in his Erik’s arms, his eyes closed. There’s sweat on his brow, and then blood from his nose. "Erik, let me up," he rasps when it seems as if he can, his voice suddenly ice.  
  
They work in harmony, though, before Charles can even say it Erik has helped him to be seated once more, standing beside him with his hand curled over the back handle of his chair. His own eyes are narrowed, jaw set. "Cease this now," is what he says, an Order that vibrates through the mansion, low and soft. "Again, you choose fear instead of trust. You are welcome here, Charles, but we will not permit you to hurt anyone in this mansion. You won't listen. We can't make you listen. We can't make you choose something else. Either calm your mind and compose yourself or we will have a very different problem. Am I understood." His tone doesn't change, but this time it's harder, dangerous. A D5 with their hackles well and truly raised. It's not something Charles has ever felt leveled at himself before, but it's enough to suck all the oxygen out of the room.  
  
Charles well and truly looks like he’s headed for a meltdown. He doesn’t react, outwardly, to Erik at all, except perhaps in the minute shaking of his fingers, the way he tightens his grip on his own head.  
  
It’s the older Charles who sighs again. “Stop, Erik,” he whispers. “You’ll only frighten him more.”  
  
Immediately the younger Erik is on his feet, teeth bared. "Don't talk about him like that! You said you would help! He's not trying to hurt anybody. I can help," he decides, damning everyone in this stupid mansion, nobody has helped. Whatever it is inside of him has been building, and building this entire time, but there's nowhere for it to go, and he's not very good at suppressing his feelings. He'll get better, he'll figure it out. He closes his eyes and makes sure nobody can see he's crying-at least he can do that much. It's not their fault, either. He can't fix it. He just waves his hand and the large couch that they'd been sitting on abruptly swings to the middle of the room and collapses on its side, shielding them from view.   
  
Charles shakes his head, which is a mistake, because a moment later he’s grimacing, hiding his face to hide the pain that he knows is exceptionally obvious anyway. Maybe it’s not pain. He’s not sure what it is, but it’s nauseating and dizzying and after a moment or two it settles. The screeching is only in his head, now, not projected, not outward; it’s a small price to pay, though horribly uncomfortable. “Please stop thinking that way,” he mumbles, mostly because everything has been so loud he’s unwilling to even barely raise his voice. “You can help. You are. Don’t be angry with them, they’re worried.” Yes, he’s gotten testy with the older version of himself, but not for any real reason. “You said you wanted to try, and to start something, so you have to stop comparing yourself. It isn’t fair.” It’s coherent, at least, though he still looks close to losing it at any moment. It’s the first time, ever, that this Charles has experienced telepathy beyond Erik’s thoughts. “We can’t ever leave,” he realizes, suddenly.  
  
"We can," Erik returns softly. "Maybe not now. But we will." He pets Charles's hair, holding him close. He's not afraid at all, which is vastly different from everyone else with varying levels of distrust, fear, anticipation. "You are not a god. You are just Charles. And you are mine. And I won't let anyone hurt you," he tilts his chin up past the couch to where the older Erik and Charles are. But they're right, maybe he won't be able to leave until he learns to trust himself, learns to gain the kind of control he needs to trust himself. Well neither can Erik, so they make a pair. "I'll stay with you. As long as it takes. Please don't send me away." It blurts out before he can think better of it and he covers his mouth as if he could put the words back in.  
  
There are tears in Charles’ eyes, squeezed out because he refuses to open them. He doesn’t think he can at the moment. “He was right,” he whispers. “I could have hurt them. I could still hurt them. It’s not about trust, I’m…” He doesn’t know. It feels overwhelming and horrifically stacked against him, if he’s completely honest. “Of course I won’t make you leave,” he adds, as if it’s a given, because it is. He doesn’t think he has that power, and even if he did he wouldn’t use it. He wipes at his own face, frustrated and embarrassed and frightened. Shaken. “Move the couch,” he sighs. “Please,” he adds, after a moment of hesitation.  
  
"No, it is," Erik insists. "Because you panic, and get scared, and it makes everything go up and up." He presses his lips together sheepishly. Tries to fling his hands at the couch, which remains stubbornly in place.  
  
The older Erik is staring at him, though, stricken. "How did you do that?" is what he barks, striding forward to stare right into the younger Erik's face.  
  
It makes Charles’ head snap up and his eyes pop open, still filled with tears. “Don’t speak to him like that,” he snaps, fierce and protective though Erik hardly needs it. Certainly not this one, even as lost as he is. "What do you mean?" he adds, alarmed. Erik isn't practiced, but he's without memories. Of course he isn't. Charles can't even do the simplest of things, can't even hear Erik's thoughts half the time.  
  
"You moved that. There's no metal in that couch. I know because I built it myself." Because it felt like more of an accomplishment that way, to build things that require effort, not just fastening from a single thought. But this Erik-"You moved it. I don't understand." Of course Charles being more powerful, makes sense to him. This doesn't. It's like a different ability.  
  
Erik shrugs. "I don't know. You can't-?" he remembers the silly things, too. Making pamphlets out of thin air, fashioning-anything, everything, anything his thoughts wanted, materialized into the world. It's more than unpracticed. Maybe Charles is right. Maybe they aren't ready to be in the world, yet. Even if Charles gains perfect mastery, Erik-and what if he can't? "It doesn't matter," he returns back harshly. "I'm fine. Worry about Charles."  
  
Charles blinks. “What?” he asks, to both Eriks, really, his voice hoarse and broken but thoroughly concerned. He shakes his head. “How do you remember -- but…” It doesn’t actually make sense, or add up in any meaningful, coherent way. He’s truly failing to keep up here. He shakes his head, again and again, frustrated, worried that it’s him. That he’s the link that’s unraveling everything, because he truly can’t process anything else. “You need to stop thinking of it like that. Thin air,” he huffs, and he’s talking to Erik. “It’s not. It’s a thoroughly scientific process and I guarantee that if you tried to move more than metal, you could, too.” He’s speaking to the older Erik, now.  
  
“Not the way he can,” the older version of Charles chimes in, quietly. “Not to that degree.”  
  
“Brilliant, then,” Charles sighs, digging into his temples with his fingers. “But it’s not magic. Don’t frighten him, either. Mine is -- something else. His is perfectly controllable, because it was and is. And besides…” He shakes his head, not going there. Deciding, likely rightly, not to go there. "Still. You can do more than you think," he pivots.  
  
"No," Erik shakes his head. "I mean, I can. I can-" his Charles knows what he's talking about. He's learned to feel down for the very vespers of metal in the world; the most conductive element. He knows the basics of electromagnetic forces, but he can't wield it. And somehow, he doesn't think-"It's not like you. I felt you. I felt-I saw. It's not the same thing." It's not just electromagnetism. "Our mutations-they're different."  
  
"I don't know anything!" the younger Erik blurts. "I don't know, OK? It don't matter. Just forget about me. It's not important," he growls back, hands growing into fists. Well, one hand. His other still perfectly injured. "I have to stop! It doesn't matter! Leave me alone!" he pushes the older Erik away, physically, bracing his hands against his chest and shoving as hard as he can. They're not here for Erik. He's grasping at his own chest, the way he's always done when he's overwhelmed, palm to his own heart. "Calm down, just calm down. It's fine, it's fine."  
  
“That doesn’t -- make -- any sense,” Charles mutters, gripping at his own head. He’s not even looking at Erik. He’s starting to tremble, to fall thoroughly and completely apart. He’s starting to unravel. Everything is starting to unravel. To break and break and break and unwind. It doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t add up. It doesn’t fit together. There’s the sound of footsteps and screeching and shrieking and bending and breaking and splitting, the sound of silence and the sound of completely chaotic, discordant noise, of pounding and grinding and --  
  
“Stop!” he screams, at what feels like the top of his lungs, and his eyes snap open again though he doesn’t remember closing them. He’s not where he was. He’s not in the sitting room of that manor. At first he has absolutely no idea where he is, disoriented, utterly confused, and then --

* * *

“Oh,” he gasps. He’s sitting down. He’s sitting down, across from an Erik who looks very different, gaunt and intimidating and shut-off, in a holding cell. “Oh, no.” He closes his eyes.  
  
It will go away. It’ll fade. He doesn’t remember this, he’s only been told. It doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t know what’s real. It will fade. The chair is thoroughly uncomfortable, the suit he's wearing feels entirely too warm, scratchy at the sleeves. It will fade. He can still see the manor's living room, somewhere, even if he's not seeing it. It will come back. It will all make sense. "This will fade," he says, and it makes noise. It reverberates, too-real, in this space he doesn't recall, across from a man he doesn't know.  
  
The man sitting across from him is stark and severe, dressed in all-black, bright green eyes piercing the room. His head tilts, thoughtful. He raises his hand to his temple and taps it, curious. The movements slow. A person who doesn't want this to fade, maybe. Not really. There's an indistinct sun shining in the dark-dark place, illuminating both of them across from one another. Someone who is unaccustomed to speaking of their own accord, viewing this situation now, it's obvious. He's holding himself formal and stiff, entirely hollowed-out. Different to any incarnation of Erik he's ever seen, someone for whom the screams have not stopped echoing.  
  
"You are a telepath," he breathes, even his voice is different; a low-deep vibration in his chest that extends outward like tendrils.  
  
“This already happened,” Charles hisses, gasps, and he’s reaching up to grip his head again, to rub at his temples, to dig his fingers into his eyes. Truly, completely unraveling. Is this how it happened? It feels like _deja vu,_ but he doesn’t know why, exactly. Is it different? If it is, what? But it won’t fade. The room is either uncomfortably warm or uncomfortably cold but Charles can’t tell around the chills. What he does know is that it’s grounded. It feels real in a way it absolutely should not. All of a sudden, he drops his head to the table, just short of banging it. It doesn’t make a sound loud enough to alert anyone. “This will fade. This will fade,” he repeats, over and over, but he’s uncertain of anything anymore. He needs to get back to where he was, but he doesn’t even know where that is. If it’s the place he came from or somewhere else. He’s breathing heavy. The chair is still uncomfortable, splintered wood. No metal. "I don't know what's real," he admits. To Erik, this Erik, who he doesn't know because he hasn't yet become the Erik he did. To himself. To no one.  
  
But for some reason, this Erik too doesn't seem particularly fazed. He's seen so much. It's written in the lines on his face, the ones he would come to learn how to shield, the ones that would be replaced by joy. Real joy. It doesn't exist in him, but nonetheless, he is drawn forward. He rises agilely from his seat and drifts to Charles, placing a hand on his shoulder. Silent. Watchful. "I am real," he tells Charles softly. Who are you? Why have you come here? I won't stay. I won't be caged again. I must protect them. I will protect them. And yet.  
  
“You’re not real,” Charles argues, his eyes closed, his head down, his shoulders shaking with emotion he couldn’t possibly put into words at the moment. It comes out flat, but it’s trembling, too. The room isn’t, though. It feels -- uncomfortably real. He can’t tell if it’s dark or light in here. What light there is seems to be harsh and blinding, so he’s better off with his head on the table. “You aren’t. You’ll fade in a moment. I don’t know why I’m here,” he whispers, desperate. Broken, even. “I don’t know what to do. I have to get back there, I have to -- I told them we’d stay for dinner,” he mutters, nonsensically. "I will. But I don't know how."  
  
"I don't know," Erik whispers back, touching his head, reaching out fingers gingerly as if afraid he will be punished. Turned away. "It will be OK. You are here with me. I will protect you. I will give you food and make sure nobody hurts you. I promise," he meets Charles's eyes, achingly sincere. A conclusion drawn; they must both be trapped. Still within his grasp. Erik wasn't successful. He didn't save them. It hurts, but he must cast it down. It's not the time. There's someone new to shield.  
  
Charles can’t trust that this is real. He knows it isn’t, actually; there’s no conceivable way for it to be. What he does know is that he sees it. He understands it, at least in this simplistic, desperate way. With his own eyes. When there’s suddenly no wooden chair at a plastic table across from a plastic chair, when this room with no windows and a large plastic door fades away and the warm lighting of the Manor fades back in, all he knows is that he’s twice as convinced as he was before.

* * *

His eyes snap up to this older version of Erik, and there’s noticeably no couch in the middle of the room anywhere. It’s not moved. It simply isn’t there at all. “I can’t trust anything,” he whispers. “You were wrong. I can’t trust anything.” His lips tremble. “I’ll still stay for dinner,” he adds, looking for the other Erik. When his eyes land on him, exactly where he was when everything began to break, tears spring to his eyes. He's not sure why.  
  
The older Erik puts his hand on Charles's shoulder, while the younger is still beside him, nearly in front of him, as if to shield him. Laughably, maybe. "Trust is not about what is real. It isn't. You could never know, especially you." He turns, the edges of his cloak swiveling in a flourish before he takes Charles's chair in hand and begins to wheel him toward the kitchen. "I'm making _paczki_ and _łazanki_ -minus the obvious. You're both free to help. I trust you've learned to cook in your years?" he levels an eyebrow at the younger version of himself, who nods.  
  
"I don't know those food-no, I know, wait a minute-" he gasps and points a finger.  
  
The older Erik's lips part in a secretive grin. "I think you'll know. Come along, both of you."  
  
Charles was kneeling. He’s still kneeling, he realizes. He never stood. He doesn’t stand now. He doesn’t move. He’s kneeling there, staring at the floor. Staring and staring and staring, until the migraine he’s given himself makes it blur.  
  
“Erik,” the older Charles says. It’s a warning.  
  
Of course he stops, inhaling barely audibly. _Tell me_ , is what he says, within their Bond. He hasn't always understood, but he doesn't try to cause pain.  
  
 _It isn’t you,_ Charles tells him, soft and achingly fond. There are things they have always communicated to each other without the need for the express words at all. Perhaps it’s occasionally been to their detriment; he knows there is plenty he’s left unspoken when it should not have been, not under any circumstances. But in every interaction, he knows Erik knows what they still sometimes struggle to say. He’s confused, frightened, and hurting. _I’m not certain anything would have helped him at the moment. He needs more coaxing, darling, that’s all. Be gentle and patient with him_ , and there’s a grin on his lips, barely visible, the feel of amusement more than a visible sign of it anyway. Effortless communication, a well-formed, unbreakable Bond. _He’s very new. You never knew me that… inexperienced. Does it make you regretful?_ he teases. _Should I perhaps be jealous? You did like training me, though I would say you didn't have to do much at all._ That's patently untrue, of course, but Charles likes to believe it.  
  
He swallows, though, watching the way his younger self-if he could be called that, effortlessly does move to do exactly that. Just to talk, to soothe, that's all. _I don't recognize him_. Charles, yes. Of course. He's something else. Unpredictable, rash, too bold, too much. It's not something Erik recognizes in himself. He's always been marshaled, disciplined, in control. Charles has never known him any other way and frankly it's a little embarrassing. He's like a child. A child with a power he cannot comprehend. Erik sighs. How that could possibly translate to training this unstable, uncomposed version of Charles, Erik doesn't know. He worries. Frets, of course he does. But it's no secret he always wished they could have met sooner. He spent too many years trusting nothing, being nothing. Full of hate and revenge.  
  
Charles laughs. He laughs, out loud, startling the other version of himself, but he shakes his head. He shakes his head and reaches for Erik’s hand. _Oh, absolutely not_ , he scolds, just as teasing as he is severe. _Do not look at that man and tell me you cannot see yourself. If you do, I’ll call you out, rightly so, for lying_ , he says, blunt as anything. He meets his Erik’s gaze, a burst of warmth and affection and true amusement sparking through their Bond. _He has those qualities, too. You see them, just as you see him in yourself, though you choose not to admit such things. Do you not remember your youth? Your flair for the absolute dramatic, your rashness, your inability to see reason or hear sense?_ It would be chiding if it weren’t so fond. Perhaps it’s both, still, and always will be. His eyes wander to Charles, though, still staring, still shaking, still wildly unraveled. _If you worry, worry for him. He needs to be trained, Erik, more than I ever did. In ways -- It’s more than Dominance and submission, though he thinks it may in fact start there. It’s paramount._ It always has been, in their lives, whether they could admit such things or not. _How will we show them?_ he frets. He can’t help but feel they’ve been put into a position to alter something here. The Universe, even, currently kneeling in one of their sitting rooms.  
  
 _How is he supposed to accomplish that?_ is what Erik can't help but say, as if a mirror of the thoughts the youngest version of himself holds. He squeezes his Charles's hand, turning away from the harsh coldness that threatens to encroach on his mind as he always has when Charles helps tug him away from it. _I can certainly see reason and hear sense_ , he harrumphs, turning his nose up pointedly. The person before him, however, he's not so sure. He really doesn't recognize himself in this person. This person who is free, who is expressive, who is passionate and vibrant. If it were him, he might have confidence that Charles is in safe hands. But this version of himself seems like the very opposite of safe. And yet, between them, it's the only thing keeping Charles tethered. He doesn't even know how to wield the power he holds. Charles isn't the problem. It's Erik. If Erik doesn't learn how to train him, how to help him, then of course he will fall apart. And Erik simply doesn't know anything at all. _I don't know,_ he replies wearily. _By example, I suppose_ , is all he has to offer, leaning down to kiss Charles's temple.  
  
It could not be more clear that Charles disagrees. Either way he hums and shakes his head. _You’re lying, darling_ , he accuses, lips quirked again. _Look at him. Really, truly look. Do you not see the person you are, when your heart is less hardened?_ It’s inescapable, that reality. There are differences. Plenty. Abundant. But they do not cancel that out, and will not. They could not. _I certainly do, and I have always seen you. Now. If you’re so concerned for his ability to train me -- him_ , he corrects, just in case, though he’s amused by it, _I suggest you do something about it, rather than fretting._ It’s thoroughly haughty.  
  
But Erik falters, shaking his head. Already this younger version of himself seems to intuitively know, or at least mitigate, but he only made it worse. He's too cerebral, too disconnected, too focused. _I do not know what I could offer them,_ he admits softly. They spent time in that ether, and when they came out it hadn't changed a thing. Even when he tried-he inhales sharply and turns away, abrupt. _Of course I can help him hone his Dominance, but you said so yourself. This is more, and I've failed every step of the way._ He casts his hand aside, and a large crack appears in one of the metal vases on the shelf.  
  
 _Don’t_ , comes the sharp, sudden response, and it’s louder than it would have been if it were spoken. Charles’ eyes are narrowed, his lips pursed unhappily. _Don’t you dare be self-deprecating about this, Erik Lehnsherr. You look at me,_ he demands, aware of his own training but willing to take correction to make this point and make it abundantly well. Erik isn’t able to look away now, and it’s more than telepathy but far less than an Order, not a single bone or instinct in Charles’ body Dominant. He’s toeing a line, though. Deliberately. _You helped more than you could possibly understand, and don’t you discredit that. Besides, I didn’t say it was more than that. I said it began there and that it was essential. Don’t misinterpret in the name of self-pity_. It’s, perhaps, sharper than it needs to be. _You have not failed. You’ve barely even begun. If you let that man walk away from this Manor without helping him in the way only you could, if you let him leave here with no guidance on how to train his submissive, you have failed then. Not only yourself, not only them, but quite frankly --_ Well. They both know, as well as they can in their position, what seems to be at stake here. _Am I understood?_ he asks, and that’s a mockery.  
  
" _I don't know how!_ " the older Erik roars, whirling on Charles suddenly. The very foundation of the manor trembles in his grip, a show of rage in a brief flash before it fades. Always under control. "You don't-" and he's well and truly angry, now, shaking with it. It's not directed toward Charles, but it's difficult to contain.   
  
“Then figure it out,” Charles seethes, and he’s angry, now, too, perhaps harshly so, his eyes narrowed. Toeing, and toeing, and toeing that line with no fear and no hesitancy, his chin raised. “Do not stand here and tell me I do not understand, Erik. But you know. In your heart, and not that stubborn head of yours, you know. You said it yourself just moments ago, anyway. Do you really think he cannot learn? Did you not learn?” he challenges, eyebrow raised.  
  
"Mind yourself," Erik growls lowly, gripping Charles's shirt in his hand. "It is not about any of that. Of course he can learn."  
  
“No. I shan’t, but thank you for the suggestion,” Charles dares, his chin still raised. “What is it about, Erik? Enlighten me.”  
  
"It was not a suggestion." Erik's lip curls upward, not a friendly expression, and a veritable explosion; a whirlwind of Will emanates from him like air spires, curling up against Charles and pressing him right back into place. He doesn't get a second chance to dare anything. Kneeling isn't exactly possible between them, but it doesn't seem to matter. Erik has figured out ways to work within, and when Charles gets himself out of place he finds himself firmly swatted down where he belongs all the same.  
  
Sometimes it takes a little more. Charles inhales sharply, eyes fluttering, and then seems to compose himself. His eyes stay fierce and narrowed, none of the Posturing they’ve implemented to show submission, surrender, deference. “I didn’t say it wouldn’t be difficult,” he says, suddenly breathy, and it has everything to do with the spike of Will. “I said you’ll do it anyway. They need you. They need us."  
  
" _Because why!_ " Erik suddenly roars again, loud and echoing. Something splits and cracks in the distance. "Because even if I explained it perfectly it would not matter. Why. Why should I submit myself to that kind of anguish."  
  
Like the Charles and Erik of before, this Charles and Erik certainly have a contract. It’s rather extensive, actually, cultivated over years, agreed upon and then often renegotiated, when it fits. Charles knows his role exceptionally well. It does not keep him from clenching his jaw, rolling his chair forward until it comes right on Erik. “Move,” he demands. “Now. If you’re going to act that way, I don’t have to look at you.”  
  
"It is so easy for everybody to just tell Erik Lehnsherr to _figure it out_. Well this time I do not have the answers. _I don't want to!_ " he declares roughly, beating his fist against his chest.  
  
The older Charles’ teeth nearly crack he's grinding them so hard. His chair promptly swerves around Erik, his own version of storming out with quite a bit of passionate flair and a lingering sense of unease and indignant rage.

* * *

It -- finally -- gets the other Charles’ attention, who rises tentatively to his feet, without being told, because… well, because it seems a bit like Erik forgot again that he told him to wait for that. It wasn’t ever discussed, to be fair. Like most things, it tends to fall to the wayside eventually, once the moment has passed. He bites his lip. “He’s rather upset,” he comments, quietly, and then stares abruptly at the floor again, longer hair falling in front of his face. He touches it, as if surprised that it's there; it wasn't, before, was it?  
  
" _Good for him!_ " Erik growls and knocks off several glasses on the stand beside him with a vicious swipe of his hand.  
  
It makes Charles wince, at first, head still bowed, and then he shakes his head. “Erik?” It’s quiet, and calm, even as his voice is hoarse from panicked breaths and tears. “Please calm down. I --” He can’t help like he knows the other Charles does, and he doesn’t know what’s upset him, exactly. But he still steps forward, tentative, his arm outstretched though he clearly isn’t sure what to do with it.  
  
The other Erik doesn't know quite what to do, too, fear evident on his face, gaunt and childlike even as he tries to position himself in front of Charles, to take whatever this person-this stranger-himself is going to do to them.  
  
Whatever rant or ire was at the tip of his tongue seems to die off as quickly as it came, a shrieking storm, and he lets it out in a shaky puff of air. He's still, silent. He is not calm, and it shows.  
  
Charles shakes his head and steps forward, around the younger Erik, and gingerly touches Erik’s arm. “I know this is difficult for you,” he whispers, and bites his lip, hard, because it feels hollow. Not nearly enough to express the sentiment. “When we were alone, while you were in my mind -- thank you. For helping. I wouldn't take that for granted, Erik. Thank you for having us in your home and teaching us."  
  
He lets out another breath, slow. "I know," he murmurs softly. "Of course I will help you. Of course you are welcome. Please, forgive me," he rasps, doing his best to offer a faint smile.  
  
It’s certainly enough for Charles. Actually, his reaction is rather intense and immediate; he throws his arms around this Erik, as tightly around his middle as he can manage, and hugs him. “There’s nothing to forgive,” he announces, a smile on his own lips. “Your Charles wanted you to follow after him,” he whispers, as an addition, as if it’s a secret shared between the two of them. He’s not sure how he knows that, only that he does.  
  
"I will always follow after him," he admits with a huff. "Please, the children will be coming down soon. There's a spot in the kitchen for you both if you'd like some privacy. Try to eat something," he insists, because of course he's a mother-hen in every universe. He gives this Charles a kiss on the forehead before separating and looking down the hall; not particularly looking forward to what awaits. He's never enjoyed fighting, and bone-weary exhaustion drags his whole body down. He doesn't want to fight anymore. He takes a few seconds longer before heading down the hall after his own Charles, knowing precisely where he'd be.

* * *

It is exactly where he is. The door to his study appears shut, but it isn’t, of course; it’s slightly ajar, as it always would be (unless he was truly pissed). Charles is by the bookshelf, apparently rearranging books though there’s a very thorough system in place, a method to madness that sometimes seems to drive Erik mad. It’s idle work to keep himself busy, and he takes a book down to open it up, scanning the page as if he actually has any intention of reading the words. Their Bond is quiet, but not because he’s muted it down; he’s settled into calm, actually. “I don’t intend to fight with you, Erik,” he says simply. “I’m thinking of alphabetizing.” He’s said this for years. He never does. Erik expects his shelves be tidy, but alphabetizing was never an option.  
  
Erik just crosses over the room and plucks the book from Charles's hands, placing it back on the shelf-of course in the right position. He takes a seat on the wooden ledge next to Charles, straightening up, the pinnacle of formal control. "I don't want to fight," he whispers. But he can't express anything else-he's never been good at that.  
  
Charles grunts in protest as his book is taken from him, indignant and frowning. “I was reading that, Erik,” he huffs, just to be contrary, and because he’s filling space in the interaction. Normally it takes a bit of warming up. He decides not to look at Erik, still, picking up another book instead. To be contrary, still. It’s still very much an instinct, and it frankly always will be. “Will you talk to me, or would you like me to check for myself?” he asks casually. It’s asking, still. For permission. A deference that may not seem it at first, but this Charles is well-trained even when he's being difficult.  
  
Erik takes that book, too, touching Charles's cheek so that he has no other choice but to look. "You can," he whispers. "If you want. I'm not good at this." At talking. "I-need _help_ ," he gasps, as if the confession is being ripped out of him.  
  
It earns Charles’ full and undivided attention. When he looks up now, his gaze is soft, and there’s no hiding the pure adoration in his eyes, misted over. He leans into Erik’s hand. “What do you need help with, darling?” he asks. “Tell me. You know I am yours. Why aren't you properly using me?" It's clear, then, that the hurt runs a bit deeper than the interaction in the sitting room. He knows Erik struggles with this. He's fully, completely aware. But sometimes he wonders. Sometimes he hurts.  
  
Erik's lips press together, his whole body stiffening with the force of containing whatever reaction dares to threaten him, threaten them. "He says he sees Sebastian Shaw. _Following_ him around," Erik almost laughs it out, gritting his teeth as if he can hold the name back. "I can't just _figure it out_. And how I dealt with it, it won't help them. So I am just supposed to-" he shakes his head. "What am I supposed to do?"  
  
“Look at me, Erik,” Charles whispers, and he waits. Patiently, calmly, lovingly, though they have rarely if ever said the words. “Look at me. I know,” he breathes, and he doesn’t mean it to hurt Erik, only to reassure him. He knows. There are things he simply cannot help with his telepathy, with their Bond. It was inevitable. But he’s waited. All this time, he’s waited, patiently, for Erik to come to him. That it took this doesn’t offend him, and it doesn’t truly upset him, either. Any hurt he feels is irrational, and melted like ice the moment it comes to this. “I know. He is different from you, darling. He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t know those things, and it’s for a reason that he doesn’t. He has a chance that, frankly, you were never afforded.” And they both know it to be true. “They both do. What they need is different from what we would have needed for that very reason. I know you see yourself in him and it frightens you, but hear me, please: you cannot fail him. You can help him in a way no one else will ever be able to. You can reassure him and you can teach him. They are essential,” he says, now fairly grave. “And we can help them. I know this is not easy, bringing up all of these things. But you are very brave, my dearest, and very strong. I know you are tired of that, but just a little more. I am yours,” he reminds. “So why, then, are you not using me properly?” And then he grins, though it’s watery, his eyes clearly wet.  
  
Erik's thumbs swipe under Charles's eyes, a tender movement that most would never attribute to the stern Master of Magnetism. "Please, don't go away," he whispers, and it doesn't make much sense in the moment but it's the only thing he can think of to express what wells up inside of him. Charles is his. He needs him. There's no way he could ever do this alone. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I am sorry I can be stupid. I just-" he's like any animal. He doesn't like pain. He wants to avoid suffering.   
  
“I know,” Charles whispers again, softer this time, but no less devoted. “I know, Erik. Trust me.” And he does. Better than any other person could ever hope or dream, Charles knows Erik Lehnsherr. Heart, body, soul, and mind. That they’ve always avoided conversations like this does not and will not change that, though he’s always known eventually they’d end up here. Perhaps just not under these circumstances. “Use me,” he suggests, and he doesn’t need to know, exactly, what he’s suggesting. He means in every way possible, as he always has. His surrender, his submission, it’s absolute. There is nothing holding it back, tainting it, muting it. “I am yours. I belong to you. So, lead by example,” he grins, though there are tears on his cheeks again. “Use me.”  
  
"You will stay with me?" Erik is very close, now, breaths felt against Charles's cheek as his fingers snake along his neck, hand settling down his chest. Charles should know by now what it means to coax out the truly Dominant creature inside of him. "Even if I make mistakes? Help me?" he murmurs, and little sparks of electricity shoot between them, entirely unconscious-Erik doesn't even realize he's doing it. Charles feels a jolt right in his chest-not painful, but enough to draw the air out of his lungs while Erik looms over him, a luxuriating darkness sweeping across the room that was once difficult to sink-into, is now simply natural for them.  
  
And Charles has always been good at coaxing it right out. “Always,” he promises, breathy, little gasps pulled from parted lips and eyes half-lidded. “But I would be mindful, Erik. Remember this Manor sometimes hosts very nosy guests,” he murmurs, and his lips twitch.  
  
The other Charles, who thought himself very sneaky, peeks sheepishly inside, cheeks bright red. “I wasn’t eavesdropping, I was looking for a restroom,” he lies, poorly.  
  
Erik laughs heartily, and discreetly wipes at his eyes even as he doesn't remove himself an inch from his submissive, pressing their foreheads together with eyes closed before delivering a gentle kiss to his lips. It's curled on the edges with deep rivulets of Will that seem to pour directly into Charles's lungs, which only makes Erik grin at the inevitable reaction that brings. He pats Charles's chest. _I love you_ , he whispers between them. He hasn't always been good at keeping his promise to the other Charles, but he means it with all his heart.  
  
It does earn a reaction, but in stereo. Both Charles gasp, though only one of them with fluttering eyelids and what looks, frankly, like a blissful expression, lips parted. The older Charles isn’t paying a lick of mind to the Charles currently lingering outside their door, though, whispering, “I love you” right back. It isn’t through their Bond, though it’s felt there; it’s out loud, exactly as it should have been for years. Spoken, the ripple it caused pooling warm in his belly.  
  
“Are you --” the younger Charles starts, and then promptly ducks behind the door.  
  
It makes the older grin. “Yes,” he answers, near smugly.  
  
Erik huffs against Charles's lips. He's never been particularly forward about physical affection in the presence of others-largely because so many creeping, sneaking, curious children are about. Well that might not be true as such-he does touch. Often possessively. A hand at the back of Charles's neck, handling his chair even when the same from any other person would invoke pure rage in him. Taking his hands, smoothing out wrinkles in his clothes. It seems every Erik is more comfortable in the rooted physical-but at the same time, not like this. Practically brazen. Erik kisses him again, because he can. Because Charles said it himself. He needs it, the grounding. The explosiveness of Will that drowns out any hesitation or fear. And if the other Charles is there still, well. It is a form of Charles. Let him stay. Erik doesn't particularly care right now. Example indeed.  
  
His Charles sinks right into it. Wholly, fully, melts. Submits, right here, right against his lips, his body suddenly an instrument for Erik to tune and instruct as he pleases, soft, unconscious noise pulled from his throat as he flutters. And sinks.  
  
“Subspace,” comes an awed whisper from just beyond the door. He didn’t mean to speak it.  
  
“Subspace,” Charles agrees, against Erik’s lips.  
  
Erik practically purrs in response, content that his submissive is entirely back where he belongs, against Erik's hands. It seems as if his whole bearing has changed to accommodate, the very twin inverse of subspace, entirely self satisfied. "It's good, hm?" He speaks into the room and it's almost impossible to ignore the way his voice fills up every space between the molecules inside. "He is mine. It is where he should be, always." And it's not mindless or taken away. It's more. More of Charles opening up, more depths, just-more.  
  
It is good. The older Charles looks almost dazed, his eyes half-lidded again, his lips parted, his entire frame relaxed and leaned and tuned into Erik’s Command. Charles peers in, and eventually gives up on hiding behind the door frame; sheepishly, slowly, he steps inside instead, his eyes wide as he looks and watches and notices. “Will he… stay like that?” he asks, before he can think to take it back, because he feels like he needs to know. His cheeks turn a brighter red.  
  
The other Charles’ lips twitch. “Will I?” he asks, wanting to hear it himself.  
  
"Yes," the older Erik rumbles back, outright smirking back. He does know someone else is here, but frankly he doesn't care. What matters most is before him. He draws his fingertip down Charles's cheek, along his neck. "Because he is mine. There is nothing to be ashamed of. It is not something to hide away in dark corners. It is submission. A part of our life, our realities, our identities. It is good, and he will. You will," he directs to Charles, a snap of heated Will lashing against him pointedly, settling in his belly.  
  
Charles inhales sharply, and the younger Charles can see as he trembles. He’s completely putty in his Erik’s hand, and the noise he makes, soft, needy, unashamed; his cheeks are so hot they feel enflamed, his fingers shaking where they grip tight to his pants. He can’t help the next thought that comes: he’s jealous. Just a bit. He wants it, too, aches for it, and it’s — embarrassing? Shameful? But tears spring to his eyes. He wants his Dominant. “He won’t be knocked out of it? He won’t have to leave?” he asks, captivated and breathless. Eager to see, to learn, as embarrassing as it is.  
  
"No. Not his choice. My choice," Erik murmurs, low. This is not uncommon. It's constant, almost. The way they simply are when they are in one another's orbit; something that took many years for both of them to accept of themselves, for different reasons. Reasons that the younger versions of themselves can certainly relate to. But there is relief, here, too. No more hiding, no more shame. Space to just be; and set a good example for everyone around them. Not just their counterparts, but everyone. But Erik decides he's not quite finished, not quite ready to relinquish Charles to anything but himself, and he draws his lips over Charles's inner wrist, curling his other hand around the back of his neck. "My choice," he repeats, soft.  
  
Charles is sinking with every word, with every touch. Sinking, and sinking, and sinking. It’s apparent. In his expression, in the fluttering of his eyelids, in the way he breathes, shaky little exhales that turn into sighs. He looks calm. Blissful. At peace.  
  
It makes the younger Charles stare. He can’t stop, not even when he consciously tries to pull his eyes away, to back out of the room again. His feet won’t go. “But…” He’s not sure why he keeps speaking, his voice cracked. He did ask to be shown. He did ask if he could watch, though he’s just as embarrassed as when he first brought it up. “But he won’t… get knocked out?” Because it’s a problem for him, goes unspoken. He finds it difficult to stay in subspace. He drops, and it hurts. It’s frightening, even.  
  
"No," Erik replies softly. "It was not always so easy, but that was because I wasn't always capable of fully exerting my Dominance. That is no longer the case," he grins almost sheepishly. "He will learn and he will keep you where you need to be. Just as I do," he taps his Charles on the nose.  
  
Charles doesn’t understand, really. He’s staring, completely unable to stop, but now he’s fidgeting, wondering; he can’t help it. He wants to learn. He wants to know. He bites hard at his lip, still red-faced and embarrassed, but now more eager, even stepping forward slightly. “But how?” he demands to know, still wide-eyed. “How do you do it? How doesn’t he drop out? It hurts when that happens, it’s…” It makes him think he shouldn’t be in subspace, sometimes. It feels wonderful, but also sometimes frightening.  
  
"Well, come here," he Orders lowly but firmly and guides the younger man to them both, squeezing his Charles's hand. "This is for you. It is yours. It is not to be fought or afraid of. Look. You wish to see, so see."  
  
Charles tries to drag his feet but he can’t. He’s led right forward, right into what feels like the spider’s web right now, unable to look away, unable to flee like part of him wants to. He’s fidgety, biting his lip, nervous and shy and uncertain. “But it doesn’t work for me,” he mumbles, finally staring at the floor while the other Charles sighs in that calm, peaceful bliss. “I... drop. It frightens me.”  
  
"It will work for you," Erik replies with a small smile, leaning over to press his lips to his Charles's forehead. "The both of you must stop fighting your natures. Tell me, is this a thing to be afraid of?" he addresses his Charles, with that otherworldly edge to his voice.  
  
That Charles shakes his head immediately, eyes still half-lidded, lips still parted, shivering and sighing in what’s ostensibly pleasure. “No, not at all,” he whispers.  
  
The other Charles stares, and stares, and stares. “It’s different for me,” he protests, and starts to back up, swallowing hard. “It must be different.”  
  
"It is not different," Erik responds and Charles knows that he is treading into dangerous territory-contradicting an Erik firmly in Dominion. "When you came to me the first time, it was because you were afraid that the Erik you know could not, frankly, keep up with you." He inhales sharply, chin tipped back as if he can taste and touch and smell every part of Charles's pleasure. And it is entirely reflected in him, in the sound at the back of his own throat. Honed in. It is different-if only because this Charles is entirely unaccustomed to an Erik so free with his responses. "Do you think I share the same struggle?" his tone is richer, somehow. Darker.  
  
Charles shakes his head again, still wide-eyed and staring. The other Erik doesn’t seem to be speaking, and it occurs to him that it’s because he hasn’t been spoken to, perhaps. He’s in a place Charles has only ever grazed, dipped into, experienced in short, wonderful bursts that quickly give way to reality and the uncomfortable, painful aftermath. He backs up another step, his throat bobbing around emotion he can’t swallow. “No,” he whispers, maybe in response to the question, but maybe not.  
  
"No," he repeats, touching Charles's cheek with two fingers, all of his attention locked onto him. It's frankly a physical concern, too, it's hard for him to concentrate on anything other than his Charles at this point, to rip his attention away-it feels aggressive, adversarial. Wrong. Charles should always be subject to his Dominion. No pain, no discomfort, just the two of them together, sharing the same space. That is what it is meant to be.  
  
For the Charles watching, seeing, intruding, it’s distinctly uncomfortable. He feels the tug in his belly, the beginnings of subspace; Erik, someone closely resembling, a version of the man supposed to be -- supposed to be? -- his own Dominant is so firmly in Dominion, that it’s difficult to not feel tugged. When he visited the first time, he put him down. It came as no real surprise that he had that ability, and it was what he needed. But now? With his own submissive in front of him, so perfectly in tune, so deeply in subspace, paying him so little mind…  
  
The tears are in his eyes before he’s even processed that he’s upset. Shaking, cold, upset. It feels, frankly, horrible. The jealousy and dropping feeling make him physically sick, wretched, abandoned in a way he can’t properly describe. He steps backwards, but trips over nothing, fumbles, can’t stop staring. “No,” he echoes, throat dry.  
  
He is stopped from falling by somebody behind him, a creeping Erik who has been here this whole time, where one follows the other will surely go. He felt like the intruder, he one who's been out of step, the one who has just been existing here uselessly, but he can't help but come out of the shadows when Charles is so obviously hurting. He remembers feeling something like his way, the first time he disciplined Charles. Maybe there was nothing wrong with him, after all. Nothing that needs to be fixed. The older version of his submissive seems-happy. Maybe that means he can make Charles happy, like that. He can keep up. He's not like that other, different Erik, the one with his memories. The broken one. Even if there are forces at work in his own mind and body that he doesn't understand.  
  
It’s relief that floods through Charles, then. Immediate and dizzying and completely overwhelming, because watching, while he’d asked for it, while he still wants it, hurts. He felt -- he feels... ignored, perhaps, abandoned, left, dropping even though he never sank in the first place, covered in gooseflesh and with a sick, nauseated feeling in his belly. It’s not jealousy, but it is, harsh and bitter. He doesn’t understand all of it, really, or the implications of it, but he does know that he flings himself into Erik’s arms as soon as he can, shivering and uncertain. It feels… silly, and childish, and embarrassing, and his ears are hot with it, but he can’t help, either, even as he swivels to keep staring at the pair now halfway across the room. They're not doing anything, now, or yet, but he can't tear his eyes away even as it hurts.  
  
Erik shakes his head, though-the one before him, and he touches Charles's cheek, offering him a smile. It's not childish and it's not stupid. They have-have what Charles and him used to have, before his memories were taken from him, what they should have had even before then, what they always should have had. They struggled, too, but they found their way, and he has to believe that they will, too. Erik would never abandon him, or ignore him. And even that other Erik hasn't forsaken him either, with Charles more-or-less in his lap now, he rubs his back and meets his eyes over his shoulder, offering a small smile. He's sorry; he never meant to cause pain. It's not always easy to be in Dominion around other people.  
  
Charles shakes his head, trying to grasp what's being communicated even though he can't hear and that makes it infinitely, horribly worse. He doesn’t blame the older Erik; Charles knows that he’s not his submissive. He’s not sure why it hurts, frankly, why it aches. Maybe because being so close to it, watching it and seeing it, did make him ache for it. Maybe it’s because he feels sick and untethered and dizzy and horribly wrong, somehow, in a way he can’t explain or describe except that an Erik with his memories once called it dropping. He doesn’t know, really. He just feels -- wrong. Out of his own skin. Like he wants to run, a bit, but also like he wants to stay plastered to Erik until he stops shaking. His eyes won’t leave the other Erik and Charles, either, they can’t. He’s just staring, and staring, and waiting, maybe. To see. To watch. He asked for it. But he’s crying, too, rubbing at his own eyes, and he can’t explain why; he feels wrong. Wrong. Like his skin is crawling.  
  
For some reason that makes his Erik growl and he abruptly picks Charles right up off the ground, cradling him close in his arms before snatching him off and ferrying him away. No! The door slams shut behind him of its own accord and Erik can't really explain his reaction either, only that it feels like every molecule in his body is screaming, and he just stands there, Charles trapped against him, chest heaving as he struggles to control whatever has happened to him.   
  
The older Erik can't help but laugh behind the door.  
  
" _Shtok! Hanichu li_!" and the door slams open, this time the younger Erik raises his hand and ejects a wall of force that passes straight through Charles and impacts the older Erik immediately, just as good as ringing his bell as he's ever felt.  
  
His eyebrows arch. "...What?" he... blinks. He feels the tug of an Order at himself, which is as curious a sensation as he's ever felt, too. But he doesn't understand what's being said-which is fascinating in and of itself, but supposedly not the point. "Stop it-calm down. _Royk_ ," he raises a hand.  
  
Erik yells at him some more. Unhelpfully.  
  
Charles doesn’t understand, either. He feels cold, freezing, actually, his teeth chattering, and his brain seems to be processing everything far too slowly as he tries to peer around Erik into the room again, dizzy and unsteady on his own feet. “Why are you yelling at him? He doesn’t -- he doesn’t understand you,” he gasps, and the reminder that he doesn’t, either, not always and not now, makes him tear up. He pulls at his own hair, distressed. “Don’t -- I’m --” Everything feels blurry. Like he’s drunk. He blinks to focus everything, but it doesn’t work. He stares helplessly, unable to express what’s happening to him. He doesn’t know.  
  
Something about how the older Erik had laughed, whatever spurred his reaction, it's made him quite aggressive in response, and it's tweaked something in his mind; a body-memory of cruelty. "No!" he shouts back, not at Charles, but at Erik. "You don't want him! Why?" he gasps, clutching onto Charles without reason. He is jealous. Possessive. Like Erik had told him. Too much. Too passionate, too clingy, too emotional. No wonder he had to make himself a harder person. A worse person. Anyone would feel jailed with him. "You're not his! I will fight you!" he raises his hands again, as if he could ever hope to be a match for this more experienced, controlled version of himself, but it doesn't matter. He rushes headlong into it without rhyme or concept, with none of his formidable skills and training, leaving him easily thwarted while the other Erik barely even looks up.  
  
“Stop! Please, stop,” Charles begs, and throws himself in front of Erik, tears on his own cheeks. He’s crying, too. Shaking uncontrollably, unable to really hold himself up on shaky legs. He feels close to being sick. He’s breathing heavy, panting, unable to get even, full breaths, and he doesn’t know how to fix it or even what’s happening to him. “I don’t. I don’t, I don’t,” he promises, distressed, uncertain what he’s even saying except that it’s slipping out and he’s slipping into hysterics, hyperventilation.  
  
The older Charles speaks up, looking rather distressed himself. “Erik,” he whispers, and he’s not speaking to his Dominant, but he is, too. They need help. It’s why they’re here. “He’s dropping, Erik. Please.” Not that he’ll know what that is, but it’s a start. A quiet call for attention.  
  
" _Ani lo yode'a!_ " Erik croaks back to the older Charles, tugging at his own hair. He doesn't know what it means, what to do. His brain feels like a scrambled egg, Charles is dropping and tugging him down, clutching onto him with gnarled claws and he's going to drown, Charles will die? And it's his fault?  
  
"It is you, Erik," the older speaks softly. "Do not be jealous of me. You cannot covet what you already have. He is yours. Your submissive. Act like it."  
  
" _Sheli_ ," he murmurs back, pacing back and forth like a caged animal, lashing out whenever the older Erik comes a little too close, snarling at him. He still has Charles's hand in his, refuses to relinquish. Something is happening to him, and he doesn't understand it, and it's frightening.  
  
Charles goes where he’s tugged, back and forth and back, but he’s not truly comprehending, either. Eventually he digs his feet into the carpet and refuses to move, utterly dissolving. He’s shaking head to toe. He’s dropping? What does it mean? How does he stop it? What is he supposed to do? “Erik,” the other Charles is saying, like he’s underwater. It’s garbled and filled with what sounds close to panic. “He’s dropping, please, do something.” It’s painful to watch. It’s painful to feel, for this Charles that feels and hears and listens and knows.  
  
Erik is panicking, too. He's never done this before; he doesn't know what to do other than observing this intruder, this person who does not belong. Who Charles does not belong to. Charles wants to be-by him? No. Erik can't allow it, he's too selfish. Charles doesn't dissolve. Erik would never let him, he grips him up from the floor and glares at him, a raging beast in all of its glory without comprehension, the only thing he knows is Charles. He Commands, "You kneel. Mine," his fingers trace Charles's throat, molecules reappearing. The Orders flow out of him, a raging river to collect it all up. "Mine. Kneel at my feet right now. You are mine. Not him." The burst of Will through the room is enough to shake the walls, a pure explosion of power.  
  
And Charles kneels. Instantly, his entire body bending to Erik’s Will before there’s ever any hope of his mind catching up. He’s knelt at his feet before he can process that he’s bent at all, because there never was a conscious decision involved, even as all of him is wholly willing. “Yours,” he agrees, breathless, and it whooshes out of him, and suddenly he feels far less unstable. Still unsteady, still grasping, still shivering, still uncomfortable, uncertain what’s happened and what’s happening, but it’s an immediate change. A relief. He feels less like he’ll just die, now, which was quite the level of severity just moments before. “I’m not his, no. I’m yours. I just wanted to see,” he explains, biting his lip. He wanted them both to see. So Erik could do it, too. But it made him feel sick, and wrong, and desperate. He's not sure why. Dropping? He doesn't know exactly what that means.  
  
"You see you are mine," Erik rasps, curled toward him more, everything else in their general sphere fading out as his attention hones purely on Charles, where it should be. No more intruders. No more fear, no more falling away. Charles is right where he belongs and Erik will always make sure of that even if he doesn't know what to do, and he touches Charles's face with both hands, Ordering him to look, not to turn away. It was wrong, not what was supposed to happen. "He is not your Dominant. Me. I am," Erik growls. Anybody that stands in his way will be obliterated. The older Erik swallows, unsure precisely what's happened-Erik still really isn't speaking in English-a language only him and Charles really understand, an unconscious mash-up. But he thinks maybe he can understand-the idea of anyone else-with his own Charles. Even himself. It's not the same. His whole body is still on edge, concerned.  
  
To be fair, Charles doesn’t really understand it, either. He can’t, like this. They don’t have a shared language. There’s a gap, there’s misunderstanding; but on an instinctual level, he knows. He wants to reassure, and calm, and reach out for. He wants to submit. He still feels like his chest is too tight to get a proper breath, but he shakes his head, not in disobedience or even disagreement, just -- “Learn,” he whispers. This is precisely why they need to watch, why they need to see. Because they don’t know. They have no idea, and that’s frightening.  
  
“He’s still -- Erik,” the other Charles breathes, and he’s still so deeply in subspace himself that it’s difficult to speak, to articulate, to turn away from his own Dominant. But he’s worried, too. “He’s still dropping. You need to steady him.” He turns to his own Dominant, worrying at his own lip, a Charles gesture even well into his years. “Show them?” he suggests, though he’s far from dropping himself. “Explain it to them. Please?”  
  
Erik isn't sure he can show them the way they need; considering-not because he's unwilling, but because he's a little out of his depth. He's not telepathic, he can't share-but maybe he can try and talk it through, so he nods, his hand still drawing patterns down Charles's back. "I am not here to hurt you," he whispers softly to the Erik across from him. This is an Erik he does recognize, very thoroughly. He's not here to take from him, to laugh at him, to treat him cruelly. He is here to help, and he is very sorry he's done a poor job of it, but he understands this urge. It's something he's felt on a bone-deep level; when you have nothing, when you are forced to fight for scraps, even the mildest threat to the precious things in your life becomes an unbearable sorrow. That fight-or-flight response, that need to put himself in front of anyone or anything that comes at the things he loves. He's had to temper it over the years, but he understands. And Charles knows, too, because he's watched his Erik learn to trust that his surroundings are stable. Even though it took many years, that in and of itself was a barrier to his Dominance, too.  
  
"You need to try and relax. I know it is easier said than done," he adds dryly. "But try to relax. Lean on your submissive. It's what he is here for. Your Dominance-" he holds up one hand. "It's inside of you. It's part of you. Your body, your core, every neuron. You are rooted." And Charles-not so much, but that's why they work at all. Erik has always had a connection to the physical world that other people couldn't even comprehend. It's been many a time that he's had to gently guide Charles to the here-and-now. "Your Will is an extension of yourself. It is like a limb. You can manipulate it." Erik is listening intently, doing his best to unclench, mostly focused on petting at Charles and breathing shakily. "Not just when you are scared, or overwhelmed, or panicking. But always. Reach for it."  
  
Erik's eyebrows pinch in the center as he tries to concentrate, grimacing a bit. But Charles shifts-moves away, just a little bit, and that is when he feels it-an expansion rippling through the air and coming straight at him like a gale-wind force; except it passes straight through him and warms him from the inside-out. Rising up all the hairs on his body, electricity shimmering. "No, mine. You stay," he rumbles, and it's clear he's figured it out at least a little bit.  
  
When Erik relaxes, gradually, so does Charles. Visibly. He’d already been calmed slightly, but now some of the tension melts, dissolves, leaves him in a low, relieved sigh; he straightens up when Erik Commands he stay close, be still, no longer slouched away or fidgeting. It feels nice. It’s wonderful, just like he remembers. But he knows what that panic is like, too. Deep in the bones, terrifying, painful. Shattering everything. The hyperventilation, the disappointment --  
  
“No,” the other Charles whispers, and it’s soft but amused. Not at his counterpart’s expense. It’s because he understands, too, and not only because of his telepathy. “Out of your own head, Charles. You’ll make yourself drop that way.” He looks fondly up at his own Dominant, still very much in subspace. “Isn’t that right? How did you learn to keep me there?" Even as deep-down as he's becoming, as unashamed, there's -- reservation, there. That's just Charles. Erik can melt that away. He has before. More than he cares about things like his own embarrassment, he cares about helping. Teaching, if he can.  
  
And Erik does, always, touching Charles's cheek, eyes crinkled with warmth. "It is about being connected," he whispers. For the both of them. Not fear, not panic, not shame. Existing together, working together. Hell, Charles has been in subspace in a firefight plenty of times, and it only served to heighten his awareness, tune him in better to Erik on the ground. There's a reason why subspace exists and it's not just for human pleasure, it's because it makes you more. Especially a Pairbond. Exclusively a Pairbond, even. "I had to let go, too. You don't have to do anything. It's how you are."  
  
The older Charles smiles, and then gently shakes his head. It isn’t defiance or even disagreement; he leans fully into Erik’s hand, seeks more touch, attention, guidance. “In the beginning,” he murmurs. “We had... strategies. There was some doing necessary, if I recall.”  
  
The younger Charles perks up, eager and still in-between. Nervous. “He gave you things to do?” he hopes, because just existing in subspace is difficult for him. Perhaps even uncomfortable.  
  
Charles understands. He laughs, because he remembers. “Yes,” he agrees. “It helps, doesn’t it?” It still does, now, years later, when he’s much more comfortable. Sometimes he needs that grounding, desperately. Erik provides it.  
  
"You want to do things?" Erik whispers as if he's just realized he could do that, just Order Charles to do something, but he is so worked up, and afraid, he doesn't want Charles to get up off of his knees and leave, he doesn't want him going anywhere-tears are still in his eyes, his face blotchy and entirely un-Erik like. But Erik said to lean on Charles, to use him. So he just says what he wants, even if it's not appropriate, or not what Charles meant. "You come closer on my lap and help me," he rasps mostly in Charles's ear. Images ghost across his consciousness; touching Erik. Smoothing out his clothes, untangling his hair, petting at him and touching him and pulling him back into the Real. He's not there yet. He usually is.  
  
Charles doesn’t hear — see? — those images, but perhaps he doesn’t need to. He doesn’t completely understand the Order, but he certainly tries. He touches Erik’s cheek, runs a hand through his hair, nuzzles closer while staying obediently on his knees. His cheeks are hot, and he’s embarrassed, still, uncertain; he doesn’t know exactly what to do or how to do it, he feels clumsy and unsteady, but he wants to try.  
  
The older Charles smiles. “Am I to be neglected, then?” he teases, but it’s far more breathy than cheeky. Perhaps he needs some attention, too. It’s all leading by example, isn’t it? And even though he’s gotten comfortable simply existing in subspace, of course he craves Orders. Direction, guidance, tasks, attention from his Dominant. Always.  
  
That makes the older Erik growl sharply and bite along his Charles's jaw, tugging him even closer until he's in his lap completely again. He would never neglect him. He never could and he can't even joke about it.  
  
The younger is trying his best to relax and key in as he was instructed but his whole body feels on fire. "Don't want him?" He rasps brokenly. He's sorry. He's not the one Charles loves and he knows that. He should handle this better. He shouldn't be the way he is. He doesn't know himself and everything he learns-he shivers and conceals a sniffle.  
  
Charles might not hear, or know, or even always understand Erik on a literal, basic level depending on how slowly he’s processing Hebrew, frankly, but he is sinking into subspace whether he’s still hesitant and fighting it or not and that makes him instinctively know to comfort his Dominant. To shake his head, a lump in his throat. “I want you,” he whispers, throat dry, feeling raw and vulnerable and a bit frightened. “But I want that,” he admits, staring at the floor and not Erik, ashamed. Desperately, he wants it, even if he’s not sure what that is. “What they have. But with... you. I don’t know if I can — I’m fairly convinced I’m the broken one, now,” he mutters.  
  
"Why me?" Erik croaks back, touching his own throat. He feels it closing up and he doesn't know why. He can do it. He can keep Charles and make him happy, he can. But he can't speak, he can't think right. He doesn't know anything anymore. Everyone is right. They've known one another two days. Erik isn't worthy of him. Charles doesn't know him anymore. He's right. Why-why would Charles want that with him? He knows this older Erik better than he knows him. He didn't want to admit it. He wanted to have faith, to believe, but has no foundation. He's entirely devastated, a beacon of pain. He clutches Charles tightly, even after all this time, unwilling to let him go. He's a bad person. Somewhere deep inside he knows this.  
  
Charles frowns, and then shakes his head again, touching Erik’s face. He’s feeling dizzy again, but he fights through it, through the clenching in his throat and chest. “Stop it,” he demands, but it sounds weak, now. Almost sheepish. He can’t quite manage; it feels wrong, but he still wants to grab Erik’s attention.  
  
Erik's lips are pressed together tightly and he tries not to falter. Charles doesn't like it. "'Kay," he whispers back, trying to settle himself down, unconsciously leaning his head into Charles's hand. He can't help that his cheeks are wet, that Charles can feel it.  
  
But that’s not what he meant. The frustration wells up inside of him, horrible and overwhelming, and he looks helplessly over at the older versions of themselves — and then sniffs and starts to stand, grasping tightly to himself, as if he can keep himself together that way. He feels, immediately, like he might be ill, hand covering his own mouth.  
  
Erik's head shakes. No, Charles said that his feelings were misguided, that he couldn't possibly know if he loved Charles because-and he turns his head away, wiping at his eyes, embarrassed at being seen by everyone in this room as a sniveling child. It's exactly what he feels like, at exactly the wrong time. And Charles picks exactly the wrong thing to do. Erik jumps to his feet in an agile whirl, pinning Charles to the wall with a hand barred over his chest. Tendrils of his Will have long-since bashed against their cages and stormed out in oily slicks, dark and looming and pressing and pressing against Charles. Pressing him down. _No, Charles stop!_ Charles does not just get up and leave! Erik gasps, touching his own throat and then throwing his own hand away angrily, glaring at Charles from above him; eyes narrowed. Danger zapping everywhere like electrical currents.  
  
It should be enough to put him down again. Perhaps it is. But Charles is so unsteady; Erik is so new, he’s so confused, and Charles is so uncertain, so nervous, so frustrated with himself and with the situation and so he wriggles madly in Erik’s arms, against his chest, winded and uncertain how he even ended up against the wall in the first place but suddenly willing to fight it. He feels sick. He’s going to be sick. “No!” bursts out of his mouth, hoarse and not very fierce at all, but it surprises everyone in the room anyway, least of all the other Charles, who watches vaguely wide-eyed as it all plays out, privy to more than just the surface as he usually is. It’s like watching -- well, it’s familiar. It’s very familiar, seeing Charles thrash and fuss like that, dropping all the while. But he doesn't speak. It's not his place, now.  
  
Erik growls again. Charles is no match for him, not like this, certainly not physically and it's never something he's thought about before-schoolyard scuffles, perhaps, but Erik's never been a fighter. Not that he can remember, but now he realizes he keeps Charles pinned easily, thwarting his every attempt as though the muscles in his body remember what to do. "Not no," he whispers fiercely. "Not to me. You belong to me. You do not go away." Those cords of Will tighten. Charles says he belongs to Erik. He says he wants that. Erik wants it too. More than anything. "You show me" bursts out of his mouth before he can stop it. "You kneel properly and show me. Start with Rest." He means Postures. Now. This instant. The Order crackles with heated charge. Charles said he would show Erik. That they used to do this. He's wanted to see. Charles wants to do something then he will do it. He will show Erik. He will accept nothing else.  
  
Charles is breathless and reeling by the time he gets on the floor, utterly winded. He’s spinning, a bit, uncertain what’s happening except that he’s folding himself into Position. Not lost, not drowned out, not less, but surprised and at first lagging; he doesn’t remember, but he reacted quite the same in the beginning when he had his memories, because it was just as new then as it still is now. His lips are parted, either on a protest or a shaky breath, and his cheeks feel like they’re burning; his eyes shift, just for a moment, to the others in the room instead of Erik, still in his own head. He wants to say yes, sir, but he bites his lip hard enough to bleed instead, unwilling to do so here. Unable? The room feels inexplicably humid, his skin warm with it, his chest bursting, everything electric and shivery.  
  
"Yes, they will watch you," Erik growls out harshly. "I don't care. Now you call me right." The shimmering strands of Will slam into Charles like metallic chains driving through a wooden wharf, and just because he didn't to begin with, he gets a firm smack along the cheek for his troubles, his jaw gripped in Erik's hand.  
  
Charles gasps, cheek smarting and eyes wide and still reeling, somehow, unable to entirely grasp the situation he’s found himself in. His chest feels tight, but he doesn’t think it’s panic; it’s something else, something else entirely and he whispers, “Yes, sir,” before he can even recognize he’s done it, not because he’s drowned out but because he’s locked in. He doesn’t need to be told to move into the next Posture, though his cheeks are still red, though he can still feel embarrassed and uncertain, overwhelmed and maybe a little uncomfortable. Is this okay? Is it alright? He’s worried. When he starts to let go like this, starts to sink, he always gets knocked back up. “I don’t want to drop,” comes out of his mouth before he can stop it, all of a sudden, hoarse but there’s fear there. In his eyes, wet with tears. He didn’t even realize how frightened he was of it until precisely this moment.  
  
"I won't let," Erik promises fiercely, framing both of his cheeks in hand-where it's become quite obvious that Erik is a giant in literally every respect. He guides Charles to the next set, demanding and stern as he glares expectantly. "I got you. I can do it. You say trust me. You trust me," he demands roughly, bowing their foreheads together.  
  
It’s never been the case that Charles doesn’t trust Erik. It’s much more accurate to say he doesn’t trust himself, if nothing else. He wants to believe it’s possible for him, what the other Charles seems so profoundly capable of, but he’s uncertain; he’s in his head. He’s worried, and it makes him fumble, forgetting form in favor of fidgeting. He’s not sinking. He’s not letting himself. “I don’t want to drop,” he whispers again, eyes suddenly closed tightly. He’s frightened. There’s no getting around it.  
  
He gets another short, sharp, painful, electrifying rap across the cheek. "No. You know better," Erik rumbles, those lashes of Will growing warmer, heavier, settling down Charles's lungs and right into his gut. "You show me proper form. Any of those things, it doesn't matter. Still mine. Now you show me right."  
  
It does settle right into his belly, liquid warmth and heat, shocks of electricity up his spine as he gasps at the pain, harsh and seeming to linger. His cheek stings well after it should fade, but he swallows and tries to fold himself into the proper Position. “But --” It’s dangerous. He feels that it’s dangerous. He knows he’s being watched, and that everyone knows he’s toeing a line here, but he swallows around the lump in his throat and continues anyway, treading water. Treading, treading, treading. “It hurts when it stops,” he protests, breathless. The last protests he has, clinging to that little resolve. He’s frightened. It can’t happen again. He doesn’t think there’s a way to come down -- up? -- from subspace without it hurting. It feels overwhelmingly good, but only as long as it lasts. Perhaps he’s broken. "I don't want you to put me down if..." He sucks a breath through his teeth, shakes his head, and tries to remember the next Posture in the set. "I don't know it," he mumbles. "I don't remember." It's only partially a lie at the moment.  
  
Another jarring, electric jolt. "If what," Erik snarls. "You _lie_? Now? No. You do not lie. You do it again, you get punished. You remember. I am generous. I give you one warning." Erik's eyes narrow. "You don't tell me what I feel."  
  
It helps. Charles whimpers, as embarrassing as it is, but he stops hiding. He’s biting his lip and slipping, slipping, slipping, dragged under the current and wholly unable to resist, to keep his head up. But Erik, even this Erik, told him to be honest. It’s never been more necessary. No Bond, no telepathy, a language barrier he sometimes can’t adequately cross, but he can’t swallow this down. “Subspace frightens me,” he whispers, eyes closed, ashamed. It’s not defiance. It’s vulnerability. It’s submission.  
  
"Well me too!" Erik barks, but it's with a smile, which he can't believe he can even express anymore with the craziness screaming in his mind. "Me too! When you're in subspace I'm scared. If I do something wrong or hurt you. If I can't fix it or make it better. But no. No," he shakes his head. "Because it is just me. Just you. Scared of myself," he touches his palm to his chest. "And you're scared of yourself. But I don't care."  
  
Charles takes a shaky, harsh breath. He’s not sure he follows all of it, but of course he understands the sentiment. It hurts more to avoid it and he knows it. It’s awful and jarring and empty in a way that’s utterly horrific. “It hurts like this, too,” he admits, biting his lip harder, staring at the floor. Fighting it off. It’s not only futile, it makes him feel physically ill. “I want to. But I don’t know what to do, it’s hard...” To just let go. He doesn’t think he can quite yet.  
  
"No. Not hard. You do it. Now," Erik growls the Order, crouched down to stare directly into Charles's eyes. "Stop fighting. Now. You are mine, you belong to me. Nothing else matters. Nothing. So stop making it."  
  
Nothing else matters. Charles takes another breath, and then another, feeling like his throat is constricted but he’s not suffocating, really; he just can’t escape Erik’s Will. It’s everything. It’s everywhere. If he tries to hold his breath to keep from inhaling it, it gets in his nose, leaks through his pores, sinks deep into his bones where there’s no hope of removing it. He doesn’t know why he’s trying, exactly. Either way the fight slips out of his body, first in his body and then slowly in his overactive mind, which he still hasn’t even begun to figure out the workings of. Suddenly there are tears in his eyes, rolling down his cheeks, but he doesn’t think he’s distressed. He’s breathing so heavy he can hear it, but he doesn’t feel upset. “Help me,” he whispers, and then swallows and shakes his head. “Help me, sir?” he tries again.  
  
Erik, on the other and, is still quite agitated, and the deeper Charles goes, the more obvious it becomes just by looking at him. His chest heaves as he breathes in as deeply as he can and he lets out a rumble of encouragement at Charles's correction all the same. "You show me the next one," he whispers, repeating his previous demand more softly. It's better when Charles yields to him, even if everything else is chaotic. That always makes it better.  
  
To be honest, Charles is sinking, and it’s focusing him, slowly, but he’s still fumbling a bit. He feels awkward, almost, because it’s so heady and overwhelming; like his limbs are heavy, like his mind is fuzzy and everything’s becoming hazy and different. He struggles with it. He’s never sure if it’s alright. He bites his lip again, cheeks hot again. He doesn’t know why, but he has an instinct, and he decides this time not to fight it. “Can I... speak, sir?” he asks, and immediately dips his head in embarrassment. It feels strange. His belly is full of that warmth, he’s shivering from the electricity.  
  
Erik runs his hand down Charles's chest, leaving trails of fire everywhere his fingers touch, encouraging him to fold himself into the next set even as he nods. "Yes," he rasps back, resting his hand along Charles's stomach, rubbing his thumb in slow circles. "You may." It's a little different than the Erik he knew before-one who would tell him of course. Because it isn't of course, not any more. He can speak because Erik Wills it.  
  
Charles shivers. It’s embarrassing, the reaction he’s having; he feels hot, and he keeps shuddering, keeps gasping, keeps getting overwhelmed. Erik’s hands on his belly are pooling liquid fire and his cheeks are so warm they hurt, burn. He has to swallow to get any words out even after he has permission, throat bobbing. It’s not an of course now, apparently, and that changes things; it changes things more than he anticipated. This Erik is different. Even without his footing yet, he’s different. “To them?” he clarifies, voice hoarse. It’s why he’d asked in the first place. His eyes wander to the other two still in the room, squirming now. Is he supposed to ask permission for that?  
  
Yes, he is. If Erik's expression is anything to go by. He's not even paying attention to them. They don't matter anymore and the further Charles drops the more violent his reaction as if a volcano has exploded inside of him and spilled out devastating molten lava. His focus is lasered onto his submissive, everything else is shimmering out of existence. The world around glitters. Dominion. That's what it is. Not a mere imitation of Dominance. "Yes," he finds his voice to murmur back but the threat is implied. He had better say something Erik approves of.  
  
It makes Charles’ eyes pop wide, and suddenly he’s squirming more. He really doesn’t think he’s ever seen Erik like this, ever; he’s a shivering, overwhelmed mess all of a sudden, sinking, and sinking, and sinking. “Um,” is what comes out of his mouth, hardly intelligent.  
  
Erik almost smiles at that, only for Charles. No one else even registers to him. "Stop fidgeting," he rumbles dangerously. Everything is heightened, everything is more. It doesn't matter that there are people here. For him there isn't. "You want to speak?" His eyebrows arch and he touches Charles's cheek. He can speak. For now. If he behaves.  
  
“How?” is what comes out of his mouth, and it’s not really disobedience that keeps him fidgeting. He just can’t stay still. He’s undisciplined, untrained, inexperienced. It’s not aimed at Erik, at least not this Erik, but he can’t turn away from this one — his Dominant. His Dominant. He’s breathing heavy again.  
  
"Because I said. No fidgeting. You show me the next one," he demands of Charles's Posture. "Properly. No slouching. No looking away. You are mine." His hands on Charles's cheek turn into a grip instead, making him look as Erik's eyes blaze at him, absorbing every breath in tandem. He wants more. Deeper. Attention focused to him and not all of this internal rumination.  
  
But he has questions, and not all of them are cerebral. Some of them actually seem very practical. More than that, there are suddenly tears in his eyes and he doesn’t know why; his chest is suddenly tight and he doesn’t know why. He wanted to ask more questions, to learn more, but — “Can we go please,” he asks in a rush, and he’s taking harsh, panting breaths.  
  
Erik blanched, his mind crashing over itself and he swoops Charles up in his arms, ferrying him straight out of the room. Something is wrong. Maybe he's wrong. He doesn't know anything. He still doesn't have an answer to his question and it is crushing him.  
  
Charles blinks, barely comprehending except that he’s suddenly in Erik’s arms. It blinks out more tears, but mostly he holds tight, breathless and trying to remember to breathe, ducked into Erik’s neck. “Question?” he asks. Erik hasn’t said it, but he heard it; it’s flickering, again. On, off, on.  
  
Erik's head shakes. His confidence has taken such a hit since being here and everything has come crashing down. His faith has taken a hit, his hope. He's always called Charles idealistic but Erik has always had the enduring optimism that their lives and their world would be OK. He never needed anything more than that unwavering belief. And he still has it-in Charles, always. He just doesn't know-and his head ducks. Charles said it. His mind is bright as a supernova, filling up all of the darkness, rubbing up against Charles's consciousness eagerly.  
  
But Charles just can’t reach it. It makes him tear up further, it makes him feel inadequate; but he swallows it down and seeks to understand in other ways, even if communication between them now is sometimes difficult. “What’s wrong?” he whispers, his throat feeling as raw as the rest of him. He thought — he shakes his head, trying to clear everything out. Trying to hide the horrible, nauseating disappointment, or the prickling of his skin, or the twisting in his stomach. “It’s okay,” he adds, hollow, far-away. It was working.  
  
Erik strokes at his face repetitively as he sets Charles down beside him in some tucked away room. "You don't think-" he rasps, pained. "My are feelings wrong? I'm your Dominant? You believe?"  
  
Charles blinks. And blinks, and blinks, and blinks. And then he shakes his head, almost dumbfounded. “No, they’re not wrong,” he whispers, and stares down at his feet. “You’re... yes,” he finished, lamely. “But why did you —“ He shakes his head, rubbing at his eyes with his sleeve.  
  
"Why?" Erik's eyebrows raise comically high. Why? His mind pokes and pokes. "You tell me what you mean," he says and he's sitting on a bench and he can't help it. "And you kneel now," he Orders with a shy grin.  
  
Charles doesn’t want him to help it. There’s relief that courses through him as he kneels, practically visible as he takes another shaky breath. “You stopped, and...” He got nervous. It doesn’t feel stable, still. He trusts, but it’s frightening. Dropping scares him. He doesn’t know how to feel safe like that, yet. Erik hasn’t taught him.  
  
"No I don't stop!" Erik growls indignantly. Charles was upset. Other people were nearby. He's too jealous and raw and he can't stop himself. He can't make Charles feel safe? Why not? Yes he can. He can do it. "You are mine. I never stopped. You should be this all times," he whispers, threading his fingers through Charles's hair. "Pretty," he murmurs under his breath. Not meant to be heard.  
  
Charles hears it, anyway, his cheeks turn hot again as he squirms, and eventually nuzzles into Erik’s knee, even as it makes him fidget with embarrassment, still teetering. Still uncertain. He’s still nervous, he still needs to be trained, he heard the older Erik think it. “I don’t know how to,” he admits, and then closes his eyes, squeezing them shut tightly, gnawing at his lip. “I was feeling things,” he admits, and it’s drenched in shame he can’t shake yet.  
  
"You will," Erik grins down at him. Predatory. "I will help you. Always." He doesn't always know what to do. But Charles will help him too. Tell him what he thinks and-what he feels. He tilts Charles's chin upward so he has nowhere to hide, his body humming and vibrating with unconcealed heat. "What do you feel? Tell me," he Orders softly.  
  
It’s so utterly embarrassing. He doesn’t think it’s humiliating, but he’s certainly radiating with shame, his eyes still shut tight despite Erik’s insistence. “Hot,” he croaks, because Erik Ordered it, and the reminder makes his belly flip.  
  
Erik makes a sound in the back of his throat like a low, luxuriant hum as his hand drifts down from Charles's cheek to his chest and then his stomach, chasing those sparks. It's nothing like how he's ever been-free, expressive. Bold. "Good," is what he says in reply, eyes half-lidded. "Tell me more. You are mine. I get to hear," he says, a great big vibration in his chest that exudes outward.  
  
Charles doesn’t know how to put it into words, especially with Erik’s hand drifting down to his stomach. He shivers, opening his eyes to glance down and watch, his whole body hot now. “Overwhelming,” he breathes, and apparently he’s only able to speak in single words now. He doesn’t know how to describe it, this sharp, electric, shivering feeling. He knew it was making him feel uncomfortable, but only because they were around other people, even it it was themselves. He doesn’t understand how the other Charles does this.  
  
"Beautiful," Erik shudders in sympathy, reflected, stones sinking in his limbs and making him heavy. He remembers this feeling and he remembers the sick, twisting vines inside of him and cutting him up and he doesn't know why and it's embarrassing and he can't let Charles know that he must be broken this way. But right now it's all gone, all that's here is pure and right. He is right. He is the one meant for Charles. "Me?" he whispers softly. "'Cause of me?" He gasps a little when he realizes. He caused it. He can't stop watching, branding this image into him. Forever.  
  
“You, sir,” he whispers, and he’s squirming again. He can’t help it. Charles is all worked up, he’s drawn too tight. He’s nervous and he’s shy and he’s embarrassed and he’s hot, liquid heat and electric shocks and he can’t settle, he just keeps gasping and waiting. Looking up at Erik.  
  
They say he just met Charles so how could he know but they don't know. He does know. He must have known before, too. He must have felt this before. He lurches forward all of a sudden and grips Charles right at the throat, unable to help himself anymore. He can't. His submissive is here and the other Erik said-and he can't help it. He can still see the marks he gave Charles along his shoulders and he ghosts his lips over Charles's mouth, hoping to swallow those sounds into himself.

* * *

It feels like the first time. The first kiss. Maybe that’s because it is. It’s fluttery and shivery and Charles doesn’t know what to do, exactly, has no idea and it’s so markedly different than kissing the Erik from before, often restrained, often held-back, that he doesn’t even have that to go off of. Where do his hands go? Does he kiss back? But eventually he forgets to think; eventually his eyelids flutter closed and he moans, full and soft, pliant against Erik’s hands, his lips, his Will. His cheeks are still hot. He's still embarrassed, still shy, nervous. But it feels so nice he forgets to be afraid.  
  
And Charles realizes that this Erik has been holding back, too, but at that sound erupting from him Erik surges forward, and it's no longer chaste and it's no longer curious-he can't help it, he's falling head first into somewhere he's never been and his whole body is humid and burning, shuddering-and he's different. It's different. He doesn't know how and it's not a factor of personality but literal. He doesn't really know what to do, how to kiss, what feels right-he isn't measured and controlled and rigid and the other Erik was. This man is something else. Wild and fierce and devoted, even a little desperate, a little messier, unpracticed and shameless in the way he reacts to Charles's response. "Mine," he groans quietly, thumb rubbing along Charles's throat. "Stay here. Always."  
  
It’s something Charles has truly never experienced. No version of him, but especially not this one. He’s panting and gasping against Erik’s mouth, reeling, chest heaving, heart pounding, pulse racing; everything is spinning. Everything is warm and humid and hazy. He’s following Erik’s lead, exactly as he should, but he’s caught up in it. He feels like he’s burning alive, but he’s shivering, too. When Erik’s thumb strokes circles on his throat, it bobs around a heavy swallow, a whine escaping. Will Erik pull away now? Will Charles be expected to know what to do? He doesn’t. He’s almost hyperventilating, actually, everything ramped up.  
  
Erik grabs his hands with his free one and Charles finds himself pinned to the wall with a lapful of Erik pressing flush up against him, and he's moving differently. On instinct, what his body desperately needs and not a product of a cerebral mind and Charles can tell instantly in this single moment how very orchestrated Erik was in intimate moments. It is no longer. He's vibrating with it, shudders passing through him, soft noises that Charles elicits whenever Erik manages to make him whine. A worthwhile past time. "How does he get anything done?" Erik rasps breathlessly. When this is so much better. "Look at me." He gives Charles's cheek a smack and turns his jaw, pinning his gaze. "Who you belong to? Who is your Dominant? Hm?"  
  
Getting pulled up into Erik’s lap knocks whatever wind he had left out of him, leaves him panting and gasping for air in between kisses as he tries to process what’s happening. The slap draws out another high whine from him, lips parted on it as he breathes heavy against Erik’s mouth. “You,” comes out before he can even think, and he’s squirming on Erik’s lap, eyes wide when and cheeks a vibrant red when he realizes the consequences of that. “You, sir. You’re my Dominant,” he gasps, and he feels that. Even if they haven’t figured it out, figured out each other, learned it all yet.  
  
It practically makes Erik purr in satisfaction, his fingers running down Charles's back until they settle along his hips-and it's not the easy, skilled maneuvering that he wielded prior-it's a little clunky, less focused, but his desire is so clear and vibrant it rings through the room like a bell, sound-waves super-sonic through particles slamming together like an abacus. Erik simply doesn't know he was never like that. Oh, Charles knew that he felt desire, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to how he touches now, how he moves, how he sounds. The things Charles brings out in him. The way he falls apart, how when they pull away his cheeks remain flushed and his are nearly glowing. It's not just pure physical desire, either. It's Dominion in its totality; even affection. "Yes I am," he whispers, achingly fond. "Kiss me," he grins up at his submissive, almost mischievous.  
  
Charles waits, hesitating, but it’s not an Order. He can’t help the distressed noise he lets out when he realizes it isn’t, when his mind catches up; it’s somewhere between disappointment and panic, because he’s realized that he likes it, very much, when he has to make the choice to obey but this feels different. This Erik he’s on top of, this Erik that’s touching him and maneuvering him and speaking to him in that voice, he’s a different man than the one he’s been with in the Manor. Charles whines again, eyes fluttered closed for a moment, and then he takes a shaky, steadying breath and presses forward. Obedient, but shy. Nervous. It’s almost chaste, but certainly sweet, even though he’s squirming atop Erik’s lap as he does it, his own desire increasingly obvious, red all the way up to his ears and down to his neck, to his chest.  
  
Erik just pulls him closer, unable to help taking control, as if something magnetic is within him pressing him forward with all the instincts of thousands of years of evolution, a pinnacle resulting in this-in them. When he kisses back it's softer, this time, drawing Charles nearer with a steadying hand at the back of his neck, eclipsing every part, keeping him safe. He always will. His hands drift down toward the hem of Charles's shirt and slide up along his back, touching skin, and he gasps with the feeling, right into Charles's mouth-electricity, a bolt shivering through his whole body. "More," he says as if breaking up over an infinite ocean-wave. He wants more. And he can want. He is Dominant. He should be able to want. It's not wrong. It's not wrong?  
  
It’s not wrong, but Charles doesn’t know what to do. His experience is limited at best, and the experience he does have seems wildly different from this, to the point where it feels almost incomparable. He’s panting against Erik’s mouth, completely unable to get an even, full breath, his chest heaving up and down already as he wriggles madly in his lap, whimpering every time he does, hot and nervous and wanting. Desperately wanting, too, and he doesn’t have to have spent more than a day with this Erik to know that. It’s Erik. He wants. “Help?” he suggests, breathless, and it sounds awfully pathetic but he can’t help it, he needs the guidance. When he shifts this time, he moans again, cheeks so red they’re practically a new color.  
  
Erik growls, an otherworldly edge. "No," he snarls a little and holds Charles fast to him, giving his throat a firm bite as incentive to stay still. His hand slides up Charles's front this time, spanning over the skin of his chest, brushing along one of his nipples by mistake-and then on purpose, utterly curious. He doesn't know, either, he really doesn't. What will make him feel good? Erik wants to know. "Show me," he whispers, soothing over that bite with his lips. "You like it? Feels good? What makes you feel good? I want it." He should always feel good and Erik doesn't know. How to inspire those reactions, how to manipulate Charles's body in the same measured, calculating way. He feels like a teenager, fumbling in the dark, and he's flushed alittle-embarrassed himself, at his own lack of experience. They must have-they established that. They did. And he knew, and now he doesn't, and he doesn't-he doesn't want to disappoint.

* * *

Charles doesn’t really know, either. He doesn’t. All of his experience is with Erik, the Erik he’d woken up to, and they hadn’t done much of it. Shockingly little, actually, for all he’d thought about it, late at night, alone in bed in his room underneath the covers and right before, right before Erik had said he needed to ask permission for -- but he shakes his head, shakes it off, gasps again, his eyes wide as Erik’s thumb brushes over his nipple. And he shudders. Full body, a soft, helpless moan escaping because he hadn’t thought he liked that but he also doesn’t know what he likes. “I don’t know,” he gasps. “I don’t know what I -- what I like, I want what you want, I want --” It’s difficult to phrase it, especially when he’s embarrassed. Shy. He buries his face in Erik’s neck.  
  
"Hmnn," is Erik's intelligent answer, entirely distracted by that reaction and Charles feels his focus swoop in, a metallic kaleidoscope of monochrome-brilliance bringing the entire world into sharp, atomic lights. So of course he has to do it again, this time scratching the edge of his nail along the peaked up bud underneath Charles's shirt, eyes bright as he watches for Charles's reaction, something Charles is acutely aware of. "What you want?" Erik replies, pulling Charles away from his neck-"No hiding," he Orders roughly. "What do you want? Hmm?"  
  
This time Charles well and truly moans, a gasping, stuttering thing, his whole body jerking and his eyes wide at the sensation, electric and overwhelming for something so simple. It’s all ramped up, and up, and up. He’s sensitive, so sensitive it’s almost pathetic, wriggling on Erik’s knee and gasping every time he shifts, lips parted. “I — to, to serve you, you said —“ He bites down on his lip, hard, and squirms harder, which does nothing to help the situation. “You said it was part of what a submissive does,” he whispers. This kind of servitude. To keep a Dominant’s bed warm, to keep them satisfied, though it feels traditional, but — well. Is it wrong? To want it?  
  
Erik is shaking from that, trying to bring himself under control-maybe the other Erik-all other Eriks could, but he finds it impossible as he's moved to action by mere thought. "I wake up this morning and you-" he whispers back. "But you went away. You shouldn't have gone away. You are mine. You say I don't know but you are wrong," he growls. "I know. I know the first time I see you. I knew when we first met and you can't say _lie_. Not a lie. I knew when I first met you for real." He means when they first met. When they both had their memories. In that prison cell, even if he doesn't know that. "I want you. You are mine. You should serve me," he gasps, breathless himself.

* * *

Charles shakes his head, but it’s not a protest, really. It’s just that even if they somehow do know, they don’t, too; there’s so much they need to figure out. There’s so much that can’t be assumed, now. But he’s shaking on Erik’s lap, too, squirming this way and that, still unable to hold still, unable to keep from gasping and heaving in breaths. From wanting. “I want to,” he whispers, like it’s a secret. “To serve you, I — you said it’s something a submissive does, and I’m your submissive, I’m going to be your submissive, aren’t I?” So he should do what Erik thinks a submissive does, the role they fill. And this is part of it?  
  
"You want?" Erik breathes as if it's shocking. "Me?" Not just 'cuz I was-and-" it's an incredible, indescribable feeling. "Wants me," he laughs to himself, touching his own face-something he used to do when he was severely stressed, but it isn't stress, this time. "My submissive. Should serve me," he whispers. But he hardly knows what that means, only that his entire body is filled with desire, and arousal, and heat. And Charles quite suddenly finds himself divested of his shirt, so Erik can stare and stare at him, leaning forward to fasten his mouth over one of Charles's nipples because he seemed to like that and Erik wants more of those reactions, and he doesn't quite understand how that relates to him-not yet, not really. He used to know, to have-sets, specific actions, and now he doesn't know-will Charles help him? Does Charles know? What makes him feel good? Erik doesn't know. "You are supposed to serve me," he murmurs against Charles's chest.  
  
If it’s a reaction Erik wants, he certainly gets it. Charles’ entire body jolts, as if he’s physically been electrified; arches, a loud, high keen escaping and it’s only from this. Only from that attention to his chest, which he didn’t know he liked, which he didn’t know was so sensitive, because the Erik he knew hadn’t done anything like this, really, because they hadn’t done much at all. He’s startled and wide-eyed, now, and he shakes his head -- “I don’t, I don’t know,” he stutters, gasping, already shaking in Erik’s lap. “But -- you think it’s a submissive’s, it’s… it’s --” Erik had said it. He’d said it, even when he’d been so new he didn’t know Charles at all, even when he was struggling immensely with the language gap. He’d said it was one of a submissive’s duties, their roles. He’d said it without any shame at all.  
  
The fact of the matter is, at this point in time Charles really is the one with more experience. Erik is just trying things, just to try them, just because he can. Because Erik loves him, in every incarnation, even if he's just woken up and remembered nothing, and that turns out not to be _romance_ -it's just _reality_. He doesn't have anything left to rely on but his instincts, his feelings. What he knows is gone, this is what is left. "Don't know?" he blinks, a little confused, and then Charles promptly ends up on his back over the lounge they've ended up seated on, with an Erik looming before him all teeth and glittering darkness. He doesn't know if he wants Erik? He doesn't know? Erik grins. It's utterly silly, really, cocky in a way he never was before. "I would make you know."  
  
That’s not what he’d meant at all. And the thing is, perhaps they love each other, on some instinctual, deep-primal level, the way a Pairbond instantly know; but they don’t know each other. Not in the way they did, or should, or could. There are moments where they misunderstand because that Bond hasn’t formed yet, and so Charles stares panting and embarrassed underneath Erik, his heart pounding, his chest visibly heaving, and shakes his head, everything hazy and far too much. “How, or what,” he clarifies, sounding as out of breath as he feels. As helpless. Needy. “And — you think that? You really think that?” He flounders, here, because he hasn’t said it out loud. His lips purse; does he know the words that Erik will understand? Will it translate correctly? He lets out a frustrated, quiet huff. “My duty, as your submissive — what? Here, what?” he asks, as simply as he can.  
  
"What?" Erik laughs. "Mine. Anywhere. I-" he drops down onto his elbow, tracing little patterns on Charles's exposed skin with his fingers. "I think that," he whispers softly, and then he replaces his fingers by pressing his lips to Charles's skin instead, near his hip and navel. "I won't force you," he promises. He doesn't know why that is so important to make clear, but it is. "But I want. I think it. My submissive. I wish you will want to. I don't know too. You did? With him?-me?"  
  
Forcing certainly won’t be an issue here. That’s a bit more than obvious by Charles’ panting, by the way he’s still wide-eyed and startled and trembling underneath Erik, but not from fear. “We started,” he gasps, because it’s the most concise explanation he can give for what he and the other Erik -- an Erik with memories -- did. They started. They were getting there, eventually. But there was dancing around, and there was holding back, and there was shockingly little, considering how much desire Charles felt, often overwhelmingly so. “You want… you want me to --” He swallows, eyes closing. Squirming beneath Erik. “A submissive does this?” he wonders, as if he just wants the confirmation. Wants Erik to say it again. To expect it. He can’t explain why it’s so important to him.  
  
Erik just grins, entirely predatory as he bites Charles along the hip, hard and almost punishing. "I did not say to close your eyes," he warns in a low growl, and when Charles's eyes open its to Erik's blazing stare. "Does this," he nods and pets at him, soothing away the sting. A little. "Serves me. Like this," he lets out a near relieved huff. "What did you do? Tell me," he whispers.  
  
Charles yelps at the bite, jerking harshly and having to catch his breath again when he realizes Erik isn’t letting him go anywhere. He shakes his head, covering his face with his hands, suddenly feeling incredibly vulnerable though he’d instigated this. “We did… things,” he mumbles, and shakes his head, wriggling insistently underneath Erik. “Not much. He told me, before you -- before he… he told me something, and that’s the last thing.” But he doesn’t clarify, and it’s muffled so much that it’s practically useless, considering Erik’s loss of fluency.  
  
But Erik doesn't let it go. He never will. "What things," he purrs back, Charles captured beneath him. "Tell me what. No shame. You are mine I want to know. I get to. No hiding from me. Never or I punish. Then I hear anyway. You are mine. I do not lie." It's not the way he used to speak, deliberately designed to get a rise and stoke those flames of pleasure. It's just pure and raw sensation, energy explosive.  
  
It has that effect, anyway, because -- well, he’s not entirely certain. He just knows he’s squirming, still, covering his face, listening to his heart pound, feeling his chest continue to heave with every breath, nipples perked up in the chill but also because Erik played with them and he swallows around it, swallows again, feels everything warm and molten and hazy. Sinking. “He said I wasn’t allowed to, without him,” he whispers. But Erik will ask, anyway, so he rushes out, “Anything. I wasn’t allowed to… touch.” His cheeks are beet red.  
  
"Maybe I do not have bad ideas all the time." Erik actually laughs, a shudder running through his frame as he drags his hands along the insides of Charles's thighs. "But I get to touch." His eyes are alight, victorious. "Did I touch you?" He wants to know. A liminal space. Did he do this? He's almost _jealous_ of himself. He used to know how. How to make Charles feel good but he looks. Sees the way Charles is flushed and panting and it can't be for nothing. It's him. Not any other Erik. "I want to touch," he states and it's a little blunt and tactless and entirely himself.  
  
It makes Charles gasp, anyway, entirely overwhelmed even by something so blunt and simple. “Yes,” he croaks, and he isn’t sure if he’s grateful that his pants are still on or not, considering the circumstances. He’s nervous. He’s shy. Erik is still fully clothed, and that he’s frustrated about, but he doesn’t do anything about it; is he allowed to ask? He bites his lip, hard. “Yes. He touched me. Because, because he said I was his, so…” So he was the only one who could. Even Charles had to ask permission. “He made me tell him,” he breathes, his chest tight with it, because it was new and it was nerve wracking and he’d wanted it. To be made to.  
  
"Tell me," Erik growls even as his hands wander up and then brush right against Charles even through his clothes, and Charles can feel the warmth from his palm and the heat in his eyes as he watches. "Nobody else gets to. Just me. You do only if I say so. That's how it is. And you are for me and I like it. Looking at you. And touching you. My submissive. You will."  
  
The whine that elicits is almost pathetic. Charles arches right up, even as he’s held down, feeling incomprehensibly sensitive when he’s barely been touched, when he’s still wearing clothes. He’s not sure where this instinct is coming from, but there’s something bubbling up inside of him. Bubbling, and bubbling, and bubbling, and the truth is he doesn’t understand it because he’s down. In subspace. He really does think so, he feels it, even if it’s a bit unsteady. But he still looks right up at Erik, bites his lip, runs his tongue over the hole he’s chewed there, and whispers, “No.” Not because he’s unwilling or doesn’t want to. Just no.  
  
Erik's hand lifts up almost immediately and he freezes, an ice-cold chill falling over him, snap-frost in-place. "No?" he gasps, pressing his own hand against his chest, now, like he can't breathe. "No?" He tries to suck in great gulps of air, and he can't. And he doesn't know why, either, and tears are forming in his eyes but they're freezing in place, too. "No. No, no-"  
  
“Oh,” slips out of Charles’ mouth immediately, like it’s been punched out of him. Immediately everything rises up again, dissolves, begins to shake. He swallows around the awful, sick feeling in his belly, the tightness in his throat. “No, I -- yes, I’m sorry, yes,” he gasps, feeling like the air’s been stolen from him, too, tears gathering in his own eyes.  
  
But Erik stares at him, his head tilting incomprehensibly to the side. "Yes," he maintains, a low growl at the edge of his words. "You say yes. You say it. Why no. Why. You said you want." His hand is back, nudging Charles's legs apart, looming over him fiercely. "Do not lie to me. You are mine. I want. _No_? You say _no_?" It's absolutely, positively, nothing like anything Erik ever would have said or done to him before, and his whole body is electrified because of it.  
  
Charles gapes because of it. Stares, wide-eyed and barely comprehending, whimpering beneath him, his legs suddenly spread even as he tries to lock his knees back together, not out of unwillingness but because he’s embarrassed, he’s nervous. “Because,” he gasps. “Because I wanted to say no. So no.” It’s absolutely, positively playing with fire, and part of Charles is hopeful. He doesn’t know why, but he can’t squash the feeling, either. He’s holding his breath.  
  
He is playing with fire and he quite suddenly finds that he's been stripped of his pants altogether, only his boxers remaining while Erik ghosts his fingertips along his inner thighs. "No. No, no, no," he laughs a little. "You say no? To me? My submissive? Says no? You think I will _accept that_?" and Charles finds himself pinned down with Erik abruptly on top of him, with Erik's own leg shoving his knees apart, and his hands trapped above his head. Nowhere to go, after all.  
  
Can anyone hear them? Children? What must those other versions of them think, running off to the first room they can find to do this? But then again, the embarrassment of it fades far to the background after a moment, as does any concern for anything but Erik, but his Dominant, but the fact that he’s pinned and there are far less layers now between Erik’s thigh and -- he whimpers again, panting out breaths that feel far too short. He can’t seem to get enough air. He’s wiggling about, still, but it’s not getting him anywhere. Actually, it’s making matters worse. “What are we going to do about it?” he asks, breathless, and in some ways it’s goading, yes, but he’s also asking. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know this Erik.  
  
Nobody can hear them, even though Erik wouldn't mind this. He doesn't want little prying ears to be concerned about it, and so they're not. They're perfectly hidden, and that's exactly what they should be doing. What they should have been doing this whole time as far as Erik is concerned, and he still has Charles's hands gripped harshly in one of his own, while he draws a fingertip down one of the slashes across Charles's shoulder. Erik doesn't have any memories of this-he's entirely new.  
  
The last time he was aware he thought this kind of thing was something that existed on an alien planet, entirely out of his realm of understanding. Now he gets it-but he doesn't know what to do about it, either. It's a jarring difference, but in a way, it's something he's always needed, too. For this to be new. "I-I feel-" he gasps, nuzzling against Charles's cheek. "You make it better," he growls all at once. "Make it better, you're supposed to make it better, and help me I don't know what to do. Your job." He grabs Charles's hand all at once and presses it to his own chest, against his shirt. "Show me. He showed you, he-you did it-" He looks a little slow, like his thoughts are being filtered through molasses. "Touch. And learn. You touch me. Show me."  
  
Charles doesn’t know how, either. Erik never really showed him, not really. They hadn’t gotten to it yet. He whines, loud and startled as his hand is moved, staring at it. Not moving it. “He — he didn’t show me, I don’t...” His cheeks are red and he’s suddenly finding it hard to breathe, feeling slightly panicked. “I don’t know how to serve you,” he admits. Ashamed. He’s close to crying, actually, devastated by it.  
  
"I don't know," Erik whispers back, soft. "I just feel-" he rubs Charles's hand along his chest, and then down a little, toward his stomach. "He did. You did. He touched you. You do things-together. I-I don't know how-or what," he laughs a bit. "Um," it's almost sheepish, maybe even shy. "I just have-I just think about things, sometimes. I don't even know-if you-" he can't help but focus on the sensation against his skin, even clothed. "If you think it's-if you-wouldn't like-or think I'm-gross. I'm not," he can't help but breathe, pained. "Don't want to be. Doesn't seem bad. In my mind. It's nice."  
  
Charles bites his lip, hard. He’s staring at his hand, eyes still wide, heart still pounding. “It’s not gross,” he breathes, and means it. “It’s not gross. You think it, don’t you? You think I should serve you.” But he really doesn’t feel like he knows how. He feels uncomfortable leading. He doesn’t want to, but he doesn’t want to say that. So he just wriggles about, uncomfortable, wanting, uncertain. He doesn’t want to drop. He wants Erik to — he doesn’t know. He doesn’t. But he wants him to think it. To think that Charles is supposed to serve him like this.  
  
"Yes," Erik whispers, lips parted slightly. He thinks it. And he doesn't mean to make Charles feel like he has to lead. It's not hardly about that. But Charles is his. He has to help, he has to be there for Erik to lean on when he needs it. And he does, because he simply doesn't know. Not that he wouldn't dive head first into it the moment he did. Because that much is clear. "I think it. All the time. When I woke up you pulled away. You should not." And Charles can feel him, now that he's only stripped to his boxers, even while Erik is clothed Charles can feel him. "You touch me. Take my shirt off. Now," he growls it out all of a sudden, eyes ablaze. Charles doesn't think it's bad? It's not bad. It's not.  
  
Charles doesn’t think it’s bad, but he’s nervous. More than perhaps he’s ever been before, he fumbles. He whines at the Command, red-faced and embarrassed and with shaking fingers as he obeys. Because it isn’t bad and he’s meant to do as he’s told, but he’s trembling, horribly, as he takes off Erik’s shirt. Then he stares. “I don’t know what to do,” he croaks. “Just... tell me, please. I —“ He needs to be told. He won’t drop? Erik won’t stop?  
  
"I don't know too and you can't think I'm stupid," Erik admits softly. "You-come here," he abruptly pulls Charles up so that they are right-side and Charles is slouched next to him on the ground, his own hands spanning over Charles's chest and tweaking at one of his nipples just because he can, with a grin. "Here, too," he Commands, dragging Charles's hands to the hem of his pants. "Now. Mine."  
  
Charles gasps, loud and breathless, a high, startled moan pulled right out of him as he squirms helplessly. His hands hesitate at Erik’s hem, biting his lip. “You aren’t. I need to learn, too,” he whispers, and closes his eyes as he works at Erik’s zip, works his pants off, hearing his heart beat right out of his chest. “I’m nervous,” he admits, pained.  
  
There's a lot of things at play, some unconscious and some otherwise. He gets a sharp rap across the jaw for closing his eyes, and he rubs his thumb along the back of Charles's palm. Guiding him sharply and comforting as best as he can. "Nervous?" he whispers back, grinning. "Nervous about me? I won't hurt. Keep you safe. Always." Erik doesn't move immediately when his pants are off, though-except to take Charles into his lap, sheltering him with his arms and legs both. His hand drifts down Charles's hip and to his ass, still sore from the thorough punishment Erik had given him before, and he gives him another smack for good measure. Just because he can.  
  
Charles isn’t afraid. He’s horribly nervous, just like he said, and he’s shy, too, but he isn’t afraid. He yelps at the slap, squirming hard in Erik’s lap, eyes wide and cheeks burning all over again when he realizes that he’s not only sore from being spanked over Erik’s lap earlier, but he can feel Erik beneath him now. There’s only a thin layer between them, only their boxers, and Charles is plainly aware of it. “I know you won’t hurt me,” he breathes, wriggling again. “But I’m — I’m still nervous,” he admits.  
  
Erik lets out a short, sharp gasp as a bolt of pure electricity winds its way through his body. "Maybe I am a bad person," he admits, swallowing a little roughly, but Charles doesn't get another break before he brings his hand down again over Charles's ear, this time pressing himself up against Charles, holding him in place, nothing to do but just feel and feel. Erik isn't agonizing about it, though, his eyes are almost crinkled. "I was thinking about this earlier." He means when he had Charles over his knee. "Off," he rumbles, tugging at Charles's boxers. He wants to try again without any clothing between them.  
  
Charles was, too. He was embarrassed, nearly humiliated, crying and red-faced and hurting, but he’d been thinking of this, too, when it was over. He couldn’t help it. Now he whines at the Order, fumbling to take his boxers off and stay on Erik’s lap, trying to hide himself after he does. “It hurt,” he mumbles, even though he’d had pants on and that hadn’t been the worst part. Erik had taken him over his knee right there and the reminder makes him try to hide his face in Erik’s neck.  
  
"Barely," Erik smirks up at him, wolfish. And now he can really lay into him, mark him, make him red, press him against every inch of him that's hard and insistent while he does. Now it will really hurt. "Look at me. No hide. No hiding. Never again." Charles gets no warning at all, before he feels Erik's hand between his legs, closing around him, warm and rough and he gets another solid wallop before he has time to process anything at all, and looking at Erik makes it decidedly clear that he is fascinated by every twitch and yelp Charles makes. "You are mine. You serve me. No nervous. I don't ask for that. Or hiding."  
  
But Charles can’t help it. He does yelp, both at the slap and the hand suddenly on him, and he wriggles madly, his heart suddenly beating in his ears. It doesn’t do anything to fix his situation, his dick twitching in Erik’s hand, more than noticeably hard. but there’s suddenly panic there, and he takes a harsh, shaky breath, looking down at the hand around — he whines again, shaking his head. “I’m nervous, I can’t help it, I’m nervous, I —“ He can’t explain it, shaking his head rapidly as he takes another harsh breath. “I don’t want to drop,” he suddenly repeats from before, his chest tight. It feels like all the air has left him, like something’s caught in his throat.  
  
Erik stares at him, letting his hand drop, not a purposeful movement more that it's born out of his sudden inability to remember how to move, or breathe. "What?" he asks after a few stuttered seconds, eyes blinking rapidly as if time itself had frozen over his face, before bursting into choppy animation.  
  
Charles swallows. Hard. Visibly. “I’m just nervous,” he reassures, quietly, and feels ashamed for it. He squirms again in Erik’s lap, this time deliberately. “I don’t — I don’t want to stop. I’m just nervous. I’m, I’m in subspace, I think,” he whispers, but he knows. He can feel it. He can feel himself slipping further. And he’s afraid of what will happen when that goes away, because every time it’s been painful. He closes his eyes and hangs his head.  
  
"I, uh," Erik's eyebrows knit together. "I won't let you," he responds to the thing Charles said like two minutes ago. "I will catch you," he promises, and blinks, not understanding how his hand got to Charles's hip. "You-you what?" he asks, even though Charles hasn't said anything. He finds he can't quite hear, and squints at Charles's face. "Why do you sound funny?" Like he's underwater, or inside-out, or-  
  
Charles blinks, too, and suddenly there are tears in his eyes though he doesn’t know why. He reaches up to touch Erik’s cheek, hesitant. “Please,” he whispers, though he doesn’t know what he’s begging for. His eyes squeeze closed. “Please. Please.”  
  
Erik presses his cheek to Charles's palm, bowing their foreheads together. "I got you. I won't let anything bad happen. I-" he inhales slowly. "It's OK if you want to stop. I won't get mad. Promise."  
  
Charles shakes his head so hard he thinks it rattles. “No,” he says, immediately, and it’s breathy and eager even as he rubs his face into Erik’s neck, needing the comfort and skin contact. Somewhere to hide, too. “I don’t want to. I’m just nervous, okay?”  
  
Erik runs his fingers along the back of Charles's neck, nodding and smiling because he doesn't know what's wrong with him and it doesn't matter anymore, not when Charles is in his lap and still sounds as eager as all that even when Erik acts like a crazy person. "Me too," he admits softly. He never would have, before. He was always too concerned about projecting strength and being a pillar and never showing weakness.  
  
The fingers on the back of his neck feel wonderful. Charles arches right into them, needing it. Desperately. He floats against Erik’s shoulder for a few moments, letting himself sink. Go down, and down, and down. It’s where he wants to be. He’s trying not to be frightened of it. “Can you... Order me?” he whispers, embarrassed. Sheepish. He’s not demanding. He’s asking. For help. It’s the only way he knows it works.  
  
"Mhmm," Erik's chest vibrates against Charles's and he crooks a finger under Charles's chin. "Nothing to be nervous about. I got you. I can take care of you. I won't let anything bad happen. Maybe I don't know much. But you will teach me too," he smiles and kisses Charles on the tip of the nose. And then he pinches Charles's nipple, hard, before tugging him right back to where he was before. "Now I was in the middle of something," he growls. "But you interrupt. Very naughty. I will have to train better." He takes Charles's hand in his own and leads it to the top of his boxers. "Take them off. Now." When Charles takes just a little too long he gets another pinch, this one designed to hurt. Just a little.  
  
More than the pinch, although it certainly makes him squeak, it’s the words that get underneath Charles’ skin. That sink into his bones and create heat he couldn’t possibly explain, liquid fire that sizzles in his veins. Train him better. It’s something Erik might have said to him before, but not like that, and not only because of the sentence construction. He finds he’s lagging a bit, his hand feeling like it’s all of a sudden on the hem of Erik’s boxers with no idea how it got there, and he moans when his nipple is twisted again, tears springing to his eyes even as he gasps with it. He can hear his pulse kicking and his heart beating as his own harsh, panting breaths as he does as he’s told, as he lowers Erik’s boxers the best he can. He looks without thinking, and it makes him gasp, eyes closing immediately. It’s too much. Seeing Erik like this feels like too much.  
  
Laughing a little, unable to help his grin, Erik gives Charles's cheek a short smack as well before gripping his jaw, just enough to make him red on top of his flush. "I did not say close your eyes." He isn't-it wasn't because of-he just said he was nervous. It isn't-no. "So you look. What you do, hm?" he shifts Charles against his lap again, gives him several more loud, echoing slaps across his bottom and pressing himself right up against the welts left behind, the heat of it leeching into him, and Charles can feel the way his cock twitches and leaks against his bare skin. "You are mine. You show me. Hmmm?" Erik bites him along the neck and then Charles finds his hands pressed to Erik's stomach.  
  
Charles can feel everything. He whines as he’s shifted, as the heat from his freshly-spanked ass rubs against Erik’s thighs and his cock, his cheeks matching and certainly not only from that slap. His hands don’t feel like his, right now. Perhaps they aren’t. He’s staring at them, feeling the rise and fall of his chest, feeling himself sink. His eyes are open but everything feels a bit hazy, a bit dizzy, a bit blurred. He takes a sharp breath, and then another, and then another. It’s not panic. At first he thought it might be panic, but he doesn’t think it is. There are tears in his eyes anyway. “I’m just -- I’m just, I’m --” But he shakes his head, because he doesn’t have an explanation, and they don’t have a Bond. He bites down hard on his lip, frustrated. “I’m not afraid,” he promises, and his own cock is bobbing and leaking against his belly, if there’s to be any proof. He wants. His hitched breaths, his flushed skin, the way he’s reacting to every touch and movement and word. He’s just experiencing something different, and he doesn’t quite know how to process it.  
  
"No?" Erik purrs, touching his cheek. "Not afraid? Hm?" his hand draws down Charles's chest, along his hips, leaving little arcs of electricity along the way. He can't help but stare, caught in a trap with Charles above him. He's meant to be in control but he's entirely tamed, bewitched by the sights, the colors, the sounds. They're all branding him. Edging out whatever is churning beyond conscious recognition. Something different-the both of them. "You are mine," he fills in softly. "You do what I say. I train you."  
  
It’s those words again. Charles feels like his heart clenches, along with his belly, everything leaving him in a whoosh of air as it settles in. “You’re going to train me,” he repeats, breathless, and he’s not sure why that’s doing this to him. Why it feels like it’s setting him on fire, or why his skin feels prickly and oversensitive, why he feels the need now to squirm on Erik’s lap which is especially dangerous now, his eyes widening and he moans when their dicks rub together briefly without him meaning to. It’s entirely too much sensation right now, somehow. He’s shaking. “I didn’t mean to --” he rushes to say, gasping still. He doesn’t feel like he should do anything without Erik’s permission now. Maybe ever.  
  
"Then you be still," Erik rumbles lowly, gripping Charles by the throat. "Not move around. Not when I don't say." He grabs Charles's hand, his own thumb rubbing along Charles's belly. But that single touch to him has unleashed a torrent, as if he didn't even realize that was an option-which is foolish because he should know-and his eyes are wide, pupils blown. He looks shocked-not a look Charles has ever seen him bear, especially intimately. "Do it again," he Orders roughly. "Do that-again, do it again," he huffs, looking a little cross-eyed.  
  
Charles doesn’t even know what he means at first, but he doesn’t want to disobey. Earlier he was testing himself, without even meaning to, unconscious and nervous and frightened -- not of this, but of subspace, and he’s trying so hard not to be -- but he isn’t, now. It doesn’t feel the same. Everything is slow and it’s hazy and he doesn’t really know how to see like this, how to move, how to be. He whimpers, the noise utterly pitiful to his own ears, all of his attention on where Erik’s thumb is rubbing those circles, which should be gentle and calming but is just working him up -- and then he does what he’s told. He moves again, wriggles about again, this time a tad more deliberately, and the gasp that escapes him when their cocks rub together this time is so loud he’s shocked by it, trembling in Erik’s lap at the sensation. Reeling with it. He’s leaking against his belly, against Erik now, his own eyes wide and startled and he’s so overwhelmed, already, he doesn’t know what’s happening.  
  
That makes Erik emit a low, lengthy growl at the back of his throat, eyes becoming half lidded. "Not just like this," he snatches up Charles's hand, biting at his finger, a little like a hurricane. Wild and unpredictable, but he's not frenzied, just terribly startled. "More," he whispers, humming along Charles's wrist, sliding his hand down his own chest. "With your hand, too. Do it again. Show me. Touch," he gives Charles's jaw another little nip, with no time at all to prepare before Erik's locking him in place with his legs. "Touch me? Hm? You're mine?" he grins, making Charles take it again and again as he brings his hand down over his exposed ass, the noise echoing through the room, and that only serves to work him up even more. It turns out he's still a talker, because his voice rasps in Charles's ear. "I thought about this when you were in my lap, about having you right there. You know I was-" he doesn't know the word, but Charles gets it well enough. He was hard, the whole time, and he wondered if Charles could feel it. He'd thought something was wrong with him because every time he's disciplined Charles it's made him-feel-and last night, it was even more intense, he could barely keep himself under control.  
  
After the punishment was over, after he settled, when the embarrassment and shame processed it processed as something else, too. As this. Charles thought of it, too. Of Erik growling at him, talking like this, holding him in place; Charles cries out at every slap, tears in his eyes that have nothing to do with the pain even though he’s sore. He’s breathing harshly again, every breath coming out like a forced-out gasp, and he can’t squirm anymore which makes it worse. His hand wanders down Erik’s stomach like he was told to do, but it hovers when it gets to his dick, his heart in his throat. He swallows, and swallows again, and when he finally touches he gasps, followed by a high little whine. He doesn’t know what to do, really, even if he’s done this before. Even if Erik’s shown him. He’s all frozen up, trembling, and — “Something’s, uh, something’s happening,” he gasps, and suddenly those tears are on his cheeks. “I, I —“ Charles is stuttering. He doesn’t think he’s had a problem with this before. “Sir,” he whispers. “Yours.”  
  
 _"M-hm,"_ Erik's hips snap up in an aborted movement against him, entirely unconscious. " _Mine._ You tell me what happening. Right now." He tugs Charles's hair, tipping his head back a little.  
  
Charles gasps again at that treatment, but it’s not upset; just startled, just wanting, and he tries not to wiggle at all. Erik said not without permission, but his hand is still wrapped around his cock, frozen. “I don’t, I don’t know,” he admits, and it sounds like it comes out slurred, almost. He has no way to explain what’s happening. No telepathy and certainly no words, least of all that Erik might understand. “Everything is...” So much. It has been before, but surely not like this. He shakes his head, moaning when he realizes his hair is still gripped in Erik’s hand. It makes him feel even more helpless, but it’s not bad. It doesn’t feel bad.  
  
"Mm-hmm," Erik hums lowly. "You realize you are mine. I did not say stop, did I? I said stop? You hear that?" he gives Charles's hair a sharp tug. "Maybe I have your ears checked." He bites Charles's earlobe for good measure, laughing. "Not so much. It is you. You belong to me. You should be this way. Always." It's dark and rich and blooming in Erik's chest, inhaled like vapors through the room.  
  
And it settles right into Charles, seeps into his pores, makes him moan louder than any touch or bite could have. Everything is so clear, so vibrant, and so difficult to process at the same time; he’s blinking, over and over, like he’s trying to clear his vision. But even so, he understands Erik. He can hear him, but more than that, he can feel him. Not the way he can when his telepathy decides to work, but — his lips purse, not displeased but curious, uncertain, the way he always is when he can’t figure something out. “Keep — keep going?” he asks, and it’s shy but not frightened. Charles swallows and moves his hand, certainly not skilled but at least eager, curious, willing. He’s supposed to make Erik feel good, to serve him. Right now, perhaps that’s all he’s supposed to do. “I’m yours,” he repeats, awed, though it isn’t a new discovery. He’s not sure why he feels like it is.  
  
"Yes," Erik gasps, locking Charles completely in place within his lap, and then he's laying into him again, blow after blow, because-and he hasn't even had time-not really. Not to fantasize, what would he even-he just didn't know but Charles is here, pinned to his lap being spanked while his hand wraps around his dick and he's serving him, breaths hitched, crying out-it is too much. Erik's lips are parted as if he's been punched in the solar plexus, and Charles feels him jerk against his fingers, alive-a living thing, his stomach clenched as liquid platinum melted down into superheated plasma races through his veins. Everything in the room is vibrating. Little knick-knacks float up off their shelves. "Keep going," he growls the Order roughly. "Mine."  
  
Charles doesn’t know when he starts to cry. It doesn’t make sense, really, except that he’s overwhelmed. He doesn’t feel or see or comprehend anything around him except Erik, and his brain feels like it’s processing strangely. He doesn’t think he’s ever had this happen before, or if it did, surely it wasn’t quite like this. His hand continues to move, wrapped firmly around Erik’s cock, and he thinks he’s doing it like Erik showed him, the one time he did, but — “Am I bad?” he asks, and it comes right after a slap, tears on his cheeks as he inhales sharply. He doesn’t know where it comes from. It just spills out before he can stop it. “I’m trying. I — I don’t know how, I’m sorry,” he gasps. He’s trying to remember. Erik showed him, he wants to do it right.  
  
The thing is that Erik has absolutely no idea-not what he likes, not how to do it, not-anything, but all he can feel is every spire of energy channeled and raging down through his gut and out of his skin and into Charles's fingers, tingling along his entire body. Static-zap. Erik pets at his face and kisses him, shaking his head and running his fingers through his hair. "You do very good," he whispers softly. "You obey me, you are mine. In subspace. With me. You belong here. You do what I say. Hm? You take what I give you," he gives him another-more gentle little tap. Not because he's bad. Just because Erik likes doing it.  
  
Often, though Charles has no memory of it, others have referred to Erik as child-like. He never was. It was always trauma, it was always that strange backwards-processing, a complex system they simply didn’t have the tools or ability or desire to understand; but Charles was always the opposite. Others called him advanced, and then a genius. Beyond his years, even when he become of age. His level of intelligence was always noted and praised, never once taken for granted for any extended period of time. But now — now he blinks, and there must be something happening, because he’s not comprehending what he should be. What he normally would. He sniffs, loudly, and his breath keeps hitching, making it difficult to speak. “But you — you spanked me, already, it —“ He shakes his head. Why isn’t it making sense? Why is he crying? He likes it, too, like this. Why is it getting crossed? He doesn’t understand. “You want me to show you but I don’t know how,” he gasps, and maybe that’s more of it. Maybe that’s part of it. He doesn’t know. He’s never felt like this, and he doesn’t know how to settle into it.  
  
"M-hmm, I did," Erik rumbles lowly. "I like spanking you. Not doing anything wrong," he promises, soft. "I don't know too." And he hadn't meant for Charles to know everything, and show him everything. He might've just been a little-well-shy, to be blunt. "Nothing bad. You do what I say. Just touch," he encourages, his lips pressing together a little. It's been welling up this entire time, not appropriate, not the time-or-place, but maybe it is. They were supposed to come here to heal, and Erik has done shockingly little of it. Always trying to be the best, to be the strongest, the most in-control. Push everything down and away. "It's OK if you cry," he presses his cheek to Charles's. "Nothing bad. And if-you still-you have your word. You are safe. I promise," he kisses his jaw.  
  
He doesn’t feel unsafe. Not even slightly, by no definition. He does feel small. He does feel like he’s struggling to keep up, somehow, like he’s swimming his way through murky waters, but in some ways everything is much more clear than he can ever remember it being, like his eyes have finally adjusted; and he can’t stop crying, but he also doesn’t stop moving his hand, his chest still heaving with each breath. “How is it different?” he asks, shaky, quietly, and he never felt safe asking this before. It seemed to inspire such a visceral, often dramatic reaction in Erik that he never did ask. “Spanking, spanking me, it --” He shakes his head. Charles shouldn’t have asked. Already he knows what’s going to come next, he should expect it. His whole body tenses, like he’s bracing for it. His fingers are trembling.  
  
But Erik just keeps petting at him and soothing him, assuming his reactions are entirely due to his own circumstances because he simply doesn't have the memory. Even if his body seems to hold some residual knowledge, even if there are forces at work that he'd prefer never saw the light of day because of how silly and insecure they are-he's silly, and insecure, but he's also Dominant. And he has his submissive, naked in his lap, and right now that is the only thing that matters-for real. "Mmm, I don't know," he admits softly. How it's different, really. It feels lighter, it feels more organic, it feels like he's doing it just because he likes to do it, not to discipline. Because Charles is good, and worthy, and he's always thought that regardless. But he doesn't have a good answer. That's something you're supposed to learn as you mature, as you grow, but Erik has none of that. And he was taught that there is no difference, by pure experience. Any measure of pain, of hurt, meant that he was a monster. A bad guy. And that's gone-in his face, in his body, it's evaporated. But what's left is-he just doesn't know. He needs to learn new things, too. Maybe it's just not different. It all comes from the same place. And it seems to inspire some of the same reactions, too. It's putting Charles where he belongs. But here, now, it isn't because Charles has disobeyed him or gone off kilter. It's just because he still likes doing it after the fact. "I'm sorry, if-if it's bad. I don't know. I never learned anything about Dominating," he runs his fingers along Charles's cheek, soft. He's just... doing what feels good. Going with his gut. It's entirely unprecedented, for Erik.  
  
Charles’ eyes open again at Erik’s words. It’s almost like he’s peeking out again, checking for the storm, checking for wreckage; but there’s none. It’s not that he can’t handle Erik’s sometimes strange, overwhelming reactions to things, it was just that in subspace, they were -- sometimes more than he could fully process. He hates to admit it. He hates to think it. But it’s true, and he’s sure eventually they would have worked through it, but this is new. It’s not an explosion, or an end, or a jarring change. It feels safe, not that it didn’t before, but he feels steady. And so he takes a breath, and takes a breath, and whimpers when he shifts just slightly to nestle into Erik’s shoulder, hand still around his dick because he wasn’t told to move it, still stroking lightly because Erik didn’t tell him to stop and so he won’t. He won’t. “It’s not bad,” he promises, still quiet. Perhaps shy, too, but also nervous. He’s waiting for Erik to react, but the more he doesn’t, the more he relaxes. The more he calms. The more he leans into Erik’s Will, his body, his Dominance. “I, well -- I like it, too, but --” He bites his lip. “Not when you’re punishing me. I don’t like that, until…” Until Erik shows that he likes it. Then he does. It’s not arousing, being punished, but when it’s over, when Erik has decided he’s learned his lesson, sometimes it’s arousing then, to know that Erik found putting him back in place arousing. He doesn’t really have the words for that so he just takes another breath. “Could you do it, could you… so I know the difference?” And his lack of clarity here is really going to be difficult, considering how limited their communication is by the language difference. He swallows and tries again. “You’ll tell me, when it’s because I’m --” He thinks, and flushes. “Naughty,” he mumbles, because it’s the word Erik used before, even playfully.  
  
"Mm-hmm," Erik laughs, eyes bright, and he kisses the tip of Charles's nose. "I will always tell you." But that is not now-maybe playfully, maybe if Charles tugged against him a little this way and that, in this moment-in this space, he has to rise up and slam Charles down like a pebble in an oceanic tide across the shore, hurricanes razing down buildings. He has to. "But it never means you are bad. Never. You are _neshama sheli, af pa'am lo'mezurgag, ani mavtiach_." His hand winds its way to Charles's wrist and grips, hard, when Charles shifts a certain way and he lets out a long, loud gasp. "Charles-" he struggles to take in air. It's not panic, even though for a split-second-that's what it looks like, something flashing behind his eyes. It's just that Charles has never seen it before, on his face. What it looks like when he is aroused. For real. When Charles has done something he really likes, instead of staring at him calmly, dispassionately, Ordering him around-and that has its place, too, maybe. But this is new.  
  
Charles’ chest feels tight and it isn’t because he’s panicked, either. His lungs feel like they’re being constricted, his heart feels like it’s pounding outside of his chest, his eyes are so wide they look like they might pop right out of the sockets; but he isn’t afraid. He isn’t upset. He’s startled, perhaps even confused, everything different than what limited experience he has. His body is relaxing, despite the reaction he’s having. It’s melting into this. He’s starting to trust that perhaps this really is different, and it’s so beautiful and jarringly strange that he starts to cry again, completely taken aback. “It -- it feels good?” he whispers, and he can’t move his hand because Erik has grabbed it, but he squeezes, gently, cautiously, shyly, looking down and gasping. Erik is hard, and leaking, and it seems obvious that it’s because Charles is in his lap. Because he’s submitting, and he’s in subspace, and maybe he won’t have to come down in a tumble, scraping horribly against everything on the way up.  
  
"Yeah," Erik laughs almost in disbelief. He's never felt this before, and it is-incredible. And he can't help the image that crashes through his mind a second later, and it makes him wheeze a little, and he lets go of Charles's hand just so he can show him just like he asked, just like he wanted, he wants to know the difference Erik will show him, and redden his ass until he squirms and cries and make him-Erik's eyes flutter a little.  
  
Charles cries out when he’s slapped again, not at all expecting it. He jolts against Erik’s lap, then squirms, worse than before, worse than he has been, like he can’t quite settle, or even like he’s avoiding Erik’s hand again, even as arousal pools and knots and twists up in his belly, even as his own dick bobs against his belly, ignored but leaking and hard. Before, Erik had admitted that he liked to see him cry, but it had been difficult for him. Impossibly difficult, really, and Charles had felt guilty for pushing the subject. Now he wonders if he shouldn’t, because Erik doesn’t seem ashamed. “I -- do you want me…” It’s just a suggestion. Charles doesn’t know if he wants it, but when he realizes a moment later that it doesn’t matter what he wants, he’s suddenly breathless again, gasping again, chest heaving again. It doesn’t matter. Erik has never acted like it didn't, but Charles has wanted that. Because at the heart, he does want to serve. He just wants to serve.  
  
It makes Erik growl dangerously and he is suddenly on his feet in a second, an agile motion as fluid as a jungle cat, no creaking and struggling at all-it's almost a secondary mutation, the way his body yields to his own whims when he's entirely in the zone. And right now Charles is squirming around and struggling and confused and he doesn't like it, and whatever inspired image is going through his mind, Charles finds his back pinned up against the wall. "On your knees. Properly. Keep your thighs spread for me," he crouches just a bit, eye-to-eye, a hand pressed against Charles's leg to ensure he complies with the Orders that shoot through him. "You are mine. I want you. That is right." He grips Charles's jaw hard enough to leave little red streaks. But never too hard. Just at the line. He knows even now.  
  
In all honesty, nothing would be too hard right now. Charles is wide-eyed and panting, but there’s clarity here, too. Erik didn’t ask him what he meant. He didn’t ask him what he wanted. Now he’s here on his knees, though, thoroughly exposed, something wars in him; part of him, soft, needy, it wants desperately to do exactly what he’s told, and only what he’s told. To do nothing, not even breathe, without permission. He’s getting there. Second by second, moment by moment. But something hitches inside of him, and Charles bites his lip, still outwardly shy as he tries to close his knees against Erik’s hand.  
  
Erik's fingers close around his throat instead. "What I say?" his eyes blaze down at Charles, with no room to even think about disobeying, except Charles always does find that room, because he is Erik's Pairbond. And he will always retain himself. But at this point in time Erik is not concerned with that at all, because it means Charles is not obeying him and his foot goes between Charles's legs instead, holding his knees apart. "What did I say, hm? You tell me."  
  
Charles swallows around Erik’s fingers, throat bobbing as he gasps out wrenched-out breaths. His thighs are trembling noticeably where Erik’s spread them apart, but he doesn’t try to close them again. He couldn’t if he tried but he doesn’t, because the more Erik pushes him down, the more he sinks. “Keep my legs spread,” he whispers, bowing his head. “But I’m embarrassed.”  
  
"Are you," Erik murmurs lowly. It's the tone of a person who quite frankly doesn't care one bit. Not because Charles is irrelevant to him but because shame certainly is. Charles is his submissive. Being embarrassed will not stop him from obeying orders. "Did I say you stop touching? Hm?" He eyes Charles very, very pointedly.  
  
Charles blinks, lagging a bit behind again. Everything feels warmer again, hazier again, he’s falling deeper and deeper. His lips are parted. “Stop... touching?” he asks, like he’s the one who doesn’t speak fluent English. “You want...” His cheeks go bright red again, already heated from Erik’s rough touches before. “But —“ He’s not in Erik’s lap anymore. Now he’s in a different situation, at a different angle, and he keeps his head bowed and eyes pointedly averted.  
  
"Yes," Erik growls. "I want. And you look at me when I say so," he adds, jerking Charles's chin up in his hands. His thumb swipes Charles's bottom lip. "Now," he Commands roughly.  
  
Charles’ breath hitches again. He takes a loud, gasping breath, and then he does as he’s told. His fingers are shaking and his cheeks are so red they’re burning, but he looks up and slowly reaches out. His throat is dry. Erik’s cock is right there, right in front of his face, hot and hard and leaking and he whines as he wraps his hand around it this time, eyelids fluttering as he feels it in his hand. “Embarrassed,” he whispers again, breathy. Overwhelmed. But obedient, too.  
  
"What about, hm? Embarrassed I see you?" Erik grins down at him. It's very clearly a too bad, so sad kind of deal. "That you want? I see it. I feel. You want. I put you down. You belong here. More," he whispers. "More. Like you mean. Not hesitation. I am not scared. I will make you obey. And if not you get punished. I tell you what to do. You do it. Even here."  
  
Hesitation is a tad more difficult to Order out of him. Charles feels like he can’t get a good breath in, his chest too tight, too constricted, and somehow too full, too. Erik is right. He’s putting him down. Every moment, every second, every breath, he feels himself sinking, and he’s not scraping himself up against the rocks to avoid it anymore. The last time, he let himself believe. He let himself trust. And when he fell, it hurt. Unbearably so. But this time, this time is different. They’re somewhere else, they’re something new. It’s different. So he takes another harsh breath, and lets out another soft noise, and strokes Erik’s cock, less soft this time, less embarrassed, less hesitant. When it twitches in his hand, against his palm, he moans. Fully. “Oh,” he breathes, eyes wide, fascinated, staring. He’s seen it before. He doesn’t feel like it’s ever been quite like this, or like it ever will be again.  
  
Erik's tongue comes out to wet his lips, eyes hooded as he watches, and he lets out a soft noise when Charles's grip tightens, an audible gasp in the back of his throat and he can't seem to help his next action as he continues to run his thumb over Charles's jaw. "Oh," he smiles, and this time it's bright-less predatory, more reveling. Something he's never done before. Somewhere new. When he woke up like this he should have had Charles serve him, right there, and it's a regret that pings along his consciousness that he didn't do so, that he got scared, or whatever happened. There's none of that now. No more fear. Charles and Erik are where they belong, exactly. " _Pe'ar, neshama sheli_. You are mine." He grips himself in hand at the base and draws the tip of his cock along Charles's lower lip.  
  
There’s something about Erik speaking to him like that, in his language, now that it’s really all he knows, now that English is something clipped and foreign to him in ways it simply wasn’t before, that does something to him. He understands. Perhaps he doesn’t always quite grasp the nuance in the moment, needs a moment to translate and process the way Erik does now, too, but he understands this intuitively. He can’t explain his own actions. He knows everything is dreamy, turned up and turned down at the same time, that his ears feel like they’re both ringing and hearing everything in perfect clarity. He knows there’s a tugging in his belly, a pooling of heat and want and need, that his lips are parted. He knows he shakes his head, though it twists everything up, though he can’t quite say why he does it. His lips press firmly together. It’s not fear. It’s not even close. Charles understands what Erik is demanding of him, but he doesn’t part his lips, everything flipping and churning and winding as he waits.  
  
And he gets a firm, short, sharp slap across the cheek for his insubordination. "I said open," Erik growls, and it's an Order. One he cannot resist. No matter the hesitation. That does not matter because Charles belongs to Erik for as long as he is here, for as long as he chooses, for as long as he does not give that single indication that it is too much then Erik will push. He will. "You do not tell me no," he rumbles lowly. And he doesn't. Not ever. Erik won't let him anymore.  
  
Charles whines, and not just because his cheek suddenly stings. Because Erik is pushing. He isn’t stopping, or soothing, or gentling. He isn’t worried about Charles’ comfort, because he hasn’t said the one word that he knows would get an immediate reaction, even in this Erik. He’s staring, he’s wide-eyed, his chest is heaving, but he opens his mouth wide and he isn’t afraid, even as tears track down his cheeks. If anything he’s calmer. He’s settled. He feels nice. He said no, and Erik said too bad, and now he’s been put down properly. Now he can sink, and float, and sink.

* * *

While Charles has experienced this before Erik has very clearly _not_ and his eyes look like they're about to bug out of his head when he finally does push his cock between Charles's lips. And because he's so new, so inexperienced, it becomes clear that that old Erik knew a thing or two about it. Because Erik is not at all gentle or graceful or composed, really, in any sense of the term and he only barely stops himself from making a very _bad_ decision with Charles's gag reflex. All the same Charles finds himself abruptly in possession of perhaps a little _more_ of Erik than he initially bargained for, with Erik's hand still resting lightly against his throat. Not exactly apologetic but a little sheepish.  
  
Charles isn’t very experienced. He’s only done this a few times, and those times Erik was always careful. Not always gentle, but always restrained. So he does gag, even though Erik isn’t nearly as far as he can go, sputtering and pulling off some so he can take desperate breaths through his nose, eyes wide. Erik seems much larger than he remembers, and the thought makes him feel hot, squirmy, overwhelmed. But he doesn’t want to disappoint. He wants to serve. So he composes himself, takes a deep breath, and tries. Tries to relax, lets himself drift, lets himself sink, and lets himself be used even as tears gather in his eyes, slip down his cheeks. It’s what he wants. More than anything.  
  
Erik doesn't let his eyes stay closed for very long, though, and he seems to sink himself, down into some deep-dark place he's only ever read about. It's not the same thing. Glittering, dark, astral. He pulls back a little so he can crouch and frame his cheeks, peering at him with a bright expression, pressing their foreheads together. He doesn't know why he does it, exactly-it's not to stop, or because he's upset, or nervous, or anything. It just feels-big, and overwhelming, and Charles isn't the only one who sometimes needs reassurance.  
  
Charles naturally shifts to accommodate. Like this? He doesn’t need telepathy or even language to have an inkling of what Erik needs, those both of those often help when he has access. He likes talk, he likes Erik talking him down especially, though he can’t always admit it, but he doesn’t need it to know his Dominant is reaching out. He gives a soft moan around Erik’s cock, not really because he’s trying to arouse, mostly because... well, he feels good, he feels wonderful, even if his jaw already aches some and he isn’t very skilled and he wants Erik to know that. He wants his Dominant to know that. Erik said only what he’s given so he doesn’t take more, though he happily suckles at what he does have, uses his tongue like Erik started to teach him. Maybe this Erik doesn’t know skill, but he’s already much better at communicating what he likes, so Charles watches, avid, eager, tuned.  
  
Erik's eyes flutter with it and he lets out a noise that almost seems pained but upon closer examination-and Charles is watching closely because Erik has demanded it, it seems he's just a little overwhelmed. Still. Just a bit. "Yes- _that_ -more of that," he laughs-carefree, injected with humor instead of bone-drenched seriousness all of the time which does have its place, but-it's a product of so much less weight, less burden, less worry. "Do you like this?" he wonders and pulls back again so Charles can answer. "Doing this- you like? It feels nice?" It's not exactly something Erik has ever asked before and it's an odd juxtaposition that he does now, when he seems that much less concerned about it overall. He's just curious. What it feels like for Charles, what he experiences.  
  
Honestly, he gets his answer before Charles ever speaks. He whines loudly when Erik pulls away, and chases after him without thinking, pitches forward to rub his cheek against Erik’s cock, at the very least, thoroughly under. Thoroughly swimming in it. “Uh-huh,” he mumbles, and it sounds slurred. He looks a bit drugged, honestly, and this has really only happened to him a few times. He’s overwhelmed, too, but he’s... calm. Soothed. He’s smiling, too, peaceful, even with those tears in his eyes still. “I like it. A lot,” he admits, soft. Eyelids heavy. “Can I have it back, please?” he asks, quietly, shy, helplessly needy. He’s asking, not demanding.  
  
Erik definitely responds to that-to Charles moving so wildly out of place to where he's been put. He finds himself gripped harshly by the throat again and the sensation of burning embers seeps into his chest, into his belly. "I do not say move," Erik rumbles harshly. He curls his fingers into Charles's hair and yanks. There's no end point, no destination-Erik only takes a split second to understand what it had taken months for him to even wrap his mind around was an issue in the first place. "Good," he murmurs, his voice soothing even as his fingers are rough. When he pushes past Charles's lips this time it is far more intentional. Not gentle at all. Not even now could he be intentionally cruel, or humiliating, but his whole consciousness leans forward. It isn't about that and never was. It is what it's meant to be-utter control.  
  
Charles whimpers. It’s less about the pain right now and more about Erik’s disapproval that upsets him, as it usually is when he’s this far down. When Erik pushes past his lips again he moans, loud and grateful, happily shifts and sighs and relaxes. He feels better like this. He feels good like this. He’d try not to complain if Erik took it from him, but he wants it; it feels wonderful, it makes him feel wonderful, even as he coughs and gags a bit when Erik gets too close to the back of his throat, when he takes too much than he can currently handle, inexperienced and easily overwhelmed. He’s so obviously peaceful like this, even when tears gather in his eyes. Even when Erik pulls at his hair or his jaw aches. He’s happy. He’s under. He’s stopped fighting subspace, the lull and comfort of it; he’s there, now. He’s put down. It feels so good his toes curl.  
  
And Erik can't even hardly believe he's the person who made Charles feel that way. Who made him feel-happy, and it explodes within him like electricity. His belly clenches and he swerves hard, mentally, to avoid spilling over before he's well and ready to. And he's not, he's not ready, not ready for this to end. Not now, maybe not ever. He ends up slipping out again after several long moments of just plain indulging himself, watching Charles's reactions, branding them into his mind, along the edges of his inner eyelids like spiral lightbulbs flashing in sequence. This time he crouches down and draws his fingertip along Charles's cock, curious himself. Wanting to see everything, feel everything. "You like this?" he wonders, earnest, eyebrows arched curiously.  
  
And Charles whines again. He doesn’t move, because Erik’s already warned him, because he wants to prove he can be trained, but he does start crying. Perhaps it’s an utterly ridiculous reaction, completely unwarranted, but he can’t help it; his lip trembles and he starts to cry, overwhelmed, wholly, wanting, needing, in a way he’s simply never known before. Ever, not that he can remember. He’s trembling and he gasps, broken, when Erik touches him, cock twitching and leaking against his belly, hard and aching this entire time. His stomach tenses, and he takes harsh breaths, trying not to move. “Yes, sir,” he whispers, and the title comes out naturally. “Please, can I — please?” he begs, swallowing. He sounds hoarse. “Did I... do something bad?” he wonders, sounding thoroughly heartbroken at the thought.  
  
"No," Erik whispers back, fond, touching his thumb along Charles's cheek. Nothing bad, but it's-it's so much, it feels impossible to stay in one place, he wants everything, like tendrils unfurling against his skin, plants out of soil and he doesn't know how to express that, how to channel it. Surely this other Erik would have known. "Never," he adds for good measure. "You really-?" his lips part in a crooked smile. "Hm?" his thumb swipes along Charles's lower lip. "You really want?" His eyes have darkened in a way that suggests the question isn't an attempt at self-reassurance. It was, maybe, in the beginning. Not anymore. He wants to hear. Some things change, but some stay the same, too.  
  
Charles smiles, too, still teary-eyed. It’s a bit of a silly, dreamy smile, but it’s full of pure joy; comfort, peace, something simple and pleased at just having Erik’s attention, at the sound of his voice, at the touches he’s receiving. It feels different. He can’t explain it, he can’t describe it. He saw it on the other Charles’ face, before, but he couldn’t imagine reaching this place himself. He can now. “Yes, sir. May I, please?” he asks, and it’s so polite for what he’s asking for, which truly does boil down to Erik’s cock in his mouth. But it felt so good, and he felt so calm. He’s always so scared, and so worried, and so confused. It wasn’t confusing at all and he wants it, sniffling, sucking Erik’s thumb into his mouth unconsciously. There’s nothing wrong with feeling this way, is there —?  
  
It makes Erik laugh, just as dark. "May you what, hm? What do you want? Maybe when you ask very nicely, maybe I will be very nice," he purrs, leaning forward to brush his lips across Charles's temple, drawing his palm right down in just the right way along Charles's own neglected dick to send a buzzing jolt straight up his spine. An entirely unconscious movement, something remembered in his own body. Something he must know, somewhere, and it makes him inhale sharply. Tasting it in the air. "You belong to me. I make you ask. I want that. You tell me."  
  
Charles does jolt, too, his eyes wide as he gasps and keens and tries so hard not to move more than that. His thighs are shaking again, but he’s grateful he’s on his knees and not standing. Erik takes care of him. His lip gets pulled between his teeth as he fights for words, cheeks pinked again. “May I... suck you, sir?” he asks, quieter than before, but forces himself not to look away. Erik doesn’t seem to like it. “Your — your cock?” He’s not sure if Erik even knows the word, but he asks anyway. He asks because Erik wants him to, because he’s desperate for it. Approval, praise, attention. It’s all he can process and think about at the moment, if he’s entirely honest.  
  
Erik grins at him, his whole face alight in boyish glee. "That is what you call it, hm?" his nose wrinkles up, eyebrows pinched at the center of his forehead in that fond, affectionate way he's always held. He's surprised to discover he knows its analogue in his own languages, when he can't remember learning it. Whatever's given his noggin a crack seems to have left behind the important bits. He likes it-Charles's word, if only because it makes him so incredibly red, and shy, and for some reason Erik likes that, too. His head ducks forward, lips brushing the shell of Charles's ear. "My _cock_? I should give it to you, hm? I think so. I think you earned it. You have been very good."  
  
Charles beams. He can’t help it. It looks like someone has turned the sun on inside of him, truly; he’s blissful at Erik’s praise, reveling and relishing in it. Sighing with it, eyelids fluttering as he shivers. There’s a part of him that feels vaguely impatient, but he stomps that part down. Erik will give it to him, he said so. “Thank you, sir,” he murmurs, and he sounds pleased, grateful, relieved. His entire demeanor has changed; he’s so much calmer, so much happier. His cheeks are hot, and he’s certainly shy, but he opens his mouth wide again, hoping it’s not too presumptuous. But Erik said he could have it.  
  
"Yes, very good," Erik repeats softly. He's never thought-well-he's never had thoughts until a few days ago, that he can remember, but the idea that-any part of himself could act as a reward, could make Charles feel like this-it's a gift that he isn't sure Charles could ever understand he means. "A little impatient," he huffs, but it's warm. It can be forgiven. And he's right back where he started, drawn by magnetism. And Charles can feel it unfolding inside of himself, like tiny bonfires. "You are so beautiful," he murmurs, almost under his breath. "You know? Hm?" Erik smiles, and before Charles has a chance to respond he gives a good, hard thrust. Finally. Using Charles.  
  
Charles doesn’t have a chance to respond, perhaps, but he does moan, even as he sputters and chokes some. He’s not being touched at all, but he’s experiencing pleasure; it’s written all over his face, in the soft, needy sounds he makes around Erik’s cock as he does his best to do what Erik seemed to like, to use his tongue, to open his throat up more. He’s not very skilled or good at this and he knows it, but he’s eager. Incredibly eager. Honestly, he looks blissed out, calmer and happier than he has since this Erik has known him, and that speaks volumes. It should.  
  
"You know I want to keep you here," Erik can't help it, he wonders if he was like this before, too-can't help running his mouth, even brand-new. "I don't want it to end," he admits, like a secret, wrapped in the deep-dark haze proliferating through his entire body like a wave. Skill never mattered to him, not ever. It's always been Charles's pleasure, Charles's enthusiasm. Always. "And I train you," he promises lowly, swallowing a little. A little sheepish himself, because this is-it's his first time. "I keep you here and train you and-I don't want to end. I like it too much. Maybe I am a little bit monster," he laughs. Now that he's discovered this-seen this-seen Charles like this. There's no way he will ever be the same. He will devote the rest of his life to making Charles look like this. Happy.  
  
Charles doesn’t think it makes Erik a monster at all. If it does, certainly a monster he fits with. He can’t help thinking of the _Ziz_ again. Of that huge, winged creature, fearsome and achingly lonely, needing a mate; and why shouldn’t it keep him, once it finds him? Especially if the mate needs to be kept? Charles moans again around the cock in his mouth, and he can’t help the way his eyes flutter closed, finally, because he’s content. He doesn’t want it to end, either. He wants to stay like this for hours, years, centuries, just on his knees, just sucking and floating, content. Would Erik let him? Couldn’t he just kneel like this and serve for a while, and not have to worry? And the world doesn’t shake. The Universe doesn’t tremble. Everything, even in this place they don’t belong to, is steady. It’s solid. It isn’t strange or upside-down or torn or breaking or vibrating. And isn’t it funny, to think that the solution might have such a simple answer? That it might be most obvious in a moment like this?  
  
"Keep you," Erik whispers, his whole mind set alight as if he can read Charles's thoughts, or maybe they're just more connected-more than ever, really. Both opened up to the possibility. Nothing upside-down. Nothing shaking. Nothing breaking. Because Erik won't let it. He promised he wouldn't and now he's found it, he's found it. Himself, how he's supposed to be-with Charles. Here. Open. Melting. Charles doesn't have to worry. And in some ways it is graphic and obscene and intense and even a little filthy, with the noises Charles is making-but in a way it's not even about sex at all. It's about floating, and contentment. For as long as Erik can possibly carve out.  
  
But Charles does pick up on something. His expression changes, slowly; crumples, something sad there, though he doesn’t stop sucking, doesn’t stop relaxing his throat, or making those sloppy, needy noises. If anything they get louder, more insistent, and he reaches up. Reaches for Erik, no clothes to tug on except he finds his hand and squeezes, tugs, seeks out his attention. There are tears on his cheeks that have nothing to do with the fact that his gag reflex is being tested, but he’s not falling apart. Just experiencing emotion. Safely, now. With his Dominant to guide him. Right? That’s how it works?  
  
And Erik doesn't pull away and freeze, either. He doesn't, not this time. Because it is safe, really safe, and it never really was before, he wasn't-able, before. But he is, now. As hard as it can be, sometimes. It's safe. "I got you," he whispers, squeezing Charles's fingers, running his free hand through Charles's hair. "Got you. Safe. You tell me," he rumbles, and he doesn't even stop. Because he doesn't want to. Because Charles is where he belongs.  
  
It does inspire a sad little noise around Erik’s dick, because he has to pull away to speak. He can’t do both. He wishes he could but he can’t and he’s rather devastated about it, actually, pulling back but only enough to speak, resting his cheek against Erik’s spit-covered cock and not minding that it’s sticky and wet now. Messy. Obscene, but it doesn’t feel embarrassing now. He can’t explain why. “Mmmmm,” he mumbles first, and blinks away more tears, floating for a moment, mourning the loss of Erik in his mouth, as silly as it is. “Bond,” he sighs, frowning, and he wonders if Erik knows what he means. Is there a word for it he doesn’t know?  
  
But Erik does know, and he rubs his dick along Charles's cheek, a soft motion that in its isolation might seem utterly filthy, but it isn't. Not like this. There's warmth. Comfort. "I know, _neshama_ ," he whispers back, voice barely audible, barely cracking above the surface of the glowing moments around them. He kisses Charles's forehead. It makes him sad, too. Because he wants to know Charles. Completely. No fear, no hesitation. "You're mine," he adds, and his voice cracks, now, just a little, on the edge of a smile. "No matter what. Mine." They will find their way. They will. His faith is stronger now than it ever was. He doesn't know when it came back, maybe when he put Charles down here-when he saw.  
  
“Oh,” Charles whispers, and his voice does break. He does start to cry. It isn’t dramatic, it isn’t a falling apart, it isn’t dissolving; he’s still very, very much down, still floating, still held. Still exactly where he should be. It’s just that he’s overcome, suddenly, and he finds that language is utterly failing him. He shakes his head, then shakes it again, rubs his cheek against Erik’s cock and then kisses it, again, and then again, soft and needy. “ _Neshama_ ,” he gasps, and he thinks it might have inspired the reaction to begin with. The Erik he’d woken up to called him that. He’s liked it from the moment it was explained to him. He likes it now. He looks up, teary-eyed and hopeful, and suckles the head of Erik’s dick into his mouth. He didn’t say to stop, only to answer him, but if it’s not allowed he’ll stop. He’ll be good. He wants Erik to call him good, to think it. To train him so he can be. It all seems so simple now, he can’t remember why he’d complicated it so much. What if he really doesn’t have to crash? What if he doesn’t have to drop? What if it’s just lovely like this, and it doesn’t drop out from underneath him?  
  
" _Ken, neshama_ ," Erik breathes and his stomach clenches again and his dick twitches hard enough to be felt against Charles's skin before he finds himself quite full up once more, until Erik decides to entirely break from what they're doing and agilely rolls to the floor, bringing Charles over his lap so he can touch and pet at him. No dropping. No leaving. Erik thinks his heart would crack in two. He rubs himself up against Charles's ass, quite a lot curious and far bolder than he's ever been in the past.  
  
Erik hasn’t gone anywhere. Nothing has ended. But Charles whimpers as if he’s heartbroken, starts to cry again despite how normally it would be humiliating, throws his arms over Erik’s neck and hides in his shoulder, hiccupping. It’s taking him a while to process, now; it’s just new, and it’s not like anything he’s ever experienced. “Why?” he sniffles, and would normally think about how pathetic it is, but he doesn’t. He just asks, and then bites his lip, adding a quick, “Sir.” He thinks he could have gone hours and hours just like that, with his mouth full and his head quieted down.  
  
"Closer," Erik whispers, rubbing his back. He wanted Charles closer. He wanted to pet him and feel him, hard and heavy between his thighs. "Come here," he growls and Charles finds himself pushed between Erik's legs in a far more personal position where Erik can wrap around him entirely, not just mentally. Surrounding him. Keeping him like the winged _Ziz_.  
  
Charles hesitates, now. Not because he doesn’t want to, not because there’s any real hesitation, but because he doesn’t want to do anything without Erik’s express permission. Without being told, and guided. He doesn’t even feel embarrassed. He’s a little shy as he peeks up at Erik, biting his lip as he rubs his cheek against Erik, turns his head to place a sweet kiss to his thighs. “I can?” he asks, hoarse but hopeful. He swallows. “Can you talk to me, please, sir?” he asks, and he’s asking. Without being prodded, without having it coaxed out. He’s asking for what he needs.  
  
Erik shivers, and draws his fingers through Charles's hair. "I just want to be closer to you," he says-and he means that's why Charles is here, now, and not on his knees. He's bent over Erik's lap, clutched in close by legs and arms and limbs of all varieties, Erik is practically an octopus and Charles is his willing victim. "You are mine, and you are-did you know? Did he tell you? Did he say it?" he suddenly needs to know, it's urgent. "He said it? He told you?"


	130. 'cause their bodies are so heavy from a substance thick and deadly;

Charles blinks up at Erik, everything slow, hazy, warm. He’s not sure he understands, and he sighs sadly, cheek pressed to Erik’s thigh. “Tell me what?” he asks, and nuzzles against Erik’s leg, presses soft, unconscious little kisses, his eyes half-lidded and his cheeks pinked again as he watches Erik’s cock, covered in his spit, still hard and twitching.  
  
It makes it very impossible for Erik to think straight, honestly, his chest buzzing. "Tell you-" Erik whispers back, drawing Charles's hair back and leaning forward to kiss him along the forehead. "That you are beautiful. And you make me very happy. He should have told you that. I hope he did. But I will say it for both of us." His nose wrinkles up.  
  
There’s something sad about that, but Charles can’t quite remember what it is. It’s not that he doesn’t believe it. Erik isn’t lying to him, and he knows that instinctively. He shakes it off, offering another soft, dreamy little smile up at his Dominant, and his eyelids are heavy when he kisses Erik’s thigh again, this time higher. He’s forgotten about where they are because Erik hasn’t directed him to it, he’s forgotten about everything else except this, and maybe he’s a bit single-minded right now. “Please?” he asks, hopeful. Maybe Erik has made a monster out of him, too. “Please,” he repeats.  
  
Erik sifts his fingers slowly through Charles's hair, pressing his own lips together a little. It's been simmering under the surface the whole time-a giant sea creature he can't see the outline of below dark waters. He plunges in, far away, drowns it out. Charles's face. His voice. His words. Please. Erik shifts and nods, not realizing tears have formed in his eyes. "Always," he says back softly. "You should be here always."  
  
Charles takes it as the permission it is, and he’s never been more eager. He sighs in relief, actually, his whole body shaking with anticipation for this as he lowers his mouth again, takes a breath, tries to swallow down as much of Erik as he possibly can. It’s not very much without choking, tearing up, needing to pull back to calm himself after his overconfident, overeager attempt, but he settles not even a moment later. Settles obviously. He looks peaceful again. He looks calm again. His eyes flutter closed and he’s making those soft, pleased noises again, and wouldn’t it be nice if he could just stay like this? With his jaw aching and his mouth full and his mind pleasantly buzzing instead of tripping all over itself, making things difficult and messy and terrifying? Wouldn’t it just be very nice? He knows it can’t be. He knows that. But he’s so calm like this, so down like this. He’s never felt this way before. It’s brilliant.  
  
It makes Erik chuckle, whatever bittersweet vestiges were arising in him, but Charles's earnest, eager attempts at pleasing him-for him-it does make the tears track down his cheeks, but for a much different reason. All of this is for him, Charles is devoted to him like this and-it is. It is nice, so nice, and he deserves it? The way Charles talked about him. He didn't like himself before, he wasn't worthy before. He wants to be worthy now. He wants Charles to know that he matters, that Erik cares, he should have known that. Erik sniffs a little and crouches forward to kiss Charles's hair. "You are so good," he whispers. "Good for me. So good. You should know," he rumbles.  
  
Charles starts to cry, too. It’s not because he’s sad. It’s because he’s suddenly overwhelmed by emotion, because Erik is stroking his hair and touching his cheek and doting on him, praising him, acting like his submission is beautiful and not in some way flawed or broken. He soaks it right up, grateful and elated and floating, floating, floating, floating. The noises he’s making around the sloppy, messy ones are content. He feels content, even as he pushes himself to take more of Erik into his mouth, into his throat, determined and eager and devoted. For the first time, the very first time since he’d woken up at the Manor, confused and frightened and empty, he feels utterly, completely content. His mouth is full, Erik’s cock is halfway down his throat, there’s no way he can speak, but Erik hears it anyway, hears it as clear as anything, I like when you talk to me, please talk to me, sir, I want to be good, and it’s shy and it’s a little quiet but it’s there. It’s communication.  
  
Erik gasps, touching his own temple with his fingers. "I like when you talk to _me_ ," he returns fondly, but Charles knows instinctively what he means. He likes hearing Charles in his mind, the way his mental voice curls over Erik's brain in a palpably physical way, like smoke. "I like listening to you, and watching you," he adds, softer. He knows exactly how Charles feels. For the first time since he woke up and found his entire reality had been obliterated he-feels-and it's a stupid way to feel, considering everything, but-safe. Like everything isn't going to crash down around him, like he's got this-got it under control, like he's finally figured out the secret. "And watching you serve me," he adds in a vibrating growl, hooking his fingertip under Charles's jaw to give him a hard little scratch.  
  
It’s only happened a handful of times. Charles doesn’t think he can recreate it, not even now after he’s just done it; not yet, anyway. But he did it. He focused and he thought and he did it, communicated that way, and he doesn’t feel at all like he had to strain, struggle, like he’s ashamed or frustrated. He just sighs happily, moans with Erik filling his mouth, and lets his eyes fall closed again. This feels so nice. Even the spike of pain from that scratch feels wonderful. Charles wants Erik to feel this way, too, wants to serve him; so he does something bold, wondering if he’ll be reprimanded for it (the thought makes his belly flip and twist and churn, he doesn’t want to displease Erik at all). He takes a deep breath and then takes Erik down, swallows the best he can, fighting the tears in his eyes and the gagging he does, fighting because he just wants to please Erik. Desperately. Does he see? Does he know?  
  
Erik's eyeballs bulge out of his head and his hand tightens, hard in Charles's hair, and before he can even realize what's happening his stomach clenches up and he lets out a loud gasp, finding himself racing over the edge of a line he hadn't even realized he'd crossed until it's too late and he finds himself spilling down Charles's throat in a thoroughly embarrassing response, which makes him laugh sheepishly because he hadn't even had time to warn him, sending out only a choked off noise as his only warning. He gulps in deep breaths and runs his fingers over Charles's cheek, not even pulling back even as he's become more sensitive in the aftermath. How could he, when this-it doesn't have to end. It really doesn't. He knows.  
  
Charles tries very hard not to choke. He doesn’t quite manage, his own eyes popped wide as he sputters and coughs and attempts to breathe through his nose, to swallow even against the slight panic that bubbles up in him. He misses some. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t attempt to fix it; he doesn’t want to waste anything. So he swallows, and then he cleans Erik up, licks all over his cock, his face messy and his lips wet with spit and come and it’s filthy, truly, but somehow it isn’t. Because he’s happy. Because he’s smiling and his face is wet from tears that have nothing to do with choking on Erik’s dick. “Did I...” And his voice is hoarse and raspy, no missing what he’d just done, but quiet and shy, too. He bites his lip and looks down, smiling. “Did I please you, sir?” he asks, and it’s so hopeful.  
  
Well Erik is staring at him like it is, so maybe it is more filthy than not. Fortunately it's the kind of stare that says he yanks Charles up into his lap again, chest rising and falling visibly as he-well-recovers. "Very much," he taps Charles on the nose, nestling him close, and it's different this time, too-somehow. He's not racing to return the favor-not because he doesn't want to, because he surely does, but because there's nothing in his mind resembling the concept of equal exchange. It isn't equal. Charles is meant to serve him, and he did, and now they're here, together, and Erik can do whatever he wants to do. That Charles is now pressed up against his stomach in all the right ways and that he shifts him a little just to hear him inhale sharply-well-it's just a coincidence. Really.  
  
Charles isn’t thinking about it, either. It’s the furthest thing from his mind, actually, cheeks still messy with spit and come and tears, because this is all he wanted. He whimpers as he’s shifted, his own dick hard and aching and leaking, but he doesn’t beg and he doesn’t ask. He’s too far down. He just clings to Erik, buries his face in his Dominant’s neck, seeks the comfort, basks in the praise. It’s a loud bang from somewhere else that makes Charles gasp, his eyes wide, and suddenly Erik feels it — terror. Pure, unbridled terror, and he doesn’t even know where it’s coming from. All he knows is that he’s suddenly gasping, holding onto Erik as tightly as he can because — he’d forgotten. About everything. Everything except Erik. He can’t crash now. He can’t.  
  
Erik just growls and tugs him closer. "None of that," he admonishes sharply, and Charles gets a hard, echoing smack across the ass. He's with Erik. Nothing else gets to creep in. That other Erik was right, and this Erik isn't going to let Charles get away with letting anything be more important than submitting to his Dominant. But it's not stressed out and overwhelmed anymore, either, because he knows, now. He knows.  
  
Charles yelps, but then he clings harder, sheepish but not ashamed and not falling-apart, just seeking. Just looking for guidance. Just submitting. He buries his face in Erik’s shoulder and takes big, slow breaths, inhaling. “Noise,” he mumbles, as if that’s all he can get out. He doesn’t know why he says it when Erik almost certainly heard it. But he’s letting Erik decide what’s important, he’s letting Erik take care of him like this. He’s a little frightened but he’s under, too. He won’t be forced to come up, right? He won’t just drop?  
  
"M-hmm," Erik rumbles back. "Noise. But I keep you safe. Nobody will ever hurt you. I won't let them. You are mine." He smiles and then kisses the tip of Charles's nose, playful. There's no need to be frightened because Erik will banish anything that threatens him. He will. He draws his hand through Charles's hair. "Mine. Being very good. Good boy, hm?" he grins, eyes crinkled up. What's important is this. Only this. Nothing else.  
  
Charles doesn’t stop clinging, his arms around Erik’s neck. He doesn’t come out from his neck, from his shoulder. “Good boy?” he whispers, and he sounds utterly elated. Awed. He is. But his voice is muffled, and there’s still worry; not terror, now, calmed some, but worried. “Do I have to come down now?” he asks, raspy.  
  
"No," Erik growls. "No. You don't come down. You stay with me." He scritches under Charles's jaw with his knuckles, tugging him back to bow their foreheads together. "You're mine. You don't go nowhere else. You are mine. Good boy. Mhm. My boy. Nothing else matter. I won't let it."  
  
It’s the first time since he ended up here, this deep-down place, that Charles seems to even consider disobeying. It’s not disobedience, really, since Erik didn’t tell him anything; but he does pull away, he does duck back into Erik’s neck. He needs the comfort of it. He can’t exactly explain why. “But — noises?” They’re still here. Still in this place they don’t technically belong, held like Charles has never been able to hold them before. “I don’t want to come down,” he mumbles.  
  
"Don't matter," Erik tells him back, eyes bright. He jerks Charles's head back up, though. "And I did _not_ say hide back. Did I say? No," Erik gives him another smack for good measure, trapping him with his legs against his stomach.  
  
Charles whines, jerking in Erik’s lap as he’s slapped where he’s already hot and sensitive, but not being able to soothe himself in Erik’s skin is suddenly distressing. He doesn’t fall apart. He doesn’t start to get upset or frustrated that Erik doesn’t know what he needs or how to give it to him, or bemoan their lack of easy communication. He just bites his lip. “But it makes me feel safe,” he whispers, and it’s such a silly admission that his cheeks go red. It’s not arguing or defiance or snark this time, it’s an attempt to communicate something. He doesn’t try to do it; he just wants Erik to know why he does, and he wipes at his own eyes, cheeks even redder when he realizes his face is still wet with more than tears and quite a bit sticky. “What happens when we have to leave?” he asks, quietly, and he imagines Erik doesn’t know the answer. He’s never had Charles in subspace like this. He has a lot of questions, actually, and no idea where to start or how to ask them.  
  
Erik tucks him back in, though, because he's done exactly what Erik has tried to teach him to do-to communicate about his needs, not to demand or spiral out. "You will be mine," he whispers, because that's the simple truth. "Still mine. Still here. I got you. I won't let go. Maybe I am a little monster," he huffs softly, soothing himself by sifting his fingers through Charles's hair. "You will be mine and I will protect you. You can stay right here like this," he almost purrs, a low murmur in Charles's ear.  
  
Erik has been trying to teach him to be honest about things, too, even if this version doesn’t remember that. Charles is quiet for what feels like a very long time, sniffling and floating, buried in Erik’s shoulder. “It never lasts,” he whispers, finally. He sounds rather devastated about it, and there’s a ping of that, too. He doesn’t know how to project, yet. It just happens.  
  
Erik tucks his hair behind his ear, kissing his temple. "Maybe not _forever_. But as long as I want. If you go way I bring you back. Because you are mine. Maybe you can't all the time. Maybe like this? Maybe not every minute of the day. But you are mine. I see no reason why not for now. For as long as I want. And even if not then you still are mine. And you belong to me, and belong here." He sniffs a little. "I don't like too. When you drop. It hurts me too. You didn't know?"  
  
Charles fusses a bit, but it has nothing to do with Erik, really, and everything to do with being sensitive; he doesn’t usually like when his temple is touched, which is contrary to a Charles with his memories, who found it quite intimate and sometimes even sensual. But Charles shakes his head, still thoroughly burrowed into Erik’s skin, still inhaling, still grounding himself. He flinches at another noise, closing his eyes. “It hurts you, too?” he asks, quiet.  
  
"Me too," Erik whispers. Even newly formed, it seems just part of his personality to try and grin and bear it, to shoulder it, to take that responsibility even as he is more open about things, because he has no reason not to be, the instinct is undeniable. He must be strong-and those were instincts that got twisted, and broken, and he learned to be strong in wrong ways. In ways that didn't involve leaning on his family, his submissive. And now he's learning new things. "It feels like my heart is getting a garden shear in it and ripping it apart with metal. But I can't control it, I just watch, and feel, and feel." He rubs his cheek against the top of Charles's head.  
  
It sounds thoroughly awful. Charles frowns, finally peeking up from Erik’s shoulder to blink, tears gathering in his eyes because the absolute worst thing he can imagine right at this moment is his Dominant being in pain. “It’s like I’ll never breathe right again,” he whispers, and his breath does hitch, then. It’s painful and jarring and altogether extremely unpleasant. “But won’t I just drop, when…” When they leave this room, or it becomes obvious that he can’t be in this state. Isn’t it inevitable?  
  
"No, _neshama_ ," Erik murmurs softly, kissing Charles's brow again. "Because you are mine. I decide. Not you or any body else. Only me. Nobody else, nothing else is more important than you are my submissive. I won't let it be. It hurts too." He touches his own chest.  
  
Charles smiles, soft and small. The way Erik speaks now is so disjointed, obviously an issue of the new language barrier between them, but Charles likes it. He’s learning to understand the nuances, the little pauses, the odd phrasing. It doesn’t quite feel familiar yet, or expected, but he certainly doesn’t mind it. It’s learning, too. They’re going to learn each other, and it will help them. He’s honestly learning to believe that. He’s going to understand his Dominant, learn how to, so he can serve him. Obey him. Listen to him. “You know how?” he whispers, hopeful.  
  
Erik grins back, the one that can't help but show his teeth. "I learn how," he promises solemnly, touching his hand to Charles's heart. It might not be perfect, but he will learn how, and he will do it. Because it isn't just about what Charles wants. Not anymore. It hurts him, too.  
  
Charles doesn’t mean to doubt, but there’s a sharp spike of anxiety at that, and he swallows visibly. “What if you don’t learn before I drop again?” he asks, and he doesn’t mean to sound like he doesn’t trust Erik, trust his Dominant, that’s not the point. He’s just afraid. There’s another noise from outside and Charles flinches, unable to help it.  
  
He frames both sides of Charles's cheek. "Then I hurt, and you hurt, and I can't do that." He offers a smile, but it's ducked away, trying to hide his real feelings-the ones Charles can see anyway. Of course he's afraid, too. He's just human. "So you trust me. You say you trust me, so _trust_ me. We are both scared, it means-it mean less than us."  
  
Charles does trust him, despite everything. Despite not precisely knowing him. Like this, he trusts. He’s just frightened, but he doesn’t think that’s wrong, now, and Erik isn’t treating it like it is. He’s making space, and there’s space for his feelings, too. Charles takes a breath. Another noise, and there are voices from outside, quiet and strange like they’re coming through a tunnel, the world they’ve found themselves in encroaching. He rests his forehead against Erik’s and breathes. And submits. “I liked serving you,” he admits, shy, cheeks pink, smiling. There’s still evidence of it on his face. “Do you really… you think I should do that?” Maybe he's just grounding himself.  
  
It makes Erik laugh, gentle. "You should do that. All the time. I wish I knew sooner so you could sooner. But now I know," he murmurs lowly, like it's a big secret, like Charles has really stepped in it now because Erik knows and there's no way he can escape it, now.  
  
It’s funny, because it hasn’t been very long, relatively, and Erik is already lamenting the time they weren’t doing that. It does make Charles quite a bit flustered, the implication, and he squirms in Erik’s lap, gasping when he’s suddenly aware of how… well. “All the time?” he asks, wide-eyed. Does Erik mean that? It’s testing, now. He’s testing. He’s trying to learn. “Will you… expect it?” he wonders, barely above a whisper.  
  
"Yes," Erik laughs, grinning again. He presses Charles up close, flush against his own stomach, rubbing him exactly in the right places. "All the time. I expect. He never did? He is an idiot," he proclaims with all the confidence in the universe. "But _I_ am not."

* * *

Charles whines, loudly, his eyes popped wide again as his poor, neglected dick rubs against the hard muscles of Erik’s stomach. “Expect —“ He’s panting, now, and Erik has barely touched him. But he isn’t embarrassed, really, which is strange. He’s too down for that. It’s nice, to not feel shame. It’s brilliant. “Expect it how? When? What will I do?” Erik may not know, but Charles is breathless and he wants to hear. Maybe it’s inappropriate, considering the world is encroaching, but he just wants to hear.  
  
"You do how I want. You do what I want. When I want. I expect you will listen and not just either," Erik doesn't really know how to explain. "I expect you come to me like this," he draws his hand down Charles's stomach and closes warm fingers against his cock, not letting him get away with hiding. "And not only when I ask, either." He means he expects Charles to be forthright about his own desires. To offer. To anticipate it. "You will learn, too."  
  
Charles’ mouth goes completely dry. He swallows but it doesn’t help, and what comes out is a strangled, almost animal noise, his eyes wide as he tries not to wriggle too much. He doesn’t quite manage, untrained. “But you’ll ask?” he wonders, breathless. Eager. “And I — am I... should I —“ Apparently English is failing him. He doubts his ability to be articulate matters here and it’s the last thing on his mind, anyway, so he croaks, “Allowed? Without you?”  
  
"No," Erik murmurs back, his voice a deep vibration in his chest that can be felt against Charles's skin. He gives another little jolt across Charles's thighs just because he can. "I will find out and you won't like what I do." He grins brightly. "So you better tell. I will find out." He presses Charles down into his hand and gives an experimental squeeze, completely without real skill, but his eyes are locked on, observing, and Charles feels an electric arc burst from his toes all the way to his head that can only be from Erik's mutation.  
  
Apparently skill doesn’t matter here, either. Charles jolts in Erik’s lap, and the sound that’s pulled from his lips honestly sounds pained. Distressed. He’s leaking right into Erik’s hand, his dick twitching and near purple by now. “What happens if I don’t tell you?” he asks, and it’s not a challenge like it might have been earlier. It’s a curiosity; he feels safe enough to ask. He wants to know.  
  
"You get punished," he growls and bites at Charles's jaw. Enough to hurt but not to draw blood or break the skin. Even as untrained and green as he is he does have some basic understanding of something. This time when he draws his hand down Charles's dick it's far more purposeful, and firm. "And you get no relief. I make sure. You serve me. But I will not be kind to you back," he laughs a little darkly. "You are mine. This is. I want it."  
  
Charles doesn’t try to hold back. He makes strangled, low whines, trying not to squirm too much in Erik’s arms, in his lap, not to rub himself against Erik’s hand like he’s desperate for it even though he is. It’s ramped up, it’s been ramped up this entire time, but now that Erik is paying attention to him he is, too. He’s panting. “You’ll deny me?” He’s not sure why that makes him breathless, when it sounds awful, especially right now.  
  
"M-hm," Erik practically purrs at him, and gives him a smart little squeeze right as Charles nudges up against him, combining it with a powerful wallop across his backside for trying to move more, get more than what Erik is giving him. Even if it is very alluring. "Even if I like see you this way," he draws a finger down Charles's lip. "You do not get unless I say so. Never again. And I can make you. I know how." He doesn't know how he knows, he just knows he could. He could make Charles fail to get release. It's probably what he'd been unintentionally doing the whole time in the first place, but now it's very, very intentional.  
  
For some reason, Charles pouts. He doesn’t know why, immediately, if he’s honest. He’s just having some sort of reaction, while most of his brain is occupied with hazy, submissive bliss, arousal amped up but somehow lazy, too, even as he fights to keep still, not to buck, not to take more than he’s given, sheepish from the smack to his behind and feeling the sting. “You — made me... told me not to, and it was hard and it hurt,” he mumbles, and maybe that’s why. He’s complaining, but not truly. It just didn’t feel like something he could control. Maybe Erik meant to train him in that, too, but it all feels so overwhelming right now.  
  
"M-hm," Erik repeats. "And it will. If you don't obey. I control. Not you. You don't hide. You don't go away. You come to me, and if you are good-" he finds, entirely by accident, the exact right way to grip-something his Erik had known instinctively but this one doesn't, he has to learn. Trial and error, experimenting, and he's quite happy for it, but his eyes are wide and pinned on Charles, fascinated by the response. "Then I reward you."  
  
It’s a violent response, honestly. Charles jerks in his lap, wailing, his own eyes wide and suddenly there are tears in his eyes and his jaw is clenched and he’s tense, he’s so tense, and it’s not because he’s afraid it’s because — “Please, sir, please can I come,” he gasps, as if it’s being wrenched out of him, because Erik tried to teach him manners before all of this. He wants to remember. He wants to learn.  
  
Uh, Erik blinks at him. "Can-what?" He crooks his fingertip under Charles's jaw. "Tell me what," he whispers. He knows it's some kind of slang. He thinks he might even know. But he wants to know. He wants to hear. "This? Hm?" He trails a finger along the tip of Charles's cock.  
  
Charles trembles. His belly is so tight it aches, his whole body is so tense and Erik told him, once, when he was so close, to just wait a little more and he wants to be good and listen now, even though Erik hasn’t specifically said, but it’s difficult. It’s one of those times he knows an Order would help, or something similar, but he doesn’t want one. He wants to prove that he can do it on his own, even as he takes panting, gasping breaths, his dick twitching in Erik’s hand and looking quite frankly painful by now. It’s the worst time for Erik to not understand slang. “I -- can I --” But he doesn’t know how to phrase it without the slang, and there are tears in his eyes. “Relief,” he gasps, desperate. “Please, sir?”  
  
It makes Erik grin and he frames Charles's cheek in his free hand, bowing their foreheads together. "Yes, _neshama_. Yes you can," he whispers, with every bit of affection inside of him, and it's more noticeable, more vibrant, visible than ever before. "You're doing so well, being so good. You deserve. Let me see," he Orders.

* * *

Charles is fairly sure he whites out. He knows his ears are ringing, that his vision blurs, that what comes out of his mouth is a wail, high and long and keening, that he feels like he’s coming for far longer than he thought himself capable of. It’s not the most intensely he’s ever been pleasured. It’s just that Erik Ordered it so casually and so of course his body obeyed, and now he finds he can’t breathe in the aftermath. Can’t calm down. Not at all. He doesn’t panic, though, not really, even as he gasps for breath; he just grabs for Erik, eyes wide and wild. “Sir, sir, help —“ He doesn’t know what he’s asking for. It’s just so intense.  
  
Erik holds onto him, wrapping him up as well with his mind as he can and easily with his body. Helping, easing, soothing. Little stories trickle out of him like raindrops, water from a faucet against an old metal sink, one drop after the other. Bringing him gently off of that crescendoing wave, right over to the other side where he belongs. In Erik's arms. "I got you," he breathes, awed. Amazed. "I got you. All mine and you are so beautiful," he huffs. "I got you, 'kay? Got you. That's it. Breathe and listen my voice."  
  
Charles does start to calm, eventually. He’s still shivering, teeth chattering but not because he’s cold; it’s just an intense feeling, an intense experience, and he’s always started to panic during it. But he calms, now, and he doesn’t get frustrated or upset. He just does as he’s told, settling against Erik’s skin, against his body, against his warmth. “Story?” he croaks, when he feels like he can speak. He peeks up at Erik, smiling shakily. “In... your language?” He might not understand all of it, yet. He still struggles when Erik speaks too fast, or uses words he doesn’t have the context for. But it helps. It feels nice to listen.  
  
It makes Erik smile brightly. His linguistic fluency changes dramatically, too-more nuance, more poetry, even a little more formal but not because he's distanced just because he likes words, he values precision and it's a trait that gets lost in English. " _Hayo haya pa'am_ ," he starts softly, weaving an intricate tale. This time it is the Story of the Stones and the girl who walked further and further into the deep and winding spiral-stairs into the caves of fire to break open the stones of truth, what she would need to defeat the monster, to drive away the invaders threatening the minds of her home. And the fire burned her like fire, so she brought the cool cool water and smashed the tapestry stones among the jagged rocks, only to find-truth. A reflection of herself. Erik laughs a little roughly, unsure why that's the one that comes to him. "My sister used to tell me that one," he whispers. "She was pretty smart."  
  
It’s dramatically different when Erik is barely fluent in English, now. Charles listens as well as he can, occasionally lost, blinking, trying not to get too lost in the nuance. He certainly gets the gist. It’s just that he’s frowning a bit by the end, eyelids heavy where his head has lolled against Erik’s shoulder. There’s a loud bang! from outside the room they’re in, but this time he doesn’t even flinch, too caught up in Erik’s words. “Will you teach me?” he asks, shy. Voice raspy and quiet. “I don’t always understand.”  
  
Erik doesn't even hear it. It doesn't matter, nothing else matters right now except this. Here, with his submissive. "Of course would I teach you," he whispers back, switching to Hebrew again just to murmur little nonsense-nothings into Charles's ear. "And you teach me?" he implores, soft. "I want to learn, too. Sometime I do not always get it and, I want to. Everything about you." It's not language for language's sake. It's Charles.  
  
Charles curls further into Erik’s lap, into his neck. “I don’t want to leave this room,” he mumbles, and it’s not that he’s distracted or even looking outside of Erik at all, but he knows they have to. He doesn’t want to. He sounds, frankly, devastated at the concept. “I don’t want to drop,” he whispers, because he doesn’t know there’s another way. He can’t imagine there is.  
  
"I won't let it," Erik whispers back, fierce. "I will never let you go. I do not just mean like this," he squeezes his arms, and then he touches Charles's temple. "You are mine now. You belong to me. With me. You say you are mine, you want belong to me, and trust me. So you trust. I don't let it."  
  
Charles bites his lip. “Isn’t it just always like that?” he wonders, and he honestly has no idea. No clue. It’s less about trust, and more about inexperience, about ignorance, and a little about fear, too. "Isn't it always going to feel like I can't breathe?"  
  
His head shakes. "Not always like. Never like. I won't let it. I can't breathe too. And I like breathing. I like you breathe too. No. Not like that. What it is like is this. You listen to me and obey me and do what I say or else. It is simple."  
  
Charles blinks. He rests his head back on Erik’s shoulder, but something’s happening; it isn’t panic-inducing, exactly, but it feels like the rest of the world is slowly fading back in, which is strange because technically they don’t even belong to this world. He doesn’t know how it works. He doesn’t know how long they can stay. He doesn’t know much of anything but he takes slow, even breaths. “Subspace frightens me, I think,” he admits. It’s a quiet, frightened admission; he flinches, like he fears Erik might be upset.  
  
"Maybe it frightens me too," Erik says back with a small smile. "And that don't help. But I'm not scared now, it is not scary. It just means you are here with me and I take care of you. Nothing bad, nothing scary. Just here with me. I like it. It's very nice, and good. And you are doing very well and listening to me," he murmurs into Charles's ear, soft and assured.  
  
Charles thinks so, too. It certainly feels nice. It certainly feels like it isn’t as breakable as before, like it may actually last. He’s come up, some, but he doesn’t feel like he can’t breathe. He doesn’t feel unsettled. His chest isn’t tight. He’s still trembling a bit, but it feels like aftershocks. He opens his mouth to whisper something back, but ends up nearly jumping out of his skin, because there’s a knock on the door, loud and firm and completely jarring. They’re also very naked, and sticky, and otherwise indisposed. Charles’ eyes go so wide it’s comical and his cheeks go so red it’s remarkable, and he clings to Erik with all he has.

* * *

It's easy, though, something inside of Erik just moves completely, and Charles finds himself draped and cleaned, when he moves his arms a soft robe rustles between the spaces, white and fluffy. He's still in Erik's lap, but he feels it, creeping tendrils until the fabric of Erik's pants swishes up against him. "You can breathe," he breathes into Charles's ear. "And you will because I say so." The door creaks open a tiny bit, enough for them to see this intruder. "What do you want?" Erik barks at them.  
  
It makes Charles gasp, unsettled. He doesn’t quite like it, and he squirms in Erik’s arms, but doesn’t dare say anything; he’s far too embarrassed now, trying not to sink into shame. Truth be told, he wasn’t unable to breathe, just startled, but now that Erik’s mentioned it his breath does hitch, as if he’s remembered that perhaps something is meant to be happening. He nods, anyway, and forces breaths, one after the other and then the other. There’s no response on the other side of the door. It doesn’t even open further. But there are footsteps, and banging sounds, and then plenty of noise, as if it’s all just come out of nowhere; giggling and stomping and shouting, far away but close, too, and Charles’ eyes suddenly close tightly. He looks a bit green in the face.  
  
Erik blinks and tucks Charles in safer into his arms. "Come out and tell what you are doing," he rumbles the Order enough to crack through the walls and sink right down into these intruders' minds right through their ears. He's angry, a little, but does his best not to show it. Someone has interrupted. Made Charles feel embarrassed. It's not OK. "And you just breathe. I don't say come up. I don't say shame and fear. I say I got you and I do. You are my submissive. Everyone should know it," he huffs a little. They aren't compromised, they aren't indecent. Erik sees no problem at all.  
  
Maybe Charles does. He doesn’t want to, but he does, because even still firmly in subspace -- and he is, which is frightening, he doesn’t want to be but it is, a little -- he doesn’t melt away. He still exists, and feels and thinks. “Can I have my clothes, please,” he mumbles, because Erik putting him in a robe feels vaguely humiliating, considering the context, and he doesn’t know why but there are tears in his eyes, suddenly, and he shakes his head, and shakes it again, and stutters out a few breaths. His eyes are still closed. He wants to put his clothes on himself, he wants to actually put them on, not just -- but he’s wearing them, suddenly, and he takes a sharp breath. It’s not something he intended. He doesn’t even quite understand and he doesn’t know if he was allowed, either. He tries to calm himself. He keeps his eyes squeezed closed. Erik said listen and breathe.  
  
There’s rustling, and then an inquisitive head pops in. “Professor said we should come get you for dinner,” a boy explains, and he’s only partially visible, leaving very little doubt as to what his mutation is.

* * *

Erik stares for a long moment, blinking. "What?" is what his stuttered to a stop brain comes up with, squinting like he can't make sense of the images in front of him or what's going on around him.  
  
They’re still here. Somehow. Charles has no idea how he’s held them here this whole time, but that part doesn’t really matter. He doesn’t want to get off Erik’s lap, but he doesn’t think it’s wholly appropriate to cling like this, even fully clothed; he doesn’t know what the alternative is. He doesn’t know how to act. His eyes being closed isn’t actually helping with all the noise, and he swallows.  
  
“Dinner…?” the boy repeats, head tilted. He’s suddenly much less visible. “I, um -- I could tell them you’re busy?”  
  
Erik licks his lips, finding them suddenly dry, like his throat has stuck to itself inside. Sandpaper crushing and grinding and bleeding. "Wha- _ma_? _Lo, lam'a atah po_?" he rasps, grinding the words out. Infinitesimal, spice-grinder. Dust and dirt filling his lungs. He squeezes Charles tightly. He won't go, he can't go, something is wrong and he can't go.  
  
Charles swallows harder. He’s not sure he can process all of this. He’s dizzy, vaguely sick. “Erik?” he whispers. His Dominant matters more. He’s still in subspace, Erik said he wouldn’t let him drop. It’s alright. He can breathe.  
  
"Please get him out of here," Erik gasps, shaking his head, eyes wide. "Something is wrong, I'm wrong. Need to go away. Go away. Go 'way!" his voice raises, directed at the kid.  
  
He’s already gone. He’s been gone. Charles can’t open his eyes, so he doesn’t, but he tries to reach up for Erik’s face, now slammed with panic. “What’s wrong?” he rasps, and it sounds like he’s had all the wind knocked out of him. “He’s — he’s gone, please, what’s wrong?”  
  
"He's gone?" Erik whispers, features crumpled, his whole expression desperate. He drops his head to Charles's shoulder. "You don't go. Don't go away. You stay. Just you. I got you." He grabs at Charles's hand, keeping it pressed against his face.  
  
“What’s — what’s wrong?” he repeats, and he can’t keep the distress or the tears out of his voice. “Please. Talk to me, please, so I can help,” he begs, because Erik being upset right now — and he thought it would be okay. It was supposed to be alright.  
  
"I d'nno," Erik says back, and of course it's the truth. He doesn't know. "Wanna be alone. With you. Nobody else, nobody else. Nobody," he just repeats, soft, and presses his lips to Charles's neck. It was supposed to be all right and it is. But he's new, and he can't hide anything, he hasn't learned that yet.  
  
“Alright,” Charles whispers. His chest does feel tight now. He shifts in Erik’s arms, his eyes still stubbornly closed because opening them would be frightening, he thinks. The room is suddenly dark, too. It’s not because the lights have turned off. It’s just dark. “I —“ He shakes his head.  
  
"Dunno. I ruined it?" Erik's eyes are shut too, not that anyone can see it. "No, I didn't. I don't accept. I don't accept this _stupid brain_!" he growls and something does bang then but it's not any creeping visitors. "I am supposed to have control, and be in control, and keep you safe. Nothing is wrong. Nothing. Just I'm-wrong, something-I-"  
  
Charles flinches, and goes very still. He takes a big, gulping breath. He’s not outwardly panicking, but he’s certainly trembling, and he’s covered in a cold sweat. He doesn’t say anything. He’s not sure he can.  
  
Everything Erik could do or say just feels wrong all of a sudden. Everything just feels wrong and enclosing and bad and it's sinking into his brain, melting into him and he can't say anything. He can't talk, he can't _talk_. His jaw is clenched and he can't force words out, just a croaked exhale.  
  
Charles doesn’t dissolve into gasping, desperate hyperventilation, but he’s clearly not faring well, either. Eventually, after what feels like an eternity and just a second, he opens his eyes. But it’s too dark to see anyway, and he doesn’t think there’s anything to see. He touches Erik’s face again. “Please,” he begs. “It’s — different. You said you won’t let me. Please?” His voice is shaking.  
  
Tears have formed in Erik's eyes that track down his cheeks to meet Charles's hand, making all his fingers wet. "Different," he promises. "Always. I won't let it. You are mine." He shifts Charles back into his lap more fully, and whatever has materialized on him has mostly dissolved, forming a blanket instead that Erik wraps them both up in, his own coverings gone, skin-to-skin. "Mine," he adds, but it sounds more like a sob. He's sorry. He doesn't know how to be upset, how to make it so it doesn't hurt Charles. But he knows he means it with everything he has.  
  
There’s no blanket, though. If there was, it’s promptly gone. Charles doesn’t want it; there aren’t clothes, but there isn’t anything else, either. Just complete darkness and silence. It’s the only way he can think to function, and he’s not doing it consciously. It just is. He can’t hear or have anything touch him that isn’t Erik, and maybe Erik needs that, too. It was nauseating, all that sound. He can’t imagine ever handling it. “Why did... you’re upset,” he tries, instead, and he sounds broken.  
  
"I know," Erik whispers back, and it doesn't sound much better. "I don't know why. I _juh_ -I-I donno," he takes a slow, deep, shaking breath. He feels like he wants to dissolve, break apart. The only thing, the only thing that helps, is Charles. "I do not know how to-what to do, what's wrong. Why-I d-why? I dunno." He doesn't even know how to explain what happened, how to explain-anything. He needs his submissive. He needs _help_.  
  
“I don’t know how to help,” Charles admits, choked up, because he doesn’t know what’s wrong. He’s supposed to know how to help, how to serve, how to be what Erik needs, but he doesn’t. And it’s painful. It’s physically painful, a horrible weight, a twisting, churning in his stomach, a tightness in his chest. “I don’t know how,” he repeats.  
  
"No," Erik says firmly. "You know 'cuz I'm yours, too. You just talk to me, and help. You know how. Just talk. Please I-sorry I can't be so good all the time, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I get all messed up. I do not know why-I don't know what happened. I don't know. You help me. You talk. Talk to me. I-" he shakes his head again. "I don't wanna be him. Don't wanna be him. I won't."  
  
Charles tries to push through that. It’s difficult, but he takes big, stuttering breaths, and just focuses on the words. On the Order at the beginning, especially. “Don’t want to be like who?” he croaks.  
  
Erik shrugs and buries himself back into the crook of Charles's shoulder. "Him. Me. Old me."  
  
Charles bites his lip. “You are him,” he whispers, but it’s not an argument, really. Just a reminder. “But you’re not, too. You’re growing. I think you’re doing a perfectly fine job,” he adds, and it’s quiet. Shy. But truthful, too. “You said you won’t drop me.” It’s not correct, really. Charles doesn’t know why he phrases it that way. He takes another shaky breath. “I believe you.”  
  
"You better," Erik whispers wetly against Charles's shoulder, still shivering. He doesn't know what's wrong, or why, or how to fix it. He doesn't want to be like he was. Shutting everyone out. He just doesn't know. "It f-feel like before," he stumbles over chattering teeth. "Am I sick?" Is he? Charles just isn't telling him?  
  
Charles shakes his head, swallowing thickly. “No,” he murmurs, and he doesn’t want to say, but Erik seems better than he did before. He doesn’t feel frightened or shut out completely. “You’re not sick. You’re hurting, but you’re not sick. See? We’re alright,” he whispers, and tries to do what Erik says and believe it. He’s shivering, too, teeth chattering. “You — you can’t drop me,” and now it is closer to a demand. That’s what that other Erik said, the one they just visited and left rather suddenly (and Charles is almost sad about it, he thinks later when he’s not so... like this, he’ll really feel it). He has to expect it, or Erik will never rise to it.  
  
Erik just yanks his hair, giving him a very sharp and warning bite. "You don't demand. I didn't let it before and I won't let it now." Whatever is happening is not going away and he can't seem to breathe. "You can't lie to me," he gasps. "I'm sick? I never get sick."  
  
But Charles just swallows and shakes his head. “You aren’t sick,” he repeats, and resettles on Erik’s lap, squirming until he can set both hands on his cheeks. “Erik? I’m in subspace,” he says, quiet, and it’s shaky and hitched but a statement. “Do you feel that?”  
  
Erik's eyes are wide and huge, pupils dilated dangerously. His skin feels cold and sweaty but he manages to lock onto Charles all the same, unblinking as he nods. "Feel," he whispers. He feels. It makes him give a wobbly smile.  
  
That wobbly smile makes Charles feel like he can breathe again, even though it’s still rather stuck, each breath taking effort. Things are lightening up, some. He can almost see Erik now, and he touches his mouth, the curve of his lips. “What does it feel like?” he asks. “Can you tell me?”  
  
"Warm," he touches Charles's chest, thankful to feel skin against his fingers. A shiver of magnetic electricity arcs under that touch point. "Like metal. Like that." His speech is still slow and sluggish and he takes careful, rasping breaths. "Feels nice." He presses his lips against Charles's fingers in a soft kiss.  
  
It does still feel nice, even shaky like this. Charles slows his breathing, the best he can at the moment, and hopes it might help Erik with his, too. “You’re not sick,” he whispers, though he’s already said it. Because Erik’s breathing is slowing, too; and it occurs to him that it may be because he’s trying to help. He bites his lip. “Can you do something for me?” he asks. He pauses, then adds, sheepishly, "Please?"  
  
Another owlish blink but Erik slowly nods as if taking a great deal longer to process than usual. "What I do?" He mumbles it a little more disjointedly than usual.  
  
It feels sillier when he has to actually say it. Charles continues to bite at his lip, and then takes a breath. “Teach me a word,” he requests, almost pleads. He’s still touching Erik’s face, stroking idly, mostly so he can keep track of him in the dark. “Any word. Teach me, please.”  
  
"Not sick?" Erik makes him promise again, drawing his hand over and over Charles's heart to try and keep himself calm. It works, mostly because Charles is here, and talking to him, and soothing him. Helping him. He does know how. Erik never needed much. "Promise? I don' feel good. Gonna _uhhh_ -" he claps his hand over his own mouth. Or, rather, he takes Charles's hand and presses it to his own mouth like an idiot. Which is probably not going to end well for Charles. " _Lehaki_ ," he mumbles, which Charles doesn't know. So he basically did comply, just-roundabout. At this point Charles is just lucky Erik didn't vomit sadly into his hand.

* * *

Charles isn’t actually too concerned. He’s concerned for Erik, but right now the prospect of being vomited on isn’t as pressing as helping his Dominant through whatever it is he’s experiencing. He shakes his head, taking his hand away but only to smooth it through Erik’s hair, damp against his forehead. “You’re not sick,” he promises, and smiles softly if shakily. “I’m in subspace, and it’s nice, isn’t it? You’re not going to let me drop. You have to try to focus on me, okay? I need you right now. I need you to focus on me, or we’ll both hurt. Can you take deep breaths and focus on…” He pauses. “Did you know the word for subspace?” he wonders. Do they use the English word? It’s entirely inconsequential right now, except he wants a distraction. Stories help him. Erik said just to talk.  
  
"No English word," Erik croaks back, leaning his head right into Charles's petting because of course he's found the spot that Erik likes the best very easily. It turns out that's still the case even now. "It is _tod'ot kanu'a_ ," he whispers softly. "Like the same thing. The conscience," he uses the wrong word, but it makes sense nonetheless. He still looks very green.  
  
Charles didn’t know these things. He wonders why, but decides it’s probably for the same reason he didn’t know many things about Erik before, all the time they spent together and the relatively little he seemed to learn -- he just wasn’t open about them. Charles realizes he should have asked more, but he can ask now. He continues to stroke Erik’s hair, to lean into him. “And you know about it? Sub --” He pauses, biting his lip. “ _Tod'ot kanu'a_ ,” he tries, testing it out on his tongue. He doesn't know what to do except to stroke Erik's hair, to breathe even when that breath hitches, to talk. Erik likes to talk. Charles feels a little queasy, too, and Erik talking is what keeps him from feeling dizzy.  
  
It makes him grin shyly, letting out a noise that's almost a laugh, but it's an odd little sound all the same. A not-quite. "I like to hear you," he mumbles softly, still petting at whatever skin he can find. "Not really," he whispers, an admission as he shakes his head. "I saw it sometime but I don't know, I don't really know." He doesn't know about it. Only what he can guess, what he feels. It's not the same thing.  
  
They’re both feeling it now, and Charles supposes that’s what matters. It’s strange and foreign and new, still, and frankly a little frightening. He takes another slow breath, leaning into Erik’s touch. “When I first felt it,” he whispers, and it’s his own admission, “It scared me. I didn’t know what to do. I felt so overwhelmed. You tried to calm me down, but you didn’t know what to do. I wanted you to make it stop.” Because he didn’t know at all what to expect, or that feeling something like that was possible. He tucks himself in closer. “But I think I like it,” he adds, softer. "I read about it. In books. They make it sound so pleasant. I want it to be like that for me, too." It's silly, to admit it. But true. Some things are simple.  
  
"I like it too," Erik whispers back. "It is my favorite thing, maybe," he laughs again, but it's wet, and he struggles still to cope, trying his best not to dissolve, too. Trying so hard. He's so sorry. He tries to focus like Charles said but he ends up shaking all the same, even as he desperately makes himself listen. He cares, he does. He cares and doesn't even care about his stupid, stupid-"It should go 'way. It should go 'way, it did-it did," he gasps. "Don't like."  
  
Charles knows. He frowns, and he doesn’t know how to fix it; he doesn’t know how to make it go away. Perhaps he could pull at Erik’s mind like everyone says he can, but that’s terrifying. He could hurt him. So he just shakes his head, and strokes Erik’s hair, his cheek, his own fingers shaking. “I don’t know what to do,” he admits again. “I — how do I help?” He blinks, and there are tears there, suddenly. He’s not falling apart, but it hurts him. When he’s like this, it physically hurts when Erik is hurting. “What is it? What are you feeling?”  
  
"I dunno," Erik gasps, eyes squeezing shut. He's failing, isn't he? He doesn't want to. He doesn't even care. "I can't breathe and I-I- _wah_ -can't talk right. Can't stop-heart, beating. Too fast. Can't think." He presses his forehead to Charles's. An electric zap hits Charles suddenly, and it's so distinctly unpleasurable that it takes several long moments for him to figure out that it's from Erik. "That. Like that. Like that. Did I hurt-no, no. No no."  
  
But Charles shakes his head, even as he winces; he’s distinctly grateful, all of a sudden, that they’re in the dark. He continues to stroke Erik’s hair. “You didn’t hurt me,” he promises, and he offers what he knows is a painfully weak smile, biting his lip. “I’m sore, is that what you meant? Don’t worry. You’ve never hurt me.” Even when he was wary and afraid and felt horribly alone, Erik never hurt him. He could have, before, when he knew more than Charles. He didn’t. He wouldn’t. “Do you want to breathe with me? We can breathe together,” he suggests, quietly. He doesn’t know if it will work. He wants to try. He wants to help.  
  
"'Kay," Erik whispers back, taking in a huge, shuddering breath. "Didn't hurt?" he pets Charles's face, sniffing a little. He does his best to match Charles's breaths but it's audibly slow. "I'm sorry," he adds, soft. "Don't mean it." To be-broken, to not know, to not have any answers, to make Charles feel scared. He doesn't want that.  
  
“You’re not hurting me, I promise,” he murmurs, and takes another long, deep breath, slow so Erik has better chance of matching it. He leans forward, grateful it’s still dark, and kisses Erik’s cheek. “See? There’s nothing wrong. We’re just breathing and I’m not afraid. I just don’t want to drop, because it hurts, but you’re not dropping me. Right? Do you think I’m still in subspace?” he asks.  
  
Erik nods, swallowing roughly and tucks Charles even closer, petting at his cheek and along his chest near his heart. "Still there?" he asks as a form of reassuring himself, too. "Still here," he hums and presses his cheek up against Charles's. He has an Erik Octopus now as he's ended up half curled into him with legs and arms everywhere.  
  
Charles doesn’t particularly mind. Actually, he doesn’t mind at all. He kisses Erik’s cheek again, then the other just for good measure, feeling for him in the dark. Seeking him out. It doesn’t feel suffocating, the darkness. It feels safe. “What happened?” he asks, because he knows he has to. “I know you don’t know. But try? Please, sir?”  
  
Erik lets out another little shrug and buries deeper. He doesn't know, it just seems random, just like before. "Didn't like it," he whispers. "Someone came in."

It's not random, though. Charles nuzzles into Erik's neck, seeking, too, tangling himself up, too. He's still so deep down; it's scary, still, though he's calmed down again, still sensual and rather needy, it feels like. "Why didn't you like it? They weren't going to hurt us," he whispers. "You would have kept us safe. Right?"

Erik nods. He knows he wasn't afraid of them, or embarrassed. "Always," he promises. "I know. Not gonna hurt, I know," he rubs his face against Charles's again. Thinking about it in depth hurts the way looking at the sun hurts. He shouldn't do it. He shouldn't look closely at it at all.  
  
The problem is, Charles doesn’t know if it will hurt or help more to dig into it. Erik doesn’t remember. It’s the same way asking him to express why the basement of the Manor terrifies him only leads to frustration and more fear -- he doesn’t know. Erik did, before, but he didn’t. He bites his lip. “Were you… did you not want them to see me, being submissive?” he wonders, and this might be projecting. He was alright with it in front of the other Erik, but perhaps that was only because it was an extension of himself. It was him, in another life. "I was embarrassed," he admits.  
  
Erik shakes his head. "No," he whispers. "I like everyone to know you are mine. Just-" he really doesn't have the language on top of it to describe. "I don't know. It was just him," he says as though that makes any fucking sense at all. "He shouldn't be there. I don't want it."  
  
Charles blinks, because he really doesn’t understand. There’s no way for Erik to know who that was, and he doesn’t think he knows, either; it was just a student, from what he could tell. They weren’t indecent, though Charles was embarrassed about the state he was in. “I don’t understand,” he admits, and it’s sad, because he wants to. Especially like this, he wants to. “I thought you were ashamed. I thought you’d drop me,” he whispers, since they’re both being honest.  
  
"No," Erik laughs a little wetly. "Never. I don't know too. He just-" Erik inhales sharply. "Shouldn't be there." Erik swallows a little, looking very much like he's still about to throw up. He wishes he knew how to explain the visceral reaction he had to seeing a student in the vicinity at that moment in time. He wants to rip off all his own skin. He feels disgusted and horrified and he doesn't know why. They weren't indecent, but-Erik shakes his head. "I'm just stupid. It's OK."  
  
Charles shakes his head, then he shakes it again. He kisses Erik’s cheek again, because it’s all he can think to do, nuzzles right into him. “You’re not stupid,” he argues, and on that he’s rather firm. Not defiant, not out of place, just firm. “You just reacted. I want to understand. I’m supposed to understand, because I’m your submissive. Help me?” he whispers, and strokes Erik’s cheek, expression earnest and seeking even in the dark.  
  
"I know- _ah_ -I know," Erik croaks. "I know we aren't-we were not-" he gestures between them. "I don't know. He-he was just a little kid. I don't know. I don't know, I don't know. It's so stupid. I'm so stupid."  
  
Charles bites his lip. “You aren’t stupid,” he argues again, but he doesn’t get frustrated. It makes the difference. He’s been getting so exasperated, not at Erik but at himself for not understanding, for not following, for not knowing. He tries not to, now. He tucks a lock of hair behind Erik’s ear. “You aren’t. He wasn’t that young, Erik, and we weren’t... at that point, it was innocent. Children walk into and around things they shouldn’t all the time. We weren’t involving them and we wouldn’t. It’s alright to react, though, yeah? It’s alright to feel upset? But you told me and then we got out of the situation.” He’s a little sad, for some reason, but that’s an emotion he’s allowed to feel, too. “I’m not going to drop,” he adds, and it’s ostensibly just for him. A reminder. He’s still afraid, though it’s not entirely clear why.  
  
Erik sniffles and peeks up, pressing a kiss to Charles's nose. "I know," he whispers back. He didn't mean to. He certainly wouldn't have chosen to feel like this over something he can't understand. Nothing happened, nothing was bad. "Not gonna," he promises, wagging a finger sternly at Charles, giving him a smile instead of a horror show. "I know. I know," he tells himself, pressing his own hand against his face, rhythmic and strange, just a little. "It's, _ah_ , 'kay to be s- _uh_ , upset," he hiccups. "I'm not sick? Promise? You-you help me," he rubs his cheek against Charles's chest after he settles back down. "Helped me," he sighs. A reminder for himself. He's not sick, and Charles is helping him, and it's OK.

* * *

It really is okay. Charles squirms a bit, less unsettled than he is just restless, tangled up in Erik and not trying to escape, just -- see how far he can get, really. It’s something he does when he’s feeling particularly uncertain, and it’s clear, every time, what he wants: to be held down, or told to keep himself still. “You’re not sick,” he promises again, and he’s breathing much easier, now. His chest doesn’t feel so tight. It’s still pitch dark, wherever they are, somewhere in-between and far away, but it’s not a loud darkness, or a silent one. It isn’t nauseating, either. It’s just dark. Private. “I’m your submissive, so I’m supposed to help. It’s alright to be upset, but I’ll help. It doesn’t --” He takes a sharp breath. “It doesn’t mean it was ruined.” What they did. What they achieved. They're still okay. Charles didn't drop, Erik didn't let him.  
  
"Nothing can ruin," Erik promises softly, rubbing his head into Charles's chest again. He can't bear to be separated and when Charles tries to squirm away he finds Erik's arms are locked around him tightly, preventing any escape at all. "I just hate, I hate this," he whispers sadly. "How I am! It's stupid." He frowns mightily. But he didn't drop Charles. And Charles helped. He's still helping. "Sometimes I get scared you-" it's stupid, too, actually. "I wasn't like this before maybe you-" his head shakes. It doesn't matter.  
  
Charles does his best to follow, but he frowns himself when he realizes he can’t. He just wriggles harder, hoping to get Erik’s attention. “Sometimes you get scared... what?” he asks, prodding, encouraging, and he touches Erik’s face again, strokes his cheek. “Tell me, please. I don’t want you to be afraid,” he breathes, and he sounds pained. The same way Erik is when Charles admits he’s fearful.  
  
He kisses Charles's palm. "I'm all crazy and I-I'm not same person, and, and I don't know. I don't know how to be. I don't know that person. I just have all-this," he hits his own chest with the side of his hand. "And all the-the stuff-in-the thing in-all of it-" he knows he's babbling a little and he smacks his own forehead. "In my mind, I don't know any thing and the things I do know or could even know, all stupid! All stupid. The only thing I know that means anything, is how I feel about you. But I'm scared to say that too because I will just make you run away, because of not him, I'm not really anybody. I'm not really a person, I'm not anybody."  
  
Charles blinks, and then takes a sharp breath. “Then I’m not really a person, either,” he whispers, head bowed. “Going by that logic. I don’t remember or know, either. Why can’t we just... be?” he wonders. It’s quiet enough that Erik might miss it. “Why not? Why can’t we just do what you said, and start over? Why can’t we just try? I don’t want you to tell me that you — I want you to get to know me, and then feel it. I want that with you, too. Why can’t we just try? I don’t know who I was! I don’t have any idea. I don’t know why all these things are in my head. I don’t remember. But why don’t we just be who we feel like?” Now he’s getting frustrated, tears pricking at his eyes. “You needed to forget for a while. So don’t... don’t worry about what you don’t know. For right now. Please? You can just be you. I want to know who that is.”  
  
"I mean I-I-I-I-" Erik stumbles harshly. "I used to-no, I-no, no," he decides against it, shaking his head. It's self-pitying, but for some reason he can't seem to stop-stop talking, stop feeling, maybe because he hasn't before, because his submissive is here and they're in a place where they're safe and he's been reset, so all the filters and controls and compartments that took a lifetime to build are completely eradicated. But he very much is the person who prefers to focus on the positive, he doesn't want to wallow in self-pity. It's not attractive, it's not worthy, it won't make Charles respect him. It's not even _rational_. He takes a breath, struggling to keep his expression composed. "Me too," is what he settles on instead. "It-I-I just keep-this keeps happening, I want to be who I feel like, and you too, and this keep happening-I feel crazy! I have a feeling I have never had in my life. Am I just a crazy person now? I am just afraid of children and my own shadow and can't take a shower? You don't think I am crazy? I just can't stop, I can't stop, I'm so sorry, can't I _can't_ stop talking, I dunno what is wrong with me," he gasps, sounding very much like he's hyperventilating.  
  
Charles takes it in stride, even as his own breathing becomes unsteady, ragged, his eyes wide because it truly does feel like Erik experiencing pain or panic makes him feel it, too. He shakes his head. “I’m afraid of things I don’t understand, either,” he croaks, his voice heavy with it. “I get upset or frustrated at things that don’t seem to make any sort of sense. I find things that I have no reason to find difficult extremely difficult. Sometimes, when I’m in the shower, I --” But he doesn’t finish the sentence, either. He closes his eyes tightly, despite not needing to here. “I feel crazy, too. I feel wholly insane. There are things that happen that I can’t explain, and I don’t know what to do about them. I’m scared. But you don’t think I’m crazy, and I don’t think you are, either. I think you were hurt, and maybe you don’t remember that now, maybe you don’t have to, but it doesn’t make you broken. When it happens, when this happens,” he takes a deep breath, and touches Erik’s chest, “I’ll help. That’s what I should do. I’m your submissive.” And it’s more resolve than he’s had in a very long time. Perhaps, for this Charles, ever.  
  
It makes Erik smile entirely unconsciously. It always does when Charles says that, and his arms tighten. "I just don't want to complain and make you sad, or-or afraid, afraid I'm sick, or-or-hurt," he admits softly. "But I don't like hiding 'cuz that didn't work. But maybe it would mean I was stronger. I'm not strong anymore. I feel like a big _baby_ all the time," he has to laugh, because it sounds stupid, but he is crying, which is exactly what he's talking about. "Everything I knew, it's all gone. Even me is gone." He touches his own chest, and it's clear he doesn't mean his sense of self, although whatever he does mean is a little occluded. "It feels like one day I woke up and-and my mind is ripped open, and my arms and legs are cut off and I'm this crazy, screaming lump, and everybody-and-" he inhales sharply through his nose. "And-how can I be not broken? How?"  
  
Charles inhales through his nose, too, and then he smiles, watery because there are tears on his own cheeks, in his own eyes, and leans forward to kiss away Erik’s tear. Even in the dark he can see them. He kisses them, one by one, tasting them on his tongue when he breathes and somehow it’s comforting. “I know,” he murmurs, and the pain in his voice is obvious. It aches. “You must be so afraid. It must be awful. But you aren’t broken, alright? I swear to you. You aren’t. You are still here, and you’re you, and I’d like -- I’d like very much to get to know you. And --” He stumbles, here, resting his forehead on Erik’s shoulder, ducked in now. “And serve you. If you’d like that. I think you’re very strong, just the way you are. Just like this.”

* * *

"Really?" Erik whispers, wiping at his eyes. "You think I am? 'Cuz I think I got snot on your hair. _Very_ cute." He's laughing a little, trying to make himself laugh, anyway. Trying to make himself feel something other than what he's feeling, because he doesn't want to feel it anymore. He's so tired of feeling it. And because hearing Charles say that-helps. If he really does think that, it helps. Even growing up, even the memories he does have, people always took his strength for granted. He didn't cry when he fell down, he remained calm when things escalated all around him, he always had a plan, he always knew what to do. Somewhere along the way he did internalize that meant not asking for help, not showing vulnerability, and it's a very normal, ordinary hang-up. Something normal people have, for normal reasons. Not twisted, psycho-insane reasons. It's hard to overcome but it isn't impossible, it doesn't feel impossible. Not with Charles. It used to be impossible. Something that built on an ordinary hang-up and exacerbated it until it fundamentally altered him, forever. But it was never meant to be who he was.  
  
“I didn’t say cute,” Charles protests, laughing himself, smiling himself, even around the tears and some of the constriction in his chest. “I said strong. And yes. I think you are,” he whispers, and the sincerity there is impossible to miss. He means it. “I think you’re very strong, and you don’t need to worry about -- about things like this. Feeling upset, or crying, or needing help. That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?” It’s shy, but that’s sincere, too. “You said you were sorry before, for… but that’s not what hurt me,” and it’s difficult to admit it, here. But he thinks he needs to. “Before, when you remembered, it wasn’t… this. It was the way he reacted. He pushed me away. He didn’t let me help. He started to get panicked, and then he shut down. Sometimes he got very cold and far away.” Even speaking about it makes Charles swallow. “I think he was trying to be strong. But it hurt me,” he whispers, and it hurts him to say it. "I didn't... like obeying him like that. It didn't feel good. It didn't make me feel good." And he closes his eyes as tightly as they'll go again, because he hates himself for saying it. For feeling it, too, however true it is.  
  
Erik swallows, and presses his cheek to Charles's again, mostly just for the sensation. "What if I remember and I become like that again?" What if he was like that because he just couldn't handle it, he couldn't deal with it, he had to cut it off, and cut everything off, even Charles. What if he never gets any better, what if all of this is for nothing? "Don't want to hurt. I-some things-I-some things I experience and I can't even talk about, I don't have words, I don't know the words in-in your language and I don't know them in-in my language, I never even learned, I never knew anything, I never learned anything. And I can't talk but I know it, and I-I think _I'm-happy_ I don't so I don't have to talk, so you won't ever know. Nobody can ever know. And he felt like that all the time and, and I'm the same, and I'll just hurt you."  
  
But Charles shakes his head, swallows, too, and kisses Erik’s cheek again. “You’re learning,” he promises, quietly. “Just like me, right? You’re learning. Look.” It’s not clear what he means at first, but he takes Erik’s hand and puts it on his own cheek. “You couldn’t speak at first, but you stayed and you felt and you didn’t drop me. And you’ll teach me your language so I understand more,” he adds, though he knows that’s not the point. “Won’t you?”  
  
Erik's thumb rubs against the skin it finds itself resting along without conscious volition. "I will," he promises. It doesn't feel like he's learning, it just feels like he's going backwards and backwards, but maybe that's just because he doesn't have anything to compare it to. He just doesn't understand, much in the same way that he can't name what's happening to him or why. In the same way that Charles often can't, when he just doesn't know, and Erik feels like it's trapped inside of him, like he physically can't speak. Suffocated by silence. "I-I-when-" he doesn't know how to explain it beyond literally that, which is nothing, like dry heaving, his body is trying to force him to expel it, and he can't, it's just not possible. "I don't know," he mumbles, giving up.  
  
Charles nuzzles into Erik’s hand, into even the hint of a touch, grateful and seeking. “You don’t have to know right now,” he whispers back, and smiles, soft and genuine and a little relieved. “It’s alright not to know. It’s alright not to be able to speak of it yet, or even know what it is. But we’ll... we’ll try, won’t we?” He bites his lip. “You’d like me to try, too?”  
  
Erik nods, sincere. "Yes. I really do like if you try too. And I will try to help best as I can, even if I don't know a lot. I'm not a doctor or anything," he laughs a little. "But I-what I said before, I mean it. We can just start, and see, and learn new things. I hope we can. I'm sorry I-get scared, and weird, sometimes. But-you help me," he kisses Charles on the forehead. "You don't know how much you did." Because for a moment there it felt like he was going to die, literally die, as dramatic as that sounds.  
  
Charles has no idea what comes over him. He truly doesn’t. What he does know is that he suddenly shifts, and his arms are wrapped around Erik’s neck, his face buried in his shoulder. “You aren’t weird, and I’ll help you when you’re scared,” he promises, but his voice is shaking. “But please — please don’t get cold. Please. It frightens me,” he gasps, like he’s just admitting it for the first time. It’s not fair to put on this Erik, who’s never done it. But it’s such a relief that it hasn’t happened that he’s overcome by it. “I want to be trained. Just not like that. Please.”  
  
Erik blinks, and then he looks well and truly sad. "But I'm always cold," he replies mournfully. "It's OK. I can figure my power and maybe I won't be so cold all the time?" He really doesn't understand why that matters, but, it obviously matters a great deal to Charles, and he doesn't even think to question it.  
  
Charles takes a long time to process that. The first sign of a reaction are his shaking shoulders, and then it’s a snort, and finally full peals of laughter. Near hysteric, loud giggles, that he tries to muffle in Erik’s shoulder but doesn’t quite manage. Once they start, he can’t stop. He’s shaking with them.  
  
"I'm sorry!" Erik chuckles a little bit. "I don't mean it. It's hot in _Negev_! It really makes you scared?" Charles doesn't seem scared, though. "...You are not talking about being _cold_ , are you."  
  
Charles shakes his head around the giggles. When he can finally stop to breathe, he gasps out, “No. In English, it means — it has a connotation of...” There’s no way Erik’s going to know the word _connotation_. He laughs even harder, shaking his head again. “Withdrawn. Far away. Distant. Like you — like you don’t... care, much,” he mumbles, because it’s not quite right, but it’s close. “No emotion. That frightens me. I don’t like it. It also frightens me when you won’t let me turn the air conditioner on in ninety degree weather, though,” he adds for good measure. “I get hot and I sweat. It’s unpleasant.”  
  
Erik grins back, toothy. "You're cute when you sweat. Maybe I do it on purpose," his eyebrows waggle, purposefully corny. He breathes in slowly through his nose. "I don't want to be like that. I don't know lots of stuff, I can't-I can't know, but not that. I don't think it feels good to be like that, too. Not just because of you, but me too. I would just be alone and by my self and-it will just-I do not know, why I would-would choose that. I don't want it. And I don't want you to choose that. Never. I won't let you."  
  
“So... we’ll just try?” he breathes, still clinging tightly, still buried in Erik’s neck. “A clean slate? A fresh start?” He pauses, and Erik can feel him grin against his skin. “You’ll let me use the air conditioner?”  
  
Erik sticks his tongue out. "Of course you can use the air conditioner. I want you to be comfortable," he whispers back like it 's a big secret (it isn't). "We just try. And do our best."  
  
“You, usually, you...” Charles bites his lip. “When I come to your room, you pick my clothes out. While I’m doing my Postures. You go and make sure my room is... well, you look, I don’t know what for, you never say, it was only a few times,” he mutters, embarrassed, “and you pick clothes. I was getting dressed before I came to you but then you told me not to, and you said it was because you wanted to pick my clothes, and —“ Charles doesn’t even know if that’s something Erik still cares about. His cheeks feel hot again. “But, you could pick less heavy clothes. I get hot easily.” He’s grinning again, humming against Erik’s skin. “You said I could make suggestions,” he points out, sounding pleased with himself. “Less sweaters and black long-sleeves in summer.”  
  
It makes him laugh, fond. He doesn't say his first thought, because it sounds incredibly crass, even to him. "I pick heavy ones even if you say you are hot? That does not sound right," he presses his lips together. Maybe he didn't realize? It wouldn't have occurred to him naturally, most people think they're the status quo.  
  
Charles shakes his head and goes quiet. He’s very glad he’s buried himself in Erik’s shoulder, that he’s still got his arms tightly wrapped around his neck. “I believe you thought you could just... fix things, with your mutation? But things work very strangely. I don’t believe you realized.” Charles feel guilty for it, actually, because he’s positive it’s his fault. “But it’s alright. I should have told you. I didn’t, because...” There’s a pause, and then Charles shrugs. He doesn’t know why. “Clean slate?” he mumbles, hopeful.  
  
"Mhmn," Erik rumbles unhappily. "So you reverse whatever I did, then didn't tell me and let yourself feel bad? You know that is _not_ acceptable." It's a little, well rather much, different than the response he probably would've gotten from the other Erik, who was more prone to let things go. This one is not. He recognizes that Charles told him, fine, but that kind of behavior isn't something he will tolerate, even in passing.  
  
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he mutters, a mix of defensiveness and embarrassment. There’s a downward curve to his lips that looks entirely too much like a pout. “It just happens. I didn’t tell you because — because I didn’t... why does it matter?” is what he goes for, huffing. “This way you didn’t feel bad about it.”  
  
"I don't feel bad," Erik rumbles, gripping Charles's cheek in his hands. "It matters to me. You did that on purpose when you didn't tell me. That is purposeful. Maybe I can't do it now, I can't do anything, I barely lift a coin. Fine. Does not matter, when something bothers, you tell me."  
  
“I have to tell you when I’m hot?” he wonders, and it’s not necessarily disrespectful, though it’s certainly toeing the line. He bites his lip, because in subspace he knows where that line is. He nestles back into Erik’s shoulder. “What about when I’m hungry, or thirsty, or my head hurts? You want to know that every time? I can’t keep it to myself? Being hot isn’t painful, it’s just... sticky, sometimes.” And unpleasant.  
  
"No, you can't keep to yourself. You are mine. I will take care of you. I will make sure you take care of yourself. You can't keep anything to yourself anymore. Not like that. I expect better," he purrs back, scritching his fingers through Charles's hair.  
  
There’s a long, stretching pause, the darkness still wrapped around them, and then Charles peeks his head up. “For everything? But —“ He’s not sure how to phrase this, really. He shakes his head. “You... didn’t mind, before. I didn’t tell you plenty of things. I just wasn’t allowed to lie.” Sometimes Charles was creative with that.  
  
"And how much did you use that to lie?" Erik shoots back archly. "Or make excuses that you weren't telling me something you know I want to know. I do not care about before. You say clean slate. So what matters now. Hm?" he taps Charles on the nose. "And you are still not allowed to lie."  
  
“I should tell you,” Charles whispers, and it’s not defensive anymore. Perhaps a bit resigned, because he knows he won’t always want to share with Erik, but there’s no attitude. He settles back into Erik’s shoulder, and their surroundings look remarkably less like a Void and more like one of the living rooms at the Manor, however dark it is. “Because it’s a clean slate and you’re not exactly him. Does that mean...” He doesn’t know what he wants to ask, actually. He shakes his head, then takes another breath. “How will we do things? From now on?”  
  
"Does it mean?" Erik wonders, swaying unconsciously from side to side. "We will do things... like this," he laughs a little, and sniffs. "Just talk and be with each other. I don't like all stress and fighting. You guys did a lot, I don't know why. It seem really obvious for me. I think he just did not... I don't know. Do anything. But we aren't like that. I'm not like that. You are mine. I expect you to obey me."  
  
Charles bites his lip. It takes him a very long time to respond, and when he does, at first it’s just a shake of his head. “No, that’s not good enough,” he decides, rather matter of fact about it.

* * *

Erik looks a little like he's been smacked and he blinks. "I-what?"  
  
Okay, maybe that was too blunt. Charles peeks up from Erik’s shoulder again to touch his cheek, to calm the both of them, taking a shaky breath. “I think I get scared and frustrated when I don’t know what’s expected of me,” he whispers. It feels like something he should be ashamed of, so he is, staring down at his own lap. Squirming out of Erik’s hold. “Before, you said things like, well, you just obey me. It’s that easy. You don’t need to be told things, Charles, you know. But I don’t. I didn’t. And then we’d both get upset. I don’t think I do well with things so... flexible, and wide-open. At least not for right now, while you’re — ah, training me.” He swallows. “Was I allowed to say that?” he wonders.  
  
Erik still doesn't look like he gets it. "Well of course you are told things, what do you think you will obey? What I tell you. If there is something you don't know then you ask. It is that easy. What I expect is that you ask. That you defer to me. That you tell me and be honest. How you talk, how you present to me, that is what I expect. When you don't know you ask. You don't guess or make choices yourself. You are allowed to say," he adds with a small smile. "But I expect respect, and not to be told what to do."  
  
Charles bites his lip harder, clearly debating if he wants to keep going. Eventually he settles on nodding. “Alright. That makes sense,” he murmurs, perfectly agreeable. He second guesses that a moment later, and shakes his head. “No, actually, it’s not. Because I’m afraid you just won’t tell me anything, so can you... I don’t know, give me examples? Can we talk about it?”  
  
Erik nods, but he doesn't look like he understands. "Of course we could. Examples like what? I don't really know what you mean," he admits, too. Usually in the past their conversations about this would stall because Erik would just bowl him over and insist it was fine, because he didn't want to admit he didn't understand, but this one doesn't seem to have a problem with it.  
  
They’re running into a problem here, because Charles doesn’t really know, either. At least not exactly. “What kind of things would you expect of me? What do you think I should do, as your submissive?”  
  
Erik shrugs. "I think you should do what I say. I think you must rely on me, and lean on me. Let me make the choice, not you. What you are allowed to do, I say. You defer to me. You become your best, in every way. Not just blindly do what I want, because it is for you, to make you better. I don't-I do not know what you mean," he peers into Charles's eyes, his eyebrows creased, trying to grasp it but he doesn't. "I don't-know what you mean. Like-chores? Your routine? Take care of me? I know you are asking for specifics but your question-too vague. I don't really know what you are looking for. I have plenty of opinions about everything, I just don't know what you want to hear about. You need to tell me."  
  
It makes Charles visibly relax, no longer so tensed up and worried. “You have opinions and you’ll tell me?” he breathes, like that’s a novel concept. “I want to hear everything. I want us to talk about it. I want you to expect things, please. I don’t like... not having direction,” he admits, ashamed again, and sits back until he’s barely on Erik’s lap, now uncomfortably aware that he’s still naked, no longer floating in the Void but on a couch. “I don’t like you telling me that I do what you say, and then letting me — I don’t know what it is,” he sighs, frustrated with himself again. “Why it never feels like... enough, for me. Maybe it’s me. It’s what I think I want, but it always makes me feel...” He shrugs. He can’t put it to words, much less ones Erik will follow.  
  
Erik yanks him right back into place, rubbing his hand against Charles's chest. "Of course I tell you. And I have no intention of letting you do anything. The things you do is because I said it, I decide it. You will be with me. You will learn from me. Of course I expect. Like now. I expect you stop trying to go away, to settle. Not shame and frustrated. And to be open, and respectful. And you are doing that," he adds fondly.  
  
“But...” It’s not even arguing, really. Not with this Erik, and this is meant to be a clean slate. But he needs to be clear about this. “I asked for this before, and you always wanted me to tell you what I thought you should expect or want, and you didn’t tell me and you didn’t expect it and then I’d do whatever I felt like, mostly, until you got upset enough at something that you reacted and...” He bites his lip. “That’s not very good, is it?” he guesses. He wonders if it’ll sound wrong, to this Erik. He decides to tack on, rather unceremoniously, “May I please go put on clothes?” His cheeks are burning again.  
  
"We are in the middle of conversation," Erik rumbles. "So no you can't go. And I don't want you to go. I expect when we are intimate you won't get up and leave and get dressed right after, to start." His eyebrows arch, unimpressed by the request. "I do not need you to tell me what you think I expect. That is not your place. Your place here," he gives Charles's ass a sharp scratch of reprimand. "Until I say you can go."  
  
“It isn’t right after and it’s cold and —“ It’s not cold, actually, considering he’d just finished complaining about the heat not too long ago, but he’s painfully aware of it and now he’s fussing, moving his hand back to rub at his sore ass with a frown. “I’ll come back,” Charles mutters, huffing. “You said I should tell you when I’m uncomfortable.”  
  
"Mhm," Erik growls, and snatches up Charles's hands. "And you told me. And I decide. You can't. You _can't_ do it." Erik stares at him, wide-eyed, still evidently fragile, still with so much churning beneath the surface he can't name.

* * *

Charles’ eyes go wide, too. He’s staring, evidently shocked, entirely speechless. “I can’t?” he rasps. “You said no?” It’s almost like he didn’t comprehend.  
  
"I say no," Erik rumbles back, his lips brushing over the shell of Charles's ear. "I won't let you."  
  
Charles doesn’t even know what to do with that. He shivers, and tries to use his hands to cover himself, biting at the inside of his cheek but not protesting. “When can I put clothes on?” he asks, instead.  
  
"When I say so," Erik replies, his hands still captured within Erik's, and his statement is quite matter of fact, too. Something about the idea of Charles leaving-so soon after, it hurts. It physically hurts. No. He won't. Erik won't let him.  
  
It’s not that he’s leaving. Honestly, it makes Charles feel a little anxious, too, still slowly coming down from that deep, hazy place, being separated from Erik sounds horrible, but now he shifts on Erik’s lap, clearly fidgeting. “When’s that?” he prods.  
  
"No," Erik growls, which isn't an answer, but it is, too. "No!" His arms tighten over Charles more, and he shakes his head again, buried in Charles's shoulder. No.  
  
Charles stops fidgeting rather immediately, and not just because he’s physically being held in place. “You’re upset,” he croaks, and it’s upsetting him, clearly. “I didn’t — I just...” He shakes his head. He shouldn’t have pushed, obviously. Charles purses his lips and says nothing, his stomach churning.  
  
"Won't let you," Erik whispers, rubbing his back. "You, you, you wanna know I expect, you won't go. Won't let you go. It's important."  
  
“I just wanted to be covered,” he whispers, because he hadn’t been asking to bolt. Charles had meant it, and Erik can tell by the sincerity in his voice, when he’d told him he’d come back. He takes a sharp breath, cheeks still very pink. “I’m... not very comfortable. Being naked.” Yet, maybe, if it’s something Erik expects him to get used to. “I — it, it gets embarrassing, and overwhelming, when we’re not...” He squirms again, trailing off.  
  
Erik runs his fingers down Charles's throat. "I'm not comfortable either," he admits, pressing his lips together with a little shrug of his eyebrows. It's an incredible understatement, one he didn't expect himself to admit to at all. "But you are mine. I'm yours. And not just-for certain times, or with the lights off, or whatever," he huffs. "You want to be mine. Be mine. Be with me. You are beautiful. I like touching you. I don't want to end so soon. I expect it won't."  
  
“But...” Charles swallows and closes his eyes tightly. “It — it doesn’t end, I want to still discuss this, but...” But not naked. He doesn’t want to have this discussion naked like this and he doesn’t know why. “Please? I — let me just cover myself,” he whispers, throat dry. “I’m embarrassed. I’d like to wear clothes. Why won’t you let me?” And it’s not disrespectful, actually. He’s asking.  
  
"I-don't know!" Erik throws a hand up. "Just like everything else I don't know." And that response just makes it worse, incredibly so, whatever the problem is. Erik holds out his hand and Charles hears the rustle of fabric before he feels it against his skin, and Erik wraps him up, letting Charles off of his lap to rest his back against the wall and tuck him into his arm.  
  
Charles curls up against the back of the couch, curled into himself more than Erik, now, and wrapped up thoroughly in the blanket he’s been given that got pulled from the back of it. He swallows, visibly, then swallows again, and again, and again. “I’m sorry,” he gasps, and his head is too bowed for Erik to see his expression, but his voice cracks.  
  
Erik thinks he knows what Charles means when he says he used to get cold because he is embarrassed and ashamed and frustrated and he wants to scream and throw things, and he doesn't even know why, which only makes it worse, and it's not fair to take it out on Charles. At least if he doesn't react, he won't react _poorly_. He inhales shakily and jerks his head to the side, pulling Charles against him, back where he belongs. "Didn't do anything wrong, you said what you need like I tell you to."  
  
It certainly feels like he did something wrong. Charles wipes what he hopes is subtly at his face with the blanket, tense and unnaturally still now in Erik’s arms. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” he gasps, shaking his head. “I — I just wanted to know if we could work up to it. Like, you, you could... I don’t know,” he mutters, feeling stupid himself. “I’m sorry,” he adds, again, and his voice cracks, again.  
  
And he doesn't realize that for all the ways that he has improved, this is the one area where his skills are dramatically reduced. He doesn't know how to ease things, or soothe people, or make situations flow naturally instead of grind to an awkward halt, especially when there's too much at work under the surface that he doesn't understand. He stares up at the ceiling. "No apology," he murmurs back, petting Charles's hair. "We can work. You-you didn't upset, it's-I'm-" Erik doesn't know, anyway, so what's the point.  
  
Charles swallows. “No, I did,” he argues, because from his perspective he did. There’s a sound that’s suspiciously like a sniffle. “And I don’t understand why,” he admits. “And I know you don’t, either, but —“ He doesn’t want to displease his Dominant right now. “Can you, can you —“ He’s not sure what he’s asking for. He’s just taking shakier breaths, bunching the blanket up as tight around him as it’ll go.  
  
"It don't-" Erik whispers fiercely, shaking his head. "Because I don't know any way and I never know any thing and nothing ever-and this me from now on just me, now," he picks up a plastic knick-knack on the end table and throws it petulantly at the opposite wall. Because he feels humiliated and exposed and he doesn't know why, and nothing makes any sense.  
  
Charles flinches at the noise that makes, and it’s incredibly childish, but he becomes more of a Charles-shaped lump underneath the blanket. “It’s alright,” he whispers, muffled. “It’s alright not to know. We can figure it out. I don’t know why I needed to go a little... why I — but we can talk about it?” he suggests, because that’s what they both proposed. Just talking. There doesn’t have to be fighting and slammed doors. Charles doesn’t want there to be.  
  
It makes a squeak because it's a foam toy, but Erik feels-cold. He feels cold. He swallows, and tugs down the blanket, taking Charles's hand in his and pressing it against his own cheek. "OK," he rasps, even though he really doesn't want to talk about it-about him, about whatever he feels, he doesn't want to examine it, or look at it, or feel it. Charles said he didn't want Erik to feel like this, and he does. "I feel-cold," he whispers.  
  
Charles tries not to let his stomach drop at that. It feels less like he’s going to fall apart now that he’s touching Erik, at least, but his hand is visibly shaking. “Can I help?” he asks first, his voice hoarse, still mostly burrowed into the blanket but now inching toward Erik, too. “Can you try to tell me why? I don’t want you to feel cold, but it’s alright if you do. But I can help.”  
  
Erik breathes harshly. "It feels like I am falling apart. I'm dissolving. I'm mad, I'm so mad, I don't know why, I don't know. You-you can't just _go_. You can't go," he pokes Charles in the chest with his index finger. "I d-don't-I d-wanna get mad, don't make sense, I'm just all wrong. You-" his chest is heaving unevenly. "You can't just-and then-you can't."  
  
Charles tries to take an even breath, too, but it gets stuck in his chest. He shakes his head, not comprehending, really, but wanting to, and ends up basically in Erik’s lap again, anyway, just wrapped up in a blanket now, hugging him. “You can be angry,” he promises, quietly. “You’re allowed to be angry. It’s alright to feel that. But I’m not going anywhere. I wasn’t going anywhere. You told me no, so I didn’t go. I’m still here. You’re allowed to tell me no, and you did.”  
  
"This is not-!" Erik stares up at him, swallowing roughly, nearly choking on it, tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and he wheezes, thumping at his own chest. Trying to swallow it all back down, all the poison, so it doesn't get out and infect anyone else. The closer he gets, though, the more Erik seems to untense, and he wraps himself up in the blanket, too, shivering a little. "I don't want anybody else. Just you. You can't just go." It doesn't make any sense, but-nothing about this really does, not to him.  
  
“I’m not going anywhere,” Charles repeats, quieter this time, softer. He’s careful to keep the blanket between their skin, but he presses his cheek against Erik’s bare chest, shivering. It helps him more than he’d thought it might. “I wasn’t going anywhere. Of course I wasn’t. You told me no, and I didn’t go. Remember? I didn’t. I stayed here. I wouldn’t leave you,” he promises, solemn and sincere. “I didn’t want to. I think I would have dropped, if I went. I’m still --” He swallows, and gestures, entirely too vaguely.  
  
"You want to," Erik shakes his head, pressing his teeth together, so hard it sends a shooting, visceral agony through his jaw that makes him gasp in shock. "You want to, you want to go, and-I don't know-" he doesn't know why that bothers him so much. But it does, it really, truly does. "And I-ah!" he claps his hand to his jaw. "And-"  
  
Charles blinks, utterly confused and horrified. He sits up on his knees, grabbing for both of Erik’s cheeks in his hands, his eyes wide and startled as he shakes his head, rapidly, back and forth and back. “No, I don’t,” he protests. “I don’t. I don’t want to go anywhere. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I didn’t want to leave, I just wanted to be covered, why is that wrong? I just --” But it’s not about him. He sucks in a harsh breath, and tries to remind himself of that. Erik said he hadn’t done anything wrong. “I didn’t want to leave and I don’t. I wanted to stay here and talk. I did. Didn’t you? Aren’t we?”  
  
Erik winces harshly, looking more-normal, than he ever has, looking like he's genuinely in pain, and Erik is wrong, he's-wrong. "Want to stay? I didn't just make-and-I-you can't leave me, please-nnhh _manyak mizdayen_!" he swears lowly, rubbing at his jaw. "Ow," he croaks, blinking tears out of his eyes.  
  
“Of course not.” And then Charles huffs, very Charles like even as if he feels dizzy and a little sick and he’s covered very obviously in cold-sweat below the blanket and touches Erik’s jaw, frowning. “Don’t do that,” he scolds, much more sheepish than he is severe, because he knows it isn’t his place to scold.  
  
"Mmmm-what?" Erik, pupils dilated wildly. He's less upset the longer Charles is with him, and talking to him, and touching to him. "Do what? Not doin' nothing," he mumbles, wincing harshly when Charles touches his jaw, but unwilling to let the contact go, pressing his hand closer instead.  
  
“Clenching and grinding your teeth. You’ll hurt them,” he sighs, and strokes Erik’s jaw gently, before leaning forward to place a soft, shy kiss there. “Don’t,” he repeats, more boldly this time because he didn’t get told not to. “Do you understand? No hurting yourself or I’ll be cross.”  
  
Erik frowns, and snatches up Charles's finger to give it a bite, which also makes him wince. "I can't help," he pouts mightily. His whole body just feels so tense sometimes, but he's beginning to think he's made a big mistake by indulging it. "Please don't go," he whispers again. "Please. I-I need you to stay."  
  
Charles squeaks as he’s bitten, pouting, too, but he shakes his head. “No, I won’t. I didn’t want to, Erik. I’m staying. And you were right, we were in the middle of a conversation,” he mumbles, sheepish again as he pulls the blanket tighter around himself. “You decide when we’re finished, right? And you did. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay. I just, I just wondered if we could work up to...” He bites his lip. “You have to train me,” he reminds, quietly. “That older version of you seemed to think I had a long way to go,” he laughs, a little self-deprecating, a little broken.  
  
"We can," Erik whispers. He doesn't know why he had such a visceral reaction, he still doesn't know, but Charles reassuring him that he doesn't want to leave, that he wants to stay and talk and work on things, that makes it better. Easier. Like he can breathe. "We can work. And I will train you. And I have long way too. Please be patient. Don't go away or give up."  
  
Charles takes a deep breath, then he settles more comfortably against Erik, curled up into his side. He’s more comfortable now, maybe even floating again, now that he’s covered up and Erik isn’t panicking. “It’s late, I think,” he mumbles, and squints in the dark at the clock on the other side of the room. It is, despite it being relatively early in the evening in that other place, despite it being morning when they got there. Time always gets a bit messy when they do that, but he knows he’s hungry, and also exhausted. “Can you make soup?” He’s not sure why he asks it, or how it even comes to mind. It just slips out of his mouth, and then he flushes, ducking into Erik’s side. “Please,” he adds. He’s not sure why his request feels so embarrassing. Maybe it’s just that it is a request.

* * *

It makes Erik smile, though, brilliantly even as he winces. He especially likes it when Charles does ask him for things. "Yes," he whispers. "You help me with soup," he pokes Charles's nose playfully and helps them both to stand, still refusing to separate from Charles for even a moment. His statement isn't a request. Charles will help him, he will continue helping him, and serving him, even in a matter as simple as dinner. "What kind soup? Banana soup. Cheesecake soup. _Lizard_ soup? Very nutritious."  
  
Erik can apparently cook still and Charles has never been more grateful. But when they stand, he bites his lip hard enough that it bleeds, staring down at his feet. “Can we get dressed first?” he whispers, hugging the blanket tightly to himself. “Warm soup. With tea. And something sweet,” he adds, for good measure. This Erik doesn’t know of his sweet tooth yet. He clearly plans to take advantage of it.  
  
That makes Erik nod almost ferociously. "No one else will see you," he growls, gripping Charles's chin in his hand. "Unless emergency. No one. Ever. I-" he doesn't know how to find the words to express. When they first came together, Erik had seemed open to the possibility, or at least offered it, but it becomes very clear right now that he'd been doing that exclusively for Charles's benefit and not his own, having no conception of boundaries or his own personal desires and wishes. This Erik isn't the same. "You can't. You can't."  
  
Charles blinks, utterly confused. “No one... sees me?” he repeats, expression twisted with that confusion. “But... we’re alone,” he points out, quietly. Maybe Erik just hasn’t noticed, but they’re back where they started. The manor is quiet, almost eerily so, and much more... bare. Almost cold, really, and there doesn’t seem to be much they can do for it. “What do you mean?” he asks, in case he’s gotten it wrong.  
  
Erik peers down at him and then huffs a little, ducking his head sheepishly. "Oh," he mumbles, and then wraps Charles up tight. Of course he didn't notice. He didn't notice anything except for Charles. He never has, not when it matters. Where they are, who they're with. What's important is his submissive. "Well. Just so you know," he bops Charles's nose again, his own wrinkling up.  
  
But Charles shakes his head. “We need to be around other people, eventually,” he whispers. He’s staring at his feet again, gripping the blanket tightly, and worming his way out of Erik’s arms, more restless than wanting actual space between them. He almost sounds frightened about that. He is.  
  
Erik blinks, now it's his turn to be confused. "Of course," he nods. "But you will wear clothes," he insists, and tugs Charles back. "We will." Erik isn't ready for that right now, for himself. The world is too big and cruel and he doesn't really want to face it, not right now. They will, but-just not yet. Not yet. "But right now we will make soup. I still cook," he tries to lighten the mood, tries to shake off the vestiges of whatever had arisen in him earlier.  
  
Maybe Charles isn’t, either. Sometimes he feels awfully trapped and lonely, not that he’d ever tell Erik that — at least not right at the moment — and he longs for other people, other connections, outside interaction, but tonight he thinks it might be alright to put it on the back burner. He’s still regretful they never made it to the dinner they were invited to, and it seems rather rude, how they left, but he shakes it off. “Clothes first,” he reminds, and wriggles right back out of Erik’s arms, but not far. “I... can meet you back down here?” Part of him just wants to know that he can be separated without — well, without not being able to breathe. He’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop. The panic, the sweating, the horrible, wrenching pain in his gut and constricted chest.  
  
Well Charles may be able to, but Erik doesn't look like it. Because Charles is still doing it, he's still leaving, just because it's two minutes later than the first time doesn't change that he's still leaving, and that makes Erik feel cold in a way he can't begin to articulate. "OK," is what he says, inhaling slowly. "OK."  
  
Charles shakes his head, though. “Come with me upstairs?” he suggests instead, because Erik has to get dressed, too. “I have some clothes in your room. I can wear one of your shirts?” he suggests. “I’m not leaving, I just — I...” He bites his lip. “We can go together. Why don’t you say no? You decide,” he reminds Erik. “You said you wouldn’t let me decide.”  
  
Erik ducks his head away, wiping at his eyes. "Because I-because you said-" because he said it wasn't healthy to be around each other all the time, that Erik had to learn to live without Charles sometimes, to be on his own, they were just different. But this is-this is something else, it's not the same as that, but Erik doesn't know, he doesn't have the words, he doesn't know the names. He crouches to the floor all of a sudden, covering his face with both hands, breathing slowly and calmly.  
  
Charles hesitates and then he crouches with him, swallowing hard. “What’s happening? What are you feeling? I’m not going anywhere. If you don’t want me to go anywhere, you can just say that. You’re in charge, remember?” he tries to tease, at a loss. Feeling horrible again, though he doesn’t know what he’s done this time, and it’s unfortunately written on his expression, that helplessness. “Can we... not go together? I don’t know what to do,” he admits, and tries not to get unsteady. He touches Erik’s face, over his hands, tries to gently pry them away. “Tell me what to do. What you feel like you need. Then we can do it, you decide.”  
  
"I _juh_ -I-I just need to lay on the floor," Erik whines, curling up into a ball. He just has to lay on the floor and Charles has to be there and he has to be crazy and out of control, because the alternative is he gets himself under wraps and then-and it would be bad, he would go away. He would go away. "I-I don't want you to go," he says in between harsh panting breaths. "I don't want you go I don't _do_ that anymore, I don't do it. I won't."  
  
The noise that comes out of Charles’ mouth is, quite simply, a fit of frustration, an expression of absolute helplessness. It comes out of his mouth, and then he pulls at his hair with the hand he’s not clinging to the blanket with, and then he turns around and kicks the couch with his full force, which does absolutely nothing to make him feel better but brings stinging tears to his eyes. It’s a silly, childish fit. He takes unsteady, wholly uneven breaths through his nose, and runs a hand down his face, ignoring the stinging in his foot. “I’m not going anywhere,” he sighs, and he knows it isn’t fair. He knows it isn’t. Erik doesn’t even understand any of his own responses. But Charles is just -- he’s just -- “I told you we’d go upstairs together, so why don’t we just go upstairs together,” he mutters, and it’s so very unlike a Charles with his memories at even his most impatient that it’s shocking. It’s a boiling point. He hasn’t learned some skills, either. Many of them.

* * *

He sees Erik's face shut down entirely, something that he hasn't seen since before Erik lost his memories. He wrenches his hands away from Charles and rises to his feet in a fluid motion, grabbing a piece of fabric for himself to tie it around his waist. His expression is dark, and glowering, and infuriated, when the mask slips for a moment. He hasn't learned how to keep it in place.  
  
It’s not a very good mask. It actually makes Charles’ whole body tense up more than seeing just the mask would, and he doesn’t even know what’s happening or why it is. He doesn’t know what to do, here. His foot hurts. It’s not broken or anything dramatic, but it smarts, and he’s having such a hard time even getting one decent breath in through his overwhelmed lungs. “Erik?” he asks, and his own voice is quiet again. He has to swallow around it.  
  
"Charles," he just rasps back. "Just go upstairs," he replies, because it feels like an atomic bomb has gone off in his brain. He is so angry, disjointed, confused, devastated, that he can't stop shaking from it. He shakes his head. "No, you stay here." He growls, pointing a finger at him. "Just come on." He clamps his hand on Charles's shoulder and helps lead him up the stairs.  
  
Charles swallows again, opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He doesn’t actually understand part of what Erik’s said, but his actions speak loud enough, so he climbs dutifully up the stairs and ignores how it feels like all of his toes are throbbing in mild agony. To be honest, he doesn’t even understand the reaction, or his own reaction, or what’s happening; he just walks on autopilot, and pauses halfway down the hall because he doesn’t actually know where they’re going. He waits for Erik to tell him, head bowed, fingers grasping tightly to the blanket that he's now shivering in.  
  
"I am-sorry," Erik whispers. "Sorry you got me. Sorry I don't know, sorry I can't say. I am sorry it gets upset and frightening, I am sorry. But you cannot-we-cannot- _talk_ each other like that way. I won't allow it. Now get dressed and I look at your foot." Erik picks out a pair of pajamas for Charles and presses them into his hands. "You can't talk me that way. Because that-" he laughs, and shakes his head. It doesn't matter, really. "Maybe he let you, I won't." He's still trying, as hard as he can, to be here and not shut down, not react out of frustration, not yell and throw things the way he wants to do, too. His mind runs over it again, the feelings keep hitting him again, and he just clenches, and presses his teeth together, which makes electric agony rend through his jaw, but it's at least focusing.  
  
Charles’ clenches his teeth together, too, grinds them, bites on his lip until he tastes blood and turns the other way around before he dresses. He doesn’t say anything, he’s not even certain if he feels anything, everything pressed tightly up inside of him. But he notices when he’s facing Erik again. “Please don’t do that,” he whispers. He steps forward, then changes his mind and steps back, but he’s looking at Erik’s jaw. “It’s hurting you. Please stop.” He doesn’t say anything else and promptly goes back to staring at the floor, actually.  
  
Erik glares at him. "You don't yell at me and throw things and kick things around and hurt yourself and stomp off, and _leave_. No, I can't. You _said_ you will help, you said will listen you say you want me expect from you. No, because you said you don't want me to go away, well I'm here, and it hurts, at least I'm still _here_. Come downstairs now and we make dinner," he growls the Order, flinging the door open with a twist of his wrist. "You want it to be tense and angry, fine. You want to go away and- _fine_!"  
  
Charles swallows so thickly he thinks it sticks in his throat, and his feet start to move but he’s shaking his head, a wholly strange sensation. “That’s not fair,” he gasps, and there are tears in his eyes that now have nothing to do with his foot. “That’s not fair. I’m sorry I hurt you and spoke to you like that but that’s — I didn’t leave,” he stresses, and he just doesn’t understand this. He shakes his head again. “I didn’t throw things. I didn’t yell. I didn’t stomp off. I got frustrated and I’m sorry but —“ He bites his tongue because this isn’t the time for a but you did, too! He takes another breath. “That isn’t fair,” he repeats.  
  
"And now I just say all these horrible things!" Erik doesn't even really seem to hear what's going on. "And everything is bad, and horrible, and wrong, and twisted, I am twisted, it is all twisted, I am poisoned! This-and this is just-and-will this happen every time, I can't do it, I don't do that anymore, I don't!" he's hemorrhaging words, tripping over one another, it's not making any sense at all, he doesn't even know what he's talking about. They're not even fighting, because Erik isn't trading blows with him, he's just-hemorrhaging. "I-you said I wasn't sick-I am, I am, I am _telling_ you, I am, you are a doctor, you should know, I am."  
  
Charles’ hands come up to his hair again and he takes a sharp breath and pulls. It doesn’t make him feel any better, but it’s the only thing he can think to do. He’s starting to shake again. “Just - take a breath,” he suggests, and tries to keep his own voice even, keep his own breathing even. He’s covering his own face. He isn’t a doctor, why doesn’t Erik understand that? He isn’t anything. This was supposed to help. It was helping. “Just, just take a breath, just take a breath, you aren’t broken, you aren’t twisted or sick, take a breath —“ He’s talking to himself, this time, because he’s the only suddenly hyperventilating in the middle of the room. “Just take a breath, just take a breath,” he’s repeating, and the more he does the less he’s able to breathe.  
  
The trouble is Erik can't cope, and Charles can't cope with the fact that Erik can't cope, so he can't stay. He can't stay here. His emotions, his reactions, they're too big. There's no space anywhere. He doesn't know how to stay, how to be different than he was. He is made of sludge, he is sterile and clean and cold and empty, exposed, diseased. He is poisoning Charles, making him-miserable, making him like this, and now that he isn't inside his own body anymore it's easy to see, it's easy to see that he caused all of this. He just steps closer and wraps Charles up in his arms, trying his best to feel it, to feel Charles's breathing against his own chest. He doesn't know what he needs this to be different from, he can't remember, he doesn't know. "I'm sorry," he whispers.  
  
Charles breathes better once he’s touched, if nothing else. He makes funny little wheezing noises at first, punched out little gasps, but he’s shaking his head again even as he hugs Erik back, wraps himself gratefully up in his arms. “No, I’m sorry,” he whispers back, and his voice is cracking again and he’s still sputtering, his chest so tight it’s painful and he’s worried for his poor lungs, squeezed and constricted. “But you — you can, Erik, you can, and you need to. You need to breathe. You need to not, to not —“ Is it even fair to say it? Is he just being horrible? He doesn’t know anymore. He has no clue. He doesn’t remember, either, and he tries very hard not to sob into Erik’s chest, just making those wheezing, gasping breaths instead. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. You’re right. But you’re so — how do you like it when I say I’m awful, terrible, bad, broken? I’ll never be good? I’m rotten, I’ll never be a good submissive —“ It was meant to illustrate a point, but Charles chokes on it, too. “You haven’t — we haven’t even tried, why? Why do you have to just, to just do that? Why does everything have to...” He shakes his head. It feels like there’s blood in his throat, it’s so thick. “I’m terrible and I’m hurting you,” he says, and then he does sob, and wheeze for good measure, too. “I’m broken. It’s me. I can’t even — I’m broken.”  
  
Erik shakes his head. "Something is wrong with me I don't know what, what is. And when you don't know-you know," he shrugs a little, because that must be so obvious. "You feel-broke, it feel, you know. I d-I don't like it, because it's wrong. You're wrong. You aren't those things. I-I don't know if I am, if I am, or if it real a problem, and I-I can't-I don't have the-words, the real words. I'm not-" he's not trying-to be self-pitying, he doesn't know how to say, how to say how he feels, he doesn't know how to name it, what it is. "I didn't mean to make every-everything so terrible. I don't-I don't know what to try, I don't know what to try."  
  
“Why is it terrible?” Charles demands to know, and it’s sudden and it’s a bit aggressive and he’s still crying and it’s mostly muffled and he’s trying to breathe but it’s difficult. He’s failing at it rather miserably, he can never get enough oxygen through his lungs. “It isn’t — it isn’t terrible, it was better, it was so nice, it wasn’t terrible but I ruined it because I don’t do this right, I don’t know how to stay —“ He swallows, and it feels like it clots again. Blood trapped in his throat and he’s choking around it. “I’m broken. Something in me is broken and it’s making you think you’re broken. Look, I’m broken.” He doesn’t know what he means, but he’s not breathing. It’s not happening. “I knew it, I knew it would happen, I knew it, I knew it, I’m broken —“  
  
"You don't need to know," Erik shrugs. "I will make you. But when you did, I-when you wanted to, I-I don't know. Something is wrong, something is happening to me. I'm good at making you stay, you do, we do good. It's nice. But when you want-want to leave, then, I don't know. Something happened. I'm sorry. It isn't ruined, I just-I-I don't know, all I know, fighting, and, and leaving, I-I couldn't-I couldn't, I'm sorry. You are not broken. You are mine. "


	131. You don't need this disease, you don't, you don't

“Then why can’t I breathe?” Charles wants to know, and he sounds thoroughly panicked because he is. Because he’s still wheezing and it doesn’t feel like he’ll ever get enough air again and he grabs helplessly at Erik’s shirt but it doesn’t help. “Then why can’t I breathe —“ He repeats again, and then he does really start to wheeze, harsh, panting noises that don’t even sound like they resemble breaths.  
  
"I don't know," Erik whispers. "'Cuz I got upset," is all he can figure. "But you can breathe. You _will_ breathe," he Orders softly. "And, just listen, and feel. I am here. Didn't go anywhere." It's not as confident and assured and practiced as he used to be, he doesn't have any experience, he doesn't know. But he's sincere.  
  
It takes a long time for Charles to get in enough air to not feel dizzy and lightheaded, even though he’s physically breathing just like Erik said to. He’s still hyperventilating, though he does respond to Erik’s voice, to the Order, to his Will; big, sucking breaths eventually become soft little pants and he’s crying but not uncontrollably, mostly just from how frightened he was. “Talk to me? Please,” he begs, and he’s still holding onto Erik’s shirt so tightly his hand hurts. “I’m not broken, I can breathe,” he gasps.  
  
"Not broken. You can breathe," Erik promises. He pets Charles's hair, his neck, his back, in big sweeping motions, trying to comfort him. "Nobody will leave. It's not cold or poisonous or bad, twisted. It's OK." Charles didn't leave. He kept trying to tell Erik that, but Erik couldn't hear him, he was too-upset. He couldn't see, or hear right. But Charles stayed, and-it's not the same, it's not the same as whatever he thinks-whatever he-whatever is wrong with him, Charles didn't cause it. Charles helped. He stayed, and helped. Even if it's hard. "I'm sorry," he sniffs. "I was unfair."  
  
Charles sniffs, too, and after a while finds that breathing isn’t painful and doesn’t take nearly as much conscious effort. His lungs ache, his throat aches, and his head is pounding, but he’s not struggling to get in air anymore and that feels like progress. He’s shaky on his feet and his skin is prickling all over, but he just nestles further into Erik, making a strange, startled noise when he rubs at the back of his neck again. He doesn’t even mean to, but he reaches up to cover Erik’s hand. Not to yank it away, but to keep it there. “Touch there, please?” he requests, muffled into Erik’s shirt. Erik’s other hand is on his back and he arches into that, too. It’s clearly working to calm him. “I’m sorry I got — impatient. I, I don’t know, I just feel helpless,” he breathes, and it comes out as one big exhale. “So helpless. I know sometimes I act poorly. But I didn’t leave, I didn’t want to make you angry or make it bad. I swear.” That’s the truth. He wasn’t trying to start a fight.  
  
"I know," Erik murmurs into his hair, crushing his eyes shut. It isn't Charles's fault he feels mangled and toxic. "You did good," he assures softly because it's true and because he just likes to say it.  
  
Charles shakes his head because he certainly doesn’t think so, but there’s a little ping of something anyway; pleasure, because Charles is pleased, because he’s always perked right up the moment Erik praised him. “No, like this,” he mumbles, and it’s unclear what he means until he moves Erik’s hand on his neck the way he wants to be touched, bossy and practically purring. “That feels good. You’re not angry with me anymore?” he asks, and that’s quiet.  
  
That earns him a sharp pinch of disapproval before Erik settles into touching him like he asked, not demanded. "Not angry," he promises. He doesn't like being angry, but he's better at it than he was. It's easier to focus and deal with it than it was, but he doesn't like it. He tucks Charles's head under his chin, letting his eyes close, trying to untense each muscle consciously.  
  
But Charles bites his lip, wiggling until he can see Erik’s face and isn’t just face planted into his chest, as comfortable and nice as that is. “You know you’re allowed to be angry, though?” he asks, lips pursed. His breathing is still hitchy, but he’s coherent, now, at least, not just gasping for breath. “It’s a normal, healthy emotion. You weren’t very good at it before, but you can be now. Do you know that? It doesn’t make everything bad. I didn’t speak to you very nicely. You’re allowed to be upset.” He frowns, grabbing for Erik’s hand again. “No, do it like before,” he demands. “The way it feels good.” He's pouting, which is a good sign he's feeling a bit more like himself.  
  
"Ask, maybe I will," Erik rumbles back and bites at Charles's ear playfully. His lips press together and he hides his head in Charles's neck. "It's not," he mumbles almost inaudibly. "Other people maybe. Not me. It's not the same. You know that."  
  
Charles yelps when he’s bitten (and promptly shivers, too), but he sobers quickly as Erik deflates. He shakes his head, carefully wriggling out of Erik’s hold so he can straighten them up and touch Erik’s cheek. He has to get on tip-toe to do that, of course. “It’s the same. It’s alright. It’s healthy. See? I’m not frightened. You’re allowed to be mad.”  
  
Erik shakes his head again. "I'm not. I have to be-I have to calm, I can't get-I can't lose temperature." It's a silly mistake coming from such a solemn face, but there you are. He sounds so utterly sure, and it doesn't seem like it's a remnant of anything he's forgotten-he knows exactly why he can't. Something he's known since he was a child, evidently. "It's OK. I-I'm not mad anymore," he adds, and it is true.  
  
“That’s not true,” Charles argues quietly. “You’re allowed to feel, Erik. You won’t fall apart or break anything if you lose your temper.” His face breaks into a soft little grin, and then he pokes Erik’s side. “Are you mad now? If I keep poking you, will you be mad?” It’s so utterly childish, but perhaps it will get a laugh.  
  
"No," Erik snatches up Charles's fingers, grinning a little right back. He's not really upset about it, or horrified, the way he was before. It's more something he just knows as a fact, something he's always known. "Other people are allowed," he whispers, nodding. "You are, too. I can't. If I-if I did, and-you know-sometimes you get so mad, you want to-break things, but I-I could just say-one little thing, _go die, kill yourself, fuck off, shoot yourself._ Anything, maybe I just was upset, but-" he huffs, and shakes his head. "It's not the same thing."  
  
Charles blinks. “Erik, is that what you’re worried about?” It’s not meant to be patronizing, it’s an honest question, because relatively speaking it’s a normal, healthy fear. Erik has to think about something that no one else does, or at least very few people. Charles has never seen it with other people, but he’s heard enough stories to get an idea. He shakes his head. “It won’t happen that way. You can get angry, you’d never go that far. I know you. Besides, the worst I’ve said to you is —“ And Charles actually giggles, cheeks red as he bows his head. He’s covering his hand with his mouth. “I told you to go fuck yourself, once,” he admits, mostly muffled by his hand. “That wouldn’t be so bad reversed, would it?” It’s a terrible joke. Charles know this is serious, it’s just he can’t quite help it. Not everything has to be doom and gloom.  
  
It makes Erik laugh, nose wrinkled up fondly. "Of course I worry about it. My whole life-what I remember," he laughs again softly. "I had an accident when I was small. I-hurt someone. It wasn't bad but-it could be you know? My parents were so scared for me. I- remember it very clearly. I caused some pain because I got mad and-I said something bad. And that just is-my life. It just _is_." He shrugs a little. "It's not so bad. I don't need to be angry to make point or-or talk."  
  
“It hurts you, though, Erik,” Charles whispers, biting at his lip and suddenly solemn again. “When you bottle it up. It hurts you. You don’t have to be afraid with me. I’m not afraid of you. I’d rather you feel it than lock it away.” He takes a breath. “Whatever happened, you were just a child. You didn’t know better. It doesn’t mean you won’t be able to control yourself now, and telling yourself to just not be angry... it doesn’t work,” he points out, bluntly. “It won’t. You know that. It’s just an emotion.”  
  
Erik breathes out of his nose forcefully, but nods. It's not enough to undo eleven years of conditioning but he knows Charles isn't wrong. Maybe he isn't. "I can be a little hurt if it means I don't-do something impulsive and cause-other people used to say how jealous they are of me," he laughs. "Like kids. Dominant. I could do what I want. But you can't. Then sometimes you get mad and-and you can and you can make people do _anything_ even if-even if I don't hurt them, even if I don't cause physical pain. Have you ever-" he shakes his head. "Have you ever-" and he's not sure he wants to know the answer to this and he stalls.

* * *

Charles stands up on his tip-toes again so he can touch Erik’s cheek, cup it gently. He can’t kiss it because he’s so high up, but he does his best, settling back into his chest. “Have I ever what?” he asks softly.  
  
"Did I ever give you Orders you did not want to follow, not just- but _really_. Really. You fight. You fight and you can't fight and you cry, and you can't breathe. And you get terrified. Because you realize nothing you do is yours. And-even if I didn't hurt you, I- it would _hurt_ you. Hurt anyone. It hurts."  
  
Charles shakes his head. “No, not like that,” he whispers back. “Never. Sometimes I didn’t like it, and I would have disobeyed normally, but,” he shrugs here, and shakes his head again. “No. Because you wouldn’t and I trust you and I’m — you know,” he mumbles, looking down now. “Yours.”  
  
"I wouldn't normally, no, I never," he whispers. "But I could get mad and-I'm not perfect and I could and if I did and, and you would never trust, ever again. You wouldn't because my-" he trails off, looking pained. He inhales sharply. "My own family," he shrugs. "I thought, I can't bear it."  
  
Charles edges this one carefully, feeling the weight of it in his stomach, in the sudden tightness of his chest. “It won’t happen that way,” he whispers, and it’s not only sincere, it’s honest. It isn’t a platitude. He honestly believes it. “One, because you’re not a child anymore, Erik. You wouldn’t lose your temper in the same way even when you let yourself be angry, and they should have known -- you were young. You couldn’t have known better.” He strokes Erik’s cheek, rubs circles with his thumb, offers up a soft, sad smile. This is ordinary pain, relatively. Ordinary hurt that lingered. “But two, I’m your submissive. Yours. Once, you told me -- the other you, before you lost your memories, I mean -- you told me that when you Order others, especially submissives, they lose themselves. They don't even know what they’re doing. That doesn’t happen to me. It never has. You would never hurt me, and I don’t think you could hurt me in the way you’re imagining. I can’t fight off your Orders, that’s true. But you’ll know me, and you’ll train me, and you’ve never not stopped if something was hurting me. You have to believe that.” He laughs quietly, and stares down at his feet, a bit flustered again. “That doesn’t mean I’ll always like that you can Order me, mind.”  
  
It makes Erik smile, though. "I never think I would-ever find a real submissive," he admits softly. "Because that, because-well." Because no matter how much he might have liked someone it could never really be _voluntary_ , not the same way. Not the way Charles can choose. "I do not think I could ever be the same if you looked at me-like-" like he was scary, like he was evil, frightening, an unknown. Like Charles was genuinely afraid of him, that he couldn't trust him as clearly as he does now, because that is healing, even if Erik has doubts. Charles doesn't, and that matters, he doesn't know what he would do if Charles doubted him, too. He runs his fingers across the back of Charles's neck like Charles showed him. "I like it," he purrs against Charles's ear. "I always do."  
  
It’s embarrassing, but Charles just melts into that touch, and the noise that slips from his lips it’s quite obviously a moan, even as his cheeks get redder as a result. He leans into it anyway, pliant and submissive and sighing, forgetting for a moment what he’d even meant to say with Erik’s deep voice so close to his ear, with the shiver that goes through his whole body. “If I ever told you, Erik, please don’t ever Order that,” he murmurs, looking up at Erik, “What would you do?” He’d asked the other Erik this question. He wants to know this Erik’s, because he thinks, just maybe, it’s the answer it should have been. That all of them were. That they're finding out together, the same way he is.  
  
"I will Order what I want to Order," Erik murmurs back, entirely unconscious, just-that's what he thinks. It should just be obvious that he wouldn't want to Order something that causes Charles genuine pain, that disregards what he thinks and feels, but Charles doesn't get the final say. He isn't in charge, he doesn't get to tell Erik what he does and doesn't Order. That is not how they are supposed to be.  
  
“Oh,” is what Charles says in response to that, and it sounds… utterly dumbfounded, because for a moment he is. He’s reeling. It’s so markedly different than the first response he’d gotten to this question that he doesn’t even know how to process it for a moment, blinking and wide-eyed. He wonders. “But what if I only want you to Order me certain times, and not other certain times? Isn’t that fair? Can’t we talk about that?”  
  
"No," Erik rumbles back, leaving it entirely at that. "I will Order when I want to. You are mine. That is the discussion," he grins, very pleased with himself.  
  
Charles doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that for what feels like an incredibly long time. He’s just staring, and gaping, and processing. Somehow, he still doesn’t expect the responses to vary so much. “We don’t discuss those things?” he asks. It’s a genuine question, a real curiosity; the other Erik always discussed things with him. He made Charles sit down and ask for things before he did them. It always felt like a rather complicated process, and so Charles is used to it by now.  
  
And Erik shrugs. "You can tell me. What you think and feel. I want to hear it," he promises. "But I will Order when I want. What I want. Not what you want. I am Dominant, not you. I will make the choice. If it is something I think I need to ask, then I will ask. But I make the choice."  
  
Charles doesn’t know why, but it makes him smile. He looks down at the floor again, uncertain why his heart is suddenly beating faster. Why he’s strangely relieved. “Can I ask more questions while you make dinner?” he asks, and tries to disguise how eager he is.  
  
"You can," Erik laughs and holds out his hand, but he tugs Charles close to him as he leads them down the stairs. He begins by Ordering Charles right to the fridge to fetch some ingredients for simple avgolemono, grinning as he handles cutlery with expert flourish and relegates Charles to sorting and peeling. Because Listen.

* * *

Charles isn’t actually very good at peeling, believe it or not, and he spends quite a bit of time shaking out the peeler and huffing at it, but between them he’s very preoccupied with probing Erik’s mind. “What do our days look like? Do I do chores? Do I still have to do Postures? Will you give me tasks? How much will you Order me? What do you think training should be like? What do we get to decide together and what do you decide for me? Do we have to discuss everything for it to happen? How much will you discipline me? Will you give me space if I ask for it? What kind of soup are we making?” They’re all thoroughly jumbled together. Somewhere in there he almost slices his finger. Perhaps one at a time, Charles.  
  
" _Charles_!" Erik squawks, and snaps the peeler up out of his hands. "Now be careful. I said do this and I mean well. Not like that," he laughs, and makes out to hack at the carrot rather ungracefully. "Like this," he flips it around and demonstrates, drawing the peeler down one side and then immediately bringing it back up instead of lifting it to use the blade on the same side. "Easy, see?" his nose wrinkles fondly. "You will do chores, and Postures. I will Order you as much as I like. I will discipline you when you need it. Maybe that is a lot. Maybe not. That is your choice. I will consider your input. I give you space, if you ask nicely. If it is not just running away or avoiding something. We are making _avgolemono_ ," he recites off the answers almost in perfect chronological order. "Like chicken soup."  
  
So of course Charles goes right back to the way he was doing it once Erik turns his back, because in some things he’s just as hopeless as he is stubborn. It works. Sort of. “What kind of chores? What sort of discipline? Oh --” It’s such a silly thing, but this Erik doesn’t know him. He looks up. “I’m allergic to things. Some tree nuts, plums. Shellfish.” That one is convenient, at least. “Certain dyes. Red ones.” It doesn’t quite fit into the conversation, but they’re getting to know each other. Charles had just remembered those things, but he hadn’t needed to tell Erik, the one he’d woken up to. He’d already known it all.  
  
Erik's hands snap over his again, though. "I said do it properly," he murmurs that Order almost dangerously now. "All kinds." Of chores, and discipline, he evidently means. He doesn't know much about either yet, but he wants to, and he fully intends to. He waits and watches until Charles does it correctly before nodding, filing the allergy information away. He doesn't even remember if he's allergic to anything, but he doesn't recall it. "I am very careful. I won't hurt," he promises.  
  
Charles smiles, despite the scolding, because of course he knows that. “What kinds, though?” he prods, because he’s curious and insistent and certainly not satisfied with the answer he’s gotten. “You can’t just say all kinds. You have to give examples.” He doesn’t have to, but Charles would clearly prefer it. He's peeling correctly now, if nothing else, albeit slowly.  
  
"Like this," Erik taps Charles's wrist gently, mindful not to jostle. "Help me with things. Take care of this house, and your space, and learn new skills. All kinds," he grins. "Many tasks. Because I expect you to be your best. Not keeping things messy and doing it improperly. You will learn. You will have a routine. For yourself, too." He shrugs. He does mean _all kinds_. Chores are chores. Cleaning, upkeep, maintenance, hygiene, exercise. He expects it all. Not so much the cooking, but he will teach that, too. "And discipline, the same thing. I will find things you don't like. You will do that. Physical, too. Alone, sometimes," he nods. "I will find things you like. You won't get them. You have like..." he doesn't know the word, but he means-the things that Charles likes, that Charles wants, they are rewards. _Privileges_. They aren't inherent. Not anymore. If Charles doesn't behave properly he won't be in for a good time.  
  
Charles’ hands stop working, his eyes wide as he processes that. “You’ll take things away from me?” he asks, and he sounds — not upset, not scandalized, but shocked. It’s just never even occurred to him. “Like what?”  
  
Erik shrugs. "I don't know so much yet." Charles is right, Erik doesn't know a lot about him. "What you like and don't like. But it will be like that."  
  
Charles tries to process all of that information, but for some reason his brain keeps skidding to a stop. He’s stopped peeling, apparently because his mind and hands can’t work at the same time, a whirring contraption up in his head that Erik doesn’t have access to currently. “We did...um,” he takes a breath. “Before. Clean slate, I know, and I’m thankful,” he hates admitting it again, and there were wonderful moments, but it was certainly a shaky start, “But it felt very -- you didn’t want to overstep, I think.” Overstep. It sounds wrong even to his own ears.  
  
Erik frowns and just looks at Charles expecting him to continue with the task he'd been given. "If I did then I did. But that is silly," he adds, sounding a bit flat, disappointed. In himself. Every time he's heard anything about the way he used to be he's felt-disappointed.  
  
Charles bites his lip, and when he does go back to peeling, it’s mostly just as a distraction. He’s playing more than he is working, idle, twirling it around. “I told you not to,” he mumbles, embarrassed. “Be on top of me. I asked for space and independence and for you to leave me be, when...” When in reality, it’s not what he needed. He shrugs, sighing. “You really couldn’t win with me. It isn’t your fault.”  
  
"You told me, you did this and that," Erik sighs. "It doesn't matter. It's my response. Not you. Now I will give you tasks. This is not right," Erik snatches up the carrot and gives Charles a new one. "Now do it again. Carefully. _Properly_. Like I showed you."  
  
Something flashes over Charles’ face, but it’s not immediately clear what it is. He shakes his head and hands the carrot back to Erik, his lips twitching. “No, thank you,” he murmurs, perfectly polite.  
  
Erik pressed Charles fully up against the counter, pinning him in place. "Do it now or you can think dessert is goodbye. For a _week_." His eyebrow arches.  
  
That gets Charles’ attention, if nothing else. His eyes widen for a moment, and then his expressions evens out. He’s calculating. “How do you know I even like dessert?” he asks, chin jutted out, but his hands are noticeably pulling back, no longer offering Erik the carrot. Calculated risk.  
  
"You just told me," Erik smirks back at him, still staring, still waiting for him to obey. "Now I give you tasks. You do what you are told. Or you will _not_ have a good time. I will learn. Not just physically. That lasts for a little while, maybe a day. No. You will learn."  
  
Charles does go back to his task, and he does it more carefully this time, too, despite some huffing about it. “So, you’ll send me to bed early without dessert and make me write lines and stand in the corner?” It’s meant to be sarcastic, but for some reason his mouth goes dry at it. “Is that how it goes?” Erik had gotten annoyed at this type of goading before and usually it was enough to outright discourage him. Charles watches out of the corner of his eyes, observing, waiting for a reaction.  
  
"It sure does," Erik just grins at him, mollified that Charles has been put exactly back where he belongs. "And if you keep with the attitude you will not get any dessert _tonight_ either," he taps Charles on the nose, anything but discouraged. In fact, judging by his reaction, he's only incentivized further.  
  
Charles seems satisfied with that, too, which is strange, but it’s just that Erik hasn’t backed down. He hasn’t even seemed to flinch, and it doesn’t — he’s not sure what it is, but it’s different. It just is. So he goes back to his task, even as he’s pouting down at the carrot he’s working with like it’s personally offended him. “I hate carrots,” he mutters, and it’s really almost funny, how much he means it. “What are we having for dessert? Could we watch a movie after dinner, before bed? I won’t fall asleep,” he assures. He will. He jumps up on the counter, swinging his legs, because he’s suddenly relaxed. It’s such a noticeable difference from a frustrated, prickly Charles.  
  
"You will not hate _my_ carrots," Erik insists proudly, even though he has no reason to believe that is true, it's just blind optimism and confidence at this point-but Charles fussed all the time about vegetables yet clearly enjoyed Erik's cooking which does suggest a kernel of truth. "Off counter with your _butt_ ," Erik snorts and tugs Charles back to his feet, wrapping him up from behind anyway. "We can watch a movie. But you _do_ fall sleep. I saw you," he laughs but it's fond. Obviously so. "What is your favorite movie?"  
  
Charles leans into Erik’s arms when he’s held, until Erik needs to move, and then he plops himself right back up on the counter, grinning while he waits for Erik to turn around and see him. It’s where he belongs, and his legs go right back to swinging. “I don’t have one. I like documentaries,” he hums, which is a thoroughly honest and Charles-like answer, though Erik doesn’t know it yet. “I’ll watch anything, really. You didn’t answer what we’re having for dinner. You also didn’t answer some of my other questions,” he points out, mostly just to be fresh. “Tell me more, please?”  
  
"I did so," Erik murmurs and tugs Charles off again. "Last warning or I make no dessert," he murmurs lowly. " _Avgolemono_ ," he repeats again softly. "It is Greek. I-" he trails off. "I answered the question." He just doesn't know everything he thinks and feels all at once, up front. He needs some specificity if Charles wants a specific answer, but he has tried his best.  
  
“I meant dessert,” he laughs, because apparently his enthusiasm has gotten away from him. He leans against the counter instead, more motivated by dessert than he is making trouble for the moment, which is something for Erik to remember. “What are we having for dessert? I suggest something with chocolate. What do you like to watch? Why are you so tall?” That one’s just thrown in there because Charles has apparently decided he’s done just about all he can do in the kitchen and he’s just going to stare up at Erik instead, thoroughly underfoot. It’s downright normal, this interaction, considering their circumstances.  
  
Erik laughs softly and scratches under Charles's chin, fond. "A surprise," he decides all at once, very pleased with himself. "I am not that tall," he insists with a laugh even though he is. "I don't know what I like," he adds softly. He remembers what he used to like-children's shows, but he has little desire for that now. He doesn't even know what's on television or what movies are around anymore. He used to watch a lot of dumb things that he's embarrassed about now.  
  
Charles didn’t really know when he first woke up, either. Only vaguely, only peripherally. “We can find out,” he suggests, smiling softly, because now is the best time to find out. “Perhaps we don’t watch the _Wizard of Oz_. I love it, don’t misunderstand me, but we’ve watched it about a dozen times,” he snorts, though Erik has no way of knowing that. He leans over Erik’s cooking space, noticeably to find something to pick at, and makes a face when he doesn’t find anything. There’s a moment where he clearly considers jumping back up on the counter, then catches himself. “What will tomorrow look like?” he wonders, because that seems specific enough.  
  
Erik grins again and brings out a pot, guiding Charles on how to dice the carrots properly. "Mind your fingers," he admonishes by holding up one of his own, but he doesn't let Charles chop just yet. Instead he does that part himself, expertly turning the carrot into a long line of neatly organized cubes before dumping them on a large metal oven sheet. "Now get the butter and salt and brown sugar. In there," he nods toward the cupboards. "And parsley," he adds as an afterthought. "You can pick a movie. _If_ you are good," he warns gently. "Tomorrow..." He really doesn't know the answer to that, either. "We will do a routine. And your Postures. And you help with breakfast, and chores. To make this place-make it a school. I want to do that. And it will give us something to do."  
  
“What routine?” Charles asks, ever persistent and curious, but mostly because they haven’t established one. Not really, not them. He wants Erik to take the lead, he wants Erik to decide, and if that comes in pieces and chunks he’s more than happy to accept that. He’s just eager, is all. “I’m writing something, will I have time to do that? I like having a project,” he hums, because he doesn’t think Erik even knows that about him. He didn’t, until very recently. Charles looks for the ingredients, and he does gather most of them, but for someone so exceptionally brilliant -- “I haven’t the slightest clue which one parsley is,” he admits, grinning sheepishly as he unceremoniously dumps the rest of the lot on the counter. "It's green, yeah? One of the leafy ones?"  
  
" _Charles_!" Erik groans, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. "How you do not know what _parsley_ is? Have you ever even _seen_ a vegetable in your life?" he snorts, and plucks the correct bundle from the bunch. "Put the rest back," he murmurs, indicating the fridge with a jerk of his chin. "I think for a routine we will have to find for ourselves," he admits. It's something he's looking forward to, too. "I like that you do Postures. And I want to make meals together, and and make here a home. And see what we like to do. And make sure you are healthy," he adds unceremoniously himself.  
  
Charles grins, amused at Erik’s exasperation if not a little embarrassed, and then hops onto the kitchen table in the meantime, suddenly without a job again. It’s not the counter, and therefore doesn’t count. Not even in the slightest. “Can we do… more things like Postures?” he wonders, biting his lip. “Try things?” He looks away as he asks, first around the kitchen, then at his own swinging feet.  
  
"What kind of things?" Erik asks, because he doesn't know. He doesn't have any of the education the other version of himself had, he doesn't have any of the skills. "Of course we can try," he adds, because of course they can. He just doesn't know what. "And get off the table," he murmurs lowly. "And you know that does count, what I did say, hm? _Last warning except if you do it again but slightly differently?_ No, I did not." Charles may think that he is pushing, but he isn't. It's not pushing if there's an immovable wall in front of you.  
  
“You know,” Charles mumbles, suddenly much more embarrassed. He makes a face as he’s forced to hop off the table, settling for sitting backwards on a chair instead. He’s never sat properly on a surface in his life. “One, you said don’t sit on the counters, and that was a table. How was I supposed to know you were against me using the table how it’s intended? And two, things from the books. Submissive things,” he mutters, deliberately lacing it in with the rest of the conversation so it feels a little less embarrassing.  
  
"Well submissive things includes listening to what I say. Anticipating what I say not looking for holes in it. I warned you and you don't listen so, now you know what you do get for dessert," Erik murmurs with a raised brow. Charles never quite learned how strict Erik was inclined to be but now he surely is. "What other things? I do not know. Tell me about."

* * *

“That’s not fair!” Charles protests, a pout on his lips that’s much more pronounced than it normally might be if he wasn’t actively avoiding a question. “All I did was sit on the table. You didn’t say I couldn’t sit on the table. I didn’t sit on the counter again,” he huffs, crossing his arms. "You can't tell me where to sit, Erik," he adds, for good measure.  
  
"I can. I will. I did," Erik replies back primly. It's not an argument about fairness or an insight into his motivations, he did it because he wants to and because he can, and because he did, and that's the end of that. "And I also ask a question that I expect answered."  
  
Charles purses his lips, arms still firmly crossed over his chest. He rolls his eyes for good measure. “I don’t know,” he mumbles. “Plenty of things. Things I’ve read in books. Trust exercises, and training things, and -- you know. Ways to feel more submissive,” he gets quieter as he goes, and his cheeks get hotter, and he shrugs. "And for you to... assert Dominance. For us to be closer."  
  
"Like what?" Erik asks, head tilting curiously and he holds out his hand, a silent cue for Charles to get up and come back over and help him. "Look," he murmurs, finishing off chopping up the parsley with a flourish, buttering the pan and sprinkling some olive oil into the bowl he's mixed the carrots into, adding some parsley before spreading it out onto the pan and he kneels down, staring at the oven. "I use to be able to..." he winces, making a face at it. "... _On!_.... _Turn on!_ " He waves his hands at it. "... _Ignite_!" He lets out a frustrated huff.  
  
Charles can’t help it. He dissolves right into laughter, into giggles, even though he knows his Dominant’s frustration shouldn’t he funny. To be fair, it’s mostly just endearing. Charles reaches down to ignite the stove the good old-fashioned way, grinning and pleased with himself. “I helped, see,” he declares, and then adds, entirely without transition, “Bondage.” His face goes beet red. “Service acts. Presentation Poses.”  
  
Erik doesn't move for a few seconds, looking a little like he's been electrified, and he swallows roughly. He isn't embarrassed at all. Quite the opposite. He's only had the book for a day, he hasn't even gotten that far, and it's in a language he isn't fluent in. "We will try," he nods. "Careful. So we don't hurt." Because he doesn't know-how to do any of it, safely, yet. "What is a service act?" is what he says when he can unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. He thinks he gets the basics of everything, but there's a cultural difference, too.  
  
Charles’ feels like his face might burn off it’s so hot, his ears and neck burning, too. He squirms visibly, fidgeting this way and that, clearing his throat. “They can be chores, or, ah... more...” He gestures entirely too vaguely, except he expects Erik knows exactly what he means. “They can address a Dominant’s other needs,” is what he eventually mumbles. “But it’s, it’s more... what I offer, that you don’t specifically Order. Sometimes they become part of everyday routine and rules. Like, ah, kneeling whenever we sit. Greeting you at the door. Providing some other service, anticipating a need —“ Charles’ mouth is dry, too. It’s not just because it has the potential to be sexual, and honestly, what isn’t is just as overwhelming. It’s so much to consider and think about, so much he was worried about even wanting. He bites his lip. “Is that... culturally — have you, um...” He doesn’t even know what he’s asking. He’s just floundering now.  
  
Erik steps forward, pressing his fingertips against Charles's chest. "Have I what?" he asks, smiling down at him, drawing the back of his hand down along Charles's cheek. "Hear about that stuff? I think so," he whispers. "I'm sorry. I have-I have a child's knowledge. I don't-I know some things, not others. Some things, are in here. Some aren't. But the more I learn and hear about, I feel-drawn to." He smiles, gentle. "And I like that. If you would kneel. If you would greet me. I don't-I don't like being-alone. I am not good at being alone. When we get separated, if-if we find some way to-that would be nice."  
  
Charles hums, staring down at his feet instead of Erik. “I think you’ll get better at it, but we could — it’s up to you,” he reminds Erik, quietly, but it’s never been more obvious that he wants him to take the initiative. “You could ask that I check in, or only give me so much time on my own, or...” He shrugs, embarrassed again. “Do I make my schedule, or do you?” he asks, and it’s not rhetorical. He’s genuinely wondering. He doesn’t know, either.  
  
"Me," Erik rumbles back dangerously, and he grips Charles's jaw in hand, because he didn't tell him to look away. "I do. And-you will. I-" he doesn't continue, trailing off, because-it's different than before, it's not that he is cowed or that he wants Charles to take the lead, and it doesn't matter because they've already talked about it. "You will."  
  
Charles struggles for just a moment in Erik’s hold before he settles, his mouth thoroughly dry, his eyes wide as he continues to process everything. It feels like they’ve made immense progress in just a few hours, and he’s frankly exhausted and reeling from it. “Do you think this will last?” he asks before he can help himself, licking his lips in an attempt to wet them. “When we wake up tomorrow, will we really do this? Will you decide things? Give me a schedule? Will we --” It’s what he’s been hoping for, but he’s nervous. Nervous to believe in it. That they can figure this out together, especially as strange as it’s gotten, especially with Erik not even remembering much of anything.  
  
Erik leans forward and kisses Charles's forehead. "I decide things. That is what happens. I do not know everything. I cannot do everything. I am not a perfect person. But I promise I will try my best and you will promise too. I expect it. I demand that. You try too." And he feels-crazy, it feels crazy, and he can't figure it out or wade through it, but knowing that Charles is hopeful makes the difference.  
  
“I’ll try,” Charles promises, because it’s just about the only thing he can promise. He’s not sure what it is, exactly, but suddenly the weight of the day is just -- weighing on him, really. Crashing into him. The exhaustion seems to hit him all at once and he yawns, pulling back to shake his head. “I don’t think I’m very hungry, actually,” he sighs, half-apologetic because Erik did cook the soup he’d asked for. “I think I’ll retire. Whatever we haven’t discussed, we can discuss tomorrow, can’t we? And watch that movie.” He’s actually just about to wiggle out of Erik’s arms when something hits him, slow and then suddenly. He swallows. “Unless…?” He's waiting. His breath is actually held.  
  
Erik snatches him right back up. "Oh, unless-?" his eyebrows arch. "Unless you know you do not dictate what we will do anymore?" his lips quirk up. "You will eat. And we can watch movie now. And we will talk or not, that I can leave to you. It feels a little bit sleepy now. But you are mine. I made dinner for you. And you helped. And so you will eat it," he practically growls, low and soft.  
  
Charles is still holding his breath, but it’s impossible to miss the shiver that runs from head to toe, the way there’s a slight trembling to his body as he shakes his head. “But I’m not hungry,” he croaks, a bit too breathless. “Thank you for cooking, Erik, I’ll eat it tomorrow. I’m too tired for a movie. I’ll go to sleep now,” he decides, swallowing. “You can’t keep me awake if I’m exhausted.”  
  
"You will eat when I say you eat," he returns sharply. "And I can do what I wish to do, or you do not remember that?" his eyebrows arch. "Now you help me with rest of it." He doesn't let Charles chop up or peel anything since he does know he is tired, but he does direct him to the cupboard to help set the table.  
  
As much as Charles knows he wants to be directed, guided, Dominated, and, as much as he hates to admit it, perhaps even micromanaged at this point, it doesn’t stop him bristling, for some reason. It’s part of the reason he was certain there was something wrong with him; if he needed it so badly, why would he get so prickly? Why would Erik back down when he pushed? But subspace has thoroughly subsided and left behind exhaustion, and it has everything to do with the way he rolls his eyes and all but slams the plates onto the table, not bothering to properly set anything. “Are you going to force feed me, then?” he mumbles, not really intending Erik to hear him. "I eat when you say I eat? What is that?"  
  
Erik grabs him and presses him right up against the wall. "Yes. You eat when I say. If that means force feeding you then yes that is right. And I do not appreciate getting spoke to that way and rolling your eyes at me when I told you many times what I expect. Now I say set the table, I say eat, I say speak to me respectfully and you continue not to. So you will set the table and you will eat your dinner and you listen to me and I don't care if you obey _now_ , because you did _not_ , so you will be disciplined, too, and that is what you _get_. That is _what is that_."

* * *

Charles’ breath hitches, and then his jaw sets, and he lifts his chin. It’s not nearly as intimidating or fierce as he thinks it is, and the visible lump in his throat gives him away. “I’m not hungry, Erik,” he repeats himself, lips pursed. “What don’t you understand? I’d really like to go to bed now, please."  
  
"I don't care what you like," Erik growls and points out the door. "Nor I did ask what you like. Now get out." It's an Order, obvious. "Do you think I appreciate this."  
  
 _Get out?_ Charles’ eyes widen, because he very much does not want to move in the direction Erik is pointing, but his feet move anyway. It’s not the frightening, horrifying experience that Erik feared as a child, that he still fears now. He’s frustrated, trying to dig his toes in, but he’s certainly not afraid. “No, but I told you thank you for cooking, and that I’d eat it tomorrow, I don’t see what the problem is. I thought you were meant to care about my well-being? Don’t I need my sleep?” he mutters.  
  
"Do you think I had a fantastic day that everything went so great and on top of every single thing that you decide from nowhere when we could have some peace that you need to mouth off at me and start nonsense to me again. I asked a question and I expect an answer _now_." And that much is Ordered, too.  
  
That stings. It has been a long, difficult day, but they’d gotten somewhere. He sucks in a breath. “No,” he whispers, and now at least there’s an appropriate level of shame in his voice. “No, you don’t appreciate it. But --” Wisely, Charles decides to close his own mouth for once, lips pursed.  
  
And that very likely contributes to Erik's frustration. They had, until this, and it always seems to go that way. And his patience for it has frankly run out. "No I don't. So now instead you get disciplined. That is what I spend my time on instead of dinner. Upstairs now."  
  
The idea that all that progress is gone because Charles took an attitude inspires enough guilt to practically suffocate him on the way up the stairs. He’s lightheaded by the time they reach the top, and clearly unsure of where he’s supposed to be going. Erik didn’t say anything specific, so he waits awkwardly, biting off his lip in the process. “Erik, I’m sorry,” he rushes to say, and his breathing stutters with it. “I shouldn’t have — I’m tired, that’s all.”  
  
It isn't gone, but Erik won't allow it to move backwards, either.. "I am tired, too, but I do not speak to you that way, I do not take that out on you, I do not throw temper tantrums." He leads Charles into his own room. "Child's Pose, now. And you will stay that way until I am finished cooking dinner, that you will eat, and you will help with. Am I understood."  
  
Something is right on the tip of Charles’ tongue, but he promptly swallows it. It clots like blood in his throat, makes everything scratchy and uncomfortable, but he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t argue. He just folds himself into Child’s Pose like he’s told, completely silent except for a quiet, raspy, “Yes.”  
  
"Good." Erik gives him a once over, swallowing back the urge to reach out-he may be Dominant but he's still a person, he doesn't enjoy this as much as he would just spending time with Charles. He's frustrated and tired and it wasn't the right time to push him, at all. He heads back downstairs to finish, or at least try and finish.

* * *

Charles starts to break again the moment Erik leaves the room. The sound of the door closing is almost completely unbearable, and that there’s no way to feel or see or know like there occasionally has been in the past, even if it was just for a moment or two, feels completely devastating. But he doesn’t move. He has trouble holding himself up, and breathing, and not choking on sobs, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t call out for Erik. He feels very small, and very scared, and very alone, all of a sudden, but he does what he’s told and stays.  
  
The door opens a little, as if it can sense Charles's distress, and beneath his hands he feels the floor pulse warmly. Erik isn't gone, and he isn't going to keep him there forever. He never does, but Charles needs to learn, and Erik doesn't only want to employ one method of punishment. Frankly it's _boring_ , but more than that, it doesn't send the right message, it just didn't fit. He doesn't break, he doesn't bend, he doesn't give in, but there are small ways he can help bridge the gap. He doesn't want Charles to be afraid. After twenty minutes or so Charles hears his footsteps and he opens the door.  
  
It’s what Charles had asked about before, but the first real application of it he’s seen. He isn’t thinking about that. He’s thinking about how he’s cold despite the heat of a clear summer night, how he’s alone, how he is afraid. His teeth are chattering and he’s outright sobbing when Erik finds him, but he doesn’t look up or move. He stays exactly where he was put.  
  
Erik crouches down and lifts up his chin, encouraging him silently to fall into Rest instead. "You are all right," he says, looking very much surprised-he's less careful, he's less aware, and Charles keeps saying that's what he wants but when it happens-it doesn't look like it's going so well. He grimaces, not doing very well at hiding it. "See? It's OK."  
  
Charles doesn’t stay falling apart, though. He’s visibly shaken, he’s visibly crying, unable to get completely steady breaths out around sobs and hiccups around those sobs, body exhausted and wracked by them, but he isn’t frightened of Erik. He’s clearly relieved that Erik is back, and he stays at Rest even though he’s clearly shaking with the difficulty. He doesn’t speak. He’s not sure if it’s because he wasn’t asked a question or because he can’t, but he calms some, if nothing else, looking up at Erik with snot and tears all down his cheeks, incredibly vulnerable not for the first time today but this time for a different reason. He’s waiting.  
  
Erik pulls out a handkerchief which he definitely didn't have before this moment, and dabs at Charles's face, offering him a smile, doing his best to reassure. He takes Charles's hands in his and leans forward, pressing a kiss to his brow. "You're all right," he says again, this time it's more confident-because he is, because Erik is here to make sure he is. He doesn't like seeing Charles upset in any incarnation, and helps him to his feet, wrapping him up in his arms a short while later.  
  
Charles struggles with it. He’s very clearly struggling, his chest rising and falling as he takes in breaths that just come out as broken sobs. He stays limp in Erik’s arms, completely limp as if he’s afraid to move without being told, and it’s clear he doesn’t know how to react; he opens his mouth, but nothing comes out except more hiccupping. There’s no Bond to help Erik here. No telepathy. Just Charles, but he’s not broken or irreparably harmed — it’s obvious, if Erik looks, that he’s looking for cues. He’s trusting, even now. Especially now, perhaps.  
  
Erik brushes his hair and separates enough to lead Charles forward. "Come along," he murmurs. "I finished the food," he adds and the house is illuminated by the smells that sink in as soon as they head downstairs. "You still help with the table," he taps Charles on the nose fondly.

Charles stumbles down the stairs a bit, and it’s what’s ordinarily a fairly endearing gesture from Erik, that little tap on the nose, that he bursts right back into tears, heaving in a desperate breath. Nothing has come out of his mouth, and nothing does now, either, except for a particularly pitiful, quiet hiccup. He doesn’t mean to, obviously; he looks thoroughly surprised and unsettled by it himself.

* * *

Erik, uh, stares at him in bewildered confusion, but gathers him up again pretty quickly. "Tell me?" He murmurs and even without the Order the Will is unmistakable.

When Charles shakes his head, it’s not a refusal. He’s not being difficult. He just doesn’t seem capable of speaking right now, and he cries in Erik’s arms, limp and still and unable to catch his breath. He doesn’t mean to make this more difficult than it has to be, than it already was, but he can’t calm down; every time he thinks he might start to he chokes on another sob. He tries to speak, more than once, actually, but he can’t get anything out. It’s frustrating and horrible and he feels rotten, even though he doesn’t want to. It’s late and Erik wants him to eat dinner but he can’t because — “Didn’t — you didn’t, ah, you didn’t,” but he can’t get it out, so he just shakes his head helplessly. “Trying,” he hiccups. He’s anxious. He’s visibly anxious, in a way perhaps Erik hasn’t seen him before. Not this one, certainly.

"I didn't what?" Erik prompts him, raising his eyebrows. Unlike before, he doesn't seem ready to fall apart just because Charles is upset, even though at one point he very definitely would have. "What I didn't do?" he prompts again, softer, rubbing Charles's back. "Tell me. Just try. Calm and tell me."  
  
Erik not falling apart helps him more than he likely knows. It takes a while, a lot of his breath getting stuck in his throat, a lot of his mouth opening and nothing coming out, a lot of pitiful, frustrated noises, but eventually he does calm enough to speak. “Didn’t explain to me,” he mumbles, and it sounds pathetic to his own ears, silly and unimportant, and he visibly winces in the aftermath. Like he’s afraid Erik might be angry with him.  
  
Erik touches his cheek, though, not letting him wince and shy away. "Explain to you?" he asks, and it's obvious he doesn't realize what on Earth Charles is talking about, not that he had done whatever it was deliberately. "What didn't I explain to you?" he curls some of Charles's hair around his finger, letting it bounce back.  
  
It almost looks painful, the next breath Charles takes, but it’s the first one that fully fills up his lungs in a while. He flinches a little when Erik touches his hair, but relaxes a moment later; it’s not Erik he’s nervous about or afraid of, and that much is obvious. It’s just that he’s so worked up and anxious, in a way that’s never been more visible in this Erik’s experience. “How you were -- were punishing me, and why,” he whispers, and he closes his eyes to avoid looking, his heart beating so loudly he can practically hear it in his own ears. “And that it was over, and it was done.” He feels ashamed for even bringing it up, shaking his head. “It’s stupid,” he insists, borrowing Erik’s words from earlier.  
  
Erik... doesn't... get it. It's a way in which they had been compatible before, perhaps, Erik was careful with him, he took the time, but this Erik doesn't understand and believes he did exactly that already. "I didn't tell?" he doesn't get it, and he's starting to think that it's because he doesn't know any better, he doesn't know how to do it, and Charles is expecting him to do it, but he doesn't know how and he's just going to end up-hurting him. "I thought I told you how, and why," he mumbles, trying to recall back, but he'd been frustrated, and that much he instinctively knows-he would have never disciplined Charles physically in that state. "What do you mean? Explain."  
  
Charles tenses up, his eyes still firmly closed. “Please don’t be upset, I don’t need it,” he insists, and he doesn’t know why, exactly, he says it. But he’s frightened. He’s frightened not for himself, but that Erik will feel inadequate and then they’ll go backwards again. He’ll stop initiating. He’ll stop acting. He’ll stop following any instincts he has. Charles doesn’t want to go back to square one, even if he’s thoroughly shaken from what’s happened here. He sucks in a frantic breath and rubs at his own eyes. “I don’t need it,” he repeats, croaked. If Erik didn't know to do it, is it because he's not supposed to need it?  
  
Erik doesn't get it. Still. "I did not ask what you think you need," he reminds pointedly. "I asked you to explain. I thought I told you, I thought I explained. I do not understand," he sighs. "So open your eyes and look at me and talk properly and tell me what."  
  
Charles remembers someone telling him that it’s his job to help Erik. When he struggles, when he’s confused, when he needs information to better Dominate Charles. Actually, he thinks it was Erik. Just not the one in front of him, and not the one from before, either. A different Erik altogether, and one that he visited earlier. For a moment he wishes he could ask him this, but he knows what he’d say. So Charles takes another breath and opens up his eyes, trying to straighten everything out inside of him. He’s still noticeably, visibly anxious, his lip caught between his teeth even as he speaks. “More,” he whispers, and it’s not a demand. It’s the beginning of the explanation. “Ah -- more than that? He, he would, he would make sure I knew exactly what I’d done, and he’d have me repeat it back to him and explain why it wasn’t good or appropriate.” It seems almost unnecessary when he says it out loud, but he also knows how helpful it was. “And he’d tell me exactly what was going to happen before he did it, so I knew what to expect. So I didn’t get frightened. And then when it was over, he…” This is the part he really struggled with. Charles takes a moment to compose himself, long, deep breaths, swiping at the tears on his cheeks though they’ve already mostly dried. “He told me it was over. He told me I wasn’t being punished anymore, that I’d -- that I’d been good,” his cheeks are red from tears already, but it’s clear he’s flushed. “That I’d taken my punishment well, and that it was over. We’d talk about what I’d learned. Then he’d, he’d… hold me,” it’s such an embarrassing thing to have to admit. Charles closes his eyes again, not even consciously. His throat is dry. “Until I calmed down again. And he made sure I knew I wasn’t in trouble anymore, that he wasn’t upset with me anymore. That I’d taken my punishment and it was done. He said the same thing every time.” It was one of the things Charles was so grateful for, before. Both with his memories and without.  
  
Erik feels his ears and hands go hot, like there's a ringing he can't stop, he can't make it stop. It's so, so close to the bone, to the feelings he's been wrestling with this entire time, to the-humiliation and inadequacy of being incompetent and struggling and failing and getting things wrong, Erik finds his back teeth grinding together again hard enough to make lightning crack through his jaw, which is just being woven back together from surgery, but is something he doesn't remember at all. "That make sense," is what he says, and it's clear he's pushing himself through it, forcing himself to say it, forcing himself to be calm, because his own feelings don't make a difference. "It is over," he assures with a nod. "And you do not know why in first place?"  
  
It’s not telepathy that turns Charles onto it, and it’s not a Bond, either. He just knows, from Erik’s expression. Shame courses through him and he clams right up, swallowing and staring down at the floor. His stomach is thoroughly knotted up and his arms instinctively go around his own middle. “No, I knew,” he whispers, which is the truth, but wasn’t quite the point. He doesn’t mention it. “I’m sorry. I’m alright. Don’t, ah, don’t worry about it.”  
  
Erik tugs his arms away from himself. "I am not worry about it," he corrects quietly, squeezing Charles's hands. "I asked you. You say you do not know why. You cannot guess? You say I did not ask you. So now I ask you. For you to tell me what happened, why I did not like it. Why I do not want that."  
  
Charles still pointedly avoids Erik’s eyes, sniffling quietly. “It’s not --” He doesn’t really want to argue. He’s wrong, anyway. Whatever he’s feeling, whatever it was that upset him so much, it’s silly and it doesn’t matter. All it did was upset Erik. “It was disrespectful and disobedient. I shouldn’t have talked back to you. I shouldn’t have given you an attitude. If something truly upset me, I could have spoken to you about it respectfully and calmly, but I didn’t. I can’t take my tiredness and frustration out on you. It isn’t appropriate or fair or the proper way to behave.” It’s spoken quietly, and completely hollowly. Like he’s reciting it from somewhere. It’s not that he doesn’t mean it, he does, it’s just that -- he shakes his head, like he’s shutting himself down.  
  
"Well I do not see how that helps," Erik replies flatly. "I do not need to be aware you know what I want to hear. I know you are smart already." His eyebrows raise.  
  
“Oh,” is what comes out of Charles’ mouth. Tears prick at the corner of his eyes, and his shoulders slump for a moment, but he nods. He’s suddenly grateful that the front pieces of his hair are growing out again, because they fall conveniently in front of his face. “I -- I, nevermind. I overreacted, I don’t know why it happened,” he whispers. His voice cracks.  
  
"I do not need you to recite to me all the ways that you think I want to hear. If I want you to explain me things it is because I want you to feel it, to understand, and I guess you must not. And I guess that makes sense if I never demanded from you in any more detail. Maybe you really do not understand, maybe I just assume it is obvious. I assume it is obvious you should not smash plates around and yell at me, you tell me it isn't. OK. I understand. Maybe it isn't. Then I hear this, laundry list, dis-affected. So you tell me how you think that helps."  
  
Charles shakes his head, and there are tears on his cheeks again. It occurs to him, suddenly and all at once, that they are very, very far from on the same page, and the shame and the knot in his stomach only bubbles up and gurgles, twisting and grinding. When he closes his eyes again, the tears cling to his eyelashes. “I didn’t say I didn’t know,” he whispers, correcting Erik quietly. “I knew. That -- that isn’t the point. It’s not a laundry list, when…” It’s silly. Erik is right. It’s been reduced to something entirely unnecessary, and Charles feels thoroughly humiliated for bringing it up in the first place.  
  
"I never said it was silly," Erik growls, and it is more apparent than ever before that he is frustrated, that he is mad, that he is embarrassed. "I am trying to learn. I am trying to do things right so that you do not end up scared, and feeling bad, and-" he lets it all out, though. Dissipates. "I am trying. And I asked you, and I am trying,. I just don't get it." He cuts himself off before he says anything more, more poisonous, toxic, angry-at himself, really.  
  
Charles deflates completely, too. He hadn’t said that, either, he hadn’t brought it up again, but Erik’s frustration hurts and he knows it isn’t entirely fair, or even fair at all. Erik has just woken up to something he has no experience with, something he doesn’t understand; he’s tired and frustrated, too. He’s confused, too. It’s what he repeats to himself as he takes slow, even breaths, but he’s sniffling again and he can’t help that, either, trying to somewhat discretely wipe at his eyes with his sleeve. “You didn’t say _kol beseder_ ,” he whispers, seemingly out of nowhere.  
  
"Well I don't remember," Erik throws his hands up, but it's not vicious or hurtful, it's just a huff. Just a sigh, really. "Of course it is all right," he whispers back. He isn't different because he doesn't remember. He doesn't know what to say, the right things, the exact things.  
  
Charles visibly winces. His shoulders hunch in again. “Alright,” he whispers, and nods. He swipes at his face with the corner of his shirt again. “I’ll, I’ll set the table,” he says, and his voice is still cracking, still raspy. He says it, but he doesn’t move, like he’s frozen in place.  
  
Erik sighs again. "No," he holds up his hand. "I obviously did wrong. You don't-" he huffs, shaking his head. "It is not easy to hear. There. OK? Today, it is not."  
  
Charles swallows. It takes a few moments before he can speak again around the lump still in his throat. “I don’t remember, either,” he says, and he doesn’t mean anything they’ve been talking about, really. He means in general. “I don’t remember anything about my life at all, really. I didn’t even know my own name. But I was hurt, too.” His eyes close again, too tightly to be comfortable. “I don’t — I don’t know the details. I get flashes, sometimes. I get frightened. But it, doing it that way, you asked how it helps, to go through it, to talk through it, to —“ To take the time to hold him, and shush him, and tell him he did well, that he was good, that it’s all done, all alright, all forgiven. “It makes me feel safe,” he gasps, finally. “It helps me realize that you’re teaching me, and caring for me. When it’s over, it’s over. Otherwise it gets stuck. I get stuck.” He was stuck. He is, to some extent, stuck. “I get — I feel so guilty, and sick. It hurts. It hurts me. So it helps. You didn’t mess up. You just didn’t know.” He takes a harsh breath. “I, I don’t need it,” he’s hasty to add. “I don’t know why I reacted that way. I’m sorry.”  
  
"I do not need you to be sorry," Erik replies, and he does his best to be the better person, to be the best person, not to have any problems or feel bad in any way, but obviously that isn't real. Nothing is going to make him feel like he didn't mess up, like he deserves this. But nobody else on the planet needs to know about that, so they won't, and he bucks up, and he takes it, because his own inconsequential failures mean nothing. "And I do not need you to remember. You just tell me. That is all I need." The end. He doesn't need to feel guilty, or stuck.  
  
Except Charles knows. He knows, and more than that, he’s hurt. It flashes right across his face but he swallows it right back down, throat bobbing, his own jaw clenched for a moment before he breathes it back out. “Alright,” he repeats, uncertain if he’s too tired to try and further explain or if he just doesn’t know how. "You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't --" But he closes his mouth again and shakes his head. "Alright," he repeats again, swiping one last time at his sore eyes.  
  
"Finish what you will say," Erik encourages quietly. "I am glad you told me. I know better next time." He tries to smile.  
  
Charles dares a glance up, and then promptly looks right back down at his bare feet. “You’re upset and I didn’t want that,” he whispers, and he sounds thoroughly pained. “It wasn’t to attack you. I didn’t mean to — I just...” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he decides, raspy.  
  
Erik blinks. "I know," he says back, raising a hand to Charles's cheek. "I-I'm not upset because of you," he laughs. "I do not think you attacked me. Of course not. I want you to say things like this, so I know. I just-" his fingers tap against Charles's cheekbone and his lips press together. He was the one that did something wrong, he shouldn't be upset.  
  
Charles immediately leans into that touch, like a plant seeing sunlight, and it says an incredible amount about where he is mentally. He’s relieved and practically shaking at such a simple touch, trying to encourage more. “Tell me?” he requests softly. “So I understand. Please?”  
  
"I just don't like not knowing," he whispers. His fingers soften and stroke against Charles's cheek. "I want to know so I could-so you feel good, and-well I don't feel good, because you don't and that is my fault and I don't like it."  
  
“But how can you just know?” Charles asks, and it isn’t patronizing or harsh, it’s soft. “You’re not expected to. You’re learning things, too. I know you’re training me, but —“ He bites his lip here, shrugging. His eyes fall again. “I know you aren’t perfect, Erik. That’s alright. But now you know, so when you punish me again — if you ever have to,” he adds this with a grin, exhausted and sniffly but still cheeky, “You know what frightens or upsets me. You didn’t do it wrong. I just need, I...” He takes a breath. “But we can discuss things like that. So you understand. It’s all your decision. But I...” He swallows. “For things like that, punishments, I get — scared, I just feel bad inside, if you don’t talk to me like that. Is that wrong?” he whispers.  
  
"Well _he_ just knew," Erik sighs. He takes a deep breath, dropping his chin to the top of Charles's head. "Of course it is not wrong." He doesn't even know why he cares so much, why he's reacting so poorly, it doesn't make any sense, and it's all just-it's not, he just shakes his head. "Not wrong. I am just glad. We can discuss, so I understand. Not to scare you or feel bad inside. I won't let it. Even if I am embarrassed," he promises.  
  
Charles shakes his head. “No, I don’t think that’s true. Or we wouldn’t be here,” he laughs, as hoarse as it is, as much as it sticks in his throat. He takes a shaky breath, and the consequences of this, of what he’d brought up, they’re obvious because — “You’re not upset with me?” he asks, barely a whisper. “Is... there another part of my punishment?” Maybe there is and he was wrong. Why should Erik have to explain everything? Charles can handle it, surely. “I don’t need it explained,” he tries to assert again. It’s so clearly not true.

* * *

Erik kisses the top of his head. "Not upset," he murmurs. "And your punishment is over," he rubs Charles's back. " _Kol beseder_ ," he adds with a laugh. "I was upset," he adds. "I do not like when you talk to me that way, or throw things around, and like that. I don't like repeating over and over again. You say it's not _respectful_ like, a rote, you know. It is not just a word."  
  
Charles bites his lip so hard it bleeds, and then decides not to. He could hold it all in, but it wouldn’t help either of them grow or learn, as much as he desperately wants to. “Why didn’t you say that before you — before...” He’s not accusing. They’ve already discussed this. He closes his eyes. “I don’t say it like that. I mean it. I didn’t — I know I...” He doesn’t know, maybe. He shakes his head. “You could try something else,” he suggests, not that it’s his place to suggest it. “Maybe my punishment shouldn’t be over.”  
  
"I didn't say because I thought it is obvious," Erik replies honestly. "When I say don't do something and you do anyway, and raise your voice at me. When I tell you something and you deliberately do the opposite. I thought you know what you are doing, you make the choice, you know why it is wrong. And when you say you need me to tell you, but you don't, because you already say to me," he adds, holding up a finger. It's taken a few moments but he thinks he does get it, now. "But it isn't about that. I- _me_ ," he touches his own chest with his hands. "I was upset. You _upset_ me, you offended me. I-didn't say because I didn't- _know_ ," he huffs. He didn't know that it was even important for Charles to hear, because even now, he still struggles to address his own emotional needs.  
  
It is important for him to hear. Charles takes a long, staggering breath, and goes back to biting insistently at his poor lip, now thoroughly ripped. “Can we... can I kneel,” it’s so quiet he doesn’t even know if Erik will hear it or if he wants him to. “We can, we can eat, I know you — but when we discuss, can we discuss...” He shakes his head. “It can wait until morning,” he lies, and tries to believe it.  
  
"Stop back tracking and tell me what to do," Erik warns sharply. "We will eat. And you will kneel. Of course you will." He doesn't frankly know why Charles thought he wouldn't, but maybe that's another cultural difference. He's accustomed to that, it's just normal. Submissives almost always kneel during meals, in fact many submissives were fed by their Dominants, too, an act of intimacy as much as control, but that's not something Erik thinks to bring up for the moment, something inside of him telling him to push it down, push down whatever desires or wants he has, like he isn't supposed to have them or doesn't deserve to have them, or that it'll only lead to awkwardness and embarrassment and he's been embarrassed enough for one day, and he doesn't think he can handle further humiliation. "Now set table, and tell me what you want to discuss."  
  
Charles does move to set the table, well this time. Properly, without any grumbling or sighing or huffing. The only problem is he doesn’t know exactly how to do it. Does he set a place for Erik and one for him, even though he’ll be kneeling? Will he have his own spot? Is he supposed to? He takes a breath. “Show me how you’d like it, please?” he asks, and it is asking. Not frustrated, not even embarrassed, exactly, just shy and nervous. He’s asking Erik to tell him those desires, those expectations. Practically begging.  
  
"For both," Erik tells him softly. "And-" he doesn't know what it's called in English. Doesn't even know if they have any, but he powers through it. Charles is asking, and Erik wants to reach back, offer back. "Pillow?" he tries, touching Charles's knee. "So you are comfortable. And what you set for yourself that will be what you use." And it's just-more. More work, more organized, more tasks. It feels better even if it isn't the most convenient.  
  
They do have something like it. They’ve never used them, but Charles knows where they are. He feels fluttery in that strange, nervous way as he goes to get a cushion and comes back, setting it down beside Erik’s chair and setting the table. He hovers when he’s done, waiting for Erik to tell him to kneel. He's fidgeting. “You… feed me?” he asks, while Erik has his back turned. It’s not a full thought or even a full sentence, and his ears feel hot again.  
  
Erik's eyes widen a little and he nods. "Yes," he rasps, smiling to himself. He prepares their dinner, a bowl for himself and a bowl for Charles, before guiding him to the table. "On your knees," he murmurs, lowering into the chair himself, and when Charles does he cards his fingers through his hair, letting him rest his head against Erik's knee.  
  
Charles goes willingly, gratefully, finding that he’s calmer when he gets there. Relieved, almost, and softer for it, resting sweetly against Erik’s knee and practically purring as his hair is stroked. “I want to discuss punishment,” he murmurs, because Erik told him to tell him and he will. It makes him nervous, a bit of a churning in his belly, but he was right; it feels safer here, on his knees. Better. Less frightening, somehow.  
  
"Mhm," Erik agrees. "Hands up," he Orders, and sets the bowl carefully into Charles's fingers, his nose wrinkling up. He makes sure Charles is seated more upright and takes a steadying breath himself before dipping the spoon into the bowl and raising it to Charles's lips. "So we talk about it," he replies softly.

* * *

Charles really can’t explain how nice this feels. It’s never something he would have known to think of or ask for; he’s not certain, but he’s fairly confident that this is a cultural difference that Erik has never brought up before. He opens his mouth obediently when Erik offers, humming in delight because he’d asked for soup in the first place for exactly this reason. It’s warm and comforting on what’s quite frankly been a stressful day, and the heat be damned. “Thank you, Erik,” he sighs, smiling despite himself. He sobers a moment later, but only because he doesn’t know exactly how to discuss this, just that there seems like a need. “Why do you think you should punish me? Not now, just — in general? I’d really like to know.” What Erik thinks, how he thinks. Things previously taken for granted.  
  
The problem isn't that Erik doesn't want to cooperate, or reach out, but frankly that he lacks entirely the words, the knowledge necessary for as deep of introspection as is being asked of him. He tries all the same, the wheels turning, in-between careful spoonfuls. He wipes the corner of Charles's mouth with his thumb mostly out of affection than real need. "I don't really know," he admits honestly. "I just know what I feel. I guess it is not credible, my authority is not _credible_ , if I can't back up. I can't keep you in line if all I do is just ask. Maybe to help teach. You know to expect, it is reliable. I-feel- _compelled_ to do so. It would not feel resolved."  
  
Charles takes a slow, deep breath, processing that. While Erik eats his own food, he rests against his knee, calm and soft and mellowed out. Honestly, he’s exhausted, and limp, but it doesn’t feel so terrible at exactly this moment. His eyelids feel heavy. “Resolved,” he repeats, because he likes that word. “I feel -- hm…” Charles struggles here, too. It’s not that he doesn’t have the words, it’s that he doesn’t always know how to express them with this Erik. They’re going to have to figure that out, but it’s another thing they never got the chance to but would have needed to otherwise. He doesn’t know why, and perhaps it’s the fuzziness of his brain, but he rather likes that they even have to navigate a language barrier. “I feel wretched when, when I feel like…” He purses his lips. “When I don’t feel like I’ve -- atoned?” He’s not sure Erik will know that word, but he certainly hopes so. “And I know that, if you’re going to be training me, I -- it stands to reason that you should be teaching me,” he whispers. “Sometimes I learn best when you… enforce those teachings,” he mumbles, quiet again. There are a lot of threads happening here, not all of them fit together. But perhaps all they need is an open, calm discussion. Over dinner. Normal.  
  
The simplest answer is likely the correct one; while Erik's language skills aren't as developed as they were, and speaking in a language you aren't fluent in, causes you to be more simple-more open, more direct. He doesn't always have the nuanced words, or know how to put things in order, but he used to be a person who _valued_ language, who picked precisely the right words, who spoke in precisely the way he wanted to speak to communicate minutiae, multi-layered and complicated and poetic; but difficult to decipher, sometimes. More literary than real. "Atoned?" his eyebrows raise. "Like _Yom Kippur_?" He laughs a little bit, because he doubts that Charles means it in the way he was raised to associate that word-which is the only association he does have in English. For him, atonement and discipline are two sides of different coins, but he doesn't have the words to express that in a way that the Erik he used to be would have. And it would have made sense, and it would have been a whole concept, with Erik's strong sense of personal ethics behind it. Now it's just... half, half-communicated, chaotic, confusing. He winces a little, apologetic because he realizes that.  
  
Charles finds that it’s almost nice, to have to -- struggle isn’t the right word, really. Floundering is involved, but that isn’t right, either. It’s just that it takes effort, now, for them to speak to each other, to understand each other, and while he thinks there’s something to be said for effortless communication, the time he’d spent with the other Erik made it impossible to not notice that they’d gotten too reliant on it. There was a distinctive lack of actual communication happening, and he doesn’t doubt even slightly that eventually it would have caused them trouble. But now they’re here, and this Erik is open, and willing, and they have to work at it. He’s thankful for strange things this evening. “Not… quite,” he murmurs, and his forehead crinkles, eyebrows closer together as he works through it in his own mind, often foreign and strange to him. “But -- I feel… it’s one thing to know I disobeyed you, another entirely to feel like I’ve made up for it. Like I’ve accepted punishment for it, and it’s done with. Come -- back to you?” He shakes his head, equal parts embarrassed and uncertain he’s making sense. “I feel very sick, I think. Very guilty, once -- well, sometimes there’s this urge…” It’s something he’s had such a difficult time explaining to Erik, always. He tries anyway. He powers on. “Sometimes I know better, but I’m just too tired or riled to care, and that’s its own issue, but sometimes there’s an urge and as soon as that’s gone, I’m left with this awful, horrible knot.” He takes his hand and places it on his own stomach, like it will help Erik understand. “When you punish me, when you say it’s done with, that you forgive me for whatever it was, it releases me. I can breathe correctly again. But if it…” Another breath. More forehead scrunching. He’s deliberating, curling closer into Erik’s knee. “If it doesn’t feel like you’ve gotten there, like it wasn’t enough, it just feels worse. Does that make sense?"  
  
Erik nods, running his fingertips through Charles's hair soothingly, something he does as often as he can mostly because it helps soothe him. He picks up his own coffee, dark and red in a clear glass with a thick layer of foam on top and takes a deep drink from it. "I can forgive you without punishment. I don't have good explanation for what is about, and it is like-linked up," he knits his fingers together. "Together. But a little different. I forgive you when you can," he blinks, trying his best. "When you are _sincere_ , and you can tell me you know what you did wrong, why it is wrong. When you demonstrate you know that, how you act, and the impact. I don't feel whole, when that is missing, it doesn't feel real or solved. Just, I don't know-" he laughs a little. "How I was brought, just saying _sorry_ , doesn't fix it. Just saying what you think the other person wants, doesn't fix it. And I can't promise I would always forgive you, no matter what. Then you do not learn, or modify your behavior for yourself. Then you keep it because you know, it doesn't matter. And I don't want to be-trapped, together, as toxic. Where we hurt each other and just accept it, I don't accept. I would teach differently. Maybe if-" he trails off. Maybe he just forgot everything, he didn't know how to be a healthy person. If he'd grown up with his family instead of a psychotic madman.  
  
Charles does his absolute best to follow all of that. He’s listening, if nothing else, intently and silently and earnestly, and they should have had this conversation before, perhaps, but they’re having it now. It feels important now. “I — you didn’t give me a chance, before, or after, this time. I didn’t feel —“ It’s not accusatory, again. It’s not to embarrass or humiliate. It’s sharing his own feelings, the way Erik is constantly encouraging him. “And by the time you did, it, it felt...” Hollow, somehow. It’s silly because of course he could put together for himself all the pieces, but not having the pieces put together in the first place disconnected them. There was no resolution, no closure, no atoning. It was distressing but without the relief that comes afterwards, without the peace, without the calm. He’s calm now, but he’d be lying if he said there wasn’t a kind of knot, still, too. It’s not at all that the discipline wasn’t physical, even though that’s all he has real experience with, something he’s wondered about for a while but the past Erik was uncomfortable with. It’s just that it wasn’t — he doesn’t know. He’s tried to explain, but he’s falling short, too, and he rubs his cheek against Erik’s knee, sighing. “Please go on?” he urges, because Erik didn’t seem done. He wants to hear. He wants to know. He wants them to discuss, this way.  
  
"You always have chance," Erik corrects him softly. There are no missed opportunities, no reasons why they can't retrace and pick a better option. "I don't know-I never learned any of this stuff, I have no experience with. I worried about it because I didn't know anything, and I am just guessing half time. At least before I knew, I have experience, I know-I don't know, I-" he doesn't know how to put it in words, either. Even if he struggled with Dominance, he understood it, he understood submission, he understood Charles, and now he doesn't understand anything, and he keeps making mistakes, and nobody likes failing. Especially for Erik, who is used to having things be easy, who is used to being good at things, who went from a relatively sheltered life into an obliterated world. "But you have a chance, now. Always. Nothing will be closed to you."  
  
“You’re learning, the same as I am. The way you should have,” he whispers, and he isn’t just speaking for Erik. He’s speaking for both of them. It’s the entire point of being here, and finally they’re seeing it, and facing it, and doing something about it. But he shakes his head. “It isn’t the same,” he mumbles, and it isn’t bitter or frustrated or even distressed. It’s just the truth. He can’t get there, like this, right now. Charles closes his eyes, sniffling quietly, and tugs gently at Erik’s pant leg. “May I have more?” he asks, and his cheeks have pinked again, but Erik hasn’t been feeding him. He doesn’t want to eat on his own. It’s — nice, like this. This conversation doesn’t seem so... heavy, even if it’s important.  
  
"So it's not the same," Erik says, because he can't erase time and do it all over again, but that's not the point, either. "But you say that you want chance, so you have one. To tell how you feel, what you know, about what you did. How you behave. How you act, what you think I expect you to act. So we can just try again. You can start there. Maybe I am not finished with discipline. If it did not work the first time, you say it did not work, so we will do it again." He taps Charles's lips with his fingertip and holds up the spoon for another bite.  
  
“Oh,” Charles breathes, because Erik isn’t being defensive, or harsh, or accusing him, either. He’s expecting something of him, they’re working through something; he doesn’t know why he suddenly feels tear prick at his eyes again, but he imagines it has something to do with being tired and overwhelmed and a little oversensitive. It takes him a while to accept the spoon that’s offered, but when he does it’s with a soft, grateful smile, despite the situation. “I can’t act that way just because I’m feeling poorly,” he mumbles, finally, curled back into Erik’s knee. “It isn’t respectful. And I do owe you respect. You’re my Dominant, firstly, but you’re also someone I — someone that I care for. That isn’t the way I should treat you.” He bites his lip. “Would you punish me if I treated someone else that way, too?” he wonders, and he doesn’t know why. He may just be curious. He may be nervous, too. It’s likely both.  
  
"Yes, I would," Erik confirms easily and without hesitation. "Because is important to me that you represent me well," he adds honestly. "If you were like that to anybody else, that says that I just let you, you know? That I will let you walk around like that. No. I expect from you, always. Alone or with others. You should not treat anybody that way."  
  
It sobers Charles up, but his response is — strange, perhaps. He bites his lip, and there’s a quiet sniffling noise. He rubs his face again Erik’s leg. “Thank you,” he whispers.  
  
Erik blinks and lifts Charles's head, his own tilting. "Tell me what you think about," he murmurs softly. He didn't mean to upset him, but he couldn't lie, either.  
  
He’s not upset, is the thing. He smiles when his head is lifted, however watery, a few new tears on his cheeks, and shakes his head. “Thank you for training me,” he murmurs, and the thing is that Charles means it. “I don’t remember, but —“ He thinks he’s never had this, and not just in the sense that he’s never had a Dominant before Erik. “I don’t think I’ve had it before. I’ve needed it, maybe.” Definitely.  
  
"Me too," Erik replies, smiling softly as he feeds Charles another bite. "You have now. I'm sorry I wasn't better before. Maybe if I had a normal life it would not be so hard," he adds, brows bouncing a bit self-deprecatingly, but it's light instead of bogged down. "But I got a second chance. To do better."  
  
“It can be easier now,” Charles suggests, because he honestly thinks, despite the incredibly long and difficult day they’ve had, it can be true. He’s hopeful. “I didn’t have one, either. But you remember part of one, so you’re ahead,” he teases, and swallows another bite obediently before settling back down against Erik’s knee, resting his eyes for a moment. “You said… maybe you aren’t done with my discipline?” he asks, slightly anxious.  
  
"I am not," he agrees. "But dinner first," Erik's nose wrinkles up. "No dessert," he holds up a finger pointedly. That's not everything, but it's the most immediate start. "And I have many things to do around the house that I plan when you were sleep. But now you will help me do. You will do. I just watch."  
  
Charles doesn’t want to argue, but he does bite his lip here. He seems to be debating something, for a good, long while, curled up against Erik’s knee. “Erik, I’m exhausted,” he admits quietly, as he probably should have before this was ever an issue. He’s ashamed, really. Embarrassed. “And I know you are, too. Neither of us should be doing much of anything.” He swallows. “I’ll take whatever discipline you deem appropriate in the morning, this isn’t me trying to -- to control or dictate, it’s just… please? Can we both sleep? I’ll help you,” he offers, before Erik argues that he can't. Charles was able to get him to sleep before the loss of memories, surely it should be easier now. "I won't tell you what to do," he adds, hasty. "But I -- you told me to tell you when something concerned me."  
  
Erik blinks. "Of course," he replies, because-well, he'd thought that was obvious, too. "I do not mean tonight," he clarifies quietly. "We are both tired, and it has been a long day. And I have much to do, I would not want you to make mistake or hurt yourself. But tomorrow I will expect your undivided attention."

* * *

“Oh,” Charles laughs, mostly because he feels silly, but relieved, too. He should have known Erik would have thought of it, but it’s more that this Erik is so different and he doesn't know him very well yet. He doesn’t seem to have any aversion to things like food or sleep, even if they sometimes affect him. Sometimes he’s even unaffected, which is exceptional considering how strong the reactions were before. It’s more of a relief than he would ever willingly admit. “Do you… want me to go to sleep and wake up at a certain time?” he asks, a new curiosity. It was part of their routine, before, not that they’d had long to implement it, or that it had been completely implemented. He seems to remember that they are eating, and straightens up, turns his face up, waiting patiently for Erik to give him another bite. It's... comforting. In a way he hadn't at all anticipated.  
  
"Yes," Erik nods, wiping the corner of his chin again with his thumb, his nose wrinkled up in immeasurable fondness. "I-" he lets out a breath he wasn't aware he was even holding in. He doesn't like sleeping anymore. He doesn't rest easy, every time he closes his eyes everything just-encroaches and-he doesn't like it. "You wake up early, and go sleep early. So a healthy time. What time did you wake up before?" He would just pick an arbitrary time either way so he would rather it be something Charles is already accustomed to.  
  
“You had me come to your room at 6,” Charles bites his lip, considering. “But we were discussing changing that, because I wasn’t getting to sleep at 8, when you told me to. You were thinking of -- we discussed limiting my distractions at night, and giving me a task to settle me down for bed.” He’s not sure why he finds sharing this so embarrassing, but perhaps embarrassing isn’t even the right word. It’s just that he’s a little squirmy on his knees now, nearly knocking a spoonful of soup onto the floor. "We hadn't decided what that was. Things got..." They always did. But they won't, now. Charles doesn't think so, at least, and this Erik seems to view things differently, to desire different things. Maybe they're just closer to his natural desires. Charles leaves it at that, waiting.  
  
"No, stop moving around, you are here to eat dinner, not wander all over the place. Now open," Erik Orders, lifting another spoonful for Charles. "And why you didn't go to sleep when I tell you? What is different that will change if I change your sleep time?"  
  
Charles opens his mouth obediently, waiting until he’s swallowed to shake his head. He does settle, too, resting back on Erik’s knee, hoping silently to have his hair played with more. “Sometimes just because I didn’t feel like it,” he admits quietly, stomach twisting a bit at the admission. “But also because it was difficult for me to settle down for bed. So you wouldn’t change the time I went to sleep, just… what I did before bed,” he explains. "I... was reading in bed, often. Sometimes under the covers," he's appropriately embarrassed to admit that. He sounds like a child hoping not to get caught, sneaking something forbidden.  
  
"Well that is to end," Erik murmurs. "When I tell you to go sleep I expect you to sleep. And you say you want to be on your own, but you are wrong. It is a privilege because I trust when you are in your space and alone that you will honor my wishes. And if you don't I will control that too. What kind of things you want to do before bed? Like Postures and things?" he wonders.  
  
Charles considers that, but ultimately what he decides is, “Whatever you think is best.” Because he doesn’t know, really, and, frankly, “If I suggest something it will be because it’s what I want, not what I need,” he admits. And that he is admitting that? It’s more progress than he’s consciously aware of.  
  
"Maybe, but you say that is what you need, you get distracted and things. So what kind of task do you think will help with that? Not what you want. What you need. I can say to do anything, but if I am just guessing, it won't help. For me I think maybe it is best to do the same like when you wake up. With a night routine. Like Postures and things. Eating dinner and get dressed and brush teeth. Things like that you should be doing anyway."  
  
“But I don’t know, either,” Charles murmurs, not arguing, just helping Erik make his decision. The way it should be. “I think that would help. Ah, perhaps you should...” It feels strange, to suggest something like this. But Erik is asking for it, so he powers through. “I think you should take books away from me, close to bedtime. I’ll always go back to them. And perhaps we could do something together, close to bed, to wind down? Before Postures. And you could — if you... subspace,” he eventually mumbles, his mouth dry. He’s hiding in Erik’s knee.  
  
"I like that," Erik smiles, breathing in deeply. "I-" there is something on the tip of his tongue, but he doesn't know how to say it. And he thinks Charles knows anyway, he's not exactly kept it secret, but he still can't talk about it, he doesn't know how.  
  
Charles doesn’t. He bites his lip and peeks up, tugging gently on Erik’s pant leg again. “Tell me? Please?” he begs.  
  
"You-" Erik swallows, rough. "Need to help me, too. I can't-I don't-sleep good."  
  
“Oh!” Charles nods, and offers up a soft smile. “Of course. I could, ah... help you sleep, and then go to my own room?” Perhaps it seems backwards, but it could be a duty. A part of his routine. “You’d have to trust me to do as you say,” he whispers, as if he’s just realized it himself. He likes the idea. A lot. He’s not sure why. “I could come every night and — serve you,” the last part is muffled by Erik’s knee again, embarrassed, because... well, there are a few ways he could do that.  
  
"I always have trusted you do what I say," Erik points out softly, and he lifts Charles's head from his knee, feeling a warmth bloom in his chest. "You have to help me. I expect help too." His lips lift up. "You will help. You have to. I can't-I can't do that again. How it happened before, last time I sleep. It's worst, I can't do that. You have to help me. That your routine too. You serve me. My submissive."  
  
Charles nods, suddenly eager, and he doesn’t know why. He just feels it. “I’ll come to your room every night and serve you,” Charles breathes, uncertain why he’s breathless. “Prepare you for bed. Help you sleep.” It feels... traditional, though he can’t put his finger on why, exactly. Intimate, too. “You could — put me down, before you sleep. So I’m still in subspace. And then I’ll go to my room and do my Postures and go to sleep. Every night, if you’d like.” He bites his lip. “It might help me be less afraid to be in subspace without you,” he whispers. He’s helping Erik Dominate him.  
  
"I like that," Erik replies back, just as quick, just as decisive. It feels right. It feels real, and good, and warm. "I want that. I think need it," he admits with a little huff. He is helping, exactly like Erik expects him to help. It's how they work off of one another, help one another. "What I need, you need," he whispers almost to himself. Sometimes he doesn't always know how to move forward, maybe it's because-his real blind spot is himself, focusing on himself.  
  
Charles smiles, grateful and pleased. He sighs, calm, relaxed, and straightens up again so Erik can feed him the last few spoonfuls when he’s ready. Erik has eaten a whole bowl of soup, too. It’s healthy. It’s safe. “You’ll still discipline me after dinner?” he asks quietly, because it is on his mind. “How? And can we please have dessert?” It’s worth asking.  
  
"No dessert," Erik rumbles back. His eyes are practically closing of their own accord, though, and he shakes his head unconsciously. He has ideas for discipline, but they've already spoken about it-to wait until tomorrow, when they are both rested. He isn't sure he can stay upright before then, but he resists the urge to fall asleep even now. "You will be disciplined," he whispers. "Tomorrow. You will spend day with me. You will be doing hard work. Not just one time or just physical once. Sometime your punishment will be task, too."  
  
Charles continues to bite his lip. “Erik?” he asks, because they’re here, and comfortable, and talking. Because Erik told him to help, and it feels easier to ask now.  
  
"Yes?" he answers.  
  
“If you leave me for a punishment, in a room or in a corner or anywhere,” he whispers, and he feels hot because — well, it’s a bit embarrassing, to bring it up himself. “Could you tell me how long I’ll be there?” he asks, and looks down at the floor, ashamed. “At least for right now. Talk to me before you go, and then tell me how long I’ll be there? It’s alright if not,” he mumbles. “I don’t know why it bothers me. But if I know, I won’t like it, but...” But it will be the intended effect, not distressing.  
  
Erik's lips press together and he nods. "Of course I can," he replies easily, because it's obviously never been his intention to cause genuine distress. There are just things he doesn't know anymore. "I would never leave you for too long. I will tell," he promises.  
  
Charles shakes his head. “It’s not about how long you leave me, and I don’t like it, but —“ But it isn’t truly harmful, usually, is what he means. “It’s just when I don’t know if you’re coming back, when you don’t tell me so I know you will,” he whispers, and he knows it’s silly and mad. Of course Erik will eventually come back. He doesn’t know why it’s so difficult for him. “Thank you,” he breathes, relieved. “I want you to punish me as you see fit, it’s just...” Erik wants him to talk to him, too, about these things. About what is unpleasant because it’s supposed to be and what is harmful, frightening, unbearable.  
  
Erik does know the difference. Between Charles telling him what to do and asking him for what he needs, which is what he's been demanding all this time, and now Charles is finally cooperating, finally learning, and it does nothing but please him.  
  
“Can we go to bed?” It slips out of his mouth before he can stop it, mostly because his eyes keep almost closing, his body heavy. Charles yawns. “I ate dinner,” he offers, though it’s obvious since Erik fed him. But Erik told him dinner first.  
  
"'Kay," Erik whispers, looking a little overwhelmed at the prospect. He still doesn't like the idea of going to bed, but that's partially what Charles is here for. To guide him, to help him, too. To help him when he can't control everything, especially not for himself. "Put the dish away beforehand," he Orders softly, helping to guide Charles to his feet.  
  
“Do I have to wash it?” It’s a bit of a whine, but mostly a pout, and mostly because he’s utterly exhausted. He does as he’s told either way, taking the plate into the kitchen and looking over his shoulder at Erik all the while, yawning. It’s normal.  
  
"Yes," Erik rumbles back, lifting his own bowl and placing it on top of Charles's empty one. "Then-" he interrupts himself by shutting his eyes and yawning loudly, and laughs a bit at himself, wrapping Charles up in a hug from behind.  
  
Charles washes the dishes about as lazily as he can manage, then leans back in Erik’s arms, yawning again. “You’re making me yawn,” he accuses, another deep pout on his lips. His eyes are half-closed. “Do you... want me to go to your room tonight, too?” he asks, quietly. Do they start now? Tonight?  
  
Erik nods. "Yes," he croaks softly. Enduring another night like he did last night is unbearable. He presses a kiss to the skin of Charles's neck.  
  
Charles shivers, full body. Everything is still so new and he doesn’t always know how to react. His eyes are closed and he’s slumped between Erik and the sink. “I don’t think I can make it up the stairs,” he admits, laughing.  
  
"Yes you can," Erik purrs back, pulling away so he can tug Charles forward. "You come help me," he insists, peering through squinted, reddened eyes. "Come help. Don't wanna-not again."  
  
Charles does. They make it up the stairs, somehow, as winding and long as they seem, and end up in Erik’s room. Charles is shy, then, biting his lip, fidgeting. “Do you want me just to help you?” he asks, quietly. “Or do you — you don’t have to put me ah, down,” he mumbles, running a nervous hand through his own hair. He’s tired enough that it may not even matter.  
  
"You do not say what I have to do," Erik corrects him sharply. "You-you help," he says, and he doesn't know how, he doesn't know, Charles has to know-he had to have helped him sleep before, he can't-he doesn't realize he's shivering from head to toe, and he presses himself up against Charles closely, entirely unconscious.  
  
Charles nods. “You should be lying down,” he suggests, and helps guide Erik to the bed. They’re already dressed for this, and he’s thoroughly exhausted, so he imagines there will be far less ceremony tonight. “Just relax, Erik. I’ll help,” he promises, and he closes his eyes and he focuses.

* * *

Erik drops onto the mattress like dead weight, clutching Charles tightly. His head is turned away so Charles can't see the abrupt tears tracking down his face-he doesn't even realize it's happening and he's mortified, but he can't let go. "You help," he gasps, looking wide-eyed and confused. The closer he gets to sleeping the more the nightmare encroaches, he's exhausted and everything has built up, and his brain is scrambling and he's sorry. He doesn't mean to be upset or dramatic or flinging his feelings everywhere.  
  
Charles has seen this before, though. He knows exactly what’s happening, even if he doesn’t; he takes a sharp breath and strokes Erik’s hair, kisses his cheek. “You’re alright,” he promises, and means it. “You’re alright. I’m helping.” Erik feels an overwhelming sense of calm, of everything melting away, and away, and away. No nightmares. Charles will take care of everything. He will help and serve. “Goodnight, Erik,” he whispers.  
  
It's not the sensation as much as it is Charles's touch against his hair, and Erik ends up curled up on the bed, hand clutched tightly over Charles's, eyes shining brightly. "I'm OK," he whispers back, breathing in slowly and deeply. He slides Charles's hands up to his heart, holding it against his chest. "Helping," he slurs, swaying a little.  
  
“Helping,” Charles repeats, and leans down to kiss Erik’s cheek again. “Sleep well, Erik,” he murmurs, and when Erik’s eyes close, he yawns again. He does want to sleep in his own room. He does want his own space. But he’s so ridiculously, unthinkably exhausted, he doesn’t quite make it. He falls asleep right there, on top of the covers, not even a moment after his Dominant.  
  
It is that more than anything else that inspires Erik's eyes to finally close, for his muscles to finally relax, holding Charles close not in an attempt to trap him but because his unconscious body is seeking him out, needing the connection. 

* * *

And it's Erik who wakes up first, shooting straight up out of bed just as the sun begins to creep back in, breathing loudly and deeply, audibly hyperventilating. There's no images in his mind, no violence, no hysterics, and Charles helping him worked-but his mind is trying to work it out, trying to tell him something, and it keeps manifesting like this. In this experience, in this moment. He wraps himself up further in the blankets and buries his head in Charles's neck, petting him and trying to keep himself quiet and calm.  
  
Charles doesn’t even stir. He doesn’t wake. He doesn’t move at all, actually, completely still. He’s breathing shallowly, exactly where he fell asleep, curled away from Erik and turned on his side.  
  
Erik can't help but be grateful to that, swiping at his eyes, trying to quiet himself down-settle himself down, pressing the back of his hand against his mouth to keep himself quiet.  
  
Charles doesn’t move. He doesn’t wake. He’s still, perhaps unnaturally so, breathing those shallow, quiet breaths, the slight rise and fall of his chest his only movement. He doesn’t make noise, he doesn’t shift.  
  
Well that doesn't do anything to make Erik calm down at all and he can still feel-and-his head twists involuntarily, like something in his body is trying to get out and he lets out a small noise, an attempt to shove it all back in. "Charles," he whispers, unsure if his own mind is spiraling out of control or if there's something wrong. If he's crazy or not.  
  
Charles doesn’t respond at all. He stays still and silent and unmoving, as if he’s more doll than person.  
  
"Stop-stop it, wake up," Erik shakes him harder, facial expression screwed up.

* * *

He doesn’t. Charles doesn’t stir, he doesn’t wake up. He doesn’t make noise, no grumbling or sighing or groaning like there usually would be. **_He’s alright_** , someone tells Erik, though, in his mind but also everywhere, all at once, calm and soft and very familiar. **_You are, too._**  
  
Erik covers his mouth with his hands, shaking his head. "No, no, no no _not_ all right, not-what's wrong? Why-I-" he's gasping, petting Charles's face over and over again.  
  
Eventually, after what feels like a very long time, Charles seems to animate again. He breathes differently, then he sighs; low, quiet. His eyes blink open slowly and he stares up at Erik, confused and concerned and completely out of it.  
  
Erik buries his head in his knees, shaking too much to form words, his hand finding Charles's and squeezing hard. He's awake? He woke up? He's not hurt? Not dead? He doesn't understand what's going on, either, but he can't breathe. He can't take in oxygen.  
  
Charles blinks, awake but confused, everything hazy and far away and strange. “Erik?” he asks, and suddenly Erik feels overwhelmingly calm, again, as if a blanket of it has settled right over him. His voice is raspy and hoarse from sleep, and he squeezes Erik’s hand back weakly, groggy but worried, too. “Erik?”  
  
"Charles?" Erik manages to get out, trying to get his breathing under control. "I thought-you-I-"  
  
Charles helps with that, too, though it’s entirely unconscious; Erik just finds he can breathe easier, that the panic in his chest eases, that he feels calmer, relaxed, lighter, frayed nerves eased off as Charles slowly wakes up. “Thought what?” he rasps, attempting to sit up. All his limbs feel heavy and it’s a bit like he’s hearing things underwater. “Did I... fall asleep here?” he asks, cheeks pink, because he meant to get back to his room. He wanted to. Apparently he never made it. “Are you alright? What’s wrong? Did I wake up late?” He frowns, clearly just groggy now. “I didn’t mean to,” he mumbles, sheepishly. “I usually set an alarm.”  
  
Erik sniffles and wipes his nose with his sleeve, rocking back and forth a little. "No-nothing wrong," he whispers. "You fall sleep here. I-you-don't wake up and I-I-" he was scared, on top of-his head shakes, like he's reeling, out of control. On top of-the feelings, the feeling he can't avoid. Built up inside of him like toxic vapors. "It-OK, it's OK. It's OK."  
  
It’s a lot to wake up to. Charles seems — utterly bewildered, but it’s mostly because he’s having trouble waking up, lagging behind, his poor brain whirring and chugging along. He’s concerned, though, worried, and the Erik from before used to say that, too, used to rock like that, too, and it frightens him. Did something happen? Are they back to where they started so soon? He takes a deep, overwhelmed breath, and sits up. And he wishes that Erik just didn’t wake up like this. That he doesn’t remember waking up like this at all, that he could wake up normally, quietly, gently, befitting of the morning. It’s one of those idle, early-morning, frustrated thoughts, before anything can be properly handled.  
  
And Erik slowly lies down and seems to fall right back to sleep. There’s no struggle. There’s no gradually. He just does.  
  
Charles watches, silent and horrified, everything trapped up in his throat.  
  
Erik settles back down, curled up into Charles's side and rubbing his head into his chest. He's not dead weight or unconscious, and no longer seems scared or agitated at all. He makes little noises in his sleep, sniffing to himself and curling up tight in the blankets.  
  
Charles is still largely horrified, frankly because he can’t help it. He’s sitting up in Erik’s bed, and eventually moves to the very edge of the bed, nervous, anxious, wound up over what should be nothing. He puts Erik to sleep, doesn’t he? How is this any different from that? But he feels horribly unsettled, and it eventually leads to him pacing, as it usually does, trying to stay quiet in case Erik sleeps through it. This Erik does seem to sleep through things, a miracle on its own. He doesn’t exactly want to leave the room although part of him does, so he settles for little circles, the room thankfully more than large enough to accommodate.  
  
Erik ends up sprawled over the bed, as if searching for Charles at the outer edges of his fingertips. When he doesn't find him, he huffs under his breath and his eyes flutter open. This time it's different and he stretches, yawning loudly, his toes curling up.  
  
It’s objectively a good thing. If he’d been thinking about it last night, could he have achieved the same thing? Is it such a horrible change, that Erik doesn’t remember waking up panicked and frightened, that he’s woken up normally? But Charles is very busy wearing a hole into the floor, and he tries to stop, but he’s thoroughly worked up in that way that’s not memories or trauma or circumstance, it’s simply Charles. When he finally stops walking in aimless circles, he takes a sharp, slow breath, and plasters on a smile. "Good morning," he tries, voice still hoarse from sleep, and still cracking.  
  
Erik squints and sits up. "Why you are pacing around?" he asks, his voice rough with sleep. Consciousness doesn't work in a clear-cut way, and especially Erik's consciousness, so it's hard to say if he does remember it or not, but he doesn't look stressed or overwhelmed, just sleepy.  
  
But memories do, and Erik doesn’t. Not even slightly, as if it never happened at all, because it didn’t. Charles knows for certain, though he can’t quite say why; it’s too much power for so little awareness, so little conscious thought. It frightens him more than he knows how to speak. He’s no longer pacing, though to say he’s still would be wholly incorrect. He’s fidgeting, wringing his hands, clearly attempting not to be distressed. “I -- I don’t know,” he stutters, and then shakes his head. Closes his eyes. “No, I know. I just -- please don’t make me tell you,” he begs. “Not right now.” It's a different approach than he usually takes.  
  
"That doesn't work for me," Erik replies flatly, eyebrows arching. "Come and sit." He pats the edge of the bed. "Tell me what happened."  
  
Charles does, though he’s stiff as a board, clasping his hands together so tightly they’re white with the effort. “You’ve already woken up once,” he whispers. “I know you don’t remember. You wouldn’t. But you have and I… changed it.” He closes his eyes, too, decidedly not looking at Erik.  
  
"OK," Erik reaches out and touches his hand. "Look at me," he Orders, squeezing Charles's hand. "So I don't remember. Why did you do it? What happened?"  
  
“I didn’t… do it,” he gasps, and he does look, but there’s panic in his eyes. Wide-eyed, startling panic, eyes bluer than just moments ago. “I did. I know I did, but -- you were panicked. You were frightened and upset. I wanted to help,” he explains, raspy. He clears his throat, but it does nothing to help. “I’m sorry. I’m frightened,” he admits, though it’s rather obvious.  
  
"No, you did it," Erik replies, but he doesn't sound mad. "You have a reason. I was scared. You wanted to help, and protect. And it seems that you did," he lifts Charles's hand to his lips. "You helped. I remember what is like, last morning. I-" he sighs. "I do not know how keep going through that."  
  
“But, isn’t that...” Charles bites his lip, squeezing Erik’s hand slowly, because it helps. “Isn’t that wrong? To... do that?” he wonders. And he looks up at Erik, searching.  
  
Erik shrugs. "I don't think so. If you do it all the time then it will not really get anywhere, but sometimes, I don't know, I feel crazy. I get _crazy_ and I can't handle it. I don't mind. I trust. You help. Not wrong."  
  
Charles takes another breath and sneaks another questioning look up at Erik, some of the tension in his body loosening. His shoulders are less hunched, his free hand isn’t white-knuckled on the bedsheets. “You don’t get crazy,” he argues quietly. “You just get scared and panicked... you don’t think it’s frightening?” Charles clearly does.  
  
"No," Erik replies without hesitation. "Not frightened. Not of you." He tugs Charles down beside him, burrowing his head into Charles's arm. "Everything else maybe," he jokes wryly. That's how it seems to him, anyway. Everything freaks him out. Sleeping, waking up, his own body, random turns and twists in the air. But not this. Not Charles. Not at all.  
  
“You don’t seem much frightened now,” Charles points out, even though he knows that has everything to do with him. He’s still tense, though less so; not quite leaning into Erik’s touch yet, not quite letting himself. “I seem to be more frightened than you, actually.” His leg is bouncing on the edge of the bed and he’s biting a hole in his cheek, for starters.  
  
"No need," he promises. "You did good. Helping me, like I asked. But now we get up and do routine." It's something Erik's looking forward to, too. His heartbeat is still pounding, but he doesn't seem to feel it, everything raised beneath what he can consciously detect. "Shower," he murmurs as he tugs Charles to his feet. "And breakfast. And chores. Many chores," he warns, tapping Charles on the nose.

* * *

And they do. It’s a blissfully peaceful morning, actually, and despite nerves — the nerves that would come from being in this position with what is essentially a new person, the nerves that come from being new in the first place, this Dynamic and essentially themselves startlingly fresh — Charles feels calm. There’s laughter at the breakfast table, even through slight miscommunication, and Charles kneels. He doesn’t ask to be fed, but Erik does, regardless; there’s something so strange and wonderful about something even so simple being controlled, something horribly intimate. If he thinks too much of it, he shivers, right down to his toes.  
  
Morning passes into afternoon mostly uneventfully, by most standards. He occasionally huffs and gripes about the chores, expected but never exceptionally out of line. Sometimes it’s just to be put back into line, and every time Erik responds, he rejoices. He can’t help but be elated, to feel like some of the twisting in his stomach and his heart has eased.  
  
He’s just finished up a task — dusting — when he feels it. Right at the corner of his consciousness, lingering. Charles swallows. “I — Erik,” he says, but his voice breaks on it. Erik has been watching him work all day, but he’s sitting not too far away now, reading. He clears his throat. “Would it... I’d like some time alone, if that’s alright,” he whispers. The Erik from before would grant it almost entirely without question. He clearly doesn’t expect different, by the way it’s phrased.  
  
This Erik seems a good deal more paranoid, though, even a little clingier even as embarrassing as that is. Waking up to find himself alone, his family gone, his friends gone, his community wiped out and destroyed-it's had effects beyond the profound, beyond the obvious. He doesn't like to be alone but more than that he worries that Charles is upset about something he isn't sharing. So he lowers his book-it's a children's book in English-and presses his lips together. "You sound-upset. Talk with me?"  
  
Of course Erik noticed. Perhaps the other Erik noticed, too -- he must have. Charles keeps his back turned, facing the shelf he’s been working on, but his hands are shaking where they’re noticeably flat against his sides. “I don’t want to lie to you,” he whispers, shaky, and it’s perhaps the most honest he’s ever been. He has the urge to, he means. It’s a situation he may have in the past, perhaps even one that he did.  
  
"I do not want you lie to me too," Erik replies with an eyebrow raised. "Come back," he pats the spot beside him. "Tell me what is wrong. I will listen."  
  
That much Charles knows, but it’s not quite the issue. He winces, but does as he’s told, crossing the room to sit stiffly beside Erik in the chair opposite him. They’re in one of the many studies, mostly ignored up until this point. “If I told you I am simply sick of chores and have dust in my eyes, would you believe that was all?” he tries, offering a weak smile. "It is the truth. My arm hurts," he gripes, not even half-heartedly.  
  
"No," Erik murmurs back because that much Charles does know, too. He takes Charles's hand in his and squeezes, and then kisses Charles's elbow. "I have the best medicine," he declares, completely silly. "Tell me," he implores at last. "Please."  
  
For long, stretching moments, Charles is silent. It isn’t disobedience; he can’t seem to get anything out past his lips, though he takes harsh, steadying breaths, though his mouth opens and closes several times. He’s twisting his hands together and fidgeting in his chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs. “This place speaks to me,” he whispers, finally. “And when it does, it -- I feel ill. It’s overwhelming. I often go to lie in the dark for a while.” But Erik had never questioned it when he had, so he imagines he simply didn’t know.  
  
It's obvious he didn't. He tugs Charles closer to him, as if wrapping him up tighter will keep him safer from whatever intrudes. "What does it say?" He asks, because he was always taught that speaking things into existence reduced their power. He's not so sure he believes that anymore but he is compelled to try and help any way he can.  
  
“All manner of things,” Charles answers truthfully, and looks physically torn. He clearly wants to lean into Erik’s touch, and he does. Partly. But he’s stiff and somehow curled into himself, too, as if he’s shying away. “I believe they’re memories. Mine, perhaps, but sometimes I don’t think they are at all. Someone else’s, or…” The manor’s itself, though he doesn’t quite know how to say that without sounding mad. “Some of them are pleasant. Others, not nearly. It passes, usually, but this is when --” He bites his lip. “Sometimes I am visited.”  
  
"Visited by what? Who?" he asks, and it doesn't sound judgmental or as though Charles is crazy at all. "On your knees," Erik decides a few moments later because-well-it doesn't feel right, really, for Charles to be sitting beside him, he doesn't know how to say that without sounding-archaic, but-it feels stiff, uncomfortable, and when Charles obeys he wraps him up much better with arms and legs combined.  
  
Charles is relieved by it, rather visibly. He’s still stiff, but he’s calmer here, too, even as it takes him a while to settle properly, shifting about on his knees the way he does when he’s not so much making himself comfortable as he is allowing himself to accept the comfort kneeling brings him. “Ghosts,” is what he answers, because he has no better way to describe it. He swallows and looks down. “Not literally, it isn’t supernatural, I shouldn’t think, it’s just -- they’re ghosts. I don't mind it much anymore. Will you allow it?"  
  
"Ghosts? Like-who? What?" Erik blinks. He doesn't _believe_ in ghosts, not really, but he's already seen the impossible and people _do_ the impossible every day, so maybe there are ghosts after all, or temporal echoes, or mutations he can't conceive of. The world never is what it appears at first glance. "What did they say to you? Who is? Tell me about it?" his eyebrows lift. "And stop moving about," he Orders sternly, giving his hair a sharp tug in warning.  
  
Charles whines at the tug, but it focuses him exactly like it was intended to. “They aren’t real ghosts,” he sighs, but perhaps they are, too. He certainly doesn’t know the difference, or even what he might believe about ghosts in general. All he knows is that they haunt him. His eyes close, and it’s not avoidant, this time; they’re squeezed tightly shut. “I don’t recognize all of them, or even most of them. It frightened me, in the beginning, but now I’m mostly used to it, besides the headache -- you never answered,” he points out, and tugs at Erik’s pant leg in that insistent way. “I won’t be gone long. Just an hour or two, really. Haven't I dusted enough shelves today?"  
  
"You never answered," Erik returns back archly. "You have this whole experience and I don't know anything about it, I don't like. You are upset, you want to go away and-I do not even know. Why?" he asks, because he doesn't have any information, he doesn't begrudge Charles spending time alone but he also knows that he is liable to use that to hide, and Erik doesn't know the difference well enough. "I do not want you experience that kind of thing alone. It is not right."  
  
Charles sucks in a breath through his teeth and nods. He rests his head against Erik’s leg and goes quiet again, for even longer this time. “I don’t wish to burden you with it,” he admits, bowed into Erik’s knee, his hair falling in front of his face quite conveniently. “It can be disconcerting and frightening and -- I don’t know that you’d…” He doesn’t know that Erik would be stable, but he can’t say that, so he stays silent. It speaks volumes anyway. Before, he wouldn't have been. "I don't mind experiencing it alone, really. And it doesn't usually last very long."  
  
Erik shakes his head. "My job is to help when _you_ are burdened. That is not a burden to _me_. We face this thing together, I mind that you experience alone," he contests softly. "Maybe I have a hard time. But you help me. I help you, I- _try_ to help you," he amends, dry. "You are not a burden. You are my submissive. You are not alone anymore. I won't let you. If you need, OK. But this, I don't know. It don't feel right. I don't send you away with this. We don't hide anymore. I don't hide, I don't let you hide."  
  
Charles’ eyes are closed and he seems to have gone limp against Erik’s leg, slumped forward and curled up into his knee, but his breathing slow and evenly. “You’re saying no, then?” he checks, quietly. “I can’t go to my room and wait this out? I really don’t mind it,” he tries, one last time, muffled now. He’s not putting up much of a fight anymore.  
  
"Saying no," Erik murmurs back, carding his fingers through Charles's hair, behind his ear, that one is mostly playful though. He doesn't know what Charles means when he says he doesn't think Erik can handle it, because the obvious just hasn't occurred to him, and he sort of just expects that he isn't privy to any of this anyway. He doesn't want it to be that way, he doesn't like the idea that Charles is dealing with this alone, it isn't right. "I am here. You do not just wait out alone anymore. I mind."

* * *

Erik likely always minded, or would have if he’d known, but Charles had kept it from him to -- what? To protect him? To keep him safe from the ghosts that haunt this house, that haunt Charles? He lets out a breath. This Erik is much more direct in what he desires and what he does not. Explicit, often. Charles finds he has less leeway, and arguing seems mostly a pointless practice; so he doesn’t. He tries to settle instead, eyes closed, breathing becoming more labored with every passing second. The lights suddenly turn off. “Erik?” he whispers. “What does your sister look like?”  
  
Erik lets out a little grumble of confusion and his fingers tighten into Charles's shoulder, and he swallows back any outward reaction as best as he can. "She-uh-" well, he tries to, anyway, and shakes it off physically, shaking his head. "You-see her?" he can't quite understand what's going on, the world has suddenly stopped making sense again. He doesn't know what Ruth looks like. It's been almost seventeen years. He remembers-and he pitches forward a little, resting his elbows on his knees, breathing evenly, deeply. "We look different," he whispers. She had dark brown hair, sharp features and dark eyes, like his father. They never really looked related, even though they certainly made up for that in terms of personality (not that they'd ever admit it). "Uh, looked different," he corrects.  
  
Charles tenses up, a horrible guilt twisting up his stomach, but he sucks in a breath and curls farther into Erik’s leg. One of his hands comes up to his pant leg, grasping the fabric tightly. His eyes are still firmly closed, and for good reason. “My sister doesn’t look at all like me, either,” he breathes, and this Erik doesn’t know her. It’s sad, really, because -- “I don’t remember her at all,” he admits, voice cracking on it. “We aren’t blood-related. I know that. I know she was very dear to me.” He hasn’t answered Erik’s question, and it isn’t entirely clear why he’s brought this topic up in the first place. “Your sister was older?”  
  
Erik nods, and Charles feels something wet drip onto his shoulder after falling from Erik's chin, even though he doesn't make a peep otherwise. "She-was-two years older. But she thought she is twenty years older," he laughs a little, rough. He doesn't think blood relation has anything to do with it. Even if Ruthie wasn't related to him she would still be his sister, and he has to believe he must have thought the same of Charles's sister, too.  
  
Charles laughs, too. It’s devastating, but this is the first time he’s heard Erik speak of his family with levity. It’s the first time he’s heard him laugh with their names on his lips. Everything else has inspired horror, agony so unbearable it breaks the very foundation beneath them. He takes a small, stuttering breath, and peeks up a smile. “You pestered her endlessly, then? You were the stereotypical younger brother?” he teases, and it feels -- normal isn’t perhaps the right word, but he never would have dared ask it as such before. He does now, bold and curious both. "I can picture it."  
  
"Yeah," he whispers, pressing Charles close to him all of a sudden. Hugging him for dear life. "She was always mad I always-just bugged her, you know. She took it so seriously, everything. I was-" he trails off again. Because it's hard to avoid regretting his behavior now. He can't remember the last time he ever told her he _loved her_. If she even knew. He wasn't concerned about that, it wasn't even on his radar, why would it have been? He wasn't ever cruel to his family but he was an adolescent boy, a D5 at that, encouraged to be calm and in control of his own emotions by everyone around him. He wouldn't have made time to say what they must have instinctively known. There wasn't any time at all.  
  
Charles looks up, struggling slightly in Erik’s arms so that he can move, so that he can maneuver, so that he can look him in the eyes. It’s difficult with Erik bent over like that, but he rests his head in his lap, curling up into him. “She knew you loved her, Erik,” he murmurs, and feels it stick awfully on his tongue, glued to the roof of his mouth, but he knows it to be true. “Of course she did. Siblings fight. It’s practically included in the manual,” he laughs, and takes a long, shuddering breath. “They bicker and argue. It doesn’t mean they don’t care for each other. I -- she knew. Trust me,” he whispers.  
  
"I should have been nicer to her," Erik whispers back, resting his own head on top of Charles's practically crumpled in half, and he runs his fingers through his hair and behind the back of his ear. "But she would just think I am being weird," he huffs. He can't imagine a circumstance where she wouldn't have been anything other than suspicious at any real nice behavior on his behalf. He really wasn't so nice, at least by his own standards. "She always wanted to protect me, and always said I am a fool because I do things like climb trees," he laughs softly. "But I should have protected her. I was supposed to be so strong, how come I didn't save her?"  
  
“Some things are utterly beyond our control. You were a child,” Charles breathes, his voice catching. “There was nothing you could have done. But listen to me, Erik, please?” And he struggles again until he can move out of Erik’s embrace, just enough to take his hands, to look him in the eyes. It’s important that he does for this. “She does not blame you. She never could have. Do not put that weight onto your shoulders -- what do you think she would say if she knew you had?”  
  
"I could have," Erik shakes his head, disagreeing. He simply doesn't understand and his grip is tight on Charles's hands, almost bruising. "She would be mad. I- always bragged about D5 and I didn't even save them. They all died. I didn't save. What use is it? What I was so proud of? I couldn't save them. I was a _coward_. I just got _scared_ , right? But I could have done _anything_ I want. She would be shamed of having me as a brother." They're feelings Charles knows Erik must have had, but never quite so openly.  
  
They wash over Charles like physical sensations, physical and jarring though he isn’t feeling them, necessarily. They’re not unbearable, nor do they shake the floors or break the glass with their force. They’re just feelings, harsh and hurting. He breathes in deeply and rubs his cheek against Erik’s knee, his hair falling in front of his face. “No,” he sighs, shaking his head. “No, Erik, there was nothing you could do. Sometimes even the most powerful people in the world are helpless, I’m afraid. You were a child. Just a child, and a very frightened one, faced with something he should not have had to. Your sister would want you to know that.” He swallows. He goes silent, and then, “Would you wish her to tell you herself? If you could speak to her again, would you?"  
  
Erik wilts a little, mostly under the confidence that anyone bearing his sister's visage would only be rightfully angry with him, rightfully hateful and bitter and he's still a coward all these years later. The trouble is he doesn't remember. He doesn't remember that he came home and the world was on fire and everyone was dead. Or the sound of bones breaking and lifeless eyes staring at him. To him it's incomprehensible that he couldn't have just done something. Surely there must be judgement for the weak, small man who freezes in the face of adversity. "I can-?" He asks softly. The idea that he could see her again is more overwhelming than that fear. "I can?"  
  
Charles shudders. “I --” There’s something lodged in his throat, something he cannot swallow. “There is a possibility,” he answers, because to lie here would be an egregious betrayal and he knows it. But he cautions, “But if it does not bring you closure --” He’s frightened, really, that it won’t help. That it won’t soothe. That it will only make it more unbearable for Erik, more unfathomable, more horrific and devastating. He takes another breath. "I won't deny you it, if you choose to. It isn't my right," he decides, and lets Erik decide.  
  
Erik can’t pretend like he knows whether or not this will bring him closure, but he also can’t pretend like he isn’t a little-well-secretly jolted at the idea of being able to see her again. Maybe even as she is now. Even if it’s an apparition or from another universe, he doesn’t know. He’s too grief-stricken to question it. “Please,” he whispers, because it’s all he can say. To never see her again? Never know? That would be worse than anything he can imagine.  
  
Charles wonders if he should have brought it up at all. Has he just doomed Erik to the same fate as him? Looking down the corridor for ghosts, seeking out visitors to make sense of the jumbled, confused mess in his own mind? But if he has, it isn’t fair to blame himself for it. Erik asked him to tell him of what he saw, of what he experiences, and he had tried to share that. He takes a breath, his eyes closed again. “I’d have to try and find her,” he mumbles, buried half in Erik’s knee again. “I see my own sister, sometimes. I don’t know if it’s her or a memory. Perhaps both, perhaps not. I don’t recognize her,” he admits, his breath caught on it. “But it aches, because I know that I should. I don’t know her at all. She’s just a stranger to me, and I look at her like a stranger. I wish that she wasn’t.”  
  
Erik’s lips press together and he leans forward even further to rest his head atop Charles’s once more. “You will,” he says softly. Just like he’s supposed to get his own memories back. He has to have confidence in that because otherwise there seems to be no point, and there are so many memories he wants, even with the pain, his own children-he understands. And it hurts, and he gets it. And while he can’t fix it, he can be here.  
  
There truly is no point to this otherwise, and Charles understands the concept. He can see it in Erik with his own eyes, just like Erik before could see it in him, but it doesn’t mean that occasionally it isn’t painful. That it doesn’t ache. That he doesn’t feel trapped or haunted in this manor, with its white walls and its long, stretching corridors that occasionally grow longer, never-ending, that seem to speak as much as any vision. “I don’t know everyone I hear. I don’t know of them, I should say,” he sighs, and tucks himself even further into Erik, wiggling between his knees. After a few moments, he takes a shaky breath. His shoulders are shaking. “I like that you asked me to kneel,” he whispers, seemingly out of nowhere.  
  
That makes Erik frown, too, and he can’t help wondering if Charles has met-but it does no good to ask, to put that on him. It’s not his responsibility to find Erik’s dead sister and show her to him, he should never have even asked, and now that he’s alone with his thoughts for five seconds it seems truly in comprehensible that he did-except that he was hurting and it was impulsive. “You should always kneel,” he murmurs back, sealing any other response behind his lips pressed together air-tight. Are all these people walking around ghosts that he knew? Ghosts of his friends and family, ghosts of all the people that were harmed by Sebastian Shaw? Or are they just random, walking in and out of Charles’s life for no reason? He doesn’t know, and it’s hard to make himself-make himself make it stop. “You don’t have to,” he finally says. It shouldn’t be that hard.  
  
It’s the comfort he needed without knowing to ask for it, except that he did, even unconsciously. Charles looks up again, slowly, blinking slow as if he’s bothered by the light. “I don’t have to?” he asks, his mind not quite catching up yet, or perhaps it’s preoccupied entirely with something else. "Kneel?" Somehow, he doesn't think so, but he can't find the connection himself. His eyebrows are pinched closer together.  
  
"Find her," he whispers and it's so pained that it's pretty obvious what he desires, but his desires mean less than his conscience. "Find her," he repeats softly. "Don't have to. That is not your responsibility. I should not ask."  
  
“You didn’t ask, I offered,” Charles points out quietly. It was he who had brought it up in the first place, and he takes a slow, careful breath. “If I can find her for you, I’d like to. Please let me,” he breathes, and he doesn’t know how, exactly, he’s going to do it. He doesn’t know if it will happen right this moment or at all. But he does know that he wants to, desperately, if only for Erik’s sake. Because it’s something he has asked for.  
  
If Erik is being truthful he knows that his statement wasn't particularly convincing either way, mostly because it's hard for him to deny the possibility that this could be real, that he could see her again. "'Kay," he whispers back, pained, because it-well-it's not good of him. It's not right, it's weak, but he can't help it. Could anyone?  
  
Charles certainly doesn’t see it as weak. He’s biting his lip again, though, taking short, shallow breaths, and -- “Erik?” he asks, his eyes closed in that tight, pinched way that’s surely painful.  
  
Erik touches his cheek. "Charles," he whispers back, encouraging him silently to open his eyes, to look at Erik instead. "Tell me."  
  
This feels weak to him. His eyes open for a moment before they’re glued shut again, and he shakes his head. “May I… come up there?” he asks, because he does crave being on his knees, he’s found himself wishing Erik would ask for nothing but, and usually there's nothing that calms him more, but -- his cheeks flush. He wants to be held, and this way isn’t exactly kind to Erik’s back. "No, nevermind, that's --"  
  
Erik tugs him up, though, because it's been hard being essentially crumpled in half all this time and this way gives him more access to wrap Charles up in his arms which serves to be a comfort to them both, which is certainly acceptable to him. "It is what I want," he corrects sharply, because it is always his decision. In the end.  
  
Charles sighs in relief and nods, now nosing his way into Erik’s neck because he fully admits it makes him feel safe. He’s taking those shaky, too-quick breaths again, his arms around Erik’s neck and his fingers grasping tightly to the back of his shirt. He hiccups, loudly. “Erik, can we turn off the lights?” he asks, and he sounds like he might be in physical pain. “My head hurts.”  
  
Erik nods, brushing his hair in rhythmic, smooth strokes. The lights flick off immediately, as if they were never there, and his head drops down onto Charles's shoulder. He doesn't know if he can speak just yet, but it isn't because he's hiding. He's seemed to move beyond that, at the moment all it seems to be is frankly-being overwhelmed, but being near Charles, comforting Charles, seems to help.  
  
The lights being off helps immediately, which likely means it has more to do with the darkness itself and less with any actual light sensitivity. It feels like it has to do with it, if nothing else, and he sighs again, this time longer, the relief sagging his shoulders until he melts like butter in his Dominant’s arms, pliant and limp and finally calming some. “They’re loud today,” he mumbles into Erik’s neck. “Usually I lie in the dark in my room. Sometimes under the covers.” He’s never admitted this to Erik before. He’s never shared it with him.  
  
"It is better to lie here," Erik tells him softly, feathering his fingers at the back of Charles's neck. He figures he must have been pretty *unstable* if Charles didn't feel like he could share with him *before*, but he cannot imagine being *more* unstable than he currently is-utterly lacking the context to realize that the way he's handling it is a far different thing. He hums under his breath, unconscious and barely audible, some far away melody buried in the recesses of his mind.


	132. Exactly how many days we got lastin'? While you laughin' we're passin' passin' away

Charles clings, melting even further when Erik touches the back of his neck. He doesn’t know what it is about that, exactly, but it makes him shiver, utterly pliant now, even as he has to force out labored breaths. “I get migraines,” he admits, sucking in sharp breaths through his teeth, now, blowing them out against Erik’s neck, speaking against it. Breathing him in to comfort himself, really. “They aren’t… awful, really. You told me, before, that I was in such pain I was sick. It isn’t nearly so dramatic. It just becomes too much, I think,” he sighs.  
  
Unfortunately for Charles, Erik kind of, well, _smells_ a little since the only time he's tried to bathe since waking up didn't turn out so well, and now it's been a couple of days. It's not unbearable, but it's obvious given Charles's nose is pressed against his neck, and he has to laugh a little at realizing it must not be so pleasant. He'll have to get over himself sooner or later or else Charles probably won't touch him at all. He'll become a home for friendly bacteria probably. "It does not sound good," Erik replies softly, kissing Charles's temple and tapping his fingers along the spot they've found. Maybe it isn't awful, but Erik would rather Charles not experience any pain at all.  
  
It’s not unpleasant, actually. Perhaps Charles is simply incapable of noticing at the moment, and it’s not as if it’s flowery, but he’s taking comfort in it; not the lack of bathing, certainly, but that it’s Erik. That he can tell. There’s something strangely primal about it that utterly embarrasses him, but he’s grateful Erik doesn’t seem to have noticed, from his end, or at least hasn’t commented. He twitches and struggles briefly when Erik’s lips meet his temple, wriggling unsettled in his lap, and then he frowns up at his Dominant. “You haven’t asked me to tell you what they’re saying,” he points out. It’s not an accusation, really. He’s curious. "Don't you... want to know?"  
  
Erik nods, tracing his fingertip down Charles's face. "I waited for right moment," he smiles, his nose wrinkling up fondly. "Tell me about it," is when he does ask, presumably the right moment being now, but Charles had to have realized he walked himself right into this one.  
  
He went willingly, to be fair. Charles goes silent, but not in disobedience; he’s clearly trying to sort it out, and having someone to sort it out for is at least helpful in this sense. He makes a soft noise against Erik’s skin, eyes closed again. “It often just blurs together,” he sighs, truthfully. “I can’t make much sense of it. Have you ever been on the phone, but all you heard on the other end was static? Warbling noises, whispers? It’s like that, but far louder. Every once in a while I hear something that makes sense, but I don't know how to make sense of it."  
  
"I think so," Erik says, even though he can't ever recall having that experience in real life, he's seen it on television plenty of times. "If everything is just happening at once then it would not make much sense," his head tilts curiously. Because Charles would have no context, no memories, even if it were relevant to his own life.  
  
Charles nods. Erik has always been perceptive, even about things that make relatively little sense to most. Charles has never felt felt so grateful for it, and he presses even closer, shuffling forward in Erik’s lap. “Do you want me to try to make sense of it, or do you want to talk over it?” he asks. It’s not a question Charles would have asked for. He either would have assumed Erik’s desires or simply done one. The little changes are entirely subtle, but obvious, too.  
  
"I think you always try and drown it out," Erik points out softly. "And it does not solve the problem. Maybe starting by making sense of it, then working backward. So you could begin to select what you perceive not just intrusive." He gives a little shrug, smiling sheepishly. He doesn't really understand how Charles's abilities work, but he's good at thinking in the abstract.  
  
And, truly, Charles has never been so grateful for it. Rather than becoming prickly or frustrated, he relaxes some at Erik’s suggestion, feeling for all the world like he’s less likely to break off into pieces. It doesn’t mean he takes his head out of Erik’s neck, or isn’t stuttering out breaths, still, face scrunched in equal parts concentration and discomfort, but it’s certainly something. “I think my mother is one of the voices,” he sighs, lips pursed. Erik knows nothing of his mother now. Before, he knew more than Charles. At least he remembered meeting her.  
  
“What does she say?” Erik wonders, curious. He doesn’t know anything about Charles’s family and he’s curious to know, but he hasn’t wanted to pry. Charles doesn’t seem to know that much, either, but now he knows more than Erik does. At this point that’s probably a good thing, since this Erik is a lot more impulsive and a lot less composed than before and would likely react somewhat inappropriately, or at least without any tact.  
  
Charles goes quiet again. This time it’s for another reason entirely, and he clings tighter to Erik’s neck. “Your mother was kind to you?” he asks, and he knows he shouldn’t; it’s such a horrid question to ask, considering the circumstances, but he couldn’t ask the previous Erik. “Can you tell me about her?” It’s avoiding the question, perhaps, but he wants desperately to hear, too.  
  
Erik nods, swallowing roughly, feeling his throat stick to itself like sandpaper. "Always," he manages to get out, offering a small smile. "Not always like warm and fuzzy," he adds, dry. "Very much not like that." He doesn't know how to explain it, exactly. "Very strict. Not nonsense. But she never made me feel small. Even when I felt small." And he tries not to feel crushed, and fails, that he didn't appreciate her more when he knew her. They didn't deserve a brother, a son like him. They didn't deserve to die because of him. Erik's head ducks and he sniffs, wiping his nose on his sleeve discreetly.  
  
Charles doesn’t let Erik hide, either. Not right now, not anymore. He sniffles himself and bundles himself up even further in Erik’s arms, if that’s even possible, like he can climb right into his skin. “She sounds wonderful,” he rasps, and kisses Erik’s neck, nuzzles into him. “My mother —“ His voice cracks. He closes his eyes, his throat too dry to speak. “I don’t remember her, I wouldn’t know,” he rushes to qualify. It feels like the words stick to the roof of his mouth.  
  
Erik's arms tighten, too, without conscious volition but more accurately on instinct, a form of self-comfort. "It sounds like you know a little," he adds, because Charles has mentioned it before-that his family wasn't kind. Erik doesn't have any frame of reference for such a thing. His life wasn't exactly easy, but he wasn't mistreated, mostly it was just ignorance by well-meaning people, which is quite a lot different. Learning all that happened to him since he woke up has had a profound impact on him for the same reason, before he woke up he'd had no conception of that kind of cruelty, and it seems like a fuzzy fever dream.  
  
Sometimes, Charles questions it himself. It isn’t as if he remembers it, or can process it, much the same as the disconnect with Erik. There’s something missing there, and being told or even shown something is quite a lot different than experiencing it, which he assumes is rather the point. He bites his lip, curled up tighter in Erik’s arms now. He takes Erik’s hand and places it on the back of his neck. “Touch,” he suggests, though perhaps it’s too much like a demand. He can’t help it in this moment, and it really does seem like a habit Erik will need to consistently train him out of. Something normal. “She feels... cold,” he sighs, finally.  
  
“No,” Erik growls back, scratching down Charles’s jaw instead. “You ask. Not tell. You ask nice,” and when he demands it’s quite a lot different, with a heated zap of Will accompanying. He doesn’t know what to say to that, whatever he wants to say just feels stupid and underwhelming, but he does redouble his efforts to ensure Charles remains as close as humanly possible to him. Unlike the Erik of before he doesn’t have the requisite experience, he doesn’t know what it feels like to be mistreated, despite being told he was. It’s chaotic and confusing and-too much, but the sense that Erik gets it, isn’t there anymore. The dynamics in his own life that led to him fully comprehending Charles’s past just aren’t there. All he feels is angry, and irritated, that anyone would do such a thing, and he lacks the nuance to know better. What he does understand, what he does have experience with, is what he’s currently going through, and he takes a deep breath, nodding. “I-“ he lets it out, not knowing where he was going with that.  
  
The fortunate thing is, Charles doesn’t comprehend it, either. He hasn’t experienced it. He has no memory of it. He’s aware of it, the same way Erik is, but there’s simply no connection to it, not in any real sense. There’s nothing for Erik to get, which is really the entire point. He takes a sharp breath, and first breathes out, “Touch me, please? Here?” He guides Erik’s hand gently back to his neck, peeking up sheepish and hopeful. “I don’t remember it, so it’s alright. It’s just loud. Everything is just loud,” and he goes back to slumped and tense, eyes firmly closed.  
  
Erik’s fingers dig in gently, soothing the muscles that have tightened up there until Charles starts to relax against him. Maybe, he thinks, it would be better if he didn’t remember his family at all. It’s a truly wrenching, guilt-ridden thought, because he can’t fathom the idea of not remembering them and wholly dislikes that he did forget members of his family gained afterwards. But-maybe it wouldn’t feel so awful. It’s a selfish, stupid thought, but it’s challenging to not want to escape from these feelings and he can’t quite help that he does. It wouldn’t solve anything, he knows that. Sooner or later he will have to deal with it. “I would not-want you have regret,” he whispers softly. To leave things unsaid, to-well, Charles knows. Erik hasn’t exactly hidden it. He fully regrets the way he left his family, even if it was completely and utterly mundane, utterly normal, nothing anyone could blame another person for-but still. If he had known, he would have made different choices. He doesn’t want Charles to ever have to feel like that.  
  
Charles blinks. “I don’t understand,” he admits, voice raspy, but he wonders if perhaps Erik just means generally. He doesn’t know the difference. He has no way of knowing how he interacted with his mother, or his father, or anyone in his family for that matter. He’s all tensed up in Erik’s arms again, but he’s leaning into the touch, if nothing else, seeking it out. “It hurts,” he huffs, a tired little sigh, and tries to get comfortable in Erik’s shoulder, wriggling this way and that. “Or... it’s uncomfortable. There’s too much pressure. I don’t like it,” and he’s aware of how childish that is.  
  
"It does not sound comfortable," Erik huffs softly in return, and he doesn't know how to explain it better, or what it really even means, so he doesn't try. "Thank you for telling me about this," he adds, kissing Charles's forehead gently. He wished he knew how to help, but it occurs to him that this likely falls under the same kind of purview as when Charles feels like he can't help Erik. But Charles always does, just by being there, so Erik just hopes that that is enough, because he isn't going anywhere.  
  
“You’re acting so... warm,” Charles whispers. He can’t help it. He doesn’t even know where it comes from, if he’s honest, and tears spring to his eyes before he can stop them, his throat clotted up again. He swallows, shakes his head, and continues his search for a proper spot in Erik’s neck.  
  
Erik's shoulders raise and fall a little, lips curving upward against Charles's skin. He doesn't know if he just never acted this way before, but it's the only way he knows how to behave-it's just natural to him. He brushes those tears away, letting Charles burrow closer. "It just feels normal to me," he admits.  
  
It’s different to what Charles knows, so much so that he’s actually finding it disorienting, but he doesn’t want to say that. New tears replace the old ones, but he isn’t distressed, really; overwhelmed, uncomfortable, perhaps, and he touches Erik’s face, even as he tries to press closer again. It’s very dark, thankfully, but he can still find Erik’s lips. “You smile more,” he breathes. “A lot more. You rarely smiled before.”  
  
“It sound like I-“ he doesn’t know how to put into words what he means, really, the product of concepts rising up in him that have no equivalency in language, a lack of fine-tuned education that ordinarily made him articulate failing now. “I don’t express anything. Even happiness. If I know you I must have felt it. But it must all get stuck in there.” He taps Charles’s temple. It’s an intuitive answer, and one that isn’t far off from the truth. It isn’t that Erik had less to smile about, but likely had been conditioned over many years not to react at all, lest it be used against him. His instinct was to shut down, to go flat and dead, to give nothing away. It is eminently obvious by this point that it wasn’t a natural phenomenon. “It’s hard to smile sometimes. But you make it easier,” he grins, then, fully aware of his own corny ‘line’.  
  
Charles laughs a little, too, and tucks himself back into Erik’s shoulder. Erik’s hand is still on the back of his neck, playing with the hairs there, and it’s the only thing keeping him entirely calm. “Sometimes it frightened me,” he admits, and it’s deathly quiet, whispered so low he almost hopes Erik won’t hear. The dark is especially comforting now. “You got so calm, and so... silent, and you didn’t react. I sometimes worried you just didn’t feel anything. You did that a lot.”  
  
“It does seem like that,” Erik agrees, soft. “Maybe it is just impossible to have normal feelings, if I did then it would be too big. Sometime it feels too big now,” he admits. He can’t imagine feeling worse than he has during the first day he awoke, learning all that he had, the only thing worse would be to have actually experienced it; and that isn’t something he can really fathom. “I feel lots of stuff,” he assures. “Maybe before it is just too dangerous.”  
  
Now, of course, Charles can tell. He can see it on Erik’s face. Erik smiles, now. He cries without punishing himself, even if he gets embarrassed. He doesn’t steel himself at every occasion, he doesn’t hide the same way he demands Charles not to. It’s really more of a relief than he even could have imagined. He pulls back from Erik’s shoulder for just a moment again to touch his face, find his mouth again in the dark. “I like your smile,” he whispers, as if it’s a secret. “I like when you show those things. I —“ His eyes shut suddenly. Charles lets out a low, pitiful noise, and burrows back into Erik’s neck.  
  
Of course, that just makes Erik smile again, his lips curving against Charles's fingers before pressing little kisses to their pads. Expressing these things is natural to him, it always has been, even under the layer of bravado he keeps up-it's a natural barrier, far less opaque and resistant and stiff. He's better at being vulnerable, at being, in a way he never was before. And he can't help but be thankful for that, because how he was before continues to disappoint him. He keeps Charles's hand near, giving his thumb a little sharp nip to refocus his attention. "What is the matter?" he whispers, drawing his free hand through Charles's hair again, helping him to settle down.  
  
“I don’t like it,” he sighs, aware again how childish it sounds, especially muffled in Erik’s skin now. “I don’t have any desire to, to —“ To learn, really. To keep what feels to him a horrible curse. Perhaps it was something else that fueled Charles to feel afraid and burdened by his own mutation, but there’s a natural fear here, too, and it’s only been bolstered by the circumstances. There is less of it, now. Less reason, less jumbled up hang-ups. But this part still exists. “It’s loud and uncomfortable and horrid. I don’t understand it. What harm would there be if I never got my abilities back? What if I simply refuse? What if I refuse?”  
  
Erik frames both sides of his face and kisses his forehead, gentle even in the dark. Charles can still feel him smiling, even if he can't see it, or even touch it. "I think it will harm, to you," he replies softly. "Your gift, is beautiful. The potential of scaring you, I know is high. But you already do so many good things, so many beautiful things. You are special. Not because of impressive feats, because of compassion. I-don't-" he shakes his head, unsure how to put it into words, really. "I don't think you will be really happy. Even if you don't get scared. Life will come and you realize, you know, you have the ability to make real change, good change. You are smart, you know?" Erik laughs a little, because in comparison he feels like a circus monkey, in all honesty. "I think you would not feel challenged, if you kept it all lock up. You won't know as much, maybe not even care as much. It's not all horrid. You help me. You say I never even used to _smile_. You did that. You made it better."  
  
There’s truth there. Charles knows there’s truth there, but he keeps his eyes tightly shut regardless, shakes his head regardless, even though that draws out another sound of discomfort from his throat. “What if it isn’t worth the rest?” he asks, raspy. “It’s terrifying, to know this is inside of me — am I given no option? Must I accept this? And if I am privy to all the knowledge of the Universe, why does it feel as if I know nothing? It’s uncomfortable, Erik. It’s loud. I’d just like to turn it off.”  
  
"It is my job make sure that you are best of yourself," Erik tells him in return, as simply honest as he can be. "That will not be doing my job. I expect from you, not to run and hide, even when it is hard. Even when it is scary. You are not alone. You were not meant to be ordinary. Sometimes it is not comfortable, or safe, or happy. I cannot make every moment beautiful. You say that to me, that I cannot shield you from every pain. But it is worth it. You know that is true."  
  
“And if I refuse?” he asks, one more time, but now his voice sounds hoarser, somehow. Croaked out as if it’s forced. He’s gone still and tense in Erik’s arms. “What happens then?”  
  
"What happens then is me," Erik replies firmly. "You are my submissive. I do not accept refusal. If you need to hear in that terms then you are correct, it is not your choice. I will not allow you to submerge and wither away. And you would not respect me if I did."  
  
“How do you know?” he huffs, still buried in Erik’s neck and unwilling to pull away. Charles doesn’t have any desire to, even as he gets worked up. Perhaps because he’s getting worked up, this time. “What if it hurts me? It doesn’t feel good. It’s loud. My head hurts,” he sighs. “I can’t control it. That doesn’t bother you?”  
  
"I know," Erik boops him on the nose, fond. "If it hurts you, if it is dangerous, if it is wrong, then I will intervene. You need to trust I will do that. If it is bad, if anything is bad, if anything causes you harm like that, I will intervene. Just like I am now. And I think the less you are scared, the more you will be able to control. And that starts to just exist. I wish I can tell you exactly how, but I don't even know how to use my own ability," he has to laugh. "I used to be able to do everything, now I can't even lift a fork. I don't know anymore. I used to have rules and logic that I follow with my powers, now nothing makes any sense. I don't know what the logic, or rule is. I just know we stay together. That will never bother me."

* * *

Charles sighs, a long, pained huff, as if it takes too much air to get it out of his mouth, through his chest. “All of it seems harmful,” he mumbles, and he’s settled back on Erik’s shoulder, legs curled up on either side of each Erik’s hips. It’s comfortable and safe. “Can you... sometimes, you focus me. Can you try?” he asks, and he’s asking for help. It’s really quite amazing how much progress he’s made, as if the change in Erik changed him, too.  
  
Erik's thoughts have gone a little off the edges, for some reason he cannot even begin to fathom something has popped in his head, and he doesn't know why it crops up at this moment because it's not relevant in the slightest. "You know _ima_ was in the army," he laughs a little, wiping his nose on his sleeve. "She was from _Yishuv_ , so it isn't surprising, really. Her whole family was here for generations. There," he corrects. Sometimes it's hard to reconcile the past and present in his mind. He doesn't know how to focus Charles, but Charles had asked about her, and she's been on his mind ever since. He doesn't know, maybe listening to something other than the noise might help, or maybe he's just being selfish.  
  
If nothing else, it certainly is something outside of the pounding in his own head, the intruding and loud clamber for his attention. He doesn’t think it’s what he meant, but he doesn’t know what it is he meant, either, what he intended, what he was really asking for. All he knows is that what he spoke is the truth; Erik has focused him when nothing else in the world could. “She has a lower voice,” he whispers, and he doesn’t know where it comes from. It’s almost entirely muffled where he’s buried himself now completely in Erik’s shoulder.  
  
"I always imagined her _fighting bad guys_ , she really believed in it." He mimes shooting a gun. "And I-never did. I never told her that. I was always dreadful of my future. She was in _Tzrifin_. It is like a jail, for military people, when they do something wrong. She always said that her philosophy, that you can hold the enemy to a standard, but you hold your allies, and yourself, to highest. So when your friend commits a crime, it is greater than when your enemy commits it." He laughs loudly, all of a sudden, holding up a finger. He's just talking, really, stupid stuff. He knows it's stupid, a little sheepish in his expression, and he doesn't know where it all bubbled up from either. Charles is struggling, he needs Erik, but it's exiting him like verbal emesis. "But then she said most of the prisoners is in there because they don't shave. So maybe take a pile of salt."  
  
To be completely honest, Charles doesn’t even understand what that means. He blinks, unsteady, groaning at even the tiniest bit of light that slips through when he opens his eyes, and promptly closes them again. Takes a long, shuddering breath. “I don’t know how,” he admits. At this point, he’s clearly trying to burrow into Erik’s skin; it doesn’t feel close enough, or enough in general, but there’s nowhere else to go. "It will pass soon. It's usually better. Not as loud," he mumbles, though that won't stop the problem. "I shouldn't have told you. I usually never tell you when things like this happen."

* * *

Erik grips him by the throat, glaring at him. "You always tell me. And you do not do it alone. You let me in. When it happens. You are not trapped alone anymore. I won't let." He knows that Charles doesn't know how, but it's happened before. Erik has been able to shape it before, and he hopes that he can do that again. If not, he doesn't know. He doesn't have any other answer, at all.  
  
Charles yelps a little as he’s grabbed, appropriately sheepish as he lets himself slump back against Erik’s shoulder. He stops fussing, at least for the time being, soft noises of discomfort the only sound he makes. “Earlier, you called for me from down the hall,” he mumbles, blinking against Erik’s skin, as if he’s taking in as little light as possible, testing it. “And I went to come to you, but the hall just got longer and longer. I felt like I walked for ages. But when I got to you, you acted like it had been a normal amount of time. You can be impatient when you Order me,” he half-grins. “You expect it to be followed that instant. So I knew you just didn’t know.”  
  
That makes Erik laugh, just a little. "Maybe little bit," he concedes softly. "And I expect the same now. That you find some way. You do exactly right, did you know?" he kisses Charles's temple. "Telling me this thing. It was exact thing you should do, and you did very well to tell even if I don't ask, because I don't know. I know. I am here now. I won't go anywhere."  
  
Charles shudders so hard it’s more of a spasm, full-body and painful, jerking away from Erik’s lips. He doesn’t mean to. It’s just a response, and he tries to settle a moment later. “I don’t like when you Order things I can’t do,” he whispers, and it’s mostly unrelated, but there’s some fear there, too. “It feels like I’m being torn apart, Erik. I can’t explain it. It physically hurts. Even taking longer than I should to get to you earlier felt horrible.”  
  
"I know," Erik whispers. "And I try not to. But I expect you will find a way. So that I am there with you. So that I see with you, hear with you. And my Order is that you do not shy from that task, that you do not ignore, that you put effort to doing it. If you can't, then that is reality. I will not be disappointed. If you do not try? I will be."


	133. God, rest our souls 'cause I know I might meet you up at the crossroads

“How do you know if I’m trying?” he asks, and it’s not necessarily defiant, even if it comes out in a little huff. Charles keeps his face hidden in Erik’s shoulder, still taking those deep, shaky breaths, broken up every now and then by a soft, half-pained sound. “How do you measure that? I don’t even know what to do, Erik. Am I not trying right now?”  
  
"I know," Erik counters softly, lifting Charles's chin to look at him. "I always can tell. You are trying right now and I am very proud of you," he adds, soft and achingly sincere. He truly is proud. "You tell me. You bring me in your world. Your thoughts. You are being very good," he adds with a fond scritch at the back of Charles's neck.  
  
It’s the wrong hand. Charles shakes his head, and it’s exactly as it should be, because he hadn’t gone for the damaged hand in the first place. As if it had responded to Erik through him, and then back to Charles as it should be; perhaps unconscious, perhaps not. He doesn’t understand how it works. This hand is certainly rough and large but it isn’t the one that he’d been worried hurt Erik. He reaches for the other one for good measure, and it isn’t clawed or bent either. Maybe it isn’t fixed, the same way he’s limping on an ankle that should be well towards healed by now, but there’s no way to differentiate, either in looks or in movement. He lets that one go and stares at the one he’d picked up, tears blinking in his eyes. Then he closes them again. “I feel trapped,” he whispers again.  
  
"You are alone," Erik whispers. "But no more. You show me. You bring me. I am by your side. That is how it is going be," he states with a firm tone of finality, his eyebrows lifted, and he presses Charles's cheek to his own, that hand curling around his temple. Maybe Charles is trapped, maybe they all are, but Erik will always be by his side, and it was never meant to be faced alone. Erik can't help but think that feeling has to do with the fact that he has been.  
  
It makes him wonder, even if it shouldn’t. Charles takes a long, careful breath, and exhales it with his eyes closed. “How is it different than before?” he asks.  
  
Erik's head tilts sideways. "I do not know," he admits, because he doesn't. "But how it sounds, before you never told me, or share, and just stay alone. Of course you are trapped."  
  
Charles goes silent again. He’s breathing, shaky and slow, clearly trying to regulate for himself, slumped into Erik’s lap, and then he takes a sharper breath. He reaches up to touch Erik’s face. “Erik? Take a deep breath, please,” he whispers.  
  
Erik gazes back at him, his attention obviously focused on Charles, and he does as he’s asked (mostly because he’s been asked, which he always appreciates-Charles is learning), his chest contracting and then expanding against Charles’s largely.  
  
Nothing happens at first. There’s relative silence, the darkness they’ve both created. Charles takes breaths as slow as he can, but they hitch at the end, he makes these quiet, half-pained noises; his eyes are squeezed shut. It’s close to the point where Erik would likely do something, intervene in some way, and then all of a sudden it’s shockingly loud. Like a rumble at first, just errant, screeching noise, and then, as Erik’s brain processes it, about as well as it could be expected to, it becomes clear to hat what he’s listening to, what he’s hearing, are voices. Some shouting, some whispering, some just speaking, but over each other, clambering, a horrific cacophony of noise that it’s impossible for him to make any sense of. His brain just wasn’t built for it, and Charles’ isn’t faring much better currently. None of it makes any sense; it’s just noise, the occasional word, or phrase, or worse, emotion. Nauseating, nearly violent, but after a moment or two it stops. Quiets, then silences. Charles swallows. “That’s what I hear,” he whispers. “It only lasts an hour or two. Never much more than that. I didn’t think — I thought it would be better to keep it to myself, rather than worry you.”  
  
Erik's head shakes though as it all begins to filter through and he seems to breathe it out with that large expanding exhale, holding Charles close to him as it whispers through his body and then slams into him like a thousand volts of electricity. But he was made for force, as far as his mind can process it, for electricity. He can beyond anything else, handle it. "No," he breathes. "Never again. No hide," he doesn't realize it comes out as a barely audible croak. Even this, all of this, he feels entitled to. Charles is his and so is this. As impossible as it is.  
  
Truthfully, Charles feels vaguely ill again, and quite like he might be a bit sick. He groans against Erik’s shoulder, but it isn’t protest or frustration or upset; it’s just overwhelming, and he feels overwhelmed, exhausted, strung too tightly. “Do I tell you every time?” he wonders, biting his lip. He peers up at Erik, at the outline of his face, wincing at the pressure and roar behind his eyelids even when he closes them, at his temples. “Every time I hear a voice? Every time the corridor stretches out farther? Every time I’m not sure what’s real and what isn’t?”  
  
Gentle fingers brush against Charles's temple; Erik's, long and broad and still-calloused even if he can't recall how he gained them, as if tracing along the most delicate of glass. Trying to soothe out the cracks, or at least ease them. "Every time," he confirms solemnly, seriously, and in many ways reminiscent of the Erik that Charles woke up to. Firm and unyielding, but with a warmth of life that didn't appear to exist beforehand. At least, to a Charles who couldn't quite manage his abilities-Erik was often statuesque, but that too has been eased out. Brought to life. "I want to know. I cannot know until you show me, and you are experience it alone, all of this, without me? And I don't know? How can we be real? If I do not know and share with you?" His eyebrows are raised, indelibly earnest.  
  
Charles swallows and then after a moment he nods. Slowly, but solemnly, too. “I’ll tell you,” he promises, and he’s promising both himself and Erik. He shies away from the touch to his temple, winces, but doesn’t completely pull away. A sign of trust if there ever was one, budding still but surely there. “I just — it happens so often. I don’t want to ruin the time we spend together with it,” he sighs. “It’s confusing and frustrating and loud. How will you knowing help?”  
  
This Erik just shrugs, though. "Maybe it doesn't help, maybe not," he concedes, which definitely is a first-ordinarily he's the first one to bat back against Charles's concerns-it never was meant to be dismissive, it always was intended with the purpose of making him feel better, but very frequently Charles left feeling unheard. "But we can try?" Erik replies, hopeful. "We can just try. And maybe it will help, what do we lose? If it don't help then I won't ask for all time, maybe just the times that really stick out. But we start somewhere."  
  
It’s different than the Erik he knew before. He keeps noticing it, keeps finding new examples of how very different this feels. Charles nods again, then kisses blindly at Erik’s skin. “We can try,” he murmurs, though he knows it really isn’t his decision anyway. That’s new, too. “It’s loud. Can you help?” He goes pink, for some reason. “I — I don’t need it, but...”  
  
Erik's nose wrinkles up. "Well I need it. I need to make you feel good," he states as simply as it were fact, which to him, it is. His fingers trace down Charles's cheek and press against his lips, not shushing him, just brushing against them, fond. "Share with me," he encourages softly. "I want."  
  
Charles kisses Erik’s fingers, and for the briefest moment sucks one into his mouth, entirely uncertain why he does it. His cheeks go hotter, and he takes a harsh breath, grateful it’s still so dark. “Can you Order me?” he asks, biting his lip. “To do something? Please? If I can’t, you can tell me it’s alright, that I can stop.”  
  
Erik's thumb brushes against Charles's bottom lip, still-wet, and his breath ghosts against the shell of Charles's ear as he murmurs the Order lowly, "Share with me," he says, an electric zap following straight from Charles's head to his feet.  
  
Charles closes his eyes. It doesn’t come like it did before; he’s always had some leeway in following Erik’s Orders, as long as he made an attempt to do so to the best of his ability. “I found your sister,” he breathes. “You told me to, so I — I tried to listen.” He’s quiet, nervous, really. As if Erik will be upset. “But it’s too loud right now. Can you help with that?”

* * *

Hearing it stated like that, like a fact, like it's reality, something happens inside of Erik that he can't quite explain, as if a nuclear explosion has gone off between his bones, the intercostal spaces, a supersonic boom that flattens his heart and pulverizes it through sheer proximity and he lets out a loud gasp, and it's loud. Charles is right, it's loud, the sound-it's not a sound at all, but it is, and Erik doesn't understand it at all and it passes through. His breathing is shaky. "OK," he croaks, barely a warble. All the blood has drained out of his face, leaving him ashen, sweaty. His fingers paw over Charles's jaw like he's soothing himself, rhythmic. "Found her?" It's small. Charles can listen, and hear her, and Erik can't. Erik can't save her. He can't find her.   
  
Charles grips back, and his eyes close more tightly. He’s taking shaky breaths, too, and his free hand suddenly grabs at Erik’s shirt, pulls at it, tugs, white-knuckles the fabric. “I don’t, I don’t know what to do,” he admits, and he sounds as panicky as he feels, suddenly pale and sweating himself, hair sticking to his forehead as he tries to suck in air. “I’m frightened,” he gasps, and when his eyes open they’re that bright, glowing, utterly ethereal blue, not quite Charles and not quite not.  
  
Erik's eyebrows lift exponentially, always caught off-guard, but this time moreso, when he's in that liminal space of half-aware and half-crazed, so it seems, and his own eyes are wide, locked onto Charles's almost desperately, their own version of vivid, piercing green in return. He doesn't know what's wrong, what his body remembers, he doesn't understand. "Me too," he whispers, lifting Charles's hand to his lips, trying to gather himself. He has to be strong, if he isn't, everything will dissolve. They were making progress until he started to fail, he can't fail-  
  
Something is very odd. One moment they’re sitting in the dark, Charles frightened and panicked, eyes glowing with the Universe, and the next they’re not. It’s broad daylight. There’s light streaming in through the windows, but the windows aren’t anything Erik recognizes, and neither is the bed, or the bedroom. Charles is beside him, wearing a shirt far too big for him, a book in his hands, but he raises an eyebrow and looks over. “Erik?” he asks, and his accent is different. Slightly, barely. Ripples and changes so subtle they hardly matter at all until they do.

* * *

Of course, it seems in any incarnation Erik has always been one to take things in stride, but it doesn't change the flicker of confusion that emanates from him, and he struggles to reconcile what he's just experienced with what he's experiencing now. "Charles?" he rasps back, swallowing down a hiccup and resolutely staring away tears. His fingers rub the fabric of Charles's overlarge shirt between one another.  
  
Charles blinks, too, and his head tilts, confusion registering on his expression as his eyebrows knit together. “Yes, darling,” he murmurs, and scoots on the bed until they’re touching, rubbing Erik’s arm, tangling their legs together slightly. Thoughtless, effortless intimacy. He doesn’t seem to realize what’s happened, if anything happened at all. “Are you alright? You were snoring,” he teases. “I thought you might even wake the children in the room over with it. Did you have a nightmare? Are you feeling ill?” He reaches all the way up to feel Erik’s forehead, humming worriedly. Fretting.  
  
"I don't-I-Charles-?" Erik struggles, knowing that somehow this is different but unable to entirely reconcile it, yet. He can't help it when tears track from his eyes and drip down his jaw, and he scrubs at his face futilely. "Snore-I-?" his breathing is ragged, and he places one hand over his own chest in a desperate attempt to regulate himself. "Snoring?" his eyes flick back upwards, a disoriented nystagmus greeting Charles as he tries to focus his vision.  
  
It doesn’t help that there was no transition at all. Charles seems to slow down, too, blinking and startled, and then all of the air is punched out of him at once when he whispers, “Oh.” It takes him another few moments to react, and then he pulls away but only for a moment, reaching for tissues on the bedside table instead of going right for his sleeve, dabbing at Erik’s face gently. “Shh, it’s alright, it’s quite alright,” he promises, and offers a smile, too, tucks a lock of unruly hair behind Erik’s ear. “You’re safe. You’re here with me, hm? Nothing much of anything going on right now, I’m afraid, very boring. You were just taking a nap. Well, actually you were reading, but you fell asleep. If our youngest gets a lie down, I reckon her father should, too.”  
  
Erik lets out a distressed whine, like a cowed animal and not at all the strong and confident Dominant that this Charles is familiar with. By no means submissive, but inarguably distinct. Damaged, scarred, twisted. He isn’t fixed, here. His features are different, his hair is grey at the temples, making him look older. The wrinkles more pronounced at his eyes. “Young-?” Youngest? He can barely get the word out. Children? “Children?” his mind is repeating, stuttering, gasping.  
  
Not to this Charles, clearly, because he sees a difference in behavior but apparently not in appearance. He blinks, as if he’s trying to see clearly, accurately, distressed himself as Erik continues to dissolve. “You had a nightmare, didn’t you?” he breathes, making entirely the wrong assumption, and touches Erik’s forehead, as if he’s checking for a temperature. “Do you feel ill? It’s alright. I’m here, I’m very much safe, and so are our children. Come here, darling,” he whispers, and slowly wraps his arms around Erik, or as much as he ever could. “You don’t have to block yourself out from me. Let me in,” he urges, quietly. “You know I don’t like when you do that,” he huffs, half-playfully scolding, half-worried.  
  
“Different Charles?” Erik croaks, wrapping him up tight all the same, Erik is shivering, sweating, pupils wildly dilated and breathing shallow. He tries to slow down, to catch up, and ends up nuzzling his cheek into Charles’s, blindly seeking physical comfort to soothe himself, and this New-Charles, too. “Different Erik,” he touches his own chest with his palm, eyes locked onto Charles’s. “Different.” He does his best to try and relax, to let Charles in, just as he’d asked.  
  
“Oh.” And finally he seems to get it. Charles reels, too, staring and wide-eyed, trying to process the new information that sweeps over him in a dizzying, disorienting wave. “Oh. How — well,” he clears his throat, then, shaking his head. “I suppose that part doesn’t matter, does it? You must be so disoriented. Here, let me —“ He’s fussing, now, touching Erik’s cheek, wiping away sweat and tears, moving his hair out of his eyes. “You’re alright. Don’t worry, Erik, wherever you’ve come from, you’re safe here. Will you take a breath for me?”  
  
All he gets is a bit of a pitiful moan, but Erik does as he’s bid, this time pressing Charles’s hand to his heart, as if steadying himself on a lifeline. Charles’s words, and the way he speaks, his tone of voice, his touch, Erik leans into it like a plant leaning toward sunlight. He has loved his Charles this whole time, but every time he’s tried to express it-and now-and he can’t, can’t breathe-  
  
There’s no way to express it, really, especially when it’s just budding. When it’s so new and tenuous and growing. It isn’t for this Charles, though different, and he takes a sharp breath himself and suddenly Erik finds it very easy to breathe, the process automatic, a hand rubbing at his chest, over his heart, the other reaching for his hand. “Shhh, Erik,” he whispers, concerned but calm, frowning. “Here, shh. What do you need? Water?” He’s going straight to what he knows, to instinct; serving, helping, comforting. “Do you — oh, bloody...” There’s a piercing wail from the room beside theirs, audible even with the door shut. “That would be our banshee. Someone will tend to her, don’t you worry,” he murmurs, though his lips are pursed. He’s used to jumping into action here. He never was any good at letting the children cry.  
  
It makes Erik gasp, and his ears perk up toward the sound, an expression of utter shock on his face. “Ours? Children?” he whispers, incredibly fragile. Far more fragile than the Erik he knows and loves, but that same core reaches out; wants to learn, to see. “Don’t remember,” he adds in the same halting, broken voice. “No memories. Only, only small ones.” It doesn’t make any sense, not really, but his mind is flayed wide open enough that Charles can grasp what he means. “We help?” his English isn’t fluent, either, and it’s worse as he’s so affected.  
  
It doesn’t seem to bother him, the accent, or even be something he notices. Perhaps his Erik has the same issue. Whatever the case, he hesitates a moment, then nods, a soft smile on his lips as he stands from the bed and comes around to help Erik, even if he doesn’t need it. An automatic, ingrained instinct; he doesn’t ask or hesitate, he moves and anticipates and honestly fusses, like this. He takes Erik’s hand and leads him into the room over once he’s steadied, heading straight for the crib and picking up the sobbing, thoroughly upset little girl inside, hefting her into his arms. “Shhh, darling, why all this fussing?” She has shocking green hair and matching eyes, and she wraps her little arms around Charles’ neck, hiccupping. “She hasn’t been settling well,” Charles sighs. As if he’s forgotten this Erik is different.  
  
Erik’s eyes are wide and he cannot help reaching out, leaning on Charles heavily as he awkwardly limps forward, his own perception, his own reality-and he nearly falls because he’s unused to it, because his Charles had fixed it before he was even aware and he simply wasn’t aware. Doesn’t know how to walk right, and his leg gives out right from under him, unfortunately piling his weight on top of his poor submissive. They manage though, and when he sees her for the first time it feels like the world stops-like his heart stops and he reaches out, he has to. “Ours?” He breathes it in barely a whisper, reverent. He touches her face. Everyone seems to be fussing this morning.  
  
To Charles, there seems to be some dissonance. He’s confused and concerned and perhaps even a little afraid, but he nods at Erik’s question. The little girl extends her arms naturally, grabbing for Erik, and he lets her go, letting her settle into his chest and pop her thumb into her mouth. He’s trying to break her of the habit (well, mostly Erik, Charles has a hard time being authoritative with their children because it simply isn’t his job) but now isn’t the time. “This is Lorna, our youngest,” he breathes, and he’s reverent too, smiling. “She’s our little handful. She hates being put down for a nap, I reckon she believes she’s missing out,” he laughs. She hiccups in Erik’s arms, as if on cue.  
  
Erik gives her hand a little thwak, not hard, but enough to cause her to pause entirely, glancing up at him in pure shock. “Stop that,” he chides down at her, pointed, and can’t help but smiling, big and bright. She’s theirs. “I forget,” he laments, sorrow. “Forget them. I wish not.” And he loves her, too, already. It seems it’s easy for Erik to love, entirely and completely, from only a moment’s notice.  
  
The funny thing is she wouldn’t be something for him to remember, but that part doesn’t matter and there’s no way to know. All that matters is this and Charles smiles, melancholy and sympathetic and soft, and kisses the top of Lorna’s head, cradles her close and nestles close to Erik in the process. It’s that rush of affection that calms him; even different and new and even without the ability to know them in a way that fosters deep, lasting love, this Erik is recognizable. He’s not a stranger, not someone stealing his husband’s body. There’s nothing to fear as long as Erik is Erik. “She’s teething,” Charles explains, though he isn’t sure why. Just talking. “She bites, too,” he grins, raising his eyebrows down at their daughter. “Don’t you, dearest? Would you like to tell your father about that?” And she grins up at them, toothy and not even a bit ashamed.  
  
It startles a laugh out of Erik, who is still roughly leaning on Charles, a Charles who considers him husband-it’s a little too overwhelming to bear, but he bears it, because he is Erik and that is what he’s always done. He scratches underneath Lorna’s chin, a soft smile still on his features. “Beautiful,” he whispers back, even if she may have annoyed them to high hell with her wailing-she’s theirs. Their family. Erik presses his other hand to Charles’s cheek. Wherever this place is, whatever it is, feels safe somehow, and yet he doesn’t belong. It’s fragile to him, as if he could explode at any minute and destroy it. Out of sync, a visitor only.  
  
Charles doesn’t notice. He shares without thinking, projects without considering; warmth and comfort and himself, because it’s what’s expected of him and what he needs to do to be a good husband, a good submissive. One half of a Pairbond, in this place very firmly settled, sealed, nurtured. “We can give her to your mother or sister, if you’d like to... talk,” he suggests, biting his lip just like a Charles he recognizes more readily. “Or David, really. You know how much he loves being handed his baby sister — well, I suppose you don’t, actually...” Charles laughs, sheepish.  
  
Erik seems to feel his heart stop, and he freeze entirely. “ _Ima_?” He asks, his voice small and unsteady. His teeth are pressed together so tightly his jaw aches, audible breaths coming through his nose. “-Ruthie? _Ma ze_?”  
  
Charles blinks, and nods. He carefully takes Lorna from Erik’s arms, not because he’s worried for her, but because he’s worried for Erik. She immediately squawks in protest and fusses, and he hushes her gently, bouncing her in his arms. “We’re visiting them,” he adds, realizing that perhaps Erik needs context. Lorna starts to cry, and he frowns, his own expression crumbling. He very clearly can’t handle his children being even a little upset, and it’s abundantly clear who’s softer with them, who coddles them. He’s cooing immediately, kissing her green curls.  
  
“Vi- _what_?” Erik moves, all of a sudden, lurches forward, gasping for breath, bursting through their bedroom door so he can look around, really look around-feel the air, the dust, the sky. “Where we are?” He asks, torn. He blunders down the corridor, oblivious to everything around him, sightless, feeling his knees weaken until he hits the floor.  
  
Charles gasps and follows right after him. Lorna struggles in his arms until he lets her down, and she toddles right over to Erik, concerned and crying, tugging on his arm, wailing in the way she does when she’s all worked up. He kneels, too, touching Erik’s arm, reaching for his hand. “Darling? Erik, what’s wrong? Please, talk to me,” he begs, and there are sounds of movement downstairs, voices calling up very familiar to Erik, and some not. Charles doesn’t respond to them just yet, too worried.

* * *

Erik has tears dripping down his face, fingers curling into the carpet, weathered. He remembers this place. “Where we are? Why are we here? Home? We’re home?” He’s shaking like a leaf, trembling. “All gone, it’s all gone. They died. All dead. Burned.” His lips press together as if to keep in every bit of ghastly grief.  
  
Charles is shocked into silence. He stares, uncertain what to do, unsure of how to react. Lorna is still wailing, red in the face now that she’s being denied attention by her father. Charles scoops her into his lap and presses her against his own chest, swallowing down his own terrified grief. She isn’t calmed by this. “Erik,” he croaks, because he doesn’t have even a clue of what else to say. Feet are coming up the stairs, some little and some decidedly not.  
  
Erik sobs, genuinely, a noise erupting out of him that no Charles in any universe has likely heard, his expression utterly twisted in agony. He feels eleven years old again, but he has no memories of losing them. He doesn't have those memories, _baruch hashem_. He just knows it, and feels helpless, and helpless, and helpless because he knows he didn't stop it. How does he tell his mother and his big sister that they are dead because he's a coward? Why do they live here and he lost them? Why does the Universe work this way, why does it hurt so much, why would a loving G-d do this to anyone? And in the meantime the children are encroaching, children, his children, watching his layers peel back until he is nothing but a writhing, raw mass. He blindly reaches for Lorna, feathering his fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp deeply, combing it through.  
  
Charles tries to help. He reaches out, body and mind, wraps Erik in warmth, but he honestly feels rather helpless in this moment. Not like he’ll dissolve, but that he’s terribly worried, and hurting horribly because Erik is. Lorna goes on crying, and crying, and crying, babbling nonsense and thoroughly spooked because she isn’t used to seeing her father like this, either, pulling at Erik’s hair and beating her little fists. He tries to calm her. In the meantime, it seems they’ve gathered a crowd, the twins watching wide-eyed from the stairs, David lingering from where he’s emerged (he’s been sulking today), and Erik’s family, too. “Erik,” he gasps. “Erik, I —“ But he doesn’t have words. It gets swallowed beneath a sob of his own.  
  
Erik has curled himself up into a giant ball in Charles's arms, his legs strewn over Charles's lap, Lorna tucked in-between and his head rubbing fruitlessly against Charles's chest, his cheek pressed to the fabric of his shirt. 

* * *

Edie quickly swoops in, crouching behind Charles; an ethereal presence, half-in half-out, Charles has always suspected-but now it's plainly obvious. "So we have a visitor," she hums in her low, warm voice. Erik's too-trapped in his own mind to hear. She's gathered up the children, herded them, shepherded them away, other than Lorna who remains firmly entrenched.  
  
Charles looks up at her rather helplessly, feeling and knowing but unable to quite process what’s happening here. He isn’t the Universe, not the way Erik’s Charles is. He isn’t exactly built to understand, but he does know that Erik is his Dominant, here and anywhere, his husband, his other Half, and to see him hurting is excruciating. If anyone would know how to help, it would be Erik’s mother. She always seems to.  
  
She tickles underneath Lorna's chin, just the way Erik does, and for a split second a half-smile burbles up in-between the tantrum, and her breaths begin to slow. It's not telepathy; it's not any kind of nudge, it's just pure presence.  
  
Slowly, she separates Erik from Charles until he's half on Charles's lap and half in her arms, her fingers finding the spot behind his ear that's always calmed him down. "It's very much," she whispers back. "But we're OK, hm?" she smiles over Erik's shoulder to Charles.  
  
Erik shudders, eyes squeezed shut tightly. "You're gone. Gone," he gasps.  
  
"I know, I know," she returns gently. "But I'm not gone, dear-heart. I remember you. I exist _here_ ," she touches his chest. "That is real."  
  
"Not real," he disagrees vehemently, on the verge of hyperventilating. How is this possible? How could she remember? She remembers him? She remembers-"No, no, no. Not real, it's not real, it's not real..." after a while he trails off, as if burning himself out, exhausted and swaying.  
  
Charles does not imagine the fierce rage in her eyes. "I cannot have you always," she murmurs softly. "But I have you now. You are OK. You are real. And we love you. You've been very brave, all this time."  
  
Time seems to drift, for a while. Erik swallows, more of a gulp, and pets at Charles's cheek, as if asking for his attention. "You're real? You know my family? You-you love them? And, and they're 'kay? Not dead. Not dead?"  
  
“May I correct you?” Charles whispers, and it’s clear why a moment later. Lorna has settled a bit against his chest, between them but no longer clinging desperately to Erik, hiccupping and still upset, but no longer screeching her displeasure. “They are my family now, too,” he murmurs, and there’s a watery smile on his lips, tears on his cheeks. “See? We have a lovely family together, and everyone is very much alive. Isn’t that right, poppet?” he asks Lorna, who reaches for Erik, twists his shirt up between her chubby little fingers. “I know them, Erik. And I love them very much. Hopefully they’re just as fond of me,” he teases.  
  
"We have always been your family," Edie squeezes Charles's hand. She's always done her best to make up for his lack of affectionate upbringing, even if she can be tough, even if she can be harsh, even if she can be distant sometimes, the way that Erik is, when she's trying to be strong. Like she is now, but she's doing her best, like Erik has learned to try, to be present and not allow it to remove her from what matters.  
  
"We can stay here," Erik stares up at Charles, desperate. "He come here and we can sta-stay here, we can stay here? Home? He can come here, please? Please let me stay here and-and you can stay here with me!" he seems to be shouting into an abyss, but somewhere, he's trying desperately, to talk to that Charles who is the Universe.

* * *

Charles starts to sob. Perhaps he’s overwhelmed, but mostly he’s overwhelming sad. Distraught. Lorna starts to cry again, trying to get her father’s attention, and Charles hushes her, does nudge her, though she still isn’t very happy about it. He squeezes Erik’s hand. “I’m — I’m so sorry, Erik,” he rasps. “You’re always very welcome here. I certainly won’t make you go. It’s alright, darling. I promise. Wherever you are, you are not alone.”  
  
"Please?" Erik begs, which is not something any Charles has ever seen. "Please don't make me go. Please. Don't wanna go. And-and Ruthie? And-? And all my-friends? They're-" he wheezes, gripping Charles's hand hard enough to bruise. He doesn't mean it. He would be sorry if he knew. He really didn't realize how this would affect him, he really didn't know, maybe he wasn't ready for it, maybe he isn't strong enough for it. To be in this world where he wasn't responsible for their destruction.  
  
"No," Edie touches her fingers to her mouth. "Oh, no. You never were. Not ever," she insists, the fire behind her eyes burning brighter than a supernova. He knows, the bare essentials, and she will not change that fact. "You did the only thing you could do to survive, dear-heart. You survived, you lived." Erik wasn't the only D5 there that day. There was nothing he could have done.  
  
"Stay here?" Erik bats at Charles again. "I'll fit. I fit. I won't bother any one."  
  
But he's a visitor. He doesn't fit, here, not really. He is always welcome, but this life, it wouldn't make him happy. She just doesn't know how to say it, how to say it in a way that won't hurt.  
  
It breaks Charles’ heart. It shatters it, honestly, and he sobs, broken and utterly devastated at the idea of this version of his Dominant begging to stay. It simply can’t be helped. Lorna cries in his arms and he cradles her, rocks her, attempting to soothe himself as well. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out except more startled sobbing.  
  
Erik touches Charles's face, wrapping him up tight. "'M sorry. Sorry, I'm sorry," he whispers over and over again. "Don't cry. It's OK. Promise, OK. It's OK," he repeats, trying, trying to take care of him, he was put in this place where he doesn't belong and is this his family? Does it belong to him? Charles does. He knows that much. That's all he knows.  
  
Charles collapses right into his chest, buries himself in it and cries. Lorna is caught in between, distraught and empathetic even without telepathy, nearly out of tears but hiccupping and whining as she tries to understand why her two favorite people in the world are hurting and not giving her the attention she’s used to. “Please don’t be sorry,” Charles whispers, nestling into his chest. “It’ll be alright, darling. Oh, I wish —“ He doesn’t know. He shakes his head and seeks to comfort and be comforted.  
  
"H-he-ah-" Erik can barely talk, shaking his head, too, playing with strands of Lorna's vivid green hair. "Say find her. Find Ruthie. I-I'm sorry. Don't mean." He didn't mean to come here and upset the balance, upset everything. "I just wanna see again and I didn't know and I-I'm sorry, didn't know, I didn't know." He didn't know he might not be strong enough to cope with actually seeing them again. "And he say I am-I was-broken, not he-he didn't say I'm broke, but I was. How he say I am. I'm broken. Broken."  
  
“You’re not broken,” Charles protests, just a soft whisper as he sniffles, tries not to rub his snot-covered face on Erik’s chest. It’s a lot for him to handle, so he can’t even imagine what Erik must be experiencing. He pulls back for a moment to wipe at his face, and Lorna takes this as her moment. She tugs on Erik, looking up at him with a pout on her lips and her face covered in tears, bright green eyes reddened. “She wants you to show her the trick,” Charles mumbles, not really considering it. It’s just natural for him; she doesn’t talk well yet, just babbles.  
  
It makes Erik laugh wetly and he tickles her cheek, sniffing and pawing at his eyes harshly. "Trick?" he huffs, his nose wrinkling up. He doesn't know because he doesn't remember; he doesn't remember his children. Only that Charles said they had them. He doesn't remember the circumstances, he doesn't know. But he remembers them now. He knows them, now. Erik's laugh now is for real, just a little. Not forced.  
  
It makes Edie smile, too, because it was always the son she knew. The one who knew how to find the joy, even in the darkest corners of the Universe. Walking through as many lifetimes, as many times, she's seen as much as one human being can see. She didn't have time to impart all of her wisdom onto her children in that life, but now, she can. And that's joy, too.  
  
"I can show," Erik declares. "What trick?" his eyebrows arch as he regards her-his daughter.  
  
“The one with the coin. You just have to move it, make it flip a few times,” Charles sniffs, and now he’s smiling, too, something eased inside of him that he can’t even put into words. He leans forward to kiss her little head, but her eyes are solely for Erik right now, looking up at him expectedly, tugging and tugging at his shirt. “She has your mutation. She hasn’t come into it yet, but we know. When she was even younger, just an infant, it was the only thing that would get her to stop wailing,” he laughs. Lorna has always been a particularly fussy baby.  
  
Erik's mouth opens, works a few times, and he takes a deep breath. "I-" his lips press together as he swallows. "I dunno how," he finally admits after a long, drawn out pause, cheeks flushed in embarrassment. "I used to know how," he whispers. But now he's a little afraid if he tries to move the coin he'll end up thwaping Lorna in the face with it, or turn it into a chainsaw, or _whatever_ his mutation is.  
  
Charles takes that in stride, too, though it’s another exceptionally odd thing to add to the list. He should know better than to balk at things like this, and he certainly doesn’t think it’s embarrassing. There must be a reason. “Lorna, darling, later,” he promises her, and she makes an indignant, angry little squawk again, until he takes her with all the strength he has and kisses all over her little face. Then she has absolutely no choice but to giggle. “Don’t worry, she asks you at least three hundred times a day, she’s not suffering here. Shall we all get off the floor, though?” he asks, rubbing at his eyes.  
  
"You never had _trouble_ with your mutation before," Edie's head tilts at him, concerned, and she helps them _all_ get up off of the floor. "You woke up the whole house with your stomping," she laughs, "but we'll be starting breakfast soon. I usually keep *Charles* out of the kitchen."  
  
It makes Erik snort, and duck his head. "Me too. But I teach. Well..." he _tries_ to teach, goes silently unsaid. While this Erik seems a great deal more fragile than Charles's Erik, he still has the same playful streak, even now.  
  
While Erik picks Lorna up, Edie holds Charles back, a finger at his shoulder. "You both go to the kitchen," she says to Erik and Lorna sternly, pointing at them. D5 or not, Erik looks cowed, and presses his face to Lorna's hair, inhaling deeply. "* _Go_ ," she barks.  
  
Charles certainly knows when to listen to Erik’s mother by now, and the only times he’s ever hesitated are in moments like this, where there seems to be a divide between said mother and his Dominant; he swallows some of that down and tugs Erik down a bit to kiss his cheek, and Lorna’s, too. She wipes it off with her hand, as is her new thing, but smiles, too. “Go on ahead, darlings,” he murmurs, biting his lip. “I’m sure we’ll just be a moment. If you catch our brooding teenage son on the stairs, tell him to stop eavesdropping.” He taps his temple with a grin for good measure.

* * *

"This-" Edie sighs. She can be just as obfuscating as her son, at times. "I am taking this moment. A moment-" she breathes in, lets it out and smiles, touching Charles's cheek lovingly.   
  
A moment she doesn't know how long will last, but she's been here before. And Erik isn't the only person who needs something from these visits. It turns out that the inhabitants of these worlds, their very own worlds, their own lives, wants. They can be selfish, too. She can be. And she's interrupting what she is sure is a very touching reunion, really, to darken it. Because she has no other choice, because she can't do it herself. And it needs to be done.  
  
Charles blinks, his throat gone dry. “I don’t believe I understand,” he admits, because he truly doesn’t. He has no frame of reference for any of this. He’s never experienced it on his own. What he does know is that his husband does not seem to be his husband at the moment, replaced by a more fragile, hurting version that he recognizes but does not know.  
  
"I need you, him, where he comes from." She means the Charles who is the Universe. Whoever brought him here, "-whoever can hear me. I need to know that certain people will die. I need to know that they are dead. Do you understand me? I don't want to hear about peace and tolerance. They," she holds up a finger. "Will be dead. And that is a fact, and I need to know that it is a fact."  
  
Charles blinks again. Long, and slow, and rather frightened, his heart thudding out of rhythm in his chest. “I don’t understand,” he repeats, quietly, but his voice cracks on it. “Who? Who will be dead?”  
  
Edie just peers up at him, far shorter than even Charles, with matching green eyes to the rest of her family, trying her best to pierce the veil. "I know you do not," she pats at his forearm. "I just hope that someone will." She huffs and whatever spell she's under seems to break, and she emerges from under the water of wherever she's been, however she's been, her mind a cloud that Charles could never quite decipher. "Now, we've kept them waiting long enough!"  
  
But Charles seems unwilling to let it go. He shakes his head, reaching for her arm with shaking fingers. “No, please,” he whispers, and glances down the hall where Erik disappeared, long arriving in the kitchen by now. “Tell me. Who will die?” He swallows, so thick it chokes him a bit. “Erik?” He can’t live with that. Not with the knowledge of it. Even somewhere far away, even somewhere he doesn’t know — no, he can’t allow it.  
  
"I would never allow it," Edie assures him gently, shaking her head, drawing him closer to give him a solid squeeze. "Not Erik, _tayer_. But there is someone alive who should not be. And I need to know that they will be put in the ground." Her voice hardens, almost a growl, harmless, short, stout Edith Lehnsherr's face flickers for a moment and the Monster appears. The dragon guarding her young.  
  
Charles is stunned by it for a moment, though he shouldn’t be. He finds himself shivering anyway, still feeling quite like he can’t breathe. “Someone who... hurt him,” he whispers. It’s an assumption, but he’s nearly positive that it’s based in truth. Something passes over his expression, too, seen even less in this Charles. “Could they still hurt him?”  
  
"Yes," Edie tells him the truth, her voice firm and in control. Not a flicker of pain, controlled. Like mother, like son. "I exist here," she tries to explain. "But that does not mean that I did not witness. And the payment for that is death. He will die." She nods, her tongue coming out to wet her lips. Certain. "For as long as I exist. He will die."  
  
For as long as she exists. It’s grim and nearly frightening in its intensity, but this Charles has learned exactly where his Erik got that from and he can’t say the intensity surprises him, knowing what he does of her, of her child. Charles takes a long, careful breath, bites down hard on his lip as he exhales. “He said —“ But Charles can’t repeat it. His eyes close. “What do we do for him?” he asks instead, because that is what Charles knows and values.  
  
"Love him," Edie whispers. "Surround him in so much love. Let him come to us. When he is ready to talk, we are all here. If not, let him just-see us," she laughs. "It may be painful, but we're his family. He deserves to see us as we exist. Here."  
  
Love him. Surround him with love. Charles finds himself nodding, dumbfounded but determined, too. Has this Erik experienced love in the same way? Does he know it? He said he didn’t remember, and Charles knows that to be true. This Erik doesn’t. What, then? How could he possibly help? But he knows he’ll try. He’ll certainly, absolutely try. He gives Edie a squeeze, a gentle smile, and then climbs down the stairs after — a man who resembles and perhaps is his husband. The kitchen is just as full and bustling as it always is, and Charles lets out a sigh when he realizes what’s happening. “Pietro,” he mutters, though he can’t help grinning. “Please, could we stop running circles around your father? Give them space.” But Lorna is still in Erik’s arms and she’s absolutely loving it like she always does, laughing until she starts to cough.

* * *

Erik has been running circles back, snatching him out of mid-air, which is something no one in this house has ever been able to do, even though he's a pre-teen and not disposed toward playing with his parents he still snorts and laughs when Erik boops him on the nose and lets him go. Iakov is in the kitchen, too, tall and towering and a little stern looking, but that changes when he wraps his hands around a mug of coffee and drinks deeply, offering everyone a smile. He reaches up his hand to Edie, who still very much looks unlike ordinary. To him, at least. To everyone else she's herding them around at once, kissing the top of Erik's head while she insists he help her with breakfast. "Hey, I'm D5," he spouts indignantly. "You help your mother with breakfast. D5," she snorts fondly.  
  
It would be an absolutely ordinary day for them while visiting, except — well, it isn’t. Charles wonders if perhaps he should pretend it is. Show Erik the love they all share with each other, moody pre-teens and one very moody teenager included. Speaking of — “Where is David?” he asks, a general query to the masses.  
  
“In his room,” Wanda informs him, leaned over the counter and levitating an apple with a glowing red light.  
  
“What else is new?” Pietro mumbles, which earns him an elbow from Wanda for his trouble.  
  
“Be nice,” she insists.  
  
“Make me!” he taunts back, which is currently his reaction to nearly everything.  
  
Charles pinches the bridge of his nose. “This is why I’m going grey,” he sighs.  
  
It makes Erik laugh, though, possibly because he hasn't had to deal with it for the last several years, but also because Erik has always just liked kids. "Be nice," he Orders Pietro with a grin, and as if totally natural, as if he's been doing it this whole time, adds, "and do not hit," at Wanda, sharply. "You look nice grey," Erik promises Charles, kissing at said greys at his temple. He stands back for a moment and just watches it all, his hand coming up to his mouth. He remembers his own Charles, who must be all alone, and, and it's so hard. All of this is so hard. His Charles is alone and he wants to go back, but he doesn't, because-and he looks at Edie. Well that's obvious.  
  
" _Shtok_ , Erik!" a voice booms from behind them, erupting from the tall, athletic powerhouse of a sister they all call Aunt Ruthie, regardless of if she's related to them or not. Her hair is haphazardly tied behind her head and encircled by a band, and she's wearing a tanktop and shorts, her phone taped to her bicep. And Wanda is her spitting image. Erik would usually be teasing her at this point, but now he just stares, mouth open.  
  
"Ruth?" he blinks.  
  
She scowls. "Ew, no one calls me Ruth. What's gotten into you?"  
  
Charles swallows as he watches the interaction, the cup of coffee he’d somehow acquired for himself halfway to his mouth and his throat dry. “Erik?” he asks, concerned, on edge, every submissive instinct he has screaming that he should be mindful of — well, it isn’t his Dominant, but it is, too. It certainly looks like him, and Erik feels like him, even with the differences. He can’t help it, perfectly attuned by now. “Do you —“ He doesn’t know what he means to ask. He bites down hard at his lip, lingering, restless, full of anxiety because he doesn’t know what to do here. With his husband, his Bonded, his Dominant, he does. This Charles is trained.  
  
Erik moves then, wrapping her up in a full, tight hug. "Ruthie," he gasps, tears dripping down his jaw once more. "Ruthie," he warbles again. "You're here too. You-you're here. Not-not gone She's not gone. You're all still h-here and-"   
  
Ruth blinks at him. "Of course I'm here, Erik. Where else would I be?"   
  
He can't talk too good, just smothers her in his burying hug. "You're dead. You are-you're dead. But not here and-" he sags a little, still finding it all so overwhelming.   
  
Ruthie looks at Charles and Edie, thoroughly confused.  
  
Charles doesn’t blame her. He flashes her a soft, slightly helpless smile himself, just as dumbfounded but somehow relieved. That however it’s possible, Erik is experiencing this. He is seeing this. He is feeling this. Lorna is toddling along with the help of the counter and throws her little arms up when she’s close enough, Charles scooping her up without hesitation and kissing her beautiful green curls. “Erik?” he whispers, clearing his throat so it comes out even slightly more audible. “Let’s keep from crushing Aunt Ruthie. You’ll give Lorna ideas,” he teases. Lighthearted, softer, trying to make normalcy here for him. To show him that it exists, and it will exist when he’s gone, too.  
  
Erik shakes his head and holds Ruthie even closer, rubbing the top of his cheek against her head.   
  
"What do you mean I'm dead," she gripes, frowning. "I'm not dead, _bozo_. I'm right here," she laughs and twists out from under him to give him a noogie. Well, as much as she can, given their respective height differences. She can tell that something else is going on, here, so she doesn't do it too hard, and hugs him again instead. "I'm not dead, Erik. I promise. I'm right here."  
  
“Me!” Lorna demands quite aggressively from Charles’ arms, and Charles barely suppresses a laugh, until he doesn’t. He laughs because perhaps Erik needs laughter, warmth, comfort, the promise of it more than anything. It’s what Erik’s mother ordered and she surely knows her son. “I’m hugging you, sweetheart,” he tells her, kissing one chubby cheek. “Is that not enough?” He’s always playfully insisting she’s Erik’s shadow, screeching whenever he leaves the room even for a moment.  
  
It makes Erik laugh too, sudden and full, except that bits of rice fly out of his mouth as he does, prompting Edie to give him a prompt smack up-side the head.   
  
"Don't go spitting! And-hey!" she laugh, herself. "No eating until all of us are at the table, _boychik_. He's always doing this, huh. Does he always do this to you? Sneaking dinner before it's due," she grins.  
  
It’s so typical of their mornings together, though for this Erik he wonders if it’s strange. Charles watches him through the entire meal, unable to keep his eyes off him for even a moment, which isn’t always unusual; sometimes farther dips into subspace happen, it’s natural for him, for half of a Pairbond. He doesn’t even blink anymore when it’s the case. But this time it’s different, and by the time David finally joins them for a piece of toast, Charles knows something is happening. He may not have the knowledge of the Universe, but he’s a well-trained telepath and extremely intuitive on his own. “Erik,” he murmurs, touching his husband’s — this stranger-but-not’s arm, biting his lip. “When you go back to him, will you tell him something?”  
  
Erik's lips press together, wavering, but he nods. "'Kay," he whispers, still bundled up in-between everyone and looking not particularly pleased to be leaving. He tries as hard as he can to be strong, to be unwavering, to breathe deeply and evenly. "What I should say?" his hand grips over Charles's arm in return, tight.  
  
That just makes Erik smile, for real. "He did a good job," he whispers back, sure as anything. "He takes care of me. I promise," he says, soft. "But I will tell." Of course he will. Because this Charles asked him to.  
  
“No, he doesn’t,” Charles argues, and lowers his voice some, worrying at his lip. His expression has darkened. His entire demeanor has, too, and he’s clearly concerned. “Erik, you — you promise you’ll tell him?” His hand tightens on Erik’s arm. He doesn’t want to let him go, either.  
  
Erik blinks several times. "What do you mean he doesn't?" he squeezes Charles's hand gently. "Of course he does. He just-" Erik shakes his head, it doesn't matter. He inhales sharply, blinking more tears away, straightening up. Keeping himself strong. "No, he does. He's good."  
  
Charles tries very hard not to clench his teeth, his eyebrows raised. “He just what?” he asks, and then softens his tone. “Please. Tell me, Erik.”  
  
"It don't matter. I don't want him to feel bad," Erik says, because it's the truth. He'll just say the truth, and be embarrassed by it again, for being too needy, for feeling too much, because it isn't rational. It's fine. He doesn't need it. "It don't matter," he says again, firmly. "He's good submissive."  
  
“He’s not here,” Charles points out quietly. “Please, Erik, tell me. Say it. Don’t you want him to grow?” he wonders, worrying at his lip. “I certainly wouldn’t have if he didn’t tell me. My — Erik,” he corrects, vaguely pink in the face, like the Charles he knows.  
  
"He just tell me-my feelings are all wrong," Erik finally cracks, because he doesn't know how better to put it. "He says I can't love him. But he told me he loved me when-when I wake up and now, now he says, I-I don't know. He don't love me? He don't know me? None of it is real?" Erik is full-on crying, now. He simply doesn't understand. He woke up with no frame of reference. Only what he feels. What he knows he's always felt. "And it make him embarassed and I don't wanna talk any more 'cuz I-I'm wrong, I don't know better, supposed to be-not inevitable-" Erik feels like he's going to hyperventilate. "And he don't wanna stay in the same bed. And I'm wrong! Not healthy! Not his fault. I'm too clingy. Too much. I don't know better." Erik's hand is pressed over his heart, struggling.

* * *

Charles reaches for both Erik’s hands, holding them in his. There’s a smile on his lips, a sad, knowing one, though it’s not immediately clear why. “Erik,” he breathes. “What do you know about Pairbonds?” It seems completely left field, except it isn’t. He’s leaned forward, as far as he can be. He’d wish to be on his knees, if this were his Erik, but it’s — presumptuous at best, wrong at most, he supposes. The living room is clear except for them, now, though it isn’t obvious as to why. Charles’ doing.  
  
"Pairbond?" Erik whispers. He thinks so. Charles mentioned it, once or twice. " _ZIvug_ ," he whispers. "I don't know too much. Like a-" to him, it feels like-soulmate. Meant-to-be. "Tell me about? Please?"  
  
It’s certainly not a wrong assumption. Charles hums. “A bit like a soulmate,” he agrees quietly. “I’m not quite sure if it’s inevitable —“ He smiles again, here, and perhaps this was once an issue for him, too. It isn’t clear, and it doesn’t need to be. What he shared with his Erik isn’t the issue on the table, except for how it can help here. “But regardless, two halves of a Pairbond are essentially... well, just that. Perfectly compatible. What one lacks, the other makes up for. Submissive traits, Dominant traits,” he gestures, because these are the most obvious, hardly worth mentioning within the context. “In personality, mind, and often body as well. And you, Erik,” he pokes Erik gently in the chest, grinning. “You feel. Deeply and strongly, even when you claim you do not. Some say you react with your gut, but it isn’t, is it?” He glances around the room though it’s surely empty now, as if he has a secret, and then places his hand over Erik’s chest. “You think first and foremost with your heart. With your instinct. I — Charles,” he corrects, biting his lip. “Often do not. Which do you think is wrong?”  
  
Erik swallows, focused on the feeling of Charles's hands against his chest, rubbing over his fingers, and shakes his head. "Not wrong," he whispers, because he's never thought that. _He's_ always felt wrong, the way Charles spoke of him-he never had feelings, he always acted rationally, he was cold and closed off, but he doesn't feel like that now. He can't help how he does feel, and he doesn't want to push, or force things, but it's-"Just lonely," he laughs a little and rubs his eyes. Charles is a good submissive, he does a good job, he is a good person. Erik doesn't need him to change, Erik's the one with the problem in the first place.  
  
Lonely. It strikes Charles to the core and he has to swallow around it, tears gathering in his eyes. “He doesn’t not feel what you feel, Erik,” he murmurs, soft and certain, and squeezes Erik’s hand. “He most certainly does. But those things...” He hums, looking for the right words. “Pairbonds are balance, darling. If you think with instinct and heart, what do you believe we reach out with first? Intellect. Mind. Thought. It’s difficult, for him, do you understand? So give him his separate bedroom, his space. What harm does it do? Do you not think you should fall in love here, too?” He taps his temple. “Talk to him. Learn him, and let him learn you. Teach him. If you feel enough is enough, well —“ He grins, sheepish, ducks his head. “Command him, then. Compromise. You are building a foundation now. It needs to support the both of you. A Pairbond is instinctual, beautiful, absolutely remarkable as a concept, but —“ He laughs. “It is work, too, Erik. It takes work, and if the work is not done, the consequences... well.”  
  
For some reason Erik laughs, though, and he raises Charles's hand to his lips. "But I have no mind," he laughs, his shoulders shaking. He's not sure why it's so funny, it's just that-Charles is _so_ smart. He has such an intellect. Erik can't possibly imagine operating like that, competing with it, being in its sphere. Maybe before, when he was cold, maybe that gave his mind room to grow, but now he just-well, he feels impatient, and wrong. Wrong, because Charles is so insistent, so it must matter. But to him, it's knowledge he already seems to know. He finds it easy to lean on it. Maybe that's just how he's always been, after all, who else could travel between universes? If he wasn't smart enough to understand the concept, which he very well _isn't_ -before, yes, a veritable master of physics as well as the physical world. Certainly not now, and how else could it make sense to him? "How do I with intellect and mind and thought? I want to-help. Not to, make him feel bad."  
  
Charles blinks, and then he laughs, too, but not at Erik. “You’re very wrong about that,” he assures. “But I am not telling you to engage him constantly in intellectual debates, Erik, though I am sure you will have plenty of those just by nature. A Pairbond love is instinctual and perhaps even... spiritual, for lack of a better word. The — connection, the compatibility. But it is also intellectual and personal. But what about you as people? The way you speak to each other, the time you spend, the things you learn and understand. It’s two sides. Let him show you that side, let him know that side, and show him — well, the more instinctual things. What frighten him more, what comes less naturally. Neither of you is wrong. You’re both very right. Do you see? Two halves. When you hide your half, he will pull back, too. You must work in tandem to build the foundation or you will both topple.”  
  
And that makes Erik grin. The Charles he knows wouldn't be so easy to categorize anything as spiritual. It's something he's been struggling with himself, lately. The Erik he used to be had made peace with it, but now his mind feels-lesser, less matured. Less time to settle with the reality. He doesn't know what makes him say it, maybe because he can't talk about it with his Charles, because he's afraid that the rational, the intellectual, would just-swoop in, and he isn't sure he's ready for that, yet. And he can't talk about it with Edie, or his father, because they would just-do the opposite, try to show him that he's wrong. It's also not particularly relevant, something he's been working through on his own time. The way a stick works against a brick wall. "You don't think he will get-bored of me?" is what he asks instead, hopeful. Or feel-limited.  
  
“Bored of...” Charles laughs again, this time incredulous. “No, and you must not fear that. Do you feel you will tire of him?” He raises an eyebrow, shaking his head. “You need time, Erik. Allow him space, but not too much. Give him conversation, but don’t let him shy away from —“ He gestures, vaguely, which could mean any number of things. His cheeks are a bit hot. “Be patient with him. Talk with him. Work with him. You are afraid you have nothing to offer here when indeed you have everything. Pairbonds are built on this. Let it grow. There is something beautiful about that, isn’t there? This is what his instinct is telling him he needs, which means you need it, too. You know each other,” he touches Erik’s heart again, smiling. “But there are other ways to know. All important. This is crucial.”  
  
"I don't mind," Erik whispers, and that is real. "I can be patient, and I don't mind. I like it even," he adds, because of course he does. He wants to learn, in every possible way. It's more-"I just don't like-" he shakes his head. It's nothing Charles has said, just the way he feels, sometimes. He doesn't like feeling wrong, like his part, his feelings, aren't real, just because-he can't explain it, or rationalize it, or use logic. Or like they're lesser because he's never had to think it through, because it's been natural for him, all this time. "I know what I-what-" he blinks, because he still doesn't know how to do this properly. "I know what I like, you know? I know what kind person I like, what I like to be around." He shrugs. "What if I can't explain? And he don't think-" Doesn't think it's real.  
  
Charles shakes his head. “No, you’re mixing them up. Which is alright, he certainly does, too,” he grins, and he’s speaking from experience, here. Plenty of it. Years of it. “That part frightens him. What he can’t explain, what he doesn’t understand. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong.” The implication here is that Charles is, actually. “But those things can coexist. They should. But be patient with him, Erik,” he snorts. “Feel what you feel, and give him the time to come to it, too. Coax him into it. Like I said, he feels it, too. That connection. But he’ll need to make sense of it. Help him. Some things will not be explained. Teach him that’s alright. You are the Dominant. You must guide him. Push him a bit, too.” He looks down at his own lap, smiling to himself. “You — my Dominant. He struggled with that, in the beginning. When to be firm and when to be gentle. When to push and when to... well, not. You will not always get it right, but you will always be building.”  
  
"He has trouble too?" Erik's eyebrows shoot up. "Because he said I did, he say, the way-I act-I didn't like how I heard what I act like. It seems, sometimes I get it wrong now, but-it's not the same thing, like what he said. I-" he shakes his head. He has so many questions, so many things he doesn't know, things he's been afraid to ask, things he doesn't think anyone knows the answer to. He struggled even in this world? Where he had his family, where he wasn't alone? This whole time, he's felt wrong. Trying to keep up, trying to make up for all the ways he had failed. Erik's breath stutters and he rubs his hands over his face.  
  
Charles leans forward, as much as he dares, and very much wants to get on his knees now, but he swallows the instinct down and gently takes Erik’s hands, pulls them away from his face. “Of course,” he agrees. “Just as I did, just as your Charles does. There is nothing wrong with you, Erik. With either of you. Assuming that there is creates more problems than it solves, trust me,” he snorts. “It’s complicated. It takes time, and effort, and sometimes struggle. Pairbonds are not simple.”  
  
"It just normal?" Erik whispers, and he's almost smiling. "Not broken? Me?" Of course he's never thought Charles was broken. But these people-this Charles, his Erik, he doesn't know their full histories, but he knows that he had his family, here. He'd grown up-and it was different, and he still struggled a bit. "Just normal," he whispers. "Nothing wrong," he laughs, soft.  
  
“Nothing wrong,” he promises, and can’t help but lean just that bit forward to kiss Erik’s cheek, smiling himself. “Absolutely nothing. Pairbonds are... overwhelming, Erik. Practically all-consuming. But you will build together,” he breathes, and strokes Erik’s hand gently with his thumb. “Please, before you go — ask.” He taps his temple. “I know you wish to.”  
  
"Ask?" Erik replies, soft. Sometimes he doesn't know what he wishes, but that's where Charles has always known how to take care of him.  
  
Charles bites his lip. “You have questions, don’t you?” he asks, tilting his head. “I can hear them rolling around in there,” he teases.  
  
Erik nods. "But-not about-" he whispers. Not about them, or even about Charles. Just about-himself, really. About his reality, about what he's been struggling with for so long.  
  
Charles nods, too. “I know,” he assures, because this Charles does. He’s listening with more than his ears, in a way the Charles Erik knows just can’t. Not in any stable way. “Ask. Please. If I can answer, I will.” He grins again. “I consider myself an Erik Expert, actually.”  
  
It makes him huff, and press his eyes closed. “Just about my-faith,” he looks sheepish. Feels stupid. “It used to be important to me. Now I’m just-mad all the time. My grandfather was an atheist. I-you know. I see you, I see my family-how come-?” he fizzles out, unable to bear continuing.  
  
“You know I can’t answer that question,” Charles whispers, because surely Erik does. Still, he smiles, soft, and squeezes Erik’s hand in his, the one he’s still holding. “You have faith, here. Plenty of it. I — well, frankly, don’t,” he laughs, shaking his head. “But I never did. We discuss it, of course, but it’s one of the only things we don’t debate.” He shakes his head. “Because it isn’t something that can be. We raise the children to think for themselves, but keep little from them, and offer them opportunities. You speak openly about it. They ask questions and we answer. If you’re worried that he’ll tell you you’re wrong, or even right, he won’t. But he would like to listen,” he offers, quietly. Speaking from experience, again.  
  
“It’s stupid,” Erik shakes his head again, gritting his teeth together, frustrated at himself. His eyes blaze with unshed tears, hot and angry. “I’m not worry about anything. I don’t care!” he does his best to control his breathing and fails, because his best has always been inadequate. “I ca-I-ah-“ he can’t talk.  
  
Charles shakes his head, and Erik finds his breathing eased some; not like Charles is controlling it, but like he’s helping. It feels gentle, it feels like submission. It can’t be helped, really, not when he looks so much like his husband. “Whatever it is, I assure you it isn’t,” he murmurs. “If you can’t speak, will you show me, please?” He taps his temple again, hopeful. “Help me understand.”  
  
Erik's hands squeeze tightly. "All gone," he whispers sadly. "They all gone, and-I-I gotta go back? Why he can't come here too?" Why isn't this place meant for him?  
  
“You’re right. It isn’t fair,” Charles allows, and feels his heart quite literally break. He kisses Erik’s cheek again, feels tears trail down his own. “And I am so very sorry, Erik. I don’t have the answer to that. But he needs you, doesn’t he? And you need him?” It’s quiet, but confident. This Charles understands their Pairbond. He knows what it means. “I wish you could stay. But I promise you that the people you love here, your family —“ He touches Erik’s chest. “They’re there, still. They linger. Share them with him, so they can be his, too. Talk about them. Remember them. Please.”  
  
“But he can just stay here,” Erik gasps, and he knows how he sounds, stupid, childish. He can’t help it, it’s more than unfair. It’s so much more. Erik can’t even conceptualize it, verbalized it, he just gasps, eyes clasped shut tightly.  
  
It hurts. Horrifically. Charles touches Erik’s cheek, his jaw set so tightly his teeth ache. “I’m so sorry,” he repeats, though he knows it will never be enough. “But he cannot. He needs you there. You need him there. I don’t know what brought you here, Erik, or why. I wish I did. But you — you must make a family there, too,” he pleads. “Please.”  
  
“But it’s my fault,” he gasps, chest heaving with bare inhales. “They died, it’s my fault. My fault! Don’t you know?"  
  
It’s too much. Charles forgets that this isn’t his husband and throws his arms around Erik, holding him without true conscious thought. Instinct. His Erik has always been calmed by physical touch, too. “It wasn’t your fault, Erik,” he promises quietly. “It was not your fault. I can’t imagine — but he helps you, doesn’t he? He’ll help you?” He can’t let this Erik go without knowing it. It’s selfish, he supposes.  
  
This Erik shakes his head, though. “Don’t wanna,” he mumbles, dropping his arms around Charles, too, burrowing in close. “Hurts him. Makes him sad. Don’t wanna hurt him. Too-big, ‘s too big. Too big.”  
  
“Erik,” Charles whispers, broken. “Look at me. You wanted to know about Pairbonds, yes?” he asks, and something about his voice sounds grave.  
  
He nods, lips pressed together, unable to trust himself to speak.  
  
“When you hurt, he hurts. It’s the way this works, I’m afraid,” he sighs, and curls a lock of hair behind Erik’s ear. It bounces back rather quickly, and he smiles fondly. “But when you suffer apart, it...” His lips purse. “It can be dangerous, Erik, when you’re forming a Bond like this. You can hurt each other. I don’t say that to frighten you, I say that to mean you need to do this together.”  
  
“But he can’t fix me,” Erik croaks, scrubbing at his cheeks curiously. “He can’t fix me, just make him sad, how he can fix? How-what-I don’t-I j-don’t wanna keep hurting everyone-?”  
  
Charles tucks that strand right back behind Erik’s ear. “You aren’t,” he promises. “But you’re right. He cannot fix it. What he can do is help you cope with it, understand it, and, barring that, simply survive it. That is what a Pairbond is for. If you form one and neglect to do these things together —“ He considers something. “It hurts, doesn’t it? To be alone? Because you are not meant to be. Yes, he will be sad. But is it not even slightly easier? Is it not what he asks for, too? You don’t just have a submissive, Erik. You have an S1, and your Match. You need to treat him as such. If not for your sake, for his.”  
  
Of course, it bounces right back out into Charles’s finger like a little corkscrew. “Hurts,” he admits softly. It hurts, and it’s lonely, and he feels alone, all the time. Erik doesn’t know what to do, it hurts so much, he can’t stop, he can’t breathe. He just squeezes Charles as tightly as possible.  
  
Charles feels his heart breaking all over again. He pulls back, tears all the way down his cheeks now. “All the time? Erik,” he whispers, and his voice cracking makes it obvious enough how he feels about that, as if his expression doesn’t give everything away. “Please. He is there for you. You must allow him to be, but — give him space, too, be patient, he will take care of you. He must. Treat him like he needs to be treated, I beg you. Before you both hurt each other. I know you don’t want to, and you will not. Not if you build together. Does it not feel —“ He shakes his head. “It should not feel lonely,” he whispers.  
  
Erik kisses Charles’s hand. He never meant to make him feel bad. That has never been his goal, it’s his own fault, he’s too broken. Too damaged. Needs too much. “I-he said he want space,” Erik admits softly. “So I try, I try to give, and not-make, not m-not be intrude,” he finally mumbles.  
  
Charles shakes his head. “I’m sure he does need space,” he admits, because he knows himself. This is experience, too. “But he takes liberties, doesn’t he? Are you his Dominant? Can you truly intrude?” he wonders. “When you need him, should he not be there? You can give him space and have him serve you, too. You need to find balance, Erik. Give him an inch, and what will he do?” he grins, because, again, he knows. “It needs to be on your terms. For him, too. Don’t deny him what he needs, but certainly not at your expense.”  
  
“I don’t know what is the difference,” Erik admits, lips pressed together. “I can’t sleep. It’s too hard. But he doesn’t-and-I don’t think he is wrong, I don’t want to push. It’s my fault, I’m too-stupid, I can’t-“  
  
“Erik,” Charles whispers. “When you think of yourself that way, you’re doing the both of you a disservice. You are not stupid. You are hurting. But — haven’t you already decided that?” He smiles, sheepish, and touches his temple again. “Is he not helping you? Does it pain you, to sleep separately? Have you discussed it with him?”  
  
Erik shakes his head. He hasn’t really talked about it, because most of what he feels is just-instinct. Silly. “He helped me once,” he smiles slightly. “But I-“ it is dumb. He doesn’t want to keep asking. He doesn’t want Charles to interpret it as-something negative.  
  
“Talk to me about it,” Charles suggests, and gives Erik a squeeze. He fusses with that curl again, knowing full well it will get him nowhere. “Consider me a test-run,” he laughs.  
  
“I-“ Erik takes a deep breath. “I can’t,” he mumbles, embarrassed. “By myself. Unless he help. But if I keep asking then he will think I am just-not respecting him, but it isn’t true. H-I can give space. I just-“ he shrugs. It’s silly. It has to be silly.  
  
“It’s not silly,” Charles promises. But he’s grinning, even though he tries to hide it. Cover it with his hand, even. “Erik, you do know that as his Dominant, you are supposed to set these sorts of expectations? Have these conversations? Your needs are not silly. Not any sillier than his. He needs to know these things. Are you not going to set a routine? He needs that, you know.” Well, eventually he was going to sound a bit know-it-all.  
  
It makes Erik laugh and duck his head, sheepish. “I just don’t want him to think I don’t respect. I don’t know sometimes what I should be expect and what, what is, what he really needs you know? And he knows too, and I know he can just, say whatever he want, but he really means this it seems like he did, like he wants some space, so I’m afraid to keep pushing.”  
  
“Is he allowed to lie to you?” Charles wonders, but it’s almost entirely a rhetorical question and his arched eyebrow gives it away. His husband hates when Charles even so much as bends the truth. He doesn’t imagine it’s much different.  
  
Erik’s head shakes, and he sniffs, wiping his nose on his sleeve, feeling-foolish, but, it helps, somehow, to just have someone outside of it all, to be able to tell him what is-real, what is worth worrying about and what isn’t.  
  
That’s what Charles is here for at the moment. “Then have a discussion with him,” he suggests, and tries to tame the other side of Erik’s hair, now, at least enough to get it out of his eyes. “About what you need to be properly served, and how you can still respect his needs and boundaries. As his Dominant, you will have to push those,” he mumbles, his cheeks slightly pink, for some reason, “But you can discuss it first. Go slowly. Be honest with him, and expect that he is honest with you. Put a system in place, something he can rely on. If he is anything like me,” and it sounds like he is, goes without saying, “He relies on routine, all while doing his best to thwart it. You will need to be consistent and firm, but fair and patient.” It’s not a Dominant speaking to another Dominant. It’s Charles, a submissive, speaking lovingly of his. And perhaps that makes a difference.  
  
Erik’s hair certainly doesn’t seem to cooperate, nor has it ever, only fighting further against Charles’s ministrations even as Erik himself melts. “It won’t be disrespect?” he whispers, eyebrows raising. He doesn’t want to hurt his Charles. He just doesn’t know any better.  
  
“It certainly won’t be,” Charles promises, and kisses the top of Erik’s head, then his forehead for good measure. “Have him tell you, honestly, what he believes he needs, and work through those things with him. Push when necessary. You’re his Dominant. He needs you to do that, even when it’s sometimes uncomfortable for him. Trust me, I’d know,” he grins.  
  
“And you promise he won’t think I'm stupid? And won’t think clinging and won’t-won’t think my emotions aren't real or not healthy? Promise? I don’t want-and he won’t think this is disrespectful? I won’t be? Promise-promise?” Erik’s tears drip down, even now. It sounds so simple, so easy, but for him it has always been a source of sadness and he’s just never admitted it before now. It’s been... lonely. And he doesn’t want to be lonely anymore.  
  
Charles wipes at Erik’s tears gently. “I can’t promise that,” he points out quietly. “But I promise he will listen. I promise that he will try to understand, if you speak to him honestly and openly. And you can work on what’s healthy and tolerable and good for you both, Erik. But you have to talk to him about it. I think avoiding it will only hurt you both, but you must listen to him, too.” He looks down here. “It’s not that he needs you less. You may find he needs you more. It’s just that he needs space sometimes, but is your responsibility to choose when to grant that. I know it’s a weighty one, Erik, but he can help you if you listen. If you both act together.”  
  
"You can't-promise he won't think it's disrespectful? So how I can-bring up with him if-if the possibility he will think it is?" Erik's eyes are wide, desperate. "I don't want disrespect him. I can't do that. I can't hurt," Erik whispers. This has been the core of why he hasn't spoken it in existence, this whole time.  
  
“Erik, sometimes you will hurt each other,” Charles whispers, and he knows it isn’t what Erik wishes to hear. “Does he sometimes disrespect you? And then I’m sure you handle that,” he’s assuming, here, but his cheeks go rather pink again, “And if he feels something is amiss here, he will tell you. Respectfully, hopefully, once you give him the leave to do so. But he won’t find it disrespectful for you to discuss it with him. If you Ordered it and he found issue with it, that would be a different matter. Then you’d need to decide how to go about that. Hear his concerns, respect him, and he will respect and trust you. He will want to please you. I promise you that. Have you not already seen it in him?” He raises an eyebrow. Perhaps this Charles is... less enthusiastic, somehow? Less submissive? Why else would Erik react this way?  
  
Erik nods softly. "I see it in him. I try to hear, and respect. And-you promise he will not find disrespect if I ask-for more help? And he won't think I'm being clinging and that not giving him his space? I didn't Order, I promise. I just-it-" he gasps, presses his hand to his mouth, foolish, so foolish. "It's just so hard to-it's so hard," he gasps all at once and the tears spill out, devastated. "I have ba-bad dream and I didn't tell because I want him to sleep with me because the only other time he was-he help me and it-only time it felt better-" and there's been something he's been keeping from Charles this whole time because he hasn't wanted to hurt him and now it's bubbling up and he's so sorry, Charles told him, if he hides, it makes it worse and he has because it's all been so stressful and now it's all his fault, and-and his family-and he's hyperventilating, truly, he can't breathe.

* * *

“Erik!” Charles touches Erik’s face, puts his hand on both sides, takes a deep, shuddering breath himself. “Shh, shh. Take a deep breath, darling, breathe for me. It’s alright, I swear. I promise he won’t see it that way. You are not bad. You’re struggling, you’re new, you’re both learning. Shhh, Erik, breathe with me. See? You’re doing just perfectly.”  
  
"Breathe?" Erik whispers. Breathe. Breathe. He slowly does. Slow but sure. "Just new? Not bad? I-just-struggle? He-don't-not bad? Not disrespectful? I'm sorry," Erik croaks. "I don't mean not to tell him. I just am scared. I don't want him to feel hurt. Because I don't listen. Respect wishes. I love-love him-I'm sorry-"  
  
Charles shakes his head, kissing Erik’s forehead and then both cheeks. “Breathe, darling, breathe,” he reminds quietly. “You’re learning, that’s all. You are listening. You’re allowed to feel. You are supposed to discuss these things. There are ways to listen, to compromise, but he needs to know, too —“ He bites his lip. “Erik, listen to me. If you take anything, take this: you must give him the tools to serve you. If you don’t, you will both suffer. It isn’t bad, it isn’t horrid that you haven’t, but you must. There is nothing to apologize for. You are the Dominant, and as long as you respect him, and seek to understand, you will never fail. You may occasionally be wrong, and need to correct, but you cannot fail. Having needs that seem to conflict with his is not disrespecting his boundaries. It means compromise, and it means you may need to consider pushing them. Discuss these things. Be patient, gentle, but firm. He always has been with me, and sometimes I was not happy, but I am always... fulfilled,” he murmurs, swallowing. “Taken care of. Loved. I know that. We work together, and that means he makes these decisions for both of us with my help.”  
  
Truly, it's not a big issue, it's just a thousand smaller issues building like cracks in sheets of ice until being deposited here, in this place, and then it was like taking a hammer to the chest and all the ice fell into the freezing ocean, and Erik's shaking, gasping, having a hard time holding himself together, his mind together. But he does it, slowly, steadily, listening to Charles's voice. His fingers rub against the fabric of Charles's shirt, and he watches as his right hand remains still, with an odd kind of detachment. Being here has made him realize there must be so much more to himself that he has yet to learn, because his Charles has been taking care of him, fixing him, mending him. He just doesn't have any experience, he's been guessing, and sometimes it's been too cautious if only because he isn't sure of anything, they're things Dominants learn early, and he'd been starting to, and then there was nothing but black.  
  
“You’re learning now,” Charles promises, kissing Erik’s cheek. “You’re learning together. All of those things you don’t know, that you feel you can’t reach — they will come. But you are building, darling, and you are doing it together. Ask questions. Try things. Guess,” he laughs. “Do you really think you learn in school and from books? I thought I was well-prepared for this, and then Erik bumped right into me. A Pairbond is an entirely different animal. It is beyond most comprehension.” He strokes that same lock of hair. “Look at me, Erik. You want to go back, don’t you? Because —“ Because it aches, being without. Being apart. Not physically, though sometimes, but certainly like this, even without a formed Bond. He knows. “What can I give you before you go?” he asks. “Please.”  
  
Erik swallows and touches Charles's temple, a silent inquiry. He's felt it once before, the brush of his mind, and he wonders if this Charles knows, when he first came here he remembers feeling it, and his eyebrows lift hopefully. His Charles is so afraid of it, but Erik has only ever thought of his gift as beautiful.  
  
“My telepathy?” he wonders, and bites his lip, humming. “I feared it, too. For a very long time. But you helped me, and you’ll help him, won’t you?” he grins softly, touching Erik’s temple. “You’ll need to push him a bit,” he warns. “It may be out of his comfort zone. But it’s safe to test those things with you, and less so outside of the Pairbond. You’ll need to show him it’s safe.” It goes without saying that his Erik had, and it made every difference. “You don’t need to understand it to know him and what he needs, what’s his best effort and what isn’t. He’ll need you.”  
  
Charles can almost feel Erik's consciousness bat against his insistently, demanding to be heard, to be touched in the same way Charles rubs his fingers, and Erik grins back. "I'll help," he promises softly. He always will.  
  
There’s warmth, almost immediately, soft and gentle and familiar-but-not-quite, and Charles kisses where his fingers just were even though it almost certainly doesn’t have the same effect. “David,” he realizes quietly, and laughs, shaking his head. “We have a son, Erik. His name is David and he’s our oldest. He’s also a telepath. He didn’t have such an easy time of it, even more so than me. Perhaps you could try...” But he trails off, humming to himself. His Erik always had to correct that. This Erik will with his Charles, too.  
  
Erik blinks a little. "He looks like you!" he laughs, because it is purely incredible to him. He sees himself in Lorna and Pietro, he can see his family in Wanda, but seeing Charles reflected as well, it does something more to him than he can understand and he's full of questions. He's not stupid, but there's curiosity-they aren't adopted, not exactly, so who else is in their life? Is anyone else? He's a bit distracted and blinks again. "What do I try?"  
  
Charles laughs, because now he’s distracted. “They’re all our children, we made that very clear,” he begins with, because it’s a distinction they made early on and it’s never been more obvious than with David, who needed the distinction, “But I had David before we met. He was a child then, and now I’ve never met a more surly teenager,” he rolls his eyes, but it’s so obviously fond. He loves their children more than he’ll ever have words for. “His mother is still a dear friend of ours. But he struggled with his telepathy as soon as he came into it, and I’m afraid he still does. He struggles with... knowing what’s real, and what isn’t. We learned grounding techniques and training exercises to help him with it.”  
  
Erik's eyes widen a little. "That could help Charles too?" he thinks aloud, curious, because his Charles seems to struggle with the same thing, too. He can't imagine being a telepath is easy at any age but especially when one is growing up on top of it regardless of how stable their upbringing is. And Erik can't even really imagine being a capable parent at this point.  
  
Charles nods slowly. “It sounds like there’s quite a lot more going on with your Charles,” he warns, snorting. “But it could. You’ll need him to trust you to guide and ground him. If something seems wrong, or out of sorts, he’ll have to come to you so you can lead him back. You’ll just need to be patient, to listen, but —“ He bites his lip. “Firm, Erik. I struggled to be that for David. You’ll need to push him, sometimes farther than he believes he should go. Get him out of his own head when it works against him. But I know you’ll help him,” he finishes, smiling. And it’s not a platitude. He’s confident in Erik, even this one. He trusts him completely.  
  
"I will try and help," he whispers, and Charles is right. It does hurt to be here more than just because of what it represents. It's hard to be so far from home even when he doesn't think he could spend a thousand years here and have it be enough. It's a dream, and he would waste away if given the opportunity. There is one question niggling, though. "I heard," he murmurs, because it's very hard even for his own mother to get past him. "What she want. I can't let. I won't let him." Kill anyone, he means. He knows it must be more than he can understand because his whole life he was taught that life is to be revered. But he can't allow Charles to do that even for his family. "I won't let anyone hurt us. I promise."  
  
Charles goes silent at first, and then he bites his lip and shakes his head. “That’s not why,” he whispers, and perhaps it’s not obvious what he means at first, especially as he pauses. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Erik’s statement. “That’s not why it’s difficult. It’s difficult because you know that it wouldn’t be enough. You could stay here for ages, be with us for ages, but you wouldn’t be happy, Erik. Not without him, specifically.” And Charles is half mad not knowing exactly where his Erik is, for that matter. “You’re forming a Pairbond. You feel it, don’t you? And you know he feels it too. It — snapped, somehow? It’s... broken, perhaps?” He’s genuinely asking. He doesn’t understand what happened here.  
  
Erik's lips press together and he shrugs, sniffing. "I dunno," he whispers. "I miss him," he adds, which is simple enough, but it's what he knows. He knows that he misses Charles and wants him back, his Charles. And he could stay here forever, but he wouldn't be fulfilled. He could never be truly taken care of properly, he could never truly take care of this place, it isn't for him. He's supposed to have experienced everything-and that hurts, because how is anyone supposed to have experienced that, and it's what makes it so hard for him to believe that there's a direction for his life, if it means having had to experience it. But he also experiences Charles, and being with the family he does have, and seeing all these new worlds, and maybe that's worthwhile. It's worth it. He's worth it.  
  
Charles kisses Erik’s cheek again. “You have a wonderful opportunity right now, Erik,” he whispers, and he sounds almost wistful, though it isn’t clear why. “This will not only shape your Pairbond, but perhaps the Universe as we know it. Not to put pressure on you,” he teases. “But may I make a suggestion? Just one more, I promise.”  
  
Erik grins back, running his fingertips down Charles's jaw. "I don't pressure. I will do," he promises, sure and certain even in the face of things that he can't quite understand, headfirst into the unknown which has always been a trait of every Erik he's ever known. "Suggest," he encourages softly. "Always."  
  
“Have fun, please,” he laughs, and gently taps Erik’s nose. “Laugh with him. Learn him. Spend time together, and apart, too, but relish the time you have. Be silly. Leave the windows open while it rains,” and clearly that is from experience, a smile on lips that is surely inspired by his Dominant. His Erik. Erik can feel how achingly sincere it is, how much love there is. “Be gentle with him, be patient, but do not let him curl too tightly back into himself. Be insistent. Be firm. Be consistent. But just remember to enjoy yourself, please. Where you are right now, that place —“ He swallows. “Make joy there. You will see the rest fall into place. Try things. Guess. Live, Erik. With him. That is what makes a Pairbond.”  
  
It brings tears to Erik's eyes, not of sadness and despair, but because he has always ached for that which Charles has just verbalized. "I try," he whispers, a little brokenly, but it's so entirely earnest there's no mistaking it for anything but conviction. "I try. I am making a nice place. I promise. I won't let it descend to darkness, I will make it nice," he smiles a little.  
  
Charles wraps his arms around Erik completely, and when he speaks, it’s whispered close to his ear. “Go home to him, Erik,” he breathes. “And then come back sometime soon and tell me about it, alright? Bring good stories.”  
  
"You let me visit?" Erik whispers back, soft and aching. "Please? Maybe together? Wanna visit. Please? I will tell you everything. I promise."  
  
“You can visit whenever you like, darling,” he promises, sincere and aching as well, and kisses Erik’s forehead. “But please don’t leave him alone for too long, hm? Who knows what trouble he’s gotten into. Go home to him, Erik. He needs you.”  
  
"Home?" Erik's eyes practically light up. This Charles can really see it now. Erik misses his Charles. "Time to go home?" he breathes out, rubbing Charles's hands. "Want to see him. He's mine."


	134. Livin' in a hateful world sendin' 'em straight to heaven

Charles is speaking, but Erik finds he can’t understand what he’s saying. Everything becomes fuzzy, hazy, out of focus; and then, suddenly, very clearly in focus. There is a very different, younger Charles in his arms now, in his lap, buried in his shoulder and crying. Hitched, gasping little breaths, hiccups, like he’s been at this for a while. They’re right where Erik remembers them being before he found himself somewhere else, in the chair in the study that he’d been supervising Charles straightening.  
  
Erik gasps, his mind all a-fuzz, as this world, the one that rightfully belongs to him, slams back into him like a freight train and all the edges glow in vivid clarity, and his consciousness is swimming through, a goldfish staring up at the break of water. He takes a deep, shuddering breath and his arms tighten around Charles, pulling him even closer and stroking at his hair. "Hi," he whispers softly, unsure what to say, all he knows is his submissive is hurting and crying and he can't abide by that. "Hi, I got you. It's OK. Promise."  
  
Charles gasps. Loudly, brokenly, and then he pulls back to look at Erik’s face, his eyes wide and wild and his heart beating so erratically it’s audible. “Erik?” he asks, voice hoarse, as if it’s been years. He sounds utterly terrified, though he’s been in this exact position before. He should have known what to expect. “Erik? Erik,” he breathes, and pitches forward again, squeezing his Dominant as tightly as he possibly can. “Erik, Erik, Erik,” he sobs. The other Charles was right. Of course he was.  
  
He pets at Charles's cheek, ruffles through his hair and tries his very best to soothe and comfort, hushing him with soft-nothings against his ears. "It's OK," he promises. "I just visit. Back now. Stay here with you," he swears, kissing at Charles's temple. "Scared?"  
  
Charles shivers, full-body, one of those painful-looking spasms. It’s not entirely pain, but he clearly doesn’t know how to feel about it, how to process it. “Scared,” he admits quietly. “I knew you were going, but you went so still, I...” He swallows, and tears gather at his eyes again. “Stay with me,” he pleads. “I know they’re there, I found them for you, but please. I know it is wretched here, I know we’re trapped, I know there are awful, frightening things, but please —“ Charles is falling apart now. Charles is begging.  
  
Erik's head shakes and he kisses Charles's cheek, nuzzling him close, rubbing his fingers along the tensed up muscles of Charles's back. "I will stay," he promises solemnly. "Just visit. I would never leave. Not feeling trapped. I feel joy. You are mine," he laughs a little, looking upward. "I don't belong there. He is not my submissive. Just you. But he-helped me a little. Give me some advice," he admits with a sheepish grin. "You give me an incredible gift. I saw them," his voice drops to a whisper. "I can't believe. I saw." And at first he wanted to stay, forever, enchanted by his family, but slowly and surely everything shifted out of place, his Charles wasn't there. This wasn't his family, not really. He was just a visitor. And he wanted to go home.  
  
“I’m the monster,” Charles whispers. It’s almost like he hasn’t heard. His eyes are closed now. “I know you don’t believe it, but it doesn’t matter. I’m the monster here, Erik. I am.”  
  
"I don't care!" Erik laughs. "Even if you are a monster. I don't care, me too. Don't you know I don't care? Don't you know you are mine? Whatever you are, it matches in me. I don't care what you think," he finally says, his voice rising in Will, in Command. "What you think, no, I care," he amends softly. "I want to know. How you think, who you are. But you think my feelings are not real. It is real. I know. You don't believe, I don't care. I know what I know. I always know, I try to reach, I try to be smart, I know I'm not. I know, I can't explain good, science. But I know you."  
  
Charles pulls away. He doesn’t mean to, but he does, recoiling, half in Erik’s lap and half not. His face is red with tears. The light has come back, but it’s strange, warped in some way. Everything is, as if reality is still filtering back in. “I think it’s real,” he corrects, lip wobbling. “Of course I think it’s real. How could I deny that, when I’ve seen? But I’ve also seen —“ He shakes his head. “Knowing in that way isn’t always enough. It doesn’t get us out of here, Erik. And it isn’t...” It just gets bitten back, swallowed down. “It doesn’t matter,” he sighs, wiping at his own face, trying to clamber off Erik’s lap.  
  
"Get back now," Erik rumbles the Order harshly, now sitting on the comfort of their bed. "Now you listen me. I am Dominant, I am _your_ Dominant. We are here because you are afraid to take the next steps. Afraid to begin with powers. You do so many beautiful things. What you did for me. All this, but you are still scared. That is why we are here. So we will work together. We will try a little at time. We will practice and experiment some things. We will." The Order vibrates through the entire room, leaving no room for argument. "Your gift is extraordinary and you can do it. You can, because I expect. No less. You are the best submissive you can be, I will make you best. That include this. That is final word."  
  
But Charles’ eyes are wide and unseeing, a hand over his mouth. He blinks, over and over again, like he’s trying to focus his eyes. They’re in Erik’s bedroom. Then the study. Then the bedroom. He’s standing close to Erik, then farther away. It’s dark, it’s light. He swallows. Finally they’re where they were, where they were supposed to be, and he’s standing a few feet away from the chair they’d settled in, in the study they’d been in, that he’s cleaned half-heartedly. “Please,” he whispers, and he sounds terrified. “Please, no. I don’t want —“ He’s trembling head to toe."  
  
Erik growls. "Now look at me . You are mine. You listen to what I say, you do not spiral around thinking like you are evil. You are by my side. We are here together. Now you listen to me," the Order is pervasive, like air, like breathing.  
  
There’s still terror in his eyes, but Charles looks. He takes one of those deep, sucking breaths and he looks, reaching blindly forward though he’s not sure why, doesn’t know where to grab or what to hold onto, standing in front of Erik like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. “I’m so frightened,” he admits, voice stuck mostly in his throat. “You’re right. I’m frightened, and how do I stop?”  
  
“You stop when I say stop,” Erik tells him, and it’s so simple, something that’s never seem to come to him before now, but so ultimately the truth. “You stop when I say. You are mine. You do not get to do all rampage and hurt. I will not let you. But you stop,” he insists sharply with a rap across Charles’s knuckles, hard. Warning. “You are beautiful. Your gift is beautiful. You will learn, and I will help. And I will not let anything bad happen. Maybe it is hard, and strange, but I am here.”  
  
Charles nods, rubbing at his sore knuckles, sliding forward a bit. Idling close, no longer in Erik’s lap and therefore uncertain of what to do with himself, with his restless body. “What if I don’t know what’s real?” he asks, biting his lip. “What if you don’t know, either? We’re trapped here. How will you tell me what’s true and what isn’t? How will you be certain I learn the right things? What if I do it wrong again?”  
  
“Then I will fix it, again,” Erik insists. Simple, but fierce. “I know what is good and what is bad. That is what matters. I know what is healthy. And if I don’t know then I make you help me. And you will serve me, and guide me like you are supposed to. And I will protect you. I will keep you safe. I will care for you. Now get back here,” he tugs firmly on Charles’s arm.  
  
Charles digs his feet in, perhaps just to be contrary. There’s that telling purse to his lips. “And we’ll stay here until we get it right, is that it? We’ll stay trapped here and between Universes until you teach me properly, shall we? What if that takes ages? What if it never happens?”  
  
“Bullshit,” Erik, tries the word out with a grin. “Just fears. I won’t let it happen. You need trust me. We will get it right. We will be here as long as we need to be here. But we certainly are needed,” he points around. “We are needed. We’re not alone. And we don’t exist from the world. We are meant to be making change. And we will. But we can’t do until we take care, here. So you stop fretting. You stop stropping around. You will do what I tell you to do. You will hear my words and obey my Commands. And that is forever.”  
  
“What if I decide I don’t want to?” And it’s the boldest way Charles has ever phrased it. He takes a step back. “What then, Erik? What if I decide I want absolutely no part in this?”  
  
“You do not get to decide,” Erik rumbles back, and yanks Charles to him, trapping him against his body. “You may be trapped here. But really you are with me. Because. I. Decide. Not you.”  
  
Charles’ eyes go wide again and he’s tense in Erik’s arms, forcing himself not to go slack and pliant like he always wants to when Erik Commands like this. “What gives you the right?” he demands, finding himself far too breathless. “Is that it, then? You’ll play the _Ziz_?”  
  
"Not what," Erik rumbles dangerously. " _You_ give me the right. I earned it. By take care of you." His fingers delicately touch over Charles's face where he's entirely trapped against Erik. "I do not play. You surely know this by now."  
  
Charles turns his face, as if just to be difficult. He’s biting his lip. Hard, this time. “You’ll let me go if I ask, though? If you’re not playing, shall it be just like the story? What if I don’t want to be taken care of, Erik?”  
  
"Irrelevant," Erik purrs back, gripping Charles's jaw to turn it back. "I know the difference. When you ask like this. That is not it. You are mine. You will be mine to the day that you no longer-" Erik's lips press together and he keeps the rest of his words inside by frightening might. "-no longer consider me," he decides diplomatically.  
  
“Tell me what you actually meant,” Charles huffs, and tries to jerk his chin, raising it. His jaw is clenched. “Say it.”  
  
Erik falters a little, here, unsure. Unsure if he should lock it away, like the other Charles said. Let it flourish organically, stop bringing up-but he's Erik. He can't stop being. Maybe Charles doesn't like him this way, would prefer his cerebral, logical Erik back. He knows. He twitches a little and his grip tightens, if he says it, he may as well mean it. "Love me," he replies, fierce.  
  
Charles blinks, taken aback. He freezes up. “Please let me go,” he rasps.

* * *

"No," Erik breathes back, a complete statue, air stuck in his lungs. He can endure it. He can. "No."  
  
Charles’ eyes close. “Please,” he breathes. “I set let go. Let go.” He jerks in Erik’s grip, even lightly pushes against him.  
  
"I said no," Erik returns, eyes blazing. His face almost changing, the Monster underneath the flimsy skin.  
  
“And I don’t care!” Charles tries to shout back, because Erik has always cowed at that. It’s made him feel horrid and very small afterward, lost and rather empty, but he knows it works. “You can’t hold onto me like this, Erik. You say I give you the right? Then you don’t have it right now. Let me go this instant. I don’t want a part in this. Not right now, certainly.”  
  
"Wrong," Erik, or a monster who looks like Erik practically purrs at him, His hold tightens. "I have the right. I know when. You can say your whims at me all you want. You can fight all you want." It doesn't work. It doesn't seem to work, this time. It used to, on Erik-Before. There's something dangerous, something immutable, something predatory about knowing that this Erik is more unpredictable, less limited, free. He just does what he wants, and Charles-Charles is caught. There's nowhere to go. He's utterly held fast. The thrashing and raging doesn't work any longer. Erik isn't scared anymore.  
  
It has an effect on Charles. An immediate, obvious effect, but like any caught prey, he thrashes even harder, a last attempt. At what, he doesn’t quite know. “How do you know the difference? How do you have any idea? I said let me go, so you let me go!” He takes a sharp breath. This is dangerous, but perhaps because it’s making him consider things he couldn’t before. Couldn’t because it would damage Erik, hurt him, and Charles has never wanted that. “What if I say that word? Will you let me go, then? You agreed to it. What if I tell you I can’t do this?”  
  
"You can do what I say to," Erik returns lowly, against his ear. Rubbing his back, maddening and soothing all at once. "And you can say your word. Any time you like. It is yours," he reminds, gentle in the face of an onslaught. "I have ideas. I know. Maybe I am not smart like you but I _know_ things," he adds, taking a deep breath. "And I know you are mine and you listen to me. You try to fight. I won't let you. You do not Order me," and that's a growl. "Never." And for his utter insolence, the grip on his jaw turns to a strike, hard enough to leave a mark, but not enough to rattle him. Somehow this Erik knows, too. At least his body does. How much force, how much strength, to make Charles feel exactly what he should feel.  
  
It’s enough to shake him. Charles grabs at his jaw, at his cheek, his eyes wide again. “No, I can’t,” he hisses, and his jaw is so tight, his teeth are clenched and grinding against each other, it does nothing for the sting. “What happens if I say it? You let me go?” he asks, and he doesn’t know why his heart is beating so loudly but he can feel it in his throat.  
  
"Stop that," Erik Orders, tapping Charles's jaw, loosening that grip. Erik peers at him, eyes blinking slowly like a big cat. And here, in their respective positions, Erik's physicality simply can't be denied. He is utterly designed, an apex predator of apex predators, every muscle and sinew in tandem, even broken as he is, he's more than capable of taking on anyone who crosses him. And now he towers over Charles, having captured his prey. "You can say your word and leave and control me and do whatever you want. Yes, you can. You can prove you have the best authority and you are the real Dominant. But you are not _my_ Dominant. You _are not my Dominant,_ " he suddenly repeats, vicious now, a curl of genuine anger. "You do not _act_ like my Dominant, you do not take from me the choice of my Dominance to you, not _ever_. I am _not_ your submissive. You have your word. You do not use it lightly. Now you stop this insolence right now because I have already decided you to be disciplined and now you make worse with every word that you say in defiance."  
  
But Charles, even as he trembles, clearly isn’t done. “What makes you my Dominant? Who says?” He tries again to struggle and gets absolutely nowhere, which just makes his pulse kick into gear, just makes his heart pound in his throat, in his ears, sink into his stomach. “I — I asked, yes, but what makes me yours? Why? What makes you feel like you have a claim over me? Why do — what if I want a choice?” he asks, and his voice breaks. “Do I get none? I have no choice in any of this?”  
  
Erik nuzzles his cheek against the top of Charles's head. "You get many choices, but not this. Not with me. I do not know why. Why we are, why I feel. I just know. And I trust that. Because when I have you, everything is right. If I leave right now, you know it is wrong. You know it will be wrong. You ask me to stay, but you don't want it? No. I know better."  
  
Charles’ head is exploding. His whole body is shaking. He doesn’t know what he’s feeling, what he’s thinking, only that it feels like it’s entirely too much, and he attempts to step back again. “But I don’t get to decide what I do with my own power, my own life? That’s not a choice! This isn’t a choice!” He feels, suddenly, like his throat is closing, panic spiking through his entire body, sharp and suffocating. “You don’t get to tell me what I know! You don’t get to tell me that I —“ He shakes his head, tears gathered in his eyes. “I refuse. How’s that? I refuse this! Tell the bloody Universe that I refuse!”  
  
"Yes I get to," Erik returns, rapping Charles sharply on the knuckles. "I get to. Because you are mine. What it means to be mine. I get to. Now you go upstairs," he says, pointing his finger. "You want to get away, well now you get to, you get what you want, right? Now go and you sit at Rest until I come there, and you wait. You refuse? You refuse me?" Erik's eyes are almost glowing, an ethereal green that sparks through the darkness, a Will that is as suffocating as any and all panic. Even his voice has changed, something Otherworldly. "How is that? How is that? Get upstairs. That is how it is. And you wait full ten minutes until I am ready to deal to you."

* * *

“I want —“ But he can’t get the words out. He can’t get anything out. Fine, Erik wants him to go? He’ll go. He storms out of the room, nearly at a run, but he doesn’t go upstairs. It feels like an impossibly long trek to the front entrance, but he only hesitates a moment before he steps out, into the rain that he isn’t even certain is rain, cold and uncomfortable and he has no shoes on and he doesn’t know what the plan is here, but he starts to run.  
  
He doesn't get very far. He almost slams into Erik just as he thinks he's broken free. And Erik looks furious. There's not a lot of times in their period together that Erik has gotten well and truly pissed off, or has allowed himself to express it beyond an idle, fleeting frustration. It feels that Erik is an impenetrable wall, a metal fortress all around Charles, not merely a body in front of him. And his mind is ablaze with fury, with Will, in equal amounts.  
  
Charles feels he might choke on it, but he throws his arms out in front of him as if he can — what? Shove his way through? It’s pouring rain, his head is pounding, the entire world feels to be closing in on him and he’s desperate, now, utterly panicked. “Get out of my way, Erik!” he yells, and he can’t look at him, of course he can’t. He has absolutely no ability to resist him like this and he knows it. He is prey.  
  
When Erik's body moves, it is pure reflex, something inside of him he doesn't understand, the way he sidesteps, twists and catches Charles without any effort at all. "Be silent," he Orders almost immediately. Because he is so unbelievably, unfathomably angry that he feels the Earth begin to shift beneath his feet, the ions and metallic particles in the soil shifting infinitesimally, lifting, and he's trembling, unaware that the dirt has kicked up over his feet in a way that isn't natural.  
  
Charles has never lost himself to Erik’s Will, but he has also never once been able to resist it. His mouth shuts. His hope shatters, if it could be called that — what was it? Desperation? Panic? Fear? He doesn’t know. It was foolish, whatever it was, pointless, and he looks out at the gate of this manor, over at the garden, and where did he intend to go? What was his goal? Where did he think he would run to? He swallows heavily and closes his eyes, goes limp in Erik’s arms.  
  
"You send me there, you send me there and I come back, you send me there, and now come back and this _tantrum_ -" Erik's voice is a searing whisper, not a shout at all, but somehow Charles feels it in every single molecule surrounding them, but Erik has cut himself off, forced himself to regain control. The ground still lifts.  
  
Charles can’t speak. Nothing comes out of his mouth. Whatever has been riled up in him, whatever pure, inexplicable panic that has taken him over, it’s been replaced by something else. The ground is unsteady under his feet, unstable, but he isn’t afraid; not of Erik. Not even now, when his anger is palpable. He makes a noise, something small and whining, and then he sinks down to his knees, into the dirt, into the broken pieces of the pathway, rock and metal and mud and in the middle of the rain. He bows his head.  
  
The soil begins to settle back into the ground at that, even unconsciously, the beast has been soothed by this small action, but Erik can't stop trembling. His chest is heaving, struggling to take in breaths. He doesn't know how to explain his anger, the reasoning behind it. He's never been very good at reason. He doesn't know why he's so-so hurt. But he is, and it fills up the sky just like rainfall. He can't seem to gather his thoughts, which have all dropped away like marbles at his feet. He can't think, he can't breathe, he just shakes. Control, control, control. He isn't mindless to his emotions, he isn't. Just because he's new. He can regain-he-regain-  
  
Charles still can’t speak. He doesn’t even know if he should fight to try. He doesn’t know if anything he would say would soothe, his own nerves absolutely shot. He keeps his eyes closed, feels the rain, the unsettled ground, the unsettled air, and he wraps his arms around Erik’s legs. He bows his body and his head low. It’s an unnatural, arched position, a position of surrender, of supplication, the only one that feels even slightly appropriate. His body is trembling, too, and he waits.  
  
"You say you need me, all these things, all this-you say all what you need from me, well it is not one street," Erik whispers. "I like that you need me. I like being what it is you need. I like knowing. But you-" he gasps, shaking his head. "It is not just one street. I need too. I need things too. _I needed you_. And you just _run out the door_. After I tell you to go upstairs, after I tell you what it is and you be disciplined, do you think that you should be _anywhere else_ but on your knees for me right now. Do you _think_ you should do anything but this. No, you don't know. No you _don't_ have a choice!" Erik's voice raises above the rain. "No you don't. Not anymore. Not ever again. That is right. I am a monster. I am bad guy. I am the evil jailor. My mother, she told me, I will come back here and say you should kill someone, Charles. Go ahead, just _kill someone_ , my mother say that to me. My mother. Who she is dead. She is dead, she is gone. _I needed you!_ "  
  
Charles’ entire body is shaking, but he doesn’t speak. He bows himself down lower, aware that he is lowering himself into the dirt, into the mud, into the soil, into the broken-up pieces, the ground Erik has the ability to Command. There are no words to speak, not at this moment. Even if they left him, he would not wish them to be spoken. But his body whispers, his mind whispers, his heart whispers, Forgive me.  
  
Erik's Will pounds into him again. "I already know all the things you want to say to me. You are sorry now, you feel bad now, you lash out at me, you throw words at me, you throw things at me, and then you are sorry, I know. But you know, I'm bad guy. You do not have the foresight to think, one second, _maybe I should behave, maybe I should respect, maybe I should do the things all the things, my Dominant has told me to do from beginning, just for one second._ Yes you need me to control and discipline and help, yes, that is good. But you really think I want to be here if you only _ever_ behave how I need, when you are disciplined."  
  
Charles feels, quite frankly, as if he’s being crushed underneath it. Underneath everything. It’s the most painful thing Erik could have said, but it doesn’t matter. Perhaps it was supposed to be. He stays where he is. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move, except for the trembling. He doesn’t even cry, at least not that he can tell, the rain chilling and loud.  
  
"You have choice, you have choice in how you behave, how you respond, how you treat me. That is a choice. You are not bad submissive, and not bad person. But your _behavior is bad_. And no one ever seems to tell you that. Nobody ever takes you in hand, nobody ever expects from you. Why I never did, I was afraid, a _coward_ , a weakling, this twisted, ugly, simpering thing. I was _submissive_ to you. I was twisted." He laughs a bit, looking up at the sky. Because of course Erik never spoke to him this way, because he was always so afraid to hit a nerve, to hurt Charles, but it's something that has always needed to be said, something that he could only ever have said without the crushing cage of his own submissive memories. "But you, you took that from me, you helped me, you helped me to see. You want me to be Dominant for you, so here it is. I needed you to be my submissive and you, you tell me it isn't even my right to speak with you, to hold you, to have you. You defy me, you really run away, leave me. That was your choice."  
  
Charles makes some sort of noise, but the rain swallows it, and perhaps it doesn’t mean anything anyway. He doesn’t know if he’s allowed to speak, and so he doesn’t. He stays bent in half, offered in silence, the rain and Erik’s words and Will pounding at his back. There is something eerie about how silent his silence is, and it’s because there is nothing speaking at all. There is nothing projected, as there has always been when Charles was upset or affected. Always something, something for Erik to perceive. There is nothing now.

* * *

The words are spoken in anger, so there is less diplomacy. It's all feelings, not facts. It's something the Erik-of-Old would never have done, not in a million years, he never would have exploded, he never would have spat out his true feelings, the kind of feelings that you think you can't say because you're speaking a different language from the person across from you and they'll turn it into a rope to hang themselves with. Because they're not fluent, because it's an alien language with no Rosetta stone. No way to decipher. The kind of feelings that build up resentment over centuries. But this Erik doesn't have the benefit of experience, he doesn't know any better.  
  
He's fragile, and he's hurt, Charles really tried to leave him, when he's still sorting through the rubble of the atom bomb. Charles really said none of this mattered, he didn't want it. And to Erik, to this Erik, without the benefit of wisdom-Erik said he would never punish Charles in anger, but he can't reign in his voice in anger. The other Erik would have. Charles liked him better.  
  
Erik seems to have burned out for now, and the rain falls around them. Eventually his hand creeps up toward Charles's neck, through his hair. He is not really evil. He is not really a monster. He doesn't want to crush Charles underneath his boot just for a momentary catharsis. He just doesn't know any better, he doesn't know how to be tactful, how to dance, how to maneuver, how to speak deftly. Maybe he really has razed Charles down, ruined everything just by opening his mouth, the way Sebastian Shaw once told him he would in a memory he doesn't have anymore.  
  
But he hasn’t. He never could. It was never a possibility, not even in the most twisted of Universes. Not even in the places they have hurt each other most, where resentment and bitter, spiked anger has grown and festered and settled in their hearts. Hearts that still ache for each other, even around the hurt. Charles doesn’t speak, and he doesn’t project, still unusually silent, but he lifts his head slightly. Not to look, not to move out of this Presentation, but to press his cheek against Erik’s leg. To reach up and grip at the fabric of Erik’s pants, wet from the rain.  
  
The Order for silence, one Erik gave because he knows he can't debate around Charles's swift mental prowess, because if Charles did speak Erik would peter out, he wouldn't be able to speak himself. But he's never wanted, even back then, a silent, mindless submissive. The Order fades, leaving only Charles's choice. His heart is pounding in his chest like he can't believe he just _yelled_ all of that, not with raised voice, but Charles is a _telepath_ , it's nearly the same thing, feelings battering against him.   
  
Erik doesn't want to hurt, he never did. He was always silent about this, never once breaking through. This Erik is different. He doesn't know better. He can't seem to calm down, though, now that the brackets of ice-cold anger have begun to fade, and the worry seeps in, that he went too far, said too much, said something he can't take back. It's the second after you hit someone too hard or go to nudge an animal with your foot but accidentally use too much force, the _oh-my-G-d did I hurt them, did I kill them_ \- jolt of adrenaline, shocks of bone-chilling fear.   
  
But Erik doesn't take it back. The other Erik would have. This Erik is brave, headstrong, fearless. Even in the face of horrifying fear, of the weight that threatens to press him down to the ground and crush him into the soil, the boulder dropping from above him at lightning speed. The motion from Charles startles him a little bit he shifts to accommodate, doesn't push him away. That is something no Erik has ever been able to do. It helps. It eases.  
  
Charles still does not speak. Nothing comes out of his mouth, and nothing comes from him at all. This Erik has experienced only brushes with Charles’ telepathy, only nudges, only accidents, really, only moments, but he has experienced them. There has always been something, when Charles was worked up or upset. But there isn’t. Just the rain, and then Charles curling himself around Erik’s legs, still kneeling, still bent, still Presented. He’s shaking. His fingers dig into Erik’s legs, as if he expects to be torn away, which is strange for someone who ran just minutes before.  
  
Eventually, Erik crouches, and wraps his arms around Charles's body, lifting him slightly to embrace him, letting him instead rest over his chest, managing to sit cross-legged on the ground. No one is being cast anywhere. Not if Erik has anything to say about it.  
  
That, Charles seems to protest. He makes another quiet, drowned-out noise, discomfited and even slightly gargled, a whine, but he doesn’t know how to fix it. He’s just shaking, and he lets himself be moved, goes entirely limp in Erik’s arms and doesn’t rest so much as he becomes a trembling, wet mass to be moved as Erik pleases, his eyes closed.  
  
"Tell me what you feel," Erik Orders of him, the first that is not a barking, harsh Command.  
  
It inspires Charles to flinch, so perhaps it has just the same effect. “I don’t know,” he rasps, and the rain drowns most of it out, but it must be the truth. It is. His throat feels raw, no matter how many times he swallows around it.  
  
Erik is still raw, still agitated, and he stands up again sharply, as if Charles being on his knees in front of him might help. Maybe it does.  
  
So Charles stays there. He doesn’t move to stand, or lift his head, or pull himself up from the muddy ground. He stays right on his knees, and folds himself up further, not even aware he’s doing it until he does. Until he’s bent all the way down, the rain at his back and Erik looming over him. It seems to calm him, even if the only indication is that he’s shaking less violently.  
  
It seems to calm Erik, too, even if there are things he needs to hear, things he might never hear. Languages they don't speak to one another. He takes a shaky breath after several minutes pass and looks to the sky again. "Come," he murmurs, raising a hand. a silent indication for Charles to snap to attention. "Inside," he explains. He won't let Charles catch his death out in the rain.  
  
He is shivering, too. It’s summer and there’s hardly danger of him catching death, but it’s certainly uncomfortable, chilling. He hasn’t complained and he wouldn’t have if they’d stayed out here much longer. When Charles moves, it’s slow, almost stilted, but he doesn’t say a word of protest. He steps inside and waits, dripping wet and covered in filth but not speaking of it, though he would normally whinge for hours about it. He’s never been a fan of getting dirty. His head is bowed. His hands are folded in front of him. A standing Rest.  
  
"Undress," Erik says, and presses a pair of clean clothes into his hands, pajamas of some sort. Pushing it feels like kicking a cowed animal, and Erik still has the same compassion as before. Even if he's frustrated, all the anger that had electrified and pushed itself through his feet prickling under the ground they walk on. "You will get in the shower and clean up," he instructs Charles as lifeless as he now is, like moving a paper doll. It isn't helping anymore.  
  
Charles seems to flinch again, noticeably this time, visibly swallowing down whatever emotion it is that Erik can’t touch, but he nods. He takes the clothes he’s been offered and walks to the nearest bathroom, and the sound of the shower starting up follows just moments later. He isn’t dallying, or protesting, or speaking. He doesn’t do anything but exactly what he’s told, cleaning up fast and efficient, putting on what’s been offered, and then padding back out. He waits, head bowed, shivering though the water was warm.  
  
Erik lets out a long exhale, his chest deflating and he tilts Charles's chin up to meet his eyes, his own expression unreadable. "Tell me what is going on," he Orders again. And his intent is clear. Honestly, without obfuscation. If he doesn't know, try. Erik feels himself shrinking. Again. His own feelings meaningless, wrong, or too damaging. Again. Fading, lost in the overwhelming loam, bending himself to fit. Compromising, but perhaps not how that other Charles meant. Compromising himself, dulling himself, because he leads with his heart, and he's too expressive, and too much, and now he probably killed Charles or something, which is so great. Really good. He runs his fingers through his hair, stressed beyond all comprehension.  
  
Charles shakes his head. It’s not a refusal. It’s certainly not anything resembling defiance or disobedience. But he doesn’t have words for anything in his head at the moment, for the overwhelming, tangled-up mess of thoughts and emotions inside of him and at the Order, they all slam into Erik at once, exactly what had been missing. It’s too much to discern. It’s too much to feel. It’s an onslaught, jarring and loud and even painful, a knife to the chest and a raw, awful churning in the stomach and it becomes clear that Charles has likely been feeling it this whole time. He’s shivering harder. “Please can I get on my knees,” he gasps, and it’s not because he’s a lifeless, flayed-out shell Erik has created. He hasn’t. Charles isn’t dead, he isn’t ruined, he isn’t stomped into the dirt or beneath Erik’s boot. Something happened, but he doesn’t currently have words for what it was, but it wasn’t to spite Erik. He’ll try, but he can’t do it like this. He will if Erik asks.  
  
Erik sniffs, eyes flicking upward, chin tilting, but he nods. " _Kore'a_ ," he murmurs, and it isn't an Order, or in the Imperative, it just is. Even feeling everything slammed into him is better than feeling nothing, and his chest pings a silent relief. It hurts, and he regrets that Charles feels like this, but it's better than emptiness. He knows, logically, that Charles isn't behaving with malice. But what happened hurt him more than he cared to admit. And he didn't want to admit it. He didn't want to say what he said, he didn't even mean to. It just happened, because he isn't as good at controlling himself as the old version of him was. He knows he should be, he should learn. Charles said he doesn't like it when Erik is cold, but now he's burning. There's no in-between.  
  
There’s relief from Charles, too, as he kneels. He knows Erik likely meant for him to kneel normally, the way he has every other time he’s been asked to, putting himself at Rest, but he doesn’t. He bows all the way back down until his forehead hits the wooden floor, right here in the hall, and breathes. Breathes, and some of that riled-up mess subsides, even if it’s only slightly. He doesn’t start with an explanation. “How do I make this up to you, sir?” he asks, and it’s so quiet and shuddering but it isn’t performative. It’s a genuine question. A plea. It’s not the same response Erik has gotten before, because something has happened here.  
  
Erik blinks, like he doesn't quite understand the question, but he manages, with his freakishly long arms, to sift through Charles's hair without bending himself into a pretzel (although he's still bent over, so he moves to sit on the bed instead, so he can lean forward with his elbows on his knees and mindlessly twirl his hair in between his fingers). "You will be disciplined," he whispers back, swallowing around a bob in his throat, nodding to himself where Charles can't see. He has never needed Charles to twist himself into a pretzel to please him, and it doesn't start now. Even when he has all the power in the world to demand something, and he knows Charles would obey no matter what it was. It just isn't him. "But I-" his voice fades a little, cracked. He doesn't know how to explain it. He just needs to know if Charles understands the consequences of his behavior. Not merely disciplinary, but how it impacted Erik. And it isn't like Erik doesn't understand any explanation that Charles could give, because of course he forgives Charles.  
  
That was never in question, the question, in Erik's mind, is quite simple. Does Charles understand that despite how awful, and terrible, and overwhelmed he may feel, he cannot behave that way? Does he understand that he hurt Erik? Does he understand that no matter how terrible and awful he may feel, Erik is the one who he is supposed to lean on in the first place? That he abandoned Erik? He would have, if he could have. Erik isn't stupid. He would have. Run until there was nowhere to run to. This Erik just doesn't have the wisdom to know that Charles would inevitably come back. And he'd been torn apart, flayed open, a mindlessness of his own caused by the incomprehensible nature of being in two Universes at once, a bending of his temporal psyche that he's yet to learn to maneuver, the face of Edith Lehnsherr still smiling at him from behind Charles, an echo. Waving at him. He blinks and she's gone.

* * *

To be fair, Erik moving them means that Charles isn’t bent all the way down directly in front of the bathroom door, but he’s frankly miserable the whole time Erik is getting them settled. He doesn’t protest, he doesn’t make a peep, but it’s only because it’s for Erik’s comfort and not his. He still doesn’t feel entirely comfortable in Erik’s bedroom, but again, it isn’t for his comfort. He gets right into what’s frankly a stressful position to hold as soon as he can, and he clearly feels less horrible when he’s there. There’s silence, for a while. Not emptiness, because that piercing, overwhelming clang of emotions is twisting at Erik vaguely because it’s certainly twisting, more intensely, at Charles. “I didn’t want you to feel abandoned,” Charles whispers, but he understands that he made Erik feel that way. That he made him feel discarded, when that was never the intention or even the instinct. “I’m so sorry.” But he doesn’t mean he’s sorry that he was reprimanded, or that he’s sorry he’ll be disciplined, he means he’s sorry, and he feels sick with it because Erik didn’t sound like he’d believe an apology and there’s something else crumpled up and hurting, there, but he doesn’t know how to unravel it. He’s shaking again. “Please, how do I —“ He can’t even finish. He lets out a sharp exhale, holding in what’s obviously a sob. Charles is too worked up. How does he say he’ll never do it again when he isn’t even sure it’s true? Is he just bad?  
  
Erik lets out a low, slow, breath. The answer, it somehow feels there, within his grasp. For the first time ever, like something from without. Perhaps an echo in consciousness. "You feel bad emotions," he whispers. "So you run away. You deal yourself, you run from the situation, you do not think anything but terror. Not how you affect others. Because you did not come to me with your feelings and you became so overwhelmed you neglected to think about me at all. And you are my submissive. I expect you anticipating sometimes that I need you, when I need you, how I need you. I expect you to behave well, without me berating it and beating it out of you. Of your own choice. I understand that sometimes, things are complex and mistakes happen and everybody is human. But I have not _observed_ you to do this one time since I know you. You abandon me at the first sign, you throw tantrums, then I discipline you until you can talk to me. It is a pattern. He never see. He never fixed, or address. It is not just list and tasks. My expectation of you is far greater than that. To be the best person you can be. For you to rely on me. For you to turn to me. And not to say that _what will happen if I use afor, and then run away, because you can't do anything about it, because you have no right_." Erik's voice, during all of this, is somehow tender. "And that is not your fault, _neshama_. These things supposed to be taught by Dominant." Erik had no conception, and Erik usually yielded. "By family." Charles had none. "You are not a bad submissive. You just got never taught by anyone who meant well. And you are not bad. And you learn instead you never rely on anyone. But if this to work, you have to start to trust me, first or we will not leave place."  
  
Charles goes very still all of a sudden. There’s something like a whoosh, and then everything quiets down. Silences. He doesn’t cry, he doesn’t speak, he doesn’t seem to react at all even though he surely is. He stays bowed very close to the floor, tense but still and unusually quiet.  
  
Erik tenses, too, but his hand still sifts through Charles's hair, steadying. as he can. "Tell me what happening," he Orders.  
  
“I —“ Charles’ throat feels impossibly raw. There’s a pang of something, something sick and harsh and sorrowful, settled in a pit in Charles’ belly that for just a moment Erik feels, too, and then it’s gone. “I’m listening, sir,” he whispers. It doesn’t quite answer the question, but the answer is too big for this moment. He doesn’t have the words, for once, to articulate. He won’t find them. He stays where he is, exactly as he is.  
  
"What I say affects you," Erik replies softly. "Makes you be sorrowful. And the purpose what I say is this. You lean on me. You talk with me. Don't go away. You asked how to make up to me, I don't know. I think this." Erik doesn't need Charles to suddenly become perfect. All he really wants, is an acknowledgment. That he isn't wrong, or crazy, for the way it affected him, for how he feels about it. And a commitment to be aware of it, and try to let Erik in on it. To trust Erik. In it's own strange way, this is Erik pushing. In a place he never, not in a million years, ever would have let himself push.  
  
Charles can’t shake his head like this, but somehow it’s obvious that he would, if he were willing to lift himself off the ground to do so. He isn’t, at the moment. He can’t quite comprehend not being bowed and Presented at Erik’s feet like this. Something is churning inside of him, but Erik only feels it for another agonizing second before it’s gone. Snapped. “You are right. I’ll be better,” he whispers, and says nothing else. He can’t. His voice is broken, and small, and hoarse. He’s still again, and silent, but so obviously hurting that it doesn’t matter that Erik can’t hear it. Feel it. He shouldn’t have to, anyway. “I’ll — be better,” he repeats, tiny.  
  
Erik inhales again, long and through his nose. "Tell me," he Orders again softly. "Explain me what you are experiencing. Do your best." The Orders compound as they always do when Erik is like this, at the height of his Dominion still.  
  
That inspires a low, wounded noise from Charles, as if he’s been kicked. He tenses up again, and then shudders, but it takes such a long time for him to speak, not from disobedience — he couldn’t — but because his tongue seems glued to the roof of his mouth. He does what he can to obey the Order, unconsciously, just like he has in the past; there’s sorrow, and guilt, and humiliation, hot, obvious shame, and hurt, and fear, and it all bunches up together and sinks and sinks and sinks in his belly, twines itself too tightly around his heart. “I —“ It won’t come out. Charles finds he cannot speak, which has never seemed to be a problem for him, and embarrassment and frustration spikes in feverish pinpricks all over his body, goosebumps visible on his flesh. “I’ll do better,” he rasps. It isn’t a platitude. He wants to. And he thought he had been, except here they are, and not only was he wrong, clearly, but he was right, too. He’s not sure which feels worse.  
  
"I know," Erik murmurs softly. He knows that Charles always tries to do his best, that he's not malicious, that he is good. Erik knows that with every fiber of his being, but it's the same reason that Charles had to push Erik like this in the past, too. "You feel humiliation. Hurt. Fear. Because of me?" he whispers, because above all else that has never been his intention. But of course he spoke the World into setting on fire. Too much. Always too much. He needs to be better. Control himself. Marshal himself. Erik's head drops into his hands and he keeps breathing.  
  
Charles makes another noise, this one clearly a protest, something much closer to a sob. “Because of me,” he corrects, barely audible. Some of Erik’s words stung awfully, some of them were even harsh, but he doesn’t think Erik is too much. He never has, even when it was overwhelming to him, even when he didn’t know what to do. They wouldn’t even have been spoken before, these words, and Erik is right. They were stuck in a cycle before he woke up again. Charles knows it’s unlikely they would have found their way out of it. There’s more here, impossibly more, but he can’t speak it all. It’s too much for him. It’s not reluctance or unwillingness, and it makes him frustrated and ashamed enough that he begins to tremble again, grateful that he’s bowed so low to the ground.  
  
"OK, _neshama_ ," Erik's voice has found its softness again, the frustration gnarled around his heart easing up. Letting its branches away from his aorta. "'Cause you? How come, hm?" he winds some of Charles's hair through his fingers, pets at him when he can.  
  
“I —“ Again, it just gets caught up in his throat. He tries to speak through it, to speak up, but nothing comes out. “I don’t want to tell you all of it,” he admits, “I don’t think I can.” Physically, maybe, he’s not sure. But it’s a relatively new attempt for Charles to say when he doesn’t wish to share something, rather than to simply refuse it. “It’s not the time, sir.” It’s not the time for Charles to divulge how pathetic he is, how he’s wallowing in self-hatred and self-pity that must somehow be natural for him, how he feels wretched, how he is utterly convinced — “I’m never going to be a decent submissive,” he croaks, and it’s just soaked with devastation, with stinging humiliation, with certainty.  
  
At this, Erik lifts Charles's chin, looking at him in the eye. "You look me," Erik whispers, fiercely. "You are a beautiful submissive. Yes it is true. You have lots to learn. But it's my job, His job, is teach you. And I teach you. I tell you. I'm-" Erik cracks at this one, too. "I am sorry. I said so harsh. I should have control and come and, and say it better. I'm sorry I-" he lets out a breath. But he isn't sorry he said it. Because even if he had managed to make it come across in a way that wasn't painful to hear, the underlying concepts are still there. "Just like you have teach him to be good Dominant. He wasn't first. He had problems meeting your needs, too. And he still have problems to the day that I am him. But you loved him. You don't think he is bad. Rotten. Never be good Dominant. Everybody gotta learn, and I am your Dominant," Erik says, and that is drenched in Will. "My job is to teach you. Make you better. Show you better. Not to accept bad behavior. To model good behavior. Reward, and discipline, is part of it. A big part. But how you act outside of, that is big part, too. I do not think you are bad, _neshama_. I never think it. You know that truth."  
  
Charles swallows. He doesn’t jerk his head away, he doesn’t hide, but his eyes are very obviously not on Erik’s face. “I don’t,” he whispers. “Know that. I don’t.” He wants to, but especially after this, he doesn’t quite believe it. It isn’t Erik’s fault. It’s his for inspiring this in the first place. “There are things that cannot be taught,” he gasps, and squeezes his eyes closed. His head throbs. He doesn’t think he can cry, now, though his throat is bobbing.  
  
"Well I never do," Erik whispers back. "And yes, they can. All the things I talked about, they can be taught. Because I'm gonna teach to you, whether we end up here many time in the future or not, you are my submissive, and I train you, and I teach you. The right behavior, the right way. You say you like, you like that I train you. Well," he he gives a little shrug, a silent encouragement for Charles's eyes to open. "You are mine. You never stop being mine. And you are good. I am sorry-I was hurt. It hurt me. And I-was so devast-devastated, I-can't express." He still can't express. "And so-" he has to shut his own eyes. So full of grief, and horror, and limitless incoherence. "And I don't think, I just blurt. I'm sorry about it." He cups Charles's cheek. "But I do not think you are bad. I never have. I never will."  
  
“I’m —“ There is something bursting inside of him. Something weak, and pathetic, and kept to himself, kept inside, something that has lived there for a while, except here it is spilling out. “I’m s-selfish and cruel and independent and I — I am not as kind or as intelligent as I would like to believe I am, I am a coward, I do not even have an excuse, I have no memories, I am just naturally a poor excuse for a —“ It doesn’t sound like it is coming from him, as if he’s repeating something, as if it’s recited, but it is. It must be. “How will you teach that out of me? You will try to beat it out and then —“ His breath hitches. He is so tense. It looks painful for him to breathe, let alone speak. “You’ll get tired of it when it doesn’t work. You aren’t happy, why would you want to have to do that,” and that part Erik said himself. It needed to be said, but it very clearly confirmed what Charles had already been telling himself. It was true, and that hurts the most, he thinks, now that he’s considered it. It should. “Something is wrong with me. Not you, me. Me.”  
  
"Not wrong," Erik promises. "And I will discipline as many time as I need. I won't beat it out." It was a phrasing born of anger, not truth. "I will teach. Just like this. I will enforce. I will be here, to guide in right direction. Your Erik, he have problems with Dominance it seem insurmountable. All the things he cannot do. Will you be tired of me, because I struggle, too? Even if I fail over and over? Like he did? I am happy, Charles," he corrects with a small, almost invisible smile. "You are not a broken machine. Waiting for code and try to see if it works. You just need to be taught. Trained. Sometimes to hear words, that are not easy to hear. To face part of your self, your behavior, your action, that are not easy to face. But I am not tired. You are mine. It is my responsibility. To help you face. To show better way. To expect from you. To be what you need me to be."  
  
“But I am still all of those things,” Charles whispers. “He was — you were traumatized. You had memories that made some aspects of, of Dominance seem impossible for the moment, to learn them correctly, but I —“ It’s obvious how he’s internalized this, whatever way it’s come about, whatever manifestation he’s faced in his own mind. Charles believes Erik struggles, but him? He swallows. “I’m a bad person, which will always make me a poor submissive for you, too,” he gasps, verbalizing it. “And I am, I am not submissive enough, I —“ He can’t even speak anymore. Charles feels sick. “Even when I try, I thought, I thought —“  
  
"Well so were you," Erik says bluntly. He's not stupid. He knows that this is true, even if he can't know. "You have traumatic too. I see in you. Like me. I don't care what kind of person you are. For me you are good. You are kind and intelligent. You just have lots of bad rocks in your pockets. And you can't get rid of it. Even without a memory I am same, too. It don't go away. Like Dominance. Like things I could never tell you, because-because I am _ashamed_ , things that, I feel cold, and I try-and I think-I think it is like memory, I can't form. Like how you don't go to basement. Just because you are new-there things that we know. You do not need to be submissive enough, or act think like I think you want. You just listen to me. Learn. And I do the same from you. There is no other choice. You have to trust that I am for you. We not gonna make it if you don't." He says it simply, but the meaning is heavy. They won't survive if they don't. Physically, survive.  
  
“That’s —“ Charles is having such trouble articulating, it physically hurts. It feels like there’s a knife right through his chest, and there’s a clambering of just — hurt, and pain, and his lip wobbles, one of those broken noises escapes, but he doesn’t cry. He feels ashamed and humiliated again but he can’t even put into words why, he can’t even begin to. He wishes Erik’s words comforted him but they don’t, they make him feel awful, and that makes him feel guilty, too, on top of it. Overly sensitive, or wrong, somehow. Just entirely wrong.  
  
Erik won't let him hide, though. "No," he murmurs, Will and Command soaking the room. "Now you tell me. You breathe, and calm, and try again."  
  
To talk? Charles’ mouth opens, but nothing comes out. He swallows, and bows his head, and shakes it, his hair still damp from the shower and stuck to his face. “I don’t think it matters if what you say hurts me right now because I deserve to be hurt,” is what he says, which seems to startle him, and is almost definitely a result of the Order. “I believe it and it’s true so it shouldn’t, it shouldn’t hurt that you see it that way, too.”  
  
"No, you do not deserve be hurt. What way do you think I see it?" Erik asks him, stifling his own pained expression.  
  
“I’m not — I’m not submissive,” he whispers, which is a fear Charles had outside of any trauma he could consciously remember, and here it is. Here it is, in its rawest form, which some extra layers. “I’m not a good person, either, and you know it. I try but it doesn’t matter. It won’t be enough. Not even once —“ Charles knows he hasn’t done well in this department, and that Erik is right. He needs to learn, be taught, and be pushed. The behavior itself needs to be addressed. It’s just that it’s something he genuinely seems to struggle with, and there are times he’d pushed himself out of his own comfort zone to do what Erik expects of him, as early as just hours ago, and to hear that — it doesn’t matter. It’s a pattern and the effort wasn’t good enough, because here they are. Every time he stumbles, they just end up here, Erik ends up hurt, because he isn’t submissive and he isn’t good. The only time he’s ever been what Erik needed is when it was forced out of him.  
  
"Of course I see you as my submissive," Erik whispers back, stroking his thumb along Charles's cheek. "And of course I know that you put effort already, and try already. I see every day, that you try. But I also see, every day, that you have fallen in this pattern. How many time have I discipline you today already? This will be third time. What I say-" Erik shakes his head. "You hurt me. You leave me. When I need you. I never need as much as-I -I just-you-I-so I got ma-mad," he stutters, shoulders raising as he tries to regulate his breathing and fails, and it comes out in short spurts. "I think how dare you, how could you. I got mad. You don't know what hap-happened-I dunno wh-I don't know-" he wheezes inward, hard, like he's choking, and his voice comes out an odd warble. "Some what I said was j-I was just angry. You say things to me, all the time, and I just-I just-I know you don't mean, so I just-so you hav-have to know I didn't mean that way. That I don't want you, or you aren't submissive. But you say to me! You don't want me! I go-t m-mad, I'm sorry, I-I don't know what's happening to me, I think something-" and he stops breathing, hand clutched over his chest.

* * *

But he doesn’t stop breathing, he’s breathing. His chest rises and falls, his lungs fill, and Charles bows himself back into Erik’s legs, taking harsh breaths himself. “It —“ He shakes his head. Erik is wrong, but it doesn’t matter, because his point still stands. It’s still true. All of it is still true, and Charles lets it sink in. “I didn’t say I didn’t want you,” he corrects quietly, though he knows Erik could have very easily taken it that way. “I didn’t — I ran from this, from everything else, you were just —“ The one who would and will hold him here to face it, to accept it. “You were just telling me I couldn’t.” He never intended to run, really, from Erik. Erik was just the one stopping him. As he should. Charles knows that. He doesn’t want to, and there are times he really won’t, like earlier, but he does.  
  
The problem is that distinction doesn't even exist for Erik. All of this, his powers, the responsibility, the whole ass Universe itself, his submission-without Erik, Charles's entire world would be different. It's inextricably linked, but more importantly, Charles had. "You say you do-don't want me. That you refuse. That, that I don't have right," he wheezes harshly, pounding at his heart as if to force it to beat. He got hurt. He wishes he hadn't spoken in anger. "I sho-shoul-should have just, I-" he can't seem to get it out, to talk, finding his voice disappearing with every second. His eyes are shut and he's now taking big, gulping breaths, tears slammed into his eyes like bus crashes, into his gut, and he quickly slaps both hands over his face to hide it.  
  
Charles’ eyes widen and he bows himself, curls himself, even more into Erik’s legs, and finally he sobs. It took him this long, but finally he does, and it all just releases, and he gasps, “Please, please no, please don’t do that to yourself, please, I’m so sorry, I — please, please,” he’s mostly hysterical, he doesn’t have words, either, but he’s pleading. Bending himself back down and begging. “I hurt you, I hurt you and —“ Everything else, all of what he feels, it shouldn’t have even come up. It’s utterly irrelevant. “Please, please let me make it up to you, please,” he gasps, broken and desperate.  
  
Erik is sitting on the bed but he doesn't want to be, he wants to be closer to Charles, but that will mean Charles isn't in Position anymore because Erik would be holding him and that seems to calm him so Erik just sits on the bed and shakes, dozens of ugly tears dripping down his jaw as he gasps silently. "I'm sorry-you fee-feel bad, I'm sorry-scared and, your-I'm sorry, I j-I " he wanted to be there, to take care of Charles, because his feelings are never irrelevant to Erik. And it's why he tries now, even in the midst of this, because he can't ever ignore it. But there's something else happening and he's panicking, truly. " _B'ezrat hashem ma kara?_ " he diverts to his native language, slamming his hand over his mouth when he does. Everything is dripping and gross and he can't see, he can't see anything. "Need you," is what he manages to say.  
  
Charles is panicking, too. He doesn’t know what to do, here. He’s terrified any instinct he has is wrong. That anything he says is harmful. That even good days will in retrospect — Erik hadn’t needed to discipline at all today, actually, but the days blur together and in the grand scheme, why would anyone be proud of one day without needing to have obedience beaten out of him? But it doesn’t matter what he thinks or how he feels right now, he honestly believes that, and the problem is that he doesn’t know how to help Erik. Because he isn’t good enough. He doesn’t know what’s good. Maybe if Erik Ordered him or beat him, he’d know, but on his own he’ll never be — “I don’t know what that means,” he admits, devastated and trying to breathe. “Please, tell me what, what to — what you need, I’ll be it,” he swears, and the words break, but they’re earnest. He’ll stop thinking of himself, he’ll be a better submissive, he won’t be so horrible. He’ll try, “please, please, I’ll try, I’ll — please —“  
  
Erik slithers off of the bed and gathers Charles up in his arms like he wants to do, because he's a pitiful creature, an animal driven only by baser instincts. "Stop," he cries out, wounded. "Stop, stop. I won't beat you. I never would." He'd just phrased it stupidly, angrily. Words that cut, in the moment, knives that slip out without intention. And if Charles thinks that Erik doesn't notice those good days, or isn't proud of him, he's wrong, because Erik remembers every single one. Every single time he came to him instead of running away. Every single time he's chosen of his own accord to act on Erik's Will. And that's never been what this is about. But whatever is happening to him doesn't seem to be what this is about, either. Peripherally.  
  
Charles can’t stop, but he tries. He tries, and he tries to stop crying, too, utterly humiliated and horribly guilty and panicked because he doesn’t know what’s happening or how to fix it, and he tenses in Erik’s arms at first and he doesn’t want to and he’s having trouble breathing, too, and, “I’ll be better, please, please, I’ll — I don’t know what to do, tell me what you need, please, I don’t know,” he sobs.

* * *

This moment, the moments where they talk, where they communicate, where they reach one another in that liminal space before discipline have always been about Charles, about Charles's understanding, about his role in what happened, to make it clear where they both stand, that's what Charles tried to teach him and that's how he's tried to process those moments every time since. So that when Charles is disciplined he knows why, it doesn't feel bad, or cold. But in this moment Erik can't stop, he can't stop, and he buries himself abruptly in Charles, making low, wounded sobs that he tries to choke back inside his mouth, choking on them, hiccupping from the harshness. When he talks it's a stream of incoherent babble, mostly made by the forceful crying. "Saw-saw them. _Mishpacha sheli_ ," he gasps. " _Ima ve Ruthie-Ru-ah-barne ve eh_ ," he manages to get out. " _Tzachaka ve osa aruchat boh-boker-_ " he curls up further. " _Ve osa ahuv sheli_ -" he swipes hard at his face. "I-I get-get up, I get up. It-I-I-ah-"  
  
Charles doesn’t understand half of it, but he doesn’t have to. He gasps, and something becomes abundantly clear; he didn’t know, really. He didn’t process it himself. He sent Erik, but it wasn’t conscious, it never is. Erik had asked something of him and he’d tried desperately to do it, but when he’d disappeared — it had shattered Charles’ world, and he was reeling with it when Erik got back, experiencing something of his own. Charles sobs, too, and tries to wrap himself around Erik, everything shaking, he doesn’t know where to put his hands or what to do or say but he tries. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry —“ he cries. “I’ll send you back, I’ll send you back so you can, you can —“ Be happier. Be with a better, more responsive submissive, and it’s all self-pitying and full of such contempt for himself and he doesn’t know how to get rid of it, he just knows Erik is right. It doesn’t matter how much Charles has tried to be there, often feeling like he’s out of his depth, out of his wits in the process. It hasn’t been nearly enough. “I’ll — please, I’ll be — I’m so sorry, I can’t even imagine, I — what do you need —“ It’s all just stuttered, incoherent mess. From Charles. “Please, don’t get up, let me, let me, let me —“ He takes a breath, he tries to help. What if he just can’t?  
  
Erik isn't even really crying, whatever he's doing can't be classified as such, but his body is wracked with fine tremors that he can't control, and his mouth is clamped shut so that his chattering teeth don't bite his tongue off. His arms just tighten around Charles for dear-life, as his whole body shudders in exhale, inky-black poison streaks bellowing into the surrounding air. "Please-don't-" he manages to get out, eyes blinking up at Charles at last, vivid malachite eclipsed by wild dilation. "D-, uh, don't belong," he gasps. "You-not there. I could-couldn't-" his lips press together. "I'-sorry," he pleads. "Should've made calm, be calm, and not-I'm sorry," he admits, sniffing. "Some wha-what I say is true, I know, but-I was mad," his head shakes. "I just said stupid-stupid things, not true," he whispers. "Please don't send me. Please."  
  
Charles shakes his head and clings tightly to Erik, as tightly as he possibly can, because he doesn’t know if it will help but it’s all he can think to do. He needs Erik to know he isn’t going anywhere. “You’re allowed to be angry,” he gasps, sobbing himself, pressing his face into Erik’s shirt, then his skin when he gets too frustrated, into his neck, his shoulder, grabbing at him and grasping fabric white-knuckled. “You are. You’re allowed to, to feel, you were hurt and upset and it’s alright, it’s alright, Erik, you were right, I hurt you,” and that’s what’s most devastating, at the end of the day. That’s what he struggles with. “But of course I want you. Of course if I run, if I hide, I’ll always come back.” And that’s what Erik couldn’t understand, but what he needs to. “When you were gone, when you were gone, everything — I —“ He gasps. Shudders. “Please, I’ll do better. I’ll be better.”  
  
All this time Erik has been largely silent, trying his best to be in control, trying his best to be cool and collected the way he thinks he would've been if he were that Erik, but now he lets out a wounded sob, arms tightening even further like a coiling snake. He pets Charles's hair apologetically. "Want me?" he whispers. Because at the end of the day Charles is right, he could just use his pause-word and banish Erik from here or mind-control him or do whatever he wants. There's nothing stopping him, not even Erik, so how does he have any real control? That Erik, when they visited together. He said Erik wasn't his real Dominant. And somehow he's managed to ascertain that he used to be submissive, somehow. Maybe that Erik was right, he's not a real Dominant. He's just play-acting, pretending, Charles doesn't respect him, doesn't want him-his chest heaves, abrupt and sorrowful, because his feelings are so big, so incomprehensible and full of love, and he doesn't know what to do with it, how to manage it, how to contain it, he's just a-a big mess.  
  
“I never should have said that,” Charles gasps, and he means it. He feels it. There’s that painful, twisting stab in his chest, that nauseating churn to his stomach, and Erik feels it for only a moment before it’s gone, Charles grabbing and twisting and trying so desperately to hold onto Erik, who’s holding onto him, so it just isn’t necessary. “I never should have said that, no matter how afraid I was, that was — it was disrespectful and cruel,” he sobs, and that isn’t self-deprecating. It’s an acknowledgement. “You have been trying, you’ve been willing, and I’ve been so afraid, so —“ The other Charles warned about this. This Charles just feels like he’s the worst submissive there is, if he even qualifies. “That word isn’t for me to throw around as, as leverage, it doesn’t matter if I, if I’m testing, if I feel trapped, I, I can’t —“ He’s not even breathing. He’s just hyperventilating, words tripping over themselves, just spilling and spilling. “I can’t do whatever I please. I can’t, and I, I don’t, I don’t —“ He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t know why it keeps scaring him so much, why he’s so broken. Why he always feels like there needs to be a fight, why he doesn’t always feel safe unless he struggles a bit first, why he feels comforted by it when Erik feels upset and exhausted. Erik isn’t submissive. He’s just wrong. Maybe he’s actually Dominant.  
  
Erik catches onto that thought, and tugs, curious. "Comfort?" he wants to know, and it's without judgment. Even now, he knows there must be a reason, one that makes sense, one that isn't explained by Charles simply relishing his pain. He's supposed to be enacting discipline, to be strong, to be unmovable, but all he can do is this-he needs Charles right now, above everything, anything else. He needed him. He needed him and he ran away instead, and it twists, just like Charles said.  
  
Not this time. Maybe. He doesn’t know, he can’t tell, it may have had something to do with it. Everything is so mixed up in his own head all the time and he’s been trying, this whole time, to learn from Erik’s reactions and he can’t. He doesn’t know what to base any of this off of. All the books are apparently wrong, inaccurate, except when they’re right, Erik is completely different than he was just days ago which is good because he can heal but now Charles is utterly confused again, he doesn’t know. He just feels wrong and frightened, all the time. Trapped in his own mind, all the time. He feels inadequate and horrible, all the time. He sucks in a breath. “I’ll change,” he promises. “I’ll — I’ll never do that again.” And he is so genuinely sorry for what he did here, for making Erik feel abandoned here, that it only makes sense to promise that. How can he ever forgive himself? How can this not be a flaw of him as a person, as a submissive? Why is he so broken? Why is he so selfish? Why is he so rotten? Why can’t he just be good? He sobs. “No, no, I don’t — no, it’s — irrelevant, no, you, please. We don’t do this.”  
  
Erik's head just shakes. "What we don't do?" he prods, eyebrows raised and he wipes his nose on his cuff, aware the action isn't exactly dignified, but it still hurts to gain air. He still reaches up, touching Charles's cheek. He isn't broken, or selfish, or stupid. He just needs to learn, he needs someone to hold him accountable when he falters, when he does make a selfish choice-and it's not like all selfish choices are inherently bad. It's the ones that go against their Dynamic, the ones that fracture instead of heal, the ones that everybody makes at some point-it's just inevitable. And it's Erik's job to know the difference, to teach the difference. And he's trying, but now all Charles feels is broken and horrible, so who's to say he's even doing a good job.  
  
“My fault,” he whispers. It’s the truth. It’s his fault he feels this way, and he knows it. It’s nothing Erik did, and really nothing he said, either, even the things that confirmed something he’s been kicking around in his own brain, that he’s been agonizing about, that stung more than the others. “I wouldn’t want to be here, either,” he adds, and it looks painful to say it. “It’s — it doesn’t matter what I feel right now. It matters what, what you do.” He’s still hyperventilating a bit, oversensitive and overwhelmed, but he’s trying not to. There are two very different conversations happening here, but Charles doesn’t know enough to separate them. It doesn’t really matter. He’ll just do better. He’ll just change and do better. This whole time, it’s all he wanted, maybe he’ll just do it. Maybe Erik won’t have to be exasperated and frustrated anymore. But outside of that — there’s just no separating it right now, they’re too tangled together and Charles doesn’t have words. They don’t need to discuss it anyway, he’ll just change.  
  
"Of course it matters," Erik returns sharply. "Why do you think I am here? Why you think I-I want to be here?" he adds. "And yes, it matters what I do, that matters. My Will, my rule, matter. What you do matters too. Why we are here, like this, why you are discipline when you stumble," he maintains. "I don't need say you change and do better and just be different person because you are horrible. I don't need that. And it don't help. It is cop, a cheap thing, Charles." He manages to catch his eyes, managing somehow, to catch his breath. "When I ask to examine behavior I do not ask, ask, oh I am just horrible person and I will just change every part of my self and be good submissive like a TV shows me. I need-I need _you_."  
  
“I am bad for you,” Charles gasps, and it hurts. It hurts so badly he feels like he might just be torn apart. There’s too much happening here, far, far too much, and he doesn’t think it should matter. “I make you feel, feel —“ He shakes his head. He can’t do this, he can’t speak this. What if Erik should be escaping him, and not the other way around? Is that why they have no Bond, is that why that other Charles looked at him with such contempt and pity?  
  
Erik blinks up, shaking his head, again and again. "I need you," he repeats softly. "I do not need hate and fear and suffer, and say all bad things about yourself. I do not believe any those things, maybe your power don't work right, but you know me. You know him, the old me. You really believe, that I could think any thing like what you say? You really believe I think, _he is bad, a worse submissive ever_? You really think I volunteer to stay here? Maybe you say it not a choice and I have no choice, but have I ever really fight? No," his head shakes, again. "You hurt me. I don't need, oh no, I am worse person ever. I need, you to see me. _See_ , see what is real."  
  
“That’s not —“ But it is, too, and Erik is right again. He lets out another quiet sob and curls up, into himself and half into Erik, too, just by virtue of how tangled they are. “I don’t know what is real. I know I, I feel, I —“ He shakes his head. “I feel like I’m, I’m bad and there are things wrong with me but I’m still s-sorry and I know I, I hurt you and I want, I want —“ He wants to make it up to Erik, desperately, it’s just that everything is churned up now and he’s trying to push it all back inside because it doesn’t matter. “You’re right, I, I need, I need you to — to do all those things you said, it is your right, it is.” It’s just tangled up with other things. He should feel this way, as far as he’s concerned.  
  
"I am here. That is real," Erik tells him, with utter confidence. "And it is my right. To guide you. Help you know what is real. You say to me, you say it yourself, that I cannot just rely on my feelings, I need some facts, too. You cannot just rely on feelings. You must look at facts. I am here. I am not a stupid person. I would not accept if you were just bad person, I would not try. I know bad person. I-I-" his heart stutters in his chest again and his eyes squeeze shut. "I know."  
  
Charles sniffles. “That’s not the only kind of bad person,” he whispers. “What if I am just bad for you? What if I’m just not a proper submissive?” It hurts. It hurts so much. Charles just wants to run again, or else he be sick, but he forces himself to stay here, crumpled up on his knees.  
  
"If you are I would not be here," Erik whispers back. "Just like if you think I am bad Dominant, you-" he would, would leave.  
  
Charles shakes his head. “That’s just not true,” he sniffs, and there are just too many reasons that it isn’t. But he doesn’t want to list all of them. He’s not sure if he’s closer to hyperventilating again or becoming overwhelmed to the point of numbness and his ears are ringing. “It doesn’t — it, it doesn’t matter, I’ll — I’ll just be better.” But he has no confidence in that. Not in the way it’s currently framed. Can he not do this again? Can he try not to run? Yes, but that only solves one problem, and maybe that’s enough for now. Maybe it will work for a while. He doesn’t know.  
s  
"Charles I do not need you just say you are better. I need you listen to me." Because it's the exact same thing now, all he's doing is shoving it down and saying he'll do better, an entire lack of reflection, of understanding, of impact, and he still wants to run away and leave, regardless. And it does not appeal to Erik, it certainly doesn't appease that thing crawling around inside his ribcage, that beast threatening to escape the chains. "You are mine. I will not let you go. If we are really so incompatible, we would know. Do you know? Do you really know that you are not made for me? Do you think that? Do you feel that?"  
  
Charles is silent for a very long time. Quiet in every sense of the word. He even manages to stop crying, at least loudly, although there are certainly tears on his face, red and covered in gunk. “Sometimes,” he whispers, and hopes Erik just doesn’t hear. He thinks that, sometimes. For real. It’s honest, but it’s also heartbreaking. Something in him says run, now, but he doesn’t. He locks up every muscle and he stays, even as it all just crushes him.  
  
"Why?" Erik's eyebrows raise. "Because we fight, because you feel like a bad person? I mean really feel that. In here." He places his hand over Charles's heart. "That we can never go past it? Learn? Grow? That the problem we have is unfixable? That we cannot change?" he laughs, then, because-well, that's obviously untrue. "We are two different people. Memory or not. When two people are together they do not fit every way. You have to make compromises. Not just you, say you will do whatever I want, and be best submissive. To see what really doesn't fit, to see what really hurts a person, to resolve to do better. You don't learn if you just put fingers in ears and say _la la la_ and dismiss it all as because of you being bad person."  
  
“That’s not —“ But Charles just doesn’t have the ability to talk right now, to communicate any of this right now. It just hurts. “That isn’t what I was saying,” he whispers, though he’s sure Erik will say that it was and maybe he’s right. “I am resolved to do better. I do understand what I did to hurt you, and why you expect more from me.” That’s true, but there are other things that are true and they don’t matter here. Charles is content to let it go. To let this go.  
  
"So tell me what you saying," Erik says instead, and it's not argumentative, the way it might have been before. In fact, Erik doesn't insist at all, this Erik is different. Willing to listen, to learn, just as much as he asks Charles to.  
  
“It is my fault,” he disagrees, and he tries so hard not to raise his voice and he doesn’t but perhaps just because he’s hoarse and exhausted and hurting. “It is. I’m the reason we’re not a Pairbond. I’m the reason we’re not compatible. It’s my fault.” And he’s clearly been internalizing this for quite some time, now. “We are supposed to fit together, in every way, and I don’t mean this time, I — you’re right, this is your job, you’re right, you were right about all of it, and I need to make this up to you, I can’t express how truly sorry I am that I’ve hurt you, Erik, I mean that, I’m not only sorry because you scolded me. I’m truly, deeply sorry and you must believe me, believe that when I say I want to be better for you I mean it sincerely but —“ But. He shakes his head. He can’t speak it. Any of it. It doesn’t matter, he can’t.  
  
Except there are things he learned on his visit that have only just begun to coalesce, things that Charles himself told him, but he just isn't fucking _smart_ enough to verbalize them. It dissipates, though, unformed in the face of everything that has been spoken, and Erik can't figure out how to cross that barrier. Maybe with help, but Charles has already moved on, and Erik's attention snaps away. "Tell me but what," he Orders lowly.  
  
“I like fighting you!” He doesn’t mean to yell. He certainly isn’t yelling at Erik, he doesn’t even mean to raise his voice, and he flinches after. Charles gives a quiet sob. “Not in a, I, I — not like this, not this time, not to hurt you, but it’s the only time it feels s-safe, makes me feel — not all the time, not every time, I — need to work, need to, to, but I like —“ He isn’t even making sense. So much for mental prowess.  
  
Erik puts his finger over Charles's lips, a bold move he likely would not have done before, shushing him physically, forcing his attention, his Will uncurled like enormous leathery wings spanning Charles's being. "Why do you feel safe when you fight me? You want to fight not like this, like what?"  
  
“I don’t know,” he sobs, and he feels so broken. It’s written all over his face, all over his body, all over the snot and tears all over him. He’s ashamed and so extraordinarily worked up. “I don’t, don’t know, I’m s-sorry,” and Erik’s finger is still on his lips, so he tries not to just... dissolve. It does help focus him. He responds to Erik being bold, now.  
  
"Yes you do," Erik pushes it, he doesn't accept that answer, although he normally would, considering it a wall, since Charles doesn't know, how could he possibly push it, how could he possibly enforce his Will if Charles isn't in possession of this knowledge, but this Erik doesn't accept that. An Erik who does not have any submissive history at all, who knows nothing but Dominance. "You do. You say you feel safe. When? When you fight? When you say hurtful thing? When you yell? No, I am talking to you. You do not look away. You look at me. You take breaths, you speak to me calm." Erik doesn't know why it's coming out now, Orders, one after the other. Expectations. But it is, in great, broad strokes that strike through Charles like lightning, like his Will battering into him, like those raindrops, only this time it isn't anger. It isn't frustration. It isn't sharp and brutal. It's electrifying. Straightening Charles up, making him.  
  
Charles is strengthened, too. He wipes his nose, lets out another sniffle, and then he looks and he tries. It’s difficult, when he doesn’t have the words for it, but sometimes Erik will need to push him through things that are difficult. He owes his Dominant that, that he’ll try. He was Ordered, but how he responds to those Orders matters, too, and he tries to straighten, to breathe, to search for the answer Erik is demanding of him. “Not when — not when I hurt you,” he whispers, though somehow that always ends up happening. Erik gets frustrated with him, as he should, and they drag other things into it, other feelings. It usually devolves. “Not like this, not — not like this. I shouldn’t have acted this way, I —“ He shakes his head. “Throwing my pause-word at you, saying you don’t have a right to me, I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t say things to hurt you, things that are, are personal —“ He needs to reflect on that, the same way Erik did, the same way they both need to work at this, but that isn’t what Erik asked. “I need to, to not be so afraid. I need to come to you and not run. I just, I feel safe when I struggle, and, and you —“ But he shakes his head. “I need to listen, when you ask, the first time. I need to obey without, without being forced, trust me, I want to, I like it when I do, too, it feels wonderful, but, but...” His throat is so dry. He’s just not articulating well, how could he?  
  
But Erik seems to understand, anyway, because it's how he thinks, how he operates in the world at this point in time. At the point in time he was taken from the world, the point in time to which he'd been restored. His instincts, his gut, his heart. (His liver, his spleen, his kidneys, you get it.) The point being that he has consistently relied on his feelings, and doesn't ever really pause to put words and names to them, a fact that sometimes gets him into trouble, gets him in too deep to the water. But right now, it snaps into place, an understanding, an awareness. "So you like when I get to control you, when I catch. When I make you, when I use Will. When I am Dominant. I do not see as that is bad thing," he holds up a hand, stalling any response.  
  
"But I think-that sometime, when you try this, you never tell me, you know. You never communicate, I never knew. And sometime real things get put in there, real feelings, my feelings. Maybe you push but I don't reply right away, so you push harder. You say things that you can't take back. It don't sound abnormal to me. It just sound like," he offers a smile, his hands having migrated to Charles's jaw, gripping tightly around the side of his throat, still holding him in place.  
  
"What is Dynamic, what is us," he whispers, because sometimes Charles pushes and he roars up back, and slaps him right back into place, and it's good. And Erik likes it, too. But there isn't always a neat, clear, separation. And he's never known to look for it, because Charles never told him. Because he's new, because he didn't realize or name what it was. "And what is not accepted. What is poor behavior. What hurts. What is boundary. And it is my job to teach that. But I can't teach if I don't know. It is your job to tell me. That is why you are here. That is why you are disciplined now. Not because you are bad. Or wrong. Or damaged. Or incompatible."  
  
Charles calms the moment Erik grips him, melts right into him, which really does speak volumes. He breathes a little easier, he stops stammering so much. “I don’t know how to talk about it,” he whispers. “I didn’t, I didn’t know, and, and —“ He did cross a boundary, sometimes, and he’s guilty for it. He knows he needs to do better. But the problem is — “I don’t know the difference,” he admits. “I don’t, I don’t understand because what’s the difference between this discipline and, and... won’t both make you upset?” It seems to. Erik gets frustrated and exasperated and Charles doesn’t like that. At all. He doesn’t always feel like he likes being caught then, either, but then he always does, so how is he supposed to make that clear? How is there even any difference? Isn’t it all being a bad submissive?  
  
"The difference seem clear to me," Erik whispers back. "The difference is that you play fair," he has to smile again, soft. "I know it is not game. But I think it is, like..." his hand waves, because he doesn't know how to say it in English. " _Klalei pticha esh_ ," he tries, smiling sheepishly. "Like when you do play game, or you do fight like... in school. It's real, it have effect, but you don't smash to pieces. You don't stab, or hold gun to their head. If you are in war, you don't shoot medic. You understand?"  
  
Charles goes silent, but for an entirely different reason this time, and it becomes clear when he laughs. It’s a little hysterical, a little bit of a high giggle, like he doesn’t know if it’s appropriate but it’s just forced out of him and he shakes his head and — “Erik,” he gasps, and there are tears in his eyes for a different reason now, as raw and sore as they are. “But — but...” He doesn’t understand, really, even with the interesting analogy that Erik’s offered. He doesn’t. He just feels like it must make him a poor excuse for a submissive, and Erik will get tired of it. Quickly. Or he’ll get hurt in the process, and Charles will feel wretched. Or Charles will run because he needs to be chased, and Erik will feel abandoned. He understands the difference this time, and what he needs to do to improve. But for the future? No. “I must be daft and broken,” he sighs, suddenly miserable again.  
  
"Not daft. Not broken," Erik returns softly, sincerely. It's soft, but there's an underlying fierceness, too. "We don't always get it right. It's gonna happen. Sometimes you are _gonna_ play fair, I will hear something, it just spark my brain in explosion. Sometimes I might get upset even you made _no_ aggression. But that is for me, that is onto me. And you would not get punished for that. Unless," he adds, because this has happened many times, in fact most of the time. Charles has done something benign, Erik pings somewhere he can't understand, and then Charles does react with excessive force. And then he gets disciplined. "Unless you react with real aggression, against me. Because at that that time you were not misbehaving. I just got upset. I never needed you to punch me in the back when I turn away. And I know-" he adds, the force of his Will enough to interrupt Charles in his tracks. "I know you never mean it really, but sometime, when you play sports, you can hit too hard. You get too rough. You get mad and hurl the ball at someone, and then two seconds later you realize what you did, and that-" he pats Charles's chest. "And I need my submissive. And that happened today. I see it. But I am in, I am not, right. I am not _right_ now. So you said too far, it was too much, and I needed you. And, and you aren't there, and I'm so mad, so mad. 'Cause it hurts, so much. Inside me. I can't-breathe," he beats his own chest. "What happen there, what I-see. And right after. You need to pick, pick your battle. If you wanna fight, you need to play fair. And when I hurting, I'm not-I'm not always gonna pick up. Sometimes I will fall down."  
  
“But —“ There’s another problem with this, too. Charles understands what Erik is saying, but that isn’t the point he was making. He doesn’t want to make the point he was trying to. “Okay,” he whispers. “Yes, sir.”  
  
"No. Not yes, sir." Erik's eyes have that glowing qualify themselves, and they flash as another Order bounds right through Charles. "You tell me the rest."  
  
They’re less glowing and disconcerting than they are Commanding and mesmerizing, and Charles sniffs, overdone. “Would you prefer no, sir?” he mutters, under his breath, hoping Erik just won’t hear. “What if I want you to, to discipline me, but not —“ How does he explain that difference? What is the difference? It isn’t a game, really. It’s not like playing on the school playground. It doesn’t feel like that to Charles.  
  
Erik does hear and he gets another sharp smack across his cheek for the insolence. "I prefer no backtalk," he rumbles, and this feels like it. One of those little ways that Charles pushes, and Erik responds to and everyone gets put back to the places they belong. It's not like playing on the schoolground. Erik knows this. He just isn't fluent enough to explain it in any other terms. There are rules of engagement, and Erik has finally figured out the root cause of this problem, and it's important. "And there are ways you have done so in the past. Repeatedly ignore my Orders. Poke at me, refuse to call me properly. Refuse to follow Order, I have seen that. And when I discipline you for that, it is different, hm? Because you do not cross the boundary. You do not insult me, you do not harass me, you do not throw things at me, or yell at me with raise voice, or call me name, or tell me I am not your Dominant."  
  
“Isn’t it all bad?” Charles whispers, and he touches his own cheek, rubbing at it. He’s quiet again. “There’s no difference. You won’t think I’m a good submissive.” He’s so worried about it, because he cares. He doesn’t want to hurt Erik, first and foremost, but he also wants to be good. He does, even when he can’t do it the way he figures he’s supposed to. “What if I don’t, I don’t realize, and...” He doesn’t know. “You’ll just get tired and frustrated with me. I’ll just stop,” he decides. He looks down.  
  
"Charles, back and listen what I said. You know the difference. I am teaching you the difference and now you listen me. Focus on me. You know what feels different. When you get frustrated, when you misbehave. Because you know I expect. I expect at all times, right? Respect. Honesty. Compassion. When you act without those, is difference. Is not all bad. What you describe-" he inhales sharply. "I like it a good deal. Because you are. Mine." He wraps his arms around Charles, who has already been well-and-truly caught. He gives a squeeze, running his hands down the front of Charles's shirt rhythmically. "You do not get to say what I think. You do not have your powers. You do not know. So you only listen to me. When I say my thought. You don't think behind my back, _neshama_ " he Orders, mostly because he wants it twined right in there with all that Will that's exploding and pounding into the room, with only a gentle buffet as it passes through Charles, and when it does, it lights up his body om head to toe. "You will not just stop being yourself. You will just respect my rules. They apply every situation between us. No matter what."  
  
Charles closes his eyes. He jerks his head away, too, sniffling loudly. “It won’t work. I don’t work,” he whispers. “You get — disappointed, you say these things...” And it hurts. Charles feels like he’s just never going to learn, he’s just never going to be what Erik needs. Something is wrong with him. Why would Erik want to stay with him? What is the point?  
  
"Yes, Charles," Erik whispers. "I get disappointed. When you do not obey. When you hurt me. Because I expect better from you. But you will learn because we keep coming back here. It my job teach you. I-am sorry," he whispers softly. "I am so sorry. I did not mean to speak so roughly in anger. I should have gained control myself. I should have spoke rationally like this. Please-forgive me."  
  
“No, I deserved it,” Charles sniffs, and he means it. He truly thinks that, it isn’t simply to make Erik feel better. “But don’t you understand? You’ll always be disappointed in me.” And it breaks him. It eats away at him, every time he thinks about it. It hurts more than anything else could. “Because I’m not submissive, or not submissive enough, I don’t know. I’m not right for you.” And it’s all getting mixed up, is what’s happening. It’s all mixed up and it all hurts. He doesn’t know any better, either.  
  
"You did not deserve it," Erik promises him, running a finger through his hair. "And I am not always disappointed in you. I am, when you do not follow rule," he smiles softly. "And that may happen sometimes, but I think we starting to learn why that is, hm? You are submissive enough. Trust me," Erik purrs into his ear, suddenly and abruptly ratcheting up his Will, until Charles suddenly feels submerged with it. "You are right for me. You are mine. I do not want ever you say you are not for me again." His words are a low, warm murmur.

* * *

Charles responds to that, too, sniffling quietly but sinking, too, blinking slowly as he reacts to Erik’s Dominion. He’s still resisting, not even intentionally, he just — can’t, yet, still too riled and unsettled and worked up. It’s happened before, but it always unsettles him when it does. He doesn’t like it. “It’s true,” he protests, contrary and upset. “And I just told you that I like to break the rules. So apparently you will be.”  
  
"I have many rules," Erik acknowledges. "But what disappoints me, is only those three. If you don't wash dishes or make closet messy, or try poke me like that, is different. I don't feel disappointed then. And you tell me yourself. You do not like to hurt me. You do not like to say those kind of disrespect, cruel things." Erik's fingers tighten across Charles's throat in warning. "Not true. You are a good submissive. You are good," the whole room shimmers in Will, as if he hasn't just spoken words but spoken into the air itself, sinking through Charles. "And that you talk me, and tell me about, and work with me-and listen me, and not raise voice, and things-you know that make me very proud. So yes I am disappointed what you did today, but that is temporary. My pride in you is eternal."  
  
Charles feels the tears slip down his cheeks before he even realizes he’s crying again, his eyes sore and itchy. He doesn’t even know what comes over him, but he tries to yank his face away from Erik. “Please just stop,” he croaks. He doesn’t even know what he’s referring to, he just knows it hurts. He’s running again, he’s resisting again, but at the moment it really is because he’s overdone. He’s just too raw. He doesn’t want to give in. There’s too much, it will just hurt too much.

* * *

" ** _No_** ," Erik and the whole room roar with it and Charles feels it like an explosion even though he's sure it isn't. " ** _You are mine_** ," the ethereal-voice rings, and Erik is standing again, and Charles feels something pressed against him, returning him to a proper kneeling position. Erik is alight, a haze of white all around him. The Universe's partner, perhaps, or perhaps a D5 who has finally kicked into what he can really do. " ** _You do not leave me. You do not wander. You do not do anything, that which is unpermitted. You will submit to me. You will give in, and you will dive. Deep. Because we want you to be deep. Submerged, on your knees, where you belong_**." Every word is-well to call it an Order would be foolish. To call it a Command or an Imperative does not begin to cover what it is. It is as though every molecule inside of Charles has come alive, has awakened to realize what they are supposed to do, what they are made to do.  
  
Exactly what they are meant to do, indeed. Charles makes a sound like he’s choking, and then lets out a long, strangled whimper. He’s trembling, but not just on the outside. On the inside, too. In his belly, pounding in his veins, crawling up his throat. Down to his bones, sunk deep, deep under his skin. He does what he’s told, in a way he’s never experienced. In a way he didn’t even know existed. He’s on his knees properly, but it doesn’t feel like enough. He’s suffocating. He can’t breathe, but it doesn’t feel at all like panic. It feels like electricity. It feels like heat. It feels like every inch of his skin is set ablaze. He bows lower, he prostrates himself, because it’s the only thing he can think to do. He sinks. He dives. Deep.  
  
" ** _Good boy_** ," the Erik-looking creature responds, an entity of its own, and he lithely moves, no longer bound by the constraints of his disability, a physical restoration. Momentary. And it crouches, tucking a finger under Charles's chin, lifting his face. His eyes magnetically lock upward with no room to be denied. " ** _You made an aggression. You will atone. All will be right._** " It is not a whisper, not a shout, barely a voice at all. " ** _There is no unworthy submissive in this house. I would raze them where they stood. To dare and enter my home. You are ours. His. Say otherwise again and you will experience my hand upon you._** " It cups Charles's cheek, then, almost motherly. " ** _He is young, and new. He will falter. But I will not. You will make mistakes. You will fail. But I will always bring you home. Bring you back together. Bring you into alignment. Your only choice in this matter was to accept our governance. Accept our law. You have made your choice. You do not get another one. Am I clear, little one?_** " somehow it doesn't seem to even be referring to him as a child. It's not condescending, it's not a matter of age. It's more a matter that Charles has found himself at the mouth of a never-ending, perilous cavern. Uncovered the ancient ruins.  
  
Charles stares, wide-eyed, blinks as if his vision is blurred and he isn’t seeing straight. He’s breathless and he’s vibrating, energy beneath his skin that he doesn’t understand and can’t even begin to question. The Universe must know. The Universe chose Erik to be owned by, Erik told him it wears his collar, too, so surely there was something inside of him that must be capable of — of what? Of the responsibility. It made abundantly clear that Erik is not more powerful than it, does not know or see what it does, that it existed long before him and long before Charles became it, or it became Charles, or whatever it is that happened, but — but what? But what? What is inside of Erik that makes it possible, and is it made of the same material that makes it possible for Charles to be the Universe? To swallow it? To Know it? What is the counterpart, and is he meeting it? Does the Universe know, too? It must, not that it tells Charles anything. He can’t speak, at first. He can’t even react. He stares and he trembles, because right now, here, Charles is not the Universe. He is young and he is afraid and he is unaware. He is little. He is certainly Erik’s. “I’m not — I’m —“ He swallows, and he just can’t make words, but it was clearly not an agreement. It’s just that disagreeing with this Creature — he can’t fathom it. He will, but it’s not an easy feat, especially sunk so, so impossibly deep. He’s dizzy. Awed.  
  
What is known or not known does not seem of importance to it, although its head cants to the side, as if entirely privy to Charles's thoughts. It's obviously something Erik himself is unaware of, but-something he's always named, perhaps, since he was a child. Not a split personality, not a facet. He's always said there's a _Ziz_ inside of him, a Leviathan. An Old-Old Creature, but this one says _we_. It's connected to something more than just itself, an entity of the Earth. Of Dominion. " ** _Do not stutter_** ," it says, but it goes without saying that when it states, when it asks, when it thinks, it is incomprehensibly an Order-Beyond-Command. The eyes looking at him are a blazing, wild green, almost reflecting light off of his face. **_"Tell me your thoughts_**."  
  
Charles’ breath hitches. He certainly can’t disobey this Creature, and he couldn’t even begin to fathom wanting to at the moment. Even speaking seems insurmountable, but he’s been Ordered, if it could even be called that, and so he does, gasping. “I’m not who you think I am, who it thinks I am,” he whispers in a rush, and then his head bows, as if he’s aware of his own insolence.  
  
He's certainly toeing the line, and something sharp scratches under his chin in retaliation. A swift warning. " ** _Tell me who you are_**."  
  
“I’m no one,” he laughs, and it is hysteric, pained, hoarse. He sinks lower to the ground, in deference but also because feels so utterly small, silly, and stupid at the feet of this Being. “I am... just no one.”  
  
He is lifted up again, and this time bears a scratch across his cheek as his jaw is held in the Creature's grip. " ** _Who we are is determined by our actions. By our choices. By the choices of the ones we love. By the choices of those to whom we belong_**." Every word is somehow soft, somehow striking like lightning, somehow hard and unforgiving and yet embracing at the same time, entirely juxtaposed. Impossible, Escher's cube. " ** _We know who you are, Charles Xavier. We have chosen you. Do not take this lightly. Any other would be obliterated_**." Charles feels himself break through the ocean as it suddenly, abruptly turns upside down, sending him down-down-down into the Ether of the bottomless water, the endless well of submission. " ** _You are not small. You are a brilliant being. You chose to accept us unto you. There is no alternative but excellence, Charles Xavier. What we expect of you is heavy. You will carry much_**."  
  
Charles reels with it, completely lost to it. Lost under the waves, under the water, hazy and swimming, but he gasps and gasps and he isn’t trying to break the surface but he needs to breathe for just a moment, find a pocket, because this Creature Ordered that he tell him his thoughts and he’s compelled, he has to or he’ll be crushed. Utterly. “What if you’re wrong?” It must be insolence, and he flinches before a strike ever comes, but doesn’t bow his head this time. It burns him, but he doesn’t avert his gaze, even as he feels like he might burst right into flame. “What if I’m not capable of excellence at all?” He can’t ask the Universe this, because apparently it will not answer him, but Erik has said, over and over, that he doesn’t have a choice. “What if I seek another option? What becomes of me?”  
  
" ** _You will be destroyed_** ," is the answer, fierce and ancient and dark and heady, drastic as it gets. Something in the way it says it is inevitable, simple. That's the simple answer, that's just what would happen. The creature's face shifts just for an instant, a type of sorrow echoing through the walls. " ** _That destruction will culminate in death, and pain._** " Somehow, somehow it seems to be softer, apologetic. This isn't the Universe at all. This is Nature, in its purest form. The how. The why. " ** _You are a Pairbond, but you are also something more. The last of your kind now exists only in the collective memory of all human beings. It is written in your oldest books. You will not cower before it. You will not succumb to fear and loathing. You will rise. You will meet him where he is to be met. You will search for yourself. You will look for the light, Charles Xavier._** "  
  
“How —“ Panic spikes through Charles’ entire body, leaving him cold and completely speechless, breathless, numb. He shakes his head, staring and suddenly so nauseated his stomach feels turned inside-out. His entire body shakes. “No,” he breathes, and he isn’t sure if he makes a sound at all, if his lips even form the word, or if he merely becomes it.  
  
" ** _You will,_** " the entity answers, and its eyes seem to glow brighter. Whatever panic, whatever rising fear and chaos begins to form, eases off as if it were nothing more than a large wave crashing into the ocean where he is submerged. It's something Erik alone could never do. His feelings, his self is still in-tact. But he can breathe. He can think. He can face this Creature. " ** _I will not allow you to be destroyed, Charles Xavier. We do not permit it. You are his, and you are mine. You belong to us. We will not let you come to harm. You must take the first step into the darkness with him. He needs you so much more than you can comprehend. You do not have the option of failing him. We will not let you_**."  
  
Those feelings are panic, and dread, and nauseating, violent realization, and however they’re submerged, they remain. There is no touching Charles’ mind, and there never will be. The Creature finds itself running up against resistance, the last, lingering bit Charles has, but it’s enough and it simply can’t be taken from him. “No,” he repeats, hoarse and small but nevertheless repeated. He shakes his head. He closes his eyes. It isn’t even clear what he means, what he is saying no to, and that is protected, too. The Universe knows all. This Creature does not, and Charles knows instinctively to be grateful for it. More than he ever could fathom, but somehow not even something as inconsequential in the grand scheme as his thoughts, and he relishes that. It may be insolence, but he has to.  
  
There's no denying it. Not in this place. The Creature doesn't want to take it from him, and it doesn't seem to respond at all to the idea that Charles is fighting against doing so. Erik had never wanted a mindless submissive, and neither does this being. Its reasoning is clear. They must speak, plainly, without it in the way. And it knows a great deal. It knows what needs to be known, especially now. Or else it never would have come here. Erik is accessing something he has never even fathomed of existing, and Erik himself-it's simply unknown at this point if Erik is aware, conscious, if Erik is as much a part of this Creature, or if he's lost to an unknown realm. There are traces everywhere of Erik. Yellow lights, floating marigolds, desert skies. Gleaming metal, precious, glittering minerals. " ** _Open your eyes and tell me your thoughts_** ," it says, expectantly.  
  
Charles opens his eyes, and they do not glow. There is none of the Universe here, though there surely is, too, though it lives inside of him just as certainly as he lives inside of It, now bound and woven together in ways he cannot comprehend and fears more than there are words for. But it does not linger here, nor visit, nor peer in, not anymore than usual. It does not need to. Perhaps if it would, Charles would understand, but it doesn’t and so he doesn’t. Nothing moves, nothing shakes, nothing hums with power. Charles is small and ordinary and faced with the _Ziz_ , this Creature, perhaps the World but not the Void. “I don’t have any thoughts to give you except refusal,” he croaks, and swallows around it because it physically pains him to do so. “Will you force me? Is that what you’ve come here for?”  
  
" ** _False. You know why you refuse. Tell me your thoughts._** " And this presses down on him too, like a weight. " ** _I have come here for you_** ," it says, as if that is an answer, but it is its own answer. " ** _You know why you refuse. Tell me why_**."  
  
“Because I am not meant for this!” he shouts, but it doesn’t come out as a shout. It’s just a desperate, rasping thing, clawing from his throat. He tries to move his arms, to tug at his hair, to claw at his own skin, and finds he can’t or perhaps he’s just frozen in this Creature’s presence, perhaps it is wrong, perhaps it doesn’t know as much of him as it claims. “I am not the person you are clearly looking for, I am not — what will you do?” he demands, as if he can demand here at all, and he feels so suddenly sick for it. “What have you come here for? What purpose?”  
  
" ** _I will ask you why_** ," is what the Creature says, and the world seems softer for it, somehow. The demand falls short, a small shout in a vast Void of the World's making. " ** _I have never shown myself to another soul alive_**." Erik's features twist for a second, a little uncertain, before they arrange themselves in the proximity of a smile. " ** _You are my purpose. And him. He is my purpose_**."  
  
“What you and the Universe seem to believe exists inside of me does not, and I do not wish to find it,” he whispers, with all the fierceness and resolve he can muster like this, which is shockingly little. Every second he wants to bend himself down further, Present himself further, prostrate himself perfectly at the World’s feet and stay there but he can’t do that, either, and the tearing happening inside of him is enough to drive anyone mad. “So I am sorry, but it seems you are mistaken.” He stumbles, here, because who is he to tell this Creature that? How dare he, really? He feels physically ill for it. But it asked, plainly.  
  
Charles feels a lightning strike inside of his chest, a harsh whip-cord of sensation that lights him up from head to toe for the briefest of moments, punishment rendered for the tone taken. **_"Why?_** " it asks again. It's a true counter-part to the Universe, and traces of Erik are within it all around, or maybe it is inside Erik; the simplistic questions, the narrowing-down, the reflexive pinpoint onto exactly what matters and nothing else. " ** _Why do you not wish to find it?_** "  
  
Charles whimpers, a pained, pitiful noise. There are new tears on his cheeks, and he reels in the aftermath. “Because it is wrong,” he insists. “It says it is all powerful, all-knowing, that it is stronger than Erik and stronger than anything either of us know or understand, that it is everything, so why? Why, on Earth, would it need me? Why like this? Why drop me here, why toy with us? Why put it all in my hands when I don’t even understand it, can’t even do the simplest of things? This is — a joke, it must be a joke,” except he isn’t laughing, he feels quite like never laughing again, despair crawling into his chest even in this Far-Down place. “I’m not capable of handling the powers of the Universe, I am not even capable of being his submissive, which is apparently a prerequisite.”  
  
The Creature nods in understanding, and where the Universe had to be taught sympathy, the _Ziz_ does not seem to need the same lessons. Perhaps because it is more connected to the World, the ground, the soil. The people. " ** _If it knows all, how can it be wrong?_** " is what it asks, and it's a shockingly-well-intellectual question, coming from something so intimately connected with this version of Erik. And for the circumstances, one might almost think this Creature is being somewhat tongue-in-cheek. It's never been that Erik doesn't relish debate, but he's never relished it for its own sake. Never sought it, until it came to his door and he responded in reciprocal force with deeply-held views. " ** _You are capable of so much more than you think. He is the one to imprint upon us. He was made for you. He is instrumental to you. To your capabilities. Are you afraid to hurt him?_** "  
  
“Him?” Charles whispers, but he nods, eager in his obedience even when he doesn’t process it consciously. He must be, here, like this, and he is. “Erik? Yes. I’m afraid of so much more than that, but yes.” Something is so unsettled inside of him, and he doesn’t know what it is. It’s churning again, not eased, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. How to make it better.  
  
" ** _Al tir'a, neshama. This is a space where nothing may harm you. You will breathe properly. You will remain on your knees. You will regard me. You will speak up. You are addressing me. You will address me with respect. Tell me what else you are afraid of_** ," it demands, not a request, not in this space.  
  
“I cannot put it to words,” he whispers, but it isn’t defiance, truly impossible in any real sense here and now. It’s just the truth, spoken raw and whole, Presented as surely as his body is in this moment. Everything screeches inside of him, loud and untamed, but he swallows and attempts, watching his breathing. “I’m frightened of... of everything. Of myself. Of what I can do, and what I cannot. Of the life ahead of me, of my own mind. Some days I think I can’t stand another moment being trapped here, and others I hope to never leave.” It’s all just jumbled together, and for most of the time he’s been here, he hasn’t shared it. Charles’ body shudders with his next breath. “Have you come to trap me further?” he asks, but it isn’t accusatory, though it is rather bold. He talked to Erik about this, once. About how perhaps the _Ziz_ underestimated just what kind of being it had captured, what that beloved’s needs were. Perhaps they only left because they expected to be captured again, and caged properly once they were."  
  
Something seems to sweep through the room, even though Erik seems to be the same, it’s as if a great being has shifted, shadows falling across the walls, wind rustling Charles’s hair, whipping it up around his face. “ ** _Impossible. You cannot be trapped further_**.” The being’s-Erik’s-whatever-eyebrows raise and Charles knows it is almost dry. The meaning is clear. Charles is captured, and quite unable to escape. He could try. He would be unsuccessful. “ ** _Let him help,_** ” is what it advises. “ ** _He is strong. He imprinted upon us for a reason. He is stronger than you will ever have reason to know. What the Universe speaks is no lie. You may have more power than him, but strength is not measurable by the same standards. You will not harm him. He will help you gain control of your abilities, and reach your true potential. Yes, it is frightening. For as long as fear is Dominant over you, he will not be_**.”  
  
“I am trying,” Charles whispers, full of sorrow, but it isn’t defensive. “I will try harder.” It is an acknowledgement, too; that Erik was right earlier, no matter how harsh. Regardless of the circumstances, of his relative inability to rely on Erik earlier, they are here now. He has to learn to trust that he can, and trust Erik. And he’s been trying, something which has frustrated him greatly, because it feels sometimes as if those efforts are not acknowledged, either. There is nothing more difficult for him, which makes him feel... wrong, often. Broken. He doesn’t understand why that instinct exists, if he is meant to be submissive, apparently the most submissive. He doesn’t know why he works the way that he does, even without trauma to muddle things. He swallows again, his throat like sandpaper, and prostrates himself again, because he needs to. Because he is so overwhelmed by this, and suddenly sinking Deeper than he thought possible. His skin feels like it’s moving, he has such electrified chills. “I want to run, but I don’t want to get away,” he admits, as if he’s confessing. “Sometimes. Only sometimes.” It’s like knowing that one is being kept by a Creature who will always find you, but not feeling dread. A silly captive who slips through the bars of the cage and then weeps when they are not put back in. It must be very confusing for the poor _Ziz_.  
  
“ ** _Yes_** ,” the _Ziz_ agrees. “ ** _You are trying. We cannot take your fear from you, neshama. But you can be assured. If you run, we will catch you. If you hide, we will find you. If you fight, we will stop you. He will. We are not confused about that._** ” Charles senses its smile more than sees it, and feels something brush against his back, which he finds in this space is bare, a feathery tickle, teeth and claws and bones shifting behind the mask of Erik’s human features. “ ** _Your instincts exist as they exist. They are part of your submission. Resisting them, punishing them, is not worthwhile. And we like them._** ” It’s an afterthought, but perhaps it’s the most important thing to be said.  
  
“But —“ He doesn’t wish to argue, here, with this Being. Certainly not. He already feels laid bare, exposed, overwhelmed by its presence; he already feels as if he might choke on the weight of his own submission, not drowned-out but heavy and drifting and intense. He craves it, but it’s also more than he’s ever experienced, and he can withstand it the same way Erik can speak to the Universe, perhaps even Command the Universe, but not without feeling overwhelmed, and awed, and small. Not in a humiliated, miserable way. Just very small. He doesn’t understand anything else yet. “You like it?” he asks, instead, halfway between cautiously relieved and desperately hopeful. It wouldn’t lie, would it? Are they compatible? Can they be? Erik said why would I want to stay, and Charles knows plenty about words spoken in anger. He knows it was only meant in context, that he has so much room for improvement and it is Erik’s job to tell him when he’s not meeting expectations. But he’s wondered the same himself. He has felt, all this time, like a bad or even false submissive. Wondered if he should even try, mixing up signals and instincts and putting himself through mental anguish. And he hasn’t come to Erik with it, because before just days ago, it didn’t seem to get much of anywhere. It wasn’t his fault.  
  
“ ** _Of course. Disrespect is not relevant to your submissive instincts. It is a controllable response to outside events. Your submission is wanted. Always. If you have these concerns, you need to tell him. Tell us. We are always here. We will not hurt you. What he has experienced has made him distinct. He does not have the knowledge of our secrets. When he does not know any better it is your job to educate him. He will be receptive. He values what you say, but he is young. Tactless._** ” It very nearly winks at Charles. “ ** _Has he ever given you just cause to suggest he dislikes your submissive instincts?_** ”  
  
“Yes,” Charles whispers, because he imagines lying to this Creature is a futile effort. He bends down further. It may not know his thoughts, but Charles has never actually been very good at lying without use of his telepathy. It’s become abundantly clear since losing those abilities. His back and shoulders tense, the muscles pulled taut and he feels exposed, too-open.  
  
“ ** _Tell me about it,_** ” is what the Creature says, instead of arguing. The _Ziz_ is different. It does not need to argue. It is inherently assumed in itself, and it wants to hear from Charles. That is why it is here. To bridge the gap, where it needs bridging, just like the Universe has done many times for an Erik who cannot quite remember.  
  
Most of it culminated in the things he said earlier, and Charles knows that not all of that was truth. But in harsh words spoken in anger, there is always a kernel of something truly felt. “I don’t know the difference,” Charles admits, because he doesn’t, despite Erik attempting to explain it to him earlier. He doesn’t think the line is always so black and white, and he isn’t convinced there is anything good about that. He takes a sharp breath. “I’m testing him,” he realizes, before he can even fully process it. This always seems to happen when he is submerged under the ocean, and it has never been quite as obvious as this. “And he doesn’t like it. He didn’t, at least.” And now it seems to be inspiring confusion and frustration. “They aren’t instincts. They’re a flaw of character, but I can’t rid myself of them.” And again, it sounds too much like he’s just repeating something he’s heard. He doesn’t know if he believes it himself. He goes back and forth, ignorant and frightened.  
  
“ ** _There is a way for you both to be_** ,” the _Ziz_ tells him simply, knowing, and he feels that brush along his skin again only this time it’s everywhere, every cell, every molecule. “ ** _He does not object to being tested. He is accustomed to that behavior. He objects to cruelty. To disdain. To mockery. Can you not test him without these elements?_** ”  
  
Charles’ fingers curl into fists underneath him and he shivers, full-bodied. “I have,” he breathes, and it isn’t a lie. He has, more than once. He is not always cruel, he is not always mocking, and sometimes what Erik perceives that way was not in the first place. He gets mocked and treated with disdain beyond mere scolding, made to watch as Erik falls apart from something he did not intend. The guilt eats at him, and he internalizes, too, clearly. So it seems a strong conclusion, a simple conclusion, that he is not good for Erik. For anyone, perhaps.  
  
“ ** _You are good for us_** ,” the Creature contradicts sharply, and Charles feels the razor of punishment once more, this time no mere fleeting thing. “ ** _So you have, but your intentions are not reality. Sometimes what you intend is not what is perceived. Just as his are not, to you. He is not a perfect being. Neither are you. But you must act in good faith, and trust that he will acknowledge that. When you have been genuine toward him, has he not come back to you?_** ”  
  
Charles shudders, whimpers, but he takes a sharp breath and after a few moments speaks again. “I don’t know what that means,” he whispers, and feels ashamed of it. “I feel as if I am constantly ruining —“ His voice cuts off, but what he meant is obvious. He feels, constantly, like a problem. One way or the other. And some of that is because he was treated that way by Erik, and he knew nothing else. He’s only beginning to now that Erik does. It doesn’t feel nice, it doesn’t feel safe, it doesn’t feel like love even if it exists. And to admit that is horrid.  
  
“ ** _You are not ruining anything. Nor anyone. He has been twisted by others. The way he approaches things has become resultingly systematic. It is machinery. Impersonal. You have seen the alternative. His function would be severely debilitated. But now is an opportunity to change that. He is learning new ways of being. And so are you. But you must never doubt our affection, our regard, for you. It is irrevocable. Without condition_**.”  
  
Something washes over Charles that has absolutely nothing to do with submission, so cold and shocking that it breaks through. “Oh,” he breathes, suddenly.  
  
The being occupying Erik’s body makes it raise its hands, hovering over Charles’s face in the Real, even as his body is prostrated by his feet, surrounded by glittering blackness. Its head tilts, thoughtful instead of afraid. “ ** _Give me your thoughts_** ,” it demands in that otherworldly voice.  
  
Charles stays bowed, but he’s begun to shake. “Is it playing with us?” he wants to know, somewhere between disbelief and anger. “Surely it must be. It knows all, and it could not inform me about any of this, give me advice? Why? Is this some form of sick entertainment? Does the Universe not have television, books, some past time that isn’t toying with us?” Those are his thoughts, though it isn’t clear what inspired them in the first place.  
  
" ** _Perhaps it intends for you to learn these things yourself, through experience_** ," the Creature posits, but there's a clicking sound as if it's curling clawed fingers into their palms, a thoughtful motion from the Leviathan itself. " ** _We do not operate the same way. Learning is in part an experience, but sometimes it is simply knowledge. If we can provide that to you, we will. Tell me what has inspired this inquiry._** " Charles feels something sharp draw down his cheek, gentle as if skating across glass without leaving a mark.  
  
“I did it wrong,” he sighs, frustrated and upset, well and truly. “I shouldn’t have — these past few days, have we just been wasting time —“ But no more than what came before it, but Charles wonders at that, too. It feels pointless even though it did not feel that way, it does not feel that way. Even still. It must be playing with them, laughing from wherever it lingers. “Why doesn’t it just help us?” he asks, worked up again now. “I don’t know these things, how could I? Is it cruel? Does it want to see us both flounder, is that it?”  
  
" ** _What have you done wrong?_** " the Creature insists, not merely a point of curiosity. " ** _I do not believe that its intentions are malicious. The Universe is unconnected to the human world. Only through you. Through him. It must learn, also._** "  
  
“I took his memories when I realized he needed to reset but did not reset my own,” he mumbles, and in retrospect it seems like an obvious oversight. But without Universal knowledge, isn’t it all just a bit like a child’s experiment? Wandering in the dark, searching for the light he was not given proper tools to find? And it took this Creature visiting for him to realize. His fingers curl and uncurl, his shoulders tense. “I don’t even know that I can fix it,” he admits, half because he doesn’t know ability and half because that sounds frightening, even dangerous. He takes a shuddering, painful breath. “If we do not figure this out, if we cannot figure this out...” He trails off. The _Ziz_ already told him, but he’s confirming. “This is not just an experiment, is it?” Besides the fact that there are lives involved. Theirs. “It isn’t just some sick game?”  
  
“ ** _No_** ,” the _Ziz_ whispers back, a softness in the vast expanse of the Void. “ ** _We do not play games. Not with you. This was always intended to be healing for you both. If you have made a mistake, you are capable of fixing it. Nothing is ever lost forever, or too far gone. You will figure it out. But you must do so, together_**.”  
  
When Charles looks up, finally, daring to do so, it’s with a watery smile. There’s fear, there, and so much sadness, but he takes deep breaths like he’s been told. “I’m sad,” he whispers, as if he’s just realized it and is compelled to share it with this Creature, the _Ziz_ he’s been fascinated with from the moment Erik told him the tale. “I’m very sad, I think. Thank you.”  
  
The Creature takes the smile as though being gifted something precious, holds it in his hands, an intangible concept made possible only by its own impossibility. “ ** _We wish for you to have peace, Charles Xavier. Tell me why you are sad._** ”  
  
Charles laughs, hoarse as it is. “Please, just Charles,” he requests, pleads, and his smile only softens, as if something inside of him has tensed and eased at the exact same time. He’s looking at Erik’s face. “I’ll miss him,” he breathes, though he isn’t leaving, and neither is Erik. “May I ask a question?”  
  
“ ** _You may always ask a question, Charles,_** ” it corrects itself as bidden, a Creature as large as the _Ziz_ , as big as the world itself, with the wing-span to block-out the sun. There’s a reason why it bound to Erik, a reason it doesn’t seem inclined to share, but Erik has influenced it as well, its form taking shape to the mythos of Erik’s mind. There are many things it would like to share, things it has learned, but there isn’t enough time. There never is, as though the Universe and the World can only exist corporeality for limited amounts of time.  
  
“Do you... watch him? Us?” he wonders, biting at his lip, staring up in pure awe at this impossibly large, beautiful creature. Some would feel terror, he imagines. He only feels safe. “Will you remember this, even if we don’t? Will you keep it safe?” There’s so much more he wishes to ask. So much he wishes the Ziz would tell him, would share. He sighs, and sinks further. His eyes flutter. When he speaks again, it’s shy. “Will you stay a while longer?”  
  
“ ** _I do not see in the traditional sense,_** ” the _Ziz_ answers, head cocking thoughtfully to the right, the same way Erik’s does when he’s thinking. “ ** _But I remember all. I will not forget you, Charles. We never could_**.” It strokes along Charles’s hair, behind his ear. “I will stay for as long as you would like.”  
  
“Don’t promise what you do not intend to give,” and he’s teasing. Teasing this Creature, the _Ziz_ , the World. Smiling, grinning, making soft, pleased noises as he’s stroked with what feels like gentle claws. There is fear and dread, but it’s so outweighed by this moment of peace, of clarity, of submission. “Will you tell me of yourself? Will you tell me of myself?” he begs. “I’ll likely forget very soon, so there is no better time to reveal all.” He’s teasing again.  
  
“ ** _I did not promise_** ,” the _Ziz_ returns cheekily, even though it certainly did, even if not in standard words. Every word it has spoken thus far has been a promise. The truth. “ ** _You were a very lonely boy, in a very high castle. Surrounded by riches, and tormented daily. And then you met my Bound, the one who comes from the desert. I believe they call him Erik. A fitting name. From a life of poverty, but happiness. For a brief time. And then you met, across time and space. We met. Everything has shifted since. The World will never be the same. My Erik has imprinted to me his beliefs. One such is tikkun olam. Repair of the world. That is what we are set to do. It is dangerous, and thankless, and terrifying, and no one asked for our permission. But it is our compassionate duty. This was always intended to be a respite, Charles Xavier. Not a prison_**.”  
  
“Some prisons are kinder than others,” Charles replies, but he’s smiling, because it is soft. Because there are unwanted cages, and there are comforting ones. The silly, willing captive. “I am frightened again,” he whispers, and leans forward, seeking — he’s not sure. Touch, from this awe-inspiring Creature. To be folded up in its wings. “Do you truly believe we are meant for each other, even if we don’t know at all? How will we find our way, when the dark is so encroaching?”  
  
“ ** _I do not believe anything_** ,” it corrects sharply. “ ** _I know, more than any other being. We are meant for one another. You will find your way. He will help you_**.” It cups Charles’s cheek and rubs its taloned thumb along the bones there, delicate. “ ** _You will know one another_**.”  
  
Charles hums, because he is sure they will recognize something in each other no matter the circumstances, and that will be enough. He has something else on his mind. “You touch me so softly,” he notes, awed. “Are you worried I may break?”  
  
" ** _I could rend you, if I pleased. I do not_** ," is its simple answer. It's very Erik-like, to sound indomitable and frightening, but to Charles it was almost amusing. This Creature, the _Ziz_ itself, does not inspire amusement. It is a very real threat, that anybody who came into its home that did not belong would be obliterated.  
  
Charles lets out a breath, feeling, for just a moment, what any mortal would. But the spark of fear passes as soon as it came, replaced by affection. Reverence. “Will you touch me more?” he asks, and his breath hitches.  
  
“ ** _I will,_** ” it deigns, lifting a piece of Charles’s hair so it can stroke softly along his cheek, down his throat. “ ** _You are a beautiful being. In every way. Do not doubt this. I will be displeased if you do_**.” It’s almost a joke.  
  
Charles grins. “So are you,” he whispers, though he imagines such a compliment means nothing to such an extraordinary Creature. He reaches up with trembling fingers, feeling impossibly bold, to touch those clawed fingers. “Do you love me?” he asks, suddenly.  
  
On the contrary, though, it almost seems to glow in response to the compliment, it emits a noise like a low, quiet rumble, the soil shifting beneath their feet, tectonic plates shuddering curiously toward Charles. Always toward him. “ _ **I love you unimaginably**_.” There is no room for doubt, for skepticism, for denial. There is nowhere for anyone, anywhere, to say this entity’s feelings are moot. If they could be categorized as feelings, for they move with the Earth itself. “ ** _You have always been loved by us. You always will be_**.”  
  
It was never that they were moot. There are just different kinds of love, Charles is discovering, and both are important. Charles is sorry it frightened him, but he’s certain it still will; he’ll come around. “Am I yours?” he asks, and it’s curious. He wants to know, he wants to know a Being that has not been known. It told him it would stay a while.  
  
“ ** _You are mine_** ,” it almost purrs, so reminiscent of Erik in that moment, a raging thing calmed by the sound of music. “ ** _You have always been mine. Even before you became conceived, I knew of you. Throughout time, the echoes of the Universe within me. We are close, you see_** ,” it says, as if weaving a tale. “ ** _The Universe and I used to be as one. And now we are both more than the sum of the entirety. We are individual. One alone. Some thought it made us weak. But our world will grow stronger._** ”  
  
“But...” There’s so much he doesn’t understand, so much he can’t comprehend, and Charles is inherently curious. He seeks knowledge, and understanding, above nearly all else. “Why is it lonely and disconnected, then? If you knew of it and it knew of you and Erik and I are a Pair?” But perhaps it doesn’t work the same way. To Charles, that feels... sad, really. The Universe may be all powerful, all-knowing, but surely it needs what Charles needs, too. It must need it now, if nothing else. Now that it and Charles are so linked. Can it not have it, except when it visits Erik, for those brief, fleeting moments? Does it experience through Charles? Does this Creature experience through Erik? He breathes. “May I touch you, too?” he wonders, and feels like his whole body is alight again. He forgets to breathe.  
  
" ** _You may_** ," it agrees simply, and the World seems to shift and flutter in response to Charles's caress, moving with him, oceanic tides rising and falling. " ** _We move the way you move_** ," comes its secret-keeping, knowledge in clusters of supernovae sequestered in the epicenter of a black hole. " ** _I like this_** ," it adds after a long moment of indulgence, a praise that buffets air molecules along.  
  
All this time, Charles has resented the Universe, as much as any human being can. Perhaps he should have felt very sorry for it. Before Erik, it was still all-powerful, but it was also alone. It is still, as far as Charles is aware, alone. All that power and knowledge, and simply nothing else. Not like this Creature, alive and feeling, connected. He won’t remember soon, anyway. Surely it can’t hurt to know. “Do you have wings?” he asks, breathless, and reaches for them, pulling his hand back before he touches. Sheepish, awed, so Far Down. He should ask permission first; he’s so new, he doesn’t always know better. “Have you ever... owned another? Kept another? Were they like me?”  
  
" ** _We have,_** " it replies honestly. " ** _I have not._** " We. Like Erik, it seems this Creature exists in pluralities, or else there really is more than one, a vast network of incomprehensible Creatures before him, after him, connected through time and space. " ** _There have been other Pairbonds. Like us, they have been connected to me, through me. But I was not as I am. They were connected by virtue of being D5. There has never been another like you. And yes, neshama. I have wings._** " And Charles can see them now, feel them as they shift between his fingers, feathered-leather with sharp talons hidden cleverly. Charles earns one for his quickness, the Creature nearly smirking in Dominion. " ** _Easy now. You ask first. You heed my direction. Never your own_**."  
  
“May I touch?” he asks, breathless, and he’s staring, utterly fascinated, enthralled. “They’re so beautiful,” he gasps, and feels it in every part of him. He’s nothing short of reverent, of devoted, adoring, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. He loved the Ziz long before he knew of it, though he could never have put it to words or thought. With Erik, he sometimes struggles. With this Being, there’s simply no room for question. “Are you saying I am your favorite?” he asks, and he meant to tease again, but it comes out hopeful. Shy. A little one, looking up at a Creature he still cannot comprehend like this but knows he belongs to.  
  
" ** _You are my very first. My very favorite. Always. Forever. It does not matter who remembers what events. This exists independently. We do. You and Erik shall always find one another. Just as sure as you shall be mine, always._** " The Creature lets out a soft, inaudible gasp as the world shudders in what can only be pleasure, and everything is illuminated. The stars, the trees, the soil and the beings that live in the soil, pleased and proud. The trees that hold ancient-knowledge swaying with branches-relaxed.  
  
There is so much he wonders about. There are tears on his cheeks, but he smiles as his fingers stroke with the utmost reverence, in what is nearly worship. He doesn’t know how long they have. He doesn’t know how long he has. Right now, Charles does not think about it. Surely the World can take a moment, and he can speak with his beloved _Ziz_. “You like this?” he asks, half in disbelief that such a Being could. It brings him pride, too, makes him feel... fulfilled, in ways he cannot imagine putting to words. To please this Creature. “The others — how many were there?” he asks, and it’s just curiosity. It’s silly, but Charles just wants to talk, and he always wonders and wonders. “Achilles? Patroclus?” he grins, because those are stories, but he can’t imagine they’re true. But then again, how could they not be?  
  
The _Ziz_ well and truly laughs at them. " ** _Them, of course. David and Jonathan. Enkidu and Gilgamesh. Achilles and Patroclus were the last Pairbond. And we fell asleep. Anguished, the loss of the ones we loved. The ones we can still sense, through the molecules. Each and every one made a contribution to this World, but I did not wake up. Not until you reached that little boy across the desert and made him smile. We carry their memories each. And you will find that you may carry their memories just as much as your own. When the proper time comes. When you come to me. At the proper time, in the proper place. You will come to me, and you will Know._** "  
  
It isn’t quite what he meant. Charles smiles, and moves his shaking hand from the _Ziz’s_ wing to his face. It’s Erik’s, but — not, too. “Do you... want, too? You said you love,” he whispers, still completely awed by it. “That I belong to you. Is it different?”  
  
" ** _No, neshama_** ," the Creature replies, its voice a staple of the Will that shimmers reflexively throughout. " ** _It is not different._** " And Charles feels it in his own body. Sunk deep below, the deep pools of water that gradually heat him up from the inside out. " ** _You are ours. Every way. Never forget this._** "  
  
Charles shivers and curls right into it, feeling electrified and overheated in a way that’s decidedly _pleasant._ Overwhelmingly so. His eyelids flutter again and he sighs, lips parted on a soft noise of pleasure he just can’t hold in, not like this. “I know I need to do this, I _feel_ that I need to do this,” he whispers, but there are tears clinging to his eyelashes now. “But I’m afraid. I — I want to stay with you,” he admits, laughing. “Are you sure you do not have a palace for me? That your wings wouldn’t cover me?”  
  
" ** _I do. And they always will. You may stay with me for as long as you wish_** ," is what it says. It doesn't caution against it. It doesn't say that Charles will eventually succumb to emotions about Erik, about what he must do. The _Ziz_ has never been a Creature of this. He is a Creature of Dominion, of the World that Charles belongs to. Even when he thinks he doesn't. It is right underneath the surface Erik can't begin to grasp. What he does say is soft. " ** _What separates us with distinction is that I am part of him. Part of a greater whole. Part of the greatest whole. I have a role to fulfill, neshama_**."  
  
“You are a part of him? Or he is a part of you?” Charles asks, and it’s teasing again. He knows he can’t stay with the _Ziz_ forever. He knows he would not want to, no matter how much affection he holds for it — and it is deep, that affection, that love, that devotion. He knows that instinctively. “What is your role?” he wonders. He reaches up again, but pulls his own hand back, timid, uncertain; it feels wrong, to touch without direction, somehow. He smiles in sheepish apology; he’s just new, and full of wonder for the Creature looming above and around him.  
  
" ** _He is my Bound_** ," the _Ziz_ tries to explain unsuccessfully. When Charles's hand reaches up, taloned-fingers hold it closer, pressing it against itself. The affection that he feels for this Creature is something magnified in every single ion that floats between them. " ** _We are inextricably linked. There can be no place where I end that he begins. The Earth is open to him_** ," the _Ziz_ whispers. " ** _And his capabilities cannot be underestimated. When he sees the stars, the moons, the planets, he may begin to comprehend the scale. When he sees time itself, the strings between realities. One day he is going to call on you. He will need you so fully, so completely, that you will want to run and hide. And I will return, because you are mine and you cannot escape me. He is young. He does not know. You must help him. Guide him. Teach him something new._** "  
  
Charles blinks, and for a moment his heart is gripped by fear again, wrenched with it. “I don’t understand what that means,” he whispers, an admission that he finds himself making often, but now it sticks in his throat. His hand has gone still on the Creature’s wing, his own body tense. “I — no,” he breathes, his eyes closed tight again. He shakes his head. “That isn’t right.” He’s telling this Creature, and his own insolence, this time, isn’t lost on him.  
  
" ** _No, neshama. None of this_** ". The world bends, it curves and Charles finds himself as if struck by lightning against his bare back, but it's not enough to hurt him, but certainly handed down to bring him in line. " ** _That time is not now. What he needs from you now, is respite. And this is what you need in return. My presence is here. I wished to..._** " and at that, the whole World itself seems to trail off. The _Ziz_ stymied. " ** _Meet you,_** " it realizes what the words are. " ** _Show you. Tell you. Help you. And I am always by your side, neshama. No matter where you go_**."  
  
It does hurt, though, but something in Charles stays — he’s not certain, really. Adamant. Stubborn, in a way that would be truly impossible for any other being and is nearly impossible for him now. He bows low again, puts himself back into Position, but something is vibrating in him, something is rolling off of him, and it is messy and jumbled. “That isn’t right,” he repeats. There are tears in his eyes, and they spill into the space between them, his back trembling. “I am glad to have met you, but you are mistaken.” Bold, perhaps even defiant, and how could he possibly?  
  
" ** _Tell me why it is not right_** ," the Being insists, and that wing around him tightens its grip, clawed and feathered and polished, rawhide.  
  
It’s comforting, rather than frightening, but Charles doesn’t answer. He doesn’t answer, not because he’s being disobedient, but because something is happening to him. The sound that comes from his mouth is barely human, strangled and startled and pained. “Help me,” he croaks instead. Because the _Ziz_ told him it would, it called him _neshama,_ it claimed to know him.  
  
And then it gathers Charles up from the earth altogether, cocooning him almost in the fetal position within its vast, incomprehensible wingspan. " ** _I will help_** ," it promises solemnly. " ** _Something is happening. You will slow. Slow your body now_**. " It is not a directive at all, it is distinctly buffeted by the Creature. " ** _You will slow. Approach it. This sensation_**.*" The next word is emphasized harshy. " ** _Slow. Your focus to me. You answer to me. Now you would tell your truth. These experiences you are having. Begin now."_**  
  
Charles slows. He breathes. He becomes an extension of the Creature’s Dominion, in a way he has never achieved with Erik because it was not possible. He curls up in the _Ziz’s_ wings, comforted and protected and safe, and finds he’s no longer panicked. But his eyes open, and they’re glowing, not at all like before. They are blue, at first. But there is something beyond them, something changing. “I don’t know what’s happening,” he breathes, but he isn’t hyperventilating, frightened, or anxious. He’s calm, reaching up for the Creature, content to be cradled by it as if he is a tiny, delicate thing.  
  
Comparatively, he is. Erik's body exists, but this is the Otherworld. The _Ziz_ is massive, too massive to even have beginnings or ends, and Charles would be infinitely lost if not for the guide he has in it. It does not react at the change to Charles, almost expectant instead. " ** _We have a visitor_** ," the Ziz explains warmly.  
  
“A visitor?” he whispers, and reaches, reaches, but finds there’s nothing to reach for. Not discouraged, he simply curls up further, rubbing his cheek against the Ziz’s wings. It feels infinitely safe. He is embraced in every direction, protected. Kept, even if the _Ziz_ claims it will not steal him. He’s distracted, unable to panic, settled and pliant.  
  
" ** _Correct_** ," the Ziz hums, entirely satisfied with itself. A jaguar licking its maw after a satisfying meal; only Charles isn't the meal. He's just satisfying. Charles feels those rumbles like little tiny earthquakes, sound-vibrations. " ** _Perhaps it will make itself known. Perhaps not_**."  
  
Charles hums, as if he only half-hears, his comprehension frankly muddied by what is overwhelming surrender, submission, contentment. He cannot remember the last time he felt so thoroughly safe, relaxed. He goes still, he breathes easily, and perhaps he has fallen asleep. When his eyes blink open, they are no longer blue, but a strange, endless Nothing. It could not be described as black, but no color exists that would be appropriate. It is not a color at all.

* * *

" ** _Hello_** ," the Ziz says murmuring an endearment in an ancient, long-dead language, one that has never been studied, never been catalogued, never even been heard by modern human ears. Still, the greeting is warm, and the Creature goes back to its task of essentially grooming Charles, brushing his hair and slowly cleaning his face, his neck.  
  
There is silence, at first. Blinking. Something strange has happened here, there is blending; but Charles is still infinitely small in the _Ziz’s_ wings, now deceivingly so. His cheek cracks and something oozes out, ephemeral and infinite at once. “ ** _Hello_** ,” this visitor speaks back, using Charles’ voice and this Creature’s language. It isn’t warm, though there is something vaguely affectionate. It has been changed by touching Charles, or having Charles touch it. It knows some softness, now.  
  
" ** _Why have you come here?"_** the Creature demands, ever still, even from the Universe, to whom it considers his peer. It's not a harsh invocation, however. Quite the opposite. The _Ziz_ is lonely by nature; perhaps why Charles's Erik struggles to be alone himself. It likes these visitors. They will not face its wrath today.  
  
If the Universe laughed, it would laugh. There is a vague sense of mirth, though it is only just beginning to understand such things. It has nearly laughed, once. With Erik. It is learning, now, a sensation long unknown to it. “ ** _Your peer? Your wrath?_** ” It does not mock, but the words strike it, the phrases... amuse it. “ ** _I shall not be staying. I did not come. He reached for me._** ” Charles’ lips quirk. “ ** _You greeted me,_** ” it observes. And so it answered, as if it were being polite.  
  
A bitterly frightening growling shriek fills the area , the _Ziz's_ hackles well and truly raised, and he extends the full length of his wings right across the world, the whole entire area saturated in irate indignation. It certainly feels mocked, and the whole area has turned cold. Inhospitable. The only protected being is Charles, inside of his cocoon where he is tucked safe somewhere no one can ever reach him. A warning.  
  
The Universe does not flinch. It does not blink. It does not panic, or stammer, or prostrate itself. It stares, observing, and then tilts Charles’ head, its cheek cracking further, Charles’ body seemingly swallowed by blackness that creeps across his pale skin like ink. “ ** _I meant no insult_** ,” it murmurs simply, but there is, as there has never been, emotion there. Just the barest amount, though it is difficult to tell what, if anything, is being felt. “ ** _Are you being... dramatic?_** ” it wonders. This is certainly not mocking. In fact, it sounds... curious. Charles has thought this of Erik. A flair for the dramatic.  
  
The Creature seems distracted by that question from the pure flare of righteous fury he'd been feeling at the Universe's intrusion into his home, and subsequent perceived disrespect. The snowy permafrost begins to thaw slightly. Tiny animals, grateful, scurry to and from their habitats. " ** _What is dramatic?_** "  
  
A hand covers Charles’ mouth. His face has been entirely consumed by blackness, impossible for any human to stare into without experiencing madness, but this is no human. It’s noticeably to hide the turn of its lips, its smile, a quirk picked up from the body it uses now. From Charles. “ ** _That demonstration, I believe,_** ” it returns. “ ** _You need not be so ruffled. I am not here to wound your ego._** ” It has no need to brag, either. No need to flaunt. No need to fight. It knows entirely of its own power, its own position, though things have shifted recently. Charles has shifted them, and Erik with him.  
  
To say that this Creature, one who would capture another simply because it _wants_ -has no _ego_ , would be false. It is an entirely ego-driven entity, in tune with nothing more than impulse, shifts, currents and tides. Making sure that everything runs smoothly, and smoothing out the wrinkles when they get tangled. " ** _I_ _remain unscathed_** ," is its answer as the world slowly, but surely, returns to the warmth of Summer that Charles remembers. The trees in bloom, littering golden leaves on the ground that glow and disappear and reform into glittering-dust.  
  
“ ** _If I may provide advice?_** ” The Universe speaks, and this is all Charles. Speech patterns, voice, body; it does not have a form in the same way this Creature does, and never will. It existed before and may very well exist long, long after, infinite and stretching beyond this World, beyond the Earth, beyond this Creature. There are rules it does not play by, but that Charles does, and for some reason longs to, and there is the... issue. Perhaps. It is learning, too. It is changing, but there are constants. It is changing Charles. “ ** _Do not underestimate him. He is not like the others_**.” It’s almost amused, again, but in the next instant, or perhaps the very same, Charles’ body stirs. He is too warm. He is restless. He whimpers in what is close to sleep. The cracks in his skin begin to close, but not fast enough. The Universe promised it would not hurt him, but he is too delirious to remember such agony even as he cries from it.  
  
" ** _You will not hurt him_** ," the Ziz roars, a shout and a whisper all at the same time. It has never underestimated Charles. There is no living being alive who has seen its true form, and Charles is the first. The first ever. Erik is the first D5 to ever transcend high enough to pierce the veil of its resting-space. He stands sentry, ensuring that the Universe keeps its promise.  
  
It promised not to harm him, that the process would not be wholly painful, but some pain is inevitable. Some pain cannot be avoided, necessary for growth. Necessary in general. It does not intend hurt, and it eases wherever possible. But Charles twitches and cries in the _Ziz’s_ wings as the Universe slips away, his skin still cracking and oozing the Infinite, the Nothing, but he curls up entirely. Tucks his legs into himself and becomes even smaller, cradled in the Creature’s wings. When his eyes blink open, they’re bleary. He peeks up, out, confused and hurting and so very small. He cannot know how wrong that is, how misleading, and perhaps even the _Ziz_ cannot, for all that it knows and sees.  
  
It would never be known, what the _Ziz_ knows and doesn't know, a vast expanse of knowledge and if it is unknown, intuition will step in its place. Charles is comforted, and soothed, something resembling a hand brushing Charles's hair behind his ear. " ** _You are awake_** ," the _Ziz_ peers down at him, the whole world bowed in concern.  
  
But there are things that cannot be known. Power that exists beyond even supernatural comprehension, beyond the Earth, beyond the World. Charles doesn’t know his own access to it, does not comprehend and indeed fears what lurks within his reach and there will be the problem, but for now it makes little difference. For now he is just a human, just a mortal, shifting restlessly in this Creature’s wings, and so it must be. It must be. He is nothing, seemingly, special, or at least not extraordinary. He is captured and he is kept. He wears a collar around his neck and he kneels at another’s feet. So it must be. So it will be. “ ** _Awake...?_** ” he asks, as if he is too groggy to know the word at all. He whimpers, confused, but not panicked. Too safe for that.  
  
" ** _You were sleeping,_** " the _Ziz_ tells him in a warm voice, the timbre itself seeming to wrap him up, too. " ** _It came to visit us_** ," the _Ziz_ explains. To tell him information he already did know, he doesn't say, hackles still somewhat raised. No matter the Universe's power, this is his home. His space. How dare an intruder, an interloper, come in and-the _Ziz's_ wings beat, in tandem to Erik's heart, riled up itself.  
  
“No,” Charles mumbles, and turns again in the Ziz’s wings, curled up and shivering though his body is still unnaturally warm. He seems sleepy, but no longer hurting, his eyelids too heavy to keep open. “I am yours? I belong to you?” he asks, still slurring, waking. He pets idly at what he can reach, too tired to ask properly, forgetting, drifting. Seeking to comfort the Creature.  
  
Comfort. The _Ziz_ , in Erik's body and its own, could be bowled over by a single feather. Comfort. " ** _You belong to me_** ," it promises. " ** _For always_**." The _Ziz_ doesn't know what this concept is. What it has seen of humans instead, when it has peered in, is catastrophic violence. Damage to his home, to his being. To his Bound. So much damage. And now Charles is here for one moment and he heals instead.  
  
“It, too,” Charles promises, his lips quirking. Not in the same way, but the Universe is not an intruder. Only now, only here in this moment of groggy clarity, only after this visit can he see that. It exists in him just as much as he exists in it. He turns in the _Ziz’s_ body, murmuring quietly, sighing. Stretching out. He is sleepy and unguarded, utterly reliant and trusting. In these moments before, in this space. “I don’t wish to leave yet,” he tells the _Ziz_ , and rubs himself against those leathery wings, unafraid of sharpness, of talons. He yawns. “Please? So you aren’t lonely.”  
  
" ** _I would like that,_** " the _Ziz_ whispers, helpless to the lull of Charles's request, because it is so achingly close. Alone. It is alone. Except for when it chooses to pick a fight with the sky, with the rains and waters. But this visit had been different. Important. The _Ziz_ wonders if it will happen again. Charles gets wrapped up and the wings move, bringing him close to this lounging Leviathan's chest.  
  
To his chest. Charles sighs in pleasure, eyelids fluttering again as he’s soothed and held, smiling in this relaxed, in-between state. He reaches out, whimpering when there’s nothing to hold to; but he settles again a moment later. “You will miss me,” he accuses, but it teasing again. He smiles, cheeky and pleased. “If I ran now, would you catch me? How far would I get? Would you allow me a head-start?” Charles very clearly has no intention of running, half asleep in the Creature’s embrace.  
  
" ** _Perhaps_** ," the _Ziz_ grants, purely humoring Charles. " ** _But you will not get far within this place. It is my home. You would be snatched up_** ," it shifts a little, not an expression but a sensation of warmth, amusement.  
  
“I’ll learn to run faster,” Charles swears, and he giggles, unable to contain it. He yawns again, curls his toes, shifts, less restless than curious. When he’s with Erik like this, he’s always seeking more touch, more sensation, but it feels like he’s being touched everywhere all at once right now. “I’m rather sleepy,” he declares. “If I forget everything, will I forget you, too?” he frowns. “I don’t want to.”  
  
" ** _You cannot run fast enough_** ," it counters, practically preening, feathers ruffling a little. " ** _You may forget me, but I am all around you. I always have been. And I am within him. We cannot be separated. You will see me again, and you will feel me with you. Always_**."  
  
Charles knows he must leave soon. He has to see his Erik, he has to speak with him. But he’ll miss the Creature, too. “I love you,” he promises quietly, shyly. “Does that sound very silly to you?”  
  
" ** _It does not,_** " the _Ziz_ whispers back. " ** _Your affection honors me beyond the ability to express into mortal words_**." It draws its finger down Charles's cheek. " ** _Have patience with him. He is still so very young. He does not know all the things that we know. But he will protect your heart with his whole being. As I would_**."  
  
Charles smiles. “I love him, too,” he whispers, though it aches. He blinks back tears and closes his eyes. He loves the Creature, endlessly, really, more than he fathomed he could, a fascination and fondness that goes far beyond what he expected until they met just like this, but he needs Erik. Right at this moment, all of a sudden, he has never felt anything more.  
  
" ** _You will tell him so_** ," the _Ziz_ demands, pointed. It's different than the kind of advice Erik might give, mostly because it's assumed Charles will obey its 'request.' " ** _It will mean everything to him. Before you both embark upon this journey. Tell him. Promise me._** "  
  
“I promise,” Charles whispers, but it feels... sad, really. It feels unfortunate. He knows it isn’t, but even still. He closes his eyes, wraps his legs up, and thinks of Erik. “Please, let me speak to him?”  
  
A chirp of acknowledgment emits from the Creature before the room begins to sway, and reappear. 

* * *

Erik is blinking, as if awoken from a deep slumber. He rubs his fingers into his eyes and realizes that Charles is half-crawled into his lap, eclipsed by his far larger frame. “D’i fall ‘sleep?” he wonders, blinking rapidly.  
  
It’s immediate. Charles throws his arms over Erik’s neck, regardless of how sleepy and groggy he feels himself, and kisses all over his face, quite unceremoniously, before he goes right for the lips, kissing him fully and passionately and a little sloppily, considering how limp he is. Sitting upright in Erik’s lap is something he seems to be struggling with, but he does his very best, sighing happily when contact is made, his hands looking desperately for purchase, tugging at the fabric of Erik’s shirt. It’s quite the greeting.  
  
It makes Erik laugh, his eyes glittering in delight as he arches upward and tugs Charles against him, his hands lifting to frame his cheeks as he returns the kiss two-fold, swiftly maneuvering their positions to do so, and looking quite a bit flushed when they part. “Hi,” he grins.  
  
“Hi,” Charles greets, flushed and pleased himself, startled even though he’d initiated. “I wasn’t done yet,” he protests, and pouts. It doesn’t even close to reach his eyes, which gleam.  
  
“Mmn,” Erik smirks. “I decide when done,” he declares, feeling light for the first time in a while. He darts forward to sneak another lightning fast kiss, his mind feeling a little foggy.  
  
Charles’ is, too, exceptionally so, but he doesn’t want to think about it too deeply. He knows they need to talk, and he will, but for now he just hangs onto Erik for dear life. “Why are you being so stingy, then?” he demands, but he’s grinning even with tears on his cheeks, even obviously affected. “Will you not kiss me properly, sir?” he teases.  
  
Erik switches their position in an easy move, Charles ending up on his back underneath Erik’s looming weight. His fingers spread out over Charles’s jaw, so reminiscent of that Creature he just met, without any awareness at all. Erik has always suspected its existence, but not like that. “You ask me, then may,” he purrs. “Ask me properly.” **_Or else,_** the sharp-clawed undertone promises.  
  
Charles doesn’t fuss at all as he’s moved, except to sigh, pleased and relaxed and loose-limbed and pliant. He feels safe. He’s frightened — terrified, really, but he’s assured. He looks up at Erik with adoring, tear-filled eyes. “May I have a kiss, sir?” he asks, and this time it isn’t teasing. It’s achingly sincere.  
  
Erik obliges immediately, and this time it's proper, delving deep, not just physically but mentally as well, swooping out across Charles's entire being. This is infinitely superior to everything else, to every experience. "Always," he whispers softly. "You scared? It's OK. I won't hurt."  
  
“I’m worried telling you will hurt you,” he admits, stroking Erik’s cheek. Sheepish, worried. Perhaps Erik won’t remember this, but eventually he hopes they will. They will remember everything. “Can we roll over?” he asks, clearly having an idea.  
  
“Well. I am a curious cat,” he sticks out his tongue, and does roll over. “Tell me about. Please. I am strong. I could handle it,” he encourages. Quite like the _Ziz_ said. He is.  
  
Charles seems exceptionally bold when he lifts Erik’s shirt, his cheeks heated, but he clearly doesn’t mean it for that purpose. He sits atop Erik’s hips, practically straddling him, and touches Erik’s stomach, his chest, where there are countless marks and scars. “I like these,” he promises Erik. “Not where they come from, but that they’re yours. Your skin. They aren’t ugly for that reason, to me, and one day we’ll both learn that.” But there’s something unspoken here.  
  
It’s terribly surprising, because Erik doesn’t expect it at all-not the boldness, but what comes after. Charles’s words. He can’t help it, and tears spring to his eyes. It’s something he’s been struggling with this whole time. Feeling-twisted. Feeling _ugly_. And seeing a physical manifestation of that-it had been hard. Hard even to be intimate, knowing they were there. His lips press together and his head ducks, overcome.  
  
Charles takes it to mean something else. Tears gather in his eyes, too, and he takes his hands from Erik’s skin as if he’s been burned, touching Erik’s face instead, crowding over him. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” he whispers. “I’ll leave them, if you wish. I just thought —“ He thinks he should get rid of his, too. It’s not just Erik.  
  
Erik sniffs and shakes his head, smiling gently. “I just-I never expect this. My body. I woke up and-“ well, Charles knows. “I never expect. It’s shallow.”  
  
Charles swallows, nods. “I know,” he soothes, and leans down all the way to kiss Erik’s cheek, then to cuddle up to him. Rest his head in the crook of his shoulder. “It isn’t shallow. But I think it — you decide,” he breathes. “Do you think it will help us? To be without them until...” Until Erik can at least fathom them. It’s frightening, to wake up with marks and scars one doesn’t remember. Charles knows that from experience.  
  
It's frightening to wake up in a body that is _broken_ , that is gnarled, that is _ugly._ Not just superficially, but genuinely, with tree-bark-like twisted keloids amassing across his back and over his shoulder, the way his leg has lost muscle, the curled claw of his right hand. He's a predator trapped in a cage, injured and snarling. And he used to be strong. He used to run. It's a loss, and Erik hasn't known how to talk about it, because he doesn't even remember it. "We can try," he whispers back. He'll try anything. He _wants_ to make progress, to move forward.  
  
“Do you...” Charles hesitates, biting his lip. But now is not the time to be coy, or to hide, or to keep silent. “Tell me if you think it will heal or hurt.” Erik has no way of knowing, of course, but Charles gets the sense that as long as Erik has seen his body this way, he won’t unsee it. He won’t process anything differently. Charles can help him, heal him, mend him, but his own fears and insecurities will get in the way. It’s more than physicality.  
  
"I really do not know," Erik replies back softly. "I think that the idea we try, from scratch, I think that is-" he nods. "Without all this, without memory, maybe there is no more fear. Only what we would face together. And maybe that-maybe, that mean we can, start. Really start. Without because of all what I did-before-and I am not like that now but you remember-" he sniffs. "I wasn't any good. I don't want you to remember that."  
  
Charles shakes his head. “You were good,” he promises. “You weren’t broken, or bad, or horrid, just like I’m not. But —“ He takes a breath. “You’re right.” It isn’t Erik’s fault. It isn’t Charles’ fault, either. “When we remember again, when we know...” It will all be worth it. It will be respite, and not a prison. But he’s horribly sad about it, too. “We could just stay like this,” he suggests again, laughing wetly.  
  
“I wish we can,” Erik laughs, too. “But I know we cannot. ‘Cuz we need go forward. Not back. But what if you don’t understand me?” he wonders, curious. Would that be another way they grow, or would it be too hard? Has any of this not been hard? He just doesn’t know.  
  
Charles blinks. “Understand you?” he asks, playing with a lock of Erik’s hair. It bounces and he smiles, fond. This doesn’t feel very hard. Surely they can overcome with far less stacked against them.  
  
“ _Ken_ ,” Erik grins sheepishly. “We won’t speak same language?”  
  
“Oh,” Charles realizes, his eyes wide. He hadn’t even considered that. “Well... we can overcome that, don’t you think? If we had met outside of all this, if we had just come across each other...” It’s something they would have had to grapple with. “Perhaps it will improve our communication and creativity,” he snorts, but as he says it he realizes it certainly can’t hurt.  
  
Erik laughs, too. “We will learn new language. To speak with each other,” he posits, hopeful.  
  
Charles feels himself grinning against Erik’s skin. “I don’t know about a new language, but I’m certain we’ll come up with something.” He kisses Erik’s shoulder. “Are you scared?” he wonders. “Do you think we’ll be alright?”  
  
“I am never scared!” Erik declares with a laugh, but he nods a little. “A little bit. But I have faith. I believe us. We are good. We will find again. We always will.”  
  
“Do you want a go before we do this?” he asks, and wiggles his eyebrows. “It might be a while.” It takes Charles a moment to even realize what he’s just said, and then he laughs. Loudly, until he dissolves right into giggles against Erik’s side, until tears gather in his eyes and he’s squirming. “I don’t know what possessed me to say that, I’m just —“ He’s a bit hysterical, but he has faith, too. He has hope, too.  
  
Erik bursts out laughing, his shoulders practically shaking as he clutches Charles closer to him. He can’t. “A _go_ , Charles? Really,” he chuckles, tickling behind his ear.  
  
Charles just giggles, and then he wriggles enough to get back on top of Erik, grinning. “I want it like this,” he announces, though he’s not serious, really, and if he was he’d be mortified. He’s still... very shy about these things, and he imagines that will stay the same. Perhaps even more than now. “We’ll both be so new,” he sighs. “How will we manage?” Now he’s fretting.  
  
Erik easily flips them over, and this time Charles is on his back on the floor with his arms pinned right above his head, and a whole lot of Erik spanning above him. “Maybe I'll _have_ a go,” he rumbles in warning, nipping at Charles’s jaw.  
  
Charles squirms in earnest, just for good measure. “Is that what you suggest, then? We wake up, with no memories, no way of communicating, and take our clothes off? Shall that be the answer?” he teases. But he leans right into that nip at his jaw, arches up into Erik’s touch. When all is said and done, he hopes they remember this.  
  
“I think it is very good answer,” Erik insists, drawing his fingertips all the way down Charles’s spine-somehow they don’t have any clothes on, not anymore, melted in wherever place they’ve ended up, and he skates his fingers over the marks left on Charles’s ass. “Mine,” he growls, and that is deadly serious, and Charles finds himself trapped, once more, against Erik with one of Erik’s long legs over his hip.  
  
“Erik —“ He’s not actually protesting. Not in this in-between place, not when they will lose each other soon. The reminder makes him sniff, and he grabs for Erik’s back, digs his fingers in without thinking. He’s still new and untrained, after all. Another Erik will take care of that, but Charles regrets that he — as he is now, as he knows now — cannot be the one to experience it. “Hold me?” he requests, and he tries very hard not to cry. “I’m yours. I — I’m sad again,” he laughs, unable to help it. “I’m frightened. I believe, and I’m hopeful, but I wish we could stay. Like this. Us.” It’s selfish. He knows it.  
  
Erik’s body is softer against his, like his mind is softer, too. “We will always be us,” is what he says, and it sounds like a platitude-and would be if Erik didn’t believe it so fiercely. His arms wrap Charles up and he leans against the wall, letting Charles rest on his chest. “I wish I have more time to know you. But I will know you again. I always know you.”  
  
Charles smiles, and lets his eyes close, in this moment perfectly content. “Where do you think we will wake up?” he wonders. Just talk, just chatting, as if all of this is normal or casual. There’s no other choice. “If not here?”  
  
“ _Sisim_ ,” Erik whispers. He wants to go home. He can’t get it out of his mind, his latest visit. His latest incarnation, dropping to his knees in the soil. The smell of coffee in the air. Maybe they’ll go there. He realizes he’s said it out loud and puts his hand over his mouth, apologetic.  
  
Charles bites his lip, and leans up from the comfort of Erik’s chest to kiss his cheek. “It’s too close to you, darling,” he whispers. The same way this place is too close to him. “Perhaps somewhere warm, though, so that you don’t freeze?” he teases, keeping things, just for the moment, light. “A tropical island. Or a furnace, to meet your standards.”  
  
“Somewhere warm,” he agrees softly, wiping at his nose. He’s sorry. He knows the rules, but he couldn’t help but to ask. He’s too close to himself.  
  
They’re not exactly rules. Charles wipes away any lingering tears, first with his fingers and then with his lips. “We’ll see it again,” he promises quietly. “We will. I promise.” He pokes Erik’s cheek. “What if we end up in the mountains? Where there’s snow? Will you survive, my desert man?” he teases.  
  
Erik can’t help but laugh. “Anywhere you are. I will be content,” he promises. It will be difficult in different ways, but he has utter confidence in their ability to succeed, blind or otherwise. Maybe the World is closer now.  
  
“What if it’s too hot?” Charles playfully whines. He pouts up at Erik, and his eyes slide closed, his body relaxed, his breathing even. “Will you take cool baths with me? Do you think there will be books? I hope so.” He’s... sleepy, now. The kind of talk before one falls asleep.  
  
"I will keep you cool," Erik insists with a laugh, and he runs his fingers through Charles's hair, his own eyes heavy. He thinks wherever they end up, as long as they are together, very few things stand a chance against their combined presence.  
  
Charles smiles, sleepy and a bit far away, and sighs happily as his hair is played with. He caresses Erik idly, touches whatever skin he can, drifting and drifting but not, for once, wholly afraid. “Are you ready to meet again?” he laughs, and finds the comfiest position on Erik’s chest. “Does it count as a first impression if we’ve already made quite a few?”  
  
“I do not know if I am ever ready,” Erik admits softly. “But I know we will do good. We are good together. We will find together and make together. And I am not afraid of this.”  
  
Charles hums, settled, finally, against Erik. Calm, almost peaceful. “Are you tired?” he asks, yawning quietly. He reaches for Erik’s hand.  
  
Erik smiles softly and kisses Charles so tenderly, so deeply, the tears roll down his cheeks. “I love you. I loved you moment I wake up, I loved you so much. You were mine and I loved you and I wish you-I wish you knew how much I love you, do you know? Do you feel? Please,-“ please, please, he begs the Creature. Don’t let Charles leave without the light shimmer of Erik’s love.  
  
Charles feels tears before he can even process them, too. “You’ll love me again,” he promises quietly, and smiles against the encroaching darkness, finding that he’s not, for once, afraid. Not really. “I love you, and I belong to you, and I will again. Find me, Erik. Reach for me, and this time I swear I will reach back.” Because they will reach for each other.  
  
"Reach for me," Erik implores him so softly. "I may be a silly hard-headed boy but I love you. Reach for me. I reach back. I find you. I keep you. I promise."  
  
“I will try,” Charles promises, though technically he can’t. Still, if any of him remains, if any of this transfers, it will be this. This promise. This moment, which will get them through the dark. It isn’t wasted time, it isn’t in vain. Every time, every second, they’re learning and growing. It all matters. He squeezes Erik’s hand. His eyes are so heavy. His body is so heavy.  
  
"We going to be OK, I promise," Erik rasps in his most assurant tone. "I got you, _neshama_. I got you and I love you so, so much."  
  
“I can’t wait to meet you again, Erik,” Charles breathes, and he drifts. Still cradled against Erik’s chest, still holding his hand. Everything, like it does when one begins to sleep, grows fuzzy, dark, and faded at the edges. The Universe blinks, and they don’t They just exist again. Otherwise, elsewhere, and for the moment nowhere. But the last thing Erik is consciously aware of, that Charles is, in this version of Reality, is that they are loved.


	135. Say grace to the gates we race without a chance to face the judge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. finally reached the point where i dont need to reformat everything! we are almost caught up!  
> ii. please be aware that i am not fluent in hebrew, just go with it  
> iii. almost all of erik's dialogue will be in hebrew for a while, we rely on expo & telepathy for meanings!

Erik slowly but surely quite honestly _passes out_ , finding it dream-like, inevitable, unavoidable and he soaks in as much of Charles as he can, wanting to sketch it within his own neurons, and maybe he could, but the Universe would erase those, too. He's a little sad, but it isn't that he doesn't want to do this, so he doesn't fight it. He eventually lolls over, fast asleep.  
  
When Charles wakes up, he’s _exceptionally_ groggy. There’s light streaming in from the window, and he blinks against it, mumbling unhappily, shifting restlessly beneath the covers he’s mostly kicked off of himself. He’s _exhausted,_ though his body is stiff and achy, as if he’s been asleep for ages. His head hurts. His ears and mouth both feel like they’re full of cotton, his throat sore and scratchy. And he doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know, frankly, _who_ he is. He’s far too confused for that, or else something is very wrong.  
  
He doesn’t, _immediately_ , panic. There’s certainly _alarm._ Charles tries to sit up in bed, but finds there’s a sharp _pang_ in his head, behind his temples. That he’s dizzy, nauseated, weak; he gasps and grabs at his own head. He won’t be trying that again, then.  
  
“Hello?” he asks, surprised by the croak of his own voice, by the _sound_ of his own voice. It’s not that he’s never heard it. It’s just that everything feels so strange and bleary, too-bright, as if it’s just forming. There’s no one in the room with him, but — is he alone? What other choice does he have but to shout? “Hello? Is anyone there?”  
  
The area he's in seems to be empty, and his query goes unanswered, until Charles finally has the energy to get to his feet, to finally peer out of the door to the room, to the sight of an exceptionally _large_ , _naked_ man padding down the hall with his back to Charles, cradling a bowl of cereal and a spoon which he shovels into his mouth periodically. His hair is lengthy, curled and auburn, and his skin is sun-darkened and freckled. He doesn't seem to realize that he's being watched.  
  
Charles _promptly_ moves back into the bedroom he’d come from, flattening himself up against the wall in what’s admittedly a childish attempt to hide, especially with the door still ajar. _Now_ he’s panicking, adrenaline coursing through his veins, head spinning, thoroughly dizzy and disoriented. He _could_ tell whoever it is that’s out there that he’s _here,_ but surely he knows? So why doesn’t _he_ know? His tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth and he closes his eyes, taking stock of his _own_ body; _he’s_ wearing clothes, at least. He feels... whoozy, sick, even, but not _harmed_ in any way. Does he have a head injury? A concussion? He checks his head for a bump, hissing at the throb to his temples. Maybe he was knocked out? Something fell on him? He was in an accident? Charles’ mind races, anxiety rising, as he’s prone to doing.  
  
Only moments later the door pushes open, and the very same individual materializes in front of Charles's rather inept hiding place, head cocked to the side, eyebrows flown up. His eyes are an electric, vivid green as they widen-shock. Clear shock. Someone else is here. He didn't know, and it shows on his face. The bowl of cereal is balanced in both of his hands and he takes a step forward to set it on the bookshelf near Charles before stepping back, both hands raised. He points a finger at him. " _Gam atah kan_!" emits from him, his voice a deep, vibrating rumble more fit for an engine than an individual. The excitement is clear.  
  
Charles’ squeezes his eyes shut immediately, and then throws his hand over his eyes _just for good measure._ He has no idea what language this man is speaking, but the _panic_ he felt is replaced rather quickly with embarrassment and utter confusion (well, no, it’s still there). “Please put some clothes on,” he insists, gesturing for a moment to Erik’s _very naked_ body before he slaps his hand back over his eyes. He doesn’t even know if this man will understand him. “Goodness...” Where is he? _Who_ is he? Why isn’t this man wearing _clothes_? Is this a dream? A fever dream? Is he _drunk_? Otherwise intoxicated?

  
The man's eyebrows raise again, watching Charles gesture at him and fling his hands around, head tilted and squinting as he tries to parse what is being said to him. " _Ma-ma,_ " he waves a hand dismissively, then holds one up to Charles's lips, grinning. " _Ha'et, ha'et,_ " he says, and even though Charles doesn't understand the language the man speaks, he feels the intractable urge to be _slower_. To _speak_ slower, to _move_ slower. It's not a molasses prison, more a natural inclination. It zings right up his spine, filling his head with warmth. The man takes a few minutes himself, grabbing a pair of pajama bottoms and sliding them on, entirely without modesty. He places his palm over his own heart. " _Lo shem_ ," he says. Maybe it's his name? He points at Charles, inquisitive. " _Atah_?"  
  
Charles is thankful for the _reprieve,_ when the man leaves for a moment, though he feels strangely adrift when he does. Lost, almost. His head is spinning, and still _pounding,_ and he’s blinking and confused. He backs himself up to the bed he woke up on, sitting down to keep himself from falling over. He feels _dizzy._ There is one thing, fortunately, that he knows. He points to himself, hesitant. “Charles,” he introduces, hoping it translates fairly neatly. “I’m Charles. Do you...” His lips purse, considering. He points to his head, wincing, but _exaggerated._ He makes an actual noise of pain, when his head _does_ end up throbbing again. “Hurt?” he asks. Is he hurt? Did he hit his head? He doesn’t understand.  
  
Erik's palm pulls away and he smiles, speaking " _Charles_ ," in a heavy accent. "Erik," he points at himself, too. He seems to know his way around this room, and he disappears for a moment into an adjacent bathroom and pulls out a small basin, wringing out a warm washcloth from it. He presses it into Charles's hands. " _La'rosh shelcha_ ," he indicates his own head, expectantly.  
  
Charles takes it gratefully, pressing it against his temple with a small smile. It’s interrupted by another wince, a soft hiss, but it does _help._ “Thank you,” he sighs. Wherever he is, whoever this... Erik, is, he’s not here to hurt him in any way, from what Charles can tell. He didn’t drag him here and knock him out, though it feels like he’s slept for ages. Was he passed out? He bites his lip. “Am I... ill?” he asks, though he imagines Erik won’t understand that. He hesitates, thinking again. “Sick?” He coughs to demonstrate, though it isn’t exactly what he means, raising his eyebrows and tilting his head. It makes him grimace again, though, holding the cloth closer.  
  
Erik gives a little shrug, lips pressing together in sympathy. He understands what Charles means, but-" _Lo yode'a,_ Charles," is his response as the mattress dips under his _considerable_ weight-something that's almost certainly skeletal and muscular. Erik helps Charles lift the cloth to his head, pressing it right up against his right temple, letting the warmth and the water soothe away the echoes. Erik doesn't know what's wrong with him, but it seems like Erik has been the one caring for him.  
  
Charles feels himself _flush,_ though he doesn’t know why. It feels childish, but he has to conceal a shiver, and he tries to avoid _too much_ contact. “Who, ah...” This feels strange to him, and he offers a sympathetic smile of his own, gesturing between them. To Erik. “Who are you?” he asks, slowly, and wonders if he’ll understand enough to get an answer even if Erik understands the question. Do they know each other? They don’t speak the same language. They don’t seem _familiar,_ really, though Erik apparently has no problem touching him. Being _undressed_ near him.

  
Erik presses the cloth to his forehead again, offering him a smile. He doesn't understand, but that's OK. " _Ani..._ " he points at himself. _I_. He flicks two fingers from his eyes, bugging them out a little in exaggeration before miming the commonly understood gesture for _sleep_. " _Mekitz kan._ " Maybe he means he _woke up_? " _Ani levad,_ " he says, gesturing all around them. " _Ad motze atah_ ," he presses his hand to Charles's chest. He makes that coughing sound, then points to Charles again. " _Atah hayita beyoter chole_ ," he nods. " _Ani..._ " his lips press together and he lifts the rag, smooths his hands over the blankets, looking around the room. " _Tipalti atah._ "  
  
“You... took care of me?” he asks, hesitant, but Charles believes he understands. “Thank you,” Charles smiles, grateful and eased some. He touches his own chest, hoping express _gratitude._ They don’t know each other, then. Erik... found him? He doesn’t quite understand that part, but for the moment it’s the best he’s likely to get. It doesn’t fully satisfy his _curiosity,_ but it’s enough. “You speak...” He gestures to his own mouth, mimics _speech,_ tilting his head. He’s sorry, he’s just not familiar. He doesn’t _know._ _  
  
_Head-shake. " _Slicha_ ," Erik whispers. " _Ani lo yode'a anglit_. English," he corrects softly. Charles would know that one. " _Ata lo daber ivrit, mesha'er_ ," he laughs a little, aware he's mostly talking to himself. " _Eifo?_ " Erik gestures all around, peering at the window, the doors. " _Ata yode'a_?"  
  
It doesn’t _really_ answer his non-question, but it does, too. Erik definitely doesn’t speak English. Charles looks where Erik gestures, raising an eyebrow. “Do I... know where we are?” he guesses, because that seems to be the idea. “No,” he shakes his head. “I don’t have any idea, actually,” he laughs, sheepish and trying not to be _too_ bothered by it. But Erik must? Unless... he doesn’t? Charles raises an eyebrow. “This... yours?” he gestures to the room around them, meaning the _house_ they’re in, and then points to Erik. How he _ended up here,_ he doesn’t know.

  
" _Habayit sheli?_ " Erik laughs gently and shakes his head. " _Lo, lo. Ani lo yode'a_ ," he assures softly. "...Yours?" he tries the word in English.  
  
Charles blinks, utterly confused. He shakes his head. “No, it’s not mine,” he answers. “I’ve never seen this place before.” But perhaps that doesn’t mean anything. He hesitates, and points to himself. “ _Ani_...” Is that correct? He smiles, hopeful. “I don’t remember,” he tells Erik, but doesn’t actually know how to get that across. He gestures to his head, frowning, and _shrugs.  
  
_ Erik smiles back at him, enthused. He seems to understand intuitively what Charles means. " _Lo zocher? Gam ani,_ " he points to his own temple and shakes his head. " _Ani lo yode'a eikh bakan_ ," he gives a little shrug, pursing his lips in a bit of a frown. " _Ani... mekitz!_ " he pings his fingers from his eyes in that 'wake-up' gesture from before. He just woke up, it's clear he has no idea how he came to be here, either. But the relief on his face is palpable. He isn't alone.  
  
Comforting, but certainly _strange._ Charles feels anxiety grip at him again, gnawing away at his insides. “You don’t recognize anything?” He doubts that one will mean anything. He bites his lip instead. “Can you help me?” he asks, and now he sounds _shy._ He makes a little walking motion with his fingers, laughing himself at how ridiculous it is. But — “I’m dizzy,” he explains, pointing to his head again, miming instability. The last thing he needs is to take another fall right now, but he wants to see where they are.  
  
Erik grins back at him though and helps him stand, putting an arm under his shoulder for stability and standing _quite_ close, still without his _shirt_ , thank-you very much. “ _Eifo?_ ” he asks, gesturing around.  
  
Charles has definitely not been looking, pointedly averting his eyes, thank you very much. He turns beet red, now, swallowing. “Actually, I think I can walk,” he assures, and promptly wobbles the moment he steps away from Erik, throwing his hands out in front of him.  
  
He _instantly_ finds himself _hovering_ in the air, hands outstretched, like a cartoon character frozen in place. Erik _stares_ at him. “ _Ma ze?!_ ” he looks _delighted_ and pokes Charles in the cheek.  
  
Charles isn’t frightened as much as he is _shocked,_ especially because he wasn’t even very close to falling. His eyes widen and he backs away until he hits the wall, more startled than anything, a lump caught in his throat. He’s reacting to _several_ things at once here. “Please don’t do that,” he requests, quietly, but he sounds completely _breathless._ It’s not _cruel,_ or shouted, it’s just an affected request. He gestures between them, his heart _audibly_ beating.  
  
Erik blinks _back_ and then points _back_ at him. “ _Atah lo ze!_ ” he snipes, a little indignant. It’s clear he thinks _Charles_ did it.  
  
Charles can’t help but laugh, breathless and slightly overwhelmed, his chest tight and his head _noisy._ Fuzzy, almost. “I didn’t do it,” he assures, and shakes his head for good measure. “And can you please put a shirt on? Goodness,” he repeats, his cheeks warm again, gesturing to his own shirt. “Why weren’t you _wearing_ anything, anyway?” he asks, fully expecting not to get an answer. He’s just talking to himself, worked up in the way Charles gets _worked up._ _  
  
_It makes Erik gasp, fanning his fingers out over his shoulderblades, touching his own jaw. " _Li? Be'emet? Eikh?_ " he doesn't _quite_ understand; his semantic memory doesn't seem to be filling in the blanks, or at least not filling them in with regards to _himself_. A combination of drawing on the experiences he'd ordinarily have _without_ personal investment, perhaps. He pouts at the idea of having to put his shirt back on, but complies sullenly. " _Ani... levad,_ " he tries to explain, sheepish. _  
  
_“I have no idea what that means,” Charles promises him, but he’s smiling again, amused himself. He covers his mouth with his hand to hide it, shaking his head. “You look good with a shirt,” he says, and has no idea _why_ he says it — besides, Erik looks good _without_ a shirt, too — but fortunately, he doubts Erik will _understand_ him, even with his face red again. Speaking of shirts, was all of that just _here_? Did they just... end up here, mysteriously, seemingly with no connection to each other? Charles hums, curious, confused, and touches his chin, considering, and then... lower. And his eyes widen. He goes still.  
  
That makes Erik curious, like a big jungle cat, given the relative _height_ disparity it’s not an inept metaphor to make. He moves the same way, agile and fluid, across the room to where Charles flattened himself moments before. “ _Ma kara?_ ” he asks, brows knit thoughtfully.  
  
“Ah,” is what comes out of Charles’ mouth, and then he shakes his head, as if he’s come out of a trance, his own face crumpled in confusion, his eyebrows knit together. He’s touching his neck, which is _bare,_ but — “Submissive,” he whispers, and he doesn’t know _why_ he whispers it. His brain is clearly working, going, gears turning.  
  
Erik stares blankly for a few seconds before his features dance a little in comprehension and he takes a step forward, still-grinning, maybe he’s never stopped, something oddly ephemeral about his presence in comparison to what Charles feels from himself-heavy, anxious, overwhelmed. The stranger- _Erik_ seems immune. He touches Charles’s neck carefully with one finger. “ _Kanu’a_ ,” he repeats in his language, the grin softened into a smile. “ _Ani shalit_ ,” he returns, but that much was _obvious_.  
  
Charles finds he has nowhere to back up, but he _tries_ , flattening himself back against the wall. He isn’t frightened, per se. Merely skittish. “I —“ His eyes are wide and startled, nearly crossed to see Erik’s finger on his neck. He swallows, then swallows again, throat visibly bobbing. “You keep _touching_ me,” he notes, and it’s not really anything except an _observation._ He’s not upset or angry. He’s not _suspicious._ _  
  
_He gets another grin for his trouble, this one almost shark-like, showing all his teeth. He boops Charles right on the nose with a fingertip, and then folds his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels, the picture of innocence.  
  
Charles’ nose scrunches and he bites his lip, as if he’s biting back a grin, but he looks... uncertain, too. He’s worrying, and it’s written all over his face, trying to work things out. He likes touch, he responds to it, but it makes him nervous like this, especially with a stranger. He doesn’t always take well to it, especially when it does inspire such an obvious reaction. “Are you not... concerned?” he wonders, mostly in disbelief. How is Erik not worried, too? Anxious? Erik almost definitely won’t understand. He closes his eyes, groaning.  
  
Erik doesn’t understand; he’s obviously intelligent, curious, but he’s not a mind reader and the words don’t make any sense to him. He does, however, offer his hand, before taking Charles’s within his, entirely eclipsing him. He gives a little tug and points to the open door.  
  
Charles’ eyes widen again, and he doesn’t know why he keeps getting so startled. Like something is gripping his chest and wringing it, not full-blown panic or distress but certainly something. He doesn’t have a full understanding of it, either, and that worries him even more. Still, he nods, and takes a shaky step toward the door, but he gestures between them, still holding Erik’s hand. “Slow,” he whispers, a bit frustrated that he doesn’t think Erik will understand. He’s staring down at their linked hands, and Erik can feel his pulse racing. “Alright? Slow, please.”  
  
“ _Ha’et_ ,” Erik replies, and Charles feels that emit right from their linked hands up to his head and sink down into his chest like a warm ember, something from within the room curling toward him, brushing against him like live tendrils. His breathing slows. Heart rate slows.  
  
And his eyes squeeze shut. He wrenches his hand out of Erik’s like he’s been electrified, not violent but shaky, holding it to his own chest. Cupping it, as if Erik has hurt it, though he doesn’t seem hurt.  
  
Erik stares, at his own hand, then at Charles, and he holds both hands up, swallowing roughly. “ _Slicha, ani lo mitkaven merea_ ,” he whispers. “ _Bevakasha, lo atsuv_.”  
  
Charles seems to calm, though it takes him a minute or two. He doesn’t know exactly what’s happened, what’s happening, but he reaches slowly for Erik’s hand again, offering a small smile. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, pointing at himself again as if that might help convey meaning, and squeezes Erik’s hand. “I’m...” He bites his lip, and touches his own chest with his free hand. “Ouch,” he mutters, feeling silly, but he feels like that might be fairly universal. Whether he can explain from there, he doesn’t know.  
  
“ _Owtch_ ,” Erik repeats the noise, eyebrows raised hopefully, and holds Charles’s hand almost against his chest, taking in a big, deep breath that echoes back through Charles’s arms and focuses his own body.  
  
Charles laughs, but it’s not at Erik. He does take a deep breath, assuming that’s what Erik wants from him, and it helps. It feels wonderful, actually, releases some of the tension inside of him. “Thank you... Erik,” he whispers, and he can’t explain why he shivers, only hoping Erik doesn’t notice. “Will you give me a tour?” he asks, fully aware Erik won’t understand the words, but he nods outside the door, tugging playfully.

* * *

Erik leads him out of the bedroom, down through the hallway and down the stairs, into the kitchen, which is filled with the smell of roasted coffee. Erik grins and picks up a cup, handing it to Charles and wrapping his fingers around it. " _La'atah_ ," he grins. He may notice, or he may not, but he doesn't draw attention to it. He tickles under Charles's chin. _  
_  
Charles steps back again, swallowing. He grips the cup tightly. “Why?” he asks, though he knows Erik likely won’t have an answer. He may not even be asking him, but he tucks his chin in, as if he didn’t appreciate it. He stares at his own feet, not... _upset,_ per se, but a little discomfited. A little wobbly, too. “Thank you,” he murmurs, polite. He flashes a quick smile.  
  
Erik’s eyebrows knit together and he directs them both to sit at the table, lips pressed together in the first expression he’s displayed that indicates anything other than relaxed ease. He’s irritated, unable to properly express himself, and it shows, but when he directs Charles to the table he goes to the fridge and begins pulling out ingredients.

“Wait,” Charles calls, and he’s biting his lip, drawing little shapes into the table. He closes his eyes, and Erik — _feels_ it. He sees images, seemingly from nowhere. Stop signs, ending paths, slowed movement. It doesn’t feel like a warning, but a _request,_ gentle and even quiet. He sees the table, even though he isn’t facing it. “Come sit?”

Frowning _bitterly_ , Erik gets distracted by whatever it is that seems to _pop up_ in his mind and his features smooth, curiosity returning as he ends up drawn back to Charles and he sits himself down, looking a little like an adult sitting on a toddler’s chair across from Charles, and he laughs sheepishly. “ _Shalom_ ,” he waves a bit.

Charles bites his lip. He doesn’t seem to know what he’s _doing,_ but he waves back. “Are you... angry?” he asks, concerned, because he doesn’t quite understand. There are images here, too, though they’re more conceptual. The _feeling_ of anger, red, boiled over pots, frustration. “Did I upset you?”

Erik’s head shakes instantly and he taps his own lips, giving a distraught shrug. “ _Ani lo yachol ledaber la’atah,_ ” he replies, fully aware Charles won’t grasp _that_ , but he hopes he’s made it clear. He doesn’t know how to talk to him, and he wishes he did.

Charles’ expression falls and he frowns, but then something seems to light up in him. An idea. He seems to have _realized,_ even just intuitively, what he’s been doing. He taps his sore temple, tilting his head. “Pictures? Images?” he asks, because _words_ are lost between them, but surely images will work? What if they can share between them?

That makes Erik _grin_ , widely, again, and he nods enthusiastically. “ _Bevakasha_ ,” he adds, gesturing between them. He doesn’t know exactly what Charles means, but it’s something in his mind. Something between them. Beyond words. He arches toward it instinctively, smart or not.

Charles smiles, too, pleased that _Erik_ is pleased. Relieved, really. “You think,” he says, and taps his temple one more time for good measure, even as he winces, “When you speak. And I will, too.” Like he did before. There’s an image associated here, too; like passing pictures between them, but with _thoughts._ He doesn’t know how he can do it, but he can. He bites his lip. “ _Bevakasha_?” he asks, trying it out on his tongue. He’s sure he stumbles.

Erik’s mind is a kaleidoscope, a whirlwind of vibrant shapes and colors that slowly begin to stop swirling, to still and form a picture of their own, like someone tapping your shoulder, like finding a server in a restaurant or getting someone’s attention, entering a store or bumping into someone in the street. The concept of asking, politeness. _Please?_

Charles _smiles,_ because it feels brilliant to understand. To have the _tools,_ first and foremost, to understand. He presses those same images back, and murmurs, “Please.” He’s pleased with himself, really, but mostly relieved; it’s a wholly positive introduction to his own abilities, and he feels _awed_ by it. He reaches for Erik’s hand from across the table, then promptly pulls it back, his cheeks pink. “Sorry,” he mumbles, and accompanies it with bumping into someone and _excusing_ oneself, a misstep one intends to make up for, however small or unintentional. An apology for an overstep.

“Ha!” Erik laughs, touching his own chest, then grabbing Charles’s hand for good measure, an impulsive creature as he is; this would never leave him. “ _Slicha_ ,” he repeats in his language, but it’s obvious he’s not the _least_ bit sorry. He’s found his prize, and he’s keeping it.

Charles laughs, too, startled but not _upset,_ just like before. He squeezes Erik’s hand and doesn’t let go of it, his cheeks pink again. “Where are we?” he asks, because Erik seems to have been _awake_ longer. He gives images, too; of this kitchen, of the house, of the outside, which he’s only seen through windows and glances out of now that he’s been reminded. What country? He gives images, flags, masses of land. What’s around them? People? Cars? _Animals_? Water? Ponds, lakes, oceans, running streams, perhaps overkill. Has Erik explored?

_"_ _Lo, lo be'emet_ _,"_ Erik answers honestly, which is fairly obvious. He hasn't really explored that much, but he gives off images of his own. Large mountains carving up the sky, deserts expanding into infinity down below, a veritable forest of wild creatures spread out across its top and jagged rocks leading down below. He doesn't know what country, or city, only that they're... here _._ _  
__  
_They’re here. Charles suddenly rises from the table, letting go of Erik’s hand after a moment of hesitance (of _reluctance_?) to look for the nearest exit, not because he wants to _run,_ but because he wants to see. There’s a large sliding door that leads right outside, and Charles opens it, staring out in confusion, wonder, awe. “Erik!” he calls, though he probably doesn’t need to _shout._

* * *

And he’s there in an instant, hanging out the door with him, gazing out at the same scenic picture as Charles, but as Charles marvels at the delights of the outdoors, Erik seems to be marveling Charles’s reaction instead, and he grins, nudging him playfully with his shoulder before taking him right outside, gazing up at the sun. There’s remnants out here, coffee cups and chairs and abandoned books and blankets-Erik’s spent a lot of time out here.

Charles is nothing if not curious. He wanders around, looking over his shoulder with sheepish smiles, poking at the blankets, turning over the books he can’t read. “How long have you been here?” he asks when he turns around, his eyebrows raised. He presses the concept into Erik’s mind; a turning calendar, a ticking clock. Time passing. “Is it just you?” He thinks of Erik, by himself — and then other people, faceless. Is there anyone else? Anyone at all?

Erik wipes at his eyes and shakes his head, sniffing a little. He takes those images and _stretches_ them into infinity, stretching and stretching. Someone else is here, now. Someone else. He smiles, bright. “ _Toda,_ ” he whispers, hopping to Charles’s side to squeeze his hands, tight. “ _Toda_.”

It’s... a strange answer, and Charles frowns, feeling genuine _sorrow._ Does Erik not know how long he’s been here? How long, relatively, he’s been _alone_? Charles shifts from foot to foot, bites his lip, and squeezes Erik’s hand back. “ _Toda_?” he asks, because he wants to learn.

Erik doesn’t have an answer for that. He doesn’t know how to form it into an image, so he just lifts Charles’s hand to his lips and _kisses_ his fingertips before letting go, grinning with a slight flush to his cheeks. “ _Toda_ ,” he repeats, smugly.

Charles’ breath hitches and he pulls his hand back again. His own cheeks are pink, and he pulls his hand close to him again, swallowing. He doesn’t _need_ to send an image; he’s clearly skittish again, not uncomfortable or upset but certainly affected. “Are you... going to keep doing that?” he mumbles, looking away.

Erik’s lips press together again, apologetic, and he presses his own fingertips to his mouth in an uncertain gesture. Images of taped up doors being barged through, crime-scene lines flagrantly ignored. He didn’t mean to. “ _Slicha_ ,” he whispers.

But Charles smiles, and reaches for Erik’s hand again, giving it a squeeze. He shakes his head. He feels _silly,_ actually, he’s not sure what’s happening; everything seems to be startling him, like a deer in the headlights, and he _does_ give that image. A rabbit who hears something rustle and scatters off, faint-hearted. His pulse racing, his chest feeling tight; he gives the sensation of both. “You didn’t upset me,” he promises, and the words are mostly just an afterthought. He’s _reassuring,_ tone soft.

And Erik is the giant golden retriever running out of the park and tackling the rabbit, eager and excited for its new partner, but often times such enthusiasm can be overwhelming, and he doesn’t know any better yet. Instead he raises his hand again and lightly trails his fingertip down Charles’s cheek. “ _Kol beseder_ ,” he assures in his low rumble. “ _Ani mavtiach_.” Another word he doesn’t know how to translate. Images of ropes and wrapped boxes and locks and keys.

Charles certainly doesn’t see him as a _golden retriever._ A predator, _perhaps._ He’s not afraid, just... skittish, really. Reserved, maybe. He tries not to move when Erik touches him, but his skin warms under Erik’s fingertips, his breath catches again. The images don’t make much sense to him, though, and he blinks. Rope? Locks and keys? He sends what’s essentially a _question mark,_ and then follows it with — “Why are we here?” It’s not really a question for Erik. Charles looks out at the world around them, his face scrunched in concern and confusion.  
  
The shrug he gets in return tells him all he needs to know, which is what he knew in the first place. Instead of speaking, he tries to focus on images, on intent, to get across his meaning. Gesturing to his head, then to Charles's, then around them, between them. They both can't remember. Can Charles remember _anything_? Erik points at himself and shakes his head. He can't.

Charles shakes his head, too, but something else seems to be bothering him. For just a moment, Erik _hears himself_ — Charles repeating words back at him, seemingly at random. They’re not perfectly recalled, mostly just sound, because Charles didn’t understand them the first time. His face goes red again and he turns away.

Erik blinks and he holds up his hand " _Ha'et_ ," he murmurs, and Charles feels that electric _pull_ again. Stop-signs, yield, line-tape. Slow-down. Erik gestures for him to try again. " _Bevakasha_ ," he adds, doing his best to at least be polite about it and not demanding, although there is very much an _entitledness_ to his bearing, an expectancy that he can't quite wash out.  
  
Charles fidgets, now red as one of those stop-signs. He plays Erik’s voice again, as if a recording, and then overlays it, the reason he’d done it in the first place; he _likes_ Erik’s voice. There’s pleasure there, something electric and sparking and a bit anxiety-inducing, but not because he’s actually frightened. He doesn’t _understand_ what’s being said, really, but he hopes Erik will keep _speaking_ regardless.  
  
It makes Erik grin, laughing wholeheartedly, and he bounces on his feet-wanting to move forward, to touch, but not wishing to push Charles even further away. He holds out his hand instead. " _Ani mafgin raz'machbo_ ," he does speak, the words not particularly relevant, but Charles sees it-hollowed-out tree-rots stringed up lights, dusty plastic tables and chairs, and a rope leading upward into the beyond of thick-leaved canopies.

At that, Erik beams, and tugs a little, twice, a signal for Charles to _follow_. Back inside, across a long, sweeping expanse-this place isn't a mansion, it's a mountainside house with glass paneling letting in the sun and large struts keeping a wide balcony afloat over the edge, and sleek lines sloping the roof; but it's _large_ , and takes several moments to cross-built with two staircases, Erik leads them up the second, where they emerge into an expansive library. He does a little bow, extending his free arm like a magician after completing a trick.  
  
Charles laughs then, too, but mostly he’s in awe. He stares, wide-eyed, gaze darting between Erik and the books as if he’s trying to decide whether it’s real, and then he lets go of Erik’s hand only because he has to. He’s descending on the nearest bookshelf in an instant, running his hands reverently over spines, picking them up, turning them over, taking it all in. Erik has officially lost him. He’s even begun muttering to himself.

Erik lets him go, and migrates to his side, picking up a well-worn book from the top shelf far above Charles's head that's written in an alphabet unfamiliar, from right to left, he opens the book backwards where there are diagrams of planets and stars and nebulae and particles, atoms, interspersed with sloppy handwriting.

Charles peeks up, considering Erik is _up,_ halfway through flipping through the book in his hands. “Can I see?” he asks, forgetting for a moment that Erik can’t understand him, but his intentions are clear. He’s standing up on his tiptoes to see, even though he can’t read it. Always curious, perhaps nosy.  
  
" _Kamuvan_ ," Erik nods, and holds out the book to Charles's outstretched arms. There's an engraved-golden picture of a ringed planet on the sparse cover, but inside is a world of colorful galaxies and spinning universes. It's no wonder Erik was drawn to this-Charles has known him minutes, and already he _knows_ -this is _Erik's book_. It's his writing in the margins; question-marks corrections smiley-faces, exclamations. Many months holed up in his secret-secret-place, hoping this tome would whisper the dimensional secrets to him.

Charles hums to himself as he flips through it, gentle, awed, endlessly curious. He can’t read any of it at all, but he knows this has been _special_ to Erik, and so he cherishes it being shared with him. He smiles up at the man he’s found himself here with. “It’s lovely,” he murmurs, and sets it down just as gently, patting it as if it’s a living creature and not a _book_. He tugs on Erik’s arm, grinning. “What else?” he wonders. Nearly demands.  
  
That makes Erik smile brilliantly, and he picks up another book, this time in English. " _Nisiti kore, aval... lo behatzlacha,_ " Erik laughs, giving a shake of his head. The title reads _The Once and Future King_.  
  
Charles stares down at it, feeling something take him over. It wasn’t actually what he’d meant, but now he’s frozen and staring, completely unsure why he is. He’s not... upset, he doesn’t think. There’s no reason to be. He’s not remembering anything. But he reaches up, and there are _tears_ on his cheeks. Charles makes a soft noise of shock, looking up at Erik with alarm all over his face. “I don’t know why,” he insists, gesturing to them.  
  
Erik gasps, too. Like he's in tandem, and he reaches up without even thinking to brush away those tears with the pad of his thumb. " _Bevakasha lo atsuv_ ," he murmurs, enveloping him in the imagery of warmth; crackling fires, soft sweaters, rain plinking against windowsills, green plants arching toward light. He didn't mean to, whatever he did, he's sorry. He is.  
  
Charles shakes his head. “I’m not upset,” he promises, and tries to convey that, too, to send the message without words; surprise, shock, confusion. He doesn’t know why he’s crying. He just saw the book and all of a sudden the tears were there and he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t lean away from Erik’s touch this time, though it still startles him. “I don’t know it, but... I think I _know_ it,” he laughs, wetly, aware how silly it sounds. He tries to tell Erik that, too: knowing something without _knowing_ it, deja vu, something is familiar but... _not,_ too. Seeing something for the first time, but feeling like it isn’t.  
  
Erik lifts Charles's hands against, this time pressing them against his own heart, offering him a small smile. He thinks he knows what Charles means, and taps the cover to the book he'd shown first. Knowing without knowing, knowing that something _significant_ is occurring between those pages. It does not sound silly to _Erik_. Erik does not take Charles to be a silly, frivolous person. Even as cavalier as he himself is .  
  
Charles laughs, head ducked and skin warm again. He’s overwhelmed, but he doesn’t think it’s such a bad thing. When he raises his face, the tears are dried, not replaced, but there’s a gleam in his eyes. “Race?” he murmurs, and grins, looking for a _reaction._ He’s betting on Erik not knowing the word. He’s hoping he won’t.

He doesn't, of course, his head tilting to the side in evidence of this, but he _does_ see the gleam in Charles's eyes. And Erik _moves_ when he moves, _entirely_ a predator. His _own_ eyes gleam. " _Ma?_ " he asks for clarification, and it's unclear if he really needs it or not.

Well, it could be any _number_ of things, really. Charles is betting on Erik’s confusion, relying on it. He gently sets the book in his hands down, casual, slow, even, and then _grins._ In the next moment, he’s _dashing_ out of the library and down the hall, shouting, “ _Race_!” It’s silly, childish, and he’s _laughing._ He’s headed outside, and that he expects to _beat_ Erik there is obvious.  
  
And Charles is smart, and wily, and could run circles around Erik in a debate, as soon as Erik realizes what's going on it's almost superhuman, his long legs easily eating up the distance between them, and he even _jumps_ over a couch, veering headlong into Charles until he maneuvers at the last second, jumping off of the wall to give a little spin and land _right_ in front of Charles. He's grinning. "Race!" he repeats, _ever_ so smugly.  
  
Charles isn’t _out of shape,_ even as he’s much shorter and softer than Erik. He can certainly hold his own, when he feels motivated for those things. But something happens when he rounds the corner and Erik jumps in front of him, something that he can’t explain, because his first reaction is to _laugh breathlessly_ ; but then, after that — he blinks, freezes, and doubles over, gasping. “Erik,” he pants.  
  
He comes to Charles's side, touching his arm. "Charles," he repeats back, soft, ducking under him to meet his eyes. " _Ma kara?_ "

Charles _slumps_ against him, his eyes closed. “Dizzy,” he breathes, because he’s demonstrated that before, and perhaps Erik will remember the word. “I’m very dizzy, Erik.” It’s not world-shattering, really. He just feels a bit ill.  
  
"Di-zee," Erik repeats carefully, tucking a strand of Charles's hair behind his ear. " _Slicha_ ," he whispers again. He never meant to make Charles _sick_.

“Not you,” he promises, especially because it was _his_ idea. He reaches up for Erik, sheepish and embarrassed. “Can you... help?” he asks, and thinks of a couch, a chair, a bed. Any surface, really. Apparently he’s a bit fragile. “My head hurts,” he taps his own temple, hovering over it, wincing. “Ouch.”  
  
" _Atah rosh..._ " Erik touches his own head. " _Rosh?_ " he repeats, as if hoping maybe teaching Charles a _new word_ might distract him from what Erik can sense is obvious pain even without the pantomime. " _E'ezor? Li?_ " he looks a little confused and then points to the ground unceremoniously, and sits down, cross-legged, pointing at Charles. Him, too.  
  
Charles is already mostly _on_ the floor, and he nearly _pouts_ because he was really hoping for something he could _lie back on_ that _wasn’t_ the floor. It’s a bit dramatic, perhaps, but he flops and closes his eyes anyway. “Ow,” he sighs, and that groan is fairly universal. He fights to keep his hands at his sides, because apparently touching just makes it worse. It doesn’t even feel like _pain,_ if he’s honest. Just... unbearable pressure. “ _Rosh_...” He repeats, minutes late. He hums. “Mine? _Sheli_?” Is that right? He points to himself, eyes still closed. “ _Sheli rosh_?” A pause. “ _Rosh sheli_...?” Leave it to Charles to ask for a language lesson while fighting off a migraine. If this _is_ a migraine.  
  
Erik grins and nods. " _Rosh sheli_ ," he points at his head. " _Rosh shel atah-_ ," he points at Charles, easy and eager to acquiesce, even as his eyes squint and he _measures_ Charles, Charles's movements, every shift of his muscles and tendons, Erik _watches_. His hands come out to make a medium gesture as if that’s partially right. “ _Lo, rosh shelcha,_ ” he grins. He's sitting across from Charles and then shifts a little to sit beside him, nudging him shoulder to shoulder. He's sorry, he's sorry Charles is suffering.  
  
Well, Charles is _on his back_ at this point, eyes firmly closed, but he scoots a little closer, smiles weakly when their shoulders do touch. It’s comforting, even though he would have liked a _bed,_ perhaps, but it just makes him smile a little more. Their communication issues aren’t _insurmountable,_ at least. “It’s just a headache,” he sighs, though it’s quite a bit more than that. He considers. “Ice?” he asks, and doesn’t think to help Erik with that one. “Or a steak,” he laughs. “Frozen peas.” He sends _those_ images.  
  
" _Ma atah rotze steak?_ " Erik grins, because he _understood_ that word without the accompanying image, the only problem is he doesn't understand the context. There's been _food_ here all this time, but Erik's had a difficult time of it, a matter that he doesn't voice because he doesn't think to, it's just something Charles can pluck out of his mind. He doesn't have any memories, but he knows that some things are just _wrong_ , entirely wrong, he's made whole dishes before throwing them out, tried one bite and been unable to finish. There's no rhyme or reason for it that Erik can figure out. " _Yesh li afunah_ ," he adds, laying down on his back beside Charles.

Charles _giggles_ at that, quite an undignified snort, and then winces. “ _For_ my head,” he clarifies, and then realizes that won’t make any sort of difference, so he thinks instead. This comes _naturally_ to him. Tugging it from _Erik_ comes naturally to him. He’s curious about it, but not afraid. No one has taught him to be, no one has said _you will kill everyone if you don’t focus,_ well-meaning or otherwise. He thinks of peas pressed to his forehead, frozen in a bag; see? Cold. For the swelling. He doesn’t even think they will help, since he can’t _find_ a bump, but it was an idle thought in the first place.

Erik leaps up and holds up a finger, encouraging Charles to wait right there while he leaps and bounds back into the house. He goes to the freezer, collecting both a wrapped steak _and_ a bag of frozen peas before venturing back outside to find his new friend.

They never quite made it more than a few steps outside, so Charles isn’t very hard to find, flopped on the ground with his eyes closed. “Perhaps I’m better suited for the indoors,” he’s muttering to himself as he frowns at a rock that’s sticking him in the back. He’d considered going back inside, but Erik had told him to _wait,_ so... well, he did. He laughs at the offering, taking the peas and making a face at the steak. “It’s a bit... gross, isn’t it?” he grins, and thinks of things, to him, equally _gross_ : slime, gooey things, stuck between fingers and toes, spiders, blood, _apparently_ the sensation of grass on bare feet. They’re not exactly comparable, are even fairly random, but he sends the sensation, too. _Ick._

“ _Ick_?” Erik repeats the word audibly as he plots back down, and then eyes the steak, where blood has begun to soak the plastic. It turns his stomach a little. “ _Ani lo yachol ochel_ ,” he explains, spanning his fingertips over his mouth. “ _Ick_ ,” is his explanation with a nod.

Charles can’t help it. He covers his mouth with his hand, _laughing,_ soft little giggles, and the peas fall to the ground, _plunking_ softly. They were nice and cold, at least. He can’t stop, either, just lost to these peals of laughter, and he doesn’t _try_ to stop himself, wriggling around on the ground as he’s lost to... well, joy, really.

And of course it makes Erik laugh, too, beaming brightly as he bullies Charles to the ground (gentle, gentle) and gives him a pseudo-noogie across the top of his head before scratching playfully beneath his ears, curling him up in his arms. “ _Shalom!_ ” he grins and lets him go, flopping down beside.

Charles is easily startled, and he pouts as he’s touched that way, but he doesn’t curl away this time. He doesn’t get too skittish. There’s a lot he doesn’t understand, and that’s rather _frustrating,_ but besides the migraine, he doesn’t see too much here to be frightened of. Slowly, hesitantly, _shyly_ , he scoots until he and Erik are touching, rests his head down on Erik’s shoulder. “Ick,” he teases. He’s grinning so much his face hurts, dimples prominent.

And Erik being _Erik_ of course has to just poke his finger right into one of those dimples, his own eyes gleaming brightly. “ _Lo_ Ick,” he insists smugly, poking Charles all along the sides. “ _Lo, lo, lo!_ ”

Charles _laughs harder_ and pokes Erik with his sock-covered _toes,_ squirming this way and that. “ _Ick_!” he insists, and then _rolls away,_ as if he’s going to get far. “Don’t follow me!”  
  
Erik hops right up to his feet, crouching low, deadly like a viper, but he’s grinning all the while. “ _Ken!_ ” he opposes, darting forward to _poke poke poke_ once again, ever so playful. There's joy in this place, now. He'd been alone for so long, and his new companion is-even if they can't understand one another-there _is_ an understanding. They're building it.

Charles curls up into a little ball, his legs folded up into his chest and his head ducked in, too. He huffs in obvious defiance, _scowls_ up at Erik from his hiding place, except he’s very clearly hiding a smile. He’s having _fun._

Erik’s _head_ peeps inside, and he shakes off long, auburn curls out of his face. He’s got a bit of a beard, and his hair reaches his shoulder, contributing even more to the image of a _wild man_ living in the mountains. The stereotype isn’t far from the truth. “ _Peekaboo_ ,” he deadpans.

When Charles uncurls himself, there’s something else written all over his expression. Curiosity, perhaps. He sits up on his knees and then reaches out, and his hand is _shaking._ He doesn’t look afraid, or as if he’s in pain. He tilts his head, biting his lip, his hand halfway to Erik’s face.

Erik reaches back, brushing his fingertips over Charles’s outstretched hand. Not making a decision for him, or wrenching it to where he wants-even though he _could_ , and may even feel entitled to do so, it’s as though he’s giving Charles the space to explore instead. He can choose. This time.

Charles considers it _permission,_ taking a sharp breath before he touches Erik’s face. His fingers are shaking. He doesn’t do much, really, just lightly grazing his fingers over Erik’s cheek, up to his nose, down to his jaw. He smiles, amused, at the scratch of Erik’s beard. Thinks of razors, of _shaving._ Finds himself shivering and thoroughly ignores that, pink-cheeked and nervous.

He feels Erik’s smile against his fingertips again, and Erik gives his fingers a little kiss before they move away. At the thought of shaving he laughs outright. “ _Atah rotze?_ ” his eyebrows lift. Does Charles want him to? He will. “ _Ani lo yode’a eikh_ ,” he admits-which is the truth, but also, “ _Ta’azor li_ ,” he declares with a grin.

Charles grins. “Is it up to me?” he wonders, and tries to convey that, finding — things come _naturally,_ now. He can express himself without words fairly easily, and encourage the same from Erik, pull it from him. It’s convenient, but it’s also _ingrained,_ and he doesn’t seem frightened of it. Erik isn’t. “What does that mean?” he asks, tilting his head, pressing the _question_ toward Erik. He touches Erik’s jaw, shivering again and hoping Erik doesn’t notice.  
  
Erik just smirks and presses Charles’s fingers to his chin, sending the image of a _razor_ , between Charles’s fingers rather than his own. He doesn’t know how. He never did it before, the one time he tried hadn’t ended well. Blood on white tiles, mirrors staring at him, confusion. Alone.

It all washes over him slowly as he processes, and then he frowns. There’s _sadness_ , not just on his expression but _everywhere,_ lingering and cloying. “I’m so sorry you were alone,” he breathes, and he doesn’t need to translate that. The words don’t matter when the feeling is so _strong._ He hesitantly strokes fingers over Erik’s beard, biting his lip. “I could help?” he suggests, and sends the same image back. If Erik wanted. Does he? “I wouldn’t want more blood. Ick,” he laughs, but he’s achingly sincere. He wants — well, he doesn’t know. He can’t put it to words.

It makes Erik smile back, eyes crinkled and his nose scrunches up with it, an idiosyncrasy no one else but Charles has witnessed in this place-beyond-time where Erik woke up alone and didn't know what to do, with a man who wasn't awake, with a man he had to care for meticulously and _that_ translates; hospital beds and IV drips and clothing and bathing and _ensuring_. And that hasn't ended, Erik still feels that responsibility somehow. He nods, gathering the gist, and runs his fingers over Charles's wrist. " _Ken,_ " he answers, which is self-explanatory.

Charles shivers again. That’s apparently going to keep happening. “Why do you think we’re here?” he whispers, but he doesn’t even make an attempt to translate. Just looks at Erik, biting on his lip, feeling his heart _pound_ , touching so gently and slowly, shyly. His jaw, and back up again, looking _awed,_ transfixed.

Erik flutters a little, inhaling slowly through his nose, staying perfectly still as Charles slowly explores touching him. He doesn't know what Charles has said, no understanding in his eyes, but it doesn't matter. He doesn't need to understand, to _understand_. He knows, and he gives a shrug, a small headshake. He doesn't know. He wishes he did. But he is so very glad, that _Charles_ is here, too. He reaches his hand up, slowly resting his fingertips against Charles's cheek in return.

It makes him freeze up, but he _tries_ not to be too affected. He tries not to be too anxious. After a moment, he exhales and _leans_ into the touch, all but nuzzles into Erik’s hand. He closes his eyes and there’s a faint _tremble_ to him now. His own hand has dropped to his side.

Erik huffs a little, " _Kol beseder?_ " he asks, eyebrows lifted. His hand doesn't drop, and he catches Charles's in his other one. Caught. Completely.

It’s incredibly embarrassing, but Charles’ hand is shaking. His heart is beating too fast and too hard, his breathing is uneven. He keeps his eyes closed but nods once, small but resolute. He doesn’t really _know_ what’s happening to him, only that it is.

Erik swallows, looking uncertain, apologetic. " _Ani lo mach'iv?_ " he wants to know, to check-in; the last thing he _wants_ is to harm Charles. He doesn't understand it _himself_ , his _own_ reaction, why it matters so much, but it does.

Charles takes another shaky, unsteady breath, and nods again. Opens his eyes, finally, after he’s had them squeezed shut, and squeezes Erik’s hand instead. “I don’t know what’s happening,” he admits, laughing breathlessly, _feeling_ utterly breathless, but he locks everything in place and tries not to pull away. He isn’t being harmed. He isn’t _uncomfortable._ He’s just a little nervous, maybe, that’s all. He’s confused. He doesn’t know what this _is._

Something seems to shift in Erik as he creeps in closer, pressing Charles's hand against his heart, he recalls the word. "Submissive?" he whispers, smiling. He certainly doesn't seem to have a _negative_ impression about it at all. Quite the opposite.

“Submissive,” Charles confirms, and he _knows_ that, but he doesn’t precisely know what it means. What it entails. At all, really. He ducks his head, embarrassed, and worries more at his bottom lip. He doesn’t want to _ask,_ or tell Erik that, because it feels awfully silly and juvenile. Is that why he feels like this?

Head-shake, Erik tries again. "Submissive?" he points to his temple, and gently traces over Charles's. Submissive thoughts? Submissive mindset? He can feel it, shifting in the air, changing the molecules around him and he can feel himself responding in _kind_. He walks his fingers down Charles's neck, playful. " _Bevakasha, lo margish mevayesh,_ " he assures, soft. He certainly doesn't think it's embarrassing.

Charles _shudders,_ but promptly shakes his head though it’s quite obviously a _lie,_ flushed all the way up to his ears. “I’m not,” he protests, because he doesn’t want Erik to think he’s being... _weird._ He’s not. He doesn’t even understand what being submissive _is._ He’s not trying to do anything. “Sorry,” he whispers, and his lip is swollen from all the biting now. What _is_ a submissive thought? Was he having them? He shouldn’t be, right? Or should he? Shouldn’t he? He doesn’t know.

" _Lo,_ " Erik replies, his voice a low rumble that sounds almost otherworldly. " _Ze nayim_ ," he promises, and he taps his fingers over Charles's lip. " _Lo noges_ ," he says, and Charles feels his body _zing_ with electricity, and he promptly _stops_ biting at his lips, without conscious direction. With a direction that's come from some _one_ else.

Charles _gasps,_ and feels like the entire world has shifted. It has, really. He isn’t _frightened_ but he’s certainly startled, his head snapped up and his eyes wide, shifting on his knees. He’s suddenly hot all over, his skin prickling, his pulse racing again. “What’s happening?” he whispers, unsure if it’s to Erik or himself.

“ _Submissive_ ,” Erik repeats back in his thick accent, made all the more richer by the way it sinks lower in his chest. " _Lo ra_ ," he promises this. " _Ani ed'ag la'atah_ ," he adds, and his nail gives Charles's chin a light scratch, gentle as can be, _focusing_ his attention to Erik and Erik alone. Erik doesn't know what this is, either, in his chest, in his hands, everything is hot and floating. His mind has become so sharply attuned to Charles he can't even remember the weeks, months alone. None of it matters. He's a little strange, a wild man who eats cereal naked, but Charles was kind to him. It's the only thing he's ever known, truly, from another being. Nothing else but his thoughts, until Charles, and then it was there-the whole world, _a_ world, a different _being_. " _Nehedar_ ," he murmurs under his breath.

It isn’t saying much, considering how _new_ he is and feels, to say this is the most intense experience Charles has ever had even with nothing actually _happening,_ but it is. It almost certainly is. Charles is trembling all over now, his chest tight but not only with anxiety. He feels like he can’t breathe. He certainly can’t _think._ Everything is laser focused on Erik, on his touch, on his voice, deep and rumbling. He feels tugged, every part of him arched and leaned toward Erik, and it’s frankly overwhelming. “Erik,” he gasps, and he’s not sure what he’s trying to say. His breath hitches, he can’t get a good, solid breath in. He doesn’t think he’s _panicking,_ but he doesn’t quite understand, or know what to _do_ , wide-eyed and brand new. A truly blank slate. “Erik?”  
  
" _Kol beseder,_ " is the first thing Erik says, both hands framing Charles's face. He shoots up to his feet a few moments later, holding up his hand to silently insist Charles _stay_ where he is, knelt. " _Shehe,_ " he says, that otherworldly _snap_ to his words that Charles finds he can't disagree with, can't maneuver. Erik's knees bend a little so he can tuck a stray strand of Charles's hair behind his back. " _Kol beseder?_ " is his turn to ask, having followed the line on an electric-circuit instinct he didn't even realize he _had_ until he was doing it.

Charles doesn’t respond right away. He isn’t panicked, or harmed, or upset; he’s just well and truly _overwhelmed,_ trembling in earnest now, staring and trying to remember how to breathe. And then something seems to snap into place. His heart is still racing, his pulse is still kicked up, he’s still shaking and clearly overcome, but he _calms,_ too. Some, anyway. Erik’s voice, his touch — it grounds him, and he leans right into it, swallowing around the lump in his throat but _nodding._ He doesn’t know exactly what’s happening, or even what he’s _feeling,_ but he feels compelled and he doesn’t have a _reason_ to fight it. None. Charles sighs, his eyelids heavy, and looks up at Erik, a soft, hesitant smile on his lips. “I don’t know —“ He takes a breath, lets it out. “I don’t know,” he apologizes. He doesn’t know what to do. What this _is._ Does Erik?

For better or for worse, Erik has a clean slate. He simply doesn't have any real awareness of these things, of what _he_ can do, all he knows is that he _thinks_ it's related to Charles's submission-a submissive mindset, _subspace_ something he doesn't have the educational knowledge to describe, but it's clear from his voice and his expression that he's not worried-that it's not _dangerous_ or harmful to Charles. And moreover that he's pretty sure he _likes_ it. But Charles seems so nervous that Erik doesn't say that, he doesn't want to seem-overbearing. " _Gam ani lo yode'a,_ " he nods, giving a little shrug, but he tucks Charles's head against his leg as he leans against the 'wall'. " _Aval kol beseder,_ " he comforts gently. It's all OK. Charles is safe.

Charles is, by nature, _nervous._ Some of it was undoubtedly inspired or provoked or heightened by upbringing and trauma, reinforced and exacerbated, but some of it, quite simply, is just _him._ He’s prone to anxiety, to uncertainty, which often presents itself as quire the opposite. The difference is how easily he’s calmed now, especially like this. When Erik tucks him into his leg, Charles shudders and then _relaxes,_ sighs, a quiet, pleased noise. His eyes close and he stops trembling, just a slight tremor. He breathes easier, slower, more fully. When Erik’s fingers end up in his hair, he makes another noise, this one louder even as he flushes again. “This feels nice,” he murmurs, and it _does._ It feels very nice, actually. He doesn’t really understand it, but it’s wonderful.

Erik smiles, nose scrunching up again as his fingers slowly dig into Charles's scalp, massaging. He likes that Charles is calmer, he _likes_ that Charles _likes_ this. That he's able to do something in return, for the way _he_ feels, has felt since he met Charles, an expansion blooming in his chest, like he's getting bigger on the inside. " _Ken,_ " he agrees, and says more that Charles can't quite interpret, but the meaning is evident; calming words, soothing words, maybe even a story. A fairy tale remnant.

It doesn’t take much at all for Charles to settle nicely. He closes his eyes, murmuring soft nonsense himself, not words but sighs and mumbles of _pleasure,_ arching into Erik’s touch, into his voice, into — he’s not sure, exactly. There’s _something_ tugging him in, magnetic and electric, but at the moment he doesn’t question it. His eyes flutter, his breathing slows; almost as if he’ll just fall asleep like this. He’s waiting, in a sense, but not impatient or expectant or nervous. Just drifting. “Erik,” he sighs.

Erik is relaxing, too, falling deeper and deeper, and he trails his fingers down Charles's cheek and hooks one under his jaw, tilting his head up. " _Shalom_ ," he grins down, his voice barely a whisper as if afraid to pierce this moment; one that he finds he doesn't ever want to end. " _Yesh lecha nayim einayim_ ," he can't help but say, and images of the sky abound, the ocean, the rivers.

Charles looks a bit hazy, honestly, blinking slowly but snapping to attention when Erik Commands it. It’s just that he doesn’t quite understand. He smiles sheepishly, tilting his head to the side, pressing a soft question at Erik, the _concept_ of a question mark. He wants to know and listen and — something _else,_ really, that he can’t name, skin flushed with it.

Erik sends back an image-it's of Charles, outlined in a soft glow, as if that's Erik's perception of him. His eyes. Erik thinks they're nice. He laughs a little, ducking his head as if _he's_ embarrassed. He's not trying to make a play, or get Charles vulnerable, or flatter him. He just-it's nice. He can't help it; it's the kind of thought he wouldn't ordinarily say, but mostly Charles just picks up on it.

Charles hums, smiling shyly against Erik’s leg, glowing with it. There’s... reciprocation, here, impossible to miss. He finds _Erik_ beautiful, thinks of forests and tropical waters and the warmth of desert sun, though it burns him a bit. But there’s a twitch to his lips, amusement, just the faintest amount. “I didn’t think you were shy,” he teases, and doesn’t translate, but there’s the image of Erik’s ducked head. His eyes flutter again, as if he’s realized Erik didn’t _need_ him for anything, and that’s something he hasn’t consciously processed.  
  
Erik's eyebrows shoot up, and he shakes his head. Charles is wrong. Erik does _need_ him-he can't go, please. If he goes Erik will be alone again, and he isn't sure he can handle that again. He hadn't known anything different, but now he does, and he fiercely doesn't want to give Charles up. At Charles's thought, Erik's cheeks flush and he grins, even still, laughing quietly. Charles thinks that of him? It's silly, but he doesn't have any experience, it's not insecurity, exactly. He thinks he knows how Charles feels. Maybe a little bit shy. He's not accustomed to this, to- _this_. " _Kztat,_ " Erik puts his thumb and index finger together, still smiling. Maybe a little. Charles feels like the moon, soft and mysterious and gleaming, and Erik wants to be close to him.

It startles Charles, too, even unsettles him, but he shakes his head. That wasn’t what he’d meant at all. He doesn’t have the words or images to explain it, though, which is frustrating, a frown on his lips. “I meant...” He purses his lips, considering, and bows his head into Erik’s knee, shuffling even closer. “You weren’t _asking_ for anything.” He’s fairly positive Erik won’t catch onto that, but he’s not certain how to help him here — it’s just that if Erik had _wanted_ something from him, actively, he wanted to be... alert. If he’d asked him to do something, Charles wanted to listen and be aware. Now that it seems he isn’t, he’s drifting again. Is that... strange? He bites his lip, now thoroughly embarrassed himself. It’s just that Erik had called for his attention, so — it’s silly. He’s still not sure what’s happening, what he’s _feeling._

Erik seems to understand, at least as much as he can, and he huffs, shaking his head. It's not a refusal, more startled. As if he's just realized he _can_ ask things of Charles, and maybe Charles would- _want_ to do them. The _things_ he asked. Whatever they may be. Erik's thoughts are innocuous, a stray image of Charles beside him in the kitchen unfilters and Erik's head snaps up as if he's realized it's escaped, and then he grins again, tapping Charles on the nose. Imagery of metal, blades against skin. Different ways of-Erik can't put a name to it, but _Charles_ listening to him-" _Ta'azor li_ ," he repeats, eyes bright.

Charles considers something, biting his lip, scrunching his face up when he’s touched, but not because he’s upset. He’s feeling very warm, and very embarrassed, but he pushes through because Erik seems to be encouraging it. “Submissive?” he asks, and it’s not asking anything _specific,_ really. It’s just that he _knew_ that, but he realizes he doesn’t know exactly what that entails. Maybe it _is_ this. He lets his eyes close, drifting for a moment against Erik’s leg, letting himself. He’s still listening. If Erik asked something of him, he’d do it. He’d _want_ to.

* * *

Erik doesn’t hesitate, because he has no reason to hesitate, no reason to fear, no reason for _any_ of all of the deluge of negativity-even as a child, an eleven year old. He had that weight of responsibility he just doesn’t have here, he doesn’t even know. He doesn’t understand anything, perfectly new and easily molded. He follows his instincts, pulls Charles up easily and crowds in close, nudging him, _herding_ him toward the kitchen, back inside. Erik’s stomach rumbles loudly and he laughs. Easy, free. “ _Ani ra’ev,_ ” he mumbles, patting his own belly like a fat king.  
  
Charles laughs, too, but there’s something... not _wrong,_ exactly, he doesn’t think. He doesn’t know what it is. His lips are pursed and he stares down at his feet. “I’ll... help?” he suggests, but he feels strangely out of place, strangely unsettled, and it feels _silly._ _  
  
_“ _Ta’azor li_ ,” Erik nods, and holds out his hands for Charles to approach. He looks to the fridge and the next words out of his mouth aren’t precisely translated-vague imagery, specific ingredients, cutlery, but Charles feels it again zip up his spine, in that _tone_ that Erik uses that he doesn’t know he’s using, that Charles _cannot_ seem to resist obeying, no matter what.

It’s _nice._ It helps. Charles feels much less like he’s floating aimlessly, confused, out of place, and he does _focus_ on the task he’s given. He’s content, actually, smiling again, talking and sending images, shy and a bit hazy but not in a way that feels upsetting. Unfortunately for both of them, he’s _Charles,_ and when it comes time to chop vegetables he ends up slicing at his finger, too, hissing and immediately putting it in his mouth. The blood on the cutting board stops him in his tracks, and there’s not even _much_ of it. “Erik?” he whispers. He’s shaking.  
  
The knife _snaps_ up out of Charles’s hands and into Erik’s palm _instantly_ , causing Erik to _stare_ at it like it’s acidic, and it clatters to his feet. He moves to grab some paper towel and press it against Charles’s fingers, wrapping it up to stop the blood flow and _silently_ Charles knows to _be still_ and not move, to let Erik take care of him. “ _Ze beseder_ ,” he whispers, his mind a gentle swirl.  
  
“It’s just a small cut,” he murmurs, reassuring _Erik,_ wanting to calm Erik, too, but there’s something buzzing inside of him and he doesn’t understand it. This surely can’t be the first time he’s cut himself chopping carrots. Actually, he _knows_ it’s not, even without any specific memories. So why is the blood bothering him so much? He bites his lip. “Ick,” he mutters. “I’m sorry,” he adds, frowning, and it _sounds_ like an apology, even if Erik doesn’t remember the word.  
  
“ _Lo,_ ” Erik tells him sharply with a rap on the knuckles. “ _Soleach li. Ashma sheli, ani lo hibit._ ” He’s just rambling in full blown Hebrew right now, but Charles gets the gist. It is his fault. He wasn’t paying attention, he didn’t know. He brushes his fingers against Charles’s cheek, apologetic and standing _very_ close.

Charles’ eyebrows raise. “Are you blaming yourself because I nicked myself cutting vegetables?” he asks, and he manages to smile, quietly amused. “You couldn’t help that,” he assures, and slowly lifts his hand. It isn’t bleeding anymore. There’s barely a cut, actually. His heart is _racing,_ though, his pulse kicked up again, and he rubs at the knuckles Erik slapped, however gently, a question floating between them. What are they doing? What is this? Why does he feel overwhelmed again?  
  
Erik darts forward and _kisses_ Charles’s cut, and then grins. The _best_ medicine. He looks upward, head shaking. He doesn’t know. He feels drawn to Charles, but he doesn’t know why. There’s something between them, some kind of magnetic pull. Something inside of Charles- _submissive_ , and something inside of _him_. _Shalit_ , he’d named it. Dominant. But he hardly understands what that means. He doesn’t know what this is, but he wants to explore, to nudge. To play, even. It doesn’t have to be looming and glooming and terrifying and a guillotine above them. Whatever it is, whatever they are, _why_ they’re here. So far they don’t seem to be in _danger_. And Erik-he’s been alone. Alone, and that makes a person crazy, that drowns out your mind. He only just now feels like he’s slowly coming back. Startled of the outside world. “ _Lo yode’a_ ,” he whispers, apologetic. Still.  
  
“I’m not afraid,” Charles assures, and the truth is he _isn’t._ It’s not false bravado, it’s not huffed or a half-hearted lie. It’s true. He’s confused, he’s a bit overwhelmed, he’s not _certain,_ and he’s certainly curious, but he’s not afraid. That translates, somehow, without the need for whatever abilities he has, and he reaches, slowly, for Erik’s hand. He questions everything, he’d _like_ to understand it, but he doesn’t fear it in the meantime. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, biting at his lip again. “I just get...” He gestures, vaguely, and does his best to convey the meaning, too. Worked up. Anxious. Chest tightening, hands shaking, a lump in the throat. He’s not sure why. “But you’re not alone anymore, Erik,” he promises, and when he looks up and meets Erik’s eyes, there’s no ambiguity. The meaning is clear, and he’s _sincere.  
  
_ Erik lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “ _Lo levad? Mavtiach?_ ” he whispers, pressing his own fingertips to his mouth with his free hand. His other grips Charles’s tightly. Charles is not afraid of him? He doesn’t think Erik has anything to do with this? With where they are, with what happened? He doesn’t. He doesn’t know, either. He wishes he did. So he could- _do_ more. Charles is-Erik has taken care of him all this time, and he will _keep_ doing so. _He_ promises.  
  
Charles’ eyes widen and he shakes his head, and that’s the truth, too. There’s none of that here. Charles _knows,_ somehow, that Erik isn’t some _captor,_ holding him here. He’s confused, too, displaced, too, and he’s _lonely._ “I’m not afraid of you,” he promises, earnestly, and squeezes Erik’s hand. He stares down between them. “I’m only sorry you had to take care of me like that, I’m sorry you were _alone_ ,” he whispers, and doesn’t quite know how to make Erik understand that. There’s _guilt,_ though. Regret. “ _You_ must have been afraid.”  
  
Erik’s lips press together and he nods, ducking his head so Charles doesn’t see his eyes mist up without his permission. Whatever hold he has over Charles evidently does not extend to himself. If it did he wouldn’t be _crying_ , but it’s a gateway. He woke up here, alone, and someone else was here, but they wouldn’t wake up. And Erik never knew what to do, he fumbled his way through. “ _Nisiti tipul_ ,” he rasps, vivid green eyes focused on Charles again, even if they are a little red-rimmed. He doesn’t know how to press _back_ , but he tries, tries to sharpen his thoughts so Charles can see. He _can_ see. Erik doesn’t know how, but it’s-magnificent. Wondrous. He tries to think, Charles should never feel guilty for that. It wasn’t his fault. Erik knows.  
  
Charles doesn’t need Erik to do anything. He can just — _hear._ See. Sometimes it’s sharper, sometimes it gets muffled or blurry or even completely quiet, and it frustrates him, but it isn’t so bad. When he focuses, it’s better, and he _wants_ to focus now. He wants to understand Erik now. He stands up on his tiptoes, gently tugging Erik down some so he can wipe away the tears, and then, rather suddenly, he _hugs_ Erik. He doesn’t know why. He’s trembling a little. “It’s alright, Erik,” he promises, smiling where he’s now pressed rather firmly into Erik’s chest. “It’s alright. You aren’t alone now. I’m awake. Okay? Whatever this is, perhaps we can figure it out together.” Erik doesn’t need to know the words, exactly. Surely he’ll pick up on the _sentiment._ _  
  
_Erik _gasps_ and hugs back instantly, burying his head in Charles’s shoulder and rubbing his back, mindful of his finger where it’s now tucked in-between them. Human contact. He’s been deprived, touchy and invasive and brushing up against him, mind and body. But he can’t help it. He’s not alone anymore. “Oh kay,” he whispers back, trying his luck at Charles’s language with a grin.  
  
It makes Charles smile, too, pleased. He doesn’t pull away from Erik, but he does mumble, “Please don’t step on the knife you threw onto the floor.” It’s teasing, but he’s _worried_ , too; Charles is prone to fretting, apparently. He pauses, then points, vaguely since Erik is mostly in the way, at said knife. “Knife,” he repeats, curiosity just _pinging_ off of him. It’s silly, but already it’s becoming a game — what’s _Erik’s_ word for it? How long will he indulge Charles’ curiosity? He may wish he _were_ alone again, soon.

But Erik just seems incredibly pleased, rocking back on his heels. He waves his hand at the knife on the floor, but it doesn't do anything. He _knows_ it flew into his _hand_ , he _saw_ it. He isn't _crazy_ , is he? For a second he looks worried himself, fretting. This in-between place, with just them, no memories. Charles can think and make the pictures appear in his head, and curl against his consciousness like warm apple cider, cinnamon and honey twined, Erik can move things with _his_ mind. Sometimes. He's not crazy, right? Has he been alone so long he's imagined Charles is here like this? He's seen people before. He's talked to himself, drew on the walls, danced on his head. _Certifiable_ stuff. But all that melts away when Charles points at the knife and says his word for it. How could Erik learn a new language if he were alone? Charles promised. He _promised_. " _Knife_ ," Erik repeats thickly. " _Amarnu sakin_ ," he points at it. " _Sakin_ ," he repeats as he's aware he said a few things there, a smile unconsciously on his features. He will indulge it as long as humanly possible. His new friend.

Charles seems oblivious to what’s happening in Erik’s head, proving that perhaps _his_ abilities are limited, too, but he doesn’t know any better. He just grins, pleased with Erik is _playing along,_ and quite happy to engage with his _new friend,_ too. It’s abundantly clear the feeling is mutual. He points at the counter, at the carrots he was chopping. “Carrots,” he murmurs. “Cut,” he makes a slicing motion with his hand, and then laughs. “I,” he points at himself. “Cut the carrot with the knife.” It’s not like Erik will _learn_ this way, exactly, but it’s.. fun. Light. He pulls back and lifts his finger, the cut barely visible. “And my finger,” he adds, sheepish. He bites his lip. “Submissive,” he points at himself, and Erik has heard this word before. He points at Erik. “Dominant.” And, then, with his cheeks very pink, and no intention to translate, “Beautiful.”

Erik seems to _follow_ , though, his mind a whirl a thousand miles a minute, a raging hurricane made in sparks and fire. He grasps it. “You cut carrot knife, _ve_ finger _shelcha_ ,” he tries, forming the words imperfectly, but it’s _there_. “ _Submissive._ Dominant.” And then-“beautiful?” his eyebrows raise, pointing at himself. A word about him? Curiosity plinks against Charles’s mind like little raindrops.

And Charles goes even redder. “I’m hungry,” he announces, and pats his own stomach, mimicking Erik from before. It’s the first time he’s _denied_ Erik something, and he fidgets with it, _feeling_ a little unsettled. Turning back to the vegetables he was cutting, slightly bled on now. They probably can’t eat those. “What’s next?” he asks.

“ _Lo_ ,” Erik rumbles and _tugs_ Charles back, something _snapping_ through the room that _cannot_ be denied. Erik’s _Will_. His intent. “ _Haged li_ ,” he demands, and it zings right through Charles, _pulling_ the words from his mouth. Erik is almost over-eager. Charles has a thought about him? And he hides it? Unacceptable.

Charles _squirms,_ flushed and embarrassed, and the truth is he doesn’t even know _how_ to share this. He thinks of what he did before, outside, knelt at Erik’s feet — of forests, and desert sun, and far-off waters. Thunder rumbling in the distance, the sound of Erik’s voice. Erik is... _attractive,_ to him. It’s there and he certainly can’t hide it. Charles suddenly wishes he could dissolve into the floor, his heart is beating so fast.

That makes Erik gasp aloud, just a soft little noise. His fingers go from Charles’s hand to the inside of his wrist, stroking gently, and he tugs Charles even closer. “Beautiful,” he repeats in English, his voice a low lilt. “ _Nehedar_ ,” in his language. Charles is the moon and the sky in mid afternoon and the wide expanse, and Erik wants to learn, wants to know, wants to see. If Erik is the sun, Charles is the moon, and he cannot help being drawn. How he can’t help. His head shakes. No embarrassment. None. He is unashamed in reciprocation.

Charles glows, trapped in Erik’s orbit, but he frowns slightly, too, after a few moments of floating. “The moon?” he asks, and sends the image of it, the way he sees it; cold, barren, not much more than a floating rock in the grand scheme of things. Fascinating for what it is, perhaps, but only fleetingly. Maybe it’s teasing, underneath. He isn’t quite _offended_ , but there’s obviously something else happening here, and he looks down at where Erik strokes at his wrist, clearly fighting the urge to pull back. He doesn’t feel _uncomfortable_ , just — he shakes his head, uncertain. His next breath is particularly shaky.

Erik shakes his head. Not cold. Skittish. Revealing only parts of itself, showing up in full only when the Earth is ready for it. Revered, _instrumental_. Tides shifting and pulling against the water, the deep-dark, the azure skies spreading out above, the sight of the moon in afternoon, the locked-orbits. Not barren. Not cold. Mysterious and magical and intricate, Erik always watched the moon, every night since he’s been here. Ran through the desert plains, and found streams with thick green reeds, and thought that he should be alone here, with no one to share this beauty. He knows he is hot. Hot-headed. Hot-tempered. _Physically_ hot, too. His temperature; even standing next to Charles, he can feel it. No offence was ever intended. Erik’s regard is deep, and pure, and genuine. The moon pairs with the sun. He isn’t so sure he’s the sun, he isn’t so sure he’s quite comparable, but he would try. He would try if he could be up in the sky with its partner. It’s silly, it’s born of _illness_ , mental, the mind-shrinking-solitude. Solitary. Please don’t leave me. I’m sorry.

Charles’ eyes widen, because he doesn’t understand or hear _most_ of that, but he catches enough. He understands enough, and more than that, he _feels_ it. It leaves him winded and overwhelmed and reeling and he doesn’t know what to do except to hug Erik again, taking shaky, uneven breaths. Why was Erik alone here? What left him here, what _brought_ him here? Who? Why is no one else around? He doesn’t have the answers, and he’s not asking Erik. He just takes a sharp, painful breath and shakes his head. “You’re not alone now,” he promises again. “I’m sorry you’ve been alone for so long, but you aren’t anymore. I —“ He wants to say he can’t imagine, except he _can_ because he feels it and it _hurts._ It hurts, and he doesn’t understand that hurt, he doesn’t understand because it isn’t his but it twists in his belly, thick and heavy and aching. He whimpers.

Maybe he was alone here because he was meant to care for Charles, to make sure he woke up, to make sure he was all right. Erik does not begrudge that one bit, because he did. He bathed and clothed and fed and made sure he had blankets and books and television, and Erik talked to him, telling him stories made-up and far-beyond. He’s not sad. He’s not afraid. He’s a little scared. Scared that this is all a dream, scared that it isn’t and Charles will leave him. He doesn’t want to guilt Charles into staying. If he has to go, that’s OK. Erik can stay here, he will live. He will run along the desert plains and bathe in the stream and eat cereal stark naked in the corridors. He _will_. He just hopes maybe Charles wouldn’t mind being with him. For a while longer. “ _Lo, lo._ ” It’s not Charles’s pain to bear. And as he’s seen Charles in full bloom, Erik’s pain has entirely eased, stones broken apart in his chest to melt into oblivion.

It puts Charles in a very _vulnerable_ situation, but he isn’t thinking about that. He’s being wracked by full-body tremors, shivers, cold to the touch but he’s just — _hurting._ He’s never felt this before. He doesn’t remember it, anyway, because he doesn’t remember anything. Charles grabs onto Erik’s shirt, the one he’d made him put on earlier, and he _sobs_ into Erik’s chest. “Ouch,” he whispers, trying to help Erik understand. It worked before.

“ _Kol beseder_ ,” Erik replies back, head-shaking, eyes-wide. “ _Lo_ ouch,” he promises. He won’t let it hurt. He’ll _banish it_. He pats Charles’s chest, touching his cheeks and bopping him on the nose a little. Taking him in his arms, rubbing his back. Hoping that this pain isn’t because of him. Charles seems to see. To feel. Erik doesn’t want that. Not to see and feel all the things. All the ways he went crazy, drawing faces on the wall, ranting and raving, pulling his own hair out. Yelling, yelling at _Charles_ , screaming at the sky. Erik’s head ducks and he can’t help it, he’s crying. He’s sorry, he’s sorry.

“Why?” Charles cries, and he doesn’t know who he’s asking. He sniffles, trembling and still in Erik’s arms, cold and nauseous, his head pounding and spinning. “Why were you _alone_? Why?” Why didn’t he wake up? Is he sick? Is something wrong with him? Where are they? Why are they here? He wasn’t afraid, but now he’s scared. There’s a harsh, heady spike of it, projected enough that _Erik_ feels it. Why? He hides his face, covers it, not wanting to be touched like that. Or wanting to be? He doesn’t know.

Erik shrugs. He doesn’t know. The real answer is complicated, layered and hidden from Charles himself even as he originated it. Erik snaps up his fingers though, not letting him turn away and hide. “ _Lo_ ,” he denies, sharp, and Charles feels it across his knuckles, too. Erik kisses them moments later. He doesn’t know where they are. But it’s going to be OK. They are going to survive. They are going to figure this out. One way or another. It seems safe right now. It’s safe, and Erik will _keep_ it that way. He will _protect_ Charles. A soft almost-growl emits from him. At the thought of anyone harming him. It will _never_ happen. The knife _flies_ up off the ground and _shoots_ right into Erik’s outstretched palm, and he stares down at it, incredulous. “ _Charles, ma ze?_ ” he whispers.

Charles gasps, pulling back with tears all over his reddened face, startled and fascinated and _awed._ But he smiles. “You,” he whispers back, sounding fond and pleased, and he grins as he takes the knife from Erik’s hand. Wraps his fingers around it. “Knife,” he laughs. “I don’t think you’ll need this to protect me, but thank you.” And he’s not mocking, is the thing. He _means_ it. Erik makes him feel as if he truly might be safe, even as he wipes his face (with the arm _holding_ the knife, an accident waiting to happen) and sniffs again, still feeling the echoes of pain. Of _ouch._

Erik is still shaken and he wraps his fingers around the knife, depositing it instead on the counter. “You not...scare?” he tries in terribly broken English, but it’s effective. Not scared of _Erik_? After what he just saw Erik could do? _Move_ things. He doesn’t quite understand. Charles’s gift is beautiful. His is... not a gift. Scary. Erik wont need a knife to defend Charles, that very much is true. He will fight with his fists and teeth until any enemy is destroyed. That resolve is clear and shining as a beacon, the ring of a bell between them. Charles is safe, here. With him. Erik reaches up slowly, wipes the tears off of Charles’s cheek. “Please,” he adds.  
  
“Yours is wonderful, too,” Charles promises, because it _is._ He’s not frightened by it, and he shakes his head, sending the sentiment full and bright between them. Erik is sometimes... startling, passionate in a way Charles doesn’t know how to respond to, _wild,_ even, but he isn’t at all frightened by him. He isn’t frightened of Charles, is he? So whatever purpose they’re here for, whatever or whoever put them here, it seems they’re against those odds together. Charles squeezes Erik’s hand, and offers a watery smile. “ _Bevakasha_?” he asks, trying the word out on his tongue.

Erik laughs, his grin immediate, shedding years of worry off his face. “ _Ken_ ,” he replies, terribly pleased. Charles wants to learn _his language_. He wishes he remembered, remembered where he came from, his cultural history, but he doesn’t. Charles doesn’t scare him. He’s just lonely. And Charles is here, and now-now he isn’t alone anymore, and it means more than he can possibly say. And this person who has awoken before him-Erik doesn’t know who he _was_ , what he _liked_ , what kind of people were his friends or not, but he knows _this_ man, Charles-how did he exist alone? He must have been _alone_. Even in his other life. A life without this-without him. Erik grins back. " _Lam'a?_ " he says in his own language, poking and prodding, playful. " _Lam'a ma?_ " he asks, and that's easy enough to translate. Erik wants to know why _what_ , and what _Erik_ wants to know, Charles is coming to learn that Erik _will_ know. He will run at the problem until it bends. He will gently curl Charles up between his fingers, until the answers appear through feathered hands. Not forcible, not terrifying. Something else. Erik will know.

Charles takes a harsh breath. He feels, frankly, _exhausted._ Dizzy again. His head hurts. He leans against Erik, rubbing at his eyes. “Ouch,” he tells Erik, quietly, but almost grinning. He doesn’t think he should try to hide it, not when Erik seems capable of pulling it out of him — and that doesn’t scare him, either. He wonders if it should. He raises his hand between them, showing Erik. “Why?” he wonders, rather abruptly, pouting. He presses the question, knowing Erik likely won’t pick up on the word yet.  
  
Erik wilts a little, embarrassed. " _Ani lo yode'a_ ," he whispers. He's sorry. He didn't _mean_ to-mean to hurt, frighten. It's instinct. Keep Charles on track. Focus his attention. _Erik_ is saying something. Do not disregard it. Do not insult himself, try to let go of guilt for something he did not do. Do not say bad things-not about himself, Erik doesn't know how to countenance that. And so he did that, a correction, a shift in the right direction. In the moment. He's sorry. Please, he won't, he won't do it again, and he laughs, looking away. He sounds so trite, so-was that his role? Before? Did he hurt people? Did he hurt people and say sorry?

Charles blinks, startled by Erik’s _response_ more than he was the action in the first place. Gently he tugs on Erik’s sleeve so he’ll look at him again, shaking his head. He’s flushed. “You can do it,” he whispers, biting his lip. He looks down again. “I just wanted to know _why._ ” It sounds silly, now, but it’s the truth. He just didn’t know.

Erik's head bobs a bit and his eyes snap down to Charles with that tug, and he bats Charles's hand a little to get him to _stop_ biting his lip. He doesn't know why, he really doesn't. " _Lam'a submissive?_ " he whispers back in response. He just is.  
  
Charles shakes his head. That doesn’t feel equivalent. He’s not _that_ silly; he knows that some things simply _are,_ though he also knows there must be some reason, too, biologically, _scientifically._ But this, there must be a reason for. A behavior, an action. He doesn’t think it’s _bad,_ or wrong — but he wanted to know. There’s so much he _doesn’t_ know about this, and he’s just curious. “It doesn’t harm me,” he tells Erik, shaking his head again, smiling up at him so he’s reassured. He squeezes Erik’s hand, and hesitates a moment before biting his lip again. It makes him feel _anxious,_ like he knows he’s doing something... wrong?

“ _Dai_ ,” Erik murmurs, raising an eyebrow at him. He’s a little too self-conscious to _repeat_ himself, but the intention is clear. Charles had better _stop_ it, _now_. " _Ani lo yode'a lam'a mitnaheg tzura ze_ ," he admits, but that much is obvious already. " _Ba li ze begin shalitim, ani... ba li me'aletz lehavtiach atah,_ " he points at Charles, jabbing his finger a little as if to insist, even if he doesn't quite know what he's insisting. _non è/il tempo di pensare/non è/il tempo di pensare/non è/il tempo di pensare..._ Little earworms wriggling around in his brain, but Erik _does_ have an analytical side, a curious side that he's happy to indulge. _He_ thinks that it's due to his Dominance, he's more apt to notice when things aren't... _right_. According to him, which he supposes is arbitrary. But it feels like when he _does_ something like that, it's because he's bringing the world back into alignment.  
  
Bringing the world back into alignment. Balancing scales, rows lined up. It makes _sense_ to him, and Charles feels... safer for it, he thinks. Knowing that if things _do_ tip out of balance, out of place, Erik will see it and correct it. There’s comfort in that. There’s also curiosity, and Charles has never been able to _resist_ his own curiosity. He waits a few moments, as if he’s deeply considering, and then tugs his lip back between his teeth, glancing up at Erik.

Well _that_ just feels intentional, and Erik grins, unconsciously reaching over to give him a _solid_ rap on the knuckles. " _Dai_ ," he rumbles, sounding a little less _composed_ and a little more harsh, unyielding, _strict_. Certainly not angry, though, judging by the slight hook upwards of his lips and the gleam in his eyes.

Charles stops. It’s really as simple as that; he wanted to see what sort of reaction he’d get in the moment, and he got one. He _does_ yelp at the attention to his knuckles, though, pulling them close to rub at them, pouting. “Ouch,” he declares, though it hadn’t actually hurt much at all and that’s fairly obvious. He’s being _dramatic.  
  
_ " _Ouch_ ," Erik grins, and gives a little shrug, as if he's completely innocent, which he _is_. At least in terms of danger. To _Charles_. And Charles gets the distinct impression that is _not_ so for anybody else, even though neither he nor Erik could possibly explain why. Charles woke up entirely cognizant, but he'd thankfully, blissfully been asleep and not on the tail end of an enormous-space solitary confinement. Of course he could have left, but drag this man around, wheel him around a mountain? No, Erik stayed. It was his duty, something _magnetic_ pulling him in. Erik is still finding his _mind_ is rebooting, coming alive, back online. And he's noticed especially his fondness for little trinkets. His hidey-cave has many of them strewn all about, but Erik selects a small, folded metal flower to present to Charles, curling his fingers over the intricate construction. " _Ani meyatzer la'atah_ ," he proclaims proudly. He had. The first day they 'met', when Erik had awoken, the metal called to him and he'd shaped it to this, hoping one day to give it to his friend.

Charles stares down at the offering, his eyes wide and now misted over. He can’t fully explain the reaction he’s having, but it’s _intense,_ practically overwhelming in a way he has no explanation for. He sucks in a tight breath. “It’s beautiful,” he tells Erik, and takes it gently, cradling it in his hands. It’s completely honest, completely earnest. He holds it to his chest and closes his eyes, utterly affected. “Erik?” he asks.

Erik isn't sure if that means Charles doesn't like it, but he puffs up his chest anyway, exuding bravado even in the face of rejection, and smiles genuinely. " _Ken,_ Charles?"

Oh, he _likes_ it. It all unfolds for Erik after a moment, how very obviously he does; amazement, and fondness, and fascination. He loves this little trinket, and will certainly treasure it, holding it tightly to his chest and refusing to let it go except to stare at it, in wonder, as if gauging if it’s real. “I don’t remember, but…” He bites on his the inside of his _cheek_ this time, instead, looking for words, and more than that, searching for feelings. He doesn’t think he had many _friends,_ wherever he came from. He doesn’t know for certain, but he thinks he can say it fairly confidently. Erik is the _only one_ here, but he feels as if he knew loneliness before they were put in this place. “I --” He shakes his head. It _means_ something to him, is what he’s saying. It’s _felt,_ and for just that brief moment, Erik can feel it, too. Warmth, appreciation.

Charles swallows. “I fear I won’t be a very good friend,” he laughs, and some insecurities are natural, perhaps. They exist, and get played upon by others, built up and over themselves, exacerbated as time goes on. But some of them are there for those that seek to prey on them to find, already existing, innate, and this is apparently one. Charles looks down at his feet, and he doesn’t translate himself. He’s frowning.

Erik touches his cheek, eyebrows knit without comprehension. " _Haged li_ ," he asks, but it's still in that _tone_ , the one that zips up over Charles's spine and melts down into his chest, the idea of resisting a faint fever-dream. Erik's countenance is soft, but the _Order_ , let's face it, is clear as anything, in his mind as well. For Charles to tell him about it. Not to hide behind English. Erik will learn, he will get better. But now he relies on Charles, and he wants to know.  
  
Charles doesn’t _know,_ exactly, how to show Erik. He tries, because he can’t imagine _not_ trying when he’s asked that way -- is it asking at all? It doesn’t feel like it. Either way he closes his eyes and breathes, his hands clenched tightly at his sides now. It’s just that he’s not sure what he has to _offer._ He can’t make flowers out of metal, not that he knows of. He’s not very fast. He seems to be weak in some ways, fragile, prone to those horrible migraines. These all come in a series of images, and then, finally, he thinks of himself lying there, all that time, Erik waiting for him to come to life -- he can’t live up to that, surely. Does Erik actually want him as a friend, or is it just that he’s been so lonely he’ll take _anyone_?

Erik's lips press together as understanding creeps into his eyes, and at the very least he appears to be contemplative about it, not outright dismissive or reassuring. He nods a bit. He doesn't know the difference, he doesn't think. He was waiting so long, and sometimes he did _imagine_ Charles to be a certain way, mostly a reflection of his consciousness to bounce ideas off of; but he also thinks that if he didn't _like_ Charles-that he is _capable_ of having disliked Charles, if Charles were-rude, unfriendly, mean, violent. Erik would have preferred the loneliness to living with a person he _disliked_ in that way. He doesn't know how to be anything but honest. Maybe on some level he is predisposed to look for Charles's better qualities, because he really _wants_ a friend. But at the same time, those qualities _are_ there. They aren't made up. Erik didn't make him up. He's real. He _is_. Erik isn't crazy. Not crazy, he's not. " _Lo,_ " he whispers.

Charles nods himself, looking down at the floor. At his feet. “I want a friend, too,” he admits, mostly under his breath, mostly for _himself,_ but he imagines Erik will know what he means. He doesn’t hide it. He doesn’t want to be alone here, either. He doesn’t want to be alone _at all._ There’s something inside of him reaching, and he’s a little nervous about it, but eager, too. "Don't speak too soon," he teases, and when he lifts his head, there's a half-hearted grin there.

It makes Erik smile at him, dizzy and sunny and bright, as if the whole world has opened up again, and he presses Charles's hand to his chest, the one with the metal flower inside. Charles doesn't need to make him things, or offer him anything. Just company, just his mind, his spirit. Erik doesn't know much, doesn't ever _remember_ having a friend, but it seems to him like that's the most important thing. Maybe Erik isn't just too confident in himself, relying on gifted trinkets to speak on his behalf instead. " _Lo_ ," he rumbles deeply. "I speak."

It makes Charles _grin_ , strangely, and he shakes his head. He stands up on tip-toes just so he can put his finger to Erik’s lips. “No speaking,” he protests, looking _very_ satisfied with himself. "You shush."

Erik lets out a huff, possibly even a giggle, and bats Charles's hand away, instead _trapping_ it against his own chest, leaning forward so that Charles has nowhere to go, so little space between the countertops and the heat of Erik's body- _literally_ , heat, warmth. Charles can feel it even without touching him. " _Lo,_ " he murmurs, lowly. Charles doesn't tell him what to do. _Erik_ tells. Charles listens.

It’s more than he bargained for. It’s probably more accurate to say it’s exactly what he bargained for, but he didn’t expect the _effect_ it would have on him. How intense it would be. Charles squeezes his eyes shut, feeling incredibly childish and very silly but his breathing has stopped again, or at least it _feels_ like it has. His heart is in his throat. Will this happen _every_ time? Is this normal? He’s shaking again, just slightly but enough for it to be _visible._ Does Erik think he's an idiot, getting all worked up every time he -- what? What is he even doing? What is Charles _responding_ to?

" _Lo martit,_ " Erik rubs at Charles's arms, working out those tremors as best as he can, his own eyes practically in slits as he regards Charles and he forces himself to open them again all the way. He isn't sure what this- _is_. What this _drive_ is, what it's driving _toward_ , he just knows that there are some things-he is _compelled_ to rise up against, to swat down, to put _back_ in place. And Charles is one of those things. He tucks Charles's head underneath his chin, this time stepping close enough to actively wrap him up in his arms, another instinct born from seeing Charles essentially become _distressed_ even if he isn't emotionally harmed. It's not embarrassing, or childish, or silly. " _Gam ani_ ," Erik taps his own chest. He's going through the same thing, and he feels just as silly. But it's not. It's just-how they are.

Charles murmurs something against Erik’s chest, hardly words. Just noises, half-unsettled and half-comforted, and he takes another deep breath. “It feels like too much,” he whispers, and shows images: a balloon too full, close to popping, pots boiling over, objects crammed in too small a box, a space. Too full, too overwhelming. It’s _not_ too much, but it feels like it. He just gets a bit overwhelmed. He doesn’t really know what to do. “You too?” he asks, incredulous, peering up at Erik.

" _Gam ani_ ," Erik repeats again, nodding down at Charles before tucking him right back. It does feel _too much_ , at times, big- _big_ feelings swooping down in on him before he has a chance to catch his breath, but Erik just has to go with it, and his mind is an expanse, blown wide open. Daffodils peeling out into the sky, dandelion-puffs buffeted by the wind. He can get lost there, sometimes. And then he crashes back, it falls over him like cold water, shocking his nervous system, and he's afraid- _afraid_ sometimes, to act on it, like it's-destructive, or- _dangerous_. He feels _wild_ , he feels intrusive, he feels like what he _wants_ is pure disrespect for Charles's _agency_ , and he doesn't know, either. So he just drips out, a little at a time, exploring. Searching.

Charles hums, considering that. He stays in Erik’s chest this time, shaking his head. “I don’t think you’re dangerous,” he breathes, and the meaning is clear because it spreads right out from him -- he _doesn’t._ He doesn’t know Erik, really, but he knows that, as childish as it is, they’re friends. Erik won’t harm him. Erik won’t take from him, not anything he doesn’t willingly offer. He doesn’t know _how_ he knows, exactly, but he does. “I’m afraid, too,” he admits, almost as an afterthought. He helps Erik understand, sending over that _spike_ of uncertainty, of _fear_ he’s felt, the few times he has. Not of Erik, but of himself. Who is he? What sort of person? What does he need? Is it weak, or silly, does it make him lesser? Why does he sometimes get gripped by that _anxiety,_ that tightening in his chest? Does _Erik_ think less of him for it, or will he?

As Erik perceives each of these things his head shakes. No, he would never. It isn't weak. Not to him, not to _anyone._ He can't imagine anything stronger than being able to trust someone-someone in Erik's position, the way Charles has done. He is _strong_ , not weak, and Erik does his best to send back corresponding feelings-sensations-images. He is not _lesser_. Erik will not allow him to talk about himself that way. He _won't._ He runs his fingers down Charles's chest as if to soothe away that uncertainty, that tightening. Erik likes him, a good deal. And he's scared, he doesn't want to overstep. But it's OK to be afraid. They will handle everything that comes, _together_. No hiding, no fear, no estrangement. Erik has him.

Charles pouts, and there’s a sense of _indignance,_ shoved right into Erik’s consciousness. “It was not that fast!” he protests, huffing. It wasn’t a very _long_ time, but even still. He scowls at the knife, now sat innocently on the counter. “It’s your fault,” he mutters at it, but he can’t hide his grin, either.

Erik _laughs_ , full on. " ** _ **Lo!**_** " _Charles_ was the one who cut himself! He blanches a little at that thought and kisses Charles's finger again even though it's entirely fine. He nudges Charles's shoulder with his own. Maybe this time he'll be relegated to procuring-ingredients duty. And that isn't a _maybe_ anymore. Erik _insists_. Large swathes of _something_ vibrate through the room. Charles feels it brushing against him, standing his hairs on end.

Charles _shudders,_ a quiet noise pulled from his throat that he simply can’t bite back in time. His cheeks flush, and he hides it by doing just that -- going to _precure ingredients,_ even as his heart flutters in his chest and his belly twists itself up into knots. “Will you give me a tour after lunch?” He’s thinking of them walking around rooms together, of doors pointed out in hallways, but Charles pauses, looking for a clock. “Dinner?” He actually doesn’t know, but it isn’t like Erik knows the words from each other anyway. He looks out the window to check where the sun is, which gives a pretty good indication of what he’s confused about. Do they know what time of year it is? Does this place have _seasons_? Everything feels so… isolated, so contained. As if they are the only two people to have ever existed.  
  
Erik hands Charles a plate with their dinner on it, and he doesn't know what he's _made_ , he doesn't recognize it, but there's rice and shredded carrots and vegetables in a rich stew, with flavors of cinnamon and cardamom and spicy heat, enough that Erik fans at his face, reddened from inexperience. He does this all the time. Makes food, doesn't know what it is. Something from his life, something locked away. He nudges up against Charles, though. He has to sit at the table and eat dinner, and _then_ the tour. Erik is looking forward to it a great deal. But he _can_ answer a few questions-there _are_ seasons. He doesn't know what year it is. He sees animals but no people.

Charles is hesitating, though. He has a plate of food in his hands, and he’s standing in front of the table, but he’s hovering. Like he doesn’t know what to do. There’s quite a _lot_ happening inside of his head, but Erik isn’t privy to any of it, only the obvious anxiety, the signs of it which are obvious by now. Charles isn’t very good at hiding them, apparently.

" _Hityashev,_ " Erik says in his language, and the meaning hardly needs to be translated as Charles feels the tug of that _imperative_ instantly, and he sits down as he's bidden. Erik points at the plate, taking Charles's hand and rubbing along his knuckles. There's plenty of reason for anxiety, but it's not going to help them, here. Erik is here to help. Charles is supposed to lean on Erik. Erik has taken care of him all this time. He will keep taking care of him.

He sits down _stiffly,_ but he takes a deeper, slower breath, too, lets it out in a long exhale. He’s biting his lip, but now it’s concealing a sheepish expression, perhaps even the beginnings of a smile. “I think this is too spicy for me, Erik,” he mumbles, embarrassed, and Erik gets the sensation of an unpleasant burning sensation, pain in the chest, churning in the stomach -- he hasn’t _tried_ it, but somehow he knows. Something just _tells him_ he has a weak stomach, or at the very least a more delicate one. Tastebuds, too.

Erik's eyes are still watering from it, even though there's something oddly _comforting_ about it, too, however, he taps Charles's dinnerplate with a shake of his head. As much as he'd well and truly out-spiced himself, Charles's plate doesn't have that problem. Another instinct, perhaps. " _Lo_ ," he laughs, and then sneaks a bite of Charles's because _his_ is too spicy for any regular human being. Comfort or not, he'd like to _live_ , thanks.

It makes him laugh, head ducked into his plate, and Charles takes a careful bite. He has no idea what it is, and he’s only contributed minimally to it, but it’s delicious either way. He finds he’s rather starving and he takes big, fast bites, barely chewing before he swallows as if he hasn’t eaten in ages. There’s something _sullen_ about him, though, and after he’s shoved his mouth for a bit he slows down to a crawl, more turning the fork around the plate than eating.

Erik laments their differences right now, and is in fact a little frustrated, because he can't _communicate_ right. He taps on Charles's finger, and Charles feels his eyes snap up to Erik. Magnetic. It's a word that keeps appearing. Erik's eyes are still vivid even in the dim kitchen light, and wide, and probing. " _Ma kara?_ " he asks, brows arching. " _Haged li_."

“I don’t know,” Charles sighs, shaking his head for emphasis, and it’s not a _deflection._ He actually doesn’t know what’s happening, or why he feels _upset._ Maybe even moody. He huffs, shaking his head again as if to clear it, and gestures to his plate. “It’s delicious, Erik. Thank you,” he murmurs, sincerely.

That makes Erik smile, but he doesn't drop it. " _Atah lo yode'a? Beseder. Nase,_ " he Commands, sharp in the air like citrus-fruit. He grips Charles's chin in his long fingers, catching his gaze again, _trapping_ him in his seat where he can't wriggle out from underneath. " _Ki'li?_ " is it because of Erik? Charles can try.

That makes Charles shake his head, but then he pauses a moment, hesitates, and nods slowly. It’s not _because_ of Erik, exactly, but he thinks it involves him. Parsing through the thoughts in his head is like wading way through thick mud, everything gooey and clumped together, and he doesn’t even know what he’s _looking_ for. He takes a slow breath. “Submissive?” he tries, eventually, because it’s the only thing he can point to. It’s almost sheepish, and certainly bordering on embarrassed.  
  
Erik taps him on the nose, a little fond but a _lot_ demanding. What does he do? What does Charles need? Is Erik being too forthright? Overbearing? He can... try to stop. He didn't intend to cause any offense.

“Mm-mm,” Charles sighs, obviously a noise of disagreement, but he flounders here. Shakes his head. Erik didn’t _offend him,_ nor did he cross any boundaries, not that Charles even knows what those would be. He doesn’t _know_ what he wants, or needs, or expects. He doesn’t expect anything. He offers an apologetic smile, an image to accompany it; he’s in the dark, and he just has no _idea_ which way to go. “Don’t stop,” he adds, quietly, and ducks his head again.

" _Lo?_ " Erik questions, Charles's jaw still between his fingers, which he's petting idly at the skin he can find. " _Lo rotze mafsik?_ " His grin once again is bright, features open and expressive. It's fortunate because Erik likes Charles a lot, even from this first meeting. He'd been playful and willing to learn with Erik, learn his language, speak with him, spend time with him. He didn't have to. He could have been terrified, thinking him an intruder, a captor. Ran away. No, it's not just because he's lonely. Erik just _likes_ Charles. And he especially likes that Charles doesn't mind-mind how he- _is_ , whatever that means. "Dominant," he repeats the word slowly, pronouncing each syllable with that lilting inflection of his own tongue. "Me." He points to himself. "You submissive." He points to Charles, and sits back a little, expectant. He did well? He learns, too?

Charles smiles, too, and nods. He points at Erik. “Again?” He wants Erik to repeat the word, to help him learn his language. He wants to know, too, and he seems to be calmed by this, by Erik being _close,_ Commanding his attention, touching him. “And me?” He points to himself. What’s the word? He wants to learn. He likes Erik, too.

" _Ani_ ," he points at himself. " _Shalit._ " Then he points at Charles. " _Atah. Kanu'a_." His nose wrinkles up fondly. He _flash-lightning_ steals another bite of Charles's food, after Charles has well and truly eaten most of it by now.  
  
Charles doesn’t even for a moment feign upset. He passes the rest of his food right over, not because he’s sacrificing or neglecting his own needs but because he’s _full_ and Erik is _clearly_ much bigger than him. The thought is enough to make him shiver again, though he thinks he hides it well. “ _Kanu’a,_ ” he tries that word out on his tongue, too, testing it, humming. He points at himself, and then hesitates. “I...” His lips purse. He doesn’t know how to say this, how to ask it. His eyebrows are pulled together in obvious frustration.  
  
" _Ani_ ," Erik helps him, pressing his outstretched palm to Charles's chest, encouraging. There's an easier way, of course, and Erik presses that to him as well. He can show, he can share with Erik the images and feelings he has, and Erik _will_ help him. There's a finality to that, like Erik just _will_ and that is that. Nothing else to say for it. Erik is here to help him.

Easier said than done, unfortunately. Everything in Charles’ mind is a complicated, jumbled up tangle, and he doesn’t know how to go about unknotting all of that. He does _try,_ his eyebrows still pulled together with the effort. “As a _submissive_...” He bites his lip. As a submissive, shouldn’t _he_ be the one… serving food? He’s not even sure where the thought comes from. It seems almost completely out of nowhere, actually, but it’s occurring to him, _again,_ that he has no idea what it means to be _submissive._ Absolutely none. Is he supposed to?  
  
The realization makes Erik press his fingertips against his mouth-he really _didn’t_ realize, it somehow feels natural for _him_ to cook, but to _serve_ -that’s a different function, a different action, and he hadn’t even thought to tell Charles about it. He just didn’t know. He touches Charles’s lips, apologetic. “ _Ken_ ,” is what he says, corrective. Charles _should_ be doing that. And in the future, he _will_ be. As soon as the idea forms in his mind like a completed circuit, Erik is moving to action instead, to _implementation_. Of his _Will_ -something he still has no name for yet.  
  
Charles still looks a bit unsettled, but not by Erik’s sudden resolve, just -- “Why?” he wonders. It’s a question he seems fond of, at the root of everything. Charles is naturally inclined to wonder, to _need_ to know, to understand. When he doesn’t, he quickly becomes uneasy or frustrated. It’s _important_ to him. “ _Lam’a?_ ” he asks, smiling sheepishly, uncertain if he’s right but trying, the same way Erik is. To cross the gap between them, to bridge it up.  
  
It makes Erik laugh a little, and shrug, too. “ _Ani lo yode’a_ ,” he whispers back, and Charles doesn’t even need the translation to know that one. He doesn’t know, and he’s sorry. “ _Ki... atah kanu’a. Atah tzarich? Ozer?_ ” Maybe because he’s submissive. He needs it, it will help him. It’s part of him, a fascinating, wondrous part that Erik’s own _half_ -Erik’s _whatever_ -leans toward instinctively.

Charles hums. It’s impossible for Erik to _know,_ he supposes, but it helps Charles to wonder. To ask the question in the first place. “And you?” he asks, pointing at Erik. Is it the same for Erik? He shows an image, helping along his meaning -- Erik, at ease, cooking, but apparently feeling that Charles should _serve_ dinner. What’s the difference? Why does he want to cook, but not the other part? How will they know what they need and what helps them if they have no idea what it means to be submissive, to be Dominant? How will they figure it out? He's becoming a bit anxious again.  
  
Erik purses his lips and then abruptly taps Charles on the nose, a _warning_. “ _Dai_ ,” he murmurs lowly, and Charles feels the impetus before he understands the concept- _stop_. Stop the whirling, the twirling, the catastrophe. No. Maybe they do not know what it means, but that just means _they_ have the opportunity to define it for themselves. Erik likes to cook. He prefers it. But Charles is submissive. So Charles will serve. Because that is what they both agree is good, and right. And maybe they will encounter things that are _not_ , but if that happens, it won’t become law. They will just discuss. Like this. As best they can. Erik will _make sure_ of this.  
  
Charles frowns immediately, _pouts_ , really, and covers his nose with his hand, mostly just for the show of it. “Don’t do that,” he mutters, but there’s no heat to it, even if Erik understands the sentiment. It doesn’t just seem to be about the poke to the nose. He stares down at the table. He can’t just _stop_ being anxious, as much as he’d like to. He can’t just _stop_ worrying about things, or feeling uneasy or unsteady. Erik seems to _help_ with it, truly. But to be told _stop_ is a bit much, as much as he’d _like_ to, and it’s not something he can achieve or obey. “I don’t like not knowing. It upsets me,” he explains, not bothering to translate, but Erik doesn’t exactly need it at this point. He likes the _idea_ of exploration, of discovery, but it becomes overwhelming to him quickly. Will Erik like him less if he continues to worry about every little thing, to fret about it?  
  
Erik taps him _again_ , but this time more playful. “ _Dai_ ,” he repeats, and it’s not to stop _worrying_. It’s to stop spiraling. There is a difference, and Erik is here to _help_ with that primary distinction. Of course he won’t dislike Charles less. But let him help first. They’re not going to know. They have no answers, and none will be forthcoming. They’ll have to rely on figuring it out. And Charles will need to _rely_ on Erik. To trust that Erik won’t let it get out of hand, that he won’t let anything _bad_ befall them. He doesn’t know if he’s getting through or if that makes any sense.  
  
It makes sense. Charles’ face still scrunches up and he covers his nose again, not scowling or glaring but sitting back a bit with a huff. He pulls his legs up on the chair until they’re pulled into his chest, resting his chin on them. “Alright,” he agrees, and it’s obviously _agreement,_ acquiescence, even if he’s still uncertain. There’s no other option, and he can certainly _try_ to trust Erik. He offers a small smile. “I’m sorry,” he adds. He’s sorry for… _spiraling,_ if that’s what it is. It’s difficult for him not to, when his mind always feels three steps ahead, always working, and going, and _worrying,_ but Erik does help.  
  
Erik smiles back and shakes his head. There’s no need to apologize for that. Because that is why Erik thinks he might be here. To help. To guide. Even though he barely understands anything himself, whatever is naturally inside of him-it keeps propelling him to this. Maybe his mind is like that, maybe he’ll always be worrying, but _Erik_ seems to take things in stride. To take them as they come, not to get lost in the future or in _what-ifs_. He doesn’t know, and he accepts that. He’s had to. Or else he would have gone crazy, he thinks. Maybe it taught him how. Erik rubs his hand over Charles’s shoulder. “ _Kol beseder_ ,” is what he whispers, catching Charles’s eyes. “ _Ani mavtiach_.

“So I’m just neurotic, then,” Charles sighs, not because _Erik_ has implied it, but because he’s frustrated with it himself. Why? Why does he feel so uncertain, unsettled, _uncomfortable_ with not knowing? Why isn’t Erik experiencing the same anxiety, to the same degree? Because they’re different people, obviously, and there are ways it seems he _is_ sure that Erik isn’t, but that isn’t the point. He’s frowning and sullen again, scowling down at the table. “I don’t like not knowing,” he decides, quietly, as if he’s just had the realization himself. He doesn’t like not having _answers._ He doesn’t like feeling out of his depth.

Erik does laugh a little, nudging him with his shoulder. “ _Gam ani, aval-_ ” but they just have to cope with it. There’s nothing else for it. The unknown branches in front of them like an endless pathway, and they need to pick up and follow. At least, that’s what Erik thinks. He doesn’t like _not knowing_ , but he _does_ like problem solving, searching, finding, seeking. Discovering. And all of those things will help bridge their knowledge gaps. Already they are learning one another within a very _large_ gap: communication itself.

Charles tries to muster up a smile, too, his head still ducked. What would they have done if he _didn’t_ have the abilities he obviously has? Would they even have understood each other? It’s difficult enough now, but with _this_ \-- it’s easier, at least. It feels less daunting. He’s grateful for them, if nothing else, and he takes a slow breath. “Do you think we’ll figure it out?” he asks, peeking up at Erik. He gestures between them, passing over uncertainty but _hope,_ too. If they’re both in the dark, how will they find the light?

Erik laughs a little. “ _Ani lo yode’a_ ,” he repeats-the integral phrase, the one he’s said probably most often here. He doesn’t know. But he hopes. He feels. He _feels_ like they will, it’s an unerring _faith_ in them, that exists for _no reason_. He tries to _push_ that forward, right up out of his chest and through Charles’s entire body. His utter _confidence_ that they have _got this_. That it’s safe. That Erik will _make_ it safe.

It makes Charles smile, if absolutely nothing else, his lips finally pulling upward. He’s still a bit sullen, but he tries to overlook it, at least for the moment. Perhaps Erik is right. There’s no use fretting endlessly over this when there’s absolutely nothing they can do at the moment to change it, nowhere to go but forward. “A tour?” he asks, hopefully, showing the images from before. Charles hasn’t even seen the _house_ yet, and he’s worried about these complicated questions.

* * *

His companion stands up and offers his arm, for Charles to be at his side, linked-in. A little possessive, even, but Erik doesn’t even think that way, doesn’t even notice. It’s just a natural gesture for him and when Charles stands and acquiesces Erik tugs him forth; gentle yet borderline-playful, tug-tug, first is the study, the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the den-that’s Erik’s favourite place, and it shows. The backyard patio, equipped with a barbecue and all, although Erik’s never used it. Deck chairs and beach balls and play-areas, all as the sun begins to dim and its rays slowly shimmer on the glass panes surrounding them. Glass houses indeed.

Charles is mostly quiet as he’s shown around, not _upset,_ exactly, but certainly reflective. He’s thinking, clearly, though Erik has no access to it, and nodding, smiling softly when appropriate, letting Erik tug and move him as he wishes. He only breaks away when they reach the windows that face the setting sun, something distinctly _sad_ on his expression as he presses close to the glass. It’s sure to leave a smudge, but he raises his hand and presses his fingers there, and then, shortly after, his _face._

Erik comes up behind him, settling his own hands on Charles’s shoulders. At his height he easily eclipses Charles, but it’s never felt threatening. “ _Atah lo ohev ze?_ ” he’s wondering, eyebrows arched plaintively, with that same earnestness as he’s ever held. Maybe he’s considered this his home, now, and as strangely filled as it is, he’s hoped that Charles will like his house. Maybe the outside forts were better. Erik can show him those, too.

Charles shakes his head. He _does_ like the house. It’s beautiful, although there are tweaks he’d make, changes, ways to make it feel like _his,_ too, that he hopes Erik will accept and allow. Just as he’s finding is the usual, something _else_ is making him sad, making him _ache._ He doesn’t know what it is. There are tears in his eyes, though, and he takes a heavy, huffing breath. “I’m sad,” he breathes, and lets Erik _feel_ it, thick and cloying between them. “I don’t know why.” Something about the sun setting like this, about the window — Erik must think him mad, or at least _unstable._ “I like the house,” he adds, quiet but sincere.

There are many parts to Charles that Erik just doesn't understand, but labeling him _mad_ because of it is not the solution and Erik hasn't even considered it once. Besides, Erik is the crazy one here. He made stick men in the sand and believed they were his family, a family he never knew, a family he made up. He thought the walls of this house spoke and that it was his, it was _theirs_ , that it might shift and change to accommodate, that maybe Charles was his family, too. But he's sad. Erik doesn't know how to make it better, either. " _Atsuv_ ," is what he says, instead, touching under Charles's eye. _Sad_. " _Ze beseder lehitriot atsuv_." And it's certainly OK with Erik. He doesn't need to perform happiness, he just needs to be. Erik likes him as he is.

But he’d like to know, at the very least, what’s _causing_ that sadness. He doesn’t. Charles stares out the window, silent for a long while. But he leans back, slowly, into Erik, a flush up on the back of his neck, his head still turned. “Do you think sunsets are sad?” he asks, and helps Erik along; an image of the sun setting, the _feeling,_ a question pressed into his consciousness.

He does answer honestly, staring at the sun over the top of Charles’s head. He thinks they’re beautiful, fascinating. He feels-a kinship with the sun, he feels as though he can _feel_ the sun within himself. It’s a crazy feeling. As crazy as talking to the walls. But he feels it all the same and he presses _that_ back in answer.

“Why?” Charles wonders, looking up at Erik for the first time since this moment started, and then promptly back outside, where the sun has almost completely disappeared. What makes him feel that connection? Why does he feel that way?

Erik gives a shrug and mimes the _crazy_ motion with his index finger at his own temple. He taps his own chest, indicating himself. He’s just crazy. He doesn’t know why, there are no answers, just more madness. For him, at least. Maybe that’s the reason he doesn’t focus too specifically on things.

Charles shakes his head. His lips purse. “That’s not true,” he protests, and finally turns, as much as he can with Erik still so close behind him. He frowns up at Erik, at this man he’s found himself sharing this space with. This stranger who feels distinctly familiar, and yet entirely foreign. “Try?” he requests, and smiles, because _Erik_ pushes him to do that. He wants Erik to do the same.

It makes Erik huff a little, a little like a dragon snorting and moving to accommodate some young thing who’s wandered in to try and slay him, only to find a mother instead of a monster. Strange, how his mind works, odd connectors. Erik blinks it away, dusts off like cobwebs. He really doesn’t know why, only that when he’s outside, he feels it inside of him. The molecules, the composition. It’s why he’s drawn all over the physics books in the library. It _calls_ to him, it speaks to him. The wood, the metal, the soil. It tells him things. He’s been alone too long.

“I don’t think that’s crazy,” Charles promises, soft and earnest. He shakes his head, and his lips quirk, his head ducking again. “Perhaps you _have_ been alone too long, though.” But Charles feels as if he may have been too, even as he’s been _asleep_ all this time, even as Erik waited for him to wake up. “We’re... friends, now?” he asks, nearly laughing at how childish it sounds.

“Friends?” Erik tries the word in English, both hands along Charles’s shoulders-he’s a touchy sort, perhaps because of the gap in communication, wanting to _reach out._ A product of loneliness, of being alone too long. Touch deprivation. He hopes Charles doesn’t mind.

Sometimes Charles gets a bit _skittish,_ some touch unsettles him a little, seemingly, but he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t want Erik to _stop,_ especially because it’s comforting for him, too. “Friends,” he repeats, and presses the _concept_ into Erik’s mind this time, just as he’d picked it out of Erik’s mind earlier; the two of them are _companions,_ now. They’re in this together. They like each other. _Friends._ One way or another, they can take this on together. "Right?" he asks, suddenly unsure.  
  
Erik nods his head, firm. _Right_ , is his response, not a word as much as a sensation, a pure confidence in their capacity to rise to this. Wherever they’ve come from, maybe they just need to be here. If it’s a trap, a prison-he doesn’t know. He’s felt imprisoned. Explored around the edges. He can lead Charles there, too. The same journey he took, fingering at the edges, searching for a way out, realizing that even though there is miles and acres of land here, that there are points that they cannot reach beyond. With no one else but them, for miles and miles. A prison, perhaps, but Erik hasn’t yet determined a prison of _what_ purpose. Are they criminals? Evildoers? Are they captured by an evildoer? He doesn’t know. He’s longed to find out, _searched_ to find out. Put that effort in, yielding little to no results. And then Charles appeared. From nowhere, awoken. And now they have a chance to tackle the issue together. **  
  
**An incredibly ridiculous, perhaps even _intrusive_ thought comes to Charles’ mind all at once. His eyes widen, his body stiffens. And then, despite the pure _panic_ that’s now radiating off of him, he brings his hand to his mouth to stifle his _laugh._ It sounds a bit hysterical, perhaps because it _is._ ** _  
  
_**Erik tugs on his hand, his features drawn and concerned. " _Ma kara?_ " he insists, confused and a little disoriented.  
  
Charles keeps giggling. It's quite _unnerving_ at this point, but he can't bring himself to stop, shaking his head. "No, it's -- it's mad, and --" And unsettling, and _terrifying,_ and frankly making him feel sick.

“ _ ** **Lo, dai**** ,_” Erik insists, and _that_ brings Charles to an abrupt halt, whatever the difference is they currently don’t understand. The impetus is clear. Erik wants to know what is happening _now_.

Charles closes his eyes tightly and _stops._ He takes a sharp breath. The reason he didn’t want to share it isn’t because he was hiding it, necessarily, but because it’s something he doesn’t want to grapple with. Something he has no answer for, and doesn’t even know why he _considered_. “What if we’re dead?” he asks, and hesitates before he helps Erik understand. Flatlines, cold to the touch, no pulse, headstones. Dead.

Erik grins and shakes his head. “ _Lo_ ,” he returns softly. There’s no reason for him to be _sure_ of that, but somehow he is. It’s not denial, or fear, that propels him this way either. He can’t explain it at all. He just knows that isn’t the case. “ _Lo ze_ ,” he repeats, soft.

It feels like Erik is laughing at him for what’s quite honestly _existential dread_ at this point, and Charles turns his face away, nodding even as his jaw clenches and his lips purse. It’s unlikely. If they are dead, what is the point of this place? What is the purpose? But the alternatives, the _logical_ ones, don’t make much sense either. Charles goes quiet, and turns back to the window, where outside has gotten significantly darker, the sky fading colors.

Erik touches his cheek and shakes his head. He’s not laughing at Charles. It was more a reaction to the idea, not that Charles presented it, but as it was. Mostly because he hadn’t considered it. Many other things, yes, but not death, their being dead. It’s something he is completely convinced is not the truth. If they were dead they would know. They would remember. It wouldn’t be this way.

“How do you know that?” Charles asks, and turns his cheek away, more a reaction than anything else. He’s fretting, but he’s also _curious,_ and he doesn’t step back, still quite literally squished between Erik and the window he’s looking out of. Noticeably on edge, but not _harsh_ about it, not resorting to running away. He figures there’s no answer to the question, no real _reason_ to discuss it, but Erik seems _certain._ He prods that meaning along gently. How could he have any idea that they aren’t? Dead people don’t often _know_ their dead, do they? How would they? And they are the only ones here. The only ones in this entire world, it feels like. What possible other explanation is there? If they are alive, why is no one else? No one else at all? He's not sure which is more unsettling.

Of course his reaction is an evident shrug. There’s somethings he is just sure of, or some things he has a visceral, gut-wrenching reaction to. He seems a bit _shy_ about it, though, and when Charles tries to find it he finds it’s _evaporated_ all of a sudden, Erik’s head ducked. Maybe he _is_ a little shy, himself. Some things he is _not_ confident in, in himself.

Charles, being Charles, chases after it. He’s not _quite_ skilled at _pulling_ things from Erik’s mind, or even pulling anything at all; the majority of what he’s done has been passive, pressing images back and forth, tugging and pushing, but there’s the sense that perhaps he _could._ He bites his lip, a bit taken aback by the sudden realization, but he doesn’t chase it. He chases Erik instead. “Tell me?” he requests, trying not to be unsettled by _himself._

Because-because it’s a belief, but he doesn’t understand what it is, where it comes from. He doesn’t know how he knows his own name, why he makes food that he ends up throwing across the room _violently_ , why he _can’t_ do certain things. Why he _has to_ do others. It feels like being guided from outside of himself and it sounds _crazy_ to admit to it. So instead he plays keep-away. Just a little.

Charles huffs out a breath. It’s not _kind,_ he knows it isn’t, nor is it being respectful of Erik’s privacy, but he wants to know. There’s such a gap between them that he finds it frustrating _not_ to just pull -- and so he does. He tugs. He takes that thread and he pulls, not even consciously but enough, his lips pulled down into a frown. “Tell me, please,” he says, but now it sounds a bit too much like an outright demand. He wants to _know,_ and why would Erik hide something from him? What if it helps _Charles_ understand the things that he knows, the things that he doesn't?

Erik _growls_ very suddenly and Charles finds himself pressed to the wall, Erik's arm against his chest. His eyes are wild, wide. He's breathing shakily. " _ ** **No****_ ," he repeats a word learned just by osmosis, and Charles _knows_ he stepped in it. It's not the mental tugging that's got him. No, in fact, it has nothing to do with that at all. It's the _demand_. His lips press together. He's not hiding. He's just-he just feels _crazy_ , all the time. He rocks back on his heels, letting Charles go. He was never in any real danger, and he wasn't pinned without recourse. Even now, even in agitation. Erik is gentle with him. With a little shrug he lets Charles see. All the times he's had to clean the kitchen because of his own strange compulsiveness, rules he can't seem to consciously invoke, ideas he doesn't quite grasp. But it's linked to this, to his confidence in why he knows this isn't the _afterlife_. Erik knows his instinct was toward amusement, but he hopes Charles won't find him too funny in return. Charles's idea was perfectly rational, Erik thinks he may literally be mentally ill.  
  
Charles’ heart feels like it’s quite literally beating out of his chest, shaken and startled, but he doesn’t _laugh._ He certainly doesn’t laugh. It takes him a while to feel like he can _breathe_ properly, wide-eyed and reeling, but when he does he slowly, hesitantly reaches forward for Erik. Why is that crazy? Whatever it is Erik is acting on, it’s obviously something he strongly _believes_ in. Why does that make him crazy? They know their names. They know their languages. They know things, even without conscious memory of them. They respond accordingly. “You’re not crazy,” he promises, earnest, and he’s not laughing or mocking.

Erik bows his forehead against Charles’s, grimacing a little. He doesn’t know why he _believes_ any of the things he does, because there isn’t really a _belief_ to back it up-no _education_ , no morality. He knows his own language but didn’t know what it was called until he found it in a book, there are _barriers_ for some reason that exist that don’t exist in other areas, for some _reason_ , like he’s expected to learn it all over again, or maybe learn it-he doesn’t know. Learn it _differently_? He doesn’t understand. But he hasn’t been afraid of this place the entire time he’s been here, and he _knows_ he isn’t dead. He _knows it_.

“I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong,” Charles whispers, though he isn’t quite sure _he_ believes it, and that’s obvious because he isn’t hiding it. It's written all over his expression, his tone, even as there's reassurance and respect for _Erik's_ conviction. He doesn’t know what he believes, frankly. He has no conception at all. He’s only been awake hours and he feels rather like an infant fumbling about, and Erik has had longer. It isn’t a good thing, necessarily. He’s been lonely. He’s been _alone,_ and Charles wishes he wasn’t. But he doesn’t think those things he _has_ discovered are crazy and wrong. “We can figure it out?” he suggests, quietly, and tries not to be… _skittish,_ even though he feels it, anxious, even though he feels it, trying to step backwards and realizing he’s just hitting the glass again. He doesn’t even want to escape. He’s just -- unsure. A moment later, he reaches for Erik again, biting his lip.

Erik squints a little, because he’s thinking of something else, maybe something that’s entirely irrelevant because it _is_ , like two puzzle pieces slotting together. He pokes Charles in the chest. He doesn’t think Erik is crazy? Maybe he should-should have put more effort into figuring it out. But he hasn’t, because-well, he hasn’t wanted to grapple with, he doesn’t know. _Web MD_ telling him he has three brain tumors and mesothelioma. Or he’s just plain out of his gourd. Charles doesn’t think so? He promises? Or- _bad_ , in some way. Wrong, in some way. Or that he should _stop_? Is there a _logical_ answer? Should he have tried harder to find it?

Charles blinks, thoroughly disoriented now. He crosses his arms over his chest, biting harder on his lip, and shakes his head. “I don’t know what you’re asking me,” he admits, his confusion drifting between them. “I don’t think you’re crazy.” He thinks Erik has been _lonely,_ and that this whole situation is mad and confusing, but he doesn’t think that’s _Erik’s_ fault or anything to do with his character. He doesn’t think he needs to _stop_ believing in things, especially if they’re hints as to the kind of person he is. Was? He doesn’t know. Charles certainly wants to figure things out, and finds it frustrating and frightening he doesn’t know _right now,_ but what was Erik going to do? Tear the world apart to find the answers? It’s better they find them together. “Surely we can cover more ground,” he suggests, and doesn’t bother translating, his head dipped to hide a smile.

“ _Ken_ ,” Erik steps forward, pressing his cheek to Charles’s before stepping back. He’s kind of... _not_ had to deal with talking to people, since _forever_ probably. “ _Ozer li?_ ” he murmurs, his own lips hooked up, nose wrinkled fondly. Charles will help him. Erik is sure of _that_ , too. And he will do his best to return the favor. They aren’t alone anymore.

Charles nods, and offers a soft, small smile, but there’s something on his mind. “I’m sorry I was asleep for so long,” he apologizes, and it’s an _apology,_ even if it isn’t entirely clear what the words themselves mean. He takes another breath, and fidgets, stepping to the side, then to the other. He’s thinking about Erik _touching_ him. Pressing his face close to Charles, and poking him. It’s not that he wants it to _stop,_ or that he doesn’t… like it, necessarily. But there’s a sense of discomfort, too. He’s conflicted. He _wants_ touch, even seeks it out, but -- he stares down at the floor. See? There are things Charles doesn’t understand, either.

Erik clears his throat and gazes firmly over Charles’s shoulder, as if the last dredges of the sunset have suddenly become exceptionally fascinating to him. “ _Lo, lo hitnatzluyot,_ ” he shakes his head. Charles wasn’t at fault for it and Erik doesn’t blame him.

Charles feels his heart clench painfully, a lump in his throat and a knot in his belly. "You're upset," he accuses quietly, obviously _upset_ himself. Not at Erik. At himself, actually. He shouldn't have shared that.

Erik’s head tilts. He’s doing a good job of not being _anything_ , least of all upset, but for someone who wears their emotions on their sleeve it’s very jarring. His chin lifts and he keeps looking away, mostly because he wouldn’t do as good of a job at it if he had to look at Charles. “ _Lo itecha_ ,” he assures, offering a small smile that is very obviously fake.

Charles doesn't even look at it for more than a second. It's too much. He continues to stare at the floor instead. "Please don't lie," he whispers, and it doesn't really _need_ translation. He knows Erik isn't being honest with him. He conceals his own feelings, his fingers digging into his arm idly.

Erik clears his throat, trying his best to be indignant. He _isn’t_ lying. He’s _not_ upset at Charles. He never said he _wasn’t_. (Although that last part doesn’t get added to his intentional rebuttal, it’s pretty clear, and indignant. Clearly indignant.) The point is he wasn’t lying. Erik presses his lips together. There’s no point in, in being _honest_ , he shoots back, a little bit petulant. He doesn’t want to make Charles feel bad. But-and of course it’s easy for there to be misunderstandings between them-he thought Charles didn’t want him to-well-it doesn’t matter, he wasn’t upset, it’s stupid. There’s no point, except to make Charles feel guilty, and Erik doesn’t intend to do that just because he feels rejected, and a _lot_ stupid for even caring. He already said he would stop if Charles didn’t like it.

It makes Charles frown. Now _he's_ indignant, and a little ruffled, and he huffs, arms still crossed tightly over his chest. "I wasn't _rejecting_ you," he mutters, and the _feeling_ of it is rather obvious, even if it's clouded a bit by language and defensiveness.

“ _Ani yode’a ze,_ ” Erik returns hotly, gesturing with one hand. And he never thought Charles _was_.  
  
“Well, you _thought_ it!” Charles protests, gesturing at his temple. Technically Erik _hadn’t,_ but there had been _something._ He’s frowning and worked up now, too. “Why don’t you just —“ Charles cuts himself off, exasperated. “You don’t even understand me, what’s the _point,_ ” he mutters, prickly.

Erik _gestures_ to his temple, too, but it’s obviously a rude pantomime of what _Charles_ just did. “ _Az ma, eh!_ ” he returns, a real bark of anger in his tone now. “ _Ani mevin,_ ” he growls at him. “I understand.” He _pokes_ his finger in Charles’s face. His mind is a colorful, riotous whirl of hurt. “ _ ** **Atah****_ _lo rotze, achshav,_ ” he shrugs. _No point_.

Clearly _not,_ ” Charles seethes, and moves out of the way, but doesn’t go far. Actually, in his huffiness, he might even get a big closer again, as if Erik is pulling him in like a magnet. It _feels_ like he is, it has this entire time. “I just wanted to know why you were upset. Not even at _me._ All I did was —“ He shakes his head, gesturing vaguely before crossing his arms again. Fine. It doesn’t matter. But Charles is hurt, too, and it settles between them, heavy.  
  
“ _Higadeti_ ,” Erik blinks down at him, wondering why he’s standing _closer_ to him than before, if he didn’t want Erik touching him.  
  
“I didn’t _say_ or, or _think_ that,” Charles mutters, and his frown deepens. He has no _idea_ where Erik even got this idea in the first place. He pokes at _Erik’s_ arm, scowling. He’d just meant to share that touch sometimes makes him... nervous, perhaps, that sometimes he gets a little unsettled. That he _wants_ touch, but that sometimes it affects him strangely. He was sharing something with Erik because he _trusts_ him and wants to be friends, and he took it and blew it out if proportion and made it personal and Charles is, frankly, a little pissed about it.  
  
Erik shrugs. It's not what he understood. Mental communication isn't very precise, but he presses _back_ that discomfort, the very _specific_ thoughts of _Erik_ touching him. He doesn't pretend like his _feelings_ were rational, but he'd tried to push them away. He shouldn't want to do something that makes Charles uncomfortable, anyway. It's not fair.

Charles sighs. “Erik, do you see anyone else here who’s touching me?” he asks, and some of it is probably lost to language, but he presses the meaning as insistently and exasperatedly as possible; Erik is the only one it _applies_ to, and Charles had wanted him to know not so he _didn’t_ touch him, but so he knew something Charles seems to be having difficulty with. Because they’re supposed to be _friends._ Friends... talk about these things. But apparently not.  
  
Erik glares at him. _He_ never _said_ any of that. All Erik understood was that Charles was uncomfortable with it. But _he_ was the one who decided it wasn’t worthwhile to talk about since Erik didn’t _understand_ him. _He_ was the one who decided that all of this meant they were no longer _friends_.  
  
“No, I absolutely did _not_!” Charles gapes, truly _taken aback._ He doesn’t understand where any of this is coming from, but it’s putting him even more on edge. The room is _noticeably_ colder, except he doesn’t notice at all, except that he’s suddenly holding himself for more than just a defensive posture. “I said no such thing! _You_ refused to talk to me, you —“ He points, vaguely again, and scoffs, looking at the floor. He certainly _never_ insisted they weren’t friends anymore. He had only told Erik in the first place because they _are_ friends.  
  
Erik throws both of his hands up, exasperated. Well _he_ finds this difficult, then, since they _seem_ to be-and then he covers his mouth with the back of his hand all of a sudden, snorting under his breath.

Charles scowls fiercely, but it looks far too much like a pout. “Why are you _laughing_?” he huffs, and there’s some real hurt there, though most of the anger seems to have drained.

Erik holds up a hand, shaking his head. He doesn't know how to explain it, except-he waves his hand, less irritated and more as if that would help Charles understand a little better, which it probably does not. He was just thinking that it seems like they're speaking different languages entirely. He touches his fingers to his own chest. " _Slicha_ ," he murmurs. He wonders if he should bother translating that one.  
  
He doesn’t have to. Charles understands it, and even cracks a bit of a smile, even as he stares back down at his feet. “ _Slicha,_ ” he repeats quietly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Erik,” he says, sincerely. He hadn’t meant any offense, either, or to imply Erik’s touch was _unwanted._ He was just sharing a strange difficulty that _he_ seems to be having.  
  
Erik shrugs, an action he seems fond of. " _Ze lo meshana_ ," he replies, because it doesn't. It doesn't matter, if he didn't want Erik's touch, that is still his right. Erik hadn't been offended, or even hurt. He'd just-felt a little rejected, and he doesn't know how to explain why, _or_ why. Maybe because he seems to need it, and that feels wrong, if Charles is struggling with it. If he were-if he could be better, then it wouldn't be a problem anyway.

Charles shakes his head again, and this time it’s not nearly as prickly. Slowly, but not quite hesitantly, he reaches for Erik’s hand, holding it in both of his. For a moment he’s distracted by how _comically_ smaller they are, and then he takes a breath and steadies himself. “I need it, too,” he promises quietly. He feels pulled to Erik, too. He feels magnetized, too. He just -- he doesn’t know, really. There’s _something,_ and Charles tries to get that across but the truth is even he doesn’t know. He doesn’t _dislike_ Erik’s touch. He’s just struggling with… startling, in general. “Do you… understand?” he asks, biting his lip, not because Erik _can’t_ comprehend, but because they seem to be struggling with communication right now.

“ _Ken_ ,” Erik nods, watching their joined hands curiously. He wonders if Charles has noticed it, too, the fact that he seems to be, well, you know. Which is not a personality trait and wouldn't bear on his memory at all, but-he's not sure, exactly, there's no reason for that to stick in his mind, and it's not a point of pride, but just-a curiosity. He feels like he just _forgot_ it, which is the most _frustrating_ sensation. Since of course he did, but it's different. Like a kind of _presque vu_. If nothing else he does _like_ their disparity, just a little. If it means he can tug Charles closer and have him be within optimal hugging range. Which, well, he's going to stop thinking now. No thoughts, head empty!

Charles blinks. Then he dips his head and _giggles,_ because it's well and truly giggling, however he tries to bite his tongue, cover it with his hand. "Are you asking if I've noticed you're _big,_ Erik?" he wonders, and then gives the image to go along with it: yes, Charles has noticed that, if that's what Erik is pointing to. Erik _towers_ over him, easily a foot taller. He's broad-shouldered, muscular, and just generally _larger_ in every way. How would he _not_ have? And for some reason, Charles' cheeks promptly go pink.

Erik _bursts_ out laughing, _loudly_ , and then, rather embarrassed at _that_ , he presses his free hand to his mouth to stifle it. His eyebrows waggle, though, because he's secretly seven years old, obviously. As if to say- _well? Have you?_ He hiccups another little laugh and his nose wrinkles up. He's still grinning wildly when his hand returns to his side. Maybe he was a _really_ good basketball player, and that's why he doesn't remember anything, he got whacked in the face with one too many basketballs. OK, so he supposes that means he wouldn't have been _really good_. Average. Maybe he was a really average basketball player. " _Ani... lam'a anachnu kan, beyachad?_ " For once it's Erik asking the questions.

Charles tilts his head and blinks, still very pink in the face and fidgeting as a result. “I’m sorry, what?” he asks, and sends the _sensation_ of repetition, of _thought,_ tapping his temple. Words have meaning, but unfortunately Charles isn’t quite perfect or even very decent at pulling those meanings out yet. All he knows is he’s thoroughly flustered, and trying very hard not to show it.

"Why..." he gestures between the two of them. Why does Charles think they are here, only the two of them? Together?

Charles sighs. It sobers him, almost immediately, what was rather squirmy embarrassment fading to something much more solemn. “I don’t know,” he admits, which is really part of what he’d asked _Erik_ earlier. He doesn’t know why it’s them here, together. It doesn’t seem possible that it’s _by chance,_ but he doesn’t have an explanation. Perhaps they knew each other, and they've forgotten. Perhaps they're truly strangers, and there's some _purpose._ “What do you think?” He peeks up at Erik, tilts his head, clearly inquisitive and passing the question back.  
  
Erik really doesn't know. He finds himself thinking about Charles's mutation, though, but he doesn't seem to really know anything _about_ mutation. Or even what it's called. He's some kind of psychic, as far as Erik knows, but- _Erik_ -he made that knife. They both have superpowers. Maybe-well-maybe he was right, before. Maybe someone _else_ put them here. Maybe some kind of, of, _supervillain_ or something. It sounds incredibly _dumb_ even to his own ears, and he laughs a little, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly.  
  
Charles grins, too. It’s about as plausible as them being _dead,_ which _he’s_ still not convinced isn’t the case. Likely not, but still. “It could be benevolent, you realize,” he points out, and tries to give the image of a _kinder_ figure. But why? Why put them here? Why together? Is it to keep them safe, or to keep others safe? Either? Both? He sighs. “This is truly mad,” he declares.

Erik thinks _he_ likes it when Charles grins at him. Forgetting that his thoughts aren't exactly _his thoughts_ , he's decided that Charles's smile is more beautiful and far less mundane than any sunset. Or less tragic, if you're into waxing poetic, as Charles seems inclined toward. Erik doesn't mind. Charles's statement draws another shrug from him. " _Kol anachnu meshuga kan_ ," he beams, his version of a Cheshire-smile. It seems to him like they have the tools here to start learning some more about themselves. There's culture and history books-there's a _computer_ , a veritable archive. Charles's accent could be a clue. There's-there are things they can do, steps they could take to be proactive. Erik just hasn't taken many of them, other than reading his physics books. And that's seemed... different.  
  
“I really, highly doubt the computer _works_ ,” Charles laughs, but he shakes his head. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t. Erik is somehow inspiring _hope_ in him, not that he was ever particularly devoid of it, because none of this was framed _catastrophically._ It seems that they’re either dead, imprisoned, or experiencing some sort of apocalypse, but Erik _believing_ that they’ll figure it out seems like a start. An important one. He finds himself less afraid and more curious, and he squeezes Erik’s hand, reaching for it with just one of his own this time, keeping them linked. “I am not _poetic,_ ” he corrects for good measure, huffing, because that seems to be what Erik was implying. He sends the meaning across, Erik’s general thoughts shoved back at him with some gentle indignance. “Sunsets _are_ sad. Don’t you think? Endings are melancholy by nature.” It seems that way to him, anyway. His cheeks are a bit pink again. For some reason, he feels they'll have _several_ of these conversations. Even _without_ language on their side.  
  
Erik grins, though, shaking his head. That sounds like _poetry_ to him, he shoot back, playfully indignant _himself_ , eyebrows bopping when Charles meets his gaze. Erik doesn’t think of them as sad, he tends to think of them as-well, hopeful. When one day ends, another must begin. It _must_ , and applicable to them. _They_ must make a new day, and Erik surely believes they will, and that kind of faith can’t be faked. He tugs Charles toward the library. They can start there. Their own languages, their own cultures. Insights, on their own, without outside pressures. Maybe that’s why they’re here.  
  
Charles allows himself to be tugged, actually quite grateful for it. “I love reading,” he realizes, as if it _is_ a revelation, and shows Erik books, worn-out from use, from turned pages, the fondness and comfort associated with that. He doesn’t know where it comes from. He doesn’t think he could _recall_ books, if asked. But he knows it to be a fact either way. He thinks of Erik, adventurous and drawn to the outdoors, and grins, pressing the _opposite_ ; he thinks he’d much rather prefer to be curled up inside, with a book, with tea, on a cozy chair. It feels... familiar, to him.

Of course that makes Erik smile, genuine. He's not a _book-lover_ , his own perusal more to satisfy an innate curiosity that cannot be quenched, a thirst for _adventure_ as Charles put it rather than reading for its own sake. But in this brand new world he supposes it must take all types. He knows he's not particularly intellectually inclined-he's not _stupid_ , far from it, but he prefers direct action to analysis. A convenient counterpart, he grins.

Charles shakes his head. “But knowledge _is_ adventure,” he protests, and he’s gotten much better at remembering to press the concepts, too, however clumsy and occasionally flawed it is. “It isn’t for the _sake_ of it.” He doesn’t love _books,_ per se. He loves learning. He loves knowing. He loves questioning, and he supposes — well, he certainly _feels_ curious, perhaps to a fault. He folds himself on a nearby chair, curling his legs up to his chest in what feels natural and comfortable. “How can you act,” he echoes Erik’s sentiment, smiling, “without _knowing_? Assessing all the options?  
  
Erik shrugs, ephemeral as ever. He just _does_. He just feels it, inside. What the right move is, analyzing-perhaps-each decision made before him, each pathway as it unfolds. To stop and think it over and over again, to get lost in what-ifs-it would not progress. There’s nothing wrong with it. In fact Erik thinks he needs that. He just doesn’t naturally _do_ it. Just the same as Charles does not actively enjoy climbing the first tree he sees before him. Erik smirks. He’ll take Charles up to the tops, show him the view. He’d like it. Not sad, not melancholy. But glorious all the same.

Charles’ eyes widen. “No, absolutely not,” he protests, an obvious refusal. He realizes belatedly that he took a seat before he grabbed a book and he frowns, turning to the table near him. There are _books,_ but none of them seem to be in English. “Erik,” he says, and he’s very clearly wondering if Erik will _fetch him one,_ a grin on his lips. It’s more comfort than he expected to have.

Erik turns over the book in his hands, right-to-left, eyebrows arching as he slowly reads from it. “Israel,” he murmurs, his fingers spanning out across the cover almost lovingly. “ _Ani lo yode’a_ ,” he whispers, because-he didn’t. He should have known that much at least. He taps his own chest. “Me, Israel.” His eyebrows are arched in wonder.

It wasn’t what he was angling for, but Charles’ eyes widen again and then he _smiles,_ soft and pleased. “Israel,” he repeats. “You’re from Israel?” He’s glad that Erik _knows,_ now. That he put it together. Charles laughs. “I don’t know much about it.” But perhaps Erik doesn’t, either. “You’ll teach me?” That meaning is clear, and earnest, and eager. He does want to _know_ Erik. They’re... friends, now.

Erik looks _touched_ , sniffing a little, puffing out his chest to try and fake some of that bravado that comes naturally to him either way. His head shakes. He doesn’t know anything. It’s a book about-about people, maybe it’s a book about- _them_. Erik is leaned forward, most intensely curious about _Charles_ , about-and his mind is going a million miles an hour. He never learned this before, he never sought it out before. Something was wrong with his mind, before. Now he’s waking up, too. Becoming more... civilized. He lets out a harsh breath and gestures as he reads. “ _Ze... ani... dati?_ ” he’s blinking, shaking his head. “ _Ze lam’a?_ ” Why he _is_ -the way that he is? “ _Dati._ ” He repeats it again, pressing his hands together like praying, then tapping his own chest. He isn’t sure what to do with that. Somewhere, it got preserved. And he doesn’t know a thing about it. He huffs, making a face. So he’s supposed to just- _believe_ -just, take on faith? Maybe he wasn’t very rational to begin with, but it’s a lot to take in. He sets the book aside. It found its way into his hands and-Charles had never intended this in the first place.

Gently, slowly, Charles presses it back into Erik’s hands. “I think you should read it, Erik,” he whispers. He’s smiling, soft but imploring. “I’ll go find a book, too. We can sit together.” Not on the chair he’s been sitting on, unless he -- his cheeks go very red, and he shakes his head as if he’s clearing it. Anyway, he just meant _generally._

Erik tucks the book against his Chest, shaking his head and scooting a little closer to Charles, _more_ interested in _sitting together_. He peeks over Charles’s shoulder to see his selection, wide-eyed and eager. It could be nothing, insignificant, it doesn’t seem to matter much to Erik.


	136. he came to me told me if he should decease well then please

Charles hasn’t quite gotten there yet. He laughs, because he has to _get up,_ to look for a suitable book. It’s a task that he does with plenty of deliberation, humming to himself, touching spines, reading first pages. “Do you know anything about...” He starts, but doesn’t finish. “Our, ah, powers?” he wonders, and shows Erik what he means: his _mind reading,_ Erik’s... moving, though it certainly feels like more. Manipulation of _something._ It wasn’t what he’d meant to say originally, but with his back turned he imagines he’ll get away with it.  
  
Of course he does _not_. Erik’s mind is sharp and swift and attuned even if he doesn’t extend his own brand of intellect the same way, and all his attention swivels at that. “ _Lo_ ,” he murmurs, head-shake. He doesn’t know anything about it-but then he starts to think, and decides, Charles’s abilities may have to do with neutrinos; which pass freely through everything and are capable of storing information. Somehow Charles may be able to intercept, manipulate and ‘read’ said information which may make him capable of more than just sending and receiving images. It’s something that vastly _interests_ Erik, rather than repels him, leaned-in instead of away. “ _Haged li ma atah rotze reisheit_ ,” he Commands in that subtly-shifted tone, the one Charles _cannot_ ignore.

“Dominance and submission,” he answers, reluctantly, grateful that he’s still turned, but he _does_ turn because he caught onto some of that, even if he doesn’t fully understand it. He shakes his head. “No, that’s not it,” he assures, and somehow he _is_ assured. It’s fascinating, the way Erik’s theorizing, but some things are known _intuitively_ — are they? They seem to be. The same way Erik is _certain_ of things, Charles is, too. This is one of them, though he has no idea where it comes from, or what the alternative is. “ _You’re_ not sending anything,” he realizes, and grins to himself, head ducked. He’ll keep that to himself, too.  
  
Erik’s head tilts, though. Well, it’s not _magic_. Charles’s abilities happen from somewhere, some force is being manipulated, the same as Erik’s abilities, if somewhat different in application. While Erik isn’t responsible for _sending_ anything explicitly, Charles will realize that his _mind_ is quite developed, for someone psi-null. Organized, layered, able to be _directed_ internally. He organizes, offers up. Leads, follows. What about _Dominance and submission_? Erik grins, toothy. He doesn’t know anything about _that_ , either. Only theories.  
  
Charles shakes his head again, leaning against the bookcase. He’s frowning, now, because — it makes logical sense. He just doesn’t know that it’s _true._ He also doesn’t have the knowledge to correct Erik in any way, and he isn’t _realizing_ much of anything, since his own use of his abilities are rather limited. There’s nothing for him to compare it to. All he knows is what’s intuitive to him, what seems to be natural, and to have Erik — he shakes his head again. There’s nothing that Erik can perceive besides vague discomfort, perhaps _irritation,_ and he turns his back again, returning to his task of selecting a book. “I meant generally,” he sighs. Erik has no way to interpret that, really, because Charles _doesn’t_ offer any insight. He doesn’t _offer_ anything, because he doesn’t have to, the open link between them suddenly slammed shut.

Erik’s jaw works and he glares, shoving down the jolted flutter of panic in his chest the best he can. Telling himself he’s just mad. He’s not afraid. “ _Sheyihiye_ ,” he waves his hand, pretending to be interested in his stupid book.

Charles looks over his shoulder and then he huffs, and _scowls,_ though he does it when he’s facing the bookshelf again so it’s hardly effective. He’s not necessarily putting on a show. He’s upset, too, and Erik — “I feel it even if you think you’re hiding it,” he points out, incredibly haughty, and Erik can’t _understand_ him but it’s like he’s saying it just for himself. He gestures to his temple, shrugging, and pretends to be invested in a book of his own. He has no idea what it is or what it’s about. It might be for Erik’s sake, too; now that it’s on, he doesn’t know how to turn it off. It would be nice if he could, because he doesn’t really _want_ to be in Erik’s head at the moment.

Erik _gestures_ to his own temple, too. “ _Az ma? Lekh mi-kan, lam’a atah mit’anyen?_ ” Erik talks, too, and good for Charles if he doesn’t understand it, since he has the privilege of essentially turning Erik off for _literally no reason_. It makes him afraid, scared that Charles will just decide to stop talking to him, stop allowing him to be understood, and then it makes him mad. Because at no point did anything he _do_ or _say_ qualify for such a _ridiculous_ response, and it isn’t _right_ or _fair_. And if Charles wants to have a pretend conversation with himself he can-something _snaps_ from Erik at that, like a whip that _lashes_ up against Charles, its own form of _force_ that simultaneously strikes and swallows him up, electrical cold-charge.

Charles’ entire being recoils. His arms go around his own middle and he visibly reels from it, and then he shakes his head. “Did you even ask?” he wonders, and Erik doesn’t need to know what the _words_ mean, because there’s thick, clanging hurt between them, suddenly, and Charles slams his book shut, tucks it under his arm and walks off. He gets to the door and _stops,_ not quite walking out. Unable to, somehow, and not able to swallow around the lump in his throat, either. “It _matters_ ,” he fumes.

“ _Bikashti ma?!_ ” Erik returns, eyes narrowed. “ _Ani lo yode’a ma hitkavanta, rak...karat li!_ ” His lips press together, eyes firmly fixed ahead.

“ _It isn’t always about you_!” Charles throws back, suddenly turned toward him. “What I _feel_ isn’t any more _silly_ than what you do, and if you’d like me to _respect_ your reactions, perhaps you should respect mine. I didn’t deliberately shut you off. I didn’t deliberately do anything. I woke up _hours_ ago and it takes far more effort to _share_ with you than it does to listen,” he sighs, embarrassed, for some reason, that he has to admit it. Erik gets the _gist,_ turbulent images and concepts _shoved_ far less gently than before into his mind. “I was offended. Should I _apologize_ for that, since apparently it was inappropriate? I’m sorry. I’ll react the way you want me to next time,” he seethes, but there’s genuine _upset,_ there, around the bite. “I didn’t do it to _spite_ you. Of course I won’t use it against you. I don’t even know how to use it!” It’s all a little jumbled and out of order, the meanings, just indignant and affronted and afraid, too, for different reasons. It’s coming choppy and almost _painful,_ too much directed at Erik at once.

“ _Ani lo magid ze!_ ” Erik whips it up and flings it right back. “ _Ken! Atah tzarich lehitnatzel!_ ” Erik never _said_ it was deliberate, as far as he can tell he never _said_ anything at all, and this is entirely at random-being shouted at, being cut off, being told he’d called Charles’s feelings _silly_ , he shakes his head. Erik waves his hand, setting the book down. He composes himself over the next few moments, maybe thinking of the person he'd _rather_ be, the example he'd _rather_ set. “ _Ani lo magid ze,_ ” he repeats, his tone more even. He’d just been talking, spitballing, curious and in fact eager to hear Charles’s theories in return. He thinks Charles’s gift is beautiful, and wanted to learn more about it, only to be met with hostility. He would never call Charles’s feelings silly, or demean him in that way. If he said something offensive Charles should _tell him_. He doesn't understand what is going on, and he withdraws a little, rising to his feet. " _Slicha_ ," he offers. He didn't _intend_ for Charles to feel this way.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Charles sighs, too, and _means_ it. All the heat drains right out of him, deflates, and he takes a harsh breath, rubbing at his face. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I don’t even know what made me _feel_ that way —“ He doesn’t understand a lot of his own reactions, but he hadn’t _intentionally_ shut Erik down or closed him out. It may have had very little to do with him, but to get hostility back riled him up more. He’s not _used_ to feeling all of this, and, “You don’t have to speak it,” he points out quietly, motioning, showing Erik what the words mean, and then tapping his temple for good measure, turned back to him. He _hears_ it, but more than that he feels it. Practically every second. It’s disorienting and overwhelming and Erik doesn’t need to _organize_ anything, he doesn’t send anything back, Charles just... _gets it._ All of it. It’s almost too much.

Erik shrugs, still a little wary. He never even considered organizing anything, or sending anything back, it’s just the way his mind works. He doesn’t know how to change how he _thinks_. He knows Charles didn’t do it on purpose, but it still frightened him. And he isn’t _pleased_ that Charles’s reaction to these feelings was to fling hostility in his direction and call him selfish. OK, so a lot wary. He breathes slow and deep and lets it go. Charles said he was sorry, and Erik is easy to forgive, even if something feels-it feels _off_ , it feels _missing_. He feels _wary_ and he can’t help that, either. He puts it out of his mind. “ _Haged li yoter?_ ” he requests, offering a smile.

There’s still something being lost in translation. Charles shakes his head, frustrated, but not at Erik. He’s frustrated in general, with their apparent inability to communicate at the moment. He takes a slow breath. “I wasn’t saying that, I was saying it doesn’t _matter_ —“ He shakes his head, and gestures like he’s dismissing it. He is, because that isn’t the important part here and explaining Erik’s own brain to him and his abilities, ones _he_ doesn’t have a grasp of, won’t get them far. “Will you admit you were hostile, too?” He likely didn’t _mean_ it, but Charles certainly felt it. Does he realize that Charles really can’t turn it off now? That he feels everything, heads everything, and he’s trying not to? The volume doesn’t seem in his control at the moment.  
  
Erik’s eyebrows raise. Charles doesn’t need to try not to, if he doesn’t want to. Erik has never minded it. He still doesn’t. He understands if Charles still wants to try, or if he doesn’t have a choice in the matter. But Erik doesn’t mind it. He likes it. He touches Charles’s shoulder. “ _Kol beseder_ ,” he murmurs, soft. He doesn’t have a problem admitting his temper flared in return, but it wasn’t _useful_. They’ll get there. But not like this. Yelling at each other won’t solve their issues. If they feel hurt they should talk to one another, or take a moment to collect themselves until they can.  
  
That calms Charles the rest of the way, too. Erik touching him shoulder, being _close_ enough to touch him at all makes him tense, knee-jerk, and then he slumps a moment after. Relaxes into it with a sigh. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, sincerely, and offers a sheepish, apologetic smile. “I misunderstood you.” Which is something that’s _bound_ to happen like this, but Erik is right. Shouting at each other in languages they’re not even close to fluent in isn’t going to help with _miscommunication._

He squeezes Charles’s shoulder, and his smile is warm, genuine. He’s sorry, too, he just felt very- _blindsided_. He hopes that Charles will learn to trust that he doesn’t ever intend to cause pain, or harm. He certainly wasn’t trying to be dismissive. He understands what it’s like to just _know_ things, after all. To just feel them. And Charles never made him feel crazy, or bad.

Charles’ head ducks. He takes a few slow, easy breaths. Erik has been grappling with this, but for him it feels very new, and therefore _overwhelming._ “You still have to speak,” he reminds Erik, grinning hesitantly when he raises his head. He touches his fingers to his own lips. “So I learn. Hebrew.” Erik _thinks_ in Hebrew, but it’s... different, in his own mind. Charles has mostly been tuning _words_ out. He wants both.

“ _Ivrit_ ,” Erik grins back, still holding his book. He wonders why he knows some things and not others, if it was intentional on the party responsible, and generally finds the whole thing very curious. “ _Atah lomed ivrit_ ,” he returns Charles’s sentence to him in Hebrew. “ _Atah gever_ ,” he adds suddenly, pointing at Charles. He, uh, points at Charles’s dick. A little sheepishly, he doesn’t know what _else_ to do to describe it. “ _Gever, atah._ ” He mimics breasts on his own chest. “ _At_. _Slicha, ani yode’a lo be’emet, ani-_ ” He doesn’t know how else to impart it quickly. But what he’s trying to say is what he’s teaching Charles is only applicable to _them_ , they’re men. Women use different variants of the words. There are also-he thinks-Dominant and submissive classes. “ _Haged, magid_ ,” he uses an example. The first is Imperative, the second is not.  
  
Charles’ eyes go wide and he _sputters,_ very grateful he wasn’t drinking anything because he _certainly_ would have spat it out. Besides the fact that it’s a bit _presumptive,_ it’s also — he brings his hand up to his mouth to cover his laugh, startled and embarrassed, his face red. He feels like a child but he can’t help it. “I can’t use it?” he asks, his voice a bit muffled by his own hand, and repeats Erik’s last words, _plays them back_ like he’s rewinding a tape. What he’s asking is made clear, too, the curiosity obvious: he can’t use Dominant forms? Would it be incorrect? It circles back to his wondering before. What Erik knows about this.

Erik’s a little flustered as well, but he’s laughing good-naturedly, slightly flushed. It’s a little silly, but hey, it had been effective. But he nods, his nose wrinkling up. If Charles _did_ use them it would come off-very _jarring_ , in otherwards be very silly to others, and may get him mocked if he did it in front of another Israeli. Erik doesn’t know how he _knows_ that, since he barely even know he _was_ Israeli until a few seconds ago. Charles also notices that when _Erik_ uses that class it’s nearly impossible to resist obeying, as if Erik has some kind of power over him.

Charles already knew _that,_ and now he’s even more flustered. They’re back here again. He brings his book up to his chest, biting his lip. “What do you know about it?” he asks, revisiting the question from before. “Dominance and submission?”

Erik _doesn’t_ know anything about it. Just what he feels, and his language. He knows that he has the _urge_ to-well-and he doesn’t know if that’s just toward Charles or toward everybody. For Charles to listen to him, to obey him. He doesn’t know if that’s acceptable or not.  
  
Charles swallows, and looks down at his feet. His knuckles are white, they’re gripping the book so hard. “Does it feel... natural?” he wonders. He tries to help Erik understand the question. Is it something he _just knows_ , the way he knows other things about himself? When Erik made him... he thinks about _kneeling,_ earlier. Outside. “What did it feel like?” he whispers.  
  
Erik nods and reaches out to touch Charles’s cheek as if to transmit that sensation himself. Electric, hot, the sensation of a lightning strike inside of him, in his fingertips and whooshing in his ears like a low, steady heartbeat. It _is_ him. It just _is_.

Charles _shivers,_ because he does feel it. Through his whole body. In his heart, now beating too-hard, too-fast, in his chest, clenched up tight, in the way his breath hitches. He startles at first at the touch, then leans into it, his eyes fluttering closed of their own accord. “Me, too,” he admits, breathless and too-quiet. He doesn't know what it means or what to do about it, but he knows that.  
  
Erik’s eyes widen and he unconsciously steps closer, until Charles can feel his body heat. He feels that way, too? He _wants_ to submit? To _Erik?_ Erik knows what _he_ wants, but he also understands if that’s too-too much, too intense, for having known one another for all of an hour. He is someone who looks before leaping, who acts on his feelings before considering them, and Charles isn’t like that. But he is also submissive. He needs things, and they will be here for-who knows how long. Erik seems to be the only person in the position to provide those things.

“I… need things?” he whispers. He looks up at Erik, eyes blinking open. It’s not fear that makes him ask, nor is it indignant or touchy. He’s genuinely curious. Erik thinks he _needs_ things? Charles bites at his lip again, considering that. They are going to be here for the foreseeable future. Erik is the only one here, and Charles already… well, trusts him, at least enough to not feel threatened or in danger. They’re friends, as they’ve established. And Charles… _needs_ things? For some reason it keeps coming back, circling around, Charles’ thoughts swirling with it, passed freely and projected through the tenuous link he’s established.

It makes Erik smile. “ _Ken_ ,” he says aloud, because he’s gotten comfortable with just _thinking_ stuff, and as a being who has only been cognizant for an hour, he’s super adjusted to zooming along at light speed in his mind with Charles, considering it completely normal. “ _Atah tzarich...-_ ” and he doesn’t know how to word this so he does lean on their connection for it. He needs to _submit_. He felt better when he did. He felt... disoriented, out of place, and then he knelt and he was better, not as nervous or off balance. Maybe whatever anxieties he has, would be alleviated if he submitted? Or at least it would help.

Erik certainly isn’t wrong. Charles _is_ anxious. Often, frequently, and there is that sense of _being_ off balance. Off-center. Off-step. It lingers and it’s frustrating and disorienting both, but when he _had_ knelt in front of Erik, he’d felt better. Calmer, more relaxed, more able to breathe and even to think. He’s still chewing at his lip. “You think it will help?” he asks, and swallows. Then he points at Erik, fidgeting. “ _You’ll_ help?” He'll... Dominate Charles?

“ _Ani ozer,_ ” Erik nods back, rubbing his thumb along Charles’s cheek. “ _Ulay mizdakekim ehhh... shigra?_ ” Erik posits, eyebrows arched hopefully. It would help them break up the day better.

Charles’ tilts his head, trying to follow that. “Excuse me?” he asks, giving that sensation from before of _repetition,_ of one more time, please, this time a bit differently. He wants to know the _words,_ but the problem is when those aren’t naturally associated with images or concepts. Whatever it is that Erik’s suggesting, though, he nods. He wants to try. He didn’t expect that to be his response, but it _is._

Erik gestures between them. “ _Anachnu_ ,” he repeats softly. “ _Atah, ani, anachnu._ ” Maybe that will make it more clear. “ _Tzarich-_ ” he thinks a second. “Need things. _Mizdakekim_ -“ and then he sends an image-schedules, clocks, calendars. “ _Shigra_.”

It _does_ make it more clear. Charles laughs, though, but not at _Erik._ It’s just the nature of the way they currently have to communicate. “You —“ He points at Erik, reminding him. “You aren’t —“ He purses his lips. It’s part of what he wanted to explain earlier, and just couldn’t. He makes a gesturing motion between them, and points first at Erik’s head, and then at his, shaking his head. Erik isn’t _sending,_ Charles is taking, and it makes a difference. He doesn’t know if he _can_ take more than Erik gives him on the surface level, but if he can, he’s not sure he wants to. So sometimes it just isn’t enough, because there’s no reason for _clarity_ in your own thoughts. He’s still learning how to process thoughts and emotions and information that isn’t _his._ That’s beside the point, but still _important._ “Alright,” he agrees, nervous but smiling, and nods. It _is_ an agreement, however... shy. There’s confusion, too, though, passed between them. What does that mean? Practically?  
  
There’s nothing to take, anyway, for Erik _all_ of his thoughts seem to be on the surface level. At least, that’s what it seems like. Erik’s _pleasure_ at being able to touch Charles sprinkles across his consciousness like little raindrops infused with warmth that spreads wherever they land. Practically? Maybe he will have to come up with something, although he doesn’t know what that would be, he has not been the most organized in his own daily life. And now he has to live with another person, and he’s not accustomed to it. He’ll need to _behave_. Act normal. Human. Those are all good things. Maybe they can find some kind of tasks to do, maybe explore Charles’s submission in a more structured way. Maybe there are books in here that will help them. Eating, hygiene, sleeping, those can be relegated to routine easily. Exercise, chores. Simple stuff. He hopes that’s not disappointing of an answer.

There is plenty to _take,_ but Charles doesn’t want to. He won’t even try. He’s not sure if he can, except for the vague sense that he can, but the point is moot because he _won’t._ He doesn’t think he will, anyway, but the problem is that now that he’s turned this _on,_ he doesn’t seem capable of turning it off. He’s trying to be grateful rather than frightened, and for the most part he _is._ Either way he smiles at Erik’s suggestion, nodding, but then he taps his lips again. “Words,” he reminds Erik. Perhaps it’s a silly request, but it’s the only way he’ll _learn_ Erik’s language. It’s the only way he’ll be able to put it together with all the other information Erik is providing him with and make sense of it. “I like it,” he promises Erik quietly. Whatever it is he’s suggesting, Charles clearly thinks it’s a good idea. He’s a little flustered, a little fidgety, but he wants to _try._

“Ehhh,” Erik waves his hand, trying again to simplify things. “ _Mot’zim matalot ose, ve taturu tebo’ah shelcha_ ,” he grins, conjuring images of what he’s trying to explain, but it’s difficult to do at the same time, so he often neglects to do one or the other. Consciously, at least, but it does come easier for Charles to just grab it, which Erik appreciates. Exploration, discovery, submission. “ _Atah ohev?_ ” he whispers, touching his own lips with his other hand. He doesn’t know why he asks that, why he _needs_ the assurance. Charles really doesn’t mind?

Charles’ head tilts to the side again. “I… don’t mind what?” he asks, confused. Whatever it is, the answer is almost definitely _no,_ and he lets that reassurance touch Erik, reaching for his arm. Initiating touch, accepting it, because Erik seems _reassured_ by that. Comforted, even.  
  
Erik blinks at him. “ _Ein lakh moach?_ ” his eyebrows fly up into his hair. Charles doesn’t have a _mind_? But he does. Erik _feels_ it. He sees it. He squints a bit, but Charles wanted clarification from _him_ , so he reluctantly, _very_ reluctantly, mumbles, “ _Atah ohev ivrit? Lo margiz?_ ” It doesn’t annoy him?

Charles blinks back, utterly baffled, but Erik’s question makes him smile. “Ah!” _Now_ he can put the words together. He’s sheepish, apologetic; sometimes it takes a few times for him to put the meaning back with the words, sometimes it gets scrambled and he needs Erik to repeat it. But he nods, enthusiastic and honest. “ _Ani… ohev ivrit_?” It sounds more like a question, because he’s not quite sure he’s _saying_ it properly, but the attempt is certainly there and so is the meaning. He _enjoys_ Erik speaking Hebrew. He’d like to learn. He points at himself. “You don’t mind me speaking in English?” he asks, eyebrows raised, and what was meant to be pointed is a bit lost because he’s using the same phrase that initially confused Erik.

It makes _Erik_ grin widely, the one that’s nearly shark-like in how it displays all his teeth. “ _Yesh li moach_ ,” he adds, sticking out his tongue. He’s not a hundred percent certain of that idiom, but he nods-he doesn’t _mind_ it at all. He likes English, and it’s Charles’s language, which makes Erik’s desire to learn it all that much more palpable. And the fact that Charles _likes_ his language-it eases something in him that he doesn’t understand needs easing, and it’s evident even in his posture, how he relaxes nearer to Charles.

Charles smiles, pleased. “Will you _really_ teach me?” he wonders, and he just means — more, really. More than just disconnected words and phrases. He ducks his head and laughs, then starts singing, “ _A, B, C, D..._ ” He gestures. Erik will teach him the alphabet? Vocabulary? Conjugation? It’s obvious he truly wants to learn.

Erik nods, and considering they are in a library, he finds them a table and some paper and pencil. “ _Alamed,_ ” he murmurs, and then begins carefully drawing. _ד ג ב א_ , show up in big strokes. “ _Alef, bet/vet, gimel, dalet,_ ” he grins and sounds them out, which is easy because they almost correspond to English _A, B/V, G, D._ He goes through the whole thing, weathering Charles’s confusion about _vav_ , which can be either an O, U, W, or V sound and you just have to figure it based on context. Hebrew is not _super big_ on vowels, and in fact most of them are left out. He teaches Charles how to write his name, and shows him Erik’s as well.

Charles listens avidly, intently, eagerly. He takes a while to sit on that, to sound things out, to rewrite his own name, and then Erik's, dedicated and deliberate. When it's his turn, he takes the pencil and writes himself, this time in English. It's not his name, and he seems to keep going, a grin on his lips. When he puts the last period down, he looks very satisfied with himself, and he certainly does _not_ project anything that could potentially help Erik figure out what it says. "Mystery," he declares.

“ _Ma!_ ” Erik laughs, studying the word thoughtfully. He points at it. “A, B, C, D,” he declares, completely wrongly. He taps on Charles’s writing, though, in Hebrew, and smiles. “ _Kol hakavod_ ,” he murmurs, and he doesn’t quite know how to translate that one, but his mind is open enough that Charles sees it. Pats on the back, clapping, standing up tall.

Charles laughs, and shakes his head. It’s actually a _sentence,_ and Erik has absolutely no way of decoding it at the moment, something he notes with a gleam in his eyes. He flushes with pleasure at what seems to be praise, head ducked into the paper, and then he _does_ write the alphabet, flipping the paper over so they actually have the room for it. He’ll leave the mysterious note for Erik to read when he’s actually capable of it. “A, B, C, D…” He writes each letter and sounds them out slowly, repeating them as necessary. He even provides fun little images. A is for apple.

Erik watches avidly, eyes bright as he follows along. “ _Tapu’ah?_ ” he squints. “Ah,” he figures out. “Apple.” He grins, and moves on to each one, before haphazardly trying to spell out his name without being shown. He writes AERIK. Good enough, actually probably _right_ , but in an incidental way. “ _Ani lo poter eize mehem_ ,” he grins. Then he scribbles it out and writes _Arik_ , because in _his_ language, he uses _alef_ for the / _ae_ / sound, and Charles has indicated they make the same sound in English. Not _wrong_ , since it’s a subjective word, but-he laughs sheepishly.

It’s extremely close. Charles smiles, encouraging, and writes _Erik_ instead, sounding it out for him with emphasis on the first sound. He wasn’t _wrong,_ technically, just not the most right. He writes his own name for good measure, demonstrating the /ch/ sound, and then writing their names _together,_ with a little smiley face at the end. “Erik and Charles,” he laughs, and taps the ‘and.’ In addition, adding to, including. He's put them together, and he'll admit they look rather nice there.

“ _Ve_ ,” Erik beams, his nose wrinkling up as it often does when he is incredibly pleased. “ _Ani ohev beyachad_ ,” he admits softly. He likes seeing them together, too. He draws two stick people, one _much_ taller than the other, with curly hair, and freckles. The other a little shorter, with wavier hair that curls at the nape, and big, bright eyes and a half-smile. “ _Beyachad_ ,” he points, indicating the word. _Together_.

Charles eyebrows pull together and he _pouts,_ pointing at the depiction. "I'm not that _short,_ " he argues, indicating it with his hands, although he sort of is. He takes the pencil from Erik and links their hands together, which means their stick-hands stretch and bend unnaturally. Erik is left with one very _long_ arm. He also has three fingers. "I'm no artist," he concludes, laughing again.

Erik laughs heartily, but it’s not mocking, it’s _delighted_. “ _Ken_ ,” he disagrees, eyebrows bopping upward. He thinks Charles is a _wonderful_ artist, because he joined them together, and that warms Erik without saying. “ _Ani ohev shalosh etzba’ot sheli_ ,” he promises, holding up three fingers to demonstrate.  
  
Charles is still laughing, too, and it's not lost on him that this entire situation should be _far_ more terrifying. None of the explanations for their situation feel particularly hopeful or good. Yet, here they are, teaching each other alphabets and drawing stick figures. "This is mad," he decides, but he's still smiling. His cheeks hurt a bit, actually.

“ _Atah ko’es?_ ” Erik frowns, eyebrows pulled together in concern. Yet, Charles is smiling. He doesn’t quite understand and his head tilts. Oh, it must be an idiom. Charles isn’t _really_ mad? Erik gazes at him, imploring.

Charles is going to have to be more cognizant, because Erik is picking up on _vocabulary,_ the same way Charles is. He grins, shaking his head, and makes the motion that Erik did before -- 'crazy.' Cuckoo. Not him, or Erik, but the situation, demonstrated in a big, sweeping motion. "This," he clarifies unnecessarily. But, somehow, it feels very... grounded. For something potentially apocalyptic.

“This... mad,” Erik repeats, like the sponge he is, constantly observing, watching, picking-up. He’s _quick_ , too, as his mind adjusts more and more. He gestures toward himself. “You teach,” he grins. “ _Yoter_ ,” he adds. Images of books piling up, more and more. _More_.

“I’d like to learn, too,” Charles whispers, and looks down at the table, grappling with something. His smile has been wiped away all of a sudden, and he looks a bit _sullen_ again, twirling the pencil around in his hand.

“ _Haged li_ ,” Erik murmurs, and even as it’s a frank demand his voice is encouraging, or at least attempting to be. “ _Ma kara? Bevakasha._ ”

“Imperative,” Charles notes, mostly entirely to himself and under his breath. He hesitates, not disobeying but contemplating, chewing on the inside of his lip as he’s prone to do. “I feel... behind, somehow,” he laughs, which feels utterly mad in itself, but he _does._ As if he’s missing something. He passes the meaning to Erik as gently as he can, a soft brush of the mind; he feels, frankly, _stupid._ He feels irrational and silly. He doesn’t like it.

Erik’s eyes narrow. “ _Lo_ ,” he holds up a finger. Charles should _not_ say that, it’s completely false. Erik finds him fascinating, and most of that is _because_ of his mind, certainly not in spite of it. “ _Lam’a?_ ” he asks, insistent. “ _Lam’a margish dafuk?_ ” he taps his head, wanting to know _why_ Charles feels like that.  
  
Charles takes a harsh breath. “I feel like I don’t know anything at all, and _you_ —“ He shakes his head, and he doesn’t quite translate it, but the _feeling_ is there, jarring and aching, and he can’t quite shake it. He can’t _not_ project it, for some reason. He feels inadequate. He doesn’t know why, exactly. It’s just there.

“Me?” Erik gasps, shaking his head. Compared to _him_ -that’s almost silly enough to make him laugh, but he doesn’t. Compared to Charles he’s like a fetus, and he can tell even from their briefest of interactions that is so. “ _Ani mekitz harbe zman._ ” he says with a soft huff, gesturing with his hands as if to say _that’s all_. “You _lo_ behind. You know.” Erik taps him on the nose. _Erik_ doesn’t even _like_ reading, not really. Erik doesn’t think with his head, almost never. How could Charles feel inferior to him _intellectually_? The idea is silly, but he doesn’t let on. He doesn’t want to hurt Charles’s feelings again.

Charles catches on anyway. He _feels_ it, and knows it, as easily as if Erik simply said it aloud, expressed it on his face. He shakes his head. “I don’t feel like it,” he sighs, sullen. It’s _obvious_ how he feels now, even without any sort of projection. It’s written all over _his_ face. He’s prone to this, though he doesn’t know it, and neither does Erik; feeling _inadequate,_ despite any brilliance. Feeling wholly without worth when he _doesn’t_ know, feeling uncomfortable and anxious.  
  
“Why?” Erik wants to know, eyes wide. He’s trying to speak in Charles’s language, to reach him. “Gam ani lo yode’a,” he points out, soft. “Yesh lach shove,” he promises. There’s no one else to compare to besides themselves, but relatively speaking, Erik thinks that they’re a good match. It seems to him like what one lacks, the other has in abundance and vice versa. It’s obvious that Erik thinks highly of Charles, he hopes he hasn’t given any impression that would lead him to conclude all this stuff.

Charles shakes his head. It must be completely irrational, and honestly he doesn’t know _where_ it’s coming from. It’s not that he thinks Erik is more intelligent than him, it’s just that he’s frustrated with _himself._ There’s no reason to be, that he can pinpoint, but — “I loathe not knowing,” he sighs, and laughs a little, because he’s already said it. He _hates_ it. He _feels_ inadequate, he feels not good enough, he’s prone to feeling sullen and frustrated the moment he _doesn’t_ know. He purses his lips. “I’m not sure I like myself,” he snorts, but there’s _honesty_ there. Is he supposed to? Did he before, if there was a before at all?

Erik smiles. “I like you,” he replies, his nose wrinkling up. Erik thinks he knows what Charles means, but he can’t explain why. It’s not the same thing, either. This sense of understanding, of being-on the fringes, the fringes of society, of civilization, perhaps exemplified by his long stint alone and perhaps because of it. Like he’s a wild man, a savage beast. Like no human could possibly understand him. He knows it’s not good enough, but he hopes that Charles will trust him. He is likeable, very much so.

Charles smiles, too, finally lifting his head. “You’re picking up English fast,” he compliments, making it clear it _is_ a compliment the same way Erik had earlier, and he’s sure the same is true for him with Hebrew. Erik seems to think so, anyway. It will take time, and practice, and patience. But Erik seems confident they can figure it out, he truly believes they can. It seems wrong to not have at least a little faith in that, too. “I like you, too,” he laughs, and swallows down whatever emotion was building up inside of him. He wishes he knew what gets him so _anxious,_ but perhaps Erik was right earlier. Perhaps he just needs things he doesn’t quite understand yet.

“ _Be’emet!_ ” Erik laughs, pleased as punch. He knows Charles is nervous, and a little scared, but Erik won’t let anything happen to him. “ _Agen atah_ ,” he promises. He flips over his book, feeling a bit braver about things now that he knows he _isn’t_ crazy. Probably. And that’s because of Charles, Charles helped him. Maybe Charles has always helped him, wherever they come from.  
  
Erik has helped Charles, too. Undeniably. He’s calmer for it, more at ease, and when Erik opens his book again, Charles does, too, after he grabs an entire stack of them, barely able to carry them back to the table.


	137. Give me something to remember you by when I go

That’s when Erik loses him, frankly. Armed with a pencil, several long, complex, weighty books, and time, Charles is completely gone to the world, Erik included. He mutters to himself occasionally, turns the page, takes notes, and repeats, but he doesn’t seem at all capable of responding to outside stimulus outside of his little bubble of knowledge acquisition, and the hours tick by rather easily. This is where Erik realizes that, left to his own devices, Charles really _would_ spend hours here, bent over in the same position, reading and absorbing and thinking.  
  
Erik, meanwhile, looks _incredibly_ confused and a little disheartened by his own _reading_. And a little _nauseous_ , actually. His lips are pressed in a flat line and he’s shaking his head to himself. It’s- _confusing_ , to say the least. He isn’t sure what he expected, but this wasn’t it. He didn’t really expect that he was required to have some kind of complicated PhD-level political dissertation developed in the back of his brain at all times, but evidently that isn’t true. And it sounds like something Charles would be better suited toward. After a while he rolls his eyes and throws his hand up, gently tossing the book aside. Maybe they have some English children’s books or something more _his speed_.

Unfortunately, Charles seems so completely absorbed that he just doesn’t even _react._ He doesn’t look up at all, actually. He makes a vague, distracted humming noise, as if he _would_ react if he didn’t have his head stuck in a book, but it’s just a placeholder. When he shifts, it’s just to bring his legs up to his chest again and rest the book on his knees, his head there, too, scribbling furiously in the margins. It’s fairly obvious what he would do with _all_ his time if left to his own devices.

Erik finds himself distracted by the window, Charles seems to be having a good time and Erik doesn’t want to distract him, but he’s frankly bored and tired of reading and a little overwhelmed, a little bit frustrated, but he doesn’t know _why_. There’s this sense of anger he can’t quite tamp down, hot and prickly and _itchy_ and dents his fist into the windowpane a little too hard before wandering to pick up his physics book, because that always _did_ comfort him, and at least there’s nothing-at least he doesn’t have to learn _stupid shit_ against his will. Growl.

Charles suddenly scowls, his own temper flaring though Erik only gets a sharp _spike_ of it, dubiously conscious. "Could you stop that," he snaps, and there doesn't precisely _need_ to be a translation, really. It's fairly clear what he's asking for, impatient and irritated.

Erik stares at him. “ _Ma?_ ”

Charles sighs and shakes his head, lips pursed, and ducks his head back into his book.

Charles finds the book _snaps_ into Erik’s outstretched palm, with Erik glowering at him from across the room. It’s evident that he takes clear issue with Charles’s tone, especially since he can’t recall having done anything to deserve it. “ _Haged li,_ _****achshav****_. _Ma ani ose?_ ”

Charles sighs again, frowning as he rests his head on his knees and rubs at his forehead, massages his temples. "Sorry," he mutters, half-reluctant, and gestures vaguely with one hand, though he knows Erik will have no idea what he means without help. He touches his temple. Erik was frustrated, and angry, and _thinking_ loudly. It was disturbing Charles' reading.

Erik moves to settle the book back down on the table. He can’t really control how he _thinks_ , he points out with arched eyebrows. But he’s sorry. He didn’t mean to all the same. His lips press together and he sweeps his old book surreptitiously off the table and into the garbage, whistling innocently. All better.

Charles frowns at that, too. “Why? _Lam’a_?” he asks, almost reluctantly, but it’s not that he doesn’t want to know what has Erik so riled. It’s that he wants to get back to his book, and he’s finding this entire experience irritating as a result, _especially_ because he feels compelled to attend to Erik in some way.

Erik waves a hand. “ _Lo, mamschich kore_ ,” he murmurs, leaving it at that. It’s big and complicated and unpleasant and Charles is already irritated with him, and he finds himself shrinking away from it, overly-sensitive. He finds he also has far greater mental prowess than he originally realized, because in short order he feels calm. In control of himself. The offending emotions are gone, and Erik offers a smile, gesturing to Charles’s book.

Charles isn’t calm, though. Actually, he’s downright agitated, and he huffs about it, frowning and upset and completely unable to concentrate on the book he was just minutes ago _completely_ engrossed in, sighing, shifting, and scowling at seemingly nothing.

Erik ends up seated beside him, and touches his arm. “ _Ma kara?_ ” he wonders, eyebrows raised plaintively. “ _M_ _aged li, bevakasha. Ani ozer._ ” He’ll try, at the very least.

Charles shakes his head, not even looking at him as he fidgets. “It’s nothing,” he sighs, and his lips are pursed and his jaw is tense and his shoulders are hunched. He’s been staring at the same page for a solid five minutes.

“ _Lo,_ ” Erik insists. “Talk,” he repeats in English, pointing at himself. Talk to him. And this time Charles finds it isn’t optional.

“I’m just _irritated,_ ” he huffs, frustrated that he’s being made to, and gestures with his hands, dismissive and agitated. The _feeling,_ the emotion gets across before the words even leave his mouth, leaving very little ambiguous. “There’s nothing to talk about, Erik. Can you please stop interrogating me?” he asks, knowing full well Erik won’t _understand,_ but it doesn’t matter when he’s obviously trying to have this dropped entirely. It’s true, is the problem. He’s just irritated. He doesn’t want to talk about it, nor does he know how to. Erik was angry, Charles responded to it, then Erik shoved it away and Charles was left with it.

“Why?” Erik wants to know, and he doesn’t understand why he feels his heart pounding in his chest, why his hands and ears feel hot, why he feels sweat beads forming along his forehead. Charles has been mad at him before, he doesn't know why this time it's-“ _Irritated_ , me?” his lips press together, he presses his fingertips into his own chest. He stares beyond Charles’s shoulder, uncertain what is happening within himself, or why, and trying not to let on; Charles is already angry with him, he doesn’t need that on top of it. “ _Beseder_ ,” he nearly trips over himself to stand up. “I go.” He offers a small smile.

“I’m not _angry_ at you,” Charles sighs, and it comes out rougher than he truly intends. He groans, _digging_ his fingers into his temples and shaking his head. He doesn’t want Erik to _go._ How did he even learn that? Is Charles just imagining that he’s speaking more English, why isn’t _Charles_ capable of that? He’s just — “I don’t _want_ you to go,” he mutters, his eyes closed, thoroughly on edge.

“ _Ani lo yode’a ose_ ,” Erik whispers, and he doesn’t understand why there are tears in his eyes, so he blinks them away, calling on the same power he had before to swiftly lock down whatever is going on with him because it’s undoubtedly silly, some over-reaction. “ _Slicha_ ,” he tries, still-smiling, but it looks reflexive. “ _Et'achsen_ ,” he promises. He’ll stay. He hesitantly reaches out to touch Charles’s shoulder, fingertips grazing his neck, warm.

Charles shakes his head, thoroughly uncomfortable and distressed and _disturbed_ and unable to explain _any_ of it. What he ends up doing is burying his face in his own knees and taking deep breaths, but it doesn’t _help._ He doesn’t want to look at Erik. He doesn’t know how to moderate how he’s feeling, how to express it, how to even _understand_ it. “You don’t need to be _sorry_ ,” he huffs, finally, mostly muffled by his knees. He doesn’t even know why Erik’s apologizing and it’s _not_ making him feel better and he doesn’t know what to do _to_ feel better. “I’m sorry, alright? Just...” He shakes his head again.

Erik’s head shakes. “ _Lo, atah amarta hirhurim sheli so’en,_ ” he insists, soft. He points at his own temple, attempting to convey his own meaning. Charles said his thoughts were too loud. And he’s found he _can_ control them. Make them- _less_. “ _Ose shaket,_ ” he offers, and Charles can feel that it’s true, Erik seems quieter somehow, calm, placid, no ripples at all in the ocean of his consciousness.

And Charles not only doesn’t _like_ it, he honestly finds it _distressing._ It doesn’t even work. It must not work. He doesn’t _say_ that, and he just shakes his head again, dismissive and frustrated and absolutely refusing to open his eyes.

Erik swallows. “ _Lo, atzor,_ ” he finally says, and it _tugs_ something in Charles. Imperative, like he’d said. “ _Lo. Achshav haged li,_ ” he Commands, gazing at Charles. “ _Ve pkach einayim_ ,” he demands as well. That one is less obvious, but Charles feels the compulsion to open his eyes, to look at Erik.

Charles _huffs,_ every part of him tense and on edge, but he _looks,_ even as his teeth are clenched so tightly together they ache. He’s grinding them together, and finally he just goes back to biting holes into his own lips. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but whatever you’re doing isn’t working and it isn’t helping,” he sighs, truthfully, but fortunately it isn’t like Erik will understand the language. He helps the meaning across, though it’s jagged and rough, far less gentle and smooth than it was before. Erik’s left with a bit of a headache, actually. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. I’m agitated.” Not even at _Erik._ He just _is._ “I don’t even know what it _is,_ ” he adds, mumbling, and it’s the frustration, irritation, and helplessness that gets blasted in Erik’s direction that will help him understand.

Erik blinks a little as if buffeted by physical force. “ _Ani_ -” he starts, then tries in English. “I feel,” he whispers back, gesturing to his temple. He was feeling those things, before he let them drift underneath the surface. They’ve long evaporated now, his attention focused on what Charles is going through. “Agitated,” he repeats, his accent thick and barely legible. “I feel,” and he waves his hand. Before, he felt it before. It’s gone now. So it probably isn’t the reason. So he doesn’t know, why he’s talking about it.

Because Erik _was_ feeling it, perhaps still _is_ feeling it, and it affected Charles. Not in a way that’s Erik’s _fault,_ but it’s almost certainly the origin. And when Erik buried it, it made him feel _worse,_ riled him up more, it didn’t just go away. It didn’t just disappear. It didn’t become less, it just agitated him more. He shakes his head again, helpless and _so_ unspeakably frustrated, all of it just building inside of him. “It’s fine,” he mutters, clearly dismissive, albeit clipped.

Erik shrugs a little. He’s sorry that he doesn’t know how to get it back. He doesn’t feel it anymore, not a product of deliberate obfuscation but because it’s melted in the face of Charles’s distress. “ _Lo,_ ” he shakes his head. It’s obviously not fine. Charles is upset. And Erik’s feelings-they are just a nuisance, Charles wanted to read, not deal with this. That’s why he apologized.

Charles makes a noise through his teeth, irritated and upset, and he doesn’t even understand his own emotions, thoughts, or reactions. He buries his head back in his knees and covers it with his arms. He’s visibly shaking now, and shut _off._ Entirely.

Erik touches his shoulder, then the back of his head. “ _Atzor. Haged li, lo,_ ” he whispers. Tell him. Talk to him. He’s _here_. “No go,” he asks softly, trying to use English, to reach him back.

Charles shakes his head, and it’s not a refusal. It’s not disagreement. He’s actually telling Erik what he _needs,_ or trying to. He’s overwhelmed and oversensitive right now. “Hold on, please?” he requests, and holds up a finger, sends stop signs and pauses and _waits,_ concepts and not words. Just a quiet moment to compose himself. His head hurts and he curls into himself, vulnerable and sucking in heavy breaths.

Erik nods, just feathering his fingers through the light hairs at Charles’s nape. Charles told him what he _needs_ and Erik, primed for Charles as it seems, _listens_. He doesn’t dismiss, he doesn’t huff or argue or turn his back. He acquiesces, because that’s just-it’s what he _should_ do, what the entire Universe is telling him to do. He’s sorry that he originated this. He didn’t mean it. But his apologies muffle, his presence muffles just a bit. Waiting. Letting Charles come to him on his own terms, not out of any resented dragging.

It doesn’t feel very muffled. Nothing does. Charles is quiet for a very long time, leaning into Erik’s fingers, digging his fingers into his own temples. “My head hurts,” he whispers, after what feels to him like ages, and he doesn’t need to show anything for Erik to know; pain, throbbing, mostly dull but also distressing. He keeps his eyes closed and his breathing as even as possible. “I’m sorry.”

“ _Beseder, beseder,_ ” Erik whispers back, offering a small smile. “ _Lam’a?_ ” he wonders, though. Why does Charles apologize? It was his own fault. He should have been-more open. But Charles-he wanted to read. He didn’t-he didn’t want Erik’s emotions spilling all over him, to have some kind of _grand talk_ while he was busy reading. Busy enjoying himself, even. Erik hadn’t wanted to disrupt that. _He’s_ sorry.

Charles shakes his head, another one of those distressed noises slipping out of his mouth, through his teeth where he’s still focusing on his breathing. He _couldn’t_ focus on his reading, because — he doesn’t know how to explain it, how to say it. He sighs again, pained and nauseated and frustrated again. But he _couldn’t,_ and he hadn’t really known how to handle two things he’d never experienced, both _intense,_ at once. Erik’s anger, felt strongly as if it was his own, and his own _need_ to — to what? To respond to Erik, in some way. He curls closer into his own knees.

But he _hadn’t wanted to_. Needed, maybe, but it was an inconvenience, and Erik understands that. Whatever niggling expectation he may have had-and he didn’t even really realize that it would be of any significance. It’s his own feelings, his own thoughts, he’s never felt the need before Charles awoke to-to _moderate_ them before. “ _Ze beseder_ ,” he murmurs, lips pressed together hard enough to form a line, to keep everything, everything _inside_. It’s gone now. Charles doesn’t have to worry. And Erik could hardly know what that meant, that Charles needed to respond to him. He doesn’t know anything. Whatever Dominance means, he must be a poor one.

It’s not alright, though. Charles sighs again, his shoulders visibly hunching further as Erik responds. It doesn’t _feel right,_ and they don’t have the shared language for him to properly express why. Erik isn’t and shouldn’t be an _inconvenience,_ and every time he thinks that Charles gets _upset._ He feels upset. But his head hurts and he’s overwhelmed and he doesn’t know, either, so he just stays curled up and shakes his head.

Erik gently, slowly, reaches out to touch Charles’s forehead with his fingertips, barely a graze, as if he could soothe away the irritation and anger. He didn’t know Charles wanted to know about it, wanted to-he didn’t want Erik to submerge it, but he’d been so angry, Erik didn’t have any other input, and it’s sometimes not precise to communicate this way. “ _Atah rotze?_ ” his eyebrows raise, not arguing, genuinely asking. Charles wants to-know about it? Erik looks a little wary again, shoulders hunched, as if he thinks he’s asking a stupid question.

Charles nods, slowly. It’s not that he didn’t want to hear, or that it was an inconvenience. It’s that this is all new for him. He’s not _used_ to feeling someone else’s emotions like that, to — he’s not sure, exactly. Absorbing them? He didn’t want Erik to try and take that away, he just didn’t know how to _handle_ it. His head is still throbbing, but Erik touching him _helps._ “I want to know,” he promises, trying a weak smile of his own.

Erik kicks the garbage can a little, lips pressed together. “ _Ze dafuk!_ ” he laughs, tapping his fist against his own heart. “ _Eretz sheli, am sheli-_ ” the translation on that one is muddier, but Charles gets images of flags and desert and, like, he doesn’t know. Prayers and shit. “ _Lo tov! Kol lo tov. Ani tzarich da’at lam’a?_ ” he scowls. It’s complicated. He didn’t really know. He imagines he had a personal, lived experience of this and now he doesn’t, he’s viewing it as an outsider. To find out- _everything_ in a few short sentences in some travel book. It’s a lot. And he tried to look up English, only to discover _everybody_ speaks English, so he doesn’t even know where Charles is from either.

Charles smiles, eyes still closed, but not because he’s avoiding looking at Erik, and not because he’s amused at all by the situation, either. He isn’t. “It will come back to you,” he whispers gently, and the meaning of that is rather clear. Erik _will_ know, eventually. He’ll learn, outside of a book. Lightbulbs over the head, moments of realization, he’ll _remember._ But of course it’s overwhelming now. It’s something they have to grapple with and work through. “I don’t think it matters,” he laughs, and he doesn’t mean where Erik comes from, he means where _he_ does. It doesn’t shape him the way it does for Erik. He doesn’t know how he knows that, but he does. “My head,” he groans.

There’s a lot more tucked away inside of Erik that he doesn’t know how to process, that he doesn’t want to burden anyone else with, that maybe can’t be solved outside of himself. Whatever it means, he’s here with Charles, and Charles doesn’t seem to be aggressive, to be hateful, and that matters more than he can say, now that he knows. Erik brushes his fingertips against Charles’s forehead. “ _Slicha_ ,” he whispers, apologetic. He feels like he’s made a big mess of things. Charles is hurting, and he wanted to read, and Erik has been-stuck in his own problems, and it feels silly now. He appreciates that Charles has made the space.

Charles frowns. "Stop," he whispers, and it's a _demand,_ but he tries to soften it. Stop _implying that,_ he means. He plays Erik's own thoughts back to him. That he's some burden, that he's an _inconvenience._ It's not how it's supposed to be and it's making Charles feel dizzy and sick. Please stop. It's _upsetting_ him.

Erik blinks at him. “You have no mind?” he asks, trying to repeat the idiom from earlier. Of... Erik’s problems? Even when they’re totally unrelated to anything? Even when Charles is hurting? He doesn't want Erik to stop and try to help him, to take care of him?

Charles shakes his head. He wasn’t even _hurting,_ it was Erik’s emotions that overwhelmed him but they’re going to need to work through that. Obviously it depends on the situation, but he doesn’t want _that._ He pulls his knees closer to his own chest. He’s the one who couldn’t handle it. He’s the one who snapped. He’s the one who should be apologizing and made things messy. And he’s supposed to _do_ something, he’s sure he is, but he doesn’t know what it is.

What is Charles supposed to do? Erik’s eyebrows are raised, entirely clueless, unfortunately. He tugs Charles’s legs down, setting a hand on his knee. Erik forgives him. He knows Charles is still dealing with figuring out his powers. But if he can’t handle it, doesn’t that mean Erik _should_ suppress when he’s upset? Erik doesn’t _want_ to give Charles more than he can handle. But Erik suspects that maybe Charles could handle it. Erik just needs to understand more. Be more honest, maybe. He’s not accustomed to asking for help. He’s been alone for a long time.

Help him. He doesn’t know _how,_ of course, but Charles knows that he desperately wants to. He feels _compelled,_ even, the same way he’d needed to kneel but hadn’t known it until he did. He takes another harsh, shuddering breath. “You were afraid?” he asks, frowning, and helps Erik along by giving him a soft brush of the emotion to demonstrate. Fear as a concept. “Why? _Lam’a_?” he asks, anxious and concerned. It’s Charles’ fault?

“ _Ani-_ ” Erik doesn’t know. It makes no sense. Why was he scared? But he had been, backing up, almost tripping over himself, trying to _appease_ instead of _Dominate_ which doesn’t seem right, does it? It doesn’t. His lips are turned down, pressed together so hard they almost disappear, and he’s rubbing his fingers along the tops of his thighs, breathing quickly through his nose. “ _Chashavti atah mach’iv li_ ,” he blurts, eyes wide. The answer hadn’t been conscious, he didn’t know, and it doesn’t-it’s nothing-it’s nothing of Charles, nothing about Charles’s personality. Charles isn’t a bully, he isn’t mean. There’s no reason Erik should’ve been scared of Charles hurting him. But in that moment, he had been. As if he’d forgotten, _everything_. A fear that existed outside of knowledge, outside of experience.

Charles frowns, _disturbed_ by that, but not because of Erik. Certainly not because of anything he did. But Erik’s right, it just doesn’t sound right. In fact, it sounds _wrong,_ and he’s having a reaction because of that. “I won’t hurt you,” he promises quietly, the meaning clear. He’s still rubbing at his own forehead, digging his fingers in, but it’s sincere. He doesn’t want Erik to _appease_ him. It isn’t supposed to be that way. He’s almost certain of that.

He nods his head, because he thinks he knows that. But somehow hearing Charles _say_ it like that, it helps. “ _Be’emet?_ ” he clears his throat, pressing the backs of his fingers to his mouth. “ _Gam ani,_ ” he adds, touching his own chest. He would never hurt Charles. It seems they do-if not _remember_ , some things are _lasting_. Little lighthouses that guide them, buried deep in their   
  
Charles nods, even though he's not looking, finding everything excessively bright and painful at the moment. "I want to trust you," he breathes, and it's not quite _I trust you,_ but it's the beginning of it. The start of it. It's an admission that he _wants_ to and even believes that he _will,_ if Erik gives it time and patience. If they stay here long enough. He's hoping -- he's _projecting_ \-- that it's the same for Erik. He _wants_ to figure this out. There's no reason for either of them to be terrified or alone.

“ _Gam ani_ ,” Erik breathes back, because it’s _true_. Because he has faith that he isn’t stuck here with a monster, because Charles wants to _help_ him. And that isn’t a projection. It’s what he really believes. He didn’t mean to make Charles sad, or disturbed, or angry. He hopes Charles knows he’s trying his best, and he hopes Charles knows that _he_ knows _Charles_ is trying his best, too.

Charles smiles a little. Soft, small. Then, slowly, he takes Erik’s hand and places it on his temple, groaning softly, his face twisting up in discomfort. “I want to trust you,” he repeats, now that Erik knows what he’s saying, and takes slower, calmer breaths, trusting Erik won’t hurt him. He knows. They’re navigating something frightening, but at least it doesn’t seem they’re doing it wholly _alone._

“Trust me,” Erik repeats, not an Imperative but just to repeat it, to form the words in English. “I want... to trust you,” he tries, grinning as his fingers slowly, gently, as if Charles is made of porcelain, pet along his temples where he can tell Charles is most sensitive. He encourages Charles to breathe slowly and deeply even without realizing it, standing as a steady pillar of calm. “No hurt me?” his eyebrows raise, plaintive, expression oddly vulnerable. Even if he's mad? He won't want to hit Erik? He probably deserves that, he can be a little bit annoying.

Charles shivers, and this time it's certainly not from pleasure. "No, never," he whispers, and presses that concept as firmly and gently as he can; even if he's upset, even if he's angry, he will _never_ raise his hand to Erik. He finally blinks his eyes open, staring up at Erik. He looks exceptionally vulnerable to, perhaps two moments from bolting trembling under Erik's fingers because it _hurts_ and his first instinct is to pull away. What about Erik? He won't hurt Charles, will he? It's somehow _not_ accusatory.  
  
Erik blinks and his fingers snap back to his chest when Charles shivers beneath them as if burned by a hot poker, and he shakes his head. “ _Lo, lo_ ,” he whispers, taking Charles’s hand instead. “Never.” He feels like-maybe he got mad a lot, or had a lot of big feelings he didn’t know what to do with. Like maybe he _could_ hurt people. But never Charles. Charles is safe with him, always.  
  
Charles frowns when Erik’s hand moves, bringing it back up to his temple. It’s insistent, but he smiles sheepishly, as if he doesn’t want to be _too_ demanding. Emphasis on too, here. “Leave it,” he says, which is _clearly_ a demand, because it feels, somehow, less like his head is going to explode when Erik’s hand is there even as he feels sick and prickly and oversensitive. He knows Erik won’t _harm_ him. When he was angry, Charles wasn’t afraid.  
  
Erik’s thumb brushes against the skin, and he shifts Charles’s hair behind his ear before getting back to his regularly scheduled _mandated petting_. But he grins back, and then _he_ demands, which is significantly-it feels deeper, richer, the room vibrating with _something_ neither of them quite understand, strings pulled taut. “ _She’al li nayim_ ,” is what he murmurs, and that Imperative shoots right up Charles’s spine. Charles knows how to ask nicer than _that_. And Erik is going to _make_ him.  
  
Charles _does_ shiver, completely involuntary, his eyes closed as he stays trembling under Erik’s fingers. “Please,” he breathes, because it’s simple, because Erik _knows_ that word, because it doesn’t require any telepathic translation. It’s sore and it hurts and for some reason Erik helps, when Charles lets him, even when it’s far too much. If Erik is gentle, if he’s careful, which he always _seems_ to be. At least in this. See? Charles is trying to trust him. With everything. He wants to.  
  
Erik smiles, warm, and this time he does indulge, raising his other hand to Charles’s opposite temple to do the same thing, watching him for any sign of pain, of stress. Somehow Erik knows exactly what to do, his hands know. He is gentle, he is careful, in this-when it seems like he should not be, because he is the equivalent of a golden retriever in human form, boundless energy, running and jumping and playing and nosing around. But in this, he is careful. Charles can trust him, he will _prove_ it. “Please,” he repeats, because he does know that word, and because he likes hearing it from Charles’s lips.  
  
Charles isn’t quite sure that comparison is right. He _would_ find a golden retriever annoying, he thinks, but Erik isn’t. He’s... quieter, too. Calmer. Perhaps he doesn’t like to sit and read for hours the way Charles does, but he isn’t incapable of it. _Charles_ is full of anxiety, constantly moving in his own way, and Erik stills him, so there’s something there. Besides, there’s something just too... _predatory_ about Erik, but not in a _bad_ way, which is strange. It’s just all there. Charles knows it’s there, somehow. He flinches as Erik continues to touch him, but _leans into it._ “ _Bevakasha,_ ” he whispers this time, smiling shyly. “Can I go back to reading now?” he teases, his eyes moving to the pile still on the table. It’s late, already, or getting there, but Charles could easily stay up all night with a book. Or twenty.  
  
Erik smirks back. “ _Lo_ ,” is what he decides, and he _does_ decide. “ _Laila’tov_ ,” he adds, pointing at the window. “ _Boker, erev, laila_ ,” he tries to explain. Images of the sun, the blazing blue of sky in the afternoon, and the moon trailing shortly behind. He points at Charles and mimes with his hands under his chin. “ _Shena_ ,” he says softly. **  
  
**Charles grins, too, and shakes his head. “No, I don’t want to _sleep,_ ” he stresses the word, so that Erik knows it’s the same one, the English equivalent. Shaking his head _does_ earn him a spike of sharp pain, and _denying_ Erik makes his belly twist strangely in a way he doesn’t understand, but he barrels on. He points at the books. “I want to read. I’m not finished. Soon, okay?” It’s bartering. Everything about it makes that obvious. He’s trying to make a _deal_ with Erik here.  
  
Erik cautions him to be still, not for its own sake, but so he won’t hurt, giving him a playful tap on the nose. “ _Lo, lo,_ ” he whispers back, shaking his head, his expression almost _stern_ , but not agitated or annoyed. “ _ ** **Go sleep****_ ,” he says, and all of a sudden something that Charles has _never_ felt before slots into place, more than the Imperative, perhaps because it’s in _his_ language. It’s glittering and whispering and otherworldly, and Erik’s eyes are bright with it.  
  
Charles shivers, a full, near violent shudder, his eyes wide as if he has no idea what’s just happened. He doesn’t. He stares, chest suddenly heaving, body trembling, swallowing around the sudden lump in his throat. “Sleep?” he repeats, as if it _isn’t_ his language, an odd repetition. He looks like he’s been _electrified,_ feels like it, just as shocked, but not necessarily _frightened._ _  
  
_“ _Sleep_ ,” Erik confirms, and he rises, holding out his hand, and it is clear Charles has no _choice_ but to stand and obey. He is not appeasing Charles _now_. Maybe in the future he will get scared again, react bad, but in the moment that has all but evaporated.  
  
He stands, but not without digging his feet in a bit. Not without grabbing for the book he’d been reading, holding it innocently to his chest with a grin. “I sleep best with a book,” Charles informs Erik smartly, and he fully intends to sleep. Eventually.  
  
Erik taps him on the nose again, grinning. “ _Lo,_ ” he screws up his features as he considers. “Waked up,” he tries, leaning forward expectantly, wondering if Charles understands. “ _Kore_ ,” he gestures. “ _Atah kore matay mekitz,_ ” he pats the book and slides it out of Charles’s fingers, entirely _serious_ even if his expression seems light, Charles finds that it’s almost hard to breathe with how this room is suffocated-not _really_ suffocated, more like wrapped-up tight and glittering. Erik’s Dominance, manifest.

Charles _reaches,_ as if he’s going to grab it. His belly _lurches,_ sudden and painful, but he’s frowning. “Give it here,” he demands, except it comes out a _whisper._

“ _Lo_ ,” Erik growls back, rich and smooth at the same time, and when he lurches he finds himself fully in Erik’s space, _right_ up against him, and Erik presses his hands against Charles’s chest. “ _Lo,_ you _****sleep****_ , _****achshav****_ ,” Erik murmurs and the Imperative, the _Order_ , zings all the way up Charles’s spine and melts into his temples.  
And he jerks with it, as if he really has been _electrocuted,_ as if Erik’s physically harmed him though he isn’t hurt, his eyes wide again. He’s never felt anything like this before. Ever, not really. “I can’t have my book back?” he asks, breathless, and immediately feels silly for it, childish, because he’s already moving toward the bedroom he woke up in. Erik said to sleep. He _has_ to.

* * *

“ _Be’boker_ ,” Erik tells him pointedly, leading Charles to his bedroom, the one that he made for Charles so many eons ago, furnished in flowers and bright yellow walls with pink borders and painted-on smiley faces and dancing bananas and faded out into dark-blues, night-stars, _Polaris_ and the big-bear and the Little Dipper beyond, and now it’s Erik’s turn to feel silly, because surely Charles wouldn’t find it appealing. But Erik had, it gave him comfort, made him feel like he wasn’t alone. Curling plants trail over windowsills and his blankets are soft and endless, and Erik wilts a little sheepishly. They can change it, if Charles wants.  
  
Charles smiles, slowly, softly. “It’s... nice,” he offers, because he hadn’t actually _looked,_ before, far too preoccupied with waking up in a foreign place with no memory of how he got there. No memory at all. There’s obvious hesitance in his voice, and he frankly wants to kick himself for it, the guilt eating away at his stomach. He swallows. “It’s nice,” he repeats, despite the fact that the words are useless. They don’t have to change it. It’s fine the way it is.

Of course Erik notices it and he grimaces, shaking his head. “ _Ze bishvili_ ,” he promises gently. It was for him. It made him feel better, it gave him something to do. His aesthetic-it isn’t really an aesthetic, it’s just little things that made him feel less alone. Charles is the one who lives here, Erik will help him decorate it properly. Anything he wants to change, it’s his space, too. The whole house. Erik isn’t accustomed to having _roommates_ , to living with people, but he has to learn.

Charles shakes his head, trying to double down even as he feels _relief,_ vaguely, even as it spills, too used to projecting emotion and thoughts for clarity. “No, no, it’s — it’s fine, you like it,” he tries, even as he stares up at the bananas, at the pink, at the _bright_ yellow. The smiley faces. It’s... a little childish, frankly, and he feels _wretched_ for thinking that. It’s not how he would choose to decorate, not that he _knows_ himself very well. But Erik likes it, so it should stay, shouldn’t it? Even if he finds it a bit juvenile, garish? If it will make him feel better? He keeps all of that to himself, biting at his lip and just _staring._

Charles notices something odd, though, the blue from the starry nightscape has begun to run a little, mostly while Erik marshals himself, tucks everything away even though they just had that conversation, there’s no reason for this situation to devolve. Charles is right; it’s fairly childish. Erik’s _mind_ had been childish, his first exposure as he crawled out of awakening to the library, picture books and artwork and forests and endless, endless solitude. An awakened part of him he doesn’t understand needed awakening, one who is bored by mundanity, by long slogs through literature, who would rather fight monsters and trek through the brush and laugh at-well, dancing bananas. Let’s be honest. And the longer Erik is in the presence of another person that has seemed to shift, and he struggles not to be-well- _embarrassed_. The blue keeps running over, eclipsing the yellow.

Charles is frowning, and not particularly noticing _anything,_ to be honest. His eyes are closed. “I said it’s fine,” he snaps, suddenly, which is _not_ a wholly appropriate response, but he shakes his head. “You wanted me to go to sleep,” he points out, quietly. He steps away from Erik.

“ _Lo,_ ” Erik returns sharply, breathing through his nose, lips pressed together as if he can remember how to be an adult, be a person, be a normal human male. He points at Charles. Don’t snap at Erik. “ _Ani rak menase la’azor_ ,” he returns, but it sounds a bit raspy. He tugs Charles back a little, Just one step. Glancing up at the ceiling, sniffing. Trying to keep up the same bravado he’s always had, and he’s _not_ going to _cry_ in front of Charles over-over this. “Ouch,” he whispers, touching his own heart. He doesn’t know how else to explain.

Charles huffs, and stares at the _floor,_ swallowing and trying not to get worked up himself. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and he feels well and truly _guilty,_ but what is he meant to do? Lie? Should he? He feels like he should have tried harder. He can live with it. “I’d really like some sleep,” he adds, because he’s uncomfortable and guilty and there’s no reason for him to make Erik feel _worse._

Erik shakes his head and touches Charles’s cheek. It wasn’t Charles’s thoughts that hurt, but he doesn’t know how to communicate that properly and doesn’t want to blurt out a random string of Hebrew. Erik didn’t want lies, and truth be told, his _feelings_ aren’t hurt because of it. It’s-he doesn’t know how to describe it. “ _Atah lo choshev li dafuk?_ ” he points to his own temple. Charles-he seems so much more, more sophisticated, more *developed*, less-well-juvenile, garish.   
  
Erik’s lips press together again, a telltale sign he’s recalibrating, restructuring, marshaling. How could they have known one another, and been friends, did Erik lose something? Did he lose his mind? Was he smarter than he is now? Was he more well-read, more competent, _more_? Does Charles-will he think badly of Erik, the more they learn? The more they develop?   
  
It’s insecurity, and Erik feels silly and embarrassed, but hiding it away only seemed to make things worse, too, and he doesn’t know what to do. It isn’t on Charles to make him better, to constantly reassure him. This just seems like-like a bit of a kick in the shin, because, _this_ s the epitome of, Erik’s strange, upside-down little world, and it’s-he shakes his head. He thinks maybe he doesn’t like himself much, either.

" _Ze beseder_ ," he promises instead. It _is_ OK. Erik is strong, too. He'll learn better. He won't be so fragile, so sensitive.  
  
Charles continues to stare down at the floor, silent and upset and, quite honestly, _brooding._ None of it is clear or obvious to Erik, not even slightly, because he has _that_ advantage. Erik needs him to communicate, but he can choose not to communicate and share with _Erik._ He doesn't want any of this to spill out. He'd much rather keep it trapped up inside. "I'm tired," he mutters, finally. It's a lie, mostly.  
  
“No,” Erik replies in English, crossing his arms. “No lie. Tell _achshav_ ,” he points at the ground, and _that_ Order snaps through him, too. He didn’t want Erik to keep it inside so he _told_ and now-and now Charles is hiding from him and won’t talk to him. He won’t stand for it.  
  
It's just that he feels _guilty._ Horribly, awfully guilty, and he can't shake it. Erik feels like he's being judged, like Charles won't _like_ him, and that's simply not the case. But there are things about Erik that he finds... strange, sometimes. That startle or confuse him. Is that wrong? Is that horrible? He shakes his head, like he can shake off the thoughts, his face red and his stomach sunken. "I told you I was tired," he mutters.

Erik’s eyebrows arch and he shakes his head. Strange? Charles needs to tell him “ _Atah tzarich haged li_ ,” he repeats softly, the Imperative clear, the _Order_ clear. Charles doesn’t have to feel bad, Erik doesn’t _want_ him to. He doesn’t like it. Charles can, if it’s necessary of course, but that’s not why Erik feels-how he feels. Not because Charles _doesn’t_ feel guilty. Is it why Charles doesn’t fully trust him? He’s strange? Well it’s true, he reasons. It is.

Charles doesn’t trust Erik, first and foremost, because he only met him _hours_ ago. He doesn’t know him! But, yes, he can be _strange._ It isn’t his fault, and Charles doesn’t... dislike it, per se. But he doesn’t always understand it. Why Erik is sometimes — childish, again for a lack of a better word. Why he scratches under Charles’ chin like he’s a dog and not a person, and taps him on the nose even when Charles explains he doesn’t like it. Why he was naked when Charles first met him, completely naked, and seemed so _shocked_ Charles wanted him to put on clothes. Why he seems to have filled this house with nonsensical, strange items, that Charles honestly thinks clutter it up badly. He swallows, closes his eyes. “I don’t want to talk, please,” he begs. He’ll just offend Erik unnecessarily. It’s _Charles_ who needs to adjust.

Erik gazes at him calmly, and touches Charles’s shoulder, smiling. He isn’t offended. His lips press together, and he straightens up, and when Charles looks around he notices that the room has been entirely eclipsed in dark blue, with brown hardwood trim along the borders of the walls and floor, and Erik gestures to the bed. “ _Toda_ ,” is what he says, hands folded behind his back. “Sleep time,” he encourages.

“How —“ It doesn’t even matter. Charles feels unsettled and he just shakes it off, _right_ off, closes his eyes and backs himself up to the bed because he’s exhausted, because his head hurts, because he doesn’t want this to go on any longer when he feels sick and guilty and horrible. “Alright,” he mumbles instead, and waits for Erik to leave. He’ll process this when he’s gone, all of this. It doesn’t make _sense._ It won’t when he’s alone, either, but he’ll be free to brood over it.

Erik takes a hesitant step forward himself, taking the blanket in both hands and covering Charles up. “How-?” he questions, because it matters to him.

Charles unravels himself, mostly because he feels uncomfortably warm and not to be difficult. He shakes his head. “Not worth it,” he sighs, and he doesn’t mean _Erik,_ of course. He means questioning any of this. The things Erik does, the way all of this seems to function. He really _doesn’t_ want to talk, thoroughly overwhelmed, uncomfortable, unsettled.

* * *

Erik just shrugs and gets up, because it’s too late, now. It’s not worth it to Charles, but it’s worth it to _Erik_. Silently and on light feet he turns to leave the room.

“Wait!” Charles calls out after him, and he’s very much sitting up in bed, his legs pulled up to his chest again, _childish_ himself. Vulnerable himself. The lights are off, but Erik didn’t turn them off, and neither did Charles. He thinks _Erik_ did.

Erik stops, eyebrows knit, and instinctively reaches for where he knows the lightswitch is to turn them back on, dim. Slowly, steadily, he turns and pads back to the edge of Charles’s bed, lowering so that the mattress dips beneath his weight. He reaches out, but thinks better of himself and puts his hands in his lap instead, waiting for Charles.

They turn back off, but the switch is actually still flipped. Charles hesitates a few moments before he scoots on the bed, resting his head against Erik’s shoulder. They’re barely touching, but it’s _something_. “Why do you keep turning the lights off,” he mutters, and thinks of the switch. Erik turned it on just to turn it off again. Another thing he doesn’t understand about him.

“ _Ani lo_ ,” he whispers back, shaking his head. His body, now that Charles is close, radiates knotted tension, and it’s especially evident in his shoulders. He consciously relaxes when Charles rests against him, peering up at the ceiling where he knows the stars are. It’s not him. He isn’t doing it.

Oh. Charles sighs, but it’s more comfortable, with the room so dark. It’s safer, to be perfectly honest. So whatever did it, he’s grateful. “You’re not strange,” he tells Erik, giving him the same meaning from before. Well, he _is,_ but Charles doesn’t want him to... change, for him. To feel badly. To hurt at all.

Erik isn’t trying to hurt, Charles, either, of course. His lips press together, and his eyes track along the constellations above, he which almost seem to glow softly. Erik likes them. His head shakes and he smiles in the dark, close-mouthed. It’s OK, Charles can think he’s strange. He doesn’t mind. He knows he is. He didn’t know before because he didn’t know anyone, but now he knows. He can change, he can be better, he won’t bother Charles anymore.

Charles sighs. It just deflates him, completely, and he moves until his head hits the wall instead of Erik’s shoulder, a dull thud. Suddenly, he _is_ tired.  
  
Erik tenses up further, hunched over. Charles is right. He does feel judged, and disliked, but more than that he feels embarrassed that it even bothers him so much, that he can’t just shake it off. He doesn’t know the right way to react, to fix things, so Charles won’t be disappointed in him, and won’t feel guilty and horrible, because he doesn’t want that for him. Erik does like him, he wants to protect him, and take care of him, but now he’s second guessing everything he does, getting trapped inside spirals. Stuck. Still.

It takes a while. It’s dark, and silent, and still. Finally, Charles scoots back over to Erik, resting back on his shoulder, letting his eyes close. He’s a little tense, but not stiff, really. It’s the most vulnerable he’s capable of being at the moment. “I like you,” he whispers, as simply as anything. Perhaps he’s too tired for complicated, especially with his mind running and racing with all the intricacies, all the questions. This is what’s left. He doesn’t need Erik to _fix_ himself. He said they’d figure it out together. That’s what he wants.

“ _Gam ani_ ,” Erik whispers back, and that is sincere. He wants to take Charles’s hand, to touch his cheek, or his hair, but he stays still; respectful. He doesn’t manage not to brush his chin over the top of Charles’s head briefly, before sitting back a little, trying not to overwhelm him even further.

Charles leans right into it, though. He scoots back into it, encourages it. He takes a big, sucking breath, but it's clear he's _trying_ to be vulnerable here. It doesn't upset him, it can just be a lot for him. "You're not _wrong,_ " he promises Erik quietly. He's strange, perhaps, and there are things they can work on, both of them, together, but it doesn't mean Erik has to shrink himself or appease him. Erik is Dominant, remember? He shouldn't try to deliberately upset Charles, but he doesn't need to do that. "Dominant," he repeats.

But some of the things he did, upset Charles. Erik wants him to know it wasn’t- _deliberate._ He wasn’t really aware that-Charles didn’t like the way Erik touched him sometimes. Or how he dressed, or didn’t dress. Or, he’s sure there’s more. He just had to tune it out, because-it’s too vulnerable, and Erik knows-that _he’s_ too vulnerable. Charles says he doesn’t have to, but Charles doesn’t know, he already has. He’s already _trying_ to be on his best behavior, not to do things that he used to do, because there wasn’t a human being around for miles, for _ever_. He smiles, and nudges him with his shoulder. “ _Ani yachol tzovea tzahov?_ ” he grins, wide. He can paint Charles’s room bright yellow, then? Charles won’t mind? Maybe with some big flowers, too. For good measure. Erik’s nose wrinkles up. And smiley faces.

It deflates Charles again, just a little. He bites on his lip, still grateful and relieved that it's so dark in here, as if _all_ the light has been drained out. "I don't want you to feel like that," he whispers, and he shows Erik what he means: that he has to be on his _best behavior._ It doesn't feel right. He doesn't want Erik to feel like he's on eggshells, or anything even close to that. But Charles can't help his own thoughts and reactions, either. Perhaps he should? Perhaps they're too harmful? Perhaps he should make himself be good for _Erik,_ instead?

Erik shakes his head, and this time doesn’t resist touching Charles’s cheek. They’re both obviously, not going to naturally mesh on every level. They mesh on a lot, on more than Erik could have ever dreamed. But they’re different, too. Erik doesn’t think it’s fair, maybe, if one of them has to always suppress themselves. Maybe it looks different than that. They both decide, what they can and can’t live with. And go from there. His eyebrows arch, hopeful. Whatever this is, they need to build it together.

Charles smiles, though it's difficult to see in the dark, small and soft again. "Together," he whispers. Speaking of _childish,_ something seems to overcome him, but he takes Erik's hand on his cheek and links their pinkies together instead, grinning. He doubts Erik will know what he's doing, because to be truthful he hardly does. "Promise," he tells Erik. An agreement, a vow, a _promise,_ the concept far bigger than the word to signify it.

Erik’s pinky finger tightens over Charles’s and his head tilts in that curious way of his, but he doesn’t resist in the slightest, nudging up against him more for his own comfort than Charles’s. “ _Mavtiach_ ,” he repeats softly in Hebrew. “ _Ma ze?_ ” he blinks down at their fingers, lips twitching fancifully.

Charles laughs, pink-cheeked though Erik can't see it, because it is a little _silly._ "Pinky promise," he grins, and lifts their fingers. He linked their pinkies together. See? He doesn't know the exact origins, or why it suddenly came to him, he just knows it felt right at that exact moment. They'll do this together, even if it gets messy in the middle. They have to. What other choice do they have? Why would they want to, when they're clearly not enemies here? **  
  
**Not enemies. That makes Erik smile and his finger squeezes, gently though, always gentle even if he _can_ be overzealous and overwhelming and just plain _over_. He touches Charles gently, always. Erik wants to do this together. He’s knows his _mind_ is messy, too alone for too long, but he doesn’t want to live in the forest anymore. He doesn’t want to be alone, and now he isn’t. He’ll learn new things, too. And maybe even teach them in return.  
  
Charles grins, but his expression is mostly hidden as he shakes his head. “Not _always,_ ” he corrects Erik, and pulls their fingers apart, thinking of earlier. Erik has a habit of slapping him on the hand when he needs to be corrected, but Charles isn’t pointing it out to _object._ It’s just that Erik doesn’t always have to be gentle, not the way he’s thinking.  
  
That makes Erik laugh, heartily so. He rubs the back of Charles’s knuckles instead. The ceiling is swirling, alive with brilliant stars, and this isn’t a child’s drawing, either. Some of them were, wobbly and _funny_ , but Erik clearly demonstrates an innate artistic ability-they span accurately, with some lines drawn between them to represent, swirls and designs and black-lights. Erik looks at Charles, thoughtful. What does _he_ like? Erik can make it for him. He’ll make it nice for him.  
  
Charles’ lip press together and he closes his eyes. He doesn’t move away from Erik, and he’s not necessarily _hiding._ He just shakes his head. He doesn’t want Erik to make anything for him. It’s... too much, he thinks. It gets darker, though there’s certainly no reason for it to.  
  
And that inspires another short, sharp little rap on Charles’s knuckles. For him to focus up. Pay attention. “ _Lam’a?_ ” he murmurs, _expectant_. “ _Haged li._ ” The Imperative is as soft as it is hard, diamonds against hammers.  
  
Charles shakes his head again. “I don’t know,” he answers honestly, and it’s not for a lack of trying. He _really_ doesn’t know this time, why the thought of it bothers him. He has no idea this time, no inkling, no clue. Instead, he just inches closer, eyes still closed as he relaxes against Erik. “Thank you for coming back,” he murmurs. He thinks of how Erik left, then came back when Charles called for him.  
  
Erik nudges against him, playful. He will always come back. He felt as a tiny bug being swatted by a large hand, he doesn’t know himself. He doesn’t know why he is. Why he is this way, why he feels like a raw, exposed nerve. But Charles asked him to come back. He didn’t leave Erik alone. Erik swipes at his eyes surreptitiously, feeling rather silly. He sniffs and smiles. “ _Toda raba_ ,” is what he says, soft.  
  
Charles smiles, nudging Erik right back, everything quiet and content and _safe,_ now, with the lights off. With the night silent but peaceful. "Your room isn't far?" he asks, except he knows the answer; he thinks about the distance between their bedrooms and knows that if something happens, which it likely _won't_ , but if it does, they aren't far. Charles isn't completely convinced this isn't some strange, bizarre dream of his, but if it isn't, at least he isn't living it alone.

Erik looks a little lost, though, because for a long time _this_ was his room. He realizes at this point in time that he doesn’t have anywhere else to go, but the house is enormous, he can poke around and find somewhere. He nods, turning his hand over in Charles’s to give it a squeeze. “ _Lo,_ ’ he whispers back, his voice deep and resonant even at its quietest. And if anything happens, he can count on Erik. Erik promises _that_.

Charles' eyes widen at that. He takes a sharp breath. "I can take the floor," he offers, and nods down at it so Erik knows what he's saying. He wouldn't mind. There are more than enough blankets and pillows for him to be comfortable enough. There are other _beds_ in the house, he's seen them, but he doesn't want Erik to have to go searching for a bed that feels right tonight if he's tired.

Erik shakes his head. He pokes Charles in the chest. “ _Atah yeshan be’mita_ ,” he Orders fondly, glancing down at Charles’s bed. If Charles doesn’t mind, Erik would not object to curling up on the floor. He’s accustomed to it anyway, he’s spent many long afternoons sleeping in the forest, in the kitchen, pretty much everywhere. But it's his job to look after Charles, which means he can't stomach the idea of him doing the same thing.

Charles shakes his head. He’s not going to make _Erik_ sleep on the floor, but now he’s biting on his lip, because he’s found himself with a dilemma. “You can sleep here,” he mumbles, patting the bed. “If you’d like.” He’s a little _wary,_ maybe a bit uncomfortable, though he doesn’t know _why_ ; it’s just sharing a bed. They’re fully clothed. It’s a big enough bed that there’s room for space between them, too. Still, he’s anxious, but willing nonetheless. As long as Erik _stays_ clothed, please.

Erik laughs a little and nods. He touches Charles’s cheek. He can sleep at the end of the bed, if it makes it easier. He can curl up just about anywhere, and it would be infinitely more comfortable to him than sleeping somewhere else, even though he can’t explain why. He certainly doesn’t want Charles to feel guilty about it. It’s just sleeping. But Erik... has bad dreams. He gazes away, because he doesn’t want to talk about it, but-it’s more of a help than Charles realizes.  
  
t doesn’t make sense for Charles to be so nervous about this. It’s just a bed. Nothing is happening, nor _will_ it. He trusts Erik that much at least. But his heart is pounding as he curls up under the blankets and tries to swallow the lump in his throat, finding he can’t. It’s too dark to see in the room, now. _Pitch_ black. He closes his eyes and tries to settle down, not saying a word to Erik, stiff as a board as he tries to relax. He’ll get there eventually.  
  
Erik settles down at the bottom of the bed and curls up in the fetal position, and sensing Charles’s discomfort, he pets at his foot, before returning his hands to his chest and curling up a little more, making himself as small and unobtrusive as possible. Of course nothing will happen. Charles is safe with Erik, see? He is. Even if Erik is big and loud and _weird_. He will not harm Charles.  
  
Charles wants to shake his head, but it’s too dark for Erik to see, and useless while they’re laying down like this anyway. He takes a breath, wincing at how loud it is. “Don’t be small,” he whispers into the dark, and thinks of Erik coiled up. He doesn’t have to be. He _shouldn’t_ be. Charles is curled up now, too, but that’s different.  
  
It’s not exactly _easy_ for Erik to be small, parts of him are draped over the bed by necessity, but he pats Charles’s foot again. “ _Lo mipachad_ ,” he whispers back. Charles doesn’t need to be scared. Erik will keep him safe, he promises. He won’t hurt. “ _Lo mach’iv._ ”  
  
Honestly, it feels worse for Erik to be lurking down there anyway. Charles takes another long, harsh breath. “Come up here?” he asks, and tries not to _demand._ It comes out mostly that way anyway, but he pats the other side of the bed, the pillow. There’s room for both of them, especially if _Charles_ curls up, which is comfortable for him anyway, and then Erik doesn’t need to turn himself into a pretzel for no reason.  
  
He immediately finds himself face to face with an Erik, and he grins, unseen in the dark, keeping a healthy distance between them. He slowly reaches out his hand and brushes it against Charles’s shoulder. It’s OK. He won’t hurt. And he doesn’t need to be small, either. Erik won’t do anything bad. He doesn’t know what he _could_ do bad, but he won’t do it. He’ll just stay here, and be still, and let Charles be at his own pace.  
  
Charles takes a while to relax. A _long_ while. He’s still curled up, but that’s comfortable for him, honestly. He knows Erik won’t hurt him. He knows he’s safe, relatively. It’s not Erik. And eventually he’s tired enough that he _does_ start to drift off, that he does fall asleep.


	138. my mind is on the bad things, your mind is on the good things

Erik ends up watching him for a while, listening to his breathing, and his eyes close but his mind can’t seem to sleep, until he gradually drops off just as sunlight begins to peek through the slats of their blinds. He’s covered Charles with the blanket and he’s laying on his back with his arms behind his head, eyes closed, breathing even.  
  
When Charles wakes up, Erik is still out. Like a light, apparently, because he doesn’t wake up when Charles moves. He’s sleepy and groggy and a little embarrassed, a little _nervous,_ to wake up with someone else, but he doesn’t let it shake him _too_ much. Erik stays sleeping. And sleeping. And sleeping. He must need it, so Charles doesn’t disturb him, grabs the book Erik had left on the bedside table and reads. Until he finishes, because he’s apparently a fast reader. It’s only _then_ that Charles gets up from the bed, careful not to jostle Erik too much, wanders around aimlessly until he finds the kitchen again. He opens the fridge and stares for a while, and settles on tea. He can make tea, at least. Is this... normal? Is this going to be normal? Charles wanders out while the kettle’s heating up and stares outside, pensive and anxious both.   
  
He’s left alone for a long while before the shift of the wind behind him stands his hairs on end, alerts him to the light-footed prowl of one Erik, overlarge in his silly pajamas, which even include a hat jammed over unruly curls that look like they haven’t once seen a comb. He’s carrying a large coffee mug and smiles, waving over at his housemate. “ _Shalom_ ,” he whispers, ducking into the kitchen to grab his breakfast, which turns out to be a box of cereal that he grabs handfuls from and stuffs into his mouth.

Charles stays outside, his tea gone cold but still clutching it to his chest for warmth. He's staring out at the mountains, at the trees, the vast expanse that seems to go on forever, squinting out on the horizon. It's nearly noon, now, and he hasn't eaten or even really moved. Eventually he'd found another book, but he hasn't been reading it, thoughtful and quiet and cross-legged on an outdoor chair, staring.

Erik pads out, blinking sleep from his eyes and spotting Charles on the deck. “Hello,” he tries, giving a wave. His hands are empty, abandoning his ‘lunch’ on the counter to prise open the balcony door and follow Charles outside. He’s shed the outer button-down shirt of his pajamas to reveal only a tank top underneath, and the long, clean lines of muscle in his arms that evidence a brutal workout regime. He offers a smile at his new friend and then holds up a hand, mustering up from memory. “Good morning. How are you?”

Charles continues to cradle his mug and stare, but he does turn his head to offer Erik a small, thoughtful, perhaps _sullen_ smile, before he turns back. " _Boker tov,_ " he offers in return, quietly, and not much more than that, worrying at his bottom lip.

Erik sits down in the deck chair beside him. “Why _atsuv_?” he asks, eyebrows lifting, and he presses his fingertips to his own mouth as if to explain he can tell Charles isn’t happy.

Charles wouldn't say that he's _sad,_ though. He shakes his head, purses his lips, and taps his temple. "Thinking," he explains, just as quietly, his lips quirked up slightly at the corners. "You snore," he informs Erik, and demonstrates the noise, even laughing a little.

That makes Erik squawk indignantly. “ _Lo!_ ” he chuckles, nose wrinkling up. “Snore,” he repeats, because he likes the word. “ _Nocher_ ,” he says in his own language. “ _Ma choshev_?” he asks, tapping his temple. A curious, curious jungle cat in a wifebeater and pajama bottoms.  
  
Charles seems to deliberate on that question, but not answer it, nor give Erik any clue to it. Instead he takes off Erik's hat entirely without prompting, since it's falling off anyway, standing up to lean over him. He doesn't put it back on. He fusses with Erik's hair instead, eyebrows pinching together, lips pursed in concentration, humming to himself. "Messy," he tells Erik. He's smiling.

His nose wrinkles up and he tolerates this behavior curiously. It doesn’t help, perhaps, that it’s _long_ , too, and steadfastly resistant to Charles’s efforts. Erik laughs when Charles finally declares it a lost cause. He reaches forward and gently touches Charles’s forehead, along his temples. “ _Haged li_? _”_ he whispers, head tilting. _“_ _Machshavot_?*” his eyebrows flash.

He hasn’t declared it a lost cause, actually. That’s giving his stubborn determination absolutely no credit. “I don’t understand what you’ve just said,” Charles plays innocent, and before Erik can reply he’s gotten up, putting up a finger to tell Erik to wait, and wanders into the house. He comes back with a comb. And a spray bottle, though he sets it down and doesn’t, to his credit, just spray Erik with it because he can. “Stay still,” he demands of Erik.   
  
Erik _stares_ at him. “ _Ma atah ose?_ ” he blinks-blinks, but sits still as he’s bidden. “What you think? _Tell_ ,” he Orders in English, if he’s going to be _sprayed_ , Charles can talk to him about his thoughts meanwhile. Erik tosses his hair playfully.   
  
“That this is all a dream, or that we’re stuck in some strange bubble prison. Or that we truly are dead. Perhaps in a coma. I haven’t decided yet,” he mutters, and clearly his mind has been _going,_ fretting, considering all morning while Erik slept. He doesn’t directly translate any of it. He’s sure Erik gets the _gist,_ and he allows that much. Then he takes the spray bottle and he _does_ spray Erik. Or his hair, at least. “Stay still,” he demands again, and picks up the comb. Tilting his head and _considering,_ before he goes to work.   
  
It makes Erik splutter a little, but he dutifully remains still. Even with the spray bottle his hair is unruly, refusing to cooperate without the most diligent of applications. It’s clear he doesn’t agree, doesn’t think the same thing-that he’s dead, that much is clear, a buzzing faith that didn’t get erased from him. But he understands the impetus to question, and he has plenty of his own. He just has no answers, no way of knowing. He does know it must be very hard for Charles, who seems inordinately less likely to just accept thing as they come. For some reason this space has never seemed dangerous to Erik. It’s felt like a respite, rather than a prison, even if he was alone for so long his mind began to shrivel up.

Charles doesn't think it's _dangerous,_ either. Not necessarily, at least. It doesn't feel that way. Erik certainly doesn't feel that way. But it does feel isolated. It does feel very far away. He's worried about what that means, and what happens if he stares too hard at it. What happens when the edges crack. He's got something else on his mind, though, except it isn't clear what that _is_ ; thoughts out of Erik's reach, and then suddenly Charles gives his hair a little _tug._ Not hard, not with the intention of actual _hurting,_ but still. A tug. And he does it again, just so Erik knows it wasn't an accident.  
  
Erik bawks and smacks Charles’s hand. “ _Ma atah ose?_ ” he rumbles, and it’s clear Charles _has_ awakened something dangerous, just a little. The sleeping jaguar rousing after being jumped on for so long. He squints up at Charles, eyebrows arched. It’s not angry at all, just indignant.  
  
Charles _giggles._ There’s no other explanation for it. He laughs, grinning so wide with very prominent dimples, and then raises his hand to twirl Erik’s hair around his finger. Petting, really, much gentler. Until he gives it another _tug,_ looking very pleased with himself.   
  
“Charles!” Erik _snaps_ up Charles’s fingers, after having been quite lulled by the petting, which he very much seemed to enjoy. He _yanks_ Charles onto his lap, raising a finger to his nose, pressing them almost together as his vivid green eyes lock with Charles’s. He really _has_ stepped in it now.

Charles _gasps,_ startled by this. Thoroughly. He's wide-eyed and squirming, which doesn't do much to keep him from being flustered, finding himself suddenly _much_ closer to Erik than he imagined he'd be. His heart is beating _loudly_ in his chest, caught up in his throat. "Erik?" he asks, feigning innocence as his voice catches higher.

“ _Charles_ ,” Erik rumbles back, his voice a vibrating purr that Charles can almost _feel_ given how close they are, like shifting strings all around them, air molecules bouncing off one another. It's Erik's powers, it has to be. He reaches up and _tugs_ on Charles’s hair, grinning with all his teeth showing. “Got you,” he preens, terribly proud of himself.

Charles swallows. Hard. First of all, he’s not even sure where Erik picked the _words_ up from, but that part feels terribly irrelevant when he can’t speak, or think, or _breathe_ correctly and all Erik did is tug his hair a bit. As far as he could tell, he was being just as playful and mischievous as Charles was. He’s making things up in his head. Overreacting, _always._ But either way he’s trembling and wide-eyed in Erik’s lap, as if he’s been petrified.   
  
It makes Erik blink and he touches Charles’s cheek. “ _Heraga_ ,” he whispers, the Order unconscious. Charles needs to breathe deeply, and focus, and relax. He smiles back. Erik is Dominant. That means things, it has to mean things. It means Charles will yield to him, even playfully. And for some reason that reaction seems to mollify him. He doesn’t relish making Charles scared, but he doesn’t think that’s what’s happening here. It’s not a thought as much as an instinct. Good. Charles knows.

Charles isn’t _frightened._ That’s certainly not what’s happening. The problem is, he doesn’t really know what _is_ happening. If he’s not scared, what is he? He can breathe, now, but it still doesn’t feel like he can focus. Everything feels shaky, blurry, _hazy._ He’s uncertain, he’s overwhelmed. He doesn’t know. He swallows again. “Erik?” he asks, unsure of what he’s even asking.

Erik grins up at him. “ _Ken_ , Charles?” His eyebrows arch. Charles entered this playpen, and now he’s awakened the creature who lives within. He is the one who looks nearly _playful_ now, even still. Charles isn’t frightened, and Erik doesn’t have any desire to do so. But he _is_ Dominant. And for some reason, _this_ feels like-a _challenge_ , just a little bit. And he does not allow such a thing to go unanswered.

It was a challenge. Even if Charles didn’t realize it, even if it wasn’t _conscious,_ it was. But now he doesn’t know what to do. He bites his lip, confused and still-trembling, trying to figure out what he’s feeling and what that _means._ It’s like he got what he wanted and now he’s realizing he bit off a bit more than he could chew. “Erik,” he says again, a little _desperately_ now.   
  
And _Erik_ tugs Charles’s hair enough for him to whisper in his ear. “Mhm?” and he laughs, before letting go. “ _Kanu’a sheli_. You know now?” his eyebrows bounce. Yes. Charles knows. And more than that. _Erik_ knows. Not _more_ than he could chew. Erik wouldn’t do that to him. But enough. Just enough.  
  
Charles swallows visibly again. “ _Sheli_?” he asks, because he _knows_ what that means. His eyes are so wide, and he feels silly and childish for trembling this way, for being unable to stop. He tries to climb out of Erik’s lap, startled and suddenly spooked. He doesn’t know _why,_ but Erik is just _sitting_ there, and he’s getting worked up. He’s feeling too much that he doesn’t understand. He can’t possibly stay here and do this,

Erik doesn’t _stop him_ , of course, raising both hands, but he _does_ say, “You said. Submissive. I said,” he taps his own chest. He said that he would take care of Charles, that they would build a routine, that Erik would _help_. He doesn’t mean to overstep, they have only known one another for such a short while, but if Erik takes care of Charles, _Dominates_ him-

Is that what it means? Charles is so _anxious_ again. He wants to run, but he plants his feet in and doesn’t, still lingering incredibly close to Erik, like he doesn’t know which direction he’s supposed to be going. He doesn’t, honestly. What does Erik even mean, _take care_ of him? Dominate him? He shakes his head, but it’s not a disagreement and not a refusal. “ _Erik_ ,” he rasps, one more time. Help him, then, _please._

Erik shrugs. It means that he doesn’t let Charles get hurt, that he does his best to make Charles feel good, that he protects him and keeps him safe. Erik isn’t good at a lot of things, but he knows he can do _those_ things. He tugs Charles closer again, rubbing his back, soothing the tension or at least trying to. He holds up the spray bottle. Charles wants to give him a haircut? He surmises, with a laugh. He probably needs one. Then Charles should. But not tugging on him. For real. He should do it. If Erik should Dominate Charles doesn’t that mean Charles should _submit_ to Erik? Take care of Erik, too?

But Charles stays frozen, stays staring. He hadn’t thought about _cutting_ Erik’s hair, truthfully, just taming it. But Erik wants him to? He could try. He’s not sure he’s _capable,_ now, feels incredibly slow and incredibly dim, because he can’t seem to do anything but tremble. What’s happening to him? His throat feels dry. His body feels warm, his face. His chest hurts, his heart is beating so hard. Is this normal? Is he having some sort of stroke, a heart attack?

Well _Erik_ is sure he is able to. He draws his fingers down Charles’s cheek, eyebrows arched. No stroke, no heart attack, no chest hurting. Just Erik, just Charles. Please? Because Erik wants him to try, and he was the one who started-who wanted to play, and Erik does, too, but Charles is captured by him. And now he must. It is normal. Erik insists. “ _Ken_ , he nods. Charles is capable. Erik says so.  
  
“You have to help me,” he insists quietly. Charles sounds raspy and confused even to his own ears, though he’s not necessarily _distressed._ Maybe a little slurred, too. He doesn’t think he should, but he _grabs_ at Erik’s shirt all of a sudden. He realizes, somewhere vague and far away, that perhaps Erik doesn’t know _how_ to help him. Charles doesn’t know what he’s asking for, either. But there has to be something. “Help, please,” he begs. “Help.”   
  
Erik blinks. “OK, you tell me,” Erik insists, eyebrows arched. He wants help, he needs to tell Erik what he _wants_. Erik isn’t very good at all this stuff, either. He folds his hands over Charles’s. It’s maybe not what he should? But he wasn’t-he didn’t hurt Erik, and Erik doesn’t mind. For _now_. “I help,” he insists harshly. “You tell me what I help,” he rumbles. “Tell _now_ ,” and it’s not a rumble this time. It’s an order.  
  
“I don’t know,” Charles gasps, and he tries to think of how to say it in Hebrew but he doesn’t _know._ How is Erik stringing together half-sentences like that? It’s not fair when Charles doesn’t even have words, doesn’t even know how to organize his own thoughts. It frustrates and panics him and he shakes his head, _clawing_ at Erik’s hands now. “Tell — tell me,” Charles tries, repeats. “Tell me. Please, tell me.” Tell him _what?_ Just tell him. Please.  
  
Erik snaps Charles’s hands down, not allowing him to do so. “Tell _what_?” he insists. “You _tell me_. I ask. You tell me.” Erik doesn’t know how he’s doing it, either. Erik doesn’t know how, maybe it’s not fair, but he’s not expecting anything different. “Tell _what_? You ask. You tell _me_. I ask you to tell me. You do it. Now.”

But Charles starts to panic. He starts to _really_ panic, his eyes as wide as dinner plates, his heart caught up in his throat again. He touches his own chest instead, tries to claw at his _own_ throat instead. He shakes his head, because he _can’t._ And again, and again, again.

Erik catches Charles’s hands, preventing him from doing so. “ _ ** **Stop****_. I said _****tell me****_ ,” Erik growls the order, simply. Yes, he _can_. Erik can’t do it any better, he can’t make it any better, Charles has to help him, and he _will_. He has something to say, he will _help_ Erik say it. He is frustrated and panicked, he will _tell_ Erik _why_.

But he doesn’t know _how._ Charles really, truly, doesn’t know how, or what, or in which direction or in what way. He doesn’t have the words or the ability. He tries, anyway, eyes watering up with pure _desperation,_ mounting distress. He needs Erik to _tell him._ What to do, and how to do it. He _needs_ that, right now, more than he can or express or even know, it’s all just spilling out and right into Erik. He needs to be focused. He needs to be _used._ He doesn’t understand that, really. It’s not words. He just _needs,_ why isn’t Erik understanding? He’s telling him, he’s _telling_ him.   
  
“OK,” Erik replies, arching an eyebrow. Erik has been asking him, in what direction and in what way and he doesn’t know what else to do, because he doesn’t have anything else to give, or explain, or anything else. He lets out a short, sharp exhale and presses his lips together, he doesn’t have anything else to provide, and no one is helping him. He helps Charles stand up and rises to his feet, tugging Charles into the kitchen. “ _Azor li, aruchat boker,_ ” he insists.

Charles only _vaguely_ understands. And, furthermore, he can’t be upset that Erik isn’t understanding something even he doesn’t. He _can’t._ But he can’t help getting worked up, either, getting anxious, either, feeling like he’s going to outright _dissolve_ in the most pathetic way he can imagine. He grabs for Erik’s shirt, but nods. He’ll do it. He’ll do it, but Erik has to help him. He has to. His skin is crawling. It _hurts,_ or itches, he doesn’t know. He can’t explain it. He was just playing. He was just playing and it happened again. “Erik,” he whispers, knowing it _sounds_ pitiful. “Erik, _please._ ”

He touches Charles’s cheek. Of course he _will_ , even if he doesn’t know how. He will, anyway. He’ll just do the impossible, because he has to. He smiles, his nose wrinkling up, and he tugs Charles forward to the kitchen. “ _Azor li_ ,” he repeats. Charles will help him. He will help with breakfast, Erik won’t take anything else for an answer.

Charles shakes his head, but he takes a deep breath and at least _tries_ to calm himself. It doesn’t work. “More,” he whispers, his throat feeling tight and his whole body hot. Perhaps with embarrassment. He feels _horrifically_ pathetic at the moment, because that’s what it is, isn’t it? What else? Erik doesn’t even understand what he wants because he doesn’t know what he _needs_ and it’s just, it’s just too much. It’s too vague. He needs Erik to talk to him, to... to _be specific,_ to do something, anything, this isn’t enough. He has to try something, _please._

Erik shrugs, because-” _Ani lo yode’a!_ ” he says, because he’s _trying something_ and it’s not _good enough_ , and all Charles is doing is insisting that it isn’t good enough, which isn’t _helpful_. “ _Ze lo artila’i, ani haged,_ ” he mutters, raising both eyebrows. He _told_ Charles to _help_ him, he already _told_ him. He’s doing it anyway, he was already _trying_ to do it. Of course he doesn’t _even_ understand, nobody is helping _him_ , and he _is_ trying.

Charles _flinches._ Noticeably and obviously. And he swallows and he drops his head and he nods, though there’s nothing in particular to nod at, and he stares at the floor and he _absolutely does not_ fight tears.

Erik presses his teeth together harshly. “ _Ma_?” he gestures. “Ma. Haged li,” he insists. He’s supposed to be some kind of Dominant but it’s not helping and the idea that he is worse than anything, he doesn’t know what to do, or how to do it. “Tell me. I tell you, tell me. You help me, I make you help me,” he gestures to his own chest. But it’s not working.

Charles doesn’t know how to help. He was trying, and Erik _yelled_ at him. It feels completely wretched now, for him to be — angry, or disappointed, and all Charles _wanted_ was for Erik to do what he was doing but a little more. Talking. More talking, more asking, more of what he’d been doing, but Charles tried to tell him that and he’d gotten _upset_ and he feels _ashamed_ because of that. He’s not thinking in words, that Erik can tell, just concepts and feelings. He doesn’t want to be _asked_ what _Erik_ should do, he just wants to be _told._ Exactly and insistently — and _more,_ but Erik is _upset_ at him and now he truly is fighting tears.

* * *

Erik _blinks_. Again. “ _Lo,_ ” he murmurs. He wasn’t _yelling_. At least, he wasn’t trying to yell. And he certainly wasn’t upset at _Charles_. He pets Charles’s cheek again. “I make you help me,” he repeats again, eyebrows arched, everything _very_ much firm and insistent. “You help me. You follow me.” He said he was going to take _care_ of Charles, it may not be _pretty_ or fancy, but it starts here. With this, with food, with eating, and being healthy. And not sleeping in all day, or at least that’s what Erik feels like, probably because he did it, he doesn’t know. It’s stupid anyway. It’s all stupid.

Charles _does_ cry, then, because it’s too much. Why is this happening? Why is he feeling this way? _Erik_ isn’t feeling this way. Erik isn’t feeling this urgency. This pit in his stomach. This inability to breathe. He’s not falling apart, he’s thinking about breakfast. Charles doesn’t understand. He was teasing and _playing,_ and then he wasn’t, and ever since Erik pulled him into his lap he’s felt like he can’t breathe. He closes his eyes and he does the only thing he can think of to get to Erik, since _thinking_ and projecting and pushing clearly isn’t working. He sinks to his knees. He’s _desperate,_ he needs Erik to hear him. Sometimes actions speak louder than words, especially when two people don’t speak the same language. He _grips_ onto Erik’s pants.

Erik doesn’t know why it’s happening, but he does arch his eyebrows. He isn’t thinking about breakfast. He’s thinking about looking after Charles, and it’s the first concrete thing that comes to mind when he thinks about it. When Charles sinks to his knees, though, thoughts slide out of his head. No, he’s not the same as Charles. He doesn’t feel whatever Charles is feeling, the way he’s feeling it. But that is OK. He doesn’t need to for Charles to be valid. Why can’t he breathe? Erik didn’t mean to make things worse. He was just playing, too. Maybe he shouldn’t have. It just made everything bad. He touches Charles’s cheek. He's sorry, they don't speak the same language. He isn't trying to hurt Charles. He doesn't want him to hurt, or to be desperate, or to feel like he can't breathe. Erik wants to look after him, he wants to make him feel good, he just doesn't know how. He should. He should know.

Charles shakes his head. No, that’s _not_ okay. He’s fine. He can breathe. He’ll make himself breathe. He takes slow, sucking breaths, and he cries a little, just a little. Only a bit. And then eventually he gets to his feet, and he wipes his own face, and he pretends not to feel sick and dizzy and he forces a smile that looks like a grimace. “I have to go to the bathroom,” he explains, though it comes out breathy and he _looks_ unstable, and then he turns to go, and he holds his arms around his own middle like he’s holding himself together. He runs.

Obviously he doesn’t get far at all. Erik snatches him back up. There’s something extremely _offensive_ about that behavior Erik can’t put his finger on. Charles kneeling, and then getting up again. Erik does _not_ like it in the least, and he practically _glowers_ with it. “ _Lo_ ,” he rumbles, and Charles feels it again, the _danger_ he’s gotten himself into. He wanted to kneel before, even if he doesn’t now, he _will_ now. Erik _points_ to the ground, a particularly menacing expression on his face. Charles doesn’t get to backtrack out of that. “ _Barak, achshav_ ,” he Orders, insistently. “I tell you, you don’t, now? You run? _****No****_.”

Oh, thank goodness. Charles can’t even begin to explain the _relief_ he feels, but he falls right to his knees, exhaling the breath he’d been holding in, the panic and the nausea. He rests his head against Erik’s leg, bowed forward, and his shoulders shake a bit. There’s absolutely no resistance there, just grateful, eager submission. “Thank you,” he gasps. He thought he might throw up. He feels _much_ less like that now. He’s breathing a little better, even.

* * *

Erik presses his lips together. “I-” and he trails off. He doesn’t want to say the wrong thing again, but watching Charles, it’s hard not to speak up. He shakes his head and touches Charles’s cheek. He’s not very good at this, he knows. But-and he really _knows_ , because he doesn’t know _how_ to even say a lot of this stuff out loud. “I read,” he tries, head bobbing a little.

Charles is just a little too raw right now to comprehend that, as intelligent as he is. He’s just not entirely there, _swimming_ with relief he can’t understand and about a dozen other things he doesn’t know. He takes a breath, and then another, and another, and tries to center _himself_ now that Erik’s given him this. It doesn’t work very well. But he looks up at Erik, tears on his cheeks, and presses forth a question. Erik read what?

Erik shrugs and smiles a little. “A book,” he smirks, holding Charles in place by the shoulder. It’s meant to be funny, but also, he doesn’t _know_ how to say all the things he wants to say, in English. Charles shouldn’t try to center himself, Erik should help him, and he will. It’s part of why he brought it up. He wonders if what he read might help.  
  
Charles settles a little when Erik keeps him in place, leaning into the hand on his shoulder. Erik doesn’t have to keep straining for English. Charles is more than happy to teach him, just like he wants to learn Hebrew, but he _understands_ perfectly fine without it; it helps when he hears it out loud, but Hebrew works just as well as long as Charles is listening _both_ ways. Sometimes he gets a little mixed up, but Erik is always patient with _that,_ anyway, always seems willing to repeat himself or say it differently, think up him more images, gesture. They just have to keep trying. “ _What_ book?” he asks, unsettled and therefore impatient, frowning up at him now.   
  
“ _Ani kore al kanu’a_ ,” Erik explains, tapping Charles’s neck gently. He conjures up the images of some of what he read; submissives who are helped with grounding exercises, like learning different positions similar to yoga, or establishing a routine. He read quite a lot, but he can’t deny being a little bit nervous, after reading plenty of _warnings_ that Dominants needed time to study, and learn, or else put their submissives at risk, and Erik isn’t so sure he’d entrust himself to be cognizant of every little thing. But that’s what’s rolling around other than breakfast foods.

Charles reaches up to touch his neck, too. It's bare, which had -- upset him? when he first realized, though he hadn't known why. He still doesn't. He does know Erik's hand there soothes him, so he drops his own, unsure of what to _do_ with his hands except tangle them up in Erik's pants. He feels calmer, now. "I'm alright," he whispers, because for a moment there he felt like he truly _wasn't._ It frustrated him that Erik didn't feel it. That he didn't seem to... Charles shakes his head. Are submissives just fundamentally needy creatures, then? Should there be something unsettling about how he couldn't quite breathe until _Erik_ told him to get on his knees?

Erik doesn’t think so. There’s nothing wrong with submission, that would be silly. Half the planet is submissive, that would be like saying half of all people are fundamentally, biologically a mistake. Oh, Erik also raises a hand, because he learned a little bit more. “ _Ma ani yachol ose,_ ” he starts, considering-miming _speech_ , the way he can seem to make Charles do things just by saying things-that’s _not_ normal. Erik hasn’t heard of it in any of the books he’s read, he doesn’t know what it is. He learned some terminology, about Will, about Orders, but nobody else talks about what their experiences seem to be. That doesn’t make them bad, it doesn’t make Charles bad. Maybe Charles does _need_ things, but Erik rather likes it- _being_ needed. Is that wrong? He squints at Charles’s hands. Something about that doesn’t appeal to him, that Charles is just kind of, limply holding them there, and instead he mimes for Charles to copy him, to place his hands on his thighs, the way he saw it in that book.

Charles does. Quickly, and without protest, folding them neatly there as if he’s relieved Erik thought to do something about it. It was bothering him, too, not knowing where to put them. Not being _told_ where to put them. He takes a quick, sharp breath at that. Why? Why did he _need_ Erik to tell him what to do earlier, to really, explicitly tell him? The vagueness was driving him mad, the _freedom_ there -- Since he’s woken up, there are times he’s felt mostly fine on his own, perhaps even _inclined_ toward independence, and other times it’s choked him. Why? Is he just -- he shakes his head, bows it, and then shuts off his own thoughts swiftly. He doesn’t really want Erik to hear his own self-deprecating wondering.

Erik shrugs, because he doesn’t have the answer to those questions. Maybe because Erik had been flexing Dominant more explicitly in the first place, maybe it put Charles in the submissive mindset. He isn’t sure, but it’s obvious it doesn’t alarm him. There have been a lot of things about today that Erik isn’t _happy_ with, Charles’s submission, his needing things, is not one of those things.  
  
It's not exactly _reassuring_ him, but Charles tries to keep those thoughts to himself, even if they spill out a bit, discordant and slightly bitter. It isn't Erik's _job_ to coddle him every step of the way, to tell him things he doesn't even know, to make him _feel better._ They don't even know each other. So Charles purses his lips and sucks it up, letting his hair fall in front of his face. It's long and the ends are dead and split. They both need haircuts, frankly. "What aren't you happy with?" he asks instead. He can't imagine what that could even be, if not this. He's barely been up an hour.   
  
Erik doesn’t know _anyone_. He does however give Charles a rather painful rap on the knuckles. Of course he wants to try to make Charles feel better. That’s the urge that he has as much as Charles had the urge to kneel, and he refuses to feel bad for it, or entertain these kinds of thoughts. His lips press together and he shrugs again, this time curling Charles’s hair around his finger, brushing it out of his face, because it just doesn’t look acceptable hanging there like that. What he isn’t happy about? He doesn’t know how to explain it. Charles wants to be told things, exactly, well Erik wants to tell him things exactly. He sighs. He’s the wrong one, he can’t even explain it.

Charles finally looks up, frowning, wincing a little when his hair is tugged as a result and rubbing unconsciously at his knuckles. He doesn't mind, though. It's steadying in itself, though he couldn't possibly say why without embarrassing himself. "Try?" he requests, quietly. Just try. Charles has been trying, he's been _really_ straining, here, and he feels like he deserves a bit more than Erik shrugging again.

“I try too!” Erik whispers back, feeling a little bit like his brain is clogged, like he’s- _slow_ , or something, and he’s _not_. He knows he’s not, and Charles isn’t making him feel like he is. He just _feels_ that way, because it’s so hard to verbalize how he feels, even in Hebrew, it’s not just the language barrier. He runs his fingers over Charles’s knuckles, soothing himself. “ _Ani margish ze tzaf,_ ” he waves his hands, wiggling his fingers near his ears. He isn’t happy because the day has felt very floaty, without strictness, without regiment. He- _wants_ things, _needs_ things, too, but how OK is it for him to share, when-they don’t know one another, and he can’t jump head first into controlling every part of Charles’s life? That seems crazy. Is he like this with everyone? Is he just _like this_?

Charles feels like all of the breath and tension he's been holding just _blows_ out of him, one long, almost painful exhale. He closes his eyes. "Oh," he breathes, and it's not that he's at all frightened or bothered by Erik's revelation. It's just a _relief._ He can't even explain why it is, except that it _is._ He feels like he's dizzy again.   
  
Erik’s nose wrinkles up and he ends up smiling. The reason he kept thinking about breakfast wasn’t because he was being dismissive, it’s because he has felt this entire time like he wants to take care of Charles, like he’s been knocked off balance, like a healthy routine should start with the body as well as the mind, like he wants Charles to help him set the table and pick out what he should wear for the day and cut his hair and give him a shave since he’s got a bit of stubble over the last couple of days, and it is coming out silly, Erik knows. Erik wants to show him all the different Postures he read about, and cut his fingernails because they look a little too long, and just- _things_ , a million different things, a million different tiny touches throughout the day that make up a whole, Erik wants it. He feels adrift without it, too.   
  
Then what about _Erik_? Is that why he'd wanted Charles to cut his hair? Charles doesn't know why _he'd_ felt like he'd needed to comb Erik's hair, to at least get it looking a little _less_ like he's been just rolling out of bed with it every morning. It was an urge, though, and a strong one. It had apparently mattered to him. He'd just been teasing, before, playing, but it really did come from a place where -- Charles doesn't know what's doing, exactly, but Erik makes him feel more steady. Less like he's constantly anxious, running out of breath, harried, uncomfortable. Less unsettled and upset. Maybe it's very pathetic, but he can't _help_ it. So maybe Erik can't, either.

Erik doesn’t think it’s pathetic at all. And it’s not about reassurance, or platitudes, it just doesn’t enter his vocabulary. He doesn’t think like that, he doesn’t consider like that. It just exists, they just exist, and they aren’t hurting anyone, they aren’t trying to hurt each other. That’s what Erik would have a problem with. If Charles were mean, if he were cruel, vindictive, abusive. But he isn’t, and it’s OK even if Charles could help it. It-makes Erik happy. And knowing that he makes Charles feel like that, _makes him_ happy-he can’t help but grin in return. He doesn’t think he can help himself, he might be able to force himself not to, if it upset Charles, but he hopes it won’t. Cutting his own hair, well, that had given Charles something to focus on, a task, and he had fixated on that and Erik wanted to follow it, because he isn’t accustomed to anyone paying him any attention like that, and he’d-well-liked it, and Charles seemed-he seemed like he did, too.

Charles bites his lip. “Don’t,” he whispers. It’s not harsh. He’s asking Erik _not_ to force himself not to... Dominate, it seems like. He feels better when he doesn’t. Sometimes he gets _nervous,_ but he’s calmed more by Erik pushing gently than backing off. He can’t explain why. It’s just the way it seems to be.

It seems like maybe they both need a bit of fixing up, and Erik wants to do that. He’d like when Charles paid him attention like that, he wants him to do it again, he still hasn’t dropped it. Charles had a little spray bottle and Erik finds it, and it snaps to his hand completely without conscious volition, and he presses it into Charles’s hands. But no teasing, this time, for real. Charles doesn’t want him to force it away, and that eases something within him, truly. "You will," he says in English, and Charles feels the hum of _Will_ behind it.

Charles is still worrying at his bottom lip, but he manages a small smile. “I can’t do it from down here,” he murmurs, nodding to where he’s kneeling. He doesn’t want to get up on his own this time. He can’t explain _why,_ and maybe that’s just another strange urge Erik won’t understand, either. It just felt wrong to do it. To kneel and then get up without — without being told. That he _could._

Erik knows exactly what he means. When Charles did try to get up before it felt like his brain was being cheese grated. It was not right. He cards his fingers through Charles’s hair and then nods. “ _Kum_ ,” he murmurs, the Imperative for Charles to rise, with Erik still seated, looking up at him with eyes that almost seem to glow in the sun. He doesn’t seem to realize how much he _does_ like the attention until Charles touches his hair, and he leans right into it, eyes closing like a lazy cat. He makes an involuntary sigh.

Well, Erik wasn’t seated and he can’t exactly do this with a _spray bottle_ alone, so he does go grab the comb and a pair of scissors and the garbage bin so he can easily sweep up Erik’s hair when he’s done. Even with Erik sitting at the table, though, Charles quickly realizes that he’s a bit too short. He has no choice, really, but to get into Erik’s space, and his cheeks are pink with it but at least he’s _determined._ He’s chewing on his lip, eyebrows pressed together with that determined concentration, making soft little huffs of effort as he wets and combs Erik’s hair. And he’s exceedingly _gentle,_ careful, until he isn’t. When he tugs Erik’s hair again (gently, but still), there’s a grin he can’t quite hide on his lips. Full circle. He can’t help himself.   
  
With a low noise like a snapping growl-not of anger, more like awakening, Erik vaults over the chair and Charles finds himself pinned right back to his knees, both hands held in one of Erik’s larger ones. Even crouched over Charles Erik towers before him, and it makes him grin as he pets Charles’s face. “ _Lo_ ,” he murmurs. “You be good. No,” he insists, and he _tugs_ on Charles’s hair in return. "Be good."   
  
Charles is startled again, his head spinning as he tries to process. He makes a soft, wholly unconscious noise, nearly a _whimper_ though he wouldn't admit to it, biting harder on his lip. "Be... good?" he asks, as if it's not his own language Erik is using, as if he doesn't quite understand. He's blinking, his eyes darker, his pulse sped up.

“Be _good_ ,” Erik rumbles, and he _does_ tap Charles on the nose, just this once. Playful, but there’s something very intense behind his gaze, too. Charles is supposed to be good. To take care of Erik, too. It goes both ways. No tugging. No. Not allowed. Erik is very strict about it, which may seem silly but Charles gets the distinct impression that if he tries, he will be met with something he’s never faced before. If Charles wants to get _up_ off his knees, he will _behave_. Or Erik might keep him here. He likes when Charles is kneeling for him. He has nowhere else to be.

Charles seems to _consider_ that, and then he smiles, humming quietly. “I’ll be good,” he promises, and it’s earnest, truly, but there was a bit of feigned innocence there. Charles didn’t _mean_ to tug Erik’s hair, and surely he wouldn’t do it again, after _this_ reaction. He’s not outright lying, though. Erik’s hair does desperately need trimming, and Charles — well, he still feels _compelled_ to help. He has gotten focused on it, Erik is right, and it’s just as much of a relief now as it was before.

Erik grips his jaw in hand, enough that Charles _feels_ the bolt of Will thrum through his entire body like a livewire. “You be good,” he murmurs back, and then gradually releases Charles, still crowded in close. “Help. No tugging,” he adds as he gives _Charles’s_ hair a little extra tug for good measure.

* * *

Except... something happens. Charles blinks, and then his eyes _narrow._ It's suspicious and _hurt_ and he's scowling, off his knees but not for the intended purpose. "You're _lying_ to me," he accuses, and the words come out a fierce accusation, projected, tangled-up hurt that nearly _stings_ Erik.   
  
Erik recoils, jaw ticking as his teeth press together, eyes wide. He feels his heart pounding in his chest, but somehow manages to stay composed. “ _Ani lo!_ ” he returns, indignant in nowhere near a playful manner as before, his features shuttered and darkened. “I do not lie. _Ma_?”

Charles stays silent, stays scowling, lips pursed firmly together. He’s _listening._ He’s watching Erik closely, warily, but eventually his expression softens and he looks uncertain, instead. “You’re not lying,” he mumbles to himself after a moment, and it sounds more like a question. He’s not being vicious. He _wants_ to trust Erik. He was just — he was on his knees, and vulnerable, and agreeing to be _good,_ and he’d gotten frightened. “You know English, though?” he accuses. Erik said that he _didn’t._ Why would he lie? Why would he make Charles believe he couldn’t, that he couldn’t communicate with him? What was the point?

Erik stares at him, entirely incredulous. “I... _ma_?” he makes a face, just entirely ground to a halt, completely unable to comprehend what he’s hearing, what he’s experiencing, what Charles is pushing against his consciousness. “ _Lo tov!_ ” he laughs, but it’s not a humorous sound, and he pokes Charles in the chest. “ _Atah medaber, ani-_ ” he raises his eyebrows and points to his ears. He doesn’t _know_ English. He’s _listening_ to Charles, putting words together, forming sounds, remembering the brief lesson Charles gave him on the alphabet, reading books (a complete failure, but he’s _doing_ it). “ _Atah metaber ivrit, ‘boker tov’, ‘shalom’,_ ” he gestures rapidly between them. Trying his best to equate it, but it isn’t the same thing. Erik isn’t lying. Charles can feel that much, but he is _learning_ at an unprecedented rate. He has no reason to think that his knowledge acquisition is abnormal, he doesn’t _know_ anything else.

Charles’ eyebrows pull together. “No,” he argues, shaking his head. “That doesn’t — you _know English_ ,” he accuses, because there’s just no way, absolutely _none,_ for Erik to organically pull vocabulary out of _nowhere._ It doesn’t even make sense. It’s just not possible. If Charles hasn’t _said it,_ hasn’t taught it, Erik couldn’t possibly learn it. And why isn’t he learning that fast? He _should be,_ and he’s not. There’s no possible _way,_ and that’s not arrogance or overconfidence, it’s just something he intuitively _knows._ It doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t believe it. He crosses his arms over his chest, his lips pursed again. He knows that Erik isn’t lying. He doesn’t know _how_ he isn’t lying, and it’s thoroughly frustrating him.

Erik glowers harshly in return. He gives Charles the benefit of the doubt and he is frustrated that he is being _accused_ of something he doesn’t understand, out of nowhere. “ _Atah echad mediyam, atah ose machtzin ve tmunot, be’rosh sheli! Eikh ani yode’a_ _****atah****_ _lo achra’i, anachnu kan?_ ” he spouts off a long string of words that makes it pretty obvious what he defaults to at the very least. “I don’t say _lie_. I _****trust****_ ,” he growls and pokes Charles even harder in the chest this time.

Charles steps backwards at that, a little knocked off balance. His first reaction is to scowl back, his mouth opened to retort (likely something _biting_ ) but he snaps his mouth shut instead, letting it course through him instead while he huffs through his nose. "It didn't make sense! None of this makes sense," he mutters, and Erik is _the only one here._ Charles believes, he _trusts,_ really, that he isn't here to harm him. That he isn't the reason they're here in the first place. But he has spent all morning thinking, agonizing, and Erik was _sleeping_ and so he had that time. Plenty of it. "I'm sorry," he sighs, finally. He feels... wrong, and guilty, and dizzy all over again, but there's nothing for it.   
  
“You...” Erik taps his head. “I know English? _Ani ose ze kashe me’od? Ani ose ze potz’im?_ ” Charles thinks that Erik knew English this whole time, lied to him? Made it harder? Intentionally hurt his feelings, pretended not to understand? Erik shrugs. Charles _seems_ to understand Hebrew pretty good, too! Maybe they both know each other’s language. Maybe they just forgot it. “ _Ve ani lo shena!_ ” he adds, huffy. “ _Notesh li ve siyut sheli_ ,” he bangs his head with his fist. It doesn’t make sense! So what! They aren’t going to solve a problem that they can’t solve. So Charles gotta _stop_ banging his head off that wall and twisting it around and throwing accusations in Erik’s _face_. And _that_ isn’t Hebrew or English, just a flurry of emotions risen in his chest. “ _Ve ani lo higadeti atzor barak_ ,” he mutters, gesturing haphazardly at Charles.  
  
Charles understands it, but not because it's _Hebrew._ He understands it because he's attuned to it, attuned to _Erik,_ because he's listening. He takes a breath and then slowly, very slowly, he gets to his knees. He swallows and hangs his head. "I'm sorry," he repeats quietly, and he _is._ It wasn't fair of him to accuse Erik of that, no matter how strongly he felt it. But it does lead him to something else. "Stop feeling the Earth," he suggests, and helps Erik along with that one; stop _feeling_ things the way Erik does, stop feeling the soil and the ground and the metal, stop letting it call to him. Stop knowing it intimately as soon as he takes notice of it, as soon as he tries, like he knows his own body. Can he?

Erik swallows. Even the suggestion _hurts_. Not his _feelings_ , just-in his chest, the jolt, the rising, the anxiety. He unsticks his throat as best he can. “ _Lam’a_?” he whispers. Why does Charles want that? Erik doesn’t know if he can. He’ll be alone, for real. He’ll be cut off. One, isolated, nothingness. Erik knows his feelings are _big_ , like the Earth, too. That’s why he gives them up, stores them in places for safekeeping. Pets the flowers and lets ladybugs crawl on his fingers. “You want?” he points to himself. He wants Erik to give up his powers?

Charles shakes his head immediately. "No," he assures softly, and leans forward to rest his forehead on Erik's knee, perhaps a sign of submissive, perhaps affection. Both, he thinks. Almost certainly both. "It would be _cruel_ to ask that of you. You couldn't." He gestures, vague, sighs. Charles _knows._ He doesn't know Erik very well, but he knows that he _feels_ those things inside of him. He feels the Earth speak to him, as surely as Charles hears him. But that was his point. "I can't, either," he whispers. He points at his temple, frowning apologetically. Erik can't stop feeling? Charles can't stop _thinking._

Understanding. Erik slowly reaches out and touches Charles’s hair, along the back of his neck. He never meant to be cruel. He doesn’t need Charles to stop being who he is, to cut off that part of himself anymore than Erik could bear to lose the Earth. He just thought maybe Charles is, hurting himself like this. Thinking it so much, coming up with these theories, theories about _Erik_. If Erik feels the Earth and Charles, _thinks_ in every other respect, maybe they are meant to compliment one another. Charles to help Erik stay, focused, to have reason and logic and for Erik to help Charles with his feelings, to steady him. That’s what Erik thinks. It’s simple, maybe, but it’s sincere. Erik wants to help, he doesn’t want to harm, and he didn’t bring Charles here to lie to him and twist him in circles. He just didn’t.

Charles _knows_ that. Logically. But it's been barely a day, barely a _day,_ and all of this is very overwhelming. Devastatingly so. He's trying to adapt. He notices things, he does think _too_ much, and when left to his own devices -- it's difficult. "I'm sorry," he sighs, his forehead pressed into Erik's knee now, his eyes closed. He didn't mean to accuse him of anything like that. But his world _needs_ to make sense. It needs to. He can't explain why, only that he needs to _know_ or he feels so extraordinarily unsettled he thinks he might be sick. It's like if someone put Erik in a room where he was cut off from everything that calls to him, that he calls to. He'd feel just as nauseated. Charles doesn't like being cut off from _knowledge.  
  
_ Erik scritches his fingers through Charles’s hair carefully. He thinks he can understand. He doesn’t know what he’d do if that were the case with him, he’s never not known it. It would be devastating. He just doesn’t _have_ the knowledge that Charles wants, he wishes he could help him make sense of it all. And he focuses a lot on that, on the fact that he can’t, but he looks up. What _can_ he do? What can he do to help? How can he make this experience easier? What does Charles need from him? He’s here, and Charles is right, he’s the only one here. How can he make it better?

He's already doing it, is the thing. Charles keeps his head bowed, and his shoulders shake just slightly. Just enough to be noticeable. Erik's already offered to do it, and Charles is a little overwhelmed by what it could mean, but he's more than willing, too. "Dominant," he whispers, simply.   
_  
_Erik rubs his fingers along Charles’s shoulders, nodding. He keeps him on his knees for quite a bit longer this time, as if in assurance to _himself_ , before tugging on his hands, helping him up. “Fix,” he insists, because Charles hadn’t been _finished_ , and Erik expects him to follow through when he begins an activity. Not that he expects Charles to precisely know how, but he wanted to try, and Erik values commitment at the very least. Order, structure, all of which aren’t exactly apparent in his day-to-day but which are becoming more evident the longer his mind engages with another human being.

Charles _does_ try, thoroughly calmed now that he's been on his knees for a while. It's astounding how much effect that apparently has. He's careful, and focused, and determined; his tongue peeking out from between his lips, his brows furrowed, tilting his head this way and that as he carefully, _slowly_ cuts Erik's curls. Not much, knowing instinctively not to, but at least to get them from dragging at his shoulders. He's not sure it's the _best_ haircut anyone has ever gotten, but it's something at least. He's not even done, still trimming and fussing and fully intending to keep going when he pulls back for a moment and locks eyes with Erik. His throat bobs. He doesn't know what comes over him, really, except that he throws his arms (still wielding scissors, quite dangerously) around Erik's neck.

Erik smiles up at him and the scissors find their way to the nearby chair, he wraps his arms around Charles’s middle, rubbing his back. “ _Nir’e tov?_ ” he waggles his eyebrows playfully, tossing his hair just a little. What it looks like has not even crossed his mind. Honestly he’s been more than content to just sit and be tended to, which has wormed a small ember deep in his chest that warms through him, more soothing than anything he can recall.

"I'm not done yet," Charles assures him, because Erik's hair is still rather uneven and he'd like to trim it a bit more, but apparently he has other ideas for the time being. Those include putting his face in Erik's shoulder and sighing as Erik rubs his back, his eyes fluttering. He's not sure why he suddenly needed a _hug,_ or what possessed him to go for it, but he doesn't want it stop just yet.

For his part Erik seems very much satisfied with this turn of events, and it seems his fingers know instinctively where to go to knead out the tension and soreness built up over the past day and a half. He tucks Charles’s head underneath his chin, resting his face there after a second. Erik certainly isn’t ashamed to admit needing a _hug_ , or liking them. In fact he likes this very much, and his arms tighten before he can stop himself, suddenly overcome, and Charles finds himself quite trapped.

Charles doesn’t mind. He likes it, actually. Eventually he does laugh, though, somewhere tucked into Erik’s shoulder. “Erik?” he asks, and grins wide, feeling... floaty, feeling warm, feeling _safe._ Certainly feeling safe. “Squishing me,” he laughs. He sends the image of dough being made flat, bugs getting crushed underfoot, a stress ball compressed. Squished. Not _really,_ but Erik is holding him fairly tightly, is trapping him. But, well, he _likes_ that, too. Erik can squish him, if he likes. Charles doesn’t feel overwhelmed like this. He does feel hazy, again.

“Squish,” Erik grins back, the reaction clearly not one of distress or anguish in the slightest. It’s predictable, really. Solitude for such a long time isn’t beneficial to anyone, and he’d been in presence of his faculties for most of that time, enough to know what he didn’t have. When he first woke up he didn’t know so many things, things that would be embarrassing to him now, but before he didn’t even know he should have known them. Things like where he was from, what language he spoke, some of which he didn’t discover until _recently_. That he spoke a different language at all, that you have to brush your teeth every day, probably that you should wear clothes, you know. Strange things! Eventually that came back, fortunately for Charles. Erik laughs, figuring he is privy to all that information. But until just this moment he didn’t realize that-he needs this, too. Touch, and human contact, and _hugs_. Hugs are _very_ necessary. Erik insists.

Charles pulls away from Erik’s shoulder eventually, a mischievous grin on his lips, that _gleam_ in his eyes. But he looks softer, too. He looks... different, like this. Like something has shifted in him. Like something has changed. He rather suddenly puts his hands on Erik’s face, then _squishes_ his cheeks together, laughing. “Squish,” he declares, almost _quiet,_ as if he’s shy about it. Nervous? Expecting something.

That makes Erik laugh again, his nose wrinkling up. He ‘ _chomps_ at Charles’s finger and then sucks his cheeks in like a goldfish, with sound effects to boot, before pressing _his_ hands against Charles’s cheeks in return. It’s very light, before his hand migrates to Charles’s back again, giving him a _proper_ squeeze for real once more. It’s not a big secret that Erik has a playful streak, Charles doesn’t _need_ to know him for longer than a day to know that. But it’s not as overwhelming as it first appears, either that or Erik appears to be adjusting to human contact rapidly.

Eventually, after Erik’s done squeezing him, Charles picks his tools back up and gets to work. He does his _best._ It’s obvious how focused he is, how diligent, how determined. He wants... he doesn’t know, really. To _please_ Erik, even if he doesn’t have the words to properly describe that without getting _far_ too flustered to function. When he’s finally done fussing, and Erik’s hair is much shorter and neater, he bites his lip. “I did my best,” he smiles, and it’s _hopeful._

* * *

Honestly, and this much has been evident from the start, Erik truly and genuinely doesn’t care how it looks. He’s sure it doesn’t look miserably awful, and he can already feel the basic shape anyway. It’s just shorter, and it feels lighter, _better_. He scrubs his fingers through it, tilting his head back to look at Charles upside down. “ _Yesh lanu mar’a?_ ” he asks, head tilting. He knows he won’t mind it either way, _but_ he _is_ curious. He hasn’t known himself to look any different, he didn’t even realize it was an issue until Charles brought it up.

Charles finally takes a step back and _looks._ Really looks. Without hair falling into his face, and now that Charles is staring at him, no distractions, Erik is... his face flushes all of a sudden, his heartbeat kicked up. He bites _hard_ on his lip, certain he tastes blood. “Ah...” he flounders, setting the scissors and comb down to give himself a reason to fidget, and now _avoiding_ looking at Erik at all costs. “You look, ah. You look good,” he manages.

Erik grins back, somehow knowing that Charles isn’t just telling him what he wants to hear. Somehow he knows that Charles is... _awkward_ , somehow, maybe because he really _does_ think that, which makes Erik preen, so to speak. He nudges Charles with his shoulder, giving him a soft squeeze. “ _You_ _do_ ,” he gives an outrageous wink. Evidently _Erik_ has no problem in the confidence department.

Well, _now_ Charles’ face is bright red. He squirms, uncomfortable or at least overwhelmed by this, steps back and wriggles his way out of Erik’s space. He doesn’t mean to, really. It just happens. “Beard,” he mumbles, embarrassingly and suddenly. He points to Erik’s — well, his beard, rubbing his own mostly-bare face for further clarity. He’s noticeably looking at the floor. His own feet.

Erik certainly doesn’t want to make Charles _uncomfortable_ , and he doubles back a little bit, rubbing his hand over his point beard thoughtfully. “You help,” he whispers, nodding and reaching for Charles’s hands, squeezing gently. _Not_ a squish, just this once, but tugging him back into Erik’s space, since that’s where he’ll have to be to _take_ care of Erik’s beard. He picks up the scissors, holding them out. Considering how thick his beard has grown, making him look much like he should have starred in _Castaway_ , it’s obvious he, uh, does not know the intricacies involved here.

Charles laughs, holding up said scissors. “I don’t think these will do, quite honestly,” he teases, grinning shyly as he looks up at Erik’s _considerably impressive_ beard. They worked well on Erik’s hair, thick as it is, but it just isn’t the right tool. He thinks of a razor, and something to help with the burn; a cream, or at least _something._ Anything to make the process smoother. But his cheeks are still bright red, he’s fidgeting. It feels... more intimate, somehow. Than simply cutting Erik’s hair.

“You please,” Erik asks, and he _is_ asking, eyebrows arched plaintively, and it is just more than-it’s not simple, it isn’t. It is _intimate_. He brushes the back of two fingers against Charles’s cheeks, a little _shy_ himself, and it’s more humanizing, somehow, in the process. “You do,” he adds, his nose crinkles up. “Please.” Because he wants it, he doesn’t want Charles to disappear, to go away. He likes this, he really _likes_ it. He sniffs, his nose crinkling up, even a small amount of tears gathering in his eyes, and it is of course _terribly_ silly and maybe not even honestly a lot _emotional_ , it’s just. And he could never explain it, a self-deprecatingly laugh as he brushes under his own eyes. He hopes that Charles won’t back off, he hopes that he won’t disappear. It’s been nice. Having him here. Truly nice.

Charles bites his lip. It’s not a no. He takes a big, slow breath. “Tell me,” he whispers, and it’s half demand, half request. It’s both, really, and it sounds a bit like... a plea. He won’t admit it. He can’t. He stares back at the ground.

_That_ makes both of Erik’s eyebrows raise, and this is _not_ a plea. “You _****do****_ ,” he rumbles, and it is very _much_ an Order. “I _tell_ you. Dominant,” he murmurs, low and steady.

Charles jolts. Like he's quite literally been shocked, every part of him buzzing with it, all the way down to his toes. Whatever this is, whatever Erik has slowly started doing, it's powerful. It's incredible. It's completely addicting. He sucks in a heavy breath and has to fight off some of the haze, smiling as he gets up to do exactly what he's told. "Follow me, please?" And it's a request, it's asking rather than demanding or telling, and then he's tugging Erik off to the bathroom so he can do this better, sitting on his knee when Erik sits on the bathtub. His heart is just... pounding. He can hear it. He's practically hyperventilating, and it's more than he's ever experienced, which isn't saying much. They're just so close, and Erik told him to do this, just like he'd asked for. He doesn't know why it makes such a difference but it does.   
_  
_“You fit,” Erik grins, tapping Charles’s knee as if to explain what he means. Like Charles was made for this exact spot, and Erik _quite_ likes it. Charles isn’t the only one who is growing rather addicted to this sensation, Erik didn’t even know it existed within him until Charles woke up, but the more they uncover, the more he _wants_ to uncover. He presses his hand to Charles’s chest, as if to silently encourage him to breathe slowly and deeply, to match their pulse together, and Erik demonstrates himself, taking even, audible breaths. It’s not even conscious, he’s just reacting to Charles seeming flustered and off balance. “ _Har’e li_ ,” he adds again, and it seems his Orders can build on one another, making things hazy and soft and compounded far under.

Charles _is_ flustered, flushed even more as Erik draws _attention_ to how close they are, to how intimate this is. But he listens. He takes breaths that match Erik's until he no longer feels like he's running out of breath, like the world is spinning around him. He offers a shy, affected smile, and waits until his fingers are done shaking before he sets to his task. He's careful. He's gentle. He breathes easy like Erik showed him, like Erik _told him_ to, and sets to work. It takes a _while,_ and patience, and a steady hand, but somehow he feels... _focused._ More than he can remember being, tuned in and capable. Erik wants this of him, so there's very little that seems able to distract him from it. When he's done, wiping off the last bits of shaving cream and hair, Charles is _breathless._ As if somehow _he's_ be the one touched this entire time, and he looks at Erik like he's startled.

Erik is _fascinated_ by the whole process, and when Charles is finished, he rubs his fingers over his own face, delighted. At Charles’s startled expression he has to snort. “ _Mecho’ar, yode’a ze,_ ” he jokes, eyes crinkled. He looks like a different person, and it’s much easier for Charles to _see_ on his face that he is pleased, and it where he might have come off as stern and glowering now he just seems to glow with pleasure. At _Charles_ , that much is directed and obvious, and he leans forward to _rub_ his cheek against Charles’s. “ _Shalom_ ,” he adds and he fluffs Charles’s hair, too, because now that he’s pointed it out Erik notes that he could do with some similar treatment. “Feel good?” he touches Charles’s chest. He means emotionally, how is Charles feeling.

Charles doesn’t know. His immediate reaction is _yes,_ because this must be good, right? This fluttering in his chest, this _warmth_ in his belly. It must be good. It certainly _feels_ good. But he’s unsure of it, too. He’s never experienced it before, and there’s a layer of _anxiety,_ something twisting up in there that Erik always seems to pick up on and respond to. He feels like he’s _intoxicated._ Like everything is hazy and bleary and too-clear at the same time. He brings a hand up to touch Erik’s cheek, and then his jaw, now-smooth, and bites on his lip. “Yes,” he breathes, unsure if it’s a lie, and tries a smile, too.

Erik nuzzles against his hand. “I fix you,” he promptly declares, but he doesn’t make a move just yet, wrapping Charles up in his arms to give him another _squishy_ hug, rubbing remnants of hair all over his shirt because he’s a giant Neanderthal. What is meant by _fix you_ isn’t abundantly clear until Erik conjures up images of scissors and cutting and snipping much the same way, although there is very little evidence to suggest that Erik will be very good at it, he _does_ seem to have a natural creative flair.

Charles squirms until he’s _out_ of the hug, breathing heavily. He’s not sure what it is. He really has no idea, but his eyes are closed and he tries to put at least a _little_ space between him and Erik, covering his own face with his hands. He’s shaking his head.

He tugs Charles’s hands down from his face, head tilted. “ _Haged li ma kara,_ ” he Orders, eyebrows raised, having become quite a bit more accustomed to doing so over the past several hours as he’s observed its effects on Charles.

He’s not sure he can explain it. Charles takes a big, gulping breath, and then takes Erik’s hand, gently, and brings it to his own chest. He’s sure Erik can feel his heart, and he closes his eyes, flushed and embarrassed. “Too much,” he thinks, or maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s not enough. He doesn’t know, because he doesn’t necessarily want any of it to _stop,_ but it’s agonizing, too. It almost _hurts,_ to feel it all for the first time.

For the first time? Erik’s expression of curiosity is now more easily read, and he runs his fingertips over Charles’s chest. “ _Ba’er_ ,” he murmurs this Order more softly, because he doesn’t _want_ to stop, either. He wants to know more, for Charles to elaborate more, to try and describe his experiences. And Erik can’t help being curious, too, what it’s like for him.

Charles makes a soft noise, not so much a protest as it is rather helpless, and shakes his head. Not a refusal. He couldn’t. It’s just that he has no _idea_ how to describe this, what’s been happening to him. This overwhelming warmth and pressure, in his chest, in his belly, in his head. This feeling that he might _explode_ if Erik doesn’t tell him as he has been, insistent and specific, that it’ll all just build inside of him and he’ll break. It’s hazy and strange and floating, but also sharp, focusing. But sometimes it feels like too much. He gets nervous, _scared_ even. He wants to get away, Erik touching him feels like _too_ much. He doesn’t know. Charles swallows and closes his eyes again. “It’s confusing,” he whispers, the meaning clear just by his face, his tone, the _confusion_ just oozing out of him. The only thing that seems to help is Erik — well, doing what he’s been trying to do, whatever that is.

But Erik shakes his head, too. He doesn’t _want_ Charles to get away, and he won’t let him. He belongs at Erik’s side. He taps his foot on the ground, murmuring for Charles to kneel against his legs so he can comb through his hair. “Confusing,” he repeats in certain agreement. “You kneel. I fix you,” he says in English, the Command clear in his voice. “Very still,” he taps Charles on the shoulder, letting him know he is _quite_ serious.

* * *

But Charles purses his lips. “Why do you know English?” He knows Erik doesn’t have an explanation for this. He knows he already brought it up, that they already _discussed_ this. But it’s hitting him all over again, because why does Erik know how to say any of that? His eyebrows are knitted together, and he steps _back_ from Erik instead of kneeling, surprised to find that he can. It doesn’t feel nice, certainly not, actually it makes him feel a little sick, but he can. Why didn’t Erik just _start_ like this? Where is it coming from? He doesn’t _like_ this. Something is off, off about _all_ of this. He wants to kneel. He wants to listen. But how can he? _  
_  
Because Erik insists this time, far more forcefully, the words an Order until Charles obeys him. Why does Charles know how to cut hair, or any of the things he knows? They started from somewhere, they didn’t appear out of thin air. They’re obviously here for a reason, Erik has to trust however they got here they will find their way back. He doesn’t have any better answers. Why does he have bad dreams all the time, why is he Dominant? Erik doesn’t know. They both started at different places, but Erik is confident they will figure it out. “ _Still_ ,” he Orders lowly, running his fingers through Charles’s hair to get a sense of it. “ _Medaber al ze_ ,” is what Erik says instead, tickling his fingers across the back of Charles’s neck.

Well, Charles doesn’t know how to cut hair, for starters. The only reason he thinks he didn’t completely fumble it was because Erik told him he had to, and it made him want to. It focused him in a way he’s never been focused before, even though his consciousness spans all of twenty-four hours. But he kneels, because it was an order, and he chews on the inside of his lip, staying still even while his mind doesn’t. He leans against Erik’s leg. “Why doesn’t it bother you?” he asks, frowning and unsettled all over again. It’s hard to be, like this. Incredibly hard. If he fights Erik, it feels worse. If he leans into it, it usually gets better. He takes a breath and tries that. “Why doesn’t it bother you that we don’t know anything? I don’t like it,” he huffs, and translates all of it much smoother than in the beginning. Meaning, concept, feeling. That constant whirring in his brain that doesn’t seem to go away. Everything that doesn’t fit, that he doesn’t understand, every time the horizon blinks or Erik pulls an English word or an item out of nowhere, he gets all out of sorts. He doesn’t like it. It makes him anxious. He assumed it was because he was some kind of control freak, but the more they sink into this, the more he's not certain that's the case. But what is it, then? If he doesn't want control? Because he doesn't think he does. Does he?   
_  
_All Erik has to offer is a shrug, but it’s the sensation, not dismissive, more gentle. “ _Ani lo_ _****ohev****_ ze,” he laughs a bit, and very steadily gets to work, each movement precise and confident, as if he knows exactly what he wants the end product to be. That creative streak is serving him well, and it will hopefully serve Charles well. Erik knows he isn’t a control freak because _Erik_ is Dominant, not Charles. They have different personalities, they care about different things. Erik feels safe here, he isn’t denying that it’s strange, that it’s unsettling, that he wishes he understood it, but they aren’t going to anytime soon. He has to focus on what he can do. He needs to focus on actions, on what he can affect in front of him. Solving the problems he can solve. “ _Ve lo ose pritim meshum makom_ ,” he adds, snorting. That isn’t possible.

Charles can't shake his head when Erik told him to be still, but he gets across the concept of it, the image. "I still don't understand," he mumbles, rather miserable for it. He's almost certain he could find the meaning of the words if he went deeper into Erik's consciousness, read more than just conscious, surface thoughts, somehow, but he doesn't want to. Something tells him not to, actually, though he doesn't know if that's Erik or something else entirely. Either way, he wants to obey. He sighs, grateful he's bent into Erik's leg, both because there's contact there, which does help him when he's not too anxious to receive it, and because it hides him. "What's wrong with me?" he wants to know. He thinks of broken things. Broken tools, broken objects, broken toys. What's not working? Which wire is out of place, or snapped? _  
  
_And Erik raps him on the shoulder blade with the scissors. Nothing is wrong with him, they’re just different people. “ _Zkof_ ,” he murmurs the Order, not letting Charles hide within him, not letting him slouch or sit poorly. Erik doesn’t think anything is not working. “ _Nitmaked al ma nuchal ose_ ,” the translation for that lags, a dense soup of words that Charles eventually gets the concept that Erik wants them to focus on what they can do, skills they can learn, communicating with each other, talking to each other. That’s the basis for anything else, and if he wants to know the rest, he has to start there.

Charles frowns, but sits up straight, looking rather pouty for it. He sighs again, a soft little exhale, a vaguely unhappy noise. "Do you even like me, or am I just the only one here for you to like?" he wonders, mostly under his breath. He doesn't bother giving Erik any help with that one. It's obviously self-deprecating. Erik has been waiting a long time for him to wake up, and Charles is obviously _neurotic_. Erik has to read books to think about the ways that he might be _helped._ It's ridiculous. Isn't it?

“I like,” Erik rumbles, and he gets another jolt for that. He doesn’t like the constant self-deprecation, and he won’t let it remain unchecked. Charles said that he _liked_ Erik, too, Erik thinks they are both smart enough to know what they like, and Charles isn’t just humoring him, or lying to him. He doesn’t think it’s ridiculous. If there were books about ways to help Erik, he assumes Charles would read those, too. He isn’t doing anything because he thinks Charles is neurotic or broken, he’s just trying to help.

Charles sighs again, this time deeper. He doesn’t say anything, though; doesn’t argue, doesn’t offer anything else, even though he’s obviously lost in his own thoughts again. He just stays still for Erik, trying to hide the obvious frown on his lips.  
  
Erik finishes after a few moments and holds out his hand so Charles can take a peek in the mirror. It actually looks _quite_ good, and fits Charles’s face, without being _too_ short. Somehow Charles had known not to do that with Erik and Erik has seemed to transfer that, whether it’s something of his own or of Charles he couldn’t say. Sometimes he just does things and he doesn’t always know why. But he learned why he doesn’t eat things consistently, and it made sense, and it wasn’t sinister. He’s had a lot of time to himself to come to terms with all of this or maybe it’s just the way he is, able to accept the unexpected, the unknown.

When he’s led to the mirror, Charles manages to crack a small, grateful smile, touching his own hair. “Thank you. It’s nice,” he murmurs, sincerely, and then pointedly looks away from the mirror, staring at his own feet instead. He wants to walk away, to _get_ away, but he doesn’t. Something keeps him tethered to Erik, so he follows it, even as he goes back to fidgeting, to thinking.

Erik rubs his fingertips across his own jaw-that much at least doesn’t need doing for Charles. “ _Ma kara?_ You tell,” he Orders, trying again.

Charles sighs. He’s back to frowning, leaning against the sink and mostly staring anywhere that _isn’t_ Erik. He shrugs. “I’m just thinking,” he mumbles. He taps his own temple. “Can I have my book back?” It seems to come out of nowhere, and he _almost_ looks up at Erik as he asks, realizing that he... _has_ asked. Like he needs to. His cheeks go pink.   
  
Erik blinks, eyebrows raising. “Book?” he asks, having forgotten about it. He hooks his finger under Charles's chin, gazing at him curiously.

Charles laughs, and it _is_ a little self-deprecating. Of course Erik forgot about it. He shrugs. "You took my book," he mumbles, embarrassed and trying to _not_ look at Erik still, even tilting his chin away. "Last night. You said I could have it in the morning." Sleep, the sun rising, the book Erik took from him. He'd asked if he could have it back last night, and Erik said in the morning. It's the morning. But Erik probably didn't _mean_ it, that he had to ask for it back. He shrugs. "I'll just go get it," he mutters. It's probably in the bedroom, where Erik left it. Why did he even ask?   
  
Charles doesn’t find himself getting very far. He asks and then does what he wants anyway? Unacceptable. Erik keeps him, trapped. He does nod, though. Charles can have it back. But first they will eat breakfast. Erik said he would look after Charles, that means from the top. He tugs Charles to the kitchen and has him help prepare ingredients for a dish he couldn’t even name, he just knows it. Garlic and eggs and tomato sauce and cheese in a cast iron skillet topped with fresh herbs. “You eat. Then book,” he insists sternly.

Charles frowns again. “I’m not hungry,” he insists right back, and he really _isn’t._ His stomach feels a little churned, actually. “I’d like it now, please.” Immediately, right this second. It’s demanding, but tired and quiet, too. Charles is evidently in a mood, and he plays idly with ingredients, tossing around an apple he’s found on the counter. It doesn’t look appetizing, either.

Erik shakes his head, since he didn’t ask what Charles would like, he told him exactly how it’s going to be. “ _Echol, achshav_ ,” he Orders lowly. If he wants Erik to entertain _anything_ he says, he will start by listening.

That gives him pause. Charles tilts his head, slow and curious. There’s nothing vicious here, but he watches Erik carefully, tossing his apple again. “Or what?” he wonders. What if he just... doesn’t? Listen? Does he need to?

Erik doesn’t _know_ or what, and he’s frankly a little tired and a little frustrated that he keeps getting this attitude push back. The apple shoots out of Charles’s hand and Erik catches it before it disintegrates in his fingers. “ _ ** **Eat,****_ ” he growls the Order, pointing at the table.

Charles’ eyes widen and then, when it sinks in, his face falls. He goes noticeably cold, but he moves to the table, mostly because his feet go without any real conscious direction from him. He’s rather aggressive about forking into his meal, and he only takes a bite before he mostly plays with it, because he _isn’t_ hungry. He doesn’t say a word.

Erik sits there with his arms crossed, watching the entire time. It’s obvious by his dark glower that he is not happy, Charles can hear the clap of thunder where his thoughts might otherwise be. He’s been forgiving, he’s been attentive, he’s tried his best and Charles keeps slapping his outstretched hand over and over again, and he’s sick and tired of it.

Charles huffs out a sigh and _rolls his eyes,_ because that’s not at all what just happened. He shakes his head, but apparently it doesn’t matter. “I was just _asking,_ ” he mumbles under his breath, and it’s not an excuse. He had, truthfully, been _curious._ They hadn’t discussed that. It’s not something he just _knows._ Erik wanted to talk, and communicate, and figure things out, until, apparently, the question offended him. He stabs a piece of tomato with his fork, scowling.

“ _Lo,_ ” Erik murmurs. “ _Atah po’el ra gisha kol boker_ ,” he replies harshly, because he isn’t crazy and he isn’t stupid and Charles has been pushing back against him ever since he woke up, and he wasn’t _just asking_ because he’s still muttering under his breath and banging his dishes around and being a general _jerk_ , and Erik is exceptionally unhappy about it. “You keep,” he gestures to his own temple, “you want Dominant, fine.” Part of Dominance wasn’t just giving Orders, it’s also about enforcing discipline.

Charles stares, his eyebrows raising up onto his forehead, his entire face crumpling. “I’m _not_ —“ He gestures, wildly, his fork still in his hand, and shakes his head. He wasn’t muttering under his breath. He was _telling_ Erik, who had just barked at him for no reason, who has been glaring at him from across the table. He plays the entire situation back, and he really _hadn’t_ meant anything disrespectful by it. It was curiosity. Fine, he was a bit aggressive with his tomatoes. He thinks they’ll live. He hasn’t broken anything, or _banged anything around._ Now he’s truly frowning.

“ _Lo yode’a,_ ” Erik sighs and stares at a point beyond Charles’s shoulder before wrapping his fingers around the fork and sticking it into the eggs. The fork clangs loudly against the plate when his hand twitches violently, fingers stiff and inflexible and Erik sighs, snapping his opposite hand over his wrist to stop the tremor and picking up some bread to break apart the yolks instead. “ _Atah rotze li aletz ose hakol?_ ’ he answers. Because evidently that is possible, he’s proven that much.

* * *

Something _exceedingly_ strange happens, then. The fork ends up back in Erik’s hand. It’s not bent oddly. It doesn’t twitch. It’s perfectly normal, and perfectly functional, and it’s like the last few moments never happened at all except he’s fairly sure they did. They just didn’t, too. Charles blinks, dazed. “I don’t know what you said,” he mutters, terribly unsettled, and gestures at Erik. The same gesture he’s been using for _can you repeat yourself, please._ Can he think something that gives Charles any sort of clue what he’s saying, because _he_ isn’t pulling vocabulary out of his arse.

“ _Ma_?” Erik stares at his hand, bending his fingers curiously. It’s usually fine, except when he’s stressed, or trying too hard, then _this_ happens. He doesn’t know why. He imagines it’s the same reason why his leg gives out on him sometimes, or why his jaw hurts, or why he wakes up cold and terrified. The small, tiny little puzzle pieces that hint to something lurking. Maybe he’s being relentlessly positive about it but Charles is wrong, he isn’t magically OK with any of this. But what is his alternative? Freak out? Break down? Who would that help? Nobody. He already snapped at Charles this morning. “You want me,” he gestures to himself. “ _Aletz ose hakol?_ ” He gives the impression of a hand at the back of Charles’s neck, forcing him, bending him into shape, _making_ him do things.

And then, incredibly, impossibly, he _forgets._ Erik forgets that those things exist, and Charles blinks, confused and bleary in the aftermath. He doesn’t know what he was looking at. His eyes are on Erik’s hand, but he doesn’t know what he was meant to be looking for. He’s eating normally. Charles looks down at his own plate and swallows and eventually, slowly, hesitantly, he nods. “I think so,” he whispers. “I just wanted to know.” It’s honest. It _was_ curiosity, and more than that it was... want, really. To understand what this means, what it is, how they’re going to navigate it. If he doesn’t listen, what happens? Does he not get the book? Can Erik say _no_? How would he feel about that? Does it matter?   
  
Erik nods, his eyes distant and a little distracted. “ _Betach_ ,” he says to Charles’s thoughts. He _can_ say no. Erik feels perfectly assured in doing so, and had actually done so already. It matters, to him. That he is listened to, that he is obeyed, but there are pieces missing from his experience now. He doesn’t quite understand how he ended up here, or why he was so irritated.

Charles bites his lip, head tilted. “What’s wrong?” he whispers. Erik suddenly feels _very_ far away. Almost impossibly so. He reaches out his hand, but ends up pulling it back, unsure what he was even doing.

His lips separate and he shakes his head. “ _Lo yode’a_ ,” he whispers. “ _Ka’asti, aval... achshav, shachachti_ ,” he laughs a little. “ _Slicha_.” He was mad, but he doesn’t remember why, and it feels stupid now. He’s sorry he reacted poorly to Charles, he didn’t mean to.

Charles continues to bite down on his lip, using that extra nervous energy to push his food around on his plate. He shakes his head. “You’re allowed to be upset. I was pushing a little,” he admits. He was asking. He _did_ want to know. Most of the challenging he’d done had been a result of real anxieties, not... defiance. His cheeks heat. But Erik is allowed to be frustrated with him. “I... did I do what I was supposed to?” he asks, and it sounds so _earnest._ Finally, Charles _looks_ at Erik, searching. He sounds nervous.

The problem is that Erik doesn’t know why he behaved like that. He wouldn’t accept that kind of behavior from Charles, there’s no reason to accept it from himself. It doesn’t feel right. He asked, he has questions, that’s OK. Erik doesn’t have a real issue with that. “Eat,” he does Order again, tapping Charles’s plate. “ _Ken_ ,” he adds in response to Charles’s question. Erik thinks he did a great job serving him earlier and helping him with breakfast. He asked the way he was told to ask.

Charles swallows, but then he shakes his head. “No,” he argues, even if it’s not — even if it’s not _his place,_ because that doesn’t feel right to him. He was being moody and dragging his feet on it. When he eventually takes another bite of food, it’s reluctant, and he doesn’t take another. “I meant, before. The book.” Was it right to _ask_? Did he need to? If he’d just gone and gotten the book, it would have been fine, right? It’s not like... he shrugs. It’s not like that. It was odd to bring it up.

“ _Ani lo aletz ochel hakom,_ ” Erik finally says. “Eat. All. Yes,” he adds, nodding. It was right, and he would have been shut down, because Charles is supposed to be here, finishing his breakfast, not reading. He should have asked and he did.

Charles _makes a face_ at that, and huffs, but he eats. Agonizingly slowly, but he does. “I’m not hungry,” he grumbles, and he really _isn’t,_ too worked up to feel any sort of appetite. “Half of it?” he offers. He gestures, then shows Erik an image of half of what he has left. Hopeful.

Erik shakes his head. It’s like two eggs and a tomato, he’s not eating _half_ of it, he’s eating _all_ of it. He’s not always going to like Erik’s decisions but it’s Erik’s job to keep him healthy. “All. Now,” he Orders.

And he doesn’t like it. He can’t eat _fast_ without getting _sick,_ but he doesn’t deliberately push things around, finding that he _can’t._ He does make a nasty face the entire time, thoroughly unsettled by it. When he’s done, he’s a bit dramatic about setting his fork down. “Done. Happy?” he sighs, feeling uncomfortably full and not liking it even a little. The meaning of _that_ is clear. “Book now,” he huffs.

Erik’s eyebrows arch, pointed. No huffing or demanding or attitude. Charles is on thin ice, and Erik makes sure he knows it. “Yes,” he replies, to Charles’s question, even if it was rhetorical. “Happy.” He gives a fake smile and holds out Charles’s book. Evidently Charles isn’t the only one who can be a little catty.

Charles frowns. He doesn’t take it, narrowing his eyes instead. “Is it a trick?” he asks. It’s suspicious, that much is obvious. He crosses his arms over his chest.

“Trick?” Erik blinks, repeating the word, but not understanding the question.

Charles supposes Erik _doesn’t_ know English, still, despite sometimes knowing more than he should, which he at least has to his advantage. “Why are you giving it to me?” he asks instead. “ _Lam’a_?”   
  
Erik’s head tilts. Because he said he would, after Charles ate, and he did. “ _Ani mavtiach,_ ” he explains.

Charles’ lips purse. He takes the book, staring at it. “Thanks,” he sighs, and offers a fake smile of his _own._ He did eat, despite how horrid it made him feel. That was what Erik asked for. He opens it just to feel like he has something to do, for a distraction.   
  
Charles wanted this, but now he seems not very interested in it. “What book?” Erik asks, head ducking a bit to get a peak at the cover, which he doesn’t quite understand.

Charles shrugs. “Biology,” he sighs. Bodies, anatomy, humans. It had just been what he’d been reading when Erik insisted they go to bed, and he _does_ want to read it. And about a thousand other books in the library. He honestly doesn’t know what to do with himself now, though, staring at the page he was on and very obviously not reading, quiet.

Erik is reading a couple of books, too, but it’s less for pleasure and more because it’s necessary. Trying to improve his language skills, to learn more about Dominance. He taps his temple. What is Charles thinking about? If he doesn’t want to read, he doesn’t have to, but something is on his mind.

Charles frowns, still staring at the open book. “You didn’t tell me what you read about,” he points out, showing Erik the conversation from before. Apparently he’s been reading and not sharing what he’s learned.   
  
He did share already. He’s reading, like, the dictionary, and books about submission. But he very much doubts that’s what Charles is thinking about. “Tell,” he leans forward, eyebrows raised.

“Don’t read the dictionary,” he suggests, snorting, because that’s not how vocabulary acquisition works. He’d much sooner make Erik flashcards. Then perhaps Erik could make _him_ flashcards. But he remembers he’s supposed to be sullen, and the smile quickly goes. “I meant _specifics._ ” Not subjects, but what Erik had actually learned. Maybe he’d feel less broken if he actually knew what he was _supposed_ to be feeling.

But he did give specifics. He was reading about Postures, primarily, about the importance of routine, which had been something that they discussed previously, so it had been nice to confirm that they were going in the right direction. He doesn’t know what Charles is _supposed_ to be feeling, but he doesn’t think considering it in that light sounds correct.

Charles sighs. It’s much more like a huff. “Tell me, then,” he mumbles, but he’s not really talking to Erik. He takes his plate _and_ Erik’s when he abruptly stands up, taking both dishes to the sink mostly for a distraction. The water’s a little too hot coming out, and he doesn’t even notice.

“Charles _****stop it****_ ,” Erik waves his hand and the tap shuts off. “ _ ** **Sit down****_ ,” he Orders, pointing at the chair. “ _ ** **Tell me****_. _Haged li ma kara, achshav_.” The Orders burst out one after the other.

Charles frowns deeply, but comes back to sit down stiffly. His shoulders are incredibly tense. His whole body is. “I don’t know what you’re asking for,” he admits. He shrugs to get the message across. “I’m just thinking.” Another tap to his temple, this time making him wince. About what? Everything. He’s clearly just in a _funk,_ and a pretty intense one. Erik doesn’t know him well enough to see the signs, he doesn’t know himself well enough to recognize them, but they’re there.

“Thinking _what_.” Erik murmurs. He doesn't need to know Charles that well. He would have to be brain dead not to be able to recognize it. He's been pushy and huffy and distant and stormy all morning. Whatever Erik forgot, the emotions haven't gone away, now he just feels like a crazy lunatic on top of it.

Recognizing it is one thing and understanding it is wholly another. Charles huffs again like he’s offended by Erik’s thoughts, which he _is,_ a bit. As if he’s just been intolerable all morning just because he hasn’t been — whatever the alternative is, whatever _Erik_ apparently is or thinks he should be. He hasn’t been deliberately cruel or harsh, he hasn’t been a _jerk._ “ _Everything,_ ” he sighs again, making that same big, sweeping gesture. He can’t get out of his own head. He’s _tried._ The problem is that _Charles_ isn’t used to it. Living with _himself._

“Like what?” Erik repeats, staring at his juice glass. He rubs his hand over his own chest as if able to break apart the tension there via ultrasound, calcified and unsettled. He feels like a coiled up snake, waiting to strike.

Charles sighs, but it's not impatient. It's not _stormy,_ either. It's weary, if anything, and he rests his head on his own arms, rubbing at his face. "Like everything," he repeats, but offers a little more in thoughts. Everything. Why they're here, what this means, what sort of person he is, what sort of person Erik is, what it means to be submissive, why they can do the things they can, how all of this adds up. Everything. He's anxious, knotted up, completely swallowed by it. While Erik slept this morning, he stared out at nothing, squinting, and felt incomprehensible panic, mind whirring and working and not stopping. Not once. "Are you alright?" he asks, and the concern in his tone is enough. He leans forward, chewing on his lip again, and then promptly leans back.

Erik shakes his head, exhaling slowly through his nose. “ _Ani lo margish emet_ ,” he whispers, his lips turning down in an odd smile. He doesn’t know how to describe it in either language, gesturing from his head all through his body, fine tremors through his muscles the closer Charles looks. He shakes it off, swallows it back. “ _Lo hitkavanti hit'achzarti_ ,” he punches his fist into his opposing palm, pointing at Charles, then touches his own chest again. “ _Slicha_.”

Charles blinks, not at all understanding that. He slowly gets up from his chair again, but not to attempt to wash their dishes. He hesitates what feels like an exceptionally long time before he kneels at Erik's feet, taking a painfully-held breath. "What's happening?" he asks, worried. What is Erik experiencing? He's calmer, too, but he tries not to focus on that. Not to think about it.   
  
Erik’s legs seem to tuck him closer and he’s bent forward, trying to keep it all back. He doesn’t know, he feels angry, and mean, and like harsh discordant waves of noise are spilling from his head through his whole body, every muscle tense, pupils dilated. Like he wants to throw things, or yell. It’s fine, it just happens sometimes, it’s fine. He shouldn't have come downstairs, he should have locked himself in his room so he didn't let it spill out.  
  
But maybe, Charles can't help but think, he's supposed to be down here. Maybe that's the point. Charles lets himself be tucked closer, takes another breath, and points at his head. "Like me?" he asks. Does Erik think that maybe it's like the horrible anxiety that wells up inside of him, often unchecked? What if Charles can help with it, the way Erik helps with his overactive mind, his shot nerves? What if he's supposed to?  
  
To be honest Erik was just under the impression that he's not a very good person, because this is more than anxiety, it feels like toxic sludge and it is just getting all over everything. Charles didn't do anything wrong but Erik still lashed out at him. He can't be very nice. He smiles up at the ceiling, pained, and tries to focus on rubbing Charles's back.

Charles leans even heavier against Erik's leg, resting his cheek on his knee and looking up at him with a soft smile. " _Lo,_ " he whispers, using Erik's language. It's not that. Erik is a wonderful person, evidently, and they've both been pushing this morning. Charles started it. He admits that. But can't they help each other? Charles' anxiety doesn't always come out in a _pleasant_ way either. He's been distant and touchy all morning, Erik wasn't picking up on nothing. "What do I do?" he wonders. If Erik can help steady _him,_ what does Charles do? What can they try? Is there anything in Erik's book about that?  
  
Erik has absolutely no idea, but Charles talking to him and kneeling for him has helped a good deal, and he tries to get that across, brushing a stray hair from Charles's forehead. He doesn't think it's related to Dominance, his book doesn't even allude to anything like this. Erik has plenty of worse anecdotes from earlier in his time here. It just seems like he's always angry at nothing. Like he can't think, like every little thing gets blown out of proportion. It doesn't happen all the time so he can't predict it and it's frustrating and that just pisses him off more and-his fist clenches. See? he laughs. If he doesn't control himself all the time he just, this.  
  
But what if it is? Erik is trying to control himself. Charles chews thoughtfully on the inside of his cheek, and then finally speaks up. “Control me instead,” he suggests quietly. He shows Erik what he means: if he feels like he can’t keep himself in check, keep _Charles_ in check. Maybe it will help. It seems like it has been, anyway.  
  
Erik leans forward to rest his head on top of Charles’s, trying to take in slow, deep breaths. He keeps rubbing at Charles’s back, rhythmic and repetitive. It has been helping. Erik has felt more stable than he ever has, but Charles really doesn’t know, where he was, either. “You-” Erik swallows. Charles isn’t angry with him, or scared of him? Erik has been trying to conceal a lot of this stuff. To make himself seem like a good person, so Charles would like him more. So he wouldn’t feel trapped, and stuck with this- _weirdo_.

Charles shakes his head. Yes, there are things he needs to adjust to. But he really does think _anyone_ would feel that way about anyone if they realized they were sharing space with a stranger with no one else at all around. He grins. It could have been much, _much_ worse. Charles isn't angry _or_ afraid. "Control me instead," he repeats, earnestly, and wriggles until he can look up at Erik. They can figure this out together. Erik was sure of it, and now it's Charles' turn to try to be.

“ _Worse_?” Erik wonders, picking up the word from Charles’s head. Charles smiling at him makes him smile, even if it’s not fully there, it’s a start.

Charles' brows furrow. "Worse," he agrees, a little unsettled again now, but he quickly waves it off. Erik could have been _truly_ mean, or unpleasant, or strange in a way that isn't harmless. He could want to hurt Charles, and there are about a thousand images that would and do demonstrate that, given to Erik for only a minute before they're gone. Erik could have been many things, but he isn't. "I like you," he reminds Erik. He offers another smile.

Erik’s head shakes violently, and he instinctively curls closer to Charles, eyes shutting making a noise of distress. He pets the back of Charles’s head, digs his fingers in just enough to almost massage his scalp. He doesn’t want to hurt Charles, not at all, but Charles doesn’t find it unpleasant? Erik’s problems? What if he loses his temper again. What if he throws things, or breaks them. He’s done that, sometimes. Not often. Charles doesn’t think Erik wants to hurt _him_ , right? He can’t _be_ a good person, there’s no explanation that makes sense, he has all these urges and they’re not right. They’re bad.

Charles shakes his head, too. He leans into Erik’s fingers, into his touch, trying to show that he _does_ trust Erik. He wants to. “I’m not afraid of you, Erik,” he promises. He bites his lip. “I think you need things, too.” He was worried maybe Erik didn’t. But he thinks, now, that he _does._

“Me?” Erik’s eyebrows raise. He isn’t denying it, but he is curious what Charles thinks he needs, because he genuinely doesn’t seem to know, he just feels off, sometimes. This helps. Charles being on his knees like this, helps. Touching him helps. He likes that a lot.

Charles doesn't know, either, not any more than Erik knows, _exactly,_ what he needs. It's just a guess, but he has a feeling it's a fairly intuitive one. Charles feels horrid and wrong when he's out of control, but the thing is, perhaps he doesn't need to _control._ Erik does, though. He seems to. Maybe he's been so... lost, because he hasn't had anyone to _do_ that for. To. "Like this," he whispers, chewing on his lip again. "Dominant."

“I think,” he agrees, his nose scrunching up a little. He sits back just a little and holds up the book that Charles was reading, his lips pressing together. "You read," he murmurs, stern as ever. He said he wanted to help Erik learn English, and he really does want to learn, he’s putting a lot of effort into it, and it helps a little, Charles is right. To give him things to do, tasks to focus on, and this one would benefit them both.

They end up on the couch -- well, Erik does. Charles kneels, grateful and happy to do it, because if he's honest he's worried maybe Erik would _ask_ him to sit beside him and for some reason he feels a bit opposed to that. He opens the book and reads, trying to read slowly, to convey meaning the way he has been this entire time. He fully intends to ask Erik to do the same thing with Hebrew. It's just after a while he starts to fidget, frowning because of nothing that has to do with the book or Erik, and eventually he sighs, apologetically. He looks at the couch. Curiously, and then -- "Hm," he murmurs, and starts prodding at it.

* * *

Erik blinks at him and pokes _Charles_ , just enough to get his attention. “What?” he asks, and his wording can come across as harsh, but it’s only because he lacks the vocabulary, and because Charles gets the impression that Hebrew is a lot more _blunt_ than English, less tactful. "Hm?" Erik's eyebrows arch, curious himself.

Charles blinks. It’s not really meant for _sleeping,_ nor is it big enough. It’s just a small bit of padding, a floor-pad built into the couch for exactly this purpose; kneeling below — well, a Dominant (his cheeks are bright red) while they’re sitting without knees getting red and sore. He’s fairly sure they were created when people started _considering_ those things, and it’s a fairly neat invention, if you ask him. He doesn’t even know how he knew to look for it. But he blinks again. “You... don’t want to sleep in a bed?” That’s... strange. And he tries to hide his frown by ducking his head.

Erik shrugs. Maybe it’s strange, maybe he’s strange. He didn’t mind sleeping with Charles, but-he gets the impression maybe that it was not convenient for Charles, and Erik can cope just fine on his own, he promises. It’s certainly not big enough for _Erik_ who can barely _sit_ on it without looking quite oversized, but-he’s a little strange. He does things he doesn’t understand always. Sleeping in a bed doesn’t seem comfortable, it doesn’t seem safe. In a room, by himself, on a bed. His head shakes unconsciously.

Charles blinks again. Well, first of all, he can’t even _sit_ on it, because Charles can’t. It’s meant for kneeling, for this. And second — he shakes his head. “No,” he tells Erik. Simply. He won’t try sleeping here.  
  
Erik blinks _back_. Then he laughs a little and pats the _couch_ , not the _pad_. That would just be _strange_. He chuckles a little to himself. " _Slicha_ ," he murmurs, touching his own chest. Misunderstandings abound even in thoughts, sometimes.  
  
Charles shakes his head anyway. He doesn’t actually understand how the thought came about in the first place, but he doesn’t like it. “No,” he says again. He crosses his arms over his chest.

“ _Lam’a?_ ” Erik tilts his head, and pulls on Charles’s arms. He doesn’t like _that_.

Charles keeps them crossed. He even jerks a bit to the side to avoid the pulling. “Because I don’t like it,” he explains simply, the _feeling_ rolling off of him in discontented waves. “You can’t.”   
  
Erik glowers at him sharply and his arms _yank_ suddenly to the side, snapping the palms of his hands to his thighs. “ _Lam’a_? Why don’t like it?”

Charles huffs, but he doesn’t move his arms. He does noticeably _pout._ “Because,” he sasses. Rather childishly, but he thinks he’s allowed.

“Because. _Why_ ,” Erik demands, because he _isn’t_ allowed. Erik does not allow him. “You tell.” That much is an Order.  
  
"Because I don't want you to!" Charles shouts, and then goes immediately to biting viciously at his lip, as if he's shocked that it came out of him. "I don't want you to, alright? You can't sleep on the couch." It's as simple as that.

Erik wilts, making an incredibly unhappy sound in the back of his throat. “ _Lo tzoveach li_ ,” he returns sharply. “You _stop it_. _Atzor tzvach ve pitpartzut, ve ane she’elat li_ ,” he gives Charles a sharp rap on the knuckles. “ _ ** **Ani lo rotze****_ , _lam’a? Ze bachtanah._ ” Erik wasn’t even thinking about this that heavily, and he refuses to be _shouted at_ about it. “So you answer, _****nothing else****_. Nothing else, _****now****_.” He points a finger, the Order unspooled like lashing cable wires.

Charles doesn’t understand most of that, and he wonders if Erik is even speaking English or it he’s just perceiving it that way, but he gets the _gist._ “Because I don’t want to sleep alone!” he shouts back, and his own eyes widen. He wilts, too, and he recoils, moving off of the floor pad he’d been very satisfied with and comfortable on. “But I don’t care. Sleep on the damn couch, Erik.”

Erik’s hand comes down over Charles’s shoulder and _pins_ him to the ground. “ _ ** **Me too****_ ,” he growls, and Charles finds himself immobile between Erik’s hand and the back of the table. Why does he think Erik even thought about it in the first place? Why is he choosing to yell at Erik over a vague half-thought instead of listening to him in the first place? Erik presses his finger against Charles’s lips. “ _ ** **No****_.” He does not behave like this, and if he does it _again_ , Erik will punish him. “You _understand_ that?” he points at his own temple, glaring.

“You’ll...” Charles isn’t sure he does understand. He blinks, staring with _very_ wide eyes. “I —“ He shakes his head, apparently speechless. Erik obviously needs to show him more, because he’s not getting it, or else just reeling too much.

“ _Onesh,_ ” Erik repeats himself, rapping Charles on the knuckles again for good measure. Punishment. Discipline. Erik is tired of doing things by half-measures, if all he has to go on is his word, Charles has made it very clear he just doesn’t have to listen to Erik at all, he can just continue to behave wildly out of control and the longer it goes on the more frustration Erik feels. He doesn’t mean _hurt_ Charles, he doesn’t even know what he means, really. He hadn’t read much about this, but he knows it exists. That real Dominants do it, and Erik isn’t pretending, here.

Charles frowns. He rubs at his knuckles, not crossing his arms but wrapping his arms around his middle. “I want to listen,” he whispers, honestly. But this is what he’d been asking about before, and he really had just been _asking._ What happens? Does Erik take away his books?  
  
Erik nods, and soothes out the sting with his thumbs. “I know,” he says, because he does _know_. And he feels kind of foolish for taking this long to figure it out, but he doesn’t have the frame of reference to realize that in the grand scheme of things it hasn’t been long at all. But it’s felt like years, it’s felt like just letting Charles run around do whatever he wants, and that’s probably why he got so frustrated before. It’s not Charles’s fault, it’s Erik’s, he just didn’t know if it was appropriate, but this is not sustainable. It isn’t even _real_ , how could he demand respect if he isn’t a respectable Dominant? Taking away his books is a start. But Charles gets the feeling that Erik intends on exploring a much fuller range of discipline than that, especially for the kind of behavior he just warned Charles against. Not _reading_ for a while isn’t going to cut it.

But Charles pouts, mostly just for show. He tries to get closer to Erik, a bit distressed when he can’t. He likes being on his knees, it is comforting, but he wants — he’s thinking of Erik touching him. There’s no way around it. “I like reading,” he mutters. It _would_ be a punishment. He wouldn’t like it.

Erik tugs him up, resting him on his knee much the same way he had in the bathroom, rubbing his back. In some cases Erik thinks that would be a suitable punishment, and the more they get to know one another, the more Erik will be able to determine exactly what is most reasonable and what Charles specifically would find beneficial.

Charles nearly _whines_ as he’s pulled up, frowning, but he doesn’t mind that much. It’s just that he _likes_ being on his knees. Sometimes it’s the _only_ thing that feels right and normal. “What... I like?” he asks, biting his lip. He’s probably not understanding. Erik will choose punishments based on what _he_ wants? Because, frankly, he’d never choose losing book privileges. Privileges? His own eyes widen. They’re not... privileges, surely. They’re just a given. Right? He didn’t need to ask for a book back this morning. He could have just taken it. He’s almost positive Erik would have let him. So why did he?

Erik shakes his head. “ _Lo_ ,” he says, because the word he was thinking of wasn’t what Charles would _like_ or what he would want, more.... what would be most effective. What Charles would hate to lose, what would drive the lesson home. He tucks a strand of hair behind Charles’s ears, though, smirking. That’s right. _Privileges_. Being able to do whatever he wants, being able to do what he _likes_ , is a privilege, and Erik has no problem restricting that if Charles doesn’t behave. Erik isn’t an unreasonable person, he doesn’t think. He doesn’t have impossible rules, if Charles obeys him, he won’t have a problem. If he does not, then he will find his time here sorely unpleasant.

Charles suddenly pitches forward again, throwing his arms around Erik’s neck, still resting on his knee. He probably should have asked, but he has to hug him. He doesn’t know why. He just has to, and he _exhales,_ everything just blown out of him. “We need it?” he whispers.

Erik rests his head on Charles’s shoulder, rubbing his back and along his neck. “We need,” he agrees, soft. “I need.” He’s felt wholly unstable this whole time and he thinks this may be part of the reason why.

Charles thinks so, too. He shivers at Erik’s fingers, leaning into his touch, sighing into it. “I feel out of control,” he admits. “All the time. When you’re not — I don’t like it. It makes me...” He thinks of that clenching feeling in his chest, giving it to Erik for just a moment. He can’t think or breathe. It hurts.

“Me too,” Erik whispers. He thinks for a moment and then ventures, “you want?” His eyebrows raise. He wants Erik to sleep with him? Erik would like that very much. He worried maybe Charles wasn’t comfortable. That had been the whole point of his thoughts in the first place. He doesn’t want to be alone, somewhere else. It doesn’t feel good.

“ _Gam ani_ ,” Charles whispers. He’s just repeating. He wants to learn, too. More desperately than he understands. But he hides in Erik’s chest at the question, and wilts. He _was_ a little uncomfortable. But he also wasn’t... _really_ uncomfortable. He can’t explain it, exactly. But he doesn’t want Erik sleeping on the couch, or outside or somewhere else strange. It doesn’t sit right with him at all.

Erik huffs a little. “No outside?” his eyebrows arch, and he pokes Charles in the chest, playful. “No? You too?” They can sleep out under the stars. Charles realizes he’s grinning a few seconds later, obviously joking.

* * *

Charles blinks. “Every time that happens...” He bites his lip. He’s talking to himself, and he doesn’t even mean to. But he keeps getting unsettled. He shakes his head, dismissing it, and just lets himself stay buried in Erik’s chest, unwilling, for the moment, to be uncomfortable with it. It’s just a hug. It’s better than feeling... _wrong._

“ _Ma kara?_ ” Erik’s head tilts and he rubs his hand over Charles’s heart, too. It feels nice. It feels more stable, more centered, in even the few moments since he had been honest about his intentions. It feels like things are more in line.

Charles keeps chewing at his lip, and eventually reaches up to touch _Erik’s_ temple, before curling back into him. He’s faintly flushed, now, as if finally realizing how close they are, how close he feels like he _needs_ to be. “English,” he sighs. He’s so _fixated_ on it, and he doesn’t know why. It feels like... he doesn’t know. Something he can’t ignore, something that keeps catching his attention. Charles feels like he notices more than he ever consciously realizes, and knows things, too. He just doesn’t know he knows them. “You feel better?” he asks, peeking up at Erik. He _feels_ better?

“ _Ken_ ,” Erik beams. He _does_ , indescribably so. He touches his hand to Charles’s cheek. Charles was right. He felt unstable, out of sorts, and he doesn’t think this has solved whatever is wrong with him, but this has solved a good deal of the stress he was feeling, and he hopes that Charles will feel that too, that he will feel more stable, that he will respond to Erik’s stability and control in the same way that Erik seems to respond to him. When Charles touches him he shivers a little, letting out a small, involuntary gasp. “Hi,” he gives a little wave, _quite_ silly.

Charles laughs, giggles, really, a soft snort of a thing as he finds his way back into Erik’s chest, now practically straddling his knee to get properly comfortable. He pokes Erik. “Hi?” But he means, and he shows Erik, that he means are there different ways to greet someone in Hebrew besides what he already knows? He wants to learn. He’s curious, too. “ _Shalom._ ” But he grins. “Hi. Hey. Hello. Hi there. Heya.”

“ _Hi!_ ” Erik laughs back, because that’s one word he _does_ know. He also knows _bye_ , both of which are used in Hebrew interchangeably. “ _Ma kara, ma nishma, ma shlomech, yo, eich lomech..._ ” he smiles. They mean roughly the same thing. What’s up, how’s it going, what’s happening. Hebrew is a relatively casual language, and even though Erik doesn’t remember a whole lot, _he_ seems like a laid back kind of person, so maybe that’s a cultural holdover.

Charles grins back, pleased. For some reason he seems to be inching _closer_ to Erik, even though there's nowhere to go, in the absence of being on his knees. "How are you?" he asks, because Erik has already asked that one and apparently has picked it up. "What's up? What's going on? What's happening?" He takes a big breath, and lets it out slowly. His head ends up resting comfortably on Erik's shoulder. "We'll be alright," he breathes. He's starting to believe it, little by little.

“ _All right_?” Erik repeats that one, head tilting curiously. Not _everything_ is intuitive to him, evidently. His fingers feather through the hairs at the back of Charles’s neck, his breathing already slowing down, calming, the more Charles does, as if they are linked together somehow.

It makes him laugh, because it's a strange phrase for Erik to get caught on. He smiles. "Good," he explains, and shows Erik; they'll manage. They'll _figure it out._ The sense of it, the concept, the hope that's been injected into their interactions from the start that's dulled some of the confusion and panic. Charles' eyes slip closed and he _purrs._ There's truly no other word for it, the way his entire being seems to lean into it, his own breathing slowed, his guard down completely.

That makes Erik beam, and he presses his cheek against the top of Charles’s head, because he believes it, too. He’s believed it from the start, and he doesn’t know why, it’s not rational, but it seems that he has an easy time following his instincts, and they so far have turned out to be right. “ _Chataltul_ ,” he smirks, and Charles gets an image of a fluffy, fuzzy kitten and a good dose of pure affection from Erik, who thinks he is _quite_ adorable.  
  
Charles _pouts_ , which certainly doesn't help. He throws up a scowl at Erik, fully ruffled. "I am _not,_ " he protests, and pokes Erik in the chest before going back to _resting_ on his chest, his eyes heavy again. It can't be helped. It's well into the afternoon now, and apparently they're content enough to spend it lazing away. "I'm allergic," he mumbles, as a strange afterthought he doesn't even know why he knows, and then feigns sneezing so Erik gets the idea. He actually ends up sneezing, though, his nose wrinkling up and his entire face scrunched as he does.

“Allergic,” Erik repeats, curious. Erik doesn’t know if he’s allergic to anything, but it can’t be very relevant considering he’s poked and prodded his way through numerous environments during his time here and has yet to encounter any kind of allergy. When Charles sneezes Erik bursts out laughing, and he taps Charles’s nose. “ _Mit’atesh_ ,” he murmurs the word thoughtfully, and then mimes sneezing himself. He tickles along Charles’s spine, perfectly content to _laze away_ , and then considers. “No kittens?” he laughs again, amused at himself. He thinks he likes animals, and they like him. He’s had squirrels and birds crawling around all over him during his adventures in the woods.

Charles hums thoughtfully. “Erik?” he asks. He’s drifting a bit in Erik’s arms, on his knee, perfectly comfortable for the moment though he knows he should be at least a bit unsettled. “English,” he whispers again. It keeps slipping in, but sometimes Erik doesn’t know it at all. He doesn’t have a clue. Charles doesn’t quite understand it, and it’s frankly _bugging_ him. “Wrong,” he sighs. But he’s more curious than truly frustrated, at least at the _moment._ He’s not saying Erik is wrong. He’s saying something is wrong with this, with this — this place, and he doesn’t know if he should go prodding at it.

“Yes?” Erik answers back, just because he can, even though he already knows what is bothering Charles, it’s just frustrating not to be able to provide any answers, because he doesn’t know. Erik doesn’t know why he isn’t more worried, he doesn’t know, he knows that Charles is likely right, that there are things wrong, but he feels-he can’t explain it. It feels like he wasn’t a calm person, and being here, feels _calm_.

Charles takes a breath. “You think it’s safe?” he asks, and he blinks his eyes open, looking up at Erik. He projects safety, and calm, and comfort. What he feels _now,_ actually, around the discomfort of not knowing, despite the curiosity. He’s looking for reassurance, mostly, but he’s also looking to _Erik._ To judge the situation for both of them, in a way he hasn’t quite let himself.

He nods, and touches Charles’s cheek. He knows for a fact that it’s safe because _he_ will make it safe, he will make sure that nothing happens to them, but he doesn’t think that they need to worry about that, and he _does_ think that he _does_ have very good instincts when it comes to that kind of scenario, the same way Charles knows he’s allergic to cats. “Safe,” he whispers back, his nose wrinkling fondly. He will protect Charles, Charles doesn’t need to worry about anything like that. There doesn’t seem to be any threats, and he’s explored this place, there doesn’t really seem to be any people, they seem to be alone.

When Charles frowns, it’s not frustrated. It’s _sad,_ a grief he doesn’t quite understand gripping his chest as he sighs and closes his eyes again. He rests his head on Erik’s shoulder again and grasps tightly at his shirt. “You were lonely,” he whispers. Alone. He shares the emotion with Erik to give him the sense of what he means, letting him briefly feel the ache of it. Why was Erik alone? All this time, why? Charles purses his lips. “I’m sorry,” he breathes.

Erik’s hands tighten around Charles and he nods, eyes fluttering closed briefly. He didn’t like it, it was painful, but he has hope that there was a reason behind it, something he doesn’t yet understand. It explains why he reacted so strongly to Charles, why he attached to suddenly, why he can still be off and a little unstable, like his mind is slowly rebooting now that another human being is here. He pets the back of Charles’s head, rubbing his cheek along Charles’s and smiling. He was alone, but now he isn’t, and he is very grateful.

* * *

Charles is very grateful, too. For a while he just lets himself drift, finding it surprisingly easy. His breathing slows, his eyes stayed closed. It's after what could be minutes or hours that he blinks bright blue eyes open and looks up at Erik. His hand comes up, too, fingers tracing the features of Erik's face, like he's exploring it. When he realizes what he's doing, his cheeks go pink, but he doesn't pull his hand back.

And Erik is a very patient person who is quite happy to be Charles’s human jungle gym, and his eyes crease as he smiles down at him, leaning against Charles’s palm unconsciously. “Hi,” he laughs a little, patting the back of Charles’s hand. It’s not just tolerating touch, Erik bows into it completely, his own guard fully relaxed. “Nice,” he whispers, tracing his thumb along Charles’s jaw in return. He hopes Charles won’t pull away.

Charles laughs, because it feels an odd choice of word. His smile fades, eventually, lips turning into a frown as he touches the lines of Erik’s face, down to his mouth, _his_ jaw. “Angry,” he sighs, not certain what makes him say it. He doesn’t sound angry, and certainly not frightened. But there’s sadness there, melancholy again. **  
  
**Erik blinks down at him, his head tilting a little. “Me?” he wonders, both meaning if Charles is angry at him, or does he think Erik is angry? He’s not quite sure, but he thinks he understands the gist of the word. He’s still being touched, which keeps him remarkably calm either way, considering the last time Charles was mad at him.  
  
“Mm-mm,” he murmurs, still finding himself sleepy, but then he purses his lips. “Well, yes,” he smiles, even through that strange, lingering sadness he feels. “You.” Charles is still touching Erik’s jaw, the place where it clenches when he’s upset, up toward his mouth where that hard, stern line forms. He doesn’t mean Erik is angry _now,_ but he thinks he can be. “Temper,” he grins. Charles has one, too, but Erik’s is different. He explains himself, what he means; Erik tries not to yell, not to throw things about or break things, but sometimes he can’t help it. Charles knows.  
  
Erik wilts a bit at that, feeling a deep sense of shame and he bows his forehead to Charles’s. “ _Slicha_ ,” he whispers back, because he doesn’t like that part of himself. He tries his best to control it, but it’s not easy. He doesn’t know why he is this way, if it doesn’t mean he is a bad person, why is it so hard? Lots of little things set him off, and it just plain feels bad. The idea that he could yell or throw things, or hurt someone, what if he hurts Charles? What if he’s just violent and unpredictable? He gazes over Charles’s shoulder and attempts to pack all that back up. “Me,” he agrees, soft.  
  
Charles shakes his head. “Mm- _mm_ ,” he argues, and pats Erik’s face until he looks at him again. Charles’ eyes seem particularly bright, though perhaps it’s just the lighting. Either way, it’s one of the few times he looks Erik directly in the eyes, his own belly flipping with it, his cheeks very warm again. “You just... need things. Like me.” They’d agreed on this already, but saying it so simply _helps._ Charles gets anxious and frustrated and he acts out when he isn’t properly — but he can’t even think that while Erik can hear, certainly can’t share it knowing that Erik _will,_ so he just clears his throat and fidgets on Erik’s knee. Erik knows. It’s just the same for him, but the reverse, that’s all. When he’s angry, Charles will help.  
  
It makes Erik smile again and he swipes his thumb under Charles’s eye, nodding. He does know, and it’s similar for him, too. He isn’t sure what he needs, since it isn’t to be controlled, Charles needs to submit, but he needs to be Dominated, too, and Erik doesn’t really know what the reverse of that is. He thinks maybe it has roots in, just this. Being touched, and talked to, that helps. When Charles knelt before, it helped. Erik isn’t very good at calming himself down without cutting away pieces, but Charles is good at that. He doesn’t mind?  
  
Charles shakes his head, but his forehead scrunches up. “Dominant,” he murmurs. There is an inverse to submissive, and hasn’t Erik just said it? Isn’t that what he needs — the same as Charles, just flipped? It would make logical sense, if there’s logic to be followed here. But while Charles needs to be... well, _controlled,_ doesn’t it seem like Erik needs to do the controlling? Charles isn’t sure yet how far that goes, and Erik doesn’t seem to, either. But he’s gotten _angry_ and out of sorts when it felt like there wasn’t... well, order to things, it seems like. When Charles wasn’t falling properly into place. It must irk him. He touches Erik’s cheek, tilting his head. “What does it make you feel?” he wonders. And how did he manage it, without Charles?  
  
“ _Nisht gut_ ,” Erik snorts, and then his head tilts, brows coming together because that wasn’t English _or_ Hebrew. “Huh,” he makes an odd little noise. “ _Lo tov_ ,” he corrects, but he thinks that much is apparent. He didn’t do very well at all by himself. He feels restless, unbalanced, chaotic, _angry_. He likes order, he likes form and function, he does _not_ like it when things start to dissolve. He wants to rise up and smack it right back into place again, strict and unyielding. And _that_ feels good. Natural. Warm. Relaxed. Easy.  
  
Charles blinks, too, because -- "Was that not Hebrew?" He has no _real_ conception of it, unfortunately and frustratingly, but it feels like something he knows. Either way he shakes it off as another odd quirk, something that _can_ be shrugged off for the moment, and focuses more on the discussion at hand. "Then..." He doesn't know how to phrase this, really. He doesn't know how to conceptualize it in his own head, either, which is more of the problem because it means it's nearly impossible to convey to Erik. But this house is fairly _chaotic,_ and he grimaces, turning his face into Erik's shoulder. He doesn't mean offense, it just... is. Erik seems to have lived fairly _without_ order. Without structure. "Why?" he wonders.  
  
Erik laughs, covering his mouth. That is something he doesn’t have an answer to. Mostly he’s embarrassed about it, though, because it isn’t natural for him, which is something he does know. He taps his temple and shrugs a bit. He was, frankly, lonely and depressed and spent long hours laying face down on the floor.  
  
A soft, hurt noise slips from Charles' lips at that, but it's not for him. It's for _Erik._ It sounds wretched in every way, and whatever put them here and kept them seems to have given Erik the short end of the stick. He closes his eyes and lets it wash over him, finding he does _feel_ extremely intensely once he does. Some of it must be Erik's, he thinks. It's secondhand but it's just as much his, he feels it just as strongly. "If I wasn't submissive..." he trails off. Erik would likely be grateful for the company, but does he think it would make him _feel_ better? It's something to consider.  
  
It wasn’t all terrible, but it was long, and unnerving not having any references. Erik hopes that Charles doesn’t judge him solely based on the two days they’ve known one another since he thinks that, at least for himself, it isn’t an accurate representation. Charles’s question makes him tilt his head, though, curious. Of course he would be grateful, but... if Charles wasn’t submissive, it would be much harder, most likely. For both of them. He is glad Charles is submissive, and he presses his forehead to Charles’s brow, apologetic. Not wanting him to feel Erik’s sadness.  
  
Charles shakes his head, and he's biting on his lip again. It's clear he's got some thoughts churning around in there, but he doesn't share them, at least not directly. "But you _need_ me to be submissive?" he tries. "It's... a good thing, the way you see it?" Erik will at least get the gist of that.  
  
He nods. Things would probably go downhill very fast if Charles wasn’t, even though Erik would do his best to handle it. It wouldn’t be-enjoyable. It wouldn’t be right. He would feel weird and wrong and angry all the time, and he doesn’t think he would be very _happy_. He sends that brief feeling of depression again, only more intense. “I need,” he agrees. “Good! Good thing.” Just like he hopes that he can be a good thing for Charles, too.  
  
He already is. Charles bites harder on his lip and takes a breath. If Erik weren't _Dominant,_ Charles knows he wouldn't be nearly as calm. He wouldn't be capable of it. It's not that he can't be self-sufficient, that he can't be _independent._ He hopes that's not the case. He hopes Erik won't insist that's the case. But there are things that he does _need,_ that Erik has offered to provide, and if he wasn't Dominant in the way that he is, Charles knows in his heart things would have devolved very fast. He wouldn't be happy. He wouldn't be comfortable. He would feel -- strange, and pressured, and he thinks he might even _act_ in ways that aren't normal for him. "Sick," he whispers, though it's not quite the word for it. But perhaps it is. He thinks of sneezing from before, of coughing, to get the point properly across. He'd be ill in some way, but not physically.  
  
“Allergic,” Erik grins, looking mighty pleased with his totally inaccurate self. He tickles under Charles’s nose, amused, and tugs him _back_ against his chest, because, well, he wants to. And Erik certainly doesn’t _insist_ that’s the case, any more than it would be the case for him.  
  
But Charles tugs _Erik_ , and when that doesn’t work because Erik is much bigger than he is in every single way, throws himself down much more horizontally on the couch. “Nap,” he declares, and closes his eyes. He’s grinning.  
  
“ _Nap!_ ” Erik snorts, and when Charles tries to _burrow_ into the couch Erik follows after and yoinks him right back into place, only this time _he_ lays down a bit, letting Charles rest on top of him. This is a much preferred _napping position_. Erik doesn’t fall asleep, though, he just pets at Charles, keeping his eyes closed, relaxing.  
  
Charles fusses a bit. He can’t help it. He tries to keep his eyes closed, to just not think about how Erik is holding him, but eventually he starts to squirm, completely unable to relax. “Too much,” he tells Erik quietly, eyes squeezed closed. He can’t easily get up like this. What if he needs to? Before he was just on Erik’s knee, he could get up if he wanted to. Now he’s being properly _held._

Erik blinks up at him. If he wants to get up, he can ask. Erik will decide, that's what it means. Erik doesn't want to make him uncomfortable or force him to do things he isn't ready for, though, Erik cares, he doesn't just blindly want to do whatever he wants just because he wants to, he wants Charles to feel comfortable and safe, too.

Maybe that’s the reaction he needed, because Charles stops squirming as much. He’s still a bit unsettled and it’s obvious, but he’s not nearly as restless and visibly uncomfortable. “You’ll let me up when I want to get up?” he asks, showing Erik the image to get it across. If he wants up, Erik won’t keep him?  
  
“I let you,” Erik promises, touching Charles’s cheek. He can be a good Dominant, not just barking Orders chaotically. He wants to take care, to be responsible, for Charles’s input to matter. It’s not just about control, it’s supposed to be specific, to Charles.  
  
 _Those_ thoughts, that assurance, is what makes the difference. Charles is restless for a bit longer, as if he can't seem to get comfortable, and then he starts to calm again. To drift. He _doesn't_ demand to be let out of Erik's arms. The nerves fade, though perhaps they'll come back. But his breathing slows, and his eyes stay closed, and eventually he does just _fall asleep._ In Erik's arms.  
  
Erik, exhausted all around, ends up drifting too, his head lolling against the top of Charles’s, but Charles is abruptly woken up when Erik unceremoniously _deposits_ him on the floor, full stop, after shooting awake rather dramatically a few hours later. He gasps and stares blindly around the room as if he can’t figure out what’s going on. His brain has shorted out entirely and he bugs when he spots Charles on the _floor_.  
  
Charles doesn’t process it, either. He doesn’t have to. He registers that he’s hitting the floor rather hard and the _pain_ associated, a sharp, aching burst of it where he falls on his arse, that there’s some sort of disturbance, that Erik is gasping and startling awake. But the moment he seems to comprehend exactly what’s happening, there’s nothing to _comprehend_ anymore. Things get a bit muddled in the middle there. The room looks shockingly different from one moment to the next, is dark and then horrifically bright and then somewhere in the middle, perhaps too red-toned to be natural. Charles is _sitting_ on the couch, then, blinking, and Erik is beside him, and he doesn’t really know what’s happened. Nothing? Too much? He touches his own temple, confused. Utterly. There's no pain, there's no panic. Not for either of them. But he doesn't know what there _is,_ in the aftermath. He looks down at the floor.  
  
Erik sits back from Charles a little, needing to put a bit of space between them, which is something he’s never consciously done before, his chest rising and falling rapidly, gaze fixed on the opposite wall, audible breaths through his nose take several moments to calm and he swallows, leaning forward to inspect Charles, raising a hand, apologetic and grimacing. He didn’t mean to hurt him. “OK?” he croaks and his voice comes out raspy, hoarse as if he’s been shouting even though he hasn’t.  
  
Charles blinks. "I --" He doesn't know what Erik is talking about. And after a moment, _Erik_ doesn't know what Erik is talking about. There's nothing to inspect. He doesn't remember the pain of falling, or falling. He doesn't remember Erik struggling for breath. "I..." He shakes his head, still blinking. "What?" he asks, and he looks like he's been drugged in some way, for all the confusion.  
  
Erik’s eyebrows raise. “ _Erev tov_ ,” he waves a little, not understanding what just happened. He’s still breathing hard, still sweaty and sticky and making _Charles_ sweaty and gross, too, his hair stuck up at awful, harsh angles, eyes red-rimmed. He takes a slow, deep breath, brows knitting together in the center of his forehead. “ _Ma_?” he repeats back, lips pressed together.  
  
But he isn't. None of that is happening, and if Erik went to a mirror he would see that. If anything, he looks quite a bit _less_ disheveled than he did before they took a nap together. And technically they _should_ be sweaty, at least a bit, but they aren't. There's none of it. But Charles is shivering, and he wraps his arms around himself and blinks, and blinks, and then blinks again. He stands up, and then he sits down again, the movement fairly unnatural, as if he merely... glitched. Like he didn't make the decision in the first place. He stares at the floor again.  
  
Erik’s eyebrows raise. “ _Ma kara_? Dreams?” he wonders. He reaches for Charles’s hand, giving it a squeeze.  
  
Charles takes his hand back. And then he stares down at his hand, too, and shakes his head. His mouth opens, briefly, but nothing actually comes out.  
  
Erik doesn’t feel right, his body knows it, his brain knows it, and it’s all still there. He just doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, and has no language to describe it. “Talk?” he taps Charles on the knee. What is wrong?  
  
Charles inhales. Sharply. He shakes his head. "No, this isn't right," he whispers.  
  
Erik’s eyebrows raise. “Tell,” he says, trying his best to push through whatever remnants are blaring inside him like alarm klaxons to try and smile reassuringly.

* * *

The next thing Erik is aware of, though, is entirely different. In sequence, it doesn’t even make any sense. It was well into the afternoon, but the sun that’s streaming through the windows is clearly an early-morning sun. There’s no indication of whether or not it’s the next day, or the same day, or what day it is at all. They’re in the study, not the living room, and Charles is sitting curled up in a chair, a book in his lap. He’s reading, silently, the longer parts of his hair even after his haircut obscuring his face as he does.  
  
Erik is standing by the window, hands in his pocket, and he blinks out of his reverie as if perfectly accustomed to missing large chunks of his life, or else he just doesn’t remember the interim. He does, though, and he crosses the room, tugging the book from Charles’s hands. “You,” is what he says. “ _Meshane ze_ ,” he gestures.  
  
Charles has absolutely no idea what that means, and he tugs his book back, blinking. "What are you doing?" he demands, testy and frustrated. "I was reading, Erik."  
  
“ _Stop_ ,” Erik presses a finger to Charles’s lip. “You change it,” he taps Charles’s temple. He isn’t mad, or frustrated, his bearing is different altogether. “ _Ose ze shone._ ”  
  
Charles stares at him, his expression noticeably blank. "I don't know what you're talking about," he whispers. He moves Erik's hand out of the way, almost slapping him in the process. His hand is shaking. "Please don't stand over me like that."  
  
Erik sits instead. Yes, he thinks Charles does know, he’s said it himself, things seem off, or wrong. He can read minds, he can show Erik what he means, and he’s changing things. Erik doesn’t remember how he got here, his experiences aren’t linear, and for some reason he can’t pinpoint, it’s terrifying in a deep, visceral way. He’s not scared of Charles, or of his abilities at all, but he knows what he knows, he _knows_ this.  
  
"That's _the same thing_ ," Charles breathes, and Erik finds he has absolutely no awareness of what it means. Even if he'd understood the English, he wouldn't quite comprehend it because Charles doesn't _want_ him to. He could be speaking any language and have it sound, for all intents and purposes, like gibberish. Charles stands, walks to the other side of the room, and then paces back. "I don't know what you're talking about," he repeats. "So you should forget about it." And he takes a sharp breath, because _he_ knows, he _knows,_ that if he really wanted Erik to, he _could._ He doesn't know how. He doesn't know if he could _right this moment._ But it's certainly not out of his range, and suddenly being aware of that _is_ starkly frightening.  
  
Instead of pushing it, whatever reaction Erik has, his face utterly closes down and he abruptly stands, leaving the room and closing the door quietly behind him.  
  
Charles stops in his tracks, halfway through pacing. His heart abruptly falls into his stomach. The door opens, except it doesn’t open. It was just never closed because Erik never closed it in the first place. “You can’t just walk away!” he shouts after him, his voice echoing strangely. “Where are you _going_?”  
  
“ _ ** **Stop it, now****_ ,” Erik whirls around, the Orders slamming into Charles as heavily as any physical force. He finds himself _pinned_ back into his chair, but it’s obvious from looking at Erik for longer than a split second that he isn’t being aggressive on purpose, he’s well and truly afraid of something, every muscle locked, vibrations reverberating from head to toe.  
  
And it makes Charles feel sick to his stomach. The realization now, the _awareness_ he has in this moment — he takes a sharp, completely unsteady breath. He curls his legs up into his chest and _grips_ at his own head.  
  
Erik doesn’t want to see him hurt himself. He creeps back and tugs Charles’s hand away, rapping him on the knuckles for good measure. He can’t explain it any better than what he knows. It’s not the same thing. Charles can’t ignore him and pretend like it’s not happening and essentially wave in his face that he could just make Erik forget he even cares at all and warp his perceptions in the same conversation. That is the same thing, it is the _same thing_. The same as what, Erik doesn’t know, he doesn’t know and he looks like he’s going to throw up all over Charles. He has to stop, stop hurting himself, he has to stop it, please stop.  
  
“ _What are you talking about,_ ” Charles seethes, and this time Erik’s hands snap to his sides because Charles doesn’t want them near him at the moment. He can’t fathom it and he doesn’t want it and he brings his hands right back up to his head, cradling his oversensitive temples, briefly pulling at his hair just to distract from the overwhelming pressure there. Erik finds he _can’t_ get to Charles now. There’s something dividing them, utterly impenetrable. Charles isn’t aware of it. “Please don’t come near me,” he rasps.  
  
Erik doesn’t say a single word, he just stands there, as if his mind has suddenly shriveled up into nothing like a spider with its legs prodded. No power, no input.  
  
Charles doesn’t go digging. It’s that horrific awareness that he _could_ that continues to make him feel shivery and sick, wracked entirely by chills. He’s worried he may not even notice, now. He’s frightened of a lot of things he didn’t know he _needed_ to be frightened of, and Erik’s reaction is proof he should be, he rather thinks. He curls into a ball himself, cradling his own head, shivering violently.  
  
Erik’s hand comes up over his own face to hide it from view, and he makes no sound at all, hoping that against all logic or reason that he can hide himself, burning with humiliation that he can’t control whatever is happening inside of him, he desperately wants to leave, to be far away, up in the tree tops, he doesn’t think he can feel his body anymore. No, he can’t feel it. His thoughts are fading, slow evaporation.  
  
Charles exhales. It sounds as painful as it is, and he’s really moments from hyperventilating at this point. “Then _go_ if that’s what you’d like,” he gasps, and there’s suddenly _much_ more space between them than there was before, the lighting odd enough that Charles is mostly hidden from view. If Erik doesn’t want to look at him, he doesn’t have to. None of it is _conscious,_ but it’s happening, the floodgates momentarily opened.  
  
Erik is entirely stuck to the spot, or maybe he isn’t. He doesn’t move, frozen, silent, drowning. He can’t think, he can’t talk, he doesn’t understand what’s happening and it’s so embarrassing, of course Charles is angry with him, it doesn’t make any sense. He doesn’t notice what’s happening because he’s jammed his hands into his eyes to try and stop himself from making a peep, whatever is wrong has violently slammed into him. Stealing, taking. Twisting. He has felt stupid and unstable all this time and he doesn’t want to break down, not in public, but he can’t make himself move, he can’t stop himself from letting out a noise that sounds close to a sob.

Charles isn’t angry at Erik, because he’s fully breaking down himself. There’s not even a chance of concealing it, even with so much space between them. Erik can _hear_ when he starts to sob, dry and loud and painful, because something has snapped inside of him and it can’t go back now. He’s scared. He _sounds_ scared, and far-away.

Erik struggles to get himself under control, only this time it’s not working, and he can’t talk. He curls up on the floor beside Charles’s chair and ducks his head against Charles’s knee. He doesn’t want Charles to be scared, or feel bad.   
  
But Charles isn’t close enough for that. He’s extremely far away, the room is _far_ bigger than it should be. There’s an infinite amount of space between them, too much. There’s no way to reach him, and he continues to sob, to grab at his hair and then _scream,_ loudly and then suddenly at the top of his lungs, just an agonized, horrified scream, echoing in all that inexplicable space between them. And then it stops. And it’s dark, and silent, and calm.

Erik just curls up in a ball on his own, because he doesn’t know what else to do, he can’t push himself past this. He’s not calm, but his brain isn’t all there any more, so maybe it has the exact same side effect.

* * *

It’s there. There’s no collapsing on the floor, and no darkness, and no morning light a moment later. They’re on the bed they both shared the night before, if there is a night before, and it’s dark outside. Erik’s mind is appropriately _nudged,_ because it is there, and Charles’ abilities, at full force, are perfectly capable of patching it up. Charles is curled up against the headboard, looking rather childish with his socked feet and a pillow held tight against his chest, as if in protection. He’s taking unsteady, uncomfortable, heaving breaths. “Erik,” he rasps.

He crawls up and wraps Charles up in a hug instead, burying himself in Charles’s chest instead of the pillow. He moans unhappily, touching at his own throat, shaking his head. It will be fine, it all will be OK. It will all be OK. He doesn’t notice he’s repeating it to himself, touching his own face, rubbing at his chest like he can dissolve the hard, gnarled tension there.

Charles dissolves it instead. Not consciously, not knowingly, but he does. Erik's muscles ease. His breathing slows. Charles takes a shaky, shuddering breath, tensing up, but he touches Erik's hair, because something tells him that he needs to. He's shaking and distinctly unstable himself, but he shares none of that with Erik, sucking it in and taking instead. "It's alright," he agrees.

Erik grips at Charles’s hand, hard, unintentional and keeps it there. The blanket gets tugged up over his head, too, so that Charles doesn’t have to look at him. So he can hide how afraid he is, how ashamed he is of his reaction, how little he understands about why he is the way he is, if he can just make himself better, if he could just understand it. He can’t, and he’s sorry. He rubs his cheek into Charles’s chest, and it’s not _Charles_. If it were, he wouldn’t be so obviously comforted, which he is, even if he's not quite right.

He can, though. Charles tugs the blanket down, and takes a breath. His own eyes are closed, so it doesn't matter much. But he's not doing anything consciously. From the beginning, from the first moment, none of this was conscious. He squirms in Erik's arms, uncomfortable with how they're sitting, but keeps his hand in Erik's hair. Erik starts to calm. More than he already is, and not because Charles is just projecting calm; it's just an inevitable, slow deescalation, gentle and now feeling much more like _Charles,_ not that Erik knows the difference. But it's there. All of what he doesn't _understand_ begins to melt away, thoroughly out of the picture, out of his _mind._ It can be fixed. Charles has no conscious idea of how to fix it, but it can be. "It's alright," he repeats, and his voice is shaking. He sounds just as out of it as before.

Erik’s breathing begins to slow down, and matches Charles’s slow and steady. He’s breathing as slow as he can, fighting nausea, the urge to bury himself again, trying to smile, to make himself better. “Hmumnm,” he mumbles, which seems about as much speaking as he can do. He lays himself back down, focusing on his heartbeat, on the spaces in between, on Charles’s breaths. He’s not sure how to talk, why he can’t, anything. He sniffs and brushes the back of his arm over his face, slowly drawing his hands down, looking splotchy. He nods and tries to smile. It will be all right. He'll do his best to make sure it is.

Charles lies down, too, groaning softly. He brings his free arm up to cover his face, to cover his _head,_ really, his eyes firmly closed. He hooks a leg over as much of Erik as he can manage, keeps touching him when he can remember to. Erik is calming. He's coming back. Whatever it is that rose up, it's going back down where it belongs, far away from them. Charles feels like he's getting further away, too, but he tries to feel like he's _here,_ like he understands what's happening, silent and confused.

Erik doesn’t want him to go too far, he never has. He slowly settles back down, trying his best to calm Charles, too, which is a fat chance, considering how precarious his own situation is, but he wants to try. “Sorry?” he whispers, finally managing to claw his voice out from the depths of his chest. He can, he can talk, he didn’t realize that he couldn’t, but now he can. He can at least use his newly regained voice to try and convey-he doesn’t know. It seems trite. He knows that. But he means it. It isn’t just self pity and shame even though he knows that’s prominent, too. He really is-he is, grateful. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. He hopes Charles doesn’t go too far, because of him.

Charles isn’t _trying_ too. He just feels... blurry, and not in the comforting, _wonderful_ way that he does when Erik — well, does what he does. Dominates him. This is uncomfortable, and strange, and vaguely nauseating, and he keeps his face covered as he groans again. “I’m sorry,” he whispers instead, and it’s drenched in... something. Shame. Horror. It’s just muted, because Charles feels a bit muted.

Erik shakes his head. He knows how it feels. He can’t help but feel like he caused all of this, which he did. Charles feels wonderful when Erik Dominates him, though? Perhaps not the part of that he should have focused on, but right at this second it’s all he can think about. Charles feels comforted. He feels nice. He likes Erik. His head isn’t right, everything is peculiar. Shining and glittering and cartoonish. His head ducks and he smiles to himself.

Charles would be _much_ more embarrassed about _those_ thoughts spilling out if he had even half the mind for it. Mostly he feels oversensitive and overwhelmed and overdone, though, among the blurriness, and he takes a breath. Another, and another. Erik feels his own mind easing, soothed by something that is distinctly and absolutely _Charles._ He rolls over until he can bury his face in Erik’s shoulder. “Ow,” he sighs.

“Ow?” Erik reaches up a finger, hovering it over Charles’s forehead. “Ouch,” he whispers, sympathetic. His fingers find their way back to Charles’s neck, running through his hair once more. Charles is in pain? Hurting? Sad? Scared?

Charles nods, because all of those things are a little true. He winces and curls away from the touch to his forehead, sighing unhappily, burrowing even more into Erik’s body. His legs are very tangled with Erik’s. “Ouch?” he asks Erik, the simplest way he knows how.

He doesn’t touch, though, careful instead. “Ouch,” he agrees softly. Him, too. Things are heightened, ramped up, but Charles is touching him and that makes it easier. Erik isn’t scared of Charles, but he was scared. _Scared_ , he sends that emotion very slightly. Ouch.

Erik doesn't have to send it, because Charles _feels_ it. He felt it. He knows it hasn't gone away. He refuses to open his eyes, afraid of what he'll see even when, apparently, his abilities are much _more_ than he was previously aware of. "Why?" he whispers. " _Lam’a?_ " He's learned that word extremely well, at least.  
  
Erik coughs and buries his head in Charles’s chest. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t want to think about it, he doesn’t want to talk about it. He just wants to forget, which is ironic, and he laughs, drawing his hand down his cheek. His fingers tap against Charles’s chest rhythmically, anxious still. Being-forced. Being made to do things. Erik tries to show that. Again, ironic, because he is Dominant. He can dish it, he just can’t take it, apparently.  
  
Charles squirms his way out again, because he doesn’t really want to be in a position where he _can’t_ cover his whole face. It’s better to basically smooshed into Erik’s side, the blankets over him until he completely disappears. His mouth feels dry. “I’m sorry,” he rasps. But it makes sense. Erik isn’t meant to take it, he _is_ meant to dish it. Charles hadn’t meant to force him into anything. He really hadn’t even know what he was doing. He bites his lip, and then prods Erik with his foot. “Tell me not to,” he whispers. The way Erik does, where he _can’t_ not listen. That way.  
  
He knows, but he doesn’t know if he’s comfortable with that, either. Charles isn’t doing it on purpose, and he isn’t hurting Erik. There’s no reason to be afraid, it isn’t rational, and Erik suspects it isn’t about Charles at all. The idea of telling Charles not to use parts of his abilities doesn’t work for Erik. He just, he just wanted Charles to acknowledge what was happening, the idea that he wasn’t, that he wouldn’t even agree it was real, that made it unbearable. He breathes out. He just isn’t sure he could cope with it, and it isn’t fair.  
  
Charles shakes his head. He _didn’t_ know it was real, but it feels unbearable to him too. Erik clearly was afraid. Charles felt it. There’s no way around that, and it makes him feel sick and cold all over again. “On you,” he mumbles, and prods again with his leg, curling up tighter. “Please. I’m asking.” Erik said to ask for things, to tell him if there’s ever something he needs. Well, here it is. Not _all_ of it — just this part.  
  
Erik nods reluctantly, because he isn’t sure he can go through that again. Maybe with time he can get used to it and it won’t frighten him so much, but for now, he pats Charles’s cheek. “Please, don’t,” he murmurs, and it sounds like a question or like he’s asking, but it very clearly is _not_. He doesn’t have any compunction at all, really, about Charles being in his mind, reading his thoughts, probably the thing that should most concern him, but frankly doesn’t. He’s chosen to trust Charles the same way that Charles has chosen to trust him, that he couldn’t use his abilities for the same reason, to hurt. None of them want that. And it’s more than just tolerating, Erik likes Charles’s abilities. He likes being able to feel him in his mind, he likes being able to understand him. He just, doesn’t-he just can’t, Erik clears his throat. “Don’t, ah,” he doesn’t know how to say it, so he just finishes, “ _aletz li, guf sheli_ ,” he taps his own chest, the Order clear enough. The difference, hopefully, clear.  
  
Charles nods, not that Erik _needs_ that. It’s already done. He turns over, _away_ from Erik now, mostly because he doesn’t want to be touched like that, and buries his face in the pillow instead, his legs curled up into his chest. He tugs the blanket until it’s over his whole body.  
  
Erik pokes Charles with _his_ foot, keeping him wrapped up, focusing on taking slow, deep breaths just like before and keeping himself calm and still. That’s the best way he can try to make sure Charles is, too, so he doesn’t lose control of everything again.

Charles doesn’t feel very calm. Erik can’t _feel_ that, though, because he’s not sharing it. He’s not sharing anything. He scoots further away from Erik, then back again, then further away, completely bundled up in the blanket and unwilling to come out.  
  
Erik tugs him closer. “Don’t go,” he murmurs, and that’s an Order, too. “Please.” He taps his own temple. He doesn't want Charles to hide from him and whether or not he can feel it he knows it, as much as Charles knows anything about him. "Share," he says instead.

Another shake of his head, though Erik can barely see it when he’s covered like this. He’s not _hiding,_ he’s just not letting Erik see. He shuffles away again, not wanting to be held, buried in the covers. “I don’t want to,” he mumbles, his voice muffled, and perhaps it’s childish. “No.”  
  
“ _ ** **No****_ hiding,” Erik Orders again, tugging down the blanket. “You share.” Erik demands. Too bad. He shares, Charles shares, too.

Charles huffs. He keeps his back to Erik, still thoroughly curled into himself. “Scared,” he mumbles. Erik understands that word, anyway, so he doesn’t need to show him anything.

Erik blinks and tugs him to look at him, propping himself up on his elbow. “Why? Me?”

“No,” Charles mutters, this time with less hesitation. He shakes his head, grabbing the pillow to hold tightly to his chest. “Me.”

“Why?” Erik asks, but he thinks he can understand. He wants to hear from Charles, though.  
  
Charles shrugs. “Because,” he whispers, but he lets Erik take a peek. Just a tiny, brief one. Learning that he doesn’t just _read_ minds, even if he’d unconsciously known the whole time, was frightening. Horrifying, even, when he saw Erik’s reaction. He doesn’t want to think about it. He takes the blanket and yanks it back up over his head.   
  
“ _Stop_ ,” Erik tugs it _back_ , the Order sharp. “No hiding.” He glares a little, but it’s not hostile. Maybe he’d been afraid. He thinks Charles would be scared if Erik made him do things, too. Made him do things he didn’t want to do, really didn’t want to do. Charles just didn’t know, and now he does.

“I —“ But his lips purse, and he thoroughly shuts down. It’s obvious he disagrees, but it’s not worth expressing in any way that matters. He just goes stiff, curled up because he’s _cold_ and Erik keeps taking the damn blanket.

“ _What_?” Erik growls back. He’s _not_ doing this again, _not_ now. **  
**  
Charles turns over to face him. “You’ve _forced_ me to do things,” he mumbles. Erik has. Told him to do things in a way where Charles had absolutely no choice, and it _hasn’t_ frightened him. So perhaps Erik is projecting. He feels overdone, and exhausted, and frankly uncomfortable with this entire situation. He hadn’t known he was doing anything. He still doesn’t. So Erik thinking _well, now he knows_ as if he was a naughty child now scolded doesn’t sit right with him. But he shuts everything off again.

Erik blinks at him, because he hadn’t been _scolding_ Charles at all. He means that it isn’t something that he thinks is reasonable to be frightened by, he means that it isn’t something to reasonably be upset about, which he knows, Charles doesn’t have to _tell_ him that. And Charles is wrong. He _would_ be. Erik just hasn’t _done_ it. And for whatever reason that is the same, fear, the same _feeling_ , that he just had, and he doesn’t understand why, and it’s frankly _pissing him off_. He jolts up out of the bed quite suddenly, digging his fingernails into his own forehead.  
  
Charles sighs. He grabs the pillow in Erik’s absence and hugs it to his chest, watching him warily. “You can’t actually tell me that,” he mutters. It’s not for Erik to decide what frightens him. “Please stop,” he adds, staring down at the bed.

“ _Yes,_ you, _too_ ,” Erik points. Charles doesn’t know, Erik doesn’t want to keep thinking about this, he certainly doesn’t want to convince Charles that it’s true. But it is true. People are scared of him. People think he is weird, people don’t like him. He knows that, instinctively, he _knows_ it. He isn’t projecting anything, and he’s _not_ wrong. “No,” Erik shakes his head. No. He hasn’t _forced_ Charles to do things. Whatever definition Charles is using is not the one Erik is using. Charles is not Dominant, he is submissive, Erik giving him Orders is not the same thing as forcing him to do things he does not want to do, things that distress him, things that make him scared, uncomfortable, things that hurt him. For Erik’s benefit alone, selfish, wrong, _bad_. _Evil_. Charles doesn’t know, _Erik_ doesn’t know, he doesn’t know why he’s even thinking about it. Why it’s stuck in his mind, why it’s all connected. Maybe he can dig it out of his own eyeballs.

" _Stop_ it!" Charles shouts, finally riled up enough to do it, and shoots up in bed. His whole body is shaking. He closes his eyes tightly and breathes through his nose. "You don't even _know_ other people, how could you possibly know that? This has nothing to _do_ with _you,_ and everything to do with me being a monster!" There are suddenly tears in his eyes and he grimaces his way through them, the room strangely dark again. "You can't be _terrified_ of me and then make it about how _you're_ potentially dangerous, you _are_ projecting, I've never been frightened of you but not moments ago you were very frightened of _me_ for something I couldn't even control!" He doesn't care, quite honestly, if Erik understands him. He's sure the sentiment is clear enough. "You're not the _problem_ here, Erik. Clearly." He's cracked the code. He's found the answer. It took shockingly little time.

Erik glowers. “ _Nu, ma’anim shelcha!_ ” he snorts, rolling his eyes, since evidently they aren’t bothering to even translate anymore. He crosses his arms. “ _Ani lo pichadeti al atah,_ ” he says, sharp. “ _Aval lo akshiv._ ” And Erik doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t know how he knows things, he just _knows_ them. He obviously had a life, he didn’t spring up out of nowhere. Somehow that knowledge didn’t get burned away.

But it _did,_ because Erik can’t remember it, which makes it functionally useless. There is no one here but them. No one. It doesn’t matter if he _thinks_ he knows things, there’s no way to prove any of it and all of it is clearly _meant_ to be gone. It is gone. For what purpose, Charles doesn’t know. It doesn’t even matter. It’s not what he’s upset about. “Did you even listen?” he huffs, which is a bit ridiculous because Erik doesn’t speak English and Charles didn’t do a very good job translating. It doesn’t matter. He turns to the wall instead of Erik, scowling at it until his vision goes blurry.  
  
"You don't!" Erik glowers. " _Ve lo habet hakir pa'am ani dibarta,_ " he Orders roughly, pulling Charles's gaze from the wall. "You don't listen. You talk my fear and I don't make _myself_?! Go away!" He growls. Which like half makes sense.  
  
It doesn’t make _any_ sense, really, and Charles is frustrated by it. “Fine!” he huffs. He doesn’t want to be trapped in this bedroom anyway, so he gets up and makes to move past Erik, assuming he’s just been told to _leave,_ still worked up and frightened. It doesn’t matter how _upset_ he is about that.  
  
Erik blinks and stops him. "Where?" So obviously he wasn't telling Charles to leave and now seems confused by it so this is going super well.  
  
Charles’ sigh is loud and exasperated, but it’s mostly just hiding everything else beneath it. He gestures impatiently to the door. “You said _leave,_ ” he mutters. Leave means _go._ Maybe Erik should stop selectively knowing English, which is intensely unfair of him but he’s _frustrated_ and he’s upset and he doesn’t want to do this right now, or ever. “Move,” he orders Erik, that one clear enough, his mouth a hard line. “Please,” he adds a moment later, more sheepish than he wants to be. It’s just _hard_ to demand like that with Erik without feeling like he’s doing something wrong, and sometimes he hates it. Or feels like he should, anyway.

* * *

“ _ ** **No****_ ,” Erik growls back, and considering he’s built like a mountain it’s going to probably be pretty hard for Charles to do anything about that. Maybe Erik should just be a perfect person, but he’s not. He gets scared of things sometimes, he doesn’t have consistent knowledge. Charles wanted to know and he tried to explain and Charles didn’t even _listen_ , he just started talking about how he’s a monster, as if Erik believes that. As if Charles would never be scared of Erik or could never possibly be afraid of him, as if Erik couldn’t do the exact same thing to him. He’s not listening, he just keeps saying Erik’s feelings are wrong, and now he’s saying Erik doesn’t even _get_ to make _his own fear_ about _himself_? So, no, he doesn’t get to just _leave_ after sulking and demanding and childishly rebuffing Erik’s every attempt to reach him _still_ , which in case he hasn’t noticed, Erik is still _here_ , he’s still _trying_. He keeps his arms crossed, eyes shuttered and abruptly cuts his thoughts off, since they're just becoming irritated and he doesn't like feeling angry.

“It doesn’t _work like that_ ,” Charles sighs, irritated himself. Erik can’t turn his thoughts off. He can’t bury them down. Charles gets them _no matter what,_ and it’s overwhelming and sometimes truly awful. He closes his eyes, too, and doesn’t bother trying to elbow past him. “I didn’t mean to do that,” he adds, mumbling again. “Alright? I’m sorry. I didn’t say that, or mean that. But you don’t listen to _me,_ either.” He didn’t feel like Erik was understanding him, and he _wasn’t_ listening to Charles’ fears. They aren’t the same thing. Charles wasn’t telling Erik his feelings are wrong, but they _aren’t_ the same thing. He brings his hands up to his head again, tugging at his hair.

“ _Ani yode’a,_ ” Erik murmurs back, still tense. He knows it’s not the same thing, but that’s only because for whatever reason, Charles trusts Erik. It could very easily be the same thing, there’s no reason why Erik couldn’t bend the world to his Will. He just won’t, and Charles knows that more instinctively than any human alive, because Erik has the choice and he wouldn’t choose to do so. But that doesn’t mean he won’t get mad and say something in the heat of the moment, or he won’t throw something, or he won’t yell, or he won’t, he doesn’t even know. Get violent, and mean. Because those are within the realm of possibility, because those feelings exist in him. And that isn’t because he doesn’t know any better. He does. And he’s still like that. The point is that Charles isn’t a monster any more than Erik is. He’s just a person, with a powerful mutation. And Erik will help him. He said he needed help, and Erik Ordered him. Even if he wasn’t comfortable with it. He’ll find a way to help. “ _Aval-_ ” he grimaces a bit. “Not scared of you.” Charles keeps saying he is. But he isn’t.

"It's _not the same thing,_ " Charles growls, and he's well and truly beyond frustrated now. He pulls again at his hair. "Why do you keep doing that? Switching to English? You don't have to." He gestures for a moment to his head, then goes back to wanting to pull his own hair out. It's unsettling, and it leads to miscommunication, and Erik can just _stop._ He doesn't have to bend to Charles' language just because, for some _inane_ reason, he remembers it and Charles is still grappling with even the simplest of vocabulary in Hebrew. Like some idiot. "I didn't say you were _scared of me,_ I said I made you scared, which tends to lead to that." He feels like he wants to scream and then tear all of his own skin off at exactly this moment just to escape it, so perhaps _Erik_ isn't the one with anger issues.

Erik shakes his head _again_ , because it didn’t have anything to do with Charles, and he knows as much. Right, of course he doesn’t have to. Any other thoughts are wholly unflattering and get promptly submerged. “ _I_ said _wrong_ , _I_ know!” he taps himself on the chest, hard. “Not _you_ , _****me.****_ I am trying.” He mutters a long string of something utterly incomprehensible to Charles under his breath and shakes his head. “You know what,” he huffs, laughs to himself, pressing his lips together and shaking his head. He’s frustrated, and he can’t just package up his thoughts neatly and teleport them into Charles’s head, and he doesn’t want to just blast anger at him, so instead of any of that he just gets up, gesturing between them. “ _ ** **Not****_ helpful. You care, if I am scared, _****be there****_. Not _****this****_."

"I just _told you_ that you _don't have to do that_ ," Charles sighs, digging _his_ fingers into his eyes. It doesn't work that way. Erik doesn't have to _send his thoughts,_ it's not a two-way street. Charles knows them. He gets them. It doesn't matter if he submerges them, it doesn't matter if he _thinks_ he's not sharing them, he doesn't _have to share._ Charles just has them. He was trying not to be invasive, he was trying to only listen to what Erik was trying to share, consciously, what was surface-level and easily accessible, but it doesn't matter. And _his anger_ is clearly riling _Charles_ up, too. In every possible way. He's visibly shaking with it.

“ _Nu ani lo metzayet tzavim shelcha,_ ” Erik replies sharply. It matters to Erik, he doesn’t like being angry, he doesn’t like flinging negative feelings everywhere, he doesn’t enjoy yelling and fighting and conflict, and Charles keeps pushing and pushing and _pushing_ him into it, of course he doesn’t _have to_ make any effort at all! But that’s the point. He is trying, he is making an effort, he’s sorry he got upset but he’s been trying this entire time to put it behind him and talk it out and deal with it and all Charles has been doing is shouting at him for having the audacity to _learn his language_ and _try and communicate with him_. And he’s done, he’s finished. He's not dissolving and shouting and screaming and acting like a lunatic, he is leaving. Erik rises in a fluid motion and stalks to the opposite side of the room, flinging open the door in a harsh slam and closing it loudly behind him.  
  
“That’s _not_ —“ But clearly, Erik is done. They aren’t understanding each other. The moment Erik leaves, the tension fades but it leaves Charles feeling _cold,_ and sick, and more abandoned than he’d like to admit. He stares at the closed door for long, full minutes, tears pricking behind his eyes before he turns back to the bed. They’d been standing near the door already, and it takes what feels like ages to get back there, to crawl back in and climb under the covers, thoroughly miserable.

* * *

Erik can’t seem to calm himself down, and he creeps out of the house, climbing up into one of the trees in the back yard that he’s draped blankets and strewn up lights in and huddles far away, which is what he should have done from the start. He’s been angry and humiliated and embarrassed and he tried to push through it because he didn’t like leaving Charles alone to handle all the negative feelings cropping up for him, and the more push back he got, the worse it got. It doesn’t matter anyway. He isn’t calm, he stares down at the ground from a great height for a long time, trying to put whatever feelings he keeps experiencing back in the box, and he can’t. He tosses a rock off the ledge, holding out his hand to pause it before letting it float down gently and then slam into the ground, breaking apart into a billion pieces. There’s nothing else to do, he can’t make it stop. And he isn’t going to keep taking it out on the only other person here.

Charles doesn’t move. He stays buried under the blankets, increasingly miserable. But Erik, eventually, _does_ feel something calming him. It’s Charles, but it isn’t, too. It’s soothing, and reassuring, and impossible to resist. It’s drawing Erik out of the trees again, toward the house, shepherding him for all intents and purposes. It’s whispering his name, it’s a suggestion more than it is an Order or a demand, but it’s insistent, too. Tugging, and pulling, and guiding. This is why Erik is here. This is the moment that will _matter._ It will make the difference. This is their last chance, even if Erik doesn’t remember the first ones. Make use of it.  
  
Of course Erik follows that thread back, even if he doesn't think it's a good idea, even if he thinks he's just going to-make it worse, again, somehow. Make it wrong. He's rubbing at one of the stones he made, fashioned out of grains of sand until it's rubbed and rainbow glitter, and he moves agilely for someone of his build, landing silently on his feet and walking on his toes, so that even Charles doesn't hear when he slips back inside, until the mattress dips under his weight. He's ashamed, and miserable, and he doesn't know how to apologize because he doesn't even know what happened.

Charles doesn’t, either. Something is clearly wrong with him, though, because when he peeks up at Erik from beneath the blankets, he _looks_ ill. Just like he said. His skin is paler than normal and covered in sweat, clammy and elastic-looking. He doesn’t look like he’s really seeing him at all, but he reaches for him anyway, whimpering.

Erik blinks and he tugs Charles to him immediately, forgetting about anything else and framing his face in both hands. “ _Ma kara?_ ” he looks afraid again, but not of Charles or anything Charles could do, because Charles looks sick, something is wrong, he doesn’t like this at all and he promised he would keep Charles safe.

Charles is rather limp in his arms and he whimpers again, a quiet, pitiful noise. He _feels_ sick, honestly, and he’s cold to the touch. When Erik picks him up to cradle him, he goes easily and willingly into his arms. “M’okay,” he mumbles.  
  
“No,” Erik whispers, brushing his hair from his forehead. “No, you stop,” he barks, stern, which is likely useless, but what can he do? Except _Order_ Charles to just feel better, to just not be sick, not be hurt? It’s surely not fair, but what else? He swallows roughly and tucks Charles’s head under his chin.

Charles can't _follow_ that Order, which makes him whine louder, apparently pathetic for the moment. He does _settle_ into Erik's arms, though, his eyes closed and his breathing less uneven than when Erik found him half-consumed by the blankets. "M'sorry," he whispers, muffled by Erik's chest now.

“ _Gam ani_ ,” Erik murmurs back, pressing a kiss to the top of his forehead and tugging up the blanket to wrap around them both. He’s sorry, too. And of course Charles doesn’t have to obey that, it was a silly attempt anyway.

Charles doesn't know exactly what's happening, but he's grateful Erik is holding him, that he's back, that he's covered him back up. He's shivering pretty violently, his teeth chattering with it, but fortunately for him Erik always seems to be running warm. "I don't feel good," he mumbles, somewhere into Erik's neck. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shouted. M'sorry." Erik doesn't need to know the words exactly to know he's _apologetic,_ that settling heavy between them.  
  
Erik's head shakes. It's all right. He shouldn't have, either. He's very sorry and he feels incredibly bad. There's no logically explaining it. And Erik wasn't so great at being logical to start with, although that had improved some. He produces his shiny rock, pressing it into Charles's hand, and when it touches his skin his whole body warms up.  
  
Charles lets it fall, not because he's ungrateful, but mostly because he's shivering and having a difficult time focusing on anything that isn't gripping to Erik's _shirt_. He's still cold, though being in Erik's arms _is_ warming him, at least from his perspective. "Scared," he whispers, uncertain which of them he means or what exactly he's referring to.

He isn’t offended, he’s just trying to help, and he lets Charles grab onto him as hard as he wants, rubbing his back. “ _Lam’a?_ ” he whispers, hoping that Charles will clarify in his response. He’s not supposed to be sick. Erik should be able to fix it.  
  
Sometimes it can't be helped. Erik holding him feels better, anyway, even though he's still a shivering wreck, and his teeth keep clanking together when they chatter. "Of myself," he sighs, eyes tightly closed. Which is why it had been _especially_ scary when Erik was frightened, too.

Erik strokes his fingers along Charles’s ears, and into his hair. He wishes he had the vocabulary to express the difference, but he isn’t afraid of Charles. He can understand why Charles is scared, though. It’s scary, to realize you have the ability of making people comply. It’s scary and it’s hard to know when it’s right and when it’s wrong. You have to be the ultimate moral authority, you have to believe that your code is, and it has to _be_ , the strongest code. It’s something Erik has been quietly dealing with since Charles woke up. What is too far, what is too much? Charles said Erik _did_ force him to do things, maybe he wasn’t scared, but was Erik wrong? Should he make a different choice? It’s scary. And he does understand. It may not be the same thing, Erik isn’t trying to make it the same thing. He just wants Charles to know that he isn’t alone with his feelings.

Charles sniffs and curls up even closer, until his voice is almost entirely muffled by Erik's chest, his shirt, his legs curled up until he's just small and balled up. He's never _quite_ let himself be held like this, and he doesn't know why it's suddenly not so overwhelming. "But I'm not Dominant," he mumbles. Erik _is._ Yes, Charles understands his fear, he understands why he feels uncertainty, even though he knows Erik will never deliberately hurt him, somehow. But it's just that it's _different._ Erik is meant for those sorts of things. Charles just isn't.

Erik shrugs a bit, but it isn’t intended to be dismissive. He’s slowly begun to breathe more normally with Charles curled up into him and he skates his fingers down Charles’s back. Charles isn’t Dominant, but Erik doesn’t think that’s what his abilities mean. It’s just one manifestation, and Erik can think of plenty of positive applications, too. And Erik will help him, or at least try. Erik _is_ Dominant, and that’s just how he naturally thinks. He’s responsible, he wouldn’t let anything bad happen. He should have handled it better. He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s Dominant, he doesn’t like that idea, but it’s more than that, and he swerves away from considering it more deeply. He’s sorry he didn’t.

Another tiny head-shake, and it makes Charles feel a little dizzy even though his eyes are closed. He's shivering a bit less, at least, but he still feels wretched. "What if I can't control it?" he whispers. What if it gets _out_ of control? What if he becomes frightened, and he uses his... abilities, if that's what they are, without thinking? What if this is all _his_ fault?

“I help,” Erik promises. He doesn’t know how, but he’ll try. He knows that Charles is upset and scared of being here, but that’s something Erik hasn’t been afraid of at all, even though he wouldn’t be very surprised if that turned out to be the case. Erik has a very strong suspicion that whatever the reason they’re here, they’re supposed to be here. It’s supposed to be this way, to be... here. And Erik doesn’t know why, there’s no reason why he should know and Charles seems to be angry when he does, but he knows, that life, whatever his life was, it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t, peaceful. Erik struggles with peace, even here, in this idyllic home. With stress, with it all. He kisses the top of Charles’s head again. “ _E’ezor_ ,” he repeats, his nose wrinkled up fondly. “ _Mavtiach, beseder?_ ”

Charles bites his lip. Maybe Erik struggled because, for whatever _reason,_ he wasn't here yet. He wasn't awake. He seems to be doing better now. But it's frightening, and Charles doesn't feel very good at all. But Erik is holding him, at least. He has more questions than Erik can answer and that's frightening, but he takes a breath and tries to calm, his eyes too heavy to open again. "I don't want to be Dominant," he mumbles. It's not a hang-up he has, really. He's just stating a fact. He doesn't _really_ want to tell people to do, which isn't even what happened, but it seems to be the part that scared Erik most.  
  
Erik shakes his head, because that wasn’t quite right. He pats Charles’s hand, showing him very briefly, when Charles made Erik’s body move. That had been what really sent him out of control. In the grand scheme of things, yes, being told what to do-Erik chafes against it, viscerally. “I do not want too,” he murmurs softly. He hopes that Charles doesn’t mind, but the idea of submitting, makes Erik incredibly uneasy and a little nauseous. It’s not meant that way.  
  
It makes Charles feel pretty sick, too. He’s still shivering horribly, speaking of, and he whines again as he grabs harder at Erik’s shirt. “What’s wrong with me?” he whispers, just a soft, frightened croak. But when he looks up at Erik, it’s _trusting._ He wants to trust him.

Erik strokes his fingers down Charles’s cheek, gentle. “I don’t know,” he whispers. “ _Lo yode’a, slicha_ ,” he repeats softly. Does Charles want soup? Tea? Coffee? Erik has the urge to take care of him, but he doesn’t know how. What will make him feel better? More blankets? Stories? Erik thinks he knows some. Silly ones about a great big bird in the sky who blocks out the sun.  
  
Charles doesn’t know either. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him except that he’s got chills all over his body but feels like he’s sweating, that he feels sick to his stomach, that his head is _killing_ him. “You,” he mumbles. That’s what he wants right now, the only thing he can seem to comprehend, as embarrassed as he’d normally be by that. He felt worse when Erik wasn’t holding him, wasn’t caring for him. Maybe he just needs that. Is it alright for Erik to care for him?

Erik smiles, genuine and almost unconscious as the sensations and concepts wash over him. “ _Me_ ,” he huffs a little laugh, touching his own chest and then running his fingers over Charles’s heart, pressing his palm there. He rolls over a little on the bed and pulls Charles up to rest against his chest, rubbing his back, along his neck. Of course it’s all right. It’s what Erik has _wanted_ this whole time and been unable to put into words. To take care of Charles. To look after him, to help him. Of course it’s all right. Erik needs, too. “ _Ani tzarich_ ,” he promises, soft.


	139. poor all my life i've always been poor i keep asking god what i'm for

For once, Charles _lets_ Erik care for him. Fully and completely, with seemingly few reservations. He shivers and whimpers in Erik’s arms, but he doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t try to do more than he’s capable of. He doesn’t lament his own weakness, frustrated and irritated. He simply lets himself be, feels the pain and lets Erik soothe it, cries softly when the migraine gets to be a bit too much. “I think I might die, Erik,” he whispers when a good hour or two has passed, and he doesn’t mean right this moment. He’s open to Erik in every way, but he still hopes perhaps Erik won’t understand.

Tears spring to the man’s eyes, and drip down his cheeks without reservation. “Die?” he whispers back, because somehow, he _knows_. He knows what that word means, and it instantly cripples him. “ _Lo atah yachol. Lo, bevakasha,_ ” his voice cracks and he lowers his head to Charles’s shoulder. “Please,” he repeats in English, hoarse. Please don’t die, please don’t. How, how could he? How could Erik survive again? Alone? When he knows Charles now? He can’t let him. He _can’t_.

Charles shakes his head, even though that _hurts_ unbearably. He curls even closer into Erik, into his chest, into his hold, into his arms. He makes another noise, a soft, whimpering cry, vulnerable and frightened but open, too. Raw. “I think I know why we’re here,” he whispers. It’s just barely audible, muffled.

Erik runs his fingers through Charles’s hair, doing his best to try and calm him down. “Know?” he repeats, but that isn’t what he’s focused on. _Die_ is the operative word. How could he focus on anything else? But he tries. He wants to listen, and his head cocks. “Know?” he says again, softer this time.  
  
He’s not sure if Erik _knows_ the word, so he’s careful to press in the concept, too, just in case. As softly as he can, but it still makes _him_ wince, uncomfortable and oversensitive. He buries his face even further into Erik’s chest, burrowed into the sheets and his larger body. “Me,” he murmurs back. It’s not accompanied by self-hatred and visceral fear, at least not this time. It’s just a fact, a conclusion he’s come to.

“ _Why_?” Erik asks again. Why Charles? Why does he think he’s going to die? Are they here because of that? Because he’s dying? Erik’s head tilts, though, because he _knows_ that it was Charles that brought them here. He’s known the whole time, it is the only thing that makes any sense, but he didn’t want to bring it up (other than some frenetic arguing in Hebrew that didn’t get translated, thankfully) because he didn’t want Charles to feel bad about it. But of course he’s known, and his demeanor doesn’t change when Charles says it.

Charles shakes his head weakly. “You’re wrong,” he mumbles, because Erik _doesn’t_ know, apparently. He’s not entirely wrong, just not entirely right. But he doesn’t say anything else. He just keeps his eyes closed and nestles into Erik’s chest and breathes slowly.

“Tell me,” Erik whispers, the Order soft, but very firm. Erik isn’t exactly stable at the moment and it seems to help.   
  
To be perfectly honest, Charles hasn’t figured it all out. He’s not thinking straight right now, still shivering in Erik’s arms, his head pounding awfully, his body wracked by chills and nausea. “I’m sick,” he whispers, because it’s the closest he can come to an explanation, the simplest one he has. Erik was right. This isn’t death or a prison. It’s much more like a _hospital,_ in some ways. A respite. Charles is sick, and this is where he’s meant to be healed. “I was dying.” He doesn’t know how or why, really. But he was. He tangles his legs up with Erik’s like before, somehow needing to be closer and warmed by Erik’s body.   
  
Erik’s head shakes vehemently. “ _Beit cholim?_ ” he whispers, gesturing to the room, pressing the palm of his hand to Charles’s heart. This is supposed to help him? He’s still sick, it’s not working? Erik blinks away mistiness threatening his gaze and focuses on holding Charles tightly to himself instead. Erik thinks he _was_ right. He’s felt it from the beginning. This place is _safe_. It’s safe to just be. Maybe Erik was sick, too? But he doesn’t seem sick.

Charles whines quietly and shakes his head again, though it’s less of a shake and more of a reluctant jerk because he doesn’t want to move or jostle himself. It is safe. He thinks, he really _believes,_ that he’s supposed to heal here. But sometimes people _can’t_ heal. Sometimes they just get worse. Charles is sick, and if he gets sicker — “But it’s okay,” he rasps, and finally peeks out from Erik’s chest, his eyes a bit bleary. There’s a weary smile on his lips. “It’s alright, Erik. You’ll take care of me.” He doesn’t sound so afraid now.

“I take care you,” Erik promises. He won’t let Charles get _worse_. He has to get better. Erik believes that, too, and he believes it for himself on top of it. He knows he is not ‘right’, either, has felt it from the start. Whatever is wrong with him, he doesn’t think it’s an accident that he knows some things but not others. It’s starting to become clear that he’s supposed to learn things differently. And he will, so Charles can’t die. He won’t.

As hopeful as he is, Charles still feels _rotten._ It’s good to have an idea of what they’re dealing with here, even if it’s relatively little and certainly not confirmed. It makes him feel less _anxious,_ but unfortunately not less weak and nauseous. Feverish, now, too, even if it’s manifesting itself as chills. Shivering. “Erik?” he mumbles. “I think... I was like this, before,” he croaks. Like this, weak and sick. He’s not sure how he knows that, just that it doesn’t feel unfamiliar. But something should be changing, it _has_ to change. Or it really will get worse. Right now it doesn’t seem like there’s much they can do, except — well, this. Perhaps he really _needs_ Erik to take care of him.

At least Erik hopes that is the case, because it’s an urge he is finding quite impossible to resist. He wonders if they knew one another before, if that’s why his internal intuition is so strong in these matters. He brushes Charles’s shortened hair through his fingers, wrapping him up tighter to contain the cold, while simultaneously Charles can feel it as Erik’s fingers move along his skin, soothing along his forehead like a cold compress without the wet, slimy sensation of a towel. “I will take care,” he repeats solemnly. He won’t let Charles get worse. He promised Charles would be _safe_.

Charles is grateful for that, at the very least. Before he'd wondered, briefly, if perhaps this was _weak_ ; Erik caring for him, while Charles is rather helpless and useless in bed. He doesn't feel that way now, though whether that's the fever and the illness talking or simply sense, he doesn't know. He does know things are processing strangely, that his head feels heavy and over-stuffed with things he doesn't quite understand and can't consciously consider. He rolls until he's all but on Erik's chest, because it feels like the best place to be at the moment. He doesn't even think to be _embarrassed,_ which should say a good deal about the state he's in. "Crushing you?" he mumbles, and thinks of -- well, shoes crushing bugs, and then of big, heavy boulders, as if he thinks he weighs much of anything when compared to _Erik._

That makes Erik laugh, a deep rumble in his chest that vibrates against Charles’s cheek, and he sends back, swirling feathers. Dandelion puffs, soaring wings floating delicately through the air, landing on perched nests. Home. Certainly not heavy, nor crushing. Charles’s weight is easily handled by Erik, who finds himself at once hale and hardy in this liminal space. “Keep you,” he murmurs fondly, stroking down Charles’s back. It’s not weak. Erik has never thought that, not once, it doesn’t even enter his vocabulary. And certainly Erik has been _weak_ , out of control himself. But they don’t think in those terms. It is just... humanity. Beauty, even, in Charles’s case. Erik finds himself very affectionate of this time, of Charles against him. He _could_ handle it alone, but why _should_ he? Erik is here.

Charles' lips purse. He's found Erik's heartbeat and he's been very strangely fascinated with it, his ear pressed close to Erik's chest, but Erik's thoughts give him pause. " _Can_ I do it alone?" he wonders. It's not anything, really, but a question. Curiosity. Erik keeps insisting that he _needs,_ and Charles has to wonder what that means. Could he handle a bit of illness? Potentially. But the thought of Erik letting him go right now makes him feel so sick to his stomach he almost retches.

“ _Ani lo rotze ze_ ,” Erik whispers back, shaking his head. Charles _could_ , but Erik deeply doesn’t wish him to, and maybe that’s a flaw of _his_. He doesn’t want Charles to be weak and dependent, that isn’t what it’s about. It’s just _his_ job to take care of things. It should be his place, here, holding Charles, helping him, supporting him. Erik doesn’t like the cold feeling which emerges when he thinks about Charles heaving off of him, leaving. Cold, lonely. Erik hopes he doesn’t go.

But _can_ he? It's on Charles' mind and he can't seem to get it off, as hazy as everything is. He knows he's physically _capable,_ if he dragged himself, but would he get better? Would he _feel_ better? It's a vaguely frightening thing, to realize there's a chance he _is_ wired to be dependent. But then again, what about Erik? Alone, he didn't seem to be faring so well. " _Lam’a_?" he wonders, using Erik's language first. Why does he feel that way? That it's his _job_ , if it's not because Charles is too weak to do it for himself?

Erik has to shrug again, because he truly doesn’t know _why_ he’s like this. Erik doesn’t think Charles _would_ feel better. He could do it, but who feels _better_ alone? Erik didn’t. He isn’t the same as Charles, he doesn’t need the same things, but he _needs_ to be here, and when he wasn’t-it wasn’t good. It isn’t because Charles is too weak, it’s just because he _wants_ to make it easier, make it better. Because it’s his responsibility, because he is Dominant. He offers a small smile, hoping that is an OK answer.

“Why?” Charles asks again. He’s sure it’s a silly question, but he’s truly _curious_ ; he wants to know. He groans and shifts restlessly, not because he wants to get out of Erik’s arms but because he’s uncomfortable, because he feels sick. When he does settle, he looks rather miserable, huffing and shivering and gripping weakly at Erik’s shirt. Why does Erik feel like it’s his _responsibility_? What does it feel like?  
  
Erik doesn’t know how to describe it in words, in any language. It feels like there’s a great big creature inside of him, like he’s too big for his body, like he wants to wrap Charles up and keep him forever and ever. He’s seen something he likes, something he wants, and he wants to take it, and _have_ it. It’s an instinct he keeps at bay, unworthy for civilization. But it would feel warm, and just, and safe. He would take care of Charles. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt him. He would make him feel only good things, and ward away all evil. Is it too much? Yes. Erik is, always.

Charles bites his lip. Honestly, he doesn't think so. Perhaps it's a bit _overwhelming,_ and it would be incorrect to say it isn't very _big,_ that it isn't a lot, but he isn't frightened by it. He isn't put off by it. He doesn't think it's too much, especially not at right this moment. He makes a soft, whining noise and tries to get even closer, his legs curled around Erik's body, still loosely gripping him as he shivers with a new round of chills. "You want to... have me?" he whispers, as if he's awed by it. Erik has seen him and wants him? _That's_ what Erik feels? That he'd like to keep Charles? It would follow that it was his responsibility, then. It would make sense, wouldn't it? And perhaps Charles should feel in some way _dehumanized_ by it, by the thought of it. But he doesn't. He doesn't at all. In fact, he's still perfectly trusting now, vulnerable and weakened and not fussing at all.

Erik nods a bit sheepishly. He’s known it since Charles has woken up, and when Charles asked _is it just because I’m the only one here_ Erik answered _maybe_ to be agreeable, but that wasn’t it. This was. And he’d dismissed it because it’s _irrational_ , of course it is, anyone would say so- _Charles_ would say so. And Erik didn’t want to frighten him away, but the more they experiment with Dominance and submission, the more Erik comes to know him, the stronger the feeling gets. The harder it is to dismiss it. Erik wilts a bit, appropriately red. It's a silly expression for him, given how naturally authoritative and domineering he's been, but-he does have _some_ propriety after all.  
  
Charles blinks his eyes open, bleary and hurting, and he doesn't quite understand what he's looking at. Erik is embarrassed? After everything, this is what's embarrassing him? Charles is the one plastered to Erik's chest, shivering and weak and fairly sure that if Erik moves he'll fall apart. " _L'ama?_ Why?" he asks. Why is Erik embarrassed by it? Charles isn't frightened. It's not like Erik is professing anything he doesn't already _know_ ; but maybe he isn't getting the full idea of it, here. "Have me?" he repeats. What does Erik mean by that? In what capacity? What does it mean to be _kept_ by Erik, in this place? _Is_ it frightening? Should he be?  
  
Erik looks a little uncertain. Maybe it is frightening, maybe it is scary, that’s why he’s tried to suppress it. Keeping Charles. It means more than Charles must think it does, if he’s not scared? Erik _wants_ to be Dominant over him. To tell him what to do, when to do it. To dictate what happens, when it happens. To take him in hand when he gets out of place, to put him _back_. For him to belong to Erik, for him not to be ashamed of needing to be where he is right now, for him to _want_ to be in Erik’s arms. Is that wrong? Bad? He doesn’t know.  
  
Charles licks his lips. "No," he whispers, though his voice shakes. He doesn't think it's _bad._ He's not sure what it is, except that in some ways it must already be true, because Charles doesn't _want_ to leave Erik's arms. He closes his eyes. "But it's..." A lot, isn't it? _Quite_ a lot. Charles doesn't have a conception of normal, really, which is rather a good thing, but it seems like a lot. It seems like everything. What if he _does_ become overwhelmed, or frightened?  
  
Erik does know the answer to this one. If Charles becomes scared, and overwhelmed, Erik will ease up. He won’t make Charles uncomfortable, he won’t _force_ him. He never would. “A lot? Not me,” Erik whispers back. Maybe it is a lot, but not to Erik. It never would be, he knows that instinctively.  
  
Charles hums. His head is still throbbing and he can hear it in his ears, but at least he doesn't feel like he's as likely to be sick. "It's not?" he mumbles, framing it as a question. Erik doesn't feel like this is at all overwhelming? Why is that?

Erik’s head shakes. He doesn’t know the why, he only knows how he feels, and it’s something that he trusts-it’s hard not to trust when it’s so _strong_ to begin with. “Not,” he confirms softly, running his fingertips down Charles’s back. He likes it, when Charles relies on him, he thinks it’s good. It’s natural, it’s normal, and Erik is here to help him, to take _care_ of him. Does Charles think it’s a _lot_? Too much? Erik will try not to be intrusive about it.

Charles shivers, but this time he thinks it's for a different reason than whatever sickness or weakness has overcome him. He makes another one of those soft, vaguely purring noises, settling again on Erik's chest. "Mmm," he sighs, because -- yes. It is a lot. It sometimes feels like too much, even. But he doesn't _want_ Erik to be _less intrusive._ If anything, he'd like Erik to be _more_ intrusive about it. He doesn't know why, but he feels utterly incapable of hiding at the moment, and he tries to share it with Erik, the odd, contradictory feeling of it.

_That_ makes Erik purr, too, and it makes him smile, his nose wrinkling up. He doesn’t _want_ Erik to be less intrusive? He doesn’t mind it? “ _Lam’a?_ ” is his turn to ask, his head tilted curious. Charles doesn’t mind it? Why not? He _likes_ it? Does that mean he _wants_ to be kept by Erik? _That_ thought pleases him immensely.

“Mmm,” Charles murmurs back, eyes closed again as he truly _considers_ it, trying to think around the headache and lingering nausea. He does, he thinks. It’s a fairly frightening concept, to _want_ to be kept in the way that Erik is insinuating, overwhelming even on its own, but he does. He feels like he does. And maybe some things he needs Erik to just... _take._ Sometimes what scares or overwhelms him isn’t what _harms_ him. He doesn’t know where the line is. He really doesn’t. But maybe they can find it? Maybe they can try?  
  
Erik likes that idea and he touches his hand over Charles’s heart, grinning up at him and tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. What does he mean, that he wants Erik to _take_? His eyebrows arch. There’s no fear, there, just curiosity. Surely he doesn’t mean take _everything_ , without Charles’s input? What kinds of things? What does Charles think about his submission? About submitting to _Erik_?  
  
The window to touch Charles in any meaningful way except on his back is small, because Charles is rather insistently curled right on top of Erik, burrowed into his chest, his _legs_ wrapped as far around Erik as he can get them like _he's_ the persistent octopus in this scenario. He's still shivering, still suffering from the migraine; he keeps his eyes closed. "Hgh," he mutters, because this isn't _his_ best thinking time, his head feeling crammed entirely too full, but he tries. "Everything," he decides, and gives Erik a full range of that concept without specifics. _Everything._ " _You_ know," he mumbles.  
  
Erik lets out a warning rumble. “ _Lo, haged li_ ,” he murmurs the Imperative sharply. Not everything all at once. He wants to know specifics. He brushes the back of Charles’s head.  
  
"Mm-mm," he breathes, but it's not a refusal in any sense, and his mind is already spilling out an explanation so Erik understands what he'd meant to convey in the first place. He meant Erik _knows._ He seems to know, instinctively, what he _wants._ When he lets himself. Charles is much more nervous and much more frightened and much more uncertain, and he's beginning to wonder if that's actually how it _should_ be. But he doesn't know how to explain that in any meaningful way, especially not at the moment, so he sighs, half in dismay and half in pain.  
  
Charles thinks Erik knows? Erik has felt out of his depth a lot of the time, but Charles’s confidence warms him. Erik is very much curious, though, his mind an almost physical incarnation of thoughtful and prodding, but he doesn’t want to make Charles experience any more pain than he already is, so he doesn’t push it or question in more detail, happy to let Charles laze against him.  
  
Charles' lips pull up against Erik's chest. He gently prods him with his foot, then does it again just for good measure. "Is it because I'm in pain?" he asks, and shows Erik what he means. Is it because Erik doesn't want to _hurt_ him, or because he doesn't want to intrude? He reassures, too; he's alright, really. He feels vaguely ill and definitely weak, and he doesn't think he'll be getting up anytime soon, but he's not in _agony._ It's almost like he's -- well, helping Erik. To understand where he is, so that Erik can decide where to go from there. He doesn't _consciously_ realize he's doing it, really, but it dawns on him that perhaps that's what he's done.  
  
Erik nods. He doesn’t want to hurt Charles, he seemed to imply that thinking was difficult, that he had a migraine, and Erik doesn’t want to push and make it any worse. He doesn’t think he’s ever had a migraine, he doesn’t really understand what the feeling is like, but he can imagine it is not pleasant. He knows what pain feels like, he felt it often, before Charles woke up. Echoes, shadows, that disappeared when he was relaxed. Erik certainly has very little problem _intruding_ , he often tells Charles to be specific, to be honest, to explain exactly what he means. But he doesn’t want to do so at the expense of harming him. Erik wants to know more, about everything, about how he sees things.  
  
"Mmm," Charles mumbles, very eloquent, and prods Erik again, this time maybe to be a bit cheeky. "Words, please." Erik is doing it again. Relying on Charles to _know,_ which of course he does, most of the time, but it doesn't mean he doesn't want Erik to speak to him. He can't quite explain the difference or why he _needs_ Erik to speak, actually, except that he does. Still, he helps Erik some more, if that's what he's doing; his head does _hurt,_ and he doesn't want to open his eyes, and he doesn't want to move, and he's positive the moment he tried he would be dizzy and sick again, but Erik can _push_ if he likes. "I think I need that," he sighs, circling back to the point in the first place. "I get... _nervous_ , Erik. It does scare me. But you --" His lips purse. It's just, if Erik wants to _keep_ him, doesn't it stand to reason that he needs to pursue him first? Catch him first? Isn't there a period of that? He doesn't want to be caught thinking about big jungle cats catching unsuspecting prey, but it's certainly in there.  
  
 _That_ makes Erik grin widely, and he tickles his fingers under Charles’s chin so that he can spread his fingertips over his cheeks, and Charles _definitely_ cannot mistake Erik’s outright joy at having caught quite a bit of those thoughts. Charles _wants_ to be caught? Because he can’t just say that if he will get scared when Erik _does_ catch him. “ _Ani lo rotze ze_ ,” Erik whispers, sincere. Having Charles be afraid of him-his head shakes unconsciously.

"Hmmm," Charles sighs, because he wonders if it's that simple. What if Charles is frightened, but also _not_ frightened? Isn't that different? Isn't all prey a little scared when it's chased, while it's getting _used_ to being caught, used to being kept? He curls back into Erik, mumbling protests at being moved. He was happy where he was, thank you, with nothing spinning. What if he's supposed to be a little afraid?  
  
Erik shakes his head, because there is no room for maneuvering in _his_ definition. He doesn’t even really want to talk about it that much, uncomfortable with even thinking about it.  
  
Charles goes still and quiet, too. Everything he's thinking shuts down, very abruptly, exhales out of him. That's the end of the conversation, then. He would _probably_ move off of Erik, if he could move, but as it is he just shifts uncomfortably and tries to even out his own breathing. Like playing dead.  
  
Erik blinks and pokes Charles in the side, indignant. Why on Earth is _that_ the end of the conversation? If Charles has an issue then he will _speak_ about it, plainly, not just shut down all discussion. Erik’s arms fold, grumpy. “ _Haged li ma kara_ ,” he murmurs, an eyebrow arching down to Charles, unimpressed.  
  
Charles lets out a muffled, indignant noise himself, frowning as he squirms around as if Erik has _really_ disturbed him in some way, not just poked him lightly. " _You_ thought about not wanting to talk about it," he mumbles, and has to force himself _not_ to look up at Erik with all that indignant energy. It still sounds rather like _you did it, not me._ _  
  
_Charles lets out a muffled, indignant noise himself, frowning as he squirms around as if Erik has _really_ disturbed him in some way, not just poked him lightly. " _You_ thought about not wanting to talk about it," he mumbles, and has to force himself _not_ to look up at Erik with all that indignant energy. It still sounds rather like _you did it, not me._ _  
  
_Erik squints, and shrugs. He doesn’t _want_ to, but he didn’t say he _wouldn’t_. He doesn’t really relish thinking about Charles _thinking_ about him like that, like he was really scared that Erik was going to hurt him.  
  
That, more than anything, is enough to get Charles to blink his eyes open. It immediately feels like a mistake, and he winces and closes them, his head suddenly spinning and his ears ringing. He lets that settle for a few moments, riding out the chills, before he subtly shakes his head. "Not scared like _that_ ," he whispers. Charles doesn't think, at any point, that he could believe that Erik would truly hurt him. But there's fear, too. Not _of Erik._ Just natural, inherent fear, and Erik always calms it.  
  
Erik seems to calm a little at that. “ _Ani lo hirgashti hitradeti matay hivhalti_ ,” he murmurs quietly, petting Charles’s back once more, encouraging him to rest. He doesn’t mind that Charles is nervous, or even a bit frightened, but the idea that he would have serious fear for his own wellbeing is not something Erik envisions himself handling well.  
  
That was never on Charles' radar. He _isn't_ seriously afraid for his own wellbeing, or he wouldn't be having this discussion to begin with. "Just..." There is fear. When he thinks about it, there is. Being caught, being kept. Maybe it's instinctual, too, and he's fairly sure it has _nothing_ to do with Erik. But if Erik has instincts, natural Dominant tendencies and desires, doesn't Charles, too?  
  
Well, Erik’s shit-eating grin probably isn’t helping those feelings any, as if he very much _is_ a jungle cat who’s just found itself a brand new toy to chase after. Not that Erik thinks of Charles in quite those terms, but the comparison is still somewhat apt. “ _Misken_ Charles,” he grins widely. He’s already _quite_ caught in Erik’s arms. Nowhere to go.  
  
"Because I want to be," Charles mumbles, snorting, which is rather the point, but it also brings _up_ the point. What will Erik do if he runs? What will Erik do if he struggles? What will Erik do when he gives in? What _should_ they do? It's frightening to think about, for Charles, but it's also exhilarating. It's _exciting._ _  
  
_Erik’s nose wrinkles up, and he gives a shrug. He would chase after Charles, of course. He could struggle, but it is very unlikely he would succeed in breaking free. Erik isn’t exactly bragging, but he _knows_ that he is unlikely to meet his physical match in anyone who does not share a gift oriented as such. Charles will not outwit him in _this_. As much as he might in nearly every other respect.  
  
“What if it’s not just physical?” he wonders, and thinks about running and hiding, but then about the _emotions_ of that. What about when Charles gets overwhelmed, and pushes Erik away? What about when he gets more distant, because he thinks he’s supposed to? What about when he gets into his own head? Will Erik shy away, then?  
  
Erik’s eyebrow arches and he offers another shrug, because that isn’t a hypothetical. It has happened, and Erik is still here. He pushes past it, and he will keep doing so. It’s not fair to say that Erik will never get frustrated or never need to collect himself or never lose it, but he keeps trying, and he hopes that is what is important.  
  
“No,” Charles whispers, but it’s not really disagreement, either. He bites his lip. It’s not just about that, it’s about something Charles is discovering. How will Erik give him space to do that safely? How will they both? How will they navigate this, in a safe, sane way, in a way that works for both of them? “No shrugging,” he tells Erik, and he’s only grinning a little. The rest of him is fretting. They can’t just go around in circles and not figure this out. Charles knows that, somehow.  
  
“ _You_ no shrugging,” Erik smirks, and tickles Charles’s sides for good measure. He doesn’t understand what Charles means, even in thoughts. “ _Ani lo mevin_ ,” he murmurs out loud, since Charles seems to enjoy when he _talks_ even if it’s not strictly necessary. Space to do what? How to navigate what?  
  
“ _I’m_ not shrugging. Stop that,” he mutters, mostly just grumbling for the sake of it but also quite a bit _grumpy_ himself, his head aching and his stomach thoroughly unsettled still. “This.” His — fear, or uncertainty, whatever it is. He doesn’t want to _hurt_ Erik, either, but he does think he wants to struggle a little. He does think he wants to run, and _be_ caught. It might actually make pure _submission_ , in the way that he’d first thought of it, eager to please and embarrassingly wanting, easier. So, how do they make that safe for the both of them?  
  
Erik doesn’t _shrug_ , but he sends the _sensation_ of a shrug all the same, but it’s mostly playful. If Charles runs, he _will_ be caught. And that isn’t something that will hurt Erik. Erik worried that maybe Charles wanted Erik to force him to do things, to make him afraid for his own safety, but this isn’t in the same category as that, and Erik doesn’t see a problem with it.  
  
“You’re not actually addressing the question at all,” he mumbles, now actually a bit irritated. Grumpy Charles has resorted mostly to frowning in what looks spectacularly like a pout. Charles has done things that he’s considered pushing and Erik has felt _hurt_ by them, so there has to be a way for it to be healthy and safe for most of them. For Charles to be _forced_ but for it not to involve actual forcing, nothing that actually frightens him in the way _Erik_ is scared will happen. For him to _see_ that it’s safe — but not just Charles. For Erik, too.  
  
The problem is that Erik doesn’t really know, he doesn’t have an answer for that. It’s something that he knows when he sees, when he feels, but he doesn’t know how to describe the difference between what sets him off and what doesn’t, or what upsets him and what doesn’t. He swallows, though, because he _does_ know what just happened, _can’t_ happen. He can deal with getting his feelings hurt, he _cannot_ deal with being made to do things, and it would undermine anything he says to begin with. There would be no point to submitting to him, and he’s not interested in playing house. If Charles wants to submit to him, then he will, for _real_.  
  
Charles’ entire mood darkens again, a cloudy haze of guilt and dismay. “You told me not to,” he points out quietly, and moves, restless, like he wants to get off of Erik’s chest. He’s just a little too weak for it at the moment. But the point is, he couldn’t do it again if he tried. If Erik uses that voice with him and Charles feels it in his gut, in his _being,_ there’s no helping it. “What does that even mean?” What is the distinction between fake and real submission for Erik in the first place?  
  
Erik doesn’t know how to describe it any better than that. That Charles would have to be willing to be Ordered by Erik not just when he’s comfortable with it, that he would need to accept that there are consequences to his behaviour, _real_ discipline, not just losing a few privileges (although that is certainly on the table). That Erik is the one in charge, and calling the shots, not Charles. That even if Charles thinks it’s unfair he can’t just go back on his word. He has to trust that Erik has his well-being as his priority. It isn’t that Charles being apprehensive of that is _fake_ submission. But it certainly would be, if he were able to call the shots.  
  
Real discipline? What does that even mean? Is “losing a few privileges,” the concept of that fake or silly? Charles’ nose scrunches up, and he certainly feels grumpy, twisting out of Erik’s arms. He ends up halfway on him and half not, a position that’s both uncomfortable and unintended, sighing. “Well, what if I get scared, then? _You’ll_ just stop?” Even irritated, it’s obvious how Charles feels about it. He wouldn’t want Erik to. Because that doesn’t feel like it’s _real,_ either. If Charles has to stand by his word, so does Erik.  
  
Erik winces when Charles's elbow digs into his chest. " _Ani lo_ ," he murmurs. He wouldn't just stop, and he tugs Charles right back against him, pinning him there.  
  
Charles huffs. When he fidgets, it's very obviously just to be a bit difficult, though he settles fairly quickly. "Then _what_?" he demands, impatient, finally squinting his eyes open long enough to see Erik's face. It's uncomfortable, but not _unbearable._ _  
  
_" _Lo,_ _****atzor****_ ," Erik murmurs back, holding up a finger. "No demand. Now stop. Then what, what?"

“How do you know the word _demand_?” Charles mumbles, because that’s not even _simple_ vocabulary. He knows it’s because Erik must _know_ English, outside of whatever strange amnesia they both have, but it’s incredible. He sighs and closes his eyes again. “So you won’t _stop,_ fine. What will you do? And I’ve asked about a dozen questions and all you’ve done is shrug at me,” he huffs. Why does Charles have to be _specific_ but Erik gets away with being vague? It seems unfair.  
 _  
_Erik laughs a little, covering his mouth. He doesn’t _mean_ to be vague, but Charles is asking very general questions and expecting specific answers, in his opinion. And it’s difficult to be specific when he doesn’t always understand the question. “ _Ani lo hafsek_ ,” he murmurs. He won’t stop doing what he wants to do, he will continue to do it, and if he is unnerved, he will make Charles clarify further how he feels and why. He certainly won’t let him escape, or dictate how their interactions go.

Charles sours even further, scowling even though he’s _stuck_ and frankly doesn’t have the energy to try and get out of Erik’s arms. “Don’t _laugh_ at me,” he mutters, thoroughly irked.

Erik sighs, pressing his back teeth together hard. He isn’t laughing at Charles, he _was_ laughing at himself.

Then Charles is being overly sensitive. Maybe it’s the migraine, or maybe it’s just — “I want to do this right,” he whispers, expressing it as simply and deeply as he can. It feels _vital,_ and he’s frightened. By suddenly feeling so sick, by becoming _aware_ of how much this matters. He’s just on edge, and maybe he’s getting cranky. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

“ _Gam ani_ ,” Erik gestures between them. He may shrug sometimes, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel things deeply. Usually when he does shrug it isn’t dismissive, which is a difference between cultures, although he would hardly know that and doesn’t even think of that as a reason why it bothers Charles. As Charles observes him it becomes clearer it means more or less, ‘ _of course_.’ Erik cares, and it matters to him.

Charles would laugh if he didn’t think it would make his entire head ache and his ears screech at him again, but he takes a big, slow breath, and lets it out in a loud exhale. “I just want it to be safe for both of us,” he sighs. It’s important to him. It _needs_ to happen. And he was looking for Erik’s input, because he _does_ have the confidence there; Erik’s instincts are the key to this, more than any book they can find in the library.

* * *

Erik rubs the palms of his hands against Charles’s back in deep, rhythmic strokes that very clearly seem anxious after a while. He stills himself when he realizes what he’s doing, uncertain why he suddenly feels this way. About what would happen if Charles really did feel afraid of him like that. He imagines it would feel a lot like, before. And there’s no way to avoid any of that. Erik can’t promise he will always react rationally, because it’s obvious he isn’t rational.

"I'm not afraid of _you_ ," he reminds Erik quietly. He's never been, not this entire time. It's anxiety, but it's got relatively little to do with Erik and everything to do with how overwhelming the entire thing is to him, which he thinks, on some levels, is just _natural._ How he's meant to be feeling, while everything settles. It's fear, but Erik calms it. It's calmed by Erik _doing_ it, too, usually, not stepping back. Charles becomes frightened, and Erik puts him on his knees, and suddenly he doesn't feel as frightened anymore.

Erik winces a little and pats Charles on the back, apologetic. Hopeful that Charles doesn’t think of him as, well, _crazy_. He feels crazy all the time. Charles feels calmed by him? It’s almost ironic, because of how often he feels _un_ calm. “Safe,” he whispers, offering a small smile. That he _can_ promise. He will do his best to make it safe, for both of them.

He doesn’t. Charles feels very calm right now. He hadn’t, just moments ago; he’d felt agitated and grumpy (he still does, frankly, his head over-full) and then Erik had put a stop to that. His cheeks go pink at his own realization. It’s just that it’s _true._ “Will you get tired of it?” he wonders, and doesn’t translate. If Erik has an idea, then he has an idea. Otherwise Charles will just fret silently.  
  
Erik taps Charles on the nose, his own wrinkled up and he draws his fingernail down the length of Charles’s throat, a warning. “Tell,” he rumbles lowly. “ _Ani lo mevin._ Tell,” he insists, Ordering.  
  
"Will you get tired of Dominating me?" he repeats, but this time he _does_ let Erik have a much better idea of what he means. It just seems like it might get exhausting, to constantly have to calm Charles' nerves, to keep him in line, to chase after him when he gets the urge to run, especially for this beginning. What if Erik decides he's not worth the chase?  
  
Erik shakes his head, without hesitation. “ _Lo_ ,” he murmurs. Charles has been plenty patient with him, despite his personal failings. Being patient with Charles is no issue at all, least of all a failure. As long as Charles doesn’t mind that Erik sometimes needs help, too.  
  
But it's not _really_ about being patient. When Erik has struggled, when he's needed help, Charles has known that it is something to be _worked_ through. But what if this isn't? What if this is just the nature of him, the way he is? Isn't that utterly _exhausting_? Charles sighs, his eyes tightly closed. He would be exhausted, certainly.  
  
Erik shrugs again, and conceals a quick grin. Maybe he does do that a lot. "No," he murmurs softly. Not exhausting. As long as Charles is willing to work with him. And he has been. Erik can certainly handle it. He will not run very far where Erik cannot catch him. Erik is Dominant. It feels easy to do. He will not get tired or bored or exhausted or any other thing. Any more than Charles would tire of submitting to him. Or of how much he can sometimes be. How demanding he is.

Well, to be fair, Charles doesn't think he _has_ been very demanding. But maybe Erik has a point, a rather profound one. It seems exhausting to him because he is solidly _not_ Dominant. He has no desire for it, no natural instinct. He bites his lip. "What is it like?" he wonders. What does it _feel_ like, for Erik? Do predators get _tired_ of catching prey, keeping them? He really wouldn't know.

Erik outright smirks, his whole bearing having suddenly transformed into a sense of smug confidence. “Do you tired of running?” his nose twitches. Does he get tired of submitting? Erik doesn’t think so.

It's not necessarily the same thing, and it doesn't answer his question. "But what is it _like_?" he presses, pressing the concept of the question more insistently, too. What does it _feel_ like? Why won't he get tired of it?

Erik doesn’t really know _how_ to describe it. It feels exhilarating, it feels like-all those things Charles talked about, or _thought_ about-instincts, like he is able to _exercise_ his instincts, like-it’s _fun_ , and-well, not just _jaunty_ or whatnot. Warm. _Calm_ , all of the times he’s felt out of control, Dominating _Charles_ -he’s right. He was right, when he said that was what would help. It makes everything still, and quiet, and soft. Erik's head shakes. No, he won't get tired of that.

_Fun._ Charles has to wonder, not for the first time, if perhaps they have been here before, or if they just didn't, in whatever they were previously, _acknowledge_ that enough. If he is sick, if he is dying, why put him here where he doesn't remember? Where he isn't sick? Where he doesn't seem to be dying, except for some chills, except for these headaches, except for the ringing in his ears and the strange nausea when _something_ encroaches on him? He takes a breath. He's sweating, still, hair plastered to his face and the back of his neck, he feels far-away, but he starts to smile, too. "It's fun?" he whispers. Fun. It's something Erik _enjoys,_ it's something he wants to keep doing.

“ _ ** **Stop it****_ ,” Erik rumbles. “ _ ** **Not****_ dying,” he says, as if he can _Order_ that. He taps Charles on the nose in warning. He grins back, though, because it’s true. He does enjoy it, and he wants to keep doing it, and that can’t happen if Charles is _dead_. So it won’t happen. Erik won’t let it happen.

Charles turns his head away again, huffing, less for the show of it and mostly because he's still in quite a bit of pain and still quite a bit _grumpy_ as a result, and Erik always seems to be touching him there. "I said I'm _not_ dying," he points out, snorting, but groans a moment later, burrowing back into Erik's chest, breathing in deeply like he can inhale... comfort, or Erik's shirt, or _something._ "I don't feel good," he complains, not sure why he's _telling_ Erik that.  
  
Erik bundles him up in his arms, tucking his head under his chin. Is Charles trying to eat his shirt? Would that make him feel better? He smirks, but Charles finds himself surrounded by Erik all the same, well and pinned to his chest.  
  
Charles _would_ roll his eyes at that, if he didn't worry about it worsening the ache. "I'm serious," he whispers, a moment after, quiet and _weighty._ The headache isn't going away, and he _feels_ heavy and uncomfortable, just thoroughly unsettled.  
  
“How to help?” Erik murmurs back, pressing Charles’s hand against his own heart, too, trapping it there as if that _would_ help, when it very likely wouldn’t. Maybe it’s just to make _Erik_ feel better, which it seems to.  
  
Charles doesn’t know the answer to that. He knows he feels wretched and that he doesn’t _want_ to feel weak, he knows he feels _physically_ weak. He knows his head feels entirely too full, and everything, even with his eyes closed, feels out of focus and blurry and confused. He takes a sharp breath. “You,” he mumbles, finally. Whatever the answer is, he truly believes it’s Erik. That Erik can help. He doesn’t know how, but he’s trusting him anyway.  
  
How is Erik supposed to make him less _sick_? He doesn’t understand, but if being here can help, he is here, he is not going anywhere, and he will do his best to take care of Charles either way. “Me,” he smiles back, doing his best to be reassuring as he settles against the pillows. He’s exhausted and he doesn’t know why, but he also does not want to risk falling asleep.  
  
Maybe it isn’t about making him less sick at all, but helping him with it. Being here _through_ it. Charles curls up even smaller on Erik’s chest, turning his head again so he can put his ear to Erik’s heart and listen to the steady hum of it. “Do you want to take care of me?” he whispers, grateful that his eyes are closed so he doesn’t have to see Erik’s expression as he considers that one. The meaning of it is rather obvious, and he’s _thinking_ about it; Erik caring for him. Holding him, feeding him, _bathing_ him. His cheeks are very warm. He doesn’t know what he _needs,_ really, but perhaps Erik does. Perhaps he has instincts for this, too.

Erik’s eyes seem to darken at that, and he catches himself _gazing_ off into the distance, and is very grateful that Charles’s eyes are closed (for once, which he usually catches, which is definitely enough to _get_ his attention, unfortunately for Erik)-and he’s rambling to himself, in his own mind, which is not pleasant for a _telepath_ probably. Erik winces to himself. Maybe he didn’t catch any of that, or how Erik looked like he was going to _eat Charles_ for a brief moment. To say he has _instincts_ for that is an understatement. “Yes,” he murmurs, hoping he sounds, you know, normal.

Charles catches it. He’s a bit too scrambled to really _grasp_ it, though, and he makes a soft, curious noise, trying to tug those thoughts out. It makes him wince and whine, fluttering with pain, but the effort is there. “What is it?” he asks. What is Erik thinking about, more clearly? What is he really saying yes to?

Erik grins, then, all of a sudden, quick and boyish. There’s no translation for his _extremely_ glib “ _Atah rotze li rochetz?_ ” his eyebrows bounce playfully. His nose wrinkles up, and he nods, tapping his temple as if to say that he knew what Charles was thinking about. “I want,” he replies, genuine. To take care of him. To feed him, and hold him and bathe him, and everything else.

Charles would squirm if he didn’t feel so _drained,_ if he wasn’t hurting, if he didn’t feel so _fragile._ But Erik’s words don’t actually rile him as much as they calm him, and at first he’s not sure why. But it must be simple, he rationalizes as he groans again, as he goes limp. If Erik takes care of him, if he wants to, he doesn’t have to _worry_ even when he’s sick like this. He’ll be alright. It’s such a relief Charles gets the sudden and ridiculous urge to cry, though he doesn’t, instead whimpering against Erik’s chest. Whatever he needs, Erik will provide for him. It’s such a profound surrender, even though it’s a necessary one, and he feels _safe_ for it.

“I will,” Erik promises, even if he doesn’t always know how, or what to do. Charles never has to worry like that, it’s not his responsibility. He rubs Charles’s back and kisses the top of his head, gentle, as if he can sense that Charles is near tears, and something inside of him is reacting to that. “I take care you,” he promises, running his thumb over the apple of Charles’s cheek.

* * *

Charles stays mysteriously ill for a _while._ Days pass, actually, where he feels too weak and nauseous to get out of bed, where his head aches so horribly he has to burrow under the covers and keep his eyes closed, left reeling with the sudden force and pressure. But, unlike what might be expected and besides some natural, Charles-like anxiety, he isn’t _terrified._ He doesn’t strain against it. He lets it come and lets it pass, and _relies_ on Erik. He lets himself be cared for, trusting and almost sweet, even when he’s grumpy and disgruntled. He asks for what he needs, and takes what he’s given and provided with. It’s done with surprisingly _little_ fuss, actually. Because Erik told him it was _his_ responsibility, not Charles’. It makes every difference. Erik has gone to make him soup (at Charles’ request) when... something happens. Charles _gasps,_ everything shifting suddenly and all at once. He grabs immediately for his head, sitting straight up in bed. “ _Erik_!” he cries, and it’s much louder than it should be. It’s piercing.   
  
Erik’s head pops in a few seconds later, holding a large wooden spoon, which he frowns at for a second before abandoning it on the end table and crossing into the bedroom to Charles’s side. “You OK?” he asks, eyebrows knit together. He’s been speaking English as much as he can, doing his best to learn, and he can be a _little_ overbearing, but it helps in this moment when he shows up almost instantly. “You’re.... little... sweaty,” he puts his finger and thumb together, his voice warm.

Erik doesn’t get an answer from Charles. He’s completely incapable of it, less sweaty and more utterly incapacitated as he bends over in bed, gripping tightly to his head, even pulling at his hair. He’s panting, sucking in heavy, short breaths, near hyperventilating. “Erik,” he whimpers, when he can, eyes squeezed closed. He tries to show Erik, to _tell_ him without words, that he’s not necessarily in _pain._ But something is happening, something he doesn’t understand, and he called Erik as soon as it started.

He tugs Charles’s hands away from his hair, rubbing his thumbs along Charles’s knuckles. “ _Ma kara_?” he demands, touching Charles’s face. “What wrong? Why are you hurt?” his eyebrows are arched, but he remains calm, putting his hand over Charles’s heart. “Just take breaths. Slowly. And talk about it,” he adds, the Order firm. “Or show,” he decides, tapping his own temple.

Charles doesn’t even know if he _can_ show this, and after a few moments of clearly _trying_ to slow his breathing down, to follow Erik’s instructions, he realizes he can’t. He struggles a bit in Erik’s hold, not because he had any intentions of defiance, but because he feels like he _needs_ to hold his own head; and he does, gasping, mouth open but no sound coming out, until his eyes snap open. They’re ethereally, impossibly blue, and the room hums with quiet, forceful energy. It’s the only way he has to tell Erik that something is different. He takes shaky little breaths, ragged and painful, and then grabs Erik around the neck, burying his face there, holding him close like that.   
  
Erik's own eyes widen, looking quite surprised by the change, although he supposes it's no different than psychic powers and whatever _he_ can do which seems entirely random in his opinion. He holds Charles tightly, doing his best to murmur comforting words into his ear, to soothe and calm him down. Even if it's scary Erik won't let anything hurt him. He can relax, and breathe because Erik has got him. "I promise," he says out loud, dancing his fingers across the back of Charles's neck.

It’s quite a _bit_ different, though Charles has no hope or articulating it. It doesn’t matter, really, when the end result is the same; Charles shivering but calming in Erik’s arms, leaning on him entirely, his arms around Erik’s neck tightly as he tries to slow his breathing and then to match Erik’s. He doesn’t know if Erik asked that of him, or if it’s just something he’s started on his own. Follow his Dominant’s lead — and he’s started to think, in these past few days, of Erik as _his Dominant._ He slumps in Erik’s arms. “I know,” he whispers. It’s in response to Erik’s words, but it isn’t, too. It’s much more than that.

“Talk? What happened?” Erik murmurs, tucking Charles’s head underneath his chin once more, trying his best to help even though he doesn’t know what is happening or why, but at the very least he is able to remain calm, which he hopes helps with the situation. “ _My_ submissive,” he grins to himself, quite _liking_ those thoughts. Which isn’t the most relevant thing happening right now, but Erik’s attention span has always been a little off.

Charles shakes his head, which is still not a true refusal. He's having trouble _speaking,_ for one, and breathing is still difficult, so he lets himself be tucked in close and tries to listen to Erik's heartbeat, and then to his breathing, to keep trying to match them together. He's mostly been letting Erik hear everything that spills out from his own thoughts, sharing them freely, especially when Erik does some prodding, but it's strangely muted now; it isn't because he's actively hiding anything. "I was a sick child," he tells Erik, a revelation and a secret, and shows him, too. Charles, floating somewhere he doesn't remember and that doesn't exist with the details he can't recall, but much younger and _ill,_ sickly, weak. Unable to get out of bed most days, tired and fragile. He doesn't have the experiences, only the knowledge.

Erik knows instinctively that he wasn’t sickly at all, which is part of why it scares him so much when _he_ hasn’t felt good, because it just is not something that is normal to him, that he specifically knows, even when he doesn’t know anything else. He kisses Charles’s forehead. “What happen?” he asks, encouraging Charles to talk about it. “You are still sick?” what if Charles is sick and he needs some kind of special help and Erik doesn’t know how?

Another head-shake, though Charles’ whole head pounds with it, that awful migraine back and setting his teeth aching. He doesn’t know how, except to know what he feels _now,_ what he has occasionally considered these past few days when he hasn’t been relying on Erik’s comfort and reassurance, but he knows he must have spent quite a lot of time feeling _weak._ As if it was a lack of will, or a lack of strength, a lack of _power,_ even, a lack of ability. “I wasn’t weak,” he whispers. Simply, quietly, just fact and nothing more, pressing each of the concepts almost methodically into Erik’s mind, as if he has to be very careful with it. He whimpers quietly against Erik’s chest, buries himself there further. His eyes are closed again, and he knows they have to stay that way. But Erik is wrong here, too, and he tells him so, _shows_ him so gently; Erik is the only one who _could_ care for him, really. He needs special help, but Erik _is_ that special help.

It makes Erik smile, though. “Of course not weak,” he murmurs, sifting his fingers through Charles’s hair. Erik has never thought he was, and it makes him happy to know that Charles doesn’t think so, either. He thinks Erik is the only one who _could_? That’s just plain silly. Erik doesn’t know anything! He feels like he’s guessing all the time, he’s worried that he’s going to do something wrong and really hurt Charles. But he can’t deny pleasure at the confidence there. Feeling Charles’s mental fingers over his mind makes his eyes close, and he hums under his breath.  
  
But that’s just the thing. Of course Erik is _guessing_ a bit; he hasn’t experienced anything like this before, hasn’t experienced much of _anything_ before. Charles sighs, a little unsettled, but because he’s trying to get _closer_ to Erik and can’t. “You’ve never been _wrong_ ,” he points out quietly. And Erik hasn’t. Any time he’s really allowed himself to follow his instincts, he _hasn’t_ been. Does he not see that? Does he not _feel_ that? Erik should be confident, too. Charles likes when he is (that thought is added sheepishly, a bit further away than the other ones).

“I haven’t?” Erik’s head tilts, because he has felt like he’s misstepped sometimes, but when he really thinks about it, maybe that isn’t as true as it feels. He wraps Charles up in the blanket, and his arms, his nose wrinkling up fondly. And Charles _likes_ when he’s confident? He laughs a little bit. That might be a good thing, because he can be stupidly overconfident quite often. It’s not always well-deserved, but he does try.

Charles huffs as he's jostled slightly, attempting to curl himself around Erik like a little leech. Being ill apparently makes him crave physical affection, because he's always seeking it out, shifting closer even when he's dead asleep and sweating out a low fever. He takes another slow breath, pressing his face somewhere in Erik's shoulder. "It's making me sick," he whispers. "Like it did."

Well Erik certainly doesn’t mind it. He’s a fairly touchy person, himself, and he rests his head on Charles’s shoulder. “What is making you sick?” he asks, because he doesn’t quite understand. It’s become more obvious over the past few day that _Erik_ doesn’t have a particularly high view of himself, but that he _is_ exceptionally intelligent, certainly more than enough to keep up with Charles’s never-ending philosophical questions, but this is not something he knows anything about.

Charles really hasn't been asking many _philosophical questions_ in the past few days, as much as he's loathe to admit it, but he already knew Erik was intelligent. _Erik_ knows that Erik is intelligent, when he lets himself lean into it. Charles has tried to coax it out. Not _quite_ able to keep up with Charles' mind, but enough that he's never felt like Erik is _lagging,_ not even for a moment, and he imagines that would be strange for anyone else. "This," Charles mumbles, and reaches up to touch his own temple. He doesn't _actually_ touch it, because he knows what to expect now; hot, oversensitive, achy. It's on occasion made him vomit, which he isn't overly eager to relive.

Erik’s head shakes, though. That makes no sense to him, why would his powers make him sick? He’s supposed to be built for this, that’s why he’s supposed to have these powers in the first place, why would they hurt him? Why now? “Why?” he asks, as if Charles should know the answer. Erik’s mind gets a little pelt-y when he’s confused, questions raining against Charles's subconscious like little hail stones.

It makes sense that Erik wouldn't understand, but Charles doesn't really know how to explain, either. He sighs, curled up tighter, another wave of nausea coming and going. "Changing," he mumbles, and shows Erik a cocoon. A butterfly. The process isn't always painful, but it's always rather slow, and sometimes messy, sometimes strange and uncomfortable. It can hurt. Maybe they were his powers to begin with, or maybe they're _becoming_ his, but either way he isn't quite ready for them yet. They're bigger than Erik knows. Bigger than Erik, bigger than Charles, but maybe that doesn't _have_ to be terrifying.

“Charles,” Erik laughs a little, covering his mouth. “Why you are showing me a bug? Are _you_ a bug?” His eyebrows raise. He’s not sure _why_ , exactly, he’s so amused, or feeling quite a bit more silly than usual, but it’s just so- _out_ of left field, and he’s been very stressed for the past little while, and extremely worried. He covers his mouth and tries not to lose it, which is totally not appropriate at all. “ _Slicha, slicha,_ I am so sorry,” he snorts, and buries his head in Charles’s shoulder. It’s not that it isn’t serious, it’s that he feels like he’s just kind of hit his head or something. “Is dangerous?” he whispers into Charles’s neck, half-mumbled. Evidently still worried.

"Why can you perfectly construct that complex sentence in English, but you don't know the word _changing_?" he mutters, just a bit agitated, on edge, maybe even vaguely _hurt_ underneath the grumpiness that comes with being sick for days. He's frowning, now, though calmed by Erik's apology. It just doesn't feel like something to joke about, and he turns his head away. Tries to turn his body away, even, despite the lurching in his belly. "Yes," he sighs back. It is dangerous. Obviously.

It’s not that obvious to Erik; nothing about this is, although it is obvious that Erik is just stressed out, and he’s trying to keep it all pushed down so that it doesn’t make things worse. So it just ends up coming out inappropriately. “What to do?” he wants to know, nudging Charles back into his spot, unwilling to relinquish him.

"Let go," Charles mutters, mostly just to be contrary, which he _hasn't_ been for the past few days. At all, really. Occasionally grumpy, or grumbling, or exasperated, but never outright defiant. It isn't just because he hasn't had the energy. "I don't know." He might have an inkling.

“ _Lo, atah atzor_ ,” Erik rumbles the Order lowly. “What to do?” he asks again. “You tell.” Charles has to tell him so that he can do something, so he can fix him. He can’t let Erik hurt him.

Charles grumbles and fusses a little more, huffing and sighing, and eventually settles. Settles right into Erik's side. "Let it happen," he whispers, which he knows isn't the answer Erik wants. It is the _right_ answer. He will be ill, and uncomfortable, and weakened, and feel odd and strange and sometimes frightened. But it's a natural process. It shouldn't be stopped. If they let it happen, if they see it through _correctly,_ he won't be harmed. He knows this.

It’s something that Erik was thinking to himself, but he didn’t know how to verbalize it. It’s a natural part of Charles, he doesn’t want to accept that means Charles must naturally be in pain and miserable for the rest of his life. But that’s irrational, he just doesn’t want Charles to suffer. He tugs Charles even closer, wrapping him up in his legs and arms. “But you hurt,” he whispers, mournful.

Charles presses his lips together, because he can't _hide_ that one, really. There is some pain. It isn't excruciating, or agonizing, and the truth is, the more Erik helps him, the more it's _bearable._ Truly bearable. And he _is_ helping, too. "You help," he counters, and breathes as slowly and evenly as he can as he twists further up into Erik's arms. When he was sick the first time, they tried to _fix_ him. But he wasn't supposed to be fixed, and it made him sicker. He just didn't know it. But Erik can take care of him for now, right? He peeks his head out, his eyes still bluer than normal, than natural. "It's not... too much?" It won't be forever. Just for now.

Erik stares at him, shaking his head. Of course it’s not too much. There’s nothing _wrong_ with him, and Erik doesn’t think he needs to be fixed-although he would prefer if he wasn’t in pain, they will get there. Charles seems to believe that and Erik has plenty of confidence for the both of them to fill in the gaps, and he touches Charles’s cheek. “Worried,” he admits, with a smile.

Charles knows it _must_ be worrying, for him to suddenly get ill like this. Weak like this, at least physically. He hasn’t been able to articulate what’s happening to him, really, except that he’s exhausted and suffering from migraines, that he can’t get out of bed most of the time, open his eyes or even lift his head head. He sighs, nuzzling into the crook of Erik’s elbow. “See me through this?” he asks, and knows it’s asking _quite_ a lot, but he shows Erik, slowly, that he meant it. Erik is the only one who _can_ get him through this, and he’s doing a brilliant job already. He just needs to trust himself. He can’t let Charles fade or wither through this, and he can’t fix him. He just has to get him through.  
  
“I see you,” Erik murmurs back. “Even if you are a little bug,” he can’t help but nudge Charles playfully, before huddling him even closer. He does his best not to, he doesn’t always know what to do, but he does try to do a good job, and he won’t let Charles suffer if he can help it. “A _cute_ bug,” he adds, tickling Charles’s side. “The cutest.”  
  
Charles groans, squirming away from Erik’s fingers. “I am _not_ a bug, thank you,” he grumbles, but he’s smiling a bit, too. He gently nudges Erik with his leg, one of his favorite ways to get Erik’s attention while he’s been bedridden and Erik has settled in with him. “What do your instincts say?” he wonders. Erik seems to be holding back, sometimes, or doubting. Charles just wants him _not_ to; he prods, prods, prods, nudging at Erik’s _mind,_ too.

“The _cutest_ bug,” Erik smirks, eyebrows bouncing upward in a very cheesy fashion. He _snatches_ up Charles’s fingers, pinning him right back down, this time rolling over onto him for good measure, propping himself up by his elbow so he doesn’t get Erik’s full weight on him. (It _must_ be something to do with his powers, because he’s certainly not unhealthy, but he’s still far heavier than he has a right to be with his build.) “I catch you. Instincts,” he grins.

Charles doesn’t laugh, but it’s mostly because he’s struck by another wave of... _something,_ something he can’t explain or describe. He hasn’t been looking at Erik because his eyes are tightly closed again, blocking everything out, maybe keeping everything in. His whole body is locked up and tense. “What else?” he whispers. Maybe he’s just looking for a distraction, something that isn’t overwhelming. Just looking for Erik.  
  
Erik spreads his fingers over Charles's cheek. "Open," he murmurs, his own eyes crinkled when Charles does. His instincts, right now, are telling him to keep Charles wrapped up and safe and to take care of him and help him, feeding him and getting him dressed and trying to keep as much a semblance of their fledgling routine as possible. Erik has been learning more things in his spare time, like Postures and about subspace and discipline and service in general. But Erik doesn't want to force him to do things if he isn't feeling well.  
  
Charles' eyes close again, but just because it's currently very uncomfortable. His lip wobbles a little, actually, his jaw moving, because he doesn't _like_ having to disobey Erik in any way; he's learned that, in the past few days. It feels good to push, sometimes, it feels good to... _run_ , maybe, but it doesn't feel good to disobey, and it _especially_ doesn't feel good when Erik is disappointed or aware of that disobedience. Actually, it's awful. "I want to," he rushes out, because he doesn't feel well, but -- _not_ learning, not doing those things, he thinks that would make him worse. They'll just work around it, maybe. "What have you learned?" Curiosity, again, prodding. Charles pulling at Erik's mind for answers.

Erik ghosts his fingers along Charles’s jaw, pressing his forehead to Charles’s. “Just different things,” he murmurs, and tries his best to conjure those images. He’d like for Charles to learn some Postures, mostly because they are good for exercise, even when he’s sick, it’s not _difficult_ but it’s something that _could_ be difficult if Erik wanted it to be, a skill like anything else. But it’s more than that, it’s just an example. Charles needs to eat, and sleep, and be _taken care of_ , even if he’s sick. He can’t stay in bed all day every day, Erik doesn’t think he will get better if he does. And that’s no one’s fault, and it's not a _bad_ thing, he’s just been afraid to push it, because he doesn’t _want_ to hurt Charles, or make him feel like he’s being forced to do something physically draining.

It’s just that the past few days, Charles _hasn’t_ been able to get out of bed. The migraines and nausea have been so bad he’s lucky if he can open his eyes or sit up. But — “You should stop thinking that way,” he tells Erik, and grins like he _knows_ that’s not his place, like he’s perfectly aware he’s being busy. He plays back Erik’s own thoughts. He hadn’t wanted to overstep or upset Charles, so he hadn’t done it or even brought it to the table. But Erik wants to be his Dominant, wants to _own_ him? That doesn’t make much sense, does it? He’s being courteous. Maybe he should be _less,_ while still taking Charles into account.

Erik shakes his head, though. “Not courtesy,” he whispers. “I don’t know,” he admits, tapping his head. He doesn’t know if he should push, he doesn’t know if he _can_ push, if it’s the right decision to make or if it will hurt Charles, or if Charles is capable or willing to try, or if he will feel like Erik is a grueling task master with no regard for his wellbeing in pursuit of something solely for _his_ benefit. It’s not necessarily about upsetting Charles, or even overstepping, Erik simply doesn’t know if he’s well enough to get into the intricate details of a daily routine when he can barely sit up without vomiting. Erik _has not_ been very lenient on things like eating, and showering, and grooming, and the like. Those things are unavoidable, this... he doesn’t know. It feels necessary, but that’s the problem with routines, sometimes they get side tracked.

Charles hums. "I can help," he tells Erik simply, and smiles against Erik's skin, waiting until he's settled back down to curl back into his side. Charles won't _make_ the decisions, but can't he help Erik make informed ones _for_ him? He can give information, at least, on how he's doing, on what his limits are. Erik can even give him _options,_ if he'd like, wouldn't that be possible? It doesn't come as something odd to him -- Erik isn't sure how much Charles can handle right now, because he doesn't know Charles' illness or, frankly, _Charles_ yet, so isn't this the best way to go forward?

Erik nods. “I would like,” he smiles back, shifting his arm so Charles can lay his head along the crook of Erik’s elbow. “You tell me,” he murmurs expectantly, eyebrows raised. Erik _doesn’t_ want Charles to make the decisions, or to cater to his sense of politeness, but he doesn’t feel confident in having all the information and knowing what can be realistically accomplished.

“Ask,” Charles insists, snorting, but it’s teasing much, much more than it is mocking. He’s grinning. “Unless you’re still being _polite._ ” That was _goading,_ a little, and Erik wouldn’t even need the translation to know it. It was dripping from his tone. He appreciates Erik being careful, but Charles isn’t made of glass. Nothing Erik could do would shatter him, and if he _really_ needed an out, he thinks — he knows — Erik would listen.  
  
Erik laughs, squawking, “I did!” and thwacking Charles on the arm. It’s amused, though, and he settles back a few moments later. “What you can, ehh,” he gestures. “ _Saf_ , you know,” he mimes two fingers walking under two more fingers, which is not at all illuminating. “What can you do? That doesn’t hurt?” his eyebrows raise.  
  
“Mmm,” he sighs, face dropping along with his mood. Right now, not much of anything. The nausea has eased off a bit, but it’s left his whole body feeling like jelly and his head is _killing_ him at the moment. Absolutely murdering him in the wake of... that. Whatever is shifting around up there and with him. “Anything I can do horizontal,” he huffs, and helps Erik understand _horizontal,_ the image laced with bitterness. “And with my eyes closed.” But Erik can be creative, can’t he?  
  
“Horizontal,” Erik repeats the word curiously, petting at the back of Charles’s head. That pretty much leaves most of what he’d been discussing out, except for the basics of self-care, which he had fully intended on insisting upon anyway. “Oh,” he looks up. “Maybe go outside,” which is Erik’s solution to all things considering he lived in a _tree house_ , _literally_. “Smell some birds. See flowers.”

“Mmmmph,” Charles mumbles, which is _clearly_ a protest. He shakes his head weakly, lost in the crook of Erik’s arm. “No, thank you. No flowers or birds.” It’s bright out there, and _far_ too overwhelming when there’s already so much happening in his own head. It makes him uncomfortable and itchy and agitated. He’d rather stay here, in the relative dark and cool. “Stay with me,” he insists, demands, really, and wraps his legs around Erik’s waist.

Maybe _smelling_ birds is not the best option, Erik concedes with a grin, as he settles back down. It’s not hard to tell that he’s felt somewhat _cooped up_ given how many flowers and rocks and trinkets have made their way into the room, but he takes it all in stride. He’s not forced to be here and would _rather_ be here, going outside to explore by _himself_ just seems empty. “Of course I stay,” he laughs, tickling Charles’s knee.  
  
Charles has noticed. The trinkets are odd, but his eyes are closed a good portion of the time, anyway, so it’s not like the clutter has had a chance to give _him_ real anxiety. But it might, later. Which makes him think, biting on his lip, waiting until he’s well and truly hidden in Erik to speak again, when he’s muffled. The room is darker, because it was bothering him even with his eyes clenched shut. “What if we’re not compatible?” he whispers. Compatible. He thinks of puzzle pieces slotting together, ties the concept up as neatly as he can — what if, in the end, he and Erik don’t _fit_? What will happen to them? He isn’t even sure where the worry comes from.

Erik shakes his head, though. They are _different_ , they aren’t the _same_ , and it is in some very distinct ways, but he thinks that this works in their advantage because in the things that matter, he has noted that they are both on the same page. They both care, they’re both interested and dedicated in trying to make this space the best it can be. And if they aren’t compatible, if they hurt each other and don’t make each other better, then he is confident that they will be able to address that, too. Being forced in one another’s proximity wouldn’t be helpful, and if that happens, then they probably wouldn’t end up together, as friends, as companions, why would they? If they didn’t fit, if they made each other worse, Erik wouldn’t want to continue a toxic relationship and he doubts Charles would, either. But Erik genuinely does not believe that would happen. “We both have some issues,” he adds, not dismissing the concern, “me,” he points at himself. He’s been- _angry_ , and, messed up. He knows. He hopes that Charles doesn’t feel like _he_ is toxic, he _feels_ like that sometimes. Like he’s irrational, out of balance. But it’s gotten a lot better since he’s begun to lean into his Dominance.

_Issues._ Charles' shoulders shake a bit, because his head is throbbing too much still to really let himself laugh in earnest. It's amusing, sometimes, what words Erik just _knows_ and which he doesn't, and sometimes he still half-wonders if he's just playing with him, if he understands every single word out of Charles' mouth and is _pretending_ he doesn't. But he's getting there, too. To trust. He thinks maybe he had trouble with that, in a life he doesn't remember or have access to. "Me, too," he sighs. But that's the point. He _does_ feel better like this, even when he's terribly ill. "What else can we do from bed?" he asks, and then his cheeks go hot, because -- well, he hadn't meant anything _untoward._ He'd just wondered if there was anything else Erik had been reading about or thinking about.

_That_ makes Erik laugh, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. “No,” he murmurs, shaking his head. He isn’t pretending, or lying. He doesn’t know why he knows things one moment and not the next, but he expects it’s because somewhere in his brain, he already knows English, he just isn’t processing it all at the same time. It’s not purposeful. Erik has many flaws, but _lying_ is simply not natural to him; it’s not that he disparages anyone who does lie, it’s a _normal_ thing to do, even though he doesn’t _like_ it and barely tolerates it with Charles, but more that he’s too _impulsive_ to commit to it. His brain just shoots out the first thing it thinks with little regard. He frankly wears his heart on his sleeve, at a point that is almost detrimental in some cases-he can be overly sensitive at times. Which he also knows, and hopes Charles doesn’t find grating. There’s not a lot of _things_ that can be done from bed, but Erik thinks they can at the very least-which is not _least_ at all but rather important, and he wonders if that may even be part of why this is happening at all, to do _this_. Talk, teach, learn, explore. “Negate,” he adds, grinning all of a sudden, gesturing between them. He’s read about _that_ , too. Uh, that makes no _sense_ , of course, just another example of his inconsistent knowledge.

Charles shakes his head. He’s still a little too sensitive to want to try opening his eyes even a crack, but he prods at Erik with a leg, voice still muffled. “Negate?” he asks. He says _show me,_ but not in words. Just in a nudge to Erik’s mind, soft and imploring. He tries to be gentle, even when his head is exploding. He almost never fails at that, now; at the beginning of this, there was a lot of noise transferred over, mostly just irritating static, but he’s better at it now.

“Negate,” Erik repeats very confidently. “Like...” his eyebrows draw together, nose wrinkling up. “Two people, what you want, _ma rotze atah_ ,” he repeats again, as if attempting to be as soft in words as Charles is against his mind. He leans into the contact, mentally and physically. “Or like what, hurts, and helps.”

“Negotiate,” Charles corrects with a laugh, a soft, quiet snort of it that still makes him wince. He tries to blink open his eyes, and thankfully the room is nearly pitch black, now. That happens sometimes. He doesn’t complain, especially when it helps with the migraine, but he can still see Erik somehow. “You can just show me, you know. But how do we negotiate? Are you going to start?” He does better when Erik leads. Maybe that’s the whole point.

“I start,” Erik nods. “Negotiate,” he repeats, and at least that is pronounced correctly, so he _is_ quick on the up-take. “We just talk what we think about, and want, and don’t want,” he prefaces softly. Like... Erik wants to try instating a routine, and Postures, and he wants to _tell_ Charles what to do. What to eat, and wear, when to sleep, make sure he exercises, and takes care of himself. Charles said _own_ him, and Erik is _curious_ about that. Erik doesn’t know if he believes you can _own_ another person, but- _belonging_ , that concept appeals to him. He wants for Charles to _belong_ to him, to belong _with_ him. He _doesn’t_ want to be disrespected, or to disrespect in return. He doesn’t like yelling-not just Charles, but himself, too.

“Mm-mm,” Charles argues, but it’s not to anything Erik’s said. Actually, he’s very _enthusiastic_ about those things, nothing but agreeable. They’ve discussed them before, vaguely, so it’s not anything new, but Erik’s musings make him feel like he needs to say something. “I own myself,” he tells Erik, believing it. But he bites his lip. “But... that means it’s my choice if I give myself to you. You can own me because I give you the right, yeah?” Like a gift, Charles shows Erik. Shyly, and he’s grateful he’s mostly buried in Erik’s side.

“Your choice,” Erik agrees, nodding, enthusiastic _himself_. He doesn’t enjoy the idea of degradation or dehumanization and that’s not what it’s about. It feels... warm, protective, safe. When he thinks about their relationship it’s something beautiful, something worth nurturing. Trust, and comfort. Being totally Dominant, logically, it doesn’t _fit_. Not because he isn’t Dominant but because the idea of acting without regard for _Charles_ is an anathema to him. There is a way to be totally Dominant without _crushing_ another person.

Charles blinks. “Didn’t you just contradict yourself?” he asks. In his thoughts, Charles means. He plays them back for Erik to listen, and then shakes his head. Being Dominant _does_ mean taking the other person into account, doesn’t it? Because Erik keeps talking and thinking about things like _responsibility._ That comes with Dominance, doesn’t it? So he _can_ be fully, completely Dominant. But — “I’m not sure you can crush me,” he admits quietly, cheeks red. He’s been thinking about this.

“Really?” Erik is _very_ interested to hear Charles’s perspective. He doesn’t think he’s contradicted himself, though. He’s been reading, and there are plenty of instances in literature both fiction and non of Dominants believing that their Inclinations entitle them to other people by default. Erik doesn’t want to be that kind of person, and it’s especially pronounced given that he seems to be able to _make_ people do whatever he wants. What if he were a bad person? He shudders to even think about it, about _what_ he could affect in the world. Even if he lost his temper, if he forgot himself. He doesn't want to abuse his position, he _wants_ to be responsible, for Charles to have a reason to choose to be with him.

That Erik is even concerned with it is proof enough to Charles that he _isn’t_ that kind of person, that sort of Dominant. But Charles nods his head slowly, lifting himself up with great effort until he’s back on Erik’s chest. He makes himself at home there, clearly enjoying the comfort he gets from being just that bit closer. Being sick really _has_ made him crave touch, Erik’s especially. His Dominant’s, especially. “I want you to,” he whispers. Own him, in the way that Charles conceives of it. He wants Erik _responsible_ for him, in every way. Even in ways that seem... extreme, maybe.

And Erik is more than happy to provide it, seeing as how he’s always been quite touch-oriented besides, he makes sure to run his fingers through Charles’s hair and wrap him up in both legs and arms, like the gigantic octopus he is. “Extreme?” his head tilts to the side, thoughtful. He thinks he grasps the meaning of the word, but what does Charles mean by that?

“Well, isn’t it?” Charles asks, bashful and shy, answering a question with another question. There isn’t much he _doesn’t_ want Erik in control of, and that seems fairly _extreme_ to him. What he wears, what he eats, what he _does,_ the hows and the whens. It’s quite a lot of management on Erik’s part, and not a lot of wiggle room on Charles’. Isn’t that extreme, by definition?  
  
Erik shrugs. “Maybe,” he admits, but to him that doesn’t seem very extreme at all, which probably should tell Charles something about him itself. Maybe it is extreme, he has nothing to compare it to, really. “What kind of things?” He wants to know what Charles thinks, too. “Does it bother?”

Charles shakes his head. He closes his eyes again, content to lie on Erik’s chest, to be totally engulfed by his body. “Nearly everything. Maybe everything,” he answers honestly, quietly, and feels his mouth go dry with it now that it’s real. “But I... want you to decide,” he admits, even quieter.  
  
“I want to decide,” Erik replies almost immediately, without any hesitation whatsoever. He shifts forward as much as he can to explain, without words as he doesn’t quite know how to verbalize, but within his mind. Standing behind Charles, helping him to pick out a shirt, buttoning it up for him, Charles helping _him_. Not just doing things for the sake of doing them, but-for _Erik_ , too. A balance, not just nonsense fo Erik’s benefit, but _both_ , combined. “What things you don’t want?” he asks, serious.


End file.
